■  ■••'.•''  ' 


'/  J  x' 


/r*J^r 


COMPLETE    WORKS 


OF 


N.    P.    WILLIS. 


Armado.    How  hast  thou  purchased  this  experience  7 
Moth.     By  my  penny  of  observation." 

Shakspkrk. 


NEW    YORK: 
REDFIELD,     CLINTON     HALL, 

CORNER    OF    NASSAU    ANT)    BEEKMAN    STREETS 
1846 


'h'5 


Entered,  nwordine  10  Act  of  Corfgress,  in  the  year  lc4ri, 

BY    J.    S.    REDFIKLD, 

in  the  Clerk'*  Office  of  the  Dfotrkt  Court  of  the  United  States,  for  the  Southern  District  of  New  York. 


STETU.OTYI'K!)    HV    RKDPIELT)    ft    SAVAOK, 
l:l  CkuaMn  Stfnt,  S   V 


TO 


GEORGE     P.    MORRIS,    ESQ., 


'HE  FOLLOWING  PAGE*  ARK 


RESPECTFULLY     INSCRIBED, 


BY    HTS   FRIEND, 


MJTHOR, 


763854 


Dear  Reader: — 

This  volume  is  sent  forth,  with  a  feeling 
somewhat  akin  to  a  parent's  apprehensiveness, 
in  giving  his  child  into  the  hands  of  a  stran- 
ger. We  have  a  cellar,  as  well  as  many 
stories,  in  our  giddy  thought-house ;  and  it 
is  from  this  cave  of  privacy  that  we  have, 
with  reluctance,  and  consentings  far  between, 
drawn  treasures  of  feeling  and  impression, 
now  bound  and  offered  to  you  for  the  first 
time  in  one  bundle.  Oh,  from  the  differ- 
ent stories  of  the  mind — from  the  settled 
depths,  and  from  the  effervescent  and  giddy 
surface — how  different  looks  the  world  ! — of 
what  different  stuff  and  worth  the  link  that 
binds  us  to  it !  In  looking  abroad  from  one 
window  of  the  soul,  we  see  sympathy,  good- 
ness, truth,  desire  for  us  and  our  secrets,  that 
we  may  be  more  loved  ;  from  another,  we  see 
suspicion,  coldness,  mockery,  and  ill  will — 
the  evil  spirits  of  the  world — lying  in  wait  for 
us.  At  one  moment — the  spirits  down,  and 
the  heart  calm  and  trusting — we  tear  out  the 
golden  leaf  nearest  the  well  of  life,  and  pass 


it  forth  to  be  read  and  wept  over.  At  anoth- 
er, we  bar  shutter  and  blind  upon  prying  mal- 
ice, turn  key  carefully  on  all  below,  and, 
mounting  to  the  summit,  look  abroad  and  jest 
at  the  very  treasures  we  have  concealed — 
wondering  at  our  folly  in  even  confessing  to  a 
heartless  world  that  we  had  secrets,  and  would 
share  them.  We  are  not  always  alike.  The 
world  does  not  seem  always  the  same.  We 
believe  it  is  all  good  sometimes.  We  believe 
sometimes,  that  it  is  but  a  place  accursed,  giv- 
en to  devils  and  their  human  scholars.  Some- 
times we  are  all  kindness — sometimes  aching 
only  for  an  antagonist,  and  an  arena  without 
barrier  or  law.  And  oh  what  a  Procrustes' 
bed  is  human  opinion — trying  a  man's  actions 
and  words,  in  whatever  mood  committed  and 
said,  by  the  same  standard  of  rigor  !  How 
often  must  the  angels  hovering  over  us  reverse 
the  sentence  of  the  judge — how  oftener  still 
the  rebuke  of  the  old  maid  and  the  Pharisee. 
But — a  martingale  on  moralizing  ! 
Yours  affectionately, 

N.  P.  W. 


CONTENTS 


PROSE  WORKS. 

Pencillings  by  the  Way 1 

Letters  from  under  a  Bridge 217 

Dashks  at  Life  with  a  Free  Pencil — Parti. — 

High  Life  in  Europe — 

Leaves  from  the  Heart-book  of  Ernest  Clay 251 

The  Marquis  in  Petticoats 269 

Beauty  and  the  Beast,  or  the  handsome  Mrs  Titton 

and  her  plain  Husband 272 

Brown's  Day  with  the  Mimpsons 275 

Mr.  and  Mrs.  Follett,  or  the  Danger  of  meddling 

with  Married  People 278 

The  Countess  Nyschriem,  and  the  handsome  Artist  281 

My  One  Adventure  as  a  Brigand 283 

Wigwam  versus  Almack's 285 

Miss  Jones's  Son 294 

Lady  Rachel 298 

The  Phantom  Head  upon  the  Table 300 

Getting  to  AVindward 306 

The  Wife  bequeathed  and  resumed 310 

A  Revelation  of  a  Previous  Life 313 

American  Life — 

Count  Pott's  Strategy 3 1G 

The  Female  Wand 318 

Two  Buckets  in  a  Well 323 

Light  Vervain 326 

Nora  Mehidy,  or  the  strange  Road  to  the  Heart  of 

Mr.  Hypolet  Leathers 330 

The  Pharisee  and  the  Barber 332 

Mrs.  Passable  Trott 335 

The  Spirit  Love  of  "lone  S " 336 

Mabel  Wynne 338 

The  Ghost-ball  at  Congress  Hall 342 

Born  to  love  Pigs  and  Chickens 345 

The  Widow  by  Brevet 348 

Those  Ungrateful  Blidgimses 352 

Dashes  at  Life — Part  II. — 

Inklings  of  Adventure  — 

Pedlar  Karl 3GJ 

Niagara— Lake  Ontario— The  St.  Lawrence 366 

The  Cherokee's  Threat 372 


Paob 

F.  Smith 377 

Edith  Linsey 333 

Scenes  of  Fear 404 

Incidents  on  the  Hudson 410 

The  Gipsy  of  Sardis 412 

Tom  Fane  and  I j2y 

Larks  in  Vacation 433 

A  L02  in  the  Archipelago 441 

The  Revenge  of  the  Signer  Basil 445 

Love  and  Diplomacy 454 

The  Madhouse  of  Palermo 457 

Minute  Philosophies 450 

Loiterings  of  Travel — 

Lady  Ravelgold 4^ 

Paletto's  Bride 474 

Violanta  Cesarini 479 

Pasquali,  the  Tailor  of  Venice 486 

The  Bandit  of  Austria 489 

Oonder-Hoofden,  or  the  Undercliff. 50 1 

The  Picker  and  Piler 504 

Kate  Crediford , .  507 

Flirtation  and  Fox-Chasing 50y 

The  Poet  and  the  Mandarin 512 

Meena  Dimity,  or  why  Mr  Brown  Crash  took  the 

Tour 516 

The  Power  of  an  "Injured  Look" 518 

Beware  of  Dogs  and  Waltzing 52 1 

The  Inlet  of  Peach-Blossoms 524 

The  Belle  of  the  Belfry,  or  the  daring  Lover 528 

Passages  from  an  Epistolary  Journal  kept  on  a  Vis- 
it to  England 530 

My  Adventures  at  the  Tournament 543 

Sketches  of  Travel 549 

The  four  Rivers— the  Hudson — the  Mohawk — the 

Chenango — the  Susquehannah 574 

Dashfs  at  Life — Part  III. — 

Ephemera 577 

[Consisting  of  a  collection  of  the  "jottings  down" 
contributed  to  the  New  Mirror  and  other  papers, 
deemed  worth  preserving  as  daguerreotypes  of 
the  present — :js  records  of  matters  as  they  fly.] 

Lecture  on  Fashion 799 


CONTENTS. 


POETICAL  WORKS. 
Sacred  Poems — 

The  Healing  of  the  Daughter  of  Jairus 817 

The  Leper 818 

David's  Grief  for  his  Child 819 

The  Sacrfice  of  Abraham 820 

The  Shunamite 820 

Jephthah's  Daughter 821 

Absalom 822 

Christ's  Entrance  into  Jerusalem 823 

Baptism  of  Christ 823 

Scene  in  Gethsemane 824 

The  Widow  of  Nain 824 

Hagar  in  the  Wilderness 824 

Rizpah  with  her  Sons,  the  Day  before  they  were 

hanged  on  Gibeah 825 

Lazarus  and  Mary 826 

Thoughts  while  making  the  Grave  of  a  new-born 

Child 827 

On  the  Departure  of  Rev.  Mr.  White  from  his 

Parish 827 

Birth-Day  Verses 828 

To  my  Mother  from  the  Apennines 828 

Lines  on  leaving  Europe 829 

A  true  Incident 829 

The  Mother  to  her  Child 830 

Thirty-Five 830 

A  Thought  over  a  Cradle 830 

Contemplation 830 

On  the  Death  of  a  Missionary 83 1 

On  the  Picture  of  a  "  Child  tired  of  Play" 83 1 

A  Child's  first  Impression  of  a  Star 831 

On  Witnessing  a  Baptism 831 

Revery  at  Glenmary 832 

The  Belfry  Pigeon 832 

The  Sabbath 832 

Dedication  Hymn 832 


Poems  of  Passion — 

The  dying  Alchymist 833 

Parrhasius 834 

The  Scholar  of  Thebet  Ben  Khorat 835 

The  Wife's  Appeal 837 

Melanie 838 

Lord  Ivon  and  his  Daughter 841 

To  Ermengarde 844 

The  Pity  of  the  Park  Fountain 845 

"  Chamber  Scene" 845 

To  a  Stolen  Ring 845 

To  her  who  has  Hopes  for  me 845 

The  Death  of  Harrison , 846 

"  She  was  not  there" 846 

Fail  me  not  thou  ! 846 

Spirit-Whispers 846 

To  M ,  from  Abroad 847 

Sunrise  Thoughts  at  the  Close  of  a  Ball 847 

To  a  Face  beloved 847 

Unseen  Spirits 847 

Better  Moments 847 

The  Annoyer 848 

Andre's  Request  to  Washington 848 

Dawn 848 

The  Lady  Jane,  a  Novel  in  Rhyme  .     .     .     849 

Miscellaneous  Poems — 

An  Apology 861 

To  Helen  in  a  Huff 862 

City  Lyrics *. 862 

To  the  Lady  in  the  Chemisette  with  black  Buttons  862 

To  the  Lady  in  the  white  Dress 863 

The  white  Chip-Hat 863 

"  You  know  if  it  was  you" 863 

Love  in  a  Cottage 864 

The  Declaration 864 

Tortesa,  the  Usurer 865 

Bianca  Visconti,  or  the  Heart  overtasked    .     883 


PENCILLIMS  BY  THE  WAY: 


DURING  SOME  YEARS   OF  RESIDENCE  AND   TRAVEL 


FRANCE,  ITALY,  GREECE,  ASIA  MINOR,  TURKEY,  AND  ENGLAND. 


THE   AUTHOR   OF    PENCILLINGS    BY    THE    WAY, 

TO    THE    READER    OF    THIS    EDITION. 


A  word  or  two  of  necessary  explanation,  dear  reader. 

I  had  resided  on  the  Continent  for  several  years,  and 
had  been  a  year  in  England,  without  being  suspected, 
I  believe,  in  the  societies  in  which  I  lived,  of  any  hab- 
it of  authorship.  No  production  of  mine  had  ever 
crossed  the  water,  and  my  Letters  to  the  New- York 
Mirror,  were  (for  this  long  period,  and  I  presumed 
would  be  for  ever),  as  far  as  European  readers  were 
concerned,  an  unimportant  and  easy  secret.  Within 
a  few  months  of  returning  to  this  country,  the  Quar- 
terly Review  came  out  with  a  severe  criticism  on  the 
Pencillings  by  the  Way,  published  in  the  New  York 
Mirror.  A  London  publisher  immediately  procured 
a  broken  set  of  this  paper  from  an  American  resident 
there,  and  called  on  me  with  an  offer  of  <£300  for  an 
immediate  edition  of  what  he  had — rather  less  than 
one  half  of  the  Letters  in  this  present  volume.  This 
chanced  on  the  day  before  my  marriage,  and  I  left  im- 
mediately for  Paris, — a  literary  friend  most  kindly  un- 
dertaking to  look  over  the  proofs,  and  suppress  what 
might  annoy  any  one  then  living  in  London.  The 
book  was  printed  in  three  volumes,  at  about  $7  per  j 
copy,  and  in  this  expensive  shape  three  editions  were 
sold  by  the  original  publisher.  After  his  death  a  duo- 
decimo edition  was  put  forth,  very  beautifully  illus- 
trated ;  and  this  ha3  been  followed  by  a  fifth  edition, 
lately  published,  with  new  embellishments,  by  Mr. 
Virtue.  The  only  American  edition  (long  ago  out  of 
print)  was  a  literal  copy  of  this  imperfect  and  curtailed 
book. 

In  the  present  complete  edition,  the  Letters  objected 
to  by  the  Quarterly,  are,  like  the  rest,  re-published  as 
originally  written.  The  offending  portions  must  be, 
at  any  rate,  harmless,  after  being  circulated  extensively 
in  this  country  in  the  Mirror,  and  prominently  quoted 
from  the  Mirror  in  the  Quarterly, — and  this  being 
true,  I  have  felt  that  I  could  gratify  the  wish  to  be  put 
fairly  on  trial  for  these  alleged  offences — to  have  a 
comparison  instituted  between  my  sins,  in  this  respect, 
and  Hamilton's,  Muskau's,  Von  Raumer's,  Marryat's 
and  Lockhart's — and  so  to  put  a  definite  value  and 
meaning  upon  the  constant  and  vague  allusions  to 
these  iniquities  with  which  the  critiques  of  my  con- 
temporaries abound.  I  may  state  as  a  fact,  that  the 
only  instance  in  which  a  quotation  by  me  from  the 
conversation  of  distinguished  men  gave  the  least  of- 


fence in  England,  was  the  one  remark  made  by  Moore 
the  poet  at  a  dinner  party,  on  the  subject  of  O'Counell. 
It  would  have  been  harmless,  as  it  was  designed  to  be, 
but  for  the  unexpected  celebrity  of  my  Pencillings  ; 
yet  with  all  my  heart  I  wished  it  unwritten. 

I  wish  to  put  on  record  in  this  edition  (and  you  need 
not  be  at  the  trouble  of  perusing  them  unless  you 
pler.se,  dear  reader!)  an  extract  or  two  from  the  Lon- 
.':ccs  to  "  Pencillings,"  and  parts  of  two  arti- 
cles written  apropos  of  the  book's  offences. 

The  following  is  from  the  Preface  to  the  first  Lon- 
don edition  : — 

"The  extracts  from  these  Letters  which  have  ap- 
peared in  the  public  prints,  have  drawn  upon  me  much 
severe  censure.  Admitting  its  justice  in  part,  perhaps 
I  may  shield  myself  from  its  remaining  excess  by  a 
slight  explanation.  During  several  years'  residence 
in  Continental  and  Eastern  countries,  I  have  Lad  op- 
portunities (as  attache  to  a  foreign  Legation)  of  seeing 
phases  of  society  and  manners  not  usually  described 
in  books  of  travel.  Having  been  the  Editor,  before 
leaving  the  United  States,  of  a  monthly  review,  I 
found  it  both  profitable  and  agreeable  to  continue  my 
interest  in  the  periodical  in  which  that  Review  was 
merged  at  my  departure,  by  a  miscellaneous  corres- 
pondence. Foreign  courts,  distinguished  men,  royal 
entertainments,  &c,  &c, — matters  which  were  likely 
to  interest  American  readers  more  particularly — have 
been  in  turn  my  themes.  The  distance  of  America 
from  these  countries,  and  the  ephemeral  nature  and 
usual  obscurity  of  periodical  correspondence,  were  a 
sufficient  warrant  to  my  mind  that  the  descriptions 
would  die  where  they  first  saw  the  light,  and  fulfil  on- 
ly the  trifling  destiny  for  which  they  were  intended. 
I  indulged  myself,  therefore,  in  a  freedom  of  detail 
and  topic  which  is  usual  only  in  posthumous  memoirs 
— expecting  as  soon  that  they  would  be  read  in  the 
countries  and  by  the  persons  described,  as  the  biog- 
rapher of  Byron  and  Sheridan  that  these  fruitful  and 
unconscious  theme3  would  rise  from  the  dead  to  read 
their  own  interesting  memoirs !  And  such  a  resurrec- 
tion would  hardly  be  a  more  disagreeable  surprise  to 
that  eminent  biographer,  than  was  the  sudden  appear- 
ance to  me  of  my  own  unambitious  Letters  in  the 
Quarterly  Review. 

"  The  reader  will  see  (for  every  Letter  containing  the 


PREFACE  TO  PENCILLINGS  BY  THE  WAY. 


least  personal  detail  has  been  most  industriously  re- 
published in  the  English  papers)  that  I  have  in  some 
slight  measure  corrected  these  Pencillings  by  the 
Way.  They  were  literally  what  they  were  styled — 
notes  written  on  the  road,  and  despatched  without  a 
second  perusal ;  and  it  would  be  extraordinary  if,  be- 
tween the  liberty  I  felt  with  my  material,  and  the  haste 
in  which  I  scribbled,  some  egregious  errors  in  judg- 
ment and  taste  had  not  crept  in  unawares.  The  Quar- 
terly has  made  a  long  arm  over  the  water  to  refresh 
my  memory  on  this  point.  There  are  passages  I 
would  not  re-write,  and  some  remarks  on  individuals 
which  I  would  recal  at  some  cost,  and  would  not  wil- 
lingly see  repeated  in  these  volumes.  Having  con- 
ceded thus  much,  however,  I  may  express  my  surprise 
that  this  particular  sin  should  have  been  visited  upon 
me,  at  a  distance  of  three  thousand  miles,  when  the 
reviewer's  own  literary  fame  rests  on  the  more  aggra- 
vated instance  of  a  book  of  personalities  published 
under  the  very  noses  of  the  persons  described.  Those 
of  my  Letters  which  date  from  England  were  written 
within  three  or  four  months  of  my  first  arrival  in  this 
country.  Fortunate  in  my  introductions,  almost  em- 
barrassed with  kindness,  and,  from  advantages  of  com- 
parison gained  by  long  travel,  qualified  to  appreciate 
keenly  the  delights  of  English  society,  I  was  little  dis- 
posed to  find  fault.  Everything  pleased  me.  Yet  in 
one  instance — one  single  instance — I  indulged  myself 
in  stricture  upon  individual  character,  and  I  repeat  it 
in  this  work,  sure  that  there  will  be  but  one  person  in 
the  world  of  letters  who  will  not  read  it  with  approba- 
tion— the  editor  of  the  Quarterly  himself.  It  was  ex- 
pressed at  the  time  with  no  personal  feeling,  for  I  had 
never  seen  the  individual  concerned,  and  my  name  had 
probably  never  reached  his  ears.  I  but  repeated  what 
I  had  said  a  thousand  times,  and  never  without  an  in- 
dignant echo  to  its  truth — an  opinion  formed  from  the 
most  dispassionate  perusal  of  his  writings — that  the 
editor  of  that  Review  was  the  most  unprincipled  critic 
of  his  age.  Aside  from  its  flagrant  literary  injustice, 
we  owe  to  the  Quarterly,  it  is  well  known,  every  spark 
of  ill-feeling  that  has  been  kept  alive  between  England 
and  America  for  the  last  twenty  years.  The  sneers, 
the  opprobrious  epithets  of  this  bravo  in  literature, 
have  been  received  in  a  country  where  the  machinery 
of  reviewing  was  not  understood,  as  the  voice  of  the 
English  people,  and  an  animosity  for  which  there  was 
no  other  reason,  has  been  thus  periodically  fed  and 
exasperated.  I  conceive  it  to  be  my  duty  as  a  literary 
man — I  know  it  is  my  duty  as  an  American — to  lose 
no  opportunity  of  setting  my  heel  on  the  head  of  this 
reptile  of  criticism." 

The  following  is  part  of  an  article,  written  by  my- 
self, on  the  subject  of  personalities,  for  a  periodical  in 
New- York : — 

"  There  is  no  question,  I  believe,  that,  pictures  of 
living  society  where  society  is  in  very  high  perfection, 
and  of  living  persons,  where  they  are  "  persons  of 
mark,"  arc  both  interesting  to  ourselves,  and  valuable 
to  posterity.  What  would  we  not  give  for  a  descrip- 
tion of  a  dinner  with  Shakspere  and  Ben  Jonson — 


of  a  danse  with  the  Maids  of  Queen  Elizabeth — of  a 
chat  with  Milton  in  a  morning  call  ?  We  should  say 
the  man  was  a  churl,  who,  when  he  had  the  power, 
should  have  refused  to  '  leave  the  world  a  copy'  of 
such  precious  hours.  Posterity  will  decide  who  are 
the  great  of  our  time— but  they  are  at  least  among 
those  I  have  heard  talk,  and  have  described  and  quo- 
ted, and  who  would  read  without  interest,  a  hundred 
years  hence,  a  character  of  the  second  Virgin  Queen, 
caught  as  it  was  uttered  in  a  ball-room  of  her  time  ? 
or  a  description  of  her  loveliest  Maid  of  Honor,  by 
one  who  had  stood  opposite  her  in  a  dance,  and  wrote 
it  before  he  slept  ?  or  a  conversation  with  Moore  or 
Buhver  ? — when  the  Queen  and  her  fairest  maid,  and 
Moore  and  Bulwer  have  had  their  splendid  funerals, 
and  are  dust,  like  Elizabeth  and  Shakspere  ? 

"  The  harm,  if  harm  there  be  in  such  sketch- 
es, is  in  the  spirit  in  which  they  are  done.  If 
they  are  ill-natured  or  untrue,  or  if  the  author  says 
aught  to  injure  the  feelings  of  those  who  have  admit- 
ted him  to  their  confidence  or  hospitality,  he  is  to 
blame,  and  it  is  easy,  since  he  publishes  while  his 
subjects  are  living,  to  correct  his  misrepresentations, 
and  to  visit  upon  him  his  infidelities  of  friendship. 

"But  (while  I  think  of  it)  perhaps  some  fault-finder 
will  be  pleased  to  tell  me,  why  this  is  so  much  deeper 
a  sin  in  me  than  in  all  other  travellers.  Has  Basil 
Hall  any  hesitation  in  describing  a  dinner  party  in  the 
United  States,  and  recording  the  conversation  at  table  ? 
Does  Miss  Martineau  stick  at  publishing  the  portrait 
of  a  distinguished  American,  and  faithfully  recording 
all  he  says  in  a  confidential  tete-a-tete  ?  Have  Captain 
Hamilton  and  Prince  Pukler,  Von  Raumer  and  Cap- 
tain Marryat,  any  scruples  whatever  about  putting 
down  anything  they  hear  that  is  worth  the  trouble,  or 
of  describing  any  scene,  private  or  public,  which 
would  tell  in  their  book,  or  illustrate  a  national  pecu- 
liarity ?  What  would  their  books  be  without  this  class 
of  subjects  ?  What  would  any  book  of  travels  be, 
leaving  out  everybody  the  author  saw,  and  all  he 
heard  1  Not  that  I  justify  all  these  authors  have  done 
in  this  way,  for  I  honestly  think  they  have  stepped 
over  the  line  which  I  have  but  trod  close  upon. 

Surely  it  is  the  abuse  and  not  the  use  of  information 
thus  acquired  that  makes  the  offence. 

The  most  formal,  unqualified,  and  severe  condem- 
nation recorded  against  my  Pencillings,  however,  is 
that  of  the  renowned  Editor  of  the  Quarterly,  and  to 
show  the  public  the  immaculate  purity  of  the  forge 
where  this  long-echoed  thunder  is  manufactured,  1 
will  quote  a  passage  or  two  from  a  book  of  the  same 
description,  by  the  Editor  of  the  Quarterly  himself. 
'  Peter's  Letters  to  his  Kinsfolk,'  by  Mr.  Lockhart, 
are  three  volumes  exclusively  filled  with  portraits  of 
persons,  living  at  the  time  it  was  written  in  Scotland, 
their  conversation  with  the  author,  their  manners, 
their  private  histories,  etc.,  etc.  In  one  of  the  letters 
upon  the  '  Society  of  Edinburgh,'  is  the  following 
delicate  passage  : — 

'"Even  you,  my  dear  Lady  Johnes,  are  a  perfect 
tyro  in  this  branch  of  knowledge.     I  remember,  only 


PREFACE  TO  PENCILLINGS  BY  THE  WAY. 


the  last  time  I  saw  you,  you  were  praising   witli  all 

your  might   the   legs  of  Col.  B ,  those   flimsy, 

worthless  things  that  look  as  if  they  were  bandaged 
with  linen  rollers  from  the  heel  to  the  knee.  You 
may  say  what  you  will,  but  I  still  assert,  and  I  will 
prove  it  if  you  please  by  pen  and  pencil,  that,  with 
one  pair  of  exceptions,  the  best  legs  in  Cardigan  are 

Mrs.  P 's.     As  for  Miss  J T) *■,  1  think 

they  are  frightful.'  * 

'«  Two  pages  farther  on  he  says  : — 

"  '  As  for  myself,  I  assure  you  that  ever  since  I  spent 

a  week  at  Lady  L 's,  and  saw  those  great  fat  girls 

of  hers  waltzing  every  night  with  that  odious  De 
B ,  I  can  not  endure  the  very  name  of  the  thing.' 

"  1  quote  from  the  second  edition  of  these  letters,  by 
which  it  appears  that  even  these  are  moderated  passa- 
ges. A  note  to  the  first  of  the  above  quotations  runs 
as  follows : — 

"  '  A  great  part  of  this  letter  is  omitted  in  the  Second 
Edition  in  consequence  of  the  displeasure  its  publi- 
cation gave  to  certain  ladies  in  Cardiganshire.  As  for 
the  gentleman  who  chose  to  take  what  I  said  of  him 
in  so  much  dudgeon,  he  will  observe,  that  I  have  al- 
lowed what  I  said  to  remain  in  statu  quo,  which  I  cer- 
tainly should  not  have  done,  had  he  expressed  his  re- 
sentment in  a  proper  manner.' 

"  So  well  are  these  unfortunate  persons'  names  known 
by  those  who  read  the  book  in  England,  that  in  the 
copy  which  I  have  from  a  circulating  library,  they  are 
all  filled  out  in  pencil.  And  I  would  here  beg  the 
reader  to  remark  that  these  are  private  individuals, 
compelled  by  no  literary  or  official  distinction  to  come 
out  from  their  privacy  and  figure  in  print,  and  in  this, 
if  not  in  the  taste  and  quality  of  my  descriptions,  I 
claim  a  fairer  escutcheon  than  my  self-elected  judge 
— for  where  is  a  person's  name  recorded  in  my  letters 
who  is  not,  either  by  tenure  of  public  office,  or  litera- 
ry, or  political  distinction,  a  theme  of  daily  newspaper 
comment,  and  of  course  fair  game  for  the  traveller. 

"I  must  give  one  more  extract  from  Mr.  Lockhart's 
book,  an  account  of  a  dinner  with  a  private  merchant 
of  Glasgow. 

"  *  I  should  have  told  you  before,  that  I  had  another 
visiter  early  in  the  morning,  besides  Mr.  H.     This 

was  a  Mr.  P ,  a  respectable  merchant  of  the  place, 

also  an  acquaintance  of  my  friend  W .     He  came 

before  H ,  and  after  professing  himself  very  sorry 

that  his  avocations  would  not  permit  him  to  devote 
his  forenoon  to  my  service,  he  made  me  promise  to 
dine  with  him.  *  *  My  friend  soon  joined  me, 
and  observing  from  the  appearance  of  my  counte- 
nance that  I  was  contemplating  the  scene  with  some 
disgust,'  (the  Glasgow  Exchange)  • '  My  good  fel- 
low,' said  he,  'you  are  just  like  every  other  well-edu- 
cated stranger  that  comes  into  this  town  ;  you  can  not 
endure  the  first  sight  of  us  mercantile  whelps.  Do 
not,  however,  be  alarmed  ;  I  will  not  introduce  you  to 
any  of  these  cattle  at  dinner.  No,  sir!  You  must 
know  that  there  are  a  few  men  of  refinement  and  polite 
information  in  this  city.  I  have  warned  two  or  three 
<>t  these  rara  ores,  and  depend  upon  it,  yon  shall  have 


a  very  snug  day's  work.''  So  saying  he  toe  >k  my  arm, 
and  observing  that  five  was  just  on  the  chap,  hurried 
me  through  several  streets  and  lanes  till  we  arrived  in 

the ,  where  his  house  is  situated.     His  wife  was, 

I  perceived,  quite  the  fine  lady,  and,  withal,  a  little  of 
the  blue  stocking.  Hearing  that  I  had  just  come 
from  Edinburgh,  she  remarked  that  Glasgow  would  be 
seen  to  much  more  disadvantage  after  that  elegant 
city.  '  Tndeed,'  said  she,  '  a  person  of  taste,  must,  of 
course,  find  many  disagreeables  connected  with  a  resi- 
dence in  such  a  town  as  this  ;  but  Mr.  P 's  busi- 
ness renders  the  thing  necessary  for  the  present,  and 
one  can  not  make  a  silk  purse  of  a  sow's  ear — he,  he, 
he !'  Another  lady  of  the  company  carried  this  affec- 
tation still  farther;  she  pretended  to  be  quite  ignorant 
of  Glasgow  and  its  inhabitants,  although  she  had  lived 
among  them  the  greater  part  of  her  life,  and,  by  the 
by,  seemed  no  chicken.  I  was  afterward  told  by  nfy 
friend  Mr.  H ,  that  this  damsel  had  in  reality  so- 
journed a  winter  or  two  in  Edinburgh,  in  the  capacity 
of  lick-spittle  or  toad-eater  to  a  lady  of  quality,  tc 
whom  she  had  rendered  herself  amusing  by  a  mali- 
cious tongue  ;  and  that  during  this  short  absence,  she 
had  embraced  the  opportunity  of  utterly  forgetting 
everything  about  the  West  country. 

" '  The  dinner  was  excellent,  although  calculated  ap- 
parently for  forty  people  rather  than  sixteen,  which 
last  number  sat  down.  While  the  ladies  remained  in 
the  room,  there  was  such  a  noise  and  racket  of  coarse 
mirth,  ill-restrained  by  a  few  airs  of  sickly  sentiment 
on  the  part  of  the  hostess,  that  I  really  could  neither 
attend  to  the  wine  nor  the  dessert ;  but  after  a  little 
time  a  very  broad  hint  from  a  fat  Falstaff,  near  the  foot 
of  the  table,  apparently  quite  a  privileged  character, 
thank  Heaven  !  sent  the  ladies  out  of  the  room.  The 
moment  after  which  blessed  consummation,  the  butler 
and  footman  entered,  as  if  by  instinct,  the  one  with  a 
huge  punch  bowl,  the  other  with  Sfc.'  " 

I  do  not  thank  Heaven  that  there  is  no  parallel  in 
my  own  letters  to  either  of  these  three  extracts.  It 
is  a  thing  of  course  that  there  is  not.  They  are  vio- 
lations of  hospitality,  social  confidence,  and  delicacy, 
of  which  even  my  abusers  will  allow  me  incapable. 
Yet  this  man  accuses  me  of  all  these  things,  and  so 
runs  criticism ! 

And  to  this  I  add  (to  conclude  this  long  Preface) 
some  extracts  from  a  careful  review  of  the  work  in 
the  North  American : — 

"  '  Pencillings  by  the  Way, '  is  a  very  spirited 
book.  The  letters,  out  of  which  it  is  constructed, 
were  written  originally  for  the  New  York  4  Mirror,' 
and  were  not  intended  for  distinct  publication.  From 
this  circumstance,  the  author  indulged  in  a  freedom 
of  personal  detail,  which  we  must  say  is  wholly  un- 
justifiable, and  we  have  no  wish  to  defend  it.  This 
book  does  not  pretend  to  contain  any  profound  obser- 
vations or  discussions  on  national  character,  political 
condition,  literature,  or  even  art.  It  would  be  obvi- 
ously impossible  to  carry  any  one  of  these  topics 
thoroughly  out,  without  spending  vastly  more  time 
and  labor  upon  it  than  a  rambling  poet  is  likely  to 


XIV 


PREFACE  TO  PENCILLINGS  BY  THE  WAY. 


have  the  inclination  to  do.  In  fact,  there  are  very  few 
men,  who  are  qualified,  by  the  nature  of  their  previous 
studies,  to  do  this  with  any  degree  of  edification  to 
their  readers.  But  a  man  of  general  intellectual  cul- 
ture, especially  if  he  have  the  poetical  imagination 
superadded,  may  give  us  rapid  sketches  of  other 
countries,  which  will  both  entertain  and  instruct  us. 
Now  this  book  is  precisely  such  a  one  as  we  have 
here  indicated.  The  author  travelled  through  Eu- 
rope, mingling  largely  in  society,  and  visited  whatever 
scenes  were  interesting  to  him  as  an  American,  a 
scholar,  and  a  poet.  The  impressions  which  these 
scenes  made  upon  his  mind,  are  described  in  these 
volumes ;  and  we  must  say,  we  have  rarely  fallen  in 
with  a  book  of  a  more  sprightly  character,  a  more 
elegant  and  graceful  stjle,  and  full  of  more  lively 
descriptions.  The  delineations  of  manners  are  exe- 
cuted with  great  tact ;  and  ihe  shifting  pictures  of 
natural  scenery  pass  before  us  as  we  read,  exciting  a 
never-ceasing  interest.  As  to  the  personalities  which 
have  excited  the  wrath  of  British  critics,  we  have,  as 
we  said  before,  no  wish  to  defend  them ;  but  a  few 
words  upon  the  tone,  temper,  and  motives,  of  those 
gentlemen,  in  their  dealing  with  our  author,  will  not, 
perhaps,  be  considered  inappropriate. 

"  It  is  a  notorious  fact,  that  British  criticism,  for 
many  years  past,  has  been,  to  a  great  extent,  free 
from  all  the  restraints  of  a  regard  to  literary  truth. 
Assuming  the  political  creed  of  an  author,  it  would 
be  a  very  easy  thing  to  predict  the  sort  of  criticism 
his  writings  would  meet  with,  in  any  or  all  of  the 
leading  periodicals  of  the  kingdom.  This  tendency 
has  been  carried  so  far,  that  even  discussions  of  points 
in  ancient  classical  literature  have  been  shaped  and 
colored  by  it.  Thus,  Aristophanes'  comedies  are 
turned  against  modern  democracy,  and  Pindar,  the 
Theban  Eagle,  has  been  unceremoniously  classed 
with  British  Tories,  by  the  London  Quarterly.  In- 
stead of  inquiring  'What  is  the  author's  object? 
How  far  has  he  accomplished  it  ?  How  far  is  that 
object  worthy  of  approbation  ?'— three  questions  that 
are  essential  to  all  just  criticism  ;  the  questions  put 
by  English  Reviewers  are  substantially  'What  party 
does  he  belong  to  ?  Is  he  a  Whig,  Tory,  Radical, 
or  is  he  an  American  ?'  And  the  sentence  in  such 
cases  depends  on  the  answer  to  them.  Even  where 
British  criticism  is  favorable  to  an  American  author, 
its  tone  is  likely  to  be  haughty  and  insulting;  like  the 
language  of  a  condescending  city  gentleman  toward 
some  country  cousin,  whom  he  is  kind  enough  to 
honor  with  his  patronage. 

Now,  to  critics  of  this  sort,  Mr.  Willis  was  a  tempt- 
ing mark.  No  one  can  for  a  moment  believe  that  the 
London  Quarterly,  Frazer's  Magazine,  and  Captain 
Marryat's  monthly,  are  honest  in  the  language  they 
hold  toward  Mr.  Willis.  Motives,  wide  enough  from 
a  love  of  truth,  guided  the  conduct  of  these  journals. 
The  editor  of  the  London  Quarterly,  it  is  well  known, 
is  the  author  of  'Peter's  Letters  to  his  Kinsfolk,'  a 
work  full  of  personalities,  ten  times  more  objectiona- 
ble than  anything  to  be  found  in  the    'Pencillings.' 


Yet  this  same  editor  did  not  blush  to  write  and  print 
a  long  and  most  abusive  tirade  upon  the  American 
traveller,  for  doing  what  he  had  himself  done  to   a 
much  greater  and  more  reprehensible  extent;  and,  to 
cap  the  climax  of  inconsistency,  republished  in  his 
journal  the  very  personalities,  names  and  all,  which 
had  so  shocked  his  delicate  sensibilities.     It  is  much 
more  likely  that  a  disrespectful  notice  of  the  London 
Quarterly  and   its  editor,  in  these  '  Pencillings,'  was 
the  source  from  which  this  bitterness  flowed,  than  that 
any  sense  of  literary  justice  dictated  the  harsh  review. 
Another  furious  attack  on  Mr.  Willis's  book  appeared 
in  the  monthly  journal,  under  the  editorial   manage- 
j  ment  of  Captain  Marryat,  the  author  of  a  series   of 
j  very  popular  sea  novels.     Whoever  was  the  author  of 
i  that  article,  ought  to  be  held  disgraced  in  the  opinions 
;  of  all  honorable   men.     It  is  the  most  extraordinary 
|  tissue  of  insolence  and  coarseness,  with  one  exception, 
:  that  we  have  ever  seen,  in  any  periodical  which  pre- 
|  tended  to  respectability  of  literary  character.     It  car- 
I  ries  its  grossness  10  the  intolerable  length  of  attacking 
the  private  character  of  Mr.  Willis,  and  throwing  out 
foolish  sneers  about  his  birth  and  parentage.     It  is 
this  article  which  led  to  the  well-known  correspon- 
dence, between  the  American  Poet  and  the  British 
Captain,  ending  in  a  hostile  meeting.     It  is  to  be  re- 
gretted that  Mr.  Willis  should  so  far  forget  the  prin- 
:  ciples  of  his  New  England  education,  as  to  participate 
|  in  a  duel.     We  regard  the  practice  with  horror;  we 
J  believe  it  not  only  wicked,  but  absurd.     We  can  not 
!  possibly  see  how  Mr.  Willis's  tarnished  fame  could  be 
brightened  by  the  superfluous  work  of  putting  an  ad- 
ditional quantity  of  lead  into  the  gallant  captain.     But 
there  is,  perhaps,  no  disputing  about  tastes ;  and,  bad 
as  we  think  the  whole  affair  was,  no  candid  man  can 
read   the   correspondence   without  feeling   that  Mr. 
Willis's  part  of  it  is  infinitely  superior  to  the  captain's, 
in  style,  sense,   dignity  of  feeling,  and  manly  honor. 
"But,  to  return  to  the  work  from  which  we  have 
been  partially  drawn  aside.      Its  merits  in  point  of 
style  are  unquestionable.     It  is  written  in  a  simple, 
vigorous,  and  highly  descriptive  form  of  English,  and 
rivets  the  reader's  attention  throughout.     There  are 
passages  in  it  of  graphic  eloquence,  which  it  would  be 
difficult  to   surpass   from  the   writings   of  any  other 
tourist,  whatever.     The  topics  our  author  selects,  are, 
as  has  been  already  stated,  not  those  which  require 
long  and  careful  study  to  appreciate  and  discuss  ;  they 
are  such  as  the  poetic  eye  would  naturally  dwell  upon, 
and  a  poetic  hand  rapidly  delineate,  in  a  cursory  sur- 
vey of  foreign  lands.     Occasionally,    we  think,   Mr. 
Willis  enters  too  minutely  into  the  details  of  the  hor- 
rible.    Some  of  his  descriptions  of  the  cholera,  and 
the  pictures  he  gives  us  of  the  catacombs  of  the  dead, 
are  ghastly.     But  the  manners  of  society  he  draws 
with  admirable  tact ;  and  personal  peculiarities  of  dis- 
tinguished  men,  he  renders  with  a  most  life-like  vi- 
vacity.    Many  of  his  descriptions  of  natural  scenery 
are  more  like  pictures,  than  sketches  in  words.     The 
description  of  the  Bay  of  Naples  will  occur  as  a  good 


PREFACE  TO  PENCILLINGS  BY  THE  WAY 


"  It  would  be  impossible  to  point  out,  with  any  de- 
gree of  particularity,  the  many  passages  in  this  book 
whose  beauty  deserves  attention.  But  it  may  be  re- 
marked in  general,  that  the  greater  part  of  the  first 
volume  is  not  so  fresh  and  various,  and  animated,  as 
the  second.  This  we  suppose  arises  partly  from  the 
fact  that  France  and  Italy  have  lung  been  beaten 
ground ;  but  Greece  and  Asia  Minor  have  a  newness 
of  interest  about  them,  which  can  not  but  give  more 
vigor  and  elasticity  to  a  traveller's  description.  Mr. 
Willis's  account  of  the  Ionian  Islands  is  exceedingly 
lively  ;  and  his  contrast  between  present  scenes  and 
classic  associations  is  highly  amusing. 

"  We  think  most  readers  will  find  Mr.  Willis's 
sketches  of  Turkish  scenes  and  Turkish  life,  the  most 
entertaining  parts  of  his  book.  They  are  written 
with  great  sprightliness,  and  will  richly  reward  a  care- 
ful perusal. 

"The  last  part  of  the  book  is  a  statement  of  the 
author's  observations  upon  English  life  and  society  ; 
and  it  is  this  portion,  which  the  English  critics  affect 
to  be  so  deeply  offended  with.  The  most  objectiona- 
ble passage  in  this  is  the  account  of  a  dinner  at  Lady 
Blessington's.  Unquestionably  Mr.  Moore's  remarks 
about  Mr.  O'Connell  ought  not  to  have  been  reported, 
considering  the  time  when,  and  the  place  where,  they 


were  uttered;  though  they  contain  nothing  new  about 
the  great  Agitator,  the  secrets  disclosed  being  well 
known  to  some  millions  of  people  who  interest  them- 
selves in  British  politics,  and  read  the  British  news- 
papers. We  close  our  remarks  on  this  work  by  re- 
ferring our  readers  to  a  capital  scene  on  board  a 
Scotch  steam-boat,  and  a  breakfast  at  Professor  Wil- 
son's, the  famous  editor  of  Blackwood,  both  in  the 
second  volume,  which  we  regret  our  inability  to 
quote." 

"  Every  impartial  reader  must  confess,  that  for  so 
young  a  man,  Mr.  Willis  has  done  much  to  promote 
the  reputation  of  American  literature.  His  position 
at  present  is  surrounded  with  every  incentive  to  a  no- 
ble ambition.  With  youth  and  health  to  sustain  him 
under  labor ;  with  much  knowledge  of  the  world  ac- 
quired by  travel  and  observation,  to  draw  upon  ;  with 
a  mature  style,  and  a  hand  practised  in  various  forms 
of  composition,  Mr.  Willis's  genius  ought  to  take  a 
wider  and  higher  range  than  it  has  ever  done  before. 
We  trust  we  shall  meet  him  again,  erelong,  in  the 
paths  of  literature ;  and  we  trust  that  he  will  take  it 
kindly,  if  we  express  the  hope,  that  he  will  lay  aside 
those  tendencies  to  exaggeration,  and  to  an  unhealthy 
tone  of  sentiment,  which  mar  the  beauty  of  some  of 
his  otherwise  most  agreeable  books  " 


PENCILLINGS    BY    THE    WAY. 


LETTER  I. 

At  Sea. — I  have  emerged  from  my  berth  this  morn- 
ing for  the  first  time  since  we  left  the  Capes.  We 
have  been  running  six  or  seven  days  before  a  strong 
northwest  gale,  which,  by  the  scuds  in  the  sky,  is  not 
yet  blown  out,  and  my  head  and  hand,  as  you  will  see 
by  my  penmanship,  are  anything  but  at  rights.  If  you 
have  ever  plunged  about  in  a  cold  rain-storm  at  sea 
for  seven  successive  days,  you  can  imagine  how  I  have 
amused  myself. 

I  wrote  to  you  after  my  pilgrimage  to  the  tomb  of 
Washington.  It  was  almost  the  only  object  of  natu- 
ral or  historical  interest  in  our  own  country  that  I  had 
not  visited,  and  that  seen,  I  made  all  haste  back  to  em- 
bark, in  pursuance  of  my  plans  of  travel,  for  Europe.  At 
Philadelphia  I  found  a  first-rate  merchant-brig,  the 
Pacific,  on  the  eve  of  sailing  for  Havre.  She  was 
nearly  new,  and  had  a  French  captain,  and  no  passen- 
gers, three  very  essential  circumstances  to  my  taste, 
and  I  took  a  berth  in  her  without  hesitation.  The 
next  day  she  fell  down  the  river,  and  on  the  succeeding 
morning  I  followed  her  with  the  captain  in  the  steam- 
boat. 

Some  ten  or  fifteen  vessels,  bound  on  different  voy- 
ages, lay  in  the  roads  waiting  for  the  pilot-boat,  and 
as  she  came  down  the  river,  they  all  weighed  anchor 
together  and  we  got  under  way.  It  was  a  beautiful 
sight — so  many  sail  in  close  company  under  a  smart 
breeze,  and  I  stood  on  the  quarter-deck  and  watched 
them  in  a  mood  of  mingled  happiness  and  sadness  till 
we  reached  the  Capes.  There  was  much  to  elevate 
and  much  to  depress  me.  The  dream  of  my  lifetime 
was  about  to  be  realized.  I  was  bound  to  France,  and 
those  fair  Italian  cities,  with  their  world  of  association 
and  interest  were  within  the  limit  of  a  voyage,  and  all 
that  one  looks  to  for  happiness  in  change  of  scene,  and 
all  that  I  had  been  passionately  wishing  and  imagining 
since  I  could  dream  a  day-dream  or  read  a  book,  was 
before  me  with  a  visible  certainty  ;  but  my  home  was 
receding  rapidly,  perhaps  for  years,  and  the  chances 
of  death  and  adversity  in  my  absence  crowded  upon 
my  mind — and  I  had  left  friends  (many — many  as  dear 
to  me,  any  of  them,  as  the  whole  sum  of  my  coming  en- 
joyment), whom  a  thousand  possible  accidents  might 
remove  or  estrange,  and  I  scarce  knew  whether  I  was 
more  happy  or  sad. 

We  made  Cape  Henlopen  about  sundown,  and  all 
shortened  sail  and  came  to.  The  little  boat  passed 
1 


from  one  to  another,  taking  off  the  pilots,  and  in  a 
few  minutes  every  sail  was  spread  again,  and  away  they 
went  with  a  dashing  breeze,  some  on  one  course  and 
some  on  another,  leaving  us,  in  less  than  an  hour,  ap- 
parently alone  on  the  sea.  By  this  time  the  clouds 
had  grown  black,  the  wind  had  strengthened  into  a 
gale,  with  fits  of  rain ;  and  as  the  order  was  given  to 
"  close-reef  the  topsails,"  I  took  a  last  look  at  Cape 
Henlopen,  just  visible  in  the  far  edge  of  the  horizon, 
and  went  below. 

Oct.  18. — It  is  a  day  to  make  one  in  love  with  life. 
The  remains  of  the  long  storm,  before  which  we  have 
been  driven  for  a  week,  lie  in  white,  turreted  masses 
around  the  horizon  the  sky  overhead  is  spotlessly 
blue,  the  sun  is  warm,  the  wind  steady  and  fresh,  but 
soft  as  a  child's  breath,  and  the  sea — I  must  sketch  it 
to  you  more  elaborately.  We  are  in  the  Gulf  Stream. 
The  water  here,  as  you  know,  even  to  the  cold  banks 
of  Newfoundland,  is  always  blood-warm,  and  the  tem- 
perature of  the  air  mild  at  all  seasons,  and  just  now. 
like  a  south  wind  on  land  in  June.  Hundreds  of  sea- 
birds  are  sailing  around  us — the  spongy  sea-weeds 
washed  from  the  West  Indian  rocks,  a  thousand  miles 
away  in  the  southern  latitudes,  float  by  in  large  mas- 
ses— the  sailors,  barefoot  and  bareheaded,  are  scatter- 
ed over  the  rigging,  doing  "  fair-woather  work" — and 
just  in  the  edge  of  the  horizon,  hidden  by  every  swell, 
stand  two  vessels  with  all  sail  spread,  making,  with 
the  first  fair  wind  they  have  had  in  many  days,  for 
America. 

This  is  the  first  day  that  I  have  been  able  to  be  long 
enough  on  deck  to  study  the  sea.  Even  were  it  not, 
however,  there  has  been  a  constant  and  chilly  rain 
which  would  have  prevented  me  from  enjoying  its 
grandeur,  so  that  I  am  reconciled  to  my  unusually  se- 
vere sickness.  I  came  on  deck  this  morning  and 
looked  around,  and  for  an  hour  or  two  I  could  scarce 
realize  that  it  was  not  a  dream.  Much  as  I  had 
watched  the  sea  from  our  bold  promontory  at  Nahant, 
and  well  as  I  thought  I  knew  its  character  in  storms 
and  calms,  the  scene  which  was  before  me  surprised 
and  bewildered  me  utterly.  At  the  first  glance,  we 
were  just  in  the  gorge  of  the  sea,  and  looking  over  the 
leeward  quarter,  I  saw,  stretching  up  from  the  keel, 
what  1  can  only  describe  as  a  hill  of  dazzling  blue, 
thirty  or  forty  feet  in  real  altitude,  but  sloped  so  far 
away  that  the  white  crest  seemed  to  me  a  cloud,  and 
the  space  between  a  sky  of  the  most  wonderful  beau- 
ty and  brightness.     A   moment  more,  and  the   crest 


PENCILLINGS  BY  THE  WAY. 


burst  over  with  a  splendid  volume  of  foam  ;  the  sun 
struck  through  the  thinner  part  of  the  swell  in  a  line 
of  vivid  emerald,  and  the  whole  mass  swept  under  us,  I 
the   brig  rising  and    riding  on  the  summit  with  the 
buoyancy  and  grace  of  a  bird. 

The  single  view  of  the  ocean  which  I  got  at  that  mo- 
ment, will  be  impressed  upon  my  mind  for  ever.  Noth- 
ing that  I  ever  saw  on  land  at  all  compares  with  it  for 
splendor.  No  sunset,  no  lake  scene  of  hill  and  water, 
no  fall,  not  even  Niagara,  no  glen  or  mountain  gap  ev- 
er approached  it.  The  waves  had  had  no  time  to 
"  knock  down,"  as  the  sailors  phrase  it,  and  it  was  a 
storm  at  sea  without  the  hurricane  and  rain.  J  looked 
off  to  the  horizon,  and  the  long  majestic  swells  were 
heaving  into  the  sky  upon  its  distant  limit,  and  between 
it  and  my  eye  lay  a  radius  of  twelve  miles,  an  im- 
mense plain  flashing  with  green  and  blue  and  white, 
and  changing  place  and  color  so  rapidly  as  to  be  al- 
most painful  to, the  sight.  I  stood.' holding  by  the  taf- 
ferel  an  hottr,".  gazing  c*>'it-v*itli  ;\  tihildish  delight  and 
wonder.  The  spray  had  broken  over  me  repeatedly, 
and  as  we  «fcip.pecKhalf'  h'.s'ea.  a"t  the  scuppers  at  every 
roll,  I  was'siaM-i'ng  "kalf  -t&e  {iraC  «p  to  the  knees  in 
water;  but  the  warm  wind  on  my  forehead,  after  a 
week's  confinement  to  my  berth,  and  the  excessive 
beauty  lavished  upon  my  sight,  were  so  delicious,  that 
I  forgot  all,  and  it  was  only  in  compliance  with  the 
captain's  repeated  suggestion  that  I  changed  my  po- 
sition. 

I  mounted  the  quarter-deck,  and  pulling  off  my 
shoes,  like  a  schoolboy,  sat  over  the  leeward  rails,  and 
with  my  feet  dipping  into  the  warm  sea  at  every  lurch, 
gazed  at  the  glorious  show  for  hours.  I  do  not  hesi- 
tate to  say  that  the  formation,  progress,  and  final  burst 
of  a  sea-wave,  in  a  bright  sun,  are  the  most  gorgeously 
beautiful  sight  under  heaven.  I  must  describe  it  like 
a  jeweller  to  you,  or  I  can  never  convey  my  impres- 
sions. 

First  of  all,  a  quarter  of  a  mile  away  to  windward, 
your  eye  is  caught  by  an  uncommonly  high  wave, 
rushing  right  upon  your  track,  and  heaping  up  slowly 
and  constantly  as  it  comes,  as  if  some  huge  animal 
were  ploughing  his  path  steadily  and  powerfully  be- 
neath the  surface.  Its  "  ground,"  as  a  painter  would 
say,  is  of  a  deep  indigo,  clear  and  smooth  as  enamel, 
its  front  curved  inward,  like  a  shell,  and  turned  over 
at  the  summit  with  a  crest  of  foam,  flashing  and  chan- 
ging perpetually  in  the  sunshine,  like  the  sudden  out- 
burst of  a  million  of  "unsunned  diamonds,"  and  right 
through  its  bosom,  as  the  sea  falls  off,  or  the  angle  of 
refraction  changes,  there  runs  a  shifting  band  of  the 
most  vivid  green,  that  you  would  take  to  have  been 
the  cestus  of  Venus  as  she  rose  from  the  sea,  it  is  so 
supernaturally  translucent  and  beautiful.  As  it  nears 
you,  it  looks  in  shape  like  the  prow  of  Cleopatra's 
barge,  as  they  paint  it  in  the  old  pictures  ;  but  its  col- 
ors, and  the  grace  and  majesty  of  its  march,  and  its 
murmur  (like  the  low  tones  of  an  organ,  deep  and 
full,  and,  to  my  ear,  ten  times  as  articulate  and  solemn), 
almost  startle  you  into  the  belief  that  it  is  a  sentient 
being,  risen  glorious  and  breathing  from  the  ocean. 
As  it  reaches  the  ship,  she  rises  gradually,  for  there  is 
apparently  an  under-wave  driven  before  it,  which  pre- 
pares her  for  its  power;  and  as  it  touches  the  quarter, 
the  whole  magnificent  wall  breaks  down  beneath  you 
with  a  deafening  surge,  and  a  volume  of  foam  issues 
from  its  bosom,  green  and  blue  and  white,  as  if  it  had 
been  a  mighty  casket  in  which  the  whole  wealth  of 
the  sea,  crysoprase,  and  emerald,  and  brilliant  spars, 
had  been  heaped  and  lavished  at  a  throw.  This  is  the 
"  tenth  wave,"  and,  for  four  or  five  minutes,  the  sea 
will  be  smooth  about  you,  and  the  sparkling  and  dy- 
ing foam  falls  into  the  wake,  and  may  be  seen  like  a 
white  path,  stretching  away  over  the  swells  behind,  till 
you  are  tired  of  gazing  at  it.  Then  comes  another 
from  the  same  direction,  and  with  the  same  shape  and 


motion,  and  so  on  till  the  sun  sets,  or  your  eyes  are 
blinded  and  your  brain  giddy  with  splendor. 

I  am  sure  this  language  will  seem  exaggerated  to 
you,  but,  upon  the  faith  of  a  lonely  man  (the  captain 
has  turned  in,  and  it  is  near  midnight  and  a  dead 
calm),  it  is  a  mere  skeleton,  a  goldsmith's  inventory,  of 
the  reality.  I  long  ago  learned  that  first  lesson  of  a 
man  of  the  world,  "to  be  astonished  at  nothing,"  but 
the  sea  has  overreached  my  philosophy — quite.  I  am 
changed  to  a  mere  child  in  my  wonder.  Be  assured  no 
view  of  the  ocean  from  land  can  give  you  a  shadow  of  an 
idea  of  it.  Within  even  the  outermost  Capes,  the  swell 
is  broken,  and  the  color  of  the  water  in  soundings  is 
essentially  different — more  dull  and  earthy.  Go  to 
the  mineral  cabinets  of  Cambridge  or  New  Haven, 
and  look  at  the  Jiuor  spars,  and  the  turquoises,  and 
the  clearer  specimens  of  cryso-prase,  and  quartz,  and 
diamond,  and  imagine  them  all  polished  and  clear,  and 
flung  at.  your  feet  by  millions  in  a  noonday  sun,  and 
it  may  help  your  conceptions  of  the  sea  after  a  storm. 
You  may  "swim  on  bladders"  at  Nahant  and  Rocka- 
way  till  you  are  gray,  and  be  never  the  wiser. 

The  "  middle  watch"  is  called,  and  the  second  mate, 
a  fine  rough  old  sailor,  promoted  from  "  the  mast,"  is 
walking  the  quarter-deck,  stopping  his  whistle  now 
and  then  with  a  gruff  " how  do  you  head  ?"  or  "keep 
her  up,  you  lubber,"  to  the  man  at  the  helm ;  the 
"  silver-shell"  of  a  waning  moon,  is  just  visible  through 
the  dead-lights  over  my  shoulder  (it  has  been  up  two 
hours,  to  me,  and,  by  the  difference  of  our  present 
meridians,  is  just  rising  now  over  a  certain  hill,  and 
peeping  softly  in  at  an  eastern  window  that  I  have 
watched  many  a  time  when  its  panes  have  been  silver- 
ed by  the  same  chaste  alchymy),  and  so,  after  a  walk 
on  the  deck  for  an  hour  to  look  at  the  stars  and  watch 

the  phosphorus  in  the  wake,  and  think  of ,  I'll 

get  to  mine  own  uneven  pillow,  and  sleep  too! 


LETTER  II. 

At  Sea,  Octoekr  20. — We  have  had  fine  weather 
for  progress,  so  far,  running  with  north  and  north- 
westerly winds  from  eight  to  ten  knots  an  hour,  and 
making  of  course  over  two  hundred  miles  a  day.  The 
sea  is  still  rough ;  and  though  the  brig  is  light  laden 
and  rides  very  buoyantly,  tht  ,e  mounting  waves  break 
over  us  now  and  then  with  a  tremendous  surge,  keep- 
ing the  decks  constantly  wet,  and  putting  me  to  many 
an  uncomfortable  shiver.  I  have  become  reconciled, 
however,  to  much  that  I  should  have  anticipated  with 
no  little  horror.  I  can  lie  in  my  berth  forty-eight 
hours,  if  the  weather  is  chill  or  rainy,  and  amuse  my- 
self very  well  with  talking  bad  French  across  the  cab- 
in to  the  captain,  or  laughing  at  the  distresses  of  my 
friend  and  fellow-passenger,  Turk  (a  fine  setter  dog, 
on  his  first  voyage),  or  inventing  some  disguise  for  the 
peculiar  flavor  which  that  dismal  cook  gives  to  all  his 
abominations  ;  or,  at  the  worst,  I  can  bury  my  head 
in  my  pillow,  and  brace  from  one  side  to  the  other 
against  the  swell,  and  enjoy  my  disturbed  thoughts — 
all  without  losing  my  temper,  or  wishing  that  I  had 
not  undertaken  the  voyage. 

Poor  Turk  !  his  philosophy  is  more  severely  tried. 
He  has  been  bred  a  gentleman,  and  is  amusingly  ex- 
clusive. No  assiduities  can  win  him  to  take  the  least 
notice  of  the  crew,  and  I  soon  discovered  that  when 
the  ciptain  and  myself  were  below,  he  endured  many 
a  persecution.  In  an  evil  hour,  a  night  or  two  since, 
I  suffered  his  earnest  appeals  for  freedom  to  work  up- 
on my  feelings,  and,  releasing  him  from  his  chain  un- 
der the  windlass,  I  gave  him  the  liberty  of  the  cabin. 
He  slept  very  quietly  on  the  floor  till  about  midnight, 
when  the  wind  rose  and  the  vessel  began  to  roll  very 
uncomfortably.     With  the  first  heavy  lurch  a  couple 


PENCILLINGS  BY  THE  WAY. 


a 


of  chairs  went  tumbling  to  leeward,  and  by  the  yelp 
of  distress,  Turk  was  somewhere  in  the  way.  He 
changed  his  position,  and,  with  the  next  roll,  the 
mate's  trunk  "brought  away,"  and  shooting  across  the 
cabin,  jammed  him  with  such  violence  against  the 
captain's  state-room  door,  that  he  sprang  howling  to 
the  deck,  where  the  first  thing  that  met  him  was  a 
washing;  sea,  just  taken  in  at  mid-ships,  that  kept  him 
swimming  above  the  hatches  for  five  minutes.  Half- 
drowned,  and  with  a  gallon  of  water  in  his  long  hair, 
he  took  again  to  the  cabin,  and  making  a  desperate 
leap  into  the  steward's  berth,  crouched  down  beside 
the  sleeping  Creole  with  a  long  whine  of  satisfaction. 
The  water  soon  penetrated  however,  and  with  a  "sacre  /" 
and  a  blow  that  he  will  remember  the  remainder  of  the 
voyage,  the  poor  dog  was  again  driven  from  the  cabin, 
and  I  heard  no  more  of  him  till  morning.  His  deci- 
ded preference  for  me  has  since  touched  my  vanity, 
and  1  have  taken  him  under  my  more  special  protec- 
tion— a  circumstance  which  costs  me  two  quarrels  a 
day  at  least,  with  the  cook  and  steward. 

The  only  thing  which  forced  a  smile  upon  me  du- 
ring the  first  week  of  the  passage  was  the  achieve- 
ment of  dinner.  In  rough  weather,  it  is  as  much  as 
one  person  can  do  to  keep  his  place  at  the  table  at  all; 
and  to  guard  the  dishes,  bottles,  and  castors,  from  a 
general  slide  in  the  direction  of  the  lurch,  requires  a 
sleight  and  coolness  reserved  only  for  a  sailor.  "Pre- 
nez  garde!"  shouts  the  captain,  as  the  sea  strikes,  and 
in  the  twinkling  of  an  eye,  everything  is  seized  and 
held  up  to  wait  for  the  other  lurch,  in  attitudes  which 
it  would  puzzle  the  pencil  of  Johnson  to  exaggerate. 
With  his  plate  of  soup  in  one  hand,  and  the  larboard 
end  of  the  tureen  in  the  other,  the  claret  bottle  be- 
tween his  teeth,  and  the  crook  of  his  elbow  caught 
around  the  mounting  corner  of  the  table,  the  captain 
maintains  his  seat  upon  the  transom,  and  with  a  look 
of  the  most  grave  concern,  keeps  a  wary  eye  on  the 
shifting  level  of  his  vermicelli ;  the  old  weather-beat- 
en mate,  with  the  alacrity  of  a  juggler,  makes  a  long 
leg  back  to  the  cabin  panels  at  the  same  moment, 
and  with  his  breast  against  the  table,  takes  his  own 
plate  and  the  castors  and  one  or  two  of  the  smaller 
dishes  under  his  charge  ;  and  the  steward,  if  he  can 
keep  his  legs,  looks  out  for  the  vegetables,  or  if  he 
falls,  makes  as  wide  a  lap  as  possible  to  intercept  the 
volant  articles  in  their  descent.  "Gentlemen  that  live 
at  home  at  ease"  forget  to  thank  Providence  for  the 
blessing  of  a  water-level. 

Oct.  24. — We  are  on  the  Grand  Bank,  and  surround- 
ed by  hundreds  of  sea-birds.  I  have  been  watching 
them  nearly  all  day.  Their  performances  on  the  wing 
are  certainly  the  perfection  of  grace  and  skill.  With 
the  steadiness  of  an  eagle  and  the  nice  adroitness  of  a 
swallow,  they  wheel  round  in  their  constant  circles 
with  an  arrowy  swiftness,  lifting  their  long  tapering 
pinions  scarce  perceptibly,  and  mounting  and  falling 
as  if  by  a  mere  act  of  volition,  without  the  slightest 
apparent  exertion  of  power.  Their  chief  enjoyment 
seems  to  be  to  scoop  through  the  deep  hollows  of  the 
sea,  and  they  do  it  so  quickly  that  your  eye  can  scarce 
follow  them,  just  disturbing  the  polish  of  the  smooth 
crescent,  and  leaving  a  fine  line  of  ripple  from  swell  to 
swell,  but  never  wetting  a  wing,  or  dipping  their  white 
breasts  a  feather  too  deep  in  the  capricious  and  wind- 
driven  surface.  I  feel  a  strange  interest  in  these  wild- 
hearted  birds.  There  is  something  in  this  fearless  in- 
stinct, leading  them  away  from  the  protecting  and 
pleasant  land  to  make  their  home  on  this  tossing  and 
desolate  element,  that  moves  both  my  admiration  and 
my  pity.  I  can  not  comprehend  it.  It  is  unlike  the 
self-caring  instincts  of  the  other  families  of  heaven's 
creatures.  If  I  were  half  the  Pythagorean  that  I  used 
to  be,  I  should  believe  they  were  souls  in  punishment 
— expiating  some  lifetime  sin  in  this  restless  me- 
empsychosis. 


Now  and  then  a  land-bird  has  flown  on  board,  driv- 
en to  sea  probably  by  the  gale,  and  so  fatigued  as 
hardly  to  be  able  to  rise  again  upon  the  wing.  Yes- 
terday morning  a  large  curlew  came  struggling  down 
the  wind,  and  seemed  to  have  just  sufficient  strength 
to  reach  the  vessel.     He  attempted  to  alight  on  the 

J  main  yard,  but  failed  and  dropped  heavily  into  the 
long-boat,  where  he  suffered  himself  to  be  taken  with- 

!  out  an  attempt  to  escape.  He  must  have  been  on  the 
wing  two  or  three  days  without  food,  for  we  were  at 

!  least  two  hundred  miles  from  land.  His  heart  was 
throbbing  hard  through  his  ruffled  feathers,  and  he 

!  held  his  head  up  with  difficulty.     He  was  passed  aft, 

i  but  while  I  was  deliberating  on  the  best  means  for  re- 

I  suscitating  and  fitting  him  to  get  on  the  wing  again, 
the  captain  had  taken  him  from  me  and  handed  him 
over  to  the  cook,  who  had  his  head  off  before  I  could 
remember  French  enough  to  arrest  him.  I  dreamed 
all  that  night  of  the  man  "  that  shot  the  albatross." 
The  captain  relieved  my  mind,  however,  by  telling  me 
that  he  had  tried  repeatedly  to  preserve  them,  and  that 
they  died  invariably  in  a  few  hours.  The  least  food, 
in  their  exhausted  state,  swells  in  their  throats  and 
suffocates  them.  Poor  curlew!  there  was  a  tender- 
ness in  one  breast  for  him  at  least — a  feeling,  I  have 
the  melancholy  satisfaction  to  know,  fully  reciproca- 
ted by  the  bird  himself — that  seat  of  his  affections 
having  been  allotted  to  me  for  my  breakfast  the  morn- 
ing succeeding  his  demise. 

Oct.  29. — We  have  a  tandem  of  whales  ahead. 
They  have  been  playing  about  the  ship  an  hour,  and 
now  are  coursing  away  to  the  east,  one  after  the  other, 
in  gallant  style.  If  we  could  only  get  them  into  tra- 
ces now,  how  beautiful  it  would  be  to  stand  in  the  fore- 
top  and  drive  a  degree  or  two  on  a  summer  sea  !  It 
would  not  be  more  wonderful,  de  novo,  than  the  dis- 
covery of  the  lightning-rod,  or  navigation  by  steam  ! 
And,  by  the  way,  the  sight  of  these  huge  creatures 
has  made  me  realize,  for  the  first  time,  the  extent  to 
which  the  sea  has  grown  upon  my  mind  during  the 
voyage.  I  have  seen  one  or  two  whales,  exhibited  in 
the  docks,  and  it  seemed  to  me  always  that  they  were 
monsters — out  of  proportion,  entirely,  to  the  range  of 
the  ocean.  I  had  been  accustomed  to  look  out  to 
the  horizon  from  land  (the  radius,  of  course,  as  great 
as  at  sea),  and,  calculating  the  probable  speed  with 
which  they  would  compass  the  diagonal,  and  the  dis- 
turbance they  would  make  in  doing  it,  it  appeared  that 
in  any  considerable  numbers,  they  would  occupy  more 
than  their  share  of  notice  and  sea-room.  Now — after 
sailing  five  days,  at  two  hundred  miles  a  day,  and  not 
meeting  a  single  vessel — it  seems  to  me  that  a  troop 
of  a  thousand  might  swim  the  sea  a  century  and 
chance  to  be  never  crossed,  so  endlessly  does  this  eter- 
nal horizon  open  and  stretch  away  ! 

Oct.  30. — The  day  has  passed  more  pleasantly  than 
usual.  The  man  at  the  helm  cried  "a  sail,"  while 
we  were  at  breakfast,  and  we  gradually  overtook  a 
large  ship,  standing  on  the  same  course,  with  every 
sail  set.  We  were  passing  half  a  mile  to  leeward, 
when  she  put  up  her  helm  and  ran  down  to  us,  hoist- 
ing the  English  flag.  We  raised  the  "star-spangled 
banner"  in  answer,  and  "  hove  too,"  and  she  came 
dashing  along  on  our  quarter,  heaving  most  majesti- 
cally to  the  sea,  till  she  was  near  enough  to  speak  us 
without  a  trumpet.  Her  fore-deck  was  covered  with 
sailors  dressed  all  alike  and  very  neatly,  and  around 
the  gangway  stood  a  large  group  of  officers  in  uni- 
form, the  oldest  of  whom,  a  noble-looking  man  with 
gray  hair,  hailed  and  answered  us.  Several  ladies 
stood  back  by  the  cabin-door— passengers  apparently. 
She  was  a  man-of-war.  sailing  as  a  king's  packet  be- 
tween Halifax  and  Falmouth,  and  had  been  out  from 

i  the  former  port  nineteen  days.  After  the  usual  cour- 
tesies had  passed,  she  bore  away  a  little,  and  then  kept 

I  on  her  course  again,  the  'wo  vessels  in  company  at 


PENCILLINGS  BY  THE  WAY. 


the  distance  of  half  a  pistol  shot.  I  rarely  have  seen 
a  more  beautiful  sight.  The  fine  effect  of  a  ship  un- 
der sail  is  entirely  lost  to  one  on  board,  and  it  is  only 
at  sea  and  under  circumstances  like  these,  that  it  can 
be  observed.  The  power  of  the  swell,  lifting  such  a 
huge  body  as  lightly  as  an  egg-shell  on  its  bosom,  and 
tossing  it  sometimes  half  out  of  water  without  the 
slightest  apparent  effort,  is  astonishing.  I  sat  on  deck 
watching  her  with  undiminished  interest  for  hours. 
Apart  from  the  spectacle,  the  feeling  of  companion- 
ship, meeting  human  beings  in  the  middle  of  the 
ocean  after  so  long  a  deprivation  of  society  (five  days 
without  seeing  a  sail,  and  nearly  three  weeks  unspo- 
ken from  land),  was  delightful.  Our  brig  was  the  fast- 
er sailer  of  the  two,  but  the  captain  took  in  some  of 
his  canvass  for  company's  sake  ;  and  all  the  afternoon 
we  heard  her  half-hour  bells,  and  the  boatswain's 
whistle,  and  the  orders  of  the  officer  of  the  deck,  and 
I  could  distinguish  very  well  with  a  glass,  the  expres- 
sion of  the  faces  watching  our  own  really  beautiful 
vessel  as  she  skimmed  over  the  water  like  a  bird.  We 
parted  at  sunset,  the  man-of-war  making  northerly  for 
her  port,  and  we  stretching  south  for  the  coast  of 
France.  I  watched  her  till  she  went  over  the  horizon, 
and  felt  as  if  I  had  lost  friends  when  the  night  closed 
in  and  we  were  once  more 

M  Alone  on  the  wide,  wide  sea." 

Nov.  3. — We  have  just  made  the  port  of  Havre,  and 
the  pilot  tells  us  that  the  packet  has  been  delayed  by 
contrary  winds,  and  sails  early  to-morrow  morning. 
The  town  bells  are  ringing  "nine"  (as  delightful  a 
sound  as  I  ever  heard,  to  my  sea-weary  ear),  and  I 
close  in  haste,  for  all  is  confusion  on  board. 


LETTER  III. 

Havre. — This  is  one  of  those  places  which  scrib- 
bling travellers  hurry  through  with  a  crisp  mention  of 
their  arrival  and  departure,  but  as  I  have  passed  a  day 
here  upon  customhouse  compulsion,  and  passed  it 
pleasantly  too,  and  as  I  have  an  evening  entirely  to 
myself,  and  a  good  fire,  why  I  will  order  another  pound 
of  wood  (they  sell  it  like  a  drug  here),  and  Monsieur 
and  Mademoiselle  Somebodies,  "  violin  players  right 
from  the  hands  of  Paganini,  only  fifteen  years  of  age, 
and  miracles  of  music"  (so  says  the  placard),  may  de- 
'ight  other  lovers  of  precocious  talent  than  I.  Pen, 
ink,  and  paper,  for  number  two  ! 

If  I  had  not  been  warned  against  being  astonished 
short  of  Paris,  I  should  have  thought  Havre  quite  an 
affair.  I  certainly  have  seen  more  that  is  novel  and 
amusing  since  morning  than  I  ever  saw  before  in  any 
seven  days  of  my  life.  Not  a  face,  not  a  building,  not 
a  dress,  not  a  child  even,  not  a  stone  in  the  street,  nor 
shop,  nor  woman,  nor  beast  of  burden,  looks  in  any 
comparable  degree  like  its  namesake  the  other  side  of 
the  water. 

It  was  very  provoking  to  eat  a  salt  supper  and  go  to 
bed  in  that  tiresome  berth  again  last  night,  with  a 
French  hotel  in  full  view,  and  no  permission  to  send 
for  a  fresh  biscuit  even,  or  a  cup  of  milk.  It  was  nine 
o'clock  when  we  reached  the  pier,  and  at  that  late 
hour  there  was,  of  course,  no  officer  to  be  had  for  per- 
mission to  land;  and  there  paced  the  patrole,  with  his 
high  black  cap  and  red  pompon,  up  and  down  the 
quay,  within  six  feet  of  our  tafferel,  and  a  shot  from  his 
arquebuss  would  have  been  the  consequence  of  any 
unlicensed  communication  with  the  shore.  It  was 
something,  however,  to  sleep  without  rocking;  and 
after  a  fit  of  musing  anticipation,  which  kept  me  con- 


scious of  the  sentinel's  measured  tread  till  midnight, 
the  "  gentle  goddess"  sealed  up  my  cares  effectually, 
and  I  awoke  at  sunrise — in  France  ! 

It  is  a  common  thing  enough  to  go  abroad,  and  it 
may  seem  idle  and  common-place  to  be  enthusiastic 
about  it ;  but  nothing  is  common,  or  a  trifle,  to  me, 
that  can  send  the  blood  so  warm  to  my  heart,  and  the 
color  to  my  temples  as  generously,  as  did  my  first 
conscious  thought  when  I  awoke  this  morning.  In 
France!  I  would  not  have  had  it  a  dream  fo,r  the 
price  of  an  empire  ! 

Early  in  the  morning  a  woman  came  clattering  into 
the  cabin  with  wooden  shoes,  and  a  patois  of  mingled 
French  and  English — a  hlanchisseuse — spattered  to  the 
knees  with  mud,  but  with  a  cap  and  'kerchief  that 
would  have  made  the  fortune  of  a  New-York  milliner. 
del!  what  politeness!  and  what  white  teeth!  and 
what  a  knowing  row  of  papillotes,  laid  in  precise  par- 
allel, on  her  clear  brunette  temples. 

"  Quelle  nouvelle?"  said  the  captain. 

"  Poland  est  a  has!"  was  the  answer,  with  a  look 
of  heroic  sorrow,  that  would  have  become  a  tragedy 
queen,  mourning  for  the  loss  of  a  throne.  The  French 
manner,  for  once,  did  not  appear  exaggerated.  It  was 
news  to  sadden  us  all.  Pity  !  pity  !  that  the  broad 
Christian  world  could  look  on  and  see  this  glorious 
people  trampled  to  the  dust  in  one  of  the  most  noble 
and  desperate  struggles  for  liberty  that  the  earth  ever 
saw  !  What  an  opportunity  was  here  lost  to  France 
for  setting  a  seal  of  double  truth  and  splendor  on  her 
own  newly-achieved  triumph  over  despotism.  The 
washerwoman  broke  the  silence  with  "  Any  clothes  to 
wash,  monsieur  ?"  and  in  the  instant  return  of  my 
thoughts  to  my  own  comparatively-pitiful  interests,  I 
found  the  philosophy  for  all  I  had  condemned  in  kings 
— the  humiliating  and  selfish  individuality  of  human 
nature.  And  yet  I  believe  with  Dr.  Channing  on  that 
dogma  ! 

At  ten  o'clock  I  had  performed  the  traveller's  rou 
tine — had  submitted  my  trunk  and  my  passport  to  the 
three  authorities,  and  had  got  into  (and  out  of)  as 
many  mounting  passions  at  what  seemed  to  me  the 
intolerable  impertinences  of  searching  my  linen,  and 
inspecting  my  person  for  scars.  I  had  paid  the  portei 
three  times  his  due  rather  than  endure  his  cataract  of 
French  expostulation  ;  and  with  a  bunch  of  keys,  and 
a  landlady  attached  to  it,  had  ascended  by  a  cold,  wet, 
marble  staircase,  to  a  parlor  and  bedroom  on  the  fifth 
floor ;  as  pretty  a  place,  when  you  get  there,  and  as 
difficult  to  get  to  as  if  it  were  a  palace  in  thin  air.  It 
is  perfectly  French  !  Fine,  old,  last-century  chairs, 
covered  with  splendid  yellow  damask,  two  sofas  of  the 
same,  the  legs  or  arms  of  every  one  imperfect ;  a  coarse 
wood  dressing-table,  covered  with  fringed  drapery  and 
a  sort  of  throne  pincushion,  with  an  immense  glass 
leaning  over  it,  gilded  probably  in  the  time  of  Henri 
Quatre  ;  artificial  flowers  all  round  the  room,  and 
prints  of  Atala  and  Napoleon  mourant  over  the  walls  ; 
windows  opening  to  the  floor  on  hinges,  damask  and 
muslin  curtains  inside,  and  boxes  for  flower-pots  with- 
out ;  a  bell-wire  that  pulls  no  bell,  a  bellows  too  asth- 
matic even  to  wheeze,  tongs  that  refuse  to  meet,  and 
a  carpet  as  large  as  a  table-cloth  in  the  centre  of 
the  floor,  may  answer  for  an  inventory  of  the  "  par- 
lor." The  bedchamber,  about  half  as  large  as  the 
boxes  in  Rattle-row  at  Saratoga,  opens  by  folding- 
doors,  and  discloses  a  bed,  that  for  tricksy  ornament 
as  well  as  size  might  look  the  bridal  couch  for  a  faery 
queen  in  a  panorama  ;  the  same  golden-sprig  damask 
looped  over  it,  tent-fashion,  with  splendid  crimson 
cord,  tassels,  fringes,  etc.,  and  a  pillow  beneath  that  1 
shall  be  afraid  to  sleep  on,  it  is  so  dainty  a  piece  of 
needlework.  There  is  a  delusion  about  it,  positively. 
One  can  not  help  imagining  that  all  this  splendor 
means  something,  and  it  would  require  a  worse  evil 
than  any  of  these  little  deficiencies  of  comfort  to  dis- 


PENCILLINGS  BY  THE  WAY. 


turb  the  self-complacent,  Captain-Jackson  sort  of 
feeling,  with  which  one  throws  his  cloak  on  one  sofa 
and  his  hat  on  the  other,  and  spreads  himself  out 
for  a  lounge  before  this  mere  apology  of  a  French 
fire. 

But  for  eating  and  drinking !  if  they  cook  better  in 
Paris,  I  shall  have  my  passport  altered.  The  next 
prefet  that  signs  it  shall  substitute  gourmand  for  pro- 
pnetaire.  I  will  profess  a  palate,  and  live  to  eat. 
Making  every  allowance  for  an  appetite  newly  from 
sea,  my  experience  hitherto  in  this  department  of 
science  is  transcended  in  the  degree  of  a  rushlight  to 
Arcturus. 

I  strolled  about  Havre  from  breakfast  till  dinner, 
seven  or  eight  hours,  following  curiosity  at  random, 
up  one  street  and  down  another,  with  a  prying  avidity 
which  I  fear  travel  will  wear  fast  away.  I  must  com- 
press my  observations  into  a  sentence  or  two,  for  my 
fire  is  out,  and  this  old  castle  of  a  hotel  lets  in  the 
wind  "  shrewdly  cold,"  and,  besides,  the  diligence  calls 
for  me  in  a  few  hours,  and  one  must  sleep. 

Among  my  impressions  the  most  vivid  are — that  of 
the  twenty  thousand  inhabitants  of  Havre,  by  far  the 
greater  portion  are  women  and  soldiers — that  the  build- 
ings all  look  toppling,  and  insecurely  antique  and  un- 
sightly— that  the  privates  of  the  regular  army  are  the 
most  stupid,  and  those  of  the  national  guard  the  most 
intelligent-looking  troops  I  ever  saw — that  the  streets 
are  filthy  beyond  endurance,  and  the  shops  clean  be- 
yond all  praise — that  the  women  do  all  the  buying  and 
selling,  and  cart-driving,  and  sweeping,  and  even  shoe- 
making,  and  other  sedentary  craftswork,  and  at  the 
same  time  have  (the  meanest  of  them)  an  air  of  ambi- 
tious elegance  and  neatness,  that  sends  your  hand  to 
your  hat  involuntarily  when  you  speak  to  them — that 
the  children  speak  French,  and  look  like  little  old 
men  and  women,  and  the  horses  (the  famed  Norman 
breed)  are  the  best  of  draught  animals,  and  the  worst 
for  speed  in  the  world — and  that  for  extremes  ridicu- 
lously near,  dirt  and  neatness,  politeness  and  knavery, 
chivalry  and  pelitesse,  of  learning  and  language,  the 
people  I  have  seen  to-day  must  be  pre-eminently  re- 
markable, or  France,  for  a  laughing  philosopher,  is  a 
paradise  indeed  !  And  now  for  my  pillow,  till  the  dil- 
igence calls.     Good  night. 


LETTER  IV. 

Paris. — It  seems  to  me  as  if  I  were  going  back  a 
*nonth  to  recall  my  departure  from  Havre,  my  mem- 
ory is  so  clouded  with  later  incidents.  I  was  awaked 
on  the  morning  after  I  had  written  to  you  by  a  ser- 
vant, who  brought  me  at  the  same  time  a  cup  of  cof- 
fee, and  at  about  an  hour  before  daylight  we  were 
passing  through  the  huge  gates  of  the  town  on  our 
way  to  Paris.  The  whole  business  of  diligence-trav- 
elling amused  me  exceedingly.  The  construction  of 
this  vehicle  has  been  often  described  ;  but  its  separate 
apartments  (at  four  different  prices),  its  enormous  size, 
its  comfort  and  clumsiness,  and,  more  than  all,  the 
driving  of  its  postillions,  struck  me  as  equally  novel 
and  diverting.  This  last-mentioned  performer  on  the 
whip  and  voice  (the  only  two  accomplishments  he  at 
all  cultivates),  rides  one  of  the  three  wheel-horses,  and 
drives  the  four  or  seven  which  are  in  advance,  as  a 
grazier  in  our  country  drives  a  herd  of  cattle,  and 
they  travel  very  much  in  the  same  manner.  There  is 
leather  enough  in  two  of  their  clumsy  harnesses,  to 
say  nothing  of  the  postillion's  boots,  to  load  a  com- 
mon horse  heavily.  I  never  witnessed  such  a  ludi- 
crous absence  of  contrivance  and  tact  as  in  the  appoint- 


ments and  driving  of  horses  in  a  diligence.  It  is  so  in 
everything  in  France,  indeed.  They  do  not  possess 
the  quality,  as  a  nation.  The  story  of  the  Gascoigne, 
who  saw  a  bridge  for  the  first  time,  and  admired  the 
ingenious  economy  that  placed  it  across  the  river,  in- 
stead of  lengthwise,  is  hardly  an  exaggeration. 

At  daylight  I  found  myself  in  the  coupe  (a  single 
seat  for  three  in  the  front  of  the  body  of  the  carriage, 
with  windows  before  and  at  the  sides),  with  two  whis- 
kered and  mustached  companions,  both  very  polite, 
and  very  unintelligible.  I  soon  suspected,  by  the 
science  with  which  my  neighbor  on  the  left  hummed 
little  snatches  of  popular  operas,  that  he  was  a  pro- 
fessed singer  (a  conjecture  which  proved  true),  and  it 
was  equally  clear,  from  the  complexion  of  the  port- 
feuille  on  the  lap  of  the  other,  that  his  vocation  was  a 
liberal  one — a  conjecture  which  proved  true  also,  as 
he  confessed  himself  a  diplomat,  when  we  became 
better  acquainted.  For  the  first  hour  or  more  my  at- 
tention was  divided  between  the  dim  but  beautiful  out- 
line of  the  country  by  the  slowly-approaching  light  of 
the  dawn,  and  my  nervousness  at  the  distressing  want 
!  of  skill  in  the  postillion's  driving.  The  increasing  and 
singular  beauty  of  the  country,  even  under  the  disad- 
vantage of  rain  and  the  late  season,  soon  absorbed  all 
my  attention,  however,  and  my  involuntary  and  half- 
suppressed  exclamations  of  pleasure,  so  unusual  in  an 
Englishman  (for  whom  I  found  I  was  taken),  warmed 
the  diplomatist  into  conversation,  and  I  passed  the 
three  ensuing  hours  very  pleasantly.  My  companion 
was  on  his  return  from  Lithuania,  having  been  sent 
out  by  the  French  committee  with  arms  and  money 
for  Poland.  He  was,  of  course,  a  most  interesting 
fellow-traveller ;  and,  allowing  for  the  difficulty  with 
which  I  understood  the  language,  in  the  rapid  articu- 
lation of  an  enthusiastic  Frenchman,  I  rarely  have 
been  better  pleased  with  a  chance  acquaintance.  I 
found  he  had  been  in  Greece  during  the  revolution, 

and  knew  intimately  my  friend,  Dr.  H ,  the  best 

claim  he  could  have  on  my  interest,  and  I  soon  di„- 
covered  an  answering  recommendation  of  myself  to 
him. 

The  province  of  Normandy  is  celebrated  for  its  pic- 
turesque beauty,  but  I  had  no  conception  before  of 
the  cultivated  picturesque  of  an  old  country.  I  have 
been  a  great  scenery-hunter  in  America,  and  my  eye 
was  new,  like  its  hills  and  forests.  The  massive,  bat- 
tlemented  buildings  of  the  small  villages  we  passed 
through,  the  heavy  gateways  and  winding  avenues  and 
antique  structure  of  the  distant  and  half-hidden  cha- 
teaux, the  perfect  cultivation,  and,  to  me,  singular  ap- 
pearance of  a  whole  landscape  without  a  fence  or  a 
stone,  the  absence  of  all  that  we  define  by  comfort  and 
neatness,  and  the  presence  of  all  that  we  have  seen  in 
pictures  and  read  of  in  books,  but  consider  as  the  rep- 
resentations and  descriptions  of  ages  gone  by — all 
seemed  to  me  irresistibly  like  a  dream.  I  could  not 
rub  my  hand  over  my  eyes,  and  realize  myself.  I 
could  not  believe  that,  within  a  month's  voyage  of  my 
home,  these  spirit-stirring  places  had  stood  all  my  life- 
time as  they  do,  and  have  for  ages,  every  stone  as  it 
was  laid  in  times  of  worm-eaten  history,  and  looking 
to  my  eyes  now  as  they  did  to  the  eyes  of  knights  and 
dames  in  the  days  of  French  chivalry.  I  looked  at  the 
constantly-occurring  ruins  of  the  old  pnories,  and  the 
magnificent  and  still-used  churches,  and  my  blood 
tingled  in  my  veins,  as  I  saw  in  the  stepping-stones  at 
their  doors  cavities  that  the  sandals  of  monks,  and  the 
iron-shod  feet  of  knights  in  armor  a  thousand  years 
I  ago,  had  trodden  and  helped  to  wear,  and  the  stone 
J  cross  over  the  threshold,  that  hundreds  of  generations 
I  had  gazed  upon  and  passed  under. 

By  a  fortunate  chanc"  'he  postillion  left  the  usual 
!  route  at  Balbec,  and  pursued  what  appeared  to  be  a 
I  by-road  through  the  grain-fields  and  vineyards  for 
!  twenty  or  twenty-five  miles.     I  can  only  describe  it  as 


PENCILLINGS  BY  THE  WAY. 


an  uninterrupted  green  lane,  winding  almost  the  whole 
distance  through  the  bosom  of  a  valley  that  must  be 
one  of*  the  very  loveliest  in  the  world.  Imagine  one 
of  such  extent,  without  a  fence  to  break  the  broad 
swells  of  verdure,  stretching  up  from  the  winding  and 
unenclosed  road  on  either  side,  to  the  apparent  sky  ; 
the  houses  occurring  at  distances  of  miles,  and  every 
one  with  its  thatched  roof  covered  all  over  with  bright 
green  moss,  and  its  walls  of  marl  interlaid  through  all 
the  crevices  with  clinging  vines,  the  whole  structure 
and  its  appurtenances  faultlessly  picturesque,  and  when 
you  have  conceived  a  valley  that  might  have  content- 
ed Rasselas,  scatter  over  it  here  and  there  groups  of 
men,  women,  and  children,  the  Norman  peasantry  in 
their  dresses  of  all  colors,  as  you  see  them  in  the  prints 
— and  if  there  is  anything  that  can  better  please  the 
eye,  or  make  the  imagination  more  willing  to  fold  up 
its  wings  and  rest,  my  travels  have  not  crossed  it.  I 
have  recorded  a  vow  to  walk  through  Normandy. 

As  we  approached  Rouen  the  road  ascended  grad- 
ually, and  a  sharp  turn  brought  us  suddenly  to  the 
brow  of  a  steep  hill,  opposite  another  of  the  same 
height,  and  with  the  same  abrupt  descent,  at  the  dis- 
tance of  a  mile  across.  Between  lay  Rouen.  1  hard- 
ly know  how  to  describe,  for  American  eyes,  the  pe- 
culiar beauty  of  this  view  ;  one  of  the  most  exquisite, 
I  am  told,  in  all  France.  A  town  at  the  foot  of  a  hill 
is  common  enough  in  our  country,  but  of  the  hun- 
dreds that  answer  to  this  description,  I  can  not  name 
one  that  would  afford  a  correct  comparison.  '  The 
nice  and  excessive  cultivation  of  the  grounds  in  so  old 
a  country  gives  the  landscape  a  complexion  essentially 
different  from  ours.  If  there  were  another  Mount 
Holyoke,  for  instance,  on  the  other  side  of  the  Con- 
necticut, the  situation  of  Northampton  would  be  very 
similar  to  that  of  Rouen;  but,  instead  of  the  rural  vil- 
lage, with  its  glimpses  of  white  houses  seen  through 
rich  and  luxurious  masses  of  foliage,  the  mountain 
6ides  above  broken  with  rocks,  and  studded  with  the 
gigantic  and  untouched  relics  of  the  native  forest,  and 
the  fields  below  waving  with  heavy  crops,  irregularly 
fenced  and  divided,  the  whole  picture  one  of  an  over- 
lavish  and  half-subdued  Eden  of  fertility  ;  instead  of 
this,  I  say,  the  broad  meadows,  with  the  winding  Seine 
in  their  bosom,  are  as  trim  as  a  girl's  flower-garden, 
the  grass  closely  cut,  and  of  a  uniform  surface  of  green, 
the  edges  of  the  river  set  regularly  with  willows,  the 
little  bright  islands  circled  with  trees,  and  smooth  as  a 
lawn  ;  and  instead  of  green  lanes  lined  with  bushes, 
single  streets  running  right  through  the  unfenced  ver- 
dure from  one  hill  to  another,  and  built  up  with  an- 
tique structures  of  stone,  the  whole  looking,  in  the 
coup  d'ceil  of  distance,  like  some  fantastic  model  of  a 
town,  with  gothic  houses  of  sand-paper,  and  meadows 
of  silk  velvet. 

You  will  find  the  size,  population,  etc.,  of  Rouen  in 
the  guide-books.  As  my  object  is  to  record  impres- 
sions, not  statistics,  I  leave  you  to  consult  those  laco- 
nic chronicles,  or  the  books  of  a  thousand  travellers, 
for  all  such  information.  The  Maid  of  Orleans  was 
burnt  here,  as  you  know,  in  the  fourteenth  century. 
There  is  a  statue  erected  to  her  memory,  which  I  did 
not  see,  for  it  rained  ;  and  after  the  usual  stop  of  two 
hours,  as  the  barometer  promised  no  change  in  the 
weather,  and  as  I  was  anxious  to  be  in  Paris,  I  took 
my  place  in  the  night  diligence,  and  kept  on. 

I  amused  myself  till  dark  watching  the  streams  that 
poured  into  the  broad  mouth  of  the  postillion's  boots 
from  every  part  of  his  dress,  and  musing  on  the  fate 
of  the  poor  Maid  of  Orleans  ;  and  then,  sinking  down 
into  the  comfortable  corner  of  the  coupe,  I  slept  almost 
without  interruption  till  the  next  morning — the  best 
comment  in  the  world  on  the  only  comfortable  thing  I 
have  yet  seen  in  France,  a  diligence. 

It  is  a  pleasant  thing  in  a  foreign  land  to  see  the  fa- 
miliar face  of  the  sun  ;  and  as  he  rose  over  a  distant 


hill  on  the  left,  I  lifted  the  window  of  the  coupe  to  let 
him  in,  as  I  would  open  the  door  to  a  long-missed 
friend.  He  soon  reached  a  heavy  cloud,  however,  and 
my  hopes  of  bright  weather  when  we  should  enter  the 
metropolis  departed.  It  began  to  rain  again  ;  and  the 
postillion,  after  his  blue  cotton  frock  was  soaked 
through,  put  on  his  great-coat  over  it — an  economy 
which  is  peculiarly  French,  and  which  I  observed  in 
every  succeeding  postillion  on  the  route.  The  last 
twenty-five  miles  to  Paris  are  uninteresting  to  the  eye  ; 
and  with  my  own  pleasant  thoughts,  tinct  as  they  were 
with  the  brightness  of  immediate  anticipation,  and  an 
occasional  laugh  at  the  grotesque  figures  and  equip- 
ages on  the  road,  I  made  myself  passably  contented 
till  we  entered  the  suburb  of  St.  Denis. 

It  is  something  to  see  the  outside  of  a  sepulchre  for 
kings,  and  the  old  abbey  of  Saint  Denis  needs  no  as- 
sociation to  make  a  sight  of  it  worth  many  a  mile  of 
weary  travel.  I  could  not  stop  within  four  miles  of 
Paris,  however,  and  I  contented  myself  with  running 
to  get  a  second  view  of  it  in  the  rain  while  the  postil- 
lion breathed  his  horses.  The  strongest  association 
about  it,  old  and  magnificent  as  it  is,  is  the  fact,  that 
Napoleon  repaired  it  after  the  revolution  ;  and  stand- 
ing in  probably  the  finest  point  for  its  front  view,  my 
heart  leaped  to  my  throat  as  I  fancied  that  Napoleon, 
with  his  mighty  thoughts,  had  stood  in  that  very  spot, 
possibly,  and  contemplated  the  glorious  old  pile  before 
me  as  the  place  of  his  future  repose. 

After  four  miles  more,  over  a  broad  straight  avenue, 
paved  in  the  centre  and  edged  with  trees,  we  arrived 
at  the  Porte  St.  Denis.  I  was  exceedingly  struck 
with  the  grandeur  of  the  gate  as  we  passed  under,  and 
referring  to  the  guide-book  I  find  it  was  a  triumphal 
arch  erected  to  Louis  XIV.,  and  the  one  by  which 
the  kings  of  France  invariably  enter.  This  also  was 
restored  by  Napoleon,  with  his  infallible  taste,  without 
changing  its  design  ;  and  it  is  singular  how  everything 
that  great  man  touched  became  his  own,  for  who  re- 
members for  whom  it  was  raised  while  he  is  told  who 
employed  his  great  intellect  in  its  repairs  ? 

I  entered  Paris  on  Sunday  at  eleven  o'clock.  I 
never  should  have  recognised  the  day.  The  shops 
were  all  open,  the  artificers  all  at  work,  the  unintelli- 
gible criers  vociferating  their  wares,  and  the  people  in 
their  working-day  dresses.  We  wound  through  street 
after  street,  narrow  and  dark  and  dirty,  and  with  my 
mind  full  of  the  splendid  views  of  squares,  and  col- 
umns, and  bridges,  as  I  had  seen  them  in  the  prints,  I 
could  scarce  believe  I  was  in  Paris.  A  turn  brought 
us  into  a  large  court,  that  of  the  Messagerie,  the  place 
at  which  all  travellers  are  set  down  on  arrival.  Here 
my  baggage  was  once  more  inspected,  and,  after  a 
half-hour's  delay,  I  was  permitted  to  get  into  a  fiacre, 
and  drive  to  a  hotel.  As  one  is  a  specimen  of  all,  I 
may  as  well  describe  the  Hotel  d'Etrangcrs,  Rue  Vi- 
vienne,  which,  by  the  way,  I  take  the  liberty  at  the 
same  time  to  recommend  to  my  friends.  It  is  the  pre- 
cise centre  for  the  convenience  of  sight-seeing,  admir- 
ably kept,  and,  being  nearly  opposite  Galignani's,  that 
bookstore  of  Europe,  is  a  very  pleasant  resort  for  the 
half  hour  before  dinner,  or  a  rainy  day.  I  went  there 
at  the  instance  of  my  friend  the  diplomat. 

The  fiacre  stopped  before  an  arched  passage,  and  a 
fellow  in  livery,  who  had  followed  me  from  the  Mes- 
sagerie (probably  in  the  double  character  of  porter  and 
police  agent,  as  my  passport  was  yet  to  bedemanded), 
took  my  trunk  into  a  small  office  on  the  left,  over 
which  was  written  "  Concierge."  This  person,  who  is 
a  kind  of  respectable  doorkeeper,  addressed  me  in 
broken  English,  without  waiting  for  the  evidence  of 
my  tongue  that  I  was  a  foreigner,  and,  after  inquiring 
at  what  price  I  would  have  room,  introduced  me  to  the 
landlady,  who  took  me  across  a  large  court  (the  hous- 
es are  built  round,  the  yard  always  in  France),  to  the 
corresponding  story  of  the   house.     The   room  was 


PENC1LLINGS  BY  THE  WAY. 


quite  pretty,  with  its  looking-glasses  and  curtains,  but 
there  was  no  carpet,  and  the  fireplace  was  ten  feet 
deep.  I  asked  to  see  another,  and  another,  and  anoth- 
er ;  they  were  all  curtains,  and  looking-glasses,  and 
stone  floors  !  There  is  no  wearying  a  Frenchwoman, 
and  I  pushed  my  modesty  till  I  found  a  chamber  to 
my  taste — a  nutshell,  to  be  sure,  but  carpeted — and 
bowing  my  polite  housekeeper  out,  I  rang  for  break- 
fast and  was  at  home  in  Paris  ! 

There  are  few  things  bought  with  money  that  are 
more  delightful  than  a  French  breakfast.  If  you  take  it 
at  your  room,  it  appears  in  the  shape  of  two  small  ves- 
sels, one  of  coffee  and  one  of  hot  milk,  two  kinds  of 
bread,  with  a  thin,  printed  slice  of  butter,  and  one  or 
two  of  some  thirty  dishes  from  which  you  choose,  the 
latter  flavored  exquisitely  enough  to  make  one  wish 
to  be  always  at  breakfast,  but  cooked  and  composed  I 
know  not  how  or  of  what.  The  coffee  has  an  aroma 
peculiarly  exquisite,  something  quite  different  from 
any  I  ever  tasted  before  ;  and  the  pelitc-pain,  a  slender 
biscuit  between  bread  and  cake,  is,  when  crisp  and 
warm,  a  delightful  accompaniment.  All  this  costs 
about  one  third  as  much  as  the  beefsteaks  and  coffee 
in  America,  at  the  same  time  that  you  are  waited  up- 
on with  a  civility  that  is  worth  three  times  the  money. 

It  still  rained  at  noon,  and  finding  that  the  usual 
dinner  hour  was  five  I  took  my  umbrella  for  a  walk. 
In  a  strange  city  I  prefer  always  to  stroll  about  at  haz- 
ard, coming  unawares  upon  what  is  fine  or  curious. 
The  hackneyed  descriptions  in  the  guidebooks  profane 
the  spirit  of  a  place,  I  never  look  at  them  till  after  I 
have  found  the  object,  and  then  only  for  dates.  The 
Rue  Vivienne  was  crowded  with  people,  as  I  emerged 
from  the  dark  archway  of  the  hotel  to  pursue  my  wan- 
derings. 

A  walk  of  this  kind,  by  the  way,  shows  one  a  great 
deal  of  novelty.  In  France  there  are  no  shop-men. 
No  matter  what  the  article  of  trade — hats,  boots,  pic- 
tures, books,  jewellery,  anything  and  everything  that 
gentlemen  buy — you  are  waited  upon  by  girls,  always 
handsome,  and  always  dressed  in  the  height  of  the 
mode.  They  sit  on  damask-covered  settees,  behind 
the  counters  ;  and  when  you  enter,  bow  and  rise  to 
serve  you,  with  a  grace  and  a  smile  of  courtesy  that 
would  become  a  drawing-room.  And  this  is  uni- 
versal. 

I  strolled  on  until  I  entered  a  narrow  passage,  pen- 
etrating a  long  line  of  buildings.  It  was  thronged  with 
people,  and  passing  in  with  the  rest,  I  found  myself 
unexpectedly  in  a  scene  that  equally  surprised  and 
delighted  me.  It  was  a  spacious  square  enclosed  by 
one  entire  building.  The  area  was  laid  out  as  a  garden, 
planted  with  long  avenues  of  trees  and  beds  of  flowers, 
and  in  the  centre  a  fountain  was  playing  in  the  shape 
of  a  Jleur-de-lis,  with  a  jet  about  forty  feet  in  height. 
A  superb  colonnade  ran  round  the  whole  square,  ma- 
king a  covered  gallery  of  the  lower  story,  which  was 
occupied  by  shops  of  the  most  splendid  appearance, 
and  thronged  through  its  long  sheltered  paves  by  thou- 
sands of  gay  promenaders.  It  was  the  far-famed  Pal- 
ais Royal.  I  remembered  the  description  I  had  heard 
of  its  gambling-houses,  and  facilities  for  every  vice, 
and  looked  with  a  new  surprise  on  its  Aladdin-like 
magnificence.  The  hundreds  of  beautiful  pillars, 
stretching  away  from  the  eye  in  long  and  distant  per- 
spective, the  crowd  of  citizens,  and  women,  and  offi- 
cers in  full  uniform,  passing  and  repassing  with  French 
liveliness  and  politeness,  the  long  windows  of  plated 
glass  glittering  with  jewellery,  and  bright  with  every- 
thing to  tempt  the  fancy,  the  tall  sentinels  pacing  be- 
tween the  columns,  and  the  fountain  turning  over  its 
clear  waters  with  a  fall  audible  above  the  tread  and 
voices  of  the  thousands  who  walked  around  it — who 
could  look  upon  such  a  scene  and  believe  it  what  it  is, 
the  most  corrupt  spot,  probably,  on  the  face  of  the 
civilized  world  ? 


LETTER  V. 


THE    LODVRE AMERICAN    ARTISTS    I.N    PARIS  —  POL! 

TICS,  ETC. 

The  salient  object  in  my  idea  of  Paris  has  always 
been  the  Louvre.  I  have  spent  some  hours  in  its 
vast  gallery  to-day,  and  I  am  sure  it  will  retain  the 
same  prominence  in  my  recollections.  The  whole 
palace  is  one  of  the  oldest,  and  said  to  be  one  of  the 
finest,  in  Europe  ;  and,  if  I  may  judge  by  its  impres- 
siveness,  the  vast  inner  court  (the  facades  of  which 
were  restored  to  their  original  simplicity  by  Napo- 
leon), is  a  specimen  of  high  architectural  perfection. 
One  could  hardly  pass  through  it  without  being  better 
fitted  to  see  the  masterpieces  of  art  within  ;  and  it 
requires  this,  and  all  the  expansiveness  of  which  the 
mind  is  capable  besides,  to  walk  through  the  Musec 
Roy  ale  without  the  painful  sense  of  a  magnificence 
beyond  the  grasp  of  the  faculties. 

I  delivered  my  passport  at  the  door  of  the  palace, 
and,  as  is  customary,  recorded  my  name,  country,  and 
profession  in  the  book,  and  proceeded  to  the  gallery. 
The  grand  double  staircase,  one  part  leading  to  the 
private  apartments  of  the  royal  household,  is  described 
voluminously  in  the  authorities  ;  and,  truly,  for  one 
who  has  been  accustomed  to  convenient  dimensions 
only,  its  breadth,  its  lofty  ceilings,  its  pillars  and  stat- 
uary, its  mosaic  pavements  and  splendid  windows,  are 
enough  to  unsettle  for  ever  the  standards  of  size  and 
grandeur.  The  strongest  feeling  one  has  as  he  stops 
half  way  up  to  look  about  him,  is  the  ludicrous  dis- 
proportion between  it  and  the  size  of  the  inhabiting 
animals.  I  should  smile  to  see  any  man  ascend  such 
a  staircase,  except,  perhaps,  Napoleon. 

Passing  through  a  kind  of  entrance-hall,  I  came  to 
a  spacious  salle  ronde,  lighted  from  the  ceiling,  and 
hung  principally  with  pictures  of  a  large  size,  one  of 
the  most  conspicuous  of  which,  "  The  Wreck,"  has 
been  copied  by  an  American  artist,  Mr.  Cooke,  and 
is  now  exhibiting  in  New  York.  It  is  one  of  the  best 
of  the  French  school,  and  very  powerfully  conceived. 
I  regret,  however,  that  he  did  not  prefer  the  wonder- 
fully fine  piece  opposite,  which  is  worth  all  the  pic- 
tures ever  painted  in  France,  "  The  Marriage  Supper 
at  Cana."  The  left  wing  of  the  table,  projected  tow- 
ard the  spectator,  with  the  seven  or  eight  guests 
who  occupy  it,  absolutely  stands  out  into  the  hall. 
It  seems  impossible  that  color  and  drawing  upon  a  flat 
surface  can  so  cheat  the  eye. 

From  the  salle  ronde  on  the  right  opens  the  grand 
gallery,  which,  after  the  lesson  I  had  just  received  in 
perspective,  I  took,  at  the  first  glance,  to  be  a  paint- 
ing. You  will  realize  the  facility  of  the  deception 
when  you  consider  that,  with  a  breadth  of  but  forty- 
two  feet,  this  gallery  is  one  thousand  three  hundred 
and  thirty-two  feet  (more  than  a  quarter  of  a  mile)  in 
length.  The  floor  is  of  tesselated  woods,  polished 
with  wax  like  a  table  ;  and  along  its  glassy  surface 
were  scattered  perhaps  a  hundred  visiters,  gazing  at 
the  pictures  in  varied  attitudes,  and  with  sizes  reduced 
in  proportion  to  their  distance,  the  farthest  off  looking 
in  the  long  perspective  like  pigmies  of  the  most  dimin- 
utive description.  It  is  like  a  matchless  painting  to 
the  eye  after  all.  The  ceiling  is  divided  by  nine  or 
ten  arches,  standing  each  on  four  Corinthian  columns, 
projecting  into  the  area,  and  the  natural  perspective 
of  these,  and  the  artists  scattered  from  oue  end  to  the 
other,  copying  silently  at  their  easels ;  and  a  soldier 
at  every  division,  standing  upon  his  guard,  quite  as 
silent  and  motionless,  would  make  it  difficult  to  con- 
vince a  spectator,  who  was  led  blindfold  and  unpre- 
pared to  the  entrance,  that  it  was  not  some  superb 
diorama,  figures  and  all. 

I  found  our  distinguished  countryman,  Morse,  copy- 
ing a  beautiful!  Murillo  at  the  end  of  the  gallery.     H« 


PENCILLINGS  BY  THE  WAY. 


is  also  engaged  upon  a  Raffaelle  for  Cooper,  the  nov- 
elist. Among;  the  French  artists,  I  noticed  several 
soldiers,  and  some  twenty  or  thirty  females,  the  latter 
with  every  mark  in  their  countenances  of  absorbed 
and  extreme  application.  There  was  a  striking  differ- 
ence in  this  respect  between  them  and  the  artists  of 
the  other  sex.  With  the  single  exception  of  a  lovely 
girl,  drawing  from  a  Madonna,  by  Guido,  and  pro- 
tected by  the  presence  of  an  elderly  companion,  these 
lady-painters  were  anything  but  interesting  in  their 
appearance. 

Greenough,  the  sculptor,  is  in  Paris,  and  engaged 
just  now  in  taking  the  bust  of  an  Italian  lady.  His 
reputation  is  very  enviable  ;  and  his  passion  for  his 
art,  together  with  his  untiring  industry  and  his  fine 
natural  powers,  will  work  him  up  to  something  that 
will,  before  long,  be  an  honor  to  our  country.  If  the 
wealthy  men  of  taste  in  America  would  give  Green- 
ough liberal  orders  for  his  time  and  talents,  and  send 
out  Augur,  of  New  Haven,  to  Italy,  they  would  do 
more  to  advance  this  glorious  art  in  our  country,  than 
by  expending  ten  times  the  sum  in  any  other  way. 
They  are  both  men  of  rare  genius,  and  both  ardent 
and  diligent,  and  they  are  both  cramped  by  the  uni- 
versal curse  of  genius — necessity.  The  Americans  in 
Paris  are  deliberating  at  present  on  some  means  for 
expressing  unitedly  to  our  government  their  interest 
in  Greenough,  and  their  appreciation  of  his  merit  of 
public  and  private  patronage.  For  the  love  of  true 
taste,  do  everything  in  your  power  to  second  such  an 
appeal  when  it  comes. 

It  is  a  queer  feeling  to  find  oneself  a  foreigner. 
One  can  not  realize  long  at  a  time  how  his  face  or  his 
manners  should  have  become  peculiar ;  and  after  look- 
ing at  a  print  for  five  minutes  in  a  shop-window,  or 
dipping  into  an  English  book,  or  in  any  manner  throw- 
ing off  the  mental  habit  of  the  instant,  the  curious  gaze 
of  the  passer-by,  or  the  accent  of  a  strange  language, 
strikes  one  very  singularly.  Paris  is  full  of  foreigners 
of  all  nations,  and  of  course  physiognomies  of  all  char- 
acters may  be  met  everywhere  ;  but,  differing  as  the 
European  nations  do  decidedly  from  each  other,  they 
differ  still  more  from  the  American.  Our  country- 
men, as  a  class,  are  distinguishable  wherever  they  are 
met ;  not  as  Americans  however,  for  of  the  habits  and 
manners  of  our  country,  people  know  nothing  this 
side  the  water.  But  there  is  something  in  an  Ameri- 
can face,  of  which  I  never  was  aware  till  I  met  them 
in  Europe,  that  is  altogether  peculiar.  The  French 
take  the  Americans  to  be  English  ;  but  an  English- 
man, while  he  presumes  him  his  countryman,  shows 
a  curiosity  to  know  who  he  is,  which  is  very  foreign 
to  his  usual  indifference.  As  far  as  I  can  analyze  it, 
V  is  the  independent,  self-possessed  bearing  of  a  man 
unused  to  look  up  to  any  one  as  his  superior  in  rank, 
united  to  the  inquisitive,  sensitive,  communicative  ex- 
pression which  is  the  index  to  our  national  character. 
The  first  is  seldom  possessed  in  England  but  by  a  man 
of  decided  rank,  and  the  latter  is  never  possessed  by  an 
Englishman  at  all.  The  two  are  united  in  no  other 
nation.  Nothing  is  easier  than  to  tell  the  rank  of 
an  Englishman,  and  nothing  puzzles  a  European 
more  than  to  know  how  to  rate  the  pretensions  of  an 
American. 

On  my  way  home  from  the  Boulevards  this  even- 
ing, 1  was  fortunate  enough  to  pass  through  the  grand 
court  of  the  Louvre,  at  the  moment  when  the  moon 
broke  through  the  clouds  that  have  concealed  her  own 
light  and  the  sun's  ever  since  I  have  been  in  France. 
I  had  often  stopped,  in  passing  the  sentinels  at  the 
entrance,  to  admire  the  grandeur  of  the  interior  to  this 
oldest  of  the  royal  palaces ;  but  to-night,  my  dead  halt 
within  the  shadow  of  the  arch,  as  the  view  broke  upon 
my  eye,  and  my  sudden  exclamation  in  English,  star- 


tled the  grenadier,  and  he  had  half  presented  his  mus- 
ket, when  I  apologized,  and  passed  on.  It  was  magic- 
ally beautiful  indeed !  and  with  the  moonlight  pouring 
obliquely  into  the  sombre  area,  lying  full  upon  the 
taller  of  the  three  facades,  and  drawing  its  soft  line 
across  the  rich  windows  and  massive  pilasters  and 
arches  of  the  eastern  and  western,  while  the  remain- 
ing front  lay  in  the  heavy  black  shadow  of  relief,  it 
seemed  to  me  more  like  an  accidental  regularity  in 
some  rocky  glen  of  America,  than  a  pile  of  human 
design  and  proportion.  It  is  strange  how  such  high 
walls  shut  out  the  world.  The  court  of  the  Louvre  is 
in  the  very  centre  of  the  busiest  quarter  of  Paris,  thou- 
sands of  people  passing  and  repassing  constantly  at  the 
extremity  of  the  long  arched  entrances,  and  yet,  stand- 
ing on  the  pavement  of  that  lonely  court,  no  living 
creature  in  sight  but  the  motionless  grenadiers  at 
either  gate,  the  noises  without  coming  to  your  ear  in 
a  subdued  murmur,  like  the  wind  on  the  sea,  and 
nothing  visible  above  but  the  sky,  resting  like  a  ceil- 
ing on  the  lofty  walls,  the  impression  of  utter  solitude 
is  irresistible.  I  passed  out  by  the  archway  for  which 
Napoleon  constructed  his  bronze  gates,  said  to  be  the 
most  magnificent  of  modern  times,  and  which  are  now 
lying  in  some  obscure  corner  unused,  no  succeeding 
power  having  had  the  spirit  or  the  will  to  complete,  even 
by  the  slight  labor  that  remained,  his  imperial  design. 
All  over  Paris  you  may  see  similar  instances;  they 
meet  you  at  every  step  :  glorious  plans  defeated  ; 
works,  that  with  a  mere  moiety  of  what  has  been 
already  expended  in  their  progress,  might  be  finished 
with  an  effect  that  none  but  a  mind  like  Napoleon's 
could  have  originally  projected. 

Paris,  of  course,  is  rife  with  politics.  There  is  but 
one  opinion  on  the  subject  of  another  pending  revo- 
lution. The  "people's  king"  is  about  as  unpopular 
as  he  need  be  for  the  purposes  of  his  enemies ;  and 
he  has  aggravated  the  feeling  against  him  very  un- 
necessarily by  his  late  project  in  the  Tuileries.  The 
whole  thing  is  very  characteristic  of  the  French  peo- 
ple. He  might  have  deprived  them  of  half  their  civil 
rights  without  immediate  resistance  ;  but  to  cut  off  a 
strip  of  the  public  garden  to  make  a  play-ground  for 
his  children — to  encroach  a  hundred  feet  on  the  pride 
of  Paris,  the  daily  promenade  of  the  idlers,  who  do  all 
the  discussion  of  his  measures,  it  was  a  little  too  ven- 
turesome. Unfortunately,  too,  the  offence  is  in  the 
very  eye  of  curiosity,  and  the  workmen  are  surround- 
ed, from  morning  till  night,  by  thousands  of  people, 
of  all  classes,  gesticulating,  and  looking  at  the  palace- 
windows,  and  winding  themselves  gradually  up  to  the 
revolutionary  pitch. 

In  the  event  of  an  explosion,  the  liberal  party  will 
not  want  partisans,  for  France  is  crowded  with  refu- 
gees from  tyranny  of  every  nation.  The  Poles  are 
flocking  hither  every  day,  and  the  streets  are  full  of 
their  melancholy  faces  !  Poor  fellows  !  they  suffer 
dreadfully  from  want.  The  public  charity  for  refu- 
gees has  been  wrung  dry  long  ago,  and  the  most  he- 
roic hearts  of  Poland,  after  having  lost  everything  but 
life,  in  their  unavailing  struggle,  are  starving  abso- 
lutely in  the  streets.  Accident  has  thrown  me  into 
the  confidence  of  a  well-known  liberal — one  of  those 
men  of  whom  the  proud  may  ask  assistance  without 
humiliation,  and  circumstances  have  thus  come  to  my 
knowledge,  which  would  move  a  heart  of  stone.  The 
fictitious  sufferings  of  "  Thaddeus  of  Warsaw,"  are 
transcended  in  real-life  misery  every  day,  and  by  na- 
tures quite  as  noble.  Lafayette,  I  am  credibly  as- 
sured, has  anticipated  several  years  of  his  income  in 
relieving  them ;  and  no  possible  charity  could  be  so 
well  bestowed  as  contributions  for  the  Poles,  starving 
in  these  heartless  cities. 

I  have  just  heard  that  Chodsko,  a  Pole,  of  distin- 
guished talent  and  learning,  who  threw  his  whole  for- 


PENCILLINGS  BY  THE  WAY. 


tune  and  energy  into  the  late  attempted  revolution, 
was  arrested  here  last  night,  with  eight  others  of  his 
countrymen,  under  suspicions  by  the  government. 
The  late  serious  insurrection  at  Lyons  has  alarmed 
the  king,  and  the  police  is  exceedingly  strict.  The 
Spanish  and  Italian  refugees,  who  receive  pensions 
from  France,  have  been  ordered  off  to  the  provincial 
towns,  by  the  minister  of  the  interior,  and  there  is 
every  indication  of  extreme  and  apprehensive  caution. 
The  papers,  meantime,  are  raving  against  the  ministry 
in  the  most  violent  terms,  and  the  king  is  abused,  with- 
out qualification,  everywhere.  We  apprehend  oppres- 
sive measures  in  our  country  with  sufficient  indigna- 
tion and  outcry;  but  to  see  the  result  upon  those  who 
bear  their  burdens  till  they  are  galled  into  the  bone,  is 
enough  to  fire  the  most  unwilling  blood  to  resentment. 
The  irresistible  enthusiasm  to  which  one  is  kindled  by 
contact  with  an  oppressed  people,  loses  here  all  the 
pleasure  of  a  fine  excitement,  by  the  painfulness  of  the 
sympathies  it  causes  with  it.  Thank  God  !  our  own 
country  is  yet  free  from  the  scourges  of  Europe  ! 

I  went,  a  night  or  two  since,  to  one  of  the  minor 
theatres  to  see  the  representation  of  a  play,  which  has 
been  performed  for  the  hundredth  and  second  time  ! — 
"  Napoleon  at  Schoenbrun  and  St.  Helena."  My  ob- 
ject was  to  study  the  feelings  of  the  people  toward 
Napoleon  II.,  as  the  exile's  love  for  his  son  is  one  of 
the  leading  features  of  the  piece.  It  was  beautifully 
played — most  beautifully  !  and  I  never  saw  more  en- 
thusiasm manifested  by  an  audience.  Every  allusion 
of  Napoleon  to  his  child,  was  received  with  that  under- 
toned,  guttural  acclamation,  that  expresses  such  deep 
feeling  in  a  crowd  ;  and  the  piece  is  so  written,  that  its 
natural  pathos  alone  is  irresistible.  No  one  could 
doubt,  for  an  instant,  it  seems  to  me,  that  the  en- 
trance of  young  Napoleon  into  France,  at  any  critical 
moment,  would  be  universally  and  completely  trium- 
phant.    The  great  cry  at  Lyons  was,  "  Five  Napoleon 

I  have  altered  my  arrangements  a  little,  in  conse- 
quence of  the  state  of  feeling  here.  My  design  was 
to  go  to  Italy  immediately,  but  affairs  promise  such  an 
interesting  and  early  change,  that  I  shall  pass  the  win- 
ter in  Paris. 


LETTER  VI. 

TAGLIONI FRENCH  STAGE,  ETC. 

I  went  last  night  to  the  French  opera,  to  see  the 
first  dancer  of  the  world.  The  prodigious  enthusiasm 
about  her  all  over  Europe  had,  of  course,  raised  my 
expectations  to  the  highest  possible  pitch.  "  Have  you 
seen  TaglioniV  is  the  first  question  addressed  to  a 
stranger  in  Paris  ;  and  you  hear  her  name  constantly 
over  all  the  hum  of  the  cafes,  and  in  the  crowded  re- 
sorts of  fashion.  The  house  was  overflowed.  The 
king  and  his  numerous  family  were  present ;  and  my 
companion  pointed  out  to  me  many  of  the  nobility, 
whose  names  and  titles  have  been  made  familiar  to  our 
ears  by  the  innumerable  private  memoirs  and  auto- 
biographies of  the  day.  After  a  little  introductory 
piece,  the  king  arrived,  and,  as  soon  as  the  cheering 
was  over,  the  curtain  drew  up  for  "  Le  Dieu  et  la  Bay- 
adere." This  is  the  piece  in  which  Taglioni  is  most 
famous.  She  takes  the  part  of  a  dancing  girl,  of 
whom  the  Bramah  and  an  Indian  prince  are  both  en- 
amored ;  the  former  in  the  disguise  of  a  man  of  low 
rank  at  the  court  of  the  latter,  in  search  of  some  one 
whose  love  for  him  shall  be  disinterested.  The  dis- 
guised god  succeeds  in  winning  her  affection,  and  af- 
ter testing  her  devotion  by  submitting  for  a  while  to  the 


resentment  of  his  rival,  and  by  a  pretended  caprice  in 
favor  of  a  singing  girl,  who  accompanies  her,  he  mar- 
ries her,  and  then  saves  her  from  the  flames  as  she  is 
about  to  be  burned  for  marrying  beneath  her  caste. 
Taglioni's  part  is  all  pantomime.  She  does  not  speak 
during  the  play,  but  her  motion  is  more  than  ar- 
ticulate. Her  first  appearance  was  in  a  troop  of  Indian 
dancing  girls,  who  performed  before  the  prince  in  the 
public  square.  At  a  signal  from  the  vizier  a  side  pa- 
vilion opened,  and  thirty  or  forty  bayaderes  glided  out 
together,  and  commenced  an  intricate  dance.  They 
were  received  with  a  tremendous  round  of  applause 
from  the  audience;  but,  witli  the  exception  of  a  little 
more  elegance  in  the  four  who  led  the  dance,  they  were 
dressed  nearly  alike;  and,  as  I  saw  no  particularly  con- 
spicuous figure,  I  presumed  that  Taglioni  had  not  yet 
appeared.  The  splendor  of  the  spectacle  bewildered 
me  for  the  first  moment  or  two,  but  I  presently  found 
my  eyes  riveted  to  a  childish  creature  floating  about 
among  the  rest,  and,  taking  her  for  some  beautiful 
young  eleve  making  her  first  essays  in  the  chorus,  I 
interpreted  her  extraordinary  fascination  as  a  triumph 
of  nature  over  my  unsophisticated  taste  ;  and  wondered 
to  myself  whether,  after  all,  I  should  be  half  so  much 
captivated  with  the  show  of  skill  I  expected  presently 
to  witness.  This  was  Taglioni!  She  came  forward 
directly,  in  a  pas  seul,  and  I  then  observed  that  her 
dress  was  distinguished  from  that  of  her  companions 
by  its  extreme  modesty  both  of  fashion  and  ornament, 
and  the  unconstrained  ease  with  which  it  adapted  itself 
to  her  shape  and  motion.  She  looks  not  more  than 
fifteen.  Her  figure  is  small,  but  rounded  to  the  very 
last  degree  of  perfection ;  not  a  muscle  swelled  beyond 
the  exquisite  outline  ;  not  an  angle,  not  a  fault.  Her 
back  and  neck,  those  points  so  rarely  beautiful  in  wo- 
man, are  faultlessly  formed  ;  her  feet  and  hands  are  in 
full  proportion  to  her  size,  and  the  former  play  as  freely 
and  with  as  natural  a  yieldingness  in  her  fairy  slippers,  as 
if  they  were  accustomed  only  to  the  dainty  uses  of  a 
drawing-room.  Her  face  is  most  strangely  interesting ; 
not  quite  beautiful,  but  of  that  half-appealing,  half- 
retiring  sweetness  that  you  sometimes  see  blended  with 
the  secluded  reserve  and  unconscious  refinement  of  a 
young  girl  just  "out"  in  a  circle  of  high  fashion.  In 
her  greatest  exertions  her  features  retain  the  same 
timid  half  smile,  and  she  returns  to  the  alternate  by 
play  of  her  part  without  the  slightest  change  of  color, 
or  the  slightest  perceptible  difference  in  her  breathing, 
or  the  ease  of  her  look  and  posture.  No  language 
can  describe  her  motion.  She  swims  in  your  eye  like 
a  curl  of  smoke,  or  a  flake  of  down.  Her  difficulty 
seems  to  be  to  keep  to  the  floor.  You  have  that  feel- 
ing while  you  gaze  upon  her,  that  if  she  were  to  rise 
and  float  away  like  Ariel,  you  would  scarce  be  sur- 
prised. And  yet  all  is  done  with  such  a  childish  un- 
consciousness of  admiration,  such  a  total  absence  of 
exertion  or  fatigue,  that  the  delight  with  which  she 
fills  you  is  unmingled,  and,  assured  as  you  are  by  the 
perfect  purity  of  every  look  and  attitude,  that  her  hith- 
erto spotless  reputation  is  deserved  beyond  a  breath  of 
suspicion,  you  leave  her  with  as  much  respect  as  ad- 
miration ;  and  find  with  surprise  that  a  dancing-girl, 
who  is  exposed  night  after  night  to  the  profaning  gaze 
of  the  world,  has  crept  into  one  of  the  most  sacred 
niches  of  your  memory. 

I  have  attended  several  of  the  best  theatres  in  Pans, 
and  find  one  striking  trait  in  all  their  first  actors— nature. 
They  do  not  look  like  actors,  and  their  playing  is  not 
like  acting.  They  are  men,  generally,  of  the  most 
earnest,  unstudied  simplicity  of  countenance ;  and 
when  they  come  upon  the  stage  it  is  singularly  with- 
out affectation,  and  as  the  character  they  represent 
would  appear.  Unlike  most  of  the  actors  I  have  seen, 
too,  they  seem  altogether  unaware  of  the  presence  of 
the  audience.     Nothing  disturbs  the  fixed  attention 


10 


PENCILLINGS  BY  THE  WAY. 


they  give  to  each  other  in  the  dialogue,  and  no  private 
interview  between  simple  and  sincere  men  could  be 
more  unconscious  and  natural.  I  have  formed  con- 
sequently a  high  opinion  of  the  French  drama,  degen- 
erate as  it  is  said  to  be  since  the  loss  of  Talma;  and  it 
is  easy  to  see  that  the  root  of  its  excellence  is  in  the 
taste  and  judgment  of  the  people.  They  applaud  ju- 
diciously. When  Taglioni  danced  her  wonderful  pas 
seul,  for  instance,  the  applause  was  general  and  suf- 
ficient. It  was  a  triumph  of  art,  and  she  was  applauded 
as  an  artist.  But  when,  as  the  neglected  bayadere, 
she  stole  from  the  corner  of  the  cottage,  and  with  her 
indescribable  grace,  hovered  about  the  couch  of  the 
disguised  Bramah,  watching  and  fanning  him  while  he 
slept,  she  expressed  so  powerfully  by^the  saddened 
tenderness  of  her  manner,  the  devotion  of  a  love  that 
even  neglect  could  not  estrange,  that  a  murmur  of  de- 
light ran  through  the  whole  house  ;  and  when  her  si- 
lent pantomime  was  interrupted  by  the  waking  of  the 
god,  there  was  an  overwhelming  tumult  of  acclama- 
tion that  came  from  the  hearts  of  the  audience,  and  as 
such  must  have  been  both  a  lesson,  and  the  highest 
compliment  to  Taglioni.  An  actor's  taste  is  of  course 
very  much  regulated  by  that  of  his  audience.  He 
will  cultivate  that  for  which  he  is  most  praised.  We 
shall  never  have  a  high-toned  drama  in  America,  while, 
as  at  present,  applause  is  won  only  by  physical  exer- 
tion, and  the  nice  touches  of  genius  and  nature  pass 
undetected  and  unfelt. 

Of  the  French  actresses  T  have  been  most  pleased 
with  Leontine  Fay.  She  is  not  much  talked  of  here, 
and  perhaps,  as  a  mere  artist  in  her  profession,  is  in- 
ferior to  those  who  are  more  popular;  but  she  has  that 
indescribable  something  in  her  face  that  has  interested 
me  through  life — that  strange  talisman  which  is  linked 
wisely  to  every  heart,  confining  its  interest  to  some 
nice  difference  invisible  to  other  eyes,  and,  by  a  happy 
consequence,  undisputed  by  other  admiration.  She, 
too,  has  that  retired  sweetness  of  look  that  seems  to 
come  only  from  secluded  habits,  and  in  the  highly- 
wrought  passages  of  tragedy,  when  her  fine  dark  eyes 
are  filled  with  tears,  and  her  tones,  which  have  never 
the  out-of-doors  key  of  the  stage,  are  clouded  and  im- 
perfect, she  seems  less  an  actress  than  a  refined  and 
lovely  woman,  breaking  through  the  habitual  reserve 
of  society  in  some  agonizing  crisis  of  real  life.  There 
are  prints  of  Leontine  Fay  in  the  shops,  and  I  have 
seen  them  in  America,  but  they  resemble  her  very 
little. 


LETTER  VII. 

JOACHIM    LELEWEL — PALAIS   ROYAL PEHE  LA  CHAISE 

VERSAILLES,  ETC. 

I  met  at  a  breakfast  party,  to-day,  Joachim  Lelewel, 
the  celebrated  scholar  and  patriot  of  Poland.  Having 
fallen  in  with  a  great  deal  of  revolutionary  and  emi- 
grant society  since  I  have  been  in  Paris,  1  have  often 
heard  his  name,  and  looked  forward  to  meeting  him 
with  high  pleasure  and  curiosity.  His  writings  are 
passionately  admired  by  his  countrymen.  He  was 
the  principal  of  the  university,  idolized  by  that  effec- 
tive part  of  the  population,  the  students  of  Poland ; 
and  the  fearless  and  lofty  tone  of  his  patriotic  princi- 
ples is  said  to  have  given  the  first  and  strongest  mo- 
mentum to  the  ill-fated  struggle  just  over.  Lelewel 
impressed  me  very  strongly."  Unlike  most  of  the 
Poles,  who  are  erect,  athletic,  and  florid,  he  is  thin, 
bent,  and  pale  ;  and  were  it  not  for  the  fire  and  decision 
of  his  eye,  his  uncertain  gait  and  sensitive  address 
would  convey  an  expression  almost  of  timidity.     His 


form,  features,  and  manners,  are  very  like  those  of 
Percival,  the  American  poet,  though  their  counte 
nances  are  marked  with  the  respective  difference  of 
their  habits  of  mind.  Lelewel  looks  like  a  naturally 
modest,  shrinking  man,  worked  up  to  the  calm  reso- 
lution of  a  martyr.  The  strong  stamp  of  his  face  ia 
devoted  enthusiasm.  His  eye  is  excessively  bright, 
but  quiet  and  habitually  downcast ;  his  lips  are  set 
firmly,  but  without  effort,  together;  and  his  voice  is 
almost  sepulchral,  it  is  so  low  and  calm.  He  never 
breaks  through  his  melancholy,  though  his  refugee 
countrymen,  except  when  Poland  is  alluded  to,  have 
all  the  vivacity  of  French  manners,  and  seem  easily 
to  forget  their  misfortunes.  He  was  silent,  except 
when  particularly  addressed,  and  had  the  air  of  a  man 
who  thought  himself  unobserved,  and  had  shrunk  into 
his  own  mind.  I  felt  that  he  was  winning  upon  my 
heart  every  moment.  I  never  saw  a  man  in  my  life 
whose  whole  air  and  character  were  so  free  from  self- 
consciousness  or  pretension — never  one  who  looked 
to  me  so  capable  of  the  calm,  lofty,  unconquerable 
heroism  of  a  martyr. 

"Paris  is  the  centre  of  the  world,"  if  centripetal 
tendency  is  any  proof  of  it.  Everything  struck  off 
from  the  other  parts  of  the  universe  flies  straight  to 
the  Palais  Royal.  You  may  meet  in  its  thronged 
galleries,  in  the  course  of  an  hour,  representatives  of 
every  creed,  rank,  nation,  and  system,  under  heaven. 
Hussein  Pacha  and  Don  Pedro  pace  daily  the  same 
pave — the  one  brooding  on  a  kingdom  lost,  the  other 
on  the  throne  he  hopes  to  win  ;  the  Polish  general  and 
the  proscribed  Spaniard,  the  exiled  Italian  conspirator, 
the  contemptuous  Turk,  the  well-dressed  negro  from 
Hayti,  and  the  silk-robed  Persian,  revolve  by  the  horn 
together  round  the  same  jet  d'cau,  and  costumes  of 
every  cut  and  order,  mustaches  and  beards  of  every 
degree  of  ferocity  and  oddity,  press  so  fast  and  thick 
upon  the  eye  that  one  forgets  to  be  astonished.  There 
are  no  such  things  as  "lions"  in  Paris.  The  extraor- 
dinary persons  outnumber  the  ordinary.  Every  other 
man  you  meet  would  keep  a  small  town  in  a  ferment 
for  a  month. 

I  spent  yesterday  at  Pere  la  Chaise,  and  to-day  at 
Versailles.  The  two  places  are  in  opposite  environs, 
and  of  very  opposite  characters — one  certainly  making 
you  in  love  with  life,  the  other  almost  as  certainly  with 
death.  One  could  wander  for  ever  in  the  wilderness 
of  art  at  Versailles,  and  it  must  be  a  restless  ghost  that 
could  not  content  itself  with  Pere  la  Chaise  for  its 
elysium. 

This  beautiful  cemetery  is  built  upon  the  broad 
ascent  of  a  hill,  commanding  the  whole  of  Paris  at  a 
glance.  It  is  a  wood  of  small  trees,  laid  out  in  alleys, 
and  crowded  with  tombs  and  monuments  of  every  pos- 
sible description.  You  will  scarce  get  through  it 
without  being  surprised  into  a  tear  ;  but  if  affectation 
and  fantasticalness  in  such  a  place  do  not  more  grieve 
than  amuse  you,  you  will  much  oftener  smile.  The 
whole  thing  is  a  melancholy  mock  of  life.  Its  distinc- 
tions are  all  kept  up.  There  are  the  fashionable  ave- 
nues, lined  with  costly  chapels  and  monuments,  with 
the  names  of  the  exclusive  tenants  in  golden  letters 
upon  the  doors,  iron  railings  set  forbiddingly  about 
the  shrubs,  and  the  blessing-scrap  writ  ambitiously  in 
Latin.  The  tablets  record  the  long  family  titles,  and 
the  offices  and  honors,  perhaps  the  numberless  virtues 
of  the  dead.  They  read  like  chapters  of  heraldry 
more  than  like  epitaphs.  It  is  a  relief  to  get  into  the 
outer  alleys,  and  see  how  poverty  and  simple  feeling 
express  what  should  be  the  same  thing.  It  is  usually 
some  brief  sentence,  common  enough,  but  often  ex- 
quisitely beautiful  in  this  prettiest  of  languages,  and 
expressing  always  the  kind  of  sorrow  felt  by  the 
mourner.     You  can  tell,  for  instance,  by  the  senli 


PENCILLINGS  BY  THE  WAY. 


11 


ment  simply,  without  looking  at  the  record  below, 
whether  the  deceased  was  young,  or  much  loved,  or 
mourned  by  husband,  or  parent,  or  brother,  or  a  circle 
of  all.  I  noticed  one,  however,  the  humblest  and 
simplest  monument  perhaps  in  the  whole  cemetery, 
which  left  the  story  beautifully  untold :  it  was  a  slab 
of  common  marl,  inscribed  "  Pauvre  Marie  /"  nothing 
more.  I  have  thought  of  it,  and  speculated  upon  it,  a 
great  deal  since.  What  was  she  ?  and  who  wrote  her 
epitaph?  why  was  she  pauvre  Marie? 

Before  almost  all  the  poorer  monuments  is  a  minia- 
ture garden  with  a  low  wooden  fence,  and  either  the 
initials  of  the  dead  sown  in  flowers,  or  rose-trees,  care- 
fully cultivated,  trained  to  hang  over  the  stone.  I  was 
surprised  to  find  in  a  public  cemetery,  in  December, 
roses  in  full  bloom  and  valuable  exotics  at  almost  every 
grave.  It  speaks  both  for  the  sentiment  and  delicate 
principle  of  the  people.  Few  of  the  more  costly 
monuments  were  either  interesting  or  pretty.  One 
struck  my  fancy — a  small  open  chapel,  large  enough 
to  contain  four  chairs,  with  the  slab  facing  the  door, 
and  a  crucifix  encircled  with  fresh  flowers  on  a  simple 
shrine  above.  It  is  a  place  where  the  survivors  in  a 
family  might  come  and  sit  any  time,  nowhere  more 
pleasantly.  From  the  chapel  I  speak  of,  you  may 
look  out  and  see  all  Paris;  and  I  can  imagine  how  it 
would  lessen  the  feeling  of  desertion  and  forgetfulness 
that  makes  the  anticipation  of  death  so  dreadful,  to  be 
certain  that  your  friends  would  come,  as  they  may 
here,  and  talk  cheerfully  and  enjoy  themselves  near 
you,  so  to  speak.  The  cemetery  in  summer  must  be 
one  of  the  sweetest  places  in  the  world.  It  would  be 
a  sufficient  inducement  of  itself  to  bring  me  to  Paris 
from  almost  any  distance  in  another  season. 

Versailles  is  a  royal  summer  chateau,  about  twelve 
miles  from  Paris,  with  a  demesne  of  twenty  miles  in 
circumference.  Take  that  for  the  scale,  and  imagine 
a  palace  completed  in  proportion  in  all  its  details  of 
grounds,  ornament,  and  architecture.  It  cost,  says 
the  guide  book,  two  hundred  and  fifty  millions  of  dol- 
lars; and  leaving  your  fancy  to  expend  that  trifle  over 
a  residence,  which,  remember,  is  but  one  out  of  some 
half  dozen,  occupied  during  the  year  by  a  single 
family,  I  commend  the  republican  moral  to  your  con- 
sideration, and  proceed  with  the  more  particular 
description  of  my  visit. 

My  friend,  Dr.  Howe,  was  my  companion.  We 
drove  up  the  grand  avenue  on  one  of  the  loveliest 
mornings  that  ever  surprised  December  with  a  bright 
sun  and  a  warm  south  wind.  Before  us,  at  the  dis- 
tance of  a  mile,  lay  a  vast  mass  of  architecture,  with 
the  centre  falling  back  between  the  two  projecting 
wings,  the  whole  crowning  a  long  and  gradual  ascent, 
of  which  the  tricolored  flag  waving  against  the  sky 
from  the  central  turrets  was  the  highest  point.  As 
we  approached,  we  noticed  an  occasional  flash  in 
the  sun,  and  a  stir  of  bright  colors  through  the  broad 
deep  court  between  the  wings,  which,  as  we  advanced 
nearer,  proved  to  be  a  body  of  about  two  or  three 
thousand  lancers  and  troops  of  the  line  under  review. 
The  effect  was  indescribably  fine.  The  gay  uniforms, 
the  hundreds  of  tall  lances,  each  with  its  red  flag  flying 
in  the  wind,  the  imposing  crescent  of  architecture  in 
which  the  array  was  embraced,  the  ringing  echo  of 
the  grand  military  music  from  the  towers,  and  all  this 
intoxication  for  the  positive  senses,  fused  with  the  his- 
torical atmosphere  of  the  place,  the  recollection  of  the 
king  and  queen,  whose  favorite  residence  it  had  been 
(the  unfortunate  Louis  and  Marie  Antoinette),  of  the 
celebrated  women  who  had  lived  in  their  separate 
palaces  within  its  grounds,  of  the  genius  and  chivalry 
of  court  after  court  that  had  made  it,  in  turn,  the 
scene  of  their  brilliant  follies,  and,  over  all,  Napolean, 
*ht  must  have  rode  through  its  gilded  gates  with  the 


thought  of  pride  that  he  was  its  imperial  master  by 
the  royalty  of  his  great  nature  alone,  it  was  in  truth, 
enough,  the  real  and  the  ideal,  to  dazzle  the  eyes  of  a 
simple  republican. 

After  gazing  at  the  fascinating  show  an  hour,  we 
took  a  guide  and  entered  the  palace.  We  were  walked 
through  suite  after  suite  of  cold  apartments,  deso 
lately  splendid  with  gold  and  marble,  and  crowded 
with  costly  pictures,  till  I  was  sick  and  weary  of  mag- 
nificence. The  guide  went  before,  saying  over  his 
rapid  rigmarole  of  names  and  dates,  giving  us  about 
three  minutes  to  a  room  in  which  there  were  some 
twenty  pictures,  perhaps,  of  which  he  presumed  he 
had  told  us  all  that  was  necessary  to  know.  I  fell  be- 
hind, after  a  while;  and  as  a  considerable  English 
party  had  overtaken  and  joined  us,  I  succeeded  in 
keeping  one  room  in  the  rear,  and  enjoying  the  re- 
mainder in  my  own  way. 

The  little  marble  palace,  called  "Petit  Trianon.? 
built  for  Madame  Pompadour  in  the  garden  grounds, 
is  a  beautiful  affair,  full  of  what  somebody  calls  "  af- 
fectionate-looking rooms ;"  and  "  Grand  Trianon" 
built  also  on  the  grounds  at  the  distance  of  half  a  mile, 
for  Madame  Maintenon,  is  a  very  lovely  spot,  made 
more  interesting  by  the  preference  given  to  it  over  all 
other  places  by  Marie  Antoinette.  Here  she  amused 
herself  with  her  Swiss  village.  The  cottages  and  arti- 
ficial "  mountains"  (ten  feet  high,  perhaps)  are  exceed- 
ingly pretty  models'  in  miniature,  and  probably  illustrate 
very  fairly  the  ideas  of  a  palace-bred  fancy  upon  natural 
scenery.  There  are  glens  and  grottoes,  and  rocky  beds 
for  brooks  that  run  at  will  ("  les  rivieres  a.  ro/an/e,"  the 
guide  called  them),  and  trees  set  out  upon  the  crags  at 
most  uncomfortable  angles,  and  every  contrivance  to 
make  a  lovely  lawn  as  inconveniently  like  nature  as  pos- 
sible. The  Swiss  families,  however,  must  have  been 
very  amusing.  Brought  fresh  from  their  wild  country, 
and  set  down  in  these  pretty  mock  cottages,  with  orders 
to  live  just  as  they  did  in  their  own  mountains,  they 
must  have  been  charmingly  puzzled.  In  the  midst  of 
the  village  stands  an  exquisite  little  Corinthian  temple; 
and  our  guide  informed  us  that  the  cottage  which  the 
queen  occupied  at  her  Swiss  tea-parties  was  furnished 
at  an  expense  of  sixty  thousand  francs — two  not  very 
Switzer-like  circumstances. 

It  was  in  the  little  palace  of  Trianon  that  Napoleon 
signed  his  divorce  from  Josephine.  The  guide  showed 
us  the  room,  and  the  table  on  which  he  wrote.  I 
have  seen  nothing  that  brought  me  so  near  Napoleon. 
There  is  no  place  in  France  that  could  have  for  me  a 
greater  interest.  It  is  a  little  boudoir,  adjoining  the 
state  sleeping-room,  simply  furnished,  and  made  for 
familiar  retirement,  not  for  show.  The  single  sofa — 
the  small  round  table — the  enclosing,  tent-like  cur- 
tains— the  modest,  unobtrusive  elegance  of  ornaments 
and  furniture,  give  it  rather  the  look  of  a  retreat, 
fashioned  by  the  tenderness  and  taste  of  private  fife, 
than  any  apartment  in  a  royal  palace.  I  felt  unwilling 
to  leave  it.  My  thoughts  were  too  busy.  What  was 
the  motive  of  that  great  man  in  this  most  affecting  and 
disputed  action  of  his  life  ?  That  he  loved  Josephine 
with  his  whole  power  of  loving,  no  one  can  doubt. 
That  he  was  above  making  such  a  sacrifice  to  his  am- 
bition merely,  I  equally  believe.  There  is  but  one 
other  principle  into  which  it  can  be  resolved — one 
that  has  not  been  sufficiently  weighed  by  those  who 
have  written  upon  his  character,  but  which,  as  a  spring 
of  action,  is  second  only  to  the  ruling  passion  in  the 
bosoms  of  men— the  desire  for  offspring.  I  can  con- 
ceive Napoleon's  sacrifice  of  that  glorious  woman  on 
no  other  ground;  and,  ascribing  it  to  this,  it  more 
proves  than  discredits  the  tenderness  of  his  great 
nature. 

After  having  been  thridded  through  the  palaces,  we 
had  a  few  moments  left  for  the  ground*.     They  are 


12 


PENCILLINGS  BY  THE  WAY. 


magnificent  beyond  description.  We  know  very  little 
of  this  thing  in  America,  as  an  art;  but  it  is  one,  I 
have  come  to  think,  that,  in  its  requisition  of  genius, 
is  scarce  inferior  to  architecture.  Certainly  the  three 
palaces  of  Versailles  together  did  not  impress  me  so 
much  as  the  single  view  from  the  upper  terrace  of  the 
gardens.  It  stretches  clear  over  the  horizon.  You 
stand  on  a  natural  eminence  that  commands  the 
whole  country,  and  the  plan  seems  to  you  like  some 
work  of  the  Titans.  The  long  sweep  of  the  avenue, 
with  a  breadth  of  descent  that  at  the  first  glance  takes 
away  your  breath,  stretching  its  two  lines  of  gigantic 
statues  and  vases  to  the  water  level ;  the  wide,  slum- 
bering canal  at  its  foot,  carrying  on  the  eye  to  the 
horizon,  like  a  river  of  an  even  flood  lying  straight 
through  the  bosom  of  the  landscape;  the  side  avenues 
almost  as  extensive ;  the  palaces  in  the  distant  grounds, 
and  the  strange  union  altogether  to  an  American,  of  as 
much  extent  as  the  eye  can  reach,  cultivated  equally 
with  the  trim  elegance  of  a  garden — all  these,  com- 
bining together,  form  a  spectacle  which  nothing  but 
nature's  royalty  of  genius  could  design,  and  (to  descend 
ungracefully  from  the  climax)  which  only  the  exac- 
tions of  an  unnatural  royalty  could  pay  for. 

I  think  the  most  forcible  lesson  one  learns  at  Paris 
is  the  value  of  time  and  money.  I  have  always  been 
told,  erroneously,  that  it  was  a  place  to  waste  both. 
You  could  do  so  much  with  another  hour,  if  you  had 
it,  and  buy  so  much  with  another  dollar,  if  you  could 
afford  it,  that  the  reflected  economy  upon  what  you 
can  command,  is  inevitable.  As  to  the  worth  of  time, 
for  instance,  there  are  some  twelve  or  fourteen  gratui- 
tous lectures  every  day  at  the  Sorbonne,  the  school  of 
medicine  and  the  college  of  France,  by  men  like  Cuvicr, 
Say,  Spurzheim,  and  others,  each  in  his  professed 
pursuit,  the  most  eminent  perhaps  in  the  world  ;  and 
there  are  the  Louvre,  and  the  Royal  Library,  and  the 
Mazarin  Library,  and  similar  public  institutions,  all 
open  to  gratuitous  use,  with  obsequious  attendants, 
warm  rooms,  materials  for  writing,  and  perfect  seclu- 
sion ;  to  say  nothing  of  the  thousand  interesting  but 
less  useful  resorts  with  which  Paris  abounds,  such  as 
exhibitions  of  flowers,  porcelains,  mosaics,  and  curious 
handiwork  of  every  description,  and  (more  amusing 
and  time-killing  still)  the  never-ending  changes  of 
eights  in  the  public  places,  from  distinguished  foreign- 
ers down  to  miracles  of  educated  monkeys.  Life 
seems  most  provokingly  short  as  you  look  at  it.  Then, 
for  money,  you  are  more  puzzled  how  to  spend  a  poor 
pitiful  franc  in  Paris  (it  will  buy  so  many  things  you 
want)  than  you  would  be  in  America  with  the  outlay 
of  a  month's  income.  Be  as  idle  and  extravagant  as 
you  will,  your  idle  hours  look  you  in  the  face  as  they 
pass,  to  know  whether,  in  spite  of  the  increase  of  their 
value,  you  really  mean  to  waste  them ;  and  the  money 
that  slipped  through  your  pocket  you  know  not  how 
at  home,  sticks  embarrassed  to  your  fingers,  from  the 
mere  multiplicity  of  demands  made  for  it.  There  are 
shops  all  over  Paris  called  the  "  Vingt-cinq-sous,'''' 
where  every  article  is  fixed  at  that  price — twenty-five 
cents  !  They  contain  everything  you  want,  except  a 
wife  and  fire-wood — the  only  two  things  difficult  to  be 
got  in  France.  (The  latter,  with  or  without  a  pun,  is 
much  the  dearer  of  the  two.)  I  wonder  that  they  are  not 
bought  out,  and  sent  over  to  America  on  speculation. 
There  is  scarce  an  article  in  them  that  would  not  be 
held  cheap  with  us  at  five  times  its  purchase.  There 
are  bronze  standishes  for  ink,  sand,  and  wafers,  pearl 
paper-cutters,  spice-lamps,  decanters,  essence-bottles, 
sets  of  china,  table-bells  of  all  devices,  mantel  orna- 
ments, vases  of  artificial  flowers,  kitchen  utensils,  dog- 
collars,  canes,  guard-chains,  chessmen,  whips,  ham- 
mers, brushes,  and  everything  that  is  either  convenient 
or  pretty.  You  might  freight  a  ship  with  them,  and 
all  good  and  well  finished,  at  twenty-five  cents  the  set 


or  article  !     You  would  think  the  man  was  joking,  to 
walk  through  his  shop. 


LETTER  VIII. 

DR.    BOWRING AMERICAN    ARTISTS BRUTAL   AMUSE- 
MENT,   ETC. 

I  have  met  Dr.  Bowring  in  Paris,  and  called  upon 
him  to-day  with  Mr.  Morse,  by  appointment.     The 
translator  of  the  "Ode  to  the  Deity"  (from  the  Rus- 
sian  of  Derzzhavin)  could  not  by  any  accident  be  an 
ordinary  man,  and  I  anticipated  great  pleasure  in  his 
society.     He  received  us  at  his  lodgings  in  the  Place 
Vendome.     I  was  every  way  pleased  with  him.     His 
knowledge  of  our  country  and  its  literature  surprised 
me,  and  I  could  not  but  be  gratified  with  the  unpreju- 
diced and  well-informed  interest  with  which  he  dis- 
coursed on  our  government  and  institutions.     He  ex- 
pressed great  pleasure  at  having  seen  his  ode  in  one 
of  our  schoolbooks  (Pierpont's  Reader,  I  think),  and 
i  assured  us  that  the  promise  to  himself  of  a  visit  to 
!  America  was  one  of  his  brightest  anticipations.     This 
t  is  not  at  all  an  uncommon  feeling,  by  the  way,  among 
I  the  men  of  talent  in  Paris  ;  and  I  am  pleasingly  sur- 
prised, everywhere,  with  the   enthusiastic  hopes  ex- 
I  pressed  for  the  success  of  our  experiment  in  liberal 
'  principles.     Dr.  Bowring  is  a  slender  man,  a  little 
j  above  the  middle  height,  with  a  keen,  inquisitive  ex- 
;  pression  of  countenance,  and  a  good  forehead,  from 
j  which  the  hair  is  combed  straight  back  all  round,  in 
!  the  style  of  the  Cameronians.     His  manner  is  all  life, 
I  and  his  motion  and  gesture  nervously  sudden  and  an- 
gular.    He  talks  rapidly,  but  clearly,  and  uses  beauti- 
ful language — concise,  and  full  of  select  expressions 
and  vivid  figures.     His  conversation  in  this  particular 
was  a  constant  surprise.     He  gave  us  a  great  deal  of 
information,  and  when  we  parted,  inquired  my  route 
of  travel,  and  offered  me  letters  to  his  friends,  with  a 
cordiality  very  unusual  on  this  side  the  Atlantic. 

It  is  a  cold  but  common  rule  with  travellers  in 
Europe  to  avoid  the  society  of  their  own  country- 
men. In  a  city  like  Paris,  where  time  and  money 
are  both  so  valuable,  every  additional  acquaintance, 
pursued  either  for  etiquette  or  intimacy,  is  felt,  and 
one  very  soon  learns  to  prefer  his  advantage  to  any 
tendency  of  his  sympathies.  The  infractions  upon 
the  rule,  however,  are  very  delightful,  and  at  the  gen- 
eral reunion  at  our  ambassador's  on  Wednesday  even- 
ing, or  an  occasional  one  at  Lafayette's,  the  look  of 
pleasure  and  relief  at  beholding  familiar  faces,  and 
hearing  a  familiar  language  once  more,  is  universal. 
I  have  enjoyed  this  morning  the  double  happiness  of 
meeting  an  American  circle,  around  an  American 
breakfast.  Mr.  Cooper  had  invited  us  (Morse,  the 
artist,  Dr.  Howe,  a  gentleman  of  the  navy,  and  my- 
self). Mr.  C.  lives  with  great  hospitality,  and  in  all 
the  comfort  of  American  habits ;  and  to  find  him,  as 
he  is  always  found,  with  his  large  family  about  him, 
is  to  get  quite  back  to  the  atmosphere  of  our  country. 
The  two  or  three  hours  we  passed  at  his  table  were, 
of  course,  delightful.  It  should  endear  Mr.  Cooper 
to  the  hearts  of  his  countrymen,  that  he  devotes  all  his 
influence,  and  no  inconsiderable  portion  of  his  large 
income,  to  the  encouragement  of  American  artists.  It 
would  be  natural  enough,  after  being  so  long  abroad, 
to  feel  or  affect  a  preference  for  the  works  of  foreign- 
ers ;  but  in  this,  as  in  his  political  opinions,  most  de- 
cidedly, he  is  eminently  patriotic.  We  feel  this  in 
Europe,  where  we  discern  more  clearly  by  comparison 
the  poverty  of  our  country  in  the  arts,  and  meet,  at  the 
same  time,  American  artists  of  the  first  talent,  without 
a  single  commission  from  home  for  original  works, 


PENCILLINGS  BY  THE  WAY. 


13 


copying  constantly  for  support.  One  of  Mr.  Cooper's 
purchases,  the  "  Cherubs,"  by  Greenough,  has  been 
sent  to  the  United  States,  and  its  merit  was  at  once 
acknowledged.  It  was  done,  however  (the  artist,  who 
is  here,  informs  me),  under  every  disadvantage  of  feel- 
ing and  circumstances  ;  and,  from  what  I  have  seen 
and  am  told  by  others  of  Mr.  Greenough,  it  is,  I  am 
confident,  however  beautiful,  anything  but  a  fair  spe- 
cimen of  his  powers.  His  peculiar  taste  lies  in  a 
bolder  range,  and  he  needs  only  a  commission  from 
government  to  execute  a  work  which  will  begin  the 
art  of  sculpture  nobly  in  our  country. 

My  curiosity  led  me  into  a  strange  scene  to-day.    I 
had  observed  for  some  time  among  the  affiches  upon 
the  walls  an  advertisement  of  an  exhibition  of  "fight- 
ing animals,"  at  the  Barriere  du  Combat.     I  am  dis- 
posed to  see  almost  any  sight  once,  particularly  where 
it  is,  like  this,  a  regular  establishment,  and,  of  course, 
an  exponent  of  the  popular  taste.     The  place  of  the 
"  Combats  des  Animavx,"  is  in  one  of  the  most  ob- 
scure suburbs,  outside  the  walls,  and  I  found  it  with 
difficulty.     After  wandering  about  in  dirty  lanes  for 
an  hour  or  two,  inquiring  for  it  in  vain,  the  cries  of  the 
animals  directed  me  to  a  walled  place,  separated  from 
the  other  houses  of  the  suburb,  at  the  gate  of  which  a 
man  was  blowing  a  trumpet.     I  purchased  a  ticket  of 
an  old  woman,  who  sat  shivering  in  the  porter's  lodge  ; 
and,  finding  I  was  an  hour  too  early  for  the  fights,  I 
made   interest  with  a  savage-looking  fellow,  who  was 
carrying  in  tainted  meat,  to  see  the  interior  of  the  es- 
tablishment.    I  followed  him  through  a  side  gate,  and 
we  passed  into  a  narrow  alley,  lined  with  stone  ken- 
nels, to  each  of  which  was  confined  a  powerful  dog, 
with  just  length  of  chain  enough  to  prevent  him  from 
reaching  the  tenant  of  the  opposite  hole.     There  were 
several  of  these  alleys,  containing,  I  should  think,  two 
hundred  dogs  in  all.     They  were  of  every  breed  of 
strength  and  ferocity,  and  all  of  them  perfectly  frantic 
with  rage  or  hunger,  with  the  exception  of  a  pair  of 
noble-looking  black  dogs,  who  stood   calmly  at  the 
mouths  of  their  kennels:  the  rest  struggled  and  howl- 
ed incessantly,  straining  every  muscle  to  reach  us,  and 
resuming  their  fierceness  toward  each  other  when  we 
had  passed  by.      They   all   bore,   more  or  less,  the 
marks  of  severe  battles  ;  one  or  two  with  their  noses 
split  open,  and  still  unhealed  ;  several  with  their  necks 
bleeding  and  raw,  and  galled  constantly  with  the  iron 
collar,  and  many  with  broken  legs,  but  all  apparently 
so  excited  as  to  be  insensible  to  suffering.     After  fol- 
lowing my  guide  very  unwillingly  through  the  several 
alleys,  deafened  with  the  barking  and  howling  of  the 
savage   occupants,  I  was  taken  to  the  department  of 
wild  animals.     Here  were  all  the  tenants  of  the  men- 
agerie, kept  in  dens,  opening  by  iron  doors  upon  the 
pit  in  which  they  fought.     Like  the  dogs,  they  were 
terribly  wounded  ;  one  of  the  bears  especially,  whose 
mouth  was  torn  all  off  from  his  jaws,  leaving  his  teeth 
perfectly  exposed,  and   red  with  the  continually  ex- 
uding blood.     In  one  of  the  dens  lay  a  beautiful  deer, 
with  one  of  his  haunches  severely  mangled,  who,  the 
man  told  me,  had  been  hunted  round  the  pit  by  the 
dogs  but  a  day  or  two  before.     He  looked  up  at  us, 
with  his  large  soft  eye,  as  we  passed,  and  lying  on  the 
<lamp  stone  floor,  with  his  undressed  wounds  festering 
in  the  chilly  atmosphere  of  mid-winter  :  he  presented 
a  picture  of  suffering  which  made  me  ashamed  to  the 
smil  ot  my  idle  curiosity. 

The  spectators  began  to   collect,  and  the  pit  was 

lT"v  ?7°  thirds  of  those  in  the  amphitheatre 
were  hnghshmen,  most  of  whom  were  amateurs,  who 

hr  ^°?gJlt  d?g1  °f  ,heir  own  to  P"  a?ainst  ^  regu- 
nateES  f .       *hC  establishme»<-     These  were  des- 

?o  lar  in?  *  ^  Stnlnge  d°"  W3S  brouSht  in  by  the 
ta»S  andJ00Sec}  ln  tb-e  arena,  and  a  trained  dog  let 
■  upon  him.     It  was  a  cruel  business.     The  sleek, 


well-fed,  good-natured  animal  was  no  match  for  the 
exasperated,  hungry  savage,  he  was  compelled  to  en- 
counter. One  minute,  in  all  the  joy  of  a  release  from 
his  chain,  bounding  about  the  pit,  and  fawning  upon 
his  master,  and  the  next  attacked  by  a  furious  mastiff, 
who  was  taught  to  fasten  on  him  at  the  first  onset  in  a 
way  that  deprived  him  at  once  of  his  strength  ;  it  was 
but  a  murderous  exhibition  of  cruelty.  The  combats 
between  two  of  the  trained  dogs,  however,  were  more 
equal.  These  succeeded  to  the  private  contests,  and 
were  much  more  severe  and  bloody.  There  was  a 
small  terrier  among  them,  who  disabled  several  dogs 
successively,  by  catching  at  their  fore-legs,  and  break- 
ing them  instantly  with  a  powerful  jerk  of  his  body 
I  was  very  much  interested  in  one  of  the  private  dogs, 
a  large  yellow  animal,  of  a  noble  expression  of  coun- 
tenance, who  fought  several  times  very  unwillingly, 
but  always  gallantly  and  victoriously.  There  was  a 
majesty  about  him,  which  seemed  to  awe  his  antago- 
nists. He  was  carried  off  in  his  master's  arms,  bleed- 
ing and  exhausted,  after  severely  punishing  the  best 
dogs  of  the  establishment. 

The  baiting  of  the  wild  animals  succeeded  the  can- 
ine combats.  Several  dogs  (Irish,  I  was  told),  of  a 
size  and  ferocity  such  as  I  had  never  before  seen, 
were  brought  in,  and  held  in  the  leash  opposite  the 
den  of  the  bear  whose  head  was  so  dreadfully  man- 
gled. 

The  door  was  then  opened  by  the  keeper,  but  poor 
bruin  shrunk  from  the  contest.  The  dogs  became 
unmanageable  at  the  sight  of  him,  however,  and  fas- 
tening a  chain  to  his  collar,  they  drew  him  out  by 
main  force,  and  immediately  closed  the  grating.  He 
fought  gallantly,  and  gave  more  wounds  than  he  re- 
ceived, for  his  shaggy  coat  protected  his  body  effectu- 
ally. The  keepers  rushed  in  and  beat  oft'  the  dogs, 
when  they  had  nearly  finished  peeling  the  remaining 
flesh  from  his  head  ;  and  the  poor  creature,  perfectly 
blind  and  mad  with  pain,  was  dragged  into  his  den 
again,  to  await  another  day  of  amusement  ! 

I  will  not  disgust  you  with  more  of  these  details. 
They  fought  several  foxes  and  wolves  afterward,  and 
last  of  all,  one  of  the  small  donkeys  of  the  country,  a 
creature  not  so  large  as  some  of  the  dogs,  was  led  in, 
and  the  mastiffs  loosed  upon  her.  The  pity  and  in- 
dignation I  felt  at  first  at  the  cruelty  of  baiting  so  un- 
warlike  an  animal,  I  soon  found  was  quite  unnecessa- 
ry. She  was  the  severest  opponent  the  dogs  had  vet 
found.  She  went  round  the  arena  at  full  gallop,  with 
a  dozen  savage  animals  springing  at  her  throat,  but 
she  struck  right  and  left  with  her  fore-legs,  and  at 
every  kick  with  her  heels  threw  one  of  them  clear 
across  the  pit.  One  or  two  were  left  motionless  on 
the  field,  and  others  carried  off  with  their  ribs  kicked 
in,  and  their  legs  broken,  while  their  inglorious  antag- 
onist escaped  almost  unhurt.  One  of  the  mastiffs 
fastened  on  her  ear  and  threw  her  down,  in  the  begin- 
ning of  the  chase,  but  she  apparently  received  no  other 
injury. 

I  had  remained  till  the  close  of  the  exhibition  with 
some  violence  to  my  feelings,  and  I  was  very  glad  to 
get  away.  Nothing  would  tempt  me  to  expose  myself 
to  a  similar  disgust  again.  How  the  intelligent  and 
gentlemanly  Englishmen  whom  I  saw  there,  and  whom 
I  have  since  met  in  the  most  refined  society  of  Paris, 
can  make  themselves  familiar,  as  they  evidently  were, 
with  a  scene  so  brutal,  I  can  not  very  well  conceive. 


LETTER  IX. 


MALIBRAN PARIS    AT    MIDNIGHT A    MOB,   ETC. 

Our  beautiful  and  favorite  Malibran  is  playing  in 
Paris  this  winter.     I  saw  her  last  night  in  Desdemona, 


)4 


PENCILLINGS  BY  THE  WAY. 


The  other  theatres  are  so  attractive,  between  Taglioni, 
Robert  le  Diable  (the  new  opera),  Leontine  Fay,  and 
the  political  pieces  constantly  coming  out,  that  I  had 
not  before  visited  the  Italian  opera.  Madame  Mal- 
ibran  is  every  way  changed.  She  sings,  unquestion- 
ably, better  than  when  in  America.  Her  voice  is 
firmer,  and  more  under  control,  but  it  has  lost  that 
gushing  wildness,  that  brilliant  daringness  of  execu- 
tion, that  made  her  singing  upon  our  boards  so  indes- 
cribably exciting  and  delightful.  Her  person  is  per- 
haps still  more  changed-  The  round,  graceful  ful- 
ness of  her  limbs  and  features  has  yielded  to  a  half- 
haggard  look  of  care  and  exhaustion,  and  I  could  not 
but  think  that  there  was  more  than  Desdemona's  ficti- 
tious wretchedness  in  the  expression  of  her  face. 
Still,  her  forehead  and  eyes  have  a  beauty  that  is  not 
readily  lost,  and  she  will  be  a  strikingly  interesting, 
and  even  splendid  creature,  as  long  as  she  can  play. 
Her  acting  was  extremely  impassioned  ;  and  in  the 
more  powerful  passages  of  her  part,  she  exceeded 
everything  I  had  conceived  of  the  capacity  of  the  hu- 
man voice  for  pathos  and  melody.  The  house  was 
crowded,  and  the  applause  was  frequent  and  univer- 
sal. 

Madame  Malibran,  as  you  probably  know,  is  di- 
vorced from  the  man  whose  name  she  bears,  and  has 
married  a  violinist  of  the  Italian  orchestra.  She  is  just 
now  in  a  state  of  health  that  will  require  immediate 
retirement  from  the  stage,  and,  indeed,  has  played  al- 
ready too  long.  She  came  forward  after  the  curtain 
dropped,  in  answer  to  the  continual  demand  of  the  au- 
dience, leaning  heavily  on  Rubini,  and  was  evidently 
so  exhausted  as  to  be  scarcely  able  to  stand.  She 
made  a  single  gesture,  and  was  led  off  immediately, 
with  her  head  drooping  on  her  breast,  amid  the  most 
violent  acclamations.  She  is  a  perfect  passion  with 
the  French,  and  seems  to  have  out-charmed  their 
usual  caprice. 

It  was  a  lovely  night,  and  after  the  opera  I  walked 
home.  I  reside  a  long  distance  from  the  places  of 
public  amusement.  Dr.  Howe  and  myself  had  stop- 
ped at  a  cafe  on  the  Italian  Boulevards  an  hour,  and 
it  was  very  late.  The  streets  were  nearly  deserted — 
here  and  there  a  solitary  cabriolet  with  the  driver 
asleep  under  his  wooden  apron,  or  the  motionless  fig- 
ure of  a  municipal  guardsman,  dozing  upon  his  horse, 
with  his  helmet  and  brazen  armor  glistening  in  the 
light  of  the  lamps.  Nothing  has  impressed  me  more, 
by  the  way,  than  a  body  of  these  men  passing  me  in 
the  night.  I  have  once  or  twice  met  the  king  return- 
ing from  the  theatre  with  a  guard,  and  I  saw  them 
once  at  midnight  on  an  extraordinary  patrol  winding 
through  the  arch  into  the  Place  Carrousel.  Their 
equipments  are  exceedingly  warlike  (helmets  of  brass, 
and  coats  of  mail),  and  with  the  gleam  of  the  breast- 
plates through  their  horsemen's  cloaks,  the  tramp  of 
hoofs  echoing  through  the  deserted  streets,  and  the 
silence  and  order  of  their  march,  it  was  quite  a  real- 
ization of  the  descriptions  of  chivalry. 

We  kept  along  the  Boulevards  to  the  Rue  Richelieu. 
A  carriage,  with  footmen  in  livery,  had  just  driven  up 
to  Frascati's,  and,  as  we  passed,  a  young  man  of  un 
common  personal  beauty  jumped  out  and  entered  that 
palace  of  gamblers.  By  his  dress  he  was  just  from  a 
ball,  and  th  necessity  of  excitement  after  a  scene 
meant  to  be  so  guy,  was  an  obvious  if  not  a  fair  satire 
on  the  happiness  of  the  "gay"  circle  in  which  he  ev- 
idently moved.  We  turned  down  the  Paysage  Pan- 
orama, perhaps  the  most  crowded  thoroughfare  in  all 
Paris,  and  traversed  its  long  gallery  without  meeting  a 
soul.  The  widely-celebrated  patisserie  of  Felix,  the 
first  pastry-cook  in  the  world,  was  the  only  shop  open 
from  one  extremity  to  the  other.  The  guard,  in  his  gray 
capote,  stood  looking  iq  at  the  window,  and  the  girl, 


who  had  served  the  palates  of  half  the  fashion  and 
rank  of  Paris  since  morning,  sat  nodding  fast  asleep 
behind  the  counter,  paying  the  usual  fatiguing  penalty 
of  notoriety.  The  clock  struck  two  as  we  passed  the 
facade  of  the  Bourse.  This  beautiful  and  central 
square  is,  night  and  day,  the  grand  rendezvous  of  pub- 
lic vice  ;  and  late  as  the  hour  was,  its  pave  was  still 
thronged  with  flaunting  and  painted  women  of  the 
lowest  description,  promenading  without  cloaks  or 
bonnets,  and  addressing  every  passer-by. 

The  Palais  Royal  lay  in  our  way,  just  below  the 
Bourse,  and  we  entered  its  magnificent  court  with 
an  exclamation  of  new  pleasure.  Its  thousand  lamps 
were  all  burning  brilliantly,  the  long  avenues  of  trees 
were  enveloped  in  a  golden  atmosphere  created  by  the 
bright  radiation  of  light  through  the  mist,  the  Corin- 
thian pillars  and  arches  retreated  on  either  side  from 
the  eye  in  distinct  and  yet  mellow  perspective,  the 
fountain  filled  the  whole  palace  with  its  rich  murmur, 
and  the  broad  marble-paved  galleries,  so  thronged  by 
day,  were  as  silent  and  deserted  as  if  the  drowsy  gens 
d'armes  standing  motionless  on  their  posts  were  the 
only  living  beings  that  inhabited  it.  It  was  a  scene 
really  of  indescribable  impressiveness.  No  one  who 
has  not  seen  this  splendid  palace,  enclosing  with  its 
vast  colonnades  so  much  that  is  magnificent,  can  have 
an  idea  of  its  effect  upon  the  imagination.  I  had  seen 
it  hitherto  only  when  crowded  with  the  gay  and  noisy 
idlers  of  Paris,  and  the  contrast  of  this  with  the  utter 
solitude  it  now  presented — not  a  single  footfall  to  be 
heard  on  its  floors,  yet  every  lamp  burning  bright,  and 
the  statues  and  flowers  and  fountains  all  illuminated 
as  if  for  a  revel — was  one  of  the  most  powerful  and 
captivating  that  I  have  ever  witnessed.  We  loitered 
slowly  down  one  of  the  long  galleries,  and  it  seemed  to 
me  more  like  some  creation  of  enchantment  than  the 
public  haunt  it  is  of  pleasure  and  merchandise.  A 
single  figure,  wrapped  in  a  cloak,  passed  hastily  by  us 
and  entered  the  door  to  one  of  the  celebrated  "hells," 
in  which  the  playing  scarce  commences  till  this  hour 
— but  we  met  no  other  human  being. 

We  passed  on  from  the  grand  court  to  the  Galerie 
Nemours.  This,  as  you  may  find  in  the  descriptions, 
is  a  vast  hall,  standing  between  the  east  and  the  west 
courts  of  the  Palais  Royal.  It  is  sometimes  called 
the  "  glass  gallery."  The  roof  is  of  glass,  and  the 
shops,  with  fronts  entirely  of  windows,  are  separated 
only  by  long  mirrors,  reaching  in  the  shape  of  pillars 
from  the  roof  to  the  floor.  The  pavement  is  tasselated, 
and  at  either  end  stand  two  columns  completing  its 
form,  and  dividing  it  from  the  other  galleries  into 
which  it  opens.  The  shops  are  among  the  costliest 
in  Paris  ;  and  what  with  the  vast  proportions  of  the 
hall,  its  beautiful  and  glistening  material,  and  the  light- 
ness and  grace  of  its  architecture,  it  is,  even  when  de- 
serted, one  of  the  most  fairy-like  places  in  this  fantas- 
tic city.  It  is  the  lounging  place  of  military  men  par- 
ticularly ;  and  every  evening  from  six  to  midnight,  it 
is  thronged  by  every  class  of  gayly  dressed  people,  of- 
ficers off  duty,  soldiers,  polytechnic  scholars,  ladies,  and 
strangers  of  every  costume  and  complexion,  promen- 
ading to  and  fro  in  the  light  of  the  cafes  and  the  daz- 
zling shops,  sheltered  completely  from  the  weather, 
and  enjoying,  without  expense  or  ceremony,  a  scene 
more  brilliant  than  the  most  splendid  ball-room  in 
Parish  We  lounged  up  and  down  the  long  echoing 
pavement  an  hour.  It  was  like  some  kingly  "  banquet- 
hall  deserted."  The  lamps  burned  dazzlingly  bright, 
the  mirrors  multiplied  our  figures  into  shadowy  and 
silent  attendants,  and  our  voices  echoed  from  the  glit- 
tering roof  in  the  utter  stillness  of  the  hour  as  if  we 
had  broken  in,  Thalaba-like,  upon  some  magical  pal- 
ace of  silence. 

It  is  singular  how  much  the  differences  of  time  and 
weather  affects  scenery.     The  first  sunshine  I  saw  in 


PENCILLINGS  BY  THE  WAY. 


15; 


Paris,  unsettled  all  my  previous  impressions  com- 
pletely. I  had  seen  every  place  of  interest  through 
the  dull  heavy  atmosphere  of  a  week's  rain,  and  it  was 
in  such  leaden  colors  alone  that  the  finer  squares  and 
palaces  had  become  familiar  to  me.  The  effect  of  a 
cl^ar  sun   upon  them  was  wonderful.     The  sudden 

filding  of  the  dome  of  the  Invalides  by  Napoleon  must 
ave  been  something  like  it.  1  took  advantage  of  it 
to  see  everything  over  again,  and  it  seemed  to  me  like 
another  city.  I  never  realized  so  forcibly  the  beauty 
of  sunshine.  Architecture,  particularly  is  nothing 
without  it.  Everything  looks  heavy  and  flat.  The 
tracery  of  the  windows  and  relievos,  meant  to  be  de- 
finite and  airy,  appears  clumsy  and  confused,  and  the 
whole  building  flattens  into  a  solid  mass,  without  de- 
sign or  beauty. 

I  have  spent  the  whole  day  in  a  Paris  mob.  The 
arrival  of  General  Romarino  and  some  of  his  compan- 
ions from  Warsaw,  gave  the  malcontents  a  plausible 
opportunity  of  expressing  their  dislike  to  the  measures 
of  government ;  and,  undercover  of  a  public  welcome 
to  tliis  distinguished  Pole,  they  assembled  in  immense 
numbers  at  the  Port  St.  Denis,  and  on  the  Boulevard 
Montmartre.  It  was  very  exciting  altogether.  The 
cavalary  were  out,  and  patroled  the  streets  in  compa- 
nies, charging  upon  the  crowd  wherever  there  was  a 
stand  ;  the  troops  of  the  line  marched  up  and  down 
the  Boulevards,  continually  dividing  the  masses  of 
people,  and  forbidding  any  one  to  stand  still.  The 
shops  were  all  shut,  in  anticipation  of  an  affray.  The 
students  endeavored  to  cluster,  and  resisted,  as  far  as 
they  dared,  the  orders  of  the  soldiery ;  and  from  noon 
till  night  there  was  every  prospect  of  a  quarrel.  The 
French  are  a  fine  people  under  excitement.  Their 
handsome  and  ordinarily  heartless  faces  become  very 
expressive  under  the  stronger  emotions  ;  and  their 
picturesque  dresses  and  violent  gesticulation  set  ofl*  a 
popular  tumult  exceedingly.  I  have  been  highly 
amused  all  day,  and  have  learned  a  great  deal  of  what  it 
is  very  difficult  for  a  foreigner  to  acquire — the  language 
of  French  passion.  They  express  themselves  very 
forcibly  when  angry.  The  constant  irritation  kept  up 
by  the  intrusion  of  the  cavalry  upon  the  sidewalks, 
and  the  rough  manner  of  dispersing  gentlemen  by 
sabre-blows  and  kicks  with  the  stirrup,  gave  me  suf- 
ficient opportunity  of  judging.  I  was  astonished, 
however,  that  their  summary  mode  of  proceeding  was 
borne  at  all.  It  is  difficult  to  mix  in  such  a  vast  body, 
and  not  catch  its  spirit,  and  I  found  myself,  without 
knowing  why,  or  rather  with  a  full  conviction  that  the 
military  measures  were  necessary  and  right,  entering 
with  all  my  heart  into  the  rebellious  movements  of  the 
students,  and  boiling  with  indignation  at  every  disper- 
sion by  force.  The  students  of  Paris  are  probably  the 
worst  subjects  the  king  has.  They  are  mostly  young 
men  of  from  twenty  to  twenty-five,  full  of  bodily  vigor 
and  enthusiasm,  and  excitable  to  tike  last  degree. 
.Many  of  them  are  Germans,  and  no  small  proportion 
Americans.  They  make  a  good  amalgam  for  a  mob, 
dress  being  the  last  consideration,  apparently,  with  a 
medical  or  law  studeut  in  Paris.  I  never  saw  such  a 
collection  of  atrocious-looking  fellows  as  are  to  be 
met  at  the  lectures.  The  polytechnic  scholars,  on 
the  other  hand,  are  the  finest  looking  body  of  young 
men  I  ever  saw.  Aside  from  their  uniform,  which  is 
remarkably  neat  and  beautiful,  their  figures  and  faces 
seem  picked  for  spirit  and  manliness.  They  have  al- 
ways a  distinguished  air  in  a  crowd,  and  it  is  easy,  af- 
ter seeing  them,  to  imagine  the  part  they  played  as 
leaders  in  the  revolution  of  the  three  days. 

Contrary  to  my  expectation,  night  came  on  without 
any  serious  encounter.  One  or  two  individuals  at- 
tempted to  resist  the  authority  of  the  troops,  and  were 
cons.derably  bruised ;  and  one  young  man,  a  student, 
had  three  of-his  fingers  cut  off  by  the  stroke  of  a  dra-  I 


goon's  sabre.  Several  were  arrested,  but  by  eight 
o'clock  all  was  quiet,  and  the  shops  on  the  Boulevards 
once  more  exposed  their  tempting  goods,  and  lit 
up  their  brilliant  mirrors  without  fear.  The  people 
thronged  to  the  theatres  to  see  the  political  pieces,  and 
evaporate  their  excitement  in  cheers  at  the  liberal  al- 
lusions ;  and  so  ends  a  tumult  that  threatened  danger, 
but  operated,  perhaps,  as  a  healthful  event  for  the  ac 
cumulating  disorders  of  public  opinion. 


LETTER  X. 

GARDEN    OF    THE    TUILERIES FASHIONABLE  DRIVES 

FRENCH     OMNIBUSES CHEAP     RIDING SIGHTS 

STREET-BEGGARS IMPOSTORS,    ETC. 

The  garden  of  the  Tuileries  is  an  idle  man's  para- 
dise. Magnificent  as  it  is  in  extent,  sculptures,  and 
cultivation,  we  all  know  that  statues  may  be  too  dumb, 
gravel  walks  too  long  and  level,  and  trees  and  flowers 
and  fountains  a  little  too  Platonic,  with  any  degree  of 
beauty.  But  the  Tuileries  are  peopled  at  all  hours 
of  sunshine  with,  to  me,  the  most  lovely  objects  in  the 
world — children.  You  may  stop  a  minute,  perhaps, 
to  look  at  the  thousand  gold  fishes  in  the  basin  under 
the  palace-windows,  or  follow  the  swans  for  a  single 
voyage  round  the  fountain  in  the  broad  avenue — but 
you  will  sit  on  your  hired  chair  (at  this  season)  under 
the  shelter  of  the  sunny  wall,  and  gaze  at  the  children 
chasing  about,  with  their  attending  Swiss  maids,  till 
your  heart  has  outwearied  your  eyes,  or  the  palace- 
clock  strikes  five.  I  have  been  there  repeatedly  since 
I  have  been  in  Paris,  and  have  seen  nothing  like  the 
children.  They  move  my  heart  always,  more  than 
anything  under  heaven  ;  but  a  French  child,  with  an 
accent  that  all  your  paid  masters  can  not  give,  and 
manners,  in  the  midst  of  its  romping,  that  mock  to  the 
life  the  air  and  courtesy  for  which  Paris  has  a  name 
over  the  world,  is  enough  to  make  one  forget  Napo- 
leon, though  the  column  of  Vendome  throws  its  shad- 
ow within  sound  of  their  voices.  Imagine  sixty-seven 
acres  of  beautiful  creatures  (that  is  the  extent  of  the 
garden,  and  I  have  not  seen  such  a  thing  as  an  ugly 
French  child) — broad  avenues  stretching  away  as  far 
as  you  can  see,  covered  with  little  foreigners  (so  they 
seem  to  me),  dressed  in  gay  colors,  and  laughing  and 
romping  and  talking  French,  in  all  the  amusing  mix- 
ture of  baby  passions  and  grown-up  manners,  and  an- 
swer me — is  it  not  a  sight  better  worth  seeing  than  all 
the  grand  palaces  that  shut  it  in  ? 

The  Tuileries  are  certainly  very  magnificent,  and  to 
walk  across  from  the  Seine  to  the  Rue  Rivoli,  and 
look  up  the  endless  walks  and  under  the  long  per- 
fect arches  cut  through  the  trees,  may  give  one  a  very 
pretty  surprise  for  once — but  a  winding  lane  is  a  bet- 
ter place  to  enjoy  the  loveliness  of  green  leaves,  and  a 
single  New  England  elm,  letting  down  its  slendei 
branches  to  the  ground  in  the  inimitable  grace  of  na- 
ture, has,  to  my  eye,  more  beauty  than  all  the  clipped 
vistas  from  the  king's  palace  to  the  Arc  de  VEtoile, 
the  Champs  Elysces  inclusive. 

One  of  the  finest  things  in  Paris,  by  the  way,  is  the 
view  from  the  terrace  in  front  of  the  palace  to  this 
"  Arch  of  Triumph,"  commenced  by  Napoleon  at  the 
extremity  of  the  "  Elysian  Fields,"  a  single  avenue 
of  about  two  miles.  The  part  beyond  the  gardens  is 
the  fashionable  drive,  and  by  a  saunter  on  horseback 
to  the  Boh  de  Boulogne,  between  four  and  five,  on  a 
pleasant  day,  one  may  see  all  the  clashing  equipages 
in  Paris.  Broadway,  however,  would  eclipse  every- 
thing here,  either  for  beauty  of  construction  or  ap- 
pointments. Our  carriages  are  every  way  handsomer 
and  better  hung,  and  the  horses  are  harnessed  more 
compactly  and  gracefully.     The   lumbering  vehicles 


16 


PENCILLINGS  BY  THE  WAY. 


here  make  a  great  show,  it  is  true,  for  the  box,  with 
its  heavy  hammer  cloth,  is  level  with  the  top,  and  the 
coachman  and  footmen  and  outriders  are  very  striking 
in  their  bright  liveries ;  but  the  elegant,  convenient, 
light-running  establishments  of  Philadelphia  and  New 
York,  excel  them,  out  of  all  comparison,  for  taste  and 
fitness.  The  best  driving  I  have  seen  is  by  the  king's 
whips,  and  really  it  is  beautiful  to  see  his  retinue  on 
the  road,  four  or  five  coaches  and  six,  with  footmen 
and  outriders  in  scarlet  liveries,  and  the  finest  horses 
possible  for  speed  and  action.  His  majesty  generally 
takes  the  outer  edge  of  the  Champs  Elysees,  on  the 
bank  of  the  river,  and  the  rapid  glimpses  of  the  bright 
show  through  the  breaks  in  the  wood,  are  exceedingly 
picturesque. 

There  is  nothing  in  Paris  that  looks  so  outlandish 
to  my  eye  as  the  common  vehicles.  I  was  thinking 
of  it  this  morning  as  I  stood  waiting  for  the  St.  Sulpice 
omnibus,  at  the  corner  of  the  Rue  Vivienne,  the  great 
thoroughfare  between  the  Boulevards  and  the  Palais 
Royal.  There  was  the  hack-cabriolet  lumbering  by 
in  the  fashion  of  two  centuries  ago,  with  a  horse  and 
harness  that  look  equally  ready  to  drop  in  pieces;  the 
hand-cart  with  a  stout  dog  harnessed  under  the  axle- 
tree,  drawing  with  twice  the  strength  of  his  master ; 
the  market-wagon,  driven  always  by  women,  and  drawn 
generally  by  a  horse  and  a  mule  abreast,  the  horse  of 
the  Norman  breed,  immensely  large,  and  the  mule 
about  the  size  of  a  well-grown  bull-dog  ;  a  vehicle  of 
which  I  have  not  yet  found  out  the  name,  a  kind  of 
long  demi-omnibus,  with  two  wheels  and  a  single 
horse,  and  carrying  nine  ;  and  last,  but  not  least  amu- 
sing, a  small  close  carriage  for  one  person,  swung 
upon  two  wheels  and  drawn  by  a  servant,  very  much 
used,  apparently,  by  elderly  women  and  invalids,  and 
certainly  most  admirable  conveniences  either  for  the 
economy  or  safety  of  getting  about  a  city.  It  would 
be  difficult  to  find  an  American  servant  who  would 
draw  in  harness  as  they  do  here  ;  and  it  is  amusing  to 
see  a  stout,  well-dressed  fellow,  strapped  to  a  carriage, 
and  pulling  along  the  paves,  sometimes  at  a  jog-trot, 
while  his  master  or  mistress  sits  looking  unconcern- 
edly out  of  the  window. 

I  am  not  yet  decided  whether  the  French  are  the 
best  or  the  worst  drivers  in  the  world.  If  the  latter, 
they  certainly  have  most  miraculous  escapes.  A  cab- 
driver  never  pulls  the  reins  except  upon  great  emer- 
gencies, or  for  a  right-about  turn,  and  his  horse  has  a 
ludicrous  aversion  to  a  straight  line.  The  streets  are 
built  inclining  toward  the  centre,  with  the  gutter  in  the 
middle,  and  it  is  the  habit  of  all  cabriolet-horses  to  run 
down  one  side  and  up  the  other  constantly  at  such 
sudden  angles  that  it  seems  to  you  they  certainly  will 
go  through  the  shop-windows.  This,  of  course,  is 
very  dangerous  to  foot-passengers  in  a  city  where  there 
are  no  side-walks ;  and,  as  a  consequence,  the  average 
number  of  complaints  to  the  police  of  Paris  for  peo- 
ple killed  by  careless  driving,  is  about  four  hundred 
annually.  There  are  probably  twice  the  number  of 
legs  broken.  One  becomes  vexed  in  riding  with  these 
fellows,  and  I  have  once  or  twice  undertaken  to  get 
into  a  French  passion,  and  insist  upon  driving  my- 
self. But  I  have  never  yet  met  with  an  accident. 
"  Gar-r-r-r-e  /"  sings  out  the  driver,  rolling  the  word 
off  his  tongue  like  a  bullet  from  a  shovel,  but  never 
thinking  to  lift  his  loose  reins  from  the  dasher,  while 
the  frightened  passenger,  without  looking  round,  makes 
for  the  first  door  with  an  alacrity  that  shows  a  habit  of 
expecting  very  little  from  the  cocker's  skill. 

Riding  is  very  cheap  in  Paris,  if  managed  a  little. 
The  city  is  traversed  constantly  in  every  direction  by 
omnibuses,  and  you  may  go  from  the  Tuileries  to 
Pere  la  Chaise,  or  from  St.  Surplice  to  the  Italian 
Boulevards  (the  two  diagonals),  or  take  the  "  Tous  les 
Boulevards,'''  and  ride  quite  round  the  city  for  six  sous 
the  distance.     The  "fiacre"  is  like  our  own  hacks, 


except  that  you  pay  but  "twenty  sows  the  course," 
and  fill  the  vehicle  with  your  friends  if  you  please  ; 
and,  more  cheap  and  comfortable  still,  there  is  the 
universal  cabriolet,  which  for  fifteen  sous  the  course," 
or  "twenty  the  hour,"  will  give  you  at  least  three 
times  the  value  of  your  money,  with  the  advantage  of 
seeing  ahead  and  talking  bad  French  with  the  driver. 

Everything  in  France  is  either  grotesque  or  pictur- 
esque. I  have  been  struck  with  it  this  morning,  while 
sitting  at  my  window,  looking  upon  the  close  inner 
court  of  the  hotel.  One  would  suppose  that  a  pave, 
between  four  high  walls,  would  offer  very  little  to  se- 
duce the  eye  from  its  occupation ;  but,  on  the  con- 
trary, one's  whole  time  may  be  occupied  in  watching 
the  various  sights  presented  in  constant  succession. 
First  comes  the  itinerant  cobbler,  with  his  seat  and 
materials  upon  his  back,  and  coolly  selecting  a  place 
against  the  wall,  opens  his  shop  under  your  window, 
and  drives  his  trade,  most  industriously,  for  half  an 
hour.  If  you  have  anything  to  mend,  he  is  too  happy ; 
if  not,  he  has  not  lost  his  time,  for  he  pays  no  rent, 
and  is  all  the  while  at  work.  He  packs  up  again, 
bows  to  the  concierge,  as  politely  as  his  load  will  per- 
mit, and  takes  his  departure,  in  the  hope  to  find  your 
shoes  more  worn  another  day.  Nothing  could  be 
more  striking  than  his  whole  appearance.  He  is  met 
in  the  gate,  perhaps,  by  an  old  clothes-man,  who  will 
buy  or  sell,  and  compliment  you  for  nothing,  cheap- 
ening your  coat  by  calling  the  Virgin  to  witness  that 
your  shape  is  so  genteel  that  it  will  not  fit  one  man  in 
a  thousand  ;  or  by  a  family  of  singers,  with  a  monkey 
to  keep  time  ;  or  a  regular  beggar,  who,  however, 
does  not  dream  of  asking  charity  till  he  has  done 
something  to  amuse  you  :  after  these,  perhaps,  will 
follow  a  succession  of  objects  singularly  peculiar  to 
this  fantastic  metropolis;  and,  if  one  could  separate 
from  the  poor  creatures  the  knowledge  of  the  cold 
and  hunger  they  suffer,  wandering  about,  houseless, 
in  the  most  inclement  weather,  it  would  be  easy  to 
imagine  it  a  diverting  pantomime,  and  give  them  the 
poor  pittance  they  ask,  as  the  price  of  an  amused  hour. 
An  old  man  has  just  gone  from  the  court  who  comes 
regularly  twice  a  week,  with  a  long  beard,  perfectly 
white,  and  a  strange  kind  of  an  equipage.  It  is  an 
organ,  set  upon  a  rude  carriage,  with  four  small 
wheels,  and  drawn  by  a  mule,  of  the  most  diminu- 
tive size,  looking  (if  it  were  not  the  venerable  figure 
crouched  upon  the  seat)  like  some  roughly-contrived 
plaything.  The  whole  affair,  harness  and  all,  is  evi- 
dently his  own  work  ;  and  it  is  affecting  to  see  the 
difficulty,  and,  withal,  the  habitual  apathy  with  which 
the  old  itinerant  fastens  his  rope-reins  beside  him,  and 
dismounts  to  grind  his  one — solitary — eternal  tune,  for 
charity. 

Among  the  thousands  of  wretched  objects  in  Paris 
(they  make  the  heart  sick  with  their  misery  at  every 
turn),  there  is,  here  and  there,  one  of  an  interesting 
character;  and  it  is  pleasant  to  select  them,  and  make 
a  habit  of  your  trifling  gratuity.  Strolling  about,  as  I 
do,  constantly,  and  letting  everybody  and  everything 
amuse  me  that  will,  I  have  made  several  of  these 
penny-a-day  acquaintances,  and  find  them  very  agree- 
able breaks  to  the  heartless  solitude  of  a  crowd.  There 
is  a  little  fellow  who  stands  by  the  gate  of  the  Tuile- 
ries, opening  to  the  Place  Vendome,  who,  with  all  the 
rags  and  dirt  of  a  street-boy,  begs  with  an  air  of  su- 
periority that  is  absolutely  patronizing.  One  feels 
obliged  to  the  little  varlet  for  the  privilege  of  giving 
to  him — his  smile  and  manner  are  so  courtly.  His 
face  is  beautiful,  dirty  as  it  is  ;  his  voice  is  clear,  and 
unaffected,  and  his  thin  lips  have  an  expression  of 
high-bred  contempt,  that  amuses  me  a  little,  and  puz- 
zles me  a  great  deal.  I  think  he  must  have  a  gentle- 
man's blood  in  his  veins,  though  he  possibly  came 
indirectly  by  it.  There  is  a  little  Jewess  hanging 
about  the  Louvre,  who  begs  with  her  dark  eyes  very 


PENCILLINGS  BY  THE  WAY. 


J7 


eloquently ;  and,  in  the  Rue  de  la  Pair  there  may  be 
found  at  all  hours,  a  melancholy,  sick-looking  Italian 
boy,  with  his  hand  in  his  bosom,  whose  native  lan- 
guage and  picture-like  face  are  a  diurnal  pleasure  to 
me,  cheaply  bought  with  the  poor  trifle  which  makes 
him  happy.  It  is  surprising  how  many  devices  there 
are  in  the  streets  for  attracting  attention  and  pity. 
There  is  a  woman  always  to  be  seen  upon  the  Boule- 
vards, playing  a  solemn  tune  on  a  violin,  with  a  child 
as  pallid  as  ashes,  lying,  apparently,  asleep  in  her  lap. 
I  suspected,  after  seeing  it  once  or  twice,  that  it  was 
wax,  and,  a  day  or  two  since  I  satisfied  myself  of  the 
fact,  and  enraged  the  mother  excessively  by  touching 
its  cheek.  It  represents  a  sick  child  to  the  life,  and 
any  one  less  idle  and  curious,  would  be  deceived.  I 
have  often  seen  people  give  her  money  with  the  most 
unsuspecting  look  of  sympathy,  though  it  would  be 
natural  enough  to  doubt  the  maternal  kindness  of 
keeping  a  dying  child  in  the  open  air  in  mid-winter. 
Then  there  is  a  woman  without  hands,  making  braid 
with  wonderful  adroitness;  and  a  man  without  legs  or 
arms,  singing,  with  his  hat  set  appealingly  on  the 
ground  before  him ;  and  cripples,  exposing  their  ab-  ! 
breviated  limbs,  and  telling  their  stories  over  and  j 
over,  with  or  without  listeners,  from  morning  till 
night ;  and  every  description  of  appeal  to  the  most 
acute  sympathies,  mingled  up  with  all  the  gayety, 
show,  and  fashion,  of  the  most  crowded  promenade  in 
Paris. 

In  the  present  dreadful  distress  of  trade,  there  are 
other  still  more  painful  cases  of  misery.  It  is  not  un- 
common to  be  addressed  in  the  street  by  men  of  per- 
fectly respectable  appearance,  whose  faces  bear  every 
mark  of  strong  mental  struggle,  and  often  of  famish- 
ing necessity,  with  an  appeal  for  the  smallest  sum  that 
will  buy  food.  The  look  of  misery  is  so  general,  as  to 
mark  the  whole  population.  It  has  struck  me  most 
forcibly  everywhere,  notwithstanding  the  gayety  of 
the  national  character,  and,  I  am  told  by  intelligent 
Frenchmen,  it  is  peculiar  to  the  time,  and  felt  and 
observed  by  all.  Such  things  startle  one  back  to  na- 
ture sometimes.  It  is  difficult  to  look  away  from  the 
face  of  a  starving  man,  and  see  the  splendid  equipages, 
and  the  idle  waste  upon  trifles,  within  his  very  sight, 
and  reconcile  the  contrast  with  any  belief  of  the  exist- 
ence of  human  pity — still  more  difficult,  perhaps,  to 
admit  without  reflection,  the  right  of  one  human  being 
to  hold  in  a  shut  hand,  at  will,  the  very  life  and  breath 
for  which  his  fellow-creatures  are  perishing  at  his 
door.  It  is  this  that  is  visited  back,  so  terribly  in  the 
horrors  of  a  revolution. 


LETTER  XI. 

FOYETIER — THE       THRACIAN       GLADIATOR MADEMOI- 
SELLE    MARS DOCTOR     FRANKLIN'S    RESIDENCE    I.N 

PARIS ANNUAL    BALL    FOR    THE    POOR. 

1  had  the  pleasure  to-day  of  being  introduced  to 
the  young  sculptor  Foyetier,  the  author  of  the  new 
statue  on  the  terrace  of  the  Tuileries.  Aside  from 
his  genius,  he  is  interesting  from  a  circumstance  con- 
nected with  his  early  history.  He  was  a  herd-driver 
in  one  of  the  provinces,  and  amused  himself  in  his 
leisure  moments  with  the  carving  of  rude  images, 
which  he  sold  for  a  sous  or  two  on  market-days  in  the 
provincial  town.  The  celebrated  Dr.  Gall  fell  in  with 
him  accidentally,  and  felt  of  his  head,  en  passant.  The 
bump  was  there  which  contains  his  present  greatness, 
and  the  phrenologist  took  upon  himself  the  risk  of  his 
education  in  the  arts.  He  is  now  the  first  sculptor, 
beyond  all  competition,  in  France.  His  "  Spartacus," 
the  Thracian  gladiator,  is  the  admiration  of  Paris.  It 
•tauds  in  front  of  the  palace,  in  the  most  conspicuous 
9 


part  of  the  regal  gardens,  and  there  are  hundreds  of 
people  about  the  pedestal  at  all  hours  of  the  day. 
The  gladiator  has  broken  his  chain,  and  stands  with 
his  weapon  in  his  hand,  every  muscle  and  feature 
breathing  action,  his  body  throw  n  back,  and  his  right 
foot  planted  powerfully  for  a  spring.  It  is  a  gal  hint 
thing.  One's  blood  stirs  to  look  at  it.  I  think  that 
Forrest  (however  well  he  may  be  playing  now  in  the 
new  tragedy,  of  which  I  see  so  much  in  the  papers), 
would  get  from  it  even  a  more  intense  conception  of 
the  gladiator.  If  I  had  written  such  a  play,  I  would 
make  the  voyage  of  the  Atlantic  to  see  the  character 
thus  bodied  out. 

Foyetier  is  a  young  man,  I  should  think  about  thir- 
ty. He  is  small,  very  plain  in  appearance  ;  but  he 
has  a  rapid,  earnest  eye,  and  a  mouth  of  singular 
suavity  of  expression.  I  liked  him  extremely.  His 
celebrity  seems  not  to  have  trenched  a  step  on  the  na- 
ture of  his  character.  His  genius  is  everywhere  al- 
lowed, and  he  works  for  the  king  altogether,  his  majes- 
ty bespeaking  everything  he  attempts,  even  in  the 
model ;  but  he  is  certainly,  of  all  geniuses,  one  of  the 
most  modest. 

The  celebrated  Mars  has  come  out  from  her  retire 
ment  once  more,  and  commenced  an  engagement  at  the 
Theatre  Francois.  I  went  a  short  time  since  to  see 
her  play  in  Tartuffe.  This  stane  is  the  home  of  the 
true  French  drama.  Here  Talma  played  when  he  and 
Mademoiselle  Mars  were  the  delight  of  Napoleon  and 
of  France.  I  have  had  few  gratifications  greater  than 
that  of  seeing  this  splendid  woman  reappear  in  the 
place  where  she  won  her  brilliant  reputation.  The 
play,  too,  was  Rloliere's,  and  it  was  here  that  it  was 
first  performed.  Altogether  it  was  like  something 
plucked  back  from  history  ;  a  renewal,  as  in  a  magic 
mirror,  of  glories  gone  by. 

I  could  scarce  believe  my  eyes  when  she  appeared 
as  the  "  wife  of  Argon."  She  looked  about  twenty- 
five.  Her  step  was  light  and  graceful  ;  her  voice  was 
as  tinlike  that  of  a  woman  of  sixty  as  could  well  be 
imagined:  sweet,  clear,  and  under  a  control  which 
gives  her  a  power  of  expression  I  never  had  conceived 
before;  her  mouth  had  the  definite,  firm  play  of  youth  ; 
her  teeth  (though  the  dentist  might  do  that)  were 
white  and  perfect ;  and  her  eyes  can  have  lost  none 
of  their  fire,  I  am  sure.  I  never  saw  so  quiet  a  play- 
er. Her  gestures  were  just  perceptible,  no  more  ;  and 
yet  they  were  done  so  exquisitely  at  the  right  moment 
— so  unconsciously,  as  if  she  had  not  meant  them, 
that  they  were  more  forcible  than  even  the  language 
itself.  She  repeatedly  drew  a  low  murmur  of  delight 
from  the  whole  house  with  a  single  play  of  expression 
across  her  face,  while  the  other  characters  were  speak- 
ing, or  by  a  slight  movement  of  her  fingers,  in  panto- 
mimic astonishment  or  vexation.  It  was  really  some- 
thing new  to  me.  I  had  never  before  seen  a  first-rate 
female  player  in  comedy.  Leontine  Fay  is  inimitable 
in  tragedy;  but,  if  there  is  any  comparison  between 
them,  it  is  that  this  beautiful  young  creature  overpow- 
ers the  heart  with  her  nature,  while  Mademoiselle 
Mars  satisfies  the  uttermost  demand  of  the  judg- 
ment with  her  art. 

I  yesterday  visited  the  house  occupied  by  Franklin 
while  he  was  in  France.  It  is  one  of  the  most  beau- 
tiful country  residences  in  the  neighborhood  of  Paris, 
standing  on  the  elevated  ground  of  Passy,  and  over- 
looking the  whole  city  on  one  side,  and  the  valley  of 
the  Seine  for  a  long  distance  toward  Versailles  on  the 
other.  The  house  is  otherwise  celebrated.  Madame 
de  Genlis  lived  there  while  the  present  king  was  her 
pupil ;  and  Louis  the  Fifteenth  occupied  it  six  months 
for  the  country  air,  while  under  the  infliction  of  the 
gout — its  neighborhood  to  the  palace  probably  ren- 
dering it  preferable  to  the  more  distant  chateaux  of 


18 


PENCILLINGS  BY  THE  WAY. 


St.  Cloud  or  Versailles.  Its  occupants  would  seem 
to  have  been  various  enough,  without  the  addition  of 
a  lieutenant  general  of  the  British  army,  whose  hos- 
pitality makes  it  delightful  at  present.  The  lightning- 
rod,  which  was  raised  by  Franklin,  and  which  was  the 
first  conductor  used  in  France,  is  still  standing.  The 
gardens  are  large,  and  form  a  sort  of  terrace,  with  the 
house  on  the  front  edge.  It  must  be  one  of  the 
sweetest  places  in  the  world  in  summer. 

The  great  annual  ball  for  the  poor  was  given  at  the 
Academie  Royale,  a  few  nights  since.  This  is  attend- 
ed by  the  king  and  royal  family,  and  is  ordinarily  the 
most  splendid  affair  of  the  season.  It  is  managed  by 
twenty  or  thirty  lady-patronesses,  who  have  the  con- 
trol of  the  tickets  ;  and,  though  by  no  means  exclu- 
sive, it  is  kept  within  very  respectable  limits  ;  and,  if 
one  is  content  to  float  with  the  tide,  and  forego  dan- 
cing, is  an  unusually  comfortable  and  well-behaved 
spectacle. 

I  went  with  a  large  party  at  the  early  hour  of  eight. 
We  fell  into  the  train  of  carriages,  advancing  slowly 
between  files  of  dragoons,  and  stood  before  the  door 
in  our  turn  in  the  course  of  an  hour.  The  staircases 
were  complete  orangeries,  with  immense  mirrors  at 
every  turn,  and  soldiers  on  guard,  and  servants  in  liv- 
ery, from  top  to  bottom.  The  long  saloon,  lighted  by 
ten  chandeliers,  was  dressed  and  hung  with  wreaths 
as  a  receiving-room  ;  and  passing  on  through  the  spa- 
cious lobbies,  which  were  changed  into  groves  of 
pines  and  exotics,  we  entered  upon  the  grand  scene. 
The  coup  d'aii  would  have  astonished  Aladdin.  The 
theatre,  which  is  the  largest  in  Paris,  and  gorgeously 
built  and  ornamented,  was  thrown  into  one  vast  ball- 
room, ascending  gradually  from  the  centre  to  plat- 
forms raised  at  either  end,  one  of  which  was  occupied 
by  the  throne  and  seats  for  the  king's  family  and  suite. 
The  four  rows  of  boxes  were  crowded  with  ladies,  and 
the  house  presented,  from  the  floor  to  the  paradis,  one 
glittering  and  waving  wall  of  dress,  jewelry,  and  feath- 
ers. An  orchestra  of  near  a  hundred  musicians  occu- 
pied the  centre  of  the  hall ;  and  on  either  side  of  them 
swept  by  the  long  countless  multitudes  of  people, 
dressed  with  a  union  of  taste  and  show  ;  while,  instead 
of  the  black  coats  which  darken  the  complexion  of  a 
party  in  a  republican  country,  every  other  gentleman  '■■ 
was  in  a  gay  uniform  ;  and  polytechnic  scholars  with  I 
their  scarlet-faced  coats,  officers  of  the  "  National 
Guard"  and  the  "  line,"  gentlemen  of  the  king's 
household,  and  foreign  ministers,  and  attaches,  pre- 
sented a  variety  of  color  and  splendor  which  nothing  ! 
could  exceed. 

The  theatre  itself  was  not  altered,  except  by  the 
platform  occupied  by  the  king  ;  it  is  sufficiently  splen-  j 
did  as  it  stands ;  but  the  stage,  whose  area  is  much 
larger  than  that  of  the  pit,  was  hung  in  rich  drapery 
as  a  vast  tent,  and  garnished  to  profusion  with  flags 
and  arms.  Along  the  sides,  on  a  level  with  the  lower 
row  of  boxes,  extended  galleries  of  crimson  velvet, 
festooned  with  flowers.  These  were  filled  with  ladies, 
and  completed  a  circle  about  the  house  of  beauty  and 
magnificence,  of  which  the  king  and  his  dazzling 
suite  formed  the  corona.  Chandeliers  were  hung 
close  together  from  one  end  of  the  hall  to  the  other. 
I  commenced  counting  them  once  or  twice,  but  some 
bright  face  flitting  by  in  the  dance  interrupted  me. 
An  English  girl  near  me  counted  fifty-five,  and  I  think 
there  must  have  been  more.  The  blaze  of  light  was 
almost  painful.  The  air  glittered,  and  the  fine  grain 
of  the  most  delicate  complexions  was  distinctly  visible. 
It  is  impossible  to  describe  the  effect  of  so  much  light 
and  space  and  music  crowded  into  one  spectacle.  The 
vastness  of  the  hall,  so  long  that  the  best  sight  could 
not  distinguish  a  figure  at  the  opposite  extremity,  and 
so  high  as  to  absorb  and  mellow  the  vibration  of  a 
hundred  instruments — the  gorgeous  sweep  of  splendor 


from  one  platform  to  the  other,  absolutely  drowning 
the  eye  in  a  sea  of  gay  colors,  nodding  feathers,  jewel- 
ry, and  military  equipment — the  delicious  music,  the 
strange  faces,  dresses,  and  tongues  (one  half  of  the 
multitude  at  least  being  foreigners),  the  presence  of 
the  king,  and  the  gallant  show  of  uniforms  in  his  con- 
spicuous suite,  combined  to  make  up  a  scene  more 
than  sufficiently  astonishing.  1  felt  the  whole  night 
the  smothering  consciousness  of  senses  too  narrow — 
eyes,  ears,  language — all  too  limited  for  the  demand 
made  upon  them. 

The  king  did  not  arrive  till  after  ten.  He  entered 
by  a  silken  curtain  in  the  rear  of  the  platform  on  which 
seats  were  placed  for  his  family.  The  "  Vive  le  JRoi' 
was  not  so  hearty  as  to  drown  the  music,  but  his 
majesty  bowed  some  twenty  times  very  graciously,  and 
the  good-hearted  queen  courtsied,  and  kept  a  smile 
on  her  excessively  plain  face,  till  I  felt  the  muscles  of 
my  own  ache  for  her.  King  Philippe  looks  anxious. 
By  the  remarks  of  the  French  people  about  me  when 
he  entered,  he  has  reason  for  it.  I  observed  that  the 
polytechnic  scholars  all  turned  their  backs  upon  him  : 
and  one  exceedingly  handsome,  spirited-looking  boy, 
standing  just  at  my  side,  muttered  a  "  sacre .'"  and  bit 
his  lip,  with  a  very  revolutionary  air,  at  the  continu- 
ance of  the  acclamation.  His  majesty  came  down, 
and  walked  through  the  hall  about  m  idnight.  His  eldest 
son,  the  Duke  of  Orleans,  a  handsome,  unoffending- 
looking  youth  of  eighteen,  followed  him,  gazing  round 
upon  the  crowd  with  his  mouth  open,  and  looking  very 

i  much  annoyed  at  his  part  of  the  pageant.     The  young 

j  duke  has  a  good  figure,  and  is  certainly  a  very  beauti- 
ful dancer.     His  mouth  is  loose   and  weak,  and  his 

I  eyes  are  as  opaque  as  agates.  He  wore  the  uniform 
of  the  Garde  Nationale,  which  does  not  become  him. 

(  In  ordinary  gentleman's  dress  he  is  a  very  authentical 
copy  of  a  Bond-street  dandy,  and  looks  as  little  like  a 
Frenchman  as  most  of  Stultz's  subjects.  He  danced 
all  the  evening,  and  selected,  very  popularly,  decidedly 
the  most  vulgar  women  in  the  room,  looking  all  the 
while  as  one  who  had  been  petted  by  the  finest  women 
in  France  (Leontine  Fay  among  the  number),  might 
be  supposed  to  look  under  such  an  infliction.  The 
king's  second  son,  the  Duke  of  Nemours,  pursued  the 
same  policy.  He  has  a  brighter  face  than  his  broth- 
er, with  hair  almost  white,  and  dances  extremely  well. 
The  second  daughter  is  also  much  prettier  than  the 
eldest.  On  the  whole,  the  king's  family  is  very  plain, 
though  a  very  amiable  one,  and  the  people  seem  at- 
tached to  them. 

These  general  descriptions,  are,  after  all,  very  vague. 
Here  I  have  written  half  a  sheet  with  a  picture  in  my 
mind  of  which  you  are  getting  no  semblable  idea. 
Language  is  a  mere  skeleton  of  such  things.  The 
Academie  Royale  should  be  borne  over  the  water  like 
the  chapel  of  Loretto,  and  set  down  in  Broadway  with 
all  its  lights,  music,  and  people  to  give  you  half  a  no- 
tion of  the  "  Bal  en  faveur  des  Pauvres."  And  so  it 
is  with  everything  except  the  little  histories  of  one's 
own  personal  atmosphere,  and  that  is  the  reason  why 
egotism  should  be  held  virtuous  in  a  traveller,  and  the 
reason  why  one  can  not  study  Europe  at  home. 

After  getting  our  American  party  places,  I  aban- 
doned myself  to  the  strongest  current,  and  went  in 
search  of  "lions."  The  first  face  that  arrested  my 
eye  was  that  of  the  Duchess  D'Istria,  a  woman  cele- 
brated here  for  her  extraordinary  personal  beauty. 

Directly  opposite  this  lovely  dutchess,  in  the  othei 
stage-box  sat  Donna  Maria,  the  young  Queen  of  For 
tugal,  surrounded  by  her  relatives.  Theex-emperess 
her  mother,  was  on  her  right,  her  grandmother  on  hei 
left,  and  behind  her  some  half-dozen  of  her  Portu 
guese  cousins.  She  is  a  little  girl  of  twelve  or  four 
teen,  with  a  fat,  heavy  face,  and  a  remarkably  pamper 
ed,  sleepy  look.  She  was  dressed  like  an  old  woman 
and  gaped  incessantly  the  whole  evening.     The  bo> 


PENCILLINGS  BY  THE  WAY 


19 


wa9  a  perfect  blaze  of  diamonds.  I  never  before  real- 
ized the  beauty  of  these  splendid  stones.  The  necks,  I 
heads,  arms,  and  waists  of  the  ladies  royal  were  all 
streaming  with  light.  The  necklace  of  the  emperess ! 
mother  particularly  flashed  on  the  eye  in  every  part  of| 
the  house.  By  the  unceasing  exclamations  of  the 
women,  it  was  an  unusually  brilliant  show,  even  here. ! 
The  little  Donna  has  a  fine,  well-rounded  chin  ;  and 
when  she  smiled  in  return  to  the  king's  bow,  I  thought 
I  could  see  more  than  a  child's  character  in  the  ex- 1 
pression  of  her  mouth.  I  should  think  a  year  or  two 
of  mental  uneasiness  might  let  out  a  look  of  intelli- 
gence through  her  heavy  features.  She  is  likely  to 
have  it,  I  think,  with  the  doubtful  fortunes  that  seem 
to  beset  her. 

I  met  Don  Pedro  often  in  society  before  his  depar- ; 
ture  upon  his  expedition.  He  is  a  short,  well-made 
man,  of  great  personal  accomplishment,  and  a  very  bad 
expression,  rather  aggravated  by  an  unfortunate  cuta- 
neous eruption.  The  first  time  I  saw  him,  I  was  in- 
duced to  ask  who  he  was,  from  the  apparent  coldness 
and  dislike  with  which  he  was  treated  by  a  lady  whose 
beauty  had  strongly  arrested  my  attention.  He  sat  by, 
her  on  a  sofa  in  a  very  crowded  party,  and  seemed  to' 
be  saying  something  very  earnestly,  which  made  the 
lady's  Spanish  eyes  flash  fire,  and  brought  a  curl  of! 
very  positive  anger  upon  a  pair  of  the  loveliest  lips 
imaginable.  She  was  a  slender,  aristocratic-looking 
creature,  and  dressed  most  magnificently.  After  glan- 
cing  at  them  a  minute  or  two,  I  made  up  my  mind 
that,  from  the  authenticity  of  his  dress  and  appoint- 
ments, he  was  an  Englishman,  and  that  she  was  some 
French  lady  of  rank  whom  he  was  particularly  annoy- 
ing with  his  addresses.  On  inquiry,  the  gentleman ! 
proved  to  be  Don  Pedro,  and  the  lady  the  Countess 
de  Lourle,  his  sister!  I  have  often  met  her  since, 
and  never  without  wondering  how  two  of  the  same 
family  could  look  so  utterly  unlike  each  other.  The! 
Count  de  Lourle  is  called  the  Adonis  of  Paris.  He' 
is  certainly  a  very  splendid  fellow,  and  justifies  the  ro- 
mantic  admiration  of  his  wife,  who  married  him  clan-! 
destinely,  giving  him  her  left  hand  in  the  ceremony,  \ 
as  is  the  etiquette,  they  say,  when  a  princess  marries 
below  her  rank.  One  can  not  help  looking  with  great' 
interest  on  a  beautiful  creature  like  this,  who  has  bro-! 
ken  away  from  the  imposing  fetters  of  a  royal  sphere, 
to  follow  the  dictates  of  natural  feeling.  It  does  not 
occur  so  often  in  Europe  that  one  may  not  sentimen-  \ 
talizs  about  it  without  the  charge  of  affectation. 

To  return  to  the  ball.  The  king  bowed  himself 
out  a  little  after  midnight,  and  with  him  departed  most 
of  the  fat  people,  and  all  the  little  girls.  This  made 
room  enough  to  dance,  and  the  French  set  themselves  ! 
at  it  in  good  earnest.  I  wandered  about  for  an  hour 
or  two  ;  after  wearying  my  imagination  quite  out  in 
speculating  on  the  characters  and  rank  of  people  whom 
I  never  saw  before  and  shall  probably  never  see  again, 
I  mounted  to  the paradis  to  take  a  last  look  down  up- j 
on  the  splendid  scene,  and  made  my  exit.  I  should 
be  quite  content  never  to  go  to  such  a  ball  again, ! 
though  it  was  by  far  the  most  splendid  scene  of  the 
kind  I  ever  saw. 


LETTER  XII. 

PLACE  LOUIS  XV. PANORAMIC  VIEW  OF  PAK1S A  LIT-! 

ERARY    CLUB     DINNER THE     GUESTS  — THE    PRESI- 
DENT  THE    EXILED    POLES,    ETC. 

I  have  spent  the  day  in  a  long  stroll.  The  wind  J 
blew  warm  and  delicious  from  the  south  this  morning, 
and  the  temptation  to  abandon  lessons  and  lectures ! 
was  irresistible.  Taking  the  Arc  de  VEtoile  as  my  j 
pxtreme  point.  I  yielded   to  all  the  leisurely  hinder-| 


ances  of  shop-windows,  beggars,  book-stalls,  and  views 
by  the  way.  Among  the  specimen-cards  in  an  en- 
graver's window  I  was  amused  at  finding,  in  the  latest 
Parisian  fashion,  "Hussein-Pacha,  Dcif  d' Algiers." 
These  delightful  Tuileries!  We  rambled  through 
them  (I  had  met  a  friend  and  countryman,  and  enticed 
him  into  my  idle  plans  for  the  day),  and  amused  our- 
selves with  the  never-failing  beauty  and  grace  of  tho 
French  children  for  an  hour.  On  the  inner  terrace 
we  stopped  to  look  at  the  beautiful  hotel  of  Prince 
Polignac,  facing  the  Tuileries,  on  the  opposite  bank. 
By  the  side  of  this  exquisite  little  model  of  a  palace 
stands  the  superb  commencement  of  Napoleon's  min- 
isterial hotel,  breathing  of  his  glorious  conception  in 
every  line  of  its  ruins.  It  is  astonishing  what  a  god- 
like impress  that  man  left  upon  all  he  touched. 

Every  third  or  fourth  child  in  the  gardens  was 
dressed  in  the  full  uniform  of  the  National  Guard — 
helmet,  sword,  epaulets,  and  all.  They  are  ludi- 
crous little  caricatures,  of  course,  but  it  inoculates 
them  with  love  of  the  corps,  and  it  would  be  better  if 
that  were  synonymous  with  a  love  of  liberal  principles. 
The  Garde  Rationale  are  supposed  to  be  more  than 
half  "Carlists"'  at  this  moment. 

We  passed  out  by  the  guarded  gate  of  the  Tuileries 
to  the  Place  Louis  XV.  This  square  is  a  most  beau- 
tiful spot,. as  a  centre  of  unequalled  views,  and  yet  a 
piece  of  earth  so  foully  polluted  with  human  blood 
|  probably  does  not  exist  on  the  face  of  the  globe.  It 
divides  the  Tuileries  from  the  Champs  Elysces,  and 
ranges,  of  course,  in  the  long  broad  avenue  of  two 
I  miles,  stretching  between  the  king's  palace  and  the 
I  Arc  de  VEtoile.  It  is  but  a  list  of  names  to  write  down 
!  the  particular  objects  to  be  seen  in  such  a  view, 
j  but  it  commands,  at  the  extremities  of  its  radii,  the 
most  princely  edifices,  seen  hence  with  the  most  ad- 
vantageous foregrounds  of  space  and  avenue,  and 
softened  by  distance  into  the  misty  and  unbroken  sur- 
face of  engraving.  The  king's  palace  is  on  one  hand, 
Napoleon's  Arch  at  a  distance  of  nearly  two  miles  on 
the  other.  Prince  Talleyrand's  regal  dwelling  behind, 
with  the  church  of  Madeline  seen  through  the  Rue 
Royale,  while  before  you,  to  the  south,  lies  a  picture 
of  profuse  splendor :  the  broad  Seine,  spanned  by 
bridges  that  are  the  admiration  of  Europe,  and  crowded 
by  specimens  of  architectural  magnificence;  the 
chamber  of  deputies ;  and  the  Palais  Bourbon,  ap- 
proached by  the  Pont  Louis  XVI.  with  its  gigantic 
statuses  and  simple  majesty  of  structure;  and,  rising 
over  all,  the  grand  dome  of  the  "  Invalides,"  which 
Napoleon  gilded,  to  divert  the  minds  of  his  subjects 
from  his  lost  battle,  and  which  Peter  the  Great  ad- 
mired more  than  all  Paris  beside.  What  a  spot  for  a 
man  to  stand  upon,  with  but  one  bosom  to  feel  and 
one  tongue  to  express  his  wonder! 

And  yet,  of  what,  that  should  make  a  spot  of  earth 
sink  to  perdition,  has  it  not  been  the  theatre  ?  Here 
were  beheaded  the  unfortunate  Louis  XVI. — his  wife, 
Marie  Antoinette — his  kinsman;  Philip  duke  of  Orleans, 
and  his  sister  Elizabeth;  and  here  were  guillotined 
the  intrepid  Charlotte  Corday,  the  deputy  Brissot,  and 
twenty  of  his  colleagues,  and  all  the  victims  of  the 
revolution  of  1793,  to  the  amount  of  two  thousand 
eight  hundred;  and  here  Robespierre  and  his  cursed 
crew  met  at  last  with  their  insufficient  retribution; 
and,  as  if  it  were  destined  to  be  the  very  blood-spot 
of  the  earth,  here  the  fireworks,  which  were  celebra- 
ting the  marriage  of  the  same  Louis  that  was  after- 
ward brought  hither  to  the  scaffold,  exploded  and 
killed  fourteen  hundred  persons.  It  has  been  the 
scene,  also,  of  several  minor  tragedies  not  worth  men- 
tioning in  such  a  connexion.  Were  I  a  Bourbon,  and 
as  unpopular  as  King  Philippe  I.  at  this  moment,  tho 
view  of  the  Place  Louis  XV.  from  my  palace  windows 
would  very  much  disturb  the  beauty  of  the  perspec- 
tive.    Without  an  equivoque,  I  should  look  with  a  very 


20 


PENCILLINGS  BY  THE  WAY. 


ominous  dissatisfaction  on  the  "Elysian  fields"  that 
lie  beyond. 

We  loitered  slowly  on  to  the  Barrier  Neuilly,  just 
outside  of  which,  and  right  before  the  city  gates, 
stands  the  Triumphal  Arch.  It  has  the  stamp  of 
Napoleon — simple  grandeur.  The  broad  avenue  from 
the  Tuileries  swells  slowly  up  to  it  for  two  miles,  and 
the  view  of  Paris  at  its  foot,  even,  is  superb.  We 
ascended  to  the  unfinished  roof,  a  hundred  and  thirty- 
five  feet  from  the  ground,  and  saw  the  whole  of  the 
mighty  capital  of  France  at  a  coup  d'ceil — churches, 
palaces,  gardens;  buildings  heaped  upon  buildings 
clear  over  the  edge  of  the  horizon,  where  the  spires 
of  the  city  in  which  you  stand  are  scarcely  visible  for 
the  distance. 

T  dined  a  short  time  since,  with  the  editors  of  the 
Revue  Encyclopedique  at  their  monthly  reunion.  This 
is  a  sort  of  club  dinner,  to  which  the  eminent  contrib- 
utors of  the  review  invite  once  a  month  all  the  stran- 
gers of  distinction  who  happen  to  be  in  Paris.  1  owed 
my  invitation  probably  to  the  circumstance  of  my  liv- 
ing with  Dr.  Howe,  who  is  considered  the  organ  of 
American  principles  here,  and  whose  force  of  charac- 
ter has  given  him  a  degree  of  respect  and  prominence 
not  often  attained  by  foreigners.  It  was  the  most  re- 
markable party,  by  far,  that  I  had  ever  seen.  There 
were  nearly  a  hundred  guests,  twenty  or  thirty  of 
whom  were  distinguished  Poles,  lately  arrived  from 
Warsaw.  Generals  Romarino  and  Langermann  were 
placed  beside  the  president,  and  another  general,  whose 
name  is  as  difficult  to  remember  as  his  face  is  to  forget, 
and  who  is  famous  for  having  been  the  last  on 
the  field,  sat  next  to  the  head  seat.  Near  him  were 
General  Bernard  and  Dr.  Bowring,  with  Sir  Sidney 
Smith  (covered  with  orders,  from  every  quarter  of  the 
world),  and  the  President  of  Colombia.  After  the 
usual  courses  of  a  French  dinner,  the  president,  Mons. 
Julien,  a  venerable  man,  with  snow-white  hair,  ad- 
dressed the  company.  He  expressed  his  pleasure  at 
the  meeting,  with  the  usual  courtesies  of  welcome, 
and  in  the  fervent  manner  of  the  old  school  of  French 
politeness;  and  then,  pausing  a  little,  and  lowering 
his  voice,  with  a  very  touching  cadence,  he  looked 
around  to  the  Poles,  and  began  to  speak  of  their  coun- 
try. Every  movement  was  instantly  hushed  about  the 
table— the  guests  leaned  forward,  some  of  them  half 
rising  in  their  earnestness  to  hear  ;  the  old  man's  voice 
trembled,  and  sunk  lower;  the  Poles  dropped  their 
heads  upon  their  bosoms,  and  the  whole  company 
were  strongly  affected.  His  mannersuddenly  changed 
at  this  moment,  in  a  degree  that  would  have  seemed 
too  dramatic,  if  the  strong  excitement  had  not  sustain- 
ed him.  He  spoke  indignantly  of  the  Russian  bar- 
barity toward  Poland — assured  the  exiles  of  the  strong 
sympathy  felt  by  the  great  mass  of  the  French  people 
in  their  cause,  and  expressed  his  confident  belief  that 
the  struggle  was  not  yet  done,  and  the  time  was  near 
when,  with  France  at  her  back,  Poland  would  rise  and 
be  free.  He  closed,  amid  tumultuous  acclamation, 
and  all  the  Poles  near  him  kissed  the  old  man,  after 
the  French  manner,  upon  both  his  cheeks. 

This  speech  was  followed  by  several  others,  much 
to  the  same  effect.  Dr.  Bowring  replied  handsomely, 
in  French,  to  some  compliment  paid  to  his  efforts  on 
the  "question  of  reform,"  in  England.  Cesar  Moreau, 
the  great  schemist,  and  founder  of  the  Academie  d' In- 
dustrie, said  a  few  very  revolutionary  things  quite  em- 
phatically, rolling  his  fine  visionary-looking  eyes  about 
as  if  he  saw  the  "  shadows  cast  before"  of  coming 
events;  and  then  rose  a  speaker,  whom  I  shall  never 
forget — he  was  a  young  Polish  noble,  of  about  nine- 
teen, whose  extreme  personal  beauty  and  enthusiastic 
expression  of  countenance  had  particularly  arrested 
my  attention  in  the  drawing-room,  before  dinner.  His 
person  was  slender  and  graceful — his  eye  and  mouth 


full  of  beauty  and  fire,  and  his  manner  had  a  quiet  na- 
tive superiority,  that  would  have  distinguished  him 
anywhere.  He  had  behaved  very  gallantly  in  the 
struggle,  and  some  allusion  had  been  made  to  him  in 
one  of  the  addresses.  He  rose  modestly,  and  half  un- 
willingly, and  acknowledged  the  kind  wishes  for  his 
country  in  language  of  great  elegance.  He  then  went 
on  to  speak  of  the  misfortunes  of  Poland,  and  soon 
warmed  into  eloquence  of  the  most  vivid  earnestness 
and  power.  I  never  was  more  moved  by  a  speaker — 
he  seemed  perfectly  unconscious  of  everything  but  the 
recollections  of  his  subject.  His  eyes  swam  with 
tears  and  flashed  with  indignation  alternately,  and  his 
refined  spirited  mouth  assumed  a  play  of  varied  expres- 
sion, which,  could  it  have  been  arrested,  would  have 
made  a  sculptor  immortal.  I  can  hardly  write  ex- 
travagantly of  him,  for  all  present  were  as  much  ex- 
cited as  myself.  One  ceases  to  wonder  at  the  desper- 
ate character  of  the  attempt  to  redeem  the  liberty  of  a 
land  when  he  sees  such  specimens  of  its  people.  I 
have  seen  hundreds  of  Poles,  of  all  classes,  in  Paris, 
and  I  have  not  yet  met  with  a  face  of  even  common 
dulness  among  them. 

You  have  seen  by  the  papers,  I  presume,  that  a 
body  of  several  thousand  Poles  fled  from  Warsaw,  after 
the  defeat,  and  took  refuge  in  the  northern  forests  of 
Prussia.  They  gave  up  their  arms  under  an  assurance 
from  the  king  that  they  should  have  all  the  rights  of 
Prussian  subjects.  He  found  it  politic  afterward  to 
recall  his  protection,  and  ordered  them  back  to  Pohind. 
They  refused  to  go,  and  were  sunounded  by  a  detach- 
ment of  his  army,  and  the  orders  given  to  fire  upon 
them.  The  soldiers  refused,  and  the  Poles,  taking 
advantage  of  the  sympathy  of  the  army,  bioke  through 
the  ranks,  and  escaped  to  the  forest,  where,  at  the  last 
news,  they  were  armed  with  clubs,  and  determined  to 
defend  themselves  to  the  last.  The  consequence  of  a 
return  to  Poland  would  be,  of  course,  an  immediate 
exile  to  Siberia.  The  Polish  committee,  American 
and  French,  with  General  Lafayette  at  their  head, 
have  appropriated  a  great  part  of  their  funds  to  the  re- 
lief of  this  body,  and  our  countryman,  Dr.  Howe,  has 
undertaken  the  dangerous  and  difficult  task  of  carrying 
it  to  them.  He  left  Paris  for  Brussels,  with  letters 
from  the  Polish  generals,  and  advices  from  Lafayette 
to  all  Polish  committees  upon  his  route,  that  they 
should  put  all  their  funds  into  his  hands.  He  is  a  gal- 
lant fellow,  and  will  succeed  if  any  one  can ;  but  he 
certainly  runs  great  hazard.     God  prosper  him! 


LETTER  XIII. 

THE    GAMBLING-HOUSES    OF    TARIS. 

I  accepted,  last  night,  from  a  French  gentleman 
of  high  standing,  a  polite  offer  of  introduction  to  one 
of  the  exclusive  gambling  clubs  of  Paris.  With  the 
understanding,  of  course,  that  it  was  only  as  a  specta- 
tor, my  friend,  whom  I  had  met  at  a  dinner  party, 
despatched  a  note  from  the  table,  announcing  to  the 
temporary  master  of  ceremonies  his  intention  of  pre- 
senting me.  We  went  at  eleven,  in  full  dress.  I  was 
surprised  at  the  entrance  with  the  splendor  of  the 
establishment — gilt  balustrades,  marble  staircases, 
crowds  of  servants  in  full  livery,  and  all  the  formal 
announcement  of  a  court.  Passing  through  several 
ante-chambers,  a  heavy  folding-door  was  thrown  open, 
and  we  were  received  by  one  of  the  noblest-looking 

men  I  have  seen  in  France — Count .     I  was  put 

immediately  at  my  ease  by  his  dignified  and  kind  po- 
liteness; and  after  a  little  conversation  in  English, 
which  he  spoke  fluently,  the  entrance  of  some  other 
person  left  me  at  liberty  to  observe  at  my  leisure. 


PEXCILLINGS  BY  THE  WAY. 


21 


Everything  about  me  had  the  impress  of  the  studied 
taste  of  high  life.     The  lavish  and  yet  soft  disposition 
>f  light,  the  harmony  of  color  in  the  rich  hangings 
pud  furniture,  the  quiet  manners  and  subdued  tones  j 
of  conversation,  the  respectful  deference  of  the  ser-  | 
vants,  and  the  simplicity  of  the  slight  entertainment,  \ 
would  have  convinced  me,  without  my  Asmodeus,  that  I 
I  wa>  in  no  every-day  atmosphere.     Conversation  pro-  ! 
ceeded  for  an  hour,  while  the  members  came  dropping  j 
in  from  their  evening  engagements,  and  a  little  after 
twelve  a  glass  door  was  thrown  open,  and  we  passed  j 
from  the  reception-room  to  the  spacious  suite  of  apart-  ] 
meats  intended  for  play.     One  or  two  of  the  gentle-  ; 
men  entered  the  side  rooms  for  billiards  and  cards,  but  ! 
the  majority  closed  about  the  table  of  hazard  in  the 
central   ball.     I  had  never  conceived  so  beautiful  an  ! 
apartment.    It  can  be  described  in  two  words — columns 
and   mirrors.     There   was   nothing  else  between  the 
exquisitely-painted   ceiling  and  the  door.     The  form 
was  circular,  and  the  wall  was  laid  with  glass,  inter-  j 
rupted  only  with  pairs  of  Corinthian  pillars,  with  their  , 
rich  capitals  reflected  and  re-reflected  innumerably. 
It   seemed    like  a   hall   of  colonnades  of  illimitable  ! 
extent -the   multiplication  of  the   mirrors  into  each  j 
other  was  so  endless  and  illusive.     I  felt  an  uncou-  j 
querable  disposition  to  abandon  myself  to  a  waking 
revery  of  pleasure;  and  as  soon  as  the  attention  of 
the   company  was  perfectly   engrossed   by  the  silent 
occupation  before  them,  I  sank  upon  a  sofa,  and  gave  ; 
iny  senses  up  for  a  while  to  the  fascination  of  the  j 
scene.     My  eye  was  intoxicated.     As  far  as  my  sight 
could    penetrate,   stretched    apparently   interminable 
halls,  carpeted  with  crimson,  and  studded  with  grace- 
ful columns  and   groups  of  courtly  figures,  forming 
altogether,  with  its  extent  and  beauty,  and  in  the  sub- 
dued and  skilfully-managed  light,  a  picture  that,  if 
real,  would  be  one  of  unsurpassable  splendor.     I  quite 
forgot  my  curiosity  to  see  the  game.     I  had  merely 
observed,  when   my  companion  reminded  me  of  the 
arrival  of  my  own  appointed  hour  for  departure,  that, 
whatever   was   lost  or  won,   the   rustling    bills   were  j 
passed  from  one  to  the  other  with  a  quiet  and  imper- 
turbable politeness,  that  betrayed  no  sign   either  of 
chagrin  or  triumph;  though,  from  the  fact  that  the 
transfers  were  in   paper  only,  the  stakes  must  have 
been  anything  but  trifling.     Refusing  a  polite  invita- 
tion to  partake  of  the  supper,  always  in  waiting,  we 
took  leave  about  two  hours  after  midnight. 

As  we  drove  from  the  court,  my  companion  sug- 
gested to  me,  that,  since  we  were  out  at  so  late  an 
hour,  we  might  as  well  look  in  for  a  moment  at  the 
more  accessible  "  hells,"  and,  pulling  the  cordon,  he 
ordered  to  "  Frascati's."     This,  you  know  of  course, 
is  the  fashionable  place  of  ruin,  and  here  the  heroes 
of  all  noveis,  and  the   rakes  of  all  comedies,  mar  or  J 
make  their  fortunes.     An  evening  dress,  and  the  look  \ 
of  a  gentleman,  are  the  only  required   passport.     A  j 
servant  in  attendance  took  our  hats  and  canes,  and  ! 
we  walked  in  without  ceremony.     It  was  a  different  I 
scene  from  the  former.     Four  large  rooms,  plainly  J 
but  handsomely  furnished,  opened  into  each  other,  j 
three  of  which  were  devoted  to  play,  and  crowded 
with   players.      Elegantly-dressed   women,   some   of  j 
them  with  high  pretensions  to  French  beauty,  sat  and  j 
stood  at  the  table,  watching  their  own  stakes  in  the  i 
rapid  games  with  fixed  attention.     The  majority  of  ! 
the  gentlemen  were   English.     The   table   was  very 
large,  marked  as  usual  with  the  lines  and  figures  of 
the  game,  and  each  person  playing  had  a  small  rake 
in  his  hand,  with  which  he  drew  toward  him  his  pro- 
portion of  the  winnings.     I  was  disappointed   at  the 
first  glance  in  the  faces:   there  was  very  little  of  the 
high-bred  courtesy  I  had  seen  at  the  club-house,  but 


there 


was  no  very  striking  exhibition  of  feeling,  and  I 


should  think,  in  any  but  an  extreme  case,  the  wins 


poring  silence  and  general  quietness  of  the  room 
would  repress  it.  After  watching  the  variations  of 
luck  awhile,  however,  I  selected  one  or  two  pretty 
desperate  losers,  and  a  young  Frenchman  who  was  a 
large  winner,  and  confined  my  observation  to  them 
only.  Among  the  former  was  a  girl  of  about  eighteen, 
a  mild,  quiet-looking  creature,  with  her  hair  curling 
long  on  her  neck,  and  hands  childishly  small  and  white, 
who  lost  invariably.  Two  piles  of  five-franc  pieces  and 
a  small  heap  of  gold  lay  on  the  table  beside  her,  and  I 
watched  her  till  she  laid  the  last  coin  upon  the  losing 
color.  She  bore  it  very  well.  By  the  eagerness  with 
which,  at  every  turn  of  the  last  card,  she  closed  her 
hand  upon  the  rake  which  she  held,  it  was  evident 
that  her  hopes  were  high ;  but  when  her  last  piece 
was  drawn  in  to  the  bank,  she  threw  up  her  little 
fingers  with  a  playful  desperation,  and  commenced 
conversation  even  gayly  with  a  gentleman  who  stood 
leaning  over  her  chair.  The  young  Frenchman  con- 
tinued almost  as  invariably  to  win.  He  was  excessively 
handsome  ;  but  there  was  a  cold,  profligate,  unvarying 
hardness  of  expression  in  his  face,  that  made  me  dis- 
like him.  The  spectators  drew  gradually  about  his 
chair;  and  one  or  two  of  the  women,  who  seemed  to 
know  him  well,  selected  a  color  for  him  occasionally, 
or  borrowed  of  him  and  staked  for  themselves.  We 
left  him  winning.  The  other  players  were  mostly 
English,  and  very  uninteresting  in  their  exhibition  of 
disappointment.  My  companion  told  me  that  there 
would  be  more  desperate  playing  toward  morning,  but 
I  had  become  disgusted  with  the  cold  selfish  faces  of 
the  scene,  and  felt  no  interest  sufficient  to  detain  me. 


LETTER  XIV. 

THE  GARDEN*  OF  THE  TUILF.RIES PRINCE    MOSCOWA 

SONS  OF    NAPOLEON COOPER  AND  MORSE SIR  SID- 
NEY   SMITH FASHIONABLE  WOMEN CLOSE    OF  THE 

DAT THE  FAMOUS   EATING-HOUSES HOW    TO   DINE 

WELL    IN    PARIS,    ETC. 

It  is  March,  and  the  weather  has  all  the  character- 
istics of  New-England  May.  The  last  two  or  three 
days  have  been  deliciously  spring-like,  clear,  sunny, 
and  warm.  The  gardens  of  the  Tuileries  are  crowded. 
The  chairs  beneath  the  terraces  are  filled  by  the  old 
men  reading  the  gazettes,  mothers  and  nurses  watch- 
ing their  children  at  play,  and,  at  every  few  steps, 
circles  of  whole  families  sitting  and  sewing,  or  con- 
versing, as  unconcernedly  as  at  home.  It  strikes  a 
stranger  oddly.  With  the  privacy  of  American  feel- 
ings, we  can  not  conceive  of  these  out-of-door  French 
habits.  What  would  a  Boston  or  New  York  mother 
think  of  taking  chairs  for  her  whole  family,  grown-up 
daughters  and  all,  in  the  Mall  or  upon  the  Battery, 
and  spending  the  day  in  the  very  midst  of  the  gayest 
promenade  of  the  city  ?  People  of  all  ranks  do  it  here. 
You  will  see  the  powdered,  elegant  gentleman  of  the 
ancicn  regime,  handing  his  wife  or  his  daughter  to  a 
straw-bottomed  chair,  with  all  the  air  of  drawing-room 
courtesy  ;  and,  begging  pardon  for  the  liberty,  pull  his 
journal  from  his  pocket,  and  sit  down  to  read  beside 
her  ;  or  a  tottering  old  man,  leaning  upon  a  stout  Swiss 
servant  girl,  goes  bowing  and  apologizing  through  the 
crowd,  in  search  of  a  pleasant  neighbor,  or  some  old 
compatriot,  with  whom  he  may  sit  and  nod  away  the 
hours  of  sunshine.  It  is  a  beautiful  custom,  positively. 
The  gardens  are  like  a  constant  fete.  It  is  a  holyday 
revel,  without  design  or  disappointment.  It  is  a 
masque,  where  every  one  plays  his  character  uncon- 
sciously, and  therefore  naturally  and  well.  We  get 
no  idea  of  it  at  home.  We  are  too  industrious  a  na- 
tion to  have  idlers  enough.     It  would  even  pain  most 


22 


PENCILLING^  BY  THE  WAY. 


of  the  people  of  our  country  to  see  so  many  thousands 
of  all  ages  and  conditions  of  life  spending  day  after  day 
in  such  absolute  uselessness. 

Imagine  yourself  here,  on  the  fashionable  terrace, 
the  promenade,  two  days  in  the  week,  of  all  that  is  dis- 
tinguished and  gay  in  Paris.  It  is  a  short  raised  walk, 
just  inside  the  railings,  and  the  only  part  of  all  these 
wide  and  beautiful  gardens  where  a  member  of  the 
beau  monde  is  ever  to  be  met.  The  hour  is  four,  the 
day  Friday,  the  weather  heavenly.  I  have  just  been 
long  enough  in  Paris  to  be  an  excellent  walking  dic- 
tionary, and  I  will  tell  you  who  people  are.  In  the 
first  place,  all  the  well-dressed  men  you  see  are  Eng- 
lish. You  will  know  the  French  by  those  flaring 
coats,  laid  clear  back  on  their  shoulders,  and  their 
execrable  hats  and  thin  legs.  Their  heads  are  right 
from  the  hair-dresser;  their  hats  are  chateaux  de  sole, 
or  imitation  beaver ;  they  are  delicately  rouged,  and 
wear  very  white  gloves  ;  and,  those  who  are  with  ladies, 
lead,  as  you  observe,  a  small  dog  by  a  string,  or  carry 
it  in  their  arms.  No  French  lady  walks  out  without 
her  lap-dog.  These  slow-paced  men  you  see  in  brown 
mustaches  and  frogged  coats  are  refugee  Poles.  The 
short,  thick,  agile  looking  man  before  us  is  General 

,  celebrated  for  having  been  the  last  to  surrender  on 

the  last  field  of  that  brief  contest.  His  handsome  face 
is  full  of  resolution,  and,  unlike  the  rest  of  his  coun- 
trymen, he  looks  still  unsubdued  and  in  good  heart. 
He  walks  here  every  day  an  hour  or  two,  swinging  his 
cane  round  his  forefinger,  and  thinking,  apparently,  of 
anything  but  his  defeat.  Observe  these  two  young 
men  approaching  us.  The  short  one  on  the  left,  with 
the  stiff  hair  and  red  mustache,  is  Prince  Moskowa, 
the  son  of  Marshal  Ney.  He  is  an  object  of  more 
th  n  usual  interest  just  now,  as  the  youngest  of  the  new 
batch  of  peers.  The  expression  of  his  countenance 
is  more  bold  than  handsome,  and  indeed  he  is  any- 
thing but  a  carpet  knight;  a  fact  of  which  he  seems, 
like  a  man  of  sense,  quite  aware.  He  is  to  be  seen  at 
the  parties  standing  with  his  arms  folded,  leaning  si- 
lently against  the  wall  for  hours  together.  His  com- 
panion is,  I  presume  to  say,  quite  the  handsomest  man 
you  ever  saw.  A  little  over  six  feet,  perfectly  propor- 
tioned, dark  silken-brown  hair,  slightly  curling  about 
his  forehead,  a  soft  curling  mustache,  and  beard  just 
darkening  the  finest,  cut  mouth  in  the  world,  and  an 
olive  complexion,  of  the  most  golden  richness  and 

clearness — Mr. is  called  the  handsomest  man  in 

Europe.  What  is  more  remarkable  still,  he  looks  like 
the  most  modest  man  in  Europe,  too  ;  though,  like 
most  modest  looking  men,  his  reputation  for  constancy 
in  the  gallant  world  is  somewhat  slender.  And  here 
comes  a  fine  looking  man,  though  of  a  different  order 
of  beauty — a  natural  son  of  Napoleon.  He  is  about 
his  father's  height,  and  has  most  of  his  features,  though 
his  person  and  air  must  be  quite  different.  You  see 
there  Napoleon's  beautiful  mouth  and  thinly  chiselled 
nose,  but  I  fancy  that  soft  eye  is  his  mother's.  He  is 
said  to  be  one  of  the  most  fascinating  men  in  France. 
His  mother  was  the  Countess  Walewski,  a  lady  with 
whom  the  emperor  became  acquainted  in  Poland.  It 
is  singular  that  Napoleon's  talents  and  love  of  glory 
have  not  descended  upon  any  of  the  eight  or  ten  sons 
whose  claims  to  his  paternity  are  admitted.  And  here 
come  two  of  our  countrymen,  who  are  to  be  seen  con- 
stantly together — Cooper  and  Morse.  That  is  Cooper 
with  the  blue  surtout  buttoned  up  to  his  throat,  and 
his  hat  over  his  eyes.  What  a  contrast  between  the 
faces  of  the  two  men  !  Morse,  with  his  kind,  open, 
gentle  countenance,  the  very  picture  of  goodness  and 
sincerity  ;  and  Cooper,  dark  and  corsair-looking,  with 
his  brows  down  over  his  eyes,  and  his  strongly  lined 
mouth  fixed  in  an  expression  of  moodiness  and  reserve. 
The  two  faces,  however,  are  not  equally  just  to  their 
owners — Morse  is  all  that  he  looks  to  be,  but  Cooper's 
features  do  him  decided  injustice.      I  take  a  pride  in 


the  reputation  this  distinguished  oounttymen  of  ou;s 
has  for  humanity  and  generous  sympathy.  The  dis- 
tress of  the  refugee  liberals  from  all  countries  comes 
home  especially  to  Americans,  and  the  untiring  liber- 
ality of  Mr.  Cooper  particularly,  is  a  fact  of  common 
admission  and  praise.  It  is  pleasant  to  be  able  to  say 
such  things.  Morse  is  taking  a  sketch  of  the  Gallery 
of  the  Louvre,  and  he  intends  copying  some  of  the 
best  pictures  also,  to  accompany  it  as  an  exhibition, 
when  he  returns.  Our  artists  do  our  country  credit 
abroad.  The  feeling  of  interest  in  one's  country  ar 
tists  and  authors  become  very  strong  in  a  foreign  land. 
Every  leaf  of  laurel  awarded  them  seems  to  touch  one's 
own  forehead.  And  talking  of  laurels,  here  comes 
Sir  Sidney  Smith — the  short,  fat,  old  gentleman  yon- 
der, with  the  large  acquiline  nose  and  keen  eye.  He 
is  one  of  the  few  men  who  ever  opposed  Napoleon 
successfully,  and  that  should  distinguish  him,  even  if 
he  had  not  won  by  his  numerous  merits  and  achieve- 
ments the  gift  of  almost  every  order  in  Europe.  He 
is,  among  other  things,  of  a  very  mechanical  turn,  and 
is  quite  crazy  just  now  about  a  six-wheeled  coach, 
which  he  has  lately  invented,  and  of  which  nobody 
sees  the  exact  benefit  but  himself.  An  invitation  to 
his  rooms,  to  hear  his  description  of  the  model,  is 
considered  the  last  new  bore. 

And  now  for  ladies.  Whom  do  you  see  that  looks 
distinguished  ?  Scarce  one  whom  you  would  take 
positively  for  a  lady,  I  venture  to  presume.  These 
two,  with  the  velvet  pelisses  and  small  satin  bonnets, 
are  rather  the  most  genteel-looking  people  in  the  gar- 
den. I  set  them  down  for  ladies  of  rank  the  first  walk 
I  ever  took  here  ;  and  the  two  who  have  just  passed 
us,  with  the  curly  lap-dog,  I  was  equally  sure  were  per- 
sons of  not  very  dainty  morality.  It  is  precisely  au 
contrarie.  The  velvet  pelisses  are  gamblers  from  Fras- 
cati's,  and  the  two  with  the  lap-dog  are  the  Countess 
N.  and  her  unmarried  daughter — two  of  the  most  ex- 
clusive specimens  of  Parisian  society.  It  is  very  odd — 
but  if  you  see  a  remarkably  modest-looking  woman  in 
Paris,  you  may  be  sure,  as  the  periphrasis  goes,  that 
"she  is  no  better  than  she  should  be."  Everything 
gets  travestied  in  this  artificial  society.  The  general 
ambition  seems  to  be,  to  appear  that  which  one  is  not. 
WThite-haired  men  cultivate  their  sparse  mustaches, 
and  dark-haired  men  shave.  Deformed  men  are  suc- 
cessful in  gallantry,  where  handsome  men  despair. 
Ugly  women  dress  and  dance,  while  beauties  mope 
and  are  deserted.  Modesty  looks  brazen,  and  vice 
looks  timid;  and  so  all  through  the  calendar.  Life 
in  Paris  is  as  pretty  a  series  of  astonishments  as  an 
ennaye  could  desire. 

But  there  goes  the  palace-bell — five  o'clock  !  The 
sun  is  just  disappearing  behind  the  dome  of  the  "In- 
valides,"  and  the  crowd  begins  to  thin.  Look  at  the 
atmosphere  of  the  gardens.  How  deliciously  the  twi- 
light mist  softens  everything.  Statues,  people,  trees, 
and  the  long  perspectives  down  the  alleys,  all  mel- 
lowed into  the  shadowy  indistinctness  of  fairy-land. 
The  throng  is  pressing  out  at  the  gates,  and  the 
guard,  with  his  bayonet  presented,  forbids  all  re-en- 
trance, for  the  gardens  are  cleared  at  sundown.  The 
carriages  are  driving  up  and  dashing  away,  and  if  you 
stand  a  moment  you  will  see  the  most  vulgar-looking 
people  you  have  met  in  your  promenade,  waited  for 
by  chasseurs,  and  departing  with  indications  of  rank  in 
their  equipages,  which  nature  has  very  positively  de- 
nied to  their  persons.  And  now  all  the  world  dines, 
and  dines  well.  The  '■'■chef"  stands  with  his  gold  re- 
peater in  his  hand,  waiting  for  the  moment  to  decide 
the  fate  of  the  first  dish  ;  the  garcons  at  the  restau- 
rants have  donned  their  white  aprons,  and  laid  the  sil- 
ver forks  upon  the  napkins  ;  the  pretty  women  are 
seated  on  their  thrones  in  the  saloons,  and  the  interest- 
ing hour  is  here.  Where  shall  we  dine  ?  We  will  walk 
toward  the  Palais  Royal,  and  talk  of  it  as  we  go  along. 


PENC1LLINGS  BY  THE  WAY. 


23 


That  man  would  "  deserve  well  of  his  country"  who 
should  write  a  "  Paris  Guide"  for  the  palate.  I  would 
do  it  myself  if  I  could  elude  the  immortality  it  would 
occasion  me.  One  is  compelled  to  pioneer  his  own 
stomach  through  the  endless  cartes  of  some  twelve 
eating-houses,  all  famous,  before  he  half  knows  wheth- 
er he  is  dining  well  or  ill.  1  had  eaten  a  week  at 
Very's,  for  instance,  before  I  discovered  that,  since 
Peiham's  day,  that  gentleman's  reputation  has  gone 
down.  He  is  a  subject  for  history  at  present.  I  was 
misled  also  by  an  elderly  gentleman  at  Havre,  who 
advised  me  to  eat  at  Grig-lion's,  in  the  Passage  Vivi- 
enne.  Not  liking  my  first  coquilles  aux  huilres,  I  made 
some  private  inquiries,  and  found  that  his  chef  had 
deserted  him  about  the  time  of  Napoleon's  return 
from  Elba.  A  stranger  gets  misguided  in  this  way. 
And  then,  if  by  accident  you  hit  upon  the  right  house, 
you  may  be  eating  a  month  before  you  find  out  the 
peculiar  triumphs  which  have  stamped  its  celebrity. 
No  mortal  man  can  excel  in  everything,  and  it  is  as 
true  of  cooking  as  it  is  of  poetry.  The  "  Rochers  de 
Cancalce"  is  now  the  first  eating-house  in  Paris,  yet 
they  only  excel  in  fish.  The  "  Trois  Freres  Proven- 
caux,"  have  a  high  reputation,  yet  their  colcletles  pro- 
vencale  are  the  only  dish  which  you  can  not  get  equally 
well  elsewhere.  A  good  practice  is  to  walk  about  in 
the  Palais  Royal  for  an  hour  before  dinner,  and  select 
a  master.  You  will  know  a  gourmet  easily — a  man 
slightly  past  the  prime  of  life,  with  a  nose  just  getting 
its  incipient  blush,  a  remarkably  loose,  voluminous 
white  cravat,  and  a  corpulence  more  of  suspicion  than 
fact.  Follow  him  to  his  restaurant,  and  give  the  gar- 
con  a  private  order  to  serve  you  with  the  same  dishes 
as  the  bald  gentleman.  (I  have  observed  that  dainty 
livers  universally  lose  their  hair  early.)  I  have  been 
in  the  wake  of  such  a  person  now  for  a  week  or  more, 
and  I  never  lived,  comparatively,  before.  Here  we 
are,  however,  at  the  "  Trois  Freres"  and  there  goes 
my  unconscious  model  deliberately  up  stairs.  We'll 
follow  him,  and  double  his  orders,  and  if  we  dine  not 
well,  there  is  no  eating  in  France. 


LETTER  XV. 

HOPITAL  DES  INVALIDES — MONUMENT  OF  TURENNE — 
MARSHAL  NET — A  POLISH  LADY  IN  UNIFORM — FE- 
MALES MASQUERADING  IN  MEN's  CLOTHES DUEL  BE- 
TWEEN THE  SONS  OF  GEORGE  IV.  AND  OF  BONAPARTE 
GAMBLING  PROPENSITIES  OF  THE  FRENCH. 

The  weather  still  holds  warm  and  bright,  as  it  has 
been  all  the  month,  and  the  scarcely  "  premature  white 
pantaloons"  appeared  yesterday  in  the  Tuileries.  The 
ladies  loosen  their  "boas;"  the  silken  greyhounds  of 
Italy  follow  their  mistresses  without  shivering  ;  the 
birds  are  noisy  and  gay  in  the  clipped  trees — who  that 
had  known  February  in  New  England  would  recog- 
nise hiin  by  such  a  description  ? 

I  took  an  indolent  stroll  with  my  friend,  Mr.  Van 

B ,  this   morning   to   the   Hopital  des  Invalides, 

on  the  other  side  of  the  river.  Here,  not  long  since, 
were  twenty-five  thousand  old  soldiers.  There  are 
but  five  thousand  now  remaining,  most  of  them  having 
been  dismissed  by  the  Bourbons.  It  is  of  course  one 
of  the  most  interesting  spots  in  France;  and  of  a 
pleasant  day  there  is  no  lounge  where  a  traveller  can 
find  so  much  matter  for  thought,  with  so  much  pleas- 
ure to  the  eye.  We  crossed  over  by  the  Pons  Louis 
Quinze,  and  kept  along  the  bank  of  the  river  to  the 
esplanade  in  front  of  the  hospital.  There  was  never 
a  softer  sunshine,  or  a  more  deliciously  tempered  air; 
and  we  found  the  old  veterans  ont  of  doors,  sitting 
upon  the  cannon  along  the  rampart,  or  halting  about, 
with  their  wooden  legs,  under  the  trees,  the  pictures 


of  comfort  and  contentment.     The  building  itself,  as 
you   know,  is  very  celebrated  for  its  grandeur.     The 
dome  of  the  Invalides  rises  upon  the  eye  from  all 
parts   of  Paris,  a   perfect   model    of  proportion  and 
beauty.     It  was  this  which  Bonaparte  ordered  to  be 
gilded,  to  divert  the  people  from  thinking  too  much 
:  upon  his  defeat.     It  is  a  living  monument  of  the  most 
j  touching  recollections  of  him  now.     Positively  the 
i  blood  mounts,  and   the  tears  spring  to  the  eyes  of 
the  spectator,  as  he  stands  a  moment,  and  remembers 
what  is  around  him  in  that  place.     To  see  his  maimed 
followers,  creeping  along  the   corridors,  clothed  and 
;  fed  by  the   bounty  he  left,  in  a  place  devoted  to  his 
soldiers  alone,  their  old  comrades  about  them,  and  all 
i  glowing  with  one  feeling  of  devotion  to  his  memory, 
to  speak  to  them,  to   hear  their  stories  of  "  VEm- 
pereur"1 — it  is  better  than  a  thousand  histories  to  make 
!  owe  fed  the  glory  of  "the  great  captain."     The  inte- 
j  rior  of  the  dome  is  vast,  and  of  a  splendid  style  of 
:  architecture,  and  out  from  one  of  its  sides  extends  a 
I  superb  chapel,  hung  all  round  with  the  tattered  flags 
taken  in  his  victories  alone.     Here  the  veterans  of  his 
army  worship,  beneath  the  banners  for  which  they 
fought.     It  is  hardly  appropriate,  I  should  think,  to 
!  adorn  thus  the  church  of  a  "religion  of  peace;"  but 
j  while  there,  at  least,  we  feel  strangely  certain,  some- 
j  how,  that  it  is  right  and  fitting  ;  and  when,  as  we  stood 
!  deciphering  the  half-effaced  insignia  of  the  different 
|  nations,  the  organ  began  to  peal,  there  certainly  was 
anything  but  a  jar  between  this  grand  music,  conse- 
crated as  it  is  by  religious  associations,  and  the  thril- 
ling and  uncontrolled  sense  in  my  bosom  of  Napoleon's 
glory.     The  anthem  seemed  to  him  ! 

The  majestic  sounds  were  still  rolling  through  the 
dome  when  we  came  to  the  monument  of  Turenne. 
Here  is  another  comment  on  the  character  of  Bona- 
parte's mind.  There  was  once  a  long  inscription  on 
this  monument,  describing,  in  the  fulsome  style  of  an 
epitaph,  the  deeds  and  virtues  of  the  distinguished 
man  who  is  buried  beneath.  The  emperor  removed 
and  replaced  it  by  a  small  slab,  graven  with  the  single 
word  Turenne.  You  acknowledge  the  sublimity 
of  this  as  you  stand  before  it.  Everything  is  in  keep- 
ing with  its  grandeur.  The  lofty  proportions  and 
magnificence  of  the  dome,  the  tangible  trophies  of 
glory,  and  the  maimed  and  venerable  figures,  kneeling 
about  the  altar,  of  those  who  helped  to  win  them,  are 
circumstances  that  make  that  eloquent  word  as  ar- 
ticulate as  if  it  was  spoken  in  thunder.  You  feel  that 
Napoleon's  spirit  might  walk  the  place,  and  read  the 
hearts  of  those  who  should  visit  it,  unoffended. 

We  passed  on  to  the  library.  It  is  ornamented 
with  the  portraits  of  all  the  generals  of  Napoleon, 
save  one.  Ney's  is  not  there.  It  should,  and  will  be. 
at  some  time  or  other,  doubtless ;  but  I  wonder  that, 
in  a  day  when  such  universal  justice  is  done  to  the 
memory  of  this  brave  man,  so  obvious  and  it  would 
seem  necessary  a  reparation  should  not  be  demanded. 
Great  efforts  have  been  making  of  late  to  get  his  sen- 
tence publicly  reversed,  but,  though  they  deny  his 
widow  and  children  nothing  else,  this  melancholy  and 
unavailing  satisfaction  is  refused  them.  Key's  mem- 
ory little  needs  it,  it  is  true.  Ko  visiter  looks  about 
the  gallery  at  the  Invalides  without  commenting  feel- 
ingly on  the  omission  of  his  portrait;  and  probably  no 
one  of  the  scarred  veterans  who  sit  there,  reading  their 
own  deeds  in  history,  looks  round  on  the  faces  of  the 
old  leaders  of  whom  it  tells,  without  remembering  and 
feeling  that  the  brightest  name  upon  the  page  is  want- 
ing. I  would  rather,  if  I  were  his  son,  have  the  regret 
than  the  justice. 

We  left  the  hospital,  as  all  must  leave  it,  full  of 
Kapoleon.  France  is  full  of  him.  The  monuments 
and  the  hearts  of  the  people,  all  are  alive  with  his 
name  and  glory.  Disapprove  and  detract  from  his 
reputation  as  you  will  (and  as  powerful  minds,  with 


24 


PENCILLINGS  BY  THE  WAY. 


apparent  justice,  have  done),  as  long  as  human  nature 
is  what  it  is,  as  long  as  power  and  loftiness  of  heart 
hold  their  present  empire  over  the  imagination,  Napo- 
leon is  immortal. 

The  promenading  world  is  amused  just  now  with  the 
daily  appearance  in  the  Tuileries  of  a  Polish  lady, 
dressed  in  the  Polonaise  undress  uniform,  decorated 
with  the  order  of  distinction  given  for  bravery  at  War- 
saw. She  is  not  very  beautiful,  but  she  wears  the 
handsome  military  cap  quite  gallantly;  and  her  small 
feet  and  full  chest  are  truly  captivating  in  boots  and  a 
frogged  coat.  It  is  an  exceedingly  spirited,  well- 
charactered  face,  with  a  complexion  slightly  roughened 
by  her  new  habits.  Her  hair  is  cut  snort,  and  brushed 
up  at  the  sides,  and  she  certainly  handles  the  little 
switch  she  carries  with  an  air  which  entirely  forbids 
insult.  She  is  ordinarily  seen  lounging  very  idly  along 
between  two  polytechnic  boys,  who  seem  to  have  a 
great  admiration  for  her.  I  observe  that  the  Polish 
generals  touch  their  hats  very  respectfully  as  she 
passes,  but  as  yet  I  have  been  unable  to  come  at  her 
precise  history. 

By  the  by,  masquerading  in  men's  clothes  is  not  at 
all  uncommon  in  Paris.  I  have  sometimes  seen  two 
or  three  women  at  a  time  dining  at  the  restaurants  in 
this  way.  No  notice  is  taken  of  it,  and  the  lady  is  per- 
fectly safe  from  insult,  though  every  one  that  passes 
may  penetrate  the  disguise.  It  is  common  at  the 
theatres,  and  at  the  public  balls  still  more  so.  1  have 
noticed  repeatedly  at  the  weekly  soirees  of  a  lady  of 
high  respectabilily,  two  sisters  in  boy's  clothes,  who 
play  duets  upon  the  piano  for  the  dance.  The  lady 
of  the  house  told  me  they  preferred  it,  to  avoid  atten- 
tion, and  the  awkwardness  of  position  natural  to  their 
vocation,  in  society.  The  tailors  tell  me  it  is  quite  a 
branch  of  trade — making  suits  for  ladies  of  a  similar 
taste.  There  is  one  particularly,  in  the  Rue  Richelieu, 
who  is  famed  for  his  nice  fits  to  the  female  figure.  Tt 
is  remarkable,  however,  that  instead  of  wearing  their 
new  honors  meekly,  there  is  no  such  impertinent  pup- 
py as  zfemme  deguisee.  I  saw  one  in  a  cafe,  not  long 
ago,  rap  the  garcon  very  smartly  over  the  fingers  with 
a  rattan,  for  overrunning  her  cup;  and  they  are  sure 
to  shoulder  you  off  the  sidewalk,  if  you  are  at  all  in 
the  way.  I  have  seen  several  amusing  instances  of  a 
probable  quarrel  in  the  street,  ending  in  a  gay  bow, 
and  a  '■'■pardon,  madame!" 

There  has  been  a  great  deal  of  excitement  here  for 
the  past  two  days  on  the  result  of  a  gambling  quarrel. 
An  English  gentleman,  a  fine,  gay,  noble-looking  fel- 
low, whom  I  have  often  met  at  parties,  and  admired  for 
his  strikingly  winning  and  elegant  manners,  lost  fifty 
thousand  francs  on  Thursday  night  at  cards.  The 
Count  St.  Leon  was  the  winner.  It  appears  that 
Hesse,  the  Englishman,  had  drank  freely  before  sitting 
down  to  play,  and  the  next  morning  his  friend,  who 
had  bet  upon  the  game,  persuaded  him  that  there  had 
been  some  unfairness  on  the  part  of  his  opponent.  He 
refused  consequently  to  pay  the  debt,  and  charged  the 
Frenchman,  and  another  gentleman  who  backed  him, 
with  deception.  The  result  was  a  couple  of  challen- 
ges, which  were  both  accepted.  Hesse  fought  the 
Count  on  Friday,  and  was  dangerously  wounded  at  the 
first  fire.  His  friend  fought  on  Saturday  (yesterday), 
and  is  reported  to  be  mortally  wounded.  It  is  a  littie 
remarkable  that  both  the  losers  are  shot,  and  still  more 
remarkable,  that  Hesse  should  have  been,  as  he  was 
known  to  be,  a  natural  son  of  George  the  Fourth  ;  and 
Count  Leon,  as  was  equally  well  known,  a  natural  son 
of  Bonaparte! 

Everybody  gambles  in  Paris.  I  had  no  idea  that  so 
desperate  a  vice  could  be  so  universal,  and  so  little 
leprecated  as  it  is.     The  gambling-houses  are  as  open 

^d  as  ordinary  a  resort  as  any  public  promenade,  and 


one  may  haunt  them  with  as  little  danger  to  his  rep- 
utation. To  dine  from  six  to  eight,  gamble  from  eight 
to  ten,  go  to  a  ball,  and  return  to  gamble  till  morning, 
is  as  common  a  routine  for  married  men  and  bachelors 
both,  as  a  system  of  dress,  and  as  little  commented  on. 
I  sometimes  stroll  into  the  card-room  at  a  party,  buf 
I  can  not  get  accustomed  to  the  sight  of  ladies  losin« 
or  winning  money.  Almost  all  Frenchwomen,  who 
are  too  old  to  dance,  play  at  parties,  and  their  daugh- 
ters and  husbands  watch  the  game  as  unconcernedly 
as  if  they  were  turning  over  prints.  I  have  seen  Eng- 
lish ladies  play,  but  with  less  philosophy.  They  do 
not  lose  their  money  gayly.  It  is  a  great  spoiler  of 
beauty,  the  vexation  of  a  loss.  I  think  I  never  could 
respect  a  woman  upon  whose  face  I  had  remarked  the 
shade  I  often  see  at  an  English  card-table.  It  is  cer- 
tain that  vice  walks  abroad  in  Paris,  in  many  a  shape 
that  would  seem,  to  an  American  eye,  to  show  the 
fiend  too  openly.  I  am  not  over  particular,  1  think, 
but  I  would  as  soon  expose  a  child  to  the  plague  as 
give  either  son  or  daughter  a  free  reign  for  a  year  in 
Paris. 


LETTER  XVI. 

THE  CHOLERA A    MASQUE    BALL THE  GAY    WORLD 

MOBS VISIT    TO    THE    HOTEL    DIEU. 

You  see  by  the  papers.  I  presume,  the  official  ac 
counts  of  the  cholera  in  Paris.  It  seems  very  terrible 
to  you,  no  doubt,  at  your  distance  from  the  scene,  and 
truly  it  is  terrible  enough,  if  one  could  realize  it,  any- 
where ;  but  many  here  do  not  trouble  themselves  about 
it,  and  you  might  be  in  this  metropolis  a  month,  and 
if  you  observed  the  people  only,  and  frequented  only 
the  places  of  amusement,  and  the  public  promenades, 
you  might  never  suspect  its  existence.  The  weather 
is  June-like,  deliciously  warm  and  bright;  the  trees 
are  just  in  the  tender  green  of  the  new  buds,  and  the 
public  gardens  are  thronged  all  day  with  thousands  of 
the  gay  and  idle,  sitting  under  the  trees  in  groups, 
laughing  and  amusing  themselves,  as  if  there  were  no 
plague  in  the  air,  though  hundreds  die  every  day. 
The  churches  are  all  hung  in  black;  there  is  a  con- 
stant succession  of  funerals;  and  you  cross  the  biers 
and  hand-barrows  of  the  sick,  hurrying  to  the  hospi- 
tals at  eveiy  turn,  in  every  quarter  of  the  city.  It  is 
very  hard  to  realize  such  things,  and,  it  would  seem, 
very  hard  even  to  treat  them  seriously.  I  was  at  a 
masque  ball  at  the  Theatre  des  Varietes,  a  night  or 
two  since,  at  the  celebration  of  the  Mi-Careme,  or 
half-lent.  There  were  some  two  thousand  people,  I 
should  think,  in  fancy  dresses,  most  of  them  grotesque 
and  satirical,  and  the  ball  was  kept  up  till  seven  in  the 
morning,  with  all  the  extravagant  gayety,  noise,  and 
fun,  with  which  the  French  people  manage  such  mat- 
ters. There  was  a  cholera-waltz,  and  a  cholera- galop- 
ade,  and  one  man,  immensely  tall,  dressed  as  a  per- 
sonification of  the  Cholera  itself,  with  skeleton  armor, 
bloodshot  eyes,  and  other  horrible  appurtenances  of  a 
walking  pestilence.  It  was  the  burden  of  all  the 
jokes,  and  all  the  cries  of  the  hawkers,  and  all  the 
conversation;  and  yet,  probably,  nineteen  out  of  twen- 
ty of  those  present  lived  in  the  quarters  most  ravaged 
by  the  disease,  and  many  of  them  had  seen  it  face  to 
face,  and  knew  perfectly  its  deadly  character! 

As  yet,  with  few  exceptions,  the  higher  classes  of 
society  have  escaped-  It  seems  to  depend  very  much 
on  the  manner  in  which  people  live,  and  the  poor  have 
been  struck  in  every  quarter,  often  at  the  very  next 
door  to  luxury.  A  friend  told  me  this  morning,  that 
the  porter  of  a  large  and  fashionable  hotel,  in  which 
he  lives,  had  been  taken  to  the  hospital ;  and  there 
have  been  one  or  two  cases  in  the  airy  quarter  of  St. 
Germain,  in   the  same  street  with   Mr.  Cooper,  and 


PENCILLINGS  BY  THE  WAY. 


25 


nearly  opposite.     Several  physicians  and  medical  stu- 
dents have  died  too,  but  the  majority  of  these  li\e  with 
the   narrowest  economy,  and  in   the  parts  of  the  city 
the  most  liable  to  impure  effluvia.     The  balls  go  on 
still  in  the  gay  world;  and  I  presume  they  wou Id  go 
on  if  there  were  only  musicians  enough  left  to  make 
an  orchestra,  or  fashionists  to  compose  a  quadrille.     I 
was  walking  home  very  late  from  a  party  the  night  be- 
fore last,  with  a  captain  in  the  English  army.     The 
gray  of  the  morning  was  just  stealing   into  the  sky ; 
and  after  a  stopping  a  moment  in  the  Place  Vendome, 
to  look  at  the  column,  stretching  up  apparently  unto 
the  very  stars,  we  bade   good   morning,   and  parted. 
He  bad  hardly  left  me,  he  said,  when  he  heard  a  fright- 
ful scream  from  one  of  the  houses  in  the  Rue  St.  Ho- 
nore,  and  thinking  there  might  be  some  violence  go- 
ing on,  he  rang  at  the  gate  and  entered,  mounting  the  j 
first   staircase  that   presented.      A   woman  had  just  , 
opened  a  door,  and  fallen  on  the  broad  stair  at  the  top, 
and  was  writhing  in  great  agony.     The  people  of  the  j 
house  collected"  immediately  ;  but  the   moment  my  '• 
friend  pronounced  the  word  cholera,  there  was  a  gen-  i 
eral  dispersion,  and  he  was  left  alone  with  the  patient,  j 
He  took  her  in  his  arms,  and  carried  her  to  a  coach-  j 
stand  without  assistance,  and  driving  to  the  Hotel  Dieu,  j 
left  her  with  the  Sceurs  de  Charite.     She  has  since  j 
died.  _     | 

As  if  one  plague  was  not  enough,  the  city  is  still 
alive  in  the  distant  fauxbourgs  with  revolts.  Last  j 
night,  the  rappel  was  beat  all  over  the  town,  the  na-  j 
tional  guard  called  to  arms,  and  marched  to  the  Porte  | 
S£.  Denis,  and  the  different  quarters  where  the  mobs  j 
were  collected. 

Many  suppose  there  is  no  cholera  except  such  as  is 
produced  by  poison;  and  the  Hotel  Dieu,  and  the  oth- 
er hospitals,  are  besieged  daily  by  the  infuriated  mob,  j 
who  swear  vengeance   against  the  government  for  all  i 
the  mortality  they  witness. 

I  have  just  returned  from  a  visit  to  the  Hotel  Dieu 
— the  hospital  for  the  cholera.     Impelled  by  a  power-  | 
ful  motive,  which  it  is  not  now  necessary  to  explain,  I  j 
had  previously  made  several  attempts  to  gain  admis-  | 
sion  in  vain;  but  yesterday  I  fell   in  fortunately  with  ] 
an  English  physician,  who  told  me  I  could  pass  with 
a  doctor's  diploma,  which  he  offered  to  borrow  for  me 
of  some  medical  friend.     He  called  by  appointment  at  ; 
seven  this  morning,  to  accompany  me  on  my  visit. 

It  was  like  one  of  our  loveliest  mornings  in  June — 
an   inspiriting,  sunny,   balmy   day,    all   softness   and  ■ 
beauty — and  we  crossed  the  Tuileries  by  one  of  its   j 
superb  avenues,  and   kept  down  the  bank  of  the  river  ' 
to   the   island.     With  the  errand  on  which  we  were 
bounJ  in  our  minds,  it  was  impossible  not  to  be  struck  : 
very  forcibly  with  our  own  exquisite  enjoyment  of  life. 
I  am  sure  I  never  felt  my  veins  fuller  of  the  pleasure 
of  health  and  motion  ;  and  I  never  saw  a  day  when  , 
everything  about  me  seemed  better  worth   living  for.  j 
The  splendid  palace  of  the  Louvre,  with  its  long  fa- 
fade  of  nearly  half  a  mile,  lay  in  the  mellowest  sun-  j 
shine  on  our  left ;  the  lively  river,  covered  with  boats,  : 
and  spanned  with  its  magnificent  and  crowded  bridges  j 
on  our  right;  the  view  of  the  island,  with  its  massive  : 
old  structures  below,  and  the  fine  gray  towers  of  the  : 
church  of  Notre  Dime  rising,  dark  and  gloomy,  in  the  j 
distance,  rendered  it  difficult  to   realize  anything  but  j 
life  and    pleasure.     That   under   those   very  towers, 
which  added  so  much  to  the  beauty  of  the  scene,  there 
lay  a  thousand  and  more  of  poor  wretches  dying  of  a 
plague,  was  a  thought  my  mind  would  not   retain  a 
moment. 

Half  an  hour's  walk  brought  us  to  the  Place  Notre 
Dame,  on  one  side  of  which,  next  this  celebrated 
church,  stands  the  hospital.  My  friend  entered,  lea- 
ving me  to  wait  till  he  had  found  an  acquaintance  of 
whom   he  could   borrow  a  diploma.     A  hearse  was 


standing  at  the  door  of  the  church,  and  I  went  in  for 
a  moment.  A  few  mourners,  with  the  appearance  of 
extreme  poverty,  were  kneeling  round  a  coffin  at  one 
of  the  side  altars;  and  a  solitary  priest,  with  an  at- 
tendant boy,  was  mumbling  the  prayers  for  the  dead. 
As  I  came  out,  another  hearse  drove  up,  with  a  rough 
coffin,  scantily  covered  with  a  pall,  and  followed  by  one 
poor  old  man.  They  hurried  in,  and  I  strolled  around 
the  square.  Fifteen  or  twenty  water-carriers  were 
filling  their  buckets  at  the  fountain  opposite,  singing 
and  laughing  ;  and  at  the  same  moment  four  different 
litters  crossed  toward  the  hospital,  each  with  its  two 
or  three  followers,  women  and  children,  friends  or  rel- 
atives of  the  sick,  accompanying  them  to  the  door, 
where  they  parted  from  them,  most  probably  for  ever. 
The  litters  were  set  down  a  moment  before  ascending 
the  steps;  the  crowd  pressed  around  and  lifted  the 
coarse  curtains  ;  farewells  were  exchanged,  and  the 
sick  alone  passed  in.  I  did  not  see  any  great  demon- 
stration of  feeling  in  the  particular  cases  that  were  be- 
fore me  ;  but  I  can  conceive,  in  the  almost  deadly  cer- 
tainty of  this  disease,  that  these  hasty  partings  at  the 
doorof  the  hospital  might  often  be  scenes  of  unsur- 
passed suffering  and  distress. 

I  waited,  perhaps,  ten  minutes  more.  In  the  whole 
time  that  I  had  been  there,  twelve  litters,  bearing  the 
sick,  had  entered  the  Hotel  Dieu.  As  I  exhibited  the 
borrowed  diploma,  the  thirteenth  arrived,  and  with  it 
a  young  man,  whose  violent  and  uncontrolled  grief 
worked  so  far  on  the  soldier  at  the  door,  that  he  al- 
lowed im  to  pass.  I  followed  the  bearers  to  the 
ward,  interested  exceedingly  to  observe  the  first  treat 
ment  and  manner  of  reception.  They  wound  slowly 
up  the  stone  staircase  to  the  upper  story,  and  entered 
the  female  department — a  long  low  room,  containing 
nearly  a  hundred  beds,  placed  in  alleys  scarce  two  feet 
from  each  other.  Nearly  all  were  occupied,  and  those 
which  were  empty  my  friend  told  me  were  vacated  by 
deaths  yesterday.  They  set  down  the  litter  by  the 
side  of  a  narrow  cot,  with  coarse  but  clean  sheets,  and 
a  Satur  de  Charite,  with  a  white  cap,  and  a  cro.*s  at  her 
girdle,  came  and  took  off  the  canopy.  A  young  wo- 
man, of  apparently  twenty-five,  was  beneath,  absolutely 
convulsed  with  agony.  Her  eyes  were  started  from 
the  sockets,  her  mouth  foamed,  and  her  face  was  of 
a  frightful,  livid  purple.  I  never  saw  so  horrible  a 
sight!  She  had  been  taken  in  perfect  health  only 
three  hours  before,  but  her  features  looked  to  me 
marked  with  a  year  of  pain.  The  first  attempt  to  lift 
her  produced  violent  vomiting,  and  I  thought  she 
must  die  instantly.  They  covered  her  up  in  bed,  and 
leaving  the  man  who  came  with  her  hanging  over  her 
with  the  moan  of  one  deprived  of  his  senses,  they  went 
to  receive  others,  who  were  entering  in  the  same  man- 
ner. I  inquired  of  my  companion  how  soon  she  would 
be  attended  to.  He  said.  "  possibly  in  an  hour,  as  the 
physician  was  just  commencing  his  rounds."  An  hour 
after  this  I  passed  the  bed  of  this  poor  woman,  and  she 
had  not  yet  been  visited.  Her  husband  answered  my 
question  with  a  choking  voice  and  a  flood  of  tears. 

I  passed  down  the  Ward,  and  found  nineteen  or 
twenty  in  the  last  agonies  of  death.  They  lay  per- 
fectly still,  and  seemed  benumbed.  I  felt  the  limbs 
of  several,  and  found  them  quite  cold.  The  stomach 
only  had  a  little  warmth.  Now  and  then  a  half  groan 
escaped  those  who  seemed  the  strongest;  but  with  the 
exception  of  the  universally  open  mouth  and  upturned 
ghastly  eye,  there  were  no  signs  of  much  suffering.  I 
found  two  who  must  have  been  dead  half  an  hour, 
undiscovered  by  the  attendants.  One  of  them  was  au 
old  woman,  nearly  gray,  with  a  very  bad  expression  of 
face,  who  was  perfectly  cold— lips,  limbs,  body,  and 
all.  The  other  was  younger,  and  looked  as  if  she  had 
died  in  pain.  Her  eyes  appeared  as  if  they  had  been 
forced  half  out  of  the  sockets,  and  her  skin  was  of  the 
most  livid  and  deathly  purple.     The  woman  in  the 


PENC1LLINGS  BY  THE  WAY. 


next  bed  told  me  she  had  died  since  the  Sosur  de 
Charile  had  been  there.  It  is  horrible  to  think  how 
these  poor  creatures  may  suffer  in  the  very  midst  of 
the  provisions  that  are  made  professedly  for  their  re- 
lief. I  asked  why  a  simple  prescription  of  treatment 
might  not  be  drawn  up  by  the  physicians,  and  admin- 
istered by  the  numerous  medical  students  who  were 
in  Paris,  that  as  few  as  possible  might  suffer  from  de- 
lay. "Because,"  said  my  companion,  "the  chief 
physicians  must  do  everything  personally,  to  study 
the  complaint."  And  so.  I  verily  believe,  more  hu- 
man lives  are  sacrificed  in  waiting  for  experiments, 
than  ever  will  be  saved  by  the  results.  My  blood 
boiled  from  the  beginning  to  the  end  of  this  melan- 
choly visit. 

I  wandered  about  alone  among  the  beds  till  my 
heart  was  sick,  and  I  could  bear  it  no  longer ;  and 
then  rejoined  my  friend,  who  was  in  the  train  of  one 
of  the  physicians,  making  the  rounds.  One  would 
think  a  dying  person  should  be  treated  with  kindness. 
I  never  saw  a  rougher  or  more  heartless  manner  than 

that  of  the  celebrated  Dr.  ,  at  the  bedsides  of 

these  poor  creatures.  A  harsh  question,  a  rude  pull- 
ing open  of  the  mouth,  to  look  at  the  tongue,  a  sen- 
tence or  two  of  unsuppressed  commands  to  the  stu- 
dents on  the  progress  of  the  disease,  and  the  train 
passed  on.  If  discouragement  and  despair  are  not 
medicines,  I  should  think  the  visits  of  such  physicians 
were  of  little  avail.  The  wretched  sufferers  turned 
away  their  heads  after  he  had  gone,  in  every  instance 
that  I  saw,  with  an  expression  of  visibly  increased  dis- 
tress. Several  of  them  refused  to  answer  his  ques- 
tions altogether. 

On  reaching  the  bottom  of  the  Salle  St.  Moniquc, 
one  of  the  male  wards,  I  heard  loud  voices  and  laugh- 
ter. I  had  noticed  much  more  groaning  and  com- 
plaining in  passing  among  the  men,  and  the  horrible 
discordance  struck  me  as  something  infernal.  It  pro- 
ceeded from  one  of  the  sides  to  which  the  patients 
had  been  removed  who  were  recovering.  The  most 
successful  treatment  has  been  found  to  be  fundi,  very 
strong,  with  but  little  acid,  and  being  permitted  to 
drink  as  much  as  they  would,  they  had  become  par- 
tially intoxicated.  It  was  a  fiendish  sight,  positively. 
They  were  sitting  up,  and  reaching  from  one  bed  to 
the  other,  and  with  their  still  pallid  faces  and  blue  lips, 
and  the  hospital  dress  of  white,  they  looked  like  so 
many  carousing  corpses.  I  turned  away  from  them 
in  horror. 

I  was  stopped  in  the  door-way  by  a  litter  entering 
with  a  sick  woman.  They  set  her  down  in  the  main 
passage  between  the  beds,  and  left  her  a  moment  to 
find  a  place  for  her.  She  seemed  to  have  an  interval 
of  pain,  and  rose  up  on  one  hand,  and  looked  about 
her  very  earnestly.  T  followed  the  direction  of  her 
eyes,  and  could  easily  imagine  her  sensations.  Twenty 
or  thirty  death-like  faces  were  turned  toward  her  from 
the  different  beds,  and  the  groans  of  the  dying  and  the 
distressed  came  from  every  side.  She  was  without  a 
friend  whom  she  knew,  sick  of  a  mortal  disease,  and 
abandoned  to  the  mercy  of  those  whose  kindness  is 
mercenary  and  habitual,  and  of  course  without  sym- 
pathy or  feeling.  Was  it  not  enough  alone,  if  she 
had  been  far  less  ill,  to  imbitter  the  very  fountains  of 
life,  and  kill  her  with  mere  fright  and  horror  ?  She 
sank  down  upon  the  litter  again,  and  drew  her  shawl 
over  her  head.  I  had  seen  enough  of  suffering,  and  I 
left  the  place. 

On  reaching  the  lower  staircase,  my  friend  proposed 
to  me  to  look  into  the  dead-room.  We  descended  to 
a  large  dark  apartment  below  the  street-level,  lighted 
by  a  lamp  fixed  to  the  wall.  Sixty  or  seventy  bodies 
lay  on  the  floor,  some  of  them  quite  uncovered,  and 
some  wrapped  in  mats.  I  could  not  see  distinctly 
enough  by  the  dim  light,  to  judge  of  their  discolora- 
tion.    They  appeared  mostly  old  and  emaciated. 


I  can  not  describe  the  sensation  of  relief  with  which 
I  breathed  the  free  air  once  more.  I  had  no  fear  of 
the  cholera,  but  the  suffeiing  and  misery  I  had  seen, 
oppressed  and  half  smothered  me.  Every  one  who 
has  walked  through  an  hospital,  will  remember  how 
natural  it  is  to  subdue  the  breath,  and  close  the  nos- 
trils to  the  smells  of  medicine  and  the  close  air.  The 
fact,  too,  that  the  question  of  contagion  is  still  dispu- 
ted, though  I  fully  believe  the  cholera  not  to  be  con- 
tagious, might  have  had  some  effect.  My  breast 
heaved,  however,  as  if  a  weight  had  risen  from  my 
lungs,  and  I  walked  home,  blessing  God  for  health 
with  undissembled  gratitude. 

P.  S. — I  began  this  account  of  my  visit  to  the  Hotel 
Dieu  yesterday.  As  I  am  perfectly  well  this  morning, 
I  think  the  point  of  non-contagion,  in  my  own  case  at 
least,  is  clear.  I  breathed  the  same  air  with  the  dying 
and  the  diseased  for  two  hours,  and  felt  of  nearly  a 
hundred  to  be  satisfied  of  the  curious  phenornena  of 
the  vital  heat.  Perhaps  an  experiment  of  this  sort, 
in  a  man  not  professionally  a  physician,  may  be  con- 
sidered rash  or  useless  ;  and  I  would  not  willingly  be 
thought  to  have  done  it  from  any  puerile  curiosity.  I 
have  been  interested  in  such  subjects  always ;  and  I 
considered  the  fact  that  the  king's  sons  had  been  per- 
mitted to  visit  the  hospital,  a  sufficient  assurance  that 
the  physicians  were  seriously  convinced  there  could 
be  no  possible  danger.  If  I  need  an  apology,  it  may 
be  found  in  this. 


LETTER  XVII. 

LEGION  OF  HONOR — PRESENTATION  TO  THE  KING — THE 
THRONE  OF  FRANCE — THE  QUEEN  AND  THE  PRIN- 
CESSES  COUNTESS  GUICCIOLI THE  LATE  DUEL THE 

SEASON  OF  CARNIVAL — ANOTHER  FANCY  BALL DIF- 
FERENCE BETWEEN  PRIVATE  AND  PUBLIC  MASKERS 
— STREET  MASKING — BALL  AT  THE  PALACE — THE 
YOUNG  DUKE  OF  ORLEANS PRINCESS  CHRISTINE- 
LORD    HARRY   VANE HEIR   OF    CARDINAL    RICHELIEU 

VILL1ERS BERNARD,  FABVIER,  COUSIN,  AND  OTHER 

DISTINGUISHED  CHARACTERS  —  THE  SUPPER  —  THF 
GLASS  VERANDAH,  ETC. 

As  I  was  getting  out  of a  fiacre  this  morning  on  the 
Boulevard,  I  observed  that  the  driver  had  the  cross  of 
the  legion  of  honor,  worn  very  modestly  under  his  coat. 
On  taking  a  second  look  at  his  face,  I  was  struck  with 
its  soldier-like,  honest  expression  ;  and  with  the  fear 
that  1  might  imply  a  doubt  by  a  question,  I  simply  ob- 
served, that  he  probably  received  it  from  Napoleon. 
He  drew  himself  up  a  little  as  he  assented,  and  with 
half  a  smile  pulled  the  coarse  cape  of  his  coat  across 
bis  bosom.  It  was  done  evidently  with  a  mixed  feeling 
of  pride  and  a  dislike  of  ostentation,  which  showed  the 
nurture  of  Napoleon.  It  is  astonishing  how  superior 
every  being  seems  to  have  become  that  served  under 
him.  Wherever  you  find  an  old  soldier  of  the  "  em- 
peror," as  they  delight  to  call  him,  you  find  a  noble, 
brave,  unpretending  man.  On  mentioning  this  circum- 
stance to  a  friend,  he  informed  me,  that  it  was  possibly 
a  man  who  was  well  known,  from  rather  a  tragical 
circumstance.  He  had  driven  a  gentleman  to  a  party 
one  night,  who  was  dissatisfied  with  him,  for  some 
reason  or  other,  and  abused  him  very  grossly.  The 
cocker  the  next  morning  sent  him  a  challenge  ;  and,  as 
the  cross  of  honor  levels  all  distinctions,  he  was  com- 
pelled to  fight  him,  and  was  shot  dead  at  the  first  fire. 

Honors  of  this  sort  must  be  a  very  great  incentive. 
They  are  worn  very  proudly  in  France.  You  see 
men  of  all  classes,  with  the  striped  riband  in  their  but- 
ton-hole, marking  them  as  the  heroes  of  the  three 
days  of  July.    The  Poles  and  the  French  and  English, 


PENCILLINGS  BY  THE  WAY. 


27 


who  fought  well  at  Warsaw,  wear  also  a  badge ;  and 
it  certainly  produces  a  feeling  of  respect  as  one  passes 
them  in  the  street.  There  are  several  very  young 
men,  lads  really,  who  are  wandering  about  Paris,  with 
the  latter  distinction  on  their  breasts,  and  every  indi- 
cation that  it  is  all  they  have  brought  away  from  their 
unhappy  country.  The  Poles  are  coming  in  now  from 
every  quarter.  I  meet  occasionally  in  society  the 
celebrated  Polish  countess,  who  lost  her  property  and 
was  compelled  to  flee,  for  her  devotion  to  the  cause. 
Louis  Philippe  has  formed  a  regiment  of  the  refugees, 
and  sent  them  to  Algiers.  He  allows  no  liberalists  to 
remain  in  Paris,  if  he  can  help  it.  The  Spaniards  and 
Italians,  particularly,  are  ordered  of}-  to  Tours,  and 
other  provincial  towns,  the  instant  they  become  pen- 
sioners upon  the  government. 

I  was  presented  last  night,  with  Mr.  Carr  and  Mr. 
Ritchie,  two  of  our  countrymen,  to  the  king.  We 
were  very  naturally  prepared  for  an  embarrassing  cere- 
mony—an expectation  which  was  not  lessened  in  my 
case,  by  the  necessity  of  a  laced  coat,  breeches,  and 
sword.  We  drove  into  the  court  of  the  Tuileries,  as 
the  palace  clock  struck  nine,  in  the  costume  of  cour- 
tiers of  the  time  of  Louis  the  Twelfth,  very  anxious 
about  the  tenacity  of  our  knee-buckles,  and  not  at  all 
satisfied  as  to  the  justice  done  to  our  unaccustomed 
proportions  by  the  tailor.  To  say  nothing  of  my  looks, 
1  am  sure  I  should  have  fell  much  more  like  a  gentle- 
man in  my  costume  bourgeois.  By  the  lime  we  had 
been  passed  through  the  hands  of  all  the  chamberlains, 
however,  and  walked  through  all  the  preparatory  halls 
and  drawing-rooms,  each  with  its  complement  of  gen- 
tlemen in  waiting,  dressed  like  ourselves  in  lace  and 
small-clothes,  I  became  more  reconciled  to  myself, 
and  began  to  feel  that  I  might  possibly  have  looked 
out  of  place  in  my  ordinary  dress.  The  atmosphere 
of  a  court  is  certainly  very  contagious  in  this  par- 
ticular. 

After  being  sufficiently  astonished  with  long  rooms, 
frescoes,  and  guardsmen,  seven  or  eight  feet  high, 
(the  tallest  men  I  ever  saw,  standing  with  halberds  at 
the  doors),  we  were  introduced  into  the  Salle  du 
Trone — a  large  hall  lined  with  crimson  velvet  through- 
out, with  the  throne  in  the  centre  of  one  of  the  sides. 
Some  half  dozen  gentlemen  were  standing  about  the 
fire,  conversing  very  familiarly,  among  whom  was  the 
British  ambassador,  Lord  Grenville,  and  the  Brazilian 
minister,  both  of  whom  I  had  met  before.  The  king 
was  not  there.  The  Swedish  minister,  a  noble-look- 
ing man,  with  snow-white  hair,  was  the.  only  other 
official  person  present,  each  of  the  ministers  having 
come  to  present  one  or  two  of  his  countrymen.  The 
king  entered  in  a  few  moments,  in  the  simple  uniform 
of  the  line,  and  joined  the  group  at  the  fire,  with  the 
most  familiar  and  cordial  politeness ;  each  minister 
presenting  his  countrymen  as  occasion  offered,  cer- 
tainly with  far  less  ceremony  than  one  sees  at  most 
dinner-parties  in  America.  After  talking  a  few  min- 
utes with  Lord  Grenville,  inquiring  the  progress  of 
the  cholera,  he  turned  to  Mr.  Rives,  and  we  were  pre- 
sented. We  stood  in  a  little  circle  around  him.  and 
he  conversed  with  us  about  America  for  ten  or  fifteen 
minutes.  He  inquired  from  what  states  we  came, 
and  said  he  had  been  as  far  west  as  Nashville,  Ten- 
nessee, and  had  often  slept  in  the  woods,  quite  as 
6oundly  as  he  ever  did  in  more  luxurious  quarters. 
He  begged  pardon  of  Mr.  Carr,  who  was  from  South 
Carolina,  for  saying  that  he  had  found  the  southern 
taverns  not  particularly  good.  He  preferred  the  north. 
All  this  time  I  was  looking  out  for  some  accent  in  the 
"king's  English."  He  speaks  the  language  with  all 
the  careless  correctness  and  fluency  of  a  vernacular 
tongue.  We  were  all  surprised  at  it.  It  is  American 
English,  however.  He  has  not  a  particle  of  the  cock- 
ney drawl,  half  Irish  and   half  Scotch,   with   which 


1 1  many  Englishmen  speak.  He  must  be  the  most  cos- 
II  mopolite  king  that  ever  reigned.  He  even  said  lie  had 
been  at  Tangiers,  the  place  of  Mr.  Can's  consulate. 
After  some  pleasant  compliment  to  our  country,  he 
passed  to  the  Brazilian  minister,  who  stood  on  the 
other  side,  leaving  us  delighted  with  his  manner;  and, 
probably,  in  spile  of  our  independence,  much  more 
inclined  than  before  to  look  indulgently  upon  his  bad 
politics.  The  queen  had  entered,  meantime,  with  the 
king's  sister,  Lady  Adelaide,  and  one  or  two  of  the 
ladies  of  honor;  and,  after  saying  something  cour- 
teous to  all,  in  her  own  language,  and  assuring  us  that 
his  majesty  was  very  fond  of  America,  the  royal  group 
bowed  out,  and  left  us  once  more  to  ourselves. 

We  remained  a  few  minutes,  and  I  occupied  my- 
self with  looking  at  the  gold  and  crimson  throne  before 
me,  and  recalling  to  my  mind  the  world  of  historical 
circumstances  connected  with  it.  You  can  easily 
imagine  it  all.  The  throne  of  France  is,  perhaps,  the 
most  interesting  one  in  the  world.  But  of  all  its  as- 
sociations, none  rushed  upon  me  so  forcibly,  or  re- 
tained my  imagination  so  long,  as  the  accidental 
drama  of  which  it  was  the  scene  during  the  three  days 
of  July.  It  was  here  that  the  people  brought  the 
polytechnic  scholar,  mortally  wounded  in  the  attack 
on  the  palace,  to  die.  He  breathed  his  last  on  the 
throne  of  France,  surrounded  with  his  comrades  and 
a  crowd  of  patriots.  It  is  one  of  the  most  striking  and 
affecting  incidents,  I  think,  in  all  history. 

As  we  passed  out  I  caught  a  glimpse,  through  a 
side  door,  of  the  queen  and  the  princesses  sitting 
round  a  table,  covered  with  books,  in  a  small  drawing- 
room,  while  a  servant,  in  the  gaudy  livery  of  the  court, 
was  just  entering  with  tea.  The  careless  attitudes  of 
the  figures,  the  mellow  light  of  the  shade-lamp,  and 
the  happy  voices  of  children  coming  through  the  door, 
reminded  me  more  of  home  than  anything  I  have  seen 
in  France.  It  is  odd,  but  really  the  most  aching 
sense  of  home-sickness  I  have  felt  since  I  left  Amer- 
ica, was  awakened  at  that  moment — in  the  palace  of  a 
king,  and  at  the  sight  of  his  queen  and  daughters! 

We  stopped  in  the  antechamber  to  have  our  names 
recorded  in  the  visiting-book — a  ceremony  which  in- 
sures us  invitations  to  all  the  balls  given  at  court  du- 
ring the  winter.  The  first  has  already  appeared  in  the 
shape  of  a  printed  note,  in  which  we  are  informed  by 
the  "  aide-de-camp  of  the  king  and  the  lady  of  honor 
of  the  queen,"  that  we  are  invited  to  a  ball  at  the  pal- 
ace on  Monday  night.  To  my  distress  there  is  a  little 
direction  at  the  bottom,  "  Les  hommes  seront  en  uni- 
forme,"  which  subjects  those  of  us  who  are  not  mili- 
tary, once  more  to  the  awkwardness  of  this  ridiculous 
court  dress.  I  advise  all  Americans  coming  abroad  to 
get  a  commission  in  the  militia  to  travel  with.  It  is 
of  use  in  more  ways  than  one. 

I  met  the  Countess  Guiccioli,  walking  yesterday  in 
the  Tuileries.  She  looks  much  younger  than  I  anti- 
cipated, and  is  a  handsome  blonde,  apparently  about 
thirty.  I  am  told  by  a  gentleman  who  knows  her, 
that  she  has  become  a  great  flirt,  and  is  quite  spoiled 
by  admiration.  The  celebrity  of  Lord  Byron's  attach- 
ment would,  certainly,  make  her  a  very  desirable  ac- 
quaintance, were  she  much  less  pretty  "than  she  really 
is;  and  I  am  told  her  drawing-room  is  thronged  with 
lovers  of  all  nations,  contending  for  a  preference, 
which,  having  been  once  given,  as  it  has,  should  be 
buried,  I  think,  for  ever.  So,  indeed,  should  have 
been  the  Emperess  Maria  Louisa's,  and  that  of  the 
widow  of  Bishop  Heber ;  and  yet  the  latter  has  mar- 
ried a  Greek  count,  and  the  former  a  German  baron! 

I  find  I  was  incorrect  in  the  statement  I  gave  you 
of  the  duel  between  Mr.  Hesse  and  Count  Leon. 
The  particulars  have  come  out  more  fully,  and  from 
the  curious  position  of  the  parties  (Mr.  Hesse,  as  I 


St 


PE^CILLINGS  BY  THE  WAY. 


stated,  being  the  natural  son  of  George  the  Fourth  ; 
and  Count  Leon  of  Napoleon)  are  worth  recapitula- 
ting. Count  Leon  had  lost  several  thousand  francs  to 
Mr.  Hesse,  which  he  refused  to  pay,  alleging  that 
there  had  been  unfiir  dealing  in  the  game.  The 
niarter  was  left  to  arbitration,  and  Mr.  Hesse  fully 
cleared  of  the  charge.  Leon  still  refused  to  pay,  and 
for  fifteen  days  practised  with  the  pistol  from  morning 
till  night.  At  the  end  of  this  time  he  paid  the 
money,  and  challenged  Hesse.  The  latter  had  lost 
the  use  of  his  right  arm  in  the  battle  of  Waterloo, 
(fighting  of  course  against  Count  Leon's  father),  but 
accepted  his  challenge,  and  fired  with  his  left  hand. 
Hesse  was  shot  through  the  body,  and  has  since  died, 
and  Count  Leon  was  not  hurt.  The  affair  has  made 
a  great  sensation  here,  for  Hesse  had  a  young  and 
lovely  wife,  only  seventeen,  and  was  unusually  beloved 
and  admired;  while  his  opponent  is  a  notorious  gam- 
bler, and  every  way  detested.  People  meet  at  the 
gaming-table  here,  however,  as  they  meet  in  the  street, 
without  question  of  character. 

Carnival  is  over.  Yesterday  was  "  Mardi  Gras" — 
the  last  day  of  the  reign  of  Folly.  Paris  has  been  like 
a  city  of  grown-up  children  for  a  week.  What  with 
masking  all  night,  supping,  or  bieakfasting,  what  you 
will,  at  sunrise,  and  going  to  bed  between  morning  and 
noon,  I  feel  that  I  have  done  my  devoir  upon  the  ex- 
periment of  French  manners. 

It  would  be  tedious,  not  to  say  improper,  to  describe 
all  the  absurdities  I  have  seen  and  mingled  in  for  the 
last  fortnight;  but  I  must  try  to  give  you  some  idea  of 
the  meaning  the  French  attach  to  the  season  of  carni- 
val, and  the  manner  in  which  it  is  celebrated. 

In  society  it  is  the  time  for  universal  gayety  and 
freedom.  Parties,  fancy  balls,  and  private  masques, 
are  given,  and  kept  up  till  morning.  The  etiquette  is 
something  more  free,  and  gallantry  is  indulged  and 
followed  with  the  privileges,  almost,  of  a  Saturnalia. 
One  of  the  gayest  things  I  have  seen  was  a  fancy  ball, 
given  by  a  man  of  some  fashion,  in  the  beginning  of 
the  season.  Most  of  the  distinguzs  of  Paris  were 
there;  and  it  was,  perhaps,  as  fair  a  specimen  of  the 
elegant  gayety  of  the  French  capital,  as  occurred 
during  the  carnival.  The  rooms  were  full  by  ten. 
Everybody  was  in  costume,  and  the  ladies  in  dresses 
of  unusual  and  costly  splendor.  At  a  bal  costume 
there  are  no  masks,  of  course,  and  dancing,  waltzing, 
and  galopading  followed  each  other  in  the  ordinary 
succession,  but  with  all  the  heightened  effect  and  ad- 
ditional spirit  of  a  magnificent  spectacle.  It  was  really 
beautiful.  There  were  officers  from  all  the  English 
regiments,  in  their  fine  showy  uniforms  ;  and  French 
officers  who  had  brought  dresses  from  their  far-off  cam- 
paigns ;  Turks,  Egyptians,  Mussulmans,  and  Algerine 
rovers — every  country  that  had  been  touched  by 
French  soldiers,  represented  in  its  richest  costume, 
and  by  men  of  the  finest  appearance.  There  was  a 
colonel  of  the  English  Madras  cavalry,  in  the  uniform 
of  his  corps — one  mass  of  blue  and  silver,  the  most 
spendidly  dressed  man  I  ever  saw;  and  another  Eng- 
lishman, who  is  said  to  be  the  successor  of  Lord  By- 
ron in  the  graces  of  the  gay  and  lovely  Countess  Guic- 
cioli,  was  dressed  as  a  Greek;  and  between  the  ex- 
quisite taste  and  richness  of  his  costume,  and  his 
really  excessive  personal  beauty,  he  made  no  ordinary 
sensation.  The  loveliest  woman  there  was  a  young 
baroness,  whose  dancing,  figure,  and  face,  so  resembled 
a  celebrated  Philadelphia  belle,  that  I  was  constantly 
expecting  her  musical  French  voice  to  break  into  Eng- 
lish. She  was  dressed  as  an  eastern  dancing-girl,  and 
floated  about  with  the  lightness  and  grace  of  a  fairy. 
Her  motion  intoxicated  the  eye  completely.  I  have 
seen  her  since  at  the  Tuileries,  where,  in  a  waltz  with 
the  handsome  Duke  of  Orleans,  she  was  the  single  ob- 
ject of  admiration  for  the  whole  court.     She  is  a  small, 


lightly-framed  creature,  with  very  little  feet,  and  a  face 
of  more  brilliancy  than  regular  beauty,  but  all  airiness 
and  spirit.  A  very  lovely,  indolent-looking  English 
girl,  with  large  sleepy  eyes,  was  dressed  as  a  Circas- 
sian slave,  with  chains  from  her  ankles  to  her  waist. 
She  was  a  beautiful  part  of  the  spectacle,  but  too  pas- 
sive to  interest  one.  There  were  sylphs  and  nuns, 
broom-girls  and  Italian  peasants,  and  a  great  many  in 
rich  Polonaise  dresses.  It  was  unlike  any  other  fancy 
ball  I  ever  saw,  in  the  variety  and  novelty  of  the  char- 
acters represented,  and  the  costliness  with  which  they 
were  dressed.  You  can  have  no  idea  of  the  splendor 
of  a  waltz  in  such  a  glittering  assemblage.  It  was 
about  time  for  an  early  breakfast  when  the  ball  was 
over. 

The  private  masks  are  amusing  to  those  who  are 
intimate  with  the  circle.  A  stranger,  of  course,  is 
neither  acquainted  enough  to  amuse  himself  within 
proper  limits,  nor  incognito  enough  to  play  his  gallan- 
tries at  hazard.  I  never  have  seen  more  decidedly 
triste  assemblies  than  the  balls  of  this  kind  which  I 
have  attended,  where  the  uniform  black  masks  and 
dominoes  gave  the  party  the  aspect  of  a  funeral,  and  the 
restraint  made  it  quite  as  melancholy. 

The  public  masks  are  quite  another  affair.  They 
are  given  at  the  principal  theatres,  and  commence  at 
midnight.  The  pit  and  stage  are  thrown  into  a  bril- 
liant hall,  with  the  orchestra  in  the  centre ;  the  music 
is  divine,  and  the  etiquette  perfect  liberty.  There  is, 
of  course,  a  great  deal  of  vulgar  company,  for  every 
one  is  admitted  who  pays  the  ten  francs  at  the  door; 
but  all  classes  of  people  mingle  in  the  crowd  ;  and  if 
one  is  not  amused,  it  is  because  he  will  neither  listen 
nor  talk.  I  think  it  requires  one  or  two  masks  to  get 
one's  eye  so  much  accustomed  to  the  sight,  that  he  is 
not  disgusted  with  the  exteriors  of  the  women.  There 
was  something  very  diabolical  to  me  at  first  in  a  dead, 
black  representation  of  the  human  face,  and  the  long 
black  domino.  Persuading  one's  self  that  there  is 
beauty  under  such  an  outside,  is  like  getting  up  a  pas- 
sion for  a  very  ugly  woman,  for  the  sake  of  her  mind — 
difficult,  rather.  I  soon  became  used  to  it,  however, 
and  amuse  myself  infinitely.  One  is  liable  to  waste  his 
wit,  to  be  sure  ;  for  in  a  crowd  so  rarely  bicn  composce, 
as  they  phrase  it,  the  undistinguishing  dress  gives 
every  one  the  opportunity  of  bewildering  you;  but  the 
feet  and  manner  of  walking,  and  the  tone  and  mode  of 
expression,  are  indices  sufficiently  certain  to  decide, 
and  give  interest  to  a  pursuit ;  and,  with  tolerable  cau- 
tion, one  is  paid  for  his  trouble,  in  nineteen  cases  out 
of  twenty.     t 

At  the  public  masks,  the  visiters  are  not  all  in  dom- 
ino. One  half  at  least  are  in  caricature  dresses,  men 
in  petticoats,  and  women  in  boots  and  spurs.  It  is  not 
always  easy  to  detect  the  sex.  An  English  lady,  a 
carnival-acquaintance  of  mine,  made  love  successfully, 
with  the  aid  of  a  tall  figure  and  great  spirit,  to  a  num- 
ber of  her  own  sex.  She  wore  a  half  uniform,  and 
was  certainly  a  very  elegant  fellow.  France  is  so  re- 
markable indeed,  for  effeminate  looking  men  and  mas- 
culine looking  women,  that  half  the  population  might 
change  costume  to  apparent  advantage.  The  French 
are  fond  of  caricaturing  English  dandies,  and  they  do 
it  with  great  success.  The  imitation  of  Bond-street 
dialect  in  another  language  is  highly  amusing.  There 
were  two  imitation  exquisites  at  the  "  Varieties1'1  one 
night,  who  were  dressed  to  perfection,  and  must  have 
studied  the  character  thoroughly.  The  whole  theatre 
was  in  a  roar  when  they  entered.  Malcontents  take  the 
opportunity  to  show  up  the  king  and  ministers,  and  these 
are  excellent,  too.  One  gets  weary  of  fun.  It  is  a 
life  which  becomes  tedious  long  before  carnival  is 
over.  It  is  a  relief  to  sit  down  once  more  to  books  and 
pen. 

The  three  last  days  are  devoted  to  street-masking. 
This  is  the   most  ridiculous  of  all.     Paris  pours  ou< 


PENCILLINGS  BY  THE  WAY. 


29 


its  whole  population  upon  the  Boulevards,  and  guards 
are  stationed  to  keep  the  goers  and  comers  in  separate 
lines,  and  prevent  all  collecting  of  groups  on  the  patt. 
People  in  the  most  grotesque  and  absurd  dresses  pass 
on  loot,  and  in  loaded  carriages,  and  all  is  nonsense 
and  obscenity.  It  is  difficult  to  conceive  the  motive 
which  can  induce  grown-up  people  to  go  to  the  ex- 
pense and  trouble  of  such  an  exhibition,  merely  to 
amuse  the  world.  A  description  of  these  follies  would 
be  waste  of  paper. 

On  the  last  night  but  one  of  the  carnival,  I  went  to 
a  ball  at  the  palace.  We  presented  our  invitations  at 
the  door,  and  mounted  through  piles  of  soldiers  of  the 
line,  crowds  of  servants  in  the  king's  livery,  and  groves 
of  exotics  at  the  broad  landing  places,  to  the  reception 
roam.  We  were  ushered  into  the  Salle  des  Mare- 
cha's — a  large  hall,  the  ceiling  of  which  rises  into  the 
djiue  of  the  Tuileries,  ornamented  with  full-length 
portraits  of  the  living  marshals  of  France.  A  gallery 
of  a  light  airy  structure  runs  round  upon  the  capitals 
of  the  pillars,  and  this,  when  we  entered,  and  at  all  the 
after  hours  of  the  ball,  was  crowded  with  loungers  from 
the  assembly  beneath — producing  a  splendid  effect,  as 
their  glittering  uniforms  passed  and  repassed  under  the 
flags  and  armor  with  which  the  ceilings  were  thickly 
hung.  The  royal  train  entered  presently,  and  the 
band  struck  up  a  superb  march.  Three  rows  of  vel- 
vet-covered seats,  one  above  another,  went  round  the 
hall,  leaving  a  passage  behind,  and  in  front  of  these  the 
queen  and  her  family  made  a  circuit  of  courtesy,  fol- 
lowed by  the  wives  of  the  ambassadors,  among  whom 
was  our  countrywoman,  Mrs.  Rives.  Her  majesty 
weut  smiling  past,  stopping  here  and  there  to  speak  to 
a  lady  whom  she  recognised,  and  the  king  followed 
her  with  his  eternal  and  painfully  forced  smile,  saying 
something  to  every  second  person  he  encountered. 
The  princesses  have  good  faces,  and  the  second  one 
has  an  expression  of  great  delicacy  and  tenderness,  but 
no  beauty.  As  soon  as  the  queen  was  seated,  the 
band  played  a  quadrille,  and  the  crowd  cleared  away 
from  the  centre  for  the  dance.  The  Duke  of  Orleans 
selected  his  partner,  a  pretty  girl,  who,  T  believe,  was 
English,  and  forward  went  the  head  couples  to  the  ex- 
quisite music  of  the  new  opera — Robert  le  Diable. 

I  fell  into  the  little  cortege  standing  about  the  queen, 
and  watched  the  interesting  party  dancing  in  the  head 
quadrille  for  an  hour.  The  Dnke  of  Orleans,  who  is 
nearly  twenty,  and  seems  a  thoughtless,  good-natured, 
immature  young  man,  moved  about  very  gracefully 
with  his  handsome  figure,  and  seemed  amused,  and 
quite  unconscious  of  the  attention  he  drew.  The 
princesses  were  vis-a-vis,  and  the  second  one  a  dark- 
haired,  slender,  interesting  girl  of  nineteen,  had  a 
polytechnic  scholar  for  her  partner.  He  was  a  hand- 
some, gallant-looking  fellow,  who  must  have  distin- 
guished himself  to  have  been  invited  to  court,  and  I 
could  not  but  admire  the  beautiful  mixture  of  respect 
and  self-confidence  with  which  he  demanded  the  hand 
of  the  princess  from  the  lady  of  honor,  and  conversed 
with  her  during  the  dance.  If  royalty  does  not  seal 
up  the  affections,  I  could  scarce  conceive  how  a  being 
so  decidedly  of  nature's  best  nobility,  handsome,  grace- 
ful, and  confident,  could  come  within  the  sphere  of  a 
sensitive-looking  girl,  like  the  princess  Christine,  and 
not  leave  more  than  a  transient  recollection  upon  her 
fancy.  The  music  stopped,  and  I  had  been  so  occu- 
pied with  my  speculations  upon  the  polytechnic  boy, 
that  I  had  scarcely  noticed  any  other  person  in  the 
dance.  He  led  the  princess  back  to  her  seat  by  the 
dame  d'honneur,  bowing  low,  colored  a  little,  and  min- 
gled with  the  crowd.  A  few  minutes  after  I  saw  him 
in  the  gallery,  quite  alone,  leaning  over  the  railing, 
and  looking  down  upon  the  scene  below,  having  ap- 
parently abandoned  the  dance  for  the  evening.  From 
something  in  his  face,  and  in  the  manner  of  resuming 
his  sword,  I  was  certain  he  had   come   to  the   palace 


|  with  that  single  object,  and  would  dance  no  more.  I 
1  kept  him  in  my  eye  most  of  the  night,  and  am  very 
!  sure  he  did  not.  If  the  little  romance  1  wove  out  of 
!  it  was  not  a  true  one,  it  was  not  because  the  material 
!  was  improbable. 

As  I  was  looking  still  at  the  quadrille  dancing  before 
|  the  queen,  Dr.  Bowring  took  my  arm  and  proposed  a 
1  stroll  through  the  other  apartments.     I  found  that  the 
:  immense   crowd   in  the  S(dle  des  Mareclials  was   but 
:  about  one  fifth  of  the  assembly.     We  passed  through 
'  hall  after  hall,  with   music  and   dancing  in  each,  all 
!  crowded  and  gay  alike,  till  we  came  at  last  to  the  Salle 
\  du  Trdne,  where  the  old  men  were  collected  at  card- 
tables  and  in  groups  for  conversation.     My  distinguish- 
ed companion  was  of  the  greatest  use  to  me  here,  for 
he  knew  everybody,  and  there  was  scarce  a  person  in 
the   room  who  did   not  strongly   excite  my  curiosity. 
1  One  half  of  them  at  least  were  maimed  ;  some  without 
arms,  and  some  with  wooden  legs,  and  faces  scarred 
and  weather-burnt,  but  all  in  full  uniform,  and  nearly 
all  with  three  or  four  orders  of  honor  on  the   breast. 
You  would  have  held  your  breath  to  have  heard  the 
recapitulation  of  their  names.     At  one  table  sat  Mar- 
shal Grouchy  and    General  Excelmans ;  in   a   corner 
stood  Marshal  Soidt,  conversing  with  a  knot  of  peers 
of  France  ;  and  in  the  window  nearest  the  door,  Gen- 
eral Bernard,  our  country's  friend  and   citizen,  was 
earnestly  engaged  in  talking  to  a  group  of  distinguished 
looking  men,  two  of  whom,  my  companion  said,  were 
members  of  the  chamber   of  deputies.     We  stood  a 
I  moment,  and  a  circle  was  immediately  formed  around 
Dr.  Bowring,  who  is  a  great  favorite  among  the  literary 
and  liberal  people  of  France.     The  celebrated  General 
Fabvier  came  up  among  others,  and   Cousin  the  poet. 
Fabvier,  as  you  know,  held  a  chief  command  in  Greece, 
and  was  elected  governor  of  Paris  pro  tern,  after  the 
"three  days."     He  is  a  very  remarkable  looking  man, 
with  a  head  almost  exactly  resembling  that  of  the  bust  of 
j  Socrates.     The  engravings  give  him  a  more  animated 
and    warlike   expression   than    he    wears    in    private. 
Cousin  is  a  mild,  retired  looking  man,  and  was  one  of 
I  the  very  few  persons  present  not  in  the  court  uniform. 
J  Among  so  many  hundred  coats  embroidered  with  gold, 
■  his  plain   black  dress   looked  singularly  simple   and 
!  poet-like. 

I   left   the    diplomatist-poet    conversing   with   his 
!  friends,  and  went  back  to  the  dancing  rooms.      Music 
and  female  beauty  are  more  attractive  metal  than  dis- 
abled generals  playing  at  cards;  and  encountering  in 
l  my  way  an  attache  to  the  American   legation,  1   in- 
'  quired  about  one  or  two  faces  that  interested  me,  and 
!  collecting  information  enough   to   pass  through  the 
courtesies  of  a  dance,  I  found  a  partner  and  gave  my- 
;  self  up,  like  the  rest,  to  amusement. 

Supper  was  served  at  two,  and  a  more  splendid  af- 
!  fair  could  not  be  conceived,  A  long  and  magnificent 
I  hall  on  the  other  side  of  the  Salle  du  Tidnc,  was  set 
;  with  tables,  covered  with  everything  that  France  could 
!  afford,  in  the  royal  services  of  gold  and  silver,  and  in 
j  the  greatest  profusion.  There  was  room  enough  for 
i  all  the  immense  assemblage,  and  when  the  queen  was 
I  seated  with  her  daughters  and  ladies  of  honor,  the 
company  sat  down  and  all  was  as  quiet  and  well-reg- 
ulated as  a  dinner  party  of  four. 

After  supper   the   dancing  was   resumed,   and  the 

queen  remained  till  three  o'clock.     At  her  departure 

the  band   played  cotillons  or  waltzes  with    figures,  in 

i  which  the  Duke  of  Orleans   displayed  the  grace   for 

1  which  he  is  celebrated,  and  at  four,  quite  exhausted 

;  with  fatigue  and  heat,  I  went  with  a  friend  or  two  into 

the  long  glass  verandah,  built  by  Napoleon  as  a  pron 

enadeforthe  Emperes*  Maria  Louisa  during  her  illness, 

!  where  tea,  coffee,  and  ices  were  served   to  those  who 

!  wished  them  after  supper.     It  was  an  interesting  place 

!  enough,  and  had  my   eyes  and  limbs  ached   less,  I 

:  should  have  liked  to  walk  up   and  down,  and  muse  a 


30 


PENCILLINGS  BY  THE  WAY. 


little  upon  its  recollections,  but  swallowing  my  tea  as 
hastily  as  possible,  1  was  but  too  happy  to  make  my 
escape  and  get  home  to  bed. 


LETTER  XVIII. 

CHOLERA UNIVERSAL  TERROR FLIGHT  OF  THE  IN- 
HABITANTS—CASES  WITHIN  THE  WALLS  OF  THE  PAL- 
ACE  DIFFICULTY   OF   ESCAPE DESERTED  STREETS 

CASES    NOT    REPORTED DRYNESS    OF    THE    ATMO- 
SPHERE  PREVENTIVES      RECOMMENDED PUBLIC 

BATHS,    ETC. 

Cholera !  Cholera !  It  is  now  the  only  topic. 
There  is  no  other  interest — no  other  dread — no 
other  occupation,  for  Paris.  The  invitations  for 
parties  are  at  last  recalled — the  theatres  are  at  last 
shut  or  languishing — the  fearless  are  beginning  to  be 
afraid  —  people  walk  the  streets  with  camphor  bags 
and  vinaigrettes  at  their  nostrils — there  is  a  universal 
terror  in  all  classes,  and  a  general  flight  of  all  who 
can  afford  to  get  away.  I  never  saw  a  people  so  en- 
grossed with  one  single  and  constant  thought.  The 
waiter  brought  my  breakfast  this  morning  with  a  pale 
face,  and  an  apprehensive  question,  whether  I  was 
quite  well.  I  sent  to  my  boot-maker  yesterday,  and 
he  was  dead.  I  called  on  a  friend,  a  Hanoverian,  one 
of  those  broad-chested,  florid,  immortal-looking  men, 
of  whose  health  for  fifty  years,  violence  apart,  one  is 
absolutely  certain,  and  he  was  at  death's  door  with  the 
cholera.  Poor  fellow  !  He  had  fought  all  through 
the  revolution  in  Greece  ;  he  had  slept  in  rain  and 
cold,  under  the  open  sky,  many  a  night,  through  a  ten 
years'  pursuit  of  the  profession  of  a  soldier  of  fortune, 
living  one  of  the  most  remarkable  lives,  hitherto,  of 
which  I  ever  heard,  and  to  be  taken  down  here  in  the 
midst  of  ease  and  pleasure,  reduced  to  a  shadow  with 
so  vulgar  and  unwarlike  a  disease  as  this,  was  quite  too 
much  for  his  philosophy.  He  had  been  ill  three  days 
when  I  found  him.  He  was  emaciated  to  a  skeleton 
in  that  short  time,  weak  and  helpless,  and,  though  he 
is  not  a  man  to  exaggerate  suffering,  he  said  he  never 
had  conceived  such  intense  agony  as  he  had  endured. 
He  assured  me,  that  if  he  recovered,  and  should  ever 
be  attacked  with  it  again,  he  would  blowout  his  brains 
at  the  first  symptom.  Nothing  but  his  iron  constitu- 
tion protracted  the  disorder.  Most  people  who  are 
attacked  die  in  from  three  to  twenty-four  hours. 

For  myself,  I  have  felt  and  still  feel  quite  safe.  My 
rooms  are  in  the  airiest  quarter  of  Paris,  facing  the 
gardens  of  the  Tuileries,  with  windows  overlooking 
the  king's ;  and,  as  far  as  air  is  concerned,  if  his  ma- 
jesty considers  himself  well  situated,  it  would  be  quite 
ridiculous  in  so  insignificant  a  person  as  myself  to  be 
alarmed.  With  absolute  health,  confident  spirits,  and 
tolerably  regular  habits,  I  have  usually  thought  one 
may  defy  almost  anything  but  love  or  a  bullet.  To- 
day, however,  there  have  been,  they  say,  two  cases 
within  the  palace-icalls,  members  of  the  royal  house- 
hold, and  Casimir  Perier.  who  probably  lives  well  and 
has  enough  to  occupy  his  mind,  is  very  low  with  it, 
and  one  cannot  help  feeling  that  he  has  no  certain  ex- 
emption, when  a  disease  has  touched  both  above  and 
below  him.  I  went  to-day  to  the  messagerie  to  en- 
gage my  place  for  Marseilles,  on  the  way  to  Italy,  but 
the  seats  are  all  taken,  in  both  mail-post  and  dili- 
gence, for  a  fortnight  to  come,  and,  as  there  are  no 
extras  in  France,  one  must  wait  his  turn.  Having 
done  my  duty  to  myself  by  the  inquiry,  I  shall  be  con- 
tent to  remain  quiet. 

I  have  just  returned  from  a  social  tea-party  at  a 
house  of  one  of  the  few  English  families  left  in  Paris. 


It  is  but  a  little  after  ten,  and  the  streets,  as  I  came 
along,  were  as  deserted  and  still  as  if  it  were  a  city  of 
the  dead.  Usually,  until  four  or  five  in  the  morning, 
the  same  streets  are  thronged  with  carriages  hurrying 
to  and  fro,  and  always  till  midnight  the  troltoirs  are 
crowded  with  promenaders.  To-night  I  scarce  met  a 
foot-passenger,  and  but  one  solitary  cabriolet  in  a  walk 
of  a  mile.  The  contrast  was  really  impressive.  The 
moon  was  nearly  full,  and  high  in  the  heavens,  and 
the  sky  absolutely  without  a  trace  of  a  cloud  ;  nothing 
interrupted  the  full  broad  light  of  the  moon,  and  the 
empty  streets  were  almost  as  bright  as  at  noon-day  ; 
and,  as  I  crossed  the  Place  Vendome,  I  could  hear,  for 
the  first  time  since  I  have  been  in  Paris,  though  I 
have  passed  it  at  every  hour  of  the  night,  the  echo  of 
my  footsteps  reverberated  from  the  walls  around.  You 
should  have  been  in  these  crowded  cities  of  Europe  to 
realize  the  impressive  solemnity  of  such  solitude. 

It  is  said  that  fifty  thousand  people  have  left  Paris 
within  the  past  week.  Adding  this  to  the  thousand  a 
day  who  are  struck  with  the  cholera,  and  the  attend- 
ance necessary  to  the  sick,  and  a  thinned  population 
is  sufficiently  accounted  for.  There  are,  however, 
hundreds  ill  of  this  frightful  disease,  whose  cases  are 
not  reported.  It  is  only  those  who  are  taken  to  the 
hospitals,  the  poor  and  destitute,  who  are  numbered  in 
the  official  statements.  The  physicians  are  wearied 
out  with  their  private  practice.  The  medical  lectures 
are  suspended,  and  a  regular  physician  is  hardly  to  be 
had  at  all.  There  is  scarce  a  house  in  which  some 
one  has  not  been  taken.  You  see  biers  and  litters 
issuing  from  almost  every  gate,  and  the  better  ranks 
are  no  longer  spared.  A  sister  of  the  premier,  M. 
Perier,  died  yesterday  ;  and  it  was  reported  at  the 
Bourse,  that  several  distinguished  persons,  who  have 
been  ill  of  it,  are  also  dead.  No  one  feels  safe  ;  and 
the  consternation  and  dread  on  every  countenance  you 
meet,  is  enough  to  chill  one's  very  blood.  I  went  out 
to-day  for  a  little  exercise,  not  feeling  very  well,  and  I 
was  glad  to  get  home  again.  Every  creature  looks 
stricken  with  a  mortal  fear.  And  this  among  a  French 
population,  the  gayest  and  merriest  of  people  under 
all  depressions  ordinarily,  is  too  strong  a  contrast  not 
to  be  felt  painfully.  There  is  something  singular  in 
the  air,  too  ;  a  disagreeable,  depressing  dryness,  which 
the  physicians  say  must  change,  or  all  Paris  will  be 
struck  with  the  plague.  It  is  clear  and  cold,  but  al- 
most suffocating  with  dryness. 

It  is  very  consoling  in  the  midst  of  so  much  that  is 
depressing^  that  the  preventives  recommended  against 
the  cholera  are  so  agreeable.  "  Live  well,"  s;sy  the 
doctors,  "and  bathe  often.  Abstain  from  excesses, 
keep  a  clear  head  and  good  spirits,  and  amuse  your- 
self as  much  and  as  rationally  as  possible."  It  is  a 
very  excellent  recipe  for  happiness,  let  alone  the  chol- 
era. There  is  great  room  for  a  nice  observance  of  this 
system  in  Paris,  particularly  the  eating  and  bathing. 
The  baths  are  delightful.  You  are  received  in  hand- 
some saloons,  opening  upon  a  garden  in  the  centre  of 
the  building,  ornamented  with  statues  and  fountains, 
the  journals  lying  upon  the  sofas,  and  everything  ar- 
ranged with  quite  the  luxury  of  a  palace.  The  bath- 
ing-rooms are  furnished  with  taste;  the  baths  are  of 
marble,  and  covered  inside  with  spotlessly  white  linen 
cloths  ;  the  water  is  perfumed,  and  you  may  lie  and 
take  your  coffee,  or  have  your  breakfast  served  upon 
the  mahogany  cover  which  shuts  you  in — a  union  of 
luxuries  which  is  enough  to  enervate  a  cynic.  When 
you  are  ready  to  come  out,  a  pull  of  the  bell  brings  a 
servant,  who  gives  you  a  peignoir — a  long  linen  wrap- 
per, heated  in  an  oven,  in  the  warm  folds  of  which  you 
are  enveloped,  and  in  three  minutes  are  quite  dry.  In 
this  you  may  sit,  at  your  ease,  reading,  or  musing,  or 
lie  upon  the  sofa  without  the  restraint  of  a  tight  dress, 
till  you  are  ready  to  depart ;  and  then  four  or  five 
francs,  something  less  than  a  dollar,  pays  for  all. 


PENCILLINGS  BY  THE  WAY. 


3! 


LETTER  XIX. 

MORNING     VIEW     FROM     THE     RUE     RIVOLI THE    BOIS 

DE     BOULOGNE GUICCIOLI SISMONDI     THE     HISTO- 
RIAN, ETC. 

It  is  now  the  middle  of  April,  and  sitting  at  my 
window  on  the  Rue  Rivoli,  I  look  through  one  of  the 
lone;,  clipped  avenues  of  the  Tuileries,  and  see  an 
arch  of  green  leaves,  the  sun  of  tight  o'clock  in  the 
morning  just  breaking  through  the  thin  foliage  and 
dappling  the  straight,  even  gravel-walk  below,  with  a 
look  of  summer  that  makes  my  heart  leap.  The 
cholera  has  put  an  end  to  dissipation,  and  one  gets  up 
early  from  necessity.  It  is  delicious  to  step  out  before 
breakfast,  and  cross  the  street  into  those  lovely  gar- 
dens, for  an  hour  or  two  of  fresh  air  and  reflection.  It 
is  warm  enough  now  to  sit  on  the  stone  benches  about 
the  fountains,  by  the  time  the  dew  is  dry;  and  I  know 
nothing  so  contemplative  as  the  occupation  of  watch- 
ing these  royal  swans  in  the  dreamy,  almost  impercep- 
tible motion  with  which  they  glide  around  the  edges 
of  the  basins.  The  gold  fish  swim  up  and  circle 
about  the  breast  of  the  imperial  birds  with  a  motion 
almost  as  idle;  and  the  old  wooden-legged  soldier, 
who  has  been  made  warden  of  the  gardens  for  his 
service,  sits  nodding  on  one  of  the  chairs,  or  drawing 
fortifications  with  his  stick  in  the  gravel;  and  so  it 
happens,  that  in  the  midst  of  a  gay  and  busy  city  one 
may  feel  always  a  luxurious  solitude  ;  and,  be  he  ever 
so  poor,  loiter  all  day  if  he  will,  among  scenes  which 
only  regal  munificence  could  provide  for  him.  With 
the  Seine  bounding  them  on  one  side,  the  splendid 
uniform  facade  of  the  Rue  Rivoli  on  the  other,  the 
palace  stretching  across  the  southern  terrace,  and  the 
thick  woods  of  the  Champs  Elysccs  at  the  opposite 
gate,  where  could  one  go  in  the  world  to  give  his  taste 
or  his  eye  a  more  costly  or  delightful  satisfaction? 

The  Bois  de  Boulogne,  about  which  the  Parisians 
talk  so  much,  is  less  to  my  taste.  It  is  a  level  wood 
of  small  trees,  covering  a  mile  or  two  square,  and  cut 
from  corner  to  corner  with  straight  roads  for  driving. 
The  soil  is  sandy,  and  the  grass  grows  only  in  tufts, 
the  walks  are  rough,  and  either  muddy  or  dusty  al- 
ways, and,  barring  the  equipages  and  the  pleasure  of 
a  word  in  passing  an  acquaintance,  I  find  a  drive  to 
this  famous  wood  rather  a  dull  business.  I  want  ei- 
ther one  thing  or  the  other — cultivated  grounds  like 
the  Tuileries,  or  the  wild  wood. 

I  have  just  left  the  Countess  Guiccioli,  with  whom 
I  have  been  acquainted  for  some  two  or  three  weeks. 
She  is  very  much  frightened  at  the  cholera,  and  thinks 
of  going  to  America.  The  conversation  turned  princi-' 
pally  upon  Shelley,  whom  of  course  she  knew  intirmte- 
ly  ;  and  she  gave  me  one  of  his  letters  to  herself  as 
an  autograph.  She  says  he  was  at  times  a  little  cra- 
zy— "fou,"  as  she  expressed  it — but  that  there  never 
was  a  nobler  or  a  better  man.  Lord  Byron,  she  says, 
loved  him  like  a  brother.  She  is  still  in  correspond- 
ence with  Shelley's  wife,  of  whom  also  she  speaks 
with  the  greatest  affection.  There  was  several  min- 
iatures of  Byron  hanging  up  in  the  room,  and  I  asked 
her  if  any  of  them  were  perfect  in  the  resemblance. 
"  No,"  she  said,  "  this  was  the  most  like  him,"  taking 
down  an  exquisitely  finished  miniature  by  an  Italian 
artist,  "  mai3  el  etait  beaucoup  plus  beau — beaucoup  ! — 
beaucoup .'"  She  reiterated  the  word  with  a  very 
touching  tenderness,  and  continued  to  look  at  the  pic- 
ture for  some  time,  either  forgetting  our  presence,  or 
affecting  it.  She  speaks  English  sweetly,  with  a 
soft,  slow,  honeyed  accent,  breaking  into  French  when 
ever  she  gets  too  much  interested  to  choose  herwords. 
She  went  on  talking  in  French  of  the  painters  who 
had  drawn  Byron,  and  said  the  American,  West's,  was 


the  best  likeness.  I  did  not  like  to  tell  her  that  West's 
picture  of  herself  was  excessively  flattered.  I  am 
sure  no  one  would  know  her  from  the  engraving  of  it 
at  least.  Her  cheek  bones  are  high,  her  forehead  is 
badly  shaped,  and  altogether,  the  frame  of  her  fea- 
tures is  decidedly  ugly.  She  dresses  in  the  worst 
taste,  too,  and  yet,  with  all  this,  and  poetry  and  celeb- 
rity aside,  the  Countess  Guiccioli  is  both  a  lovely  and 
a  fascinating  woman,  and  one  whom  a  man  of  senti- 
ment would  admire  e\en  at  this  age,  very  sincerely, 
but  not  for  beauty.  She  has  white  and  regular  teeth, 
however,  and  her  hair  is  incomparably  the  most  beau- 
tiful I  ever  saw.  It  is  of  the  richest  and  glossiest 
gold,  silken  and  luxuriant,  and  changes,  as  the  light 
falls  upon  it,  with  a  mellow  softness,  than  which  noth- 
ing could  be  lovelier.  It  is  this  and  her  indescribably 
winning  manner  which  are  lost  in  a  picture,  and  there- 
fore, it  is  perhaps  fair  that  she  should  be  otherwise 
flattered.  Her  drawing-room  is  one  of  the  most 
agreeable  in  Paris  at  present,  and  it  is  one  of  the  chief 
agremcns  which  console  me  for  a  detention  in  an  at- 
mosphere so  tristc  as  well  as  dangerous. 

My  bed-room  window  opens  upon  the  court  in  the 
interior  of  the  hotel  Rivoli,  in  which  I  lodge.  In 
looking  out  occasionally  upon  my  very  near  neigh- 
bors opposite,  I  have  frequently  observed  a  gray-head- 
ed, scholar-like,  fine-looking  old  man,  writing  at  a 
window  in  the  story  below.  One  does  not  trouble 
himself  much  about  his  fellow-lodgers,  and  I  had 
seen  this  gentleman  at  his  work  at  all  hours,  for  a 
month  or  more,  without  curiosity  enough  to  inquire 
even  his  name.  This  morning  the  servant  came  in, 
with  a  Mon  Dieu  .'  and  said  M.  Sismondi  was  fright- 
eded  by  the  cholera,  and  was  leaving  his  lodgings  at 
that  moment.  The  name  startled  me,  and  making 
some  inquiries,  I  found  that  my  gray-headed  neighbor 
was  no  other  than  the  celebrated  historian  of  Italian 
literature,  and  that  I  had  been  living  under  the  same 
roof  with  him  for  weeks,  and  watching  him  at  his 
classical  labors,  without  being  at  all  aware  of  the  hon- 
or of  his  neighborhood.  He  is  a  kind,  benevolent- 
looking  man,  of  about  sixty,  I  should  think  ;  and  al- 
ways had  a  peculiarly  affectionate  manner  to  his  wife, 
who,  I  am  told  by  the  valet,  is  an  Englishwoman.  I 
regretted  exceedingly  the  opportunity  I  had  lost  of 
knowing  Ijim,  for  there  are  few  writers  of  whom  one 
retains  a  more  friendly  and  agreeable  remembrance. 

In  a  conversation  with  Mr.  Cooper,  the  other  day, 
he  was  remarking  of  how  little  consequence  any  one 
individual  found  himself  in  Paris,  even  the  most  dis- 
tinguished. We  were  walking  in  the  Tuileries,  and 
the  remark  was  elicited  by  my  pointing  out  to  him 
one  or  two  celebrated  persons,  whose  names  are  suf- 
ficiently known,  but  who  walk  the  public  promenades, 
quite  unnoticed  and  unrecognised.  He  said  he  did 
not  think  there  were  five  people  in  Paris  who  knew 
him  at  sight,  though  his  works  were  advertised  in  all 
the  bookstores,  and  he  had  lived  in  Paris  one  or  two 
years,  and  walked  there  constantly.  This  was  putting 
a  strong  case,  for  the  French  idolize  Cooper  ;  and  the 
peculiarly  translateable  character  of  his  works  makes 
them  read  even  better  in  a  good  translation  than  in 
the  original.  It  is  so  all  over  the  continent,  T  am  told. 
The  Germans,  Italians,  and  Spaniards,  prefer  Cooper 
to  Scott ;  and  it  is  easily  accounted  for  when  one  re- 
members how  much  of"  the  beauty  of  the  Waverley 
novels  depends  on  their  exquisite  style,  and  how  pe- 
culiarly Cooper's  excellence  lies  in  his  accurate,  defi 
nite,  tangible  descriptions.  There  is  not  a  more  ad- 
mired author  in  Europe  than  Cooper,  it  is  very  cer- 
tain ;  and  I  am  daily  asked  whether  he  is  in  America 
at  present — so  little  do  the  people  of  these  crowded 
cities  interest  themselves  about  that  which  is  imme- 
diately at  their  elbows. 


32 


PENCILLINGS  BY  THE  WAY. 


LETTER  XX. 

GENERAL      BERTRAND — FRIEND      OF      LADY      MORGAN 

PHRENOLOGY DR.  SPURZHEI3I — HIS  LODGINGS — PRO- 
CESS OF  TAKING  A  CAST  OF  THE  HEAD — INCARCERA- 
TION OF  DR.  BOWRING  AND  DE  POTTER — DAVID  THE 
SCULPTOR — VISIT  OF  DR.  SPURZHE1M  TO  THE  UNITED 
STATES. 

My  room-mate  called  a  day  or  two  since  on  General 
Bertrand,  and  yesterday  he  returned  the  visit,  and 
spent  an  hour  at  our  lodgings.  He  talked  of  Napo- 
leon with  difficulty,  and  became  very  much  affected 
when  my  friend  made  some  inquiries  about  the  safety 
of  the  body  at  St.  Helena.  The  inquiry  was  sug- 
gested by  some  notice  we  had  seen  in  the  papers  of 
an  attempt  to  rob  the  tomb  of  Washington.  The 
general  said  that  the  vault  was  fifteen  feet  deep,  and 
covered  by  a  slab  that  could  not  be  moved  without 
machinery.  He  told  us  that  Madame  Bertrand  had 
many  mementoes  of  the  emperor,  which  she  would  be 
happy  to  show  us,  and  we  promised  to  visit  him. 

At  a  party,  a  night  or  two  since,  1  fell  into  conversa- 
tion witti  an  English  lady,  who  had  lived  several  years 
in  Dublin,  and  was  an  intimate  friend  of  Lady  Mor- 
gan. She  was  an  uncommonly  fine  woman,  both  in 
appearance  and  conversational  powers,  and  told  me 
many  anecdotes  of  the  authoress,  defending  her  from 
all  the  charges  usually  made  against  her,  except  that 
of  vanity,  which  she  allowed.  1  received,  on  the  whole, 
the  impression  that  Lady  Morgan's  goodness  of  heart 
was  more  than  an  offset  to  her  certainly  very  innocent 
weaknesses.  My  companion  was  much  amused  at  an 
American's  asking  after  the  "fender  inKildare  street;" 
though  she  half  withdrew  her  cordiality  when  I  told 
her  1  knew  the  countryman  of  mine  who  wrote  the 
account  of  Lady  Morgan,  of  which  she  complains  so 
bitterly  in  the  "Book  of  the  Boudoir."  It  was  this 
lady  with  whom  the  fair  authoress  "  dined  in  the 
Chaussce  d'Antin,"  so  much  to  her  satisfaction. 

While  we  were  conversing,  the  lady's  husband  came 
up,  and  finding  I  was  an  American,  made  some  inqui- 
ries about  the  progress  of  phrenology  on  the  other 
side  of  the  water.  Like  most  enthusiasts  in  the  sci- 
ence, his  owu  head  was  a  remarkably  beautiful  one; 
and  I  soon  found  that  he  was  the  bosom  friend  of  Dr. 
Spurzheim,  to  whom  he  offered  to  introduce  me.  We 
made  an  engagement  for  the  next  day,  and  the  party 
separated. 

My  new  acquaintance  called  on  me  the  next  morn- 
ing, according  to  appointment,  and  we  went  together 
to  Dr.  Spurzheim's  residence.  The  passage  at  the 
entrance  was  lined  with  cases,  in  which  stood  plaster 
casts  of  the  heads  of  distinguished  men,  orators,  po- 
ets, musicians — each  class  on  its  particular  shelf — 
making  altogether  a  most  ghastly  company.  The 
doctor  received  my  companion  with  great  cordiality, 
addressing  him  in  French,  and  changing  to  very  good 
German-English  when  he  made  any  observation  to 
me.  He  is  a  tall,  large-boned  man,  and  resembles 
Harding,  the  American  artist,  very  strikingly.  His 
head  is"  finely  marked  ;  his  features  are  bold,  with 
rather  a  German  look  ;  and  his  voice  is  particularly 
winning,  and  changes  its  modulations,  in  argument, 
from  the  deep,  earnest  tone  of  a  man,  to  an  almost 
child  like  softness.  The  conversation  soon  turned 
upon  America,  and  the  doctor  expressed,  in  ardent 
terms,  his  desire  to  visit  the  United  States,  and  said  he 
had  thought  of  accomplishing  it  the  coming  summer. 
He  spoke  of  Dr.  Channing — said  he  had  read  all  his 
works  with  avidity  and  delight,  and  considered  him  one 
of  the  clearest  and  most  expansive  minds  of  the  age. 
If  Dr.  Channing  had  not  strong  developments  of  the 
organs  of  ideality  and  benevolence,  he  said,  he  should 
doubt  his  theory  more  than  he  had  ever  found  reason 
to.     He  knew  Webster  and   Processor  Silliman   by 


reputation,  and  seemed  to  be  familiar  with  our  country, 
as  tew  men  in  Europe  are.  One  naturally,  on  meet- 
ing a  distinguished  phrenologist,  wishes  to  have  his 
own  developments  pronounced  upon;  but  I  had  been 
warned  by  my  friend  that  Dr.  Spurzheim  refused  such 
examinations  as  a  general  principle,  not  wishing  to  de- 
ceive people,  and  unwilling  to  run  the  risk  of  offending 
them.  After  a  half-hour's  conversation,  however,  he 
came  across  the  room,  and  putting  his  hands  under 
my  thick  masses  of  ltair,  felt  my  head  closely  all  over, 
and  mentioned  at  once  a  quality,  which,  right  or  wrong, 
has  given  a  tendency  to  all  my  pursuits  in  life.  As 
he  knew  absolutely  nothing  of  me,  and  the  gentleman 
who  introduced  me  knew  no  more,  I  was  a  little 
startled.  The  doctor  then  requested  me  to  submit  to 
the  operation  of  having  a  cast  taken  of  my  head,  an 
offer  which  was  too  kind  and  particular  to  be  declined; 
and,  appointing  an  hour  to  be  at  his  rooms  the  follow- 
ing day,  we  left  him. 

1  was  there  again  at  twelve  the  morning  after,  and 
found  De  Potter  (the  Belgian  patriot)  and  Dr.  Bow- 
ring,  with  the  phrenologist,  waiting  to  undergo  the 
same  operation.  The  preparations  looked  very  formi- 
dable. A  frame,  of  the  length  of  the  human  body, 
lay  in  the  middle  of  the  room,  with  a  wooden  bowl  to 
receive  the  head,  a  mattress,  and  a  long  white  dress  to 
prevent  stain  to  the  clothes.  As  I  was  the  youngest, 
1  took  my  turn  first.  It  was  very  like  a  preparation 
for  being  beheaded.  My  neck  was  bared,  my  hair  cut, 
and  the  long  white  dress  put  on.  The  back  of  the 
head  is  taken  first;  and,  as  I  was  only  immersed  up  to 
the  ears  in  the  liquid  plaster,  this  was  not  very  alarm- 
ing. The  second  part,  however,  demanded  more 
patience.  My  head  was  put  once  more  into  the  stiff- 
ened mould  of  the  first  half,  and  as  soon  as  1  could 
get  my  features  composed  I  was  ordered  to  shut  my 
eyes ;  my  hair  was  oiled  and  laid  smooth,  and  the 
liquid  plaster  poured  slowly  over  my  mouth,  eyes,  and 
forehead,  till  I  was  cased  completely  in  a  stiffening 
mask.  The  material  was  then  poured  on  thickly,  till 
the  mask  was  two  or  three  inches  thick,  and  the  voices 
of  those  standing  over  me  were  scarcely  audible.  I 
breathed  prettily  freely  through  the  two  small  orifices 
at  my  nose;  but  the  dangerous  experiment  of  Made- 
moiselle Sontag,  who  was  nearly  smothered  in  the 
same  operation,  came  across  my  mind  rather  vividly  ; 
and  it  seemed  to  me  that  the  doctor  handled  the  plas- 
ter quite  too  ungingerly,  when  he  came  to  mould  about 
my  nostrils.  After  a  half  hour's  imprisonment,  the 
plaster  became  sufficiently  hardened,  and  the  thread 
which  was  laid  upon  my  face  was  drawn  through,  di- 
viding the  mask  into  two  parts.  It  was  then  gradually 
removed,  pulling  very  tenaciously  upon  my  eyelashes 
and  eyebrows,  and  leaving  all  the  cavities  of  my  face 
filled  with  particles  of  lime.  The  process  is  a  tribute 
to  vanity,  which  one  would  not  be  willing  to  pay  very 
often. 

I  looked  on  at  Dr.  Bowring's  incarceration  with  no 
great  feeling  of  relief.  It  is  rather  worse  to  see  than 
to  experience,  I  think.  The  poet  is  a  nervous  man  ; 
and  as  long  as  the  muscles  of  his  face  were  visible,  his 
lips,  eyelids,  and  mouth,  were  quivering  so  violently 
that  I  scarcely  believed  it  would  be  possible  to  get  an 
impression  of  them.  He  has  a  beautiful  face  for  a 
scholar — clear,  well-cut,  finished  features,  expressive 
of  great  purity  of  thought;  and  a  forehead  of  noble 
amplitude,  white  and  polished  as  marble.  His  hair  is 
black  and  curling  (indicating  in  most  cases,  Dr.  Spur- 
zheim remarked,  activity  of  mind),  and  forms  a  clas- 
sical relief  to  his  handsome  temples.  Altogether,  his 
head  would  look  well  in  a  picture,  though  his  ordinary 
and  ungraceful  dress,  and  quick,  oustling  manner, 
rather  destroy  the  effect  of  it  in  society. 

De  Potter  is  one  of  the  noblest-looking  men  I  ever 
saw.  He  is  quite  bald,  with  a  broad,  ample,  majestic 
head,  the  very  model  of  dignity  and  intellect.     De 


PENCILLINGS  BY  THE  WAY. 


33 


Spurzheim  considers  his  head  one  of  the  most  extra- 
ordinary he  has  met.  Firmness  is  the  great  develop- 
ment of  its  organs.  His  tone  and  manner  are  calm 
and  very  impressive,  and  he  looks  made  for  great  occa- 
sions— a  man  stamped  with  the  superiority  which 
others  acknowledge  when  circumstances  demand  it. 
He  employs  himself  in  literary  pursuits  at  Paris,  and 
has  just  published  a  pamphlet  on  "  the  manner  of 
conducting  a  revolution,  so  that  no  after-revolution 
shall  be  necessary."  I  have  translated  the  title  awk- 
wardly, but  that  is  the  subject. 

I  have  since  heard  Dr.  Spurzheim  lecture  twice,  and 
have  been  with  him  to  a  meeting  of  the  "Anthropo- 
logical society"  (of  which  he  is  the  president  and  De 
Potter  the  secretary),  where  I  witnessed  the  dissection 
of  the  human  brain.  It  was  a  most  interesting  and 
satisfactory  experiment,  as  an  illustration  of  phre- 
nology. David  the  sculptor  is  a  member  of  the  so- 
ciety, and  was  present.  He  looks  more  like  a  soldier 
than  an  artist,  however — wearing  the  cross  of  the 
legion  of  honor,  with  a  military  frock  coat,  and  an 
erect,  stern,  military  carriage.  Spurzheim  lectures  in 
a  free,  easy,,  unconstrained  style,  with  occasionally  a 
little  humor,  and  draws  his  arguments  from  admitted 
facts  only.  Nothing  could  be  more  reasonable  than 
his  premises,  and  nothing  more  like  an  axiom  than 
the  results,  as  far  as  I  have  heard  him.  At  any  rate, 
true  or  false,  his  theory  is  one  of  extreme  interest, 
and  no  time  can  be  wasted  in  examining  it;  for  it  is 
the  study  of  man,  and  therefore  the  most  important 
of  studies. 

I  have  had  several  long  conversations  with  Dr. 
Spurzheim  about  America,  and  have  at  last  obtained 
his  positive  assurance  that  he  would  visit  it.  He 
gave  me  permission  this  morning  to  say  (what  I  am 
sure  all  lovers  of  knowledge  will  be  pleased  to  hear) 
that  he  should  sail  for  New  York  in  the  course  of  the 
ensuing  summer,  and  pass  a  year  or  more  in  lecturing 
and  travelling  in  the  United  States.  He  is  a  man  to 
obtain  the  immediate  confidence  and  respect  of  a  peo- 
ple like  ours,  of  the  highest  moral  worth,  and  the 
most  candid  and  open  mind.  I  hope,  my  dear  M. 
and  F.,  that  you  will  make  our  paper  a  vehicle  for  any 
information  he  may  wish  to  convey  to  the  public,  and 
that  you  and  all  our  friends  will  receive  him  with  the 
warmth  and  respect  due  to  his  reputation  and  worth. 
If  he  arrive  in  August,  as  he  anticipates,  he  proposes 
to  pass  a  month  or  so  at  New  Haven,  and  then  to  pro- 
ceed to  Boston,  to  commence  his  tour  at  the  North. 

P.  S. — As  I  shall  leave  Paris  shortly,  you  may  expect 
but  one  or  two  letters  more  from  this  metropolis.  I 
shall,  however,  as  I  extend  my  travels,  find  a  greater 
variety  of  materials  for  my  future  communications. 


LETTER  XXI. 


DEPARTURE    PROM  PARIS DESULTORY  REMARKS. 

I  take  my  departure  from  Paris  to-morrow.  I  have 
just  been  making  preparations  to  pack,  and  it  has  giv- 
en me  a  fit  of  bad  spirits.  1  have  been  in  P>ance  only 
a  few  months,  but  if  I  had  lived  my  life  here,  I  could 
not  be  more  at  home.  In  my  almost  universal  ac- 
quaintance, 1  have  of  course  made  pleasant  friends, 
and,  however  time  and  travel  should  make  us  indiffer- 
ent to  such  volant  attachments,  I  can  not  now  cast  off 
these  threads  of  intimacy,  without  pulling  a  little  up- 
on very  sincere  feelings.  I  have  been  burning  the 
mass  of  papers  and  cards  that  have  accumulated  in 
my  dr-nvers  ;  and  the  sight  of  these  French  invita- 
tions, mementoes,  as  they  are,  of  delightful  and  fascin- 
ating hours,  almost  staggers  my  resolution  of  depar- 
ture. It  has  been  an  intoxicating  time  to  me.  Aside 
3 


from  lighter  attractions,  this  metropolis  collects  with- 
'  in  itself  so  much  of  the  distinction  and  genius  of  the 
world  ;  and  gifted  men  in  Paris,  coming  here  merely 
;  for  pleasure,  are  so  peculiarly  accessible,  that  one 
looks  upon  them  as  friends  to  whom  he  has  become 
attached  and  accustomed,  and  leaves  the  sphere  in 
which  he  has  met  them,  as  if  he  had  been  a  part  of 
!  it,  and  had  a  right  to  be  regretted.  I  do  not  think  I 
shall  ever  spend  so  pleasant  a  winter  again.  And  then 
my  local  interest  is  not  a  light  one.  I  am  a  great  lov- 
|  er  of  out-of-doors,  and  I  have  ransacked  Paris  thor- 
oughly. I  know  it  all  from  its  broad  faubourgs  to 
its  obscurest  cul  de  sac.  I  have  hunted  with  antiqua- 
ries for  coins  and  old  armor ;  with  lovers  of  adven- 
ture for  the  amusing  and  odd  ;  with  the  curious  for 
i  traces  of  history  ;  with  the  romantic  for  the  pictu- 
resque. Paris  is  a  world  for  research.  It  contains 
more  odd  places,  I  believe,  more  odd  people,  and  ev- 
ery way  more  material  for  uncommon  amusement, 
than  any  other  city  in  the  universe.  One  might  live 
II  a  life  of  novelty  without  crossing  the  barrier.  All  this 
insensibly  attaches  one.  My  eye  wanders  at  this  mo- 
ment from  my  paper  to  these  lovely  gardens  lying  be- 
neath my  window,  and  I  could  not  feel  more  regret  if 
they  were  mine.  Just  over  the  long  line  of  low  clip- 
ped trees,  edging  the  fashionable  terrace,  1  see  the  win- 
dows of  the  king  within  half  a  stone's  throw — the 
windows  at  which  Napoleon  has  stood,  and  the  long 
line  of  the  monarchs  of  France,  and  it  has  become 
to  me  so  much  a  habit  of  thought,  sitting  here  in  the 
twilight  and  musing  on  the  thousand,  thousand  things 
linked  with  the  spot  my  eye  embraces,  that  I  feel  as 
if  I  had  grown  to  it — as  if  Paris  had  become  to  me, 
what  it  is  proverbially  and  naturally  enough  to  a 
Frenchman — "  the  world." 

I  have  other  associations  which  I  part  from  less 
painfully,  because  I  hope  at  some  future  time  to  re- 
new them — those  with  my  own  countrymen.     There 
|  are  few  pleasanter  circles  than  that  of  the  Americans 
in  Paris.     Lafayette  and  his  numerous  family  make  a 
:  part  of  them.     I  could   not  learn  to   love  this  good 
'  man  more,  but  seeing  him   often  brings  one's  revcr- 
|  ence  more  within  the  limits  of  the  affections  ;  and  1 
consider  the  little   of  his  attention  that  has  fallen  to 
my  share  the   honored   part  of  my  life,  and  the  part 
best  worth  recording  and   remembering.     He  called 
'■  upon  me  a  day  or  two  ago,  to  leave  with  me  some 
|  copies  of  a  translation  of  Mr.  Cooper's  letter  on  the 
I  finances  of  our  government,  to  be  sent  to   my  friend 
|  Dr.  Howe  ;  but,  to  my  regret,  I  did  not  see  him.    He 
neglects  no  American,  and  is  ever  busied  about  some 
;  project  connected  with  their  welfare.     May  God  con- 
tinue to  bless  him! 

And  speaking  of  Mr.  Cooper,  no  one  who  loves  or 
owns  a  pride  in  his  native  land,  can  live  abroad  with- 
out feeling  every  day  what  we  owe  to  the  patriotism 
as  well  as  the  genius  of  this  gifted  man.  If  there  is  an 
individual  who  loves  the  soil  that  gave  him  birth,  and  so 
shows  it  that  we  are  more  respected  for  it,  it  is  he.  Mr. 
Cooper's  position  is  a  high  one  ;  he  has  great  advan- 
tages, and  he  improves  them  to  the  uttermost.  His 
benevolence  and  activity  in  all  enterprises  for  the  re- 
lief of  suffering,  give  him  influence,  and  he  employs 
it  like  a  true  philanthropist  and  a  real  lover  of  his 
country.  I  say  this  particularly,  though  it  may  look 
like  too  personal  a  remark,  because  Americans  abroad 
are  not  always  national.  I  am  often  mortified  by  re- 
proaches from  foreigners,  quoting  admissions  made  by 
my  countrymen,  which  should  be  the  last  on  their 
lips.  A  very  distinguished  person  told  me  a  day  or 
two  since,  that  "  the  Americans  abroad  were  the  worst 
enemies  we  had  in  Europe.  It  is  difficult  to  conceive 
at  home  how  such  a  remark  stings.  Proportionately, 
one  takes  a  true  patriot  to  his  heart,  and  1  feel  it  right 
to  say  here,  that  the  love  of  country  and  active  be- 
nevolence of  Mr.  Cooper,  distinguish  him  abroad, 


34 


PENCILLINGS  BY  THE  WAY. 


even  more  than  his  genius.  His  house  is  one  of  the 
most  hospitable  and  agreeable  in  Paris  ;  and  with 
Morse  and  the  circle  of  artists  and  men  of  distinction 
and  worth  about  him,  he  is  an  acquaintance  sincerely 
to  regret  leaving. 

From  Mr.  Rives,  our  minister,  I  have  received  ev- 
ery possible  kindness.  He  has  attached  me  to  his  le- 
gation, to  facilitate  my  access  to  other  courts  and  the 
society  of  other  cities,  and  to  free  me  from  all  delays 
and  annoyances  at  frontiers  and  custom-houses.  It 
is  a  particular  and  valuable  kindness,  and  I  feel  a  pleas- 
ure in  acknowledging  it.  Then  there  is  Dr.  Bowring, 
the  lover  and  defender  of  the  United  States,  who,  as 
the  editor  of  the  Westminster  Review,  should  be  well 
remembered  in  America,  and  of  him  I  have  seen 
much,  and  from  him  I  have  received  great  kindness. 
Altogether,  as  I  said  before,  Paris  is  a  home  to  me, 
and  I  leave  it  with  a  heavy  heart. 

I  have  taken  a  place  on  the  top  of  the  diligence  for 
a  week.  It  is  a  long  while  to  occupy  one  seat,  but  the 
weather  and  the  season  are  delicious  ;  and  in  the  cov- 
ered and  roomy  cabriolet,  with  the  conducteur  for  a 
living  reference,  and  all  the  appliances  for  comfort,  I 
expect  to  live  very  pleasantly,  night  and  day,  till  I 
reach  Marseilles.  Vaucleuse  is  on  the  way,  and  I 
shall  visit  it  if  I  have  time  and  good  weather,  perhaps. 
At  Marseilles  I  shall  take  the  steamboat  for  Leghorn, 
and  thence  get  directly  to  Florence,  where  I  shall  re- 
main till  I  become  familiar  with  the  Italian,  at  least.  I 
lay  down  my  pen  till  all  this  plan  of  travel  is  accom- 
plished, and  so,  for  the  present,  adieu  ! 


LETTER  XXII. 

Chalons,  on  the  Saone. — I  have  broken  my  route 
to  stop  at  this  pretty  town,  and  take  the  steamboat 
which  goes  down  the  Saone  to  Lyons  to-morrow 
morning.  I  have  travelled  two  days  and  nights  ;  but 
an  excellent  dinner  and  a  quickened  imagination  indis- 
pose me  for  sleep,  and,  for  want  of  better  amusement 
in  a  strange  city  at  night,  I  will  pass  away  an  hour  in 
transcribing  the  hurried  notes  I  have  made  at  the 
stopping  places. 

I  chose,  by  advice,  the  part  of  the  diligence  called 
the  banquette — a  covered  seat  over  the  front  of  the  car- 
riage, commanding  all  the  view,  and  free  from  the 
dust  of  the  lower  apartments.  The  conducteur  had 
the  opposite  corner,  and  a  very  ordinary-looking  man 
sat  between  us  ;  the  seat  holding  three  very  comforta- 
bly. A  lady  and  two  gentlemen  occupied  the  coupe; 
a  dragoon  and  his  family,  going  to  join  his  regiment, 
filled  the  rotonde  ;  and  in  the  interior  was  a  motley 
collection,  whom  I  scarce  saw  after  starting  ;  the  oc- 
cupants of  the  different  parts  of  a  diligence  having 
no  more  association,  even  in  a  week's  travel,  than  peo- 
ple living  in  an  adjoining  house  in  the  city. 

We  rolled  out  of  Paris  by  the  faubourg  St.  Antoine, 
and  at  the  end  of  the  first  post  passed  the  first  object 
that  interested  me — a  small  brick  pavilion,  built  by 
Henri  Quatre  for  the  beautiful  Gabrielle  d'Estrees. 
It  stands  on  a  dull,  level  plain,  not  far  from  the  banks 
of  the  river;  and  nothing  but  the  fact  that  it  was  once 
occupied  by  the  woman  who  most  enslaved  the  heart 
of  the  most  chivalrous  and  fickle  of  the  French  mon- 
archs,  would  call  your  attention  to  it  for  a  moment. 

For  the  twenty  or  thirty  miles  which  we  travelled 
by  daylight,  I  saw  nothing  particularly  curious  or 
beautiful.  The  guide-book  is  very  diffuse  upon  the 
chateaux  and  villages  on  the  road,  but  I  saw  nothing 
except  very  ordinary  country-houses,  and  the  same 
suc^ssion  of  small  and  dirty  villages,  steeped  to  the 
very  chimi.evs  in  poverty.  If  ever  I  return  to  Amer- 
ica, I  shall  make  a  journey  to  the  west,  for  the  pure 
refreshment  of  seeing  industry  and  thrift.     I  am  sick 


to  the  heart  of  pauperism  and  misery.  Everything 
that  is  near  the  large  towns  in  France  is  either  splen- 
did or  disgusting.  There  is  no  medium  in  condition 
— nothing  that  looks  like  content — none  of  that  class 
we  define  in  our  country  as  the  "  respectable." 

The  moon  was  a  little  in  the  wane,  but  bright,  and 
the  night  lovely.  As  we  got  further  into  the  interior, 
the  towns  began  to  look  more  picturesque  and  antique ; 
and,  with  the  softening  touch  of  the  moonlight,  and 
the  absence  of  beggars,  the  old  low-browed  buildings 
and  half-ruined  churches  assumed  the  beauty  they 
wear  in  description.  I  slept  on  the  road,  but  the  echo 
of  the  wheels  in  entering  a  post-town  woke  me  always; 
and  I  rarely  have  felt  the  picturesque  more  keenly 
than  at  these  sudden  wakings  from  dreams,  perhaps, 
of  familiar  things,  finding  myself  opposite  some  shad- 
owy relic  of  another  age ;  as  if  it  were  by  magical 
transportation,  from  the  fireside  to  some  place  of  which 
I  had  heard  or  read  the  history. 

I  awoke  as  we  drove  into  Sens  at  broad  daylight. 
We  were  just  passing  a  glorious  old  pile  of  a  cathe- 
dral, which  I  ran  back  to  see  while  the  diligence  stop- 
ped to  change  horses.  It  is  of  pointed  architecture, 
black  with  age,  and  crusted  with  moss.  It  was  to 
this  town  that  Thomas  a  Becket  retired  in  disgrace  at 
his  difference  with  Henry  the  Second.  There  is  a 
chapel  in  the  cathedral,  dedicated  to  his  memory. 
The  French  certainly  should  have  the  credit  of  leav- 
ing things  alone.  This  old  pile  stands  as  if  the  town 
in  which  it  is  built  had  been  desolate  for  centuries : 
not  a  letter  of  the  old  sculptures  chiselled  out,  not  a 
bird  unnested,  not  a  filament  of  the  gathering  moss 
pulled  away.  All  looks  as  if  no  human  hand  had 
been  near  it — almost  as  if  no  human  eye  had  looked 
upon  it.  In  America  they  would  paint  such  an  old 
church  white  or  red,  shove  down  the  pillars,  and  put 
up  pews,  sell  the  pictures  for  fireboards,  and  cover 
the  tesselated  pavement  with  sand,  or  a  home-made 
carpet. 

As  we  passed  under  a  very  ancient  gate,  crowning 
the  old  Roman  ramparts  of  the  town,  a  door  opened, 
and  a  baker,  in  white  cap  and  apron,  thrust  out  his 
head  to  see  us  pass.  His  oven  was  blazing  bright, 
and  he  had  just  taken  out  a  batch  of  hot  bread,  which 
was  smoking  on  the  table;  and  what  with  the  chill  of 
the  morning  air  and  having  fasted  for  some  fourteen 
hours,  I  quite  envied  him  his  vocation.  The  diligence, 
however,  pushed  on  most  mercilessly  till  twelve 
o'clock,  the  French  never  dreaming  of  eating  befoie 
their  late  dejeuner — a  mid-day  meal  always.  When 
we  did  get  it,  it  was  a  dinner  in  every  respect — meats 
of  all  kinds,  wine,  and  dessert,  certainly  as  solid  and 
various  as  any  of  the  American  breakfasts,  at  which 
travellers  laugh  so  universally. 

Auxerre  is  a  pretty  town,  on  a  swelling  bank  of  the 
river  Yonne  ;  and  I  had  admired  it  as  one  of  the  most 
improved-looking  villages  of  Fiance.  It  was  not  till 
I  had  breakfasted  there,  and  travelled  a  league  or  two 
toward  Chalons,  that  I  discovered  by  the  guide-book 
it  was  the  ancient  capital  of  Auxerrois,  a  famous 
town  in  the  time  of  Julius  Caesar,  and  had  the  honor 
of  being  ravaged  "at  different  times  by  Attila,  the 
Saracens,  the  Normans,  and  the  Calvinists,  vestiges 
of  whose  devastations  may  still  be  seen."  If  I  had 
not  eaten  of  a  positively  modern  fate  fate  gras,  and  an 
omelette  sovffic,  at  a  nice  little  hotel,  with  a  mistress  in 
a  cap,  and  a  coquettish  French  apron,  I  should  for- 
give myself  less  easily  for  not  having  detected  anti- 
quity in  the  atmosphere.  One  imagines  more  readilj 
than  he  realizes  the  charm  of  mere  age  without 
beauty. 

We  were  now  in  the  province  of  Burgundy,  and  to 
say  nothing  of  the  historical  recollections,  the  vine- 
yards were  all  about  us  that  delighted  the  palates  of 
the  world.  One  does  not  dine  at  the  Trois  Freres,  in 
the  Palais  Royal,  without  contracting  a  tenderness  for 


PENCILLINGS  BY  THE  WAY. 


35 


the  very  name  of  Burgundy.  1  regretted  that  I  was  not 
there  in  the  season  of  the  grape.  The  vines  were  just 
budding,  and  the  paytans,  men  and  women,  were  scat- 
tered over  the  vineyards,  loosening  the  earth  about  the 
roots,  and  driving  stakes  to  support  the  young  shoots. 
At  Saint  Bris  I  found  the  country  so  lovely,  that  I  left 
the  diligence  at  the  post-house,  and  walked  on  to 
mount  a  Ions  succession  of  hills  on  foot.  The  road 
sides  were  quite  blue  with  the  violets  growing  thickly 
among  the  grass,  and  the  air  was  filled  with  perfume. 
I  soon  got  out  of  sight  of  the  heavy  vehicle,  and  made 
use  of  my  leisure  to  enter  the  vineyards  and  talk  to 
the  people  at  their  work.  I  found  one  old  man,  with 
all  his  family  about  him;  the  little  ones  with  long  bas- 
kets on  their  backs,  bringing  manure,  and  one  or  two 
grown-up  boys  and  girls  raking  up  the  earth  with  the 
unhandy  hoe  of  the  country,  and  setting  it  firmly 
around  the  roots  with  their  wooden  shoes.  It  was  a 
pretty  group,  and  I  was  very  much  amused  with  their 
simplicity.  The  old  man  asked  my  country,  and  set 
down  his  hoe  in  astonishment  when  I  told  him  I  was 
an  American.  He  wondered  I  was  not  more  burnt, 
living  in  such  a  hot  country,  and  asked  me  what  lan- 
guage we  spoke.  I  could  scarce  get  away  from  his 
civilities  when  I  bade  him  "  Good  day."  No  polite- 
ness could  have  been  more  elegant  than  the  manner 
and  expressions  of  this  old  peasant,  and  certainly 
nothing  could  have  appeared  sincerer  or  kinder.  I 
kept  on  up  the  hill  till  I  reached  a  very  high  point, 
passing  on  my  way  a  troop  of  Italians,  going  to  Paris 
with  their  organs  and  shows — a  set  of  as  ragged  speci- 
mens of  the  picturesque  as  I  ever  saw  in  a  picture. 
A  lovely  scene  lay  before  me  when  I  turned  to  look 
back.  The  valley,  on  one  side  of  which  lies  St.  Bris, 
is  as  round  as  a  bowl,  with  an  edge  of  mountain-tops 
absolutely  even  all  around  the  horizon.  It  slopes 
down  from  every  side  to  the  centre,  as  if  it  had  been 
measured  and  hollowed  by  art ;  and  there  is  not  a  fence 
to  be  seen  from  one  side  to  the  other,  and  scarcely  a 
tree,  but  one  green  and  almost  unbroken  carpet  of 
verdure,  swelling  up  iu  broad  green  slopes  to  the  top, 
and  realizing,  with  a  slight  difference,  the  similitude 
of  Madame  de  Genlis,  of  the  place  of  satiety,  eternal 
green  meadow  and  eternal  blue  sky.  St.  Bris  is  a 
little  handful  of  stone  buildings  around  an  old  church; 
just  such  a  thing  as  a  painter  would  throw  into  a  pic- 
ture— and  the  different-colored  grain,  and  here  and 
there  a  ploughed  patch  of  rich  yellow  earth,  and  the 
road  crossing  the  hollow  from  hill  to  hill  like  a  white 
band ;  and  then  for  the  life  of  the  scene,  the  group  of 
Italians,  the  cumbrous  diligence,  and  the  peasants  in 
their  broad  straw  hats,  scattered  over  the  fields — it 
was  something  quite  beyond  my  usual  experience  of 
scenery  and  accident.  I  had  rarely  before  found  so 
much  in  one  view  to  delight  me. 

After  looking  a  while,  I  mounted  again,  and  stood 
on  the  very  top  of  the  hill ;  and,  to  my  surprise,  there, 
on  the  other  side,  lay  just  such  another  valley,  with 
just  such  a  village  in  its  bosom,  and  the  single  im- 
provement of  a  river — the  Yonne  stealing  through  it, 
with  its  riband  like  stream  ;  but  all  the  rest  of  the 
valley  almost  exactly  as  I  have  described  the  other. 
I  crossed  a  vineyard  to  get  a  view  to  the  southeast, 
and  once  more  there  lay  a  deep  hollow  valley  before 
mo,  formed  like  the  other  two,  with  its  little  hamlet 
and  its  vineyards  and  mountains — as  if  there  had  been 
three  lakes  in  the  hills,  with  their  edges  touching  like 
three  bowls,  and  the  terrace  on  which  T  stood  was  the 
platform  between  them-  It  is  a  most  singular  forma- 
tion of  country,  really,  and  as  beautiful  as  it  is  singular. 
Each  of  these  valleys  might  be  ten  miles  across;  and 
if  the  dukes  of  Burgundy  in  feudal  times  rode  ever 
to  St.  Bris,  I  can  conceive  that  their  dukedom  never 
seemed  larger  to  them  than  when  crossing  this  triple 
?pex  of  highland. 

At  Saulieu  we  left  the  usual  route,  and  crossed  over 


I  to  Chagny.     Between  these  two  places  lay  a  spot, 

I I  which,  out  of  my  own  country,  I  should  choose  be- 
fore all  others  for  a  retreat  from  the  world.  As  it  w;is 
off  the  route,  the  guide-book  gave  me  not  even  the 
name,  and  1  have  discovered  nothing  but  that  the  little 
hamlet  is  called  Bocliepot.  It  is  a  little  nest  of  wild 
scenery,  a  mimic  valley  shut  in  by  high  overhanging 
crags,  with  the  ruins  of  a  battlemented  and  noble  old 
castle,  standing  upon  a  rock  in  the  centre,  with  the 
village  of  some  hundred  stone  cottages  at  its  very  foot. 
You  might  stand  on  the  towers  of  the  ruins,  and  toss 
a  biscuit  into  almost  every  chimney  in  the  village. 
The  strong  round  towers  are  still  perfect,  and  the 
turrets  and  loop-holes  and  windows  are  still  there  ; 
and  rank  green  vines  have  overrun  the  whole  mass 
everywhere  ;  and  nothing  but  the  prodigious  solidity 
with  which  it  was  built  could  have  kept  it  so  lone  from 
falling,  for  it  is  evidently  one  of  the  oldest  castles  in 
Burgundy.  I  never  saw  before  anything,  even  in  a 
picture,  which  realized  perfectly  my  idea  of  feudal 
position.  Here  lived  the  lord  of  the  domain,  a  hun- 
dred feet  in  the  air  in  his  rocky  castle,  right  over  the 
heads  of  his  retainers,  with  the  power  to  call  in  every 
soul  that  served  him  at  a  minute's  warning,  and  with 
a  single  blast  of  his  trumpet.  I  do  not  believe  a  stone 
has  been  displaced  in  the  village  for  a  hundred  years. 
The  whole  thing  was  redolent  of  antiquity.  We 
wound  out  of  the  place  by  a  sharp  narrow  pass,  arid 
there,  within  a  mile  of  this  old  and  deserted  fortress, 
lay  the  broad  plains  of  Beaune  and  Chagny — one  of 
the  most  fertile  and  luxurious  parts  of  France.  I 
was  charmed  altogether.  How  many  things  I  have 
seen  this  side  the  water  that  1  have  made  an  involun- 
tary vow  in  my  heart  to  visit  again,  and  at  more  lei- 
sure, before  I  die! 

From  Chagny  it  was  but  one  post  to  Chalons,  and 
here  I  am  in  a  pretty,  busy  town,  with  broad  beautiful 
quays,  where  I  have  promenaded  till  dark,  observing 
this  out-of-doors  people;  and  now.  having  written  a 
long  letter  for  a  sleepy  man,  I  will  get  to  bed,  and 
redeem  some  portion  of  my  two  nights'  wakefulness 


LETTER  XXIII. 

PASSAGE  DOWN  THE  SAONE AN  ODD  ACQUAINTANCE — 

LYONS — CHURCH  OF  NOTRE  DAME  DE  FOURVIERES 

VIEW    FROM    THE    TOWER. 

I  looked  out  of  my  window  the  last  thing  before 
going  to  bed  at  Chalons,  and  the  familiar  constellation 
of  ursa  major  never  shone  brighter,  and  never  made 
me  a  more  agreeable  promise  than  that  of  fair  weather 
the  following  day  for  my  passage  down  the  Saone.  I 
was  called  at  four,  and  it  rained  in  torrents.  The 
steamboat  was  smaller  than  the  smallest  I  have  seen 
in  our  country,  and  crowded  to  suffocation  with  chil- 
dren, women,  and  lap-dogs.  I  appropriated  my  own 
trunk,  and  spreading  my  umbrella,  sat  down  upon  it, 
to  endure  my  disappointment  with  what  philosophy  I 
might.  A  dirty-looking  fellow,  who  must  have  slept 
in  his  clothes  for  a  month,  came  up,  with  a  loaf  of 
coarse  bread  under  his  arm,  and  addressed  me,  to  my 
sufficient  astonishment,  in  Latin!  He  wanted  to  sit 
under  my  umbrella.  I  looked  at  him  a  second  time, 
but  he  had  touched  my  passion.  Latin  is  the  only 
thing  I  have  been  driven  to,  in  this  world,  that  I  ever 
really  loved ;  and  a  clear,  mellow,  unctuous  pronuncia- 
tion of  my  dirty  companion  equally  astonished  and 
pleased  me.  I  made  room  for  him  on  my  trunk,  and 
though  rusted  somewhat  since  I  philosophized  over 
II  Lucretius,  we  got  on  very  tolerably.  He  was  a  Ger- 
j  man  student,  travelling  to  Italy,  and  a  fine  specimen  of 
lithe  class.     A  dirtier  man  I  never  saw,  and  hardly  a 


36 


PENCILLINGS  BY  THE  WAY. 


finer  or  more  intellectual  face.  He  knew  everything, 
and  served  me  as  a  talking  guide  to  the  history  of  all 
the  places  on  the  river. 

Instead  of  eating  all  at  once,  as  we  do  on  board  the 
steamboats  in  America,  the  French  boats  have  a  res- 
taurant, from  which  you  order  what  you  please,  and  at 
any  hour.  The  cabin  was  set  round  with  small  tables, 
and  the  passengers  made  little  parties,  and  breakfasted 
and  dined  at  their  own  time.  It  is  much  the  better 
method.  I  descended  to  the  cabin  very  hungry  about 
twelve  o'clock,  and  was  looking  about  for  a  place,  when 
a  French  gentleman  politely  rose,  and  observing  that  I 
was  alone,  (my  German  friend  living  on  bread  and 
water  only),  requested  me  to  join  his  party  at  breakfast. 
Two  young  ladies  and  a  lad  of  fourteen  sat  at  the 
table,  and  addressing  them  by  their  familiar  names,  my 
polite  friend  requested  them  to  give  me  a  place;  and 
then  told  me  that  they  were  his  daughters  and  son, 
and  that  he  was  travelling  to  Italy  for  the  health  of  the 
younger  girl,  a  pale,  slender  creature,  apparently  about 
eighteen.  I  was  very  well  pleased  with  my  position, 
and  rarely  have  passed  an  hour  more  agreeably. 
French  girls  of  the  better  classes  never  talk,  but  the 
father  was  very  communicative,  and  a  Parisian,  with 
the  cross  of  the  legion  of  honor,  and  we  found 
abundance  of  matter  for  conversation.  They  have 
stopped  at  Lyons,  where  I  write  at  present,  and  I  shall 
probably  join  their  party  to  Marseilles. 

The  clouds  broke  away  after  mid-day,  and  the  banks 
of  the  river  brightened  wonderfully  with  the  change. 
The  Saone  is  about  the  size  of  the  Mohawk,  but  not 
half  so  beautiful;  at  least  for  the  greater  part  of  its 
course.  Indeed,  you  can  hardly  compare  American 
with  European  rivers,  for  the  charm  is  of  another  de- 
scription quire,  With  us  it  is  nature  only,  here  it  is 
almost  all  art.  Our  rivers  are  lovely,  because  the  out- 
line of  the  shore  is  graceful,  and  particularly  because 
the  vegetation  is  luxuriant.  The  hills  are  green,  the 
foliage  deep  and  lavish,  the  rocks  grown  over  with 
vines  or  moss,  the  mountains  in  the  distance  covered 
with  pines  and  other  forest-trees;  everything  is  wild, 
and  nothing  looks  bare  or  steril.  The  rivers  of 
France  are  crowned  on  every  height  with  ruins,  and  in 
the  bosom  of  every  valley  lies  a  cluster  of  picturesque 
stone  cottages ;  but  the  fields  are  naked,  and  there  are 
no  trees;  the  mountains  are  barren  and  brown,  and 
everything  looks  as  if  the  dwellings  had  been  deserted 
by  the  people,  and  nature  had  at  the  same  time  gone 
to  decay.  I  can  conceive  nothing  more  melancholy 
than  the  views  upon  the  Saone,  seen,  as  I  saw  them, 
though  vegetation  is  out  everywhere,  and  the  banks 
should  be  beautiful  if  ever.  As  we  approached  Lyons 
the  river  narrowed  and  grew  bolder,  and  the  last  ten 
miles  were  enchanting.  Naturally  the  shores  at  this 
part  of  the  Saone  are  exceedingly  like  the  highlands 
of  the  Hudson  above  West  Point.  Abrupt  hills  rise 
from  the  river's  edge,  and  the  windings  are  sharp  and 
constant.  But  imagine  the  highlands  of  the  Hudson 
crowded  with  antique  chateaux,  and  covered  to  the 
very  top  with  terraces  and  summer-houses  and  hang- 
ing-gardens, gravel  walks  and  beds  of  flowers,  instead 
of  wild  pines  and  precipices,  and  you  may  get  a  very 
correct  idea  of  the  Saone  above  Lyons.  You  emerge 
from  one  of  the  dark  passes  of  the  river  by  a  sudden 
turn,  and  there  before  you  lies  this  large  city,  built  on 
both  banks,  at  the  foot  and  on  the  sides  of  moun- 
tains. The  bridges  are  fine,  and  the  broad,  crowded 
quays,  all  along  the  edges  of  the  river,  have  a  beautiful 
effect.  We  landed  at  the  stone  stairs,  and  I  selected 
a  hotel  by  chance,  where  I  have  found  seven  Amer- 
icans of  my  acquaintance.  We  have  been  spending 
the  evening  at  the  rooms  of  a  townsman  of  mine,  very 
pleasantly. 

There  is  a  great  deal  of  magnificence  at  Lyons,  in 
the  way  of  quays,  promenades,  and  buildings  ;  but  its 


excessive  filthiness  spoils  everything.  One  could 
scarce  admire  a  Venus  in  such  an  atmosphere ;  and 
you  can  not  find  room  to  stand  in  Lyons  where  you 
have  not  some  nauseating  odor.  I  was  glad  to  escape 
from  the  lower  streets,  and  climb  up  the  long  staircases 
to  the  observatory  that  overhangs  the  town.  From 
the  base  of  this  elevation  the  descent  of  the  river  is  al- 
most a  precipice.  The  houses  hang  on  the  side  of  the 
steep  hill,  and  their  doors  enter  from  the  long  alleys 
of  stone  staircases  by  which  you  ascend.  On  every 
step,  and  at  almost  every  foot  of  the  way,  stood  a  beg- 
gar. They  might  have  touched  hands  from  the  quay 
to  the  summit.  If  they  were  not  such  objects  of  real 
wretchedness,  it  would  be  laughable  to  hear  the  church 
calendar  of  saints  repeated  so  volubly.  The  lame 
hobble  after  you,  the  blind  stumble  in  your  way,  the 
sick  lie  and  stretch  out  their  hands  from  the  wall,  and 
all  begin  in  the  name  of  the  Virgin  Mary,  and  end 
with  "Mora  bon  Monsieur"  and  "un  petit  sous."  I 
confined  my  charities  to  a  lovely  child,  that  started  out 
from  its  mother's  lap,  and  ran  down  to  meet  us — a  dirty 
and  ragged  little  thing,  but  with  the  large  dark  eyes  of 
the  province;  and  a  skin,  where  one  could  see  it,  of 
the  clearest  nut-brown  teint.  Her  mother  had  five 
such,  and  each  of  them,  to  any  one  who  loved  chil- 
dren, would  have  been  a  treasure  of  beauty  and  in- 
terest. 

It  was  holy-week,  and  the  church  of  Notre  Dame  de 
Fourvieres,  which  stands  on  the  summit  of  the  hill, 
was  crowded  with  people.  We  went  in  for  a  moment, 
and  sat  down  on  a  bench  to  rest.  My  companion  was 
a  Swiss  captain  of  artillery,  who  was  a  passenger  in  the 
boat,  a  very  splendid  fellow,  with  a  mustache  that  he 
might  have  tied  behind  his  ears.  He  had  addressed 
me  at  the  hotel,  and  proposed  that  we  should  visit  the 
curiosities  of  the  town  together.  He  was  a  model  of 
a  manly  figure,  athletic,  and  soldier-like,  and  standing 
near  him  was  to  get  the  focus  of  all  the  dark  eyes  in 
the  congregation. 

The  "new  square  tower  stands  at  the  side  of  the 
church,  and  rises  to  the  height  of  perhaps  sixty  feet. 
The  view  from  it  is  said  to  be  one  of  the  finest  in  the 
world.  I  have  seen  more  extensive  ones,  but  never  one 
that  comprehended  more  beauty  and  interest.  Lyons 
lies  at  the  foot,  with  the  Saone  winding  through  its 
bosom  in  abrupt  curves;  the  Rhone  comes  down  from 
the  north  on  the  other  side  of  the  range  of  mountains, 
and  meeting  the  Saone  in  a  broad  stream  below  the 
town,  they  stretch  off  to  the  south,  through  a  diversi- 
fied landscape;  the  Alps  rise  from  the  east  like  the 
edges  of  a  thunder-cloud,  and  the  mountains  of  Savoy 
fill  up  the  interval  to  the  Rhone.  All  about  the  foot 
of  the  monument  lie  gardens,  of  exquisite  cultivation; 
and  above  and  below  the  city  the  villas  of  the  rich ; 
giving  you  altogether  as  delicious  a  nucleus  for  a  broad 
circle"  of  scenery  as  art  and  nature  could  create,  and 
one  sufficiently  in  contrast  with  the  barrenness  of  the 
rocky  circumference  to  enhance  the  charm,  and  con- 
tent you  with  your  position.  Half  way  down  the  hill 
lies  an  old  monastery,  with  a  lovely  garden  walled  in 
from  the  world:  and  several  of  the  brotherhood  were 
there,  idling  up  and  down  the  shaded  alleys,  with  their 
black  dresses  sweeping  the  ground,  possibly  in  holy 
contemplation.  The  river  was  covered  with  boats,  the 
bells  were  ringing  to  church,  the  glorious  old  cathe- 
dral, so  famous  for  its  splendor,  stood  piled  up,  with 
its  arches  and  gray  towers,  in  the  square  below;  the 
day  was  soft,  sunny,  and  warm,  and  existence  was  a 
blessing.  I  leaned  over  the  balustrade,  I  know  not 
how  long,  looking  down  upon  the  scene  about  me; 
and  I  shall  ever  remember  it  as  one  of  those  few  un- 
alloyed moments,  when  the  press  of  care  was  taken  off 
my  mind,  and  the  chain  of  circumstances  was  strong 
enough  to  set  aside  both  the  past  and  the  future,  and 
leave  me  to  the  quiet  enjoyment  of  the  present.  I  have 
found  such  hours  "  few  and  far  between." 


PENCILLINGS  BY  THE  WAY. 


37 


LETTER  X^IV. 

DEPARTURE     FROM     LYONS BATTEAUX     DE     POSTE 

RIVER    SCENERY VILLAGE    OF    CONDRIEU — VIENNE 

VALENCE PONT     ST.     ESPRIT DAUPHINY    AND 

LANGUEDOC DEMI-FETE    DAY,    ETC. 

I  found  a  day  and  a  half  quite  enough  for  Lyons. 
The  views  from  the  mountain  and  the  river  were  the 
only  things  that  pleased  me.  I  made  the  usual  dry 
visit  to  the  library  and  the  museum,  and  admired  the 
Hotel  de  Ville,  and  the  new  theatre,  and  the  front  of 
the  Maison  de  Tolosan,  that  so  struck  the  fancy  of 
Joseph  II.,  and  having  "despatched  the  lions,"  like  a 
true  cockney  traveler,  I  was  too  happy  to  escape  the 
offensive  smells  of  the  streets,  and  get  to  my  rooms. 
One  does  not  enjoy  much  comfort  within  doors  eilher. 
Lyons  is  a  great  imitation  metropolis — a  sort  of  sec- 
ond-hand Paris.  I  am  not  very  difficult  to  please,  but 
I  found  the  living  intolerable.  It  was  an  affectation 
of  abstruse  cookery  throughout.  We  sat  down  to 
what  is  called  the  best  table  in  the  place,  and  it  was  a 
series  of  ludicrous  travesties,  from  the  soup  to  the 
salad.  '  One  can  eat  well  in  the  country,  because  the 
dishes  are  simple,  and  he  gets  the  natural  taste  of 
things  ;  but  to  come  to  a  table  covered  with  artificial 
dishes,  which  he  has  been  accustomed  to  see  in  their 
perfection,  and  to  taste  and  send  away  everything  in 
disgust,  is  a  trial  of  temper  which  is  reserved  for  the 
traveller  at  Lyons. 

The  scenery  on  the  river,  from  Lyons  to  Avignon, 
has  great  celebrity,  and  I  had  determined  to  take  that 
course  to  the  south.  Just  at  this  moment,  however, 
the  Rhone  had  been  pronounced  too  low,  and  the 
steamboats  were  stopped.  I  probably  made  the  last 
passage  by  steam  on  the  Saone,  for  we  ran  aground 
repeatedly,  and  were  compelled  to  wait  till  horses  could 
be  procured  to  draw  the  boat  into  deep  water.  It  was 
quite  amusing  to  see  with  what  a  regular,  business-like 
air,  the  postillions  fixed  their  traces  to  the  prow,  and 
whipped  into  the  middle  of  the  river.  A  small  boat 
was  my  only  resource,  and  I  found  a  man  on  the  quay 
who  plied  the  river  in  what  is  called  batteaux  de  poste, 
rough  shallops  with  fiat  bottoms,  which  are  sold  for 
firewood  on  their  arrival,  the  rapidity  of  the  Rhone 
rendering  a  return  against  the  current  next  to  impos- 
sible. The  sight  of  the  frail  contrivance  in  which  I 
was  to  travel  nearly  two  hundred  miles,  rather  startled 
me,  but  the  man  assured  me  he  had  several  other  pas- 
sengers, and  two  ladies  among  them.  I  paid  the 
arrhes,  or  earnest  money,  and  was  at  the  river-stairs 
punctually  at  four  the  next  morning. 

To  my  very  sincere  pleasure  the  two  ladies  were  the 
daughters  of  my  polite  friend  and  fellow  passenger 
from  Chalons.  They  were  already  on  board,  and  the 
little  shalop  sat  deep  in  the  water  with  her  freight. 
Besides  these,  there  were  two  young  French  chasseurs 
going  home  on  leave  of  absence,  a  pretty  Parisian 
dress-maker  flying  from  the  cholera,  a  masculine  wo- 
man, the  wife  of  a  dragoon,  and  my  friend  the  captain. 
We  pushed  out  into  the  current,  and  drifted  slowly 
down  under  the  bridges,  without  oars,  the  padrone 
quietly  smoking  his  pipe  at  the  helm.  In  a  few  min- 
utes we  were  below  the  town,  and  here  commenced 
again  the  cultivated  and  ornamented  banks  I  had  so 
much  admired  on  my  approach  to  Lyons  from  the 
other  side.  The  thin  haze  was  just  stirring  from  the 
river's  surface,  the  sunrise  flush  was  on  the  sky,  the 
air  was  genial  and  impregnated  with  the  smell  of  grass 
and  flowers,  and  the  little  changing  landscapes,  as  we 
followed  the  stream,  broke  upon  us  like  a  series  of  ex- 
quisite dioramas.  The  atmosphere  was  like  Dough- 
ty's  pictures,  exactly.  I  wished  a  thousand  times  Vor 
that  delightful  artist,  that  he  might  see  how  richly  the 
old  cWeauz  and  their  picturesque  appurtenances  filled 
up  the  scene.  It  would  have  given  a  new  turn  to  his 
pencil. 


We  soon  arrived  at  the  junction  of  the  rivers,  and  as 
we  touched  the  rapid  current  of  the  Rhone,  the  little 
shallop  yielded  to  its  sway,  and  redoubled  its  velocity. 
The  sun  rose  clear,  the  cultivation  grew  less  and  less, 
the  hills  began  to  look  distant  and  barren,  and  our  little 
party  became  sociable  in  proportion.  We  closed  around 
I  the  invalid,  who  sat  wrapped  in  a  cloak  in  the  stern, 
leaning  on  her  father's  shoulder,  and  talked  of  Paris 
and  its  pleasures — a  theme  of  which  the  French  are 
j  never  weary.      Time   passed  delightfully.     Without 
]  being  decidedly  pretty,  our  two  Parisiennes  were  quiet- 
mannered  and  engaging;  and  the  younger  one  partic- 
i  ularly,  whose  pale  face  and  deeply-sunken  eyes  gave 
j  her  a  look  of  melancholy  interest,  seemed   to  have 
thought  much,  and  to  feel  besides,  that  her  uncertain 
health  gave  her  a  privilege  of  overstepping  the  rigid 
reserve  of  an  unmarried  girl.     She  talks  freely,  and 
|   with  great  delicacy  of  expression  and  manner. 

We  ran  ashore  at  the  little  village  of  Condrieu  to 

breakfast.     We  were  assailed  on  stepping  out  of  the 

boat  by  the  demoiselles  of  two  or  three  rival  auberges — 

nice-looking,  black-eyed  girls,  in  white  aprons,  who 

seized   us   by  the  arm,  and   pulled  each  to   her  own 

door,  with  torrents  of  unintelligible  patois.     We  left 

j  it  to  the  captain,  who  selected  the  best-looking  leader, 

|  and  we  were  soon  seated  around  a  table  covered  with 

j  a  lavish   breakfast ;  the  butter,  cheese,  and  wine  ex- 

|  cellent,   at  least.     A  merrier  party,  I  am  sure,  never 

I  astonished  the  simple  people  of  Condrieu.    The  pretty 

j  dress-maker  was  full  of  good-humor  and  politeness, 

and  delighted  at  the  envy  with  which  the  rural  belles 

'regarded   her  knowing   Parisian   cap;  the   chasseurs 

j  sang  the  popular  songs  of  the  army,  and  joked  with 

the  maids  of  the  auberge  ;  the  captain  was  inexhaust- 

I  ibly  agreeable,  and  the  hour  given  us  by  the  padrone 

was  soon  gone.    We  embarked  with  a  thousand  adieus 

from  the  pleased  people,  and  altogether  it  was  more 

j  like  a  scene  from  Wilhelm  Meister,  than  a  passage 

from  real  life. 

The  wind  soon  rose  free  and  steady  from  the  north- 
west, and  with  a  spread  sail  we  ran  past  Vienne,  at  ten 
miles  in  the  hour.  This  was  the  metropolis  of  my 
old  friends,  "  the  Allobrogues,"  in  Cesar's  Commen- 
taries. I  could  not  help  wondering  at  the  feelings 
with  which  I  was  passing  over  such  classic  ground. 
The  little  dress-maker  was  giving  us  an  account  of 
her  fright  at  the  cholera,  and  every  one  in  the  boat 
was  in  agonies  of  laughter.  I  looked  at  the  guide- 
book to  find  the  name  of  the  place,  and  the  first  glance 
at  the  word  carried  me  back  to  my  old  school-desk  at 
Andover,  and  conjured  up  for  a  moment  the  redolent 
classic  interest  with  which  I  read  the  history  of  the 
land  I  was  now  hurrying  through.  That  a  laugh  with 
a  modern  grisette  should  engross  me  entirely,  at  the 
moment  I  was  traversing  such  a  spot,  is  a  possibility 
the  man  may  realize  much  more  readily  than  the 
school-boy.  A  new  roar  of  merriment  from  my  com- 
panions plucked  me  back  effectually  from  Andover  to 
the  Rhone,  and  I  thought  no  more  of  Gaul  or  its  great 
historian. 

We  floated  on  during  the  day,  passing  chateaux  and 
ruins  constantly  ;  but  finding  the  country  barren  and 
rocky  to  a  dismal  degree,  I  can  not  well  imagine  how 
the  Rhone  has  acquired  its  reputation  for  beauty.  It 
has  been  sung  by  the  poets  more  than  any  other  river 
in  France,  and  the  various  epithets  that  have  been  ap- 
plied to  it  have  become  so  common,  that  you  can  not 
mention  it  without  their  rising  to  your  lips  ;  but  the 
Saone  and  the  Seine  are  incomparably  more  lovely, 
and  I  am  told  the  valleys  of  the  Loire  are  the  most 
beautiful  part  of  France.  From  its  junction  with  the 
Saone  to  the  Mediterranean,  the  Rhone  is  one  stretch 
of  barrenness. 

We  passed  a  picturesque  chateau,  built  very  wildly 
on  a  rock  washed  by  the  river,  called  "  La  Roche  de 
Glun,"  and  twilight  soon  after  fell,  closing  in  our  view 


38 


PENCILLINGS  BY  THE  WAY. 


to  all  but  the  river  edge.  The  wind  died  away,  but 
the  stars  were  bright  and  the  air  mild  ;  and,  quite 
f.itigued  to  silence,  our  little  party  leaned  on  the  sides 
of  the  boat,  and  waited  till  the  current  should  float  us 
down  to  our  resting-place  for  the  night.  We  reached 
Valence  at  ten,  and  with  a  merry  dinner  and  supper  in 
one,  which  kept  us  up  till  after  midnight,  we  got  to 
our  coarse  but  clean  beds,  and  slept  soundly. 

The  following  forenoon  we  ran  under  the  Pont  St. 
Esprit,  an  experiment  the  guide-book  calls  very  dan- 
gerous. The  Rhone  is  rapid  and  noisy  here,  and  we 
shot  under  the  arches  of  the  fine  old  structure  with 
great  velocity ;  but  the  "  Rapids  of  the  St.  Lawrence" 
are  passed  constantly  without  apprehension  by  travel- 
lers in  America,  and  those  of  the  Rhone  are  a  mere 
mill-race  in  comparison.  We  breakfasted  just  below, 
at  a  village  where  we  could  scarce  understand  a  sylla- 
ble, the  patois  was  so  decided,  and  at  sunset  we  were 
far  down  between  the  provinces  of  Dauphiny  and  Lan- 
guedoc, w\th  the  villages  growing  thicker  and  greener, 
and  a  high  mountain  within  ten  or  fifteen  miles,  cov- 
ered with  snow  nearly  to  the  base.  We  stopped  op- 
posite the  old  castle  of  Rochemeu.se  to  pay  the  droit. 
It  was  a  demi-fete  day,  and  the  inhabitants  of  a  village 
back  from  the  river  had  come  out  to  the  green  bank 
in  their  holyday  costume  for  a  revel.  The  bank  swell- 
ed up  from  the  stream  to  a  pretty  wood,  and  the  green 
sward  between  was  covered  with  these  gay  people,  ar- 
rested in  their  amusements  by  our  arrival.  We  jump- 
ed out  for  a  moment,  and  I  walked  up  the  bank  and 
endeavored  to  make  the  acquaintance  of  a  strikingly 
handsome  woman  of  about  thirty,  but  the  patois  was 
quite  too  much.  After  several  vain  attempts  to  un- 
derstand each  other,  she  laughed  and  turned  on  her 
heel,  and  1  followed  the  call  of  the  padrone  to  the 
batteau.  For  five  or  six  miles  below,  the  river  passed 
through  a  kind  of  meadow,  and  an  air  more  loaded 
with  fragrance  I  never  breathed.  The  sun  was  just 
down,  and  with  the  mildness  of  the  air,  and  quiet  glide 
of  the  boat  on  the  water,  it  was  quite  enchanting. 
Conversation  died  away,  and  I  went  forward  and  lay 
down  in  the  bow  alone,  with  a  fit  of  desperate  musing. 
It  is  as  singular  as  it  is  certain,  that  the  more  one  en- 
ioys  the  loveliness  of  a  foreign  land,  the  more  he  feels 
how  absolutely  his  heart  is  at  home  only  in  his  own 
country. 


LETTER  XXV. 

INFLUENCE  OF    A    BOATMAN THE     TOWN    OF  ARLES 

ROMAN  RUINS THE  CATHEDRAL MARSEILLES — THE 

PASS    OF     OLLIOULES THE    VINKYARDS TOULON 

ANTIBES — LAZARETTO — VILLA    FRANCA,  ETC. 

I  entered  Avignon  after  a  delicious  hour  on  the 
Rhone,  quite  in  the  mood  to  do  poetical  homage  to 
its  associations.  My  dreams  of  Petrarch  and  Vau- 
cluse  were  interrupted  by  a  scene  between  my  friend 
the  captain,  and  a  stout  boatman,  who  had  brought 
his  baggage  from  the  batteau.  The  result  was  an 
appeal  to  the  mayor,  who  took  the  captain  aside 
after  the  matter  was  argued,  and  told  him  in  his  ear 
(that  he  must  compromise  the  matter,  for  he  dared 
not  give  a  judgment  in  his  favor  !  The  man  had 
demanded  twelve  francs  where  the  regulations  al- 
lowed him  but  one,  and  palpable  as  the  imposition 
was,  the  magistrate  refused  to  interfere.  The  captain 
curled  his  mustache  and  walked  the  room  in  a  terri- 
ble passion,  and  the  boatman,  an  herculean  fellow,  eyed 
him  with  a  look  of  assurance  which  quite  astonished 
me.  After  the  case  was  settled,  I  asked  an  explana- 
tion of  the  mayor.  He  told  me  frankly,  that  the  fel- 
low belonged  to  a  powerful  class  of  men  of  the  low- 
est description,  who,  having  declared  first  for  the 
present  government,  were  and  would  be  supported  by 


it  in  almost  any  question  where  favor  could  be  f.hown 
— that  all  the  other  classes  of  inhabitants  were  mal- 
contents, and  that  between  positive  strength  and  royal 
favor,  the  boatmen  and  their  party  had  become  too 
powerful  even  for  the  ordinary  enforcement  of  the  law. 

The  following  day  was  so  sultry  and  warm,  that  I 
gave  up  all  idea  of  a  visit  to  Vaucluse.  We  spent 
the  morning  under  the  trees  which  stand  before  the 
cafe,  in  the  village  square,  and  at  noon  we  took  the 
steamboat  upon  the  Rhone  for  Aries.  An  hour  or 
two  brought  us  to  this  ancient  town,  where  we  -were 
compelled  to  wait  till  the  next  day,  the  larger  boat 
which  goes  hence  by  the  mout1^  of  the  Rhone  to 
Marseilles,  being  out  of  order. 

We  left  our  baggage  in  the  boat,  _rfid  I  walked  up 
with  the  captain  to  see  the  town.  An  officer  whom 
we  addressed  for  information  on  the  quay  politely  of- 
fered to  be  our  guide,  and  we  passed  three  or  four 
hours  rambling  about,  with  great  pleasure.  Our  first 
object  was  the  Roman  ruins,  for  which  the  town  is 
celebrated.  We  traversed  several  streets,  so  narrow 
that  the  old  time-worn  houses  on  either  side  seemed 
to  touch  at  the  top,  and  in  the  midst  of  a  desolate  and 
poverty-stricken  neighborhood,  we  came  suddenly  up- 
on a  noble  Roman  amphitheatre  of  gigantic  dimen- 
sions, and  sufficiently  preserved  to  be  a  picturesque 
ruin.  It  was  built  on  the  terrace  of  a  hill,  overlook- 
ing the  Rhone.  From  the  towers  of  the  gateway,  the 
view  across  the  river  into  the  lovely  province  of  Lan- 
guedoc,  is  very  extensive.  The  arena  is  an  excavation 
of  perhaps  thirty  feet  in  depth,  and  the  rows  of  seats, 
all  built  of  vast  blocks  of  stone,  stretch  round  it  in  re- 
treating and  rising  platforms  to  the  stirface  of  the  hill. 
The  lower  story  is  surrounded  with  dens  ;  and  the 
upper  terrace  is  enclosed  with  a  circle  of  small  apart- 
ments, like  boxes  in  a  theatre,  opening  by  handsome 
arches  upon  the  scene.  It  is  the  ruin  of  a  noble 
structure,  and  even  without  the  help  of  the  imagina- 
tion, exceedingly  impressive.  It  seems  to  be  at  pres- 
ent turned  into  a  play-ground.  The  dens  and  cavities 
were  full  of  black-eyed  and  happy  creatures,  hiding 
and  hallooing  with  all  the  delightful  spirit  and  gayety 
of  French  children.  Probably,  it  was  never  appro- 
priated to  a  better  use. 

We  entered  the  cathedral  in  returning.  It  is  an 
antique,  and  considered  a  very  fine  one.  The  twilight 
was  just  falling  ;  and  the  candles  burning  upon  the 
altar,  had  a  faint,  dull  glare,  making  the  dimness  of 
the  air  more  perceptible.  I  walked  up  the  long  aisle 
to  the  side  chapel,  without  observing  that  my  com- 
panions had  left  me,  and  quite  tired  with  my  walk, 
seated  myself  against  one  of  the  gothic  pillars,  enjoy- 
ing the  quiet  of  the  place,  and  the  momentary  relief 
from  exciting  objects.  It  struck  me  presently  that 
there  was  a  dead  silence  in  the  church,  and,  as  much 
to  hear  the  sound  of  English  as  for  any  better  motive, 
I  approached  the  priest's  missal,  which  lay  open  on  a 
stand  near  me,  and  commenced  translating  a  familiar 
psalm  aloud.  My  voice  echoed  through  the  building 
with  a  fulness  which  startled  me,  and  looking  over  my 
shoulder,  I  saw  that  a  simple,  poor  old  woman  was 
kneeling  in  the  centre  of  the  church,  praying  alone. 
She  had  looked  up  at  my  interruption  of  the  silence 
of  the  place,  but  her  beads  still  slipped  slowly  through 
her  fingers,  and  feeling  that  I  was  intruding  possibly 
between  a  sincere  worshipper  and  her  Maker,  I  with- 
drew to  the  side  aisle,  and  made  my  way  softly  out  of 
the  cathedral. 

Aries  appears  to  have  modernized  less  than  any 
town  I  have  seen  in  France.  The  streets  and  the  in- 
habitants look  as  if  they  had  not  changed  for  a  cen- 
tury. The  dress  of  the  women  is  very  peculiar  ;  the 
waist  of  the  gown  coming  up  to  a  point  behind,  be- 
tween the  shoulder  blades,  and  consequently  very  short 
in  front,  and  the  high  cap  bound  to  the  head  with 
broad  velvet   ribands,   suffering   nothing  but  the  jet 


PENCILLINGS  BY  THE  WAY. 


black  curls  to  escape  over  the  forehead.  As  a  class, 
they  are  the  handsomest  women  I  have  seen.  Noth- 
ing could  be  prettier  than  the  small-featured  lively 
brunettes  we  saw  sitting  on  the  stone  benches  at  every 
door. 

We  ran  down  the  next  morning,  in  a  few  hours  to 
Marseilles.  It  was  a  cloudy,  misty  day,  and  I  did  not 
enjoy,  as  I  expected,  the  first  view  of  the  Mediterra- 
nean from  the  mouths  of  the  Rhone.  We  put  quite 
out  into  the  swell  of  the  sea,  and  the  passengers  were 
all  strewn  on  the  deck  in  the  various  gradations  of 
sickness.  My  friend  the  captain,  and  myself,  had  the 
only  constant  stomachs  on  board.  I  was  very  happy 
to  distinguish  Marseilles  through  the  mist,  and  as  we 
approached  nearer,  the  rocky  harbor  and  the  islands 
of  Chateau  <f' //"and  Pomcguc,  with  the  fortress  at  the 
mouth  of  the  harbor,  came  out  gradually  from  the 
mist,  and  the  view  opened  to  a  noble  amphitheatre  of 
rocky  mountains,  in  whose  bosom  lies  Marseilles  at 
the  edge  of  the  sea.  We  ran  into  the  narrow  cove 
which  forms  the  inner  harbor,  passing  an  American 
ship,  the  "  William  Penn,"  just  arrived  from  Phila- 
delphia, and  lying  in  quarantine.  My  blood  started  at 
the  sight  of  the  starred  flag  ;  and  as  we  passed  closer 
and  I  read  the  name  upon  her  stern,  a  thousand  recol- 
lections of  that  delightful  city  sprang  to  my  heart,  and 
I  leaned  over  to  her  from  the  boat's  side,  with  a  feeling 
of  interest  and  pleasure  to  which  the  foreign  tongue 
that  called  me  to  bid  adieu  to  newer  friends,  seemed 
an  unwelcome  interruption. 

*  I  parted  from  my  pleasant  Parisian  friend  and  his 
family,  however,  with  real  regret.  They  were  polite 
and  refined,  and  had  given  me  their  intimacy  volun- 
tarily and  without  reserve.  I  shook  hands  with  them 
on  the  quay,  and  wished  the  pale  and  quiet  invalid  bet- 
ter health,  with  more  of  feeling  than  is  common  with 
acquaintances  of  a  day.  I  believe  them  kind  and  sin- 
cere, and  I  have  not  found  these  qualities  growing  so 
thickly  in  the  world  that  I  can  thrust  aside  anything 
that  resembles  them  with  a  willing  mistrust. 

The  quay  of  Marseilles  is  one  of  the  most  varied 
scenes  to  be  met  with  in  Europe.  Vessels  of  all  na- 
tions come  trading  to  its  port,  and  nearly  every  cos- 
tume in  the  world  may  be  seen  in  its  busy  crowds.  I 
was  surprised  at  the  number  of  Greeks.  Their  pic- 
turesque dresses  and  dark  fine  faces  meet  you  at  every 
step,  and  it  would  be  difficult,  if  it  were  not  for  the 
shrinking  eye,  to  believe  them  capable  of  an  ignoble 
thought.  The  mould  of  the  race  is  one  for  heroes, 
but  if  all  that  is  said  of  them  be  true,  the  blood  has 
become  impure.  Of  the  two  or  three  hundred  I  must 
have  seen  at  Marseilles,  I  scarce  remember  one  whose 
countenance  would  not  have  been  thought  remarkable. 

I  have  remained  six  days  in  Marseilles  by  the  ad- 
vice of  the  Sardinian  consul,  who  assured  me  that  so 
long  a  residence  in  the  south  of  France,  is  necessary 
to  escape  quarantine  for  the  cholera,  at  the  ports  or  on 
the  frontiers  of  Italy.  I  have  obtained  his  certificate 
to-day,  and  depart  to-morrow  for  Nice.  My  forced 
sejour  here  has  been  far  from  an  amusing  or  a  willing 
one.  The  "  mistral"  has  blown  chilly  and  with  suf- 
focating dryness,  so  that  I  have  scarce  breathed  freely 
since  I  entered  the  town,  and  the  streets,  though 
handsomely  laid  out  and  built,  are  intolerable  from  the 
dust.  The  sun  scorches  your  skin  to  a  blister,  and 
the  wind  chills  your  blood  to  the  bone.  There  are 
beautiful  public  walks,  which,  at  the  more  moist  sea- 
sons, must  be  delightful,  but  at  present  the  leaves  on 
the  trees  are  all  white,  and  you  can  not  keep  your  eyes 
open  long  enough  to  see  from  one  end  of  the  prom- 
enade to  the  other.  Within  doors,  it  is  true,  I  have 
found  everything  which  could  compensate  for  such 
evds  :  and  I  shall  carrr  away  pleasant  recollections  of 
the  hospitality  of  the  Messrs.  Fitch,  and  others  of  my 
countryman,  living  here — gentlemen  whose  courtesies 


are   well-remembered    by    every   American   traveller 
through  the  south  of  France. 

I  sank  into  the  corner  of  the  coupe  of  the  diligence 
for  Toulon,  at  nine  o'clock  in  the  evening,  and  awoke 
with  the  gray  of  the  dawn  at  the  entrance  of  the  pass 
of  OUioules,  one  of  the  wildest  defiles  I  ever  saw. 
The  gorge  is  the  bed  of  a  winter  torrent,  and  you 
travel  three  miles  or  more  between  two  mountains 
seemingly  cleft  asunder,  on  a  road  cut  out  a  little 
above  the  stream,  with  naked  rock  to  the  height  of 
two  or  three  hundred  feet  almost  perpendicularly 
above  you.  Nothing  could  be  more  bare  and  desolate 
than  the  whole  pass,  and  nothing  could  be  richer  or 
more  delightfully  cultivated  than  the  low  valleys  upon 
which  it  opens.  It  is  some  four  or  five  miles  hence 
to  Toulon,  and  we  traversed  the  road  by  sunrise,  the 
soft,  gray  light  creeping  through  the  olive  and  orange 
trees  with  which  the  fields  are  laden,  and  the  peasants 
just  coming  out  to  their  early  labor.  You  see  no 
brute  animal  here  except  the  mule  ;  and  every  coun- 
tryman you  meet  is  accompanied  by  one  of  these  ser- 
viceable little  creatures,  often  quite  hidden  from  sight 
by  the  enormous  load  he  carries,  or  pacing  patiently 
along  with  a  master  on  his  back,  who  is  by  far  the 
larger  of  the  two. 

The  vineyards  begin  to  look  delightfully  ;  for  the 
thick  black  stump  which  was  visible  over  the  fields 
I  have  hitherto  passed,  is  in  these  warm  valleys  cov- 
ered already  with  masses  of  luxuriant  vine  leaves,  and 
the  hill-sides  are  lovely  with  the  light  and  tender  ver- 
dure. I  saw  here  for  the  first  time,  the  olive  and  date 
trees  in  perfection.  They  grow  in  vast  orchards 
planted. regularly,  and  the  olive  resembles  closely  the 
willow,  and  reaches  about  the  same  height  and  shape. 
The  leaves  are  as  slender  but  not  quite  so  long,  and 
the  color  is  more  dusky,  like  the  bloom  upon  a  grape. 
Indeed,  at  a  short  distance,  the  whole  tree  looks  like  a 
mass  of  untouched  fruit. 

I  was  agreeably  disappointed  in  Toulon.  It  is  a  ru- 
ral town  with  a  harbor — not  the  dirty  seaport  one  nat- 
urally expects  to  find  it.  The  streets  are  the  cleanest 
I  have  seen  in  France,  some  of  them  lined  with  trees, 
and  the  fountains  all  over  it  freshen  the  eye  delight- 
fully. We  had  an  hour  to  spare,  and  with  Mr.  D — e, 
an  Irish  gentleman,  who  had  been  my  travelling  com- 
panion, since  I  parted  with  my  friend  the  Swiss,  I 
made  the  circuit  of  the  quays.  They  were  covered 
with  French  naval  officers  and  soldiers,  promenading 
and  conversing  in  the  lively  manner  of  this  gayest  of 
nations.  A  handsome  child,  of  perhaps  six  years,  was 
selling  roses  at  one  of  the  corners,  and  for  a  sous,  all 
she  demanded,  I  bought  six  of  the  most  superb  dam- 
ask buds  just  breaking  into  flower.  They  were  the 
first  I  had  seen  from  the  open  air  since  I  left  America, 
and  I  have  not  often  purchased  so  much  pleasure  with 
a  copper  coin. 

Toulon  was  interesting  to  me  as  the  place  where 
Napoleon's  career  began.  The  fortifications  are  very 
imposing.  We  passed  out  of  the  town  over  the  draw- 
bridge, and  werp  again  in  the  midst  of  a  lovely  landscape, 
with  an  air  of  bland  and  exhilarating  softness,  and  ev- 
erything that  could  delight  the  eye.  The  road  runs 
along  the  shore  of  the  Mediterranean,  and  the  fields 
are  green  to  the  water  edge. 

We  arrived  at  Antibes  to-day  at  noon,  within  fifteen 
miles  of  the  frontier  of  Sardinia.  We  have  run 
through  most  of  the  south  of  France,  and  have  found 
it  all  like  a  garden.  The  thing  most  like  it  in  our 
country  is  the  neighborhood  of  Boston,  particularly 
the  undulated  country  about  Brookline  and  Dorches- 
ter. Remove  all  the  stone  fences  from  that  sweet 
country,  put  here  and  there  an  old  chateau  on  an  em- 
inence, and  change  the  pretty  white  mock  cottages  of 
gentlemen,  for  the  real  stone  cottages  of  peasantry, 
and  you  have  a  fair  picture  of  the  6cenery  of  this  eel- 


40 


PENCILLINGS  BY  THE  WAY. 


ebrated  shore.  The  Mediterranean  should  be  added 
as  a  distance,  with  its  exquisite  blue,  equalled  by 
nothing  but  an  American  sky  in  a  July  noon — its 
crowds  of  sail,  of  every  shape  and  nation,  and  the 
Alps  in  the  horizon  crested  with  snow,  like  clouds  half 
touched  by  the  sun.  It  is  really  a  delicious  climate. 
Out  of  the  scorching  sun  the  air  is  bracing  and  cool ; 
and  though  my  ears  have  been  blistered  in  walking  up 
the  hills  in  a  travelling  cap,  I  have  scarcely  experienced 
an  uncomfortable  sensation  of  heat,  and  this  in  my 
winter  dress,  with  flannels  and  a  surtout,  as  1  have 
worn  them  for  the  six  months  past  in  Paris.  The  air 
could  not  be  tempered  more  accurately  for  enjoyment. 
I  regret  to  go  in-doors.     I  regret  to  sleep  it  away. 

Antibes  was  fortified  by  the  celebrated  Vauhan,  and 
it  looks  impregnable  enough  to  my  unscientific  eye. 
If  the  portcullises  were  drawn  up,  I  would  not  under- 
take to  get  into  the  town  with  the  full  consent  of  the 
inhabitants.  We  walked  around  the  ramparts  which 
are  washed  by  the  Mediterranean,  and  got  an  appetite 
in  the  sea-breeze,  which  we  would  willingly  have  dis- 
pensed with.  I  dislike  to  abuse  people,  but  I  must 
say  that  the  cuisine  of  Madame  Agarra,  at  the  "  Gold 
Eagle,"  is  rather  the  worst  I  have  fallen  upon  in  my 
travels.  Her  price,  as  is  usual  in  France,  was  pro- 
portionably  exorbitant.  My  Irish  friend,  who  is  one 
of  the  most  religious  gentlemen  of  his  country  I  ever 
met,  came  as  near  getting  into  a  passion  with  his  sup- 
per and  bill,  as  was  possible  for  a  temper  so  well  dis- 
ciplined. For  myself,  having  acquired  only  polite 
French,  I  can  but  "look  daggers"  when  I  am  abused. 
We  depart  presently  for  Nice,  in  a  ricketty  barouche, 
with  post-horses,  the  courier,  or  post-coach,  going  no 
farther.  It  is  a  roomy  old  affair,  that  has  had  preten- 
sions to  style  some  time  since  Henri  Quarte,  but  the 
arms  on  its  panels  are  illegible  now,  and  the.  ambi- 
tious driving-box  is  occupied  by  the  humble  materials 
to  remedy  a  probable  break-down  by  the  way.  The 
postillion  is  cracking  his  whip  impatiently,  my  friend 
has  called  me  twice,  and  I  must  put  up  my  pencil. 

Antibes  again!  We  have  returned  here  after  an 
unsuccessful  attempt  to  enter  the  Sardinian  domin- 
ions. We  were  on  the  road  by  ten  in  the  morning, 
and  drove  slowly  along  the  shores  of  the  Mediterrane- 
an, enjoying  to  the  utmost  the  heavenly  weather  and 
the  glorious  scenery  about  us.  The  driver  pointed 
out  to  us  a  few  miles  from  Antibes,  the  very  spot  on 
which  Napoleon  landed  on  his  return  from  Elba,  and 
the  tree,  a  fine  old  olive,  under  which  he  slept  three 
hours,  before  commencing  his  march.  We  arrived  at 
the  Pont  de  Var  about  one,  and  crossed  the  river,  but 
here  we  were  met  by  a  guard  of  Sardinian  soldiers, 
and  our  passports  were  demanded.  The  commissary 
came  from  the  guard-house  with  a  long  pair  of  tongs 
and  receiving  them  open,  read  them  at  the  longest 
possible  distance.  They  were  then  handed  back  to 
us  in  the  same  manner,  and  we  were  told  we  could  not 
pass.  We  then  handed  him  our  certificates  of  quar- 
antine at  Marseilles  ;  but  were  told  it  availed  nothing, 
a  new  order  having  arrived  from  Turin  that  very  mor- 
ning, to  admit  no  travellers  from  infected  or  suspected 
places  across  the  frontier.  We  asked  if  there  were 
no  means  by  which  we  could  pass ;  but  the  commis- 
sary only  shook  his  head,  ordered  us  not  to  dismount 
on  the  Sardinian  side  of  the  river,  and  shut  his  door. 
We  turned  about  and  recrossed  the  bridge  in  some 
perplexity.  The  French  commissary  at  St.  Laurent, 
the  opposite  village,  received  us  with  a  suppressed 
smile,  and  informed  us  that  several  parties  of  travel- 
lers, among  others  an  English  gentleman  and  his  wife 
and  sister,  were  at  the  auberge,  waiting  for  an  answer 
from  the  prefect  of  Nice,  having  been  turned  back  in 
the  same  manner  since  morning.  We  drove  up,  and 
they  advised  us  to  send  our  passports  by  the  postillion. 


with  a  letter  to  the  consuls  of  our  respective  nations, 
requesting  information,  which  we  did  immediately. 

Nice  is  three  miles  from  St.  Laurent,  and  as  we 
could  not  expect  an  answer  for  several  hours,  we 
amused  ourselves  with  a  stroll  along  the  banks  of  the 
Var  to  the  Mediterranean.  The  Sardinian  side  is  bold, 
and  wooded  to  the  tops  of  the  hills  very  richly.  We 
kept  along  a  mile  or  more  through  the  vineyards,  and 
returned  in  time  to  receive  a  letter  from  the  American 
consul,  confirming  the  orders  of  the  commissary,  but 
advising  us  to  return  to  Antibes,  and  sail  thence  for 
Villa  Franca,  a  lazaretto  in  the  neighborhood  of  Nice, 
whence  we  could  enter  Italy,  after  seven  days  quaran- 
tine! By  this  time  several  travelling- carriages  had 
collected,  and  all,  profiting  by  our  experience,  turned 
back  together.  We  are  now  at  the  "  Gold  Eagle," 
deliberating.  Some  have  determined  to  give  up  their 
object  altogether,  but  the  rest  of  us  sail  to-morrow 
morning  in  a  fishing-boat  for  the  lazaretto. 

Lazaretto,  Villa  Franca. — There  were  but 
eight  of  the  twenty  or  thirty  travellers  stopped  at  the 
bridge  who  thought  it  worth  while  to  persevere.  We 
are  all  here  in  this  pest-house,  and  a  motley  mixture 
of  nations  it  is.  There  are  two  young  Sicilians  re- 
turning from  college  to  Messina ;  a  Belgian  lad  of 
seventeen,  just  started  on  his  travels  ;  two  aristocratic 
young  Frenchmen,  very  elegant  and  very  ignorant  of 
the  world,  running  down  to  Italy  in  their  own  carriage, 
to  avoid  the  cholera ;  a  middle-aged  surgeon  in  the 
British  navy,  very  cool  and  very  gentlemanly ;  a  vulgar 
Marseilles  trader,  and  myself. 

We  were  from  seven  in  the  morning  till  two  getting 
away  from  Antibes.  Our  difficulties  during  the  whole 
day  are  such  a  practical  comparison  of  the  freedom 
of  European  states  and  ours,  that  I  may  as  well  detail 
them. 

First  of  all,  our  passports  were  to  be  vised  by  the 
police.  We  were  compelled  to  stand  an  hour  with 
our  hats  off,  in  a  close,  dirty  office,  waiting  our  turn 
for  this  favor.  The  next  thing  was  to  get  the  permis- 
sion of  the  prefect  of  the  marine  to  embark ;  and  this 
occupied  another  hour.  Thence  we  were  taken  to 
the  health-office,  where  a  bill  of  health  was  made  out 
for  eight  persons  going  to  a  lazaretto!  The  padrone's 
freight  duties  were  then  to  be  settled,  and  we  went 
back  and  forth  between  the  Sardinian  consul  and  the 
French,  disputing  these  for  another  hour  or  more. 
Our  baggage  was  piled  upon  the  charrctte  at  last,  to 
be  taken  to  the  boat.  The  quay  is  outside  the  gate, 
and  here  are  stationed  the  douanes,  or  custom-officers, 
who  ordered  our  trunks  to  be  taken  from  the  cart,  and 
searched  them  from  top  to  bottom.  After  a  half  hour 
spent  in  repacking  our  effects  in  the  open  street,  amid 
a  crowd  of  idle  spectators,  we  were  suffered  to  pro- 
ceed. Almost  all  these  various  gentlemen  expect  a 
fee,  and  some  demand  a  heavy  one  ;  and  all  this  trou- 
ble and  expense  of  time  and  money  to  make  a  voyage 
of  fifteen  miles  in  a  fishing-boat ! 

We  hoisted  the  fisherman's  lateen  sail,  and  put  out 
of  the  little  harbor  in  very  bad  temper.  The  wind 
was  fair,  and  we  ran  along  the  shore  for  a  couple  of 
hours,  till  we  came  to  Nice,  where  we  were  to  stop  for 
permission  to  go  to  the  lazaretto.  We  were  hailed 
off  the  mole  with  a  trumpet,  and  suffered  to  pass. 
Doubling  a  little  point,  half  a  mile  farther  on,  we  ran 
into  the  bay  of  Villa  Franca,  a  handful  of  houses  at 
the  base  of  an  amphitheatre  of  mountains.  A  little 
round  tower  stood  in  the  centre  of  the  harbor,  built 
upon  a  rock,  and  connected  with  the  town  by  a  draw- 
bridge, and  we  were  landed  at  a  staircase  outside,  by 
which  we  mounted  to  show  our  papers  to  the  health- 
officer.  The  interior  was  a  little  circular  yard,  sepa- 
rated from  an  office  on  the  town  side  by  an  iron  gra- 
ting, and  looking  out  on  the  sea  by  two  embrasures 
for  cannon.     Two  strips  of  water  and  the  sky  above 


PENCI LUNGS   BY  THE  WAY. 


41 


was  our  whole  prospect  for  the  hour  that  we  waited 
here.  The  cause  of  the  delay  was  presently  explained 
by  clouds  of  smoke  issuing  from  the  interior.  The 
tower  filled,  and  a  more  nauseating  odor  l  never  in- 
haled. We  were  near  suffocating  with  the  intolerable 
smell,  and  the  quantity  of  smoke  deemed  necessary  to 
secure  his  majesty's  officers  against  contagion. 

A  cautious-looking  old  gentleman,  with  gray  hair, 
emerged  at  'ast  from  the  smoke,  with  a  long  cane-pole 
in  his  hand,  and,  coughing  at  every  syllable,  requested 
us  to  insert  our  passports  in  the  split  at  the  extremity, 
which  he  thrust  through  the  gate.  This  being  done, 
we  asked  him  for  bread.  We  had  breakfasted  at  seven, 
and  it  was  now  sundown — near  twelve  hours'  fast. 
Several  of  my  companions  had  been  seasick  with  the 
swell  of  the  Mediterranean,  in  coming  from  Antibes, 
and  all  were  faint  with  hunger  and  exhaustion.  For 
myself,  the  villanous  smell  of  our  purification  had 
made  me  sick,  and  I  had  no  appetite;  but  the  rest  ate 
very  voraciously  of  a  loaf  of  coarse  bread,  whicli  was 
extended  to  us  with  a  tongs  and  two  pieces  of  paper. 

After  reading  our  passports,  the  magistrate  informed 
us  that  he  had  no  orders  to  admit  us  to  the  lazaretto, 
and  we  must  lie  in  our  boat  till  lie  could  send  a  mes- 
senger to  Nice  with  our  passports  and  obtain  permis- 
sion. We  opened  upon  him,  however,  with  such  a 
flood  of  remonstrance,  and  with  such  an  emphasis 
from  hunger  and  fatigue,  that  he  consented  to  admit 
us  temporarily  on  his  own  responsibility,  and  gave  the 
boatmen  orders  to  row  back  to  a  long,  low  stone  build- 
ing, we  had  observed  at  the  foot  of  a  precipice  at  die 
entrance  to  the  harbor. 

He  was  there  before  us,  and  as  we  mounted  the 
stone  ladder  he  pointed  through  the  bars  of  a  large 
inner  gate  to  a  single  chamber,  separated  from  the 
rest  of  the  building,  and  promising  to  send  us  some- 
thing to  eat  in  the  course  of  the  evening,  left  us  to 
take  possession.  Our  position  was  desolate  enough. 
The  building  was  new,  and  the  plaster  still  soft  and 
wet.  There  was  not  an  article  of  furniture  in  the 
chamber,  and  but  a  single  window;  the  floor  was  of 
brick,  and  the  air  as  damp  within  as  a  cellar.  The 
alternative  was  to  remain  out  of  doors,  in  the  small 
yard,  walled  up  thirty  feet  on  three  sides,  and  washed 
by  the  sea  on  the  other;  and  here,  on  a  long  block  of 
granite,  the  softest  thing  I  could  find,  I  determined  to 
make  an  al  fresco  night  of  it. 

Bread,  cheese,  wine,  and  cold  meat,  seethed,  Italian 
fashion,  in  nauseous  oil,  arrived  about  nine  o'clock ; 
and,  by  the  light  of  a  candle  standing  in  a  boot,  we 
sat  around  on  the  brick  floor,  and  supped  very  merrily. 
Hunger  had  brought  even  our  two  French  exquisites 
to  their  fare,  and  they  ate  well.  The  navy  surgeon 
had  seen  service,  and  had  no  qualms;  the  Sicilians 
were  from  a  German  university,  and  were  not  delicate  ; 
the  Marseilles  trader  knew  no  better;  and  we  should 
have  been  less  contented  with  a  better  meal.  It  was 
superfluous  to  abuse  it. 

A  steep  precipice  hangs  immediately  over  the  laza- 
retto, and  the  horn  of  the  half  moon  was  just  dipping 
below  it,  as  I  stretched  myself  to  sleep.    With  a  folded 
coat  under  me,  and  a  carpet-bag  for  a  pillow,  I  soon  fell 
asleep,  and  slept  soundly  till  sunrise.     My  companions 
had   chosen   shelter,  but  all  were  happy  to  be  early  i 
risers.     We   mounted   our  wall   upon  the   sea,   and 
promenaded  till  the  sun  was  broadly  up,  and  the  breeze  j 
from  the  Mediterranean  sharpened  our  appetites,  and  j 
then  finishing  the  relics  of  our  supper,  we  waited  with 
what  patience  we  might  the  appearance  of  our  break- 
fast. 

The  magistrate  arrived  at  twelve,  yesterday,  with  a 
commissary  from  Villa  Franca,  who  is  to  be  our  vic- 
tualler during  the  quarantine.  He  has  enlarged  our 
limits,  by  a  stone  staircase  and  an  immense  chamber, 
on  condition  that  we  pay  for  an  extra  guard,  in  the 


shape  of  a  Sardinian  soldier,  who  is  to  sleep  in  our 
room,  and  eat  at  our  table.  By  the  way,  we  have  a 
table,  and  four  rough  benches,  and  these,  with  three 
single  mattresses,  are  all  the  furniture  we  can  procure. 
We  are  compelled  to  sleep  across  the  latter,  of  course, 
to  give  every  one  his  share. 

We  have  come  down  very  contentedly  to  our  situa- 
tion,  and   I  have    been    exceedingly  amused  at   the 
facility  with  which  eight  such  different  tempers  can 
amalgamate  upon  compulsion.     Our  small  quarters 
bring   us  in   contact  continually,   and   we  harmonize 
like  schoolboys.    At  this  moment  the  Marseilles  trader 
and  the  two  Frenchmen  are  throwing;  stones  at  some- 
thing that  is  floating  out  with  the  tide;  the  surgeon 
has  dropped  his  Italian  grammar  to  decide  upon  the 
best  shot;  the  Belgian   is  fishing  off  the  wall,  with  a 
pin  hook  and  a  bit  of  cheese;  and  the  two  Sicilians 
are  talking  lingua  franca,  at  the  top  of  their  voices,  to 
Carolina,  the  guardian's  daughter,  who  stands  coquet- 
ting on  the  pier  just  outside  the  limits.     I  have  got 
out  my  books  and   portfolio,  and  taken   possession  of 
the  broad  stair,  depending  on  the  courtesy  of  my  com- 
panions to  jump  over  me  and  my  papers  when  they  go 
up  and  down.     I  sit  here  most  of  the  day  laughing 
at  the  fun  below,  and  writing  or  leading  alternately. 
The  climate  is  too  delicious  for  discontent.     Every 
breath  is  a  pleasure.     The  hills  of  the  amphitheatre 
opposite  to  us  are   covered   with   olive,   lemon,   and 
orange  trees  ;  and  in  the  evening,  from  the  time  the 
land  breeze  commences  to  blow  offshore,  until  ten  or 
II  eleven,  the  air  is  impregnated  with  the  delicate  per- 
| !  fume  of  the  orange-blossom,  than  which  nothing  could 
be   more  grateful.      Nice   is   called   the  hospital   of 
Europe;  and  truly,  under  this  divine  sky,  and  with 
;  the  inspiriting  vitality  and  softness  of  the  air,  and  all 
j  that  nature  can  lavish  of  luxuriance  and  variety  upon 
I  the  hills,  it  is  the  place,  if  there  is  one  in  the  world, 
!  where  the  drooping  spirit  of  the  invalid  must  revive 
|  and  renew.     At  this  moment  the  sun  has  crept  from 
i  the  peak  of  the  highest  mountain  across  the  bay,  and 
I  we  shall  scent  presently  the  spicy  wind  from  the  shore. 
I  close  my  book  to  go  upon  the  wall,  which  I  see  the 
surgeon  has  mounted  already  with  the  same  object, 
j  to  catch  the  first  breath  that  blows  seaward. 

It  is  Sunday,  and  an  Italian  summer  morning.  I  do 
not  think  my  eyes  ever  woke  upon  so  lovely  a  day.  The 
long,  lazy  swell  comes  in  from  the  Mediterranean  as 
smooth  as  glass ;  the  sails  of  a  beautiful  yacht,  belong- 
ing to  an  English  nobleman  at  Nice,  and  lying  be- 
calmed just  now  in  the  bay,  are  hanging  motionless 
about  the  masts ;  the  sky  is  without  a  speck,  the  air  just 
seems  to  me  to  steep  every  nerve  and  fibre  of  the 
j  frame  with  repose  and  pleasure.  Now  and  then  in 
|  America  I  have  felt  a  June  morning  that  approached 
|  it,  but  never  the  degree,  the  fulness,  the  sunny  soft- 
ness of  this  exquisite  clime.  It  tranquillizes  the  mind 
as  well  as  the  body.  You  can  not  resist  feeling  con- 
tented and  genial.  We  are  all  out  of  doors,  and  my 
companions  have  brought  down  their  mattresses,  and 
are  lying  along  the  shade  of  the  east  wall,  talking 
quietly  and  pleasantly;  the  usual  sounds  of  the  work- 
men on  the  quays  of  the  town  are  still,  our  harbor- 
guard  lies  asleep  in  his  boat,  the  yellow  flag  of  the 
lazaretto  clings  to  the  staff,  everything  about  us 
breathes  tranquillity.  Prisoner  as  I  am,  I  would  not 
stir  willingly  to-day. 

We  have  had  two  new  arrivals  this  morning — a  boat 
from  Antibes,  with  a  company  of  players  bound  for  the 
theatre  at  Milan;  and  two  French  deserters  from  the 
regiment  at  Toulon,  who  escaped  in  a  leaky  boat,  and 
have  made  this  voyage  along  the  coast  to  get  into  Italy. 
They  knew  nothing  of  the  quarantine,  and  were  very 
much  surprised  at  their  arrest.  They  will,  probably, 
be  delivered  up  to  the  French  consul.  The  new 
comers  are  nil  put  together  in  the  large  chamber  next 


42 


PENC1LLINGS  BY  THE  WAY. 


us,  and  we  have  been  talking  with  them  through  the 
grate.  His  majesty  of  Sardinia  is  not  spared  in  their 
voluble  denunciations. 

Our  imprisonment  is  getting  to  be  a  little  tedious. 
We  lengthen  our  breakfasts  and  dinners,  go  to  sleep 
early  and  get  up  late,  but  a  lazaretto  is  a  dull  place  after 
all.  We  have  no  books  except  dictionaries  and  gram- 
mars, and  I  am  on  my  last  sheet  of  paper.  What  I  shall 
do  the  two  remaining  days,  lean  not  divine.  Our  meals 
were  amusing  for  a  while.  We  have  but  three  knives 
and  four  glasses;  and  the  Belgian,  having  cut  his  plate 
in  two  on  the  first  day,  has  eaten  since  from  the  mash- 
bowl.  The  salt  is  in  a  brown  paper,  the  vinegar  in  a 
shell;  and  the  meats,  to  be  kept  warm  during  their 
passage  by  water,  are  brought  iu  the  black  utensils  in 
which  they  are  cooked.  Our  tablecloth  appeared  to- 
day of  all  the  colors  of  the  rainbow.  We  sat  down  to 
breakfast  with  a  general  cry  of  horror.  Still,  with 
youth  and  good  spirits,  we  manage  to  be  more  content- 
ed than  one  would  expect;  and  our  lively  discussions 
of  the  spot  on  the  quay  where  the  table  shall  be  laid 
and  the  noise  of  our  dinners  en  plein  air,  would  con- 
vince a  spectator  that  we  were  a  very  merry  and  suf- 
ficiently happy  company. 

I  like  my  companions,  on  the  whole,  very  much. 
The  surgeon  has  been  in  Canada  and  the  west  of  New 
York,  and  we  have  travelled  the  same  routes,  and 
made,  in  several  instances,  the  same  acquaintances. 
He  has  been  in  almost  every  part  of  the  world  also, 
and  his  descriptions  are  very  graphic  and  sensible. 
The  Belgian  talks  of  his  new  king  Leopold,  the 
Sicilians  of  the  German  universities;  and,  when  I 
have  exhausted  all  they  can  tell  me.  I  turn  to  our 
Parisians,  whom  I  find  1  have  met  all  last  winter  with- 
out noticing  them  at  the  parties;  and  we  discuss  the 
belles,  and  the  different  members  of  the  beau  mondc, 
with  all  the  touching  air  and  tone  of  exiles  from  par- 
adise. In  a  case  of  desperate  ennvi,  wearied  with 
studying  and  talking,  the  sea-wall  is  a  delightful  lounge, 
and  the  blue  Mediterranean  plays  the  witch  to  the  in- 
dolent fancy,  and  beguiles  it  well.  I  have  never  seen 
such  a  beautiful  sheet  of  water.  The  color  is  pecu- 
liarly rich  and  clear,  like  an  intensely  blue  sky,  heaving 
into  waves.  I  do  not  find  the  often-repeated  descrip- 
tion of  its  loveliness  exaggerated. 

Our  seven  days  expire  to-morrow,  and  we  ave  pre- 
paring to  eat  our  last  dinner  in  the  lazaretto  with  great 
glee.  A  temporary  table  is  already  laid  upon  the 
quay,  and  two  strips  of  board  raised  upon  some  in- 
genious contrivance,  I  can  not  well  sav  what,  and  cov- 
ered with  all  the  private  and  public  napkins  that  re- 
tained any  portion  of  their  maiden  whiteness.  Our 
knives  are  reduced  to  two,  one  having  disappeared  un- 
accountably ;  but  the  deficiency  is  partially  remedied. 
The  surgeon  has  "  whittled"  a  pine  knot,  which  floated 
in  upon  the  tide,  into  a  distant  imitation  ;  and  one  of 
the  company  has  produced  a  delicate  dagger,  that 
looks  very  like  a  keepsake  from  a  lady  ;  and,  by  the  re- 
luctant manner  in  which  it  was  put  to  service,  the  pro- 
fanation cost  his  sentiment  an  effort.  Its  white  han- 
dle and  silver  sheath  lie  across  a  plate,  abridged  of  its 
proportions  by  a  very  formidable  segment.  There 
was  no  disguising  the  poverly  of  the  brown  paper  that 
contained  the  salt.  It  was  too  necessary  to  be  made 
an  "aside,"  and  lies  plump  in  the  middle  of  the  table. 
I  fear  there  has  been  more  fun  in  the  preparation  than 
we  shall  feel  in  eating  the  dinner  when  it  arrives.  The 
Belgian  stands  on  the  wall,  watching  all  the  boats 
from  town ;  but  they  pass  off  down  the  harbor,  one 
after  another,  and  we  are  destined  to  keep  our  appetites 
to  a  late  hour,  Their  detestable  cookery  needs  the 
44  sauce  of  hunger." 

The  Belgian's  hat  waves  in  the  air,  and  the  commis- 
sary's boat  must  be  in  sight.  As  we  get  off  at  six 
o'clock  to-morrow  morning,  my  portfolio  shuts  till  I 
find  another  resting  place,  probably  Genoa. 


LETTER  XXVI. 

SHORE  OF  THE  MEDITERRANEAN — NICE — FUNERAL  SER- 
VICES OF  MARIA  THERESK,  ARCHDUCHESS  OF  AUS- 
TRIA  PRINCIPALITY    OF     MONACO— ROAD     TO    GENOA 

— SARDINIA — PRISON    OF   THE    POPE — HOUSE    OF   CO- 
LUMBUS— GENOA. 

The  health-magistrate  arrived  at  an  early  hour  on 
the  morning  of  our  departure,  from  the  lazaretto  of 
Villa  Franca.  He  was  accompanied  by  a  physician, 
who  was  to  direct  the  fumigation.  The  iron  pot  was 
placed  in  the  centre  of  the  chamber,  our  clothes  were 
spread  out  upon  the  beds,  and  the  windows  shut.  The 
chlorin  soon  filled  the  room,  and  its  detestable  odor  be- 
came so  intolerable  that  we  forced  the  door,  and  rush- 
ed past  the  sentinel  into  the  open  air,  nearly  suffocated. 
This  farce  over,  we  were  permitted  to  embark,  and 
rounding  the  point  put  inlo  Nice. 

The  Mediterranean  curves  gracefully  into  the  cres- 
cented  shore  of  this  lovely  bay,  and  the  high  hills  lean 
away  from  the  skirts  of  the  town  in  one  unbroken 
slope  of  cultivation  to  the  top.  Large,  handsome 
buildings,  face  you  on  the  long  quay,  as  you  approach  ; 
and  white  chimneys,  and  half  concealed  parts  of  coun- 
try-houses and  suburban  villas,  appear  through  the 
olive  and  orange  trees,  with  which  the  whole  amplii- 
theatre  is  covered.  We  landed  amid  a  crowd  of  half- 
naked  idlers,  and  were  soon  at  a  hotel,  where  we  or- 
dered the  best  breakfast  the  town  would  afford,  and  sat 
down  once  more  to  clean  cloths  and  unrepulsive  food. 

As  we  rose  from  the  table,  a  note,  edged  with  black, 
and  sealed  and  enveloped  with  considerable  circum- 
stance, was  put  into  my  hand  by  the  master  of  the  ho- 
tel. It  was  an  invitation  from  the  governor  to  attend 
a  funeral  service,  to  be  performed  in  the  cathedral  that 
day,  at  ten  o'clock,  for  the  "  late  queen-mother,  Ma- 
ria Therese,  archduchess  of  Austria."  Wondering 
not  a  little  how  I  came  by  the  honor,  I  joined  the 
crowd  flocking  from  all  parts  of  the  town  to  see  the 
ceremony.  The  central  door  was  guarded  by  a  file  of 
Sardinian  soldiers;  and,  presenting  my  invitation  to 
the  officer  on  duty,  I  was  handed  over  to  the  master 
of  ceremonies,  and  shown  to  an  excellent  seat  in  the 
centre  of  the  church.  The  windows  were  darkened, 
and  the  candles  of  the  altar  not  yet  lit;  and,  by  the 
indistinct  light  that  came  in  through  the  door,  I  could 
distinguish  nothing  clearly.  A  little  silver  bell  tinkled 
presently  from  one  of  the  side-chapels,  and  boys 
dressed  in  white  appeared,  with  long  tapers,  and  the 
house  was  soon  splendidly  illuminated.  I  found  my- 
self in  the  midst  of  a  crowd  of  four  or  five  hundred 
ladies,  all  in  deep  mourning.  The  church  was  hung 
from  the  floor  to  the  roof  in  black  cloth,  ornamented 
gorgeously  with  silver;  and  under  the  large  dome, 
which  occupied  half  the  ceiling,  was  raised  a  pyra- 
midal altar,  with  tripods  supporting  chalices  for  in- 
cense at  the  four  corners,  a  walk  round  the  lower  base 
for  the  priests,  and  something  in  the  centre,  surround- 
ed with  a  blaze  of  light,  representing  figures  weeping 
over  a  tomb.  The  organ  commenced  pealing,  there 
was  a  single  beat  on  the  drum,  and  a  procession  en- 
tered. It  was  composed  of  the  nobility  of  Nice,  and 
the  military  and  civil  officers,  all  in  uniform  and  court 
dresses.  The  gold  and  silver  flashing  in  the  light,  the 
tall  plumes  of  the  Sardinian  soldiery  below,  the  sol- 
emn music,  and  the  moving  of  the  censers  from  the 
four  corners  of  the  altar,  produced  a  very  impressive 
effect.  As  soon  as  the  procession  had  quite  entered, 
the  fire  was  kindled  in  the  four  chalices  ;  and  as  the 
white  smoke  rolled  up  to  the  roof,  an  anthem  com- 
menced with  the  full  power  of  the  organ  The  sing- 
ing was  admirable,  and  there  was  one  female  voice  in 
the  choir,  of  singular  power  and  sweetness. 

The  remainder  of  the  service  was  the  usual  cere- 
monies of  the  catholic  church,  and  I  amused  myself 


PENCILLIXGS  BY  THE  WAY. 


43 


with  observing  the  people  nbout  me.  It  was  little  like 
a  scene  of  mourning.  The  officers  gradually  edged 
in  between  the  seats,  and  every  wom;m  of  the  least 
pretension  to  prettiness  was  engaged  in  anything  but 
ber  prayers  lor  the  soul  of  the  late  archduchess. 
Some  of  these,  the  very  young  girls,  were  pretty  ;  and 
the  women  of  thirty-five  or  forty  apparently  were  fine- 
looking;  but,  except  a  decided  air  of  style  and  rank, 
the  fairly  grown-up  belles  seemed  to  me  of  very  small 
attraction. 

I  s  iw  little  else  in  Nice  to  interest  me.  I  wandered 
about  with  my  friend  the  surgeon,  laughing  at  the  ri- 
diculous figures  and  villanous  uniforms  of  the  Sardin- 
ian infantry,  and  repelling  the  beggars,  who  radiated 
to  us  from  every  corner ;  and,  having  traversed  the 
terrace  of  a  mile  on  the  tops  of  the  houses  next  the 
sea,  unravelled  all  the  lanes  of  the  old  town,  and  ad- 
mired all  the  splendor  of  the  new,  we  dined  and  got 
early  to  bed,  anxious  to  sleep  once  more  between 
sheets,  and  prepare  for  an  early  start  on  the  following 
morning. 

We  were  on  the  road  to  Genoa  with  the  first  gray 
of  the  dawn— the  surgeon,  a  French  officer,  and  my- 
self, three  passengers"  of  a  courier  barouche.  We 
were  climbing  up  mountains  and  sliding  down  with 
locked  wheels  for  several  hours,  by  a  road  edging  on 
precipices,  an  1  overhung  by  tremendous  rocks,  and 
descending  at  last  to  the  sea  level,  we  entered  Menfore, 
a  town  of  the  little  principality  of  Monaco.  Having 
paid  our  twenty  sous  tribute  to  this  prince  of  a  terri- 
tory not  larger  than  a  Kentucky  farm,  we  were  suffer- 
ed I-)  cross  his  borders  once  more  into  Sardinia,  hav- 
ing posted  through  a  whole  state  in  less  than  half  an 
hour. 

It  is  impossible  to  conceive  a  route  of  more  grandeur 
than  the  famous  road  along  the  Mediterranean  from 
Nice  to  Genoa.  It  is  near  a  hundred  and  fifty  miles, 
over  the  edges  of  mountains  bordering  the  sea  for  the 
whole  distance.  The  road  is  cut  into  the  sides  of  the 
precipice,  often  hundreds  of  feet  perpendicular  above 
the  surf,  descending  sometimes  into  the  ravines  formed 
by  the  numerous  rivers  that  cut  their  way  to  the  sea, 
and  mounting  immediately  again  to  the  loftiest  sum- 
mits. It  is  a  dizzy  business  from  beginning  to  end. 
There  is  no  parapet  usually,  and  there  are  thousands 
of  places  where  half  a  "shie"  by  a  timid  horse  would 
drop  you  at  once  some  hundred  fathoms  upon  rocks 
wet  by  the  spray  of  every  sea  that  breaks  upon  the 
shore.  The  loveliest  little  nests  of  valleys  lie  between 
that  can  be  conceived.  You  will  see  a  green  spot, 
miles  below  you,  in  turning  the  face  of  a  rock ;  and 
riiiht  in  the  midst,  like  a  handful  of  plaster  models  on 
a  carpet,  a  cluster  of  houses,  lying  quietly  in  the  warm 
southern  exposure,  embosomed  in  everything  refresh- 
ing to  the  eye,  the  mountain  sides  cultivated  in  a 
large  circle  around,  and  the  ruins  of  an  old  castle  to  a 
certainty  on  the  eminence  above.  You  descend  and 
descend,  and  wind  into  the  curves  of  the  shore,  losing 
and  regaining  sight  of  it  constantly,  till,  entering  at  a 
gate  on  the  sea  level,  you  find  yourself  in  a  filthy,  nar- 
row, half-whitewashed  town,  with  a  population  of  beg- 
gars, priests,  and  soldiers;  not  a  respectable  citizen  to 
be  seen  from  one  end  to  the  other,  nor  a  clean  woman, 
nor  a  decent  house.  It  is  so  all  through  Sardinia. 
The  towns  from  a  distance  lie  in  the  most  exquisitely- 
chosen  spots  possible.  A  river  comes  down  from  the 
hills  and  washes  the  wall;  the  uplands  above  are  al- 
ways of  the  very  choicest  shelter  and  exposure.  You  j 
would  think  man  and  nature  had  conspired  to  com-  j 
plete  its  convenience  and  beauty;  yet  within,  all  is  I 
misery,  dirt,  and  superstition.  Every  corner  has  a 
cross — every  bench  a  priest,  idling  in  the  sun — every 
door  a  picture  of  the  Virgin.  You  are  delighted  to 
emerge  once  more,  and  get  up  a  mountain  to  the 
fresh  air. 


As  we  got  farther  on  toward  Genoa,  the  valleys  be- 
came longer  by  the  sea,  and  the  road  ran  through  gar- 
dens down  to  the  very  beach,  of  great  richness  and 
beauty.  It  was  new  to  me  to  travel  for  hours  among 
groves  of  orange  and  lemon  trees,  laden  with  both 
fruit  and  flower,  the  ground  beneath  covered  with  the 
windfalls,  like  an  American  apple-orchard.  I  never 
saw  such  a  profusion  of  fruit.  The  trees  were  break- 
ing under  the  rich  yellow  clusters.  Among  other 
things,  there  were  hundreds  of  tall  palms,  spreading 
out  their  broad  fans  in  the  sun,  apparently  perfectly 
strong  and  at  home  under  this  warm  sky.  They  are 
cultivated  as  ornaments  for  the  churches  on  sacred 
days. 

I  caught  some  half  dozen  views  on  the  way  that  I 
shall  never  get  out  of  my  memory.  At  one  place  par- 
ticularly, I  think  near  Fenale,  we  ran  round  the  cor- 
ner of  a  precipice  by  a  road  cut  right  into  the  face  of 
a  rock,  two  hundred  feet  at  least  above  the  sea,  and  a 
long  view  burst  upon  us  at  once  of  a  sweet  green  val- 
ley, stretching  back  into  the  mountains  as  far  as  the 
eye  could  go,  with  three  or  four  small  towns,  with  their 
white  churches,  just  checkering  the  broad  sweeps  of 
verdure,  a  rapid  river  winding  through  its  bosom,  and  a 
back  ground  of"  the  Piedmontese  Alps,  with  clouds  half- 
way up  their  sides,  and  snow  glittering  in  the  sun  on 
their  summits.  Language  can  not  describe  these  scenes. 
It  is  but  a  repetition  of  epithets  to  attempt  it.  You 
must  come  and  see  them  to  feel  how  much  one  loses 
to  live  always  at  home,  and  read  of  such  things  only. 

The  courier  pointed  out  to  us  the  place  in  which 
Napoleon  imprisoned  the  pope  of  Rome  ;  alow  house, 
surrounded  with  a  wall  close  upon  the  sea  ;  and  the 
house  a  few  miles  from  Genoa,  believed  to  have  been 
that  of  Columbus. 

We  entered  Genoa  an  hour  after  sunrise,  by  a  noble 
gate,  placed  at  the  western  extremity  of  the  crescenled 
harbor.  Thence  to  the  centre  of  the  city  was  one 
continued  succession  of  sumptuous  palaces.  We 
drove  rapidly  along  the  smooth,  beautifully  paved 
streets,  and  my  astonishment  was  unbroken  till  we 
were  set  down  at  the  hotel.  Congratulating  ourselves 
on  the  hiuderances  which  had  conspired  to  bring  us 
here  against  our  will,  we  took  coffee,  and  went  to  bed 
for  a  few  hours,  fatigued  with  a  journey  more  weari- 
some to  the  body  than  the  mind. 

I  have  spent  two  days  in  merely  wandering  about 
Genoa,  looking  at  the  exterior  of  the  city.  It  is  a 
group  of  hills,  piled  with  princely  palaces.  I  scarce 
know  how  to  commence  a  description  of  it.  If  there 
were  but  one  of  these  splendid  edifices,  or  if  I  could 
isolate  a  single  palace,  and  describe  it  to  you  minutely, 
it  would  be  easy  to  convey  an  impression  of  the  sur- 
prise and  pleasure  of  a  stranger  in  Genoa.  The  whole 
city,  to  use  the  expression  of  a  French  guide-book, 
"  respire  la  magnificence'" — breathes  of  splendor  !  The 
grand  street,  in  which  most  of  the  palates  stand,  winds 
around  the  foot  of  a  high  hill;  and  the  gardens  and 
terraces  are  piled  back,  with  palaces  above  them ;  and 
gardens,  and  tenaces,  and  palaces  still  above  these, 
forming  wherever  you  can  catch  a  vista,  the  most  ex- 
quisite rising  perspective.  On  the  summit  of  this 
bill  stands  the  noble  fortress  of  St.  George;  and  be- 
hind it  a  lovely  open  garden,  just  now  alive  with  mil- 
lions of  roses,  a  fountain  playing  into  a  deep  oval  ba- 
sin in  the  centre,  and  a  view  beneath  and  beyond  of 
a  broad  winding  valley,  covered  with  the  country  vil 
las  of  the  nobility  and  gentry,  and  blooming  with  all 
the  luxuriant  vegetation  of  a  southern  clime. 

My  window  looks  out  upon  the  bay,  across  which  1 
see  the  palace  of  Andrea  Doria,  the  great  winner  of 
the  best  glory  of  the  Genoese;  and  just  under  me 
floats  an  American  flag,  at  the  peak  of  a  Baltimore 
schooner,  that  sails  to-morrow  morning  for  the  United 


44 


PENCILLINGS  BY  THE  WAY. 


States.  I  must  close  my  letter,  to  send  by  her.  I 
shall  remain  in  Genoa  a  week,  and  will  write  you  of 
its  splendor  more  minutely. 


LETTER  XXVII. 

FLORENCE THE    GALLERY THE    VENUS    DE    MEDICIS 

THE    TRIBUNE THE    FORNARINA THE     CASCINO 

AN    ITALIAN    FASTA MADAME    CATALANI. 

Florence. — It  is  among  the  pleasantest  things  in 
this  very  pleasant  world,  to  find  oneself  for  the  first 
time  in  a  famous  city.  We  sallied  from  the  hotel  this 
morning  an  hour  after  our  arrival,  and  stopped  at  the 
first  corner  to  debate  where  we  should  go.  I  could 
not  help  smiling  at  the  magnificence  of  the  alterna- 
tives. "  To  the  gallery,  of  course,"  said  I,  "to  see  the 
Venus  de  Medicis."  "To  Santa  Croce,"  said  one, 
"  to  see  the  tombs  of  Michael  Angelo,  and  Alfieri,  and 
Machiavelli."  "To  the  Palazzo  Pitti,"  said  another, 
"  the  grand  duke's  palace,  and  the  choicest  collection 
of  pictures  in  the  world."  The  embarrassment  alone 
was  quite  a  sensation. 

The  Venus  carried  the  day.  We  crossed  the  Pi- 
azza del  Granduca,  and  inquired  for  the  gallery.  A. 
fine  court  was  shown  us,  opening  out  from  the  square, 
around  the  three  sides  of  which  stood  a  fine  uniform 
structure,  with  a  colonnade,  the  lower  story  occupied 
by  shops  and  crowded  with  people.  We  mounted  a 
broad  staircase,  and  requested  of  the  soldier  at  the 
door  to  be  directed  to  the  presence  of  the  Venus  with- 
out delay.  Passing  through  one  of  the  long  wings  of 
the  gallery,  without  even  a  glance  at  the  statues,  pic- 
tures, and  bronzes  that  lined  the  walls,  we  arrived  at 
the  door  of  a  cabinet,  and  putting  aside  the  large  crim- 
son curtain  at  the  entrance,  stood  before  the  en- 
chantress. I  must  defer  a  description  of  her.  We 
spent  an  hour  there,  but,  except  that  her  divine  beauty 
filled  and  satisfied  my  eye,  as  nothing  else  ever  did, 
and  that  the  statue  is  as  unlike  a  thing  to  the  casts 
one  sees  of  it  as  one  thing  could  well  be  unlike  anoth- 
er, I  made  no  criticism.  There  is  an  atmosphere  of 
fame  and  circumstantial  interest  about  the  Venus, 
which  bewilders  the  fancy  almost  as  much  as  her 
loveliness  does  the  eye.  She  has  been  gazed  upon 
and  admired  by  troops  of  pilgrims,  each  of  whom  it 
were  worth  half  a  life  to  have  met  at  her  pedestal. 
The  painters,  the  poets,  the  talent  and  beauty,  that  have 
come  there  from  every  country  under  the  sun,  and  the 
single  feeling  of  love  and  admiration  that  she  has 
breathed  alike  into  all,  consecrate  her  mere  presence 
as  a  place  for  revery  and  speculation.  Childe  Harold 
has  been  here,  I  thought,  and  Shelley  and  Words- 
worth and  Moore ;  and,  farther  removed  from  our  sym- 
pathies, but  interesting  still,  the  poets  and  sculptors 
of  another  age,  Michael  Angelo  and  Alfieri,  the  men  I 
of  genius  of  all  nations  and  times;  and  to  stand  in  the 
same  spot,  and  experience  the  same  feeling  with  them, 
is  an  imaginative  pleasure,  it  is  true,  but  as  truly  a 
deep  and  real  one.  Exceeding,  as  the  Venus  does 
beyond  all  competition,  every  image  of  loveliness  paint- 
ed or  sculptured  that  one  has  ever  before  seen,  the 
fancy  leaves  the  eye  gazing  upon  it,  and  busies  itself 
irresistibly  with  its  pregnant  atmosphere  of  recollec- 
tions. At  least  I  found  it  so,  and  I  must  go  there 
again  and  again  before  I  can  look  at  the  marble  sep- 
arately, and  with  a  merely  admiring  attention. 

Three  or  four  days  have  stolen  away,  I  scarce  know 
how.  I  have  seen  but  one  or  two  things,  yet  have 
felt  so  unequal  to  the  description,  that  but  for  my 
promise  I  should  never  write  a  line  about  them. 
Really,  to  sit  down  and  gaze  into  one  of  Titian's  faces 
for  an  hour,  and  then  to  go  away  and  dream  of  putting 


into  language  its  color  and  expression,  seems  to  me 
little  short  of  superlative  madness.  I  only  wonder  at 
the  divine  faculty  of  sight.  The  draught  of  pleasure 
seems  to  me  immortal,  and  the  eye  the  only  Ganyinede 
that  can  carry  the  cup  steadily  to  the  mind.  How 
shall  I  begin  to  give  you  an  idea  of  the  Fornarina? 
What  can  I  tell  you  of  the  St.  John  in  the  desert,  that 
can  afford  you  a  glimpse  even  of  Raphael's  inspired 
creations? 

The  Tribune  is  the  name  of  a  small  octagonal  cab- 
inet in  the  gallery,  devoted  to  the  masterpieces  of  the 
collection.  There  are  five  statues,  of  which  one  is  the 
Venus  de  Medicis;  and  a  dozen  or  twenty  pictures, 
of  which  I  have  only  seen  as  yet  Titian's  Two  Venuses, 
and  Raphael's  St.  John  and  Fornarina.  People  walk 
through  the  other  parts  of  the  gallery,  and  pause 
here  and  there  a  moment  before  a  painting  or  a  statute; 
but  on  the  Tribune  they  sit  down,  and  you  may  wait 
hours  before  a  chair  is  vacated,  or  often  before  the  oc- 
cupant shows  a  sign  of  life.  Everybody  seems  en- 
tranced there.  They  get  before  a  picture,  and  bury 
their  eyes  in  it,  as  if  it  had  turned  them  to  stone. 
After  the  Venus,  the  Fornarina  strikes  me  most  forci- 
bly, and  I  have  stood  and  gazed  at  it  till  my  limbs 
were  numb  with  the  motionless  posture.  There  is  no 
affectation  in  this.  I  saw  an  English  girl  yesterday 
gazing  at  the  St.  John.  She  was  a  flighty,  coquettish- 
looking  creature,  and  I  had  felt  that  the  spirit  of  the 
place  was  profaned  by  the  way  she  sailed  into  the  room. 
She  sat  down  with  half  a  glance  at  the  Venus,  and 
began  to  look  at  this  picture.  It  is  a  glorious  thing, 
to  be  sure,  a  youth  of  apparently  seventeen,  with  a 
leopard-skin  about  his  loins,  in  the  very  pride  of  ma- 
turing manliness  and  beauty.  The  expression  of  the 
face  is  all  human,  but  wrought  to  the  very  limit  of 
celestial  enthusiasm.  The  wonderful  richness  of  the 
coloring,  the  exquisite  ripe  fulness  of  the  limbs,  the 
passionate  devotion  of  the  kindling  features  combine 
to  make  it  the  faultless  ideal  of  a  perfect  human  being 
in  youth.  I  had  quite  forgotten  the  intruder  for  an 
hour.  Quite  a  different  picture  had  absorbed  all  my 
attention.  The  entrance  of  some  one  disturbed  me, 
and  as  I  looked  round  I  caught  a  glance  of  my  coquet, 
sitting  with  her  hands  awkwardly  clasped  over  her 
guide-book,  her  mouth  open,  and  the  lower  jaw  hang- 
ing down  with  a  ludicrous  expression  of  unconscious- 
ness and  astonished  admiration.  She  was  evidently 
unaware  of  everything  in  the  world  except  the  form 
before  her,  and  a  more  absorbed  and  sincere  wonder  I 
never  witnessed. 

I  have  been  enjoying  all  day  an  Italian  Festa.  The 
Florentines  have  a  pleasant  custom  of  celebrating  this 
particular  festival,  Ascension-day,  in  the  open  air; 
breakfasting,  dining,  and  dancing  under  the  superb 
trees  of  the  Cascino.  This  is,  by  the  way,  quite  the 
loveliest  public  pleasure-ground  I  ever  saw — a  wood  of 
three  miles  in  circumference,  lying  on  the  banks  of  the 
Arno,  just  below  the  town ;  not,  like  most  European 
promenades  a  bare  field  of  clay  or  ground,  set  out 
with  stunted  trees,  and  cut  into  rectangular  walks,  or 
without  a  secluded  spot  or  an  untrodden  blade  of 
grass  ;  but  full  of  sward-paths,  green  and  embowered, 
the  underbrush  growing  wild  and  luxuriant  between  , 
ivy  and  vines  of  all  descriptions  hanging  from  the 
limbs,  and  winding  about  every  trunk  ;  and  here  and 
there  a  splendid  opening  of  velvet  grass  for  half  a  mile, 
with  an  ornamental  temple  in  the  centre,  and  beauti- 
ful contrivances  of  perspective  in  every  direction.  I 
have  been  not  a  little  surprised  with  the  enchantment 
of  so  public  a  place.  You  step  into  the  woods  from 
the  very  pavement  of  one  of  the  most  populous  streets 
in  Florence  ;  from  dust  and  noise  and  a  crowd  of  busy 
people  to  scenes  where  Boccacio  might  have  fitly 
laid  his  "  hundred  tales  of  love."  The  river  skirts 
the  Cascino  on  one  side,  and  the  extensive  grounds  of 
a  young  Russian  nobleman's  villa  on  the  other;  and 


PENCILLING^  BY  THE  WAV 


49 


here  at  sunset  comes  all  the  world  to  walk  and  drive, 
and  on  festas  like  this  to  encamp,  and  keep  holyday 
under  the  trees.  The  whole  place  is  more  like  a 
half-redeemed  wild- wood  in  America,  than  a  public 
promenade  in  Europe. 

It  is  the  custom,  I  am  told  for  the  grand  duke  and 
the  nobles  of  Tuscany  to  join  in  this  festival,  and 
breakfast  in  the  open  air  with  the  people.  The  late 
death  of  the  young  and  beautiful  grand-dutchess  has 
prevented  it  this  year,  and  the  merry-makings  are  di- 
minished of  one  half  their  interest.  I  should  not 
have  imagined  it,  however,  without  the  information. 
I  took  a  long  stroll  among  the  tents  this  morning,  with 
two  ladies  from  Albany,  old  friends,  whom  I  have  en- 
countered accidentally  in  Florence.  The  scenes  were 
peculiar  and  perfectly  Italian.  Everything  was  done 
fantastically  and  tastefully.  The  tables  were  set  about 
the  knolls,  the  bonnets  and  shawls  hung  upon  the  trees, 
and  the  dark-eyed  men  and  girls,  with  their  expressive 
faces  full  of  enjoyment,  leaned  around  upon  the  grass, 
with  the  children  playing  among  them,  in  innumera- 
ble little  parties,  dispersed  as  if  it  had  been  managed 
by  a  painter.  At  every  few  steps  a  long  embowered 
alley  stretched  off  to  the  right  or  left,  with  strolling 
groups  scattered  as  far  as  the  eye  could  see  under  the 
trees,  the  red  ribands  and  bright  colored  costumes 
contrasting  gayly  with  the  foliage  of  every  teint,  from 
the  dusky  leaf  of  the  olive  to  the  bright  soft  green  of 
the  acacia.  Wherever  there  was  a  circular  opening 
there  were  tents  just  in  the  edges  of  the  wood,  the 
white  festoons  of  the  cloth  hung  from  the  limbs,  and 
tables  spread  under  them,  with  their  antique-looking 
Tuscan  pitchers  wreathed  with  vines,  and  tables  spread 
with  broad  green  leaves,  making  the  prettiest  cool  cov- 
ering that  could  be  conceived.  I  have  not  come  up 
to  the  reality  in  this  description,  and  yet,  on  reading 
it,  it  sounds  half  a  fiction.  One  must  be  here  to  feel 
how  little  language  can  convey  an  idea  of  this  "gar- 
den of  the  world." 

The  evening  was  the  fashionable  hour,  and  with  the 
addition  of  Mr.  Greenough,  the  sculptor,  to  our  par- 
ty, we  drove  to  the  cascines  about  an  hour  before  sun- 
set to  see  the  equipages,  and  enjoy  the  close  of  the 
festival.  The  drives  intersect  these  beautiful  grounds 
irregularly  in  every  direction,  and  the  spectacle  was 
even  more  brilliant  than  in  the  morning.  The  nobil- 
ity and  the  gay  world  of  Florence  flew  past  us  in  their 
showy  carriages  of  every  description,  the  distinguish- 
ed occupants  differing  in  but  one  respect  from  well- 
bred  people  of  other  countries — they  looked  happy. 
If  I  had  been  lying  on  the  grass,  an  Italian  peasant, 
with  my  kinsmen  and  friends,  I  should  not  have  felt 
that  among  the  hundreds  who  were  rolling  past  me 
richer  and  better  born,  there  was  one  face  that  looked 
on  me  contemptuously  or  condescendingly.  I  was 
very  much  struck  with  the  universal  air  of  enjoyment 
and  natural  exhilaration.  One  scarce  felt  like  a  stran- 
ger in  such  a  happy-looking  crowd. 

Near  the  centre  of  the  grounds  is  an  open  space, 
where  it  is  the  custom  for  people  to  stop  in  driving  to 
exchange  courtesies  with  their  friends.  It  is  a  kind 
of  fashionable  open  air  soiree.  Every  evening  you 
may  see  from  fifty  to  a  hundred  carriages  at  a  time, 
moving  about  in  this  little  square  in  the  midst  of  the 
woods,  and  drawing  up  side  by  side,  one  after  the  other, 
for  conversation.  Gentlemen  come  ordinarily  on  horse- 
back, and  pass  round  from  carriage  to  carriage,  with 
their  hats  off,  talking  gayly  with  the  ladies  within. 
There  could  not  be  a  more  brilliant  scene,  and  there 
never  was  a  more  delightful  custom.  It  keeps  alive 
the  intercourse  in  the  summer  months,  when  there 
are  no  parties,  and  it  gives  a  stranger  an  opportunity 
of  seeing  the  lovely  and  the  distinguished  without  the 
difficulty  and  restraint  of  an  introduction  to  society. 
I  wish  some  of  these  better  habits  of  Europe  were 
hnitated  in  our  country  as  readily  as  worse  ones. 


After  thridding  the  embowered  roads  of  the  cas- 
cines for  an  hour,  and  gazing  with  constant  delight  at 
the  thousand  pictures  of  beauty  and  happiness^  that 
meet  us  at  every  turn,  we  came  back  and  mingled  in 
the  gay  throng  of  carriages  at  the  centre.  The  valet 
of  our  lady-friends  knew  everybody,  and  taking  a  con- 
venient stand,  we  amused  ourselves  for  an  hour,  gazing 
at  them  as  they  were  named  in  passing.  Among  oth- 
ers, several  of  the  Bonaparte  family  went  by  in  a 
splendid  barouche ;  and  a  heavy  carriage,  with  a 
showy,  tasselled  hammer-cloth,  and  servants  in  dashy 
liveries,  stopped  just  at  our  side,  containing  Madame 
Catalani,  the  celebrated  singer.  She  has  a  fine  face 
yet,  with  large  expressive  features,  and  dark,  handsome 
eyes.  Her  daughter  was  with  her,  but  she  has  none 
of  her  mother's  pretensions  to  good  looks. 


LETTER  XXVIII. 

THE   PITTI   PALACE — TITIAN'S    BELLA — AN    IMPROVISA- 

TRICE VIEW     FROM     A    WINDOW ANNUAL    EXPENSE 

OF   RESIDENCE    AT   FLORENCE. 

I  have  got  into  the  "back-stairs  interest,"  as  the 
politicians  say,  and  to-day  I  wound  up  the  staircase 
of  the  Pitti  Palace,  and  spent  an  hour  or  two  in  its 
glorious  halls  with  the  younger  Greenough,  without 
the  insufferable  and  usually  inevitable  annoyance  of  a 
cicerone.  You  will  not  of  course,  expect  a  regular 
description  of  such  a  vast  labyrinth  of  splendor.  I 
could  not  give  it  to  you  even  if  I  had  been  there  the 
hundred  times  that  I  intend  to  go,  if  I  live  long  enough 
in  Florence.  In  other  galleries  you  see  merely  the 
arts,  here  you  are  dazzled  with  the  renewed  and  costly 
magnificence  of  a  royal  palace.  The  floors  and  ceil- 
ings and  furniture,  each  particular  part  of  which  it 
must  have  cost  the  education  of  a  life  to  accomplish, 
bewilder  you  out  of  yourself  quite;  and,  till  you  can 
tread  on  a  matchless  pavement  or  imitated  mosaic, 
and  lay  your  hat  on  a  table  of  inlaid  gems,  and  sit  on 
a  sofa  wrought  with  you  know  not  what  delicate  and 
curious  workmanship,  without  nervousness  or  com- 
punction, you  are  not  in  a  state  to  appreciate  the  pic- 
tures upon  the  walls  with  judgment  or  pleasure. 

I  saw  but  one  thing  well — Titian's  Bella,  as  the 
Florentines  call  it.  There  are  two  famous  Venuses 
by  the  same  master,  as  you  know  in  the  other  gallery, 
hanging  over  the  Venus  de  Medicis — full-length  fig- 
ures reclining  upon  couches,  one  of  them  usually 
called  Titian's  mistress.  The  Bella  in  the  Pitti  gal- 
lery, is  a  half-length  portrait,  dressed  to  the  shoulders, 
and  a  different  kind  of  picture  altogether.  The  oth- 
ers are  voluptuous,  full-grown  women.  This  repre- 
sents a  young  girl  of  perhaps  seventeen  ;  and  if  the 
frame  in  which  it  hangs  were  a  window,  and  the  love- 
liest creature  that  ever  trod  the  floors  of  a  palace 
stood  looking  out  upon  you,  in  the  open  air,  she  could 
not  seem  more  real,  or  give  you  a  stronger  feeling  of 
the  presence  of  exquisite,  breathing,  human  beauty. 
The  face  has  no  particular  character.  It  is  the  look 
with  which  a  girl  would  walk  to  the  casement  in  a 
mood  of  listless  happiness,  and  gaze  out,  she  scarce 
knew  why.  Yrou  feel  that  it  is  the  habitual  expres- 
sion. Y"et,  with  all  its  subdued  quiet  and  sweetness, 
it  is  a  countenance  beneath  which  evidently  sleeps 
warm  and  measureless  passion,  capacities  for  loving 
and  enduring  and  resenting  everything  that  makes  up 
a  character  to  revere  and  adore.  I  do  not  know  how 
a  picture  can  express  so  much — but  it  does  express  all 
this,  and  eloquently  too. 

In  a  fresco  on  the  ceiling  of  one  of  the  private 
chambers,  is  a  portrait  of  the  late  lamented  granddutch- 
ess.     On  the  mantelpiece  in  the  duke's  cabinet  also  is 


45 


PENCILL1NGS  BY  THE  WAY. 


a  beautiful  marble  bust  of  her.     It  is  a  face  and  head  | 
corresponding  perfectly  to  the  character  given  her  by  j 
common  report,  full  of  nobleness  and  kindness.     The  j 
duke,  who   loved  her  with  a  devotion  rarely  found  in  j 
marriages  of  state,  is  inconsolable  since  her  death,  and 
has  shut  himself  from  all  society.     He  hardly  slept 
during  her  illness,  watching  by  her  bedside  constantly. 
She  was  a  religious  enthusiast,  and  her  health  is  said 
to  have  been  first  impaired  by  too  rigid  an  adherence 
to  the  fasts  of  the  church,  and  self-inflicted  penance. 
The  Florentines  talk  of  her  still,  and  she  appears  to 
have  been  unusually  loved  and  honored. 

I  have  just  returned  from  hearing  an  improiisatrice. 
At  a  party  last  night  I  met  an  Italian  gentleman,  who 
talked  very  enthusiastically  of  a  lady  of  Florence, 
celebrated  for  her  talent  of  improvisation.  She  was 
to  give  a  private  exhibition  to  her  friends  the  next  day 
at  twelve,  and  he  offered  politely  to  introduce  me.  He 
called  this  morning,  and  we  went  together. 

Some  thirty  or  forty  people  were  assembled  in  a 
handsome  room,  darkened  tastefully  by  heavy  cur- 
tains. They  were  sitting  in  perfect  silence  when  we 
entered,  all  gazing  intently  on  the  improvisatrice,  a 
lady  of  some  forty  or  fifty  years,  of  a  fine  countenance, 
and  dressed  in  deep  mourning.  She  rose  to  receive 
us;  and  my  friend  introducing  me,  to  my  infinite  dis- 
may, as  an  improvisatore  Americano,  she  gave  me  a  seat 
on  the  sofa  at  her  right  hand,  an  honor  I  had  not  Italian 
enough  to  decline.  I  regretted  it  the  less  that  it  gave 
me  an  opportunity  of  observing  the  effects  of  the 
"  fine  phrensy,"  a  pleasure  I  should  otherwise  cer- 
tainly have  lost  through  the  darkness  of  the  room. 

We  were  sitting  in  profound  silence,  the  head  of 
the  improvisatrice  bent  down  upon  her  breast,  and  her 
hands  clasped  over  her  lap,  when  she  suddenly  raised 
herself,  and  with  both  hands  extended,  commenced  in 
a  thrilling voice,  "Patrice.1"  Some  particular  passage 
of  Florentine  history  had  been  given  her  by  one  of 
the  company,  and  we  had  interrupted  her  in  the  midst 
of  her  conception.  She  went  on  with  astonishing  flu- 
ency, in  smooth  harmonious  rhyme,  without  the  hes- 
itation of  a  breath,  for  half  an  hour.  My  knowledge 
of  the  language  was  too  imperfect  to  judge  of  the 
finish  of  the  style,  but  the  Italians  present  were  quite 
carried  away  with  their  enthusiasm.  There  was  an 
improvisatore  in  company,  said  to  be  the  second  in 
Italy;  a  young  man,  of  perhaps  twenty-five,  with  a 
face  that  struck  me  as  the  very  heau  ideal  of  genius. 
His  large  expressive  eyes  kindled  as  the  poetess  went 
on,  and  the  changes  of  his  countenance  soon  attract- 
ed the  attention  of  the  company.  She  closed  and 
sunk  back  upon  her  seat,  quite  exhausted  ;  and  the 
poet,  looking  round  for  sympathy,  loaded  her  with 
praises  in  the  peculiarly  beautiful  epithets  of  the  Ital- 
ian language.  I  regarded  her  more  closely  as  she  sat 
by  me.  Her  profile  was  beautiful  ;  and  her  mouth, 
which  at  the  first  glance  had  exhibited  marks  of  age, 
was  curled  by  her  excitement  into  a  firm  animated 
curve,  which  restored  twenty  years  at  least  by  its  ex- 
pression.   • 

After  a  few  minutes  one  of  the  company  went  out 
of  the  room,  and  wrote  upon  a  sheet  of  paper  the  last 
words  of  every  line  for  a  sonnet ;  and  a  gentleman 
who  had  remained  within,  gave  a  subject  to  fill  it  up. 
She  took  the  paper,  and  looking  at  it  a  moment  or 
two,  repeated  the  sonnet  as  fluently  as  if  it  had  been 
written  out  before  her.  Several  other  subjects  were 
then  given  her,  and  she  filled  the  same  sonnet  with  the 
same  terminations.  Tt  was  wonderful.  I  could  not 
conceive  of  such  facility.  After  she  had  satisfied 
them  with  this,  she  turned  to  me  and  said,  that  in 
compliment  to  the  American  improvisatore  she  would 
give  an  ode  upon  America.  To  disclaim  the  charac- 
ter and  the  honor  would  have  been  both  difficult  and 
embarrassing  even  for  one  who  knew  the  language 


better  than  I,  so  I  bowed  and  submitted.  She  began 
with  the  discovery  by  Columbus,  claimed  him  as  her 
countryman  ;  and  with  some  poetical  fancies  about  the 
wild  woods  and  the  Indians,  mingled  up  Montezuma 
and  Washington  rather  promiscuously,  and  closed 
with  a  really  beautiful  apostrophe  to  liberty.  My  ac- 
knowledgments were  fortunately  lost  in  the  general 
murmur. 

A  tragedy  succeeded,  in  which  she  sustained  four 
characters.  This,  by  the  working  of  her  forehead 
and  the  agitation  of  her  breast,  gave  her  more  trouble, 
but  her  fluency  was  unimpeded ;  and  when  she  closed, 
the  company  was  in  raptures.  Her  gestures  were 
more  passionate  in  this  performance,  but,  even  with 
my  imperfect  knowledge  of  the  language,  they  always 
seemed  called  for  and  in  taste.  Her  friends  rose  as 
she  sunk  back  on  the  sofa,  gathered  round  her,  and 
took  her  hands,  overwhelming  her  with  praises.  It 
was  a  very  exciting  scene  altogether,  and  1  went  away 
with  new  ideas  of  poetical  power  and  enthusiasm. 

One  lodges  like  a  prince  in  Florence,  and  pays  like 
a  beggar.  For  the  information  of  artists  and  scholars 
desirous  to  come  abroad,  to  whom  exact  knowledge  on 
the  subject  is  important,  I  will  give  you  the  inventory 
and  cost  of  my  whereabout. 

I  sit  at  this  moment  in  a  window  of  what  was  for- 
merly the  archbishop's  palace — a  noble  old  edifice, 
with  vast  staircases  and  resounding  arches,  and  a  hall 
in  which  you  might  put  a  dozen  of  the  modern  brick 
houses  of  our  country.  My  chamber  is  as  large  as  a 
ball-room,  on  the  second  story,  looking  out  upon  the 
garden  belonging  to  the  house,  which  extends  to  the 
eastern  wall  of  the  city.  Beyond  this  lies  one  of  the 
sweetest  views  in  the  world — the  ascending  amphithe- 
atre of  hills,  in  whose  lap  lies  Florence,  with  the  tall 
eminence  of  Ficsolc  in  the  centre,  crowned  with  the 
monastery  in  which  Milton  passed  six  weeks,  while 
gathering*  scenery  for  his  Paradise.  I  can  almost 
count  the  panes  of  glass  in  the  windows  of  the  bard's 
room;  and,  between  the  fine  old  building  and  my  eye, 
on  the  slope  of  the  hill,  lie  thirty  or  forty  splendid 
villas,  half-buried  in  trees  (Madame  Catalani's  among 
them),  piled  one  above  another  on  the  steep  ascent, 
with  their  columns  and  porticoes,  as  if  they  were 
mock  temples  in  a  vast  terraced  garden.  I  do  not 
think  there  is  a  window  in  Italy  that  commands  more 
points  of  beauty.  Cole,  the  American  landscape 
painter,  who  occupied  the  room  before  me,  took  a 
sketch  from  it.  For  neighbors,  the  Neapolitan  am- 
bassador lives  on  the  same  floor,  the  two  Greenoughs 
in  the  ground-rooms  below,  and  the  palace  of  one  of 
the  wealthiest  nobles  of  Florence  overlooks  the  garden, 
with  a  front  of  eighty-five  windows,  from  which  you 
are  at  liberty  to  select  any  two  or  three,  and  imagine 
the  most  celebrated  beauty  of  Tuscany  behind  the 
crimson  curtains — the  daughter  of  this  same  noble 
bearing  that  reputation.  She  was  pointed  out  to  me 
at  the  opera  a  night  or  two  since,  and  I  have  seen  as 
famous  women  with  less  pretensions. 

For  the  interior,  my  furniture  is  not  quite  upon  the 
same  scale,  but  I  have  a  clean  snow-white  bed,  a  cali- 
co-covered sofa,  chairs  and  tables  enough,  and  pic- 
tures three  deep  from  the  wail  to  the  floor. 

For  all  this,  and  the  liberty  of  the  episcopal  garden, 
I  pay  three  dollars  a  month  !  A  dollar  more  is  charged 
for  lamps,  boots,  and  service,  and  a  dark-eyed  landlady 
of  thirty-five,  mends  my  gloves,  and  pays  me  two  vis- 
its a  day — items  not  mentioned  in  the  bill.  Then  for 
the  feeding,  an  excellent  breakfast  of  coffee  and  toast 
is  brought  me  for  six  cents  ;  and,  without  wine,  one 
may  dine  heartily  at  a  fashionable  restaurant  for  twelve 
cents,  and  with  wine,  quite  magnificently  for  twenty- 
five.  Exclusive  of  postage  and  pleasures,  this  is  all 
one  is  called  upon  to  spend  in  Florence.  Three  hun- 
i  died  dollars  a  year  would  fairly  and  largely  cover  the 


PENCILLIN'GS  BY  THE  WAY. 


47 


expenses  of  a  man  living  at  this  rate ;  and  a  man  who 
would  not  be  willing  to  live  half  as  well  for  the  sake 
of  his  art,  does  not  deserve  to  see  Italy.  I  have  sta- 
ted these  unsentimental  particulars,  because  it  is  a 
kind  of  information  I  believe  much  wanted.  I  should 
have  come  to  Italy  years  ago  if  I  had  known  as  much, 
and  I  am  sure  there  are  young  men  in  our  country 
dreaming  of  this  paradise  of  art  in  half  despair,  who 
will  thank  me  for  it,  and  take  up  at  once  "  the  pil- 
grim's sandal-shoon  and  scollop-shell." 


LETTER  XXIX. 

EXCURSION  TO  VENICE — AMERICAN  ARTISTS — VALLEY 
OF  FLORENCE — MOUNTAINS  OF  CARRARA — TRAVEL- 
LING COMPANIONS — HIGHLAND  TAVERN— MIST  AND 
SUNSHINE — ITALIAN  VALLEYS — VIEW  OF  THE  ADRI- 
ATIC— BORDER  OF  ROMAGNA — SUBJECTS  FOR  THE  PEN- 
CIL— HIGHLAND      ITALIANS ROMANTIC     SCENERY A 

PAINFUL      OCCURRENCE AN      ITALIAN      HUSBAND A 

DUTCHMAN,    HIS     WIFE,    AND    CHILDREN — BOLOGNA 

THE  PILGRIM — MODEL  FOR  A  MAGDALEN. 

I  started  for  Venice  yesterday,  in  company  with 
Mr.  Alexander  and  Mr.  Cranch,  two  American  artists. 
We  had  taken  the  vetturino  for  Bologna,  and  at  day- 
light were  winding  up  the  side  of  the  amphitheatre  of 
Appenines  that  bends  over  Florence,  leaving  Fiesole 
risin2  sharply  on  our  right.  The  mist  was  creeping 
up  the  mountain  just  in  advance  of  us,  retreating 
with  a  scarcely  perceptible  motion  to  the  summits, 
like  the  lift  of  a  heavy  curtain.  Florence,  and  its 
long,  heavenly  valley,  full  of  white  palaces  sparkling  in 
the  sun,  lay  below  us,  more  like  a  vision  of  a  better 
world  than  a  scene  of  human  passion  ;  away  in  the 
horizon  the  abrupt  heads  of  the  mountains  of  Carrara 
rose  into  the  sky,  and  with  the  cool,  fresh  breeze  of 
the  hills,  and  the  excitement  of  the  pleasant  excursion 
before  us,  we  were  three  of  as  happy  travellers  proba- 
bly as  were  to  be  met  on  any  highway  in  this  garden 
of  the  world. 

We  had  six  companions,  and  a  motley  crew  they 
were — a  little  effeminate  Venitian,  probably  a  tailor, 
with  a  large,  noble-looking,  handsome  contadina  for  a 
wife ;  a  sputtering  Dutch  merchant,  a  fine,  little, 
coarse,  good-natured  fellow,  with  his  wife,  and  two 
very  small  and  very  disagreeable  children  ;  an  Austrian 
corporal  in  full  uniform,  and  a  fellow  in  a  straw  hat, 
speaking  some  unknown  laniuase,  and  a  nondescript 
in  every  respect.  The  women  and  children,  and  my 
friends,  the  artists,  were  my  companions  inside,  the 
double  dickey  in  front  accommodating  the  others. 
Conversation  commenced  with  the  journey.  The 
Dutch  spoke  their  dissonant  language  to  each  other, 
and  French  to  us,  the  contadina's  soft  Venitian  dia- 
lect broke  in  like  a  flute  in  a  chorus  of  harsh  instru- 
ments, and  our  own  hissing  English  added  to  a  mix- 
ture already  sufficiently  various. 

We  were  all  day  ascending   mountains,  and  slept 
coolly  under  three  or  four  blankets  at  a  highland  tav- 
ern, on  a  very  wild  Appenine.     Our  supper  was  gayly 
eaten,  and  our  mirth  served  to  entertain  five  or  six  I 
English  families,  whose  chambers  were  only  separated  j 
from  the  rough  raftered  dining  hall  by  double  cur- 
tains.    It  was  pleasant  to  hear  the  children  and  nurses  | 
speaking   English   unseen.      The   contrast   made   us  j 
realize  forcibly  the  eminently  foreign  scene  about  us.  I 
The  next  morning,  after  travelling  two  or  three  hours  ! 
in  a  thick,  drizzling  mist,  we  descended  a  sharp  hill, 
and  emerged  at  its  foot  into  a  sunshine  so  sudden  and 
clear,  that  it  seemed  almost  as  if  the  night  had  burst  j 
into  mid-day  in  a  moment.     We  had  come  out  of  a  j 
black  cloud.     The  mounlain  behind  us  was  capped  ! 
with  it  to  the  summit.     Beneath  us  lay  a  map  of  a  ! 
hundred  valleys,  all  bathed  and  glowing  in  unclouded 


light,  and  on  the  limit  of  the  horizon,  far  off  as  the 
eye  could  span,  lay  a  long  sparkling  line  of  water,  like 
a  silver  frame  round  the  landscape.  It  was  our  first 
view  of  the  Adriatic.  We  looked  at  it  with  the  sin- 
gular and  indefinable  emotion  with  which  one  alway 
sees  a  celebrated  icater  for  the  first  time — a  sensation, 
it  seems  to  me,  which  is  like  that  of  no  other  addition 
to  our  knowledge.  The  Mediterranean  at  Marseilles, 
the  Arno  at  Florence,  the  Seine  at  Paris,  affected  me 
in  the  same  way.     Explain  it  who  will,  or  can  ! 

An  hour  after,  we  reached  the  border  of  Roma&na, 
the  dominions  of  the  pope  running  up  thus  far  into 
the  Appenines.  Here  our  trunks  were  taken  off  and 
searched  minutely.  The  little  village  was  full  of  the 
dark-skinned,  romantic-looking  Romagnese,  and  my 
two  friends,  seated  on  a  wall,  with  a  dozen  curious  ga- 
zers about  them,  sketched  the  heads  looking  from  the 
old  stone  windows,  beggars,  buildings,  and  scenery,  in 
a  mood  of  professional  contentment.  Dress  apart, 
these  highland  Italians  are  like  North  American  In- 
dians— the  same  copper  complexions,  high  .cheek 
bones,  thin  lips,  and  dead  black  hair.  The  old  women 
particularly,  would  pass  in  any  of  our  towns  for  full- 
blooded  squaws. 

The  scenery  after  this  grew  of  the  kind  "which 
savage  Rosa  dashed'' — the  only  landscape  I  ever  saw 
exactly  of  the  teints  so  peculiar  to  Salvator's  pictures. 
Our  painters  were  in  ecstasies  with  it,  and  truly,  the 
dark  foliage,  and  blanched  rocks,  the  wild  glens,  and 
wind-distorted  trees,  gave  the  country  the  air  of  a 
home  for  all  the  tempests  and  floods  of  a  continent. 
The  Kaatskills  are  tame  to  it. 

The  forenoon  came  on,  hot  and  sultry,  and  our  lit- 
tle republic  began  to  display  its  character.  The  tai- 
lor's wife  was  taken  sick  ;  and  fatigue,  and  heat,  and 
the  rousrh  motion  of  the  vetturino  in  descending  the 
mountains,  brought  on  a  degree  of  suffering  which  it 
was  painful  to  witness.  She  was  a  woman  of  really 
extraordinary  beauty,  and  dignified  and  modest  as  few 
women  are  in  any  country.  Her  suppressed  groans, 
her  white,  tremulous  lips,  the  tears  of  agony  pressing 
thickly  through  her  shut  eyelids,  and  the  clenching 
of  her  sculpture-like  hands,  would  have  moved  any- 
thing but  an  Italian  husband.  The  little  effeminate 
villain  treated  her  as  if  she  had  been  a  dog.  She  bore 
everything  from  him  till  he  took  her  hand,  which  she 
raised  faintly  to  intimate  that  she  could  not  rise,  when 
the  carriage  stopped,  and  threw  it  back  into  her  face 
with  a  curse.  She  roused,  and  looked  at  him  with  a 
natural  majesty  and  calmness  that  made  my  blood 
thrill.  "  AspctlaV  was  her  only  answer,  as  she  sunk 
back  and  fainted. 

The  Dutchman's  wife  was  a  plain,  honest,  affection- 
ate creature,  bearing  the  humors  of  two  heated  and 
ill-tempered  children,  with  a  patience  we  were  com- 
pelled to  admire.  Her  husband  smoked  and  laughed, 
and  talked  villanous  French  and  worse  Italian,  but 
was  glad  to  escape  to  the  cabriolet  in  the  hottest  of  the 
day,  leaving  his  wife  to  her  cares.  The  baby  scream- 
ed, and  the  child  blubbered  and  fretted,  and  for  hours 
the  mother  was  a  miracle  of  kindness.  The  "  drop 
|  too  much,"  came  in  the  shape  of  a  new  crying  fit 
!  from  both  children,  and  the  poor  little  Dutchwoman, 
quite  wearied  out,  burst  into  a  flood  of  tears,  and  hic- 
cupped her  complaints  in  her  own  language,  weeping 
unrestrainedly  for  a  quarter  of  an  hour.  After  this 
she  felt  better,  took  a  gulp  of  wine  from  the  black  bot- 
tle, and  settled  herself  once  more  quietly  and  resign- 
edly to  her  duties.  We  had  certainly  opened  one  or 
two  very  fresh  veins  of  human  character,  when  we 
stopped  at  the  gates. 

There  is  but  one  hotel  for  American  travellers  in 
Bologna,  of  course.  Those  who  have  read  Rogers's 
Italy,  will  remember  his  mention  of  "  The  Pilgrim," 
the  house  where  the  poet  met  Lord  Byron  by  appoint- 
ment, and  passed  the  evening  with  him  which  h«  de- 


4S 


PENCILL1NGS  BY  THE  WAY. 


scribes  so  exquisitely.  We  took  leave  of  our  motley  | 
friends  at  the  door,  and  our  artists  who  had  greatly  ad-  I 
mired  the  iovely  Venitiati,  parted  from  her  with  the 
regret  of  old  acquaintances.  She  certainly  was,  as 
they  said,  a  splendid  model  for  a  Magdalen,  "  majesti- 
cal  and  sad,"  and,  always  in  attitudes  for  a  picture  : 
sleeping  or  waking,  she  afforded  a  succession  of  stud- 
ies of  which  they  took  the  most  enthusiastic  advantage. 


LETTER  XXX. 

EXCURSION  TO  VENICE    CONTINUED BRIEF    DESCRIPTION 

OF  BOLOGNA GALLERY  OF  THE  FINE  ARTS — RA- 
PHAEL'S ST.  CECILIA— PICTURES  OF  CARRACC1 — DO- 
MENICHINOS'  MADONNA  DEL  ROSARIO — GUIDO'S  MAS- 
SACRE OF  THE  INNOCENTS — THE  CATHEDRAL  AND  THE 
DUOMO — EFFECTS  OF  THESE  PLACES  OF  "WORSHIP,  AND 
THE  CEREMONIES,  UPON  THE  WIND — RESORT  OF  THE 
ITALIN  PEASANTRY — OPEN  CHURCHES SUBTERRA- 
NEAN-CONFESSION CHAPEL — THE  FESTA — GRAND  PRO- 
CESSIONS— ILLUMINATIONS — AUSTRIAN  BANDS  OF  MU- 
SIC— DEPORTMENT   OF    THE    PEOPLE   TO    A    STRANGER. 

Another  evening  is  here,  and  my  friends  have  crept 
to  bed  with  the  exclamation,  "how  much  we  may  live 
in  a  day."  Bologna  is  unlike  any  other  city  we  have 
ever  seen,  in  a  multitude  of  things.  You  walk  all  over 
it  under  arcades,  sheltered  on  either  side  from  the 
sun,  the  elegance  and  ornament  of  the  lines  of  pillars, 
depending  on  the  wealth  of  the  owner  of  the  particular 
house,  but  columns  and  arches,  simple  or  rich,  every- 
where. Imagine  porticoes  built  on  the  front  of  every 
house  in  Philadelphia  or  New  York,  so  as  to  cover  the 
sidewalks  completely,  and  down  the  long  perspective 
of  every  street,  continued  lines  of  airy  Corinthian,  or 
simple  Doric  pillars,  and  you  may  faintly  conceive  the 
impression  of  the  streets  of  Bologna.  With  Lord 
Byron's  desire  to  forget  everything  English,  I  do  not 
wonder  at  his  selection  of  this  foreign  city  for  a  res- 
idence, so  emphatically  unlike,  as  it  is,  to  everything 
else  in  the  world. 

We  inquired  out  the  gallery  after  breakfast,  and 
spent  two  or  three  hours  among  the  celebrated  master- 
pieces of  the  Carracci,  and  the  famous  painters  of  the 
Bolognese  school.  The  collection  is  small,  but  said 
to  be  more  choice  than  any  other  in  Italy.  There 
certainly  are  five  or  six  among  its  forty  or  fifty  gems, 
that  deserve  each  a  pilgrimage.  The  pride  of  the 
place  is  the  St.  Cecilia,  by  Raphael.  This  always 
beautiful  personification  of  music,  a  woman  of  celestial 
beauty,  stands  in  the  midst  of  a  choir  who  have  been 
interrupted  in  their  anthem  by  a  song,  issuing  from  a 
vision  of  angels  in  a  cloud  from  heaven.  They  have 
dropped  their  instruments,  broken,  upon  the  ground, 
and  are  listening  with  rapt  attention,  all,  except  the 
6aint,  with  heads  dropped  upon  their  bosoms,  over- 
come with  the  glory  of  the  revelation.  She  alone, 
with  her  harp  hanging  loosely  from  her  fingers,  gazes 
up  with  the  most  serene  and  cloudless  rapture  beam- 
ing from  her  countenance,  yet  with  a  look  of  full  and 
angelic  comprehension,  and  understanding  of  the 
melody  and  its  divine  meaning.  You  feel  that  her 
beauty  is  mortal,  for  it  is  all  woman  ;  but  you  see  that, 
for  the  moment,  the  spirit  that  breathes  through  and 
mingles  with  the  harmony  in  the  sky,  is  seraphic  and 
immortal.  If  there  ever  was  inspiration,  out  of  holy 
writ,  it  touched  the  pencil  of  Raphael. 

It  is  tedious  to  read  descriptions  of  pictures.  I 
liked  everything  in  the  gallery.  The  Bolognese  style 
of  color  suits  my  eye.  It  is  rich  and  forcible,  without 
startling  or  offending.  Its  delicious  mellowness  of 
color,  and  the  vigor  and  triumphant  power  of  concep- 
tion, show  two  separate  triumphs  of  the  art,  which  in 
the  same  hand  are  delightful.     The  pictures  of  Lu- 


dovico  Carracci  especially  fired  my  admiration.  And 
Domenichino,  who  died  of  a  broken  heart  at  Rome, 
because  his  productions  were  neglected,  is  a  painter 
who  always  touches  me  nearly.  His  Madonna  del 
Rosario  is  crowded  with  beauty.  Such  children  I 
never  saw  in  painting — the  very  ideals  of  infantile 
grace  and  innocence.  It  is  said  of  him,  that  after 
painting  his  admirable  frescoes  in  the  church  of  St. 
Andrew,  at  Rome,  which,  at  the  time,  were  ridiculed 
unsparingly  by  the  artists,  he  used  to  walk  in  on  his 
return  from  his  studio,  and  gazing  at  them  with  a  de- 
jected air,  remark  to  his  friend,  that  he  "could  not 
think  they  were  quite  so  bad — they  might  have  been 
worse."  How  true  it  is,  that  "the  root  of  a  great 
name  is  in  the  dead  body." 

Guido's  celebrated  picture  of  the  "Massacre  of  the 
Innocents,"  hangs  just  oppositethe  St.  Cecilia.  It  is  a 
powerful  and  painful  thing.  The  marvel  of  it  to  me 
is  the  simplicity  with  which  its  wonderful  effects  are 
produced,  both  of  expression  and  color.  The  kneel- 
ing mother  in  the  foreground,  with  her  dead  children 
before  her,  is  the  most  intense  representation  of  agony 
I  ever  saw.  Yet  the  face  is  calm,  her  eyes  thrown  up 
to  heaven,  but  her  lips  undistorted,  and  the  muscles  of 
her  face,  steeped  as  they  are  in  suffering,  still  and  nat- 
ural. It  is  the  look  of  a  soul  overwhelmned — that  has 
ceased  to  struggle  because  it  is  full.  Her  gaze  is  on 
heaven,  and  in  the  abandonment  of  her  limbs,  and  the 
deep,  but  calm  agony  of  her  countenance,  you  see 
that  nothing  between  this  and  heaven  can  move  her 
more.  One  suffers  in  seeing  such  pictures.  You  go 
away  exhausted,  and  with  feelings  harassed  and  ex- 
cited. 

As  we  returned,  we  passed  the  gates  of  the  universi- 
ty. On  the  walls  were  pasted  a  sonnet  printed  with 
some  flourish,  in  honor  of  Camillo  Rosalpina,  the 
laureate  of  one  of  the  academical  classes. 

We  visited  several  of  the  churches  in  the  afternoon. 
The  cathedral  and  the  Duomo  are  glorious  places — 
both.  I  wish  I  could  convey  to  minds  accustomed  to 
the  diminutive  size  and  proportions  of  our  churches 
in  America,  an  idea  of  the  enormous  size  and  often  al- 
most supernatural  grandeur  of  those  in  Italy.  Aisles 
in  whose  distance  the  figure  of  a  man  is  almost  lost — 
pillars,  whose  bases  you  walk  round  in  wonder,  stretch- 
ing into  the  lofty  vaults  of  the  roof,  as  if  they  ended  in 
the  sky — arches  of  gigantic  dimensions,  mingling  and 
meeting  with  the  fine  tracery  of  a  cobweb — altars  piled 
up  on  every  side  with  gold,  and  marble,  and  silver — 
private  chapels  ornamented  with  the  wealth  of  nobles, 
let  into  the  sides,  each  large  enough  for  a  communion, 
and  through  the  whole  extent  of  the  interior,  an  un- 
encumbered breadth  of  floor,  with  here  and  there  a 
solitary  worshipper  on  his  knees,  or  prostrated  on  his 
face — figures  so  small  in  comparison  with  the  immense 
dome  above  them,  that  it  seems  as  if,  could  distance 
drown  a  prayer,  they  were  as  much  lost  as  if  they 
prayed  under  the  open  sky !  Without  having  even  a 
leaning  to  the  catholic  faith,  I  love  to  haunt  their 
churches,  and  I  am  not  sure  that  the  religious  awe  of 
the  sublime  ceremonies  and  places  of  worship  does 
not  steal  upon  me  daily.  Whenever  I  am  heated,  or 
fatigued,  or  out  of  spirits,  I  go  into  the  first  cathedral, 
and  sit  down  for  an  hour.  They  are  always  dark,  and 
cool,  and  quiet ;  and  the  distant  tinkling  of  the  bell 
from  some  distant  chapel,  and  the  grateful  odor  of  the 
incense,  and  the  low,  just  audible  murmur  of  prayer, 
settles  on  my  feelings  like  a  mist,  and  softens  and 
soothes  and  refreshes  me,  as  nothing  else  will.  The 
Italian  peasantry  who  come  to  the  cities  to  sell  or  bar- 
gain, pass  their  noons  in  these  cool  places.  You  see 
them  on  their  knees  asleep  against  a  pillar,  or  sitting 
in  a  corner,  with  their  heads  upon  their  bosoms  ;  and, 
if  it  were  as  a  place  of  retreat  and  silence  alone,  the 
churches  are  an  inestimable  blessing  to  them.  It  seems 
to  me,  that  any  sincere  Christian,  of  whatever  faith, 


PENCILLINGS  BY  THE  WAY. 


49 


would  find  a  pleasure  in  going  into  a  sacred  place  and 
sitting  down  in  the  heat  of  the  day,  to  be  quiet  and 
devotional  for  an  hour.  It  would  promote  the  objects 
of  any  denomination  in  our  country,  I  should  think, 
if  the  churches  were  thus  left  always  open. 

Under  the  cathedral  of  Bologna  is  a  svbterranean 
con  fission-chapel — as  singular  and  impressive  a  device 
as  I  ever  saw.  It  is  dark  like  a  cellar,  the  daylight 
faintly  struggling  through  a  painted  window  above  the 
altar,  and  the  two  solitary  wax  candles  giving  a  most 
ghastly  intensity  to  the  gloom.  The  floor  is  paved 
with  tomb-stones,  the  inscriptions  and  death's  heads 
of  which  you  feel  under  your  feet  as  you  walk  through. 
The  roof  is  so  vaulted  that  every  tread  is  reverberated 
endlessly  in  hollow  tones.  All  around  are  the  confes- 
sion-boxes, with  the  pierced  plates  at  which  the  priest 
within  puts  his  ear,  worn  with  the  lips  of  penitents,  and 
at  one  of  the  sides  is  a  deep  cave,  far  within  which,  as  in 
a  tomb,  lies  a  representation  on  limestone  of  our  Sa- 
vior, bleeding  as  he  came  from  the  cross,  with  the 
apostles  made  of  the  same  cadaverous  material,  hang- 
ing over  him! 

We  have  happened,  by  a  fortunate  chance,  upon  an 
extraordinary  day  in  Bologna — afesta,  that  occurs  but 
once  in  ten  years.  We  went  out  as  usual  after  break- 
fast this  morning,  and  found  the  city  had  been  deco- 
rated over-night  in  the  most  splendid  and  singular 
manner.  The  arcades  of  some  four  or  five  streets  in 
the  centre  of  the  town  were  covered  with  rich  crimson 
damask,  the  pillars  completely  bound,  and  the  arches 
dressed  and  festooned  with  a  degree  of  gorgeousness 
and  taste  as  costly  as  it  was  magnificent.  The  streets  I 
themselves  were  covered  with  cloths  stretched  above 
the  second  stories  of  the  houses  from  one  side  to  the 
other,  keeping  off  the  sun  entirely,  and  making  in 
each  street  one  long  tent  of  a  mile  or  more,  with 
two  lines  of  crimson  columns  at  the  sides,  and  fes- 
toons of  gauze,  of  different  colors,  hung  from  win- 
dow to  window  in  every  direction.  It  was  by  far  the 
most  splendid  scene  I  ever  saw.  The  people  were  all 
there  in  their  gayest  dresses,  and  we  probably  saw  in 
the  course  of  the  day  every  woman  in  Bologna.  My 
friends,  the  painters,  give  it  the  palm  for  beauty  over 
all  the  cities  they  had  seen.  There  was  a  grand  pro- 
cession in  the  morning,  and  in  the  afternoon  the  bands 
of  the  Austrian  army  made  the  round  of  the  decora- 
ted streets,  playing  most  delightfully  before  the  prin- 
cipal houses.  In  the  evening  there  was  an  illumina- 
tion, and  we  wandered  up  and  down  till  midnight 
through  the  fairy  scene,  almost  literally  •«  dazzled  and 
drunk  with  beauty." 

The  people  of  Bologna  have  a  kind  of  earnest  yet 
haughty  courtesy,  very  different  from  that  of  most  of 
the  Italians  I  have  seen.  They  bow  to  the  stranger, 
as  he  enters  the  cafe;  and  if  they  rise  before  him,  the 
men  raise  their  hats  and  the  ladies  smile  and  courtesy 
as  they  go  out;  yet  without  the  least  familiarity  which  i 
could  authorize  farther  approach  to  acquaintance. 
We  have  found  the  officers,  whom  we  meet  at  the 
eating-houses  particularly  courteous.  There  is  some- 
thing delightful  in  this  universal  acknowledgment  of  a 
stranger's  claims  on  courtesy  and  kindness.  I  could 
well  wish  it  substituted  in  our  country,  for  the  surly 
and  selfish  manners  of  people  in  public-houses  to  each 
other.  There  is  neither  loss  of  dignity  nor  commit-  ] 
tal  of  acquaintance  in  such  attentions ;  and  the  man- 
ner in  which  a  gentleman  steps  forward  to  assist  you 
in  any  difficulty  of  explanation  in  a  foreign  tongue,  or 
sends  the  waiter  to  you  if  you  are  neglected,  or  hands 
you  the  newspaper  or  his  snuff-box,  or  rises  to  give 
you  room  in  a  crowded  place,  takes  away,  from  me  at 
least,  all  that  painful  sense  of  solitude  and  neglect 
one  feels  as  a  stranger  in  a  foreign  land. 

We  go  to  Ferrara  to-morrow,  and  thence  by  the  Po 
to  Venice      My  letter  must  close  for  the  present. 


LETTER  XXXI. 

VENICE — THE  FESTA — GONDOLIERS — WOMEN — AN  ITAL- 
IAN SUNSET — THE  LANDING — PRISONS  OF  THE  DU- 
CAL    PALACE — THE    CELLS    DESCRIBED    BY    BYRON 

APARTMENT  IN  WHICH  PRISONERS  WERE  STRANGLED 
— DUNGEONS  UNDER  THE  CANAL — SECRET  GUILLO- 
TINE— STATE  CRIMINALS — BRIDGE  OF  SIGHS — PAS- 
SAGE TO  THE  INQUISITION  AND  TO  DEATH — CHURCH 
OF  SAINT  MARC — A  NOBLEMAN  IN  POVERTY,  ETC., 
ETC. 

You  will  excuse  me  at  present  from  a  description  of 
Venice.  It  is  a  matter  not  to  be  hastily  undertaken. 
It  has  also  been  already  done  a  thousand  times  ;  and 
I  have  just  seen  a  beautiful  sketch  of  it  in  the  public 
prints  of  the  United  States.  I  proceed  with  my  let- 
ters. 

The  Venetian  festa  is  a  gay  affair,  as  you  mav  im- 
agine. If  not  so  beautiful  and  fanciful  as  the  revels 
by  moonlight,  it  was  more  satisfactory,  for  we  could 
see  and  be  seen,  those  important  circumstances  to 
one's  individual  share  in  the  amusement.  At  four 
o'clock  in  the  afternoon,  the  links  of  the  long  bridge 
of  boats  across  the  Gindecca  were  cut  away,  and  the 
broad  canal  left  clear  for  a  mile  up  and  down.  It  was 
covered  in  a  few  minutes  with  gondolas,  and  all  the 
gayety  and  fashion  of  Venice  fell  into  the  broad  prom- 
enade between  the  city  and  the  festal  island.  I  should 
think  five  hundred  were  quite  within  the  number  of 
gondolas.  You  can  scarcely  fancy  the  novelty  and 
agreeableness  of  this  singular  promenade.  It  was 
busy  work  for  the  eyes  to  the  right  and  left,  with  the 
great  proportion  of  beauty,  and  the  rapid  glide  of  their 
fairy-like  boats.  And  the  quietness  of  the  thing  was 
so  delightful — no  crowding,  no  dust,  no  noise  but  the 
dash  of  oars  and  the  ring  of  merry  voices  ;  and  we 
sat  so  luxuriously  upon  our  deep  cushions  the  while, 
thridding  the  busy  crowd  rapidly  and  silently,  without 
a  jar  or  touch  of  anything  but  the  yielding  element 
that  sustained  us. 

Two  boats  soon  appeared  with  wreaths  upon  their 
prows,  and  these  had  won  the  first  and  second  prizes 
at  the  last  year's  regatta.  The  private  gondolas  fell 
away  from  the  middle  of  the  canal,  and  left  them  free 
space  for  a  trial  of  their  speed.  They  were  the  most 
airy  things  I  ever  saw  afloat,  about  forty  feet  long,  and 
as  slender  and  light  as  they  could  well  be,  and  hold 
together.  Each  boat  had  six  oars,  and  the  crews 
stood  with  their  faces  to  the  beak  of  their  craft ; 
slight,  but  muscular  men,  and  with  a  skill  and  quick- 
ness at  their  oars  which  I  had  never  conceived.  I  re- 
alized the  truth  and  force  of  Cooper's  inimitable  de- 
scription of  the  race  in  the  Bravo.  The  whole  of  his 
book  gives  you  the  very  air  and  spirit  of  Venice,  and 
one  thanks  him  constantly  for  the  lively  interest  which 
he  has  thrown  over  everything  in  this  bewitching  city. 
The  races  of  the  rival  boats  to-day  were  not  a  regular 
part  of  the  festa,  and  were  not  regularly  contested. 
The  gondoliers  were  exhibiting  themselves  merely, 
and  the  people  soon  ceased  to  be  interested  in  them. 

We  rowed  up  and  down  till  dark,  following  here 
and  there  the  boats  whose  freights  attracted  us,  and 
exclaiming  every  moment  at  some  new  glimpse  of 
beauty.  There  is  really  a  surprising  proportion  of 
loveliness  in  Venice.  The  women  are  all  large,  prob- 
ably from  never  walking,  and  other  indolent  habits 
consequent  upon  want  of  exercise;  and  an  oriental  air, 
sleepy  and  passionate,  is  characteristic  of  the  whole 
race.  One  feels  that  be  has  come  among  an  entirely 
new  class  of  women,  and  hence,  probably,  the  far- 
famed  fascination  of  Venice  to  foreigners. 

The  sunset  happened  to  be  one  of  those  so  peculiar 
to  Italy,  and  which  are  richer  and  more  enchanting  in 
Venice  than  in  any  other  part  of  it,  from  the  charac- 


50 


PENCILLINGS  BY  THE  WAY. 


ter  of  its  scenery.  It  was  a  sunset  without  a  cloud  ; 
but  at  the  horizon  the  sky  was  died  of  a  deep  orange, 
which  softened  away  toward  the  zenith  almost  imper- 
ceptibly, the  whole  west  like  a  wall  of  burning  gold. 
The  mingled  softness  and  splendor  of  these  skies  is 
indescribable.  Everything  is  touched  with  the  same 
hue.  A  mild,  yellow  glow  is  all  over  the  canals  and 
buildings.  The  air  seems  filled  with  glittering  golden 
dust,  and  the  lines  of  the  architecture,  and  the  out- 
lines of  the  distant  islands,  and  the  whole  landscape 
about  you  is  mellowed  and  enriched  with  a  new  and 
glorious  light.  I  have  seen  one  or  two  such  sunsets 
in  America;  but  there  the  sunsets  are  bolder  and 
clearer,  and  with  much  more  sublimity — they  have 
rarely  the  voluptuous  coloring  of  those  in  Italy. 

It  was  delightful  to  glide  along  over  a  sea  of  light 
so  richly  teinted,  among  those  graceful  gondolas,  with 
their  freights  of  gayety  and  beauty.  As  the  glow  on 
the  sky  began  to  fade,  they  all  turned  their  prows  to- 
ward San  Marc,  and  dropping  into  a  slower  motion, 
the  whole  procession  moved  on  together  to  the  stairs 
of  the  piazzetta  ;  and  by  the  time  the  twilight  was  per- 
ceptible, the  cafes  were  crowded,  and  the  square  was 
like  one  great  fete.  We  passed  the  evening  in  wander- 
ing up  and  down,  never  for  an  instant  feeling  like  stran- 
gers, and  excited  and  amused  till  long  after  midnight. 

After  several  days  delay,  we  received  an  answer  this 
morning  from  the  authorities,  with  permission  to  see 
the  bridge  of  sighs,  and  the  prisons  of  the  ducal  palace. 
We  landed  at  the  broad  stairs,  and  passing  the  deso- 
late cotirt,  with  its  marble  pillars  and  statues  green 
with  damp  and  neglect,  ascended  the  "  giant's  steps," 
and  found  the  warder  waiting  for  us,  with  his  enor- 
mous keys,  at  the  door  of  a  private  passage.  At  the 
bottom  of  a  staircase  we  entered  a  close  gallery,  from 
which  the  first  range  of  cells  opened.  The  doors 
were  broken  down,  and  the  guide  holding  his  torch  in 
th^m  for  a  moment  in  passing,  showed  us  the  same 
dismal  interior  in  each — a  mere  cave,  in  which  you 
would  hardly  think  it  possible  to  breathe,  with  a  raised 
platform  for  a  bed,  and  a  small  hole  in  the  front  wall' 
to  admit  food  and  what  air  could  find  its  way  through 
from  the  narrow  passage.  There  were  eight  of  these ; 
and  descending  another  flight  of  damp  steps,  we  came 
to  a  second  range,  differing  only  from  the  first  in  their 
slimy  dampness.  These  are  the  cells  of  which  Lord 
Byron  gives  a  description  in  the  notes  to  the  fourth 
canto  of  Childe  Harold.  He  has  transcribed,  if  you 
remember,  the  inscription  from  the  ceilings  and  walls 
of  one  which  was  occupied  successively  by  the  victims 
of  the  inquisition.  The  letters  are  cut  rudely  enough, 
and  must  have  been  done  entirely  by  feeling,  as  there 
is  no  possibility  of  tho  penetration  of  a  ray  of  light. 
I  copied  them  with  some  difficulty,  forgetting  that 
they  were  in  print,  and  comparing  them  afterward 
with  my  copy  of  Childe  Harold,  I  found  them  exactly 
the  same,  and  I  refer  you,  therefore,  to  his  notes. 

In  a  range  ofcellsstill  below  these,  and  almost  suffoca- 
ting from  their  closeness,  one  was  shown  us  in  which 
prisoners  were  strangled.  The  rope  was  passed  through 
an  iron  grating  of  four  bars,  the  executioner  standing 
outside  the  cell.  The  prisoner  within  sat  upon  a 
stone,  with  his  back  to  the  grating,  and  the  cord  was 
passed  round  his  neck,  and  drawn  till  he  was  choked. 
The  wall  of  the  cell  was  covered  with  blood,  which 
had  spattered  against  it  with  some  violence.  The 
guide  explained  it  by  saying,  that  owing  to  the  nar- 
rowness of  the  passage  the  executioner  had  no  room 
to  draw  the  cord,  and  to  expedite  his  business  his  as- 
sistant at  the  same  time  plunged  a  dagger  into  the 
neck  of  the  victim.  The  blood  had  flowed  widely 
over  the  wall,  and  ran  to  the  floor  in  streams.  With 
the  darkness  of  the  place,  the  difficulty  I  found  in 
breathing,  and  the  frightful  reality  of  the  scenes  before 
me,  I  never  had  in  my  life  a  comparable  sensation  of 
horror. 


At  the  end  of  the  passage  a  door  was  walled  up.  It 
led  in  the  times  of  the  republic,  to  dungeons  under  the 
canal,  in  which  the  prisoner  died  in  eight  days  from 
his  incarceration  at  the  farthest,  from  the  noisome 
dampness  and  unwholesome  vapors  of  the  place.  The 
guide  gave  us  a  harrowing  description  of  the  swelling 
of  their  bodies,  and  the  various  agonies  of  their  slow 
death.  I  hurried  away  from  the  place  with  a  sickness 
at  my  heart.  In  returning  by  the  same  way  I  passed 
the  turning,  and  stumbled  over  a  raised  stone  across 
the  passage.  It  was  the  groove  of  a  secret  guillotine. 
Here  many  of  the  state  and  inquisition  victims  were 
put  to  death  in  the  darkness  of  a  narrow  passage,  shut 
out  even  in  their  last  moment  from  the  light  and 
breath  of  heaven.  The  frame  of  the  instrument  had 
been  taken  away  ;  but  the  pits  in  the  wall,  which  had 
sustained  the  axe,  were  still  there  ;  and  the  sink  on 
the  other  side,  where  the  head  fell,  to  carry  off  the 
blood.  And  these  shocking  executions  took  place  di- 
rectly before  the  cells  of  the  other  prisoners,  within 
twenty  feet  from  the  farthest.  In  a  cell  close  to  this 
guillotine  had  been  confined  a  state  criminal  for  six- 
teen years.  He  was  released  at  last  by  the  arrival  of 
the  French,  and  on  coming  to  the  light  in  the  square 
of  San  Marc  was  struck  blind,  and  died  into  a  few  days. 
In  another  cell  we  stopped  to  look  at  the  attempts  of 
a  prisoner  upon  its  walls,  interrupted,  happily,  by  his 
release.  He  had  sawed  several  inches  into  the  front 
wall,  with  some  miserable  instrument,  probably  a  nail. 
He  had  afterward  abandoned  this,  and  had,  with  pro- 
digious strength,  taken  up  a  block  from  the  floor; 
and,  the  guide  assured  us,  had  descended  into  the  cell 
below.  It  was  curious  to  look  around  his  pent  prison, 
and  see  the  patient  labor  of  years  upon  those  rough 
walls,  and  imagine  the  workings  of  the  human  mind  in 
such  a  miserable  lapse  of  existence. 

We  ascended  to  the  light  again,  and  the  guide  led  us 
to  a  massive  door,  with  two  locks,  secured  by  heavy 
iron  bars.  It  swung  open  with  a  scream,  and  we 
mounted  a  winding  stair,  and 

"  Stood  in  Venice  on  the  bridge  of  sighs." 

Two  windows  of  close  grating  looked  on  either  side 
upon  the  long  canal  below,  and  let  in  the  only  light 
to  the  covered  passage.  It  is  a  gloomy  place  within, 
beautifully  as  its  light  arch  hangs  in  the  air  from  with- 
out. It  was  easy  to  employ  the  imagination  as  we 
stood  on  the  stone  where  Childe  Harold  had  stood  be- 
fore us,  and  conjured  up  in  fancy  the  despair  and  ag- 
ony that  must  have  been  pressed  into  the  last  glance 
at  light  and  life  that  had  been  sent  through  those  bar- 
red windows.  Across  this  bridge  the  condemned  were 
brought  to  receive  their  sentence  in  the  chamber  of 
the  ten,  or  to  be  confronted  with  bloody  inquisitors, 
and  then  were  led  back  over  it  to  die.  The  last  light 
that  ever  gladdened  their  eyes  came  through  those 
close  bars,  and  the  gay  Gindecca  in  the  distance,  with 
its  lively  waters  covered  with  boats,  must  have  made 
that  farewell  glance  to  a  Venetian  bitter  indeed.  The 
side  next  the  prison  is  now  massively  walled  up.  We 
stayed,  silently  musing  at  the  windows,  till  the  old  cice- 
rone ventured  to  remind  us  that  his  time  was  precious. 

Ordering  the  gondola  round  to  the  stairs  of  the 
piazzetta.  we  strolled  for  the  first  time  into  the  church 
of  San  Marc.  The  four  famous  bronze  horses  stood 
with  their  dilated  nostrils  and  fine  action  over  the 
porch,  bringing  back  to  us  Andrea  Doria,  and  his 
threat ;  and  as  I  remembered  the  ruined  palace  of  the 
old  admiral  at  Genoa,  and  glanced  at  the  Austrian  sol- 
dier upon  guard,  in  the  very  shadow  of  the  winged 
lion,  I  could  not  but  feel  most  impressively  the  moral 
of  the  contrast.  The  lesson  was  not  attractive  enough, 
however,  to  keep  us  in  a  burning  sun,  and  we  put 
aside  the  heavy  folds  of  the  drapery  and  entered. 
How  deliciously  cool  are  these  churches  in  Italy! 
We  walked  slowly  up  toward  the  distant  altar.     An 


PENCILLINGS  BY  THE  WAY. 


M 


old  man  rose  from  the  base  of  one  of  the  pillars,  and 
put  out  his  hand  for  charity.  It  is  an  incident  that 
meets  one  at  every  step,  and  with  half  a  glance  at  his 
face  I  passed  on.  1  was  looking  at  the  rich  mosaic  on 
the  roof,  but  his  features  lingered  in  my  mind.  They 
grew  upon  me  still  more  strongly  ;  and  as  I  became 
aware  of  the  full  expression  of  misery  and  pride  upon 
them,  I  turned  about  to  see  what  had  become  of  him. 
My  two  friends  had  done  each  the  very  same  thing, 
with  the  same  feeling  of  regret,  and  were  talking  of 
the  old  man  when  I  came  back  to  them.  We  went 
to  the  door,  and  looked  all  about  the  square,  but  he 
was  nowhere  to  be  seen.  It  is  singular  that  he  should 
have  made  the  same  impression  upon  all  of  us,  of  an 
old  Venetian  nobleman  in  poverty.  Slight  as  my 
glance  was,  the  noble  expression  of  sadness  about  his 
fine  white  head  and  strong  features,  are  still  indelible 
in  my  memory.  The  prophecy  which  Byron  puts  in- 
to  the  mouth  of  the  condemned  doge,  is  still  true  in  J 
every  particular: — 

"  When  the  Hebrew's  in  thy  palaces, 

The  Hun  in  thy  high  places,  and  the  (ireek 
Walks  o'er  thy  mart,  and  smiles  on  it  for  his ; 
When  thy  patricians  beg  their  bitter  bread,"  &c. 

The  church  of  San  Marc  is  rich  to  excess,  and  its 
splendid  mosaic  pavement  is  sunk  into  deep  pits  with  j 
age  and  the  yielding  foundations  on  which   its  heavy  I 
pile  is  built.     Its  pictures  are  not  so  fine  as  those  of  j 
the  other  churches  of  Venice,  but  its  age  and  historic 
associations  make  it  by  far  the  most  interesting. 


LETTER  XXXII. 

VENICE SCENES    BY  MOONLIGHT THE  CANALS — THE 

ARMENIAN     ISLAND THE    ISLAND     OF     THE     INSANE 

IMPROVEMENTS      MADE     BY      NAPOLEON SHADKD 

WALKS — PAVILION     AND     ARTIFICIAL     HILL ANT  I-  j 

DOTES    TO     SADNESS PARTIES     ON     THE     CANALS 

NARROW    STREETS     AND      SMALL    BRIDGES THE    RI- 

ALTO MERCHANTS  AND  IDLERS SHELL-WORK  AND 

JEWELRY POETRY    AND    HISTORY — GENERAL    VIEW 

OF  THE  CITY THE  FRIULI  MOUNTAINS THE  SHORE 

OF    ITALY A  SILENT    PANORAMA THE  ADRIATIC 

PROMENADERS    AND    SITTERS,  ETC. 

We  stepped  into  the  gondola  to-night  as  the  shad- 
ows of  the  moon  began  to  be  perceptible,  with  orders 
to  Giuseppe  to  take  us  where  he  would.  Abroad  in  a 
summer's  moonlight  in  Venice,  is  a  line  that  might  nev- 
er be  written  but  as  the  scene  of  a  play.  You  can  not 
miss  pleasure.  If  it  were  only  the  tracking  silently 
and  swiftly  the  bosom  of  the  broader  canals,  lying 
asleep  like  streets  of  molten  silver  between  the  marble 
palaces,  or  shooting  into  the  dark  shadows  of  the  nar- 
rower, with  the  black  spirit-like  gondolas  gliding  past, 
or  lying  in  the  shelter  of  a  low  and  not  unoccupied 
balcony ;  or  did  you  but  loiter  on  in  search  of  music, 
\y\nz  unperceived  beneath  the  windows  of  a  palace, 
and  listening,  half  asleep,  to  the  sound  of  the  guitar 
and  the  song  of  the  invisible  player  within  ;  this,  with 
the  strange  beauty  of  every  building  about  you,  and 
the  loveliness  of  the  magic  lights  and  shadows,  were 
enough  to  make  a  night  of  pleasure,  even  were  no 
charm  of  personal  adventure  to  be  added  to  the  enu- 
meration. 

We  glided  along  under  the  Rialto,  talking  of  Belvi- 
dera,  and  Othello,  and  Shylock,  and,  entering  a  cross 
canal,  cut  the  arched  shadow  of  the  bridge  of  sighs,  I 
hanging  like  a  cobweb  in  the  air,  and  shot  in  a  mo- 
ment forth  to  the  full,  ample,  moonlit  bosom  of  the 
Gindecca.  This  is  the  canal  that  makes  the  harbor 
and  washes  the  stairs  of  San  Marc.  The  Lido  lay 
off  at  a  mile's  distance  across  the  water,  and,  with  the  j 
moon  riding  over  it,  the  bay  between  as  still  as  the  sky  I 


above,  and  brighter,  it  looked  like  a  long  cloud  pencil- 
led like  a  landscape  in  the  heavens.  To  the  right  lay 
the  Armenian  island,  which  Lord  Byron  visited  so  oft- 
en, to  study  with  the  fathers  at  the  convent;  and,  a 
little  nearer  the  island  of  the  Insane — spite  of  its  mis- 
ery, asleep,  with  a  most  heavenly  calmness  on  the  sea. 
You  remember  the  touching  story  of  the  crazed  girl, 
who  was  sent  here  with  a  broken  heart,  described  as 
putting  her  hand  through  the  grating  at  the  dash  of 
every  passing  gondola,  with  her  unvarying  and  affect- 
ing "  Venite per  me  ?      Vcnite  per  me  ?" 

At  a  corner  of  the  harbor,  some  three  quarters  of  a 
mile  from  San  Marc,  lies  an  island  once  occupied  by 
a  convent.  Napoleon  raised  the  buildings,  and  con- 
necting it  with  the  town  by  a  new,  handsome  street 
and  a  bridge,  laid  out  the  ground  as  a  public  garden. 
We  debarked  at  the  stairs,  and  passed  an  hour  in  strol- 
ling through  shaded  walks,  filled  with  the  gay  Vene- 
tians, who  come  to  enjoy  here  what  they  find  nowhere 
else,  the  smell  of  grass  and  green  leaves.  There  is  a 
pavilion  upon  an  artificial  hill  in  the  centre,  where  the 
best  lemonades  and  ices  of  Venice  are  to  be  found ; 
and  it  was  surrounded  to-night  by  merry  groups,  amu- 
sing themselves  with  all  the  heart-cheering  gayety  of 
this  delightful  people.  The  very  sight  of  them  is  an 
antidote  to  sadness. 

In  returning  to  San  Marc  a  large  gondola  crossed 
us,  filled  with  ladies  and  gentlemen,  and  followed  by 
another  with  a  band  of  music.  This  is  a  common 
mode  of  making  a  party  on  the  canals,  and  a  more 
agreeable  one  never  was  imagined.  We  ordered  the 
gondolier  to  follow  at  a  certain  distance,  and  spent  an 
hour  or  two  just  keeping  within  the  softened  sound  of 
the  instruments.  How  romantic  are  the  veriest  every- 
day occurrences  of  this  enchanting  city. 

We  have  strolled  to-day  through  most  of  the  nar- 
row streets  between  the  Rialto  "and  the  San  Marc. 
They  are,  more  properly,  alleys.  You  wind  through 
them  at  sharp  angles,  turning  constantly,  from  the  in- 
terruption of  the  canals,  and  crossing  the  small  bridges 
at  every  twenty  yards.  They  are  dark  and  cool ;  and 
no  hoof  of  any  description  ever  passing  through  them, 
the  marble  flags  are  always  smooth  and  clean  ;  and 
with  the  singular  silence,  only  broken  by  the  shuffling 
of  feet,  they  are  pleasant  places  to  loiter  in  at  noon- 
day, when  the  canals  are  sunny. 

We  spent  a  half  hour  on  the  Rialto.  This  is  the 
only  bridge  across  the  grand  canal,  and  connects  the 
two  main  parts  of  the  city.  It  is,  as  you  see  by  en- 
gravings, a  noble  span  of  a  single  arch,  built  of  pure 
white  marble.  You  pass  it,  ascending  the  arch  by  a 
long  flight  of  steps  to  the  apex,  and  descending  again 
to  the  opposite  side.  It  is  very  broad,  the  centre 
forming  a  street,  with  shops  on  each  side,  with  alleys 
outside  these,  next  the  parapet,  usually  occupied  by 
idlers  or  merchants,  probably  very  much  as  in  the 
time  of  Shylock.  Here  are  exposed  the  cases  of 
shell-work  and  jewelry  for  which  Venice  is  famous. 
The  variety  and  cheapness  of  these  articles  are  surpri- 
sing. The  Rialto  has  always  been  to  me,  as  it  is  prob- 
ably to  most  others,  quite  the  core  of  romantic  local- 
ity. I  stopped  on  the  upper  stair  of  the  arch,  and 
passed  my  hand  across  my  eyes  to  recall  my  idea  of  it, 
and  realize  that  1  was  there.  One  is  disappointed, 
spite  of  all  the  common  sense  in  the  world,  not  to 
meot  Shylock  and  Antonio  and  Pierre. 

"  Shylock  and  the  Moor 
And  Pierre  can  not  be  swept  or  worn  away," 

says  Childe  Harold  ;  and  that,  indeed,  is  the  feeling 
everywhere  in  these  romantic  countries.  You  can 
not  separate  them  from  the  characters  with  which  po- 
etry or  history  once  peopled  them. 

At  sunset  we  mounted  into  the  tower  of  San  Marc, 
to  get  a  general  view  of  the  city.     The   gold-duat  at- 


52 


PENCILLINGS  BY  THE  WAY. 


mosphere,  so  common  in  Italy  at  this  hour,  was  all 
over  the  broad  lagunes  and  the  far  stretching  city  ; 
and  she  lay  beneath  us,  in  the  midst  of  a  sea  of  light, 
an  island  far  out  into  the  ocean,  crowned  with  towers 
and  churches,  and  heaped  up  with  all  the  splendors  of 
architecture.  The  Friuli  mountains  rose  in  the  north 
with  the  deep  blue  dies  of  distance,  breaking  up  the 
else  level  horizon  ;  the  shore  of  Italy  lay  like  a  low 
line-cloud  in  the  west;  the  spot  where  the  Brenta 
empties  into  the  sea  glowing  in  the  blaze  of  the  sun- 
set. About  us  lay  the  smaller  islands,  the  suburbs  of 
the  sea-city,  and  all  among  them,  and  up  and  down 
the  Gindecca,  and  away  off  in  the  lagunes  were  sprin- 
kled the  thousand  gondolas,  meeting  and  crossing  in 
one  continued  and  silent  panorama.  The  Lido,  with 
its  long  wall  hemmed  in  the  bay,  and  beyond  this  lay 
the  wide  Adriatic.  The  floor  of  San  Marc's  vast 
square  was  beneath,  dotted  over  its  many-colored  mar- 
bles with  promenaders,  its  cafts  swarmed  by  the  sit- 
ters outside,  and  its  long  arcades  thronged.  One  of 
my  pleasantest  hours  in  Venice  was  passed  here. 


LETTER  XXXIII. 

palaces — palazzo  grimani — old  statuary — male 
and  female  cherubs — the  bath  of  cleofatra 
— titian's  palace — unfinished  picture  of  the 
great  master — his  magdalen  and  bust — his 
daughter  in  the  arms  of  a  satyr — beautiful 
female  heads — the  churches  of  venice — buri- 
al-places of  the  doges — tomb  of  canova — de- 
parture for  verona,  etc. 

We  have  passed  a  day  in  visiting  palaces.  There 
are  some  eight  or  ten  in  Venice,  whose  galleries  are 
still  splendid.  We  landed  first  at  the  stairs  of  the 
Palazzo  Grimani,  and  were  received  by  an  old  family 
servant,  who  sat  leaning  on  his  knees,  and  gazing  idly 
into  the  canal.  The  court  and  staircase  were  orna- 
mented with  statuary,  that  had  not  been  moved  for 
centuries.  In  the  ante-room  was  a  fresco  painting  by 
Georgione,  in  which  there  were  two  female  cherubs, 
the  first  of  that  sex  I  ever  saw  represented.  They 
were  beautifully  contrasted  with  the  two  male  cherubs, 
who  completed  the  picture,  and  reminded  me  strongly 
of  Greenough's  group  in  sculpture.  After  examining 
several  rooms,  tapestried  and  furnished  in  such  a  style 
as  befitted  the  palace  of  a  Venetian  noble,  when  Ven- 
ice was  in  her  glory,  we  passed  on  to  the  gallery.  The 
best  picture  in  the  first  room  was  a  large  one  by  Cigoli, 
the  bath  of  Cleopatra.  The  four  attendants  of  the 
fair  Egyptian  are  about  her,  and  one  is  bathing  her 
feet  from  a  rich  vase.  Her  figure  is  rather  a  voluptu- 
ous one,  and  her  head  is  turned,  but  without  alarm, 
to  Antony,  who  is  just  putting  aside  the  curtain  and 
entering  the  room.  It  is  a  piece  of  fine  coloring, 
rather  of  the  Titian  school,  and  one  of  the  few  good 
pictures  left  by  the  English,  who  have  bought  up  al- 
most all  the  private  galleries  of  Venice. 

We  slopped  next  at  the  stairs  of  the  noble  old  Bar- 
bcrigo  Palace,  in  which  Titian  lived  and  died.  We 
mounted  the  decaying  staircases,  imagining  the  choice 
spirits  of  the  great  painter's  time,  who  had  trodden 
them  before  us,  and  (as  it  was  for  ages  the  dwelling  of 
one  of  the  proudest  races  of  Venice)  the  beauty  and 
rank  that  had  swept  up  and  down  those  worn  slabs  of 
marble  on  nights  of  revel,  in  the  days  when  Venice 
was  a  paradise  of  splendid  pleasure.  How  thickly 
come  romantic  fancies  in  such  a  place  as  this.  We 
passed  through  halls  hung  with  neglected  pictures  to 
an  inner  room,  occupied  only  with  those  of  Titian. 
Here  he  painted,  and  here  is  a  picture  half-finished, 
as  he  left  it  when  he  died.  His  famous  Magdalen, 
hangs  on  the  wall,  covered  with  dirt ;  and  so,  indeed, 


is  everything  in  the  palace.  The  neglect  is  melancholy. 
On  a  marble  table  stood  a  plaster  bust  of  Titian, 
moulded  by  himself  in  his  old  age.  It  is  a  most  no- 
ble head,  and  it  is  difficult  to  look  at  it  and  believe  hs 
could  have  painted  a  picture  which  hangs  just  against 
it — his  own  daughter  in  the  arms  of  a  satyr.  There 
is  an  engraving  from  it  in  one  of  the  souvenirs ;  but 
instead  of  the  satyr's  head,  she  holds  a  casket  in  her 
hands,  which,  though  it  does  not  sufficiently  account 
for  the  delight  of  her  countenance,  is  an  improvement 
upon  the  original.  Here,  too,  are  several  slight 
sketches  of  female  heads,  by  the  same  master.  Oh 
how  beautiful  they  are!  There  is  one,  less  than  the 
size  of  life,  which  I  would  rather  have  than  his  Mag- 
dalen. 

I  have  spent  my  last  day  in  Venice  in  visiting 
churches.  Their  splendor  makes  the  eye  ache  and 
the  imagination  weary.  You  would  think  the  surplus 
wealth  of  half  the  empires  of  the  world  would  scaice 
suffice  to  fill  them  as  they  are.  I  can  give  you  no 
descriptions.  The  gorgeous  tombs  of  the  doges  are 
interesting,  and  the  plana  black  monument  over^ Mari- 
no Faliero  made  me  linger.  Canova's  tomb  is  splen- 
did ;  and  the  simple  slab  under  your  feet  in  the  church 
of  the  Frari,  where  Titian  lies  with  his  brief  epitaph, 
is  affecting — but,  though  I  shall  remember  all  the se, 
the  simplest  as  well  as  the  grandest,  a  description 
would  be  wearisome  to  all  who  had  not  seen  them. 
This  evening  at  sunset  I  start  in  the  post-boat  for  the 
mainland,  on  my  way  to  the  place  of  Juliet's  tomb — 
Verona.  My  friends,  the  painters,  are  so  attracted 
with  the  galleries  here  that  they  remain  to  copy,  and 
I  go  back  alone.  Take  a  short  letter  from  me  this 
time,  and  expect  to  hear  from  me  by  the  next  earliest 
opportunity,  and  more  at  length.     A.dieu. 


LETTER  XXXIV. 

DEPARTURE  FROM  VENICE A  SUNSET    SCENE — PADUA 

SPLENDID   HOTEL MANNERS  OF  THE  COUNTRY 

VICENZA MIDNIGHT LADY      RETURNING     FROM     A 

PARTY VERONA JULIET'S     TOMB THE    TOMB    OF 

THE    CAPULETS THE    TOMBS    OF    THE    SCALIGKRS 

TWO    GENTLEMEN  OF  VERONA A  WALKING  CHRON- 
ICLE  PALACE      OF      THE      CAPULETS ONLY      COOL 

PLACE    IN     AN     ITALIAN    CITY BANQUETING     HALL 

OF    THE    CAPULETS FACTS    AND    FICTION,  ETC. 

We  pushed  from  the  post-office  stairs  in  a  gondola 
with  six  oars  at  sunset.  It  was  melancholy  to  leave 
Venice.  A  hasty  farewell  look,  as  we  sped  down  the 
grand  canal,  at  the  gorgeous  palaces,  even  less  famous 
than  beautiful — a  glance  at  the  disappearing  Rialto, 
and  we  shot  out  into  the  Gindecca  in  ablaze  of  sunset 
glory.  Oh  how  magnificently  looked  Venice  in  that 
light — rising  behind  us  from  the  sea — all  her  superb 
towers  and  palaces,  turrets  and  spires  fused  into  gold 
and  the  waters  about  her,  like  a  mirror  of  stained 
glass,  without  a  ripple ! 

An  hour  and  a  half  of  hard  rowing  brought  us  to 
the  nearest  land.  You  should  go  to  Venice  to  know 
how  like  a  dream  a  reality  may  be.  You  will  find  it 
difficult  to  realize  when  you  smell  once  more  the 
fresh  earth  and  grass  and  flowers,  and  walk  about  and 
see  fields  and  mountains,  that  this  city  upon  the  sea 
exists  out  of  the  imagination.  You  float  to  it  anc 
about  it  and  from  it,  in  their  light  craft,  so  aerially, 
that  it  seems  a  vision. 

With  a  drive  of  two  or  three  hours,  half  twilight 
half  moonlight,  we  entered  Padua.  It  was  too  late  tc 
see  the  portrait  of  Petrarch,  and  I  had  not  time  to  gc 
to  his  tomb  at  Argua,  twelve  miles  distant,  so,  musing 
on  Livy  and  Galileo,  to  both  of  whom   Padua  was 


PEXCILLINGS  BY  THE  WAY. 


53 


home,  I  inquired  for  a  cafe.  A  new  one  had  lately 
been  built  in  the  centre  of  the  town,  quite  the  largest 
and  most  thronged  I  ever  saw.  Eight  or  ten  large, 
high-roofed  halls  were  open,  and  filled  with  tables,  at 
which  sat  more  beauty  and  fashion  than  I  supposed 
all  Padua  could  have  mustered.  I  walked  through 
»ne  after  another,  without  finding  a  seat,  and  was 
ibout  turning  to  go  out,  and  seek  a  place  of  less  pre- 
tension, when  an  elderly  lady,  who  sat  with  a  party  of 
*even,  eating  ices,  rose,  with  Italian  courtesy,  and  of- 
fered ine  a  chair  at  their  table.  I  accepted  it,  and 
made  the  acquaintance  of  eight  as  agreeable  and  pol- 
ished people  as  it  has  been  my  fortune  to  meet.  We 
parted  as  if  we  had  known  each  other  as  many  weeks 
is  minutes.  I  mention  it  as  an  instance  of  the  man- 
ners of  the  country. 

Three  hours  more,  through  spicy  fields  and  on  a 
road  lined  with  the  country-houses  of  the  Venetian 
oobles,  brought  us  to  Vicenza.  It  was  past  midnight, 
ind  not  a  soul  stirring  in  the  bright  moonlight  streets. 
1  remember  it  as  a  kind  of  city  of  the  dead.  As  we 
passed  out  of  the  opposite  gate,  we  detained  for  a  mo- 
ment a  carriage,  with  servants  in  splendid  liveries,  and 
i»  lady  inside  returning  from  a  party  in  full  dress.  I 
Kaiely  have  seen  so  beautiful  a  head.  The  lamps 
shore  strongly  on  a  broad  pearl  fillet  on  her  forehead, 
aud  lighted  up  features  such  as  we  do  not  often  meet 
evci>  iu  Italy.  A  gentleman  leaned  back  in  the  corner 
of  tiro  carriage,  fast  asleep — probably  her  husband! 

I  tiv.  Wasted  at  Verona  at  seven.  A  humpbacked 
cicerone  there  took  me  to  "  Juliet's  tomb."  A  very 
high  w*\f,  green  with  age,  surrounds  what  was  once  a 
cemetcn,  just  outside  the  city.  An  old  woman  an- 
swered iht  bell  at  the  dilapidated  gate,  and,  without 
6aying  a  wt>id,  pointed  to  an  empty  granite  sarcopha- 
gus, raised  '.«pon  a  rude  pile  of  stones.  "  Questa?" 
asked  I,  wi.h  a  doubtful  look.  "  Questa,"  said  the 
old  woman.  "  Questa  !"  said  the  hunchback.  And 
here,  I  was  V.I  believe,  lay  the  gentle  Juliet !  There 
was  a  raised  \  lace  in  the  sarcophagus,  with  a  hollow- 
ed socket  for  the  head,  and  it  was  about  the  measure 
for  a  woman  !  I  ran  my  fingers  through  the  cavity, 
and  tried  to  imagine  the  dark  curls  that  covered  the 
hand  of  Father  Lawrence  as  he  laid  her  down  in  the 
trance,  and  fitted  her  beautiful  head  softly  to  the 
place.  But  where  was  "  the  tomb  of  the  Capulets?" 
The  beldame  took  me  through  a  cabbage-garden,  and 
drove  otl*  a  donkey  who  was  feeding  on  an  artichoke 
that  grew  on  the  very  spot.  "  Ecco  !"  said  she,  point- 
ing to  one  of  the  slightly  sunken  spots  on  the  surface. 
I  deferred  my  belief,  and  paying  an  extra  paul  for  the 
privilege  of  chipping  off  a  fragment  of  the  sto  e  cof- 
fin, followed  the  cicerone. 

The  tombs  of  the  Scaligers  were  more  authentic. 
They  stand  in  the  centre  of  the  town,  with  a  highly 
ornamental  railing  about  them,  and  are  a  perfect  mock- 
ery of  death  with  their  splendor.  If  the  poets  and 
scholars  whom  these  petty  princes  drew  to  their  court 
had  been  buried  in  these  airy  tombs  beside  them,  one 
would  look  at  them  with  some  interest.  Now,  one 
asks,  "  who  were  the  Scaligers,  that  their  bodies 
should  be  lifted  high  in  air  in  the  midst  of  a  city, 
and  kept  for  ages,  in  marble  and  precious  stones?" 
With  less  ostentation,  however,  it  were  pleasant  to  be 
so  disposed  of  after  death,  lifted  thus  into  the  sun,  and 
in  sight  of  moving  and  living  creatures. 

I  inquired  for  the  old  palace  of  the  Capulets.  The 
cicerone  knew  nothing  about  it,  and  I  dismissed  her 
and  went  into  a  cafe.  "  Two  gentlemen  of  Verona" 
sat  on  different  sides  ;  one  reading,  the  other  asleep, 
with  his  chin  on  his  cane — an  old,  white-headed  man, 
of  about  seventy.  I  sat  down  near  the  old  gentleman, 
and  by  the  time  I  had  eaten  my  ice,  he  awoke.  I  ad- 
dressed him  in  Italian,  which  I  speak  indifferently; 
but,  stumbling  for  a  word,  he  politely  helped  me  out 


in  French,  and  I  went  on  in  that  language  with  my  in- 
quiries. He  was  the  very  man — a  walking  chronicle 
of  Verona.  He  took  up  his  hat  and  cane  to  conduct 
me  to  casa  Capuletli,  and  on  the  way  told  me  the  true 
history,  as  I  had  heard  it  before,  which  differs  but  lit- 
tle, as  you  know,  from  Shakspere's  version.  The 
whole  story  is  in  the  annuals. 

After  a  half  hour's  walk  among  the  handsomer,  and 
more  modern  parts  of  the  city,  we  stopped  opposite  a 
house  of  an  antique  construction,  but  newly  stuccoed 
and  painted.  A  wheelwright  occupied  the  lower  sto- 
ry, and  by  the  sign,  the  upper  part  was  used  as  a  tav- 
ern. "  Impossible  !"  said  I,  as  I  looked  at  the  fresh 
front  and  the  staring  sign.  The  old  gentleman  smiled, 
and  kept  his  cane  pointed  at  it  in  silence.  "  It  is  well 
authenticated,"  said  he,  after  enjoying  my  astonish- 
ment a  minute  or  two,  and  the  interior  still  bears 
marks  of  a  palace.  We  went  in  and  mounted  the 
dirty  staircase  to  a  large  hall  on  the  second  floor.  The 
frescoes  and  cornices  had  not  been  touched,  and,  1  in- 
vited my  kind  old  friend  to  an  early  dinner  on  the  spot. 
He  accepted,  and  we  went  back  to  the  cathedral,  and 
sat  an  hour  in  the  only  cool  place  in  an  Italian  city. 
The  best  dinner  the  house  could  afford  was  ready 
when  we  returned,  and  a  pleasanter  one  it  has  never 
been  my  fortune  to  sit  down  to ;  though,  for  the  meats, 
I  have  eaten  better.  That  I  relished  an  hour  in  the 
very  hall  where  the  masque  must  have  been  held,  to 
which  Romeo  ventured  in  the  house  of  his  enemy,  to 
see  the  fair  Juliet,  you  may  easily  believe.  The  wine 
was  not  so  bad  either  that  my  imagination  did  not 
warm  all  fiction  into  fact  ;  and  another  time,  perhaps,  I 
may  describe  my  old  friend  and  the  dinner  more  par- 
ticularly. 


LETTER  XXXV. 

ANOTHER  SHORT  LETTER — DEPARTURE  FROM  VERONA 

MANTUA FLEAS MODENA TASSONl's   BUCKET A 

MAN    GOING   TO  EXECUTION — THE  DUKE  OF  MODENA — 

BOLOGNA AUSTRIAN    OFFICERS THE    APFENINES 

MOONLIGHT   ON    THE    MOUNTAINS  — ENGLISH    BRIDAL 
PARTY — PICTURESQUE   SUPPER,   ETC. 

I  left  Verona  with  the  courier  at  sunset,  and  was 
at  Mantua  in  a  few  hours.  I  went  to  bed  in  a  dirty 
hotel,  the  best  in  the  place,  and  awoke,  bitten  at  every 
pore  by  fleas — the  first  I  have  encountered  in  Italy, 
strange  as  it  may  seem,  in  a  country  that  swarms  with 
them.  For  the  next  twenty-four  hours  I  was  in  such 
positive  pain  that  my  interest  in  »  Virgil's  birthplace" 
quite  evaporated.  I  hired  a  caleche,  and  travelled  all 
night  to  Modena. 

I  liked  the  town  as  I  drove  in,  and  after  sleeping  an 
hour  or  two,  I  went  out  in  search  of  "  Tassoni's  buck- 
et" (which  Rogers  says  is  not  the  true  one),  and  the 
picture  of  "  Ginevra."  The  first  thing  I  met  was  a 
man  going  to  execution.  He  was  a  tall,  exceedingly 
handsome  man  ;  and,  I  thought,  a  marked  gentleman, 
even  in  his  fetters.  He  was  one  of  the  body-guard  of 
the  duke,  and  had  joined  a  conspiracy  against  him,  in 
which  he  had  taken  the  first  step  by  firing  at  him 
from  a  window  as  he  passed.  I  saw  him  guillotined, 
but  I  will  spare  you  the  description.  The  duke  is  tho 
worst  tyrant  in  Italy,  it  is  well  known,  and  has  been 
fired  at  eighteen  times  in  the  streets.  So  said  the 
cicerone,  who  added,  that  "  the  d — 1  took  care  of  his 
own."  After  many  fruitless  inquiries,  I  could  find 
nothing  of  "the  picture,"  and  I  took  my  place  for 
Bologna  in  the  afternoon. 

I  was  at  Bologna  at  ten  the  next  morning.  As  I 
felt  rather  indisposed,  I  retained  my  seat  with  the 
courier  for  Florence  ;  and,  hungry  with  travel  and  a 
long  fast,  went  into  a  restaurant,  to  make  the  best  use 


54 


PENCILLINGS  BY  THE  WAY. 


of  the  hour  given  me  for  refreshment.  A  party  of 
Austrian  officers  sat  at  one  end  of  the  only  table, 
breakfasting  ;  and  here  I  experienced  the  first  rude- 
ness I  have  seen  in  Europe.  I  mention  it  to  show  its 
rarity,  and  the  manner  in  which,  even  among  military 
men,  a  quarrel  is  guarded  against  or  prevented.  A 
young  man,  who  seemed  the  wit  of  the  party,  chose  to 
make  comments  from  time  to  time  on  the  solidity  of 
what  he  considered  my  breakfast.  These  became  at 
last  so  pointed,  that  I  was  compelled  to  rise  and  de- 
mand an  apology.  With  one  voice,  all  except  the 
offender,  immediately  sided  with  me,  and  insisted  on 
the  justice  of  the  demand,  with  so  many  apologies  of 
their  own,  that  I  regretted  noticing  the  thing  at  all. 
The  young  man  rose,  after  a  minute,  and  offered  me 
his  hand  in  the  frankest  manner  ;  and  then  calling  for 
a  fresh  bottle,  they  drank  wine  with  me,  and  I  went 
back  to  my  breakfast.  In  America,  such  an  incident 
would  have  ended,  nine  times  out  often,  in  a  duel. 

The  two  mounted  gens  d'armes,  who  usually  attend 
the  courier  at  night,  joined  us  as  we  began  to  ascend 
the  Appenines.  We  stopped  at  eleven  to  sup  on  the 
highest  mountain  between  Bologna  and  Florence,  and 
I  was  glad  to  get  to  the  kitchen  fire,  the  clear  moon- 
light was  so  cold.  Chickens  were  turning  on  the  long 
spit,  and  sounds  of  high  merriment  came  from  the 
rooms  above.  A  bridal  party  of  English  had  just  ar- 
rived, and  every  chamber  and  article  of  provision  was 
engaged.  They  had  nothing  to  give  us.  A  compli- 
ment to  the  hostess  and  a  bribe  to  the  cook  had  their 
usual  effect,  however ;  and  as  one  of  the  dragoons  had 
ridden  back  a  mile  or  two  for  my  travelling  cap,  which 
had  dropped  off  while  I  was  asleep,  T  invited  them  both, 
with  the  courier,  to  share  my  bribed  supper.  The 
cloth  was  spread  right  before  the  fire,  on  the  same 
table  with  all  the  cook's  paraphernalia,  and  a  merry 
and  picturesque  supper  we  had  of  it.  The  roujrh  Tus- 
can flasks  of  wine  and  Etruscan  pitchers,  the  brazen 
helmets  formed  on  the  finest  models  of  the  antique, 
the  long  mustaches,  and  dark  Italian  eyes  of  the 
men,  all  in  the  bright  light  of  a  blazing  fire,  made  a 
picture  that  Salvator  Hosa  would  have  relished.  We 
had  time  for  a  hasty  song  or  two  after  the  dishes  were 
cleared,  and  then  went  gayly  on  our  way  to  Florence. 

Excuse  the  brevity  of  this  epistle,  but  I  must  stop 
here,  or  lose  the  opportunity  of  sending.  If  my  let- 
ters do  not  reach  you  with  the  utmost  regularity,  it  is 
no  fault  of  mine.  You  can  not  imagine  the  difficulty 
I  frequently  experience  in  getting  a  safe  conveyance. 


LETTER  XXXVI. 

BATHS   OF    LUCCA SARATOGA    OF    ITALY — HILL    SCENE- 
RY  RIVF.R        LIMA — FASHIONABLE       LODGINGS THE 

VILLA THE  DUKE'S  FALACE — MOUNTAINS VALLEYS 

—  COTTAGES — FEASANTS — WINDING-PATHS — AMUSE- 
MENTS— PRIVATE  PARTIES — BALLS — FETES A  CAS- 
INO—ORIGINALS OF  SCOTT'S  DIANA  VERNON  AND 
THE  MISS  PRATT  OF  THE  INHERITANCE — A  SUMMER 
IN   ITALY,    ETC.,    ETC. 

I  spent  a  week  at  the  baths  of  Lucca,  which  is 
about  sixty  miles  north  of  Florence,  and  the  Saratoga 
of  Italy.  None  of  the  cities  are  habitable  in  summer 
for  the  heat,  and  there  flocks  all  the  world  to  bathe 
and  keep  cool  by  day,  and  dance  and  intrigue  by  night, 
from  spring  to  autumn.  It  is  very  like  the  month  of 
June  in  our  country  in  many  respects,  and  the  differ- 
ences are  not  disagreeable.  The  scenery  is  the  finest 
of  its  kind  in  Italy.  The  whole  village  is  built  about 
a  bridge  across  the  river  Lima,  which  meets  the  Ser- 
chio  a  half  mile  below.  On  both  sides  of  the  stream 
the  mountains  rise  so  abruptly,  that  the  houses  are 
erected  against  them,  and  from  the  summits  on  both 
sides  you  look  directly  down  on  the  street.     Half-way 


up  one  of  the  hills  stands  a  cluster  of  houses,  over- 
looking the  valley  to  fine  advantage,  and  these  are 
rather  the  most  fashionable  lodgings.  Round  the  base 
of  this  mountain  runs  the  Lima,  and  on  its  banks  for 
a  mile  is  laid  out  a  superb  road,  at  the  extremity  of 
which  is  another  cluster  of  buildings,  called  the  Villa, 
composed  of  the  duke's  palace  and  baths,  and  some 
fifty  lodging-houses.  This,  like  the  pavilion  at  Sara- 
toga, is  usually  occupied  by  invalids  and  people  of 
more  retired  habits.  I  have  found  no  hill  scenery  in 
Europe  comparable  to  the  baths  of  Lucca.  The 
mountains  ascend  so  sharply  and  join  so  closely,  that 
two  hours  of  the  sun  are  lost,  morning  and  evening, 
and  the  heat  is  very  little  felt.  The  valley  is  formed 
by  four  or  five  small  mountains,  which  are  clothed 
from  the  base  to  the  summit  with  the  finest  chestnut 
woods  ;  and  dotted  over  with  the  nest-like  cottages  of 
theLuccese  peasants,  the  smoke  from  which,  morning 
and  evening,  breaks  through  the  trees,  and  steals  up 
to  the  summits  with  an  effect  than  which  a  painter 
could  not  conceive  anything  more  beautiful.  It  is 
quite  a  little  paradise ;  and  with  the  drives  along  the 
river  on  each  side  at  the  mountain  foot,  and  the  trim 
Avinding-paths  in  the  hills,  there  is  no  lack  of  oppor- 
tunity for  the  freest  indulgence  of  a  love  of  scenery 
or  amusement, 

Instead  of  living  as  we  do  in  great  hotels,  the  peo- 
ple at  these  baths  take  their  own  lodgings,  three  or 
four  families  in  a  house,  and  meet  in  their  drives  and 
walks,  or  in  small  exclusive  parties.  The  duke  gives 
a  ball  every  Tuesday,  to  which  all  respectable  strangers 
are  invited  ;  and  while  I  was  there  an  Italian  prince, 
who  married  into  the  royal  family  of  Spain,  gave  a 
grand  fete  at  the  theatre.  There  is  usually  some  par- 
ty everv  night,  and  with  the  freedom  of  a  watering- 
place,  they  are  rather  the  pleasantest  I  have  seen  in 
Italy.  The  duke's  chamberlain,  an  Italian  cavalier, 
has  the  charge  of  a  casino,  or  public  hall,  which  is 
open  day  and  night  for  conversation,  dancing  and  play. 
The  Italians  frequent  it  very  much,  and  it  is  free  to 
all  well-dressed  people;  and  as  there  is  always  a  band 
of  music,  the  English  sometimes  make  up  a  party, 
and  spend  the  evening  there  in  dancing  or  promena- 
ding. It  is  maintained  at  the  duke's  expense,  lights, 
music,  and  all,  and  he  finds  his  equivalent  in  the  prof- 
its of  the  gambling  bank. 

I  scarce  know  who  of  the  distinguished  people  I 
met  there  would  interest  you.  The  village  was  full 
of  coroneted  carriages,  whose  masters  were  nobles  of 
every  nation,  and  every  reputation.  The  originals  of 
two  well-known  characters  happened  to  be  there — 
Scott's  Diana  Vernon,  and  the  Miss  Pratt  of  the  In- 
heritance. The  former  is  a  Scotch  lady,  with  five  01 
six  children  :  a  tall,  superb  woman  still,  with  the  look 
of  a  mountain-queen,  who  rode  out  every  night  wilt 
two  gallant  boys  mounted  on  ponies,  and  dashing  afte? 
her  with  the  spirit  you  would  bespeak  for  the  sons  of 
Die  Vernon.  Her  husband  was  the  best  horseman 
there,  and  a  "  has  been"  handsome  fellow,  of  about 
forty-five.  An  Italian  abbe  came  up  to  her  one  night, 
at  a  small  party,  and  told  her  he  "  wondered  the  king 
of  England  did  not  marry  her."  "  Miss  Pratt"  was 
the  companion  of  an  English  lady  of  fortune,  who 
lived  on  the  floor  below  me.  She  was  still  what  she 
used  to  be,  a  much-laughed-at  but  much-sought  per- 
son, and  it  was  quite  requisite  to  know  her.  She  flew 
into  a  passion  whenever  the  book  was  named.  The 
rest  of  the  world  there  was  very  much  what  it  is  else- 
where— a  medley  of  agreeable  and  disagreeable,  intel- 
ligent and  stupid,  elegant  and  awkward.  The  women 
were  perhaps  superior  in  style  and  manner  to  those 
ordinarily  met  in  such  places  in  America,  and  the  men 
vastly  inferior.  It  is  so  wherever  I  have  been  on  the 
continent. 

I  remained  at  the  baths  a  few  weeks,  recruiting — 
for  the  hot  weather  and  travel  had,  for  the  first  time  in 


PENCILLING^  BY  THE  WAY. 


55 


my  life,  worn  upon  me.  They  say  that  a  summer  in 
Italy  is  equal  to  five  years  elsewhere,  in  its  ravages 
upon  the  constitution,  and  so  I  found  it. 


LETTER  XXXVII. 

HETURN  TO  VENICE — CITY  OF  LUCCA — A  MAGNIFICENT 
WALL — A  CULTIVATED  AND  LOVELY  COUNTRY — A 
COMFORTABLE  PALACE — THE  DUKE  AND  DUTCHESS  OF 
LUCCA — THE    APPKNTNES— MOUNTAIN    SCENERY — MO- 

DENA — VIEW  OF  AN  IMMENSE  PLAIN VINEYARDS  AND 

FIELDS — AUSTRIAN  TROOPS — A  PETTY  DUKE  AND  A 
GREAT  TYRANT SUSPECTED  TRAITORS — LADIES  UN- 
DER ARREST — MODENKSE  NOBILITY— SPLENDOR  AND 
MEANNESS — CORREGIO'S  BAG  OF  COPPER  COIN — PIC- 
TURE GALLERY CHIEF  OF  THE  CONSPIRATORS — OP- 
PRESSIVE LAWS — ANTIQUITY — MUSEUM — BOLOGNA — 
MANUSCRIPTS  OF  TASSO  AND  ARIOSTO— THE  PO — 
AUSTRIAN  CUSTOM-HOUSE — POLICE  OFFICERS — DIFFI- 
CULTY   ON    BOARD     THE     STEAMBOAT VENICE     ONCE 

MORE,    ETC. 

After  five  or  six  weeks  sejovrat  the  baths  of  Lucca, 
the  only  exception  to  the  pleasure  of  which  was  an 
attack  of  the  "country  fever,"  I  am  again  on  the  road, 
with  a  pleasant  party,  bound  for  Venice  ;  but  passing 
by  cities  I  had  not  seen,  I  have  been  from  one  place 
to  another  for  a  week,  till  I  find  myself  to-day  in  Mo- 
dena — a  place  I  might  as  well  not  have  seen  at  all  as 
to  have  hurried  through,  as  I  was  compelled  to  do  a 
month  or  two  since.  To  go  back  a  little,  however, 
our  first  stopping-place  was  the  city  of  Lucca,  about 
fifteen  miles  from  the  baths ;  a  little,  clean,  beautiful 
gem  of  a  town,  with  a  wall  three  miles  round  only, 
and  on  the  top  of  it  a  broad  carriage  road,  giving  you 
on  every  side  views  of  the  best  cultivated  and  loveliest 
country  in  Italy.  The  traveller  finds  nothing  so 
rural  and  quiet,  nothing  so  happy-looking,  in  the  whole 
land.  The  radius  to  the  horizon  is  nowhere  more 
than  five  or  six  miles ;  and  the  bright  green  farms  and 
luxuriant  vineyards  stretch  from  the  foot  of  the  wall 
to  the  summits  of  the  lovely  mountains  which  form 
the  theatre  around.  It  is  a  very  ancient  town,  but  the 
dutchy  is  so  rich  and  flourishing  that  it  bears  none  of 
the  marks  of  decay,  so  common  to  even  more  modern 
towns  in  Italy.  Here  Cesar  is  said  to  have  stopped  to 
deliberate  on  passing  the  Rubicon. 

The  palace  of  the  duke  is  the  prettiest  I  ever  saw. 
There  is  not  a  room  in  it  you  could  not  live  in — and 
no  feeling  is  less  common  than  this  in  visiting  palaces. 
It  is  furnished  with  splendor,  too — but  with  such  an 
eye  to  comfort,  such  taste  and  elegance,  that  you 
would  respect  the  prince's  affections  that  should  order 
such  a  one.  The  duke  of  Lucca,  however,  is  never 
at  home.  He  is  a  young  man  of  twenty-eight  or 
thirty,  and  spends  his  time  and  money  in  travelling,  as 
caprice  takes  him.  He  has  been  now  for  a  year  at 
Vienna,  where  he  spends  the  revenue  of  these  rich 
plains  most  lavishly.  The  dutchess,  too,  travels  always, 
but  in  a  different  direction,  and  the  people  complain 
loudly  of  the  desertion.  For  many  years  they  have 
now  been  both  absent  and  parted.  The  duke  is  a 
member  of  the  royal  family  of  Spain,  and  at  the  death 
of  Maria  Louisa  of  Parma,  he  becomes  Duke  of  Par- 
ma, and  the  dutchy  goes  to  Tuscany. 

From  Lucca  we  crossed  the  Appenines,  by  a  road 
seldom  travelled,  performing  the  hundred  miles  to 
Modena  in  three  days.  We  suffered,  as  all  must  who 
leave  the  high  roads  in  continental  countries,  more 
privations  than  the  novelty  was  worth.  The  moun- 
tain scenery  was  fine,  of  course,  but  I  think  less  so 
than  that  on  the  passes  between  Florence  and  Bologna, 
the  account  of  which  I  wrote  a  few  weeks  since.  We 
were  too  happy  to  get  to  Modena. 


Modena  lies  in  the  vast  campagnia  lying  between 
the  Appeuines  and  the  Adriatic — an  immense  plain 
looking  like  the  sea  as  far  as  the  eye  can  stretch  from 
north  to  south.  The  view  of  it  from  the  mountains 
in  descending  is  magnificent  beyond  description.  The 
capital  of  the  little  dutchy  lay  in  the  midst  of  us,  like  a 
speck  on  a  green  carpet,  and  smaller  towns  and  rivers 
varied  its  else  unbroken  surface  of  vineyards  and  fields. 
We  reached  the  gates  just  as  a  .'me  sunset  was  redden- 
ing the  ramparts  and  towers,  and,  giving  up  our  pass- 
ports to  the  soldier  on  guard,  rattled  in  to  the  hotel. 

The  town  is  full  of  Austrian  troops,  and  in  our  walk 
to  the  ducal  palace  we  met  scarce  any  one  else.     The 

i  streets  look  gloomy  and  neglected,  and  the  people 
singularly  dispirited  and  poor.  This  petty  duke  of 
Modena  is  a  man  of  about  fifty,  and  said  to  be  the 

■  greatest  tyrant  after  Don  Miguel  in  the  world.  The 
prisons  are  full  of  suspected  traitors:  one  hundred 
and  thirty  of  the  best  families  of  the  dutchy  are  ban- 
ished for  liberal  opinions;  three  hundred  and  over  are 
now  under  arrest  (among  them  a  considerable  number 

|  of  ladies);  and   many  of  the   Modenese  nobility   are 

I  now  serving  in  the  galleys  for  conspiracy.  He  has 
been  shot  at  eighteen  times.  The  last  man  who  at- 
tempted it,  as  I  stated  in  a  former  letter,  was  executed 
the  morning  I  passed  through  Modena  on  my  return 
from  Venice.  With  all  this  he  is  a  fine  soldier,  and 
his  capital  looks  in  all  respects  like  a  garrison  in  the 
first  style  of  discipline.  He  is  just  now  absent  at  a 
chateau  three  miles  in  the  country. 

The  ralace  is  a  union  of  splendor  and  meanness 
within.  The  endless  succession  of  state  apartments 
are  gorgeously  draped  and  ornamented,  but  the  en- 
trance halls  and  intermediate  passages  are  furnished 
with  an  economy  you  would  scarce  find  exceeded  in 
the  "worst  inn's  worst  room."  Modena  is  Corregio's 
birthplace,  and  it  was  from  a  duke  of  Modena  that  he 
received  the  bag  of  copper  coin  which  occasioned  his 

j  death.  It  was,  I  think,  the  meager  reward  of  his 
celebrated  "Night,"  and  he   broke  a  bloodvessel   in 

j  carrying  it  to  his  house.  The  duke  has  sold  this  pic- 
ture, as  well  as  every  other  other  sufficiently  cele- 
brated to  bring  a  princely  price.  His  gallery  is  a 
heap  of  trash,  with  but  here  and  there  a  redeeming 
thing.  Among  others,  there  is  a  portrait  of  a  boy,  I 
think  by  Rembrandt,  very  intellectual  and  lofty,  yet 
with  all  the  youthfulness  of  fourteen ;  and  a  copy  of 
"  Giorgione's  mistress,"  the  "  love  in  life"  of  the 
Manfrein  palace,  so  admired  by  Lord  Byron.  There 
is  also  a  remarkably  fine  crucifixion,  I  forget  by  whom. 
The  front  of  the  palace  is  renowned  for  its  beauty. 
In  a  street  near  it,  we  passed  a  house  half  battered 
down  by  cannon.  It  was  the  residence  of  the  chief 
of  a  late  conspiracy,  who  was  betrayed  a  few  hours 
before  his  plot  was  ripe.  He  refused  to  surrender, 
and  before  the  ducal  troops  had  mastered  his  house, 
the  revolt  commenced  and  the  duke  was  driven  from 
Modena.  He  returned  in  a  week  or  two  with  some 
three  thousand  Austrians,  and  has  kept  possession  by 
their  assistance  ever  since.  While  we  were  waiting 
dinner  at  the  hotel,  I  took  up  a  volume  of  the  Mode- 
nese law,  and  opened  upon  a  statute  forbidding  all 
subjects  of  the  dutchy  to  live  out  of  the  duke's  territo- 
ries under  pain  of  the  entire  confiscation  of  their  prop- 
erty. They  are  liable  to  arrest,  also,  if  it  is  suspected 
that  they  are  taking  measures  to  remove.  The  alter- 
natives are  oppression  here  or  poverty  elsewhere,  and 
the  result  is  that  the  duke  has  scarce  a  noble  left  in 
his  realm. 

Modena  is  a  place  of  great  antiquity.  It  was  a 
strong-hold  in  the  time  of  Cesar,  and  after  his  death 
was  occupied  by  Brutus,  and  besieged  by  Antony. 
There  are  no  traces  left,  except  some  mutilated  and 
uncettain  relics  in  the  museum. 

We  drove  to  Bologna  the  following  morning,  and  I 
slept  once  more  in  Rogers's  chamber  at  "the  Pilgrim  '* 


56 


PENCILLINGS  BY  THE  WAY. 


I  have  described  this  city,  which  I  passed  on  my  way 
to  Venice,  so  fully  before,  that  I  pass  it  over  now  with 
the  mere  mention.  I  should  not  forget,  however,  my 
acquaintance  with  a  snuffy  little  librarian,  who  showed 
me  the  manuscripts  of  Tasso  and  Ariosto,  with  much 
amusing  importance. 

We  crossed  the  Po  to  the  Austrian  custom-house. 
Our  trunks  were  turned  inside  out,  our  papers  and 
books  examined,  our  passports  studied  for  flaws — as 
usual.  After  two  hours  of  vexation,  we  were  permit- 
ted to  go  on  board  the  steamboat,  thanking  Heaven 
that  our  troubles  were  over  for  a  week  or  two,  and 
giving  Austria  the  common  benediction  she  gets  from 
travellers.  The  ropes  were  cast  off  from  the  pier 
when  a  police  retainer  came  running  to  the  boat,  and 
ordered  our  whole  party  on  shore,  bag  and  baggage. 
Our  passports,  which  had  been  retained  to  be  sent  on 
to  Venice  by  the  captain,  were  irregular.  We  had 
not  passed  by  Florence,  and  they  had  not  the  signa- 
ture of  the  Austrian  ambassador.  We  were  ordered 
imperatively  back  over  the  Po,  with  a  flat  assurance 
that  without  first  going  to  Florence,  we  never  could 
see  Venice.  To  the  ladies  of  the  party,  who  had 
made  themselves  certain  of  seeing  this  romance  of 
cities  in  twelve  hours,  it  was  a  sad  disappointment,  and 
after  seeing  them  safely  seated  in  the  return  shallop, 
I  thought  I  would  go  and  make  a  desperate  appeal  to 
the  commissary  in  person.  My  nominal  commission 
as  attache  to  the  legation  at  Paris,  served  me  in  this 
case  as  it  had  often  done  before,  and  making  myself 
and  the  honor  of  the  American  nation  responsible  for 
the  innocent  designs  of  a  party  of  ladies  upon  Venice, 
the  dirty  and  surly  commissary  signed  our  passports 
and  permitted  us  to  remand  our  baggage. 

It  was  with  unmingled  pleasure  that  I  saw  again  the 
towers  and  palaces  of  Venice  rising  from  the  sea. 
The  splendid  approach  to  the  Piazzetta ;  the  transfer 
to  the  gondola  and  its  soft  motion ;  the  swift  and  still 
glide  beneath  the  balconies  of  palaces,  with  whose 
history  I  was  familiar;  and  the  renewal  of  my  own 
first  impressions  in  the  surprise  and  delight  of  others, 
made  up,  altogether,  a  moment  of  high  happiness. 
There  is  nothing  like — nothing  equal  to  Venice.  She 
is  the  city  of  the  imagination — the  realization  of  ro- 
mance— the  queen  of  splendor  and  softness  and  luxury. 
Allow  all  her  decay — feel  all  her  degradation — see  the 
"  Huns  in  her  palaces,"  and  the  "  Greek  upon  her 
mart,"  and,  after  all,  she  is  alone  in  the  world  for 
beauty,  and,  spoiled  as  she  has  been  by  successive 
conquerors,  almost  for  riches  too.  Her  churches  of 
marble,  with'  their  floors  of  precious  stones,  and  walls 
of  gold  and  mosaic  ;  her  ducal  palace,  with  its  world 
of  art  and  massy  magnificence ;  her  private  palaces, 
with  their  fronts  of  inland  gems,  and  balconies  and 
towers  of  inimitable  workmanship  and  richness;  her 
lovely  islands  and  mirror-like  canals — all  distinguish 
her,  and  will  till  the  sea  rolls  over  her,  as  one  of  the 
wonders  of  time. 


LETTER  XXXVIII. 

VENrCE — CHURCH  OF  THE  JESUITS — A  MARBLE  CURTAIN 
—ORIGINAL  OF  TITIAN's  MARTYRDOM  OF  ST.  LAW- 
RENCE—A   SUMMER    MORNING ARMENIAN    ISLAND 

VISIT    TO    A    CLOISTER — A    CELEBRATED    MONK — THE 

POET'S    STUDY ILLUMINATED    COPIES    OF    THE    BIBLE 

THE  STRANGER'S  BOOK A  CLEAN  PRINTING-OF- 
FICE  THE     HOSPITAL     FOR     THE      INSANE INNOCENT 

AND  HAPPY-LOOKING  MANIACS — THE  CELLS  FOR  UN- 
GOVERNABLE LUNATICS — BARBARITY  OF  THE  KEEPER 

MISERABLE  PROVISIONS — ANOTHER  GLANCE  AT  THE 

PRISONS  UNDER  THE  DUCAL  PALACE— THE  OFFICE  OF 
EXECUTIONER — -THE  ARSENAL— THE  STATE  GALLERY 
— THE  ARMOR  OF  HENRY  THE  FOURTH — A  CURIOUS 
KEY— MACHINES  FOR  TORTURE,  ETC. 


In  a  first  visit  to  a  great  European  city  it  is  difficult 
not  to  let  many  things  escape  notice.  Among  several 
churches  which  1  did  not  see  when  I  was  here  before, 
is  that  of  the  Jesuits.  It  is  a  temple  worthy  of  the  ce- 
lebrity of  this  splendid  order.  The  proportions  are 
finer  than  those  of  most  of  the  Venetian  churches, 
and  the  interior  is  one  tissue  of  curious  marbles  and 
gold.  As  we  entered,  we  were  first  struck  with  the 
grace  and  magnificence  of  a  large  heavy  curtain,  hang- 
ing over  the  pulpit,  the  folds  of  which,  and  the  figures 
wrought  upon  it,  struck  us  as  unusually  elegant  and 
ingenious.  Our  astonishment  was  not  lessened  when 
we  found  it  was  one  solid  mass  of  verd-antique  marble. 
Its  sweep  over  the  side  and  front  of  the  pulpit  is  as 
careless  as  if  it  were  done  by  the  wind.  The  whole 
ceiling  of  the  church  is  covered  with  sequin  gold — the 
finest  that  is  coined.  In  one  of  the  side  chapels  is  the 
famous  "  Martyrdom  of  St.  Lawrence,"  by  Titian.  A 
fine  copy  of  it  (said  in  the  catalogue  to  be  the  original) 
was  exhibited  in  the  Boston  Athenaeum  a  year  or  two 
since. 

It  is  Sunday,  and  the  morning  has  been  of  a  heav- 
enly, summer,  sunny  calmness,  such  as  is  seen  often 
in  Italy,  and  once  in  a  year,  perhaps,  in  New  England. 
It  is  a  kind  of  atmosphere  that  to  breathe  is  to  be 
grateful  and  happy.  We  have  been  to  the  Armenian 
island — a  little  gem  on  the  bosom  of  the  Lagune,  a 
mile  from  Venice,  where  stands  the  monastery,  to 
which  place  Lord  Byron  went  daily  to  study  and  trans- 
late with  the  fathers.  There  is  just  room  upon  it  for 
a  church,  a  convent,  and  a  little  garden.  It  looks 
afloat  on  the  water.  Our  gondola  glided  up  to  the 
clean  stone  stairs,  and  we  were  received  by  one  of  the 
order,  a  hale  but  venerable  looking  monk,  in  the  Ar- 
menian dress,  the  long  black  cassock  and  sjnall  round 
cap,  his  beard  long  and  scattered  with  gray,  and  his 
complexion  and  eyes  of  a  cheerful,  child-like  clearness, 
such  as  regular  and  simple  habits  alone  can  give.  I 
inquired,  as  we  walked  through  the  cloister,  for  the  fa- 
ther with  whom  Lord  Byron  studied,  and  of  whom  the 
poet  speaks  so  often  and  so  highly  in  his  letters.  The 
monk  smiled  and  bowed  modestly,  and  related  a  little 
incident  that  had  happened  to  him  at  Padua,  where  he 
had  met  two  American  travellers,  who  had  asked  him 
of  himself  in  the  same  manner.  He  had  forgotten 
their  names,  but  from  his  description  1  presumed  one 
to  have  been  Professor  Longfellow,  of  Bowdoin  uni- 
versity. 

The  stillness  and  cleanliness  about  the  convent,  as 
we  passed  through  the  cloisters  and  halls,  rendered 
the  impression  upon  a  stranger  delightful.  We  passed 
the  small  garden,  in  which  grew  a  stately  oleander  in 
full  blossom,  and  thousands  of  smaller  flowers,  in  neat 
beds  and  vases,  and  after  walking  through  the  church, 
a  plain  and  pretty  me,  we  came  to  the  library,  where 
the  monk  had  studied  with  the  poet.  It  is  a  proper 
place  for  study — disturbed  by  nothing  but  the  dash  of 
oars  from  a  passing  gondola,  or  the  scream  of  a  sea- 
bird,  and  well  furnished  with  books  in  every  language, 
and  very  luxurious  chairs.  The  monk  showed  us  an 
encyclopaedia,  presented  to  himself  by  an  English  lady 
of  rank,  who  had  visited  the  convent  often.  His  hand- 
some eyes  flashed  as  he  pointed  to  it  on  the  shelves. 
We  went  next  into  a  smaller  room,  where  the  more 
precious  manuscripts  are  deposited,  and  he  showed  us 
curious  illuminated  copies  of  the  Bible,  and  gave  us 
the  strangers  book  to  inscribe  our  names.  Byron 
had  scrawled  his  there  before  us,  and  the  emperess  Ma- 
ria Louisa  had  written  hers  twice  on  separate  visits. 
The  monk  then  brought  us  a  volume  of  prayers,  in 
twenty-five  languages,  translated  by  himself.  We 
bought  copies,  and  upon  some  remark  of  one  of  the 
ladies  upon  his  acquirements,  he  ran  from  one  Ian 
guage  to  another,  speaking  English,  French,  Italian, 
German,  and  Dutch,  with  equal  facility.     His  English 


PENCILLING^  BY  THE  WAY. 


57 


was  quite  wonderful;  and  a  lady  from  Rotterdam, 
who  was  with  us,  pronounced  his  Dutch  and  German 
excellent.  We  tlien  bought  small  histories  of  the  or- 
der, written  by  an  English  gentleman,  who  had  studied 
at  the  island,  and  passed  on  to  the  printing-office— the 
first  clean  one  I  ever  saw,  and  quite  the  best  appointed. 
Here  the  monks  print  their  bibles  and  prayer-books  in 
really  beautiful  Armenian  type,  beside  almanacs,  and 
other  useful  publications  for  Constantinople,  and  other 
parts  of  Turkey.  The  monk  wrote  his  name  at  our 
request  (Pascal  Aucher)  in  the  blank  leaves  of  our 
books,  and  we  parted  ftom  him  at  the  water-stairs 
with  sincere  regret.  I  recommend  this  monastery  to 
all  travellers  to  Venice. 

On  our  return  we  passed  near  an  island,  upon  which 
stands  a  single  building — an  insane  hospital.  I  was 
not  very  curious  to  enter  it,  but  the  gondolier  assured 
us  that  it  was  a  common  visit  for  strangers,  and  we  con- 
sented to  go  in.  We  were  received  by  the  keeper, 
who  went  through  the  horrid  scene  like  a  regular 
cicerone,  giving  us  a  cold  and  rapid  history  of  every 
patient  that  arrested  our  attention.  The  men's  apart- 
ment was  the  first,  and  I  should  never  have  supposed 
them  insane.  They  were  all  silent,  and  either  read 
or  slept  like  the  inmates  of  common  hospitals.  We 
came  to  a  side  door,  and  as  it  opened,  the  confusion  of 
a  hundred  tongues  burst  through,  and  we  were  intro- 
duced into  the  apartment  for  women.  The  noise  was 
deafening.  After  traversing  a  short  gallery,  we  entered 
a  large  hall,  containing  perhaps  fifty  females.  There 
was  a  simultaneous  smoothing  back  of  the  hair  and 
prinking  of  the  dress  through  the  room.  These, 
the  keeper  said,  were  the  well-behaved  patients,  and 
more  innocent  and  happy-looking  people  I  never  saw. 
If  to  be  happy  is  to  be  wise,  I  should  believe  with  the 
mad  philosopher,  that  the  world  and  the  lunatic  should 
change  names.  One  large,  fine-looking  woman  took 
upon  herself  to  do  the  honors  of  the  place,  and  came 
forward  with  a  graceful  courtesy  and  a  smile  of  conde- 
scension and  begged  the  ladies  to  take  oft'  their  bon- 
nets, and  offered  me  a  chair.  Even  with  her  closely- 
shaven  head  and  coarse  (lannel  dress,  she  seemed  a  la- 
dy. The  keeper  did  not  know  her  history.  Her  at- 
tentions were  occasionally  interrupted  by  a  stolen 
glance  at  the  keeper,  and  a  shrinking  in  of  the  shoul- 
ders, like  a  child  that  had  been  whipped.  One  hand- 
some and  perfectly  healthy-looking  girl  of  eighteen, 
walked  up  and  down  the  hall,  with  her  arms  folded, 
and  a  sweet  smile  on  her  face,  apparently  lost  in  pleas- 
ing thought,  and  taking  no  notice  of  us.  Only  one 
was  in  bed,  and  her  face  might  have  been  a  conception 
of  Michael  Angelo  for  horror.  Her  hair  was  uncut, 
and  fell  over  her  eyes,  her  tongue  hung  from  her 
mouth,  her  eyes  were  sunken  and  restless,  and  the 
deadly  pallor  over  features  drawn  into  the  intensest 
look  of  mental  a^ony  completed  a  picture  that  made 
my  heart  sick.  Her  bed  was  clean,  and  she  was  as  well 
cared  for  as  she  could  be,  apparently. 

We  mounted  a  flight  of  stairs  to  the  cells.  Here 
were  confined  those  who  were  violent  and  ungoverna- 
ole.  The  mingled  souuds  that  came  through  the 
£ratin2:$  as  we  passed  were  terrific.  Laughter  of  a 
demoniac  wildness,  moans,  complaints  in  every  lan- 
guage, screams — every  sound  that  could  express  im-  j 
patience  and  fear  and  suffering  saluted  our  ears.  The  ! 
keeper  opened  most  of  the  cells  and  went  in,  rousing 
occasionally  one  that  was  asleep,  and  insisting  that  all 
should  appear  at  the  grate.  I  remonstrated,  of  course, 
against  such  a  piece  of  barbarity,  but  he  said  he  did 
it  for  all  strangers,  and  took  no  notice  of  our  pity. 
The  cells  were  small,  just  large  enough  for  a  bed,  up- 
on the  post  of  which  hung  a  small  coarse  cloth  bag, 
containing  two  or  three  loaves  of  the  coarsest  bread. 
There  was  no  other  furniture.  The  beds  were  bags 
of  straw,  without  sheets  or  pillows,  and  each  had  a 
coarse  piece  of  matting  for  a  covering.     I  expressed 


some  horror  at  the  miserable  provision  made  for  their 
comfort,  but  was  told  that  they  broke  and  injured 
themselves  with  any  loose  furniture,  and  were  so  reck- 
less in  their  habits,  that  it  was  impossible  to  give  them 
any  other  bedding  than  straw,  which  was  changed  ev- 
ery day.  I  observed  that  each  patient  had  a  wisp  of 
long  straw  tied  up  in  a  bundle,  given  them,  as  the 
keeper  said,  to  employ  their  hands  and  amuse  them. 
The  wooden  blind  before  one  of  the  gratings  was  re- 
moved, and  a  girl  flew  to  it  with  the  ferocity  of  a  tiger, 
thrust  her  hands  at  us  through  the  bars,  and  threw 
her  bread  out  into  the  passage,  with  a  look  of  violent 
and  uncontrolled  anger  such  as  I  never  saw.  She 
was  tall  and  very  fine-looking.  In  another  cell  lay  a 
poor  creature,  with  her  face  dreadfully  torn,  and  her 
hands  tied  strongly  behind  her.  She  was  tossing  about 
restlessly  upon  her  straw,  and  muttering  to  herself  in- 
distinctly. The  man  said  she  tore  her  face  and  bosom 
whenever  she  could  get  her  hands  free,  and  was  his 
worst  patient.  In  the  last  cell  was  a  girl  of  eleven  or 
twelve  years,  who  began  to  cry  piteously  the  moment 
the  bolt  was  drawn.  She  was  in  bed,  and  uncovered 
her  head  very  unwillingly,  and  evidently  expected  to 
be  whipped.  There  was  another  range  of  cells  above, 
but  we  had  seen  enough,  and  were  glad  to  get  out 
upon  the  calm  Lagune.  There  could  scarcely  be  a 
stronger  contrast  than  between  those  two  islands  lying 
side  by  side — the  first  the  very  picture  of  regularity 
and  happiness,  and  the  last  a  refuge  for  distraction  and 
misery.  The  feeling  of  gratitude  to  God  for  reason 
after  such  a  scene  is  irresistible. 

In  visiting  again  the  prisons  under  the  ducal  palace, 
several  additional  circumstances  were  told  us.  The 
condemned  were  compelled  to  become  executioners. 
They  were  led  from  their  cells  into  the  dark  passage 
where  stood  the  secret  guillotine,  and  without  warning 
forced  to  put  to  death  a  fellow-creature  either  by  this 
instrument,  or  the  more  horrible  method  of  strangling 
against  a  grate.  The  guide  said  that  the  office  of  ex- 
ecutioner was  held  in  such  horror  that  it  was  impossi- 
ble to  fill  it,  and  hence  this  dreadful  alternative.  When 
a  prisoner  was  about  to  be  executed,  his  clothes  were 
sent  home  to  his  family  with  the  message,  that  "  the 
state  would  care  for  him."  How  much  more  agoni- 
zing do  these  circumstances  seem,  when  we  remember 
that  most  of  the  victims  were  men  of  rank  and  educa- 
tion, condemned  on  suspicion  of  political  crimes,  and 
often  with  families  refined  to  a  most  unfortunate  ca- 
pacity for  mental  torture !  One  ceases  to  regret  the 
fall  of  the  Venetian  republic,  when  he  sees  with  how 
much  crime  and  tyranny  her  splendor  was  accompa- 
nied.   

I  saw  at  the  arsenal  to-day  the  model  of  the  "  Bu- 
centaur,"  the  state  galley  in  which  the  doge  of  Venice 
went  out  annually  to  marry  him  to  the  sea.  This 
poetical  relic  (which,  in  Childe  Harold's  time,  "  lay 
rotting  unrestored")  was  burnt  by  the  French — why, 
I  can  not  conceive.  It  was  a  departure  from  their 
usual  habit  of  respect  to  the  curious  and  beautiful; 
and  if  they  had  been  jealous  of  such  a  vestige  of  the 
grandeur  of  a  conquered  people,  it  might  at  least 
have  been  sent  to  Paris  as  easily  as  "Saint  Mark's 
steeds  of  brass,"  and  would  have  been  as  great  a  curi- 
osity. I  would  rather  have  seen  the  Bucentaur  than 
all  their  other  plunder.  The  arsenal  contains  many 
other  treasures.  The  armor  given  to  the  city  of  Venice 
by  Henry  the  Fourth  is  there,  and  a  curious  key  con- 
structed to  shoot  poisoned  needles,  and  used  by  one 
of  the  Henrys,  I  have  forgotten  which,  to  despatch 
any  one  who  offended  him  in  his  presence.  One  or 
two  curious  machines  for  torture  were  shown  us — 
j  mortars  into  which  the  victim  was  put,  with  an  iron 
|  armor  open  only  at  the  ear,  which  was  screwed  down 
I  upon  him  till  his  head  was  crushed,  or  confession 
I  stopped  the  torture. 


58 


PENCILLINGS  BY  THE  WAY. 


LETTER  XXXIX. 

VENICE SAN  MARC'S  CHURCH — RECOCLECTIONS  OF  HOME 

FESTA  AT  THE  LIDO A  POETICAL  SCENE AN  ITAL- 
IAN SUNSET — PALACE  OF  MANFRINI PESARO'S  PAL- 
ACE AND  COUNTRY  RESIDENCE — CHURCH  OF  SAINT 
MARY  OF  NAZARETH — PADUA THE  UNIVERSITY- 
STATUES  OF  DISTINGUISHED  FOREIGNERS — THE  PUB- 
LIC PALACE — BUST  OF  TITUS  LIVY BUST  OF  PE- 
TRARCH— CHURCH     OP     ST.     ANTONY    DURING    MASS 

THE     SAINT'S      CHIN     AND     TONGUE MARTYRDOM     OF 

ST.     AGATHA AUSTRIAN     AND     GERMAN     SOLDIERS 

TRAVELLER'S      RECORD-BOOK — PETRARCH'S      COTTAGE 

AND    TOMB ITALIAN    SUMMER   AFTERNOON — THE    PO- 

ET'S  HOUSE A  FINE  VIEW THE  ROOM  WHERE  PE- 
TRARCH   DIED,  ETC. 

I  was  loitering  down  one  of  the  gloomy  aisles  of 
San  Marc's  church,  just  at  twilight  this  evening,  lis- 
tening to  the  far-off  Ave  Maria  in  one  of  the  distant 
chapels,  when  a  Boston  gentleman,  who  I  did  not 
know  was  abroad,  entered  with  his  family,  and  passed 
up  to  the  altar.  It  is  difficult  to  conceive  with  what  a 
title  the  half-forgotten  circumstances  of  a  home,  so  far 
away,  rush  back  upon  one's  heart  in  a  strange  land, 
after  a  long  absence,  at  the  sight  of  familiar  faces.  I 
could  realize  nothing  about  me  after  it — the  glittering 
mosaic  of  precious  stones  under  my  feet,  the  gold  and 
splendid  colors  of  the  roof  above  me,  the  echoes  of 
the  monotonous  chant  through  the  arches — foreign 
and  strange  as  these  circumstances  all  were.  I  was 
irresistibly  at  home,  the  familiar  pictures  of  my  native 
place  filling  my  eye,  and  the  recollections  of  those 
whom  I  love  and  honor  there  crowding  upon  my  heart 
with  irrepressible  emotion.  The  feeling  is  a  painful 
one,  and  with  the  necessity  for  becoming  again  a  for- 
getful wanderer,  remembering  home  only  as  a  dream, 
one  shrinks  from  such  things.  The  reception  of  a 
letter,  even,  destroys  a  day. 

There  has  been  a  grand  festa  to-day  at  the  Lido. 
This,  you  know,  is  a  long  island,  forming  part  of  the 
sea-wall  of  Venice.  It  is,  perhaps,  five  or  six  miles 
long,  covered  in  part  with  groves  of  small  trees,  and  a 
fine  green  sward  ;  and  to  the  Venetians,  to  whom  leaves 
and  grass  are  holyday  novelties,  is  the  scene  of  their 
gayest  festas.  They  were  dancing  and  dining  under 
the  trees ;  and  in  front  of  the  fort  which  crowns  the 
island,  the  Austrian  commandant  had  pitched  his  tent, 
and  with  a  band  of  military  music,  the  officers  were 
waltzing  with  ladies  in  a  circle  of  green-sward,  making 
altogether  a  very  poetical  scene.  We  passed  an  hour 
or  two  wandering  among  this  gay  and  unconscious 
people,  and  came  home  by  one  of  the  loveliest  sunsets 
that  ever  melted  sea  and  sky  together.  Venice  looked 
like  a  vision  of  a  city  hanging  in  mid-air. 

"We  have  been  again  to  that  delightful  palace  of 
Manfrini.  The  "  Portia  swallowing  fire,"  the  Rem- 
brandt portrait,  the  far-famed  "Giorgione,  son  and 
wife,"  and  twenty  others,  which  to  see  is  to  be  charm- 
ed, delighted  me  once  more.  I  believe  the  surviving 
Manfrein  is  the  only  noble  left  in  Venice.  Pesaro, 
who  disdained  to  live  in  his  country  after  its  liberty 
was  gone,  died  lately  in  London.  His  palace  here  is 
the  finest  structure  I  have  seen,  and  his  country-house 
on  the  Brenta  is  a  paradise.  It  must  have  been  a 
strong  feeling  which  exiled  him  from  them  for  eigh- 
teen years. 

In  coming  from  the  Manfrini,  we  stopped  at  the 
church  of  "  St.  Mary  of  Nazareth."  This  is  one  of 
those  whose  cost  might  buy  a  kingdom.  Its  gold  and 
marbles  oppress  one  with  their  splendor.  In  the  cen- 
tre of  the  ceiling  is  a  striking  fresco  of  the  bearing  of 


"  Loretto's  chapel  through  the  air;"  and  in  one  of  the 
corners  a  lovely  portrait  of  a  boy  looking  over  a  bal- 
ustrade, done  by  the  artist  at  fourteen  years  of  age! 

Padua. — We  have  passed  two  days  in  this  venera- 
ble city  of  learning,  including  a  visit  to  Petrarch's 
tomb  at  Arqua.  The  university  here  is  still  in  its 
glory,  with  fifteen  hundred  students.  It  has  never 
declined,  I  believe,  since  Livy's  time.  The  beautiful 
inner  court  has  two  or  three  galleries,  crowded  with 
the  arms  of  the  nobles  and  distinguished  individuals 
who  have  received  its  honors.  It  has  been  the  "  cradle 
of  princes"  from  every  part  of  Europe. 

Around  one  of  the  squares  of  the  city,  stand  forty 
or  fifty  statues  of  the  great  and  distinguished  foreign- 
ers who  have  received  their  education  here.  It  hap- 
pened to  be  the  month  of  vacation,  and  we  could  not 
see  the  interior. 

At  a  public  palace,  so  renowned  for  the  size  and 
singular  architecture  of  its  principal  hall,  we  saw  a 
very  antique  bust  of  Titus  Livy — a  fine,  cleanly-chis- 
elled, scholastic  old  head,  that  looked  like  the  spirit 
of  Latin  imbodied.  We  went  thence  to  the  Duomo, 
where  they  show  a  beautiful  bust  of  Petrarch,  who 
lived  at  Padua  some  of  the  latter  years  of  his  life.  It 
is  a  softer  and  more  voluptuous  conntenance  than  is 
given  him  in  the  pictures. 

The  church  of  Saint  Antony  here  has  stood  just 
six  hundred  years.  It  occupied  a  century  in  building, 
and  is  a  rich  and  noble  old  specimen  of  the  taste  of 
the  times,  with  eight  cupolas  and  towers,  twenty-seven 
chapels  inside,  four  immense  organs,  and  countless 
statues  and  pictures.  Saint  Antony's  body  lies  in  the 
midst  of  the  principal  chapel,  which  is  surrounded 
with  relievos  representing  his  miracles,  done  in  the 
best  manner  of  the  glorious  artists  of  antiquity.  We 
were  there  during  mass,  and  the  people  were  nearly 
suffocating  themselves  in  the  press  to  touch  the  altar 
and  tomb  of  the  saint.  This  chnpel  was  formerly  lit 
by  massive  silver  lamps,  which  Napoleon  took,  pre- 
senting them  with  their  models  in  gilt.  He  also  ex- 
acted from  them  three  thousand  sequins  for  permission 
to  retain  the  chin  and  tongue  of  St.  Antony,  which 
works  miracles  still,  and  are  preserved  in  a  splendid 
chapel  with  immense  brazen  doors.  Behind  the  main 
altar  I  saw  a  harrowing  picture  by  Teipolo,  of  the 
martyrdom  of  St.  Agatha.  Her  breasts  are  cut  off, 
and  lying  in  a  dish.  The  expression  in  the  face  of 
the  dying  woman  is  painfully  well  done. 

Returning  to  the  inn,  we  passed  a  magnificent  palace 
on  one  of  the  squares,  upon  whose  marble  steps  and 
column-bases,  sat  hundreds  of  brutish  Austrian  troops, 
smoking  and  laughing  at  the  passers-by.  This  is  a 
sight  you  may  see  now  all  through  Italy.  The  pala- 
ces of  her  proudest  nobles  are  turned  into  barracks  for 
foreign  troops,  and  there  is  scarce  a  noble  old  church 
or  monastery  that  is  not  defiled  with  their  filth.  The 
German  soldiers  are,  without  exception,  the  most  stol- 
id and  disagreeable  looking  body  of  men  I  ever  saw, 
and  they  have  little  to  soften  the  indignant  feeling  with 
which  one  sees  them  rioting  in  this  lovely  and  oppress- 
ed country. 

We  passed  an  hour  before  bedtime  in  the  usual 
amusement  of  travellers  in  a  foreign  hotel — reading 
the  traveller's  record-book.  Walter  Scott's  name  was 
written  there,  and  hundreds  of  distinguished  names 
besides.  I  was  pleased  to  find,  on  a  leaf  far  back, 
"  Edward  Everett,"  written  in  his  own  round  legible 
hand.  There  were  at  least  the  names  of  fifty  Ameri- 
cans, within  the  dates  of  the  year  past — such  a  wan- 
dering nation  we  are.  Foreigners  express  their  aston- 
ishment always  at  their  numbers  in  these  cities. 

On  the  afternoon  of  the  next  day,  we  went  to  Arqua, 
on  a  pilgrimage  to  Petrarch's  cottage  and  tomb.  It 
was  an  Italian  summer  afternoon,  and  the  Euganean 
hills  were  rising  green  and  lovely,  with  the  sun  an  hour 


PENCILLINGS  BY  THE  WAY. 


59 


high  above  them,  and  the  yellow  of  the  early  sunset 
already  commencing  to  glow  about  the  horizon. 

We  left  the  carriage  at  the  "  pellucid  lake,"  and 
went  into  the  hills  a  "mile,  plucking  the  ripe  grapes 
which  hung  over  the  road  in  profusion.  We  were 
soon  at  the  little  village  and  the  tomb,  which  stands 
just  before  the  church  door,  "reared  in  air."  The 
four  laurels  Byron  mentions  are  dead.  We  passed  up 
the  hill  to  the  poet's  house,  a  rural  stone  cottage, 
commanding  a  lovely  view  of  the  campagna  from  the 
portico.  Sixteen  villages  may  be  counted  from  the 
door,  and  the  two  large  towns  of  Rovigo  and  Ferrara 
are  distinguishable  in  a  clear  atmosphere.  It  was  a 
retreat  fit  for  a  poet.  We  went  through  the  rooms, 
and  saw  the  poet's  cat,  stuffed  and  exhibited  behind  a 
wire  grating,  his  chair  and  desk,  his  portrait  in  fresco, 
and  Laura's,  and  the  small  closet-like  room  where  he 
died.  It  was  an  interesting  visit,  and  we  returned  by 
the  golden  twilight  of  this  heavenly  climate,  repeating 
Chiide  Harold,  and  wishing  for  his  peu  to  describe 
afresh  the  scene  about  us. 


LETTER  XL. 

EXCURSION     FROM     VENICE     TO     VERONA TRUTH     OF 

BYRON'S    DESCRIPTION    OF    ITALIAN  SCENERY THE 

LOMBARDY  PEASANTRY APPEARANCE  OF  THE  COUN- 
TRY  MANNER  OF  CULTIVATING  THE  VINE  ON  LIV- 
ING TREES THE  VINTAGE ANOTHER  VISIT  TO  JU- 
LIET'S TOMB THE  OPERA  AT  VERONA — THE  PRI- 
MA      DONNA ROMAN       AMPHITHEATRE BOLOGNA 

AGAIN MADAME    MALIBRAN    IN    LA  GAZZA  LADRA 

CHEAP    LUXURIES THE     PALACE     OF    THE    LAMBAC- 

CARI a    MAGDALEN  OF  GUIDO  CARRACCI — CHARLES 

THE    SECOND'S    BEAUTIES VALLEY  OF  THE    ARNO 

FLORENCE    ONCE    MORE. 

Our  gondola  set  us  on  shore  at  Fusina  an  hour  or 
two  before  sunset,  with  a  sky  (such  as  we  have  had 
for  five  months)  without  a  cloud,  and  the  same  prom- 
ise of  a  golden  sunset,  to  which  I  have  now  become 
so  accustomed,  that  rain  and  a  dark  heaven  would 
seem  to  me  almost  unnatural.  It  was  the  hour  and 
the  spot  at  which  Chiide  Harold  must  have  left  Ven- 
ice, and  we  look  at  the  "  blue  Friuli  mountains,"  the 
"deep-died  Brenta,"  and  the  "far  Rhoetian  hill,"  and 
feel  the  truth  of  his  description  as  well  as  its  beauty. 
The  two  banks  of  the  Brenta  are  studded  with  the 
palaces  of  the  Venetian  nobles  for  almost  twenty 
miles,  and  the  road  runs  close  to  the  water  on  the 
northern  side,  following  all  its  graceful  windings,  and, 
at  every  few  yards,  surprising  the  traveller  with  some 
fresh  scene  of  cultivated  beauty,  church,  palace,  or 
garden,  while  the  gondolas  on  the  stream,  and  the  fair 
"damas"  of  Italy  sitting  under  the  porticoes,  enliven 
and  brighten  the  picture.  These  people  live  out  of 
doors,  and  the  road  was  thronged  with  the  cnntadini  ; 
and  here  and  there  rolled  by  a  carriage,  with  servants 
in  livery  ;  or  a  family  of  the  better  class  on  their  eve- 
ning walk,  sauntered  along  at  the  Italian  pace  of  indo- 
lence, and  a  finer  or  happier  looking  race  of  people 
would  not  easily  be  found.  It  is  difficult  to  see  the 
athletic  frames  and  dark  flashing  eyes  of  the  Lom- 
bardy  peasantry,  and  remember  their  degraded  condi- 
tion. You  can  not  believe  it  will  remain  so.  If  they 
think  at  all,  they  must  in  time,  feel  too  deeply  to  en- 
dure. 

The  guide-book  says,  the  "  traveller  wants  words  to 
express  his  sensations  at  the  beauty  of  the  country 
from  Padua  to  Verona."  Its  beauty  is  owing  to  the  per- 
fection of  a  method  of  cultivation  universal  in  Italy. 
The  fields  are  divided  into  handsome  squares,  by  rows 
of  elms  or  other  forest  trees,  and  the  vines  are  trained 
upon  these  with  all  the  elegance  of  holyday  festoons, 


winding  about  the  trunks,  and  hanging  with  their 
heavy  clusters  from  one  to  the  other,  the  foliage  of 
vine  and  tree  mingled  so  closely  that  it  appears  as  if 
they  sprung  from  the  same  root.  Every  square  is  per- 
fectly enclosed  with  these  fantastic  walls  of  vine-leaves 
and  grapes,  and  the  imagination  of  a  poet  could  con- 
ceive nothing  more  beautiful  for  a  festival  of  Bacchus. 
The  ground  between  is  sown  with  grass  or  corn.  The 
vines  are  luxuriant  always,  and  often  send  their  ten- 
drils into  the  air  higher  than  the  topmost  branch  of 
the  tree,  and  this  extends  the  whole  distance  from 
Padua  to  Verona,  with  no  interruption  except  the  pal- 
aces and  gardens  of  the  nobles  lying  between. 

It  was  just  the  season  for  gathering  and  pressing  the 
grape,  and  the  romantic  vineyards  were  full  of  the  hap- 
py peasants,  of  all  ages,  mounting  the  ladders  adven- 
turously for  the  tall  clusters,  heaping  the  baskets  and 
carts,  driving  in  the  stately  gray  oxen  with  their  loads, 
and  talking  and  singing  as  merrily  as  if  it  were  Arca- 
dia. Oh  how  beautiful  these  scenes  are  in  Italy.  The 
people  are  picturesque,  the  land  is  like  the  poetry  of 
nature,  the  habits  are  all  as  they  were  described  cen- 
turies ago,  and  as  the  still  living  pictures  of  the  glori- 
ous old  masters  represent  them.  The  most  every-day 
traveller  smiles  and  wonders,  as  he  lets  down  his  car- 
riage windows  to  look  at  the  vintage. 

We  have  been  three  or  four  days  in  Verona,  visiting 
Juliet's  tomb,  and  riding  through  the  lovely  environs. 
The  opera  here  is  excellent,  and  we  went  last  night  to 
see  "Romeo  and  Juliet"  performed  in  the  city  re- 
nowned by  their  story.  The  prima  donna  was  one 
of  those  sirens  found  often  in  Italy — a  young  singer 
of  great  promise,  with  that  daring  brilliancy  which 
practice  and  maturer  science  discipline,  to  my  taste, 
too  severely.  It  was  like  the  wild,  ungovernable  trill 
of  a  bird,  and  my  ear  is  not  so  nice  yet,  that  1  even 
would  not  rather  feel  a  roughness  in  the  harmony  than 
lose  it.  Malibran  delighted  me  more  in  America  than 
in  Paris. 

The  opera  was  over  at  twelve,  and,  as  we  emerged 
from  the  crowded  lobby,  the  moon,  full,  and  as  clear 
and  soft  as  the  eye  of  a  child,  burst  through  the  arch- 
es of  the  portico.  The  theatre  is  opposite  the  cele- 
brated Roman  amphitheatre,  and  the  wish  to  visit  it 
by  moonlight  was  expressed  spontaneously  by  the 
whole  party.  The  custode  was  roused,  and  we  enter- 
ed the  vast  arena  and  stood  in  the  midst,  with  the  gi- 
gantic ranges  of  stone  seats  towering  up  in  a  receding 
circle,  as  if  to  the  very  sky,  and  the  lofty  arches  and 
echoing  dens  lying  black  and  silent  in  the  dead  shad- 
ows of  the  moon.  A  hundred  thousand  people  could 
sit  here  ;  and  it  was  in  these  arenas,  scattered  through 
the  Roman  provinces,  that  the  bloody  gladiator  fights, 
and  the  massacre  of  Christians,  and  every  scene  of 
horror,  amused  the  subjects  of  the  mighty  mistress  of 
the  world.  You  would  never  believe  it,  if  you  could 
have  seen  how  peacefully  the  moonlight  now  sleeps 
on  the  moss-gathering  walls,  and  with  what  untrim- 
med  grace  the  vines  and  flowers  creep  and  blossom  on 
the  rocky  crevices  of  the  windows. 

We  arrived  at  Bologna  just  in  time  to  get  to  the 
opera.  Malibran  in  La  Gazza  Ladra  was  enough  to 
make  one  forget  more  than  the  fatigue  of  a  day's  trav- 
el. She  sings  as  well  as  ever,  and  plays  much  better, 
though  she  had  been  ill,  and  looked  thin.  In  the  pris- 
on scene,  she  was  ghastlier  even  than  the  character 
required.  There  are  few  pleasures  in  Europe  like 
such  singing  as  hers,  and  the  Italians,  in  their  excel- 
lent operas,  and  the  cheap  rate  at  which  they  can  be 
frequented,  have  a  resource  corresponding  to  every- 
thing else  in  their  delightful  country.  Every  comfort 
and  luxury  is  better  and  cheaper  in  Italy  than  else- 
where, and  it  is  a  pity  that  he  who  can  get  his  wine 
for  three  cents  a  bottle,  his  dinner  and  his  place  at  the 
opera  for  ten,  and  has  lodgings  for  anything  he  chooses 


CO 


PENCILLINGS  BY  THE  WAY. 


to  pay,  can  not  find  leisure,  and  does  not  think  it 
worth  the  trouble,  to  look  about  for  means  to  be  free. 
It  is  vexatious  to  see  nature  lavishing  such  blessings 
on  slaves. 

The  next  morning  we  visited  a  palace,  which,  as  it 
is  not  mentioned  in  the  guide-books  of  travel,  I  had 
not  before  seen — the  Lambaccari.  It  was  full  of  glo- 
rious pictures,  most  of  them  for  sale.  Among  others 
we  were  captivated  with  a  Magdalen  of  unrivalled 
sweetness,  by  Guido  Carracci.  It  has  been  bought 
since  by  Mr.  Cabot,  of  Boston,  who  passed  through 
Bologna  the  day  after,  and  will  be  sent  to  America,  I 
am  happy  to  say,  immediately.  There  were  also  six 
of  "  Charles  the  Second's  beauties," — portraits  of  the 
celebrated  women  of  that  gay  monarch's  court,  by 
Sir  Peter  Lely — ripe,  glowing  English  women,  more 
voluptuous  than  chary-looking,  but  pictures  of  ex- 
quisite workmanship.  There  were  nine  or  ten  apart- 
ments to  this  splendid  palace,  all  crowded  with  paint- 
ings by  the  first  masters,  and  the  surviving  Lambaccari 
is  said  to  be  selling  them  one  by  one  for  bread.  It  is 
really  melancholy  to  go  through  Italy,  and  see  how 
her  people  are  suffering,  and  her  nobles  starving  un- 
der oppression. 

We  crossed  the  Appenines  in  two  of  the  finest  days 
that  ever  shone,  and  descending  through  clouds  and 
mist  to  the  Tuscan  frontier,  entered  the  lovely  valley 
of  the  Arno,  sparkling  in  the  sunshine,  with  all  its 
palaces  and  spires,  as  beautiful  as  ever.  I  am  at  Flor- 
ence once  more,  and  parting  from  the  delightful  party 
with  whom  I  have  travelled  for  two  months.  I  start 
for  Rome  to-morrow,  in  company  with  five  artists. 


LETTER  XLI. 

JOURNEY  TO  THE  ETERNAL  CITY — TWO  ROADS  TO  ROME 
— SIENNA — THE  PUBLIC  SQUARE — AN  ITALIAN  FAIR 
THE  CATHEDRAL — THE  LIBRARY THE  THREE  GRE- 
CIAN RRACES DANDY  OFFICERS PUBLIC  PROMENADE 

— LANDSCAPE  VIEW — LONG  GLEN — A  WATERFALL — A 
CULTIVATED   VALLEY— THE    TOWN  OF    AQUAPENDENK 

SAN    LORENZO — PLINY'S    FLOATING    ISLANDS — MON- 

TEFTASCONE — VITERBO — PROCESSION    OF  FLOWER  AND 

DANCING    GIRLS    TO    THE    VINTAGE ASCENT    OF    THE 

MONTECIMINO — THE  ROAD  OF    THIEVES — LAKE  VICO 

BACCANO MOUNT    SORACTE — DOME    OF    ST.    PETER'S, 

ETC.     . 

I  left  Florence  in  company  with  the  five  artists 
mentioned  in  my  last  letter,  one  of  them  an  English- 
man, and  the  other  four  pensioners  of  the  royal  acad- 
emy at  Madrid.  The  Spaniards  had  but  just  arrived 
in  Italy,  and  could  not  speak  a  syllable  of  the  lan- 
guage. The  Englishman  spoke  everything  but  French, 
which  he  avoided  learning/row  principle.  He  "hated 
a  Frenchman  !" 

There  are  two  roads  to  Rome.  One  goes  by  Sien- 
na, and  is  a  day  shorter;  the  other  by  Perugia,  the 
Falls  of  Temi,  LakeThrasymene,  and  the  Clitumnus. 
Childe  Harold  took  the  latter,  and  his  ten  or  twelve 
best  cantos  describe  it.  I  was  compelled  to  go  by  Si- 
enna, and  shall  return,  of  course,  by  the  other  road. 

I  was  at  Sienna  on  the  following  day.  As  the  sec- 
ond capital  of  Tuscany,  this  should  be  a  place  of  some 
interest,  but  an  hour  or  two  is  more  than  enough  to 
see  all  that  is  attractive.  The  public  square  was  a  gay 
scene.  It  was  rather  singularly  situated,  lying  fifteen 
or  twenty  feet  lower  than  the  streets  about  it.  I  should 
think  there  were  several  thousand  people  in  its  area — 
all  buying  or  selling,  and  vociferating,  as  usual,  at  the 
top  of  their  voices.  We  heard  the  murmur,  like  the 
roar  of  the  sea,  in  all  the  distant  streets.  There  are 
few  sights  more  picturesque  than  an  Italian  fair,  and  I 
strolled  about  in  the  crowd  for  an  hour,  amused  with 


the  fanciful  costumes,  and  endeavoring  to  make  out 
with  the  assistance  of  the  eye  what  rather  distracted 
my  unaccustomed  ear — the  cries  of  the  various  wan- 
dering venders  of  merchandise.  The  women,  who 
were  all  from  the  country,  were  coarse,  and  looked 
well  only  at  a  distance. 

The  cathedral  is  the  great  sight  of  Sienna.  It  has 
a  rich  exterior,  encrusted  with  curiously  wrought  mar- 
bles, and  the  front,  as  far  as  I  can  judge,  is  in  beauti- 
ful taste.  The  pavement  of  the  interior  is  very  pre- 
cious, and  covered  with  a  wooden  platform,  which  is 
removed  but  once  a  year.  The  servitor  raised  a  part 
of  it,  to  show  us  the  workmanship.  It  was  like  a 
drawing  in  India  ink,  quite  as  fine  as  if  pencilled,  and 
representing,  as  is  customary,  some  miracle  of  a  saint. 

A  massive  iron  door,  made  ingeniously  to  imitate  a 
rope-netting,  opens  from  the  side  of  the  church  into  the 
library.  It  contained  some  twenty  volumes  in  black 
letter,  bound  with  enormous  clasps,  and  placed  upon 
inclined  shelves.  It  would  have  been  a  task  for  a  man 
of  moderate  strength  to  lift  either  of  them  from  the 
floor.  The  little  sacristan  found  great  difficulty  in 
only  opening  one  to  show  us  the  letter. 

In  the  centre  of  the  chapel,  on  a  high  pedestal, 
stands  the  original  antique  group,  so  often  copied,  of 
the  three  Grecian  Graces.  It  is  shockingly  mutilated; 
but  its  original  beauty  i3  still,  in  a  great  measure,  dis- 
cernible. Three  naked  women  are  an  odd  ornament 
for  the  private  chapel  of  a  cathedral.*  One  often 
wonders,  however,  in  Italian  churches,  whether  his 
devotion  is  most  called  upon  by  the  arts  or  the  Deity. 

As  we  were  leaving  the  church,  four  young  officers 
passed  us  in  gay  uniform,  their  long  steel  scabbards 
rattling  on  the  pavement,  and  their  heavy  tread  dis- 
turbing visibly  every  person  present.  As  I  turned  to 
look  after  them,  with  some  remark  on  their  coxcomb- 
ry, they  dropped  on  their  knees  at  the  bases  of  the 
tall  pillars  about  the  altar,  and  burying  their  faces  in 
their  caps,  bowed  their  heads  nearly  to  the  floor,  in  at- 
titudes of  the  deepest  devotion.  Sincere  or  not,  cath- 
olic worshippers  of  all  classes  seem  absorbed  in  their  re- 
ligious duties.  You  can  scarce  withdraw  the  atten- 
tion even  of  a  child  in  such  places.  In  the  six  months 
that  I  have  been  in  Italy,  I  never  saw  anything  like  ir- 
reverence within  the  church  walls. 

The  public  promenade,  on  the  edge  of  the  hill  upon 
which  the  town  is  beautifully  situated,  commands  a 
noble  view  of  the  country  about.  The  peculiar  land- 
scape of  Italy  lay  before  us  in  all  its  loveliness — the 
far-off  hills  lightly  teinted  with  the  divided  colors  of 
distance,  the  atmosphere  between  absolutely  clear  and 
invisible,  and  villages  clustered  about,  each  with  its 
ancient  castle  on  the  hill-top  above,  just  as  it  was  set- 
tled in  feudal  times,  and  just  as  painters  and  poets 
would  imagine  it.  You  never  get  a  view  in  this  "  gar- 
den of  the  world"  that  would  not  excuse  very  extrava- 
gant description. 

Sienna  is  said  to  be  the  best  place  for  learning  the 
language.  Just  between  Florence  and  Rome,  it  com- 
bines the  "  lingua  Toscano,"  with  the  "  bocca  Roma- 
na" — the  Roman  pronunciation  with  the  Florentine 
purity  of  language.  It  looks  like  a  dull  place,  how- 
ever, and  I  was  very  glad  after  dinner  to  resume  my 
passport  at  the  gate  and  get  on. 

The  next  morning,  after  toiling  up  a  considerable  as- 
cent, we  suddenly  rounded  the  shoulder  of  the  moun- 
tain, and  found  ourselves  at  the  edge  of  a  long  glen, 
walled  up  at  one  extremity  by  a  precipice,  with  an  old 
town  upon  its  brow,  and  a  waterfall  pouring  off  at  its 
side,  and  opening  away  at  the  other  into  a  broad  gen- 
tly-sloped valley,  cultivated  like  a  garden  as  far  as  the 
eye  could  distinguish.     I  think  I  have  seen  an  engra- 

*  I  remember  hearing  a  friend  receive  a  severe  reproof  from 
one  of  the  most  enlightened  men  in  our  country  for  offering 
his  daughter  an  annual,  upon  the  cover  of  which  was  an  engra- 
ving of  these  same  "  Graces." 


PENCILLINGS  BY  THE  WAY. 


Gl 


viiif  of  it  in  the  Landscape  Annual.  Taken  together, 
it  is  positively  the  most  beautiful  view  I  ever  saw, 
from  the  road  edge,  as  you  wind  up  into  the  town  of 
Acquaperulenk.  The  precipice  might  be  a  hundred 
feet,  and  from  its  immediate  edge  were  built  up  the 
walls  of  the  houses,  so  that  a  child  at  the  window 
might  throw  its  plaything  into  the  bottom  of  the  ra- 
vine. It  is  scarce  a  pistol-shot  across  the  glen,  and  the 
two  hills  on  cither  side  lean  oil"  from  the  level  of  the 
town  in  one  long  soft  declivity  to  the  valley — the  little 
river  which  pours  oft'  the  rock  at  the  very  base  of  the 
church,  fretting  and  fuming  its  way  between  to  the 
meadows — its  stony  bed  quite  hidden  by  the  thick  ve- 
getation of  its  banks.  The  bells  were  ringing  to  mass, 
and  the  echoes  came  back  to  us  at  long  distances  with 
every  modulation.  The  streets,  as  we  entered  the 
town,  were  full  of  people  hurrying  to  the  churches  ; 
the  women  with  their  red  shawls  thrown  about  their 
heads,  and  the  men  with  their  immense  dingy  cloaks 
flung  romantically  over  their  shoulders,  with  a  grace, 
one  and  all,  that  in  a  Parisian  dandy,  would  be  at- 
tributed to  a  consummate  study  of  effect.  For  out- 
line merely,  I  think  there  is  nothing  in  costume 
which  can  surpass  the  closely-stockinged  leg,  heavy 
cloak,  and  slouched  hat  of  an  Italian  peasant.  It  is 
added  to  by  his  indolent,  and,  consequently,  graceful 
motion  and  attitudes.  Johnson,  in  his  book  on  the 
climate  of  Italy,  says  their  sloth  is  induced  by  mala- 
ria. You  will  see  a  man  watching  goats  or  sheep, 
with  his  back  against  a  rock,  quite  motionless  for  hours 
together.  His  dog  feels,  apparently,  the  same  influ- 
ence, and  lies  couched  in  his  long  white  hair,  with 
his  eyes  upon  the  flock,  as  lifeless,  and  almost  as  pic- 
turesque, as  his  master. 

The  town  of  San  Lorenzo  is  a  handful  of  houses  on 
the  top  of  a  hill  which  hangs  over  Lake  Bolsena. 
You  get  the  first  view  of  the  lake  as  you  go  out  of  the 
gate  toward  Rome,  and  descend  immediately  to  its 
banks.  There  was  a  heavy  mist  upon  the  water,  and 
we  could  not  see  across,  but  it  looked  like  as  quiet 
and  pleasant  a  shore  as  might  be  found  in  the  world — 
the  woods  wild,  and  of  uncommonly  rich  foliage  for 
Italy,  and  the  slopes  of  the  hills  beautiful.  Saving  the 
road,  and  here  and  there  a  house  with  no  sign  of  an  in- 
habitant, there  can  scarcely  be  a  lonelier  wilderness 
in  America.  We  stopped  two  hours  at  an  inn  on  its 
banks,  and  whether  it  was  the  air,  or  the  influence  of 
the  perfect  stillness  about  us,  my  companions  went  to 
sleep,  and  I  could  scarce  lesist  my  own  drowsiness. 

The  mist  lifted  a  little  from  the  lake  after  dinner, 
and  we  saw  the  two  islands  said  by  Pliny  to  have 
floated  in  his  time.  They  look  like  the  tops  of  green 
hills  rising  from  the  water. 

It  is  a  beautiful  country  again  as  you  approach 
Montefiascone.  The  scenery  is  finely  broken  up  with 
glens  formed  by  columns  of  basalt,  giving  it  a  look  of 
great  wildness.  Montefiascone  is  built  on  the  river  of 
one  of  these  ravines.  We  stopped  here  long  enough 
to  get  a  bottle  of  the  wine  for  which  the  place  is  fa- 
mous, drinking  it  to  the  memory  of  the  "  German  prel- 
ate," who,  as  Madame  Stark  relates,  "stopped  here 
on  his  journey  to  Rome,  and  died  of  drinking  it  to  ex- 
cess." It  has  degenerated,  probably,  since  his  time, 
or  we  chanced  upon  a  bad  bottle. 

The  walls  of  Vilerho  are  flanked  with  towers,  and 
have  a  noble  appearance  from  the  hill-side  on  which 
the  town  stands.  We  arrived  too  late  to  see  anything 
of  the  place.  As  we  were  taking  coffee  at  the  cafe  the 
next  morning,  a  half  hour  before  daylight,  we  heard 
music  in  the  street,  and  looking  out  at  the  door,  we 
saw  a  long  procession  of  young  girls,  dressed  with 
flowers  in  their  hair,  and  each  playing  a  kind  of  cymbal, 
ami  half  dancing  as  she  went  along.  Three  or  four  at 
the  head  of  the  procession  sung  a  kind  of  verse,  and  the 
rest  joined  in  a  short  merry  chorus  at  intervals.  It 
was  more  like  a  train  of  Corybantes  than  anything  I 


had  seen.  We  inquired  the  object  of  it,  and  were  told 
it  was  a  procession  to  the  vintage.  They  were  going 
out  to  pluck  the  last  grapes,  and  it  was  the  custom  to 
make  it  a  festa.  It  was  a  striking  scene  in  the  other- 
wise perfect  darkness  of  the  streets,  the  torch-bearers 
at  the  sides  waving  their  flambeaux  regularly  over  their 
heads,  and  shouting  with  the  rest  in  chorus.  The 
measure  was  quick,  and  the  step  very  fast.  They 
were  gone  in  an  instant.  The  whole  thing  was  po- 
etical, and  in  keeping  for  Italy.  I  have  never  seen  it 
elsewhere. 

We  left  Viterbo  on  a  clear,  mild  autumnal  morning; 
and  I  think  I  never  felt  the  excitement  of  a  delightful 
climate  more  thrill ingly.  Theroad  was  wild,  and  with 
the  long  ascent  of  the  Monte-Cimino  before  us,  I  left  the 
carriage  to  its  slow  pace  and  went  ahead  several  miles 
on  foot.  The  first  rain  of  the  season  had  fallen,  and 
the  road  was  moist,  and  all  the  spicy  herbs  of  Italy  per- 
ceptible in  the  air.  Half  way  up  the  mountain,  1  over- 
took a  fat,  bald,  middle-aged  priest,  slowly  toiling  up 
on  his  mule.  I  was  passing  him  with  a  "  huon  giorno" 
when  he  begged  me  for  my  own  sake,  as  well  as  his, 
to  keep  him  company.  "It  was  the  worst  road  for 
thieves,"  he  said,  "in  all  Italy,"  and  he  pointed  at 
every  short  distance  to  little  crosses  erected  at  the 
road-side,  to  commemorate  the  finding  of  murdered 
men  on  the  spot.  After  he  had  told  me  several  stories 
of  the  kind,  he  elevated  his  tone,  and  began  to  talk  of 
other  matters.  I  think  I  never  heard  so  loud  and  long 
a  laugh  as  his.  I  ventured  to  express  a  wonder  at  his 
finding  himself  so  happy  in  a  life  of  celibacy.  He 
looked  at  me  slily  a  moment  or  two  as  if  he  were  hes- 
itating whether  to  trust  me  with  his  opinions  on  the 
subject;  but  he  suddenly  seemed  to  remember  his 
caution,  and  pointing  oft'  to  the  right,  showed  me  a 
lake  brought  into  view  by  the  last  turn  of  the  road.  It 
was  Lake  Vico.  From  the  midst  of  it  rose  a  round 
mountain  covered  to  the  top  with  luxuriant  chestnuts — 
the  lake  forming  a  sort  of  trench  about  it,  with  the 
hill  on  which  we  stood  rising  directly  from  the  other 
edge.  It  was  one  faultless  mirror  of  green  leaves. 
The  two  hill  sides  shadowed  it  completely.  All  the 
views  from  Monte-Cimino  were  among  the  richest  in 
mere  nature  that  I  ever  saw,  and  reminded  me  strong- 
ly of  the  country  about  the  Seneca  lake  of  America. 
1  was  on  the  Cayuga  at  about  the  same  season  three 
summers  ago,  and  I  could  have  believed  myself  back 
again,  it  was  so  like  my  recollection. 

We  stopped  on  the  fourth  night  of  our  journey, 
seventeen  miles  from  Rome,  at  a  place  called  Baccano. 
A  ridge  of  hills  rose  just  before  us,  from  the  top  of 
which  we  were  told  we  could  see  St.  Peter's.  The 
sun  was  just  dipping  under  the  horizon,  and  the  ascent 
was  three  miles.  We  threw  off  our  cloaks,  deter- 
mining to  see  Rome  before  we  slept,  ran  unbreathed 
to  the  top  of  the  hill,  an  effort  which  so  nearly  ex- 
hausted us,  that  we  could  scarce  stand  long  enough 
upon  our  feet  to  search  over  the  broad  campagna  for 
the  dome. 

Tho  sunset  had  lingered  a  great  while — as  it  does 
in  Italy.  Four  or  five  light  feathery  streaks  of  cloud 
glowed  with  intense  crimson  in  the  west,  and  on  the 
brow  of  Mount  Soracte,  (which  I  recognised  instantly 
from  the  graphic  simile*  of  Childe  Harold),  and  along 
on  all  the  ridges  of  mountain  in  the  east,  still  play- 
ed a  kind  of  vanishing  reflection,  half  purple,  half  eray. 
With  a  moment's  glance  around  to  catch  the  outline 
of  the  landscape,  I  felt  instinctively  where  Rome  should 
stand,  and  my  eye  fell  at  once  upon  "the  mighty 
dome."  Jupiter  had  by  this  time  appeared,  and  hung 
right  over  it,  trembling  in  the  sky  with  its  peculiar 
glorv,  like  a  lump  of  molten  spar,  and  as  the  color 
faded  from  the  clouds,  and  the  dark  mass  of  "the 
eternal  city"  itself  mingled  and  was  lost  in  the  shad- 

• «  A,  long  swept  wave  about  to  break, 

And  ott  the  curl  hangs  pausing  " 


62 


PENCILLINGS  BY  THE  WAY. 


ows  of  the  campagna,  the  dome  still  seemed  to 
catch  light,  and  tower  visibly,  as  if  the  radiance  of  the 
glowing  star  above  fell  more  directly  upon  it.  We 
could  see  it  till  we  could  scarcely  distinguish  each 
other's  features.  The  dead  level  of  the  campagna 
extended  between  and  beyond  for  twenty  miles,  and  it 
looked  like  a  far-off  beacon  in  a  dim  sea.  We  sat  an 
hour  on  the  summit  of  the  hill,  gazing  into  the  in- 
creasing darkness,  till  our  eyes  ached.  The  stars 
brightened  one  by  one,  the  mountains  grew  indistinct, 
and  we  rose  unwillingly  to  retrace  our  steps  to  Bac- 
cano. 


LETTER  XLII. 

first  dat  in  rome — saint  peter's — a  solitary 
monk strange  music michael  angelo's  mas- 
terpiece  the  museum likeness  of  young  au- 
gustus  arollo  belvedere the  medicean  venus 

— Raphael's  transfiguration — the  pantheon — 
the  burial-place  of  carracci  and  raphael — ro- 
man forum — temple  of  fortune — the  rostrum 
— palace  of  the  cesars — the  ruins — the  col- 
iseum, etc. 

To  be  rid  of  the  dust  of  travel,  and  abroad  in  a 
strange  and  renowned  city,  is  a  sensation  of  no  slight 
pleasure  anywhere.  To  step  into  the  street  under 
these  circumstances  and  inquire  for  the  Roman  Forum, 
was  a  sufficient  advance  upon  the  ordinary  feeling  to 
mark  a  bright  day  in  one's  calendar.  I  was  hurrying 
up  the  Corso  with  this  object  before  me  a  half  hour 
after  my  arrival  in  Rome,  when  an  old  friend  arrested 
my  steps,  and  begging  me  to  reserve  the  "  Ruins"  for 
moonlight,  took  me  off  to  St.  Peter's. 

The  facade  of  the  church  appears  alone,  as  you 
walk  up  the  street  from  the  castle  of  St.  Angelo.  It 
disappointed  me.  There  is  no  portico,  and  it  looks 
fiat  and  bare.  But  approaching  nearer,  I  stood  at  the 
base  of  the  obelisk,  and  with  those  two  magnificent 
fountains  sending  their  musical  waters  as  if  to  the 
sky,  and  the  two  encircling  wings  of  the  church  em- 
bracing the  immense  area  with  its  triple  colonnades,  I 
felt  the  grandeur  of  St.  Peter's.  I  felt  it  again  in  the 
gigantic  and  richly-wrought  porches,  and  again  with 
indescribable  surprise  and  admiration  at  the  first  step 
on  the  pavement  of  the  interior.  There  was  not  a 
figure  on  its  immense  floor  from  the  door  to  the  altar, 
and  its  far-off  roof,  its  mighty  piHars,  its  gold  and 
marbles  in  such  profusion  that  the  eye  shrinks  from 
the  examination,  made  their  overpowering  impression 
uninterrupted.  You  feel  that  it  must  be  a  glorious 
creature  that  could  build  such  a  temple  to  his  Maker. 

An  organ  was  playing  brokenly  in  one  of  the  dis- 
tant chapels,  and.  drawing  insensibly  to  the  music,  we 
found  the  door  half  open,  and  a  monk  alone,  running 
his  fingers  over  the  keys,  and  stopping  sometimes  as 
if  to  muse,  till  the  echo  died  and  the  silence  seemed 
to  startle  him  anew.  It  was  strange  music  very  irreg- 
ular, but  sweet,  and  in  a  less  excited  moment,  I  could 
have  sat  and  listened  to  it  till  the  sun  set. 

I  strayed  down  the  aisle,  and  stood  before  the 
"  Dead  Christ"  of  Michael  Angelo.  The  Savior  lies 
in  the  arms  of  Mary.  The  limbs  hang  lifelessly  down, 
and,  exquisitely  beautiful  as  they  are,  express  death 
with  a  wonderful  power.  It  is  the  best  work  of  the 
artist,  I  think,  and  the  only  one  I  was  ever  moved  in 
looking  at. 

The  greatest  statue  and  the  first  picture  in  the  world 
are  under  the  same  roof,  and  we  mounted  to  the  Vati- 
can. The  museum  is  a  wilderness  of  statuary.  Old 
Romans,  men  and  women,  stand  about  you,  copied, 
as  you  feel  when  you  look  on  them,  from  the  life, 
and  conceptions  of  beauty  in  children,  nymphs,  and 


heroes,  from  minds  that  conceived  beauty  in  a  degree 
that  has  never  been  transcended,  confuse  and  bewilder 
you  with  their  number  and  wonderful  workmanship. 
It  is  like  seeing  a  vision  of  past  ages.  It  is  calling  up 
from  Athens  and  old  classic  Rome,  all  that  was  dis- 
tinguished and  admired  of  the  most  polished  ages  of 
the  world.  On  the  right  of  the  long  gallery,  as  you 
enter,  stands  the  bust  of  the  "  Young  Augustus" — a 
kind  of  beautiful,  angelic  likeness  of  Napoleon,  as 
Napoleon  might  have  been  in  his  youth.  It  is  a  boy, 
but  with  a  serene  dignity  about  the  forehead  and  lips, 
that  makes  him  visibly  a  boy-emperor — born  for  his 
throne,  and  conscious  of  his  right  to  it.  There  is 
nothing  in  marble  more  perfect,  and  I  never  saw  any- 
thing which  made  me  realize  that  the  Romans  of  his- 
tory and  poetry  were  men — nothing  which  brought 
them  so  familiarly  to  my  mind,  as  the  feeling  for  beau- 
ty shown  in  this  infantine  bust.  I  would  rather  have 
it  than  all  the  gods  and  heroes  of  the  Vatican. 

No  cast  gives  you  any  idea  worth  having  of  the 
Apollo  Belvidere.  It  is  a  god-like  model  of  a  man. 
The  lightness  and  the  elegance  of  the  limbs  ;  the  free, 
fiery,  confident  energy  of  the  atitude ;  the  breathing, 
indignant  nostril  and  lips  ;  the  whole  statue's  mingled 
and  equal  grace  and  power,  are,  with  all  its  truth  to 
nature,  beyond  any  conception  I  had  formed  of  manly 
beauty.  It  spoils  one's  eye  for  common  men  to  look 
at  it.  It  stands  there  like  a  descended  angel,  with  a 
splendor  of  form  and  an  air  of  power,  that  makes  one 
feel  what  he  should  have  been,  and  mortifies  him  for 
what  he  is.  Most  women  whom  I  have  met  in  Eu- 
rope, adore  the  Apollo  as  far  the  finest  statue  in  the 
world,  and  most  men  say  as  much  of  the  Medicean 
Venus.  But,  to  my  eye,  the  Venus,  lovely  as  she  is, 
compares  with  the  Apollo  as  a  mortal  with  an  angel  of 
light.  The  latter  is  incomparably  the  finest  statue. 
If  it  were  only  for  its  face,  it  would  transcend  the  oth- 
er infinitely.  The  beauty  of  the  Venus  is  only  in  the 
limbs  and  body.  It  is  a  faultless,  and  withal,  modest 
representation  of  the  flesh  and  blood  beauty  of  a  wo- 
man. The  Apollo  is  all  this,  and  has  a  soul.  I  have 
seen  women  that  approached  the  Venus  in  form,  and 
had  finer  faces — I  never  saw  a  man  that  was  a  shadow 
of  the  Apollo  in  either.  It  stands  as  it  should,  in  a 
room  by  itself,  and  is  thronged  at  all  hours  by  female 
worshippers.  They  never  tire  of  gazing  at  it ;  and  I 
should  believe,  from  the  open-mouthed  wonder  of 
those  whom  I  met  at  its  pedestal,  that  the  story  of  the 
girl  who  pined  and  died  for  love  of  it,  was  neither  im- 
probable nor  singular. 

Raphael's  "  Transfiguration"  is  agreed  to  be  the 
finest  picture  in  the  world.  I  had  made  up  my  mind 
to  the  same  opinion  from  the  engravings  of  it,  but  was 
painfully  disappointed  in  the  picture.  I  looked  at  it 
from  every  corner  of  the  room,  and  asked  the  custode 
three  times  if  he  was  sure  this  was  the  original.  The 
color  offended  my  eye,  blind  as  Raphael's  name  should 
make  it,  and  I  left  the  room  with  a  sigh,  and  an  un- 
settled faith  in  my  own  taste,  that  made  me  seriously 
unhappy.  My  complacency  was  restored  a  few  hours 
after  on  hearing  that  the  wonder  was  entirely  in  the 
drawing — the  colors  having  quite  changed  with  time. 
I  bought  the  engraving  immediately,  which  you  have 
seen  too  often,  of  course,  to  need  my  commentary. 
The  aerial  lightness  with  which  he  has  hung  the  fig- 
ures of  the  Savior  and  the  apostles  in  the  air,  is  a  tri- 
umph of  the  pencil  over  the  laws  of  nature,  that  seem 
to  have  required  the  power  of  the  miracle  itself. 

I  lost  myself  in  coming  home,  and  following  a 
priest's  direction  to  the  Corso,  came  unexpectedly  up- 
on the  "  Pantheon,"  which  I  recognised  at  once. 
This  wonder  of  architecture  has  no  questionable  beau- 
ty. A  dunce  would  not  need  to  be  told  that  it  was 
perfect.  Its  Corinthian  columns  fall  on  the  eye  with 
that  sense  of  fulness  that  seems  to  answer  an  instinct 
of  beauty  in  the  very  organ.     One  feels  a  fault  or  an 


PENCILLINGS  BY  THE  WAY. 


excellence  in  architecture  long  before  he  can  give  the 
feeling  a  name  ;  and  I  can  see  why,  by  Childe  Harold 
and  others,  this  heathen  temple  is  called  "the  pride  of 
Rome,"  though  I  can  not  venture  on  a  description. 
The  faultless  interior  is  now  used  as  a  church,  and 
there  lie  Annibal  Carracci  and  the  divine  Raphael — 
two  names  worthy  of  the  place,  and  the  last  of  a  shrine 
in  every  bosom  capable  of  a  conception  of  beauty. 
Glorious  Raphael !  If  there  was  no  other  relic  in 
Rome,  one  would  willingly  become  a  pilgrim  to  his 
ashes. 

With  my  countryman  and  friend,  Mr.  Cleveland,  I 
stood  in  the  Roman  forum  by  the  light  of  a  clear  half 
moon.  The  soft  silver  rays  poured  in  through  the 
ruined  columns  of  the  Temple  of  Fortune  and  threw 
our  shadows  upon  the  bases  of  the  tall  shafts  near  the 
capitol,  the  remains,  I  believe,  of  the  temple  erected 
by  Augustus  to  Jupiter  Tonans.  Impressive  things 
they  are,  even  without  their  name,  standing  tall  and 
alone,  with  their  broken  capitals  wre'athed  with  ivy, 
and  neither  roof  nor  wall  to  support  them  where  they 
were  placed  by  hands  that  have  mouldered  for  centu- 
ries. It  is  difficult  to  rally  one's  senses  in  such  a 
place,  and  be  awake  coldly  to  the  scene.  We  stood, 
as  we  supposed,  in  the  Rostrum.  The  noble  arch, 
still  almost  perfect,  erected  by  the  senate  to  Septimius 
Severus,  stood  up  clear  and  lofty  beside  us,  the  three 
matchless  and  lonely  columns  of  the  supposed  temple 
of  Jupiter  Stator  threw  their  shadows  across  the  Fo- 
rum below,  the  great  arch,  built  at  the  conquest  of 
Jerusalem  to  Titus,  was  visible  in  the  distance,  and 
above  them  all,  on  the  gentle  ascent  of  the  Palatine, 
stood  the  ruineil  palace  of  the  Cesars,  the  sharp  edg- 
es of  the  demolished  walls  breaking  up  through  vines 
and  ivy,  and  the  mellow  moon  of  Italy  softening  rock 
and  foliage  into  one  silver-edged  mass  of  shadow.  It 
seems  as  if  the  very  genius  of  the  picturesque  had  ar- 
ranged these  immortal  ruins.  If  the  heaps  of  fresh 
excavation  were  but  overgrown  with  grass,  no  poet  nor 
painter  could  better  image  out  the  Rome  of  his  dream. 
It  surpasses  fancy. 

We  walked  on  over  fragments  of  marble  columns 
turned  up  from  the  mould,  and  leaving  the  majestic 
arches  of  the  Temple  of  Peace  on  our  left,  passed 
under  the  arch  ol  Titus  (so  dreaded  by  the  Jews),  to 
the  Coliseum.  This  too  is  magnificently  ruined — 
broken  in  every  part,  and  yet  showing  still  the  brave 
skeleton  of  what  it  was— its  gigantic  and  triple  walls, 
half  encircling  the  silent  arena,  and  its  rocky  seats 
lifting  one  above  the  other  amid  weeds  and  ivy,  and 
darkening  the  dens  beneath,  whence  issued  the  gladi- 
ators, beasts,  and  Christian  martyrs,  to  be  sacrificed  for 
the  amusement  of  Rome.  A  sentinel  paced  at  the 
gigantic  archway,  a  capuchin  monk,  whose  duty  is  to 
attend  the  small  chapels  built  around  the  arena,  walk- 
ed up  and  down  in  his  russet  cowl  and  sandals,  the 
moon  broke  through  the  clefts  in  the  wall,  and  the 
whole  place  was  buried  in  the  silence  of  a  wilderness. 
I  have  given  you  the  features  of  the  scene— I  leave 
you  to  people  it  with  your  own  thoughts.  I  dare  not 
trust  mine  to  a  colder  medium  than  poetry. 


LETTER  XLIII. 

TIVOLI RUINS  OF  THE  BATHS  OF  DIOCLETIAN FALLS 

OF  TIVOLI CASCATELLI SUBJECT  OF  ONE  OFCOLE's 

LANDSCAPES RUINS    OF    THE  VILLAGE  OF  MECENAS 

RUINED  VILLA  OF  ADRIAN THE  FORUM TEMPLE 

OF    VESTA THE   CLOACA     MAXIMA THE    RIVER   JU- 

TURNA,  ETC. 

I  have  spent  a  day  at  Tivoli  with  Messrs.  Auchmu- 
ty  and  Bissell,  of  our  navy,  and  one  or  two  others, 
forming  quite  an  American  party.     We  passed  the  ru- 


ins of  the  baths  of  Diocletian,  with  a  heavy  cloud  over 
our  heads;  but  we  were  scarce  through  the  gate 
when  the  sun  broke  through,  the  rain  swept  off  over 
Soracte,  and  the  sky  was  clear  till  sunset. 

I  have  seen  many  finer  falls  than  Tivoli;  that  is 
more  water,  and  failing  farther ;  but  I  do  not  think 
there  is  so  pretty  a  place  in  the  world.  A  very  dirty 
village,  a  dirtier  hotel,  and  a  cicerone  all  rags  and  ruf- 
fianism, are  somewhat  dampers  to  anticipation.  We 
passed  through  a  broken  gate,  and  with  a  step,  were  in 
a  glen  of  fairy  land;  the  lightest  and  loveliest  of  an- 
tique temples  on  a  crag  above,  a  snowy  waterfall  of 
some  hundred  and  fifty  feet  below,  grottoes  mossed  to 
the  mouth  at  the  river\s  outlet,  and  all  up  and  down 
the  cleft  valley  vines  twisted  in  the  crevices  of  rock, 
and  shrubbery  hanging  on  every  ledge,  with  a  felicity 
of  taste  or  nature,  or  both,  that  is  uncommon  even  in 
Italy.  The  fall  itself  comes  rushing  down  through  a 
grotto  to  the  face  of  the  precipice,  over  which  it  leaps, 
and  looks  like  a  subterranean  river  just  coming  to  light. 
Its  bed  is  rough  above,  and  it  bursts  forth  from  its  cav- 
ern in  dazzling  foam,  and  falls  in  one  sparry  sheet  to 
the  gulf.  The  falls  of  Montmorenci  are  not  unlike  it. 
We  descended  to  the  bottom,  and  from  the  little  ter- 
race, wet  by  the  spray,  and  dark  with  overhanging 
rocks,  looked  up  the  "  cavern  of  Neptune,"  a  deep  pas- 
sage, through  which  half  the  divided  river  rushes  to 
meet  the  fall  in  the  gulf.  Then  remounting  to  the 
top,  we  took  mules  to  make  the  three  miles'  circuit  of 
the  glen,  and  see  what  are  called  the  CascateUi. 

No  fairy-work  could  exceed  the  beauty  of  the  little  an- 
tique Sybil's  temple  perched  on  the  top  of  the  crag  above 
the  fall.  As  we  rode  round  the  other  edge  of  the  glen,  it 
stood  opposite  us  in  all  the  beauty  of  its  light  and  airy 
architecture  ;  a  thing  that  might  be  borne,  "  like  Lo- 
retto's  chapel,  through  the  air,"  and  seem  no  miracle. 
A  mile  farther  on  I  began  to  recognise  the  features- 
of  the  scene,  at  a  most  lovely  point  of  view.  It  was 
J  the  subject  of  one  of  Cole's  landscapes,  which  I  had 
seen  in  Florence;  and  I  need  not  say  to  any  one  who 
knows  the  works  of  this  admirable  artist,  that  it  was 
done  with  truth  and  taste.*  The  little  town  of  Tivoli 
hangs  on  a  jutting  lap  of  the  mountain,  on  the  side  of 
the  ravine  opposite  to  your  point  of  view.  From  be- 
neath its  walls,  as  if  its  foundations  were  laid  upon  a 
river's  fountains,  bursts  foaming  water  in  some  thirty 
different  falls;  and  it  seems  to  you  as  if  the  long  de- 
clivities were  that  moment  for  the  first  time  overflowed, 
for  the  currents  go  dashing  under  trees,  and  overleap- 
ing vines  and  shrubs,  appearing  and  disappearing  con- 
tinually, till  they  all  meet  in  the  quiet  bed  of  the  river 
below.  "  It  was  marie  by  Bernini,''''  said  the  guide,  as 
we  stood  gazing  at  it ;  and,  odd  as  this  information 
sounded,  while  wondering  at  a  spectacle  worthy  of  the 
happiest  accident  of  nature,  it  will  explain  the  phe- 
nomena of  the  place  to  you — the  artist  having  turned 
a  mountain  river  from  its  course,  and  leading  it  under 
the  town  of  Tivoli,  threw  it  over  the  sides  of  the  pre- 
cipitous hill  upon  which  it  stands.  One  of  the  streams 
appears  from  beneath  the  ruins  of  the  "Villa  of  Me- 
caenas,"  which  topples  over  a  precipice  just  below  the 
town,  looking  over  the  campagna  toward  Rome— a 
situation  worthy  of  the  patron  of  the  poets.  We  rode 
through  the  immense  subterranean  arches,  which  form- 
ed its  court  in  ascending  the  mountain  again  to  the 
town. 

Near  Tivoli  is  the  ruined  villa  of  Adrian,  where  was 
found  the  Venus  de  Medicis,  and  some  other  of  the 
wonders  of  antique  art.  The  sun  had  set,  however, 
and  the  long  campagna  of  twenty  miles  lay  between  us 
•  On  my  way  to  Rome  (near  Radicofani,  I  think),  we  pass- 
ed an  old  man,  whose  picturesque  figure,  enveloped  in  his  brown 
cloak  and  slouched  hat,  arrested  the  attention  of  all  my  com- 
panions. I  had  seen  him  before.  From  a  five  minutes'  sketch 
in  passing,  Mr.  Cole  had  made  one  of  the  most  spirited  heads 
I  ever  saw,  admirably  like,  and  worthy  of  Caravajrgio  fo 
force  and  expression. 


64 


PENCILLINGS  BY  THE  WAY. 


and  Rome.  We  were  compelled  to  leave  it  unseen. 
We  entered  the  gates  at  nine  o'clock,  unrobbed — ra- 
ther an  unusual  good  fortune,  we  were  told,  for  travel- 
lers after  dark  on  that  lonely  waste.  Perhaps  our 
number  deprived  us  of  the  romance. 

I  left  a  crowded  ball-room  at  midnight,  wearied  with 
a  day  at  Tivoli,  and  oppressed  with  an  atmosphere 
breathed  by  two  hundred,  dancing  and  card-playing, 
Romans  and  foreigners ;  and  with  a  step  from  the  por- 
tico of  the  noble  palace  of  our  host,  came  into  a  broad 
beam  of  moonlight,  that  with  the  stillness  and  cool- 
ness of  the  night  refreshed  me  at  once,  and  banished 
all  disposition  for  sleep.  A  friend  was  with  me,  and  I 
proposed  a  ramble  among  the  ruins. 

The  sentinel  challenged  us  as  we  entered  the  Fo- 
rum. The  frequent  robberies  of  romantic  strangers 
in  this  lonely  place  have  made  a  guard  necessary,  and 
they  are  now  stationed  from  the  Arch  of  Severus  to 
the  Coliseum.  We  passed  an  hour  rambling  among 
the  ruins  of  the  temples.  Not  a  footstep  was  to  be 
heard,  nor  a  sound  even  from  the  near  city  ;  and  the 
tall  columns,  with  their  broken  friezes  and  capitals, 
and  the  grand  imperishable  arches,  stood  up  in  the 
bright  light  of  the  moon,  looking  indeed  like  monu- 
ments of  Rome.  I  am  told  they  are  less  majestic  by 
daylight.  The  rubbish  and  fresh  earth  injure  the  ef- 
fect. But  I  have  as  yet  seen  them  in  the  garb  of 
moonlight  only,  and  I  shall  carry  this  impression  away. 
It  is  to  me,  now,  all  that  my  fancy  hoped  to  find  it — 
its  temples  and  columns  just  enough  in  ruin  to  be  af- 
fecting and  beautiful. 

We  went  thence  to  the  Temple  of  Vesta.  It  is 
shut  up  in  the  modern  streets,  ten  or  fifteen  minutes 
walk  from  the  Forum.  The  picture  of  this  perfect 
temple,  and  the  beautiful  purpose  of  its  consecration, 
have  been  always  prominent  in  my  imaginary  Rome. 
It  is  worthy  of  its  association — an  exquisite  round 
temple,  with  its  simple  circle  of  columns  from  the 
base  to  the  roof,  a  faultless  thing  in  proportion,  and  as 
light  and  floating  to  the  eye  as  if  the  wind  might  lift 
it.  It  was  no  common  place  to  stand  beside,  and  re- 
call the  poetical  truth  and  fiction  of  which  it  has  been 
the  scene — the  vestal  lamp  cherished  or  neglected  by 
its  high-horn  votaries,  their  honors  if  pure,  and  their 
dreadful  death  if  faithless.  It  needed  not  the  heaven- 
ly moonlight  that  broke  across  its  columns  to  make  it 
a  very  shrine  of  fancy. 

My  companion  proposed  a  visit  next  to  the  Cloaca 
Maxima.  A  common  sewer,  after  the  Temple  of  Vesta, 
sounds  like  an  abrupt  transition;  but  the  arches  be- 
neath which  we  descended  were  touched  by  moonlight, 
and  the  vines  and  ivy  crossed  our  path,  and  instead  of 
a  drain  of  filth,  which  the  fame  of  its  imperial  builder 
would  scarce  have  sweetened,  a  rapid  stream  leaped  to 
the  right,  and  disappeared  again  beneath  the  solid  ma- 
sonry, more  like  a  wild  brook  plunging  into  a  grotto 
than  the  thing  one  expects  to  find  it.  The  clear  little 
river  Juturna  (on  the  banks  of  which  Castor  and  Pol- 
lux watered  their  foaming  horses,  when  bringing  the 
news  of  victory  to  Rome),  dashes  now  through  the 
Cloaca  Maxima ;  and  a  fresher  and  purer  spot,  or  wa- 
ters with  a  more  musical  murmur,  it  has  not  been  my 
fortune  to  see.  We  stopped  over  a  broken  column 
for  a  drink,  and  went  home,  refreshed,  to  bed. 


LETTER  XLIV. 

MASS     IN     THE     SISTINE      CHAPEL THE     CARDINALS 

THE     "  LAST     JUDGMENT" THE     POPE     OF     ROME 

THE  "  ADAM  AND  EVE" CHANTING  OF  THE  PRIESTS 

FESTA    AT    THE  CHURCH    OF    SAN    CARLOS GREG- 
ORY   THE    SIXTEENTH,    HIS    EQUIPAGE,    TRAIN,    ETC. 

All  the  world  goes  to  hear  "  mass  in  the  Sistine 
chapel,"  and  all  travellers  describe  it.     It  occurs  infre- 


quently and  is  performed  by  the  pope.  We  were  there 
to-day  at  ten,  crowding  at  the  door  with  hundreds  of 
foreigners,  mostly  English,  elbowed  alternately  by 
priests  and  ladies,  and  kept  in  order  by  the  Swiss 
guards  in  their  harlequin  dresses  and  long  pikes.  We 
were  admitted  after  an  hour's  pushing,  and  the  guard 
retreated  to  the  grated  door,  through  which  no  woman 
is  permitted  to  pass.  Their  gay  bonnets  and  feathers 
clustered  behind  the  gilded  bars,  and  we  could  admire 
them  for  once  without  the  qualifying  reflection  that 
they  were  between  us  and  the  show.  An  hour  more 
was  occupied  in  the  entrance,  one  by  one,  of  some 
forty  cardinals  with  their  rustling  silk  trains  supported 
by  boys  in  purple.  They  passed  the  gate,  their  train- 
bearers  lifted  their  cassocks  and  helped  them  to  kneel 
a  moment's  prayer  was  mumbled,  and  they  took  theii 
seats  with  the  same  servile  assistance.  Their  attend- 
|  ants  placed  themselves  at  their  feet,  and,  taking  the 
j  prayer-books,  the  only  use  of  which  appeared  to  be 
j  to  display  their  jewelled  fingers,  they  looked  over 
i  them  at  the  faces  behind  the  grating,  and  waited  for  his 
I  holiness. 

The  intervals  of  this  memory,  gave  us  time  to  study 
|  the  famous  frescoes  for  which  the  Sistine  chapel  is  re- 
j  nowned.  The  subject  is  the  "Last  judgment."  The 
j  Savior  sits  in  the  midst,  pronouncing  the  sentence,  the 
wicked  plunging  from  his  presence  on  the  left  hand, 
and  the  righteous  ascending  with  the  assistance  of  an- 
gels on  the  right.  The  artist  had,  of  course,  infinite 
scope  for  expression,  and  the  fame  of  the  fresco  (which 
occupies  the  whole  of  the  wall  behind  the  altar)  would 
seem  to  argue  his  success.  The  light  is  miserable, 
however,  and  incense  or  lamp-smoke,  has  obscured 
the  colors,  and  one  looks  at  it  now  with  little  pleasure. 
As  well  as  I  could  see,  too,  the  figure  of  the  Savior 
was  more  that  of  a  tiler  throwing  down  slates  from  the 
top  of  a  house  in  some  fear  of  falling,  than  the  judge 
of  the  world  upon  his  throne.  Some  of  the  other 
parts  are  better,  and  one  or  two  naked  female  figures 
might  once  have  been  beautiful,  but  one  of  the  suc- 
ceeding popes  ordered  them  dressed,  and  they  now 
flaunt  at  the  judgment  seat  in  colored  silks,  obscuring 
both  saints  and  sinners  with  their  finery.  There  are 
some  redeeming  frescoes,  also  by  Michael  Angelo,  on 
the  ceiling,  among  them  "Adam  and  Eve,"  exquisite- 
ly done. 

The  pope  entered  by  a  door  at  the  side  of  the  altar. 
With  him  came  a  host  of  dignitaries  and  church  ser- 
vants, and,  as  he  tottered  round  in  front  of  the  altar, 
to  kneel,  his  cap  was  taken  off  and  put  on,  his  flowing 
robes  lifted  and  spread,  and  he  was  treated  in  all  re- 
spects, as  if  he  were  the  Deity  himself.  In  fact,  the 
whole  service  was  the  worship,  not  of  God,  but  of  the 
pope.  The  cardinals  came  up,  one  by  one,  with  their 
heads  bowed,  and  knelt  reverently  to  kiss  his  hand  and 
the  hem  of  his  white  satin  dress;  his  throne  was  higher 
than  the  altar,  and  ten  times  as  gorgeous  ;  the  incense 
was  flung  toward  him,  and  his  motions  from  one  side 
of  the  chapel  to  the  other,  were  attended  with  more 
ceremony  and  devotion  than  all  the  rest  of  the  service 
together.  The  chanting  commenced  with  his  en- 
trance, and  this  should  have  been  to  God  alone,  for  it 
was  like  music  from  heaven.  The  choir  was  com- 
posed of  priests,  who  sang  from  massive  volumes 
bound  in  golden  clasps,  in  a  small  side  gallery.  One 
stood  by  the  book,  turning  the  leaves  as  the  chant 
proceeded,  and  keeping  the  measure,  and  the  others 
clustered  around  with  their  hands  clasped,  their  heads 
thrown  back,  and  their  eyes  closed  or  fixed  upon  the 
turning  leaves  in  such  grouping  and  attitude  as  you 
see  in  pictures  of  angels  singing  in  the  clouds.  1 
have  heard  wonderful  music  since  I  have  been  on  the 
continent,  and  have  received  new  ideas  of  the  compass 
of  the  human  voice,  and  its  capacities  for  pathos  and 
sweetness.  But,  after  all  the  wonders  of  the  opera,  as 
it  i9  learned  to  sing  before  kings  and  courts,  the  chant 


PENCILLINGS  BY  THE  WAY. 


65 


ing  of  these  priests  transcended  every  conception  in 
my  mind  of  music.  It  was  the  human  voice,  cleared 
of  ail  earthliness,  and  gushing  through  its  organs  with 
uncontrollable  feeling  and  nature.  The  burden  of  the 
various  parts  returned  continually  upon  one  or  two 
simple  notes,  the  deepest  and  sweetest  in  the  octave 
for  melody,  and  occasionally  a  single  voice  outran  the 
choir  in  a  passionate  repetition  of  the  air,  which  seem- 
ed less  like  musical  contrivance,  than  an  abandonment 
of  soul  and  voice  to  a  preternatural  impulse  of  devo- 
tion. One  writes  nonsense  in  describing  such  things, 
but  there  is  no  other  way  of  conveying  an  idea  of  them. 
The  subject  is  beyond  the  wildest  superlatives. 

To-day  we  have  again  seen  the  pope.  It  was  a 
festa,  and  the  church  of  San  Carlos  was  the  scene  of 
the  ceremonies.  His  holiness  came  in  the  state-coach 
with  six  long-tailed  black  horses,  and  all  his  cardinals 
in  their  red  and  gold  carriages  in  his  train.  The 
gaudy  procession  swept  up  to  the  steps,  and  the  father 
of  the  church  was  taken  upon  the  shoulders  of  his 
bearers  in  a  chair  of  gold  and  crimson,  and  solemnly 
borne  up  the  aisle,  and  deposited  within  the  railings 
of  the  altar,  where  homage  was  done  to  him  by  the 
cardinals  as  before,  and  the  half-supernatural  music 
of  his  choir  awaited  his  motions.  The  church  was 
half  filled  with  soldiers  armed  to  the  teeth,  and  drawn 
up  on  either  side,  and  his  body-guard  of  Roman  no- 
bles, stood  even  within  the  railing  of  the  altar,  capped 
and  motionless,  conveying,  as  everything  else  does, 
the  irresistible  impression  that  it  was  the  worship  of 
the  pope,  not  of  God. 

Gregory  the  sixteenth,  is  a  small  old  man,  with  a 
large  heavy  nose,  eyes  buried  in  sluggish  wrinkles,  and 
a  flushed  apoplectic  complexion.  He  sits,  or  is  borne 
about  with  his  eyes  shut,  looking  quite  asleep,  even 
his  limbs  hanging  lifelessly.  The  gorgeous  and  heavy 
pap/1  costumes  only  render  him  more  insignificant, 
and  when  he  is  borne  about,  buried  in  his  deep  chair, 
or  lost  in  the  corner  of  his  huge  black  and  gold  pa- 
goda of  a  carriage,  it  is  difficult  to  look  at  him  without 
a  smile.  Among  his  cardinals,  however,  there  are 
magnificent  heads,  boldly  marked,  noble  and  scholar- 
like, and  I  may  say,  perhaps,  that  there  is  no  one  of 
them,  who  had  not  nature's  mark  upon  him  of  superior- 
ity. They  are  a  dignified  and  impressive  body  of  men, 
and  their  servile  homage  to  the  pope,  seems  unnatural 
and  disgusting. 


LETTER  XLV. 

ROME— A   MORNING   IN   THE    STUDIO    OF    THORWALSDEN 

— colossal  statue  of  the  savior — statue  of 
byron— Gibson's  rooms— cupid  and  psyche— hy- 
las  with  the  river  nymphs — palazzo  spada  — 
statue  of  pompey — borghese  palace — portrait 

OF     CESAR     BORGIA— DOSSI'S    PSYCHE SACRED     AND 

PROFANE  LOVE — ROO.M  DEVOTED  TO  VENUSES-  -THE 
SOCIETY   OF   ROME,  ETC. 

1  have  spent  a  morning  in  the  studio  of  Thorwals- 
den.  He  is  probably  the  greatest  sculptor  now  living. 
A.  colossal  statue  of  Christ,  thought  by  many  to  be  his 
masterpiece,  is  the  prominent  object  as  you  enter.  It 
19  a  noble  conception— the  mild  majesty  of  a  Savior 
expressed  in  a  face  of  the  most  dignified  human  beauty. 
Perhaps  his  full-length  statue  of  Byron  is  inferior  to 
some  of  his  other  works,  but  it  interested  me,  and  I 
spent  most  of  my  time  in  looking  at  it.  It  was  taken 
from  life ;  and  my  friend,  Mr.  Auchmuty,  who  was 
with  me,  and  who  had  seen  Byron  frequently  on  board 
one  of  our  ships-of-war  at  Leghorn,  thought  it  the 
only  faithful  likeness  he  had  ever  seen.  The  poet  is 
dressed  oddly  enough,  in  a  morning  frock  coat,  cravat, 
pantaloons,  and  shoes;  and,  unpromising  as  these  ma- 


terials would  seem,  the  statue  is  classic  and  elegant  to 
a  very  high  degree.  His  coat  is  held  by  the  two  centre 
buttons  in  front  (a  more  exquisite  cut  never  came  from 
the  hands  of  a  London  tailor),  swelled  out  a  little  above 
and  below  by  the  fleshy  roundness  of  his  figure ;  his 
cravat  is  tied  loosely,  leaving  his  throat  bare  (which, 
by  the  way,  both  in  the  statue  and  the  original,  was 
very  beautifully  chiselled) ;  and  he  sits  up  ,n  a  frag- 
ment of  a  column,  with  a  book  in  one  hand  and  a  pen- 
cil in  the  other.  A  man  reading  a  pleasant  poem 
among  the  ruins  of  Rome,  and  looking  up  to  reflect 
upon  a  fine  passage  before  marking  it,  would  assum 
the  attitude  and  expression  exactly.  The  face  has 
half  a  smile  upon  it,  and,  differing  from  the  Apollo 
/aces  usually  drawn  for  Byron,  is  finer,  and  more 
expressive  of  his  character  than  any  I  ever  met  with. 
Thorwalsden  is  a  Dane,  and  is  beloved  by  every  one 
for  his  simplicity  and  modesty.     I  did  not  see  him. 

We  were  afterward  at  Gibson's  rooms.  This  gen- 
tleman is  an  English  artist,  apparently  about  thirty, 
and  full  of  genius.  He  has  taken  some  portraits  which 
are  esteemed  admirable  ;  but  his  principal  labor  has 
been  thrown  upon  the  most  beautiful  fables  of  anti- 
quity. His  various  groups  and  bas-reliefs  of  Cupid 
and  Psyche  are  worthy  of  the  beauty  of  the  story. 
His  chef  d'auvrc,  1  think,  is  a  group  of  three  figures, 
representing  the  boy  "Hylas  with  the  river  nymphs." 
He  stands  between  them  with  the  pitcher  in  his  hand, 
startled  with  their  touch,  and  listening  to  their  persua- 
sions. The  smaller  of  the  two  female  figures  is  an 
almost  matchless  conception  of  loveliness.  Gibson 
went  round  with  us  kindly,  and  I  was  delighted  with 
his  modesty  of  manner,  and  the  apparently  completely 
poetical  character  of  his  mind.  He  has  a  noble  head, 
a  lofty  forehead  well  marked,  and  a  mouth  of  finely 
mingled  strength  and  mildness. 

We  devoted  this  morning  to  palaces.  At  the  Pa- 
lazzo Spada  we  saw  the  statue  of  Pompey,  at  the 
I  base  of  which  Cesar  fell.  Antiquaries  dispute  its 
j  authenticity,  but  the  evidence  is  quite  strong  enough 
for  a  poetical  belief;  and  if  it  were  not,  one's  time  is 
not  lost,  for  the  statue  is  a  majestic  thing,  and  well 
worth  the  long  walk  necessary  to  see  it.  The  muti- 
lated arm,  and  the  hole  in  the  wall  behind,  remind  one 
of  the  ludicrous  fantasy  of  the  French,  who  carried  it 
to  the  Forum  to  enact  "  Brutus"  at  its  base. 

The  Borghesc  Palace  is  rich  in  pictures.  The  por- 
trait of  Cesar  Borgia,  by  Titian,  is  one  of  the  most 
striking.  It  represents  that  accomplished  villain  with 
rather  slight  features,  and,  barring  a  look  of  cool  de- 
termination about  his  well-formed  lips,  with  rather  a 
prepossessing  countenance.  One  detects  in  it  the  ca- 
pabilities of  such  a  character  as  his,  after  the  original 
is  mentioned;  but  otherwise  he  might  pass  for  a  hand- 
■  some  gallant,  of  no  more  dangerous  trait  than  a  fiery 
temper.  Just  beyond  it  is  a  very  strong  contrast 
in  a  figure  of  Psyche,  by  Dossi,  of  Ferrara.  'She  is 
coming  on  tiptoe,  with  the  lamp,  to  see  her  lover. 
The  Cupid  asleep  is  not  so  well  done;  but  for  an 
image  of  a  real  woman,  unexaggerated  and  lovely,  I 
have  seen  nothing  which  pleases  me  better  than  this 
Psyche.  Opposite  it  hangs  a  very  celebrated  Titian, 
representing  "  Sacred  and  Profane  Love."  Two  fe- 
male figures  are  sitting  by  a  well — one  quite  nude, 
with  her  hair  about  her  shoulders,  and  the  other 
dressed,  and  coifled  a  la  mode,  but  looking  less  modest 
to  my  eye  than  her  undraped  sister.  It  is  little  won- 
der, however,  that  a  man  who  could  paint  his  own 
daughter  in  the  embraces  of  a  satyr  (a  revolting  picture, 
which  I  saw  in  the  Barberigo  palace  at  Venice)  should 
fail  in  drawing  the  face  of  Virtue.  The  coloring  of 
the  picture  is  exquisite,  but  the  design  is  certainly  a 
failure. 

The  last  room  in  the  palace  is  devoted  to  Venuses — 
all  very  naked  and  very  bad.     There  might  be  forty, 


66 


PENCILLINGS  BY  THE  WAY. 


I  think,  and  not  a  limb  among  them  that  one's  eye 
would  rest  upon  with  the  least  pleasure  for  a  single 

moment.  

The  society  of  Rome  is  of  course  changing  con- 
tinually. At  this  particular  season,  strangers  from 
every  part  of  the  continent  are  beginning  to  arrive,  and 
it  promises  to  be  pleasant.  I  have  been  at  most  of 
the  parties  during  the  fortnight  that  I  have  been  here, 
but  find  them  thronged  with  priests,  and  with  only  the 
resident  society,  which  is  dull.  Cards  and  conversa- 
tion with  people  one  never  saw  before,  and  will  cer- 
tainly never  see  again,  are  heavy  pastimes.  I  start  for 
Florence  to-morrow,  and  shall  return  to  Rome  for 
Holy  Week  and  the  spring  months. 


LETTER  XL VI. 

ITALIAN    AND    AMERICAN  SKIES — FALLS  OF  TERNI THE 

CLITUMNUS — THE    TEMPLE — EFFECTS    OF    AN    EARTH- 
QUAKE   AT     FOLIGNO — LAKE     THRASIMENE — JOURNEY 

FROM     ROME FLORENCE FLORENTINE      SCENERY 

PRINCE  FONIATOWSKI — JEROME  BONAPARTE  AND  FAM- 
ILY— WANT   OF   A   MINISTER   IN   ITALY. 

I  left  Rome  by  the  magnificent  "  Porta  del  Popo- 
lo,"  as  the  flush  of  a  pearly  and  spotless  Italian  sun- 
rise deepened  over  Soracte.  They  are  so  splendid 
without  clouds — these  skies  of  Italy  !  so  deep  to  the 
eye,  so  radiantly  clear  !  Clouds  make  the  glory  of  an 
American  sky.  The  "Indian  summer"  sunsets  ex- 
cepted, our  sun  goes  down  in  New  England,  with  the 
extravagance  of  a  theatrical  scene.  The  clouds  are 
massed  and  heavy,  like  piles  of  gold  and  fire,  and  day 
after  day,  if  you  observe  them,  you  are  literally  aston- 
ished with  the  brilliant  phenomena  of  the  west.  Here, 
for  seven  months,  we  have  had  no  rain.  The  sun  has 
risen  faultlessly  clear,  with  the  same  gray,  and  silver, 
and  rose  teints,  succeeding  each  other  as  regularly  as 
the  colors  in  a  turning  prism,  and  it  has  set  as  con- 
stantly in  orange,  gold,  and  purple,  with  scarce  the 
variation  of  a  painter's  pallet,  from  one  day  to  another. 
It  is  really  most  delightful  to  live  under  such  heavens 
as  these  ;  to  be  depressed  never  by  a  gloomy  sky,  nor 
ill  from  a  chance  exposure  to  a  chill  wind,  nor  out  of 
humor  because  the  rain  or  damp  keeps  you  a  prisoner 
at  home.  You  feel  the  delicious  climate  in  a  thou- 
sand ways.  It  is  a  positive  blessing,  and  were  worth 
more  than  a  fortune,  if  it  were  bought  and  sold.  I 
would  rather  be  poor  in  Italy,  than  rich  in  any  other 
country  in  the  world. 

We  ascended  the  mountain  that  shuts  in  the  cam- 
pagna  on  the  north,  and  turned,  while  the  horses 
breathed,  to  take  a  last  look  at  Rome.  My  two  friends, 
the  lieutenants,  and  myself,  occupied  the  interior  of 
the  vetturino,  in  company  with  a  young  Roman  wo- 
man, who  was  making  her  first  journey  from  home. 
She  was  going  to  see  her  husband.  I  pointed  out  of 
the  window  to  the  distant  dome  of  St.  Peter's,  rising 
above  the  thin  smoke  hung  over  the  city,  and  she 
looked  at  it  with  the  tears  streaming  from  her  large 
black  eyes  in  torrents.  She  might  have  cried  because 
she  was  going  to  her  husband,  but  I  could  not  divest 
myself  of  the  fact  that  she  was  a  Roman,  and  leaving 
a  home  that  could  be  very  romantically  wept  for.  She 
was  a  fine  specimen  of  this  finest  of  the  races  of  wo- 
men— amply  proportioned  without  grossness,  and  with 
that  certain  presence  or  dignity  that  rises  above  man- 
ners and  rank,  common  to  them  all. 

We  saw  beautiful  scenery  at  Narni.  The  town 
stands  on  the  edge  of  a  precipice,  and  the  valley,  a 
hundred  feet  or  two  below,  is  coursed  by  a  wild  stream, 
that  goes  foaming  along  its  bed  in  a  long  line  of  froth 
for  miles  away.  We  dined  here,  and  drove  afterward 
to  Terni,  where  the  voiturier  stopped  for  the  night,  to 
give  us  an  opportunity  to  see  the  Falls. 


We  drove  to  the  mountain  base,  three  miles,  in  an 
old  post  barouche,  and  made  the  ascent  on  foot.  A 
line  of  precipices  extends  along  from  the  summit,  and 
from  the  third  or  fourth  of  these  leaps  the  Velino, 
clear  into  the  valley.  We  saw  it  in  front  as  we  went 
on,  and  then  followed  the  road  round,  till  we  reached 
the  bed  of  the  river  behind.  The  fountain  of  Egeria 
is  not  more  secludedly  beautiful  than  its  current  above 
the  fall.  Trees  overhang  and  meet,  and  flowers  spring 
in  wonderful  variety  on  its  banks,  and  the  ripple 
against  the  roots  is  heard  amid  the  roar  of  the  cata- 
ract, like  a  sweet,  clear  voice  in  a  chorus.  It  is  a 
place  in  which  you  half  expect  to  startle  a  fawn,  it 
looks  so  unvisited  and  wild.  We  wound  out  through 
the  shrubbery,  and  gained  a  projecting  point,  from 
which  we  could  see  the  sheet  of  the  cascade.  It  is 
"  horribly  beautiful,"  to  be  sure.  Childe  Harold's 
description  of  it  is  as  true  as  a  drawing. 

I  should  think  the  quantity  of  water  at  Niagara 
would  make  five  hundred  such  falls  as  those  of  Ter- 
ni, without  exaggeration.  It  is  a  "  hell  of  waters," 
however,  notwithstanding,  and  leaps  over  with  a  cur- 
rent all  turned  into  foam  by  the  roughness  of  its  bed 
above — a  circumstance  that  gives  the  sheet  more  rich- 
ness of  surface.  Two  or  three  lovely  little  streams 
steal  oft"  on  either  side  of  the  fall,  as  if  they  shrunk 
from  the  leap,  and  drop  down,  from  rock  to  rock,  till 
they  are  lost  in  the  rising  mist. 

The  sun  set  over  the  little  town  of  Terni,  while  we 
stood  silently  looking  down  into  the  gulf,  and  the  wet 
spray  reminded  ns  that  the  most  romantic  people  may 
take  cold.  We  descended  to  our  carriage;  and  in  an 
hour  were  sitting  around  the  blazing  fire  at  the  post- 
house,  with  a  motley  group  of  Germans,  Swiss, 
French,  and  Italians — a  mixture  of  company  univer- 
sal in  the  public  room  of  an  Italian  albergo,  at  night. 
The  coming  and  going  vetturini  stop  at  the  same 
houses  throughout,  and  the  concourse  is  always  amu- 
sing. We  sat  till  the  fire  burned  low,  and  then  wishing 
our  chance  friends  a  happy  night,  had  the  "priests"* 
taken  from  our  beds,  and  were  soon  lost  to  everything 
but  sleep. 

Terni  was  the  Italian  Tempe,  and  its  beautiful  sce- 
nery was  shown  to  Cicero,  whose  excursion  hither  is 
recorded.  It  is  part  of  a  long,  deep  valley,  between 
abrupt  ranges  of  mountains,  and  abounds  in  loveliness. 

We  went  to  Spoleto,  the  next  morning,  to  break- 
fast. It  is  a  very  old  town,  oddly  built,  and  one  of  its 
gates  still  remains,  at  which  Hannibal  was  repulsed 
after  his  victory  at  Thrasimene.  It  bears  his  name  in 
timeworn  letters. 

At  the  distance  of  one  post  from  Spoleto  we  came 
to  the  Clitummis,  a  small  stream,  still,  deep,  and  glas- 
sy— the  clearest  water  I  ever  saw.  It  looks  almost 
like  air.  On  its  bank,  facing  away  from  the  road, 
stands  the  temple,  "  of  small  and  delicate  propor- 
tion," mentioned  so  exquisitely  by  Childe  Harold. 

The  temple  of  the  Clitumnus  might  stand  in  a 
drawing-room.  The  stream  is  a  mere  brook,  and  this 
little  marble  gem,  whose  richly  fretted  columns  were 
raised  to  its  honor  with  a  feeling  of  beauty  that  makes 
one  thrill,  seems  exactly  of  relative  proportions.  It  is 
a  thing  of  pure  poetry;  and  to  find  an  antiquity  of 
such  perfect  preservation,  with  the  small  clear  stream 
running  still  at  the  base  of  its  facade,  just  as  it  did 
when  Cicero  and  his  contemporaries  passed  it  on  their 
visits  to  a  country  called  after  the  loveliest  vale  of 
Greece  for  its  beauty,  was  a  gratification  of  the  high 
est  demand  of  taste.  Childe  Harold's  lesson, 
"  Pass  not  unblest  the  genius  of  the  place  " 
was  scarce  necessai-y.f 

*  The  name  of  a  wooden  trame  by  which  a  pot  of  coals  is 
hung  between  the  sheets  of  a  bed  in  Italy. 

t  As  if  everything  should  be  poeticaron  the  shores  of  the 
Clitumnus,  the  beggars  ran  after  us  in  quartettes,  singing  a 
chant,  and  sustaining  the  four  parts  as  they  ran.     Every  child 


PENCILLINGS  BY  THE  WAY. 


07 


We  slept  at  Foligno.  For  many  miles  we  had  ob- 
served that  the  houses  were  propped  in  every  direc- 
tion, many  of  them  in  ruins  apparently  recent,  and 
small  wooden  sheds  erected  in  the  midst  of  the  squares, 
or  beside  the  roads,  and  crowded  with  the  poor.  The 
next  morning  we  arrived  at  St.  Angelo,  and  found  its 
gigantic  cathedral  a  heap  of  ruins.  Its  painted  chap- 
els, to  the  number  of  fifteen  or  sixteen,  were  half 
standing  in  the  shattered  walls,  the  altars  all  exposed, 
and  the  interior  of  the  dome  one  mass  of  stone  and 
rubbish.  It  was  the  first  time  I  had  seen  the  effects 
of  an  earthquake.  For  eight  or  ten  miles  further,  we 
found  every  house  cracked  and  deserted,  and  the  peo- 
ple living  like  the  settlers  in  a  new  country,  half  in  the 
open  air.     The  beggars  were  innumerable. 

We  stopped  the  next  night  on  the  shores  of  lake 
Thrasimene.  For  once  in  my  life,  I  felt  that  the  time 
spent  at  school  on  the  "  dull  drilled  lesson,"  had  not 
been  wasted.  I  was  on  the  battle  ground  of  Hannibal 
— the  "  locus  aptus  insidiis"  where  the  consul  Fla- 
minius  was  snared  and  beaten  by  the  wily  Carthagin- 
ian on  his  march  to  Rome.  I  longed  for  my  old  copy 
of  Livy,  "much  thumbed,"  that  I  might  sit  on  the 
hill  and  compare  the  image  in  my  mind,  made  by  his 
pithy  and  sententious  description,  with  the  reality. 

The  battle  ground,  the  scene  of  the  principal 
slaughter,  was  beyond  the  albergo,  and  the  increasing 
darkness  compelled  us  to  defer  a  visit  to  it  till  the  next 
morning.  Meantime  the  lake  was  beautiful.  We 
were  on  the  eastern  side,  and  the  deep-red  sky  of  a 
departed  sunset  over  the  other  shore,  was  reflected 
glowingly  on  the  water.  All  around  was  dark,  but 
the  light  in  the  sky  and  lake  seemed  to  have  forgotten 
to  follow.  It  is  a  phenomenon  peculiar  to  Italy.  The 
heavens  seem  "  died-'  and  steeped  in  the  glory  of  the 
sunset. 

We  drank  our  host's  best  bottle  of  wine,  the  grape 
plucked  from  the  battle-ground  ;  and  if  it  was  not 
better  for  the  Roman  blood  that  had  manured  its  an- 
cestor, it  was  better  for  some  other  reason. 

Early  the  next  morning  we  were  on  our  way,  and 
wound  down  into  the  narrow  pass  between  the  lake 
and  the  hill,  as  the  sun  rose.  We  crossed  the  San- 
guinctto,  a  little  stream  which  took  its  name  from  the 
battle.  The  principal  slaughter  was  just  on  its  banks, 
and  the  hills  are  so  steep  above  it,  that  everybody 
which  fell  near  must  have  rolled  into  its  bed.  It  crawls 
on  very  quietly  across  the  road,  its  clear  stream  scarce  in- 
terrupted by  the  wheels  of  the  vetturino,  which  in  cros- 
sing it,  passes  from  the  Roman  states  into  Tuscany. 
I  ran  a  little  up  the  stream,  knelt  and  drank  at  a  small 
gurgling  fall.  The  blood  of  the  old  Flaminian  Co- 
hort spoiled  very  delicious  water,  when  it  mingled 
with  that  brook. 

We  were  six  days  and  a  half  accomplishing  the  hun- 
dred and  eighty  miles  from  Rome  to  Florence — slow 
travelling — but  not  too  slow  in  Italy,  where  every  stone 
has  its  story,  and  every  ascent  of  a  hill  its  twenty 
matchless  pictures,  sprinkled  with  ruins,  as  a  painter's 
eye  could  not  imagine  them.  We  looked  down  on  the 
Eden-like  valley  of  the  Arno  at  sunrise,  and  again  my 
heart  leaped  to  see  the  tall  dome  of  Florence,  and  the 
hills  all  about  the  queenly  city,  sparkling  with  palaces 
and  bright  in  a  sun  that  shines  nowhere  so  kindly.  If 
there  is  a  spot  in  the  world  that  could  wean  one  from 
his  native  home,  it  is  Florence  !  "  Florence  the  fair," 
they  call  her!  I  have  passed  four  of  the  seven  months 
I  have  been  in  Italy,  here — and  I  think  I  shall  pass 
here  as  great  a  proportion  of  the  rest  of  my  life. 
There  is  nothing  that  can  contribute  to  comfort  and 
pleasure,  that  is  not  within  the  reach  of  the  smallest 

sings  well  in  Italy  ;  and  I  have  heard  worse  music  in  a  church 
anthem,  than  was  made  by  these  half-clothed  and  homeless 
wretches,  running  at  full  speed  by  the  carriage- wheels.  I  have 
never  met  the  same  thing  elsewhere. 


means  in  Florence.  I  never  saw  a  place  where  wealth 
made  less  distinction.  The  choicest  galleries  of  art  in 
the  world,  are  open  to  all  comers.  The  palace  of  the 
monarch  may  be  entered  and  visited,  and  enjoyed  by 
all.  The  ducal  gardens  of  the  Boboli  rich  in  every- 
thing that  can  refine  nature,  and  commanding  views 
that  no  land  can  equal,  cooled  by  fountains,  haunted  in 
every  grove  by  statuary,  are  the  property  of  the  stran- 
ger and  the  citizen  alike.  Museums,  laboratories,  li- 
braries, grounds,  palaces,  are  all  free  as  Utopia.  You 
may  take  any  pleasure  that  others  can  command,  and 
have  any  means  of  instruction,  as  free  as  the  common 
air.  Where  else  would  one  live  so  pleasantly — so 
profitably — so  wisely  ? 

The  society  of  Florence  is  of  a  very  fascinating  de- 
scription.    The  Florentine  nobles  have  a  casino,  or 
club-house,  to  which  most  of  the  respectable  stran- 
gers are  invited,  and  balls  are  given  there  once  a  week, 
frequently  by  the  duke  and  his  court,  and  the  best  so- 
ciety of  the  place.     I  attended  one  on  my  first  arrival 
from   Rome,  at  which  I  saw  a  proportion  of  beauty 
which  astonished   me.     The  female  descendants  of 
the  great  names  in  Italian  history,  seem  to  me  to  have 
almost  without  exception  the  mark  of  noble  beauty  by 
nature.     The  loveliest  woman  in  Florence  is  a  Medi- 
ci.    The  two   daughters  of  Capponi,  the  patriot  and 
the  descendant  of  patriots,  are  of  the  finest  order  of 
beauty.     I  could  instance  many  others,  the  mention 
of  whose  names,  when   I   have  first  seen  them,  has 
j  made  my  blood  start.     I  think  if  Italy  is  ever  to  be  re- 
I  deemed,  she  must  owe  it  to  her  daughters.     The  men, 
!  the  brothers  of  these  women,  with  very  rare  excep- 
|  tions,  look  like  the  slaves  they  are,  from  one  end  of 
j  Italy  to  the  other. 

One  of  the  most  hospitable  houses  here,  is  that  of 
I  Prince  Poniatowski,  the  brother  of  the  hero  of  Po- 
|  land.  He  has  a  large  family,  and  his  soirees  are 
|  thronged  with  all  that  is  fair  and  distinguished.  He  is  a 
!  venerable,  grayheadedoldman,  of  perhaps  seventy,  very 
fond  of  speaking  English,  of  which  rare  acquisition 
abroad  he  seems  a  little  vain.  He  gave  me  the  heartiest 
welcome  as  an  American,  and  said  he  loved  the  nation. 
I  had  the  honor  of  dining,  a  day  or  two  since,  with 
the  ex-king  of  Westphalia,  Jerome  Bonaparte.  He 
lives  here  with  the  title  of  Prince  Montfort,  confer- 
red on  him  by  his  father-in-law,  the  king  of  Wurtem- 
burg.  Americans  are  well  received  at  this  house  also; 
and  his  queen,  as  the  prince  still  calls  her,  can  never 
say  enough  in  praise  of  the  family  of  Mr.  H.,  cur  for- 
mer secretary  of  legation  at  Paris.  It  is  a  constantly 
recurring  theme,  and  ends  always  with  "  Taime  leau- 
coup  les  Atnericains."  The  prince  resembles  his 
brother,  but  has  a  milder  face,  and  his  mouth  is  less 
firm  and  less  beautiful  than  Napoleon's.  His  second 
son  is  most  remarkably  like  the  emperor.  He  is 
about  ten  years  of  age  ;  but  except  his  youth,  you  can 
detect  no  difference  between  his  head  and  the  busts  of 
his  uncle.  He  has  a  daughter  of  about  twelve,  and 
an  elder  son  at  the  university  of  Sienna.  His  family 
is  large,  as  his  queen  still  keeps  up  her  state,  with  the 
ladies  of  honor  and  suite.  He  never  goes  out,  but  his 
house  is  open  every  night,  and  the  best  society  of 
Florence  may  be  met  there  almost  at  the  prima  sera, 
or  early  part  of  the  evening. 

The  grand  duke  is  about  to  be  married,  and  the 
court  is  to  be  unusually  gay  in  the  carnival.  Our 
countryman,  Mr.  Thorn,  was  presented  some  time 
since,  and  I  am  to  have  that  honor  in  two  or  three 
days.  By  the  way,  we  feel  exceedingly  in  Italy  the 
want  of  a  minister.  There  is  no  accredited  agent  of 
our  government  in  Tuscany,  and  there  are  rarely  less 
than  three  hundred  Americans  within  its  dominions. 
Fortunately  the  marquis  Corsi,  the  grand  chamber- 
lain of  the  duke,  offers  to  act  in  the  capacity  of  an  am- 
bassador, and  neglects  nothing  for  our  advantage  in 


68 


PENCILLINGS  BY  THE  WAY 


such  matters,  but  he  never  fails  to  express  his  regret 
that  we  should  not  have  some  charge  d'affaires  at  his 
court.  We  have  officers  in  many  parts  of  the  world 
where  they  are  much  less  needed. 


LETTER  XL VII. 

FLORENCE — GRAND     DUKE     OF     TUSCANY — THE     GRAND 
CHAMBERLAIN — PRINCE     DE     LIGNE — THE    AUSTRIAN 

AMBASSADOR — THE     MARQUIS     TORRIGIANI LEOPOLD 

OF  TUSCANY — VIEWS  OF  THE  VAL  d'aRNO — SPLEN- 
DID BALL — TREES  OF  CANDLES — THE  DUKE  AND  DUTCH- 
ESS— HIGHBORN  ITALIAN  AND  ENGLISH  BEAUTIES, 
ETC.,  ETC. 

I  was  presented  to  the  grand  duke  of  Tuscany  yes- 
terday morning,  at  a  private  audience.  As  we  have 
no  minister  at  this  court,  I  drove  alone  to  the  ducal 
palace,  and,  passing  through  the  body-guard  of  young 
nobles,  was  met  at  the  door  of  the  antechamber  by 
the  Marquis  Corsi,  the  grand  chamberlain.  Around 
a  blazing  fire,  in  this  room,  stood  five  or  six  persons, 
in  splendid  uniforms,  to  whom  I  was  introduced  on 
entering.  One  was  the  Prince  de  Ligne — travelling  at 
present  in  Italy,  and  waiting  to  be  presented  by  the 
Austrian  ambassador — a  young  and  remarkably  hand- 
some man  of  twenty-five.  He  showed  a  knowledge 
of  America,  in  the  course  of  a  half  hour's  conversa- 
tion, which  rather  surprised  me,  inquiring  particularly 
about  the  residences  and  condition  of  the  United 
States'  ministers  whom  he  had  met  at  the  various 
courts  of  Europe.  The  Austrian  ambassador,  an 
old,  wily-looking  man,  covered  with  orders,  joined  in 
the  conversation,  and- asked  after  our  former  minister 
at  Paris,  Mr.  Brown,  remarking  that  he  had  done  the 
United  States  great  credit,  during  his  embassy.  He 
had  known  Mr.  Gallatin  also,  and  spoke  highly  of  him. 
Mr.  Van  Buren's  election  to  the  vice-presidency,  af- 
ter his  recall,  seemed  greatly  to  surprise  him. 

The  prince  was  summoned  to  the  presence  of  the 
duke,  and  1  remained  some  fifteen  minutes  in  conver- 
sation with  a  venerable  and  noble  looking  man,  the 
Marquis  Torrigiani,  one  of  the  chamberlains.  His 
eldest  son  has  lately  gone  upon  his  travels  in  the 
United  States,  in  company  with  Mr.  Thorn,  an  Amer- 
ican gentleman  living  in  Florence.  He  seemed  to 
think  the  voyage  a  great  undertaking.  Torrigiani  is 
one  of  the  oldest  of  the  Florentine  nobles,  and  his  fam- 
ily is  in  high  esteem. 

As  the  Austrian  minister  came  out,  the  grand  cham- 
berlain came  for  me,  and  I  entered  the  presence  of  the 
duke.  He  was  standing  quite  alone  in  a  small  plain 
room,  dressed  in  a  simple  white  uniform,  with  a  star 
upon  his  breast — a  slender,  pale,  scholar-like  looking 
young  man,  of  perhaps  thirty  years.  He  received  me 
with  a  pleasant  smile,  and  crossing  his  hands  behind 
him,  came  close  to  me,  and  commenced  questioning 
me  about  America.  The  departure  of  young  Tor- 
rigiani for  the  United  States  pleased  him,  and  he  said 
he  should  like  to  go  himself — "  but,"  said  he,  "  a  voy- 
age of  three  thousand  miles  and  back — comment  fair e  P"1 
and  he  threw  out  his  hands  with  a  look  of  mock  de- 
spair that  was  very  expressive.  He  assured  me  he  felt 
great  pleasure  at  Mr.  Thorn's  having  taken  up  his  res- 
idence in  Florence.  He  had  sent  for  his  whole  fam- 
ily a  few  days  before,  and  promised  them  every  atten- 
tion to  their  comfort  during  the  absence  of  Mr.  Thorn. 
He  said  young  Torrigiani  was  bien  inslruit,  and  would 
travel  to  advantage,  without  doubt.  At  every  pause 
of  his  inquiries,  he  looked  me  full  in  the  eyes,  and 
seemed  anxious  to  yield  me  the  parole  and  listen.  He 
bowed  with  a  smile,  after  I  had  been  with  him  perhaps 
half  an  hour,  and  I  took  my  leave  with  all  the  impres- 
sions of  his  character  which  common  report  had  given 


me,  quite  confirmed.  He  is  said  to  be  the  best  mon- 
arch in  Europe,  and  it  is  written  most  expressively  in 
his  mild  amiable  features. 

The  duke  is  very  unwilling  to  marry  again,  although 
the  crown  passes  from  his  family  if  he  die  without  a 
male  heir.  He  has  two  daughters,  lovely  children, 
between  five  and  seven,  whose  mother  died  not  quite 
a  year  since.  She  was  unusually  beloved,  both  by 
her  husband  and  his  subjects,  and  is  still  talked  of  by 
the  people,  and  never  without  the  deepest  regret. 
She  was  very  religious,  and  is  said  to  have  died  of  a 
cold  taken  in  doing  a  severe  penance.  The  duke 
watched  with  her  day  and  night,  till  she  died;  and  I 
was  told  by  the  old  chamberlain,  that  he  can  not  yet 
speak  of  her  without  tears. 

With  the  new  year,  the  grand  duke  of  Tuscany 
threw  off  his  mourning.  Not  from  his  countenance, 
for  the  sadness  of  that  is  habitual;  but  his  equipages 
have  laid  off  their  black  trappings,  his  grooms  and 
outriders  are  in  drab  and  gold,  and,  more  important 
to  us  strangers  in  his  capital,  the  ducal  palace  is  aired 
with  a  weekly  reception  and  ball,  as  splendid  and  hos- 
pitable as  money  and  taste  can  make  them. 

Leopold  of  Tuscany  is  said  to  be  the  richest  indi- 
vidual in  Europe.  The  Palazzo  Pitti,  in  which  he 
lives,  seems  to  confirm  it.  The  exterior  is  marked 
with  the  character  of  the  times  in  which  it  was  built, 
and  might  be  that  of  a  fortress — its  long,  dark  front  of 
roughly-hewn  stone,  with  its  two  slight,  out-curving 
wings,  bearing  a  look  of  more  strength  than  beauty. 
The  interior  is  incalculably  rich.  The  suite  of  halls 
on  the  front  side  is  the  home  of  the  choicest  and  most 
extensive  gallery  of  pictures  in  the  world.  The  tables 
of  inlaid  gems  and  mosaic,  the  walls  encrusted  with 
relievos,  the  curious  floors,  the  drapery — all  satiate  the 
eye  with  sumptuousness.  It  is  built  against  a  hill, 
and  I  was  surprised,  on  the  night  of  the  ball,  to  find 
myself  alighting  from  the  carriage  upon  the  same  floor 
to  which  I  had  mounted  from  the  front  by  tediously 
long  staircases.  The  duke  thus  rides  in  his  carriage 
to  his  upper  story — an  advantage  which  saves  him  no 
little  fatigue  and  exposure.  The  gardens  of  the  Bo- 
boli,  which  cover  the  hill  behind,  rise  far  above  the 
turrets  of  the  palace,  and  command  glorious  views  of 
the  Val  d'Arno. 

The  reception  hour  at  the  ball  was  from  eight  to 
nine.  We  were  received  at  the  steps  on  the  garden 
side  of  the  palace,  by  a  crowd  of  servants,  in  livery, 
under  the  orders  of  a  fat  major-domo,  and  passing 
through  a  long  gallery,  lined  with  exotics  and  grena- 
diers, we  arrived  at  the  anteroom,  where  the  duke's 
body-guard  of  nobles  were  drawn  up  in  attendance. 
The  band  was  playing  delightfully  in  the  saloon  be- 
yond. I  had  arrived  late,  "having  been  presented  a 
few  days  before,  and  desirous  of  avoiding  the  stiffness 
of  the  first  hour  of  presentations.  The  rooms  were 
in  a  blaze  of  light  from  eight  trees  of  candles,  cypress- 
shaped,  and  reaching  from  the  floor  to  the  ceiling, 
and  the  company  entirely  assembled,  crowded  them 
with  a  dazzling  show  of  jewels,  flowers,  feathers,  and 
uniforms. 

The  duke  and  the  grand  dutchess  (the  widow  of  the 
late  duke)  stood  in  the  centre  of  the  room,  and  in  the 
pauses  of  conversation,  the  different  ambassadors  pre- 
sented their  countrymen.  His  highness  was  dressed 
in  a  suit  of  plain  black,  probably  the  worst  made 
clothes  in  Florence.  With  his  pale,  timid  face,  his 
bent  shoulders,  an  inexpressibly  ill-tied  cravat,  and 
rank,  untrimmed  whiskers,  he  was  the  most  uncourtly 
person  present.  His  extreme  popularity  as  a  monarch 
is  certainly  very  independent  of  his  personal  address. 
His  mother-in-law  is  about  his  own  age,  with  marked 
features,  full  of  talent,  a  pale,  high  forehead,  and  the 
bearing  altogether  of  a  queen.  She  wore  a  small 
diadem  of  the  purest  diamonds,  and  with  her  height 
and  her  flashing  jewels,  she  was  conspicuous  from 


PENCILLINGS  BY  THE  WAY 


(v.) 


every  part  of  the  room.  She  is  a  high  catholic,  and 
is  said  to  be  bending  all  her  powers  upon  the  re- 
establishment  of  the  Jesuits  in  Florence. 

As  soon  as  the  presentations  were  over,  the  grand 
duke  led  out  the  wife  of  the  English  ambassador,  and 
opened  the  ball  with  a  waltz.  He  then  danced  a 
quadrille  with  the  wife  of  the  French  ambassador,  and 
for  his  next  partner  selected  an  American  lady — the 
daughter  of  Colonel  T ,  of  New  York. 

The  supper  rooms  were  opened  early,  and  among 
the  delicacies  of  a  table  loaded  with  everything  rare 
and  luxurious,  were  a  brace  or  two  of  pheasants  from 
the  duke's  estates  in  Germany.  Duly  flavored  with 
truffes,  and  accompanied  with  Rhine  wines,  which 
deserved  the  conspicuous  place  given  them  upon  the 
royal  table — and  in  this  letter. 

I  hardly  dare  speak  of  the  degree  of  beauty  in  the 
assembly  ;  it  is  so  difficult  to  compare  a  new  impres- 
sion with  an  old  one,  and  the  thing  itself  is  so  in- 
definite. But  there  were  two  persons  present  whose 
extreme  loveliness,  as  it  i3  not  disputed  even  by  ad- 
miring envy,  may  be  worth  describing,  for  the  sake  of 
the  comparison. 

The  princess  S may  be  twenty-four  years  of 

age.  She  is  of  the  middle  height,  with  the  slight 
stoop  in  her  shoulders,  which  is  rather  a  grace  than  a 
fault.  Her  bust  is  exquisitely  turned,  her  neck  slen- 
der but  full,  her  arms,  hands,  and  feet,  those  of  a 
Psyche.  Her  face  is  the  abstraction  of  highborn 
Italian  beauty — calm,  almost  to  indifference,  of  an 
indescribably  glowing  paleness — a  complexion  that 
would  be  alabaster  if  it  were  not  for  the  richness  of 
the  blood  beneath,  betrayed  in  lips  whose  depth  of 
color  and  fineness  of  curve  seem  only  too  curiously 
beautiful  to  be  the  work  of  nature.  Her  eyes  are 
dark  and  large,  and  must  have  had  an  indolent  ex- 
pression in  her  childhood,  but  are  now  the  very  seat 
and  soul  of  feeling.  A  constant  trace  of  pain  mars 
the  beauty  of  her  forehead.  She  dresses  her  hair 
with  a  kind  of  characteristic  departure  from  the  mode, 
parting  its  glossy  flakes  on  her  brow  with  nymph-like 
simplicity,  a  peculiarity  which  one  regrets  not  to  see 
in  the  too  Parisian  dress  of  her  person.  In  her  man- 
ner she  is  strikingly  elegant,  but  without  being  absent, 
she  seems  to  give  an  unconscious  attention  to  what  is 
about  her,  and  to  be  gracious  and  winning  without 
knowing  or  intending  it,  merely  because  she  could  not 
listen  or  speak  otherwise.  Her  voice  is  sweet,  and,  in 
her  own  Italian,  mellow  and  soft  to  a  degree  incon- 
ceivable by  those  who  have  not  heard  this  delicious 
language  spoken  in  its  native  land.  With  all  these 
advantages,  and  a  look  of  pride  that  nothing  could 
insult,  there  is  an  expression  in  her  beautiful  face  that 
reminds  you  of  her  sex  and  its  temptations,  and  pre- 
pares you  fully  for  the  history  which  you  may  hear 
from  the  first  woman  that  stands  at  your  elbow. 

The  other  is  that  English  girl  of  seventeen,  shrink- 
ing timidly  from  the  crowd,  and  leaning  with  her 
hands  clasped  over  her  father's  arm,  apparently  listen- 
ing only  to  the  waltz,  and  unconscious  that  every  eye 
is  fixed  upon  her  in  admiration.  She  has  lived  all  her 
life  in  Italy,  but  has  been  bred  by  an  English  mother, 
in  a  retired  villa  of  the  Val  d'Arno— her  character 
and  feelings  are  those  of  her  race,  and  nothing  of 
Italy  about  her,  but  the  glow  of  its  sunny  clime  in 
the  else  spotless  snow  of  her  complexion,  and  an 
enthusiasm  in  her  downcast  eye  that  you  may  account 
for  as  you  will— it  is  not  English  !  Her  form  has 
just  ripened  into  womanhood.  The  bust  still  wants 
fulness,  and  the  step  confidence.  Her  forehead  is 
rather  too  intellectual  to  be  maidenly  ;  but  the  droop 
of  her  singularly  long  eye-lashes  over  eyes  that  elude 
the  most  guarded  glance  of  your  own,  and  the  modest 
expression  of  her  lips  closed  but  not  pressed  together, 
redeem  her  from  any  look  of  conscious  superiority, 
and  convince  you  that  she  only  seeks  to  be  unob- 


served. A  single  ringlet  of  golden  brown  hair  falls 
nearly  to  her  shoulder,  catching  the  light  upon  its 
glossy  curves  with  an  effect  that  would  enchant  a 
painter.  Lilies  of  the  valley,  the  first  of  the  season, 
are  in  her  bosom  and  her  hair,  and  she  might  be  the 
personification  of  the  flower  for  delicacy  and  beauty. 
You  are  only  disappointed  in  talking  with  her.  She 
expresses  herself  with  a  nerve  and  self-command 
which,  from  a  slight  glance,  you  did  not  anticipate. 
She  shrinks  from  the  general  eye,  but  in  conversation 
she  is  the  high-minded  woman  more  than  the  timid 
child  for  which  her  manner  seems  to  mark  her.  In 
either  light,  she  is  the  very  presence  of  purity.  She 
stands  by  the  side  of  her  not  less  beautiful  rival,  like 
a  Madonna  by  a  Magdalen — both  seem  not  at  home 
in  the  world,  but  only  one  could  have  dropped  from 
heaven. 


LETTER  XL VIII. 

VALLOMBROSA — ITALIAN   OXEN — CONVENT — SERVICE  IN 
THE  CHAPEL — HOUSE  OCCUPIED  BY  MILTON. 

I  left  Florence  for  Vallombrosa  at  daylight  on  a 
warm  summer's  morning,  in  company  with  four  ladies. 
We  drove  along  the  northern  bank  of  the  Arno  for  four 
or  five  miles,  passing  several  beautiful  villas,  belonging 
to  the  Florentine  nobles;  and,  crossing  the  river  by  a 
picturesque  bridge,  took  the  road  to  the  village  of  Pe- 
lago,  which  lies  at  the  foot  of  the  mountain,  and  is 
the  farthest  point  to  which  a  carriage  can  mount.  It 
is  about  fourteen  miles  from  Florence,  and  the  ascent 
thence  to  the  convent  is  nearly  three. 

We  alighted  in  the  centre  of  the  village,  in  the 
midst  of  a  ragged  troop  of  women  and  children, 
among  whom  were  two  idiot  beggars  ;  and,  while  the 
preparations  were  making  for  our  ascent,  we  took 
chairs  in  the  open  square  around  a  basket  of  cherries, 
and  made  a  delicious  luncheon  of  fruit  and  bread, 
very  much  to  the  astonishment  of  some  two  hundred 
spectators. 

Our  conveyances  appeared  in  the  course  of  half  an 
hour,  consisting  of  two  large  baskets,  each  drawn  by  a 
pair  of  oxen  and  containing  two  persons,  andasmall  Sar- 
dinian pony.  The  ladies  seated  themselves  with  some 
hesitation  in  their  singular  sledges;  I  mounted  the 
pony,  and  we  made  a  dusty  exit  from  Pelago,  attended 
to  the  gate  by  our  gaping  friends,  who  bowed,  and 
wished  us  the  bon  viaggio  with  more  gratitude  than 
three  Tuscan  crazie  would  buy,  I  am  sure,  in  any  other 
part  of  the  world. 

The  gray  oxen  of  Italy  are  quite  a  different  race 
from  ours,  much  lighter  and  quicker,  and  in  a  small 
vehicle  they  will  trot  off  five  or  six  miles  in  the  hour 
as  freely  as  a  horse.  They  are  exceedingly  beautiful. 
The  hide  is  very  fine,  of  a  soft  squirrel  gray,  and  as 
sleek  and  polished  often  as  that  of  a  well-groomed 
courser.  With  their  large,  bright,  intelligent  eyes, 
high-lifted  heads,  and  open  nostrils,  they  are  among 
the  finest-looking  animals  in  the  world  in  motion.  We 
soon  came  to  the  steep  path,  and  the  facility  with 
which  our  singular  equipages  mounted  was  surprising. 
I  followed,  as  well  as  I  could,  on  my  diminutive  pony, 
my  feet  touching  the  ground,  and  my  balance  con- 
stantly endangered  by  the  contact  of  stumps  and 
stones — the  hard-mouthed  little  creature  taking  his 
own  way,  in  spite  of  every  effort  of  mine  to  the  con- 
trary. 

We  stopped  to  breathe  in  a  deep,  cool  glen,  which 
lay  across  our  path,  the  descent  into  which  was  very 
difficult.  The  road  through  the  bottom  of  it  ran  just 
above  the  bank  of  a  brook,  into  which  poured  a  pretty 
fall  of  eight  or  ten  feet,  and  with  the  spray-wet  grass 
beneath,  and  the  full-leaved  chestnuts  above,  it  was  as 


70 


PENCILLINGS  BY  THE  WAY. 


delicious  a  spot  for  a  rest  in  a  summer  noontide  as  I 
ever  saw.  The  ladies  took  out  their  pencils  and 
sketched  it,  making  a  group  themselves  the  while, 
which  added  all  the  picture  wanted. 

The  path  wound  continually  about  in  the  deep 
woods,  with  which  the  mountain  is  covered,  and  occa- 
sionally from  an  opening  we  obtained  a  view  back  up- 
on the  valley  of  the  Arno,  which  was  exceedingly  fine. 
We  came  in  sight  of  the  convent  in  about  two  hours, 
emerging  from  the  shade  of  the  thick  chestnuts  into 
a  cultivated  lawn,  fenced  and  mown  with  the  nicety  of 
the  grass-plot  before  a  cottage,  and  entering  upon  a 
smooth,  well-swept  pavement,  approached  the  gate  of 
the  venerable-looking  pile,  as  anxious  for  the  refresh- 
ment of  its  far-famed  hospitality  as  ever  pilgrims 
were. 

An  old  cheerful-looking  monk  came  out  to  meet  us, 
and  shaking  hands  with  the  ladies  very  cordially,  as- 
sisted in  extracting  them  from  their  cramped  convey- 
ances. He  then  led  the  way  to  a  small  stone  cottage, 
a  little  removed  from  the  convent,  quoting  gravely  by 
the  way  the  law  of  the  order  against  the  entrance  of 
females  over  the  monastic  threshold.  We  were  ush- 
ered into  a  small,  neat  parlor,  with  two  bedrooms 
communicating,  and  two  of  the  servants  of  the  monas- 
tery followed,  with  water  and  show-white  napkins,  the 
-padre  degli  forestieri,  as  they  called  the  old  monk, 
who  received  us,  talking  most  volubly  all  the  while. 

The  cook  appeared  presently  with  a  low  reverence, 
and  asked  what  we  would  like  for  dinner.  He  ran 
over  the  contents  of  the  larder  before  we  had  time  to 
answer  his  question,  enumerating  half  a  dozen  kinds 
of  game,  and  a  variety  altogether  that  rather  surprised 
our  ideas  of  monastical  seventy.  His  own  rosy  gills 
bore  testimony  that  it  was  not  the  kitchen  of  Dennis 
Bul-iruddery. 

While  dinner  was  preparing,  Father  Gasparo  pro- 
posed a  walk.  An  avenue  of  the  most  majestic  trees 
opened  immediately  away  from  the  little  lawn  before 
the  cottage  door.  We  followed  it  perhaps  half  a  mile 
round  the  mountain,  thridding  a  thick  pine  forest,  till 
we  emerged  on  the  edge  of  a  shelf  of  greensward, 
running  just  under  the  summit  of  the  hill.  From 
this  spot  the  view  was  limited  only  by  the  power  of  the 
eye.  The  silver  line  of  the  Mediterranean  oft*  Leg- 
horn is  seen  hence  on  a  clear  day,  between  which  and 
the  mountain  lie  sixty  or  seventy  miles,  wound  into 
the  loveliest  undulations  by  the  course  of  the  Arno. 
The  vale  of  this  beautiful  river,  in  which  Florence 
stands,  was  just  distinguishable  as  a  mere  dell  in  the 
prospect.  It  was  one  of  the  sultriest  days  of  August, 
but  the  air  was  vividly  fresh,  and  the  sun,  with  all  the 
strength  of  the  climate  of  Italy,  was  unoppressive. 
We  seated  ourselves  on  the  small  fine  grass  of  the  hill- 
side, and  with  the  good  old  monk  narrating  passages 
of  his  life,  enjoyed  the  glorious  scene  till  the  cook's 
messenger  summoned  us  back  to  dinner. 

We  were  waited  upon  at  table  by  two  young  servi- 
tors of  the  convent,  with  shaven  crowns  and  long  black 
cassocks,  under  the  direction  of  Father  Gasparo,  who 
sat  at  a  little  distance,  entertaining  us  with  his  inex- 
haustible stories  till  the  bell  rung  for  the  convent  sup- 
per. The  dinner  would  have  graced  the  table  of  an 
emperor.  Soup,  beef,  cutlets,  ducks,  woodcock,  fol- 
lowed each  other,  cooked  in  the  most  approved  man- 
ner, with  all  the  accompaniments  established  by  taste 
and  usage ;  and  better  wine,  white  and  red,  never  was 
pressed  from  the  Tuscan  grape.  The  dessert  was  va- 
rious and  plentiful ;  and  while  we  were  sitting,  after 
the  good  father's  departure,  wondering  at  the  luxuries 
we  had  found  on  a  mountain-top,  strong  coftee  and 
liqueurs  were  set  before  us,  both  of  the  finest  flavor. 

I  was  to  sleep  myself  in  the  convent.  Father  Gas- 
paro joined  us  upon  the  wooden  bench  in  the  avenue, 
where  we  were  enjoying  a  brilliant  sunset,  and  inform- 
ed me  that  the  ga'es  shut  at  eight.     The  vesper-bell 


soon  rung,  echoing  round  from  the  rocks,  and  I  bade 
my  four  companions  good  night,  and  followed  the 
monk  to  the  cloisters.  As  we  entered  the  postern,  he 
asked  me  whether  I  would  go  directly  to  the  cell,  or 
attend  first  the  service  in  the  chapel,  assisting  my  de- 
cision at  the  same  time  by  gently  slipping  his  arm 
through  mine  and  drawing  me  toward  the  cloth  door, 
from  which  a  strong  peal  of  the  organ  was  issuing. 

We  lifted  the  suspended  curtain,  and  entered  I 
chapel  so  dimly  lit,  that  I  could  only  judge  of  its  ex 
tent  from  the  reverberations  of  the  music.  The  lamps 
were  all  in  the  choir,  behind  the  altar,  and  the  shuf- 
fling footsteps  of  the  gathering  monks  approached  it 
from  every  quarter.  Father  Gasparo  led  me  to  the 
base  of  a  pillar,  and  telling  me  to  kneel,  left  me  and 
entered  the  choir,  where  he  was  lost  in  the  depth  of 
one  of  the  old  richly-carved  seats  for  a  few  minutes, 
appearing  again  with  thirty  or  forty  others,  who  rose 
and  joined  in  the  chorus  of  the  chant,  making  the 
hollow  roof  ring  with  the  deep  unmingled  base  of  then- 
voices. 

I  stood  till  I  was  chilled,  listening  to  the  service, 
and  looking  at  the  loug  line  of  monks  rising  and  sit- 
ting, with  their  monotonous  changes  of  books  and 
positions,  and  not  knowing  which  way  to  go  for  warmth 
or  retirement.  I  wandered  up  and  down  the  dim 
church  during  the  remaining  hour,  an  unwilling,  but 
not  altogether  an  unamused  spectator  of  the  scene. 
The  performers  of  the  service,  with  the  exception  of 
Father  Gasparo,  were  young  men  of  from  sixteen  to 
twenty ;  but  during  my  slow  turns  to  and  fro  on  the 
pavement  of  the  church,  fifteen  or  twenty  old  monks 
entered,  and,  with  a  bend  of  the  knee  before  the  altar, 
went  off  into  the  obscure  corners,  and  knelt  motionless 
at  prayer,  for  almost  an  hour.  I  could  just  distin- 
guish the  dark  outline  of  their  figures  when  my  eye 
became  accustomed  to  the  imperfect  light,  and  1  nev 
er  saw  a  finer  spectacle  of  religious  devotion. 

The  convent  clock  struck  ten,  and  shutting  up  their 
"  clasped  missals,"  the  young  monks  took  their  cloaks 
about  them,  bent  their  knees  in  passing  the  altar,  and 
disappeared  by  different  doors.  Father  Gasparo  was 
the  last  to  depart,  and  our  footsteps  echoed  as  we 
passed  through  the  long  cloisters  to  the  cell  appropri- 
ated for  me.  We  opened  one  of  some  twenty  small 
doors,  and  I  was  agreeably  surprised  to  find  a  supper 
of  cold  game  upon  the  table,  with  a  bottle  of  wine, 
and  two  plates — the  monk  intending  to  give  me  his 
company  at  supper.  The  cell  was  hung  round  with 
bad  engravings  of  the  virgin,  the  death  of  martyrs, 
crosses,  &c,  and  a  small  oaken  desk  stood  against  the 
wall  beneath  a  large  crucifix,  with  a  prayer-book  upon 
it.  The  bed  was  high,  ample,  and  spotlessly  white, 
and  relieved  the  otherwise  comfortless  look  of  a  stone 
floor  and  white-washed  walls.  I  felt  the  change  from 
summer  heat  to  the  keen  mountain  air,  and  as  I  shiv- 
ered and  buttoned  my  coat,  my  gay  guest  threw  over 
me  his  heavy  black  cowl  of  cloth — a  dress  that,  with 
its  closeness  and  numerous  folds,  would  keep  one 
warm  in  Siberia.  Adding  to  it  his  little  black  scull- 
cap,  he  told  me,  with  a  hearty  laugh,  that  but  for  a 
certain  absence  of  sanctity  in  the  expression  of  my 
face,  and  the  uncanonical  length  of  my  hair,  I  looked 
the  monk  complete.  We  had  a  merry  supper.  The 
wine  was  of  a  choicer  vintage  than  that  we  had  drank 
at  dinner,  and  the  father  answered,  upon  my  discovery 
of  its  merits,  that  he  never  tvasted  it  upon  women. 

In  the  course  of  the  conversation,  I  found  out  that 
my  entertainer  was  a  kind  of  butler,  or  heard-servitor 
of  the  convent,  and  that  the  great  body  of  the  monks 
were  of  noble  lineage.  The  feeling  of  pride  still  re- 
mains among  them  from  the  days  when  the  Certosa  of 
Vallombrosa  was  a  residence  for  princes,  before  its 
splendid  pictures  were  pillaged  by  a  foreign  army,  its 
wealth  scattered,  and  its  numbers  demolished.  "In 
those  days,"  said  the  monk,  "we  received  nothing  for 


PENCILLINGS  BY  THE  WAY. 


71 


our  hospitality  but  the  pleasure  it  gave  us" — relieving 
my  mind,  by  the  remark,  of  what  I  looked  forward  to 
at  parting  as  a  delicate  point. 

My  host  left  me  at  midnight,  and  I  went  to  bed,  and 
slept  under  a  thick  covering  in  an  Italian  August. 
"  The  blanched  linen,  white  and  lavendered,"  seemed 
to  have  a  peculiar  charm,  for  though  I  had  promised 
to  meet  my  excluded  companions  at  sunrise,  on  the 
top  of  the  mountain,  I  slept  soundly  till  nine,  and  was 
obliged  to  breakfast  alone  in  the  refectory  of  the  con- 
vent. 

We  were  to  dine  at  three,  and  start  for  Florence  at 
four  the  next  day,  and  we  spent  our  morning  in  trav- 
ersing the  mountain  paths,  and  getting  views  on  ev- 
ery side.  Fifty  or  a  hundred  feet  above  the  convent, 
perched  on  a  rock  like  an  eyry,  stands  a  small  build- 
ing in  which  Milton  is  supposed  to  have  lived,  during 
his  six  weeks  sojourn  at  the  convent.  It  is  now  fitted 
up  as  a  nest  of  small  chapels — every  one  of  its  six  or 
eight  little  chambers  having  an  altar.  The  ladies  were 
not  permitted  to  enter  it.  I  selected  the  room  I  pre- 
sumed the  poet  must  have  chosen — the  only  one  com- 
manding the  immense  view  to  the  west,  and,  looking 
from  the  window,  could  easily  feel  the  truth  of  his 
simile,  "thick  as  leaves  in  Vallombrosa."  It  is  a 
mountain  of  foliage. 

Another  sumptuous  dinner  was  served,  Father  Gas- 
paro  sitting  by,  even  more  voluble  than  before,  the 
baskets  and  the  pony  were  brought  to  the  door,  and 
we  bade  farewell  to  the  old  monk  with  more  regret 
than  a  day's  acquaintance  often  produces.  We  reach- 
ed our  carriage  in  an  hour,  and  were  in  Florence  at 
eight — having  passed,  by  unanimous  opinion,  the  two 
brightest  days  in  our  calendar  of  travel. 


LETTER  XLIX. 

HOUSE  OF  MICHAEL  ANGELO — THE  ANCIENT  CHURCH 
OF  SAN  MINIATO — MADAME  CATALANI — WALTER 
RAVAGE   LANDOR — MIDNIGHT   MASS,    ETC. 

I  went  with  a  party  this  morning  to  visit  the  house 
of  Michael  Angelo.  It  stands  as  he  lived  in  it,  in  the 
Via  Ghibellini,  and  is  still  in  possession  of  his  de- 
scendants. It  is  a  neat  building  of  three  stories, 
divided  on  the  second  floor  into  three  rooms,  shown  as 
those  occupied  by  the  painter,  sculptor,  and  poet. 
The  first  is  panelled  and  painted  by  his  scholars  after 
his  death — each  picture  representing  some  incident  of 
his  life.  There  are  ten  or  twelve  of  these,  and  several 
of  them  are  highly  beautiful.  One  near  the  window 
represents  him  in  his  old  age  on  a  visit  to  "  Lorenzo 
the  Magnificent,"  who  commands  him  to  sit  in  his 
presence.  The  duke  is  standing  before  his  chair,  and 
the  figure  of  the  old  man  is  finely  expressive. 

The  next  room  appears  to  have  been  his  parlor,  and 
the  furniture  is  exactly  as  it  stood  when  he  died.  In 
one  corner  is  placed  a  bust  of  him  in  his  youth,  with 
nis  face  perfect ;  and  opposite,  another,  taken  from  a 
cast  after  his  nose  was  broken  by  a  fellow  painter  in 
the  church  of  the  Carmine.  There  are  also  one  or 
two  portraits  of  him,  and  the  resemblance  through 
them  all  shows  that  the  likenesses  we  have  of  him  in 
the  engravings  are  uncommonly  correct. 

In  the  inner  room,  which  was  his  studio,  they  show 
his  pallet,  brushes,  pots,  maul-sticks,  slippers,  and 
easel — all  standing  carelessly  in  the  little  closets 
around,  as  if  he  had  left  them  but  yesterday.  The 
walls  are  painted  in  fresco,  by  Angelo  himself,  and 
represent  groups  of  all  the  distinguished  philosophers, 
poets  and  statesmen  of  his  time.  Among  them  are 
the  heads  of  Petrarch,  Dante,  Galileo,  and  Lorenzo 
de  Medici.  It  is  a  noble  gallery  !  perhaps  a  hundred 
heads  in  all. 


The  descendant  of  Buonarotti  is  now  an  old  man, 
and  fortunately  rich  enough  to  preserve  the  house  of 
his  great  ancestor  as  an  object  of  curiosity.  He  has 
a  son,  I  believe,  studying  the  arts  at  Rome. 

On  a  beautiful  hill  which  ascends  directly  from  one 
of  the  southern  gates  of  Florence,  stands  a  church 
built  so  Ions;  ago  as  at  the  close  of  the  first  century. 
The  gate,  church,  and  hill,  are  all  called  San  Miniato, 
after  a  saint  buried  under  the  church  pavement.  A 
large,  and  at  present  flourishing  convent,  hangs  on 
the  side  of  the  hill  below,  and  around  the  church 
stand  the  walls  of  a  strong  fortress,  built  by  Michael 
Angelo.  A  half  mile  or  more  south,  across  a  valley, 
an  old  tower  rises  against  the  sky,  which  was  erected 
for  the  observations  of  Galileo.  A  mile  to  the  left,  on 
the  same  ridge,  an  old  villa  is  to  be  seen  in  which 
Boccaccio  wrote  most  of  his  "Hundred  Talesof  Love." 
The  Arno  comes  down  from  Vallombrosa,  and  pas- 
sing through  Florence  at  the  foot  of  San  Miniato,  is 
seen  for  three  miles  further  on  its  way  to  Pisa  ;  the 
hill,  tower,  and  convent  of  Fiesole,  where  Milton 
studied  and  Catiline  encamped  with  his  conspirators, 
rise  from  the  opposite  bank  of  the  river ;  and  right 
below,  as  if  you  could  leap  into  the  lantern  of  the 
dome,  nestles  the  lovely  city  of  Florence,  in  the  lap 
of  the  very  brightest  vale  that  ever  mountain  shel- 
tered or  river  ran  through.  Such  are  the  temptations 
to  a  walk  in  Italy,  and  add  to  it  the  charms  of  the 
climate,  and  you  may  understand  one  of  a  hundred 
reasons  why  it  is  the  land  of  poetry  and  romance,  and 
why  it  so  easily  becomes  the  land  of  a  stranger's 
affection. 

The  villas  which  sparkle  all  over  the  hills  which 
lean  unto  Florence,  are  occupied  mainly  by  foreigners 
living  here  for  health  or  luxury,  and  most  of  them  are 
known  and  visited  by  the  floating  society  of  the  place. 
Among  them  are  Madame  Catalani,  the  celebrated 
singer,  who  occupies  a  beautiful  palace  on  the  ascent 
of  Fiesole,  and  Walter  Savage  Landor,  the  author 
of  the  "  Imaginary  Conversations,"  as  refined  a  scholar 
perhaps  as  is  now  living,  who  is  her  near  neighbor. 
A  pleasant  family  of  my  acquaintance  lives  just  back 
of  the  fortress  of  San  Miniato,  and  in  walking  out  to 
them  with  a  friend  yesterday,  I  visited  the  church 
again,  and  remarked  more  particularly  the  features  of 
the  scene  I  have  described. 

The  church  of  San  Miniato  was  built  by  Henry  I. 
of  Germany,  and  Cunegonde  his  wife.  The  front  is 
pretty — a  kind  of  mixture  of  Greek  and  Arabic  archi- 
tecture, crusted  with  marble.  The  interior  is  in  the 
style  of  the  primitive  churches,  the  altar  standing  in 
what  was  called  the  presbijtery,  a  high  platform  occu- 
pying a  third  of  the  nave,  with  two  splendid  flights  of 
stairs  of  the  purest  white  marble.  The  most  curious 
part  of  it  is  the  rotunde  in  the  rear,  which  is  lit  by 
five  windows  of  transparent  oriental  alabaster,  each 
eic;ht  or  nine  feet  high  and  three  broad,  in  single  slabs. 
The  sun  shone  full  on  one  of  them  while  we  were 
there,  and  the  effect  was  inconceivably  rich.  It  was 
like  a  sheet  of  half  molten  gold  and  silver.  The 
transparency  of  course  was  irregular,  but  in  the  yel- 
low spots  of  the  stone  the  light  came  through  like 
the  effect  of  deeply  stained  glass. 

A  partly  subterranean  chapel,  six  or  eight  feet  lower 
than  the  pavement  of  the  church,  extends  under  the 
presbytery.  It  is  a  labyrinth  of  marble  columns 
which  support  the  platform  above,  no  two  of  which 
are  alike.  The  ancient  cathedral  of  Modena  is  the 
only  church  1  have  seen  in  Italy  built  in  the  same 
manner. 

The  midnight  mass  on  "  Christmas  eve,"  is  abused 
in  all  catholic  countries,  I  believe,  as  a  kind  of  satur- 
nalia of  gallantry.  I  joined  a  party  of  young  men 
who  were  leaving  a  ball  for  the  church  of  the  An- 


72 


PENCILLINGS  BY  THE  WAY. 


nunciata,  the  fashionable  rendezvous,  and  we  were  set 
down  at  the  portico  when  the  mass  was  about  half 
over.  The  entrances  of  the  open  vestibule  were 
thronged  to  suffocation.  People  of  all  ages  and  con- 
ditions were  crowding  in  and  out,  and  the  sound  of 
the  distant  chant  at  the  altar  came  to  our  ears  as  we 
entered,  mingled  with  every  tone  of  address  and  reply 
from  the  crowd  about  us.  The  body  of  the  church 
was  quite  obscured  with  the  smoke  of  the  incense. 
We  edged  our  way  on  through  the  press,  carried 
about  in  the  open  area  of  the  church  by  every  tide 
that  rushed  in  from  the  various  doors,  till  we  stopped 
in  a  thick  eddy  in  the  centre,  almost  unable  to  stir  a 
limb.  I  could  see  the  altar  very  clearly  from  this 
point,  and  I  contented  myself  with  merely  observing 
what  was  about  me,  leaving  my  motions  to  the  im- 
pulse of  the  crowd. 

It  was  a  curiously  mingled  scene.  The  ceremonies 
of  the  altar  were  going  on  in  all  their  mysterious 
splendor.  The  waving  of  censers,  the  kneeling  and 
rising  of  the  gorgeously  clad  priests,  accompanied 
simultaneously  by  the  pealing  of  solemn  music  from 
the  different  organs — the  countless  lights  burning 
upon  the  altar,  and,  ranged  within  the  paling,  a  semi- 
circle of  the  duke's  grenadiers,  standing  motionless, 
with  their  arms  presented,  while  the  sentinel  paced  to 
and  fro,  and  all  kneeling,  and  grounding  arms  at  the 
tinkle  of  the  slight  bell — were  the  materials  for  the 
back-ground  of  the  picture.  In  the  immense  area  of 
the  church  stood  perhaps,  four  thousand  people,  one 
third  of  whom,  doubtless,  came  to  worship.  Those 
who  did  and  those  who  did  not,  dropped  alike  upon 
the  marble  pavement  at  the  sound  of  the  bell ;  and 
then,  as  I  was  heretic  enough  to  stand,  I  had  full 
opportunity  for  observing  both  devotion  and  intrigue. 
The  latter  was  amusingly  managed.  Almost  air  the 
pretty  and  young  women  were  accompanied  by  an 
ostensible  duenna,  and  the  methods  of  eluding  their 
vigilance  in  communication  were  various.  I  had 
detected  under  a  blond  wig,  in  entering,  the  young 
ambassador  of  a  foreign  court,  who  being  cavaliere  ser- 
vente  to  one  of  the  most  beautiful  women  in  Florence, 
certainly  had  no  right  to  the  amusement  of  the  hour. 
We  had  been  carried  up  the  church  in  the  same  tide, 
and  when  the  whole  crowd  were  prostrate,  I  found 
him  just  beyond  me,  slipping  a  card  into  the  shoe  of 
an  uncommonly  pretty  girl  kneeling  before  him.  She 
was  attended  by  both  father  and  mother  apparently, 
but  as  she  gave  no  sign  of  surprise,  except  stealing  an 
almost  imperceptible  glance  behind  her,  I  presumed 
she  was  not  offended.  I  passed  an  hour,  perhaps,  in 
amused  observation  of  similar  matters,  most  of  which 
could  not  be  well  described  on  paper.  It  is  enough 
to  say,  that  I  do  not  think  more  dissolute  circum- 
stances accompanied  the  worship  of  Venus  in  the 
most  defiled  of  heathen  temples. 


LETTER  L. 

FLORENCE — VISIT   TO   THE   CHURCH  OF   SAN  GAETANO — 

PENITENTIAL    PROCESSIONS THE    REFUGEE    CARLISTS 

— THE  MIRACLE  OF  RAIN — CHURCH  OF  THE  ANNUNCI- 
ATA — TOMB  OF  GIOVANNI  DI  BOLOGNA — MASTER- 
PIECE  OF   ANDREA   DEL   SARTO,  ETC.,   ETC. 

I  heard  the  best  passage  of  the  opera  of  "  Romeo 
and  Juliet"  delightfully  played  in  the  church  of  San 
Gattano  this  morning.  I  was  coming  from  the  cafe, 
where  I  had  been  breakfasting,  when  the  sound  of  the 
organ  drew  me  in.  The  communion  was  administering 
at  one  of  the  side  chapels,  the  showy  Sunday  mass 
was  going  on  at  the  great  altar,  and  the  numerous  con- 
fession boxes  were  full  of  penitents,  all  female,  as  usual. 
As  I  took  a  seat  near  the  communicants,  the  sacred 


wafer  was  dipped  into  the  cup  and  put  into  the  mouth 
of  a  young  woman  kneeling  before  the  railing.  She 
rose  soon  after,  and  I  was  not  lightly  surprised  to  find 
it  was  a  certain  errand-girl  of  a  bachelor's  washerwo- 
man, as  unfit  a  person  for  the  holy  sacrament  as  wears 
a  petticoat  in  Florence. 

I  was  drawn  by  the  agreeable  odor  of  the  incense  to 
the  paling  of  the  high  altar.  The  censers  were  flung 
by  unseen  hands  from  the  doors  of  the  sacristy  at  the 
sides,  and  an  unseen  chorus  of  boys  in  the  choir  be- 
hind broke  in  occasionally  with  the  high-keyed  chant 
that  echoes  with  its  wild  melody  from  every  arch  and 
corner  of  these  immense  churches.  It  seems  running 
upon  the  highest  note  that  the  ear  can  bear,  and  yet 
nothing  could  be  more  musical.  A  man  knelt  on  the 
pavement  near  me,  with  two  coarse  baskets  beside 
him,  and  the  traces  of  long  and  dirty  travel  from  his 
heels  to  his  hips.  He  had  stopped  in  to  the  mass 
probably  on  his  way  to  market.  There  can  be  no 
greater  contrast  than  that  seen  in  catholic  churches, 
between  the  splendor  of  architecture,  renowned  pic- 
tures, statues  and  ornaments  of  silver  and  gold,  and 
the  crowd  of  tattered,  famished,  misery-marked,  wor- 
shippers that  throng  them.  I  wonder  it  never  occurs 
to  them,  that  the  costly  pavement  upon  which  they 
kneel  might  feed  and  clothe  them.* 

Penitential  processions  are  to  be  met  all  over  Flor- 
ence to-day,  on  account  of  the  uncommon  degree  of 
sickness.  One  of  them  passed  under  my  window  just 
now.  They  are  composed  of  people  of  all  classes, 
upon  whom  it  is  inflicted  as  a  penance  by  the  priests. 
A  white  robe  covers  them  entirely,  even  the  face,  and, 
with  their  eyes  glaring  through  the  two  holes  made 
for  that  purpose,  they  look  like  processions  of  shroud- 
ed corpses.  Eight  of  the  first  carry  burning  candles 
of  six  feet  in  length,  and  a  company  in  the  rear  have 
the  church  books,  from  which  they  chant,  the  whole 
procession  joining  in  a  melancholy  chorus  of  three 
notes.  It  rains  hard  to-day,  and  their  white  dresses 
cling  to  them  with  a  ludicrously  ungraceful  effect. 

Florence  is  an  unhealthful  climate  in  the  winter. 
The  tramontane  winds  come  down  from  the  Appenines 
so  sharply,  that  delicate  constitutions,  particularly 
those  liable  to  pulmonary  complaints,  suffer  invariably. 
There  has  been  a  dismal  mortality  among  the  Italians. 
The  Marquis  Corsi,  who  presented  me  at  court  a 
week  ago  (the  last  day  he  was  out,  and  the  last  duty 
he  performed),  lies  in  state,  at  this  moment,  in  the 
church  of  Santa  Trinita,  and  another  of  the  duke's 
counsellors  of  state  died  a  few  days  before.  His  prime 
minister,  Fossombroni,  is  dangerously  ill  also,  and  all 
of  the  same  complaint,  the  mal  di  petto,  as  it  is  called, 
or  disease  of  the  lungs.  Corsi  is  a  great  loss  to  Amer- 
icans. He  was  the  grand  chamberlain  of  court, 
wealthy  and  hospitable,  and  took  particular  pride  in 
fulfilling  the  functions  of  an  American  ambassador. 
He  was  a  courtier  of  the  old  school,  accomplished, 
elegant,  and  possessed  of  universal  information. 

The  refugee  Garlists  are  celebrating  to-day,  in  the 
church  of  Santa  Maria  Novella,  the  anniversary  of  the 
death  of  Louis  XVI.  The  bishop  of  Strasbourg  is 
here,  and  is  performing  high  mass  for  the  soul  of  the 
"  martyr,"  as  they  term  him.  Italy  is  full  of  the  more 
aristocratic  families  of  France,  and  it  has  become 
mauvais  ton  in  society  to  advocate  the  present  govern- 
ment of  France,  or  even  its  principles.  They  detest 
Louis  Philippe  with  the  virulence  of  a  deadly  private 
enmity,  and  declare  universally,  that  they  will  exile 
themselves  till  they  can  return  to  overthrow  him. 
Among  the  refugees  are  great  numbers  of  young  men, 

*  The  Tuscans,  who  are  the  best  governed  people  in  Italy, 
pay  twenty  per  cent,  of  their  property  in  taxes — paying  the 
whole  value  of  their  estates,  of  course,  in  five  years.  The 
extortions  of  the  priests,  added  to  this,  are  sufficiently  bur- 
densome 


PENCILLINGS  BY  THE  WAY. 


T.i 


who  are  sent  away  from  home  with  a  chivalrous  devo- 
tion to  the  cause  of  the  Dutchess  of  Berri,  which  they 
avow  so  constantly  in  the  circles  of  Italian  society,  that 
she  seems  the  exclusive  heroine  of  the  day.  There 
was  nothing  seen  of  the  French  exquisites  in  Florence 
for  a  week  after  she  was  taken.  They  were  in  mourn- 
ing for  the  misfortune  of  their  mistress. 


All  Florence  is  ringing  with  the  miracle.  The  city 
fountains  have  for  some  days  been  dry,  and  the  whole 
country  was  suffering  for  rain.  The  day  before  (he 
moon  changed,  the  processions  began,  and  the  day  af- 
ter, when  the  sky  was  full  of  clouds,  the  holy  picture 
in  the  church  of  the  Annunciata,  "painted  by  St. 
Luke  himself,"  was  solemnly  uncovered.  The  re- 
sult was  the  present  miracle  of  rain,  and  the  priests 
are  preaching  upon  it  from  every  pulpit.  The  padrone 
of  my  lodgings  came  in  this  morning,  and  told  me  the 
circumstances  with  the  most  serious  astonishment. 

I  joined  the  crowd  this  morning,  who  are  still 
thronging  up  the  via  de  Serti  to  the  church  of  the 
Annunciata  at  all  hours  of  the  day.  The  square  in 
front  of  the  church  was  like  a  fair — every  nook  occu- 
pied with  the  little  booths  of  the  sellers  of  rosaries, 
6aint's  books,  and  pictures.  We  were  assailed  by  a 
troop  of  pedlars  at  the  door,  holding  leaden  medals 
and  crucifixes,  and  crying,  at  the  top  of  their  voices, 
for  fidele  Christiani  to  spend  a  crazie  for  the  love  of 
God. 

After  crowding  up  the  long  cloister  with  a  hundred 
or  two  of  wretches,  steaming  from  the  rain,  and  fresh 
from  every  filthy  occupation  in  the  city,  we  were 
pushed  under  the  suspended  leather  door,  and  reached 
the  nave  of  the  church.  In  the  slow  progress  we 
made  toward  the  altar,  I  had  full  opportunity  to  study 
the  fretted-gold  ceiling  above  me,  the  masterly  pic- 
tures in  the  side  chapels,  the  statuary,  carving,  and 
general  architecture.  Description  can  give  you  no 
idea  of  the  waste  of  splendor  in  these  places. 

I  stood  at  last  within  sight  of  the  miraculous  pic- 
ture. It  is  painted  in  fresco  above  an  altar  surrounded 
with  a  paling  of  bronze  and  marble  projecting  into  the 
body  of  the  church.  Eight  or  ten  massive  silver 
lamps,  each  one  presented  by  some  trade  in  Florence, 
hung  from  the  roof  of  the  chapel,  burning  with  a 
dusky  glare  in  the  daylight.  A  grenadier,  with  cap 
and  musket,  stood  on  each  side  of  the  bronze  gate,  re- 
pressing the  eager  rush  of  the  crowd.  Within,  at  the 
side  of  the  altar,  stood  the  officiating  priest,  a  man 
with  a  look  of  intellect  and  nobleness  on  his  fine  fea- 
tures and  lofty  forehead,  that  seemed  irreconcilable 
with  the  folly  he  was  performing.  The  devotees  came 
in,  one  by  one,  as  they  were  admitted  by  the  sentinel, 
knelt,  offered  their  rosary  to  the  priest,  who  touched 
it  to  the  frame  of  the  picture  with  one  hand,  and  re- 
ceived their  money  with  the  other,  and  then  crossing 
themselves,  and  pressing  the  beads  to  their  bosom, 
passed  out  at  the  small  door  leading  into  the  cloisters. 

As  the  only  chance  of  seeing  the  picture,  I  bought 
a  rosary  for  two  crazie  (about  three  cents),  and  pressed 
into  the  throng.  In  a  half  hour  it  came  to  my  turn 
to  pass  the  guard.  The  priest  took  my  silver  paul, 
and  while  he  touched  the  beads  to  the  picture,  I  had 
a  moment  to  look  at  it  nearly.  I  could  see  nothing 
but  a  confused  mass  of  black  paint,  with  an  indistinct 
outline  of  the  head  of  a  Madonna  in  the  centre.  The 
large  spiked  rays  of  glory  standing  out  from  every  side 
were  all  I  could  see  in  the  imperfect  light.  The  rich- 
ness of  the  chapel  itself,  however,  was  better  worth  the 
trouble  to  see.  It  is  quite  encrusted  with  silver.  Sil- 
ver bas.si  relievi,  two  silver  candelabra,  six  feet  in 
height,  two  very  large  silver  statues  of  angels,  a  ciborio 
(enclosing  a  most  exquisite  head  of  our  Savior  by  An- 
drea del  Sarto),  a  massive  silver  cornice  sustaining  a 
heavily  folded  silver  curtain,  and  silver  lilies  and  lamps 


in  any  quantity  all  around.  I  wonder,  after  the  plun- 
dering of  the  church  of  San  Antonio,  at  Padua,  that 
these  useless  riches  escaped  Napoleon. 

How  some  of  the  priests,  who  are  really  learned  and 
clever  men,  can  lend  themselves  to  such  barefaced  im- 
posture as  this  miracle,  it  is  difficult  to  conceive.  The 
picture  has  been  kept  as  a  doer  of  these  miracles,  per- 
haps for  a  century.  It  is  never  uncovered  in  vain.  Su- 
pernatural results  are  certain  to  follow,  and  it  is  done 
as  often  as  they  dare  make  a  fresh  draught  on  the 
credulity  and  money  of  the  people.  The  story  is  as 
follows:  "A  certain  Bartolomeo,  while  painting  a 
fresco  of  the  annunciation,  being  at  a  loss  how  to  make 
the  countenance  of  the  Madonna  properly  seraphic, 
fell  asleep  while  pondering  over  his  work  ;  and,  on 
waking,  found  it  executed  in  a  style  he  was  unable  to 
equal."  I  can  only  say  that  St.  Luke,  or  the  angel, 
or  whoever  did  it,  was  a  very  indifferent  draughtsman. 
It  is  ill  drawn,  and  whatever  the  colors  might  have  been 
upon  the  pallet  of  the  sleepy  painter,  they  were  not 
made  immortal  by  angelic  use.  It  is  a  mass  of  con- 
fused black. 

I  was  glad  to  get  away  from  the  crowd  and  their 
mummery,  and  pay  a  new  tribute  of  reverence  at  the 
tomb  of  Giovanni  di  Bologna.  He  is  buried  behind 
the  grand  altar,  in  a  chapel  ornamented  at  his  own  ex- 
pense, and  with  his  owe  inimitable  works.  Six  bas- 
reliefs  in  bronze,  than  which  life  itself  is  not  more  nat- 
ural, represent  different  passages  of  our  Savior's  histo 
ry.  They  were  done  for  the  grand  duke,  who,  at  the 
death  of  the  artist,  liberally  gave  them  to  ornament  his 
tomb.  After  the  authors  of  the  Venus  and  the  Apollo 
Belvidere,  John  of  Bologna  is,  in  my  judgment,  the 
greatest  of  sculptors.  His  mounting  Mercury,  in  the 
Florence  gallery,  might  have  been  a  theft  from  heaven 
for  its  divine  beauty. 

In  passing  out  by  the  cloisters  of  the  adjoining  con- 
vent, I  stopped  a  moment  to  see  the  fresco  of  the  Ma- 
donna del  Sacco,  said  to  have  been  the  masterpiece 
of  Andrea  del  Sarto.  Michael  Angelo  and  Kaphael 
are  said  to  have  "  gazed  at  it  unceasingly."  It  is 
much  defaced,  and  preserves  only  its  graceful  drawing. 
The  countenance  of  Mary  has  the  beau  reste  of  singu- 
lar loveliness.  The  models  of  this  delightful  artist 
(who,  by  the  way,  is  buried  in  the  vestibule  of  this 
same  church),  must  have  been  the  most  beautiful  in 
the  world.     All  his  pictures  move  the  heart. 


LETTER  LI. 

FLORENTINE     PECULIARITIES SOCIETY BALLS DU- 
CAL   ENTERTAINMENTS PRIVILEGE   OF    STRANGERS 

FAMILIES      OF     HIGH      RANK THE     EXCLUSIVES 

SOIREES PARTIES     OF    A    RICH    BANKER PEASANT 

BEAUTY VISITERS  OF  A  BARONESS AWKWARD  DE- 
PORTMENT   OF    A    PRINCE A  CONTENTED    MARRIED 

LADY HUSBANDS,      CAVALIERS,    AND     WIVES PER- 
SONAL   MANNERS HABITS  OF    SOCIETY,  ETC. 

I  am  about  starting  on  my  second  visit  to  Rome, 
after  having  passed  nearly  three  months  in  Florence. 
As  I  have  seen  most  of  the  society  of  this  gayest  and 
fairest  of  the  Italian  cities,  it  may  not  be  uninteresting 
to  depart  a  little  from  the  traveller's  routine  by  sketch- 
ing a  feature  or  two. 

Florence  is  a  resort  for  strangers  from  every  part,  of 
the  world.  The  gay  society  is  a  mixture  of  all  na- 
tions, of  whom  one  third  may  be  Florentine,  one 
third  English,  and  the  remaining  part  equally  divided 
between  Russians,  Germans,  French,  Poles,  and  Amer- 
icans. The  English  entertain  a  great  deal,  and  give 
most  of  the  balls  and  dinner  parties.     The  Floren- 


74 


PENCILLINGS  BY  THE  WAY. 


tines  seldom  trouble  themselves  to  give  parties,  but 
are  always  at  home  for  visits  in  the  prima  sera  (from 
seven  till  nine),  and  in  their  box  at  the  opera.  They 
go,  without  scruple,  to  all  the  strangers'  balls,  consid- 
ering courtesy  repaid,  perhaps,  by  the  weekly  recep- 
tion of  the  grand  duke,  and  a  weekly  ball  at  the  club- 
house of  young  Italian  nobles. 

The  ducal  entertainments  occur  every  Tuesday, 
and  are  the  most  splendid  of  course.  The  foreign 
ministers  present  all  of  their  countrymen  who  have 
been  presented  at  their  own  courts,  and  the  company 
is  necessarily  more  select  than  elsewhere.  The  Flor- 
entines who  go  to  court  are  about  seven  hundred,  of 
whom  half  are  invited  on  each  week — strangers,  when 
once  presented,  having  the  double  privilege  of  coming 
uninvited  to  all.  There  are  several  Italian  families, 
of  the  highest  rank,  who  are  seen  only  here  ;  but, 
with  the  single  exception  of  one  unmarried  girl,  of 
uncommon  beauty,  who  bears  a. name  celebrated  in 
Italian  history,  they  are  no  loss  to  general  society. 
Among  the  foreigners  of  rank,  are  three  or  four  Ger- 
man princes,  who  play  high  and  waltz  well,  and  are 
remarkable  for  nothing  else  ;  half  a  dozen  star-wear- 
ing dukes,  counts,  and  marquises,  of  all  nations  and  in 
any  quantity,  and  a  few  English  noblemen  and  noble 
ladies — only  the  latter  nation  showing  their  blood  at 
all  in  their  features  and  bearing. 

The  most  exclusive  society  is  that  of  the  Prince 
Montfort  (Jerome  Bonaparte),  whose  splendid  palace 
is  shut  entirely  against  the  English,  and  difficult  of 
access  to  all.  He  makes  a  single  exception  in  favor 
of  a  descendant  of  the  Talbots,  a  lady  whose  beauty 
might  be  an  apology  for  a  much  graver  departure 
from  rule.  He  has  given  two  grand  entertainments 
since  the  carnival  commenced,  to  which  nothing  was 
wanting  but  people  to  enjoy  them.  The  immense 
rooms  were  flooded  with  light,  the  nmsic  was  the  best 
Florence  could  give,  the  supper  might  have  supped 
an  army — stars  and  red  ribands  entered  with  every 
fresh  comer,  but  it  looked  like  a  "banquet  hall  desert- 
ed." Some  thirty  ladies,  and  as  many  men,  were  all 
that  Florence  contained  worthy  of  the  society  of  the 
ex-king.  A  kinder  man  in  his  manners,  however,  or 
apparently  a  more  affectionate  husband  and  father,  I 
never  saw.  He  opened  the  dance  by  waltzing  with 
the  young  princess,  his  daughter,  a  lovely  girl  of  four- 
teen, of  whom  he  seems  fond  to  excess,  and  he  was 
quite  the  gayest  person  in  the  company  till  the  ball 
was  over.  The  ex-queen,  who  is  a  miracle  of  size, 
sat  on  a  divan,  with  her  ladies  of  honor  about  her,  fol- 
lowing her  husband  with  her  eyes,  and  enjoying  his 
gayety  with  the  most  childish  good  humor. 

The  Saturday  evening  soirees,  at  Prince  Ponia- 
towski's  (a  brother  of  the  hero),  are  perhaps  as  agree- 
able as  any  in  Florence.  He  has  several  grown-up 
sons  and  daughters  married,  and,  with  a  very  sumptu- 
ous palace  and  great  liberality  of  style,  he  has  made 
his  parties  more  than  usually  valued.  His  eldest 
daughter  is  the  leader  of  the  fashion,  and  his  second 
is  the  "  cynosure  of  all  eyes."  The  old  prince  is  a 
tall,  bent,  venerable  man,  with  snow-white  hair,  and 
very  peculiarly  marked  features.  He  is  fond  of  speak- 
ing English,  and  professes  a  great  affection  for  Amer- 
ica. 

Then  there  are  the  soirees  of  the  rich  banker,  Fen- 
zi,  which,  as  they  are  subservient  to  business,  assem- 
ble all  ranks  on  the  common  pretensions  of  interest. 
At  the  last,  I  saw,  among  other  curiosities,  a  young 
girl  of  eighteen  from  one  of  the  more  common  fam- 
ilies of  Florence — a  fine  specimen  of  the  peasant 
beauty  of  Italy  Her  heavily  moulded  figure,  hands, 
and  feet,  were  quite  forgiven  when  you  looked  at  her 
dark,  deep,  indolent  eye,  and  glowing  skin,  and  strong- 
ly-lined mouth  and  forehead.  The  society  was  evi- 
dently new  to  her,  but  she  had  a  manner  quite  beyond 


being  astonished.  It  was  the  kind  of  animal  dignity 
so  universal  in  the  lower  classes  of  this  country. 

A  German  baroness  of  high  rank  receives  on  the 
Mondays,  and  here  one  sees  foreign  society  in  its 
highest  coloring.  The  prettiest  woman  that  frequents 
her  parties,  is  a  Genoese  marchioness,  who  has  left  her 
husband  to  live  with  a  Lucchese  count,  who  has  left 
his  wife.  He  is  a  very  accomplished  man,  with  the 
look  of  Mephistopheles  in  the  "  Devil's  Walk,"  and 
she  is  certainly  a  most  fascinating  woman.  She  is  re- 
ceived in  most  of  the  good  society  of  Florence — a  se- 
vere, though  a  very  just  comment  on  its  character.     A 

prince,  the  brother  of  the  king  of ,  divided  the 

attention  of  the  company  with  her  last  Monday.  He 
is  a  tall,  military-looking  man,  with  very  bad  manners, 
ill  at  ease,  and  impudent  at  the  same  time.  He  en- 
tered with  his  suite  in  the  middle  of  a  song.  The 
singer  stopped,  the  company  rose,  the  prince  swept 
about,  bowing  like  a  dancing-master,  and,  after  the 
sensation  had  subsided,  the  ladies  were  taken  up  and 
presented  to  him,  one  by  one.  He  asked  them  all  the 
same  question,  stayed  through  two  songs,  which  he 
spoiled  by  talking  loudly  all  the  while,  and  then  bow- 
ed himself  out  in  the  same  awkward  style,  leaving  ev- 
erybody more  happy  for  his  departure. 

One  gains  little  by  his  opportunities  of  meeting 
Italian  ladies  in  society.  The  cavaliere  servente  flour- 
ishes still  as  in  the  days  of  Beppo,  and  it  is  to  him 
only  that  the  lady  condescends  to  talk.  There  is  a 
delicate,  refined-looking,  little  marchioness  here,  who 
is  remarkable  as  being  the  only  known  Italian  lady 
without  a  cavalier.  They  tell  you,  with  an  amused 
smile,  "  that  she  is  content  with  her  husband."  It 
really  seems  to  be  a  business  of  real  love  between  the 
lady  of  Italy  and  her  cavalier.  Naturally  enough  too 
— for  her  parents  marry  her  without  consulting  her  at 
all,  and  she  selects  a  friend  afteiward,  as  ladies  in  oth- 
er countries  select  a  lover,  who  is  to  end  in  a  husband. 
The  married  couple  are  never  seen  together  by  any 
accident,  and  the  lady  and  her  cavalier  never  apart. 
The  latter  is  always  invited  with  her  as  a  matter  of 
course,  and  the  husband,  if  there  is  room,  or  if  he  is 
not  forgotten.  She  is  insulted  if  asked  without  a  cav- 
alier, but  is  quite  indifferent  whether  her  husband 
goes  with  her  or  not.  These  are  points  really  settled 
in  the  policy  of  society,  and  the  rights  of  the  cavalier 
are  specified  in  the  marriage  contracts.  I  had  thought, 
until  I  came  to  Italy,  that  such  things  were  either  a 
romance,  or  customs  of  an  age  gone  by. 

I  like  very  much  the  personal  manners  of  the  Ital- 
ians. They  are  mild  and  courteous  to  the  farthest  ex- 
tent of  looks  and  words.  They  do  not  entertain,  it  is 
true,  but  their  great  dim  rooms  are  free  to  you  when- 
ever you  can  find  them  at  home,  and  you  are  at  liber- 
ty to  join  the  gossipping  circle  around  the  lady  of 
the  house,  or  sit  at  the  table  and  read,  or  be  silent 
unquestioned.  You  are  let  alone,  if  you  seem  to 
choose  it,  and  it  is  neither  commented  on,  nor  thought 
uncivil,  and  this  I  take  to  be  a  grand  excellence  in 
manners. 

The  society  is  dissolute,  I  think,  almost  without  an 
exception.  The  English  fall  into  its  habits,  with  the 
difference  that  they  do  not  conceal  it  so  well,  and  have 
the  appearance  of  knowing  its  wrong — which  the  Ital- 
ians have  not.  The  latter  are  very  much  shocked  at  the 
want  of  propriety  in  the  management  of  the  English. 
To  suffer  the  particulars  of  an  intrigue  to  get  about  is 
a  worse  sin,  in  their  eyes,  than  any  violation  of  the 
commandments.  It  is  scarce  possible  for  an  Ameri- 
can to  conceive  the  universal  corruption  of  a  society 
like  this  of  Florence,  though,  if  he  were  not  told  of 
it  he  would  think  it  all  that  was  delicate  and  attrac- 
tive. There  are  external  features  in  which  the  soci- 
ety of  our  own  country  is  far  less  scrupulous  and 
proper. 


PENCILLINGS  BY  THE  WAY. 


75 


LETTER  LTI. 

SIENNA  —  POGGIOBONSI BONCONVENTO ENCOURAGE- 
MENT OF  FRENCH    ARTISTS   BY  THEIR  GOVERNMENT 

ACQ.UAPENDENTE — POOR  BEGGAR,  THE  ORIGINAL  OF 
A  ^SKETCH  BY  COLE — BOLSENA—  VOLSCINIUM — SCE- 
NERY—CURIOUS  STATE   OF   THE    CHESTNUT   WOODS. 

Sienna. — A  day  and  a  half  on  ray  second  journey  to 
Rome.  With  a  party  of  four  nations  inside,  and  two 
strangers,  probably  Frenchmen,  in  the  cabriolet,  we 
have  jogged  on  at'some  three  miles  in  the  hour,  enjoy- 
ing the  lovely  scenery  of  these  lower  Appenines  at  our 
leisure.  We  slept  last  night  at  Poggiobonsi,  a  little 
village  on  a  hill-side,  and  arrived  at  Sienna  for  our 
midday  rest.  I  pencil  this  note  after  an  hour's  ram- 
ble over  the  city,  visiting  once  more  the  cathedral, 
with  its  encrusted  marbles  and  naked  graces,  and  the 
three  shell-shaped  square  in  the  centre  of  the  city,  at 
the  rim  of  which  the  eight  principal  streets  terminate. 
There  is  a  fountain  in  the  midst,  surrounded  with 
bassi  relieri  much  disfigured.  It  was  mentioned  by 
Dante.  The  streets  were  deserted,  it  being  Sunday, 
and  all  the  people  at  the  Corso,  to  see  the  racing  of 
horses  without  riders. 

Bonconvento. — We  sit,  with  the  remains  of  a  trav- 
eller's supper  on  the  table — six  very  social  companions. 
Our  cabriolet  friends  are  two  French  artists,  on  their 
way  to  study  at  Rome.  They  are  both  pensioners  of 
the  government,  each  having  gained  the  annual  prize 
at  the  academy  in  his  separate  branch  of  art,  which 
entitles  him  to  five  years'  support  in  Italy.  They  are 
full  of  enthusiasm,  and  converse  with  all  the  amusing 
vivacity  of  their  nation,  The  academy  of  France 
send  out  in  this  manner  five  young  men  annually,  who 
have  gained  the  prizes  for  painting,  sculpture,  archi- 
tecture, music,  and  engraving. 

This  is  the  place  where  Henry  the  Seventh  of  Ger- 
many was  poisoned  by  a  monk,  on  his  way  to  Rome. 
The  drug  was  given  to  him  in  the  communion  cup. 
The  "ave  marie"  was  ringing  when  we  drove  into 
town,  and  I  left  the  carriage  and  followed  the  crowd, 
in  the  hope  of  finding  an  old  church  where  the  crime 
might  have  been  committed.  But  the  priest  was 
mumbling  the  service  in  a  new  chapel,  which  no  ro- 
mance that  I  could  summon  would  picture  as  the 
scene  of  a  tragedy. 

Acquapendentf.. — While  the  dirty  customhouse 
officer  is  deciphering  our  passports,  in  a  hole  a  dog 
would  live  in  unwillingly,  I  take  out  my  pencil  to 
mark  once  more  the  pleasure  I  have  received  from  the 
exquisite  scenery  of  this  place.  The  wild  rocks  en- 
closing the  little  narrow  valley  below,  the  waterfalls, 
the  town  on  its  airy  perch  above,  the  just  starting  ve- 
getation of  spring,  the  roads  lined  with  snowdrops,  cro- 
cuses and  violets,  have  renewed,  in  a  tenfold  degree, 
the  delight  with  which  I  saw  this  romantic  spot  on 
my  former  journey  to  Rome. 

We  crossed  the  mountain  of  Radicofani  yesterday, 
in  so  thick  a  mist  that  I  could  not  even  distinguish  the 
ruin  of  the  old  castle,  towering  into  the  clouds  above. 
The  wild,  half-naked  people  thronged  about  us  as  be- 
fore, and  I  gave  another  paul  to  the  old  beggar  with 
whom  I  became  acquainted  by  Mr.  Cole's  graphic 
sketch.  The  winter  had,  apparently,  gone  hard  with 
him.  He  was  scarce  able  to  come  to  the  carriage 
window,  and  coughed  so  hollowly  that  I  thought  he 
had  nearly  begged  his  last  pittance. 

Bolskna. — We  have  walked  in  advance  of  the  vettu- 
rino  along  the  borders  of  this  lovely  and  beautiful  lake 
till  we  are  tired.  Our  artists  have  taken  off  their  coats 
with  the  heat,  and  sit,  a  quarter  of  a  mile  further  on, 
pointing  in  every  direction  at  these  unparalleled  views. 
The  water  is  as  still  as  a  mirror,  with  a  soft  mist  on 


its  face,  and  the  water-fowl  in  thousands  are  diving 
and  floating  within  gunshot  of  us.  An  afternoon  in 
June  could  not  be  more  summer-like,  and  this,  to  a 
lover  of  soft  climate,  is  no  trifling  pleasure. 

A  mile  behind  us  lies  the  town,  the  seat  of  ancient 
Volscinium,  the  capital  of  the  Volscians.  The  coun- 
try about  is  one  quarry  of  ruins,  mouldering  away  in 
the  moss.  Nobody  can  live  in  health  in  the  neighbor- 
hood, and  the  poor  pale  wretches  who  call  it  a  home 
are  in  melancholy  contrast  to  the  smiling  paradise 
about  them.  Before  us,  in  the  bosom  of  the  lake,  lie 
two  green  islands,  those  which  Pliny  records  to  have 
floated  in  his  time ;  and  one  of  which,  Mariana,  a 
small  conical  isle,  was  the  scene  of  the  murder  of  the 
qneen  of  the  Goths  by  her  cousin  Theodatus.  She 
was  taken  there  and  strangled.  It  is  difficult  to  ima- 
gine, with  such  a  sea  of  sunshine  around  and  over  it, 
that  it  was  ever  anything  but  a  spot  of  delight. 

The  whole  neighborhood  is  covered  with  rotten 
trunks  of  trees — a  thing  which  at  first  surprised  me 
in  a  country  where  wood  is  so  economised.  It  is  ac- 
counted for  in  the  French  guide-book  of  one  of  our 
party  by  the  fact,  that  the  chestnut  woods  of  Bolsena 
are  considered  sacred  by  the  people  from  their  antiqui- 
ty, and  are  never  cut.  The  trees  have  ripened  and 
fallen  and  rotted  thus  for  centuries — one  cause,  per- 
haps, of  the  deadly  change  in  the  air. 

The  vetturino  comes  lumbering  up,  and  I  must 
pocket  my  pencil  and  remount. 


LETTER  LIII. 

MONTEFIASCONE — ANECDOTE  OF  THE  WINE — VITERBO — 
MOUNT  C1MINO — TRADITION — VIEW  OF  ST.  PETER 's — 
ENTRANCE  INTO  ROME — A  STRANGER'S  IMPRESSIONS 
OF  THE  CITY. 

Montefiascone. — We  have  stopped  for  the  night 
at  the  hotel  of  this  place,  so  renowned  for  its  wine — 
the  remnant  of  a  bottle  of  which  stands,  at  this  mo- 
ment, twinkling  between  me  and  my  French  compan- 
ions. The  ladies  of  our  party  have  gone  to  bed,  and 
left  us  in  the  room  where  sat  Jean  Defoucris,  the  mer- 
ry German  monk,  who  died  of  excess  in  drinking  the 
same  liquor  that  flashes  through  this  straw-covered 
flask.  The  story  is  told  more  fully  in  the  French 
guide-books.  A  prelate  of  Augsbourg,  on  a  pilgrim- 
age to  Rome,  sent  forward  his  servant  with  orders  to 
mark  every  tavern  where  the  wine  was  good  with  the 
word  est,  in  large  letters  of  chalk.  On  arriving  at 
this  hotel,  the  monk  saw  the  signal  thrice  written  over 
the  door — Est!  Est!  Est?  He  put  up  his  mule, 
and  drank  of  Montefiascone  till  he  died.  His  servant 
wrote  his  epitaph,  which  is  still  seen  in  the  church  of 
St.  Florian  :— 

"  Propter  minium  est,  est, 
Dominus  metis  mortuus  est  !" 

uEst,  Est,  Est!"  is  the  motto  upon  the  sign  of  the 
hotel  to  this  day. 

In  wandering  about  Viterbo  in  search  of  amusement, 
while  the  horses  were  baiting,  I  stumbled  upon  the 
shop  of  an  antiquary.  After  looking  over  his  medals, 
Etruscan  vases,  cameos,  &c,  a  very  interesting  col- 
lection, I  inquired  into  the  state  of  trade  for  such 
things  in  Viterbo.  He  was  a  cadaverous,  melancholy 
looking  old  man,  with  his  pockets  worn  quite  out  with 
the  habit  of  thrusting  his  hands  into  (hem,  and  about 
his  mouth  and  eye  there  was  the  proper  virtuoso  ex- 
pression of  inquisitiveness  and  discrimination.  He 
kept  also  a  small  cafe  adjoining  his  shop,  into  which 
we  passed,  as  he  shrugged  his  shoulders  at  my  ques- 
tion.    I  had  wondered  to  find  a  vender  of  costly  curi- 


76 


PENCILL1NGS  BY  THE  WAY. 


osities  in  a  town  of  such  poverty,  and  I  was  not  sur- 
prised at  the  sad  fortunes  which  had  followed  upon  his 
enterprise.  They  were  a  base  herd,  he  said,  of  the 
people,  utterly  ignorant  of  the  value  of  the  precious 
objects  he  had  for  sale,  and  he  had  been  compelled  to 
open  a  cafe  ,  and  degrade  himself  by  waiting  on  them 
for  a  contemptible  crazie  worth  of  coffee,  while  his 
lovely  antiquities  lay  unappreciated  within.  The  old 
gentleman  was  eloquent  upon  his  misfortunes.  He 
had  not  been  long  in  trade,  and  had  collected  his  mu- 
seum originally  for  his  own  amusement.  He  was  an 
odd  specimen,  in  a  small  way,  of  a  man  who  was  quite 
above  his  sphere,  and  suffered  for  his  superiority.  I 
bought  a  pretty  intaglio,  and  bad  him  farewell,  after 
an  hour's  acquaintance,  with  quite  the  feeling  of  a 
friend. 

Mount  Cimino  rose  before  us  soon  after  leaving  Vi- 
terbo,  and  we  walked  up  most  of  the  long  and  gentle 
ascent,  inhaling  the  odor  of  the  spicy  plants  for  which 
it  is  famous,  and  looking  out  sharply  for  the  brigands 
with  which  it  is  always  infested.  English  carriages 
are  constantly  robbed  on  this  part  of  the  route  of  late. 
The  robbers  are  met  usually  in  parties  of  ten  and 
twelve,  and,  a  week  before  we  passed,  Lady  Berwick 
(the  widow  of  an  English  nobleman,  and  a  sister  of  the 
famous  Harriet  Wilson)  was  stopped  and  plundered  in 
broad  mid-day.  The  excessive  distress  among  the 
peasantry  of  these  misgoverned  states  accounts  for 
these  things,  and  one  only  wonders  why  there  is  not 
even  more  robbing  among  such  a  starving  population. 
This  mountain,  by  the  way,  and  the  pretty  lake  below 
it,  are  spoken  of  in  the  ^Eneid :  "  Cimini  cum  monte 
locum,'1''  etc.  There  is  an  ancient  tradition,  that  in  the 
crescent-shaped  valley  which  the  lake  fills,  there  was 
formerly  a  city,  which  was  overwhelmed  by  the  rise 
of  the  water,  and  certain  authors  state  that,  when  the 
lake  is  clear,  the  ruins  are  still  to  be  seen  at  the  bottom. 

The  sun  rose  upon  us  as  we  reached  the  mountain 
above  Baccano,  on  the  sixth  day  of  our  journey,  and, 
by  its  clear  golden  flood,  we  saw  the  dome  of  St.  Pe- 
ter's, at  a  distance  of  sixteen  miles,  towering  amid 
the  campagna  in  all  its  majestic  beauty.  We  descend- 
ed into  the  vast  plain,  and  traversed  its  gentle  undula- 
tions for  two  or  three  hours.  With  the  forenoon  well 
advanced,  we  turned  into  the  valley  of  the  Tiber,  and 
saw  the  home  of  Raphael,  a  noble  chateau  on  the  side 
of  a  hill,  near  the  river,  and,  in  the  little  plain  be- 
tween, the  first  peach-trees  we  had  seen,  in  full  blos- 
som. The  tomb  of  Nero  is  on  one  side  of  the  road, 
before  crossing  the  Tiber,  and  on  the  other  a  newly 
painted  and  staring  restaurant,  where  the  modern  Ro- 
man cockneys  drive  for  punch  and  ices.  The  bridge 
of  Pontemolle,  by  which  we  passed  into  the  immediate 
suburb  of  Rome,  was  the  ancient  Pons  JEmilius,  and 
here  Cicero  arrested  the  conspirators  on  their  way  to 
join  Catiline  in  his  camp.  It  was  on  the  same  bridge, 
too,  that  Constantine  saw  his  famous  vision,  and  gain- 
ed his  victory  over  the  tyrant  Maxentius. 

Two  miles  over  the  Via  Flaminia,  between  garden 
walls  that  were  ornamented  with  sculpture  and  inscrip- 
tion in  the  time  of  Augustus,  brought  us  to  the  Porta 
del  Popolo.  The  square  within  this  noble  gate  is 
modern,  but  very  imposing.  Two  streets  diverge  be- 
fore you,  as  far  away  as  you  can  see  into  the  heart  of 
the  city,  a  magnificent  fountain  sends  up  its  waters  in 
the  centre,  the  facades  of  two  handsome  churches  face 
you  as  you  enter,  and  on  the  right  and  left  are  gar- 
dens and  palaces  of  princely  splendor.  Gay  and 
sumptuous  equipages  cross  it  in  every  direction,  dri- 
ving out  to  the  villa  Borghese,  and  up  to  the  Pincian 
mount,  the  splendid  troops  of  the  pope  are  on  guard, 
and  the  busy  and  stirring  population  of  modern  Rome 
swell  out  to  its  limit  like  the  ebb  and  flow  of  the  sea. 
All  this  disappoints  while  it  impresses  the  stranger. 


He  has  come  to  Rome — but  it  was  old  Rome  that  he 
had  pictured  to  his  fancy.  The  Forum,  the  ruins  of 
her  temples,  the  palaces  of  her  emperors,  the  homes 
of  her  orators,  poets,  and  patriots,  the  majestic  relics 
of  the  once  mistress  of  the  world,  are  the  features  in 
his  anticipation.  But  he  enters  by  a  modern  gate  to 
a  modern  square,  and  pays  his  modern  coin  to  a 
whiskered  officer  of  customs ;  and  in  the  place  of  a 
venerable  Belisarius  begging  an  obolus  in  classic  Lat- 
in, he  is  beset  by  a  troop  of  lusty  and  filthy  lazzaroni 
entreating  for  a  baioch  in  the  name  of  the  Madonna, 
and  in  effeminate  Italian.  He  drives  down  the  Corso, 
and  reads  nothing  but  French  signs,  and  sees  all  the 
familiar  wares  of  his  own  country  exposed  for  sale, 
and  every  other  person  on  the  pave  is  an  Englishman, 
with  a  narrow-rimmed  hat  and  whalebone  stick,  and 
with  an  hour  at  the  Dogama  where  his  baggage  is 
turned  inside  out  by  a  snuffy  old  man  who  speaks 
French,  and  a  reception  at  a  hotel  where  the  porter 
addresses  him  in  his  own  language,  whatever  it  may 
be;  he  goes  to  bed  under  Parisian  curtains,  and  tries 
to  dream  of  the  Rome  he  could  not  realize  while 
awake. 


LETTER  LIV. 

APPIAN  WAT — TOMB   OF   CECILIA  METELLA — ALBANO — 
TOMB   OF  THE   CURIATII — ARICIA — TEMPLE   OF  DIANA 

FOUNTAIN  OF  EfiERIA LAKE  OF  NEMI VELLETRI 

PONTINE     MARSHES CONVENT CANAL TERRAC1NA 

— SAN  FELICE — FONDI — STORY  OF  JULIA  GONZAGA — 
CICERO'S  GARDEN  AND  TOMB — MOLA — MINTURNA — 
RUINS  OF  AN  AMPHITHEATRE  AND  TEMPLE — FALER- 
NIAN  MOUNT  AND  WINE — THE  DOCTOR  OF  ST. 
AGATHA — CAPUA — ENTRANCE  INTO  NAPLES — THE 
QUEEN. 

With  the  intention  of  returning  to  Rome  for  the 
ceremonies  of  the  holy  week,  I  have  merely  passed 
through  on  my  way  to  Naples.  We  left  it  the  morn- 
ing after  our  arrival,  going  by  the  "  Appian  way,"  to 
Mount  Albano,  which  borders  the  Campagna  on  the 
south,  at  a  distance  of  fifteen  miles.  This  celebrated 
road  is  lined  with  the  ruined  tombs  of  the  Romans. 
Off  at  the  right,  some  four  or  five  miles  from  the  city, 
rises  the  fortress-like  tomb  of  Cecilia  Metella,  so  ex- 
quisitely mused  upon  by  Childe  Harold.  This,  says 
Sismondi,  with  the  tombs  of  Adrian  and  Augustus, 
became  fortresses  of  banditti,  in  the  thirteenth  cen- 
tury, and  were  taken  by  Brancallone,  the  Bolognese 
governor  of  Rome,  who  hanged  the  marauders  from 
the  walls.     It  looks  little  like  "  a  woman's  grave." 

We  changed  horses  at  the  pretty  village  of  Albano, 
and,  on  leaving  it,  passed  an  ancient  mausoleum,  be- 
lieved to  be  the  tomb  of  the  Curiatii  who  fought  the 
Horatii  on  this  spot.  It  is  a  large  structure,  and  had 
originally  four  pyramids  on  the  corners,  two  of  which 
only  remain. 

A  mile  from  Albano  lies  Aricia,  in  a  country  of  the 
loveliest  rural  beauty.  Here  was  the  famous  temple 
of  Diana,  and  here  were  the  lake  and  grove  sacred  to 
the  "virgin  huntress,"  and  consecrated  as  her  home 
by  peculiar  worship.  The  fountain  of  Egeria  is  here, 
where  Numa  communed  with  the  nymph,  and  the 
lake  of  Nemi,  on  the  borders  of  which  the  temple 
stood,  and  which  was  called  Dian's  mirror  (speculum 
Diance),  is  at  this  day,  perhaps,  one  of  the  sweetest 
gems  of  natural  scenery  in  the  world. 

We  slept  at  Velletri,  a  pretty  town  of  some  twelve 
thousand  inhabitants,  which  stands  on  a  hill-side, 
leaning  down  to  the  Pontine  marshes.  It  was  one  of 
the  grand  days  of  carnival,  and  the  streets  were  full  of 
masks,  walking  up  and  down  in  their  ridiculous 
dresses,  and  committing  every  sort  of  foolery.  The 
next  morning,  by  daylight,  we  were  upon  the  Pontine 


PENCILLINGS  BY  THE  WAY. 


marshes,  the  long  thirty  miles  level  of  which  we 
passed  in  an  unbroken  trot,  one  part  of  a  day's  jour- 
ney of  seventy-five  miles,  done  by  the  same  horses,  at 
the  rate  of  six  miles  in  the  hour  !  They  are  small, 
compact  animals,  and  look  in  good  condition,  though 
they  do  as  much  habitually. 

At  a  distance  of  fifteen  miles  from  Velletri,  we 
passed  a  convent,  which  is  built  opposite  the  spot 
where  St.  Paul  was  met  by  his  friends,  on  his  journey 
from  the  seaside  to  Rome.  The  canal  upon  which 
Horace  embarked  on  his  celebrated  journey  to  Brun- 
dusium,  runs  parallel  with  the  road  for  its  whole  dis- 
tance. This  marshy  desert  is  inhabited  by  a  race  of 
as  wretched  beings,  perhaps,  as  are  to  be  found  upon 
the  face  of  the  earth.  The  pestiferous  miasma  of  the 
pools  is  certain  destruction  to  health,  and  the  few  who 
are  needed  at  the  distant  post-houses,  crawl  out  to  the 
road-side  like  so  many  victims  from  a  pest-house, 
stooping  with  weakness,  hollow-eyed,  and  apparently 
insensible  to  everything.  The  feathered  race  seems 
exempt  from  its  influence,  and  the  quantities  of  game 
of  every  known  description  are  incredible.  The 
ground  was  alive  with  wild  geese,  turkeys,  pigeons, 
plover,  clucks,  and  numerous  birds  we  did  not  know, 
as  far  as  the  eye  could  distinguish.  The  travelling 
books  caution  against  sleeping  in  the  carriage  while 
passing  these  marshes,  but  we  found  it  next  to  impos- 
sible to  resist  the  heavy  drowsiness  of  the  air. 

At  Terracina  the  marshes  end,  and  the  long  avenue 
of  elms  terminates  at  the  foot  of  a  romantic  precipice, 
which  is  washed  by  the  Mediterranean.  The  town 
is  most  picturesquely  built  between  the  rocky  wall 
and  the  sea.  We  dined  with  the  hollow  murmur  of 
the  surf  in  our  ears,  and  then,  presenting  our  pass- 
ports, entered  the  kingdom  of  Naples.  This  Terraci- 
na, by  the  way,  was  the  ancient  Anxur,  which  Horace 
describes  in  his  line — 

"  Imposilum  late  saxis  candentibus  Anxur." 

For  twenty  or  thirty  miles  before  arriving  at  Terra- 
cina, we  had  seen  before  us  the  headland  of  Circceum, 
lying  like  a  mountain  island  off  the  shore.  It  is 
usually  called  San  Felice,  from  the  small  town  seated 
upon  it.  This  was  the  ancient  abode  of  the  "daugh- 
ter of  the  sun,"  and  here  were  imprisoned,  according 
to  Homer,  the  champions  of  Ulysses,  after  their 
metamorphoses. 

From  Terracina  to  Fondi,  we  followed  the  old  Ap- 
pian  way,  a  road  hedged  with  flowering  myrtles  and 
orange  trees  laden  with  fruit.  Fondi  itself  is  dirtier 
than  imagination  could  picture  it,  and  the  scowling 
men  in  the  streets  look  like  myrmidons  of  Fra  Diavolo, 
their  celebrated  countryman.  This  town,  however' 
was  the  scene  of  the  romantic  story  of  the  beautful 
Julia  Gonzaga,  and  was  destroyed  by  the  corsair  Bar- 
barossa,  who  had  intended  to  present  the  rarest  beauty 
of  Italy  to  the  sultan.  It  was  to  the  rocky  mountains 
above  the  town  that  she  escaped  in  her  night-dress, 
and  lay  concealed  till  the  pirate's  departure. 

In  leaving  Fondi,  we  passed  the  ruined  walls  of  a 
garden  said  to  have  belonged  to  Cicero,  whose  tomb 
is  only  three  leagues  distant.  Night  came  on  before 
we  reached  the  tomb,  and  we  were  compelled  to  prom- 
ise ourselves  a  pilgrimage  to  it  on  our  return. 

We  slept  at  Mola,  and  here  Cicero  was  assassinated. 
The  ruins  of  his  country-house  are  still  here.  The 
town  lies  in  the  lap  of  a  graceful  bay,  and  in  all  Italy, 
it  is  said,  there  is  no  spot  more  favored  by  nature. 
The  mountains  shelter  it  from  the  winds  of  the  north; 
tne  soil  produces,  spontaneously,  the  orange,  the 
myrtle,  the  olive,  delicious  grapes,  jasmine,  and  many 
odoriferous  herbs.  This  and  its  neighborhood  was 
called,  by  the  great  orator  and  statesman  who  selected 
it  for  his  retreat,  "the  most  beautiful  patrimony  of  the 
Romans."  The  Mediterranean  spreads  out  from  its 
bosom,  the  lovely  islands  near  Naples  bound  its  view, 
Vesuvius   sends    up  its  smoke  and   fire  in  the  south. 


77 


and  back  from  its  hills  stretches  a  country  fertile  and 
beautiful  as  a  paradise.  This  is  a  place  of  great  re- 
sort for  the  English  and  other  travellers  in  the  summer. 
The  old  palaces  are  turned  into  hotels,  and  we  entered 
our  inn  through  an  avenue  of  shrubs  that  must  have 
been  planted  and  trimmed  for  a  century. 

We  left  Mola  before  dawn  and  crossed  the  small 
river  Garigliano  as  the  sun  rose.  A  short  distance 
from  the  southern  bank,  we  found  ourselves  in  the 
midst  of  ruins,  the  golden  beams  of  the  sun  pouring 
upon  us  through  the  arches  of  some  once  magnificent 
structure,  whose  area  is  now  crossed  by  the  road. 
This  was  the  ancient  Minturna,  and  the  ruins  are 
those  of  an  amphitheatre,  and  a  temple  of  Venus. 
Some  say  that  it  was  in  the  marshes  about  this  now 
waste  city,  that  the  soldier,  sent  by  Sylla  to  kill  Mari- 
us,  found  the  old  hero,  and,  struck  with  his  noble 
mien,  fell  with  respect  at  his  feet. 

The  road  soon  enters  a  chain  of  hills,  and  the  sce- 
j  nery  becomes  enchanting.  At  the  left  of  the  first  as- 
cent lies  the  Falernian  mount,  whose  wines  are  im- 
mortalized by  Horace.  It  is  a  beautiful  hill,  which 
throws  round  its  shoulder  to  the  south,  and  is  covered 
with  vineyards.  1  dismounted  and  walked  on  whfte 
the  horses  breathed  at  the  post-house  of  St.  Agatha, 
and  was  overtaken  by  a  good-natured-looking  man, 
mounted  on  a  mule,  of  whom  I  made  some  inquiry 
respecting  the  modern  Falernian.  He  said  it  was  still 
the  best  wine  of  the  neighborhood,  but  was  far  below 
(  its  ancient  reputation,  because  never  kept  long  enough 
to  ripen.  It  is  at  its  prime  from  the  fifteenth  to  the 
I  twentieth  year,  and  is  usually  drank  the  first  or  second. 
My  new  acquaintance,  I  soon  found,  was  the  phy- 
I  sician  of  the  two  or  three  small  villages  nested  about 
among  the  hills  and  a  man  of  some  pretensions  to 
learning.  I  was  delighted  with  his  frank  good-humor, 
and  a  certain  spice  of  drollery  in  his  description  of  his 
patients.  The  peasants  at  work  in  the  fields  saluted 
him  from  any  distance  as  he  passed  ;  and  the  pretty 
contadini  going  to  St.  Agatha  with  their  baskets  on 
their  heads,  smiled  as  he  nodded,  calling  them  all  by 
name,  and  I  was  rather  amused  than  offended  with  the 
inquisitiveness  he  manifested  about  my  age.  family, 
pursuits,  and  even  morals.  His  mule  stopped  of  its 
own  will  at  the  door  of  the  apothecary  of  the  small 
village  on  the  summit  of  the  hill,  and  as  the  carriage 
came  in  sight  the  doctor  invited  me,  seizing  my  hand 
with  a  look  of  friendly  sincerity,  to  stop  at  St.  Agatha 
on  my  return,  to  shoot,  and  drink  Falernian  with 
him  for  a  month.  The  apothecary  stopped  the  vettu- 
rino  at  the  door;  and,  to  the  astonishment  of  my  com- 
panions within,  the  doctor  seized  me  in  his  arms  and 
kissed  me  on  both  sides  of  my  face  with  a  volume  of 
blessings  and  compliments  which  I  had  no  breath  in 
my  surprise  to  return.  I  have  made  many  friends  on 
the  road  in  this  country  of  quick  feelings,  but  the  doc- 
tor of  St.  Agatha  had  a  readiness  of  sympathy  which 
threw  all  my  former  experience  into  the  shade. 

We  dined  at  Capua,  the  city  whose  luxuries  ener- 
vated Hannibal  and  his  soldiers— the  "  dives,  amoro- 
so,, felix"  Capua.  It  is  in  melancholy  contrast  with 
the  description  now — its  streets  filthy,  and  its  people 
looking  the  antipodes  of  luxury.  The  climate  should 
be  the  same,  as  we  dined  with  open  doors,  and  with 
the  branch  of  an  orange  tree  heavy  with  fruit  hanging 
in  at  the  window,  in  a  month  that  with  us  is  one  of  the 
wintriest. 

From  Capua  to  Naples,  the  distance  is  but  fifteen 
miles,  over  a  flat  uninteresting  country.  We  entered 
"  this  third  city  in  the  world"  in  the  middle  of  the  af- 
ternoon, and  were  immediately  surrounded  with  beg- 
gars of  every  conceivable  degree  of  misery.  We  sat 
an  hour  at  the  gate  while  our  passports  were  recorded, 
and  the  vetturino  examined,  aud  then  passing  up  a  no- 
ble street,  entered  a  dense  crowd,  through  which  was 


78 


PENCILLINGS  BY  THE  WAY. 


creeping  slowly  a  double  line  of  carnages.  The 
mounted  dragoons  compelled  our  postillion  to  fall  into 
the  line,  and  we  were  two  hours  following  in  a  fashion- 
able corso  with  our  mud-spattered  vehicle  and  tired 
holies,  surrounded  by  all  that  was  brilliant  and  gay 
in  Naples.  It  was  the  last  day  of  carnival.  Every- 
Dody  was  abroad,  and  we  were  forced,  however  unwil- 
lingly to  see  all  the  rank  and  beauty  of  the  city.  The 
carriages  in  this  fine  climate  are  all  open,  and  the  la- 
dies were  in  full  dress.  As  we  entered  the  Toledo,  the 
cavalcade  came  to  a  halt,  and  with  hats  off  and  hand- 
kerchiefs flying  in  every  direction  about  them,  the 
young  new-married  queen  of  Naples  rode  up  the  mid- 
dle of  the  street  preceded  and  followed  by  outriders  in 
the  gayest  livery.  She  has  been  married  about  a 
month,  is  but  seventeen,  and  is  acknowledged  to  be 
the  most  beautiful  woman  in  the  kingdoin.  The  de- 
scription I  had  heard  of  her,  though  very  extravagant, 
had  hardly  done  her  justice.  She  is  a  little  above 
the  middle  height,  with  a  fine  lift  to  her  head  and  neck, 
and  a  countenance  only  less  modest  and  maidenly  than 
noble. 


LETTER  LV. 

rome — front  of  saint  peter 's — equipages  of  the 
cardinals  —  beggars  —  body  of  the  church — 
tomb  of  saint  peter — the  tiber  —  fortress- 
tomb   of  adrian — jews'  quarter — forum — bar- 

berini  palace portrait    of   beatrice    cenci 

her  melancholy  history picture  of  the  for- 

narina — likeness  of  giorgione's  mistress jo- 
seph   and    potiphar's   wife the    palaces    do- 

ria  and    sciarra—  portrait  of  olivia  walda- 

chini of  "  a   celebrated  widow" of  semira- 

mis — claude's  landscapes— brill's — brughel's — 

NOTTl's     "  WOMAN     CATCHING      FLEAS" DA    VINCl's 

QUEEN     GIOVANNA PORTRAIT    OF     A    FEMALE    DOR1A 

— PRINCE      DORIA PALACE     SCIARRA BRILL      AND 

BOTH'S  LANDSCAPES — CLAUDE'S — PICTURE  OF  NOAH 
INTOXICATED  —  ROMANA's  FORNARINA — DA  VINCl's 
TWO   PICTURES. 

Drawn  in  twenty  different  directions  on  starting 
from  my  lodgings  this  morning,  I  found  myself,  unde- 
cided where  to  pass  my  day,  in  front  of  St.  Peter's. 
Some  gorgeous  ceremony  was  just  over,  and  the  sump- 
tuous equipages  of  the  cardinals,  blazing  in  the  sun 
with  their  mountings  of  gold  and  silver,  were  driving 
up  and  dashing  away  from  the  end  of  the  long  colon- 
nades, producing  any  effect  upon  the  mind  rather  than 
a  devout  one.  I  stood  admiring  their  fiery  horses  and 
gay  liveries,  till  the  last  rattled  from  the  square,  and 
then  mounted  to  the  deserted  church.  Its  vast  vesti- 
bule was  filled  with  beggars,  diseased  in  every  conceiv- 
able manner,  halting,  groping,  and  crawling  about  in 
search  of  strangers  of  whom  to  implore  charity — a 
contrast  to  the  splendid  pavement  beneath  and  the 
gold  and  marble  above  and  around,  which  would 
reconcile  one  to  see  the  "mighty dome"  melted  into 
alms,  and  his  holiness  reduced  to  a  plain  chapel  and 
a  rusty  cassock. 

Lifting  the  curtain  I  stood  in  the  body  of  the  church. 
There  were  perhaps  twenty  persons,  at  different  distan- 
ces, on  its  immense  floor,  the  farthest  off  (six  hundred 
and  fourteen  feet  from  me!)  looking  like  a  pigmy  in  the 
far  perspective.  St.  Peter's  is  less  like  a  church  than 
a  collection  of  large  churches  enclosed  under  a  gigan- 
tic roof.  The  chapels  at  the  sides  are  larger  than  most 
houses  of  public  worship  in  our  country,  and  of  these 
there  may  be  eight  or  ten,  not  included  in  the  effect 
of  the  vast  interior.  One  is  lost  in  it.  It  is  a  city  of 
columns  and  sculpture  and  mosaic.  Its  walls  are  en- 
crusted with  precious  stones  and  masterly  workman- 


ship to  the  very  top,  and  its  wealth  may  be  conceived 
when  you  remember  that,  standing  in  the  centre  and 
raising  your  eyes  aloft,  there  are  four  hundred  and 
forty  feet  between  you  and  the  roof  of  the  dome — the 
height,  almost  of  a  mountain. 

I  walked  up  toward  the  tomb  of  St.  Peter,  passing 
in  my  way  a  solitary  worshipper  here  and  there,  upon 
his  knees,  and  arrested  constantly  by  the  exquisite 
beauty  of  the  statuary  with  which  the  columns  are 
carved.  Accustomed,  as  we  are  in  America,  to  church- 
es filled  with  pews,  it  is  hardly  possible  to  imagine  the 
noble  effect  of  a  vast  mosaic  floor,  unencumbered  even 
with  a  chair,  and  only  broken  by  a  few  prostrate  fig- 
ures, just  specking  its  wide  area.  All  catholic  church-  ' 
es  are  without  fixed  seats,  and  St.  Peter's  seems  scarce 
measurable  to  the  eye,  it  is  so  far  and  clear,  from  one 
extremity  to  the  other. 

I  passed  the  hundred  lamps  burning  over  the  tomb 
of  St.  Peter,  the  lovely  female  statue  (covered  with  a 
bronze  drapery,  because  its  exquisite  beauty  was 
thought  dangerous  to  the  morality  of  the  young 
priests),  reclining  upon  the  tomb  of  Paul  III.,  the 
ethereal  figures  of  Canova's  geniuses  weeping  at  the 
door  of  the  tomb  of  the  Stuarts  (where  sleeps  the 
pretender  Charles  Edward),  the  thousand,  thousand 
rich  and  beautiful  monuments  of  art  and  taste  ciowding 
every  corner  of  this  wondrous  church — I  passed  them,  I 
say,  with  the  same  lost  and  unexamining,  unparticular- 
izing  feeling  which  I  can  not  overcome  in  this  place 
— a  mind  borne  quite  off"  its  feet  and  confused  and 
overwhelmed  with  the  tide  of  astonishment — the  one 
grand  impression  of  the  whole.  I  dare  say,  a  little 
more  familiarity  with  St.  Peter's  will  do  away  the 
feeling,  but  I  left  the  church,  after  two  hours  loitering 
in  its  aisles,  despairing,  and  scarce  wishing  to  examine 
or  make  a  note. 

Those  beautiful  fountains,  moistening  the  air  over 
the  whole  area  of  the  column  encircled  front ! — and 
that  tall  Egyptian  pyramid,  sending  up  its  slender 
and  perfect  spire  between  !  One  lingers  about,  and 
turns  again  and  again  to  gaze  around  him,  as  he  leaves 
St.  Peter's,  in  wonder  and  admiration. 

I  crossed  the  Tiber,  at  the  fortress-tomb  of  Adrian, 
and  thridding  the  long  streets  at  the  western  end  of 
Rome,  passed  through  the  Jews'  quarter,  and  entered 
the  Forum.  The  sun  lay  warm  among  the  ruins  of 
the  great  temples  and  columns  of  ancient  Rome,  and, 
seating  myself  on  a  fragment  of  an  antique  frieze, 
near  the  noble  arch  of  Septimius  Severus,  I  gazed  on 
the  scene,  for  the  first  time,  by  daylight..  I  had  been 
in  Rome,  on  my  first  visit,  during  the  full  moon,  and 
my  impressions  of  the  forum  with  this  romantic  en- 
hancement were  vivid  in  my  memory.  One  would 
think  it  enough  to  be  upon  the  spot  at  any  time,  with 
light  to  see  it,  but  what  with  modern  excavations,  fresh 
banks  of  earth,  carts,  boys  playing  at  marbles,  and 
wooden  sentry-boxes,  and  what  with  the  Parisian 
promenade,  made  by  the  French  through  the  centre, 
the  imagination  is  too  disturbed  and  hindered  in  day- 
light. The  moon  gives  it  all  one  covering  of  gray  and 
silver.  The  old  columns  stand  up  in  all  their  solitary 
majesty,  wrecks  of  beauty  and  taste  ;  silence  leaves 
the  fancy  to  find  a  voice  for  itself;  and  from  the  pal- 
aces of  the  Cesars  to  the  prisons  of  the  capitol,  the 
whole  train  of  emperors,  senators,  conspirators,  and 
citizens,  are  summoned  with  but  half  a  thought  and 
the  magic  glass  is  filled  with  moving  and  reanimated 
Rome.  There,  beneath  those  walls,  on  the  right,  in 
the  Mamertine  prisons,  perished  Jugurtha  (and 
there,  too,  were  imprisoned  St.  Paul  and  St.  Peter), 
and  opposite  upon  the  Palatine-hill,  lived  the  mighty 
masters  of  Rome,  in  the  "  palaces  of  the  Cesars," 
and  beneath  the  majestic  arch  beyond,  were  led,  as  a 
seal  of  their  slavery,  the  captives  from  Jerusalem,  and 
in  these  temples,  whose  ruins  cast  their  shadows  at  my 
feet,  walked  and  discoursed  Cicero   and  the  philoso- 


PENCILLINGS  BY  THE  WAV. 


79 


phers,  Brutus  and  the  patriots,  Catiline  and  the  con- 
spirators, Augustus  and  the  scholars  and  poets,  and 
the  great  stranger  in  Rome,  St.  Paul,  gazing  at  the 
false  altars,  and  burning  in  his  heart  to  reveal  to  them 
the  "  unknown  God."  What  men  have  crossed  the 
shadows  of  these  very  columns  !  and  what  thoughts, 
that  have  moved  the  world,  have  been  born  beneath 
them ! 

The  Barberini  palace  contains  three  or  four  master- 
pieces of  painting.  The  most  celebrated  is  the  por- 
trait of  Beatrice  Cenci,  by  Guido.  The  melancholy 
and  strange  history  of  this  beautiful  girl  has  been  told 
in  a  variety  of  ways,  and  is  probably  familar  to  every 
reader.  Guido  saw  her  on  her  way  to  execution,  and 
has  painted  ber  as  she  was  dressed,  in  the  gray  habit 
and  head-dress  made  by  her  own  hands,  and  finished 
but  an  hour  before  she  put  it  on.  There  are  engra- 
vings and  copies  of  the  picture  all  over  the  world,  but 
none  that  I  have  seen  give  any  idea  of  the  excessive 
gentleness  and  serenity  of  the  countenance.  The 
eyes  retain  traces  of  weeping,  but  the  child-like  mouth, 
the  soft,  girlish  lines  of  features  that  look  as  if  they 
never  had  worn  more  than  the  one  expression  of  youth- 
fulness  and  affection,  are  all  in  repose,  and  the  head  is 
turned  over  the  shoulder  with  as  simple  a  sweetness  as 
if  she  had  but  looked  back  to  say  a  good-night  before 
going  to  her  chamber  to  sleep.  She  little  looks  like 
what  she  was— one  of  the  firmest  and  boldest  spirits 
whose  history  is  recorded.  After  murdering  her  fa- 
ther for  his  fiendish  attempts  upon  her  virtue,  she  en- 
dured every  torture  rather  than  disgrace  her  family  by 
confession,  and  was  only  moved  from  her  constancy, 
at  last,  by  the  agonies  of  her  younger  brother  on  the 
rack.  Who  would  read  capabilities  like  these,  in  these 
heavenly  and  child-like  features? 

I  have  tried  to  purchase  the  life  of  the  Cenci,  in  vain. 
A  bookseller  told  me  to-day,  that  it  was  a  forbidden 
book,  on  account  of  its  reflections  upon  the  pope. 
Immense  interest  was  made  for  the  poor  girl,  but,  it  is 
said,  the  papal  treasury  ran  low,  and  if  she  was  par- 
doned, the  large  possessions  of  the  Cenci  family  could 
not  have  been  confiscated. 

The  gallery  contains  also,  a  delicious  picture  of  the 
Fornarina,  by  Raphael  himself,  and  a  portrait  of  Gior- 
gione's  mistress,  as  a  Carthaginian  slave,  the  same 
head  multiplied  so  often  in  his  and  Titian's  pictures. 
The  original  of  the  admirable  picture  of  Joseph  and 
the  wifo  of  Potiphar,  is  also  here.  A  copy  of  it  is  in 
the  gallery  of  Florence. 

I  have  passed  a  day  between  the  two  palaces  Doria 
and  Sciarra,  nearly  opposite  each  other  in  the  Corso 
at  Rome.  The  first  is  an  immense  gallery  of  perhaps 
a  thousand  pictures,  distributed  through  seven  large 
halls,  and  four  galleries  encircling  the  court.  In  the 
first  four  rooms  I  found  nothing  that  struck  me  par- 
ticularly. In  the  fifth  was  a  portrait,  by  an  unknown  ar- 
tist, of  Olivia  Waldachini,  the  favorite  and  sister-in- 
law  of  Pope  Innocent  X. — a  handsome  woman,  with 
that  round  fulness  in  the  throat  and  neck,  which 
(whether  it  existed  in  the  originals,  or  is  a  part  of  a 
painter's  ideal  of  a  woman  of  pleasure),  is  universal  in 
portraits  of  that  character.  In  the  same  room  was  a 
portrait  of  a  "  celebrated  widow,"  by  Vandyck,*  a 
had-been  beautiful  woman,  in  a  staid  cap  (the  hands 
wonderfully  painted),  and  a  large  and  rich  picture  of 
Semiramis,  by  one  of  the  Carraccis. 

In  the  galleries  hung  the  landscapes  by  Claude,  fa- 
mous through  the  world.     It  is  like  roving  through 

•  So  called  in  the  catalogue.  The  custode,  however,  told  us 
it  was  a  portrait  of  the  wife  of  Varulvck,  painted  as  an  old 
woman  to  mortify  her  excessive  vanity,  when  she  was  but 
twenty-three.  He  kept  the  picture  until  she  was  older,  and, 
at  the  time  of  his  death,  it  had  become  a  nattering  likeness, 
and  was  carefully  treasured  by  the  widow. 


a  paradise,  to  sit  and  look  at  them.  His  broad  preen 
lawns,  his  half-hidden  temples,  his  life-like  luxuriant 
trees,  his  fountains,  his  sunny  streams — nil  flush  into 
the  eye  like  the  bright  opening  of  a  Utopia,  or  some 
dream  over  a  description  from  Boccaccio.  It  is  what 
Italy  might  be  in  a  golden  age — her  ruins  rebuilt  into 
the  transparent  air,  her  woods  unprofaned,  her  people 
pastoral  and  refined,  and  every  valley  a  landscape  of 
Arcadia.  I  can  conceive  no  higher  pleasure  for  the 
imagination  than  to  see  a  Claude  in  travelling  through 
Italy.  It  is  finding  a  home  for  one's  more  visionary 
fancies — those  children  of  moonshine  that  one  begets 
in  a  colder  dime,  but  scarce  dares  acknowledge  till  he 
has  seen  them  under  a  more  congenial  skv.  More 
plainly,  one  does  not  know  whether  his  abstract  imagi- 
nations of  pastoral  life  and  scenery  are  not  ridiculous 
and  unreal,  till  he  has  seen  one  of  these  landscapes, 
and  felt  steeped,  if  I  may  use  such  a  word,  in  the  very 
loveliness  which  inspired  the  pencil  of  the  painter. 
There  he  finds  the  pastures,  the  groves,  the  fairy 
structures,  the  clear  waters,  the  straying  groups,  the 
whole  delicious  scenery,  as  bright  as  in  his  dreams, 
and  he  feels  as  if  he  should  bless  the  artist  for  the  lib- 
erty to  acknowledge  freely  to  himself  the  possibility 
of  so  beautiful  a  world. 

We  went  on  through  the  long  galleries,  going  back 
again  and  again  to  see  the  Claudes.  In  the  third  di- 
vision of  the  gallery  were  one  or  two  small  and  bright 
landscapes,  by  Brill,  that  would  have  enchanted  us  if 
seen  elsewhere ;  and  four  strange  pictures,  by  Breit- 
ghel,  representing  the  four  elements,  by  a  kind  of  half- 
poetical,  half-supernatural  landscapes,  one  of  which 
had  a  very  lovely  view  of  a  distant  village.  Then 
there  was  the  famous  picture  of  the  "woman  catching 
fleas,"  by  Gherardodelle  Notti,  a  perfect  piece  of  life. 
She  stands  close  to  a  lamp,  with  a  vessel  of  hot  water 
before  her,  and  is  just  closing  her  thumb  and  finger 
over  a  flea,  which  she  has  detected  on  the  bosom  of 
her  dress.  Some  eight  or  ten  are  boiling  already  in 
the  water,  and  the  expression  upon  the  girl's  face  is 
that  of  the  most  grave  and  unconscious  interest  in  her 
employment.  Next  to  this  amusing  picture  hangs  a 
portrait  of  Queen  Giovanna,  of  Naples,  by  Leonardo 
da  Vinci,  a  copy  of  which  I  had  seen,  much  prized,  in 
the  possession  of  the  archbishop  of  Torento.  It 
scarce  looks  like  the  talented  and  ambitious  queen  she 
was,  but  it  does  full  justice  to  her  passion  for  amorous 
intrigue — a  face  full  of  the  woman. 

The  last  picture  we  came  to,  was  one  not  even  men- 
tioned in  the  catalogue,  an  old  portrait  of  one  of  the 
females  of  the  Doria  family.  It  was  a  girl  of  eighteen, 
with  a  kind  of  face  that  in  life  must  have  been  ex- 
tremely fascinating.  While  we  were  looking  at  it,  we 
heard  a  kind  of  gibbering  laugh  from  the  outer  apart- 
ment, and  an  old  man,  in  a  cardinal's  dress,  dwarfish  in 
size,  and  with  deformed  and  almost  useless  legs,  came 
shuffling  into  the  gallery,  supported  by  two  priests. 
His  features  were  imbecility  itself,  rendered  almost 
horrible  by  the  contrast  of  the  cardinal's  red  cap. 
The  custode  took  off  his  hat  and  bowed  low,  and  the 
old  man  gave  us  a  half-bow  and  a  long  laugh  in  pas- 
sing, and  disappeared  at  the  end  of  the  gallery.  This 
was  the  Prince  Doria,  the  owner  of  the  palace,  and  a 
cardinal  of  Rome  !  the  sole  remaining  representative 
of  one  of  the  most  powerful  and  ambitious  families  of 
Italy !  There  could  not  be  a  more  affecting  type  of 
the  great  "  mistress  of  the  world"  herself.  Her  very 
children  have  dwindled  into  idiots. 

We  crossed  the  Corso  to  the  Palace  Sciarra.  The 
collection  here  is  small,  but  choice.  Half  a  dozen 
small  but  exquisite  landscapes,  by  Brill  and  Both, 
grace  the  second  room.  Here  are  also  three  small 
Claudes,  very,  very  beautiful.  In  the  next  room  is  a 
finely-colored  but  most  indecent  picture  of  Noah  in- 
toxicated, by  Andrea  Sacchi,  and  a  portrait  by  Giulio 


60 


PENCILLINGS  BY  THE  WAY. 


Romano,  of  Raphael's  celebrated  Fornarina,  to  whose 
lovely  face  one  becomes  so  accustomed  in  Italy,  that  it 
seems  like  that  of  an  acquaintance. 

In  the  last  room  are  two  of  the  most  celebrated  pic- 
tures in  Rome.  The  first  is  by  Leonardo  da  Vinci, 
and  represents  Vanity  and  Modesty,  by  two  females 
standing  together  in  conversation — one  a  handsome, 
gay,  volatile  looking  creature,  covered  with  ornaments, 
and  listening  unwillingly  to  what  seems  a  lecture  from 
the  other,  upon  her  foibles.  The  face  of  the  other  is 
a  heavenly  conception  of  woman — earnest,  delicate,  and 
lovely — the  idea  one,  forms  to  himself,  before  inter- 
course with  the  world,  gives  him  a  distaste  for  its  pu- 
rity. The  moral  lesson  of  the  picture  is  more  forcible 
than  language.  The  painter  deserved  to  have  died,  as 
he  did,  in  the  arms  of  an  emperor. 

The  other  picture  represents  two  gamblers  cheating 
a  youth,  a  very  striking  picture  of  nature.  It  is  com- 
mon from  the  engravings.  On  the  opposite  side  of 
the  room,  is  a  very  expressive  picture  by  Schidone. 
On  the  ruins  of  an  old  tomb  stands  a  scull,  beneath 
which  is  written — "/,  too,  was  of Arcadia ;"  and,  at  a 
little  distance,  gazing  at  it  in  attitudes  of  earnest  re- 
flection, stand  two  shepherds,  struck  simultaneously 
with  the  moral.  It  is  a  poetical  thought,  and  wrought 
out  with  great  truth  and  skill. 


Our  eyes  aching  and  our  attention  exhausted  with 
pictures,  we  drove  from  the  Sciarra  to  the  ruined  pal- 
aces of  the  Cesars.  Here,  on  an  eminence  above  the 
Tiber,  with  the  Forum  beneath  us  on  one  side,  the 
Coliseum  on  the  other,  and  all  the  towers  and  spires 
of  modern  and  catholic  Rome  arising  on  her  many 
hills  beyond,  we  seated  ourselves  on  fragments  of 
marble,  half  buried  in  the  grass,  and  mused  away  the 
hours  till  sunset.  On  this  spot  Romulus  founded 
Rome.  The  princely  Augustus,  in  the  last  days  of 
her  glory,  laid  here  the  foundations  of  his  imperial 
palace,  which,  continued  by  Caligula  and  Tiberius, 
and  completed  by  Domitian,  covered  the  hill,  like  a 
small  city.  It  was  a  labyrinth  of  temples,  baths,  pa- 
vilions, fountains,  and  gardens,  with  a  large  theatre  at 
the  western  extremity ;  and,  adjoining  the  temple  of 
Apollo,  was  a  library  filled  with  the  best  authors,  and 
ornamented  with  a  colossal  bronze  statue  of  Apollo, 
"of  excellent  Etruscan  workmanship."  "  Statues  of 
the  fifty  daughters  of  Danaus  Siuramdert,  surrounded 
the  portico"  (of  this  same  temple),  "and  opposite 
them  were  equestrian  statues  of  their  husbands." 
About  a  hundred  years  ago,  accident  discovered,  in  the 
gardens  buried  in  rubbish,  a  magnificent  hall,  two 
hundred  feet'in  length  and  one  hundred  and  thirty-two 
in  breadth,  supposed  to  have  been  built  by  Domitian. 
It  was  richly  ornamented  with  statues,  and  columns 
of  precious  marbles,  and  near  it  were  baths  in  excel- 
lent preservation.  "But,"  says  Stark,  "immense  and 
superb  as  was  this  first-built  palace  of  the  Cesars, 
Nero,  whose  extravagance  and  passion  for  architecture 
knew  no  limits,  thought  it  much  too  small  for  him, 
and  extended  its  edifices  and  gardens  from  the  Palatine 
to  the  Esquiline.  After  the  destruction  of  the  whole, 
by  fire,  sixty-five  years  after  Christ,  he  added  to  it  his 
celebrated  '  Golden  House,'  which  extended  from  one 
extremity  to  the  other  of  the  Ccelian  Hill."* 

*  The  following  description  is  given  of  this  splendid  palace, 
by  Suetonius :  "  To  give  an  idea  of  the  extent  and  beauty  of 
this  edifice,  it  is  sufficient  to  mention,  that  in  its  vestibule 
was  placed  his  colossal  statue,  one  hundred  and  twenty  feet 
in  height.  It  had  a  triple  portico,  supported  by  a  thousand 
columns  ;  with  a  lake  like  a  little  sea,  surrounded  by  buildings 
which  resembled  cities.  It  contained  pasture-grounds  and 
'groves  in  which  were  all  descriptions  of  animals,  wild  and 
tame.  Its  interior  shone  with  gold,  gems,  and  mother-of- 
pearl.  In  the  vaulted  roofs  of  the  eating-rooms  were  ma- 
chines of  ivory,  which  turned  round  and  scattered  perfumes 
upon  the  guests.  The  principal  banqueting  room  was  a  ro- 
tundo,  so  constructed  that   it  turned  round  night  and  day,  in 


The  ancient  walls,  which  made  the  whole  of  the 
Mount  Palatine  a  fortress,  still  hold  together  its  earth 
and  its  ruins.  It  is  a  broad  tabular  eminence,  worn 
into  footpaths  which  wind  at  every  moment  around 
broken  shafts  of  marble,  fragments  of  statuary,  or  bro 
ken  and  ivy -covered  fountains.  Part  of  it  is  cultiva- 
ted as  a  vineyard,  by  the  degenerate  modern  Romans, 
and  the  baths,  into  which  the  water  still  pours  from 
aqueducts  encrusted  with  aged  stalactites,  are  public 
washing-places  for  thecontadini,  eight  or  ten  of  whom 
were  splashing  away  in  their  red  jackets,  with  gold 
bodkins  in  their  hair,  while  we  were  moralizing  on 
their  worthier  progenitors  of  eighteen  centuries  ago. 
It  is  a  beautiful  spot  of  itself,  and  with  the  delicious 
soft  sunshine  of  an  Italian  spring,  the  tall  green  grass 
beneath  our  feet,  and  an  air  as  soft  as  June  just  stir- 
ring the  myrtles  and  jasmines,  growing  wild  wherever 
the  ruins  gave  them  place,  our  enjoyment  of  the  over- 
powering associations  of  the  spot  was  ample  and  un- 
troubled. I  could  wish  every  refined  spirit  in  the 
world  had  shared  our  pleasant  hour  upon  the  Palatine. 


LETTER  LVI. 

ANNUAL     DOWRIES     TO    TWELVE     GIRLS VESPERS     IN 

THE    CONVENT    OF    SANTA    TRINITA RUINS    OF    RO- 
MAN     BATHS A      MAGNIFICENT      MODERN      CHURCH 

WITHIN     TWO     ANCIENT     HALLS— -GARDENS     OF    ME- 

C.ENAS TOWER    WHENCE  NERO  SAW  ROME  ON  FIRE 

HOUSES    OF    HORACE    AND    VIRGIL BATHS    OF    Tl 

TUS    AND    CARACALLA. 

The  yearly  ceremony  of  giving  dowries  to  twelve 
girls,  was  performed  by  the  pope,  this  morning,  in  the 
church  built  over  the  ancient  temple  of  Minerva.  His 
holiness  arrived,  in  state,  from  the  Vatican,  at  ten, 
followed  by  his  red  troop  of  cardinals,  and  preceded 
by  a  clerical  courier,  on  a  palfrey,  and  the  body-guard 
of  nobles.  He  blessed  the  crowd,  right  and  left,  with 
his  three  fingers  (precisely  as  a  Parisian  dandy  salutes 
his  friend  across  the  street),  and,  descending  from  his 
carriage  (which  is  like  a  good-sized  glass  boudoir  up- 
on wheels),  he  was  received  in  the  papal  sedan,  and 
carried  into  the  church  by  his  Swiss  bearers.  My  le- 
gation button  carried  me  through  the  guard,  and  I 
found  an  excellent  place  under  a  cardinal's  wing,  in 
the  penetralia  within  the  railing  of  the  altar.  Mass 
commenced  presently,  with  a  chant  from  the  celebra 
ted  choir  of  St.  Peter's.  Room  was  then  made  through 
the  crowd,  the  cardinals  put  on  their  red  caps,  and  the 
small  procession  of  twelve  young  girls  entered  from 
side  chapel,  bearing  each  a  taper  in  her  hand,  and 
robed  to  the  eyes  in  white,  with  a  chaplet  of  flowers 
round  the  forehead.  I  could  form  no  judgment  of  any- 
thing but  their  eyes  and  feet.  A  Roman  eye  could 
not  be  otherwise  than  fine,  and  a  Roman  woman's  foot 
could  scarce  be  other  than  ugly,  and,  consequently, 
there  was  but  one  satin  slipper  in  the  group  that  a 
man  might  not  have  worn,  and  every  eye  I  could  see 
from  my  position,  might  have  graced  an  improvisa- 
trice.  They  stopped  in  front  of  the  throne,  and,  giv- 
ing their  long  tapers  to  the  servitors,  mounted  in 
conples,  hand  in  hand,  and  kissed  the  foot  of  his  ho- 
liness, who,  at  the  same  time,  leaned  over  and  blessed 
them,  and  then  turning  about,  walked  off*  again  behind 
the  altar  in  the  same  order  in  which  they  had  entered. 

The  choir  now  struck  up  their  half-unearthly  chant 
(a  music  so  strangely  shrill  and  clear,  that  I  scarce 
know  whether  the  exquisite  sensation  is  pleasure  or 
pain),  the  pope  was  led  from  his  throne  to  his  sedan, 
and  his  mitre  changed  for  a  richly  jewelled  crown,  the 
bearers  lifted  their  burden,  the  guard  presented  arms, 

imitation  of  the  motion  of  the  earth.  When  Nero  took  pos- 
session of  this  fairy  palace,  his  only  observation  was — '  Now 
I  shall  begin  to  live  like  a  man  '" 


PENCILLINGS  BY  THE  WAY. 


81 


the  cardinals  summoned  their  officious  servants  to  un- 
robe, and  the  crowd  poured  out  as  it  came. 

This  ceremony,  I  found,  upon  inquiry,  is  performed 
every  year,  on  the  day  of  the  annunciation — just  nine 
months  before  Christmas,  and  is  intended  to  commem- 
orate the  incarnation  of  our  Savior. 

As  I  was  returning  from  a  twilight  stroll  upon  the 
Pincian  hill,  this  evening,  the  bells  of  the  convent  of 
Santa  Trinita  rung  to  vespers.  I  had  heard  of  the 
singing  of  the  nuns  in  the  service  at  the  convent  chap- 
el, but  the  misbehavior  of  a  party  of  English  had  ex- 
cluded foreigners,  of  late,  and  it  was  thought  impos- 
sible to  get  admittance.  I  mounted  the  steps,  however, 
and  rung  at  the  door.  It  was  opened  by  a  pale  nun, 
of  thirty,  who  hesitated  a  moment,  and  let  me  pass. 
In  a  small,  plain  chapel  within,  the  service  of  the  al-  ! 
tar  was  just  commencing,  and,  before  I  reached  a  seat, 
a  low  plaintive  chant  commenced,  in  female  voices, 
from  the  choir.  It  went  on,  with  occasional  interrup- 
tions from  the  prayers,  for  perhaps  an  hour.  I  can 
not  describe  the  excessive  mournfulness  of  the  music. 
One  or  two  familiar  hymns  occurred  in  the  course  of 
it,  like  airs  in  a  recitative,  the  same  sung  in  our  church- 
es, but  the  effect  was  totally  different.  The  neat,  white 
caps  of  the  nuns  were  just  visible  over  the  railing  be- 
fore the  organ,  and,  as  1  looked  up  at  them  and  listen- 
ed to  their  melancholy  notes,  they  seemed,  to  me, 
mourning  over  their  exclusion  from  the  world.  The 
small  white  cloud  from  the  censer  mounted  to  the  ceil- 
ing, and  creeping  away  through  the  arches,  hung  over 
the  organ  till  it  was  lost  to  the  eye  in  the  dimness  of 
the  twilight.  It  was  easy,  under  the  influence  of  their 
delightful  music,  to  imagine  within  it  the  wings  of 
that  tranquillizing  resignation  one  would  think  so  ne- 
cessary to  keep  down  the  heart  in  these  lonely  cloisters. 

The  most  considerable  ruins  of  ancient  Rome  are 
those  of  the  Baths.  The  Emperors  Titus,  Caracalla, 
Nero,  and  Agrippa,  constructed  these  immense  places 
of  luxury,  and  the  remains  of  them  are  among  the 
most  interesting  and  beautiful  relics  to  be  found  in  the 
world.  It  is  possible  that  my  readers  have  as  imper- 
fect an  idea  of  the  extent  of  a  Roman  bath  as  I  have 
had,  and  I  may  as  well  quote  from  the  information 
given  by  writers  upon  antiquities.  "  They  were  open 
every  day,  to  both  sexes.  In  each  of  the  great  baths, 
there  were  sixteen  hundred  seats  of  marble,  for  the 
convenience  of  the  bathers,  and  three  thousand  two 
hundred  persons  could  bathe  at  the  same  time.  There 
were  splendid  porticoes  in  front  for  promenade,  ar- 
cades with  shops,  in  which  was  found  every  kind  of 
luxury  for  the  bath,  and  halls  for  corporeal  exercises, 
and  for  the  discussion  of  philosophy ;  and  here  the 
poets  read  their  productions  and  rhetoricians  ha- 
rangued, and  sculptors  and  painters  exhibited  their 
works  to  the  public.  The  baths  were  distributed  into 
grand  halls,  with  ceilings  enormously  high  and  paint- 
ed with  admirable  frescoes,  supported  on  columns  of 
the  rarest  marble,  and  the  basins  were  of  oriental  ala- 
baster, porphyry,  and  jasper.  There  were  in  the  cen- 
tre vast  reservoirs,  for  the  swimmers,  and  crowds  of 
slaves  to  attend  gratuitously  upon  all  who  should 
come." 

The  baths  of  Diocletian  (which  I  visited  to-day), 
covered  an  enormous  space.  They  occupied  seven 
years  in  building,  and  were  the  work  of  fort 'y  thousand 
Christian  slaves,  two  thirds  of  whom  died  of  fatigue  and 
misery!  Mounting  one  of  the  seven  hill's  of  Rome, 
we  come  to  some  half-ruined  arches,  of  enormous 
size,  extending  a  long  distance,  in  the  sides  of  which 
were  built  two  modern  churches.  One  was  the  work 
of  Michael  Angelo,  and  one  of  his  happiest  efforts. 
He  has  turned  two  of  the  ancient  halls  into  a  magnif- 
icent church,  in  the  shape  of  a  Greek  cross,  leaving  in 
their  places  eight  gigantic  columns  of  granite.  Af- 
6 


ter  St.  Peter's  it  is  the  most  imposing  church  in 
Rome. 

We  drove  thence  to  the  baths  of  Titus,  passing  the 
site  of  the  ancient  gardens  of  Mecamas,  in  which  still 
stands  the  tower  from  which  Nero  beheld  the  confla- 
gration of  Rome.  The  houses  of  Horace  and  Virgil 
communicated  with  this  garden,  but  they  are  now  un- 
distinguishable.  We  turned  up  from  the  Coliseum 
to  the  left,  and  entered  a  gate  leading  to  the  baths  of 
Titus.  Five  or  six  immense  arches  presented  their 
front  to  us,  in  a  state  of  picturesque  ruin.  We  took  a 
guide,  and  a  long  pole,  with  a  lamp  at  the  extremity, 
and  descended  to  the  subterranean  halls,  to  see  the 
still  inimitable  frescoes  upon  the  ceilings.  Passing 
through  vast  apartments,  to  the  ruined  walls  of  which 
still  clung,  here  and  there,  pieces  of  the  finely-colored 
stucco  of  the  ancients,  we  entered  a  suite  of  long  gal- 
leries, some  forty  feet  high,  the  arched  roofs  of  which 
were  painted  with  the  most  exquisite  art,  in  a  kind  of 
fanciful  border-work,  enclosing  figures  and  landscapes, 
in  as  bright  colors  as  if  done  yesterday.  Farther  on 
was  the  niche  in  which  was  found  the  famous  group 
of  Laocoon,  in  a  room  belonging  to  a  subterranean 
palace  of  the  emperor,  communicating  with  the  baths. 
The  Belvedeve  Meleager  was  also  found  here.  The 
imagination  loses  itself  in  attempting  to  conceive  the 
splendor  of  these  under-ground  palaces,  blazing  with 
artificial  light,  ornamented  with  works  of  art,  never 
equalled,  and  furnished  with  all  the  luxury  which 
an  emperor  of  Rome,  in  the  days  when  the  wealth 
of  the  world  flowed  into  her  treasury,  could  com- 
mand for  his  pleasure.  How  short  life  must  have 
seemed  to  them,  and  what  a  tenfold  curse  became 
death  and  the  common  ills  of  existence,  interrupting 
or  taking  away  pleasures  so  varied  and  inexhaustible. 

These  baths  were  built  in  the  last  great  days  of 
Rome,  and  one  reads  the  last  stages  of  national  corrup- 
tion and,  perhaps,  the  secret  of  her  fall,  in  the  charac- 
ter of  these  ornamented  walls.  They  breathe  the  very 
spirit  of  voluptuousness.  Naked  female  figures  fill  every 
plafond,  and  fauns  and  satyrs,  with  the  most  licentious 
passions  in  their  faces,  support  the  festoons  and  hold 
together  the  intricate  ornament  of  the  frescos.  The 
statues,  the  pictures,  the  object  of  the  place  itself,  in- 
spired the  wish  for  indulgence,  and  the  history  of  the 
private  lives  of  the  emperors  and  wealthier  Romans 
shows  the  effect  in  its  deepest  colors. 

We  went  on  to  the  baths  of  Caracalla,  the  largest 
ruins  of  Rome.  They  are  just  below  the  palaces  of 
the  Cesars,  and  ten  minutes'  walk  from  the  Coliseum. 
It  is  one  labyrinth  of  gigantic  arches  and  ruined  halls, 
the  ivy  growing  and  clinging  wherever  it  can  fasten  its 
root,  and  the  whole  as  fine  a  picture  of  decay  as 
imagination  could  create.  This  was  the  favorite  haunt 
of  Shelley,  and  here  he  wrote  his  fine  tragedy  of  Pro- 
metheus. He  could  not  have  selected  a  more  fitting 
spot  for  solitary  thought.  A  herd  of  goats  were 
climbing  over  one  of  the  walls,  and  the  idle  boy  who 
tended  them  lay  asleep  in  the  sun,  and  every  footstep 
echoed  loud  through  the  place.  We  passed  two  or 
three  hours  rambling  about,  and  regained  the  populous 
streets  of  Rome  in  the  last  light  of  the  sunset. 


LETTER  LVI1. 

SUMMER   WEATHER    IN   MARCH — BATHS   OF    CARACALLA 

BEGINNING    OF    THE     APFIAN     WAT— TOMB    OF    THE 

SCIPIOS— CATACOMBS — CHURCH  OF  SAN  SEBASTIANO 
—YOUNG  CAPUCHIN  FRIAR— TOMBS  OF  THE  EARLY 
CHRISTIAN  MARTYRS— CHAMBER  WHERE  THE  APOS- 
TLES    WORSHIPPED— TOMB      OF      CECILIA    METELLA— 

THE    CAMPAGNA CIRCUS     OF     CARACALLA    OR    KOMU- 

LUS— TEMPLE  DEDICATED  TO  RIDICULE— KEATs's 
GRAVE- -FOUNTAIN  OF  EGERIA — THE  WOOD  WHERE 
NUMA    MET   THE   NYMPH— HOLY   WEEK. 


82 


PENCILLINGS  BY  THE  WAY. 


The  last  days  of  March  have  come,  clothed  in  sun- 
shine and  summer.  The  grass  is  tall  in  the  Cam- 
pagna,  the  fruit-trees  are  in  blossom,  the  roses  and 
myrtles  are  in  full  flower,  the  shrubs  are  in  full  leaf, 
the  whole  country  about  breathes  of  June.  We  left 
Rome  this  morning  on  an  excursion  to  the  "  Fountain 
of  Egeria."  A  more  heavenly  day  never  broke.  The 
gigantic  baths  of  Caracalla  turned  us  aside  once  more, 
and  we  stopped  for  an  hour  in  the  shade  of  their  ro- 
mantic arches,  admiring  the  works,  while  we  execrated 
the  character  of  their  ferocious  builder. 

This  is  the  beginning  of  the  ancient  Appian  Way, 
and,  a  little  farther  on,  sunk  in  the  side  of  a  hill,  near 
the  road,  is  the  beautiful  doric  tomb  of  the  Scipios. 
We  alighted  at  the  antique  gate,  a  kind  of  portico, 
with  seats  of  stone  beneath,  and  reading  the  inscrip- 
tion, "  Sepulchro  degli  Scipioni,"  mounted,  by  ruined 
steps,  to  the  tomb.  A  boy  came  out  from  the  house, 
in  the  vineyard  above,  with  candles  to  show  us  the 
interior;  but,  having  no  curiosity  to  see  the  damp  cave 
from  which  the  sarcophagi  have  been  removed  (to 
the  museum),  we  sat  down  upon  a  bank  of  grass 
opposite  the  chaste  facade,  and  recalled  to  memory 
the  early-learnt  history  of  the  family  once  entombed 
within.  The  edifice  (for  it  is  more  like  a  temple  to 
a  river-nymph  or  a  dryad  than  a  tomb)  was  built  by 
an  ancestor  of  the  great  Scipio  Africanus,  and  here 
was  deposited  the  noble  dust  of  his  children.  One 
feels,  in  these  places,  as  if  the  improvisatore's  inspira- 
tion was  about  him — the  fancy  draws,  in  such  vivid 
colors,  the  scenes  that  have  passed  where  he  is  stand- 
ing. The  bringing  of  the  dead  body  of  the  conqueror 
of  Africa  from  Rome,  the  passing  of  the  funeral  train 
beneath  the  portico,  the  noble  mourners,  the  crowd  of 
people,  the  eulogy  of  perhaps  some  poet  or  orator, 
whose  name  has  descended  to  us — the  air  seems  to 
speak,  and  the  gray  stones  of  the  monument  against 
which  the  mourners  of  the  Scipios  have  leaned,  seem 
to  have  had  life  and  thought,  like  the  ashes  they  have 
sheltered. 

We  drove  on  to  the  Catacombs.  Here,  the  legend 
says,  St.  Sebastian  was  martyred,  and  the  modern 
church  of  St.  Sebastiano  stands  over  the  spot.  We 
entered  the  church,  where  we  found  a  very  handsome 
young  capuchin  friar,  with  his  brown  cowl  and  the 
white  cord  about  his  waist,  who  offered  to  conduct  us 
to  the  catacombs.  He  took  three  wax-lights  from 
the  sacristy,  and  we  entered  a  side  door,  behind  the 
tomb  of  the  saint,  and  commenced  a  descent  of  a  long 
flight  of  stone  steps.  We  reached  the  bottom  and 
found  ourselves  upon  damp  ground,  following  a  nar- 
row passage,  so  low  that  I  was  compelled  constantly 
to  stoop,  in  the  sides  of  which  were  numerous  small 
niches  of  the  size  of  a  human  body.  These  were  the 
tombs  of  the  early  Christian  martyrs.  We  saw  near 
a  hundred  of  them.  They  were  brought  from  Rome, 
the  scene  of  their  sufferings,  and  buried  in  these 
secret  catacombs  by  the  small  church  of  perhaps  the 
immediate  converts  of  St.  Paul  and  the  apostles. 
What  food  for  thought  is  here,  for  one  who  finds  more 
interest  in  the  humble  traces  of  the  personal  followers 
of  Christ,  who  knew  his  face  and  had  heard  his  voice, 
to  all  the  splendid  ruins  of  the  works  of  the  persecu- 
ting emperors  of  his  time  !  Most  of  the  bones  have 
been  taken  from  their  places,  and  are  preserved  at  the 
museum,  or  enclosed  in  the  rich  sarcophagi  raised  to 
the  memory  of  the  martyrs  in  the  catholic  churches. 
Of  those  that  are  left  we  saw  one.  The  niche  was 
closed  by  a  thin  slab  of  marble,  through  a  crack  of 
which  the  monk  put  his  slender  candle.  We  saw  the 
skeleton  as  it  had  fallen  from  the  flesh  in  decay,  un- 
touched, perhaps,  since  the  time  of  Christ. 

We  passed  through  several  cross-passages,  and 
came  to  a  small  chamber,  excavated  simply  in  the 
earth,  with  an  earthen  altar,  and  an  antique  marble 
cross  above.     This  was  the  scene  of  the  forbidden 


worship  of  the  early  Christians,  and  before  this  very 
cross,  which  was,  perhaps,  then  newly  selected  as  the 
emblem  of  their  faith,  met  the  few  dismayed  followers 
of  Christ,  hidden  from  their  persecutors,  while  they 
breathed  their  forbidden  prayers  to  their  lately  cru- 
cified master. 

We  reascended  to  the  light  of  day  by  the  rough 
stone  steps,  worn  deep  by  the  feel  of  those  who,  for 
ages,  for  so  many  different  reasons,  have  passed  up  and 
down,  and,  taking  leave  of  our  capuchin  conductor, 
drove  on  to  the  next  object  upon  the  road — the  tomb 
of  Cecilia  Metella.  It  stands  upon  a  slight  elevation, 
in  the  Appian  Way,  a  "stern  round  tower,"  with  the 
ivy  dropping  over  its  turrets  and  waving  from  the  em- 
brasures, looking  more  like  a  castle  than  a  tomb. 
Here  was  buried  "  the  wealthiest  Roman's  wife,"  or, 
according  to  Corinne,  his  unmarried  daughter.  It 
was  turned  into  a  fortress  by  the  marauding  nobles  of 
the  thirteenth  century,  who  sallied  from  this  and  the 
tomb  of  Adrian,  plundering  the  ill-defended  subjects 
of  Pope  Innocent  IV.  till  they  were  taken  and  hanged 
from  the  walls  by  Brancaleone,  the  Roman  senator. 
It  is  built  with  prodigious  strength.  We  stooped  in 
passing  under  the  low  archway,  and  emerged  into  the 
round  chamber  within,  a  lofty  room,  open  to  the  sky, 
in  the  circular  wall  of  which  there  is  a  niche  for  a 
single  body.  Nothing  could  exceed  the  delicacy 
and  fancy  with  which  Childe  Harold  muses  on  this 
spot. 

The  lofty  turrets  command  a  wide  view  of  the 
Campagna,  the  long  aqueducts  stretching  past  at  a 
short  distance,  and  forming  a  chain  of  noble  arches 
from  Rome  to  the  mountains  of  Albano.  Cole's  pic- 
ture of  the  Roman  Campagna,  as  seen  from  one  of 
these  elevations,  is,  I  think,  one  of  the  finest  land- 
scapes ever  painted. 

Just  below  the  tomb  of  Metella,  in  a  flat  valley,  lie 
the  extensive  ruins  of  what  is  called  the  "  circus  of 
Caracalla"  by  some,  and  the  "circus  of  Romulus" 
by  others — a  scarcely  distinguishable  heap  of  walls 
and  marble,  half  buried  in  the  earth  and  moss;  and 
not  far  off  stands  a  beautiful  ruin  of  a  small  temple 
dedicated  (as  some  say)  to  Ridicule.  One  smiles  to 
look  at  it.  If  the  embodying  of  that  which  is  power- 
ful, however,  should  make  a  deity,  the  dedication  of  a 
temple  to  ridicule  is  far  from  amiss.  In  our  age  par- 
ticularly, one  would  think,  the  lamp  should  be  relit, 
and  the  reviewers  should  repair  the  temple.  Poor 
Keats  sleeps  in  his  grave  scarce  a  mile  from  the  spot, 
a  human  victim,  sacrificed,  not  long  ago,  upon  its 
highest  altar. 

In  the  same  valley  almost  hidden  with  the  luxuriant 
ivy  waving  before  the  entrance,  flows  the  lovely  Foun- 
tain of  Egeria,  trickling  as  clear  and  musical  into  its 
pebbly  bed  as  when  visited  by  the  enamored  successor 
of  Romulus  twenty-five  centuries  ago !  The  hill 
above,  leans  upon  the  single  arch  of  the  small  temple 
which  embosoms  it,  and  the  green  soft  meadow  spreads 
j  away  from  the  floor,  with  the  brightest  verdure  con- 
|  ceivable.  We  wound  around  by  a  halfworn  path  in 
descending  the  hill,  and,  putting  aside  the  long 
branches  of  ivy,  entered  an  antique  chamber,  sprinkled 
with  quivering  spots  of  sunshine,  at  the  extremity  of 
which,  upon  a  kind  of  altar,  lay  the  broken  and  de- 
faced statue  of  the  nymph.  The  fountain  poured 
from  beneath  in  two  streams  as  clear  as  crystal.  In 
the  sides  of  the  temple  were  six  empty  niches,  through 
one  of  which  stole,  from  a  cleft  in  the  wall,  a  little 
stream,  which  wandered  from  its  way.  Flowers,  p-ale 
with  growing  in  the  shade,  sprang  from  the  edges  of 
the  rivulet  as  it  found  its  way  out,  the  small  creepers, 
dripping  with  moisture,  hung  out  from  between  the 
diamond-shaped  stones  of  the  roof,  the  air  was  re- 
freshingly cool,  and  the  leafy  door  at  the  entrance, 
seen  against  the  sky,  looked  of  a  transparent  green,  as 
vivid  as  emerald.     No  fancy  could   create   a  sweeter 


PENCILLINGS  BY  THE  WAY. 


8:< 


spot.  The  fountain  and  the  inspiration  it  breathed 
into  Childe  Harold  are  worthy  of  each  other. 

Just  above  the  fountain,  on  the  crest  of  a  hill, 
stands  a  thick  grove,  supposed  to  occupy  the  place  of 
the  consecrated  wood,  in  which  Numa  met  the  nymph. 
It  is  dark  with  shadow,  and  full  of  birds,  and  might 
afford  a  fitting  retreat  for  meditation  to  another  king 
and  lawgiver.  The  fields  about  it  are  so  thickly 
studded  with  flowers,  that  you  can  not  step  without 
crushing  them,  and  the  whole  neighborhood  seems  a 
favorite  of  nature.  The  rich  banker,  Torlonia,  has 
bought  this  and  several  other  classic  spots  about  Rome 
— possessions  for  which  he  is  more  to  be  envied  than 
for  his  purchased  dukedom. 

All  the  travelling  world  assembles  at  Rome  for  the 
ceremonies  of  the  holy  week.  Naples,  Florence,  and 
Pisa,  send  their  hundreds  of  annual  visiters,  and  the 
hotels  and  palaces  are  crowded  with  strangers  of  every 
nation  and  rank.  It  would  be  difficult  to  imagine  a 
gayer  or  busier  place  than  this  usually  sombre  city  has 
become  within  a  few  days. 


LETTER  LVIII. 

PALM  SUNDAY — SISTINE  CHAPEL — ENTRANCE  OF  THE 
POPE — THE  CHOIR THE  POPE  ON  HIS  THRONE PRE- 
SENTING THE  PALMS — PROCESSION BISHOP  ENGLAND'S 

LECTURE HOLY    TUESDAY THE     MISERERE — ACCI- 
DENTS IN  THE  CROWD— TENEBRjE THE    EMBLEMATIC 

CANDLES HOLY    THURSDAY FRESCOES    OF    MICHAEL 

ANGELO "CREATION  OF  EVE" — "LOT  INTOXICATED" 

— DELPHIC     SYBIL POPE     "WASHING     PILGRIMS'    FEET 

STRIKING    RESEMBLANCE    OF    ONE    TO    JUDAS POPE 

AND  CARDINALS  WAITING  UPON  PILGRIMS  AT  DINNER. 

Palm  Sunday  opens  the  ceremonies.  We  drove 
to  the  Vatican  this  morning,  at  nine,  and,  after  wait- 
ing a  half  hour  in  the  crush,  kept  back,  at  the  point 
of  the  spear,  by  the  pope's  Swiss  guard,  I  succeeded 
in  getting  an  entrance  into  the  Sistine  chapel.  Leav- 
ing the  ladies  of  the  party  behind  the  grate,  I  passed 
two  more  guards,  and  obtained  a  seat  among  the  cowl- 
ed and  bearded  dignitaries  of  the  church  and  state 
within,  where  I  could  observe  the  ceremony  with  ease. 

The  pope  entered,  borne  in  his  gilded  chair  by 
twelve  men,  and,  at  the  same  moment,  the  chanting 
from  the  Sistine  choir  commenced  with  one  long, 
piercing  note,  by  a  single  voice,  producing  the  most 
impressive  effect.  He  mounted  his  throne  as  high  as 
the  altar  opposite  him,  and  the  cardinals  went  through 
their  obeisances,  one  by  one,  their  trains  supported  by 
their  servants,  who  knelt  on  the  lower  steps  behind 
them.  The  palms  stood  in  a  tall  heap  beside  the  al- 
tar. They  were  beautifully  woven  in  wands  of  perhaps 
six  feet  in  length,  with  a  cross  at  the  top.  The  cardi- 
nal nearest  the  papal  chair  mounted  first,  and  a  palm 
was  handed  him.  He  laid  it  across  the  knees  of  the 
pope,  and,  as  his  holiness  signed  the  cross  upon  it,  he 
stooped,  and  kissed  the  embroidered  cross  upon  his 
foot,  then  kissed  the  palm,  and  taking  it  in  his  two 
hands,  descended  with  it  to  his  seat.  The  other  forty 
or  fifty  cardinals  did  the  same,  until  each  was  provided 
with  a  palm.  Some  twenty  other  persons,  monks  of 
apparent  clerical  rank  of  every  order,  military  men, 
and  members  of  the  catholic  embassies,  followed  and 
took  palms.  A  procession  was  then  formed,  the  car- 
dinals going  first  with  their  palms  held  before  them, 
and  the  pope  following,  in  his  chair,  with  a  small  frame 
of  palmwork  in  his  hands,  in  which  was  woven  the 
initial  of  the  Virgin.  They  passed  out  of  the  Sistine 
chapel,  the  choir  chanting  most  delightfully,  and,  hav- 
ing made  a  tour  around  the  vestibule,  returned  in  the 
same  order. 


The  ceremony  is  intended  to  represent  the  entrance 
of  the  Savior  into  Jerusalem.  Bishop  England,  of 
Charleston,  South  Carolina,  delivered  a  lecture  at  the 
house  of  the  English  cardinal  Weld,  a  day  or  two  ago, 
explanatory  of  the  ceremonies  of  the  holy  week.  It 
was  principally  an  apology  for  them.  He  confessed 
that,  to  the  educated,  they  appeared  empty,  and  even 
absurd  rites,  but  they  were  intended  not  for  the  refined, 
but  the  vulgar,  whom  it  was  necessary  to  instruct  and 
impress  through  their  outward  senses.  As  nearly  all 
these  rites,  however,  take  place  in  the  Sistine  chapel, 
which  no  person  is  permitted  to  enter  who  is  not  fur- 
nished with  a  ticket,  and  in  full  dress,  his  argument 
rather  fell  to  the  ground. 

With  all  the  vast  crowd  of  strangers  in  Rome,  1 
went  to  the  Sistine  chapel  on  Holy  Tuesday,  to  hear 
the  far-famed  Miserere.  It  is  sung  several  times  du- 
ring the  holy  week,  by  the  pope's  choir,  and  has  been 
described  by  travellers,  of  all  nations  in  the  most  rap- 
turous terms.  The  vestibule  was  a  scene  of  shocking 
confusion,  for  an  hour,  a  constant  struggle  going  on 
between  the  crowd  and  the  Swiss  guard,  amounting 
occasionally  to  a  fight,  in  which  ladies  fainted,  chil- 
dren screamed,  men  swore,  and,  unless  by  force  of 
contrast,  the  minds  of  the  audience  seemed  likely  to 
be  little  in  tune  for  the  music.  The  chamberlains  at 
last  arrived,  and  two  thousand  people  attempted  to  get 
into  a  small  chapel  which  scarce  holds  four  hundred. 
Coat-skirts,  torn  cassocks,  hats,  gloves,  and  fragments 
of  ladies'  dresses,  were  thrown  up  by  the  suffocating 
throng,  and,  in  the  midst  of  a  confusion  beyond  de- 
scription, the  mournful  notes  of  the  tenehrce  (or  lam- 
entations of  Jeremiah)  poured  in  full  volume  from  the 
choir.  Thirteen  candles  burned  in  a  small  pyramid 
within  the  paling  of  the  altar,  and  twelve  of  these, 
representing  the  apostles,  were  extinguished,  one  by 
one  (to  signify  their  desertion  at  the  cross),  during  the 
singing  of  the  tenahrai.  The  last,  which  was  left 
burning,  represented  the  mother  of  Christ.  As  the 
last  before  this  was  extinguished,  the  music  ceased. 
The  crowd  had,  by  this  time,  become  quiet.  The 
twilight  had  deepened  through  the  dimly-lit  chapel, 
and  the  one  solitary  lamp  looked  lost  at  the  distance  of 
the  altar.  Suddenly  the  miserere  commenced  with 
one  high  prolonged  note,  that  sounded  like  a  wail  ; 
another  joined  it,  and  another  and  another,  and  all  the 
different  parts  came  in,  with  a  gradual  swell  of  plain- 
tive and  most  thrilling  harmony,  to  the  full  power  of 
the  choir.  It  continued  for  perhaps  half  an  hour. 
The  music  was  simple,  running  upon  a  few  notes,  like 
a  dirge,  but  there  were  voices  in  the  choir  that  seemed 
of  a  really  supernatural  sweetness.  No  instrument 
could  be  so  clear.  The  crowd,  even  in  their  uncom- 
fortable positions,  were  breathless  with  attention,  and 
the  effect  was  universal.  It  is  really  extraordinary 
music,  and  if  but  half  the  rites  of  the  catholic  church 
had  its  power  over  the  mind,  a  visit  to  Rome  would 
have  quite  another  influence. 

The  candles  were  lit,  and  the  motley  troop  of  car- 
dinals and  red-legged  servitors  passed  out.  The  har- 
lequin-looking Swiss  guard  stood  to  their  tall  halberds, 
the  chamberlains  and  mace-bearers,  in  their  cassock 
and  frills,  took  care  that  the  males  and  females  should 
not  mix  until  they  reached  the  door,  the  pope  disap- 
peared in  the  sacristy,  and  the  gay  world,  kept  an  hour 
beyond  their  time,  went  home  to  cold  dinners. 

The  ceremonies  of  Holy  Thursday  commenced 
with  the  mass  in  the  Sistine  chapel.  Tired  of  seeing 
genuflexions,  and  listening  to  a  mumbling  of  which  I 
could  not  oatch  a  syllable,  I  took  advantage  of  my 
privileged  seat,  in  the  ambassador's  box,  to  lean  back 
and  study  the  celebrated  frescoes  of  Michael  Angelo 
upon  the  ceiling.  A  little  drapery  would  do  no  harm 
to  any  of  them.     They  illustrate,  mainly,  passages  of 


84 


PENCILLINGS  BY  THE  WAY. 


scripture  history,  but  the  "  creation  of  Eve,"'  in  the 
centre,  is  an  astonishingly  fine  representation  of  a 
naked  man  and  woman,  as  large  as  life  ;  and  •«  Lot 
intoxicated  and  exposed  before  his  two  daughters," 
is  about  as  immodest  a  picture,  from  its  admira- 
ble expression  as  well  as  its  nudity,  as  could  easi- 
ly be  drawn.  In  one  corner  there  is  a  most  beau- 
tiful draped  figure  of  the  Delphic  Sybil — and  I  think 
this  bit  of  heathenism  is  almost  the  only  very  decent 
part  of  the  pope's  most  consecrated  chapel. 

After  the  mass,  the  host  was  carried,  with  a  showy 
procession,  to  be  deposited  among  the  thousand  lamps 
in  the  Capella  Paolina,  and,  as  soon  as  it  had  passed, 
there  was  a  general  rush  for  the  room  in  which  the 
pope  was  to  ivash  the  feet  of  the  pilgrims. 

Thirteen  men,  dressed  in  white,  with  sandals  open 
at  the  top,  and  caps  of  paper  covered  with  white  linen, 
sat  on  a  high  bench,  just  under  a  beautiful  copy  of  the 
last  supper  of  Da  Vinci,  in  gobelin  tapestry.  It  was 
a  small  chapel,  communicating  with  the  pope's  private 
apartments.  Eleven  of  the  pilgrims  were  as  vulgar 
and  brutal-looking  men  as  could  have  been  found  in 
the  world ;  but  of  the  two  in  the  centre,  one  was  the 
personification  of  wild  fanaticism.  He  was  pale,  ema- 
ciated, and  abstracted.  His  hair  and  beard  were  neg- 
lected, and  of  a  singular  blackness.  His  lips  were 
firmly  set  in  an  expression  of  severity.  His  brows 
were  gathered  gloomily  over  his  eyes,  and  his  glan- 
ces, occasionally  sent  among  the  crowd,  were  as  gla- 
ring and  flashing  as  a  tiger's.  With  all  this,  his 
countenance  was  lofty,  and  if  I  had  seen  the  face  on 
canvass,  as  a  portrait  of  a  martyr,  I  should  have 
thought  it  finely  expressive  of  courage  and  devotion. 
The  man  on  his  left  wept,  or  pretended  to  weep,  con- 
tinually ;  but  every  person  in  the  room  was  struck 
with  his  extraordinary  resemblance  to  Judas,  as  he  is 
drawn  in  the  famous  picture  of  the  last  supper.  It 
was  the  same  marked  face,  the  same  treacherous,  ruf- 
fian look,  the  same  style  of  hair  and  beard,  to  a  won- 
der. It  is  possible  that  he  might  have  been  chosen  on 
purpose,  the  twelve  pilgrims  being  intended  to  repre- 
sent the  twelve  apostles  of  whom  Judas  was  one — but 
if  accidental,  it  was  the  most  remarkable  coincidence 
that  ever  came  under  my  notice.  He  looked  the  hyp- 
ocrite and  traitor  complete,  and  his  resemblance  to 
the  Judas  in  the  picture  directly  over  his  head,  would 
have  struck  a  child. 

The  pope  soon  entered  from  his  apartments,  in  a 
purple  stole,  with  a  cape  of  dark  crimson  satin,  and 
the  mitre  of  silver-cloth,  and,  casting  the  incense  into 
the  golden  censer,  the  white  smoke  was  flung  from 
side  to  side  before  him,  till  the  delightful  odor  filled 
the  room.  A  short  service  was  then  chanted,  and 
the  choir  sang  a  hymn.  His  holiness  was  then  un- 
robed, and  a  fine  napkin,  trimmed  with  lace,  was  tied 
about  him  by  the  servitors,  and  with  a  deacon  before 
him,  bearing  a  splendid  pitcher  and  basin,  and  a  pro- 
cession behind  him,  with  large  bunches  of  flowers,  he 
crossed  to  the  pilgrims'  bench.  A  priest,  in  a  snow- 
white  tunic,  raised  and  bared  the  foot  of  the  first.  The 
pope  knelt,  took  water  in  his  hand,  and  slightly  rub- 
bed the  instep,  and  then  drying  it  well  with  a  napkin, 
he  kissed  it. 

The  assistant-deacon  gave  a  large  bunch  of  flowers 
and  a  napkin  to  the  pilgrim,  as  the  pope  left  him,  and 
another  person  in  rich  garments,  followed,  with  pieces 
of  money  presented  in  a  wrapper  of  white  paper.  The 
same  ceremony  took  place  with  each — one  foot  only 
being  honored  with  a  lavation.  When  his  holiness 
arrived  at  the  "  Judas,"  there  was  a  general  stir,  and 
every  one  was  on  tip-toe  to  watch  his  countenance. 
He  took  his  handkerchief  from  his  eyes,  and  looked 
at  the  pope  very  earnestly,  and  when  the  ceremony 
was  finished,  he  seized  the  sacred  hand,  and,  imprint- 
ing a  kiss  upon  it,  flung  himself  back,  and  buried  his 
face  again  in  his  handkerchief,  quite  overwhelmed  with 


his  feelings.  The  other  pilgrims  took  it  very  coolly, 
comparatively,  and  one  of  them  seemed  rather  amused 
than  edified.  The  pope  returned  to  his  throne,  and 
water  was  poured  over  his  hands.  A  cardinal  gave 
him  a  napkin,  his  splendid  cape  was  put  again  over  his 
shoulders,  and,  with  a  paternoster  the  ceremony  was 
over. 

Half  an  hour  after,  with  much  crowding  and  several 
losses  of  foothold  and  temper,  I  had  secured  a  place 
in  the  hall  where  the  apostles,  as  the  pilgrims  are 
called  after  the  washing,  were  to  dine,  waited  on  by 
the  pope  and  cardinals.  With  their  gloomy  faces  and 
ghastly  white  caps  and  white  dresses,  they  looked 
more  like  criminals  waiting  for  execution,  than  guests 
at  a  feast.  They  stood  while  the  pope  went  round 
with  a  gold  pitcher  and  basin,  to  wash  their  hands, 
and  then  seating  themselves,  his  holiness,  with  a  good- 
natured  smile,  gave  each  a  dish  of  soup,  and  said 
something  in  his  ear,  which  had  the  effect  of  putting 
him  at  his  ease.  The  table  was  magnificently  set  out 
with  the  plate  and  provisions  of  a  prince's  table,  and 
spite  of  the  thousands  of  eyes  gazing  on  them,  the 
pilgrims  were  soon  deep  in  the  delicacies  of  every 
dish,  even  the  lachrymose  Judas  himself,  eating  most 
voraciously.     We  left  them  at  their  dessert. 


LETTER  LIX. 

SEPULCHRE  OF  CAIIIS  CESTITJS — PROTESTANT  BURYING 
GROUND — GRAVES  OF  KEATS  AND  SHELLEY — SHEL- 
LEY:S  LAMENT  OVER  KEATS — GRAVES  OF  TW. 
AMERICANS — BEAUTY  OF  THE  BURIAL  PLACE — 
MONUMENTS  OVER  TWO  INTERESTING  YOUNG  FE- 
MALES— INSCRIPTION  ON  KEATs's  MONUMENT — THE 
STYLE  OF  KEATS'S  POEMS— GRAVE  OF  DR.  BELL — 
RESIDENCE  AND  LITERARY  UNDERTAKINGS  OF  HIS 
WIDOW. 

A  beautiful  pyramid,  a  hundred  and  thirteen  feet 
high,  built  into  the  ancient  wall  of  Rome,  is  the  proud 
Sepulchre  of  Caius  Cestius.  It  is  the  most  imperish- 
able of  the  antiquities,  standing  as  perfect  after 
eighteen  hundred  years  as  if  it  were  built  but  yester- 
day. Just  beyond  it,  on  the  declivity  of  a  hill,  over 
the  ridge  of  which  the  wall  passes,  crowning  it  with 
two  mouldering  towers,  lies  the  protestant  burying- 
ground.  It  looks  toward  Rome,  which  appears  in 
the  distance,  between  Mount  Aventine  and  a  small  hill 
called  Mont  Testaccio,  and  leaning  to  the  southeast, 
the  sun  lies  warm  and  soft  upon  its  banks,  and  the 
grass  and  wild  flowers  are  there  the  earliest  and  tallest 
of  the  Campagna.  I  have  been  here  to-day,  to  see 
the  graves  of  Keats  and  Shelley.  With  a  cloudless 
sky  and  the  most  delicious  air  ever  breathed,  we  sat 
down  upon  the  marble  slab  laid  over  the  ashes  of 
poor  Shelley,  and  read  his  own  lament  over  Keats, 
who  sleeps  just  below,  at  the  foot  of  the  hill.  The 
cemetery  is  rudely  formed  into  three  terraces,  with 
walks  between,  and  Shelley's  grave  and  one  other, 
without  a  name,  occupy  a  small  nook  above,  made  by 
the  projections  of  a  mouldering  wall-tower,  and 
crowded  with  ivy  and  shrubs,  and  a  peculiarly  fragrant 
yellow  flower,  which  perfumes  the  air  around  for 
several  feet.  The  avenue  by  which  you  ascend  from 
the  gate  is  lined  with  high  bushes  of  the  marsh-rose 
in  the  most  luxuriant  bloom,  and  all  over  the  cemetery 
the  grass  is  thickly  mingled  with  flowers  of  every  die. 
In  his  preface  to  his  lament  over  Keats,  Shelley  says, 
"he  was  buried  in  the  romantic  and  lonely  cemetery 
of  the  protestants,  under  the  pyramid  which  is  the 
tomb  of  Cestius,  and  the  massy  walls  and  towers,  now 
mouldering  and  desolate,  which  formed  the  circuit  of 
ancient  Rome.  It  is  an  open  space  among  the  ruins, 
covered  in  winter  with  violets  and  daisies.     It  might 


PENCI LUNGS  BY  THE  WAY. 


85 


make  one  in  love  with  death,  to  think  that  one  should  be 
buried  in  so  sweet  a  place.''  If  Shelley  had  chosen 
his  own  grave  at  the  time,  he  would  have  selected  the 
very  spot  where  he  has  since  been  laid — the  most 
sequestered  and  flowery  nook  of  the  place  he  de- 
scribes so  feelingly.  In  the  last  verses  of  the  elegy, 
he  speaks  of  it  again  with  the  same  feeling  of  its 
beauty  : — 

"  The  spirit  of  the  spot  shall  lead 
Thy  footsteps  to  a  slope  of  green  acces-s, 
Where,  like  an  infant's  smile,  over  the  dead, 
A  light  of  laughing  flowers  along  the  grass  is  spread. 

"  And  gray  walls  moulder  round,  on  which  dull  time 
Feeds  like  slow  fire  upon  a  hoary  brand  : 
And  one  keen  pyramid,  with  wedge  sublime, 
Pavilioning  the  dust  of  him  who  planned 
This  refuge  for  his  memory,  doth  stand 
Like  flame  transformed  to  marble  ;  and  beneath 
Afield  is  spread,  on  which  a  newer  band 
Have  pitched,  in  heaven's  smile,  their  camp  of  death, 

Welcoming  him  we  lose,  with  scarce  extinguished  breath. 

"  Here  pause  :  these  graves  are  all  too  young  a.y  yet 
To  have  outgrown  the  sorrow  which  consigned 
Its  charge  to  each." 
m 
Shelley  has  left  no  poet  behind,  who  could  write  so  j 
touchingly  of  his  burial-place  in  turn.     He  was,  in-  j 
deed,   as  they  have  graven  on  his  tombstone,    "corj 
cordium  " — the  heart  of  hearts.     Dreadfully  mistaken 
as  he  was  in  his  principles,  he  was  no  less  the  soul  of 
genius  than  the  model  of  a  true  heart  and  of  pure  in- 
tentions.     Let    who    will    cast   reproach   upon    his 
memory,  I  believe,  for  one,  that  his  errors  were  of  the  ! 
kind  most  venial  in  the  eye  of  Heaven,  and  I  read,  ! 
almost  like  a  prophecy,  the  last  lines  of  his  elegy  on  ! 
one  he  believed  had  gone   before  him  to  a  happier 
world  : — 

"  Burning  through  the  inmost  veil  of  heaven, 
The  soul  of  Adonais,  like  a  star, 
Beacons  from  the  abode  where  the  Eternal  are." 

On  the  second  terrace  of  the  declivity,  are  ten  or 
twelve  graves,  two  of  which  bear  the  names  of  Ameri- 
cans who  have  died  in  Rome.  A  portrait  carved  in 
bas-relief,  upon  one  of  the  slabs,  told  me,  without  the 
inscription,  that  one  whom  I  had  known  was  buried 
beneath.*  The  slightly  rising  mound  was  covered 
with  small  violets,  half  hidden  by  the  grass.  It  takes 
away  from  the  pain  with  which  one  stands  over  the 
grave  of  an  acquaintance  or  a  friend,  to  see  the  sun 
lying  so  warm  upon  it,  and  the  flowers  springing  so 
profusely  and  cheerfully.  Nature  seems  to  have  cared 
for  those  who  have  died  so  far  from  home,  binding  the 
earth  gently  over  them  with  grass,  and  decking  it  with 
the  most  delicate  flowers. 

A  little  to  the  left,  on  the  same  bank,  is  the  new- 
made  grave  of  a  very  young  man,  Mr.  Elliot.  He 
came  abroad  for  health,  and  died  at  Rome,  scarce  two 
months  since.  Without  being  disgusted  with  life,  one 
feels,  in  a  place  Mke  this,  a  certain  reconciliation,  if  I 
may  so  express  it,  with  the  thought  of  a  burial — an 
almost  willingness,  if  his  bed  could  be  laid  amid  such 
loveliness,  to  be  brought  and  left  here  to  his  repose. 
Purely  imaginary  as  any  difference  in  this  circum- 
stance is,  it  must,  at  least,  always  affect  the  sick 
powerfully  ;  and  with  the  common  practice  of  sending 
the  dying  to  Italy,  as  a  last  hope,  I  consider  the  ex- 
quisite beauty  of  this  place  of  burial,  as  more  than  a 
common  accident  of  happiness. 

Farther  on,  upon  the  same  terrace,  are  two  monu- 
ments that  interested  me.  One  marks  the  grave  of  a 
young  English  girl,f  the  pride  of  a  noble  family,  and, 

•  Mr.  John  Hone,  of  New  York. 

t  An  interesting  account  of  this  ill-fated  young  lady,  who 
wm  on  the  eve  of  marriage,  has  appeared  in  the  Mirror. 


as  a  sculptor  told  me,  who  had  often  seen  and  admired 
her,  a  model  of  high-born  beauty.  She  was  riding 
with  a  party  on  the  banks  of  the  Tiber,  when  her 
horse  became  unmanageable,  and  backed  into  the 
river.  She  sank  instantly,  and  was  swept  so  rapidly 
away  by  the  current,  that  her  body  was  not  found  for 
many  months.  Her  tombstone  is  adorned  with  a  bas- 
relief,  representing  an  angel  receiving  her  from  the 
waves. 

The  other  is  the  grave  of  a  young  lady  of  twenty, 
who  was  at  the  baths  of  Lucca,  last  summer,  in  pur- 
suit of  health.  She  died  at  the  first  approach  of 
winter.  I  had  the  melancholy  pleasure  of  knowing 
her  slightly,  and  we  used  to  meet  her  in  the  winding 
path  upon  the  bank  of  the  romantic  river  Lima,  at 
evening,  borne  in  a  sedan,  with  her  mother  and  sister 
walking  at  her  side,  the  fairest  victim  consumption 
ever  seized.  She  had  all  the  peculiar  beauty  of  the 
disease,  the  transparent  complexion  and  the  unnatu- 
rally bright  eye,  added  to  features  cast  in  the  clearest 
and  softest  mould  of  female  loveliness.  She  excited 
general  interest  even  among  the  gay  and  dissipated 
crowd  of  a  watering  place ;  and  if  her  sedan  was 
missed  in  the  evening  promenade,  the  inquiry  for  her 
was  anxious  and  universal.  She  is  buried  in  a  place 
that  seems  made  for  such  as  herself. 

We  descended  to  the  lower  enclosure  at  the  foot  of 
the  slight  declivity.  The  first  grave  here  is  that  of 
Keats.  The  inscription  on  his  monument  runs  thus  : 
"  This  grave  contains  all  that  teas  mortal  of  a  young 
English  poet,  who,  on  his  deathbed,  in  the  bitterness  of 
his  heart  at  the  malicious  power  of  his  enemies,  desired 
these  words  to  be  engraved  on  his  tomb :  here  lies  o>e 
whose  name  was  written  IN  water."  He  died  at 
Rome  in  1821.  Every  reader  knows  his  history  and 
the  cause  of  his  death.  Shelley  says,  in  the  preface 
to  his  elegy,  "  The  savage  criticism  on  his  poems, 
which  appeared  in  the  Quarterly  Review,  produced 
the  most  violent  effect  on  his  susceptible  mind  ;  the 
agitation  thus  originated  ended  in  a  rupture  of  a 
blood-vessel  in  the  lungs ;  a  rapid  consumption  ensued, 
and  the  succeeding  acknowledgments,  from  more  can- 
did critics,  of  the  true  greatness  of  his  powers,  were  in- 
effectual to  heal  the  wound  thus  wantonly  inflicted." 
Keats  was,  no  doubt,  a  poet  of  very  uncommon 
promise.  He  had  all  the  wealth  of  genius  within 
him,  but  he  had  not  learned,  before  he  was  killed  by 
criticism,  the  received,  and,  therefore,  the  best  manner 
of  producing  it  for  the  eye  of  the  world.  Had  he 
lived  longer,  the  strength  and  richness  which  break 
continually  through  the  affected  style  of  Endymion 
and  Lamia  and  his  other  poems,  must  have  formed  ' 
themselves  into  some  noble  monuments  of  his  powers. 
As  it  is,  there  is  not  a  poet  living  who  could  surpass 
the  material  of  his  "  Endymion" — a  poem,  with  all 
its  faults,  far  more  full  of  beauties.  But  this  is  not 
the  place  for  criticism.  He  is  buried  fitly  for  a  poet, 
and  sleeps  beyond  criticism  now.  Peace  to  his 
ashes ! 

Close  to  the  grave  of  Keats  is  that  of  Dr.  Bell,  the 
author  of  "Observations  on  Italy."  This  estimable 
man,  whose  comments  on  the  fine  arts  are,  perhaps,  as 
judicious  and  high-toned  as  any  ever  written,  has  left 
behind  him,  in  Naples  (where  he  practised  his  pro- 
fession for  some  years),  a  host  of  friends,  who  remem- 
ber and  speak  of  him  as  few  are  remembered  and 
spoken  of  in  this  changing  and  crowded  portion  of  the 
world.  His  widow,  who  edited  his  works  so  ably 
and  judiciously,  lives  still  at  Naples,  and  is  preparing 
just  now  a  new  edition  of  his  book  on  Italy.  Having 
known  her,  and  having  heard  from  her  own  lips  many 
particulars  of  his  life,  I  felt  an  additional  interest  in 
visiting  his  grave.  Both  his  monument  and  Keats's 
are  almost  buried  in  the  tall  flowering  clover  of  this 
beautiful  place. 


80 


PENCIL LINGS  BY  THE  WAY. 


LETTER  LX. 

PRESENTATION  AT    THE    PAPAL  COURT PILGRIMS  GO- 
ING TO  VESPERS PERFORMANCE  OF  THE    MISERERE 

TARPEIAN   ROCK THE    FORUM — PALACE    OF    THE 

CESARS COLISEUM. 

I  have  been  presented  to  the  pope  this  morning,  in 
company  with  several  Americans — Mr.  and  Mrs.  Gray, 
of  Boston,  Mr.  Atherton  and  daughters,  and  Mr. 
Walsh,  of  Philadelphia,  and  Mr.  Mayer  of  Baltimore. 
With  the  latter  gentleman,  I  arrived  rather  late,  and 
found  that  the  rest  of  the  party  had  been  already  re- 
ceived, and  that  his  holiness  was  giving  audience,  at 
the  moment,  to  some  Russian  ladies  of  rank.  Bishop 
England,  of  Charleston,  however,  was  good  enough  to 
send  in  once  more,  and,  in  the  course  of  a  few  min- 
utes, the  chamberlain  in  waiting  announced  to  us  that 
11  Padre  Santo  would  receive  us.  The  ante-room 
was  a  picturesque  and  rather  peculiar  scene.  Clus- 
ters of  priests,  of  different  rank,  were  scattered  about 
in  the  corners,  dressed  in  a  variety  of  splendid  cos- 
tumes, white,  crimson,  and  ermine,  one  or  two  monks, 
with  their  picturesque  beards  and  flowing  dresses  of 
gray  or  brown,  were  standing  near  one  of  the  doors, 
in  their  habitually  humble  attitudes,  two  gentleman 
mace-bearers  guarded  the  door  of  the  entrance  to  the 
pope's  presence,  their  silver  batons  under  their  arms, 
and  their  open-breasted  cassocks  covered  with  fine 
lace  ;  the  deep  bend  of  the  window  was  occupied  by 
the  American  party  of  ladies,  in  the  required  black 
veils,  and  around  the  outer  door  stood  the  helmeted 
guard,  a  dozen  stout  men-at-arms,  forming  a  forcible 
contrast  to  the  mild  faces  and  priestly  company  within. 

The  mace-bearers  lifted  the  curtain,  and  the  pope 
stood  before  us,  in  a  small  plain  room.  The  Irish 
priest  who  accompanied  us  prostrated  himself  on  the 
floor,  and  kissed  the  embroidered  slipper,  and  Bishop 
England  hastily  knelt  and  kissed  his  hand,  turning  to 
present  us  as  he  rose.  His  holiness  smiled,  and  step- 
ped forward,  with  a  gesture  of  his  hand,  as  if  to  pre- 
vent our  kneeling,  and,  as  the  bishop  mentioned  our 
names,  he  looked  at  us  and  nodded  smilingly,  but 
without  speaking  to  us.  Whether  he  presumed  we 
did  not  speak  the  language,  or  whether  he  thought  us 
too  young  to  answer  for  ourselves,  he  confined  his  in- 
quiries about  us  entirely  to  the  good  bishop,  leaving 
me,  as  I  had  wished,  at  leisure  to  study  his  features 
and  manner.  It  was  easy  to  conceive  that  the  fa- 
ther of  the  catholic  church  stood  before  me,  but  I 
could  scarcely  realize  that  it  was  a  sovereign  of  Eu- 
rope, and  the  temporal  monarch  of  millions.  He  was 
dressed  in  along  vesture  of  snow-white  flannel,  buttoned 
together  in  front,  with  a  large  crimson  velvet  cape  over 
his  shoulders,  and  band  and  tassels  of  silver  cloth 
hanging  from  beneath.  A  small  white  scull-cap  cov- 
ered the  crown  of  his  head,  and  his  hair,  slightly  griz- 
zled, fell  straight  toward  a  low  forehead,  expressive  of 
good-nature  merely.  A  large  emerald  on  his  fingers, 
and  slippers  wrought  in  gold,  with  a  cross  on  the  in- 
step, completed  his  dress.  His  face  is  heavily  mould- 
ed, but  unmarked,  and  expressive  mainly  of  sloth  and 
kindness;  his  nose  is  uncommonly  large,  rather 
pendent  than  prominent,  and  an  incipient  double  chin, 
slightly  hanging  cheeks,  and  eyes,  over  which  the  lids 
drop,  as  if  in  sleep,  at  the  end  of  every  sentence,  con- 
firm the  general  impression  of  his  presence — that  of 
an  indolent  and  good  old  man.  His  inquiries  were 
principally  of  the  catholic  church  in  Baltimore  (men- 
tioned by  the  bishop  as  the  city  of  Mr.  Mayer's  resi- 
dence), of  its  processions,  its  degree  of  state,  and 
whether  it  was  recognised  by  the  government.  At  the 
first  pause  in  the  conversation,  his  holiness  smiled  and 
bowed,  the  Irish  priest  prostrated  himself  again,  and 
kissed  his  foot,  and,  with  a  blessing  from  the  father  of 
the  church,  we  retired- 


On  the  evening  of  holy  Thursday,  as  I  was  on  my 
way  to  St.  Peter's,  to  hear  the  miserere  once  more,  I 
overtook  the  procession  of  the  pilgrims  going  up  to 
vespers.  The  men  went  first  in  couples,  following  a 
cross,  and  escorted  by  gentlemen  penitents  covered 
conveniently  with  sackcloth,  their  eyes,  peeping 
through  two  holes,  and  their  well-polished  boots  be- 
neath, being  the  only  indications  by  which  their  pen- 
ance could  be  betrayed  to  the  world.  The  pilgrims 
themselves,  perhaps  a  hundred  in  all,  were  the  dirtiest 
collection  of  beggars  imaginable,  distinguished  from 
the  lazars  in  the  street,  only  by  a  long  staff  with  a  fa- 
ded bunch  of  flowers  attached  to  it,  and  an  oil-cloth 
cape  stitched  over  with  scallop  shells.  Behind  came 
the  female  pilgrims,  and  these  were  led  by  the  first  la- 
dies of  rank  in  Rome.  It  was  really  curious  to  see 
the  mixture  of  humility  and  pride.  There  were,  per- 
haps, fifty  ladies  of  all  ages,  from  sixteen  to  fifty, 
walking  each  between  two  filthy  old  women,  who  sup- 
ported themselves  by  her  arms,  while  near  them,  on 
either  side  of  the  procession,  followed  their  splendid 
equipages,  with  numerous  servants,  in  livery,  on  foot, 
as  if  to  contradict  to  the  world  their  temporary  degra- 
dation. The  lady  penitents,  unlike  the  gentlemen, 
walked  in  their  ordinary  dress.  I  had  several  acquain- 
tances among  them ;  and  it  was  inconceivable,  to  me, 
how  the  gay,  thoughtless,  fashionable  creatures  I  had 
met  in  the  most  luxurious  drawing-rooms  of  Rome, 
could  be  prevailed  upon  to  become  a  part  in  such  a  ri- 
diculous parade  of  humility.  The  chief  penitent, 
who  carried  a  large,  heavy  crucifix  at  the  head  of  the 

procession,  was  the  Princess  ,  at  whose  weekly 

soirees  and  balls  assemble  all  that  is  gay  and  pleasure- 
loving  in  Rome.  Her  two  nieces,  elegant  girls  of 
eighteen  or  twenty,  walked  at  her  side,  carrying  light- 
ed candles,  of  four  or  five  feet  in  length,  in  broad  day- 
light, through  the  streets  ! 

The  procession  crept  slowly  up  to  the  church,  and 
I  left  them  kneeling  at  the  tomb  of  St.  Peter,  and 
went  to  the  side  chapel,  to  listen  to  the  miserere.  The 
choir  here  is  said  to  be  inferior  to  that  in  the  Sistine 
chapel,  but  the  circumstances  more  than  make  up  for 
the  difference,  which,  after  all,  it  takes  a  nice  ear  to 
detect.  I  could  not  but  congratulate  myself,  as  I  sat 
down  upon  the  base  of  a  pillar,  in  the  vast  aisle,  with- 
out the  chapel  where  the  choir  were  chanting,  with 
the  twilight  gathering  in  the  lofty  arches,  and  the 
candles  of  the  various  processions  creeping  to  the  con- 
secrated sepulchre  from  the  distant  parts  of  the  church. 
It  was  so  different  in  that  crowded  and  suffocating 
chapel  of  the  Yatican,  where,  fine  as  was  the  music,  I 
vowed  positively  never  to  subject  myself  to  such  an- 
noyance again. 

It  had  become  almost  dark,  when  the  last  candle 
but  one  was  extinguished  in  the  symbolical  pyramid, 
and  the  first  almost  painful  note  of  the  miserere  wailed 
out  into  the  vast  church  of  St.  Peter.  For  the  next 
half  hour,  the  kneeling  listeners,  around  the  door  of 
the  chapel,  seemed  spell-bound  in  tdieir  motionless  at- 
titudes. The  darkness  thickened,  the  hundred  lamps 
at  the  far-off  sepulchre  of  the  saint,  looked  like  a  gal- 
axy of  twinkling  points  of  fire,  almost  lost  in  the  dis- 
tance, and  from  the  now  perfectly  obscured  choir, 
poured,  in  ever-varying  volume,  the  dirge-like  music, 
in  notes  inconceivably  plaintive  and  affecting.  The 
power,  the  mingled  mournfulness  and  sweetness,  the 
impassioned  fulness,  at  one  moment,  and  the  lost, 
shrieking  wildness  of  one  solitary  voice,  at  another, 
carry  away  the  soul  like  a  whirlwind.  I  have  never 
been  so  moved  by  anything.  It  is  not  in  the  scope  of 
language  to  convey  an  idea  to  another  of  the  effect  of 
the  miserere. 

It  was  not  till  several  minutes  after  the  music  had 
ceased,  that  the  dark  figures  rose  up  from  the  floor 
about  me.  As  we  approached  the  door  of  the  church, 
the  full  moon,  about  three  hours  risen,  poured  broadly 


PENCILLINGS  BY  THE  WAY. 


87 


under  the  arches  of  the  portico,  inundating  the  whole 
front  of  the  lofty  dome  with  a  flood  of  light,  such  as 
falls  only  on  Italy.  There  seemed  to  be  no  atmo- 
sphere between.  Daylight  is  scarce  more  intense. 
The  immense  square,  with  its  slender  obelisk  and  em- 
bracing crescents  of  colonnade,  lay  spread  out  as  def- 
initely to  the  eye  as  at  noon,  and  the  two  famous  foun- 
tains shot  up  their  clear  waters  to  the  sky,  the  moon- 
light streaming  through  the  spray,  and  every  drop  as 
visible  and  bright  as  a  diamond. 

I  got  out  of  the  press  of  carriages,  and  took  a  by- 
street along  the  Tiber,  to  the  Coliseum.  Passing  the 
Jews'  quarter,  which  shuts  at  dark  by  heavy  gates, 
I  found  myself  near  the  Tarpeian  rock,  and  entered 
the  Forum,  behind  the  ruins  of  the  temple  of  For- 
tune. I  walked  toward  the  palace  of  the  Cesars, 
stopping  to  gaze  on  the  columns,  whose  shadows  have 
fallen  on  the  same  spot,  where  I  now  saw  them  for  six- 
teen or  seventeen  centuries.  It  checks  the  blood  at 
one's  heart,  to  stand  on  the  spot  and  remember  it.  There 
was  not  the  sound  of  a  footstep  through  the  whole 
wilderness  of  the  Forum.  I  traversed  it  to  the  arch 
of  Titus  in  a  silence,  which,  with  the  majestic  ruins 
around,  seemed  almost  supernatural — the  mind  was 
left  so  absolutely  to  the  powerful  associations  of  the 
place. 

Ten  minutes  more  brought  me  to  the  Coliseum. 
Its  gigantic  walls,  arches  on  arches,  almost  to  the  very 
clouds,  lay  half  in  shadow,  half  in  light,  the  ivy  hung 
trembling  in  the  night  air,  from  between  the  cracks  of 
the  ruin,  and  it  looked  like  some  mighty  wreck  in 
a  desert.  I  entered,  and  a  hundred  voices  announced 
to  me  the  presence  of  half  the  fashion  of  Rome.  I 
had  forgotten  that  it  was  the  mode  "  to  go  to  the  Co- 
liseum by  moonlight."  Here  they  were  dancing  and 
laughing  about  the  arena  where  thousands  of  Chris- 
tians had  been  torn  by  wild  beasts,  for  the  amusement 
of  the  emperors  of  Rome  ;  where  gladiators  had  fought 
and  died  ;  where  the  sands  beneath  their  feet  were 
more  eloquent  of  blood  than  any  other  spot  on  the 
face  of  the  earth — and  one  sweet  voice  proposed  a 
dance,  and  another  wished  she  could  have  music  and 
supper,  and  the  solemn  old  arches  re-echoed  with 
shouts  and  laughter.  The  travestie  of  the  thing  was 
amusing.  I  mingled  in  the  crowd,  and  found  ac- 
quaintances of  every  nation,  and  an  hour  I  had  devo- 
ted to  romantic  solitude  and  thought  passed  away  per- 
haps quite  as  agreeably,  in  the  nonsense  of  the  most 
thoughtless  triflers  in  society. 


LETTER  LXI. 

VIGILS  OVER  THE  HOST CEREMONIES  OF    EASTER  SUN- 
DAY— THE      PROCESSION HIGH      MASS — THE      POPE 

BLESSING    THE    PEOPLE CURIOUS    ILLUMINATION 

RETURN    TO    FLORENCE RURAL  FESTA HOSPITAL- 
ITY   OF    THE     FLORENTINES EXPECTED     MARRIAGE 

OF    THE    GRAND    DUKE. 

Rome,  1833— This  is  Friday  of  the  holy  week. 
The  host,  which  was  deposited  yesterday  amid  its 
thousand  lamps  in  the  Paoline  chapel,  was  taken  from 
its  place  this  morning,  in  solemn  procession,  and  car- 
ried back  to  the  Sistine,  after  lying  in  the  consecrated 
place  twenty-four  hours.  Vigils  were  kept  over  it  all 
night.  The  Paoline  chapel  has  no  windows,  and  the 
lights  are  so  disposed  as  to  multiply  its  receding  arch- 
es till  the  eye  is  lost  in  them.  The  altar  on  which 
the  host  lay  was  piled  up  to  the  roof  in  a  pyramid  of 
light,  and  with  the  prostrate  figures  constantly  cover- 
ing the  floor,  and  the  motionless  soldier  in  antique  ar- 
mor at  the  entrance,  it  was  like  some  scene  of  wild 
romance. 


The  ceremonies  of  Easter  Sunday  were  performed 
where  all  others  should  have  been — in  the  body  of  St. 
Peter's.  Two  lines  of  soldiers,  forming  an  aisle  up 
the  centre,  stretched  from  the  square  without  the  por- 
tico to  the  sacred  sepulchre.  Two  temporary  plat- 
forms for  the  various  diplomatic  corps  and  other  priv- 
ileged persons  occupied  the  sides,  and  the  remainder 
of  the  church  was  filled  by  thousands  of  strangers,  Ro- 
man peasantry,  and  contadini  (in  picturesque  red  bod- 
dices,  and  with  golden  bodkins  through  their  hair), 
from  all  the  neighboring  towns. 

A  loud  blast  of  trumpets,  followed  by  military  mu- 
sic, announced  the  coming  of  the  procession.  The 
two  long  lines  of  soldiers  presented  arms,  and  the  es- 
quires of  the  pope  entered  first,  in  red  robes,  followed 
by  the  long  train  of  proctors,  chamberlains,  mitre- 
bearers,  and  incense-bearers,  the  men-at-arms  escort- 
ing the  procession  on  either  side.  Just  before  the 
cardinals,  came  a  cross-bearer,  supported  on  either 
side  by  men  in  showy  surplices  carrying  lights,  and 
then  came  the  long  and  brilliant  line  of  white-headed 
cardinals,  in  scarlet  and  ermine.  The  military  digni- 
taries of  the  monarch  preceded  the  pope,  a  splendid 
mass  of  uniforms,  and  his  holiness  then  appeared,  sup- 
ported, in  his  great  gold  and  velvet  chair,  upon  the 
shoulders  of  twelve  men,  clothed  in  red  damask,  with 
a  canopy  over  his  head,  sustained  by  eight  gentlemen, 
in  short,  violet-colored  silk  mantles.  Six  of  the  Swiss 
guard  (representing  the  six  catholic  cantons)  walked 
near  the  pope,  with  drawn  swords  on  their  shoulders, 
and  after  his  chair  followed  a  troop  of  civil  officers, 
whose  appointments  1  did  not  think  it  worth  while  to 
inquire.  The  procession  stopped  when  the  pope  was 
opposite  the  "  chapel  of  the  holy  sacrament,"  and  his 
holiness  descended.  The  tiara  was  lifted  from  his 
head  by  a  cardinal-,  and  he  knelt  upon  a  cushion  of  vel- 
vet and  gold  to  adore  the  "  sacred  host,"  which  was 
exposed  upon  the  altar.  After  a  few  minutes  he  re- 
turned to  his  chair,  his  tiara  was  again  set  on  his  head, 
and  the  music  rang  out  anew,  while  the  procession 
swept  on  to  the  sepulchre. 

The  spectacle  was  all  splendor.  The  clear  space 
through  the  vast  area  of  the  church,  lined  with  glit- 
tering soldiery,  the  dazzling  gold  and  crimson  of  the 
coming  procession,  the  high  papal  chair,  with  the  im- 
mense fan-banners  of  peacock's  feathers,  held  aloft, 
the  almost  immeasurable  dome  and  mighty  pillars 
above  and  around,  and  the  multitudes  of  silent  people, 
produced  a  scene  which,  connected  with  the  idea  of 
religious  worship,  and  added  to  by  the  swell  of  a  hun- 
dred instruments  of  music,  quite  dazzled  and  over- 
powered me. 

The  high  mass  (performed  but  three  times  a  year) 
proceeded.  At  the  latter  part  of  it,  the  pope  mounted 
to  the  altar,  and,  after  various  ceremonies,  elevated  the 
sacred  host.  At  the  instant  that  the  small  white  wa- 
fer was  seen  between  the  golden  candlesticks,  the  two 
immense  lines  of  soldiers  dropped  upon  their  knees, 
and  all  the  people  prostrated  themselves  at  the  same 
instant. 

This  fine  scene  over,  we  hurried  to  the  square  in 
front  of  the  church,  to  secure  places  for  a  still  finer 
one — that  of  the  pope  blessing  the  people.  Several 
thousand  troops,  cavalry  and  footmen,  were  drawn  up 
between  the  steps  and  the  obelisk,  in  the  centre  of  the 
piazza,  and  the  immense  area  embraced  by  the  two 
circling  colonnades  was  crowded  by,  perhaps,  a  hun- 
dred thousand  people,  with  eyes  directed  to  one  single 
point.  The  variety  of  bright  costumes,  the  gay  liv- 
eries of  the  ambassadors'  and  cardinals'  carriages,  the 
vast  body  of  soldiery,  and  the  magnificent  fram«  of 
columns  and  fountains  in  which  this  gorgeous  picture 
was  contained,  formed  the  grandest  scene  conceivable. 

In  a  few  minutes  the  pope  appeared  in  the  balcony, 
over  the  great  door  of  St.  Peter's.  Every  hat  in  the 
vast  multitude  was  lifted  and  every  knee  bowed  in  an 


88 


PENCILLINGS  BY  THE  WAY. 


instant.  Half  a  nation  prostrate  together,  and  one 
gray  old  man  lifting  up  his  hands  to  heaven,  and  bles- 
sing them! 

The  cannon  of  the  castle  of  St.  Angelo  thundered, 
the  innumerable  bells  of  Rome  pealed  forth  simulta- 
neously, the  troops  fell  into  line  and  motion,  and  the 
children  of  the  two  hundred  and  fifty-seventh  succes- 
sor of  St.  Peter  departed  blessed. 

In  the  evening  all  the  world  assembled  to  see  the  il- 
lumination, which  it  is  useless  to  attempt  to  describe. 

The  night  was  cloudy  and  black,  and  every  line  in 
the  architecture  of  the  largest  building  in  the  world 
was  defined  in  light,  even  to  the  cross,  which,  as  I 
have  said  before,  is  at  the  height,  of  a  mountain  from 
the  base.  For  about  an  hour  it  was  a  delicate  butvast 
structure  of  shining  lines,  like  the  drawing  of  a  glo- 
rious temple  on  the  clouds.  At  eight,  as  the  clock 
struck,  flakes  of  fire  burst  from  every  point,  and  the 
whole  building  seemed  started  into  flame.  Jt  was  done 
by  a  simultaneous  kindling  of  torches  in  a  thousand 
points  a  man  stationed  at  each.  The  glare  seemed  to 
exceed  that  of  noonday.  No  description  can  give  an 
idea  of  it. 

I  am  not  sure  that  I  have  not  been  a  little  tedious  in 
describing  the  ceremonies  of  the  holy  week.  Forsyth 
says  in  his  bilious  book,  that  he  "never  could  read, 
and  certainly  never  could  write,  a  description  of  them." 
They  have  struck  me,  however,  as  particularly  unlike 
anything  ever  seen  in  our  own  country,  and  I  have  en- 
deavored to  draw  them  slightly  and  with  as  little  par- 
ticularity as  possible.  I  trust  that  some  of  the  read- 
ers of  the  Mirror  may  find  them  entertaining  and 
novel. 

Florence,  1833. — I  found  myself  at  six  this  mor- 
ning, where  I  had  found  myself  at  the  same  hour  a 
year  before — in  the  midst  of  the  rural  festa  in  the  Cas- 
c'tne  of  Florence.  The  duke,  to-day,  breakfasts  at  his 
farm.  The  people  of  Florence,  high  and  low,  come 
out,  and  spread  their  repasts  upon  the  fine  sward  of 
the  openings  in  the  wood,  the  roads  are  watered,  and 
the  royal  equipages  dash  backward  and  forward,  while 
the  ladies  hang  their  shawls  in  the  trees,  and  children 
and  lovers  stroll  away  into  the  shade,  and  all  looks 
like  a  scene  from  Boccaccio. 

I  thought  it  a  picturesque  and  beautiful  sight  last 
year,  and  so  described  it.  But  I  was  a  stranger  then, 
newly  arrived  in  Florence,  and  felt  desolate  amid  the 
happiness  of  so  many.  A  few  months  among  so  frank 
and  warm-hearted  a  people  as  the  Tuscans,  however, 
makes  one  at  home.  The  tradesman  and  his  wife, 
familiar  with  your  face,  and  happy  to  be  seen  in  their 
holyday  dresses,  give  you  the  "  buon  giorno,"  as  you 
pass,  and  a  cup  of  red  wine  or  a  seat  at  the  cloth  on 
the  grass  is  at  your  service  in  almost  any  group  in  the 
prato.  I  am  sure  I  should  not  find  so  many  acquain- 
tances in  the  town  in  which  I  have  passed  my  life. 

A  little  beyond  the  crowd,  lies  a  broad  open  glade 
of  the  greenest  grass,  in  the  very  centre  of  the  woods 
of  the  farm.  A  broad  fringe  of  shade  is  flung  by  the 
trees  along  the  eastern  side,  and  at  their  roots  cluster 
the  different  parties  of  the  nobles  and  the  ambassadors. 
Their  gayly-dressed  chasseurs  are  in  waiting,  the  sil- 
ver plate  quivers  and  glances,  as  the  chance  rays  of 
the  sun  break  through  the  leaves  over  head,  and  at  a 
little  distance,  in  the  road,  stand  their  showy  equipa- 
ges in  a  long  line  from  the  great  oak  to  the  farmhouse. 

In  the  evening,  there  was  an  illumination  of  the 
green  alleys  and  the  little  square  in  front  of  the  house, 
and  a  band  of  music  for  the  people.  Within,  the 
halls  were  thrown  open  for  a  ball.  It  was  given  by  the 
grand  duke  to  the  Dutchess  of  Lichtenberg,  the  widow 
of  Eugene  Beauharnois.  The  company  assembled  at 
eight,  and  the  presentations  (two  lovely  countrywomen 
of  our  own  among  them),  were  over  at  nine.  The 
dancing  then  commenced,  and  we  drove  home,  through 


the  fading  lights  still  burning  in  the  trees,  an  hour  or 
two  past  midnight. 

The  grand  duke  is  about  to  be  married  to  one  of  the 
princesses  of  Naples,  and  great  preparations  are  ma- 
king for  the  event.  He  looks  little  like  a  bridegroom, 
with  his  sad  face,  and  unshorn  beard  and  hair.  It  is, 
probably,  not  a  marriage  of  inclination,  for  the  fat 
princess  expecting  him,  is  every  way  inferior  to  the 
incomparable  woman  he  has  lost,  and  he  passed  half 
the  last  week  in  a  lonely  visit  to  the  chamber  in  which 
she  died,  in  his  palace  at  Pisa. 


LETTER  LXII. 

PISA — DULNESS     OF     THE      TOWN — LEANING     TOWER — 

CRUISE     IN    THE     FRIGATE    UNITED    STATES — ELBA 

FIOMBTNO— PORTO  FERRAJO — APPEARANCE  OF  THE 
BAY NAVAL  DISCIPLINE — VISIT  TO  THE  TOWN  RESI- 
DENCE OF  NAPOLEON HIS  EMPLOYMENT   DURING    HIS 

CONFINEMENT    ON     THE     ISLAND — HIS    SISTERS    ELIZA 

AND  PAULINE — HIS    COUNTRY-HOUSE SIMPLICITY    OF 

THE    INHABITANTS    OF    ELBA. 

I  left  Florence  on  one  of  the  last  days  of  May  for 
Pisa,  with  three  Italian  companions,  who  submitted  as 
quietly  as  myself  to  being  sold  four  times  from  one 
vetturino  to  another,  at  the  different  stopping-places, 
and  we  drove  into  the  grass-grown,  melancholy  streets 
of  Pisa,  in  the  middle  of  the  afternoon,  thankful  to 
escape  from  the  heat  and  dust  of  the  low  banks  of  the 
Arno.  My  fellow-travellers  were  Florentines,  and  in 
their  sarcastic  remarks  upon  the  dulness  of  Pisa,  I 
imagined  I  could  detect  a  lingering  trace  of  the  an- 
cient hatred  of  these  once  rival  republics.  Prepara- 
tions for  the  illumination  in  honor  of  the  new  grand 
dutchess,  were  going  on  upon  the  streets  bordering 
the  river,  but  other  sign  of  life  there  was  none.  It 
must  have  been  solitude  itself  which  tempted  Byron 
to  reside  in  Pisa.  I  looked  at  the  hot  sunny  front  of 
the  Palazzo  Lanfranchi  in  which  he  lived,  and  tried 
in  vain  to  imagine  it  the  home  of  anything  in  the 
shape  of  pleasure. 

I  hurried  to  dine  with  the  friends  whose  invitation 
had  brought  me  out  of  my  way  (I  was  going  to  Leg- 
horn), and  with  a  warm,  golden  sunset  flushing  in  the 
sky,  we  left  the  table  a  few  hours  after  to  mount  to 
the  top  of  the  "  leaning  tower."  On  the  north  and 
east  lay  the  sharp  terminating  ridges  of  the  Appenines. 
in  which  lay  nested  Lucca  and  its  gay  baths,  and  on 
the  west  and  south,  over  a  broad  bright  green  meadow 
of  from  seven  to  fourteen  miles,  thridded  by  the  Arno 
and  the  Serchio,  coiled  the  distant  line  of  the  Medi- 
terranean, peaked  with  the  many  ships,  entering  and 
leaving  the  busy  port  of  Leghorn,  and  gilded  like  a 
flaunting  riband,  with  the  gold  of  the  setting  sun. 
Below  us  lay  Pisa,  and  away  to  the  mountains,  and  off 
over  the  plains,  the  fertile  farms  of  Tuscany.  Every  • 
point  of  the  scene  was  lovely.  But  there  was  an  un- 
accustomed feature  in  the  southern  view,  which  had 
more  power  over  my  feelings  than  all  else  around  me. 
Floating  like  small  clouds  in  the  distance,  I  could 
just  distinguish  two  noble  frigates,  lying  at  anchor  in 
the  roads.  The  guardian  of  the  tower  handed  me  his 
glass,  and  I  strained  my  eye  till  I  fancied  I  could  see 
the  "stars  and  stripes"  of  my  country's  flag  flying  at 
the  peaks.  I  pointed  them  out  with  pride  to  my 
English  friends ;  and  while  they  hung  over  the  dizzy 
railing,  watching  the  fading  teintsof  the  sunset  on  the 
mountains  of  Tuscany,  I  kept  my  eye  on  the  distant 
ships,  lost  in  a  thousand  reveries  of  home.  The 
blood  so  stirs  to  see  that  free  banner  in  a  foreign  land. 

We  remained  on  the  tower  till  the  moon  rose,  clear 
and  full,  and  then  descended  by  its  circling  galleries 
to  the  square,  looked  at  the  tall  fairy  stru  mire  in  her 


PENCILLINGS  BY  THE  WAY. 


89 


mellower  light,  its  sides  laced  with  the  shadows  of  the 
hundred  columns  winding  around  it,  and  the  wondrous 
pile,  as  it  leaned  forward  to  meet  the  light,  seeming  in 
the  very  act  of  toppling  to  the  earth. 

I  had  come  from  Florence  to  join  the  "United 
States,"  at  the  polite  invitation  of  the  officers  of  the 
ward-room,  on  a  cruise  up  the  Mediterranean.  My 
cot  was  swung  immediately  on  my  arrival,  but  we  lay 
three  days  longer  than  was  expected  in  the  harbor, 
riding  out  a  gale  of  wind,  which  broke  the  chain 
cables  of  both  ships,  and  drove  several  merchant  ves- 
sels on  the  rocks.  We  got  under  way  on  the  third  of 
June,  and  the  next  morning  were  off  Elba,  with 
Corsica  on  our  quarter,  and  the  little  island  of  Capreja 
just  ahead. 

The  firing  of  guns  took  me  just  now  to  the  deck. 
Three  Sardinian  gun-boats  had  saluted  the  commo- 
dore's flag  in  passing,  and  it  was  returned  with  twelve 
guns.  They  were  coming  home  from  the  affair  at 
Tunis.  It  is  a  fresh,  charming  morning,  and  we  are 
beating  up  against  a  light  head-wind,  all  the  officers 
on  deck,  looking  at  the  island  with  their  glasses,  and 
discussing  the  character  of  the  great  man  to  whom 
this  little  barren  spot  was  a  temporary  empire.  A 
bold  fortification  just  appears  on  the  point,  with  the 
Tuscan  flag  flying  from  the  staff.  The  sides  of  the 
hills  are  dotted  with  desolate  looking  buildings,  among 
which  are  one  or  two  monasteries,  and  in  rounding 
the  side  of  the  island,  we  have  passed  two  or  three 
small  villages,  perched  below  and  above  on  the  rocks. 
Off  to  the  east,  we  can  just  distinguish  Piombino,  the 
nearest  town  of  the  Italian  shore,  and  very  beautiful 
it  looks,  rising  from  the  edge  of  the  water  like  Venice, 
with  a  range  of  cloudy  hills  relieving  it  in  the  rear. 

Our  anchor  is  dropped  in  the  bay  of  Porto  Ferrajo. 
As  we  ran  lightly  in  upon  the  last  tack,  the  walls  of 
the  fort  appeared  crowded  with  people,  the  whole 
town  apparently  assembled  to  see  the  unusual  spec- 
tacle of  two  ships- of-war  entering  their  now  quiet 
waters.  A  small  curving  bay  opened  to  us,  and  as  we 
rounded  directly  under  the  walls  of  the  fort,  the  tops 
of  the  houses  in  the  town  behind,  appeared  crowded 
with  women,  whose  features  we  could  easily  distinguish 
with  a  glass.  By  the  constant  exclamations  of  the 
midshipmen,  who  were  gazing  intently  from  the  quar- 
ter deck,  there  was  among  them  a  fair  proportion  of 
beauty,  or  what  looked  like  it  in  the  distance.  Just 
below  the  summit  of  the  fort,  upon  a  terrace  com- 
manding a  view  of  the  sea,  stood  a  handsome  house, 
with  low  windows  shut  with  Venetian  blinds  and  shaded 
with  acacias,  which  the  pilot  pointed  out  to  us  as  the 
town  residence  of  Napoleon.  As  the  ship  lost  her 
way,  we  came  in  sight  of  a  gentle  amphitheatre  of 
hills  rising  away  from  the  cove,  in  a  woody  ravine  of 
which  stood  a  handsome  building,  with  eight  win- 
dows, built  by  the  exile  as  a  country-house.  Twenty 
or  thirty,  as  good  or  better,  spot  the  hills  around, 
ornamented  with  avenues  and  orchards  of  low  olive- 
trees.  It  is  altogether  a  rural  scene,  and  disappoints 
us  agreeably  after  the  barren  promise  of  the  outer 
sides  of  the  isle. 

The  Constellation  came  slowly  in  after  us,  with 
every  sail  set,  and  her  tops  crowded  with  men,  and  as 
she  fell  under  the  stern  of  the  commodore's  ship,  the 
word  was  given,  and  her  vast  quantity  of  sail  was 
furled  with  that  wonderful  alacrity  which  so  astonishes 
a  landsman.  I  have  been  continually  surprised  in  the 
few  days  that  I  have  been  on  board,  with  the  wonders 
of  sea  discipline  ;  but  for  a  spectacle,  I  have  seen 
nothing  more  imposing  than  the  entrance  of  these  two 
beautiful  frigates  into  the  little  port  of  Elba,  and  their 
magical  management.  The  anchors  were  dropped, 
the  yards  came  down  by  the  run,  the  sails  disappeared, 
the  living  swarm  upon  the  rigging  slid  below,  all  in  a 
moment,  and  then  struck  up  the  delightful  band  on 


our  quarter  deck,  and  the  sailors  leaned  on  the  guns, 
the  officers  on  the  quarter  railing,  and  boats  from  the 
shore  filled  with  ladies,  lay  off  at  different  distances, 
the  whole  scene  as  full  of  repose  and  enjoyment,  as  if 
we  had  lain  idle  for  a  month  in  these  glassy  waters. 
How  beautiful  are  the  results  of  order  i 

We  had  made  every  preparation  for  a  pic-nic  party 
to  the  country-house  of  Napoleon  yesterday — but  it 
rained.  At  sunset,  however,  the  clouds  crowdedinto 
vast  masses,  and  the  evening  gave  a  glorious  promise, 
which  was  fulfilled  this  morning  in  freshness  and  sun- 
shine. The  commodore's  barge  took  off  the  ladies 
for  an  excursion  on  horseback  to  the  iron  mines,  on 
the  other  side  of  the  island — the  midshipmen  were  set 
ashore  in  various  directions  for  a  ramble,  and  I, 
tempted  with  the  beauty  of  the  ravine  which  enclosed 
the  villa  of  Napoleon,  declined  all  invitations  with  an 
eye  to  a  stroll  thither. 

We  were  first  set  ashore  at  the  mole  to  see  the  town. 
A  medley  crowd  of  soldiers,  citizens,  boys,  girls,  and 
galley-slaves,  received  us  at  the  landing,  and  followed 
us  up  to  the  town-square,  gazing  at  the  officers  with 
undisguised  curiosity.  We  met  several  gentlemen 
from  the  other  ship  at  the  cafe,  and  taking  a  cicerone 
together,  started  for  the  town-residence  of  the  emper- 
or. It  is  now  occupied  by  the  governor,  and  stands  on 
the  summit  of  the  little  fortified  city.  We  mounted 
by  clean  excellent  pavements,  getting  a  good-natured 
"  buon  giornol"  from  every  female  head  thrust  from 
beneath  the  blinds  of  the  houses.  The  governor's 
aid  received  us  at  the  door,  with  his  cap  in  his  hand, 
and  we  commenced  the  tour  of  the  rooms  with  all  the 
household,  male  and  female,  following  to  gaze  at  us. 
Napoleon  lived  on  the  first  floor.  The  rooms  were  as 
small  as  those  of  a  private  house,  and  painted  in  the 
pretty  fresco  common  in  Italy.  The  furniture  was  all 
changed,  and  the  fireplaces  and  two  busts  of  the  em- 
peror's sisters  (Eliza  and  Pauline)  were  all  that  re- 
mained as  it  was.  The  library  is  a  pretty  room,  though 
very  small,  and  opens  on  a  terrace  level  with  his  favor- 
ite garden.  The  plants  and  lemon-trees  were  planted 
by  himself,  we  were  told,  and  the  officers  plucked  sou- 
venirs on  all  sides.  The  officer  who  accompanied  us 
was  an  old  soldier  of  Napoleon's,  and  a  native  of  Elba, 
and  after  a  little  of  the  reluctance  common  to  the  teller 
of  an  oft-told  tale,  he  gave  us  some  interesting  partic- 
ulars of  the  emperor's  residence  at  the  island.  It  ap- 
pears that  he  employed  himself,  from  the  first  day  of 
his  arrival,  in  the  improvement  of  his  little  territory, 
making  roads,  &c.,and  behaved  quite  like  a  man,  who 
had  made  up  his  mind  to  relinquish  ambition,  and  con- 
tent himself  with  what  was  about  him.  Three  as- 
sassins were  discovered  and  captured  in  the  course  of 
the  eleven  months,  the  first  two  of  whom  he  pardon- 
ed. The  third  made  an  attempt  upon  his  life,  in  the 
disguise  of  a  beggar,  at  a  bridge  leading  to  his  country- 
house,  and  was  condemned  and  executed.  He  was  a 
native  of  the  emperor's  own  birthplace  in  Corsica. 

The  second  floor  was  occupied  by  his  mother  and 
Pauline.  The  furniture  of  the  chamber  of  the  re- 
nowned beauty  is  very  much  as  she  left  it.  The  bed 
is  small,  and  the  mirror  opposite  its  foot  very  large,  and 
in  a  mahogany  frame.  Small  mirrors  were  set  also  in 
to  the  bureau,  and  in  the  back  of  a  pretty  cabinet  of 
dark  wood  standing  at  the  head  of  the  bed.  It  is  de- 
lightful to  breathe  the  atmosphere  of  a  room  that  has 
been  the  home  of  the  lovely  creature  whose  marble 
image  by  Canova  thrills  every  beholder  with  love,  and 
is  fraught  with  such  pleasing  associations.  Her  sit- 
ting-room, though  «ss  interesting,  made  us  linger  and 
muse  again.  It  looks  out  over  the  sea  to  the  west,  and 
the  prospect  is  beautiful.  One  forgets  that  her  histo- 
ry could  not  be  written  without  many  a  blot.  How 
much  we  forgive  to  beauty/!  Of  all  the  female  branch- 
es of  the  Bonaparte  family.  Pauline  bore  the  greatest 


90 


PENCILLINGS  BY  THE  WAY. 


resemblance  to  her  brother  Napoleon.  But  the  grand 
and  regular  profile  which  was  in  him  marked  with  the 
stern  air  of  sovereignty  and  despotic  rule,  was  in  her 
tempered  with  an  enchanting  softness  and  fascinating 
smile.  Her  statue,  after  the  Venus  de  Medicis,  is  the 
chefd'osuvre  of  modern  sculpture. 

We  went  from  the  governor's  house  to  the  walls  of 
the  town,  loitering  along  and  gazing  at  the  sea;  and 
then  rambled  through  the  narrow  streets  of  the  town, 
attracting,  by  the  gay  uniforms  of  the  officers,  the  at- 
tentfon  and  courtesies  of  every  smooched  petticoat  far 
and  near.  What  the  faces  of  the  damsels  of  Elba 
might  be,  if  washed,  we  could  hardly  form  a  conjec- 
ture 

The  country-house  of  Napoleon  is  three  miles  from 
the  town,  a  little  distance  from  the  shore,  farther  round 
into  the  bay.  Captain  Nicholson  proposed  to  walk 
to  it,  and  send  his  boat  across — a  warmer  task  for  the 
mid-day  of  an  Italian  June  than  a  man  of  less  enter- 
prise would  choose  for  pleasure.  We  reached  the 
stone  steps  of  the  imperial  casino,  after  a  melting  and 
toilsome  walk,  hungry  and  thirsty,  and  were  happy  to 
fling  ourselves  upon  broken  chairs  in  the  denuded 
drawing-room,  and  wait  for  an  extempore  dinner  of 
twelve  eggs  and  bottle  of  wine  as  bitter  as  criticism. 
A  farmer  and  his  family  live  in  the  house,  and  a  couple 
of  bad  busts  and  the  fireplaces,  are  all  that  remain  of 
its  old  appearance.  The  situation  and  the  view,  how- 
ever, are  superb.  A  little  lap  of  a  valley  opens  right 
away  from  the  door  to  the  bosom  of  the  bay,  and  in 
the  midst  of  the  glassy  basin  lies  the  bold  peninsular 
promontory  and  fortification  of  Porto  Ferrajo,  like  a 
castle  in  a  loch,  connected  with  the  body  of  the  island 
by  a  mere  rib  of  sand.  Off  beyond  sleeps  the  main- 
land of  Italy,  mountain  and  vale,  like  a  smoothly- 
shaped  bed  of  clouds ;  and  for  the  foreground  of  the 
landscape,  the  valleys  of  Elba  are  just  now  green 
with  fig-trees  and  vines,  speckled  here  and  there  with 
fields  of  golden  grain,  and  farmhouses  shaded  with  all 
the  trees  of  this  genial  climate. 

We  examined  the  place,  after  our  frugal  dinner,  and 
found  a  natural  path  under  the  edge  of  the  hill  behind, 
stretching  away  back  into  the  valley,  and  leading,  af- 
ter a  short  walk,  to  a  small  stream  and  a  waterfall. 
Across  it,  just  above  the  fall,  lay  the  trunk  of  an  old 
and  vigorous  fig-tree,  full  of  green  limbs,  and  laden 
with  fruit  half  ripe.  It  made  a  natural  bridge  over  the 
stream,  and  as  its  branches  shaded  the  rocks  below, 
we  could  easily  imagine  Napoleon,  walking  to  and  fro 
in  the  smooth  path,  and  seating  himself  on  the  broad- 
est stone  in  the  heat  of  the  summer  evenings  he  pass- 
ed on  the  spot.  It  was  the  only  walk  about  the  place, 
and  a  secluded  and  pleasant  one.  The  groves  of  firs 
and  brush  above,  and  the  locust  and  cherry-trees  on 
the  edges  of  the  walk,  are  old  enough  to  have  shaded 
him.  We  sat  and  talked  under  the  influence  of  the 
"  genius  of  the  spot,"  till  near  sunset,  and  then,  cut- 
ting each  a  walking-stick  from  the  shoots  of  the  old 
fig-tree,  returned  to  the  boats  and  reached  the  ship  as 
the  band  struck  up  their  exhilarating  music  for  the 
evening  on  the  quarter-deck. 


We  have  passed  two  or  three  days  at  Elba  most 
agreeably.  The  weather  has  been  fine,  and  the  ships 
have  been  thronged  with  company.  The  common 
people  of  the  town  come  on  board  in  boat-loads,  men, 
women,  and  children,  and  are  never  satisfied  with  ga- 
zing and  wondering.  The  inhabitants  speak  very  pure 
Tuscan,  and  are  mild  and  simple  in  their  manners. 
They  all  take  the  ships  to  be  bound  upon  a  mere  voy- 
age of  pleasure  ;  and,  with  the  officers  in  their  gay 
dresses,  and  the  sailors  in  their  clean  white  and  blue, 
the  music  morning  and  evening,  and  the  general  gay- 
ety  on  board,  the  impression  is  not  much  to  be  won- 
dered at. 


Yesterday,  after  dinner,  Captain  Nicholson  took  us 
ashore  in  his  gig,  to  pass  an  hour  or  two  in  the  shade. 
His  steward  followed,  with  a  bottle  or  two  of  old  wine, 
and  landing  near  the  fountain  to  which  the  boats  are 
sent  for  water,  we  soon  found  a  spreading  fig-tree,  and, 
with  a  family  of  the  country  people  from  a  neighbor- 
ing cottage  around  us,  we  idled  away  the  hours  till 
the  cool  of  the  evening.  The  simplicity  of  the  old 
man  and  his  wife,  and  the  wonder  of  himself  and  sev- 
eral laborers  in  his  vineyard,  to  whom  the  captain  gave 
a  glass  or  two  of  his  excellent  wines,  would  have  made 
a  study  for  Wilkie.  Sailors  are  merry  companions  for 
a  party  like  this.  We  returned  over  the  unruffled  ex- 
panse of  the  bay,  charmed  with  the  beauty  of  the 
scene  by  sunset,  and  as  happy  as  a  life,  literally  sans 
souci,  could  make  us.  What  is  it,  in  this  rambling  ab 
sence  from  all  to  which  we  look  forward  to  in  love  and 
hope,  that  so  fascinates  the  imagination  ? 

I  went,  in  the  commodore's  suite,  to  call  upon  the 
governor  this  morning.  He  is  a  military,  command- 
ing looking  man,  and  received  us  in  Napoleon's  sa- 
loon, surrounded  by  his  officers.  He  regretted  that 
his  commission  did  not  permit  him  to  leave  the  shore, 
even  to  visit  a  ship,  but  offered  a  visit  on  the  part  of 
his  sister  and  a  company  of  the  first  ladies  of  the  town. 
They  came  off  this  evening.  She  was  a  lady-like 
woman,  not  very  pretty,  of  thirty  years  perhaps.  As 
she  spoke  only  Italian,  she  was  handed  over  to  me,  and 
I  waited  on  her  through  the  ship,  explaining  a  great 
many  things  of  which  I  knew  as  much  as  herself. 
This  visit  over,  we  get  under  way  to-morrow  morning 
for  Naples. 


LETTER  LXIII. 


VISIT    TO    NAPLES,   HERCULANEUM,   AND  POMPEII. 

I  have  passed  my  first  day  in  Naples  in  wandering 
about,  without  any  definite  object.  I  have  walked 
around  its  famous  bay,  looked  at  the  lazzaroni,  watch- 
ed the  smoke  of  Vesuvius,  traversed  the  square  where 
the  young  Conradine  was  beheaded  and  Masaniello 
commenced  his  revolt,  mounted  to  the  castle  of  St. 
Elmo,  and  dined  on  macaroni  in  a  trattoria,  where  the 
Italian  I  had  learned  in  Tuscany  was  of  little  more 
use  to  me  than  Greek. 

The  bay  surprised  me  most.  It  is  a  collection  of 
beauties,  which  seems  more  a  miracle  than  an  acci 
dent  of  nature.  It  is  a  deep  crescent  of  sixteen 
miles  across  and  a  little  more  in  length,  between  the 
points  of  which  lies  a  chain  of  low  mountains,  called 
the  island  of  Capri,  looking,  from  the  shore,  like  a 
vast  heap  of  clouds  brooding  at  sea.  In  the  bosom  of 
the  crescent  lies  Naples.  Its  palaces  and  principal 
buildings  cluster  around  the  base  of  an  abrupt  hill 
crowned  by  the  castle  of  St.  Elmo,  and  its  half  mill- 
ion of  inhabitants  have  stretched  their  dwellings  over 
the  plain  toward  Vesuvius,  and  back  upon  Posilipo, 
bordering  the  curve  of  the  shore  on  the  right  and  left, 
with  a  broad  white  band  of  city  and  village  for  twelve 
or  fourteen  miles.  Back  from  this,  on  the  southern 
side,  a  very  gradual  ascent  brings  your  eye  to  the  base 
of  Vesuvius,  which  rises  from  the  plain  in  a  sharp 
cone,  broken  in  at  the  top,  its  black  and  lava-streaked 
sides  descending  with  the  evenness  of  a  sand-hill,  on 
one  side  to  the  disinterred  city  of  Pompeii,  and  on 
the  other  to  the  royal  palace  of  Portici,  built  over  the 
yet  unexplored  Herculaneum.  In  the  centre  of  the 
crescent  of  the  shore,  projecting  into  the  sea  by  a 
bridge  of  two  or  three  hundred  feet  in  length,  stands 
a  small  castle  built  upon  a  rock,  on  one  side  of  which 
lies  the  mole  with  its  shipping.  The  other  side  is 
bordered,  close  to  the  beach,  with  the  gardens  of  the 


PENCILLINGS  BY  THE  WAY. 


91 


oyal  villa,  a  magnificent  promenade  of  a  mile,  orna- 
mented with  fancy  temples  nod  statuary,  on  the  smooth 
alleys  of  which  may  be  mot,  at  certain  hours,  all  that 
is  brilliant  and  gay  in  Naples.  Farther  on,  toward  the 
northern  horn  of  the  bay,  lies  the  mount  of  Posilipo, 
the  ancient  coast  of  Baise,  Cape  Mysene,  and  the 
mountain  isles  of  Procida  and  Ischia,  the  last  of  which 
still  preserves  the  costumes  of  Greece,  from  which  it 
was  colonized  centuries  ago.  The  bay  itself  is  as  blue 
as  the  sky,  scarcely  ruffled  all  day  with  the  wind,  and 
covered  by  countless  boats  fishing  or  creeping  on  with 
their  picturesque  lateen  sails  just  filled  ;  while  the  at- 
mosphere oversea,  city,  and  mountain,  is  of  a  clearness 
and  brilliancy  which  is  inconceivable  in  other  coun- 
tries. The  superiority  of  the  sky  and  climate  of  Ita- 
ly is  no  fable  in  any  part  of  this  delicious  land — but 
in  Naples,  if  the  day  I  have  spent  here  is  a  fair  speci- 
men, it  is  matchless  even  for  Italy.  There  is  some- 
thing like  a  fine  blue  veil  of  a  most  dazzling  transpa- 
rency over  the  mountains  around,  but  above  and  be- 
tween there  seems  nothing  but  viewless  space — noth- 
ing like  air  that  a  bird  could  rise  upon.  The  eye  gets 
intoxicated  almost  with  gazing  on  it. 


We  have  just  returned  from  our  first  excursion  to 
Pompeii.  It  lies  on  the  southern  side  of  the  bay,  just 
below  the  volcano  which  overwhelmed  it,  about  twelve 
miles  from  Naples.  The  road  lay  along  the  shore, 
and  is  lined  with  villages  which  are  only  separated  by 
name.  The  first  is  Portici,  where  the  king  has  a  sum- 
mer palace,  through  the  court  of  which  the  road  pass- 
es. It  is  built  over  Herculaneum,  and  the  danger  of 
undermining  it  has  stopped  the  excavations  of  unques- 
tionably the  richest  city  buried  by  Vesuvius.  We 
stopped  at  a  little  gate  in  the  midst  of  the  village,  and 
taking  a  guide  and  two  torches,  descended  to  the  only 
part  of  it  now  visible,  by  near  a  hundred  steps.  We 
found  ourselves  at  the  back  of  an  amphitheatre.  We 
entered  the  narrow  passage,  and  the  guide  pointed  to 
several  of  the  upper  seats  for  the  spectators  which 
had  been  partially  dug  out.  They  were  lined  with 
marble,  as  the  whole  amphitheatre  appears  to  have 
been.  To  realize  the  effect  of  these  ruins,  it  is  to  be 
remembered  that  they  are  imbedded  in  solid  lava,  like 
rock,  near  a  hundred  feet  deep,  and  that  the  city  which 
is  itself  ancient  is  built  above  them.  The  carriage  in 
which  we  came  stood  high  over  our  heads,  in  a  time- 
worn  street,  and  ages  had  passed  and  many  generations 
of  men  had  lived  and  died  over  a  splendid  city,  whose 
very  name  had  been  forgotten!  It  was  discovered  in 
sinking  a  well,  which  struck  the  door  of  the  amphi- 
theatre. The  guide  took  us  through  several  other 
long  passages,  dug  across  and  around  it,  showing  us 
the  orchestra,  the  stage,  the  numerous  entrances,  and 
the  bases  of  several  statues  which  are  taken  to  the 
museum  at  Naples.  This  is  the  only  part  of  the  ex- 
cavation that  remains  open,  the  others  having  again 
been  filled  with  rubbish.  The  noise  of  the  carriages 
overhead  in  the  street  of  Portici  was  like  a  deafening 
thunder. 

In  a  hurry  to  get  to  Pompeii,  which  is  much  more 
interesting,  we  ascended  to  daylight,  and  drove  on. — 
Coasting  along  the  curve  of  the  bay,  with  only  a  suc- 
cession of  villas  and  gardens  between  us  and  the  beach, 
we  soon  came  to  Torre  del  Greco,  a  small  town  which 
was  overwhelmed  by  an  eruption  thirty-nine  years  ago. 
Vesuvius  here  rises  gradually  on  the  left,  the  crater 
being  at  a  distance  of  five  miles.  The  road  crossed 
the  bed  of  dry  lava,  which  extends  to  the  sea  in  a 
broad  black  mass  of  cinders,  giving  the  country  the  most 
desolate  aspect.  The  town  is  rebuilt  just  beyond  the 
ashes,  and  the  streets  are  crowded  with  the  thought- 
less inhabitants,  who  buy  and  sell,  and  lounge  in  the 
sun,  with  no  more  remembrance  or  fear  of  the  volcano 
than  the  people  of  a  city  in  America. 


Another  half  hour  brought  us  to  a  long,  high  bank 
of  earth  and  ashes,  thrown  out  from  the  excavations  ; 
and,  passing  on,  we  stopped  at  the  gate  of  Pompeii. 
A  guide  met  us,  and  we  entered.  We  found  ourselves 
in  the  ruins  of  a  public  square,  surrounded  with  small 
low  columns  of  red  marble.  On  the  right  were  sev- 
eral small  prisons,  in  one  of  which  was  found  the 
skeleton  of  a  man  with  its  feet  in  iron  stocks.  The 
cell  was  very  small,  and  the  poor  fellow  must  have 
been  suffocated  without  even  a  hope  of  escape.  The 
columns  just  in  front  were  scratched  with  ancient 
names,  possibly  those  of  the  guard  stationed  at  the 
door  of  the  prison.  This  square  is  surrounded  with 
shops,  in  which  were  found  the  relics  and  riches  of 
tradesmen,  consisting  of  an  immense  variety.  In  one 
of  the  buildings  was  found  the  skeleton  of  a  newborn 
child,  and  in  one  part  of  the  square  the  skeletons  of 
sixty  men,  supposed  to  be  soldiers,  who,  in  the  severi- 
ty of  Roman  discipline,  dared  not  fly,  and  perished  at 
their  post.  There  were  several  advertisements  of 
gladiators  on  the  pillars,  and  it  appears  that  at  the 
time  of  the  eruption  the  inhabitants  of  Pompeii  were 
principally  assembled  in  the  great  amphitheatre,  at  a 
show. 

We  left  the  square,  and  visiting  several  small  pri- 
vate houses  near  it,  passed  into  a  street  with  a  slight 
ascent,  the  pavement  of  which  was  worn  deep  with 
carriage-wheels.  It  appeared  to  have  led  from  the  up- 
per part  of  the  city  directly  to  the  sea,  and  in  rainy 
weather  must  have  been  quite  a  channel  for  water,  as 
high  stones  at  small  distances  were  placed  across  the 
street,  leaving  open  places  between  for  the  carriage 
wheels.  (I  think  there  is  a  contrivance  of  the  same 
kind  in  one  of  the  streets  of  Baltimore.) 

We  mounted  thence  to  higher  ground,  the  part  of 
the  city  not  excavated.  A  peasant's  hut  and  a  iarge 
vineyard  stand  high  above  the  ruins,  and  from  the  door 
the  whole  city  and  neighborhood  are  seen  to  advan- 
tage. The  effect  of  the  scene  is  strange  beyond  de- 
scription. Columns,  painted  walls,  wheelworn  streets, 
amphitheatres,  palaces,  all  as  lonely  and  deserted  as 
the  grave,  stand  around  you,  and  behind  is  a  poor  cot- 
tage and  a  vineyard  of  fresh  earth  just  putting  forth 
its  buds,  and  beyond  the  broad,  blue,  familiar  bay,  cov- 
ered with  steamboats  and  sails,  and  populous  modern 
Naples  in  the  distance — a  scene  as  strangely  mingled? 
perhaps,  as  any  to  be  found  in  the  world.  We  looked 
around  for  a  while,  and  then  walked  on  through  the 
vineyard  to  the  amphitheatre  which  lies  beyond,  near 
the  other  gate  of  the  city.  It  is  a  gigantic  ruin,  com- 
pletely excavated,  and  capable  of  containing  twenty 
thousand  spectators.  The  form  is  oval,  and  the  archi- 
tecture particularly  fine.  Besides  the  many  vomitories 
or  passages  for  ingress  and  egress,  there  are  three  small- 
er alleys,  one  used  as  the  entrance  for  wild  beasts,  one 
for  the  gladiators,  and  the  third  as  that  by  which  the 
dead  were  taken  away.  The  skeletons  of  eight  lions 
and  a  man,  supposed  to  be  their  keeper,  were  found  in 
one  of  the  dens  beneath,  and  those  of  five  other  per- 
sons near  the  different  doors.  It  is  presumed  that  the 
greater  proportion  of  the  inhabitants  of  Pompeii  must 
have  escaped  by  sea,  as  the  eruption  occurred  while 
they  were  nearly  all  assembled  on  this  spot,  and  these 
few  skeletons  only  have  been  found.* 

We  returned  through  the  vineyard,  and  stopping  at 
the  cottage,  called  for  some  of  the  wine  of  the  last 
vintage  (delicious,  like  all  those  in  the  neighborhood 
j  of  Vesuvius),  and  producing  our  basket  of  provisions, 
made  a  most  agreeable  dinner.  Two  parties  of  Eng- 
lish passed  while  we  were  sitting  at  our  out-of-doors 
table.  Our  attendant  was  an  uncommonly  pretty 
girl  of  sixteen,  born  on  the  spot,  and  famous  just  now 
as  the  object  of  a  young  English  nobleman's  particu- 
lar admiration.     She  is  a  fine,  dark-eyed  creature,  but 

•  "  The  number  of  skeletons  hitherto  disinterred  in  Pom- 
peii and  its  suburbs  is  three  hundred." — Stark. 


92 


PENCILLINGS  BY  THE  WAY. 


certainly  no  prettier  than  every  fifth  peasant  girl  in  Italy. 
Having  finished  our  picturesque  meal,  we  went  down 
into  the  ancient  streets  once  more,  and  arrived  at  the 
small  temple  of  Isis,  a  building  in  excellent  preserva- 
tion. On  the  altar  stood,  when  it  was  excavated,  a 
small  statue  of  Isis,  of  exquisite  workmanship  (now 
in  the  museum,  to  which  all  the  curiosities  of  the 
place  are  carried),  and  behind  this  we  were  shown  the 
secret  penetralia,  where  the  priests  were  concealed 
who  uttered  the  oracles  supposed  to  be  pronounced  by 
the  goddess.  The  access  was  by  a  small  secret  flight 
of  stairs,  communicating  with  the  apartments  of  the 
priests  in  the  rear.  The  largest  of  these  apartments 
was  probably  the  refectory,  and  here  was  found  a  hu- 
man skeleton  near  a  table,  upon  which  lay  dinner 
utensils,  chicken  bones,  bones  of  fishes,  bread  and 
wine,  and  a  faded  garland  of  flowers.  In  the  kitchen, 
which  we  next  visited,  were  found  cooking  utensils, 
remains  of  food,  and  the  skeleton  of  a  man  leaning 
against  the  wall  with  an  axe  in  his  hand,  and  near  him 
a  considerable  hole,  which  he  had  evidently  cut  to 
make  his  escape  when  the  door  was  stopped  by  cinders. 
The  skeleton  of  one  of  the  priests  was  found  prostrate 
near  the  temple,  and  in  his  hand  three  hundred  and 
sixty  coins  of  silver,  forty-two  of  bronze,  and  eight  of 
gold,  wrapped  strongly  in  a  cloth.  He  had  probably 
stopped  before  his  flight  to  load  himself  with  the 
treasures  of  the  temple,  and  was  overtaken  by  the 
shower  of  cinders  and  suffocated.  The  skeletons  of 
one  or  two  were  found  upon  beds,  supposed  to  have 
been  smothered  while  asleep  or  ill.  The  temple  is 
beautifully  paved  with  mosaic  (as  indeed  are  all  the 
better  private  houses  and  public  buildings  of  Pom- 
peii), and  the  open  inner  court  is  bordered  with  a 
quadrilateral  portico.  The  building  is  of  the  Roman 
Doric  order.  (I  have  neither  time  nor  room  to  enu- 
merate the  curiosities  found  here  and  in  the  other  parts 
of  the  city,  and  I  only  notice  those  which  most  im- 
pressed my  memory.  The  enumeration  by  Madame 
Stark,  will  be  found  exceedingly  interesting  to  those 
who  have  not  read  her  laconic  guide-book.) 

We  passed  next  across  a  small  street  to  the  tragic 
theatre,  a  large  handsome  building,  where  the  seats  for 
the  vestals,  consuls,  and  other  places  of  honor,  are 
well  preserved,  and  thence  up  the  hill  to  the  temple 
of  Hercules,  which  must  have  been  a  noble  edifice, 
commanding  a  superb  view  of  the  sea. 

The  next  object  was  the  triangular  forum,  an  open 
space  surrounded  with  three  porticoes,  supported  by 
a  hundred  Doric  columns.  Here  were  found  several 
skeletons,  one  of  which  was  that  of  a  man  who  had 
loaded  himself  with  plunder.  Gold  and  silver  coins, 
cups,  rings,  spoons,  buckles,  and  other  things,  were 
found  under  him.  Near  here,  under  the  ruins  of  a 
wall,  were  discovered  skeletons  of  a  man  and  a  wo- 
man, and  on  the  arms  of  the  latter  two  beautiful 
bracelets  of  gold. 

We  entered  from  this  a  broad  street,  lined  with 
shops,  against  the  walls  of  which  were  paintings  in 
fresco  and  inscriptions  in  deep-red  paint,  representing 
the  occupations  and  recording  the  names  of  the  occu- 
pants. In  one  of  them  was  found  a  piece  of  salt-fish, 
smelling  strongly  after  seventeen  centuries!  In  a 
small  lane  leading  from  this  street,  the  guide  led  us  to 
a  shop,  decorated  with  pictures  of  fish  of  various 
kinds,  and  furnished  with  a  stove,  marble  dressers,  ;u^l 
earthen  jars,  supposed  to  have  belonged  to  a  vender  of 
fish  and  olives.  A  little  further  en  was  a  baker's  shop, 
with  a  well-used  oven,  in  which  was  found  a  batch  of 
bread  burnt  to  a  cinder.  Near  this  was  the  house  of  a 
midwife.  In  it  were  found  several  instruments  of  a 
simple  and  excellent  construction,  unknown  to  the 
moderns,  a  forceps,  remains  of  medicines  in  a  wooden 
box,  and  various  pestles  and  mortars.  The  walls  were 
ornamented  with  frescoes  of  the  Graces,  Venus,  and 
Adonis,  and  similar  subjects. 


The  temple  of  the  pantheon  is  a  magnificent  ruin, 
and  must  have  been  one  of  the  choicest  in  Pompeii. 
Its  walls  are  decorated  with  exquisite  paintings  in  fresco, 
arabesques,  mosaics,  &c,  and  its  court  is  one  hundred 
and  eighty  feet  long,  and  two  hundred  and  thirty  broad, 
and  contains  an  altar,  around  which  are  twelve  pedes- 
tals for  statues  of  the  twelve  principal  deities  of  the 
ancients.  Gutters  of  marble  are  placed  at  the  base  of 
the  triclinium,  to  carry  away  the  blood  of  the  victims. 
A  thousand  coins  of  bronze,  and  forty  or  fifty  of  silver, 
were  found  near  the  sanctuary. 

We  passed  on  to  the  Curea,  a  semicircular  building, 
for  the  discussion  of  matters  of  religion  by  the  magis- 
trates ;  a  temple  of  Romulus  ;  the  remains  of  a  tem- 
ple of  Janus  ;  a  splendid  building  called  the  chalcidi- 
cum,  constructed  by  the  priestess  Eumachea  and  her 
son,  and  dedicated  as  a  temple  of  concord,  and  came 
at  last,  by  a  regular  ascent,  into  a  large  and  spacious 
square,  called  the  forum  civile.  This  part  of  the  city 
of  Pompeii  must  have  been  extremely  imposing. 
Porticoes,  supported  by  noble  columns,  encompassed 
its  vast  area  ;  the  pedestals  of  colossal  statues,  erected 
to  distinguished  citizens,  are  placed  at  the  corners  ;  at 
the  northern  extremity  rose  a  stately  temple  of  Jupiter; 
on  the  right  was  another  temple  to  Venus  ;  beyond,  a 
large  public  edifice,  the  use  of  which  is  not  known; 
across  the  narrow  street  which  bounds  it  stood  the 
Basilica,  an  immense  building,  which  served  as  a  court 
of  justice  and  an  exchange. 

We  passed  out  at  the  gate  of  the  city  and  stopped 
at  a  sentry-box,  in  which  was  found  a  skeleton  in  full 
armor — a  soldier  who  had  died  at  his  post !  From 
hence  formerly  the  road  descended  directly  to  the  sea, 
and  for  some  distance  was  lined  on  either  side  with  the 
magnificent  tombs  of  the  Pompeians.  Among  them 
was  that  of  the  vestal  virgins,  left  unfinished  when 
the  city  was  destroyed  ;  a  very  handsome  tomb,  in 
which  was  found  the  skeleton  of  a  woman,  with  a  lamp 
in  one  hand  and  jewels  in  the  other  (who  had  probably 
attempted  to  rob  before  her  flight),  and  a  very  hand- 
some square  monument,  with  a  beautiful  relievo  on 
one  of  the  slabs,  representing  (as  emblematic  of  death) 
a  ship  furling  her  sails  on  coming  into  port.  Near 
one  of  the  large  family  sepulchres  stands  a  small  semi- 
circular room,  intended  for  the  funeral  feast  after  a 
burial ;  and  here  were  found  the  remains  of  three  men 
around  a  table,  scattered  with  relics  of  a  meal.  They 
were  overwhelmed  ere  their  feast  was  concluded  over 
the  dead  ! 

The  principal  inn  of  Pompeii  was  just  inside  the 
gate.  We  went  over  the  ruins  of  it.  The  skeleton 
of  an  ass  was  found  chained  to  a  ring  in  the  stable,  and 
the  tire  of  a  wheel  lay  in  the  court  yard.  Chequers 
are  painted  on  the  side  of  the  door,  as  a  sign. 

Below  the  tombs  stands  the  "  suburban  villa  of 
Diomed,"  one  of  the  most  sumptuous  edifices  of 
Pompeii.  Here  was  found  everything  that  the  age 
could  furnish  for  the  dwelling  of  a  man  of  wealth. 
Statues,  frescoes,  jewels,  wine,  household  utensils  of 
every  description,  skeletons  of  servants  and  dogs,  and 
every  kind  of  elegant  furniture.  The  family  was  large, 
and  in  the  first  moment  of  terror,  they  all  retreated  to 
a  wine  vault  under  the  villa,  where  their  skeletons 
(eighteen  grown  persons  and  two  children)  were  found 
seventeen  centuries  after  !  There  was  really  some- 
thing startling  in  walking  through  the  deserted  rooms 
of  this  beautiful  villa — more  than  one  feels  elsewhere 
in  Pompeii,  for  it  is  more  like  the  elegance  and  taste 
of  our  own  day  ;  and  with  the  brightness  of  the  pre- 
served walls,  and  the  certainty  with  which  the  use  of 
each  room  is  ascertained,  it  seems  as  if  the  living  in- 
habitant would  step  from  some  corner  and  welcome 
you.  The  fiaures  on  the  walls  are  as  fresh  as  if  done 
yesterday.  The  baths  look  as  if  they  might  scarce  be 
dry  from  use.  It  seems  incredible  that  the  whole 
Christian  age  has  elapsed  since  this  was  a   human 


PENCILLINGS  BY  THE  WAY. 


dwelling — occupied  by  its  last  family  while  our  Savior 
was  walking  the  world! 

It  would  be  tedious  to  enumerate  all  the  curious 
places  to  which  the  guide  led  us  in  this  extraordinary 
city.  On  our  return  through  the  streets,  among  the  ob- 
jects of  interest  was  the  home  of  Sallust,  the  historian. 
I  did  not  think,  when  reading  his  beautiful  latin  at 
school,  that  I  should  ever  sit  down  in  his  parlor ! 
Sallust  was  rich,  and  his  house  is  uncommonly  hand- 
some. Here  is  his  chamber,  his  inner  court,  his 
kitchen,  his  garden,  his  dining-room,  his  guest  cham- 
ber, all  perfectly  distinguishable  by  the  symbolical 
frescoes  on  the  walls.  In  the  court  was  a  fountain  of 
pretty  construction,  and  opposite,  in  the  rear,  was  a 
flower-garden,  containing  arrangements  for  dining  in 
open  air  in  summer.  The  skeleton  of  a  female  (suppo- 
sed to  be  the  wife  of  the  historian)  and  three  servants, 
known  by  their  different  ornaments,  were  found  near 
the  door  of  the  street. 

We  passed  a  druggist's  shop  and  a  cook-shop,  and 
entered,  treading  on  a  beautiful  mosaic  floor,  the 
"  house  of  the  dramatic  poet,"  so  named,  from  the 
character  of  the  paintings  with  which  it  is  ornamented 
throughout.  The  frescoes  found  here  are  the  finest 
ancient  paintings  in  the  world,  and  from  some  pecu- 
liarity in  the  rings  upon  the  fingers  of  the  female 
figures,  they  are  supposed  to  be  family  portraits.  With 
assistance  like  this,  how  easily  the  imagination  repeo- 
ples  these  deserted  dwellings  ! 

A  heavy  shower  drove  us  to  the  shelter  of  the  wine- 
vaults  of  Diomed,  as  we  were  about  stepping  into  our 
carriage  to  return  to  Naples.  We  spent  the  time  in 
exploring,  and  found  some  thirty  or  forty  earthen  jars 
still  half-buried  in  the  ashes  which  drifted  through  the 
loop-holes  of  the  cellar.  In  another  half  hour  the 
black  cloud  had  passed  away  over  Vesuvius,  and  the 
sun  set  behind  Posilipo  in  a  flood  of  splendor.  We 
were  at  home  soon  after  dark,  having  had  our  fill  of 
astonishment  for  once.  I  have  seen  nothing  in  my  life 
so  remarkable  as  this  disentombed  city.  I  have  passed 
over,  in  the  description,  many  things  which  were  well 
worth  noting,  but  it  would  have  grown  into  a  mere 
catalogue  else.  You  should  come  to  Italy.  It  is  a 
privilege  to  realize  these  things  which  could  not  be 
bought  too  dearly,  and  they  can  not  be  realized  but 
by  the  eye.  Description  conveys  but  a  poor  shadow 
of  them  to  the  fancy. 


LETTER  LXIV. 

ACCOUNT  OF  VESUVIUS — THE  HERMITAGE — THE  FAMOUS 
LAGRIMA  CHRISTI — DIFFICULTIES  OF  THE  PATH — CU- 
RIOUS APPEARANCE  OF  THE  OLD  CRATER — ODD  AS- 
SEMBLAGE    OF      TRAVELLERS — THE     NEW     CRATER 

SPLENDID  PROSPECT — MR.  MATHIAS,  AUTHOR  OF  THE 
PURSUITS  OF  LITERATURE — THE  ARCHBISHOP  OF  TA- 
RENTO. 

Mounted  upon  asses  much  smaller  than  their  ri- 
ders, and  with  each  a  barelegged  driver  behind,  we 
commenced  the  ascent  of  Vesuvius.  It  was  a  trou- 
blesome path  worn  through  the  rough  scoria  of  old 
eruptions,  atiu^fter  two  hours'  toiling,  we  were  glad 
to  dismount  at  "  the  hermitage."  Here  lives  a  capu- 
chin friar  on  a  prominent  rib  in  the  side  of  the  volcano, 
the  red-hot  lava  dividing  above  his  dwelling  every  year 
or  two,  and  coursing  away  to  the  valley  in  two  rivers 
of  fire  on  either  side  of  him.  He  has  been  there 
twelve  years,  and  supports  himself,  and  probably  half 
the  brotherhood  at  the  monastery  by  selling  lagrima 
Chrisli  to  strangers.  It  is  a  small  white  building  with 
a  little  grass  and  a  few  trees  about  it,  and  looks  like  an 
island  in  the  black  waste  of  cinders  and  lava. 

A  shout  from  the  guide  was  answered  by  the  open- 


ing of  a  small  window  above,  and  the  shaven  crown 
of  the  old  friar  was  thrust  forth  with  a  welcome  and  a 
request  that  we  would  mount  the  stairs  to  the  parlor. 
He  received  us  at  the  top,  and  gave  us  chairs  around 
a  plain  board  table,  upon  which  he  set  several  bottles 
of  the  far-famed  wine  of  Vesuvius.  One  drinks  it, 
and  blesses  the  volcano  that  warmed  the  roots  of  the 
grape.  It  is  a  ripe,  rich,  full-bodied  liquor  which 
"  ascends  me  into  the  brain"  sooner  than  any  conti- 
nental wine  I  have  tasted.  I  never  drank  anything 
more  delicious. 

We  remounted  our  asses  and  rode  on,  much  more 
indifferent  than  before  to  the  roughness  of  the  path. 
It  strikes  one  like  the  road  to  the  infernal  regions. 
No  grass,  not  a  shrub,  nothing  but  a  wide  mountain 
of  cinders,  black  and  rugged,  diversified  only  by  the 
deeper  die  of  the  newer  streaks  of  lava.  The  eye 
wearied  of  gazing  on  it.  We  mounted  thus  for  an 
hour  or  more,  arriving  at  last  at  the  base  of  a  lofty 
cone  whose  sides  were  but  slopes  of  deep  ashes.  WTe 
left  our  donkeys  here  in  company  with  those  of  a  large 
party  that  had  preceded  us,  and  made  preparations  to 
ascend  on  foot.  The  drivers  unlaced  their  sashes  and 
passing  them  round  the  waists  of  the  ladies,  took  the 
ends  over  their  shoulders,  and  proceeded.  Harder 
work  could  scarce  be  conceived.  The  feet  had  no 
hold,  sinking  knee-deep  at  every  step,  and  we  slipped 
back  so  much,  that  our  progress  was  almost  imper- 
ceptible. The  ladies  were  soon  tired  out,  although 
more  than  half  dragged  up  by  the  guides.  At  every 
few  steps  there  was  a  general  cry  for  a  halt,  and  we  lay 
down  in  the  warm  ashes,  quite  breathless  and  dis- 
couraged. 

In  something  more  than  an  hour  from  the  hermit- 
age we  reached  the  edge  of  the  old  crater.  The 
scene  here  was  very  curious.  A  hollow,  perhaps  a 
mile  round,  composed  entirely  of  scoria  (like  the  cin- 
ders under  a  blacksmith's  window)  contained  in  its 
centre  the  sharp  new  cone  of  the  last  eruption. 
Around,  in  various  directions,  sat  some  thirty  groups 
of  travellers,  with  each  their  six  or  seven  Italian  guides, 
refreshing  themselves  with  a  lunch  after  the  fatigues 
of  the  ascent.  There  were  English,  Germans,  French, 
Russians,  and  Italians,  each  speaking  their  own  lan- 
guage, and  the  largest  party,  oddly  enough,  was  from 
the  United  States.  As  I  was  myself  travelling  with 
foreigners,  and  found  my  countrymen  on  Vesuvius  un- 
expectedly, the  mixture  of  nations  appeared  still  more 
extraordinary.  The  combined  heat  of  the  sun  and  the 
volcano  beneath  us,  had  compelled  the  Italians  to 
throw  off  half  their  dress,  and  they  sat,  or  stood  lean- 
ing on  their  long  pikes,  with  their  brown  faces  and 
dark  eyes  glowing  with  heat,  as  fine  models  of  ruffians 
as  ever  startled  a  traveller  in  this  land  of  bandits. 
Eight  or  ten  of  them  were  grouped  around  a  crack  in 
the  crater,  roasting  apples  and  toasting  bread.  There 
were  several  of  these  cracks  winding  about  in  different 
directions,  of  which  I  could  barely  endure  the  heat, 
holding  my  hand  at  the  top.  A  stick  thrust  in  a  foot 
or  more,  was  burnt  black  in  a  moment. 

With  another  bottle  or  two  of  "  lagrima  Christi" 
and  a  roasted  apple,  our  courage  was  renewed,  and  we 
picked  our  way  across  the  old  crater,  sometimes  lost 
in  the  smoke  which  steamed  up  through  the  cracks, 
and  here  and  there  treading  on  beautiful  beds  of  crys- 
tals of  sulphur.  The  ascent  of  the  new  cone  was 
shorter  but  very  difficult.  The  ashes  were  so  new 
and  light,  that  it  was  like  a  steep  sandbank,  giving  dis- 
couragingly  at  the  least  pressure,  and  sinking  till  the 
next  step  was  taken.  The  steams  of  sulphur  as  we 
approached  the  summit,  were  all  but  intolerable.  The 
ladies  coughed,  the  guides  sneezed  and  called  on  the 
Madonna,  and  I  never  was  more  relieved  than  in 
catching  the  first  clear  draught  of  wind  on  the  top  of 
the  mountain. 

Here  we  all  stood  at  last — crowded  together  on  the 


94 


PENCILLINGS  BY  THE  WAY. 


narrow  edge  of  a  crater  formed  within  the  year,  and 
liable  every  moment  to  be  overwhelmed  with  burning 
lava.  There  was  scarce  room  to  stand,  and  the  hot 
ashes  burnt  our  feet  as  they  sunk  into  it.  The  fe- 
males of  each  party  sunk  to  the  ground,  and  the  com- 
mon danger  and  toil  breaking  down  the  usual  stiff  bar- 
rier of  silence  between  strangers,  the  conversation  be- 
came general,  and  the  hour  on  the  crater's  edge  pass- 
ed very  agreeably. 

A  strong  lad  would  just  about  throw  a  stone  from 
one  side  to  the  other  of  the  new  crater.  It  was  about 
forty  feet  deep,  perhaps  more,  and  one  crust  of  sul- 
phur lined  the  whole.  It  was  half  the  time  obscured 
in  smoke,  which  poured  in  volumes  from  the  broad 
cracks  with  which  it  was  divided  in  every  direction, 
and  occasionally  an  eddy  of  wind  was  caught  in  the 
vast  bowl,  and  for  a  minute  its  bright  yellow  surface 
was  perfectly  clear.  There  had  not  been  an  eruption 
for  four  or  five  months,  and  the  abyss  which  is  for 
years  together  a  pit  of  fire  and  boiling  lava,  has  had 
time  to  harden  over,  and  were  it  not  for  the  smoking 
seams,  one  would  scarce  suspect  the  existence  of  the 
tremendous  volcano  slumbering  beneath. 

After  we  had  been  on  the  summit  a  few  minutes,  an 
English  clergyman  of  my  acquaintance  to  our  surprise 
emerged  from  the  smoke.  He  had  been  to  the  bottom 
for  specimens  of  sulphur  for  his  cabinet.  Contrary  to 
the  advice  of  the  guide,  I  profited  by  his  experience, 
and  disappearing  in  the  flying  clouds,  reached  the  low- 
est depths  of  the  crater  with  some  difficulties  of  foot- 
hold and  breath.  The  cracks,  which  I  crossed  twice, 
were  so  brittle  as  to  break  like  the  upper  ice  of  a  twice 
frozen  pond  beneath  my  feet,  and  the  stench  of  the  ex- 
haling gases,  was  nauseating  beyond  all  the  sulphuret- 
ted hydrogen  I  have  ever  known.  The  sensation  was 
painfully  suffocating  from  the  moment  I  entered  the 
crater.  I  broke  off  as  many  bits  of  the  bright  golden 
crystals  from  the  crust  as  my  confusion  and  failing 
strength  would  allow,  and  then  remounted,  feeling  my 
way  up  through  the  smoke  to  the  summit. 

I  can  compare  standing  on  the  top  of  Vesuvius  and 
looking  down  upou  the  bay  and  city  of  Naples,  to 
nothing  but  mounting  a  peak  in  the  infernal  regions 
overlooking  paradise.  The  larger  crater  encircles  you 
entirely  for  a  mile,  cutting  off  the  view  of  the  sides  of 
the  mountain,  and  from  the  elevation  of  the  new  cone, 
you  look  over  the  rising  edge  of  this  black  field  of  smoke 
and  cinders,  and  drop  the  eye  at  once  upon  Naples, 
lying  asleep  in  the  sun,  with  its  lazy  sails  upon  the 
water,  and  the  green  hills  enclosing  it  clad  in  the  inde- 
scribable beauty  of  an  Italian  atmosphere.  Beyond 
all  comparison,  by  the  testimony  of  every  writer  and 
traveller,  the  most  beautiful  scene  in  the  world,  the 
loveliest  water,  and  the  brightest  land,  lay  spread  out 
before  us.  With  the  stench  of  hot  sulphur  in  our 
nostrils,  ankle  deep  in  black  ashes,  and  a  waste  of 
smouldering  cinders  in  every  direction  around  us,  the 
enjoyment  of  the  view  certainly  did  not  want  for  the 
heightening  of  contrast. 

We  made  our  descent  by  jumps  through  the  sliding 
ashes,  frequently  tumbling  over  each  other,  and  re- 
tracing in  five  minutes  the  toil  of  an  hour.  Our  don- 
keys stood  tethered  together  on  the  herbless  field  of 
cinders,  and  we  were  soon  in  the  clumsy  saddles,  and 
with  a  call  at  the  hermitage,  and  a  parting  draught  of 
wine  with  the  friar,  we  reached  our  carriages  at  the 
little  village  of  Resina  in  safety.  The  feet  of  the  whole 
troop  were  in  a  wretched  condition.  The  ladies  had 
worn  shoes,  or  slight  boots,  which  were  cut  to  pieces 
of  course,  and  one  very  fine-looking  girl,  the  daughter 
of  an  elderly  French  gentleman,  had,  with  the  usual 
improvidence  of  her  nation,  started  in  satin  slippers. 
She  was  probably  lamed  for  a  month,  as  she  insisted 
on  persevering,  and  wrapped  her  feet  in  handkerchiefs 
to  return. 

We  rode  along  the  curve  of  the  bay,  by  one  of  these 


matchless  sunsets  of  Italy,  and  arrived  at  Naples  at 
dark. 

I  have  had  the  pleasure  lately  of  making  the  acquaint- 
ance of  Mr.  Malhias,  the  distinguished  author  of  the 
"  Pursuits  of  Literature,"  and  the  translator  of  Spenser 
and  other  English  poets  into  Italian.  About  twentv 
years  ago,  this  well-known  scholar  came  to  Italy  on  a 
desperate  experiment  of  health.  Finding  himself 
better,  almost  against  hope,  he  has  remained  from  year 
to  year  in  Naples,  in  love  with  the  climate  and  the 
language,  until,  at  this  day,  he  belongs  less  to  the 
English  than  the  Italian  literature,  having  written 
various  original  poems  in  Italian,  and  translated  into 
Italian  verse  to  the  wonder  and  admiration  of  the 
scholars  of  the  country.  I  found  him  this  morning 
at  his  lodgings,  in  an  old  palace  on  the  Pizzofalcone, 
buried  in  books  as  usual,  and  good-humored  enough 
to  give  an  hour  to  a  young  man,  who  had  no  claim  on 
him  beyond  the  ordinary  interest  in  a  distinguished 
scholar.  He  talked  a  great  deal  of  America  naturally, 
and  expressed  a  very  strong  friendship  for  Mr.  Everett, 
whom  he  had  met  on  his  travels,  requesting  me  at  the 
same  time  to  take  to  him  a  set  of  his  works  as  a  remem- 
brance. Mr.  Mathias  is  a  small  man,  of  perhaps  sixty 
years,  perfectly  bald,  and  a  little  inclined  to  corpulency. 
His  head  is  ample,  and  would  make  a  fine  picture  of  a 
scholar.  His  voice  is  hurried  and  modest,  and  from 
long  residence  in  Italy  his  English  is  full  of  Italian 
idioms.  He  spoke  with  rapture  of  Da  Ponte,  calling 
me  back  as  I  shut  the  door  to  ask  for  him.  It  seemed 
to  give  him  uncommon  pleasure  that  we  appreciated 
and  valued  him  in  America. 

I  have  looked  over,  this  evening,  a  small  volume, 
which  he  was  kind  enough  to  give  me.  It  is  entitled 
"  Lyric  Poetry,  by  T.  I.  Mathias,  a  new  edition,  priut- 
ed  privately."  It  is  dated  1832,  and  the  poems  were 
probably  all  written  within  the  last  two  years.  The 
shortest  extract  I  can  make  is  a  "Sonnet  to  the  Mem 
ory  of  Gray,"  which  strikes  me  as  very  beautiful. 

"  Lord  of  the  various  lyre  !  devout  we  turn 
Our  pilgrim  steps  to  thy  supreme  abode, 
And  tread  with  awe  the  solitary  road 
To  grace  with  votive  wreaths  thy  hallowed  urn. 
Yet,  as  we  wander  through  this  dark  sojourn, 
No  more  the  strains  we  hear,  that  all  abroad 
Thy  fancy  wafted,  as  the  inspiring  God 
Prompted'  the  thoughts  that  breathe,  the  words  that  burn.' 

u  But  hark  !   a  voice  in  solemn  accents  clear 
Bursts  from  heaven's  vault  that  glows  with  temperate  fire  ; 
Cease,  mortal,  cease  to  drop  the  fruitless  tear, 
Mute  though  the  raptures  of  his  full-strung  lyre, 
E'en  his  own  warblings,  lessened  on  his  ear, 
Lost  in  seraphic  harmony  expired 

I  have  met  also,  at  a  dinner  party  lately,  the  cele- 
brated antiquary,  Sir  William  Gell.  He  too  lives 
abroad.  His  work  on  Pompeii  has  become  authority, 
and  displays  very  great  learning.  He  is  a  tall,  large- 
featured  man,  and  very  commanding  in  his  appearance, 
though  lamed  terribly  with  the  gout. 

A  friend,  whom  I  met  at  the  same  house,  took  me 
to  see  the  archbishop  of  Tarento  yesterday.  This 
venerable  man,  it  is  well  known,  lost  his  gown  for  his 
participation  in  the  cause  of  the  Carbonari  (the  revo- 
lutionary conspirators  of  Italy).  He  has  always  play- 
ed a  conspicuous  part  in  the  politics  of  his  time,  and 
now,  at  the  age  of  ninety,  unlike  the  usual  fate  of  med- 
dlers in  troubled  waters,  he  is  a  healthy,  happy,  ven- 
erated old  man,  surrounded  in  his  palace  with  all  that 
luxury  can  give  him.  The  lady  who  presented  me, 
took  the  privilege  of  intimate  friendship  to  call  at  an 
unusual  hour,  and  we  found  the  old  churchman  in  his 
slippers,  over  his  breakfast,  with  two  immense  tortoise- 
shell  cats,  upon  stools,  watching  his  hand  for  bits  of 
bread  and  purring  most  affectionately.  He  looks  like 
one  of  Titian's  pictures.     His  face  is  a  wreck  of  com- 


PENCILLINGS  BY  THE  WAY. 


99 


manding  features,  and  his  eye  seems  less  to  have  lost 
its  fire,  than  to  slumber  in  its  deep  socket.  His  hair 
is  snowy  white — his  forehead  of  prodigious  breadth 
and  height — and  his  skin  has  that  calm,  settled,  and 
yet  healthy  paleness,  which  carries  with  it  the  history 
of  a  whole  life  of  temperance  and  thought. 

The  old  man  rose  from  his  chair  with  a  smile,  and 
came  forward  with  a  stoop  and  a  feeble  step,  and  took 
my  two  hands,  as  my  friend  mentioned  my  name,  and 
looked  me  in  the  face  very  earnestly.  "Your  country," 
said  he,  in  Italian,  "  has  sprung  into  existence  like 
Minerva,  full  grown  and  armed.  We  look  for  the 
result."  He  went  on  with  some  comments  upon  the 
dangers  of  republics  and  then  sent  me  to  look  at  a  por- 
trait of  Queen  Giovanna,  of  Naples,  by  Leonardo  da 
Vinci,  while  he  sat  down  to  talk  with  the  lady  who 
brought  me.  His  secretary  accompanied  me  as  a 
cicerone.  Five  or  six  rooms,  communicating  with 
each  other  were  filled  with  choice  pictures,  every  one 
a  gift  from  some  distinguished  individual.  The  pres- 
ent king  of  France  had  sent  him  his  portrait ;  Queen 
Adelaide  had  sent  a  splendid  set  of  Sevres  china,  with 
the  portraits  of  her  family ;  the  queen  of  Belgium  had 
presented  him  with  her  miniature  and  that  of  Leopold  ; 
the  king  and  queen  of  Naples  had  half  furnished  his 
house  ;  and  so  the  catalogue  went  on.  It  seemed  as 
if  the  whole  continent  had  united  to  honor  the  old  man. 
While  I  was  looking  at  a  curious  mosaic  portrait  of  a 
cat,  presented  to  him  on  the  death  of  the  original,  by 
some  prince  whose  name  I  have  forgotten,  he  came  to 
us,  and  said  he  had  just  learned  that  my  pursuits  were 
literary,  and  would  present  me  with  his  own  last  work. 
He  opened  the  drawer  of  a  small  bureau  and  produced 
a  manuscript  of  some  ten  pages,  written  in  a  feeble 
hand.  "  This,"  said  he,  "  is  an  enumeration  from 
memory  of  what  I  have  not  seen  for  many  years,  the 
classic  spots  about  our  beautiful  city  of  Naples,  and 
their  associations.  I  have  written  it  in  the  last  month 
to  wile  away  the  time,  and  call  up  again  the  pleasure 
I  have  received  many  times  in  my  life  in  visiting  them." 
I  put  the  curious  document  in  my  bosom  with  many 
thanks,  and  we  kissed  the  hand  of  the  good  old  priest 
and  left  him.  We  found  his  carriage,  with  three  or 
four  servants  in  handsome  livery,  waiting  for  him  in 
the  court  below.  We  had  intruded  a  little  on  the  hour 
for  his  morning  ride. 

I  found  his  account  of  the  environs  merely  a  simple 
catalogue,  with  here  and  there  a  classic  quotation  from 
a  Greek  or  Latin  author,  referring  to  them.  I  keep 
the  MS.  as  a  curious  memento  of  one  of  the  noblest 
relics  I  have  seen  of  an  age  gone  by. 


LETTER  LXV. 

THE  FASHIONABLE  WORLD  OF  NAPLES  AT  THE  RACES 
—BRILLIANT  SHOW  OF  EQUIPAGES  —  THE  KING  AND 
HIS      BROTHER— RANK      AND      CHARACTER      OF     THE 

JOCKEYS — DESCRIPTION    OF   THE    RACES THE    PUBLIC 

BURIAL-GROUND    AT  NAPLES HORRID    AND    INHUMAN 

SPECTACLES — THE  LAZZARONI THE  MUSEUM  AT  NA- 
PLES—ANCIENT RELICS  FROM  POMPEII— FORKS  NOT 
USED  BY  THE  ANCIENTS— THE  LAMP  LIT  AT  THE 
TIME  OF  OUR  SAVIOR — THE  ANTIQUE  CHAIR  OF  SAL- 
LUST THE     VILLA    OF    CICERO THE    BALBI     FAMILY 

— BACCHUS  ON  THE  SHOULDERS  OF  A  FAUN — GAL- 
LERY OF  DIANS,  CUPIDS,  JOVES,  MERCURIES,  AND 
APOLLOS,   STATUE   OF   ARISTIDES,   ETC. 

I  have  been  all  day  at  "  the  races."  The  king  of 
Naples,  who  has  a  great  admiration  for  everything 
English,  has  abandoned  the  Italian  custom  of  running 
horses  without  riders  through  the  crowded  street,  and 
has  laid  out  a  magnificent  course  on  the  summit  of  a 


broad  hill  overlooking  the  city  on  the  east.  Here  he 
astonishes  his  subjects  with  ridden  races,  and  it  was 
to  see  one  of  the  best  of  the  season,  that  the  whole 
fashionable  world  of  Naples  poured  out  to  the  campo 
this  morning.  The  show  of  equipages  was  very  bril- 
liant, the  dashing  liveries  of  the  various  ambassadors, 
and  the  court  and  nobles  of  the  kingdom,  showing  on 
the  bright  green-sward  to  great  effect.  I  never  saw  a 
more  even  piece  of  turf,  and  it  was  fresh  in  the  just- 
born  vegetation  of  spring.  The  carriages  were  drawn 
up  in  two  lines,  nearly  half  round  the  course,  and  for 
an  hour  or  two  before  the  races,  the  king  and  his  broth- 
er, Prince  Carlo,  rode  up  and  down  between  with  the 
royal  suite,  splendidly  mounted,  the  monarch  himself 
upon  a  fiery  gray  blood  horse,  of  uncommon  power 
and  beauty.  The  director  was  an  Aragonese  noble- 
man, cousin  to  the  king,  and  as  perfect  a  specimen  of 
the  Spanish  cavalier  as  ever  figured  in  the  pages  of 
romance.  He  was  mounted  on  a  Turkish  horse,  snow- 
white,  and  the  finest  animal  I  ever  saw  ;  and  he  car- 
ried all  eyes  with  him,  as  he  dashed  up  and  down,  like 
a  meteor.  I  like  to  see  a  fine  specimen  of  a  man,  as  I 
do  a  fine  picture,  or  an  excellent  horse,  and  I  think  I 
never  saw  a  prettier  spectacle  of  its  kind,  than  this 
wild  steed  from  the  Balkan  and  his  handsome  rider. 

The  king  is  tall,  very  fat,  but  very  erect,  of  a  light 
complexion,  and  a  good  horseman,  riding  always  in 
the  English  style,  trotting  and  rising  in  his  stirrup. — 
(He  is  about  twenty-three,  and  so  surprisingly  like  a 
friend  of  mine  in  Albany,  that  the  people  would  raise 
their  hats  to  them  indiscriminately,  1  am  sure.) 
Prince  Charles  is  smaller  and  less  kingly  in  his  ap- 
pearance, dresses  carelessly  and  ill,  and  is  surrounded 
always  in  public  with  half  a  dozen  young  Englishmen. 
He  is  said  to  have  been  refused  lately  by  the  niece  of 
the  wealthiest  English  nobleman  in  Italy,  a  very  beau- 
tiful girl  of  eighteen,  who  was  on  the  ground  to-day 
in  a  chariot  and  four. 

The  horses  were  led  up  and  down — a  delicate,  fine- 
limbed  sorrel  mare,  and  a  dark  chestnut  horse,  com- 
pact and  wiry — both  English.  The  bets  were  arran- 
ged, the  riders  weighed,  and,  at  the  beat  of  a  bell,  off 
they  went  like  arrows.  Oh  what  a  beautiful  sight ! 
The  course  was  about  a  mile  round,  and  marked  with 
red  flags  at  short  distances ;  and  as  the  two  flying 
creatures  described  the  bright  green  circle,  spread  out 
like  greyhounds,  and  running  with  an  ease  and  grace 
that  seemed  entirely  without  effort,  the  king  dashed 
across  the  field  followed  by  the  whole  court ;  the  Tur- 
kish steed  of  Don  Giovanni  restrained  with  difficulty 
in  the  rear,  and  leaping  high  in  the  air  at  every  bound, 
his  nostrils  expanded,  and  his  head  thrown  up  with 
the  peculiar  action  of  his  race,  while  his  snow-white 
mane  and  tail  flew  with  every  hair  free  to  the  wind. 
I  had,  myself,  a  small  bet  upon  the  sorrel.  It  was 
nothing,  a  pair  of  gloves  with  a  lady,  but  as  the  horses 
came  round,  the  sorrel  a  whip's  length  a-head,  and 
both  shot  by  like  the  wind,  scarce  touching  the  earth 
apparently,  and  so  even  in  their  speed  that  the  rider 
in  blue  might  have  kept  his  hand  on  the  other's  back, 
the  excitement  became  breathless.  Away  they  went 
again,  past  the  starting  post,  pattering,  pattering  on 
with  their  slender  hoofs,  the  sorrel  still  keeping  her 
ground,  and  a  thousand  bright  lips  wishing  the  grace- 
ful creature  success.  Half  way  round  the  blue  jacket 
began  to  whip.  The  sorrel  still  held  her  way,  and  I 
felt  my  gloves  to  be  beyond  peril.  The  royal  cortege 
within  the  ring  spurred  across  at  the  top  of  their  speed 
to  the  starting  post.  The  horses  came  on — their  nos- 
trils open  and  panting,  bounding  upon  the  way  with 
the  same  measured  leaps  a  little  longer  and  more 
eager  than  before;  the  rider  of  the  sorrel  leaning  over 
the  neck  of  his  horse  with  a  loose  rein,  and  his  whip 
hanging  untouched  from  his  wrist.  Twenty  leaps 
more  !  With  every  one  the  rider  of  the  chestnut  gave 
the  fine  animal  a  blow.     The  sorrel  sprang  desperately 


96 


PENCILLINGS  BY  THE  WAY. 


on,  every  nerve  strained  to  the  jump,  but  at  the  instant 
that  they  passed  the  carriage  in  which  I  stood,  the 
chestnut  was  developing  his  wiry  frame  in  tremendous 
leaps,  and  had  already  gained  on  his  opponent  the 
length  of  his  head.  They  were  lost  in  the  crowd  that 
broke  instantly  into  the  course  behind  them,  and  in  a 
moment  after  a  small  red  flag  was  waved  from  the 
stand.     My  favorite  had  lost ! 

The  next  race  was  ridden  by  a  young  Scotch  noble- 
man, and  the  son  of  the  former  French  ambassador, 
upon  the  horses  with  which  they  came  to  the  ground. 
It  was  a  match  made  up  on  the  spot.  The  French- 
man was  so  palpably  better  mounted,  that  there  was  a 
general  laugh  when  the  ground  was  cleared  and  the 
two  gentlemen  spurred  up  and  down  to  show  them- 
selves as  antagonists.  The  Parisian  himself  stuffed 
his  white  handkerchief  in  his  bosom,  and  jammed 
down  his  hat  upon  his  head  with  a  confident  laugh, 
and  among  the  ladies  there  was  scarce  a  bet  upon  the 
grave  Scotchman,  who  borrowed  a  stout  whip,  and 
rode  his  bony  animal  between  the  lines  with  a  hard 
rein  and  his  feet  set  firmly  in  the  stirrups.  The 
Frenchman  generously  gave  him  every  advantage,  be- 
ginning with  the  inside  of  the  ring.  The  bell  struck, 
and  the  Scotchman  drove  his  spurs  into  his  horse's 
flanks  and  started  away,  laying  on  with  his  whip  most 
industriously.  His  opponent  followed,  riding  very 
gracefully,  but  apparently  quite  sure  that  he  could 
overtake  him  at  any  moment,  and  content  for  the  first 
round  with  merely  showing  himself  off  to  the  best 
advantage.  Round  came  Sawney,  twenty  leaps 
ahead,  whipping  unmercifully  still ;  the  blood  of  his 
hired  hack  completely  up,  and  himself  as  red  in  the 
face  as  an  alderman,  and  with  his  eye  fixed  only  on 
the  road.  The  long-tailed  bay  of  the  Frenchman 
came  after,  in  handsome  style,  his  rider  sitting  com- 
placently upright,  and  gathering  up  his  reins  for  the 
first  time  to  put  his  horse  to  his  speed.  The  Scotch- 
man flogged  on.  The  Frenchman  had  disdained  to 
take  a  whip,  but  he  drove  his  heels  hard  into  his  horse's 
sides  soon  after  leaving  the  post,  and  leaned  forward 
quite  in  earnest.  The  horses  did  remarkably  well, 
both  showing  much  more  bottom  than  was  expected. 
On  they  came,  the  latter  gaining  a  little  and  working 
very  hard.  Sawney  had  lost  his  hat,  and  his  red  hair 
streamed  back  from  his  redder  face  ;  but  flogging  and 
spurring,  with  his  teeth  shut  and  his  eyes  steadily 
fixed  on  the  road,  he  kept  the  most  of  his  ground  and 
rode  away.  They  passed  me  a  horse's  length  apart, 
and  the  Scotchman's  whip  flying  to  the  last,  disap- 
peared beyond  me.  He  won  the  race  by  a  couple  of 
good  leaps  at  least.  The  king  was  very  much  amused, 
and  rode  off  laughing  heartily,  and  the  discomfited 
Frenchman  came  back  to  his  party  with  a  very  ill-con- 
cealed dissatisfaction. 

A  very  amusing  race  followed  between  two  mid- 
shipmen from  an  English  corvette  lying  in  the  bay,  and 
then  the  long  lines  of  splendid  equipages  wheeled 
into  train  and  dashed  off  the  ground.  The  road,  after 
leaving  the  campo,  runs  along  the  edge  of  the  range 
of  hills  enclosing  the  city,  and  just  below,  within  a 
high  white  wall,  lies  the  public  burial-place  of  Naples. 
I  had  read  so  many  harrowing  descriptions  of  this 
spot,  that  my  curiosity  rose  as  we  drove  along  in  sight 
of  it,  and  requesting  my  friends  to  set  me  down,  I 
joined  an  American  of  my  acquaintance,  and  we  start- 
ed to  visit  it  together. 

An  old  man  opened  the  iron  door,  and  we  entered  a 
clean,  spacious,  and  well-paved  area,  with  long  rows 
of  iron  rings  in  the  heavy  slabs  of  the  pavement. 
Without  asking  a  question,  the  old  man  walked  across 
to  the  farther  corner,  where  stood  a  moveable  lever, 
and  fastening  the  chain  into  the  fixture,  raised  the 
massive  stone  cover  of  a  pit.  He  requested  us  to 
stand  back  for  a  few  minutes  to  give  the  effluvia  time 
to  escape,  and  then,  sheltering  our  eyes  with  our  hats, 


we  looked  in.  You  have  read  of  course,  that  there 
are  three  hundred  and  sixty-five  pits  in  this  place,  one 
of  which  is  opened  every  day  for  the  dead  of  the  city. 
They  are  thrown  in  without  shroud  or  coffin,,  and  the 
pit  is  sealed  up  at  night  for  a  year.  They  are  thirty 
or  forty  feet  deep,  and  each  would  contain  perhaps 
two  hundred  bodies.  Lime  is  thrown  upon  the  daily 
heap,  and  it  soon  melts  into  a  mass  of  garbage,  and  by 
the  end  of  the  year  the  bottom  of  the  pit  is  covered 
with  dry  white  bones. 

It  was  some  time  before  we  could  distinguish  any 
thing  in  the  darkness  of  the  abyss.  Fixing  my  eyes 
on  one  spot,  however,  the  outlines  of  a  body  became 
defined  gradually,  and  in  a  few  minutes,  sheltering  my 
eyes  completely  from  the  sun  above,  I  could  see  all 
the  horrors  of  the  scene  but  too  distinctly.  Eight 
corpses,  all  of  grown  persons,  lay  in  a  confused  heap 
together,  as  they  had  been  thrown  in  one  after  another 
in  the  course  of  the  day.  The  last  was  a  powerfully 
made,  gray  old  man,  who  had  fallen  flat  on  his  back, 
with  his  right  hand  lying  across  and  half  covering  the 
face  of  a  woman.  By  his  full  limbs  and  chest,  and 
the  darker  color  of  his  legs  below  the  knee,  he  was 
probably  one  of  the  lazzaroni,  and  had  met  with  a 
sudden  death.  His  right  heel  lay  on  the  forehead  of 
a  young  man,  emaciated  to  the  last  degree,  his  chest 
thrown  up  as  he  lay,  and  his  ribs  showing  like  a  skele- 
ton covered  with  skin.  The  close  black  curls  of  the 
latter,  as  his  head  rested  on  another  body,  were  in 
such  strong  relief  that  I  could  have  counted  them. 
Off  to  the  right,  quite  distinct  from  the  heap,  lay,  in  a 
beautiful  attitude,  a  girl,  as  well  as  I  could  judge,  of 
not  more  than  nineteen  or  twenty.  She  had  fallen  on 
the  pile  and  rolled  or  slid  away.  Her  hair  was  very 
long,  and  covered  her  left  shoulder  and  bosom  ;  her 
arm  was  across  her  body,  and  if  her  mother  had  laid 
her  down  to  sleep,  she  could  not  have  disposed  her 
limbs  more  decently.  The  head  had  fallen  a  little 
away  to  the  right,  and  the  feet,  which  were  small, 
even  for  a  lady,  were  pressed  one  against  the  other, 
as  if  she  were  about  turning  on  her  side.  The  sex- 
ton said  that  a  young  man  had  come  with  the  body, 
and  was  very  ill  for  some  time  after  it  was  thrown  in. 
We  asked  him  if  respectable  people  were  brought 
here.  "  Yes,"  he  said,  "  many.  None  but  the  rich 
would  go  to  the  expense  of  a  separate  grave  for  their 
relations.  People  were  often  brought  in  handsome 
grave  clothes,  but  they  were  always  stripped  before 
they  were  left.  The  shroud,  whenever  there  was  one, 
was  the  perquisite  of  the  undertakers."  And  thus  are 
flung  into  this  noisome  pit,  like  beasts,  the  greater  part 
of  the  population  of  this  vast  city — the  young  and 
the  old,  the  vicious  and  the  virtuous  together,  without 
the  decency  even  of  a  rag  to  keep  up  the  distinctions 
of  life  !  Can  human  beings  thus  be  thrown  away  ? — 
men  like  ourselves — women,  children,  like  our  sisters 
and  brothers  ?  I  never  was  so  humiliated  in  my  life 
as  by  this  horrid  spectacle.  I  did  not  think  a  man— a 
felon  even,  or  a  leper — what  you  will  that  is  guilty  or 
debased — I  did  not  think  anything  that  had  been  hu- 
man could  be  so  recklessly  abandoned.  Pah !  It 
makes  one  sick  at  heart !  God  grant  I  may  never  die 
at  Naples  ! 

While  we  were  recovering  from  our  disgust,  the 
old  man  lifted  the  stone  from  the  pit  destined  to  re- 
ceive the  dead  on  the  following  day.  We  looked  in. 
The  bottom  was  strewn  with  bones,  already  fleshless 
and  dry.  He  wished  us  to  see  the  dead  of  several 
previous  days,  but  my  stomach  was  already  tried  to  its 
utmost.  We  paid  our  gratuity,  and  hurried  away. 
A  few  steps  from  the  gate,  we  met  a  man  bearing  a 
coffin  on  his  head.  Seeing  that  we  came  from  the 
cemetery,  he  asked  us  if  we  wished  to  look  into  it 
He  set  it  down,  and  the  lid  opening  with  a  hinge,  we 
were  horror-struck  with  the  sight  of  seven  dead  in- 
fants !     The  youngest  was  at  least  three  months  old, 


PENCILLINGS  BY  THE  WAY. 


97 


the  eldest  perhaps  a  year ;  and  they  lay  heaped  to- 
gether like  so  many  puppies,  one  or  two  of  them 
spotted  with  disease,  and  all  wasted  to  baby-skeletons. 
While  we  were  looking  at  them,  six  or  seven  noisy 
children  ran  out  from  a  small  house  at  the  road-side 
and  surrounded  the  coffin.  One  was  a  fine  girl  of 
twelve  years  of  age,  and  instead  of  being  at  all  shock- 
ed at  the  sight,  she  lifted  the  whitest  of  the  dead 
things,  and  looked  at  its  face  very  earnestly,  loading  it 
with  all  the  tenderest  diminutives  of  the  language. 
The  others  were  busy  in  pointing  to  those  they 
thought  had  been  prettiest,  and  none  of  them  betrayed 
fear  or  disgust.  In  answer  to  a  question  of  my  friend 
about  the  marks  of  disease,  the  man  rudely  pulled  out 
one  by  the  foot  that  lay  below  the  rest,  and  holding  it 
up  to  show  the  marks  upon  it,  tossed  it  again  careless-  I 
ly  into  the  coffin.  He  had  brought  them  from  the  j 
hospital  for  infants,  and  they  had.  died  that  morning. 
The  coffin  was  worn  with  use.  He  shut  down  the 
lid,  and  lifting  it  again  upon  his  head,  went  on  to  the 
cemetery,  to  empty  it  like  so  much  offal  upon  the  heap 
we  had  seen  ! 

I  have  been  struck  repeatedly  with  the  little  value 
attached  to  human  life  in  Italy.  I  have  seen  several 
of  these  houseless  lazzaroni  literally  dying  in  the 
streets,  and  no  one  curious  enough  to  look  at  them. 
The  most  dreadful  sufferings,  the  most  despairing 
cries,  in  the  open  squares,  are  passed  as  unnoticed  as 
the  howling  of  a  dog.  The  day  before  yesterday,  a 
woman  fell  in  the  Toledo,  in  a  fit,  frothing  at  the 
mouth,  and  livid  with  pain;  and  though  the  street 
was  so  crowded  that  one  could  make  his  way  with  dif- 
ficulty, three  or  four  ragged  children  were  the  only 
persons  even  looking  at  her. 

I  have  devoted  a  week  to  the  museum  at  Naples. 
It  is  a  world!  Anything  like  a  full  description  of  it 
would  tire  even  an  antiquary.  It  is  one  of  those  things 
(and  there  are  many  in  Europe)  that  fortunately  compel 
travel.     You  must  come  abroad  to  get  an  idea  of  it. 

The  first  day  I  buried  myself  among  the  curiosities 
found  at  Pompeii.  After  walking  through  the  cham- 
bers and  streets  where  they  were  found,  I  came  to 
them  naturally  with  an  intense  interest.  I  had  visited  a 
disentombed  city,  buried  for  seventeen  centuries — had 
trodden  in  their  wheel-tracks— had  wandered  through 
their  dining  rooms,  their  chambers,  their  baths,  their 
theatres,  their  market-places.  And  here  were  gather- 
ed in  one  place,  their  pictures,  their  statues,  their 
cooking-utensils,  their  ornaments,  the  very  food  as  it 
was  found  on  their  tables!  I  am  puzzled,  in  looking 
over  my  note-book,  to  know  what  to  mention.  The 
catalogue  fills  a  printed  volume. 

A  curious  corner  in  one  of  the  cases  was  that  con- 
taining the  articles  found  on  the  toilet  of  the  wealthiest 
Pompeian's  wife.  Here  were  pots  of  rouge,  ivory  pins, 
necklaces,  ear-rings,  bracelets,  small  silver  mirrors, 
combs,  ear-pickers,  etc.,  etc.  In  the  next  case  were  | 
two  loaves  of  bread,  found  in  a  baker's  oven,  and  stamp- 
ed with  his  name.  Two  large  cases  of  precious  gems, 
cameos  and  intaglios  of  all  descriptions,  stand  in  the 
centre  of  this  room  (among  which,  by  the  way,  the 
most  exquisitely  done  are  two  which  one  can  not  look 
at  without  a  blush).  Another  case  is  filled  with  eat- 
ables, found  upon  the  tables— eggs,  fish-bones,  honey- 
comb, grain,  fruits,  etc.  In  the  repository  for  ancient 
glass  are  several  cinerary  urns,  in  which  the  ashes  of 
the  dead  are  perfectly  preserved ;  and  numerous  small 
glass  lachrymatories,  in  which  the  tears  of  the  survi- 
vors were  deposited  in  the  tombs. 

The  brazen  furniture  of  Pompeii,  the  lamps  par- 
ticularly, are  of  the  most  curious  and  beautiful  models. 
Irees,  to  which  the  lamps  were  suspended  like  fruit, 
vines,  statues  holding  them  in  their  hands,  and  numer- 
ous other  contrivances,  were  among  them,  exceeding 
tat  in  beauty  any  similar  furniture  of  our  time.  It  ap- 
7 


pears  that  the  ancients  did  not  know  the  use  of  the 
fork,  as  every  other  article  of  table  service  except  this 
has  been  found  here. 

To  conceive  the  interest  attached  to  the  thousand 
things  in  this  museum,  one  must  imagine  a  modern 
city,  Boston  for  example,  completely  buried  by  an  un- 
expected and  terrific  convulsion  of  nature.  Its  inhab- 
itants mostly  escape,  but  from  various  causes  leave 
their  city  entombed,  and  in  a  hundred  years  the  grass 
grows  over  it.  and  its  very  locality  is  forgotten.  Near 
two  thousand  years  elapse,  and  then  a  peasant,  digging 
in  the  field,  strikes  upon  some  of  its  ruins,  and  it  is  un- 
earthed just  as  it  stands  at  this  moment,  with  all  its 
utensils,  books,  pictures,  houses,  and  streets,  in  un- 
touched preservation.  What  a  subject  for  speculation  ! 
What  food  for  curiosity !  What  a  living  and  breath- 
ing chapter  of  history  were  this!  Far  more  interest- 
ing is  Pompeii.  For  the  age  in  which  it  flourished 
and  the  characters  who  trod  its  streets,  are  among  the 
most  remarkable  in  history.  This  brazen  lamp,  shown 
to  me  to-day  as  a  curiosity,  was  lit  every  evening  in 
the  time  of  Christ.  The  handsome  chambers  through 
which  I  wandered  a  day  or  two  ago,  and  from  which 
were  brought  this  antique  chair,  were  the  home  of 
Sallust,  and  doubtless  had  been  honored  by  the  visits 
of  Cicero  (whose  villa,  half-excavated,  is  near  by),  and 
by  all  the  poets  and  scholars  and  statesmen  of  his 
time.  One  might  speculate  endlessly  thus!  And  it  is 
that  which  makes  these  lands  of  forgotten  empires  so 
delightful  to  the  traveller.  His  mind  is  fed  by  the 
very  air.  He  needs  no  amusements,  no  company,  no 
books  except  the  history  of  the  place.  The  spot  is 
peopled,  wherever  he  may  stray,  and  the  common  ne- 
cessities of  life  seem  to  pluck  him  from  a  far-reaching 
dream,  in  which  he  had  summoned  back  receding 
ages,  and  was  communing,  face  to  face,  with  philos- 
ophers and  poets  and  emperors,  like  a  magician  before 
his  mirror.  Pompeii  and  Herculaneum  seem  to  me  vis- 
ions. I  can  not  shake  myself  and  wake  to  their  real- 
ity. My  mind  refuses  to  go  back  so  far.  Seventeen 
hundred  years! 

I  followed  the  cicerone  on,  listening  to  his  astonish- 
ing enumeration,  and  looking  at  everything  as  he  point- 
ed to  it,  in  a  kind  of  stupor.  One  has  but  a  certain 
capacity.  We  may  be  over-astonished.  Still  he  went 
on  in  the  same  every-day  tone,  talking  as  indifferently 
of  this  and  that  surprising  antiquity  as  a  pedlar  of  his 
two-penny  wares.  We  went  from  the  bronzes  to  the 
hall  of  the  papyri — thence  to  the  hall  of  the  frescoes, 
and  beautiful  they  were.  Their  very  number  makes 
them  indescribable.  The  next  morning  we  devoted 
to  the  statuary — and  of  this,  if  I  knew  where  to  begin, 
I  should  like  to  say  a  word  or  two. 

First  of  all  comes  the  Balbi  family — father,  mother, 
sons,  and  daughters.  He  was  proconsul  of  Hercula- 
neum, and  by  the  excellence  of  the  statues,  which  are 
life  itself  for  nature,  he  and  his  family  were  worth  the 
artist's  best  effort.  He  is  a  fine  old  Roman  himself, 
and  his  wife  is  a  tall,  handsome  woman,  much  better- 
looking  than  her  daughters.  The  two  Misses  Balbi 
are  modest-looking  girls,  and  that  is  all.  They  were 
the  high-born  damsels  of  Herculaneum,  however; 
and,  if  human  nature  has  not  changed  in  seventeen 
centuries,  they  did  not  want  admirers  who  compared 
them  to  the  Venuses  who  have  descended  with  them 
to  the  "Museo  Borbonico."  The  eldest  son  is  on 
horseback  in  armor.  It  is  one  of  the  finest  equestrian 
statues  in  the  world.  He  is  a  noble  youth,  of  grave 
and  handsome  features,  and  sits  the  superb  animal 
with  the  freedom  of  an  Arab  and  the  dignity  of  a  Ro- 
man. It  is  a  beautiful  thing.  If  one  had  visited  these 
Balbis,  warm  and  living,  in  the  time  of  Augustus,  he 
could  scarcely  feel  more  acquainted  with  them  than 
after  having  seen  their  statues  as  they  stand  before 
him  here. 

Come  a  little  farther  on !     Bacchus  on  the  shoulders 


98 


PENCILLINGS  BY  THE  WAY. 


of  a  faun — a  child  delighted  with  a  grown-up  playfel- 
low. I  have  given  the  same  pleasure  to  just  such  an- 
other bright  "picture  in  little"  of  human  beauty.  It 
moves  one's  heart  to  see  it. 

Pass  now  a  whole  gallery  of  Dians,  Cupids,  Joves, 
Mercuries  and  Apollos,  and  come  to  the  presence  of 
Aristides — him  whom  the  Athenians  exiled  because 
they  were  tired  of  hearing  him  called  "  The  Just." 
Cauova  has  marked  three  spots  upon  the  floor  where 
the  spectator  should  place  himself  to  see  to  the  best 
advantage  this  renowned  statue.  He  stands  wrapped 
in  his  toga,  with  his  head  a  little  inclined,  as  if  in  re- 
flection, and  in  his  face  there  is  a  mixture  of  firmness 
and  goodness  from  which  you  read  his  character  as 
clearly  as  if  it  were  written  across  his  forehead.  It 
was  found  at  Herculaneum,  and  is,  perhaps,  the  sim- 
plest and  most  expressive  statue  in  the  world. 


LETTER  LXVI. 

*.KSTUM TEMPLE  OF  NEPTUNE DEPARTURE   FROM  EL- 
BA  ISCHIA — BAY     OF     NAPLES — THE      TOLEDO — THE 

YOUNG  QUEEN — CONSPIRACY  AGAINST  THE  KING — 
NEAPOLITANS  VISITING  THE  FRIGATES — LEAVE  THE 
BAY — CASTELLAMARE. 

Salvator  Rosa  studied  the  scenery  of  La  Cava — the 
country  between  Pompeii  and  Salerno,  on  the  road  to 
Psestum.  It  is  a  series  of  natively  abrupt  glens,  but 
gemmed  with  cottages  and  hanging  gardens,  through 
which  the  wildness  of  every  feature  is  as  apparent  as 
those  of  a  savage  through  his  trinkets.  I  was  going 
to  Paastum  with  an  agreeable  party,  and  we  came  out 
upon  the  bluff's  overhanging  Salerno  and  the  sea,  an 
hour  before  sunset.  We  darted  down  upon  the  little 
city  lying  in  the  bend  of  the  bay,  like  a  bird's  descent 
upon  her  nest.  The  road  is  cut  through  the  side  of 
the  precipice,  and  runs  to  the  bottom  with  a  single 
sweep.  We  were  to  pass  the  night  here  and  go  to 
Psestum  the  next  morning,  see  the  ruins,  and  return 
here  to  sleep  once  more  before  returning  to  Naples. 

We  were  five  or  six  miles  from  Salerno  before  sun- 
rise, and  entering  upon  the  dreary  wastes  of  Calabria. 
The  people  we  passed  on  the  road  were  dressed  in 
skins  with  the  wool  outside,  and  the  country  looked 
abandoned  by  nature  itself,  scarce  a  flourishing  tree 
or  a  healthy  plant  within  the  range  of  the  sight.  We 
turned  from  the  main  road  after  a  while,  crossed  a  ru- 
inous bridge,  and  tracked  a  broad,  waste,  gloomy  plain, 
till  my  eyes  ached  with  its  barrenness.  In  an  hour 
more,  three  stately  temples  began  to  rise  in  the  dis- 
tance, increasing  in  grandeur  as  we  approached.  A 
cluster  of  ruined  tombs  on  the  right — a  grass-grown 
and  broken  city  wall,  through  a  rent  of  which  passed 
the  road — and  we  stood  among  them,  in  the  desert, 
amid  temples  of  inimitable  beauty! 

There  seemed  to  be  a  general  feeling  in  the  party 
that  silence  and  solitude  were  the  spirits  of  the  place. 
We  separated  and  rambled  about  alone.  The  grand 
temple  of  Neptune  stands  in  the  centre.  A  temple  in 
the  midst  of  the  sea  could  scarce  seem  more  strangely 
placed.  I  stood  on  the  high  base  of  the  altar  within, 
and  looked  out  between  the  columns  on  every  side. 
The  Mediterranean  slept  in  a  broad  sheet  of  silver 
on  the  west,  and  on  every  other  side  lay  the  bare, 
houseless  desert,  stretching  away  to  the  naked  moun- 
tains on  the  south  and  east,  with  a  barrenness  that 
made  the  heart  ache,  while  it  filled  the  imagination 
with  its  singleness  and  grandeur.  I  descended  to  look 
at  the  columns.  They  were  eaten  through  and 
through  with  snails  and  worms,  and  all  of  the  same 
rich  yellow  so  admirably  represented  in  the  cork  mod- 
els. But  their  size,  and  their  noble  proportion  as 
they  stand,  can  not  be  represented.     They  seem  the 


conception  and  the  work  of  giant  minds  and  hands. 
One's  soul  rises  among  them. 

We  walked  round  the  ruins  for  hours.  A  little 
toward  the  sea,  lie  the  traces  of  an  amphitheatre, 
filled  with  fragments  of  statuary,  and  parts  of  immense 
friezes  and  columns.  We  all  assembled  at  last  in  the 
great  temple,  and  sat  down  on  the  immense  steps 
toward  the  east,  in  the  shadow  of  the  pediment,  specu- 
lating on  the  wonderful  fabric  above  us,  till  we  were 
summoned  to  start  on  our  return.  To  think  that  these 
very  temples  were  visited  as  venerable  antiquities  in 
the  time  of  Christ !  What  events  have  these  worm- 
eaten  columns  outlived  !  What  moths  of  an  hour,  in 
comparison,  are  we  ? 

It  is  difficult  to  conceive  how  three  such  magnifi- 
cent structures,  so  near  the  sea,  the  remains  of  a  great 
city,  should  have  been  lost  for  ages.  A  landscape- 
painter,  searching  for  the  picturesque,  came  suddenly 
upon  them  fifty  years  ago,  and  astonished  the  world 
with  his  discovery  !     It  adds  to  their  interest  now. 

We  turned  our  horses'  heads  toward  Naples.  What 
an  extraordinary  succession  of  objects  were  embraced 
in  the  fifty  miles  between  ! — Paestum,  Pompeii,  Vesu- 
vius, Herculaneum  ! — and,  added  to  these,  the  thou- 
sand classic  associations  of  the  lovely  coast  along 
Sorrento !  The  value  of  life  deepens  incalculably 
with  the  privileges  of  travel. 

Written  on  board  the  frigate  United  States 
— We  set  sail  from  Elba  on  the  third  of  June.  The  in 
habitants,  all  of  whom,  I  presume,  had  been  on  boara 
of  the  ships,  were  standing  along  the  walls  and  look- 
ing from  the  embrasures  of  the  fortress  to  see  us  off 
It  was  a  clear  summer's  morning,  without  much  wind, 
and  we  crept  slowly  off  from  the  point,  gazing  up  al 
the  windows  of  Napoleon's  house  as  we  passed  under, 
and  laying  on  our  course  for  the  shore  of  Italy.  Wt 
soon  got  into  the  fresher  breeze  of  the  open  sea,  an<? 
the  low  white  line  of  villages  on  the  Tuscan  coast  ap- 
peared more  distant,  till,  with  a  glass,  we  could  see 
the  people  at  the  windows  watching  our  progress. 
Fishing  boats  were  drawn  up  on  shore,  and  the  idle 
sailors  were  leaning  in  the  half  shadow  which  they 
afforded;  but  with  the  almost  total  absence  of  trees, 
and  the  glaring  white  of  the  walls,  we  were  content  to 
be  out  upon  the  cool  sea,  passing  town  after  town  un- 
visited.  Island  after  island  was  approached  and  left 
during  the  day;  barren  rocks,  with  only  a  lighthouse 
to  redeem  their  nakedness  ;  and  in  the  evening  at  sun- 
set we  were  in  sight  at  Ischia,  the  towering  isle  in  the 
bosom  of  the  bay  of  Naples.  The  band  had  been 
called  as  usual  at  seven,  and  were  playing  a  delightful 
waltz  upon  the  quarter  deck  ;  the  sea  was  even,  and 
just  crisped  by  the  breeze  from  the  Italian  shore :  the 
sailors  were  leaning  on  the  guns  listening ;  the  officers 
clustered  in  their  various  places ;  and  the  murmur  of 
the  foam  before  the  prow  was  just  audible  in  the  lighter 
passages  of  the  music.  Above  and  in  the  west  glowed 
the  eternal  but  untiring  teints  of  the  summer  sky  of 
the  Mediterranean,  a  gradually  fading  gold  from  the 
edge  of  the  sea  to  the  zenith,  and  the  early  star  soon 
twinkled  through  it,  and  the  air  dampened  to  a  reviving 
freshness.  I  do  not  know  that  a  mere  scene  like  this, 
without  incident,  will  interest  a  reader,  but  it  was  so 
delightful  to  myself,  that  I  have  described  it  for  the 
mere  pleasure  of  dwelling  on  it.  The  desert  stillness 
and  loneliness  of  the  sea,  the  silent  motion  of  the  ship, 
and  the  delightful  music  swelling  beyond  the  bulwarks 
and  dying  upon  the  wind,  were  such  singularly  com- 
bined circumstances!  It  was  a  moving  paradise  in 
the  waste  of  the  ocean. 

Sail  was  shortened  last  night,  and  we  lay  to  under 
the  shore  of  Ischia,  to  enter  the  bay  of  Naples  by 
daylight.  As  the  morning  mist  lifted  a  little,  the  pe- 
culiar shape  of  Vesuvius,  the  boldness  of  the  island 


PENCILLINGS  BY  THE  WAY. 


99 


of  Capri,  the  sweeping  curves  of  Baia  and  Portici, 
and  the  small  promontory  which  lifts  Naples  toward 
the  sea,  rose  like  the  features  of  a  familiar  friend  to 
my  eye.  It  would  be  difficult  to  have  seen  Naples 
without  having  a  memory  steeped  in  its  beauty.  A 
fair  wind  set  us  straight  into  the  bay,  and  one  by  one 
the  towns  on  its  shore,  the  streaks  of  lava  on  the  sides 
of  its  volcano,  and,  soon  after,  the  houses  of  friends  on 
the  street  of  the  Chiaga,  became  distinguishable  to 
the  eye.  There  had  been  a  slight  eruption  since  I 
was  here  ;  but  now,  as  before,  there  was  scarce  a  puff 
of  smoke  to  be  seen  rising  from  Vesuvius.  My  little 
specimen  of  sulphur  which  I  took  from  the  just  hard- 
ened bosom  of  the  crater  now  destroyed,  lies  before 
me  on  the  table  as  I  write,  more  valued  than  ever, 
since  its  bed  has  been  melted  and  blown  into  the  air. 
The  new  and  lighter-colored  streak  on  the  right  of  the 
mountain,  would  have  informed  me  of  itself  that  the 
lava  had  issued  since  I  was  here.  The  sound  of  bells 
and  the  hum  of  the  city  reached  our  ears,  and  running 
in  between  the  mole  and  the  castle,  the  anchor  was 
dropped,  and  the  ship  surrounded  with  boats  from  the 
shore. 

The  heat  kept  us  on  board  till  the  evening,  and 
with  several  of  the  officers  I  landed  and  walked  up  the 
Toledo  as  the  lazzaroni  were  stirring  from  their  sleep 
under  the  walls  of  the  houses.  With  the  exception 
of  the  absence  of  the  English,  who  have  mostly  flit- 
ted to  the  baths,  Naples  was  the  same  place  as  ever, 
crowded,  busy,  dirty,  and  gay.  Her  thousand  beg- 
gars were  still  "dying  of  hunger,"  and  telling  it  to  the 
passenger  in  the  same  exhausted  tone  ;  her  gay  car- 
riages and  skeleton  hacks  were  still  flying  up  and 
down,  and  dashing  at  and  over  you  for  your  custom  ; 
the  cows  and  goats  were  driven  about  to  be  milked  in 
the  street;  the  lemonade  sellers  stood  in  their  stalls; 
the  money  changers  at  their  tables  in  the  open 
squares;  puncinello  squeaked  and  beat  his  mistress  at 
every  corner;  the  awnings  of  the  cafes  covered  hun- 
dreds of  smokers  and  loungers;  and  this  gay,  misera- 
ble, homeless,  out-of-doors  people,  seemed  as  de- 
graded and  thoughtless,  and,  it  must  be  owned,  as  in- 
sensibly happy  as  before.  You  would  think,  to  walk 
through  the  Toledo  of  Naples,  that  two  thirds  of  its 
crowd  of  wretches,  and  all  its  horses  and  dogs,  were  at 
their  last  extremity,  and  yet  they  go  on,  and,  I  was 
told  by  an  Englishman  resident  here,  who  has  been 
accustomed  to  meet  always  the  same  faces,  seem 
never  to  change  or  disappear,  suffering,  and  groaning, 
and  dragging  up  and  down,  shocking  the  eye  and 
sickening  the  heart  of  the  inexperienced  stranger  for 
years  and  years. 

We  passed  the  prima  sera  the  first  part  of  the  evening, 
as  most  men  in  Italy  pass  it,  eating  ices  at  the  thronged 
cafe,  and  at  nine  we  went  to  the  splendid  theatre  of  San 
Carlo  to  see  "  La  Somnambula."  The  king  and  queen 
were  present,  with  the  dissolute  old  queen-mother 
and  her  grayheaded  lover.  I  was  instantly  struck 
with  the  alteration  in  the  appearance  of  the  young 
queen.  When  I  was  here  three  months  ago,  she  was 
just  married,  and  appeared  frequently  in  the  public 
walks,  and  a  fresher  or  brighter  face  I  never  had  seen. 
She  was  acknowledged  the  most  beautiful  woman  in 
Naples,  and  had,  what  is  very  much  valued  in  this 
land  of  pale  brunettes,  a  clear  rosy  cheek,  and  lips 
as  bright  as  a  child's.  She  is  now  thin  and  white,  and 
looks  to  me  like  a  person  fading  with  a  rapid  consump- 
tion. 

Several  conspiracies  have  been  detected  within  a 
month  or  two,  the  last  of  which  was  very  nearly  suc- 
cessful. The  day  before  we  arrived,  two  officers  in 
the  royal  army,  men  of  high  rank,  had  shot  themselves, 
each  putting  a  pistol  to  the  other's  breast,  believing 
discovery  inevitable.  One  died  instantly,  and  the 
other  lingers  to-day   without  any  hope  of  recovery. 


The  king  was  fired  at  on  parade  the  day  previous, 
which  was  supposed  to  have  been  the  first  step,  but 
the  plot  had  been  checked  by  partial  disclosure,  and 
hence  the  tragedy  I  have  just  related. 

The  ships  have  been  thronged  with  visiters  during 
the  two  or  three  days  we  have  lain  at  Naples,  among 
whom  have  been  the  prime  minister  and  his  family. 
Orders  are  given  to   admit  every  one  on  board  that 
wishes  to  come,  and  the  decks,  morning  and  evening, 
present  the  most  motley  scene  imaginable.     Cameo 
and  lava  sellers  expose  their  wares  on  the  gun-car- 
riages,   surrounded    by   the    midshipmen — Jews   and 
fruit-sellers  hail  the  sailors  through  the  ports — boats 
full  of  chickens  and  pigs,  all  in  loud  outcry,  are  held 
up  to  view  with  a  recommendation  in  broken  English 
— contadini  in  their  best  dresses  walk  up  and  down, 
smiling  on  the  officers,  and  wondering  at  the  cleanli- 
ness of  the  decks,  and  the  elegance  of  the  captain's 
cabin — Punch  plays  his  tricks  under  the  gun-deck 
ports — bands  of  wandering   musicians  sing  and  hold 
|  out  their  hats,  as  they  row  around,  and  all  is  harmony 
J  and  amusement.     In  the  evening  it  is  pleasanter  still, 
!  for  the  band  is  playing,  and  the  better  classes  of  peo- 
i  pie  come  off  from  the  shore,  and   boats  filled  with 
j  these  pretty  dark-eyed  Neapolitans,   row  round  and 
J  round  the  ship,  eying  the  officers  as  they  lean  over 
the  bulwarks,  and  ready  with  but  half  a  nod  to  make 
i  acquaintance  and  come  up  the  gangway.     I  have  had 
j  a  private  pride  of  my  own  in  showing  the  frigate  as 
;  American  to  many  of  my  foreign  friends.     One's  na 
|  tionality  becomes  nervously  sensitive  abroad,  and  in 
I  the  beauty  and  order  of  the  ships,  the  manly  elegance 
of  the  officers,  and  the  general  air  of  superiority  and 
decision  throughout,  I  have  found  food  for  some  of 
the  highest  feelings  of  gratification  of  which  I  am  ca- 
pable. 

We  weighed  anchor  yesterday  morning  (the  twen- 
tieth of  June),  and  stood  across  the4)ay  for  Castella- 
mare.  Running  close  under  Vesuvius,  we  passed 
Portici,  Torre  del  Greco,  and  Pompeii,  and  rounded 
to  in  the  little  harbor  of  this  fashionable  watering- 
place  soon  after  noon.  Castellamare  is  about  fifteen 
miles  from  Naples,  and  in  the  summer  months  it  is 
crowded  with  those  of  the  fashionables  who  do  not 
make  a  northern  tour.  The  shore  rises  directly  from 
the  sea  into  a  high  mountain,  on  the  side  of  which  the 
king  has  a  country-seat,  and  around  it  hang,  on  ter- 
races, the  houses  of  the  English.  Strong  mineral 
springs  abound  on  the  slope. 

We  landed  directly,  and  mounting  the  donkeys 
waiting  on  the  pier,  started  to  make  the  round  of  the 
village  walks.  English  maids  with  their  prettily 
dressed  and  rosy  children,  and  English  ladies  and  gen- 
tlemen, mounted  like  ourselves  on  donkeys,  met  us  at 
every  turn  as  we  wound  up  the  shady  and  zigzag  roads 
to  the  palace.  The  views  became  finer  as  we  ascend- 
ed, till  we  look  down  into  Pompeii,  which  was  but 
four  miles  off,  and  away  toward  Naples,  following  the 
white  road  with  the  eye  along  the  shore  of  the  sea. 
The  paths  were  in  fine  order,  and  as  beautiful  as  green 
trees,  and  shade,  and  living  fountains,  crossing  the 
road  continually,  could  make  them.  In  the  neighbor- 
hood of  the  royal  casino,  the  ground  was  planted 
more  like  a  park,  and  the  walks  were  terminated  with 
artificial  fountains,  throwing  up  their  bright  waters 
amid  statuary  and  over  grottoes,  and  here  we  met  the 
idlers  of  the  place  of  all  nations,  enjoying  the  sunset. 
I  met  an  acquaintance  or  two,  and  felt  the  yearning 
unwillingness  to  go  away  which  I  have  felt  on  every 
spot  almost  of  this  "  delicious  land." 

We  set  sail  again  with  the  night-breeze,  and  at  this 
moment  are  passing  between  Ischia  and  Capri,  run- 
ning nearly  on  our  course  for  Sicily.  We  shall  prob- 
ably be  at  Palermo  to  morrow.  The  ship's  bell  beats 
ten,  and  the  lights  are  ordered  out,  and  under  this  im- 
perative government,  I  must  say  "good  night!" 


100 


PENCILLINGS  BY  THE  WAY. 


LETTER  LXVII. 

BALE GROTTO     OF    PAUSILYPPO TOMB    OF    VIRGIL 

POZZUOLI RUINS  OF  THE  TEMPLE  OF  JUPITER  SER- 

APIS THE  LUCRINE  LAKE LAKE  OF  AVERNUS,  THE 

TARTARUS     OF     VIRGIL TEMPLE   OF    PROSERPINE 

GROTTO    OF    THE    CUM.EAN   SYBIL NERO'S    VILLA 

CAPE    OF    MISENUM ROMAN  VILLAS RUINS  OF  THE 

TEMPLE    OF  VENUS CENTO  CAMERELLE THE  STY- 
GIAN    LAKE THE    ELYSIAN     FIELDS GROTTO    DEL 

CANE VILLA    OF    LUCULLUS. 

We  made  the  excursion  to  Baits  on  one  of  those 
premature  days  of  March  common  to  Italy.  A  south 
wind  and  a  warm  sun  gave  it  the  feeling  of  June.  The 
heat  was  even  oppressive  as  we  drove  through  the  city, 
and  the  long  echoing  grotto  of  Pausilyppo,  always  dim 
and  cool,  was  peculiarly  refreshing.  Near  the  en- 
trance to  this  curious  passage  under  the  mountain, 
we  stopped  to  visit  the  tomb  of  Virgil.  A  ragged  boy 
took  us  up  a  steep  path  to  the  gate  of  a  vineyard,  and 
winding  in  among  the  just  budding  vines,  we  came  to 
a  small  ravine,  in  the  mouth  of  which,  right  over  the 
deep  cut  of  the  grotto,  stands  the  half-ruined  mau- 
soleum which  held  the  bones  of  the  poet.  An  Eng- 
lishman stood  leaning  against  the  entrance,  reading 
from  a  pocket  copy  of  the  iEneid.  He  seemed 
ashamed  to  be  caught  with  his  classic,  and  put  the 
book  in  his  pocket  as  I  came  suddenly  upon  him,  and 
walked  off  to  the  other  side  whistling  an  air  from  the 
Pirata,  which  is  playing  just  now  at  San  Carlo.  We 
went  in,  counted  the  niches  for  the  urns,  stood  a  few 
minutes  to  indulge  in  what  recollections  we  could 
summon,  and  then  mounted  to  the  top  to  hunt  for  the 
"myrtle."  Even  its  root  was  cut  an  inch  or  two  be- 
low the  ground.  We  found  violets  however,  and  they 
answered  as  well.  The  pleasure  of  visiting  such  pla- 
ces, I  think,  is  nftt  found  on  the  spot.  The  fatigue  of 
the  walk,  the  noise  of  a  party,  the  difference  between 
reality  and  imagination,  and  worse  than  all,  the  caprice 
of  mood — one  or  the  other  of  these  things  disturbs  and 
defeats  for  me  the  dearest  promises  of  anticipation. 
It  is  the  recollection  that  repays  us.  The  picture  re- 
curs to  the  fancy  till  it  becomes  familiar;  and  as  the 
disagreeable  circumstances  of  the  visit  fade  from  the 
memory,  the  imagination  warms  it  into  a  poetic  feeling, 
and  we  dwell  upon  it  with  the  delight  we  looked  for 
in  vain  when  present.  A  few  steps  up  the  ravine,  al- 
most buried  in  luxuriant  grass,  stands  a  small  marble 
tomb,  covering  the  remains  of  an  English  girl.  She 
died  at  Naples.  It  is  as  lovely  a  place  to  lie  in  as  the 
world  could  show.  Forward  a  little  toward  the  edge 
of  the  hill  some  person  of  taste  has  constructed  a  little 
arbor,  laced  over  with  vines,  whence  the  city  and 
bay  of  Naples  is  seen  to  the  finest  advantage.  Par- 
adise that  it  is ! 

It  is  odd  to  leave  a  city  by  a  road  piercing  the  base 
of  a  broad  mountain,  in  at  one  side  and  out  at  the 
other,  after  a  subterranean  drive  of  near  a  mile  !  The 
grotto  of  Pausilyppo  has  been  one  of  the  wonders  of 
the  world  these  two  thousand  years,  and  it  exceeds  all 
expectation  as  a  curiosity.  Its  length  is  stated  at  two 
thousand  three  hundred  and  sixteen  feet,  its  breadth 
twenty-two,  and  its  height  eighty-nine.  It  is  thronged 
with  carts  and  beasts  of  burden  of  all  descriptions,  and 
the  echoing  cries  of  these  noisy  Italian  drivers  are  al- 
most deafening.  Lamps,  struggling  with  the  distant 
daylight  as  you  near  the  end,  just  make  darkness  vis- 
ible, and  standing  in  the  centre  and  looking  either  way, 
the  far  distant  arch  of  daylight  glows  like  a  fire  through 
the  cloud  of  dust.  What  with  the  impressiveness  of 
the  place,  and  the  danger  of  driving  in  the  dark  amid 
so  many  obstructions,  it  is  rather  a  stirring  half-hour 
that  is  spent  in  its  gloom!  One  emerges  into  the 
fresh  open  air  and  the  bright  light  of  day  with  a  feeling 
of  relief. 


The  drive  hence  to  Pozzuoli,  four  or  five  miles,  was 
extremely  beautiful.  The  fields  were  covered  with 
the  new  tender  grain,  and  by  the  short  passage  through 
the  grotto  we  had  changed  a  busy  and  crowded  city  for 
scenes  of  as  quiet  rural  loveliness  as  ever  charmed  the 
eye.  We  soon  reached  the  lip  of  the  bay,  and  then 
the  road  turned  away  to  the  right,  along  the  beach, 
passing  the  small  island  of  Nisida  (where  Brutus  had 
a  villa,  and  which  is  now  a  prison  for  the  carbonari). 

Pozzuoli  soon  appeared,  and  mounting  a  hill  we  de- 
scended into  its  busy  square,  and  were  instantly  beset 
by  near  a  hundred  guides,  boatmen,  and  beggars,  all 
preferring  their  claims  and  services  at  the  tops  of  their 
voices.  I  fixed  my  eye  on  the  most  intelligent  face 
among  them,  a  curly -headed  fellow  in  a  red  lazzaroni 
cap,  and  succeeded,  with  some  loss  of  temper,  in  getting 
him  aside  from  the  crowd  and  bargaining  for  our  boats. 

While  the  boatmen  were  forming  themselves  into  a 
circle  to  cast  lots  for  the  bargain,  we  walked  up  to  the 
famous  ruins  of  the  temple  of  Jupiter  Serapis.  This 
was  one  of  the  largest  and  richest  of  the  temples  of  an- 
tiquity. It  was  a  quadrangular  building,  near  the  edge 
of  the  sea,  lined  with  marble,  and  sustained  by  col- 
umns of  solid  cipollino,  three  of  which  are  still  stand- 
ing. It  was  buried  by  an  earthquake  and  forgotten 
for  a  century  or  two,  till  in  1750  it  was  discovered  by 
a  peasant,  who  struck  the  top  of  one  of  the  columns 
in  digging.  We  stepped  around  over  the  prostrate 
fragments,  building  it  up  once  more  in  fancy,  and 
peopling  the  aisles  with  priests  and  worshippers.  In 
the  centre  of  the  temple  was  the  place  of  sacrifice, 
raised  by  flights  of  steps,  and  at  the  foot  still  remain 
two  rings  of  Corinthian  brass,  to  which  the  victims 
were  fastened,  and  near  them  the  receptacles  for  their 
blood  and  ashes.  The  whole  scene  has  a  stamp  of 
grandeur.  We  obeyed  the  call  of  our  red-bonnet 
guide,  whose  boat  waited  for  us  at  the  temple  stairs, 
very  unwillingly. 

As  we  pushed  off  from  the  shore,  we  deviated  a  mo- 
ment from  our  course  to  look  at  the  ruins  of  the  an- 
cient mole.  Here  probably  St.  Paul  set  his  foot,  land- 
ing to  pursue  his  way  to  Rome.  The  great  apostle 
spent  seven  days  at  this  place,  which  was  then  called 
Puteoli — a  fact  that  attaches  to  it  a  deeper  interest 
than  it  draws  fronvall  the  antiquities  of  which  it  is  the 
centre. 

We  kept  on  our  way  along  the  beautiful  bend  of  the 
shore  of  Bake,  and  passing  on  the  right  a  small  moun- 
tain formed  in  thirty-six  hours  by  a  volcanic  explosion, 
some  three  hundred  years  ago,  we  came  to  the  Lu- 
crine  Lake,  so  famous  in  the  classics  for  its  oysters. 
The  same  explosion  that  made  the  Monte  Nuovo,  and 
sunk  the  little  village  of  Tripergole,  destroyed  the 
oyster-beds  of  the  poets. 

A  ten  minutes'  walk  brought  us  to  the  shores  of 
Lake  Avernus — the  "  Tartarus"  of  Virgil.  This  was 
classic  ground  indeed,  and  we  hoped  to  have  found  a 
thumbed  copy  of  the  JEneid  in  the  pocket  of  the 
cicerone.  He  had  not  even  heard  of  the  poet.  A 
ruin  on  the  opposite  shore,  reflected  in  the  still  dark 
water,  is  supposed  to  have  been  a  temple  dedicated  tc 
Proserpine.  If  she  was  allowed  to  be  present  at  hei 
own  worship,  she  might  have  been  consoled  for  her  ab- 
duction. A  spot  of  more  secluded  loveliness  could 
scarce  be  found.  The  lake  lay  like  a  sheet  of  silvei 
at  the  foot  of  the  ruined  temple,  the  water  looking  un- 
fathomly  deep  through  the  clear  reflection,  and  the 
fringes  of  low  shrubbery  leaning  down  on  every  side, 
were  doubled  in  the  bright  mirror,  the  likeness  even 
fairer  than  the  reality. 

Our  unsentimental  guide  hurried  us  away  as  we 
were  seating  ourselves  upon  the  banks,  and  we  struck 
into  a  narrow  footpath  of  wild  shrubbery  which  circled 
the  lake,  and  in  a  few  minutes  stood  before  the  door 
of  a  grotto  sunk  in  the  side  of  the  hill.  Here  dwelt 
the  Cumfean  sybil,  and  by  this  dark  passage,  the  soul9 


PENCILLINGS  BY  THE  WAY. 


101 


of  the  ancients  passed  from  Tartarus  to  Elysium.  The 
guide  struck  a  light  and  kindled  two  large  torches,  and 
we  followed  him  into  the  narrow  cavern,  walking  down- 
ward at  a  rapid  pace  for  ten  or  fifteen  minutes.  With 
a  turn  to  the  right,  we  stood  before  a  low  archway 
which  the  guide  entered,  up  to  his  knees  in  water  at 
the  first  step.  It  looked  like  the  mouth  of  an  abyss, 
and  the  ladies  refused  to  go  on.  Six  or  seven  stout 
fellows  had  followed  us  in,  and  the  guide  assured  us 
we  should  be  safe  on  their  backs.  I  mounted  first 
myself  to  carry  the  torch,  and  holding  my  head  very 
low,  we  went  plunging  on,  turning  to  the  right  and  left 
through  a  crooked  passage,  dark  as  Erebus,  till  I  was 
set  down  on  a  raised  ledge  called  the  sybil's  bed.  The 
lady  behind  me,  I  soon  discovered  by  her  screams  had 
not  made  so  prosperous  a  voyage.  She  had  insisted 
on  being  taken  up  something  in  the  side-saddle  fashion; 
and  the  man,  not  accustomed  to  hold  so  heavy  a  bur- 
deu  on  his  hip  with  one  arm,  had  stumbled  and  let  her 
slip  up  to  her  knees  in  water.  He  took  her  up  im- 
mediately, in  his  own  homely  but  safer  fashion,  and 
she  was  soon  set  beside  me  on  the  sybil's  stony  couch, 
dripping  with  water,  and  quite  out  of  temper  with  an- 
tiquities. 

The  rest  of  the  party  followed,  and  the  guide  lifted 
the  torches  to  the  dripping  roof  of  the  cavern,  and 
showed  us  the  remains  of  beautiful  mosaic  with  which 
the  place  was  once  evidently  encrusted.  Whatever 
truth  there  may  be  in  the  existence  of  the  sybil,  these 
had  been,  doubtlessly,  luxurious  baths,  and  probably 
devoted  by  the  Roman  emperors  to  secret  licentious- 
ness. The  guide  pointed  out  to  us  a  small  perforation 
in  the  rear  of  the  sybil's  bed,  whence,  he  said  (by  what 
authority  I  know  not),  Caligula  used  to  watch  the 
lavations  of  the  nymph.  It  communicates  with  an 
outer  chamber. 

We  reappeared,  our  nostrils  edged  with  black  from 
the  smoke  of  the  torches,  and  the  ladies'  dresses  in  a 
melancholy  plight,  between  smoke  and  water.  It 
would  be  a  witch  of  a  sybil  that  would  tempt  us  to  re- 
peat our  visit. 

We  retraced  our  steps,  and  embarked  for  Nero's 
villa.  %  It  was  perhaps  a  half  mile  further  down  the 
bay.  The  only  remains  of  it  were  some  vapor  baths, 
built  over  a  boiling  spring  which  extended  under  the 
sea.  One  of  our  boatmen  waded  first  a  few  feet  into 
the  surf,  and  plunging  under  the  cold  sea-water,  brought 
up  a  handful  of  warm  gravel— the  evidence  of  a  sub- 
marine outlet  from  the  springs  beyond.  We  then 
mounted  a  high  and  ruined  flight  of  steps,  and  entered 
a  series  of  chambers  dug  out  of  the  rock,  where  an  old 
man  was  stripping  off  his  shirt,  to  go  through  the  usual 
process  of  taking  eggs  down  to  boil  in  the  fountain. 
He  took  his  bucket,  drew  a  long  breath  of  fresh  air, 
and  rushed  away  by  a  dark  passage,  whence  he  re- 
appeared in  three  or  four  minutes,  the  eggs  boiled, 
and  the  perspiration  streaming  from  his  body  like  rain. 
He  set  the  bucket  down,  and  rushed  to  the  door,  gasp- 
ing as  if  from  suffocation.  The  eggs  were  boiled  hard, 
but  the  distress  of  the  old  man,  and  the  danger  of  such 
sudden  changes  of  atmosphere  to  his  health,  quite 
destroyed  our  pleasure  at  the  phenomenon. 

Hence  to  the  cape  of  Misenum,  the  curve  of  the  bay 
presents  one  continuation  of  Roman  villas.  And  cer- 
tainly there  was  not  probably  in  the  world,  a  place 
more  adapted  to  the  luxury  of  which  it  was  the  scene. 
These  natural  baths,  the  many  mineral  waters,  the 
balmy  climate,  the  fertile  soil,  the  lovely  scenery,  the 
matchless  curve  of  the  shore  from  Pozzuoli  to  the 
cape,  and  the  vicinity,  by  that  wonderful  subterranean 
passage,  to  a  populous  capital  on  the  other  side  of  a 
range  of  mountains,  rendered  Baia;  a  natural  paradise 
to  the  emperors.  It  was  improved  as  we  see.  Temples 
to  Venus,  Diana,  and  Mercury,  the  villas  of  Marius, 
of  Hortensius,  of  Caesar,  of  Lucullus.  and  others  whose 
masters  are  disputed,  follow  each  other  in  rival  beauty 


of  situation.  The  ruins  are  not  much  now,  except 
the  temple  of  Venus,  which  is  one  of  the  most  pictur- 
esque fragments  of  antiquity  I  have  ever  seen.  The. 
long  vines  hang  through  the  rent  in  its  circular  roof, 
and  the  bright  flowers  cling  to  the  crevices  in  its  still 
half-splendid  walls  with  the  very  poetry  of  decay.  Our 
guide  here  proposed  a  lunch.  We  sat  down  on  the 
immense  stone  which  has  fallen  from  the  ceiling,  and 
in  a  few  minutes  the  rough  table  was  spread  with  a 
hundred  open  oysters  fro  nj  Fusaro  (near  Lake  Avernus), 
bottles  at  will  of  lagrima.chrizti.fzom. Vesuyfu^lxotied 
crabs  from  the  shore  benoath  i'ke>  temple  of  Mercury, 
fish  from  the  Lucrinc  iake,,  apd  br,e?,d  from  Pozzuoii. 
The  meal  was  not  less  dar.stc  th?te  tpffiakiig.  .We 
drank  to  the  goddess  \the  only  one  in  mythology,  by 
the  way,  whose  worship  has  not  fallen  into  contempt), 
and  leaving  twenty  ragged  descendants  of  ancient  Baia? 
to  feast  on  the  remains,  mounted  our  donkeys  and 
started  over  land  for  "  Elysium." 

We  passed  the  villa  of  Hortensius,  to  which  Nero 
invited  his  mother,  with  the  design  of  murdering  her, 
visited  the  immense  subterranean  chambers  in  which 
water  was  kept  for  the  Roman  fleet,  the  horrid  prisons 
called  the  Cento  Camerelle  of  the  emperors,  and  then 
rising  the  hill  at  the  extremity  of  the  cape,  the  Stygian 
lake  lay  off  on  the  right,  a  broad  and  gloomy  pool,  and 
around  its  banks  spread  the  Elysian  fields,  the  very 
home  and  centre  of  classic  fable.  An  overflowed 
march,  and  an  adjacent  cornfield  will  give  you  a  per- 
fect idea  of  it.  The  sun  was  setting  while  we  swallow- 
ed our  disappointment,  and  we  turned  our  donkeys' 
heads  toward  Naples. 

We  left  the  city  again  this  morning  by  the  grotto  of 
Pausilyppo,  to  visit  the  celebrated  "  Grotto  del  Cane.'1 
It  is  about  three  miles  off,  on  the  borders  of  a  pretty 
lake,  once  the  crater  of  a  volcano.  On  the  way  there 
arose  a  violent  debate  in  the  party  on  the  propriety  of 
subjecting  the  poor  dogs  to  the  distress  of  the  common 
experiment.  We  had  not  yet  decided  the  point  when 
we  stopped  before  the  door  of  the  keeper's  house. 
Two  miserable-looking  terriers  had  set  up  a  howl,  ac- 
companied with  a  ferocious  and  half-complaining  bark 
from  our  first  appearance  around  the  turn  of  the  road, 
and  the  appeal  was  effectual.  We  dismounted  and 
walking  toward  the  grotto,  determined  to  refuse  to  see 
the  phenomenon.  Our  scruples  were  unnecessary. 
The  door  was  surrounded  with  another  party  less 
merciful,  and  as  we  approached,  two  dogs  were  dragged 
out  by  the  heels,  and  thrown  lifeless  on  the  grass.  We 
gathered  round  them,  and  while  the  old  woman  coolly 
locked  the  door  of  the  grotto,  the  poor  animals  began 
to  kick,  and  after  a  few  convulsions,  struggled  to  their 
feet  and  crept  feebly  away.  Fresh  dogs  were  offered 
to  our  party,  but  we  contented  ourselves  with  the  more 
innocent  experiments.  The  mephitic  air  of  this  cave 
rises  to  a  foot  above  the  surface  of  the  ground,  and  a 
torch  put  into  it,  was  immediately  extinguished.  It  has 
been  described  too  often,  however,  to  need  a  repetition. 
We  took  a  long  stroll  around  the  lake,  which  was 
covered  with  wild-fowl,  visited  the  remains  of  a  villa 
of  Lucullus  on  the  opposite  shore,  and  returned  to 
Naples  to  dinner. 


LETTER  LXVIII. 

ISLAND  OF  SICILV PALERMO SARACENIC  APPEAR- 
ANCE OF  THE  TOWN CATHEDRAL THE  MARINA 

VICEROY  LEOPOLD MONASTERY  OF  THE  CAPU- 
CHINS  CELEBRATED  CATACOMBS FANCIFUL  GAR- 
DENS. 

Frigate  United  States,  June  25. — The  mount- 
ain coast  of  Sicily  lay  piled  up  before  us  at  the  dis 
tance  of  ten  or  twelve  miles,  when  I  came  on  deck 


102 


PENCILLINGS  BY  THE  WAY. 


this  morning.  The  quarter-master  handed  me  the 
glass,  and  running  my  eye  along  the  shore,  I  observed 
three  or  four  low  plains,  extending  between  projecting 
spurs  of  the  hills,  studded  thickly  with  country-hous- 
es, and  bright  with  groves  which  I  knew,  by  the  deep 
glancing  green,  to  be  the  orange.  In  a  corner  of  the 
longest  of  these  intervals,  a  sprinkling  of  white,  look- 
ing in  the  distance  like  a  bed  of  pearly  shells  on  the 
edge  of  the  sea,  was  pointed  out  as  Palermo.  With 
a  steady  glass  its  turrets  and  gardens  became  apparent, 
and  its  ynyle,  br'utUng .abfove  the  wall  with  masts;  and, 
running  in  witli  a- free  w'mi'i-,  the  character  of  our  ship 
was  soon.  r<?cogn;.eed  from  the  shore,  and  the  flags  of 
every  jftMji]  iq  the  Sikrbdr  ra-n  ui>  to  the  mast,  the  cus- 
tomary courtesy  to  "a  man-of-war  entering  port. 

As  the  ship  came  to  her  anchorage,  the  view  of  the 
city  was  very  captivating.  The  bend  of  the  shore 
embraced  our  position,  and  the  eastern  half  of  the 
curve  was  a  succession  of  gardens  and  palaces.  A 
broad  street  extended  along  in  front,  crowded  with 
people  gazing  at  the  frigates,  and  up  one  of  the  long 
avenues  of  the  public  gardens  we  could  distinguish 
the  veiled  women  walking  in  groups,  children  playing, 
priests,  soldiers,  and  all  the  motley  frequenters  of  such 
places  in  this  idle  clime,  enjoying  the  refreshing  sea- 
breeze,  upon  whose  wings  we  had  come.  I  was  im- 
patient to  get  ashore,  but  between  the  health-officer 
and  some  other  hinderances,  it  was  evening  before  we 
set  foot  upon  the  pier. 

With  Captain  Nicholson  and  the  purser  I  walked 
up  the  Toledo,  as  the  still  half-asleep  tradesmen  were 
opening  their  shops  after  the  siesta.  The  oddity  of 
the  Palermitan  style  of  building  struck  me  forcibly,  j 
Of  the  two  long  streets,  crossing  each  other  at  right 
angles  and  extending  to  the  four  gates  of  the  city,  the  I 
lower  story  of  every  house  is  a  shop,  of  course.  The 
second  and  third  stories  are  ornamented  with  tricksy- 
looking  iron  balconies,  in  which  the  women  sit  at  work 
universally,  while  from  above  projects,  far  over  the 
street,  a  grated  enclosure,  like  a  long  bird-cage,  from 
which  look  down  girls  and  children  (or,  if  it  is  a  con- 
vent, the  nuns),  as  if  it  were  an  airy  prison  to  keep 
the  household  from  the  contact  of  the  world.  The 
whole  air  of  Palermo  is  different  from  that  of  the 
towns  upon  the  continent.  The  peculiarities  are  said 
to  be  Saracenic,  and  inscriptions  in  Arabic  are  still 
found  upon  the  ancient  buildings.  The  town  is  poet- 
ically called  the  concha  d'oro,  or  "  the  golden  shell." 

We  walked  on  to  the  cathedral,  followed  by  a  troop 
of  literally  naked  beggars,  baked  black  in  the  sun,  and 
more  emaciated  and  diseased  than  any  I  have  yet  seen 
abroad.  Their  cries  and  gestures  were  painfully  ener- 
getic. In  the  course  of  five  minutes  we  had  seen  two 
or  three  hundred.  They  lay  along  the  sidewalks,  and 
upon  the  steps  of  the  houses  and  churches,  men,  wo- 
men, and  children,  nearly  or  quite  naked,  and  as  unno- 
ticed by  the  inhabitants  as  the  stones  of  the  street. 

Ten  or  twenty  indolent-looking  priests  sat  in  the 
shade  at  the  porch  of  the  cathedral.  The  columns 
of  the  vestibule  were  curiously  wrought,  the  capitals 
exceedingly  rich  with  fretted  leaf-work,  and  the  orna- 
ments of  the  front  of  the  same  wild-looking  character 
as  the  buildings  of  the  town.  A  hunchback  scarce 
three  feet  high,  came  up  and  offered  his  services  as  a 
cicerone,  and  we  entered  the  church.  The  antiquity 
of  the  interior  was  injured  by  the  new  wViite  paint,  cov- 
ering every  part  except  the  more  valuable  decorations, 
but  with  its  four  splendid  sarcophagi  standing  like  sep- 
arate buildings  in  the  aisles,  and  covering  the  ashes 
of  Ruggiero  and  his  kinsmen  ;  the  eighty  columns  of 
Egyptian  granite  in  the  nave ;  the  ciborio  of  entire 
lapis-lazuli  with  its  lovely  blue,  and  the  mosaics,  fres- 
coes and  relievoes  about  the  altar,  it  could  scarce  fail  of 
producing  an  effect  of  great  richness.  The  floor  was 
occupied  by  here  and  there  a  kneeling  beggar,  praying 
in  his  rags,  and   undisturbed   even  by  the   tempting 


neighborhood  of  strangers.  I  stood  long  by  an  old 
man,  who  seemed  hardly  to  have  the  strength  to  hold 
himself  upon  his  knees.  His  eyes  were  fixed  upon  a 
lovely  picture  of  the  Virgin,  and  his  trembling  hands 
loosed  bead  after  bead  as  his  prayer  proceeded.  I 
slipped  a  small  piece  of  silver  between  his  palm  and 
the  cross  of  his  rosary,  and  without  removing  his  eyes 
from  the  face  of  the  holy  mother,  he  implored  an  audi- 
ble blessing  upon  me  in  a  tone  of  the  most  earnest 
feeling.  I  have  scarce  been  so  moved  within  my  rec- 
ollection. 

The  equipages  were  beginning  to  roll  toward  the 
"  Marina,"  and  the  Seabreeze  was  felt  even  through 
the  streets.  We  took  a  carriage  and  followed  to  the 
corso,  where  we  counted  near  two  hundred  gay,  well- 
appointed  equipages,  in  the  course  of  an  hour.  What 
a  contrast  to  the  wretchedness  we  had  left  behind  ! 
Driving  up  and  down  this  half-mile  in  front  of  the 
palaces  on  the  sea,  seemed  quite  a  sufficient  amuse- 
ment for  the  indolent  nobility  of  Palermo.  They 
were  named  to  us  by  their  imposing  titles  as  they 
passed,  and  we  looked  in  vain  into  their  dull  unanima- 
ted  faces  for  the  chivalrous  character  of  the  once  re- 
nowned knights  of  Sicily.  Ladies  and  gentlemen  sat 
alike  silent,  leaning  back  in  their  carriages  in  the  ele- 
gant attitudes  studied  to  such  effect  on  this  side  of  the 
water,  and  gazing  for  acquaintances '  among  those 
passing  on  the  opposite  line. 

Toward  the  dusk  of  the  evening,  an  avant-couricr 
on  horseback  announced  the  approach  of  the  viceroy 
Leopold,  the  brother  of  the  king  of  Naples.  He 
drove  himself  in  an  English  hunting-wagon  with  two 
seats,  and  looked  like  a  dandy  whip  of  the  first  water 
from  Regent  street.  He  is  about  twenty,  and  quite 
handsome.  His  horses,  fine  English  bays,  flew  up 
and  down  the  short  corso,  passing  and  repassing  every 
other  minute,  till  we  were  weary  of  touching  our  hats 
and  stopping  till  he  had  gone  by.  He  noticed  the 
uniform  of  our  officers,  and  raised  his  hat  with  partic- 
ular politeness  to  them. 

As  it  grew  dark,  the  carriages  came  to  a  stand 
around  a  small  open  gallery  raised  in  the  broadest  part 
of  the  Marina.  Rows  of  lamps,  suspended  from  the 
roof,  were  lit,  and  a  band  of  forty  or  fifty  musicians 
appeared  in  the  area,  and  played  parts  of  the  popular 
operas.  We  were  told  they  performed  every  night 
from  nine  till  twelve.  Chairs  were  set  around  for  the 
people  on  foot,  ices  circulated,  and  some  ten  or 
twelve  thousand  people  enjoyed  the  music  in  a  deli- 
cious moonlight,  keeping  perfect  silence  from  the  first 
note  to  the  last.  These  heavenly  nights  of  Italy  are 
thus  begun,  and  at  twelve  the  people  separate  and  go 
to  visit,  or  lounge  at  home  till  morning,  when  the  win- 
dows are  closed,  the  cool  night  air  shut  in,  and  they 
sleep  till  evening  comes  again,  literally  "keeping  the 
hours  the  stars  do."  It  is  very  certain  that  it  is  the 
only  way  to  enjoy  life  in  this  enervating  climate.  The 
sun  is  the  worst  enemy  to  health,  and  life  and  spirits 
sink  under  its  intensity.  The  English,  who  are  the 
only  people  abroad  in  an  Italian  noon,  are  constant  vic- 
tims to  it. 

We  drove  this  morning  to  the  monastery  of  the 
capuchins.  Three  or  four  of  the  brothers  in  long 
gray  beards,  and  the  heavy  brown  sackcloth  cowls  of 
the  order  tied  around  the  waist  with  ropes,  received 
us  cordially  and  took  us  through  the  cells  and  chapels. 
We  had  come  to  see  the  famous  catacombs  of  the  con- 
vent. A  door  was  opened  on  the  side  of  the  main 
cloister,  and  we  descended  a  long  flight  of  stairs  into 
the  centre  of  three  lofty  vaults,  lighted  each  by  a 
window  at  the  extremity  of  the  ceiling.  A  more 
frightful  scene  never  appalled  the  eye.  The  walls 
were  lined  with  shallow  niches,  from  which  hung, 
leaning  forward  as  if  to  fall  upon  the  gazer,  the  dried 
bodies  of  monks  in  the  full  dress  of  their  order.     Their 


PENCILLINGS  BY  THE  WAY. 


103 


hands  were  crossed  upon  their  breasts  or  hung  at  their 
sides,  their  faces  were  blackened  and  withered,  and 
every  one  seemed  to  have  preserved,  in  diabolical  cari- 
cature, the  very  expression  of  life.  The  hair  lay  red- 
dened and  dry  on  the  dusty  scull,  the  teeth,  perfect  or 
imperfect,  had  grown  brown  in  their  open  mouths,  the 
nose  had  shrunk,  the  cheeks  fallen  in  and  cracked,  and 
they  looked  more  like  living  men  cursed  with  some 
horrid  plague,  than  the  inanimate  corpses  they  were. 
The  name  of  each  was  pinned  upon  his  cowl,  with  his 
a<je  and  the  time  of  his  death.  Below  in  three  or  four 
tiers,  lay  long  boxes  painted  fantastically,  and  contain- 
ing, the  monk  told  us,  the  remains  of  Sicilian  nobles. 
Upon  a  long  shelf  above  sat  perhaps  a  hundred  children 
of  from  one  year  to  five,  in  little  chairs  worn  with  their 
use  while  in  life,  dressed  in  the  gayest  manner,  with 
fanciful  caps  upon  their  little  blackened  heads,  dolls  in 
their  hands,  and  in  one  or  two  instances,  a  stuffed  dog 
or  parrot  lying  in  their  laps.  A  more  horribly  ludicrous 
collection  of  little  withered  faces,  shrunk  into  expres-  j 
sion  so  entirely  inconsistent  with  the  gayety  of  their  j 
dresses,  could  scarce  be  conceived.  One  of  them  had 
his  arm  tied  up,  holding  a  child's  whip  in  the  act  of  | 
striking,  while  the  poor  thing's  head  had  rotted  and 
dropped  upon  its  breast;  and  a  leather  cap  fallen  on  : 
one  side,  showed  his  bare  scull,  with  the  most  comical 
expression  of  carelessness.  We  quite  shocked  the 
old  monk  with  our  laughter,  but  the  scene  was  irresis- 
tible. 

We  went  through  several  long  galleries  filled  in  the 
same  manner,  with  the  dead  monks  standing  over  the 
coffins  of  nobles,  and  children  on  the  shelf  above. 
There  were  three  thousand  bodies  and  upward  in  the 
place,  monks  and  all.  Some  of  them  were  very  an- 
cient. There  was  one,  dated  a  century  and  a  half 
back,  whose  tongue  still  hangs  from  his  mouth.  The 
frair  took  hold  of  it,  and  moved  it  up  and  down,  rattling 
it  against  his  teeth.  It  was  like  a  piece  of  dried  fish- 
skin,  and  as  sharp  and  thin  as  a  nail. 

At  the  extremity  of  the  last  passage  was  a  new  vault 
appropriated  to  women.  There  were  nine  already 
lying  on  white  pillows  in  the  different  recesses,  who 
had  died  within  the  year,  and  among  them  a  young 
girl,  the  daughter  of  a  noble  family  of  Palermo,  stated 
in  the  inscription  to  have  been  a  virgin  of  seventeen 
years.  The  monk  said  her  twin-sister  was  the  most 
beautiful  woman  of  the  city  at  this  moment.  She  was 
laid  upon  her  back,  on  a  small  shelf  faced  with  a  wire 
grating,  dressed  in  white,  withalarge  bouquet  of  artificial 
flowers  on  the  centre  of  the  body.  Her  hands  and  face 
were  exposed,  and  the  skin  which  seemed  to  me  scarce- 
ly dry,  was  covered  with  small  black  ants.  I  struck 
with  my  stick  against  the  shelf,  and,  startled  by  the 
concussion,  the  disgusting  vermin  poured  from  the 
mouth  and  nostrils  in  hundreds.  How  difficult  it  is 
to  believe  that  the  beauty  we  worship  must  come  to 
this! 

As  we  went  toward  the  staircase,  the  friar  showed 
us  the  deeper  niches,  in  which  the  bodies  were  placed 
for  the  first  six  months.  There  were  fortunately  no 
fresh  bodies  in  them  at  the  time  of  our  visit.  The 
stench,  for  a  week  or  two,  he  told  us,  was  intolerable. 
They  are  suffered  to  get  quite  dry  here,  and  then  are 
disposed  of  according  to  their  sex  or  profession.  A 
rope  passed  round  the  middle,  fastens  the  dead  monk 
to  his  shallow  niche,  and  there  he  stands  till  his  bones 
rot  from  each  other,  sometimes  for  a  century  or  more. 

We  hurried  up  the  gloomy  stairs,  and  giving  the 
monk  our  gratuity,  were  passing  out  of  the  cloister  to 
our  carriage  when  two  of  the  brothers  entered,  bearing 
a  sedan  chair  with  the  blinds  closed.  Our  friend  called 
us  back,  and  opened  the  door.  An  old  gray-headed 
woman  sat  bolt  upright  within,  with  a  rope  around  her 
body  and  another  around  her  neck,  supporting  her  by 
two  rings  in  the  back  of  the  sedan.  She  had  died  that 
morning,  and  was  brought  to  be  dried  in  the  capuchin 


catacombs.     The  effect  ot  the  newly  deceased  body  in 
a  handsome  silk  dress  and  plaited  cap  was  horrible. 

We  drove  from  the  monastery  to  the  gardens  of  a 
Sicilian  prince,  near  by.  I  was  agreeably  disappointed 
to  find  the  grounds  laid  out  in  the  English  taste,  wind- 
ing into  secluded  walks  shaded  with  undipped  trees, 
and  opening  into  glades  of  greensward  cooled  by  foun- 
tains. We  strolled  on  from  one  sweet  spot  to  another, 
coming  constantly  upon  little  Grecian  temples,  ruins, 
broken  aqueducts,  aviaries,  bowers  furnished  with 
curious  seats  and  tables,  bridges  over  streams,  and 
labyrinths  of  shrubbery  ending  in  hermitages  built 
curiously  of  cane.  So  far,  the  garden,  though  lovely, 
was  like  many  others.  On  our  return,  the  person  who 
accompanied  us  began  to  surprise  us  with  singular 
contrivances,  fortunately  selecting  the  coachman  who 
had  driven  us  as  the  subject  of  his  experiments.  In 
the  middle  of  a  long  green  alley  he  requested  him  to 
step  forward  a  few  paces,  and,  in  an  instant,  streams 
of  water  poured  upon  him  from  the  bushes  around  in 
every  direction.  There  were  seats  in  the  arbors,  the 
least  pressure  of  which  sent  up  a  stream  beneath  the 
unwary  visiter ;  steps  to  an  ascent,  which  you  no  sooner 
touched  than  you  were  showered  from  an  invisible 
source ;  and  one  small  hermitage,  which  sent  a  jet 
d'eau  into  the  face  of  a  person  lifting  the  latch.  Nearly 
in  the  centre  of  the  garden  stood  a  pretty  building, 
with  an  ascending  staircase.  At  the  first  step,  a  friar 
in  white,  represented  to  the  life  in  wax,  opened  the 
door,  and  fixed  his  eyes  on  the  comer.  At  the  next 
step,  the  door  was  violently  shut.  At  the  third,  it  was 
half  opened  again,  and  as  the  foot  pressed  the  platform 
above,  both  doors  flew  wide  open,  and  the  old  friar 
made  room  for  the  visiter  to  enter.  Life  itself  could 
not  have  been  more  natural.  The  garden  was  full  of 
similar  tricks.  We  were  hurried  away  by  an  engage- 
ment before  we  had  seen  them  all,  and  stopping  for  a 
moment  to  look  at  a  magnificent  Egyptian  Ibis,  walk- 
ing around  in  an  aviary  like  a  temple,  we  drove  into 
town  to  dinner. 


LETTER  LXIX. 

THE    LUNATIC    ASYLUM    AT    PALERMO. 

Palermo,  June  28. — Two  of  the  best-conducted 
lunatic  asylums  in  the  world  are  in  the  kingdom  of 
Naples — one  at  Aversa,  near  Capua,  and  the  other  at 
Palermo.  The  latter  is  managed  by  a  whimsical  Si- 
cilian baron,  who  has  devoted  his  time  and  fortune  to 
it,  and  with  the  assistance  of  the  government,  has  car- 
ried it  to  great  extent  and  perfection.  The  poor  are 
received  gratuitously,  and  those  who  can  afford  it  en- 
ter as  boarders,  and  are  furnished  with  luxuries  ac- 
cording to  their  means. 

The  hospital  stands  in  an  airy  situation  in  the  love- 
ly neighborhood  of  Palermo.  We  were  received  by 
a  porter  in  a  respectable  livery,  who  introduced  us  im- 
mediately to  the  old  baron — a  kind-looking  man,  rather 
advanced  beyond  middle  life,  of  manners  singularly 
genteel  and  prepossessing.  "  Je  suis  It  premier  fou," 
said  he,  throwing  his  arms  out,  as  he  bowed  on  our 
entrance.  We  stood  in  an  open  court,  surrounded 
with  porticoes  lined  with  stone  seats.  On  one  of 
them  lay  a  fat,  indolent-looking  man,  in  clean  gray 
clothes,  talking  to  himself  with  great  apparent  satis- 
faction. He  smiled  at  the  baron  as  he  passed  without 
checking  the  motion  of  his  lips,  and  three  others 
standing  in  the  doorway  of  a  room  marked  as  the 
kitchen,  smiled  also  as  he  came  up,  and  fell  into  his 
train,  apparently  as  much  interested  as  ourselves  in 
the  old  man's  explanations. 

The  kitchen  was  occupied  by  eight  or  ten  people 
all  at  work,  and  all,  the  baron  assured  us,  mad.     One 


104 


PENCILLINGS  BY  THE  WAY. 


man,  of  about  forty,  was  broiling  a  steak  with  the  gra- 
vest attention.  Another,  who  had  been  furious  till  em- 
ployment was  given  him,  was  chopping  meat  with  vio- 
lent industry  in  a  large  wooden  bowl.  Two  or  three 
girls  were  about,  obeying  the  little  orders  of  a  middle- 
aged  man,  occupied  with  several  messes  cooking  on  a 
patent  stove.  I  was  rather  incredulous  about  his  in- 
sanity, till  he  took  a  small  bucket  and  went  to  the  jet 
of  a  fountain,  and  getting  impatient  from  some  cause 
or  other,  dashed  the  water  upon  the  floor.  The  baron 
mildly  called  him  by  name,  and  mentioned  to  him  as 
a  piece  of  information  that  he  had  wet  the  floor.  He 
nodded  his  head,  and  filling  his  bucket  quietly,  poured 
a  little  into  one  of  the  pans,  and  resumed  his  occu- 
pation. 

We  passed  from  the  kitchen  into  an  open  court,  cu- 
riously paved,  and  ornamented  with  Chinese  grottoes, 
artificial  rocks,  trees,  cottages,  and  fountains.  Within 
the  grottoes  reclined  figures  of  wax.  Before  the  altar 
of  one,  fitted  up  as  a  Chinese  chapel,  a  mandarin  was 
prostrated  in  prayer.  The  walls  on  every  side  were 
painted  in  perspective  scenery,  and  the  whole  had  as 
little  the  air  of  a  prison  as  the  open  valley  itself.  In 
one  of  the  corners  was  an  unfinished  grotto,  and  a 
handsome  young  man  was  entirely  absorbed  in  thatch- 
ing the  ceiling  with  strips  of  cane.  The  baron 
pointed  to  him,  and  said  he  had  been  incurable  till  he 
had  found  this  employment  for  him.  Everything 
about  us,  too,  he  assured  us,  was  the  work  of  his  pa- 
tients. They  had  paved  the  court,  built  the  grottoes 
and  cottages,  and  painted  the  walls,  under  his  direc- 
tion. The  secret  of  his  whole  system,  he  said,  was 
employment  and  constant  kindness.  He  had  usually 
about  one  hundred  and  fifty  patients,  and  he  dismissed 
upon  an  average  two  thirds  of  them  quite  recovered. 

We  went  into  the  apartment  of  the  women.  These, 
he  said,  were  his  worst  subjects.  In  the  first  room  sat 
eight  or  ten  employed  in  spinning,  while  one  infuriated 
creature,  not  more  than  thirty,  but  quite  gray,  was 
walking  up  and  down  the  floor,  talking  and  gesticula- 
ting with  the  greatest  violence.  A  young  girl  of  six- 
teen, an  attendant,  had  entered  into  her  humor,  and 
with  her  arm  put  affectionately  round  her  waist,  assent- 
ed to  everything  she  said,  and  called  her  by  every 
name  of  endearment  while  endeavoring  to  silence  her. 
When  the  baron  entered,  the  poor  creature  addressed 
herself  to  him,  and  seemed  delighted  that  he  had 
come.  He  made  several  mild  attempts  to  check  her, 
but  she  seized  his  hands,  and  with  the  veins  of  her 
throat  swelling  with  passion,  her  eyes  glaring  terribly, 
and  her  tongue  white  and  trembling,  she  continued  to 
declaim  more  and  more  violently.  The  baron  gave  an 
order  to  a  male  attendant  at  the  door,  and  beckoning 
us  to  follow,  led  her  gently  through  a  small  court 
planted  with  trees,  to  a  room  containing  a  hammock. 
She  checked  her  torrent  of  language  as  she  observed 
the  preparations  going  on,  and  seemed  amused  with 
the  idea  of  swinging.  The  man  took  her  up  in  his 
arms  without  resistance,  and  laced  the  hammock  over 
her,  confining  everything  but  her  head,  and  the  female 
attendant,  one  of  the  most  playful  and  prepossessing 
little  creatures  I  ever  saw,  stood  on  a  chair,  and  at  every 
swing  threw  a  little  water  on  her  face  as  if  in  sport. 
Once  or  twice,  the  maniac  attempted  to  resume  the 
subject  of  her  ravings,  but  the  girl  laughed  in  her  face 
and  diverted  her  from  it,  till  at  last  she  smiled  and 
dropping  her  head  into  the  hammock,  seemed  disposed 
to  sink  into  an  easy  sleep. 

We  left  her  swinging  and  went  out  into  the  court, 
where  eight  or  ten  women  in  the  gray  gowns  of  the 
establishment  were  walking  up  and  down,  or  sitting 
under  the  trees,  lost  in  thought.  One,  with  a  fine,  in- 
telligent face,  came  up  to  me  and  courtesied  gracefully 
without  speaking.  The  physician  of  the  establish- 
ment joined  me  at  the  moment,  and  asked  her  what 
she  wished.     »  To  kiss  his  hand,"  said  she,  "  but  his 


looks  forbade  me."  She  colored  deeply,  and  folded 
her  arms  across  her  breast  and  walked  away.  The 
baron  called  us,  and  in  going  out  I  passed  her  again, 
and  taking  her  hand,  kissed  it,  and  bade  her  good-by. 
"  You  had  better  kiss  my  lips,"  said  she,  "you'll  never 
see  me  again."  She  laid  her  forehead  against  the  iron 
bars  of  the  gate,  and  with  a  face  working  with  emo- 
tion, watched  us  till  we  turned  out  of  sight.  I  asked 
the  physician  for  her  history.  "  It  was  a  common 
case,"  he  said.  "  She  was  the  daughter  of  a  Sicilian 
noble,  who,  too  poor  to  marry  her  to  one  of  her  own 
rank,  had  sent  her  to  a  convent,  where  confinement 
had  driven  her  mad.  She  is  now  a  charity  patient  in 
the  asylum." 

The  courts  in  which  these  poor  creatures  are  con- 
fined, open  upon  a  large  and  lovely  garden.  We  walk- 
ed through  it  with  the  baron,  and  then  returned  to  the 
apartments  of  the  females.  In  passing  a  cell,  a  large 
majestic  woman  strided  out  with  a  theatrical  air,  and 
commenced  an  address  to  the  Deity,  in  a  language 
strangely  mingled  of  Italian  and  Greek.  Her  eyes  were 
naturally  large  and  soft,  but  excitement  had  given 
them  additional  dilation  and  fire,  and  she  looked  a 
prophetess.  Her  action,  with  all  its  energy,  was  lady- 
like. Her  feet,  half  covered  with  slippers  were  well- 
formed  and  slight,  and  she  had  every  mark  of  superi- 
ority both  of  birth  and  endowment.  The  baron  took 
her  by  the  hand  with  the  deferential  courtesy  of  the 
old  school,  and  led  her  to  one  of  the  stone  seats.  She 
yielded  to  him  politely,  but  resumed  her  harangue, 
upbraiding  the  Deity,  as  well  as  I  could  understand 
her,  for  her  misfortunes.  They  succeeded  in  soothing 
her  by  the  assistance  of  the  same  playful  attendant 
who  had  accompanied  the  other  to  the  hammock,  and 
she  sat  still,  with  her  lips  white  and  her  tongue  tremb- 
ling like  an  aspen.  While  the  good  old  baron  was 
endeavoring  to  draw  her  into  a  quiet  conversation,  the 
physician  told  me  some  curious  circumstances  respect- 
ing her.  She  was  a  Greek,  and  had  been  brought  to 
Palermo  when  a  girl.  Her  mind  had  been  destroyed 
by  an  illness,  and  after  seven  years'  madness,  during 
which  she  had  refused  to  rise  from  her  bed  and  had 
quite  lost  the  use  of  her  limbs,  she  was  brought  to  this 
establishment  by  her  friends.  Experiments  were  tried 
in  vain  to  induce  her  to  move  from  her  painful  posi- 
tion. At  last  the  baron  determined  upon  addressing 
what  he  considered  the  master-passion  in  all  female 
bosoms.  He  dressed  himself  in  the  gayest  manner, 
and,  in  one  of  her  gentle  moments,  entered  her  room 
with  respectful  ceremony  and  offered  himself  to  her 
in  marriage!  She  refused  him  with  scorn,  and  with 
seeming  emotion  he  begged  forgiveness  and  left  her. 
The  next  morning,  on  his  entrance,  she  smiled — the 
first  time  for  years.  He  continued  his  attentions  for  a 
day  or  two,  and  after  a  little  coquetry  she  one  morn- 
ing announced  to  him  that  she  had  re-considered  his 
proposal,  and  would  be  his  bride.  They  raised  her 
from  her  bed  to  prepare  her  for  the  ceremony,  and  she 
was  carried  in  a  chair  to  the  garden,  where  the  bridal 
feast  was  spread,  nearly  all  the  other  patients  of  the 
hospital  being  present.  The  gayety  of  the  scene  ab- 
sorbed the  attention  of  all ;  the  utmost  decorum  pre- 
vailed ;  and  when  the  ceremony  was  performed,  the 
bride  was  crowned,  and  carried  back  in  state  to  her 
apartment.  She  recovered  gradually  the  use  of  her 
limbs,  her  health  is  improved,  and  excepting  an  occa- 
sional paroxysm,  such  as  we  happened  to  witness,  she 
is  quiet  and  contented.  The  other  inmates  of  the 
asylum  still  call  her  the  bride ;  and  the  baron,  as  her 
husband,  has  the  greatest  influence  over  her. 

While  the  physician  was  telling  me  these  circum- 
stances, the  baron  had  succeeded  in  calming  her,  and 
she  sat  with  her  arms  folded,  dignified  and  silent.  He 
was  still  holding  her  hand,  when  the  woman  whom  we 
had  left  swinging  in  the  hammock,  came  stealing  up 
behind  the  trees  on  tiptoe,  and  putting  her  hand  sud- 


PENCILLINGS  BY  THE  WAY. 


105 


denly  over  the  baron's  eyes,  kissed  him  on  both  sides 
of  his  face,  laughing  heartily,  and  calling  him  by  every 
name  of  affection.  The  contrast  between  this  mood 
and  the  infuriated  one  in  which  we  had  found  her,  was 
the  best  comment  on  the  good  man's  system.  He 
gently  disengaged  himself,  and  apologised  to  his  lady 
for  allowing  the  liberty,  and  we  followed  him  to  an- 
other apartment. 

It  opened  upon  a  pretty  court,  in  which  a  fountain 
was  playing,  and  against  the  columns  of  the  portico  sat 
some  half  dozen  patients.  A  young  man  of  eighteen, 
with  a  very-pale,  scholar-like  face,  was  reading  Ariosto. 
Near  him,  under  the  direction  of  an  attendant,  a  fair, 
delicate  girl,  with  a  sadness  in  her  soft  blue  eyes  that 
might  have  been  a  study  for  a  mater  dolorosa,  was  cut- 
ting paste  upon  a  board  laid  across  her  lap.  She 
seemed  scarcely  conscious  of  what  she  was  about,  and 
when  I  approached  and  spoke  to  her,  she  laid  down 
the  knife  and  rested  her  head  upon  her  hand,  and 
looked  at  me  steadily,  as  if  she  was  trying  to  recollect 
where  she  had  known  me.  "  I  can  not  remember," 
she  said  to  herself,  and  went  on  with  her  occupation. 
I  bowed  to  her  as  we  took  our  leave,  and  she  returned 
it  gracefully  but  coldly.  The  young  man  looked  up 
from  his  book  and  smiled,  the  old  man  lying  on  the 
stone  seat  in  the  outer  court  rose  up  and  followed  us 
to  the  door,  and  we  were  bowed  out  by  the  baron  and 
his  gentle  madmen  as  politely  and  kindly  as  if  we  were 
concluding  a  visit  with  a  company  of  friends. 

An  evening  out  of  doors,  in  summer,  is  pleasant 
enough  anywhere  in  Italy  :  but  I  have  found  no  place 
where  the  people  and  their  amusements  were  so  con- 
centrated at  that  hour,  as  upon  the  "  Marina"  of  Pa- 
lermo. A  ramble  with  the  officers  up  and  down,  re- 
newing the  acquaintances  made  with  visiters  to  the 
ships,  listening  to  the  music  and  observing  the  various 
characters  of  the  crowd,  concludes  every  day  agreeably. 
A  terraced  promenade,  twenty  feet  above  the  street, 
extends  nearly  the  whole  length  of  the  Marina,  and 
here,  under  the  balconies  of  the  viceroy's  palace,  with 
the  crescent  harbor  spread  out  before  the  eye,  trees 
above,  and  marble  seats  tempting  the  weary  at  every 
step,  may  be  met  pedestrians  of  every  class,  from  the 
first  cool  hour  when  the  Seabreeze  sets  in  till  midnight 
or  morning.  The  intervals  between  the  pieces  per- 
formed by  the  royal  band  in  the  centre  of  the  drive,  is 
seized  by  the  wandering  improvisatrice,  or  the  ludicrous 
puncindlo,  and  even  the  beggars  cease  to  importune  in 
the  general  abandonment  to  pleasure.  Every  other 
moment  the  air  is  filled  with  a  delightful  perfume,  and 
you  are  addressed  by  the  bearer  of  a  tall  pole  tied 
thickly  with  the  odorous  flowers  of  this  voluptuous 
climate — a  mode  of  selling  these  cheap  luxuries  which 
I  believe  is  peculiar  to  Palermo.  The  gayety  they 
give  a  crowd,  by  the  way,  is  singular.  They  move 
about  among  the  gaudily-dressed  contadini  like  a  troop  ' 
of  banners — tulips,  narcissus,  moss-roses,  branches  of  ' 
jasmine,  geraniums,  every  flower  that  is  rare  and  beau-  ! 
tiful  scenting  the  air  from  a  hundred  overladen  poles,  j 
and  the  merest  pittance  will  purchase  the  rarest  and 
loveliest.  It  seems  a  clime  of  fruits  and  flowers;  and 
if  one  could  but  shut  his  eyes  to  the  dreadful  contrasts 
of  nakedness  and  starvation,  he  might  believe  himself 
in  a  Utopia. 

We  were  standing  on  the  balcony  of  the  consul's 
residence  (a  charming  situation  overlooking  the  Ma- 
rina), and  remarking  the  gayety  of  the  scene  on  the 
first  evening  of  our  arrival.  The  conversation  turned 
upon  the  condition  of  the  people.  The  consul  re- 
marked that  it  was  an  every-day  circumstance  to  find 
beggars  starved  to  death  in  the  streets ;  and  that,  in 
the  small  villages  near  Palermo,  eight  or  ten  were  of- 
ten taken  up  dead  from  the  road-side  in  the  morning. 
The  difficulty  of  getting  a  subsistence  is  every  day  in- 
creasing, and  in  the  midst  of  one  of  the  most   fertile 


spots  of  the  earth,  one  half  the  population  are  driven 
to  the  last  extremity  for  bread.  The  results  appear 
in  constant  conspiracies  against  the  government,  de- 
tected and  put  down  with  more  or  less  difficulty.  The 
island  is  garrisoned  with  troops  from  Italy,"  and  the 
viceroy  has  lately  sent  to  his  brother  for  a  reinforce- 
ment, and  is  said  to  feel  very  insecure.  A  more  la- 
mentably misgoverned  kingdom  than  that  of  the  Sici- 
lies, probably  does  not  exist  in  the  world. 


LETTER  LXX. 

PALERMO — FETE  GIVEN  BY  ME.  GARDINER,  THE  AMERI- 
CAN CONSUL — TEMPLE  OF  CLITUMNTJS — COTTAGE  OF 
PETRARCH — MESSINA — LIPAEI  ISLANDS — SCYLLA  AND 
CHARTBDIS. 

Palermo,  June  28. — The  curve  of  "  The  Golden 
Shell,"  which  bends  to  the  east  of  Palermo,  is  a  luxu- 
riant plain  of  ten  miles  in  length,  terminated  by  a 
bluff  which  forms  a  headland  corner  of  the  bay.  A 
broad  neck  of  land  between  this  bay  and  another  in- 
denting the  coast  less  deeply  on  the  other  side,  is  oc- 
cupied by  a  cluster  of  summer  palaces  belonging  to 
several  of  the  richer  princes  of  Sicily.  The  breeze, 
whenever  there  is  one  on  land  or  sea,  sweeps  freshly 
across  this  ridge,  and  a  more  desirable  residence  for 
combined  coolness  and  beauty  could  scarce  be  imagin- 
ed. The  Palermitan  princes,  however,  find  every 
country  more  attractive  than  their  own;  and  while  you 
may  find  a  dozen  of  them  in  any  city  of  Europe,  their 
once  magnificent  residences  are  deserted  and  falling  to 
decay,  almost  without  an  exception. 

The  old  walls  of  one  of  these  palaces  were  enlivened 
yesterday,  by  a  fete  given  to  the  officers  of  the  squadron 
by  the  American  consul,  Mr.  Gardiner.  "We  left 
Palermo  in  a  long  cavalcade,  followed  by  a  large  omni- 
bus containing  the  ship's  band,  early  in  the  forenoon. 
The  road  was  lined  with  prickly  pear  and  oleander  in 
the  most  luxuriant  blossom.  Exotics  in  our  country, 
these  plants  are  indigenous  to  Sicily,  and  form  the  only 
hedges  to  the  large  plantations  of  cane  and  the  spread- 
ing vineyards  and  fields.  A  more  brilliant  show  than 
these  long  lines  of  trees,  laden  with  bright  pink  flowers, 
and  varied  by  the  gigantic  and  massive  leaf  of  the  pear, 
can  not  easily  be  imagined. 

We  were  to  visit  one  or  two  places  on  our  way.  The 
carriage  drew  up  about  eight  miles  from  town,  at  the 
gate  of  a  ruinous  building,  and  passing  through  a 
deserted  court,  we  entered  an  old-fashioned  garden, 
presenting  one  succession  of  trimmed  walks,  urns, 
statues  and  fountains.  The  green  mould  of  age  and 
exposure  upon  the  marbles,  the  broken  seats,  the  once 
costly  but  now  ruined  and  silent  fountains,  the  tall 
weeds  in  the  seldom-trodden  walks,  and  the  wild  vege- 
tation of  fragrant  jasmine  and  brier  burying  everything 
with  its  luxuriance,  all  told  the  story  of  decay.  I  re- 
membered the  scenes  of  the  Decameron ;  the  many 
"  tales  of  love,"  laid  in  these  very  gardens  ;  the  gay 
romances  of  which  Palermo  was  the  favorite  home  ; 
and  the  dames  and  knights  of  Sicily  the  fairest  and 
bravest  themes,  and  I  longed  to  let  my  merry  com- 
panions pass  on,  and  remain  to  realize  more  deeply  the 
spells  of  poetry  and  story.  The  pleasure  of  travel  is 
in  the  fancy.  Men  and  manners  are  so  nearly  alike 
over  the  world,  and  the  same  annoyances  disturb  so 
certainly,  wherever  we  are,  the  gratification  of  seeing 
and  conversing  with  our  living  fellow-beings,  that  it  is 
only  by  the  mingled  illusion  of  fancy  and  memory,  by 
getting  apart,  and  peopling  the  deserted  palace  or  the 
sombre  ruin  from  the  pages  of  a  book,  that  we  ever 
realize  the  anticipated  pleasure  of  standing  on  cele- 
brated ground.  The  eye,  the  curiosity,  are  both  dis- 
appointed, and  the  voice  of  a  common  companion  re- 
duces the  most  romantic  ruin  to  a  heap  of  stone.     In 


106 


PENCILLINGS  BY  THE  WAY. 


some  of  the  footsteps  of  Childe  Harold  himself,  with 
his  glorious  thoughts  upon  my  lips,  and  all  that  moved 
his  imagination  addressing  my  eye,  with  the  additional 
grace  which  his  poetry  has  left  around  them,  I  have 
found  myself  unable  to  overstep  the  vulgar  circum- 
stances of  the  hour — the  "  Temple  of  the  Clitumnus" 
was  a  ruined  shed  glaring  in  the  sunshine,  and  the 
"  Cottage  of  Petrarch"  an  apology  for  extortion  and 
annoyance. 

I  heard  a  shout  from  the  party,  and  followed  them 
to  a  building  at  the  foot  of  the  garden.  I  passed  the 
threshold  and  started  back.  A  ghastly  monk,  with  a 
broom  in  his  hand,  stood  gazing  at  me,  and  at  a  door 
just  beyond,  a  decrepit  nun  was  see-sawing  backward 
and  forward,  ringing  a  bell  with  the  most  impatient 
yiolence.  I  ventured  to  pass  in,  and  a  door  opened  at 
the  right,  disclosing  the  self-denying  cell  of  a  hermit 
with  his  narrow  bed  and  single  chair,  and  at  the  table 
sat  the  rosy-gilled  friar,  filling  his  glass  from  an  anti- 
quated bottle,  and  nodding  his  head  to  his  visiter  in 
grinning  welcome.  A  long  cloister  with  six  or  eight 
cells  extended  beyond,  and  in  each  was  a  monk  in  some 
startling  attitude,  or  a  pale  and  saintly  nun  employed  in 
work  or  prayer.  The  whole  was  as  like  a  living  mon- 
astery as  wax  could  make  it.  The  mingling  of  monks 
and  nuns  seemed  an  anachronism,  but  we  were  told 
that  it  represented  a  tale,  the  title  of  which  I  have  for- 
gotten. It  was  certainly  an  odd  as  well  as  an  expensive 
fancy  for  a  garden  ornament,  and  shows  by  its  useless- 
ness  the  once  princely  condition  of  the  possessors  of 
the  palace.  An  Englishman  married  not  many  years 
since  an  old  princess,  to  whom  the  estates  had  descend- 
ed, and  with  much  unavailable  property  and  the  title 
of  prince,  he  has  entered  the  service  of  the  king  of  the 
Sicilies  for  a  support. 

We  drove  on  to  another  palace,  still  more  curious 
in  its  ornaments.  The  extensive  walls  which  enclosed 
it,  the  gates,  the  fountains  in  the  courts  and  gardens, 
were  studded  with  marble  monsters  of  every  conceiva- 
ble deformity.  The  head  of  a  man  crowned  the  body 
of  an  eagle  standing  on  the  legs  of  a  horse  ;  the  lovely 
face  and  bosom  of  a  female  crouched  upon  the  body 
of  a  dog  ;  alligators,  serpents,  lions,  monkeys,  birds, 
and  reptiles,  were  mixed  up  with  parts  of  the  human 
body  in  the  most  revolting  variety.  So  admirable  was 
the  work,  too,  and  so  beautiful  the  material,  that  even 
outraged  taste  would  hesitate  to  destroy  them.  The 
wonder  is  that  artists  of  so  much  merit  could  have  been 
hired  to  commit  such  sins  against  decency,  or  that  a 
man  in  his  senses  would  waste  upon  them  the  fortune 
they  must  have  cost. 

We  mounted  a  massive  flight  of  steps,  with  a  balus- 
trade of  gorgeously-carved  marble,  and  entered  a  hall 
hung  round  with  the  family  portraits,  the  eccentric 
founder  at  their  head.  He  was  a  thin,  quizzical-looking 
gentleman,  in  a  laced  coat  and  sword,  and  had  precisely 
the  face  I  imagined  for  him — that  of  a  whimsied  mad- 
man. You  would  select  it  from  a  thousand  as  the 
subject  for  a  lunatic  asylum. 

We  were  led  next  to  a  long  narrow  hall,  famous  for 
having  dined  the  king  and  his  courtiers  an  age  or  two 
ago.  The  ceiling  was  of  plate  mirror,  reflecting  us  all, 
upside  down,  as  we  strolled  through,  and  the  walls 
were  studded  from  the  floor  to  the  roof  with  the  quartz 
diamond,  (valueless  but  brilliant),  bits  of  colored  glass, 
spangles,  and  everything  that  could  reflect  light. 
The  effect,  when  the  quaint  old  chandeliers  were  lit, 
and  the  table  spread  with  silver  and  surrounded  by  a 
king  and  his  nobles,  in  the  costume  of  a  court  in  the 
olden  time,  must  have  exceeded  faery. 

Beyond,  we  were  ushered  into  the  state  drawing- 
room,  a  saloon  of  grand  proportions,  roofed  like  the 
other  with  mirrors,  but  paved  and  lined  throughout 
with  the  costliest  marbles,  Sicilian  agates,  \  aintings 
set  in  the  wall  and  covered  with  glass,  while  on  pedestals 
around,  stood  statues  of  the  finest  workmanship,  rep- 


resenting the  males  of  the  family  in  the  costume  or 
armor  of  the  times.  A  table  of  inlaid  precious  stones 
stood  in  the  centre,  cabinets  of  lapis-lazuli  and  side- 
tables,  occupied  the  spaces  between  the  furniture,  and 
the  chairs  and  sofas  were  covered  with  the  rich  velvet 
stuffs  now  out  of  use,  embroidered  and  fringed  magni- 
ficently. 1  sat  down  upon  a  tripod  stool,  and  with  my 
eyes  half  closed,  looked  up  at  the  mirrored  reflections 
of  the  officers  in  the  ceiling,  and  tried  to  imagine  back 
the  gay  throngs  that  had  moved  across  the  floor  they 
were  treading  so  unceremoniously,  the  knightly  and 
royal  feet  that  had  probably  danced  the  stars  down  with 
the  best  beauty  of  Sicily  beneath  those  silent  mirrors; 
the  joy,  the  jealousy,  the  love  and  hate,  that  had  lived 
their  hour  and  been  repeated,  as  were  our  lighter  feel- 
ings and  faces  now,  outlived  by  the  perishing  mirrors 
that  might  still  outlive  ours  as  long.  How  much  there 
is  an  atmosphere  !  How  full  the  air  of  these  old  palaces 
is  of  thought!  How  one  might  enjoy  them  could  he 
ramble  here  alone,  or  with  one  congenial  and  musing 
companion  to  answer  to  his  moralizing. 

We  drove  on  to  our  appointment.  At  the  end  of  a 
handsome  avenue  stood  a  large  palace,  in  rather  more 
modern  taste  than  those  we  had  left.  The  crowd  of 
carriages  in  the  court,  the  gold-laced  midshipmen 
scattered  about  the  massive  stairs  and  in  the  formal 
walks  of  the  gardens,  the  gay  dresses  of  the  ship's 
band,  playing  on  the  terrace,  and  the  troops  of  ladies 
and  gentlemen  in  every  direction,  gave  an  air  of  bustle 
to  the  stately  structure  that  might  have  reminded  the 
marble  nymphs  of  the  days  when  they  were  first  lifted 
to  their  pedestals. 

The  old  hall  was  thrown  open  at  two,  and  a  table 
stretching  from  one  end  to  the  other,  loaded  with  every 
luxury  of  the  season,  and  capable  of  accommodating 
sixty  or  seventy  persons,  usurped  the  place  of  unsub- 
stantial romance,  and  brought  in  the  wildest  straggler 
willingly  from  his  ramble.  No  cost  had  been  spared, 
and  the  hospitable  consul  (a  Bostonian)  did  the  honors 
of  his  table  in  a  manner  that  stirred  powerfully  my 
pride  of  country  and  birthplace.  All  the  English 
resident  in  Palermo  were  present;  and  it  was  the  more 
agreeable  to  me  that  their  countrymen  are  usually  the 
only  givers  of  generous  entertainment  in  Europe.  One 
feels  ever  so  distant  a  reflection  on  his  country  abroad. 
The  liberal  and  elegant  hospitality  of  one  of  our  coun- 
trymen at  Florence,  has  served  me  as  a  better  argu- 
ment against  the  charge  of  hardness  and  selfishness 
urged  upon  our  nation,  than  all  which  could  be  drawn 
from  the  acknowledgments  of  travellers. 

When  dinner  was  over,  an  hour  was  passed  at  coffee 
in  a  small  saloon  stained  after  the  fashion  of  Pompeii, 
and  we  then  assembled  on  a  broad  terrace  facing  the 
sea,  and  with  the  band  in  the  gallery  above,  commen- 
ced dances  which  lasted  till  an  hour  or  two  into  the 
moonlight.  The  sunset  had  the  eternal  but  untiring 
glory  of  the  Italian  summer,  and  it  never  set  on  a  gayer 
party.  There  were  among  the  English  one  or  two 
lovely  girls,  and  with  the  four  ladies  belonging  to  the 
squadron  (the  commodore's  family  and  Captain  Reed's), 
the  dancers  were  sufficient  to  include  all  the  officers, 
and  the  scene  in  the  soft  light  of  the  moon  was  like  a 
description  in  an  old  tale.  The  broad  sea  on  either 
side,  broke  by  the  headland  in  front,  the  distant  crescent 
of  lights  glancing  along  the  seaside  at  Palermo,  the 
solemn  old  palaces  seen  from  the  eminence  around  us, 
and  the  noble  pile  through  whose  low  windows  we 
strolled  out  upon  the  terrace,  the  music  and  the  ex- 
citement, all  blended  a  scene  that  is  drawn  with  bright 
and  living  lines  in  my  memory.  We  parted  unwilling- 
ly, and  reaching  Palermo  about  midnight,  pulled  off 
to  the  frigates,  and  were  under  way  at  daylight  for 
Messina. 

This  is  the  poetry  of  sailing.  The  long,  low  frigate 
glides  on  through  the  water  with  no  more  motion  titan 


PENCILL1NGS  BY  THE  WAY. 


107 


is  felt  in  a  dining-room  on  shore.  The  sea  changes 
only  from  a  glossy  calm  to  a  feathery  ripple,  the  sky 
is  always  serene,  the  merchant  sail  appears  and  dis- 
appears on  the  horizon  edge,  the  island  rides  on  the 
bow,  creeps  along  the  quarter,  is  examined  by  the 
glasses  of  the  idlers  on  deck  and  sinks  gradually  astern, 
the  sun-fish  whirls  in  the  eddy  of  the  wake,  the  tortoise 
plunges  and  breathes  about  us,  and  the  delightful 
temperature  of  the  sea,  even  and  invigorating,  keeps 
both  mind  and  body  in  an  undisturbed  equilibrium 
of  enjoyment.  For  me  it  is  a  paradise.  1  am  glad 
to  escape  from  the  contact,  the  dust,  the  trials  of  tem- 
per, the  noon-day  sultriness,  and  the  midnight  chill, 
the  fatigue  and  privation  and  vexation,  which  beset  the 
traveller  on  shore.  I  shall  return  to  it  no  doubt  willing- 
ly after  a  while,  but  for  the  present,  it  is  rest,  it  is  re- 
lief, refreshment,  to  be  at  sea.  There  is  no  swell  in 
the  Mediterranean  during  the  summer  months,  and 
this  gliding  about,  sleeping  or  reading  as  if  at  home, 
from  one  port  to  another,  seems  to  me  just  now  the 
Utopia  of  enjoyment. 

We  have  been  all  day  among  the  Lijyari  islands. 
It  is  pleasant  to  look  up  at  the  shaded  and  peaceful 
huts  on  their  mountainous  sides,  as  we  creep  along 
under  them  or  to  watch  the  fisherman's  children  with 
a  glass,  as  they  run  out  from  their  huts  on  the  sea- 
shore to  gaze  at  the  uncommon  apparition  of  a  ship- 
of-war.  They  seem  seats  of  solitude  and  retirement. 
I  have  just  dropped  the  glass,  which  I  had  raised  to 
look  at  what  I  took  to  be  a  large  ship  in  full  sail  round- 
ing the  point  of  Felicudi.  It  is  a  tall,  pyramidal  rock, 
rising  right  from  the  sea,  and  resembling  exactly  a  ship 
with  studding-sails  set,  coming  down  before  the  wind. 
The  band  is  playing  on  the  deck  ;  and  a  fisherman's 
boat  with  twenty  of  the  islanders  resting  on  their  oars 
and  listening  in  wondering  admiration,  lies  just  under 
our  quarter.  It  will  form  a  tale  for  the  evening  meal, 
to  which  they  were  hastening  home. 

We  run  between  Scylla  and  Charyhdis,  with  a  fresh 
wind  and  a  strong  current.  The  "dogs"  were  silent, 
and  the  "  whirlpool"  is  a  bubble  to  Hurl-gate.  Scylla 
is  quite  a  town,  and  the  tall  rock  at  the  entrance  of  the 
strait  is  crowned  with  a  large  building,  which  seems 
part  of  a  fortification.  The  passage  through  the  Faro 
is  lonely — quite  like  a  river.  Messina  lies  in  a  curve 
of  the  western  shore,  at  the  base  of  a  hill ;  and,  opposite, 
a  graceful  slope  covered  with  vineyards,  swells  up  to  a 
broad  table  plain  on  the  mountain,  which  looked  like 
the  home  of  peace  and  fertility. 

We  rounded  to,  off  the  town,  to  send  in  for  letters, 
and  I  went  ashore  in  the  boat.  Two  American  friends, 
whom  I  had  as  little  expectation  of  meeting  as  if  I  had 
dropped  upon  Jerusalem,  hailed  me  from  the  grating 
of  the  health-office,  before  we  reached  the  land,  and 
having  exhibited  our  bill  of  health,  I  had  half  an  hour 
for  a  call  upon  an  old  friend,  resident  at  Messina,  and 
we  were  off  again  to  the  ship.  The  sails  filled,  and 
we  shot  away  on  a  strong  breeze  down  the  straits. 
Rhegium  lay  on  our  left,  a  large  cluster  of  old-looking 
houses  on  the  edge  of  the  sea.  It  was  at  this  town  of 
Calabria  that  St.  Paul  landed  on  his  journey  to  Rome. 
We  sped  on  without  much  time  to  look  at  it,  even 
with  a  glass,  and  were  soon  rounding  the  toe  of  "the 
boot,"  the  southern  point  of  Italy.  We  are  heading 
at  this  moment  for  the  gulf  of  Tarento,  and  hope  to 
be  in  Venice  by  the  fourth  of  July. 


LETTER  LXXI. 

THE  ADRIATIC — ALBANIA GAT  COSTUMES  AND  BEAU- 
TY OF  THE  ALBANESE — CAPO  DTSTRIA — TRIESTE 
RESEMBLES  AN  AMERICAN  TOWN — VISIT  TO  THE 
AUSTRIAN  AUTHORITIES  OF  THE  PROVINCE — CURIOS- 
ITY OF  THE  INHABITANTS GENTLEMANLY  RECEP- 
TION    BY     THE     MILITARY      COMMANDANT — VISIT     TO 


VIENNA — SINGULAR  NOTIONS  OF  THE  AUSTRIAN'S 
RESPECTING  THE  AMERICANS — SIMILARITY  OF  THE 
SCENERY  TO  THAT  OF  NEW-ENGLAND — MEETING 
WITH  GERMAN  STUDENTS — FREQUENT  SIGHT  OF  SOL- 
DIERS AND  MILITARY  PREPARATIONS — PICTURESQUE 
SCENERY    OF    STYRIA. 

The  doge  of  Venice  has  a  fair  bride  in  the  Adriatic. 
It  is  the  fourth  of  July,  and  with  the  Italian  Cape 
Colonna  on  our  left,  and  the  long,  low  coast  of  Alba- 
nia shading  the  horizon  on  the  east,  we  are  gazing 
upon  her  from  the  deck  of  the  first  American  frigate 
that  has  floated  upon  her  bosom.  We  head  for  Ven- 
ice, and  there  is  a  stir  of  anticipation  on  board,  felt 
even  through  the  hilarity  of  our  cherished  anniversa- 
ry. I  am  the  only  one  in  the  ward-room  to  whom 
that  wonderful  city  is  familiar,  and  I  feel  as  if  I  had 
forestalled  my  own  happiness — the  first  impression  of 
it  is  so  enviable. 

It  is  difficult  to  conceive  the  gay  costumes  and 
handsome  features  of  the  Albanese,  existing  in  these 
barren  mountains  that  bind  the  Adriatic.  It  has  been 
but  a  continued  undulation  of  rock  and  sand,  for  three 
days  past ;  and  the  closer  we  hug  to  the  shore,  the 
more  we  look  at  the  broad  canvass  above  us,  and  pray 
for  wind.  We  make  Capo  d'Istria  now,  a  small  town 
nestled  in  a  curve  of  the  sea,  and  an  hour  or  two  more 
will  bring  us  to  Trieste,  where  we  drop  anchor,  we 
hope,  for  many  an  hour  of  novelty  and  pleasure. 

Trieste  lies  sixty  or  eighty  miles  from  Venice, 
across  the  head  of  the  gulf.  The  shore  between  is 
piled  up  to  the  sky  with  the  "  blue  Friuli  mountains  ;" 
and  from  the  town  of  Trieste,  the  low  coast  of  Istria 
breaks  away  at  a  right  angle  to  the  south,  forming  the 
eastern  bound  of  the  Adriatic.  As  we  ran  into  the 
harbor  on  our  last  tack,  we  passed  close  under  the 
garden  walls  of  the  villa  of  the  ex-queen  of  Naples,  a 
lovely  spot  just  in  the  suburbs.  The  palace  of  Je- 
rome Bonaparte  was  also  pointed  out  to  us  by  the 
pilot  on  the  hill  just  above.  They  have  both  removed 
since  to  Florence,  and  their  palaces  are  occupied  by 
English.  We  dropped  anchor  within  a  half  mile  of 
the  pier,  and  the  flags  of  a  dozen  American  vessels 
were  soon  distinguishable  among  the  various  colors  of 
the  shipping  in  the  port. 

I  accompanied  Commodore  Patterson  to-day  on  a 
visit  of  ceremony  to  the  Austrian  authorities  of  the 
province.  We  made  our  way  with  difficulty  through 
the  people,  crowding  in  hundreds  to  the  water-side, 
and  following  us  with  the  rude  freedom  of  a  skow- 
man's  audience.  The  vice-governor,  a  polite  but 
Frenchified  German  count,  received  us  with  every 
profession  of  kindness.  His  Parisian  gestures  sat  ill 
enough  upon  his  national  high  cheek-bones,  lank  hair, 
and  heavy  shoulders.  We  left  him  to  call  upon  the 
military  commandant,  an  Irishman,  who  occupies  part 
of  the  palace  of  the  ex-king  of  Westphalia.  Our 
reception  by  him  was  gentlemanly,  cordial,  and  digni- 
fied. I  think  the  Irish  are,  after  all,  the  best-manner- 
ed people  in  the  world.  They  are  found  in  every 
country,  as  adventurers  for  honor,  and  they  change 
neither  in  character  nor  manner.  They  follow  foreign 
fashions,  and  acquire  a  foreign  language  ;  but  in  the 
first  they  retain  their  heart,  and  in  the  latter  their 
brogue.  They  are  Irishmen  always.  Count  Nugent 
is  high  in  the  favor  of  the  emperor,  has  the  commis- 
sion of  a  field  marshal,  and  is  married  to  a  Neapolitan 
princess,  who  is  a  most  accomplished  and  lovely  wo- 
man, and  related  to  most  of  the  royal  houses  of  Eu- 
rope. His  reputation  as  a  soldier  is  well  known,  and 
he  seems  to  me  to  have  no  drawback  to  the  enviable- 
ness  of  his  life,  except  its  expatriation. 

Trieste  is  a  busy,  populous  place,  resembling  ex- 
tremely our  new  towns  in  America.     We  took  a  strol 


108 


PENCILLINGS  BY  THE  WAY. 


through  the  principal  streets  after  our  visits  were 
over,  and  I  was  surprised  at  the  splendor  of  the  shops, 
and  the  elegance  of  the  costumes  and  equipages.  It 
is  said  to  contain  thirty  thousand  inhabitants. 

Vienna. — The  frigates  were  to  lie  three  or  four 
weeks  at  Trieste.  One  half  of  the  officers  had  taken 
the  steamboat  for  Venice  on  the  second  evening  of 
our  arrival,  and  the  other  half  waited  impatiently  their 
turn  of  absence.  Vienna  was  but  some  four  hundred 
miles  distant,  and  I  might  never  be  so  near  it  again. 
On  a  rainy  evening,  at  nine  o'clock,  I  left  Trieste  in 
the  "  eil-ivagon,"  with  a  German  courier,  and  com- 
menced the  ascent  of  the  spur  of  the  Friuli  mountains 
that  overhangs  the  bay. 

My  companions  inside  were,  a  merchant  from  Gratz, 
a  fantastical  and  poor  Hungarian  count,  a  Corfu  shop- 
keeper, and  an  Italian  ex-militaire  and  present  apoth- 
ecary, going  to  Vienna  to  marry  a  lady  whom  he  had 
never  seen.  After  a  little  bandying  of  compliments  in 
German,  of  which  I  understood  nothing  except  that 
they  were  apologies  for  the  incessant  smoking  of  three 
disgusting  pipes,  the  conversation,  fortunately  for  me, 
settled  into  Italian.  The  mountain  was  steep  and 
very  high,  and  my  friends  soon  grew  conversible. 
The  novelty  of  two  American  frigates  in  the  harbor 
naturally  decided  the  first  topic.  Our  Gratz  merchant 
was  surprised  at  the  light  color  of  the  officers  he  had 
seen,  and  doubted  if  they  were  not  Englishmen  in  the 
American  service.  He  had  always  heard  Americans 
were  black.  "  They  are  so,"  said  the  soldier-apothe- 
cary ;  "  I  saw  the  real  Americans  yesterday  in  a  boat, 
quite  black."  (One  of  the  cutters  of  the  Constella- 
tion has  a  negro  crew,  which  he  had  probably  seen  at 
the  pier.)  The  assertion  seemed  to  satisfy  the  doubts 
of  all  parties.  They  had  wondered  how  such  beauti- 
ful ships  could  come  from  a  savage  country.  It  was 
now  explained.  "  They  were  bought  from  the  Eng- 
lish, and  officered  by  Englishmen."  I  was  too  much 
amused  with  their  speculations  to  undeceive  them ; 
and  with  my  head  thrust  half  out  of  the  window  to 
avoid  choking  with  the  smoke  of  their  pipes,  I  gazed 
back  at  the  glittering  lights  of  the  town  below,  and 
indulged  the  never-palling  sensation  of  a  first  entrance 
into  a  new  country.  The  lantern  at  the  peak  of  the 
"  United  States  "  was  the  last  thing  I  saw  as  we  rose 
the  brow  of  the  mountain,  and  started  off  on  a  rapid 
trot  toward  Vienna. 

I  awoke  at  daylight  with  the  sudden  stop  of  the 
carriage.  We  were  at  the  low  door  of  a  German  tav- 
ern, and  a  clear,  rosy,  good-humored  looking  girl  bade 
us  good  morning,  as  we  alighted  one  by  one.  The 
phrase  was  so  like  English,  that  1  asked  for  a  basin  of 
water  in  my  mother  tongue.  The  similarity  served 
me  again.  She  brought  it  without  hesitation ;  but 
the  question  she  asked  me  as  she  set  it  down  was  like 
nothing  that  had  ever  before  entered  my  ears.  The 
count  smiled  at  my  embarrassment,  and  explained  that 
she  wished  to  know  if  I  wanted  soap. 

I  was  struck  with  the  cleanliness  of  everything. 
The  tables,  chairs,  and  floors,  looked  worn  away  with 
scrubbing.  Breakfast  was  brought  in  immediately, 
eggs,  rolls,  and  coffee,  the  latter  in  a  glass  bottle  like 
a  chemist's  retort,  corked  up  tightly,  and  wrapped  in 
a  snowy  napkin.  It  was  an  excellent  breakfast,  served 
with  cleanliness  and  good  humor,  and  cost  about  four- 
teen cents  each.  Even  from  this  single  meal,  it  seem- 
ed to  me  that  I  had  entered  a  country  of  simple  man- 
ners and  kind  feelings.  The  conductor  gravely  kissed 
the  cheek  of  the  girl  who  had  waited  on  us,  my  com- 
panions lit  their  pipes  afresh,  and  the  postillion,  in 
cocked  hat  and  feather,  blew  a  stave  of  a  waltz  on  his 
horn,  and  fell  into  a  steady  trot,  which  he  kept  up 
with  phlegmatic  perseverance  to  the  end  of  his  post. 

As  we  get  away  from  the  sea,  the  land  grows  richer, 


and  the  farm-houses  more  frequent.  We  are  in  the 
dutchy  of  Carniola,  forty  or  fifty  miles  from  Trieste. 
How  very  unlike  Italy  and  France,  and  how  very  like 
New  England  it  is!  There  are  no  ruined  castles,  nor 
old  cathedrals.  Every  village  has  its  small  white 
church  with  a  tapering  spire,  large  manufactories 
cluster  on  the  water-courses,  the  small  rivers  are  rapid 
and  deep,  the  horses  large  and  strong,  the  barns  im- 
mense, the  crops  heavy,  the  people  grave  and  hard  at 
work,  and  not  a  pauper  by  the  post  together.  We  are 
very  far  north,  too,  and  the  climate  is  like  New  Eng- 
land. The  wind,  though  it  is  midsummer,  is  bracing, 
and  there  is  no  travelling  as  in  Italy,  with  one's  hat  off 
and  breast  open,  dissolving  at  midnight  in  the  luxury 
of  the  soft  air.  The  houses,  too,  are  ugly  and  com- 
fortable, staring  with  paint  and  pierced  in  all  directions 
with  windows.  The  children  are  white-headed  and 
serious.  The  hills  are  half  covered  with  woods,  and 
clusters  of  elms  are  left  here  and  there  through  the 
meadows,  as  if  their  owners  could  afford  to  let  them 
grow  for  a  shade  to  the  mowers.  I  was  perpetually 
exclaiming,  "how  like  America!" 

We  dined  at  Laybach.  My  companions  had  found 
out  by  my  passport  that  1  was  an  American,  and  their 
curiosity  was  most  amusing.  The  report  of  the  arri- 
val of  the  two  frigates  had  reached  the  capital  of  lllyria, 
and  with  the  assistance  of  the  information  of  my 
friends,  I  found  myself  an  object  of  universal  attention. 
The  crowd  around  the  door  of  the  hotel,  looked  into 
the  windows  while  we  were  eating,  and  followed  me 
round  the  house  as  if  I  had  been  a  savage.  One  of 
the  passengers  told  me  they  connected  the  arrival  of 
the  ships  with  some  political  object,  and  thought  1 
might  be  the  envoy.  The  landlord  asked  me  if  we 
had  potatoes  in  our  country. 

I  took  a  walk  through  the  city  after  dinner  with  my 
mincing  friend  the  count.  The  low,  two-story  wood- 
en houses,  the  sidewalks  enclosed  with  trees,  the  mat- 
ter-of-fact looking  people,  the  shut  windows,  and  neat 
white  churches  remind  me  again  strongly  of  America. 
It  was  like  the  more  retired  streets  of  Portland  or 
Portsmouth.  The  Illyrian  language  spoken  here, 
seemed  to  me  the  most  inarticulate  succession  of 
sounds  I  had  ever  heard.  In  crossing  the  bridge  in 
the  centre  of  the  town,  we  met  a  party  of  German  stu- 
dents travelling  on  foot  with  their  knapsacks.  My 
friend  spoke  to  them  to  gratify  my  curiosity.  I  wished 
to  know  where  they  were  going.  They  all  spoke 
French  and  Italian,  and  seemed  in  high  heart,  bold, 
cheerful,  and  intelligent.  They  were  bound  for 
Egypt,  determined  to  seek  their  fortunes  in  the  service 
of  the  present  reforming  and  liberal  pacha.  Their 
enthusiasm,  when  they  were  told  I  was  an  American, 
quite  thrilled  me.  They  closed  about  me  and  looked 
into  my  eyes,  as  if  they  expected  to  read  the  spirit  of 
freedom  in  them.  I  was  taken  by  the  arms  at  last, 
and  almost  forced  into  a  beer-shop.  The  large 
tankards  were  filled,  each  touched  mine  and  the  others, 
and  "America"  was  drank  with  a  grave  earnestness  of 
manner  that  moved  my  heart  within  me.  They  shook 
me  by  the  hand  on  parting,  and  gave  me  a  blessing  in 
German,  which,  as  the  old  count  translated  it,  was  the 
first  word  I  have  learned  of  their  language.  We  had 
met  constantly  parties  of  them  on  the  road.  They  all 
dress  alike,  in  long  travelling  frocks  of  brown  stuff,  and 
small  green  caps  with  straight  visors ;  but,  coarsely  as 
they  are  clothed,  and  humbly  as  they  seem  to  be 
faring,  their  faces  bear  always  a  mark  that  can  never 
be  mistaken.     They  look  like  scholars. 

The  roads,  by  the  way,  are  crowded  with  pedestrians. 
It  seems  to  be  the  favorite  mode  of  travelling  in  this 
country.  We  have  scarce  met  a  carriage,  and  I  have 
seen,  I  am  sure,  in  one  day,  two  hundred  passengers 
on  foot.  Among  them  is  a  class  of  people  peculiar  to 
Germany.  I  was  astonished  occasionally  at  being 
asked  for  charity   by  stout,  well-dressed  young  men, 


PENCILLINGS  BY  THE  WAY. 


109 


to  all  appearance  as  respectable  as  any  travellers  on 
the  road.  Expressing  my  surprise,  my  companions 
informed  me  that  they  were  apprentices,  and  that  the 
custom  or  law  of  the  country  compelled  them,  after 
completing  their  indentures,  to  travel  in  some  distant 
province,  and  depend  upon  charity  and  their  own  ex- 
ertions for  two  or  three  years  before  becoming  masters 
at  their  trade.  It  is  a  singular  custom,  and,  I  should 
think,  i.  useful  lesson  in  hardship  and  self-reliance. 
They  held  out  their  hats  with  a  confident  indepen- 
dence of  look  that  quite  satisfied  me  they  felt  no  deg- 
radation in  it. 

We  soon  entered  the  province  of  Styria,  and  bright- 
er rivers,  greener  woods,  richer  and  more  graceful  up- 
lands and  meadows,  do  not  exist  in  the  world.  I  had 
thought  the  scenery  of  Stockbridge,  in  my  own  state, 
unequalled  till  now.  I  could  believe  myself  there, 
were  not  the  women  alone  working  in  the  fields,  and 
the  roads  lined  for  miles  together  with  military  wag- 
ons and  cavalry  upon  march.  The  conscript  law  of 
Austria  compels  every  peasant  to  serve  fourteen  years! 
and  the  labors  of  agriculture  fall,  of  course,  almost  ex- 
clusively upon  females.  Soldiers  swarm  like  locusts 
through  the  country,  but  they  seem  as  inoffensive  and 
as  much  at  home  as  the  cattle  in  the  farm-yards.  It 
is  a  curious  contrast,  to  my  eye,  to  see  parks  of  artil- 
lery glistening  in  the  midst  of  a  wheat-field,  and  sol- 
diers sitting  about  under  the  low  thatches  of  these 
peaceful-looking  cottages.  I  do  not  think,  among  the 
thousands  that  I  have  passed  in  three  days'  travel,  I 
have  seen  a  gesture  or  heard  a  syllable.  If  sitting, 
they  smoke  and  sit  still,  and  if  travelling,  they  econo- 
mise motion  to  a  degree  that  is  wearisome  to  the  eye. 

Words  are  limited,  and  the  description  of  scenery  be- 
comes tiresome.  It  is  a  fault  that  the  sense  of  beauty, 
freshening  constantly  on  the  traveller,  compels  him 
who  makes  a  note  of  impressions  to  mark  every  other 
line  with  the  same  ever-recurring  exclamations  of 
pleasure.  I  saw  a  hundred  miles  of  unrivalled  scenery 
in  Styria,  and  how  can  I  describe  it?  I  were  keeping 
silence  on  a  world  of  enjoyment  to  pass  it  over.  We 
come  to  a  charming  descent  into  a  valley.  The  town 
beneath,  the  river,  the  embracing  mountains,  the 
swell  to  the  ear  of  its  bells  ringing  some  holyday,  affect 
my  imagination  powerfully.  I  take  out  my  tablets, 
What  shall  I  say  ?  How  convey  to  your  minds  who 
have  not  seen  it,  the  charm  of  a  scene  I  can  only  de- 
scribe as  I  have  described  a  thousand  others  ? 


LETTER  LXXII. 


GRATZ VIENNA. 

We  had  followed  stream  after  stream  through  a 
succession  of  delicious  valleys  for  a  hundred  miles. 
Descending  from  a  slight  eminence,  we  came  upon 
the  broad  and  rapid  Mukr,  and  soon  after  caught  sight 
of  a  distant  citadel  upon  a  rock.  As  we  approached, 
it  struck  me  as  one  of"  the  most  singular  freaks  of  na- 
ture I  had  ever  seen.  A  pyramid,  perhaps  three  hun- 
dred feet  in  height,  and  precipitous  on  every  side,  rose 
abruptly  in  the  midst  of  a  broad  and  level  plain,  and 
around  it  in  a  girdle  of  architecture,  lay  the  capital 
of  Styria.  The  fortress  on  the  summit  hung  like  an 
eagle's  nest  over  the  town,  and  from  its  towers,  a  pis- 
tol-shot would  reach  the  outermost  point  of  the  wall. 

Wearied  with  travelling  near  three  hundred  miles 
without  sleep,  I  dropped  upon  a  bed  at  the  hotel,  with 
an  order  to  be  called  in  two  hours.  It  was  noon,  and 
we  were  to  remain  at  Gratz  till  the  next  morning. 
My  friend,  the  Hungarian,  had  promised  as  he  threw 
himself  on  the  opposite  bed,  to  wake  and  accompany 
me  iq  a  walk  through  the  town,  but  the  shake  of  a 
stout  German  chambermaid  at  the  appointed  time  had 


no  effect  upon  him,  and  I  descended  to  my  dinner 
alone.  I  had  lost  my  interpreter.  The  carte  was  in 
German,  of  which  I  did  not  know  even  the  letters. 
After  appealing  in  vain  in  French  and  Italian  to  the 
persons  eating  near  me,  I  fixed  my  finger  at  hazard 
upon  a  word,  and  the  waiter  disappeared.  The  result 
was  a  huge  dish  of  cabbage  cooked  in  some  filthy  oil 
and  graced  with  a  piece  of  beef.  I  was  hesitating 
whether  to  dine  on  bread  or  make  another  attempt, 
when  a  gentlemanly  man  of  some  fifty  years  came  in 
and  took  the  vacant  seat  at  my  table.  He  addressed 
me  immediately  in  French,  and  smiling  at  my  difficul- 
ties, undertook  to  order  a  dinner  for  me  something 
less  national.  We  improved  our  acquaintance  with  a 
bottle  of  Johannesburgh,  and  after  dinner  he  kindly 
offered  to  accompany  me  in  my  walk  through  the 
city. 

Gratz  is  about  the  size  of  Boston,  a  plain  German 
city,  with  little  or  no  pretensions  to  style.  The  mili- 
tary band  was  playing  a  difficult  waltz  very  beautifully 
in  the  public  square,  but  no  one  was  listening  except 
a  group  of  young  men  dressed  in  the  worst  taste  of 
dandyism.  We  mounted  by  a  zig-zag  path  to  the 
fortress.  On  a  shelf  of  the  precipice,  half  way  up, 
hangs  a  small  casino,  used  as  a  beer-shop.  The  view 
from  the  summit  was  a  feast  to  the  eye.  The  wide 
and  lengthening  valley  of  theMuhr  lay  asleep  beneath 
its  loads  of  grain,  its  villas  and  farmhouses,  the  pic- 
ture of  "  waste  and  mellow  fruitfulness,"  the  rise  to 
the  mountains  around  the  head  of  the  valley  was  clus- 
tered with  princely  dwellings,  thick  forests  with  glades 
between  them,  and  churches  with  white  slender  spires 
shooting  from  the  bosom  of  elms,  and  right  at  our 
feet,  circling  around  the  precipitous  rock  for  protec- 
tion, lay  the  city  enfolded  in  its  rampart,  and  sending 
up  to  our  ears  the  sound  of  every  wheel  that  rolled 
through  her  streets.  Among  the  striking  buildings 
below,  my  friend  pointed  out  to  me  a  palace  which  he 
said  had  been  lately  purchased  by  Joseph  Bonaparte, 
who  was  coming  here  to  reside.  The  people  were 
beginning  to  turn  out  for  their  evening  walk  upon  the 
ramparts  which  are  planted  with  trees  and  laid  out  for 
a  promenade,  and  we  descended  to  mingle  in  the 
crowd. 

My  old  friend  had  a  great  many  acquaintances. 
He  presented  me  to  several  of  the  best-dressed  people 
we  met,  all  of  whom  invited  me  to  supper.  I  had 
been  in  Italy  almost  a  year  and  a  half,  and  such  a 
thing  had  never  happene  i  to  me.  We  walked  about 
until  six,  and  as  I  prefer  ed  going  to  the  play,  which 
opened  at  that  early  hour,  we  took  tickets  for  " Der 
Schlimme  Leisel"  and  were  seated  presently  in  one  of 
the  simplest  and  prettiest  theatres  I  have  ever  seen. 

Der  Schlimme  Leisel  was  an  old  maid  who  kept 
house  for  an  old  bachelor  brother,  proposing,  at  the 
time  the  play  opens,  to  marry.  Her  dislike  to  the 
match,  from  the  dread  of  losing  her  authority  over 
his  household,  formed  the  humor  of  the  piece,  and 
was  admirably  represented.  After  various  unsuccess- 
ful attempts  to  prevent  the  nuptials,  the  lady  is  brought 
to  the  house,  and  the  old  maid  enters  in  a  towering 
passion,  throws  down  her  keys,  and  flirts  out  of  the 
room  with  a  threat  that  she  "  will  go  to  America  /" 
Fortunately  she  is  not  driven  to  that  extremity.  The 
lady  has  been  already  married  secretly  to  a  poorer 
lover,  and  the  old  bachelor,  after  the  first  shock  of 
the  discovery,  settles  a  fortune  on  them,  and  returns 
to  his  celibacy  and  his  old  maid  sister,'  to  the  satisfac- 
tion of  all  parties.  Certainly  the  German  is  the  most 
unmusical  language  of  Babel.  If  my  good  old  friend 
had  not  translated  it  for  me  word  for  word,  I  should 
scarce  have  believed  the  play  to  be  more  than  a  gib- 
bering pantomime.  I  shall  think  differently  when  1 
have  learned  it,  no  doubt,  but  a  strange  language 
strikes  upon  one's  ear  so  oddly  !  I  was  quite  too  tired 
when  the   play  was  over  (which,  by  the  way,  was  at 


110 


PENCILLINGS  BY  THE  WAY. 


the  sober  hour  of  nine),  to  accept  any  of  the  kind  in- 
vitations of  which  my  companion  reminded  me.  We 
supped  tete-a-tete,  instead,  at  the  hotel.  I  was  delight- 
ed with  my  new  acquaintance.  He  was  an  old  citizen 
of  the  world.  He  had  left  Gratz  at  twenty,  and  after 
thirty  years  wandering  from  one  part  of  the  globe  to 
the  other,  had  returned  to  end  his  days  in  his  birth- 
place. His  relations  were  all  dead,  and  speaking  all 
the  languages  of  Europe,  he  preferred  living  at  a  ho- 
tel for  the  society  of  strangers.  With  a  great  deal  of 
wisdom,  he  had  preserved  his  good  humor  toward  the 
world  ;  and  I  think  I  have  rarely  seen  a  kinder  and 
never  a  happier  man.  I  parted  from  him  with  regret, 
and  the  next  morning  at  daylight,  had  resumed  my 
seat  at  the  Eil-wagon. 

Imagine  the  Hudson,  at  the  highlands,  reduced  to 
a  sparkling  little  river  a  bowshot  across,  and  a  rich 
valley  thridded  by  a  road  accompanying  the  remain- 
ing space  between  the  mountains,  and  you  have  the 
scenery  for  the  first  thirty  miles  beyond  Gratz.  There 
is  one  more  difference.  On  the  edge  of  one  of  the 
most  towering  precipices,  clear  up  against  the  clouds, 
hang  the  ruins  of  a  noble  castle.  The  rents  in  the 
wall,  and  the  embrazures  in  the  projecting  turrets, 
seem  set  into  the  sky.  Trees  and  vines  grow  within 
and  about  it,  and  the  lacings  of  the  twisted  roots  seem 
all  that  keep  it  together.  It  is  a  perfect  "  castle  in 
the  air." 

A  long  day's  journey  and  another  long  night  (during 
which  we  passed  Neustadt,  on  the  confines  of  Hunga- 
ry) brought  us  within  sight  of  Baden,  but  an  hour  or 
two  from  Vienna.  It  was  just  sunrise,  and  market- 
carts  and  pedestrians  and  suburban  vehicles  of  all  de- 
scriptions notified  us  of  our  approach  to  a  great  capi- 
tal. A  few  miles  farther  we  were  stopped  in  the  midst 
of  an  extensive  plain  by  a  crowd  of  carriages.  A 
criminal  was  about  being  guillotined.  What  was  that 
to  one  who  saw  Vienna  for  the  first  time  ?  A  few 
steps  farther  the  postillion  was  suddenly  stopped.  A 
gentleman  alighted  from  a  carriage  in  which  were  two 
ladies,  and  opened  the  door  of  the  diligence.  It  was 
the  bride  of  the  soldier-apothecary  come  to  meet  him 
with  her  mother  and  brother.  He  was  buried  in  dust, 
just  waked  out  of  sleep,  a  three  day's  beard  upon  his 
face,  and,  at  the  best,  not  a  very  lover-like  person. 
He  ran  to  the  carriage  door,  jumped  in,  and  there  was 
an  immediate  cry  for  water.  The  bride  had  fainted  ! 
We  left  her  in  his  arms  and  drove  on.  The  courier 
had  no  bowels  for  love. 

There  is  a  small  Gothic  pillar  before  us,  on  the  rise 
of  a  slight  elevation.  Thence  we  shall  see  Vienna. 
"  Stop,  thou  tasteless  postillion  !"  Was  ever  such  a 
scene  revealed  to  mortal  sight !  It  is  like  Paris  from 
the  Barriere  de  VEtoile — it  seems  to  cover  the  world. 
Oh,  beautiful  Vienna  !  What  is  that  broad  water  on 
which  the  rising  sun  glances  so  brightly  ?  "  The 
Danube  /"  What  is  that  unparalleled  Gothic  structure 
piercing  the  sky  ?  What  columns  are  these  ?  What 
spires  ?     Beautiful,  beautiful  city  ! 

Vienna. — It  must  be  a  fine  city  that  impresses  one 
with  its  splendor  before  breakfast,  after  driving  all  night 
in  a  mail-coach.  It  was  six  o'clock  in  the  morning 
when  I  left  the  postofhce,  in  Vienna,  to  walk  to  a 
hotel.  The  shops  were  still  shut,  the  milkwomen 
were  beating  at  the  gates,  and  the  short,  quick  ring 
upon  the  church  bells  summoned  all  early  risers  to 
mass.  A  sudden  turn  brought  me  upon  a  square.  In 
its  centre  stood  the  most  beautiful  fabric  that  has  ever 
yet  filled  my  eye.  It  looked  like  the  structure  of  a 
giant,  encrusted  by  fairies — a  majestically  proportioned 
mass,  and  a  spire  tapering  to  the  clouds,  but  a  surface 
so  curiously  beautiful,  so  traced  and  fretted,  so  full  of 
exquisite  ornament,  that  it  seemed  rather  some  curious 
cabinet  gem,  seen  through  a  magnifier,  than  a  building 
in  the  open  air.     In  these  foreign  countries,  the  laborer 


goes  in  with  his  load  to  pray,  and  I  did  not  hesitate  to 
enter  the  splendid  church  of  St.  Etienne,  though  a 
man  followed  me  with  a  portmanteau  on  his  back. 
What  a  wilderness  of  arches  !  Pulpits,  chapels,  altars, 
ciboriums,  confessionals,  choirs,  all  in  the  exquisite 
slenderness  of  Gothic  tracery,  and  all  of  one  venerable 
and  timeworn  die,  as  if  the  incense  of  a  myriad  cen- 
sers had  steeped  them  in  their  spicy  odors.  The  mass 
was  chanting,  and  hundreds  were  on  their  knees  about 
me,  and  not  one  without  some  trace  that  he  had  come 
in  on  his  way  to  his  daily  toil.  It  was  the  hour  of  the 
poor  mail's  prayer.  The  rich  were  asleep  in  their  beds. 
The  glorious  roof  over  their  heads,  the  costly  and 
elaborated  pillars  against  which  they  pressed  their  fore- 
heads, the  music  and  the  priestly  service,  were,  for  that 
hour,  theirs  alone.  I  seldom  have  felt  the  spirit  of  a 
place  of  worship  so  strong  upon  me. 

The  foundations  of  St.  Etienne  were  laid  seven  hun- 
dred years  ago.  It  has  twice  been  partly  burnt,  and 
has  been  embellished  in  succession  by  nearly  all  the 
emperors  of  Germany.  Among  its  many  costly  tombs, 
the  most  interesting  is  thatofthe  hero  Eugene  oj 'Savoy ; 
erected  by  his  niece,  the  Princess  Therese,  of  Liech- 
tenstein. There  is  also  a  vault  in  which  it  is  said,  in 
compliance  with  an  old  custom,  the  entrails  of  all  the 
emperors  are  deposited. 

Having  marked  thus  much  upon  my  tablets,  I  re- 
membered the  patient  porter  of  my  baggage,  who  had 
taken  the  opportunity  to  drop  on  his  knees  while  I  was 
gazing  about,  and  having  achieved  his  matins,  was  now 
waiting  submissively  till  I  was  ready  to  proceed.  A 
turn  or  two  brought  us  to  the  hotel,  where  a  bath  and 
a  breakfast  soon  restored  me,  and  in  an  hour  I  was 
again  on  the  way  with  a  valet  de  place,  to  visit  the 
tomb  of  the  son  of  JSapoleon. 

He  lies  in  the  deep  vaults  of  the  capuchin  convent, 
with  eighty-four  of  the  imperial  family  of  Austria  beside 
him.  A  monk  answered  our  pull  at  the  cloister-bell, 
and  the  valet  translated  my  request  into  German.  He 
opened  the  gate  with  a  guttuial  "Yaw!"  and  lighting 
a  wax  candle  at  a  lamp  burning  before  the  image  of 
the  Virgin,  unlocked  a  massive  brazen  door  at  the  end 
of  the  corridor,  and  led  the  way  into  the  vault.  The 
capuchin  was  as  pale  as  marble,  quite  bald,  though 
young,  and  with  features  which  expressed,  I  thought, 
the  subdued  fierceness  of  a  devil.  He  impatiently 
waved  away  the  officious  interpreter  after  a  moment  or 
two,  and  asked  me  if  I  understood  Latin.  Nothing 
could  have  been  mere  striking  than  the  whole  scene. 
The  immense  bronze  sarcophagi,  lay  in  long  isles  be- 
hind railings  and  gates  of  iron,  and  as  the  long-robed 
monk  strode  on  with  his  lamp  through  the  darkness, 
pronouncing  the  name  and  title  of  each  as  he  unlocked 
the  door  and  struck  it  with  his  heavy  key,  he  seemed 
to  me,  with  his  solemn  pronunciation,  like  some  mys- 
terious being  calling  forth  the  imperial  tenants  to  judg- 
ment. He  appeared  to  have  a  something  of  scorn  in 
his  manner  as  he  looked  on  the  splendid  workmanship 
of  the  vast  coffin  and  pronounced  the  sounding  titles  of 
the  ashes  within.  At  that  of  the  celebrated  Emperess 
Maria  Theresa  alone,  he  stopped  to  make  a  comment. 
It  was  a  simple  tribute  to  her  virtues,  and  he  uttered  it 
slowly,  as  if  he  were  merely  musing  to  himself.  He 
passed  on  to  her  husband,  Francis  the  first,  and  then 
proceeded  uninterruptedly  till  he  came  to  a  new  copper 
coffin.  It  lay  in  a  niche,  beneath  a  tall,  dim  window, 
and  the  monk,  merely  pointing  to  the  inscription,  set 
down  his  lamp,  and  began  to  pace  up  and  down  the 
damp  floor,  with  his  head  on  his  breast,  as  if  it  was  a 
matter  of  course  that  here  I  was  to  be  left  awhile  to 
my  thoughts. 

It  was  certainly  the  spot,  if  there  is  one  in  the  world, 
to  feel  emotion.  In  the  narrow  enclosure  on  which 
my  finger  rested  lay  the  last  hopes  of  Napoleon.  The 
heart  of  the  master-spirit  of  the  world  was  bound  up 
in   these   ashes.      He   was   beautiful,   acce*  plished, 


PENCILLINGS  BY  THE   WAY. 


Ill 


generous,  brave.  He  was  loved  with  a  sort  of  idolatry 
oy  the  nation  with  which  he  had  passed  his  childhood. 
He  had  won  all  hearts.  His  death  seemed  impossible. 
There  was  a  universal  prayer  that  he  might  live,  his 
inheritance  of  glory  was  so  incalculable. 

I  read  his  epitaph.  It  was  that  of  a  private  individual. 
It  gave  his  name,  and  his  father's  and  mother's;  and 
then  enumerated  his  virtues,  with  a  commonplace 
regret  for  his  early  death.  The  monk  took  up  his 
lamp  and  reascended  to  the  cloister  in  silence.  He 
shut  the  convent-door  behind  me,  and  the  busy  street 
seemed  to  me  profane.  How  short  a  time  does  the 
most  moving  event  interrupt  the  common  current  of 
life. 


LETTER  LXXIII. 

VIENNA MAGNIFICENCE  OF  THE  EMPEROR'S  MANAGE 

THE    TOUNG    QUEEN     OF    HUNGARY THE    PALACE 

HALL  OF  CURIOSITIES,  JEWELRY,  ETC. THE  POLY- 
TECHNIC SCHOOL GEOMETRICAL  FIGURES  DESCRI- 
BED     BY      THE     VIBRATIONS     OF     MUSICAL     NOTES 

LIBERAL  PROVISION  FOR  THE  PUBLIC  INSTITU- 
TIONS  POPULARITY    OF  THE    EMPEROR. 

I  had  quite  forgotten,  in  packing  up  my  little  port- 
manteau to  leave  the  ship,  that  I  was  coming  so  far 
north.  Scarce  a  week  ago,  in  the  south  of  Italy,  we 
were  panting  in  linen  jackets.  I  find  myself  shivering 
here,  in  a  latitude  five  hundred  miles  north  of  Boston, 
with  no  remedy  but  exercise  and  an  extra  shirt,  for  a 
cold  that  would  grace  December. 

It  is  amusing,  sometimes,  to  abandon  one's  self  to  a 
valet  de  place.  Compelled  to  resort  to  one  from  my 
ignorance  of  the  German,  I  have  fallen  upon  a  dropsi- 
cal fellow,  with  a  Bardolph  nose,  whose  French  is  ex- 
ecrable, and  whose  selection  of  objects  of  curiosity  is 
worthy  of  his  appearance.  His  first  point  was  the  em- 
peror's stables.  We  had  walked  a  mile  and  a  half  to 
see  them.  Here  were  two  or  three  hundred  horses  of 
all  breeds,  in  a  building  that  the  emperor  himself 
might  live  in,  with  a  magnificent  inner  court  for  a 
menage,  and  a  wilderness  of  grooms,  dogs,  and  other 
appurtenances.  I  am  as  fond  of  a  horse  as  most  peo- 
ple, but  with  all  Vienna  before  me,  and  little  time  to 
lose,  I  broke  into  the  midst  of  the  head  groom's  ped- 
igrees, and  requested  to  be  shown  the  way  out.  Mon- 
sieur Karl  did  not  take  the  hint.  We  walked  on  a 
half  mile,  and  stopped  before  another  large  building. 
"  What  is  this !" — "  The  imperial  carriage-house,  mon- 
eeigneur."  I  was  about  turning  on  my  heel  and  taking 
my  liberty  into  my  own  hands,'  when  the  large  door 
flew  open,  and  the  blaze  of  gilding  from  within,  turned 
me  from  my  purpose.  I  thought  I  had  seen  the  ne 
plus  ultra  of  equipages  at  Rome.  The  imperial  fam- 
ily of  Austria  ride  in  more  style  than  his  holiness. 
The  models  are  lighter  and  handsomer,  while  the  gold 
and  crimson  is  put  on  quite  as  resplendently.  The 
most  curious  part  of  the  show  were  ten  or  twelve  state 
traineaux  or  sleighs.  I  can  conceive  nothing  more 
brilliant  than  a  turnout  of  these  magnificent  f  ructures 
upon  the  snow.  They  are  built  with  aerial  ightness, 
of  gold  and  sable,  with  a  seat  fifteen  or  jnty  feet 
from  the  ground,  and  are  driven,  with  /o  or  four 
horses,  by  the  royal  personage  himself.  The  grace 
of  their  shape  and  the  splendor  of  their  gilded  trap- 
pings are  inconceivable  to  one  who  has  never  seen  them. 
Our  way  lay  through  the  court  of  the  imperial  pal- 
ace A  large  crowd  was  collected  round  a  carriage 
with  four  horses  standing  at  the  side-door.  As  we  ap- 
proached it,  all  hats  flew  off,  and  a  beautiful  woman, 
of  perhaps  twenty-eight,  came  down  the  steps,  leading 
a  handsome  boy  of  two  or  three  years.  It  was  the 
young  queen  of  Hungary  and  her  son.  If  I  had  seen 
»uch  a  face  in  a  cottage  ornee  on   the   borders  of  an 


American  lake,  I  should  have  thought  it  made  for  the 
spot. 

We  entered  a  door  of  the  palace  at  which  stood  a 
ferocious-looking  croat  sentinel,  near  seven  feet  high. 
Three  German  travelling  students  had  just  been  refused 
admittance.  A  little  man  appeared  at  the  ring  of  the 
bell  within,  and  after  a  preliminary  explanation  by  my 
valet,  probably  a  lie,  he  made  a  low  bow,  and  invited 
me  to  enter.  I  waited  a  moment,  and  a  permission 
was  brought  me  to  see  the  imperial  treasury.  Hand- 
ing it  to  Karl,  I  requested  him  to  get  permission  in- 
serted for  my  three  friends  at  the  door.  He  accom- 
plished it  in  the  same  incomprehensible  manner  in 
which  he  had  obtained  my  own,  and  introducing  them 
with  the  ill-disguised  contempt  of  a  valet  for  all  men 
with  dusty  coats,  we  commenced  the  rounds  of  thp 
curiosities  together. 

A  large  clock,  facing  us  as  we  entered,  was  just 
striking.  From  either  side  of  its  base,  like  companies 
of  gentlemen  and  ladies  advancing  to  greet  each  other, 
appeared  figures  in  the  dress  and  semblance  of  the 
royal  family  of  Austria,  who  remained  a  moment,  and 
then  retired  bowing  themselves  courteously  out  back- 
ward. It  is  a  costly  affair,  presented  by  the  landgrave 
of  Hesse  to  Maria  Theresa,  in  1750. 

After  a  succession  of  watches,  snuff-boxes,  necklaces, 
and  jewels  of  every  description,  we  came  to  the  famous 
Florentine  diamond,  said  to  be  the  largest  in  the  world. 
It  was  lost  by  a  duke  of  Burgundy  upon  the  battle- 
field of  Granson,  found  by  a  soldier,  who  parted  with 
it  for  five  florins,  sold  again,  and  found  its  way  at  last 
to  the  royal  treasury  of  Florence,  whence  it  was 
brought  to  Vienna.  Its  weight  is  one  hundred  and 
thirty-nine  and  a  half  carats,  and  it  is  estimated  at  one 
million  forty-three  thousand  three  hundred  and  thirty- 
four  florins.  It  looks  like  a  lump  of  light.  Enormous 
diamonds  surround  it,  but  it  hangs  among  them  like 
Hesperus  among  the  stars. 

The  next  side  of  the  gallery  is  occupied  by  speci- 
mens of  carved  ivory.  Many  of  them  are  antique,  and 
half  of  them  are  more  beautiful  than  decent.  There 
were  two  bas-reliefs  among  them  by  Raphael  Donner, 
which  were  worth,  to  my  eye,  all  the  gems  in  the  gal- 
lery. They  were  taken  from  scripture,  and  represented 
the  Woman  of  Samaria  at  the  well,  and  Ha  gar  waiting 
for  the  death  of  her  son.  No  powers  of  elocution,  no 
enhancement  of  poetry,  could  bring  those  touching  pas- 
sages of  the  Bible  so  movingly  to  the  heart.  The 
latter  particularly  arrested  me.  The  melancholy 
beauty  of  Hagar,  sitting  with  her  head  bowed  upon  her 
knees,  while  her  boy  is  lying  a  little  way  off,  beneath 
a  shrub  of  the  desert,  is  a  piece  of  unparalleled  work- 
manship. It  may  well  hang  in  the  treasury  of  an  em- 
peror. 

Miniatures  of  the  royal  family  in  their  childhood, 
set  in  costly  gems,  massive  plate  curiously  chased, 
services  of  gold,  robes  of  diamonds,  gem-hilted  swords, 
dishes  wrought  of  solid  integral  agates,  and  finally  the 
crown  and  sceptre  of  Austria  upon  red  velvet  cushions, 
looking  very  much  like  their  imitations  on  the  stage, 
were  among  the  world  of  splendors  unfolded  to  our 
eyes.  The  Florentine  diamond  and  the  bas-reliefs  by 
Raphael  Donner  were  all  I  coveted.  The  beauty  of 
the  diamond  was  royal.  It  needed  no  imagination 
to  feel  its  value.  A  savage  would  pick  it  up  in  the 
desert  for  a  star  dropped  out  of  the  sky.  For  the 
rest,  the  demand  on  my  admiration  fatigued  me,  and 
I  was  glad  to  escape  with  my  dusty  friends  from  the 
unive-sity,  and  exchange  courtesies  in  the  free  air. 
One  of  them  spoke  English  a  little,  and  called  me 
"  Mister  Englishman,"  on  bidding  me  adieu.  I  was 
afraid  of  a  beer-shop  scene  in  Vienna,  and  did  not 
correct  the  mistake. 

As  we  were  going  out  of  the  court,  four  covered 
wagons,  drawn  each  by  four  superb  horses,  dashed 
through  the  gate.     I  waited   a    moment  to   see  what 


112 


PENC1LLINGS  BY  THE  WAY. 


they  contained.  Thirty  or  forty  servants  in  livery 
came  out  from  the  palace,  and  took  from  the  wagons 
quantities  of  empty  baskets  carefully  labelled  with 
directions.  They  were  from  Schoenbrunn,  where  the 
emperor  is  at  present  residing  with  his  court,  and  had 
come  to  market  for  the  imperial  kitchen.  It  should 
be  a  good  dinner  that  requires  sixteen  such  horses  to 
carry  to  the  cook. 

It  was  the  hungry  hour  of  two,  and  I  was  still  mu- 
sing on  the  emperor's  dinner,  and  admiring  the  anx- 
ious interest  his  servants  took  in  their  disposition  of  the 
baskets,  when  a  blast  of  military  music  came  to  my 
ear.  It  was  from  the  barracks  of  the  imperial  guard, 
and  I  stepped  under  the  arch,  and  listened  to  them 
an  hour.  How  gloriously  they  played  !  It  was  prob- 
ably the  finest  band  in  Austria.  I  have  heard  much 
good  music,  but  of  its  kind  this  was  like  a  new  sensa- 
tion to  me.  They  stand,  in  playing,  just  under  the 
window  at  which  the  emperor  appears  daily  when  in 
the  city. 

I  have  been  indebted  to  Mr.  Schwartz,  the  Ameri- 
can consul  at  Vienna,  for  a  very  unusual  degree  of 
kindness.  Among  other  polite  attentions,  he  procured 
for  me  to-day  an  admission  to  the  Polytechnic  school 
— a  favor  granted  with  difficulty,  except  on  the  ap- 
pointed days  for  public  visits. 

The  Polytechnic  school  was  established  in  1816,  by 
the  present  emperor.  The  building  stands  outside  the 
rampart  of  the  city,  of  elegant  proportions,  and  about 
as  large  as  all  the  buildings  of  Yale  or  Harvard  col- 
lege thrown  into  one.  Its  object  is  to  promote  in- 
struction in  the  practical  sciences,  or,  in  other  words, 
to  give  a  practical  education  for  the  trades,  commerce, 
or  manufactures.  It  is  divided  into  three  departments. 
The  first  is  preparatory,  and  the  course  occupies  two 
years.  The  studies  are  religion  and  morals,  element- 
ary mathematics,  natural  history,  geography,  univer- 
sal history,  grammar,  and  "  the  German  style"  decla- 
mation, drawing,  writing,  and  the  French,  Italian,  and 
Bohemian  languages.  To  enter  this  class,  the  boy 
must  be  thirteen  years  of  age,  and  pays  fifty  cents  per 
month. 

The  second  course  is  commercial,  and  occupies  one 
year.  The  studies  are  mercantile  correspondence, 
commercial  law,  mercantile  arithmetic,  the  keeping  of 
books,  geography,  and  history,  as  they  relate  to  com- 
merce, acquaintance  with  merchandise,  &c,  &c. 

The  third  course  lasts  one  year.  The  studies  are 
chymistry  as  applicable  to  arts  and  trades,  the  fermen- 
tation of  woods,  tannery,  soap-making,  dying,  blanch- 
ing, &c,  &c. ;  also  mechanism,  practical  geometry, 
civil  architecture,  hydraulics,  and  technology.  The 
two  last  courses  are  given  gratis. 

The  whole  is  under  the  direction  of  a  principal, 
who  has  under  him  thirty  professors  and  two  or  three 
guardians  of  apparatus. 

We  were  taken  first  into  a  noble  hall,  lined  with 
glass  cases  containing  specimens  of  every  article  man- 
ufactured in  the  German  dominions.  From  the  finest 
silks  down  to  shoes,  wigs,  nails,  and  mechanics'  tools, 
here  were  all  the  products  of  human  labor.  The  va- 
riety was  astonishing.  Within  the  limits  of  a  single 
room,  the  pupil  is  here  made  acquainted  with  every 
mechanic  art  known  in  his  country. 

The  next  hall  was  devoted  to  models.  Here  was 
every  kind  of  bridge,  fortification,  lighthouse,  dry-dock, 
breakwater,  canal-lock,  &c,  &c. ;  models  of  steam- 
boats, of  ships,  and  of  churches,  in  every  style  of  archi- 
tecture.    It  was  a  little  world. 

We  went  thence  to  the  chemical  apartment.  The 
servitor  here,  a  man  without  education,  has  construct- 
ed all  the  apparatus.  He  is  an  old  gray-headed  man, 
of  a  keen  German  countenance,  and  great  simplicity 
of  manners.  He  takes  great  pride  in  having  con- 
structed the  largest  and  most  complete  chemical  ap- 
paratus now  in  London.     The  one  which  he  exhibited 


to  us  occupies  the  whole  of  an  immense  hall,  and  pro- 
duces an  electric  discharge  like  the  report  of  a  pistol. 
The  ordinary  batteries  in  our  universities  are  scarce  a 
twentieth  part  as  powerful. 

After  showing  us  a  variety  of  experiments,  the  old 
man  turned  suddenly  and  asked  us  if  we  knew  the  ge- 
ometrical figures  described  by  the  vibrations  of  musi- 
cal notes.  We  confessed  our  ignorance,  and  he  pro- 
duced a  pane  of  glass  covered  with  black  sand.  He 
then  took  a  fiddle-bow,  and  holding  the  glass  horizon- 
tally, drew  it  downward  against  the  edge  at  a  peculiar 
angle.  The  sand  flew  as  if  it  had  been  bewitched, 
and  took  the  shape  of  a  perfect  square.  He  asked  us 
to  name  a  figure.  We  named  a  circle.  Another 
careful  draw  of  the  bow,  and  the  sand  flew  into  a  cir- 
cle, with  scarce  a  particle  out  of  its  perfect  curve. 
Twenty  times  he  repeated  the  experiment,  and  with 
the  most  complicated  figures  drawn  on  paper.  He  had 
reduced  it  to  an  art.  It  would  have  hung  him  for  a 
magician  a  century  ago. 

However  one  condemns  the  policy  of  Austria  with 
respect  to  her  subject  provinces  and  the  rest  of  Eu- 
rope, it  is  impossible  not  to  be  struck  with  her  liberal 
provision  for  her  own  immediate  people.  The  public 
institutions  of  all  kinds  in  Vienna  are  allowed  to  be 
the  finest  and  most  liberally  endowed  on  the  continent. 
Her  hospitals,  prisons,  houses  of  industry,  and  schools, 
are  on  an  imperial  scale  of  munificence.  The  emper- 
or himself  is  a  father  to  his  subjects,  and  every  tongue 
blesses  him.  Napoleon  envied  him  their  affection,  it 
is  said,  and  certainly  no  monarch  could  be  more  uni- 
versally beloved. 

Among  the  institutions  of  Vienna  are  two  which 
are  peculiar.  One  is  a  maison  d' accouchement,  into 
which  any  female  can  enter  veiled,  remain  till  after 
the  period  of  her  labor,  and  depart  unknown,  leaving 
her  child  in  the  care  of  the  institution,  which  rears  it 
as  a  foundling.  Its  object  is  a  benevolent  prevention 
of  infanticide. 

The  other  is  a  private  penitentiary,  to  which  the 
fathers  of  respectable  families  can  send  for  reforma- 
tion children  they  are  unable  to  govern.  The  name 
is  kept  a  secret,  and  the  culprits  are  returned  to  their 
families  after  a  proper  time,  punished  without  dis- 
grace. Pride  of  character  is  thus  preserved,  while  the 
delinquent  is  firmly  corrected. 


LETTER  LXXIV. 

VIENNA, — PALACES    AND    GARDENS MOSAIC    COPY    OF 

DA  VINCI'S  "LAST  SUPPER" COLLECTION  OF  WAR- 
LIKE ANTIQUITIES  ;  SCANDERBURG's  SWORD,  MON- 
TEZUMA'S  TOMAHAWK,  RELICS  OF  THE  CRUSADERS, 
WARRIORS    IN    ARMOR,    THE    FARMER  OF    AUGSBURGH 

ROOM  OF  PORTRAITS  OF  CELEBRATED  INDIVIDUALS 

GOLD   BUSTS  OF  JUPITER  AND  JUNO THE  GLACIS, 

FULL  OF  GARDENS,  THE  GENERAL  RESORT  OF  THE 
PEOPLE UNIVERSAL  SPIRIT  OF  ENJOYMENT SIM- 
PLICITY AND  CONFIDENCE  IN  THE  MANNERS  OF 
THE    VIENNESE BADEN. 

At  the  foot  of  a  hill  in  one  of  the  beautiful  suburbs 
of  Vienna,  stands  a  noble  palace,  called  the  Linoer 
Belvidere.  On  the  summit  of  the  hill  stands  another, 
equally  mangnificent,  called  the  Upper  Belvidere,  and 
between  the  two  extend  broad  and  princely  gardens, 
open  to  the  public. 

On  the  lower  floor  of  the  entrance-hall  in  the  former 
palace,  lies  the  copy,  in  mosaic,  of  Leonardo  da  Vinci's 
"  Last  Supper,"  done  at  Napoleon's  order.  Though 
supposed  to  be  the  finest  piece  of  mosaic  in  the  world, 
it  is  so  large  that  they  have  never  found  a  place  for  it. 
A  temporary  balcony  has  been  erected  on  one  side  of 
the  room,  and  the  spectator  mounts  nearly  to  the 


PENCILLINGS  BY  THE   WAY. 


113 


ceiling  to  get  a  fair  position  for  looking  down  upon  it. 
That  unrivalled  picture,  now  going  to  decay  in  the 
convent  at  Milan,  will  probably  depend  upon  this  copy 
for  its  name  with  posterity.  The  expression  in  the 
faces  of  the  apostles  is  as  accurately  preserved  as  in 
the  admirable  engraving  of  Morghen. 

The  remaining  halls  in  the  palace  are  occupied  by 
a  grand  collection  of  antiquities,  principally  of  a  warlike 
character.  When  I  read  in  my  old  worm-eaten  Burton, 
of  "  Scanderburg's  strength,"  I  never  thought  to  see 
his  sword.  It  stands  here  against  the  wall,  a  long  straight 
weapon  with  a  cross  hilt,  which  few  men  could  heave 
to  their  shoulders.  The  tomahawk  of  poor  Montezuma 
hnngs  near  it.  It  was  presented  to  the  emperor  by  the 
king  of  Spain.  It  is  of  a  dark  granite,  and  polished  very 
beautifully.  What  a  singular  curiosity  to  find  in  Austria! 

The  windows  are  draped  with  (lags  dropping  in  pieces 
with  age.  This,  so  in  tatters,  was  renowned  in  the 
crusades.  It  was  carried  to  the  Holy  Land  and  brought 
back  by  the  archduke  Ferdinand. 

A  hundred  warriors  in  bright  armor  stand  round  the 
hall.  Their  visors  are  down,  their  swords  in  their 
hands,  their  feet  planted  for  a  spring.  One  can  scarce 
believe  there  are  no  men  in  them.  The  name  of  some 
renowned  soldier  is  attached  to  each.  This  was  the 
armor  of  the  cruel  Visconti  of  Milan — that,  of  Duke 
Alba  of  Florence — both  costly  suits,  beautifully  inlaid 
with  gold.  In  the  centre  of  the  room  stands  a  gigantic 
fellow  in  full  armor,  with  a  sword  on  his  thigh  and  a 
beam  in  his  right  hand.  It  is  the  shell  of  the  famous 
fanner  of  Augsbunrh,  who  was  in  the  service  of  one 
of  the  emperors.  He  was  over  eight  feet  in  height, 
and  limbed  in  proportion.  How  near  such  relics  bring 
history!  With  what  increased  facility  one  pictures 
the  warrior  to  his  fancy,  seeing  his  sword,  and  hearing 
the  very  rattle  of  his  armor.  Yet  it  puts  one  into  Ham- 
let's vein  to  see  a  contemptible  valet  lay  his  hand  with 
impunity  on  the  armed  shoulder,  shaking  the  joints 
that  once  belted  the  soul  of  a  Visconti  !  I  turned,  in 
leaving  the  room,  to  take  a  second  look  at  the  flag  of 
the  ctusade.  It  had  floated,  perhaps,  ovei  the  helmet 
of  Cmir  de  Lion.  Saladin  may  have  had  it  in  his  eye, 
assaulting  the  Christian  camp  with  his  pagans. 

In  the  next  room  hung  fifty  or  sixty  portraits  of 
celebrated  individuals,  presented  in  their  time  to  the 
emperors  of  Austria.  There  was  one  of  Mary  of 
Scotland.  It  is  a  face  of  superlative  loveliness,  taken 
with  a  careless  and  most  bewitching  half  smile,  and 
yet  not  without  the  look  of  royalty,  which  one  traces 
in  all  the  pictures  of  the  unfortunate  queen.  One  of 
the  emperors  of  Germany  married  Phillippina,  a  far- 
mer's daughter,  and  here  is  her  portrait.  It  is  done  in  the 
prim  old  style  of  the  middle  ages,  but  the  face  is  full 
of  character.  Her  husband's  portrait  hangs  beside  it, 
and  she  looks  more  born  for  an  emperor  than  he. 

Hall  after  hall  followed,  of  costly  curiosities.  A 
volume  would  not  describe  them.  Two  gold  busts  of 
Jupiter  and  Juno,  by  Benvenuto  Cellini,  attracted  my 
attention  particularly.  They  were  very  beautiful,  but 
I  would  copy  them  in  bronze,  and  coin  "the  thunderer 
and  his  queen,"  were  they  mine. 

Admiration  is  the  most  exhausting  thing  in  the  world. 
The  servitor  opened  a  gate  leading  into  the  gardens  of 
the  palace,  that  we  might  mount  to  the  Upper  Belvi- 
dere,  which  contains  the  imperial  gallery  of  paintings. 
But  1  had  no  more  strength.  I  could  have  dug  in  the 
field  till  dinner-time — but  to  be  astonished  more  than 
three  hours  without  respite  is  beyond  me.  I  took  a 
stroll  in  the  garden.  How  delightfully  the  unmeaning 
beauty  of  a  fountain  refreshes  one  after  this  inward 
fatigue.  I  walked  on,  up  one  alley  and  down  another, 
happy  in  finding  nothing  that  surprised  me,  or  worked 
upon  my  imagination,  or  bothered  my  historical  rec- 
ollections, or  called  upon  my  wornout  superlatives 
for  expression.  I  fervently  hoped  not  to  have  another 
new  sensation  till  after  dinner. 
8 


Vienna  is  an  immense  city  (two  hundred  and  fifty 
thousand  inhabitants),  but  its  heart  only  is  walled  in. 
You  may  walk  from  gate  to  gate  in  twenty  minutes. 
In  leaving  the  walls  you  come  upon  a  feature  of  the 
city  which  distinguishes  it  from  every  other  in  Eu- 
rope. Its  rampart  is  encircled  by  an  open  park  (called 
Ike  Glacis),  a  quarter  of  a  mile  in  width  and  perhaps 
three  miles  in  circuit,  which  is,  in  fact,  in  the  centre 
of  Vienna.  The  streets  commence  again  on  the  oth- 
er side  of  it,  and  on  going  from  one  part  of  the  city  to 
the  other,  you  constantly  cross  this  lovely  belt  of  ver- 
dure, which  girds  her  heart  like  a  cestus  of  health. 
The  top  of  the  rampart  itself  is  planted  with  trees,  and, 
commanding  beautiful  views  in  every  direction,  it  is 
generally  thronged  with  people.  (It  was  a  favorite 
walk  of  the  Duke  of  Keichstadt.)  Between  this  and 
the  Glacis  lies  a  deep  trench,  crossed  by  drawbridges 
at  every  gate,  the  bottom  of  which  is  cultivated  pret- 
tily as  a  flower-garden.  Altogether  Vienna  is  a  beau- 
tiful city.  Paris  may  have  single  views  about  the 
Tuileries  that  are  finer  than  anything  of  the  same 
kind  here,  but  this  capital  of  western  Europe,  as  a 
whole,  is  quite  the  most  imposing  city  I  have  seen. 

The  Glacis  is  full  of  gardens.  I  requested  my  dis- 
agreeable necessity  of  a  valet,  this  afternoon,  to  take 
me  to  two  or  three  of  the  most  general  resorts  of  the 
people.  We  passed  out  by  one  of  the  city  gates,  five 
minutes  walk  from  the  hotel,  and  entered  immediately 
into  a  crowd  of  people,  sauntering  up  and  down  under 
the  alleys  of  the  Glacis.  A  little  farther  on  we  found 
a  fanciful  building,  buried  in  trees,  and  occupied  as 
a  summer  cafe.  In  a  little  circular  temple  in  front 
was  stationed  a  band  of  music,  and  around  it  for  a  con- 
siderable distance  were  placed  small  tables,  filled  just 
now  with  elegantly-dressed  people,  eating  ices,  or 
drinking  coffee.  It  was  in  every  respect  like  a  private 
fete  champelre.  I  wandered  about  for  an  hour,  expect- 
ing involuntarily  to  meet  some  acquaintance — there 
was  such  a  look  of  kindness  and  unreserve  through- 
out. It  is  a  desolate  feeling  to  be  alone  in  such  a 
crowd. 

We  jumped  into  a  carriage  and  drove  round  the 
Glacis  for  a  mile,  passing  everywhere  crowds  of  peo- 
ple idling  leisurely  along  and  evidently  out  for  pleas- 
ure. We  stopped  before  a  superb  facade,  near  one  of 
the  gates  of  the  city.  It  was  the  entrance  to  the 
Volksgarlen.  We  entered  in  front  of  a  fountaiu,  and 
turning  up  a  path  to  the  left,  found  our  way  almost 
impeded  by  another  crowd.  A  semicircular  building, 
with  a  range  of  columns  in  front  encircling  a  stand  for 
a  band  of  music,  was  surrounded  by  perhaps  two  or 
three  thousand  people.  Small  tables  and  seats  under 
trees,  were  spread  in  every  direction  within  reach  of 
the  music.  The  band  played  charmingly.  Waiters 
in  white  jackets  and  aprons  were  running  to  and  fro, 
receiving  and  obeying  orders  for  refreshments,  and 
here  again  all  seemed  abandoned  to  one  spirit  of  en- 
joyment. I  had  thought  we  must  have  left  all  Vien- 
na at  the  other  garden.  I  wondered  how  so  many 
people  could  be  spared  from  their  occupations  and 
families.  It  was  no  holyday.  "  It  is  always  as  gay  in 
fair  weather,"  said  Karl. 

A  little  back  into  the  garden  stands  a  beautiful  little 
structure,  on  the  model  of  the  temple  of  Theseus  in 
Greece.  It  was  built  for  Canova's  group  of  "  Theseus 
and  the  Centaur,"  bought  by  the  emperor.  1  had 
seen  copies  of  it  in  Rome,  but  was  of  course  much 
more  struck  with  the  original.  It  is  a  noble  piece  of 
sculpture. 

Still  farther  back,  on  the  rise  of  a  mount,  stood 
another  fanciful  cafe,  with  another  band  of  music — and 
another  crowd  !  After  we  had  walked  around  it,  my 
man  was  hurrying  me  away.  "  You  have  not  seen  the 
augarten,"  said  he.  It  stands  upon  a  little  green 
island  in  the  Danube,  and  is  more  extensive  than  either 
of  the  others.     But  I  was  content  where  I  was  ;  and 


114 


PENC1LLJNGS  BY  THE  WAY. 


dismissing  my  Asmodeus,  I  determined  to  spend  the 
evening  wandering  about  in  the  crowds  alone.  The 
sun  went  down,  the  lamps  were  lit,  the  alleys  were  il- 
luminated, the  crowd  increased,  and  the  emperor  him- 
self could  not  have  given  a  gayer  evening's  entertain- 
ment. 

Vienna  has  the  reputation  of  being  the  most  profli- 
gate capital  in  Europe.  Perhaps  it  is  so.  There  is 
certainly,  even  to  a  stranger,  no  lack  of  temptation  to 
every  species  of  pleasure.  But  there  is,  besides,  a 
degree  of  simplicity  and  confidence  in  the  manners  of 
the  Viennese  which  I  had  believed  peculiar  to  Amer- 
ica, and  inconsistent  with  the  state  of  society  in  Eu- 
rope. In  the  most  public  resorts,  and  at  all  hours  of 
the  day  and  evening,  modest  and  respectable  young 
women  of  the  middle  classes  walk  alone  perfectly  se- 
cure from  molestation.  They  sit  under  the  trees  in 
these  public  gardens,  eat  ices  at  the  cafes,  walk  home 
unattended,  and  no  one  seems  to  dream  of  improprie- 
ty. Whole  families,  too,  spend  the  afternoon  upon  a 
seat  in  a  thronged  place  of  resort,  their  children  play- 
ing about  them,  the  father  reading,  and  the  mother 
sewing  or  knitting,  quite  unconscious  of  observation. 
The  lower  and  middle  classes  live  all  summer,  I  am 
told,  out  of  doors.  It  is  never  oppressively  warm  in 
this  latitude,  and  their  houses  are  deserted  after  three 
or  four  o'clock  in  the  afternoon,  and  the  whole  popu- 
lation pours  out  to  the  different  gardens  on  the  Gla- 
cis, where  till  midnight,  they  seem  perfectly  happy  in 
the  enjoyment  of  the  innocent  and  unexpensive  pleas- 
ures which  a  wise  government  has  provided  for  them. 

The  nobles  and  richer  class  pass  their  summer  in 
the  circle  of  rural  villages  near  the  city.  They  are 
nested  about  on  the  hills,  and  crowded  with  small  and 
lovely  rural  villas,  more  like  the  neighborhood  of  Bos- 
ton than  anything  I  have  seen  in  Europe. 

Baden,  where  the  emperor  passes  much  of  his  time, 
is  called  "  the  miniature  Switzerland."  Its  baths  are 
excellent,  its  hills  are  cut  into  retired  and  charming 
walks,  and  from  June  till  September  it  is  one  of  the 
gayest  of  watering-places.  It  is  about  a  two  hours' 
drive  from  the  city,  and  omnibuses  at  a  very  low  rate, 
run  between  at  all  times  of  the  day.  The  Austrians 
seldom  travel,  and  the  reason  is  evident.  They  have 
everything  for  which  others  travel,  at  home 


LETTER  LXXV. 

VIENNA THE    PALACE    OF    LIECHTENSTEIN. 

The  red-nosed  German  led  on  through  the  crowded 
Graben,  jostling  aside  the  Parisian-looking  lady  and 
her  handsome  Hungarian  cavalier,  the  phlegmatic 
smoker  and  the  bearded  Turk,  alike.  We  passed  the 
imperial  guard,  the  city  gate,  the  lofty  bridge  over  the 
trench  (casting  a  look  below  at  the  flower  garden  laid 
out  in  "the  ditch"  which  encircles  the  wall),  and  en- 
tered upon  the  lovely  Glacis — one  step  from  the 
crowded  street  to  the  fresh  greenness  of  a  park. 

Would  you  believe,  as  you  walk  up  this  shaded 
alley,  that  you  are  in  the  heart  of  the  city  still  ? 

The  Glacis  is  crossed,  with  its  groups  of  fair  chil- 
dren and  shy  maids,  its  creeping  invalids,  its  solitude- 
seeking  lovers,  and  its  idling  soldiers,  and  we  again 
enter  the  crowded  street.  A  half  hour  more,  and  the 
throng  thins  again,  the  country  opens,  and  here  you 
are,  in  front  of  the  palace  of  Licchstcnstein,  the  first 
noble  of  Austria.  A  modern  building,  of  beautiful 
and  light  architecture,  rises  from  its  clustering  trees ; 
servants  in  handsome  livery  hang  about  the  gates  and 
lean  against  the  pillars  of  the  portico,  and  with  an  ex- 
planation from  my  lying  valet,  who  evidently  makes 
me  out  an  ambassador  at  least  by  the  ceremony  with 
which  Tarn  received,  a  grav  servitor  makes  bis  appear- 


ance and  opens  the  immense  glass  door  leading  from 
the  side  of  the  court. 

One  should  step  gingerly  on  the  polished  marble  of 
this  superb  staircase  !  It  opens  at  once  into  a  lofty 
hall,  the  ceiling  of  which  is  painted  in  fresco  by  an 
Italian  master.  It  is  a  room  of  noble  proportions. 
Few  churches  in  America  are  larger,  and  yet  it  seems 
in  keeping  with  the  style  of  the  palace,  the  staircase 
— everything  but  the  creature  meant  to  inhabit  it. 

How  different  are  the  moods  in  which  one  sees  pic- 
tures !  To-day  I  am  in  the  humor  to  give  it  to  the 
painter's  delusion.  The  scene  is  real.  Asmodeus  is 
at  my  elbow,  and  I  am  witched  from  spot  to  spot,  in- 
visible myself,  gazing  on  the  varied  scenes  revealed 
only  to  the  inspired  vision  of  genius. 

A  landscape  opens.*  It  is  one  of  the  woody  recess- 
es of  Lake  Nervi,  at  the  very  edge  of  "  Dian's  Mir- 
ror." The  huntress  queen  is  bathing  with  her 
nymphs.  The  sandal  is  half  laced  over  an  ankle  that 
seems  fit  for  nothing  else  than  to  sustain  a  goddess, 
when  casting  her  eye  on  the  lovely  troop  emerging 
from  the  water,  she  sees  the  unfortunate  Calista  sur- 
rounded by  her  astonished  sisters,  and  fainting  with 
shame.  Poor  Calista !  one's  heart  pleads  for  her. 
But  how  expressive  is  the  cold  condemning  look  in 
the  beautiful  face  of  her  mistress  queen  !  Even  the 
dogs  have  started  from  their  reclining  position  on  the 
grass,  and  stand  gazing  at  the  unfortunate,  wondering 
at  the  silent  astonishment  of  the  virgin  troop.  Pardon 
her,  imperial  Dian ! 

Come  to  the  baptism  of  a  child  !  It  is  a  vision  of 
Guido  Reni's.f  A  young  mother,  apparently  scarce 
sixteen,  has  brought  her  "first  child  to  the  altar.  She 
kneels  with  it  in  her  arms,  looking  earnestly  into  the 
face  of  the  priest  while  he  sprinkles  the  water  on  its 
pure  forehead,  and  pronounces  the  words  of  consecra- 
tion. It  is  a  most  lovely  countenance,  made  lovelier 
by  the  holy  feeling  in  her  heart.  Her  eyes  are  moist, 
her  throat  swells  with  emotion — my  own  sight  dims 
while  I  gaze  upon  her.  We  have  intruded  on  one  of 
the  most  holy  moments  of  nature.  A  band  of  girls, 
sisters  by  the  resemblance,  have  accompanied  the 
young  mother,  and  stand,  with  love  and  wonder  in 
their  eyes,  gazing  on  the  face  of  the  child.  How 
strangely  the  mingled  thoughts,  crowding  through 
their  minds,  are  expressed  in  their  excited  features. 
It  is  a  scene  worthy  of  an  audience  of  angels. 

We  have  surprised  Giorgione's  wife  (the  "  Flora  " 
of  Titian,  the  "  love  in  life  "  of  Byron)  looking  at  a 
sketch  by  her  husband.  It  stands  on  his  easel,  out- 
lined in  crayons,  and  represents  Lucretia  the  moment 
before  she  plunges  the  dagger  into  her  bosom.  She 
was  passing  through  his  studio,  and  you  see  by  the  half 
suspended  foot,  that  she  stopped  but  for  a  momentary 
glance,  and  has  forgotten  herself  in  thoughts  that 
have  risen  unaware.  The  head  of  Lucretia  resembles 
her  own,  and  she  is  wondering  what  Giorgione  though! 
while  he  drew  it.  Did  he  resemble  her  to  the  Ro- 
man's wife  in  virtue  as  well  as  in  feature  ?  There  is 
an  embarrassment  in  the  expression  of  her  face,  as  if 
she  doubted  he  had  drawn  it  half  in  mischief.  We 
will  leave  the  lovely  Venetian  to  her  thoughts.  When 
she  sits  again  to  Titian,  it  will  be  with  a  colder 
modesty. 

Hoogstraeten,  a  Dutch  painter,  conjures  up  a  scene 
for  you.  It  is  an  old  man,  who  has  thrust  his  head 
through  a  prison  gate,  and  is  looking  into  the  street 
with  the  listless  patience  and  curiosity  of  one  whom 
habit  has  reconciled  to  his  situation.  His  beard  is 
neglected,  his   hair  is  slightly   grizzled,  and   on   his 

*  By  Franceschini.  He  passed  his  life  with  the  Prince 
Lieehstenstein,  and  his  pictures  are  found  only  in  this  collec- 
tion. He  is  a  delicious  painter,  full  of  poetry,  with  the  one 
fault  of  too  voluptuous  a  style. 

f  One  of  the  loveliest  pictures  that  divine  painter  ever 
drew. 


PENCILLINGS  BY  THE   WAY. 


115 


head  sits  a  shabby  fur  cap,  that  has  evidently  shared 
all  his  imprisonment,  and  is  quite  past  auy  pride  of 
appearance.  What  a  vacant  face!  How  perfectly  he 
seems  to  look  upon  the  street  below,  as  upon  some- 
thing with  which  he  has  nothing  more  to  do.  There 
is  no  anxiety  to  get  out,  in  its  expression.  He  is  past 
that.  He  looks  at  the  playing  children,  and  watches 
the  zigzag  trot  of  an  idle  dog  with  the  quiet  apathy 
of  one  who  can  find  nothing  better  to  help  off  the 
hour.  It  is  a  picture  of  stolid,  contented,  unthinking 
misery. 

Look  at  this  boy,  standing  impatiently  on  one  foot 
at  his  mother's  knee,  while  she  pares  an  apple  for 
him  !  With  what  an  amused  and  playful  love  she 
istens  to  his  hurrying  entreaties,  stealing  a  glance  at 
him  as  he  pleads,  with  a  deeper  feeling  than  he  will 
be  able  to  comprehend  for  years  !  It  is  one  of  the 
commonest  scenes  in  life,  yet  how  pregnant  with  spec- 
ulation ! 

On — on — what  an  endless  gallery  !  I  have  seen 
twelve  rooms,  with  forty  or  fifty  pictures  in  each,  and 
there  are  thirteen  halls  more!  The  delusion  begins 
to  fade.  These  are  pictures  merely.  Beautiful  ones, 
however !  If  language  could  convey  to  your  eye  the 
impressions  that  this  waste  and  wealth  of  beauty  have 
conveyed  to  mine,  I  would  write  of  every  picture. 
There  is  not  an  indifferent  one  here.  All  Italy  to- 
gether has  not  so  many  works  by  the  Flemish  mas- 
ters as  are  contained  in  this  single  gallery — certainly 
none  so  fine.  A  most  princely  fortune  for  many  gen- 
erations must  have  been  devoted  to  its  purchase. 

I   have  seen  seven  or  eight  things  in  all  Italy,  by  ' 
Corregio.     They  were   the  gems  of  the   galleries  in 
which  they  exist,  but  always  small,  and  seemed  to  me 
to  want  a  certain  finish.     Here  is  a  Corregio,  a  large 
picture,  and   no  miniature   ever  had  so   elaborate   a 
beauty.     It  melts  into  the  eye.     It  is  a  conception  of 
female  beauty  so  very  extraordinary,  that  it  seems  to  j 
me  it  must  become,  in  the  mind  of  every  one  who  sees  ! 
it,  the  model  and  the  standard  of  all  loveliness.     It  is  j 
a  nude  Venus,  sitting  lost  in  thought,  with  Cupid  j 
asleep  in  her  lap.     She  is  in  the  sacred  retirement  of  \ 
solitude,  and  the  painter  has  thrown  into  her  attitude  ' 
and  expression  so  speaking  an  unconsciousness  of  all 
presence,  that  you  feel  like  a  daring  intruder  while  you 
gaze  upon  the  picture.     Surely  such  softness  of  color- 
ing, such  faultless  proportions,  such  subdued  and  yet 
eloquent  richness  of  teint  in  the  skin,  was  never  before 
attained  by  mortal  pencil.     I  am  here,  some  five  thou- 
sand miles  from  America,  yet  would  I  have  made  the  • 
voyage  but  to  raise  my  standard  of  beauty  by  this  rav-  j 
ishing  image  of  woman. 

Iu  the  circle  of  Italian   galleries,  one  finds  less  of 
female  beauty,  both  in  degree  and  in  variety,  than  his  ' 
anticipations  had  promised.     Three  or  four  heads  at 
the  most,  of  the  many  hundreds  that  he  sees,  are  im-  | 
printed  in  his  memory,  and  serve  as  standards  in  his  ! 
future  observations.     Even  when  standing  before  the  i 
most  celebrated  pictures,  one  often  returns  to  recollec- 
tions of  living  beauty  in  his  own  country,  by  which  j 
the  most  glowing  head  of  Titian  or  the  Veronese  suf- 
fer in  comparison.     In  my  own  experience  this  has 
been   often  true,  and  it  is  perhaps  the  only  thing  in  j 
which  my  imagination   of  foreign  wonders   was   too  I 
fervent.      To  this   Venus  of  Corregio's,  however,  I  j 
unhesitatingly  submit  all  knowledge,  all  conception  j 
even,  of  female  loveliness.     I  have  seen  nothing  in  | 
life,  imagined  nothing  from  the  descriptions  of  poets, 
that  is  any  way  comparable  to  it.     It  is  matchless. 

In  one  of  the  last  rooms  the  servitor  unlocked  two 
handsome  cases,  and  showed  me,  with  a  great  deal  of 
circumstance,  two  heads  by  Denner.  They  were  an 
old  man  and  his  wife — two  hale,  temperate,  good  old 
country  gossips — but  so  curiously  finished  !  Every 
pore  was  painted.  You  counted  the  stiff  stumps  of 
the  goodman's  beard  as  you  might  those  of  a  living 


person,  till  you  were  tired.  Every  wrinkle  looked  as 
if  a  month  had  been  spent  in  elaborating  it.  The  man 
said  they  were  extremely  valuable,  and  I  certainly 
never  saw  anything  more  curiously  and  perhaps  use- 
lessly wrought. 

Near  them  was  a  capital  picture  of  a  drunken  fellow, 
sitting  by  himself  and  laughing  heartily  at  his  own  per- 
formance on  the  pipe.  It  was  irresistible,  and  I  join- 
ed in  the  laugh  till  the  long  suite  of  halls  rung  again. 

Landscapes  by  Van  Delen — such  as  I  have  seen 
engravings  of  in  America,  and  sighed  over  as  unreal — 
the  skies,  the  temples,  the  water,  the  soft  mountains, 
the  distant  ruins,  seemed  so  like  the  beauty  of  a  dream. 
Here,  they  recall  to  me  even  lovelier  scenes  in  Italy — 
atmospheres  richer  than  the  painter's  pallet  can  imi- 
tate, and  ruins  and  temples  whose  ivy-grown  and  mel- 
ancholy grandeur  are  but  feebly  copied  at  the  best 

Come,  Karl  !  I  am  bewildered  with  these  pictures. 
You  have  twenty  such  galleries  in  Vienna,  you  say! 
I  have  seen  enough  for  to-day,  however,  and  we  will 
save  the  Belvidere  till  to-morrow.  Here  !  pay  the 
servitor,  and  the  footman,  and  the  porter,  and  let  us 
get  into  the  open  air.  How  common  look  your  Vi- 
ennese after  the  celestial  images  we  have  left  behind  ! 
And,  truly,  this  is  the  curse  of  refinement.  The  faces 
we  should  have  loved  else,  look  dull !  The  forms 
that  were  graceful  before,  move  somehow  heavily.  I 
have  entered  a  gallery  ere  now,  thinking  well  of  a  face 
that  accompanied  me,  and  I  have  learned  indifference 
to  it,  by  sheer  comparison,  before  coming  away. 

We  return  through  the  Kohlmarket,  one  of  tl  e  most 
fashionable  streets  of  Vienna.  It  is  like  a  fancy-ball. 
Hungarians,  Poles,  Croats,  Wallachians,  Jews,  Molda- 
vians, Greeks,  Turks,  all  dressed  in  their  national  and 
striking  costumes,  promenade  up  and  down,  smoking 
all,  and  none  exciting  the  slightest  observation.  Every 
third  window  is  a  pipe-shop,  and  they  show,  by  their 
splendor  and  variety,  the  expensiveness  of  the  passion. 
Some  of  them  are  marked  "two  hundred  dollars." 
The  streets  reek  with  tobacco  smoke.  Yrou  never 
catch  a  breath  of  untainted  air  within  the  Glacis. 
Your  hotel,  your  cafe,  your  coach,  your  friend,  are 
all  redolent  of  the  same  disgusting  odor. 


LETTEB  LXXVI. 

THE  PALACE  OF  SCHOENBRUNN HIETZING,  THE  SUMMER 

RETREAT  OF  THE  WEALTHY  VIENNESE — COUNTRY- 
HOUSE  OF  THE  AMERICAN  CONSUL — SPECIMEN  OF  PURE 
DOMESTIC  HAPPINESS  IN  A  GERMAN  FAMILY — SPLENDID 
VILLAGE    BALL — SUBSTANTIAL  FARE  FOR  THE  LADIES 

CURIOUS  FASHION  OF    CUSHIONING  THE    WINDOWS 

GERMAN  GRIEF — THE  UPPER  BELVIDERE  PALACE — 
ENDLESS  QUANTITY  OF  FICTURES. 

Drove  to  Schoenbrunn.  It  is  a  princely  palace,  some 
three  miles  from  the  city,  occupied  at  present  by  the 
emperor  and  his  court.  Napoleon  resided  here  during 
his  visit  to  Vienna,  and  here  his  son  died — the  two 
circumstances  which  alone  make  it  worth  much  trou- 
ble to  see.  The  afternoon  was  too  cold  to  hope  to 
meet  the  emperor  in  the  grounds,  and  being  quite 
satisfied  with  drapery  and  modern  paintings,  I  content- 
ed myself  with  having  driven  through  the  court,  and 
kept  on  to  Hictzing. 

This  is  a  small" village  of  country-seats  within  an 
hour's  drive  of  the  city — another  Jamaica-Plains,  or 
Dorchester  in  the  neighborhood  of  Boston.  It  is  the 
summer  retreat  of  most  of  the  rank  and  fashion  of 
Vienna.  The  American  consul  has  here  a  charming 
country-house,  buried  in  trees,  where  the  few  of  our 
countrymen  who  travel  to  Austria  find  the  most  hospi- 
table of  welcomes.  A  bachelor  friend  of  mine  from 
New-York  is  domesticated  in  the  village  with  a  German 


116 


PENC1LL1NGS  BY  THE  WAY. 


family.  I  was  struck  with  the  Americanism  of  their 
manners.  The  husband  and  wife,  a  female  relative 
and  an  intimate  friend  of  the  family,  were  sitting  in  the 
garden  engaged  in  grave,  quiet,  sensible  conversation. 
They  had  passed  the  afternoon  together.  Their  man- 
ners were  affectionate  to  each  other,  but  serious  and 
respectful.  When  I  entered,  they  received  me  with 
kindness,  and  the  conversation  was  politely  changed  to 
French,  which  they  all  spoke  fluently.  Topics  were 
started,  in  which  it  was  supposed  I  would  be  interested, 
and  altogether  the  scene  was  one  of  the  simplest  and 
purest  domestic  happiness.  This  seems  to  you,  I  dare 
say,  like  the  description  of  a  very  common  thing,  but  I 
have  not  seen  such  a  one  before  since  I  left  my  coun- 
try. It  is  the  first  family  I  have  found  in  two  years' 
travel  who  lived  in,  and  seemed  sufficient  for,  them- 
selves. It  came  over  me  with  a  kind  of  feeling  of 
refreshment. 

In  the  evening  there  was  a  ball  at  a  public  room  in 
the  village.  It  was  built  in  the  rear  of  a  cafe,  to  which 
we  paid  about  thirty  cents  for  entrance.  I  was  not 
prepared  for  the  splendor  with  which  it  was  got  up. 
The  hall  was  very  large  and  of  beautiful  proportions, 
built  like  the  interior  of  a  temple,  with  columns  on  the 
four  sides.  A  partition  of  glass  divided  it  from  a  sup- 
per-room equally  large,  in  which  were  set  out  perhaps 
fifty  tables,  furnished  with  a  carte,  from  which  each 
person  ordered  his  supper  when  he  wished  it,  after  the 
fashion  of  a  restaurant.  The  best  band  in  Vienna 
filled  the  orchestra,  led  by  the  celebrated  Strauss,  who 
has  bee  1  honored  for  his  skill  with  presents  from  half 
the  monarchs  of  Europe. 

The  ladies  entered,  dressed  in  perfect  taste,  a  la 
Parisienne,  but  the  gentlemen  (hear  it,  Basil  Hall  and 
Mrs.  Trollope  !)  came  in  frock  coats  and  boots,  and 
danced  with  their  hats  on  !  It  was  a  public  ball,  and 
there  was,  of  course,  a  great  mixture  of  society  ;  but  I 
was  assured  that  it  was  attended  constantly  by  the  most 
respectable  people  of  the  village,  and  was  as  respecta- 
ble as  anything  of  the  kind  in  the  middle  classes. 
There  were,  certainly,  many  ladies  in  the  company  of 
elegant  manners  and  appearance,  and  among  the  gen- 
tlemen I  recognised  two  attaches  to  the  French  em- 
bassy, whom  I  had  known  in  Paris,  and  several  Austrian 
gentlemen  of  rank  were  pointed  out  to  me  among  the 
dancers.  The  galopade  and  the  waltz  were  the  only 
dances,  and  dirty  boots  and  hats  to  the  contrary  not- 
withstanding, it  was  the  best  waltzing  I  ever  saw.  They 
danced  with  a  soul. 

The  best  part  of  it  was  the  supper.  They  danced 
and  eat — danced  and  eat,  the  evening  through.  It 
was  quite  the  more  important  entertainment  of  the  two. 
The  most  delicate  ladies  present  returned  three  and 
four  times  to  the  supper,  ordering  fried  chicken,  salads, 
cold  meats,  and  beer,  again  and  again,  as  if  every 
waltz  created  a  fresh  appetite.  The  bill  was  called 
for,  the  ladies  assisted  in  making  the  change,  the  tankard 
was  drained,  and  off  they  strolled  to  the  ball-room  to 
engage  with  renewed  spirit  in  the  dance.  And  these, 
positively,  were  ladies  who,  in  dress,  manners,  and  mod- 
est demeanor,  might  pass  uncriticised  in  any  society 
in  the  world  !  Their  husbands  and  brothers  attended 
them,  and  no  freedom  was  attempted,  and  I  am  sure  it 
would  not  have  been  permitted  even  to  speak  to  a  lady 
without  a  formal  introduction. 

We  left  most  of  the  company  supping  at  a  late  hour, 
and  I  drove  into  the  city,  amused  with  the  ball,  and 
reconciled  to  any  or  all  of  the  manners  which  travellers 
in  America  find  so  peculiarly  entertaining. 

These  cold  winds  from  the  Danube  have  given  me 
a  rheumatism.  I  was  almost  reconciled  to  it  this 
morning,  however,  by  a  curtain-scene  which  I  should 
have  missed  but  for  its  annoyance.  I  had  been  driven 
out  of  my  bed  at  daylight,  and  was  walking  my  room 
between  the  door  and   the  window,   when   a  violent 


knocking  in  the  street  below  arrested  my  attention. 
A  respectable  family  occupies  the  house  opposite,  con- 
sisting of  a  father  and  mother  and  three  daughters,  the 
least  attractive  of  whom  has  a  lover.  I  can  not  well 
avoid  observing  them  whenever  I  am  in  my  room,  for 
every  house  in  Vienna  has  a  leaning  cushion  on  the 
window  for  the  elbows,  and  the  ladies  of  all  classes  are 
upon  them  the  greater  part  of  the  day.  A  handsome 
carriage,  servants  in  livery,  and  other  circumstances, 
leave  no  doubt  in  my  mind  that  my  neighbors  are  rather 
of  the  better  class. 

The  lover  stood  at  the  street  door  with  a  cloak  on 
his  arm,  and  a  man  at  his  side  with  his  portmanteau. 
He  was  going  on  a  journey  and  had  come  to  take  leave 
of  his  mistress.  He  was  let  in  by  a  gaping  servant, 
who  looked  rather  astonished  at  the  hour  he  had  chosen 
for  his  visit,  but  the  drawing-room  windows  were  soon 
thrown  open,  and  the  lady  made  her  appearance  with 
her  hair  in  papers  and  other  marks  of  a  hasty  toilet. 
My  room  is  upon  the  same  floor,  and  as  I  paced  to  and 
fro,  the  narrowness  of  the  street  in  a  manner  forced 
them  upon  my  observation.  The  scene  was  a  very 
violet  one,  and  the  lady's  tears  flowed  without  restraint. 
After  twenty  partings  at  least,  the  lover  scarce  getting 
to  the  door  before  he  returned  to  take  another  embrace, 
he  finally  made  his  exit,  and  the  lady  threw  herself  on 
a  sofa  and  hid  her  face — for  five  minutes  !  I  had  began 
to  feel  for  her,  although  her  swollen  eyes  added  very 
unnecessarily  to  her  usual  plainness,  when  she  rose 
and  rang  the  bell.  The  servant  appeared  and  disap- 
peared, and  in  a  few  minutes  returned  with  a  ham,  a 
loaf  of  bread,  and  a  mug  of  beer  !  and  down  sets  my 
sentimental  miss  and  consoles  the  agony  of  parting 
with  a  meal  that  I  would  venture  to  substitute  in  quan- 
tity for  any  working  man's  lunch. 

I  went  to  bed  and  rose  at  nine,  and  she  was  sitting 
at  breakfast  with  the  rest  of  the  family,  playing  as  good 
a  knife  and  fork  as  her  sisters,  though,  I  must  admit, 
with  an  expression  of  sincere  melancholy  in  her  coun- 
tenance. 

The  scene,  I  am  told  by  my  friend  the  consul,  was 
perfectly  German.  They  eat  a  great  deal,  he  says,  in 
affliction.     The  poet  writes  : — 

"  They  are  the  silent  griefs  which  cut  the  heart-strings." 

For  silent  read  hungry. 

The  Upper  Belvidere,  a  palace  containing  eighteen 
large  rooms,  filled  with  pictures.  This  is  the  imperial 
gallery  and  the  first  in  Austria.  How  can  I  give  you 
an  idea  of  perhaps  five  hundred  masterpieces  !  You 
see  here  now,  and  by  whom  Italy  has  been  strip- 
ped. They  have  bought  up  all  Flanders  one  would 
think,  too.  In  one  room  here  are  are  twenty-eight 
superb  Vandykes.  Austria,  in  fact,  has  been  growing 
rich  while  every  other  nation  on  the  continent  has 
been  growing  poor,  and  she  has  purchased  the  treas- 
ures of  half  the  world  at  a  discount.* 

It  is  wearisome  writing  of  pictures,  one's  language 
is  so  limited.  I  must  mention  one  or  two  in  this  col- 
lection, however,  and  I  will  let  you  off  entirely  on  the 
Esterhazy,  which  is  nearly  as  fine. 

Cleopatra  dying.  She  is  represented  younger  than 
usual  and  with  a  more  fragile  and  less  queenly  style  of 
beauty  than  is  common.  It  is  a  fair  slight  creature  of 
seventeen,  who  looks  made  to  depend  for  her  very 
breath  upon  affection,  and  is  dying  of  a  broken  heart. 
It  is  painted  with  great  feeling,  and  with  a  soft  and  de- 
lightful tone  of  color  which  is  peculiar  to  the  artist. 
It  is  the  third  of  Guido  Cagnacci's  pictures  that  I  have 

•Besides  the  three  galleries  of  the  Belvidere,  Leichsten- 
stein,  and  Esterhazy,  which  contain  as  many  choice  masters 
as  Rome  and  Florence  together,  the  guide-book  refers  the 
traveller  to  sixty-four  private  galleries  of  oil  paintings,  well 
worth  his  attention,  and  to  ticenty-five  private  collections  of 
engravings  and  antiquities.  We  shall  soon  be  obliged  to  go  to 
Vienna  to  study  the  arts,  at  this  rate.  They  have  only  no 
sculpture. 


PENCILLINGS  BY  THE   WAY. 


117 


seen.  One  was  the  gem  of  a  gallery  at  Bologna,  and 
was  bought  last  summer  by  Mr.  Cabot  of  Boston. 

The  wife  of  Potiphar  is  usually  represented  as  a 
woman  of  middle  age,  with  a  full  voluptuous  person. 
She  is  so  drawn,  T  remember,  in  the  famous  picture  in 
the  Barberini  palace  at  Rome,  said  to  be  the  most  ex- 
pressive thing  of  its  kind  in  the  world.  Here  is  a 
painting,  less  dangerously  expressive  of  passion,  but 
full  of  beauty.  She  is  eighteen  at  the  most,  fair,  del- 
icate, and  struggles  with  the  slender  boy,  who  seems 
scarce  older  than  herself,  more  like  a  sister  from  whom 
a  mischievous  brother  has  stolen  something  in  sport. 
Her  partly  disclosed  figure  has  all  the  incomplete 
slightness  of  a  girl.  The  handsome  features  of  Jo- 
seph express  more  embarrassment  than  anger.  The 
habitual  courtesy  to  his  lovely  mistress  is  still  there, 
his  glance  is  just  averted  from  the  snowy  bosom  tow- 
ard which  lie  is  drawn,  but  in  the  firmly  curved  lip  the 
sense  of  duty  sits  clearly  defined,  and  evidently  will 
triumph.  I  have  forgotten  the  painter's  name.  His 
model  must  have  been  some  innocent  girl  whose  mod- 
est beauty  led  him  away  from  his  subject.  Called  by 
another  name  the  picture  were  perfect. 

A  portrait  of  Count  Wallenstein,  by  Vandyke.  It 
looks  a  man,  in  the  fullest  sense  of  the  word.  The 
pendant  to  it  is  the  Countess  Turentaxis,  and  she  13  a 
woman  he  might  well  have  loved — calm,  lofty,  and 
pure.  They  are  pictures  I  should  think  would  have 
an  influence  on  the  character  of  those  who  saw  them 
habitually. 

Here  is  a  curious  picture  by  Schnoer — Mephistoph- 
eles  tempting  Faust.  The  scholar  sits  at  his  table, 
with  a  black  letter  volume  open  before  him,  and  appa- 
ratus of  all  descriptions  around.  The  devil  has  en- 
tered in  the  midst  of  his  speculations,  dressed  in 
black  like  a  professor,  and  stands  waiting  the  decision 
of  Faust,  who  gazes  intently  on  the  manuscript  held 
in  his  hand.  His  fingers  are  clenched,  his  eyes  start 
from  his  head,  his  feet  are  braced,  and  the  devil  eyes 
him  with  a  side  glance,  in  which  malignity  and  satis- 
faction are  admirably  mingled.  The  features  of  p"aust 
are  emaciated,  and  show  the  agitation  of  his  soul  very 
powerfully.  The  points  of  his  compasses,  globes,  and 
instruments,  emit  electric  sparks  toward  the  infernal 
visiter;  his  lamp  burns  blue,  and  the  picture  altogeth- 
er has  the  most  diabolical  effect.  It  is  quite  a  large 
painting,  and  just  below,  by  the  same  artist,  hangs  a 
small,  simple,  sweet  Madonna.  It  is  a  singular  con- 
trast in  subjects  by  the  same  hand. 

A  portrait  of  the  Princess  Esterhazy,  by  Angelica 
Kauffman — a  beautiful  woman,  painted  in  the  pure, 
touching  style  of  that  interesting  artist. 

Then  comes  a  Cleopatra  dropping  the  pearl  into  the 
cup.  How  often,  and  how  variously,  and  how  admi- 
rably always,  the  Egyptian  queen  is  painted  !  I  nev- 
er have  seen  an  indifferent  one.  In  this  picture  the 
painter  seems  to  have  lavished  all  he  could  conceive 
of  female  beauty  upon  his  subject.  She  is  a  glorious 
creature.  It  reminds  me  of  her  own  proud  descrip- 
tion of  herself,  when  she  is  reproaching  Antony  to  one 
of  her  maids,  in  the  "The  False  One"  of  Beaumont 
and  Fletcher  : — 

"  To  prefer 

The  lustre  of  a  little  trash,  Arsinoe, 
Before  the  life  of  love  and  soul  of  beauty .'" 
I  have  marked  a  great  many  pictures  in  this  collec- 
tion I  can  not  describe  without  wearying  you,  yet  I  feel 
unwilling  to  let  them  go  by.  A  female,  representing 
religion,  feeding  a  dove  from  a  cup,  a  most  lovely  thing 
by  Guido  ;  portraits  of  Gerard  Douw  and  Rembrandt, 
by  themselves  ;  Rubens's  children,  a  boy  and  girl  ten 
or  twelve  years  of  age,  one  of  the  most  finished  paint- 
ings I  ever  saw,  and  entirely  free  from  the  common 
dropsical  style  of  coloring  of  this  artist ;  another  por- 
trait of  Giorgione's  u-ife,  the  fiftieth  that  I  have  seen, 
at  least,  yet  a  face  of  which  one  would  never  become 


weary ;  a  glowing  landscape  by  Fischer,  the  first  by 
this  celebrated  artist  I  have  met ;  and  last  (for  this  is 
mere  catalogue-making),  a  large  picture  representing 
the  silting  of  the  English  'parliament  in  the  time  of 
Pitt.  It  contains  about  a  hundred  portraits,  among 
which  those  of  Pitt  and  Fox  are  admirable.  The 
great  prime  minister  stands  speaking  in  the  foreground, 
and  Fox  sits  on  the  opposite  side  of  the  house  listen- 
ing attentively  with  half  a  smile  on  his  features.  It  is 
a  curious  picture  to  find  in  Vienna. 

One  thing  more,  however — a  Venus,  by  Lampi.  It 
kept  me  a  great  while  before  it.  She  lies  asleep  on  a 
rich  couch,  and,  apparently  in  her  dream,  is  pressing 
a  rose  to  her  bosom,  while  one  delicate  foot,  carelessly 
thrown  back,  is  half  imbedded  in  a  superb  cushion 
supporting  a  crown  and  sceptre.  It  is  a  lie,  by  all  ex- 
perience. The  moral  is  false,  but  the  picture  is  de 
licious. 


LETTER  LXXVII. 

DEPARTURE   FROM   VIENNA — THE   EIL-WAGON — MOTLEY 
QUALITY     OF    THE     PASSENGERS — THUNDERSTORM     IN 

THE    MOUNTAINS    OF    STYRIA TRIESTE SHORT    BEDS 

OF  THE  GERMANS — GROTTO  OF  ADELSBURG  ;  CURIOUS 
BALL-ROOM  IN  THE  CAVERN NAUTICAL  PREPARA- 
TIONS FOR  A  DANCE  ON  BOARD  THE  UNITED  STATES 
SWEPT  AWAY  BY  THE  BORA — ITS  SUCCESSFUL  TER- 
MINATION. 

I  left  Vienna  at  daylight  in  a  diligence  nearly  as 
capacious  as  a  steamboat — inaptly  called  the  eil-wagon. 
A  Friuli  count  with  a  pair  of  cavalry  mustaches^  his 
wife,  a  pretty  Viennese  of  eighteen,  scarce  married  a 
year,  two  fashionable  looking  young  Russians,  an  Aus- 
trian midshipman,  a  fat  Gratz  lawyer,  a  trader  from 
the  Danube,  and  a  young  Bavarian  student,  going  to 
seek  his  fortune  in  Egypt,  were  my  companions.  The 
social  habits  of  continental  travellers  had  given  me 
thus  much  information  by  the  end  of  the  first  post. 

We  drove  on  with  German  regularity,  three  days 
and  three  nights,  eating  four  meals  a-day  (and  very 
good  ones),  and  improving  hourly  in  our  acquaintance. 
The  Russians  spoke  all  our  languages.  The  Friulese 
and  the  Bavarian  spoke  everything  but  English,  and 
the  lady,  the  trader,  and  the  Gratz  avocat,  were  confined 
to  their  vernacular.  It  was  a  pretty  idea  of  Babel 
when  the  conversation  became  general. 

We  were  coursing  the  bank  of  a  river,  in  one  of  the 
romantic  passes  of  the  mountains  of  Styria,  with  a 
dark  thunder-storm  gathering  on  the  summit  of  a 
crag  overhanging  us.  I  was  pointing  out  to  one  of 
my  companions  a  noble  ruin  of  a  castle  seated  very 
loftily  on  the  edge  of  one  of  the  precipices,  when  a 
streak  of  the  most  vivid  lightning  shot  straight  upon 
the  northernmost  turret,  and  the  moment  after  several 
large  masses  rolled  slowly  down  the  mountain-side. 
It  was  so  like  the  scenery  in  a  play,  that  I  looked  at 
my  companion  with  half  a  doubt  that  it  was  some  op- 
tical delusion.  It  reminded  me  of  some  of  Martin's 
engravings.  The  sublime  is  so  well  imitated  in  our 
day  that  one  is  less  surprised  than  he  would  suppose 
when  nature  produces  the  reality. 

The  night  was  very  beautiful  when  we  reached  the 
summit  of  the  mountain  above  Trieste.  The  new 
moon  silvered  the  little  curved  bay  below  like  a  polish- 
ed shield,  and  right  in  the  path  of  its  beams  lay  the 
two  frigates  like  a  painting.  I  must  confess  that  the 
comfortable  cot  swinging  in  the  ward-room  of  the 
"  United  States  "  was  the  prominent  thought  in  my 
mind  as  I  gazed  upon  the  scene.  The  fatigue  of 
three  days  and  nights'  hard  driving  had  dimmed  rv 
eye  for  the  picturesque.     Leaving  my  compan    u     v 


118 


PENCILLINGS  BY  THE  WAY 


the  short  beds*  and  narrow  coverlets  of  a  German  ho- 
tel, 1  jumped  into  the  first  boat  at  the  pier,  and  in  a 
few  minutes  was  alongside  the  ship.  How  musical  is 
the  hail  of  a  sentry  in  one's  native  tongue,  after  a  short 
habituation  to  the  jargon  of  foreign  languages ! 
44  Boat  ahoy !"  It  made  my  heart  leap.  The  officers 
had  just  returned  from  Venice,  some  over  land  by  the 
Friuli  and  some  by  the  steamer  through  the  gulf,  and 
were  sitting  round  the  table  laughing  with  profession- 
al merriment  over  their  various  adventures.  It  was 
getting  back  to  country  and  friends  and  home. 

I  accompanied  the  commodore's  family  yesterday  in 
a  visit  to  the  Grotto  of  Adelsburg.  It  is  about  thirty 
miles  back  into  the  Friuli  mountains,  near  the  prov- 
ince of  Cariola.  We  arrived  at  the  nearest  tavern  at 
three  in  the  afternoon,  and  subscribing  our  names 
upon  the  magistrate's  books,  took  four  guides  and  the 
requisite  number  of  torches,  and  started  on  foot.  A 
half  hour's  walk  brought  us  to  a  large,  rushing  stream, 
which,  after  turning  a  mill,  disappeared  with  violence 
into  the  mouth  of  a  broad  cavern,  sunk  in  the  base  of 
a  mountain.  An  iron  gate  opened  on  the  nearest  side, 
and  lighting  our  torches,  we  received  an  addition  of 
half  a  dozen  men  to  our  party  of  guides,  and  entered. 
We  descended  for  ten  or  fifteem  minutes,  through  a 
capacious  gallery  of  rock,  up  to  the  ankles  in  mud, 
and  feeling  continually  the  drippings  exuding  from 
the  roof,  till  by  the  echoing  murmurs  of  dashing  wa- 
ter we  found  ourselves  approaching  the  bed  of  a  sub- 
terraneous river.  We  soon  emerged  in  a  vast  cavern, 
whose  height,  though  we  had  twenty  torches,  was  lost 
in  the  darkness.  The  river  rushed  dimly  below  us,  at 
the  depth  of  perhaps  fifty  feet,  partially  illuminated  by 
a  row  of  lamps,  hung  on  a  slight  wooden  bridge  by 
which  we  were  to  cross  to  the  opposite  side. 

We  descended  by  a  long  flight  of  artificial  stairs, 
and  stood  upon  the  bridge.  The  wildness  of  the 
scene  is  indescribable.  A  lamp  or  two  glimmered 
faintly  from  the  lofty  parapet  from  which  we  had  de- 
scended, the  depth  and  breadth  of  the  surrounding 
cave  could  only  be  measured  by  the  distance  of  the 
echoes  of  the  waters,  and  beneath  us  leaped  and 
foamed  a  dark  river,  which  sprang  from  its  invisible 
channel,  danced  a  moment  in  the  faint  light  of  our 
lamps,  and  was  lost  again  instantly  in  darkness.  It 
brought  with  it,  from  the  green  fields  through  which 
it  had  come,  a  current  of  soft  warm  air,  peculiarly  de- 
lightful after  the  chilliness  of  the  other  parts  of  the 
cavern  ;  there  was  a  smell  of  new-mown  hay  in  it 
which  seemed  lost  in  the  tartarean  blackness  around. 

Our  guides  led  on,  and  we  mounted  along  staircase 
on  the  opposite  side  of  the  bridge.  At  the  head  of  it 
stood  a  kind  of  monument,  engraved  with  the  name 
of  the  emperor  of  Austria,  by  whose  munificence  the 
staircase  had  been  cut  and  the  conveniences  for  stran- 
gers provided.  We  turned  hence  to  the  right,  and 
entered  a  long  succession  of  natural  corridors,  roofed 
with  stalactites,  with  a  floor  of  rock  and  mud,  and  so 
even  and  wide  that  the  lady  under  my  protection  had 
seldom  occasion  to  leave  my  arm.  In  the  narrowest 
part  of  it,  the  stalactites  formed  a  sort  of  reversed 
grove,  with  the  roots  in  the  roof.  They  were  of 
a  snowy  white,  and  sparkled  brilliantly  in  the  light  of 
the  torches.  One  or  two  had  reached  the  floor,  and 
formed  slender  and  beautiful  sparry  columns,  upon 
which  the  names  of  hundreds  of  visiters  were  written 
in  pencil. 

The  spars  grew  white  as  we  proceeded,  and  we  were 
constantly  emerging  into  large  halls  of  the  size  of  hand- 
some drawing-rooms,  whose  glittering  roofs,  and  sides 

*  A  German  bed  is  never  over  five  feet  in  length,  and  pro- 
portioaately  narrow.  The  sheets,  blankets,  and  coverlets,  are 
cut  exactly  to  the  size  of  the  bed's  surface,  so  that  there  is 
no  tucking  up.  The  bed-clothes  seem  made  for  cradles.  It 
is  easy  to  imaging  how  a  tall  person  slaeps  in  them. 


lined  with  fantastic  columns,  seemed  like  the  brilliant 
frost-work  of  a  crystallized  cavern  of  ice.  Some  of 
the  accidental  formations  of  the  stalagmites  were  very 
curious.  One  large  area  was  filled  with  them  of  the 
height  of  small  plants.  It  was  called  by  the  guides 
the  "English  Garden."  A.t  the  head  of  another  sa- 
loon, stood  a  throne,  with  a  stalactite  canopy  above  it, 
so  like  the  work  of  art,  that  it  seemed  as  if  the  sculp- 
tor had  but  left  the  finishing  undone. 

We  returned  part  of  the  way  we  had  come,  and 
took  another  branch  of  the  grotto,  a  little  more  on  the 
descent.  A  sign  above  informed  us  that  it  Was  the 
44  road  to  the  infernal  regions."  We  walked  on  an  hour 
at  a  quick  pace,  stopping  here  and  there  to  observe 
the  oddity  of  the  formations.  In  one  place,  the  sta- 
lactites had  enclosed  a  room,  leaving  only  small  open- 
ings between  the  columns,  precisely  like  the  grating 
of  a  prison.  In  another,  the  ceiling  lifted  out  of  the 
reach  of  torch-light,  and  far  above  us  we  heard  the 
deep-toned  beat  as  upon  a  muffled-bell.  It  was  a  thin 
circular  sheet  of  spar,  called  "the  bell,"  to  which  one 
of  the  guides  had  mounted,  striking  upon  it  with  a  bil- 
let of  wood. 

We  came  after  a  while  to  a  deeper  descent,  which 
opened  into  a  magnificent  and  spacious  hall.  It  is 
called  "the  ballroom,"  and  used  as  such  once  a  year, 
on  the  occasion  of  a  certain  Illyrian  festa.  The  floor 
has  been  cleared  of  stalagmites,  the  roof  and  sides  are 
ornamented  beyond  all  art  with  glittering  spars,  a  nat- 
ural gallery  with  a  balustrade  of  stalactites  contains 
the  orchestra,  and  side-rooms  are  all  around  where 
supper  might  be  laid,  and  dressing-rooms  offered  in 
the  style  of  a  palace.  I  can  imagine  nothing  more 
magnificent  than  such  a  scene.  A  literal  description 
of  it  even  would  read  like  a  fairy  tale. 

A  little  farther  on,  we  came  to  a  perfect  representa- 
tion of  a  waterfall.  The  impregnated  water  had  fallen 
on  a  declivity,  and  with  a  slightly  ferruginous  tinge  of 
yellow,  poured  over  in  the  most  natural  resemblance 
to  a  cascade  after  a  rain.  We  proceeded  for  ten  or 
fifteen  minutes,  and  found  a  small  room  like  a  chapel, 
with  a  pulpit,  in  which  stood  one  of  the  guides,  who 
gave  us,  as  we  stood  beneath,  an  Illyrian  exhortation. 
There  was  a  sounding-board  above,  and  I  have  seen 
pulpits  in  old  gothic  churches  that  seemed  at  a  first 
glance,  to  have  less  method  in  their  architecture.  The 
last  thing  we  reached,  was  the  most  beautiful.  From 
the  cornice  of  a  long  gallery,  hung  a  thin,  translucent 
sheet  of  spar,  in  the  graceful  and  waving  folds  of  a  cur- 
tain; with  a  lamp  behind,  the  hand  could  be  seen 
through  any  part  of  it.  It  was  perhaps  twenty  feet  in 
length,  and  hung  five  or  six  feet  down  from  the  roof 
of  the  cavern.  The  most  singular  part  of  it  was  the 
fringe.  A  ferruginous  stain  ran  through  it  from  one 
end  to  the  other,  with  the  exactness  of  a  drawn  line, 
and  thence  to  the  curving  edge  a  most  delicate  rose- 
teint  faded  gradually  down  like  the  last  flush  of  sunset 
through  a  silken  curtain.  Had  it  been  a  work  of  art, 
done  in  alabaster,  and  stained  with  the  pencil,  it  would 
have  been  thought  admirable. 

The  guide  wished  us  to  proceed,  but  our  feet  were 
wet,  and  the  air  of  the  cavern  was  too  chill.  We  were 
at  least  four  miles,  they  told  us,  from  the  entrance, 
having  walked  briskly  for  upward  of  two  hours.  The 
grotto  is  said  to  extend  ten  miles  under  the  moun- 
tains, and  has  never  been  thoroughly  explored.  Par- 
ties have  started  with  provisions,  and  passed  forty-eight 
hours  in  it  without  finding  the  extremity.  It  seems 
to  me  that  any  city  I  ever  saw  might  be  concealed  in 
its  caverns.  I  have  often  tried  to  conceive  of  the  grot- 
toes of  Antiparos,  and  the  celebrated  caverns  of  our 
own  country,  but  I  received  here  an  entirely  new  idea 
of  the  possibility  of  space  under  ground.  There  is  no 
conceiving  it  unseen.  The  river  emerges  on  the  other 
side  of  the  mountain,  seven  or  eight  miles  from  its  first 
entrance. 


PENC1LL1NGS  BY  THE  WAY. 


119 


We  supped  and  slept  at  the  little  albergo  of  the  vil- 
lage, and  returned  the  next  day  to  an  early  dinner. 

Trieste.— A  ball  on  board  the  United  States.  The 
guns  were  run  out  of  the  ports;  the  main  and  mizen- 
masts  were  wound  with  red  and  white  bunting;  the 
capstan  was  railed  with  arms  and  wreathed  with 
flowers;  the  wheel  was  tied  with  nose-gays;  the 
American  eagle  stood  against  the  mainmast,  with  a 
6tar  of  midshipmen's  swords  glittering  above  it;  fes- 
toons of  evergreens  were  laced  through  the  rigging; 
the  companion-way  was  arched  with  hoops  of  green 
leaves  and  roses  ;  the  decks  were  tastefully  chalked ; 
the  commodore's  skylight  was  piled  with  cushions  and 
covered  with  red  damask  for  an  ottoman;  seats  were 
laid  along  from  one  carronade  to  the  other;  and  the 
whole  was  enclosed  with  a  temporary  tent  lined 
throughout  with  showy  flags,  and  studded  all  over 
with  bouquets  of  all  the  flowers  of  lllyria.  Chande- 
liers made  of  bayonets,  battle-lanterns,  and  caudles  in 
any  quantity,  were  disposed  all  over  the  hall.  A  splen- 
did supper  was  set  out  on  the  gun-deck  below,  draped 
in  with  flags.  Our  own  and  the  Constellation's  boats 
were  to  be  at  the  pier  at  niue  o'clock  to  bring  off  the 
ladies,  and  at  noon  everything  promised  of  the  brightest. 

First,  about  four  in  the  afternoon  came  up  a  saucy- 
looking  cloud  from  the  westernmost  peak  of  the  Friuli. 
Then  followed  from  every  point  toward  the  north,  an 
extending  edge  of  a  broad  solid  black  sheet  which  rose 
with  the  regularity  of  a  curtain,  and  began  to  send 
down  a  wind  upon  us  which  made  us  look  anxiously 
to  our  ball-room  bowlines.  The  midshipmen  were  all 
forward,  watching  it  from  the  forecastle.  The  lieu- 
tenants were  in  the  gangway,  watching  it  from  the 
ladder.  The  commodore  looked  seriously  out  of  the 
larboard  cabin  port.  It  was  as  grave  a  ship's  company 
as  ever  looked  out  for  a  shipwreck. 

The  country  about  Trieste  is  shaped  like  a  bellows, 
and  the  city  and  harbor  lie  in  the  nose.  They  have 
a  wind  that  comes  down  through  the  valley,  called  the 
"  bora,"  which  several  times  in  the  year  is  strong 
enough  to  lift  people  from  their  feet.  We  could  see, 
by  the  clouds  of  dust  on  the  mountain  roads,  that  it 
was  coming.  At  six  o'clock  the  shrouds  began  to 
creak  ;  the  white  tops  flew  from  the  waves  in  showers 
of  spray,  and  the  roof  of  our  sea-palace  began  to  shiver 
in  the  wind.  There  was  no  more  hope.  We  had 
waited  even  too  long.  All  hands  were  called  to  take 
down  the  chandeliers,  sword-stars,  and  ottomans,  and 
before  it  was  half  done,  the  storm  was  upon  us ;  the 
bunting  was  flying  and  flapping,  the  nicely-chalked 
decks  were  swashed  with  rain,  and  strown  with  leaves 
of  flowers,  and  the  whole  structure,  the  taste  and  labor 
of  the  ship's  company  for  two  days,  was  a  watery  wreck. 

Lieutenant  C ,  who  had  had  the  direction  of  the 

whole,  was  the  officer  of  the  deck.  He  sent  for  his 
pea-jacket,  and  leaving  him  to  pace  out  his  watch 
among  the  ruins  of  his  imagination,  we  went  below  to 
get  early  to  bed,  and  forget  our  disappointment  in  sleep. 

The  next  morning  the  sun  rose  without  a  veil.  The 
"blue  Friuli"  looked  clear  and  fresh;  the  southwest 
wind  came  over  softly  from  the  shore  of  Italy,  and  we 
commenced  retrieving  our  disaster  with  elastic  spirit. 
Nothing  had  suffered  seriously  except  the  flowers,  and 
boats  were  despatched  ashore  for  fresh  supplies,  while 
the  awnings  were  lifted  higher  and  wider  than  before, 
the  bright-colored  flags  replaced,  the  arms  polished 
and  arranged  in  improved  order,  and  the  decks  re- 
chalked  with  new  devices.  At  six  in  the  evening  ev- 
erything was  swept  up,  and  the  ball-room  astonished 
even  ourselves.  It  was  the  prettiest  place  for  a  dance 
in  the  world. 

The  ship  has  an  admirable  band  of  twenty  Italians, 
collected  from  Naples  and  other  ports,  and  a  fanciful 
orchestra  was  raised  for  them  on  the  terboard  side  of 
the  mainmast.     They  struck  up  a  march  as  the  first 


boatful  of  ladies  stepped  upon  the  deck,  and  in  the 
course  of  half  an  hour  the  waltzing  commenced  with 
at  least  two  hundred  couples,  while  the  ottoman  and 
seats  under  the  hammock-cloths  were  filled  with  spec 
tators.  The  frigate  has  a  lofty  poop,  and  there  was 
room  enough  upon  it  for  two  quadrilles  after  it  had 
served  as  a  reception-room.  It  was  edged  with  a  tem- 
porary balustrade,  wreathed  with  flowers  and  studded 
with  lights,  and  the  cabin  beneath  (on  a  level  with  the 
main  ball-room),  was  set  out  with  card-tables.  From 
the  gangway  entrance,  the  scene  was  like  a  brilliant 
theatrical  ballet. 

An  amusing  part  of  it  was  the  sailors'  imitation  on 
the  forward  decks.     They  had  taken  the  waste  shrub- 
bery and  evergreens,  of  which  there  was  a  great  quan- 
tity, and  had  formed   a  sort  of  grove,  extending  all 
round.     It  was  arched  with  festoons  of  leaves,  with 
quantities  of  fruit  tied  among  them  ;  and  over  the  en- 
j  trance  was  suspended  a  rough  picture  of  a  frigate  with 
!  the  inscription,  "  Free  trade  and  sailors'  rights:'    The 
j  forecastle  was  ornamented  with  cutlasses  and  one  or 
I  two  nautical  transparencies,  with  pistols  and  miniature 
|  ships  interspersed,  and  the  whole  lit  up  handsomely. 
The  men  were  dressed  in  their  white  duck  trowsers 
and  blue  jackets,  and  sat  round  on  the  guns  playing  at 
draughts,  or  listening  to  the  music,  or  gazing  at  the 
ladies  constantly  promenading  fore  and  aft,  and  to  me 
this  was  one  of  the  most  interesting  parts  of  the  spec- 
tacle.    Five  hundred  weather-beaten  and  manly  faces 
are  a  fine  sight  anywhere. 

The  dance  went  gayly  on.  The  reigning  belle  was 
an  American,  but  we  had  lovely  women  of  all  nations 
among  our  guests.  There  are  several  wealthy  Jewish 
families  in  Trieste,  and  their  dark-eyed  daughters,  we 
may  say  at  this  distance,  are  full  of  the  thoughtful 
loveliness  peculiar  to  the  race.  Then  we  had  Illyrians 
and  Germans,  and — Terpsichore  be  our  witness — how 
they  danced  !  My  travelling  companion,  the  Count 
of  Friuli,  was  there;  and  his  little  Viennese  wife, 
though  she  spoke  no  Christian  language,  danced  as 
featly  as  a  fairy.  Of  strangers  passing  through  the 
Trieste,  we  had  several  of  distinction.  Among  them 
was  a  fascinating  Milanese  marchioness,  a  relative  of 
Manzoni's,  the  novelist  (and  as  enthusiastic  and  elo 
quent  a  lover  of  her  country  as  I  ever  listened  to  on 
the  subject  of  oppressed  Italy),  and  two  handsome 
young  men,  the  counts  Neipperg,  sons-in-law  to  Maria 
Louisa,  who  amused  themselves  as  if  they  had  seen 
nothing  better  in  the  little  dutchy  of  Parma. 

We  went  below  at  midnight  to  supper,  and  the  ladies 
came  up  with  renewed  spirit  to  the  dance.  It  was  a 
brilliant  scene  indeed.  The  officers  of  both  ships,  in 
full  uniform,  the  gentlemen  from  shore,  mostly  mili- 
tary, in  full  dress,  the  gayety  of  the  bright  red  bunting, 
laced  with  white  and  blue,  and  studded,  wherever  they 
would  stand,  with  flowers,  and  the  really  uncommon 
number  of  beautiful  women,  with  the  foreign  features 
and  complexions  so  rich  and  captivating  to  our  eyes, 
produced  altogether  an  effect  unsurpassed  by  anything 
I  have  ever  seen  even  at  the  court  fetes  of  Europe. 
The  daylight  gun  fired  at  the  close  of  a  galopade, 
and  the  crowded  boats  pulled  ashore  with  their  lovely 
freight  by  the  broad  light  of  morning. 


LETTER  LXXVIII. 

TRIESTE,    ITS    EXTENSIVE    COMMERCE — HOSPITALITY    OF 
MR.  MOORE — RUINS  OF  POLA — IMMENSE  AMPHITHEATRE 

VILLAGE  OF  FOLA COAST  OF  DALMATIA,  OF  APULIA 

AND    CALABRIA — OTRANTO — SAILS    FOR    THE  ISLES  OF 
GREECE. 

Trieste  is  certainly  a  most  agreeable  place.     Its 
streets  are  beautifully  paved  and  clean,  its  nouses  new 


120 


PENCILLINGS  BY  THE  WAY. 


and  well  built,  and  its  shops  as  handsome  and  as  well 
stocked  with  every  variety  of  thing  as  those  of  Paris. 
Its  immense  commerce  brings  all  nations  to  its  port, 
and  it  is  quite  the  commercial  centre  of  the  continent. 
The  Turk  smokes  cross-legged  in  the  cafe,  the  English 
merchant  has  his  box  in  the  country  and  his  snug 
establishment  in  town,  the  Italian  has  his  opera  and 
his  wife  her  cavalier,  the  Yankee  captain  his  respecta- 
ble boarding-house,  and  the  German  his  four  meals  a 
day  at  a  hotel  died  brown  with  tobacco.  Every  nation 
is  at  home  in  Trieste. 

The  society  is  beyond  what  is  common  in  a  European 
mercantile  city.  The  English  are  numerous  enough 
to  support  a  church,  and  the  circle,  of  which  our 
hospitable  consul  is  the  centre,  is  one  of  the  most 
refined  and  agreeable  it  has  been  my  happiness  to 
meet.  The  friends  of  Mr.  Moore  have  pressed  every 
possible  civility  and  kindness  upon  the  commodore 
and  his  officers,  and  his  own  house  has  been  literally 
our  home  on  shore.  It  is  the  curse  of  this  volant  life, 
otherwise  so  attractive,  that  its  frequent  partings  are 
bitter  in  proportion  to  its  good  fortune.  We  make 
friends  but  to  lose  them. 

We  got  under  way  with  a  light  breeze  this  morning, 
and  stole  gently  out  of  the  bay.  The  remembrance 
of  a  thousand  kindnesses  made  our  anchors  lift  heavily. 
We  waved  our  handkerchiefs  to  the  consul,  whose 
balconies  were  filled  with  his  charming  family  watching 
our  departure,  and,  with  a  freshening  wind,  disappeared 
around  the  point,  and  put  up  our  helm  for  Pola. 

The  ruins  of  Pola,  though  among  the  first  in  the 
world,  are  seldom  visited.  They  lie  on  the  eastern 
shore  of  the  Adriatic,  at  the  head  of  a  superb  natural 
bay,  far  from  any  populous  town,  and  are  seen  only  by 
the  chance  trader  who  hugs  the  shore  for  the  land- 
breeze,  or  the  Albanian  robber  who  looks  down  upon 
them  with  wonder  from  the  mountains.  What  their 
age  is  I  can  not  say  nearly.  The  country  was  con- 
quered by  the  Romans  about  one  hundred  years  before 
the  time  of  our  Savior,  and  the  amphitheatre  and  tem- 
ples were  probably  erected  soon  after. 

We  ran  into  the  bay,  with  the  other  frigate  close 
astern,  and  anchored  off  a  small  green  island  which 
shuts  in  the  inner  harbor.  There  is  deep  water  up 
to  the  ancient  town  on  either  side,  and  it  seems  as  if 
nature  had  amused  herself  with  constructing  a  harbor 
incapable  of  improvement.  Pola  lay  about  two  miles 
from  the  sea. 

It  was  just  evening,  and  we  deferred  our  visit  to  the 
ruins  till  morning.  The  majestic  amphitheatre  stood 
on  a  gentle  ascent,  a  mile  from  the  ship,  goldenly 
bright  in  the  flush  of  sunset ;  the  pleasant  smell  of  the 
shore  stole  over  the  decks,  and  the  bands  of  the  two 
frigates  played  alternately  the  evening  through.  The 
receding  mountains  of  Istria  changed  their  light  blue 
veils  gradually  to  gray  and  sable,  and  with  the  pure 
stars  of  these  enchanted  seas,  and  the  shell  of  a  new 
moon  bending  over  Italy  in  the  west,  it  was  such  a 
night  as  one  remembrances  like  a  friend.  The  Con- 
stellation was  to  part  from  us  here,  leaving  us  to  pursue 
our  voyage  to  Greece.  There  were  those  on  board 
who  had  brightened  many  of  our  "  hours  ashore,"  in 
these  pleasant  wanderings.  We  pulled  back  to  our 
own  ship,  after  a  farewell  visit,  with  regrets  deepened 
by  crowds  of  pleasant  remembrances. 

The  next  morning  we  pulled  ashore  to  the  ruins. 
The  amphitheatre  was  close  upon  the  sea,  and,  to  my 
surprise  and  pleasure,  there  was  no  cicerone.  A  con- 
templative donkey  was  grazing  under  the  walls,  but 
there  was  no  other  living  creature  near.  We  looked 
at  its  vast  circular  wall  with  astonishment.  The  coli- 
seum at  Rome,  a  larger  building  of  the  same  descrip- 
tion, is,  from  the  outside,  much  less  imposing.  The 
whole  exterior  wall,  a  circular  pile  one  hundred  feet 
high  in  front,  and  of  immense  blocks  of  marble  and 


granite,  is  as  perfect  as  when  the  Roman  workman 
hewed  the  last  stone.  The  interior  has  been  nearly 
all  removed.  The  well-hewn  blocks  of  the  many  rows 
of  seats  were  too  tempting,  like  those  of  Rome,  to  the 
barbarians  who  were  building  near.  The  circle  of  the 
arena,  in  which  the  gladiators  and  wild  beasts  of  these 
then  new-conquered  provinces  fought,  is  still  marked 
by  the  foundations  of  its  barrier.  It  measures  two 
hundred  and  twenty-three  feet.  Beneath  it  is  a  broad 
and  deep  canal,  running  toward  the  sea,  filled  with 
marble  columns,  still  erect  upon  their  pedestals,  used 
probably  fori  he  introduction  of  waterfor  the  naumachia. 
The  whole  circumference  of  the  amphitheatre  is  twelve 
hundred  and  fifty-six  feet,  and  the  thickness  of  the  ex- 
terior wall  seven  feet  six  inches.  Its  shape  is  oblong, 
the  length  being  four  hundred  and  thirty-six  feet,  and 
the  breadth  three  hundred  and  fifty.  The  measure- 
ments were  taken  by  the  captain's  orders,  and  are  doubt- 
less critically  correct. 

We  loitered  about  the  ruins  several  hours,  finding 
in  every  direction  the  remains  of  the  dilapidated  in- 
terior. The  sculpture  upon  the  fallen  capitals  and 
fragments  of  frieze  was  in  the  highest  style  of  ornament. 
The  arena  is  overgrown  with  rank  grass,  and  the  crevi- 
ces in  the  walls  are  filled  with  flowers.  A  vineyard, 
with  its  large  blue  grape  just  within  a  week  of  ripe- 
ness, encircles  the  rear  of  the  amphitheatre.  The 
boat's  crew  were  soon  among  them,  much  better  amu- 
sed than  they  could  have  been  by  all  the  antiquities  in 
Istria. 

We  walked  from  the  amphitheatre  to  the  town  ;  a 
miserable  village  built  around  two  antique  temples, 
one  of  which  still  stands  alone,  with  its  fine  corinthian 
columns,  looking  just  ready  to  crumble.  The  other 
is  incorporated  barbarously  with  the  guard-house  of 
the  place,  and  is  a  curious  mixture  of  beautiful  sculpture 
and  dirty  walls.  The  pediment,  which  is  still  perfect, 
in  the  rear  of  the  building,  is  a  piece  of  carving,  worthy 
of  the  choicest  cabinet  of  Europe.  The  thieveries 
from  the  amphitheatre  are  easily  detected.  There  is 
scarce  a  beggar's  house  in  the  village,  that  does  not 
show  a  bit  or  two  of  sculptural  marble  upon  its  front. 

At  the  end  of  the  village  stands  a  triumphal  arch, 
recording  the  conquests  of  a  Roman  consul.  Its  front, 
toward  the  town,  is  of  Parian  marble,  beautifully 
chiselled.  One  recognises  the  solid  magnificence  of 
that  glorious  nation,  when  he  looks  on  these  relics  of 
their  distant  conquests,  almost  perfect  after  eighteen 
hundred  years.  It  seems  as  if  the  foot-print  of  a  Roman 
were  eternal. 

We  stood  out  of  the  little  bay,  and  with  a  fresh 
wind,  ran  down  the  coast  of  Dalmatia,  and  then  cross- 
ing to  the  Italian  side,  kept  down  the  ancient  shore  of 
Apulia  and  Calabria  to  the  mouth  of  the  Adriatic.  I 
have  been  looking  at  the  land  with  the  glass,  as  we  ran 
smoothly  along,  counting  castle  after  castle  built  boldly 
on  the  sea,  and  behind  them,  on  the  green  hills,  the 
thickly  built  villages,  with  their  smoking  chimneys  and 
tall  spires,  pictures  of  fertility  and  peace.  It  was  upon 
these  shores  that  the  Barbary  corsairs  descended  so 
often  during  the  last  century,  carrying  off  for  eastern 
harems,  the  lovely  women  of  Italy.  We  are  just  off 
Otranto,  and  a  noble  old  castle  stands  frowning  from 
the  extremity  of  the  Cape.  We  could  throw  a  shot 
into  its  embrasures  as  we  pass.  It  might  be  the  "Castle 
of  Otranto,"  for  the  romantic  looks  it  has  from  the  sea. 

We  have  out-sailed  the  Constellation,  or  we  should 
part  from  her  here.  Her  destination  is  France  ;  and 
we  should  be  to-morrow  amid  the  *Isles  of  Greece. 
The  pleasure  of  realizing  the  classic  dreams  of  one's 
boyhood,  is  not  to  be  expressed  in  a  line.  I  look  for- 
ward to  the  succeeding  month  or  two  as  to  the  "  red- 
letter"  chapter  of  my  life.     Whatever  I  may  find  the 

•  It  Avas  to  this  joint  (the  ancient  Hydrantum)  that  Pyrrhus 
proposed  to  build  a  bridge  from  Greece — only  sixty  miles  !  He 
deserved  to  ride  on  an  elephant. 


PENCILLINGS  BY  THE  WAY. 


121 


reality,  my  heart  has  glowed  warmly  and  delightfully 
with  the  anticipation.  Commodore  Patterson  is, 
fortunately  for  me,  a  scholar  and  a  judicious  lover  of 
the  arts,  and  loses  no  opportunity,  consistently  with  his 
duty,  to  give  his  officers  the  means  of  examining  the 
curious  and  the  beautiful  in  these  interesting  seas. 
The  cruise,  thus  far,  has  been  one  of  continually  ming- 
led pleasure  and  instruction,  and  the  best  of  it,  by  every 
association  of  our  early  days,  is  to  come. 


LETTER  LXXIX. 

THE    IONIAN    ISLES LORD    AND    LADY   NUGENT COR- 
FU  GREEK    AND    ENGLISH    SOLDIERS — COCKNEYISM 

THE    GARDENS    OF    ALCINOUS ENGLISH  OFFICERS 

ALBANIANS DIONISIO  SALOMOS,  THE  GREEK  POET 

GREEK    LADIES DINNER   WITH     THE    ARTILLERY- 
MESS. 

This  is  proper  dream-land.  The  "Isle  of  Ca- 
lypso,"* folded  in  a  drapery  of  blue  air,  lies  behind, 
fading  in  the  distance,  "the  Acroceraunian  mountains 
of  old  name,"  which  causht  Byron's  eye  as  he  entered 
Greece,  are  piled  up  before  us  on  the  Albanian  shore, 
and  the  Ionian  sea  is  rippling  under  our  bow,  breath- 
ing, from  every  wave,  of  Homer,  and  Sappho,  and 
"  sad  Penelope."  Once  more  upon  Childe  Harold's 
footsteps.  I  closed  the  book  at  Rome,  after  following 
him  for  a  summer  through  Italy,  confessing,  by  many 
pleasant  recollections,  that 

"  Not  in  vain 
He  wore  his  sandal  shoon,  and  scallop  shell." 

I  resume  it  here,  with  the  feeling  of  Thalaba  when  he 
caught  sight  of  the  green  bird  that  led  him  through 
the  desert.  It  lies  open  on  my  knee  at  the  second 
canto,  describing  our  position,  even  to  the  hour  : 

"  'Twas  on  a  Grecian  autumn's  gentle  eve 
Childe  Harold  hailed  Leucadia's  cape  afar ; 
A  spot  he  longed  to  see,  nor  cared  to  leave." 

We  shall  lie  off-and-on  to-night,  and  go  in  to  Corfu 
in  the  morning.  Two  Turkish  vessels-of-war,  with 
the  crescent  flag  flying,  lie  in  a  small  cove  a  mile  olf, 
on  the  Albanian  shore,  and  by  the  discharge  of  mus- 
ketry our  pilot  presumes  that  they  have  accompanied 
the  sultan's  tax-gatherer,  who  gets  nothing  from  these 
wild  people  without  fighting  for  it. 

The  entrance  to  Corfu  is  considered  pretty,  but  the 
English  flag  flying  over  the  forts,  divested  ancient 
Corcyra  of  its  poetical  associations.  It  looked  to  me 
a  commonplace  seaport,  glaring  in  the  sun.  The 
"Gardens  of  Alcinous"  were  here,  but  who  could  im- 
agine them,  with  a  red-coated  sentry  posted  on  every 
corner  of  the  island. 

The  lord  high  commissioner  of  the  Ionian  Isles, 
Lord  Nugent,  came  off  to  the  ship  this  morning  in  a 
kind  of  Corfiate  boat,  called  a  Scampavia,  a  greyhound- 
looking  craft,  carrying  sail  enough  for  a  schooner. 
She  cut  the  water  like  the  wing  of  a  swallow.  His 
lordship  was  playing  sailor,  and  was  dressed  like  the 
mate  of  one  of  our  coasters,  and  his  manners  were  as 
bluff*.  He  has  a  fine  person,  however,  and  is  said  to 
be  a  very  elegant  man  when  he  chooses  it.  He  is  the 
author  of  the  "Life  and  Times  of  John  Hampden," 
and  Whig,  of  course.  Southey  has  lately  reviewed 
him  rather  bitterly  in  the  Quarterly.  Lady  N.  is  lit- 
erary, too,  and  they  have  written  between  them  a  book 
of  tales  called  (I  think)  "Legends  of  the  Lilies,"  of 
which  her  ladyship's  half  is  said  to  be  the  better. 

Went  on  shore  for  a  walk.     Greeks  and  English 
*  Kano,  which  disputes  it  with  Uozo.  near  Malta. 


soldiers  mix  oddly  together.  The  streets  are  narrow, 
and  crowded  with  them  in  about  equal  proportions. 
John  Bull  retains  his  red  face,  and  learns  no  Greek. 
We  passed  through  the  Bazar,  and  bad  English  was 
the  universal  language.  There  is  but  one  square  in 
the  town,  and  round  its  wooden  fence,  enclosing  a 
dusty  area  without  a  blade  of  grass,  were  riding  the 
English  officers,  while  the  regimental  band  played  in 
the  centre.  A  more  arid  and  cheerless  spot  never 
pained  the  eye.  The  appearance  of  the  officers,  re- 
taining all  their  Bond  street  elegance  and  mounted 
upon  English  hunters,  was  in  singular  contrast  with 
the  general  shabbiness  of  the  houses  and  people.  I 
went  into  a  shop  at  a  corner  to  inquire  for  the  resi- 
dence of  a  gentleman  to  whom  I  had  a  letter.  "It's 
werry  'ot,  sir,"  said  a  little  red-faced  woman  behind 
the  counter,  as  I  went  out,  "  perhaps  you'd  like  a  glass 
of  rater."  It  was  odd  to  hear  the  Wapping  dialect  in 
the  "isles  of  Greece."  She  sold  green  groceries,  and 
wished  me  to  recommend  her  to  the  /jofficers.  Mrs. 
Mary  Flack's  "grocery"  in  the  gardens  of  Alcinous. 

"  The  wild  Albanian  kirtled  to  the  knee,"  walks 
through  the  streets  of  Corfu,  looking  unlike  and  supe- 
rior to  everything  about  him.  I  met  several  in  re- 
turning to  the  boat.  Their  gait  is  very  lofty,  and  the 
snow-white  juktanilla,  or  kirtle,  with  its  thousand  folds, 
sways  from  side  to  side  as  they  walk,  with  a  most 
showy  effect.  Lord  Byron  was  very  much  captivated 
with  these  people,  whose  capital  (just  across  the  strait 
from  Corfu)  he  visited  once  or  twice  in  his  travels 
through  Greece.  Those  I  have  seen  are  all  very  tall, 
and  have  their  prominent  features,  with  keen  eyes  and 
limbs  of  the  most  muscular  proportions.  The  com- 
mon English  soldiers  look  like  brutes  beside  them. 

The  placard  of  a  theatre  hung  on  the  walls  of  a 
church.  A  rude  picture  of  a  battle  between  the 
Greeks  and  Turks  hung  above  it,  and  beneath  was 
written,  in  Italian,  "  Honor  the  representation  of  the 
immortal  deeds  of  your  hero  Marco  Bozzaris.'"  It  is 
singular  that  even  a  pack  of  slaves  can  find  pleasure 
in  a  remembrance  that  reproaches  every  breath  they 
draw. 

Called  on  Lord  Nugent  with  the  commodore.  The 
governor,  sailor,  author,  antiquary,  nobleman  (for  he  is 
all  these,  and  a  jockey,  to  boot),  received  us  in  a  calico 
morning-frock,  with  his  breast  and  neck  bare,  in  a  large 
library  lumbered  with  half-packed  antiquities  and  strewn 
with  straw.  Books,  miniatures  of  his  family  (a  lovely 
one  of  Lady  Nugent  among  them),  Whig  pamphlets, 
riding-whips,  spurs,  minerals,  hammer  and  nails,  half- 
eaten  cakes,  plans  of  fortifications,  printed  invitations 
to  his  own  balls  and  dinners,  military  reports,  Turkish 
pistols,  and,  lastly,  his  own  just  printed  answer  to  Mr. 
Southey's  review  of  his  book,  occupied  the  table.  He 
was  reading  his  own  production  when  we  entered.  His 
lordship  mentioned,  with  great  apparent  satisfaction,  a 
cruise  he  had  taken  some  years  ago  with  Commodore 
Chauncey.  The  conversation  was  rather  monologue 
than  dialogue;  his  excellency  seeming  to  think,  with 
Lord  Bacon,  that  "the  honorablest  part  of  talk  was  to 
give  the  occasion,  and  then  to  moderate  and  pass  to 
something  else."  He  started  a  topic,  exhausted  and 
changed  it  with  the  same  facility  and  rapidity  with 
which  he  sailed  his  scampavia.  An  engagement  with 
the  artillery-mess  prevented  my  acceptance  of  an  invi- 
tation to  dine  with  him  to-morrow,  a  circumstance  I 
rather  regret,  as  he  is  said  to  be,  at  his  own  table,  one 
of  the  most  polished  and  agreeable  men  of  his  time. 

Thank  Heaven,  revolutionsdo  not  affect  the  climate ! 
The  isle  that  gave  a  shelter  to  the  storm-driven  Ulys- 
ses is  an  English  barrack,  but  the  same  balmy  air  that 
fanned  the  blind  eyes  of  old  Homer  blows  over  it  still. 
"  The  breezes,"  says  Landor,  beautifully,  "  are  the 
children  of  eternity."  I  never  had  the  hair  lifted  so 
pleasantly  from  my  temples  as  to-night,  driving  into 
the  interior  of  the  island.    The  gardening  of  Alcinous 


122 


PENCILLINGS  BY  THE  WAY. 


seems  to  have  been  followed  up  by  nature.  The  rhodo- 
dendron, the  tamarisk,  the  almond,  cypress,  olive,  and 
rig,  luxuriate  in  the  sweetest  beauty  everywhere. 

There  was  a  small  party  in  the  evening  at  the  house 
of  the  gentleman  who  had  driven  me  out,  and  among 
other  foreigners  present  were  the  count  Dionisio  Sal- 
omos,  of  Zante,  and  the  Cavaliere  Andrea  Mustoxidi, 
both  men  of  whom  I  had  often  heard.  The  first  is 
almost  the  only  modern  Greek  poet,  and  his  "hymns," 
principally  patriotic,  are  in  the  common  dialect  of  the 
country,  and  said  to  be  full  of  fire.  He  is  an  exces- 
sively handsome  man,  with  large,  dark  eyes,  almost  ef- 
feminate in  its  softness.  His  features  are  of  the  clear- 
est Greek  chiselling  as  faultless  as  a  statue,  and  are 
stamped  with  nature's  most  attractive  marks  of  refine- 
ment and  feeling.  I  can  imagine  Anacreon  to  have 
resembled  him. 

Mustoxidi  has  been  a  conspicuous  man  in  the  late 
chapter  of  Grecian  history.  He  was  much  trusted  by 
Capo  d'Istria,  and  among  other  things  had  the  whole 
charge  of  his  school  at  Egina.  An  Italian  exile  (a 
Modenese,  and  a  very  pleasant  fellow),  took  me  aside 
when  I  asked  something  of  his  history,  and  told  me  a 
story  of  him,  which  proves  either  that  he  was  a  dis- 
honest man,  or  (no  new  truth)  that  conspicuous  men 
are  liable  to  be  abused.  A  valuable  donation  of  books 
was  given  by  some  one  to  the  school  library.  They 
stood  on  the  upper  shelves,  quite  out  of  reach,  and 
Mustoxidi  was  particular  in  forbidding  all  approach  to 
them.  Some  time  after  his  departure  from  the  island, 
the  library  was  committed  to  the  charge  of  another 
person,  and  the  treasures  of  the  upper  shelves  were 
found  to  be — painted  boards  !  His  physiognomy 
would  rather  persuade  me  of  the  truth  of  the  story. 
He  is  a  small  man,  with  a  downcast  look,  and  a  sly, 
gray  eye,  almost  hidden  by  his  projecting  eyebrows. 
His  features  are  watched  in  vain  for  an  open  expres- 
sion. 

The  ladies  of  the  party  were  principally  Greeks. 
None  of  them  were  beautiful,  but  they  had  the  mel- 
ancholy, retired  expression  of  face  which  one  looks 
for,  knowing  the  history  of  their  nation.  They  are 
unwise  enough  to  abandon  their  picturesque  national 
costume,  and  dress  badly  in  the  European  style.  The 
servant-girls,  with  their  hair  braided  into  the  folds  of 
their  turbans,  and  their  open  laced  bodices  and  sleeves 
are  much  more  attractive  to  the  stranger's  eye.  The 
liveliest  of  the  party,  a  little  Zantiote  girl  of  eighteen, 
with  eyes  and  eyelashes  that  contradicted  the  merry 
laugh  on  her  lips,  sang  us  an  Albanian  song  to  the 
guitar,  very  sweetly. 

Dined  to-day  with  the  artillery-mess,  in  company 
with  the  commodore  and  some  of  his  officers.  In  a 
place  like  this,  the  dinner  naturally  is  the  great  cir- 
cumstance of  the  day.  The  inhabitants  do  not  take 
kindly  to  their  masters,  and  there  is  next  to  no  society 
for  the  English.  They  sit  down  to  their  soup  after 
the  evening  drive,  and  seldom  rise  till  midnight.  It 
was  a  gay  dinner,  as  dinners  will  always  be  where  the 
whole  remainder  of  what  the  "  day  may  bring  forth" 
is  abandoned  to  them,  and  we  parted  from  our  hospit- 
able entertainers,  after  four  or  five  hours  "  measured 
with  sands  of  gold."  We  must  do  the  English  the 
justice  of  confessing  the  manners  of  their  best  bred 
men  to  be  the  best  in  the  world.  It  is  inevitable  that 
one  should  bear  the  remainder  of  the  nation  little 
love.  Neither  the  one  class  nor  the  other,  doubtless, 
will  ever  seek  it  at  our  hands.  But  mutual  hospitality 
may  soften  so  much  of  our  intercourse  as  happens  in 
the  traveller's  way,  and  without  loving  John  Bull  bet- 
ter, all  in  all,  one  soon  finds  out  in  Europe  that  the 
dog  and  the  lion  are  not  more  unlike,  than  the  race 
of  bagmen  and  runners  with  which  our  country  is 
overrun,  and  the  cultivated  gentlemen  of  England. 

On  my  right  sat  a  captain  of  the  corps,  who  had 


spent  the  last  summer  at  the  Saratoga  Springs.  We 
found  any  number  of  mutual  acquaintances,  of  course, 
and  I  was  amused  with  the  impressions  which  some 
of  the  fairest  of  my  friends  had  made  upon  a  man  who 
had  passed  years  in  the  most  cultivated  society  of  Eu- 
rope. He  liked  America,  with  reservations.  He  pre- 
ferred our  ladies  to  those  of  any  other  country  ex- 
cept England,  and  he  had  found  more  dandies  in 
one  hour  in  Broadway  than  he  should  have  met  in  a 
week  in  Regent-street.  He  gave  me  a  racy  scene  or 
two  from  the  City  Hotel,  in  New  York,  but  he  doubt- 
ed if  the  frequenters  of  a  public  table  in  any  country 
in  the  world  were,  on  the  whole,  so  well-mannered.  If 
Americans  were  peculiar  for  anything,  he  thought  it 
was  for  confidence  in  themselves  and  tobacco-chewing. 


LETTER  LXXX. 

CORFU — UNPOPULARITY  OF  BRITISH  RULE — SUPERSTI- 
TION OF  THE  GREEKS ACCURACY  OF  THE  DESCRIP- 
TIONS IN  THE  ODYSSEY — ADVANTAGE  OF  THE  GREEK 
COSTUME — THE  PAXIAN  ISLES — CAPE  LEUCAS,  OR 
SAPPHO'S  LEAP — BAY  OF  NAVARINO,  ANCIENT  FY- 
Los — MODON — CORAN's  BAY — CAPE  ST.  ANGELO — 
ISLE    OF    CYTHERA. 

Corfu. — Called  on  one  of  the  officers  of  the  tenth 
this  morning,  and  found  lying  on  his  table  two  books 
upon  Corfu.  They  were  from  the  circulating  library 
of  the  town,  much  thumbed,  and  contained  the  most 
unqualified  strictures  on  the  English  administration  in 
the  islands.  In  one  of  them,  by  a  Count  or  Colonel 
Boig  de  St.  Vincent,  a  Frenchman,  the  Corfiotes 
were  taunted  with  their  slavish  submission,  and  called 
upon  to  shake  off  the  yoke  of  British  dominion  in  the 
most  inflammatory  language.  Such  books  in  Italy  or 
France  would  be  burnt  by  the  hangman,  and  prohibi- 
ted on  penalty  of  death.  Here,  with  a  haughty  con- 
sciousness of  superiority,  which  must  be  galling 
enough  to  an  Ionian  who  is  capable  of  feeling,  they 
circulate  uncensured  in  two  languages,  and  the  officers 
of  the  abused  government  read  them  for  their  amuse- 
ment, and  return  them  coolly  to  go  their  rounds 
among  the  people.  They  have  twenty-five  hundred 
troops  upon  the  island,  and  they  trouble  themselves 
little  about  what  is  thought  of  them.  They  confess 
that  their  government  is  excessively  unpopular,  the 
officers  are  excluded  from  the  native  society,  and  the 
soldiers  are  scowled  upon  in  the  streets. 

The  body  of  St.  Spiridion  was  carried  through  the 
streets  of  Corfu  to-day,  sitting  bolt  upright  in  a  sedan- 
chair,  and  accompanied  by  the  whole  population.  He 
is  the  great  saint  of  the  Greek  church,  and  such  is  his 
influence,  that  the  English  government  thought  prop- 
er, under  Sir  Frederick  Adam's  administration,  to 
compel  the  officers  to  walk  in  the  procession.  The 
saint  was  dried  at  his  death,  and  makes  a  neat,  black 
mummy,  sans  eyes  and  nose,  but  otherwise  quite  per- 
fect. He  was  carried  to-day  by  four  men  in  a  very 
splendid  sedan,  shaking  from  side  to  side  with  the  mo- 
tion, preceded  by  one  of  the  bands  of  music  from  the 
English  regiments.  Sick  children  were  thrown  under 
the  feet  of  the  bearers,  half  dead  people  brought  to 
the  doors  as  he  passed,  and  every  species  of  disgust- 
ing mummery  practised.  The  show  lasted  about  four 
hours,  and  was,  on  the  whole,  attended  with  more, 
marks  of  superstition  than  anything  I  found  in  Italy. 
I  was  told  that  the  better  educated  Christians  of  the 
Greek  church,  disbelieve  the  saint's  miracles.  The 
whole  body  of  the  Corfiote  ecclesiastics  were  in  the 
procession,  however. 


PENCILLINGS  BY  THE  WAY. 


123 


I  passed  the  first  watch  in  the  hammock-nettings  to- 
night, enjoying  inexpressibly  the  phenomena  of  this 
brilliant  climate.  The  stars  seem  burning  like  lamps 
in  the  absolute  clearness  of  the  atmosphere.  Meteors 
shoot  constantly  with  a  slow  liquid  course,  over  the 
sky.  The  air  comes  off  from  the  land  laden  with  the 
breath  of  the  wild  thyme,  and  the  water  around  the 
ship  is  another  deep  blue  heaven,  motionless  with  its 
studded  constellations.  The  frigate  seems  suspended 
between  them. 

We  have  little  idea,  while  conning  an  irksome 
school-task,  how  strongly  the  "unwilling  lore"  is 
rooting  itself  in  the  imagination,  The  frigate  lies 
perhaps  a  half  mile  from  the  most  interesting  scenes 
of  the  Odyssey.  I  have  been  recalling  from  the  long 
neglected  stores  of  memory,  the  beautiful  descriptions 
of  the  court  of  King  Alcinous,  and  of  the  meeting  of 
his  matchless  daughter  with  Ulysses.  The  whole 
web  of  the  poet's  fable  has  gradually  unwound,  and 
the  lamps  ashore,  and  the  outline  of  the  hills,  in  the 
deceiving  dimness  of  night,  have  entered  into  the  de- 
lusion with  the  facility  of  a  dream.  Every  scene  in 
Homer  may  be  traced  to  this  day,  the  blind  old  poet's 
topography  was  so  admirable.  It  was  over  the  point 
of  land  sloping  down  to  the  right,  that  the  Princess 
Nausicaa,  went  with  her  handmaids  to  wash  her  bridal 
robes  in  the  running  streams,  The  description  still 
guides  the  traveller  to  the  spot  where  the  damsels  of 
the  royal  maid  spread  the  linen  on  the  grass,  and  com- 
menced the  sports  that  waked  Ulysses  from  his  slum- 
bers in  the  bed  of  leaves. 


Ashore  with  one  of  the  officers  this  morning,  amu- 
sing ourselves  with  trying  on  dresses  in  a  Greek  tailor's 
shop.  It  quite  puts  one  out  of  conceit  with  these 
miserable  European  fashions.  The  easy  and  flowing 
juktanilla,  the  unembarrassed  leggins,  the  open  sleeve 
of  the  collarless  jacket  leaving  the  throat  exposed, 
and  the  handsome  close-binding  girdle  from  it,  seems 
to  me  the  very  dress  dictated  by  reason  and  nature. 
The  richest  suit  in  the  shop,  a  superb  red  velvet, 
wrought  with  gold,  was  priced  at  one  hundred  and 
forty  dollars.  The  more  sober  colors  were  much 
cheaper.     A  dress  lasts  several  years. 

We  made  our  farewell  visits  to  the  officers  of  the 
English  regiments,  who  had  overwhelmed  us  with  hos- 
pitality during  our  stay,  and  went  on  board  to  get  un- 
der way  with  the  noon  breeze.  We  were  accompa- 
nied to  the  ship,  not  as  the  hero  of  Homer,  when  he 
left  the  same  port,  by  three  damsels  of  the  royal  train, 
bearing,  "  one  a  tunic,  another  a  rich  casket,  and  a 
third  bread  and  wine"  for  his  voyage,  but  by  Mrs. 
Thompson  and  Mrs.  Wilson,  soldiers'  wives,  and 
washerwomen,  with  baskets  of  hurriedly  dried  linen, 
pinned,  every  bundle,  with  a  neat  bill  in  shillings  and 
half-pence 

Ulysses  slept  all  the  way  from  Corcyra  to  Ithaca. 
He  lost  a  great  deal  of  fine  scenery.  The  passage 
between  Corfu  and  Albania  is  beautiful.  We  ran 
past  the  southern  cape  of  the  island  with  a  free  wind, 
and  are  now  off  the  Paxian  Isles,  where,  according  to 
Plutarch,  Emilanus,  the  rhetorician,  voyaging  by 
night,  "  heard  a  voice  louder  than  human,  announcing 
the  death  of  Pan."  A  "schoolboy  midshipman"  is 
breaking  the  same  silence  with  "  on  deck,  all  hands  ! 
on  deck,  all  of  you!" 

Off  the  mouth  of  the  Alpheus.  If  he  still  chases 
Arethusa  under  the  sea,  aud  she  makes  straight  for 
Sicily,  her  bed  is  beneath  our  keel.  The  moon  is 
pouring  her  broad  light  over  the  ocean,  the  shadows 
of  the  rigging  on  the  dcek  lis  in  clear  and  definite 


lines,  the  sailors  of  the  watch  sit  around  upon  the 
guns  in  silence,  and  the  ship,  with  her  clouds  of 
snowy  sail  spread  aloft,  is  stealing  through  the  water 
with  the  noiseless  motion  of  a  swan.  Even  the  gal- 
lant man-of-war  seems  steeped  in  the  spirit  of  the 
scene.  The  hour  wants  but  an  "  Ionian  Myrrha  "  to 
fill  the  last  void  of  the  heart. 

Cape  Leucas  on  the  lee — the  scene  of  Sappho's  leap. 
We  have  coursed  down  the  long  shore  of  ancient  Leu- 
cadia,  and  the  precipice  to  which  lovers  came  from  all 
parts  of  Greece  for  an  oblivious  plunge  is  shining  in 
the  sun,  scarce  a  mile  from  the  ship.  The  beautiful 
Grecian  here  sung  her  last  song,  and  broke  her  lyre 
and  died.  The  leap  was  not  always  so  tragical,  there 
are  two  lovers,  at  least,  on  record  (Maces  of  Euthro 
turn,  and  Cephalosson  of  Deioneos),  who  survived  the 
fall,  and  were  cured  effectually  by  salt  water.  It  was 
a  common  resource  in  the  days  of  Sappho,  and  Stra- 
bo  says  that  they  were  accustomed  to  check  their  de- 
scent by  tying  birds  and  feathers  to  their  arms.  Fe- 
males, he  says,  were  generally  killed  by  the  rapidity 
of  the  fall,  their  frames  being  too  slight  to  bear  the 
shock ;  but  the  men  seldom  failed  to  come  safe  to 
shore.  The  sex  has  not  lost  its  advantages  since  the 
days  of  Phaon. 

We  have  caught  a  glimpse  of  Ithaca  through  the 
isles,  the  land 

"  Where  sad  Penelope  o'erlooked  the  wave," 

and  which  Ulysses  loved,  non  quia  larga,  sed  quia  sua 
— the  most  natural  of  reasons.  We  lose  Childe  Har- 
old's track  here.  He  turned  to  the  left  into  the  gulf 
of  Lepanto.  We  shall  find  him  again  at  Athens. 
Missolonghi,  where  he  died,  lies  about  twenty  or  thirty 
miles  on  our  lee,  and  it  is  one,  of  several  places  in  the 
gulf,  that  I  regret  to  pass  so  near,  unvisited. 


Entering  the  bay  of  Navarino.  A  picturesque  and 
precipitous  rock,  filled  with  caves,  nearly  shuts  the 
mouth  of  this  ample  harbor.  We  ran  so  close  to  it, 
that  it  might  have  been  touched  from  the  deck  with  a 
tandem  whip.  On  a  wild  crag  to  the  left,  a  small, 
white  marble  monument,  with  the  earth  still  fresh 
about  it,  marks  the  grave  of  some  victim  of  the  late 
naval  battle.  The  town  and  fortress,  miserable  heaps 
of  dirty  stone,  lie  in  the  curve  of  the  southern  shore. 
A  French  brig-of-war  is  at  anchor  in  the  port,  and 
broad,  barren  hills,  stretching  far  away  on  every  side, 
complete  the  scene  before  us.  We  run  up  the  har- 
bor, and  tack  to  stand  out  again,  without  going  ashore. 
Not  a  soul  is  to  be  seen,  and  the  bay  seems  the  very 
sanctuary  of  silence.  It  is  difficult  to  conceive,  that 
but  a  year  or  two  ago,  the  combined  fleets  of  Europe, 
were  thundering  among  these  silent  hills,  and  hun- 
dreds of  human  beings  lying  in  their  blood,  whose 
bones  are  now  whitening  in  the  sea  beneath.  Our  pi- 
lot was  in  the  fight,  on  board  an  English  frigate.  He 
has  pointed  out  to  us  the  position  of  the  different 
fleets,  and  among  other  particulars,  he  tells  me,  that 
when  the  Turkish  ships  were  boarded,  Greek  sailors 
were  found  chained  to  the  guns,  who  had  been  com- 
pelled, at  the  muzzle  of  the  pistol,  to  fight  against  the 
cause  of  their  country.  Many  of  them  must  thus 
have  perished  in  the  vessels  that  were  sunk. 

Navarino  was  the  scene  of  a  great  deal  of  fight- 
ing, during  the  late  Greek  revolution.  It  was  in- 
vested, while  in  possession  of  the  Turks,  by  two  thou- 
sand Pelopennesians  and  a  band  of  Ionians,  and  the 
garrison  were  reduced  to  such  a  state  of  starvation,  as 
to  eat  their  slippers.  They  surrendared  at  last,  under 
promise  that  their  lives  should  be  spared;  but  the 
news  of  the  massacre  of  the  Greek  patriarchs  and 
clergy,  at  Adrianople,  was  received  at  the  moment, 
and  the  exasperated  troops  put  their  prisoners  to  death, 
without  mercy. 


124 


PENCILLINGS  BY  THE  WAY. 


The  peaceful  aspect  of  the  place  is  better  suited  to 
its  poetical  associations.  Navarino  was  the  ancient 
Pylos,  and  it  is  here  that  Homer  brings  Telemachus 
in  search  of  his  father.  He  finds  old  Nestor  and  his 
sons  sacrificing  on  the  seashore  to  Neptune,  with  nine 
altars,  and  at  each  five  hundred  men.  I  should  think 
the  modern  town  contained  scarce  a  twentieth  of  this 
number. 


Rounding  the  little  fortified  town  of  Modon,  under 
full  sail.  It  seems  to  be  built  on  the  level  of  the  wa- 
ter, and  nothing  but  its  high  wall  and  its  towers  are 
seen  from  the  sea.  This,  too,  has  been  a  much  con- 
tested place,  and  remained  in  possession  of  the  Turks 
till  after  the  formation  of  the  provisional  government 
under  Mavrocordato.  It  forms  the  southwestern  point 
of  the  Morea,  and  is  a  town  of  great  antiquity.  King 
Philip  gained  his  first  battle  over  the  Athenians  here, 
some  thousands  of  years  ago  ;  and  the  brave  old  Miu- 
alis  beat  the  Egyptian  fleet  in  the  same  bay,  without 
doubt  in  a  manner  quite  as  deserving  of  as  long  a  re- 
membrance. It  is  like  a  city  of  the  dead — we  can  not 
even  see  a  sentinel  on  the  wall. 


Passed  an  hour  in  the  mizen-chains  with  "  the  Cor- 
sair" in  my  hand,  and  "  Coran's  Bay'"  opening  on  the 
lee.  With  what  exquisite  pleasure  one  reads,  when 
he  can  look  off  from  the  page,  and  study  the  scene  of 
the  poet's  fiction  : — 

"  In  Coran's  bay  floats  many  a  galley  light, 
Through  Coran's  lattices  the  lamps  burn  bright 
For  Seyd,  the  pacha,  makes  a  feast  to-night," 

It  is  a  small,  deep  bay,  with  a  fortified  town,  on  the 
western  shore,  crowned  on  the  very  edge  of  the  sea, 
with  a  single,  tall  tower.  A  small  aperture  near  the 
top,  helps  to  realize  the  Corsair's  imprisonment,  and 
his  beautiful  interview  with  Gulnare : — 

"  In  the  high  chamber  of  his  highest  tower, 
Sate  Conrad  fettered  in  the  pacha's  power,"  etc. 

The  Pirate's  Isle  is  said  to  have  been  Poros,  and 
the  original  of  the  Corsair  himself,  a  certain  Hugh 
Crevelier,  who  filled  the  iEgean  with  terror,  not  many 
years  ago. 


Made  the  Cape  St.  Angelo,  the  southern  point  of 
the  Peloponnesus,  and  soon  after  the  island  of  Cythe- 
ra,  near  which  Venus  rose  from  the  foam  of  the  sea. 
We  are  now  running  northerly,  along  the  coast  of  an- 
cient Sparta.  It  is  a  mountainous  country,  bare  and 
rocky,  and  looks  as  rude  and  hardy  as  the  character  of 
its  ancient  sons.  I  have  been  passing  the  glass  in  vain 
along  the  coast,  to  find  a  tree.  A  small  hermitage 
stands  on  the  desolate  extremity  of  the  Cape,  and  a 
Greek  monk,  the  pilot  tells  me,  has  lived  there  many 
years,  who  comes  from  his  cell,  and  stands  on  the 
rock  with  his  arms  outspread  to  bless  the  passing  ship. 
I  looked  for  him  in  vain. 

A  French  man-of-war  bore  down  upon  us  a  few 
minutes  ago,  and  saluted  the  commodore.  He  ran  so 
close,  that  we  could  see  the  features  of  his  officers  on 
the  poop.  It  is  a  noble  sight  at  sea,  a  fine  ship  pas- 
sing, with  all  hercanvass  spread,  with  the  added  rapid- 
ity of  your  own  course  and  hers.  The  peal  of  the 
guns  in  the  midst  of  the  solitary  ocean,  had  a  singular 
effect.  The  echo  came  back  from  the  naked  shores 
of  Sparta,  with  a  warlike  sound,  that  might  have  stir- 
red old  Leonidas  in  his  grave.  The  smoke  rolled 
away  on  the  wind,  and  the  noble  ship  hoisted  her  roy- 
als once  more,  and  went  on  her  way.  We  are  ma- 
king for  Napoli  di  Romania,  with  a  summer  breeze, 
and  hope  to  drop  anchor  beneath  its  fortress,  at  sun- 
set. 


LETTER  LXXXI. 


THE  HARBOR  OF  NAPOLI — TRICOUPI  AND  MAVROCOR- 
DATO, OTHo's  CABINET  COUNSELLORS — COLONEL  GOR- 
DON  KING      OTHO THE      MISSES      ARMANSPERGS 

PRINCE    OF    SAXE MIAULIS,    THE    GREEK     ADMIRAL — 

EXCURSION   TO   ARGOS,   TRE    ANCIENT   TERYNTHUS. 

Napoli  di  Romania. — Anchored  in  the  harbor  of 
Napoli  after  dark.  An  English  frigate  lies  a  little 
in,  a  French  and  Russian  brig-of-war  astern,  and  two 
Greek  steamboats,  King  Otho's  yacht,  and  a  quantity 
of  caiques,  fill  the  inner  port.  The  fort  stands  a  hun- 
dred feet  over  our  heads  on  a  bold  promontory,  and 
the  rocky  Palamidi  soars  a  hundred  feet  still  higher, 
on  a  crag  that  thrusts  its  head  sharply  into  the  clouds, 
as  if  it  would  lift  the  little  fortress  out  of  eyesight. 
The  town  lies  at  the  base  of  the  mountain,  an  irregu- 
lar looking  heap  of  new  houses  ;  and  here,  at  present, 
resides  the  boy-king  of  Greece,  Otho  the  first.  His 
predecessors  were  Agamemnon  and  Perseus,  who, 
some  three  thousand  years  ago  (more  or  less,  I  am 
not  certain  of  my  chronology),  reigned  at  Argos  and 
Mycenae,  within  sight  of  his  present  capitol. 


Went  ashore  with  the  commodore,  to  call  on  Tri- 
coupi  and  Mavrocordato,  the  king's  cabinet  counsel- 
lors. We  found  the  former  in  a  new  stone  house, 
slenderly  furnished,  and  badly  painted,  but  with  an 
entry  full  of  servants,  in  handsome  Greek  costumes. 
He  received  the  commodore  with  the  greatest  friend- 
liness. He  had  dined  on  board  the  Constitution  six 
years  before,  when  his  prospects  were  less  promising 
than  now.  He  is  a  short,  stout  man,  of  dark  com- 
plexion, and  very  bright  black  eyes,  and  looks  very 
honest  and  very  vulgar.  He  speaks  English  perfectly. 
He  shrugged  bis  shoulders  when  the  commodore  allu- 
ded to  having  left  him  fighting  for  a  republic,  and 
said  anything  was  better  than  anarchy.  He  spoke  in 
the  highest  terms  of  my  friend,  Dr.  Howe  (who  was 
at  Napoli  with  the  American  provisions,  when  Grivas 
held  the  Palamidi).  Greece,  he  said,  had  never  a  bet- 
ter friend.  Madam  Tricoupi  (the  sister  of  Prince 
Mavrocordato)  came  in  presently  with  two  very  pretty 
children.  She  spoke  French  fluently,  and  seemed  an 
accomplished  woman.  Her  family  had  long  furnished 
the  Prince  Hospodars  of  Wallachia,  and  though  not 
a  beautiful  woman,  she  has  every  mark  of  the  gentle 
blood  of  the  east.  Colonel  Gordon,  the  famous  Phil- 
hellene,  entered,  while  we  were  there.  He  was  an  in- 
timate friend  of  Lord  Byron's,  and  has  expended  the 
best  part  of  a  large  fortune  in  the  Greek  cause.  He 
is  a  plain  man,  of  perhaps  fifty,  with  red  hair  and 
freckled  face,  and  features  and  accent  very  Scotch.  I 
liked  his  manners.  He  had  lately  written  a  book  upon 
Greece,  which  is  well  spoken  of  in  some  review  that 
has  fallen  in  my  way. 

Went  thence  to  Prince  Mavrocordato's.  He  occu- 
pies the  third  story  of  a  very  indifferent  house,  fur- 
nished with  the  mere  necessaries  of  life.  A  shabby 
sofa,  a  table,  two  chairs,  and  a  broken  tumbler,  hold- 
ing ink  and  two  pens,  is  the  inventory  of  his  drawing- 
room.  He  received  us  with  elegance  and  courtesy, 
and  presented  us  to  his  wife,  a  pretty  and  lively  little 
Constantinopolitan,  who  chattered  French  like  a  mag- 
pie. She  gave  the  uncertainty  of  their  residence  un- 
til the  seat  of  government  was  decided  on,  as  the  apol- 
ogy for  their  lodgings,  and  seemed  immediately  to 
forget  that  she  was  not  in  a  palace.  Mavrocordato  is 
a  strikingly  handsome  man,  with  long,  curling  black 
hair,  and  most  luxuriant  mustaches.  His  mouth  is 
bland,  and  his  teeth  uncommonly  beautiful;  but  with- 
out being  able  to  say  where  it  lies,  there  is  an  expres- 
sion of  guile  in  his  face,  that  shut  my  heart  to  him. 
He  is  getting  fat,  and  there  is  a  shade  of  red  in  the 


PENC1LLINGS  BY  THE  WAY. 


125 


clear  olive  of  his  cheek,  which  is  very  uncommon  in 
this  country.  The  commodore  remarked  that  he  was 
very  thin  when  he  was  here  six  years  before.  The 
settlement  of  affairs  in  Greece,  has  probably  relieved 
him  from  a  great  deal  of  care. 

Presented,  with  the  commodore,  to  King  Otho. 
Tricoupi  officiated  as  chamberlain,  dressed  in  a  court 
suit  of  light-blue,  wrought  with  silver.  The  royal 
residence  is  a  comfortable  house,  built  by  Capo  d'ls- 
tria,  in  the  principal  street  of  Napoli.  The  king's 
aid,  a  son  of  Marco  Bozzaris,  a  very  fine,  resolute- 
looking  young  man  of  eighteen,  received  us  in  the 
antechamber,  and  in  a  few  minutes  the  door  of  the 
inner  room  was  thrown  open.  His  majesty  stood  at 
the  foot  of  the  throne  (a  gorgeous  red  velvet  arm- 
chair, raised  on  a  platform,  and  covered  with  a  splendid 
canopy  of  velvet),  and  with  a  low  bow  to  each  of  us 
as  we  entered,  he  addressed  his  conversation  immedi- 
ately, and  without  embarrassment,  to  the  commodore. 
I  had  leisure  to  observe  him  closely  for  a  few  minutes. 
He  appears  about  eighteen.  He  was  dressed  in  an 
exceedingly  well  cut,  swallow-tailed  coat,  of  very 
light  blue,  with  a  red  standing  collar,  wrought  with 
silver.  The  same  work  upon  a  red  ground,  was  set 
between  the  buttons  of  the  waist,  and  upon  the  edges 
of  the  skirts.  White  pantaloons,  and  the  ordinary 
straight  court-sword,  completed  his  dress.  He  is 
rather  tall,  and  his  figure  is  extremely  light  and  ele- 
gant. A  very  flat  nose,  and  high  cheek-bones,  are  the 
most  marked  features  of  his  face  ;  his  hair  is  straight, 
and  of  a  light  brown,  and  with  no  claim  to  beauty  ; 
the  expression  of  his  countenance  is  manly,  open,  and 
prepossessing.  He  spoke  French  fluently,  though 
with  a  German  accent,  and  went  through  the  usual 
topics  of  a  royal  presentation  (very  much  the  same  all 
over  the  world)  with  grace  and  ease.  In  the  few  re- 
marks which  he  addressed  to  me,  he  said  that  he 
promised  himself  great  pleasure  in  the  search  for  an- 
tiquities in  Greece.  He  bowed  us  out  after  an  audi- 
ence of  about  ten  minutes,  no  doubt  extremely  happy 
to  exchange  his  court-coat  and  our  company  for  a  ri- 
ding-frock and  saddle.  His  horse  and  a  guard  of 
twelve  lancers  were  in  waiting  at  the  door. 

The  king  usually  passes  his  evenings  with  the  Miss- 
es Armanspergs,  the  daughters  of  the  president  of  the 
regency.  They  accompanied  him  from  Munich,  and 
are  the  only  ladies  in  his  realm  with  whom  he  is  ac- 
quainted. They  keep  a  carriage,  which  is  a  kind  of 
wonder  at  Napoli  ;  ride  on  horseback  in  the  English 
style,  very  much  to  the  amusement  of  the  Greeks; 
and  give  soirees  once  or  twice  a  week,  which  are  par- 
ticularly dull.  One  of  the  three  is  a  beautiful  girl, 
and  if  policy  does  not  interfere,  is  likely  to  be  Queen  j 
of  Greece.  The  Count  Armansperg  is  a  small, 
shrewd-looking  man,  with  a  thin  German  countenance,  ! 
and  agreeable  manners.  He  is,  of  course,  the  real 
kins;  of  Greece. 

The  most  agreeable  man  I  found  in  Napoli,  was 
the  king's  uncle,  the  prince  of  Saxe.  at  present  in 
command  of  his  army.  He  is  a  tall,  and  uncommon- 
ly handsome  soldier,  of  perhaps  thirty-six  years,  and, 
with  all  the  air  of  a  man  of  high  birth,  has  the  open 
and  frank  manners  of  the  camp.  He  has  been  twice 
on  board  the  ship,  and  seemed  to  consider  his  ac- 
quaintance with  the  commodore's  family  as  a  respite 
liom  exile.  The  Bavarian  officers  in  his  suite  spoke 
nothing  but  the  native  German,  and  looked  like  mere 
beef-eaters.  The  prince  returns  in  two  years,  and 
when  the  king  is  of  age,  his  Bavarian  troops  leave 
him,  and  he  commits  himself  to  the  country. 

Hired  the  only  two  public  vehicles  in  Napoli,  and 
set  off  with  the  commodore's  family,  on  an  excursion 
to  the  ancient  cities  in  the  neighborhood.  We  left  the 
gate  built  by  the  Venetians,  and  still  adorned  with  a 
bas  relief  of  a  winged  lion,  at  nine  o'clock  of  a  clear 


Grecian  summer's  day.  Auguries  were  against  us. 
Pyrrhusdid  the  same  thing  with  his  elephants  and  his 
army,  one  morning  about  two  thousand  years  ago,  and 
was  killed  before  noon  ;  and  our  driver  stopped  his 
horses  a  half  mile  out  of  the  gate,  and  told  us  very 
gravely  that  the  evil  eye  was  upon  him.  He  had  dream- 
ed that  he  had  found  a  dollar  the  night  before — a  cer- 
tain sign  by  the  laws  of  witchcraft  in  Greece,  that  he 
should  lose  one.  He  concluded  by  adding  anothei 
dollar  to  the  price  of  each  carriage. 

We  passed  the  house  of  old  Miaulis,  the  Greek  ad- 
miral, a  pretty  cottage  a  mile  from  the  city,  and  imme- 
diately after  came  the  ruins  of  the  ancient  Terynthvs, 
the  city  of  Hercules.  The  wails,  built  of  the  largest 
hewn  stones  in  the  world,  still  stand,  and  will  till  time 
ends.  It  would  puzzle  modern  mechanics  to  carry 
them  away.  We  drove  along  the  same  road  upon 
which  Autolycus  taught  the  young  hero  to  drive  a 
chariot,  and  passing  ruins  and  fragments  of  columns 
strewn  over  the  whole  length  of  the  plain  of  Argos, 
stopped  under  a  spreading  aspen  tree,  the  only  shade 
within  reach  of  the  eye.  A  dirty  khan  stood  a  few 
yards  off,  and  our  horses  were  to  remain  here  while 
we  ascended  the  hills  to  Mycenae. 

It  was  a  hot  walk.  The  appearance  of  ladies,  as  we 
passed  through  a  small  Greek  village  on  our  way, 
drew  out  all  the  inhabitants,  and  we  were  accompa- 
nied by  about  fifty  men,  women,  and  children,  resem- 
bling very  much  in  complexion  and  dress,  the  Indians 
of  our  country.  A  mile  from  our  carriages  we  arrived 
at  a  subterranean  structure,  built  in  the  side  of  the 
hill,  with  a  door  toward  the  east,  surmounted  by  the 
hewn  stone  so  famous  for  its  size  among  the  antiqui- 
ties of  Greece.  It  shuts  the  tomb  of  old  Agamemnon. 
The  interior  is  a  hollow  cone,  with  a  small  chamber  at 
the  side,  and  would  make  "very  eligible  lodgings  for 
a  single  gentleman,"  as  the  papers  say. 

We  kept  on  up  the  hill,  wondering  that  the  "king 
of  many  islands  and  of  all  Argos,"  as  Homer  calls 
him,  should  have  built  his  city  so  high  in  this  hot  cli- 
mate. We  sat  down  at  last,  quite  fagged,  at  the  gate 
of  a  city  built  only  eighteen  hundred  years  before 
Christ.  A  descendant  of  Perseus  brought  us  some 
water  in  a  wooden  piggin,  and  somewhat  refreshed,  we 
went  on  with  our  examination  of  the  ruins.  The 
mere  weight  of  the  walls  has  kept  them  together  three 
thousand  six  hundred  years.  Yon  can  judge  how  im- 
moveable they  must  be.  The  antiquarians  call  them 
the  "cyclopean  walls  of  Mycenae ;"  and  nothing  less 
than  a  giant,  I  should  suppose,  would  dream  of  heav- 
ing such  enormous  masses  one  upon  the  other.  "  The 
gate  of  the  Lions,"  probably  the  principal  entrance  to 
the  city,  is  still  perfect.  The  bas-relief  from  which  it 
takes  its  name,  is  the  oldest  sculptured  stone  in  Eu- 
rope. It  is  of  green  basalt,  representing  two  lions 
rampant,  very  finely  executed,  and  was  brought  from 
Egypt.  An  angle  of  the  city  wall  is  just  below,  and 
the  ruins  of  a  noble  aqueduct  are  still  visible,  follow- 
ing the  curve  of  the  opposite  hill,  and  descending  to 
Mycenae  on  the  northern  side.  1  might  bore  you  now 
with  a  long  chapter  on  antiquities  (for,  however  dry  in 
the  abstract,  they  are  exceedingly  interesting  on  the 
spot),  but  I  let  you  off.  Those  who  like  them  will 
find  Sphon  and  Wheeler,  Dodwell,  Leake,  and  Gell, 
diffuse  enough  for  the  most  classic  enthusiasm. 

We  descended  by  a  rocky  ravine,  in  the  bosom  of 
which  lay  a  well  with  six  large  fig-trees  growing  at  its 
brink.  A  woman,  burnt  black  with  the  sun,  was  draw- 
ing water  in  a  goat-skin,  and  we  were  too  happy  to  get 
into  the  shade,  and,  in  the  name  of  Pan,  sink  delicacy 
and  ask  for  a  drink  of  water.  1  have  seen  the  time 
when  nectar  in  a  cup  of  gold  would  have  been  less  re- 
freshing. 

We  arrived  at  the  aspen  about  two  o'clock,  and 
made  preparations  for  our  dinner.  The  sea-breeze 
had   sprung  up,  and  came  freshly  over  the  plain  of 


126 


PENCILLINGS  BY  THE  WAY. 


Argos.  We  put  our  claret  in  a  goat-skin  of  water 
hung  at  one  of  the  wheels,  the  basket  was  produced, 
the  ladies  sat  in  the  interior  of  the  carriage,  and  the 
commodore  and  his  son  and  myself,  made  tables  of  the 
footboards  ;  and  thus  we  achieved  a  meal  which,  if 
meals  are  measured  by  content,  old  King  Danaus  and 
his  fifty  daughters  might  have  risen  from  their  graves 
to  envy  us. 

A  very  handsome  Greek  woman  had  brought  us 
water  and  stood  near  while  we  were  eating,  and  ma- 
king over  to  her  the  remnants  of  the  ham  and  its 
condiments  and  the  empty  bottles,  with  which  she 
seemed  made  happy  for  a  day,  we  went  on  our  way  to 
Argos. 

"  Rivers  die,"  it  is  said,  "as  well  as  men  and  cities." 
We  drove  through  the  bed  of  "  Father  Inachus," 
which  was  a  i-espectable  river  in  the  time  of  Homer, 
but  which,  in  our  day,  would  be  puzzled  to  drown  a 
much  less  thing  than  a  king.  Men  achieve  immor- 
tality in  a  variety  of  ways.  King  Inachus  might  have 
been  forgotten  as  the  first  Argive  ;  but  by  drowning 
himself  in  the  river  which  afterward  took  his  name, 
every  knowledge-hunter  that  travels  is  compelled  to 
look  up  his  history.  So  St.  Nepomuc  became  the 
guardian  of  bridges  by  breaking  his  neck  over  one. 

The  modern  Argos  occupies  the  site  of  the  ancient. 
It  is  tolerably  populous,  but  it  is  a  town  of  most  wretch- 
ed hovels.  We  drove  through  several  long  streets  of 
mud  houses  with  thatched  roofs,  completely  open  in 
front,  and  the  whole  family  huddled  together  on  the 
clay  floor,  with  no  furniture  but  a  flock  bed  in  the  I 
corner.  The  first  settlement  by  Deucalion  and  Pyr- 
rha,  on  the  sediment  of  the  deluge,  must  have  looked 
like  it.  Mud,  stones,  and  beggars,  were  all  we  saw. 
Old  Pyrrhus  was  killed  here,  after  all  his  battles,  by  a 
tile  from  a  house-top;  but  modern  Argos  has  scarce  a 
roof  high  enough  to  overtop  his  helmet. 

We  left  our  carriages  in  the  street,  and  walked  to 
the  ruins  of  the  amphitheatre.  The  brazen  thalamos 
in  which  Dante  was  confined  when  Jupiter  visited  her 
in  a  shower  of  gold,  was  near  this  spot,  the  supposed 
site  of  most  of  the  thirty  temples  once  famous  in 
Argos. 

Some  solid  brick  walls,  the  seats  of  the  amphithea- 
tre cut  into  the  solid  rock  of  the  hill,  the  rocky  acrop- 
olis above,  and  twenty  or  thirty  horses  tied  together, 
and  treading  out  grain  on  a  thrashing-floor  in  the  open 
field,  were  all  we  found  of  ancient  or  picturesque  in 
the  capitol  of  the  Argives.  A  hot,  sultry  afternoon, 
was  no  time  to  weave  romance  from  such  materials. 

We  returned  to  our  carriages,  and  while  the  Greek 
was  getting  his  horses  into  their  harness,  we  entered 
a  most  unpromising  cafe  for  shade  and  water.  A  bil- 
liard-table stood  in  the  centre;  and  the  high,  broad 
bench  on  which  the  Turks  seat  themselves,  with  their 
legs  crooked  under  them,  stretched  around  the  wall. 
The  proprietor  was  a  Venetian  woman,  who  sighed,  as 
she  might  well,  for  a  gondola.  The  kingdom  of  Aga- 
memnon was  not  to  her  taste. 

After  waiting  awhile  here  for  the  sun  to  get  behind 
the  hills  of  Sparta,  we  received  a  message  from  our 
coachman,  announcing  that  he  was  arrested.  The 
"  evil  eye"  had  not  glanced  upon  him  in  vain.  There 
was  no  returning  without  him,  and  I  walked  over  with 
the  commodore  to  see  what  could  be  done.  A  fine- 
looking  man  sat  cross-legged  on  a  bench,  in  the  upper 
room  of  a  building,  adjoining  a  prison,  and  a  man  with 
a  pen  in  his  hand,  was  reading  the  indictment.  The 
driver  had  struck  a  child  who  was  climbing  on  his 
wheel.  I  pleaded  his  case  in  "choice  Italian,"  and 
after  half  an  hour's  delay,  they  dismissed  him,  exact- 
ing a  dollar  as  a  security  for  reappearance.  It  was  a 
curious  verification  of  his  morning's  omen. 

We  drove  on  over  the  plain,  met  the  king,  five 
camels,  and  the  Misses  Armanpergs,  and  were  on 
board  soon  after  sunset. 


LETTER  LXXXII. 

VISIT  FROM  KING  OTHO  AND  MIAULIS — VISITS  AN  ENGLISH 
AND     RUSSIAN     FRIGATE — BEAUTY    OF    THE     GRECIAN 

MEN LAKE  LEMA — THE  HERM10NICAS  SINUS — HYDRA 

EFINA. 

Napoli  di  Romania. — Went  ashore  with  one  of  the 
officers,  to  look  for  the  fountain  of  Canathus.  Its 
waters  had  the  property  (vide  Pausanias)  of  renewing 
the  infant  purity  of  the  women  who  bathed  in  them. 
Juno  used  it  once  a  year.  We  found  but  one  natural 
spring  in  all  Napoli.  It  stands  in  a  narrow  street,  filled 
with  tailors,  and  is  adorned  with  a  marble  font  bearing 
a  Turkish  inscription.  Two  girls  were  drawing  water 
in  skins.  We  drank  a  little  of  it,  but  found  nothing 
peculiar  in  the  taste.  Its  virtues  are  confined  probably 
to  the  other  sex. 

The  king  visited  the  ship.  As  his  barge  left  the 
pier,  the  vessels  of  war  in  the  harbor  manned  their 
yards  and  fired  the  royal  salute.  He  was  accompanied 
by  young  Bozzaris  and  the  prince,  his  uncle,  and 
dressed  in  the  same  uniform  in  which  he  received  us 
at  our  presentation.  As  he  stepped  on  the  deck,  and 
was  received  by  Commodore  Patterson,  I  thought  1 
had  never  seen  a  more  elegant  and  well-proportioned 
man.  The  frigate  was  in  her  usual  admirable  order, 
and  the  king  expressed  his  surprise  and  giatification 
at  every  turn.  His  questions  were  put  with  uncommon 
judgment  for  a  landsman.  We  had  heard,  indeed,  on 
board  the  English  frigate  which  brought  him  from 
Trieste,  that  he  lost  no  opportunity  of  learning  the 
duties  and  management  of  the  ship,  keeping  watch 
with  the  midshipmen,  and  running  from  one  deck  to 
the  other  at  all  hours.  After  going  thoroughly  through 
the  ship,  the  commodore  presented  him  to  his  family. 
He  seemed  very  much  pleased  with  the  ease  and  frank- 
ness with  which  he  was  received,  and  seating  himself 
with  our  fair  countrywomen  in  the  after-cabin,  pro- 
longed his  visit  to  a  very  unceremonious  length,  con- 
versing with  the  most  unreserved  gayety.  The  yards 
were  manned  again,  the  salutes  fired  once  more,  and 
the  king  of  Greece  tossed  his  oars  for  a  moment  under 
the  stern,  and  pulled  ashore. 

Had  the  pleasure  and  honor  of  showing  Miaulis 
through  the  ship.  The  old  man  carne  on  board  very 
modestly,  without  even  announcing  himself,  and  as  he 
addressed  one  of  the  officers  in  Italian,  1  was  struck 
with  his  noble  appearance,  and  offered  my  services  as 
interpreter.  He  was  dressed  in  the  Hydriote  costume, 
the  full  blue  trowsers  gathered  at  the  knee,  a  short  open 
jacket  worked  with  black  braid,  and  a  red  scull-cap. 
His  lieutenant,  dressed  in  the  same  costume,  a  tall, 
superb-looking  Greek,  was  his  only  attendant.  He 
was  quite  at  home  on  board,  comparing  the  "  United 
States"  continually  to  the  Hellas,  the  American-built 
frigate  which  he  commanded.  Every  one  on  board 
was  struck  with  the  noble  simplicity  and  dignity  of  his 
address.  I  have  seldom  seen  a  man  who  impressed 
me  more.  He  requested  me  to  express  his  pleasure 
at  his  visit,  and  his  friendly  feelings  to  the  commodore, 
and  invited  us  to  his  country-house,  which  he  pointed 
out  from  the  deck,  just  without  the  city.  Every  officer 
in  the  ship  uncovered  as  he  passed.  The  gratification 
at  seeing  him  was  universal.  He  looks  worthy  to  be 
one  of  the  "  three"  that  Byron  demanded,  in  his  im- 
passioned verse, 

"  To  make  a  new  Thermopylae." 

Returned  visits  of  ceremony  with  the  commodore, 
to  the  English  and  Russian  vessels  of  war.  The  British 
frigate  Madagascar  is  about  the  size  of  the  United 
States,  but  not  in  nearly  so  fine  a  condition.  The 
superior  cleanliness  and  neatness  of  arrangement   on 


PENCILLINGS  BY  THE  WAY. 


127 


board  our  own  ship  are  indisputable.  The  cabin  of 
Captain  Lyon  (who  is  said  to  be  one  of  the  best  officers 
in  the  English  service),  was  furnished  in  almost  oriental 
luxury,  and,  what  I  should  esteem  more,  crowded  with 
the  choicest  books.  He  informed  us  that  of  his  twenty- 
four  midshipmen,  nine  were  sons  of  noblemen,  and 
possessed  the  best  family  influence  on  both  father's 
and  mother's  side,  and  several  of  the  remainder  had 
high  claims  for  preferment.  There  is  small  chance 
there,  one  would  think,  for  commoners. 

Captain  Lyon  spoke  in  the  highest  terms  of  his  late 
passenger,  King  Otho,  both  as  to  disposition  and  talent. 
Somewhere  in  the  iEgean,  one  of  his  Bavarian  servants 
fell  overboard,  and  the  boatswain  jumped  after  him, 
and  sustained  him  till  the  boat  was  lowered  to  his  relief. 
On  his  reaching  the  deck,  the  king  drew  a  valuable 
repeater  from  his  pocket,  and  presented  it  to  him  in 
the  presence  of  the  crew.  He  certainly  has  caught  the 
"  trick  of  royalty"  in  its  perfection. 

The  guard  presented,  the  boatswain  "  piped  us  over 
the  side,"  and  we  pulled  alongside  the  Russian.  The 
file  of  marines  drawn  up  in  honor  of  the  commodore 
on  her  quarterdeck,  looked  like  so  many  standing  bears. 
Features  and  limbs  so  brutally  coarse  I  never  saw. 
The  officers,  however,  were  very  gentlemanly,  and  the 
vessel  was  in  beautiful  condition.  In  inquiring  after 
the  health  of  the  ladies  on  board  our  ship,  the  captain 
and  his  lieutenant  rose  from  their  seats  and  made  a  low 
bow — a  degree  of  chivalrous  courtesy  very  uncommon, 
I  fancy,  since  the  days  of  Sir  Piercie  Shafton.  I  left 
his  imperial  majesty's  ship  with  an  improved  impres- 
sion of  him. 

They  are  a  gallant-looking  people,  the  Greeks.  By- 
ron says  of  them,  "all  are  beautiful,  very  much  re- 
sembling the  busts  of  Alcibiades."  We  walked  be- 
yond the  walls  of  the  city  this  evening,  on  the  plain 
of  Argos.  The  whole  population  were  out  in  their 
Sunday  costumes,  and  no  theatrical  ballet  was  ever 
more  showy  than  the  scene.  They  are  a  very  affec- 
tionate people,  and  walk  usually  hand  in  hand,  or  sit 
upon  the  rocks  at  the  road  side,  with  their  arms  over 
each  other's  shoulders  ;  and  their  picturesque  attitudes 
and  lofty  gait,  combined  with  the  flowing  beauty  of 
their  dress,  give  them  all  the  appearance  of  heroes  on 
the  stage.  I  saw  literally  no  handsome  women,  but 
the  men  were  magnificent,  almost  without  exception. 
Among  others,  a  young  man  passed  us  with  whose 
personal  beauty  the  whole  party  were  struck.  As  he 
went  by  he  laid  his  hand  on  his  breast  and  bowed  to 
the  ladies,  raising  his  red  cap,  with  its  flowing  blue 
tassel,  at  the  same  time  with  perfect  grace.  It  was  a 
young  man  to  whom  I  had  been  introduced  the  day 
previous,  a  brother  of  Mavromichalis,  the  assassin  of 
Capo  d'Istrias.  He  is  about  seventeen,  tall  and  straight 
as  an  arrow,  and  has  the  eye  of  a  falcon.  His  family 
is  one  of  the  first  in  Greece  ;  and  his  brother  who  was 
a  fellow  of  superb  beauty,  is  said  to  have  died  in  the 
true  heroic  style,  believing  that  he  had  rid  his  country 
of  a  tyrant. 

The  view  of  Napoli  and  the  Palamidi  from  the 
plain,  with  its  back  ground  of  the  Spartan  mountains, 
and  the  blue  line  of  the  Argolic  gulf  between,  is  very 
fine.  The  home  of  the  Nemean  lion,  the  lofty  hill 
rising  above  Argos,  was  enveloped  in  a  black  cloud  as 
the  sun  set  on  our  walk,  the  short  twilight  of  Greece 
thickened  upon  us,  and  the  white,  swaying  juktanillas 
of  the  Greeks  striding  past,  had  the  effect  of  spirits 
gliding  by  in  the  dark. 

The  king,  with  his  guard  of  lancers  on  a  hard  trot, 
passed  us  near  the  gate,  followed  close  by  the  Misses 
Armansperg,  mounted  on  fine  Hungarian  horses.  His 
majesty  rides  beautifully,  and  the  effect  of  the  short 
high-DOOM  flag;  on  the  "tips  of  the  lances,  and  the  tall 
Polish  caps  with  their  cord  and  tassels,  is  highly  pic- 
turesque. 


Made  an  excursion  with  the  commodore  across  the 
gulf,  to  Lake  Lerna,  the  home  of  the  hydra.  We  saw 
nothing  save  the  half  dozen  small  marshy  lakes,  whose 
overflow  devastated  the  country,  until  they  were  dam- 
med by  Hercules,  who  is  thus  poetically  said  to  have 
killed  a  many-headed  monster.  We  visited,  near-by, 
"  the  mills,"  which  were  the  scene  of  one  of  the  most 
famous  battles  of  the  late  struggle.  The  mill  is  sup- 
plied by  a  lovely  stream,  issuing  from  beneath  a  rock, 
and  running  a  short  course  of  twenty  or  thirty  rods  to 
the  sea.  It  is  difficult  to  believe  that  human  blood 
has  ever  stained  its  pure  waters. 

Left  Napoli  with  the  daylight  breeze,  and  are  now 
entering  the  Hermionicus  Sinus  A  more  barren  land 
never  rose  upon  the  eye.  The  ancients  considered 
this  part  of  Greece  so  near  to  hell,  that  they  omitted 
to  put  the  usual  obolon  into  the  hands  of  those  who 
died  here,  to  pay  their  passage  across  the  Styx. 

Off  the  town  of  Hydra.  This  is  the  birthplace  of 
Miaulis,  and  its  neighbor  island,  Spesia,  that  of  the  sail- 
or heroine  Bobolina.  It  is  a  heap  of  square  stone  hous- 
es set  on  the  side  of  a  hill,  without  the  slightest  refer- 
ence to  order.  I  see  with  the  glass,  an  old  Greek 
smoking  on  his  balcony,  with  his  feet  over  the  railing, 
and  half  a  dozen  bare-legged  women  getting  a  boat 
into  the  water  on  the  beach.  The  whole  island  has 
a  desolate  and  steril  aspect.  Across  the  strait,  directly 
opposite  the  town,  lies  a  lovely  green  valley,  with  ol 
ive  groves  and  pastures  between,  and  hundreds  of  gray 
cattle  feeding  in  all  the  peace  of  Arcadia.  I  have  seen 
such  pictures  so  seldom  of  late,  that  it  is  like  a  medi 
cine  to  my  sight.  "  The  sea  and  the  sky,"  after  a 
while,  "  lie  like  a  load  on  the  weary  eye." 

In  passing  two  small  islands  just  now,  we  caught  a 
glimpse  between  them  of  the  "John  Adams,"  sloop- 
of-war,  under  full  sail  in  the  opposite  direction.  Five 
minutes  sooner  or  later  we  should  have  missed  her. 
She  has  been  cruising  in  the  archipelago  a  month  or 
two,  waiting  the  commodore's  arrival,  and  has  on  board, 
despatches  and  letters,  which  make  the  meeting  a  very 
exciting  one  to  the  officers.  There  is  a  general  stir  of 
expectation  on  board,  in  which  my  only  share  is  that 
of  sympathy.  She  brings  her  news  from  Smyrna,  to 
which  port,  though  my  course  has  been  errant  enough, 
you  will  scarce  have  thought  of  directing  a  letter  for 


Anchored  off"  the  island  of  Egina,  a  mile  from  the 
town.  The  rocks  which  King  iEacus  (since  Judge 
TEacus  of  the  infernal  regions)  raised  in  the  harbor  to 
keep  off  the  pirates,  prevent  our  nearer  approach.  A 
beautiful  garden  of  oranges  and  figs  close  to  our  an- 
chorage, promises  to  reconcile  us  to  our  position. 
The  little  bay  is  completely  shut  in  by  mountainous 
islands,  and  the  sun  pours  down  upon  us,  unabated  bv 
the  "  wooing  Egean  wind." 


LETTER  LXXXIII. 

THE    MAID    OF    ATHENS ROMANCE    AND     REALITY 

AMERICAN     BENEFACTIONS     TO    GREECE A    GREEK 

WIFE    AND    SCOTTISH    HUSBAND SCHOOL    OF    CAPC 

D'ISTRIAS GRECIAN     DISINTERESTEDNESS RUINS 

OF  THE    MOST    ANCIENT    TEMPLE BEAUTY    OF    THE 

GRECIAN     LANDSCAPE HOPE     FOR     THE     LAND     OF 

EPAMINONDAS  AND  ARISTIDES. 

Island  of  Egina. — The  "Maid  of  Athens,"  in  the 
very  teeth  of  poetry,  has  become  Mrs.  Black  of  Egina! 
The  beautiful  Teresa  Makri,  of  whom  Byron  asked 
back   his  heart,  of  whom  Moore  and  Hobhouse,  and 


128 


PENCILLINGS  BY  THE  WAY. 


the  poet  himself  have  written  so  much  and  so  passion- 
ately, has  forgotten  the  sweet  burtheu  of  the  sweet- 
est of  love  songs,  and  taken  the  unromantic  name, 
and  followed  the  unromantic  fortunes,  of  a  Scotch- 
man ! 

The  commodore  proposed  that  we  should  call  upon 
her  on  our  way  to  the  temple  of  Jupiter,  this  morning. 
We  pulled  up  to  the  town  in  the  barge,  and  landed  on 
the  handsome  pier  built  by  Dr.  Howe  (who  expended 
thus,  most  judiciously,  a  part  of  the  provisions  sent 
from  our  country  in  his  charge),  and,  finding  a  Greek 
in  the  crowd,  who  understood  a  little  Italian,  we  were 
soon  on  our  way  to  Mrs.  Black's.  Our  guide  was  a 
fine,  grave-looking  man  of  forty,  with  a  small  cockade 
on  his  red  cap,  which  indicated  that  he  was  some 
way  in  the  service  of  the  government.  He  laid  his 
hand  on  his  heart,  when  I  asked  him  if  he  had 
known  any  Americans  in  Egina.  "  They  built  this," 
said  he,  pointing  to  the  pier,  the  handsome  granite 
posts  of  which  we  were  passing  at  the  moment.  "  They 
gave  us  bread,  and  meat,  and  clothing,  when  we  should 
otherwise  have  perished."  It  was  said  with  a  look 
and  tone  that  thrilled  me.  I  felt  as  if  the  whole 
debt  of  sympathy  which  Greece  owes  our  country, 
were  repaid  by  this  one  energetic  expression  of  grat- 
itude. 

We  stopped  opposite  a  small  gate,  and  the  Greek 
went  in  without  cards.  It  was  a  small  stone  house  of 
a  story  and  a  half,  with  a  rickety  flight  of  wooden  steps 
at  the  side,  and  not  a  blade  of  grass  or  sign  of  a  flower 
in  court  or  window.  If  there  had  been  but  a  geranium 
in  the  porch,  or  a  rose-tree  by  the  gate,  for  descrip- 
tion's sake. 

Mr.  Black  was  out — Mrs.  Black  was  in.  We  walk- 
ed up  the  creaking  steps,  with  a  Scotch  terrier  barking 
and  snapping  at  our  heels,  and  were  met  at  the  door 
by,  really,  a  very  pretty  woman.  She  smiled  as  I 
apologized  for  our  intrusion,  and  a  sadder  or  a  sweeter 
smile  I  never  saw.  She  said  her  welcome  in  a  few, 
simple  words  of  Italian,  and  I  thought  there  were  few 
sweeter  voices  in  the  world.  I  asked  her  if  she  had 
not  learned  English  yet.  She  colored,  and  said,  "  No, 
signore  !"  and  the  deep  spot  in  her  cheek  faded  gradu- 
ally down,  in  teints  a  painter  would  remember.  Her 
husband,  she  said,  had  wished  to  learn  her  language, 
and  would  never  let  her  speak  English.  I  began  to 
feel  a  prejudice  against  him.  Presently,  a  boy  of  per- 
haps three  years,  came  into  the  room — an  ugly,  white- 
headed,  Scotch-looking  little  ruffian,  thin-lipped  and 
freckled,  and  my  aversion  for  Mr.  Black  became  quite 
decided.  "Did  you  not  regret  leaving  Athens?"  I 
asked.  "  Very  much,  signore,"  she  answered  with 
half  a  sigh  ;  "  but  my  husband  dislikes  Athens." 
Horrid  Mr.  Black  !  thought  I. 

I  wished  to  ask  her  of  Lord  Byron,  but  I  had  heard 
that  the  poet's  admiration  had  occasioned  the  usual 
scandal  attendant  on  every  kind  of  pre-eminence,  and 
her  modest  and  timid  manners,  while  they  assured  me 
of  her  purity  of  heart,  made  me  afraid  to  venture 
where  there  was  even  a  possibility  of  wounding  her. 
She  sat  in  a  drooping  attitude  on  the  coarsely-covered 
divan,  which  occupied  three  sides  of  the  little  room, 
and  it  was  difficult  to  believe  that  any  eye  but  her 
husband's  had  ever  looked  upon  her,  or  that  the 
"wells  of  her  heart"  had  ever  been  drawn  upon  for 
anything  deeper  than  the  simple  duties  of  a  wife  and 
mother. 

She  offered  us  some  sweetmeats,  the  usual  Greek 
compliment  to  visiters,  as  we  rose  to  go,  and  laying 
her  hand  upon  her  heart,  in  the  beautiful  custom 
of  the  country,  requested  me  to  express  her  thanks  to 
the  commodore  for  the  honor  he  had  done  her  in  call- 
ing, and  to  wish  him  and  his  family  every  happiness. 
A  servant-girl,  very  shabbily  dressed,  stood  at  the  side 
door,  and  we  offered   her   some   money,  which  she 


might  have  taken  unnoticed.  She  drew  herself  up 
very  coldly,  and  refused  it,  as  if  she  thought  we  had 
quite  mistaken  her.  In  a  country  where  gifts  of  the 
kind  are  so  universal,  it  spoke  well  for  the  pride  of  the 
family,  at  least. 

I  turned  after  we  had  taken  leave,  and  made  an 
apology  to  speak  to  her  again  ;  for,  in  the  interest  of 
the  general  impression  she  had  made  upon  me,  I  had 
forgotten  to  notice  her  dress,  and  I  was  not  sure  that 
I  could  remember  a  single  feature  of  her  face.  We 
had  called  unexpectedly  of  course,  and  her  dress  was 
very  plain.  A  red  cloth  cap  bound  about  the  temples, 
with  a  colored  shawl,  whose  folds  were  mingled  with 
large  braids  of  dark  brown  hair,  and  decked  with  a 
tassel  of  blue  silk,  which  fell  to  her  left  shoulder, 
formed  her  head-dress.  In  other  respects  she  was 
dressed  like  a  European.  She  is  a  little  above  the 
middle  height,  slightly  and  well  formed,  and  walks 
weakly,  like  most  Greek  women,  as  if  her  feet  were 
too  small  for  her  weight.  Her  skin  is  dark  and  clear, 
and  she  has  a  color  in  her  cheek  and  lips  that  looks  to 
me  consumptive.  Her  teeth  are  white  and  regular, 
her  face  oval,  and  her  forehead  and  nose  form  the 
straight  line  of  the  Grecian  model — one  of  the  few  in- 
stances I  have  ever  seen  of  it.  Her  eyes  are  large, 
and  of  a  soft,  liquid  hazel,  and  this  is  her  chief  beauty. 
There  is  that  "  looking  out  of  the  soul  through  them," 
which  Byron  always  described  as  constituting  the  love- 
liness that  most  moved  him.  I  made  up  my  mind,  as 
we  walked  away,  that  she  would  be  a  lovely  woman 
anywhere.  Her  horrid  name,  and  the  unpreposses- 
sing circumstances  in  which  we  found  her,  had  un- 
charmed,  I  thought,  all  poetical  delusion  that  would 
naturally  surround  her  as  the  "Maid  of  Athens."  We 
met  her  as  simple  Mrs.  Black,  whose  Scotch  hus- 
band's terrier  had  worried  us  at  her  door,  and  we  left 
her,  feeling  that  the  poetry  which  she  had  called  forth 
from  the  heart  of  Byron,  was  her  due  by  every  law  of 
loveliness. 

From  the  house  of  the  maid  of  Athens  we  walked 
to  the  school  of  Capo  d'Istrias.  It  is  a  spacious  stone 
quadrangle,  enclosing  a  court  handsomely  railed  and 
gravelled,  and  furnished  with  gymnastic  apparatus. 
School  was  out,  and  perhaps  a  hundred  and  fifty 
boys  were  playing  in  the  area.  An  intelligent-looking 
man  accompanied  us  through  the  museum  of  antiqui- 
ties, where  we  saw  nothing  very  much  worth  noticing, 
after  the  collections  of  Rome,  and  to  the  library,  where 
there  was  a  superb  bust  of  Capo  d'Istrias,  done  by  a 
Roman  artist.  It  is  a  noble  head,  resembling  Wash- 
ington. 

We  bought  a  large  basket  of  grapes  for  a  few  cents 
in  returning  to  the  boat,  and  offered  money  to  one  or 
two  common  men  who  had  been  of  assistance  to  us, 
but  no  one  would  receive  it.  I  italicise  the  remark,  be- 
cause the  Greeks  are  so  often  stigmatized  as  utterly 
mercenary. 

We  pulled  along  the  shore,  passing  round  the  point 
on  which  stands  a  single  fluted  column,  the  only  re- 
mains of  a  magnificent  temple  of  Venus,  and,  getting 
the  wind,  hoisted  a  sail,  and  ran  down  the  northern 
side  of  the  island  five  or  six  miles,  till  we  arrived  op- 
posite the  mountain  on  which  stands  the  temple  of 
Jupiter  Panhetlenios.  The  view  of  it  from  the  sea 
was  like  that  of  a  temple  drawn  on  the  sky.  It  occu- 
pies the  very  peak  of  the  mountain,  and  is  seen  many 
miles  on  either  side  by  the  mariner  of  the  Egean. 

A  couple  of  wild-looking,  handsome  fellows,  bare- 
headed and  barelegged,  with  shirts  and  trowsers 
reaching  to  the  knee,  lay  in  a  small  caique  under 
the  shore;  and,  as  we  landed,  the  taller  of  the  two 
laid  his  hand  on  his  breast,  and  offered  to  conduct 
us  to  the  temple.     The  ascent  was  about  a  mile. 

We  toiled  over  ploughed  fields,  with  here  and  there 
a  cluster  of  fig  trees,  wild  patches  of  rock  and  brier. 


PENCILLINGS  BY  THE  WAY. 


129 


and  an  occasional  wall,  and  arrived  breathless  at  the 
top,  where  a  cool  wind  met  us  from  the  other  side  of 
the  sea  with  delicious  refreshment. 

We  sat  down  among  the  ruins  of  the  oldest  temple 
of  Greece  after  that  of  Corinth.  Twenty-three  noble 
columns  still  lifted  their  heads  over  us,  after  braving 
the  tempests  of  more  than  two  thousand  years.  The 
ground  about  was  piled  up  with  magnificent  frag- 
ments of  marble,  preserving,  even  in  their  fall,  the 
sharp  edges  of  the  admirable  sculpture  of  Greece. 
The  Doric  capital,  the  simple  frieze,  the  well-fitted 
frustra,  might  almost  be  restored  in  the  perfection 
with  which  they  were  left  by  the  last  touch  of  the 
chisel. 

The  view  hence  comprised  a  classic  world.  There 
was  Athens  !  The  broad  mountain  over  the  intensely 
blue  gulf  at  our  feet  was  Hy  mettus,  and  a  bright  white 
summit  as  of  a  mound  between  it  and  the  sea,  glitter- 
ing brightly  in  the  sun,  was  the  venerable  pile  of  tem- 
ples in  the  Acropolis.  To  the  left,  Corinth  was  dis- 
tinguishable over  its  low  isthmus,  and  Megara  and 
Salamis,  and  following  down  the  wavy  line  of  the 
mountains  of  Attica,  the  promontory  of  Sunium,  mod- 
ern Cape  Colonna,  dropped  the  horizon  upon  the  sea. 
One  might  sit  out  his  life  amid  these  loftily-placed 
ruins,  and  scarce  exhaust  in  thought  the  human  his- 
tory that  has  unrolled  within  the  scope  of  his  eye. 

We  passed  two  or  three  hours  wandering  about 
among  the  broken  columns,  and  gazing  away  to  the 
main  and  the  distant  isles,  confessing  the  surpassing 
beauty  of  Greece.  Yet  have  its  mountains  scarce  a 
green  spot,  and  its  vales  are  treeless  and  uninhabited, 
and  all  that  constitutes  desolation  is  there,  and  strange 
as  it  may  seem,  you  neither  miss  the  verdure,  nor  the 
people,  nor  find  it  desolate.  The  outline  of  Greece, 
in  the  first  place,  is  the  finest  in  the  world.  The 
mountains  lean  down  into  the  valleys,  and  the  plains 
swell  up  to  the  mountains,  and  the  islands  rise  from 
the  sea,  with  a  mixture  of  boldness  and  grace  alto- 
gether peculiar.  In  the  most  lonely  parts  of  the 
Egean,  where  you  can  see  no  trace  of  a  human  foot, 
it  strikes  you  like  a  foreign  land.  Then  the  atmos- 
phere is  its  own,  and  it  exceeds  that  of  Italy,  far.  It 
gives  it  the  look  of  a  landscape  seen  through  a  faintly- 
teinted  glass.  Soft  blue  mists  of  the  most  rarefied  and 
changing  shapes  envelop  the  mountains  on  the  clear- 
est day,  and  without  obscuring  the  most  distant  points 
perceptibly,  give  hill  and  vale  a  beauty  that  surpasses 
that  of  verdure.  I  never  saw  such  air  as  I  see  in 
Greece.  It  has  the  same  effect  on  the  herbless  and 
rocky  scenery  about  us,  as  a  veil  over  the  face  of  a 
woman. 

The  islander  who  had  accompanied  us  to  the  tem- 
ple, stood  on  a  fragment  of  a  column,  still  as  a  statue, 
looking  down  upon  the  sea  toward  Athens.     His  fig- 
ure for  athletic  grace  of  mould,  and  his  head  and  fea- 
tures, for  the  expression  of  manly  beauty  and  charac- 
ter, might  have  been  models  to  Phidias.     The  beau- 
tiful and  poetical  land,  of  which  he  inherited  his  share 
of  unparalleled  glory,  lay  around  him.     I  asked  myself 
why  it  should  have  become,  as  it  seems  to  be,  the  de- 
spair of  the  philanthropist.     Why  should  its  people, 
who,  in  the  opinion  of  Child  Harold,  are  "nature's  fa- 
vorites still,"  be  branded  and  abandoned  as  irreclaima-  ! 
blc  rogues,  and  the  source  to  which  we  owe,  even  to  j 
this  day,  our  highest  models  of  taste,  be  neglected  and  ' 
forgotten  ?     The  nine  days'   enthusiasm  for  Greece 
has  died  away,  and  she  has  received  a  king  from  a  j 
family  of  despots.     But  there  seems  to  me  in  her  very  j 
beauty,  and  in  the  still  superior  qualities  of  her  chil-  I 
dren,  wherever  they  have  room  for   competition,   a 
promise  of  resuscitation.     The  convulsions  of  Europe 
may  leave  her  soon  to  herself,  and  the  slipper  of  the 
Turk,  and  the  hand  of  the  Christian,  once  lifted  fairly 
from  her  neck,  she  will  rise,  and  stand  up  amid  these 
imperishable  temples,  once  more/re«  / 


LETTER  LXXXIV. 

ATHENS — RUINS  OF  THE  PARTHENON THE  ACROPO- 
LIS  TEMPLE  OF  THESEUS THE  OLDEST  OF  ATHE- 
NIAN ANTIQUITIES BURIAL-PLACE    OF    THE  SON  OF 

MIAULIS REFLECTIONS  ON  STANDING  WHERE  PLATO 

TAUGHT,  AND  DEMOSTHENES  HARANGUED BAVARI- 
AN SENTINEL TURKISH  MOSQUE,  ERECTED  WITHIN 

THE  SANCTUARY  OF    THE    PARTHENON WRETCHED 

HABITATIONS  OF  THE  MODERN  ATHENIANS. 

Egean  Sea. — We  got  underway  this  morning,  and 
stood  toward  Athens,  followed  by  the  sloop-of-war, 
John  Adams,  which  had  come  to  anchor  under  our 
stern  the  evening  of  our  arrival  at  Egina.  The  day  19 
like  every  day  of  the  Grecian  summer,  heavenly.  The 
stillness  and  beauty  of  a  new  world  lie  about  us.  The 
ships  steal  on  with  their  clouds  of  canvass  just  filling 
in  the  li°ht  breeze  of  the  Egean,  and  withdrawing  the 
eye  from  the  lofty  temple  crowning  the  mountain  on 
our  lee,  whose  shining  columns  shift  slowly  as  we  pass ; 
we  could  believe  ourselves  asleep  on  the  sea.  I  have 
been  repeating  to  myself  the  beautiful  reflection  of 
Servius  Sulpitius,  which  occurs  in  his  letter  of  condo- 
lence to  Cicero,  on  the  death  of  his  daughter,  written 
on  this  very  spot.  *"On  my  return  from  Asia,"  he 
says,  "  as  I  was  sailing  from  Egina  toward  Megara,  I 
began  to  contemplate  the  prospect  of  the  countries 
around  me.  Egina  was  behind,  Megara  before  me  ; 
Piraeus  on  the  right,  Corinth  on  the  left;  all  which 
towns,  once  famous  and  flourishing,  now  lie  overturn- 
ed and  buried  in  the  ruins ;  upon  this  sight,  I  could 
not  but  presently  think  within  myself,  '  Alas !  how  do 
we  poor  mortals  fret  and  vex  ourselves  if  any  of  our 
friends  happen  to  die  or  be  killed,  whose  life  is  yet  so 
short,  when  the  carcases  of  so  many  cities  lie  here  ex- 
posed before  me  in  one  view.'  " 

The  columns  of  the  Parthenon  are  easily  distin- 
guishable with  the  glass,  and  to  the  right  of  the  Acrop- 
olis, in  the  plain,  I  see  a  group  of  tall  ruins,  which  by 
the  position  must  be  near  the  banks  of  the  llissus.  I 
turn  the  glass  upon  the  sides  of  the  mount  Hymettus, 
whose  beds  of  thyme,  "the  long,  long  summer  gilds," 
and  I  can  scarce  believe  that  the  murmur  of  the  bees 
is  not  stealing  over  the  water  to  my  ear.  Can  this  be 
Athens?  Are  these  the  same  isles  and  mountains  Al- 
cibiades  saw,  returning  with  his  victorious  galleys  from 
the  Hellespont ;  the  same  that  faded  on  the  long  gaze 
of  the  conqueror  of  Salamis,  leaving  his  ungrateful 
country  for  exile  :  the  same  that  to  have  seen,  for  a 
Roman,  was  to  be  complete  as  a  man;  the  same  whose 
proud  dames  wore  the  golden  grasshopper  in  their 
hair,  as  a  boasting  token  that  they  had  sprung  from 
the  soil ;  the  same  where  Pericles  nursed  the  arts,  and 
Socrates  and  Plato  taught  "humanity,"  and  Epicurus 
walked  with  his  disciples,  looking  for  truth?  What 
an  offset  are  these  thrilling  thoughts,  with  the  nearing 
view  in  my  sight,  to  a  whole  calendar  of  common  mis- 
fortune! 

Dropped  anchor  in  the  Piraeus,  the  port  of  Athens. 
The  city  is  five  miles  in  the  interior,  and  the  "arms 
of  Athens,"  as  the  extending  walls  were  called,  stretch- 
ed in  the  times  of  the  republic  from  the  Acropolis  to 
the  sea.  The  Piraeus,  now  nearly  a  deserted  port, 
with  a  few  wretched  houses,  was  then  a  large  city.  It 
wants  an  hour  to  sunset,  and  I  am  about  starting  with 
one  of  the  officers  to  walk  to  Athens. 

Five  miles  more  sacred  in  history  than  those  be- 
tween the  Piraeus  and  the  Acropolis,  do  not  exist  in 
the  world.  We  walked  them  in  about  two  hours, 
with  a  golden  sunset  at  our  backs,  and  the  excitement 
inseparable  from  an  approach  to  "the  eye  of  Greece," 
giving  elasticity  to  our  steps.     Near  the  Parthenon, 

•  "  Ex  Asia  rediens,"  etc.— I  have  given  the  translation  frorn 
Middleton's  Cicero. 


130 


PENCILLINGS  BY  THE  WAY. 


which  had  been  glowing  in  a  flood  of  saffron  light  be- 
fore us,  the  road  separated,  and  taking  the  right,  we 
entered  the  city  by  its  southern  gate.  A  tall  Greek, 
who  was  returning  from  the  plains  with  a  gun  on  his 
shoulder,  led  us  through  the  narrow  streets  of  the 
modern  town  to  a  hotel,  where  a  comfortable  supper, 
of  which  the  most  attractive  circumstance  to  me  was 
some  honey  from  Hymettus,  brought  us  to  bed-time. 

We  were  standing  under  the  colonnades  of  the 
temples  of  Theseus,  the  oldest,  and  the  best  preserved 
of  the  antiquities  of  Athens,  at  an  early  hour.  We 
walked  around  it  in  wonder.  The  sun  that  threw  in- 
ward the  shadows  of  its  beautiful  columns,  had  risen 
on  that  eastern  porch  for  more  than  two  thousand 
years,  and  it  is  still  the  transcendent  model  of  the 
world.  The  Parthenon  was  a  copy  of  it.  The  now 
venerable  and  ruined  temples  of  Rome,  were  built  in 
its  proportions  when  it  was  already  an  antiquity.  The 
modern  edifices  of  every  civilized  nation  are  considered 
faulty  only  as  they  depart  from  it.  How  little  dream- 
ed the  admirable  Grecian,  when  its  proportions  rose 
gradually  to  his  patient  thought,  that  the  child  of  his 
teeming  imagination  would  be  so  immortal! 

The  situation  of  the  Theseion  has  done  much  to 
preserve  it.  It  stands  free  of  the  city,  while  the  Par- 
thenon and  the  other  temples  of  the  Acropolis,  being 
within  the  citadel,  have  been  battered  by  every  assail- 
ant, from  the  Venetian  to  the  ikonoklast  and  the  Turk. 
It  looks  at  a  little  distance  like  a  modern  structure,  its 
parts  are  so  nearly  perfect.  It  is  only  on  coming  close 
to  the  columns  that  you  see  the  stains  in  the  marble 
to  be  the  corrosion  of  the  long-feeding  tooth  of  ages. 
A  young  Englishman  is  buried  within  the  nave  of  the 
temple,  and  the  son  of  Miaulis,  said  to  have  been  a 
young  man  worthy  of  the  best  days  of  Greece,  lies  in 
the  eastern  porch,  with  the  weeds  growing  rank  over 
his  grave. 

We  passed  a  handsome  portico,  standing  alone  amid 
a  heap  of  ruins.  It  was  the  entrance  to  the  ancient 
Agora.  Here  assembled  the  people  of  Athens,  the 
constituents  and  supporters  of  Pericles,  the  first  pos- 
sessors of  these  god-like  temples.  Here  were  sown, 
in  the  ears  of  the  Athenians,  the  first  seeds  of  glory 
and  sedition,  by  patriots  and  demagogues,  in  the  stir- 
ring days  of  Plataea  and  Marathon.  Here  was  it  first 
whispered  that  Aristides  had  been  too  long  called 
"  the  just,"  and  that  Socrates  corrupted  the  youth  of 
Athens.  And,  for  a  lighter  thought,  it  was  here  that 
the  wronged  wife  of  Alcibiades,  compelled  to  come 
forth  publicly  and  sign  her  divorce,  was  snatched  up 
in  the  arms  of  her  brilliant,  but  dissolute  husband,  and 
carried  forcibly  home,  forgiving  him,  woman-like,  with 
but  half  a  repentance.  The  feeling  with  which  I  read 
the  story  when  a  boy,  is  strangely  fresh  in  my  memory. 

We  hurried  on  to  the  Acropolis.  The  ascent  is 
winding  and  difficult,  and,  near  the  gates,  encumbered 
with  marble  rubbish.  Volumes  have  been  written  on 
the  antiquities  which  exist  still  within  the  walls.  The 
greater  part  of  four  unrivalled  temples  are  still  lifted  to 
the  sun  by  this  tall  rock  in  the  centre  of  Athens,  the 
majestic  Parthenon,  visible  over  half  Greece,  towering 
above  all.  A  Bavarian  soldier  received  our  passport 
at  the  gate.  He  was  resting  the  butt  of  his  musket 
on  a  superb  bas-relief,  a  fragment  from  the  ruins. 
How  must  the  blood  of  a  Greek  boil  to  see  a  barbarian 
thus  set  to  guard  the  very  sanctuary  of  his  glory. 

We  stood  under  the  portico  of  the  Parthenon,  and 
looked  down  on  Greece.  Right  through  a  broad  gap 
in  the  mountains,  as  if  they  had  been  swept  away  that 
Athens  might  be  seen,  stood  the  shining  Acropolis  of 
Corinth.  I  strained  my  eyes  to  see  Diogenes  lying 
under  the  walls,  and  Alexander  standing  in  his  sun- 
shine. "Sea-born  Salamis"  was  beneath  me,  but  the 
"ships  by  thousands"  were  not  there,  and  the  king  had 


vanished  from  his  "  rocky  throne"  with  his  "  men  and 
nations."  JEgina  lay  far  down  the  gulf,  folded  in  its 
blue  mist,  and  I  strained  my  sight  to  see  Aristides 
wandering  in  exile  on  its  shore.  "  Mars  Hill,"  was 
within  the  sound  of  my  voice,  but  its  Areopagus  was 
deserted  of  its  judges,  and  the  intrepid  apostle  was 
gone.  The  rostrum  of  Demosthenes,  and  the  acad- 
emy of  Plato,  and  the  banks  of  the  llissus,  where  Soc- 
rates and  Zeno  taught,  were  all  around  me,  but  the 
wily  orator,  and  the, philosopher  "on  whose  infant  lips 
the  bees  shed  honey  as  he  slept,"  and  he  whose  death 
and  doctrine  have  been  compared  to  those  of  Christ, 
and  the  self-denying  stoic,  were  alike  departed.  Si- 
lence and  ruin  brood  over  all ! 

I  walked  through  the  nave  of  the  Parthenon,  passing 
a  small  Turkish  mosque  (built  sacrilegiously  by  the 
former  Disdar  of  Athens,  within  its  very  sanctuary), 
and  mounted  the  southeastern  rampart  of  the  Acrop- 
olis. Through  the  plain  beneath  ran  the  classic  ll- 
issus, and  on  its  banks  stood  the  ruins  of  the  temple 
of  Jupiter  Olympus,  which  I  had  distinguished  with 
the  glass  in  coming  up  the  Egean.  The  llissus  was 
nearly  dry,  but  a  small  island  covered  with  verdure  di- 
vided its  waters  a  short  distance  above  the  temple,  and 
near  it  were  distinguishable  the  foundations  of  the 
Lyceum.  Aristotle  and  his  Peripatetics  ramble  there 
no  more.  A  herd  of  small  Turkish  horses  were  feed- 
ing up  toward  Hymettus,  the  only  trace  of  life  in  a 
valley  that  was  once  alive  with  the  brightest  of  the 
tides  of  human  existence. 

The  sun  poured  into  the  Acropolis  with  an  inten 
sity  I  have  seldom  felt.  The  morning  breeze  had 
died  away,  and  the  glare  from  the  bright  marble  ruins 
was  almost  intolerable  to  the  eye.  I  climbed  around 
over  the  heaps  of  fragmented  columns,  and  maimed  and 
fallen  statues,  to  the  northwestern  corner  of  the  cita- 
adel,  and  sat  down  in  the  shade  of  one  of  the  embra- 
sures to  look  over  toward  Plato's  academy.  The  part 
of  the  city  below  this  corner  of  the  wall  was  the  an- 
cient Pelasgicum.  It  was  from  the  spot  where  I  sat 
that  Parrhesiades,  the  fisherman,  is  represented  in 
Lucian  to  have  angled  for  philosophers,  with  a  hook 
baited  with  gold  and  figs. 

The  academy  (to  me  the  most  interesting  spot  of 
Athens)  is  still  shaded  with  olive  groves,  as  in  the 
time  of  Plato.  The  Cephissus,  whose  gentle  flow  has 
mingled  its  murmur  with  so  much  sweet  philosophy, 
was  hidden  from  my  sight  by  the  numberless  trees.  I 
looked  toward  the  spot  with  inexpressible  interest.  I 
had  not  yet  been  near  enough  to  dispel  the  illusion. 
To  me,  the  academy  was  still  beneath  those  silvery 
olives  in  all  its  poetic  glory.  The  "Altar  of  Love" 
still  stood  before  the  entrance;  the  temple  of  Prome- 
theus, the  sanctuary  of  the  Muses,  the  statues  of 
Plato  and  of  the  Graces,  the  sacred  olive,  the  tank  in 
the  coal  gardens,  and  the  tower  of  the  railing  Timon, 
were  all  there.  I  could  almost  have  waited  till  even- 
ing to  see  Epicurus  and  Leontium,  Socrates  and  As- 
pasia,  returning  to  Athens. 

We  passed  the  Tower  of  the  Winds,  the  ancient 
Klepsydra  or  water-clock  of  Athens,  in  returning  to 
the  hotel.  The  Eight  Winds  sculptured  on  the  oc- 
tagonal sides,  are  dressed  according  to  their  tempera- 
tures, six  of  them  being  more  or  less  draped,  and  the 
remaining  two  nude.  It  is  a  small  marble  building, 
more  curious  than  beautiful. 

Our  way  lay  through  the  sultry  streets  of  modern 
Athens.  I  can  give  you  an  idea  of  it  in  a  single  sen- 
tence. It  is  a  large  village,  of  originally  mean  houses, 
pulled  down  to  the  very  cellars,  and  lying  choked  in  its 
rubbish.  A* large  square  in  ruins  after  a  fire  in  one  of 
our  cities,  looks  like  it.  It  has  been  destroyed  so  often 
by  Turks  and  Greeks  alternately,  that  scarce  one  stone 
is  left  upon  the  other.  The  inhabitants  thatch  over 
one  corner  of  these  wretched   and  dusty  holes  with 


PENCILLLNGS  BY  THE  WAY. 


131 


maize  stalks  and  straw,  and  live  there  like  beasts.  The 
fineness  of  the  climate  makes  a  roof  almost  unneces- 
sary for  eight  months  in  the  year.  The  consuls  and 
authorities  of  the  place,  and  the  missionaries,  have 
tolerable  houses,  but  the  paths  to  them  are  next  to 
impracticable  for  the  rubbish.  Nothing  but  a  Turk- 
ish horse,  which  could  be  ridden  up  a  precipice,  would 
ever  pick  his  way  through  the  streets. 


LETTER  LXXXV. 

THE  "LANTERN  OF  DEMOSTHENES" — BYRON's  RESIDENCE 
IN    ATHENS — TEMPLE    OF    JUPITER   OLYMPUS,    SEVEN 

HUNDRED  YEARS  IN  BUILDING SUPERSTITIOUS  FANCY 

OF  THE  ATHENIANS  RESPECTING  ITS  RUINS — HERMIT- 
AGE OF  A  GREEK  MONK — PETARCHES,  THE  ANTIQUA- 
RY AND  POET,  AND  HIS  WIFE,  SISTER  TO  THE  "  MAID 
OF  ATHENS" — MUTILATION  OF  A  BASSO  RELIEVO  BY  AN 
ENGLISH  OFFICER THE  ELGIN  MARBLES — THE  CARY- 
ATIDES—LORD   BYRON'S    AUTOGRAPH ATTACHMENT 

Or  THE  GREEKS  TO  DR.  HOWE — THE   SLIDING  STONE 

A  SCENE  IN  THE  ROSTRUM  OF  DEMOSTHENES. 

Took  a  walk  by  sunset  to  the  Ilissus.  I  passed,  on 
the  way,  the  "  Lantern  of  Demosthenes,"  a  small  oc- 
tagonal building  of  marble,  adorned  with  splendid  col- 
umns and  a  beautifully-sculptured  frieze,  in  which  it 
is  said  the  orator  used  to  shut  himself  for  a  month, 
with  his  head  half  shaved,  to  practise  his  orations. 
The  Franciscan  convent,  Byron's  residence  while  in 
Athens,  was  built  adjoining  it.  It  is  now  demolished. 
The  poet's  name  is  written  with  his  own  hand  on  a 
marble  slab  of  the  wall. 

I  left  the  city  by  the  gate  of  Hadrian,  and  walked  on 
to  the  temple  of  Jupiter  Olympus.  It  crowns  a  small 
elevation  on  the  northern  bank  of  the  Ilissus.  It  was 
onre  beyond  all  comparison  the  largest  and  most  costly 
building  in  the  world.  During  seven  hundred  years 
it  employed  the  attention  of  the  rulers  of  Greece,  from 
Pisistratus  to  Hadrian,  and  was  never  quite  completed. 
As  a  ruin  it  is  the  most  beautiful  object  I  ever  saw. 
Thirteen  columns  of  Pentelic  marble,  partly  connect- 
ed by  a  frieze,  are  all  that  remain.  They  are  of  the 
flowery  Corinthian  order,  and  sixty  feet  in  height,  ex- 
clusive of  base  or  capital. 

Three  perfect  columns  stand  separate  from  the  rest, 
and  lift  from  the  midst  of  that  solitary  plain  with  an 
effect  that,  to  my  mind,  is  one  of  the  highest  sublim- 
ity. The  sky  might  rest  on  them.  They  seem  made 
to  sustain  it.  As  I  lay  on  the  parched  grass  and  gazed 
on  them  in  the  glory  of  a  Grecian  sunset,  they  seemed 
to  me  proportioned  for  a  continent.  The  mountains 
I  saw  between  them  were  not  designed  with  more  am- 
plitude, nor  corresponded  more  nobly  to  the  sky  above. 

The  people  of  Athens  have  a  superstitious  reverence 
for  these  ruins.  Dodwell  says,  "The  single  column 
toward  the  western  extremity  was  thrown  down,  many 
years  ago.  by  a  Turkish  voivode,  for  the  sake  of  the 
materials,  which  were  employed  in  constructing  the 
great  mosque  of  the  bazar.  The  Athenians  relate, 
that,  after  it  was  thrown  down,  the  three  others  nearest 
it  were  heard  to  lament  the  loss  of  their  sister!  and 
these  nocturnal  lamentations  did  not  cease  till  the 
sacrilegious  voivode  was  destroyed  by  poison. 

Two  of  the  columns,  connected  by  one  immense 
slab,  are  surmounted  by  a  small  building,  now  in  ruins, 
but  once  the  hermitage  of  a  Greek  monk.  Here  he 
passed  his  life,  seventy  feet  in  the  air,  sustained  by  two 
of  the  most  graceful  columns  of  Greece.  A  basket, 
lowered  by  a  line,  was  filled  by  the  pious  every  morn- 
ing, but  the  romantic  eremite  was  never  seen.  With 
the  lofty  Acropolis  crowned  with  temples  just  bevond 
him,  the  murmuring  Ilissus  below,  the  thyme-covered 
sides  of  Hymettus  to  the  south,  and  the  "blue  Egean  | 


stretching  away  to  the  west,  his  eye,  at  least,  could 
never  tire.  There  are  times  when  I  could  envy  him 
his  lift  above  the  world. 

I  descended  to  the  Fountain  of  Callirhne,  which 
gushes  from  beneath  a  rock  in  the  bed  of  the  Jlissus, 
just  below  the  temple.  It  is  the  scene  of  the  death 
of  the  lovely  nymph-mother  of  Ganymede.  The  twi- 
light air  was  laden  with  the  fragrant  thyme,  and  the 
songs  of  the  Greek  laborers  returning  from  the  fields 
came  faintly  over  the  plains.  Life  seems  too  short, 
when  every  breath  is  a  pleasure.  I  loitered  about  the 
clear  and  rocky  lip  of  the  fountain,  till  the  pool  below 
reflected  the  stars  in  its  trembling  bosom.  The  lamps 
began  to  twinkle  in  Athens,  Hesperus  rose  over  Mount 
Pentelicus  like  a  blazing  lamp,  the  sky  over  Salamis 
faded  down  to  the  sober  teint  of  night,  and  the  columns 
of  the  Parthenon  mingled  into  a  single  mass  of  shade. 
And  so,  I  thought,  as  I  strolled  back  to  the  city,  con- 
cludes a  day  in  Athens — one,  at  least,  in  my  life,  for 
j  which  it  is  worth  the  trouble  to  have  lived.  "• 

I  was  again  in  the  Acropolis  the  following  morning. 
Mr.  Hill  had  kindly  given  me  a  note  to  Petarches 
the  king's  antiquary,  a  young  Athenian,  who  married 
the  sister  of  the  Maid  of  Athens.*  AVe  went  together 
through  the  ruins.  They  have  lately  made  new  exca- 
vations, and  some  superb  bassi-relieii  are  among  the 
discoveries.  One  of  them  represented  a  procession 
leading  victims  to  sacrifice,  and  was  quite  the  finest 
thing  I  ever  saw.  The  leading  figure  was  a  superb 
female,  from  the  head  of  which  the  nose  had  lately 
been  barbarously  broken.  The  face  of  the  enthusi- 
astic antiquary  flushed  while  I  was  lamenting  it.  It 
was  done,  he  told  me,  but  a  week  before,  by  an  officer 
of  the  English  squadron  then  lying  at  the  Piraeus. 
Petarches  detected  it  immediately,  and  sent  word  to 
the  admiral,  who  discovered  the  heartless  Goth  in  a 
j  nephew  of  an  English  duke,  a  midshipman  of  his  own 
ship.  I  should  not  have  taken  the  trouble  to  men- 
|  tion  so  revolting  a  circumstance  if  I  had  not  seen,  in  a 
|  splendid  copy  of  the  "Illustrations  of  Byron's  Travels 
[  in  Greece,"  a  most  virulent  attack  on  the  officers  of 
j  the  Constellation,  and  Americans  generally,  for  the 
same  thing.  Who  but  Englishmen  have  robbed 
Athens,  and  Egina,  and  all  Greece  ?  Who  but  Eng- 
lishmen are  watched  like  thieves  in  their  visits  to  every 
place  of  curiQsity  in  the  world  ?  Where  is  the  superb 
caryatid  of  the  Erechtheion?  stolen,  with  such  bar- 
barous carelessness,  too,  that  the  remaining  statues 
and  the  superb  portico  they  sustained  are  tumblingto 
the  ground  !  The  insolence  of  England's  laying  such 
sins  at  the  door  of  another  nation  is  insufferable. 

For  my  own  part,  I  can  not  conceive  the  motive  for 
carrying  away  a  fragment  of  a  statue  or  a  column.  I 
should  as  soon  think  of  drawing  a  tooth  as  a  specimen 
of  some  beautiful  woman  I  had  seen  in  my  travels. 
And  how  one  dare  show  such  a  theft  to  any  person  of 
taste,  is  quite  as  singular.  Even  when  a  whole  column 
or  statue  is  carried  away,  its  main  charm  is  gone  with 
the  association  of  the  place.  I  venture  to  presume, 
that  no  person  of  classic  feeling  ever  saw  Lord  Elgin's 
marbles  without  execrating  the  folly  that  could  bring 
them  from  their  bright,  native  sky,  to  the  vulgar  atmo- 
sphere of  London.  For  the  love  of  taste,  let  us  dis- 
countenance such  barbarisms  in  America. 

The  Erechtheion  and  the  adjoining  temple  are  gems 
of  architecture.  The  small  portico  of  the  caryatides 
(female  figures,  in  the  place  of  columns,  with  their 
hands  on  their  hips)  must  have  been  one  of  the  most 
exquisite  things  in  Greece.  One  of  them  (fallen  in 
consequence  of  Lord  Elgin's  removal   of  the  sister 

*  You  will  recollect  what  Byron  says  of  these  three  girls 
in  one  of  his  letters  to  Dr.  Drtiry :  "  I  had  almost  forgot  to 
tell  you,  that  I  am  dying  for  love  of  three  Greek  girls,  at 
Athens,  sisters.     I  lived  in  the  same  house.     Teresa,  Mar- 

cama,  and  Katinka,  are  the  names  of  these  divinities ail 

under  fifteen." 


132 


PENCILLINGS  BY  THE  WAY. 


statue),  lies  headless  on  the  ground,  and  the  remaining 
ones  are  badly  mutilated,  but  they  are  very,  very  beau- 
tiful. I  remember  two  in  the  Villa  Albani,  at  Rome, 
brought  from  some  other  temple  in  Greece,  and  con- 
sidered the  choicest  gems  of  the  gallery. 

We  climbed  up  to  the  sanctuary  of  the  Erechtheion, 
in  which  stood  the  altars  to  the  two  elements  to  which 
the  temples  were  dedicated.  The  sculpture  around 
the  cornices  is  still  so  sharp  that  it  might  have  been 
finished  yesterday.  The  young  antiquary  alluded  to 
Byron's  anathema  against  Lord  Elgin,  in  Chile  Har- 
old, and  showed  me,  on  the  inside  of  the  capital  of 
one  of  the  columns,  the  place  where  the  poet  had 
written  his  name.  It  was,  as  he  always  wrote  it,  sim- 
ply "  Byron,"  in  small  letters,  and  would  not  be  noticed 
by  an  ordinary  observer. 

If  the  lover,  as  the  poet  sings,  was  jealous  of  the 
star  his  mistress  gazed  upon,  the  sister  of  the  "  Maid 
of  Athens"  may  well  be  jealous  of  the  Parthenon. 
Petarches  looks  at  it  and  talks  of  it  with  a  fever  in  his 
eyes.  I  could  not  help  smiling  at  his  enthusiasm. 
He  is  about  twenty-five,  of  a  slender  person,  with 
downcast,  melancholy  eyes,  and  looks  the  poet  ac- 
cording to  the  most  received  standard.  His  reserved 
manners  melted  toward  me  on  discovering  that  I  knew 
our  countryman,  Dr.  Howe,  who,  he  tells  me,  was  his 
groomsman  (or  the  corresponding  assistant  at  a  Greek 
wedding),  and  to  whom  he  seems,  in  common  with  all 
his  countrymen,  warmly  attached.  To  a  man  of  his 
taste,  I  can  conceive  nothing  more  gratifying  than  his 
appointment  to  the  care  of  the  Acropolis.  He  spends 
his  day  there  with  his  book,  attending  the  few  travel- 
lers who  come,  and  when  the  temples  are  deserted,  he 
sits  down  in  the  shadow  of  a  column,  and  reads  amid 
the  silence  of  the  ruins  he  almost  worships.  There 
are  {ew  vocations  in  this  envious  world  so  separated 
from  the  jarring  passions  of  our  nature. 

Passed  the  morning  on  horseback,  visiting  the  an- 
tiquities without  the  city.  Turning  by  the  temple  of 
Theseus,  we  crossed  Mars  Hill,  the  seat  of  the  Are- 
opagus, and  passing  a  small  valley,  ascended  the  Pnyx. 
On  the  right  of  the  path  we  observed  the  rock  of  the 
hill  worn  to  the  polish  of  enamel  by  friction.  It  was 
an  almost  perpendicular  descent  of  six  or  seven  feet, 
and  steps  were  cut  at  the  sides  to  mouni  to  the  top. 
It  is  the  famous  sliding  stone,  believed  by  the  Athenians 
to  possess  the  power  of  determining  the  sex  of  unborn 
children.  The  preference  of  sons,  if  the  polish  of  the 
stone  is  to  be  trusted,  is  universal  in  Greece. 

The  rostrum  of  Demosthenes  was  above  us  on  the 
side  of  the  hill  facing  from  the  sea.  A  small  platform 
is  cut  into  the  rock,  and  on  either  side  a  seat  is  hewn 
out,  probably  for  the  distinguished  men  of  the  state. 
The  audience  stood  on  the  side-hill,  and  the  orator 
and  his  listeners  were  in  the  open  air.  An  older  ros- 
trum is  cut  into  the  summit  of  the  hill,  facing  the  sea. 
It  is  said  that  when  the  maritime  commerce  of  Greece 
began  to  enrich  the  lower  classes,  the  thirty  tyrants 
turned  the  rostrum  toward  the  land,  lest  their  orators 
should  point  to  the  ships  of  the  Piraeus,  and  remind 
the  people  of  their  power. 

Scene  after  scene  swept  through  my  fancy  as  I  stood 
on  the  spot.  I  saw  Demosthenes,  after  his  first  unsuc- 
cessful oration,  descending  with  a  dejected  air  toward 
the  temple  of  Theseus,  followed  by  old  Eunomas  ;* 
abandoning  himself  to  despair,  and  repressing  the  fiery 
consciousness  within  him  as  a  hopeless  ambition.  I 
saw  him  again,  with  the  last  glowing  period  of  a  Phil- 

*  "  However,  in  his  first  address  to  the  people,  he  was 
laughed  at  and  interrupted  by  their  clamors  ;  for  the  violence 
of  his  manner  threw  him  into  a  confusion  of  periods,  and  a 
distortion  of  his  argument.  At  last,  upon  his  quitting  the 
assembly,  Eunomus,  the  Thriasian,  a  man  now  extremely 
old.  found  him  wandering  in  a  dejected  condition  in  the 
Piraeus,  and  took  upon  him  to  set  him  right."' — Plutarch's 
Life  of  Demosthenes. 


lipic  on  his  lips,  standing  on  this  rocky  eminence,  his 
arm  stretched  toward  Macedon  ;  his  eye  flashing  with 
success,  and  his  ear  catching  the  low  murmur  of  the 
crowd  below,  which  told  him  he  had  moved  his  coun- 
try as  with  the  heave  of  an  earthquake.  I  saw  the 
calm  Aristides  rise,  with  his  mantle  folded  majestically 
about  him ;  and  the  handsome  Alcibiades  waiting  with 
a  smile  on  his  lips  to  speak ;  and  Socrates,  gazing  on 
his  wild  but  winning  disciple  with  affection  and  fear. 
How  easily  is  this  bare  rock,  whereon  the  eagle  now 
alights  unaffrighted,  repeopled  with  the  crowding 
shadows  of  the  past. 


LETTER  LXXXVI. 

THE  PRISON  OF  SOCRATES— TURKISH  STIRRUPS  AND 
SADDLES — FLATo's  ACADEMY — THE  AMERICAN  MIS- 
SIONARY SCHOOL  AT  ATHENS THE  SON  OF  PETARCHES 

AND   NEPHEW   OF    "MRS.    BLACK   OF   EGINA." 

Athens. — We  dismounted  at  the  door  of  Socrates' 's 
prison.  A  hill  between  the  Areopagus  and  the  sea,  is 
crowned  with  the  remains  of  a  showy  monument  to  a 
Roman  pro-consul.  Just  beneath  it  the  hill  forms  a 
low  precipice,  and  in  the  face  of  it  you  see  three  low 
entrances  to  caverns  hewn  in  the  solid  rock.  The 
farthest  to  the  right  was  the  room  of  the  Athenian 
guard,  and  within  it  is  a  chamber  with  a  round  ceiling, 
which  the  sage  occupied  during  the  thirty  days  of  his 
imprisonment.  There  are  marks  of  an  iron  door  which 
separated  it  from  the  guard-room,  and  through  the 
bars  of  this  he  refused  the  assistance  of  his  friends  to 
escape,  and  held  those  conversations  with  Crito,  Plato, 
and  others,  which  have  made  his  name  immortal.  On 
the  day  upon  which  he  was  doomed  to  die,  he  was  re- 
moved to  the  chamber  nearest  the  Acropolis,  and  here 
the  hemlock  was  presented  to  him.  A  shallower  ex- 
cavation between,  held  an  altar  to  the  gods;  and  after 
his  death,  his  body  was  here  given  to  his  friends. 

Nothing,  except  some  of  the  touching  narrations  of 
scripture,  ever  seemed  to  me  so  affecting  as  the  history 
of  the  death  of  Socrates.  It  has  been  likened  (I  think, 
not  profanely),  to  that  of  Christ.  His  virtuous  life,  his 
belief  in  the  immortality  of  the  soul  and  a  future  state 
of  reward  and  punishment,  his  forgiveness  of  his  ene- 
mies and  his  godlike  death,  certainly  prove  him,  in 
the  absence  of  revealed  light,  to  have  walked  the 
"  darkling  path  of  human  reason"  with  an  almost  in- 
spired rectitude.  I  stood  in  the  chamber  which  had 
received  his  last  breath,  not  without  emotion.  The 
rocky  walls  about  me  had  witnessed  his  composure  as 
he  received  the  cup  from  his  weeping  jailer;  the 
roughly-hewn  floor  beneath  my  feet  had  sustained 
him,  as  he  walked  to  and  fro,  till  the  poison  had  chilled 
his  limbs  ;  his  last  sigh,  as  he  covered  his  head  with 
his  mantle  and  expired,  passed  forth  by  that  low  por- 
tal. It  is  not  easy  to  be  indifferent  on  spots  like  these. 
The  spirit  of  the  place  is  felt.  We  can  not  turn  back 
and  touch  the  brighter  links  of  that  "  fleshly  chain," 
in  which  all  human  beings  since  the  creation  have  been 
bound  alike,  without  feeling,  even  through  the  rusty 
coil  of  ages,  the  electric  sympathy.  Socrates  died 
here  !  The  great  human  leap  into  eternity,  the  inevit- 
able calamity  of  our  race,  was  here  taken  more  nobly 
than  elsewhere.  Whether  the  effect  be  to  "  fright  us 
from  the  shore,"  or,  to  nerve  us  by  the  example,  to  look 
more  steadily  before  us,  a  serious  thought,  almost  of 
course  a  salutary  one,  lurks  in  the  very  air. 

We  descended  the  hill  and  galloped  our  small  Turk- 
ish horses  at  a  stirring  pace  over  the  plain.  The  short 
stirrup  and  high  peaked  saddle  of  the  country,  are  (at 
least  to  men  of  my  length  and  limb)  uncomfortable 
contrivances.  With  the  knees  almost  up  to  the  chin, 
one  is  compelled,  of  course,  to  lean  far  over  the  horse's 


PENCILLINGS  BY  THE  WAY. 


133 


head,  and  it  requires  all  the  fullness  of  Turkish  trousers 
to  conceal  the  awkwardness  of  the  position.  We  drew 
rein  at  the  entrance  of  the  "  olive  grove."  Our  horses 
walked  leisurely  along  the  shaded  path  between  the 
trees,  and  we  arrived  in  a  few  minutes  at  the  site  of 
Plato's  academy.  The  more  ethereal  portion  of  my 
pleasure  in  seeing  it  must  be  in  the  recollection.  The 
Cephissus  was  dry,  the  noon-day  sun  was  hot,  and  we 
were  glad  to  stop,  with  throbbing  temples,  under  a 
cluster  of  fig-trees,  and  eat  the  delicious  fruit,  forget- 
ting all  the  philosophers  incontinently.  We  sat  in  our 
saddles,  and  a  Greek  woman,  of  great  natural  beauty, 
though  dressed  in  rags,  bent  down  the  boughs  to  our 
reach.  The  honey  from  the  over-ripe  figs,  dropped 
upon  us  as  the  wind  shook  the  branches.  Our  dark- 
eyed  and  bright-lipped  Pomona  served  us  with  a  grace 
aod  cheerfulness  that  would  draw  me  often  to  the 
neighborhood  of  the  academy  if  I  lived  in  Athens.  I 
venture  to  believe  that  Phryne  herself,  in  so  mean  a 
dress,  would  scarce  have  been  more  attractive.  We 
kissed  our  hand  to  her  as  our  spirited  horses  leaped 
the  hollow  with  which  the  trees  were  encircled,  and 
passing  the  mound  sacred  to  the  Furies,  where  QZdipus 
was  swallowed  up,  dashed  over  the  sultry  plain  once 
more,  and  were  soon  in  Athens. 


I  have  passed  most  of  my  leisure  hours  here  in  a 
scene  I  certainly  did  not  reckon  in  anticipation,  among 
the  pleasures  of  a  visit  to  Athens — the  American  mis- 
sionary school.  We  have  all  been  delighted  with  it, 
from  the  commodore  to  the  youngest  midshipman. 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Hill  have  been  here  some  four  or  five 
years,  and  have  attained  their  present  degree  of  suc- 
cess in  the  face  of  every  difficulty.  Their  whole 
number  of  scholars  from  the  commencement,  has 
been  upward  of  three  hundred ;  at  present  they  have 
a  hundred  and  thirty,  mostly  girls. 

We  found  the  school  in  a  new  and  spacious  stone 
building  on  the  site  of  the  ancient  "market,"  where 
Paul,  on  his  visit  to  Athens,  "disputed  daily  with 
those  that  met  with  him."  A  large  court-yard,  shaded 
partly  with  a  promegranate-tree,  separates  it  from  the 
marble  portico  of  the  Agora,  which  is  one  of  the  finest 
remains  of  antiquity.  Mrs.  Hill  was  in  the  midst  of 
the  little  Athenians.  Two  or  three  serious-looking 
Greek  girls  were  assisting  her  in  regulating  their  move- 
ments, and  the  new  and  admirable  system  of  combined 
instruction  and  amusement  was  going  on  swimmingly. 
There  were,  perhaps,  a  hundred  children  in  the  bench- 
es, mostly  from  three  to  six  or  eight  years  of  age; 
dark-eyed,  cheerful  little  creatures,  who  looked  as  if 
their  •■  birthright  of  the  golden  grasshopper"  had  made 
them  nature's  favorites  as  certainly  as  in  the  days  when 
their  ancestor-mothers  settled  questions  of  philosophy. 
They  marched  and  recited,  and  clapped  their  sun- 
burnt hands,  and  sung  hymns,  and  I  thought  I  never 
had  seen  a  more  gratifying  spectacle.  I  looked  around 
in  vain  for  one  who  seemed  discontented  or  weary. 
Mrs.  Hill's  manner  to  them  was  most  affectionate. 
She  governs,  literally,  with  a  smile. 

I  selected  several  little  favorites.  One  was  a  fine 
fellow  of  two  to  three  years,  whose  name  I  inquired 
immediately.  He  was  Plato  Petarches,  the  nephew 
of  the  "  maid  of  Athens,"  and  the  son  of  the  second 
of  the  three  girls  so  admired  by  Lord  Byron.  Another 
was  a  girl  of  six  or  seven,  with  a  face,  surpassing,  for 
expressive  beauty,  that  of  any  child  I  ever  saw.  She 
was  a  Hydriote  by  birth,  and  dressed  in  the  costume 
of  the  islands.  Her  little  feet  were  in  Greek  slippers  ; 
her  figure  was  prettily  set  off  with  an  open  jacket, 
laced  with  buttons  from  the  shoulder  to  the  waist,  and 
her  head  was  enveloped  in  a  figured  handkerchief, 
folded  gracefully  in  the  style  of  a  turban,  and  brought 
under  her  chin,  so  as  to  show  suspended  a  rich  me- 
tal'ic   fringe.      Her  face  was   full,  but    marked   with 


childish  dimples,  and  her  mouth  and  eyes,  as  beautiful 
as  ever  those  expressive  features  were  made,  had  a  re- 
tiring seriousness  in  them,  indescribably  sweet.  She 
looked  as  if  she  had  been  born  in  some  scene  of  Turk- 
ish devastation,  and  had  brought  her  mother's  heart- 
ache into  the  world. 

At  noon,  at  the  sound  of  a  bell,  they  marched  out, 
clapping  their  hands  in  time  to  the  instructer's  voice, 
and  sealed  themselves  in  order  upon  the  portico,  in 
front  of  the  school.  Here  their  baskets  were  given 
them,  and  each  one  produced  her  dinner  and  ate  it 
with  the  utmost  propriety.  It  was  really  a  beautiful 
scene. 

It  is  to  be  remembered  that  here  is  educated  a  class 
of  human  beings  who  were  else  deprived  of  instruction 
by  the  universal  custom  of  their  country.  The  females 
of  Greece  are  suffered  to  grow  up  in  ignorance.  One 
who  can  read  and  write  is  rarely  found.  The  school 
has  commenced  fortunately  at  the  most  favorable  mo- 
ment. The  government  was  in  process  of  change,  and 
an  innovation  was  unnoticed  in  the  confusion  that  at  a 
later  period  might  have  been  opposed  by  the  preju- 
dices of  custom.  The  king  and  the  president  of  the 
regency,  Count  Armansperg,  visited  the  school  fre- 
quently during  their  stay  in  Athens,  and  expressed 
their  thanks  to  Mrs.  Hill  warmly.  The  Countess 
Armansperg  called  repeatedly  to  have  the  pleasure 
of  sitting  in  the  school-room  for  an  hour.  His  majes- 
ty, indeed,  could  hardly  find  a  more  useful  subject  in 
his  realm.  Mrs.  Hill,  with  her  own  personal  efforts, 
has  taught  more  than  one  hundred  children  to  read  the 
Bible!  How  few  of  us  can  write  against  our  names 
an  equal  offset  to  the  claims  of  human  duty  ? 

Circumstances  made  me  acquainted  with  one  or  two 
wealthy  persons  residing  in  Athens,  and  I  received 
from  them  a  strong  impression  of  Mr.  Hill's  useful- 
ness and  high  standing.  His  house  is  the  hospitable 
resort  of  every  stranger  of  intelligence  and  respecta- 
bility. 

Mr.  King  and  Mr.  Robinson,  missionaries  of  the 
Foreign  Board,  are  absent  at  Psera.  Their  families 
are  here. 

I  passed  my  last  evening  among  the  magnificent 
ruins  on  the  banks  of  the  Ilissus.  The  next  day  was 
occupied  in  returning  visits  to  the  families  who  had 
been  polite  to  us,  and,  with  a  farewell  of  unusual  re- 
gret to  our  estimable  missionary  friends,  we  started  on 
horseback  to  return  by  a  gloomy  sunset  to  the  Piraeus. 
I  am  looking  more  for  the  amusing  than  the  useful  in 
my  rambles  about  the  world,  and  I  confess  I  should 
not  have  gone  far  out  of  my  way  to  visit  a  missionary 
station  anywhere.  But  chance  has  thrown  this  of 
Athens  across  my  path,  and  I  record  it  as  a  moral 
spectacle  to  which  no  thinking  person  could  be  indif- 
ferent. I  freely  say  I  never  have  met  with  an  equal 
number  of  my  fellow-creatures,  who  seemed  to  me  so 
indisputably  and  purely  useful.  The  most  cavilling 
mind  must  applaud  their  devoted  sense  of  duty,  bear- 
ing up  against  exile  from  country  and  friends,  priva- 
tions, trial  of  patience,  and  the  many,  many  ills  inevi- 
table to  such  an  errand  in  a  foreign  land,  while  even 
the  coldest  politician  would  find  in  their  efforts  the 
best  promise  for  an  enlightened  renovation  of  Greece. 
Long  after  the  twilight  thickened  immediately  about 
us,  the  lofty  Acropolis  stood  up,  bathed  in  a  glow  of 
light  from  the  lingering  sunset.  I  turned  back  to  gaze 
upon  it  with  an  enthusiasm  I  had  thought  laid  on  the 
shelf  with  my  half-forgotten  classics.  The  intrinsic 
beauty  of  the  ruins  of  Greece,  the  loneliness  of  their 
situation,  and  the  divine  climate  in  which,  to  use  By- 
ron's expression,  they  are  "buried,"  invest  them  with 
an  interest  which  surrounds  no  other  antiquities  in  the 
world.  I  rode  on,  repeating  to  myself  Milton's  beau- 
tiful description  : 

"  Look  !  on  the  Egean  a  city  stands 

Built  nobly  ;  pure  the  air  and  light  the  soil  • 


134 


PENCILLINGS  BY  THE  WAY. 


Athens — the  eye  of  Greece,  mother  of  arts 

And  eloquence  ;  native  to  famous  wits 

Or  hospitable,  in  her  sweet  recess, 

City  or  suburban,  studious  walks  or  shades. 

See,  there  the  olive-groves  of  Academe, 

Plato's  retirement,  where  the  attic  bird 

Trills  her  thick-warbled  notes  the  summer  long. 

There,  flowery  hill,  Hymettus,  with  the  sound 

Of  bees'  industrious  murmurs,  oft  invites 

To  studious  musing  ;  there  Ilissus  rolls 

His  whispering  stream  ;  within  the  walls  there  view 

The  schools  of  ancient  sages,  his  who  bred 

Great  Alexander  to  subdue  the  world  ."' 


LETTER  LXXXVII. 

THE  PIRAEUS — THE  SACRA  VIA — RUINS  OF  ELEUSIS — GI- 
GANTIC MEDALLION — COSTUME  OF  THE  ATHENIAN  WO- 
MEN— THE  TOMB  OF  THEMISTOCLES — THE  TEMPLE  OF 
MINERVA — AUTOGRAPHS. 

PirjEus. — With  a  basket  of  ham  and  claret  in  the 
stern-sheets,  a  cool  awning  over  our  heads,  and  twelve 
men  at  the  oars,  such  as  the  coxswain  of  Themistocles' 
galley  might  have  sighed  for,  we  pulled  away  from  the 
ship  at  an  early  hour,  for  Eleusis.  The  conqueror  of 
Salamis  delayed  the  battle  for  the  ten  o'clock  breeze, 
and  as  nature  (which  should  be  called  he  instead  of 
she,  for  her  constancy)  still  ruffles  the  Egean  at  the 
same  hour,  we  had  a  calm  sea  through  the  strait, 
where  once  lay  the  "  ships  by  thousands." 

We  soon  rounded  the  point,  and  shot  along  under 
the 

"  Rocky  brow 
Which  looks  o'er  sea-born  Salamis." 
It  is  a  bare,  bold  precipice,  a  little  back  from  the  sea, 
and  commands  an  entire  view  of  the  strait.  Here  sat 
Xerxes,  "on  his  throne  of  gold,*  with  many  secreta- 
ries about  him  to  write  down  the  particulars  of  the  ac- 
tion." The  Athenians  owed  their  victory  to  the  wis- 
dom of  Themistocles,  who  managed  to  draw  the  Per- 
sians into  the  strait  (scarce  a  cannon  shot  across  just 
here),  where  only  a  small  part  of  their  immense  fleet 
could  act  at  one  time.  The  wind,  as  the  wily  Greek 
had  foreseen,  rose  at  the  same  time,  and  rendered  the 
lofty-built  Persian  ships  unmanageable ;  while  the 
Athenian  galleys,  cut  low  to  the  water,  were  easily 
brought  into  action  in  the  most  advantageous  position. 
It  is  impossible  to  look  upon  this  beautiful  and  lovely 
spot  and  imagine  the  stirring  picture  it  presented. 
The  wild  sea-bird  knows  no  lonelier  place.  Yet  on 
that  rock  once  sat  the  son  of  Darius,  with  his  royal 
purple  floating  to  the  wind,  and,  below  him,  within 
these  rocky  limits,  lay  "  one  thousand  two  hundred 
ships-of-war,  and  two  thousand  transports,"  while  be- 
hind him,  on  the  shores  of  the  Piraeus,  were  encamped 
H  seven  hundred  thousand  foot,  and  four  hundred 
thousand  horse" — "amounting,"  says  Potter,  in  his 
notes,  "  with  the  retinue  of  women  and  servants  that 
attended  the  Asiatic  princes  in  their  military  expedi- 
tions, to  more  than  five  millions.'1''  How  like  a  king 
must  the  royal  Persian  have  felt,  when 

"  He  counted  them  at  break  of  day  !" 

With  an  hour  or  two  of  fast  pulling,  we  opened  into 
the  broad  bay  of  Eleusis.  The  first  sabbath  after  the 
creation  could  not  have  been  more  absolutely  silent. 
Megara  was  away  on  the  left,  Eleusis  before  us  at  the 
distance  of  four  or  five  miles,  and  the  broad  plains 
where  agriculture  was  first  taught  by  Triptolemus, 
the  poetical  home  of  Ceres,  lay  an  utter  desert  in  the 
sunshine.  Behind  us,  between  the  mountains,  de- 
scended the  Sacra  Via,  by  which  the  procession  came 
from  Athens  to  celebrate  the  "Eleusinian  mysteries" — 

•  So  says  Phanodemus,  quoted  by  Plutarch.  The  commen- 
tators upon  the  tragedy  of  iEschylus  on  this  subject,  say  it 
was  a  "  silver  chair,"  and  that  it  "  was  afterward  placed  in 
the  temple  of  Minerva,  at  Athens,  with  the  golden-hilted 
c'saeter  of  Mardonius." 


a  road  of  five  or  six  miles,  lined,  in  the  time  of  Peri- 
cles, with  temples  and  tombs.  I  could  half  fancy  the 
scene  as  it  was  presented  to  the  eyes  of  the  invading 
Macedonians — when  the  procession  of  priests  and  vir- 
gins, accompanied  by  the  whole  population  of  Athens, 
wound  down  into  the  plain,  guarded  by  the  shining 
spears  of  the  army  of  Alcibiades.  It  is  still  doubtful, 
I  believe,  whether  these  imposing  ceremonies  were  the 
pure  observances  of  a  lofty  and  sincere  superstition,  or 
the  orgies  of  licentious  saturnalia. 

We  landed  at  Eleusis,  and  were  immediately  sur- 
rounded by  a  crowd  of  people,  as  simple  and  curious 
in  their  mannets,  and  resembling  somewhat  in  their 
dress  and  complexion,  the  Indians  of  our  country. 
The  ruins  of  a  great  city  lay  about  us,  and  their  huts 
were  built  promiscuously  among  them.  Magnificent 
fragments  of  columns  and  blocks  of  marble  interrupted 
the  path  through  the  village,  and  between  two  of  the 
houses  lay,  half  buried,  a  gigantic  medallion  of  Pen- 
telic  marble,  representing,  in  alto  relievo,  the  body  and 
head  of  a  warrior  in  full  armor.  A  hundred  men 
would  move  it  with  difficulty.  Commodore  Patterson 
attempted  it  six  years  ago,  in  the  Constitution,  but  his 
launch  was  found  unequal  to  its  weight. 

The  people  here  gathered  more  closely  around  the 
ladies  of  our  party,  examining  their  dress  with  childish 
curiosity.  They  were  doubtless  the  first  females  ever 
seen  at  Eleusis  in  European  costume.  One  of  the 
ladies  happening  to  pull  off  her  glove,  there  was  a 
general  cry  of  astonishment.  The  brown  kid  had 
clearly  been  taken  as  the  color  of  the  hand.  Some 
curiosity  was  then  shown  to  see  their  faces,  which 
were  coveted  with  thick  green  veils,  as  a  protection 
against  the  sun.  The  sight  of  their  complexion  (in 
any  country  remarkable  for  a  dazzling  whiteness)  com- 
pleted the  astonishment  of  these  children  of  Ceres. 

We,  on  our  part,  were  scarcely  less  amused  with 
their  costumes  in  turn.  Over  the  petticoat  was  worn 
a  loose  jacket  of  white  cloth  reaching  to  the  knee, 
and  open  in  front — its  edges  and  sleeves  wrought  very 
tastefully  with  red  cord.  The  head-dress  was  com- 
posed entirely  of  money.  A  fillet  of  gold  sequins  was 
first  put,  a  la  feroniere.  around  the  forehead,  and  a 
close  cap,  with  a  throat-piece  like  the  gorget  of  a  hel- 
met, fitted  the  scull  exactly,  stitched  with  coins  of  all 
values,  folded  over  each  other  according  to  their  sizes, 
like  scales.  The  hair  was  then  braided  and  fell  down 
the  back,  loaded  also  with  money.  Of  the  fifty  or  six- 
ty women  we  saw,  I  should  think  one  half  had  money 
on  her  head  to  the  amount  of  from  one  to  two  hundred 
dollars.  They  suffered  us  to  examine  them  with  per- 
fect good  humor.  The  greater  proportion  of  pieces 
were  paras,  a  small  and  thin  Turkish  coin  of  very  small 
value.  Among  the  larger  pieces  were  dollars  of  all 
nations,  five-franc  pieces,  Sicilian  piastres,  Tuscan 
colonati,  Venetian  swansicas,  etc.,  etc.  I  doubted 
much  whether  they  were  not  the  collections  of  some 
piratical  caique.  There  is  no  possibility  of  either 
spending  or  getting  money  within  many  miles  of  Ele- 
usis, and  it  seemed  to  be  looked  upon  as  an  ornament 
which  they  had  come  too  lightly  by  to  know  its  use. 

We  walked  over  the  foundations  of  several  large 
temples  with  the  remains  of  their  splendor  lying  un- 
valued about  them,  and  at  half  a  mile  from  the  village 
came  to  the  "  well  of  Proserpine,"  whence,  say  the 
poets,  the  ravished  daughter  of  Ceres  emerged  from 
the  infernal  regions  on  her  visits  to  her  mother.  The 
modern  Eelusinians  know  it  only  as  a  well  of  the  purest 
water. 

On  our  return,  we  stopped  at  the  southern  point  of 
the  Piraeus,  to  see  the  tomb  of  Themistocles.  We 
were  directed  to  it  by  thirteen  or  fourteen  frusta  of 
enormous  columns,  which  once  formed  the  monument 
to  his  memory.  They  buried  him  close  to  the  edge 
of  the  sea,  opposite  Salamis.  The  continual  beat  of 
the  waves  for  so  many  hundred  years  has  worn  away 


PENC1LLINGS  BY  THE  WAY. 


135 


the  promontory,  and  his  sarcophagus,  which  was  laid 
in  a  grave  cut  in  the  solid  rock,  is  now  filled  by  every 
swell  from  the  Egean.  The  old  hero  was  brought 
back  from  his  exile  to  be  gloriously  buried.  He  could 
not  lie  better  for  the  repose  of  his  spirit  (if  it  returned 
with  his  bones  from  Argos).  The  sea  on  which  he 
beat  the  haughty  Persians  with  his  handful  of  galleys, 
sends  every  wave  to  his  feet.  The  hollows  in  the 
rock  around  his  grave  are  full  oPsnowy  salt  left  by  the 
evaporation.  You  might  scrape  up  a  bushel  within 
six  feet  of  him.  It  seems  a  natural  tribute  to  his 
memory.* 

On  a  high  and  lonely  rock,  stretching  out  into  the 
midst  of  the  sea,  stands  a  solitary  temple.  As  far  as 
the  eye  can  reach,  along  the  coast  of  Attica  and  to 
the  distant  isles,  there  is  no  sign  of  human  habitation. 
There  it  stands,  lifted  into  the  blue  sky  of  Greece,  like 
the  unreal  "fabric  of  a  vision." 

Cape  Colomia  and  its  "temple  of  Minerva,"  were 
familiar  to  my  memory,  but  my  imagination  had  pic- 
tured nothing  half  so  beautiful.  As  we  approached 
it  from  the  sea,  it  seemed  so  strangely  out  of  place, 
even  for  a  ruin,  so  far  removed  from  what  had  ever 
been  the  haunt  of  man,  that  I  scarce  credited  my  eyes. 
We  could  soon  count  them — thirteen  columns  of 
sparkling  marble,  glittering  in  the  sun.  The  sea-air 
keeps  them  spotlessly  white,  and,  until  you  approach 
them  nearly,  they  have  the  appearance  of  a  structure, 
from  its  freshness,  still  in  the  sculptor's  hands. 

The  boat  was  lowered,  anuVthe  ship  lay  otf-and-on 
while  we  landed  near  the  rocks  where  Falconer  was 
shipwrecked,  and  mounted  to  the  temple.     The  sum- 
mit of  the  promontory  is  strewn  with  the  remains  of  M 
the   fallen   columns,   and  their   smooth  surfaces  are   ' 
thickly  inscribed  with  the  names  of  travellers.     Among  | 
others,  I  noticed   Byron's  and   Hobhouse's,  and   that; 
of  the  agreeable  author  of  "  A  year  in  Spain."     Byron,  J  | 
by  the  way,  mentions  having  narrowly  escaped  robbery  ' 
here,  by  a  band  of  Mainote  pirates.     He  was  surprised 
swimming  off  the  point,  by  an  English  vessel  contain- 
ing some  ladies  of  his  acquaintance.     He  concludes 
the  "  Isles  of  Greece"  beautifully  with  an  allusion  to 
it  by  its  ancient  name  : — 

"  Place  me  on  Sunium's  marbled  steep,"  etc. 

The  view  from  the  summit  is  one  of  the  finest  in  all 
Greece.  The  isle  where  Plato  was  sold  as  a  slave, 
and  where  Aristides  and  Demosthenes  passed  their 
days  in  exile,  stretches  along  the  west ;  the  wide 
Egean,  sprinkled  with  here  and  there  a  solitary  rock, 
herbless,  but  beautiful  in  its  veil  of  mist,  spreads  away 
from  its  feet  to  the  southern  line  of  the  horizon,  and 
crossing  each  other  almost  imperceptibly  on  the  light 
winds  of  this  summer  sea,  the  red-sailed  caique  of 
Greece,  the  merchantmen  from  the  Dardanelles,  and 
the  heavy  men-of-war  of  England  and  France,  cruis- 
ing wherever  the  wind  blows  fairest,  are  seen  like 
broad-winged  and  solitary  birds,  lying  low  with  spread 
pinions  upon  the  waters.  The  place  touched  me.  I 
shall  remember  it  with  an  affection. 

There  is  a  small  island  close  to  Sunium,  which  was 
fortified  by  one  of  the  heroes  of  the  Iliad  on  his  return 
from  Troy — why,  heaven  only  knows.  It  was  here, 
too,  that  Phrontes,  the  pilot  of  Menelaus,  died  and 
was  buried. 

We  returned  on  board  after  an  absence  of  two  hours 
from  the  ship,  and  are  steering  now  straight  for  the 
Dardanelles.  The  plains  of  Marathon  are  but  a  few 
hours  north  of  our  course,  and  I  pass  them  unwilling- 
ly ;  but  what  is  there  one  would  not  see?  Greece 
lies  behind,  and  I  have  realized  one  of  my  dearest 
dreams  in  rambling  over  its  ruins.  Tiavel  is  an  appe- 
tite that  "  grows  by  what  it  feeds  on." 

*  Langhorne  says  in  his  not^s  on  Plutarch,  "  There  is  the 
genuine  attic  salt  in  most  of  the  retorts  and  observations  of 
themselves.  His  wit  seems  to  have  been  equal  to  his  military 
and  political  capacity." 


LETTER  LXXXVIII. 

MYTILENE—  THE  TOMB  OF  ACHILLES — TURKISH  BURYING 

GROUND LOST    REPUTATION    OF    THE    SCAMANDER 

ASIATIC    SUNSETS VISIT    TO    A    TURKISH    BEY THE 

CASTLES  OF  THE  DARDANELLES — TURKISH  BATH,  AND 
ITS  CONSEQUENCES. 

Lesbos  to  windward.  A  caique,  crowded  with 
people,  is  running  across  our  bow,  all  hands  singing 
a  wild  chorus  (perhaps  the  Lesboun  carmen),  most 
merrily.  The  island  is  now  called  Mytilene,  said  to 
be  the  greenest  and  most  fertile  of  the  Mediterranean. 
The  Lesbean  wine  is  still  good,  but  they  have  had  no 
poetesses  since  Sappho.  Cause  and  effect  have  quar- 
relled, one  would  think. 

Tenedos  on  the  lee.  The  tomb  of  Achilles  is  dis- 
tinguishable with  the  glass  on  the  coast  of  Asia.  The 
column  which  Alexander  "crowned  and  anointed  and 
danced  around  naked,"  in  honor  of  the  hero's  ghost, 
stands  above  it  no  longer.  The  Macedonian  wept  over 
Achilles,  says  the  schoolbook,  and  envied  him  the 
blind  bard  who  had  sung  his  deeds.  He  would  have 
dried  his  tears  if  he  had  known  that  his  pas  seul  would 
be  remembered  as  long. 

Tenedos  seems  a  pretty  island  as  we  near  it.  It 
was  here  that  the  Greeks  hid,  to  persuade  the  Tro- 
jans that  they  had  abandoned  the  siege,  while  the 
wooden  horse  was  wheeled  into  Troy.  The  site  of 
the  city  of  Priam  is  visible  as  we  get  nearer  the  coa^t 
of  Asia.  Mount  Ida  and  the  marshy  valley  of  the 
Scamander  are  appearing  beyond  Cape  Sigrcum,  and 
we  shall  anchor  in  an  hour  between  Europe  and  Asia, 
in  the  mouth  of  the  rapid  Dardanelles.  The  wind  is 
not  strong  enoueh  to  stem  the  current  that  sets  down 
like  a  mill-race  from  the  sea  of  Marmora. 

Went  ashore  on  the  Asian  side  for  a  ramble.  We 
landed  at  the  strong  Turkish  castle  that,  with  another 
on  the  European  side,  defends  the  strait,  and  passing 
under  their  bristling  batteries,  entered  the  small  Turk- 
ish town  in  the  rear.  Our  appearance  excited  a  great 
deal  of  curiosity.  The  Turks,  who  were  sitting  cross- 
legged  on  the  broad  benches  extending  like  a  tailor's 
board,  in  front  of  the  cafes,  stopped  smoking  as  we 
passed,  and  the  women,  wrapping  up  their  own  faces 
more  closely,  approached  the  ladies  of  our  party,  and 
lifted  their  veils  to  look  at  them  with  the  freedom  of 
our  friends  at  Eleusis.  We  came  unaware  upon  two 
squalid  wretches  of  women  in  turning  a  corner,  who 
pulled  their  ragged  shawls  oyer  their  heads  with  looks 
of  the  greatest  resentment  at  having  exposed  their 
faces  to  us. 

A  few  minutes'  walk  brought  us  outside  of  the 
town.  An  extensive  Turkish  grave-yard  lay  on  the 
left.  Between  fig-trees  and  blackberry  bushes  it  was 
a  green  spot,  and  the  low  tombstones  of  the  men, 
crowned  each  with  a  turban  carved  in  marble  of  the 
shape  befitting  the  sleeper's  rank,  peered  above  the 
grass  like  a  congregation  sitting  in  a  uniform  head- 
dress at  a  field-preaching.  Had  it  not  been  for  the 
female  graves,  which  were  marked  with  a  slab  like 
ours,  and  here  and  there  the  tombstone  of  a  Greek, 
carved,  after  the  antique,  in  the  shape  of  a  beautiful 
shell,  the  effect  of  an  assemblage  sur  I'herbe  would 
have  been  ludicrously  perfect. 

We  walked  on  to  the  Scamander.  A  rickety  bridge 
gave  us  a  passage,  toll  free,  to  the  other  side,  where 
we  sat  round  the  rim  of  a  marble  well,  and  ate  delicious 
grapes,  stolen  for  us  by  a  Turkish  boy  from  a  near 
vineyard.  Six  or  seven  camels  were  feeding  on  the 
unenclosed  plain,  picking  a  mouthful  and  then  lifting 
their  long,  snaky  necks  into  the  air  to  swallow  ;  a  stray- 
horseman,  with  the  head  of  his  bridle  decked  with  red 
tassels  and  his  knees  up  to  his  chin.scoured  the  bridle 
path  to  the  mountains  ;  and  three  devilish-looking 
buffaloes  scratched  their  hides   and  rolled  up  theii 


136 


PEiNCILLINGS  BY  THE  WAY. 


fiendish  green  eyes  under  a  bramble-hedge  near  the 
river.     Voila  !  a  scene  in  Asia. 

The  poets  lie,  or  the  Scamander  is  as  treacherous 
as  Macassar.  Venus  bathed  in  its  waters  before  con- 
tending for  the  prize  of  beauiy  adjudged  to  her  on 
this  very  Mount  Ida  that  I  see  covered  with  brown 
grass  in  the  distance.  Her  hair  became  "flowing 
gold"  in  the  lavation.  My  friends  compliment  me 
upon  no  change  after  a  similar  experiment.  My  long 
locks  (run  riot  with  a  four  months'  cruise)  are  as  dingy 
and  untractable  as  ever,  and,  except  in  the  increased 
brownnessof  a  Mediterranean  complexion,  the  cracked 
glass  in  the  state-room  of  my  friend  the  lieutenant 
gives  me  no  encouragement  of  a  change.  It  is  soft 
water,  and  runs  over  fine  white  sand  ;  but  the  fountain 
of  Callirhoc,  at  Athens  (she  was  the  daughter  of  the 
Scamander,  and,  like  most  daughters,  is  much  more 
attractive  than  her  papa),  is  softer  and  clearer.  Per- 
haps the  loss  of  the  Scamander's  virtues  is  attributable 
to  the  cessation  of  the  tribute  paid  to  the  god  in  Helen's 
time. 

The  twilights  in  this  part  of  the  world  are  unpar- 
alleled— but  I  have  described  twilights  and  sunsets  in 
Greece  and  Italy  till  I  am  ashamed  to  write  the  words. 
Each  one  comes  as  if  there  never  had  been  and  never 
were  to  be  another,  and  the  adventures  of  the  day, 
however  stirring,  are  half  forgotten  in  its  glory,  and 
seem,  in  comparison,  unworthy  of  description  ;  but 
one  look  at  the  terms  that  might  describe  it,  written 
on  paper,  uncharms  even  the  remembrance.  You 
must  come  to  Asia  and  feel  sunsets.  You  can  not  get 
them  by  paying  postage. 

At  anchor,  waiting  for  a  wind.  Called  to-day  on 
the  Bey  Effendi,  commander  of  the  two  castles,  "Eu- 
rope" and  "  Asia,"  between  which  we  lie.  A  pokerish- 
looking  dwarf,  with  ragged  beard  and  high  turban,  and 
a  tall  Turk,  who  I  am  sure  never  smiled  since  he  was 
born,  kicked  off  their  slippers  at  the  threshold,  and 
ushered  us  into  a  chamber  on  the  second  story.  It 
was  a  luxurious  little  room,  lined  completely  with 
cushions,  the  muslin-covered  pillows  of  down  leaving 
only  a  place  for  the  door.  The  divan  was  as  broad  as 
a  bed,  and,  save  the  difficulty  of  rising  from  it,  it  was 
perfect  as  a  lounge.  A  ceiling  of  inlaid  woods,  em- 
browned with  smoke,  windows  of  small  panes  fantas- 
tically set,  and  a  place  lower  than  the  floor  for  the 
attendants  to  stand  and  leave  their  slippers,  were  all 
that  was  peculiar  else. 


The  bey  entered  in  a  few  minutes,  with  a  pipe- 
bearer,  an  interpreter,  and  three  or  four  attendants. 
He  was  a  young  man,  about  twenty,  and  excessively 
handsome.  A  clear,  olive  complexion,  a  mustache 
of  silky  black,  a  thin,  aquiline  nose,  with  almost  trans- 
parent nostrils,  cheeks  and  chin  rounded  into  a  perfect 
oval,  and  mouth  and  eyes  expressive  of  the  most  reso- 
lute firmness,  and,  at  the  same  time,  girlishly  beautiful, 
completed  the  picture  of  the  finest-looking  fellow  I 
have  seen  within  my  recollection.  His  person  was 
very  slight,  and  his  feet  and  hands  small,  and  particu- 
larly well  shaped.  Like  most  of  his  countrymen  of 
latter  years,  his  dress  was  half  European,  and  much 
less  becoming,  of  course,  than  the  turban  and  trowser. 
Pantaloons,  rather  loose,  a  light  fawn-colored  short- 
jacket,  a  red  cap,  with  a  blue  tassel,  and  stockings, 
without  shoes,  were  enough  to  give  him  the  appear- 
ance of  a  dandy  half  through  his  toilet.  He  entered 
with  an  indolent  step,  bowed,  without  smiling,  and, 
throwing  one  of  his  feet  under  him,  sunk  down  upon 
the  divan,  and  beckoned  for  his  pipe.  The  Turk  in 
attendance  kicked  off  his  slippers,  and  gave  him  the 
long  tube  with  its  amber  mouth-piece,  setting  the  bowl 
inlo  a  basin  in  the  centre  of  the  room.  The  bey  put  it 
c?.  Lis  handsome  lips,  and  drew  till  the  smoke  mounted 


to  the  ceiling,  and  then  handed  it,  with  a  graceful 
gesture,  to  the  commodore. 

The  conversation  went  on  through  two  interpreta- 
tions. The  bey's  interpreter  spoke  Greek  and  Turk- 
ish, and  the  ship's  pilot,  who  accompanied  us,  spoke 
Greek  and  English,  and  the  usual  expressions  of  good 
feeling,  and  offers  of  mutual  service,  were  thus  passed 
between  the  puffs  of  the  pipe  with  sufficient  facility. 
The  dwarf  soon  entered  with  coffee.  The  small  gilded 
cups  had  about  the  capacity  of  a  goodwife's  thimble, 
and  were  covered  with  gold  tops  to  retain  the  aroma. 
The  fragrance  of  the  rich  berry  filled  the  room.  We 
acknowledged,  at  once,  the  superiority  of  the  Turkish 
manner  of  preparing  it.  It  is  excessively  strong,  and 
drunk  without  milk. 

I  looked  into  every  corner  while  the  attendants  were 
removing  the  cups,  but  could  see  no  trace  of  a  book. 
Ten  or  twelve  guns,  with  stocks  inlaid  with  pearl  and 
silver,  two  or  three  pair  of  gold-handled  pistols,  and  a 
superb  Turkish  cimeter  and  belt,  hung  upon  the 
walls,  but  there  was  no  other  furniture.  We  rose, 
after  a  half  hour's  visit,  and  were  bowed  out  by  the 
handsome  effendi,  coldly  and  politely.  As  we  passed 
under  the  walls  of  the  castle,  on  the  way  to  the  boat, 
we  saw  six  or  seven  women,  probably  a  part  of  his 
harem,  peeping  from  the  embrasures  of  one  of  the 
bastions.  Their  heads  were  wrapped  in  white,  one 
eye  only  left  visible.  It  was  easy  to  imagine  them 
Zuleikas  after  having  seen  their  master. 

Went  ashore  at  Castle  Europe,  with  one  or  two  of 
the  officers,  to  take  a  bath.  An  old  Turk,  sitting  upon 
his  hams,  at  the  entrance,  pointed  to  the  low  door  at 
his  side,  without  looking  at  us,  and  we  descended,  by 
a  step  or  two,  into  a  vaulted  hall,  with  a  large,  circular 
ottoman  in  the  centre,  and  a  very  broad  divan  all 
around.  Two  tall  young  mussulmans,  with  only  tur- 
bans and  waistcloths  to  conceal  their  natural  propor- 
tions, assisted  us  to  undress,  and  led  us  into  a  stone 
room,  several  degrees  warmer  than  the  first.  We 
walked  about  here  for  a  few  minutes,  and,  as  we  began 
to  perspire,  were  taken  into  another,  filled  with  hot 
vapor,  and,  for  the  first  moment  or  two,  almost  intol- 
erable. It  was  shaped  like  a  dome,  with  twenty  or 
thirty  small  windows  at  the  top,  several  basins  at  the 
sides  into  which  hot  water  was  pouring,  and  a  raised 
stone  platform  in  the  centre,  upon  which  we  were  all 
requested,  by  gestures,  to  lie  upon  our  backs.  The 
perspiration,  by  this  time,  was  pouring  from  us  like 
rain.  I  lay  down  with  the  others,  and  a  Turk,  a  dark- 
skinned,  fine-looking  fellow,  drew  on  a  mitten  of  rough 
grass  cloth,  and,  laying  one  hand  upon  my  breast  to 
hold  me  steady,  commenced  rubbing  me,  without 
water,  violently.  The  skin  peeled  off  under  the  fric- 
tion, and  I  thought  he  must  have  rubbed  into  the  flesh 
repeatedly.  Nothing  but  curiosity  to  go  through  the 
regular  operation  of  a  Turkish  bath  prevented  my 
crying  out  "  enough !"  He  rubbed  away,  turning  me 
from  side  to  side,  till  the  rough  glove  passed  smoothly 
all  over  my  body  and  limbs,  and  then,  handing  me  a 
pair  of  wooden  slippers,  suffered  me  to  rise.  I  walked 
about  for  a  few  minutes,  looking  with  surprise  at  the 
rolls  of  skin  he  had  taken  from  me,  and  feeling  almost 
transparent  as  the  hot  air  blew  upon  me. 

In  a  few  minutes  my  mussulman  beckoned  to  me  to 
follow  him  to  a  smaller  room,  where  he  seated  me  on 
a  stone  beside  a  fount  of  hot  water.  He  then  made 
some  thick  soap-suds  in  a  basin,  and,  with  a  handful 
of  fine  flax,  soaped  and  rubbed  me  all  over  again,  and 
a  few  dashes  of  the  hot  water,  from  a  wooden  saucer, 
completed  the  bath. 

The  next  room,  which  had  seemed  so  warm  on  our 
entrance,  was  now  quite  chilly.  "We  remained  here 
until  we  were  dry,  and  then  returned  to  the  hall  in 
which  our  clothes  were  left,  where  beds  were  prepared 
on  the  divans,  and  we  were  covered  in  warm  cloths, 
and  left  to  our  repose.     The  disposition  to  sleep  was 


PENCILLINGS  BY  THE  WAY. 


137 


almost  irresistible.  We  rose  in  a  short  time,  and  went 
to  the  coffee-house  opposite,  when  a  cup  of  strong 
coffee,  and  a  hookah  smoked  through  a  highly  orna- 
mented glass  bubbling  with  water,  refreshed  us  deli- 
riously. 

I  have  had  ever  since  a  feeling  of  suppleness  and 
lightness,  which  is  like  wings  growing  at  my  feet.  It 
is  certainly  a  very  great  luxury,  though,  unquestion- 
ably, most  enervating  as  a  habit. 


LETTER  LXXXIX. 

A  TURKISH  PIC-NIC,  ON  THE  PLAIN  OF  TROY — FINGERS 
VS.  FORKS — TRIESTE — THE  BOSCHETTO — GRACEFUL 
FREEDOM  OF  ITALIAN  MANNERS — A  RURAL  FETE — 
FIREWORKS AMATEUR    MUSICIANS. 

Dardanelles. — The  oddest  invitation  I  ever  had 
in  my  life  was  from  a  Turkish  bey  to  a.  fete  champetre, 
on  the  ruins  of  Troy  !  We  have  just  returned,  full 
of  wassail  and  pillaw,  by  the  light  of  an  Asian  moon. 

The  morning  was  such  a  one  as  you  would  expect 
in  the  countiy  where  mornings  were  first  made.  The 
sun  was  clear,  but  the  breeze  was  fresh,  and  as  we  sat 
on  the  bey's  soft  divans,  taking  coffee  before  starting, 
I  turned  my  cheek  to  the  open  window,  and  confessed 
the  blessing  of  existence. 

We  were  sixteen,  from  the  ship,  and  our  boat  was 
attended  by  his  interpreter,  the  general  of  his  troops, 
the  governor  of  Bournabashi  (the  name  of  the  Turkish 
town  near  Troy),  and  a  host  of  attendants  on  foot  and 
horseback.  His  cook  had  been  sent  forward  at  day- 
light with  the  provisions. 

The  handsome  bey  came  to  the  door,  and  helped 
to  mount  us  upon  his  own  horses,  and  we  rodfe  off, 
with  the  whole  population  of  the  village  assembled  to 
see  our  departure.  We  forded  the  Scamander,  near 
the  town,  and  pushed  on  at  a  hard  gallop  over  the 
plain.  The  bey  soon  overtook  us  upon  a  fleet  gray 
mare,  caparisoned  with  red  trappings,  holding  an  um- 
brella over  his  head,  which  he  courteously  offered  to 
the  commodore  on  coming  up.  We  followed  a  grass 
path,  without  hill  or  stone,  for  nine  or  ten  miles,  and 
after  having  passed  one  or  two  hamlets,  with  their 
open  thrashing-floors,  and  crossed  the  Simois,  with 
the  water  to  our  saddle-girths,  we  left  a  slight  rising 
ground  by  a  sudden  turn,  and  descended  to  a  cluster 
of  trees,  where  the  Turks  sprang  from  their  horses, 
and  made  signs  for  us  to  dismount. 

It  was  one  of  nature's  drawing-rooms.  Thickets 
of  brush  and  willows  enclosed  a  fountain,  whose  clear 
waters  were  confined  in  a  tank,  formed  of  marble  slabs, 
from  the  neighboring  ruins.  A.  spreading  tree  above, 
and  soft  meadow-grass  to  its  very  tip,  left  nothing  to 
wish  but  friends  and  a  quiet  mind  to  perfect  its  beau- 
ty. The  cook's  fires  were  smoking  in  the  thicket,  the 
horses  were  grazing  without  saddle  or  bridle  in  the 
pasture  below,  and  we  lay  down  upon  the  soft,  Turk- 
ish carpets,  spread  beneath  the  trees,  and  reposed  from 
our  fatigues  for  an  hour. 

The  interpreter  came  when  the  sun  had  slanted  a 
little  across  the  trees,  and  invited  us  to  the  bey's  gar- 
dens, hard  by.  A  path,  overshadowed  with  wild  brush, 
led  us  round  the  little  meadow  to  a  gate,  close  to  the 
fountain-head  of  the  Scamander.  One  of  the  common 
cottages  of  the  country  stood  upon  the  left,  and  in 
front  of  it  a  large  arbor,  covered  with  a  grape-vine, 
was  underlaid  with  cushions  and  carpets.  Here  we 
reclined,  and  coffee  was  brought  us  with  baskets  of 
grapes,  figs,  quinces,  and  pomegranates,  the  bey  and 
his  officers  waiting  on  us  themselves  with  amusing 
assiduity.  The  people  of  the  house,  meantime,  were 
sent  to  the  fields  for  green  corn,  which  was  roasted  for 
us,  and  this  with  nuts,  wine,  and  conversation,  and  a 
ramble  to  the  source  of  the  Simois,  which  bursts  from 


a  cleft  in  the  rock  very  beautifully,  whiled  away  the 
hours  till  dinner. 

About  four  o'clock  we  returned  to  the  fountain.  A 
white  muslin  cloth  was  laid  upon  the  grass  between 
the  edge  and  the  overshadowing  tree,  and  all  around 
it  were  spread  the  carpets  upon  which  we  were  to  re- 
cline while  eating.  Wine  and  melons  were  cooling 
in  the  tank,  and  plates  of  honey  and  grapes,  and  new- 
made  butter  (a  great  luxury  in  the  archipelago),  stood 
on  the  marble  rim.  The  dinner  might  have  fed  Pri- 
am's army.  Haifa  lamb,  turkeys,  and  chickens,  were 
the  principal  meats,  but  there  was,  besides,  "  a  rabble 
route*'  of  made  dishes,  peculiar  to  the  country,  of  in- 
gredients at  which  I  could  not  hazard  even  a  conjec- 
ture. 

We  crooked  our  legs  under  us  with  some  awkward- 
ness, and  producing  our  knives  and  forks  (which  we 
had  brought  with  the  advice  of  the  interpreter),  com- 
menced, somewhat  abated  in  appetite  by  too  liberal  a 
lunch.  The  bey  and  his  officers  sitting  upright,  with 
their  feet  under  them,  pinched  off  bits  of  meat  dexter- 
ously with  the  thumb  and  forefinger,  passing  from  one 
to  the  other  a  dish  of  rice,  with  a  large  spoon,  which 
all  used  indiscriminately.  It  is  odd  that  eating  with 
the  fingers  seemed  only  disgusting  to  me  in  the  bey. 
His  European  dress  probably  made  the  peculiarity 
more  glaring.  The  fat  old  governor  who  sat  beside 
me  was  greased  to  the  elbows,  and  his  long  grey  beard 
was  studded  with  rice  and  drops  of  gravy  to  his  girdle. 
He  rose  when  the  meats  were  removed,  and  waddled 
off  to  the  stream  below,  where  a  wash  in  the  clean 
water  made  him  once  more  a  presentable  person. 

It  is  a  Turkish  custom  to  rise  and  retire  while  the 
dishes  are  changing,  and  after  a  little  ramble  through 
the  meadow,  we  returned  to  a  lavish  spread  of  fruits 
and  honey,  which  concluded  the  repast. 

It  is  doubted  where  Troy  stood.  The  reputed  site 
is  a  rising  ground,  near  the  fountain  of  Bournabashi, 
to  which  we  strolled  after  dinner.  We  found  nothing 
but  quantities  of  fragments  of  columns,  believed  by 
antiquaries  to  be  the  ruins  of  a  city,  that  sprung  up 
and  died  long  since  Troy. 

We  mounted  and  rode  home  by  a  round  moon, 
whose  light  filled  the  air  like  a  dust  of  phosphoric  sil- 
ver. The  plains  were  in  a  glow  with  it.  Our  Indian 
summer  nights,  beautiful  as  they  are,  give  you  no  idea 
of  an  Asian  moon. 

The  bey's  rooms  were  lit,  and  we  took  coffee  with 
him  once  more,  and,  fatigued  with  pleasure  and  ex- 
citement, got  to  our  boats,  and  pulled  up  against  the 
arrowy  current  of  the  Dardanelles  to  the  frigate 
******** 

A  long,  narrow  valley,  with  precipitous  sides,  com- 
mences directly  at  the  gate  of  Trieste,  and  follows  a 
small  stream  into  the  mountains  of  Friuli.  It  is  a 
very  sweet,  green  place,  and  studded  on  both  sides 
with  cottages  and  kitchen-gardens,  which  supply  the 
city  with  flowers  and  vegetables.  The  right  hand 
slope  is  called  the  Boschetto,  and  is  laid  out  with  pret- 
ty avenues  of  beach  and  elm  as  a  public  walk,  while, 
at  every  few  steps,  stands  a  bowling-alley  or  drinking 
arbor,  and  here  and  there  a  trim  little  restaurant,  just 
large  enough  for  a  rural  party.  It  is,  perhaps,  a  mile 
and  a  half  in  length,  and  one  grand  cafe  in  the  centre, 
usually  tempts  the  better  class  of  promenaders  into 
the  expense  of  an  ice. 

It  was  a  Sunday  afternoon,  and  all  Trieste  was  pour- 
ing out  to  the  Boschetto.  I  had  come  ashore  with 
one  of  the  officers,  and  we  fell  into  the  tide.  Few 
spots  in  the  world  are  so  variously  peopled  as  this 
thriving  seaport,  and  we  encountered  every  style  of 
dress  and  feature.  The  greater  part  were  Jewesses. 
How  instantly  the  most  common  observer  distinguish- 
es them  in  a  crowd  !  The  clear  sallow  skin,  the  sharp 
black  eye  and  broad  eyebrow,  the  aqueline  nose,  the 
small  person,  the  slow,  cautious  step  of  the  old,  and 


138 


PENCILLINGS  BY  THE  WAY. 


the  quick,  restless  one  of  the  young,  the  ambitious  or- 
naments, and  the  look  of  cunning,  which  nothing  but 
the  highest  degree  of  education  does  away,  mark  the 
race  with  the  definiteness  of  another  species. 

We  strolled  on  to  the  end  of  the  walk,  amused  con- 
stantly with  the  family  groups  sitting  under  the  trees 
with  their  simple  repast  of  a  fritata  and  a  mug  of  beer, 
perfectly  unconscious  of  the  presence  of  the  crowd. 
There  was  something  pastoral  and  contented  in  the 
scene  that  took  my  fancy.  Almost  all  the  female 
promenaders  were  without  bonnets,  and  the  mixture 
of  the  Greek  style  of  head-dress  with  the  Parisian 
coiffure,  had  a  charming  effect.  There  was  just 
enough  of  fashion  to  take  off  the  vulgarity. 

We  coquetted  along,  smiled  upon  by  here  and  there 
a  group  that  hid  visited  the  ship,  and  on  our  return 
sat  down  at  a  table  in  front  of  the  cafe,  surrounded  by 
some  hundreds  of  people  of  all  classes,  conversing  and 
eating  ices.  I  thought  as  I  glanced  about  me,  how 
oddly  such  a  scene  would  look  in  America.  In  the 
broad  part  of  an  open  walk,  the  whole  town  passing 
and  repassing,  sat  elegantly  dressed  ladies  with  their 
husbands  or  lovers,  mothers  with  their  daughters,  and 
occasionally  a  group  of  modest  girls  alone,  eating  or 
drinking  with  as  little  embarrassment  as  at  home,  and 
preserving  toward  each  other  that  courtesy  of  deport- 
ment which  in  these  classes  of  society  can  result  only 
from  being  so  much  in  public. 

Under  the  next  tree  to  us  sat  an  excessively  pretty 
woman  with  two  gentlemen,  probably  her  husband 
and  cavalier.  I  touched  my  hat  to  them  as  we  seated 
ourselves,  and  this  common  courtesy  of  the  country 
was  returned  with  smiles  that  put  us  instantly  upon 
the  footing  of  a  half  acquaintance.  A  caress  to  the 
lady's  greyhound,  and  an  apology  for  smoking,  pro- 
duced a  little  conversation,  and  when  they  rose  to  leave 
us,  the  compliments  of  the  evening  were  exchanged 
with  a  cordiality  that  in  America  would  scarce  follow 
an  acquaintance  of  months.  I  mention  it  as  an  every- 
day instance  of  the  kind-hearted  and  open  manners  of 
Europe.  It  is  what  makes  these  countries  so  agree- 
able to  the  stranger  and  the  traveller.  Every  cafe,  on 
a  second  visit,  seems  like  a  home. 

We  were  at  a  rural  fete  last  night,  given  by  a  wealthy 
merchant  of  Trieste,  at  his  villa  in  the  neighborhood. 
We  found  the  company  assembled  on  a  terraced  ob- 
servatory, crowning  a  summer-house,  watching  the 
sunset  over  one  of  the  sweetest  landscapes  in  the  world. 
We  were  at  the  head  of  a  valley  broken  at  the  edge 
of  the  Adriatic  by  the  city,  and  beyond  spread  the 
golden  waters  of  the  gulf  toward  Venice,  headed  in  on 
the  right  by  the  long  chain  of  the  Friuli.  The  coun- 
try around  was  green  and  fertile,  and  small  white  vil- 
las peeped  out  everywhere  from  the  foliage,  evidences 
of  the  prosperous  commerce  of  the  town.  We  watch- 
ed the  warm  colors  out  of  the  sky,  and  the  party  hav- 
ing by  this  time  assembled,  we  walked  through  the 
long  gardens  to  a  house  open  with  long  windows  from 
the  ceilino;  t0  the  floor,  and  furnished  only  with  the 
light  and  luxurious  arrangement  of  summer. 

Music  is  the  life  of  all  amusement  within  the  reach 
of  Italy,  and  the  waltzing  was  mingled  with  perform- 
ances on  the  piano  (and  very  wonderful  ones  to  me) 
by  an  Italian  count  and  his  friend,  a  German.  They 
played  duetts  in  a  style  I  have  seldom  heard  even  by 
professors. 

The  supper  was  fantastically  rural.  The  table  was 
spread  under  a  large  tree,  from  the  branches  of  which 
was  trailed  a  vine,  by  a  square  frame  of  lattice-work  in 
the  proportions  of  a  pretty  saloon.  The  lamps  were 
hung  in  colored  lanterns  among  the  branches,  and  the 
trunk  of  the  tree  passed  through  the  centre  of  the  ta- 
ble hollowed  to  receive  it.  The  supper  was  sumptu- 
ously splendid,  and  the  effect  of  the  party  within,  seen 
from  the  grounds  about,  through  the  arched  and  vine- 
concealed  doors,  was  the  most  picturesque  imaginable. 


A  waltz  or  two  followed,  and  we  were  about  calling 
for  our  horses,  when  the  whole  place  was  illuminated 
with  a  discharge  of  fireworks.  Every  description  of 
odd  figures  was  described  in  flame  during  the  hour 
they  detained  us,  and  the  bright  glare  on  the  trees, 
and  the  figures  of  the  party  strolling  up  and  down  the 
gravelled  walks,  was  admirably  beautiful. 

They  do  these  things  so  prettily  here  !  We  were 
invited  out  on  the  morning  of  the  same  day,  and  ex- 
pected nothing  but  a  drive  and  a  cup  of  tea,  and  we 
found  an  entertainment  worthy  of  a  king.  The  sim- 
plicity and  frankness  with  which  we  were  received,  and 
the  unpretendingness  of  the  manner  of  introducing  the 
amusements  of  the  evening,  might  have  been  lessons 
in  politeness  to  nobles. 

A  drive  to  town  by  starlight,  and  a  pull  off  to  the 
ship  in  the  cool  and  refreshing  night  air,  concluded  a 
day  of  pure  pleasure.  It  has  been  my  good  fortune 
of  late  to  number  many  such. 


LETTER  XC 

THE  DARDANELLES— VISIT  FROM  THE  PACHA— HIS  DELIGHT 
AT  HRARING  THE  PIANO TURKISH  FOUNTAINS — CARA- 
VAN OF  MULES  LADEN  WITH  GRAPES— TURKISH  MODE 

OF  LIVING — HOUSES,  CAFES,  AND  WOMEN THE  MOSQUE 

AND  THE  MUEZZIN — AMERICAN  CONSUL  OF  THE  DARDA- 
NELLES, ANOTHER  CALEB  QUOTEM. 

Coast  of  Asia. — We  have  lain  in  the  mouth  of  the 
Dardanelles  sixteen  mortal  days,  waiting  for  a  wind. 
!  Like  Don  Juan  (who  passed  here  on  his  way  to  Con 
stantinople) — 

"  Another  time  we  might  have  liked  to  see  'em, 
But  now  are  not  much  pleased  with  Cape  Sigaeum.'' 

An  occasional  trip  with  the  boats  to  the  watering-place, 
a  Turkish  bath,  and  a  stroll  in  the  bazar  of  the  town 
behind  the  castle,  gazing  with  a  glass  at  the  tombs  of 
Ajax  and  Achilles,  and  the  long,  undulating  shores  of 
Asia,  eating  often  and  sleeping  much,  are  the  only 
appliances  to  our  philosophy.  One  can  not  always  be 
thinking  of  Hero  and  Leander,  though  he  lie  in  the 
Hellespont. 

A  merchant-brig  from  Smyrna  is  anchored  just 
astern  of  us,  waiting  like  ourselves  for  this  eternal 
northeaster  to  blow  itself  out.  She  has  forty  or  fifty 
passengers  for  Constantinople,  among  whom  are  the 
wife  of  an  American  merchant  (a  Greek  lady),  and  Mr. 
Schaufner,a  missionary,  in  whom  I  recognised  a  quon- 
dam fellow  student.  They  were  nearly  starved  out  on 
board  the  brig,  as  she  was  provisioned  but  for  a  few 
days,  and  the  commodore  has  courteously  offered  them 
a  passage  in  the  frigate.  Fifty  or  sixty  sail  lie  below 
Castle  Europe,  in  the  same  predicament.  With  the 
"  cap  of  King  Erricus,"  this  cruising,  pleasant  as  it  is 
would  be  a  thought  pleasanter  to  my  fancy. 

Still  wind-bound.     The  angel  that 

"  Looked  o'er  my  almanac 
And  crossed  out  my  ill-days," 

suffered  a  week  or  so  to  escape  him  here.  Not  that 
the  ship  is  not  pleasant  enough,  and  the  climate  de- 
serving of  its  Sybarite  fame,  and  the  sunsets  and  stars 
as  much  brighter  than  those  of  the  rest  of  the  world, 
as  Byron  has  described  them  to  be  (vide  letter  to 
Leigh  Hunt),  but  life  has  run  in  so  deep  a  current 
with  me  of  late,  that  the  absence  of  incident  seems 
like  water  without  wine.  The  agreeable  stir  of  travel, 
the  incomplete  adventure,  the  change  of  costumes  and 
scenery,  the  busy  calls  upon  the  curiosity  and  the 
imagination,  have  become,  in  a  manner,  very  breath 
to  me.  Hitherto  upon  the  cruise,  we  have  scarce 
ever  been  more  than  one  or  two  days  at  a  time  out 
of  port.      Elba,   Sicily.  Naples,  Vienna,  the  Ionian 


PENCILLINGS  BY  THE  WAY. 


139 


Isles,  and  the  various  ports  of  Greece  have  come  and 
gone  so  rapidly,  and  so  entirely  without  exertion  of  my 
own,  that  I  seem  to  have  lived  in  a  magic  panorama. 
After  dinner  on  one  day  I  visit  a  city  here,  and  the  day 
or  two  after,  lounging  and  reading  and  sleeping  mean- 
while quietly  at  home,  I  find  myself  rising  from  table, 
hundreds  of  miles  farther  to  the  north  or  east,  and 
another  famous  city  before  me,  having  taken  no  care, 
and  felt  no  motion,  nor  encountered  danger  or  fatigue. 
A  summer  cruise  in  the  Mediterranean  is  certainly  the 
perfection  of  sight-seeing.  With  a  sea  as  smooth  as 
a  river,  and  cities  of  interest,  classical  and  mercantile, 
everywhere  on  the  lee,  I  can  conceive  of  no  class  of 
persons  to  whom  it  would  not  be  delightful.  A  com- 
pany of  pleasure,  in  a  private  vessel,  would  see  all 
Greece  and  Italy  with  less  trouble  and  expense  than 
is  common  on  a  trip  to  the  lakes. 

"  All  hands  up  anchor  !"  The  dog-vane  pojnts  at 
last  to  Constantinople.  The  capstan  is  manned,  the 
sails  loosed,  the  quarter-master  at  the  wheel,  and  the 
wind  freshens  every  moment  from  the  "sweet  south." 
"  Heave  round  merrily  !"  The  anchor  is  dragged  in  by 
this  rushing  Hellespont,  and  holds  on  as  if  the  bridge 
of  Xerxes  were  tangled  about  the  flukes.  "  Up  she 
comes  at  last,"  and  yielding  to 'her  broad  canvass,  the 
gallant  frigate  begins  to  make  headway  against  the 
current.  There  is  nothing  in  the  whole  world  of 
senseless  matter,  so  like  a  breathing  creature  as  a 
ship  !  The  energy  of  her  motion,  the  beauty  of  her 
shape  and  contrivance,  and  the  ease  with  which  she 
is  managed  by  the  one  mind  upon  her  quarter-deck, 
to  whose  voice  she  is  as  obedient  as  the  courser  to  the 
rein,  inspire  me  with  daily  admiration.  I  have  been 
four  months  a  guest  in  this  noble  man-of-war,  and  to 
this  hour,  1  never  set  my  foot  on  her  deck  without  a 
feeling  of  fresh  wonder.  And  then  Cooper's  novels 
read  in  a  ward-room  as  grapes  eat  in  Tuscany.  It 
were  missing  one  of  the  golden  leaves  of  a  life  not  to 
have  thumbed  them  on  a  cruise. 

The  wind  has  headed  us  off  again,  and  we  have 
dropped  anchor  just  below  the  castles  of  the  Darda- 
nelles. We  have  made  but  eight  miles,  but  we  have 
new  scenery  from  the  ports,  and  that  is  something  to 
a  weary  eye.  I  was  as  tired  of  "the  shores  of  Ilion" 
as  ever  was  Ulysses.  The  hills  about  our  present 
anchorage  are  green  and  boldly  marked,  and  the 
frowning  castles  above  us  give  that  addition  to  the 
landscape  which  is  alone  wanting  on  the  Hudson. 
Sestos  and  Abydos  are  six  or  seven  miles  up  the 
stream.  The  Asian  shore  (I  should  have  thought  it 
a  pretty  circumstance,  once,  to  be  able  to  set  foot 
either  in  Europe  or  Asia  in  five  minutes)  is  enlivened 
by  numbers  of  small  vessels,  tracking  up  with  buffa- 
loes, against  wind  and  tide.  And  here" we  lie,  says  the 
old  pilot,  without  hope  till  the  moon  changes.  The 
"■fickle  moon,"  quotha  !  I  wish  my  friends  were  half 
as  constant ! 

The  pacha  of  the  Dardanelles  has  honored  us 
with  a  visit.  He  came  in  a  long  caique,  pulled  by 
twenty  stout  rascals,  his  excellency  of  "two  tails" 
silting  on  a  rich  carpet  on  the  bottom  of  the  boat  with 
his  boy  of  a  year  old  in  the  same  uniform  as  himself, 
and  his  suite  of  pipe  and  slipper-bearers,  dwarf  and 
executioner,  sitting  cross-legged  about  him.  He  was 
received  with  the  guard  and  all  the  honor  due  his 
rank.  His  face  is  that  of  a  cold,  haughty,  and  reso- 
lute, but  well-born  man,  and  his  son  is  like  him.  He 
looked  at  everything  attentively,  without  expressing 
any  surprise,  till  he  came  to  the  pianoforte,  which 
one  of  the  ladies  played  to  his  undisguised  delight.  It 
was  the  first  he  had  ever  seen.  He  inquired,  through 
his  interpreter,  if  she  had  not  been  all  her  life  in 
learning. 

The  poet  says,  "  The  seasons  of  the  year  conae  in 


like  masquers."  To  one  who  had  made  their  ac- 
quaintance in  New-England,  most  of  the  months 
would  literally  pass  incog,  in  Italy.  But  here  is  hon- 
est October,  the  same  merry  old  gentleman,  though  I 
meet  him  in  Asia,  and  I  remember  him,  last  year,  at 
the  baths  of  Lucca,  as  unchanged  as  here.  It  has 
been  a  clear,  bright,  invigorating  day,  with  a  vitality 
in  the  air  as  rousing  to  the  spirits  as  a  blast  from  the 
"  horn  of  Astolpho."  I  can  remember  just  such  a  day 
ten  years  ago.  It  is  odd  how  a  little  sunshine  will 
cling  to  the  memory  when  loves  and  hates  that,  in 
their  time,  convulsed  the  very  soul,  are  so  easily  for- 
gotten. 

We  heard  yesterday  that  there  was  a  Turkish  village 
seven  or  eight  miles  in  the  mountains  on  the  Asian 
side,  and,  as  a  variety  to  the  promenade  on  the  quar- 
ter-deck, a  ramble  was  proposed  to  it. 

We  landed,  this  morning,  on  the  bold  shore  of  the 
Dardanelles,  and,  climbing  up  the  face  of  a  sand-hill, 
struck  across  a  broad  plain,  through  bush  and  brier, 
for  a  mile.  On  the  edge  of  a  ravine  we  found  a  pretty 
road,  half  hedged  over  with  oak  and  hemlock,  and  a 
mounted  Turk,  whom  we  met  soon  after,  with  a  gun 
across  his  pummel,  and  a  goose  looking  from  his 
saddle-bag,  directed  us  to  follow  it  till  we  reached  the 
village. 

It  was  a  beautiful  path,  flecked  with  the  shade  of 
leaves  of  all  the  variety  of  eastern  trees,  and  refreshed 
with  a  fountain  at  every  mile.  About  half  way  we 
stopped  at  a  spring  welling  from  a  rock,  under  a  large 
fig-tree,  from  which  the  water  poured,  as  clear  as 
crystal,  into  seven  tanks,  and  one  after  the  other  rip- 
pling away  from  the  last  into  a  wild  thicket,  whence  a 
stripe  of  brighter  green  marked  its  course  down  the 
mountain.  It  was  a  spot  worthy  of  Tempe.  We 
seated  ourselves  on  the  rim  of  the  rocky  basin,  and, 
with  a  drink  of  bright  water,  and  a  half  hour's  repose, 
re-commenced  our  ascent,  blessing  the  nymph  of  the 
fount,  like  true  pilgrims  of  the  east. 

A  few  steps  beyond  we  met  a  caravan  of  the  pacha's 
tithe-gatherers,  with  mules  laden  with  grapes ;  the 
turbaned  and  showily-armed  drivers,  as  they  came 
winding  down  the  dell,  produced  the  picturesque 
effect  of  a  theatrical  ballet.  They  laid  their  hands 
on  their  breasts,  with  grave  courtesy  as  they  ap- 
proached, and  we  helped  ourselves  to  the  ripe,  blush- 
ing clusters,  as  the  panniers  went  by,  with  Arcadian 
freedom. 

We  reached  the  summit  of  the  ridge  a  little  before 
noon,  and  turned  our  faces  back  for  a  moment  to 
catch  the  cool  wind  from  the  Hellespont.  The  Dar- 
danelles came  winding  out  from  the  hills,  just  above 
Abydos,  and  sweeping  past  the  upper  castles  of  Europe 
and  Asia,  rushed  down  by  Tenedos  into  the  archipel- 
ago. Perhaps  twenty  miles  of  its  course  lay  within 
our  view.  Its  colors  were  borrowed  from  the  divine 
sky  above,  and  the  rainbow  is  scarce  more  varied  or 
brighter.  The  changing  purple  and  blue  of  the  mid- 
stream, specked  with  white  crests,  the  crysoprase  green 
of  the  shallows,  and  the  dies  of  the  various  depths 
along  the  shore,  gave  it  the  appearance  of  a  vein  of 
transparent  marble,  inlaid  through  the  valley.  The 
frigate  looked  like  a  child's  boat  on  its  bosom.  To 
our  left,  the  tombs  of  Ajax  and  Achilles  were  just  dis- 
tinguishable in  the  plains  of  the  Scamander,  and  Troy 
(if  Troy  ever  stood),  stood  back  from  the  sea,  and  the 
blue-wreathed  isles  of  the  archipelago  bounded  the 
reach  of  the  eye.  It  was  a  view  that  might  "cure  a 
month's  grief  in  a  day." 

We  descended  now  into  a  kind  of  cradle  valley, 
yellow  with  rich  vineyards.  It  was  alive  with  people 
gathering  in  the  grapes.  The  creaking  wagons  filled 
the  road,  and  shouts  and  laughter  rang  over  the  moun- 
tain-sides merrily.  The  scene  would  have  been  Italian, 
but  for  the  Turbans  peering  out  everywhere  from  the 
leaves,  and  those  diabolical-looking   buffaloes  in  the 


140 


PENCILLINGS  BY  THE  WAY. 


wagons.  The  village  was  a  mile  or  two  before  us,  and 
we  loitered  on,  entering  here  and  there  a  vineyard, 
where  the  only  thing  evidently  grudged  us  was  our 
peep  at  the  women.  They  scattered  like  deer  as  we 
stepped  over  the  walls. 

Near  the  village  we  found  a  grave  Turk,  of  whom 
one  of  the  officers  made  some  inquiries,  which  were  a 
part  of  our  errand  to  the  mountains.  It  may  spoil  the 
sentiment  of  my  description,  but,  in  addition  to  the 
poetry  of  the  ramble,  we  were  to  purchase  beef  for  the 
mess.  His  bullocks  were  out  at  grass  (feeding  in  pas- 
toral security,  poor  things!),  and  he  invited  us  to  his 
house,  while  he  sent  his  boy  to  drive  them  in.  I  rec- 
ognised them,  when  they  came,  as  two  handsome 
steers,  which  had  completed  the  beauty  of  an  open 
glade,  in  the  centre  of  a  clump  of  forest  trees,  on  our 
route.  The  pleasure  they  have  afforded  the  eye  will 
be  repeated  upon  the  palate — a  double  destiny  not  ac- 
corded to  all  beautiful  creatures. 

Our  host  led  us  up  a  flight  of  rough  stone  steps  to 
the  second  story  of  his  house,  where  an  old  woman 
sat  upon  her  heels,  rolling  out  paste,  and  a  younger 
one  nursed  a  little  Turk  at  her  bosom.  They  had, 
like  every  man,  woman,  or  child  I  have  seen  in  this 
country,  superb  eyes  and  noses.  No  chisel  could  im- 
prove the  meanest  of  them  in  these  features.  Our 
friend's  wife  seemed  ashamed  to  be  caught  with  her 
face  uncovered,  but  she  offered  us  cushions  on  the 
floor  before  she  retired,  and  her  husband  followed  up 
her  courtesy  with  his  pipe. 

We  went  thence  to  the  cafe,  where  a  bubbling 
hookah,  a  cup  of  coffee,  and  a  divan,  refreshed  us  a 
little  from  our  fatigues.  While  the  rest  of  the  party 
were  lingering  over  their  pipes,  I  took  a  turn  through 
the  village  in  search  of  the  house  of  the  aga.  After 
strolling  up  and  down  the  crooked  streets  for  half  an 
hour,  a  pretty  female  figure,  closely  enveloped  in  her 
veil,  and  showing,  as  she  ran  across  the  street,  a  dainty 
pair  of  feet  in  small  yellow  slippers,  attracted  me  into 
the  open  court  of  the  best-looking  house  in  the  village. 
The  lady  had  disappeared,  but  a  curious-looking  car- 
riage, lined  with  rich  Turkey  carpeting  and  cushions, 
and  covered  with  red  curtains,  made  to  draw  close  in 
front,  stood  in  the  centre  of  the  court.  I  was  going  up 
to  examine  it,  when  an  old  man,  with  a  beard  to  his 
girdle,  and  an  uncommonly  rich  turban,  stepped  from 
the  house,  and  motioned  me  angrily  away.  A  large 
wolf-dog,  which  he  held  by  the  collar,  added  em- 
phasis to  his  command,  and  I  retreated  directly. 
A  giggle  and  several  female  voices  from  the  close- 
ly-latticed window,  rather  aggravated  the  mortifica- 
tion. I  had  intruded  on  the  premises  of  the  aga, 
a  high  offence  in  Turkey,  when  a  woman  is  in  the 
case. 

It  was  "  deep  i'  the  afternoon,"  when  we  arrived  at 
the  beach,  and  made  signal  for  a  boat.  We  were  on 
board  as  the  sky  kindled  with  the  warm  colors  of  an 
Asian  sunset — a  daily  offset  to  our  wearisome  deten- 
tion which  goes  far  to  keep  me  in  temper.  My  fear  is 
that  the  commodore's  patience  is  not  "so  good  a  con- 
tinuer"  as  this  "  vento  maledetto,"  as  the  pilot  calls  it, 
and  in  such  a  case  I  lose  Constantinople  most  provo- 
kingiy. 

Walked  to  the  Upper  Castle  Asia,  some  eight  miles 
above  our  anchorage.  This  is  the  main  town  on  the 
Dardanelles,  and  contains  forty  or  fifty  thousand  in- 
habitants. Sestos  and  Abydos  are  a  mile  or  two  farther 
up  the  strait. 

We  kept  along  the  beach  for  an  hour  or  two,  passing 
occasionally  a  Turk  on  horseback,  till  we  were  stopped 
by  a  small  and  shallow  creek  without  a  bridge,  just  on 
the  skirts  of  the  town.  A  woman  with  one  eye  peep- 
ing from  her  veil,  dressed  in  a  tunic  of  fine  blue  cloth, 
stood  at  the  head  of  a  large  drove  of  camels  on  the 


other  side,  and  a  beggar  with  one  eye,  smoked  his  pipe 
on  the  sand  at  a  little  distance.  The  water  was  knee- 
deep,  and  we  were  hesitating  on  the  brink  when  the 
beggar  offered  to  carry  us  across  on  his  back — a  task 
he  accomplished  (there  were  six  of  us)  without  taking 
his  pipe  from  his  mouth. 

1  tried  in  vain  to  get  a  peep  at  the  camel-driver's 
wife  or  daughter,  but  she  seemed  jealous  of  showing 
even  her  eyebrow,  and  I  followed  on  to  the  town. 
The  Turks  live  differently  from  every  other  people,  I 
believe.  You  walk  through  their  town  and  see  every 
individual  in  it,  except  perhaps  the  women  of  the 
pacha.  Their  houses  are  square  boxes,  the  front 
side  of  which  lifts  on  a  hinge  in  the  day  time,  expo- 
sing the  whole  interior,  with  its  occupants  squatted  in 
the  corners  or  on  the  broad  platform  where  their  trades 
are  followed.  They  are  scarce  larger  than  boxes  in 
the  theatre,  and  the  roof  projects  into  the  middle  of 
the  street,  meeting  that  of  the  opposite  neighbor,  so 
that  the  pavement  between  is  always  dark  and  cool. 
The  three  or  four  Turkish  towns  I  have  seen,  have 
the  appearance  of  cabins  thrown  up  hastily  after  a  fire. 
You  would  not  suppose  they  were  intended  to  last 
more  than  a  month  at  the  farthest. 

We  roved  through  the  narrow  streets  an  hour  or 
more,  admiring  the  fine-bearded  old  Turks,  smoking 
cross-legged  in  the  cafes,  the  slipper-makers  with  their 
gay  morocco  wares  in  goodly  rows  around  them,  the 
wily  Jews  with  their  high  caps  and  caftans  (looking, 
crouched  among  their  merchandise,  like  the  "venders 
of  old  bottles  and  abominable  lies,"  as  they  are  drawn 
in  the  plays  of  Queen  Elizabeth's  time),  the  muffled 
and  gliding  spectres  of  the  moslem  women,  and  the 
livelier-footed  Greek  girls,  in  their  velvet  jackets  and 
braided  hair,  and  by  this  time  we  were  kindly  disposed 
to  our  dinners. 

On  our  way  to  the  consul's,  where  we  were  to  dine, 
we  passed  a  mosque.  The  minaret  (a  tall  peaked 
tower,  about  of  the  shape  and  proportions  of  a  pencil- 
case)  commanded  a  view  down  the  principal  streets; 
and  a  stout  fellow,  with  a  sharp  clear  voice,  leaned 
over  the  balustrade  at  the  top,  crying  out  the  invita- 
tion to  prayer  in  a  long  drawling  sing-song,  that  must 
have  been  audible  on  the  other  side  of  the  Hellespont. 
Open  porches,  supported  by  a  paling  extended  all 
around  the  church,  and  the  floors  were  filled  with 
kneeling  Turks,  with  their  pistols  and  ataghans  lying 
beside  them.  I  had  never  seen  so  picturesque  a  con- 
gregation. The  slippers  were  left  in  hundreds  at  the 
threshold,  and  the  bare  and  muscular  feet  and  legs, 
half  concealed  by  the  full  trowsers,  supported  as 
earnest  a  troop  of  worshippers  as  ever  bent  fore- 
head to  the  ground.  I  left  them  rising  from  a  flat 
prostration,  and  hurried  after  my  companions  to 
dinner. 

Our  consul  of  the  Dardanelles  is  an  American. 
He  is  absent  just  now,  in  search  of  a  runaway  female 
slave  of  the  sultan's ;  and  his  wife,  a  gracious  Italian, 
full  of  movement  and  hospitality,  does  the  honors 
of  his  house  in  his  absence.  He  is  a  physician  as 
well  as  consul  and  slave-catcher,  and  the  presents  of 
a  hand-organ,  a  French  clock,  and  a  bronze  standish, 
rather  prove  him  to  be  a  favorite  with  the  "  brother  of 
the  sun." 

We  were  smoking  the  hookah  after  dinner,  when 
an  intelligent-looking  man,  of  fifty  or  so,  came  in  to 
pay  us  a  visit.  He  is  at  present  an  exile  from  Con- 
stantinople, by  order  of  the  grand  seignior,  because 
a  brother  physician,  his  friend,  failed  in  an  attempt 
to  cure  one  of  the  favorites  of  the  imperial  harem ! 
This  is  what  might  be  called  "  sympathy  upon  com- 
pulsion." It  is  unnecessary,  one  would  think,  to 
make  friendship  more  dangerous  than  common  human 
treachery  renders  it  already. 


PENCILLINGS  BY  THE  WAY. 


141 


LETTER  XCI. 

TURKISH    MILITARY    LIFE A    VISIT    TO    THE    CAMP 

TURKISH    MUSIC SUNSETS THE   SEA  OF  MARMORA. 

A  half  hour's  walk  brought  us  within  sight  of  the 
pacha's  camp.  The  green  and  white  tents  of  five  thou- 
sand Turkish  troops  were  pitched  on  the  edge  of  a 
stream,  partly  sheltered  by  a  grove  of  noble  oaks,  and 
defended  by  wicker  batteries  at  distances  of  thirty  or 
forty  feet.  We  were  stopped  by  the  sentinel  on  guard, 
while  a  message  was  sent  in  to  the  pacha  for  permis- 
sion to  wait  upon  him.  Meantime  a  number  of  young 
officers  came  out  from  their  tents,  and  commenced 
examining  our  dresses  with  the  curiosity  of  boys. 
One  put  on  my  gloves,  another  examined  the  cloth  of 
my  coat,  a  third  took  from  me  a  curious  stick  I  had 
purchased  at  Vienna,  and  a  more  familiar  gentleman 
took  up  my  hand,  and  after  comparing  it  with  his  own 
black  fingers,  stroked  it  with  an  approving  smile  that 
was  meant  probably  as  a  compliment.  My  compan- 
ions underwent  the  same  review,  and  their  curiosity 
was  still  unsated  when  a  good-looking  officer,  with  his 
cimeter  under  his  arm,  came  to  conduct  us  to  the 
commander-in-chief. 

The  long  lines  of  tents  were  bent  to  the  direction 
of  the  stream,  and,  at  short  distances,  the  silken  ban- 
ner stuck  in  the  ground  under  the  charge  of  a  senti- 
nel, and  a  divan  covered  with  rich  carpets  under  the 
shade  of  the  nearest  tree,  marked  the  tent  of  an  offi- 
cer. The  interior  of  those  of  the  soldiers  exhibited 
merely  a  stand  of  muskets  and  a  raised  platform  for 
bed  and  table,  covered  with  coarse  mats,  and  decked 
with  the  European  accoutrements  now  common  in 
Turkey.  It  was  the  middle  of  the  afternoon,  and 
most  of  the  officers  lay  asleep  on  low  ottomans,  with 
their  tent-curtains  undrawn,  and  their  long  chibouques 
beside  them,  or  still  at  their  lips.  Hundreds  of  sol- 
diers loitered  about,  engaged  in  various  occupations, 
sweeping,  driving  their  tent-stakes  more  firmly  into  the 
ground,  cleaning  arms,  cooking,  or  with  their  heels 
under  them  playing  silently  at  dominoes.  Half  the 
camp  lay  on  the  opposite  bank  of  the  stream,  and 
there  was  repeated  the  same  warlike  picture,  the 
white  uniform  and  the  loose  red  cap  with  its  gold  bul- 
lion and  blue  tassel,  appearing  and  disappearing  be- 
tween the  rows  of  tents,  and  the  bright  red  banners 
clinging  to  the  staff*  in  the  breathless  sunshine. 

We  soon  approached  the  splendid  pavilion  of  the 
pacha,  unlike  the  rest  in  shape,  and  surrounded  bv  a 
quantity  of  servants,  some  cooking  at  the  root  of  a 
tree,  and  all  pursuing  their  vocation  with  a  singular 
earnestness.  A  superb  banner  of  bright  crimson  silk, 
wrought  with  long  lines  of  Turkish  characters,  prob- 
ably passages  from  the  Koran,  stood  in  a  raised  socket 
guarded  by  two  sentinels.  Near  the  tent,  and  not  far 
from  the  edge  of  the  stream,  stood  a  gayly-painted 
kiosk,  not  unlike  the  fantastic  summer-houses  some- 
times seen  in  a  European  garden,  and  here  our  con- 
ductor stopped,  and  kicking  off  his  slippers,  motioned 
for  us  to  enter. 

We  mounted   the  steps,   and  passing  a  small  en- 
trance-room filled  with  guards,  stood  in  the  presence 
of  the  commander-in-chief.     He  sat  on  a  divan,  cross- 
legged,  in  a  military  frock-coat  wrought  with  gold  on 
the  collar  and  cuffs,  a  sparkling  diamond  crescent  on 
his  breast,  and  a  cimeter  at  his  side,  with  a  belt  richly 
wrought,  and  held  by  a  buckle  of  dazzling  brilliants. 
His  aid  sat  beside  him,  in  a  dress  somewhat  similar,  j 
and  both  appeared  to  be  men  of  about  forty.     The  j 
pacha  is  a  stern,  dark,  soldier  like  man,  with   a   thick,  i 
straight  beard  as  black  as  jet,  and  features  which  look  ] 
incapable  of  a  smile.     He  bowed  without  rising  when 
we  entered,  and  motioned  for  us  to  be  seated.     A  little 
conversation  passed  between    him  and  the    consul's 
son,  who  acted  as  our  interpreter,  and  coffee   came   in 


almost  immediately.  There  was  an  aroma  about  it 
which  might  revive  a  mummy.  The  small  china- 
cups,  with  thin  gold  filagree  sockets,  were  soon  emp- 
tied and  taken  away,  and  the  officer  in  waiting  intro- 
duced a  soldier  to  go  through  the  manual  exercise  by 
way  of  amusing  us. 

He  was  a  powerful  fellow,  and  threw  his  muske 
about  with  so  much  violence,  that  I  feared  every  mo- 
ment, the  stock,  lock,  and  barrel,  would  part  compa- 
ny. He  had  taken  off  his  shoes  before  venturing  into 
the  presence  of  his  commander,  and  looked  oddly 
enough,  playing  the  soldier  in  his  stockings.  I  was 
relieved  of  considerable  apprehension  when  he  order- 
ed arms,  and  backed  out  to  his  slippers. 

The  next  exhibition  was  that  of  a  military  band. 
A  drum-major,  with  a  proper  gold-headed  stick, 
wheeled  some  sixty  fellows  with  all  kinds  of  instru- 
ments under  the  windows  of  the  kiosk,  and  with  a 
whirl  of  his  baton,  the  harmony  commenced.  I  could 
just  detect  some  resemblance  to  a  march.  The  drums 
rolled,  the  "■ear-piercing  fifes"  fulfilled  their  destiny, 
and  trombone,  serpent,  and  horn,  showed  of  what 
they  were  capable.  The  pacha  got  upon  his  knees  to 
lean  out  of  the  window,  and,  as  I  rose  from  my  low 
seat  at  the  same  time,  he  pulled  me  down  beside  him, 
and  gave  me  half  his  carpet,  patting  me  on  the  back, 
and  pressing  me  to  the  window  with  his  arm  over  my 
neck.  I  have  observed  frequently  among  the  Turks 
this  singular  familiarity  of  manners  both  to  strangers 
and  one  another.  It  is  an  odd  contrast  with  their  ha- 
bitual gravity. 

The  sultan,  I  think  unwisely,  has  introduced  the 
Europeau  uniform  into  his  army.  With  the  excep- 
tion of  the  Tunisian  cap,  which  is  substituted  for  the 
thick  and  handsome  turban,  the  dress  is  such  as  is 
worn  by  the  soldiers  of  the  French  army.  Their  tai- 
lors are  of  course  bad,  and  their  figures,  accustomed 
only  to  the  loose  and  graceful  costume  of  the  east, 
are  awkward  and  constrained.  I  never  saw  so  uncouth 
a  set  of  fellows  as  the  five  thousand  mussulmans  in 
this  army  of  the  Dardanelles;  and  yet  in  their  Turk- 
ish trowsers  and  turban,  with  the  belt  stuck  full  of 
arms,  and  their  long  mustache,  they  would  be  as  mar- 
tial-looking troops  as  ever  followed  a  banner. 

We  embarked  at  sunset  to  return  to  the  ship.  The 
shell-shaped  caique,  with  her  tall  sharp  extremities 
and  fantastic  sail,  yielded  to  the  rapid  current  of  the 
Hellespont;  and  our  two  boatmen,  as  handsome  a 
brace  of  Turks  as  ever  were  drawn  in  a  picture,  pull- 
ed their  legs  under  them  more  closely,  and  commen- 
ced singing  the  alternate  stanzas  of  a  villanous  duet. 
The  helmsman's  part  was  rather  humorous,  and  his 
merry  black  eyes  redeemed  it  somewhat,  but  his  fel- 
low was  as  grave  as  a  dervish,  and  howled  as  if  he 
were  ferrying  over  Xerxes  after  his  defeat. 

If  I  were  to  live  in  the  east  as  long  as  the  wander- 
ing Jew,  I  think  these  heavenly  sunsets,  evening  after 
evening,  scarce  varying  by  a  shade,  would  never  be- 
come familiar  to  my  eye.  They  surprise  me  day  after 
day,  like  some  new  and  brilliant  phenomenon,  though 
the  thoughts  which  they  bring,  as  it  were  by  a  habit 
contracted  of  the  hour,  are  almost  always  the  same. 
The  day,  in  these  countries  where  life  flows  so  thick- 
ly, is  engrossed,  and  pretty  busily  too,  by  the  present. 
The  past  comes  up  with  the  twilight,  and  wherever  I 
may  be,  and  in  whatever  scene  mingling,  my  heart 
breaks  away,  and  goes  down  into  the  west  with  the 
sun.  I  am  at  home  as  duly  as  the  bird  settles  to  her 
nest. 

It  was  natural  in  paying  the  boatman,  after  such  a 
musing  passage,  to  remember  the  poetical  justice  of 
Uhland  in  crossing  the  ferry  : — 

"  Take,  O  boatman,  thrice  thy  fee  ! 
Take  !  I  give  it  willingly  ; 
For,  invisibly  to  thee, 

Spirits  twain  have  crossed  with  m*  !" 


142 


PENC1LL1NGS  BY  THE  WAY. 


I  should  have  paid  for  one  other  seat,  at  least,  by 
this  fanciful  tariff.  Our  unmusical  mussulmans  were 
content,  however,  and' we  left  them  to  pull  back 
against  the  tide,  by  a  star  that  cast  a  shadow  like  a 
meteor. 

The  moon  changed  this  morning,  and  the  wind, 
that  in  this  clime  of  fable  is  as  constant  to  her  as  En- 
dymion,  changed  too.  The  white  caps  vanished  from 
the  hurrying  waves  of  the  Dardanelles,  and  after  an 
hour  or  two  of  calm,  the  long-expected  breeze  came 
tripping  out  of  Asia,  with  oriental  softness,  and  is  now 
leading  us  gently  up  the  Hellespont. 

As  we  passed  between  the  two  castles  of  the  Darda- 
nelles, the  commodore  saluted  the  pacha  with  nine- 
teen guns,  and  in  half  an  hour  we  were  off  Abydos, 
where  our  friend  from  the  south  has  deserted  us,  and 
we  are  compelled  to  anchor.  It  would  be  unclassical 
to  complain  of  delay  on  so  poetical  a  spot.  It  is  beau- 
tiful, too.  The  shores  on  both  the  Asian  and  Euro- 
pean sides  are  charmingly  varied  and  the  sun  lies  on 
them,  and  on  the  calm  strait  that  links  them,  with  a 
beauty  worthy  of  the  fair  spirit  of  Hero.  A  small 
Turkish  castle  occupies  the  site  of  the  "  torch-lit 
tower"  of  Abydos,  and  there  is  a  corresponding  one 
at  Sestos.  The  distance  between  looks  little  more 
than  a  mile — not  a  surprising  feat  for  any  swimmer,  I 
should  think.  Lady-loves  in  our  day,  alas  !  are  not 
won  so  lightly.  The  current  of  the  Hellespont,  how- 
ever, remains  the  same,  and  so  does  the  moral  of  Le- 
ander's  story.  The  Hellespont  of  matrimony  may  be 
crossed  with  the  tide.     The  deuse  is  to  get  back  ! 

Lampsacus  on  the  starboard-bow,  and  a  fairer  spot 
lies  on  no  river's  brink.  Its  trees,  vineyards,  and  cot- 
tages, slant  up  almost  imperceptibly  from  the  water's 
edge,  and  the  hills  around  have  the  look  "  of  a  clean 
and  quiet  privacy,''  with  a  rural  elegance  that  might 
tempt  Shakspere's  Jaques  to  come  and  moralize. 
By  the  way,  there  have  been  philosophers  here.  Did 
not  Alexander  forgive  the  ciry  its  obstinate  defence  for 
the  sake  of  Anaximenes  ?  There  was  a  sad  dog  of  a 
deity  worshipped  here  about  that  time. 

I  take  a  fresh  look  at  it  from  the  port,  as  I  write. 
Pastures,  every  one  with  a  bordering  of  tall  trees,  cat- 
tle as  beautiful  as  the  daughter  of  Ianchus,  lanes  of 
wild  shrubbery,  a  greener  stripe  through  the  fields  like 
the  track  of  a  stream,  and  smoke  curling  from  every 
cluster  of  trees,  telling  as  plainly  as  the  fancy  can 
read,  that  there  is  both  poetry  and  pillow  at  Lamp- 
sacus. 

Just  opposite  stands  the  modern  Gallipoli,  a  Turk- 
ish town  of  some  thirty  thousand  inhabitants,  at  the 
head  of  the  Hellespont.  The  Hellespont  gets  broad- 
er here,  and  a  few  miles  farther  up  we  open  into  the 
Sea  of  Marmora.  A  French  brig-of-war,  that  has 
been  hanging  about  us  for  a  fortnight  (watching  our 
movements  in  this  unusual  cruise  for  an  American 
frigate,  perhaps),  is  just  ahead,  and  a  quantity  of 
sail  are  stretching  off  on  the  southern  tack,  to  make 
the  best  use  of  their  new  sea  room  for  beating  up  to 
Constantinople. 

We  hope  to  see  Seraglio  Point  to-morrow.  Mr. 
Hodgson,  the  secretary  of  our  embassy  to  Turkey, 
has  just  come  on  board  from  the  Smyrna  packet,  and 
the  agreeable  preparations  for  going  on  shore,  are  al- 
ready on  the  stir.  I  do  not  find  that  the  edge  of  curi- 
osity dulls  with  use.  Thcprospect  of  seeing  a  strange 
city  to-morrow,  produces  the  same  quick-pulsed  emo- 
tion that  I  felt  in  the  diligence  two  years  ago,  rattling 
over  the  last  post  to  Paris.  The  entrances  to  Flor- 
ence, Rome,  Venice,  Vienna,  Athens,  are  marked 
each  with  as  white  a  stone.  He  may  "  gather  no  moss" 
who  rolls  about  the  world  ;  but  that  which  the  gold 
of  the  careful  can  not  buy — pleasure — when  the  soul 
is  most  athirst  for  it,  grows  under  his  feet.  Of 
the   many  daily  reasons  I  find  to  thank  Providence, 


not  the  least  is  that  of  being  what  Clodio  calls  himself 
in  the  play  "a  here-and-thereian." 


LETTER  XCII. 

GALLIPOLI — ARISTOCRACY   OF  BEARDS — TURKISH   SHOP- 
KEEPERS  THE     HOSPITABLE     JEW    AND    HIS     LOVELY 

DAUGHTER UNEXPECTED  RENCONTRE CONSTANTI- 
NOPLE— THE  BOSPHORUS,  THE  SERAGLIO,  AND  THE 
GOLDEN  HORN. 

What  an  image  of  life  it  is  !  The  good  ship  dash- 
es bravely  on  her  course — the  spray  flies  from  her 
prow — her  sheets  are  steady  and  full — to  look  up  to 
her  spreading  canvass,  and  (eel  her  springing  away  be- 
neath, you  would  not  give  her  "  for  the  best  horse  the 
sun  has  in  his  stable."  The  next  moment,  hey  !  the 
foresail  is  aback!  the  wind  baffles  and  dies,  the  ripples 
sink  from  the  sea,  the  ship  loses  her  "way,"  and  the 
pennant  drops  to  the  mast  in  a  breathless  calm ! 
"  Clear  away  the  anchor  !"  and  here  we  are  till  this 
"  crab  in  the  ascendant"  that  makes  "all our  affairs  go 
backward,"  yields  to  our  better  stars. 

We  went  ashore  to  take  a  stroll  through  the  streets 
of  Gallipoli  (the  ancient  Gallipoli  of  Thrace)  as  a  sop 
to  our  patience.  A  deeply-laden  Spanish  merchant 
lay  off  the  pier,  with  a  crew  of  red-capped  and  olive- 
complexioned  fellows  taking  in  grain  from  a  Turkish 
caique,  and  a  crowd  of  modern  Thraciaus,  in  the  noble 
costumes  and  flowing  beards  of  the  country,  closed 
around  us  as  we  stepped  from  the  boat. 

A  street  of  cafes  led  from  the  end  of  the  pier,  and 
as  usual,  they  were  all  crowded  with  Turks,  leaning, 
forward  over  their  slippers,  and  crossing  their  long 
chibouques  as  they  conversed  together.  It  is  odd 
that  even  the  habit  of  a  life  can  make  their  painful 
and  unnatural  posture  an  agreeable  one.  Yet  they 
will  sit  with  their  legs  crooked  under  them,  in  a  way 
that  strains  the  unaccustomed  knee  till  it  cracks  again, 
motionless  by  the  hour  together. 

I  had  no  idea  till  I  came  to  Turkey  how  rare  "a 
beauty  is  a  handsome  beard.  Here  no,  man  shaves, 
and  there  is  as  great  a  difference  in  beards  as  in  stature. 
The  men  of  rank  that  we  have  seen,  might  have  been 
picked  out  anywhere  by  their  superior  beauty  in  this 
respect.  It  grows  vilely,  it  seems  to  me,  on  scoun- 
drels. The  beggars  ashore,  the  low  Jews  who  board 
us  with  provisions,  the  greater  part  of  the  soldiers  and 
petty  shopkeepers  of  the  towns,  have  all  some  mark 
in  their  beards  that  nature  never  intended  them  for 
gentlemen.  Your  smooth  chin  is  a  great  leveller,  trust 
me  ! 

These  Turkish  towns  have  a  queer  look  altogether. 
Gallipoli  is  so  seldom  touched  by  a  Christian  foot, 
that  it  preserves  all  its  peculiarities  entire,  and  is  likely 
to  do  so  for  the  next  century.  We  walked  on,  ascend- 
ing a  narrow  street  completely  shut  in  by  the  roofs  of 
the  low  houses  meeting  above.  There  are  no  car- 
riages or  carts,  and  the  Turks  glide  over  the  stones  in 
their  loose  slippers  with  an  indolent  shuffle  that  seems 
rather  to  add  to  the  silence.  You  hear  no  voice,  for 
they  seldom  speak,  and  never  above  the  key  of  a  bas- 
soon;  and  what  with  the  odd  costumes,  long  beards, 
grave  faces,  and  twilight  darkness  all  about  you,  it  is 
like  a  scene  on  the  stage  when  the  lights  are  lowered 
in  some  incantation  scene. 

Each  street  is  devoted  to  some  one  trade.  We  first 
got  among  the  grocers.  Every  shop  was  a  fellow  to 
the  other,  containing  an  old  Turk  squatted  among 
soap,  jars  of  oil,  raisins,  olives,  pickled  fish,  and  swee* 
meats,  and  everything  within  his  reach.  He  would 
sell  you  his  whole  stock  in  trade  without  taking  his 
pipe  from  his  mouth,  or  disturbing  his  yellow  slipper. 

The  next  turn  brought  us   into  the   Jews'   quarter. 


PENCILLINGS  BY  THE  WAY. 


143 


They  were  nil  tailors,  and  their  shops  were  as  dark  as 
Erebus.  The  light  crept  through  the  chinks  in  the 
roof,  falling  invariably  on  the  same  aquiline  nose  and 
ragged  beard,  with  now  and  then  a  pair  of  copper  spec- 
tacles, while  in  the  back  of  the  dim  tenement  sat  an 
olJ  woman  with  a  group  of  handsome  little  Hebrews, 
(they  are  .always  handsome  when  very  young,  with 
their  clear  3kins  and  dark  eyes)  the  whole  family 
stitching  away  most  diligently.  It  was  laughable  to 
see  how  every  shop  in  the  street  presented  the  same 
picture. 

We  then  got  among  the  slipper-makers,  and  vile 
work  they  turned  out.  We  were  hesitating  between 
two  turnings  when  an  old  Jew,  with  a  high  lamb's- 
wool  cap  and  long  black  caftan,  rather  shabby  for 
wear,  addressed  me  in  a  sort  of  lingua  Franca,  half 
Italian,  half  French,  with  a  sprinkling  of  Spanish,  and 
inquiring  whether  I  belonged  to  the  frigate  in  the  har- 
bor, offered  to  supply  us  with  provisions,  etc.,  etc.  I 
declined  his  services,  and  he  asked  us  directly  to  his 
house  to  take  coffee,  as  plump  a  non  sequitur  as  I 
have  met  in  my  travels. 

We  followed  the  old  man  to  a  very  secluded  part  of 
the  town,  stopping  a  moment  by  the  way  to  look  at 
the  remains  of  an  old  fort  built  by  the  Genoese  in  the 
stout  times  of  Andrea  Doria.  (Where  be  their  gal- 
leys now  ?)  Hajji  (so  he  was  called,  he  said,  from 
having  been  to  Jerusalem)  stopped  at  last  at  the  door 
of  a  shabby  house,  and  throwing  it  open  with  a  hos- 
pitable smile,  bade  us  welcome.  We  mounted  a  creak- 
ing stair,  and  found  things  within  better  than  the  prom- 
ise of  the  exterior.  One  half  the  floor  of  the  room 
was  raised  perhaps  a  foot,  and  matted  neatly,  and  a 
nicely  carpeted  and  cushioned  divan  ran  around  the 
three  sides,  closed  at  the  two  extremities  by  a  lattice- 
work like  the  arm  of  a  sofa.  The  windows  were  set 
in  fantastical  arabesque  frames,  the  upper  panes  coarse- 
ly colored,  but  with  a  rich  effect,  and  the  view  hence 
stretched  over  the  Hellespont  toward  the  south,  with  a 
delicious  background  of  the  valleys  about  Lampsacus. 
No  palace  window  looks  on  a  fairer  scene.  The  broad 
strait  was  as  smooth  as  the  amber  of  the  old  Hebrew's 
pipe,  and  the  vines  that  furnished  Themistocles  with 
wine  during  his  exile  in  Persia,  looked  of  as  golden  a 
green  in  the  light  of  the  sunset,  as  if  the  honor  of  the 
tribute  still  warmed  their  classic  juices. 

The  rich  Turkish  coffee  was  brought  in  by  an  old 
woman,  who  left  her  slippers  below  as  she  stepped 
upon  the  mat,  and  our  host  followed  with  chibouques 
and  a  renewed  welcome.  A  bright  pair  of  eyes  had 
been  peeping  for  some  time  from  one  of  the  chambers, 
and  with  Hajji's  permission  I  called  out  a  graceful 
creature  of  fourteen,  with  a  shape  like  a  Grecian  Cu- 
pidon,  and  a  timid  sweetness  of  expression  that  might 
have  descended  to  her  from  the  gentle  Ruth  of  scrip- 
ture. There  are  lovely  beings  all  over  the  world.  It 
were  a  desert  else.  But  I  did  not  think  to  find  such 
a  diamond  in  a  Hebrew's  bosom.  I  have  forgotten  to 
mention  her  hair,  which  was  very  remarkable.  I 
thought  at  first  it  was  died  with  henna.  It  covered 
her  back  and  shoulders  in  the  greatest  profusion,  braid- 
ed near  the  head,  and  floating  below  in  glossy  and 
silken  curls  of  a  richness  you  would  deny  nature  had 
you  seen  it  in  a  painting.  The  color  was  of  the  deep 
burnt  brown  of  a  berry,  almost  black  in  the  shade,  but 
catching  the  light  at  every  motion  like  threads  of  gold. 
In  my  life  I  have  seen  nothing  so  beautiful.  It  was 
the  "hair  lustrous  and  smiling"  of  quaint  old  Burton.* 
There  was  something  in  it  that  you  could  scarce  avoid 
associating  with  the  character  of  the  wearer — as  if  it 
stole  its  softness  from  some  inborn  gentleness  in  her 
heart.  I  shall  never  thread  my  fingers  through  such 
locks  again  ! 

We  shook  our  kind  host  by  the  hand,  and  stepped 

*  "  Hair  lustrous  and  smiling.  The  trope  is  none  of  mine. 
Alneus  Sylvius  hath  nines  ridevtc*."— Anatomy  of  Melancholy . 


gingerly  down  in  the  fading  twilight  to  our  boat.  As 
we  were  crossing  an  open  space  between  the  bazars, 
two  gentlemen  in  a  costume  half  European  half  Ori- 
ental, with  spurs  and  pistols,  and  a  quantity  of  dust  on 
their  mustaches,  passed,  and  immediately  turned  and 
called  me  by  name.  The  last  place  in  which  1  should 
have  looked  for  acquaintances,  would  be  GalHpoli. 
They  were  two  French  exquisites  whom  I  had  known 
at  Rome,  travelling  to  Constantinople  with  no  more 
serious  object,  I  dare  be  sworn,  than  to  return  with 
long  beards  from  the  east.  They  had  just  arrived  on 
horseback,  and  were  looking  for  a  khan.  I  commend- 
ed them  to  my  old  friend  the  Jew,  who  offered  at  once 
to  lodge  them  at  his  house,  and  we  parted  in  this  by- 
corner  of  Thrace,  as  if  we  had  but  met  for  the  second 
time  in  a  morning  stroll  to  St.  Peter's. 


We  lay  till  noon  in  the  glassy  harbor  of  Gallipoli, 
and  then  the  breeze  came  slowly  up  the  Hellespont, 
its  advancing  edge  marked  by  a  crowd  of  small  sail 
keeping  even  pace  with  its  wings.  We  soon  opened 
into  the  extending  sea  of  Marmora,  and  the  cloudy 
island  of  the  same  name  is  at  this  moment  on  our  lee. 
The  sun  is  setting  gorgeously  over  the  hills  of  Thrace, 
and  thankful  for  sea-room  once  more,  and  a  good 
breeze,  we  make  ourselves  certain  of  seeing  Constan- 
tinople to-morrow. 


We  were  ten  miles  distant  when  I  came  on  deck 
this  morning.  A  long  line  of  land  with  a  slightly- 
waving  outline  began  to  emerge  from  the  mist  of  sun- 
rise, and  with  a  glass  I  could  distinguish  the  cluster- 
ing masses  and  shining  eminences  of  a  distant  and  far 
extending  city.  We  were  approaching  it  with  a  cloud 
of  company.  A  Turkish  ship-of-war  with  the  cres- 
cent and  star  fluttering  on  her  blood-red  flag,  a  French 
cutter  bearing  the  handsome  tri-color  at  her  peak,  and 
an  uncounted  swarm  of  merchantmen,  taking  advan- 
tage of  the  newly-changed  wind,  were  spreading  every 
thread  of  canvass,  and  stretching  on  as  eagerly  as  we 
toward  the  metropolis  of  the  east.  There  was  some- 
thing in  the  companionship  which  elated  me.  It 
seemed  as  if  all  the  world  shared  in  my  anticipations — 
as  if  all  the  world  were  going  to  Constantinople. 

I  approached  the  mistress  of  the  east  with  different 
feelings  from  that  which  had  inspired  me  in  entering 
the  older  cities  of  Europe.  The  interest  of  the  latter 
sprang  from  the  past.  Rome,  Florence,  Athens,  were 
delightful  from  the  store  of  history  and  poetry  I 
brought  with  me  and  had  accumulated  in  my  youth — 
from  what  they  once  were,  and  for  that  of  which  they 
preserved  the  ruins.  Constantinople,  on  the  contrary, 
is  still  the  gem  of  the  Orient — still  the  home  of  the 
superb  Turk,  and  the  resort  of  many  nations  of  the 
east— still  all  that  fires  curiosity  and  excites  the  ima- 
gination in  the  descriptions  of  the  traveller.  I  was 
doming  to  a  living  city,  full  of  strange  people  and 
strange  costumes,  language,  and  manners.  It  was,  to 
the  places  I  had  seen,  like  the  warm  and  breathing 
woman  perfect  in  life,  to  the  interesting  but  lifeless 
and  mutilated  statue. 

As  the  distance  lessened,  the  tall,  slender,  glittering 
minarets  of  a  hundred  mosques  were  first  distinguish- 
able. Towers,  domes,  and  dark  spots  of  cypresses 
next  emerged  to  the  eye,  and  a  sea  of  buildings,  fol- 
lowed undulating  in  many  swells  and  widening  along 
the  line  of  the  sea  as  if  we  were  approaching  a  conti- 
nent covered  to  its  farthest  limits  with  one  unbroken 
city. 

We  kept  on  with  unslackened  sail  to  the  shore 
which  seemed  closed  before  us.  A  few  minutes  open- 
ed to  us  a  curving  bay,  winding  in  and  lost  to  the  eye 
behind  a  swelling  eminence,  and  as  if  mosques,  towers, 
and  palaces,  had  spread  away  and  opened  to  receive  us 


144 


PENC1LLINGS  BY  THE  WAY. 


into  their  bosom,  we  shot  into  the  heart  of  a  busy  city, 
and  dropped  anchor  at  the  feet  of  a  cluster  of  hills, 
studded  from  base  to  summit  with  buildings  of  inde- 
scribable splendor. 

An  American  gentleman  had  joined  us  in  the  Dar- 
danelles, and  stood  with  us,  looking  at  the  transcen- 
dant  panorama.  M  What  is  this  lovely  point,  gemmed 
with  gardens  and  fantastic  palaces,  and  with  every  va- 
riety of  tree  and  building  on  its  gentle  slope  descend- 
ing so  gracefully  to  the  sea  ?"  The  Seraglio  !  "  What 
is  this  opening  of  bright  water,  crowded  with  shipping, 
and  sprinkled  with  these  fairy  boats  so  gayly  decked  and 
so  slender,  shooting  from  side  to  side  like  the  crossing 
flight  of  a  thousand  arrows  ?"  The  Golden  Horn,  that 
winds  up  through  the  city  and  terminates  in  the  valley 
of  Sweet  Waters  !  "  And  what  is  this  other  stream, 
opening  into  the  hills  to  the  east,  and  lined  with  glit- 
tering palaces  as  far  as  the  eye  can  reach  ?"  The 
Bosphorus.  "  And  what  is  this,  and  that,  and  the 
other  exquisite  and  surpassing  beauty — features  of  a 
scene  to  which  the  earth  surely  has  no  shadow  of  a 
parallel!"  Patience  !  patience  !  We  have  a  month 
before  us,  and  we  will  see. 


LETTER  XCIII. 

CONSTANTINOPLE — AN   ADVENTURE  WITH   THE   DOGS   OF 

STAMBOUL— THE     SULTAN'S     KIOSK THE     BAZARS — 

GEORGIANS — SWEETMEATS— HINDOOSTANEE   FAKEERS 

TURKISH  WOMEN   AND    THEIR    EYES THE   JEWS — A 

TOKEN  OF  HOME THE   DRUG-BAZAR OPIUM-EATERS. 

The  invariable  '■'■Where  am  27"  with  which  a  trav- 
eller awakes  at  morning  was  to  me  never  more  agree- 
ably answered.  At  Constantinople  !  The  early  ship- 
of-war  summons  to  "turn  out,"  was  obeyed  with 
alacrity,  and  with  the  first  boat  after  breakfast  I  was 
set  ashore  at  Tophana,  the  landing-place  of  the  Frank 
quarter  of  Stnmboul. 

A  row  of  low-built  cafes,  with  a  latticed  enclosure 
and  a  plentiful  shade  of  plane-trees  on  the  right;  a 
large  square,  in  the  centre  of  which  stood  a  magnifi- 
cent Persian  fountain,  as  large  as  a  church,  covered 
with  lapis-lazuli  and  gold,  and  endless  inscriptions  in 
Turkish;  a  mosque  buried  in  cypresses  on  the  left ;  a 
hundred  indolent-looking,  large-trousered,  mustached, 
and  withal  very  handsome  men,  and  twice  the  number 
of  snarling,  wolfish,  and  half  starved  dogs,  are  some  of 
the  objects  which  the  first  glance,  as  I  stepped  on 
shore,  left  on  my  memory. 

I  had  heard  that  the  dogs  of  Constantinople  knew 
and  hated  a  Christian.  By  the  time  I  had  reached 
the  middle  of  the  square,  a  wretched  puppy  at  my 
heels  had  succeeded  in  announcing  the  presence  of  a 
stranger.  They  were  upon  me  in  a  moment  from 
every  heap  of  garbage,  and  every  hole  and  corner.  I 
was  beginning  to  be  seriously  alarmed,  standing  per- 
fectly still,  with  at  least  a  hundred  infuriated  dogs  bark- 
ing in  a  circle  around  me,  when  an  old  Turk,  selling 
sherbet  under  the  shelter  of  the  projecting  roof  of  the 
Persian  fountain,  came  kindly  to  my  relief.  A  stone 
or  two  well  aimed,  and  a  peculiar  cry,  which  I  have 
since  tried  in  vain  to  imitate,  dispersed  the  hungry 
wretches,  and  I  took  a  glass  of  the  old  man's  raisin- 
water,  and  pursued  my  way  up  the  street.  The 
circumstance,  however,  had  discolored  my  anticipa- 
tions; nothing  looked  agreeably  to  me  for  an  hour 
after  it. 

I  ascended  through  narrow  and  steep  lanes,  between 
rows  of  small  wooden  houses,  miserably  built  and 
painted,  to  the  main  street  of  the  quarter  of  Pera. 
Here  live  all  Christians  and  Christian  ambassadors, 


and  here  T  found  our  secretary  of  legation,  Mr.  H., 
who  kindly  offered  to  accompany  me  to  old  Stam- 
boul. 

We  descended  to  the  water-side,  and  stepping  into 
an  egg-shell  caique,  crossed  the  Golden  Horn,  and 
landed  on  a  pier  between  the  sultan's  green  kiosk  and 
the  seraglio.  I  was  fortunate  in  a.  companion  who 
knew  the  people  and  spoke  the  language.  The  red- 
trousered  and  armed  kervas,  at  the  door  of  the  kiosk, 
took  his  pipe  from  his  mouth,  after  a  bribe  and  a  little 
persuasion,  and  motioned  to  a  boy  to  show  us  the  in- 
terior. A  circular  room,  with  a  throne  of  solid  silvei 
embraced  in  a  double  colonnade  of  marble  pillars,  and 
covered  with  a  roof  laced  with  lapis  lazuli  and  gold, 
formed  the  place  from  which  Sultan  Mahmoud  for- 
merly contemplated,  on  certain  days,  the  busy  and 
beautiful  panorama  of  his  matchless  bay.  The  kiosk 
is  on  the  edge  of  the  water,  and  the  poorest  caikjee 
might  row  his  little  bark  under  its  threshold,  and  fill 
his  monarch's  eye,  and  look  on  his  monarch's  face 
with  the  proudest.  The  green  canvass  curtains,  which 
envelop  the  whole  building,  have,  for  a  long  time,  been 
unraised,  and  Mahmoud  is  oftener  to  be  seen  on  horse- 
back, in  the  dress  of  a  European  officer,  guarded  by 
troops  in  European  costume  and  array.  The  change 
is  said  to  be  dangerously  unpopular. 

We  walked  on  to  the  square  of  Sultana  Valide.  Its 
large  area  was  crowded  with  the  buyers  and  sellers  of 
a  travelling  fair — a  sort  of  Jews'  market  held  on  differ- 
ent days  in  different  parts  of  this  vast  capital.  In 
Turkey  every  nation  is  distinguished  by  its  dress,  and 
almost  as  certainly  by  its  branch  of  trade.  On  the 
right  of  the  gate,  under  a  huge  plane-tree,  shedding 
its  yellow  leaves  among  the  various  wares,  stood  the 
booths  of  a  group  of  Georgians,  their  round  and  rosy- 
dark  faces  (you  would  know  their  sisters  must  be  half 
houris)  set  off  with  a  tall  black  cap  of  curling  wool, 
their  small  shoulders  with  a  tight  jacket  studded  with 
silk  buttons,  and  their  waists  with  a  voluminous  silken 
sash,  whose  fringed  ends  fell  over  their  heels  as  they 
sat  cross-legged,  patiently  waiting  for  custom.  Hard- 
ware is  the  staple  of  their  shops,  but  the  cross-pole  in 
front  is  fantastically  hung  with  silken  garters  and  tas- 
selled  cords,  and  their  own  Georgian  caps,  with  a  gay 
crown  of  cashmere,  enrich  and  diversify  the  shelves. 
I  bought  a  pair  or  two  of  blushing  silk  garters  of 
a  young  man,  whose  eyes  and  teeth  should  have 
been  a  woman's,  and  we  strolled  on  to  the  next 
booth. 

Here  was  a  Turk,  with  a  table  covered  by  a  broad 
brass  waiter,  on  which  was  displayed  a  tempting  array 
of  mucilage,  white  and  pink,  something  of  the  consis- 
tency of  blanc-mange.  A  dish  of  sugar,  small  gilded 
saucers,  and  long-handled,  flat,  brass  spoons,  with  a 
vase  of  rose-water,  completed  his  establishment.  The 
grave  mussulman  cut,  sugared,  and  scented  the  por- 
tions for  which  we  asked,  without  condescending  to 
look  at  us  or  open  his  lips,  and,  with  a  glass  of  mild 
and  pleasant  sherbet  from  his  next  neighbor,  as  im 
moveable  a  Turk  as  himself,  we  had  lunched,  ex- 
tremely to  my  taste,  for  just  five  cents  American  cur- 
rency. 

A  little  farther  on  I  was  struck  with  the  appearance 
of  two  men,  who  stood  bargaining  with  a  Jew.  My 
friend  knew  them  immediately  as  fakeers,  or  religious 
devotees,  from  Hindoostan.  He  addressed  them  in 
Arabic,  and,  during  their  conversation  often  minutes, 
I  studied  them  with  some  curiosity.  They  were  sin- 
gularly small,  without  any  appearance  of  dwarfishness, 
their  limbs  and  persons  slight,  and  very  equally  and 
gracefully  proportioned.  Their  features  were  abso- 
lutely regular,  and,  though  small  as  a  child's  of  ten  or 
twelve  years,  were  perfectly  developed.  They  appear- 
ed like  men  seen  through  an  inverted  opera-glass.  An 
exceedingly  ashy,  olive  complexion,  hair  of  a  kind  of 
glittering  black,  quite  unlike  in  texture  and  color  any 


PENCILLINGS  BY  THE  WAY. 


145 


I  have  ever  before  seen  ;  large,  brilliant,  intense  black 
eyes,  and  lips  (the  most  peculiar  feature  of  all),  of 
lustreless  black*  completed  the  portraits  of  two  as 
remarkable-looking  men  as  I  have  anywhere  met. 
Their  costume  was  humble,  but  not  unpicturesque- 
A  well-worn  sash  of  red  silk  enveloped  the  waist  in 
many  folds,  and  sustained  trousers  tight  to  the  legs, 
but  of  the  Turkish  ampleness  over  the  hips.  Their 
small  feet,  which  seemed  dried  up  to  the  bone,  were 
bare.  A  blanket,  with  a  hood  marked  in  a  kind  of 
arabesque  figure,  covered  their  shoulders,  and  a  high- 
quilted  cap,  with  a  rim  of  curling  wool,  was  pressed 
down  closely  over  the  forehead.  A  crescent-shaped 
tin  vessel,  suspended  by  a  leather  strap  to  the  waist, 
and  serving  the  two  purposes  of  a  charity-box,  and  a 
receptacle  for  bread  and  vegetables,  seemed  a  kind  of 
badge  of  their  profession.  They  were  lately  from 
Hindoostan,  and  were  begging  their  way  still  farther 
into  Europe.  They  received  our  proffered  alms  with- 
out any  mark  of  surprise  or  even  pleasure,  and  laying 
their  hands  on  their  breasts,  with  countenances  per- 
fectly immoveable,  gave  us  a  Hindoostanee  blessing, 
and  resumed  their  traffic.  They  see  the  world,  these 
rovers  on  foot !  And  I  think,  could  I  see  it  myself  in 
no  other  way,  I  would  e'en  take  sandal  and  scrip,  and 
traverse  it  as  dervish  or  beggar ! 

The  alleys  between  the  booths  were  crowded  with 
Turkish  women,  who  seemed  the  chief  purchasers. 
1  he  effect  of  their  enveloped  persons,  and  eyes  peer- 
ing from  the  muslin  folds  of  the  yashmack,  is  droll  to 
a  stranger.  It  seemed  to  me  like  a  masquerade,  and 
the  singular  sound  of  female  voices,  speaking  through 
several  thicknesses  of  a  stuff,  bound  so  close  on  the 
mouth  as  to  show  the  shape  of  the  lips  exactly,  per- 
fected the  delusion.  It  reminded  me  of  the  half- 
smothered  tones  beneath  the  masks  in  carnival-time. 
A  clothes-bag  with  yellow  slippers  would  have  about 
as  much  form,  and  might  be  walked  about  with  as 
much  grace  as  a  Turkish  woman.  Their  fat  hands, 
the  finger-nails  dyed  with  henna,  and  their  unexcep- 
tionably  magnificent  eyes,  are  all  that  the  stranger  is 
permuted  to  peruse.  It  is  strange  how  universal  is 
the  beauty  of  the  eastern  eye.  I  have  looked  in  vain 
hitherto,  for  a  small  or  an  unexpressive  one.  It  is 
quite  startling  to  meet  the  gaze  of  such  large  liquid 
orbs,  bent  upon  you  from  their  long  silken  fringes, 
with  the  unwinking  steadiness  of  look  common  to  the 
females  of  this  country.  Wrapped  in  their  veils,  they 
seem  unconscious  of  attracting  attention,  and  turn  and 
look  you  lull  in  the  face,  while  you  seek  in  vain  for  a 
pair  of  lips  to  explain  by  their  expression  the  meaning 
of  such  particular  notice. 

The  Jew  is  more  distinguishable  at  Constantinople 
than  elsewhere.  He  is  compelled  to  wear  the  dress 
oi  his  tribe  (and  its  "badge  of  sufferance,"  too),  and 
you  will  find  him,  wherever  there  is  trafficking  to  be 
done,  in  a  small  cap,  not  ungracefully  shaped,  twisted 
about  with  a  peculiar  handkerchief  of  a  small  black 
print  and  set  back  so  as  to  show  the  whole  of  his  na- 
tional high  and  narrow  forehead.  He  is  always  good- 
humored  and  obsequious,  and  receives  the  curse  with 
which  his  officious  offers  of  service  are  often  repelled, 
with  a  smile,  and  a  hope  that  he  may  serve  you  another 
time.  One  of  them,  as  we  passed  his  booth,  called 
our  attention  to  some  newly-opened  bales,  bearing  the 

Stamp,      "TREMONT     MILL,     LOWELL,     MASS."       It     was 

a  long  distance  from  home  to  meet  such  familiar 
words  ! 

We  left  the  square  of  the  sultan  mother,  and  entered 
a  street  of  confectioners.  The  east  is  famous  for  its 
sweetmeats,  and  truly  a  more  tempting  array  never 

tinoileaIndiiCfi,Hett  ™ny  of  them  in  the  streets  of  Constan- 
Th?.y  ool  as  ii  ,hl>  r  *  ,llstinpi«hing  feature  of  their  race. 
beneya  h°the  sk  n         ^  ™n  dead~as  if  the  blood  ^  dried 


visited  the  Christmas  dream  of  a  schoolboy.  Even 
Felix,  the  palissier  nonpareil  of  Paris,  might  take  a 
lesson  in  jellies.  And  then  for  "candy"  of  all  colors 
of  the  rainbow  (not  shut  enviously  in  with  pitiful  glass 
cases,  but  piled  up  to  the  ceiling  in  a  shop  all  in  the 
street,  as  it  might  be  in  Utopia,  with  nothing  to  pay), 
it  is  like  a  scene  in  the  Arabian  Nights.  The  last 
part  of  the  parenthesis  is  almost  true,  for  with  a  small 
coin  of  the  value  of  two  American  cents,  I  bought  of  a 
certain  kind  called,  in  Turkish,  "peace  to  your  throat" 
(they  call  things  by  such  poetical  names  'in  the  east), 
the  quarter  of  which  I  could  not  have  eaten,  even  in 
my  best  "days  of  sugar-candy."  The  women  of 
Constantinople,  I  am  told,  almost  live  on  confection- 
ary. They  eat  incredible  quantities.  The  sultan's 
eight  hundred  wives  and  women  employ  five  hundred 
cooks,  and  consume  two  thousand  Jive  hundred  pounds 
of  sugar  daily .'  It  is  probably  the  most  expensive 
item  of  the  seraglio  kitchen. 

A  turn  or  two  brought  us  to  the  entrance  of  a  long 
dark  passage,  of  about  the  architecture  of  a  covered 
bridge  in  our  country.     A  place  richer  in  the  oriental 
and  picturesque  could  scarce  be  found  between  the 
Danube  and  the  Nile.     It  is  the  bazar  of  drugs.     As 
your  eye  becomes  accustomed  to  the  light,  you  dis- 
tinguish vessels  of  every  size  and  shape,  ranged  along 
the  receding  shelves  of  a  stall,  and  filled  to  the  uncov- 
ered brim  with  the  various  productions  of  the  Orient. 
The  edges  of  the  baskets  and  jars  are  turned  over '^hh 
rich  colored  papers  (a  peculiar  color  to  every  drug), 
and  broad  spoons  of  boxwood  are  crossed  on  the  top. 
There  is  the  henna  in  a  powder  of  deep  brown,  with 
an  envelope  of  deep  Tyrian  purple,  and  all  the  precious 
gums  in  their  jars,  golden-leafed,  and  spices  and  dies 
and  medicinal  roots,  and   above  hang  anatomies  of 
curious  monsters,  dried  and  stuffed,  and  in  the  midst 
of  all,  motionless  as  the  box  of  sulphur  beside  him, 
and  almost  as  yellow,  sits  a  venerable  Turk,  with  his 
beard  on  his  knees,  and  his  pipe-bowl  thrust  away 
over  his  drugs,  its  ascending  smoke-curls  his  only 
sign  of  life.     This  class  of  merchants  is  famous  for 
opium-eaters,  and  if.  you  pass  at  the  right  hour,  you 
find  the   large  eye   of  the  silent  smoker  dilated  and 
wandering,  his   fingers  busy  in  tremulously  counting 
his  spicewood  beads,  and  the  roof  of  his  stall  wreathed 
with  clouds  of  smoke,  the  vent  to   every  species  of 
eastern  enthusiasm.     If  you  address  him,  he  smiles, 
and  puts  his  hand  to  his  forehead  and  breast,  but  con- 
descends to  answer  no  question  till  it  is  thrice  reitera- 
ted, and  then  in  the  briefest  word  possible,  he  answers 
wide  of  your  meaning,  strokes  the  smoke  out  of  his 
mustache,  and  slipping  the  costly  amber  between  h's 
lips,  abandons  himself  again  to  his  exalted  revery.     I 
write  this  after  being  a  week  at  Constantinople,  du- 
ring which  the  Egyptian  bazar  has  been  my  frequent 
and   most  fancy-stirring  lounge.      Of  its  forty  mer- 
chants, there  is  not  one  whose  picturesque  features 
are  not  imprinted  deeply  in  my  memory.     I  have  idled 
up  and  down  in  the  dim  light,  and  fingered  the  soft 
henna,  and  bought  small  parcels  of  incense-wood  for 
my  pastille  lamp,  studying  the  remarkable  faces  of 
the  unconscious  old  mussulmans,  till  my  mind  became 
somehow  tinctured  of  the  east,  and  (what  will  be  bet- 
ter understood)  my  clothes  steeped  in  the  mixed  and 
agreeable  odors  of  the  thousand  spices.     Where  are 
the  painters,  that  they  have  never  found  this  mine  of 
admirable  studies  ?     There  is  not  a  corner  of  Con- 
stantinople, nor  a  man  in  its  streets,  that  were  not  a 
novel  and  a  capital  subject  for  the  pencil.     Pray,  Mr. 
Cole,  leave  things  that  have  been  painted  so  often,  as 
aqueducts  and  Italian  ruins  (though  you  do  make  de- 
licious pictures,  and  could  never  waste  time  or  pencils 
on  anything),  and  come  to  the  east  for  one  single  book 
of  sketches  !     How  I  have  wished  I  was  a  painter  since 
I  have  been  here ! 


146 


PENCILLINGS  BY  THE  WAY. 


LETTER  XCIV. 

THE    SULTAN'S    PERFUMER ETIQUETTE    OF    SMOKING 

TEMPTATIONS  FOR  PURCHASERS — EXQUISITE  FLA- 
VOR OF  THE  TURKISH  PERFUMES THE  SLAVE- 
MARKET  OF  CONSTANTINOPLE SLAVES  FROM  VA- 
RIOUS   COUNTRIES,    GREEK,    CIRCASSIAN,    EGYPTIAN, 

PERSIAN AFRICAN      FEMALE     SLAVES AN      IMPRO- 

VISATRICE EXPOSURE        FOR        SALE CIRCASSIAN 

BEAUTIES       PROHIBITED       TO        EUROPEANS FIRST 

SIGHT  OF  ONE,  EATING  A  PIE SHOCK  TO  ROMAN- 
TIC    FEELINGS— BEAUTIFUL     ARAB     GIRL     CHAINED 

TO     THE     FLOOR THE     SILK-MERCHANT A    CHEAP 

PURCHASE. 

An  Abyssinian  slave,  with  bracelets  on  his  wrists 
and  ankles,  a  white  turban,  folded  in  the  most  approv- 
ed fashion  around  his  curly  head,  and  a  showy  silk 
sash  about  his  waist,  addressed  us  in  broken  English 
as  we  passed  a  small  shop  on  the  way  to  theBezestein. 
His  master  was  an  old  acquaintance  of  my  polyglot 
friend,  and,  passing  in  at  a  side  door,  we  entered  a 
dimly-lighted  apartment  in  the  rear,  and  were  receiv- 
ed, with  a  profusion  of  salaams,  by  the  sultan's  per- 
fumer. For  a  Turk,  Mustapha  Effendi  was  the  most 
voluble  gentleman  in  his  discourse  that  I  had  yet  met 
in  Stamboul.  A  sparse  gray  beard  just  sprinkled  a 
pair  of  blown-up  cheeks,  and  a  collapsed  double  chin 
that  fell  in  curtain  folds  to  his  bosom,  a  mustache,  of 
seven  or  eight  hairs  on  a  side,  curled  demurely  about 
the  corners  of  his  mouth,  his  heavy,  oily  black  eyes 
twinkled  in  their  pursy  recesses,  with  the  salacious  good 
humor  of  a  satyr;  and,  as  he  coiled  his  legs  under 
him  on  the  broad  ottoman  in  the  corner,  his  boneless 
body  completely  lapped  over  them,  knees  and  all,  and 
left  him,  apparently,  bolt  upright  on  his  trunk,  like  a 
man  amputated  at  the  hips.  A  string  of  beads  in  one 
hand,  and  a  splendid  narghile,  or  rose-water  pipe  in 
the  other,  completed  as  fine  a  picture  of  a  mere  ani- 
mal as  I  remember  to  have  met  in  my  travels. 

My  learned  friend  pursued  the  conversation  in  Turk- 
ish, and,  in  a  few  minutes,  the  ,  black  entered,  with 
pipes  of  exquisite  amber  filled  with  the  mild  Persian 
tobacco.  Leaving  his  slippers  at  the  door,  he  drop- 
ped upon  his  knee,  and  placed  two  small  brass  dishes 
in  the  centre  of  the  room  to  receive  the  hot  pipe- 
bowls,  and,  with  a  showy  flourish  of  his  long,  naked 
arm,  brought  round  the  rich  mouth-pieces  to  our 
lips.  A  spicy  atom  of  some  aromatic  composition, 
laid  in  the  centre  of  the  bowl,  removed  from  the 
smoke  all  that  could  offend  the  most  delicate  organs, 
and,  as  I  looked  about  the  perfumer's  retired  sanctum, 
and  my  eye  rested  on  the  small  heaps  of  spice-woods, 
the  gilded  pastilles,  the  curious  bottles  of  ottar  of  ro- 
ses and  jasmine,  and  thence  to  the  broad,  soft  divans 
extending  quite  around  the  room,  piled  in  the  corners 
with  cushions  of  down,  I  thought  Mustapha,  the  per- 
fumer, among  those  who  lived  by  traffic,  had  the 
cleanliest  and  most  gentleman-like  vocation. 

Observing  that  I  smoked  but  little,  Mustapha  gave 
an  order  to  his  familiar,  who  soon  appeared,  with  two 
small  gilded  saucers;  one  containing  a  jelly  of  incom- 
parable delicacy  and  whiteness,  and  the  other  a  can- 
died liquid,  tinctured  with  quince  and  cinnamon.  My 
friend  explained  to  me  that  I  was  to  eat  both,  and  that 
Mustapha  said,  "  on  his  head  be  the  injury  it  would 
do  me."  There  needed  little  persuasion.  The  cook 
to  a  court  of  fairies  might  have  mingled  sweets  less 
delicately.  t 

For  all  this  courtesy  Mustapha  finds  his  offset  in 
the  opened  hearts  of  his  customers,  when  the  pipes 
are  smoked  out,  and  there  is  nothing  to  delay  the  offer 
of  his  costly  wares.  First  calling  for  a  jar  of  jessa- 
mine, than  which  the  sultan  himself  perfumes  his 
beard  with  no  rarer,  he  turned  it  upside  down,  and, 
leaning  toward  me,  rubbed  the  moistened  cork  over 


my  nascent  mustache,  and  waited  with  a  satisfied  cer- 
tainty for  my  expression  of  admiration  as  it  "  ascended 
me  into  the  brain."  There  was  no  denying  that  it 
was  of  a  celestial  flavor.  He  held  up  his  fingers : 
"  One  ?  two  ?  three  ?  ten  ?  How  many  bottles  shall 
your  slave  fill  for  you?"  It  was  a  most  lucid  panto- 
mime.    An  interpreter  would  have  been  superfluous. 

The  ottar  of  roses  stood  next  on  the  shelf.  It  was 
the  best  ever  sent  from  Adrianople.  Bottle  after  bot- 
tle of  different  extracts  was  passed  under  nasal  review; 
each,  one  might  think,  the  triumph  of  the  alchymy 
of  flowers,  and  of  each  a  specimen  was  laid  aside  foi 
me  in  a  slender  vial,  dexterously  capped  with  vellum, 
and  tied  with  a  silken  thread  by  the  adroit  Abyssinian. 
I  escaped  emptying  my  purse  by  a  single  worthless 
coin,  the  fee  I  required  for  my  return  boat  over  the 
Golden  Horn — but  I  had  seen  Mustapha,  the  per 
fumer. 

My  friend  led  the  way  through  several  intricate 
windings,  and  passing  through  a  gateway,  we  entered 
a  circular  area,  surrounded  with  a  single  building  di 
vided  into  small  apartments,  faced  with  open  porches. 
It  was  the  slave-market  of  Constantinople.  My  first 
idea  was  to  look  round  for  Don  Juan  and  Johnson. 
In  their  place  we  found  slaves  of  almost  every  eastern 
nation,  who  looked  at  us  with  an  "  I  wish  to  heaven 
that  somebody  would  buy  us"  sort  of  an  expression, 
but  none  so  handsome  as  Haidee's  lover.  In  a  low 
cellar,  beneath  one  of  the  apartments,  lay  twenty  or 
thirty  white  men  chained  together  by  the  legs,  and 
with  scarce  the  covering  required  by  decency.  A 
small-featured  Arab  stood  at  the  door,  wrapped  in  a 
purple-hooded  cloak,  and  Mr.  H.  addressing  him  in 
Arabic,  inquired  their  nations.  He  was  not  their 
master,  but  the  stout  fellow  in  the  corner,  he  said,  was 
a  Greek  by  his  regular  features,  and  the  boy  chained 
to  him  was  a  Circassian  by  his  rosy  cheek  and  curly 
hair,  and  the  black-lipped  villain  with  the  scar  over  his 
forehead,  was  an  Egyptian,  doubtless,  and  the  two  that 
looked  like  brothers,  were  Georgians  or  Persians,  or 
perhaps  Bulgarians.  Poor  devils !  they  lay  on  the 
clay  floor  with  a  cold  easterly  wind  blowing  in  upon 
them,  dispirited  and  chilled,  with  the  prospect  of  being 
sold  to  a  task-master  for  their  best  hope  of  relief. 

A  shout  of  African  laughter  drew  us  to  the  other 
side  of  the  bazar.  A  dozen  Nubian-damsels,  flat-nos- 
ed and  curly-headed,  but  as  straight  and  fine-limbed 
as  pieces  of  black  statuary,  lay  around  on  a  platform 
in  front  of  their  apartment,  while  one  sat  upright  in 
the  middle,  and  amused  her  companions  by  some  nar- 
ration accompanied  by  grimaces  irresistibly  ludicrous. 
Each  had  a  somewhat  scant  blanket,  black  with  dirt, 
and  worn  as  carelessly  as  a  lady  carries  her  shawl. 
Their  black,  polished  frames  were  disposed  about,  in 
postures  a  painter  would  scarce  call  ungraceful,  and 
no  start  or  change  of  attitude  when  we  approached  be- 
trayed the  innate  coyness  of  the  sex.  After  watching 
the  improvisatrice  awhile,  we  were  about  passing  on, 
when  a  man  came  out  from  the  inner  apartment,  and 
beckoning  to  one  of  them  to  follow  him,  walked  into 
the  middle  of  the  bazar.  She  was  a  tall,  arrow- 
straight  lass  of  about  eighteen,  with  the  form  of  a 
nymph,  and  the  head  of  a  baboon.  He  commenced 
by  crying  in  a  voice  that  must  have  been  educated  in 
the  gallery  of  a  minaret,  setting  forth  the  qualities  of 
the  animal  at  his  back,  who  was  to  be  sold  at  public 
auction  forthwith.  As  he  closed  his  harangue  he 
slipped  his  pipe  back  into  his  mouth,  and  lifting  the 
scrimped  blanket  of  the  ebon  Venus,  turned  her  twice 
round,  and  walked  to  the  other  side  of  the  bazar, 
where  his  cry  and  the  exposure  of  the  submissive 
wench  were  repeated. 

We  left  him  to  finish  his  circuit,  and  walked  on  in 
search  of  the  Circassian  beauties  of  the  market. 
Several  turbaned  slave-merchants  were  sitting  round  a 
manghal,  or  brass  vessel  of  coals,  smoking  or  making 


PENCILLINGS  BY  THE  WAY. 


147 


their  coffee,  in  one  of  the  porticoes,  and  my  friend  ad- 
dressed one  of  them  with  an  inquiry  on  the  subject. 
"  There  were  Circassians  in  the  bazar,"  he  said,  "  but 
there  was  an  express  firman,  prohibiting  the  exposing 
or  selling  of  them  to  Franks,  under  heavy  penalties." 
We  tried  to  bribe  him.  It  was  of  no  use.  He  point- 
ed to  the  apartment  in  which  they  were,  and,  as  it  was 
upon  the  ground  floor,  I  took  advice  of  modest  assu- 
rance, and  approaching  the  window,  sheltered  my  eyes 
with  my  hand,  and  looked  in.  A  great,  fat  girl,  with 
a  pair  of  saucer-like  black  eyes,  and  cheeks  as  red  and 
round  as  a  cabbage-rose,  sat  facing  the  window,  de- 
vouring a  pie  most  voraciously.  She  had  a  small  car- 
pet spread  beneath  her,  and  sat  on  one  of  her  heels, 
with  a  row  of  fat,  red  toes,  whose  nails  were  tinged 
with  henna,  just  protruding  on  the  other  side  from  the 
folds  of  her  ample  trousers.  The  light  was  so  dim 
that  I  could  not  see  the  features  of  the  others,  of 
whom  there  were  six  or  seven  in  groups  in  the  cor- 
ners. And  so  faded  the  bright  colors  of  a  certain 
boyish  dream  of  Circassian  beauty  !  A  fat  girl  eating 
a  pie! 

As  we  were  about  leaving  the  bazar,  the  door  of  a 
small  apartment  near  the  gate  opened,  and  disclosed 
the  common  cheerless  interior  of  a  chamber  in  a  khan 
In  the  centre  burned  the  almost  extinguished  embers 
of  a  Turkish  nianghal,  and,  at  the  moment  of  my 
passing,  a  figure  rose  from  a  prostrate  position,  and 
exposed,  as  a  shawl  dropped  from  her  face  in  rising, 
the  exquisitely  small  features  and  bright  olive  skin  of 
an  Arab  girl.  Her  hair  was  black  as  night,  and  the 
bright  braid  of  it  across  her  forehead  seemed  but  ano- 
ther shade  of  the  warm  dark  eye  that  lifted  its  heavy 
and  sleepy  lids,  and  looked  out  of  the  accidentally 
opened  door  as  if  she  were  trying  to  remember  how 
she  had  dropped  out  of  "Araby  the  blest"  upon  so 
cheerless  a  spot.  She  was  very  beautiful.  I  should 
have  taken  her  for  a  child,  from  her  diminutive  size, 
but  for  a  certain  fulness  in  the  limbs  and  a  womanly 
ripeness  in  the  bust  and  features.  The  same  dusky  lips 
which  give  the  males  of  her  race  a  look  of  ghastliness, 
either  by  contrast  with  a  row  of  dazzlingly  white  teeth, 
or  from  their  round  and  perfect  chiselling,  seemed  in 
her  almost  a  beauty.  I  had  looked  at  her  several  min- 
utes before  she  chose  to  consider  it  as  impertinence. 
At  last  she  slowly  raised  her  little  symmetrical  figure 
(the  '•  Barbary  shape"  the  old  poets  talk  of),  and  slip- 
ping forward  to  reach  the  latch,  I  observed  that  she  was 
chained  by  one  of  her  ankles  to  a  ring  in  the  floor. 
To  think  that  only  a  "  malignant  and  a  turbaned  Turk" 
may  possess  such  a  Hebe  !  Beautiful  creature  ! 
Your  lot, 

"  By  some  o'er-hasty  angel  was  misplaced, 
In  Fate's  eternal  volume." 

And  yet  it  is  very  possible  she  would  eat  pies,  too  ! 

We  left  the  slave-market,  and  wishing  to  buy  apiece 
of  Brusa  silk  for  a  dressing-gown,  my  friend  conduct- 
ed me  to  a  secluded  khan  in  the  neighborhood  of  the 
far-famed  "burnt  column."  Entering  by  a  very  mean 
door,  closed  within  by  a  curtain,  we  stood  on  fine  In- 
dian mats  in  a  large  room,  piled  to  the  ceiling  with 
silks  enveloped  in  the  soft  satin-paper  of  the  east. 
Herea«;ain  coffee  must  be  handed  round  before  a  sin- 
gle fold  of  the  old  Armenian's  wares  could  see  the 
light,  and  fortunate  it  is,  since  one  may  not  courteous- 
ly refuse  it,  that  Turkish  coffee  is  very  delicious,  and 
served  in  acorn  cups  for  size.  A  handsome  boy  took 
away  the  little  filagree  holders  at  last,  and  the  old  tra- 
der, setting  his  huge  calpack  firmly  on  his  shaven 
head,  began  to  reach  down  his  costly  wares.  I  had 
never  seen  such  an  array.  The  floor  was  soon  like  a 
shivered  rainbow,  almost  paining  the  eye  with  the 
brilliancy  and  variety  of  beautiful  fabrics.  And  all 
this  to  tempt  the  taste  of  a  poor  description-monger, 
who   wanted  but  a  plain  robe  de  chambre  to   conceal 


from  a  chance  visiter  the  poverty  of  an  unmade  toilet! 
There  were  stuffs  of  gold  for  a  queen's  wardrobe ; 
there  were  gauze-like  fabrics  interwoven  with  flowers 
of  silver ;  and  there  was  no  leaf  in  botany,  nor  device 
in  antiquity,  that  was  not  imitated  in  their  rich  border- 
ings.  I  laid  my  hand  on  a  plain  pattern  of  blue  and 
silver,  and  half-shutting  my  eyes  to  imagine  how  I 
should  look  in  it,  resolved  upon  the  degree  of  deple- 
tion which  my  purse  could  bear,  and  inquired  the 
price.  As  "green  door  and  brass  knocker"  says  of 
his  charges  in  the  farce,  it  was  "  ridiculously  trifling." 
It  is  a  cheap  country,  the  east !  A  beautiful  Circas- 
sian slave  for  a  hundred  dollars  (if  you  are  a  Turk), 
and  an  emperor's  dressing-gown  for  three  !  The  Ar- 
menian laid  his  hand  on  his  breast,  as  if  he  had  made 
a  good  sale  of  it,  the  coffee-bearer  wanted  but  a  sous, 
and  that  was  charity  ;  and  thus,  by  a  mere  change  of 
place,  that  which  were  but  a  gingerbread  expenditure 
becomes  a  rich  man's  purchase. 


LETTER  XCV. 

THE  BOSPHORUS TURKISH  PALACES THE  BLACK  SEA 

BUYUKDERE. 

We  left  the  ship  with  two  caiques,  each  pulled  by 
three  men,  and  carrying  three  persons,  on  an  excur- 
sion to  the  Black  sea.  We  were  followed  by  the 
captain  in  his  fast-pulling  gig  with  six  oars,  who  pro- 
posed to  beat  the  feathery  boats  of  the  country  in  a 
twenty  miles'  pull  against  the  tremendous  current  of 
the  Bosphorus. 

The  day  was  made  for  us.  We  coiled  ourselves 
a  la  Turque,  in  the  bottom  of  the  sharp  caique,  and 
as  our  broad-brimmed  pagans,  after  the  first  mile,  took 
off  their  shawled  turbans,  unwound  their  cashmere 
girdles,  laid  aside  their  gold-broidered  jackets,  and 
with  nothing  but  the  flowing  silk  shirt  and  ample 
trousers  to  embarrass  their  action,  commenced  "giv- 
ing way,"  in  long,  energetic  strokes — I  say,  just  then, 
with  the  sunshine  and  the  west  wind  attempered  to 
half  a  degree  warmer  than  the  blood  (which  I  take  to 
be  the  perfection  of  temperature),  and  a  long,  long 
autumn  day,  or  two,  or  three  before  us,  and  not  a 
thought  in  the  company  that  was  not  kindly  and  joy- 
ous— just  then,  I  say,  I  dropped  a  "white  stone"  on 
the  hour,  and  said,  "  Here  is  a  moment,  old  Care,  that 
has  slipped  through  your  rusty  fingers  !  You  have 
pinched  me  the  past  somewhat,  and  you  will  doubtless 
mark  your  cross  on  the  future — but  the  present,  by  a 
thousand  pulses  in  this  warm  frame  laid  along  in  the 
sunshine,  is  care-free,  and  the  last  hour  of  Eden  came 
not  on  a  softer  pinion !" 

We  shot  along  through  the  sultan's  fleet  (some 
eighteen  or  twenty  lofty  ships-of-war,  looking,  as  they 
lie  at  anchor  in  this  narrow  strait,  of  a  supernatural 
size),  and  then,  nearing  the  European  shore  to  take 
advantage  of  the  counter-current,  my  kind  friend,  Mr. 
H.,  who  is  at  home  on  these  beautiful  waters,  began 
to  name  to  me  the  palaces  we  were  shooting  by,  with 
many  a  little  history  of  their  occupants  between,  to 
which  in  a  letter,  written  with  a  traveller's  haste,  and 
in  moments  stolen  from  fatigue,  or  pleasure,  or  sleep, 
I  could  not  pretend  to  do  justice. 

The  Bosphorus  is  quite — there  can  be  no  manner 
of  doubt  of  it — the  most  singularly  beautiful  scenery 
in  the  world.  From  Constantinople  to  the  Black 
Sea,  a  distance  of  twenty  miles,  the  two  shores  of 
Asia  and  Europe,  separated  by  but  half  a  mile  of 
bright  blue  water,  are  lined  by  lovely  villages,  each 
with  its  splendid  palace  or  two,  iis  mosque  and  mina- 
rets, and  its  hundred  small  houses  buried  in  trees, 
each  with  its  small  dark  cemetery  of  cypresses  ana 
turbaned  head-stones,  and  each  with  its  valley  stretch- 


148 


PENCILLINGS  BY  THE  WAY. 


ing  back  into  the  hills,  of  which  every  summit  and 
swell  is  crowned  with  a  fairy  kiosk.  There  is  no  tide, 
and  the  palaces  of  the  sultan  and  his  ministers,  and  of 
the  wealthier  Turks  and  Armenians,  are  built  half  over 
the  water,  and  the  ascending  caique  shoots  beneath 
his  window,  within  the  length  of  the  owner's  pipe  ; 
and  with  his  own  slender  boat  lying  under  the  stairs, 
the  luxurious  oriental  makes  but  a  step  from  the  cush- 
ions of  his  saloon  to  those  of  a  conveyance,  which 
bears  him  (so  built  on  the  water's  edge  is  this  mag- 
nificent capital)  to  almost  every  spot  that  can  require 
his  presence. 

A  beautiful  palace  is  that  of  the  "  Marble  Cradle," 
or  Beshiktash,  the  sultan's  winter  residence.  Its  bright 
gardens  with  latticed  fences  (through  which,  as  we 
almost  touched  in  passing,  we  saw  the  gleam  of  the 
golden  orange  and  lemon  trees,  and  the  thousand 
flowers,  and  heard  the  splash  of  fountains  and  the 
singing  of  birds)  lean  down  to  the  lip  of  the  Bospho- 
rus,  and  declining  to  the  south,  and  protected  from 
everything  but  the  sun  by  an  enclosing  wall,  enjoy, 
like  the  terrace  of  old  King  Rene,  a  perpetual  sum- 
mer. The  brazen  gates  open  on  the  water,  and  the 
palace  itself,  a  beautiful  building,  painted  in  the  ori- 
ental style,  of  a  bright  pink,  stands  between  the  gar- 
dens, with  its  back  to  the  wall. 

The  summer  palace,  where  the  "  unmuzzled  lion" 
as  his  flatterers  call  him,  resides  at  present,  is  just 
above  on  the  Asian  side,  at  a  village  called  Beylerbey. 
It  is  an  immense  building,  painted  yellow,  with  white 
cornices,  and  has  an  extensive  terrace-garden,  rising 
over  the  hill  behind.  The  harem  has  eight  projecting 
wings,  each  occupied  by  one  of  the  sultan's  lawful 
wives. 

Six  or  seven  miles  from  Constantinople,  on  the 
European  shore,  stands  the  serai  of  the  sultan's  eldest 
sister.  It  is  a  Chinese-looking  structure,  but  exceed- 
ingly picturesque,  and  like  everything  else  on  the 
Bosphorus,  quite  in  keeping  with  the  scene.  There 
is  not  a  building  on  either  side,  from  the  Black  sea  to 
Marmora,  that  would  not  be  ridiculous  in  other  coun- 
tries; and  yet,  here,  their  gingerbread  balconies,  imi- 
tation perspectives,  lattices,  bird-cages,  and  kiosks, 
seem  as  naturally  the  growth  of  the  climate  as  the 
pomegranate  and  the  cypress.  The  old  maid  sultana 
lives  here  with  a  hundred  or  two  female  slaves  of  con- 
dition, a  little  emperess  in  an  empire  sufficiently  large 
(for  a  woman),  seeing  no  bearded  face,  it  is  presumed, 
except  her  black  eunuchs'  and  her  European  physi- 
cian's, and  having,  though  a  sultan's  sister,  less  liberty 
than  she  gives  even  her  slaves,  whom  she  permits  to 
marry  if  they  will.  She  can  neither  read  nor  write, 
and  is  said  to  be  fat,  indolent,  kind,  and  childish. 

A  little  farther  up,  the  sultan  is  repairing  a  fantas- 
tical little  palace  for  his  youngest  sister,  Esmeh  Sul- 
tana, who  is  to  be  married  to  Haleil  Pacha,  the  com- 
mander of  the  artillery.  She  is  about  twenty,  and, 
report  says,  handsome  and  spirited.  Her  betrothed 
was  a  Georgian  slave,  bought  by  the  sultan  when  a 
boy,  and  advanced  by  the  usual  steps  of  favoritism. 
By  the  laws  of  imperial  marriages  in  this  empire,  he 
is  to  be  banished  to  a  distant  pachalik  after  living  with 
his  wife  a  year,  his  connexion  with  blood-royal  making 
him  dangerously  eligible  to  the  throne.  His  bride 
remains  at  Stamboul,  takes  care  of  her  child  (if  she 
has  one),  and  lives  the  remainder  of  her  life  in  a  wid- 
ow's seclusion,  with  an  allowance  proportioned  to  her 
rank.  His  consolation  is  provided  for  by  the  mussul- 
man  privilege  of  as  many  more  wives  as  he  can  sup- 
port. Heaven  send  him  resignation — if  he  needs  it 
notwithstanding. 

The  hakim,  or  chief  physician  to  the  sultan,  has  a 
handsome  palace  on  the  same  side  of  the  Bosphorus; 
and  the  Armenian  seraffs,  or  bankers,  though  com- 
pelled, like  all  rayahs,  to  paint  their  houses  of  a  dull 
lead  color  (only  a  mussulman  may  live  in  a  red  house 


in  Constantinople),  are  said,  in  those  dusky-looking 
tenements,  to  maintain  a  luxury  not  inferior  to  that 
of  the  sultan  himself.  They  have  a  singular  effect, 
those  black,  funereal  houses,  standing  in  the  fore- 
ground of  a  picture  of  such  light  and  beauty  ! 

We  pass  Orta-Jceni,  the  Jew  village,  the  Arnaout- 
keni,  occupied  mostly  by  Greeks ;  and  here,  if  you 
have  read  "  the  Armenians,"  you  are  in  the  midst  of 
its  most  stirring  scenes.  The  story  is  a  true  one,  not 
much  embellished  in  the  hands  of  the  novelist,  and 
there,  on  the  hill  opposite,  in  Anatolia,  stands  iht 
house  of  the  heroine's  father,  the  old  seraff  Oglou 
and,  behind  the  garden,  you  may  see  the  small  cot- 
tage, inhabited,  secretly,  by  the  enamored  Constan- 
tine,  and  here,  in  the  pretty  village  of  Bebec,  lives,  at 
this  moment,  the  widowed  and  disconsolate  Veronica, 
dressed  ever  in  weeds,  and  obstinately  refusing  all  so- 
ciety but  her  own  sad  remembrance.  I  must  try  to 
see  her.  Her  "  husband  of  a  night"  was  compelled  to 
marry  again  by  the  hospodar,  his  father  (but  this  is 
not  in  the  novel,  you  will  remember),  and  there  is  late 
news  that  his  wife  is  dead,  and  the  lovers  of  romance 
in  Stamboul  are  hoping  he  will  return  and  make  a 
happier  sequel  than  the  sad  one  in  the  story.  The 
"orthodox  catholic  Armenian,  broker  and  money- 
changer to  boot,"  who  was  to  have  been  her  forced 
husband,  is  a  very  amiable  and  good-looking  fellow, 
now  in  the  employ  of  our  charge  d'affaires  as  second 
dragoman. 

We  approach  Roumeli-Hissar,  a  jutting  point  al- 
most meeting  a  similar  projection  from  the  Asian 
shore,  crowned,  like  its  vis-a-vis,  with  a  formidable 
battery.  The  Bosphorus  here  is  but  half  an  arrow- 
flight  in  width,  and  Europe  and  Asia,  here  at  their 
nearest  approach,  stand  looking  each  other  in  the 
face,  like  boxers,  with  foot  forward,  fist  doubled,  and 
a  most  formidable  row  of  teeth  on  either  side.  The 
current  scampers  through  between  the  two  castles,  as 
if  happy  to  get  out  of  the  way,  and,  up-stream,  it  is 
hard  pulling  for  a  caique.  They  are  beautiful  points, 
however,  and  I  am  ashamed  of  my  coarse  simile,  when 
I  remember  how  green  was  the  foliage  that  half  en- 
veloped the  walls,  and  how  richly  picturesque  the 
hills  behind  them.  Here,  in  the  European  castle, 
were  executed  the  greater  part  of  the  janisaries,  hun- 
dreds in  a  day,  of  the  manliest  frames  in  the  empire, 
thrown  into  the  rapid  Bosphorus,  headless  and  strip- 
ped, to  float,  unmourned  and  unregarded,  to  the  sea. 

Above  Roumeli-Hissar,  the  Bosphorus  spreads 
again,  and  a  curving  bay,  which  is  set  Iikc  a  mirror,  in 
a  frame  of  the  softest  foliage  and  verdure,  is  pointed 
out  as  a  spot  at  which  the  crusaders,  Godfrey  of  Bou- 
illon and  Raymond  of  Toulouse  encamped  on  their 
way  to  Palestine.  The  hills  beyond  this  are  loftier, 
and  the  Giant's  mountain,  upon  which  the  Russian 
army  encamped  at  their  late  visit  to  the  Porte,  would 
be  a  respectable  eminence  in  any  country.  At  its 
foot,  the  strait  expands  into  quite  a  lake,  and  on  the 
European  side,  in  a  scoop  of  the  shore,  exquisitely 
placed,  stand  the  diplomatic  villages  of  Terapia  and 
Buyukdere.  The  English,  French,  Russian,  Aus- 
trian and  other  flags  were  flying  over  a  half  dozen  of 
the  most  desirable  residences  I  have  seen  since 
Italy. 

We  soon  pulled  the  remaining  mile  or  two,  and  our 
spent  caikjees  drew  breath,  and  lay  on  their  oars  in  the 
Black  sea.  The  waves  were  breaking  on  the  "  blue 
Symplegades,"  a  mile  on  our  left,  and,  before  us,  tow- 
ard the  Cimmerian,  Bosphorus,  and,  south,  towar 
Colchis  and  Trebizond,  spread  one  broad,  blue  waste 
of  waters,  apparently  as  limitless  as  the  ocean.  The 
Black  sea  is  particularly  blue. 

We  turned  our  prow  to  the  west,  and  I  sighed  to 
remember  that  I  had  reached  my  farthest  step  into 
the  east.  Henceforth  I  shall  be  on  the  return.  I 
sent  a  long  look  over  the  waters  to  the  bright  lands 


PENCILLINGS  BY  THE  WAY. 


149 


beyond,  so  famed  in  history  and  fiction,  and  wishing 
for  even  a  metamorphosis  into  the  poor  sea-bird  flying 
above  us  (whose  travelling  expenses  Nature  pays),  I 
lay  back  in  the  boat  with  a  "  change  in  the  spirit  of 
my  dream." 

We  stopped  on  the  Anatolian  shore  to  visit  the 
ruins  of  a  fine  old  Genoese  castle,  which  looks  over 
the  Black  sea,  and  after  a  lunch  upon  grapes  and  cof- 
fee, at  a  small  village  at  the  foot  of  the  hill  on  which 
it  stands,  we  embarked  and  followed  our  companions. 
Running  down  with  the  current  to  Buyukdere,  we 
landed  and  walked  along  the  thronged  and  beautiful 
shore  to  Terapia,  meeting  hundreds  of  fair  Armenians 
and  Greeks  (all  beautiful,  it  seemed  to  me),  issuing 
forth  for  their  evening  promenade,  and,  with  a  call  of 
ceremony  on  the  English  ambassador,  for  whom  I 
had  letters,  we  again  took  to  the  caique,  and  fled  down 
with  the  current  like  a  bird.  Oh,  what  a  sunset  was 
there ! 

We  were  to  dine  and  pass  the  night  at  the  country- 
house  of  an  English  gentleman  at  Bebec,  a  secluded 
and  lovely  village,  six  or  eight  miles  from  Constanti- 
nople. We  reached  the  landing  as  the  stars  began  to 
glimmer,  and,  after  one  of  the  most  agreeable  and  hos- 
pitable entertainments  I  remember  to  have  shared,  we 
took  an  early  breakfast  with  our  noble  host,  and  re- 
turned to  the  ship.  I  could  wish  my  friends  no 
brighter  passage  in  their  lives  than  such  an  excursion 
as  mine  to  the  Black  sea. 


LETTER  XCVI. 

THE  GOLDEN  HORN  AND  ITS  SCENERY — THE  SULTAN'S 
"WIVES  AND  ARABIANS — THE  VALLEY  OF  SWEET  WA- 
TERS— BEAUTY  OF  THE  TURKISH  MINARETS — THE 
MOSQUE  OF  SULYMANYE — MUSSULMANS  AT  THEIR  DE- 
VOTIONS  THE  MUEZZIN THE  BAZAR  OF  THE  OPIUM- 
EATERS — THE  MAD-HOUSE  OF  CONSTANTINOPLE,  AND 
DESCRIPTION  OF  ITS  INMATES — THEIR  WRETCHED 
TREATMENT — THE  HIPPODROME  AND  THE  MOSQUE  OF 
SULTAN  ACHMET — THE  JANIZARIES — REFLECTIONS  ON 
THE  PAST,  THE  PRESENT,  AND  THE  FUTURE. 

The  "  Golden  Horn"  is  a  curved  arm  of  the  sea, 
the  broadest  extremity  meeting  the  Bosphorus  and 
forming  the  harbor  of  Constantinople,  and  the  other 
tapering  away  till  it  is  lost  in  the  "  Valley  of  Sweet 
Waters."  It  curls  through  the  midst  of  the  "  seven- 
hilled"  city,  and  you  cross  it  whenever  you  have  an 
errand  in  old  Stamboul.  Its  hundreds  of  shooting 
caiques,  its  forests  of  merchantmen  and  men-of-war, 
its  noise  and  its  confusion,  are  exchanged  in  scarce 
ten  minutes  of  swift  pulling  for  the  breathless  and 
Eden -like  solitude  of  a  valley  that  has  not  its  parallel, 
I  am  inclined  to  think,  between  the  Mississippi  and 
the  Caspian.  It  is  called  in  Turkish  khyat-khana. 
Opening  with  a  gentle  curve  from  the  Golden  Horn, 
it  winds  away  into  the  hills  toward  Belgrade,  its  long 
and  even  hollow,  thridded  by  a  lively  stream,  and 
carpeted  by  a  broad  belt  of  unbroken  green  sward 
swelling  up  to  the  enclosing  hills,  with  a  grass  so  ver- 
dant and  silken  that  it  seems  the  very  floor  of  faery. 
In  the  midst  of  its  longest  stretch  to  the  eye  (perhaps 
two  miles  of  level  meadow)  stands  a  beautiful  serai  of 
the  sultan's,  unfenced  and  open,  as  if  it  had  sprung 
from  the  lap  of  the  green  meadow  like  a  lily.  The 
stream  runs  by  its  door,  and  over  a  mimic  fall  whose 
lip  is  of  scolloped  marble,  is  built  an  oriental  kiosk,  all 
carving  and  gold,  that  is  only  too  delicate  and  fantas- 
tical for  reality. 

Here,  with  the  first  grass  of  spring,  the  sultan  sends 
his  fine-footed  Arabians  to  pasture;  and  here  come 
the  ladies  of  his  harem  (chosen,  women  and  horses, 
for  much  the  same  class  of  qualities),  and  in  the  long 


summer  afternoons,  with  mounted  eunuchs  on  the 
hills  around,  forbidding  on  pain  of  death,  all  approach 
to  the  sacred  retreat,  they  venture  to  drop  their  jeal- 
ous veils  and  ramble  about  in  their  unsunned  beauty. 

After  a  gallop  of  three  or  four  miles  over  the  broad 
waste  table  plains,  in  the  neighborhood  of  Constanti- 
nople, we  checked  our  horses  suddenly  on  the  brow 
of  a  precipitous  descent,  with  this  scene  of  beauty 
spread  out  before  us.  I  had  not  yet  approached  it 
by  water,  and  it  seemed  to  me  as  if  the  earth  had  burst 
open  at  my  feet,  and  revealed  some  realm  of  enchant- 
ment. Behind  me,  and  away  beyond  the  valley  to  the 
very  horizon,  I  could  see  only  a  trackless  heath,  brown 
and  treeless,  while  a  hundred  feet  below  lay  a  strip  of 
very  Paradise,  blooming  in  all  the  verdure  and  heaven- 
ly freshness  of  spring.  We  descended  slowly,  and 
crossing  a  bridge  half  hidden  by  willows,  rode  in  upon 
the  elastic  green  sward  (for  myself )  with  half  a  feeling 
of  profanation.  There  were  no  eunuchs  upon  the 
hills,  however,  and  our  spirited  Turkish  horses  threw 
their  wild  heads  into  the  air,  and  we  flew  over  the  ver- 
dant turf  like  a  troop  of  Delhis,  the  sound  of  the  hoofs 
on  the  yielding  carpet  scarcely  audible.  The  fair 
palace  in  the  centre  of  this  domain  of  loveliness  was 
closed,  and  it  was  only  after  we  had  walked  around  it 
that  we  observed  a  small  tent  of  the  prophet's  green 
couched  in  a  small  dell  on  the  hill-side,  and  containing 
probably  the  guard  of  its  imperial  master. 

We  mounted  again  and  rode  up  the  valley  for  two 
or  three  miles,  following  the  same  level  and  verdant 
curve,  the  soft  carpet  broken  only  by  the  silver  thread 
of  the  Barbyses,  loitering  through  it  on  its  way  to  the 
sea.  A  herd  of  buffaloes,  tended  by  a  Bulgarian  boy, 
stretched  on  his  back  in  the  sunshine,  and  a  small 
caravan  of  camels  bringing  wood  from  the  hills,  and 
keeping  to  the  soft  valley  as  a  relief  to  their  spongy 
feet,  were  the  only  animated  portions  of  the  landscape. 
I  think  I  shall  never  form  to  my  mind  another  picture 
of  romantic  rural  beauty  (an  employment  of  the  ima- 
gination I  am  much  given  to  when  out  of  humor  with 
the  world)  that  will  not  resemble  the  "  Valley  of  Sweet 
Waters" — the  khyat-khdna  of  Constantinople.  "  Poor 
Slingsby"  never  was  here.* 

The  lofty  mosque  of  Sulymanye,  the  bazars  of  the 
opium-eaters,  and  the  Timar-hanc,  or  mad-house  of 
Constantinople,  are  all  upon  one  square  in  the  highest 
part  of  the  city.  We  entered  the  vast  court  of  the 
mosque  from  a  narrow  and  filthy  street,  and  the  im- 
pression of  its  towering  plane-trees  and  noble  area,  and 
of  the  strange,  but  grand  and  costly  pile  in  its  centre, 
was  almost  devotional.  An  inner  court,  enclosed  by 
a  kind  of  romanesque  wall,  contained  a  sacred  marble 
fountain  of  light  and  airy  architecture,  and  the  portico 
facing  this  was  sustained  by  some  of  those  splendid 
and  gigantic  columns  of  porphyry  and  jasper,  the 
spoils  of  the  churches  of  Asia  Minor,  f 

I  think  the  most  beautiful  spire  that  rises  into  the 

•  Irving  says,  in  one  of  his  most  exquisite  passages — "  He 
who  has  sallied  forth  into  the  world  like  poor  Slingsby,  full  of 
sunny  anticipations,  finds  too  soon  how  different  the  distant 
scene  becomes  when  visited.  The  smooth  place  roughens  as 
he  approaches  ;  the  wild  place  becomes  tame  and  barren  ;  the 
fairy  teints  that  beguiled  him  on,  still  fly  to  the  distant  hill, 
or  gather  upon  the  land  he  has  left  behind,  and  every  part  of 
tt"  landscape  is  greener  than  the  spot  he  stands  on."  Full  of 
nv  «..  -  and  beautiful  expression  as  this  is,  I,  for  one,  have  not 
found  it  true.  Bright  as  1  had  imagined  the  much-sung  lands 
beyond  the  water,  I  have  found  many  a  scene  in  Italy  and  the 
east  that  has  more  than  answered  the  craving  for  beauty  in 
my  heart.  Val  d'Arno,  Vallombrosa,  Venice,  Temi,  Tivoli, 
Albano,  the  Isles  of  Greece,  the  Bosphorus,  and  the  matchless 
valley  I  have  described,  have,  with  a  hundred  other  spots  less 
famous,  far  outgone  in  their  exquisite  reality,  even  the  bright- 
est of  my  anticipations.  The  passage  is  not  necessarily  limit- 
ed in  its  meaning  to  scenery,  however,  and  of  moral  disappoint- 
ment it  is  beautifully  true.  There  is  many  a .  "  poor  Slings- 
by," the  fate  of  whose  sunny  anticipations  of  life  it  describes 
but  too  faithfully. 

t  Sulymanye  was  built  of  the  ruins  of  the  church,  St.  Eu- 
phemia,  at  Chalcedonia. 


150 


PENCILLINGS  BY  THE  WAY. 


sky  is  the  Turkish  minaret.  If  I  may  illustrate  an 
object  of  such  magnitude  by  so  trifling  a  comparison, 
it  is  exactly  the  shape  and  proportions  of  an  ever- 
pointed  pencil-case — the  silver  bands  answering  to  the 
encircling  galleries,  one  above  another,  from  which 
the  muezzin  calls  out  the  hour  of  prayer.  The  min- 
aret is  painted  white,  the  galleries  are  fantastically 
carved,  and  rising  to  the  height  of  the  highest  steeples 
in  our  country  (four  and  sometimes  six  to  a  single 
mosque),  these  slender  and  pointed  fingers  of  devotion 
seem  to  enter  the  very  sky.  Remembering,  dear 
reader,  that  there  are  two  hundred  and  twenty  mosques, 
and  three  hundred  chapels  in  Constantinople,  raising, 
perhaps,  in  all,  a  thousand  minarets  to  heaven,  you 
may  get  some  idea  of  the  magnificence  of  this  seven- 
hilled  capital  of  the  east. 

It  was  near  the  hour  of  prayer,  and  the  devout  mus- 
sulmans  were  thronging  into  the  court  of  Sulymanye 
by  every  gate.  Passing  the  noble  doors,  with  their 
strangely-carved  arches  of  arabesque,  which  invite  all 
to  enter  but  the  profaning  foot  of  the  Christian,  the 
turbaned  crowd  repaired  first  to  the  fountains.  From 
the  walls  of  every  mosque,  by  small  conduits  pouring 
into  a  marble  basin,  flow  streams  of  pure  water  for  the 
religious  ablutions  of  the*  faithful.  The  mussulman 
approaches,  throws  off"  his  flowing  robe,  steps  out  of 
his  yellow  slippers,  and  unwinds  his  voluminous  tur- 
ban with  devout  deliberateness.  A  small  marble  step, 
worn  hollow  with  pious  use,  supports  his  foot  while 
he  washes  from  the  knee  downward.  His  hands  and 
arms,  with  the  flowing  sleeve  of  his  silk  shirt  rolled  to 
the  shoulder,  receive  the  same  lavation,  and  then, 
washing  his  face,  he  repeats  a  brief  prayer,  resumes 
all  but  his  slippers,  and  enters  the  mosque  barefooted. 
The  mihrab  (or  niche  indicating  the  side  toward  the 
tomb  of  the  prophet),  fixes  his  eye.  He  folds  his 
hands  together,  prays  a  moment  standing,  prostrates 
himself  flat  on  his  face  toward  the  hallowed  quarter, 
rises  upon  his  knees,  and  continues  praying  and  pros- 
trating himself  for  perhaps  half  an  hour.  And  all  this 
process  is  required  by  the  mufti,  and  performed  by 
every  good  mussulman  five  times  a  day  !  A  rigid  ad- 
herence to  it  is  almost  universal  among  the  Turks.  In 
what  an  odor  of  sanctity  would  a  Christian  live,  who 
should  make  himself  thus  "familiar  with  heaven  !" 

As  the  muezzin  from  the  minaret  was  shouting  his 
last  "  mashallah!"  with  a  voice  like  a  man  calling  out 
from  the  clouds,  we  left  the  court  of  the  majestic 
mosque,  with  Byron's  reflection  : — 

"Alas  !  man  makes  that  great  which  makes  him  little  !" 
and,  having  delivered  ourselves  of  this  scrap  of  poeti- 
cal  philosophy,  we  crossed   over  the  square  to  the 
opium-eaters. 

A  long  row  of  half-ruined  buildings,  of  a  single  sto- 
ry, with  porticoes  in  front,  and  the  broad,  raised  plat- 
form beneath,  on  which  the  Turks  sit  cross-legged  at 
public  places,  is  the  scene  of  what  was  once  a  pecu- 
liarly oriental  spectacle.  The  mufti  has  of  late  years 
denounced  the  use  of  opium,  and  the  devotees  to  its 
sublime  intoxication  have  either  conquered  the  habit, 
or  what  is  more  probable,  indulge  it  in  more  secret 
places.  The  shops  are  partly  ruinous,  and  those  that 
remain  in  order  are  used  as  cafes,  in  which,  however, 
it  is  said  that  the  dangerous  drug  may  still  be  procured. 
My  companion  inquired  of  a  good-humored-looking 
caffejee  whether  there  was  any  place  at  which  a  con- 
firmed opium-eater  could  be  seen  under  its  influence. 
He  said  there  was  an  old  Turk,  who  was  in  the  habit 
of  frequenting  his  shop,  and,  if  we  could  wait  an  hour 
or  two,  we  might  see  him  in  the  highest  state  of  in- 
toxication. We  had  no  time  to  spare,  if  the  object 
had  been  worth  our  while. 

And  here,  thought  I,  as  we  sal  down  and  took  a  cup 
of  coffee  in  the  half-ruined  cafe,  have  descended  upon 
the  delirious  brains  of  these  noble  drunkards,  the  vis- 
ions of  Paradise  so   glowingly  described  in  books — 


visions,  it  is  said,  as  far  exceeding  the  poor  invention 
of  the  poet,  as  the  houris  of  the  prophet  exceed  the 
fair  damsels  of  this  world.  Here  men,  otherwise  in 
their  senses,  have  believed  themselves  emperors,  war- 
riors, poets  ;  these  wretched  walls  and  bending  roof 
the  fair  proportions  of  a  palace ;  this  gray  old  caffejee 
a  Hylas  or  a  Ganymede.  Here  men  have  come  to 
cast  off,  for  an  hour,  the  dull  thraldom  of  the  body ; 
to  soar  into  the  glorious  world  of  fancy  at  a  penalty  of 
a  thousand  times  the  proportion  of  real  misery  ;  to 
sacrifice  the  invaluable  energies  of  health,  and  delib- 
erately poison  the  very  fountain  of  life,  for  a  few  brief 
moments  of  magnificent  and  phrensied  blessedness. 
It  is  powerfully  described  in  the  "Opium-Eater"  of 
De  Quincy. 

At  the  extremity  of  this  line  of  buildings,  by  a  nat- 
ural proximity,  stands  the  Timar-hane.  We  passed 
the  porter  at  the  gate  without  question,  and  entered  a 
large  quadrangle,  surrounded  with  the  grated  windows 
of  cells  on  the  ground-floor.  In  every  window  was 
chained  a  maniac.  The  doors  of  the  cells  were  all 
open,  and,  descending  by  a  step  upon  the  low  stone 
floor  of  the  first,  we  found  ourselves  in  the  presence 
of  four  men  chained  to  rings,  in  the  four  corners,  by 
massy  iron  collars.  The  man  in  the  window  sat 
crouched  together,  like  a  person  benumbed  (the  day 
was  raw  and  cold  as  December),  the  heavy  chain  of 
his  collar  hanging  on  his  naked  breast,  and  his  shoul- 
ders imperfectly  covered  with  a  narrow  blanket.  His 
eyes  were  large  and  fierce,  and  his  mouth  was  fixed  in 
an  expression  of  indignant  sullenness.  My  compan-* 
ion  asked  him  if  he  were  ill.  He  said  he  should  be 
well,  if  he  were  out — that  he  was  brought  there  in  a 
fit  of  intoxication  two  years  ago,  and  was  no  more 
crazy  than  his  keeper.  Poor  fellow  !  It  might  easi- 
ly be  true!  He  lifted  his  heavy  collar  from  his  neck 
as  he  spoke,  and  it  was  not  difficult  to  believe  that 
misery  like  his  for  two  long  years  would,  of  itself,  de- 
stroy reason.  There  was  a  better  dressed  man  in  the 
opposite  corner,  who  informed  us,  in  a  gentlemanly 
voice,  that  he  had  been  a  captain  in  the  sultan's  army, 
and  was  brought  there  in  the  delirium  of  a  fever.  He 
was  at  a  loss  to  know,  he  said,  why  he  was  imprisoned 
still. 

We  passed  on  to  a  poor,  half  naked  wretch  in  the 
last  stage  of  illness  and  idiocy,  who  sat  chattering  to 
himself,  and,  though  trembling  with  the  cold,  inter- 
rupted his  monologue  continually  with  fits  of  the 
wildest  laughter.  Farther  on  sat  a  young  man  of  a 
face  so  full  of  intellectual  beauty,  an  eye  so  large  and 
mild,  a  mouth  of  such  mingled  sadness  and  sweet- 
ness, and  a  forehead  so  broad,  and  marked  so  nobly, 
that  we  stood,  all  of  us,  struck  with  a  simultaneous 
feeling  of  pity  and  surprise.  A  countenance  more 
beaming  with  all  that  is  admirable  in  human  nature,  I 
have  never  seen,  even  in  painting.  He  might  have  sat 
to  Da  Vinci  for  the  "beloved  apostle."  He  had  tied 
the  heavy  chain  by  a  shred  to  a  round  of  the  grating, 
to  keep  its  weight  from  his  neck,  and  seemed  calm 
and  resigned,  with  all  his  sadness.  My  friend  spoke 
to  him,  but  he  answered  obscurely,  and,  seeing  that 
our  gaze  disturbed  him,  we  passed  unwillingly  on. 
Oh,  what  room  there  is  in  the  world  for  pity  !  If  that 
poor  prisoner  be  not  a  maniac  (as  he  may  not  be),  and, 
if  nature  has  not  falsified  in  the  structure  of  his  mind 
the  superior  impress  on  his  features,  what  Prome- 
theus-like agony  has  he  suffered  !  The  guiltiest  felon 
is  better  cared  for.  And  allowing  his  mind  to  be  a 
wreck,  and  allowing  the  hundred  human  minds,  in  the 
same  cheerless  prison,  to  be  certainly  in  ruins,  oh  what 
have  they  done  to  be  weighed  down  with  iron  on  their 
necks,  and  exposed,  like  caged  beasts,  shivering  and 
naked,  to  the  eye  of  pitiless  curiosity?  I  have  visited 
lunatic  asylums  in  France,  Italy,  Sicily,  and  Germany, 
but,  culpably  neglected  as  most  of  them  are,  I  have 
seen  nothing  comparable  to  this  in  horror. 


PENCILLINGS  BY  THE  WAY. 


151 


"  Is  he  never  unchained  ?"  we  asked.  "  Never !" 
And  yet,  from  the  ring  to  the  iron  collar,  there  was 
just  chain  enough  to  permit  him  to  stand  upright ! 
There  were  no  vessels  near  them,  not  even  a  pitcher 
of  water.  Their  dens  were  cleansed  and  the  poor  suf- 
ferers fed  at  appointed  hours,  and,  come  wind  or  rain, 
there  was  neither  shutter  nor  glass  to  defend  them 
from  the  inclemency  of  the  weather. 

We  entered  most  of  the  rooms,  and  found  in  all  the 
same  dampness,  filth,  and  misery.  One  poor  wretch 
had  been  chained  to  the  same  spot  for  twenty  years. 
The  keeper  said  he  never  slept.  He  talked  all  the 
night  long.  Sometimes  at  mid-day  his  voice  would  j 
cease,  and  his  head  nod  for  an  instant,  and  then  with 
a  start  as  if  he  feared  to  be  silent,  he  raved  on  with 
the  same  incoherent  rapidity.  He  had  been  a  dervish. 
His  collar  and  chain  were  bound  with  rags,  and  a  tat- 
tered coat  was  fastened  up  on  the  inside  of  the  window, 
forming  a  small  recess  in  which  he  sat,  between  the 
room  and  the  grating.  He  was  emaciated  to  the  last  j 
degree.  His  beard  was  tangled  and  filthy,  his  nails 
curled  over  the  ends  of  his  fingers,  and  his  appear- 
ance, save  only  an  eye  of  the  keenest  lustre,  that  of  a 
wild  beast. 

In  the  last  room  we  entered,  we  found  a  good-look- 
ing young  man,  well  dressed,  healthy,  composed,  and 
having  every  appearance  of  a  person  in  the  soundest 
state  of  mind  and  body.  He  saluted  us  courteously, 
and  told  my  friend  that  he  was  a  renegade  Greek.  He 
had  turned  mussulman  a  year  or  two  ago,  had  lost  his 
reason,  and  so  was  brought  here.  He  talked  of  it  quite 
as  a  thing  of  course,  and  seemed  to  be  entirely  satis- 
fied that  the  best  had  been  done  for  him.  One  of  the 
party  took  hold  of  his  chain.  He  winced  as  the  col- 
lar stirred  on  his  neck,  and  said  the  lock  was  on  the 
outside  of  the  window  (which  was  true),  and  that  the 
boys  came  in  and  tormented  him  by  pulling  it  some- 
times. "  There  they  are,"  he  said,  pointing  to  two  or 
three  children  who  had  just  entered  the  court,  and 
were  running  round  from  one  prisoner  to  another. 
We  bade  him  good  morning,  and  he  laid  his  hand  to 
his  breast  and  bowed  with  a  smile.  As  we  passed  tow- 
ard the  gate,  the  chattering  lunatic  on  the  opposite 
side  screamed  after  us,  the  old  dervish  laid  his  skinny 
hands  on  the  bars  of  his  window,  and  talked  louder 
and  faster,  and  the  children,  approaching  close  to  the 
poor  creatures,  laughed  with  delight  at  their  excite- 
ment. 

It  was  a  relief  to  escape  to  the  common  sights  and 
sounds  of  the  city.  We  walked  on  to  the  Hippo- 
drome. The  only  remaining  beauty  of  this  famous 
square  is  the  unrivalled  mosque  of  Sultan  Achmet, 
which,  though  inferior  in  size  to  the  renowned  Santa 
Sophia,  is  superior  in  elegance  both  within  and  with- 
out. Its  six  slender  and  towering  minarets  are  the 
handsomest  in  Constantinople.  The  wondrous  obe- 
lisk in  the  centre  of  the  square,  remains  perfect  as  in 
the  time  of  the  Christian  emperors,  but  the  brazen  tri- 
pod is  gone  from  the  twisted  column,  and  the  serpent- 
like pillar  itself  is  leaning  over  with  its  brazen  folds  to 
its  fall. 

Here  stood  the  barracks  of  the  powerful  Janisaries, 
and  from  the  side  of  Sultan  Achmet  the  cannon  were 
levelled  upon  them,  as  they  rushed  from  the  confla- 
gration within.  And  here,  when  Constantinople  was 
the  "second  Rome,"  were  witnessed  the  triumphal 
processions  of  Christian  conquest,  the  march  of  the 
crusaders,  bound  for  Palestine,  and  the  civil  tumults 
which  Justinian,  walking  among  the  people  with  the 
gospel  in  his  hand,  tried  in  vain  to  allay  ere  they  burnt 
the  great  edifice  built  of  the  ruins  of  the  temple  of 
Solomon.  And  around  this  now  neglected  area,  the 
captive  Gelimer  followed  in  chains  the  chariot  of  the 
conquering  Belisarius,  repeating  the  words  of  Solo- 
mon, "  Yanity  of  vanities!  all  is  vanity!"  while  the 
conquerer  himself,  throwing  aside  his  crown,  prostra- 


ted himself  at  the  feet  of  the  beautiful  Theodora, 
raised  from  a  Roman  actress  to  be  the  Christian  em- 
peress  of  the  east.  From  any  elevated  point  of  the 
city,  you  may  still  see  the  ruins  of  the  palace  of  the 
renowned  warrior,  and  read  yourself  a  lesson  on  hu- 
man vicissitudes,  remembering  the  school-book  story 
of  "  an  obolon  for  Belisarius  !" 

The  Hippodrome  was,  until  late  years,  the  constant 
scene  of  the  games  of  the  jereed.  With  the  destruc- 
tion of  the  Janizaries,  and  the  introduction  of  Euro- 
pean tactics,  this  graceful  exercise  has  gone  out  of 
fashion.  The  east  is  fast  losing  its  picturesqueness. 
Dress,  habits,  character,  everything  seems  to  be  un- 
dergoing a  gradual  change,  and  when,  as  the  Turks 
themselves  predict,  the  moslem  is  driven  into  Asia, 
this  splendid  capital  will  become  another  Paris,  and 
with  the  improvements  in  travel,  a  summer  in  Con- 
stantinople will  be  as  little  thought  of  as  a  tour  in  Ita- 
ly. Politicians  in  this  part  of  the  world  predict  such 
a  change  as  about  to  arrive. 


LETTER  XCVI1 

SULTAN  MAHMOUD  AT  HIS  DEVOTIONS — COMPARATIVE 
SPLENDOR  OF  PAPAL,  AUSTRIAN,  AND  TURKISH  EQUIP- 
AGES— THE  SULTAN'S  BARGE  OR  CAIQUE DESCRIP- 
TION OF  THE  SULTAN — VISIT  TO  A  TURKISH  LANCAS- 
TERIAN      SCHOOL — THE      DANCING     DERVISHES — VISIT 

FROM  THE  SULTAN'S    CABINET THE    SERASK1ER    AND 

THE   CAPITAN   PACHA— HUMBLE    ORIGIN    OF    TURKISH 
DIGNITARIES. 

I  had  slept  on  shore,  and  it  was  rather  late  before  1 
remembered  that  it  was  Friday  (the  moslem  Sunday), 
and  that  Sultan  Mahmoud  was  to  go  in  state  to 
mosque  at  twelve.  I  hurried  down  the  precipitous 
street  of  Pera,  and,  as  usual,  escaping  barely  with  my 
life  from  the  Christian-hating  dogs  of  Tophana,  em- 
barked in  a  caique,  and  made  all  speed  up  the  Bos- 
phorus.  There  is  no  word  in  Turkish  for  faster,  but 
I  was  urging  on  my  caikjees  by  a  wave  of  the  hand 
and  the  sight  of  a  bishlik  (about  the  value  of  a  quarter 
of  a  dollar),  when  suddenly  a  broadside  was  fired  from 
the  three-decker,  Mahmoudier,  the  largest  ship  in  the 
world,  and  to  the  rigging  of  every  man-of-war  in  the 
fleet  through  which  l^was  passing,  mounted,  simulta- 
neously, hundreds  of  blood-red  flags,  filling  the  air 
about  us  like  a  shower  of  tulips  and  roses.  Imagine 
twenty  ships-of-war,  with  yards  manned,  and  scarce  a 
line  in  their  rigging  to  be  seen  for  the  flaunting  of 
colors  !  The  jar  of  the  guns,  thundering  in  every  di- 
rection close  over  us,  almost  lifted  our  light  boat  out 
of  the  water,  and  the  smoke  rendered  our  pilotage  be- 
tween the  ships  and  among  their  extending  cables 
rather  doubtful.  The  white  cloud  lifted  after  a  few 
minutes,  and,  with  the  last  gun,  down  went  the  flags 
all  together,  announcing  that  the  "  Brother  of  the 
Sun"  had  left  his  palace. 

He  had  but  crossed  to  the  mosque  of  the  small  vil- 
lage on  the  opposite  side  of  the  Bosphorus,  and  was 
already  at  his  prayers  when  I  arrived.  His  body-guard 
was  drawn  up  before  the  door,  in  their  villanous  Eu- 
;  ropean  dress,  and,  as  their  arms  were  stacked,  1  pre- 
!  sumed  it  would  be  some  time  before  the  sultan  reap- 
i  peared,  and  improved  the  interval  in  examining  the 
handja-bashes,  or  state-caiques,  lying  at  the  landing. 
I  have  arrived  at  my  piesent  notions  of  equipage  by 
three  degrees.  The  pope's  carriages  at  Rome,  rather 
astonished  me.  The  emperor  of  Austria's  sleighs  di- 
minished the  pope  in  my  admiration,  and  the  sultan's 
caiques,  in  their  turn,  "pale  the  fires"  of  the  emperor 
of  Austria.  The  handja-bash  is  built  something  like 
the  ancient  galley,  very  high  at  the  prow  and  stern, 
carries  some  fifty  oars,  and  has  a  roof  over  her  poop, 


152 


PENCILLINGS  BY  THE  WAY. 


supported  by  four  columns,  and  loaded  with  the  most 
sumptuous  ornaments,  the  whole  gilt  brilliantly.  The 
prow  is  curved  over,  and  wreathed  into  every  possible 
device  that  would  not  affect  the  necessary  lines  of  the 
model ;  her  crew  are  dressed  in  the  beautiful  costume 
of  the  country,  rich  and  flowing,  and  with  the  costly 
and  bright-colored  carpets  hanging  over  her  side,  and 
the  flashing  of  the  sun  on  her  ornaments  of  gold,  she 
is  really  the  most  splendid  object  of  state  equipage 
(if  I  may  be  allowed  the  misnomer)  in  the  world. 

I  was  still  examining  the  principal  barge,  when  the 
troops  stood  to  their  arms,  and  preparation  was  made 
for  the  passing  out  of  the  sultan.  Thirty  or  forty  of 
his  highest  military  officers  formed  themselves  into 
two  lines  from  the  door  of  the  mosque  to  the  landing, 
and  behind  them  were  drawn  up  single  files  of  soldiers. 
I  took  advantage  of  the  respect  paid  to  the  rank  of 
Commodore  Patterson,  and  obtained  an  excellent  po- 
sition, with  him,  at  the  side  of  the  caique.  First  is- 
sued from  the  door  two  Georgian  slaves,  bearing  cen- 
sers, from  which  they  waved  the  smoke  on  either  side, 
and  the  sultan  immediately  followed,  supported  by  the 
capitan-pacha,  the  seraskier,  and  Haleil  Pacha  (who 
is  to  marry  the  Sultana  Esmeh).  He  walked  slowly 
down  to  the  landing,  smiling  and  talking  gayly  with 
the  seraskier,  and,  bowing  to  the  commodore  in  pas- 
sing, stepped  into  his  barge,  seated  himself  on  a  raised 
sofa,  while  his  attendants  coiled  their  legs  on  the  car- 
pet below,  and  turned  his  prow  across  the  Bosphorus. 

I  have,  perhaps,  never  set  my  eyes  on  a  handsomer 
man  than  Sultan  Mahmoud.  His  figure  is  tall, 
straight,  and  manly,  his  air  unembarrassed  and  digni- 
fied, and  his  step  indicative  of  the  well-known  firmness 
of  his  character.  A  superb  beard  of  jetty  blackness, 
with  a  curling  mustache,  conceals  all  the  lower  part  of 
his  face  ;  the  decided  and  bold  lines  of  his  mouth  just 
marking  themselves  when  he  speaks.  It  is  said  he 
both  paints  and  dies  his  beard,  but  a  manlier  brown 
upon  a  cheek,  or  a  richer  gloss  upon  a  beard,  I  never 
saw.  His  eye  is  described  by  writers  as  having  a 
doomed  darkness  of  expression,  and  it  is  certainly  one 
that  would  well  become  a  chief  of  bandits — large, 
steady,  and  overhung  with  an  eyebrow  like  a  thunder- 
cloud. He  looks  the  monarch.  The  child  of  a  ser- 
aglio (where  mothers  are  chosen  for  beauty  alone) 
could  scarce  escape  being  handsome.  The  blood  of 
Circassian  upon  Circassian  is  in  his  veins,  and  the 
wonder  is,  not  that  he  is  the  handsomest  man  in  his 
empire,  but  that  he  is  not  the  greatest  slave.  Our 
"  mother's  humor,"  they  say,  predominates  in  our 
mixtures.  Sultan  Mahmoud,  however,  was  marked 
by  nature  for  a  throne. 

I  accompanied  Mr.  Goodell  and  Mr.  Dwight,  Ameri- 
can missionaries  at  Constantinople,  to  visit  a  Lancas- 
trian school  established  with  their  assistance  in  the 
Turkish  barracks.  The  building  stands  on  the  ascent 
of  one  of  the  lovely  valleys  that  open  into  the  Bos- 
phorus, some  three  miles  from  the  city,  on  the  Euro- 
pean side.  We  were  received  by  the  colonel  of  the 
regiment,  a  young  man  of  fine  appearance,  with  the 
diamond  crescent  and  star  glittering  on  the  breast  of 
his  military  frock,  and  after  the  inevitable  compliment 
of  pipes  and  coffee,  the  drum  was  beat  and  the  soldiers 
called  to  school. 

The  sultan  has  an  army  of  boys.  Nine  tenths  of 
those  I  have  seen  are  under  twenty.  They  marched 
in,  in  single  file,  and  facing  about,  held  up  their  hands 
at  the  word  of  command,  while  a  subaltern  looked 
that  each  had  performed  the  morning  ablution.  They 
were  healthy-looking  lads,  mostly  from  the  interior 
provinces,  whence  they  are  driven  down  like  cattle  to 
fill  the  ranks  of  their  sovereign.  Duller-looking  sub- 
jects for  an  idea  it  has  not  been  my  fortune  to  see. 

The  Turkish  alphabet  hung  over  the  teacher's  desk 
(the  colonel  is  the  schoolmaster,  and  takes  the  great- 
est interest  in  his  occupation),  and  th?  front  seats  are 


faced  with  a  long  box  covered  with  sand,  in  which  the 
beginners  write  with  their  fingers.  It  is  fitted  with  a 
slide  that  erases  the  clumsy  imitation  when  completed, 
and  seemed  to  me  an  ingenious  economy  of  ini  and 
paper.  (I  would  suggest  to  the  minds  of  the  benevo- 
lent, a  school  on  the  same  principle  for  beginners  in 
poetry.  It  would  save  the  critics  much  murder,  and 
tend  to  the  suppression  of  suicide.)  The  classes  hav- 
ing filed  into  their  seats,  the  school  opened  with  a 
prayer  by  the  colonel.  The  higher  benches  then 
commenced  writing,  on  slates  and  paper,  sentences 
dictated  from  the  desk,  and  I  was  somewhat  surprised 
at  the  neatness  and  beauty  of  the  characters. 

We  passed  afterward  into  another  room  where  arith- 
metic and  geography  were  taught,  and  then  mounted 
to  an  apartment  on  the  second  story  occupied  by  stu- 
dents in  military  drawing.  The  proficiency  of  all 
was  most  creditable,  considering  the  brief  period  during 
which  the  schools  have  been  in  operation — something 
less  than  a  year.  Prejudiced  as  the  Turks  are  against 
European  innovation,  this  advanced  step  toward  im 
provement  tells  well.  Our  estimable  and  useful  mis 
sionaries  appear,  from  the  respect  everywhere  shown 
them,  to  be  in  high  esteem,  and  with  the  sultan's  en- 
ergetic disposition  for  reform,  they  hope  everything  in 
the  way  of  an  enlightened  change  in  the  moral  condi 
tion  of  the  people. 

Went  to  the  chapel  of  the  dancing  dervishes.  It  is 
a  beautiful  marble  building,  with  a  court-yard  orna- 
mented with  a  small  cemetery  shaded  with  cypresses, 
and  a  fountain  enclosed  in  a  handsome  edifice,  and 
defended  by  gilt  gratings  from  the  street  of  the  suburb 
of  Pera,  in  which  it  stands.  They  dance  here  twice 
a  week.  We  arrived  before  the  hour,  and  were  de- 
tained at  the  door  by  a  soldier  on  guard,  who  would 
not  permit  us  to  enter  without  taking  off  our  boots — a 
matter,  about  which,  between  straps  and  their  very 
muddy  condition,  we  had  some  debate.  The  dervishes 
began  to  arrive  before  the  question  was  settled,  and 
one  of  them,  a  fine-looking  old  man,  inviting  us  to 
enter,  Mr.  H.  explained  the  difficulty.  "  Go  in,"  said 
he,  "  go  in !"  and  turning  to  the  more  scrupulous 
mussulman  with  the  musket,  as  he  pushed  us  within 
the  door,  "  stupid  fellow  !"  said  he,  "  if  you  had  been 
less  obstinate,  they  would  have  given  you  a  bakshish"'' 
(Turkish  for  a  fee).  He  should  have  said  less  reli- 
gious— for  the  poor  fellow  looked  horror-struck  as  our 
dirty  boots  profaned  the  clean  white  Persian  matting 
of  the  sacred  floor.  One  would  think,  "  the  nearer 
the  church  the  farther  from  God,"  were  as  true  here 
as  it  is  said  to  be  in  some  more  civilized  countries. 

It  was  a  pretty,  octagonal  interior,  with  a  gallery, 
the  mihrab  or  niche  indicating  the  direction  of  the 
prophet's  tomb,  standing  obliquely  from  the  front 
of  the  building.  Hundreds  of  small  lamps  hung  in 
the  area,  just  out  of  the  reach  of  the  dervishes'  tall 
caps,  and  all  around  between  the  gallery ;  a  part  of 
the  floor  was  raised,  matted,  and  divided  from  the 
body  of  the  church  by  a  balustrade.  It  would  have 
made  an  exceedingly  pretty  ball-room. 

None  but  the  dervishes  entered  within  the  paling, 
and  they  soon  began  to  enter,  each  advancing  first 
toward  the  mihrab,  and  going  through  fifteen  or  twen- 
ty minutes'  prostrations  and  prayers.  Their  dress  is 
very  humble.  A  high,  white  felt-cap,  without  a  rim, 
like  a  sugar-loaf  enlarged  a  little  at  the  smaller  end, 
protects  the  head,  and  a  long  dress  of  dirt-colored 
cloth,  reaching  quite  to  the  heels  and  bound  at  the 
waist  with  a  girdle,  completes  the  costume.  They 
look  like  men  who  have  made  up  their  minds  to  seem 
religious,  and  though  said  to  be  a  set  of  very  good  fel- 
lows, they  have  a  Mawworm  expression  of  face  gener- 
ally, which  was  very  repulsive.  I  must  except  the 
chief  of  the  sect,  however,  who  entered  when  all  the 
rest  had  seated  themselves  on  the  floor,  and  after  a 


PENCILLINGS  BY  THE  WAY. 


153 


brief  genuflection  or  two,  took  possession  of  a  rich 
Angora  carpet  placed  for  him  near  the  mihrab.  He 
was  a  small  old  man,  distinguished  in  his  dress  only 
by  the  addition  of  a  green  band  to  his  cap  (the  sign 
of  his  pilgrimage  to  Mecca)  and  the  entire  absence  of 
the  sanctimonious  look.  Still  he  was  serious,  and 
there  was  no  mark  in  his  clear,  intelligent  eye  and 
amiable  features,  of  any  hesitancy  or  want  of  sincerity 
in  his  devotion.  He  is  said  to  be  a  learned  man,  and 
he  is  certainly  a  very  prepossessing  one,  though  he 
would  be  taken  up  as  a  beggar  in  any  city  in  the  Uni- 
ted States.  It  is  a  thing  one  learns  in  "  dangling 
about  the  world,"  by  the  way,  to  form  opinions  of 
men  quite  independently  of  their  dress. 

After  sitting  a  while  in  quaker  meditation,  the 
brotherhood  rose  one  by  one  (there  were  ten  of  them 
I  think),  and  marched  round  the  room  with  their  toes 
turned  in,  to  the  music  of  a  drum  and  a  Persian  flute, 
played  invisibly  in  some  part  of  the  gallery.  As  they 
passed  the  carpet  of  the  cross-legged  chief,  they  twist- 
ed dexterously  and  made  three  salaams,  and  then 
raising  their  arms,  which  they  held  out  straight  during 
the  whole  dance,  they  commenced  twirling  on  one 
foot,  using  the  other  after  the  manner  of  a  paddle  to 
keep  up  the  motion.  I  forgot  to  mention  that  they 
laid  aside  their  outer  dresses  before  commencing  the 
dance.  They  remained  in  dirty  white  tunics  reaching 
to  the  floor,  and  very  full  at  the  bottom,  so  that  with 
the  regular  motion  of  their  whirl,  the  wind  blew  them 
out  into  a  circle,  like  what  the  girls  in  our  country 
call  "  making  cheeses."  They  twisted  with  surprising 
exactness  and  rapidity,  keeping  clear  of  each  other, 
and  maintaining  their  places  with  the  regularity  of 
machines.  I  have  seen  a  great  deal  of  waltzing,  but  I 
think  the  dancing  dervishes  for  precision  and  spirit, 
might  give  a  lesson  even  to  the  Germans. 

We  left  them  twisting.  They  had  been  going  for 
half  an  hour,  and  it  began  to  look  very  like  perpetual 
motion-  Unless  their  brains  are  addled,  their  devo- 
tion, during  this  dizzy  performance  at  least,  must  be 
quite  suspended.  A  man  who  could  think  of  his 
Maker,  while  revolving  so  fast  that  his  nose  is  indis- 
tinct, must  have  some  power  of  abstraction. 

The  frigate  was  visited  to-day  by  the  sultan's  cab- 
inet. The  seraskier  pacha  came  alongside  first  in  his 
state  caique,  and  embraced  the  commodore  as  he 
stepped  upon  the  deck,  with  great  cordiality.  He  is  a 
short,  fat  old  man,  with  a  snow-white  beard,  and  so 
bow-legged  as  to  be  quite  deformed.  He  wore  the 
red  Fez  cap  of  the  army,  with  a  long  blue  frock-coat, 
the  collar  so  tight  as  nearly  to  choke  him,  and  the 
body  not  shaped  to  the  figure,  but  made  to  fall  around 
him  like  a  sack.  The  red,  bloated  skin  of  his  neck 
fell  over,  so  as  almost  to  cover  the  gold  with  which  the 
collar  was  embroidered.  He  was  formerly  capitan 
pacha,  or  admiral-in-chief  of  the  fleet,  and  though  a 
good-humored,  merry-looking  old  man,  has  shown 
himself,  both  in  his  former  and  present  capacity,  to  be 
wily,  cold,  and  a  butcher  in  cruelty.  He  possesses 
unlimited  influence  over  the  sultan,  and  though  nom- 
inally subordinate  to  the  grand  vizier,  is  really  the 
second  if  not  the  first  person  in  the  empire.  He  was 
originally  a  Georgian  slave. 

The  seraskier  was  still  talking  with  the  commodore 
in  the  gang-way,  when  the  present  capitan  pacha 
mounted  the  ladder,  and  the  old  man,  who  is  under- 
stood to  be  at  feud  with  his  successor,  turned  abruptly 
away  and  walked  aft.  The  capitan  pacha  is  a  tall, 
slender  man,  of  precisely  that  look  and  manner  which 
we  call  gentlemanly.  His  beard  grows  untrimmed  in 
the  Turkish  fashion,  and  is  slightly  touched  with  gray. 
His  eye  is  anxious,  but  resolute,  and  he  looks  like  a 
man  of  resource  and  ability.  His  history  is  as  singu- 
lar as  that  of  most  other  great  men  in  Turkey.     He 


was  a  slave  of  Mohammed  Ali,  the  rebellious  pacha 
of  Egypt.  Being  intrusted  by  his  master  with  a  brig 
and  cargo  for  Leghorn,  he  sold  vessel  and  lading, 
lived  like  a  gentleman  in  Italy  for  some  years  with  the 
proceeds,  and  as  the  best  security  against  the  retribu- 
tion of  his  old  master,  offered  his  services  to  the  sultan, 
with  whom  Ali  was  just  commencing  hostilities.  Na- 
val talent  was  in  request,  and  he  soon  arrived  at  his 
present  dignity.  He  is  said  to  be  the  only  officer  in 
the  fleet  who  knows  anything  of  his  profession. 

Haleil  Pacha  arrived  last.  The  sultan's  future  son- 
in-law  is  a  man  of  perhaps  thirty-five.  He  is  light- 
complexioned,  stout,  round-faced,  and  looks,  like  a 
respectable  grocer,  "  well  to  do  in  the  world."  He 
has  commanded  the  artillery  long  enough  to  have  ac 
quired  a  certain  air  of  ease  and  command,  and  carries 
the  promise  of  good  fortune  in  his  confident  features. 
He  is  to  be  married  almost  immediately.  He,  too, 
was  a  Georgian,  sent  as  a  present  to  the  sultan. 

The  three  dignitaries  made  the  rounds  of  the  ship 
and  then  entered  the  cabin,  where  the  pianoforte  (a 
novelty  to  the  seraskier  and  Haleil  Pacha,  and  to  most 
of  the  attendant  officers),  and  the  commodore's  agree- 
able society  and  champagne,  promised  to  detain  them 
the  remainder  of  the  day.  They  were  like  children 
with  a  holyday.  I  was  engaged  to  dine  on  shore,  and 
left  them  on  board. 

In  a  country  where  there  is  no  education  and  no 
rank,  except  in  the  possession  of  present  power,  it  is 
not  surprising  that  men  should  rise  from  the  lowest 
class  to  the  highest  offices,  or  that  they  should  fill 
those  offices  to  the  satisfaction  of  the  sultan.  Yet  it 
is  curious  to  hear  their  histories.  An  English  phy- 
sician, who  is  frequently  called  into  the  seraglio,  and 
whose  practice  among  all  the  families  in  power  gives 
him  the  best  means  of  information,  has  entertained 
me  not  a  little  with  these  secrets.  I  shall  make  use 
of  them  when  I  have  more  leisure,  merely  mentioning 
here,  in  connexion  with  the  above  accounts,  that  the 
present  grand  vizier  was  a  boatman  on  the  Bosphorus, 
and  the  commander  of  the  sultan's  body-guard,  a 
shoemaker!  The  latter  still  employs  all  his  leisure 
in  making  slippers,  which  he  presents  to  the  sultan 
and  his  friends,  not  at  all  ashamed  of  his  former  voca- 
tion. So  far,  indeed,  are  any  of  these  mushroom  offi- 
cers from  blushing  at  their  origin,  that  it  is  common 
to  prefix  the  name  of  their  profession  to  the  title  of 
pacha,  and  they  are  addressed  by  it  as  a  proper  name. 
This  is  one  respect  in  which  their  European  educa- 
tion will  refine  them  to  their  disadvantage. 


LETTER  XCVIII. 

THE  GRAND  BAZAR  OF  CONSTANTINOPLE,  AND  ITS  IN- 
FINITE VARIETY  OF  "WONDERS — SILENT  SHOPKEEP- 
ERS—  FEMALE      CURIOSITY — ADVENTURE      WITH      A 

BLACK-EYED        STRANGER THE        BEZESTEIN — THE 

STRONG-HOLD  OF  ORIENTALISM — PICTURE  OF  A  DRA- 
GOMAN— THE  KIBAUB-SHOP  ;  A  DINNER  WITHOUT 
KNIVES,  FORKS,  OR  CHAIRS — CISTERN  OF  THE  THOU- 
SAND   AND    ONE    COLUMNS. 

Bring  all  the  shops  of  New  York,  Philadelphia, 
and  Boston,  together  around  the  City  Hall,  remove 
their  fronts,  pile  up  all  their  goods  on  shelves  facing 
the  street,  cover  the  whole  with  a  roof,  and  metamor- 
phose your  trim  clerks  into  bearded,  turbaned,  and 
solemn  old  mussulmans,  smooth  Jews,  and  calpacked 
and  rosy  Armenians,  and  you  will  have  something  like 
the  grand  bazar  of  Constantinople.  You  can  scarce- 
ly get  an  idea  of  it,  without  bavins;  been  there.  It  is 
a  city  under  cover.  You  walk  all  day,  and  day  after 
I  day,  from  one  street  to  another,  winding  and  turning, 


154 


PENCILLINGS  BY  THE  WAY. 


and  trudging  up  hill  and  down,  and  never  go  out  of 
doors.  The  roof  is  as  high  as  those  of  our  three-sto- 
ry houses,  and  the  dim  light  so  favorable  to  shop-keep- 
ers, comes  struggling  down  through  skylights,  never 
cleaned  except  by  the  rains  of  heaven. 

Strolling  through  the  bazar  is  an  endless  amuse- 
ment. It  is  slow  work,  for  the  streets  are  as  crowded 
as  a  church-aisle  after  service  ;  and,  pushed  aside  one 
moment  by  a  bevy  of  Turkish  ladies,  shuffling  along 
in  their  yellow  slippers,  muffled  to  the  eyes,  the  next 
by  a  fat  slave  carrying  a  child,  again  by  a  kervas  armed 
to  the  teeth,  and  clearing  the  way  for  some  coming 
dignitary,  you  find  your  only  policy  is  to  draw  in  your 
elbows,  and  suffer  the  motley  crowd  to  shove  you  about 
at  their  pleasure. 

Each  shop  in  this  world  of  traffic  may  be  two  yards 
wide.  The  owner  sits  cross-legged  on  the  broad 
counter  below,  the  height  of  a  chair  from  the  ground, 
and  hands  you  all  you  want  without  stirring  from  his 
seat.  One  broad  bench  or  counter  runs  the  length  of 
the  street,  and  the  different  shops  are  only  divided  by 
the  slight  partition  of  the  shelves.  The  purchaser 
seats  himself  on  the  counter,  to  be  out  of  the  way  of 
the  crowd,  and  the  shopman  spreads  out  his  goods  on 
his  knees,  never  condescending  to  open  his  lips  except 
to  tell  you  the  price-  If  he  exclaims  "  bono"  or 
"calo,"  (the  only  words  a  real  Turk  ever  knows  of  an- 
other language),  he  is  stared  at  by  his  neighbors  as  a 
man  would  be  in  Broadway  who  should  break  out 
with  an  Italian  bravura.  Ten  to  one,  while  you  are 
examining  his  goods,  the  bearded  trader  creeps 
through  the  hole  leading  to  his  kennel  of  a  dormitory 
in  the  rear,  washes  himself  and  returns  to  his  coun- 
ter, where,  spreading  his  sacred  carpet  in  the  direction 
of  Mecca,  he  goes  through  his  prayers  and  prostra- 
tions, perfectly  unconscious  of  your  presence,  or  that 
of  the  passing  crowd.  No  vocation  interferes  with 
his  religious  duty.  Five  times  a  day,  if  he  were  run- 
ning from  the  plague,  the  mussulman  would  find  time 
for  prayers. 

The  Frank  purchaser  attracts  a  great  deal  of  curi- 
osity. As  he  points  to  an  embroidered  handkerchief, 
or  a  rich  shawl,  or  a  pair  of  gold-worked  slippers, 
Turkish  ladies  of  the  first  rank,  gathering  their  yash- 
macks  securely  over  their  faces,  stop  close  to  his  side, 
not  minding  if  they  push  him  a  little  to  get  nearer 
the  desired  article.  Feeling  not  the  least  timidity,  ex- 
cept for  their  faces,  these  true  children  of  Eve  exam- 
ine the  goods  in  barter,  watch  the  stranger's  counte- 
nance, and  if  he  takes  off  his  glove,  or  pulls  out  his 
purse,  take  it  up  and  look  at  it,  without  even  saying 
"  by  your  leave."  Their  curiosity  often  extends  to 
your  dress,  and  they  put  out  their  little  henna-stained 
fingers  and  pass  them  over  the  sleeve  of  your  coat 
with  a  gurgling  expression  of  admiration  at  its  fine- 
ness, or  if  you  have  rings  or  a  watch-guard,  they  lift 
your  hand  or  pull  out  your  watch  with  no  kind  of 
scruple.  I  have  met  with  several  instances  of  this  in 
the  course  of  my  rambles.  But  a  day  or  two  ago  I 
found  myself  rather  more  than  usual  a  subject  of  cu- 
riosity. I  was  alone  in  the  street  of  embroidered 
handkerchiefs  (every  minute  article  has  its  peculiar 
bazar),  and  wishing  to  look  at  some  of  uncommon 
beauty,  I  called  one  of  the  many  Jews  always  near  a 
stranger  to  turn  a  penny  by  interpreting  for  him,  and 
was  soon  up  to  the  elbows  in  goods  that  would  tempt 
a  female  angel  out  of  Paradise.  As  I  was  selecting 
one  for  a  purchase,  a  woman  plumped  down  upon  the 
seat  beside  me,  and  fixed  her  great,  black,  unwinking 
eyes  upon  my  face,  while  an  Abyssinian  slave  and  an- 
other white  woman,  both  apparently  her  dependants, 
stood  respectfully  at  her  back.  A  small  turquoise 
ring  (the  favorite  color  in  Turkey),  first  attracted  her 
attention.  She  took  up  my  hand,  and  turned  it  over 
in  her  soft,  fat  fingers,  and  dropped  it  again  without 
saying  a  word.     I  looked  at  my  interpreter,  but  he 


seemed  to  think  it  nothing  extraordinary,  and  I  went 
on  with  my  bargain.  Presently  my  fine-eyed  friend 
pulled  me  by  the  sleeve,  and  as  I  leaned  toward  her. 
rubbed  her  forefinger  very  quickly  over  my  cheek, 
looking  at  me  intently  all  the  while.  I  was  a  little 
disturbed  with  the  lady's  familiarity,  and  asked  my  Jew 
what  she  wanted.  I  found  that  my  rubicund  com- 
plexion was  something  uncommon  among  these  dark- 
skinned  orientals,  and  she  wished  to  satisfy  herself 
that  I  was  not  painted  !  I  concluded  my  purchase, 
and  putting  the  parcel  into  my  pocket,  did  my  prettiest 
at  an  oriental  salaam,  but  to  my  mortification,  the  lady 
only  gathered  up  her  yashmack,  and  looked  surprised 
out  of  her  great  eyes  at  my  freedom.  My  Constanti- 
nople friends  inform  me  that  I  am  to  lay  no  "  unction 
to  my  soul"  from  her  notice,  such  liberties  being  not 
at  all  particular.  The  husband  exacts  from  his  half- 
dozen  wives  only  the  concealment  of  their  faces,  and 
they  have  no  other  idea  of  impropriety  in  public. 

In  the  centre  of  the  bazar,  occupying  about  as 
much  space  as  the  body  of  the  City  Hall  in  New 
York,  is  what  is  called  the  bezestein.  You  descend 
into  it  from  four  directions  by  massive  gates,  which 
are  shut,  and  all  persons  excluded,  except  between 
seven  and  twelve  of  the  forenoon.  This  is  the  core 
of  Constantinople — the  soul  and  citadel  of  oriental- 
ism. It  is  devoted  to  the  sale  of  arms  and  to  costly 
articles  only.  The  roof  is  loftier  and  the  light  more 
dim  than  in  the  outer  bazars,  and  the  merchants  who 
occupy  its  stalls,  are  old  and  of  established  credit. 
Here  are  subjects  for  the  pencil !  If  you  can  take 
your  eye  from  those  Damascus  sabres,  with  their  jew- 
elled hilts  and  costly  scabbards,  or  from  those  gemmed 
daggers  and  guns  inlaid  with  silver  and  gold,  cast  a 
glance  along  that  dim  avenue  and  see  what  a  range 
there  is  of  glorious  old  gray  beards,  with  their  snowy 
turbans  !  These  are  the  Turks  of  the  old  regime,  be- 
fore Sultan  Mahmoud  disfigured  himself  with  a  coat 
like  a  "  dog  of  a  Christian,"  and  broke  in  upon  the 
customs  of  the  orient.  These  are  your  opium-eaters, 
who  smoke  even  in  their  sleep,  and  would  not  touch 
wine  if  it  were  handed  them  by  houris  !  These  are 
your  fatalists,  who  would  scarce  take  the  trouble  to 
get  out  of  the  way  of  a  lion,  and  who  are  as  certain 
of  the  miracle  of  Mohammed's  coffin  as  of  the  length 
of  the  pipe,  or  of  the  quality  of  the  tobacco  of 
Shiraz  ! 

I  have  spent  many  an  hour  in  the  bezestein,  steep- 
ing my  fancy  in  its  rich  orientalism,  and  sometimes 
trying  to  make  a  purchase  for  myself  or  others.  It  is 
curious  to  see  with  what  perfect  indifference  these  old 
cross-legs  attend  to  the  wishes  of  a  Christian.  I  was 
idling  round  one  day  with  an  English  traveller,  whom 
I  had  known  in  Italy,  when  a  Persian  robe  of  singu- 
lar beauty  hanging  on  one  of  the  stalls  arrested  my 
companion's  attention.  He  had  with  him  his  Turk- 
ish dragoman,  and  as  the  old  merchant  was  smoking 
away  and  looking  right  at  us,  we  pointed  to  the  dress 
over  his  head,  and  the  interpreter  asked  to  see  it.  The 
mussulman  smoked  calmly  on,  taking  no  more  notice 
of  us  than  of  the  white  clouds  curling  through  his 
beard.  He  might  have  sat  for  Michael  Angelo's  Mo- 
ses. Thin,  pale,  calm,  and  of  a  statue-like  repose  of 
countenance  and  posture,  with  a  large  old-fashioned 
turban,  and  a  curling  beard  half  mingled  with  gray, 
his  neck  bare,  and  his  fine  bust  enveloped  in  the  flow- 
ing and  bright  colored  drapery  of  the  east — I  had 
never  seen  a  more  majestic  figure.  He  evidently  did 
not  wish  to  have  anything  to  do  with  us.  At  last  I 
took  out  my  snuff-box,  and  addressing  him  with  "  ef- 
fendi !"  the  Turkish  title  of  courtesy,  laid  my  hand 
on  my  breast  and  offered  him  a  pinch.  Tobacco  in 
this  unaccustomed  shape  is  a  luxury  here,  and  the 
amber  mouth-piece  emerged  from  his  mustache,  and 
putting  his  three  fingers  into  my  box,  he  said  upek 
Me.'"  the  Turkish  ejaculation  of  approval.     He  then 


PENCILLINGS  BY  THE  WAY. 


155 


made  room  for  us  on  his  carpet  and  with  a  cloth  meas- 
ure took  the  robe  from  its  nail,  and  spread  it  before 
us.  My  friend  bought  it  unhesitatingly  for  a  dressing- 
gown,  and  we  spent  an  hour  in  looking  at  shawls,  of 
prices  perfectly  startling,  arms,  chalices  for  incense, 
spotless  amber  for  pipes,  pearls,  bracelets  of  the  time 
of  Sultan  Selim,  and  an  endless  variety  of  "  things 
rich  and  rare."  The  closing  of  the  bezestein  gates 
interrupted  our  agreeable  employment,  and  our  old 
friend  gave  us  the  parting  salaam  very  cordially  for  a 
Turk.  I  have  been  there  frequently  since,  and  never 
pass  without  offering  my  snuff-box,  and  taking  a  whiff 
or  two  from  his  pipe,  which  I  cannot  refuse,  though  it 
is  not  out  of  his  mouth,  except  when  offered  to  a 
friend,  from  sunrise  till  midnight. 

One  of  the  regular  "  lions"  of  Constantinople  is  a 
kibaub  shop,  or  Turkish  restaurant.  In  a  ramble  with 
our  consul,  the  other  day,  in  search  of  the  newly-dis- 
covered cistern  of  a  "  thousand  and  one  columns," 
we  found  ourselves,  at  the  hungry  hour  of  twelve,  op- 
posite a  famous  shop  near  the  slave-market.  I  was 
rather  staggered  at  the  first  glance.  A  greasy  fellow, 
with  his  shirt  rolled  to  his  shoulders,  stood  near  the 
door,  commending  his  shop  to  the  world  by  slapping 
on  the  flank  a  whole  mutton  that  hung  beside  him, 
while,  as  a  customer  came  in,  he  dexterously  whipped 
out  a  slice,  had  it  cut  in  a  twinkling  into  bits  as  large 
as  a  piece  of  chalk  (I  have  stopped  five  minutes  in 
vain,  to  find  a  better  comparison),  strung  upon  a  long 
iron  skewer,  and  laid  on  the  coals.  My  friend  is  an 
old  Constantinopolitan,  and  had  eaten  kibaubs  before. 
He  entered  without  hesitation,  and  the  adroit  butcher, 
giving  his  big  trowsers  a  fresh  hitch,  and  tightening 
his  girdle,  made  a  new  cut  for  his  "  narrow  legged" 
customers,  and  wished  us  a  good  appetite  (the  Turks 
look  with  great  contempt  on  our  tight  pantaloons,  and 
distinguish  us  by  this  epithet).  We  got  up  on  the 
platform,  crossed  our  legs  under  us  as  well  as  we 
could,  and  I  can  not  deny  that  the  savory  missives  that 
occasionally  reached  my  nostrils,  bred  a  gradual  rec- 
onciliation between  my  stomach  and  my  eyes. 

In  some  five  minutes,  a  tin  platter  was  set  between 
us,  loaded  with  piping  hot  kibaubs,  sprinkled  with 
salad,  and  mixed  with  bits  of  bread  ;  our  friend  the 
cook,  by  way  of  making  the  amiable,  stirring  it  up 
well  with  his  fingers  as  he  brought  it  along.  As  Mo- 
dely  says  in  the  play,  "  In  love  or  mutton,  I  generally 
fall  to  without  ceremony,"  but,  spite  of  its  agreeable 
flavor,  I  shut  my  eyes,  and  selected  a  very  small  bit, 
before  I  commenced  upon  the  kibaubs.  It  was  very 
good  eating,  I  soon  found  out,  and,  my  fingers  once 
greased  (for  we  are  indulged  with  neither  knife,  fork, 
nor  skewer,  in  Turkey),  I  proved  myself  as  good  a 
trencher-man  as  my  friend. 

The  middle  and  lower  classes  of  Constantinople  live 
between  these  shops  and  the  cafes.  A  dish  of  kibaubs 
serves  them  for  dinner,  and  they  drink  coffee,  which 
they  get  for  about  half  a  cent  a  cup,  from  morning  till 
night.  We  paid  for  our  mess  (which  was  more  than 
any  two  men  could  eat  at  once,  unless  very  hungry), 
twelve  cents. 

We  started  again  with  fresh  courage,  in  search  of 
the  cistern.  We  soon  found  the  old  one,  which  is  an 
immense  excavation,  with  a  roof,  supported  by  five 
hundred  granite  columns,  employed  now  as  a  place 
for  twisting  silk,  and  escaping  from  its  clamorous 
denizens,  who  rushed  up  after  us  to  the  daylight,  beg- 
ging paras,  we  took  one  of  the  boys  for  a  guide,  and 
soon  found  the  object  of  our  search. 

Knocking  at  the  door  of  a  half-ruined  house,  in  one 
of  the  loneliest  streets  of  the  city,  an  old,  sore-eyed 
Armenian,  with  a  shabby  calpack,  and  every  mark  of 
extreme  poverty,  admitted  us,  pettishly  demanding 
our  entrance  money,  before  he  let  us  pass  the  thresh- 
old.    Flights  of  steps,  dangerously  ruinous,  led  us 


down,  first  into  a  garden,  far  below  the  level  of  the 
street,  and  thence  into  a  dark  and  damp  cavern,  the 
bottom  of  which  was  covered  with  water.  As  the  eye 
became  accustomed  to  the  darkness,  we  could  distin- 
guish tall  and  beautiful  columns  of  marble  and  gran- 
ite, with  superb  corinthian  capitals,  perhaps  thirty  feet 
in  height,  receding  as  far  as  the  limits  of  our  obscured 
sight.  The  old  man  said  there  were  a  thousand  of 
them.  The  number  was  doubtless  exaggerated,  but 
we  saw  enough  to  convince  us,  that  here  was  covered 
up,  almost  unknown,  one  of  the  mostly  and  magnificent 
works  of  the  Christian  emperors  of  Constantinople 


LETTER  XCIX. 

BELGRADE — THE  COTTAGE  OF  LADY  MONTAGUE — TURK- 
ISH CEMETERIES— NATURAL  TASTE  OF  THE  MOSLEMS 
FOR  THE  PICTURESQUE A  TURKISH  CARRIAGE WASH- 
ERWOMEN SURPRISED— GIGANTIC  FOREST  TREES— THE 
RESERVOIR RETURN  TO  CONSTANTINOPLE. 

I  left  Constantinople  on  horseback  with  a  party  of 
officers,  and  two  American  travellers  in  the  east,  early 
on  one  of  nature's  holyday  mornings,  for  Belgrade. 
We  loitered  a  moment  in  the  small  Armenian  ceme- 
tery, the  only  suburb  that  separates  the  thickly  crowd- 
ed street  from  the  barren  heath  that  stretches  away 
from  the  city  on  every  side  to  the  edge  of  the  horizon. 
It  is  singular  to  gallop  thus  from  the  crowded  pave- 
ment, at  once  into  an  uncultivated  and  unfenced  des- 
ert. We  are  so  accustomed  to  suburban  gardens  that 
the  traveller  wonders  how  the  markets  of  this  over- 
grown and  immense  capital  are  supplied.  A  glance 
back  upon  the  Bosphorus,and  toward  the  Asian  shore, 
and  the  islands  of  the  sea  of  Marmora,  explains  the 
secret.  The  waters  in  every  direction  around  this 
sea-girdled  city  are  alive  with  boats,  from  the  larger 
kachambas  and  sandals  to  the  egg-shell  caique,  swarm- 
ing into  the  Golden  Horn  in  countless  numbers,  la- 
den with  every  vegetable  of  the  productive  east.  Jt  is 
I  said,  however,  that  it  is  dangerous  to  thrive  too  near  the 
eye  of  the  sultan.  The  summary  mode  for  rewarding 
,  favorites  and  providing  for  the  residence  of  ambassa- 
dors, by  the  simple  confiscation  of  the  prettiest  estate 
desirably  situated,  is  thought  to  have  something  to  do 
with  the  barrenness  of  the  immediate  neighborhood. 
The  Turks  carry  their  contempt  of  the  Christian 
even  beyond  the  grave.  The  funereal  cypress,  so  sin- 
gularly beautiful  in  its  native  east,  is  permitted  to 
throw  its  dark  shadows  only  upon  turbaned  tombstones. 
The  Armenian  rayah,  the  oppressed  Greek,  and  the 
more  hated  Jew,  slumber  in  their  unprotected  graves 
on  the  open  heath.  It  almost  reconciles  one  to  the 
haughtiness  and  cruelty  of  the  Turkish  character, 
however,  to  stand  on  one  of  the  "  seven  hills"  of 
Stamboul,  and  look  around  upon  their  own  beautiful 
cemeteries.  On  every  sloping  hill  side,  in  every  rural 
nook,  in  the  court  of  the  splendid  mosque,  stands  a 
dark  nekropolis,  a  small  city  of  the  dead,  shadowed  so 
thickly  by  the  close-growing  cypresses,  that  the  light 
of  heaven  penetrates  but  dimly.  You  can  have  no 
conception  of  the  beauty  it  adds  to  the  landscape. 
And  then  from  the  bosom  of  each,  a  slender  minaret 
shoots  into  the  sky  as  if  pointing  out  the  flight  of  the 
departed  spirit,  and  if  you  enter  within  its  religious 
darkness,  you  find  a  taste  and  elegance  unknown  in 
more  civilized  countries,  the  humblest  headstone  let- 
tered with  gold,  and  the  more  costly  sculptured  into 
forms  the  most  sumptuous,  and  fenced  and  planted 
with  flowers  never  neglected. 

In  the  east,  the  graveyard  is  not,  as  with  us,  a  place 
abandoned  to  its  dead.  Occupying  a  spot  of  chosen 
loveliness  it  is  resorted  to  by  women  and  children,  and 
on  holydays  by  men,  whose  indolent  natures  find  hap- 


156 


PENCILLINGS  BY  THE  WAY. 


piness  enough  in  sitting  on  the  green  bank  around  the 
resting-place  of  their  relatives  and  friends.  Here, 
while  their  children  are  playing  around  them,  they 
smoke  in  motionless  silence,  watching  the  gay  Bos- 
phorus  or  the  busier  curve  of  the  Golden  Horn,  one 
of  which  is  visible  from  every  cemetery  in  the  Stam- 
boul.  Occasionally  you  see  large  parties  of  twenty  or 
thirty,  sitting  together,  their  slight  feast  of  sweetmeats 
and  sherbet  spread  in  some  grassy  nook,  and  the  sur- 
rounding headstones  serving  as  leaning-places  for  the 
women,  or  bounds  for  the  infant  gambols  of  the  gayly- 
dressed  little  mussulmans. 

Whatever  else  we  may  deny  the  Turk,  we  must  al- 
low him  to  possess  a  genuine  love  for  rural  beauty. 
The  cemeteries  we  have  described,  the  choice  of  his 
dwelling  on  the  Bosphorus,  and  his  habit  of  resorting, 
whenever  he  has  leisure,  to  some  lovely  scene  to  sit 
the  livelong  day  in  the  sunshine,  are  proof  enough. 
And  then  all  over  the  hills,  both  in  Anatolia  and  Rou- 
melia,  wherever  there  is  a  fine  view  or  a  greener  spot 
than  elsewhere,  you  find  the  small  sairgah,  the  grassy 
platform  on  which  he  spreads  his  carpet,  and  you  may 
look  in  vain  for  a  spot  better  selected  for  his  purpose. 

Things  are  sooner  seen  than  described  (I  wish  it 
were  as  agreeable  to  describe  as  to  see  them !)  and  all 
this  digression,  and  much  more  which  I  spare  the 
reader,  is  the  fruit  of  five  minutes'  reflection  while  the 
suridjee  tightens  his  girths  in  the  Armenian  burying- 
ground.  The  turbaned  Turk  once  more  in  his  saddle 
then  we  will  canter  on  some  three  miles,  if  you  please, 
over  as  naked  a  heath  as  the  sun  looks  upon,  to  the 
"  Valley  of  Sweet  Waters."  I  have  described  this, 
I  think,  before.  We  live  to  learn,  and  my  intelligent 
friend  tells  me,  as  we  draw  rein,  and  wind  carefully 
down  the  steep  descent,  that  the  site  of  the  sultan's 
romantic  serai,  in  the  bosom  of  the  valley,  was  once 
occupied  by  the  first  printing-press  established  in  Tur- 
key— the  fruit  of  an  embassy  to  the  court  of  Louis 
the  fifteenth,  by  Mehemet  Effendi,  in  the  reign  of  Ach- 
met  the  third.  And  thus  having  delivered  myself  of  a 
fact,  a  thing  for  which  I  have  a  natural  antipathy  in 
writing,  let  us  gallop  up  the  velvet  brink  of  the  Bar- 
byses. 

We  had  kept  our  small  Turkish  horses  to  their 
speed  for  a  mile,  with  the  enraged  suridjee  crying  after 
us  at  the  top  of  his  voice,  "  ya-wash !  ya-tvash  /" 
(slowly,  slowly!)  when,  at  a  bend  of  the  valley,  right 
through  the  midst  of  its  velvet  verdure,  came  rolling 
along  an  aruba,  loaded  with  ladies.  This  pretty  word 
signifies  in  Turkish  a  carriage,  and  the  thing  itself  re- 
minds you  directly  of  the  fantastic  vehicles  in  which 
fairy  queens  come  upon  the  stage.  First  appear  two 
gray  oxen,  with  their  tails  tied  to  a  hoop  bent  back 
from  the  end  of  the  pole,  their  heads  and  horns  and 
the  long  curve  of  the  hoop  decked  with  red  and  yel- 
low tassels  so  profusely,  that  it  looks  at  a  distance 
like  a  walking  clump  of  hollyhocks.  As  you  pass 
the  poor  oxen  (almost  lifted  off  their  hind  legs  by  the 
straining  of  the  hoop  upon  their  tails),  a  four-wheeled 
vehicle  makes  its  appearance,  the  body  and  wheels 
carved  elaborately  and  gilt  all  over,  and  the  crimson 
cover  rolled  up  just  so  far  as  to  'show  a  cluster  of  veil- 
ed women,  cross-legged  upon  cushions  within,  and 
riding  in  perfect  silence  !'*  A  eunuch  or  a  very  old 
Turk  walks  at  the  side,  and  thus  the  moslem  ladies 
"  take  Tcaif"  as  it  is  called — in  other  words  go-a-pleas- 
uring.  But  a  prettier  sight  than  this  gay  affair  rolling 
noiselessly  over  the  pathless  green  sward  of  the  Valley 
of  Sweet  Waters,  you  may  not  see  in  a  year's  travel. 

A  beautiful  Englishwoman,  mounted  (if  I  may  dare 
to  write  it)  on  a  more  beautiful  Arabian,  came  flying 

*  Whether  the  difficulty  of  talking  through  the  yashmack, 
which  is  drawn  tight  over  the  mouth  and  nose,  may  account 
for  it,  or  whether  they  have  another  race  of  the  sex  in  the 
east,  I  am  not  prepared  to  say,  but  Turkish  women  are  re- 
markable for  their  taciturnity . 


toward  us  as  we  approached  the  head  of  the  valley,  the 
long  feathers  in  her  riding-cap  all  but  brushing  our 
admiring  eyes  out  as  she  passed,  and  other  living  riling 
met  we  none  till  we  drew  up  in  the  edge  of  the  forest 
of  Belgrade.  A  half  hour  brought  us  to  a  bold  de- 
scent, and  through  the  openings  in  the  wood  we  caught 
a  glimpse  of  the  celebrated  retreat  of  Lady  Montague, 
a  village,  tossed  into  the  lap  of  as  bright  a  dell  as  the 
sun  looks  upon  in  his  journey.  A  lively  brook,  that 
curls  about  in  the  grass  like  a  silver  flower  worked  in- 
to the  green  carpet,  overcomes  at  last  its  unwillingness 
to  depart,  and  vanishes  from  the  fair  scene  under  a 
clump  of  willows  ;  and,  as  if  it  knew  it  was  sitting  for  its 
picture,  there  must  needs  be  a  group  of  girls  with 
their  trowsers  tucked  up  to  the  knee,  washing  away  so 
busily  in  the  brook,  that  they  did  not  see  that  half  a 
dozen  Frank  horsemen  were  upon  them,  and  their  for- 
gotten yashmacks  all  fallen  about  their  shoulders! 

We  dismounted,  and  finding  (what  I  never  saw  be- 
fore) a  re^-headed  Frenchman,  walking  about  in  his 
slippers,  we  inquired  for  the  house  of  Lady  Montague. 
He  had  never  heard  of  her !  A  cottage,  a  little  sepa- 
rated from  the  village,  untenanted,  and  looking  as  if  it 
should  be  hers,  stood  on  a  swell  of  the  valley,  and  we 
found  by  the  scrawled  names  and  effusions  of  travel- 
lers upon  the  gates,  that  we  were  not  mistaken  in  se- 
lecting it  for  the  shrine  of  our  sentiment. 

I  am  sorry  to  be  obliged  to  add,  that  in  the  roman- 
tic forest  of  Belgrade,  we  listened  to  the  calls  of  mor- 
tal hunger.  With  some  very  sour  wine,  however, 
we  did  drink  to  the  memory  of  Lady  Mary  and  the 
"fair  Fatima,"  washing  down  with  the  same  draught 
as  brown  bread  as  ever  I  saw,  and  some  very  indiffer- 
ent filberts. 

We  mounted  once  more,  and  followed  our  silent 
guide  across  the  brook,  politely  taking  it  below  the 
spot  where  our  naiads  of  the  stream  were  washing, 
and  following  its  slender  valley  for  a  mile,  arrived  at  one 
of  the  gigantic  bendts,  for  which  the  place  is  famous. 
To  give  romance  its  proper  precedence  over  reality, 
however,  I  must  first  mention,  that  on  the  soft  bank 
of  the  artificial  lake,  which  I  shall  presently  describe, 
Constantine  Ghika,  disguised  as  a  shepherd,  stole  an 
interview  with  the  fair  Veronica,  and  in  the  wild  forest 
to  the  right,  they  wandered  till  they  lost  their  way ; 
an  adventure  of  which  they  only  regretted  the  sequel, 
finding  it  again !  If  you  have  not  read  "  The  Arme- 
nians," this  pretty  turn  in  my  travels  is  thrown  away 
upon  you. 

The  valley  of  Belgrade  widens  and  rounds  into  a 
lake-shaped  hollow  just  here,  and  across  it,  to  form  a 
reservoir  for  the  supply  of  the  city  by  the  aqueducts 
of  Valens  and  Justinian,  is  built  a  gigantic  marble  wall. 
There  is  no  water  just  now,  which,  for  a  lake,  is  rather 
a  deficiency;  but  the  vast  white  wall  only  stands  up 
against  the  sky,  bolder  and  more  towering,  and  coming 
suddenly  upon  it  in  that  lonely  place,  you  might  take 
it,  if  the  "  fine  phrensy"  were  on  you,  for  the  barrier 
of  some  enchanted  demesne. 

We  passed  on  into  the  forest,  winding  after  an  al- 
most invisible  path,  up  hill  and  down  dale,  till  we  came 
to  the  second  bendt.  This,  and  the  third,  which  is 
near  by,  are  larger  and  of  more  ornamental  architecture 
than  the  first,  and  the  forest  around  them  is  one  in 
which,  if  he  turned  his  back  on  the  lofty  walls,  a  wild 
Indian  would  feel  himself  at  home.  I  have  not  seen 
such  trees  since  I  left  America ;  clear  of  all  underwood, 
and  the  long  vistas  broken  only  by  the  trunk  of  some 
noble  oak,  fallen  aslant,  it  has  for  miles  the  air  of  a 
grand  old  wilderness,  unprofaned  by  axe  or  fire.  In 
the  midst  of  such  scenery  as  this,  to  ride  up  to  the 
majestic  bendt,  faced  with  a  front  like  a  temple,  and 
crowned  by  a  marble  balustrade,  with  a  salient  and  rais 
ed  crescent  in  the  centre,  like  a  throne  for  some  mon- 
arch of  the  forest,  it  must  be  a  more  staid  imagination 
than  mine  that  would  not  feel  a  touch  of  the  knight 


PENCILLINGS  BY  THE  WAY. 


15? 


of  La  Mancha,  and  spur  up  to  find  a  gate,  and  a  bugle 
to  blow  a  blast  for  the  warder  !  It  is  just  the  looking 
place  I  imagined  for  an  enchanted  castle,  when  read- 
ing my  first  romances. 

Farther  on  in  the  forest  we  found  several  circular 
structures,  like  baths,  sunk  in  the  earth,  with  flights 
of  steps  winding  to  the  bottom,  but  with  the  same  gi- 
gantic trees  growing  at  their  very  rim,  and  nothing 
near  them  to  show  the  purpose  of  their  costly  mason- 
ry. We  stopped  to  form  a  conjecture  or  two  with  the 
aid  of  the  genus  loci,  but  the  surly  suridjee,  probably 
at  a  loss  to  comprehend  the  object  of  looking  into  a 
hole  full  of  dead  leaves,  chose  to  put  his  horse  to  a 
gallop  ;  and  having  no  Veronica  to  make  a  romance 
of  a  lost  path,  we  left  our  conjectures  to  gallop  after. 

We  reached  the  waste  plains  above  the  city  at  sun- 
set, and  turned  a  little  out  of  our  way  to  enter  through 
the  Turkish  cemetery  (poetically  called  by  Mr.  Mac- 
Farlane  "  death's  coronal"),  on  the  summit  and  sides 
of  the  hill  behind  Pera.  Broad  daylight,  as  it  was 
still  without,  it  was  deep  twilight  among  its  thick- 
planted  cypresses  ;  and  our  horses,  starting  at  the  tall, 
white  tombstones,  hurried  through  its  damp  hollows 
and  emerged  on  a  brow  overlooking  the  bright  and 
crowded  Bosphorus,  bathed  at  the  moment  in  a  flood 
of  sunset  glory.  I  said  again,  as  I  reined  in  my  horse 
and  gazed  down  upon  those  lovely  waters,  there  is  no 
such  scene  of  beauty  in  the  world  !  And  again  I  say, 
"  poor  Slingsby"  never  was  here  ! 


LETTER  C. 

SCUTARI — TOMB  OF  THE  SULTANA  VALIDE — MOSQUE  OF 
THE  HOWLING  DERVISHES — A  CLERICAL  SHOEMAKER — 
VISIT  TO  A  TURKISH  CEMETERY — BIRD's-EYE  VIEW  OF 
STAMBOUL  AND  ITS  ENVIRONS — SERAGLIO-POINT — THE 
SEVEN  TOWERS. 

Pulled  over  to  Scutari  in  a  caique,  for  a  day's 
ramble.  The  Chrysopolis,  the  "  golden  city"  of  the 
ancients,  forms  the  Asian  side  of  the  bay,  and,  though 
reckoned,  generally,  as  a  part  of  Constantinople,  is  in 
itself  a  large  and  populous  capital.  It  is  built  on  a 
hill,  very  bold  upon  the  side  washed  by  the  sea  of 
Marmora,  but  leaning  toward  the  seraglio,  on  the  op- 
posite shore,  with  the  grace  of  a  lady  (Asia)  bowing 
to  her  partner  (Europe).  You  will  find  the  simile 
very  beautifully  elaborated  in  the  first  chapter  of  "  The 
Armenians." 

We  strolled  through  the  bazar  awhile,  meeting,  oc- 
casionally, a  caravan  of  tired  and  dusty  merchants, 
coming  in  from  Asia,  some  with  Syrian  horses,  and 
some  with  uusky,  Nubian  slaves,  following  barefoot, 
in  their  blankets ;  and,  emerging  from  the  crowded 
street  upon  a  square,  we  stopped  a  moment  to  look  at 
the  cemetery  and  gilded  fountains  of  a  noble  mosque. 
Close  to  the  street,  defended  by  a  railing  of  gilt  iron, 
and  planted  about  closely  with  cypresses,  stands  a 
small  temple  of  airy  architecture,  supported  on  four 
slender  columns,  and  enclosed  by  a  net  of  gilt  wire, 
forming  a  spacious  aviary.  Within  sleeps  the  Sultana 
Valide.  Her  costly  monument,  elaborately  inscribed 
in  red  and  gold,  occupies  the  area  of  this  poetical 
sepulchre  ;  small,  sweet-scented  shrubs  half  bury  it  in 
their  rich  flowers,  and  birds  of  the  gayest  plumage 
flutter  and  sing  above  her  in  their  beautiful  prison.  If 
the  soul  of  the  departed  sultana  is  still  susceptible  of 
sentiment,  she  must  look  down  with  some  complacen- 
cy upon  the  disposition  of  her  "  mortal  coil."  I  have 
not  seen  so  fanciful  a  grave  in  my  travels. 

We  ascended  the  hill  to  the  mosque  of  the  Howling 
Dervishes.  It  stands  in  the  edge  of  the  great  cemetery 
of  Scutari,  the  favorite  burial-place  of  the  Turks. 
The  self-torturing   worship  of  this  singular  class  of 


devotees  takes  place  only  on  a  certain  day  of  the  week, 
and  we  found  the  gates  closed.  A  small  cafe  stood 
opposite,  sheltered  by  large  plane-trees,  and  on  a 
bench  at  the  door,  sat  a  dervish,  employed  in  the  un- 
clerical  vocation  of  mending  slippers.  Calling  for  a 
cup  of  the  fragrant  Turkish  coffee,  we  seated  our- 
selves on  ihe  matted  bench  beside  him,  and,  entering 
into  conversation,  my  friend  and  he  were  soon  upon 
the  most  courteous  terms.  He  laid  down  his  last,  and 
accepted  a  proffered  narghile,  and,  between  the  heavily- 
drawn  puffs  of  the  bubbling  vase,  gave  us  some  infor- 
mation respecting  his  order,  of  which  the  peculiarity 
that  most  struck  me  was  a  law  compelling  them  to 
follow  some  secular  profession.  In  this  point,  at  least, 
they  are  more  apostolic  than  the  clergy  of  Christen- 
dom. Whatever  may  be  the  dervish's  excellence  as  a 
"  mender  of  souls,"  thought  I,  as  I  took  up  the  last, 
and  looked  at  the  stitching  of  the  bright  new  patch, 
(may  I  get  well  out  of  this  sentence  without  a  pun  !) 
I  doubt  whether  there  is  a  divine  within  the  Christian 
pale  who  could  turn  out  so  pretty  a  piece  of  work  in 
any  corresponding  calling.  Our  coffee  drunk  and  our 
chibouques  smoked  to  ashes,  we  took  leave  of  our 
papoosh-mending  friend,  who  laid  his  hand  on  his 
breast,  and  said,  with  the  expressive  phraseology  of 
the  east,  "You  shall  be  welcome  again." 

We  entered  the  gloomy  shadow  of  the  vast  ceme- 
tery, and  found  its  cool  and  damp  air  a  grateful  ex- 
change for  the  sunshine.  The  author  of  Anastasius 
gives  a  very  graphic  description  of  this  place,  throwing 
in  some  horrors,  however,  for  which  he  is  indebted  to 
his  admirable  imagination.  I  never  was  in  a  more 
agreeable  place  for  a  summer-morning's  lounge,  and, 
as  I  sat  down  on  a  turbaned  headstone,  near  the  tomb 
of  Mohammed  the  second's  horse,  and  indulged  in  a 
train  of  reflections  arising  from  the  superior  distinc- 
tion of  the  brute's  ashes  over  those  of  his  master,  I 
could  remember  no  place,  except  Plato's  Academy  at 
Athens,  where  I  had  mused  so  absolutely  at  my  ease. 

We  strolled  on.  A  slender  and  elegantly-carved 
slab,  capped  with  a  small  turban,  fretted  and  gilt,  ar- 
rested my  attention.  "  It  is  the  tomb,"  said  my  com- 
panion, "  of  one  of  the  ichoglans  or  sultan's  pages. 
The  peculiar  turban  is  distinctive  of  his  rank,  and  the 
inscription  says,  he  died  at  eighteen,  after  having  seen 
enough  of  the  world  !  Similar  sentiments  are  to  be 
found  on  almost  every  stone."  Close  by  stood  the 
ambitious  cenotaph  of  a  former  pacha  of  Widin,  with 
a  swollen  turban,  crossed  with  folds  of  gold,  and  a  foot- 
stone  painted  and  carved,  only  less  gorgeously  than 
the  other;  and  under  his  name  and  titles  was  written, 
"  I  enjoyed  not  the  icorld."  Farther  on,  we  stopped  at 
the  black-banded  turban  of  a  cadi,  and  read  again,  un- 
derneath, "  /  took  no  pleasure  in  this  evil  world."  You 
would  think  the  Turks  a  philosophizing  people,  judg- 
ing by  these  posthumous  declarations  ;  but  one  need 
not  travel  to  learn  that  tombstones  are  sad  liars. 

The  cemetery  of  Scutari  covers  as  much  ground  as 
a  city.  Its  black  cypress  pall  spreads  away  over  hill 
and  dale,  and  terminates,  at  last,  on  a  long  point  pro- 
jecting into  Marmora,  as  if  it  would  pour  into  the  sea 
the  dead  it  could  no  longer  cover.  From  the  Arme- 
nian village,  immediately  above,  it  forms  a  dark,  and 
not  unpicturesque  foreground  to  a  brilliant  picture  of 
the  gulf  of  Nicomedia  and  the  clustering  Princes'  isl- 
ands. With  the  economy  of  room  which  the  Turks 
practise  in  their  burying-grounds,  laying  the  dead, 
literally,  side  by  side,  and  the  immense  extent  of  this 
forest  of  cypresses,  it  is  probable  that  on  no  one  spot 
on  the  earth  are  so  many  of  the  human  race  gathered 
together. 

We  wandered  about  among  the  tombs  till  we  began 
to  desire  to  see  the  cheerful  light  of  day,  and  crossing 
toward  the  height  of  Bulgurlu.  commenced  its  ascent, 
with  the  design  of  descending  jy  the  other  side  to  the 
Bosphorus.   and   returning,   by   caique,  to    the   city. 


158 


PENCILLINGS  BY  THE  WAY. 


Walking  leisurely  on  between  fields  of  the  brightest 
cultivation,  we  passed,  half  way  up,  a  small  and  rural 
serai,  the  summer  residence  of  Esmeh  Sultana,  the 
younger  sister  of  the  sultan,  and  soon  after  stood,  well 
breathed,  on  the  lofty  summit  of  Bulgurlu.  The  con- 
stantly-occurring sairgahs,  or  small  grass  platforms, 
for  spreading  the  carpet  and  "  taking  kaif"  show  how 
well  the  Turks  appreciate  the  advantages  of  a  position 
commanding,  perhaps,  views  unparallelled  in  the 
world  for  their  extraordinary  beauty.  But  let  us  take 
breath  and  look  around  us. 

We  stood  some  three  miles  back  from  the  Bospho- 
rus,  perhaps  a  thousand  feet  above  its  level.  There 
lay  Constantinople  !  The  "  temptation  of  Satan" 
could  not  have  been  more  sublime.  It  seemed  as  if 
all  the  "  kingdoms  of  the  earth"  were  swept  confused- 
ly to  the  borders  of  the  two  continents.  From  Serag- 
lio Point,  seven  miles  down  the  coast  of  Roumelia, 
the  eye  followed  a  continued  wall ;  and  from  the  same 
point,  twenty  miles  up  the  Bosphorus,  on  either  shore, 
stretched  one  crowded  and  unbroken  city !  The  star- 
shaped  bay  in  the  midst,  crowded  with  flying  boats  ; 
the  Golden  Horn  sweeping  out  from  behind  the  hills, 
and  pouring  through  the  city  like  a  broad  river,  stud- 
ded with  ships ;  and,  in  the  palace-lined  and  hill-shel- 
tered Bosphorus,  the  sultan's  fleet  at  anchor,  the  lofty 
men-of-war  flaunting  their  blood-red  flags,  and  thrust- 
ing their  tapering  spars  almost  into  the  balconies  of 
the  fairy  dwellings,  and  among  the  bright  foliage  of 
the  terraced  gardens  above  them.  Could  a  scene  be 
more  strangely  and  beautifully  mingled  ? 

But  sit  down  upon  this  silky  grass,  and  let  us  listen 
to  my  polyglot  friend,  while  he  explains  the  details  of 
the  panorama. 

First,  clear  over  the  sea  of  Marmora,  you  observe  a 
snow-white  cloud  resting  on  the  edge  of  the  horizon. 
That  is  Olympus.  Within  sight  of  his  snowy  sum- 
mit, and  along  toward  the  extremity  of  this  long  line 
of  eastern  hills,  lie  Bithynia,  Phrygia,  Cappadocia, 
Paphlagonia,  and  the  whole  scene  of  the  apostles' 
travels  in  Asia  Minor  ;  and  just  at  his  feet,  if  you  will 
condescend  to  be  modern,  lies  Brusa,  famous  for  its 
silks,  and  one  of  the  most  populous  and  thriving  of 
the  sultan's  cities.  Returning  over  Marmora  by  the 
Princes'  Islands,  at  the  western  extremity  of  Constan- 
tinople, stands  the  Fortress  of  the  Seven  Towers, 
where  fell  the  Emperor  Constantine  Palaeologus, 
where  Othman  the  second  was  strangled,  where  refrac- 
tory ambassadors  are  left  to  come  to  their  senses  and 
the  sultan's  terms,  and  where,  in  short,  that  "zealous 
public  butcher,"  the  seraskier,  cuts  any  Gordian  knot 
that  may  tangle  his  political  meshes  ;  and  here  was 
the  famous  "  Golden  Gate,"  attended  no  more  by  its 
"  fifty  porters  with  white  wands,"  and  its  crowds  of 
"  ichoglans  and  mutes,  turban-keepers,  nail-cutters, 
and  slipper-bearers,"  as  in  the  days  of  the  Selims. 

Between  the  Seven  Towers  and  the  Golden  Horn 
you  may  count  the  "  seven  hills"  of  ancient  Stam- 
boul,  the  towering  arches  of  the  aqueduct  of  Valens, 
crossing  from  one  to  the  other,  and  the  swelling  dome 
and  gold-tipped  minarets  of  a  hundred  imperial 
mosques  crowning  and  surrounding  their  summits. 
What  an  orient  look  do  those  gallery-bound  and  sky- 
piercing  shafts  give  to  the  varied  picture  ! 

There  is  but  one  "  Seraglio  Point"  in  the  world. 
Look  at  that  tapering  cape,  shaped  like  a  lady's  foot, 
projecting  from  Stamboul  toward  the  shore  of  Asia, 
and  dividing  the  bay  from  the  sea  of  Marmora.  It  is 
cut  off  from  the  rest  of  the  city,  you  observe,  by  a 
high  wall,  flanked  with  towers,  and  the  circumference 
of  the  whole  seraglio  may  be  three  miles.  But  what 
a  gem  of  beauty  it  is  !  In  what  varied  foliage  its  un- 
approachable palaces  are  buried,  and  how  exquisitely 
gleam  from  the  midst  of  the  bright  leaves  its  gilded 
cupolas,  its  gay  balconies,  its  airy  belvideres,  and  its 
glittering   domes !     And   mark   the   height  of  those 


dark  and  arrowy  cypresses,  shooting  from  every  corner 
of  its  imperial  gardens,  and  throwing  their  deep  shad- 
ows on  every  bright  cluster  of  foliage,  and  every  gild- 
ed lattice  of  the  sacred  enclosure.  They  seem  to  re- 
mind one,  that  amid  all  its  splendor  and  with  all  its 
secluded  retirement,  this  gorgeous  sanctuary  of  roy- 
alty has  been  stained,  from  its  first  appropriation  by 
the  monarchs  of  the  east  till  now,  with  the  blood  of 
victims  to  the  ambition  of  its  changing  masters.  The 
cypresses  are  still  young  over  the  graves  of  an  uncle 
and  a  brother,  whose  cold  murder  within  those  lovely 
precincts  prepared  the  throne  for  the  present  sultan. 
The  seraglio,  no  longer  the  residence  of  Mahmoud 
himself,  is  at  present  occupied  by  his  children,  two 
noble  boys,  of  whom  one,  by  the  usual  system,  must 
fall  a  sacrifice  to  the  security  of  the  other. 

Keeping  on  toward  the  Black  sea,  we  cross  the 
Golden  Horn  to  Pera,  the  European  and  diplomatic 
quarter  of  the  city.  The  high  hill  on  which  it  stands 
overlooks  all  Constantinople ;  and  along  its  ridge 
toward  the  beautiful  cemetery  on  the  brow,  runs  the 
principal  street  of  the  Franks,  the  promenade  of  the 
dragoman  exquisites,  and  the  Broadway  of  shops  and 
belles.  Here  meet,  on  the  narrow  pave,  the  veiled 
Armenian,  who  would  die  with  shame  to  show  her 
chin  to  a  stranger,  and  the  wife  of  the  European  mer- 
chant, in  a  Paris  hat  and  short  petticoats,  mutually 
each  other's  sincere  horror.  Here  the  street  is  some- 
what cleaner,  the  dogs  somewhat  less  anti-Christian, 
and  hat  and  trowsers  somewhat  less  objects  of  con- 
tempt. It  is  a  poor  abortion  of  a  place,  withal,  nei- 
ther Turkish  nor  Christian  ;  and  nobody  who  could 
claim  a  shelter  for  his  head  elsewhere,  would  take  the 
whole  of  its  slate-colored  and  shingled  palaces  as  a  gift. 

Just  beyond  is  the  mercantile  suburb  of  Galata, 
which  your  dainty  diplomatist  would  not  write  on  his 
card  for  an  embassy,  but  for  which,  as  being  honestly 
what  it  calls  itself,  I  entertain  a  certain  respect,  want- 
ing in  my  opinion  of  its  mongrel  neighbor.  Heavy 
gates  divide  these  different  quarters  of  the  city,  and 
if  you  would  pass  after  sunset,  you  must  anoint  the 
hinges  with  a  piastre. 


LETTER  CI. 

BEAUTIES  OF  THE  BOSPHORUS — SUMMER-PALACE  OF  THE 
SULTAN ADVENTURE  WITH  AN  OLD  TURKISK  WO- 
MAN— THE    FEAST  OF  BAIRAM THE  SULTAN  HIS  OWN 

BUTCHER HIS     EVIL     PROPENSITIES — VISIT     TO     THE 

MOSQUES— A  FORMIDABLE  DERVISH SANTA  SOPHIA — 

MOSQUE    OF  SULTAN  ACHMET — TRACES  OF  CHRISTIAN- 
ITY. 

From  this  elevated  point,  the  singular  effect  of  a 
desert  commencing  from  the  very  streets  of  the  city  is 
still  more  observable.  The  compact  edge  of  the  me- 
tropolis is  visible  even  upon  the  more  rural  Bospho- 
rus, not  an  enclosure  or  a  straggling  house  venturing 
to  protrude  beyond  the  closely  pressed  limit.  To  re- 
peat the  figure,  it  seems,  with  the  prodigious  mass  of 
habitations  on  either  shore,  as  if  all  the  cities  of  both 
Europe  and  Asia  were  swept  to  their  respective  bor- 
ders, or  as  if  the  crowded  masses  upon  the  long  ex- 
tending shores  were  the  depositeof  some  mighty  over- 
flow of  the  sea. 

From  Pera  commence  the  numerous  villages,  sep- 
arated only  by  name,  which  form  a  fringe  of  peculiarly 
light  and  fantastic  architecture  to  the  never-wearying 
Bosphorus.  Within  the  small  limit  of  your  eye,  up- 
on that  silver  link  between  the  two  seas,  there  are  fifty 
valleys  and  thirty  rivers,  and  an  imperial  palace  on  ev- 
ery loveliest  spot  from  the  Black  Sea  to  Marmora 
The  Italians  say,  "  See  Naples  and  die  !"  but  for  Ne 
pies  I  would  read  Stamboul  and  the  Bosphorus. 


PENCILLINGS  BY  THE  WAY. 


159 


Descending  unwillingly  from  this  enchanting  spot, 
we  entered  along  glen,  closed  at  the  water's  edge  by 
the  sultan's  summer-palace,  and  present  residence  of 
Beylerbey.  Half  way  down,  we  met  a  decrepit  old 
woman,  toiling  up  the  path,  and  my  friend,  with  a 
Wordsworthian  passion  for  all  things  humble  and  sim- 
ple, gave  her  the  Turkish  good-morrow,  and  inquired 
her  business  at  the  village.  She  had  been  to  Stavros, 
to  sell  ten  paras'  worth  of  herbs — about  one  cent  of 
our  currency.  He  put  a  small  piece  of  silver  into  her 
hand,  while,  with  the  still  strong  habit  of  Turkish 
modesty,  she  employed  the  other  in  folding  her  tatter- 
ed yashmack  so  as  to  conceal  her  features  from  the 
gaze  of  strangers.  She  had  not  expected  charity. 
"  What  is  this  for?"  she  asked,  looking  at  it  with  some 
surprise.  "  To  buy  bread  for  your  children,  mother  ?" 
"  Effendi !"  said  the  poor  old  creature,  her  voice  trem- 
bling, and  the  tears  streaming  from  her  eyes,  "  My 
children  are  all  dead  !  There  isno  one  now  betwccnme 
and  Allah  /"  It  were  worth  a  poet's  while  to  live  in 
the  east.  Like  the  fairy  in  the  tale,  they  never  open 
their  lips  but  they  "  speak  pearls." 

We  took  a  caique  at  the  mosque  of  Sultan  Selim, 
at  Beylerbey,  and  floated  slowly  past  the  imperial  pal- 
ace. Five  or  six  eunuchs,  with  their  red  caps  and 
Ions;  blue  dresses,  were  talking  at  a  high  tenor  in  the 
courtyard  of  the  harem,  and  we  gazed  long  and  ear- 
nestly at  the  fine  lattices  above,  concealing  so  many  of 
the  picked  beauties  of  the  empire.  A  mandolin,  very 
indifferently  strummed  in  one  of  the  projecting  wings, 
betrayed  the  employment  of  some  fair  Fatima,  and 
there  was  a  single  moment  when  we  could  see,  by  the 
relief  of  a  corner  window,  the  outline  of  a  female  fig- 
ure ;  but  the  caique  floated  remorselessly  on,  and  our 
busy  imaginations  had  their  own  unreal  shadows  for 
their  reward.  As  we  approached  the  central  facade 
the  polished  brazen  gates  flew  open,  and  a  band  of 
thirty  musicians  came  out  and  ranged  themselves  on 
the  terrace  beneath  the  palace-windows,  announcing, 
in  their  first  flourish,  that  Sultan  Mahmoud  had  thrust 
his  fingers  into  his  pilaw,  and  his  subjects  were  at  lib- 
erty to  dine.  Not  finding  their  music  much  to  our 
taste,  we  ordered  the  caikjees  to  assist  the  current  a 
little,  and  shooting  past  Stavros,  we  put  across  the 
strait  from  the  old  palace  of  Shemsheh  the  vizier, 
and,  in  a  few  minutes,  1  was  once  more  in  my  floating 
home,  under  the  "  star-spangled  banner." 

Constantinople  was  in  a  blaze  last  night,  with  the 
illumination  for  the  approach  of  the  Turkish  feast  of 
Bairam.  The  minarets  were  extremely  beautiful,  their 
encircling  galleries  hung  with  colored  lamps,  and  il- 
luminated festoons  suspended  from  one  to  the  other. 
The  ships  of  the  fleet  were  decked  also  with  thousands 
of  lamps,  and  the  effect  was  exceedingly  fine,  with  the 
reflection  in  the  Bosphorus,  and  the  waving  of  the 
suspended  lights  in  the  wind.  The  sultan  celebrates 
the  festa  by  taking  a  virgin  to  his  bed,  and  sacrificing 
twenty  sheep  with  his  own  hand.  I  am  told  by  an  in- 
telligent physician  here,  that  this  playing  the  butcher 
is  an  every-day  business  with  the  "  Brother  of  the 
Sun,"  every  safe  return  from  a  ride,  or  an  excursion  in 
his  sullaneliie  caique,  requiring  him  to  cut  the  throat 
of  his  next  day's  mutton.  It  may  account  partly  for 
the  excessive  cruelty  of  character  attributed  to  him. 

Among  other  bad  traits,  Mahmoud  is  said  to  be 
very  avaricious.  It  is  related  of  his  youth,  that  he 
was  permitted  occasionally,  with  his  brother  (who  was 
murdered  to  make  room  for  him  on  the  throne),  to 
walk  out  in  public  on  certain  days  with  their  governor; 
and  that,  upon  these  occasions,  each  was  intrusted 
with  a  purse  to  be  expended  in  charity.  The  elder 
brother  soon  distributed  his  piastres,  and  borrowed  of 
his  attendants  to  continue  his  charities  ;  while  Mah- 
moud quietly  put  the  purse  in  his  pocket,  and  added 
it  to  his  private  hoard  on  his  return.     It  is  said,  too, 


that  he  has  a  particular  passion  for  upholstery,  and  in 
his  frequent  change  from  one  serai  to  another,  allows 
no  nail  to  be  driven  without  his  supervision.  Add  to 
this  a  spirit  of  perverse  contradiction,  so  truculenl 
that  none  but  the  most  abject  flatterers  can  preserve 
his  favor,  and  you  have  a  pretty  handful  of  offsets 
against  a  character  certainly  not  without  some  royal 
qualities. 

With  one  of  the  Reis  Eftendi's  and  one  of  the  se 
raskier's  officers,  followed  by  four  kcrvasses  in  the 
Turkish  military  dress,  and  every  man  a  pair  of  slip- 
pers in  his  pocket,  we  accompanied  the  commodore, 
to-day,  on  a  visit  to  the  principal  mosques. 

Landing  first  at  Tophana,  on  the  Pera  side,  we  en- 
tered the  court  of  the  new  mosque  built  by  the  pres- 
ent sultan,  whose  elegant  exterior  of  white  marble  and 
two  freshly  gilded  minarets  we  had  admired  daily,  ly- 
ing at  anchor  without  sound  of  the  muezzin.  The 
morning  prayers  were  just  over,  and  the  retiring  Turks 
looked,  with  lowering  brows,  at  us,  as  we  pulled  oft 
our  boots  on  the  sacred  threshold. 

We  entered  upon  what,  but  for  the  high  pulpit,  I 
should  have  taken  for  rather  a  superb  ball-room.  An 
unencumbered  floor  carpeted  gayly,a  small  arabesque 
gallery  over  the  door  quite  like  an  orchestra,  chande- 
liers and  lamps  in  great  profusion,  and  walls  painted  of 
the  brightest  and  most  varied  colors,  formed  an  inte- 
rior rather  wanting  in  the  "dim  religious  light"  of  a 
place  of  worship.  We  were  shuffling  around  in  our 
slippers  from  one  side  to  the  other,  examining  the 
marble  Mihrab  and  the  narrow  and  towering  pulpit, 
when  a  ragged  and  decrepit  dervish,  with  hispapoosh- 
es  in  his  hand,  and  his  toes  and  heels  protruding  from 
a  very  dirty  pair  of  stockings,  rose  from  his  prayers 
and  began  walking  backward  and  forward,  eying  us 
ferociously  and  muttering  himself  into  quite  a  pas- 
sion. His  charity  for  infidels  was  evidently  at  a  low 
ebb.  Every  step  we  took  upon  the  holy  floor  seemed 
to  add  to  his  fury.  The  kcrvasses  observed  him,  but 
his  sugar-loaf  cap  carried  some  respect  with  it,  and 
they  evidently  did  not  like  to  meddle  with  him.  He 
followed  us  to  the  door,  fixing  his  hollow  gray  eyes 
with  a  deadly  glare  upon  each  one  as  he  went  out,  and 
the  Turkish  officers  seemed  rather  glad  to  hurry  us  out 
of  his  way.  He  left  us  in  the  vestibule,  and  we  mount- 
ed a  handsome  marble  staircase  to  a  suite  of  apart- 
ments above,  communicating  with  the  sultan's  private 
gallery.  The  carpets  here  were  richer,  and  the  divans 
with  which  the  half  dozen  saloons  were  surrounded, 
were  covered  with  the  most  costly  stuffs  of  the  east. 
The  gallery  was  divided  from  the  area  of  the  mosque 
by  a  fine  brazen  grating  curiously  wrought,  and  its 
centre  occupied  by  a  rich  ottoman,  whereon  the  im- 
perial legs  are  crossed  in  the  intervals  of  his  prostra- 
tions. It  was  about  the  size  and  had  the  air  altogeth- 
er of  a  private  box  at  the  opera. 

We  crossed  the  Golden  Horn,  and  passing  the  eu- 
nuch's guard,  entered  the  gardens  of  the  seraglio  on 
our  way  to  Santa  Sophia.  An  inner  wall  still  separa- 
ted us  from  the  gilded  kiosks,  at  whose  latticed  win- 
dows peering  above  the  trees,  we  might  have  clearly 
perused  the  features  of  any  peeping  inmate  ;  but  the 
little  cross  bars  revealed  nothing  but  their  own  provo- 
king eye  of  the  size  of  a  roseleaf  in  the  centre,  and 
we  reached  the  upper  gate  without  even  a  glimpse 
of  a  waved  handerchief  to  stir  our  chivalry  to  the  res- 
cue. 

A  confused  mass  of  buttresses  without  form  or  or- 
der, is  all  that  you  are  shown  for  the  exterior  of  that 
»  wonder  of  the  world,"  the  mosque  of  mosques,  the 
renowned  Santa  Sophia.  We  descended  a  dark  av- 
enue, and  leaving  our  boots  in  a  vestibule  that  the 
horse  of  Mohammed  the  second,  if  he  was  lodged  as 
ambitiously  living  as  dead,  would  have  disdained  for 
his  stable,  we  entered  the  vaulted  area.    A  long  breath 


160 


PENCILLINGS  BY  THE  WAY. 


nnd  an  admission  of  its  almost  attributable  supernatural 
grandeur,  followed  our  too  hasty  disappointment.  It  is 
indeed  a  "  vast  and  wondrous  dome  !"  Its  dimensions 
are  less  than  those  of  St.  Peter's,  at  Rome, but  its  effect, 
owing  to  its  unity  and  simplicity  of  design,  is,  I  think 
superior.  The  numerous  small  galleries  let  into  its 
sides  add  richness  to  it  without  impairing  its  apparent 
magnitude,  and  its  vast  floor,  upon  which  a  single  in- 
dividual is  almost  lost,  the  sombre  colors  of  its  walls 
untouched  probably  for  centuries,  and  the  dim  sepul- 
chral light  that  struggles  through  the  deep-niched  and 
retiring  windows,  form  altogether  an  interior  from 
which  the  imagination  returns,  like  the  dove  to  the 
ark,  fluttering  and  bewildered. 

Our  large  party  separated  over  its  wilderness  of  a 
floor,  and  each  might  have  had  his  hour  of  solitude, 
had  the  once  Christian  spirit  of  the  spot  (or  the  pres- 
ent pagan  demon)  affected  him  religiously.  I  found, 
myself,  a  singular  pleasure  in  wandering  about  upon 
the  elastic  mats  (laid  four  or  five  thick  all  over  the 
floor),  examining  here  a  tattered  banner  hung  against 
the  wall,  and  there  a  rich  cashmere  which  had  covered 
the  tomb  of  the  prophet ;  on  one  side  a  slab  of  trans- 
parent alabaster  from  the  temple  of  Solomon  (a 
strange  relic  for  a  Mohammedan  mosque  !)  and  on  the 
other,  a  dark  Mihrab  surrounded  by  candles  of  incred- 
ible proportions,  looking  like  the  marble  columns  of 
some  friezeless  portico.  The  four  "  six-winged  cher- 
ubim" on  the  roof  of  the  dome,  sole  remaining  trace 
as  they  are  of  the  religion  to  which  the  building  was 
first  dedicated,  had  better  been  left  to  the  imagination. 
They  are  monstrous  in  Mosaic.  It  is  said  that  the 
whole  interior  of  the  mosque  is  cased  beneath  its 
dusky  plaster  with  the  same  costly  Mosaic  which  cov- 
ers the  ceiling.  To  make  a  Mohammedan  mosque  of  a 
Christian  church,  however,  it  was  necessary  to  erase 
Christian  emblems  from  the  walls ;  besides  which  the 
Turks  have  a  superstitious  horror  of  all  imitative  arts, 
considering  the  painting  of  the  human  features  par- 
ticularly, as  a  mockery  of  the  handiwork  of  Allah. 

We  went  hence  to  the  more  modern  mosque  of  Sul- 
tan Achmet,  which  is  an  imitation  of  Santa  Sophia 
within,  but  its  own  beautiful  prototype  in  exterior.  Its 
spacious  and  solemn  court,  its  six  heaven-piercing 
minarets,  its  fountains,  and  the  mausoleums  of  the 
sultans,  with  their  gilded  cupolas  and  sarcophagi  cov- 
ered with  cashmeres  (the  murdering  sultan  and  his 
murdered  brothers  lying  in  equal  splendor  side-by- 
side!),  are  of  a  style  of  richness  peculiarly  oriental  and 
imposing.  We  visited  in  succession  Sultan  Bajazet, 
Sulymanye,  and  Sultana  Valide,  all  of  the  same  ara- 
besque exterior  and  very  similar  within.  The  descrip- 
tion of  one  leaves  little  to  be  said  of  the  other,  and, 
with  the  exception  of  Santa  Sophia,  of  which  I  should 
like  to  make  a  lounge  when  I  am  in  love  with  my  own 
company,  the  mosques  of  Constantinople  are  a  kind 
of  "  lion"  well  killed  in  a  single  visit. 


LETTER  CII. 

UNERRING  DETECTION  OF  FOREIGNERS — A  CARGO  OF 
ODALISQUES — THE  FANAR,  OR  QUARTER  OF  THE 
GREEKS — STREET  OF  THE  BOOKSELLERS — ASPECT  OF 
ANTIQUITY — PURCHASES — CHARITY  FOR  DOGS  AND 
PIGEONS — PUNISHMENT  OF  CANICIDE — A  BRIDAL  PRO- 
CESSION— TURKISH  FEMALE  PHYSIOGNOMY. 

Pulling  up  the  Golden  Horn  to-day  in  a  caique 
without  any  definite  errand  (a  sort  of  excursion  par- 
ticularly after  my  own  heart),  I  was  amused  at  the 
caikjee's  asking  my  companion,  who  shaves  clean  like 
a  Christian,  and  has  his  clothes  from  Regent  street, 


and  looks  for  aught  I  can  see,  as  much  like  a  foreigner 
in  Constantinople  as  myself,  "  in  what  vessel  I  had  ar 
rived."  We  asked  him  if  he  had  ever  seen  either  of  us 
before.  "No!"  How  then  did  he  know  that  my 
friend,  who  had  not  hitherto  spoken  a  word  of  Turk- 
ish, was  not  as  lately  arrived  as  myself?  What  is  it 
that  so  infallibly,  in  every  part  of  the  world,  distin 
guishes  the  stranger  ? 

We  passed  under  the  stern  of  an  outlandish-looking 
vessel  just  dropping  her  anchor.  Her  deck  was  crowd- 
ed with  men  and  women  in  singular  costumes,  and 
near  the  helm,  apparently  under  the  protection  of  a 
dark-visaged  fellow  in  a  voluminous  turban,  stood  three 
young,  and,  as  well  as  we  could  see,  uncommonly 
pretty  girls.  The  captain  answered  to  our  hail  that 
he  was  from  Trebizond,  and  his  passengers  were  slaves  . 
for  the  bazar.  How  redolent  of  the  east !  Were  one 
but  a  Turk,  now,  to  forestall  the  market  and  barter  for 
a  pair  of  those  dark  eyes  while  they  are  still  full  of 
surprise  and  innocence ! 

We  landed  at  the  Fanar.  Bow-windows  crowded 
with  fair  faces,  in  enormous  pink  turbans,  naked 
shoulders  (which  I  am  already  so  orientalized  as  to 
think  very  indecent),  puffed  curls  and  pinched  waists, 
reminded  us  at  every  step  that  we  were  in  a  Christian 
quarter  of  Constantinople.  From  this  paltry  and  mis- 
erable suburb,  spring  the  modern  princes  of  Greece, 
the  Mavrocordatos,  and  Ghikas,  the  Hospodars  of 
Wallachia  and  Moldavia,  the  subtle,  insinuating,  in- 
triguing, but  talented  and  ever-successful  Fanariotes. 
One  hears  so  much  of  them  in  Europe,  and  so  much 
is  made  of  a  stray  scion  from  the  very  far-traced  root 
of  Paloeologus  or  some  equally  boasted  blood  of  the 
Fanar  (I  met  a  Fanariote  princess  G —  at  the  baths  of 
Lucca  last  year,  whom  I  except  from  every  dispara- 
ging remark),  that  he  is  a  little  disappointed  with  the 
dirty  alleys  and  the  stuffed  windows,  shown  him  as 
the  hereditary  homes  of  these  very  sounding  names. 
There  are  a  hundred  families  at  least  in  the  Fanar, 
that  trace  their  origin  back  to  no  less  than  an  imperial 
stock,  and  there  is  not  a  house  in  the  whole  quarter 
that  would  pass  in  our  country  for  a  respectable  barn. 
In  personal  appearance  they  are  certainly  very  inferior 
to  any  other  race  of  their  ownnation.  The  Albanians, 
and  the  Greeks  I  saw  at  Napoli  and  in  the  Morea,  were 
(except  the  North  American  Indians)  the  finest  people, 
physically,  I  have  ever  been  among;  while  it  would 
be  difficult  to  find  a  more  diminutive  and  degenerate- 
looking  body  of  men  and  women,  than  swarm  in  this 
nest  of  Grecian  princes. 

We  re-entered  our  little  bark,  and  gliding  along 
leisurely  through  the  crowd  of  piades,  kachambas,  and 
caiques,  landed  at  Stamboul,  and  walked  on  toward 
the  bazar.  Always  discovering  new  passages  in  that 
labyrinth  of  shops,  we  found  ourselves  after  an  hour's' 
rambling,  in  a  long  street  of  booksellers.  This  is  rath- 
er the  oldest  and  narrowest  part  of  the  bazar,  and  the 
light  of  heaven  meets  with  the  additional  interruption 
of  two  rows  of  pillars  with  arched  friezes  standing  in 
the  middle  of  the  street.  On  entering  the  literary  twi- 
light of  the  passage  in  the  rear  of  these  columns,  the 
classic  nostril  detects  instantly  the  genuine  odor  of 
manuscript,  black-letter,  and  ancient  binding  ;  and  the 
trained  eye,  accustomed  to  the  dim  niches  of  libraries, 
wanders  over  the  well-piled  shelves  with  their  quaint 
rows  of  volumes  in  vellum,  and  appreciates  at  once 
their  varied  riches.  Here  is  nothing  of  the  complex- 
ion of  a  shelf  at  the  Harpers',  or  the  Hendees',  or  the 
Careys' — no  fresh  and  uncut  novel,  no  new-born  poem, 
no  political  pamphlet  or  gay  souvenir  !  And  the  price- 
less treasures  of  learning  are  not  here  doled  out  by  a 
talkative  publisher  or  dapper  clerk,  skilled  only  in  the 
lettered  backs  of  the  volumes  he  barters.  But  in  som- 
bre and  uneven  rows,  or  laid  in  heaps,  whose  order  is 
not  in  their  similarity  of  binding,  but  in  the  correspon- 
dence of  their  contents,  lie  venerable  and  much-thumb- 


PENCILLINGS  BY  THE  WAY. 


161 


ed  tomes  of  Arabic  or  Persian  ;  while  the  venerable 
bibliopole,  seated  motionless  on  his  hams,  with  his 
gray  beard  reaching  to  his  crossed  slippers,  peruses  an 
illuminated  volume  of  Hafiz,  lifting  his  eyes  from  the 
page  only  to  revolve  some  sweet  image  in  his  mind, 
and  murmur  a  low  "  pekke  !"  of  approbation. 

We  had  stepped  back  into  the  last  century.  Here 
was  the  calamus  still  in  use.  The  small,  brown  reed, 
not  yet  superseded  by  the  more  useful  but  less  classic 
quill,  stood  in  every  clotted  inkstand,  and  nothing  less 
than  the  purchase  of  a  whole  scrivener's  furniture, 
from  a  bearded  bookworm,  whose  benevolent  face  took 
my  fancy,  would  suffice  my  enthusiasm.  Not  to  waste 
all  our  oriental  experience  at  a  single  stall,  we  strolled 
farther  on  to  buy  an  illuminated  Hafiz.  We  stopped 
simultaneously  before  an  old  Armenian  who  seemed, 
by  his  rusty  calpack  and  shabby  robe,  to  be  something 
poorer  than  even  his  plainly-clad  neighbors ;  for  in  I 
Turkey,  as  elsewhere,  he  who  lives  in  a  world  of  his  j 
own,  has  but  a  slender  portion  in  that  of  the  vulgar. 
A  choice-looking  volume  lay  open  upon  one  of  the 
old  man's  knees,  while  from  a  wooden  bowl  he  was 
eating  hastily  a  pottage  of  rice.  His  meal  was  evi- 
dently  an  interruption.  He  had  not  even  laid  aside 
his  book. 

There  was  something  in  his  handling  of  the  volume, 
as  he  took  down  a  pocket-sized  Hafiz,  that  showed  an  ! 
affection  for  the  author.     He  turned  it  over  with  a  | 
slight  dilation  of  countenance,  and  opening  it  with  a 
careful  thumb,  read  a  line  in  mellifluous  Persian.     I  ! 
took  it  from  him  open  at  the  place,  and  marked   the 
passage  with  my  nail,  to  look  for  it  in  the  transla- 
tion. 

With  my  cheaply-bought  treasures  in  my  pockets, 
we  turned  up  the  street  of  the  diamond-merchants,  { 
and  making  a  single  purchase  more  in  the  bazar,  of  a  t 
tcsbih  or  Turkish  rosary  of  spice-wood,  emerged  to  the 
open  air  in  the  neighborhood  of  the  mosque  of  Sultan 
Bajazet. 

Whether  slipping  the  pagan  beads  through  my 
fingers  affected  me  "devoutly,  or  whether  it  was  the 
mellow  humor  of  the  moment,  I  felt  a  disposition  to 
forgive  my  enemies,  and  indulge  in  an  act  of  Moham- 
medan piety — feeding  the  unowned  dogs  of  the  street. 
We  stepped  into  a  baker's  shop,  and  laid  out  a  piastre 
in  bread,  and  were  immediately  observed  and  surround- 
ed, before  we  could  break  a  loaf,  by  twenty  or  thirty 
as  ill-looking  curs,  as  ever  howled  to  the  moon.  Hav- 
ing distributed  about  a  dozen  loaves,  and  finding  that 
our  largess  had  by  no  means  satisfied  the  appetites  of 
the  expecting  rabble,  we  found  ourselves  embarrassed 
to  escape.  Nothing  but  the  baker's  threshold  prevent- 
ed them  from  jumping  upon  us,  in  their  eagerness,  and 
the  array  of  so  many  formidable  mouths,  ferocious 
with  hunger,  was  rather  staggering.  The  baker  drew 
off  the  hungry  pack  at  last,  by  walking  round  the 
corner  with  a  loaf  in  his  hand,  while  we  made  a  speedy 
exit,  patted  on  the  back  in  passing  by  several  of  the  j 
assembled  spectators. 

It  is  surprising  that  the  Turks  can  tolerate  this  filthy 
breed  of  curs,  in  such  extraordinary  numbers.     They 
have  a  whimsical  punishment  for  killing  one  of  them. 
The  dead  dog  is  hung  by  his  heels,  so'that  his  nose  | 
just  touches  the  ground,  and  the  canicide  is  compelled  | 
to  heap  wheat  about  him,  till  he  is  entirely  covered  ;  j 
the  wheat  is  then  given  to  the  poor,  and  the  dog  buried 
at  the  expense  of  the   culprit.     There  are,  probably, 
five  dogs  to  every  man  in  Constantinople,  and  besides  ! 
their  incessant  barking,  they  often  endanger  the  lives 
of  children  and  strangers.     MacFarlane,  I  think,  tells 
the  story  of  a  drunken  sea-captain,  who  was  entirely 
devoured   by  the   dogs   at    Tophana ;    nothing   being 
found  of  him  in  the  morning  but  his  "indigestible  pis- 
tail!"  '  a 

We  entered  the  court  of  Sultan  Bajazet,  and  found 
the   majestic   plane-trees   that  shadow  its  arabesque 
11 


fountains,  bending  beneath  the  weight  of  hundreds  of 
pensionary  pigeons.  Here,  as  at  several  of  the 
mosques,  an  old  man  sits  by  the  gate,  whose  business 
it  is  to  expend  the  alms  given  him  in  distributing 
grain  to  these  sacred  birds.  Not  to  be  outdone  in 
piety,  my  friend  gave  the  blind  old  Turk  a  piastre  ; 
and,  as  he  arose  and  unlocked  the  box  beneath  him, 
the  pigeons  descended  about  us  in  such  a  cloud,  as 
literally  to  darken  the  air.  Handful  after  handful  was 
then  thrown  among  them,  and  the  beautiful  creatures 
ran  over  our  feet  and  fluttered  round  us  with  a  fear- 
lessness that  sufficiently  proved  the  safety  in  which 
they  haunted  the  sacred  precincts.  In  a  few  minutes 
they  soared  altogether  again  to  the  trees,  and  their 
mussulman-feeder  resumed  his  seat  upon  the  box  to 
wait  for  another  charity. 

A  crowd  of  women  at  the  harem  gate,  in  the  rear 
of  the  seraskier's  palace,  attracted  our  attention. 
Upon  inquiry,  we  found  that  he  had  married  a  daugh- 
ter to  one  of  the  sultan's  military  officers,  and  the  bri- 
dal party  was  expected  presently  to  come  out  in  aru- 
bahs,  and  make  the  tour  of  the  Hippodrome,  on  the 
way  to  the  house  of  the  bridegroom.  We  wiled  away 
an  hour  returning  the  gaze  of  curiosity  bent  upon  us 
from  the  idle  and  bright  eyes  of  a  hundred  women,  and 
the  first  of  the  gilded  vehicles  made  its  appearance ; 
though  in  the  same  style  of  ornament  with  the  one  I 
have  already  described,  it  differed  in  being  drawn  by 
horses,  and  having  a  frame  top,  with  small  round  mir- 
rors set  in  the  corners.  Within  sat  four  very  young 
women,  one  of  whom  was  the  bride  ;  but  which,  we 
found  no  one  who  could  tell  us.  It  is  no  description 
of  a  face  in  the  east  to  say,  that  the  eyes  were  dark, 
and  the  nose  regular — all  that  the  jealous  yashmack 
permitted  us  to  ascertain  of  the  beauty  of  the  bride. 
Their  eyes  are  all  dark,  and  their  noses  are  all  regular; 
the  Turkish  nose  differing  from  the  Grecian,  as  that 
of  the  Antinous  from  the  Apollo,  only  in  its  more  vo- 
luptuous fullness,  and  a  nostril  less  dilated.  Four 
darker  pairs  of  eyes,  however,  and  four  brows  of  whiter 
orb,  never  pined  in  a  harem,  or  were  reflected  in  those 
golden-rimmed  mirrors;  and  as  the  twelve  succeeding 
arubas  rattled  by,  and  in  each  suit  four  young  women, 
with  the  same  eternal  dark  eyes,  "full  of  sleep,"  and 
the  same  curved  and  pearly  forehead,  and  noses  like 
the  Antinous,  I  thought  of  toujours  pcrdrix,  and  felt 
that  if  there  had  been  but  one  with  a  slight  toss  in 
that  prominent  member,  it  would  not  have  been  dis- 
pleasing. 

In  a  conversation  with  a  Greek  lady  the  other  day, 
she  remarked  that  the  veils  of  the  Turkish  ladies  con- 
ceal no  charms.  Their  mouths,  she  says,  are  gener- 
ally coarse,  and  their  teeth,  from  the  immoderate  use 
of  sweetmeats,  or  neglect,  or  some  other  cause,  almost 
universally  defective.  How  far  the  interest  excited  by 
these  hidden  features  may  have  jaundiced  the  eyes  of 
my  fair  informer,  I  can  not  say  ;  but  as  a  general  fact, 
uneducated  women,  whatever  other  beauties  they  may 
possess,  have  rarely  expressive  or  agreeable  mouths. 
Nature  forms  and  colors  the  nose,  the  eyes,  the  fore- 
head, and  the  complexion  ;  but  the  character,  from 
the  cradle  up,  moulds  gradually  to  its  own  inward 
changes,  the  plastic  and  passion-breathing  lines  of  the 
lips.  Allowing  this,  it  would  be  rather  surprising  if 
there  was  a  mouth  in  all  Turkey  that  had  more  than 
a  pretty  silliness  at  the  most — the  art  of  dying  their 
finger-nails,  and  painting  their  eyebrows,  being  the 
highest  branches  of  female  education.  How  they 
came  by  these  "  eyes  that  teach  us  what  the  sun  is 
made  of,"  the  vales  of  Georgia  and  Circassia  best  can 
tell.  * 

And  so  having  rambled  away  a  sunny  autumn  day, 
and  earned  some  little  appetite,  if  not  experience,  we 
will  get  out  of  Stamboul,  before  the  sunset  guard 
makes  us  prisoners,  and  climb  up  to  our  dinner  in 
Pera. 


162 


PENCILLINGS  BY  THE  WAY. 


LETTER  CHI. 

THE  PERFECTION  OF  BATHING — PIPES — DOWNY  CUSH- 
IONS— COFFEE RUBBING  DOWN "CIRCULAR  JUS- 
TICE,"     AS      DISPLAYED      IN      THE      RETRIBUTION      OF 

BOILED   LOBSTERS — A    DELUGE    OF    SUDS THE    SHAM- 

PqO — LUXURIOUS    HELPS    TO    IMAGINATION — A  PEDES- 
TRIAN    EXCURSION STORY     OF    AN     AMERICAN    TAR, 

BURDENED   WITH    SMALL     CHANGE — BEAUTY    OF    THE 

TURKISH  CHILDREN — A  CIVILIZED  MONSTER GLIMPSE 

AT    SULTAN    MAHMOUD    IN    AN    ILL    HUMOR. 

"Time  is  (not)  money"  in  the  east.  We  were 
three  hours  to-day  at  the  principal  bath  of  Constan- 
tinople, going  through  the  ordinary  process  of  the 
establishment,  and  were  out-stayed,  at  last,  by  two 
Turkish  officers  who  had  entered  with  us.  During 
this  time,  we  had  each  the  assiduous  service  of  an 
attendant,  and  coffee,  lemonade  and  pipes  ad  libitum, 
for  the  consideration  of  half  a  Spanishdollar. 

Although  I  have  once  described  a  Turkish  bath,  the 
metropolitan  "  pomp  and  circumstance"  so  far  exceed 
the  provincial  in  this  luxury,  that  I  think  I  shall  be 
excused  for  dwelling  a  moment  upon  it  again.  The 
dressing-room  opens  at  once  from  the  street.  We 
descended  half  a  dozen  steps  to  a  stone  floor,  in  the 
centre  of  which  stood  a  large  marble  fountain.  Its 
basin  was  kept  full  by  several  jets  d'cau,  which  threw 
their  silver  curves  into  the  air,  and  the  edge  was  set 
round  with  narghiles  (or  Persian  water-pipes  with 
glass  vases),  ready  for  the  smokers  of  the  mild  tobac- 
co of  Shiraz.  The  ceiling  of  this  large  hall  was  lofty, 
and  the  sides  were  encircled  by  three  galleries,  one 
above  the  other,  with  open  balustrades,  within  which 
the  bathers  undressed.  In  a  corner  sat  several  attend- 
ants, with  only  a  napkin  around  their  waists,  smoking 
till  their  services  should  be  required ;  and  one  who 
had  just  come  from  the  inner  bath,  streaming  with 
perspiration,  covered  himself  with  cloths,  and  lay 
crouched  upon  a  carpet  till  he  could  bear,  with  safety, 
the  temperature  of  the  outer  air. 

A  half-naked  Turk,  without  his  turban,  looks  more 
a  Mephistopheles  than  a  Ganymede,  and  I  could 
scarce  forbear  shrinking  as  this  shaven-headed  troop 
of  servitors  seized  upon  us,  and,  without  a  word,  pull- 
ed off  our  boots,  thrust  our  feet  into  slippers,  and  led 
us  up  into  the  gallery  to  undress.  An  ottoman,  piled 
with  cushions,  and  overhung,  on  the  wall,  by  a  small 
mirror,  was  allotted  to  each,  and  with  the  assistance 
of  my  familiar  (who  was  quite  too  familiar!)  I  found 
myself  stripped  nolens  volens,  and  a  snowy  napkin, 
with  a  gold-embroidered  edge,  twisted  into  a  becom- 
ing turban  around  my  head. 

We  were  led  immediately  into  the  first  bath,  a  small 
room,  in  which  the  heat,  for  the  first  breath  or  two, 
seemed  rather  oppressive.  Carpets  were  spread  for 
us  on  the  warm  marble  floor,  and  crossing  our  legs, 
with  more  ease  than  when  cased  in  our  un-oriental 
pantaloons,  we  were  served  with  pipes  and  coffee  of  a 
delicious  flavor. 

After  a  half  hour,  the  atmosphere,  so  warm  when 
we  entered,  began  to  feel  chilly,  and  we  were  taken  by 
the  arm,  and  led  by  our  speechless  mussulman, 
through  an  intermediate  room,  into  the  grand  bath. 
The  heat  here  seemed  to  me,  for  a  moment,  almost 
intolerable.  The  floor  was  hot,  and  the  air  so  moist 
with  the  suffocating  vapor,  as  to  rest  like  mist  upon 
the  skin.  It  was  a  spacious  and  vaulted  room,  with, 
perhaps,  fifty  small  square  windows  in  the  dome,  and 
four  arched  recesses  in  the  sides,  supplied  with  marble 
seats,  and  small  reservoirs  of  hot  and  cold  water.  In 
the  centre  was  a  broad  platform,  on  which  the  bather 
was  rubbed  and  shampooed,  occupied,  just  then,  by 
two  or  three  dark-skinned  Turks,  lying  on  their  backs, 


with  their  eyes  shut,  dreaming,  if  one  might  judge 
by  their  countenances,  of  Paradise. 

After  being  left  to  walk  about  for  half  an  hour,  by 
this  time  bathed  in  perspiration,  our  respective  demons 
seized  upon  us  again,  and  led  us  to  the  marble  seats 
in  the  recesses.  Putting  a  rough  mitten  on  the  right 
hand,  my  Turk  then  commenced  upon  my  breast, 
scouring  me,  without  water  or  mercy,  from  head  to 
foot,  and  turning  me  over  on  my  face  or  my  back, 
without  the  least  "  by-your-leave"  expression  in  his 
countenance,  and  with  an  adroitness  which,  in  spite 
of  the  novelty  of  my  situation,  I  could  not  but  admire. 
I  hardly  knew  whether  the  sensation  was  pleasurable 
or  painful.  I  was  less  in  doubt  presently,  when  he 
seated  me  upright,  and,  with  the  brazen  cup  of  the 
fountain,  dashed  upon  my  peeled  shoulders  a  quantity 
of  half  boiling  water.  If  what  Barnacle,  in  the  play, 
calls  "  a  circular  justice,"  existed  in  the  world,  I  should 
have  thought  it  a  judgment  for  eating  of  lobsters. 
My  familiar  was  somewhat  startled  at  the  suddenness 
with  which  I  sprang  upon  my  feet,  and,  turning  some 
cold  water  into  the  reservoir,  laid  his  hand  on  his 
breast,  and  looked  an  apology.  The  scalding  was 
only  momentary,  and  the  qualified  contents  of  the 
succeeding  cups  highly  grateful. 

We  were  left  again,  for  a  while,  to  our  reflections, 
and  then  reappeared  our  attendants,  with  large  bowls 
of  the  suds  of  scented  soap,  and  small  bunches  of  soft 
Angora  wool.  With  this  we  were  tenderly  washed, 
and  those  of  my  companions  who  wished  it  were  shav- 
ed. The  last  operation  they  described  as  peculiarly 
agreeable,  both  from  the  softened  state  of  the  skin  and 
dexterity  of  the  operators. 

Rinsed  once  more  with  warm  water,  our  snowy  tur- 
bans were  twisted  around  our  heads  again,  cloths  were 
tied  about  our  waists,  and  we  returned  to  the  second 
room.  The  transition  from  the  excessive  heat  within, 
made  the  air,  that  we  had  found  oppressive  when  we 
entered,  seem  disagreeably  chilly.  We  wrapped  our- 
selves in  our  long  cloths,  and,  resuming  our  carpets, 
took  coffee  and  pipes  as  before.  In  a  kw  minutes  we 
began  to  feel  a  delightful  glow  in  our  veins,  and  then 
our  cloths  became  unpleasantly  warm,  and,  by  the 
time  we  were  taken  back  to  the  dressing-room,  its  cold 
air  was  a  relief.  They  led  us  to  the  ottomans,  and, 
piling  the  cushions  so  as  to  form  a  curve,  laid  us  upon 
them,  covered  with  clean  white  cloths,  and  bringing  us 
sherbets,  lemonade,  and  pipes,  dropped  upon  their 
knees,  and  commenced  pressing  our  limbs  all  over 
gently  with  their  hands.  My  sensations  during  the 
half  hour  that  we  lay  here  were  indescribably  agreea- 
ble. I  felt  an  absolute  repose  of  body,  a  calm,  half- 
sleepy  languor  in  my  whole  frame,  and  a  tranquillity 
of  mind,  which,  from  the  busy  character  of  the  scenes 
in  which  ]  was  daily  conversant,  were  equally  unusual 
and  pleasurable.  Scarce  stirring  a  muscle  or  a  nerve, 
I  lay  the  whole  hour,  gazing  on  the  lofty  ceiling,  and 
listening  to  the  murmur  of  the  fountain,  while  my  si- 
lent familiar  pressed  my  limbs  with  a  touch  as  gentle 
as  a  child's,  and  it  seemed  to  me  as  if  pleasure  was 
breathing  from  every  pore  of  my  cleansed  and  softened 
skin.  I  could  willingly  have  passed  the  remainder  of 
the  day  upon  the  luxurious  couch.  I  wonder  less 
than  ever  at  the  flowery  and  poetical  character  of  the 
oriental  literature,  where  the  mind  is  subjected  to  in- 
fluences so  refining  and  exhilarating.  One  could 
hardly  fail  to  grow  a  poet,  I  should  think,  even  with 
this  habit  of  eastern  luxury  alone.  If  I  am  to  con- 
ceive a  romance,  or  to  indite  an  epithalamium,  send 
me  to  the  bath  on  a  day  of  idleness,  and,  covering  me 
up  with  their  snowy  and  lavendered  napkins,  leave  me 
till  sunset ! 

With  a  dinner  in  prospect  at  a  friend's  house,  six 
or  eight  miles  up  the  Bosphorus,  we  started  in  the 
morning  on  foot,  with  the  intention  of  seeing  Sultan 


PENCILLINGS  BY  THE  WAY. 


163 


Mahmoud  go  to  mosque,  by  the  way.  We  stop- 
ped a  moment  to  look  into  the  marble  pavilion,  con- 
taining the  clocks  of  the  mosque  of  Tophana,  and 
drank  at  the  opposite  pavilion,  from  the  brass  cup 
chained  in  the  window,  and  supplied  constantly  from 
the  fountain  within,  and  then  kept  on  through  the  long 
street  to  the  first  village  of  Dolma-baktchi,  or  the 
Garden  of  Gourds. 

Determined,  with  the  day  before  us,  to  yield  to  eve- 
ry temptation  on  the  road,  we  entered  a  small  cafe, 
overlooking  a  segment  of  the  Bosphorus,  and  while 
the  acorn-sized  cups  were  simmering  on  the  manghal, 
my  friend  entered  into  conversation  in  Arabic,  with  a 
tawny  old  Egyptian,  who  sat  smoking  in  the  corner. 
He  was  a  fine  specimen  of  the  "  responsible-looking'' 
oriental,  and  had  lately  arrived  from  Alexandria  on 
business.  Pleasant  land  of  the  east !  where,  to  be 
the  pink  of  courtesy,  you  must  pass  your  snuff-box, 
or  your  tobacco-pouch  to  the  stranger,  and  ask  him 
those  questions  of  his  "  whereabouts,"  so  impertinent 
in  more  civilized  Europe  ! 

After  a  brief  dialogue,  which  was  Hebrew  to  me, 
our  Alexandrian,  knocking  the  ashes  from  his  pipe, 
commenced  a  narration  with  a  great  deal  of  expressive 
gesture,  at  which  my  friend  seemed  very  provokingly 
amused.  I  sipped  my  coffee,  and  wondered  what 
could  have  lead  one  of  these  silent  gray-beards  into 
an  amusing  story,  till  a  pause  gave  me  an  opportunity 
to  ask  a  translation.  Hearing  that  we  were  Ameri- 
cans, the  Egyptian  had  begun  by  asking  whether  there 
was  a  superstition  in  our  country  against  receiving 
back  money  in  change.  He  explained  his  question 
by  saying  that  he  was  in  a  cafe,  at  Tophana,  when  a 
boat's  crew,  from  the  American  frigate,  waiting  for 
some  one  at  the  landing,  entered,  and  asked  for  coffee. 
They  drank  it  very  quietly,  and  one  of  them  gave  the 
cafejee  a  dollar,  receiving  in  change  a  handful  of  the 
shabby  and  adulterated  money  of  Constantinople. 
Jack  was  rather  surprised  at  getting  a  dozen  cups  of 
coffee,  and  so  much  coin  for  his  dollar,  and  requested 
the  boy,  by  signs,  to  treat  the  company  at  his  ex- 
pense. This  was  done,  the  Turks  all  acknowledging 
the  courtesy  by  laying  their  hands  upon  their  fore- 
heads and  breasts,  and  still  Jack's  money  lay  heavy  in 
his  hands.  He  called  for  pipes,  and  they  smoked 
awhile;  but  finding  still  that  his  riches  were  not  per- 
ceptibly diminished,  he  hitched  up  his  trousers,  and 
with  a  dexterous  flirt,  threw  his  piastres  and  pares  all 
round  upon  the  company,  and  rolled  out  of  the  cafe. 
From  the  gravity  of  the  other  sailors  at  this  remarka- 
ble flourish,  the  old  Egyptian  and  his  fellow  cross-legs 
had  imagined  it  to  be  a  national  custom  ! 

Idling  along  through  the  next  village,  we  turned  to 
admire  a  Turkish  child,  led  by  an  Abyssinian  slave. 
There  is  no  country  in  the  world  where  the  children 
are  so  beautiful,  and  this  was  a  cherub  of  a  boy,  like 
one  of  Domenichino's  angels.  As  we  stopped  to  look 
at  him,  the  little  fellow  commenced  crying  most 
lustily. 

"  Hush  !  my  rose  !"  said  the  Abyssinian,  "  these  are 
good  Franks  !  these  are  not  the  Franks  that  eat  chil- 
dren! hush!" 

It  certainly  takes  the  nonsense  out  of  one  to  travel. 
I  should  never  have  thought  it  possible,  if  I  had  not 
been  in  Turkey,  that  I  could  be  made  a  bugbear  to 
scare  a  child! 

We  passed  the  tomb  of  Frederick  Barbarossa,  get- 
ting between  the  walls  of  the  palaces  on  the  water's 
edge,  continual  and  incomparable  views  of  tbe  Bos- 
phorus, and  arrived  at  Beshiktash  (or  the  marble  cra- 
dle), just  as  the  troops  were  drawn  up  to  the  door  of 
the  mosque.  We  took  our  stand  under  a  plane-tree, 
in  the  midst  of  a  crowd  of  women,  and  presently  the 
noisy  band  struck  up  the  sultan's  march,  and  the  led 
horses  appeared  in  sight.  They  came  on  with  their 
grooms  and  their  rich  housings,  a  dozen    matchless 


Arabians,  scarce  touching  the  ground  with  their  pran- 
cings !  Oh  how  beautiful  they  were  !  Their  delicate 
limbs,  their  small,  veined  heads  and  fiery  nostrils,  their 
glowing,  intelligent  eyes,  their  quick,  light,  bounding 
action,  their  round  bodies,  trembling  with  restrained 
and  impatient  energy,  their  curved,  haughty  necks, 
and  dark  manes  flowing  wildly  in  the  wind!  El  Bo- 
rak,  the  mare  of  the  prophet,  with  the  wings  of  a  bird, 
was  not  lighter  or  more  beautiful. 

The  sultan  followed,  preceded  by  his  principal  offi- 
cers, with  a  stirrup-holder  running  at  each  side,  and 
mounted  on  a  tame-looking  Hungarian  horse.  He 
wore  the  red  Fez  cap,  and  a  cream-colored  cloak, 
which  covered  his  horse  to  the  tail.  His  face  was 
lowering,  his  firm,  powerful  jaw,  set  in  an  expression 
of  fixed  displeasure,  and  his  far-famed  eye  had  a 
fierceness  within  its  dark  socket,  from  which  1  invol- 
untarily shrank.  The  women,  as  he  came  along,  set 
up  a  kind  of  howl,  according  to  their  custom,  but  he 
looked  neither  to  the  right  nor  left,  and  seemed  totally 
unconscious  of  any  one's  existence  but  his  own.  He 
was  quite  another-looking  man  from  the  Mahmoud  I 
had  seen  smiling  in  his  handja-bash  on  the  Bosphorus. 

As  he  dismounted  and  entered  the  mosque,  we  went 
on  our  way,  moralizing  sagely  on  the  novel  subject 
of  human  happiness — our  text,  the  cloud  on  the  brow 
of  a  sultan,  and  the  quiet  sunshine  in  the  bosoms  of 
two  poor  pedestrians  by  the  way-side. 


LETTER  CIV. 

PUNISHMENT  OF  CONJUGAL  INFIDELITY — DROWNING  IN 
THE  BOSPHORUS FREQUENCY  OF  ITS  OCCURRENCE  AC- 
COUNTED    FOR — A     BAND     OF     WILD     R0UMEL10TES — 

THEIR     PICTURESQUE    APPEARANCE ALI     PACHA,    OF 

YANINA — A  TURKISH  FUNERAL — FAT  WIDOW  OF  SUL- 
TAN SELIM— A  VISIT  TO  THE  SULTAN'S  SUMMER  PAL- 
ACE— A  TRAVELLING  MOSLEM — UNEXPECTED  TOKEN 
OF   HOME. 

A  Turkish  woman  was  sacked  and  thrown  into  the 
Bosphorus  this  morning.  I  was  idling  away  the  day 
in  the  bazar  and  did  not  see  her.  The  ward-room 
steward  of  the  "United  States,"  a  very  intelligent 
man,  who  was  at  the  pier  when  she  was  brought  down 
to  the  caique,  describes  her  as  a  young  woman  of 
twenty-two  or  three  years,  strikingly  beautiful ;  and 
with  the  exception  of  a  short  quick  sob  in  her  throat, 
as  if  she  had  wearied  herself  out  with  weeping,  she 
was  quite  calm  and  submitted  composedly  to  her  fate. 
She  was  led  down  by  two  soldiers,  in  her  usual  dress, 
her  yashmack  only  torn  from  her  face,  and  rowed  off 
to  the  mouth  of  the  bay,  where  the  sack  was  drawn 
over  her  without  resistance.  The  plash  of  her  body 
in  the  sea  was  distinctly  seen  by  the  crowd  who  had 
followed  her  to  the  water. 

It  is  horrible  to  reflect  on  these  summary  execu- 
tions, knowing  as  we  do,  that  the  poor  victim  is  taken 
before  the  judge,  upon  the  least  jealous  whim  of  her 
husband  or  master,  condemned  often  upon  bare  suspi- 
cion, and  hurried  instantly  from  the  tribunal  to  this 
violent  and  revolting  death.  Any  suspicion  of  com- 
merce with  a  Christian  particularly,  is,  with  or  without 
evidence,  instant  ruin.  Not  long  ago,  the  inhabitants 
of  Arnamt-Jceni,  a  pretty  village  on  the  Bosphorus. 
were  shocked  with  the  spectacle  of  a  Turkish  woman 
and  a  younc:  Greek,  hanging  dead  from  the  shutters 
of  a  window  on  the  water's-side.  He  had  been  de- 
tected in  leaving  her  house  at  daybreak,  and  in  less 
than  an  hour  the  unfortunate  lovers  had  met  their 
fate.  They  are  said  to  have  died  most  heroically,  em- 
bracing and  declaring  their  attachment  to  the  last. 

Such  tragedies  occur  every  week  or  two  in  Con- 
stantinople, and  it  is  not  wonderful,  considering  the 


164 


PENCILLINGS  BY  THE  WAY. 


superiority  of  the  educated  and  picturesque  Greek  to 
his  brutal  neighbor,  or  the  daring  and  romance  of  Eu- 
ropeans in  the  pursuit  of  forbidden  happiness.  The 
liberty  of  going  and  coming,  which  the  Turkish  wo- 
men enjoy,  wrapped  only  in  veils,  which  assist  by  their 
secrecy,  is  temptingly  favorable  to  intrigue,  and  the 
self-sacrificing  nature  of  the  sex,  when  the  heart  is 
concerned,  shows  itself  here  in  proportion  to  the  de- 
mand for  it. 

An  eminent  physician,  who  attends  the  seraglio  of 
the  sultan's  sister,  consisting  of  a  great  number  of 
women,  tells  me  that  their  time  is  principally  occupied 
in  sentimental  correspondence,  by  means  of  flowers, 
with  the  forbidden  Greeks  and  Armenians.  These 
platonic  passions  for  persons  whom  they  have  only 
seen  from  their  gilded  lattices,  are  their  only  amuse- 
ment, and  they  are  permitted  by  the  sultana,  who  has 
herself  the  reputation  of  being  partial  to  Franks,  and 
old  as  she  is,  ingenious  in  contrivances  to  obtain  their 
society.  My  intelligent  informant  thinks  the  Turkish 
women,  in  spite  of  their  want  of  education,  somewhat 
remarkable  for  their  sentiment  of  character. 


With  two  English  travellers,  whom  I  had  known  in 
Italy,  I  pulled  out  of  the  bay  in  a  caique,  and  ran 
down  under  the  wall  of  the  city,  on  the  side  of  the 
sea  of  Marmora.  For  a  mile  or  more  we  were  be- 
neath the  wall  of  the  seraglio,  whose  small  water- 
gates,  whence  so  many  victims  have  found 

"  Their  way  to  Marmora  without  a  boat ;" 

<ire  beset,  to  the  imaginative  eye  of  the  traveller,  with 
the  dramatis  personce  of  a  thousand  tragedies.  One 
smiles  to  detect  himself  gazing  on  an  old  postern, 
with  his  teeth  shut  hard  together,  and  his  hair  on  end, 
in  the  calm  of  a  pure,  silent,  sunshiny  morning  of 
September! 

We  landed  some  seven  miles  below,  at  the  Seven 
Towers,  and  dismissed  our  boat  to  walk  across  to  the 
Golden  Horn.  Our  road  was  outside  of  the  triple 
walls  of  Stamboul,  whose  two  hundred  and  fifty  towers 
look  as  if  they  were  toppling  after  an  earthquake,  and 
are  overgrown  superbly  with  ivy.  Large  trees,  root«g[ 
in  the  crevices,  and  gradually  bursting  the  thick  walls, 
overshadow  entirely  their  once  proud  turrets,  and  for 
the  whole  length  of  the  five  or  six  miles  across,  it  is 
one  splendid  picture  of  decay.  I  have  seen  in  no 
country  such  beautiful  ruins. 

At  the  Adrianople  gate,  we  found  a  large  troop  of 
horsemen,  armed  in  the  wild  manner  of  the  east,  who 
had  accompanied  a  Roumeliote  chief  from  the  mount- 
ains. They  were  not  allowed  to  enter  the  city,  and, 
with  their  horses  picketed  on  the  plain,  were  lying 
about  in  groups,  waiting  till  their  leader  should  con- 
clude his  audience  with  the  seraskier.  They  were  as 
cut-throat  looking  a  set  as  a  painter  would  wish  to  see. 
The  extreme  richness  of  eastern  arms,  mounted 
showily  in  silver,  and  of  shapes  so  cumbersome,  yet 
picturesque,  contrasted  strangely  with  their  ragged  ca- 
potes, and  torn  legging,  and  their  way-worn  and  weary 
countenances.  Yet  they  were  almost  without  excep- 
tion fine-featured,  and  of  a  resolute  expression  of  face, 
and  they  had  flung  themselves,  as  savages  will, 
into  attitudes  that  art  would  find  it  difficult  to  im- 
prove. 

Directly  opposite  this  gate  stand  five  marble  slabs, 
indicating  the  spots  in  which  are  buried  the  heads  of 
Ali  Pacha,  of  Albania,  his  three  sons  and  grandson. 
The  inscription  states,  that  the  rebel  lost  his  head  for 
having  dared  to  aspire  to  independence.  He  was  a 
brave  old  barbarian,  however,  and,  as  the  worthy  chief 
of  the  most  warlike  people  of  modern  times,  one 
stands  over  his  grave  with  regret.  It  would  have  been 
a  classic  spot  had  Byron  survived  to  visit  it.  No  event 
in  his  tvavels  made  more  impression  on  his  mind  than 


the  pacha's  detecting  his  rank  by  the  beauty  of  his 
hands.  His  fine  description  of  the  wild  court  of 
Yanina,  in  Childe  Harold,  has  already  made  the  poet's 
return  of  immortality,  but  had  he  survived  the  revolu- 
tion in  Greece,  with  his  increased  knowledge  of  the 
Albanian  soldier  and  his  habits,  and  his  esteem  for  the 
old  chieftain,  a  hero  so  much  to  his  taste  would  have 
been  his  most  natural  theme.  It  remains  to  be  seen 
whether  the  age  or  the  language  will  produce  another 
Byron  to  take  up  the  broken  thread. 

As  we  were  poring  over  the  Turkish  inscription, 
four  men,  apparently  quite  intoxicated,  came  running 
and  hallooing  from  the  city  gate,  bearing  upon  their 
shoulders  a  dead  man  in  his  bier.  Entering  the  cem- 
etery, they  went  stumbling  on  over  the  footstones,  tos- 
sing the  corpse  about  so  violently,  that  the  helpless 
limbs  frequently  fell  beyond  the  limits  of  the  rude 
barrow,  while  the  grave-digger,  the  only  sober  person, 
save  the  dead  man,  in  the  company,  followed  at  his 
best  speed,  with  his  pick-axe  and  shovel.  These  ex- 
traordinary bearers  set  down  their  burden  not  far  from 
the  gate,  and,  to  my  surprise,  walked  laughing  off  like 
men  who  had  merely  engaged  in  a  moment's  frolic  by 
the  way,  while  the  sexton,  left  quite  alone,  composed 
a  little  the  posture  of  the  disordered  body,  and  sat 
down  to  get  breath  for  his  task. 

My  Constantinopolitan  friend  tells  me  that  the  Ko- 
ran blesses  him  who  carries  a  dead  body  forty  paces 
on  its  way  to  the  grave.  The  poor  are  thus  carried 
out  to  the  cemeteries  by  voluntary  bearers,  who,  after 
they  have  completed  their  prescribed  paces,  change 
with  the  first  individual  whose  reckoning  with  heaven 
may  be  in  arrears. 

The  corpse  we  had  seen  so  rudely  borne  on  its  last 
journey,  was,  or  had  been,  a  middle-aged  Turk.  He 
had  neither  shroud  nor  coffin,  but 

"  Lay  like  a  gentleman  taking  a  snoose," 

in  his  slippers  and  turban,  the  bunch  of  flowers  on  his 
bosom  the  only  token  that  he  was  dressed  for  any  par- 
ticular occasion.  We  had  not  time  to  stay  and  see 
his  grave  dug,  and  "his  face  laid  toward  the  tomb  of 
the  prophet." 

We  entered  the  Adrianople  gate,  and  crossed  the 
triangle,  which  old  Stamboul  nearly  forms,  by  a  line 
approaching  its  hypothenuse.  Though  in  a  city  so 
thickly  populated,  it  was  one  of  the  most  lonely  walks 
conceivable.  We  met,  perhaps,  one  individual  in  a 
street ;  and  the  perfect  silence,  and  the  cheerless  look 
of  the  Turkish  houses,  with  their  jealously  closed 
windows,  gave  it  the  air  of  a  city  devastated  by  the 
plague.  The  population  of  Constantinople  is  only 
seen  in  the  bazars,  or  in  the  streets  bordering  on  the 
Golden  Horn.  In  the  extensive  quarter  occupied  by 
dwelling-houses  only,  the  inhabitants,  if  at  home,  oc- 
cupy apartments  opening  on  their  secluded  gardens, 
or  are  hidden  from  the  gaze  of  the  street  by  their  fine 
dull-colored  lattices.  It  strikes  one  with  melancholy 
after  the  gay  balconies  and  open  doors  of  France  and 
Italy  ! 

We  passed  the  Eskai  serai,  the  palace  in  which  the 
imperial  widows  wear  their  chaste  weeds  in  solitude  ; 
and,  weary  with  our  long  walk,  emerged  from  the  si- 
lent streets  at  the  bazar  of  wax-candles,  and  took 
caique  for  the  Argentopolis  of  the  ancients,  the  "  Sil- 
ver city"  of  Galatia. 


The  thundering  of  guns  from  the  whole  Ottoman 
fleet  in  the  Bosphorus  announced,  some,  days  since, 
that  the  sultan  had  changed  his  summer  for  his  winter 
serai,  and  the  commodore  received  yesterday,  a  firman 
to  visit  the  deserted  palace  of  Beylerbey. 

We  left  the  frigate  at  an  early  hour,  our  large  party 
of  officers  increased  by  the  captain  of  the  Acteon, 
sloop-of-war,  some  gentlemen  of  the  English  ambas- 


PENCILLINGS  BY  THE  WAY. 


165 


sador'9  household,  and  several  strangers  who  took  ad- 
vantage of  the  commodore's  courtesy  to  enjoy  a  privi- 
lege granted  so  very  rarely. 

As  we  pulled  up  the  strait,  some  one  pointed  out 
the  residence,  on  the  European  shore,  of  the  once  fa- 
vorite wife,  and  now  fat  widow,  of  Sultan  Selim.  She 
is  called  by  the  Turks,  the  "  boneless  sultana,"  and  is 
the  model  of  shape  by  the  oriental  standard.  The 
poet's  lines, 

'<  Who  turned  that  little  waist  with  so  much  care, 
And  shut  perfection  in  so  small  a  ring  ?" 

though  a  very  neat  compliment  in  some  countries, 
would  be  downright  rudeness  in  the  East.  Near  this 
jelly  in  weeds  lives  a  venerable  Turk,  who  was  once 
ambassador  to  England.  He  came  back  too  much 
enlightened,  and  the  mufti  immediately  procured  his 
exile,  for  infidelity.  He  passes  his  day,  we  are  told, 
in  looking  at  a  large  map  hung  on  the  wall  before  him, 
and  wondering  at  Tiis  own  travels. 

We  were  received  at  the  shining  brazen  gate  of 
Beylerbey,  by  Hamik  Pacha  (a  strikingly  elegant 
man,  just  returned  from  a  mission  to  England),  depu- 
ted by  the  sultan  to  do  the  honors.  A  side-door  in- 
troduced us  immediately  to  the  grand  hall  upon  the 
lower  floor,  which  was  separated  only  by  four  marble 
pillars,  and  a  heavy  curtain  rolled  up  at  will,  from  the 
gravel  walk  of  the  garden  in  the  rear.  We  ascended 
thence  by  an  open  staircase  of  wood,  prettily  inlaid, 
to  the  second  floor,  which  was  one  long  suite  of  spa- 
cious rooms,  built  entirely  in  the  French  style,  and 
thence  to  the  third  floor,  the  same  thing  over  again. 
It  was  quite  like  looking  at  lodgings  in  Paris.  There 
was  no  furniture,  except  an  occasional  ottoman  turned 
with  its  face  upon  another,  and  a  prodigious  quantity 
of  French  musical  clocks,  three  or  four  in  every 
room,  and  all  playing  in  our  honor  with  an  amusing 
confusion.  One  other  article,  by  the  way — a  large, 
common,  American  rocking-chair!  The  poor  thing 
stood  in  a  great  gilded  room,  all  alone,  looking  pitia- 
bly home-sick.  I  seated  myself  in  it,  malgre  a  thick 
coat  of  dust  upon  the  bottom,  as  I  would  visit  a  sick 
countryman  in  exile. 

The  harem  was  locked,  and  the  polite  pacha  regret- 
ted that  he  had  no  orders  to  open  it.  We  descended 
to  the  gardens,  which  rise  by  terraces  to  a  gim-crack 
temple  and  orangery,  and  having  looked  at  the  sultan's 
poultry,  we  took  our  leave.  If  his  pink  palace  in  Eu- 
rope is  no  finer  than  his  yellow  palace  in  Asia,  there 
is  many  a  merchant  in  America  better  lodged  than  the 
padishah  of  the  Ottoman  empire.  We  have  not  seen 
the  old  seraglio,  however,  and  in  its  inaccessible  re- 
cesses, probably,  moulders  that  true  oriental  splendor 
which  this  upholsterer  monarch  abandons  in  his  rage 
for  the  novel  luxuries  of  Europe. 


LETTER  CV. 


FAREWELL  TO  CONSTANTINOPLE— EUROPE  AND  THE 
EAST  COMPARED  —  THE  DEPARTURE  —  SMYRNA,  THE 
GREAT  MART  FOR  FIGS — AN  EXCURSION  INTO  ASIA 
MINOR — TRAVELLING  EQUIPMENTS  —  CHARACTER  OF 
THE  HAJJIS — ENCAMPMENT  OF  GIPSIES — A  YOUTHFUL 
HEBE — NOTE  —  HORROR  OF  THE  TURKS  FOR  THE 
"UNCLEAN    ANIMAL" — AN   ANECDOTE. 

I  have  spent  the  last  day  or  two  in  farewell  visits  to 
my  favorite  haunts  in  Constantinople.  I  galloped  up 
the  Uosphorus,  almost  envying  les  ames  damnces  that 
skim  so  swiftly  and  perpetually  from  the  Symplegades 
to  Marmora,  and  from  Marmora  back  to  the  Symple- 


gades. I  took  a  caique  to  the  Valley  of  Sweet  Wa- 
ters, and  rambled  away  an  hour  on  its  silken  sward. 
1  lounged  a  morning  in  the  bazars,  smoked  a  parting- 
pipe  with  my  old  Turk  in  the  Bezestein,  and  exchang- 
ed a  last  salaam  with  the  venerable  Armenian  book- 
seller, still  poring  over  his  illuminated  Hafiz.  And 
last  night,  with  the  sundown  boat  waiting  at  the  pier, 
I  loitered  till  twilight  in  the  small  and  elevated  ceme- 
tery between  Galata  and  Pera,  and,  with  feelings  of 
even  painful  regret,  gazed  my  last  upon  the  matchless 
scene  around  me.  In  the  words  of  the  eloquent 
author  of  Anastasius,  when  taking  the  same  farewell, 
"  For  the  last  time,  my  eye  wandered  over  the  dim- 
pled hills,  glided  along  the  winding  waters,  and  dived 
into  the  deep  and  delicious  dells,  in  which  branch  out 
its  jagged  shores.  Reverting  from  these  smiling  out- 
lets of  its  sea-beat  suburbs  to  its  busy  centre,  I  sur- 
veyed, in  slow  succession,  every  chaplet  of  swelling 
cupolas,  every  grove  of  slender  minarets,  and  every 
avenue  of  glittering  porticoes,  whose  pinnacles  dart 
their  golden  shafts  from  between  the  dark  cypress- 
trees  into  the  azure  sky.  I  dwelt  on  them  as  on  things 
I  never  was  to  behold  more  ;  and  not  until  the  evening 
had  deepened  the  veil  it  cast  over  the  varied  scene 
from  orange  to  purple,  and  from  purple  to  the  sable 
hue  of  night,  did  I  tear  myself  away  from  the  impres- 
sive spot.  I  then  bade  the  city  of  Constantine  fare- 
well for  ever,  descended  the  high-crested  hill,  stepped 
into  the  heaving  boat,  turned  my  back  upon  the 
shore,  and  sank  my  regrets  in  the  sparkling  wave, 
across  which  the  moon  had  already  flung  a  trembling 
bar  of  silvery  light,  pointing  my  way,  as  it  were,  to 
other  unknown  regions." 

There  are  few  intellectual  pleasures  like  that  of 
finding  our  own  thoughts  and  feelings  well  described 
by  another ! 

I  certainly  would  not  live  in  the  east;  and  when  I 
sum  up  its  inconveniences  and  the  deprivations  to 
which  the  traveller  from  Europe,  with  his  refined 
wants,  is  subjected,  I  marvel  at  the  heart-ache  with 
which  I  turn  my  back  upon  it,  and  the  deep  die  it  has 
infused  into  my  imagination.  Its  few  peculiar  luxu- 
ries do  not  compensate  for  the  total  absence  of  com- 
fort ;  its  lovely  scenery  can  not  reconcile  you  to 
wretched  lodgings;  its  picturesque  costumes  and  po- 
etical people,  and  golden  sky,  fine  food  for  a  summer's 
fancy  as  they  are,  can  not  make  you  forget  the  civili- 
zed pleasures  you  abandon  for  them — the  fresh  litera- 
ture, the  arts  and  music,  the  refined  society,  the  ele- 
gant pursuits,  and  the  stirring  intellectual  collision  of 
the  cities  of  Europe. 

Yet  the  world  contains  nothing  like  Constantinople  ! 
If  we  could  compel  all  our  senses  into  one,  and  live 
by  the  pleasures  of  the  eye,  it  were  a  paradise  untran- 
scended.  The  Bosphorus — the  superb,  peculiar,  in- 
comparable Bosphorus  !  the  dream-like,  fairy-built  se- 
raglio !  the  sights  within  the  city  so  richly  strange, 
and  the  valleys  and  streams  around  it  so  exquisitely 
fair  !  the  voluptuous  softness  of  the  dark  eyes  haunt- 
ing your  every  step  on  shore,  and  the  spirit-like  swift- 
ness and  elegance  of  your  darting  caique  upon  the 
waters !  In  what  land  is  the  priceless  sight  such  a 
treasure  ?  Where  is  the  fancy  so  delicately  and  di- 
vinely pampered  ? 

Every  heave  at  the  capstan-bars  drew  upon  my 
heart ;  and  when  the  unwilling  anchor  at  last  let  go  its 
hold,  and  the  frigate  swung  free  with  the  outward  cur- 
rent, I  felt  as  if,  in  that  moment,  I  had  parted  my 
hold  upon  a  land  of  faery.  The  dark  cypresses  and 
golden  pinnacles  of  Seraglio  Poinv,  and  the  higher 
shafts  of  Sophia's  sky-touching  minarets  were  the  last 
objects  in  my  swiftly  receding  eye,  and,  in  a  short 
hour  or  two,  the  whole  bright  vision  had  sunk  below 
the  horizon. 

We  crossed  Marmora,  and  shot  down  the  rapid 
Dardanelles  in  as  many  hours  aa  a  passage  up  had  oc- 


166 


PENCILLINGS  BY  THE   WAV. 


cupied  days,  and,  rounding  the  coast  of  Anatolia,  en- 
tered between  Mitylene  and  the  Asian  shore,  and,  on 
the  third  day,  anchored  in  the  bay  of  Smyrna. 

"  Everybody  knows  Smyrna,"  says  Mac  Farlane, 
"  it  is  such  a  place  for  figs  /"  It  is  a  low-built  town, 
at  the  head  of  the  long  gulf,  which  bears  its  name, 
and,  with  the  exception  of  the  high  rock  immediately 
over  it,  topped  by  the  ruins  of  an  old  castle,  said  to 
imbody  in  its  walls  the  ancient  Christian  church,  it  has 
no  very  striking  features.  Extensive  gardens  spread 
away  on  every  side,  and,  without  exciting  much  of 
your  admiration  for  its  beauty,  there  is  a  look  of  peace 
and  rural  comfort  about  the  neighborhood  that  affects 
the  mind  pleasantly. 

Almost  immediately  on  my  arrival,  I  joined  a  party 
for  a  few  days'  tour  in  Asia  Minor.  We  were  five, 
and,  with  a  baggage-horse,  and  a  mounted  suridjee, 
our  caravan  was  rather  respectable.  Our  appoint- 
ments were  orientally  simple.  We  had  each  a  Turk- 
ish bed  (alias,  a  small  carpet),  a  nightcap,  and  a 
"copyhold"  upon  a  pair  of  saddlebags,  containing 
certain  things  forbidden  by  the  Koran,  and  therefore 
not  likely  to  be  found  by  the  way.  Our  attendant  was 
a  most  ill-favored  Turk,  whose  pilgrimage  to  Mecca 
(he  was  a  hajji,  and  wore  a  green  turban)  had,  at  least, 
imparted  no  sanctity  to  his  visage.  If  he  was  not  a 
rogue,  nature  had  mis-labelled  him,  and  I  shelter  my 
want  of  charity  under  the  Arabic  proverb  :  "  Distrust 
thy  neighbor  if  he  has  made  a  hajji ;  if  he  has  made 
two,  make  haste  to  leave  thy  house." 

We  wound  our  way  slowly  out  of  the  narrow  and 
ill-paved  streets  of  Smyrna,  and  passing  through  the 
suburban  gardens,  yellow  with  lemons  and  oranges, 
crossed  a  small  bridge  over  the  Hermus.  This  is  the 
favorite  walk  of  the  Smyrniotes,  and  if  its  classic  river, 
whose  "golden  sands"  (here,  at  least),  are  not  golden, 
and  its  "  Bath  of  Diana"  near  by,  whose  waters  would 
scarce  purify  her  "silver  bow,"  are  something  less 
than  their  sounding  names ;  there  is  a  cool,  dark  ceme- 
tery beyond,  less  famous,  but  more  practicable  for  sen- 
timent, and  many  a  shadowy  vine  and  drooping  tree  in 
the  gardens  around,  that  might  recompense  lovers, 
perhaps,  for  the  dirty  labyrinth  of  the  intervening 
suburb. 

We  spurred  away  over  the  long  plain  of  Hadjilar, 
leaving  to  the  right  and  left  the  pretty  villages,  orna- 
mented by  the  summer  residences  of  the  wealthy  mer- 
chants of  Smyrna,  and  in  two  or  three  hours  reached 
a  small  lone  cafe,  at  the  foot  of  its  bounding  range  of 
mountains.  We  dismounted  here  to  breathe  our 
horses,  and  while  coffee  was  preparing,  I  discovered, 
in  a  green  hollow  hard  by,  a  small  encampment  of 
gipsies.  With  stones  in  our  hands,  as  the  cafejee  told 
us  the  dogs  were  troublesome,  we  walked  down  into 
the  little  round-bottomed  dell,  a  spot  selected  with  "  a 
lover's  eye  for  nature,"  and  were  brought  to  bay  bv  a 
dozen  noble  shepherd-dogs,  within  a  few  yards  of  their 
outer  tent. 

The  noise  brought  out  an  old  sunburnt  woman,  and 
two  or  three  younger  ones,  with  a  troop  of  boys,  who 
called  in  the  dogs,  and  invited  us  kindly  within  their 
limits.  The  tents  were  placed  in  a  half  circle,  with 
their  doors  inward,  and  were  made  with  extreme  neat- 
ness. There  were  eight  or  nine  of  them,  very  small 
and  low,  with  round  tops,  the  cloth  stretched  tightly 
over  an  inner  frame,  and  bound  curiously  down  on 
the  outside  with  beautiful  wicker-work.  The  curtains 
at  the  entrance  were  looped  up  to  admit  the  grateful 
sun,  and  the  compactly  arranged  interiors  lay  open  to 
our  prying  curiosity.  In  the  rounded  corner  farthest 
from  the  door,  lay  uniformly  the  same  goat-skin  beds, 
flat  on  the  ground,  and  in  the  centre  of  most  of  them, 
stood  a  small  loom,  at  which  the  occupant  plied  her 
task  like  an  automaton,  not  betraying  by  any  sign  a 
consciousness  of  our  presence.     They  sat  cross-leg- 


ged like  the  Turks,  and  had  all  a  look  of  habitua. 
sternness,  which,  with  their  thin,  strongly-marked 
gipsy  features,  and  wild  eyes,  gave  them  more  the  ap- 
pearance of  men.  It  was  the  first  time  I  had  ever  re- 
marked such  a  character  upon  a  class  of  female  faces, 
and  I  should  have  thought  I  had  mistaken  their  sex, 
if  their  half-naked  figures  had  not  put  it  beyond  a 
doubt.  The  men  were  probably  gone  to  Smyrna,  as 
none  were  visible  in  the  encampment,  As  we  were 
about  returning,  the  curtain  of  the  largest  tent, 
which  had  been  dropped  on  our  entrance,  was  lifted 
cautiously,  by  a  beautiful  girl,  of  perhaps  thirteen, 
who,  not  remarking  that  I  was  somewhat  in  the  rear 
of  my  companions,  looked  after  them  a  moment,  and 
then  fastening  back  the  dingy  folds  by  a  string,  return- 
ed to  her  employment  of  swinging  an  infant  in  a  small 
wicker  hammock,  suspended  in  the  centre  of  the  tent. 
Her  dark,  but  prettily-rounded  arm,  was  decked  with 
a  bracelet  of  silver  pieces,  and  just  between  two  of  the 
finest  eyes  I  ever  saw,  was  suspended  by  a  yellow 
thread,  one  of  the  small  gold  coins  of  Constantinople. 
Her  softly-moulded  bust  was  entirely  bare,  and  might 
have  served  for  the  model  of  a  youthful  Hebe.  A 
girdle  around  her  waist  sustained  loosely  a  long  pair 
of  full  Turkish  trousers,  of  the  color  and  fashion  usu- 
ally worn  by  women  in  the  east,  and,  caught  over  her 
hip,  hung  suspended  by  its  fringe  the  truant  shawl 
that  had  been  suffered  to  fall  from  her  shoulders  and 
expose  her  guarded  beauty.  I  stood  admiring  her  a 
full  minute,  before  I  observed  a  middle-aged  woman  in 
the  opposite  corner,  who,  bending  over  her  work,  was 
fortunately  as  late  in  observing  my  intrusive  presence. 
As  I  advanced  half  a  step,  however,  my  shadow  fell 
into  the  tent,  and  starting  with  surprise,  she  rose  and 
dropped  the  curtain. 

We  remounted,  and  I  rode  on,  thinking  of  the 
vision  of  loveliness  I  was  leaving  in  that  wild  dell. 
We  travel  a  great  way  to  see  hills  and  rivers,  thought 
I,  but,  after  all,  a  human  being  is  a  more  interesting 
object  than  a  mountain.  I  shall  remember  the  little 
gipsy  of  Hadjilar,  long  after  I  have  forgotten  Hermus 
and  Sypilus. 

Our  road  dwindled  to  a  mere  bridle-path,  as  we  ad- 
vanced, and  the  scenery  grew  wild  and  barren.  The 
horses  were  all  sad  stumblers,  and  the  uneven  rocks 
gave  them  every  apology  for  coming  down  whenever 
they  could  forget  the  spur,  and  so  we  entered  the 
broad  and  green  valley  of  Yackerhem  (I  write  it  as  I 
heard  it  pronounced),  and  drew  up  at  the  door  of  a 
small  hovel,  serving  the  double  purpose  of  a  cafe  and 
a  guard-house. 

A  Turkish  officer  of  the  old  regime,  turbanned  and 
cross-legged,  and  armed  with  pistols  and  ataghan,  sat 
smoking  on  one  side  the  brazier  of  coals,  and  the 
cafejee  exercised  his  small  vocation  on  the  other.  Be- 
fore the  door,  a  raised  platform  of  greensward,  and  a 
marble  slab,  facing  toward  Mecca,  indicated  the  place 
for  prayer ;  and  a  dashing  rider  of  a  Turk,  who  had 
kept  us  company  from  Smyrna,  flying  past  us  and 
dropping  to  the  rear  alternately,  had  taken  off  his  slip- 
pers at  the  moment  we  arrived,  and  was  commencing 
his  noon  devotions. 

We  gathered  round  our  commissary's  saddle-bags, 
and  shocked  our  mussulman  friends,  by  producing  the 
unclean  beast*  and  the  forbidden  liquor,  which,  with 
the  delicious  Turkish  coffee,  never  belter  than  in  these 
wayside  hovels,  furnished  forth  a  traveller's  meal. 

*  Talking  of  hams,  two  of  the  sultan's  chief  eunuchs  ap- 
plied to  an  English  physician,  a  friend  of  mine,  at  Constan- 
tinople, to  accompany  them  on  board  the  American  frigate. 
I  engaged  to  wait  on  board  for  them  on  a  certain  day,  but 
they  did  not  make  their  appearance.  They  gave,  as  their 
apology,  that  they  could  not  defile  themselves  by  entering  a 
ship,  polluted  by  the  presence  of  that  unclean  animal,  the 
hog. 


PENCILLINGS  BY  THE  WAY. 


167 


LETTER  CVI. 

NATURAL  STATUE  OF  NIOBE — THE  THORN  OF  SYRIA  AND 
ITS  TRADITION APPROACH  TO  MAGNESIA HERED- 
ITARY RESIDENCE  OF  THE  FAMILY  OF  BEY-OGLOU — 
CHARACTER  OF  ITS  PRESENT   OCCUPANT— THE   TRUTH 

ABOUT    ORIENTAL     CARAVANSERAIS COMFORTS    AND 

APPLIANCES     THEY    YIELD    TO    TRAVELLERS FIGARO 

OF  THE  TURKS— THE  PILAW — MORNING  SCENE  AT 
THE  DEPARTURE — PLAYFUL  FAMILIARITY  OF  A  SOL- 
EMN OLD  TURK — MAGNIFICENT  PROSPECT  FROM 
MOUNT   CYPILUS. 

Threk  or  four  hours  more  of  hard  riding  brought 
us  to  a  long  glen,  opening  upon  the  broad  plains  of 
Lydia.  We  were  on  the  look-out  here  for  the  "  natu- 
ral statue  of  Niobe,"  spoken  of  by  the  ancient  writers 
as  visible  from  the  road  in  this  neighborhood;  but 
there  was  nothing  that  looked  like  her,  un.ess  she  vas, 
as  the  poet  describes  her,  a  "  Niobe,  all  tears,"  and 
runs  down  toward  the  Sarabat,  in  what  we  took  to  be 
only  a  very  pretty  mountain  rivulet.  It  served  for 
simple  fresh  water  to  our  volunteer  companion,  who 
darted  off  an  hour  before  sunset,  and  had  finished  his 
ablutions  and  prayers,  and  was  rising  from  his  knees  as 
we  overtook  him  upon  its  grassy  border.  Almost  the 
only  thing  that  grows  in  these  long  mountain  passes, 
is  the  peculiar  thorn  of  Syria,  said  to  be  the  same  of 
which  our  Savior's  crown  was  plaited.  It  differs  from 
the  common  species,  in  having  a  hooked  thorn  alter- 
nating with  the  straight,  adding  cruelly  to  its  power 
of  laceration.  It  is  remarkable  that  the  flower,  at  this 
season  withering  on  the  bush,  is  a  circular  golden- 
colored  leaf,  resembling  exactly  the  radiated  glory 
usually  drawn  around  the  heads  of  Christ  and  the 
Virgin. 

Amid  a  sunset  of  uncommon  splendor,  firing  every 
peak  of  the  opposite  range  of  hills  with  an  effulgent 
red,  and  filling  the  valley  between  with  an  atmosphere 
of  heavenly  purple,  we  descended  into  the  plain. 

Mount  Sijpilus,  in  whose  rocks  the  magnetic  ore  is 
said  to  have  been  first  discovered,  hung  over  us  in 
bold  precipices ;  and,  rounding  a  projecting  spur,  we 
came  suddenly  in  sight  of  the  minarets  and  cypresses 
of  Magnesia  (not  pronounced  as  if  written  in  an 
apothecary's  bill),  the  ancient  capital  of  the  Ottoman 
empire. 

On  the  side  of  the  ascent,  above  the  town,  we  ob- 
served a  large  isolated  mansion,  surrounded  with  a 
wall,  and  planted  about  with  noble  trees,  looking, 
with  the  exception  that  it  was  too  freshly  painted,  like 
one  of  the  fine  old  castle  palaces  of  Italy.  It  was 
something  very  extraordinary  for  the  east,  where  no 
man  builds  beyond  the  city  wall,  and  no  house  is 
very  much  larger  than  another.  It  was  the  hereditary 
residence,  we  afterward  discovered,  of  almost  the 
only  noble  family  in  Turkey — that  of  the  Bey-Oglou. 
You  will  recollect  Byron's  allusion  to  it  in  the  "Bride 
of  Abydos :" 

"  We  Moslem  reck  not  much  of  blood, 
But  yet  the  race  of  Karaisman, 
Unchanged,  unchangeable  hath  stood, 

First  of  the  bold  Timareot  bands 
Who  won,  and  well  can  keep,  their  lands  ; 
Enough  that  he  who  comes  to  woo 
Is  kinsman  of  the  Bey-Oglou." 
I  quote  from  memory,  perhaps  incorrectly. 

The  present  descendant  is  still  in  possession  of  the 
title,  and  is  said  to  be  a  liberal-minded  and  hospitable 
old  Turk,  of  the  ancient  and  better  school.  His  cam- 
els are  the  finest  that  come  into  Smyrna,  and  are  fa- 
mous for  their  beauty  and  appointments. 

Our  devout  companion  left  us  at  the  first  turning  in 
the  town,  laving  his  hand  to  his  breast  in  gratitude 
for  having  been  suffered  to  annoy  us  all  day  with  his 
brilliant  equitation,  and  we  stumbled  in  through  the 
increasing  shadows  of  twilight  to  the  caravanserai. 


It  is  very  possible  that  the  reader  has  but  a  slender 
conception  of  an  oriental  hotel.  Supposing  it,  at  least, 
from  the  inadequacy  of  my  own  previous  ideas,  I  shall 
allow  myself  a  little  particularity  in  the  description 
of  the  conveniences  which  the  travelling  Zuleikas  and 
Fatimas,  the  Maleks  and  Othmans,  of  eastern  story, 
encounter  in  their  romantic  journeys. 

It  was  near  the  farther  outskirt  of  the  large  city  of 
Magnesia  (the  accent,  I  repeat,  is  on  the  penult),  that 
we  found  the  way  encumbered  with  some  scores  of 
kneeling  camels,  announcing  our  vicinity  to  a  khan. 
A  large  wooden  building,  rather  off  its  perpendicular, 
with  a  great  many  windows,  but  no  panes  in  them,  and 
only  here  and  there  a  shutter  "hanging  by  the  eye- 
lids," presently  appeared,  and  entering  its  hospitable 
gateway,  which  had  neither  gate  nor  porter,  we  dis- 
mounted in  a  large  court,  lit  only  by  the  stars,  and 
pre-occupied  by  any  number  of  mules  and  horses 
An  inviting  staircase  led  to  a  gallery  encircling  the 
whoie  area,  from  which  opened  thirty  or  forty  small 
doors  ;  but,  though  we  made  as  much  noise  as  could 
be  expected  of  as  many  men  and  horses,  no  waiter 
looked  over  the  balustrade,  nor  maid  Cicely,  nor  Bon- 
iface, or  their  corresponding  representatives  in  Tur- 
key, invited  us  in.  The  suridjee  looked  to  his  horses, 
which  was  his  business,  and  to  look  to  ourselves  was 
ours  ;  though,  with  our  stiff  limbs  and  clamorous  ap- 
petites, we  set  about  it  rather  despairingly. 

The  Figaro  of  the  Turks  is  a  cafcjee,  who,  besides 
shaving,  making  coffee,  and  bleeding,  is  supposed  to 
be  capable  of  every  office  required  by  man.  He  is 
generally  a  Greek,  the  Mussulman  seldom  having 
sufficient  facility  of  character  for  the  vocation.  In  a 
few  minutes,  then,  the  nearest  Figaro  was  produced, 
who,  scarce  dissembling  his  surprise  at  the  improvi- 
dence of  travellers  who  went  about  without  pot  or 
kettle,  bag  of  rice  or  bottle  of  oil,  led  the  way  with 
his  primitive  lamp  to  our  apartment.  We  might  have 
our  choice  of  twenty.  Having  looked  at  the  other 
nineteen,  we  came  back  to  the  first,  reconciled  to  it 
by  sheer  force  of  comparison.  Of  its  two  windows, 
one  alone  had  a  shutter  that  would  fulfil  its  destiny. 
It  contained  neither  chair,  table,  nor  utensil  of  any 
description.  Its  floor  had  not  been  swept,  nor  its 
walls  whitewashed  since  the  days  of  Timour  the  Tar- 
tar. "Kalo!  Kalo!"  (Greek  for  you  will  be  very 
comfortable),  cried  our  commissary,  throwing  down 
some  old  mats  to  spread  our  carpets  upon.  But 
the  mats  were  alive  with  vermin,  and,  for  sweep- 
ing the  room,  the  dust  would  not  have  been  laid 
till  midnight.  So  we  threw  down  our  carpets  up- 
on the  floor,  and  driving  from  our  minds  the  too 
luxurious  thoughts  of  clean  straw,  and  a  corner 
in  a  warm  barn,  sat  down,  by  the  glimmer  of  a 
flaring  taper,  to  wait,  with  what  patience  we  might, 
for  a  chicken  still  breathing  freely  on  his  roost,  and 
turn  our  backs  as  ingeniously  as  possible  on  a  chilly 
December  wind,  that  came  in  at  the  open  window,  as 
if  it  knew  the  caravanserai  were* free  to  all  comers. 
There  is  but  one  circumstance  to  add  to  this  faithful 
description — and  it  is  one  which,  in  the  minds  of  ma- 
ny very  worthy  persons,  would  turn  the  scale  in  favor 
of  the  hotels  of  the  east,  with  all  their  disadvantages 
— there  was  nothing  to  pay  ! 

Ali  Bey,  in  his  travels,  predicts  the  fall  erf  the  Otto- 
man empire  from  the  neglected  state  of  the  khans; 
this  inattention  to  the  public  institutions  of  hospitali- 
ty, being  a  falling  away  from  the  leading  Mussulman 
virtue.  They  never  gave  the  traveller  more  than  a 
shelter,  however,  in  their  best  days  ;  and  to  enter  a 
cold,  unfurnished  room,  after  a  day's  hard  travel,  even 
if  the  floor  were  clean,  and  the  windows  would  shut, 
is  rather  comfortless.  Yet  such  is  eastern  travel,  and 
the  alternative  is  to  take  "  the  sky  for  a  great-coat, 
and  find  as  soft  a  stone  as  possible  foryour  pillow. 
We  gathered  around  our  pilaw,  which  came  in  the 


168 


PENCILLINGS  BY  THE  WAY. 


progress  of  time,  and  consisted  of  a  chicken,  buried 
in  a  handsomely-shaped  cone  of  rice  and  butter,  form- 
ing, with  a  large  crater-like  black  bowl  in  which  it 
stood,  the  cloud  of  smoke  issuing  from  its  peak,  and 
the  lava  of  butter  flowing  down  its  sides,  as  pretty  a 
miniature  Vesuvius,  as  you  would  find  in  a  modeller's 
window  in  the  Toledo.  Encouraging  that  sin  in 
Christians,  which  they  would  not  commit  themselves, 
they  brought  us  some  wine  of  the  country,  the  sin  of 
drinking  which,  one  would  think,  was  its  own  sufficient 
punishment.  With  each  a  wooden  spoon,  the  imme- 
diate and  only  means  of  communication  between  the 
dish  and  the  mouth,  we  soon  solved  the  doubtful 
problem  of  the  depth  of  the  crater,  and  then  casting 
lots  who  should  lie  next  the  window  to  take  off  the 
edge  of  the  December  blast,  we  improved  upon  some 
hints  taken  from  the  fig-packers  of  Smyrna,  and  with 
an  economy  of  exposed  surface,  which  can  only  be 
learned  by  travel,  disposed  ourselves  in  a  solid  body  to 
sleep. 

The  tinkling  of  the  camels'  bells  awoke  me  as  the 
day  was  breaking,  and  my  toilet  being  already  made, 
I  sprang  readily  up  and  descended  to  the  court  of  the 
caravanserai.  It  was  an  eastern  scene,  and  not  an  un- 
poetical  one.  The  patient  and  intelligent  camels  were 
kneeling  in  regular  ranks  to  receive  their  loads,  com- 
plaining in  a  voice  almost  human,  as  the  driver  flung 
the  heavy  bales  upon  the  saddles  too  roughly,  while 
the  small  donkey,  no  larger  than  a  Newfoundland 
dog,  leader  of  the  long  caravan,  took  his  place  at  the 
head  of  the  gigantic  file,  pricking  back  his  long  ears 
as  if  he  were  counting  his  spongy-footed  followers,  as 
they  fell  in  behind  him.  Here  and  there  knelt  six  or 
seven,  with  their  unsightly  humps  still  unburdened, 
eating  with  their  peculiar  deliberateness  from  small 
heaps  of  provender,  and  scattered  over  the  adjacent 
fields,  wandered  separately  the  caravan  of  some  indo- 
lent driver,  browsing  upon  the  shrubs,  and  looking  oc- 
casionally with  intelligent  expectation  toward  the 
khan,  for  the  appearance  of  their  tardy  master.  Over 
all  rose  the  mingled  music  of  the  small  bells,  with 
which  their  gay-covered  harness  was  profusely  cover- 
ed, varied  by  the  heavy  beat  of  the  larger  ones  borne 
at  the  necks  of  the  leading  and  last  camels  of  the  fde, 
while  the  retreating  sounds  of  the  caravans  already  on 
their  march,  came  in  with  the  softer  tones  which  com- 
pleted its  sweetness. 

In  a  short  time  my  companions  joined  me,  and  we 
started  for  a  walk  in  the  town.  The  necessity  of  at- 
tending the  daylight  prayers,  makes  all  Mussulmans 
early  risers,  and  we  found  the  streets  already  crowded, 
and  the  merchants  and  artificers  as  busy  as  at  noon. 
Turning  a  corner  to  get  out  of  the  way  of  a  row  of 
butchers,  who  were  slaughtering  sheep  revolting]}'  in 
front  of  their  stalls,  we  met  two  old  Turks  coming 
from  the  mosque,  one  of  whom,  with  the  familiarity 
of  manners  which  characterizes  the  nation,  took  from 
my  hand  a  stout  English  riding-whip  which  I  carried, 
and  began  to  exercise  it  on  the  bag-like  trousers  of 
his  friend.  After  amusing  himself  a  while  in  this 
manner,  he  returned  the  whip,  and,  patting  me  con- 
descendingly on  the  cheek,  gave  me  two  figs  from  his 
voluminous  pocket,  and  walked  on.  Considering  that 
I  stand  six  feet  in  my  stockings,  an  unwieldy  size,  you 
may  say,  for  a  pet,  this  freak  of  the  old  Magnesian 
would  seem  rather  extraordinary.  Yet  it  illustrates 
the  Turkish  manners,  which,  as  I  have  often  had  oc- 
casion to  notice,  are  a  singular  mixture  of  profound 
gravity  and  the  most  childish  simplicity. 

We  found  a  few  fine  old  marble  columns  in  the 
porches  of  the  mosques,  but  one  Turkish  town  is  just 
like  another,  and  after  an  hour  or  two  of  wandering 
about  among  the  wooden  houses  and  narrow  streets, 
we  returned  to  the  khan,  and,  with  a  cup  of  coffee, 
mounted  and  resumed  our  journey. 

I  have  never  seen  a  finer  plain  than  that  of  Magne- 


sia. With  an  even  breadth  of  seven  or  eight  miles, 
its  length  can  not  be  less  than  fifty  or  sixty,  and 
throughout  its  whole  extent  it  is  one  unbroken  picture 
of  fertile  field  and  meadow,  shut  in  by  two  lofty  ranges 
of  mountains,  and  watered  by  the  full  and  winding 
Hermus.  Without  fence,  and  almost  without  human 
habitation,  it  is  a  noble  expanse  to  the  eye,  possessing 
all  the  untrammelled  beauty  of  a  wilderness  without 
its  detracting  inutility.  It  is  literally  "  clothed  with 
flocks."  As  we  rode  on  under  the  eastern  brow  of 
Mount  Sypilus,  and  struck  out  more  into  the  open 
plain,  as  far  as  we  could  distinguish  by  the  eye,  spread 
the  snowy  sheep  in  hundreds,  at  merely  separating 
distances,  checkered  here  and  there  by  a  herd  of  the  tall 
jet-black  goats  of  the  east,  walking  onward  in  slow 
and  sober  procession,  with  the  solemn  state  of  a  fu- 
neral. The  road  was  lined  with  camels,  coming  into 
Smyrna  by  this  grand  highway  of  nature,  and  bring- 
ing all  the  varied  produce  of  Asia  Minor  to  barter  in 
its  busy  mart.  We  must  have  passed  a  thousand  in 
our  day's  journey. 


LETTER  CVII. 

THE  EYE  OF  THE  CAMEL — ROCKY  SEPULCHRES — VIR- 
TUE OF  AN  OLD  PASSPORT,  BACKED  BY  IMPUDENCE 
TEMPLE  OF  CYBELE — PALACE  OF  CROESUS — AN- 
CIENT  CHURCH   OF    SARDIS — RETURN   TO   SMYRNA. 

Unsightly  as  the  camel  is,  with  its  long  snaky 
neck,  its  frightful  hump,  and  its  awkward  legs  and  ac- 
tion, it  wins  much  upon  your  kindness  with  a  little 
acquaintance.  Its  eye  is  exceedingly  fine.  There  is 
a  lustrous,  suffused  softness  in  the  large  hazel  orb  that 
is  the  rarest  beauty  in  a  human  eye,  and  so  remarka- 
ble is  this  feature  in  the  camel,  that  I  wonder  it  has 
never  fallen  into  use  as  a  poetical  simile.  They  do 
not  shun  the  gaze  of  man  like  other  animals,  and  I 
pleased  myself  often  when  the  suridjee  slackened  his 
pace,  with  riding  close  to  some  returning  caravan,  and 
exchanging  steady  looks  in  passing  with  the  slow-pa- 
ced camels.  It  was  like  meeting  the  eye  of  a  kind  old 
man. 

The  face  of  Mount  Sypilus,  in  its  whole  extent,  is 
excavated  into  sepulchres.  They  are  mostly  ancient, 
and  form  a  very  singular  feature  in  the  scenery.  A 
range  of  precipices,  varying  from  one  to  three  hundred 
feet  in  height,  is  perforated  for  twenty  miles  with  these 
airy  depositories  for  the  dead,  many  of  them  a  hun- 
dred feet  from  the  plain.  Occasionally  they  are  ex- 
tended to  considerable  caves,  hewn  with  great  labor  in 
the  rock,  and  probably  from  their  numerous  niches, 
intended  as  family  sepulchres.  They  are  now  the 
convenient  eyries  of  great  numbers  of  eagles,  which 
circle  continually  around  the  summits,  and  poise 
themselves  on  the  wing  along  the  sides  of  these  lone- 
ly mountains,  in  undisturbed  security. 

We  arrived  early  in  the  afternoon  at  Casabar,  a 
pretty  town  at  the  foot  of  Mount  Tmolus.  Having 
eaten  a  melon,  the  only  thing  for  which  the  place  is 
famous,  we  proposed  to  go  on  to  Achmet-lee,  some 
three  hours  farther.  The  suridjee,  however,  whose 
horses  were  hired  by  the  day,  had  made  up  his  mind 
to  sleep  at  Casabar,  and  so  we  were  at  issue.  Our 
stock  of  Turkish  was  soon  exhausted,  and  the  haji' 
was  coolly  unbuckling  the  girths  of  the  baggage- 
horse  without  condescending  even  to  answer  our  ap- 
peal with  a  look.  The  mussulman  idlers  of  the  cafe 
opposite,  took  their  pipes  from  their  mouths  and 
smiled.  The  gay  cqfejee  went  about  his  arrangements 
for  our  accommodation,  quite  certain  that  we  were 
there  for  the  night.  I  had  given  up  the  point  myself, 
when  one  of  my  companions,  with  a  look  of  the  most 


PENCILLINGS  BY  THE  WAY. 


169 


confident  triumph,  walked  up  to  the  suridjee,  and  tap- 
ping him  on  the  shoulder,  held  before  his  eyes  a  paper 
with  the  seal  of  the  pacha  of  Smyrna  in  broad  char- 
acters at  the  top.  After  the  astonished  Turk  had 
looked  at  it  for  a  moment,  he  commenced  in  good 
round  English,  and  poured  upon  him  a  volume  of  in- 
coherent rhapsody,  slapping  the  paper  violently  with 
his  hand  and  pointing  to  the  road.  The  effect  was  in- 
stantaneous. The  girth  was  hastily  rebuckled,  and 
the  frightened  suridjee  put  his  hand  to  his  head  in  to- 
ken of  submission,  mounted  in  the  greatest  hurry  and 
rode  out  of  the  court  of  the  caravanserai.  The  cafe- 
jee  made  his  salaam,  and  the  spectators  wished  us  re- 
spectfully a  good  journey.  The  magic  paper  was  an 
old  passport,  and  our  friend  had  calculated  securely  on 
the  natural  dread  of  the  incomprehensible,  quite  sure 
that  there  was  not  more  than  one  man  in  the  village 
that  could  read,  and  none  short  of  Smyrna  who  could 
understand  his  English. 

The  plain  between  Casabar  and  Achmet-lee,  is  quite 
a  realization  of  poetry.  It  is  twelve  miles  of  soft, 
bright  green-sward,  broken  only  with  clumps  of  luxu- 
riant oleanders,  an  occasional  cluster  of  the  "  black 
tents  of  Kedar"  with  their  flocks  about  them,  and  here 
and  there  a  loose  and  grazing  camel  indolently  lifting 
his  broad  foot  from  the  grass  as  if  he  felt  the  coolness 
and  verdure  to  its  spongy  core.  One's  heart  seems 
to  stay  behind  as  he  rides  onward  through  such 
places. 

The  village  of  Achmet-lee  consists  of  a  coffee- 
house with  a  single  room.  We  arrived  about  sunset, 
and  found  the  fireplace  surrounded  by  six  or  seven 
Turks  squatted  on  their  hams,  travellers  like  ourselves, 
who  had  arrived  before  us.  There  was  fortunately  a 
second  fireplace,  which  was  soon  blazing  with  fagots 
of  fir  and  oleander,  and  with  a  pilaw  between  us,  we 
crooked  our  tired  legs  under  us  on  the  earthen  floor, 
and  made  ourselves  as  comfortable  as  a  total  absence 
of  every  comfort  would  permit.  The  mingled  smoke 
of  tobacco  and  the  chimney  drove  me  out  of  doors  as 
soon  as  our  greasy  meal  was  finished,  and  the  con- 
trast was  enough  to  make  one  in  love  with  nature. 
The  moon  was  quite  full,  and  pouring  her  light  down 
through  the  transparent  and  dazzling  sky  of  the  east 
with  indescribable  splendor.  The  fires  of  twenty  or 
thirty  caravans  were  blazing  in  the  fields  around,  and 
the  low  cries  of  the  camels  and  the  hum  of  voices 
from  the  various  groups,  were  mingled  with  the  sound 
of  a  stream  that  came  noisily  down  its  rocky  chan- 
nel from  the  nearest  spur  of  Mount  Tmolus.  I  walk- 
ed up  and  down  the  narrow  camel-path  till  midnight ; 
and  if  the  kingly  spirits  of  ancient  Lydia  did  not  keep 
me  company  in  the  neighborhood  of  their  giant  graves, 
it  was  perhaps  because  the  feet  that  trod  down  their 
ashes  came  from  a  world  of  which  Croesus  and  Abyat- 
tis  never  heard.  •» 

The  sin  of  late  rising  is  seldom  chargeable  upon  an 
earthen  bed,  and  we  were  in  the  saddle  by  sunrise, 
breathing  an  air  that,  after  our  smoky  cabin,  was  like 
a  spice-wind  from  Arabia.  Winding  round  the  base 
of  the  chain  of  mountains  which  we  had  followed  for 
twenty  or  thirty  miles,  we  ascended  a  little,  after  a 
brisk  trot  of  two  or  three  hours,  and  came  in  sight  of 
the  citadel  of  ancient  Sardis,  perched  like  an  eagle's 
nest  on  the  summit  of  a  slender  rock.  A  natural  ter- 
race, perhaps  a  hundred  feet  above  the  plain,  expand- 
ed from  the  base  of  the  hill,  and  this  was  the  com- 
manding site  of  the  capital  of  Lydia.  Dividing  us 
from  it  ran  the  classic  and  "  golden-sanded"  Pactolus, 
descending  from  the  mountains  in  a  small,  narrow  val- 
ley, covered  with  a  verdure  so  fresh,  that  it  requires 
some  power  of  fancy  to  realize  that  a  crowded  empire 
ever  swarmed  on  its  borders.  Crossing  the  small, 
bright  stream,  we  rode  along  the  other  bank,  winding 
up  its  ascending  curve,  and  dismounted  at  the  ruins 
of  the  temple  of  Cybele,  a  heap  of  gigantic  frag- 


ments strewn  confusedly  over  the  earth,  with  two  ma- 
jestic columns  rising  lone  and  beautiful  into  the  air. 

A.  Dutch  artist,  who  was  of  our  party,  spread  his 
drawing-board  and  pencils  upon  one  of  the  fallen 
Ionic  capitals,  the  suridjee  tied  his  horses'  heads  to- 
gether, and  laid  himself  at  his  length  upon  the  grass, 
and  the  rest  of  us  ascended  the  long  steep  hill  to  the 
citadel.  With  some  loss  of  breath,  and  a  battle  with 
the  dogs  of  a  gipsy  encampment,  hidden  so  as  almost 
to  be  invisible  among  the  shrubbery  of  the  hill-side, 
we  stood  at  last  upon  a  peak,  crested  with  one  totter- 
ing remnant  of  a  wall,  the  remains  of  a  castle  whose 
foundations  have  crumbled  beneath  it.  It  looks  as  if 
the  next  rain  must  send  the  whole  mass  into  the  valley. 
It  puzzled  my  unmihtary  brain  to  conceive  how 
Alexander  and  his  Macedonians  climbed  these  airy 
precipices,  if  taking  the  citadel  was  a  part  of  his  con- 
quest of  Lydia.  The  fortifications  in  the  rear  have  a 
sheer  descent  from  their  solid  walls  of  two  or  three 
hundred  perpendicular  feet,  with  scarce  a  vine  cling- 
ing by  the  way.  I  left  my  companions  discussing  the 
question,  and  walked  to  the  other  edge  of  the  hill, 
overlooking  the  immense  plains  below.  The  tumuli 
which  mark  the  sepulchres  of  the  kings  of  Lydia,  rose 
like  small  hills  on  the  opposite  and  distant  bank  of  the 
Hermus.  The  broad  fields,  which  were  once  the 
"wealth  of  Crcesus,"  lay  still  fertile  and  green  along 
the  banks  of  their  historic  river.  Thyatira  and  Phila- 
delphia were  almost  within  reach  of  my  eye,  and  I 
stood  upon  Sardis — in  the  midst  of  the  sites  of  the 
Seven  Churches.  Below  lay  the  path  of  the  myriad 
armies  of  Persia,  on  their  march  to  Greece  ;  here 
Alexander  pitched  his  tents  after  the  battle  of  Grani- 
cus,  wiling  away  the  winter  in  the  lap  of  captive 
Lydia  :  and  over  the  small  ruin  just  discernible  on  the 
southern  bank  of  the  Pactolus,  "  the  angel  of  the 
church  of  Sardis"  brooded  with  his  protecting  wings 
till  the  few  who  had  "  not  defiled  their  garments,"  were 
called  to  "  walk  in  white,"  in  the  promised  reward  of 
the  apocalypse. 

We  descended  again  to  the  temple  of  Cybele,  and 
mounting  our  horses,  rode  down  to  the  palace  of 
Crcesus.  Parts  of  the  outer  walls,  the  bases  of  the 
portico,  and  the  marble  steps  of  an  inner  court,  are  all 
that  remain  of  the  splendor  that  Solon  was  called  upon 
in  vain  to  admire.  With  the  permission  of  six  or 
seven  storks,  whose  coarse  nests  were  built  upon  the 
highest  points  of  the  ruins,  we  selected  the  broadest 
of  the  marble  blocks,  lying  in  the  deserted  area,  and 
spreading  our  traveller's  breakfast  upon  it,  forgot  even 
the  kingly  builder  in  our  well-earned  appetites. 

There  are  three  parallel  walls  remaining  of  the  an- 
cient church  of  Sardis.  They  stand  on  a  gentle  slope, 
just  above  the  edge  of  the  Pactolus,  and  might  easily 
be  rebuilt  into  a  small  chapel,  with  only  the  materials 
within  them.  There  are  many  other  ruins  on  the  site 
of  the  city,  but  none  designated  by  a  name.  We  loi- 
tered about,  collecting  relics,  and  indulging  our  fan- 
cies, till  the  suridjee  reminded  us  of  the  day's  journey 
before  us,  and  with  a  drink  from  the  Pactolus,  and  a 
farewell  look  at  the  beautiful  Ionic  columns  standing 
on  its  lonely  bank,  we  put  spurs  to  our  horses  and  gal- 
loped once  more  down  into  the  valley. 

Our  Turkish  saddles  grew  softer  on  the  third  day's 
journey,  and  we  travelled  more  at  ease.  I  found  the 
freedom  and  solitude  of  the  wide  and  unfenced  coun- 
try growing  at  every  mile  more  upon  my  liking.  The 
heart  expands  as  one  gives  his  horse  the  rein  and  gal- 
lops over  these  wild  paths  without  toll-gate  or  obsta- 
cle. I  can  easily  understand  the  feeling  of  Ali  Bey 
on  his  return  to  Europe  from  the  east. 

Our  fourth  day's  journey  lay  through  the  valley  be- 
tween Tmolus  and  Semering — the  fairest  portion  of 
the  dominion  of  Timour  the  Tartar.  How  graceful- 
ly shaped  were  those  slopes  to  the  mountains  !  How 
bright  the  rivers  !     How  green  the  banks!     How  like 


170 


PENCILLINGS  BY  THE  WAY. 


a  new  created  and  still  unpeopled  world  it  seemed, 
with  every  tree  and  flower  and  fruit  the  perfect  model 
of  its  kind  ! 

Leaving  the  secluded  village  of  Nymphi  nested  in 
the  mountains  on  our  left,  as  we  approached  the  end 
of  our  circuitous  journey,  we  entered  early  in  the  af- 
ternoon the  long  plains  of  Hadjilar,  and  with  tired 
horses  and  (malgre  romance)  and  an  agreeable  antici- 
pation of  Christian  beds  and  supper,  we  dismounted 
in  Smyrna  at  sunset. 


LETTER  CVIII. 

SMYRNA — CHARMS     OF   ITS     SOCIETY — HOSPITALITY    OF 

FOREIGN     RESIDENTS THE     MARINA — THE     CASINO 

A  NARROW  ESCAPE  FROM  THE  PLAGUE— DEPARTURE 
OF  THE  FRIGATE HIGH  CHARACTER  OF  THE  AMER- 
ICAN NAVY— A  TRIBUTE  OF  RESPECT  AND  GRATI- 
TUDE— THE   FAREWELL. 

What  can  I  say  of  Smyrna?  Its  mosques  and 
bazars  scarce  deserve  description  after  those  of  Con- 
stantinople. It  has  neither  pictures,  scenery,  nor  any 
peculiarities  of  costume  or  manners.  There  are  no 
"  lions"  here.  It  is  only  one  of  the  most  agreeable 
places  in  the  world,  exactly  the  sort  of  thing,  that 
(without  compelling  private  individuals  to  sit  for  their 
portraits),*  is  the  least  describable.  Of  the  fortnight 
of  constant  pleasure  that  I  have  passed  here,  I  do  not 
well  know  how  I  can  eke  out  half  a  page  that  would 
amuse  you. 

The  society  of  Smyrna  has  some  advantages  over 
that  of  any  other  city  I  have  seen.  It  is  composed 
entirely  of  the  families  of  merchants,  who,  separated 
from  the  Turkish  inhabitants,  occupy  a  distinct  quar- 
ter of  the  town,  are  responsible  only  to  their  consuls, 
and  having  no  nobility  above,  and  none  but  dependants 
below  them,  live  in  a  state  of  cordial  republican  equal- 
ity that  is  not  found  even  in  America.  They  are  of 
all  nations,  and  the  principal  languages  of  Europe  are 
spoken  by  everybody.  Hospitality  is  carried  to  an 
extent  more  like  the  golden  age  than  these  "  days  of 
iron ;"  and,  as  a  necessary  result  of  the  free  mixture 
of  languages  and  feelings,  there  is  a  degree  of  infor- 
mation and  liberality  of  "sentiment  among  them,  uni- 
ted to  a  free  and  joyous  tone  of  manners  and  habits  of 
living,  that  is  quite  extraordinary  in  men  of  their  care- 
fraught  profession.  Our  own  country,  I  am  proud  to 
say,  is  most  honorably  represented.  There  is  no  trav- 
eller to  the  east,  of  any  nation,  who  does  not  carry 
away  with  him  from  Smyrna,  grateful  recollections  of 
one  at  least  whose  hospitality  is  as  open  as  his  gate. 
This  living  over  warehouses  of  opium,  I  am  inclined 
to  think,  is  healthy  for  the  heart. 

After  having  seen  the  packing  of  figs,  wondered  at 
the  enormous  burdens  carried  by  the  porters,  ridden 
to  Bougiar  and  the  castle  on  the  hill,  and  admired  the 
caravan  of  the  Bey-Oglou,  whose  camels  are  the 
handsomest  that  come  into  Smyrna,  one  has  nothing 
to  do  but  dine,  dance,  and  walk  on  the  Marina.  The 
last  is  a  circumstance  the  traveller  does  well  not  to 
miss.     A  long  street  extends  along  the  bay,  lined  with 

*  A  courteous  old  traveller,  of  the  last  century,  whose  book 
I  have  somewhere  fallen  in  with,  indulges  his  recollections 
of  Smyrna  with  less  scruples,  "  Mrs.  B.,"  he  says,  "  who 
has  travelled  a  great  deal,  is  mistress  of  both  French  and 
Italian.  The  Misses  W.  are  all  amiable  young  ladies.  A 
Miss  A.,  whose  name  is  expressive  of  the  passion  she  inspires, 
without  being  beautiful,  possesses  a  je  ne  seals  quoi,  which 
fascinates  more  than  beauty  itself.  Not  to  love  her,  one 
must  never  have  seen  her.  And  who  would  not  be  captivated 
by  the  vivacity  of  Miss  B.?"  How  charming  thus  to  go 
about  the  world,  describing  the  fairest  of  its  wonders,  instead 
of  stupid  mountains  and  rivers  ! 


the  houses  of  the  rich  merchants  of  the  town,  and  for 
the  two  hours  before  sunset,  every  family  is  to  be  seen 
sitting  outside  its  door  upon  the  public  pavement, 
while  beaux  and  belles  stroll  up  and  down  in  all  the 
gayety  of  perpetual  holyday.  They  are  the  most  out- 
of-doors  people,  the  Smyrniotes,  that  I  have  ever  seen. 
And  one  reason  perhaps  is,  that  they  have  a  beauty 
which  has  nothing  to  fear  from  the  daylight.  The 
rich,  classic,  glowing  faces  of  the  Greeks,  the  paler 
and  livelier  French,  the  serious  and  impassioned  Ital- 
ian, the  blooming  English,  and  the  shrinking  and  fra- 
gile American,  mingle  together  in  this  concourse  of 
grace  and  elegance  like  the  varied  flowers  in  the  gar- 
den. I  would  match  Smyrna  against  the  world  for 
beauty.  And  then  such  sociability,  such  primitive 
cordiality  of  manners  as  you  find  among  them  !  It  is 
quite  a  Utopia.  You  would  think  that  little  republic 
of  merchants,  separate  from  the  Christian  world  on  a 
heathen  shore,  had  commenced  cle  novo,  from  Eden — 
ignorant  as  yet  of  jealousy,  envy,  suspicion,  and 
the  other  ingredients  with  which  the  old  world  min- 
gles up  its  refinements.  It  is  a  very  pleasant  place, 
Smyrna ! 

The  stranger,  on  his  arrival,  is  immediately  introdu- 
ced to  the  Casino — a  large  palace,  supported  by  the 
subscription  of  the  residents,  containing  a  reading- 
room,  furnished  with  all  the  gazettes  and  reviews  of 
Europe,  a  ball-room  frequently  used,  a  coftee-room 
whence  the  delicious  mocha  is  brought  to  you  when- 
ever you  enter,  billiard-tables,  card-rooms,  etc.,  etc. 
The  merchants  are  all  members,  and  any  member  can 
introduce  a  stranger,  and  give  him  all  the  privileges 
of  the  place  during  his  stay  in  the  city.  It  is  a  cour- 
tesy that  is  not  a  little  drawn  upon.  English,  French, 
and  American  ships-of-war  are  almost  always  in  the 
port,  and  the  officers  are  privileged  guests.  Every 
traveller  to  the  east  passes  by  Smyrna,  and  there  are 
always  numbers  at  the  Casino.  In  fact,  the  hospitali- 
ty of  this  kindest  of  cities,  has  not  the  usual  demerit 
of  being  rarely  called  upon.  It  seems  to  have  grown 
with  the  demand  for  it. 


Idling  away  the  time  very  agreeably  at  Smyrna, 
waiting  for  a  vessel  to  go — I  care  not  where.  I  have 
offered  myself  as  a  passenger  in  the  first  ship  that 
sails.  I  rather  lean  toward"  Palestine  and  Egypt,  but 
there  are  no  vessels  for  Jaffa  or  Alexandria.  A  brig, 
crowded  with  hajjis  to  Jerusalem,  sailed  on  the  first 
day  of  my  arrival  at  Smyrna,  and  I  was  on  the  point 
of  a  hasty  embarkation,  when  my  good  angel,  in  the 
shape  of  a  sudden  caprice,  sent  me  off  to  Sardis.  The 
plague  broke  out  on  board  immediately  on  leaving  the 
port,  and  nearly  the  whole  ship's  company  perished  at 
sea! 

There  are  plenty  of  vessels  bound  to  Trieste  and 
the  United  States,  but  there  would  be  nothing  new  to 
me  in  lllyria  and  Lombardy  ;  and  much  as  I  love  my 
country,  I  am  more  enamored  for  the  present  of  my 
"  sandal-shoon."  Besides,  I  have  a  yearning  to  the 
south,  and  the  cold  "  Bora"  of  that  bellows-like  Adri- 
atic, and  the  cutting  winter  winds  of  my  native  shore, 
chill  me  even  in  the  thought.  Meantime  I  breathe  an 
air  borrowed  by  December  of  May,  and  sit  with  my 
windows  open,  warming  myself  in  a  broad  beam  of 
the  soft  sun  of  Asia.  With  such  "  appliances,"  even 
suspense  is  agreeable. 


The  commodore  sailed  this  morning  for  his  winter 
quarters  in  Minorca.  I  watched  the  ship's  prepara- 
tions for  departure  from  the  balcony  of  the  hotel,  with 
a  heavy  heart.  Her  sails  dropped  from  the  yards,  her 
head  turned  slowly  outward  as  the  anchor  brought 
away,  and  with  a  light  breeze  in  her  topsails  the  gal- 
lant frigate  moved  majestically  down  the  harbor,  and 


PENC1LLINGS  BY  THE  WAY. 


171 


in  an  hour  was  a  speck  on  the  horizon.  She  had 
been  my  home  for  more  than  six  months.  T  had  seen 
from  her  deck,  and  visited  in  her  boats  some  of  the 
fairest  portions  of  the  world.  She  had  borne  me  to 
Cicily,  to  Illyria,  to  the  Isles  and  shores  of  Greece,  to 
Marmora  and  the  Bosphorus,  and  the  thousand  lovely 
pictures  with  which  that  long  summer  voyage  had 
stored  my  memory,  and  the  thousand  adventures  and 
still  more  numerous  kindnesses  and  courtesies,  linked 
with  these  interesting  scenes,  crowded  on  my  mind  as 
the  noble  ship  receded  from  my  eye,  with  an  emotion 
that  I  could  not  repress. 

There  is  a  "pomp  and  circumstance"  about  a  man- 
of-war,  which  is  exceedingly  fascinating.  Her  impo- 
sing structure  and  appearance,  the  manly  and  deferen- 
tial etiquette,  the  warlike  appointment  and  impressive 
order  upon  her  decks,  the  ready  and  gallantly  manned 
boat,  the  stirring  music  of  the  band,  and  the  honor 
and  attention  with  which  her  officers  are  received  in 
every  port,  conspire  in  keeping  awake  an  excitement, 
a  kind  of  chivalrous  elation,  which,  it  seems  to  me, 
would  almost  make  a  hero  of  a  man  of  straw.  From 
the  hoarse  "  seven  bells,  sir !"  with  which  you  are 
turned  out  of  your  hammock  in  the  morning,  to  the 
blast  of  the  bugle  and  the  report  of  the  evening 
gun,  it  is  one  succession  of  elevating  sights  and 
sounds,  without  any  of  that  approach  to  the  ridicu- 
lous which  accompanies  the  sublime  or  the  impres- 
sive on  shore. 

From  the  comparisons  I  have  made  between  our 
own  and  the  ships-of-war  of  other  nations,  I  think  we 
may  well  be  proud  of  our  navy.  I  had  learned  in  Eu- 
rope, long  before  joining  the  "United  States,"  that 
the  respect  we  exact  from  foreigners  is  paid  more  to 
Americans  afloat,  than  to  a  continent  they  think  as  far 
oil  at  least  as  the  moon,  They  see  our  men-of-war, 
*nd  they  know  very  well  what  they  have  done,  and 
from  the  appearance  and  character  of  our  officers, 
what  they  might  do  again — and  there  is  a  tangibility 
in  the  deductions  from  knowledge  and  eyesight,  which 
beats  books  and  statistics.  I  have  heard  Englishmen 
deny,  one  by  one,  every  claim  we  have  to  political  and 
moral  superiority  ;  but  I  have  found  no  one  illiberal 
enough  to  refuse  a  compliment,  and  a  handsome  one, 
to  Yankee  ships, 

I  consider  myself,  I  repeat,  particularly  fortunate  to 
have  made  a  cruise  on  board  an  American  frigate. 
It  is  a  chapter  of  observation  in  itself,  which  is  worth 
much  to  any  one.  But,  in  addition  to  this,  it  was  my 
good  fortune  to  have  happened  upon  a  cruise  directed 
by  a  mind  full  of  taste  and  desire  for  knowledge,  and 
a  cruise  which  had  for  its  principal  objects  improve- 
ment and  information.  Commodore  Patterson  knew 
'he  ground  well,  and  was  familiar  with  the  history  and 
localities  of  the  interesting  countries  visited  by  the 
ship,  and  every  possible  facility  and  encouragement 
was  given  by  him  to  all  to  whom  the  subjects  and  pla- 
ces were  new.  An  enlightened  and  enterprising  trav- 
eller himself,  he  was  the  best  of  advisers  and  the  best 
and  kindest  of  guides.  I  take  pleasure  in  recording 
almost  unlimited  obligations  to  him. 

And  so,  to  the  gallant  ship — to  the  "  warlike  world 
within" — to  the  decks  I  have  so  often  promenaded,  and 
the  moonlight  watches  I  have  so  often  shared — to  the 
groups  of  manly  faces  I  have  learned  to  know  so  well 
— to  the  drum-beat  and  the  bugle-call,  and  the  stir- 
ring music  of  the  band — to  the  hammock  in  which  I 
swung  and  slept  so  soundly,  and  last  and  nearest  my 
heart,  to  the  gay  and  hospitable  mess  with  whom  for 
six  happy  months  I  have  been  a  guest  and  a  friend, 
whose  feelings  I  have  learned  but  to  honor  my  country 
more,  and  whose  society  has  become  to  me  even  a 
painful  want — to  all  this  catalogue  of  happiness,  I  am 
bidding  a  heavy-hearted  farewell.  Luck  and  Heaven's 
blessing  to  ship  and  company  ! 


LETTER  CIX. 

RETURN    TO  ITALY BOLOGNA MALIBRAN PARMA 

NIGHTINGALES    OF  LOMBARDY FIACENZA AUSTRI- 
AN SOLOIERS — THESIMPLON — MILAN — RESEMBLANCE 

TO    PARIS THE    CATHEDRAL GUERCINO'S  HAGAR 

MILANESE    COFFEE. 

Milan. — My  fifth  journey  over  the  Apennines — dull 
of  course.  On  the  second  evening  we  were  at  Bo 
logna.  The  long  colonnades  pleased  me  less  than  be 
fore,  with  their  crowds  of  foreign  officers  and  ill- 
dressed  inhabitants,  and  a  placard  for  the  opera, 
announcing  Malibran's  last  night,  relieved  us  of  the 
prospect  of  a  long  evening  of  weariness.  The  divine 
music  of  La  Norma  and  a  crowded  and  brilliant  au- 
dience, enthusiastic  in  their  applause,  seemed  to  in- 
spire this  still  incomparable  creature  even  beyond  her 
wont.  She  sang  with  a  fulness,  an  abandonment,  a 
passionate  energy  and  sweetness  that  seemed  to  come 
from  a  soul  rapt  and  possessed  beyond  control,  with 
the  melody  it  had  undertaken.  They  were  never  done 
calling  her  on  the  stage  after  the  curtain  had  fallen. 
After  six  reappearances,  she  came  out  once  more  to 
the  footlights,  and  murmuring  something  inaudible 
from  her  lips  that  showed  strong  agitation,  she  pressed 
her  hands  together,  bowed  till  her  long  hair,  falling 
over  her  shoulders,  nearly  touched  her  feet,  and  re- 
tired in  tears.     She  is  the  siren  of  Europe  for  me! 

I  was  happy  to  have  no  more  to  do  with  the  Duke 
of  Modena,  than  to  eat  a  dinner  in  his  capital.  We 
did  "  not  forget  the  picture,"  but  my  inquiries  for  it 
were  as  fruitless  as  before.  I  wonder  whether  the  au- 
thor of  the  Pleasures  of  Memory  has  the  pleasure  of 
remembering  having  seen  the  picture  himself!  "  Tas- 
soni's  bucket  which  is  not  the  true  one,"  is  still  shown 
in  the  tower,  and  the  keeper  will  kiss  the  cross  upon 
his  fingers,  that  Samuel  Rogers  has  written  a  false  line. 

At  Parma  we  ate  parmesan  and  saw  the  Correggio. 
The  angel  who  holds  the  book  up  to  the  infant  Sa- 
vior, the  female  laying  her  cheek  to  his  feet,  the 
countenance  of  the  holy  child  himself,  are  creations 
that  seem  apart  from  all  else  in  the  schools  of  paint- 
ing. They  are  like  a  group,  not  from  life,  but  from 
heaven.  They  are  superhuman,  and,  unlike  other 
pictures  of  beauty  which  stir  the  heart  as  if  they  re- 
sembled something  one  had  loved  or  might  have  loved, 
these  mount  into  the  fancy  like  things  transcending 
sympathy,  and  only  within  reach  of  an  intellectual 
and  elevated  wonder.  This  is  the  picture  that  Sir 
Thomas  Lawrence  returned  six  times  in  one  day  to 
see.  It  is  the  only  thing  I  saw  to  admire  in  thedutchy 
of  Maria  Louisa.  An  Austrian  regiment  marched  in- 
to the  town  as  we  left  it,  and  an  Italian  at  the  gate  told 
us  that  the  dutchess  had  disbanded  her  last  troops  of 
the  country,  and  supplied  their  place  with  these  yel- 
low and  black  Croats  and  Illyrians.  Italy  is  Austria 
now  to  the  foot  of  the  Apennines — if  not  to  the  top 
of  Radicofani. 

Lombardy  is  full  of  nightingales.  They  sing  by 
day,  however  (as  not  specified  in  poetry).  They  are 
up  quite  as  early  as  the  lark,  and  the  green  hedges  are 
alive  with  their  gurgling  and  changeful  music  till 
twilight.  Nothing  can  exceed  the  fertility  of  these 
endless  plains.  They  are  four  or  five  hundred  miles 
of  uninterrupted  garden.  The  same  eternal  level 
road,  the  same  rows  of  elms  and  poplars  on  either  side, 
the  same  long,  slimy  canals,  the  same  square,  vine- 
laced,  perfectly  green  pastures  and  cornfields,  the  same 
shaped  houses,  the  same-voiced  beggars  with  the  same 
sing-song  whine,  and  the  same  villanous  Austrians 
poring  over  your  passports  and  asking  to  be  paid  for 
it,  from  the  Alps  to  the  Apennines.  It  is  wearisome, 
spite  of  green  leaves  and  nightingales.  A  bare  rock 
or  a  good  brigand-looking  mountain  would  so  refresh 
the  eye  ! 


172 


PENCILLINGS  BY  THE  WAY. 


At  Piacenza,  one  of  those  admirable  German  bands 
was  playing  in  the  public  square,  while  a  small  corps 
of  picked  men  were  manoeuvred.  Even  an  Italian,  I 
should  think,  though  he  knew  and  felt  it  was  the  mu- 
sic of  his  oppressors,  might  have  been  pleased  to  lis- 
ten. And  pleased  they  seemed  to  be — for  there  were 
hundreds  of  dark-haired  and  well-made  men,  with 
faces  and  forms  for  heroes,  standing  and  keeping  time 
to  the  well-played  instruments,  as  peacefully  as  if 
there  were  no  such  thing  as  liberty,  and  no  meaning 
in  the  foreign  uniforms  crowding  them  from  their  own 
pavement.  And  there  were  the  women  of  Piacenza, 
nodding  from  the  balconies  to  the  white  mustaches 
and  padded  coats  strutting  below,  and  you  would  nev- 
er dream  Italy  thought  herself  wronged,  watching  the 
exchange  of  courtesies  between  her  dark-eyed  daugh- 
ters and  these  fair-haired  coxcombs. 

We  crossed  the  Po,  and  entered  Austria's  nominal 
dominions.  They  rummaged  our  baggage  as  if  they 
smelt  republicanism  somewhere,  and  after  showing 
a  strong  disposition  to  retain  a  volume  of  very  bad 
poetry  as  suspicious,  and  detaining  us  two  long  hours, 
they  had  the  modesty  to  ask  to  be  paid  for  letting  us 
off  lightly.  When  we  declined  it,  the  chef  threatened 
us  a  precious  searching  "the  next  time.'''  How  wil- 
lingly I  would  submit  to  the  annoyance  to  have  that 
next  time  assured  to  me  !  Every  step  I  take  toward 
the  bounds  of  Italy,  pulls  so  upon  my  heart ! 

As  most  travellers  come  into  Italy  over  the  Simplon, 
Milan  makes  generally  the  first  enthusiastic  chapter 
in  their  books.  I  have  reversed  the  order  myself,  and 
have  a  better  right  to  praise  it  from  comparison.  For 
exterior,  there  is  certainly  no  city  in  Italy  comparable 
to  it.  The  streets  are  broad  and  noble,  the  buildings 
magnificent,  the  pavement  quite  the  best  in  Europe, 
and  the  Milanese  (all  of  whom  I  presume  I  have  seen, 
for  it  is  Sunday,  and  the  streets  swarm  with  them),  are 
better  dressed,  and  look  "  better  to  do  in  the  world" 
than  the  Tuscans,  who  are  gayer  and  more  Italian, 
and  the  Romans,  who  are  graver  and  vastly  handsom- 
er. Milan  is  quite  like  Paris.  The  showy  and  mir- 
ror-lined cafes,  the  elegant  shops,  the  variety  of  strange 
people  and  costumes,  and  a  new  gallery  lately  opened 
in  imitation  of  the  glass-roofed  passages  of  the  French 
capital,  make  one  almost  feel  that  the  next  turn  will 
bring  him  upon  the  Boulevards. 

The  famous  cathedral,  nearly  completed  by  Napo- 
leon, is  a  sort  of  Aladdin  creation,  quite  too  delicate 
and  beautiful  for  the  open  air.  The  filmly  traceries 
of  gothic  fretwork,  the  needle-like  minarets,  the  hun- 
dreds of  beautiful  statues  with  which  it  is  studded,  the 
intricate,  graceful,  and  bewildering  architecture  of  ev- 
ery window  and  turret,  and  the  frost-like  frailness  and 
delicacy  of  the  whole  mass,  make  an  effect  altogether 
upon  the  eye  that  must  stand  high  on  the  list  of  new 
sensations.  It  is  a  vast  structure  withal,  but  a  mid- 
dling easterly  breeze,  one  would  think  in  looking  at  it, 
would  lift  it  from  its  base  and  bear  it  over  the  Atlan- 
tic like  the  meshes  of  a  cobweb.  Neither  interior  nor 
exterior  impresses  you  with  the  feeling  of  awe  com- 
mon to  other  large  churches.  The  sun  struggles 
through  the  immense  windows  of  painted  glass  stain- 
ing every  pillar  and  carved  cornice  with  the  richest 
hues,  and  wherever  the  eye  wanders  it  grows  giddy 
with  the  wilderness  of  architecture.  The  people  on 
their  knees  are  like  paintings  in  the  strong  artificial 
light,  the  checkered  pavement  seems  trembling  with 
a  quivering  radiance,  the  altar  is  far  and  indistinct,  and 
the  lamps  burning  over  the  tomb  of  Saint  Carlo,  shine 
out  from  the  centre  like  gems  glistening  in  the  midst 
of  some  enchanted  hall.  This  reads  very  like  rhap- 
sody, but  it  is  the  way  the  place  impressed  me.  It  is 
like  a  great  dream.  Its  excessive  beauty  scarce  seems 
constant  while  the  eye  rests  upon  it. 

The  Brera  is  a  noble  palace,  occupied  by  the  pub- 
lic galleries  of  statuary  and  painting.     I  felt  on  leav- 


ing Florence  that  I  could  give  pictures  a  very  long 
holyday.  To  live  on  them,  as  one  does  in  Italy,  is 
like  dining  from  morn  till  night.  The  famous  Guer- 
cino,  is  at  Milan,  however,  the  "  Hagar,"  which  By- 
ron talks  of  so  enthusiastically,  and  I  once  more  sur- 
rendered myself  to  a  cicerone.  The  picture  catches 
your  eye  on  your  first  entrance.  There  is  that  har- 
mony and  effect  in  the. color  that  mark  a  masterpiece, 
even  in  a  passing  glance.  Abraham  stands  in  the  cen- 
tre of  the  group,  a  fine,  prophet-like,  "  green  old 
man,"  with  a  mild  decision  in  his  eye,  from  which 
there  is  evidently  no  appeal.  Sarah  has  turned  her 
back,  and  you  can  just  read  in  the  half-profile  glance 
of  her  face,  that  there  is  a  little  pity  mingled  in  her 
hard-hearted  approval  of  her  rival's  banishment.  But 
Hagar — who  can  describe  the  world  of  meaning  in 
her  face  ?  The  closed  lips  have  in  them  a  calm  in- 
credulousness,  contradicted  with  wonderful  nature  in 
the  flushed  and  troubled  forehead,  and  the  eyes  red 
with  long  weeping.  The  gourd  of  water  is  hung  over 
her  shoulder,  her  hand  is  turning  her  sorrowful  boy 
from  the  door,  and  she  has  looked  back  once  more, 
with  a  large  tear  coursing  down  her  cheek,  to  read  in 
the  face  of  her  master  if  she  is  indeed  driven  forth 
for  ever.  It  is  the  instant  before  pride  and  despair  close 
over  her  heart.  You  see  in  the  picture  that  the  next 
moment  is  the  crisis  of  her  life.  Her  gaze  is  strain- 
ing upon  the  old  man's  lips,  and  you  wait  breathlessly 
to  see  her  draw  up  her  bending  form,  and  depart  in 
proud  sorrow  for  the  wilderness.  It  is  a  piece  of  pow- 
erful and  passionate  poetry.  It  affects  you  like  noth- 
ing but  a  reality.  The  eyes  get  warm,  and  the  heart 
beats  quick,  and  as  you  walk  away  you  feel  as  if  a 
load  of  oppressive  sympathy  was  lifting  from  your 
heart. 

I  have  seen  little  else  in  Milan,  except  Austrian  sol- 
diers, of  whom  there  are  fifteen  thousand  in  this  sin- 
gle capital !  The  government  has  issued  an  order 
to  officers  not  on  duty,  to  appear  in  citizen's  dress,  it 
is  supposed  to  diminish  the  appearance  of  so  much 
military  preparation.  For  the  rest,  they  make  a  kind 
of  coffee  here,  by  boiling  it  with  cream,  which  is  bet- 
ter than  anything  of  the  kind  either  in  Paris  or  Con- 
stantinople ;  and  the  Milanese  are,  for  slaves,  the 
most  civil  people  I  have  seen,  after  the  Florentines. 
There  is  little  English  society  here;  I  know  not  why, 
except  that  the  Italians  are  rich  enough  to  be  exclu- 
sive and  make  their  houses  difficult  of  access  to  stran- 
gers. 


LETTER  CX. 

A  MELANCHOLY  PROCESSION — LAGO  MAGGIORE — ISOLA 
BELLA — THE  SIMPLON — MEETING  A  FELLOW-COUN- 
TRYMAN— THE    VALLEY   OF   THE   RHONE. 

In  going  out  of  the  gates  of  Milan,  we  met  a  cart 
full  of  peasants,  tied  together  and  guarded  by  gens 
d'armes,  the  fifth  sight  of  the  kind  that  has  crossed  us 
since  we  passed  the  Austrian  border.  The  poor  fel- 
lows looked  very  innocent  and  very  sorry.  The  ex- 
tent of  their  offences  probably  might  be  the  want  of  a 
passport,  and  a  desire  to  step  over  the  limits  of  his 
majesty's  'possessions.  A  train  of  beautiful  horses, 
led  by  soldiers  along  the  ramparts,  the  property  of  the 
Austrian  officers,  were  in  melancholy  contrast  to  their 
sad  faces. 

The  clear  snowy  Alps  soon  came  in  sight,  and  their 
cold  beauty  refreshed  us  in  the  midst  of  a  heat  that 
prostrated  every  nerve  in  the  system.  It  is  only  the 
first  of  May,  and  they  are  mowing  the  grass  every- 
where on  the  road,  the  trees  are  in  their  fullest  leaf, 
the  frogs  and  nightingales  singing  each  other  down, 
and  the  grasshopper  would  be  a  burden.     Toward  night 


PENCILLINGS  BY  THE  WAY. 


173 


we  crossed  the  Sardinian  frontier,  and  in  an  hour  were 
set  down  at  an  auberge  on  the  bank  of  Lake  Maggi- 
ore,  in  the  little  town  of  Arona.  The  mountains  on 
the  other  side  of  the  broad  and  mirror-like  water,  are 
speckled  with  ruined  castles,  here  and  there  a  boat  is 
leaving  iis  long  line  of  ripples  behind  in  its  course, 
the  cattle  are  loitering  home,  the  peasants  sit  on  the 
benches  before  their  doors,  and  all  the  lovely  circum- 
stances of  a  rural  summer's  sunset  are  about  us,  in 
one  of  the  very  loveliest  spots  in  nature.  A  very  old 
Florence  friend  is  my  companion,  and  what  with  mu- 
tual reminiscences  of  sunny  Tuscany,  and  the  deep- 
est love  in  common  for  the  sky  over  our  heads,  and 
the  green  land  around  us,  we  are  noting  down  "  red 
days"  in  our  calendar  of  travel. 

We  walked  from  Arona  by  sunrise,  four  or  five  miles 
along  the  borders  of  Lake  Maggiore.  The  kind- 
hearted  peasants  on  their  way  to  the  market  raised  their 
hats  to  us  in  passing,  and  I  was  happy  that  the  greet- 
ing was  still  "  buon  gior-no."  Those  dark-lined  moun- 
tains before  us  were  to  separate  me  too  soon  from  the 
mellow  accents  in  which  it  was  spoken.  As  yet,  how- 
ever, it  was  all  Italian — the  ultra-marine  sky,  the  clear, 
half-purpled  hills,  the  inspiring  air — we  felt  in  every 
pulse  that  it  was  still  Italy. 

We  were  at  Baveno  at  an  early  hour,  and  took  a 
boat  for  Isola  Bella.  It  looks  like  a  gentleman's  villa 
afloat.  A  boy  would  throw  a  stone  entirely  over  it  in 
any  direction.  It  strikes  you  like  a  kind  of  toy  as  you 
look  at  it  from  a  distance,  and  getting  nearer,  the  illu- 
sion scarcely  dissipates — for,  from  the  water's  edge, 
the  orange-laden  terraces  are  piled  one  above  another 
like  a  pyramidal  fruit-basket,  the  villa  itself  peers 
above  like  a  sugar  castle,  and  it  scarce  seems  real 
enough  to  land  upon.  We  pulled  round  to  the  north- 
ern side,  and  disembarked  at  a  broad  stone  staircase, 
where  a  cicerone,  with  a  look  of  suppressed  wisdom, 
common  to  his  vocation,  met  us  with  the  offer  of  his 
services. 

The  entrance-hall  was  hung  with  old  armor,  and  a 
magnificent  suite  of  apartments  above,  opening  on  all 
sides  upon  the  lake,  was  lined  thickly  with  pictures, 
none  of  them  remarkable  except  one  or  two  land- 
scapes by  the  savage  Tempesta.  Travellers  going  the 
other  way  would  probably  admire  the  collection  more 
than  we.  We  were  glad  to  be  handed  over  by  our 
pragmatical  custode  to  a  pretty  contadino,  who  an- 
nounced herself  as  the  gardener's  daughter,  and  gave 
us  each  a  bunch  of  roses.  It  was  a  proper  com- 
mencement to  an  acquaintance  upon  Isola  Bella.  She 
led  the  way  to  the  water's  edge,  where,  in  the  foun- 
dations of  the  palace,  a  suite  of  eight  or  ten  spacious 
rooms  is  constructed  a  la  grotte — with  a  pavement  laid 
of  small  stones  of  different  colors,  walls  and  roof  of 
fantastically  set  shells  and  pebbles,  and  statues  that 
seem  to  have  reason  in  their  nudity.  The  only  light 
came  in  at  the  long  doors  opening  down  to  the  lake, 
and  the  deep  leather  sofas,  and  dark  cool  atmosphere, 
with  the  light  break  of  the  waves  outside,  and  the  long 
views  away  toward  Isola  Madra,  and  the  far-off*  oppo- 
site shore,  composed  altogether  a  most  seductive  spot 
for  an  indolent  humor  and  a  summer's  day.  I  shall 
keep  it  as  a  cool  recollection  till  sultry  summers 
trouble  me  no  more. 

But  the  garden  was  the  prettiest  place.  The  lake 
is  lovely  enough  any  way ;  but  to  look  at  it  through 
perspectives  of  orange  alleys,  and  have  the  blue 
mountains  broken  by  stray  branches  of  tulip-trees, 
clumps  of  crimson  rhododendron,  and  clusters  of  cit- 
ron, yellower  than  gold  ;  to  sit  on  a  garden-seat  in  the 
shade  of  a  thousand  roses,  with  sweet-scented  shrubs 
and  verbenums,  and  a  mixture  of  novel  and  delicious 
perfumes  embalming  the  air  about  you,  and  gaze  up 
at  snowy  Alps  and  sharp  precipices,  and  down  upon  a 
broad  smooth  mirror  in  which  the  islands  lie  like 
clouds,  and  over  which  the  boats  are  silently  creeping 


with  their  white  sails,  like  birds  asleep  in  the  sky — 
why  (not  to  disparage  nature),  it  seems  to  my  poor 
judgment,  that  these  artificial  appliances  are  an  im- 
provement even  to  Lago  Maggiore. 

On  one  side,  without  the  villa  walls,  are  two  or  three 
small  houses,  one  of  which  is  occupied  as  a  hotel ; 
and  here,  if  I  had  a  friend  with  matrimony  in  his  eye, 
would  I  strongly  recommend  lodgings  for  the  honey- 
moon. A  prettier  cage  for  a  pair  of  billing  doves  no 
poet  would  conceive  you. 

We  got  on  to  Domo  d'Ossola  to  sleep,  saying  many 
an  oft-said  thing  about  the  entrance  to  the  valleys  of 
the  Alps.  They  seem  common  when  spoken  of,  these 
romantic  places,  but  they  are  not  the  less  new  in  the 
glow  of  a  first  impression. 

We  were  a  little  in  start  of  the  sun  this  morning, 
and  commenced  the  ascent  of  the  Simplon  by  a  gray 
summer's  dawn,  before  which  the  last  bright  star  had 
not  yet  faded.  From  Domo  d'Ossola  we  rose  direct- 
ly into  the  mountains,  and  soon  wound  into  the  wildest 
glens  by  a  road  which  was  flung  along  precipices  and 
over  chasms  and  waterfalls  like  a  waving  riband.  The 
horses  went  on  at  a  round  trot,  and  so  skilfully  are  the 
difficulties  of  the  ascent  surmounted,  that  we  could 
not  believe  we  had  passed  the  spot  that  from  below 
hung  above  us  so  appallingly.  The  route  follows  the 
foaming  river  Vedro,  which  frets  and  plunges  along  at 
its  side  or  beneath  its  hanging  bridges,  with  the  im- 
petuosity of  a  mountain  torrent,  where  the  stream  is 
swollen  at  every  short  distance  with  pretty  waterfalls, 
messengers  from  the  melting  snows  on  the  summits. 
There  was  one,  a  water-slide  rather  than  a  fall,  which 
I  stopped  long  to  admire.  It  came  from  near  the  peak 
of  the  mountain,  leaping  at  first  from  a  green  clump 
of  firs,  and  descending  a  smooth  inclined  plane,  of 
perhaps  two  hundred  feet.  The  effect  was  like  dra- 
pery of  the  most  delicate  lace,  dropping  into  festoons 
from  the  hand.  The  slight  waves  overtook  each  other 
and  mingled  and  separated,  always  preserving  their  el- 
liptical and  foaming  curves,  till,  in  a  smooth  scoop 
near  the  bottom,  they  gathered  into  a  snowy  mass, 
and  leaped  into  the  Vedro  in  the  shape  of  a  twisted 
shell.  If  wishing  could  have  witched  it  into  Mr. 
Cole's  sketch-book,  he  would  have  a  new  variety  of 
water  for  his  next  composition. 

After  seven  hours'  driving,  which  scarce  seemed  as- 
cending but  for  the  snow  and  ice  and  the  clear  air  it 
brought  us  into,  we  stopped  to  breakfast  at  the  village 
of  Simplon,  "three  thousand,  two  hundred  and  six- 
teen feet  above  the  sea  level."  Here  we  first  realized 
that  we  had  left  Italy.  The  landlady  spoke  French 
and  the  postillions  German !  My  sentiment  lias 
grown  threadbare  with  travel,  but  I  don't  mind  confes- 
sing that  the  circumstance  gave  me  an  unpleasant 
thickness  in  the  throat.  I  threw  open  the  southern 
window,  and  looked  back  toward  the  marshes  of  Lom- 
bardy,  and  if  I  did  not  say  the  poetical  thing,  it  was 
because 

"  It  is  the  silent  grief  that  cuts  the  heart-strings." 

In  sober  sadness,  one  may  well  regret  any  country 
where  his  life  has  been  filled  fuller  than  elsewhere  of 
sunshine  and  gladness  ;  and  such,  by  a  thousand  en- 
chantments, has  Italy  been  to  me.  Its  climate  is  life 
in  my  nostrils,  its  hills  and  valleys  are  the  poetry  of 
such  things,  and  its  marbles,  pictures,  and  palaces,  be- 
set the  soul  like  the  very  necessities  of  existence. 
You  can  exist  elsewhere,  but  oh!  you  live  in  Italy  ! 

I  was  sitting  by  my  English  companion  on  a  sledge 
in  front  of  the  hotel,  enjoying  the  sunshine,  when  the 
diligence  drove  up,  and  six  or  eight  young  men  alight- 
ed. One  of  them,  walking  up  and  down  the  road  to 
get  the  cramp  of  a  confined  seat  out  of  his  legs,  ad- 
dressed a  remark  to  us  in  English.  We  had  neither 
of  us  seen  him  before,  but  we  exclaimed  simultane- 
ously, as   he  turned  away,    "That's   an   American." 


174 


PENCILLING^  BY  THE  WAY. 


"  How  did  you  know  he  was  not  an  Englishman  ?"  I 
asked.  "  Because,"  said  my  friend,  "  he  spoke  to  us 
without  an  introduction  and  without  a  reason,  as  Eng- 
lishmen are  not  in  the  habit  of  doing,  and  because  he 
ended  his  sentence  with  'sir,'  as  no  Englishman  does 
except  he  is  talking  to  an  inferior,  or  wishes  to  insult 
you.  And  how  did  you  know  it  ?"  asked  he. 
"  Partly  by  instinct,"  I  answered,  "but  more,  because, 
though  a  traveller,  he  wears  a  new  hat  that  cost  him 
ten  dollars,  and  a  new  cloak  that  cost  him  fifty  (a  pe- 
culiarly American  extravagance),  because  he  made  no 
inclination  of  his  body  either  in  addressing  or  leaving 
us,  though  his  intention  was  to  be  civil,  and  because 
he  used  fine  dictionary  words  to  express  a  common 
idea,  which,  by  the  way,  too,  betrays  his  southern 
breeding.  And,  if  you  want  other  evidence,  he  has 
:ust  asked  the  gentleman  near  him  to  ask  the  conduc- 
teur  something  about  his  breakfast,  and  an  American 
is  the  only  man  in  the  world  that  ventures  to  come 
abroad  without  at  least  French  enough  to  keep  him- 
self from  starving."  It  may  appear  ill-natured  to 
write  down  such  criticisms  on  one's  own  countryman; 
but  the  national  peculiarities  by  which  we  are  distin- 
guished from  foreigners,  seemed  so  well  defined  in  this 
instance,  that  I  thought  it  worth  mentioning.  We 
found  afterward  that  our  conjecture  was  right.  His 
name  and  country  were  on  the  brass  plate  of  his  port- 
manteau in  most  legible  letters,  and  I  recognised  it  di- 
rectly as  the  address  of  an  amiable  and  excellent  man, 
of  whom  I  had  once  or  twice  heard  in  Italy,  though  I 
had  never  before  happened  to  meet  him.  Three  of 
the  faults  oftenest  charged  upon  our  countrymen,  are 
over-fine  clothes,  over-fine  words,  and  over-fine,  or  over- 
free  manners  ! 

From  Simplon  we  drove  two  or  three  miles  between 
heaps  of  snow,  lying  in  some  places  from  ten  to  six 
feet  deep.  Seven  hours  before,  we  had  ridden  through 
fields  of  grain  almost  ready  for  the  harvest.  After 
passing  one  or  two  galleries  built  over  the  road  to  pro- 
tect it  from  the  avalanches  where  it  ran  beneath  the 
loftier  precipices,  we  got  out  of  the  snow,  and  saw 
Brig,  the  small  town  at  the  foot  of  the  Simplon,  on  the 
other  side,  lying  almost  directly  beneath  us.  It  looked 
as  if  one  might  toss  his  cap  down  into  its  pretty  gar- 
dens. Yet  we  were  four  or  five  hours  in  reaching  it, 
by  a  road  that  seemed  in  most  parts  scarcely  to  descend 
at  all.  The  views  down  the  valley  of  the  Rhone, 
which  opened  continually  before  us,  were  of  exquisite 
beauty.  The  river  itself,  which  is  here  near  its  source, 
looked  like  a  meadow  rivulet  in  its  silver  windings,  and 
the  gigantic  Helvetian  Alps  which  rose  in  their  snow 
on  the  other  side  of  the  valley,  were  glittering  in  the 
slant  rays  of  a  declining  sun,  and  of  a  grandeur  of 
size  and  outline  which  diminished,  even  more  than 
distance,  the  river  and  the  clusters  of  villages  at  their 
feet. 


LETTER  CXI. 

SWITZERLAND— LA    VALAIS THE     CRETINS    AND    THE 

GOITRES A   FRENCHMAN'S    OPINION    OF    NIAGARA 

LAKE  LEMAN CASTLE  OF  CHILLON ROCKS  OF  MEIL- 

LERIE — REPUBLICAN    AIR MONT     BLANC GENEVA 

THE    STEAMER — PARTING  SORROW. 

We  have  been  two  days  and  a  half  loitering  down 
through  the  Swiss  canton  of  Valais,  and  admiring  ev- 
ery hour  the  magnificence  of  these  snow-capped  and 
green-footed  Alps.  The  little  chalets  seem  just  lodg- 
ed by  accident  on  the  crags,  or  stuck  against  slopes  so 
steep,  that  the  mowers  of  the  mountain-grass  are  lit- 
erally let  down  by  ropes  to  their  dizzy  occupation. 
The  goats  alone  seem  to  have  an  exemption  from  all 


ordinary  laws  of  gravitation,  feeding  against  cliffs 
which  it  makes  one  giddy  to  look  on  only ;  and  the 
short-waisted  girls,  dropping  a  courtesy  and  blushing 
as  they  pass  the  stranger,  emerge  from  the  little  moun- 
tain-paths, and  stop  by  the  first  spring,  to  put  on  their 
shoes  and  arrange  their  ribands  coquetishly,  before 
entering  the  village. 

The  two  dreadful  curses  of  these  valleys  meet  one 
at  every  step — the  cretins,  or  natural  fools,  of  which 
there  is  at  least  one  in  every  family ;  and  the  goitre  or 
swelled  throat,  to  which  there  is  hardly  an  exception 
among  the  women.  It  really  makes  travelling  in 
Switzerland  a  melancholy  business,  with  all  its  beau- 
ty ;  at  every  turn  in  the  road,  a  gibbering  and  mowing 
idiot,  and  in  every  group  of  females,  a  disgusting  ar- 
ray of  excrescences  too  common  even  to  be  concealed. 
Really,  to  see  girls  that  else  were  beautiful,  arrayed 
in  all  their  holyday  finery,  but  with  a  defect  that  makes 
them  monsters  to  the  unaccustomed  eye,  their  throats 
swollen  to  the  size  of  their  heads,  seems  to  me  one 
of  the  most  curious  and  pitiable  things  I  have  met  in 
I  my  wanderings.  Many  attempts  have  been  made  to 
account  for  the  growth  of  the  goitre,  but  it  is  yet  un- 
explained. The  men  are  not  so  subject  to  it  as  the 
women,  though  among  them,  even,  it  is  frightfully 
common.  But  how  account  for  the  continual  produc- 
tion by  ordinary  parents  of  this  brute  race  of  cretins  1 
They  all  look  alike,  dwarfish,  large-mouthed,  grinning, 
and  of  hideous  features  and  expression.  It  is  said 
that  the  children  of  strangers,  born  in  the  valley,  are 
very  likely  to  be  idiots,  resembling  the  cretin  exactly. 
It  seems  a  supernatural  curse  upon  the  land.  The 
Valaisians,  however,  consider  it  a  blessing  to  have  one 
in  the  family. 

The  dress  of  the  women  of  La  Valais  is  excessive- 
ly unbecoming,  and  a  pretty  face  is  rare.  Their  man- 
ners are  kind  and  polite,  and  at  the  little  auberges, 
where  we  have  stopped  on  the  road,  there  have  been 
a  cleanliness  and  a  generosity  in  the  supply  of  the 
table,  which  prove  virtues  among  them  not  found  in 
Italy. 

At  Turttmann,  we  made  a  little  excursion  into  the 
mountains  to  see  a  cascade.  It  falls  about  a  hundred 
feet,  and  has  just  now  more  water  than  usual  from  the 
melting  of  the  snows.  It  is  a  pretty  fall.  A  French- 
man writes  in  the  book  of  the  hotel,  that  he  has  seen 
Niagara  and  Trenton  Falls,  in  America,  and  that  they 
do  not  compare  with  the  cascade  of  Turttmann  ! 

From  Martigny  the  scenery  began  to  grow  richer, 
and  after  passing  the  celebrated  Fall  of  the  Pisse- 
vache  (which  springs  from  the  top  of  a  high  Alp  al- 
most into  the  road,  and  is  really  a  splendid  cascade), 
we  approached  Lake  Leman  in  a  gorgeous  sunset. 
We  rose  a  slight  hill,  and  over  the  broad  sheet  of  wa- 
ter on  the  opposite  shore,  reflected  with  all  its  towers 
in  a  mirror  of  gold,  lay  the  castle  of  Chilian.  A  bold 
green  mountain,  rose  steeply  behind,  the  sparkling  vil- 
lage of  Vevey  lay  farther  down  on  the  water's  edge ; 
and  away  toward  the  sinking  sun,  stretched  the  long 
chain  of  the  Jura,  teinted  with  all  the  hues  of  a  dol- 
phin. Never  was  such  a  lake  of  beauty — or  it  never 
sat  so  pointedly  for  its  picture.  Mountains  and  water, 
chateaux  and  shallops,  vineyards  and  verdure,  could 
do  no  more.  We  left  the  carriage  and  walked  three 
or  four  miles  along  the  southern  bank,  under  the 
"  Rocks  of  Meillerie,"  and  the  spirit  of  St.  Preux's 
Julie,  if  she  haunt  the  scene  where  she  caught  her 
death,  of  a  sunset  in  May,  is  the  most  enviable  of 
ghosts.  I  do  not  wonder  at  the  prating  in  albums  of 
Lake  Leman.  For  me,  it  is  (after  Val  d'Arno  from 
Fiezoli)  the  ne  plus  ultra  of  a  scenery  Paradise. 

We  are  stopping  for  the  night  at  St.  Gingoulf,  on 
a  swelling  bank  of  the  lake,  and  we  have  been  lying 
under  the  trees  in  front  of  the  hotel  till  the  last  per- 
ceptible teint  is  gone  from  the  sky  over  Jura.  Two 
pedestrian  gentlemen,  with  knapsacks  and  dogs,  have 


PENCILLINGS  BY  THE  WAY. 


17* 


just  arrived,  and  a  whole  family  of  French  people,  in- 
cluding parrots  and  monkeys,  came  in  before  us,  and 
are  deafening  the  house  with  their  chattering.  A  cup 
of  coffee,  and  then  good  night ! 

My  companion,  who  has  travelled  all  over  Europe 
on  foot,  confirms  my  opinion  that  there  is  no  drive  on 
the  continent  equal  to  the  forty  miles  between  the 
rocks  of  Meillerie  and  Geneva,  on  the  southern  bank 
of  the  Leman.  The  lake  is  not  often  much  broader 
than  the  Hudson,  the  shores  are  the  noble  mountains 
sung  so  gloriously  by  Childe  Harold;  Vevey,  Lau- 
sanne, Copet,  and  a  string  of  smaller  villages,  all  fa- 
mous in  poetry  and  story,  fringe  the  opposite  water's 
edge  with  cottages  and  villages,  while  you  wind  for 
ever  along  a  green  lane  following  the  bend  of  the 
shore,  the  road  as  level  as  your  hall  pavement,  and 
green  hills  massed  up  with  trees  and  verdure,  over- 
shadowing you  continually.  The  world  has  a  great 
many  sweet  spots  in  it,  and  I  have  found  many  a  one 
which  would  make  fitting  scenery  for  the  brightest  act 
of  life's  changeful  drama — but  here  is  one,  where  it 
seems  to  me  as  difficult  not  to  feel  genial  and  kindly, 
as  for  Taglioni  to  keep  from  floating  away  like  a  smoke- 
curl  when  she  is  dancing  in  La  Bayadere. 

We  passed  a  bridge  and  drew  in  a  long  breath  to 
try  the  difference  in  the  air — we  were  in  the  republic 
of  Geneva.  It  smelt  very  much  as  it  did  in  the  do- 
minions of  his  majesty  of  Sardinia — sweet-brier,  haw- 
thorn, violets  and  all.  I  used  to  think  when  I  first  came 
from  America,  that  the  flowers  (republicans  by  na- 
ture as  well  as  birds)  were  less  fragrant  under  a  mon- 
archy. 

Mont  Blanc  loomed  up  very  white  in  the  south,  hut 
like  other  distinguished  persons  of  whom  we  form  an 
opinion  from  the  description  of  poets,  the  "  monarch 
of  mountains"  did  not  seem  to  me  so  very  superior  to 
his  fellows.  After  a  look  or  two  at  him  as  we  ap- 
proached Geneva,  I  ceased  straining  my  head  out  of 
the  cabriolet,  and  devoted  my  eyes  to  things  more 
within  the  scale  of  my  affections — the  scores  of  lovely 
villas  sprinkling  the  hills  and  valleys  by  which  we  ap- 
proached the  city.  Sweet — sweet  places  they  are  to 
be  sure !  And  then  the  month  is  May,  and  the  straw- 
bonneted  and  white-aproned  girls,  ladies  and  peasants 
alike,  were  all  out  at  their  porches  and  balconies,  lov- 
er-like couples  were  sauntering  down  the  park-lanes, 
one  servant  passed  us  with  a  tri-cornered  blue  billet- 
doux  between  his  thumb  and  finger,  the  nightingales 
were  singing  their  very  hearts  away  to  the  new-blown 
roses,  and  a  sense  of  summer  and  seventeen,  days  of 
sunshine  and  sonnet-making,  came  over  me  irresisti- 
bly.    I  should  like  to  see  June  out  in  Geneva. 

The  little  steamer  that  makes  the  tour  of  Lake  Le- 
man, began  to  "  phiz"  by  sunrise  directly  under  the 
windows  of  our  hotel.  We  were  soon  on  the  pier, 
where  our  entrance  into  the  boat  was  obstructed  by  a 
weeping  cluster  of  girls,  embracing  and  parting  very 
unwillingly  with  a  young  lady  of  some  eighteen  years, 
who  was  lovely  enough  to  have  been  wept  for  by  as 
many  grown-up  gentlemen.  Her  own  tears  were  un- 
der better  government,  though  her  sealed  lips  showed 
that  she  dared  not  trust  herself  with  her  voice.  After 
another  and  another  lingering  kiss,  the  boatman  ex- 
pressed some  impatience,  ancl  she  tore  herself  from 
their  arms  and  stepped  into  the  waiting  batteau.  We 
were  soon  along  side  the  steamer,  and  sooner  under 
way,  and  then,  having  given  one  wave  of  her  hand- 
kerchief to  the  pretty  and  sad  group  on  the  shore,  our 
fair  fellow-passenger  gave  way  to  her  feelings,  and 
sinking  upon  a  seat,  burst  into  a  passionate  flood  of 
tears.  There  was  no  obtruding  on  such  sorrow,  and 
the  next  hour  or  two  were  employed  by  my  imagina- 
tion in  filling  up  the  little  drama  of  which  we"  had 
seen  but  the  touching  conclusion. 

I  was  pleased  to  find  the  boat  (a  new  one)  called  the 
"  Winkelreid,"    in   compliment    to   the   vessel   which 


makes  the  same  voyage  in  Cooper's  "  Headsman  of 
Berne."  The  day  altogether  had  begun  like  a  chap 
ter  in  a  romance. 

"  Lake  Leman  wooed  us  with  its  crystal  face," 
but  there  was  the  filmiest  conceivable  veil  of  mist  over 
its  unruffled  mirror,  and  the  green  uplands  that  rose 
from  its  edge  had  a  softness  like  dreamland  upon  their 
verdure.  I  know  not  whether  the  tearful  girl  whose 
head  was  drooping  over  the  railing  felt  the  sympathy, 
but  I  could  not  help  thanking  nature  for  her  in  my 
heart,  the  whole  scene  was  so  of  the  complexion  of 
her  own  feelings.  I  could  have  "thrown  my  ring  in- 
to the  sea,"  like  Policrates  Samius,  "  to  have  cause 
for  sadness  too." 

The  "Winkelreid"  has  (for  a  republican  ste.amer) 

rather  the  aristocratical  arrangement  of  making  those 

who  walk  aft  the  funnel  pay  twice  as  much  as  those 

who    choose  to   promenade  forward — for  no  earthly 

reason  that  I  can   divine,  other  than   that  those  who 

I  pay  dearest  have  the  full  benefit  of  the  oily  gases  from 

the  machinery,  while  the  humbler  passenger  breathes 

the  air  of  heaven   before  it  has  passed  through  that 

improving  medium.    Our  youthful  Niobe,  two  French 

I  ladies  not  particularly  pretty,  an  Englishman  with  a 

fishing-rod  and  gun,  and  a  coxcomb  of  a  Swiss  artist 

I  to  whom  I  had  taken  a  special  aversion  at  Rome,  from 

j  a  criticism  I  overheard  upon  my  favorite  picture  in  the 

Colonna,  my  friends  and   myself,  were  the  exclusive 

inhalers  of  the  oleaginous  atmosphere  of  the   stern. 

I  A  crowd  of  the  ark's  own  miscellaneousness  thronged 

j  the  forecastle — and  so  you  have  the  programmed'  a 

day  on  Lake  Leman. 


LETTER  CXII. 

LAKE  LEMAN— AMERICAN  APPEARANCE  OF  THE  GENE- 
VESE — STEAMBOAT  ON  THE  RHONE — GIBBON  AND  ROUS- 
SEAU— ADVENTURE  OF  THE  LILIES — GENEVESE  JEW- 
ELLERS— RESIDENCE  OF  VOLTAIRE BTRON's  NIGHT- 
CAP— Voltaire's  walking-stick  and  stockings. 

The  water  of  Lake  Leman  looks  very  like  other 
water,  though  Byron  and  Shelley  were  nearly  drowned 
in  it ;  and  Copet,  a  little  village  on  the  Helvetian  side, 
where  we  left  three  women  and  took  up  one  man  (the 
village  ought  to  be  very  much  obliged  to  us),  is  no 
Paradise,  though  Madame  de  Stael  made  it  her  resi- 
dence. There  are  Paradises,  however,  with  very  short 
distances  between,  all  the  way  down  the  northern 
shore  ;  and  angels  in  them,  if  women  are  angels — a 
specimen  or  two  of  the  sex  being  visible  with  the  aid 
of  the  spyglass,  in  nearly  every  balcony  and  belvi- 
dere,  looking  upon  the  water.  The  taste  in  country- 
houses  seems  to  be  here  very  much  the  same  as  in  New 
England,  and  quite  unlike  the  half-palace,  half-castle 
style  common  in  Italy  and  France.  Indeed  the  dress, 
physiognomy,  and  manners  of  old  Geneva  might  make 
an  American  Genevese  fancy  himself  at  home  on  the 
Leman.  There  is  that  subdued  decency,  that  grave 
respectableness,  that  black-coated,  straight-haired, 
saint-like  kind  of  look  which  is  universal  in  the  small 
towns  of  our  country,  and  which  is  as  unlike  France 
and  Italy,  as  a  playhouse  is  unlike  a  methodist  chap- 
el. You  would  know  the  people  of  Geneva  were 
Calvinists,  whisking  through  the  town  merely  in  a  dil- 
igence. 

I  lost  sight  of  the  town  of  Morges,  eating  a  tete-a- 
tete  breakfast  with  my  friend  in  the  cabin.  Switzer- 
land is  the  only  place  out  of  America  where  one  gets 
cream  for  his  coffee.  I  cry  Morges  mercy  on  that 
plea. 

We  were  at  Lausanne  at  eleven,  having  steamed 
forty  miles  in  five  hours.  This  is  not  quite  up  to 
the  ilmty-milers  on   the  Hudson,  of  which  I   see  ac- 


176 


PENCILLINGS  BY  THE  WAY. 


counts  in  the  papers,  but  we  had  the  advantage  of  not 
being  blown  up  either  going  or  coming,  and  of  look- 
ing for  a  continuous  minute  on  a  given  spot  in  the 
scenery.  Then  we  had  an  iron  railing  between  us  and 
that  portion  of  the  passengers  who  prefer  garlic  to 
lavender-water,  and  we  achieved  our  breakfast  without 
losing  our  tempers  or  complexions  in  a  scramble. 
The  question  of  superiority  between  Swiss  and  Amer- 
ican steamers,  therefore,  depends  very  much  on  the 
value  you  set  on  life,  temper,  and  time.  For  me,  as 
my  time  is  not  measured  in  "  diamond  sparks,"  and 
as  my  life  and  temper  are  the  only  gifts  with  which 
fortune  has  blessed  me,  I  prefer  the  Swiss. 

Gibbon  lived  at  Lausanne,  and  wrote  here  the  last 
chapter  of  his  History  of  Rome — a  circumstance 
which  he  records  with  an  affection.  It  is  a  spot  of  no 
ordinary  beauty,  and  the  public  promenade,  where  we 
sat  and  looked  over  to  Vevey  and  Chillon,  and  the 
Rocks  of  Meillerie,  and  talked  of  Rousseau,  and 
agreed  that  it  tvas  a  scene  "faite  pour  une  Julie,  pour 
une  Claire,  et  pour  un  Saint  Preux,"  is  one  of  the  pla- 
ces where,  if  I  were  to  "  play  statue,"  I  should  like 
to  grow  to  my  seat,  and  compromise  merely  for  eye- 
sight. We  have  one  thing  against  Lausanne,  howev- 
er— it  is  up  hill  and  a  mile  from  the  water;  and  if 
Gibbon  walked  often  from  Ouchet  at  noon,  and  "lard- 
ed the  way"  as  freely  as  we,  I  make  myself  certain 
he  was  not  the  fat  man  his  biographers  have  drawn 
him. 

There  were  some  other  circumstances  at  Lausanne 
which  interested  us — but  which  criticism  has  decided 
can  not  be  obtruded  upon  the  public.  We  looked 
about  for  "Julie"  and  "  Claire,"  spite  of  Rousseau's 
"  ne  les  y  cherchez  jms,"  and  gave  a  blind  beggar  a  sous 
(all  he  asked)  for  a  handful  of  lilies-of-the-valley, 
pitying  him  ten  times  more  than  if  he  had  lost  his 
eyes  out  of  Switzerland.  To  be  blind  on  Lake  Le- 
man  !  blind  within  sight  of  Mont  Blanc  !  We  turned 
back  to  drop  another  sous  into  his  hat,  as  we  reflected 
upon  it. 

The  return  steamer  from  Vevey  (I  was  sorry  not  to 
go  to  Vevey  for  Rousseau's  sake,  and  as  much  for 
Cooper's),  took  us  up  on  its  way  to  Geneva,  and  we 
had  the  advantage  of  seeing  the  same  scenery  in  a  dif- 
ferent light.  Trees,  houses,  and  mountains,  are  so 
much  finer  seen  against  the  sun,  with  the  deep  shad- 
ows toward  you  ! 

Sitting  by  the  stern,  was  a  fat  and  fair  Frenchwo- 
man, who,  like  me,  had  bought  lilies,  and  about  as 
many.  With  a  very  natural  facility  of  dramatic  po- 
sition, I  imagined  it  had  established  a  kind  of  sympa- 
thy between  us,  and  proposed  to  myself,  somewhere 
in  the  fair  hours,  to  make  it  serve  as  an  introduction. 
She  went  into  the  cabin  after  a  while,  to  lunch  on  cut- 
lets and  beer,  and  returned  to  the  deck  without  her 
lilies.  Mine  lay  beside  me,  within  reach  of  her  four 
fingers  ;  and  as  I  was  making  up  my  mind  to  offer  to 
replace  her  loss,  she  coolly  took  them  up,  and  without 
even  a  French  monosyllable,  commenced  throwing 
them  overboard,  stem  by  stem.  It  was  very  clear  she 
had  mistaken  them  for  her  own.  As  the  last  one  flew 
over  the  tafferel,  the  gentleman  who  paid  for  la  bierre 
et  les  cottelettes,  husband  or  lover,  came  up  with  a 
smile  and  a  flourish,  and  reminded  her  that  she  had 
left  her  bouquet  between  the  mustard  and  the  beer- 
bottle.  Sequitur,  a  scene.  The  lady  apologized,  and 
I  disclaimed  ;  and  the  more  I  insisted  on  the  delight 
she  had  given  me  by  throwing  my  pretty  lilies  into 
Lake  Leman,  the  more  she  made  herself  unhappy, 
and  insisted  on  my  being  inconsolable.  One  should 
come  abroad  to  know  how  much  may  be  said  upon 
throwing  overboard  a  bunch  of  lilies  ! 

The  clouds  gathered,  and  we  had  some  hopes  of  a 
storm,  but  the  "  darkened  Jura"  was  merely  dim,  and 
the  "live  thunder"  waited  for  another  Childe  Harold. 
We  were  at  Geneva  at  seven,  and  had  the  whole  pop- 


ulation to  witness  our  debarkation.  The  pier  where 
we  landed,  and  the  new  bridge  across  the  outlet  of 
the  Rhone,  are  the  evening  promenade. 

The  far-famed  jewellers  of  Geneva  are  rather  an 
aristocratic  class  of  merchants.  They  are  to  be  sought 
in  chambers,  and  their  treasures  are  produced  box  by 
box,  from  locked  drawers,  and  bought,  if  at  all,  with- 
out the  pleasure  of  "  beating  down."  They  are,  with- 
al, a  gentlemanly  class  of  men ;  and,  of  the  principal 
one,  as  many  stories  are  told  as  of  Beau  Brummel. 
He  has  made  a  fortune  by  his  shop,  and  has  the  man- 
ners of  a  man  who  can  afford  to  buy  the  jewels  out  of 
a  king's  crown. 

We  were  sitting  at  the  table  d'hote,  with  about  forty 
people,  on  the  first  day  of  our  arrival,  when  the  ser- 
vant brought  us  each  a  gilt-edged  note,  sealed  with  an 
elegant  device ;  invitations,  we  presumed,  to  a  ball,  at 
least.  Mr.  So-and-so  (I  forget  the  name),  begged 
pardon  for  the  liberty  he  had  taken,  and  requested  us 
to  call  at  his  shop  in  the  Rue  de  Rhone,  and  look  at 
his  varied  assortment  of  bijouterie.  A  card  was  en- 
closed, and  the  letter  in  courtly  English.  We  went, 
of  course  ;  as  who  would  not?  The  cost  to  him  was 
a  sheet  of  paper,  and  the  trouble  of  sending  to  the 
hotel  for  a  list  of  the  new  arrivals.  I  recommend  the 
system  to  all  callow  Yankees,  commencing  a  "  push- 
ing business." 

Geneva  is  full  of  foreigners  in  the  summer,  and  it 
has  quite  the  complexion  of  an  agreeable  place.  The 
environs  are,  of  course,  unequalled,  and  the  town  it- 
self is  a  stirring  and  gay  capital,  full  of  brilliant  shops, 
handsome  streets  and  promenades,  where  everything 
is  to  be  met  but  pretty  women.  Female  beauty  would 
come  to  a  good  market  anywhere  in  Switzerland.  We 
have  seen  but  one  pretty  girl  (our  Niobe  of  the  steam- 
er) since  we  lost  sight  of  Lombardy.  They  dress 
well  here,  and  seem  modest,  and  have  withal  an  air  of 
style,  but  of  some  five  hundred  ladies,  whom  I  may 
have  seen  in  the  valley  of  the  Rhone  and  about  this 
neighborhood,  it  would  puzzle  a  modern  Apelles  to 
compose  an  endurable  Venus.  I  understand  a  fair 
countrywoman  of  ours  is  about  taking  up  her  resi- 
dence in  Geneva  ;  and  if  Lake  Leman  does  not  "  woo 
her,"  and  the  "  live  thunder"  leap  down  from  Jura, 
the  jewellers,  at  least,  will  crown  her  queen  of  the 
Canton,  and  give  her  the  tiara  at  cost. 

I  hope  "Maria  Wilhelmina  Amelia  Skeggs"  will 
forgive  me  for  having  gone  to  Ferney  in  an  omnibus  ! 
Voltaire  lived  just  under  the  Jura,  on  a  hill-side,  over- 
looking Geneva  and  the  lake,  with  a  landscape  before 
him  in  the  foreground  that  a  painter  could  not  im- 
prove, and  Mont  Blanc  and  its  neighbor  mountains, 
the  breaks  to  his  horizon.  At  six  miles  off,  Geneva 
looks  very  beautifully,  astride  the  exit  of  the  Rhone 
from  the  lake  ;  and  the  lake  itself  looks  more  like  a 
broad  river,  with  its  edges  of  verdure  and  its  outer- 
frame  of  mountains.  We  walked  up  an  avenue  to  a 
large  old  villa,  embosomed  in  trees,  where  an  old  gar- 
dener appeared,  to  show  us  the  grounds.  We  said 
the  proper  thing  under  the  tree  planted  by  the  philos- 
opher, fell  in  love  with  the  view  from  twenty  points, 
met  an  English  lady  in  one  of  the  arbors,  the  wife  of 
a  French  nobleman  to  whom  the  house  belongs,  and 
were  bowed  into  the  hall  by  the  old  man  and  handed 
over  to  his  daughter  to  be  shown  the  curiosities  of  the 
interior.  These  were  Voltaire's  rooms,  just  as  he 
left  them.  The  ridiculous  picture  of  his  own  apoth- 
eosis, painted  under  his  own  direction,  and  represent- 
ing him  offering  his  Henriade  to  Apollo,  with  all  the 
authors  of  his  time  dying  of  envy  at  his  feet,  occupies 
the  most  conspicuous  place  over  his  chamber-door. 
Within  was  his  bed,  the  curtains  nibbled  quite  bare 
by  relic-gathering  travellers;  a  portrait  of  the  Emper- 
ess  Catherine,  embroidered  by  her  own  hand,  and  pre- 
sented to  Voltaire  ;  his  own  portrait  and  Frederick  the 
Great's,    and   many  of   the   philosophers',   including 


PENCILLINGS  BY  THE  WAY. 


177 


Franklin.  A  little  monument  stands  opposite  the 
fireplace,  with  the  inscription  u?non  esprit  est  partout, 
et  mon  cceur  est  id."  It  is  a  snug  little  dormitory, 
opening  with  one  window  to  the  west ;  and,  to  those 
who  admire  the  character  of  the  once  illustrious  oc- 
cupant, a  place  for  very  tangible  musing.  They 
showed  us  afterward  his  walking-stick,  a  pair  of  silk- 
stockings  he  had  half  worn,  and  a  night-cap.  The 
last  article  is  getting  quite  fashionable  as  a  relic  of  ge- 
nius.    They  show  Byron's  at  Venice. 


LETTER  CXIII. 

PRACTICAL  BATHOS  OF  CELEBRATED  PLACES — TRAV- 
ELLING COMPANIONS  AT  THE  SIMPLON — CUSTOM- 
HOUSE    COMFORTS TRIALS    OF    TEMPER — CONQUERED 

AT   LAST  ! — DIFFERENT    ASPECTS  OF    FRANCE,    ITALY, 
AND    SWITZERLAND— FORCE    OF    POLITENESS. 

Whether  it  was  that  I  had  offended  the  genius  of 
the  spot,  by  coming  in  an  omnibus,  or  from  a  desire  I 
never  can  resist  in  such  places,  to  travesty  and  ridicule 
the  mock  solemnity  with  which  they  are  exhibited, 
certain  it  is  that  I  left  Ferney,  without  having  encoun- 
tered, even  in  the  shape  of  a  more  serious  thought, 
the  spirit  of  Voltaire.  One  reads  the  third  canto  of 
Childe  Harold  in  his  library,  and  feels  as  if  "Lau- 
sanne and  Ferney"  should  be  very  interesting  places  to 
the  traveller,  and  yet  when  he  is  shown  Gibbon's  bow- 
er by  a  fellow  scratching  his  head  and  hitching  up  his 
trousers  the  while,  and  the  nightcap  that  enclosed  the 
busy  brain  from  which  sprang  the  fifty  brilliant  tomes 
on  his  shelves,  by  a  country-girl,  who  hurries  through 
her  drilled  description,  with  her  eye  on  the  silver 
douceur  in  his  fingers,  he  is  very  likely  to  rub  his  hand 
over  his  eyes,  and  disclaim,  quite  honestly,  all  preten- 
sions to  enthusiasm.  And  yet,  1  dare  say,  I  shall  have 
a  great  deal  of  pleasure  in  remembering  that  I  have 
been  at  Ferney.  As  an  English  traveller  would  say, 
"  I  have  done  Voltaire  !" 

Quite  of  the  opinion  that  it  was  not  doing  justice  to 
Geneva  to  have  made  but  a  three  days'  stay  in  it,  re- 
gretting not  having  seen  Sismondi  and  Simond,  and  a 
whole  coterie  of  scholars  and  authors,  whose  home  it 
is,  and  with  a  mind  quite  made  up  to  return  to  Swit- 
zerland, when  my  beaux  jours  of  love,  money,  and  leis- 
ure, shall  have  arrived,  I  crossed  the  Rhone  at  sunrise, 
and  turned  my  face  toward  Paris. 

The  Simplon  is  much  safer  travelling  than  the  pass 
of  the  Jura.  We  were  all  day  getting  up  the  moun- 
tains by  roads  that  would  make  me  anxious  if  there 
were  a  neck  in  the  carriage  I  would  rather  should  not 
be  broken.  My  company,  fortunately,  consisted  of 
three  Scotch  spinsters,  who  would  try  any  precipice 
of  the  Jura,  I  think,  if  there  were  a  lover  at  the  bot- 
tom. If  the  horses  had  backed  in  the  wrong  place,  it 
would  have  been  to  all  three,  I  am  sure,  a  deliverance 
from  a  world  in  whose  volume  of  happiness 

"  their  leaf 
By  some  o'er-hasty  angel  was  misplaced." 

As  to  my  own  neck  and  my  friend's,  there  is  a  special 
providence  for  bachelors,  even  if  they  were  of  impor- 
tance enough  to  merit  a  care.  Spinsters  and  bache- 
lors, we  all  arrived  safely  at  Rousses,  the  entrance  to 
France,  and  here,  if  I  were  to  write  before  repeating 
the  alphabet,  you  would  see  what  a  pen  could  do  in  a 
passion. 

The  carriage  was  stopped  by  three  custom-house 
officers,  and  taken  under  a  shed,  where  the  doors  were 
closed  behind  it.  We  were  then  required  to  dismount 
and  give  our  honors  that  we  had  nothing  new  in  the 
way  of  clothes;  no  "jewelry;  no  unused  manufac- 
tures of  wool,  thread,  or  lace  ;  no  silks  or  floss  silk ; 
no  polished  metals,  plated  or  varnished  ;  no  toys,  (ex- 
12 


cept  a  heart  each);  nor  leather,  glass,  or  crystal  man 
ufactures."     So  far,  I  kept  my  temper. 

Our  trunks,  carpet-bags,  hat-boxes,  dressing-cases, 
and  portfeuilles,  were  then  dismounted  and  critically 
examined — every  dress  and  article  unfolded ;  shirts, 
cravats,  unmentionables  and  all,  and  searched  thor- 
oughly by  two  ruffians,  whose  fingers  were  no  im- 
provement upon  the  labors  of  the  washerwoman.  In 
an  hour's  time  or  so  we  were  allowed  to  commence  re- 
packing.    Still,  I  kept  my  temper. 

We  were  then  requested  to  walk  into  a  private  room, 
while  the  ladies,  for  the  same  purpose,  were  taken,  by 
a  woman,  into  another.  Here  we  were  requested  to 
unbutton  our  coats,  and,  begging  pardon  for  the  liber- 
ty, these  courteous  gentlemen  thrust  their  hands  into 
our  pockets,  felt  in  our  bosoms,  pantaloons,  and  shoes, 
examined  our  hats,  and  even  eyed  our  "  pet  curls" 
very  earnestly,  in  the  expectation  of  finding  us  cram- 
med with  Geneva  jewelry.     Still,  I  kept  my  temper. 

Our  trunks  were  then  put  upon  the  carriage,  and  a 
sealed  string  put  upon  them,  which  we  were  not  to  cut 
till  we  arrived  in  Paris.  (Nine  days !)  They  then  de- 
manded to  be  paid  for  the  sealing,  and  the  fellows  who 
had  unladen  the  carriage  were  to  be  paid  for  their  la- 
bor. This  done,  we  were  permitted  to  drive  on.  Still. 
I  kept  my  temper! 

We  arrived,  in  the  evening,  at  Morez,  in  a  heavy 
rain.  We  were  sitting  around  a  comfortable  fire,  and 
the  soup  and  fish  were  just  brought  upon  the  table. 
A  soldier  entered  and  requested  us  to  walk  to  the  po- 
lice-office. "  But  it  rains  hard,  and  our  dinner  is  just 
ready."  The  man  in  the  mustache  was  inexorable. 
The  commissary  closed  his  office  at  eight,  and  we 
must  go  instantly  to  certify  to  our  passports,  and  get 
new  ones  for  the  interior.  Cloaks  and  umbrellas  were 
brought,  and,  bon  grc,  mal  gre,  we  walked  half  a  mile 
in  the  mud  and  rain  to  a  dirty  commissary,  who  kept 
us  waiting  in  the  dark  fifteen  minutes,  and  then,  ma- 
king out  a  description  of  the  person  of  each,  demand- 
ed half  a  dollar  for  the  new  passport,  and  permitted  us 
to  wade  back  to  our  dinner.  This  had  occupied  an 
hour,  and  no  improvement  to  soup  or  fish.  Still,  I 
kept  my  temper — rather  ! 

The  next  morning,  while  we  were  forgetting  the 
annoyances  of  the  previous  night,  and  admiring  the 
new-pranked  livery  of  May  by  a  glorious  sunshine,  a 
civil  arretez  vous  brought  up  the  carriage  to  the  door 
of  another  custom-house  !  The  order  was  to  dismount, 
and  down  came  once  more  carpet-bags,  hat-boxes,  and 
dressing-cases,  and  a  couple  of  hours  were  lost  again 
in  a  fruitless  search  for  contraband  articles.  When  it 
was  all  through,  and  the  officers  and  men  paid  as  be- 
fore, we  were  permitted  to  proceed  with  the  gracious 
assurance  that  we  should  not  be  troubled  again  till  we 
got  to  Paris !  I  bade  the  commissary  good  morning, 
felicitated  him  on  the  liberal  institutions  of  his  coun- 
try and  his  zeal  in  the  exercise  of  his  own  agreeable 
vocation,  and — I  am  free  to  confess — lost  my  temper! 
Job  and  Xantippe's  husband!  could  I  help  it! 

I  confess  I  expected  better  things  of  France.  In 
Italy,  where  you  come  to  a  new  dukedom  every  half- 
day,  you  do  not  much  mind  opening  your  trunks,  for 
they  are  petty  princes  and  need  the  pitiful  revenue  of 
contraband  articles  and  the  officer's  fee.  Yet  even 
they  leave  the  person  of  the  traveller  sacred  ;  and 
where  in  the  world,  except  in  France,  is  a  party  trav- 
elling evidently  for  pleasure  subjected  twice  at  the 
same  border  to  the  degrading  indignity  of  a  search  ! 
Ye  "  hunters  of  Kentucky"— thank  heaven  that  you 
can  go  into  Tennessee  without  having  your  "plunder" 
overhauled  and  your  pockets  searched  by  successive 
parties  of  scoundrels,  whom  you  are  to  pay  "by  order 
of  the  government"  for  their  trouble  ! 

The  Simplon,  which  you  pass  in  a  day,  divides  two 
nations,  each  other's   physical  and  moral  antipodes. 


178 


PENCILLINGS  BY  THE  WAY. 


The  handsome,  picturesque,  lazy,  unprincipled  Ital- 
ian, is  left  in  the  morning  in  his  own  dirty  and  exorbi- 
tant inn  ;  and,  on  the  evening  of  the  same  day,  having 
crossed  but  a  chain  of  mountains,  you  find  yourself 
in  a  clean  auberge,  nestled  in  the  bosom  of  a  Swiss 
valley,  another  language  spoken  around  you,  and  in 
the  midst  of  a  people  who  seem  to  require  the  virtues 
they  possess  to  compensate  them  for  more  than  their 
share  of  uncomeliness.  You  travel  a  day  or  two  down 
the  valley  of  the  Rhone,  and  when  you  are  become 
reconciled  to  cretins  and  goitres,  and  ill-dressed  and 
worse  formed  men  and  women,  you  pass  in  another 
single  day  the  chain  of  the  Jura,  and  find  yourself  in 
France — a  country  as  different  from  both  Switzerland 
and  Italy  as  they  are  from  each  other.  How  is  it  that 
these  diminutive  cantons  preserve  so  completely  their 
nationality  ?  It  seems  a  problem  to  the  traveller  who 
passes  from  one  to  the  other  without  leaving  his  car- 
riage. 

One  is  compelled  to  like  France  in  spite  of  himself. 
You  are  no  sooner  over  the  Jura  than  you  are  enslav- 
ed, past  all  possible  ill-humor,  by  the  universal  polite- 
ness. You  stop  for  the  night  at  a  place,  which,  as 
my  friend  remarked,  resembles  an  inn  only  in  its  in- 
attention, and  after  a  bad  supper,  worse  beds,  and  every 
kind  of  annoyance,  down  comes  my  lady-hostess  in 
the  morning  to  receive  her  coin,  and  if  you  can  fly 
into  a  passion  with  such  a  cap,  and  such  a  smile,  and 
such  a  "  bon  jour,'1'1  you  are  of  less  penetrable  stuff 
than  man  is  commonly  made  of. 

I  loved  Italy,  but  detested  the  Italians.  I  detest 
France,  but  I  can  not  help  liking  the  French.  "  Po- 
liteness is  among  the  virtues,"  says  the  philosopher. 
Rather,  it  takes  the  place  of  them  all.  What  can  you 
believe  ill  of  a  people  whose  slightest  look  toward  you 
is  made  up  of  grace  and  kindness. 

We  are  dawdling  along  thirty  miles  a  day  through 
Burgundy,  sick  to  death  of  the  bare  vine-stakes,  and 
longing  to  see  a  festooned  vineyard  of  Lombardy. 
France  is  such  an  ugly  country !  The  diligences 
lumber  by,  noisy  and  ludicrous  ;  the  cow-tenders  wear 
cocked  hats  ;  the  beggars  are  in  the  true  French  ex- 
treme, theatrical  in  all  their  misery;  the  climate  is 
rainy  and  cold,  and  as  unlike  that  of  Italy  as  if  a 
thousand  leagues  separated  them,  and  the  roads  are 
long,  straight,  dirty,  and  uneven.  There  is  neither 
pleasure  nor  comfort,  neither  scenery  nor  antiquities, 
nor  accommodations  for  the  weary — nothing  but  po- 
liteness.    And  it  is  odd  how  it  reconciles  you  to  it  all. 


LETTER  CXIV. 

ARIS    AND  LONDON — REASONS  FOR  LIKING  PARIS — JOY- 

OtJSNESS  OF    ITS    CITIZENS — LAFAYETTE'S  FUNERAL 

ROYAL  RESPECT  AND  GRATITUDE — ENGLAND — DOVER 
— ENGLISH  NEATNESS  AND  COMFORT,  AS  DISPLAYED 
IN  THE  HOTELS,  WAITERS,  FIRES,  BELL-ROPES,  LAND- 
SCAPES, WINDOW-CURTAINS,  TEA-KETTLES,  STAGE- 
COACHES,  HORSES,  AND  EVERYTHING  ELSE — SPECIMEN 

OF  ENGLISH    RESERVE THE     GENTLEMAN   DRIVER    OF 

FASHION A  CASE    FOR    MRS.    TROLLOPE. 

It  is  pleasani  to  get  back  to  Paris.  One  meets  ev- 
erybody there  one  ever  saw  ;  and  operas  and  coffee, 
Taglioni  and  Leontine  Fay,  the  belles  and  the  Boule- 
vards, the  shops,  spectacles,  life,  lions,  and  lures  to 
every  species  of  pleasure,  rather  give  you  the  impres- 
sion that,  outside  the  barriers  of  Paris,  time  is  wasted 
in  travel. 

What  pleasant  idlers  they  look  !  The  very  shop- 
keepers seem  standing  behind  their  counters  for 
amusement.  The  soubrette  who  sells  you  a  cigar,  or 
ties  a  crape  on  your  arm  (it  was  for  poor  old  Lafayette), 
is  coiffed  as  for  a  ball ;  the  frotteur  who  takes  the  dust 


from  your  boots,  sings  his  lovesong  as  he  brushes 
away,  the  old  man  has  his  bouquet  in  his  bosom,  and 
the  beggar  looks  up  at  the  new  statue  of  Napoleon  in 
the  Place  Vendome — everybody  has  some  touch  of 
fancy,  some  trace  of  a  heart  on  the  look-out,  at  least, 
for  pleasure. 

I  was  at  Lafayette's  funeral.  They  buried  the  old 
patriot  like  a  criminal.  Fixed  bayonets  before  and 
behind  his  hearse,  his  own  National  Guard  disarmed, 
and  troops  enough  to  beleaguer  a  city,  were  the  hon- 
ors paid  by  the  "  citizen  king"  to  the  man  who  had 
made  him  !  The  indignation,  the  scorn,  the  bitter- 
ness, expressed  on  every  side  among  the  people,  and 
the  ill-smothered  cries  of  disgust  as  the  two  empty 
royal  carriages  went  by,  in  the  funeral  train,  seemed 
to  me  strong  enough  to  indicate  a  settled  and  univer- 
sal hostility  to  the  government. 

I  met  Dr.  Bowring  on  the  Boulevard  after  the  fu- 
neral was  over.  I  had  not  seen  him  for  two  years,  but 
he  could  talk  of  nothing  but  the  great  event  of  the 
day — "  You  have  come  in  time,"  he  said,  "  to  see 
how  they  carried  the  old  general  to  his  grave  !  What 
would  they  say  to  this  in  America  ?  Well — let  them 
go  on  !  We  shall  see  what  will  come  of  it !  They 
have  buried  Liberty  and  Lafayette  together — our  last 
hope  in  Europe  is  quite  dead  with  him  !" 

After  three  delightful  days  in  Paris  we  took  the 
northern  diligence  ;  and,  on  the  second  evening,  hav- 
ing passed  hastily  through  Montreuil,  Abbeville,  Bou- 
logne, and  voted  the  road  the  dullest  couple  of  hun- 
dred miles  we  had  seen  in  our  travels,  we  were  set 
down  in  Calais.  A  stroll  through  some  very  indiffer- 
ent streets,  a  farewell  visit  to  the  last  French  cafe  we 
were  likely  to  see  for  a  long  time,  and  some  unsatis- 
factory inquiries  about  Beau  Brummel,  who  is  said  to 
live  here  still,  filled  up  till  bedtime  our  last  day  on 
the  continent. 

The  celebrated  Countess  of  Jersey  was  on  board  the 
steamer,  and  some  forty  or  fifty  plebeian  stomachs 
shared  with  her  fashionable  ladyship  and  ourselves  the 
horrors  of  a  passage  across  the  channel.  It  is  rather 
the  most  disagreeble  sea  I  ever  traversed,  though  I 
have  seen  "the  Euxine,"  "  the  roughest  sea  the  trav- 
eller e'er s  in,"  etc.,  according  to  Don  Juan. 

I  was  lying  on  my  back  in  a  berth  when  the  steamer 
reached  her  moorings  at  Dover,  and  had  neither  eyes 
nor  disposition  to  indulge  in  the  proper  sentiment  on 
approaching  the  "  white  cliffs"  of  my  fatherland.  I 
crawled  on  deck,  and  was  met  by  a  wind  as  cold  as 
December,  and  a  crowd  of  rosy  English  faces  on  the 
pier,  wrapped  in  cloaks  and  shawls,  and  indulging  cu- 
riosity evidently  at  the  expense  of  a  shiver.  It  was 
the  first  of  June  ! 

My  companion  led  the  way  to  a  hotel,  and  we  were 
introduced  by  English  waiters  (I  had  not  seen  such  a 
thing  in  three  years,  and  it  was  quite  like  being  wait- 
ed on  by  gentlemen),  to  two  blazing  coal  fires  in  the 
"  coffee-room"  of  the  "  Ship."  Oh  what  a  comfort- 
able place  it  appeared  !  A  rich  Turkey  carpet  snug- 
ly fitted,  nice-rubbed  mahogany  tables,  the  morning 
papers  from  London,  bellropes  that  would  ring  the 
bell,  doors  that  would  shut,  a  landlady  that  spoke  Eng- 
lish, and  was  kind  and  civil ;  and,  though  there  were 
eight  or  ten  people  in  the  room,  no  noise  above  the 
rustle  of  a  newspaper,  and  positively,  rich  red  damask 
curtains,  neither  second-hand  nor  shabby,  to  the  win- 
dows !  A  greater  contrast  than  this  to  the  things  that 
answer  to  them  on  the  continent,  could  scarcely  be 
imagined. 

Malgre  all  my  observations  on  the  English,  whom 
I  have  found  everywhere  the  most  open-hearted  and 
social  people  in  the  world,  they  are  said  by  themselves 
and  others  to  be  just  the  contrary  ;  and,  presuming 
they  were  different  in  England,  I  had  made  up  my 
mind  to  seal  my  lips  in  all  public  places,  and  be  con- 


PENCILLINGS  BY  THE  WAY. 


17£ 


scious  of  nobody's  existence  but  my  own.  There 
were  several  elderly  persons  dining  at  the  different  ta- 
bles ;  and  one  party,  of  a  father  and  son,  waited  on  by 
their  own  servants  in  livery.  Candles  were  brought 
in,  the  different  cloths  were  removed;  and,  as  my  com- 
panion had  gone  to  bed,  I  took  up  a  newspaper  to  keep 
me  company  over  my  wine.  In  the  course  of  an 
hour,  some  remark  had  been  addressed  to  me,  provo- 
cative of  conversation,  by  almost  every  individual  in 
the  room  !  The  subjects  of  discussion  soon  became 
general,  and  I  have  seldom  passed  a  more  social  and 
agreeable  evening.  And  so  much  for  the  first  speci- 
men of  English  reserve! 

The  fires  were  burning  brilliantly,  and  the  coffee- 
room  was  in  the  nicest  order  when  we  descended  to 
our  breakfast  at  six  the  next  morning.  The  tea-kettle 
sung  on  the  hearth,  the  toast  was  hot,  and  done  to  a 
turn,  and  the  waiter  was  neither  sleepy  nor  uncivil — 
all,  again,  very  unlike  a  morning  at  a  hotel  in  la  belle 
France. 

The  coach  rattled  up  to  the  door  punctually  at  the 
hour ;  and,  while  they  were  putting  on  my  way-worn 
baggage,  1  stood  looking  in  admiration  at  the  carriage 
and  horses.  They  were  four  beautiful  bays,  in  small, 
neat  harness  of  glazed  leather,  brass-mounted,  their 
coats  shining  like  a  racer's,  their  small,  blood-looking 
heads  curbed  up  to  stand  exactly  together,  and  their 
hoofs  blacked  and  brushed  with  the  polish  of  a  gentle- 
man's boots.  The  coach  was  gaudily  painted,  the  only 
thing  out  of  taste  about  it ;  but  it  was  admirably  built, 
the  wheel-horses  were  quite  under  the  coach-man's 
box,  and  the  whole  affair,  though  it  would  carry  twelve 
or  fourteen  people,  covered  less  ground  than  a  French 
one-horse  cabriolet.      It  was  altogether  quite  a  study. 

We  mounted  to  the  top  of  the  coach  ;  "  all  right," 
said  the  ostler,  and  away  shot  the  four  fine  creatures, 
turning  their  small  ears,  and  stepping  together  with 
the  ease  of  a  cat,  at  ten  miles  in  the  hour.  The  dri- 
ver was  dressed  like  a  Broadway  idler,  and  sat  in  his 
place,  and  held  his  "  ribands"  and  his  tandemwhip 
with  a  confident  air  of  superiority,  as  if  he  were  quite 
convinced  that  he  and  his  team  were  beyond  criticism 
— and  so  they  were !  I  could  not  but  smile  at  con- 
Hasting  his  silence  and  the  speed  and  ease  with  which 
we  went  along,  with  the  clumsy,  cumbrous  diligence 
or  vetturino,  and  the  crying,  whipping,  cursing  and 
ill-appointed  postillions  of  France  and  Italy.  It  seems 
odd,  in  a  two  hours'  passage,  to  pass  over  such  strong 
lines  of  national  difference — so  near,  and  not  even  a 
shading  of  one  into  the  other. 

England  is  described  always  very  justly,  and  always 
in  the  same  words  :  "  it  is  all  one  garden."  There  is 
not  a  cottage  between  Dover  and  London  (seventy 
miles),  where  a  poet  might  not  be  happy  to  live.  I 
saw  a  hundred  little  spots  I  coveted  with  quite  a  heart- 
ache. There  was  no  poverty  on  the  road.  Every- 
body seemed  employed,  and  everybody  well-made  and 
healthy.  The  relief  from  the  deformity  and  disease 
of  the  way-side  beggars  of  the  continent  was  very 
striking. 

We  were  at  Canterbury  before  I  had  time  to  get  ac- 
customed to  my  seat.  The  horses  had  been  changed 
twice  ;  the  coach,  it  seemed  to  me,  hardly  stopping 
while  it  was  done ;  way-passengers  were  taken  up  and 
put  down,  with  their  baggage,  without  a  word,  and  in 
half  a  minute;  money  was  tossed  to  the  keeper  of  the 
turnpike  gate  as  we  dashed  through  ;  the  wheels  went 
over  the  smooth  road  without  noise,  and  with  scarce 
a  sense  of  motion — it  was  the  perfection  of  travel. 

The  new  driver  from  Canterbury  rather  astonished 
me.  He  drove  into  London  every  day,  and  was  more 
of  a  "  swell:'1  He  owned  the  first  team  himself,  four 
blood  horses  of  great  beauty,  and  it  was  a  sight  to  see 
him  drive  them  !  His  language  was  free  from  all  slang, 
and  very  gentlemanlike  and  well  chosen,  and  he  dis- 
cussed everything.     He  found  out  that  I  was  an  Amer- 


ican, and  said  we  did  not  think  enough  of  the  memo- 
ry of  Washington.  Leaving  his  bones  in  the  miser- 
able brick  tomb,  of  which  he  had  read  descriptions, 
was  not,  in  his  opinion,  worthy  of  a  country  like  mine. 
He  went  on  to  criticise  Julia  Grisi  (the  new  singer  just 
then  setting  London  on  fire),  hummed  airs  from  "  II 
Pirata,"  to  show  her  manner;  sang  an  English  song 
like  Braham  ;  gave  a  decayed  count,  who  sat  on  the 
box,  some  very  sensible  advice  about  the  management 
of  a  wild  son  ;  drew  a  comparison  between  French 
and  Italian  women  (he  had  travelled)  ;  told  us  who  the 
old  count  was  in  very  tolerable  French,  and  preferred 
Edmund  Kean  and  Fanny  Kemble  to  all  actors  in  the 
world.  His  taste  and  his  philosophy,  like  his  driving, 
were  quite  unexceptionable.  He  was,  withal,  very 
handsome,  and  had  the  easy  and  respectful  manners  of 
a  well-bred  person.  It  seemed  very  odd  to  give  him 
a  shilling  at  the  end  of  the  journey. 

At  Chatham  we  took  up  a  very  elegantly  dressed 
young  man,  who  had  come  down  on  a  fishing  excur- 
sion. He  was  in  the  army,  and  an  Irishman.  We  had 
not  been  half  an  hour  on  the  seat  together,  before  he 
had  discovered,  by  so  many  plain  questions,  that  I  was 
an  American,  a  stranger  in  England,  and  an  acquaint- 
ance of  a  whole  regiment  of  his  friends  in  Malta  and 
Corfu.  If  this  had  been  a  Yankee,  thought  I,  what 
a  chapter  it  would  have  made  for  Basil  Hall  or  Mad- 
ame Trollope  !  With  all  his  inquisitiveness  I  liked 
my  companion,  and  half-accepted  his  offer  to  drive  me 
down  to  Epsom  the  next  day  to  the  races.  I  know  no 
American  who  would  have  beaten  that  on  a  stage- 
coach acquaintance. 


LETTER  CXV. 

FIRST    VIEW     OF     LONDON — THE     KING'S    BIRTH-DAY — 

PROCESSION     OF     MAIL-COACHES — REGENT     STREET 

LADY    BLESSINGTON — THE    ORIGINAL     PELHAM BUL- 

WER,  THE  NOVELIST — JOHN  GALT — D'lSRAELI,  THE 
AUTHOR  OF  VIVIAN  GREY — RECOLLECTIONS  OF  BY- 
RON— INFLUENCE  OF  AMERICAN  OPINIONS  ON  ENG- 
LISH   LITERATURE. 

London. — From  the  top  of  Shooter's  Hill  we  got 
our  first  view  of  London — an  indistinct,  architectural 
mass,  extending  all  round  to  the  horizon,  and  half  en- 
veloped in  a  dim  and  lurid  smoke.  "  That  is  St. 
Paul's  ! — there  is  Westminster  Abbey  ! — there  is  the 
Tower  of  London!"  What  directions  were  these  to 
follow  for  the  first  time  with  the  eye! 

From  Blackheath  (seven  or  eight  miles  from  the 
centre  of  London),  the  beautiful  hedges  disappeared, 
and  it  was  one  continued  mass  of  buildings.  The 
houses  were  amazingly  small,  a  kind  of  thing  that 
would  -do  for  an  object  in  an  imitation  perspective  park, 
but  the  soul  of  neatness  pervaded  them.  Trellises 
were  nailed  between  the  little  windows,  roses  quite 
overshadowed  the  low  doors,  a  painted  fence  enclosed 
the  hand's  breadth  of  grass-plot,  and  very,  oh,  very 
sweet  faces  bent  over  lapfuls  of  work  beneath  the  snowy 
and  looped -up  curtains.  It  was  all  home-like  and 
amiable.  There  was  an  affectionatencss  in  the  mere 
outside  of  every  one  of  them. 

After  crossing  Waterloo  Bridge,  it  was  busy  work 
for  the  eyes.  The  brilliant  shops,  the  dense  crowds 
of  people,  the  absorbed  air  of  every  passenger,  the 
lovely  women,  the  cries,  the  flying  vehicles  of  every 
description,  passing  with  the  most  dangerous  speed — 
accustomed  as  I  am  to  large  cities,  it  quite  made  me 
dizzy.  We  got  into  a  "jarvey"  at  the  coach-office, 
and  in  half  an  hour  I  was  in  comfortable  quarters, 
with  windows  looking  down  St.  James  street,  and  the 
most  agreeable  leaf  of  my  life  to  turn  over.  "  Great 
emotions  interfere  little  with  the  mechanical  operations 


180 


PENCILLINGS  BY  THE  WAY. 


of  life,"  however,  and  I  dressed  and  dined,  though  it 
was  my  first  hour  in  London. 

I  was  sitting  in  the  little  parlor  alone  over  a  fried 
sole  and  a  mutton  cutlet,  when  the  waiter  came  in, 
and  pleading  the  crowded  state  of  the  hotel,  asked  my 
permission  to  spread  the  other  side  of  the  table  for  a 
clergyman.  I  have  a  kindly  preference  for  the  cloth, 
and  made  not  the  slightest  objection.  Enter  a  fat 
man,  with  top-boots  and  a  hunting-whip,  rosy  as  Bac- 
chus, and  excessively  out  of  breath  with  mounting 
one  flight  of  stairs.  Beefsteak  and  potatoes,  a  pot  of 
porter,  and  a  bottle  of  sherry  followed  close  on  his 
heels.  With  a  single  apology  for  the  intrusion,  the 
reverend  gentleman  fell  to,  and  we  ate  and  drank  for  a 
while  in  true  English  silence. 

"  From   Oxford,  sir,  I  presume,"  he  said  at  last, 
pushing  back  bis  plate,  with  an  air  of  satisfaction. 
"  No,  I  had  never  the  pleasure  of  seeing  Oxford." 
"R — e — ally  !  may  I  take  a  glass  of  wine  with  you, 
sir?" 

We  got  on  swimmingly.  He  would  not  believe  I 
had  never  been  in  England  till  the  day  before,  but  his 
cordiality  was  no  colder  for  that.  We  exchanged  port 
and  sherry,  and  a  most  amicable  understanding  found 
its  way  down  with  the  wine.  Our  table  was  near  the 
window,  and  a  great  crowd  began  to  collect  at  the  cor- 
ner of  St.  James'  street.  It  was  the  king's  birth-day, 
and  the  people  were  thronging  to  seethe  nobility  come 
in  state  from  the  royal  levee.  The  show  was  less 
splendid  than  the  same  thing  in  Rome  or  Vienna,  but 
it  excited  far  more  of  my  admiration.  Gaudiness  and 
tinsel  were  exchanged  for  plain  richness  and  perfect 
fitness  in  the  carriages  and  harness,  while  the  horses 
were  incomparably  finer.  My  friend  pointed  out  to 
me  the  different  liveries  as  they  turned  the  corner  into 
Piccadilly,  the  duke  of  Wellington's  among  others. 
I  looked  hard  to  see  his  grace  ;  but  the  two  pale  and 
beautiful  faces  on  the  back  seat,  carried  nothing  like 
the  military  nose  on  the  handles  of  the  umbrellas. 

The  annual  procession  of  mail-coaches  followed, 
and  it  was  hardly  less  brilliant.  The  drivers  and 
guard  in  their  bright  red  and  gold  uniforms,  the  admi- 
rable horses  driven  so  beautifully,  the  neat  harness, 
the  exactness  with  which  the  room  of  each  horse  was 
calculated,  and  the  small  space  in  which  he  worked, 
and  the  compactness  and  contrivance  of  the  coaches, 
formed  altogether  one  of  the  most  interesting  specta- 
cles I  have  ever  seen.  My  friend,  the  clergyman,  with 
whom  I  had  walked  out  to  see  them  pass,  criticised 
the  different  teams  con  amore,  but  in  language  which 
I  did  not  always  understand.  I  asked  him  once  for 
an  explanation ;  but  he  looked  rather  grave,  and  said 
something  about  "  gammon,"  evidently  quite  sure  that 
my  ignorance  of  London  was  a  mere  quiz. 

We  walked  down  Piccadilly,  and  turned  into,  be- 
yond all  comparison,  the  most  handsome  street  I  ever 
saw.  The  Toledo  of  Naples,  the  Corso  of  Rome,  the 
Kohl-market  of  Vienna,  the  Rue  de  la  Paix  and  Bou- 
levards of  Paris,  have  each  impressed  me  strongly 
with  their  magnificence,  but  they  are  really  nothing  to 
Regent-street.  I  had  merely  time  to  get  a  glance  at 
it  before  dark ;  but  for  breadth  and  convenience,  for 
the  elegance  and  variety  of  the  buildings,  though  all 
of  the  same  scale  and  material,  and  for  the  brilliancy 
and  expensiveness  of  the  shops,  it  seemed  to  me  quite 
absurd  to  compare  it  with  anything  between  New 
York  and  Constantinople — Broadway  and  the  Hippo- 
drome included. 

It  is  the  custom  for  the  king's  tradesmen  to  illumi- 
nate their  shops  on  his  majesty's  birth-night,  and  the 
principal  streets  on  our  return  were  in  ablaze  of  light. 
The  crowd  was  immense.  None  but  the  lower  order 
seemed  abroad,  and  I  can  not  describe  to  you  the  effect 
on  my  feelings  on  hearing  my  language  spoken  by 
every  man,  woman,  and  child,  about  me.  It  seemed  a 
completely  foreign  country  in  every  other  respect,  dif- 


ferent from  what  I  had  imagined,  different  from  my 
own  and  all  that  I  had  seen,  and  coming  to  it  last,  it 
seemed  to  me  the  farthest  off  and  strangest  country 
of  all — and  yet  the  little  sweep,  who  went  laughing 
through  the  crowd,  spoke  a  language  that  1  had  heard 
attempted  in  vain  by  thousands  of  educated  people, 
and  that  I  had  grown  to  consider  next  to  unattainable 
by  others,  and  almost  useless  to  myself.  Still,  it  did 
not  make  me  feel  at  home.  Everything  else  about  me 
was  too  new.  It  was  like  some  mysterious  change  in 
my  own  ears — a  sudden  power  of  comprehension, 
such  as  a  man  might  feel  who  was  cured  suddenly  of 
deafness.  You  can  scarcely  enter  into  my  feelings 
till  you  have  had  the  changes  of  French,  Italian,  Ger- 
man, Greek,  Turkish,  Illyrian,  and  the  mixtures  and 
dialects  of  each,  rung  upon  your  hearing  almost  ex- 
clusively, as  I  have  for  years.  I  wandered  about  as  if  I 
were  exercising  some  supernatural  faculty  in  a  dream. 
A  friend  in  Italy  had  kindly  given  me  a  letter  to 
Lady  Blessington,  and  with  a  strong  curiosity  to  see 
this  celebrated  lady,  I  called  on  the  second  day  after 
my  arrival  in  London.  It  was  "  deep  i'  the  after- 
noon," but  I  had  not  yet  learned  the  full  meaning  of 
"  town  hours."  "  Her  ladyship  had  not  come  down 
to  breakfast."  I  gave  the  letter  and  my  address  to  the 
powdered  footman,  and  had  scarce  reached  home  when 
a  note  arrived  inviting  me  to  call  the  same  evening 
at  ten. 

In  a  long  library  lined  alternately  with  splendidly 
bound  books  and  mirrors,  and  with  a  deep  window  of 
the  breadth  of  the  room,  opening  upon  Hyde  Park,  1 
found  Lady  Blessington  alone.  The  picture  to  my 
eye  as  the  door  opened  was  a  very  lovely  one.  A  wo- 
man of  remarkable  beauty  half  buried  in  a  fauteuil  of 
yellow  satin,  reading  by  a  magnificent  lamp,  suspend- 
ed from  the  centre  of  the  arched  ceiling ;  sofas, 
couches,  ottomans,  and  busts,  arranged  in  rather  a 
crowded  sumptuousness  through  the  room ;  enamel 
tables,  covered  with  expensive  and  elegant  trifles  in 
every  corner,  and  a  delicate  white  hand  relieved  on  the 
back  of  a  book,  to  which  the  eye  was  attracted  by  the 
blaze  of  its  diamond  rings.  As  the  servant  mentioned 
my  name,  she  rose  and  gave  me  her  hand  very  cor- 
dially, and  a  gentleman  entering  immediately  after, 
she  presented  me  to  her  son-in-law,  Count  D'Orsay, 
the  well  known  Pelham  of  London,  and  certainly  the 
most  splendid  specimen  of  a  man  and  a  well-dressed 
one  that  I  had  ever  seen.  Tea  was  brought  in  imme- 
diately, and  conversation  went  swimmingly  on. 

Her  ladyship's  inquiries  were  principally  about 
America,  of  which,  from  long  absence  I  knew  very 
little.  She  was  extremely  curious  to  know  the  de- 
grees of  reputation  the  present  popular  authors  of 
England  enjoy  among  us,  particularly  Bulwer,  Gait, 
and  D'lsraeli  (the  author  of  Vivian  Grey).  "  If  you 
will  come  to-morrow  night,"  she  said,  "you  will  see 
Bulwer.  I  am  delighted  that  he  is  popular  in  Ameri- 
ca. He  is  envied  and  abused  by  all  the  literary  men 
of  London,  for  nothing,  I  believe,  except  that  he  gets 
five  hundred  pounds  for  his  books  and  they  fifty,  and 
knowing  this,  he  chooses  to  assume  a  pride  (some 
people  call  it  puppyism),  which  is  only  the  armor  of  a 
sensitive  mind,  afraid  of  a  wound.  He  is  to  his  friends 
the  most  frank  and  gay  creature  in  the  world,  and 
open  to  boyishness  with  those  who  he  thinks  under- 
stand and  value  him.  He  has  a  brother,  Henry,  who 
is  as  clever  as  himself  in  a  different  vein,  and  is  just 
now  publishing  a  book  on  the  present  state  of  France. 
Bulwer's  wife,  you  know,  is  one  of  the  most  beautiful 
women  in  London,  and  his  house  is  the  resort  of  both 
fashion  and  talent.  He  is  just  now  hard  at  work  on  a 
new  book,  the  subject  of  which  is  the  last  days  of 
Pompeii.  The  hero  is  a  Roman  dandy,  who  wastes 
himself  in  luxury,  till  this  great  catastrophe  rouses 
him  and  develops  a  character  of  the  noblest  capabili- 
ties.    Is  Gait  much  liked  ?" 


PENCILLINGS  BY  THE  WAY. 


181 


t  answered  to  the  best  of  my  knowledge  that  he 
was  not.  His  life  of  Byron  was  a  stab  at  the  dead 
body  of  the  noble  poet,  which,  for  one,  I  never  could 
forgive,  and  his  books  were  clever,  but  vulgar.  He 
was  evidently  not  a  gentleman  in  his  mind.  This  was 
the  opinion  I  had  formed  in  America,  and  I  had  never 
heard  another.  <•     .      .      t 

"  I  am  sorry  for  it,"  said  Lady  B.,  "for  he  is  the 
dearest  and  best  old  man  in  the  world.  I  know  him 
well.  He  is  just  on  the  verge  of  the  grave,  but  comes 
to  see  me  now  and  then,  and  if  you  had  known  how 
shockingly  Byron  treated  him,  you  would  only  won- 
der at  his  sparing  his  memory  so  much." 

"  Nil  morluis~nisi  bonum"  I  thought  would  have 
been  a  better  course.  If  he  had  reason  to  dislike 
him,  he  had  better  not  have  written  since  he  was  dead. 

"  Perhaps — perhaps.  But  Gait  has  been  all  his  life 
miserably  poor,  and  lived  by  his  books.  That  must 
be  his  apology.  Do  you  know  the  D'Israeli's  in 
America  ?" 

I  assured  her  ladyship  that  the  "  Curiosities  of  Lit- 
erature," by  the  father,  and  "  Vivian  Grey  and  Con- 
tarini  Fleming,"  by  the  son,  were  universally  known. 

"  I  am  pleased  at  that,  too,  for  I  like  them  both. 
D'Israeli  the  elder,  came  here  with  his  son  the  other 
night.  It  would  have  delighted  you  to  see  the  old 
man's  pride  in  him.  He  is  very  fond  of  him,  and  as 
he  was  going  away,  he  patted  him  on  the  head,  and 
said  to  me,  "  take  care  of  him,  Lady  Blessington,  for 
my  sake.  He  is  a  clever  lad,  but  he  wants  ballast.  1 1 
am  glad  he  has  the  honor  to  know  you,  for  you  will 
check  him  sometimes  when  I  am  away !"  D'Israeli,  j 
the  elder,  lives  in  the  country,  about  twenty  miles  j 
from  town,  and  seldom  comes  up  to  London.  He  is 
a  very  plain  old  man  in  his  manners,  as  plain  as  his 
son  is  the  reverse.  D'Israeli,  the  younger,  is  quite 
his  own  character  of  Vivian  Grey,  crowded  with  tal- 
ent, but  very  soigyit  of  his  curls,  and  a  bit  of  a  cox- 
comb. There  is  no  reverse  about  him,  however,  and 
he  is  the  only  joyous  dandy  I  ever  saw." 

I  asked  if  the  account  I  had  seen  in  some  American 
paper  of  a  literary  celebration  at  Canandaigua,  and 
the  engraving  of  her  ladyship's  name  with  some  others 
upon  a  rock,  was  not  a  quiz. 

"Oh,  by  no  means.  I  was  equally  flattered  and 
amused  by  the  whole  affair.  I  have  a  great  idea  of 
taking  a  trip  to  America  to  see  it.  Then  the  letter, 
commencing  '  Most  charming  countess — for  charm- 
ing you  must  be  since  you  have  written  the  conversa- 
tions of  Lord  Byron' — oh,  it  was  quite  delightful.  I 
have  shown  it  to  everybody.  By  the  way,  I  receive  a 
great  many  letters  from  America,  from  people  I  never 
heard  of,  written  in  the  most  extraordinary  style  of 
compliment,  apparently  in  perfectly  good  faith.  I 
hardly  know  what  to  make  of  them." 

I  accounted  for  it  by  the  perfect  seclusion  in  which 
great  numbers  of  cultivated  people  live  in  our  coun- 
try, who,  having  neither  intrigue,  nor  fashion,  nor 
twenty  other  things  to  occupy  their  minds  as  in  Eng- 
land, depend  entirely  upon  books,  and  consider  an 
author  who  has  given  them  pleasure  as  a  friend. 
America,  I  said,  has  probably  more  literary  enthusiasts 
than  any  country  in  the  world  ;  and  there  are  thou- 
sands of  romantic  minds  in  the  interior  of  New  Eng- 
land, who  know  perfectly  every  writer  this  side  the 
water,  and  hold  them  all  in  affectionate  veneration, 
scarcely  conceivable  by  a  sophisticated  European.  If 
it  were  not  for  such  readers,  literature  would  be  the 
most  thankless  of  vocations.  I,  for  one,  would  never 
write  another  line. 

"  And  do  you  think  these  are  the  people  who  write 
to  me?  If  I  could  think  so,  I  should  be  exceedingly 
happy.  People  in  England  are  refined  down  to  such 
heartlessness — criticism,  private  and  public,  is  so  in- 
terested and  so  cold,  that  it  is  really  delightful  to  know 
there  is  a  more  generous  tribunal.     Tndeed  I  think  all 


our  authors  now  are  beginning  to  write  for  America. 
We  think  already  a  great  deal  of  your  praise  or 
censure." 

I  asked  if  her  ladyship  had  known  manv  Amer 
icans. 

"Not  in  London,  but  a  great  many  abroad.  I  was 
with  Lord  Blessington  in  his  yacht  at  Naples,  when 
the  American  fleet  was  lying  there,  eight  or  ten  years 
ago,  and  we  were  constantly  on  board  your  ships.  I 
knew  Commodore  Creighton  and  Captain  Deacon  ex- 
tremely well,  and  liked  them  particularly.  They 
were  with  us,  either  on  board  the  yacht  or  the  frigate 
every  evening,  and  I  remember  very  well  the  bands 
playing  always  '  God  save  the  King'  as  we  went  up 
the  side.  Count  D'Orsay  here,  who  spoke  very  little 
English  at  that  time,  had  a  great  passion  for  Yankee 
Doodle,  and  it  was  always  played  at  his  request." 

The  count,  who  still  speaks  the  language  with  a 
very  slight  accent,  but  with  a  choice  of  words  that 
shows  him  to  be  a  man  of  uncommon  tact  and  ele- 
gance of  mind,  inquired  after  several  of  the  officers, 
whom  I  have  not  the  pleasure  of  knowing.  He  seem- 
ed to  remember  his  visits  to  the  frigate  with  great 
pleasure.  The  conversation,  after  running  upon  a  va- 
riety of  topics,  which  I  could  not  with  propriety  put 
into  a  letter  for  the  public  eye,  turned  very  naturally 
upon  Byron.  I  had  frequently  seen  the  Countess 
Guiccioli  on  the  continent,  and  I  asked  Lady  Blessing- 
ton if  she  knew  her. 

"  No.  We  were  at  Pisa  when  they  were  living  to- 
gether, but  though  Lord  Blessington  had  the  greatest 
curiosity  to  see  her,  Byron  would  never  permit  it. 
« She  has  a  red  head  of  her  own,'  said  he,  '  and  don't 
like  to  show  it.'  Byron  treated  the  poor  creature 
dreadfully  ill.     She  feared  more  than  she  loved  him." 

She  had  told  me  the  same  thing  herself  in  Italy. 

It  would  be  impossible,  of  course,  to  make  a  full 
and  fair  record  of  a  conversation  of  some  hours.  I 
have  only  noted  one  or  two  topics  which  I  thought 
most  likely  to  interest  an  American  reader.  During 
all  this  long  visit,  however,  my  eyes  were  very  busy  in 
finishing  for  memory  a  portrait  of  the  celebrated  and 
beautiful  woman  before  me. 

The  portrait  of  Lady  Blessington  in  the  Book  of 
Beauty  is  not  unlike  her,  but  it  is  still  an  unfavorable 
likeness.  A  picture  by  Sir  Thomas  Lawrence  hung 
opposite  me,  taken,  perhaps,  at  the  age  of  eighteen, 
which  is  more  like  her,  and  as  captivating  a  represent- 
ation of  a  just  matured  woman,  full  of  loveliness  and 
love,  the  kind  of  creature  with  whose  divine  sweet- 
ness the  gazer's  heart  aches,  as  ever  was  drawn  in  the 
painter's  most  inspired  hour.  The  original  is  now 
(she  confessed  it  very  frankly)  forty.  She  looks 
something  on  the  sunny  side  of  thirty.  Her  person 
is  full,  but  preserves  all  the  fineness  of  an  admirable 
shape  ;  her  foot  is  not  crowded  in  a  satin  slipper,  for 
which  a  Cinderella  might  long  be  looked  for  in  vain, 
and  her  complexion  (an  unusually  fair  skin,  with  very 
dark  hair  and  eyebrows),  is  of  even  a  girlish  delicacy 
and  freshness.  Her  dress  of  blue  satin  (if  I  am  de- 
scribing her  like  a  milliner,  it  is  because  I  have  here 
and  there  a  reader  of  the  Mirror  in  my  eye  who  will 
be  amused  by  it),  was  cut  low  and  folded  across  her 
bosom,  in  a  way  to  show  to  advantage  the  round  and 
sculpture-like  curve  and  whiteness  of  a  pair  of  ex- 
quisite shoulders,  while  her  hair  dressed  close  to  her 
head,  and  parted  simply  on  her  forehead  with  a  rich 
fcrronier  of  turquoise,  enveloped  in  clear  outline  a 
head  with  which  it  would  be  difficult  to  find  a  fault. 
Her  features  are  regular,  and  her  mouth,  the  most  ex- 
pressive of  them,  has  a  ripe  fulness  and  freedom  of 
play,  peculiar  to  the  Irish  physiognomy,  and  expres- 
sive of  the  most  unsuspicious  good  humor.  Add  to 
all  this  a  voice  merry  and  sad  by  turns,  but  always  mu- 
sical, and  manners  of  the  most  unpretending  elegance, 
yet  even  more  remaikable  for  their  winning  kindaess, 


182 


PENCILLINGS  BY  THE  WAY. 


and  you  have  the  most  prominent  traits  of  one  of  the 
most  lovely  and  fascinating  women  I  have  ever  seen. 
Remembering  her  talents  and  her  rank,  and  the  un- 
envying  admiration  she  receives  from  the  world  of 
fashion  and  genius,  it  would  be  difficult  to  reconcile 
her  lot  to  the  "doctrine  of  compensation." 

There  is  one  remark  I  may  as  well  make  here,  with 
regard  to  the  personal  descriptions  and  anecdotes  with 
which  my  letters  from  England  will  of  course  be  fill- 
ed. It  is  quite  a  different  thing  from  publishing  such 
letters  in  London.  America  is  much  farther  off  from 
England  than  England  from  America.  You  in  New 
York  read  the  periodicals  of  this  country,  and  know 
everything  that  is  done  or  written  here,  as  if  you  lived 
within  the  sound  of  Bow-bell.  The  English,  how- 
ever, just  know  of  our  existence,  and  if  they  get  a 
general  idea  twice  a  year  of  our  progress  in  politics, 
they  are  comparatively  well  informed.  Our  periodi- 
cal literature  is  never  even  heard  of.  Of  course, 
there  can  be  no  offence  to  the  individuals  themselves 
in  anything  which  a  visiter  could  write,  calculated  to 
convey  an  idea  of  the  person  or  manners  of  distin- 
guished people  to  the  American  public.  I  mention 
it  lest,  at  first  thought,  I  might  seem  to  have  abused 
the  hospitality  or  frankness  of  those  on  whom  letters 
of  introduction  have  given  me  claims  for  civility. 


LETTER  CXVL 

THE    LITERATI    OF    LONDON. 

Spent  my  first  day  in  London  in  wandering  about 
the  finest  part  of  the  West  End.  It  is  nonsense  to 
compare  it  to  any  other  city  in  the  world.  From  the 
Horse-Guards  to  the  Regent's  Park  alone,  there  is 
more  magnificence  in  architecture  than  in  the  whole 
of  any  other  metropolis  in  Europe,  and  I  have  seen 
the  most  and  the  best  of  them.  Yet  this,  though  a 
walk  of  more  than  two  miles,  is  but  a  small  part  even 
of  the  fashionable  extremity  of  London.  I  am  not 
easily  tired  in  a  city  ;  but  I  walked  till  I  could  scarce 
lift  my  feet  from  the  ground,  and  still  the  parks  and 
noble  streets  extended  before  and  around  me  as  far  as 
the  eye  could  reach,  and  strange  as  they  were  in  real- 
ity, the  names  were  as  familiar  to  me  as  if  my  child- 
hood had  been  passed  among  them.  "  Bond  Street," 
"  Grosvenor  Square,"  "  Hyde  Park,"  look  new  to  my 
eye,  but  they  sound  very  familiar  to  my  ear. 

The  equipages  of  London  are  much  talked  of,  but 
they  exceed  even  description.  Nothing  could  be  more 
perfect,  or  apparently  more  simple  than  the  gentle- 
man's carriage  that  passes  you  in  the  street.  Of  a 
modest  color,  but  the  finest  material,  the  crest  just  vis- 
ible on  the  panels,  the  balance  of  the  body  upon  its 
springs  true  and  easy,  the  hammercloth  and  liveries  of 
the  neatest  and  most  harmonious  colors,  the  harness 
slight  and  elegant,  and  the  horses  "  the  only  splendid 
thing"  in  the  establishment — is  a  description  that  an- 
swers the  most  of  them.  Perhaps  the  most  perfect 
thing  in  the  world,  however,  is  a  St.  James's-street 
stanhope  or  cabriolet,  with  its  dandy  owner  on  the 
whip-seat,  and  the  "  tiger"  beside  him.  The  attitudes 
of  both  the  gentleman  and  the  "  gentleman's  gentle- 
man" are  studied  to  a  point,  but  nothing  could  be 
more  knowing  or  exquisite  than  either.  The  whole 
affair,  from  the  angle  of  the  bell-crowned  hat  (the 
prevailing  fashion  on  the  steps  of  Crockford's  at  pres- 
ent), to  the  blood  legs  of  the  thorough-bred  creature 
in  harness,  is  absolutely  faultless.  I  have  seen  many 
subjects  for  study  in  my  first  day's  stroll,  but  I  leave 
the  men  and  women  and  some  other  less  important  fea- 
tures of  London  for  maturer  observation. 

In  the  evening  I  kept  my  appointment  with  Lady 


Blessington.  She  had  deserted  her  exquisite  library 
for  the  drawing-room,  and  sat,  in  fuller  dress,  with  six 
or  seven  gentlemen  about  her.  I  was  presented  im- 
mediately to  all,  and  when  the  conversation  was  re- 
sumed, 1  took  the  opportunity  to  remark  the  distin- 
guished coterie  with  which  she  was  surrounded. 

Nearest  me  sat  Smith,  the  author  of  "  Rejected  Ad- 
dresses"— a  hale,  handsome  man,  apparently  fifty, 
with  white  hair,  and  a  very  nobly-formed  head  and 
physiognomy.  His  eye  alone,  small  and  with  lids 
contracted  into  an  habitual  look  of  drollery,  betrayed 
the  bent  of  his  genius.  He  held  a  cripple's  crutch  in 
his  hand,  and  though  otherwise  rather  particularly 
well  dressed,  wore  a  pair  of  large  Indiarubber  shoes — 
the  penalty  he  was  paying  doubtless  for  the  many  good 
dinners  he  had  eaten.  He  played  rather  an  aside  in 
the  conversation,  whipping  in  with  a  quiz  or  a  witticism 
whenever  he  could  get  an  opportunity,  but  more  a  lis- 
tener than  a  talker. 

On  the  opposite  side  of  Lady  B.  stood  Henry  Bul- 
wer,  the  brother  of  the  novelist,  very  earnestly  en- 
gaged in  a  discussion  of  some  speech  of  O'Connell's. 
He  is  said  by  many  to  be  as  talented  as  his  brother, 
and  has  lately  published  a  book  on  the  present  state 
of  France.  He  is  a  small  man,  very  slight  and  gen- 
tleman-like, a  little  pitted  with  the  smallpox,  and  of 
very  winning  and  persuasive  manners.  I  liked  him  at 
the  first  glance. 

His  opponent  in  the  argument  was  Fonblanc,  the 
famous  editor  of  the  Examiner,  said  to  be  the  best 
political  writer  of  his  day.  I  never  saw  a  much  worse 
face — sallow,  seamed,  and  hollow,  his  teeth  irregular, 
his  skin  livid,  his  straight  black  hair  uncombed  and 
straggling  over  his  forehead — he  looked  as  if  he  might 
be  the  gentleman 

Whose  "  coat  was  red,  and  whose  breeches  were  blue." 

A  hollow,  croaking  voice,  and  a  small,  fiery  black  eye, 
with  a  smile  like  a  skeleton's,  certainly  did  not  improve 
his  physiognomy.  He  sat  upon  his  chair  very  awk- 
wardly, and  was  very  ill-dressed,  but  every  word  he 
uttered  showed  him  to  be  a  man  of  claims  very  su- 
perior to  exterior  attraction.  The  soft  musical  voice, 
and  elegant  manner  of  the  one,  and  the  satirical  sneer- 
ing tone  and  angular  gesture  of  the  other,  were  in 
very  strong  contrast. 

A  German  prince,  with  a  star  on  his  breast,  trying 
with  all  his  might,  but,  from  his  embarrassed  look, 
quite  unsuccessfully,  to  comprehend  the  drift  of  the 
argument,  the  Duke  de  Richelieu,  whom  I  had  seen 
at  the  court  of  France,  the  inheritor  of  nothing  but 
the  name  of  his  great  ancestor,  a  dandy  and  a  fool, 
making  no  attempt  to  listen  ;  a  famous  traveller  just 
returned  from  Constantinople  ;  and  the  splendid  per- 
son of  Count  D'Orsay  in  a  careless  attitude  upon  the 
ottoman,  completed  the  cordon. 

I  fell  into  conversation  after  a  while  with  Smith, 
who,  supposing  I  might  not  have  heard  the  names  of 
the  others,  in  the  hurry  of  an  introduction,  kindly 
took  the  trouble  to  play  the  dictionary,  and  added  a 
graphic  character  of  each  as  he  named  him.  Among 
other  things  he  talked  a  great  deal  of  America, 
and  asked  me  if  I  knew  our  distinguished  coun- 
tryman, Washington  Irving.  I  had  never  been  so 
fortunate  as  to  meet  him.  "  You  have  lost  a  great 
deal,"  he  said,  "for  never  was  so  delightful  a  fellow. 
I  was  once  taken  down  with  him  into  the  country  by  a 
merchant,  to  dinner.  Our  friend  stopped  his  carriage 
at  the  gate  of  his  park,  and  asked  us  if  we  would  walk 
through  his  grounds  to  the  house.  Irving  refused 
and  held  me  down  by  the  coat,  so  that  we  drove  on  to 
the  house  together,  leaving  our  host  to  follow  on  foot. 
'  1  make  it  a  principle,'  said  Irving,  '  never  to  walk 
with  a  man  through  his  own  grounds.  I  have  no  idea 
of  praising  a  thing  whether  I  like  it  or  not.  You  and  1 
will  do  them  to-morrow  morning  by  ourselves.' "  The 


PENCILLINGS  BY  THE  WAY. 


183 


rest  of  the  company  had  turned  their  attention  to 
Smith  as  he  began  his  story,  and  there  was  a  univer- 
sal inquiry  after  Mr.  Irving.  Indeed  the  first  ques- 
tions on  the  lips  of  every  one  to  whom  I  am  intro- 
duced as  an  American,  are  of  him  and  Cooper.  The 
latter  seems  to  me  to  be  admired  as  much  here  as 
abroad,  in  spite  of  a  common  impression  that  he  dis- 
likes the  nation.  No  man's  works  could  have  higher 
praise  in  the  general  conversation  that  followed,  though 
several  instances  were  mentioned  of  his  having  shown 
an  unconquerable  aversion  to  the  English  when  in  Eng- 
land. Lady  Blessington  mentioned  Mr.  Bryant,  and 
I  was  pleased  at  the  immediate  tribute  paid  to  his  de- 
lightful poetry  by  the  talented  circle  around  her. 

Toward  twelve  o'clock,  "  Mr.  Lytton  Bulwer"  was 
announced,  and  enter  the  author  of  Pelham.  I  had 
made  up  my  mind  how  he  should  look,  and  between 
prints  and  descriptions  thought  I  could  scarcely  be 
mistaken  in  my  idea  of  his  person.  No  two  things 
could  be  more  unlike,  however  than  the  ideal  Mr. 
Bulwer  in  my  mind  and  the  real  Mr.  Bulwer  who  fol- 
lowed the  announcement.  Imprimis,  the  gentleman 
who  entered  was  not  handsome.  I  beg  pardon  of  the 
boarding-schools — but  he  really  was  not.  The  engra- 
ving of  him  published  some  time  ago  in  America  is  as 
much  like  any  other  man  living,  and  gives  you  no  idea 
of  his  head  whatever.  He  is  short,  very  much  bent 
in  the  back,  slightly  knock-kneed,  and,  if  my  opinion 
in  such  matters  goes  for  anything,  as  ill-dressed  a  man 
for  a  gentleman,  as  you  will  find  in  London.  His  fig- 
ure is  slight  and  very  badly  put  together,  and  the  only 
commendable  point  in  his  person,  as  far  as  I  could 
see,  was  the  smallest  foot  I  ever  saw  a  man  stand  up- 
on. Au  teste,  I  liked  his  manners  extremely.  He 
ran  up  to  Lady  Blessington,  with  the  joyous  heartiness 
of  a  boy  let  out  of  school ;  and  the  "  how  d'ye,  Bul- 
v,er!"  went  round,  as  he  shook  hands  with  everybody, 
in  the  style  of  welcome  usually  given  to  "the  best  fel- 
low in  the  world."  As  I  had  brought  a  letter  of  in- 
troduction to  him  from  a  friend  in  Italy,  Lady  Bles- 
sington introduced  me  particularly,  and  we  had  a  long 
conversation  about  Naples  and  its  pleasant  society. 

Bulwer's  head  is  phrenologically  a  fine  one.  His 
forehead  retreats  very  much,  but  is  very  broad  and 
well  marked,  and  the  whole  air  is  that  of  decided  men- 
tal superiority.  His  nose  is  aquiline,  and  far  too  large 
for  proportion,  though  he  conceals  its  extreme  prom- 
inence by  an  immense  pair  of  red  whiskers,  which  en- 
tirely conceal  the  lower  part  of  his  face  in  profile. 
His  complexion  is  fair,  his  hair  profuse,  curly,  and  of 
a  light  auburn,  his  eye  not  remarkable,  and  his  mouth 
contradictory,  I  should  think,  of  all  talent.  A  more 
good-natured,  habitually-smiling,  nerveless  expression 
could  hardly  be  imagined.  Perhaps  my  impression 
is  an  imperfect  one,  as  he  was  in  the  highest  spirits, 
and  was  not  serious  the  whole  evening  for  a  minute — 
but  it  is  strictly  and  faithfully  my  impression. 

I  can  imagine  no  style  of  conversation  calculated 
to  be  more  agreeable  than  Bulwer's.  Gay,  quick,  va- 
rious, half-satirical,  and  always  fresh  and  different  from 
everybody  else,  he  seemed  to  talk  because  he  could 
not  help  it,  and  infected  everybody  with  his  spirits.  I 
can  not  give  even  the  substance  of  it  in  a  letter,  for  it 
was  in  a  great  measure  local  or  personal.  A  great 
deal  of  fun  was  made  of  a  proposal  by  Lady  Blessing- 
ton, to  take  Bulwer  to  America  and  show  him  at  so 
much  a  head.  She  asked  me  whether  I  thought  it 
would  be  a  good  speculation.  I  took  upon  myself  to 
assure  her  ladyship,  that,  provided  she  played  showman, 
the  "concern,"  as  they  would  phrase  it  in  America, 
would  be  certainly  a  profitable  one.  Bulwer  said  he 
would  rather  go  in  disguise  and  hear  them  abuse  his 
books.  It  would  be  pleasant,  he  thought,  to  hear  the 
opinions  of  people  who  judged  him  neither  as  a  mem- 
ber of  parliament  nor  a  dandy — simply  a  book-maker. 


Smith  asked  him  if  he  kept  an  amanuensis.  "  No," 
he  said,  "  I  scribble  it  all  out  myself,  and  send  it  to 
the  press  in  a  most  ungentlemanlike  hand,  half  print 
and  half  hieroglyphic,  with  all  its  imperfections  on  its 
head,  and  correct  in  the  proof— very  much  to  the  dis- 
satisfaction of  the  publisher,  who  sends  me  in  a  bill 
of  sixteen  pounds  six  shillings  and  fourpence  for  extra 
corrections.  Then  I  am  free  to  confess  I  don't  know 
grammar.  Lady  Blessington,  do  you  know  grammar? 
I  detest  grammar.  There  never  was  such  a  thing 
heard  of  before  Lindley  Murray.  I  wonder  what  they 
did  for  grammar  before  his  day  !  Oh,  the  delicious 
blunders  one  sees  when  they  are  irretrievable !  And 
the  best  of  it  is,  the  critics  never  get  hold  of  them. 
Thank  Heaven  for  second  editions,  that  one  may  scratch 
out  his  blots,  and  go  down  clean  and  gentleman-like 
to  posterity  !"  Smith  asked  him  if  he  had  ever  re- 
viewed one  of  his  own  books.  "  No — but  I  could  ! 
And  then  how  I  should  like  to  recriminate  and  defend 
myself  indignantly  !  I  think  I  could  be  preciously 
severe.  Depend  upon  it  nobody  knows  a  book's  de- 
fects half  so  well  as  its  author.  I  have  a  great  idea 
of  criticising  my  works  for  my  posthumous  memoirs. 
Shall  I,  Smith  ?     Shall  I,  Lady  Blessington  ?" 

Bulwer's  voice,  like  his  brother's,  is  exceedingly 
lover-like  and  sweet.  His  playful  tones  are  quite  de- 
licious, and  his  clear  laugh  is  the  soul  of  sincere  and 
careless  merriment. 

It  is  quite  impossible  to  convey  in  a  letter  scrawled 
literally  between  the  end  of  a  late  visit  and  a  tempting 
pillow,  the  evanescent  and  pure  spirit  of  a  conversa- 
tion of  wits.  I  must  confine  myself,  of  course,  in  such 
sketches,  to  the  mere  sentiment  of  things  that  con- 
cern general  literature  and  ourselves. 

"  The  Rejected  Addresses"  got  upon  his  crutches 
about  three  o'clock  in  the  morning,  and  I  made  my 
exit  with  the  rest,  thanking  Heaven,  that,  though  in  a 
strange  country,  my  mother-tongue  was  the  language 
of  its  men  of  genius. 


LETTER  CXVII. 

LONDON— VISIT  TO  A  RACE-COURSE — GIPSIES — THE  PRIN- 
CESS VICTORIA SPLENDID  APPEARANCE  OF    THE  ENG 

LISH      NOBILITY A      BREAKFAST      WITH     ELIA      AN1 

BRIDGET      ELIA MYSTIFICATION— CHARLES      LAMB'S 

OPINION  OF  AMERICAN  AUTHORS. 

I  have  just  returned  from  Ascot  races.  Ascot 
Heath,  on  which  the  course  is  laid  out,  is  a  high  plat- 
form of  land,  beautifully  situated  on  a  hill  above 
Windsor  Castle,  about  twenty-five  miles  from  Lon- 
don. I  went  down  with  a  party  of  gentlemen  in  the 
morning  and  returned  at  evening,  doing  the  distance 
with  relays  of  horses  in  something  less  than  three 
hours.  This,  one  would  think,  is  very  fair  speed,  but 
we  were  passed  continually  by  the  "  bloods"  of  the 
road,  in  comparison  with  whom  we  seemed  getting  on 
rather  at  a  snail's  pace. 

The  scenery  on  the  way  was  truly  English — one 
series  of  finished  landscapes,  of  every  variety  of 
combination.  Lawns,  fancy-cottages,  manor-houses, 
groves,  roses  and  flower-gardens,  make  up  England. 
It  surfeits  the  eye  at  last.  You  could  not  drop  a  poet 
out  of  the  clouds  upon  any  part  of  it  I  have  seen, 
where,  within  five  minutes'  walk,  he  would  not  find 
himself  in  Paradise. 

We  flew  past  Virginia  Water  and  through  the  sun- 
flecked  shades  of  Windsor  Park,  with  the  speed  of  the 
wind.  On  reaching  the  Heath,  we  dashed  out  of  the 
road,  and  cutting  through  fern  and  brier,  our  experi- 
enced whip  put  his  wheels  on  the  rim  of  the  course, 
as  near  the  stands   as  some  thousands  of  carriage* 


184 


PENCILLINGS  BY  THE  WAY. 


arrived  before  us  would  permit,  and  then,  caution- 
ing us  to  take  the  bearings  of  our  position,  least  we 
should  lose  him  after  the  race,  he  took  off  his  horses, 
and  left  us  to  choose  our  own  places. 

A  thousand  red  and  yellow  flags  were  flying  from  as 
many  snowy  tents  in  the  midst  of  the  green  heath  ; 
ballad-signers  and  bands  of  music  were  amusing  their 
little  audiences  in  every  direction  ;  splendid  markees 
covering  gambling-tables,  surrounded  the  winning- 
post  ;  groups  of  country  people  were  busy  in  every 
bush,  eating  and  singing,  and  the  great  stands  were 
piled  with  row  upon  row  of  human  heads  waiting 
anxiously  for  the  exhilarating  contest. 

Soon  after  we  arrived,  the  king  and  royal  family 
drove  up  the  course  with  twenty  carriages,  and  scores 
of  postillions  and  outriders  in  red  and  gold,  flying  over 
the  turf  as  majesty  flies  in  no  other  country  ;  and, 
immediately  after,  the  bell  rang  to  clear  the  course 
for  the  race.  Such  horses  !  The  earth  seemed  to 
fling  them  off  as  they  touched  it.  The  lean  jockeys, 
in  their  party-colored  caps  and  jackets,  rode  the  fine- 
limbed,  slender  creatures  up  and  down  together,  and 
then  returning  to  the  starting-post,  off  they  shot  like 
so  many  arrows  from  the  bow. 

Whiz!  you  could  tell  neither  color  nor  shape  as 
they  passed  across  the  eye.  Their  swiftness  was  in- 
credible. A  horse  of  Lord  Chesterfield's  was  rather 
the  favorite;  and  for  the  sake  of  his  great-grand- 
father, I  had  backed  him  with  my  small  wager. 
"  Glaucus  is  losing,"  said  some  one  on  the  top  of  a 
carriage  above  me,  but  round  they  swept  again,  and  I 
could  just  see  that  one  glorious  creature  was  doubling 
the  leaps  of  every  other  horse,  and  in  a  moment 
Glaucus  and  Lord  Chesterfield  had  won. 

The  course  between  the  races  is  a  promenade  of 
some  thousands  of  the  best-dressed  people  in  Eng- 
land, I  thought  I  had  never  seen  so  many  handsome 
men  and  women,  but  particularly  men.  The  nobility 
of  this  country,  unlike  every  other,  is  by  far  the  man- 
liest and  finest  looking  class  of  its  population.  The 
contadini  of  Rome,  the  lazzaroni  of  Naples,  the  pay- 
sans  of  France,  are  incomparably  more  handsome 
than  their  superiors  in  rank,  but  it  is  strikingly  differ- 
ent here.  A  set  of  more  elegant  and  well-propor- 
tioned men  than  those  pointed  out  to  me  by  my 
friends  as  the  noblemen  on  the  course,  I  never  saw, 
except  only  in  Greece.  The  Albanians  are  seraphs 
to  look  at. 

Excitement  is  hungry,  and  after  the  first  race  our 
party  produced  their  baskets  and  bottles,  and  spread- 
ing out  the  cold  pie  and  champaign  upon  the  grass, 
between  the  wheels  of  the  carriages,  we  drank  Lord 
Chesterfield's  health  and  ate  for  our  own,  in  an  al 
fresco  style  worthy  of  Italy.  Two  veritable  Bohe- 
mians, brown,  black-eyed  gipsies,  the  models  of  those 
I  had  seen  in  their  wicker  tents  in  Asia,  profited  by 
the  liberality  of  the  hour,  and  came  in  for  an  upper 
crust  to  a  pigeon  pie,  that,  to  tell  the  truth,  they 
seemed  to  appreciate. 

Race  followed  race,  but  T  am  not  a  contributor  to 
the  Sporting  Magazine,  and  could  not  give  you  their 
merits  in  comprehensible  terms  if  I  were. 

In  one  of  the  intervals,  I  walked  under  the  king's 
stand,  and  saw  her  majesty,  the  queen,  and  the  young 
Princess  Victoria,  very  distinctly.  They  were  listen- 
ng  to  a  ballad-singer,  and  leaning  over  the  front  of 
the  box  with  an  amused  attention,  quite  as  sincere, 
apparently,  as  any  beggar's  in  the  ring.  The  queen 
is  the  plainest  woman  in  her  dominions,  beyond  a 
doubt.  The  princess  is  much  better-looking  than  the 
pictures  of  her  in  the  shops,  and,  for  the  heir  to  such 
a  crown  as  that  of  England,  quite  unnecessarily  pretty 
and  interesting.  She  will  be  sold,  poor  thing — bar- 
tered away  by  those  great  dealers  in  royal  hearts, 
whose  grand  calculations  will  not  be  much  consolation 
to  her  if  she  happens  to  have  a  taste  of  her  own. 


[The  following  sketch  was  written  a  short  time  pre- 
vious to  the  death  of  Charles  Lamb.] 

Invited  to  breakfast  with  a  gentleman  in  the  temple  to 
meet  Charles  Lamb  and  his  sister — "  Elia  and  Bridget 
Elia."  I  never  in  my  life  had  an  invitation  more  to 
my  taste.  The  essays  of  Elia  are  certainly  the  most 
charming  things  in  the  world,  and  it  has  been  for  the 
last  ten  years  my  highest  compliment  to  the  literary 
taste  of  a  friend  to  present  him  with  a  copy.  Who 
has  not  smiled  over  the  humorous  description  of  Mrs. 
Battle?  Who  that  has  read  Elia  would  not  give 
more  to  see  him  than  all  the  other  authors  of  his  time 
put  together  ? 

Our  host  was  rather  a  character.  I  had  brought  a 
letter  of  introduction  to  him  from  Walter  Savage 
Landor,  the  author  of  Imaginary  Conversations,  living 
at  Florence,  with  a  request  that  he  would  put  me  in  a 
way  of  seeing  one  or  two  men  about  whom  I  had  a 
curiosity,  Lamb  more  particularly.  1  could  not  have 
been  recommended  to  a  better  person.  Mr.  R.  is  a 
gentleman  who  everybody  says,  should  have  been  an 
author,  but  who  never  wrote  a  book.  He  is  a  pro- 
found German  scholar,  has  travelled  much,  is  the  inti- 
mate friend  of  Southey,  Coleridge,  and  Lamb,  has 
breakfasted  with  Goethe,  travelled  with  Wordsworth 
through  France  and  Italy,  and  spends  part  of  every 
summer  with  him,  and  knows  everything  and  every- 
body that  is  distinguished — in  short,  is,  in  his  bach- 
elor's chambers  in  the  temple,  the  friendly  nucleus  of 
a  great  part  of  the  talent  of  England. 

I  arrived  a  half  hour  before  Lamb,  and  had  time  to 
learn  some  of  his  peculiarities.  He  lives  a  little  out 
of  London,  and  is  very  much  of  an  invalid.  Some 
family  circumstances  have  tended  to  depress  him  very 
much  of  late  years,  and  unless  excited  by  convivial 
intercourse,  he  scarce  shows  a  trace  of  what  he  was. 
He  was  very  much  pleased  with  the  American  reprint 
of  his  Elia,  though  it  contains  several  things  which  are 
not  his — written  so  in  his  style,  however,  that  it  is 
scarce  a  wonder  the  editor  should  mistake  them.  If 
I  remember  right,  they  were  "Valentine's  Day,"  the 
"  Nuns  of  Caverswell,"  and  "  Twelfth  Night."  He 
is  excessively  given  to  mystifying  his  friends,  and  is 
never  so  delighted  as  when  he  has  persuaded  some 
one  into  the  belief  of  one  of  his  grave  inventions.  His 
amusing  biographical  sketch  of  Liston  was  in  this  vein, 
and  there  was  no  doubt  in  anybody's  mind  that  it  was 
authentic,  and  written  in  perfectly  good  faith.  Liston 
was  highly  enraged  with  it,  and  Lamb  was  delighted 
in  proportion. 

There  was  a  rap  at  the  door  at  last,  and  enter  a 
gentleman  in  black  small-clothes  and  gaiters,  short 
and  very  slight  in  his  person,  his  head  set  on  his 
shoulders  with  a  thoughtful,  forward  bent,  his  hair  just 
sprinkled  with  gray,  a  beautiful  deepset  eye,  aquiline 
nose,  and  a  very  indescribable  mouth.  Whether 
it  expressed  most  humor  or  feeling,  good  nature 
or  a  kind  of  whimsical  peevishness,  or  twenty  other 
things  which  passed  over  it  by  turns,  I  can  not  in  the 
least  be  certain. 

His  sister,  whose  literary  reputation  is  associated 
very  closely  with  her  brother's,  and  who,  as  the 
original  of  "  Bridget  Elia,"  is  a  kind  of  object  for 
literary  affection,  came  in  after  him.  She  is  a  small, 
bent  figure,  evidently  a  victim  to  illness,  and  hears 
with  difficulty.  Her  face  has  been,  I  should  think,  a 
fine  and  handsome  one,  and  her  bright  gray  eye  is  still 
full  of  intelligence  and  fire.  They  both  seemed  quite 
at  home  in  our  friend's  chambers,  and  as  there  was  to 
be  no  one  else,  we  immediately  drew  round  the  break- 
fast table.  I  had  set  a  large  arm  chair  for  Miss  Lamb, 
"  Don't  take  it,  Mary,"  said  Lamb,  pulling  it  away 
from  her  very  gravely,  "  it  appears  as  if  you  were  go- 
ing to  have  a  tooth  drawn." 

The  conversation  was  very  local.     Our  host  and  his 


PENCILLINGS  BY  THE  WAY. 


185 


guest  had  not  met  for  some  weeks,  and  they  had  a 
great  deal  to  say  of  their  mutual  friends.  Perhaps  in 
this  way,  however,  I  saw  more  of  the  author,  for  his 
manner  of  speaking  of  them  and  the  quaint  humor 
with  which  he  complained  of  one,  and  spoke  well  of 
another,  was  so  in  the  vein  of  his  inimitable  writings, 
that  I  could  have  fancied  myself  listening  to  an  audible 
composition  of  a  new  Elia.  Nothing  could  be  more 
delightful  than  the  kindness  and  affection  between  the 
brother  and  the  sister,  though  Lamb  was  continually 
taking  advantage  of  her  deafness  to  mystify  her  with 
the  most  singular  gravity  upon  every  topic  that  was 
started.  "  Poor  Mary  !"  said  he,  "  she  hears  all  of  an 
epigram  but  the  point."  "What  are  you  saying  of 
me,  Charles?"  she  asked.  "Mr.  Willis,"  said  he, 
raising  his  voice,  "  admires  your  Confessions  of  a 
Drunkard  very  much,  and  I  was  saying  that  it  was  no 
merit  of  yours,  that  you  understood  the  subject."  We 
had  been  speaking  of  this  admirable  essay  (which  is 
his  own)  half  an  hour  before. 

The  conversation  turned  upon  literature  after  awhile, 
and  our  host,  the  templar,  could  not  express  himself 
strongly  enough  in  admiration  of  Webster's  speeches, 
which  he  said  were  exciting  the  greatest  attention 
among  the  politicians  and  lawyers  of  England.  Lamb 
said,  "  I  don't  know  much  of  American  authors. 
Mary,  there,  devours  Cooper's  novels  with  a  ravenous 
appetite,  with  which  I  have  no  sympathy.  The  only 
American  book  I  ever  read  twice,  was  the  'Journal 
of  Edward  Woolman,'  a  quaker  preacher  and  tailor, 
whose  character  is  one  of  the  finest  I  ever  met  with. 
He  tells  a  story  or  two  about  negro  slaves,  that  brought 
the  tears  into  my  eyes.  I  can  read  no  prose  now, 
though  Hazlitt  sometimes,  to  be  sure — but  then  Hazlitt 
is  worth  all  modern  prose  writers  put  together." 

Mr.  R.  spoke  of  buying  a  book  of  Lamb's  a  few 
days  before,  and  I  mentioned  my  having  bought  a  copy 
of  Elia  the  last  day  I  was  in  America,  to  send  as  a 
parting  gift  to  one  of  the  most  lovely  and  talented 
women  in  our  country. 

"  What  did  you  give  for  it  ?"  said  Lamb. 

"  About  seven  and  sixpence." 

"  Permit  me  to  pay  you  that,"  said  he,  and  with  the 
utmost  earnestness  he  counted  put  the  money  upon 
the  table. 

"  I  never  yet  wrote  anything  that  would  sell,"  he 
continued.     "  I   am  the   publisher's  ruin.     My   last 
poem  won't   sell  a   copy.      Have   you   seen  it,   Mr. 
.  Willis?" 
V     I  had  not. 

"It's  only  eighteen  pence,  and  I'll  give  you  six- 
pence toward  it ;"  and  he  described  to  me  where  I 
should  find  it  sticking  up  in  a  shop-window  in  the 
Strand. 

Lamb  ate  nothing,  and  complained  in  a  querulous 
tone  of  the  veal  pie.  There  was  a  kind  of  potted  fish 
(of  which  I  forget  the  name  at  this  moment)  which  he 
had  expected  our  friend  would  procure  for  him.  He 
inquired  whether  there  was  not  a  morsel  left  perhaps  in 
the  bottom  of  the  last  pot.     Mr.  R.  was  not  sure. 

"  Send  and  see,"  said  Lamb,  "  and  if  the  pot  has 
been  cleaned,  bring  me  the  cover.  I  think  the  sight 
of  it  would  do  me  good." 

The  cover  was  brought,  upon  which  there  was  a 
picture  of  the  fish.  Lamb  kissed  it  with  a  reproachful 
look  at  his  friend,  and  then  left  the  table  and  began  to 
wander  round  the  room  with  a  broken,  uncertain  step, 
as  if  he  almost  forgot  to  put  one  leg  before  the  other. 
His  sister  rose  after  awhile,  and  commenced  walking 
up  and  down  very  much  in  the  same  manner  on  the 
opposite  side  of  the  table,  and  in  the  course  of  half  an 
hour  they  took  their  leave. 

To  any  one  who  loves  the  writings  of  Charles  Lamb 
with  but  half  my  own  enthusiasm,  even  these  little 
particulars  of  an  hour  passed  in  his  company,  will 
have  an  interest.     To  him   who  does  not,   they  will 


seem  dull  and  idle.  Wreck  as  he  certainly  is,  and 
must  be,  however,  of  what  he  was,  I  would  rather  have 
seen  him  for  that  single  hour,  than  the  hundred  and 
one  sights  of  London  put  together. 


LETTER  CXVIII. 

DINNER    AT  LADY   BLESSINGTON's — BtlLWER,  D'ISRAELI. 

PROCTER,      FONBLANC,      ETC. ECCENTRICITIES       OF 

BECKFORD,     AUTHOR    OF     VATHEK D'iSRAELl's     EX- 
TRAORDINARY  TALENT   AT   DESCRIPTION. 

Dined  at  Lady  Blessington's,  in  company  with  sev- 
eral authors,  three  or  four  noblemen,  and  a  clever  ex- 
quisite or  two.  The  authors  were  Bulwer,  the  novel- 
ist, and  his  brother,  the  statist;  Procter  (better  known 
as  Barry  Cornwall),  D'Israeli,  the  author  of  Vivian 
Grey  ;  and  Fonblanc,  of  the  Examiner.  The  princi- 
pal nobleman  was  Lord  Durham,  and  the  principal 
exquisite  (though  the  word  scarce  applies  to  the  mag- 
nificent scale  on  which  nature  has  made  him,  and  on 
which  he  makes  himself),  was  Count  D'Orsay. 
There  were  plates  for  twelve. 

I  had  never  seen  Procter,  and,  with  my  passionate 
love  for  his  poetry,  he  was  the  person  at  table  of  the 
most  interest  to  me.  He  came  late,  and  as  twilight 
was  just  darkening  the  drawing-room,  I  could  only  see 
that  a  small  man  followed  the  announcement,  with  a 
remarkably  timid  manner,  and  a  very  white  forehead. 

D'Israeli  had  arrived  before  me,  and  sat  in  the  deep 
window,  looking  out  upon  Hyde  Park,  with  the  last 
rays  of  daylight  reflected  from  the  gorgeous  gold 
flowers  of  a  splendidly  embroidered  waistcoat.  Pat- 
ent leather  pumps,  a  white  stick,  with  a  black  cord 
and  tassel,  and  a  quantity  of  chains  about  his  neck 
and  pockets,  served  to  make  him,  even  in  the  dim 
light,  rather  a  conspicuous  object. 

Bulwer  was  very  badly  dressed,  as  usual,  and  wore 
a  flashy  waistcoat  of  the  same  description  as  D'Israeli's. 
Count  D'Orsay  was  very  splendid,  but  very  undefina- 
ble.  He  seemed  showily  dressed  till  you  looked  to 
particulars,  and  then  it  seemed  only  a  simple  thing, 
well  fitted  to  a  very  magnificent  person.  Lord  Albert 
Conyngham  was  a  dandy  of  common  materials  ;  and 
my  Lord  Durham,  though  he  looked  a  young  man,  if 
he  passed  for  a  lord  at  all  in  America,  would  pass  for 
a  very  ill-dressed  one. 

For  Lady  Blessington,  she  is  one  of  the  most  hand- 
some and  quite  the  best-dressed  woman  in  London  ; 
and,  without  farther  description,  I  trust  the  readers  of 
the  Mirror  will  have  little  difficulty  in  imagining  a 
scene  that,  taking  a  wild  American  into  the  account, 
was  made  up  of  rather  various  material. 

The  blaze  of  lamps  on  the  dinner  table  was  very  fa- 
vorable to  my  curiosity,  and  as  Procter  and  D'Israeli 
sat  directly  opposite  me,  I  studied  their  faces  to  ad- 
vantage. Barry  Cornwall's  forehead  and  eye  are  all 
that  would  strike  you  in  his  features.  His  brows  are 
heavy  ;  and  his  eye,  deeply  sunk,  has  a  quick,  restless 
fire,  that  would  have  struck  me,  I  think,  had  I  not 
known  he  was  a  poet.  His  voice  has  the  huskiness 
and  elevation  of  a  man  more  accustomed  to  think 
than  converse,  and  it  was  never  heard  except  to  give  a 
brief  and  very  condensed  opinion,  or  an  illustration, 
admirably  to  the  point,  of  the  subject  under  discus- 
sion. He  evidently  felt  that  he  was  only  an  observer 
in  the  party. 

D'Israeli  has  one  of  the  most  remarkable  faces  I 
ever  saw.  He  is  lividly  pale,  and  but  for  the  energy 
of  his  action  and  the  strength  of  his  lungs,  would 
seem  a  victim  to  consumption.  His  eye  is  as  black  as 
Erebus,  and  has  the  most  mocking  and  lying-in-wait 
sort  of  expression  conceivable.  His  mouth  is  alive 
with   a  kind  of  working  and  impatient  nervousness, 


186 


PENCILLINGS  BY  THE  WAY. 


and  when  he  has  burst  forth,  as  he  does  constantly, 
with  a  particularly  successful  cataract  of  expression, 
it  assumes  a  curl  of  triumphant  scorn  that  would  be 
worthy  of  a  Mephistopheles.  His  hair  is  as  extraor- 
dinary as  his  taste  in  waistcoats.  A  thick  heavy  mass 
of  jet  black  ringlets  falls  over  his  left  cheek  almost  to 
his  collarless  stock,  while  on  the  right  temple  it  is 
parted  and  put  away  with  the  smooth  carefulness  of  a 
girl's,  and  shines  most  unctiously, 

"  With  thy  incomparable  oil,  Macassar  !" 

The  anxieties  of  the  first  course,  as  usual,  kept 
every  mouth  occupied  for  awhile,  and  then  the  dan- 
dies led  off  with  a  discussion  of  Count  D'Orsay's  rifle 
match  (he  is  the  best  rifle  shot  in  England),  and  va- 
rious matters  as  uninteresting  to  transatlantic  readers. 
The  new  poem,  Philip  Van  Artevelde,  came  up  after 
awhile,  and  was  very  much  over-praised  (me  judice). 
Bulwer  said,  that  as  the  author  was  the  principal  wri- 
ter for  the  Quarterly  Review,  it  was  a  pity  it  was  first 
praised  in  that  periodical,  and  praised  so  unqualifiedly. 
Procter  said  nothing  about  it,  and  I  respected  his  si- 
lence ;  for,  as  a  poet,  he  must  have  felt  the  poverty 
of  the  poem,  and  was  probably  unwilling  to  attack  a 
new  aspirant  in  his  laurels. 

The  next  book  discussed  was  Beckford's  Italy,  or 
rather  the  next  author,  for  the  writer  of  Vathek  is 
more  original,  and  more  talked  of  than  his  books,  and 
just  now  occupies  much  of  the  attention  of  London. 
Mr.  Beckford  has  been  all  his  life  enormously  rich, 
has  luxuriated  in  every  country  with  the  fancy  of  a 
poet,  and  the  refined  splendor  of  a  Sybarite,  was  the 
admiration  of  Lord  Byron,  who  visited  him  at  Cintra, 
was  the  owner  of  Fonthill,  and,  plies  fort  encore,  his  is 
one  of  the  oldest  families  in  England.  What  could 
such  a  man  attempt  that  would  not  be  considered  ex- 
traordinary ! 

D'Israeli  was  the  only  one  at  table  who  knew  him, 
and  the  style  in  which  he  gave  a  sketch  of  his  habits 
and  manners,  was  worthy  of  himself.  I  might  as  well 
attempt  to  gather  up  the  foam  of  the  sea  as  to  convey 
an  idea  of  the  extraordinary  language  in  which  he 
clothed  his  description.  There  Were,  at  least,  five 
words  in  every  sentence  that  must  have  been  very  much 
astonished  at  the  use  they  were  put  to,  and  yet  no  oth- 
ers apparently  could  so  well  have  conveyed  his  idea. 
He  talked  like  a  race-horse  approaching  the  winning- 
post,  every  muscle  in  action,  and  the  utmost  energy 
of  expression  flung  out  in  every  burst.  It  is  a  great 
pity  he  is  not  in  parliament.* 

The  particulars  he  gave  of  Beckford,  though  strip- 
ped of  his  gorgeous  digressions  and  parentheses,  may 
be  interesting.  He  lives  now  at  Bath,  where  he  has 
built  a  house  on  two  sides  of  the  street,  connected  by 
a  covered  bridge  a  la  Ponte  de  Sospiri,  at  Venice. 
His  servants  live  on  one  side,  and  he  and  his  sole 
companion  on  the  other.  This  companion  is  a  hide- 
ous dwarf,  who  imagines  himself,  or  is,  a  Spanish 
duke  ;  and  Mr.  Beckford  for  many  years  has  support- 
ed him  in  a  style  befitting  his  rank,  treats  him  with  all 
the  deference  due  to  his  tide,  and  has,  in  general,  no 
other  society  (I  should  not  wonder,  myself,  if"  it 
turned  out  a  woman)  ;  neither  of  them  is  often  seen, 
and  when  in  London,  Mr.  Beckford  is  only  to  be  ap- 
proached through  his  man  of  business.  If  you  call, 
he  is  not  at  home.  If  you  would  leave  a  card  or  ad- 
dress him  a  note,  his  servant  has  strict  orders  not  to 
take  in  anything  of  the  kind.  At  Bath  he  has  built  a 
high  tower,  which  is  a  great  mystery  to  the  inhabitants. 
Around  the  interior,  to  the  very  top,  it  is  lined  with 
books,  approachable  with  a  light  spiral  staircase  ;  and 
in  the  pavement  below,  the  owner  has  constructed  a 

*  I  have  been  told  that  he  stood  once  for  a  London  borough. 
A  coarse  fellow  came  up  at  the  hustings,  and  said  to  him,  "  I 
should  like  to  know  on  what  ground  "you  stand  here,  sir?" 

On  my  head,  sir  !"  answered  D'Israeli.  The  populace  had 
not  read  Vivian  Grey,  however,  and  he  lost  his  election. 


double  crypt  for  his  own  body,  and  that  of  his  dwarf 
companion,  intending,  with  a  desire  for  human  neigh- 
borhood which  has  not  appeared  in  his  life,  to  leave 
the  library  to  the  city,  that  all  who  enjoy  it  shall  pass 
over  the  bodies  below. 

Mr.  Beckford  thinks  very  highly  of  his  own  books, 
and  talks  of  his  early  production  (Vathek)  in  terms  of 
unbounded  admiration.  He  speaks  slightingly  of 
Byron,  and  of  his  praise,  and  affects  to  despise  utterly 
the  popular  taste.  It  appeared  altogether,  from  D'ls- 
raeli's  account,  that  he  is  a  splendid  egotist,  determin- 
ed to  free  life  as  much  as  possible  from  its  usual  fet- 
ters, and  to  enjoy  it  to  the  highest  degree  of  which 
his  genius,  backed  by  an  immense  fortune,  is  capable. 
He  is  reputed,  however,  to  be  excessively  liberal,  and 
to  exercise  his  ingenuity  to  contrive  secret  charities  in 
his  neighborhood. 

Victor  Hugo  and  his  extraordinary  novels  came 
next  under  discussion ;  and  D'Israeli,  who  was  fired 
with  his  own  eloquence,  started  off,  apropos  des  bottes, 
with  a  long  story  of  an  empalement  he  had  seen  in 
Upper  Egypt.  It  was  as  good,  and  perhaps  as  authen- 
tic, as  the  description  of  the  chow-chow-tow  in  Vivian 
Grey.  He  had  arrived  at  Cairo  on  the  third  day  after 
the  man  was  transfixed  by  two  stakes  from  hip  to 
shoulder,  and  he  was  still  alive  !  The  circumstantial- 
ity of  the  account  was  equally  horrible  and  amusing. 
Then  followed  the  sufferer's  history,  with  a  score  of 
murders  and  barbarities,  heaped  together  like  Martin's 
Feast  of  Belshazzar,  with  a  mixture  of  horror  and 
splendor  that  was  unparalleled  in  my  experience  of 
improvisation.  No  mystic  priest  of  the  Corybantes 
could  have  worked  himself  up  into  a  finer  phrensy  of 
language. 

Count  D'Orsay  kept  up,  through  the  whole  of  the 
conversation  and  narration,  a  running  fire  of  witty  pa- 
rentheses, half  French  and  half  English ;  and,  with 
champaign  in  all  the  pauses,  the  hours  flew  on  very 
dashingly.  Lady  Blessington  left  us  toward  midnight, 
and  then  the  conversation  took  a  rather  political  turn, 
and  something  was  said  of  O'Connell.  D'Israeli's 
lips  were  playing  upon  the  edge  of  a  champaign  glass, 
which  he  had  just  drained,  and  off  he  shot  again  with 
a  description  of  an  interview  he  had  had  with  the  agi- 
tator the  day  before,  ending  in  a  story  of  an  Irish  dra- 
goon who  was  killed  in  the  peninsula.  His  name  was 
Sarsfield.  His  arm  was  shot  off,  and  he  was  bleeding 
to  death.  When  told  that  he  could  not  live,  he  called 
for  a  large  silver  goblet,  out  of  which  he  usually  drank 
his  claret.  He  held  it  to  the  gushing  artery  and  filled 
it  to  the  brim  with  blood,  looked  at  it  a  moment,  turn- 
ed it  out  slowly  upon  the  ground,  muttering  to  him- 
self, "  If  that  had  been  shed  for  old  Ireland  !"  and  ex- 
pired. You  can  have  no  idea  how  thrillingly  this  lit- 
tle story  was  told.  Fonblanc,  however,  who  is  a  cold 
political  satirist,  could  see  nothing  in  a  man's  "de- 
canting his  claret,"  that  was  in  the  least  sublime,  and 
so  Vivian  Grey  got  into  a  passion  and  for  awhile  was 
silent. 

Bulwer  asked  me  if  there  was  any  distinguished 
literary  American  in  town.  I  said,  Mr  Slidell,  one 
of  our  best  writers,  was  here. 

"  Because,"  said  he,  "  I  received  a  week  or  more 
ago  a  letter  of  introduction  by  some  one  from  Wash- 
ington Irving.  It  lay  on  the  table,  when  a  lady  came 
in  to  call  on  my  wife,  who  seized  upon  it  as  an  auto- 
graph, and  immediately  left  town,  leaving  me  with 
neither  name  nor  address." 

There  was  a  general  laugh  and  a  cry  of  "Pelham! 
Pelham  !"  as  he  finished  his  story.  Nobody  chose  to 
believe  it. 

"  I  think  the  name  was  Slidell,"  said  Bulwer. 

"  Slidell !"  said  D'Israeli,  "  I  owe  him  two-pence, 
by  Jove  !"  and  he  went  on  in  his  dashing  way  to  nar- 
rate that  he  had  sat  next  Mr.  Slidell  at  a  bull-fight  in 
Seville,  that  he  wanted  to  buy  a  fan  to  keep  off  the 


PENCILLINGS  BY  THE  WAY. 


187 


flies,  and  having  nothing  but  doubloons  in  his  pocket, 
Mr.  S.  had  lent  him  a  small  Spanish  coin  to  that 
value,  which  he  owed  him  to  this  day. 

There  was  another  general  laugh,  and  it  was  agreed 
that  on  the  whole  the  Americans  were  'done.' 

Apropos  to  this,  DTsraeli  gave  us  a  description  in  a 
gorgeous,  burlesque,  galloping  style,  of  a  Spanish 
bullfight;  and  when  we  were  nearly  dead  with  laugh- 
ing at  it,  some  one  made  a  move,  and  we  went  up  to 
Lady  Blessington  in  the  drawing-room.  Lord  Dur- 
ham requested  her  ladyship  to  introduce  him  particu- 
larly to  D'Israeli  (the  effect  of  his  eloquence).  I  sat 
down  in  the  corner  with  Sir  Martin  Shee,  the  presi- 
dent of  the  Royal  Academy,  and  had  a  long  talk  about 
Allston  and  Harding  and  Cole,  whose  pictures  he 
knew  ;  and  "  somewhere  in  the  small  hours,"  we  took 
our  leave,  and  Procter  left  me  at  my  door  in  Caven- 
dish street,  weary,  but  in  a  better  humor  with  the 
world  than  usual. 


LETTER  CXIX. 

«HE  ITALIAN  OPERA — MADEMOISELLE  GRISI — A   GLANCE 

AT    LORD  BROUGHAM MRS.    NORTON    AND    LORD    SEF- 

TON — RAND,  THE  AMERICAN    PORTRAIT  PAINTER AN 

EVENING     PARTY/     AT     BULWER's — PALMY    STATE    OF 
LITERATURE    IN    MODERN    DATS — FASHIONABLE   NEG- 

LECTOF  FEMALES PERSONAGES  PRESENT SHIEL  THE 

ORATOR,  THE     PRINCE    OF  MOSCOWA,    MRS.    LEICESTER 
STANHOPE,  THE  CELEBRATED  BEAUTY,  ETC.,  ETC. 

Went  to  the  opera  to  hear  Julia  Grisi.  I  stood  out 
he  first  act  in  the  pit,  and  saw  instances  of  rudeness 
*■  "  Fop's-alley,"  which  I  had  never  seen  approached 
n  three  years  on  the  continent.  The  high  price  of 
tickets,  one  would  think,  and  the  necessity  of  appear- 
ing in  full  dress,  would  keep  the  opera  clear  of  low- 
ered people  ;  but  the  conduct  to  which  I  refer  seemed 
io  excite  no  surprise  and  passed  off  without  notice, 
though,  in  America,  there  would  have  been  ample 
matter  for  at  least  four  duels. 

Grisi  is  young,  very  pretty,  and  an  admirable  actress 
— three  great  advantages  to  a  singer.  Her  voice  is 
under  absolute  command,  and  she  manages  it  beauti- 
fully, but  it  wants  the  infusion  of  soul — the  gushing, 
uncontrollable,  passionate  feeling  of  Malibran.  You 
merely  feel  that  Grisi  is  an  accomplished  artist,  while 
Malibran  melts  all  your  criticism  into  love  and  admi- 
ration. I  am  easily  moved  by  music,  but  I  came 
away  without  much  enthusiasm  for  the  present  pas- 
sion of  London. 

The  opera-house  is  very  different  from  those  on  the 
continent.  The  stage  only  is  lighted  abroad,  the 
single  lustre  from  the  ceiling  just  throwing  that  clair 
obscure  over  the  boxes  so  favorable  to  Italian  com- 
plexions and  morals.  Here,  the  dress  circles  are 
lighted  with  bright  chandeliers,  and  the  whole  house 
sits  in  such  a  blaze  of  light  as  leaves  no  approach 
even,  to  a  lady,  unseen.  The  consequence  is  that 
people  here  dress  much  more,  and  the  opera,  if  less 
interesting  to  the  habitue.,  is  a  gayer  thing  to  the  many. 

I  went  up  to  Lady  Blessington's  box  for  a  moment, 
and  found  Strangways,  the  traveller,  and  several  other 
distinguished  men  with  her.  Her  ladyship  pointed 
out  to  me  Lord  Brougham,  flirting  desperately  with  a 
pretty  woman  on  the  opposite  side  of  the  house,  his 
mouth  going  with  the  convulsive  twitch  which  so  dis- 
figures him,  and  his  most  unsightly  of  pug-noses  in 
the  strongest  relief  against  the  red  lining  behind. 
There  never  was  a  plainer  man.  The  Honorable 
Mrs.  Norton.  Sheridan's  daughter  and  poetess,  sat 
nearer  to  us,  looking  like  a  queen,  certainly  one  of  the 
most  beautiful  women  I  ever  looked  upon ;  and  the 
gastronomic  and  humpbacked  Lord  Sefton,  said  to  be 


the  best  judge  of  cookery  in  the  world,  sat  in  the 
"  dandy's  omnibus,"  a  large  box  on  a  level  with  the 
stage,  leaning  forward  with  his  chin  on  his  knuckles, 
and  waiting  with  evident  impatience  for  the  appearance 
of  Fanny  Elssler  in  the  ballet.  Beauty  and  all,  the 
English  opera-house  surpasses  anything  I  have  seen 
in  the  way  of  a  spectacle. 

An  evening  party  at  Bulwer's.  Not  yet  perfectly 
initiated  in  London  hours,  I  arrived  not  far  from 
eleven  and  found  Mrs.  Bulwer  alone  in  her  illumina- 
ted rooms,  whiling  away  an  expectant  hour  in  playing 
with  a  King  Charles  spaniel,  that  seemed  by  his  fond- 
ness and  delight  to  appreciate  the  excessive  loveliness 
of  his  mistress.  As  far  off  as  America,  I  may  express 
even  in  print  an  admiration  which  is  no  heresy  in 
London. 

The  author  of  Pelham  is  a  younger  son  and  de- 
pends on  his  writings  for  a  livelihood,  and  truly, 
measuring  works  of  fancy  by  what  they  will  bring, 
(not  an  unfair  standard  perhaps),  a  glance  around  his 
luxurious  and  elegant  rooms  is  worth  reams  of  puff 
in  the  quarterlies.  He  lives  in  the  heart  of  the  fash- 
ionable quarter  of  London,  where  rents  are  ruinously 
extravagant,  entertains  a  great  deal,  and  is  expensive 
in  all  his  habits,  and  for  this  pay  Messrs.  Clifford, 
Pelham,  and  Aram — (it  would  seem)  most  excellent 
good  bankers.  As  I  looked  at  the  beautiful  woman 
seated  on  the  costly  ottoman  before  me,  waiting  to 
receive  the  rank  and  fashion  of  London,  I  thought 
that  old  close-fisted  literature  never  had  better  reason 
for  his  partial  largess.  I  half  forgave  the  miser  for 
starving  a  wilderness  of  poets. 

One  of  the  first  persons  who  came  was  Lord  By- 
ron's sister,  a  thin,  plain,  middle-aged  woman,  of  a 
very  serious  countenance,  and  with  very  cordial  and 
pleasing  manners.  The  rooms  soon  filled,  and  two 
professed  singers  went  industriously  to  work  in  their 
vocation  at  the  piano  ;  but,  except  one  pale  man,  with 
staring  hair,  whom  I  took  to  be  a  poet,  nobody  pre- 
tended to  listen. 

Every  second  woman  has  some  strong  claim  to 
beauty  in  England,  and  the  proportion  of  those  who 
just  miss  it,  by  a  hair's  breadth  as  it  were — who  seem 
really  to  have  been  meant  for  beauties  by  nature,  but 
by  a  slip  in  the  moulding  or  pencilling  are  imperfect 
copies  of  the  design — is  really  extraordinary.  One 
after  another  entered,  as  I  stood  near  the  door  with 
my  old  friend  Dr.  Bowring  for  a  nomenclator,  and  the 
word  "  lovely"  or  "  charming,"  had  not  passed  my 
lips  before  some  change  in  the  attitude,  or  unguarded 
animation  had  exposed  the  flaw,  and  the  hasty  hom- 
age (for  homage  it  is,  and  an  idolatrous  one,  that  we 
pay  to  the  beauty  of  woman)  was  coldly  and  unspar- 
ingly retracted.  From  a  goddess  upon  earth  to  a 
slighted  and  unattractive  trap  for  matrimony  is  a  long 
step,  but  taken  on  so  slight  a  defect  sometimes  as, 
were  they  marble,  a  sculptor  would  etch  away  with 
his  nail. 

I  was  surprised  (and  I  have  been  struck  with  the 
same  thing  at  several  parties  I  have  attended  in  Lon- 
don), at  the  neglect  with  which  the  female  part  of  the 
assemblage  is  treated.  No  young  man  ever  seems  to 
dream  of  speaking  to  a  lady,  except  to  ask  her  to 
dance.  There  they  sit  with  their  mammas,  their 
hands  hung  over  each  other  before  them  in  the  re- 
ceived attitude ;  and  if  there  happens  to  be  no 
dancing  (as  at  Bulwer's),  looking  at  a  print,  or  eating 
an  ice,  is  for  them  the  most  enlivening  circumstance 
of  the  evening.  As  well  as  I  recollect,  it  is  better 
managed  in  America,  and  certainly  society  is  quite 
another  thing  in  France  and  Italy.  Late  in  the 
evening  a  charming  girl,  who  is  the  reigning  belle  of 
Naples,  came  in  with  her  mother  from  the  opera,  and 
I  made  the  remark  to  her.  "  I  detest  England  for 
that  very  reason."  she  said  frankly.     "  It  is  the  fash- 


188 


PENCILLINGS  BY  THE  WAY. 


ion  in  London  for  the  young  men  to  prefer  everything 
to  the  society  of  women.  They  have  their  clubs, 
their  horses,  their  rowing  matches,  their  bunting  and 
betting,  and  everything  else  is  a  bore  !  How  different 
are  the  same  men  at  Naples !  They  can  never  get 
enough  of  one  there  !  We  are  surrounded  and  run 
after, 

"  '  Our  poodle  dog  is  quite  adored, 
Our  sayings  are  extremely  quoted,' 

and  really  one  feels  that  one  is  a  belle."  She  men- 
tioned several  of  the  beaux  of  last  winter  who  had  re- 
turned to  England.  u  Here  I  have  been  in  London  a 
month,  and  these  very  men  that  were  dying  for  me,  at 
my  side  every  day  on  the  Strada  Nuova,  and  all  but 
fighting  to  dance  three  times  with  me  of  an  evening, 
have  only  left  their  cards !  Not  because  they  care 
less  about  me,  but  because  it  is  •  not  the  fashion' — it 
would  be  talked  of  at  the  club,  it  is  'knowing'  to  let  us 
alone." 

There  were  only  three  men  in  the  party,  which  was 
a  very  crowded  one,  who  could  come  under  the  head 
of  beaux.  Of  the  remaining  part,  there  was  much 
that  was  distinguished,  both  for  rank  and  talent. 
Sheil,  the  Irish  orator,  a  small,  dark,  deceitful,  but 
talented-looking  man,  with  a  very  disagreeable  squeak- 
ing voice,  stood  in  a  corner,  very  earnestly  engaged 
in  conversation  with  the  aristocratic  old  earl  of  Clar- 
endon. The  contrast  between  the  styles  of  the  two 
men,  the  courtly  and  mild  elegance  of  one,  and  the 
uneasy  and  half-bred,  but  shrewd  earnestness  of  the 
other,  was  quite  a  study.  Fonblanc  of  the  Examiner, 
with  his  pale  and  dislocated-looking  face,  stood  in  the 
door-way  between  the  two  rooms,  making  the  amiable 
with  a  ghastly  smile  to  Lady  Stepney.  The  '  bilious 
Lord  Durham,'  as  the  papers  call  him,  with  his  Bru- 
tus head,  and  grave,  severe  countenance,  high-bred  in 
his  appearance,  despite  the  worst  possible  coat  and 
trousers,  stood  at  the  pedestal  of  a  beautiful  statue, 
talking  politics  with  Bowring  ;  and  near  them,  leaned 
over  a  chair  the  Prince  Moscowa,  the  son  of  Marshal 
Ney,  a  plain,  but  determined-looking  young  man, 
with  his  coat  buttoned  up  to  his  throat,  unconscious 
of  everything  but  the  presence  of  the  Honorable  Mrs. 
Leicester  Stanhope,  a  very  lovely  woman,  who  was 
enlightening  him  in  the  prettiest  English  French, 
upon  some  point  of  national  differences.  Her  hus- 
band, famous  as  Lord  Byron's  companion  in  Greece, 
and  a  great  liberal  in  England,  was  introduced  to  me 
soon  after  by  Bulwer ;  and  we  discussed  the  bank 
and  the  president,  with  a  little  assistance  from  Bow- 
ring,  who  joined  us  with  a  paean  for  the  old  general 
and  his  measures,  till  it  was  far  into  the  morning. 


LETTER  CXX. 

breakfast    with    barky    cornwall — luxury    of 

the    followers  of   the   modern   muse beauty 

of  the  dramatic  sketches  gains  procter  a 
Wife — hazlitt's  extraordinary  taste  for  the 
picturesque  in  women — coleridge's  opinion  of 
cornwall. 

Breakfasted  with  Mr.  Procter  (known  better  as 
Barry  Cornwall).  I  gave  a  partial  description  of  this 
most  delightful  of  poets  in  a  former  letter.  In  the 
dazzling  circle  of  rank  and  talent  with  which  he  was 
surrounded  at  Lady  Blessington's,  however,  it  was 
difficult  to  see  so  shrinkingly  modest  a  man  to  advan- 
tage, and  with  the  exception  of  the  keen  gray  eye,  liv- 
ina:  with  thought  and  feeling,  I  should  hardly  have  rec- 
ognised him  at  home  for  the  same  person. 

Mr.  Procter  is  a  barrister ;  and  his  "  whereabout" 
is  more  like  that  of  a  lord  chancellor  than  a  poet 
proper.     With  the  address  he  had  given  me  at  parting, 


I  drove  to  a  large  house  in  Bedford  square  ;  and,  not 
accustomed  to  find  the  children  of  the  Muses  waited 
on  by  servants  in  livery,  I  made  up  my  mind  as  I 
walked  up  the  broad  staircase,  that  I  was  blundering 
upon  some  Mr.  Procter  of  the  exchange,  whose  re- 
spect for  his  poetical  namesake,  I  hoped  would  smooth 
my  apology  for  the  intrusion.  Buried  in  a  deep  mo- 
rocco chair,  in  a  large  library,  notwithstanding,  I  found 
the  poet  himself — choice  old  pictures,  filling  every 
nook  between  the  book-shelves,  tables  covered  with 
novels  and  annuals,  rolls  of  prints,  busts  and  drawings 
in  all  the  corners  ;  and,  more  important  for  the  nonce, 
a  breakfast  table  at  the  poet's  elbow,  spicily  set  forth, 
not  with  flowers  or  ambrosia,  the  canonical  food  of 
rhymers,  but  with  cold  hams  and  ducks,  hot  rolls  and 
butter,  coffee-pot  and  tea-urn — as  sensible  a  breakfast, 
in  short,  as  the  most  unpoetical  of  men  could  desire. 

Procter  is  indebted  to  his  poetry  for  a  very  charm- 
ing wife,  the  daughter  of  Basil  Montagu,  well  known 
as  a  collector  of  choice  literature,  and  the  friend  and 
patron  of  literary  men.  The  exquisite  beauty  of  the 
Dramatic  Sketches  interested  this  lovely  woman  in  his 
favor  before  she  knew  him,  and  far  from  worldly-wise 
as  an  attachment  so  grounded  would  seem,  I  never 
saw  two  people  with  a  more  habitual  air  of  happiness. 
I  thought  of  his  touching  song, 

"  How  many  summers,  love, 
Hast  thou  been  mine  ?" 

and  looked  at  them  with  an  irrepressible  feeling  of 
envy.  A  beautiful  girl,  of  eight  or  nine  years,  the 
"  golden-tressed  Adelaide,"  delicate,  gentle  and  pen- 
sive, as  if  she  was  born  on  the  lip  of  Castaly,  and 
knew  she  was  a  poet's  child,  completed  the  picture  of 
happiness. 

The  conversation  ran  upon  various  authors,  whom 
Proctor  had  known  intimately.  Hazlitt,  Charles 
Lamb,  Keats,  Shelley,  and  others  ,  and  of  all  he  gave 
me  interesting  particulars,  which  I  could  not  well  re- 
peat in  a  public  letter.  The  account  of  Hazlitt's 
death-bed,  which  appeared  in  one  of  the  magazines, 
he  said  was  wholly  untrue.  This  extraordinary  writer 
was  the  most  reckless  of  men  in  money  matters,  but 
he  had  a  host  of  admiring  friends  who  knew  his  char- 
acter, and  were  always  ready  to  assist  him.  He  was 
a  great  admirer  of  the  picturesque  in  women.  He 
was  one  evening  at  the  theatre  with  Procter,  and 
pointed  out  to  him  an  Amazonian  female,  strangely 
dressed  in  black  velvet  and  lace,  but  with  no  beauty 
that  would  please  an  ordinary  eye.  "  Look  at  her  !" 
said  Hazlitt,  "  isn't  she  fine  ? — isn't  she  magnificent  ? 
Did  you  ever  see  anything  more  Titianesque  ?"* 

After  breakfast,  Procter  took  me  into  a  small  closet 
adjoining  his  library,  in  which  he  usually  writes. 
There  was  just  room  in  it  for  a  desk  and  two  chairs, 
and  around  were  piled  in  true  poetical  confusion,  his 
favorite  books,  miniature  likenesses  of  authors,  manu- 
scripts, and  all  the  interesting  lumber  of  a  true  poet's 
corner.  From  a  drawer,  veiy  much  thrust  out  of  the 
way,  he  drew  a  volume  of  his  own,  into  which  he  pro- 
ceeded to  write  my  name — a  collection  of  songs,  pub- 
lished since  I  have  been  in  Europe,  which  I  had  never 
seen.  I  seized  upon  a  worn  copy  of  the  Dramatic 
Sketches,  which  I  found  crossed  and  interlined  in 
every  direction.  "  Don't  look  at  them,"  said  Procter, 
they  are  wretched  things,  which  should  never  have 
been  printed,  or  at  least  with  a  world  of  correction. 
You  see  how  I  have  mended  them  ;  and,  some  day, 
perhaps,  I  will  publish  a  corrected  edition,  since  I  can 

*  The  following  story  has  been  told  me  by  another  gentle- 
man. Hazlitt  was  married  to  an  amiable  woman,  and  divor- 
ced, after  a  few  years,  at  his  own  request.  He  left  London, 
and  returned  with  another  wife.  The  first  thing  he  did  was 
to  send  to  his  first  wife  to  borrow  five  pounds  !  She  had  not 
so  much  in  the  world,  but  she  sent  to  a  friend  (the  gentleman 
who  told  me  the  story),  borrowed  it,  and  sent  it  to  him  !  It 
seems  to  me  theie  is  a  whole  drama  in  this  single  fact. 


PENCILLINGS  BY  THE  WAY. 


not  get  them  back."  He  took  the  book  from  my 
hand,  and  opened  to  "  The  Broken  Heart,"  certainly 
the  most  highly-finished  and  exquisite  piece  of  pathos 
in  the  language,  and  read  it  to  me  with  his  alterations. 
It  ma  to  "gild  refined  gold  and  paint  the  lily."  I 
would  recommend  to  the  lovers  of  Barry  Cornwall,  to 
keep  their  original  copy,  beautifully  as  he  has  polish- 
ed his  lines  anew. 

On  a  blank  leaf  of  the  same  copy  of  the  Dramatic 
Sketches,  I  found  some  indistinct  writing  in  pencil. 
"Oh!  don't  read  that,"  said  Procter,  "the  book  was 
given  me  some  years  ago  by  a  friend  at  whose  house 
Coleridge  had  been  staying,  for  the  sake  of  the  criti- 
cisms that  great  man  did  me  the  honor  to  write  at  the 
end."  I  insisted  on  reading  them,  however,  and  his 
wife  calling  him  out  presently,  I  succeeded  in  copying 
them  in  his  absence.  He  seemed  a  little  annoyed,  but 
on  my  promising  to  make  no  use  of  them  in  England, 
he  allowed  me  to  retain  them.     They  are  as  follows: 

"  Barry  Cornwall  is  a  poet,  me  saltern  judice,  and  in  that 
sense  of  the  word  in  which  I  apply  it  to  Charles  Lamb  and 
W.  Wordsworth.  There  are  poems  of  great  merit,  the  au- 
thors of  which  I  should  not  yet  feel  impelled  so  to  designate. 
"  The  faults  of  these  poems  are  no  less  things  of  hope 
than  the  beauties.  Both  are  just  what  they  ought  to  be  :  i.  e. 
now. 

"  If  B.  C.  be  faithful  to  his  genius,  it  in  due  time  will  warn 
him  that  as  poetry  is  the  identity  of  all  other  knowledge,  so 
.1  poet  can  not  be  a  great  poet,  but  as  being  likewise  and  in- 
clusively an  historian  and  a  naturalist  in  the  light  as  well  as 
the  life  of  philosophy.  All  other  men's  worlds  are  his  chaos. 
"  Hints — Not  to  permit  delicacy  and  exquisiteness  to  se- 
duce into  effeminacy. 

"Not  to  permit  beauties  by  repetition  to  become  man- 
nerism. 

"  To  be  jealous  of  fragmentary  composition  as  epicurism 
of  genius — apple-pie  made  all  of  quinces. 

"  Item.  That  dramatic  poetry  must  be  poetry  hid  in 
thought  and  passion,  not  thought  or  passion  hid  in  the  dregs 
of  poetry. 

"  Lastly,  to  be  economic  and  withholding  in  similes,  figures, 
etc.  They  will  all  find  their  place  sooner  or  later,  each  in  the 
luminary  of  a  sphere  of  its  own.  There  can  be  no  galaxy  in 
poetry,  because  it  is  language,  ergo  successive,  ergo  every  the 
smallest  star  must  be  seen  singly. 

"  There  are  not  five  metrists  in  the  kingdom  whose  works 
are  known  by  me,  to  whom  I  could  have  held  myself  allowed 
to  speak  so  plainly  ;  but  B.  C.  is  a  man  of  genius,  and  it  de- 
pends on  himself  {competence  protecting  him  from  gnawing  and 
distracting  cares)  to  become  a  rightful  poet — i.  e.  a  great  man. 
"  Oh,  for  such  a  man  ;  worldly  prudence  is  transfigured  in- 
to the  high  spiritual  duty.  How  generous  is  self-interest  in 
him  whose  true  self  is  all  that  is  good  and  hopeful  in  all  ages 
as  far  as  the  language  of  Spenser,  Shakspere,  and  Milton,  is 
the  mother  tongue. 

"  A  map  of  the  road  to  Paradise  drawn  in  Purgatory  on 
the  confines  of  Hell,  by  S.  T.  C.    July  30,  1819." 

I  took  my  leave  of  this  true  poet  after  half  a  day 
passed  in  his  company,  with  the  impression  that  he 
makes  upon  every  one — of  a  man  whose  sincerity  and 
kind-heartedness  were  the  most  prominent  traits  in  his 
character.  Simple  in  his  language  and  feelings,  a 
fond  father,  an  affectionate  husband,  a  business-man 
of  the  closest  habits  of  industry — one  reads  his 
strange  imaginations,  and  passionate,  high-wrought, 
and  even  sublimated  poetry,  and  is  in  doubt  at  which 
most  to  wonder — the  man  as  he  is,  or  the  poet  as  we 
know  him  in  his  books. 


LETTER  CXXI. 

AN  EVENING  AT  LADY  BLESSINGTON's — ANECDOTES  OF 
MOORE,  THE  POET — TAYLOR,  THE  PLATONIST — POLI- 
TICS— ELECTION  OF  SPEAKER — PRICES  OF  BOOKS. 

I  am  obliged  to  "  gazette"  Lady  Blessington  rather 
more  than  I  should  wish,  and  more  than  may  seem 
delicate  to  those  who  do  not  know  the  central  position 
she  occupies  in  the  circle  of  talent  in  London.  Her 
soirees  and   dinner-parties,  however,  are  literally  the 


single  and  only  assemblages  of  men  of  genius,  without 
reference  to  party — the  only  attempt  at  a  republic  of 
letters  in  the  world  of  this  great,  envious,  and  gifted 
metropolis.  The  pictures  of  literary  life,  in  which 
my  countrymen  would  be  most  interested,  therefore, 
are  found  within  a  very  small  compass,  presuming 
them  to  prefer  the  brighter  side  of  an  eminent  charac- 
ter, and  presuming  them  (is  it  a  presumption?)  not 
to  possess  that  appetite  for  degrading  the  author  to  the 
man  by  an  anatomy  of  his  secret  personal  failings, 
which  is  lamentably  common  in  England.  Having 
premised  thus  much,  I  go  on  with  my  letter. 

I  drove  to  Lady  Blessington's  an  evening  or  two 
since,  with  the  usual  certainty  of  finding  her  at  home, 
as  there  was  no  opera,  and  the  equal  certainty  of  find- 
ing a  circle  of  agreeable  and  eminent  men  about  her. 
She  met  me  with  the  information  that  Moore  was  in 
town,  and  an  invitation  to  dine  with  her  whenever  she 
should  be  able  to  prevail  upon  "  the  little  Bacchus" 
to  give  her  a  day.  D'Israeli,  the  younger,  was  there, 
and  Dr.  Beattie,  the  king's  physician  (and  author, 
unacknowledged,  of  "The  Heliotrope"),  and  one  or 
two  fashionable  young  noblemen. 

Moore  was  naturally  the  first  topic.  He  had  appear- 
ed at  the  opera  the  night  before,  after  a  year's  ruializ 
ing  at  "  Slopperton  cottage,"  as  fresh  and  young  and 
witty  as  he  ever  was  known  in  his  youth — (for  Moore 
must  be  sixty  at  least).  Lady  B.  said  the  only  dif- 
ference she  could  see  in  his  appearance  was  the  loss 
of  his  curls,  which  once  justified  singularly  his  title  of 
Bacchus,  flowing  about  his  head  in  thin,  glossy, 
elastick  tendrils,  unlike  any  other  hair  she  had  ever 
seen,  and  comparable  to  nothing  but  the  rings  of  the 
vine.  He  is  now  quite  bald,  and  the  change  is  very- 
striking.  D'Israeli  regretted  that  he  should  have  been 
met,  exactly  on  his  return  to  London,  with  the  savage 
but  clever  article  in  Eraser's  Magazine  on  his  pla- 
giarisms. "  Give  yourself  no  trouble  about  that," 
said  Lady  B.  "  for  you  may  be  sure  he  will  never  see 
it.  Moore  guards  against  the  sight  and  knowledge 
of  criticism  as  people  take  precautions  against  the 
plague.  He  reads  few  periodicals,  and  but  one  news- 
paper. If  a  letter  comes  to  him  from  a  suspicious 
quarter,  he  burns  it  unopened.  If  a  friend  mentions 
a  criticism  to  him  at  the  club,  he  never  forgives  him  ; 
and,  so  well  is  this  understood  among  his  friends,  that 
he  might  live  in  London  a  year,  and  all  the  magazines 
might  dissect  him,  and  he  would  probably  never  hear 
of  it.  In  the  country  he  lives  on  the  estate  of  Lord 
Lansdown,  his  patron  and  best  friend,  with  half  a 
dozen  other  noblemen  within  a  dinner-drive  ;  and  he 
passes  his  life  in  this  exclusive  circle,  like  a  bee  in 
amber,  perfectly  preserved  from  everything  that  could 
blow  rudely  upon  him.  He  takes  the  world  en  pJiil- 
osophe,  and  is  determined  to  descend  to  his  grave  per 
fectly  ignorant  if  such  things  as  critics  exist."  Some- 
body said  tliis  was  weak,  and  D'Israeli  thought  it  was 
wise,  and  made  a  splendid  defence  of  his  opinion,  as 
usual,  and  I  agreed  with  D'Israeli.  Moore  deserves  a 
medal,  as  the  happiest  author  of  his  day,  to  possess 
the  power. 

A  remark  was  made  in  rather  a  satirical  tone  upon 
Moore's  worldliness  and  passion  for  rank.  "  He  was 
sure,"  it  was  said,  "  to  have  four  or  five  invitations  to 
dine  on  the  same  day,  and  he  tormented  himself  with 
the  idea  that  he  had  not  accepted  perhaps  the  most  ex- 
clusive. He  would  get  off  from  an  engagement  with 
a  countess  to  dine  with  a  marchioness,  and  from  a 
marchioness  to  accept  the  later  invitation  of  a  dutchess ; 
and  as  he  cared  little  for  the  society  of  men,  and 
would  sing  and  be  delightful  only  for  the  applause  of 
women,  it  mattered  little  whether  one  circle  was 
more  talented  than  another.  Beauty  was  one  of  his 
passions,  but  rank  and  fashion  were  all  the  rest." 
This  rather  left-handed  portrait  was  confessed  by  all 
to   be  just.     Lady  B.   herself  making  no  comment 


190 


PENCILLINGS  BY  THE  WAY. 


upon  it.  She  gave,  as  an  offset,  however,  some  par- 
ticulars of  Moore's  difficulties  from  his  West  Indian 
appointment,  which  left  a  balance  to  his  credit. 

"  Moore  went  to  Jamaica  with  a  profitable  appoint- 
ment. The  climate  disagreed  with  him,  and  he  re- 
turned home,  leaving  the  business  in  the  hands  of  a 
confidential  clerk,  who  embezzled  eight  thousand 
pounds  in  the  course  of  a  few  months  and  absconded. 
Moore's  politics  had  made  him  obnoxious  to  the  gov- 
ernment, and  he  was  called  to  account  with  unusual 
severity;  while  Theodore  Hook,  who  had  been  re- 
called at  this  very  time  from  some  foreign  appoint- 
ment for  a  deficit  of  twenty  thousand  pounds  in  his 
accounts,  was  never  molested,  being  of  the  ruling 
party.  Moore's  misfortune  awakened  a  great  sympa- 
thy among  his  friends.  Lord  Lansdowne  was  the 
first  to  offer  his  aid.  He  wrote  to  Moore,  that  for 
many  years  he  had  been  in  the  habit  of  laying  aside 
from  his  income  eight  thousand  pounds,  for  the  en- 
couragement of  the  arts  and  literature,  and  that  he 
should  feel  that  it  was  well  disposed  of  for  that  year 
if  Moore  would  accept  it,  to  free  him  from  his  difficul- 
ties. It  was  offered  in  the  most  delicate  and  noble 
manner,  but  Moore  declined  it.  The  members  of 
"  White's"  (mostly  noblemen)  called  a  meeting,  and 
(not  knowing  the  amount  of  the  deficit)  subscribed  in 
one  morning  twenty-five  thousand  pounds,  and  wrote 
to  the  poet  that  they  would  cover  the  sum,  whatever 
it  might  be.  This  was  declined.  Longman  and 
Murray  then  offered  to  pay  it,  and  wait  for  their  re- 
muneration from  his  works.  He  declined  even  this, 
and  went  to  Passy  with  his  family,  where  he  econo- 
mized and  worked  hard  till  it  was  cancelled." 

This  was  certainly  a  story  most  creditable  to  the 
poet,  and  it  was  told  with  an  eloquent  enthusiasim 
that  did  the  heart  of  the  beautiful  narrator  infinite 
credit.  I  have  given  only  the  skeleton  of  it.  Lady 
Blessington  went  on  to  mention  another  circumstance, 
very  honorable  to  Moore,  of  which  I  had  never  before 
heard.  "  At  one  time  two  different  counties  of  Ire- 
land sent  committees  to  him,  to  offer  him  a  seat  in 
parliament;  and  as  he  depended  on  his  writings  for  a 
subsistence,  offering  him  at  the  same  time  twelve 
hundred  pounds  a  year  while  he  continued  to  repre- 
sent them.  Moore  was  deeply  touched  with  it,  and 
said  no  circumstance  of  his  life  had  ever  gratified  him 
so  much.  He  admitted  that  the  honor  they  proposed 
him  had  been  his  most  cherished  ambition,  but  the 
necessity  of  receiving  a  pecuniary  support  at  the  same 
time  was  an  insuperable  obstacle.  He  could  never 
enter  parliament  with  his  hands  tied,  and  his  opinions 
and  speech  fettered,  as  they  would  be  irresistibly  in 
such  circumstances."  This  does  not  sound  like 
"  jump-up-and-kiss-me  Tom  Moore,"  as  the  Irish 
ladies  call  him ;  but  her  ladyship  vouched  for  the  truth 
of  it.     It  was  worthy  of  an  old  Roman. 

By  what  transition  I  know  not,  the  conversation 
turned  on  Platonism,  and  D'Israeli  (who  seemed  to 
have  remembered  the  shelf  on  which  Vivian  Grey  was 
to  find  "  the  latter  Platonists"  in  his  father's  library) 
"  flared  up,"  as  a  dandy  would  say,  immediately.  His 
wild,  black  eyes  glistened,  and  his  nervous  lips  quiver- 
ed and  poured  out  eloquence  ;  and  a  German  profes- 
sor, who  had  entered  late,  and  the  Russian  charge 
d'affaires,  who  had  entered  later,  and  a  whole  ottoman- 
full  of  noble  exquisites,  listened  with  wonder.  He 
gave  us  an  account  of  Taylor,  almost  the  last  of  the 
celebrated  Platonists,  who  worshipped  Jupiter  in  a 
back  parlor  in  London  a  few  years  ago  with  undoubted 
sincerity.  He  had  an  altar  and  a  brazen  figure  of  the 
Thunderer,  and  performed  his  devotions  as  regularly 
as  the  most  pious  sacerdos  of  the  ancients.  In  his  old 
age  he  was  turned  out  of  the  lodgings  he  had  occu- 
pied for  a  great  number  of  years,  and  went  to  a  friend 
in  much  distress  to  complain  of  the  injustice.  He 
had  "only  attempted  to  worship  his  gods  according  to 


the  dictates  of  his  conscience."  "Did  you  pay  your 
bills?"  asked  the  friend.  "Certainly."  "  Then  what 
is  the  reason  ?"  "  His  landlady  had  taken  offence  at 
his  sacrificing  a  bull  to  Jupiter  in  his  back  parlor!" 

The  story  sounded  very  Vivian-Grey-ish,  and  every- 
body laughed  at  it  as  a  very  good  invention ;  but 
D'Israeli  quoted  his  father  as  his  authority,  and  it 
may  appear  in  the  Curiosities  of  Literature — where, 
however,  it  will  never  be  so  well  told  as  by  the  extra- 
ordinary creature  from  whom  we  had  heard  it. 

February  22d,  1835. — The  excitement  in  London 
about  the  choice  of  a  speaker  is  something  startling. 
It  took  place  yesterday,  and  the  party  are  thunderstruck 
at  the  non-election  of  Sir  Manners  Sutton.  This  is  a 
terrible  blow  upon  them,  for  it  was  a  defeat  at  the  out- 
set ;  and  if  they  failed  in  a  question  where  they  had 
the  immense  personal  popularity  of  the  late  speaker 
to  assist  them,  what  will  they  do  on  general  questions? 
The  house  of  commons  was  surrounded  all  day  with 

an  excited  mob.     Lady told  me  last  night  that  she 

drove  down  toward  evening,  to  ascertain  the  result 
(Sir  C.  M.  Sutton  is  her  brother-in-law),  and  the 
crowd  surrounded  her  carriage,  recognising  her  as 
the  sister  of  the  tory  speaker,  and  threatened  to  tear 
the  coronet  from  the  pannels.  "  We'll  soon  put  an 
end  to  your  coronets,"  said  a  rapscallion  in  the  mob. 
The  tories  were  so  confident  of  success  that  Sir 
Robert  Peel  gave  out  cards  a  week  ago  for  a  soiree  to 
meet  Speaker  Sutton,  on  the  night  of  the  election. 
There  is  a  general  report  in  town  that  the  whigs  will 
impeach  the  duke  of  Wellington !  This  looks  like 
a  revolution,  does  it  not  ?  It  is  very  certain  that  the 
duke  and  Sir  Robert  Peel  have  advised  the  king  to 
dissolve  parliament  again,  if  there  is  any  difficulty  in 
getting  on  with  the  government.  The  duke  was  dining 
with  Lord  Aberdeen  the  other  day,  when  some  one  at 
table  ventured  to  wonder  at  his  accepting  a  subordi- 
nate office  in  the  cabinet  he  had  himself  formed.  "If 
I  could  serve  his  majesty  better,"  said  the  patrician 
soldier,  "  I  would  ride  as  king's  messenger  to-mor- 
row !"     He  certainly  is  a  remarkable  old  fellow. 

Perhaps,  however,  literary  news  would  interest  you 
more.  Bulwer  is  publishing  in  a  volume  his  papers 
from  the  New  Monthly.  I  met  him  an  hour  age  in 
Regent-street,  looking,  what  is  called  in  London, 
"uncommon  seedy!"  He  is  either  the  worst  or  the 
best  dressed  man  in  London,  according  to  the  time  of 
day  or  night  you  see  him.  D'Israeli,  the  author  of 
Vivian  Grey,  drives  about  in  an  open  carriage,  with 

Lady  S ,  looking  more  melancholy   than  usual. 

The  absent  baronet,  whose  place  he  fills,  is  about 
bringing  an  action  against  him,  which  will  finish  his 
career,  unless  he  can  coin  the  damages  in  his  brain. 
Mrs.  Hemans  is  dying  of  consumption  in  Ireland.  I 
have  been  passing  a  week  at  a  country  house,  where 
Miss  Jane  Porter,  Miss  Pardoe,  and  Count  Krazinsky 
(author  of  the  Court  of  Sigismund),  are  domiliciated 
for  the  present.  Miss  Porter  is  one  of  her  own 
heroines,  grown  old — a  still  handsome  and  noble 
wreck  of  beauty.  Miss  Pardoe  is  nineteen,  fairhaired 
sentimental,  and  has  the  smallest  feet  and  is  the  best 
waltzer  I  ever  saw,  but  she  is  not  otherwise  pretty. 
The  Polish  count  is  writing  the  life  of  his  grand- 
mother, whom  I  should  think  he  strongly  resembled  in 
person.  He  is  an  excellent  fellow,  for  all  that.  1 
dined  last  week  with  Joanna  Baillie,  at  Hampstead — 
the  most  charming  old  lady  I  ever  saw.  To-day  I 
dine  with  Longman  to  meet  Tom  Moore,  who  is  living 
incog,  near  this  Nestor  of  publishers  at  Hampstead. 
Moore  is  fagging  hard  on  his  history  of  Ireland.  I 
shall  give  you  the  particulars  of  all  these  things  in  my 
letters  hereafter. 

Poor  Elia — my  old  favorite — is  dead.  I  consider 
it  one  of  the  most  fortunate  things  that  ever  hap- 
pened to  me  to  have  seen  him.     I  think  I  sent  you  in 


PENCILLINGS  BY  THE  WAY. 


191 


one  of  my  letters  an  account  of  my  breakfasting  in 
company  with  Charles  Lamb  and  his  sister  ("  Bridget 
Elia,")  in  the  Temple.  The  exquisite  papers  on  his 
life  and  letters  in  the  Atheneum,  are  by  Barry  Corn- 
wall. 

Lady  Blessington's  new  book  makes  a  great 
noise.  Living  as  she  does  twelve  hours  out  of  the 
twenty-four  in  the  midst  of  the  most  brilliant  and 
mind-exhausting  circle  in  London,  I  only  wonder  how 
she  found  the  time.  Yet  it  was  written  in  six  weeks. 
Her  novels  sell  for  a  hundred  pounds  more  than  any 
other  author's  except  Bulwer.  Do  you  know  the  real 
prices  of  books  ?  Bulwer  gets  fifteen  hundred  pounds 
— Lady  B.  four  hundred,  Honorable  Mrs.  Norton  txvo 
hundred  and  fifty,  Lady  Charlotte  Bury  two  hundred, 
Grattan  three  hundred  and  most  others  below  this. 
Captain  Marryat's  gross  trash  sells  immensely  about 
Wapping  and  Portsmouth,  and  brings  him  five  or  six 
hundred  the  book — but  that  can  scarce  be  called  lit- 
erature. D'Israeli  can  not  sell  a  book  at  all,  I  hear  ? 
Is  not  that  odd  ?  I  would  give  more  for  one  of  his 
novels  than  for  forty  of  the  common  saleable  things 
about  town. 

The  authoress  of  the  powerful  book  called  Two 
Old  Men's  Tales,  is  an  old  unitarian  lady,  a  Mrs. 
Marsh.  She  declares  she  will  never  write  another 
book.     The  other  was  a  glorious  one,  though! 


LETTER  CXXII. 

LONDON THE       POET      MOORE LAST      DAYS      OF      SIR 

WALTER    SCOTT MOORE'S    OPINION    OF    O'CONNELL 

ANACREON    AT  THE    PIANO DEATH    OF    BYRON 

A    SUPPRESSED  ANECDOTE. 

I  called  on  Moore  with  a  letter  of  introduction, 
and  met  him  at  the  door  of  his  lodgings.  I  knew  him 
instantly  from  the  pictures  I  had  seen  of  him,  but  was 
surprised  at  the  diminutiveness  of  his  person.  He 
is  much  below  the  middle  size,  and  with  his  white 
hat  and  long  chocolate  frock-coat,  was  far  from 
prepossessing  in  his  appearance.  With  this  ma- 
terial disadvantage,  however,  his  address  is  gentleman- 
like to  a  very  marked  degree,  and  I  should  think  no 
one  could  see  Moore  without  conceiving  a  strong 
liking  for  him.  As  I  was  to  meet  him  at  dinner,  I 
did  not  detain  him.  In  the  moment's  conversation 
that  passed,  he  inquired  very  particularly  after  Wash- 
ington Irving,  expressing  for  him  the  warmest  friend- 
ship, and  asked  what  Cooper  was  doing. 

I  was  at  Lady  Blessington's  at  eight.  Moore  had 
not  arrived,  but  the  other  persons  of  the  party — a 
Russian  count,  who  spoke  all  the  languages  of  Europe 
as  well  as  his  own;  a  Roman  banker,  whose  dynasty 
is  more  powerful  than  the  pope's;  a  clever  English 
nobleman,  and  the  "  observed  of  all  observers," 
Count  D'Orsay,  stood  in  the  window  upon  the  park, 
killing,  as  they  might,  the  melancholy  twilight  half 
hour  preceding  dinner. 

"  Mr.  Moore !"  cried  the  footman  at  the  bottom  of 
the  staircase.  "  Mr.  Moore !"  cried  the  footman  at 
the  top.  And  with  his  glass  at  his  eye,  stumbling 
over  an  ottoman  between  his  near-sightedness  and  the 
darkness  of  the  room,  enter  the  poet.  Half  a  glance 
tells  you  that  he  is  at  home  on  a  carpet.  Sliding  his 
little  feet  up  to  Lady  Blessington  (of  whom  he  was 
a  lover  when  she  was  sixteen,  and  to  whom  some  of 
the  sweetest  of  his  songs  were  written),  he  made  his 
compliments,  with  a  gayety  and  an  ease  combined 
with  a  kind  of  worshipping  deference  that  was  worthy 
of  a  prime-minister  at  the  court  of  love.  With  the 
gentlemen,  all  of  whom  he  knew,  he  had  the  frank, 
merry  manner  of  a    confident   favorite,  and    he   was 


greeted  like  one.  He  went  from  one  to  the  other, 
straining  back  his  head  to  look  up  at  them  (for,  sin- 
gularly enough,  every  gentleman  in  the  room  was  six 
feet  high  and  upward),  and  to  every  one  he  said  some- 
thing which,  from  any  one  else,  would  have  seemed 
peculiarly  felicitous,  but  which  fell  from  his  lips  as  il 
his  breath  was  not  more  spontaneous. 

Dinner  was  announced,  the  Russian  handed  down 
"miladi,"  and  I  found  myself  seated  opposite  Moore, 
with  a  blaze  of  light  on  his  Bacchus  head,  and  the 
mirrors  with  which  the  superb  octagonal  room  is  pan- 
nelled  reflecting  every  motion.  To  see  him  only  at 
table,  you  would  think  him  not  a  small  man.  His 
principal  length  is  in  his  body,  and  his  head  and  shoul- 
ders are  those  of  a  much  larger  person.  Consequently 
he  sits  tall,  and  with  the  peculiar  erectness  of  head 
and  neck,  his  diminutiveness  disappears. 

The  soup  vanished  in  the  busy  silence  that  beseems 
it,  and  as  the  courses  commenced  their  procession, 
Lady  Blessington  led  the  conversation  with  the  bril- 
liancy and  ease  for  which  she  is  remarkable  over  all 
the  women  of  her  time.  She  had  received  from  Sir 
William  Gell,  at  Naples,  the  manuscript  of  a  volume 
upon  the  last  days  of  Sir  Walter  Scott.  It  was  a 
melancholy  chronicle  of  imbecility  and  the  book  was 
suppressed,  tfut  there  were  two  or  three  circumstances 
narrated  in  its  pages  which  were  interesting.  Soon 
after  his  arrival  at  Naples,  Sir  Walter  went  with  his 
physician  and  one  or  two  friends  to  the  great  museum. 
It  happened  that  on  the  same  day  a  large  collection 
of  students  and  Italian  literati  were  assembled,  in  one 
of  the  rooms,  to  discuss  some  newly-discovered  man- 
uscripts. It  was  soon  known  that  the  "  Wizard  of  the 
North"  was  there,  and  a  deputation  was  sent  immedi- 
ately to  request  him  to  honor  them  by  presiding  at 
their  session.  At  this  time  Scott  was  a  wreck,  with  a 
memory  that  retained  nothing  for  a  moment,  and 
limbs  almost  as  helpless  as  an  infant's.  He  was  drag- 
ging about  among  the  relics  of  Pompeii,  taking  no 
interest  in  anything  he  saw,  when  their  request  was 
made  known  to  him  through  his  physician.  "No, 
no,"  said  he,  "I  know  nothing  of  their  lingo.  Tell 
them  I  am  not  well  enough  to  come."  He  loitered 
on,  and  in  about  half  an  hour  after,  he  turned  to  Dr. 
H.  and  said,  "  Who  was  that  you  said  wanted  to  see 
me?"  The  doctor  explained.  "I'll  go,"  said  he, 
"they  shall  see  me  if  they  wish  it ;"  and,  against  the 
advice  of  his  friends,  who  feared  it  would  be  too  much 
for  his  strength,  he  mounted  the  staircase,  and  made 
his  appearance  at  the  door.  A  burst  of  enthusiastic 
cheers  welcomed  him  on  the  threshold,  and  forming 
in  two  lines,  many  of  them  on  their  knees,  they  seized 
his  hands  as  he  passed,  kissed  them,  thanked  him  in 
their  passionate  language  for  the  delight  with  which 
he  had  filled  the  world,  and  placed  him  in  the  chair 
with  the  most  fervent  expressions  of  gratitude  for  his 
condescension.  The  discussion  went  on.  but  not 
understanding  a  syllable  of  the  language,  Scott  was 
soon  wearied,  and  his  friends  observing  it,  pleaded  the 
state  of  his  health  as  an  apology,  and  he  rose  to  take 
his  leave.  These  enthusiastic  children  of  the  south 
crowded  once  more  around  him,  and  with  exclama- 
tions of  affection  and  even  tears,  kissed  his  hands  once 
more,  assisted  his  tottering  steps,  and  sent  after  him  a 
confused  murmur  of  blessings  as  the  door  closed  on 
his  retiring  form.  It  is  described  by  the  writer  as  the 
most  affecting  scene  he  had  ever  witnessed. 

Some  other  remarks  were  made  upon  Scott,  but 
the  parole  was  soon  yielded  to  Moore,  who  gave  us  an 
account  of  a  visit  he  made  to  Abbotsford  when  its 
illustrious  owner  was  in  his  pride  and  prime.  "  Scott,' 
he  said,  "was  the  most  manly  and  natural  character 
in  the  world.  You  felt  when  with  him,  that  he  was 
the  soul  of  truth  and  heartiness.  His  hospitality  was 
as  simple  and  open   as  the  day,  and  he  lived  freely 


192 


PENCILLINGS  BY  THE  WAY. 


himself,  and  expected  his  guests  to  do  so.  I  remem- 
ber his  giving  us  whiskey  at  dinner,  and  Lady  Scott 
met  my  look  of  surprise  with  the  assurance  that  Sir 
Walter  seldom  dined  without  it.  He  never  ate  or 
drank  to  excess,  but  he  had  no  system,  his  constitu- 
tion was  herculean,  and  he  denied  himself  nothing. 
I  went  once  from  a  dinner-party  with  Sir  Thomas 
Lawrence  to  meet  Scott  at  Lockhart's.  We  had 
hardly  entered  the  room  when  we  were  set  down  to  a 
hot  supper  of  roast  chickens,  salmon,  punch,  etc., 
etc.,  and  Sir  Walter  ate  immensely  of  everything. 
What  a  contrast  between  this  and  the  last  time  I 
saw  him  in  London!  He  had  come  down  to  embark 
for  Italy — broken  quite  down  in  mind  and  body.  He 
gave  Mrs.  Moore  a  book,  and  I  asked  him  if  lie  would 
make  it  more  valuable  by  writing  in  it.  He  thought 
I  meant  that  he  should  write  some  verses,  and  said, 
'  Oh  I  never  write  poetry  now.'  I  asked  him  to  write 
only  his  own  name  and  hers,  and  he  attempted  it,  but 
it  was  quite  illegible." 

Some  one  remarked  that  Scott's  life  of  Napoleon 
was  a  failure. 

"I  think  little  of  it,"  said  Moore;  "but  after  all,  it 
was  an  embarrassing  task,  and  Scott  did  what  a  wise 
man  would  do — made  as  much  of  his  subject  as  was 
pblitic  and  necessary,  and  no  more."     • 

"  It  will  not  live,"  said  some  one  else;  "  as  much 
because  it  is  a  bad  book,  as  because  it  is  the  life  of  an 
individual." 

"But  what  an  individual!"  Moore  replied.  "Vol- 
taire's life  of  Charles  the  Twelfth  was  the  life  of  an  in- 
dividual, yet  that  will  live  and  be  read  as  long  as  there 
is  a  book  in  the  world,  and  what  was  he  to  Napo- 
leon ?" 

O'Connell  was  mentioned. 

"  He  is  a  powerful  creature,"  said  Moore,  "  but  his 
eloquence  has  done  great  harm  both  to  England  and 
Ireland.  There  is  nothing  so  powerful  as  oratory. 
The  faculty  of  '  thinking  on  his  legs,'  is  a  tremendous 
engine  in  the  hands  of  any  man.  There  is  an  undue 
admiration  for  this  faculty,  and  a  sway  permitted  to  it 
which  was  always  more  dangerous  to  a  country  than 
anything  else.  Lord  Althorpis  a  wonderful  instance 
of  what  a  man  may  do  without  talking.  There  is  a 
general  confidence  in  him — a  universal  belief  in  his 
honesty,  which  serves  him  instead.  Peel  is  a  fine 
speaker,  but,  admirable  as  be  had  been  as  an  opposi- 
tionist, he  failed  when  he  came  to  lead  the  house. 
O'Connell  would  be  irresistible  were  it  not  for  the  two 
blots  on  his  character — the,  contributions  in  Ireland 
for  his  support,  and  his  refusal  to  give  satisfaction 
to  the  man  he  is  still  coward  enough  to  attack. 
They  may  say  what  they  will  of  duelling,  it  is  the 
great  preserver  of  the  decencies  of  society.  The 
old  school,  which  made  a  man  responsible  for  his 
words,  was  the  better.  I  must  confess  I  think  so. 
Then,  in  O'Connell's  case,  he  had  not  made  his  vow 
against  duelling  when  Peel  challenged  him.  He  ac- 
cepted the  challenge,  and  Peel  went  to  Dover  on  his 
way  to  France,  where  they  were  to  meet ;  and  O'Con- 
nell pleaded  his  wife's  illness,  and  delayed  till  the  law 
interfered.  Some  other  Irish  patriot,  about  the  same 
time,  refused  a  challenge  on  account  of  the  illness  of 
his  daughter,  and  one  of  the  Dublin  wits  made  a  good 
epigram  on  the  two  : — 

11 1  Some  men,  with  a  horror  of  slaughter, 
Improve  on  the  scripture  command, 

And  ■  honor  their' wife  and  daughter — 

'  That  their  days  may  be  long  in  the  land. ' ' 

The  great  period  of  Ireland's  glory  was  between  '82 
and  '98,  and  it  was  a  time  when  a  man  almost  lived 
with  a  pistol  in  his  hand.  Grattan's  dying  advice  to 
his  son,  was,  «  Be  always  ready  with  the  pistol !'  He 
j^ttfitMut  never  hesitated  a   moment.     At  one   time, 


there  was  a  kind  of  conspiracy  to  fight  him  out  of  the 
world.  On  some  famous  question,  Corrie  was  em- 
ployed purposely  to  bully  him,  and  made  a  personal 
attack  of  the  grossest  virulence.  Grattan  was  so  ill, 
at  the  time,  as  to  be  supported  into  the  house  between 
two  friends.  He  rose  to  reply ;  and  first,  without  al- 
luding to  Corrie  at  all,  clearly  and  entirely  overturned 
every  argument  he  had  advanced  that  bore  upon 
the  question.  He  then  paused  a  moment,  and 
stretching  out  his  arm,  as  if  he  would  reach  across 
the  house,  said,  '  For  the  assertions  the  gentleman 
has  been  pleased  to  make  with  regard  to  myself,  my 
answer  here  is,  they  are  false!  elsewhere  it  would  be — 
a  blow ."  They  met,  and  Grattan  shot  him  through 
the  arm.  Corrie  proposed  another  shot,  but  Grattan 
said,  'No!  let  the  curs  fight  it  out!'  and  they  were 
friends  ever  after.  I  like  the  old  story  of  the  Irish- 
man who  was  challenged  by  some  desperate  black- 
guard. '  Fight  him  ."  said  he,  '  I  would  sooner  go  to 
my  grave  without  a  fight!'  Talking  of  Grattan,  is  it 
not  wonderful  that,  with  all  the  agitation  in  Ireland, 
we  have  had  no  such  men  since  his  time  ?  Look  at 
the  Irish  newspapers.  The  whole  country  in  convul- 
sion— people's  lives,  fortunes,  and  religion,  at  stake, 
and  not  a  gleam  of  talent  from  one  year's  end  to  the 
other.  It  is  natural  for  sparks  to  be  struck  out  in  a 
time  of  violence  like  this — but  Ireland,  for  all  that  is 
worth  living  for,  is  dead!  You  can  scarcely  reckon 
Shiel  of  the  calibre  of  her  spirits  of  old,  and  O'Con- 
nell, with  all  his  faults,  stands  '  alone  in  his  glory.'  " 
The  conversation  I  have  thus  run  together  is  a  mere 
skeleton,  of  course.  Nothing  but  a  short-hand  re- 
port could  retain  the  delicacy  and  elegance  of  Moore's 
language,  and  memory  itself  can  not  imbody  again 
the  kind  of  frost-work  of  imagery  which  was  formed 
and  melted  on  his  lips.  His  voice  is  soft  or  firm  as 
the  subject  requires,  but  perhaps  the  word  gentleman- 
ly describes  it  better  than  any  other.  It  is  upon  a 
natural  key,  but,  if  I  may  so  phrase  it,  it  is  fused 
with  a  high-bred  affectation,  expressing  deference  and 
courtesy,  at  the  same  time  that  its  pauses  are  con- 
structed peculiarly  to  catch  the  ear.  It  would  be  dif- 
ficult not  to  attend  him  while  he  is  talking,  though  the 
subject  were  but  the  shape  of  a  wine-glass. 

Moore's  head  is  distinctly  before  me  while  I  write, 
but   I  shall  find   it   difficult  to   describe.     His  hair, 
which  curled  once  all  over  it  in  long  tendrils,  unlike 
anybody  else's  in  the  world,  and  which  probably  sug- 
gested his   soubriquet   of  "Bacchus,"  is   diminished 
now  to  a  few  curls  sprinkled  with   gray,  and  scattered 
in   a   single   ring   above   his  ears.     His  forehead 
wrinkled,   with   the  exception   of  a  most   prominent 
development  of  the  organ  of  gayety,  which,  singu- 
larly enough,  shines  with  the  lustre  and  smooth  pol- 
ish of  a  pearl,  and  is  surrounded  by  a  semicircle  of 
lines  drawn  close  about  it,  like  entrenchments  against 
Time.     His  eyes  still  sparkle  like  a  champaign  bub- 
ble, though  the   invader  has   drawn  his    pencillings 
about  the  corners;  and  there  is  a  kind  of  wintry  red, 
of  the  tinge  of  an  October  leaf,  that  seems  enamelled 
on  his  cheek,  the  eloquent  record  of  the  claret  his  wit 
has  brightened.     His  mouth  is  the  most  characteris- 
tic feature  of  all.     The  lips  are  delicately  cut,  slight 
and  changeable  as  an  aspen ;  but  there  is  a  set-up 
look  about  the  lower  lip,  a  determination  of  the  mus 
cle  to  a  particular  expression,  and  you  fancy  that  you 
can  almost  see  wit  astride  upon  it.     It  is  written  legi 
bly  with  the  imprint  of  habitual  success.     It  is  arch 
confident,  and  half  diffident,  as  if  he  were  disguising 
his  pleasure  at  applause,  while  another  bright  glean 
of  fancy  was  breaking  on  him.     The  slightly-tossed 
nose  confirms  the  fun  of  the  expression,  and  altogeth 
er  it  is  a  face  that  sparkles,  beams,  radiates, — every 
thing  but  feels.     Fascinating  beyond  all  men  as  he  i* 
Moore  looks  like  a  worldling. 


PENCILLINGS  BY  THE  WAY. 


193 


This  description  maybe  supposed  to  have  occupied 
the  hour  after  Lady  Blessing  ton  retired  from  the  ta- 
ble ;  for  with  her  vanished  Moore's  excitement,  and 
everybody  else  seemed  to  feel  that  light  had  gone  out 
of  the  room.  Her  excessive  beauty  is  less  an  inspi- 
ration than  the  wondrous  talent  with  which  she  draws 
from  every  person  around  her  his  peculiar  excellence. 
Talking  better  than  anybody  else,  and  narrating,  par- 
ticularly, with  a  graphic  power  that  I  never  saw  ex- 
celled, this  distinguished  woman  seems  striving  only 
to  make  others  unfold  themselves ;  and  never  had  dif- 
fidence a  more  apprehensive  and  encouraging  listener. 
But  this  is  a  subject  with  which  I  should  never  be 
done. 

We  went  up  to  coffee,  and  Moore  brightened  again 
over  his  chasse-cafe,  and  went  glittering  on  with  criti- 
cisms on  Grisi,  the  delicious  songstress  now  ravishing 
the  world,  whom  he  placed  above  all  but  Pasta ;  and 
whom  he  thought,  with  the  exception  that  her  legs 
were  too  short,  an  incomparable  creature.  This  in- 
troduced music  very  naturally,  and  with  a  great  deal 
of  difficulty  he  was  taken  to  the  piano.  My  letter  is 
getting  long,  and  I  have  no  time  to  describe  his  sing- 
ing. It  is  well  known,  however,  that  its  effect  is  only 
equalled  by  the  beauty  of  his  own  words;  and,  for 
one,  I  could  have  takeu  him  into  my  heart  with  my 
delight.  He  makes  no  attempt  at  music.  It  is  a  kind 
of  admirable  recitative,  in  which  every  shade  of 
thought  is  syllabled  and  dwelt  upon,  and  the  senti- 
ment of  the  song  goes  through  your  blood,  warming 
you  to  the  very  eyelids,  and  starting  your  tears,  if  you 
have  soul  or  sense  in  you.  I  have  heard  of  women's 
fainting  at  a  song  of  Moore's ;  and  if  the  burden  of  it 
answered  by  chance  to  a  secret  in  the  bosom  of  the 
listener,  I  should  think,  from  its  comparative  effect 
upon  so  old  a  stager  as  myself,  that  the  heart  would 
break  with  it. 

We  all  sat  around  the  piano,  and  after  two  or  three 
songs  of  Lady  Blessington's  choice,  he  rambled  over 
the  keys  awhile,  and  sang  "  When  first  I  met  thee," 
with  a  pathos  that  beggars  description.  WThen  the 
last  word  had  faltered  out,  he  rose  and  took  Lady 
Blessington's  hand,  said  good-night,  and  was  gone 
before  a  word  was  uttered.  For  a  full  minute  after 
he  had  closed  the  door  no  one  spoke.  I  could  have 
wished,  for  myself,  to  drop  silently  asleep  where  I  sat, 
with  the  tears  in  my  eyes  and  the  softness  upon  my 
heart. 

"  Here's  a  health  to  thee,  Tom  Moore  !" 

1  was  in  company  the  other  evening  where  West- 
macott,  the  sculptor,  was  telling  a  story  of  himself 
and  Leigh  Hunt.  They  were  together  one  day  at 
Fiesole,  when  a  butterfly,  of  an  uncommon  sable 
color,  alighted  on  Westmacott's  forehead,  and  re- 
mained there  several  minutes.  Hunt  immediately 
cried  out,  "  The  spirit  of  some  dear  friend  is  depart- 
ed," and  as  they  entered  the  gate  of  Florence  on  their 
return,  some  one  met  them  and  informed  them  of  the 
death  of  Byron,  the  news  of  which  had  at  that  mo- 
ment arrived. 

I  have  just  time  before  the  packet  sails  to  send  you 
an  anecdote  that  is  bought  out  of  the  London  papers. 
A  nobleman,  living  near  Belgrave  square,  received  a 
visit  a  day  or  two  ago  from  a  police  officer,  who  sta- 
ted to  him,  that  he  had  a  man-servant  in  his  house, 
who  had  escaped  from  Botany  Bay.  His  lordship 
was  somewhat  surprised,  but  called  up  the  male  part 
of  his  household,  at  the  officer's  request,  and  passed 
them  in  review.  The  culprit  was  not  among  them. 
Th«j  officer  then  requested  to  see  the  female  part  of 
the  establishment ;  and,  to  the  inexpressible  astonish- 
ment of  the  whole  household,  he  laid  his  hand  upon 
the  shoulder  of  the  lady's  confidential  maid,  and  in- 
formed her  she  was  his  prisoner.  A  change  of  dress 
13 


was  immediately  sent  for,  and  miladi's  dressing-maid 
was  remetamorphosed  into  an  effeminate-looking 
fellow,  and  marched  off  to  a  new  trial.  It  is  a  most 
extraordinary  thing  that  he  had  lived  unsuspected  in 
the  family  for  nine  months,  performing  all  the  func- 
tions of  a  confidential  Abigail,  and  very  much  in  favor 
with  his  unsuspecting  mistress,  who  is  rather  a  serious 
person,  and  would  as  soon  have  thought  of  turning 
out  to  be  a  man  herself.  It  is  said,  that  the  husband 
once  made  a  remark  upon  the  huskiness  of  the  maid's 
voice,  but  no  other  comment  was  ever  made  reflecting 
in  the  least  upon  her  qualities  as  a  member  of  the 
beau  sexe.  The  story  is  quite  authentic,  but  hushed 
up  out  of  regard  to  the  lady. 


LETTER  CXXIII. 

IMMENSITY    OF    LONDON — VOYAGE    TO     LEITH — SOCIETY 

OF    THE    STEAM-PACKET ANALOGY  BETWEEN  SCOTCH 

AND  AMERICAN  MANNERS — STRICT  OBSERVANCE  OF 
THE  SABBATH  ON  BOARD EDINBURGH — UNEXPECT- 
ED  RECOGNITION. 

Almost  giddy  with  the  many  pleasures  and  occu- 
pations of  London,  I  had  outstayed  the  last  fashiona- 
ble lingerer;  and,  on  appearing  again,  after  a  fort- 
night's confinement  with  the  epidemic  of  the  season, 
I  found  myself  almost  without  an  acquaintance,  and 
was  driven  to  follow  the  world.  A  preponderance  of 
letters  and  friends  determined  my  route  toward  Scot- 
land. 

One  realizes  the  immensity  of  London  when  he  is 
compelled  to  measure  its  length  on  a  single  errand.  I 
took  a  cab  at  my  lodgings  at  nine  in  the  evening,  and 
drove  six  miles  through  one  succession  of  crowded  and 
blazing  streets  to  the  East  India  Docks,  and  with  the 
single  misfortune  of  being  robbed  on  the  way  of  a 
valuable  cloak,  secured  a  birth  in  the  Monarch  steam- 
er, bound  presently  for  Edinburgh. 

I  found  the  drawing-room  cabin  quite  crowded, 
cold  supper  on  the  two  long  tables,  everybody  very 
busy  with  knife  and  fork,  and  whiskey-and-water  and 
broad  Scotch  circulating  merrily.  All  the  world  seem- 
ed acquainted,  and  each  man  talked  to  his  neighbor, 
and  it  was  as  unlike  a  ship's  company  of  dumb  Eng 
lish  as  could  easily  be  conceived.  I  had  dined  too 
late  to  attack  the  solids,  but  imitating  my  neighbor's 
potation  of  whiskey  and  hot  water,  I  crowded  in  be- 
tween two  good-humored  Scotchmen,  and  took  the 
happy  color  of  the  spirits  of  the  company.  A  small 
j  centre-table  was  occupied  by  a  party  who  afforded 
'■  considerable  amusement.  An  excessively  fat  old  wo- 
|  man,  with  a  tall  scraggy  daughter  and  a  stubby  little 
old  fellow,  whom  they  called  "pa;"  and  a  singular 
man,  a  Major  Somebody,  who  seemed  showing  them 
up,  composed  the  quartette.  Noisier  women  I  never 
;  saw,  nor  more  hideous.  They  bullied  the  waiter, 
were  facetious  with  the  steward,  and  talked  down  all 
the  united  buzz  of  the  cabin.  Opposite  me  sat  a  pale, 
'  severe-looking  Scotchman,  who  had  addressed  one  or 
j  two  remarks  to  me  ;  and,  upon  an  uncommon  burst 
of  uproariousness,  he  laughed  with  the  rest,  and  re- 
marked that  the  ladies  were  excusable,  for  they  were 
doubtless  Americans,  and  knew  no  better. 

"  It  strikes  me,"  said  I,  "  that  both  in  manners  and 
accent  they  are  particularly  Scotch." 

"Sir!"  said  the  pale  gentleman. 

"  Sir  !"  said  several  of  my  neighbors  on  the  right 
and  left. 

I  repeated  the  remark. 

"  Have  you  ever  been  in  Scotland  ?"  asked  the 
pale  gentleman,  with  rather  a  ferocious  air. 

"  No,  sir  !     Have  you  ever  been  in  America  ?" 

"  No,  sir !  but  I  have  read  Mrs.  Trollope." 


194 


PENCILLINGS  BY  THE  WA\ 


"  And  I  have  read  Cyril  Thornton ;  and  the  man- 
ners delineated  in  Mrs.  Trollope,  I  must  say,  are 
rather  elegant  in  comparison." 

I  particularized  the  descriptions  I  alluded  to,  which 
will  occur  immediately  to  those  who  have  read  the 
novel  I  have  named  ;  and  then  confessing  I  was  an 
American,  and  withdrawing  my  illiberal  remark,  which 
I  had  only  made  to  show  the  gentleman  the  injustice 
and  absurdity  of  his  own,  we  called  for  another  tass 
of  whiskey,  and  became  very  good  friends.  Heaven 
knows  I  have  no  prejudice  against  the  Scotch,  or  any 
other  nation — but  it  is  extraordinary  how  universal  the 
feeling  seems  to  be  against  America.  A  half  hour  in- 
cog, in  any  mixed  company  in  England  I  should  think 
would  satisfy  the  most  rose-colored  doubter  on  the 
subject. 

We  got  under  way  at  eleven  o'clock,  and  the  pas- 
sengers turned  in.  The  next  morning  was  Sunday. 
It  was  fortunately  of  a  "  Sabbath  stillness;"  and  the 
open  sea  through  which  we  were  driving,  with  an  easy 
south  wind  in  our  favor,  graciously  permitted  us  to  do 
honor  to  as  substantial  a  breakfast  as  ever  was  set  be- 
fore a  traveller,  even  in  America.  (Why  we  should 
be  ridiculed  for  our  breakfasts  I  do  not  know.) 

The  "Monarch"  is  a  superb  boat,  and,  with  the 
aid  of  sails  and  a  wind  right  aft,  we  made  twelve  miles 
in  the  hour  easily.  I  was  pleased  to  see  an  observance 
of  the  Sabbath  which  had  not  crossed  my  path  before 
in  three  years'  travel.  Half  the  passengers  at  least 
took  their  bibles  after  breakfast,  and  devoted  an  hour 
or  two  evidently  to  grave  religious  reading  and  reflec- 
tion. With  this  exception,  I  have  not  seen  a  person 
with  the  Bible  in  his  hand,  in  travelling  over  half  the 
world. 

The  weather  continued  fine,  and  smooth  water 
tempted  us  up  to  breakfast  again  on  Monday.  The 
wash-room  was  full  of  half-clad  men,  but  the  week- 
day manners  of  the  passengers  were  perceptibly  gayer. 
The  captain  honored  us  by  taking  the  head  of  the"  ta- 
ble, which  he  had  not  done  on  the  day  previous,  and 
his  appeaiance  was  hailed  by  three  general  cheers. 
When  the  meats  were  removed,  a  gentleman  rose,  and, 
after  a  very  long  and  parliamentary  speech,  proposed 
the  health  of  the  captain.  The  company  stood  up, 
ladies  and  all,  and  it  was  drank  with  a  "tremendous 
"hip-hip-hurrah,"  in  bumpers  of  whiskey.  They 
don't  do  that  on  the  Mississippi,  I  reckon.  If  they 
did,  the  travellers  would  be  down  upon  us,  "  I  guess," 
out-Hamiltoning  Hamilton. 

We  rounded  St.  Abb's  head  into  the  Forth,  at  five, 
in  the  afternoon,  and  soon  dropped  anchor  oft'  Leith. 
The  view  of  Edinburgh,  from  the  water,  is,  ]  think, 
second  only  to  that  of  Constantinople.  The  singular 
resemblance,  in  one  or  two  features,  to  the  view  of 
Athens,  as  you  approach  from  the  Piraeus,  seems  to 
have  struck  other  eyes  than  mine,  and  an  imitation 
Acropolis  is  commenced  on  the  Calton-hill,  and  has 
already,  in  its  half-finished  state,  much  the  effect  of 
the  Parthenon.  Hymettus  is  rather  loftier  than  the 
Pentland-hills,  and  Pentelicus  farther  off  and  grander 
than  Arthur's  seat,  but  the  old  castle  of  Edinburgh  is 
a  noble  and  peculiar  feature  of  its  own,  and  soars  up 
against  the  sky,  with  its  pinnacle-placed  turrets,  su- 
perbly magnificent.  The  Forth  has  a  high  shore  on 
either  side,  and,  with  the  island  of  Inchkeith  in  its 
broad  bosom,  it  looks  more  like  a  lake  than  an  arm  of 
the  sea. 

It  is  odd  what  strange  links  of  acquaintance  will 
develop  between  people  thrown  together  in  the  most 
casual  manner,  and  in  the  most  out-of-the-way  places. 
I  have  never  entered  a  steamboat  in  my  life  without 
finding,  if  hot  an  acquaintance,  some  one  who  should 
have  been  an  acquaintance  from  mutual  knowledge  of 
friends.  I  thought,  through  the  first  day,  that  the 
Monarch  would  be  an  exception.  On  the  second 
morning,  however,  a  gentleman  came  up  and  called 


me  by  name.  He  was  an  American,  and  had  seen  me 
in  Boston.  Soon  after,  another  gentleman  addressed 
some  remark  to  me,  and,  in  a  few  minutes,  we  dis- 
covered that  we  were  members  of  the  same  club  in 
London,  and  bound  to  the  same  hospitable  roof  in 
Scotland.  We  went  on,  talking  together,  and  I  hap- 
pened to  mention  having  lately  been  in  Greece,  when 
one  of  a  large  party  of  ladies,  overhearing  the  remark, 

turned,  and  asked  me,  if  I  had  met  Lady in  my 

travels.  I  had  met  her  at  Athens,  and  this  was  her 
sister.  I  found  I  had  many  interesting  particulars  of 
the  delightful  person  in  question  which  were  new  to 
them,  and,  sequilur,  a  friendship  struck  up  immedi- 
ately between  me  and  a  party  of  six.  You  would 
have  never  dreamed,  to  have  seen  the  adieux  on  the 
landing,  that  we  had  been  unaware  of  each  other's  ex- 
istence forty-four  hours  previous. 

Leith  is  a  mile  or  more  from  the  town,  and  we  drove 
into  the  new  side  of  Edinburgh — a  splendid  city  of 
stone — and,  with  my  English  friend,  I  was  soon  in- 
stalled in  a  comfortable  parlor  at  Douglas's — an  hotel 
to  which  the  Tremont,  in  Boston,  is  the  only  parallel. 
It  is  built  of  the  same  stone  and  is  smaller,  but  it  has 
a  better  situation  than  the  Tremont,  standing  in  a 
magnificent  square,  with  a  column  and  statue  to  Lord 
Melville  in  the  centre,  and  a  perspective  of  a  noble 
street  stretching  through  the  city  from  the  opposite 
side. 

We  dined  upon  grovse,  to  begin  Scotland  fairly, 
and  nailed  down  our  sherry  with  a  tass  o'  Glenlivet, 
and  then  we  had  still  an  hour  of  daylight  for  a  ramble 


LETTER  CXXIV. 

EDINBURGH — A  SCOTCH  BREAKFAST — THE  CASTLE  - 
PALACE  OF  HOLYROOD — QUEEN  MARY — RIZZIO — 
CHARLES  THE  TENTH. 

It  is  an  odd  place,  Edinboro'.  The  old  town  and 
the  new  are  separated  by  a  broad  and  deep  ravine, 
planted  with  trees  and  shrubbery  ;  and  across  this,  on 
a  level  with  the  streets  on  either  side,  stretches  a 
bridge  of  a  most  giddy  height,  without  which  ail  com- 
munication would  apparently  be  cut  oft'.  "  Auld 
Reekie"  itself  looks  built  on  the  back-bone  of  a  ridgy 
crag,  and  towers  along  on  the  opposite  side  of  the 
ravine,  running  up  its  twelve-story  houses  to  the  sky 
in  an  ascending  curve,  till  it  terminates  in  the  frown- 
ing and  battlemented  castle,  whose  base  is  literally  on 
a  mountain  top  in  the  midst  of  the  city.  At  the  foot 
of  this  ridge,  in  the  lap  of  the  valley,  lies  Holyiood- 
house  ;  and  between  this  and  the  castle  runs  a  single 
street,  part  of  which  is  the  old  Canongate.  Princes' 
street,  the  Broadway  of  the  new  town,  is  built  along 
the  opposite  edge  of  the  ravine  facing  the  long,  many- 
windowed  walls  of  the  Canongate,  and  from  every 
part  of  Edinboro'  these  singular  features  are  con- 
spicuously visible.  A  more  striking  contrast  than  exists 
between  these  two  parts  of  the  same  city  could  hardly 
be  imagined.  On  one  side  a  succession  of  splendid 
squares,  elegant  granite  houses,  broad  and  well-paved 
streets,  columns,  statues,  and  clean  sidewalks,  thinly 
promenaded  and  by  the  well-dressed  exclusively — a 
kind  of  wholly  grand  and  half-deserted  city,  which  has 
been  built  too  ambitiously  for  its  population — and 
on  the  other,  an  antique  wilderness  of  streets  and 
"  wynds,"  so  narrow  and  lofty  as  to  shut  out  much  of 
the  light  of  heaven  ;  a  thronging,  busy,  and  particu- 
larly dirty  population,  sidewalks  almost  impassable 
from  children  and  other  respected  nuisances ;  and 
altogether,  between  the  irregular  and  massive  archi- 
tecture, and  the  unintelligible  jargon  agonizing  the  air 
about  you,  a  most  outlandish  and  strange  city.  Paris 
is  not  more   unlike  Constantinople  than  one  side  of 


PENCILLINGS  BY  THE   WAY. 


195 


Edinboro'  is  unlike  the  other.  Nature  has  probably 
placed  "  a  great  gulf"  between  them. 

We  toiled  up  the  castle  to  see  the  sunset.  Oh,  but 
it  was  beautiful!  I  have  no  idea  of  describing  it ;  but 
Edinboro',  to  me,  will  be  a  picture  seen  through  an 
atmosphere  of  powdered  gold,  mellow  as  an  eve  on  the 
rampagna.  We  looked  down  on  the  surging  sea  of 
architecture  below  us,  and  whether  it  was  the  wavy 
clou  liness  of  a  myriad  of  reeking  chimneys,  or 
whether  it  was  a  fancy  Glenlivet-born  in  my  eye,  the 
city  seemed  to  me  like  a  troop  of  war-horses,  rearing 
into  the  air  with  their  gallant  riders.  The  singular 
boldness  of  the  hills  on  which  it  is  built,  and  of  the 
Cragfl  and  mountains  which  look  down  upon  it,  and  the 
impressive  lift  of  its  towering  architecture  into  the  sky, 
gaye  it  altogether  a  look  of  pride  and  warlikeness  that 
answers  peculiarly  to  the  chivalric  history  of  Scot- 
lauil.  And  so  much  for  the  first  look  at  "  Auld 
Reekie." 

My  friend  had  determined  to  have  what  he  called  a 
"flare-up"  of  a  Scotch  breakfast,  and  we  were  set 
down  the  morning  after  our  arrival,  at  nine,  to  cold 
grouse,  salmon,  cold  beef,  marmalade,  jellies,  honey, 
five  kinds  of  bread,  oatmeal  cakes,  coffee,  tea,  and 
toast ;  and  I  am  by  no  means  sure  that  that  is  all.  It  is 
a  fine  country  in  which  one  gets  so  much  by  the  simple 
order  of  "  breakfast  at  nine." 

We  parted  after  having  achieved  it,  my  companion 
going  before  me  to  Dumbartonshire;  and,  with  a 
"wee  callant"  for  a  guide,  I  took  my  way  to  Holy- 
rood. 

At  the  very  foot  of  Edinboro'  stands  this  most  inter- 
esting of  royal  palaces — a  fine  old  pile,  though  at  the 
first  view  rather  disappointing.  It  might  have  been  in 
the  sky,  which  was  dun  and  cold,  or  it  might  have 
been  in  the  melancholy  story  most  prominent  in  its 
history,  but  it  oppressed  me  with  its  gloom.  A  rosy 
cicerone  in  petticoats  stepped  out  from  the  porter's 
lodge,  and  rather  brightened  my  mood  with  her  smile 
and  courtesy,  and  I  followed  on  to  the  chapel  royal, 
built,  Heaven  knows  when,  but  in  a  beautiful  state  of 
gothic  ruin.  The  girl  went  on  with  her  knitting  and 
her  well-drilled  recitation  of  the  sights  upon  which 
those  old  fretted  and  stone  traceries  had  let  in  the 
light ;  and  I  walked  about  feeding  my  eyes  upon  its 
hoar  and  touching  beauty,  listening  little  till  she  came 
to  the  high  altar,  and  in  the  same  broad  Scotch  monot- 
ony, and  with  her  eyes  still  upon  her  work,  hurried 
over  something  about  Mary  Queen  of  Scots.  She 
was  married  to  Darnley  on  the  spot  where  I  stood  ! 
The  mechanical  guide  was  accustomed  evidently  to  an 
interruption  here,  and  stood  silent  a  minute  or  two  to 
give  my  surprise  the  usual  grace.  Poor,  poor  Mary  ! 
I  had  the  common  feeling,  and  made  probably  the 
same  ejaculation  that  thousands  have  made  on  the 
spot,  that  I  had  never  before  realized  the  melancholy 
romance  of  her  life  half  so  nearly.  It  had  been  the 
sadness  of  an  hour  before — a  feeling  laid  aside  with 
the  book  that  recorded  it — now  it  was,  as  it  were,  a 
pity  and  a  grief  for  the  living,  and  I  felt  struck  with  it 
as  if  it  had  happened  yesterday.  If  Rizzio's  harp  had 
sounded  from  her  chamber,  it  could  not  have  seemed 
more  tangibly  a  scene  of  living  story. 

"  And  through  this  door  they  dragged  the  murdered 
favorite;  and  here  under  this  stone,  he  was  buried  !" 

•'  Yes,  sir." 

"  Poor  Rizzio  !" 

"  I'm  thinkin'  that's  a',  sir  !" 

It  was  a  broad  hint,  but  I  took  another  turn  down 
the  nave  of  the  old  ruin,  and  another  look  at  the  scene 
of  the  murder,  and  the  grave  of  the  victim. 

"  And  this  door  communicated  with  Mary's  apart- 
ments!" 

M  Yes — ye  hae  it  a'  the  noo  !" 

I  paid  my  shilling,  and  exit. 

On  inquiry  for  the  private  apartments,  I  was  directed 


to  another  Girzy,  who  took  me  up  to  a  suite  of  rooms 
appropriated  to  the  use  of  the  earl  of  Breadalbane,  and 
furnished  very  much  like  lodgings  for  a  guinea  a  week 
in  London. 

"  And  which  was  Queen  Mary's  chamber?" 

"  Ech  !  sir  !     It's  t'ither  side.     I  dinna  show  that." 

"And  what  am  I  brought  here  for?" 

"  Y'e  cam'  yoursell !" 

With  this  wholesome  truth,  I  paid  my  shilling 
again,  and  was  handed  over  to  another  woman,  who 
took  me  into  a  large  hall  containing  portraits  of 
Robert  Bruce,  Baliol,  Macbeth,  Queen  Mary,  and 
some  forty  other  men  and  women  famous  in  Scotch 
story ;  and  nothing  is  clearer  than  that  one  patient 
person  sat  to  the  painter  for  the  whole.  After 
"  doing"  these,  I  was  led  with  extreme  deliberativeness 
through  a  suite  of  unfurnished  rooms,  twelve,  I  think, 
the  only  interest  of  which  was  their  having  been  ten- 
anted of  late  by  the  royal  exile  of  France.  As  if  any- 
body would  give  a  shilling  to  see  where  Charles  the 
Tenth  slept  and  breakfasted  ! 

I  thanked  Heaven  that  I  stumbled  next  upon  the 
right  person,  and  was  introduced  into  an  ill-lighted 
room,  with  one  deep  window  looking  upon  the  court, 
and  a  fireplace  like  that  of  a  country  inn — the  state 
chamber  of  the  unfortunate  Mary.  Here  was  a  chair 
she  embroidered — there  was  a  seat  of  tarnished  velvet, 
where  she  sat  in  state  with  Darnley — the  very  grate  in 
the  chimney  that  she  had  sat  before — the  mirror  in 
which  her  fairest  face  had  been  imaged — the  table  at 
which  she  had  worked — the  walls  on  which  her  eyes 
had  rested  in  her  gay  and  her  melancholy  hours — all, 
save  the  touch  and  mould  of  time,  as  she  lived  in  it  and 
left  it.     It  was  a  place  for  a  thousand  thoughts. 

The  woman  led  on.  We  entered  another  room — 
her  chamber.  A  small,  low  bed,  with  tattered  hang- 
ings of  red  and  figured  silk,  tall,  ill-shapen  posts,  and 
altogether  a  paltry  look,  stood  in  a  room  of  irregular 
shape  ;  and  here,  in  all  her  peerless  beauty,  she  had 
slept.  A  small  cabinet,  a  closet  merely,  opened  on 
the  right,  and  in  this  she  was  supping  with  Rizzio, 
when  he  was  plucked  from  her  and  murdered.  We 
went  back  to  the  audience-chamber  to  see  the  stain  of 
his  blood  on  the  floor.  She  partitioned  it  off  after  his 
death,  not  bearing  to  look  upon  it.  Again — "poor 
Mary  !" 

On  the  opposite  side  was  a  similar  closet,  which 
served  as  her  dressing-room,  and  the  small  mirror, 
scarce  larger  than  your  hand,  which  she  used  at  her 
toilet.  Oh  for  a  magic  wand,  to  wave  back,  upon 
that  senseless  surface,  the  visions  of  beauty  it  has  re- 
flected ! 


LETTER  CXXV. 

DALHOUSIE   CASTLE — THE   EARL    AND   COUNTESS — ANTI- 
QUITY   OF   THEIR   FAMILY. 

Edinboro'  has  extended  to  "St.  Leonard's,"  and 
the  home  of  Jeanie  Deans  is  now  the  commencement 
of  the  railway  !  How  sadly  is  romance  ridden  over 
by  the  march  of  intellect ! 

With  twenty-four  persons  and  some  climbers  be- 
hind, I  was  drawn  ten  miles  in  the  hour  by  a  single 
horse  upon  the  Dalkeith  railroad,  and  landed  within  a 
mile  of  Dalhousie  Castle.  Two  "wee  callants"  here 
undertook  my  portmanteau,  and  in  ten  minutes  more 
I  was  at  the  rustic  lodge  in  the  park,  the  gate  of  which 
swung  hospitably  open  with  the  welcome  announce- 
ment that  I  was  expected.  An  avenue  of  near  three 
quarters  of  a  mile  of  firs,  cedars,  laburnums,  and 
larches,  wound  through  the  park  to  the  castle  ;  and 
dipping  over  the  edge  of  a  deep  and  wild  dell,  I  found 
the  venerable  old  pile  below  me,  its  round   towers  and 


96 


PENCILLINGS  BY  THE  WAY. 


battlemented  turrets  frowning  among  the  trees,  and 
forming  with  the  river,  which  swept  round  its  base, 
one  of  the  finest  specimens  imaginable  of  the  feudal 
picturesque.*  The  nicely  gravelled  terraces,  as  I  ap- 
proached, the  plate-glass  windows  and  rich  curtains, 
diminished  somewhat  of  the  romance;  but  I  am  not 
free  to  say  that  the  promise  they  gave  of  the  luxury 
within  did  not  offer  a  succedaneum. 

I  was  met  at  the  threshold  by  the  castle's  noble  and 
distinguished  master,  and  as  the  light  modern  gothic 
door  swung  open  on  its  noiseless  hinges,  I  looked  up 
at  the  rude  armorial  scutcheon  above,  and  at  the  slits 
for  the  portcullis  chains  and  the  rough  hollows  in  the 
walls  which  had  served  for  its  rest,  and  it  seemed  to 
me  that  the  kind  and  polished  earl,  in  his  velvet  cap, 
and  the  modern  door  on  its  patent  hinges,  were  pleas- 
ant substitutes  even  for  a  raised  drawbridge  and  a  hel- 
meted  knight.  I  beg  pardon  of  the  romantic,  if  this 
be  treason  against  Delia  Crusca. 

The  gong  had  sounded  its  first  summons  to  dinner, 
and  I  went  immediately  to  my  room  to  achieve  my 
toilet.  I  found  myself  in  the  south  wing,  with  a  glo- 
rious view  up  the  valley  of  the  Esk,  and  comforts 
about  me  such  as  are  only  found  in  a  private  chamber 
in  England.  The  nicely-fitted  carpet,  the  heavy  cur- 
tains, the  well-appointed  dressing-table,  the  patent 
grate  and  its  blazing  fire  (for  where  is  a  fire  not 
welcome  in  Scotland  ?)  the  tapestry,  the  books,  the 
boundless  bed,  the  bell  that  will  ring,  and  the  servants 

that  anticipate  the  pull oh,  you  should  have  pined 

for  comfort  in  France  and  Italy  to  know  what  this  cat- 
alogue is  worth. 

After  dinner,  Lady  Dalhousie,  who  is  much  of  an 
invalid,  mounted  a  small  poney  to  show  me  the 
grounds.  We  took  a  winding  path  away  from  the 
door,  and  descended  at  once  into  the  romantic  dell  over 
which  the  castle  towers.  It  is  naturally  a  most  wild 
and  precipitous  glen,  through  which  the  rapid  Esk 
pursues  its  way  almost  in  darkness;  but,  leaving  only 
the  steep  and  rocky  shelves  leaning  over  the  river  with 
their  crown  of  pines,  the  successive  lords  of  Dalhou- 
sie have  cultivated  the  banks  and  hills  around  for  a 
park  and  a  paradise.  The  smooth  gravel  walks  cross 
and  interweave,  the  smoother  lawns  sink  and  swell 
with  their  green  bosoms,  the  stream  dashes  on  mur- 
muring below,  and  the  lofty  trees  shadow  and  over- 
hang all.  At  one  extremity  of  the  grounds  are  a  flow- 
er and  a  fruit  garden,  and  beyond  it  the  castle-farm  ; 
at  the  other,  a  little  village  of  the  family  dependants, 
with  their  rose-imbowered  cottages  ;  and,  as  far  as  you 
would  ramble  in  a  day,  extend  the  woods  and  glades, 
and  hares  leap  across  your  path,  and  pheasants  and 
partridges  whirr  up  as  you  approach,  and  you  may  fa- 
tigue yourself  in  a  scene  that  is  formed  in  every  fea- 
ture from  the  gentle-born  and  the  refined.  The  labor 
and  the  taste  of  successive  generations  can  alone  cre- 
ate such  an  Eden.  Primogeniture  !  I  half  forgive 
thee. 

The  various  views  of  the  castle  from  the  bottom  of 
the  dell  are  perfectly  beautiful.  With  all  its  internal 
refinement,  it  is  still  the  warlike  fortress  at  a  little  dis- 
tance, and  bartizan  and  battlement  bring  boldly  back 
the  days  when  Bruce  was  at  Hawtbornden  (six  miles 
distant),  and  Lord  Dalhousie's  ancestor,  the  knightly 
Sir  Alexander  Ramsay,  defended  the  ford  of  the  Esk, 
and  made  himself  a  name  in  Scottish  story  in  the  days 
of  Wallace  and  the  Douglasses.  Dalhousie  was  be- 
sieged by  Edward  the  first  and  by  John  of  Gaunt, 
among  others,  and  being  the  nearest  of  a  chain  of  cas- 
tles from  the  Esk  to  the  Pentland  Hills,  it  was  the 
scene  of  some  pretty  fighting  in  most  of  the  wars  of 
Scotland. 

*  "  The  castle  of  Dalhousie  upon  the  South-Esk,  is  a  strong 
and  large  castle,  with  a  large  wall  of  aslure  work  going  round 
about  the  same,  with  a  tower  upon  ilk  corner  thereof."— 
Grose's  Antiquities. 


Lord  Dalhousie  showed  me  a  singular  old  bridle- 
bit,  the  history  of  which  is  thus  told  in  Scott's  Tales 
of  a  Grandfather : 

"  Sir  Alexander  Ramsay  having  taken  by  storm  the  strong 
castle  of  Roxburgh,  the  king  bestowed  on  him  the  office  of 
sheriff  of  the  county,  which  was  before  engaged  by  the  knight 
of  Liddesdale.  As  this  was  placing  another  person  in  his 
room,  the  knight  of  Liddesdale  altogether  forgot  his  old 
friendship  for  Ramsay,  and  resolved  to  put  him  to  death.  He 
came  suddenly  upon  him  with  a  strong  party  of  men  while  he 
was  administering  justice  at  Hawick.  Ramsay,  having  no 
suspicion  of  injury  from  the  hands  of  his  old  comrade,  and 
having  few  men  with  him,  was  easily  overpowered  ;  and.  be- 
ing wounded,  was  hurried  away  to  the  lonely  castle  of  the 
Hermitage,  which  stands  in  the  middle  of  the  morasses  of 
Liddesdale.  Here  he  was  thrown  into  a  dungeon  (with  his 
horse)  where  he  had  no  other  sustenance  than  some  grain 
which  fell  down  from  a  granary  above  ;  and,  after  lingering 
awhile  in  that  dreadful  condition,  the  brave  Sir  Alexander 
Ramsay  died.  This  was  in  1412.  Nearly  four  hundred  and 
fifty  years  afterward,  that  is,  about  forty  years  ago.  a  mason, 
digging  among  the  ruins  of  Hermitage  Castle,  broke  into  a 
dungeon,  where  lay  a  quantity  of  chaff,  some  human  bones 
and  a  bridle-bit,  which  were  supposed  to  mark  the  vault  as 
the  place  of  Ramsay's  death,  'the  bridle-bit  was  given  to 
grandpapa,  who  presented  it  to  the  present  gallant  earl  of 
Dalhousie,  a  brave  soldier,  like  his  ancestor,  Sir  Alexander 
Ramsay,  from  whom  he  is  lineally  descended." 

There  is  another  singular  story  connected  with  the 
family  which  escaped  Sir  Walter,  and  which  has  never 
appeared  in  print.  Lady  Dalhousie  is  of  the  ancient 
family  of  Coulston,  one  of  the  ancestors  of  which, 
Brown  of  Coulston,  married  the  daughter  of  the  fa- 
mous Warlock  of  Gifford,  described  in  Marmion.  As 
they  were  proceeding  to  the  church,  the  wizard  lord 
stopped  the  bridal  procession  beneath  a  pear-tree,  and 
plucking  one  of  the  pears,  he  gave  it  to  his  daughter, 
telling  her  that  he  had  no  dowry  to  give  her,  but  that 
as  long  as  she  kept  that  gift,  good  fortune  would  never 
desert  her  or  her  descendants.  This  was  in  1270, 
and  the  pear  is  still  preserved  in  a  silver  box.  About 
two  centuries  ago,  a  maiden  lady  of  the  family  chose 
to  try  her  teeth  upon  it,  and  very  soon  after  two  of  the 
best  farms  of  the  estate  were  lost  in  some  litigation— 
the  only  misfortune  that  has  befallen  the  inheritance 
of  the  Coulstons  in  six  centuries — thanks  (perhaps) 
to  the  Warlock  pear  ! 


LETTER  CXXVI. 


SPORTING     AND     ITS      EQUIPMENTS — BOSLIN     CASTM 
AND    CHAPEL. 

The  nominal  attraction  of  Scotland,  particularly 
at  this  season,  is  the  shooting.  Immediately  on  your 
arrival,  you  are  asked  whether  you  prefer  a  flint  or  a 
percussion  lock,  and  (supposing  that  you  do  not  travel 
with  a  gun,  which  all  Englishmen  do),  a  double-bar- 
relled Manton  is  appropriated  to  your  use,  the  game- 
keeper fills  your  powder  and  shot-pouches,  and  waits 
with  the  dogs  in  a  leash  till  you  have  done  your  break- 
fast ;  and  the  ladies  leave  the  table,  wishing  you  a 
good  day's  sport,  all  as  matters  of  course. 

I  would  rather  have  gone  to  the  library.  An  aver- 
sion to  walking,  except  upon  smooth  flag-stones,  a 
poetical  tenderness  on  the  subject  of  "  putting  birds 
out  of  misery,"  as  the  last  office  is  elegantly  called, 
and  hands  much  more  at  home  with  a  goose-quill  than 
a  gun,  were  some  of  my  private  objections  to  the  "or- 
der of  the  day."  Between  persuasion  and  a  most 
truant  sunshine,  I  was  overruled,  however;  and,  with 
a  silent  prayer  that  I  might  not  destroy  the  hopes  of 
my  noble  host,  by  shooting  his  only  son,  who  was  to 
be  my  companion  and  instructer,  I  shouldered  the 
proffered  Manton  and  joined  the  game-keeper  in  the 
park , 


PENCILLINGS  BY  THE  WAY. 


)97 


Lord  Ramsay  and  his  man  looked  at  me  with  some 
astonishment  as  I  approached,  and  I  was  equally  sur- 
prised at  the  young  nobleman's  metamorphosis.  From 
the  elegant  Oxonian  I  had  seen  at  breakfast,  he  was 
transformed  to  a  figure  something  rougher  than  his 
highland  dependant,  in  a  woollen  shooting-jacket,  that 
might  have  been  cut  in  Kentucky,  pockets  of  any  ■ 
number  and  capacity,  trousers  of  the  coarsest  plaid,  j 
hob-nailed  shoes,  and  leather  gaiters,  and  a  manner 
of  handling  his  gun  that  would  have  been  respected 
on  the  Mississippi.  My  own  appearance  in  high- 
Steeled  French  boots  and  other  corresponding  geerfor 
a  tramp  over  stubble  and  marsh,  amused  them  equally  ; 
but  my  wardrobe  was  exclusively  metropolitan,  and 
there  was  no  alternative. 

The  dogs  were  loosed  from  their  leash  and  bounded 
away,  and  crossing  the  Esk  under  the  castle  walls,  ! 
we   found  our  way  out  of  the  park,  and  took  to  the 
open   fields.     A  large  patch  of  stubble  was  our  first 
ground,    and   with   a   "  hie   away !"  from   the  game- 
keeper, the  beautiful  setters  darted  on    before,  their 
tails  busy  with  delight  and  their  noses  to  the  ground, 
first  dividing,  each  for  a  wall-side,  and   beating  along 
till  they  met,  and  then  scouring  toward  the  centre,  as 
regularly,  as  if  every  step   were   guided   by   human 
reason.     Suddenly   they  both   dropped  low   into  the 
stubble,  and  with   heads  eagerly  bent  forward  and  the 
intensest  gaze  upon  a  spot,  a  yard  or  more  in  advance, 
stood  as   motionless  as  stone.     '  A  covey,  my  lord !"  | 
said  the  game-keeper,  and,  with  our  guns  cocked,  we  ! 
advanced  to  the   dogs,  who  had  crouched,  and  lay  as 
still,  while  we  passed  them,  as  if  their  lives  depended 
upon  onr  shot.     Another  step,  and  whirr!   whirr!  a 
dozen    partridges  started   up   from  the   furrow,   and  j 
while  Lord  Ramsey  cried  "  Now  !"  and  reserved  his  ! 
fire  to  give  me  the  opportunity,  I  stood  stock  still  in 
my  surprise,  and  the  whole  covey  disappeared  over  ■ 
the  wall.  My  friend  laughed,  the  game- keeper  smiled, 
and  the  dogs  hied  on  once  more. 

J  mended  my  shooting  in  the  course  of  the  morning, 
but   it  was  both  exciting  and  hard  work.     A  heavy 
shower   soaked  us   through,   without    extracting  the 
slightest   notice    from    my  companion;    and    on   we 
trudged  through  peas,  beans,  turnips,  and  corn,  mud-  ! 
died  to  the  knees  and  smoking  with  moisture,  exces- 
sively to  the  astonishment,  I  doubt  not,  of  the  produc- 
tions  of  Monsieur  Clerx,  of  the  Rue  Vivienne,  which  ' 
were  reduced  to  the  consistency  of  brown  paper,  and 
those  of  my  London  tailor,  which  were  equally  en-  | 
titled  to  some  surprise  at  the  use  they  were    put  to. 
It  was  quite  beautiful,  however,  to  see  the  ardor  and 
training  of  the  dogs;  their  caution,  their  obedience,  j 
and  their  perfect  understanding  of  every  motion  of 
their  master.     I  found  myself  interested  quite  beyond  j 
fatigue,  and  it  was  only  when  we  jumped  the   park  i 
paling  and  took  it  once  more  leisurely  down  the  grav-  ; 
el-walks,  that  [  realized  at  what  an  expense  of  mud,  I 
water,  and  weariness,   my  day's  sport  had  been  pur- 
chased.    Mejn.     Never  to    come  to  Scotland    again 
without  hob-nailed  shoes  and  a  shooting-jacket. 


Rode  over  to  Roslin  castle.  The  country  between 
Dalhousie  castle  and  Roslin,  including  the  village  of  I 
Lasswade,  is  of  uncommon  loveliness.  Lasswade 
itself  clings  to  the  two  sides  of  a  small  valley,  with  its 
village  church  buried  in  trees,  and  the  country-seat  I 
of  Lord  Melvill  looking  down  upon  it,  from  its  green 
woods  ;  and  away  over  the  shoulder  of  the  hill,  swell 
the  forests  and  rocks  which  imbosom  Hawthornden 
(the  residence  of  Drummond,  the  poet,  in  the  days  of 
Ben  Jonson),  and  the  Pentltad  Hills,  with  their  bold 
outline,  form  a  background  that  completes  the  pic- 
ture. 

We  left  our   horse3   at  the   neighboring  inn,  and 
walked  first  to  Roslin  chapel.      This   little  gem  of 


florid  architecture  is  scarcely  a  ruin,  so  perfect  are  its 
arches  and  pillars,  its  fretted  cornices  and  its  painted 
windows.  A  whimsical  booby  undertook  the  cicei 
one,  with  a  long  cane-pole  to  point  out  the  beauties 
We  entered  the  low  side-door,  whose  stone  thresh 
old  the  feet  of  Cromwell's  church-stabled  troopers 
assisted  to  wear,  and  walked  at  once  to  a  singular  col- 
umn of  twisted  marble,  most  curiously  carved,  stand- 
ing under  the  choir.  Our  friend  with  the  cane-pole, 
who  had  condescended  to  familiar  Scotch  on  the  way, 
took  his  distance  from  the  base,  and  drawing  up  his 
feet  like  a  soldier  on  drill,  assumed  a  most  extraordi- 
nary elevation  of  voice,  and  recited  its  history  in  a 
declamation  of  which  I  could  only  comprehend  the 
words  "  A?t'braham  and  Isaac."  I  saw  by  the  direc- 
tion of  the  pole  that  there  was  a  bas-relief  of  the 
Father  of  the  Faithful,  done  on  the  capital,  but  for 
the  rest  I  was  indebted  to  Lord  Ramsay,  who  did  it 
into  English  as  follows  :  "  The  master-mason  of  this 
chapel,  meeting  with  some  difficulties  in  the  execu- 
tion of  his  design,  found  it  necessary  to  go  to  Rome 
for  information,  during  which  time  his  apprentice 
carried  on  the  work,  and  even  executed  some  parts 
concerning  which  his  master  had  been  most  doubtful; 
particularly  this  fine  fluted  column,  ornamented  with 
wreaths  of  foliage  and  flowers  twisting  spirally  round 
it.  The  master  on  his  return,  stung  with  envy  at  this 
proof  of  the  superior  abilities  of  his  apprentice,  slew 
him  by  a  blow  of  his  hammer." 

The  whole  interior  of  the  chapel  is  excessively 
rich.  The  roof,  capitals,  key-stones,  and  architraves, 
are  covered  with  sculptures.  On  the  architrave  joining 
the  apprentice's  pillar  to  a  smaller  one,  is  graved  the 
sententious  inscription,  "Forte  est  vinum,  fortior  est 
rex,  fortiores  sunt  mulieres ;  super  omnia  vincit  Veritas." 
It  has  been  built  about  four  hundred  years,  and  is,  1 
am  told,  the  most  perfect  thing  of  its  kind  in  Scot- 
land. 

The  ruins  of  Roslin  castle  are  a  few  minutes  walk 
beyond.  They  stand  on  a  kind  of  island  rock,  in  the 
midst  of  one  of  the  wildest  glens  of  Scotland,  sepa- 
rated from  the  hill  nearest  to  the  base  by  a  drawbridge, 
swung  over  a  tremendous  chasm.  I  have  seen  nothing 
so  absolutely  picturesque  in  my  travels.  The  North 
Esk  runs  its  dark  course,  unseen,  in  the  ravine  below  ; 
the  rocks  on  every  side  frown  down  upon  it  in  black 
shadows,  the  woods  are  tangled  and  apparently  path- 
less, and  were  it  not  for  a  most  undeniable  two-story 
farm-house,  built  directly  in  the  court  of  the  old  cas- 
tle, you  might  convince  yourself  that  foot  had  never 
approached  it  since  the  days  of  Wallace. 

The  fortress  was  built  by  William  St.  Clair,  of 
whom  Grose  writes:  "He  kept  a  great  court  and  was 
royally  served  at  his  own  table  in  vessels  of  gold  and 
silver;  Lord  Dirleton  being  his  master-household; 
Lord  Borthwick  his  cup-bearer,  and  Lord  Fleming 
his  carver;  in  whose  absence  they  had  deputies  to  at- 
tend, viz  :  Stewart,  Laird  of  Drumlanrig  ;  Tweddie, 
Laird  of  Drumerline;  and  Sandilands,  Laird  of  Cal- 
der.  He  had  his  halls  and  other  apartments  richly 
adorned  with  embroidered  hangings.  He  flourished 
in  the  reigns  of  James  the  First  and  Second.  His 
princess,  Elizabeth  Douglas,  wr*  served  by  seventy- 
five  gentlewomen,  whereof  fifty-  hree  were  daughters 
of  noblemen,  all  clothed  in  velvets  and  silks,  with 
their  chains  of  gold  and  other  ornaments,  and  was 
attended  by  two  hundred  riding  gentlemen  in  all  her 
journeys  ;"  and,  if  it  happened  to  be  dark  w hen  she 
went  to  Edinburgh,  where  her  lodgings  were  at  the 
foot  of  the  Black  Fryar's  Wynd,  eighty  lighted 
torches  were  carried  before  her." 

With  a  scrambling  walk  up  the  glen,  which  is.  as 
says  truly  Mr.  Grose,  *«  inconceivably  romantic."  we 
returned  to  our  horses,  and  rode  back  to  our  dinner  at 
Dalhousie,  delighted  with  Roslin  castle,  and  uncom- 
monly hungry. 


198 


PENCILLINGS  BY  THE  WAY. 


LETTER  CXXVII. 

"CHRISTOPHER     NORTH" — MR.    BLACKWOOD— THE     ET- 

TRICK   SHEPHERD LOCKHART — NOCTES   AMBROSIAN^E 

WORDSWORTH  —  SOTJTHEY CAPTAIN      HAMILTON 

AND   HIS     BOOK   ON   AMERICA — PROFESSOR     WILSON'S 
FAMILY,   ETC. 

One  of  my  most  valued  letters  to  Scotland  was  an 
introduction  to  Professor  Wilson — the  "  Christopher 
North"  of  Blackwood,  and  the  well-known  poet. 
The  acknowledgment  of  the  reception  of  my  note 
came  with  an  invitation  to  breakfast  the  following 
morning,  at  the  early  hour  of  nine. 

The  professor's  family  were  at  a  summer  residence 
in  the  country,  and  he  was  alone  in  his  house  in 
Gloucester-place,  having  come  to  town  on  the  melan- 
choly errand  of  a  visit  to  poor  Blackwood — (since 
dead).  I  was  punctual  to  my  hour,  and  found  the 
poet  standing  before  the  fire  with  his  coat-skirts  ex- 
panded— a  large,  muscular  man,  something  slovenly 
in  his  dress,  but  with  a  manner  and  face  of  high  good 
humor,  and  remarkably  frank  and  prepossessing  ad- 
dress. While  he  was  finding  me  a  chair,  and  saying 
civil  things  of  the  noble  friend  who  had  been  the  me- 
dium of  our  acquaintance,  I  was  trying  to  reconcile 
my  idea  of  him,  gathered  from  portraits  and  descrip- 
tions, with  the  person  before  me.  I  had  imagined  a 
thinner  and  more  scholar-like  lo'oking  man,  with  a 
much  paler  face,  and  a  much  more  polished  exterior. 
His  head  is  exceedingly  ample,  his  eye  blue  and  rest- 
less, his  mouth  full  of  character,  and  his  hair,  of  a 
very  light  sandy  color,  is  brushed  up  to  cover  an  in- 
cipient baldness,  but  takes  very  much  its  own  way, 
and  has  the  wildness  of  a  Highlander's.  He  has  the 
stamp  upon  him  of  a  remarkable  man  to  a  degree  sel- 
dom seen,  and  is,  on  the  whole,  fine-looking  and  cer- 
tainly a  gentleman  in  his  appearance  ;  but  (I  know 
not  whether  the  impression  is  common)  I  expected  in 
Christopher  North,  a  finished  and  rather  over-refined 
man  of  the  world  of  the  old  school,  and  I  was  so  far 
disappointed. 

The  tea  was  made,  and  the  breakfast  smoked  upon 
the  table,  but  the  professor  showed  no  signs  of  being 
aware  of  the  fact,  and  talked  away  famously,  getting 
up  and  sitting  down,  walking  to  the  window  and 
standing  before  the  fire,  and  apparently  carried  quite 
away  with  his  own  too  rapid  process  of  thought.  He 
talked  of  the  American  poets,  praised  Percival  and 
Pierpont  more  particularly  ;  expressed  great  pleasure 
at  the  criticisms  of  his  own  works  that  had  appeared 
in  the  American  papers  and  •magazines — and  still  the 
toast  was  getting  cold,  and  with  every  move  he  seemed 
less  and  less  aware  of  the  presence  of  breakfast. 
There  were  plates  and  cups  for  but  two,  so  that  he 
was  not  waiting  for  another  guest,  and  after  half  an 
hour  had  thus  elapsed,  I  began  to  fear  he  thought  he 
had  already  breakfasted.  Jf  I  had  wished  to  remind 
him  of  it,  however,  1  should  have  had  no  opportunity, 
for  the  stream  of  his  eloquence  ran  on  without  a 
break  ;  and  eloquence  it  certainly  was.  His  accent  is 
very  broadly  Scotch,  but  his  words  are  singularly  well 
chosen,  and  his  illustrations  more  novel  and  poetical 
than  those  of  any  man  I  ever  conversed  with.  He 
spoke  of  Blackwood,  returning  to  the  subject  repeat- 
edly, and  always  with  a  softened  tone  of  voice  and  a 
more  impressive  manner,  as  if  his  feelings  were  entire- 
ly engrossed  by  the  circumstances  of  his  illness. 
"  Poor  Blackwood,"  he  said,  setting  his  hands  togeth- 
er, and  fixing  his  eyes  on  the  wall,  as  if  he  were  solil- 
oquising with  the  picture  of  the  sick  man  vividly  be- 
fore him,  "  there  never  was  a  more  honest  creature,  or 
a  better  friend.  I  have  known  him  intimately  for 
years,  and  owe  him  much  ;  and  I  could  lose  no  friend 
that  would  affect  me  more  nearly.  There  is  some- 
thing quite  awful  in  the  striking  down  thus  of  a  fa- 


miliar companion  by  your  side — the  passing  away — 
the  death — the  end  forever  of  a  man  you  have  been 
accustomed  to  meet  as  surely  as  the  morning  or  even- 
ing, and  have  grown  to  consider  a  part  of  your  exis- 
tence almost.  To  have  the  share  he  took  in  your 
thoughts  thrown  back  upon  you — and  his  aid  and 
counsel  and  company  with  you  no  more.  His  own 
mind  is  in  a  very  singular  state.  He  knows  he  is  to 
die,  and  he  has  made  every  preparation  in  the  most 
composed  and  sensible  manner,  and  if  the  subject  is 
alluded  to  directly,  does  not  even  express  a  hope  of 
recovery ;  yet,  the  moment  the  theme  is  changed,  he 
talks  as  if  death  were  as  far  from  him  as  ever,  and 
looks  forward,  and  mingles  himself  up  in  his  remarks 
on  the  future,  as  if  he  were  to  be  here  to  see  this  and 
the  other  tiling  completed,  and  share  with  you  the  ad- 
vantage for  years  to  come.  What  a  strange  thing  it 
is — this  balancing  between  death  and  life — standing  on 
the  edge  of  the  grave,  and  turning,  first  to  look  into 
its  approaching  darkness,  and  then  back  on  the  famil- 
iar and  pleasant  world,  yet  with  a  certain  downward 
progress,  and  no  hope  of  life,  beyond  the  day  over 
your  head !" 

I  asked  if  Blackwood  was  a  man  of  refined  literary 
taste. 

M  Yes,"  he  said,  "  I  would  trust  his  opinion  of  a 
book  sooner  than  that  of  any  man  I  know.  He  might 
not  publish  everything  he  approved,  for  it  was  his  bu- 
siness to  print  only  things  that  would  sell ;  and,  there- 
fore, there  are  perhaps  many  authors  who  would  com- 
j  plain  of  him ;  but,  if  his  opinion  had  been  against  my 
own,  and  it  had  been  my  own  book,  I  should  believe 
he  was  right  and  give  up  my  own  judgment.  He  was 
a  patron  of  literature,  and  it  owes  him  much.  He  is 
a  loss  to  the  world-" 

I  spoke  of  the  "  Nodes." 

He  smiled,  as  you  would  suppose  Christopher 
North  would  do,  with  the  twinkle  proper  of  genuine 
hilarity  in  his  eye,  and  said,  "Yes,  they  have  been  very 
popular.  Many  people  in  Scotland  believe  them  to 
be  transcripts  of  real  scenes,  and  wonder  how  a  pro- 
fessor of  moral  philosophy  can  descend  to  such  ca- 
rousings,  and  poor  Hogg  comes  in  for  his  share  of 
abuse,  for  they  never  doubt  he  was  there  and  said 
everything  that  is  put  down  for  him." 

"How  does  the  Shepherd  take  it?" 

"Very  good  humoredly,  with  the  exception  of  one 
or  two  occasions,  when  cockney  scribblers  have  visit- 
ed him  in  their  tours,  and  tried  to  flatter  him  by  con- 
vincing him  he  was  treated  disrespectfully.  But  five 
minutes'  conversation  and  two  words  of  banter  restore 
his  good  humor,  and  he  is  convinced,  as  he  ought  to 
be,  that  he  owes  half  his  reputation  to  the  Noctes." 

"  What  do  you  think  of  his  Life  of  Sir  Walter, 
which  Lockhart  has  so  butchered  in  Fraser?" 

"Did  Lockhart  write  that  ?" 

"  I  was  assured  so  in  London." 

" It  was  a  barbarous  and  unjustifiable  attack;  and, 
oddly  enough,  I  said  so  yesterday  to  Lockhart  him- 
self, who  was  here,  and  he  differed  from*me  entirely. 
Now  you  mention  it,  I  think  from  his  manner,  he  must 
have  written  it." 

"  Will  Hogg  forgive  him  ?" 

"  Never  !  never!  I  do  not  think  he  knows  yet  who 
has  done  it,  but  I  hear  that  he  is  dreadfully  exaspera- 
ted. Lockhart  is  quite  wrong.  To  attack  an  old 
man,  with  gray  hairs,  like  the  Shepherd,  and  accuse 
him  so  flatly  and  unnecessarily  of  lie  upon  lie — oh,  it 
was  not  right!" 

"  Do  you  think  Hogg  misrepresented  facts  wil- 
fully ?" 

"  No,  oh  no  !  he  is  perfectly  honest,  no  doubt,  and 
quite  revered  Sir  Walter.  He  has  an  unlucky  inac- 
curacy of  mind,  however;  and  his  own  vanity,  which 
is  something  quite  ridiculous,  has  given  a  coloring  to 
his  conversations  with   Scott,  which  puts  them  in  a 


PENCILL1NGS  BY  THE  WAY 


199 


very  false  light ;  and  Sir  Walter,  who  was  the  best 
natured  of  men,  may  have  said  the  things  ascribed  to 
him  iu  a  variety  of  moods,  such  as  no  one  can  under- 
stand who  does  not  know  what  a  bore  Hogg  must 
sometimes  have  been  at  Abbottsford.  Do  you  know 
Lockhart  .'" 

"  No,  I  do  not.  He  is  almost  the  only  literary  man 
in  London  I  have  not  met ;  and  I  must  say,  as  the 
editor  of  the  Quarterly,  and  the  most  unfair  and  un- 
principled critic  of  the  day,  I  have  no  wish  to  know 
him.  I  never  heard  him  well  spoken  of.  I  probably 
have  met  a  hundred  of  his  acquaintances,  but  I  have 
not  yet  seen  one  who  pretended  to  be  his  friend." 

"Yet  there  is  a  great  deal  of  good  in  Lockhart.  I 
allow  all  you  say  of  his  unfairness  and  severity;  but 
if  he  were  sitting  there,  opposite  you,  you  would  find 
him  the  mildest  and  most  unpresumingof  men,  and  so 
he  appears  in  private  life  always." 

"  Not  always.  A  celebrated  foreigner,  who  had 
been  very  intimate  with  him,  called  one  morning  to 
deprecate  his  severity  upon  Baron  DTIaussez's  book 
in  a  forthcoming  review.  He  did  his  errand  in  a 
friendly  way,  and,  on  taking  his  leave,  Lockhart,  with 
much  ceremony,  accompanied  him  down  to  his  car- 
riage. '  Pray  don't  give  yourself  the  trouble  to  come 
down,'  said  the  polite  Frenchman.  '  1  make  a  point 
of  doing  it,  sir;'  said  Lockhart,  with  a  very  offensive 
manner,  'for  I  understand  from  your  friend's  book, 
that  we  are  not  considered  a  polite  nation  in  France.' 
Nothing  certainly  could  be  more  ill-bred  and  in- 
sulting." 

"  Still  it  is  not  in  his  nature.  I  do  believe  that  it  is 
merely  an  unhappy  talent  he  has  for  sarcasm,  with 
which  his  heart  has  nothing  to  do.  When  he  sits 
down  to  review  a  book,  he  never  thinks  of  the  author 
or  his  feelings.  He  cuts  it  up  with  pleasure,  because 
he  does  it  with  skill  in  the  way  of  his  profession,  as  a 
surgeon  dissects  a  dead  body.  He  would  be  the  first 
to  show  the  man  a  real  kindness  if  he  stood  before 
him.  I  have  known  Lockhart  long.  He  was  in  Ed- 
inboro'  a  great  while,  and  when  he  was  writing  '  Va- 
lerius,' we  were  in  the  habit  of  walking  out  together 
every  morning,  and  when  we  reached  a  quiet  spot  in 
the  country,  he  read  to  me  the  chapters  as  he  wrote 
them.  He  finished  it  in  three  weeks.  I  heard  it  all 
thus  by  piecemeal  as  it  went  on,  and  had  much  diffi- 
culty in  persuading  him  that  it  was  worth  publishing. 
He  wrote  it  very  rapidly,  and  thought  nothing  of  it. 
We  used  to  sup  together  with  Blackwood,  and  that 
was  the  real  origin  of  the  '  Noctes.'  " 

"At  Ambrose's?" 

"  At  Ambrose's." 

"But  is  there  such  a  tavern,  really?" 

"Oh,  certainly.  Anybody  will  show  it  to  you.  It 
is  a  small  house,  kept  in  an  out-of-the-way  corner  of 
the  town,  by  Ambrose,  who  is  an  excellent  fellow  in 
his  way,  and  has  had  a  great  influx  of  custom  in  con- 
sequence of  his  celebrity  in  the  Noctes.  We  were 
there  one  night  very  late,  and  had  all  been  remarkably 
gay  and  agreeable.  '  What  a  pity,'  said  Lockhart, 
4  that  some  short-hand  writer  had  not  been  here  to 
take  down  the  good  things  that  have  been  said  at  this 
supper.'  The  next  day  he  produced  a  paper  called 
4  Noctes  Ambros\7lll3^,,  and  that  was  the  first.  I  con- 
tinued them  afterward." 

44  Have  you  no  idea  of  publishing  them  separately? 
I  think  a  volume  or  two  should  be  made  of  the  more 
poetical  and  critical  parts,  certainly.  Leaving  out  the 
politics  and  the  meiely  local  topics  of  the  day,  no  book 
could  be  more  agreeable." 

44  It  was  one  of  the  things  pending  when  poor 
Blackwood  was  taken  ill.  But,  will  you  have  some 
breakfast?" 

The  breakfast  had  been  cooling  for  an  hour,  and  T 
most  willingly  acceded  to  his  proposition.  Without 
rising,  he  leaned  back,  with  his  chair  still  toward  the 


fire,  and  seizing  the  tea-pot  as  if  it  were  a  sledge- 
hammer, he  poured  from  one  cup  to  the  other  with- 
out interrupting  the  stream,  overrunning  both  cup  and 
saucer,  and  partly  flooding  the  tea-tray.  He  then  set 
j  the  cream  toward  me  with  a  carelessness  which  near- 
[  ly  overset  it,  and  in  trying  to  reach  an  egg  from  the  cen- 
tre of  the  table,  broke  two.  He  took  no  notice  of  his 
own  awkwardness,  but  drank  his  cup  of  tea  at  a  single 
draught,  ate  his  egg  in  the  same  expeditious  manner, 
and  went  on  talking  of  the  Noctes  and  Lockhart  and 
Blackwood,  as  if  eating  his  breakfast  were  rather  a 
troublesome  parenthesis  in  his  conversation.  After  a 
while  he  digressed  to  Wordsworth  and  Southey,  and 
asked  me  if  I  was  going  to  return  by  the  Lakes.  I 
proposed  doing  so. 

44  I  will  give  you  letters  to  both,  if  you  haven't 
j  them.  I  lived  a  long  time  in  that  neighborhood,  and 
know  Wordsworth  perhaps  as  well  as  any  one.  Many 
a  day  T  have  walked  over  the  hills  with  him,  and  listen- 
j  ed  to  his  repetition  of  his  own  poetry,  which  of  course 
;  filled  my  mind  completely  at  the  time,  and  perhaps 
I  started  the  poetical  vein  in  me,  though  I  can  not  agree 
{  with  the  critics  that  my  poetry  is  an  imitation  of 
!  Wordsworth's." 

44  Did  Wordsworlh  repeat  any  other  poetry  than  his 
own  ?" 

44  Never  in  a  single  instance,  to  my  knowledge.  He 
is  remarkable  for  the  manner  in  which  he  is  wrapped 
up  in  his  own  poetical  life.  He  thinks  of  nothing 
else.  Everything  ministers  to  it.  Everything  is  done 
with  reference  to  it.     He  is  all  and  only  a  poet." 

44  Was  the  story  true  that  was  told  in  the  papers  of 
his  seeing,  for  the  first  time,  in  a  large  company  some 
new  novel  of  Scott's,  in  which  there  was  a  motto  ta- 
ken from  his  works  ;  and  that  he  went  immediately  to 
the  shelf  and  took  down  one  of  his  own  volumes  and 
read  the  whole  poem  to  the  party,  who  were  waiting 
for  a  reading  of  the  new  book  ?" 

44  Perfectly  true.  It  happened  in  this  very  house. 
Wordsworth  was  very  angry  at  the  paragraph,  and  I 
believe  accused  me  of  giving  it  to  the  world.  I  was 
as  much  surprised  as  himself,  however,  to  see  it  in 
print." 

44  What  is  Southey's  manner  of  life  ?" 
44  Walter  Scott  said  of  him  that  he  lived  too  much 
with  women.  He  is  secluded  in  the  country,  and  sur- 
rounded by  a  circle  of  admiring  friends  who  glorify 
every  literary  project  he  undertakes,  and  persuade 
him  in  spite  of  his  natural  modesty,  that  he  can  do 
nothing  wrong  or  imperfectly.  He  has  great  genius 
and  is  a  most  estimable  man." 

44  Hamilton  lives  on   the  Lakes  too — does  he  not  ?" 
44  Yes.     How  terribly  he  was  annoyed  by  the  re- 
view of  his   book   in    the   North   American.      Who 
wrote  it?" 

44 1  have  not  heard  positively,  but  I  presume  it  was 
Everett.  I  know  nobody  else  in  the  country  who 
holds  such  a  pen.     He  is  the  American  Junius." 

44  It  was  excessively  clever  but  dreadfully  severe, 
and  Hamilton  was  frantic  about  it.  I  sent  it  to  him 
myself,  and  could  scarce  have  done  him  a  more  un- 
gracious office.  But  what  a  strange  »hing  it  is  that 
nobody  can  write  a  good  book  on  America  !  The  ri- 
diculous part  of  it  seems  to  me  that  men  of  common 
sense  go  there  as  travellers,  and  fill  their  books  with 
scenes  such  as  they  may  see  everyday  within  five 
minutes'  walk  of  their  own  doors,  and  call  them  Amer- 
ican. Vulgar  people  are  to  be  found  all  over  the 
world,  and  I  will  match  any  scene  in  Hamilton  or 
Mrs.  Trollope,  any  day  or  night,  here  in  Edinburgh. 
I  have  always  had  an  idea  that  I  should  be  the  best 
traveller  in  America  myself.  I  have  been  so  in  the 
habit  of  associating  with  people  of  every  class  in  my 
own  country,  that  1  am  better  fitted  to  draw  the  proper 
distinctions,  I  think,  between  what  is  universal  over 
the  world  or  peculiar  to  America." 


2Q0 


PENCILLINGS  BY  THE  WAY. 


**  I  promise  you  a  hearty  welcome,  if  you  should 
be  inclined  to  try." 

"  I  have  thought  seriously  of  it.  It  is,  after  all, 
not  more  than  a  journey  to  Switzerland  or  Italy,  of 
which  we  think  nothing,  and  my  vacation  of  five 
months  would  give  me  ample  time,  I  suppose,  to  run 
through  the  principal  cities.     I  shall  do  if,  I  think." 

I  asked  if  he  had  written  a  poem  of  any  length 
within  the  last  few  years. 

"  No,  though  I  am  always  wishing  to  do  it.  Many 
things  interfere  with  my  poetry.  In  the  first  place  I 
am  obliged  to  give  a  lecture  once  a  day  for  six  months, 
and  in  the  summer  it  is  such  a  delight  to  be  released, 
and  get  away  into  the  country  with  my  girls  and  boys, 
that  I  never  put  pen  to  paper  till  I  am  driven.  Then 
Blackwood  is  a  great  care  ;  and,  greater  objection  still, 
I  have  been  discouraged  in  various  ways  by  criticism. 
It  used  to  gall  me  to  have  my  poems  called  imitations 
of  Wordsworth  and  his  school ;  a  thing  I  could  not 
see  myself,  but  which  was  asserted  even  by  those  who 
praised  me,  and  which  modesty  forbade  I  should  dis- 
avow. I  really  can  see  no  resemblance  between  the 
Isle  of  Palms  and  anything  of  Wordsworth's.  I  think 
I  have  a  style  of  my  own,  and  as  my  ain  bairn,  I  think 
better  of  it  than  other  people,  and  so  pride  prevents 
my  writing.  Until  late  years,  too,  I  have  been  the 
subject  of  much  political  abuse,  and  for  that  I  should 
not  have  cared  if  it  were  not  disagreeable  to  have 
children  and  servants  reading  it  in  the  morning  papers, 
and  a  fear  of  giving  them  another  handle  in  my  poetry 
was  another  inducement  for  not  writing." 

I  expressed  my  surprise  at  what  he  said,  for,  as  far 
as  I  knew  the  periodicals,  Wilson  had  been  a  singu- 
larly continued  favorite. 

"Yes,  out  of  this  immediate  sphere,  perhaps — but 
it  requires  a  strong  mind  to  suffer  annoyance  at  one's 
lips,  and  comfort  oneself  with  the  praise  of  a  distant 
and  outer  circle  of  public  opinion.  I  had  a  family 
growing  up.  of  sons  and  daughters,  who  felt  for  me 
more  than  I  should  have  felt  for  myself,  and  1  was  an- 
noyed perpetually.  Now,  these  very  papers  praise 
me,  and  I  really  can  hardly  believe  my  eyes  when  I 
open  them  and  find  the  same  type  and  imprint  ex- 
pressing such  different  opinions.  It  is  absurd  to  mind 
such  weathercocks;  and,  in  truth,  the  only  people 
worth  heeding  or  writing  for  are  the  quiet  readers  in 
the  country,  who  read  for  pleasure,  and  form  sober 
opinions  apart  from  political  or  personal  prejudice.  I 
would  give  more  for  the  praise  of  one  country  clergy- 
man and  his  family  than  I  would  for  the  momentary 
admiration  of  a  whole  city.  People  in  towns  require 
a  constant  plantasmagoria,  to  keep  up  even  the  re- 
membrance of  your  name.  What  books  and  authors, 
what  battles  and  heroes,  are  forgotten  in  a  day  !" 

My  letter  is  getting  too  long,  and  I  must  make  it 
shorter,  as  it  is  vastly  less  agreeable  than  the  visit  it- 
self. Wilson  went  on  to  speak  of  his  family,  and  his 
eyes  kindled  with  pleasure  in  talking  of  his  children. 
He  invited  me  to  stop  and  visit  him  at  his  place  near 
Selkirk,  in  my  way  south,  and  promised  me  that  I 
should  see  Hogg,  who  lived  not  far  off.  Such  in- 
ducement was  scarce  necessary,  and  I  made  a  half 
promise  to  do  it  and  left  him,  after  having  passed  sev- 
eral hours  of  the  highest  pleasure  in  his  fascinating 
society. 


LETTER  CXXYIII. 

LORD  JEFFREY  AND  HIS  FAMILY — LORD  BROUGHAM 

COUNT  FLAHAULT POLITICS THE  "  GREY"  BALL 

ABERDEEN— GORDON  CASTLE. 

1  was  engaged  to  dine  with  Lord  Jeffrey  on  the 
same  day  that  I  had  breakfasted  with  Wilson,  and  the 


opportunity  of  contrasting  so  closely  these  two  dis- 
tinguished men,  both  editors  of  leading  Reviews,  yet 
of  different  politics,  and  no  less  different  minds,  per- 
sons, and  manners,  was  highly  gratifying. 

At  seven  o'clock  I  drove  to  Moray-place,  the  Gros- 
venor-square  of  Edinburgh.  I  was  not  sorry  to  be 
early,  for  never  having  seen  my  host,  nor  his  lady 
(who,  as  is  well  known,  is  an  American),  I  had  some 
little  advantage  over  the  awkwardness  of  meeting  a 
large  party  of  strangers.  After  a  few  minutes'  con- 
versation with  Mrs.  Jeffrey,  the  door  was  thrown 
quickly  open,  and  the  celebrated  editor  of  the  Edin- 
burgh, the  distinguished  lawyer,  the  humane  and 
learned  judge,  and  the  wit  of  the  day,  par  excellence, 
entered  with  his  daughter.  A  frank,  almost  merry 
smile,  a  perfectly  unceremonious,  hearty  manner,  and 
a  most  playful  and  graceful  style  of  saying  the  half- 
apologetic,  half-courteous  things,  incident  to  a  first 
meeting  after  a  letter  of  introduction,  put  me  at  once 
at  my  ease,  and  established  a  partiality  for  him,  im- 
promptu, in  my  feelings.  Jeffrey  is  rather  below  the 
middle  size,  slight,  rapid  in  his  speech  and  motion, 
never  still,  and  glances  from  one  subject  to  another, 
with  less  abruptness  and  more  quickness  than  any 
man  I  had  ever  seen.  His  head  is  small,  but  compact 
and  well-shaped ;  and  the  expression  of  his  face, 
when  serious,  is  that  of  quick  and  discriminating 
earnestness.  His  voice  is  rather  thin,  but  pleasing  : 
and  if  I  had  met  him  incidentally,  I  should  have  de- 
scribed him,  I  think,  as  a  most  witty  and  well-bred 
gentleman  of  the  school  of  Wilkes  and  Sheridan. 
Perhaps  as  distinguishing  a  mark  as  either  his  wit  or 
his  politeness,  is  an  honest  goodness  of  heart ;  which, 
however  it  makes  itself  apparent,  no  one  could  doubt, 
who  had  been  with  Jeffrey  ten  minutes. 

To  my  great  disappointment,  Mrs.  Jeffrey  informed 
me  that  Lord  Brougham,  who  was  their  guest  at  the 
time,  was  engaged  to  a  dinner,  given  by  the  new  lord 
advocate  to  Earl  Grey.  I  had  calculated  much  on 
seeing  two  such  old  friends  and  fellow-wits  as  Jeffrey 
and  Brougham  at  the  same  table,  and  I  could  well 
believe  what  my  neighbor  told  me  at  dinner,  that  it 
was  more  than  a  common  misfortune  to  have  missed 
it. 

A  large  dinner-party  began  to  assemble,  some  dis- 
tinguished men  in  the  law  among  them,  and  last  of  all 
was  announced  Lady  Keith,  rather  a  striking  and  very 
fashionable  person,  with  her  husband,  Count  Flahault, 
who,  after  being  Napoleon's  aid-de-camp  at  the  battle 
of  Waterloo,  offered  his  beauty  and  talents,  both  very 
much  above  the  ordinary  mark,  to  the  above  named 
noble  heiress.  I  have  seen  few  as  striking-looking 
men  as  Count  Flahault,  and  never  a  foreigner  who 
spoke  English  so  absolutely  like  a  native  of  the 
country. 

The  great  "  Grey  dinner"  had  been  given  the  day 
before,  and  politics  were  the  only  subject  at  table.  It 
had  been  my  lot  to  be  thrown  principally  among  to- 
ries  (conservatives  is  the  new  name),  since  my  arrival 
in  England,  and  it  was  difficult  to  rid  myself  at 
once  of  the  impressions  of  a  fortnight  just  passed  in 
the  castle  of  a  tory  earl.  My  sympathies  in  the 
"  great  and  glorious"  occasion,  were  slower  than  those 
of  the  company,  and  much  of  their  enthusiasm  seem- 
ed to  me  overstrained.  Then  I  had  not  even  dined 
with  the  two  thousand  whigs  under  the  pavilion,  and 
as  I  was  incautious  enough  to  confess  it,  I  was  rallied 
upon  having  fallen  into  bad  company,  and  altogether 
entered  less  into  the  spirit  of  the  hour  than  I  could 
have  wished.  Politics  are  seldom  witty  or  amusing, 
and  though  I  was  charmed  with  the  good  sense  and 
occasional  eloquence  of  Lord  Jeffrey,  I  was  glad  to 
get  up  stairs  after  dinner  to  chasse-cafe  and  the  ladies 

We  were  all  bound  to  the  public  ball  that  evening 
and  at  eleven  I  accompanied  my  distinguished  host  tc 


PENCILLINGS  BY  THE   WAY. 


201 


the  assembly-room.  Dancing;  was  going  on  with 
great  spirit  when  we  entered  ;  Lord  Grey's  statesman- 
like head  was  bowing  industriously  on  the  platform ; 
Lady  Grey  and  her  daughters  sat  looking  on  from  the 
same  elevated  position,  and  Lord  Brougham's  ugliest 
and  shrewdest  of  human  faces,  flitted  about  through 
the  crowd,  good  fellow  to  everybody,  and  followed  by 
all  eyes  but  those  of  the  young.  One  or  two  of  the 
Scotch  nobility  were  there,  but  whigism  is  not  popu- 
lar among  Us  hautes  volailles,  and  the  ball,  though 
crowded,  was  but  thinly  sprinkled  with  "  porcelain." 
I  danced  till  three  o'clock,  without  finding  my  part- 
ners better  or  worse  for  their  politics,  and  having  ag- 
gravated a  temporary  lameness  by  my  exertions,  went 
home  with  a  leg  like  an  elephant  to  repent  my  aban- 
donment of  tory  quiet. 

Two  or  three  days  under  the  hands  of  the  doctor, 
with  the  society  of  a  Highland  crone,  of  whose  cease- 
less garrulity  over  my  poultices  and  plasters  I  could 
not  understand  two  consecutive  words,  fairly  finished 
my  patience,  and  abandoning  with  no  little  regret  a 
charming  land  route  to  the  north  of  Scotland,  I  had 
myself  taken,  "this  side  up,"  on  board  the  steamer 
for  Aberdeen.  The  loss  of  a  wedding  in  Perthshire 
by  the  way,  of  a  week's  deer-shooting  in  the  forest  of 
Athol,  and  a  week's  fishing  with  a  noble  friend  at 
Kinrara  (long-standing  engagements  all),  I  lay  at  the 
door  of  the  whigs.  Add  to  this  Loch  Leven,  Cairn- 
Gorm,  the  pass  of  Killicrankie,  other  sights  lost  on 
that  side  of  Scotland,  and  I  paid  dearly  for  "  the  Grey 
ball." 

We  steamed  the  hundred  and  twenty  miles  in 
twelve  hours,  paying  about  three  dollars  for  our  pas- 
sage. I  mention  it  for  the  curiosity  of  a  cheap  thing 
in  this  country. 

I  lay  at  Aberdeen  four  days,  getting  out  but  once, 
and  then  for  a  drive  to  the  "  Marichal  College,"  the 
alma  mater  of  Dugald  Dalgetty.  It  is  a  curious  and 
rather  picturesque  old  place,  half  in  ruins,  and  is 
about  being  pulled  down.  A  Scotch  gentleman,  who 
was  a  fellow-passenger  in  the  steamer,  and  who  lived 
in  the  town,  called  on  me  kindly  twice  a  day,  brought 
me  books  and  papers,  offered  me  the  use  of  his  car- 
riage, and  did  everything  for  my  comfort  that  could 
have  been  suggested  by  the  warmest  friendship.  Con- 
sidering that  it  was  a  casual  acquaintance  of  a  day,  it 
speaks  well,  certainly,  for  the  "  Good  Samaritanism" 
of  Scotland. 

I  took  two  places  in  the  coach  at  last  (one  for  my 
leg),  and  bowled  away  seventy  miles  across  the  coun- 
try, with  the  delightful  speed  of  these  admirable  con- 
veyances, for  Gordon  Castle.  I  arrived  at  Lochabers, 
a  small  town  on  the  estate  of  the  duke  of  Gordon,  at 
three  in  the  afternoon,  and  immediately  took  a  post- 
chaise  for  the  castle,  the  gate  of  which  was  a  stone's 
throw  from  the  inn. 

The  immense  iron  gate  surmounted  by  the  Gordon 
arms,  the  handsome  and  spacious  stone  lodges  on 
either  side,  the  canonically  fat  porter  in  white  stock- 
ings and  gay  livery,  lifting  his  hat  as  he  swung  open 
the  massive  portal,  all  bespoke  the  entrance  to  a  noble 
residence.  The  road  within  was  edged  with  velvet 
sward,  and  rolled  to  the  smoothness  of  a  terrace-walk, 
the  winding  avenue  lengthened  away  before,  with 
trees  of  every  variety  of  foliage ;  light  carriages  pass- 
ed me  driven  by  ladies  or  gentlemen  bound  on  their 
afternoon  airing  ;  a  groom  led  up  and  down  two  beau- 
tiful blood-horses,  prancing  along,  with  side-saddles 
and  morocco  stirrups,  and  keepers  with  hounds  and 
terriers  ;  gentlemen  on  foot,  idling  along  the  walks, 
and  servants  in  different  liveries,  hurrying  to  and  fro, 
betokened  a  scene  of  busy  gayety  before  me.  I  had 
hardly  noted  these  various  circumstances,  before  a 
suddri  curve  in  the  road  brought  the  castle  into  view, 
a  vast~toi*»  pile  with  castellated  wings,  and  in  another 


moment  I  was  at  the  door,  where  a  dozen  lounging 
and  powdered  menials  were  waiting  on  a  party  of 
ladies  and  gentlemen  to  their  several  carriages.  It  was 
the  moment  for  the  afternoon  drive. 


LETTER  CXXIX. 

GORDON  CASTLE — COMPANY  THERE — THE  PARK — PUKE 
OF  GORDON — PERSONAL  BEAUTY  OF  THE  ENGLISH 
ARISTOCRACY. 

The  last  phaeton  dashed  away  and  my  chaise 
advanced  to  the  door.  A  handsome  boy,  in  a  kind  of 
page's  dress,  immediately  came  to  the  window,  address- 
ed me  by  name,  and  informed  me  that  his  grace  was 
out  deer-shooting,  but  that  my  room  was  prepared, 
and  he  was  ordered  to  wait  on  me.  I  followed  him 
through  a  hall  lined  with  statues,  deers'  horns,  and 
armor,  and  was  ushered  into  a  large  chamber,  look- 
ing out  on  a  park,  extending  with  its  lawns  and  woods 
to  the  edge  of  the  horizon.  A  more  lovely  view  never 
feasted  human  eye. 

"  Who  is  at  the  castle  ?"  I  asked,  as  the  boy  busied 
himself  in  unstrapping  my  portmanteau. 

M  Oh,  a  great  many,  sir."  He  stopped  in  his  occu- 
pation and  began  counting  on  his  fingers.  "There's 
Lord  Aberdeen,  and  Lord  Claud  Hamilton  and  Lady 
Harriette  Hamilton  (them's  his  lordship's  two  step- 
children, you  know,  sir),  and  the  Dutchess  of  Rich- 
mond and  Lady  Sophia  Lennox,  and  Lady  Keith,  and 
Lord  Mandeville  and  Lord  Aboyne,  and  Lord  Stor- 
mont  and  Lady  Stormont,  and  Lord  Morton  and  Lady 

Morton,    and    Lady   Alicia,  and and and 

twenty  more,  sir." 

"  Twenty  more  lords  and  ladies  ?" 

"  No,  sir  !  that's  all  the  nobility." 

"And  you  can't  remember  the  names  of  the  others?" 

"  No,  sir." 

He  was  a  proper  page.  He  could  not  trouble  his 
memory  with  the  names  of  commoners. 

"And  how  many  sit  down  to  dinner?" 

"  Above  thirty,  sir,  besides  the  duke  and  dutchess." 

"That  will  do."  And  off  tripped  my  slender  gen- 
tleman with  his  laced  jacket,  giving  the  fire  a  terrible 
stir-up  in  his  way  out,  and  turning  back  to  inform  me 
that  the  dinner  hour  was  seven  precisely. 

It  was  a  mild,  bright  afternoon,  quite  warm  for  the 
end  of  an  English  September,  and  with  a  fire  in  the 
room,  and  a  soft  sunshine  pouring  in  at  the  windows, 
a  seat  by  the  open  casement  was  far  from  disagreea- 
ble. I  passed  the  time  till  the  sun  set,  looking  out  on 
the  park.  Hill  and  valley  lay  between  my  eye  and  the 
horizon  ;  sheep  fed  in  picturesque  flocks ;  and  small 
fallow  deer  grazed  near  them  ;  the  trees  were  planted, 
and  the  distant  forest  shaped  by  the  hand  of  taste  ;  and 
broad  and  beautiful  as  was  the  expanse  taken  in  by  the 
eye,  it  was  evidently  one  princely  possession.  A  mile 
from  the  castle  wall,  the  shaven  sward  extended  in  a 
carpet  of  velvet  softness,  as  bright  as  emerald,  stud- 
ded by  clumps  of  shrubbery,  like  flowers  wrought 
elegantly  on  tapestry,  and  across  it  bounded  occa- 
sionaly  a  hare,  and  the  pheasants  fed  undisturbed  near 
the  thickets,  or  a  lady  with  flowing  riding-dress  and 
flaunting  feather,  dashed  into  sight  upon  her  fleet 
blood-palfrey,  and  was  lost  the  next  moment  in  the 
woods,  or  a  boy  put  his  pony  to  its  mettle  up  the 
ascent,  or  a  gamekeeper  idled  into  sight  with  his  gun 
in  the  hollow  of  his  arm,  and  his  hounds  at  his  heels 
—and  all  this  little  world  of  enjoyment  and  luxury, 
and  beauty,  lay  in  the  hand  of  one  man,  and  was 
created  by  his  wealth  in  these  northern  wilds  of  Scot- 
land, a   day's  journey  almost  from  the  possession   of 


202 


PENCILL1NGS  BY  THE  WAY. 


another  human  being.  I  never  realized  so  forcibly  the 
splendid  result  of  wealth  and  primogeniture. 

The  sun  set  in  a  blaze  of  fire  among  the  pointed 
firs  crowning  the  hills,  and  by  the  occasional  prance 
of  a  horse's  feet  on  the  gravel,  and  the  roll  of  rapid 
wheels,  and  now  and  then  a  gay  laugh  and  merry 
voices,  the  different  parties  were  returning  to  the 
castle.  Soon  after  a  loud  gong  sounded  through  the 
gallery,  the  signal  to  dress,  and  I  left  my  musing  oc- 
cupation unwillingly  to  make  my  toilet  for  an  ap- 
pearance in  a  formidable  circle  of  titled  aristocrats, 
not  one  of  whom  I  had  ever  seen,  the  duke  himself  a 
stranger  to  me,  except  through  the  kind  letter  of  invita- 
tion lying  upon  the  table. 

I  was  sitting  by  the  fire  imagining  forms  and  faces 
for  the  different  persoi  :  who  had  been  named  to  me, 
when  there  was  a  knoc  at  the  door,  and  a  tall,  white- 
haired  gentleman,  of  n  ble  physiognomy,  but  singu- 
larly cordial  address,  en  red,  with  the  broad  red  riband 
of  a  duke  across  his  b.  jast,  and  welcomed  me  most 
heartily  to  the  castle.  The  gong  sounded  at  the  next 
moment,  and,  in  our  way  down,  he  named  over  his 
other  guests,  and  prepared  me  in  a  measure  for  the 
introductions  which  followed.  The  drawing-room 
was  crowded  like  a  soiree.  The  dutchess,  a  very  tall 
and  very  handsome  woman,  with  a  smile  of  the  most 
winning  sweetness,  received  me  at  the  door,  and  I  was 
presented  successively  to  every  person  present.  Din- 
ner was  announced  immediately,  and  the  difficult 
question  of  precedence  being  sooner  settled  than  I  had 
ever  seen  it  before  in  so  large  a  party,  we  passed 
through  files  of  servants  to  the  dining-room. 

It  was  a  large  and  very  lofty  hall,  supported  at  the 
ends  by  marble  columns,  within  which  was  stationed 
a  band  of  music,  playing  delightfully.  The  walls 
were  lined  with  full-length  famiiy  pictures,  from  old 
knights  in  armor  to  the  modern  dukes  in  kilt  of  the 
G  trdon  plaid;  and  on  the  sideboards  stood  services 
of  gold  plate,  the  most  gorgeously  massive,  and  the 
most  beautiful  in  workmanship  I  have  ever  seen. 
There  were,  among  the  vases,  several  large  coursing- 
cups,  won  by  the  duke's  hounds,  of  exquisite  shape  and 
ornament. 

I  fell  into  my  place  between  a  gentleman  and  a  very 
beautiful  woman,  of  perhaps  twenty-two,  neither  of 
whose  names  I  remembered,  though  I  had  but  just 
been  introduced.  The  duke  probably  anticipated  as 
much,  and  as  I  took  my  seat  he  called  out  to  me,  from 
the  top  of  the  table,  that  I   had  upon  my  right,  Lady 

,   "  the  most  agreeable  woman  in  Scotland."     It 

was  unnecessary  to  say  that  she  was  the  most  lovely. 

I  have  been  struck  everywhere  in  England  with 
the  beauty  of  the  higher  classes,  and  as  I  looked 
around  me  upon  the  aristocratic  company  at  the  table, 
I  thought  I  never  had  seen  "  heaven's  image  double- 
stamped  as  man  and  noble"  so  unequivocally  clear. 
There  were  two  young  men  and  four  or  five  young 
ladies  of  rank — and  five  or  six  people  of  more  decided 
personal  attractions  could  scarcely  be  found  ;  the  style 
of  form  and  face  at  the  same  time  being  of  that  cast 
of  superiority  which  goes  by  the  expressive  name  of 
"  thoroughbred."  There  is  a  striking  difference  in 
this  respect  between  England  and  the  countries  of  the 
continent — the  paysans  of  France  and  the  contadini 
of  Italy  being  physically  far  superior  to  their  degen- 
erate masters;  while  the  gentry  and  nobility  of  Eng- 
land differ  from  the  peasantry  in  limb  and  feature  as 
the  racer  differs  from  the  dray-horse,  or  the  grey- 
hound from  the  cur.  The  contrast  between  the  man- 
ners of  English  and  French  gentlemen  is  quite  as 
striking.  The  empressment,  the  warmth,  the  shrug 
and  gesture  of  the  Parisian  ;  and  the  working  eye- 
brow, dilating  or  contracting  eye,  and  conspirator-like 
action  of  the  Italian  in  the  most  common  conversation, 
are  the  antipodes  of  English  high  breeding.  I  should 
•;iy  a  North  American  Indian,  in  his  more  dignified 


phrase,  approached  nearer  to  the  manner  of  an  Eng- 
lish nobleman  than  any  other  person.  The  calm  re- 
pose of  person  and  feature,  the  self-possession  under 
all  circumstances,  that  incapability  of  surprise  or 
dereglement,  and  that  decision  about  the  slightest 
circumstance,  and  the  apparent  certainty  that  he  is 
acting  absolutely  comtne  U  faut,  is  equally  "gentle- 
manlike" and  Indianlike.  You  can  not  astonish  an 
English  gentleman.  If  a  man  goes  into  a  fit  at  his 
side,  or  a  servant  drops  a  dish  upon  his  shoulder,  or  he 
hears  that  the  house  is  on  fire,  he  sets  down  his  wine- 
glass with  the  same  deliberation.  He  has  made  up 
his  mind  what  to  do  in  all  possible  cases,  and  he  does  it. 
He  is  cold  at  a  first  introduction,  and  may  bow  stiffly 
(which  he  always  does)  in  drinking  wine  with  you,  but 
it  is  his  manner;  and  he  would  think  an  Englishman 
out  of  his  senses,  who  should  bow  down  to  his  very 
plate  and  smile  as  a  Frenchman  does  on  a  similar  oc- 
casion. Rather  chilled  by  this,  you  are  a  little  aston- 
ished when  the  ladies  have  left  the  table,  and  he 
closes  his  chair  up  to  you,  to  receive  an  invitation  to 
pass  a  month  with  him  at  his  country-house,  and  to 
discover  that  at  the  very  moment  he  bowed  so  coldly 
he  was  thinking  how  he  should  contrive  to  facilitate 
your  plans  for  getting  to  him  or  seeing  the  country  to 
advantage  on  the  way. 

The  band  ceased  playing  when  the  ladies  left  the 
table,  the  gentlemen  closed  up,  conversation  assumed 
a  merrier  cast,  coffee  and  chasse-cafe  were  brought  in 
when  the  wines  began  to  be  circulated  more  slowly ; 
and  at  eleven,  there  was  a  general  move  to  the  draw- 
ing-room. Cards,  tea,  and  music,  filled  up  the  time 
till  twelve,  and  then  the  ladies  took  their  departure 
and  the  gentlemen  sat  down  to  supper.  I  got  to  bed 
somewhere  about  two  o'clock  ;  and  thus  ended  an 
evening  which  1  had  anticipated  as  stiff  and  embar- 
rassing, but  which  is  marked  in  my  tablets  as  one  of 
the  most  social  and  kindly  1  have  had  the  good  for- 
tune to  record  on  my  travels.  I  have  described  it,  and 
shall  describe  others  minutely — and  I  hope  there  is 
no  necessity  of  reminding  any  one  that  my  apology 
for  thus  disclosing  scenes  of  private  life  has  been 
already  made.  Their  interest  as  sketches  by  an 
American  of  the  society  that  most  interests  Ameri- 
cans, and  the  distance  at  which  they  are  published, 
justify  them,  I  would  hope,  from  any  charge  of  in- 
delicacy. 


LETTER  CXXX. 

ENGLISH    BREAKFASTS— SALMON  FISHERY LORD  ABER- 
DEEN  MR.    MC  LANE — SPORTING    ESTABLISHMENT    OF 

GORDON  CASTLE. 

I  arose  late  on  the  first  morning  after  my  arrival  at 
Gordon  Castle,  and  found  the  large  party  already 
assembled  about  the  breakfast-table.  I  was  struck  on 
entering  with  the  different  air  of  the  room.  The  deep 
windows,  opening  out  upon  the  park,  had  the  effect 
of  sombre  landscapes  in  oaken  frames;  the  troops  of 
liveried  servants,  the  glitter  of  plate,  the  music,  that 
had  contributed  to  the  splendor  of  the  scene  the  night 
before,  were  gone;  the  duke  sat  laughing  at  the  head 
of  the  table,  with  a  newspaper  in  his  hand,  dressed  in 
a  coarse  shooting  jacket  and  colored  cravat;  the 
dutchess  was  in  a  plain  morning-dress  and  cap  of  the 
simplest  character;  and  the  high-born  women  about 
the  table,  whom  I  had  left  glittering  with  jewels,  anr1 
dressed  in  all  the  attractions  of  fashion,  appeared  with 
the  simplest  coiffure  and  a  toilet  of  studied  plainness. 
The  ten  or  twelve  noblemen  present  were  engrossed 
with  their  letters  or  newspapers  over  tea  and  toast ; 
and  in  them,  perhaps,  the  transformation  was  still 
greater.     The  soigne  man  of  fashion  of  the  night  be- 


PENCILLINGS  BY  THE   WAY. 


203 


Tore,  faultless  in  costume  and  distinguished  in  his  ap- 
pearance, in  the  full  force  of  the  term,  was  enveloped 
now  in  a  coat  of  fustian,  with  a  coarse  waistcoat  of 
plaid,  a  gingham  cravat,  and  hob-nailed  shoes  (for 
shooting),  and  in  place  of  the  gay  hilarity  of  the  sup- 
per-table, wore  a  face  of  calm  indifference,  and  ate  his 
breakfast  and  read  the  paper  in  a  rarely  broken  silence. 
I  wondered,  as  I  looked  about  me,  what  would  be  the 
impression  of  many  people  in  my  own  country,  could 
they  look  in  upon  that  plain  party,  aware  that  it  was 
composed  of  the  proudest  nobility  and  the  highest 
fashion  of  England. 

Breakfast  in  England  is  a  confidential  and  uncere- 
monious hour,  and  servants  are  generally  dispensed 
with.  This  is  to  me,  I  confess,  an  advantage  it  has 
over  every  other  meal.  I  detest  eating  with  twenty 
tall  fellows  standing  opposite,  whose  business  it  is  to 
watch  me.  The  coffee  and  tea  were  on  the  table,  with 
toast,  muffins,  oat-cakes,  marmalade,  jellies,  fish,  and 
all  the  paraphernalia  of  a  Scotch  breakfast ;  and  on  the 
sideboard  stood  cold  meats  for  those  who  liked  them,  j 
I  and  they  were  expected  to  go  to  it  and  help  themselves. 
Nothing  could  be  more  easy,  unceremonious,  and  af- 
fable, than  the  whole  tone  of  the  meal.  One  after 
another  rose  and  fell  into  groups  in  the  windows,  or 
walked  up  and  down  the  long  room,  and,  with  one  or 
two  others,  I  joined  the  duke  at  the  head  of  the  table, 
who  gave  us  some  interesting  particulars  of  the  salmon 
fisheries  of  the  Spey.  The  privilege  of  fishing  the 
river  within  his  lands,  is  bought  of  him  at  the  pretty 
sum  of  eight  thousand  pounds  a  year !  A  salmon  was 
brought  in  for  me  to  see,  as  of  remarkable  size,  which 
was  not  more  than  half  the  weight  of  our  common 
American  salmon. 

The  ladies  went  off  unaccompanied  to  their  walks 
in  the  park  and  other  avocations,  those  bound  for  the 
covers  joined  the  game-keepers,  who  were  waiting 
with  their  dogs  in  the  leash  at  the  stables  ;  some  paired 
off  to  the  billiard-room,  and  I  was  left  with  Lord  Aber- 
deen in  the  breakfast-room  alone.  The  tory  ex-min- 
ister made  a  thousand  inquiries,  with  great  apparent 
interest,  about  America.  When  secretary  for  foreign 
affairs  in  the  Wellington  cabinet,  he  had  known  Mr. 
McLane  intimately.  He  said  he  seldom  had  been  so 
impressed  with  a  man's  honesty  and  straight-forward- 
ness, and  never  did  public  business  with  any  one  with 
more  pleasure.  He  admired  Mr.  McLane,  and  hoped 
he  enjoyed  his  friendship.  He  wished  he  might  return 
as  our  minister  to  England.  One  such  honorable, 
uncompromising  man,  he  said,  was  worth  a  score  of 
practised  diplomatists.  He  spoke  of  Gallatin  and  Rush 
in  the  same  flattering  manner,  but  recurred  continu- 
ally to  Mr.  McLane,  of  whom  he  could  scarcely  say 
enough.  His  politics  would  naturally  lead  him  to  ap- 
prove of  the  administration  of  General  Jackson,  but  he 
seemed  to  admire  the  president  very  much  as  a  man. 
Lord  Aberdeen  has  the  name  of  being  the  proudest 
and  coldest  aristocrat  of  England.  It  is  amusing  to 
see  the  person  who  bears  such  a  character.  He  is  of 
the  middle  height,  rather  clumsily  made,  with  an  ad- 
dress more  of  sober  dignity  than  of  pride  or  reserve. 
With  a  black  coat  much  worn,  and  always  too  large 
for  him,  a  pair  of  coarse  check  trousers  very  ill  made, 
a  waistcoal  buttoned  up  to  his  throat,  and  a  cravat  of 
the  most  primitive  neglige,  his  aristocracy  is  certainly 
not  in  his  dress.  His  manners  are  of  absolute  simpli- 
city, amounting  almost  to  want  of  style.  He  crosses 
his  hands  behind  him,  and  balances  on  his  heels ;  in 
conversation  his  voice  is  low  and  cold,  and  he  seldom 
smiles.  Yet  there  is  a  certain  benignity  in  his  coun- 
tenance, and  an  indefinable  superiority  and  high  breed- 
ing in  his  simple  address,  that  would  betray  his  rank 
after  a  few  minutes'  conversation  to  any  shrewd  obser- 
ver. It  is  only  in  his  manner  toward  the  ladies  of  the 
party  that  he  would  be  immediately  distinguishable 
from  men  of  It  wer  rank  in  society. 


Still  suffering  from  lameness,  I  declined  all  invita- 
tions to  the  shooting   parties,  who  started   across  the 
park,  with  the  dogs  leaping  about  them  in  a  phrensy 
of  delight,  and  accepted  the  dutchess's  kind  offer  of  a 
pony  phaeton  to  drive  down  to   the  kennels.     The 
duke's  breed,  both  of  setters  and  hounds,  is  celebrated 
throughout  the  kingdom.     They  occupy  a  spacious 
building  in  the  centre  of  a  wood,  a  quadrangle  enclos- 
ing a  court,  and  large  enough  for  a  respectable  poor- 
house.     The  chief  huntsman  and  his  family,  and  per- 
haps a  gamekeeper  or  two,  lodge  on  the  piemises,  and 
the  dogs  are  divided  by  palings  across  the  court.     1 
was  rather  startled  to  be  introduced  into  the  small  en- 
closure with  a  dozen  gigantic  blood-hounds,  as  high 
as  my  breast,  the  keeper's  whip  in  my  hand  the  only 
defence.     I  was  not  easier  for  the  man's  assertion  that, 
without  it,  they  would  "hae  the  life  oot  o'  me  in  a 
crack."     They  came  around  me  very  quietly,  and  one 
immense  fellow,  with  a  chest  like  a  horse,  and  a  head 
of  the  finest  expression,  stood  up  and   laid  his  paws 
on  my  shoulders,  with  the  deliberation  of  a  friend 
about  to  favor  me  with  some  grave  advice.     One  can 
scarce  believe  these  noble  creatures  have  not  reason 
like  ourselves.     Those  slender,  thorough-bred  heads, 
large,  speaking  eyes,  and  beautiful  limbs  and  graceful 
action,  should  be  gifted  with  more  than  mere  animal 
instinct.     The  greyhounds  were  the  beauties  of  the 
kennel,  however.     I  never  had  seen  such  perfect  crea- 
tures.    "  Dinna  tak'  pains  to  caress  'em,  sir,"  said  the 
huntsman,  "  they'll  only  be  hangit  for  it !"     1  asked 
for  an  explanation,  and  the  man,  with  an  air  as  if  1  was 
uncommonly  ignorant,  told  me  that  a  hound  was  hung 
the  moment  he  betrayed  attachment  to  any  one,  or  in 
any  way  showed  signs  of  superior  sagacity.    In  cours- 
ing the  hare,  for  instance,  if  the  dog  abandoned  the 
scent  to  cut  across  and  intercept  the  poor  animal,  he 
was  considered  as  spoiling  the  sport.     Greyhounds  are 
valuable  only  as  they  obey  their  mere  natural  instinct, 
and  if  they  leave  the  track  of  the  hare,  either  in  their 
own  sagacity,  or  to  follow  their  master,  in  intercepting 
it,  they  spoil  the  pack,  and  are  hung  without  mercy. 
It  is  an  object,  of  course,  to  preserve  them  what  they 
usually  are,  the  greatest  fools  as  well  as  the  handsom- 
est of  the  canine  species,  and  on  the  first  sign  of  at- 
tachment to  their  master,  their  death-warrant  is  signed. 
j  They  are  too  sensible  to  live.     The  dutchess  told  me 
I  afterward  that  she  had  the  greatest  difficulty  in  saving 
j  the  life  of  the  finest  hound  in  the  pack,  who  had  com- 
mitted the  sin  of  showing  pleasure  once  or  twice  when 
j  she  appeared. 

The  setters  were  in  the  next  division,   and  really 

j  they  were  quite  lovely.     The  rare  tan  and  black  dog 

j  of  this  race,  with  his  silky,  floss  hair,  intelligent  muz- 

j  zle,  good-humored  face  and  caressing  fondness  (lucky 

|  dog  !  that  affection  is  permitted  in  his  family!),  quite 

excited   my  admiration.     There   were  thirty  or  forty 

of  these,  old  and  young;  and  a  friend  of  the  duke's 

would  as  soon  ask  him  for  a  church  living  as  for  the 

present  of  one  of  them.     The  former  would   be  by 

much  the  smaller  favor.     Then  there  were  terriers  of 

four  or  five  breeds,  of  one  family  of  which  (long-haired, 

long-bodied,   short-legged    and   perfectly  white   little 

wretches)  the  keeper  seemed   particularly  proud.     I 

evidently  sunk  in  his  opinion  for  not  admiring  them. 

I  passed  the  remainder  of  the  morning  in  threading 
the  lovely  alleys  and  avenues  of  the  park,  miles  after 
miles  of  gravel-walk,  extending  away  in  every  direc- 
tion, with  every  variety  of  turn  and  shade,  now  a  deep 
wood,  now  a  sunny  opening  upon  a  glade,  here  along 
the  bank  of  a  stream,  and  there  around  the  borders  of 
a  small  lagoon,  the   little  ponies  flying  on  over  the 
i  smoothly-rolled   paths,   and   tossing   their  mimicking 
|  heads,  as  if  they  too  enjoyed  the  beauty  of  the  princely 
j  domain.     This,  I  thought  to   myself,  as  I  sped  on 
j  through  light  and  shadow,  is  very  like  what  is  called 
happiness  :  and  this  (if  to  be  a  duke  were  to  enjoy  it 


204 


PRNCILLINGS  BY  THE  WAY. 


as  I  do  with  this  fresh  feeling  of  novelty  and  delight) 
is  a  condition  of  life  it  is  not  quite  irrational  to  envy. 
And  giving  my  little  steeds  the  rein,  I  repeated  to  my- 
self Scott's  graphic  description,  which  seems  written 
for  the  park  of  Gordon  castle,  and  thanked  Heaven  for 
one  more  day  of  unalloyed  happiness. 

"  And  there  soft  swept  in  velvet  green, 
The  plain  with  many  a  glude  between, 
Whose  tangled  alleys  far  invade 
The  depths  of  the  bro  vn  forest  shade  : 
And  the  tall  fern  obscured  the  lawn, 
Fair  shelter  for  the  sportive  fawn. 
There,  tufted  close  with  copse-wood  green, 
"Was  many  a  swelling  hillock  seen, 
And  all  around  was  verdure  meet 
For  pressure  of  the  fairies'  feet. 
The  glossy  valley  loved  the  park, 
The  yew-tree  lent  its  shadows  dark, 
And  many  an  old  oak  worn  and  bare 
With  all  its  shivered  boughs  was  there." 


LETTER  CXXXI. 

SCOTCH    HOSPITALITY IMMENSE    POSSESSIONS  OF  THE 

NOBILITY DUTCHESS'    INFANT    SCHOOL MANNERS 

OF    HIGH     LIFE THE     TONE     OF    CONVERSATION     IN 

ENGLAND    AND    AMERICA    CONTRASTED. 

The  aim  of  Scotch  hospitality  seems  to  be,  to  con- 
vince you  that  the  house  and  all  that  is  in  it  is  your 
own,  and  you  are  at  liberty  to  enjoy  it  as  if  you  were, 
in  the  French  sense  of  the  French  phrase,  chez  vous. 
The  routine  of  Gordon  castle  was  what  each  one 
chose  to  make  it.  Between  breakfast  and  lunch  the 
ladies  were  generally  invisible,  and  the  gentlemen  rode 
or  shot,  or  played  billiards,  or  kept  their  rooms.  At 
two  o'clock,  a  dish  or  two  of  hot  game  and  a  profu- 
sion of  cold  meats  were  set  on  the  small  tables  in  the 
dining-room,  and  everybody  came  in  for  a  kind  of 
lounging  half-meal,  which  occupied  perhaps  an  hour. 
Thence  all  adjourned  to  the  drawing-room,  under  the 
windows  of  which  were  drawn  up  carriages  of  all  de- 
scriptions, with  grooms,  outriders,  footmen,  and  sad- 
dle-horses for  gentlemen  and  ladies.  Parties  were 
then  made  up  for  driving  or  riding,  and  from  a  pony- 
chaise  to  a  phaeton  and  four,  there  was  no  class  of 
vehicle  which  was  not  at  your  disposal.  In  ten  min- 
utes the  carriages  were  usually  all  filled,  and  away 
they  flew,  some  to  the  banks  of  the  Spey  or  the  sea- 
side, some  to  the  drives  in  the  park,  and  with  the  de- 
lightful consciousness  that,  speed  where  you  would, 
the  horizon  scarce  limited  the  possession  of  your  host, 
and  you  were  everywhere  at  home.  The  ornamental 
gates  flying  open  at  your  approach,  miles  distant  from 
the  castle  ;  the  herds  of  red  deer  trooping  away  from 
the  sound  of  wheels  in  the  silent  park  ;  the  stately 
pheasants  feeding  tamely  in  the  immense  preserves ; 
the  hares  scarce  troubling  themselves  to  get  out  of  the 
length  of  the  whip  ;  the  stalking  game-keepers  lifting 
their  hats  in  the  dark  recesses  of  the  forest — there 
was  something  in  this  perpetual  reminding  of  your 
privileges,  which,  as  a  novelty,  was  far  from  disagree- 
able. I  could  not  at  the  time  bring  myself  to  feel, 
what  perhaps  would  be  more  poetical  and  republican, 
that  a  ride  in  the  wild  and  unfenced  forest  of  my  own 
country  would  have  been  more  to  my  taste. 

The  second  afternoon  of  my  arrival,  I  took  a  seat 
in  the  carriage  with  Lord  Aberdeen  and  his  daughter, 
and  we  followed  the  dutchess,  who  drove  herself  in  a 
pony-chaise,  to  visit  a  school  on  the  estate.  Attached 
to  a  small  gothic  chapel,  a  few  minutes  drive  from  the 
castle,  stood  a  building  in  the  same  style,  appropriated 
to  the  instruction  of  the  children  of  the  duke's  ten- 
antry. There  were  a  hundred  and  thirty  little  crea- 
tures, from  two  years  to  five  or  six,  and,  like  all  infant 
schools  in  these  days  of  improved  education,      ^as  an 


interesting  and  affecting  sight.  The  last  one  I  had 
been  in  was  at  Athens,  and  though  I  missed  here  the 
dark  eyes  and  Grecian  faces  of  the  iEgean,  I  saw 
health  and  beauty  of  a  kind  which  stirred  up  more 
images  of  home,  and  promised,  perhaps,  more  for  the 
future.  They  went  through  their  evolutions,  and 
answered  their  questions,  with  an  intelligence  and 
cheerfulness  that  were  quite  delightful,  and  J  was  sor- 
ry to  leave  them  even  for  a  drive  in  the  loveliest  sun- 
set of  a  lingering  day  of  summer. 

People  in  Europe  are  more  curious  about  the  com- 
parison of  the  natural  productions  of  America  with 
those  of  England,  than  about  our  social  and  political 
differences.  A  man  who  does  not  care  to  know 
whether  the  president  has  destroyed  the  bank,  or  the 
bank  the  president,  or  whether  Mrs.  Trollope  has 
flattered  the  Americans  or  not,  will  be  very  much  in- 
terested to  know  if  the  pine-tree  in  his  park  is  com- 
parable to  the  same  tree  in  America,  if  the  same  cat- 
tle are  found  there,  or  the  woods  stocked  with  the 
same  game  as  his  own.  I  would  recommend  a  little 
study  of  trees  particularly,  and  of  vegetation  gener 
ally,  as  valuable  knowledge  for  an  American  coming 
abroad.  I  think  there  is  nothing  on  which  I  have 
been  so  often  questioned.  The  dutchess  led  the  way 
to  a  plantation  of  American  trees,  at  some  distance 
from  the  castle,  and  stopping  beneath  some  really  no- 
ble firs,  asked  if  our  forest-trees  were  often  larger, 
with  an  air  as  if  she  believed  they  were  not.  They 
were  shrubs,  however,  compared  to  the  gigantic  pro- 
ductions of  the  west.  Whatever  else  we  may  see 
abroad,  we  must  return  home  to  find  the  magnificence 
of  nature. 

The  number  at  the  dinner-table  of  Gordon  castle 
was  seldom  less  than  thirty,  but  the  company  was 
continually  varied  by  departures  and  arrivals.  No 
sensation  was  made  by  either  one  or  the  other.  A 
travelling-carriage  dashed  up  to  the  door,  was  disbur- 
dened of  its  load,  and  drove  round  to  the  stables,  and 
the  question  was  seldom  asked,  "  Who  is  arrived  ?" 
You  were  sure  to  see  at  dinner — and  an  addition  of 
half  a  dozen  to  the  party  made  no  perceptible  differ- 
ence in  anything.  Leave-takings  were  managed  in 
the  same  quiet  way.  Adieus  were  made  to  the  duke 
and  dutchess,  and  to  no  one  else  except  he  happened 
to  encounter  the  parting  guest  upon  the  staircase,  or 
were  more  than  a  common  acquaintance.  In  short, 
in  every  way  the  gene  of  life  seemed  weeded  out,  and 
if  unhappiness  or  ennui  found  its  way  into  the  castle, 
it  was  introduced  in  the  sufferer's  own  bosom.  For 
me,  I  gave  myself  up  to  enjoyment  with  an  abandon 
I  could  not  resist.  With  kindness  and  courtesy  in 
every  look,  the  luxuries  and  comforts  of  a  regal  es- 
tablishment at  my  freest  disposal;  solitude  when  I 
pleased,  company  when  I  pleased,  the  whole  visible 
horizon  fenced  in  for  the  enjoyment  of  a  household, 
of  which  I  was  a  temporary  portion,  and  no  enemy 
except  time  and  the  gout,  I  felt  as  if  I  had  been  spirit- 
ed into  some  castle  of  felicity,  and  had  not  come  by 
the  royal  mailcoach  at  all. 

The  great  spell  of  high  life  in  this  country  seems  to 
be  repose.  All  violent  sensations  are  avoided  as 
out  of  taste.  In  conversation,  nothing  is  so  "  odd"  (a 
word,  by  the  way,  that  in  England  means  everything 
disagreeable)  as  emphasis  or  startling  epithet,  or  ges- 
ture, and  in  common  intercourse  nothing  so  vulgar  as 
any  approach  to  "  a  scene."  The  high-bred  English- 
man studies  to  express  himself  in  the  plainest  words 
that  will  convey  his  meaning,  and  is  just  as  simple  and 
calm  in  describing  the  death  of  his  friend,  and  just  as 
technical,  so  to  speak,  as  in  discussing  the  weather. 
For  all  extraordinary  admiration  the  word  "  capital" 
suffices;  for  all  ordinary  praise  the  word  "nice!"  for 
all  condemnation  in  morals,  manners,  or  religion,  the 
word  "odd!"  To  express  yourself  out  of  this  sim- 
ple vocabulary  is  to  raise  the  eyebrows  of  the  whole 


PENCILLINGS  BY    THE  WAY. 


205 


company  at  once,  and  stamp  yourself  under-bred,  or  a 
foreigner. 

This  sounds  ridiculous,  but  it  is  the  exponent  not 
only  of  good  breeding,  but  of  the  true  philosophy  of 
social   life.     The  general  happiness  of  a  party  con- 
sists in  giving  every  individual  an  equal  chance,  and 
in  wounding  no  one's  self-love.     What  is  called  an 
"  overpowering  person,"  is  immediately  shunned,  for 
he  talks  too  much,  and  excites  too  much  attention. 
In  any  other  country  he  would  be  called  "amusing."  I 
He  is  considered  here  as  a  mere   monopolizer  of  the  j 
general  interest,  and  his  laurels,  talk  he  never  so  well, 
shadow  the  rest  of  the  company.     You  meet  your 
most  intimate  friend  in  society  after  a  long  separation, 
and  he  gives  you  his  hand  as  if  you  had  parted  at 
breakfast.     If  he  had  expressed  all  he  felt,  it  would 
have  been  "a  scene,"  and  the  repose  of  the  company  j 
would  have  been  disturbed.     You  invite  a  clever  man  ! 
to  dine  with  you,  and  he  enriches  his  descriptions  with  | 
new  epithets   and   original   words.     He  is  offensive,  j 
fie  eclipses  the  language  of  your  other  guests,  and  is 
aut  of  keeping  with  the  received  and  subdued  tone  to 
which  the  most    common   intellect    rises  with    ease. 
Society  on  this  footing  is  delightful  to  all,  and  the 
diffident  man,  or  the  dull  man,  or  the  quiet  man,  en- 
joys it  as  much  as  another.     For  violent  sensations  | 
you  tnust  go  elsewhere.     Your  escape-valve  is  not  at 
your  neighbor's  ear. 

There  is  a  great  advantage  in  this  in  another  re- 
spect. Your  tongue  never  gets  you  into  mischief.  The  j 
"  unsafeness  of  Americans"  in  society  (I  quote  a 
phrase  I  have  heard  used  a  thousand  times)  arises 
wholly  from  the  American  habit  of  applying  high- 
wrought  language  to  trifles.  I  can  tell  one  of  my 
countrymen  abroad  by  his  first  remark.  Ten  to  one 
his  first  sentence  contains  a  superlative  that  would 
make  an  Englishman  imagine  he  had  lost  his  senses. 
The  natural  consequence  is  continual  misapprehen- 
sion, offence  is  given  where  none  was  intended,  words 
that  have  no  meaning  are  the  ground  of  quarrels,  and 
gentlemen  are  shy  of  us.  A  good-natured  young 
nobleman,  whom  I  sat  next  to  at  dinner  on  my  first 
arrival  at  Gordon  castle,  told  me  he  was  hunting  with 
Lord  Abercorn  when  two  very  gentleman-like  young 
men  rode  up  and  requested  leave  to  follow  the 
hounds,  but  in  such  extraordinary  language  that  they 
were  not  at  first  understood.  The  hunt  continued  for 
some  days,  and  at  last  the  strangers,  who  rode  well 
and  were  seen  continually,  were  invited  to  dine  with 
the  principal  nobleman  of  the  neighborhood.  They 
turned  out  to  be  Americans,  and  were  every  way  well- 
bred  and  agreeable,  but  their  extraordinary  mode  of 
expressing  themselves  kept  the  company  in  continual 
astonishment.  They  were  treated  with  politeness,  of 
course,  while  they  remained,  but  no  little  fun  was 
made  of  their  phraseology  after  their  departure,  and 
the  impression  on  the  mind  of  my  informant  was  very 
much  against  the  purity  of  the  English  language,  as 
spoken  by  Americans.  I  mention  it  for  the  benefit  of 
those  whom  it  may  concern. 


LETTER  CXXXII. 

DEPARTURE    FROM  GORDON  CASTLE — THE   PRETENDER — 

SCOTCH    CHARACTER    MISAPPREHENDED OBSERVANCE 

OF  SUNDAY — HIGHLAND  CHIEFTAINS. 

Ten  days  had  gone  by  like  the  **  Days  of  Thalaba," 
and  I  took  my  leave  of  Gordon  Castle.  It  seemed  to 
me,  as  I  looked  back  upon  it,  as  if  I  had  passed  a 
separate  life  there— so  beautiful  had  been  every  object 
on  which  I  had  looked  in  that  time,  and  so  free  from 
every  mixture  of  ennui  had  been  the  hours  from  the 
first  to  the  last,  I  have  set  them  apart  in  my  memory, 


those  ten  days,  as  a  bright  ellipse  in  the  usual  proces- 
sion of  joys  and  sorrows.  It  is  a  little  world,  walled 
in  from  rudeness  and  vexation,  in  which  1  have  lived  a 
life. 

I  took  the  coach  for  Elgin,  and  visited  the  fine  old 
ruins  of  the  cathedral,  and  then  kept  on  to  Invt  /ness, 
passing  over  the  "  Blasted  Heath,"  the  tryst  of  Mac- 
beth and  the  witches.  We  passed  within  sight  of 
Culloden  Moor,  at  sunset,  and  the  driver  pointed  out 
to  me  a  lonely  castle  where  the  Pretender  slept  the 
night  before  the  battle.  The  interest  with  which  I 
had  read  the  romantic  history  of  Prince  Charlie,  in 
my  boyhood,  was  fully  awakened,  for  his  name  is  still 
a  watch-word  of  aristocracy  in  Scotland ;  and  the 
jacobite  songs,  with  their  half-warlike,  half-melan- 
choly music,  were  favorites  of  the  Dutchess  of  Gor- 
don, who  sung  them  in  their  original  Scotch,  with  an 
enthusiasm  and  sweetness  that  stirred  my  blood  like 
the  sound  of  a  trumpet.  There  certainly  never  was  a 
cause  so  indebted  to  music  and  poetry  as  that  which 
was  lost  at  Culloden. 

The  hotel  at  Inverness  was  crowded  with  livery- 
servants,  and  the  door  inaccessible  for  carriages.  I 
had  arrived  on  the  last  day  of  a  county  meeting,  and 
all  the  chieftains  and  lairds  of  the  north  and  west  of 
Scotland  were  together.  The  last  ball  was  to  be  given 
that  evening,  and  I  was  strongly  tempted  to  go  by  four 
or  five  acquaintances  whom  I  found  in  the  hotel,  but 
the  gout  was  peremptory.  My  shoe  would  not  go  on, 
and  I  went  to  bed. 

I  was  limping  about  in  the  morning  when  a  kind  old 
baronet,  whom  I  had  met  at  Gordon  Castle,  when  I 
was  warmly  accosted  by  a  gentleman  whom  I  did  not 
immediately  remember.  On  his  reminding  me  that 
we  had  parted  last  on  Lake  Leman,  however,  I  rec- 
ollected a  gentlemanlike  Scotchman,  who  had  offered 
me  his  glass  opposite  Copet  to  look  at  the  house  of 
Madame  de  Stael,  and  whom  1  had  left  afterward  at 
Lausanne,  without  even  knowing  his  name.  He  in- 
vited me  immediately  to  dine,  and  in  about  an  hour  or 
two  after,  called  in  his  carriage,  and  drove  me  to  a 
charming  country-house,  a  few  miles  down  the  shore 
of  Loch  Ness,  where  he  presented  me  to  his  family, 
and  treated  me  in  every  respect  as  if  I  had  been  the 
oldest  of  his  friends.  1  mention  the  circumstance  for 
the  sake  of  a  comment  on  what  seems  to  me  a  univer- 
sal error  with  regard  to  the  Scotch  character.  Instead 
of  a  calculating  and  cold  people,  as  they  are  always 
described  by  the  English,  they  seem  to  me  more  a 
nation  of  impulse  and  warm  feeling  than  any  other  I 
have  seen.  Their  history  certainly  goes  to  prove  a 
most  chivalrous  character  in  days  gone  by,  and  as  far 
as  I  know  Scotchmen,  they  preserve  it  still  with  even 
less  of  the  modification  of  the  times  than  other 
nations.  The  instance  I  have  mentioned  above,  is  one 
of  many  that  have  come  under  my  own  observation, 
and  in  many  inquiries  since,  I  have  never  found  an 
Englishman,  who  had  been  in  Scotland,  who  did  not 
confirm  my  impression.  I  have  not  traded  with  them, 
it  is  true,  and  I  have  seen  only  the  wealthier  class,  but 
still  I  think  my  judgment  a  fair  one.  The  Scotch  in 
England  are,  in  a  manner,  what  the  Yankees  are  in 
the  southern  states,  and  their  advantages  of  superior 
quickness  and  education  have  given  them  a  success 
which  is  ascribed  to  meaner  causes.  I  think  (com- 
mon prejudice  contradicenle)  that  neither  the  Scotch 
nor  the  English  are  a  cold  or  an  unfriendly  people, 
but  the  Scotch  certainly  the  farther  remove  from  cold- 
ness of  the  two. 

Inverness  is  the  only  place  I  have  ever  been  in  where 
no  medicine  could  be  procured  on  a  Sunday.  I  did 
not  want,  indeed,  for  other  mementoes  of  the  sacred- 
ness  of  the  day.  In  the  crowd  of  the  public  room  of 
the  hotel,  half  the  persons  at  least,  had  either  bible  or 
prayer-book,  and  there  was  a  hush  through  the  house, 
and  a  gravity  in  the  faces  of  the  people  passing  in  the 


►06 


PENCILLINGS  BY  THE  WAY. 


street,  that  reminded  me  more  of  New-England  than 
anything  I  have  seen.  I  had  wanted  some  linen 
washed  on  Saturday.  "  Impossible  !"  said  the  waiter, 
"no  one  does  up  linen  on  Sunday."  Toward  evening 
I  wished  for  a  carnage  to  drive  over  to  my  hospitable 
friend.  Mine  host  stared,  and  I  found  it  was  in- 
decorous to  drive  out  on  Sunday.  I  must  add,  how- 
ever, that  the  apothecary's  shop  was  opened  after  the 
second  service,  and  that  I  was  allowed  a  carriage  on 
pleading  my  lameness. 

Inverness  is  a  romantic-looking  town,  charmingly 
situated  between  Loch  Ness  and  the  Murray  Firth, 
with  the  bright  river  Ness  running  through  it,  parallel 
to  its  principal  street,  and  the  most  picturesque  emi- 
nences in  its  neighborhood.  There  is  a  very  singular 
elevation  on  the  other  side  of  the  Ness,  shaped  like  a 
ship,  keel  up,  and  rising  from  the  centre  of  the  plain, 
covered  with  beautiful  trees.  It  is  called,  in  Gaelic, 
Tonnaheuric,  or  the  Hill  of  the  Fairies. 

It  has  been  in  one  respect  like  getting  abroad  aejain, 
to  come  to  Scotland.  Nothing  seemed  more  odd  to 
me  on  my  first  arrival  in  England,  than  having  sud- 
denly ceased  to  be  a  "  foreigner."  I  was  as  little  at 
home  myself,  as  in  France  or  Turkey  (much  less 
than  in  Italy),  yet  there  was  that  in  the  manner  of 
every  person  who  approached  me  which  conveyed  the 
presumption  that  1  was  as  familiar  with  everything 
about  me  as  himself.  In  Scotland,  however,  the 
Englishman  is  the  "Sassenach,"  and  a  stranger;  and, 
as  I  was  always  taken  for  one,  I  found  myself  once 
more  invested  with  that  agreeable  consequence  which 
accompanies  it,  my  supposed  prejudices  consulted, 
my  opinion  about  another  country  asked,  and  com- 
parisons referred  to  me  as  an  exparte  judge.  I  found 
here,  as  abroad,  too,  that  the  Englishman  was  expect- 
ed to  pay  more  for  trifling  services  than  a  native,  and 
that  he  would  be  much  more  difficult  about  his  ac- 
commodations, and  more  particular  in  his  chance 
company.  I  was  amused  at  the  hotel  with  an  instance 
of  the  want  of  honor  shown  "  the  prophet  in  his  own 
country."  I  went  down  to  the  coffee-room  for  my  break- 
fast about  noon,  and  found  a  remarkably  fashionable, 
pale,  "  Werter-like  man,"  excessively  dressed,  but 
with  all  the  air  of  a  gentleman,  sitting  with  the  news- 
paper on  one  side  of  the  fire.  He  offered  me  the 
paper  after  a  few  minutes,  but  with  the  cold,  half- 
supercilious  politeness  which  marks  the  dandy  tribe, 
and  strolled  off  to  the  window.  The  landlord  entered 
presently,  and  asked  me  if  I  had  any  objection  to 
breakfasting  with  that  gentleman,  as  it  would  be  a 
convenience  in  serving  it  up.  "  None  in  the  world," 
I  said  "  but  you  had  better  ask  the  other  gentleman 
first."  "Hoot !"  said  Boniface,  throwing  up  his  chin 
with  an  incredulous  expression,  "it's  honor  for  the 
like  o'him.  He's  joost  a  laddie  born  and  brought  up 
i'  the  toon.  I  kenn'd  him  weel."  And  so  enter 
breakfast  for  two.  I  found  my  companion  a  well- 
bred  man  ;  rather  surprised,  however,  if  not  vexed,  to 
discover  that  I  knew  he  was  of  Inverness.  He  had 
been  in  the  civil  services  of  the  East  India  Company 
for  some  years  (hence  his  paleness),  and  had  returned 
to  Scotland  for  his  health.  He  was  not  the  least 
aware  that  he  was  known,  apparently  and  he  certainly 
had  not  the  slightest  trace  of  his  Scotch  birth.  The 
landlord  told  me  afterward  that  his  parents  were  poor, 
ind  he  had  raised  himself  by  his  own  cleverness  alone, 
and  yet  it  was  "  honor  for  the  like  o'  him"  to  sit  at 
table  with  a  common  stranger !  The  world  is  really 
very  much  the  same  all  over. 

In  the  three  days  I  passed  at  Inverness,  I  made  the 
acquaintance  of  several  of  the  warm-hearted  Highland 
chiefs,  and  found  great  difficulty  in  refusing  to  go 
home  with  them.  One  of  the  "Lords  of  the  Isles" 
was  among  the  number,  a  handsome,  high-spirited 
youth,  who  would  have  been  the  chivalrous  Lord 
Ronald  of  a  century  ago,  but  was  now  only  the  best 


shot,  the  best  rider,  the  most  elegant  man,  and  the 
most  "  capital  fellow"  in  the  west  of  Scotland.  He 
had  lost  everything  but  his  "Isle"  in  his  London  cam- 
paigns, and  was  beginning  to  listen  to  his  friends' 
advice,  and  look  out  for  a  wife  to  mend  his  fortune 
and  his  morals.  There  was  a  peculiar  style  about  all 
these  young  men,  something  very  like  the  manner  of 
our  high-bred  Virginians — a  free,  gallant  self-posses- 
sed bearing,  fiery  and  prompt,  yet  full  of  courtesy. 
I  was  pleased  with  them  altogether. 

I  had  formed  an  agreeable  acquaintance,  on  my 
passage  from  London  to  Edinburgh  in  the  steamer, 
with  a  gentleman  bound  to  the  Highlands  for  the 
shooting  season.  He  was  engaged  to  pay  a  visit  to 
Lord  Lumley,  with  whom  I  had  myself  promised  to 
pass  a  week,  and  we  parted  at  Edinboro'  in  the  hope 
of  meeting  at  Kinrara.  On  my  return  from  Dalhonsie, 
a  fortnight  after,  we  met  by  chance  at  the  hotel  in 
Edinboro',  he  having  arrived  the  same  day,  and  hav- 
ing taken  a  passage  like  myself  for  Aberdeen.  We 
made  another  agreeable  passage  together,  and  he  left 
me  at  the  gate  of  Gordon  castle,  proceeding  north  on 
another  visit.  I  was  sitting  in  the  coffee-room  at 
Inverness,  pondering  how  I  should  reach  Kinrara, 
when,  enter  again  my  friend,  to  my  great  surprise, 
who  informed  me  that  Lord  Lumley  had  returned  to 
England.  Disappointed  alike  in  our  visit,  we  took  a 
passage  together  once  more  in  the  steamer  from 
Inverness  to  Fort  William  for  the  following  morning. 
It  was  a  singular  train  of  coincidences,  but  I  was 
indebted  to  it  for  one  of  the  most  agreeable  chance 
acquaintances  I  have  yet  made. 


LETTER  CXXXIII. 

CALEDONIAN  CANAL — DOGS ENGLISH  EXCLUSIVENESS — 

ENGLISH    INSENSIBILITY    OF    FINE    SCENERY FLORA 

MACDONALD  AND  THE  PRETENDER HIGHLAND    TRAV- 
ELLING. 

We  embarked  early  in  the  morning  in  the  steamer 
which  goes  across  Scotland  from  6ea  to  sea,  by  the 
half-natural,  half-artificial  passage  of  the  Caledonian 
canal.  One  long  glen,  as  the  reader  knows,  extends 
quite  through  this  mountainous  country,  and  in  its 
bosom  lies  a  chain  of  the  loveliest  lakes,  whose  ex- 
tremities so  nearly  meet,  that  it  seems  as  if  a  blow  of  a 
spade  should  have  run  them  together.  Their  differ- 
ent elevations,  however,  made  it  an  expensive  work  in 
locks,  and  the  canal  altogether  cost  ten  times  the 
original  calculation. 

I  went  on  board  with  my  London  friend,  who,  from 
our  meeting  so  frequently,  had  now  become  my  estab- 
lished companion.  The  boat  was  crowded,  yet  moie 
with  dogs  than  people  ;  for  every  man,  I  think,  had 
his  brace  of  terriers  or  his  pointers,  and  every  lady  her 
hound  or  poodle,  and  they  were  chained  to  every  leg 
of  a  sofa,  chair,  portmanteau,  and  fixture  in  the  vessel. 
It  was  like  a  floating  kennel,  and  every  passenger  was 
fully  occupied  in  keeping  the  peace  between  his  own 
dog  and  his  neighbor's.  The  same  thing  would  have 
been  a  much  greater  annoyance  in  any  other  country; 
but  in  Scotland  the  dogs  are  all  of  beautiful  and 
thorough-bred  races,  and  it  is  a  pleasure  to  see  them. 
Half  as  many  French  pugs  would  have  been  insuffer- 
able. 

We  opened  into  Loch  Ness  immediately,  and  the 
scenery  was  superb.  The  waters  were  like  a  mirror: 
and  the  hills  draped  in  mist,  and  rising  one  or  two 
thousand  feet  directly  from  the  shore,  and  nothing  to 
break  the  wildness  of  the  crags  but  the  ruins  of  the 
constantly  occurring  castles,  perched  like  eyries  upon 
their  summits.  You  might  have  had  the  same  natural 
scenery  in  America,  but  the  ruins  and  the  thousand 


PENCILLINGS  BY  THE  WAY. 


207 


associations  would  have  been  wanting  ;  and  it  is  this, 
much  more  than  the  mere  beauty  of  hill  or  lake,  which 
makes  the  pleasure  of  travel.  We  ran  close  in  to  a 
green  cleft  in  the  mountains  on  the  southern  shore,  in 
which  stands  one  of  the  few  old  castles,  still  inhabited 
by  the  chief  of  his  clan — that  of  Fraser  of  Lovat,  so 
well-known  in  Scottish  story.  Our  object  was  to  visit 
the  Fall  of  Foyers,  in  sight  of  which  it  stands,  and  the 
boat  came  to  off  the  point,  and  gave  us  an  hour  for 
the  excursion.  It  was  a  pretty  stroll  up  through  the 
woods,  and  we  found  a  cascade  very  like  the  Turtmann 
in  Switzerland,  but  with  no  remarkable  feature  which 
would  make  it  interesting  in  description. 

I  was  amused  after  breakfast  with  what  has  always 
struck  me  on  board  English  steamers — the  gradual  di- 
vision of  the  company  into  parties  of  congenial  rank 
or  consequence.  Not  for  conversation — for  fellow- 
travellers  of  a  day  seldom  become  acquainted — but,  as 
if  it  was  a  process  of  crystallization,  the  well-bred  and 
the  hall-bred,  and  the  vulgar,  each  separating  to  his 
natural  neighbor,  apparently  from  a  mere  fitness  of 
propinquity.  This  takes  place  sometimes,  but  rarely 
and  in  a  much  less  degree,  on  board  an  American 
steamer.  There  are,  of  course,  in  England,  as  with 
us,  those  who  are  presuming  and  impertinent,  but  an 
instance  of  it  has  seldom  fallen  under  my  observation. 
The  English  seem  to  have  an  instinct  of  each  other's 
position  in  life.  A  gentleman  enters  a  crowd,  looks 
about  him,  makes  up  his  mind  at  once  from  whom  an 
advance  of  civility  would  be  agreeable  or  the  contrary, 
gets  near  the  best  set  without  seeming  to  notice  them, 
and  if  any  chance  accident  brings  on  conversation 
with  his  neighbors,  you  may  be  certain  he  is  sure  of 
his  man. 

We  had  about  a  hundred  persons  on  board  (Miss 
Inverarity,  the  singer,  among  others),  and  I  could  see 
no  one  who  seemed  to  notice  or  enjoy  the  lovely 
scenery  we  were  passing  through.  I  made  the  remark 
to  my  companion,  who  was  an  old  stager  in  London 
fashion,  fifty,  but  still  a  beau,  and  he  was  compelled 
to  allow  it,  though  piqued  for  the  taste  of  his  country- 
men. A  baronet  with  his  wife  and  sister  sat  in  the 
corner  opposite  us,  and  one  lady  slept  on  the  other's 
shoulder,  and  neither  saw  a  feature  of  the  scenery  ex- 
cept by  an  accidental  glance  in  changing  her  position. 
Yet  it  was  more  beautiful  than  most  things  I  have 
seen  that  are  celebrated,  and  the  ladies,  as  my  friend 
said,  looked  like  "  nice  persons." 

I  had  taken  up  a  book  while  we  were  passing  the 
locks  at  the  junction  of  Loch  Ness  and  Loch  Oich, 
and  was  reading  aloud  to  my  friend  the  interesting  de- 
scription of  Flora  Macdouald's  heroic  devotion  to 
Prince  Charles  Edward.  A  very  lady-like  girl,  who  sat 
next  me,  turned  around  as  I  laid  down  the  book,  and 
informed  me,  with  a  look  of  pleased  pride,  that  the 
heroine  was  her  grandmother.  She  was  returning  from 
the  first  visit  she  had  ever  made  to  the  Isle  (I  think  of 
Skye),  of  which  the  Macdonalds  were  the  hereditary 
lords,  and  in  which  the  fugitive  prince  was  concealed. 
Her  brother,  an  officer,  just  returned  from  India,  had 
accompanied  her  in  her  pilgrimage,  and  as  he  sat  on 
the  other  side  of  his  sister  he  joined  in  the  conversa- 
tion, and  entered  into  the  details  of  Flora's  history 
with  great  enthusiasm.  The  book  belonged  to  the 
boat,  and  my  friend  had  b-ought  it  from  below,  and 
the  coincidence  was  certainly  singular.  The  present 
chief  of  the  Macdonalds  was  on  board,  accompanying 
his  relatives  back  to  their  home  in  Sussex;  and  on  ar- 
riving at  Fort  William,  where  the  boat  stopped  for 
the  night,  the  young  lady  invited  us  to  take  tea  with 
her  at  the  inn  ;  and  for  so  improvised  an  acquaintance, 
I  have  rarely  made  three  friends  more  to  my  taste. 

We  had  decided  to  leave  the  steamer  at  Fort  Wil- 
liam, and  cross  through  the  heart  of  Scotland  to  Loch 
Lomond.  My  companion  was  very  fond  of  Loudon 
hours,  and  slept  late,  knowing  that  the  cart— the  only 


conveyance  to  be  had  in  that  country — would  wait  our 
time.  I  was  lounging  about  the  inn,  and  amusing 
myself  with  listening  to  the  Gaelic  spoken  by  every- 
body who  belonged  to  the  place,  when  the  pleasant 
family  with  whom  we  had  passed  the  evening,  drove 
out  of  the  yard  (having  brought  their  horses  down  in 
the  boat),  intending  to  proceed  by  land  to  Glasgow. 
We  renewed  our  adieus,  on  my  part  with  the  sincerest 
regret,  and  I  strolled  down  the  road  and  watched  them 
till  they  were  out  of  sight,  feeling  that  (selfish  world 
as  it  is)  there  are  some  things  that  hole  at  least  like 
impulse  and  kindness — so  like,  that  1  can  make  out 
of  them  a  very  passable  happiness. 

We  mounted  our  cart  at  eleven  o'clock,  and  with  a 
bright  sun,  a  clear,  vital  air,  a  handsome  and  good- 
humored  callant  for  a  driver,  and  the  most  renowned 
of  Scottish  scenery  before  us,  the  day  looked  very 
auspicious.  I  could  not  help  smiling  at  the  appear- 
ance of  my  fashionable  friend  silting,  with  his  well- 
poised  hat  and  nicely-adjusted  curls,  upon  the  spring- 
less  cross-board  of  a  most  undisguised  and  unscrupu- 
lous market-cart,  yet  in  the  highest  good-humor  with 
himself  and  the  world.  The  boy  sat  on  the  shafts, 
and  talked  Gaelic  to  his  horse  ;  the  mountains  and  the 
lake,  spread  out  before  us,  looked  as  if  human  eye  had 
never  profaned  their  solitary  beauty,  and  I  enjoyed  it 
all  the  more,  perhaps,  that  our  conversation  was  of 
London  and  its  delights  :  and  the  racy  scandal  of  the 
distinguished  people  of  that  great  Babel  amused  me 
in  the  midst  of  that  which  is  most  unlike  it — pure  and 
lovely  nature.  Everything  is  seen  so  much  better  by 
contrast! 

We  crossed  the  head  of  Loch  Linnhe,  and  kept 
down  its  eastern  bank,  skirting  the  water  by  a  winding 
road  directly  under  the  wall  of  the  mountains.  We 
were  to  dine  at  Ballyhulish,  and  just  before  reaching 
it  we  passed  the  opening  of  a  glen  on  the  opposite 
side  of  the  lake,  in  which  lay,  in  a  green  paradise  shut 
in  by  the  loftiest  rocks,  one  of  the  most  enviable  habi- 
tations I  have  ever  seen.  I  found  on  inquiry  that  it 
was  the  house  of  a  Highland  chief,  to  whom  Lord 
Dalhousie  had  kindly  given  me  a  letter,  but  my  lame- 
ness and  the  presence  of  my  companion  induced  me 
to  abandon  the  visit ;  and,  hailing  a  fishing-boat,  I 
despatched  my  letters,  which  were  sealed,  across  the 
loch,  and  we  kept  on  to  the  inn.  We  dined  here  ; 
and  I  just  mention,  for  the  information  of  scenery- 
hunters,  that  the  mountain  opposite  Ballyhulish  sweeps 
down  to  the  lake  with  a  curve  which  is  even  more  ex- 
quisitely graceful  than  that  of  Vesuvius  in  its  far-famed 
descent  to  Portici.  That  same  inn  of  Ballyhulish,  by 
the  way,  stands  in  the  midst  of  a  scene,  altogether, 
that  does  not  pass  easily  from  the  memory — a  i^nely 
and  sweet  spot  that  would  recur  to  one  in  a  moment 
of  violent  love  or  hate,  when  the  heart  shrinks  from 
the  intercourse  and  observation  of  men. 

We  found  the  travellers'  book,  at  the  inn,  full  of 
records  of  admiration,  expressed  in  all  degrees  of  dog- 
gerel. People  on  the  road  write  very  bad  poetry.  I 
found  the  names  of  one  or  two  Americans,  whom  I 
knew,  and  it  was  a  pleasure  to  feel  that  my  enjoyment 
would  be  sympathized  in.  Our  host  had  been  a  noble- 
man's travelling  valet,  and  he  amused  us  with  his  de- 
j  scriptions  of  our  friends,  every  one  of  whom  he  per- 
i  fectly  remembered.  He  had  learned  to  use  his  eyes, 
at  least,  and  had  made  very  shrewd  guesses  at  the  con- 
dition and  tempers  of  his  visiters.  His  life,  in  that 
lonely  inn,  must  be  in  sufficient  contrast  with  his  for- 
mer vocation. 

We  had  jolted  sixteen  miles  behind  our  Highland 

horse,  but  he  came  out  fresh  for  the  remaining  twenty 

j  of  our  day's  journey,  and  with  cushions  of  dried  and 

!  fragrant  fern,  gathered  and  put  in  by  our  considerate 

'  landlord,  we  crossed  the  ferry  and  turned  eastward  into 

the  far-famed   and  much-boasted  valley  of  Glencoe. 

The  description  of  it  must  lie  over  till  my  next  letter. 


208 


PENCILLINGS  BY  THE   WAY. 


LETTER  CXXX1V. 

INVARERDEN — TARBOT — COCKNEY  TOURISTS — LOCH  LO- 
MOND  INVERSNADE — ROB  ROY'S  CAVE DISCOMFI- 
TURE— THE    BIRTHPLACE   OF   HELEN   M'GREGOR. 

We  passed  the  head  of  the  valley  near  Tyndrum, 
where  M'Dougal  of  Lorn  defeated  the  Bruce,  and 
were  half  way  up  the  wild  pass  that  makes  its  southern 
outlet,  when  our  Highland  driver,  with  a  shout  of  de- 
light, pointed  out  to  us  a  red  deer,  standing  on  the 
very  summit  of  the  highest  mountain  above  us.  It 
was  an  incredible  distance  to  see  any  living  thing,  but 
he  stood  clear  against  the  sky,  in  a  relief  as  strong  as 
if  he  had  been  suspended  in  the  air,  and  with  his  head 
up,  and  his  chest  toward  us,  seemed  the  true  monarch 
of  the  wild. 

At  Invarenden,  Donald  M'Phee  begged  for  the  dis- 
charge of  himself  a  d  his  horse  and  cart  from  our 
service.  He  had  co  le  with  us  eighty  miles,  and  was 
afraid  to  venture  fart  er  on  his  travels,  having  never 
before  been  twenty  miles  from  the  Highland  village 
where  he  lived.  It  was  amusing  to  see  the  curiosity 
with  which  he  looked  about  him,  and  the  caution  with 
which  he  suffered  the  hostler  at  the  inn  to  take  the 
black  mare  out  of  his  sight.  The  responsibility  of 
the  horse  and  cart  weighed  heavily  on  his  mind,  and 
he  expressed  his  hope  to  "  get  her  back  safe,"  with  an 
apprehensive  resolution  that  would  have  become  a 
knight-errant  guiding  himself  for  his  most  perilous 
encounter.  Poor  Donald!  how  little  he  knew  how 
wide  is  the  world,  and  how  very  like  one  part  of  it  is 
to  another! 

Our  host  of  Invarerden  supplied  us  with  another 
cart  to  take  us  down  to  Tarbot,  and  having  dined  with 
a  waterfall-looking  inn  at  each  of  our  two  opposite 
windows  (the  inn  stands  in  a  valley  between  two 
moun'ains),  we  were  committed  to  the  care  of  his  eld- 
est boy,  and  jolted  off  for  the  head  of  Loch  Lomond. 

I  have  never  happened  to  see  a  traveller  who  had 
seen  Loch  Lomond  in  perfectly  good  weather.  My 
companion  had"been  there  every  summer  for  several 
years,  and  believed  it  always  rained  under  Ben  Lo- 
mond. As  we  came  in  sight  of  the  lake,  however,  the 
water  looked  like  one  sheet  of  gold-leaf,  trembling,  as 
if  by  the  motion  of  fish  below,  but  unruffled  by  wind; 
and  if  paradise  were  made  so  fair,  and  had  such  waters 
in  its  midst,  I  could  better  conceive  than  before,  the 
unhappiness  of  Adam  when  driven  forth.  The  sun 
was  just  setting,  and  the  road  descended  immediately 
to  the  shore,  and  kept  along  under  precipitous  rocks, 
and  slopes  of  alternate  cultivation  and  heather,  to  the 
place  of  our  destination.  And  a  lovely  place  it  is  ! 
Send  me  to  Tarbot  when  I  would  retreat  from  the 
world.  It  is  an  inn  buried  in  a  grove  at  the  foot  of 
the  hills,  and  set  in  a  bend  of  the  lake  shore,  like  a 
diamond  upon  an  "orbed  brow;1'  and  the  light  in  its 
kitchen,  as  we  approached  in  the  twilight,  was  as  in- 
teresting as  a  ray  of  the  "first  water"  from  the  same. 
We  had  now  reached  the  route  of  the  cockney  tour- 
ists, and  while  we  perceived  it  agreeably  in  the  excel- 
lence of  the  hotel,  we  perceived  it  disagreeably  in  the 
price  of  the  wines,  and  the  presence  of  what  my  friend 
called  "  unmitigated  vulgarisms"  in  the  coffee-room. 
That  is  the  worst  of  England.  The  people  are  vul- 
gar, but  not  vulgar  enough.  One  dances  with  the 
lazzaroni  at  Naples,  when  he  would  scarce  think  of 
handing  the  newspaper  to  the  "person"  on  a  tour  at 
Tarbot.  Condescension  is  the  only  agreeable  virtue, 
I  have  made  up  my  mind. 

Well — it  was  moonlight.  The  wind  was  south  and 
affectionate,  and  the  road  in  front  of  the  hotel  "  fleck'd 
with  silver,"  and  my  friend's  wife,  and  the  correspond- 
ing object  of  interest  to  myself,  being  on  the  other 
side  of  Ben  Lomond  and  the  Tweed,  we  had  nothing 
for  it  after  supper  but  to  walk  up  and  down  with  one 


another,  and  talk  of  the  past.  In  the  course  of  our 
ramble,  we  walked  through  an  open  gate,  and  ascend- 
ing a  gravel-walk,  found  a  beautiful  cottage,  built  be- 
tween two  mountain  streams,  and  ornamented  with 
every  device  of  taste  and  contrivance.  The  mild  pure 
torrents  were  led  over  falls,  and  brought  to  the  thresh- 
olds of  bowers  ;  and  seats,  and  bridges,  and  winding- 
paths,  were  distributed  up  the  steep  channels,  in  a  way 
that  might  make  it  a  haunt  for  Titania.  It  is  the 
property,  we  found  afterward,  of  a  Scotch  gentleman, 
and  a  great  summer  retreat  of  the  celebrated  Jeffrey, 
his  friend.  It  was  one  more  place  to  which  my  heart 
clung  in  parting. 

Loch  Lomond  still  sat  for  its  picture  in  the  morn- 
ing, and  after  an  early  breakfast,  we  took  a  row-boat, 
with  a  couple  of  Highlanders,  for  Inversnade,  and 
pulled  across  the  lake  with  a  kind  of  drowsy  delight- 
fulness  in  the  scene  and  air  which  I  have  never  before 
found  out  of  Italy.  We  overshot  our  destination  a 
little  to  look  into  Rob  Roy's  Cave,  a  dark  den  in  the 
face  of  the  rock,  which  has  the  look  of  his  vocation  ; 
and  then,  pulling  back  along  the  shore,  we  were  land- 
ed, in  the  spray  of  a  waterfall,  at  a  cottage  occupied 
by  the  boatmen  of  this  Highland  ferry.  From  this 
point  across  to  Loch  Katrine,  is  some  five  miles,  and 
the  scene  of  Scott's  novel  of  Rob  Roy.  It  has  been 
"  done"  so  often  by  tourists,  that  I  leave  all  particular 
description  of  the  localities  and  scenery  to  the  well- 
hammered  remembrance  of  readers  of  magazines, 
and  confine  myself  to  my  own  private  adventures. 

The  distance  between  the  lakes  is  usually  perform- 
ed by  ladies  on  donkeys,  and  by  gentlemen  on  foot, 
but  being  myself  rather  tender-toed  with  the  gout,  my 
companion  started  off  alone,  and  I  lay  down  on  the 
grass  at  Inversnade  to  wait  the  return  of  the  long- 
eared  troop,  who  were  gone  across  with  an  earlier 
party.  The  waterfall  and  the  cottage  just  above  the 
edge  of  the  lake,  a  sharp  hill  behind,  closely  wooded 
with  birch  and  fir,  and,  on  a  green  sward  platform  in 
the  rear  of  the  house,  two  Highland  lasses  and  a  lad- 
die, treading  down  a  stack  of  new  hay,  were  not  bad 
circumstances  in  which  to  be  left  alone  with  the  witch- 
eries of  the  great  enchanter. 

I  must  narrate  here  an  adventure  in  which  my  own 
part  was  rather  a  discomfiture,  but  which  will  show 
somewhat  the  manners  of  the  people.  My  compan- 
ion had  been  gone  half  an  hour,  and  I  was  lying  at 
the  foot  of  a  tree,  listening  to  the  waterfall  and  look- 
ing off  on  the  lake,  and  watching,  by  fits,  the  lad  and 
lasses  I  have  spoken  of,  who  were  building  a  haystack 
between  them,  and  chattering  away  most  unceasingly 
in  Gaelick.  The  eldest  of  the  girls  was  a  tall,  ill-fa- 
vored damsel,  merry  as  an  Oread,  but  as  ugly  as  Don- 
ald Bean;  and,  after  a  while,  I  began  to  suspect,  by 
the  looks  of  the  boy  below,  that  I  had  furnished  her 
with  a  new  theme.  She  addressed  some  remark  to 
me  presently,  and  a  skirmish  of  banter  ensued,  which 
ended  in  a  challenge  to  me  to  climb  upon  the  stack. 
It  was  about  ten  feet  high,  and  shelving  outward  from 
the  bottom,  and  my  Armida  had  drawn  up  the  ladder. 
The  stack  was  built,  however,  under  a  high  tree,  and 
I  was  soon  up  the  trunk,  and,  swinging  oft"  from  a  long 
branch,  dropped  into  the  middle  of  the  stack.  In  the 
same  instant,  I  was  raised  in  a  grasp  to  which  I  could 
offer  no  resistance,  and,  with  a  fling  to  which  I  should 
have  believed  the  strength  of  few  men  equal,  thrown 
clear  of  the  stack  to  the  ground.  I  alighted  on  my 
back,  with  a  fall  of,  perhaps,  twelve  feet,  and  felt  seri- 
ously hurt.  The  next  moment,  however,  my  gentle 
friend  had  me  in  her  arms  (I  am  six  feet  high  in  my 
stockings),  and  I  was  carried  into  the  cottage,  and  laid 
on  a  flock  bed,  before  I  could  well  decide  whether  my 
back  was  broken  or  no.  Whiskey  was  applied  exter- 
nally and  internally,  and  the  old  crone,  who  was  the 
only  inhabitant  of  the  hovel,  commenced  a  lecture  in 
Gaelick,  as  I  stood  once  more  sound  upon  my  legs, 


PENCILLINGS   BY  THE   WAY. 


209 


which  seemed  to  take  effect  upon  the  penitent,  though 
her  victim  was  no  wiser  for  it.  I  took  the  opportunity 
to  look  at  the  frame  which  had  proved  itself  of  such 
vigorous  power ;  but,  except  arms  of  extraordinary 
length,  she  was  like  any  other  equally  ugly,  middle- 
sized  woman.  In  the  remaining  half  hour,  before  the 
donkeys  arrived,  we  became  the  best  of  friends,  and 
she  set  me  off  for  Loch  Katrine,  with  a  caution  to  the 
ass-driver  to  take  care  of  me,  which  that  sandy-haired 
Highlander  took  as  an  excellent  joke.  And  no  won- 
der ! 

The  long  mountain-glen  between  these  two  lakes 
was  the  home  of  Rob  Roy,  and  the  Highlanders  point 
out  various  localities,  all  commemorated  in  Scott's  in- 
comparable story.  The  house  where  Helen  M'Gregor 
was  born  lies  a  stone's  throw  off  the  road  to  the  left, 
and  Rob's  gun  is  shown  by  an  old  woman  who  lives 
near  by.  He  must  have  been  rich  in  arms  by  the 
same  token ;  for,  beside  the  well-authenticated  one  at 
Abbotsford,  I  have  seen  some  dozen  guns,  and  twice 
as  many  daggers  and  shot-pouches,  which  lay  claim 
to  the  same  honor.  I  paid  my  shilling  to  the  old  wo- 
man not  the  less.  She  owed  it  to  the  pleasure  I  had 
received  from  Sir  Walter's  novel. 

The  view  of  Loch  Lomond  back  from  the  highest 
point  of  the  pass  is  incomparably  fine;  at  least,  when 
I  saw  it ;  for  sunshine  and  temperature,  and  the  effect 
of  the  light  vapors  on  the  hills,  were  at  their  loveliest 
and  most  favorable.  It  looks  more  like  the  haunt  of 
a  robber  and  his  caterans,  probably,  in  its  more  com- 
mon garb  of  Scotch  mist ;  but,  to  my  eye,  it  was  a 
scene  of  the  most  Arcadian  peace  and  serenity.  I 
dawdled  along  the  five  miles  upon  my  donkey,  with 
something  of  an  ache  in  my  back,  but  a  very  health- 
ful and  sunny  freedom  from  pain  and  impatience  at 
my  heart.  And  so  did  not  Baillie  Nicol  Jarvey  make 
the  same  memorable  journey. 


LETTER  CXXXV. 

HIGHLAND      HUT,      ITS      FURNITURE    AND      INMATES 

HIGHLAND   AMUSEMENT    AND  DINNER "  ROB  ROY," 

AND    SCENERY    OF    THE    "  LADY    OF    THE    LAKE." 

The  cottage-inn  at  the  head  of  Loch  Katrine,  was 
tenanted  by  a  woman  who  might  have  been  a  horse- 
guardsman  in  petticoats,  and  who  kept  her  smiles  for 
other  cattle  than  the  Sassenach.  We  bought  her 
whiskey  and  milk,  praised  her  butter,  and  were  civil  to 
the  little  Highland  man  at  her  breast;  but  neither 
mother  nor  child  were  to  be  mollified.  The  rocks 
were  bare  around,  we  were  too  tired  for  a  pull  in  the 
boat,  and  three  mortal  hours  lay  between  us  and  the 
nearest  event  in  our  history.  I  first  penetrated,  in  the 
absence  of  our  Hecate,  to  the  inner  room  of  the 
shieling.  On  the  wall  hung  a  broadsword,  two  guns, 
a  trophy  or  two  of  deers'  horns,  and  a  Sunday  suit 
of  plaid,  philibeg  and  short  red  coat,  surmounted  by 
a  gallant  bonnet  and  feather.  Four  cribs,  like  the 
births  in  a  ship,  occupied  the  farther  side  of  the 
chamber,  each  large  enough  to  contain  two  persons; 
a  snow-white  table  stood  between  the  windows;  a  six- 
penny glass,  with  an  eagle's  feather  stuck  in  the  frame, 
hung  at  such  a  height  that,  "  though  tall  of  my 
hands,"  I  could  just  see  my  nose;  and  just  under  the 
ceiling  on  the  left  was  a  broad  and  capacious  shelf,  on 
which  reposed  apparently  the  old  clothes  of  a  century 
—a  son  of  place  where  the  gude-wife  would  have 
hidden  Prince  Charlie,  or  might  rummage  for  her 
grandmother's  baby-linen. 

The  heavy  steps  of  the  dame  came  over  the  thresh- 
old, and  I  began  to  doubt,  from  the  look  in  her  eyes, 
*hciher  I  should  get  a  blow  of  her  hairy  arm  or  a 
1  1 


"  persuader"  from  the  butt  of  a  gun  for  my  intrusion. 
"  What  are  ye  wantin'  here  ?"  she  speered  at  me, 
with  a  Helen-M'Gregor-to-Baillie-Nicol-Jarvie-sort- 
of-an  expression. 

"  I  was  looking  for  a  potato  to  roast,  my  good  wo- 
man." 

"  Is  that  a' t  Ye'll  find  it  ayont,  then  !"  and,  point- 
ing to  a  bag  in  the  corner,  she  stood  while  I  subtract- 
ed the  largest,  and  then  followed  me  to  the  general 
kitchen  and  receiving-room,  where  I  buried  my  int- 
provista  dinner  in  the  remains  of  the  peat  fire,  and 
congratulated  myself  on  my  ready  apology. 

What  to  do  while  the  potato  was  roasting!  My 
English  friend  had  already  cleaned  his  gun  for  amuse- 
ment, and  I  had  looked  on.  We  had  stoned  the  pony 
till  he  had  got  beyond  us  in  the  morass,  (small  thanks 
to  us,  if  the  dame  knew  it !)  We  had  tried  to  make 
a  chicken  swim  ashore  from  the  boat,  we  had  fired 
away  all  my  friend's  percussion  caps,  and  there  was 
nothing  for  it  but  to  converse  a  rigueur.  We  lay  on 
our  backs  till  the  dame  brought  us  the  hot  potato  on  a 
shovel,  with  oat-cake  and  butter,  and,  with  this  High- 
land dinner,  the  last  hour  came  decently  to  its  death. 

An  Englishman,  with  his  wife  and  lady's  maid, 
came  over  the  hills  with  a  boat's  crew;  and  a  lassie 
who  was  not  very  pretty,  but  who  lived  on  the  lake 
and  had  found  the  means  to  get  "  Captain  Rob"  and 
his  men  pretty  well  under  her  thumb.  We  were  all 
embarked,  the  lassie  in  the  stern-sheets  with  the  cap- 
tain; and  ourselves,  though  we  "paid  the  Scot,"  of 
no  more  consideration  than  our  portmanteaus.  I  was 
amused,  for  it  was  the  first  instance  I  had  seen  in  any 
country  (my  own  not  excepted),  of  thorough  emanci- 
pation from  the  distinction  of  superiors  and  inferiors. 
Luckily  the  girl  was  bent  on  showing  the  captain  to 
advantage,  and  by  ingenious  prompting  and  catechism, 
she  induced  him  to  do  what  probably  was  his  custom 
when  he  could  not  better  amuse  himself — point  out 
the  localities  as  the  boat  sped  on,  and  quote  the  Lady 
of  the  Lake,  with  an  accent  which  made  it  a  piece  of 
good  fortune  to  have  "  crammed"  the  poem  before- 
hand. 

The  shores  of  the  lake  are  flat  and  uninteresting  at 
the  head,  but,  toward  the  scene  of  Scott's  romance, 
they  rise  into  bold  precipices,  and  gradually  become 
worthy  of  their  celebrity.  The  Trosachs  are  a  clus- 
ter of  small,  green  mountains,  strewn,  or  rather  piled, 
with  shrubs  and  mossy  verdure,  and  from  a  distance 
you  would  think  only  a  bird,  or  Ranald  of  the  Mist, 
could  penetrate  their  labyrinthine  recesses.  Captain 
Rob  showed  us  successively  the  Braes  of  Balquidder, 
Rob  Roy's  birth  and  burial  place,  Benledi,  and  the 
eras;  from  which  hung,  by  the  well-woven  skirts  of 
braidcloth,  the  worthy  baillie  of  Glasgow  ;  and,  be- 
neath a  precipice  of  remarkable  wildness,  the  half- 
intoxicated  steersman  raised  his  arm  and  began  to  re- 
peat, in  the  most  unmitigated  gutterals : — 

"  High  o'er  the  south  huge  Benrenue 
Down  to  the  lake  his  masses  threw, 
Crags,  knowls  and  mounds  confusedly  hurl'd 
The  fragments  of  an  earlier  uurruld!"  etc. 

I  have  underlined  it  according  to  the  captain's  ju- 
dicious emphasis,  and  in  the  last  word  have  endeav- 
ored to  spell  after  his  remarkable  pronunciation. 
Probably  to  a  Frenchman,  however,  it  would  have 
seemed  all  very  fine — for  Captain  Rob  (I  must  do  him 
justice,  though  he  broke  the  strap  of  my  portmanteau) 
was  as  good-looking  a  ruffian  as  you  would  sketch  on 
a  summer's  tour. 

Some  of  the  loveliest  water  I  have  ever  seen  in  my 
life  (and  I  am  rather  an  amateur  of  that  element — to 
look  at),  lies  deep  down  at  the  bases  of  these  divine. 
Trosachs.  The  usual  approaches  from  lake  to  moun- 
tain (beach  or  sloping  shore),  are  here  dispensed  with  ; 
and,  straight  up  from  the  deeD  water,  rise  the  green 


210 


PENCILLINGS  BY  THE   WAY. 


precipices  and  bold  and  ragged  rocks,  overshadowing 
the  glassy  mirror  below  with  teints  like  a  cool  corner 
in  a  landscape  of  Ruysdael's.  It  is  something — (in- 
deed, on  a  second  thought,  exceedingly)  like — Lake 
George  ;  only  that  the  islands  in  this  extremity  of 
Loch  Katrine  lie  closer  together,  and  permit  the  sun 
no  entrance  except  by  a  ray  almost  perpendicular. 
A  painter  will  easily  understand  the  effect  of  this — 
the  loss  of  all  that  makes  a  surface  to  the  water,  and 
the  consequent  far  depth  to  the  eye,  as  if  the  boat  in 
which  you  shot  over  it,  brought  with  it  its  own  water 
and  sent  its  ripple  through  the  transparent  air.  I 
write  currente  calamo,  and  have  no  time  to  clear  up 
my  meaning,  but  it  will  be  evident  to  all  lovers  of 
nature. 

Captain  Rob  put  up  his  helm  for  a  little  fairy  green 
island,  lying  like  a  lapfull  of  green  moss  on  the  water, 
and,  rounding  a  point,  we  ran  suddenly  into  a  cove 
sheltered  by  a  tree,  and  in  a  moment  the  boat  grated 
on  the  pebbles  of  a  natural  beach,  perhaps  ten  feet  in 
length.  A  flight  of  winding  steps,  made  roughly  of 
roots  and  stones,  ascended  from  the  water's  edge. 

"  Gentlemen  and  ladies  !"  said  the  captain,  with  a 
hiccup,  "this  is  Ellen's  Isle.  This  is  the  gnarled 
oak,"  (catching  at  a  branch  of  the  tree   as  the  boat 

swung  astern),  "  and you'll  please  to  go  up  them 

steps,  and  I'll  tell  ye  the  rest  in  Ellen's  bower." 

The  Highland  lassie  sprang  on  shore,  and  we  fol- 
lowed up  the  steep  ascent,  arriving  breathless  at  last 
at  the  door  of  a  fanciful  bower,  built  by  Lord  Wil- 
loughby  d'Eresby  (the  owner  of  the  island),  exactly 
after  the  description  in  the  Lady  of  the  Lake.  The 
chairs  were  made  of  crooked  branches  of  trees  and 
covered  with  deer-skins,  the  tables  were  laden  with 
armor  and  every  variety  of  weapon,  and  the  rough 
beams  of  the  building  were  hung  with  antlers  and 
other  spoils  of  the  chase. 

"  Here's  where  she  lived !"  said  the  captain,  with 
the  gravity  of  a  cicerone  at  the  Forum,  "  and  noo,  if 
ye'll  come  out,  I'll  show  you  the  echo  !" 

We  followed  to  the  highest  point  of  the  island,  and 
the  Highlandman  gave  a  scream  that  showed  consid- 
erable practice,  but  I  thought  he  would  have  burst  his 
throat  in  the  effort.  The  awful  echo  went  round,  "as 
mentioned  in  the  bill  of  performance,"  every  separate 
mountain  screaming  back  the  discord  till  you  would 
have  thought  the  Trosachs  a  crew  of  mocking  giants. 
It  was  a  wonderful  echo,  but,  like  most  wonders,  I 
could  have  been  content  to  have  had  less  for  my 
money. 

There  was  a  "small  silver  beach"  on  the  mainland 
opposite,  and  above  it  a  high  mass  of  mountain. 

"There,"  said  the  captain,  "  gentlemen  and  ladies, 
is  where  Fitz-James  bloio'd  his  bugle,  and  waited  for 
the  '  light  shallop'  of  Ellen  Douglas ;  and  here, 
where  you  landed  and  came  up  them  steps,  is  where 
she  brought  him  to  the  bower,  and  the  very  tree's  still 
there  (as  you  see'd  me  tak'  hold  of  it),  and  over  the 
hill,  yonder,  is  where  the  gallant  gray  giv  out  and 
breathed  his  last,  and  (will  you  turn  round,  if  you 
please,  them  that  like's)  yonder's  where  Fitz-James 
met  Red  Murdoch  that  killed  Blanche  of  Devon,  and 
right  across  this  water  sivum  young  Greme  that  dis- 
dained the  regular  boat,  and  I  'spose  on  that  lower 
step  set  the  old  harper  and  Ellen  many  a  time  a-watch- 
ing  for  Douglas  ;  and  now  if  you'd  like  to  hear  the 
echo  once  more" — 

"  Heaven  forbid"  was  the  universal  cry  ;  and,  in 
fear  of  our  ears,  we  put  the  bower  between  us  and 
Captain  Rob's  lungs,  and  followed  the  Highland  girl 
back  to  the  boat. 

From  Ellen's  Isle  to  the  head  of  the  small  creek, 
so  beautifully  described  in  the  Lady  of  the  Lake,  the 
scenery  has  the  same  air  of  lavish  and  graceful  vege- 
tation, and  the  same  features  of  mingled  boldness  and 
oeauty.     It  was  a  spot  altogether  that  one  is  sure  to 


live  much  in  with  memory.  I  see  it  as  clearly  now  as 
then. 

The  whiskey  had  circulated  pretty  freely  among 
the  crew,  and  all  were  more  or  less  intoxicated.  Cap- 
tain Rob's  first  feat  on  his  legs  was  to  drop  my  friend's 
gun-case  and  break  it  to  pieces,  for  which  he  instantly 
got  a  cuff  between  the  eyes  from  the  boxing  dandy, 
that  would  have  done  the  business  for  a  softer  head. 
The  Scot  was  a  powerful  fellow,  and  I  anticipated  a 
row;  but  the  tremendous  power  of  the  blow  and  the 
skill  with  which  it  was  planted,  quite  subdued  him. 
He  rose  from  the  grass  as  white  as  a  sheet,  but  quietly 
shouldered  the  portmanteau  with  which  he  had  fallen, 
and  trudged  on  with  sobered  steps  to  the  inn. 

We  took  a  post-chaise  immediately  for  Callender, 
and  it  was  not  till  we  were  five  miles  from  the  foot  of 
the  lake,  that  I  lost  my  apprehensions  of  an  apparition 
of  the  Highlander  from  the  darkening  woods.  We 
arrived  at  Callender  at  nine,  and  the  next  morning  at 
sunrise  were  on  our  way  to  breakfast  at  Stirling. 


LETTER  CXXXVI. 

SCOTTISH     STAGES THOROUGH-BRED     SETTER SCEN- 
ERY  FEMALE       PEASANTRY MARY,      QUEEN      OF 

SCOTS STIRLING    CASTLE. 

The  lakes  of  Scotland  are  without  the  limits  of 
stage-coach  and  post-horse  civilization,  and  to  arrive  at 
these  pleasant  conveniences  is  to  be  consoled  for  the 
corresponding  change  in  the  character  of  the  scenery. 
From  Callander  there  is  a  coach  to  Stirling,  and  it  was 
on  the  top  of  the  "  Highlander"  (a  brilliant  red  coach, 
with  a  picture  of  Rob  Roy  on  the  panels),  that,  with 
my  friend  and  his  dog,  I  was  on  the  road,  bright  and 
early,  for  the  banks  of  the  Teith.  I  have  scarce  done 
justice,  by  the  way,  to  my  last-mentioned  companion 
(a  superb,  thorough-bred  setter,  who  answered  to  the 
derogatory  appellation  of  Flirt")  for  he  had  accompa- 
nied me  in  most  of  my  wanderings  for  a  couple  of 
months,  and  his  society  had  been  preferred  to  that  of 
many  a  reasoning  animal  on  the  road,  in  the  frequent 
dearth  of  amusement.  Flirt's  pedigree  had  been 
taken  on  trust  by  my  friend,  the  dog-fancier,  of 
whom  he  was  bought,  only  knowing  that  he  came  of 
a  famous  race,  belonging  to  a  gentleman  living  some- 
where between  Stirling  and  Callander;  and  to  deter- 
mine his  birthplace  and  get  another  of  the  same  breed, 
was  a  greater  object  with  his  master  than  to  see  all  the 
lakes  and  mountains  of  Caledonia.  Poor  Flirt  was 
elevated  to  the  highest  seat  on  the  coach,  little  aware 
that  his  reputation  for  birth  and  breeding  depended  on 
his  recognising  the  scenes  of  his  puppyhood — for  if 
his  former  master  had  told  truly,  these  were  the  fields 
where  his  young  ideas  had  been  taught  a  dog's  share 
in  shooting,  and  his  unconscious  tail  and  ears  were 
now  under  watchful  surveillance  for  a  betrayal  of  his 
presumed  reminiscences. 

The  coach  rolled  on  over  the  dew-damp  road,  cross- 
ing continually  those  bright  and  sparkling  rivulets, 
which  gladden  the  favored  neighborhood  of  moun- 
tains; and  the  fields  and  farm-houses  took  gradually 
the  look  of  thrift  and  care,  which  indicates  an  approach 
to  a  thickly-settled  country.  The  castle  of  Doune,  a 
lovely  hunting-seat  of  the  Queen  of  Scots,  appeared 
in  the  distance,  with  its  gray  towers  half  buried  in 
trees,  when  Flirt  began  to  look  before  and  behind,  and 
take  less  notice  of  the  shabby  gentleman  on  his  left, 
who,  from  sharing  with  him  a  volant  breakfast  of  bread 
and  bacon,  had  hitherto  received  the  most  of  his  at 
tention.  We  kept  on  at  a  pretty  pace,  and  Flirt's  tail 
shifted  sides  once  or  twice  with  a  v^rv  decided  whis': 


PENCILL1NGS  BY  THE   WAV. 


211 


and  his  intelligent  head  gradually  grew  more  erect 
upon  his  neck  of  white-and-tan.  It  was  evident  he 
had  travelled  the  road  before.  Still  on,  and  as  the 
pellucid  Teith  began  to  reflect  in  her  eddying  mirror 
the  towers  of  Castle  Doune — a  scene  worthy  of  its  ten- 
der and  chivalrous  associations — a  suppressed  whine 
and  a  fixed  look  over  the  fields  to  the  right,  satisfied 
us  that  the  soul  of  the  setter  was  stirring  with  the  rec- 
ognition of  the  past.  The  coach  was  stopped  and 
Flirt  loosed  from  his  chain,  and,  with  a  promise  to  join 
me  at  Stirling  at  dinner,  my  friend  "hied  away"  the 
delighted  dog  over  the  hedge,  and  followed  himself 
on  foot,  to  visit,  by  canine  guidance,  the  birthplace  of 
this  accomplished  family.  It  was  quite  beautiful  to 
see  the  fine  creature  beat  the  field  over  and  over  in  his 
impatience,  returning  to  his  slower-footed  master,  as 
if  to  hurry  him  onward,  and  leaping  about  him  with 
an  extravagance  eloquent  of  such  unusual  joy.  I  lost 
sight  of  them  by  a  turning  in  the  road,  and  reverted 
for  consolation  to  that  loveliest  river,  on  whose  green 
bank  I  could  have  lain  (had  I  breakfasted)  and  dreamed 
till  the  sunset  of  the  unfortunate  queen,  for  whose 
soft  eyes  and  loving  heart  it  perhaps  flowed  no  more 
brightly  in  the  days  of  Ri/.zio,  than  now  for  mine  and 
those  of  the  early  marketers  to  Stirling. 

The  road  was  thronged  with  carts,  and  peasants  in 
their  best  attire.  The  gentleman  who  had  provided 
against  the  enemy  with  a  brown-paper  of  bread  and 
bacon,  informed  me  that  it  was  market-day.  A  very 
great  proportion  of  the  country  people  were  women 
and  girls,  walking  all  of  them  barefoot,  but  with  shoes 
in  their  hands,  and  gowns  and  bonnets  that  would  have 
eclipsed  in  finery  the  bevy  of  noble  ladies  at  Gordon 
Castle.  Leghorn  straw-hats  and  dresses  of  silk,  with 
ribands  of  any  quantity  and  brilliancy,  were  the  com- 
monest articles.  Feet  excepted,  however  (for  they 
had  no  triflers  of  pedestals,  and  stumped  along  the 
road  with  a  sovereign  independence  of  pools  and  peb- 
bles), they  were  a  wholesome-looking  and  rather  pret- 
ty class  of  females  ;  and,  with  the  exception  of  here 
and  there  a  prim  lassie,  who  dropped  her  dress  over 
her  feet  while  the  coach  passed,  and  hid  her  shoes 
under  her  handkerchief,  they  seemed  perfectly  satis- 
fied with  their  own  mode  of  conveyance,  and  gave  us  a 
smile  in  passing,  which  said  very  distinctly,  "  You'll  be 
there  before  us,  but  it's  only  seven  miles,  and  we'll 
foot  it  in  time."  How  various  are  the  joys  of  life  !  I 
went  on  with  the  coach,  wondering  whether  I  ever 
could  be  reduced  to  find  pleasure  in  walking  ten  miles 
barefoot  to  a  fair — and  back  again  ! 

I  thought  again  of  Mary,  as  the  turrets  of  the  proud 
castle  where  she  was  crowned  became  more  distinct  in 
the  approach — but  it  is  difficult  in  entering  a  crowded 
town,  with  a  real  breakfast  in  prospect  and  live  Scotch- 
men about  me,  to  remember  with  any  continuous  en- 
thusiasm even  the  most  brilliant  events  of  history. 

"  Can  history  cui  my  hay  or  get  my  corn  in  ? 
Or  can  philosophy  vend  it  in  the  market?" 

says  somebody  in  the  play,  and  with  a  similar  thought 
I  looked  up  at  the  lofty  towers  of  the  home  of  Scot- 
land's kings,  as  the  "Highlander"  bowled  round  its 
rocky  base  to  the  inn.  The  landlord  appeared  with 
his  whire  apron,  "boots"  with  his  ladder,  the  coach- 
man and  guard  with  their  hints  to  your  memory  ;  and, 
having  ordered  breakfast  of  the  first,  descended  the 
"convenience"  of  the  second,  and  received  a  tip  of 
the  hat  for  a  shilling  to  the  remaining  two,  I  was  at 
liberty  to  walk  up  stairs  and  while  away  a  melancholy 
half  hour  in  humming  such  charitable  stanzas  as 
would  come  uncalled  to  my  aid. 

"  Oh  for  a  plump  fat  leg  of  mutton, 
Veal,  lamb,  capon,  pig  and  cony, 
None  is  happy  but  a  glutton, 

None  an  ass  but  who  wants  money." 


So  sang  the  servant  of  Diogenes,  with  an  exception 
J  able  morality,  which,  nevertheless,  it  is  difficult  to  get 
j  out  of  one's  head  at  Stirling,  if  one  has  not  already 
breakfasted. 


I  limped  up  the  long  street  leading  to  the  castle, 
stopping  on  the  way  to  look  at  a  group  of  natives  who 
were  gaping  at  an  advertisement  just  stuck  to  the  wall, 
offering  to  take  emigrants  to  New- York  on  terms  "ri- 
diculously trifling."  Remembering  the  "  bannocks 
o'  barley  meal"  I  had  eaten  for  breakfast,  the  haddocks 
and  marmalade,  the  cold  grouse  and  porridge,  I  longed 
to  pull  Sawney  by  the  coat,  and  tell  him  he  was  just 
as  well  where  he  was.  Yret  the  temptation  of  the 
Greenock  trader,  "cheap  and  nasty"  though  it  were, 
was  not  uninviting  to  me  ! 

I  was  met  on  the  drawbridge  of  the  castle  by  a  trim 
corporal,  who  offered  to  show  me  the  lions  for  a  con- 
sideration. I  put  myself  under  his  guidance,  and  he 
took  me  to  Queen  Mary's  apartments,  used  at  present 
for  a  mess-room,  to  the  chamber  where  Earl  Douglas 
was  murdered,  etc.,  etc.,  etc.,  in  particulars  which  are 
accurately  treated  of  in  the  guide-books.  The  pipers 
were  playing  in  the  court,  and  a  company  or  two  of  a 
Highland  regiment,  in  their  tartans  and  feathers,  were 
under  parade.  This  was  attractive  metal  to  me,  and  I 
sat  down  on  a  parapet,  where  I  soon  struck  up  a  friend- 
ship with  a  curly-headed  varlet,  some  four  years  old, 
who  shouldered  my  stick  without  the  ceremony  of 
"  by-your-leave,"  and  commenced  the  drill  upon  an 
unwashed  regiment  of  his  equals  in  a  sunshiny  corner 
below.  It  was  delightful  to  see  their  gravity  and  the 
military  air  with  which  they  cocked  their  bonnets  and 
stuck  out  their  little  round  stomachs  at  the  word  of 
command.  My  little  Captain  Cockchafer  returned 
my  stick  like  a  knight  of  honor,  and  familiarly  climbed 
upon  my  knee  to  repose  after  his  campaign,  very  much 
j  to  the  surprise  of  his  mother,  who  was  hanging  out  to 
|  dry,  what  looked  like  his  father's  inexpressibles,  from 
a  window  above,  and  who  came  down  and  apologized 
in  the  most  unmitigated  Scotch  for  the  liberty  the 
"  babby"  had  taken  with  "  his  honor."  For  the  child 
of  a  camp-follower,  it  was  a  gallant  boy,  and  I  remem- 
ber him  better  than  the  drill-sergeant  or  the  piper. 

On  the  north  side  of  Stirling  Castle  the  view  is 
bounded  "by  the  Grampians  and  laced  by  the  winding 
Teith;  and  just  under  the  battlements  lies  a  green 
hollow,  called  the  "  King's  Knot."  where  the  gay  tour- 
naments were  held,  and  the  "Ladies'  Hill,"  where  sat 
the  gay  and  lovely  spectators  of  the  chivalry  of  Scot- 
land. Heading  Hill  is  near  it,  where  James  executed 
Albany  and  his  sons,  and  the  scenes  and  events  of  his- 
tory and  poetry  are  thickly  sown  at  your  feet.  Once 
recapitulated,  however — the  Bruce  and  the  Douglas, 
Mary  and  the  "  Gudeman  of  Ballengiech,"  once  hon- 
ored in  memory — the  surpassing  beauty  of  the  pros- 
pect from  Stirling  towers,  engross  the  fancy  and  fill  the 
eye.  It  was  a  day  of  predominant  sunshine,  with  here 
and  there  the  shadow  of  a  cloud  darkening  a  field  of 
stubble  or  a  bend  of  the  river,  and  I  wandered  round 
from  bastion  to  bastion,  never  sated  with  gazing,  and 
returning  continually  to  the  points  from  which  the 
corporal  had  hurried  me  on.  There  lay  the  Forth — 
here  Bannockburn  and  Falkirk,  and  all  bathed  and 
flooded  with  beauty.  Let  him  who  thinks  the  earth 
ill-looking,  peep  at  it  through  the  embrasures  of  Stir- 
ling Castle. 

My  friend,  the  corporal,  got  but  sixteen  pence  a 
day,  "and  had  a  wife  and  children — but  much  as  I 
should  dislike  all  three  as  disconnected  items,  I  envied 
him  his  lot  altogether.  A  garrison  life  at  Stirling,  and 
plenty  of  leisure,  would  reconcile  one  almost  to  wife 
and  children  and  a  couple  of  pistareens  per  diem. 


212 


PENCILLINGS  BY  THE  WAY. 


LETTER  CXXXVII. 

SCOTCH   SCENERY — A   RACE — CHEAPNESS    OF    LODGINGS 

IN    EDINBURGH — ABBOTTSFORD— SCOTT LORD    DAL- 

HOTJSIE — THOMAS  MOORE — JANE  PORTER — THE  GRAVE 
OF  SCOTT. 

I  was  delighted  to  find  Stirling  rather  worse  than 
Albany  in  the  matter  of  steamers.  I  had  a  running 
fight  for  my  portmanteau  and  carpet-bag  from  the 
hotel  to  the  pier,  and  was  at  last  embarked  in  entirely 
the  wrong  boat,  by  sheer  force  of  pulling  and  lying. 
They  could  scarce  have  put  me  in  a  greater  rage  be- 
tween Cruttenden's  and  the  Overslaugh. 

The  two  rival  steamers,  the  "  Victory"  and  the 
"Ben  Lomond,"  got  under  way  together;  the  former, 
in  which  I  was  a  compulsory  passenger,  having  a 
flagelet  and  a  bass-drum  by  way  of  a  band,  and  the 
other  a  dozen  lusty  performers  and  most  of  the  com- 
pany. The  river  was  very  narrow  and  the  tide  down, 
and  though  the  other  was  the  better  boat,  we  had  the 
bolder  pilot  and  were  lighter  laden  and  twice  as  des- 
perate. I  found  my  own  spunk  stirred  irresistibly 
after  the  first  mile.  We  were  contending  against 
odds,  and  there  was  something  in  it  that  touched  my 
Americanism  nearly.  We  had  three  small  boys 
mounted  on  the  box  over  the  wheel,  who  cheered  and 
waved  their  hats  at  our  momentary  advantages  ;  but 
the  channel  was  full  of  windings,  and  if  we  gained  on 
the  larboard  tack  we  lost  on  the  starboard.  When- 
ever we  were  quite  abreast,  and  the  wheels  touched 
with  the  narrowness  of  the  river,  we  marched  our 
flagelet  and  bass-drum  close  to  the  enemy  and  gave 
them  a  blast  "  to  wake  the  dead,"  taking  occasion, 
during  our  moments  of  defeat,  to  recover  breath  and 
ply  the  principal  musician  with  beer  and  encourage- 
ment. It  was  a  scene  for  Cooper  to  describe.  The 
two  pilots  stood  broad  on  their  legs,  every  muscle  on 
the  alert :  and  though  Ben  Lomond  wore  the  cleaner 
jacket,  Victory  had  the  "  varminter"  look.  You 
would  have  bet  on  Victory  to  have  seen  the  man.  He 
was  that  wickedest  of  all  wicked-looking  things,  a 
wicked  Scotchman — a  sort  of  saint-turned-sinner. 
The  expression  of  early  good  principles  was  glazed 
over  with  drink  and  recklessness,  like  a  scene  from  the 
Inferno  painted  over  a  Madonna  of  Raphael's.  It  was 
written  in  his  face  that  he  was  a  transgressor  against 
knowledge.  We  were  perhaps,  a  half-dozen  passen- 
gers, exclusive  of  the  boys,  and  we  rallied  round  our 
Bardolph-nosed  hero  and  applauded  his  skilful  manoeu- 
vres ;  sun,  steam  and  excitement  together,  producing 
a  temperature  on  deck  that  left  nothing  to  dread  from 
the  boiler.  As  we  approached  a  sharp  bend  in  the 
course  of  the  stream,  I  perceived  by  the  countenance 
of  our  pilot,  that  it  was  to  be  a  critical  moment.  The 
Ben  Lomond  was  a  little  ahead,  but  we  had  the  advan- 
tage of  the  inside  of  the  course,  and  very  soon,  with 
the  commencement  of  the  curve,  we  gained  sensibly 
on  the  enemy,  and  I  saw  clearly  that  we  should  cut 
her  off  by  a  half-boat's  length.  The  three  boys  on  the 
wheel  began  to  shout,  the  flagelet  made  all  split  again 
with  "the  Campbells  are  comin',"  the  brass-drum  was 
never  so  belabored,  and  "  Up  with  your  helm !" 
cried  every  voice,  as  we  came  at  the  rate  of  twelve 
miles  in  the  hour  sharp  on  to  the  angle  of  mud  and  i 
bulrushes,  and,  to  our  utter  surprise,  the  pilot  jammed 
down  his  tiller,  and  ran  the  battered  nose  of  the 
Victory  plump  in  upon  the  enemy's  forward  quarter  !  j 
The  next  moment  we  were  going  it  like  mad  down  j 
the  middle  of  the  river,  and  far  astern  stuck  the  Ben 
Lomond  in  the  mud,  her  paddles  driving  her  deeper  j 
at  every  stroke,  her  music  hushed,  and  the  crowd  on  I 
her  deck  standing  speechless  with  amazement.  The  I 
flagelet  and  bass-drum  marched  aft  and  played  louder  j 
than  ever,  and  we  were  soon  in  the  open  Frith,  get-  j 
ting  on  merrily,  but  without  competition,  to  the  sleep-  j 


ing  isle  of  Inchkeith.  Lucky  Victory !  luckier  pilot! 
to  have  found  an  historian  !  How  many  a  red-nosed 
Palinurus — how  many  a  bass-drum  and  flagelet,  have 
done  their  duty  as  well,  yet  achieved  no  immortality. 

I  was  glad  to  see  "Auld  Reekie"  again,  though  the 
influx  of  strangers  to  the  "Scientific  Meeting"  had 
over-run  every  hotel,  and  I  was  an  hour  or  two  with- 
out a  home.  I  lit  at  last  upon  a  good  old  Scotch- 
woman who  had  "  a  flat"  to  herself,  and  who,  for  the 
sum  of  one  shilling  and  sixpence  per  diem,  proposed 
to  transfer  her  only  boarder  from  his  bed  to  a  sofa,  as 
long  as  I  should  wish  to  stay.  I  made  a  humane 
remonstrance  against  the  inconvenience  to  her  friend. 
"  It's  only  a  Jew,"  she  said,  "and  they're  na  difficult, 
puir  bodies!"  The  Hebrew  came  in  while  we  were 
debating  the  point — a  smirking  gentleman,  with  very 
elaborated  whiskers,  much  better  dressed  than  the 
proposed  usurper  of  his  sanctum — and  without  the 
slightest  hesitation  professed  that  nothing  would  give 
him  so  much  pain  as  to  stand  in  the  way  of  his  land- 
lady's interest.  So  for  eighteen  pence  (and  I  could 
not  prevail  on  her  to  take  another  farthing)  I  had  a 
Jew  put  to   inconvenience,  a  bed,  boots  and  clothes 

brushed,  and  Mrs.  Mac to  sit  up  forme  till  two 

in  the  morning — what  the  Jew  himself  would  have 
called  a  "  cheap  article." 

I  returned  to  my  delightful  headquarters  at  Dal- 
housie  castle  on  the  following  day,  and  among  many 
excursions  in  the  neighborhood  during  the  ensuing 
week,  accomplished  a  visit  to  Abbottsford.  This  most 
interesting  of  all  spots  has  been  so  minutely  and  so 
often  described,  that  a  detailed  account  of  it  would  be 
a  mere  repetition.  Description,  however,  has  antici- 
pated nothing  to  the  visiter.  The  home  of  Sir  Walter 
Scott  would  possess  an  interest  to  thrill  the  hqart,  if  it 
were  as  well  painted  to  the  eye  of  fancy  as  the  homes 
of  his  own  heroes. 

It  is  a  dreary  country  about  Abbottsford,  and  the 
house  itself  looks  from  a  distance  like  a  small,  low 
castle,  buried  in  stunted  trees,  on  the  side  of  a  long, 
sloping  upland  or  moor.  The  river  is  between  you 
and  the  chateau  as  you  come  down  to  Melrose  from 
the  north,  and  you  see  the  gray  towers  opposite  you 
from  the  road  at  the  distance  of  a  mile — the  only 
habitable  spot  in  an  almost  desolate  waste  of  country. 
From  the  town  of  Melrose  you  approach  Abbottsford 
by  a  long,  green  lane,  and,  from  the  height  of  the 
hedge,  and  the  descending  ground  on  which  the  house 
is  built,  you  would  scarce  suspect  its  vicinity  till  you 
enter  a  small  gate  on  the  right  and  find  yourself  in  an 
avenue  of  young  trees.  This  conducts  you  im- 
mediately to  the  door,  and  the  first  effect  on  me  was 
that  of  a  spacious  castle  seen  through  a  reversed 
glass.  In  fact  it  is  a  kind  of  castle  cottage — not  larger 
than  what  is  often  called  a  cottage  in  England,  yet  to 
the  minutest  point  and  proportion  a  model  of  an  an- 
cient castle.  The  deception  in  the  engravings  of  the 
place  lies  in  the  scale.  It  seems  like  a  vast  building 
as  usually  drawn. 

One  or  two  hounds  were  lounging  round  the  door  ; 
but  the  only  tenant  of  the  place  was  a  slovenly  house- 
maid, whom  we  interrupted  in  the  profane  task  of 
scrubbing  the  furniture  in  the  library.  I  could  have 
pitched  her  and  her  scrubbing-brushes  out  of  the 
window  with  a  good  will.  It  really  is  a  pity  that  this 
sacred  place,  with  its  thousand  valuable  and  irreplacea- 
ble curiosities,  should  be  so  carelessly  neglected.  We 
were  left  to  wander  over  the  house  and  the  museum 
as  we  liked.  I  could  have  brought  away  (and  nothing 
is  more  common  than  this  species  of  theft  in  England) 
twenty  things  from  that  rare  collection,  of  which  the 
value  could  scarce  be  estimated.  The  pistols  and 
dagger  of  Rob  Roy,  and  a  hundred  equally  valuable 
and  pocketable  things,  lay  on  fhe  shelves  unprotected, 
quite  at  the  mercy  of  th<>   ill-disposed,  to  say  nothing 


PENCILLINGS  BY  THE  WAY. 


213 


of  the  merciless  "  cleanings"  of  the  housemaid.  The 
present  Sir  Walter  Scott  is  a  captain  of  dragoons, 
with  his  regiment  in  Ireland,  and  the  place  is  never 
occupied  by  the  family.  Why  does  not  Scotland  buy 
Abbottsford,  and  secure  to  herself,  while  it  is  still  per- 
fect, the  home  of  her  great  magician,  and  the  spot  that 
to  after  ages  would  be,  if  preserved  in  its  curious 
details,  the  most  interesting  in  Great  Britain? 

After  showing  us  the  principal  rooms,  the  woman 
opened  a  small  closet  adjoining  the  study,  in  which 
hung  the  last  clothes  that  Sir  Walter  had  worn. 
There  was  the  broad-skirted  blue  coat  with  large  but- 
tons, the  plaid  trousers,  the  heavy  shoes,  the  broad- 
rimmed  hat  and  stout  walking-stick — the  dress  in 
which  he  rambled  about  in  the  morning,  and  which 
he  laid  olf  when  he  took  to  his  bed  in  his  last  illness. 
She  took  down  the  coat  and  gave  it  a  shake  and  a 
wipe  of  the  collar,  as  if  he  were  waiting  to  put  it  on 
again  1 

It  was  encroaching  somewhat  on  the  province  of 
Touchstone  and  Wamba  to  moralize  on  a  suit  of 
clothes — but  I  am  convinced  that  I  got  from  them  a 
belter  idea  of  Scott,  as  he  was  in  his  familiar  hours, 
than  any  man  can  have  who  has  seen  neither  him  nor 
them.  There  was  a  character  in  the  hat  and  shoes. 
The  coat  was  an  honest  and  hearty  coat.  The 
stout,  rough  walking-stick,  seemed  as  if  it  could 
have  belonged  to  no  other  man.  I  appeal  to  my  kind 
friends  and  fellow-travellers  who  were  there  three  days 
before  me  (I  saw  their  names  on  the  book),  if  the  same 
impression  was  not  made  on  them. 

1  asked  for  the  room  in  which  Sir  Walter  died. 
She  showed  it  to  me,  and  the  place  where  the  bed  had 
stood  which  was  now  removed.  I  was  curious  to  see 
the  wall  or  the  picture  over  which  his  last  looks  must 
have  passed.  Directly  opposite  the  foot  of  the  bed 
hung  a  remarkable  picture — the  head  of  Mary  Queen 
of  Scots,  in  a  dish  taken  after  her  execution.  The 
features  were  composed  and  beautiful.  On  either  side 
of  it  hung  spirited  drawings  from  the  Tales  of  a  Grand- 
father— one  very  clever  sketch,  representing  the  wife 
of  a  border-knight  serving  up  her  husband's  spurs  for 
dinner,  to  remind  him  of  the  poverty  of  the  larder  and 
the  necessity  of  a  foray.  On  the  left  side  of  the  bed 
was  a  broad  window  to  the  west — the  entrance  of  the 
last  light  to  his  eyes — and  from  hence  had  sped  the 
greatest  spirit  that  has  walked  the  world  since  Shaks- 
pere.  It  almost  makes  the  heart  stand  still  to  be 
silent  and  alone  on  such  a  spot. 

What  an  interest  there  is  in  the  trees  of  Abbotts- 
ford — planted  every  one  by  the  same  hand  that  waved 
its  wand  of  enchantment  over  the  world  !  One  walks 
among  them  as  if  they  had  thoughts  and  memories. 

Everybody  talks  of  Scott  who  has  ever  had  the  hap- 
piness of  seeing  him,  and  it  is  strange  how  interesting 
it  is  even  when  there  is  no  anecdote,  and  only  the 
most  commonplace  interview  is  narrated.  I  have 
heard,  since  I  have  been  in  England,  hundreds  of 
people  describe  their  conversations  with  him,  and  never 
the  dullest  without  a  certain  interest  far  beyond  that 
of  common  topics.  Some  of  these  have  been  cele- 
brated people,  and  there  is  the  additional  weight  that 
they  were  honored  friends  of  Sir  Walter's. 

Lord  Dalhousie  told  me  that  he  was  Scott's  play- 
fellow at  the  high  school  of  Edinboro'.  There  was  a 
peculiar  arrangement  of  the  benches  with  a  head  and 
foot,  so  that  the  boys  sat  above  or  below,  according  to 
their  success  in  recitation.  It  so  happened  that  the 
warmest  seat  in  the  school,  that  next  to  the  stove,  was 
about  two  from  the  bottom,  and  this  Scott,  who  was 
a  very  good  scholar,  contrived  never  to  leave.  He 
stuck  to  his  seat  from  autumn  till  spring,  never  so 
deficient  as  to  get  down,  and  never  choosing  to  answer 
rightly  if  the  result  was  to  go  up.  He  was  very  lame, 
and  seldom  shared  in  the  sports  of  the  other  boys,  but 


was  a  prodigious  favorite,  and  loved  to  sit  in  the  sun- 
shine, with  a  knot  of  boys  around  him  telling  stories. 
Lord  Dalhousie's  friendship  with  him  was  uninter- 
rupted through  life,  and  he  invariably  breakfasted  at 
the  castle  on  his  way  to  and  from  Edinboro'. 

I  met  Moore  at  a  dinner-party  not  long  since,  and 
Scott  was  again  (as  at  a  previous  dinner  I  have  de- 
scribed)  the  subject  of  conversation.     "  He  was  the 
soul  of  honesty,"  said   Moore.     "  When   I  was  on  a 
visit  to  him,  we  were  coming  up  from  Kelso  at  sunset, 
and  as  there  was  to  be  a  fine  moon,  I  quoted  to  him 
his  own  rule  for  seeing  'fair  Melrose  aright,'  and  pro- 
posed  to  stay  an  hour  and  enjoy   it.      'Bah!'   said 
Scott,  '  /  never  saw  it  by  moonlight.'     We  went,  how- 
ever ;    and    Scott,  who   seemed  to   be  on   the   most 
familiar  terms  with  the  cicerone,  pointed  to  an  empty 
'  niche  and  said  to  him,  '  I  think,  by  the  way,  that   I 
have  a  Virgin  and  Child   that  will  just  do   for  your 
j  niche.     I'll  send  it  to  you!'     'How  happy  you  have 
I  made  that  man  !'  said  I  to  him.     '  Oh,'  said  Scott,  'it 
j   was  always  in  the  way,  and  Madame  S.  is   constantly 
grudging  it  house-room.     We're  well  rid  of  it.'" 

"  Any  other  man,"  said  Moore,  "  would  have  allow- 
ed himself  at  least  the  credit  of  a  kind  action." 

I  have  had  the  happiness  since  I  have  been  in  Eng- 

:  land  of  passing  some  weeks  at  a  country-house  where 

\  Miss  Jane  Porter  was  an  honored  guest,  and,  among 

a  thousand  of  the  most  delightful  reminiscences  that 

;  were  ever  treasured,  she  has   told  me  a  great  deal  of 

I  Scott,   who  visited  at  her  mother's  as   a  boy.     She 

remembers  him  then  as  a  good-humored  lad,  but  very 

fond  of  fun,  who  used  to  take  her  younger  sister  (Anna 

Maria  Porter)  and  frighten  her  by  holding  her  out  of 

;  the  window.     Miss  Porter  had  not  seen  him  since  that 

!  age ;  but,  after  the  appearance  of  Guy  Mannering,  she 

heard  that  he  was  in  London,  and  drove  with  a  friend 

;  to  his  house.     Not  quite  sure  (as  she  modestly  says) 

of  being  remembered,  she  sent  in  a  note,  saying,  that 

if  he  remembered  the  Porters,  whom  he  used  to  visit, 

Jane  would  like  to  see  him,     He  came  rushing  to  the 

]  door,  and  exclaimed,  '■'■Remember  you!  Miss  Porter!" 

\  and  threw  his  arms   about  her  neck   and  burst  into 

',  tears.     After  this  he  corresponded  constantly  with  the 

family,  and  about  the  time  of  his  first  stroke  of  par- 

1  alysis,  when  his  mind  and  memory  failed   him,  the 

mother  of  Miss  Porter  died,  and  Scott  sent  a  letter  of 

condolence.     It   began — "  Dear  Miss   Porter" — but, 

|  as  he  went  on,  he  forgot  himself,  and  continued  the 

letter  as  if  addressed  to  her  mother,  ending  it  with — 

"And  now,  dear  Mrs.  Porter,  farewell!  and  believe 

me  yours  for  ever  (as  long  as  there  is  anything  of 

me),  Walter  Scott."     Miss  Porter   bears  testimony, 

like  every  one  else  who  knew  him,  to  his  greatheart- 

j  edness  no  less  than  to  his  genius. 

I  am  not  sure   that  others  like  as  well  as  myself 

!  these    "  nothings"  about   men  of  genius.      I   would 

j  rather   hear   the  conversation   between   Scott   and    a 

peasant   on   the   road,    for   example,    than   the  most 

piquant  anecdote  of  his  brighter  hours.     I  like  a  great 

mind  in  dishabille. 

We  returned  by  Melrose  Abbey,  of  which  I  can  say 
nothing  new,  and  drove  to  Dryburgh  to  see  the  grave 
of  Scott.  He  is  buried  in  a  rich  old  Gothic  corner 
of  a  ruin — fittingly.  He  chose  the  spot,  and  he 
sleeps  well.  The  sunshine  is  broken  on  his  breast 
by  a  fretted  and  pinnacled  window,  overrun  with 
ivy,  and  the  small  chapel  in  which  he  lies  is  open 
to  the  air,  and  ornamented  with  the  mouldering 
scutcheons  of  his  race.  There  are  few  more  beauti- 
ful ruins  than  Dryburgh  Abbey,  and  Scott  lies  in  its 
sunniest  and  most  fanciful  nook — a  grave  that  seems 
divested  of  the  usual  horrors  of  a  grave. 

We  were  ascending  the  Gala-water  at  sunset,  and 
supped  at  Dalhousie,  after  a  day  crowned  with  thought 
and  feeling. 


214 


PENC1LL1NGS  BY  THE  WAY. 


LETTER  CXXXVIII. 

BORDER    SCENERY COACHMANSHIP ENGLISH    COUN- 
TRY-SEATS  THEIR     EXQUISITE      COMFORT OLD 

CUSTOMS      IN      HIGH      PRESERVATION PRIDE      AND 

STATELINESS    OF     THE    LANCASHIRE    AND    CHESHIRE 
GENTRY THEIR    CONTEMPT    FOR    PARVENUS. 

If  Scott  had  done  nothing  else,  he  would  have  de- 
served well  of  his  country  for  giving  an  interest  to  the 
barren  wastes  by  which  Scotland  is  separated  from 
England.  "A'  the  blue  bonnets"  must  have  had  a 
melancholy  march  of  it  "  Over  the  Border."  From 
Gala-Water  to  Carlisle  it  might  be  anywhere  a  scene 
for  the  witches'  meeting  in  Macbeth.  We  bowled 
away  at  nearly  twelve  miles  in  the  hour,  however, 
(which  would  unwind  almost  any  "  serpent  of  care" 
from  the  heart),  and  if  the  road  was  not  lined  with 
witches  and  moss-troopers,  it  was  well  macadamized. 
I  got  a  treacherous  supper  at  Howick,  where  the 
Douglas  pounced  upon  Sir  Alexander  Ramsay  ;  and, 
recovering  my  good-humor  at  Carlisle,  grew  happier 
as  the  fields  grew  greener,  and  came  down  by  Kendal 
and  its  emerald  valleys  with  the  speed  of  an  arrow  and 
the  light-heartedness  of  its  feather.  How  little  the 
farmer  thinks  when  he  plants  his  hedges  and  sows  his 
fields,  that  the  passing  wayfarer  will  anticipate  the 
gleaners  and  gather  sunshine  from  his  ripening  har- 
vest. 

I  was  admiring  the  fine  old  castle  of  Lancaster 
(now  desecrated  to  the  purposes  of  a  county  jail), 
when  our  thirteen-mile  whip  ran  over  a  phaeton 
standing  quietly  in  the  road,  and  spilt  several  vvotnen 
and  children,  as  you  may  say,  en  passant.  The  coach 
must  arrive,  though  it  kill  as  many  as  Juggernaut, 
and  Jehu  neither  changed  color,  nor  spoke  a  word, 
but  laid  the  silk  over  his  leaders  to  make  up  the 
back-water  of  the  jar,  and  rattled  away  up  the 
street,  with  the  guard  blowing  the  French  horn  to  the 
air  of  "  Smile  again,  my  bonny  lassie."  Nobody 
threw  stones  after  us  ;  the  horses  were  changed  in  a 
minute  and  three  quarters,  and  away  we  sped  from 
the  town  of  the  "  red  nose."  There  was  a  cool,  you- 
know-where-to-find-me  sort  of  indifference  in  this  ad- 
venture, which  is  peculiarly  English.  I  suppose  if 
his  leaders  had  changed  suddenly  into  griffins,  he 
would  have  touched  them  under  the  wing  and  kept 
his  pace. 

Bound  on  a  visit  to  Hall  in  Lancashire,  I 

left  the  coach  at  Preston.  The  landlady  of  the  Red 
Lion  became  very  suddenly  anxious  that  I  should  not 
take  cold  when  she  found  out  the  destination  of  her 
post-chaise.  I  arrived  just  after  sunset  at  my  friend's 
lodge,  and  ordering  the  postillion  to  a  walk,  drove 
leisurely  through  the  gathering  twilight  to  the  Hall. 
It  was  a  mile  of  winding  road  through  the  peculiarly 
delicious  scenery  of  an  English  park,  the  game  visible 
in  every  direction,  and  the  glades  and  woods  disposed 
with  that  breadth  and  luxuriance  of  taste  that  make 
the  country-houses  of  England  palaces  in  Arcadia. 
Anxious  as  I  had  been  to  meet  my  friend,  whose  hos- 
pitality I  had  before  experienced  in  Italy,  I  was  almost 
sorry  when  the  closely-shaven  sward  and  glancing 
lights  informed  me  that  my  twilight  drive  was  near  its 
end. 

An  arrival  in  a  strange  house  in  England  seems,  to 
a  foreigner,  almost  magical.  The  absence  of  all  the 
bustle  consequent  on  the  same  event  abroad,  the 
silence,  respectfulness,  and  self-possession  of  the  ser- 
vants, the  ease  and  expedition  with  which  he  is  in- 
stalled in  a  luxurious  room,  almost  with  his  second 
breath  under  the  roof — his  portmanteau  unstrapped, 
his  toilet  laid  out,  his  dress-shoes  and  stockings  at  his 
feet,  and  the  fire  burning  as  if  he  had  sat  by  it  all 
day — it  is  like  the  golden  facility  of  a  dream.  "  Din- 
ner at  seven  !"  are  the  only  words  he  has  heard,  and 


he  finds  himself  (some  three  minutes  having  elapsed 
since  he  was  on  the  road),  as  much  at  home  as  if  he 
had  lived  there  all  his  life,  and  pouring  the  hot  water 
into  his  wash-basin  with  the  feeling  that  comfort  and 
luxury  in  this  country  are  very  much  matters  of 
course. 

The  bell  rings  for  dinner,  and  the  new-comer  finds 
his  way  to  the  drawing-room.  He  has  not  seen  his 
host,  perhaps,  for  a  year,  but  his  entree  is  anything 
but  a  scene.  A  cordial  shake  of  the  hand,  a  simple 
inquiry  after  his  health,  while  the  different  members 
of  the  family  collect  in  the  darkened  room,  and  the 
preference  of  his  arm  by  the  lady  of  the  house  to 
walk  into  dinner,  are  all  that  would  remind  him  that 
he  and  his  host  had  ever  parted.  The  soup  is  criti- 
cised, the  weather  "resumed,"  as  the  French  have  it, 
gravity  prevails,  and  the  wine  that  he  used  to  drink  is 
brought  him  without  question  by  the  remembering 
butler.  The  stranger  is  an  object  of  no  more  atten- 
tion than  any  other  person,  except  in  the  brief  "  glad 
to  see  you,"  and  the  accompanying  just  perceptible 
nod  with  which  the  host  drinks  wine  with  him;  and, 
not  even  in  the  abandon  of  after-dinner  conversation, 
are  the  mutual  reminiscences  of  the  host  and  his 
friend  suffered  to  intrude  on  the  indifferent  portion  of 
I  the  company.  The  object  is  the  general  enjoyment, 
and  you  are  not  permitted  to  monopolize  the  sympa- 
:  thies  of  the  hour.  You  thus  escape  the  aversion 
with  which  even  a  momentary  favorite  is  looked  upon 
J  in  society,  and  in  your  turn  you  are  not  neglected,  or 
i  bored  with  a  sensation,  on  the  arrival  of  another.  In 
what  other  country  is  civilization  carried  to  the  same 
j  rational  perfection  ? 

I  was  under  the  hands  of  a  physician  during  the 

|  week  of  my  stay  at Hall,  and  only  crept   out 

j  with  the  lizards  for  a  little  sunshine  at  noon.  There 
|  was  shooting  in  the  park  for  those  who  liked  it,  and 
fox  hunting  in  the  neighborhood  for  those  who  could 
follow,  but  I  was  content  (upon  compulsion)  to  be  in- 
nocent of  the  blood  of  hares  and  partridges,  and  the 
ditches  of  Lancashire  are  innocent  of  mine.  The 
well-stocked  library,  with  its  caressing  chairs,  was  a 
paradise  of  repose  after  travel ;  and  the  dinner,  with 
its  delightful  society,  sufficed  for  the  day's  event. 

My  host  was  himself  very  much  of  a  cosmopolite; 
but  his  neighbors,  one  or  two  most  respectable  squires 
of  the  old  school  among  them,  had  the  usual  charac- 
teristics of  people  who  have  passed  their  lives  on  one 
spot,  and  though  gentlemanlike  and  good-humored, 
were  rather  difficult  to  amuse.  I  found  none  of  the 
uproariousness  which  distinguished  the  Squire  Wes- 
tern of  other  times.  The  hale  fox-hunter  was  in 
white  cravat  and  black  coat,  and  took  wine  and  poli- 
tics moderately  ;  and  his  wife  and  daughters,  though 
silent  and  impracticable,  were  well-dressed,  and  mark- 
ed by  that  indefinable  stamp  of  "  blood"  visible  no 
less  in  the  gentry  than  in  the  nobility  of  England. 

I  was  delighted  to  encounter  at  my  friend's  table 
one  or  two  of  the  old  English  peculiarities,  gone  out 
nearer  the  metropolis.  Toasted  cheese  and  spiced 
ale — "  familiar  creatures"  in  common  life — were  here 
served  up  with  all  the  circumstance  that  attended  them 
when  they  were  not  disdained  as  the  allowance  of 
maids  of  honor.  On  the  disappearance  of  the  pastry, 
a  massive  silver  dish,  chased  with  the  ornate  elegance 
of  ancient  plate,  holding  coals  beneath,  and  protected 
by  a  hinged  cover,  was  set  before  the  lady  of  the 
house.  At  the  other  extremity  of  the  table  stood  a 
"  peg  tankard"  of  the  same  fashion,  in  the  same  mas- 
sive metal,  with  two  handles,  and  of  an  almost  fabu- 
lous capacity.  Cold  cheese  and  port  were  at  a  dis- 
count. The  celery,  albeit  both  modish  and  popular, 
was  neglected.  The  crested  cover  erected  itself  on 
its  hinge  and  displayed  a  flat  surface,  covered  thinly 
with  blistering  cheese,  with  a  soupcon  of  brown  in  its 
complexion,  quivering   and  delicate,  and  of  a   most 


PENCILL1NGS  BY    THE  WAY. 


215 


stimulating  odor.  A  little  was  served  to  each  guest 
and  commended  as  it  deserved,  and  then  the  flagon's 
lid  was  lifted  in  its  turn  by  the  staid  butler,  and  the 
master  of  the  house  drank  first.  It  went  around  with 
the  sun,  not  disdained  by  the  ladies'  lips  in  passing, 
and  came  to  me.  something  lightened  of  its  load.  As 
a  stranger  I  was  advised  of  the  law  before  lifting  it  to 
,ny  head.  Within,  from  the  rim  to  the  bottom,  ex- 
tended a  line  of  silver  pegs,  supposed  to  contain,  in 
the  depth  from  one  to  the  other,  a  fair  draught  for 
each  bibber.  The  flagon  must  not  be  taken  from  the 
lips,  and  the  penalty  of  drinking  deeper  than  the  first 

peg  below  the  surface,  was  to  drink  to  the  second a 

task  for  the  friar  of  Copmanhurst.  As  the  visible 
measure  was  of  course  lost  when  the  tankard  was 
dipped,  it  required  some  practice  or  a  cool  judgmeul 
not  to  exceed  the  draught.  Raising  it  with  my  two 
hands,  I -measured  the  distance  witli  my  eye,  and 
watched  till  the  floating  argosy  of  toast  should  swim 
beyond  the  reach  of  my  nose.  The  spicy  odor  as- 
cended gratefully  to  the  brain.  The  cloves  and  cin- 
namon clung  in  a  dark  circle  to  the  edges.  I  drank 
without  drawing  breath,  and  complacently  passed  the 
flagon.  As  the  sea  of  all  settled  to  a  calm,  my  next 
neighbor  silently  returned  the  tankard.  I  had  exceed- 
ed the  draught.  There  was  a  general  cry  of  "  drink  ! 
drink!"  and  sounding  my  remaining  capacity  with  the 
plummet  of  a  long  breath,  I  laid  my  hands  once  more 
on  the  vessel,  and  should  have  paid  the  penalty  or 
perished  in  the  attempt,  but  for  the  grace  shown  me 
as  a  foreigner,  at  the  intercession  of  that  sex  dis- 
tinguished for  its  mercy. 

This  adherence  to  the  more  hearty  viands  and  cus- 
toms of  olden  time,  by  the  way,  is  an  exponent  of  a 
feeling  sustained  with  peculiar  tenacity  in  that  part  of 
England.  Cheshire  and  Lancashire  are  the  strong- 
hold of  that  race  peculiar  to  this  country,  the  gentry. 
In  these  counties  the  peerage  is  no  authority  for  gen- 
tle birth.  A  title  unsupported  by  centuries  of  hon- 
orable descent,  is  worse  than  nothing  ;  and  there  is 
many  a  squire,  living  in  his  immemorial  "  Ha/Z,"  who 
would  not  exchange  his  name  and  pedigree  for  the 
title  of  ninety-nine  in  a  hundred  of  the  nobility  of 
England.  Here  reigns  aristocracy.  Your  Baron 
Rothschild,  or  your  new-created  lord  from  the  Bank 
or  the  Temple,  might  build  palaces  in  Cheshire,  and 
live  years  in  the  midst  of  its  proud  gentry  unvisited. 
They  are  the  cold  cheese,  celery,  and  port,  in  com- 
parison with  the  toasted  cheese  and  spiced  ale. 


LETTER  CXXXIX. 

ENGLISH  CORDIALITY  AND  HOSPITALITY,  AND  THE 
FEELINGS  AWAKENED  BY  IT — LIVERPOOL,  UNCOM- 
FORTABLE COFFEEHOUSE  THERE — TRAVELLING  AMER- 
ICANS— NEW  YORK  PACKETS — THE  RAILWAY MAN- 
CHESTER. 

*  England  would  be  a  more  pleasant  country  to 
travel  in  if  one's  feelings  took  root  with  less  facility. 
In  the  continental  countries,  the  local  ties  are  those  of 
the  mind  and  the  senses.  In  England  they  are  those 
of  the  affections.  One  wanders  from  Italy  to  Greece, 
and  from  Athens  to  Ephesus,  and  returns  and  departs 
again  ;  and,  as  he  gets  on  shipboard,  or  mounts  his 
horse  or  his  camel,  it  is  with  a  sigh  over  some  picture 
or  statue  left  behind,  some  temple  or  waterfall — per- 
haps some  cook  or  vintage.  He  makes  his  last  visit 
to  the  Fount  of  Egeria,  or  the  Venus  of  the  Tribune 
— to  the  Caryatides  of  the  Parthenon,  or  the  Casca- 
telles  of  Tivoli — or  pathetically  calls  for  his  last  bottle 
of  untransferable  lachryma  christi,  or  his  last  coteletles 
yrovencales.  He  has  "five  hundred  friends"  like 
other  people,  and  has  made  the  usual  continental  inti- 


macies— but  his  valet-de-place  takes  charge  of  his 
adieus — (distributes  his  "  p.  p.  c.'s"  for  a  penny  each), 
and  he  forgets  and  is  fc.rgotten  by  those  he  leaves  be- 
hind, ere  his  passport  is  recorded  at  the  gates.  In  all 
these  countries,  it  is  only  as  a  resident  or  a  native  that 
you  are  treated  with  kindness  or  admitted  to  the  pen- 
etralia of  domestic  life.  You  are  a  bird  of  passage, 
expected  to  contribute  a  feather  for  every  nest,  but 
welcomed  to  none.  In  England  this  same  disqualifi- 
cation becomes  a  claim.  The  name  of  a  stranger 
opens  the  private  house,  sets  you  the  chair  of  honor, 
prepares  your  bed,  and  makes  everything  that  contrib- 
utes to  your  comfort  or  pleasure  temporarily  your 
own.  And  when  you  take  your  departure,  your  host 
has  informed  himself  of  your  route,  and  provided  you 
with  letters  to  his  friends,  and  you  may  go  through 
the  country  from  end  to  end,  and  experience  every- 
where the  same  confiding  and  liberal  hospitality.  Ev 
ery  foreigner  who  has  come  well  introduced  to  Eng 
land,  knows  how  unexaggerated  is  this  picture. 

I  was  put  upon  the  road  again  by  my  kind  friend, 
and  with  a  strong  west  wind  coming  off  the  Atlantic, 
drove  along  within  sound  of  the  waves,  on  the  road  to 
Liverpool.  It  was  a  mild  wind,  and  came  with  a  wel- 
come— for  it  was  freighted  with  thoughts  of  home. 
Goethe  says,  we  are  never  separated  from  our  friends 
as  long  as  the  streams  run  down  from  them  to  us. 
Certain  it  is  that  distance  seems  less  that  is  measured 
by  waters  and  winds.  America  seemed  near,  with  the 
ocean  at  my  feet  and  only  its  waste  paths  between.  I 
sent  my  heart  over  (against  wind  and  tide)  with  a  bles- 
sing and  a  prayer.  t 

There  are  good  inns,  I  believe,  at  Liverpool,  but 
the  coach  put  me  down  at  the  dirtiest  and  worst  speci- 
men of  a  public  house  that  I  have  encountered  in 
England.  As  I  was  to  stay  but  a  night,  I  overcame 
the  prejudice  of  the  first  coup  d'ccil,  and  made  the 
best  of  a  dinner  in  the  coffeeroom.  It  was  crowded 
with  people,  principally  merchants,  I  presumed,  and 
the  dinner-hour  having  barely  passed,  most  of  them 
were  sitting  over  their  wine  or  toddy  at  the  small  ta- 
bles, discussing  prices  or  reading  the  newspapers. 
Near  me  were  two  young  men,  whose  faces  I  thought 
familiar  to  me,  and  with  a  second  look  I  resolved  them 
into  two  of  my  countrymen,  who,  I  found  out 
presently  by  their  conversation,  were  eating  their  first 
dinner  in  England.  They  were  gentlemanlike  young 
men,  of  good  education,  and  I  pleased  myself  with 
looking  about  and  imagining  the  comparison  they 
would  draw,  with  their  own  country  fresh  in  their 
recollection,  between  it  and  this.  I  could  not  help 
feeling  how  erroneous  in  this  case  would  be  a  first  im- 
pression. The  gloomy  coft'eeroom,  the  hurried  and 
uncivil  waiters,  the  atrocious  cookery,  the  bad  air, 
greasy  tables,  filthy  carpet,  and  unsocial  company — 
and  this  one  of  the  most  popular  and  crowded  inns  of 
the  first  commercial  town  in  England  !  My  neighbors 
themselves,  too,  afforded  me  some  little  speculation. 
They  were  a  fair  specimen  of  the  young  men  of  our 
country,  and  after  several  years'  exclusive  conversance 
with  other  nations,  I  was  curious  to  compare  an  un- 
travelled  American  with  the  Europeans  around  me. 
I  was  struck  with  the  exceeding  ambitiousncss  of  their 
style  of  conversation.  Dr.  Pangloss  fymself  would 
have  given  them  a  degree.  They  called  nothing  by 
its  week-day  name,  and  avoided  with  singular  pertina- 
city exactly  that  upon  which  the  modern  English  are 
as  pertinaciously  bent — a  concise  homeliness  of 
phraseology.  They  were  dressed  much  better  than 
the  people  about  them  (who  were  apparently  in  the 
same  sphere  of  life),  and  had  on  the  whole  a  superior 
air — owing  possibly  to  the  custom  prevalent  in  Ameri- 
ca of  giving  young  men  a  university  education  before 
they  enter  into  trade.  Like  myself,  too,  they  had  not 
yet  learned  the  English  accomplishment  of  total  un- 
consciousness of  the  presence  of  othert.     When  not 


216 


PENCILLINGS  BY  THE  WAY. 


conversing  they  did  not  study  profoundly  the  grain  of 
the  mahogany,  nor  gaze  with  solemn  earnestness  into 
the  bottom  of  their  wine-glasses,  nor  peruse,  with  the 
absorbed  fixedness  of  Belshazzar,  the  figures  on  the 
wall.  They  looked  about  them  with  undisguised  cu- 
riosity, ordered  a  great  deal  more  wine  than  they 
wanted  (very  American,  that!)  and  were  totally  with- 
out the  self-complacent,  self-amused,  sober-felicity  air 
which  John  Bull  assumes  after  his  cheese  in  a  coffee- 
room. 

I  did  not  introduce  myself  to  my  countrymen,  for 
an  American  is  the  last  person  in  the  world  with  whom 
one  should  depart  from  the  ordinary  rules  of  society. 
Having  no  fixed  rank  either  in  their  own  or  a  foreign 
country,  they  construe  all  uncommon  civility  into 
either  a  freedom,  or  a  desire  to  patronise,  and  the  last 
is  the  unpardonable  sin.  They  called  after  awhile  for 
a  "  mint  julep"  (unknown  in  England),  for  slippers, 
(rather  an  unusual  call  also — gentlemen  usually  wear- 
ing their  own),  and,  seemed  very  much  surprised  on 
asking  for  candles,  at  being  ushered  to  bed  by  the 
chambermaid. 

I  passed  the  next  morning  in  walking  about  Liver- 
pool. It  is  singularly  like  New  York  in  its  general 
air,  and  quite  like  it  in  the  character  of  its  population. 
I  presume  I  must  have  met  many  of  my  countrymen, 
for  there  were  some  who  passed  me  in  the  street,  whom 
I  could  have  sworn  to.  In  a  walk  to  the  American 
consul's  (to  whose  polite  kindness  I,  as  well  as  all  my 
compatriots,  have  been  very  much  indebted),  I  was 
lucky  enough  to  see  a  New  York  packet  drive  into 
the  harbor  under  full  sail — as  gallant  a  sight  as  you 
would  wish  to  see.  It  was  blowing  rather  stiffly,  and 
she  run  up  to  her  anchorage  like  a  bird,  and  taking  in 
her  canvass  with  the  speed  of  a  man-of-war,  was  lying 
in  a  few  moments  with  her  head  to  the  tide,  as  neat 
and  as  tranquil  as  if  she  had  slept  for  the  last  month 
at  her  moorings.  I  could  feel  in  the  air  that  came 
ashore  from  her,  that  1  had  letters  on  board. 

Anxious  to  get  on  to  Cheshire,  where,  as  they  say 


of  the  mails,  I  had  been  due  some  days,  and  very 
anxious  to  get  rid  of  the  perfume  of  beer,  beefsteaks, 
and  bad  soup,  with  which  1  had  become  impregnated 
at  the  inn,  I  got  embarked  in  an  omnibus  at  noon,  and 
was  taken  to  the  railway.  I  was  just  in  time,  and 
down  we  dived  into  the  long  tunnel,  emerging  from 
the  darkness  at  a  pace  that  made  my  hair  sensibly 
tighten  and  hold  on  with  apprehension.  Thirty  miles 
in  the  hour  is  pleasant  going  when  one  is  a  little  ac- 
customed to  it.  It  gives  one  such  a  contempt  for 
time  and  distance  !  The  whizzing  past  of  the  return 
trains,  going  in  the  other  direction  with  the  same  ve- 
locity, making  you  recoil  in  one  second,  and  a  mile 
off*  the  next — was  the  only  thing  which,  after  a  few 
minutes,  I  did  not  take  to  very  kindly.  There  wer 
near  a  hundred  passengers,  most  of  them  precisely  the 
class  of  English  which  we  see  in  our  country — the 
fags  of  Manchester  and  Birmingham — a  class,  I  dare 
say,  honest  and  worthy,  but  much  more  to  my  taste 
in  their  own  country  than  mine. 

I  must  confess  to  a  want  of  curiosity  touching  spin- 
ning-jennies. Half  an  hour  of  Manchester  contented 
me,  yet  in  that  half  hour  I  was  cheated  to  the  amount 
of  four-and-six-pence — unless  the  experience  was 
worth  the  money.  Under  a  sovereign  I  think  it  not 
worth  while  to  lose  one's  temper,  and  I  contented  my- 
self with  telling  the  man  (he  was  a  coach  proprietor) 
as  I  paid  him  the  second  time  for  the  same  thing  in 
the  course  of  twenty  minutes,  that  the  time  and  trou- 
ble he  must  have  had  in  bronzing  his  face  to  that  de- 
gree of  impudence  gave  him  some  title  to  the  money. 
I  saw  some  pretty  scenery  between  Manchester  and 
my  destination,  and  having  calculated  my  time  very 

accurately,  I  was  set  down  at  the  gates  of Hall, 

as  the  dressing-bell  for  dinner  came  over  the  park 
upon  the  wind.  I  found  another  English  welcome, 
passed  three  weeks  amid  the  pleasures  of  English 
country  life,  departed  as  before  with  regrets,  and  with- 
out much  more  incident  or  adventure  reached  London 
on  the  first  of  November,  and  established  mvself  for 
the  winter. 


END  OF  PENCILLINGS  BY  THE  WAY 


LETTERS  FROM  UNDER  A  BRIDGE, 


PREFACE. 

The  "  Letters  from  under  a  Bridge"  were  written  in  a  secluded  glen  of  the  valley  of  the  Susquehannah. 
The  author  after  several  years  residence  and  travel  abroad,  made  there,  as  he  hoped,  an  altar  of  life-time 
tranquillity  for  his  household-gods.  Most  of  the  letters  were  written  in  the  full  belief  that  he  should  pass 
there  the  remainder  of  his  days.  Inevitable  necessity  drove  him  again  into  active  metropolitan  life,  and  the 
remembrance  of  that  enchanting  interval  of  repose  and  rural  pleasure  seems  to  him,  now,  little  but  a  dream. 
As  picturing  truly  the  color  of  his  own  mind,  and  the  natural  flow  of  his  thoughts  during  a  brief  enjoyment 
of  the  kind  of  life  alone  best  suited  to  his  disposition  as  well  as  to  his  better  nature,  the  book  is  interesting 
to  himself  and  to  those  who  love  him.  As  picturing  faithfully  the  charm  of  nature  and  seclusion,  after  years 
of  intoxicated  life  in  the  gayest  circles  of  the  gayest  cities  of  the  world,  it  may  be  curious  to  the  reader. 


LETTER  I. 

My  Dear  Doctor  :  Twice  in  the  year,  they  say, 
the  farmer  may  sleep  late  in  the  morning — between 
hoeing  and  haying,  and  between  harvest  and  thrash- 
ing. If  I  have  not  written  to  you  since  the  frost  was 
out  of  the  ground,  my  apology  lies  distributed  over 
the  "spring-work,"  in  due  proportions  among  plough- 
ing, harrowing,  sowing,  plastering,  and  hoeing.  We 
have  finished  the  last — some  thanks  to  the  crows,  who 
saved  us  the  labor  of  one  acre  of  corn,  by  eating  it  in 
the  blade.  Think  what  times  we  live  in,  when  even 
the  crows  are  obliged  to  anticipate  their  income ! 

When  I  had  made  up  my  mind  to  write  to  you,  I 
cast  about  for  a  cool  place  in  the  shade — for,  besides 
the  changes  which  farming  works  upon  my  epidermis, 
I  find  some  in  the  inner  man,  one  of  which  is  a  vege- 
table necessity  for  living  out-of-doors.  Between  five 
in  the  morning  and  "flower-shut,"  I  feel  as  if  four 
walls  and  a  ceiling  would  stop  my  breath.  Very 
much  to  the  disgust  of  William  (who  begins  to  think 
it  was  infra  dig.  to  have  followed  such  a  hob-nail 
from  London),  I  showed  the  first  symptom  of  this 
chair-and-carpet  asthma,  by  ordering  my  breakfast 
under  a  balsam-fir.  Dinner  and  tea  soon  followed; 
and  now,  if  I  go  in-doors  by  daylight,  it  is  a  sort  of 
fireman's  visit — in  and  out  with  a  long  breath.  I  have 
worn  quite  a  dial  on  the  grass,  working  my  chair 
around  with  the  sun. 

"If  ever  you  observed,"  (a  phrase  with  which  a 
neighbor  of  mine  ludicrously  prefaces  every  possible 
remark),  a  single  tree  will  do  very  well  to  sit,  or  dine, 
or  be  buried  under,  but  you  can  not  write  in  the  shade 
of  it.  Beside  the  sun-flecks  and  the  light  all  around 
you,  there  is  a  want  of  that  privacy,  which  is  neces- 
sary to  a  perfect  abandonment  to  pen  and  ink.     I  dis- 


covered this  on  getting  as  far  as  "dear  Doctor,"  and, 
pocketing  my  tools,  strolled  away  up  the  glen  to  bor- 
row "stool  and  desk"  of  Nature.  Half  open,  like  a 
broad-leafed  book  (green  margin  and  silver  type),  the 
brook-hollow  of  Glenmary  spreads  wide  as  it  drops 
upon  the  meadow,  but  above,  like  a  book  that  deserves 
its  fair  margent,  it  deepens  as  you  proceed.  Not  far 
from  the  road,  its  little  rivulet  steals  forth  from  a 
shadowy  ravine,  narrow  as  you  enter,  then  widening 
back  to  a  mimic  cataract ;  and  here,  a  child  would 
say,  is  fairy  parlor.  A  small  platform  (an  island 
when  the  stream  is  swollen)  lies  at  the  foot  of  the  fall, 
carpeted  with  the  fine  silky  grass  which  thrives  with 
shade  and  spray.  The  two  walls  of  the  ravine  are 
mossy,  and  trickling  with  springs ;  the  trees  over- 
head interlace,  to  keep  out  the  sun;  and  down  comes 
the  brook,  over  a  flight  of  precipitous  steps,  like  chil- 
dren bursting  out  of  school,  and  after  a  laugh  at  its 
own  tumble,  it  falls  again  into  a  decorous  ripple,  and 
trips  murmuring  away.  The  light  is  green,  the 
leaves  of  the  overhanging  trees  look  translucent  above, 
and  the  wild  blue  grape,  with  its  emerald  rings,  has 
wove  all  over  it  a  basket-lattice  so  fine,  that  you 
would  think  it  were  done  to  order — warranted  to  keep 
out  the  hawk,  and  let  in  the  humming-bird.  With  a 
yellow  pine  at  my  back,  a  moss  cushion  beneath,  and 
a  ledge  of  flat  stone  at  my  elbow,  you  will  allow  I  had 
a  secretary's  outfit.  I  spread  my  paper,  and  mended 
my  pen ;  and  then  (you  will  pardon  me,  dear  Doctor) 
I  forgot  you  altogether.  The  truth  is,  these  fanciful 
garnishings  spoil  work.  Silvio  Pellico  had  a  better 
place  to  write  in.  If  it  had  been  a  room  with  a  Chi- 
nese paper  (a  bird  standing;  for  ever  on  one  leg,  and  a 
tree  ruffled  by  the  summer  wind,  and  fixed  with  its 
leaves  on  edge,  as  if  petrified  with  the  varlet's  impu- 
dence), the  eye  might  get  accustomed  to  it.     But  first 


218 


LETTERS 'FROM  UNDER  A  BRIDGE. 


came  a  gold-robin,  twittering  out  his  surprise  to  find 
strange  company  in  his  parlor,  yet  never  frighted  from 
his  twig  by  pen  and  ink.  By  the  time  I  had  sucked  a 
lesson  out  of  that,  a  squirrel  tripped  in  without  knock- 
ing, and  sat  nibbling  at  a  last-year's  nut,  as  if  nobody 
but  he  took  thought  for  the  morrow.  Then  came  an 
enterprising  ant,  climbing  my  knee  like  a  discoverer ; 
and  I  wondered  whether  Fernando  Cortes  would  have 
mounted  so  boldly,  had  the  peak  of  Darien  been  as 
new-dropped  between  the  Americas,  as  my  leg  by  his 
ant-hill.  By  this  time,  a  small  dripping  from  a  moss- 
fringe  at  my  elbow  betrayed  the  lip  of  a  spring ;  and, 
dislodging  a  stone,  I  uncovered  a  brace  of  lizards 
lying  snug  in  the  ooze.  We  flatter  ourselves,  thought 
I,  that  we  drink  first  of  the  spring.  We  do  not  know 
always  whose  lips  were  before  us. 

Much  as  you  see  of  insect  life,  and  hear  of  bird- 
music,  as  you  walk  abroad,  you  should  lie  perdu  in  a 
nook,  to  know  how  much  is  frighted  from  sight,  and 
hushed  from  singing,  by  your  approach.  What 
worms  creep  out  when  they  think  you  gone,  and  what 
chatterers  go  on  with  their  story  !  So  among  friends, 
thought  I,  as  I  fished  for  the  moral.  We  should  be 
wiser,  if  we  knew  what  our  coming  hides  and  silences, 
but  should  we  walk  so  undisturbed  on  our  way  ? 

You  will  see  with  half  a  glance,  dear  Doctor,  that 
here  was  too  much  company  for  writing.  I  screwed 
up  my  inkstand  once  more,  and  kept  up  the  bed  of 
the  stream  till  it  enters  the  forest,  remembering  a  still 
place  by  a  pool.  The  tall  pines  hold  up  the  roof  high 
as  an  umbrella  of  Brobdignag,  and  neither  water  j 
brawls,  nor  small  birds  sing,  in  the  gloom  of  it.  Here, 
thought  I,  as  far  as  they  go,  the  circumstances  are 
congenial.  But,  as  Jean  Paul  says,  there  is  a  period 
of  iife  when  the  real  gains  ground  upon  the  ideal; 
and  to  be  honest,  dear  Doctor,  I  sat  leaning  on  the 
shingle  across  my  knees,  counting  my  sky-kissing 
pines,  and  reckoning  what  they  would  bring  in  saw- 
logs — so  much  standing — so  much  drawn  to  the  mill. 
Then  there  would  be  wear  and  tear  of  bob-sled, 
teamster's  wages,  and  your  dead-pull  springs — the 
horses'  knees.  I  had  nearly  settled  the  per  and  con- 
tra, when  my  eye  lit  once  more  on  "my  dear  Doctor," 
staring  from  the  unfilled  sheet,  like  the  ghost  of  a 
murdered  resolution.  "  Since  when,"  I  asked,  look- 
ing myself  sternly  in  the  face,  "  is  it  so  difficult  to  be 
virtuous!  Shall  I  not  write  when  I  have  a  mind? 
Shall  I  reckon  pelf  whether  I  will  or  no?  Shall  but- 
terfly imagination  thrust  iron-heart  to  the  wall  ?    No !" 

I  took  a  straight  cut  through  my  ruta-baga  patch 
and  cornfield,  bent  on  finding  some  locality  (out  of 
doors  it  must  be)  with  the  average  attractions  of  a 
sentry-box,  or  a  church-pew.  I  reached  the  high- 
road, making  insensibly  for  a  brush  dam,  where  I 
should  sit  upon  a  log,  with  my  face  abutted  upon  a 
wall  of  chopped  saplings.  I  have  not  mentioned  my 
dog,  who  had  followed  me  cheerfully  thus  far,  putting 
up  now  and  then  a  partridge,  to  keep  his  nose  in;  but, 
on  coming  to  the  bridge  over  the  brook,  he  made  up 
his  mind.  "My  master,"  he  said  (or  looked),  "will 
neither  follow  the  game,  nor  sit  in  the  cool.  Chacun 
a  son  gout.  I'm  tired  of  this  bobbing  about  for  noth- 
ing in  a  hot  sun."  So,  dousing  his  tail  (which,  "if 
you  ever  observed,"  a  dog  hoists,  as  a  flag-ship  does 
her  pennant,  only  when  the  commodore  is  aboard),  he 
sprung  the  railing,  and  spread  himself  for  a  snooze 
under  the  bridge.  "Ben  trovatoV  said  I,  as  I  seated 
myself  by  his  side.  He  wagged  his  tail  half  round  to 
acknowledge  the  compliment,  and  I  took  to  work  like 
a  hay-maker. 

I  have  taken  some  pains  to  describe  these  difficulties 
to  you,  dear  Doctor,  partly  because  I  hold  it  to  be  fair, 
in  this  give-and-take  world,  that  a  man  should  know 
what  it  costs  his  fellow  to  fulfil  obligations,  but  more 
especially,  to  apprize  you  of  the  metempsychose  that  is 
taking  place  in  myself.     You  will  have  divined,  ere 


this,  that,  in  my  out-of-doors  life,  I  am  approaching  a 
degree  nearer  to  Arcadian  perfectability,  and  that,  if  1 
but  manage  to  get  a  bark  on  and  live  by  sap  (spare 
your  wit,  sir),  I  shall  be  rid  of  much  that  is  trouble- 
some, not  to  say  expensive,  in  the  matters  of  drink  and 
integument.  What  most  surprises  me  in  the  past,  is, 
that  I  ever  should  have  confined  my  free  soul  and  body, 
in  the  very  many  narrow  places  and  usages  I  have 
known  in  towns.  I  can  only  assimilate  myself  to  a 
squirrel,  brought  up  in  a  school-boy's  pocket,  and  let 
out  some  June  morning  on  a  snake  fence. 

The  spring  has  been  damp  for  corn,  but  I  had 
planted  on  a  warm  hill-side,  and  have  done  better  than 
my  neighbors.  The  Owaga*  creek,  which  makes  a 
bend  round  my  meadow  before  it  drops  into  the  Sus- 
quehannah  (a  swift,  bright  river  the  Owaga,  with  as 
much  water  as  the  Arno  at  Florence),  overflowed  my 
cabbages  and  onions,  in  the  May  freshet;  but  that 
touches  neither  me  nor  my  horse.  The  winter  wheat 
looks  like  "velvet  of  three-pile,"  and  everything  is 
out  of  the  ground,  including,  in  my  case,  the  buck- 
wheat, which  is  not  yet  put  in.  This  is  to  be  an  old- 
fashioned  hot  summer,  and  I  shall  sow  late.  The 
peas  are  podded.  Did  it  ever  strike  you,  by  the  way 
that  the  pious  JEneas,  famous  through  all  ages  for 
carrying  old  Anchises  a  mile,  should,  after  all,  yield 
glory  to  a  bean.  Perhaps  you  never  observed,  that 
this  filial  esculent  grows  up  with  his  father  on  his 
back. 

In  my  "new  light,"  a  farmer's  life  seems  to  me 
what  a  manufacturer's  might  resemble,  if  his  factory 
were  an  indigenous  plant — machinery,  girls,  and  all. 
What  spindles  and  fingers  it  would  take  to  make  an 
orchard,  if  nature  found  nothing  but  the  raw  seed, 
and  rain-water  and  sunshine  were  brought  as  far  as  a 
cotton  bale!  Your  despised  cabbage  would  be  a 
prime  article — if  you  had  to  weave  it.  Pumpkins,  if 
they  ripened  with  a  hair-spring  and  patent  lever, 
would  be,  "by'r  lady,"  a  curious  invention.  Yet 
these,  which  Aladdin  nature  produces  if  we  but 
"rub  the  lamp,"  are  more  necessary  to  life  than 
clothes  or  watches.  In  planting  a  tree  (I  write  it 
reverently),  it  seems  to  me  working  immediately  with 
the  divine  faculty.  Here  are  two  hundred  forest  trees 
set  out  with  my  own  hand.  Yet  how  little  is  my  part 
in  the  glorious  creatures  they  become  ! 

This  reminds  me  of  a  liberty  I  have  lately  taken 
with  nature,  which  I  ventured  upon  with  proper  diffi- 
dence, though  the  dame,  as  will  happen  with  dames, 
proved  less  coy  than  was  predicted.  The  brook  at  my 
feet,  from  its  birth  in  the  hills  till  it  dropped  into  the 
meadow's  lap,  tripped  down  like  a  mountain-maid 
with  a  song,  bright  and  unsullied.  So  it  flowed  by 
my  door.  At  the  foot  of  the  bank,  its  song  and 
sparkle  ceased  suddenly,  and,  turning  under  the  hill, 
its  waters  disappeared  among  sedge  and  rushes.  It 
was  more  a  pity,  because  you  looked  across  the 
meadow  to  the  stately  Owaga,  and  saw  that  its  un- 
fulfilled destiny  was  to  have  poured  its  brightness  into 
his.  The  author  of  Ernest  Maltravers  has  set  the 
fashion  of  charity  to  such  fallings  away.  I  made  a 
new  channel  over  the  meadow,  gravelled  its  bed,  and 
grassed  its  banks,  and  (last  and  best  charity  of  all) 
protected  its  recovered  course  with  overshadowy  trees. 
Not  quite  with  so  gay  a  sparkle,  but  with  a  placid  and 
tranquil  beauty,  the  lost  stream  glides  over  the 
meadow,  and,  Maltravers-like,  the  Owaga  takes  her 
lovingly  to  his  bosom.  The  sedge  and  rushes  are 
turned  into  a  garden,  and  if  you  drop  a  flower  into  the 
brook  at  my  door,  it  scarce  loses  a  breath  of  its  per- 
fume before  it  is  flung  on  the  Owaga,  aud  the  Sus- 
quehannah  robs  him  of  it  but  with  his  life. 

I  have  scribbled  away  the  hours  till  near  noon,  and 

*  Corrupted  now  to  Owego.  Ochwaga  was  the  Indian 
word,  and  means  txMfl  water. 


LETTERS  FROM  UNDER  A  BRIDGE. 


219 


it  is  time  to  see  that  the  oxen  get  their  potatoes. 
Faith !  it's  a  cool  place  under  a  bridge.  Knock  out 
the  two  ends  of  the  Astor-house,  and  turn  the  Hudson 
through  the  long  passage,  and  you  will  get  an  idea  of  it. 
The  breeze  draws  through  here  deftly,  the  stone  wall 
is  cool  to  my  back,  and  this  floor  of  running  water,  be- 
sides what  the  air  steals  from  it,  sounds  and  looks  re- 
freshingly. My  letter  has  run  on,  till  I  am  inclined 
to  think  the  industry  of  running  water  "breeds  i'the 
brain."  Like  the  tin-pot  at  the  cur's  tail,  it  seems  to 
overtake  one  with  an  admonition,  if  he  but  slack  to 
breathe.  Be  not  alarmed,  dear  Doctor,  for,  sans  po- 
tatoes, my  oxen  will  loll  in  the  furrow,  and  though  the 
brook  run  till  doomsday,  I  must  stop  here.     Amen. 


LETTER  II. 

My  Dear  Doctor  :  I  have  just  had  a  visit  from 
the  assessor.  As  if  a  man  should  be  taxed  for  a 
house,  who  could  be  luxurious  under  a  bridge !  I 
have  felt  a  decided  "call"  to  disclaim  roof  and  thresh- 
old, and  write  myself  down  a  vagabond.  Fancy  the 
variety  of  abodes  open,  rent-free,  to  a  bridge-fancier. 
It  is  said  among  the  settlers,  that  where  a  stranger 
finds  a  tree  blown  over  (the  roots  forming,  always,  an 
upright  and  well-matted  wall),  he  has  only  his  house 
to  finish.  Cellar  and  chimney-back  are  ready  done  to 
his  hand.  But,  besides  being  roofed,  walled,  and  wa- 
tered, and  better  situated,  and  more  plenty  than  over- 
blown trees — bridges  are  on  no  man's  land.  You  are 
no  "  squatter,"  though  you  sit  upon  your  hams.  You 
may  shut  up  one  end  with  pine  boughs,  and  you  have 
a  room  a-la-mode — one  large  window  open  to  the 
floor.  The  view  is  of  banks  and  running  water — ex- 
quisite of  necessity.  For  the  summer  months  I 
could  imagine  this  bridge-gipsying  delicious.  What 
furniture  might  pack  in  a  donkey-cart,  would  set  forth 
a  better  apartment  than  is  averaged  in  hotels  (so 
yclept),  and  the  saving  to  your  soul  (of  sins  commit- 
ted, sitting  at  a  bell-rope,  ringing  in  vain  for  water) 
would  be  worthy  a  conscientious  man's  attention. 

I  will  not  deny  that  the  bridge  of  Glenmary  is  a  fa- 
vorable specimen.  As  its  abutments  touch  my  cot- 
tage-lawn, I  was  under  the  necessity  of  presenting  the 
public  with  anew  bridge,  for  which  act  of  munificence 
I  have  not  yet  received  the  freedom  of  the  town.  Per- 
haps I  am  expected  to  walk  through  it  when  I  please, 
without  asking.  The  hitherward  railing  coming  into 
the  line  of  my  fence,  I  have,  in  a  measure,  a  private 
entrance;  and  the  whole  structure  is  overshadowed  by 
a  luxuriant  tree.  To  be  sure,  the  beggar  may  go 
down  the  bank  in  the  road,  and,  entering  by  the  other 
side,  sit  under  it  as  well  as  I — but  he  is  welcome.  I 
like  society  sans- gene — where  you  may  come  in  or  go 
out  without  apology,  or  whistle,  or  take  off  your  shoes. 
And  I  would  give  notice  here  to  the  beggary  of  Tioga, 
that  in  building  a  stone  seat  under  the  bridge,  and 
laying  the  banks  with  green-sward,  I  intend  no  seques- 
tration of  their  privileges.  I  was  pleased  that  a  swal- 
low, who  had  laid  her  mud-nest  against  a  sleeper 
overhead,  took  no  offence  at  my  improvements.  Her 
three  nestlings  made  large  eyes  when  I  read  out  what 
I  have  scribbled,  but  she  drowses  on  without  astonish- 
ment. She  is  a  swallow  of  last  summer,  and  has  seen 
authors. 

A  foot-passenger  has  just  gone  over  the  bridge, 
and,  little  dreaming  there  were  four  of  us  listening 
(the  swallows  and  I),  he  leaned  over  the  railing,  and 
ventured  upon  a  soliloquy.  "Why  don't  he  cut 
down  the  trees  so's  he  can  see  out?"  said  my  uncon- 
scious adviser.  I  caught  the  eye  of  the  mother-swal- 
low, and  fancied  she  was  amused.  Her  swallowlings 
looked  petrified  at  the  sacrilegious  suggestion.  Bv 
the  way,  it  is  worthy  of  remark,  that  though  h*>r  little 


ones  have  been  hatched  a  week,  this  estimable  parent 
still  sits  upon  their  heads.  Might  not  this  continued 
incubation  be  tried  with  success  upon  backward  chil- 
dren? We  are  so  apt  to  think  babies  are  finished 
when  their  bodies  are  brought  into  the  world! 

For  some  minutes,  now,  I  have  observed  an  occa- 
sional cloud  rising  from  the  bottom  of  the  brook,  and, 
peering  among  the  stones,  I  discovered  one  of  the 
small  lobsters  with  which  the  streams  abound.  (The 
naturalists  may  class  them  differently,  but  as  there  is 
but  one,  and  he  has  all  the  armament  of  a  lobster, 
though  on  the  scale  of  a  shrimp,  the  swallows  agree 
with  me  in  opinion  that  he  should  rank  as  a  lobster.) 
So  we  are  five.  "  Cocksnouns !"  to  borrow  Scott's 
ejaculation,  people  should  never  be  too  sure  that  they 
are  unobserved.  When  I  first  came  under  the  bridge, 
I  thought  myself  alone. 

This  lobster  puts  me  in  mind  of  Talleyrand.  You 
would  say  he  is  going  backward,  yet  he  gets  on  faster 
that  way  than  the  other.  After  all,  he  is  a  great  man 
who  can  turn  his  reverses  to  account,  and  that  I  take 
to  be,  oftentimes,  one  of  the  chief  secrets  of  great- 
ness. If  I  were  in  politics,  I  would  take  the  lobster 
for  my  crest.  It  would  be  ominous,  I  fear,  in  poetry. 
You  should  come  to  the  country  now,  if  you  would 
see  the  glory  of  the  world.  The  trees  have  been  co- 
quetting at  their  toilet,  waiting  for  warmer  weather; 
but  now  I  think  they  have  put  on  their  last  flounce 
and  furbelow,  spread  their  bustle,  and  stand  to  be  ad- 
mired. They  say  "leafy  June."  To-day  is  the  first 
of  July,  and  though  I  give  the  trees  my  first  morning 
regard  (out-of-doors)  when  my  eyes  are  clearest,  I 
have  not  fairly  thought  till  to-day,  that  the  foliage  was 
full.  If  it  were  not  for  lovers  and  authors,  who  keep 
vigil  and  count  the  hours,  I  should  suspect  there  was 
foul  play  between  sun  and  moon — a  legitimate  day 
made  away  with  now  and  then.  (The  crime  is  not 
unknown  in  the  upper  circles.  Saturn  devoured  his 
children.) 

There  is  a  glory  in  potatoes — well  hoed.  Corn — 
the  swaying  and  stately  maize — has  a  visible  glory. 
To  see  the  glory  of  turnips,  you  must  own  the  crop, 
and  have  cattle  to  fat — but  they  have  a  glory.  Pease 
!  need  no  psean — they  are  appreciated.  So  are  not  cab- 
j  bages,  which,  though  beautiful  as  a  Pompeian  wine- 
cup,  and  honored  above  roses  by  the  lingering  of  the 
dew,  are  yet  despised  of  all  handicrafts — save  one. 
Apt  emblem  of  ancient  maidenhood,  which  is  despised, 
like  cabbages,  yet  cherishes  unsunned  in  its  bosom  the 
very  dew  we  mourn  so  inconsistently  when  rifled  from 
the  rose. 

Apropos — the  delicate  tribute  in  the  last  sentence 
shall  serve  for  an  expiation.  In  a  journey  I  made 
through  Switzerland,  I  had  for  chance-travelling  com- 
panions, three  Scotch  ladies,  of  the  class  emulated  by 
this  chaste  vegetable.  They  were  intelligent,  refined, 
and  lady-like;  yet  in  some  Pencillings  by  the  Way 
(sketched,  perhaps,  upon  an  indigestion  of  mountain 
cheese,  or  an  acidity  of  bad  wine — such  things  affect 
us)  I  was  perverse  enough  to  jot  down  a  remark,  more 
invidious  than  just.  We  are  reached  with  a  long 
whip  for  our  transgressions,  and,  but  yesterday,  I  re- 
ceived a  letter  from  the  Isle  of  Man,  of  which  thus 
runs  an  extract :  "  In  your  description  of  a  dangerous 
pass  in  Switzerland,  you  mention  travelling  in  the 
same  public  conveyance  with  three  Scotch  spinsters, 
I  and  declare  you  would  have  been  alarmed,  had  there 
been  any  neck  in  the  carriage  you  cared  for,  and  as- 
sert, that  neither  of  your  companions  would  have  hesi- 
tated to  leap  from  a  precipice,  had  there  been  a  lover 
at  the  bottom.  Did  either  of  us  tell  you  so,  sir  ?  Or 
what  ground  have  you  for  this  assertion  ?  You  could 
not  have  judged  of  us  by  your  own  beautiful  country- 
women, for  they  are  proverbial  for  delicacy  of  feeling. 
You  had  not  yet  made  the  acquaintance  of  mine. 
VT«,  therefore,  nrast   appropriate  entirely  to  ourselves 


220 


LETTERS  FROM  UNDER  A  BRIDGE. 


the  very  flattering  idea  of  having  inspired  such  an 
opinion.  Yet  allow  me  to  assure  you,  sir,  that  lovers 
are  by  no  means  so  scarce  in  my  native  country,  as 
you  seem  to  imagine.  No  Scotchwoman  need  go 
either  to  Switzerland,  or  Yankee-land,  in  search  of 
them.  Permit  me  to  say  then,  sir,  that  as  the  attack 
was  so  public,  an  equally  public  amende  honorable  is 
due  to  us." 

I  make  it  here.  I  retract  the  opinion  altogether.  I 
do  not  think  you  "  would  have  leaped  from  the  preci- 
pice, had  there  been  a  lover  at  the  bottom."     On  the 

contrary,   dear  Miss  ,  I   think  you  would  have 

waited  till  he  climbed  up.  The  amende,  I  flatter  my- 
self, could  scarce  be  more  complete.  Yet  I  will  make 
it  stronger  if  you  wish. 

As  I  look  out  from  under  the  bridge,  I  see  an  oriel 
sitting  upon  a  dog-wood  tree  of  my  planting.  His 
song  drew  my  eye  from  the  paper.  I  find  it  difficult, 
now,  not  to  take  to  myself  the  whole  glory  of  tree, 
song,  and  plumage.  By  an  easy  delusion,  I  fancy  he 
would  not  have  come  but  for  the  beauty  of  the  tree, 
and  that  his  song  says  as  much,  in  bird-recitative.  I 
go  back  to  one  rainy  day  of  April,  when,  hunting  for 
maple  saplings,  I  stopped  under  that  graceful  tree,  in 
a  sort  of  island  jungle,  and  wondered  what  grew  so 
fair  that  was  so  unfamiliar,  yet  with  a  bark  like  the 
plumage  of  the  pencilled  pheasant.  The  limbs  grew 
curiously.  A  lance-like  stem,  and,  at  regular  distan- 
ces a  cluster  of  radiating  branches,  like  a  long  cane 
thrust  through  inverted  parasols.  I  set  to  work  with 
spade  and  pick,  took  it  home  on  my  shoulder,  and  set 
it  out  by  Glenmary  brook,  and  there  it  stands  to-day, 
in  the  full  glory  of  its  leaves,  having  just  shed  the 
white  blossoms  with  which  it  kept  holyday  in  June. 
Now  the  tree  would  have  leaved  and  flowered,  and  the 
oriel,  in  black  and  gold,  might  perchance  have  swung 
and  sung  on  the  slender  branch,  which  is  still  tilting 
with  his  effort  in  that  last  cadenza.  But  the  fair  pic- 
ture it  makes  to  my  eye,  and  the  delicious  music  in 
my  ear,  seem  to  me  no  less  of  my  own  making  and 
awaking.  Is  it  the  same  tree,  flowering  unseen  in 
the  woods,  or  transplanted  into  a  circle  of  human  love 
and  care,  making  a  part  of  a  woman's  home,  and 
thought  of  and  admired  whenever  she  comes  out  from 
her  cottage,  with  a  blessing  on  the  perfume  and  ver- 
dure ?  Is  it  the  same  bird,  wasting  his  song  in  the 
thicket,  or  singing  to  me,  with  my  whole  mind  afloat 
on  his  music,  and  my  eyes  fastened  to  his  glittering 
breast  ?  So  it  is  the  same  block  of  marble,  unmoved 
in  the  caves  of  Pentelicus,  or  brought  forth  and 
wrought  under  the  sculptor's  chisel.  Yet  the  sculp- 
tor is  allowed  to  create.  Sing  on,  my  bright  oriel ! 
Spread  to  the  light  and  breeze  your  desiring  finger, 
my  flowering  tree  !  Like  the  player  upon  the  organ, 
I  take  your  glory  to  myself;  though,  like  the  hallelu- 
jah that  burns  under  his  fingers,  your  beauty  and  mu- 
sic worship  God. 

There  are  men  in  the  world  whose  misfortune  it  is 
to  think  too  little  of  themselves — rari  nantes  in  gur- 
gite  vaslo.  I  would  recommend  to  such  to  plant  trees, 
and  live  among  them.  This  suggesting  to  nature — 
working,  as  a  master-mind,  with  all  the  fine  mysteries 
of  root  and  sap,  obedient  to  the  call — is  very  king-like. 
Then  how  elevating  is  the  society  of  trees  !  The  ob- 
jection I  have  to  a  city,  is  the  necessity,  at  every  other 
step,  of  passing  some  acquaintance  or  other,  with  all 
his  merits  or  demerits  entirely  through  my  mind — 
some  man,  perhaps,  whose  existence  and  vocation  I 
have  not  suggested  (as  I  might  have  done  were  he  a 
tree) — whom  I  neither  love,  nor  care  to  meet ;  and 
yet  he  is  thrust  upon  my  eye,  and  must  be  noticed. 
But  to  notice  him  with  propriety,  I  must  remember 
what  he  is — what  claims  he  has  to  my  respect,  my  ci 
vility.  I  must,  in  a  minute  balance  the  account  be 
tween  my  character  and  his,  and  if  he  speak  to  me, 
emember  his  wife  and  children,  his  last  illness,  his 


mishap  or  fortune  in  trade,  or  whatever  else  it  is  ne- 
cessary to  mention  in  condolence  or  felicitation.  A 
man  with  but  a  moderate  acquaintance,  living  in  a 
city,  will  pass  through  his  mind  each  day,  at  a  fair 
calculation,  say  two  hundred  men  and  women,  witb 
their  belongings.  What  tax  on  the  memory  !  Whal 
fatigue  (and  all  profitless)  to  them  and  him !  "  Sweep 
me  out  like  a  foul  thoroughfare!"  say  I.  "  The  town 
has  trudged  through  me  !" 

I  like  my  mind  to  be  a  green  lane,  private  to  th« 
dwellers  in  my  own  demesne.  I  like  to  be  bowed  to 
as  the  trees  bow,  and  have  no  need  to  bow  back  01 
smile.  If  I  am  sad,  my  trees  forego  my  notice  without 
offence.  If  I  am  merry,  or  whimsical,  they  do  not 
suspect  my  good  sense,  or  my  sanity.  We  have  a 
constant  itching  (all  men  have,  I  think)  to  measure 
ourselves  by  those  about  us.  I  would  rather  it  should 
be  a  tree  than  a  fop,  or  a  politician,  or  a  'prentice. 
We  grow  to  the  nearest  standard.  We  become  Lilli- 
putians in  Lilliput.     Let  me  grow  up  like  a  tree. 

But  here  comes  Tom  Groom  with  an  axe,  as  if  he 
had  looked  over  my  shoulder,  and  started,  apropos  of 
trees. 

"  Is  it  that  big  button-ball  you'll  have  cut  down, 
sir  ?" 

"  Call  it  a  sycamore,  Tom,  and  I'll  come  and  see." 
It  is  a  fine  old  trunk,  but  it  shuts  out  the  village  spire, 
and  must  come  down. 

Adieu,  dear  Doctor ;  you  may  call  this  a  letter  if  you 
will,  but  it  is  more  like  an  essay. 


LETTER  III. 

Dear  Doctor:  There  are  some  things  that  grow 
more  certain  with  time  and  experience.  Among 
them,  I  am  happier  for  finding  out,  is  the  affinity 
which  makes  us  friends.  But  there  are  other  matters 
which,  for  me,  observation  and  knowledge  only  serve 
to  perplex,  and  among  these  is  to  know  whose  "  edu- 
cation has  been  neglected."  One  of  the  first  new 
lights  which  broke  on  me,  was  after  my  first  day  in 
France.  I  went  to  bed  with  a  newborn  contempt, 
mingled  with  resentment,  in  my  mind,  toward  my  ven- 
erable alma  mater.  The  three  most  important  branches 
of  earthly  knowledge,  I  said  to  myself,  are,  to  under- 
stand French  when  it  is  spoken,  to  speak  it  so  as  to  be 
understood,  and  to  read  and  write  it  with  propriety 
and  ease.  For  accomplishment  in  the  last,  I  could 
refer  to  my  diploma,  where  the  fact  was  stated  on  in- 
destructible parchment.  But,  allowing  it  to  speak 
the  truth  (which  was  allowing  a  great  deal),  there 
were  the  two  preceding  branches,  in  which  (most 
culpably  to  my  thinking)  "my  education  had  been 
neglected."  .  Could  I  have  taken  out  my  brains,  and, 
by  simmering  in  a  pot,  have  decocted  Virgil,  Homer, 
Playfair,  Dugald  Stewart,  and  Copernicus,  all  five, 
into  one  very  small  Frenchman — (what  they  had 
taught  me  to  what  he  could  teach) — I  should  have 
been  content,  though  the  fiend  blew  the  fire. 

I  remember  a  beggarly  Greek,  who  acquired  an 
ascendency  over  eight  or  ten  of  us,  gentlemen  and 
scholars,  travelling  in  the  east,  by  a  knowledge  of 
what  esculents,  growing  wild  above  the  bones  of  Mil- 
tiades,  were  "  good  for  greens."  We  were  out  of  pro- 
visions, and  fain  to  eat  with  Nebuchadnezzar.  "  Hang 
grammar!"  thought  I,  "here's  a  branch  in  which  my 
education  has  been  neglected."  Who  was  ever  called 
upon  in  his  travels  to  conjugate  a  verb  ?  Yet  here, 
but  for  this  degenerate  Athenian,  we  had  starved  for 
our  ignorance  of  what  is  edible  in  plants. 

I  had  occasion,  only  yesterday,  to  make  a  similar 
remark.  I  was  in  a  crowded  church,  listening  to  a 
Fourth  of  July  oration;  what  with  one  sort  of  caloric 
and  what  with  another,  it  was  very  uncomfortable,  and 


LETTERS  FROM  UNDER  A  BRIDGE. 


221 


a  lady  near  me  became  faint.  To  get  her  out,  was 
impossible,  and  there  was  neither  fan,  nor  sal  volatile, 
within  twenty  pews.  The  bustle,  after  awhile,  drew 
the  attention  of  an  uncombed  Yankee  in  his  shirt- 
sleeves, who  had  stood  in  the  aisle  with  his  mouth 
open,  gazing  at  the  stage  in  front  of  the  pulpit,  and 
wondering,  perhaps,  what  particular  difference  be- 
tween sacred  and  profane  oratory,  required  this  pains- 
taking exhibition  of  the  speaker's  legs.  Compre- 
hending the  state  of  the  case  at  a  single  glance,  the 
backwoodsman  whipped  together  the  two  ends  of  his 
riding-switch,  pulled  his  cotton  handkerchief  tightly 
over  it,  and,  with  this  effective  fan,  soon  raised  a 
breeze  that  restored  consciousness  to  the  lady,  besides 
cooling  everybody  in  the  vicinity.  Here  is  a  man, 
thought  I,  brought  up  to  have  his  wits  ready  for  an 
emergency.     His  "  education  has  not  been  neglected."  j 

To  know  nothing  of  sailing  a  ship,  of  farming,  of 
carpentering,  in  short,  of  any  trade  or  profession,  may  | 
be  a  proper,  though  sometimes  inconvenient  igno- j 
ranee.  I  only  speak  of  such  deficiencies,  as  a  modest 
person  will  not  confess  without  giving  a  reason — as  a  j 
man  who  can  not  swim  will  say  he  is  liable  to  the 
cramp  in  deep  water.  With  some  reluctance,  lately,  i 
I  have  brought  myself  to  look  after  such  dropped 
threads  in  my  own  woof  of  acquisitions,  in  the  hope  i 
of  mending  them  before  they  were  betrayed  by  an  exi-  j 
gency.  Trout-fishing  is  one  of  these.  I  plucked  up  | 
heart  a  day  or  two  since,  and  drove  to  call  upon  a  I 
young  sporting  friend  of  mine,  to  whom  I  confessed, ' 
plump,  I  never  had  caught  a  trout.  I  knew  nothing  i 
of  flies,  worms,  rods,  or  hooks.  Though  I  had  seen 
in  a  book  that  "  hog's  down"  was  the  material  for  the ; 
May-fly,  I  positively  did  not  know  on  what  part  of  that ; 
succulent  quadruped  the  down  was  found. 

"Positively  ?" 

"  Positively !" 

My  friend  F.  gravely  shut  the  door  to  secure  pri- , 
vacy  to  my  ignorance,  and  took  from  his  desk  a  vol-  j 
Ume — of  flies !  Here  was  new  matter !  Why,  sir !  j 
your  trout-fishing  is  a  politician  of  the  first  water  !\ 
Here  were  baits  adapted  to  all  the  whims,  weaknesses,  | 
states  of  appetite,  even  counter-baits  to  the  very  cun- 
ning, of  the  fish.  Taking  up  the  "Spirit  of  the! 
Times"  newspaper,  his  authority  in  all  sporting  mat-  I 
tens,  which  he  had  laid  down  as  I  came  in,  he  read  a  | 
recipe  for  the  construction  of  one  out  of  the  many  of  j 
these  seductive  imitations,  as  a  specimen  of  the  labor 
bestowed  on  them.  "The  body  is  dubbed  with  hog's 
down,  or  light  bear's  hair  mixed  with  yellow  mohair,  i 
whipped  with  pale  floss  silk,  and  a  small  strip  of  pea-  j 
cock's  herl  for  the  head.  The  wings  from  the  rayed  { 
feathers  of  the  mallard,  dyed  yellow  ;  the  hackle  from  j 
the  bittern's  neck,  and  the  tail  from  the  long  hairs  of 
the  sable  or  ferret." 

I  cut  my  friend  short  midway  in  his  volume,  for, 
ever  since  my  disgust  at  discovering  that  the  perplexed 
grammar  I  had  been  whipped  through  was  nothing 
but  the  art  of  talking  correctly,  which  I  could  do  be- 
fore I  began,  1  have  had  an  aversion  to  rudiments. 
"Frankly,"  said  I,  "dear  F.  my  education  has  been  i 
neglected.  Will  you  take  me  with  you,  trout-fishing,  i 
fish  yourself,  answer  my  questions,  and  assist  me  to  j 
pick  up  the  science  in  my  own  scrambling  fashion?" 

He  was  good-natured  enough  to  consent,  and  now, 
dear  Doctor,  you  see  to  what  all  this  prologue  was 
tending.  A  day's  trout-fishing  may  be  a  very  com- 
mon matter  to  you,  but  the  sport  was  as  new  to  me  as 
to  the  trout.  I  may  say,  however,  that  of  the  two,  I 
took  to  the  novelty  of  the  thing  more  kindly. 

The  morning  after  was  breezy,  and  the  air,  without 
a  shower,  had  become  cool.  1  was  sitting  under  the 
bridge,  with  my  heels  at  the  waters  edge,  reading  a 
newspaper,  while  waiting  for  my  breakfast,  when  a 
slight  motion  apprized  me  that  the  water  had  invaded 
my  instep.     I  had  been  wishing  the  tun  had  drank  less 


freely  of  my  brook,  and  within  a  few  minutes  of  the 
wish,  it  had  risen,  doubtless,  from  the  skirt  of  a  shower 
in  the  hills  beyond  us.  "Come!"  thought  I,  pulling 
my  boots  out  of  the  ripple,  "  so  should  arrive  favors 
that  would  be  welcome — no  herald,  and  no  weary  ex- 
pectation. A  human  gift  so  uses  up  gratitude  with 
the  asking  and  delaying."  The  swallow  heard  the  in- 
creased babble  of  the  stream,  and  came  out  of  the  air 
like  a  cimeter  to  see  if  her  little  ones  were  afraid,  and 
the  fussy  lobster  bustled  about  in  his  pool,  as  if  there 
were  more  company  than  he  expected.  "  Semper  pa- 
ratus  is  a  good  motto,  Mr.  Lobster !"  "  I  will  look 
after  your  little  ones,  Dame  Swallow !"  I  had  scarce 
distributed  these  consolations  among  my  family,  when 
a  horse  crossed  the  bridge  at  a  gallop,  and  the  head  of 
my  friend  F.  peered  presently  over  the  railing. 

"  How  is  your  brook  ?" 

"Rising,  as  you  see!" 

It  was  evident  there  had  been  rain  west  of  us,  and 
the  sky  was  still  gray — good  auspices  for  the  fisher. 
In  half  an  hour  we  were  climbing  the  hill,  with  such 
contents  in  the  wagon-box  as  my  friend  advised — the 
debris  of  a  roast  pig  and  a  bottle  of  hock  supposed  to 
be  included  in  the  bait.  As  we  got  into  the  woods 
above  (part  of  my  own  small  domain),  I  could  scarce 
help  addressing  my  tall  tenantry  of  trees.  "  Grow 
away,  gentlemen,"  I  would  have  said,  had  I  been 
alone  ;  "  I  rejoice  in  your  prosperity.  Help  your- 
selves to  the  dew  and  the  sunshine !  If  the  showers  are 
not  sent  to  your  liking,  thrust  your  roots  into  my 
cellar,  lying  just  under  you,  and  moisten  your  clay 
without  ceremony — the  more  the  better."  After  all, 
trees  have  pleasant  ways  with  them.  It  is  something 
that  they  find  their  own  food  and  raiment — something 
that  they  require  neither  watching  nor  care — some- 
thing that  they  know,  without  almanac,  the  proces- 
sions of  the  seasons,  and  supply,  unprompted  and 
unaided,  the  covering  for  their  tender  family  of  germes. 
So  do  not  other  and  less  profitable  tenants.  But  it  is 
more  to  me  that  they  have  no  whims  to  be  reasoned 
with,  no  prejudices  to  be  soothed,  no  garrulity  to  re- 
ply or  listen  to.  I  have  a  peculiarity  which  this 
touches  nearly.  Some  men  "make  a  god  of  their 
belly;"  some  spend  thought  and  cherishing  on  their 
feet,  faces,  hair;  some  few  on  their  fancy  or  their 
reason,  /am  chary  of  my  gift  of  speech.  I  hate  to 
talk  but  for  my  pleasure.  In  common  with  my  fel- 
low-men, I  have  one  faculty  which  distinguishes  me 
from  the  brute — an  articulate  voice.  I  speak  (I  am 
warranted  to  believe)  like  my  Maker  and  his  angels. 
I  have  committed  to  me  an  instrument  no  human  art 
has  ever  imitated,  as  incomprehensible  in  its  fine  and 
celestial  mechanism,  as  the  reason  which  controls  it. 
Shall  1  breathe  on  this  articulate  wonder  at  every 
fool's  bidding  ?  Without  reasoning  upon  the  matter 
as  I  do  now,  I  have  felt  indignant  at  the  common  ad- 
age, "  words  cost  nothing!"  It  is  a  common  saying 
in  this  part  of  the  country,  that  "  you  may  talk  off  ten 
dollars  in  the  price  of  a  horse."  Those  who  have 
travelled  in  Italy,  know  well  that  in  procuring  any- 
thing in  that  country,  from  a  post-carriage  to  a  paper 
of  pins,  you  pay  so  much  money,  so  much  talk — the 
less  talk  the  more  money.  I  commenced  all  my  liar- 
gains  with  a  compromise — "You  charge  me  ten  scudi, 
and  you  expect  me  to  talk  you  down  to  five.  I  know 
the  price  and  the  custom.  Now,  I  will  give  you  seven 
and  a  half  if  you  will  let  me  off  the  talk."  I  should 
be  glad  if  all  buying  and  selling  were  done  by  signs. 
It  seems  to  me  that  talking  on  a  sordid  theme  invades 
and  desecrates  the  personal  dignity.  The  "  scripta 
verba  manent"  has  no  terrors  for  me.  I  could  write 
that  without  a  thought,  which  I  would  put  myself  to 
great  inconveniences  to  avoid  saying. 

You,  dear  Doctor,  among  others,  have  often  asked 
me  how  long  I  should  be  contented  in  the  country. 
Comment,  diable!  ask.  rather,  how  you  are  contented 


I'l'l 


LETTERS  FROM  UNDER  A  BRIDGE. 


in  a  town  !  Does  not  every  creature,  whose  name 
may  have  been  mentioned  to  you — a  vast  congrega 
tion  of  nothinglings — stop  you  in  the  street,  and,  will 
you,  nill  you,  make  you  perform  on  your  celestial  or 
gan  of  speech — nay,  even  choose  the  theme  out  of  his 
own  littlenesses  ?  When  and  how  do  you  possess  your 
thoughts,  and  their  godlike  interpreter,  in  dignity  and 
peace  ?  You  are  a  man,  of  all  others,  worthy  of  the 
unsuggestive  listening  of  trees.  Your  coinage  of 
thought,  profuse  and  worthy  of  a  gift  of  utterance,  is 
alloyed  and  depreciated  by  the  promiscuous  admix- 
tures of  a  town.  Who  ever  was  struck  with  the 
majesty  of  the  human  voice  in  the  street  ?  Yet,  who 
ever  spoke,  the  meanest,  in  the  solitude  of  a  temple, 
or  a  wilderness,  or,  in  the  stillness  of  night — wher- 
ever the  voice  is  alone  heard — without  an  awe  of  his 
own  utterance — a  feeling  as  if  he  had  exercised  a  gift, 
which  had  in  it  something  of  the  supernatural  ? 

The  Indian  talks  to  himself,  or  to  the  Great  Spirit, 
in  the  woods,  but  is  silent  among  men.  We  take 
many  steps  toward  civilization  as  we  get  on  in  life, 
but  it  is  an  error  to  think  that  the  heart  keeps  up  with 
the  manners.  At  least,  with  me,  the  perfection  of  ex- 
istence seems  to  be,  to  possess  the  arts  of  social  life, 
with  the  simplicity  and  freedom  of  the  savage.  They 
talk  of  "unbridled  youth!"  Who  would  not  have 
borne  a  rein  at  twenty,  he  scorns  at  thirty  ?  Who 
does  not,  as  his  manhood  matures,  grow  more  im- 
patient of  restraint — more  unwilling  to  submit  to  the 
conventional  tyrannies  of  society — more  ready,  if  there 
were  half  a  reason  for  it,  to  break  through  the  whole 
golden  but  enslaving  mesh  of  society,  and  start  fresh, 
with  Nature  and  the  instincts  of  life,  in  the  wilderness. 
The  imprisonment  to  a  human  eye  may  be  as  irksome 
as  a  fetter — yet  they  who  live  in  cities  are  never  loosed. 
Did  you  ever  stir  out  of  doors  without  remembering 
that  you  were  seen  ? 

I  have  given  you  my  thoughts  as  I  went  by  my  tall 
foresters,  dear  Doctor,  for  it  is  a  part  of  trout-fishing, 
as  quaint  Izaak  held  it,  to  be  stirred  to  musing  and 
revery  by  the  influences  of  nature.  In  this  free  air, 
too,  I  scorn  to  be  tied  down  to  "  the  proprieties." 
Nay,  if  it  come  to  that,  why  should  I  finish  what  I 
begin  ?  Dame  swallow,  to  be  sure,  looks  curious  to 
hear  the  end  of  my  first  lesson  with  the  angle.  But 
no !  rules  be  hanged  !  I  do  not  live  on  a  wild  brook  to 
be  plagued  with  rhetoric.  I  will  seal  up  my  letter 
where  I  am,  and  go  a-field.  You  shall  know  what 
we  brought  home  in  the  basket  when  I  write  again. 


LETTER  IV. 

My  Dear  Doctor:  Your  letters,  like  yourself,  trav- 
el in  the  best  of  company.  What  should  come  with 
your  last,  but  a  note  from  our  friend  Stetson  of  the 
Astor,  forwarding  a  letter  which  a  traveller  had  left  in  II 
the  bronze  vase,  with  "something  enclosed  which  feels 
like  a  key."  "A  Are?/,"  quotha  !  Attar  of  jasmine, 
subtle  as  the  breath  of  the  prophet  from  Constantino- 
ple by  private  hand!  No  less!  The  small  gilt  bottle, 
with  its  cubical  edge  and  cap  of  parchment,  lies  breath- 
ing before  me.  I  think  you  were  not  so  fortunate  as 
to  meet  Bartlett,  the  draughtsman  of  the  American  sce- 
nery— the  best  of  artists  in  his  way,  and  the  pleasantest 
of  John  Bulls,  any  way.  He  travelled  with  me  a  sum- 
mer here,  making  his  sketches,  and  has  since  been 
sent  by  the  same  enterprising  publisher  (Virtue,  of 
Ivy  Lane),  to  sketch  in  the  Orient.  ("  Stand  by,"  as 
Jack  savs,  for  something  glorious  from  that  quarter.) 
Well — pottering  about  the  Bezestein,  he  fell  in  with 
my  old  friend  Mustapha,  the  attar-merchant,  who  lift- 
ed the  silk  curtains  for  him,  and  over  sherbet  and 
spiced  coffee  in  the  inner  divan,  questioned  him  of 
America — a  country  which,  to  Mustapha's  fancy,  is  as 


far  beyond  the  moon  as  the  moon  is  beyond  the  gilt 
tip  of  the  seraglio.  Bartlett  told  him  the  sky  was 
round  in  that  country,  and  the  women  faint  and  exquis- 
ite as  his  own  attar.  Upon  which  Mustapha  took  his 
pipe  from  his  mouth,  and  praised  Allah.  After  stro- 
king the  smoke  out  of  his  beard,  and  rolling  his  idea 
over  the  whites  of  his  eyes  for  a  few  minutes,  the  old 
merchant  pulled  from  under  his  silk  cushion,  a  visit- 
ing-card, once  white,  but  stained  to  a  deep  orange  with 
the  fingering  of  his  fat  hand,  unctuous  from  bath-hour 
to  bath-hour  with  the  precious  oils  he  traffics  in. 
When  Bartlett  assured  him  he  had  seen  me  in  Amer- 
jica  (it  was  the  card  I  had  given  the  old  Turk  at  part- 
ing, that  he  might  remember  my  name),  he  settled  the 
curtains  which  divide  the  small  apartment  from  the 
shop,  and  commanding  his  huge  Ethiopian  to  watch 
the  door,  entered  into  a  description  of  our  visit  to  the 
forbidden  recesses  of  the  slave-market,  of  his  pur- 
chase (for  me),  of  the  gipsy  Maimuna,  and  some  oth- 
er of  my  six  weeks'  adventures  in  his  company — for 
Mustapha  and  I,  wherever  it  might  lie  in  his  fat  body, 
had  a  nerve  in  unison.  We  mingled  like  two  drops 
of  the  oil  of  roses.  At  parting,  he  gave  Bartlett  this 
small  bottle  of  jasmine,  to  be  forwarded  to  me,  with 
much  love,  at  his  convenience;  and  with  the  perfume 
of  it  in  my  nostrils,  and  the  corpulent  laugh  of  old 
Mustapha  ringing  in  my  ear,  I  should  find  it  difficult 
at  this  moment,  to  say  how  much  of  me  is  under  this 
bridge  in  Tioga,  North  America.  I  am  not  sure  that 
my  letter  should  not  be  dated  "  attar-shop,  near  the  se- 
raglio" for  there,  it  seems  to  me,  I  am  writing. 

"  Tor-mentingest  growin'  time,  aint  it !"  says  a  neigh- 
bor, leaning  over  the  bridge  at  this  instant,  and  little 
thinking  that  on  that  breath  of  his  I  travelled  from  the 
Bosphorus  to  the  Susquehannah.  Really,  they  talk 
of  steamers,  but  there  is  no  travelling  conveyance  like 
an  interruption.  A  minute  since,  I  was  in  the  capital 
of  the  Palaeologi,  smoking  a  narghile  in  the  Turk's 
shop.  Presto!  here  I  am  in  the  county  of  Tiog',  sit- 
ting under  a  bridge,  with  three  swallows  and  a  lobster 
(not  three  lobsters  at  a  swallow — as  you  are  very  like- 
ly to  read  it  in  your  own  careless  way),  and  no  outlay 
for  coals  or  canvass.  Now,  why  should  not  this  be  re- 
duced to  a  science — like  steam  !  I'll  lend  the  idea  to 
the  cause  of  knowledge.  If  a  man  may  travel  from 
Turkey  to  New  York  on  a  passing  remark,  what  might 
be  done  on  a  long  sermon  ?  At  present  the  agent  is 
irregular,  so  was  steam.  The  performance  of  the 
journey,  at  present,  is  compulsory.  So  was  travelling 
by  steam  before  Fulton.  The  discoveries  in  animal 
magnetism  justify  the  most  sanguine  hopes  on  the  sub- 
ject, and  "open  up,"  as  Mr.  Bulwer  would  express  it, 
a  vast  field  of  novel  discovery. 

The  truth  is  (I  have  been  sitting  a  minute  thinking 
it  over),  the  chief  obstacle  and  inconvenience  in  trav- 
elling is  the  prejudice  in  favor  of  taking  the  body  with 
us.  It  is  really  a  preposterous  expense.  Going  abroad 
exclusively  for  the  benefit  of  the  mind,  we  are  at  no 
little  trouble,  in  the  first  place,  to  provide  the  means 
for  the  body's  subsistence  on  the  journey  (the  mind 
not  being  subject  to  "  charges")  and  then,  besides  trail- 
ing after  us  through  ruins  and  galleries,  a  companion 
who  takes  no  enjoyment  in  pictures  or  temples,  and  is 
perpetually  incommoded  by  our  enthusiasm,  we  un- 
dergo endless  vexation  and  annoyance  with  the  care  of 
his  baggage.  Blessed  be  Providence,  the  mind  is  in- 
dependent of  boots  and  linen.  When  the  system 
above  hinted  at  is  perfected,  we  can  leave  our  box-coats 
at  home,  item  pantaloons  for  all  weathers,  item  cravats, 
flannels,  and  innumerable  hose.  I  shall  use  my  port- 
manteau to  send  egas  to  market,  with  chickens  in  the 
two  carpet-bags.  My  body  I  shall  leave  with  the  dai- 
ry-woman, to  be  fed  at  milking-time.  Probably,  how- 
ever, in  the  progress  of  knowledge,  there  will  be  some 
discovery  by  which  it  can  be  closed  in  the  absence 
of  the  mind,  like  a  town-house  when  the  occupant  is 


LETTERS  FROM  UNDER  A  BRIDGE. 


223 


in  the  country — blinds  down,  and  a  cobweb  over  the 
keyhole. 

In  all  the  prophetic  visions  of  a  millenium,  the  chief 
obstacle  to  its  progress  is  the  apparently  undiminish- 
ing  necessity  for  the  root  of  all  evil.  Intelligence  is 
diffusing,  law  becoming  less  merciless,  ladies  driving 
hoops,  and  (I  have  observed)  a  visible  increase  of  mar- 
riages between  elderly  ladies  and  very  young  gentle- 
men— the  last  a  proof  that  the  affections  (as  will  be 
universally  true  in  the  milleninm)  may  retain  their 
freshness  in  age.  But  among  all  these  lesser  begin- 
nings, the  philanthropist  has  hitherto  despaired,  for  to 
his  most  curious  search,  there  appeared  no  symptom 
of  beginning  to  live  without  money.  May  we  not  dis- 
cern in  this  system  (by  which  the  mind,  it  is  evident, 
may  perform  some  of  the  most  expensive  functions  of 
the  body),  a  dream  of  moneyless  millenium — a  first 
step  toward  that  blessed  era  when  "  Biddle  and  dis- 
counts" will  be  read  of  like  "Aaron  and  burnt-offer- 
ings"— ceremonies  which  once  made  it  necessary  for 
a  high-priest,  and  an  altar  at  which  the  innocent  suf- 
.ered  for  the  guilty,  but  which  shall  have  passed  away 
'n  the  blessed  progress  of  the  millenium? 

If  I  may  make  a  grave  remark  to  you,  dear  Doctor, 
I  think  the  whole  bent  and  spirit  of  the  age  we  live  in, 
is,  to  make  light  of  matter.  Religion,  which  used  to 
De  seated  in  the  heart,  is,  by  the  new  light  of  Chan- 
ning,  addressed  purely  to  the  intellect.  The  feelings 
and  passions,  which  are  bodily  affections,  have  less  to 
do  with  it  than  the  mind.  To  eat  with  science  and 
drink  hard,  were  once  passports  to  society.  To  think 
shrewdly  and  talk  well,  carry  it  now.  Headaches 
were  cured  by  pills,  which  now  yield  to  magnetic 
fluid — nothing  so  subtle.  If  we  travelled  once,  it 
must  be  by  pulling  of  solid  muscle.  Rarefied  air  does 
it  now  better  than  horses.  War  has  yielded  to  nego- 
tiation.    A  strong  man  is  no  better  than  a  weak  one. 


crimes.  That  the  London  Quarterly  ever  existed, 
will  be  classed  with  such  historical  enormities  as  the 
Inquisition,  and  torture  for  witchcraft;  and  "to  be 
Lockharted"  will  mean,  then,  what  "to  be  Burked" 
means  now. 

You  will  say,  dear  Doctor,  that  I  am  the  "ancient 
mariner"  of  letter-writers — telling  my  tale  out  of  all 
apropos-ity.  But  after  some  consideration,  I  have 
made  up  my  mind,  that  a  man  who  is  at  all  addicted 
to  revery,  must  have  one  or  two  escape-valves — a 
journal,  or  a  very  random  correspondence.  For  rea- 
sons many  and  good,  I  prefer  the  latter ;  and  the  best 
of  those  reasons  is  my  good  fortune  in  possessing  a 
friend  like  yourself,  who  is  above  "  proprieties"  (pro- 
sodically  speaking),  and  so  you  have  become  to  me, 
what  Asia  was  to  Prometheus — 

"  When  his  being  overflowed, 
Was  like  a  golden  chalice  to  bright  wine, 
Which  else  had  sunk  into  the  thirsty  dusk." 

Talking  of  trout.  We  emerged  from  the  woods  of 
Glenmary  (you  left  me  there  in  my  last  letter),  and 
rounding  the  top  of  the  hill,  which  serves  for  my  sun- 
set drop-curtain,  we  ran  down  a  mile  to  a  brook  in  the 
bed  of  a  low  valley.  It  rejoices  in  no  name,  that  I 
could  hear  of;  but,  like  much  that  is  uncelebrated,  it 
has  its  virtues.  Leaving  William  to  tie  the  horse  to  a 
hemlock,  and  bring  on  the  basket,  we  started  up  the 
stream,  and  coming  to  a  cold  spring,  my  friend  sat 
down  to  initiate  me  into  the  rudiments  of  preparing 
the  fly.  A  very  gay-coated  gentleman  was  selected, 
rather  handsomer  than  your  horse-fly,  and  whipped 
upon  a  rod  quite  too  taper  for  a  comparison. 

"  What  next?" 

"  Take  a  bit  of  worm  out  of  the  tin  box,  and  cover 
the  barb  of  the  hook  !" 

"  I  will.     Stay  !  where  are  the  bits  ?     1  see  nothing 


Electro-magnetism  will  soon  do  all  the  work  of  the  ||  here   but    full-length   worms,    crawling    about,   with 
world,  and  men's  muscles  will  be  so  much  weight —  j  every  one  his  complement  of  extremities — not  a  tail 
no  more.     The  amount  of  it  is,  that  we  are  graduaUy\\  astray." 
learning  to  do  without  our  bodies.     The  next  great  dis- j  j      "Bah!  pull  a  bit  off !" 

covery  will  probably  be  some  pleasant  contrivance  fori:      "  What !  you  don't  mean  that  I  am  to  pull  one  of 
getting  out  of  them,  as  the  butterfly  sheds  his  worm.  |  these  squirming  unfortunates  in  two  ?" 
Then,  indeed,  having  no  pockets,  and  no  "  corpus"  for        "  Certainly  !" 

your  "habeas"  we  can  dispense  with  money  and  its!  "Well,  come!  that  seems  to  me  rather  a  liberty, 
consequences,  and  lo !  the  millenium!  Having  no  j  I  grant  you  'my  education  has  been  neglected,'  but, 
stomachs  to  care  for,  there  will  be  much  cause  of  sin  j  my  dear  F.,  there  is  mercy  in  a  guillotine.  I  had 
done  away,  for  in  most  penal  iniquities,  the  stomach '  made  up  my  mind  to  the  death  of  the  fish,  but  this 
is  at  the  bottom.  Think  what  smoothness  will  follow  preliminary — horror  !" 
in  "  the  cause  of  true  love" — money  coming  never  be-        "  Come !  don't  be  a  woman !" 

tween!  It  looks  ill  for  your  profession,  dear  Doctor.  "I  wish  I  were— I  should  have  a  pair  of  scissors. 
We  shall  have  no  need  of  physic.  The  fee  will  go  to  Fancy  having  your  leg  pulled  off,  my  good  fellow.  I 
him  who  "  administers  to  the  mind  deceased" — prob-  say  it  is  due  to  the  poor  devil  that  the  operation  be  as 
ably  the  clergy.  {Mem.  to  put  your  children  in  the  short  as  possible.  Suppose  your  thumb  slips?" 
church.)  I  am  afraid  crowded  parties  will  go  out  of  "Why,  the  worm  feels  nothing!  Pain  is  in  the 
fashion — it  would  be  so  difficult  to  separate  one's  imagination.  Stay  !  I'll  do  it  for  you — there  ?" 
globule  in  case  of  "  mixed  society" — yet  the  extrica-  What  the  remainder  of  the  worm  felt,  I  had  no  op- 
tion of  gases  might  be  improved  upon.  Fancy  a|  portunity  of  observing,  as  my  friend  thrust  the  tin  box 
lady  and  gentleman  made  "  common  air"  of,  by  "the  i;  into  his  pocket  immediately  ;  but  the  "bit"  which  he 
mixture  of  their  "oxygen  and  hydrogen  !"  (dropped  into  the  palm  of  my  hand,  gave  ever)-  symp- 

What  most  pleases  me  in  the'prospect  of  this  Swe-  torn  of  extreme  astonishment,  to  say  the  least.  The 
denborg  order  of  things,  is  the  probable  improvement;  passing  of  the  barb  of  the  hook  three  times  through 
in  the  laws.  In  the  physical  age  passing  away,  we  j  him,  seemed  rather  to  increase  his  vitality,  and  looked 
have  legislated  for  the  protection  of  the  body,  but  no  j  to  me  as  little  like  happiness  as  anything  I  ever  saw 
pains  or  penalties  for  wounds  upon  its  more  sensitive  on  an  excursion  of  pleasure.  Far  be  it  from  me,  to 
inhabitant — murder  to  break  the  snail's  shell,  but  in- j|  pretend  to  more  sensibility  than  Christopher  North,  or 
nocent  pastime  to  thrust  a  pin  into  the  snail.  In  the!!  Izaak  Walton.  The  latter  had  his  humanities;  and 
new  order  of  things,  we  shall  have  penal  laws  for  the !  Wilson,  of  all  the  men  I  have  ever  seen,  fames,  most 
protection  of  the  sensibilities— whether  they  be  touch- .  marked  in  his  fine  face,  the  philtre  which  bewitches 
ed  through  the  fancy,  the  judgment,  or  the  personal  affection.  But,  emulous  as  I  am  of  their  fame  as  an- 
dignity.  '  Those  will  be  days  for  poets  !  Critics  will;  glers,  and  modest  as  I  should  feel  at  introducing  nino- 
be  hanged— or  worse.  A  sneer  will  be  manslaughter,  vations  upon  an  art  so  refined,  I  must  venture  upon 
Ridicule  will  be  a  deadly  weapon,  only  justifiable  when  some  less  primitive  instrument  than  thumb  and  finger, 
used  in  defence  of  life.  For  scandal,  imprisonment  | !  for  the  dismemberment  of  worms.  1  must  take 
from  ten  to  forty  years,  at  the  mercv  of  the  court,  scissors. 
All  attacks  upon  honor,  honesty,  or  innocence,  capital  I      T  had  never  seen  a  trout  caught  in  my  life,  and  I  do 


224 


LETTERS  FROM  UNDER  A  BRIDGE. 


not  remember  at  this  moment  ever  having,  myself, 
caught  a  fish,  of  any  genus  or  gender.  My  first  les- 
son, of  course,  was  to  see  the  thing  done.  F.  stole 
up  to  the  bank  of  the  stream,  as  if  his  tread  might 
wake  a  naiad,  and  threw  his  fly  into  a  circling,  black 
pool,  sparkling  with  brilliant  bubbles,  which  coiled 
away  from  a  small  brook-leap  in  the  shade.  The 
same  instant  the  rod  bent,  and  a  glittering  spotted 
creature  rose  into  the  air,  swung  to  his  hand,  and  was 
dropped  into  the  basket.  Another  fling,  and  a  small 
trail  of  the  fly  on  the  water,  and  another  followed. 
With  the  third,  I  felt  a  curious  uneasiness  in  my  el- 
bow, extending  quickly  to  my  wrist — the  tingling  of  a 
newborn  enthusiasm.  F.  had  taken  up  the  stream, 
and  with  his  lips  apart,  and  body  bent  over,  like  a  mortal 
surprising  some  troop  of  fays  at  revel,  it  was  not  rea- 
sonable to  expect  him  to  remember  his  pupil.  So, 
silently  I  turned  down,  and  at  the  first  pool  threw  in 
my  fly.  Something  bright  seemed  born  at  the  instant 
under  it,  and  the  slight  tilting  pull  upon  the  pole, 
took  me  so  much  by  surprise,  that  for  a  second  1  for- 
got to  raise  it.  Up  came  the  bright  trout,  raining  the 
silver  water  from  his  back,  and  at  the  second  swing 
through  the  air  (for  I  had  not  yet  learned  the  sleight 
of  the  fisher  to  bring  him  quick  to  hand),  he  dropped 
into  the  pool,  and  was  gone.  I  had  already  begun  to 
take  his  part  against  myself,  and  detected  a  pleased 
thrill,  at  his  escape,  venturing  through  my  bosom. 
I  sat  down  upon  a  prostrate  pine,  to  new-Shylock  my 
poor  worm.  The  tin  box  was  in  F.'s  pocket !  Come  ! 
here  was  a  relief.  As  to  the  wild-wood  worms  that 
might  be  dug  from  the  pine-tassels  under  my  feet,  I 
was  incapable  of  violating  their  forest  sanctuary.  I 
would  fish  no  more.  I  had  had  my  pleasure.  It  is 
not  like  pulling  up  a  stick  or  a  stone,  to  pull  up  a  re- 
sisting trout.  It  is  a  peculiar  sensation,  unimaginable 
till  felt.  I  should  like  to  be  an  angler  very  well,  but 
for  the  worm  in  my  pocket. 

The  brook  at  my  feet,  and  around  me,  pines  of  the 
tallest  lift,  by  thousands!  You  may  travel  through 
a  forest,  and  look  upon  these  communicants  with  the 
sky,  as  trees.  But  you  can  not  sit  still  in  a  forest, 
alone,  and  silent,  without  feeling  the  awe  of  their  pres- 
ence. Yet  the  brook  ran  and  sang  as  merrily,  in 
their  black  shadow,  as  in  the  open  sunshine ;  and  the 
woodpecker  played  his  sharp  hammer  on  a  tree  ever- 
green for  centuries,  as  fearlessly  as  on  a  shivering 
poplar,  that  will  be  outlived  by  such  a  fish-catcher  as 
I.  Truly,  this  is  a  world  in  which  there  is  small  rec- 
ognition of  greatness.  As  it  is  in  the  forest,  so  it  is 
in  the  town.  The  very  gods  would  have  their  toes 
trod  upon,  if  they  walked  without  their  wings.  Yet 
let  us  take  honor  to  ourselves  above  vegetables.  The 
pine  beneath  me  has  been  a  giant,  with  his  top  in  the 
clouds,  but  lies  now  unvalued  on  the  earth.  We  rec- 
ognise greatness  when  it  is  dead.  We  are  prodigal 
of  love  and  honor  when  it  is  unavailing.  We  are,  in 
something,  above  wood  and  stubble. 

I  have  fallen  into  a  sad  trick,  dear  Doctor,  of  preach- 
ing sermons  to  myself,  from  these  texts  of  nature. 
Sometimes,  like  other  preachers,  I  pervert  the  meaning 
and  forget  the  context,  but  revery  would  lose  its 
charm  if  it  went  by  reason.  Adieu !  Come  up  to 
Glenmary,  and  catch  trout  if  you  will.  But  I  will 
have  your  worms  decently  drowned  before  boxed  for 
use.  I  can  not  sleep  o'nights,  after  slipping  one  of 
these  harmless  creatures  out  of  his  own  mouth,  in  a 
vain  attempt  to  pull  him  asunder. 


LETTER  V. 

My  dear  Doctor:  If  this  egg  hatch  without  get- 
ting cold,  or,  to  accommodate  my  language  to  your 
oity  apprehension,  if  the  letter  I  here  begin  comes  to 


a  finishing,  it  will  be  malgre  blistering  hands  and 
weary  back — the  consequences  of  hard  raking — of 
hay.  The  men  are  taking  their  four  o'clock  of  cheese 
and  cider  in  the  meadow,  and  not  having  simplified 
my  digestion  as  rapidly  as  my  habits,  I  have  retired 
to  the  shelter  of  the  bridge,  to  be  decently  rid  of  the 
master's  first  bit,  and  pull  at  the  pitcher.  After 
employing  my  brains  in  vain,  to  discover  why  this  par- 
ticular branch  of  farming  should  require  cider  and 
cheese  (eaten  together  at  no  other  season  that  I  can 
learn),  I  have  pulled  out  my  scribble-book  from  the 
niche  in  the  sleeper  overhead,  and  find,  by  luck,  one 
sheet  of  tabula  rasa,  upon  which  you  are  likely  to  pay 
eighteen  pence  to  Amos  Kendall. 

Were  you  ever  in  a  hay-field,  Doctor?  I  ask  for 
information.  Metaphorically,  I  know  you  "  live  in 
clover'" — meaning,  the  society  of  wits,  and  hock  of  a 
certain  vintage — but  seriously,  did  you  ever  happen 
to  stand  on  the  natural  soil  of  the  earth,  oft'  the  pave- 
ment ?  If  you  have  not,  let  me  tell  you  it  is  a  very 
pleasant  change.  I  have  always  fancied  there  was  a 
mixture  of  the  vegetable  in  myself;  and  I  am  con- 
vinced now,  that  there  is  something  in  us  which  grows 
more  thriftily  on  fresh  earth,  than  on  flag-stones. 
There  are  some  men  indigenous  to  brick  and  mortar, 
as  there  are  plants  which  thrive  best  with  a  stone  on 
them ;  but  there  are  "  connecting  links''  between  all 
j  the  varieties  of  God's  works,  and  such  men  verge  on 
|  the  mineral  kingdom.  I  have  seen  whole  geodes  of 
j  them,  with  all  the  properties  of  flints,  for  example. 
But  in  you,  my  dear  Doctor,  without  flattery,  I  think 
j  I  see  the  vegetable,  strong,  though  latent.  You 
would  thrive  in  the  country,  well  planted  and  a  little 
I  pruned.  I  am  not  sure  it  would  do  to  icater  you  free- 
i  ly — but  you  want  sunshine  and  fresh  air,  and  a  little 
bird  to  shake  the  "  dew"  out  of  your  top. 

I  see,  from  my  seat  under  the  bridge,  a  fair  mead- 
ow, laid  like  an  unrolled  carpet  of  emerald,  along  the 
windings  of  a  most  bright  and  swift  river.  The  first 
owner  of  it  after  the  savage,  all  honor  to  his  memory, 
sprinkled  it  with  forest  trees,  now  at  their  loftiest 
growth,  here  and  there  one,  stately  in  the  smooth 
grass,  like  a  polished  monarch  on  the  foot-cloth  of 
his  throne.  The  river  is  the  Owaga,  and  its  opposite 
bank  is  darkened  with  thick  wood,  through  which  a 
j  liberal  neighbor  has  allowed  me  to  cut  an  eye-path  to 
i  the  village  spire — a  mile  across  the  fields.  From  my 
I  cottage  door  across  this  meadow-lawn,  steals,  with 
j  silver  foot,  the  brook  I  redeemed  from  its  lost  stray  - 
ings,  and,  all  along  between  brook  and  river,  stand  hay- 
j  cocks,  not  fairies.  Now,  possess  me  as  well  of  your 
whereabout — what  you  see  from  your  window  in 
Broadway!  Is  there  a  sapling  on  my  whole  arm  that 
would  change  root-hold  with  you? 

The  hay  is  heavy  this  year,  and  if  there  were  less,  I 
should  still  feel  like  taking  oft"  my  hat  to  the  meadow. 
There  is  nothing  like  living  in  the  city,  to  impress  one 
with  the  gratuitous  liberality  of  the  services  rendered 
one  in  the  country.  Here  are  meadows  now,  that 
without  hint  or  petition,  pressing  or  encouragement, 
pay  or  consideration,  nay,  careless  even  of  gratitude, 
shoot  me  up  some  billions  of  glass-blades,  clover- 
flowers,  white  and  red,  and  here  and  there  a  nodding 
regiment  of  lilies,  tall  as  my  chin,  and  it  is  under- 
stood, I  believe,  that  I  am  welcome  to  it  all.  Now, 
you  may  think  this  is  all  easy  enough,  and  the  meadow 
is  happy  to  be  relieved  ;  but  so  the  beggar  might  think 
of  your  alms,  and  be  as  just.  But  you  have  made  the 
money  you  give  him  by  the  sweat  of  your  brow.  So 
has  the  meadow  its  grass.  "  It  is  estimated,"  says 
the  Book  of  Nature,  "  that  an  acre  of  grass-land  trans- 
pires, in  twenty-four  hours,  not  less  than  six  thousand 
four  hundred  quarts  of  water."  Sweat  me  that  with- 
out a  fee,  thou  "  dollar  a  visit !" 

Here  comes  William  from  the  post,  with  a  handful 
of  papers.     The  Mirror,  with  a  likeness  of  Sprague. 


LETTERS  FROM  UNDER  A  BRIDGE. 


225 


A  likeness  in  a  mirror  could  scarce  fail,  one  would 
think,  and  here,  accordingly,  he  is, — the  banker-poet, 
the  Rogers  of  our  country — fit  as  "  as  himself  to  be 
his  parallel."  Yet  T  have  never  seen  that  stern  look 
on  him.  We  know  he  bears  the  "globe"*  on  his 
back,  like  old  Atlas,  but  he  is  more  urbane  than  the 
world-bearer.  He  keeps  a  muscle  unstrained  for  a 
smile.  A  more  courteous  gentleman  stands  not  by 
Mammon's  altar — no,  nor  by  the  lip  of  Helicon — yet  | 
this  is  somehow  stern.  In  what  character,  if  you ; 
please,  Mr.  Harding  ?  Sat  Plutus,  or  Apollo,  astride  \ 
your  optic  nerve  when  you  drew  that  picture  ?  It  may- 
be a  look  he  has,  but,  fine  head  as  it  stands  on  paper, 
they  who  form  from  it  an  idea  of  the  man,  would  be 
agreeably  disappointed  in  meeting  him.  And  this, 
which  is  a  merit  in  most  pictures,  is  a  fault  in  one 
which  posterity  is  to  look  at. 

Sprague  has  the  reputation  of  being  a  most  able 
financier.  Yet  he  is  not  a  rich  man.  Best  evidence 
in  the  world  that  he  puts  his  genius  into  his  calcula- 
tions, for  it  is  the  nature  of  uncommon  gifts  to  do 
good  to  all  but  their  possessor.  That  he  is  a  poet, 
and  a  true  and  high  one,  has  been  not  so  much  ac- 
knowledged  by  criticism,  nsfelt  in  the  republic.  The 
great  army  of  editors,  who  paragraph  upon  one  name, 
as  an  entry  of  college-boys  will  play  upon  one  flute, , 
till  the  neighborhood  would  rather  listen  to  a  volun- 
tary upon  shovel  and  tongs,  have  not  made  his  name 
diurnal  and  hebdomadal ;  but  his  poetry  is  diffused 
by  more  unjostled  avenues,  to  the  understandings  and 
hearts  of  his  countrymen.  I,  for  one,  think  he  is  a 
better  banker  for  his  genius,  as  with  the  same  power 
he  would  have  made  a  better  soldier,  statesman,  far- 
mer,  what  you  will.  I  have  seen  excellent  poetry 
from  the  hand  of  Plutus — (Biddle,  I  should  have  said, 
but  I  never  scratch  out  to  you) — yet  he  has  but  ruf- 
fled the  muse,  while  Sprague  has  courted  her.  Our 
Theodore,f  bien-aime,  at  the  court  of  Berlin,  writes  a 
better  despatch,  I  warrant  you,  than  a  fellow  born  of 
red  tape  and  fed  on  sealing-wax  at  the  department.  I 
am  afraid  the  genius  of  poor  John  Quincy  Adams  is 
more  limited.  He  is  only  the  best  president  we  have 
had  since  Washington — not  a  poet,  though  he  has  a 
volume  in  press.  Briareus  is  not  the  father  of  all  who 
will  have  a  niche.  Shelley  would  have  made  an  un- ; 
safe  banker,  for  he  was  prodigal  of  stuff.  Pope, 
Rogers,  Crabbe,  Sprague,  Halleck,  waste  no  gold, 
even  in  poetry.  Every  idea  gets  his  due  of  those 
poets,  and  no  more ;  and  Pope  and  Crabbe,  by  the 
same  token,  would  have  made  as  good  bankers  as 
Sprague  and  Rogers.  We  are  under  some  mistake 
about  genius,  my  dear  Doctor.  I'll  just  step  in-doors, 
and  find  a  definition  of  it  in  the  library. 

Really,  the  sun  is  hot  enough,  as  Sancho  says,  to 
fry  the  brains  in  a  man's  scull. 

"  Genius,"  says  the  best  philosophical  book  I  know 
of,  "  wherever  it  is  found,  and  to  whatever  purpose 
directed,  is  mental  power.  It  distinguishes  the  man 
of  fine  phrensy,  as  Shakspere  expresses  it,  from  the 
man  of  mere  phrensy.  It  is  a  sort  of  instantaneous  in- 
sight that  gives  us  knowledge  without  going  to  school 
for  it.  Sometimes  it  is  directed  to  one  subject,  some- 
times to  another;  but  under  whatever  form  it  exhibits 
itself,  it  enables  the  individual  who  possesses  it,  to 
make  a  wonderful,  and  almost  miraculous  progress  in 
the  line  of  his  pursuit." 

Si  non  e  vero,  e  ben  trovato.  If  philosophy  were 
more  popular,  we  should  have  Irving  for  president, 
Halleck  for  governor  of  Iowa,  and  Bryant  envoy  to 
Texas.  But  genius,  to  the  multitude,  is  a  phantom 
without  mouth,  pockets,  or  hands — incapable  of  work, 
unaccustomed  to  food,  ignorant  of  the  uses  of  coin, 

•  Mr.  Sprague  is  cashier  of  the  Globe  Bank,  Boston, 
t  Theodore  Fay,  secretary  of  the  American   embassy  to 
Prussia. 

10 


and  unfit  candidate,  consequently,  for  any  manner  of 
loaves  and  fishes.  A  few  more  Spragues  would  leaven 
this  lump  of  narrow  prejudice. 

I  wish  you  would  kill  off  your  patients,  dear  Doctor, 
and  contrive  to  be  with  us  at  the  agricultural  show.  I 
flatter  myself  I  shall  take  the  prize  for  turnips.  By 
the  way,  to  answer  your  question  while  I  think  of  it, 
that  is  the  reason  why  I  am  not  at  Niagara,  "  taking  a 
look  at  the  viceroy."  I  must  watch  my  turnip-ling. 
I  met  Lord  Durham  once  or  twice  when  in  London, 
and  once  at  dinner  at  Lady  Blessington's.  I  was  ex- 
cessively interested,  on  that  occasion,  by  the  tactics  of 
D'Israeli,  who  had  just  then  chipped  his  political  shell, 
and  was  anxious  to  make  an  impression  on  Lord  Dur- 
ham, whose  glory,  still  to  come,  was  confidently  fore- 
told in  that  bright  circle.  I  rather  fancy  the  dinner 
was  made  to  give  Vivian  Grey  the  chance  ;  for  her 
ladyship,  benevolent  to  every  one,  has  helped  D'Isra- 
eli to  "  imp  his  wing,"  with  a  devoted  friendship,  of 
which  he  should  imbody  in  his  maturest  work  the 
delicacy  and  fervor.  Women  are  glorious  friends  to 
stead  ambition  ;  but  effective  as  they  all  can  be,  few 
have  the  tact,  and  fewer  the  varied  means,  of  the  lady 
in  question.  The  guests  dropped  in,  announced  but 
unseen,  in  the  dim  twilight ;  and,  when  Lord  Durham 
came,  I  could  only  see  that  he  was  of  middle  stature, 
and  of  a  naturally  cold  address.  Bulwer  spoke  to  him, 
but  he  was  introduced  to  no  one — a  departure  from 
the  custom  of  that  maison  sans-gene,  which  was  ei- 
ther a  tribute  to  his  lordship's  reserve,  or  a  ruse  on  the 
part  of  Lady  Blessington,  to  secure  to  D'Israeli  the 
advantage  of  having  his  acquaintance  sought — suc- 
cessful, if  so  ;  for  Lord  Durham,  after  dinner,  re- 
quested a  formal  introduction  to  him.  But  for  D'Or- 
say,  who  sparkles,  as  he  does  everything  else,  out  of 
rule,  and  in  splendid  defiance  of  others'  dulness,  the 
soup  and  the  first  half  hour  of  dinner  would  have 
passed  off,  with  the  usual  English  fashion  of  earnest 
silence.  I  looked  over  my  spoon  at  the  future  premier, 
a  dark,  saturnine  man,  with  very  black  hair,  combed 
very  smooth,  and  wondered  how  a  heart,  with  the  tur- 
bulent ambitions,  and  disciplined  energies  which  were 
stirring,  I  knew,  in  his,  could  be  concealed  under  that 
polished  and  marble  tranquillity  of  mien  and  manner. 
He  spoke  to  Lady  Blessington  in  an  under-tone,  re- 
plying with  a  placid  serenity  that  never  reached  a 
smile,  to  so  much  of  D'Orsay's  champagne  wit  as 
threw  its  sparkle  in  his  way,  and  Bulwer  and  D'Israeli 
were  silent  altogether.  I  should  have  foreboded  a  dull 
dinner  if,  in  the  open  brow,  the  clear  sunny  eye,  and 
unembarrassed  repose  of  the  beautiful  and  expressive 
mouth  of  Lady  Blessington,  I  had  not  read  the  prom- 
ise of  a  change.  It  came  presently.  With  a  tact,  of 
which  the  subtle  ease  and  grace  can  in  no  way  be  con- 
veyed into  description,  she  gathered  up  the  cobweb 
threads  of  conversation  going  on  at  different  parts  of 
the  table,  and,  by  the  most  apparent  accident,  flung 
them  into  D'Israeli's  fingers,  like  the  ribands  of  a  four- 
in-hand.  And,  if  so  coarse  a  figure  can  illustrate  it, 
he  took  the  whip-hand  like  a  master.  It  was  an  ap- 
peal to  his  opinion  on  a  subject  he  well  understood, 
and  he  burst  at  once,  without  preface,  into  that  fiery 
vein  of  eloquence  which,  hearing  many  times  after, 
and  always  with  new  delight,  have  stamped  D'Israeli 
on  my  mind  as  the  most  wonderful  talker  I  have  ever 
had  the  fortune  to  meet.  He  is  anything  but  a  de- 
claimed You  would  never  think  him  on  stilts.  If 
he  catches  himself  in  a  rhetorical  sentence,  he  mocks 
at  it  in  the  next  breath.  He  is  satirical,  contemptuous, 
pathetic,  humorous,  everything  in  a  moment ;  and  his 
conversation  on  any  subject  whatever,  embraces  the 
omnibus  rebus,  et  quibusdam  aliis.  Add  to  this,  that 
D'Israeli's  is  the  most  intellectual  face  in  England- 
pale,  regular,  and  overshadowed  with  the  most  luxu- 
riant masses  of  raven-black  hair  ;  and  you  will  scarce 
wonder  that,  meeting  him  for  the  first  time.  Lord  Dur- 


22f3 


LETTERS  FROM  UNDER  A  BRIDGE. 


ham  was  (as  he  was  expected  to  be  by  the  Aspasia  of 
that  London  Academe),  impressed.  He  was  not  car- 
ried away  as  we  were.  That  would  have  been  unlike 
Lord  Durham.  He  gave  his  whole  mind  to  the  bril- 
liant meteor  blazing  before  him  ;  but  the  telescope  of 
judgment  was  in  his  hand — to  withdraw  at  pleasure. 
He  has  evidently  native  to  his  blood,  that  great  quality 
of  a  statesman — retenu.  D'Israeli  and  he  formed  at 
the  moment  a  finely  contrasted  picture.  Understand- 
ing his  game  perfectly,  the  author  deferred,  constantly 
and  adroitly,  to  the  opinion  of  his  noble  listener,  shap- 
ed his  argument  by  his  suggestions,  allowed  him  to 
say  nothing  without  using  it  as  the  nucleus  of  some 
new  turn  to  his  eloquence,  and  all  this,  with  an  appa- 
rent effort  against  it,  as  if  he  had  desired  to  address 
himself  exclusively  to  Lady  Blessington,  but  was  com- 
pelled, by  a  superior  intellectual  magnetism,  to  turn 
aside  and  pay  homage  to  her  guest.  With  all  this  in- 
stinctive management  there  was  a  flashing  abandon  in 
his  language  and  choice  of  illustration,  a  kindling  of 
his  eye,  and,  what  I  have  before  described,  a  positive 
foaming  at  his  lips,  which  contrasted  with  the  warm 
but  clear  and  penetrating  eye  of  Lord  Durham,  his 
calm  yet  earnest  features,  and  lips  closed  without  com- 
pression, formed,  as  I  said,  a  picture,  and  of  an  order 
worth  remembering  in  poetry.  Without  meaning  any 
disrespect  to  D'Israeli,  whom  I  admire  as  much  as  any 
man  in  England,  I  remarked  to  my  neighbor,  a  cele- 
brated artist,  that  it  would  make  a  glorious  drawing  of 
Satan  tempting  an  archangel  to  rebel. 

Well — D'Israeli  is  in  parliament,  and  Lord  Durham 
on  the  last  round  but  one  of  the  ladder  of  subject 
greatness,  The  viceroy  will  be  premier,  no  doubt ; 
but  it  is  questionable  if  the  author  of  Vivian  Grey 
does  more  than  carry  out  the  moral  of  his  own  tale. 
Talking  at  a  brilliant  table,  with  an  indulgent  and  su- 
perb woman  on  the  watch  for  wit  and  eloquence,  and 
rising  in  the  face  of  a  cold  common-sense  house  of 
commons,  on  the  look  out  for  froth  and  humbug,  are 
two  different  matters.  In  a  great  crisis,  with  the  na- 
tion in  a  tempest,  D'Israeli  would  flash  across  the 
darkness  very  finely — but  he  will  never  do  for  the  calm 
right-hand  of  a  premier.  I  wish  him,  I  am  sure,  ev- 
ery success  in  the  world  :  but  I  trust  that  whatever 
political  reverses  fall  to  his  share,  they  will  drive  him 
back  to  literature. 

I  have  written  this  last  sentence  in  the  red  light  of 
sunset,  and  I  must  be  out  to  see  my  trees  watered,  and 
my  kine  driven  a-field  after  their  milking.  What  a 
coverlet  of  glory  the  day-god  draws  about  him  for  his 
repose  !  I  should  like  curtains  of  that  burnt  crimson. 
If  I  have  a  passion  in  the  world,  it  is  for  that  royal 
trade,  upholstery;  and  so  thought  George  the  Fourth, 
and  so  thinks  Sultan  Mahmoud,  who,  with  his  own 
henna-tipped  fingers,  assisted  by  his  assembled  harem, 
arranges  every  fold  of  drapery  in  the  seraglio.  If  po- 
etry fail,  I'll  try  the  profession  some  day  en  errand,  and 
meantime  let  me  go  out  and  study  one  of  the  three 
hundred  and  sixty-five  varieties  of  couch-drapery  in 
the  west. 


LETTER  VI. 

Mr  dear  Doctor:  Your  letter  contained 

«  A  few  of  the  unpleasantest  words 
That  e'er  were  writ  on  paper  !" 

Why  should  you  not  pass  August  at  Glenmary? 
Have  your  patients  bought  you,  body  and  soul  ?  Is 
there  no  "night-bell"  in  the  city  but  yours?  Have 
ypu  no  practice  in  the  country,  my  dear  Esculapius  ? 
Faith !  I'll  be  ill !  By  the  time  you  reach  here,  I 
shall  be  a  "  case."  I  have  not  had  a  headache  now 
in  twenty  years,  and  my  constitution  requires  a  change. 
I'll  begin  by  eating  the  cucumbers  we  had  saved  for 


your  visit,  and  you  know  the  consequences.  Mix  me  a 
pill  for  the  cholera — first,  second,  or  third  stage  of  the 
disease,  according  to  your  speed — and  come  with 
what  haste  you  may.  If  you  arrive  too  late,  you  lose 
your  fee,  but  I'll  return  your  visit,  by  the  honor  of  a 
ghost. 

By  the  way,  as  a  matter  of  information,  do  you 
charge  in  such  cases?  Or,  the  man  being  dead,  do 
you  deduct  for  not  feeling  his  pulse,  nor  telling  him 
the  name  of  his  damaged  organ  in  Latin  ?  It  should 
be  half-price,  I  think,  these  items  off.  Let  me  know 
by  express  mail,  as  one  likes  to  be  prepared. 

Since  I  wrote  to  you,  I  have  added  the  Chemung 
river  to  my  list  of  acquaintances.  It  was  done  a  Vim- 
frovista,  as  most  pleasant  things  are.  We  were  dri- 
ving to  the  village  on  some  early  errand,  and  met  a 
friend  at  the  cross-roads,  bound  with  an  invalid  to 
Avon  Springs.  He  was  driving  his  own  horses,  and 
proposed  to  us  to  set  him  a  day's  journey  on  his  way. 
I  had  hay  to  cut,  but  the  day  was  made  for  truants — 
bright,  breezy,  and  exhilarating  ;  and  as  I  looked  over 
my  shoulder,  the  only  difficulty  vanished,  for  there 
stood  a  pedlar  chaffering  for  a  horn-comb  with  a  girl 
at  a  well.  We  provided  for  a  night's  toilet  from  his 
tin-box,  and  easing  off  the  check-reins  a  couple  of 
holes,  to  enlighten  my  ponies  as  to  the  change  in 
their  day's  work,  we  struck  into  the  traveller's  trot, 
and  sped  away  into  the  eye  of  a  southwest  breeze, 
happy  as  urchins  when  the  schoolmaster  is  on  a  jury. 
When  you  come  here,  I  shall  drive  you  to  the 
Narrows  of  the  Susquehannah.  That  is  a  word,  nota 
bene,  which,  in  this  degree  of  latitude,  refers  not  at  all 
to  the  breadth  of  the  stream.  It  is  a  place  where  the 
mountain,  like  many  a  frowning  coward,  threatens  to 
crowd  its  gentler  neighbor,  but  gives  room  at  its  calm 
approach,  and  annoys  nobody  but  the  passer-by.  The 
road  between  them,  as  you  come  on,  looks  etched 
with  a  thumb-nail  along  the  base  of  the  cliff,  and  you 
would  think  it  a  pokerish  drive,  making  no  allowance 
for  perspective.  The  friable  rock,  however,  makes 
rather  a  smooth  single  track,  and  if  you  have  the  in- 
side when  you  meet  Farmer  Giles  or  the  stage-coach, 
you  have  only  to  set  your  hub  against  the  rock,  and 
"let  them  go  by  as  likes."  The  majestic  and  tranquil 
river  sweeps  into  the  peaked  shadow,  and  on  again, 
with  the  disdain  of  a  beauty  used  to  conquer.  It  re- 
minded me  of  Lady  Blessington's  "do  if  you  dare  !" 
when  the  mob  at  the  house  of  lords  threatened  to 
break  her  chariot  windows.  There  was  a  calm  cour- 
age in  Miladi's  French  glove  that  carried  her  through, 
and  so  amid  this  mob  of  mountains,  glides  the  Sus- 
quehannah to  the  sea. 

While  I  am  here,  let  me  jot  down  an  observation 
worthy  the  notice  of  Mr.  Capability  Brown.  This 
cliff  falls  into  a  a  line  of  hills  running  from  northwest 
to  southeast,  and  by  five  in  the  summer  afternoon, 
their  tall  shoulders  have  nudged  the  sun,  and  the  long, 
level  road  at  their  bases  lies  in  deep  shadow,  for  miles 
along  the  Owaga  and  Susquehannah.  "  Consequence 
is,"  as  my  friend  of  the  "Albany  Daily"  says,  we  can 
steal  a  march  upon  twilight,  and  take  a  cool  drive  be- 
fore tea.  What  the  ruination  shops  on  the  west  side 
of  Broadway  are  to  you,  this  spur  of  the  Allega- 
nies  is  to  me  (minus  the  plate-glass,  and  the  tempta- 
tions). I  value  this — for  the  afternoons  in  July  and 
August  are  hot  and  long ;  the  breeze  dies  away,  the 
flies  get  in-doors,  and  with  the  desire  for  motion,  yet 
no  ability  to  stir,  one  longs  for  a  ride  with  Ariel 
through  "the  veins  o'  the  earth."  Mr.  C.  Brown 
now  would  mark  me  down,  for  this  privilege  of  road 
well  shaded,  some  twenty  pound  in  the  rent.  He  is  a 
man  in  England  who  trades  upon  his  taste.  He  goes 
to  your  country-seat  to  tell  you  what  can  be  done 
with  it — what  are  its  unimproved  advantages,  what  to 
do  with  your  wood,  and  what  with  your  water.  He 
would  rate  this  shady  mountain  as  an  eligibility  in  the 


LETTERS  FROM  UNDER  A  BRIDGE. 


2*7 


site,  to  be  reckoned,  of  course,  as  income.     A  very  I 
pleasant  man  is  Mr.  Brown ! 

It  occurs  to  me,  Doctor,  that  a  new  branch  of  this  ] 
gentleman's  profession  might  be  profitable.  Why  not  j 
set  up  a  shop  to  tell  penjjle  what  they  can  make  of 
themselves  ?  I  have  a  great  mind  to  take  out  a  patent  I 
for  the  idea.  The  stock  in  trade  would  be  two  chairs  I 
and  a  green  curtain — (for  taste,  like  rouge,  should  be  j 
sold  privately) — not  expensive.  I  would  advertise  to 
see  gentlemen  in  the  morning,  ladies  in  the  evening,  I 
"  secresy  in  all  cases  strictly  observed."  Few  people  j 
of  either  sex  know  their  own  style.  Your  Madonna 
is  apt  to  romp,  for  instance,  and  your  romp  to  wear  | 
her  hair  plain  and  a  rosary.  Few  ladies  know  what 
eolon  they  look  best  in — whether  smiles  or  tears  are  j 
most  becoming,  whether  they  appear  to  most  advan- 
tage  sitting,  like  Queen  Victoria  and  Tom  Moore  (and  | 
this  involves  a  delicate  question),  or  standing  and  | 
walking.  The  world  is  full  of  people  who  mistake  \ 
their  style — fish  for  your  net  every  one.  How  many 
women  are  never  charming  till  they  forget  themselves ! 
A  belle  is  a  woman  who  knows  her  weapons — colors, 
smiles,  moods,  caprices ;  who  has  looked  at  her  face 
in  the  glass  like  an  artist,  and  knows  what  will  lighten 
a  defect  or  enhance  a  beauty.  The  art  is  as  rare  as 
the  belle.  "  Pourquoy,  my  dear  knight."  Because 
taste  is,  where  knowledge  was  before  the  discovery  of 
printing — locked  up  with  the  first  possessor.  Why 
should  it  not  be  diffused  ?  What  a  refuge  for  reduced 
gentility  would  be  such  a  vocation.  What  is  now  the 
disease  of  fortunes  would  be  then  their  remedy ;  pa- 
rents would  cultivate  a  taste  for  eloquence  in  their 
children,  because  there  is  no  knowing  what  they  may 
come  to — the  reason,  now,  why  they  take  pains  to  re- 
press it. 

I  presume  it  is  in  consequence  of  the  diffusion  of 
printing  that  ignorance  of  the  law  is  no  apology  for 
crime.  Were  "taste  within  reach  of  all  (there  might 
be  dispensaries  for  the  poor),  that  "  shocking  bad  hat" 
of  yours,  my  dear  Doctor,  would  be  a  criminal  offence. 
Our  fat  friend  with  the  long-tailed  coat,  and  the  waist 
at  his  shoulder-blades,  would  be  liable  to  fine  for  mis- 
informing the  tailor  as  to  the  situation  of  his  hips — 
the  tailor  of  course  not  to  blame,  having  nothing  to  go 
by.  Two  scandalous  old  maids  together  would  be 
abated  as  a  nuisance — as  it  is  the  quantity  of  tin-pots, 
which,  in  a  concert  upon  that  tintinnabulary  instru- 
ment, constitutes  a  disturbance  of  the  peace.  The 
reform  would  be  endless.  I  am  not  sure  it  could  be 
extended  to  bad  taste  in  literature,  for,  like  rebellion, 
the  crime  would  merge  in  the  universality  of  the  of- 
fenders. But  it  would  be  the  general  putting  down  of 
tame  monsters,  now  loose  on  society.     Pensez  y  ! 

What  should  you  think  of  dining  with  a  woman  be- 
hind your  chair  worth  seven  hundred  thousand  pounds 
sterling — well  invested?  You  may  well  stare — but 
unless  a  large  number  of  sensible  people  are  very 
much  mistaken,  you  may  do  so  any  day,  for  some 
three  shillings,  at  a  small  inn  on  the  Susquehannah. 
Those  who  know  the  road,  leave  behind  them  a  showy, 
porticoed  tavern,  new,  and  carefully  divested  of  all 
trees  and  grass,  and  pull  up  at  the  door  of  the  old  inn 
at  the  place,  a  low,  old-fashioned  house,  built  on  a 
brook-side,  and  with  all  the  appearance  of  a  comfort- 
able farmhouse,  save  only  a  leaning  and  antiquated 
sign-post.  Here  lives  a  farmer  well  off"  in  the  world, 
a  good-natured  old  man,  who  for  some  years  has  not 
meant  to  keep  open  tavern,  but  from  the  trouble  of 
taking  down  his  sign-post,  or  the  habit,  and  acquaint- 
ance with  travellers,  gives  all  who  come  what  chance 
fare  may  be  under  the  roof,  and  at  the  old  prices  com- 
mon in  days  when  the  bill  was  not  ridden  by  leagues 
of  white  paint  and  portico.  His  dame,  the  heiress,  is 
a  tall  and  erect  woman  of  fifty  ("or,  by'r  lady,  three- 
score"), a  smiling,  intelligent,  ready  hostess,  with  the 


natural  manners  of  a  gentlewoman.  Now  and  then,  a 
pale  daughter,  unmarried,  and  twenty-four  or  younger, 
looks  into  the  whitewashed  parlor,  and  if  the  farmer 
is  home  from  the  field,  he  sits  down  with  his  hat  on, 
and  lends  you  a  chat  with  a  voice  sound  and  hearty  as 
the  smell  of  day.  It  is  altogether  a  pleasant  place  to 
loiter  away  the  noon,  and  though  it  was  early  for  din- 
ner when  we  arrived,  we  put  up  our  horses  (the  men 
were  all  a-field),  and  Dame  Raymond  spread  her  white 
cloth,  and  set  on  her  cherry-pie,  while  her  daughter 
broiled  for  us  the  de  quoi  of  the  larder,  in  the  shape 
of  a  salt  mackerel.  The  key  of  the  "  bin"  was  in  her 
pocket,  and  we  were  young  enough,  the  dame  said,  as 
she  gave  it  to  us,  to  feed  our  own  horses.  This  good 
woman,  or  this  great  lady,  is  the  only  daughter,  as  I 
understand  it,  of  an  old  farmer  ninety  years  of  age, 
who  has  fallen  heir  to  an  immense  fortune  in  England. 
He  was  traced  out  several  years  ago  by  the  executors, 
and  the  proper  testimonials  of  the  property  placed  in 
his  hands ;  but  he  was  old,  and  his  child  was  well  off 
and  happy,  and  he  refused  to  put  himself  to  any  trou- 
ble about  it.  Dame  Raymond  herself  thought  Eng- 
land a  great  way  off;  and  the  pride  of  her  life  is  her 
fine  chickens,  and  to  go  so  far  upon  the  strength  of  a 
few  letters,  leaving  the  farm  and  hen-roost  to  take  care 
of  themselves,  was  an  undertaking  which,  she  felt,  jus- 
tified Farmer  Raymond  in  shaking  his  head.  Lately 
an  enterprising  gentleman  in  the  neighborhood  has 
taken  the  papers,  and  she  consented  to  write  to  her 
father,  who  willingly  made  over  to  her  all  authority  in 
the  matter.  The  claim,  I  understand,  is  as  well  au- 
thenticated as  paper  evidence  can  make  it,  and  the 
probability  is,  that  in  a  few  months  Dame  Raymond 
will  be  more  troubled  with  her  riches  than  she  ever 
was  with  her  chickens. 

We  dined  at  our  leisure,  and  had  plenty  of  sharp 
gossip  with  the  tall  hostess,  who  stood  to  serve  the  tea 
from  a  side-table,  and  between  our  cups  kept  the  flies 
from  her  tempting  cherry-pie  and  brown  sugar,  with  a 
large  fan.  I  have  not  often  seen  a  more  shrewd  and 
sensible  woman,  and  she  laughs  and  philosophizes 
about  her  large  fortune  in  a  way  that  satisfied  me  she 
would  laugh  just  as  cheerly  if  it  should  turn  out  a 
bubble.  She  said  her  husband  had  told  her  "  it  was 
best  not  to  be  proud,  till  she  got  her  money."  The 
only  symptom  that  I  detected  of  castle-building,  was  a 
hint  she  let  slip  of  hoping  to  entertain  travellers,  some 
day,  in  a  better  house.  I  coupled  this  with  another 
remark,  and  suspected  that  the  new  tavern,  with  its  big 
portico  and  blazing  sign,  had  not  taken  the  wind  out 
of  her  sails  without  offence,  and  that,  perhaps,  the 
only  use  of  her  money,  on  which  she  had  determined, 
was  to  build  a  bigger  and  eclipse  the  intruder. 

I  amused  myself  with  watching  her  as  she  bustled 
about  with  old-fashioned  anxiety  to  anticipate  our 
wants,  and  fancying  the  changes  to  which  the  acquisi- 
tion of  this  immense  fortune  might  introduce  her  in 
England.  There  was  her  daughter,  whom  a  little  mil- 
linery would  improve  into  a  very  presentable  heiress, 
cooking  our  mackerel ;  while  Mrs.  Thwaites,  the  gro- 
cer's widow  in  London,  with  no  more  money  probably, 
was  beset  by  half  the  unmarried  noblemen  in  England, 
Lord  Lyndhurst,  it  is  said,  the  most  pressing.  But 
speculation  is  endless,  and  you  shall  go  down  with 
your  trout  line,  dear  Doctor,  and  spin  your  own  cob- 
webs while  Dame  Raymond  cooks  your  fish. 

I  have  spun  out  my  letter  to  such  a  length,  that  I 
have  left  myself  no  room  to  prate  to  you  of  the  beau- 
ties of  the  Chemung,  but  you  are  likely  to  hear 
enough  of  it,  for  it  is  a  subject  with  which  I  am  just 
now  something  enamoured.  I  think  you  share  with 
me  my  passion  for  rivers.  If  you  have  the  grace  to 
come  and  visit  us,  and  I  survive  the  cholera  you  have 
brought  upon  me,  we  will  visit  this  new  Naiad  in  com- 
pany^  and  take  Dame  Raymond  in  our  way.     Adieu. 


228 


LETTERS  FROM  UNDER  A  BRIDGE. 


LETTER  VII. 

I  am  of  opinion,  dear  Doctor,  that  a  letter  to  be  read 
understanding^,  should  have  marginal  references  to 
the  state  of  the  thermometer,  the  condition  of  the 
writer's  digestion,  and  the  quality  of  his  pen  and  ink 
at  the  time  of  writing.  These  matters,  if  they  do  not 
affect  a  man's  belief  in  a  future  state,  very  sensibly  op 
erate  upon  his  style  of  composition,  sometimes  (so 
with  me  at  least),  upon  his  sentiments  and  minor  mor- 
als. 

Like  most  other  pen-and-inklings  in  this  be-printed 
country,  I  commenced  authorship  at  precisely  the 
wrong  end — criticism.  Never  having  put  my  hat  upon 
more  than  one  or  two  grown-up  thoughts,  I  still  feel 
myself  qualified  to  pronounce  upon  any  man's  litera- 
ry stature  from  Walter  Scott  to  whom  you  please — 
God  forgive  me  !  I  remember  (under  this  delusion  of 
Sathan)  sitting  down  to  review  a  book  by  one  of  the 
most  sensible  women  in  this  country.  It  was  a  pleas- 
ant morning — favorable  symptom  for  the  author.  I 
wrote  the  name  of  the  book  at  the  head  of  a  clean  sheet 
of  Bath  post,  and  the  nib  of  my  pen  capered  nimbly 
away  into  a  flourish,  in  a  fashion  to  coax  praise  out  of 
a  pumpkin.  What  but  courtesy  on  so  bright  a  morn- 
ing and  with  so  smooth  a  pen  ?  I  was  in  the  middle 
of  the  page,  taking  breath  after  a  long  and  laudatory 
sentence,  when,  paff !  through  the  window  came  a 
gust  of  air,  labelled  for  the  bare  nerves.  (If  you  have 
ever  been  in  Boston,  perhaps  you  have  observed  that 
an  east  wind,  in  that  city  of  blue  noses  in  June,  gives 
you  a  sensation  like  being  suddenly  deprived  of  your 
skin.)  In  a  shudder  of  disgust  I  bore  down  upon  the 
dot  of  an  i,  and  my  pen,  like  an  "  over-tried  friend," 
gave  way  under  the  pressure.  With  the  wind  in  that 
same  quarter,  dexterity  died.  After  vain  efforts  to 
mend  my  pen  to  its  original  daintiness,  I  amputated  the 
nib  to  a  broad  working  stump,  and  aimed  it  doggedly 
at  the  beginning  of  a  new  paragraph.  But  my  wits 
had  gone  about  with  the  grasshopper  on  the  church- 
steeple.  Nothing  would  trickle  from  that  stumpy 
quill,  either  graceful  or  gracious  ;  and  having  looked 
through  the  book,  but  with  a  view  to  find  matter  to 
praise,  I  was  obliged  to  run  it  over  anew  to  forage  for 
the  east  wind.  "Hence  the  milk  in  the  cocoa-nut," 
as  the  showman  says  of  the  monkey's  stealing  ch 
dren.  I  wrote  a  savage  review,  which  the  reader  w 
expected  to  believe  contained  the  opinions  of  the  re- 
viewer !  !     Oh,  Jupiter  ! 

All  this  is  to  apologize,  not  for  my  own  letter,  which 
I  intend  to  be  a  pattern  of  good  humor,  but  for  a  pas- 
sage in  your  last  (if  written  upon  a  hard  egg  you 
should  have  mentioned  it  in  the  margin),  in  which, 
apropos  of  my  jaunt  to  the  Chemung,  you  accuse  me 
of  being  glad  to  get  away  from  my  hermitage.  I 
could  write  you  a  sermon  now  on  the  nature  of  content, 
but  you  would  say  the  very  text  is  apocryphal.  My 
"lastly,"  however,  would  go  to  prove  that  there  is  big- 
otry in  retirement  as  in  alhthings  either  good  or  pleas- 
ureable.  The  eye  that  never  grows  familiar  with  na- 
ture, needs  freshening  from  all  things  else.  A  room,  a 
chair,  a  musical  instrument,  a  horse,  a  dog,  the  road 
you  drive  daily,  and  the  well  you  drink  from,  are  all 
more  prized  when  left  and  returned  to.  The  habit  of 
turning  back  daily  from  a  certain  mile-stone,  in  your 
drive,  makes  that  milestone  after  a  while,  a  prison  wall. 
It  is  pleasant  to  pass  it,  though  the  road  beyond  be 
less  beautiful.  If  I  were  once  more  "  brave  Master 
Shoetie,  the  great  traveller,"  it  would  irk  me,  I  dare 
say,  to  ride  thirty  miles  in  a  rail-car  drawn  by  one  slow 
horse-  Yet  it  is  a  pleasant  "lark"  now,  to  run  down 
to  Ithaca  for  a  night,  in  this  drowsy  conveyance, 
though  I  exchange  a  cool  cottage  for  a  fly-nest,  "lav- 
endered  linen"  for  abominable  cotton,  and  the  service 
of  civil  William  for  the  "  young  lady  that  takes  care 
of  the  chambers,"      I  like  the  cobwebs  swept   out 


of  my  eyes.  I  like  to  know  what  reason  I  have  to 
keep  my  temper  among  my  household  gods.  I  like 
to  pay  an  extravagant  bill  for  villanous  entertainment 
abroad,  and  come  back  to  escape  ruin  in  the  luxuries 
of  home. 

Doctor!  were  you  ever  a  vagabond  for  years  togeth- 
er ?  I  know  you  have  hung  your  hat  on  the  south 
pole,  but  you  are  one  of  those  "  friend  of  the  family" 
men,  who  will  travel  from  Dan  to  Beersheba,  and  be 
at  no  charges  for  lodging.  You  can  not  understand,  1 
think,  the  life  from  which  I  have  escaped — the  life  of 
"  mine  ease  in  mine  inn."  Pleasant  mockery  !  You 
have  never  had  the  hotel  fever — never  sickened  of  the 
copperplate  human  faces  met  exclusively  in  those 
homes  of  the  homeless — never  have  gone  distracted  at 
the  eternal  "one  piece  of  soap,  and  the  last  occupant's 
tooth-brush  and  cigar  !"  To  be  slighted  any  hour  of 
the  evening  for  a  pair  of  slippers  and  a  tin  candle- 
stick— to  sleep  and  wake  amid  the  din  of  animal  wants, 
complaining  and  supplied — to  hear  no  variety  of  hu- 
man tone  but  the  expression  of  these  baser  necessities 
— to  be  waited  on  either  by  fellows  who  would  bring 
your  coffin  as  unconcernedly  as  your  breakfast,  or  by  a 
woman  who  is  rude,  because  insulted  when  kind — to  lie 
ways  in  strange  beds — to  go  home  to  a  house  of  stran- 
gers— to  be  weary  without  pity,  sick  without  soothing, 
sad  without  sympathy — to  sit  at  twilight  by  your  lone- 
ly window,  in  some  strange  city,  and,  with  a  heart 
which  a  child's  voice  would  dissolve  in  tenderness,  to 
see  door  after  door  open  and  close  upon  fathers,  broth- 
ers, friends,  expected  and  welcomed  by  the  beloved 
and  the  beloving — these  are  costly  miseries  against 
which  I  almost  hourly  weigh  my  cheaper  happiness  in 
a  home  I  Yet  this  is  the  life  pined  after  by  the  grown- 
up boy — the  life  called  fascinating  and  mystified  in  ro- 
mance— the  life,  dear  Doctor,  for  which  even  yourself 
can  fancy  I  am  "  imping  my  wing"  anew  !  Oh,  no ! 
I  have  served  seven  years  for  this  Rachel  of  content- 
ment, and  my  heart  is  no  Laban  to  put  me  off  with  a 
Leah. 

"  A  !"  Imagine  this  capital  letter  laid  on  its  back, 
and  pointed  south  by  east,  and  you  have  a  pretty  fair 
diagram  of  the  junction  of  the  Susquehannah  and  the 
Chemung.  The  note  of  admiration  describes  a  su- 
perb line  of  mountains  at  the  back  of  the  Chemung 
valley,  and  the  quotation  marks  express  the  fine  bluffs 
that  overlook  the  meeting  of  the  waters  at  Athens. 
The  cross  of  the  letter  (say  a  line  of  four  miles),  de- 
fines a  road  from  one  river  to  the  other,  by  which 
travellers  up  the  Chemung  save  the  distance  to  the 
point  of  the  triangle,  and  the  area  between  is  a  broad 
plain,  just  now  as  fine  a  spectacle  of  teeming  harvest 
as  you  would  find  on  the  Genesee. 

As  the  road  touches  the  Chemung,  you  pass  undei 
the  base  of  a  round  mountain,  once  shaped  like  a 
sugar-loaf,  but  now  with  a  top,  o'  the  fashion  of  a 
schoolboy's  hat  punched  in  to  drink  from;  the  floor- 
worn   edge   of  the   felt   answering  to   a  fortification 

around  the  rim  of  the   hill  built  by  I  should 

be  obliged  if  you  would  tell  me  whom.  They  call 
it  Spanish  Hill,  and  the  fortifications  were  old  at 
the  time  of  the  passing  through  of  Sullivan's  ar- 
my. It  is  as  pretty  a  fort  as  my  Uncle  Toby  could 
have  seen  in  Flanders,  and  was,  doubtless,  occupied 
by  gentlemen  soldiers  long  before  the  Mayflower 
moored  off  the  rock  of  Plymouth.  The  tradition 
runs  that  an  Indian  chief  once  ascended  it  to  look  for 
Spanish  gold  ;  but  on  reaching  the  top,  was  enveloped 
in  clouds  and  thunder,  and  returned  with  a  solemn 
command  from  the  spirit  of  the  mountain  that  no  In- 
dian should  ever  set  foot  on  it  again.  An  old  lady, 
who  lives  in  the  neighborhood  (famous  for  killing  two 
tories  with  a  stone  in  her  stocking),  declares  that  the 
dread  of  this  mountain  is  universal  among  the  tribes, 
and  that  nothing  would  induce  a  red  man  to  ascend  it. 
This  looks  as  if  the  sachem  had  found  what  he  went 


LETTERS  FROM  UNDER  A  BRIDGE. 


229 


after ;  and  it  is  a  modern  fact,  I  understand,  that  a  man 
hired  to  plough  on  the  hill-side,  suddenly  left  his  em- 
ployer and  purchased  a  large  farm,  by  nobody  knows 
what  windfall  of  fortune.  Half  this  mountain  belongs 
to  a  gentleman  who  is  building  a  country-seat  on  an 
exquisite  site  between  it  and  the  river,  and  to  the  kind- 
ness of  his  son  and  daughter,  who  accompanied  us  in 
our  ascent,  we  are  indebted  for  a  most  pleasant  hour, 
and  what  information  I  have  given  you. 

I  will  slip  in  here  a  memorandum  for  any  invalid, 
town-weary  person,  or  new-married  couple,  to  whom 
you  may  have  occasion,  in  your  practice,  to  recom- 
mend change  of  air.  The  house  formerly  occupied 
by  this  gentleman,  a  roomy  mansion,  in  a  command- 
ing and  beautiful  situation,  is  now  open  as  an  inn,  and 
I  know  nowhere  a  retreat  so  private  and  desirable.  It 
is  near  both  the  Susquehannah  and  the  Chemung,  the 
hills  laced  with  trout-streams,  four  miles  from  Athens, 
and  half  way  between  Owegoand  Elmira.  The  scen- 
ery all  about  is  delicious,  and  the  house  well  kept  at 
country  charges.  My  cottage  is  some  sixteen  miles 
off;  and  if  you  give  any  of  your  patients  a  letter  to 
me,  I  will  drive  up  and  see  them,  with  a  posy  and  a  pot 
of  jelly.  You  will  understand  that  they  must  be  peo- 
ple who  do  not  "add  perfume  to  the  violet."  In  my 
way — simple. 

I  can  in  no  way  give  you  an  idea  of  the  beauty  of 
the  Chemung  river  from  Brigham's  Inn  to  Elmira. 
We  entered  immediately  upon  the  Narrows — a  spot 
where  the  river  follows  into  a  curve  of  the  mountain, 
like  an  inlaying  of  silver  around  the  bottom  of  an  em- 
erald cup — the  brightest  water,  the  richest  foliage — 
and  a  landscape  of  meadow  between  the  horns  of  the 
crescent  that  would  be  like  the  finest  park  scenery  in 
England,  if  the  boldness  of  the  horizon  did  not  mix 
with  it  a  resemblance,  to  Switzerland. 

We  reached  Elmira  at  sunset.  What  shall  I  say 
of  it  ?  From  a  distance,  its  situation  is  most  beauti- 
ful. It  lies  (since  we  have  begun  upon  the  alphabet) 
in  the  tail  of  a  magnificent  L,  formed  by  the  bright 
winding  of  the  river.  Perhaps  the  surveyor,  instead 
of  deriving  its  name  from  his  sweetheart,  called  it  L. 
mirabile — corrupted  to  vulgar  comprehension,  Elmi- 
ra. If  he  did  not,  he  might,  and  I  will  lend  him  the 
etymology. 

The  town  is  built  against  a  long  island,  covered 
with  soft  green-sward,  and  sprinkled  with  noble  trees  ; 
a  promenade  of  unequalled  beauty  and  convenience, 
but  that  all  which  a  village  can  muster  of  unsightli- 
ness  has  chosen  the  face  of  the  river-bank  "  to  turn 
its  lining  to  the  sun."  Fie  on  you,  Elmira  !  I  in- 
tend to  get  up  a  memorial  to  Congress,  praying  that 
the  banks  of  rivers  in  all  towns  settled  henceforth, 
shall  be  government  property,  to  be  reserved  and 
planted  for  public  grounds.  It  was  the  design  of 
William  Penn  at  Philadelphia,  and  think  what  a 
binding  it  would  have  been  to  his  chequer-board. 
Fancy  a  pier  and  promenade  along  the  Hudson  at 
New  York  !  Imagine  it  a  feature  of  every  town  in 
this  land  of  glorious  rivers  ! 

There  is  a  singular  hotel  at  Elmira  (big  as  a  state- 
house,  and  be-turreted  and  be-columned  according  to 
the  most  approved  system  of  impossible  rent  and 
charges  to  make  it  possible),  in  the  plan  of  which, 
curious  enough,  the  chambers  were  entirely  forgotten. 
The  house  is  all  parlors  and  closets !  We  were 
shown  into  superb  drawing-rooms  (one  for  each  party), 
with  pier-glasses,  windows  to  the  floor,  expensive  fur- 
niture, and  a  most  polite  landlord  ;  and  began  to  think 
the  civilization  for  which  he  had  been  looking  east, 
had  stepped  over  our  heads  and  gone  on  to  the  Paci- 
fic. Excellent  supper  and  civil  service.  At  dark, 
two  very  taper  mutton  candles  set  on  the  superb  mar- 
ble-table— but  that  was  but  a  trifling  incongruity. 
After  a  call  from  a  pleasant  friend  or  two,  and  a  walk, 
we  made  an  early  request  to  be  shown  to  our  bed- 


rooms. The  "  young  lady,  that  sometimes  uses  a 
broom  for  exercise,"  opened  a  closet-door  with  a  look 
of  la  voila  !  and  left  us  speechless  with  astonishment, 
There  was  a  bed  of  the  dimensions  of  a  saint's  niche, 
but  no  window  by  which,  if  stifled,  the  soul  could  es- 
cape to  its  destination.  Yet  here  we  were,  evidently 
abandoned  on  a  hot  night  in  July,  with  a  door  to  shut 
if  we  thought  it  prudent,  and  a  candle-wick  like  an 
ignited  poodle-dog  to  assist  in  the  process  of  suffoca- 
tion! I  hesitated  about  calling  up  the  landlord,  for, 
as  I  said  before,  he  was  a  most  polite  and  friendly 
person  ;  and  if  we  were  to  give  up  the  ghost  in  that 
little  room,  it  was  evidently  in  the  ordinary  arrange- 
ments of  the  house.  "Why  not  sleep  in  the  parlor?" 
you  will  have  said.  So  we  did.  But,  like  the  king 
of  Spain,  who  was  partly  roasted  because  nobody 
came  to  move  back  the  fire,  this  obvious  remedy  did 
not  at  the  instant  occur  to  me.  The  pier-glass  and 
other  splendors  of  course  did  duty  as  bed-room  furni- 
ture, and,  I  may  say,  we  slept  sumptuously.  Our 
friends  in  the  opposite  parlor  did  as  we  did,  but  took  the 
moving  of  the  bed  to  be,  tout  bonnement,  what  the  land- 
lord expected.  I  do  not  think  so,  yet  I  was  well  pleased 
with  him  and  his  entertainment,  and  shall  stop  at  the 
"  Eagle"  incontinently — if  I  can  choose  my  apartment. 
I  am  not  sure  but,  in  other  parts  of  the  house,  the 
blood-thirsty  architect  has  constructed  some  of  these 
smothering  places  without  parlors.  God  help  the  un- 
wary traveller! 

Talking  of  home  (we  were  at  home  to  dinner  the 
next  day),  I  wonder  whether  it  is  true  that  adverse  for- 
tunes have  thrown  Mrs.  Sigourney's  beautiful  home 
into  the  market.  It  is  offered  for  sale,  and  the  news- 
papers say  as  much.  If  so,  it  is  pity,  indeed.  I  was 
there  once ;  and  to  leave  so  delicious  a  spot  must,  1 
think,  breed  a  heart-ache.  In  general,  unless  the  re- 
verse is  extreme,  compassion  is  thrown  away  on  those 
who  leave  a  large  house  to  be  comfortable  in  a  small 
one ;  but  she  is  a  poetess,  and  a  most  true  and  sweet 
one,  and  has  a  property  in  that  house,  and  in  all  its 
trees  and  flowers,  which  can  neither  be  bought  nor 
sold.  It  is  robbery  to  sell  it  for  its  apparent  value. 
You  can  understand,  for  "your  spirit  is  touched  to 
these  fine  issues,"  how  a  tree  that  the  eye  of  genius 
has  rested  on  while  the  mind  was  at  work  among  its 
bright  fancies,  becomes  the  cradle  and  home  of  these 
fancies,  The  brain  seems  driven  out  of  its  workshop 
if  you  cut  it  down.  So  with  walks.  So  with  streams. 
So  with  the  modifications  of  natural  beauty  seen  thence 
habitually — sunrise,  sunsetting,  moonlight.  In  pecu- 
liar places  these  daily  glories  take  peculiar  effects,  and 
in  that  guise  genius  becomes  accustomed  to  recognise 
and  love  them  most.  Who  can  buy  this  at  auction ! 
Who  can  weave  this  golden  mesh  in  another  tree — 
give  the  same  voices  to  another  stream — the  same  sun- 
set to  other  hills  ?  This  fairy  property,  invisible  as  it 
is,  is  acquired  slowly.  Habit,  long  association,  the  con- 
nexion with  many  precious  thoughts  (the  more  pre- 
cious the  farther  between)*  make  it  precious.  To 
sell  such  a  spot  for  its  wood  and  brick,  is  to  value 
Tom  Moore  for  what  he  will  weigh — Daniel  Webster 
for  his  superficies.  Then  there  uill  be  a  time  (I  trust 
it  is  far  off")  when  the  property  will  treble  even  in  sale- 
able value.  The  bee  and  the  poet  must  be  killed  be- 
fore their  honey  is  tasted.  For  how  much  more  would 
Abbotsford  sell  now  than  in  the  lifetime  of  Scott  ?  For 
what  could  you  buy  Ferney — Burns's  cottage — Shak- 
spere's  house  at  Stratford  ?  I  have  not  the  honor  of 
a  personal  acquaintance  with  Mrs.  Sigourney,  and 
can  not  judge  with  what  philosophy  she  may  sustain 
this  reverse.  But  bear  it  well  or  ill,  there  can  be  no 
doubt  it  falls  heavily  ;  and  it  is  one  of  those  instances, 
I  think,  where  public  feeling  should  be  called  on  to 
interpose.  But  in  what  shape?  I  have  always  ad- 
mired the  generosity  and  readiness  with  which  actors 
play  for  the  benefit  of  a  decayed  "  brother  of  the  sock." 


230 


LETTERS  FROM  UNDER  A  BRIDGE. 


Let  American  authors  contribute  to  make  up  a  volume, 
and  let  the  people  of  Hartford,  who  live  in  the  light 
of  this  bright  spirit,  head  the  subscription  with  ten 
thousand  copies.  You  live  among  literary  people, 
dear  Doctor,  and  your  "  smile  becomes  you  better  than 
any  man's  in  all  Phrygia."  You  can  set  it  afloat  if  you 
will.  My  name  is  among  the  W.'s,  but  I  will  be 
ready  in  my  small  turn. 

"Now  God  b'wi'you,  good  Sir  Topas!"  for  on  this 
sheet  there  is  no  more  room,  and  I  owe  you  but  one. 
Correspondence,  like  thistles,  "  is  not  blown  away  till 
it  hath  got  too  high  a  top."     Adieu. 


LETTER  VIII 

Mr  Dear  Doctor  :  What  can  keep  you  in  town 
during  this  insufferable  hot  solstice  ?  I  can  not  fancy, 
unless  you  shrink  from  a  warm  welcome  in  the  coun- 
try. It  is  too  hot  for  enthusiasm,  and  I  have  sent  the 
cart  to  the  hay-field,  and  crept  under  the  bridge  in 
my  slippers,  as  if  I  had  found  a  day  to  be  idle,  though 
I  promised  myself  to  see  the  harvest  home,  without 
missing  sheaf  or  winrow.  Yet  it  must  be  cooler  here 
than  where  you  are,  for  I  see  accounts  of  drought  on 
the  seaboard,  while  with  us  every  hot  noon  has  bred 
its  thunder-shower,  and  the  corn  on  the  dry  hill-sides 
is  the  only  crop  not  kept  back  by  the  moisture.  Still, 
the  waters  are  low,  and  the  brook  at  my  feet  has  de- 
pleted to  a  slender  vein,  scarce  stouter  than  the  pulse 
that  flutters  under  your  thumb  in  the  slightest  wrist 
in  your  practice.  My  lobster  is  missing — probably 
gone  to  "  the  springs."  My  swallowlets  too,  who 
have,  "as  it  were,  eat  paper  and  drunk  ink,"  have 
flitted  since  yesterday,  like  illiterate  gipseys,  leaving 
no  note  of  their  departure.  "  Who  shall  tell  Priam 
so,  or  Hecuba."  The  old  swallows  circle  about  as  if 
they  expected  them  again.  Heaven  send  they  are  not 
in  some  crammed  pocket  in  that  red  school-house, 
unwilling  listeners  to  the  vexed  alphabet,  or,  perhaps, 
squeezed  to  death  in  the  varlet's  perplexity  at  crook- 
ed S. 

I  have  blotted  that  last  sentence  like  a  school-boy, 
but  between  the  beginning  and  the  end  of  it,  I  have 
lent  a  neighbor  my  side-hill  plough,  besides  answering, 
by  the  way,  raiher  an  embarrassing  question.  My 
catechiser  lives  above  me  on  the  drink  (his  name  for 
the  river),  and  is  one  of  those  small  farmers,  common 
here,  who  live  without  seeing  money  from  one  year's 
end  to  the  other.  He  never  buys,  he  trades.  He 
takes  a  bag  of  wheat,  or  a  fleece,  to  the  village  for  salt 
fish  and  molasses,  pays  his  doctor  in  corn  or  honey, 
and  "changes  work"  with  the  blacksmith,  the  sad- 
dler, and  the  shoemaker.  He  is  a  shrewd  man  withal, 
likes  to  talk,  and  speaks  Yankee  of  the  most  Boeotian 
fetch  and  purity.  Imagine  a  disjointed-looking  En- 
celadus,  in  a  homespun  sunflower-colored  coat,  and 
small  yellow  eyes,  expressive  of  nothing  but  the  merest 
curiosity,  looking  down  on  me  by  throwing  himself 
over  the  railing  like  a  beggar's  wallet  of  broken  meats. 

"  Good  morning,  Mr.  Willis?/ !" 

From  hearing  my  name  first  used  in  the  possessive 
case,  probably  (Willis's  farm,  or  cow),  he  regularly 
throws  me  in  that  last  syllable. 

"Ah  !  good  morning  !"  (Looking  up  at  the  inter- 
ruption, I  made  that  unsightly  blot  which  you  have 
just  excused.) 

"  You  aint  got  no  side-hill  plough?" 

"  Yes,  I  have,  and  I'll  lend  it  to  you  with  pleasure." 

"Wal!  you're  darn'd  quick.  I  warnt  a  go'n'  to 
ask  you  quite  yet.      Writin'  to  your  folks  at  hum  ?" 

"No!" 

"Making  out  a  lease!" 

"No!" 

"  How  you  do  spin  it  off !  You  haint  always  work'd 
on  a  farm,  hare  ye  !" 


It  is  a  peculiarity  (a  redeeming  peculiarity,  I  think), 
of  the  Yankees,  that  though  their  questions  are  rude, 
they  are  never  surprised  if  you  do  not  answer  them. 
I  did  not  feel  that  the  thermometer  warranted  me  in 
going  into  the*  history  of  my  life  to  my  overhanging 
neighbor,  and  I  busied  myself  in  crossing  my  t's  and 
dotting  my  i's  very  industriously.  He  had  a  maggot 
in  his  brain,  however,  and  must  e'en  be  delivered  of  it. 
He  pulled  off  a  splinter  or  two  from  under  the  bridge 
with  his  long  arms,  and  during  the  silence  William 
came  to  me  with  a  message,  which  he  achieved  with 
his  English  under-tone  of  respect. 

"  Had  to  lick  that  boy  some,  to  make  him  so  darn'd 
civil,  hadn't  ye  ?" 

"  You  have  a  son  about  his  age,  I  think." 
"  Yes ;  but  I  guess  he  couldn't  be  scared  to  talk 
that  way.     What's  the  critter  'fear'd  on  ?" 
No  answer. 

"  You  haint  been  a  minister,  have  ye  ?" 
"No!" 

"Wal !  they  talk  a  heap  about  your  place.  I  say, 
Mr.  Wittisy,  you  aint  nothing  particular,  be  yeV 

You  should  have  seen,  dear  Doctor,  the  look  of 
eager  and  puzzled  innocence  with  which  this  rather 
difficult  question  was  delivered.  Something  or  other 
had  evidently  stimulated  my  good  neighbor's  curiosi- 
ty, but  whether  I  had  been  blown  up  in  a  steamboat, 
or  had  fatted  a  prize  pig,  or  what  was  my  claim  to  the 
digilo  monstrari,  it  was  more  than  half  his  errand  to 
discover.  I  have  put  down  our  conversation,  I  be- 
lieve, with  the  accuracy  of  a  short-hand  writer.  Now, 
is  not  this  a  delicious  world  in  which,  out  of  a  mu- 
seum neither  stuffed  nor  muzzled,  you  may  find  such 
an  arcadian  ?  What  a  treasure  he  would  be  to  those 
ancient  mariners  of  polite  life,  who  exist  but  to  tell 
!  you  of  their  little  peculiarities  ! 

|  I  have  long  thought,  dear  Doctor,  and  this  reminds 
!  me  of  it,  that  there  were  two  necessities  of  society  un- 
fitted with  a  vocation.  (If  you  know  of  any  middle- 
!  aged  gentlemen  out  of  employment,  I  have  no  objec- 
tion to  your  reserving  the  suggestion  for  a  private 
charity,  but  otherwise,  I  would  communicate  it  to  the 
world  as  a  new  light.)  The  first  is  a  luxury  which  no 
hotel  should  be  without,  no  neighborhood,  no  thor- 
oughfare, no  editor's  closet.  I  mean  a  professed, 
salaried,  stationary,  and  confidential  listener.  Fancy 
the  comfort  of  such  a  thing.  There  should  be  a  well- 
dressed  silent  gentleman,  for  instance,  pacing  habitu- 
ally the  long  corridor  of  the  Astor,  with  a  single  button 
on  his  coat  of  the  size  of  a  door-handle.  You  enter 
in  a  violent  hurry,  or  with  a  mind  tenanted  to  suit 
yourself,  and  some  faineant  babbler,  weary  of  his 
emptiness,  must  needs  take  you  aside,  and  rob  you  of 
two  mortal  hours,  more  or  less,  while  he  tells  you  his 
tale  of  nothing.  If  "  a  penny  saved  is  a  penny  got," 
what  a  value  it  would  add  to  life  to  be  able  to  transfer 
this  leech  of  precious  time,  by  laying  his  hand  polite- 
ly on  the  large  button  of  the  listener !  "  Finish  your 
story  to  this  gentleman  !"  quoth  you.  Then,  again, 
there  is  your  unhappy  man  in  hotels,  newly  arrived, 
without  an  acquaintance  save  the  crisp  and  abbrevia- 
ting bar-keeper,  who  wanders  up  and  down,  silent- 
sick,  and  more  solitary  in  the  crowd  about  him  than 
the  hermit  on  the  lone  column  of  the  temple  of  Jupi- 
ter. What  a  mercy  to  such  a  sufferer  to  be  able  to 
step  to  the  bar,  and  order  a  listener.  Or  to  send  for 
him  with  a  bottle  of  wine  when  dining  alone  (most 
particularly  alone),  at  a  table  of  two  hundred  !  Or  to 
ring  for  him  in  number  four  hundred  and  ninety-three, 
of  a  rainy  Sunday,  with  punch  and  cigars  !  I  am  de- 
ceived in  Stetstort  of  the  Astor,  if  he  is  not  philoso- 
pher enough  to  see  the  value  of  this  suggestion 
"  Baths  in  the  house,  and  a  respectable  listener  if  de- 
sired," would  be  an  attractive  advertisement,  let  me 


promise  you  ! 

The  other  vocation 


to  which  I  referred,  would  be 


LETTERS  FROM  UNDER  A  BRIDGE. 


231 


that  of  a  sort  of  ambulant  dictionary,  used  mostly  at 
evening  parties.  It  should  be  a  gentleman  not  dis- 
tinguishable from  the  common  animated  wall-flower, 
except  by  some  conventional  sign,  as  a  bit  of  blue  rib- 
and in  his  button-hole.  His  qualifications  should  be 
to  know  all  persons  moving  in  the  circle,  and  some- 
thing about  them — to  be  up,  in  short,  to  the  town 
gossip — what  Miss  Thing's  expectations  are  —  who 
"  my  friend"  is  with  the  died  mustache — and  which 
of  the  stout  ladies  on  the  sofa  are  the  forecast  shad- 
ows of  coming  balls,  or  the  like  desirablenesses.  There 
are  a  thousand  invisible  cobwebs  threaded  through  so- 
ciety, which  the  stranger  is  apt  to  cross  a  trovers — 
committing  his  enthusiasm,  for  instance,  to  the  deaf 
ears  of  a  fiancee  ;  or,  from  ignorance,  losing  opportu- 
nities of  knowing  the  clever,  the  witty,  and  the  famous 
— all  of  whom  look,  at  a  first  glance,  very  much  like 
other  people.  The  gentleman  with  the  blue  riband, 
you  see,  would  remedy  all  this.  You  might  make 
for  him  after  you  bow  to  the  lady  of  the  house,  and  in 
ten  minutes  put  yourself  aw  courant  of  the  entire  field. 
You  might  apply  to  him  (if  you  had  been  absent  to 
Santa  Fe  or  the  Pyramids)  for  the  last  new  shibboleth, 
the  town  rage,  the  name  of  the  new  play  or  poem,  the 
form  and  color  of  the  freshest  change  in  the  kaleido- 
scope of  society.  It  is  not  uncommon  for  sensible 
people  to  retire,  and  "sweep  and  garnish"  their  self- 
respect  in  a  month's  seclusion.  It  is  some  time  before 
they  become  au  fait  again  of  what  it  is  necessary  to 
know  of  the  follies  of  the  hour.  The  graceful  yet 
bitter  wit,  the  unoffending  yet  pointed  rally,  the  con- 
fidence which  colors  all  defeats  like  successes,  are  del- 
icate weapons,  the  dexterity  at  which  depends  much 
on  familiarity  with  the  ground.  What  an  advent  to 
the  diffident  and  the  embarrassed  would  be  such  a 
profession  !  How  many  persons  of  wit  and  spirit  j 
there  are  in  society  blank  for  lack  of  confidence,  who, 
with  such  a  friend  in  the  corner,  would  come  out  like 
magic-ink  to  the  fire  !  "  Ma  hardiesse"  (says  the  as- 
piring rocket),  "  vient  de  mon  ardeur  /"  But  the  de- 
vice would  lose  its  point  did  it  take  a  jack-o'-lantern 
for  a  star.  Mention  these  little  hints  to  your  cleverest 
female  friend,  dear  Doctor.  It  takes  a  woman  to  in- 
troduce an  innovation. 

Since  I  wrote  to  you,  I  have  been  adopted  by  per- 
haps the  most  abominable  cur  you  will  see  in  your 
travels.     I  mention  it  to  ward  off  the  first  impression  i 
— for  a  dog  gives  a  character  to  a  house ;  and  I  would  : 
not  willingly  have  a  friend  light  on  such  a  monster  in  j 
my  premises  without  some  preparation.     His  first  ap-  | 
parition  was  upon  a  small  floss  carpet  at  the  foot  of  an  j 
ottoman,  the  most  luxurious  spot   in  the  house,  of  | 
which  he  had  taken  possession  with  a  quiet  impudence  j 
that  perfectly  succeeded.     A  long,  short-legged  cur, 
of  the  color  of  spoiled  mustard,  with  most  base  tail 
and  erect  ears — villanous  in  all  his  marks.     Rather  a 
dandy  gentleman,  from  New- York,  was  calling  on  us 
when  he  was  discovered,  and  presuming  the  dog  to  be 
his,  we  forbore  remark  ;  and,  assured  by  this  chance 
indulgence,  he  stretched  himself  to  sleep.     The  in- 
dignant outcry  with  which  the  gentleman  disclaimed 
all  knowledge  of  him,   disturbed  his  slumber;    and, 
not  to  leave  us  longer  in  doubt,  he  walked  confidently 
across  the  room,  and  seated  himself  between  my  feet 
with  a  canine  freedom  I  had  never  seen  exhibited,  ex- 
cept upon  most  familiar  acquaintance.     I  saw  clearly 
that  our  visiter  looked  upon  my  disclaimer  as  a  "  fetch." 
It  would  have  been  perilling  my  credit  for  veracity  to 
deny  the  dog.     So  no  more  was  said  about  him,  and 
since  that  hour  he  has  kept  himself  cool  in  my  shad- 
ow.    I  have  tried  to  make  him  over  to  the  kitchen, 
but  he  will  neither  feed  nor  stay  with  them.     I  can 
neither  outrun  him  on  horseback,  nor  lose  him  by 
crossing  ferries.     Very  much  to  the  discredit  of  my 
taste,  I  am  now  never  seen  without  this  abominable 
follower — and  there  is  no  help  for  it,  unless  I  kill  him, 


which,  since  he  loves  me,  would  be  worse  than  shoot- 
ing the  albatross ;  besides,  I  have  at  least  a  drachm 
(three  scruples)  of  Pythagoreanism  in  me,  and  "  fear 
to  kill  woodcock,  lest  I  dispossess  the  soul  of  my 
grandam."  I  shall  look  to  the  papers  to  see  what 
friend  I  have  lost  in  Italy,  or  the  East.  I  can  think 
of  some  who  would  come  to  me  thus. 

Adieu,  dear  Doctor.  Send  me  a  good  name  for  my 
cur — for  since  he  will  have  me,  why  I  must  needs  be 
his,  and  he  shall  be  graced  with  an  appellation.  I 
think  his  style  of  politics  might  be  worth  something 
in  love.  If  I  were  the  lady,  it  would  make  a  fair  be- 
ginning.    But  I  will  waste  no  more  ink  upon  you. 


LETTER  IX. 

My  Dear  Doctor  :  As  they  say  an  oyster  should 
be  pleased  with  his  apotheosis  in  a  certain  sauce,  I 
was  entertained  with  the  cleverness  of  your  letter 
though  you  made  minced-meat  of  my  trout-fishing. 
Under  correction,  however,  I  still  cover  the  barb  of  my 
"  fly,"  and  so  I  must  do  till  I  can  hook  my  trout  if  he 
but  graze  the  bait  with  his  whisker.  You  are  an 
alumnus  of  the  gentle  science,  in  which  I  am  but  a 
neophyte,  and  your  fine  rules  presuppose  the  dexteri- 
ty of  a  practised  angler.  Now  a  trout  (I  have  ob- 
served in  my  small  way)  will  jump  once  at  your  naked 
fly  ;  but  if  he  escape,  he  will  have  no  more  on't,  un- 
less there  is  a  cross  of  the  dace  in  him.  As  it  is  a  fish 
that  follows  his  nose,  however,  the  smell  of  the  worm 
will  bring  him  to  the  lure  again,  and  if  your  awkward- 
ness give  him  time,  he  will  stick  to  it  till  he  has 
cleaned  the  hook.     Probatum  est. 

You  may  say  this  is  unscientific,  but,  if  I  am  to 
breakfast  from  the  contents  of  my  creel,  I  must  be 
left  with  my  worm  and  my  ignorance. 

Besides — hang  rules  !  No  two  streams  are  alike — 
no  two  men  (who  are  not  fools)  fish  alike.  Walton 
and  Wilson  would  find  some  new  "  wrinkle,"  if  they 
were  to  try  these  wild  waters  ;  and,  to  generalize  the 
matter,  I  have,  out  of  mathematics,  a  distrust  of  rules, 
descriptions,  manuals,  etc.,  amounting  to  a  'phobia. 
Experience  was  always  new  to  me.  I  do  not  seem  to 
myself  ever  to  have  seen  the  Rome  I  once  read  of. 
The  Venice  I  know  is  not  the  Venice  of  story  nor  of 
travellers'  books.  There  are  two  Londons  in  my 
mind — one  where  I  saw  whole  shelves  of  my  library 
walking  about  in  coats  and  petticoats,  and  another 
where  there  was  nothing  visible  through  the  fog  but 
fat  men  with  tankards  of  porter — one  memory  of  it  all 
glittering  with  lighted  rooms,  bright  and  kind  faces, 
men  all  manly,  and  women  all  womanly,  and  another 
memory  (got  from  books)  where  every  man  was  surly, 
and  dressed  in  a  buff  waistcoat,  and  every  woman  a 
giantess,  in  riding-hat  and  boots. 

It  is  delightful  to  think  how  new  everything  is, 
spite  of  description.  Never  believe,  dear  Doctor,  that 
there  is  an  old  world.  There  is  no  such  place,  on 
my  honor  !  You  will  find  England,  France,  Italy, 
and  the  East,  after  all  you  have  read  and  heard,  as 
altogether  new  as  if  they  were  created  by  your  eye, 
and  were  never  sung,  painted,  nor  be-written — you 
will  indeed.  Why — to  be  sure — what  were  the  world 
else  ?  A  pawnbroker's  closet,  where  every  traveller 
had  left  his  clothes  for  you  to  wear  after  him  !  No  ! 
no  !  Thanks  to  Providence,  all  things  are  new  !  Pen 
and  ink  can  not  take  the  gloss  off  your  eyes,  nor  can 
any  man  look  through  them  as  you  do.  I  do  not  be- 
lieve the  simplest  matter — sunshine  or  verdure — has 
exactly  the  same  look  to  any  two  people  in  the  world. 
How  much  less  a  human  face — a  landscape — a  broad 
kingdom  ?  Travellers  are  very  pleasant  people.  They 
tell  you  what  picture  was  produced  in  their  brain  by 
the  things  they  saw  ;  but  if  they  forestalled  novelty  by 


232 


LETTERS  FROM  UNDER  A  BRIDGE. 


that,  I  would  as  soon  read  them  as  beseech  a  thief  to 
steal  my  dinner.  How  it  looks  to  one  pair  of  eyes  .' 
would  be  a  good  reminder  pencilled  on  the  margin  of 
many  a  volume. 

I  have  run  my  ploughshare,  in  this  furrow,  upon  a 
root  of  philosophy,  which  has  cured  heart-aches  for 
me  ere  now.  I  struck  upon  it  almost  accidentally, 
while  administering  consolation,  years  since,  to  a  sen- 
sitive friend,  whose  muse  had  been  consigned,  alive 
and  kicking,  to  the  tomb,  by  a  blundering  undertaker 
of  criticism.  I  read  the  review,  and  wrote  on  it  with 
a  pencil,  "  So  thinks  one  man  in  fifteen  millions;"  and, 
to  my  surprise,  up  swore  my  dejected  friend,  like  Mas- 
ter Barnardine,  that  he  would  "  consent  to  die  that 
day,  for  no  man's  persuasion."  Since  that  I  have 
made  a  practice  of  counting  the  enemy ;  and  trust  me, 
dear  Doctor,  it  is  sometimes  worth  while  not  to  run 
away  without  this  little  preliminary.  A  friend,  for  in- 
stance, with  a  most  boding  solemnity,  takes  you  aside, 
and  pulls  from  his  pocket  a  newspaper  containing  a 
paragraph  that  is  aimed  at  your  book,  your  morals, 
perhaps  your  looks  and  manners.  You  catch  the 
alarm  from  your  friend's  face,  and  fancy  it  is  the  voice 
of  public  opinion,  and  your  fate  is  fixed.  Your  book 
is  detestable,  your  character  is  gone.  Your  manners 
and  features  are  the  object  of  universal  disapprobation. 
Stay  !  count  the  enemy  !  Was  it  decided  by  a  conven- 
tion ?  No !  By  a  caucus  ?  No  !  By  a  vote  on  the 
deck  of  a  steamboat  ?  No  !  By  a  group  at  the  cor- 
ner of  the  street,  by  a  club,  by  a  dinner-party  ?  No  ! 
By  whom  then  ?  One  small  gentleman,  sitting  in  a 
dingy  corner  of  a  printing-office,  who  puts  his  quill 
through  your  reputation  as  the  entomologist  slides  a 
pin  through  a  beetle — in  the  way  of  his  vocation.  No 
particular  malice  to  you.  He  wanted  a  specimen  of 
the  genus  poet,  and  you  were  the  first  caught.  If 
there  is  no  head  to  the  pin  (as  there  often  is  none),  the 
best  way  is  to  do  as  the  beetle  does — pretend  to  be 
killed  till  he  forgets  you,  and  then  slip  off  without  a 
buzz. 

The  only  part  of  calumny  that  I  ever  found  trouble- 
some was  my  friends'  insisting  on  my  being  unhappy 
about  it.  I  dare  say  you  have  read  the  story  of  the 
German  criminal,  whose  last  request  that  his  head 
might  be  struck  off  while  he  stood  engaged  in  conver- 
sation, was  humanely  granted  by  the  provost.  The 
executioner  was  an  adroit  headsman,  and  watching  his 
opportunity,  he  crept  behind  his  victim  while  he  was 
observing  the  flight  of  a  bird,  and  sliced  off  his  bulb 
without  even  decomposing  his  gaze.  It  was  suggest- 
ed to  the  sufferer  presently  that  he  was  decapitated,  but 
he  thought  not.  Upon  which  one  of  his  friends  step- 
ped up,  and  begging  he  would  take  the  pains  to  stir 
himself  a  little,  his  head  fell  to  the  ground.  If  the 
story  be  not  true  the  moral  is.  In  the  many  times  I 
have  been  put  to  death  by  criticism,  I  have  never  felt 
incommoded,  till  some  kind  friend  insisted  upon  it, 
and  now  that  I  can  stand  on  a  potato-hill  in  a  circle 
of  twice  the  diameter  of  a  rifleshot,  and  warn  oft"  all 
trespassers,  I  intend  to  defy  sympathy,  and  carry  my 
top  as  long  as  it  will  stay  on — behead  me  as  often  as 
you  like,  beyond  my  periphery. 

Still,  though 

"  The  eagle  suffers  little  birds  to  sing, 

And  is  not  careful  what  they  mean  thereby," 

it  is  very  pleasant  now  and  then  to  pounce  upon  a  big- 
ger bird  screaming  in  the  same  chorus.  Nothing  im- 
pairs the  dignity  of  an  author's  reputation  like  a  news- 
paper wrangle,  yet  one  bold  literary  vulture  struck 
down  promptly  and  successfully  serves  as  good  a  pur- 
pose as  the  hawk  nailed  to  the  barn  door.  But  I  do 
not  live  in  the  country  to  be  pestered  with  resentments. 
I  do  not  well  know  how  the  thoughts  of  them  came 
under  the  bridge.     I'll  have  a  fence  that  shall  keep 


out  such  stray  cattle,  or  there  are  no  posts  and  rails  in 
philosophy. 

There  is  a  little  mental  phenomenon,  dear  Doctor, 
which  has  happened  to  me  of  late  so  frequently,  that 
I  must  ask  you  if  you  are  subject  to  it,  in  the  hope 
that  your  singular  talent  for  analysis  will  give  me  the 
"pourquoy."  I  mean  a  sudden  novelty  in  the  impres- 
sion of  very  familiar  objects,  enjoyments,  etc.  For 
example,  did  it  ever  strike  you  all  at  once  that  a  tree 
was  a  very  magnificent  production?  After  looking  at 
lakes  and  rivers  for  thirty  years  (more  or  less),  have 
you  ever,  some  fine  morning,  caught  sight  of  a  very 
familiar  stream,  and  found  yourself  impressed  with  its 
new  and  singular  beauty  ?  I  do  not  know  that  the  mir- 
acle extends  to  human  faces,  at  least  in  the  same  de- 
gree. I  am  sure  that  my  old  coat  is  not  rejuvenes- 
cent. But  it  is  true  that  from  possessing  the  nil 
admirari  becoming  to  a  "picked  man  of  countries" 
(acquired  with  some  pains,  I  may  say),  I  now  catch 
myself  smiling  with  pleasure  to  think  the  river  will  not 
all  run  by,  that  there  will  be  another  sunset  to-mor- 
row, that  my  grain  will  ripen  and  nod  when  it  is  ripe, 
and  such  like  every-day  marvels.  Have  we  scales 
that  drop  off  our  eyes  at  a  "  certain  age  ?"  Do  our 
senses  renew  as  well  as  our  bodies,  only  more  ca- 
priciously? Have  we  a  chrysalis  state,  here  below, 
like  that  parvenu  gentleman,  the  butterfly  ?  Still 
more  interesting  query — does  this  delicious  novelty 
attach,  later  in  life,  or  ever,  to  objects  of  affection — 
compensating  for  the  ravages  in  the  form,  the  dulness 
of  the  senses,  loss  of  grace,  temper,  and  all  outward 
loveliness?  I  should  like  to  get  you  over  a  flagon  of 
tokay  on  that  subject. 

There  is  a  curious  fact,  I  have  learned  for  the  first 
time  in  this  wild  country,  and  it  may  be  new  to  you, 
that  as  the  forest  is  cleared,  new  springs  rise  to  the 
surface  of  the  ground,  as  if  at  the  touch  of  the  sun- 
shine. The  settler  knows  that  water  as  well  as  herb- 
age will  start  to  the  light,  and  as  his  axe  lets  it  in  up- 
on the  black  bosom  of  the  wilderness,  his  cattle  find 
both  pasture  and  drink,  where,  before,  there  had  never 
been  either  well-head  or  verdure.  You  have  yourself 
been,  in  your  day,  dear  Doctor,  "  a  warped  slip  of 
wilderness,"  and  will  see  at  once  that  there  lies  in  this 
ordinance  of  nature  a  beautiful  analogy  to  certain  mor- 
al changes  that  come  in  upon  the  heels  of  more  cul- 
tivated and  thoughtful  manhood.  Of  the  springs  that 
start  up  in  the  footsteps  of  thought  and  culture,  the 
sources  are  like  those  of  forest  springs,  unsuspect- 
ed till  they  flow.  There  is  no  divining-rod,  whose 
dip  shall  tell  us  at  twenty  what  we  shall  most  relish  at 
thirty.  We  do  not  think  that  with  experience  we  shall 
have  grown  simple,  that  things  we  slight  and  overlook 
will  have  become  marvels,  that  our  advancement  in 
worth  will  owe  more  to  the  cutting  away  of  overgrowth 
in  tastes  than  to  their  acquisition  or  nurture. 

I  should  have  thought  this  change  in  myself  scarce 
worth  so  much  blotting  of  good  paper,  but  for  its  bear- 
ing on  a  question  that  has  hitherto  given  me  no  little 
anxiety.  The  rivers  flow  on  to  the  sea,  increasing  in 
strength  and  glory  to  the  last,  but  we  have  our  pride 
and  fulness  in  youth,  and  dwindle  and  fall  away  tow- 
ard the  grave.  How  I  was  to  grow  dull  to  the  ambi- 
tions and  excitements  which  constituted  my  whole  ex- 
istence— be  content  to  lag  and  fall  behind  and  forego 
emulation  in  all  possible  pursuits — in  short,  how  I 
was  to  grow  old  contentedly  and  gracefully,  has  been 
to  me  a  somewhat  painful  puzzle.  With  what  should 
I  be  pleased  ?  How  should  I  fill  the  vacant  halls 
from  which  had  fled  merriment  and  fancy,  and  hope, 
and  desire  ? 

You  can  scarce  understand,  dear  Doctor,  with  what 
pleasure  I  find  this  new  spring  in  my  path — the  con- 
tent with  which  I  admit  the  conviction,  that  without 
effort  or  self-denial,  the  mind  may  slake  its  thirst,  and 


LETTERS  FROM  UNDER  A  BRIDGE. 


233 


the  heart  be  satisfied  with  but  the  waste  of  what  lies 
so  near  us.  I  have  all  my  life  seen  men  grow  old. 
tranquilly  and  content,  but  I  did  not  think  it  possible 
that  /should.  I  took  pleasure  only  in  that  which  re- 
quired young  blood  to  follow,  and  I  felt  that  to  look 
backward  for  enjoyment,  would  be  at  best  but  a  diffi- 
cult resignation. 

Now  let  it  be  no  prejudice  to  the  sincerity  of  my 
philosophy,  if,  as  a  corollary,  I  beg  you  to  take  a  farm 
on  the  Susquehumiah,  and  let  us  grow  old  in  com- 
pany. I  should  think  Fate  kinder  than  she  passes  for, 
if  I  could  draw  you,  and  one  or  two  others  whom  we 
know  and  "  love  with  knowledge,"  to  cluster  about 
this — certainly  one  of  the  loveliest  spots  in  nature,  and, 
while  the  river  glides  by  unchangingly,  shape  our- 
selves to  our  changes  with  a  helping  sympathy. 
Think  of  it,  dear  Doctor!  Meantime  I  employ  my- 
self in  my  rides,  selecting  situations  on  the  river  banks 
which  I  think  would  be  to  yours  and  our  friends' 
liking  ;  and  in  the  autumn,  when  it  is  time  to  trans- 
plant, I  intend  to  suggest  to  the  owners  where  trees 
might  be  wanted  in  case  they  ever  sold,  so  that  you 
will  not  lose  even  a  season  in  your  shrubbery,  though 
you  delay  your  decision.  Why  should  we  not  renew 
Arcady  ?     God  bless  you. 


LETTER  X. 

You  may  congratulate  me  on  the  safe  getting  in  of 
my  harvest,  dear  Doctor ;  for  I  have  escaped,  as  you 
may  say,  in  a  parenthesis.  Two  of  the  most  destruc- 
tive hail-storms  remembered  in  this  part  of  the  country 
have  prostrated  the  crops  of  my  neighbors,  above  and 
below — leaving  not  a  blade  of  corn,  nor  an  unbroken 
window ;  yet  there  goes  my  last  load  of  grain  into  the 
barn,  well-ripened,  and  cut  standing  and  fair. 

"  Some  bright  little  cherub,  that  sits  up  aloft, 
Keeps  watch  for  the  soul  of  poor  Peter." 

I  confess  I  should  have  fretted  at  the  loss  of  my 
firstlinsrs  more  than  for  a  much  greater  disaster  in  an- 
other shape.  I  have  expended  curiosity,  watching,  and 
fresh  interest,  upon  my  uplands,  besides  plaster  and  my 
own  labor ;  and  the  getting  back  five  hundred  bushels 
for  five  or  ten,  has  been  to  me,  through  all  its  beauti- 
ful changes  from  April  till  now,  a  wonder  to  be  en- 
joyed like  a  play.  To  have  lost  the  denouement  by  a 
hail-storm,  would  be  like  a  play  with  the  fifth  act 
omitted,  or  a  novel  with  the  last  leaf  torn  out.  Now,  if 
no  stray  spark  set  fire  to  my  barn,  I  can  pick  you  out  the 
whitest  of  a  thousand  sheaves,  thrash  them  with  the 
first  frost,  and  send  you  a  barrel  of  Glenmary  flour, 
which  shall  be,  not  only  very  excellent  bread,  but 
should  have  also  a  flavor  of  wonder,  admiration — all 
the  feelings,  in  short,  with  which  I  have  watched  it, 
from  seed-time  to  harvest.  Yet  there  is  many  a  dull 
dog  will  eat  of  it,  and  remark  no  taste  of  me  !  And  so 
there  are  men  who  will  read  a  friend's  book  as  if  it 
were  a  stranger's — but  we  are  not  of  those.  If  we 
love  the  man,  whether  we  eat  a  potato  of  his  raising, 
or  read  a  verse  of  his  inditing,  there  is  in  it  a  sweet- 
ness which  has  descended  from  his  heart — by  quill  or 
hoe-handle.  I  scorn  impartiality.  If  it  be  a  virtue, 
Death  and  Posterity  may  monopolize  it  for  me. 

I  was  interrupted  a  moment  since  by  a  neighbor, 
who,  though  innocent  of  reading  and  writing,  has  a 
coinage  of  phraseology,  which  would  have  told  in 
authorship.  A  stray  mare  had  broken  into  his  peas, 
and  he  came  to  me  to  write  an  advertisement  for  the 
court-house  door.  After  requesting  the  owner  "  to 
pay  charges  and  take  her  away,"  in  good  round  char- 
acters, I  recommended  to  my  friend,  who  was  a  good 


deal  vexed  at  the  trespass,  to  take  a  day's  work  out 
of  her. 

"  Why,  I  haint  no  job  on  the  mounting,"  said  he, 
folding  up  the  paper  very  carefully.  "  It's  a  side- 
hill  critter!  Two  off  legs  so  lame,  she  can't  stand 
even." 

It  was  certainly  a  new  idea,  that  a  horse  with  two 
spavins  on  a  side,  might  be  used  with  advantage  on  a 
hill-farm.  While  I  was  jotting  it  down  for  your  bene- 
fit, my  neighbor  had  emerged  from  under  the  bridge, 
and  was  climbing  the  railing  over  my  head. 

"What  will  you  do  if  he  won't  pay  damages?"  1 
cried  out. 

"  Put  the  types  on  to  him .'"  he  answered  :  and, 
jumping  into  the  road,  strided  away  to  post  up  his  ad- 
vertisement. 

I  presume,  that  "to  put  the  types  on  to"  a  man,  is 
to  send  the  constable  to  him  with  a  printed  warrant ; 
but  it  is  a  good  phrase. 

The  hot  weather  of  the  last  week  has  nearly  dried 
up  the  brook,  and,  forgetting  to  water  my  young  trees 
in  the  hurry  of  harvesting,  a  few  of  them  have  hung 
out  the  quarantine  yellow  at  the  top,  and,  I  fear,  will 
scarce  stand  it  till  autumn.  Not  to  have  all  my  hopes 
in  one  venture,  and  that  a  frail  one,  I  have  set  about 
converting  a  magnificent  piece  of  wild  jungle  into  an 
academical  grove — an  occupation  that  makes  one  feel 
more  like  a  viceroy  than  a  farmer.  Let  me  interest 
you  in  this  metempsychosis;  for,  if  we  are  to  grow 
old  together,  as  I  proposed  to  you  in  my  last,  this 
grove  will  lend  its  shade  to  many  a  slippered  noontide, 
and  echo,  we  will  hope,  the  philosophy  of  an  old  age, 
wise  and  cheerful.  Aptly  for  my  design,  the  shape  of 
the  grove  is  that  of  the  Greek  V. — the  river  very  nearly 
encircling  it ;  and  here,  if  I  live,  will  I  pass  the  Omega 
of  my  life ;  and,  if  you  will  come  to  the  christening, 
dear  Doctor,  so  shall  the  grove  be  named,  in  solemn 
ceremony — The  Omega. 

How  this  nobly-wooded  and  water-clasped  little  pen- 
insula has  been  suffered  to  run  to  waste,  I  know  not. 
It  contains  some  half-score  acres  of  rich  interval ;  and, 
to  the  neglect  of  previous  occupants  of  the  farm,  I  prob- 
ably owe  its  gigantic  trees,  as  well  as  its  weedy  under- 
growth, and  tangled  vines.  Time  out  of  mind  (five 
years,  in  this  country)  it  has  been  a  harbor  for  wood- 
cocks, wood-ducks,  minks,  wild  bees,  humming  birds, 
and  cranes — (two  of  the  latter  still  keeping  possession) 
-=-«nd  its  labyrinth  of  tall  weeds,  interlaced  with  the 
low  branches  of  the  trees,  was  seldom  penetrated,  ex- 
cept once  or  twice  a  year  by  the  sportsman,  and  as 
often  by  the  Owaga  in  its  freshet.  Scarce  suspecting 
the  size  of  the  trees  within,  whose  trunks  were  entirely 
concealed,  I  have  looked  upon  its  towering  mass  of 
verdure  but  as  a  superb  emerald  wall,  shutting  the 
meadows  in  on  the  east — and,  though  within  a  lance- 
shot  of  my  cottage,  have  neglected  it,  like  my  prede- 
cessors, for  more  manageable  ground. 

I  have  enjoyed  very  much  the  planting  of  young 
wood,  and  the  anticipation  of  its  shade  and  splendor  in 
Heaven's  slow,  but  good  time.  It  was  a  pleasure  of 
Hope;  and,  to  men  of  leisure  and  sylvan  taste  in  Eng- 
land, it  has  been — literature  bears  witness — a  pursuit 
full  of  dignity  and  happiness.  But  the  redemption  of 
a  venerable  grove  from  the  wilderness,  is  an  enjoyment 
of  another  measure.  It  is  a  kind  of  playing  of  King 
Lear  backward — discovering  the  old  monarch  in  his 
abandonment,  and  sweeping  off  his  unnatural  offspring, 
to  bring  back  the  sunshine  to  his  old  age,  and  give  him 
room,  with  his  knights,  in  his  own  domain.  You 
know  how  trees  that  grow  wild  near  water,  in  this 
country,  put  out  foliage  upon  the  trunk  as  well  as  the 
branches,  covering  it,  like  ivy,  to  the  roots.  It  is  a 
beautiful  caprice  of  Nature ;  but  the  grandeur  of  the 
dark  and  massive  stem  is  entirely  lost — and  I  have 
been  as  much  surprised  at  the  giant  bodies  we  have 
developed,    stripping    off    this   unfitting   drapery,    as 


234 


LETTERS  FROM  UNDER  A  BRIDGE. 


Richard  at  the  thewes  and  sinews  of  the  uncowled 
friar  of  Copmanhurst. 

You  can  not  fancy,  if  you  have  never  exercised  this 
grave  authority,  how  many  difficulties  of  judgment 
arise,  and  how  often  a  jury  is  wanted  to  share  the  re- 
sponsibility of  the  irretrievable  axe.  I  am  slow  to 
condemn ;  and  the  death-blow  to  a  living  tree,  how- 
ever necessary,  makes  my  blood  start,  and  my  judg- 
ment half  repent.  There  are,  to-day,  several  under 
reprieve — one  of  them  a  beautiful  linden,  which  I  can 
see  from  my  seat  under  the  bridge,  nodding  just  now 
to  the  wind,  as  careless  of  its  doom  as  if  it  were  sure 
its  bright  foliage  would  flaunt  out  the  summer.  In 
itself  it  is  well  worth  the  sparing  and  cherishing,  for  it 
is  full  of  life  and  youth — and,  could  I  transplant  it  to 
another  spot,  it  would  be  invaluable.  But,  though 
full  grown  and  spreading,  it  stands  among  giants, 
whose  branches  meet  above  it  at  twice  its  height ;  and, 
while  it  contributes  nothing  to  the  shade,  its  smaller 
trunk  looks  a  Lilliputian  in  Brobdignag,  out  of  keep- 
ing and  proportion.  So  I  think  it  must  come  down — 
and,  with  it,  a  dozen  in  the  same  category — condemned, 
like  many  a  wight  who  was  well  enough  in  his  place, 
for  being  found  in  too  good  company. 

There  is  a  superstition  about  the  linden,  by  the 
way,  to  which  the  peculiarity  in  its  foliage  may  easily  | 
have  given  rise.  You  may  have  remarked,  of  course, 
that  from  the  centre  of  the  leaf  starts  a  slender  stem,  j 
which  bears  the  linden-flower.  Our  Savior  is  said,  i 
by  those  who  believe  in  the  superstition,  to  have  been 
crucified  upon  this  tree,  which  has  ever  since  borne  ! 
the  flowering  type  of  the  nails  driven  into  it  through 
his  palms. 

Another,  whose  doom  is  suspended,  is  a  ragged 
sycamore,  whose  decayed  branches  are  festooned  to 
the  highest  top  by  a  wild  grape-vine,  of  the  most  su- 
perb fruitfulness  and  luxuriance.  No  wife  ever  pleaded 
for  a  condemned  husband  with  more  eloquence  than 
these  delicate  tendrils  to  me,  for  the  rude  tree  with 
whose  destiny  they  are  united.  I  wish  you  were  here, 
dear  Doctor,  to  say  spare  it,  or  cut  it  down.  In  itself, 
like  the  linden,  it  is  a  splendid  creature ;  but,  alas !  it 
spoils  a  long  avenue  of  stately  trees  opening  toward  my 
cottage  porch,  and  I  fear  policy  must  outweigh  pity. 
I  shall  let  it  stand  over  Sunday,  and  fortify  myself 
with  an  opinion. 

Did  you  ever  try  your  hand,  dear  Doctor,  at  this 
forest-sculpture?  It  sounds  easy  enough  to  trim  out 
a  wood,  and  so  it  is,  if  the  object  be  merely  to  produce 
butter-nuts,  or  shade-grazing  cattle.  But  to  thin,  and 
trim,  and  cut  down,  judiciously,  changing  a  "wild  and 
warped  slip  of  wilderness"  into  a  chaste  and  studious 
grove,  is  not  done  without  much  study  of  the  spot,  let 
alone  a  taste  for  the  sylvan.  There  are  all  the  many 
effects  of  the  day's  light  to  be  observed,  how  morning 
throws  her  shadows,  and  what  protection  there  is  from 
noon,  and  where  is  flung  open  an  aisle  to  let  in  the 
welcome  radiance  of  sunset.  There  is  a  view  of 
water  to  be  let  through,  perhaps,  at  the  expense  of 
trees  otherwise  ornamental,  or  an  object  to  hide  by 
shrubbery  which  is  in  the  way  of  an  avenue.  I  have 
lived  here  as  long  as  this  year's  grasshoppers,  and  am 
constantly  finding  out  something  which  should  have  a 
bearing  on  the  disposition  of  grounds  or  the  sculpture 
(permit  me  the  word)  of  my  wood  and  forest.  I  am 
sorry  to  finish  "the  Omega"  without  your  counsel 
and  taste  ;  but  there  is  a  wood  on  the  hill  which  I  will 
keep,  like  a  cold  pie,  till  you  come  to  us,  and  we  will 
shoulder  our  axes  and  carve  it  into  likelihood  together. 

And  now  here  comes  my  Yankee  axe  (not  curtal) 
which  I  sent  to  be  ground  when  I  sat  down  to  scrawl 
you  this  epistle.  As  you  owe  the  letter  purely  to  its 
dulness  (and  mine),  I  must  away  to  a  half-felled  tree, 
which  I  deserted  in  its  extremity.  If  there  were  truth 
in  Ovid,  what  a  butcher  I  were !  Yet  there  is  a  groan 
when  a  tree  falls,  which  sometimes  seems  to  me  more 


than  the  sundering  of  splinters.     Adieu,  dear  Doctor, 
and  believe  that 

"  Whate'er  the  ocean  pales  or  sky  inclips 
Is  thine," 

if  I  can  give  it  you  by  wishing. 


LETTER  XI. 

The  box  of  Rhenish  is  no  substitute  for  yourself, 
dear  Doctor,  but  it  was  most  welcome — partly,  per- 
haps, for  the  qualities  it  has  in  common  with  the  gen- 
tleman who  should  have  come  in  the  place  of  it.  The 
one  bottle  that  has  fulfilled  its  destiny,  was  worthy  to 
have  been  sunned  on  the  Rhine  and  drank  on  the  Sus- 
quehannah,  and  I  will  never  believe  that  anything  can 
come  from  you  that  will  not  improve  upon  acquaint- 
ance. So  I  shall  treasure  the  remainder  for  bright 
hours.  I  should  have  thought  it  superior  even  to  the 
Tokay  I  tasted  at  Vienna,  if  other  experiments  had  not 
apprized  me  that  country  life  sharpens  the  universal 
relish.  I  think  that  even  the  delicacy  of  the  palate  is 
affected  by  the  confused  sensations,  the  turmoil,  the 
vexations  of  life  in  town.  You  will  say  you  have  your 
quiet  chambers,  where  you  are  as  little  disturbed  by 
the  people  around  you  as  I  by  my  grazing  herds.  But, 
by  your  leave,  dear  Doctor,  the  fountains  of  thought 
(upon  which  the  senses  are  not  a  little  dependant)  will 
not  clear  and  settle  over-night  like  a  well.  No — nor 
in  a  day,  nor  in  two.  You  must  live  in  the  country 
to  possess  your  bodily  sensations  as  well  as  your  mind, 
in  tranquil  control.  It  is  only  when  you  have  forgot- 
ten streets  and  rumors  and  greetings — forgotten  the 
whip  of  punctuality,  and  the  hours  of  forced  pleasures 
— only  when  you  have  cleansed  your  ears  of  the  din 
of  trades,  the  shuffle  of  feet,  the  racket  of  wheels,  and 
coarse  voices — only  when  your  own  voice,  accustomed 
to  contend  against  discords,  falls,  through  the  fragran' 
air  of  the  country,  into  its  natural  modulations,  in  har- 
mony with  the  low  key  upon  which  runs  all  the  music 
of  nature — only  when  that  part  of  the  world  which  par 
took  not  of  the  fall  of  Adam,  has  had  time  to  affect 
you  with  its  tranquillity — only  then  that  the  dregs  of 
life  sink  out  of  sight,  and  while  the  soul  sees  through 
its  depths,  like  the  sun  through  untroubled  water,  the 
senses  lose  their  fever  and  false  energy,  and  play  their 
part,  and  no  more,  in  the  day's  expenditure  of  time 
and  pulsation. 

"  Still  harping  on  my  daughter,"  you  will  say  ;  and 
I  will  allow  that  I  can  scarce  write  a  letter  to  you  with- 
out shaping  it  to  the  end  of  attracting  you  to  the  Sus- 
quehannah.  At  least  watch  when  you  begin  to  grow 
old,  and  transplant  yourself  in  time  to  take  root,  and 
then  we  may  do  as  the  trees  do — defy  the  weather  till 
we  are  separated.  The  oak,  itself,  if  it  has  grown  up 
with  its  kindred  thick  about  it,  will  break  if  left  stand- 
ing alone ;  and  you  and  I,  dear  Doctor,  have  known  the 
luxury  of  friends  too  well  to  bear  the  loneliness  of  an 
unsympathizing  old  age.  Friends  are  not  pebbles, 
lying  in  every  path,  but  pearls  gathered  with  pain,  and 
rare  as  they  are  precious.  We  spend  our  youth  and 
manhood  in  the  search  and  proof"  of  them,  and  when 
Death  has  taken  his  toll  we  have  too  few  to  scatter — 
none  to  throw  away.  I,  for  one,  will  be  a  miser  of  mine. 
I  feel  the  avarice  of  friendship  growing  on  me  with 
every  year — tightening  my  hold  and  extending  my 
grasp.  Who  at  sixty  is  rich  in  friends  ?  The  richest 
are  those  who  have  drawn  this  wealth  of  angels  around 
them,  and  spent  care  and  thought  on  the  treasuring. 
Come,  my  dear  Doctor  !  I  have  chosen  a  spot  on 
one  of  the  loveliest  of  our  bright  rivers.  Here  is  all 
that  goes  to  make  an  Arcadia,  except  the  friendly 
dwellers  in  its  shade.  I  will  choose  your  hill-side, 
and  plant  your  grove,  that  the  trees  at  least  shall  lose 
no  time  by  your  delay.     Set  a  limit  to  your  ambition. 


LETTERS  FROM  UNDER  A  BRIDGE. 


235 


achieve  it,  and  come  away.  It  is  terrible  to  grow  old 
amid  the  jostle  and  disrespectful  hurry  of  a  crowd. 
The  academy  of  the  philosophers  was  out  of  Athens. 
You  can  not  fancy  Socrates  run  against,  in  the  mar- 
ket-place. Respect,  which  grows  wild  in  the  fields, 
requires  watching  and  management  in  cities.  Let  us 
have  an  old  man's  Arcady — where  we  can  slide  our 
"slippered  shoon"  through  groves  of  our  own  con- 
secrating, and  talk  of  the  world  as  tvithout — ourselves 
and  gay  philosophy  within.  I  have  strings  pulling 
upon  one  or  two  in  other  lands,  who,  like  our- 
selves, are  not  men  to  let  Content  walk  unrecognised 
in  their  path.  Slowly,  but,  I  think,  surely,  they  are 
drawing  thitherward;  and  I  have  chosen  places  for 
their  hearthstones,  too,  and  shall  watch,  as  I  do  for 
you,  that  the  woodman's  axe  cuts  down  no  tree  that 
would  be  regretted,  If  the  cords  draw  well,  and 
Death  take  but  his  tithe,  my  shady  "Omega"  will 
soon  learn  voices  to  which  its  echo  will  for  long  years 
be  familiar,  and  the  Owaga  and  Susquehannah  will 
join  waters  within  sight  of  an  old  man's  Utopia. 

"  My  sentiments  better  expressed"  have  come  in 
the  poet's  corner  of  the  Albion  to-day — a  paper,  by 
the  way,  remarkable  for  its  good  selection  of  poetry. 
You  will  allow  that  these  two  verses,  which  are  the 
closing  ones  of  a  piece  called  "  The  men  of  old,"  are 
above  the  common  run  of  newspaper  fugitives : — 

"  A  man's  best  things  are  nearest  him, 

Lie  close  about  his  feet ; 
It  is  the  distant  and  the  dim 

That  we  are  sick  to  greet : 
For  flowers  that  grow  our  hands  beneath 

We  struggle  and  aspire, 
Our  hearts  must  die  except  we  breathe 

The  air  of  fresh  desire. 
"  But,  brothers,  who  up  reason's  hill 

Advance  with  hopeful  cheer, 
O  loiter  not !  those  heights  are  chill, 

As  chill  as  they  are  clear. 
And  still  restrain  your  haughty  gaze — 

The  loftier  that  ye  go, 
Remembering  distance  leaves  a  haze 

On  all  that  lies  below." 

The  man  who  wrote  that,  is  hereby  presented  with  the 
freedom  of  the  Omega. 

The  first  of  September,  and  a  frost !  The  farmers 
from  the  hills  are  mourning  over  their  buckwheat, 
but  the  river-mist  saves  all  which  lay  low  enough  for 
its  white  wreath  to  cover ;  and  mine,  though  sown  on 
the  hill-side,  is  at  mist-mark,  and  so  escaped.  Nature 
seems  to  intend  that  I  shall  take  kindly  to  farming,  and 
has  spared  my  first  crop  even  the  usual  calamities.  I 
have  lost  but  an  acre  of  corn,  I  think,  and  that  by  the 
crows,  who  are  privileged  marauders,  welcome  at 
least  to  build  in  the  Omega,  and  take  their  tithe  with- 
out rent-day  or  molestation.  I  like  their  noise,  though 
discordant.  It  is  the  minor  in  the  anthem  of  nature — 
making  the  gay  song  of  the  blackbird,  and  the  merry 
chirp  of  the  robin  and  oriel,  more  gay  and  cheerier. 
Then  there  is  a  sentiment  about  the  raven  family,  and 
for  Shakspere's  lines  and  his  dear  sake,  I  love  them, 
"  Some  say  the  ravens  foster  forlorn  children 
The  while  their  own  birds  famish  in  their  nests." 

The  very  name  of  a  good  deed  shall  protect  them. 
Who  shall  say  that  poetry  is  a  vain  art,  or  that 
poets  are  irresponsible  for  the  moral  of  their  verse! 
For  Burns's  sake,  not  ten  days  since,  I  beat  off  my  dog 
from  the  nest  of  a  field-mouse,  and  forbade  the  mow- 
ers to  cut  the  grass  over  her.  She  has  had  a  poet  for 
her  friend,  and  her  thatched  roof  is  sacred.  I  should 
not  like  to  hang  about  the  neck  of  my  soul  all  the  evil 
that,  by  the  last  day,  shall  have  had  its  seed  in  Byron's 
poem  of  the  Corsair.  It  is  truer  of  poetry  than  of 
most  other  matters,  that 

"  More  water  glideth  by  the  mill 
Than  wots  the  miller  of." 

But  I  am  slipping  into  a  sermon. 


Speaking  of  music,  some  one  said  here  the  other 
day,  that  the  mingled  hum  of  the  sounds  of  nature, 
and  the  distant  murmur  of  a  city,  produce,  invariably, 
the  note  F  in  music.  The  voices  of  all  tune,  the 
blacksmith's  anvil  and  the  wandering  organ,  the  church 
bells  and  the  dustman's,  the  choir  and  the  cart-wheel, 
the  widow's  cry,  and  the  bride's  laugh,  the  prisoner's 
clanking  chain  and  the  schoolboy's  noise  at  play — at 
the  height  of  the  church  steeple  are  one  !  It  is  all 
"F"  two  hundred  feet  in  air!  The  swallow  can  out- 
soar  both  our  joys  and  miseries,  and  the  lark — what 
are  they  in  his  chamber  of  the  sun !  If  you  have  any 
unhappiness  at  the  moment  of  receiving  this  letter, 
dear  Doctor,  try  this  bit  of  philosophy.  It's  all  F 
where  the  bird  flies!  You  have  no  wings  to  get  there, 
you  say,  but  your  mind  has  more  than  the  six  of  the 
cherubim,  and  in  your  mind  lies  the  grief  you  would 
be  rid  of.     As  Caesar  says, 

"  By  all  the  gods  the  Romans  bow  before, 
I  here  discard  my  sickness." 
I'll  be  above  F,  and  let  troubles  hang  below.  What 
a  twopenny  matter  it  makes  of  all  our  cares  and  vexa- 
tions. I'll  find  a  boy  to  climb  to  the  top  of  a  tall  pine 
I  have,  and  tie  me  up  a  white  flag,  which  shall  be 
above  high-sorrow  mark  henceforth.  I  will  neither  be 
elated  or  grieved  without  looking  at  it.  It  floats  at 
"  F,"  where  it  is  all  one !  Why,  it  will  be  a  castle  in 
the  air,  indeed — impregnable  to  unrest.  Why  not, 
dear  Doctor!  Why  should  we  not  set  up  a  reminder, 
that  our  sorrows  are  only  so  deep — that  the  lees  are 
but  at  the  bottom,  and  there  is  good  wine  at  the  top — 
that  there  is  an  atmosphere  but  a  little  above  us  where 
our  sorrows  melt  into  our  joys!  No  man  need  be  un- 
happy who  can  see  a  grasshopper  on  a  church  vane. 

It  is  surprising  how  mere  a  matter  of  animal  spirits 
is  the  generation  of  many  of  our  bluest  devils  ;  and  it 
is  more  surprising  that  we  have  neither  the  memory  to 
recall  the  trifles  that  have  put  them  to  the  flight,  nor 
the   resolution   to   combat  their   approach.     A   man 
will  be  ready  to  hang  himself  in  the  morning  for  an 
annoyance  that  he  has  the  best  reason  to  know  would 
scarce  give  him  a  thought  at  night.    Even  a  dinner  is  a 
doughty  devil-queller.     How  true  is  the  apology  of 
Menenius  when  Coriolanus  had  repelled  his  friend ! 
"  He  had  not  dined. 
The  veins  unfilled,  our  blood  is  cold,  and  then 
We  pout  upon  the  morning :  are  unapt 
To  give  or  to  forgive  ;  but  when  we  have  stufPd 
These  pipes,  and  these  conveyances  of  our  blood, 
With  wine  and  feeding,  we  have  suppler  souls 
Than  in  our  priest-like  fasts.     Therefore  I'll  watch  him 
Till  he  be  dieted  to  my  request." 
I  have  recovered  my  spirits  ere  now  by  a  friend  ask- 
ing me  what  was  the  matter.     One  seems  to  want  but 
the  suggestion,  the  presence  of  mind,  the  expressed 
wish,  to  be  happy  any  day.     My  white  flag  shall  serve 
me  that  good  end!     "Tut,  man!"  it  shall  say,  "your 
grief  is  not  grief  where  I  am !     Send  your  imagination 
this  high  to  be  whitewashed !" 

Our  weather  to-day  is  a  leaf  out  of  October's  book, 
soft,  yet  invigorating.  The  harvest  moon  seems  to 
have  forgotten  her  mantle  last  night,  for  there  lies  on 
the  landscape  a  haze,  that  to  be  so  delicate,  should  be 
born  of  moonlight.  The  boys  report  plenty  of  deer- 
tracks  in  the  woods  close  by  us,  and  the  neighbors  tell 
me  they  browse  in  troops  on  my  buckwheat  by  the 
light  of  the  moon,  Let  them  !  I  have  neither  trap 
nor  gun  on  my  premises,  and  Shakspere  shall  be  (heir 
sentinel  too.  At  least,  no  Robin  or  Diggory  shall 
shoot  them  without  complaint  of  damage ;  though  if 
you  were  here,  dear  Doctor,  I  should  most  likely  bor- 
row a  gun,  and  lie  down  with  you  in  the  buckwheat  to 
see  you  bring  down  the  fattest.  And  so  do  our  par- 
tialities modify  our  benevolence.  I  fear  I  should  com- 
pound for  a  visit  by  the  slaughter  of  the  whole  herd. 
Perhaps  you  will  come  to  shoot  deer,  and  with  that 
pleasant  hope  I  will  close  my  letter. 


236 


LETTERS  FROM  UNDER  A  BRIDGE. 


LETTER  XII. 

I  have  nearly  had  by  breath  taken  away  this  morn- 
ing, dear  Doctor,  by  a  grave  assurance  from  a  rail- 
road commissioner,  that  rive  years  hence  I  should 
"devour  the  way"  between  this  and  New  York  in 
seven  hours.  Close  on  the  heels  of  this  gentleman 
came  an  engineer  of  the  canal,  who  promised  me  as 
trippingly,  that  in  three  years  I  should  run  in  a  packet- 
boat  from  my  cottage  to  tide-water.  This  was  in- 
tended, in  both  cases,  I  presume,  to  be  very  pleasant 
intelligence.  With  a  little  time,  I  dare  say,  I  shall 
come  to  think  it  so.  But  I  assure  you  at  present, 
that,  of  all  dwellers  upon  the  canal  route,  myself,  and 
the  toads  disentombed  by  the  blasting  of  the  rocks,  are, 
perhaps,  the  most  unpleasantly  surprised — they,  poor 
hermits,  fancying  themselves  safe  from  the  troubles  of 
existence  till  dooms-day,  and  I  as  sure  that  my  cot- 
tage was  at  a  safe  remove  from  the  turmoil  of  city 
propinquity. 

If  I  am  compelled  to  choose  a  hearthstone  again 
(God  knows  whether  Broadway  will  not  reach  bodily 
to  this),  I  will  employ  an  engineer  to  find  me  a  spot, 
if  indeed  there  be  one,  which  has  nothing  behind  it  or 
about  it,  or  in  its  range,  which  could  by  any  chance 
make  it  a  thoroughfare.  There  is  a  charm  to  me  in 
an  ira-navigable  river,  which  brought  me  to  the  Sus- 
quehannah.  I  like  the  city  sometimes,  and  I  bless 
Heaven  for  steamboats  ;  but  I  love  haunts  where  I 
neither  see  a  steamboat  nor  expect  the  city.  "What  is 
the  Hudson  but  a  great  highroad  ?  You  may  have 
your  cottage,  it  is  true,  and  live  by  the  water-side  in 
the  shade,  and  be  a  hundred  miles,  more  or  less,  from 
the  city.  But  every  half  hour  comes  twanging  through 
your  trees,  the  clang  of  an  untuneable  bell  informing 
you,  whether  you  will  or  no,  that  seven  hundred  cits 
are  seething  past  your  solitude.  You  must  be  an  ab- 
stracted student  indeed  if  you  do  not  look  after  the 
noisy  intruder  till  she  is  lost  to  the  eye.  Then  follow 
conjectures  what  news  may  be  on  board,  what  friends 
may  be  passing  unknown,  what  celebrities  or  oddities, 
or  wonders  of  beauty,  may  be  mingling  in  the  throng 
upon  her  decks ;  and  by  the  time  you  remember  again 
that  you  are  in  the  country,  there  sounds  another  bell, 
and  another  discordant  whiz,  and  so  your  mind  is 
plucked  away  to  city  thoughts  and  associations,  while 
your  body  sits  alone  and  discontented  amid  the  trees. 

Now,  for  one,  I  like  not  this  divorce.  If  I  am  to  be 
happy,  my  imagination  must  keep  my  body  company, 
and  both  must  be  in  the  country,  or  both  in  town. 
With  all  honor  to  Milton,  who  avers — 

"  The  mind  is  its  own  place,  and  in  itself 
Can  make  a  hell  of  heaven,  a  heaven  of  hell,'* 

my  mind  to  make  a  heaven,  requires  the  society  of  its 
material  half.  Though  my  pores  take  in  a  palpable 
pleasure  from  the  soft  air  of  morning,  my  imagination 
feeds  twice  as  bountifully,  foraging  amid  the  sunshine 
and  verdure  with  my  two  proper  eyes  ;  and  in  turn  my 
fancy  feeds  more  steadily  when  I  breathe  and  feel  what 
she  is  abroad  in.  Ask  the  traveller  which  were  his 
unhappiest  hours  under  foreign  skies.  If  he  is  of  my 
mind,  he  will  say,  they  were  those  in  which  his 
thoughts  (by  letters  or  chance  news)  were  driven  irre- 
sistibly home,  leaving  his  eyes  blind  and  his  ears  deaf 
in  the  desert  or  the  strange  city.  There  are  persons, 
I  know,  who  make  a  pleasure  of  revery,  and,  walking 
on  the  pavement,  will  be  dreaming  of  fields,  and  in  the 
fields  think  only  of  the  distractions  of  town.  But 
with  me,  absent  thoughts,  unless  to  be  rid  of  disagree- 
able circumstances,  are  a  disease.  When  in  health,  I 
am  all  together,  what  there  is  of  me — soul  and  body, 
head  and  heart — and  a  steamboat  that  should  daily  cut 
the  line  of  my  horizon  with  human  interest  enough  on 
board  to  take  my  thoughts  with  her  when  she  disap- 
peared, would,  to  my  thinking,  be  a  daily  calamity.    I 


thank  God  that  the  deep  shades  of  the  Omega  lie  be- 
tween my  cottage  and  the  track  of  both  canal  and  rail- 
road. I  live  in  the  lap  of  a  semicircle  of  hills,  and  the 
diameter,  I  am  pleased  to  know,  is  shorter  than  the 
curve.  There  is  a  green  and  wholesome  half  mile, 
thickly  wooded,  and  mine  own  to  keep  so,  between  my 
threshold  and  the  surveyor's  line,  and  like  the  laird's 
Jock,  I  shall  be  "  aye  sticking  in  a  tree." 

Do  not  think,  dear  Doctor,  that  I  am  insensible  tc 
the  grandeur  of  the  great  project  to  connect  Lake  Erie 
with  the  Hudson  by  railroad,  or  that  I  do  not  feel  a 
becoming  interest  in  my  country's  prosperity.  I  would 
fain  have  a  farm  where  my  cattle  and  I  can  ruminatb 
without  fear  of  falling  asleep  on  a  rail-track,  or  slip- 
ping into  a  canal ;  but  there  is  an  imaginative  and  a 
bright  side  to  these  improvements,  which  I  look  on  as 
often  as  on  the  other.  What  should  prevent  steam- 
posting,  for  example — not  in  confined  and  cramped 
carriages,  suited  to  the  strength  of  a  pair  of  horses,  but 
in  airy  and  commodious  apartments,  furnished  like  a 
bachelor's  lodgings,  with  bed,  kitchen,  and  servants  ? 
What  should  prevent  the  transfer  of  such  a  structure 
from  railroad  to  canal-boat  as  occasion  required  ?  In 
five  years  probably,  there  will  pass  through  this  village 
a  railroad  and  a  canal,  by  which,  together,  we  shall 
have  an  unbroken  chain  of  canal  and  railroad  commu- 
nication with  most  of  the  principal  seaboard  cities  of 
this  country,  and  with  half  the  towns  and  objects  of 
curiosity  in  the  west  and  north. 

I  build  a  tenement  on  wheels,  considerably  longer 
than  the  accommodations  of  single  gentlemen  at  ho- 
tels, with  a  small  kitchen,  and  such  a  cook  as  pleases 
the  genius  of  republics.  The  vehicle  shall  be  fur- 
nished, we  wih  say,  with  tangent  moveable  rails,  or 
some  other  convenience  for  wheeling  off  the  track 
whenever  there  is  occasion  to  stop  or  loiter.  As  1 
said  before,  it  should  be  arranged  also  for  transfer  to  a 
boat.  In  either  case  there  shall  be  post-horses,  as 
upon  the  English  roads,  ready  to  be  put  to  at  a  mo- 
ment's warning,  and  capable,  upon  the  railroad  at 
least,  of  a  sufficient  rate  of  speed.  What  could  be 
more  delightful  or  more  easy  than  to  furnish  this  am- 
bulatory cottage  with  light  furniture  from  your  sta- 
tionary home,  cram  it  with  books,  and  such  little  re- 
finements as  you  most  miss  abroad,  and,  purchasing 
provisions  by  the  way,  travel  under  your  own  roof  from 
one  end  of  the  country  to  the  other  ?  Imagine  me 
sending  you  word,  some  fine  morning,  from  Jersey 
city,  to  come  over  and  breakfast  with  me  at  my  cot- 
tage, just  arrived  by  railroad  from  the  country?  Or 
going  to  the  Springs  with  a  house  ready  furnished  ? 
Or  inviting  you  to  accept  of  my  hospitality  during  a 
trip  to  Baltimore,  or  Cincinnati,  or  Montreal !  The 
English  have  anticipated  this  luxury  in  their  expensive 
private  yachts,  with  which  they  traverse  the  Levant, 
and  drink  wine  from  their  own  cellars  at  Joppa  and 
Trebizond  ;  but  what  is  that  to  travelling  the  same 
distance  on  land,  without  storms  or  sea-sickness,  with 
the  choice  of  companions  every  hour,  and  at  a  hun- 
dredth part  of  the  cost?  The  snail  has  been  before 
us  in  the  invention. 

I  presume,  dear  Doctor,  that  even  you  would  be 
obliged  to  fish  around  considerably  to  find  Owego  on 
the  map ;  yet  the  people  here  expect  in  a  year  or 
two  to  sit  at  their  windows,  and  see  all  the  fashion 
and  curiosity,  as  well  as  the  dignity  and  business  of 
the  world  go  by.  This  little  village,  to  which  pros- 
perity 

"  Is  as  the  osprey  to  the  fish,  who  takes  it 
By  sovereignty  of  nature," 

lies  at  the  joint  of  a  great  cross  of  northern  and  west- 
ern travel.  The  Erie  railroad  will  intersect  here  the 
canal  whieh  follows  the  Susquehannah  to  the  Che- 
nango, and  you  may  as  well  come  to  Glenmary  if  you 
wish  to  see  your  friend,  the  General,  on  his  annual 


LETTERS  FROM  UNDER  A  BRIDGE. 


237 


trip  to  the  Springs.  Think  what  a  superb  route  it 
will  be  for  southern  travellers.  Instead  of  being  fil- 
tered through  all  the  seaboard  cities,  at  great  cost 
of  money  and  temper,  they  will  strike  the  Susquehan- 
nah  at  Columbia,  and  follow  its  delicious  windings  past 
Wyoming  to  Owega,  where,  turning  west,  they  may 
steam  up  the  small  lakes  to  Niagara,  or  keeping  on  the 
Chenango,  track  that  exquisite  river  by  canal  to  the 
Mohawk,  and  so  on  to  the  Springs — all  the  way  by  the 
most  lovely  river-courses  in  the  world.  Pure  air, 
new  scenery,  and  a  near  and  complete  escape  from  the 
cities  in  the  hot  months,  will  be  (the  O-egoists  think) 
inducements  enough  to  bring  the  southern  cities,  rank 
and  file  in  annual  review  before  us.  The  canal-boat, 
of  course  will  be  "  the  genteel  tiling"  among  the  arri- 
vals in  this  metropolis.  Pleasure  north  and  south, 
business  east  and  west.  We  shall  take  our  fashions 
from  New  Orleans,  and  I  do  not  despair  of  seeing  a 
cafe  on  the  Susquehannah,  with  a  French  dame  de 
comptoir,  marble  tables,  and  the  Picayune  newspaper. 
If  my  project  of  travelling  cottages  should  succeed,  I 
shall  offer  the  skirt  of  my  Omega  to  such  of  my  New 
Orleans  friends  as  would  like  to  pasture  a  cow  during 
the  summer,  and  when  they  and  the  orioles  migrate  in 
the  autumn,  why,  we  will  up  cottage  and  be  off  to  the 
south  too — freeze  who  likes  in  Tioga. 

I  wish  my  young  trees  liked  this  air  of  Italy  as  well 
as  I.  This  ten  days'  sunshine  has  pinched  their  thirsty 
tops,  and  it  looks  like  mid-autumn  from  my  seat  under 
the  bridge.  No  water,  save  a  tricklet  in  the  early  morn- 
ing. But  such  weather  for  pick-nick-ing  !  The  buck- 
wheat is  sun-dried,  and  will  yield  but  half  a  crop.  The 
deer  come  down  to  the  spring-heads,  and  the  snakes 
creep  to  the  river.  Jenny  toils  at  the  deep-down  well- 
bucket,  and  the  minister  prays  for  rain.  I  love  the  sun, 
and  pray  for  no  advent  but  yours. 

You  have  never  seen,  I  dare  be  certain,  a  vol  me 
of  poems  called  "  Mundi  et  Cordis  Carmina,"  by 
Thomas  Wade.  It  is  one  of  those  volumes  killed, 
like  my  trees,  in  the  general  drought  of  poesy,  but 
there  is  stuff  in  it  worth  the  fair  type  on  which  it  is 
printed,  though  Mr.  Wade  takes  small  pains  to  shape 
his  verse  to  the  common  comprehension.  I  mention 
him  now,  because,  in  looking  over  his  volume,  I  find 
he  has  been  before  me  in  particularizing  the  place 
where  a  letter  is  written,  and  goes  beyond  me,  by 
specifying  also  the  place  where  it  should  be  read. 
"  The  Pencilled  Letter"  and  its  "Answer"  are  among 
his  most  intelligible  poems,  and  I  will  give  you  their 
concluding  lines  as  containing  a  new  idea  in  amatory 
correspondence : — 

"  Dearest,  love  me  still ; 
I  know  new  objects  must  thy  spirit  fill ; 
But  yet  I  pray  thee,  do  not  love  me  less  ; 
This  write  I  where  I  dress.    Bless  thee  !  for  ever  bless  !" 

The  reply  has  a  very  pretty  conclusion,  aside  from  the 
final  oddity : — 

"  Others  may  inherit 
My  heart's  wild  perfume  ;  but  the  flower  is  thine. 
This  read  where  thou  didst  write.   All  blessings  round  thee 
throng." 

It  is  in  your  quality  as  bachelor  that  you  get  the  loan 
of  this  idea,  for  in  love,  "  a  trick  not  worth  an  egg," 
so  it  be  new,  is  worth  the  knowing. 

Here's  a  precious  coil !  The  red  heifer  has  chewed 
up  a  lace  cape,  and  the  breachy  ox  has  run  over  the 
"  bleach  and  lavender"  of  a  seven  days'  wear  and 
washing.  It  must  be  laid  to  the  drought,  unless  a 
taste  for  dry  lace  as  well  as  wet  can  be  proved  on  the 
peccant  heifer.  The  ox  would  to  the  drink— small 
blame  to  him.  But  lace  is  expensive  fodder,  and  the 
heifer  must  be  "  hobbled" — so  swears  the  washerwo- 
man. 

"  Her  injury 
's  the  jailer  to  her  pity.'"' 
I  have  only  the  "  turn  overs"  left,  dear  Doctor,  and  I 


will  cover  them  with  one  of  Mr.  Wade's  sonnets, 
which  will  serve  you,  should  you  have  occasion  for  an 
epithalamium.  It  is  called  "  the  Bride,"  and  should 
be  read  fasting  by  a  bachelor : — 

"  Let  the  trim  tapers  burn  exceeding  brightly ! 
And  the  white  bed  be  deck'd  as  for  a  goddess, 
Who  must  be  pillow'd,  like  high  vesper,  nightly 
On  couch  ethereal !     Be  the  curtains  fleecy, 
Like  vesper's  fairest,  when  calm  nights  are  breezy — 
Transparent,  parting — showing  what  they  hide, 
Or  strive  to  veil — by  mystery  deified  ! 
The  floor,  gold  carpet,  that  her  zone  and  boddice 
May  lie  in  honor  where  they  gently  fall, 
Slow  loosened  from  her  form  symmetrical — 
Like  mist  from  sunlight.    Burn,  sweet  odors,  burn  ! 
For  incense  at  the  altar  of  her  pleasure  ! 
Let  music  breathe  with  a  voluptuous  measure, 
And  witchcrafts  trance  her  wheresoe'er  she  turns." 


LETTER    XIII. 

This  is  not  a  very  prompt  answer  to  your  last,  my 
dear  Doctor,  for  I  intended  to  have  taken  my  brains 
to  you  bodily,  and  replied  to  all  your  "whether-or- 
noes"  over  a  broiled  oyster  at  *****  .  Perhaps  I 
may  bring  this  in  my  pocket.  A  brace  of  ramblers, 
brothers  of  my  own,  detained  me  for  a  while,  but  are 
flitting  to-day ;  and  Bartlett  has  been  here  a  week,  to 
whom,  more  particularly,  I  wish  to  do  the  honors  of 
the  scenery.  We  have  climbed  every  hill-top  that  has 
the  happiness  of  looking  down  on  the  Owaga  and  Sus- 
quehannah, and  he  agrees  with  me  that  a  more  lovely 
and  habitable  valley  has  never  sat  to  him  for  its  pic- 
ture. Fortunately,  on  the  day  of  his  arrival,  the  dust 
of  a  six  weeks'  drought  was  washed  from  its  face,  and, 
barring  the  wilt  that  precedes  autumn,  the  hill-sides 
were  in  holyday  green  and  looked  their  fairest.  He 
has  enriched  his  portfolio  with  four  or  five  delicious 
sketches,  and  if  there  were  gratitude  or  sense  of  re- 
nown in  trees  and  hills,  they  would  have  nodded  their 
tops  to  the  two  of  us.  It  is  not  every  valley  or  pine- 
tree  that  finds  painter  and  historian,  but  these  are  as 
insensible  as  beauty  and  greatness  were  ever  to  the 
claims  of  their  trumpeters. 

How  long  since  was  it  that  I  wrote  to  you  of  Bartlett's 
visit  to  Constantinople  ?  Not  more  than  four  or  five 
weeks,  it  seems  to  me,  and  yet,  here  he  is,  on  his  re- 
turn from  a  professional  trip  to  Canada,  with  all  its 
best  scenery  snug  in  his  portmanteau !  He  steamed  to 
Turkey  and  back,  and  steamed  again  to  America,  and 
will  be  once  more  in  England  in  some  twenty  days — 
having  visited  and  sketched  the  two  extremities  of  the 
civilized  world.  Why,  I  might  farm  it  on  the  Susque- 
hannah and  keep  my  town-house  in  Constantinople — 
(with  money).  It  seemed  odd  to  me  to  turn  over  a 
drawing-book,  and  find  on  one  leaf  a  freshly-pencilled 
sketch  of  a  mosque,  and  on  the  next  a  view  of  Glen- 
mary — my  turnip-field  in  the  foreground.  And  then 
the  man  himself — pulling  a  Turkish  para  and  a  Yan- 
kee shinplaster  from  his  pocket  with  the  same  pinch 
— shuffling  to  breakfast  in  my  ahri  on  the  Susquehan- 
nah, in  a  pair  of  peaked  slippers  of  Constantinople, 
that  smell  as  freshly  of  the  bazar  as  if  they  were 
bought  yesterday — waking  up  with  "pekke!  pekke  ! 
my  good  fellow!"  when  William  brings  him  his  boots 
— and  never  seeing  a  blood-red  maple  (just  turned 
with  the  frost)  without  fancying  it  the  sanguine  flag 
of  the  Bosphorus  or  the  bright  jacket  of  a  Greek  !  All 
this  unsettles  me  strangely.  The  phantasmagoria  of 
my  days  of  vagabondage  flit  before  my  eyes  again. 
This,  "by-the-by,  do  you  remember,  in  Smyrna?" 
and  "the  view  you  recollect  from  the  Seraglio!"  and 
such  like  slip-slop  of  travellers,  heard  within  reach  of 
my  corn  and  pumpkins,  affects  me  like  the  mad  poet's 
proposition, 

"  To  twitch  the  rainbow  from  the  sky, 
And  splice  both  ends  together." 


238 


LETTERS  FROM  UNDER  A  BRIDGE. 


I  have  amused  my  artist  friend  since  he  has  been 
here,  with  an  entertainment  not  quite  as  expensive  as 
the  Holly  Lodge  fireworks,  but  quite  as  beautiful — 
the  burning  of  log-heaps.  Instead  of  gossipping  over 
the  tea-table  these  long  and  chilly  evenings,  the  three 
or  four  young  men  who  have  been  staying  with  us 
were  very  content  to  tramp  into  the  woods  with  a  bun- 
dle of  straw  and  a  match-box,  and  they  have  been  in- 
itiated into  the  mysteries  of  "picking  and  piling,"  to 
the  considerable  improvement  of  the  glebe  of  Glen- 
mary.     Shelley  says, 

"  Men  scarcely  know  how  beautiful  fire  is  ;" 

and  1  am  inclined  to  think  that  there  are  varieties  of 
glory  in  its  phenomena  which  would  make  it  worth 
even  your  metropolitan  while  to  come  to  the  west  and 
"burn  fallow."  At  this  season  of  the  year — after  the 
autumn  droughts,  that  is  to  say — the  whole  country 
here  is  covered  with  a  thin  smoke,  stealing  up  from 
the  fires  on  every  hill,  in  the  depths  of  the  woods,  and 
on  the  banks  of  the  river ;  and  what  with  the  graceful 
smoke-wreaths  by  day,  and  the  blazing  beacons  all 
around  the  horizon  by  night,  it  adds  much  to  the  va- 
riety, and,  I  think,  more  to  the  beauty  of  our  western 
October.  It  edifies  the  traveller  who  has  bought  wood 
by  the  pound  in  Paris,  or  stiffened  for  the  want  of  it  in 
the  disforested  Orient,  to  stand  off  a  rifle-shot  from  a 
crackling  wood,  and  toast  himself  by  a  thousand  cords 
burnt  for  the  riddance.  What  experience  I  have  had 
of  these  holocausts  on  my  own  land  has  not  diminished 
the  sense  of  waste  and  wealth  with  which  I  first 
watched  them.  Paddy's  dream  of  "rolling  in  a  bin 
of  gold  guineas,"  could  scarce  have  seemed  more 
luxurious. 

Bartlett  and  I,  and  the  rest  of  us,  in  our  small  way 
burnt  enough,  I  dare  say,  to  have  made  a  comfortable 
drawing-room  of  Hyde  Park  in  January,  and  the  ef- 
fects of  the  white  light  upon  the  trees  above  and 
around  were  glorious.  But  our  fires  were  piles  of 
logs  and  brush — small  beer,  of  course,  to  the  confla- 
gration of  a  forest.  I  have  seen  one  that  was  like  the 
Thousand  Columns  of  Constantinople  ignited  to  a  red 
heat,  and  covered  with  carbuncles  and  tongues  of 
flame.  It  was  a  temple  of  fire — the  floor,  living  coals 
— the  roof,  a  heavy  drapery  of  crimson — the  aisles 
held  up  by  blazing  and  innumerable  pillars,  sometimes 
swept  by  the  wind  till  they  stood  in  still  and  naked 
redness  while  the  eye  could  see  far  into  their  depths, 
and  again  covered  and  wreathed  and  laved  in  ever- 
changing  billows  of  flame.  We  want  an  American 
Tempesta  or  "  Savage  Rosa,"  to  "  wreak"  such  pic 
tures  on  canvass ;  and  perhaps  the  first  step  to  it  would 
be  the  painting  of  the  foliage  of  an  American  autumn. 
These  glorious  wonders  are  peculiarities  of  our  coun 
try ;  why  should  they  not  breed  a  peculiar  school  of 
effect  and  color? 

"  Gentle  Doughty,  tell  me  why !" 

Among  the  London  news  which  has  seasoned  our 
breakfasts  of  late,  1  hear  pretty  authentically  that  Camp 
bell  is  coming  to  look  up  his  muse  on  the  Susquehan 
nah.  He  is  at  present  writing  the  life  of  Petrarch,  and 
superintending  the  new  edition  of  his  works  (to  be  il- 
lustrated in  the  style  of  Rogers's),  and,  between  whiles, 
projecting  a  new  poem;  and,  my  letters  say,  is  likely 
to  find  the  way,  little  known  to  poets,  from  the  Tem- 
ple of  Fame  to  the  Temple  of  Mammon.  One  would 
think  it  were  scarce  decent  for  Campbell  to  die  without 
seeing  Wyoming.  I  trust  he  will  not.  What  would 
I  not  give  to  get  upon  a  raft  with  him,  and  float  down 
the  Susqrehannah  a  hundred  miles  to  the  scene  of 
his  Gertride,  watching  his  fine  face  while  the  real  dis- 
placed t'je  ideal  valley  of  his  imagination.  I  think  it 
would  'rouble  him.  Probably  in  the  warmth  of  com- 
posite n  and  the  familiarity  of  years,  the  imaginary 
Bcenf  has  become  ennmelled  and  sunk  into  his  mind, 


and  it  would  remain  the  home  of  his  poem  after  Wy- 
oming itself  had  made  a  distinct  impression  on  his 
memory.  They  would  be  two  places — not  one.  He 
wrote  it  with  some  valley  of  his  own  land  in  his  mind's 
eye,  and  gray  Scotland  and  sunny  and  verdant  Penn- 
ylvania  will  scarce  blend.  But  he  will  be  welcome. 
Oh,  how  welcome  !  America  would  rise  up  to  Camp- 
bell. He  has  been  the  bard  of  freedom,  generous  and 
chivalric  in  all  his  strains;  and,  nation  of  merchants 
as  we  are,  I  am  mistaken  if  the  string  he  has  most 
played  is  not  the  master-chord  of  our  national  char- 
acter. The  enthusiasm  of  no  people  on  earth  is  so 
easily  awoke,  and  Campbell  is  the  poet  of  enthusiasm. 
The  schoolboys  have  him  by  heart,  and  what  lives  up- 
on their  lips,  will  live  and  be  beloved  for  ever. 

It  would  be  a  fine  thing,  I  have  often  thought,  dear 
Doctor,  if  every  English  author  would  be  at  the  pains 
to  reap  his  laurels  in  this  country.  If  they  could 
overcome  their  indignation  at  our  disgraceful  robbery 
of  their  copyrights,  and  come  among  the  people  who 
read  them  for  the  love  they  bear  them — read  them  as 
they  are  not  read  in  England,  without  prejudice  or  fa- 
vor, personal  or  political — it  would  be  more  like  taking 
a  peep  at  posterity  than  they  think.  In  what  is  the 
judgment  of  posterity  better  than  that  of  contempora- 
ries ?  Simply  in  that  the  author  is  seen  from  a  dis- 
tance— his  personal  qualities  lost  to  the  eye,  and  his 
literary  stature  seen  in  proper  relief  and  proportion. 
We  know  nothing  of  the  degrading  rivalries  and  diffi- 
culties of  his  first  efforts,  or,  if  we  do,  we  do  not  real- 
ize them,  never  having  known  him  till  success  sent  his 
name  over  the  water.  His  reputation  is  a  Minerva  to 
us — sprung  full-grown  to  our  knowledge.  We  praise 
him,  if  we  like  him,  with  the  spirit  in  which  we  criti- 
cise an  author  of  another  age — with  no  possible  pri- 
vate bias.  Witness  the  critiques  upon  Bulwer  in  this 
country,  compared  with  those  of  his  countrymen. 
What  review  has  ever  given  him  a  tithe  of  his  deserv- 
ings  in  England  !  Their  cold  acknowledgment  of  his 
merits  reminds  one  of  Enobarbus's  civility  to  Menas: 

"  Sir  !  I  have  praised  you 
When  you  have  well  deserved  ten  times  as  much 
As  I  have  said  you  did !" 

1  need  not  to  you,  dear  Doctor  enlarge  upon  the  ben- 
efits, political  and  social,  to  both  countries,  which 
would  follow  the  mutual  good-will  of  our  authors. 
We  shall  never  have  theirs  while  we  plunder  them  so 
barefacedly  as  now,  and  I  trust  in  heaven  we  shall, 
some  time  or  other,  see  men  in  Congress  who  will  go 
deeper  for  their  opinions  than  the  circular  of  a  pira- 
ting bookseller. 

I  wish  you  to  send  me  a  copy  of  Dawes's  poems 
when  they  appear.  I  have  long  thought  he  was  one 
of  the  unappreciated  ;  but  I  see  that  his  fine  play  of 
Atbanasia  is  making  stir  among  the  paragraphers.  Ru- 
fus  Dawes  is  a  poet  if  God  ever  created  one,  and  he 
lives  his  vocation  as  well  as  imagines  it.  I  hope  he 
will  shuffle  off  the  heavenward  end  of  his  mortal  coil 
under  the  cool  shades  of  my  Omega.  He  is  our  Cole- 
ridge, and  his  talk  should  have  reverent  listeners.  I 
have  seldom  been  more  pleased  at  a  change  in  the  lit- 
erary kaleidoscope,  than  at  his  awakening  popularity ; 
and,  I  pray  you  blow  what  breath  you  have  into  bis 
new-spread  sail.  Cranch,  the  artist,  who  lived  with 
me  in  Italy  (a  beautiful  scholar  in  the  art,  whose  hand 
is  fast  overtaking  his  head),  has,  I  see  by  the  papers, 
made  a  capital  sketch  of  him.  Do  you  know  wheth- 
er it  is  to  be  engraved  for  the  book  ? 

Ossian  represents  the  ghosts  of  his  heroes  lament- 
ing that  they  had  not  had  their  fame,  and  it  is  a  pity, 
I  think,  that  we  had  not  some  literary  apostle  to  tell 
us,  from  the  temple  of  our  Athens,  who  are  the  un- 
known great.  Certain  it  is,  they  often  live  among  us, 
and  achieve  their  greatness  unrecognised.  How  pro- 
foundly dull  was  England  to  the   merits  of  Charles 


LETTERS  FROM  UNDER  A  BRIDGE. 


139 


Lamb  till  he  died !  Yet  he  was  a  fine  illustration  of 
my  remark  just  now.  America  was  posterity  to 
him.  The  writings  of  all  our  young  authors  were 
tinctured  with  imitation  of  his  style,  when,  in  Eng- 
land (as  I  personally  know),  it  was  difficult  to  light  up- 
on a  person  who  had  read  his  Elia.  Truly  "  the  root 
of  a  great  name  is  in  the  dead  body."  There  is  Wal- 
ter Savage  Landor,  whose  Imaginary  Conversations 
contain  more  of  the  virgin  ore  of  thought  than  any 
six  modern  English  writers  together,  and  how  many 
persons  in  any  literary  circle  know  whether  he  is  alive 
or  dead — an  author  of  Queen  Elizabeth's  time  or 
Queen  Victoria's  ?  He  is  a  man  of  fortune,  and  has 
bought  Boccacio's  garden  at  Fiesole,  and  there  upon 
the  classic  Africus,  he  is  tranquilly  achieving  his  re- 
nown, and  it  will  beunburied,  and  acknowledged  when 
he  is  dead.  Travellers  will  make  pilgrimages  to  the 
spot  where  Boccacio  and  Landor  have  lived,  and  won- 
der that  they  did  not  mark  while  it  was  done — this 
piling  of  Ossa  on  Pelion. 

By  the  way,  Mr.  Landor  has  tied  me  to  the  tail  of 
his  immortality,  for  an  offence  most  innocently  com- 
mitted ;  and  I  trust  his  biographer  will  either  let  me 
slip  off"  at  "  Lethe's  wharf,"  by  expurgating  the  book 
of  me,  or  do  me  justice  in  a  note.  When  I  was  in 
Florence,  I  was  indebted  to  him  for  much  kind  atten- 
tion and  hospitality ;  and  I  considered  it  one  of  the 
highest  of  my  good  fortunes  abroad  to  go  to  Fiesole, 
and  dine  in  the  scene  of  the  Decameron  with  an  au- 
thor who  would,  I  thought,  live  as  long  as  Boccacio. 
Mr.  Landor  has  a  glorious  collection  of  paintings,  and 
at  parting  he  presented  me  with  a  beautiful  picture  by 
Cuyp,  which  I  had  particularly  admired,  and  gave  me 
some  of  my  most  valuable  letters  to  England,  where  I 
was  then  going.  I  mention  it  to  show  the  terms  on 
which  we  separated.  While  with  him  on  my  last  vis- 
it, I  had  expressed  a  wish  that  the  philosophical  con- 
versations in  his  books  were  separated  from  the  politi- 
cal, and  republished  in  a  cheap  form  in  America  ;  and 
the  following  morning,  before  daylight,  his  servant 
knocked  at  the  door  of  my  lodgings,  with  a  package 
of  eight  or  ten  octavo  volumes,  and  as  much  manu- 
script, accompanied  by  a  note  from  Mr.  Landor,  com- 
mitting the  whole  to  my  discretion.  These  volumes, 
I  should  tell  you,  were  interleaved  and  interlined  very 
elaborately,  and  having  kept  him  company  under  his 
olive-trees,  were  in  rather  a  dilapidated  condition. 
How  to  add  such  a  bulk  of  precious  stuff  to  my  bag- 
gage, I  did  not  know.  I  was  at  the  moment  of  start- 
ing, and  it  was  very  clear  that  even  if  the  custom- 
house officers  took  no  exception  to  them  (they  are 
outlawed  through  Italy  for  their  political  doctrines), 
they  would  never  survive  a  rough  journey  over  the 
Appenines  and  Alps.  I  did  the  best  I  could.  I  sent 
them  with  a  note  to  Theodore  Fay,  who  was  then  in 
Florence,  requesting  him  to  forward  them  to  America 
by  ship  from  Leghorn ;  a  commission  which  I  knew 
that  kindest  and  most  honorable  of  men  and  poets, 
would  execute  with  the  fidelity  of  an  angel.  So  he 
did.  He  handed  them  to  an  American  straw-bonnet 
maker  (who,  he  had  no  reason  to  suppose,  was  the  ma- 
licious donkey  he  afterward  proved),  and  through  him 
they  were  shipped  and  received  in  New  York.  I  ex- 
pected, at  the  time  I  left  Florence,  to  make  but  a  short 
stay  in  England,  and  sail  in  the  same  summer  for 
America  ;  instead  of  which  I  remained  in  England 
two  years  at  the  close  of  which  appeared  a  new  book 
of  Mr.  Landor's  Pericles  and  Aspasia.  I  took  it  up 
with  delight,  and  read  it  through  to  the  last  chapter, 
where,  of  a  sudden,  the  author  jumps  from  the  acad- 
emy of  Plato,  clean  over  three  thousand  years,  upon 
the  shoulders  of  a  false  American,  who  had  robbed 
him  of  invaluable  manuscripts  !  So  there  I  go  to  pos- 
terity astride  the  Finis  of  Pericles  and  Aspasia!  I 
had  corresponded  occasionally  with  Mr.  Landor,  and 
in  one  of  my  letters  had  stated  the  fact,  that  the  man- 


uscripts had  been  committed  to  Mr.  Miles  to  forward 
to  America.  He  called,  in  consequence,  at  the  shop 
of  this  person  who  denied  any  knowledge  of  the 
books,  leaving  Mr.  Landor  to  suppose  that  I  had  been 
either  most  careless  or  most  culpable  in  my  manage- 
ment of  his  trust.  The  books  had,  however,  after  a 
brief  stay  in  New  York,  followed  me  to  London  ;  and 
Fay  and  Mr.  Landor  both  happening  there  together, 
the  explanation  was  made  and  the  books  and  manu- 
scripts restored  unharmed  to  the  author.  I  was  not 
long  enough  in  London  afterward  to  know  whether  I 
was  forgiven  by  Mr.  Landor;  but,  as  his  book  has  not 
reached  a  second  edition,  I  am  still  writhing  in  my 
purgatory  of  print. 

I  have  told  you  this  long  story,  dear  Doctor,  because 
I  am  sometimes  questioned  on  the  subject  by  the  lit- 
erary people  with  whom  you  live,  and  hereafter  I  shall 
transfer  them  to  your  button  for  the  whole  matter. 
But  what  a  letter!  Write  me  two  for  it,  and  revenge 
yourself  in  the  postage. 


LETTER  XIV. 


This  is  return  month,  dear  Doctor,  and  if  it  were 
only  to  be  in  fashion,  you  should  have  a  quid  pro  quo 
for  your  four  pages.  October  restores  and  returns; 
your  gay  friends  and  invalids  return  to  the  city  ;  the 
birds  and  the  planters  return  to  the  south  ;  the  seed 
returns  to  the  granary;  the  brook  at  my  feet  is  noisy 
again  with  its  returned  waters  ;  the  leaves  are  return- 
ing to  the  earth ;  and  the  heart  that  has  been  out-of- 
doors  while  the  summer  lasted,  comes  home  from  its 
wanderings  by  field  and  stream,  and  returns  to  feed  on 
its  harvest  of  new  thoughts,  past  pleasures,  and 
strengthened  and  confirmed  affections.  At  this  time 
of  the  year,  too,  you  expect  a  return  (not  of  paste 
board)  for  your  "  visits  ;"  but,  as  you  have  made  me 
no  visit,  either  friendly  or  professional,  I  owe  you 
nothing.  And  that  is  the  first  consolation  I  have 
found  for  your  short-comings  (or  no-comings-at-all) 
to  Glenmary. 

Now,  consider  my  arms  a-kimbo,  if  you  please, 
while  I  ask  you  what  you  mean  by  calling  Glenmary 
"  backwoods !"  Faith,  I  wish  it  were  more  back- 
woods than  it  is.  Here  be  cards  to  be  left,  sir,  morn- 
ing calls  to  be  made,  body-coat  soirees,  and  ceremony 
enough  to  keep  one's  most  holyday  manners  well  aired. 
The  two  miles'  distance  between  me  and  Owego  serves 
me  for  no  exemption,  for  the  village  of  Canewana, 
which  is  a  mile  nearer  on  the  road,  is  equally  within 
the  latitude  of  silver  forks ;  and  dinners  are  given  in 
both,  which  want  no  one  of  the  belongings  of  Bel- 
grave-square,  save  port-wine  and  powdered  footmen. 
I  think  it  is  in  one  of  Miss  Austin's  novels  that  a  lady 
claims  it  to  be  a  smart  neighborhood  in  which  she 
"  dines  with  four-and-twenty  families."  If  there  are 
not  more  than  half  as  many  in  Owego  who  give  din- 
ners, there  are  twice  as  many  who  ask  to  tea  and  give 
ice-cream  and  champaign.  Then  for  the  fashions, 
there  is  as  liberal  a  sprinkling  of  French  bonnets  in 
the  Owego  church  as  in  any  village  congregation  in 
England.  And  for  the  shops — that  subject  is  worthy 
of  a  sentence  by  itself.  When  I  say  there  is  no  need 
to  go  to  New- York  for  hat,  boots,  or  coat,  I  mean 
that  the  Owego  tradesmen  (if  you  are  capable  of  de- 
scribing what  you  want)  are  capable  of  supplying  you 
with  the  best  and  most  modish  of  these  articles.  Call 
you  that  "  backwoods  ?" 

All  this,  I  am  free  to  confess,  clashes  with  the  beau 
ideal  of  the 

"  Beatus  Me  qui  procul,'1  etc. 

I  had  myself  imagined  (and  continued  to  imagine 
for  some  weeks  after  coming  here),  that,  so  near  the 


240 


LETTERS  FROM  UNDER  A  BRIDGE. 


primeval  wilderness,  I  might  lay  up  my  best  coat  and 
my  ceremony  in  lavender,  and  live  in  fustian  and  a 
plain  way.  I  looked  forward  to  the  delights  of  a  broad 
straw  hat,  large  shoes,  baggy  habiliments,  and  leave  to 
sigh  or  whistle  without  offence  ;  and  it  seemed  to  me 
that  it  was  the  conclusion  of  a  species  of  apprentice- 
ship, and  the  beginning  of  my  "  freedom."  To  be 
above  no  clean  and  honest  employment  of  one's  time, 
to  drive  a  pair  of  horses  or  a  yoke  of  oxen  with  equal 
alacrity,  and  to  be  commented  on  for  neither  the  one 
nor  the  other ;  to  have  none  but  wholesome  farming 
cares,  and  work  with  nature  and  honest  yeomen,  and 
be  quite  clear  of  mortifications,  envies,  advice,  remon- 
strance, coldness,  misapprehensions,  and  etiquettes  ; 
this  is  what  I,  like  most  persons  who  "  forswear  the 
full  tide  of  the  world,"  looked  upon  as  the  blessed 
promise  of  retirement.  But,  alas  !  wherever  there  is 
a  butcher's  shop  and  a  post-office,  an  apothecary  and 
a  blacksmith,  an  "  Arcade"  and  a  milliner— wherever 
the  conveniences  of  life  are,  in  short — there  has  al- 
ready arrived  the  Procrustes  of  opinion.  Men's  eyes 
will  look  on  you  and  bring  you  to  judgment,  and  un- 
less you  would  live  on  wild  meat  and  corn-bread  in  the 
wilderness,  with  neither  friend  nor  helper,  you  must 
give  in  to  a  compromise — yield  half  at  least  of  your 
independence,  and  take  it  back  in  common-place  com- 
fort. This  is  very  every-day  wisdom  to  those  who 
know  it,  but  you  are  as  likely  as  any  man  in  the  world 
to  have  sat  with  your  feet  over  the  fire,  and  fancied 
yourself  on  a  wild  horse  in  a  prairie,  with  nothing  to 
distinguish  you  from  the  warlike  Camanche,  except 
capital  wine  in  the  cellar  of  your  wigwam,  and  the  last 
new  novel  and  play,  which  should  reach  this  same  wig- 
wam— you  have  not  exactly  determined  how  !  Such 
"  pyramises  are  goodly  things,"  but  they  are  built  of 
the  smoke  of  your  cigar. 

This  part  of  the  country  is  not  destitute  of  the 
chances  of  adventure,  however,  and  twice  in  the  year, 
at  least,  you  may,  if  you  choose,  open  a  valve  for  your 
spirits.  One  half  the  population  of  the  neighbor- 
hood is  engaged  in  what  is  called  lumbering,  and  until 
the  pine  timber  of  the  forest  can  be  counted  like  the 
cedars  of  Lebanon,  this  vocation  will  serve  the  uses 
of  the  mobs  of  England,  the  revolutions  of  France,  and 
the  plots  of  Italy.  I  may  add  the  music  and  theatres 
of  Austria  and  Prussia,  the  sensual  indulgence  of  the 
Turk,  and  the  intrigue  of  the  Spaniard  ;  for  there  is 
in  every  people  under  the  sun  a  superflu  of  spirits  un- 
consumed  by  common  occupation,  which,  if  not  turn- 
ed adroitly  or  accidentally  to  some  useful  or  harmless 
end,  will  expend  its  reckless  energy  in  trouble  and 
mischief. 

The  preparations  for  the  adventures  of  which  I 
speak,  though  laborious,  are  often  conducted  like  a 
frolic.  The  felling  of  the  trees  in  mid-winter,  the  cut- 
ting of  shingles,  and  the  drawing  out  on  the  snow,  are 
employments  preferred  by  the  young  men  to  the  tamer 
but  less  arduous  work  of  the  farm-yard ;  and  in  the 
temporary  and  uncomfortable  shanties,  deep  in  the 
woods,  subsisting  often  on  nothing  but  pork  and  whis- 
key, they  find  metal  more  attractive  than  village  or 
fireside.  The  small  streams  emptying  into  the  Sus- 
quehannah  are  innumerable,  and  eight  or  ten  miles 
back  from  the  river  the  arks  are  built,  and  the  mate- 
rials of  the  rafts  collected,  ready  to  launch  with  the 
first  thaw.  I  live,  myself,  as  you  know,  on  one  of  these 
tributaries,  a  quarter  of  a  mile  from  its  junction.  The 
Owago  trips  along  at  the  foot  of  my  lawn,  as  private 
and  untroubled  for  the  greater  part  of  the  year  as 
Virginia  Water  at  Windsor ;  but,  as  it  swells  in  March, 
the  noise  of  voices  and  hammering  coming  out  from 
the  woods  above,  warn  us  of  the  approach  of  an  ark, 
and  at  the  rate  of  eight  or  ten  miles  an  hour  the  rude 
structure  shoots  by,  floating  high  on  the  water  without 
its  lading  (which  it  takes  in  at  the  village  below),  and 
manned  with  a  singing  and  saucy  crew,  who  dodge  the 


branches  of  the  trees,  and  work  their  steering  paddles 
with  an  adroitness  and  nonchalance  which  sufficiently 
shows  the  character  of  the  class.  The  sudden  bends 
which  the  river  takes  in  describing  my  woody  Omega, 
put  their  steersmanship  to  the  test ;  and  when  the 
leaves  are  off  the  trees,  it  is  a  curious  sight  to  see  the 
bulky  monsters,  shining  with  new  boards,  whirling 
around  in  the  swift  eddies,  and,  when  caught  by  the 
current  again,  gliding  off  among  the  trees  like  a  sing- 
|  ing  and  swearing  phantom  of  an  unfinished  barn. 
i  At  the  village  they  take  wheat  and  pork  into  the 
i  arks,  load  their  rafts  with  plank  and  shingles,  and  wait 
for  the  return  of  the  freshet.  It  is  a  fact  you  may  not 
i  know,  that  when  a  river  is  rising,  the  middle  is  the 
■  highest,  and  vice  versa  when  falling,  sufficiently  proved 
!  by  the  experience  of  the  raftsmen,  who,  if  they  start 
I  before  the  flow  is  at  its  top,  can  not  keep  their  crafts 
from  the  shore.  A  pent  house,  barely  sufficient  for 
|  a  man  to  stretch  himself  below,  is  raised  on  the  deck, 
!  with  a  fire-place  of  earth  and  loose  stone,  and  with 
I  what  provision  they  can  afford,  and  plenty  of  whiskey, 
they  shove  out  into  the  stream.  Thenceforward  it  is 
vogue  la  galere  !  They  have  nothing  to  do,  all  day, 
but  abandon  themselves  to  the  current,  sing  and  dance 
and  take  their  turn  at  the  steering  oars  ;  and  when  the 
sun  sets  they  look  out  for  an  eddy,  and  pull  in  to  the 
shore.  The  stopping-places  are  not  very  numerous, 
and  are  well  known  to  all  who  fellow  the  trade  ;  and, 
as  the  river  swarms  with  rafts,  the  getting  to  land,  and 
making  sure  of  a  fastening,  is  a  scene  always  of  great 
competition,  and  often  of  desperate  fighting.  When 
all  is  settled  for  the  night,  however,  and  the  fires  are 
lit  on  the  long  range  of  the  flotilla,  the  raftsmen  get 
together  over  their  whiskey  and  provender,  and  tell 
the  thousand  stories  of  their  escapes  and  accidents  | 
and  with  the  repetition  of  this,  night  after  night,  the 
whole  rafting  population  along  the  five  hundred  miles 
of  the  Susquehannah  becomes  partially  acquainted, 
and  forms  a  sympathetic  corps,  whose  excitement  and 
esprit  might  be  roused  to  very  dangerous  uses. 

By  daylight  they  are  cast  off  and  once  more  on  the 
current,  and  in  five  or  seven  days  they  arrive  at  tide 
water,  where  the  crew  is  immediately  discharged,  and 
start,  usually  on  foot,  to  follow  the  river  home  again. 
There  are  several  places  in  the  navigation  which  are 
dangerous,  such  as  rapids  and  dam-sluices  ;  and  what 
with  these,  and  the  scenes  at  the  eddies,  and  their  pil- 
grimage through  a  thinly  settled  and  wild  country 
home  again,  they  see  enough  of  adventure  to  make 
them  fireside  heroes,  and  incapacitate  them  (while 
their  vigor  lasts,  at  least),  for  all  the  more  quiet  habits 
of  the  farmer.  The  consequence  is  easy  to  be  seen. 
Agriculture  is  but  partially  followed  throughout  the 
country,  and  while  these  cheap  facilities  for  transport- 
ing produce  to  the  seaboard  exist,  those  who  are  con- 
tented to  stay  at  home,  and  cultivate  the  rich  river 
lands  of  the  country,  are  sure  of  high  prices  and  a 
ready  reward  for  their  labor. 

Moral.  Come  to  the  Susquehannah,  and  settle  on 
a  farm.  You  did  not  know  what  I  was  driving  at  all 
this  while ! 

The  raftsmen  who  "  follow  the  Delaware"  (to  use 
their  own  poetical  expression)  are  said  to  be  a  much 
wilder  class  than  those  on  the  Susquehannah.  In  re- 
turning to  Owego,  by  different  routes,  I  have  often 
fallen  in  with  parties  of  both :  and  certainly  nothing 
could  be  more  entertaining  than  to  listen  to  their  tales. 
In  a  couple  of  years  the  canal  route  on  the  Susque- 
hannah will  lay  open  this  rich  vein  of  the  picturesque 
and  amusing,  and  as  the  tranquil  boat  glides  peace- 
fully along  the  river  bank,  the  traveller  will  be  sur- 
prised with  the  strange  effect  of  these  immense  flo- 
tillas, with  their  many  fires  and  wild  people,  lying  in 
the  glassy  bends  of  the  solitary  stream,  the  smoke 
stealing  through  the  dark  forest,  and  the  confusion  of 
a  hundred  excited  voices  breaking  the  silence.     In  my 


LETTERS  FROM  UNDER  A  BRIDGE. 


241 


trip  down  the  river  in  the  spring,  I  saw  enough  that 
was  novel  in  this  way  to  fill  a  now  portfolio  for  Bart- 
lett,  and  I  intend  he  shall  raft  it  with  me  to  salt  water 
the  next  time  he  comes  among  us. 

How  delicious  are  these  October  noons  !  They 
will  soon  chill,  I  am  afraid,  and  I  shall  be  obliged  to 
give  up  my  out-of-door's  habits  ;  but  I  shall  do  it  un- 
willingly. I  have  changed  sides  under  the  bridge,  to 
sit  with  my  feet  in  the  sun,  and  I  trust  this  warm  cor- 
ner will  last  me  till  November  at  least.  The  odor  of 
the  dying  leaves,  and  the  song  of  the  strengthening 
brook,  are  still  sufficient  allurements,  and  even  your 
rheumatism  (of  which  the  Latin  should  be  podagra) 
might  safely  keep  me  company  till  dinner.  Adieu, 
dear  Doctor !  write  me  a  long  account  of  Vestris  and 
Matthews  (how  you  like  them,  I  mean,  for  I  know  very 
well  how  I  like  them  myself),  and  thank  me  for  turning 
over  to  you  a  new  leaf  of  American  romance.  You 
are  welcome  to  write  a  novel,  and  call  it  "  The  Rafts- 
man of  the  Susquehannah." 


LETTER  XV. 

"  When  did  I  descend  the  Susquehannah  on  a 
raft?"  Never,  dear  Doctor !  But  I  have  descended 
it  in  a  steamboat,  and  that  may  surprise  you  more.  It 
is  an  in-navigable  river,  it  is  true  :  and  it  is  true,  too, 
that  there  are  some  twenty  dams  across  it  between 
Owego  and  Wilkesbarre  ;  yet  have  I  steamed  it  from 
Owego  to  Wyoming,  one  hundred  and  fifty  miles,  in 
twelve  hours — on  the  top  of  a  freshet.  The  dams  were 
deep  under  water,  and  the  river  was  as  smooth  as  the 
Hudson.  And  now  you  will  wonder  how  a  steamer 
came,  by  fair  means,  at  Owego. 

A  year  or  two  since,  before  there  was  a  prospect  of 
extending  the  Pennsylvania  canal  to  this  place,  it  be- 
came desirable  to  bring  the  coal  of  "  the  keystone 
state"  to  these  southern  counties  by  some  cheaper 
conveyance  than  horse-teams.  A  friend  of  mine,  liv- 
ing here,  took  it  into  his  head  that,  as  salmon  and 
shad  will  ascend  a  fall  of  twenty  feet  in  a  river,  the 
propulsive  energy  of  their  tails  might  possibly  furnish 
a  hint  for  a  steamer  that  would  shoot  up  dams  and 
rapids.  The  suggestion  was  made  to  a  Connecticut 
man,  who,  of  course,  undertook  it.  He  would  have 
been  less  than  a  Yankee  if  he  had  not  tried.  The 
product  of  his  ingenuity  was  the  steamboat  "Susque- 
hannah," drawing  but  eighteen  inches ;  and,  besides 
her  side-paddles,  having  an  immense  wheel  in  the 
stern,  which  playing  in  the  slack  water  of  the  boat, 
would  drive  her  up  Niagara,  if  she  would  but  hold  to- 
gether. The  principal  weight  of  her  machinery  hung 
upon  two  wooden  arches  running  fore  and  aft,  and  al- 
together she  was  a  neat  piece  of  contrivance,  and 
promised  fairly  to  answer  the  purpose. 

I  think  the  "  Susquehannah"  had  made  three  trips 
when  she  broke  a  shaft,  and  was  laid  up ;  and,  what 
with  one  delay  and  another,  the  canal  was  half  com- 
pleted between  her  two  havens  before  the  experiment 
had  fairly  succeeded.  A  month  or  two  since,  the  pro- 
prietors determined  to  run  her  down  the  river  for  the 
purpose  of  selling  her,  and  I  was  invited  among  others 
to  join  in  the  trip. 

The  only  offices  professionally  filled  on  board  were 
those  of  the  engineer  and  pilot.  Captain,  mate,  fire- 
men, steward,  cook,  and  chambermaid,  were  repre- 
sented en  amateur  by  gentlemen  passengers.  We 
r*ag  the  bell  at  the  starting  hour  with  the  zeal  usually 
displayed  in  that  department,  and,  by  the  assistance  of 
the  current,  got  off  in  the  usual  style  of  a  steamboat 
departure,  wanting  only  the  newsboys  and  pickpockets. 
With  a  stream  running  at  five  knots,  and  paddles  cal- 
culated to  mount  a  cascade,  we  could  not  fail  to  take 
the  river  in  gallant  style,  and  before  we  had  regulated 
16 


our  wood-piles  and  pantry,  we  were  backing  water  at 
Athens,  twenty  miles  on  our  way. 

Navigating  the  Susquehannah  is  very  much  like 
dancing  "  the  cheat."  You  are  always  making  straight 
up  to  a  mountain,  with  no  apparent  possibility  of 
escaping  contact  with  it,  and  it  is  an  even  chance  up 
to  the  last  moment  which  side  of  it  you  are  to  chassez 
with  the  current.  Meantime  the  sun  seems  capering 
about  to  all  points  of  the  compass,  the  shadows  falling 
in  every  possible  direction,  and  north,  south,  east,  and 
west,  changing  places  with  the  familiarity  of  a  mas 
querade.  The  blindness  of  the  river's  course  is  in- 
creased by  the  innumerable  small  islands  in  its  bosom, 
!  whose  tall  elms  and  close-set  willows  meet  half-way 
!  those  from  either  shore;  and,  the  current  very  often 
■  dividing  above  them,  it  takes  an  old  voyager  to  choose 
:  between  the  shaded  alleys,  by  either  of  which  you 
would  think  Arethusa  might  have  eluded  her  lover. 

My  own  mental  occupation,  as  we  glided  on,  was 
the  distribution  of  white  villas  along  the  shore,  on 
spots  where  nature  seemed  to  have  arranged  the 
ground  for  their  reception.  I  saw  thousands  of  sites 
where  the  lawns  were  made,  the  terraces  defined  and 
levelled,  the  groves  tastefully  clumped,  the  ancient 
trees  ready  with  their  broad  shadows,  the  approaches 
to  the  water  laid  out,  the  banks  sloped,  and  in  every- 
thing the  labor  of  art  seemingly  all  anticipated  by  na- 
ture. I  grew  tired  of  exclaiming,  to  the  friend  who 
was  beside  me,  "What  an  exquisite  site  for  a  villa! 
What  a  sweet  spot  for  a  cottage!"  If  I  had  had 
the  power  to  people  the  Susquehannah  by  the  wave 
of  a  wand,  from  those  I  know  capable  of  appreciating 
its  beauty,  what  a  paradise  I  could  have  spread  out 
between  my  own  home  and  Wyoming  !  It  was  pleas- 
ant to  know,  that  by  changes  scarcely  less  than  ma- 
gical, these  lovely  banks  will  soon  be  amply  seen  and 
admired,  and  probably  as  rapidly  seized  upon  and  in- 
habited by  persons  of  taste.  The  gangs  of  laborers 
at  the  foot  of  every  steep  cliff,  doing  the  first  rough 
work  of  the  canal,  gave  promise  of  a  speedy  change 
in  the  aspect  of  this  almost  unknown  river. 

It  was  sometimes  ticklish  steering  among  the  rafts 
and  arks  with  which  the  river  was  thronged,  and  we 
never  passed  one  without  getting  the  raftsman's  rude 
hail.  One  of  them  furnished  my  vocabulary  with  a 
new  measure  of  speed.  He  stood  at  the  stern  oar  of 
a  shingle  raft,  gaping  at  us,  open-mouthed  as  we  came 
down  upon  him.  "Wal!"  said  he,  as  we  shot  past, 
"you're  going  a  good  hickory,  mister  !"  It  was  amu- 
sing, again,  to  run  suddenly  round  a  point  and  come 
upon  a  raft  with  a  minute's  warning  ;  the  voyagers  as 
little  expecting  an  intrusion  upon  their  privacy,  as  a 
retired  student  to  be  unroofed  in  a  London  garret. 
The  different  modes  of  expressing  surprise  became  at 
last  quite  a  study  to  me,  yet  total  indifference  was  not 
infrequent ;  and  there  were  some  who,  I  think,  would 
not  have  risen  from  their  elbows  if  the  steamer  had 
flown  bodily  over  them. 

We  passed  the  Falls  of  Wyalusing  (most  musical 
of  Indian  names)  and  Buttermilk  Falls,  both  cascades 
worthy  of  being  known  and  sung,  and  twilight  over- 
took us  some  two  hours  from  Wyoming.  We  had  no 
lights  on  board,  and  the  engineer  was  unwilling  to  run 
in  the  dark ;  so  our  pilot  being  an  old  raftsman,  we 
put  into  the  first  "eddy,"  and  moored  for  the  night. 
These  eddies,  by  the  way,  would  not  easily  be  found 
by  a  stranger,  but  to  the  practised  navigators  of  the 
river  they  are  all  numbered  and  named  like  harbors  on 
a  coast.  The  strong  current,  in  the  direct  force  of 
which  the  clumsy  raft  would  find  it  impossible  to  come 
to,  and  moor,  is  at  these  places  turned  back  by  some 
projection  of  the  shore,  or  ledge  at  the  bottom,  and  a 
pool  of  still  water  is  formed  in  which  the  craft  may  lie 
secure  for  the  night.  The  lumbermen  give  a  cheer 
when  they  have  steered  successfully  in,  and  springing 
joyfully  ashore,  drive  their  stakes,  eat,  dance,  quarrel, 


242 


LETTERS  FROM  UNDER  A  BRIDGE. 


and  sleep ;  and  many  a  good  tale  is  told  of  rafts  slily  I 
unmoored,  and  set  adrift  at  midnight  by  parties  from 
the  eddies  above,  and  of  the  consequent  adventures  of  | 
running  in  the  dark.  We  had  on  board  two  gentle- 
men who  had  earned  an  independence  in  this  rough 
vocation,  and  their  stories,  told  laughingly  against 
each  other,  developed  well  the  expedient  and  hazard 
of  the  vocation.  One  of  them  had  once  been  mis- 
chievously cut  adrift  by  the  owner  of  a  rival  cargo, 
when  moored  in  an  eddy  with  an  ark-load  of  grain,  j 
The  article  was  scarce  and  high  in  the  markets  below,  i 
and  he  had  gone  to  sleep  securely  under  his  pent- 1 
house,  and  was  dreaming  of  his  profits,  when  he  sud-  j 
denly  awoke  with  a  shock,  and  discovered  that  he  was  j 
high  and  dry  upon  a  sedgy  island  some  miles  below  j 
his  moorings.  The  freshet  was  falling  fast,  and  soon 
after  daylight  his  competitor  for  the  market  drifted \ 
past  with  a  laugh,  and  confidently  shouted  out  a  good-  \ 
by  till  another  voyage.  The  triumphant  ark-master  j 
floated  on  all  day,  moored  again  at  night,  and  arrived 
safely  at  tide-water,  where  the  first  object  that  struck 
his  sight  was  the  ark  he  had  left  in  the  sedges,  its 
freight  sold,  its  owner  preparing  to  return  home,  and 
the  market  of  course  forestalled  !  The  "  Roland  for 
his  Oliver"  had,  with  incredible  exertion,  dug  a  canal 
for  his  ark,  launched  her  on  the  slime,  and  by  risking  the 
night-running,  passed  him  unobserved  and  gained  a 
day — a  feat  as  illustrative  of  the  American  genius  for 
emergency  as  any  on  record. 

It  was  a  still,  starlight  night,  and  the  river  was  laced 
with  the  long  reflections  of  the  raft-fires,  while  the 
softened  songs  of  the  men  over  their  evening  carouse, 
came  to  us  along  the  smooth  water  with  the  effect  of 
far  better  music.  What  with  "  wooding"  at  two  or 
three  places,  however,  and  what  with  the  excitement 
of  the  day,  we  were  too  fatigued  to  give  more  than  a 
glance  and  a  passing  note  of  admiration  to  the  beauty  \ 
of  the  scene,  and  the  next  question  was,  how  to  come  I 
by  Sancho's  "blessed  invention  of  sleep."  We  had! 
been  detained  at  the  wooding-places,  and  had  made 
no  calculation  to  lie  by  a  night.  There  were  no  beds 
on  board,  and  not  half  room  enough  in  the  little  cabin 
to  distribute  to  each  passenger  six  feet  by  two  of 
floor.  The  shore  was  wild,  and  not  a  friendly  lamp 
glimmering  on  the  hills  ;  but  the  pilot  at  last  recollect- 
ed having  once  been  to  a  house  a  mile  or  two  back 
from  the  river,  and  with  the  diminished  remainder  of 
our  provender  as  a  pis  alter  in  case  of  finding  no  sup- 
per in  our  forage,  we  started  in  search.  We  stum- 
bled and  scrambled,  and  delivered  our  benisons  to  rock 
and  brier,  till  I  would  fain  have  lodged  with  Trinculo 
"  under  a  moon-calf's  gaberdine,"  but  by-and-by  our 
leader  fell  upon  a  track,  and  a  light  soon  after  glim- 
mered before  us.  We  approached  through  cleared 
fields,  and,  without  the  consent  of  the  farmer's  dog,  to 
whose  wishes  on  the  subject  we  were  compelled  to  do 
violence,  the  blaze  of  a  huge  fire  (it  was  a  chilly  night 
of  spring)  soon  bettered  our  resignation.  A  stout, 
white-headed  fellow  of  twenty-eight  or  thirty,  bare- 
footed, sat  in  a  cradle,  see-sawing  before  the  fire,  and 
without  rising  when  we  entered,  or  expressing  the 
slightest  surprise  at  our  visit,  he  replied  to  our  ques- 
tions, that  he  was  the  father  of  some  twelve  sorrel  and 
barefoot  copies  of  himself  huddled  into  the  corner, 
that  "the  woman"  was  his  wife,  and  that  we  were 
welcome  "to  stay."  Upon  this  the  "woman"  for  the 
first  time  looked  at  us,  counted  us  with  the  nods  of 
her  head,  and  disappeared  with  the  only  candle. 

When  his  wife  reappeared,  the  burly  farmer  ex- 
tracted himself  with  some  difficulty  from  the  cradle, 
and  without  a  word  passing  between  them,  entered 
upon  his  office  as  chamberlain.  We  followed  him 
up  stairs,  where  we  were  agreeably  surprised  to  find 
three  very  presentable  beds  ;  and  as  I  happened  to 
be  the  last  and  fifth,  I  felicitated  myself  on  the  good 
chance  of  sleeping  alone,  "  clapped  into  my  prayers," 


was  recommended  to  Master  Barnardine,  and  was 
asleep  before  the  candle-snuff.  I  should  have  said 
that  mine  was  a  "single  bed,"  in  a  sort  of  a  closet  par- 
titioned off  from  the  main  chamber. 

How  long  I  had  travelled  in  dream-land  I  have  no 
means  of  knowing,  but  I  was  awoke  by  a  touch  on  the 
shoulder,  and  the  information  that  1  must  make  room 
for  a  bedfellow.  It  was  a  soft-voiced  young  gentle- 
man, as  well  as  I  could  perceive,  with  his  collar  turned 
down,  and  a  book  under  his  arm.  Without  very  clear- 
ly remembering  where  I  was,  I  represented  to  my  pro- 
posed friend  that  I  occupied  as  nearly  as  possible  the 
whole  of  the  bed — to  say  nothing  of  a  foot,  over  which 
he  might  see  (the  foot)  by  looking  where  it  outreached 
the  coverlet.     It  was  a  very  short  bed,  indeed. 

'  It  was  large  enough  for  me  till  you  came,"  said 
the  stranger,  modestly. 

"  Then  I  am  the  intruder  ?"  I  asked. 

"  No  intrusion  if  you  will  share  with  me,"  he  said; 

but  as  this  is  my  bed,  and  I  have  no  resource  but 
the  kitchen-fire,  perhaps  you  will  let  me  in." 

There  was  no  resisting  his  tone  of  good  humor,  and 
my  friend  by  this  time  having  prepared  himself  to  take 
upas  little  room  as  possible,  I  consented  that  he  should 
blow  out  the  candle  and  get  under  the  blanket.  The 
argument  and  the  effort  of  making  myself  small  as  he 
crept  in,  had  partially  waked  me,  and  before  my  ears 
were  sealed  up  again,  I  learned  that  my  companion, 
who  proved  rather  talkative,  was  the  village  school- 
master. He  taught  for  twelve  dollars  a  month  and  his 
board — taking  the  latter  a  week  at  a  time  with  the  dif- 
ferent families  to  which  his  pupils  belonged.  For  the 
present  week  he  was  quartered  upon  our  host,  and  hav- 
ing been  out  visiting  past  the  usual  hour  of  bedtime, 
he  was  not  aware  of  the  arrival  of  strangers  till  he  found 
me  on  his  pillow. 

I  went  to  sleep,  admiring  the  amiable  temper  of  my 
new  friend  under  the  circumstances,  but  awoke  pres- 
ently with  a  sense  of  suffocation.  The  schoolmaster 
was  fast  asleep,  but  his  arms  were  clasped  tightly  round 
my  throat.  I  disengaged  them  without  waking  him, 
and  composed  myself  again. 

Once  more  I  a  woke  half  suffocated.  My  friend's  arms 
had  found  their  way  again  round  my  neck,  and,  though 
evidently  fast  asleep,  he  was  drawing  me  to  him  with 
a  clasp  I  found  it  difficult  to  unloose.  I  shook  him 
broad  awake,  and  begged  him  to  take  notice  that  he 
was  sleeping  with  a  perfect  stranger.  He  seemed  very 
much  annoyed  at  having  disturbed  me,  made  twenty 
apologies,  and  turning  his  back,  soon  fell  asleep.  I 
followed  his  example,  wishing  him  a  new  turn  to  his 
dream. 

A  third  time  I  sprang  up  choking  from  the  pillow, 
drawing  my  companion  fairly  on  end  with  me.  I  could 
stand  it  no  longer.  Even  when  half  aroused  he  could 
hardly  be  persuaded  to  let  go  his  hold  of  my  neck.  I 
jumped  out  of  bed,  and  flung  open  the  window  for  a 
little  air.  The  moon  had  risen,  and  the  night  was  ex- 
quisitely fine.  A  brawling  brook  ran  under  the  win- 
dow, and  after  a  minute  or  two,  being  thoroughly 
awaked,  I  looked  at  my  watch  in  the  moonlight,  and 
found  it  wanted  but  an  hour  or  two  of  morning  Airaid 
to  risk  my  throat  again,  and  remembering  that  1  could 
not  fairly  quarrel  with  my  friend,  who  had  undoubtedly 
a  right  to  embrace,  after  his  own  fashion,  any  intruder 
who  ventured  into  his  proper  bed,  I  went  down  stairs, 
and  raked  open  the  embers  of  the  kitchen  fire,  which 
served  me  for  less  affectionate  company  till  dawn. 
How  and  where  he  could  have  acquired  his  caressing 
habits,  were  subjects  upon  which  I  speculated  unsatis- 
factorily over  the  coals. 

My  companions  were  called  up  at  sunrise  by  the 
landlord,  and  as  we  were  paying  for  our  lodging,  the 
schoolmaster  came  down  to  see  us  off  I  was  less  sur- 
prised when  I  came  to  look  at  him  by  daylight.  It 
i  was  a  fair,  delicate  boy  of  sixteen,  whose  slender  health 


LETTERS  FROM  UNDER  A  BRIDGE. 


243 


had  probably  turned  his  attention  to  books,  and  who,  I 
perhaps,  had  never  slept  away  from  his  mother  till  he  j 
went  abroad  to  teach  school.  Quite  satisfied  with  one ! 
experiment  of  filling  the  maternal  relation,  I  wished  • 
him  a  less  refractory  bedfellow,  and  we  hastened  on  j 
board. 

The  rafts  were  under  weigh  before  us,  and  the  tor-  i 
toise  had  overtaken  the  hare,  for  we  passed  several 
that  we  had  passed  higher  Up,  and  did  not  fail  to  get  a 
jeer  for  our  sluggishness.  An  hour  or  two  brought 
us  to  Wilkesbarre,  an  excellent  hotel,  good  breakfast, 
and  new  and  kind  friends  ;  and  so  ended  my  trip  on 
the  Susquehannah.  Some  other  time  I  will  tell  you 
how  beautiful  is  the  valley  of  Wyoming,  which  I  have  i 
since  seen  in  the  holyday  colors  of  October.  Thereby 
hangs  a  tale  too,  worth  telling  and  hearing ;  and  as  a 
promise  is  good  parting  stuff,  adieu ! 


LETTER  XVI. 

The  books  and  the  music  came  safe  to  hand,  dear 
Doctor,  but  I  trust  we  are  not  to  stand  upon  quid-pro- 
quosities.  The  barrel  of  buckwheat  not  only  cost  me 
nothing,  but  I  have  had  my  uses  of  it  in  the  raising,  and 
can  no  more  look  upon  it  as  value,  than  upon  a  flower 
which  I  pluck  to  smell,  and  give  away  when  it  is  faded. 
I  have  sold  some  of  my  crops  for  the  oddity  of  the  sensa- 
tion ;  and  I  assure  you  it  is  very  much  like  being  paid 
for  dancing  when  the  ball  is  over.  Why,  consider  the 
offices  this  very  buckwheat  has  performed.  There  was 
the  trust  in  Providence,  in  the  purchase  of  the  seed — 
a  sermon.  There  were  the  exercise  and  health  in 
ploughing,  harrowing,  and  sowing — prescription,  and 
pill.  There  was  the  performance  of  the  grain,  its 
sprouting,  its  flowering,  it  earing,  and  its  ripening — a 
great  deal  more  amusing  than  a  play.  Then  there 
were  the  harvesting,  thrashing,  fanning,  and  grinding — 
a  sort  of  pastoral  collection,  publication,  and  purgation 
by  criticism.  Now,  suppose  your  clergyman,  your 
physician,  your  favorite  theatrical  corps,  your  pub- 
lisher, printer,  and  critic,  thrashed  and  sold  in  bags 
for  six  shillings  a  bushel !  I  assure  you  the  cases  are 
similar,  except  that  the  buckwheat  makes  probably 
the  more  savory  cake. 

The  new  magazine  was  welcome  ;  the  more,  that  it 
brought  back  to  my  own  days  of  rash  adventure  in 
such  ticklish  craft,  with  a  pleasant  sense  of  deliver- 
ance from  its  risk  and  toil.  The  imprint  of  "  No.  I., 
Vol.  I.,"  reads  to  me  like  a  bond  for  the  unreserved 
abandonment  of  time  and  soul.  Truly,  youth  is  wise- 
ly provided  with  little  forethought,  and  much  hope. 
What  child  would  learn  the  alphabet  if  he  could  see 
at  a  glance  the  toil  that  lies  behind  it  ?  I  look  upon 
the  fresh  type  and  read  the  sanguine  prospectus  of 
this  new-born  monthly,  and  remember,  with  astonish- 
ment, the  thoughtlessness  with  which,  years  ago,  I 
launched  in  the  same  gay  colors  such  a  venture  on 
the  wave.  It  is  a  voyage  that  requires  plentiful  stores, 
much  experience  of  the  deeps  and  shallows  of  the 
literary  seas,  and  a  hand  at  every  halyard;  yet,  to 
abandon  my  simile,  I  proposed  to  be  publisher  and 
editor,  critic  and  contributer ;  and  I  soon  found  that  I 
might  as  well  have  added  reader  to  my  manifold  of- 
fices. No  one  who  has  not  tried  this  vocation  can 
have  any  idea  of  the  difficulty  of  procuring  the  light, 
yet  condensed — the  fragmented,  yet  finished — the 
good-tempered  and  gentlemanly,  yet  high-seasoned 
and  dashing  papers  necessary  to  a  periodical.  A  man 
who  can  write  them,  can,  in  our  country,  put  himself 
to  a  more  profitable  use— and  does.  The  best  maga- 
zine writer  living,  in  my  opinion,  is  Edward  Everett; 
and  he  governs  a  state  with  the  same  time  and  atten- 
tion which  in  England,  perhaps,  would  be  cramped 
to  contributing  to  a  review.      Calhoun    might  write 


wonderfully  fine  articles.  LegarS,  of  Charleston,  has 
the  right  talent,  with  the  learning.  Crittenden,  of  the 
senate,  I  should  think  might  have  written  the  most 
brilliant  satirical  papers.  But  these,  and  others  like 
them,  are  men  the  country  and  their  own  ambition 
can  not  spare.  There  is  a  younger  class  of  writers 
however ;  and  though  the  greater  number  of  these,  too] 
fill  responsible  stations  in  society,  separate  from  general 
literature,  they  might  be  induced,  probably,  were  the 
remuneration  adequate,  to  lend  their  support  to  a 
periodical  "  till  the  flower  of  their  fame  shall  be  more 
blown,"  Among  them  are  Felton  and  Longfellow, 
both  professors  at  Cambridge;  and  Sumner  and  Hen- 
ry Cleaveland,  lawyers  of  Boston — a  knot  of  writers 
who  sometimes  don  the  cumbrous  armor  of  the  North 
American  Review,  but  who  would  show  to  more  ad- 
vantage in  the  lighter  harness  of  the  monthlies.  I 
could  name  twenty  more  to  any  one  interested  to 
know  them,  all  valuable  allies  to  a  periodical ;  but  no 
literary  man  questions  that.  We  have  in  our  country 
talent  enough,  if  there  were  the  skill  and  means  to  put 
it  judiciously  together. 

Coleridge  and  others  have  mourned  over  the  age  of 
reviews,  as  the  downfall  and  desecration  of  authorship; 
but  I  am  inclined  to  think  authors  gain  more  than  they 
lose  by  the  facility  of  criticism.  What  chance  has  a 
book  on  a  shelf,  waiting  to  be  called  for  by  the  purcha 
ser  uninformed  of  its  merits,  to  one  whose  beauties 
and  defects  have  been  canvassed  by  these  Mercury- 
winged  messengers,  volant  and  universal  as  the  quick- 
est news  of  the  hour?  How  slow  and  unsympathetic 
must  have  been  the  progress  of  a  reputation,  when  the 
judicious  admirer  of  a  new  book  could  but  read  and 
put  it  by,  expressing  his  delight,  at  farthest,  to  his 
immediate  friend  or  literary  correspondent?  The  ap- 
prehensive and  honest  readers  of  a  book  are  nevti 
many;  but  in  our  days,  if  it  reach  but  one  of  these, 
what  is  the  common  outlet  of  his  enthusiasm  ?  Why, 
a  trumpet-tongued  review,  that  makes  an  entire  peo- 
ple partakers  of  his  appreciation,  in  the  wax  and  wane 
of  a  single  moon.  Greedily  as  all  men  and  women 
devour  books,  ninety-nine  in  a  hundred  require  them 
to  be  first  cut  up,  liable  else,  like  children  at  their 
meals,  to  swallow  the  wrong  morsel.  Yet,  like  chil- 
dren still,  when  the  good  is  pointed  out,  they  digest  it 
as  well  as  another,  and  so  is  diffused  an  understanding, 
as  well  as  prompt  admiration  of  the  author.  For  my- 
self, I  am  free  to  confess  I  am  one  of  those  who  like 
to  take  the  first  taste  of  an  author  in  a  good  review.  1 
look  upon  the  reviewer  as  a  sensible  friend,  who  came 
before  me  to  the  feast,  and  recommends  me  the  dish 
that  has  most  pleased  him.  There  is  a  fellowship  in 
agreeing  that  it  is  good.  I  have  often  wished  there 
were  a  Washington  among  the  critics — some  one  up- 
on whose  judgment,  freedom  from  paltry  motives,  gen- 
erosity and  fairness,  I  could  pin  my  faith  blindly  and 
implicitly.  Dilke,  of  the  London  Athenamm,  is  the 
nearest  approach  to  this  character,  and  a  good  proof 
of  it  is  an  order  frequently  given  (a  London  publisher 
informed  me),  by  country  gentlemen  :  "  Send  me  ev- 
erything the  Athenaeum  praises."  Though  a  man  of 
letters,  Dilke  is  not  an  author,  and,  by  the  way,  dear 
Doctor,  I  think  in  that  lies  the  best  qualification,  if  not 
the  only  chance  for  the  impartiality  of  the  critic. 
How  few  authors  are  capable  of  praising  a  book  by 
which  their  own  is  thrown  into  shadow.  "  Why  does 
Plato  never  mention  Zenophon  ?  and  why  does  Zen- 
ophon  inveigh  against  Plato  V 

But  I  think  there  is  less  to  fear  from  jealousy,  than 
from  the  want  of  sympathy  between  writers  on  differ- 
ent subjects,  or  in  different  styles.  DTsraeli  the  el- 
der, from  whom  I  have  just  quoted,  sounds  the  depth 
of  this  matter  with  the  very  plummet  of  truth.  "  Ev- 
ery man  of  genius  has  a  manner  of  his  own;  a  mode 
of  thinking  and  a  habit  of  style;  and  usually  decides 
on  a  work  as  it   approximates  or  varies  from  his  own. 


LETTERS  FROM  UNDER  A  BRIDGE. 


When  one  great  author  depreciates  another,  it  has  oft- 
en no  worse  source  than  his  own  taste.  The  witty 
Cowley  despised  the  natural  Chaucer;  the  cold,  clas- 
sical Boileau,  the  rough  sublimity  of  Crebillon ;  the 
refining  Marivaux,  the  familiar  Moliere.  The  deficient 
sympathy  in  these  men  of  genius,  for  modes  of  feeling 
opposite  to  their  own,  was  the  real  cause  of  their  opin- 
ions ;  and  thus  it  happens  that  even  superior  genius  is 
so  often  liable  to  be  unjust  and  false  in  its  decisions." 
Apropos  of  English  periodicals,  we  get  them  now 
almost  wet  from  the  press,  and  they  seem  far  off  and 
foreign  no  longer.  But  there  is  one  (to  me)  melan- 
choly note  in  the  Paean  with  which  the  Great  West- 
ern was  welcomed.  In  literature  we  are  no  longer  a 
distinct  nation.  The  triumph  of  Atlantic  steam  navi- 
gation has  driven  the  smaller  drop  into  the  larger,  and 
London  has  become  the  centre.  Farewell  nationali- 
ty! The  English  language  now  marks  the  limits  of  a 
new  literary  empire,  and  America  is  a  suburb.  Our 
themes,  our  resources,  the  disappearing  savage,  and 
the  retiring  wilderness,  the  free  thought,  and  the  ac- 
tion as  free,  the  spirit  of  daring  innovation,  and  the  ir- 
reverent question  of  usage,  the  picturesque  mixture 
of  many  nations  in  an  equal  home,  the  feeling  of  ex- 
panse, of  unsubserviency,  of  distance  from  time-hal- 
lowed authority  and  prejudice — all  the  elements  which 
were  working  gradually  but  gloriously  together  to 
make  us  a  nation  by  ourselves,  have,  in  this  approxi- 
mation of  shores,  either  perished  for  our  using,  or 
slipped  within  the  clutch  of  England.  What  effect 
the  now  near  and  jealous  criticism  of  that  country  will 
have  upon  our  politics  is  a  deeper  question,  but  our 
literature  is  subsidized  at  a  blow.  Hitherto  we  have 
been  to  them  a  strange  country  ;  the  few  books  that 
reached  them  they  criticised  with  complimentary  jeal- 
ousy, or  with  the  courtesy  due  to  a  stranger ;  while 
our  themes  and  our  political  structures  were  looked  on 
with  the  advantage  of  distance,  undemeaned  by  ac- 
quaintance with  sources  or  familiarity  with  details. 
"While  all  our  material  is  thrown  open  to  English  au- 
thors, we  gain  nothing  in  exchange,  for,  with  the  in- 
stinct of  descendants,  we  have  continued  to  look  back 
to  our  fathers,  and  our  conversance  with  the  wells  of 
English  literature  was  as  complete  as  their  own. 

The  young  American  author  is  the  principal  suffer- 
er by  the  change.  Imagine  an  actor  compelled  to 
make  a  debut  without  rehearsal  and  you  get  a  faint 
shadow  of  what  he  has  lost.  It  was  some  advantage, 
let  me  tell  you,  dear  Doctor,  to  have  run  the  gauntlet 
of  criticism  in  America  before  being  heard  of  in 
England.  When  Irving  and  Cooper  first  appeared  as 
authors  abroad,  they  sprung  to  sight  like  Minerva,  full- 
grown.  They  had  seen  themselves  in  print,  had  re- 
flected and  improved  upon  private  and  public  criticism, 
and  were  made  aware  of  their  faults  before  they  were 
irrecoverably  committed  on  this  higher  theatre.  Keats 
died  of  a  rebuke  to  his  puerilities,  which,  had  it  been 
administered  here,  would  have  been  borne  up  against 
with  the  hope  of  higher  appeal  and  new  effort.  He 
might  have  been  the  son  of  an  American  apothecary, 
and  never  be  told  by  an  English  critic  to  "  return  to 
his  gallipots."  The  Atlantic  was,  hitherto,  a  friendly 
Lethe,  in  which  the  sins  of  youth  (so  heavily  and  un- 
justly visitited  on  aspirants  to  fame),  were  washed  out 
and  forgotton.  The  American  "licked  into  shape" 
by  the  efficient  tongues  of  envy  and  jealousy  at  home, 
stepped  ashore  in  England,  wary  and  guarded  against 
himself  and  others.  The  book  by  which  he  made 
himself  known,  might  have  been  the  successful  effort 
after  twenty  failures,  and  it  met  with  the  indulgence 
of  a  first.  The  cloud  of  his  failures,  the  remem- 
brance of  his  degradations  by  ridicule  were  left  behind. 
His  practised  skill  was  measured  by  other's  beginnings. 
We  suffer,  too,  in  our  social  position,  in  England. 
We  have  sunk  from  the  stranger  to  the  suburban  or 
provincial.     In  a  year  or  two  every  feature  and  detail 


of  our  country  will  be  as  well  known  to  English  soci- 
ety as  those  of  Margate  and  Brighton.  Our  similar- 
ity to  themselves  in  most  things  will  not  add  to  their 
respect  for  us.  We  shall  have  the  second  place  ac- 
corded to  the  indigenous  society  of  well-known  pla- 
ces of  resort  or  travel,  and  to  be  an  American  will  be 
in  England  like  being  a  Maltese  or  an  East  Indian — 
every  way  inferior,  in  short,  to  a  metropolitan  in  Lon- 
don. 

You  see,  my  dear  Doctor,  how  1  make  my  corre- 
spondence with  you  serve  as  a  trap  for  my  stray 
thoughts  ;  and  you  will  say,  that  in  this  letter  I  have 
caught  some  that  might  as  well  have  escaped.  But 
as  the  immortal  Jack  "turned"  even  "diseases  to 
commodity,"  and  as  "  la  superiorite  est  une  infirmite 
sociale,"  perhaps  you  will  tolerate  my  dulness,  or  con- 
sider it  a  polite  avoidance  of  your  envy.  Write  me 
better  or  worse,  however,  and  I  will  shape  a  welcome 
to  it. 


LETTER  XVII. 

Do  you  remember,  my  dear  Doctor,  in  one  of  the 
Elizabethan  dramas  (I  forget  which),  the  description 
of  the  contention  between  the  nightingale  and  the 
page's  lute  ?  Did  you  ever  remark  how  a  bird,  sitting 
silent  in  a  tree,  will  trill  out,  at  the  first  note  which 
breaks  the  stillness,  as  if  it  had  waited  for  that  signal 
to  begin  ?  Have  you  noticed  the  emulation  of  pigs  in 
a  pasture — how  the  gallopping  by  of  a  horse  in  the 
road  sets  them  off  for  a  race  to  the  limits  of  the  cross- 
fence  ? 

I  have  been  sitting  here  with  my  feet  upon  the 
autumn  leaves,  portfolio  on  knee,  for  an  hour.  The 
shadow  of  the  bridge  cuts  a  line  across  my  breast, 
leaving  my  thinking  machinery  in  shadow,  while  the 
farmer  portion  of  me  mellows  in  the  sun ;  the  air  is  as 
still  as  if  we  had  suddenly  ceased  to  hear  the  growing 
of  the  grain,  and  the  brooks  runs  leaf-shod  over  the 
pebbles  like  a  child  frightened  by  the  silence  into  a 
whisper.  You  would  say  this  was  the  very  mark  and 
fashion  of  an  hour  for  the  silent  sympathy  of  letter- 
writing.  Yet  here  have  I  sat,  with  the  temptation  of 
an  unblotted  sheet  before  me,  and  my  heart  and 
thoughts  full  and  ready,  and  by  my  steady  gazing  in 
the  brook,  you  would  fancy  I  had  taken  the  sun's  func- 
tion to  myself,  and  was  sitting  idle  to  shine.  All  at 
once  from  the  open  window  of  the  cottage  poured  a 
passionate  outbreak  of  Beethoven's  music  (played  by 
the  beloved  hand),  and  with  a  kind  of  fear  that  I  should 
not  overtake  it,  and  a  resistless  desire  (which,  I  dare 
say,  you  have  felt  in  hearing  music)  to  appropriate 
such  angelic  utterance  to  the  expression  of  my  own 
feelings,  I  forthwith  started  into  a  scribble,  and  have 
filled  my  first  page  as  you  see — without  drawing  nib. 
If  turning  over  the  leaf  break  not  the  charm,  you  are 
likely  to  have  an  answer  writ  to  your  last  before  the 
shadow  on  my  breast  creep  two  buttons  downward. 

Your  letter  was  short,  and  if  this  were  not  the  com- 
mencement of  a  new  score,  I  should  complain  of  it 
more  gravely.  Writing  so  soon  after  we  had  parted, 
you  might  claim  that  you  had  little  to  say ;  yet  I 
thought  (over  that  broiled  oyster  after  the  play)  that 
your  voluble  discourse  would  "  put  a  girdle  round  the 
earth"  in  less  time  than  Ariel.  I  listened  to  you  as  a 
child  looks  at  the  river,  wondering  when  it  would  all 
run  by.  Yet  that  might  be  partly  disuse  in  listening — 
for  I  have  grown  rustic  with  a  year's  seclusion,  I 
found  it  in  other  things.  My  feet  swelled  with  walk- 
ing on  the  pavement.  My  eyes  were  giddy  with  the 
multitude  of  people.  My  mouth  became  parched 
with  the  excitement  of  greetings,  and  surprises,  and 
the  raising  of  my  tones  to  the  metropolitan  pitch.  I 
was  nearly  exhausted  by  mid-day  with   the  "infinite 


LETTERS  FROM  UNDER  A  BRIDGE. 


245 


deal  of  nothing."      Homoeopathy  alone  can  explain 
why  "  patter  versus  clatter"  did  not  finish  me  quite. 

Ah !  how  admirably  Charles  Matthews  played  that 
night !  The  papers  have  well  named  him  the  Mer- 
cury of  comedians.  His  playing  will  probably  create 
a  new  school  of  p\ay-writing — something  like  what  he 
has  aimed  at  (without  sufficient  study)  in  the  pieces  he 
has  written  for  himself.  The  finest  thing  I  could  im- 
agine in  the  dramatic  way,  would  be  a  partnership  (a 
la  Beaumont  and  Fletcher)  between  the  stage  knowl- 
edge and  comic  talent  of  Matthews,  and  the  penetra- 
ting, natural,  and  observant  humor  of  Boz.  The  true 
"  humor  of  the  time"  has  scarcely  been  reached,  on 
the  stage,  since  Moliere ;  and  it  seems  to  me,  that  a 
union  of  the  talents  of  these  two  men  (both  very 
young)  might  bring  about  a  new  era  in  high  comedy. 
Matthews  has  the  advantage  of  having  been  from  boy- 
hood conversant  with  the  most  polished  society.  He 
was  taken  to  Italy  when  a  boy  by  one  of  the  most 
munificent  and  gay  noblemen  of  England,  an  intimate 
of  his  father,  and,  if  I  have  been  rightly  informed,  was 
his  companion  for  several  years  of  foreign  residence 
and  travel.  I  remember  meeting  him  at  a  dinner-party 
in  London  three  or  four  years  since,  when  probably 
he  had  never  thought  seriously  of  the  stage.  Yet  at  j 
that  time  it  was  remarked  by  the  person  who  sat  next 
me,  that  a  better  actor  than  his  father  was  spoiled  in  j 
the  son.  He  was  making  no  particular  effort  at  humor 
on  the  occasion  to  which  I  refer ;  but  the  servants,  in-  I 
eluding  a  fat  butler  of  remarkable  gravity,  were  forced  j 
to  ask  permission  to  leave  the  room — their  laughter  j 
becoming  uncontrollable.  He  would  doubtless  have 
doubled  his  profits  in  this  country  had  he  come  as  a  sin-  i 
gle  star;  but  I  trust  his  success  will  still  be  sufficient 
to  establish  him  in  an  annual  orbit — from  east  to  west. 

One  goes  to  the  city  with  fresh  eyes  after  a  year's  i 
absence,  and  I  was  struck  with  one  or  two  things, 
which,  in  their  gradual  wax  or  wane,  you  do  not  seem 
to  have  remarked.  What  Te  Dcum  has  been  chanted, 
for  example,  over  the  almost  complete  disappearance 
of  the  dandies  ?  I  saw  but  two  while  I  was  in  New- 
York,  and  in  them  it  was  nature's  caprice.  They 
would  have  been  dandies  equally  in  fig-leaves  or  wam- 
pum. The  era  of  (studiously)  plain  clothes  arrived 
some  years  ago  in  England,  where  Count  D'Orsay, 
and  an  occasional  wanderer  from  Broadway,  are  the 
only  freshly-remembered  apparitions  of  excessively 
dressed  men ;  and  slow  as  has  been  its  advent  to  us, 
it  is  sooner  come  than  was  predicted.  I  feared, 
for  one,  that  our  European  reputation  of  being  the 
most  expensive  and  showy  of  nations  was  based  upon 
the  natural  extreme  of  our  political  character,  and 
would  last  as  long  as  the  republic.  I  am  afraid 
still,  that  the  ostentation  once  shown  in  dress  is  but 
turned  into  another  channel,  and  that  the  equipages 
of  New- York  more  than  supply  the  showiness  abated 
in  the  costume.  But  even  this  is  a  step  onward. 
Finery  on  the  horse  is  better  than  finery  on  the  own- 
er. The  caparison  of  an  equipage  is  a  more  manly 
study  than  the  toilet  of  the  fine  gentleman ;  and  pos- 
sesses, besides,  the  advantage  of  being  left  properly  to 
the  saddler.  On  the  whole,  it  struck  me  that  the 
countenance  of  Broadway  had  lost  a  certain  flimsy  and 
tinsel  character  with  which  it  used  to  impress  me,  and 
had,  in  a  manner,  grown  hearty  and  unpretentious.  I 
should  be  glad  to  know  (and  none  can  tell  me  better 
than  yourself)  whether  this  is  the  outer  seeming  of 
deeper  changes  in  our  character.  Streets  have  ex- 
pressive faces,  and  I  have  long  marked  and  trusted 
them.  It  would  be  difficult  to  feel  fantastic  in  the 
sumptuous  gravity  of  Bond  street — as  difficult  to  feel 
grave  in  the  bright  airiness  of  the  Boulevard.  In 
these  two  thoroughfares  you  are  made  to  feel  the  dis- 
tinctive qualities  of  England  and  France.  What  say 
you  of  the  changed  expression  of  Broadway  ? 

Miss   Martineau,   of  all   travellers,    has    doubtless 
written  the  most  salutary  book  upon  our   manners 


(malgre  the  womanish  pique  which  distorted  her 
judgment  of  Everett  and  others),  but  there  is  one  re- 
proach which  she  has  recorded  against  us,  in  which  I 
have  felt  some  patriotic  glory,  but  which  I  am  begin- 
ning to  fear  we  deserve  no  longer.  The  text  of  hei 
fault-finding  is  the  Quixotic  attentions  of  Americans 
to  women  in  public  conveyances,  apropos  of  a  gentle- 
man's politeness  who  took  an  outside  seat  upon  a 
coach  to  give  a  lady  room  for  her  feet.  From  what  I 
could  observe  in  my  late  two  or  three  days'  travel,  1 
think  I  could  encourage  Miss  Martineau  to  return  to 
America  with  but  a  trifling  risk  of  being  too  particularly 
attended  to,  even  were  she  incognita  and  young.  We 
owe  this  decadence  of  chivalry  to  Miss  Martineau,  I 
think  it  may  be  safely  said.  In  a  country  where  every 
person  of  common  education  reads  every  book  of 
travels  in  which  his  manners  are  discussed,  the  most 
casual  mention  of  a  blemish,  even  by  a  less  authority 
than  Miss  Martineau,  acts  as  an  instant  cautery.  1 
venture  to  say  that  a  young  lady  could  scarcely  be 
found  in  the  United  States,  who  would  not  give  you 
on  demand  a  complete  list  of  our  national  faults  and 
foibles,  as  recorded  by  Hall,  Hamilton,  Trollope,  and 
Martineau.  Why,  they  form  the  common  staple  of 
conversation  and  jest.  Ay,  and  of  speculation !  Ham- 
i  ilton's  book  was  scarcely  dry  from  the  press  before  or- 
|  ders  were  made  out  to  an  immense  extent  for  egg-cups 
j  and  silver  forks.  Mrs.  Trollope  quite  extinguished 
j  the'trade  in  spit-boxes,  and  made  fortunes  for  the  fin- 
!  ger-glass  manufacturers  ;  and  Captain  Marryat,  I  un- 
|  derstand,  is  besieged  in  every  city  by  the  importers,  to 
know  upon  what  deficiency  of  table  furniture  he  in- 
tends to  be  severe.  It  has  been  more  than  once  sug- 
gested (and  his  manners  aided  the  idea)  that  Hamilton 
was  probably  a  travelling  agent  for  the  plated-fork 
manufactories  of  Birmingham.  And  a  fair  caveat  to 
both  readers  and  reviewers  of  future  books  of  travels, 
would  be  an  inquiry  touching  their  probable  bearing 
on  English  manufactures.  I  would  not  be  illiberal  to 
Miss  Martineau,  but  I  would  ask  any  candid  person 
whether  the  influx  of  thick  shoes  and  cotton  stockings, 
simultaneously  with  her  arrival  in  this  country,  could 
have  been  entirely  an  unpremeditated  coincidence? 

We  are  indebted,  I  think,  to  the  Astor  House,  for 
one  of  the  pleasantest  changes  that  I  noticed  while 
away — and  I  like  it  the  better,  that  it  is  a  departure 
from  our  general  rule  of  imitating  English  habits  too 
exclusively.  You  were  with  us  there,  and  can  bear  wit- 
ness to  the  delightful  society  we  met  at  the  ladies'  ordi- 
nary ;  while  the  excellence  of  the  table  and  service, 
and  the  prevalence  of  well-bred  company,  had  drawn 
the  most  exclusive  from  their  private  parlors,  and 
given  to  the  daily  society  of  the  drawing-room  the 
character  of  the  gay  and  agreeable  watering-places  of 
Germany.  The  solitary  confinement  of  English  ho- 
tels always  seemed  to  me  particularly  unsuited  to  the 
position  and  wants  of  the  traveller.  Loneliness  is  no 
evil  at  home,  where  books  and  regular  means  of  em- 
ployment are  at  hand ;  but  to  be  abandoned  to  four 
walls  and  a  pormanteau,  in  a  strange  city,  of  a  rainy 
day,  is  what  nothing  but  an  Englishman  would  dream 
of  calling  comfortable.  It  was  no  small  relief  to  us, 
on  that  drizzly  and  chilly  autumn  day,  which  you  re- 
member, to  descend  to  a  magnificent  drawing-room, 
filled  with  some  fifty  or  a  hundred  well-bred  people, 
and  pass  away  the  hours  as  they  would  be  passed  un- 
der similar  circumstances  in  a  hospitable  country- 
house  in  England.  The  beautiful  architecture  of  the 
Astor  apartments,  and  the  sumptuous  elegance  of  the 
furniture  and  table  service,  make  it  in  a  measure  a  pe- 
culiarity of  the  house ;  but  the  example  is  likely  to  be 
followed  in  other  hotels  and  cities,  and  I  hope  it  will 
become  a  national  habit,  as  in  Germany,  for  strangers 
to  meet  at  their  meals  and  in  the  public  rooms.  Life 
seems  to  me  too  short  for  English  exclusiveness  in  travel. 

1  determined  to  come  home  by  Wyoming,  after  you 
left  us,  and  took  the  boat  to  Philadelphia  accordingly 


246 


LETTERS  FROM  UNDER  A  BRIDGE. 


We  passed  two  or  three  days  in  that  clean  and  pleasant 
city,  and  among  other  things  made  an  excursion  to 
Laurel  Hill — certainly  the  most  beautiful  cemetery  in 
the  world  after  the  Necropolis  of  Scutari.  Indeed, 
the  spot  is  selected  with  something  like  Turkish  feel- 
ing ,  for  it  seems  as  if  it  were  intended  to  associate  the 
visits  to  the  resting-places  of  the  departed  more  with 
our  pleasures  than  our  duties.  The  cemetery  occu- 
pies a  lofty  promontory  above  the  Schuylkill,  possess- 
ing the  inequality  of  surface  so  favorable  to  the  ob- 
ject, and  shaded  with  pines  and  other  ornamental  trees 
of  great  age  and  beauty.  The  views  down  upon  the 
river,  and  through  the  sombre  glades  and  alleys  of  the 
burial-grounds,  are  unsurpassed  for  sweetness  and  re- 
pose. The  elegance  which  marks  everything  Phila- 
delphian,  is  shown  already  in  the  few  monuments 
erected.  An  imposing  gateway  leads  you  in  from  the 
high  road,  and  a  freestone  group,  large  as  life,  repre- 
senting old  Mortality  at  work  on  an  inscription,  and 
Scott  leaning  upon  a  tombstone  to  watch  his  toil,  faces 
the  entrance.  I  noticed  the  area  of  one  tomb  en- 
closed by  a  chain  of  hearts,  cast  beautifully  in  iron. 
The  whole  was  laid  out  in  gravel-walks,  and  there  was 
no  grave  without  its  flowers.  I  confess  the  spirit  of 
this  sweet  spot  affected  me  deeply,  and  I  look  upon 
this,  and  Mount  Auburn  at  Cambridge,  as  delightful 
indications  of  a  purer  growth  in  our  national  character 
than  politics  and  money-getting.  It  is  a  real-life 
poetry,  which  reflects  as  much  glory  upon  the  age  as 
the  birth  of  a  Homer. 

The  sun  has  crept  down  to  my  paper,  dear  Doctor, 
and  the  shadow  of  the  bridge  falls  cooler  than  is  good 
for  my  rheumatism.  I  wish  that  the  blessing  of  Ceres 
upon  Ferdinand  and  Miranda, 

"  Spring  come  to  you  at  farthest, 
In  the  very  end  of  harvest," 
might  light  on  Glenmary.  I  enjoy  winter  when  it 
comes,  but  its  approach  is  altogether  detestable.  It 
is  delightful  to  get  home,  however;  for,  like  Prospero, 
in  the  play  I  have  just  quoted,  there  is  a  "delicate 
Ariel"  (content),  who  only  waits  on  me  in  solitude.  You 
will  carry  out  the  allegory,  and  tell  me  I  have  Caliban 
too,  but  to  the  rudeness  of  country  monsters,  I  take  as 
kindly  as  Trinculo.  And  now  I  must  to  the  woods, 
and  by  the  aid  of  these  same  "  ancient  and  fish-like" 
monsters,  transplant  me  a  tree  or  two  before  sunset. 
Adieu. 


LETTER  XVIII. 

Our  summer  friends  are  flown,  dear  Doctor ;  not  a 
leaf  on  the  dogwood  worth  watching,  though  its  flu- 
ted leaves  were  the  last.  Still  the  cottage  looks  sum- 
mery when  the  sun  shines,  for  the  fir-trees,  which 
were  half  lost  among  the  flauntings  of  the  deciduous 
foliage,  look  out  green  and  unchanged  from  the  naked 
branches  of  the  grove,  with  neither  reproach  for  our 
neglect,  nor  boast  over  the  departed.  They  are  like 
friends,  who,  in  thinking  of  our  need,  forget  all  they 
have  laid  up  against  us ;  and,  between  them  and  the 
lofty  spirits  of  mankind,  there  is  another  point  of  re- 
semblance which  I  am  woodsman  enough  to  know. 
Hew  down  those  gay  trees,  whose  leaves  scatter  at  the 
coming  of  winter,  and  they  will  sprout  from  the  trod- 
den root  more  vigorously  than  before.  The  ever- 
green, once  struck  to  the  heart,  dies.  If  you  are  of 
my  mind,  you  would  rather  learn  such  a  pretty  mock 
of  yourself  in  nature,  than  catch  a  fish  with  a  gold 
ring  in  his  maw. 

A  day  or  two  since,  very  much  such  another  bit  of 
country  wisdom  dropped  into  my  ears,  which  I  thought 
might  be  available  in  poetry,  albeit  the  proof  be  un- 
poetical.  Talking  with  my  neighbor,  the  miller,  about 
sawing  lumber  for  a  stable  I  am  building,  I  discovered, 
incidentally,  that  the  mill  will  do  more  work  between 
sunset  and  dawn,  than  in  the  same  number  of  hours 


by  daylight.  Without  reasoning  upon  it,  the  miller 
knows  practically  that  streams  run  faster  at  night.  The 
increased  heaviness  of  the  air,  and  the  withdrawal  of 
the  attraction  of  light,  are  probably  the  causes.  But 
there  is  a  neat  tail  for  a  sonnet  coiled  up  in  the  fact, 
and  you  may  blow  it  with  a  long  breath  to  Tom  Moore. 

Many  thanks  for  your  offer  of  shopping  for  us,  but 
you  do  injustice  to  the  "cash  stores"  of  Owego  when 
you  presume  that  there  is  anything  short  of  "  a  hair 
off  the  great  Cham's  beard,"  which  is  not  found  in 
their  inventory.  By  the  way,  there  is  one  article  of 
which  I  feel  the  daily  want,  and  as  you  live  among  au- 
thors who  procure  them  ready  made  for  ballads  and 
romances,  perhaps  you  can  send  me  one  before  the 
canal  freezes.  I  mean  a  venerable  hermit,  who  hav- 
ing passed  through  all  the  vicissitudes  of  human  life 
shall  have  nothing  earthly  to  occupy  him  but  to  live 
in  the  woods  and  dispense  wisdom,  gratis,  to  all  com- 
ers. I  don't  know  whether,  in  your  giddy  town  voca- 
tions, it  has  ever  occurred  to  you  to  turn  short  upon 
yourself,  in  the  midst  of  some  grave  but  insignificant 
routine,  and  inquire  (of  the  gentleman  within)  wheth- 
er this  is  the  fulfilment  of  your  destiny  ;  whether  these 
little  nothings  are  the  links  near  your  eye  of  the  great 
chain,  which  you  fancy,  in  your  elevated  hours,  con- 
nects you  with  something  kindred  to  the  stars.  It  is 
oftenest  in  fine  weather  that  I  thus  step  out  of  myself, 
and  retiring  a  little  space,  borrow  the  eyes  of  my  bet- 
ter angel,  and  take  a  look  at  the  individual  I  have  evac- 
uated. You  shall  see  him  yourself,  dear  Doctor,  with 
three  strokes  of  the  pen ;  and  in  giving  your  judgment 
of  the  dignity  of  his  pursuits,  perform  the  office  to 
which  I  destine  the  hermit  above  bespoken. 

It  is  not  the  stout  fellow,  with  the  black  London 
hat,  somewhat  rusty,  who  stands  raking  away  cobs 
from  the  barn-floor,  though  the  hat  has  seen  worship- 
ful society  (having  fallen  on  those  blessed  days  when 
hats  are  as  inseparable  from  the  wearer  as  silk  stock- 
ing or  culotte),  and  sports  that  breadth  of  brim  by 
which  you  know  me  as  far  off  as  your  indigenous  om- 
nibus. That's  Jem,  the  groom,  to  whom,  with  all  its 
reminiscences,  the  hat  is  but  a  tile.  Nor  is  it  the  half 
sailor-looking,  world-worn,  never-smiling  man,  who  is 
plying  a  flail  upon  that  floor  of  corn,  with  a  look  as  if 
he  had  learned  the  stroke  with  a  cutlass,  though  in  his 
ripped  and  shredded  upper  garment,  you  might  recog- 
nise the  frogged  and  velvet  redingote,  native  of  the 
Rue  de  la  Paix,  which  has  fluttered  on  the  Symple- 
gades,  and  flapped  the  dust  ot  the  Acropolis.  That 
is  my  tenant  in  the  wood,  who,  having  passed  his  youth 
and  middle  age  with  little  content  in  a  more  responsi- 
ble sphere  of  life,  has  limited  his  wishes  to  solitude 
and  a  supply  of  the  wants  of  nature ;  and  though  quite 
capable  of  telling  story  for  story  with  my  old  fellow- 
traveller,  probabiy  thinks  of  it  only  to  wish  its  ravelled 
frogs  were  horn  buttons,  and  its  bursted  seams  less 
penetrable  by  the  rain. 

And  a  third  person  is  one  of  my  neighbors,  who  can 
see  nothing  done  without  showing  you  a  "'cuter 
way,"  and  who,  sitting  on  the  sill  of  the  barn,  is  amu- 
sing himself,  quite  of  his  own  accord,  with  beheading, 
cleaning,  and  picking  an  unfortunate  duck,  whose  leg 
was  accidentally  broken  by  the  flail.  His  voluntary 
occupation  is  stimulated  by  neither  interest  nor  good 
nature,  but  is  simply  the  itching  to  be  doing  some- 
thing, which  in  one  shape  or  another,  belongs  to  ev 
ery  genuine  Jonathan.  Near  him,  in  cowhide  boots, 
frock  of  fustian,  and  broad-brimmed  sombrero  of  coarse 
straw,  stands,  breathing  from  a  bout  with  the  flail,  the 
individual  from  whom  I  have  stepped  apart,  and  upon 
whose  morning's  worth  of  existence  you  shall  put  a 
philosopher's  estimate. 

I  presume  my  three  hours'  labor  might  be  done  for 
about  three  shillings — my  mind,  meantime,  being  en- 
tirely occupied  with  what  I  was  about,  calculating  the 
number  of  bushels  to  the  acre,  the  price  of  corn  far- 
ther down  the  river,  and  between  whiles,  discussing 


LETTERS  FROM  UNDER  A  BRIDGE. 


247 


the  merits  of  a  patent  corn-sheller,  which  we  had 
abandoned  for  the  more  laborious  but  quicker  process 
of  thrashing. 

"Purty'cute  tool!"  says  my  neighbor,  giving  the 
machine  a  look  out  of  the  corner  of  his  yellow  eye, 
"but  tcoo  slow  !  Corn  ought  to  come  off  ravin'  dis- 
tracted. 'Taint  no  use  to  eat  it  up  in  labor.  Where 
was  that  got  out  ?" 

"'Twas  invented  in  Albany,  I  rather  think." 
"Wal,  I  guess  t'want.  It's  a  Varmount  notion. 
Rot  them  Green  Mountingeers !  they're  a  spiling 
the  country.  People  won't  work  when  them  things 
lay  round.  Have  you  heern  of  a  machine  for  botton- 
ing  your  gallowses  behind?" 
"  No,  I  have  not." 

"  Wal,  I've  been  expecting  on't.  There  aint  no 
other  hard  work  they  haint  economized.  Is  them 
your  hogs  in  the  garding?" 

Three  vast  porkers  had  nosed  open  the  gate,  during 
the  discussion,  and  were  making  the  best  of  their  op- 
portunities. After  a  vigorous  chase,  the  latch  was 
closed  upon  them  securely,  and  my  neighbor  resumed 
his  duck. 

"  Is  there  no  way  of  forcing  people  to  keep  those 
brutes  at  home,"  I  asked  of  my  silent  tenant. 

"  Yes,  sir.  The  law  provides  that  you  may  shut 
them  up,  and  send  word  to  the  owners  to  come  and 
take  them  away." 

"Wal!  It's  a  chore,  if  you  ever  tried  it,  to  catch 
a  hog  if  he's  middlin'  spry,  and  when  he's  cotch, 
you've  got  to  feed  him,  by  law,  tjll  he's  sent  for ;  and 
it  don't  pay,  mister." 

"  But  you  can  charge  for  the  feed,"  says  the  other. 
"  Pesky  little,  I  tell  ye.     Pig  fodder 's  cheap,  and 
they  don't  pay  you  for  carrying  on't  to  'em,  nor  for 
catching  the  critters.     It's  a  losin'  consarn." 
"  Suppose  I  shoot  them." 

"  Sartin  you  can.  The  owner  '11  put  his  vally  on  it, 
and  you  can  have  as  much  pork  at  that  price  as  '11  fill 
your  barn.  The  hull  neighb'r'hood  '11  drive  their 
hogs  into  your  garding." 

I  saw  that  my  neighbor  had  looked  at  the  matter  all 
round  ;  but  I  was  sure,  from  his  manner,  that  he  could, 
if  encouraged,  suggest  a  remedy  for  the  nuisance. 

"  I  would  give  a  bushel  of  that  handsome  corn,"  said 
I,  "  to  know  how  to  be  rid  of  them." 

"  Be  so  perlite  as  to  measure  it  out,  mister,  while  I 
head  in  that  hog.  I'll  show  you  how  the  deacon  kept 
'em  out  of  the  new  buryin'  ground  while  the  fence  was 
buildin'." 

He  laid  down  the  duck,  which  was,  by  this  time, 
fairly  picked,  and  stood  a  moment  looking  at  the  three 
hogs,  now  leisurely  turning  up  the  grass  at  the  road- 
side. For  a  reason  which  I  did  not  at  the  moment 
conceive,  he  presently  made  a  dash  at  the  thinnest  of 
the  three,  a  hungry-looking  brute,  built  with  an  ap- 
proach to  the  greyhound,  and  missed  catching  him  by 
an  arm's  length.  Unluckily  for  the  hog,  however,  the 
road  was  lined  with  crooked  rail-fence,  which  deceived 
him  with  constant  promise  of  escape  by  a  short  turn, 
and  by  a  skilful  heading  off,  and  a  most  industrious 
chase  of  some  fifteen  minutes,  he  was  cornered  at  last, 
and  secured  by  the  hind  leg. 

"  A  hog,"  said  he,  dragging  him  along  with  the 
greatest  gravity,  "  hates  a  straight  line  like  pizen.  If 
they'd  run  right  in  eend,  you'd  never  catch  'em  in 
natur.  Like  some  folks,  aint  it  ?  Boy,  fetch  me  a 
skrimmage  of  them  whole  corn." 

He  drove  the  hog  before  him,  wheelbarrow  fashion, 
into  an  open  cow-pen,  and  put  up  the  bars.  The  boy 
(his  son,  who  had  been  waiting  for  him  outside  the  barn) 
brought  him  a  few  ears  of  ripe  corn,  and  as  soon  as  the 
hog  had  recovered  his  breath  a  little,  he  threw  them 
into  the  pen,  and  drew  out  a  knife  from  his  pocket, 
which  he  whetted  on  the  rail  before  him. 

"Now,"  said  he,  as  the  voracious  animal,  unaccus- 


tomed to  such  appetizing  food,  seized  ravenously  on 
the  corn,  "it's  according  to  law  to  take  up  a  stray  hog 
and  feed  him,  aint  it?" 
"  Certainly." 

By  this  time  the  greedy  creature  began  to  show  symp- 
toms of  choking,  and  my  friend's  design  became  clearer. 
"  And  it's  Christian  charity,"  he  continued,  letting 
down  the  bars,  and  stepping  in  as  the  hog  rolled  upon 
his  side,  "  not  to  let  your  neighbor  lose  his  critters  by 
choking,  if  you  can  kill  'em  in  time  to  save  their  meat, 
ain't  it  ?" 

"  Certainly." 

"Wal!"  said  he,  cutting  the  animal's  throat,  "  you 
can  send  word  to  the  owner  of  that  pork  to  come  and 
take  it  away,  and  if  he  don't  like  to  salt  down  at  a  min- 
ute's notice,  he'll  keep  the  rest  at  hum,  and  pay  you 
for  your  corn.  And  that's  the  way  the  deacon  sarved 
my  hogs,  darn  his  long  face,  and  I  eat  pork  till  I  was 
sick  of  the  sight  on't." 

A  bushel  of  corn  being  worth  about  six  shillings,  1 
had  paid  twice  the  worth  of  my  own  morning's  work  for 
this  very  Yankee  expedient.  My  neighbor  borrowed 
a  bag,  shouldered  his  grist,  and  trudged  off  to  the 
mill,  and  relinquishing  my  flail  to  Jem,  I  leaned  over 
the  fence  in  the  warm  autumn  sunshine,  and  with  my 
eyes  on  the  swift  yet  still  bosom  of  the  river  below, 
fell  to  wondering,  as  1  said  before,  whether  the  hour 
of  which  I  have  given  you  a  picture,  was  a  fitting  link 
in  a  wise  man's  destiny,  The  day  was  one  to  give 
birth  to  great  resolves,  bright,  elastic,  and  genial ;  and 
the  leafless  trees,  so  lorn  and  comfortless  in  cloudier 
times,  seemed  lifting  into  the  sky  with  heroic  endu- 
rance, while  the  swollen  Owaga,  flowing  on  with  twice 
the  summer's  depth,  seemed  gathering  soul  to  defy  the 
fetters  of  winter.  There  was  something  inharmonious 
with  little  pursuits  in  everything  I  could  see.  Such 
air  and  sunshine,  I  thought,  should  overtake  one  in 
some  labor  of  philanthropy,  in  some  sacrifice  for 
friend  or  country,  in  the  glow  of  some  noble  composi- 
tion, or,  if  in  the  exercise  of  physical  energy,  at  least  to 
some  large  profit.  Yet  a  few  shillings  expressed  the 
whole  result  of  my  morning's  employment,  and  the 
society  by  which  my  thoughts  had  been  colored  were 
such  as  I  have  described.  Still  this  is  "farming,"  and 
so  lived  Cincinnatus. 

Now,  dear  Doctor,  you  can  be  grand  among  your 
gallipots,  and  if  your  eye  turns  in  upon  yourself,  you 
may  reflect  complacently  on  the  almost  sublime  ends 
of  the  art  of  healing ;  but  resolve  me,  if  you  please, 
my  little  problem.  What  state  of  the  weather  should 
I  live  up  to  ?  My  present  avocations,  well  enough  in 
a  gray  day,  or  a  rainy,  or  a  raw,  are  quite  put  out  of 
countenance  by  a  blue  sky  and  a  genial  sun.  If  it 
were  always  like  to-day,  I  should  be  obliged  to  seek 
distinction  in  some  way-  There  would  be  no  looking 
such  a  sky  in  the  face  three  days  consecutively,  busi- 
ed always  with  pigs  and  corn.  You  see  the  use  of  a 
hermit  to  settle  such  points.  But  adieu,  while  I  have 
room  to  write  it. 


LETTER    TO    THE    UNKNOWN     PURCHASER    AND     NEXT 
OCCUPANT    OF    GLENMARY. 

Sir  :  In  selling  you  the  dew  and  sunshine  ordained 
to  fall  hereafter  on  this  bright  spot  of  earth—the 
waters  on  their  way  to  this  sparkling  brook — the  tints 
mixed  for  the  flowers  of  that  enamelled  meadow,  and 
the  songs  bidden  to  be  sung  in  coming  summers  by 
the  feathery  builders  in  Glenmary,  I  know  not  whether 
to  wonder  more  at  the  omnipotence  of  money,  or  at 
my  own  impertinent  audacity  toward  Nature.  How 
you  can  buy  the  right  to  exclude  at  will  every  other 
creature  made  in  God's  image  from  sitting  by  this 
brook,  treading  on  that  carpet  of  flowers,  or  lying  lis- 
tening to  the  birds  in  the  shade  of  these  glorious  trees 


248 


LETTERS  FROM  UNDER  A  BRIDGE. 


— how  I  can  sell  it  you,  is  a  mystery  not  understood 
by  the  Indian,  and  dark,  I  must  say  to  me. 

"Lord  of  the  soil,"  is  a  title  which  conveys  your 
privileges  but  poorly.  You  are  master  of  waters  flow 
ing  at  this  moment,  perhaps,  in  a  river  of  Judea,  or 
floating  in  clouds  over  some  spicy  island  of  the  tropics, 
bound  hither  after  many  changes.  There  are  lilies 
and  violets  ordered  for  you  in  millions,  acres  of  sun- 
shine in  daily  instalments,  and  dew  nightly  in  propor- 
tion. There  are  throats  to  be  tuned  with  song,  and 
wings  to  be  painted  with  red  and  gold,  blue  and  yel- 
low; thousands  of  them,  and  all  tributaries  to  you. 
Your  corn  is  ordered  to  be  sheathed  in  silk,  and  lifted 
high  to  the  sun.  Your  grain  is  to  be  duly  bearded 
and  stemmed.  There  is  perfume  distilling  for  your 
clover,  and  juices  for  your  grasses  and  fruits.  Ice 
will  be  here  for  your  wine,  shade  for  your  refreshment 
at  noon,  breezes  and  showers  and  snow-flakes ;  all  in 
their  season,  and  all  "  deeded  to  you  for  forty  dollars 
the  acre  !  Gods !  what  a  copyhold  of  property  for  a 
fallen  world  !" 

Mine  has  been  but  a  short  lease  of  this  lovely  and 
well-endowed  domain  (the  duration  of  a  smile  of  for- 
tune, five  years,  scarce  longer  than  a  five-act  play)  ; 
but  as  in  a  play  we  sometimes  live  through  a  life, 
it  seems  to  me  that  I  have  lived  a  life  at  Glenmary. 
Allow  me  this,  and  then  you  must  allow  me  the  priv- 
ilege of  those  who,  at  the  close  of  life,  leave  something 
behind  them :  that  of  writing  out  my  will.  Though  I 
depart  this  life,  I  would  fain,  like  others,  extend  my 
ghostly  hand  into  the  future  ;  and  if  wings  are  to  be 
borrowed  or  stolen  where  I  go,  you  may  rely  on  my 
hovering  around  and  haunting  you,  in  visitations  not 
restricted  by  cock-crowing. 

Trying  to  look  at  Glenmary  through  your  eyes,  sir, 
I  see  too  plainly  that  I  have  not  shaped  my  ways  as  if 
expecting  a  successor  in  my  lifetime.  I  did  not,  lam 
free  to  own.  I  thought  to  have  shuffled  off  my  mor- 
tal coil  tranquilly  here;  flitting  at  last  in  company 
with  some  troop  of  my  autumn  leaves,  or  some  bevy 
of  spring  blossoms,  or  with  snow  in  the  thaw;  my 
tenants  at  my  back,  as  a  landlord  may  say.  I  have 
counted  on  a  life-interest  in  the  trees,  trimming  them 
accordingly  ;  and  in  the  squirrels  and  birds,  encour- 
aging them  to  chatter  and  build  and  fear  nothing ;  no 
guns  permitted  on  the  premises.  I  have  had  my  will 
of  this  beautiful  stream.  I  have  carved  the  woods  into 
a  shape  of  my  liking.  I  have  propagated  the  despised 
sumach  and  the  persecuted  hemlock  and  "pizen  lau- 
rel." And  "  no  end  to  the  weeds  dug  up  and  set  out 
again,"  as  one  of  my  neighbors  delivers  himself.  I 
have  built  a  bridge  over  Glenmary  brook,  which  the 
town  looks  to  have  kept  up  by  "  the  place,"  and  we 
have  plied  free  ferry  over  the  river,  I  and  my  man 
Tom,  till  the  neighbors,  from  the  daily  saving  of  the 
two  miles  round,  have  got  the  trick  of  it.  And  be- 
twixt the  aforesaid  Glenmary  brook  and  a  certain 
muddy  and  plebeian  gutter  formerly  permitted  to  join 
company  with,  and  pollute  it,  I  have  procured  a  di- 
vorce at  much  trouble  and  pains,  a  guardian  duty  en- 
tailed of  course  on  my  successor. 

First  of  all,  sir,  let  me  plead  for  the  old  trees  of 
Glenmary  !  Ah  !  those  friendly  old  trees  !  The  cot- 
tage stands  belted  in  with  them,  a  thousand  visible 
from  the  door,  and  of  stems  and  branches  worthy  of  the 
great  valley  of  the  Susquehannah.  For  how  much 
music  played  without  thanks  am  I  indebted  to  those 
leaf-organs  of  changing  tone  ?  for  how  many  whisper- 
ings of  thought  breathed  like  oracles  into  my  ear  ?  for 
how  many  new  shapes  of  beauty  moulded  in  the 
leaves  by  the  wind  ?  for  how  much  companionship, 
solace,  and  welcome  ?  Steadfast  and  constant  is  the 
countenance  of  such  friends,  God  be  praised  for  their 
staid  welcome  and  sweet  fidelity !  If  I  love  them  bet- 
ter than  some  things  human,  it  is  no  fault  of  am- 
bitiousness  in  the  trees.  They  stand  where  they  did. 
But  in  recoiling  from  mankind,  one  may  find  them  the 


next  kindliest  things,  and  be  glad  of  dumb  friendship. 
Spare  those  old  trees,  gentle  sir ! 

In  the  smooth  walk  which  encircles  the  meadow  be- 
twixt that  solitary  Olympian  sugar-maple  and  the  mar- 
gin of  the  river,  dwells  a  portly  and  venerable  toad  ; 
who  (if  I  may  venture  to  bequeath  you  my  friends) 
must  be  commended  to  your  kindly  consideration. 
Though  a  squatter,  he  was  noticed  in  our  first  rambles 
along  the  stream,  five  years  since,  for  his  ready  civility 
in  yielding  the  way,  not  hurriedly,  however,  nor  with 
an  obsequiousness  unbecoming  a  republican,  but  de- 
liberately and  just  enough  ;  sitting  quietly  on  the  grass 
till  our  passing  by  gave  him  room  again  on  the  warm 
and  trodden  ground.  Punctually  after  the  April 
cleansing  of  the  walk,  this  jewelled  habitue,  from  his 
indifferent  lodgings  hard  by,  emerges  to  take  his  pleas- 
ure in  the  sun;  and  there,  at  any  hour  when  a  gentle- 
man is  likely  to  be  abroad,  you  may  find  him,  patient 
on  his  os  coccygis,  or  vaulting  to  his  asylum  of  high 
grass.  This  year,  he  shows,  I  am  grieved  to  remark, 
an  ominous  obesity,  likely  to  render  him  obnoxious  to 
the  female  eye,  and,  with  the  trimness  of  his  shape, 
has  departed  much  of  that  measured  alacrity  which 
first  won  our  regard.  He  presumes  a  little  on  your 
allowance  for  old  age ;  and  with  this  pardonable  weak- 
ness growing  upon  him,  it  seems  but  right  that  his 
position  and  standing  should  be  tenderly  made  known 
to  any  new-comer  on  the  premises.  In  the  cutting  of 
the  next  grass,  slice  me  not  up  my  fat  friend,  sir!  nor 
set  your  cane  down  heedlessly  in  his  modest  domain. 
He  is  "mine  ancient,"  and  I  would  fain  do  him  a 
good  turn  with  you. 

For  my  spoilt  family  of  squirrels,  sir,  I  crave  nothing 
but  immunity  from  powder  and  shot.  They  require 
coaxing  to  come  on  the  same  side  of  the  tree  with 
you,  and  though  saucy  to  me,  I  observe  that  they  com- 
mence acquaintance  invariably  with  a  safe  mistrust. 
One  or  two  of  them  have  suffered,  it  is  true,  from  too 
hasty  a  confidence  in  my  greyhound  Maida,  but  the 
beauty  of  that  gay  fellow  was  a  trap  against  which  na- 
ture had  furnished  them  with  no  warning  instinct ! 
(A  fact,  sir,  which  would  prettily  point  a  moral !)  The 
large  hickory  on  the  edge  of  the  lawn,  and  the  black 
walnut  over  the  shoulder  of  the  flower-garden,  have 
been,  through  my  dynasty,  sanctuaries  inviolate  foi 
squirrels.  I  pray  you,  sir,  let  them  not  be  "reformed 
out,"  under  your  administration. 

Of  our  feathered  connexions  and  friends,  we  are 
most  bound  to  a  pair  of  Phebe-birds  and  a  merry  Bob- 
o'-Lincoln,  the  first  occupying  the  top  of  the  young 
maple  near  the  door  of  the  cottage,  and  the  latter  ex- 
ecuting his  bravuras  upon  the  clump  of  alder-bushes 
in  the  meadow,  though,  in  common  with  many  a  gay- 
plumaged  gallant  like  himself,  his  whereabout  after  dark 
is  a  dark  mystery.  He  comes  every  year  from  his  rice 
plantation  in  Florida  to  pass  the  summer  at  Glenmary. 
Pray  keep  him  safe  from  percussion-caps,  and  let  no 
urchin  with  a  long  pole  poke  down  our  trusting  Phe- 
bes;  annuals  in  that  same  tree  for  three  summers. 
There  are  humming-birds,  too,  whom  we  have  com- 
plimented and  looked  sweet  upon,  but  they  can  not  be 
identified  from  morning  to  morning.  And  there  is  a 
golden  oriole  who  sings  through  May  on  a  dog-wood 
tree  by  the  brook-side,  but  he  has  fought  shy  of  our 
crumbs  and  coaxing,  and  let  him  go  !  We  are  mates 
for  his  betters,  with  all  his  gold  livery  !  With  these 
reservations,  sir,  I  commend  the  birds  to  your  friend- 
ship and  kind  keeping. 

And  now,  sir,  I  have  nothing  else  to  ask,  save  only 
your  watchfulness  over  the  small  nook  reserved  from 
this  purchase  of  seclusion  and  loveliness.  In  the  sha- 
dy depths  of  the  small  glen  above  you,  among  the  wild- 
flowers  and  music,  the  music  of  the  brook  babbling 
over  rocky  steps,  is  a  spot  sacred  to  love  and  memo- 
ry. Keep  it  inviolate,  and  as  much  of  the  happiness 
of  Glenmary  as  we  can  leave  behind,  stay  with  you  fo 
recompense ! 


DASHES      AT     LIFE 

WITH  A  FREE  PENCIL. 


PART     I; 

HIGH    LIFE    IN    EUROPE, 

AND 

AMERICAN    LIFE. 


PREFACE 


It  has  been  with  difficult  submission  to 
marketableness  that  the  author  has  broken  up 
his  statues  at  the  joints,  and  furnished  each 
fragment  with  head  and  legs  to  walk  alone. 
Continually  accumulating  material,  with  the 
desire  to  produce  a  work  of  fiction,  he  was  as 
continually  tempted  by  extravagant  prices  to 
shape  these  separate  forms  of  society  and  char- 
acter into  tales  for  periodicals ;  and  between 
two  persuaders — the  law  of  copyright,  on  the 
one  hand,  providing  that  American  books  at 
fair  prices  should  compete  with  books  to  be 
had  for  nothing,  and  necessity  on  the  other 
hand,  pleading  much  more  potently  than  the 
ambition  for  an  adult  stature  in  literary  fame — 
he  has  gone  on  acquiring  a  habit  of  dashing 
off  for  a  magazine  any  chance  view  of  life  that 
turned  up  to  him,  and  selling  in  fragmentary 
chapters  what  should  have  been  kept  together 
and  moulded  into  a  proportionate  work  of  im- 
agination. So  has  gradually  accumulated  the 
large  collection  of  tales  which  follow — literally 
dashes  at  life  with  a  free  pencil — each  one, 
though  a  true  copy  of  a  part,  conveying,  of 
course,  no  portion  of  the  meaning  and  moral 
of  a  whole.  It  is  as  a  parcel  of  fragments — as 
a  portfolio  of  sketches  for  a  picture  never  paint- 
ed— that  he  offers  them  to  the  public.  Their 
lack  of  what  an  English  critic  cleverly  calls  the 
"ponderous  goodness  of  a  didactic  purpose," 


must  be  balanced,  if  at  all,  by  their  truth  to  life, 
for  they  have  been  drawn  mostly  from  impres- 
sions freshly  made,  and  with  no  record  of  what 
they  were  a  part  of.  In  proportion  to  his  pow- 
er of  imagination,  the  reader  will  supply  the 
back-ground  and  adjuncts — some,  no  doubt  (if 
the  author  may  judge  by  himself),  preferring 
the  sketch  to  the  finished  picture. 

A  word  explanatory  of  the  character  of  Part 
I.  Most  of  the  stories  in  it  are  illustrative  of 
the  distinctions  of  English  society.  As  a  re- 
publican visiting  a  monarchical  country  for  the 
first  time,  and  traversing  the  barriers  of  differ- 
ent ranks  with  a  stranger's  privilege,  the  au- 
thor's curiosity  was  most  on  the  alert  to  know 
how  nature's  nobility  held  its  own  against  no- 
bility by  inheritance,  and  how  heart  and  judg- 
ment were  modified  in  their  action  by  the  thin 
air  at  the  summit  of  refinement.  Circumstances 
in  the  career  of  men  of  genius  now  living,  and 
feelings  in  titled  and  exclusive  circles  which 
the  author  had  opportunities  to  study,  furnished 
hints  for  the  storied  illustrations  of  the  dis- 
tinctions that  interested  him,  and  he  has  thought 
it  worth  while  to  present  these  together,  as 
bearing  upon  those  relations  of  aristocratic 
life  which  first  interest  republican  curiosity 
abroad. 

With  these  explanations,  the  author  commits 
his  book  to  the  reader's  kind  allowance. 


HIGH    LIFE    IN    EUROPE. 


LEAVES   FROM   THE   HEART-BOOK   OF   ERNEST   CLAY 


CHAPTER  I. 

In   a   small    room,   second  floor,   front.   No.  

South  Audley  street,  Grosvenor  square,  on  one  of 
the  latter  days  of  May,  five  or  six  years  ago,  there 
stood  an  inkstand,  of  which  you  may  buy  the  like  for 
three  halfpence  in  most  small  shops  in  Soho.  It  was 
stuck  in  the  centre  of  the  table,  like  the  largest  of 
the  Azores,  on  a  schoolboy's  amateur  map — a  large 
blot  surrounded  by  innumerable  smaller  blotlings. 
On  the  top  of  a  small  leather  portmanteau  near  by, 
stood  two  pair  of  varnished-leather  boots  of  a  sump- 
tuous expensiveness,  slender,  elegant,  and  without 
spot,  except  the  leaf  of  a  crushed  orange  blossom 
clinging  to  one  of  the  heels.  Between  the  inkstand 
and  the  boots  sat  the  young  and  then  fashionable  au- 
thor of ,  and  the  boots  and  the  ink- 
stand were  tolerable  exponents  of  his  two  opposite 
but  closely  woven  existences. 

It  was  two  o'clock,  P.  M.,  and  the  author  was  stir- 
ring his  tea.  He  had  been  stirring  it  with  the  same 
velocity  three  quarters  of  an  hour — for  when  that  cup 
should  be  drank,  inevitably  the  next  thing  wa9  to 
write  the  first  sentence  of  an  article  for  the  New 
Month.  Mag.,  and  he  was  prolonging  his  breakfast, 
as  a  criminal  his  last  prayer. 

The  "fatigued"  sugar  and  milk  were  still  flying 
round  the  edge  of  the  cup  in  a  whity  blue  concave, 
when  the  "maid  of  all  work"  of  his  landlord  the 
baker,  knocked  at  the  door  with  a  note. 

»«  13  G M street. 

"Dear  Sir: 

"  Has  there  been  any  mistake  in  the  two-penny  post 
delivery,  that  I  have  not  received  your  article  for  this 
month  ?  If  so,  please  send  me  the  rough  draught  by 
the  bearer  (who  waits),  and  the  compositors  will  try- 
to  make  it  out.         Yours,  truly, 

"  P.  S.  If  the  tale  is  not  finished,  please  send  me 
the  title  and  motto,  that  we  may  print  the  '  contents' 
during  the  delay." 

The  tea,  which,  for  some  minutes,  had  turned  off"  a 
decreasing  ripple  from  the  edge  of  the  arrested  spoon, 
came  to  a  standstill  at  the  same  moment,  with  the 
author's  wits.  He  had  seized  his  pea  and  com- 
menced : — 

"  Dear  Sir  : 

"  The  tale  of  this  month  will  be  called " 

As  it  was  not  yet  conceived,  he  found  a  difficulty  . 
in  baptizing  it.  His  eyebrows  descended  like  the 
bars  of  a  knight's  visor ;  his  mouth,  which  had  ex- 
pressed only  lassitude  and  melancholy,  shut  close, 
and  curved  downward,  and  he  sat  for  some  minutes 
dipping  his  pen  in  the  ink,  and,  at  each  dip,  adding  a 
new  shoal  to  the  banks  of  the  inky  Azores. 

A   long  sigh  of  relief,  and   an  expansion  of  every 


II  line  of  his  face  into  a  look  of  brightening  thought  gave 
token  presently  that  the  incubation  had  been  success- 
II  ful.  The  gilded  note-paper  was  pushed  aside,  a  broad 
and  fair  sheet  of  "foreign  post"  was  hastily  drawn 
from  his  blotting-book.  and  forgetful  alike  of  the  un- 
achieved cup  of  tea,  and  the  waiting  "devil"  of  Marl- 
borough street,  the  felicitous  author  dashed  the  first 
magic  word  on  mid-page,  and  without  title  or  motto, 
traced  rapidly  line  after  line,  his  face  clearing  of  las- 
situde, and  his  eyes  of  their  troubled  languor,  as  the 
erasures  became  fewer,  and  his  punctuations  farther 
between. 

"  Any  answer  to  the  note,  sir?"  said  the  maid-ser- 
vant, who  had  entered  unnoticed,  and  stood  close  at 
his  elbow,  wondering  at  the  flying  velocity  of  his  pen. 

He  was  at  the  bottom  of  the  fourth  page,  and  in 
the  middle  of  a  sentence.  Handing  the  wet  and  blot- 
ted sheet  to  the  servant,  with  an  order  for  the  messen- 
ger to  call  the  following  morning  for  the  remainder, 
he  threw  down  his  pen  and  abandoned  himself  to  the 
most  delicious  of  an  author's  pleasures — revery  in  the 
mood  of  composition.  He  forgot  work.  Work  is  to 
put  such  reveries  into  words.  His  imagination  flew 
on  like  a  horse  without  his  rider — gloriously  and  ex- 
ultingly,  but  to  no  goal.  The  very  waste  made  his 
indolence  sweeter — the  very  nearness  of  his  task 
brightened  his  imaginative  idleness.  The  ink  dried 
upon  his  pen.  Some  capricious  association  soon 
drew  back  his  thoughts  to  himself.  His  eye  dulled. 
His  lips  resumed  their  mingled  expression  of  pride 
and  voluptuousness.  He  started  to  find  himself  idle, 
remembered  that  had  sent  oft'  the  sheet  with  a  bro- 
ken sentence,  without  retaining  even  the  concluding 
word,  and  with  a  sigh  more  of  relief  than  vexation, 
he  drew  on  his  boots.  Presto  ! — the  world  of  which 
his  penny-half-penny  inkstand  was  the  immortal  cen- 
tre— the  world  of  heaven-born  imagination — melted 
from  about  him  !  He  stood  in  patent  leather — hu- 
man, handsome,  and  liable  to  debt! 

And  thus  fugitive  and  easy  of  decoy,  thus  compul- 
sory, irresolute,  and  brief,  is  the  unchastised  toil  of 
genius — the  earning  of  the  "fancy-bread"  of  poets! 

It  would  be  hard  if  a  man  who  has  "  made  himself 
a  name"  (beside  being  paternally  christened),  should 
want  one  in  a  story — so,  if  you  please,  I  will  name 
my  hero  in  the  next  sentence.  Ernest  Clay  was 
dressed  to  walk  to  Marlborough  street  to  apply  for  his 
"  guinea-a-page"  in  advance,  and  find  out  the  con- 
cluding word  of  his  MS.,  when  there  was  heard  a  foot- 
man's rap  at  the  street  door.  The  baker  on  the 
ground  floor  ran  to  pick  up  his  penny  loaves  jarred 
from  the  shelves  by  the  tremendous  rat-a-tat-laf,  and 
the  maid  ran  herself  out  of  her  shoes  to  inform  Mr 

Clay  that   Lady  Mildred wished   to  speak   witL 

him.  Neither  maid  nor  baker  were  displeased  at  bein£ 
put  to  inconvenience,  nor  was  the  baker's  hysterica 


252 


ERNEST  CLAY. 


mother  disposed  to  murmur  at  the  outrageous  clat- 
ter which  shattered  her  nerves  for  a  week.  There 
is  a  spell  to  a  Londoner  in  a  coronetted  carriage  which 
changes  the  noise  and  impudence  of  the  unwhipped 
varlets  who  ride  behind  it,  into  music  and  condescen- 
sion. 

"You  were  going  out,"  said  Lady  Mildred  ;  "  can 
I  take  you  anywhere?" 

"You  can  take  me,"  said  Clay,  spreading  out  his 
hands  in  an  attitude  of  surrender,  "when  and  where 
you  please  ;  but  I  was  going  to  my  publisher's." 

The  chariot-steps  rattled  down,  and  his  foot  was  on 
the  crimson  carpet,  when  a  plain  family  carriage  sud- 
denly turned  out  of  Grosvenor  square,  and  pulled  up 
as  near  his  own  door  as  the  obstruction  permitted. 

Ernest  changed  color  slightly,  and  Lady  Mildred, 
after  a  glance  through  the  window  behind  her,  stamp- 
ed her  little  foot  and  said  "Come!" 

"One  moment!"  was  his  insufficient  apology  as  he 
sprang  to  the  window  of  the  other  carriage,  and  with 
a  manner  almost  infantile  in  its  cordial  simplicity,  ex- 
pressed his  delight  at  meeting  the  two  ladies  who  sat 
within. 

"Have  you  set  up  a  chariot,  Ernest?"  said  the 
younger,  laying  her  hand  upon  the  dark  mass  of  curls 
on  his  temple,  and  pushing  his  head  gently  back  that 
she  might  see  what  equipage  stopped  the  way. 

He  hesitated  a  moment,  but  there  was  no  escape 
from  the  truth. 

"  It  is  Lady  Mildred,  who  has  just 

"  Is  she  alone  ?" 

The  question  was  asked  by  the  elder  lady  with  a 
look  that  expressed  a  painfully  sad  wish  to  hear  him 
answer,  "No." 

While  he  hesitated,  the  more  forgiving  voice  next 
him  hurriedly  broke  the  silence. 

"  We  are  forgetting  our  errand,  Ernest.  Can  you 
come  to  Ashurst  to-morrow?" 

"  With  all  my  heart." 

"Do  not  fail!  My  uncle  wishes  to  see  you. 
Stay — I  have  brought  you  a  note  from  him.  Good- 
by !  Are  you  going  to  the  rout  at  Mrs.  Rothschild's 
to-night?" 

"  f  was  not — but  if  you  are  going,  I  will." 

"Till  this  evening,  then?" 

The  heavy  vehicle  rolled  away,  and  Ernest  crushed 
the  note  in  his  hand  unread,  and  with  a  slower  step 
than  suited  the  impatience  of  Lady  Mildred,  returned 
to  the  chariot.  The  coachman,  with  that  mysterious 
instinct  that  coachmen  have,  let  fall  his  silk  upon  the 
backs  of  his  spirited  horses,  and  drove  in  time  with 
his  master's  quickened  pulses  ;  and  at  the  corner  of 
Chesterfield  street,  as  the  family  carriage  rolled  slowly 
on  its  way  to  Howell  and  James's  (on  an  errand  con- 
nected with  bridal  pearls),  the  lofty-stepping  bays  of 
Lady  Mildred  dashed  by  as  if  all  the  anger  and  scorn 
of  a  whole  descent  of  coronets  were  breathing  from 
their  arched  nostrils. 

What  a  boon  from  nature  to  aristocracy  was  the 
pride  of  the  horse  ! 
******* 

Lady  Mildred  was  a  widow  of  two  years'  weeds, 
thirty-two,  and  of  a  certain  kind  of  talent,  which  will  be 
explained  in  the  course  of  this  story.  She  had  no  per- 
sonal charms,  except  such  as  are  indispensably  neces- 
sary to  lady-likeness — indispensably  necessary,  for 
that  very  reason,  to  any  control  over  the  fancy  of  a 
man  of  imagination.  Her  upper  lip  was  short  enough 
to  express  scorn,  and  her  feet  and  hands  were  ex- 
quisitely small.  Some  men  of  fancy  would  exact 
these  attractions  and  great  many  more.  But  without 
these,  no  woman  ever  secured  even  the  most  transient 
homage  of  a  poet.  She  had  one  of  those  faces  you 
never  find  yourself  at  leisure  to  criticise,  or  rather  she 
had  one  of  those  siren  voices,  that,  if  you  heard  her 
speak  before  you  had   found  leisure  to  look  at  her 


features,  you  had  lost  your  opportunity  for  ever.  Her 
voice  expressed  the  presence  of  beauty,  as  much  as  a 
carol  in  a  tree  expresses  the  presence  of  a  bird,  and 
though  you  saw  not  the  beauty,  as  you  may  not  see 
the  bird.it  was  impossible  to  doubt  it  was  there.  Yet 
with  all  this  enchantment  in  her  voice  it  was  the  most 
changeable  music  on  earth — for  hear  it  when  you 
would,  if  she  were  in  earnest,  you  might  be  sure  it 
was  the  softened  echo  of  the  voice  to  which  she  was 
replying.  She  never  spoke  first.  She  never  led  the 
conversation.  She  had  not  (or  never  used)  the  talent 
which  many  very  common-place  women  have,  of 
giving  a  direction  to  the  feelings  and  controlling  even 
the  course  of  thought  of  superior  men  who  may  ad- 
mire them.  In  everything  she  played  a  second.  She 
was  silent  through  all  your  greetings,  through  all  your 
compliments;  smiled  and  listened,  if  it  was  for  hours, 
till  your  lighter  spirits  were  exhausted  and  you  came 
down  to  the  true  under  tone  of  your  heart ;  and  by  the 
first-struck  chord  of  feeling  and  earnest  (and  her  skill 
in  detecting  it  was  an  infallible  instinct),  she  modulated 
her  voice  and  took  up  the  strain,  and  from  the  echo 
of  your  own  soul  and  the  flow  of  the  most  throbbing 
vein  in  your  own  heart,  she  drew  your  enchantment 
and  intoxication.  Her  manners  were  a  necessary  part 
of  such  a  character.  Her  limbs  seemed  always  en- 
chanted into  stillness.  When  you  gazed  at  her  more 
earnestly,  her  eyes  gradually  drooped,  and,  again  her 
enlarged  orbs  brightened  and  grew  eager  as  your  gaze 
retreated.  With  her  slight  forefinger  laid  upon  her 
cheek,  and  her  gloved  hand  supporting  her  arm,  she 
sat  stirless  and  rapt,  and  by  an  indescribable  magnetism 
you  felt  that  there  was  not  a  nerve  in  your  eye,  nor  a 
flutter  toward  change  in  the  expression  of  your  face, 
that  was  not  linked  to  hers,  nerve  for  nerve,  pulsation 
for  pulsation.  Whether  this  charm  would  work  on 
common  men  it  is  difficult  to  say — for  Lady  Mildred's 
passions  were  invariably  men  of  genius. 

You  may  not  have  seen  such  a  woman  as  Lady 
Mildred — but  you  have  seen  girls  like  Eve  Gore. 
There  are  many  lilies,  though  each  one,  new-found, 
seems  to  the  finder  the  miracle  of  nature.  She  was  a 
pure,  serene-hearted,  and  very  beautiful  girl  of  seven- 
teen. Her  life  had  been  hitherto  the  growth  of  love 
and  care,  as  the  lily  she  resembled  is  the  growth  of 
sunshine  and  dew ;  and,  flower-like,  all  she  had  ever 
known  or  felt  had  turned  to  spotless  loveliness.  She 
had  met  the  gifted  author  of  her  favorite  romance  at 
a  country-house  where  they  were  guests  together,  and 
I  could  not,  short  of  a  chapter  of  metaphysics,  tell  you 
how  natural  it  was  for  these  two  apparently  uncon- 
genial persons  to  mingle,  like  drops  of  dew.  I  will 
merely  say  now,  that  strongly  marked  as  seems  the 
character  of  every  man  of  genius,  his  very  capability 
of  tracking  the  mazes  of  human  nature,  makes  him 
the  very  chameleon  and  Proteus  of  his  species,  and 
that  after  he  has  assimilated  himself  by  turns  to  every 
variety  of  mankind,  his  masks  never  fall  off*  without 
disclosing  the  very  soul  and  type  of  the  most  infantine 
simplicity.  Other  men's  disguises,  too,  become  a 
second  nature.  Those  of  genius  are  worn  to  their 
last  day,  as  loosely  as  the  mantles  of  the  gods. 

The  kind  of  man  called  "  a  penetrating  observer," 
if  he  had  been  in  the  habit  of  meeting  Mr.  Clay  in 
London  circles,  and  had  afterward  seen  him  rambling 

through  the  woods  of Park   with  Eve   Gore, 

natural,  playful  sometimes,  and  sometimes  sad,  his 
manner  the  reflex  of  hers,  even  his  voice  almost  as 
feminine  as  hers,  in  his  fine  sympathy  with  her  charac- 
ter and  attractions — one  of  these  shrewd  people  I  say 
would  have  shaken  his  head  and  whispered,  "  pool 
girl,  how  little  she  understands  him!"  But  of  all  the 
wise  and  worldly,  gentle  and  simple,  who  had  ever 
crossed  the  path  of  Ernest  Clay,  the  same  child-like 
girl  was  the  only  creature  to  whom  he  appeared  utterly 
himself— for  whom  he  wore  no  disguise — to  whose 


ERNEST  CLAY. 


253 


plummet  of  simple  truth  he  opened  the  seldom-sound- 
ed depths  of  his  prodigal  and  passionate  heart.  Lady 
Mildred  knew  his  weaknesses  and  his  genius.  Eve 
Gore  knew  his  better  and  brighter  nature.  And  both 
loved  him. 

And  now,  dear  reader,  having  drawn  you  the  portraits 
of  my  two  heroines,  I  shall  go  on  with  a  disembarras- 
sed narrative  to  the  end. 


CHAPTER  II. 

Lady  Mildred's  bays  panced  proudly  up  Bond 
street,  and  kept  on  their  way  to  the  publisher's,  at 
whose  door  they  fretted  and  champed  the  bit — they 
and  their  high-born  mistress  in  attendance  upon  the 
poor  author  who  in  this  moment  of  despondency  com- 
plained of  the  misappreciation  of  the  world.  Of  the 
scores  of  people  who  knew  him  and  his  companion 
as  London  celebrities,  and  who  followed  the  showy 
equipage  with  their  eyes,  how  many,  think  you,  look- 
ed on  Mr.  Ernest  Clay  as  a  misappreciated  man  ? 
How  many,  had  they  known  that  the  whole  errand 
of  this  expensive  turn  out  was  to  call  on  the  publisher 
for  the  price  of  a  single  magazine  paper,  would  have 
reckoned  those  sixteen  guineas  and  the  chariot  of  a 
noble  lady  to  come  for  the  payment — five  hundred 
pounds  for  your  romance,  and  a  welcome  to  all  the 
best  houses  and  costliest  entertainments  of  England 
— a  hundred  pounds  for  your  poem  and  the  attention 
of  a  thousand  eager  admirers — these  are  some  of  the 
"  lengthening  shadows"  to  the  author's  profits  which 
the  author  does  not  reckon,  but  which  the  world  does. 
To  the  rest  of  mankind  these  are  "  chattels"  priced 
and  paid  for.  Twenty  thousand  a  year  would  hardly 
buy  for  Mr.  Clay,  simple  and  uncelebrated,  what  Mr. 
Clay,  author,  etc.,  has  freely  with  five  hundred.  To 
whose  credit  shall  the  remaining  nineteen  thousand 
five  hundred  be  set  down  ?  Common  people  who  pay 
for  these  things  are  not  believers  in  fairy  gifts.  They 
see  the  author  in  a  station  of  society  unattainable  ex- 
cept by  the  wealthiest  and  best  born,  with  all  that 
profuse  wealth  could  purchase  as  completely  at  his 
service  as  if  the  bills  of  cost  were  to  be  brought  in  to 
him  at  Christmas  ;  and  besides  all  this  (once  more 
"into  the  bargain")  caressed  and  flattered  as  no 
"  golden  dulness"  ever  was  or  could  be.  To  rate  the 
revenue  of  such  a  pampered  idol  of  fortune,  what  man 
in  his  senses  would  inquire  merely  into  the  profits  of 
his  book  ! 

And  in  this  lies  the  whole  secret  of  the  envy  and 
malice  which  is  the  peculiar  inheritance  of  genius. 
Generous-minded  men,  all  women,  the  great  and  rich 
who  are  too  high  themselves  to  feel  envy,  and  the  poor 
and  humble  who  are  too  low  to  feel  aught  but  wonder 
and  grateful  admiration — these  are  the  fosterers  and 
flatterers,  the  paymasters  of  the  real  wealth  and  the 
receivers  of  the  choicest  fruits  of  genius.  The  aspi- 
ring mediocrity,  the  slighted  and  eclipsed  pretenders 
to  genius,  are  a  large  class,  to  whose  eyes  all  bright- 
ness is  black,  and  the  great  mass  of  men  toil  their  lives 
and  utmost  energies  away  for  the  hundredth  part  of 
what  the  child  of  genius  wins  by  his  unseen  pen — by 
the  toil  which  neither  hardens  his  hands  nor  trenches 
on  his  hours  of  pleasure.  They  see  a  man  no  come- 
lier  nor  better  born  than  they — idle  apparently,  as  the 
most  spoilt  minion  of  wealth,  vying  with  the  best  born 
in  the  favor  of  beautiful  and  proud  women,  using  all 
the  goodsof  fortune  with  a  profuse  carelessness,  which 
the  possession  of  the  lamp  of  Aladdin  could  not  more 
than  inspire,  and  by  bitter  criticism,  by  ingenious 
slander,  by  continual  depreciation,  ridicule,  and  ex- 
aggeration of  every  pretty  foible,  they  attempt  to  level 
the  inequalities  of  fortune,  and  repair  the  flagrant  in- 
justice of  the  blind  goddess  to  themselves.     Upon  the 


class  generally,  they  are  avenged.  Their  malice 
poisons  the  joy  and  cripples  the  fine-winged  fancy  of 
nineteen  in  the  score.  But  the  twentieth  is  born 
proud  and  elastic,  and  the  shaft  his  scorn  does  not 
fling  back,  his  light-heartedness  eludes,  and  his  is  the 
destiny  which,  more  than  that  of  kings  or  saints,  proves 
the  wide  inequality  in  human  lot. 

I  trust,  dear  reader,  that  you  have  been  more  amused 
than  Lady  Mildred  at  this  half  hour's  delay  at  the 
publisher's.  While  I  have  been  condensing  into  a 
theory  by  scattered  observations  of  London  authors, 
her  ladyship  has  been  musing  upon  the  apparition  of 
the  family  carriage  of  the  Gores  at  Mr.  Clay's  lodgings. 
Lady  Mildred's  position  in  society,  though  she  had 
the  entree  to  all  the  best  houses  in  London,  precluded 
an  intimate  acquaintance  with  any  unmarried  girl — 
but  she  had  seen  Eve  Gore  and  knew  and  dreaded  her 
loveliness.  A  match  of  mere  interest  would  have 
given  her  no  uneasiness,  but  she  could  see  far  enough 
into  the  nature  of  this  beautiful  and  fresh-hearted  girl 
to  know  that  hers  would  be  no  divided  empire.  All 
women  are  conscious  that  a  single-minded,  concentra- 
ted, pure  affection,  melting  the  whole  character  into 
the  heart,  is  omnipotent  in  perpetuating  fidelity. 

"  Ernest,"  said  Lady  Mildred,  as  the  chariot  sped 
from  the  publisher's  door,  and  took  its  way  to  the 
Park,  "you  are  grown  ceremonious.  Am  I  so  new  a 
friend  that  you  can  not  open  a  note  in  my  presence  ?" 

Clay  placed  the  crushed  letter  in  her  hand. 

"1  will  have  no  secrets  from  you,  dear  Lady  Mildred. 
There  is  probably  much  in  that  note  that  will  surprise 
you.  Break  the  seal,  however,  and  give  me  your  ad- 
vice.    I  will  not  promise  to  follow  it." 

The  blood  flushed  to  the  temples  of  Lady  Mildred 
as  she  read-  but  her  lips,  though  pale  and  trembling, 
were  compressed  by  a  strong  effort  of  self  control. 
She  turned  back  and  read  the  note  again  in  a  murmur- 
ing undertone: — 

"  Dear  Mr.  Clay  :  From  causes  which  you  will 
probably  understand,  I  have  been  induced  to  recon- 
sider your  proposal  of  marriage  to  my  niece. — Impru- 
dent as  I  must  still  consider  your  union,  I  find  myself 
in  such  a  situation  that,  should  you  persevere,  I  must 
decide  in  its  favor,  as  the  least  of  two  evils.  You  will 
forgive  my  anxious  care,  however,  if  I  exact  of  you, 
before  taking  any  decided  step,  a  full  and  fair  state- 
ment of  your  pecuniary  embarrassments  (which  I 
understand  are  considerable)  and  your  present  income 
and  prospects.  I  think  it  proper  to  inform  you  that 
Miss  Gore's  expectations,  beyond  an  annuity  of  c£300 
a  year,  are  very  distant,  and  that  all  your  calculations 
should  be  confined  to  that  amount.  With  this  under- 
standing, I  should  be  pleased  to  see  you  at  Ashurst 
to-morrow  morning.         Yours,  truly, 

"  Thomas  Gore." 

"Hear  me  before  you  condemn, dear  Lady  Mildred," 
passionately  exclaimed  Ernest,  as  she  clasped  her 
hands  over  the  letter  and  her  tears  fell  fast  upon  them  : 
"  I  was  wrong  to  leave  the  discovery  of  this  to  chance 
— I  should  have  dealt  more  frankly  with  you — indeed, 
if  I  had  had  the  opportunity — "' 

Lady  Mildred  looked  up,  as  if  to  reproach  him  for 
the  evasion  half  uttered. 

"  I  have  seen  you  daily,  it  is  true,  but  every  hour  is 
not  an  hour  for  confession  like  this,  and  besides,  my 
new  love  was  a  surprise,  and  what  I  have  to  confess  is 
a  change  in  my  feelings  still  more  recent — a  constant- 
ly brightening  vision  of  a  life  (pardon  me,  Lady  Mil- 
dred !)  deeper  a  thousand  fold,  and  a  thousand  times 
sweeter  and  more  engrossing  than  ours." 

"  You  are  frank,"  said  his  pale  listener,  who  had  re- 
covered her  self-possession,  and  seemed  bent  now,  as 
usual,  only  on  listening  and  entering  into  his  feelings. 

"  I  would  be  so,  indeed,"  he  resumed;  "but  I  have 


•254 


ERNEST  CLAY. 


not  yet  come  to  my  confession.  Life  is  too  short, 
Lady  Mildred,  and  youth  too  vanishing,  to  waste  feel- 
ing on  delusion." 

"  Such  as  your  love,  do  you  mean,  Ernest  ?" 

"  Pardon  me  !     Were  you  my  wife " 

Lady  Mildred  made  a  slight  motion  of  impatience 
with  her  hand,  and  unconsciously  raised  the  expressive 
arching  of  her  lip. 

"  I  must  name  this  forbidden  subject  to  be  under- 
stood. See  what  a  false  position  is  mine  !  You  are 
too  proud  to  marry,  but  have  not  escaped  loving  me, 
and  you  wish  me  to  be  contented  with  a  perfume  on 
the  breeze,  to  feel  a  property  in  a  bird  in  the  sky.  It 
was  very  sweet  to  begin  to  love  you,  to  win  and  join 
step  by  step,  to  have  food  for  hope  in  what  was  refused 
me.  But  I  am  checked,  and  you  are  still  free.  I  stand 
at  an  impassable  barrier,  and  you  demand  that  I  should 
feel  united  to  you." 

"  You  are  ungrateful,  Ernest !" 

"  If  I  were  your  slave,  I  am,  for  you  load  me  with 
favors — but  as  your  lover,  no  !  It  does  not  fill  my 
heart  to  open  your  house  to  me,  to  devote  to  me  your 
dining  hours,  your  horses  and  servants,  to  let  the 
world  know  that  you  love  me,  to  make  me  your 
romance — yet  have  all  the  common  interests  of  life 
apart,  have  a  station  in  society  apart,  and  ambition  not 
mine,  a  name  not  mine,  and  hearth  not  mine.  You 
share  my  wild  passions,  and  my  fashionable  negations, 
not  my  homely  feelings  and  everyday  sorrows.  I  have 
a  whole  existence  into  which  you  never  enter.  I  am 
something  besides  a  fashionable  author — but  not  to 
you.  I  have  a  common  human  heart — a  pillow  upon 
which  lies  down  no  fancy — a  morning  which  is  not 
spent  in  sleep  or  listlessness,  but  in  the  earning  of  my 
bread — I  have  dulness  and  taciturnity  and  caprice — 
and  in  all  these  you  have  no  share.  I  am  a  butterfly 
and  an  earth-worm,  by  turns,  and  you  know  me  only 
on  the  wins;.     You  do  not  answer  me!" 

Lady  Mildred,  as  I  have  said  before,  was  an  admirer 
of  genius,  and  though  Ernest  was  excusing  an  infideli- 
ty to  herself,  the  novelty  of  his  distinctions  opened  to  | 
her  a  new  chapter  in  the  book  of  love,  and  she  was 
interested  far  beyond  resentment.  He  was  talking 
from  his  heart,  too,  and  every  one  who  has  listened  to  a 
murmur  of  affection,  knows  what  sweetness  the  breath- 
ings of  those  deeper  veins  of  feeling  infuse  into  the 
voice.  To  a  palled  Sybarite  like  Lady  Mildred,  there 
was  a  wild-flower  freshness  in  all  this  that  was  irresisti- 
bly captivating.  A  smile  stole  through  her  lips  instead 
of  the  reproach  and  anger  that  he  expected. 

"  I  do  not  answer  you,  my  dear  Ernest,  for  the  same 
reason  I  would  not  tear  a  leaf  out  of  one  of  your  books 
unread.  I  quite  enter  into  your  feelings.  I  wish  I 
could  hear  you  talk  of  them  hours  longer.  Their 
simplicity  and  truth  enchant  me — but  I  confess  I  can 
not  see  what  you  propose  to  yourself.  Do  you  think 
to  reconcile  and  blend  all  these  contradictory  moods 
by  an  imprudent  marriage  ?  Or  do  you  mean  to  vow 
your  butterfly  to  celibacy,  and  marry  your  worm-fly 
alone,  and  grovel  in  sympathy  rather  than  take  love 
with  you  when  you  soar,  and  keep  your  grovelling  to 
yourself." 

"  I  think  Eve  Gore  would  love  me,  soaring  or  creep- 
ing, Lady  Mildred  !  She  would  be  happier  sitting  by 
my  table  while  I  wrote,  than  driving  in  this  gay  crowd 
with  her  chariot.  She  would  lose  the  light  of  her  life 
in  absence  from  me,  like  a  cloud  receding  from  the 
moon,  whatever  stars  sparkled  around  her.  She 
would  be  with  me  at  all  hours  of  the  day  and  the  night, 
sharing  every  thought  that  could  spring  to  my  lips, 
and  reflecting  my  own  soul  for  ever.  You  will  forgive 
me  for  finding  out  this  want,  this  void,  while  you  loved 
me.  But  I  have  felt  it  sickeningly  in  your  bright 
rooms,  with  music  and  perfume,  and  the  touch  of  your 
hand  all  conspiring  to  enchant  me.  In  the  very  hours 
when  most  men   on  earth  would  have  envied  me,  I 


have  felt  the  humbler  chambers  of  my  heart  ache  with 
loneliness.  I  have  longed  for  some  still  and  dark  re 
treat,  where  the  beating  of  my  pulse  would  be  protes- 
tation enough,  and  where  she  who  loved  me  was  blest 
to  overflowing  with  my  presence  only.  Affection  is  a 
glow-worm  light,  dear  Lady  Mildred  !  It  pales  amid 
splendor." 

"  But  you  should  have  a  glow-worm's  habits  to 
relish  it,  my  dear  poet.  You  can  not  live  on  a  blade 
of  grass,  nor  shine  brightest  out  of  doors  in  the  rain. 
Let  us  look  at  it  without  these  Claude  Lorraine 
glasses,  and  see  the  truth.  Mr.  Thomas  Gore  offers 
you  c£300  a  year  with  his  neice.  Your  own  income, 
the  moment  you  marry,  is  converted  from  pocket- 
money  into  subsistence — from  the  purchase  of  gloves 
and  Hungary  water  into  butcher's  meat  and  groceries. 
You  retire  to  a  small  house  in  one  of  the  cheaper  streets. 
You  have  been  accustomed  to  drive  out  continually, 
and  for  several  years  you  have  not  only  been  free  from 
the  trouble  and  expense  of  your  own  dinner,  but  you 
have  pampered  your  taste  with  the  varied  chefs  cVazuvre 
of  all  the  best  cooks  of  London.  You  dine  at  home 
now,  feeding  several  mouths  beside  your  own,  on  what 
is  called  a  family  dinner — say,  as  a  good  specimen,  a 
beefsteak  and  potatoes,  with  a  Yorkshire  pudding. 
Instead  of  retiring  after  your  coffee  to  a  brilliantly 
lighted  drawning-room,  where  collision  with  some 
portion  of  the  most  gifted  society  of  London  dis- 
ciplines your  intellect  and  polishes  your  wit  and  fancy, 
you  sit  down  by  your  wife's  work-table,  and  grow 
sleepy  over  your  plans  of  economy,  sigh  for  the  gay 
scenes  you  once  moved  in,  and  go  to  bed  to  be  rid  of 
your  regrets." 

"  But  why  should  I  be  exiled  from  society,  my  dear 
Lady  Mildred  ?  What  circle  in  London  would  not 
take  a  new  grace  from  the  presence  of  such  a  woman 
as  Eve  Gore  ?" 

"Oh,  marvellous  simplicity  !  If  men  kept  the  gates 
of  society,  a  la  bonne  heure  ! — for  then  a  party  would 
consist  of  one  man  (the  host),  and  a  hundred  pretty 
women.  But  the  "free  list"  of  society,  you  know, 
as  well  as  I,  my  love-blind  friend,  is  exclusively  mas- 
culine. Woman  keeps  the  door,  and  easy  as  turns  the 
hinge  to  the  other  sex,  it  swings  reluctant  to  her  own. 
You  may  name  a  hundred  men  in  your  circle  whose 
return  for  the  hospitality  of  fashionable  houses  it 
would  be  impossible  to  guess  at,  but  you  can  not 
point  me  out  one  married  woman,  whose  price  of 
admission  is  not  as  well  known  and  as  rigidly  exacted, 
as  the  cost  of  an  opera-box. — Those  who  do  not  give 
sumptuous  parties  in  their  turn  (and  even  these  must 
be  well  bred  and  born  people),  are  in  the  first  place 
very  ornamental ;  but,  besides  being  pretty,  they  must 
either  sing  or  flirt.  There  are  but  two  classes  of 
women  in  fashionable  society — the  leaders  or  party- 
givers,  and  the  decoys  to  young  men.     There  is  the 

pretty   Mrs.  ,   for  example,   whose   habitation 

nobody  knows  but  as  a  card  with  an  address;  and  why 
is  she  everywhere  ?  Simply,  because  she  draws  four 
or  five  fashionable  young  men,  who  would  find  no  in- 
ducement to  come  if  she  were  not  there.     Then  there 

is    Mrs.  ,  who   sings  enchantingly,  and   Mrs. 

,  who  is  pretty,  and  a  linguist,  and  entertains 

stupid  foreigners,  and  Mrs. ,  who  is  ciever  at 

charades,  and  plays  quadrilles,  and  what  would  Mrs. 
Clay  do?     Is  she  musical  ?" 

"  She  is  beautiful !" 

"  Well — she  must  flirt.  With  three  or  four  fash- 
ionable lovers " 

"Lady  Mildred!" 

"Pardon  me,  I  was  thinking  aloud.  Well — I  will 
suppose  you  an  exception  to  this  Mede-and-Persian 
law  of  the  beau  monde,  and  allow  for  a  moment  that 
Mrs.  Clay,  with  an  income  of  five  or  six  hundred  a 
year,  with  no  eyes  for  anybody  but  her  husband, 
poor,  pretty,  and  innocent  (what  a  marvel  it  would  be 


ERNEST  CLAY. 


255 


in  May  Fair,  by-the-way  !),  becomes  as  indispensable 
to  a  partie  fine  as  was  Mr.  Clay  while  in  unmarried 
celebrity.  Mind,  I  am  not  talking  of  routs  and  balls, 
where  anybody  can  go,  because  there  must  be  a  crowd, 
but  of  petits  soupers,  select  dinners,  and  entertain- 
ments where  every  guest  is  invited  as  an  ingredient  to 
a  well-studied  cup  of  pleasure.  I  will  suppose  for  an 
instant,  that  a  connubial  and  happy  pair  could  be  de- 
sirable in  such  circles.  What  part  of  your  income 
of  five  or  six  hundred  a  year,  do  you  suppose,  would 
dress  and  jewel  your  wife,  keep  carriage  and  servants, 
and  pay  for  your  concert-tickets  and  opera-boxes — all 
absolutely  indispensable  to  people  who  go  out  ?  Why, 
my  dear  Ernest,  your  whole  income  would  not  suffice 
for  the  half.  You  must  '  live  shy,'  go  about  in  hack- 
ney-coaches, dress  economically  (which  is  execrable 
in  a  woman),  and  endure  the  neglects  and  mortifica- 
tions which  our  pampered  servants  inevitably  inflict 
on  shabby  people.  Your  life  would  be  one  succes- 
sion of  bitter  mortifications,  difficulties,  and  heart- 
burnings. Believe  me,  there  is  no  creature  on  earth 
so  exquisitely  wretched  as  a  man  with  a  fashionable 
wife  and  small  means." 

Lady  Mildred  had  been  too  much  accustomed  to 
the  management  of  men,  not  to  leave  Ernest,  after  this 
homily,  to  his  own  thoughts.  A  woman  of  less 
knowledge  and  tact  would  have  followed  up  this  argu- 
ment with  an  appeal  to  his  feelings.  But  beside  that, 
she  wished  the  seed  she  had  thus  thrown  into  his 
mind  to  germinate  with  thought.  She  knew  that  it 
was  a  wise  principle  in  the  art  of  love  to  be  cold  by 
daylight.  Ernest  sat  silent,  with  his  eyes  cast  musing- 
ly down  to  the  corner  of  the  chariot,  where  the  smal- 
lest foot  and  prettiest  chaussure  conceivable  was  play- 
ing with  the  tassel  of  the  window-pull ;  and  reserving 
her  more  effective   game  of  feeling  for  the  evening, 

when  they  were  to  meet  at  Mrs.  R 's,  she  set  him 

down  at  his  clubhouse  with  a  calm  and  cold  adieu, 
and  drove  home  to  bathe,  dine  alone,  sleep,  and  re- 
fresh body  and  spirit  for  the  struggle  against  love  and 
Eve  Gore. 


CHAPTER  III. 

Genius  is  lord  of  the  world.  Men  labor  at  the 
foundation  of  society,  while  the  lowly  lark,  unseen 
and  little  prized,  sits,  hard  by,  in  his  nest  on  the  earth, 
gathering  strength  to  bear  his  song  up  to  the  sun. 
Slowly  rise  basement  and  monumental  aisle,  column 
and  architrave,  dome  and  lofty  tower;  and  when  the 
cloud-piercing  spire  is  burnished  with  gold,  and  the 
fabric  stands  perfect  and  wondrous,  up  springs  the  for- 
gotten lark,  with  airy  wheel  to  the  pinnacle,  and 
standing  poised  and  unwondering  on  his  giddy  perch, 
he  pours  out  his  celestial  music  till  his  bright  footing 
trembles  with  harmony.  And  when  the  song  is  done, 
and  mounting  thence,  he  soars  away  to  fill  his  ex- 
hausted heart  at  the  fountains  of  the  sun,  the  dwel- 
lers in  the  towers  below  look  up  to  the  gilded  spire 
and  shout — not  to  the  burnished  shaft,  but  to  the 
lark — lost  from  it  in  the  sky. 

"  Mr.  Clay !"  repeated  the  last  footman  on  Mrs.  K's 
flower-laden  staircase. 

I  have  let  you  down  as  gently  as  possible,  dear 
reader;  but  here  we  are  in  one  of  the  most  fashion- 
able houses  in  May  Fair. 

Pardon  me  a  moment!  Did  I  say  I  had  let  you 
down  ?  What  pyramid  of  the  Nile  is  piled  up  like 
the  gradations  between  complete  insignificance  and 
the  effect  of  that  footman's  announcement?  On  the 
heels  of  Ernest,  and  named  with  the  next  breath  of 
the  menial's  lips,  came  the  bearer  of  a  title  laden 
with  the  emblazoned  honors  of  descent.     Had  he  en- 


|  tered  a  hall  of  statuary,  he  could  not  have  been  less 
regarded.  All  eyes  were  on  the  pale  forehead  and 
calm  lips  that  had  entered  before  him ;  and  the  blood 
of  the  warrior  who  made  the  name,  and  of  the  states- 
men and  nobles  who  had  borne  it,  and  the  accumu- 
lated honor  and  renown  of  centuries  of  unsullied  dis- 
tinctions— all  these  concentrated  glories  in  the  midst 
of  the  most  polished  and  discriminating  circle  on 
earth,  paled  before  the  lamp  of  yesterday,  burning  in 
the  eye  of  genius.  Where  is  distinction  felt  ?  In 
secret,  amid  splendor  ?  No  !  In  the  street  and  the 
vulgar  gaze?  No!  In  "the  bosom  of  love?  She 
only  remembers  it.  Where,  then,  is  the  intoxicating 
cup  of  homage — the  delirious  draught  for  which 
brain,  soul,  and  nerve,  are  tasked,  tortured,  and 
spent — where  is  it  lifted  to  the  lips  ?  The  answer 
brings  me  back.  Eyes  shining  from  amid  jewels, 
voices  softened  with  gentle  breeding,  smiles  awaken- 
ing beneath  costly  lamps — an  atmosphere  of  perfume, 
splendor,  and  courtesy — these  form  the  poet's  Hebe, 
and  the  hero's  Ganymede.  These  pour  for  ambition 
the  draught  that  slakes  his  fever — these  hold  the  cup 
to  lips,  drinking  eagerly,  that  would  turn  away  in  sol- 
itude, from  the  ambrosia  of  the  gods  ! 

Clay's  walk  through  the  sumptuous  rooms  of  Mrs. 

R was  like  a  Roman  triumph.     He  was  borne  on 

from  lip  to  lip — those  before  him  anticipating  his 
greeting,  and  those  he  left,  still  sending  their  bright 
and  kind  words  after  him.     He  breathed  incense. 

Suddenly,  behind  him,  he  heard  the  voice  of  Eve 
Gore.  She  was  making  the  tour  of  the  rooms  on  the 
arm  of  a  friend,  and  following  Ernest,  had  insensibly 
tried  to  get  nearer  to  him,  and  had  become  flushed 
and  troubled  in  the  effort.  They  had  never  before 
met  in  a  large  party,  and  her  pride,  in  the  universal 
attention  he  attracted,  still  more  flushed  her  eyelids 
and  injured  her  beauty.  She  gave  him  her  hand  as 
he  turned ;  but  the  greeting  that  sprang  to  her  lips 
was  checked  by  a  sudden  consciousness  that  many 
eyes  were  on  her,  and  she  hesitated,  murmured  some 
broken  words,  and  was  silent.  The  immediate  atten- 
tion that  Clay  had  given  to  her,  interrupted  at  the 
same  moment  the  undertoned  murmur  around  him, 
and  there  was  a  minute's  silence,  in  which  the  inevit- 
able thought  flashed  across  his  mind  that  he  had  over- 
rated her  loveliness.  Still  the  trembling  and  clinging 
clasp  of  her  hand,  and  the  appealing  earnestness  of 
her  look,  told  him  what  was  in  her  heart — and  when 
was  ever  genius  ungrateful  for  love  !  He  made  a 
strong  effort  to  reason  down  his  disappointment,  and 
had  the  embarrassed  girl  resumed  instantly  her  natu- 
ral ease  and  playfulness,  his  sensitive  imagination 
would  have  been  conquered,  and  its  recoil  forgotten. 
But  love,  that  lends  us  words,  smiles,  tears,  all  we 
want,  in  solitude,  robs  us  in  the  gay  crowd  of  every- 
thing but  what  we  can  not  use — tears  !  As  the  man 
she  worshipped  led  her  on  through  those  bright 
rooms,  Eve  Gore,  though  she  knew  not  why,  felt  the 
large  drops  ache  behind  her  eyes.  She  would  have 
sobbed  if  she  had  tried  to  speak.  Clay  had  given  her 
his  arm,  and  resumed  his  barter  of  compliment  with 
the  crowd,  and  with  it  a  manner  she  had  never  before 
seen.  He  had  been  a  boy,  fresh,  frank,  ardent,  and 
unsuspicious,  at  Annesley  Park.  She  saw  him  now 
in  the  cold  and  polished  armor  of  a  man  who  has 
been  wounded  as  well  as  flattered  by  the  world,  and 
who  presents  his  shield  even  to  a  smile.  Impossible 
as  it  was  that  he  should  play  the  lover  now,  she  felt 
wronged  and  hurt  by  his  addressing  the  same  tone  of 
elegant  trifling  and  raillery  which  was  the  key  of  the 
conversation  around  them.  She  knew,  too,  that  she 
herself  was  appearing  to  disadvantage  ;  and  before  a 
brief  hour  had  elapsed,  she  had  become  a  prey  to  an- 
other feeling — the  bitter  avarice  which  is  the  curse 
of  all  affection  for  the  gifted  or  the  beautiful— an  ava- 
arice  that  makes  every  smile  given  back  for  admiration., 


256 


ERNEST  CLAY. 


a  germ  torn  from  us — every  word,  even  of  thanks  for 
courtesy,  a  life-drop  of  our  hearts  drank  away. 

H  The  moon  looks 
On  many  brooks, 
The  brook  can  see  no  moon  but  this," 

contains  the  mordent  secret  of  most  hearts  vowed  to 
the  love  of  remarkable  genius  or  beauty. 

The  supper-rooms  had  been  some  time  open;  from 
these  and  the  dancing  hall,  the  half-weary  guests 
were  coming  back  to  the  deep  fauteuils,  the  fresher 
air,  and  the  graver  society  of  the  library,  which  had 
served  as  an  apartment  of  reception.  "With  a  clouded 
brow,  thoughtful  and  silent,  Eve  Gore  sat  with  her 
mother  in  a  recess  near  the  entrance,  and  Clay,  who 
had  kept  near  them,  though  their  conversation  had 
long  since  languished,  stood  in  the  centre  of  a  small 
group  of  fashionable  men,  much  more  brilliant  and 
far  louder  in  his  gayety  than  he  would  have  been 
with  a  heart  at  ease.  It  was  one  of  those  nights  of 
declining  May,  when  the  new  foliage  of  the  season 
seems  to  have  exhausted  the  air,  and  though  it  was 
near  morning,  there  came  through  the  open  windows 
neither  coolness  nor  vitality.  Fans,  faded  wreaths, 
and  flushed  faces,  were  universal. 

A  footman  stood  suddenly  in  the  vacant  door. 

"  Lady  Mildred !" 

The  announcements  had  been  over  for  hours,  and  ev- 
ery eye  was  turned  on  the  apparition  of  so  late  a  comer. 

Quietly,  but  with  a  step  as  elastic  as  the  nod  of  a 
water-lily,  Lady  Mildred  glided  inio  the  room,  and 
the  high  tones  and  unharmonized  voices  of  the  differ- 
ent groups  suddenly  ceased,  and  were  succeeded  by 
a  low  and  sustained  murmur  of  admiration.  A  white 
dress  of  faultless  freshness  of  fold,  a  snowy  turban, 
from  which  hung  on  either  temple  a  cluster  of  crim- 
son camelias  still  wet  with  the  night  dew  ;  long  raven 
curls  of  undisturbed  grace  falling  on  shoulders  of  that 
undescribable  and  dewy  coolness  which  follows  a 
morning  bath,  giving  the  skin  the  texture  and  the 
opaque  whiteness  of  the  lily  ;  lips  and  skin  redolent 
of  the  repose  and  purity,  and  the  downcast  but  wake- 
ful eye  so  expressive  of  recent  solitude,  and  so  pecu- 
liar to  one  who  has  not  spoken  since  she  slept. 
These  were  attractions  which,  in  contrast  with  the 
paled  glories  around,  elevated  Lady  Mildred  at  once 
into  the  predominant  star  of  the  night. 

"  What  news  from  the  bottom  of  the  sea,  most 
adorable  Venus  ?"  said  a  celebrated  artist,  standing 
out  from  the  group  and  drawing  a  line  through  the 
air  with  his  finger  as  if  he  were  sketching  the  flowing 
outline  of  her  form. 

Lady  Mildred  laid  her  small  hand  on  Clay's,  and 
with  a  smile,  but  no  greeting  else,  passed  on.  The 
bantering  question  of  the  great  painter  told  her  that 
her  spell  worked  to  a  miracle,  and  she  was  too  shrewd 
an  enchantress  to  dissolve  it  by  the  utterance  of  a 
word.  She  glided  on  like  a  spirit  of  coolness,  calm, 
silent,  and  graceful,  and,  standing  a  moment  on  the 
threshold  of  the  apartment  beyond,  disappeared, 
with  every  eye  fixed  on  her  vanishing  form  in  won- 
dering admiration.  Purity  was  the  effect  she  had  pro- 
duced— purity  in  contrast  with  the  flowers  in  the 
room — purity  (Ernest  Clay  felt  and  wondered  at  it), 
even  in  contrast  with  Eve  Gore  !  There  was  silence 
in  the  library  for  an  instant,  and  then,  one  by  one,  the 
gay  group  around  our  hero  followed  in  search  of  the 
new  star  of  the  hour,  and  he  was  left  standing  alone. 
He  turned  to  speak  to  his  silent  friends,  but  the  man- 
ner of  Mrs.  Gore  was  restrained,  and  Eve  sat  pale  and 
tearful  within  the  curtain  of  the  recess,  and  looked  as 
if  her  heart  was  breaking. 

"  I  should  like — I  should  like  to  go  home,  mother!" 
she  said  presently,  with  a  difficult  articulation.  "  I 
think  I  am  not  well.  Mr.  Clay — Ernest — will  see, 
perhaps,  if  our  carriage  is  here." 


"You  will  find  us  in  the  shawl-room,"  said  Mrs. 
Gore,  following  him  to  the  staircase,  and  looking  after 
him  with  troubled  eyes. 

The  carriage  was  at  the  end  of  the  line,  and  could 
not  come  up  for  an  hour.  Day  was  dawning,  and 
Ernest  had  need  of  solitude  and  thought.  He  crossed 
to  the  park,  and  strode  off  through  the  wet  grass, 
bathing  his  forehead  with  handfuls  of  dew.  Alas ! 
the  fevered  eyes  and  pallid  lips  he  had  last  seen  were 
less  in  harmony  with  the  calm  stillness  of  the  dawn 
than  the  vision  his  conscience  whispered  him  was 
charmed  for  his  destruction.  As  the  cool  air  brought 
back  his  reason,  he  remembered  Eve's  embarrassed 
address  and  his  wearisome  and  vain  efforts  to  amuse 
her.  He  remembered  her  mother's  reproving  eye, 
her  own  colder  utterance  of  his  name,  and  then  in 
powerful  relief  came  up  the  pictures  he  had  brooded 
on  since  his  conversation  in  the  chariot  with  Lady 
Mildred,  visions  of  self-denial  and  loss  of  caste  op- 
posed to  the  enchantments  of  passion  without  re- 
straint or  calculation,  and  his  head  and  heart  became 
wild  with  conflicting  emotions.  One  thing  was  cer- 
tain. He  must  decide  now.  He  must  speak  to  Eve 
Gore  before  parting,  and  in  the  tone  of  his  voice,  if  it 
were  but  a  word,  there  must  be  that  which  her  love 
would  interpret  as  a  bright  promise  or  a  farewell.  He 
turned  back.  At  the  gate  of  the  park  stood  one  ot 
the  guilty  wanderers  of  the  streets,  who  seized  him 
by  the  sleeve  and  implored  charity. 

"  Who  are  you  ?"  exclaimed  Clay,  scarce  knowing 
what  he  uttered. 

"As  good  as  she  is,"  screamed  the  woman,  pointing 
to  Lady  Mildred's  carriage,  "only  not  so  rich!  Oh, 
we  could  change  places,  if  all's  true." 

Ernest  stood  still  as  if  his  better  angel  had  spoken 
through  those  painted  lips.  He  gasped  with  the 
weight  that  rose  slowly  from  his  heart  ;  and  purcha- 
sing his  release  from  the  unfortunate  wretch  who 
had  arrested  his  steps,  he  crossed  slowly  to  the 
door  crowded  with  the  menials  of  the  gay  throng 
within. 

"  Lady  Mildred's  carriage  stops  the  way  !"  shouted 
a  footman,  as  he  entered.  He  crossed  the  hall,  and 
at  the  door  of  the  shawl-room  he  was  met  by  Lady 
Mildred  herself,  descending  from  the  hall,  surrounded 
with  a  troop  of  admirers.  Clay  drew  back  to  let  her 
pass  ;  but  while  he  looked  into  her  face,  it  became 
radiant  with  the  happiness  of  meeting  him,  and  the 
temptation  to  join  her  seemed  irresistible.  She  en- 
tered the  room,  followed  by  her  gay  suite,  and  last  of 
all  by  Ernest,  who  saw  with  the  first  glance  at  the 
Gores  that  he  was  believed  to  have  been  with  her  du- 
ring the  half-hour  that  had  elapsed.  He  approached 
Eve  ;  but  the  sense  of  an  injustice  he  could  not  im- 
mediately remove,  checked  the  warm  impulse  with 
which  he  was  coming  to  pour  out  his  heart,  and 
against  every  wish  and  feeling  of  his  soul,  he  was 
constrained  and  cold. 

"  No,  indeed  !"  exclaimed  Lady  Mildred,  her  voice 
suddenly  becoming  audible,  "  I  shall  set  down  Mr. 
Clay,  whose  door  I  pass.  Lord  George,  ask  Mr. 
Clay  if  he  is  ready." 

Eve  Gore  suddenly  laid  her  hand  on  his  arm,  as  if 
a  spirit  had  whispered  that  her  last  chance  for  happi- 
ness was  poised  on  that  moment's  lapse. 

"  Ernest,"  she  said,  in  a  voice  so  unnaturally  low 
that  it  made  his  veins  creep  with  the  fear  that  her 
reason  was  unseated,  "  I  am  lost  if  you  go  with  her. 
Stay,  dear  Ernest !  She  can  not  love  you  as  I  do  ! 
I  implore  you  remember  that  my  life — my  life " 

"  Beg  pardon,"  said  Lord  George,  laying  his  hand 
familiarly  on  Clay's  shoulder,  and  drawing  him  away, 
"  Lady  Mildred  waits  for  you  !" 

"  I  will  return  in  an  instant,  dearest  Eve,"  he  said, 
springing  again  to  her  side,  "  I  will  apologize  and  be 
with  you.     One  instant — only  one " 


ERNEST  CLAY. 


257 


"Thank  God!"  said  the  poor  girl,  sinking  into  a 
chair  and  bursting  into  tears. 

Lady  Mildred  sat  in  her  chariot,  but  her  head 
drooped  on  her  breast,  and  her  arm  hung  lifeless  at 
her  side. 

"She  is  surely  ill,"  said  Lord  George;  "jump  in, 
Clay,  my  fine  fellow.  Get  her  home.  Shut  the  door, 
Thomas!  Go  on,  coachman!"  And  away  sped  the 
fleet  horses  of  Lady  Mildred,  but  not  homeward. 
Clay  lifted  her  head  and  spoke  to  her,  but  receiving 
no  answer,  he  busied  himself  chafing  her  hands, 
and  the  carriage-blinds  being  drawn,  he  thought  mo- 
mently he  should  be  rid  of  his  charge  by  their  arrival 
in  Grosvenor  square.  But  the  minutes  elapsed,  and 
still  the  carriage  sped  on  ;  and  surprised  at  last  into 
suspicion,  he  raised  his  hand  to  the  checkstring,  but 
the  small  fingers  he  had  been  chafing  so  earnestly  ar- 
rested his  arm. 

"No,  no!"  said  Lady  Mildred,  rising  from  his 
shoulder,  and  throwing  her  arms  passionately  around 
his  neck,  "  you  must  go  blindfold,  and  go  with  me ! 
Ernest!  Ernest!"  she  continued,  as  he  struggled  an 
instant  to  reach  the  string;  but  he  felt  her  tears  on 
his  breast,  and  his  better  angel  ceased  to  contend  with 
him.  He  sank  back  in  the  chariot  with  those  fragile 
arms  wound  around  him,  and,  with  fever  in  his  brain, 
and  leaden  sadness  at  his  heart,  suffered  that  swift 
chariot  to  speed  on  its  guilty  way. 

In  a  small  maison  de  plaisance,  which  he  well  knew, 
in  one  of  the  most  romantic  dells  of  Devon,  built 
with  exquisite  taste  by  Lady  Mildred,  and  filled  with 
all  that  art  and  wealth  could  minister  to  luxury,  Er- 
nest Clay  passed  the  remainder  of  the  summer,  for- 
getful of  everything  beyond  his  prison  of  pleasure, 
except  a  voice  full  of  bitter  remorse,  which  some- 
times, in  the  midst  of  his  abandonment,  whispered  the 
name  of  Eve  Gore. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

The  rain  poured  in  torrents  from  the  broad  leads  and 

Gothic  battlements  of Castle,  and  the  dull  and 

plashing   echoes,   sent  up  with  steady  reverberation  ! 
from  the  stone  pavement  of  the  terrace  and  courts,  I 
lulled  to  a  late  sleep  one  of  most  gay  and  fashionable  I 
parties  assembled  out  of  London.     It  was  verging  j 
toward  noon,  and,  startled  from  a  dream  of  music,  by  | 
the  entrance  of  a  servant,  Ernest  Clay  drew  back  the 
heavy  bed-curtains  and  looked  irresolutely  around  his 
luxurious   chamber.      The  coals   in  the   bright  fire 
widened  their  smoking  cracks  and  parted  with  an  in- 
dolent effort,  the  well-trained  menial  glided  stealthily 
about,   arranging  the   preparations   for   the   author's 
toilet,  the  gray  daylight   came   in  grayer  and  softer 
through  the  draped  folds  which  fell  over  the  windows, 
and  if  there  was  temptation  to  get  up,  it  extended  no 
farther  than  to  the  deeply  cushioned  and   spacious 
chair,  over  which  was  flung  a  dressing-gown  of  the 
loose  and  flowing  fashion,  and  gorgeous  stuff  of  the 
Orient. 

"  Thomas,  what  stars  are  visible  to  the  naked  eye 
this  morning?"  said  the  couchant  poet  with  a  heavy 
yawn. 

"  Sir !" 

"  I  asked  if  Lady  Grace  was  at  breakfast?" 

"  Her  ladyship  took  breakfast  in  her  own  room,  I 
believe,  sir!" 

"  '  Qualis  rex,  talis  grex.'     Bring  mine  !" 

"  Beg  pardon,  sir  ?" 

"I  said  1  would  have  an  egg  and  a  spatchcock, 
Ihomas!  And,  Thomas,  see  if  the  duke  has  done 
with  the  Morning  Post." 

"I  could  have  been  unusually  agreeable  to  Lady 
Grace,"  soliloquized  the  author,  as  he  completed  his 
17 


toilet;  "I  feel  both  gregarious  and  brilliant  this 
morning  and  should  have  breakfasted  below.  Strange 
that  one  feels  so  dexterous-minded  sometimes  after  a 
hard  drink! — Bacchus  waking  like  Aurora!  Thomas, 
you  forgot  the  claret !  1  could  coin  this  efflux  of 
soul,  now,  into  '  burning  words,'  and  I  will.  What 
is  the  cook's  name,  Thomas  ?  Gone  ?  So  has  the 
builder  of  this  glorious  spatchcock  narrowly  escaped 
immortality  !  Fairest  Lady  Grace,  the  sonnet  shall 
be  yours  at  the  rebound!  A  sonnet?  N — n — no! 
But  I  could  write  such  a  love-letter  this  morning! 
|  Morning  Post.  '  Died  at  Brighton  Mr.  William 
Brown.''  Brown — Brown — what  was  that  pretty  girl's 
name  that  married  a  Brown — a  rich  William  Brown. 
Beverley  was  her  name — Julia  Beverley — a  flower  for 
the  garden  of  Epicurus — a  mate  for  Leontium!  I 
loved  her  till  I  was  stopped  by  Mr.  Brown — loved  her? 
by  Jove,  I  loved  her — as  well  as  I  loved  anybody  that 
year.  Suppose  she  were  now  the  widow  Brown  ?  If 
I  thought  so,  faith  !  I  would  write  her  such  a  te- 
miniscent  epistle — Why  not  as  it  is — on  the  supposi- 
tion ?  Egad,  if  it  is  not  her  William  Brown,  it  is  no 
fault  of  mine.     Here  goes  at  a  venture  ! 

"  To  her  who  was  Julia  Beverley — 
"  Your  dark  eye  rests  on  this  once  familiar  hand- 
1  writing.    If  your  pulse  could  articulate  at  this  moment, 
it  would  murmur  he  loved  me  well!     He  who  writes  to 
you  now,  after  years  of  silence,  parted  from  you  with 
your  tears  upon  his  lips — parted  from  you  as  the  last 
shadow  parts  from  the  sun,  with  a  darkness  that  must 
[  deepen  till  morn  again.     I  begin  boldly,  but  the  usage 
j  of  the  world  is  based  upon  forgetfulness  in  absence, 
i  and  I  have  not  forgotten.     Yet  this  is  not  to  be  a  love- 
letter. 

"  I  am  turning  back  a  leaf  in  my  heart.  Turn  to 
it  in  yours  !  On  a  night  in  June,  within  the  shadow 
of  the  cypress  by  the  fountain  of  Ceres,  in  the  ducal 
gardens  of  Florence,  at  the  festa  of  the  duke's  birth- 
night,  I  first  whispered  to  you  of  love.  Is  it  so  writ  in 
your  tablet  ?  Or  were  those  broken  words,  and  those 
dark  tresses  drooped  on  my  breast,  mockeries  of  a 
night — flung  from  remembrance  with  the  flowers  you 
wore  ?  Flowers,  said  I  ?  Oh,  Heaven  !  how  beautiful 
you  were  with  those  lotus-stems  braided  in  your  hair, 
and  the  white  chalices  gleaming  through  your  ringlets 
as  if  pouring  their  perfume  over  your  shoulders! 
How  rosy-pale,  like  light  through  alabaster,  showed 
the  cheek  that  shrank  from  me  beneath  the  betraying 
brightness  of  the  moon!  How  musical  above  the 
murmur  of  the  fountain  rose  the  trembling  wonder 
at  my  avowal,  and  the  few  faint  syllables  of  forgiveness 
and  love.  I  strained  you  wildly  to  my  heart !  Oh, 
can  that  be  forgotten  ! 

"  With  the  news  that  your  husband  was  dead,  rush- 
ed back  these  memories  in  a  whirlwind.  For  one 
brief,  one  delirious  moment,  I  fancied  you  might  yet 
be  mine.  I  write  because  the  delirium  is  over.  Had 
it  not  been,  I  should  be  now  weeping  at  your  feet — 
my  life  upon  your  lips  ! 

"I  will  try  to  explain  to  you,  calmly,  a  feeling  that 
I  have.  We  met  in  the  aisle  of  Santa  Croce — 
strangers.  There  was  a  winged  lightness  in  your 
step,  and  a  lithe  wave  in  the  outline  of  your  form,  as 
you  moved  through  the  sombre  light,  which  thrilled 
me  like  the  awakening  to  life  of  some  piece  of  aerial 
sculpture.  I  watched  you  to  your  carriage,  and  re- 
turned to  trace  that  shadowy  aisle  for  hours,  breathing 
the  same  air,  and  trying  to  conjure  up  to  ray  imagina- 
tion the  radiant  vision  lost  to  me,  1  feared,  for  ever. 
That  night  your  necklace  parted  and  fell  at  my  feet, 
in  the  crowd  at  the  Pitti,  and  as  I  returned  the  warm 
jewel  to  your  hand,  I  recognised  the  haunting  features 
which  1  seemed  to  live  but  to  see  again.  By  the  first 
syllable  of  acknowledgment  I  knew  you — for  in  your 
voice  there  was  that  profound  sweetness  that  comes 


!58 


ERNEST  CLAY. 


only  from  a  heart  thought-saddened,  and  therefore 
careless  of  the  cold  fashion  of  the  world.  In  the  em- 
bayed window  looking  out  on  the  moonlit  terrace  of 
the  garden,  I  joined  you  with  the  confidence  of  a 
familiar  friend,  and  in  the  low  undertone  of  earnest 
and  sincerity  we  talked  of  the  thousand  themes  with 
which  the  walls  of  that  palace  of  pilgrimage  breathe 
and  kindle.  Chance-guided  and  ignorant  even  of 
each  other's  names,  we  met  on  the  galleries  of  art,  in 
the  gardens  of  noble  palaces,  in  the  thronged  re- 
sorts open  to  all  in  that  land  of  the  sun,  and  my  heart 
expanded  to  you  like  a  flower,  and  love  entered  it  with 
the  fulness  of  light.  Again,  I  say,  we  dwelt  but  upon 
themes  of  intellect,  and  I  had  not  breathed  to  you  of 
the  passion  that  grew  hour  by  hour. 

"We  met  for  the  last  time  on  the  night  of  the  duke's 
festa — in  that  same  glorious  palace  where  we  had  first 
blended  thought  and  imagination,  or  the  wondrous 
miracles  of  art.  You  were  sad  and  lower-voiced  than 
even  your  wont,  and  when  I  drew  you  from  the  crowd, 
and  wandering  with  you  through  the  flowering  alleys 
of  the  garden,  stood  at  last  by  that  murmuring  fountain, 
and  ceased  suddenly  to  speak — there  was  the  threshold 
of  love.  Did  you  forbid  me  to  enter?  You  fell  on 
my  bosom  and  wept ! 

"  Had  I  brought  you  to  this  by  love-making?  Did 
I  flatter  or  plead  my  way  into  your  heart  ?  Were  you 
wooed  or  importuned?  It  is  true  your  presence  drew 
my  better  angel  closer  to  my  side,  but  I  was  myself — 
such  as  your  brother  might  be  to  you — such  as  you 
would  have  found  me  through  life  ;  and  for  this — for 
being  what  I  was — with  no  art  or  effort  to  win  affec- 
tion, you  drew  the  veil  from  between  us — you  tempted 
from  my  bosom  the  bird  that  comes  never  back — you 
suffered  me  to  love  you,  helplessly  and  wildly,  when 
you  knew  that  love  such  as  mine  impoverishes  life 
for  ever.  The  only  illimitable  trust,  the  only  bound- 
less belief  on  earth,  is  first  love  !  What  had  I  done  to 
be  robbed  of  this  irrecoverable  gem — to  be  sent  wander- 
ing through  the  world,  a  hopeless  infidel  in  woman  ? 

"  I  have  become  a  celebrity  since  we  parted,  and 
perhaps  you  have  looked  into  my  books,  thinking  I 
might  have  woven  into  some  one  of  my  many-colored 
woofs  the  bright  thread  you  broke  so  suddenly.  You 
found  no  trace  of  it,  and  you  thought,  perhaps,  that 
all  memory  of  those  simpler  hours  was  drowned  in  the 
intoxicating  cup  of  fame.  I  have  accounted  in  this 
way  for  your  never  writing  to  cheer  or  congratulate 
me.  But  if  this  conjecture  be  true,  how  little  you 
know  the  heart  you  threw  away — how  little  you  know 
of  the  thrice-locked,  light-shining,  care-hidden  casket 
in  which  is  treasured  up  the  refused  gold  of  a  first 
love.  What  else  is  there  on  earth  worth  hiding  and 
brooding  over?  Should  I  wing  such  treasures  with 
words  and  lose  them  ? 

"  And  now  you  ask.  why,  after  years  of  healing 
silence,  I  open  this  wound  afresh,  and  write  to  you. 
Is  it  to  prove  to  you  that  I  love  you  ? — to  prepare  the 
way  to  see  you  again,  to  woo  and  win  you  ?  No — 
though  I  was  worthy  of  you  once !  No — though  I 
feel  living  in  my  soul  a  passion  that  with  long  silence 
and  imprisonment  has  become  well-nigh  uncontrolla- 
ble. I  am  not  worthy  of  you  now!  My  nature  is 
soiled  and  world-polluted.  I  am  prosperous  and 
famous,  and  could  give  you  the  station  you  never 
won,  though  you  trod  on  my  heart  to  reach  it — but 
the  lamp  is  out  on  my  altar  of  truth — I  love  by  my 
lips — I  mock  at  faith — I  marvel  at  belief  in  vows  or 
fidelity — I  would  not  trust  you,  no,  if  you  were  mine, 
I  would  not  trust  you  though  I  held  every  vein  of 
your  bosom  like  a  hound's  leash.  Till  you  can  re- 
buke whim,  till  you  can  chain  imagination,  till  you 
cau  fetter  blood,  1  will  not  believe  in  woman.  Yet  this 
is  your  work  ! 

'■'  Would  you  know  why  I  write  to  you  ?  Why  has 
Uod  given  us  the  instinct  of  outcry  in  agony,  but  to 


inflict  on  those  who  wound  us  a  portion  of  our  pain  ? 
I  would  tell  you  that  the  fire  you  kindled  so  wantonly 
burns  on — that  after  years  of  distracting  ambition, 
fame,  and  pleasure,  I  still  taste  the  bitterness  you 
threw  into  my  cup — that  in  secret  when  musing  on 
my  triumphs,  in  the  crowd  when  sick  with  adulation, 
in  this  lordly  castle  when  lapt  in  luxury  and  regard — 
in  all  hours  and  phazes  of  a  life  brilliant  and  exciting 
above  that  of  most  men,  I  mourn  over  that  betrayed 
affection,  I  see  that  averted  face,  I  worship  in  bitter 
despair  that' surpassing  loveliness  which  should  have 
been  mine  in  its  glory  and  flower. 

"  I  have  made  my  moan.  I  have  given  voice  to 
my  agony.     Farewell !" 

When  Mr.  Clay  had  concluded  this  "airing  of  his 
vocabulary,"  he  enclosed  it  in  a  hasty  note  to  his 
friend,  the  secretary  of  legation  at  the  court  of 
Tuscany,  requesting  him  to  call  on  "  two  abominable 
old  maids,  by  the  name  of  Buggins  or  Bridgins,"  who 
represented  the  scan.  mag.  of  Florence,  and  could 
doubtless  tell  him  how  to  forward  his  letter  to  "  the 
Browns  ;"  and  the  castle-bell  sounding  as  he  achieved 
the  superscription,  he  descended  to  lunch,  very  much 
lightened  of  his  ennui,  but  with  no  more  memory  of 
the  "  faithless  Julia,"  than  of  the  claret  which  had 
supplied  some  of  the  "  intensity"  of  his  style.  The 
letter — began  as  a  mystification,  or,  if  it  had  an  object 
beyond  the  amusement  of  an  idle  hour,  intended  as  a 
whimsical  revenge  for  Miss  Beverley's  preference  of 
a  rich  husband  to  her  then  undistinguished  admirer 
— had,  in  the  heat  of  composition,  and  quite  uncon- 
sciously to  Clay,  enlisted  real  feelings,  totally  discon- 
nected with  the  fair  Julia,  but  not  the  less  easily  fused 
into  shape  and  probability  by  the  facile  alchymy  of 
genius.  The  reader  will  see  at  once  that  the  feelings 
expressed  in  it  could  never  be  the  work  of  imagination. 
Truth  and  bitter  suffering  show  through  every  line, 
and  all  its  falsehood  or  fancy  lay  in  its  capricious  ad- 
dress to  a  woman  who  had  really  not  the  slightest 
share  in  contributing  to  its  material.  The  irreparable 
mischief  it  occasioned,  will  be  seen  in  the  sequel. 


CHAPTER  V. 

While  the  ambassador's  bag  is  steadily  posting  over 
the  hills  of  Burgundy  with  Mr.  Clay's  letter  to  Julia 
Beverley,  the  reader  must  be  content  to  gain  a  little 
upon  her  majesty's  courier  and  look  in  upon  a  family 
party  assembled  in  the  terraced  front  of  a  villa  in  the 
neighborhood  of  Fiesole.  The  evening  was  Italian 
and  autumnal,  of  a  ripe,  golden  glory,  and  the  air  was 
tempered  to  the  blood,  as  daylight  is  to  the  eye — so 
fitly  as  to  be  a  forgotten  blessing. 

A  well-made,  well-dressed,  robust  gentleman,  who 
might  be  forty-five,  or  a  well-preserved  sixty,  sat  at  a 
stone  table  on  the  westward  edge  of  the  terrace.  The 
London  Times  lay  on  his  lap,  and  a  bottle  of  sherry 
and  a  single  glass  stood  at  his  right  hand,  and  he  was 
dozing  quietly  after  his  dinner.  Near  a  fountain  be- 
low, two  fair  English  children  played  with  clusters  of 
ripe  grapes.  An  Italian  nurse,  forgetting  her  charge, 
stood  with  folded  arms  leaning  against  a  rough  garden 
statue,  and  looked  vacantly  at  the  sunset  sky,  while 
up  and  down  a  level  and  flowering  alley  in  the  slope 
of  the  garden,  paced  slowly  and  gracefully  Mrs. 
William  Brown,  the  mother  of  these  children,  the 
wife  of  the  gentleman  sleeping  over  his  newspaper, 
and  the  heroine  of  this  story. 

Julia  Beverley  had  been  married  five  years,  and  fot 
three  years  at  least  she  had  relinquished  the  habit  of 
dressing  her  fine  person  to  advantage.  Yet  in  that 
untransparent  sleeve  was  hiclden  an  arm  of  statuary 
roundness  and  polish,  and  in   those  carelessly   fitted 


ERNEST  CLAY. 


259 


shoes  were  disguised  feet  of  a  plump  diminutiveness 
and  arched  instep  worthy  to  be  the  theme  of  a  new 
Cenerentola.  The  voluptuous  chisel  of  the  Greek 
never  moulded  shoulders  and  bust  of  more  exquisite 
beauty,  yet  if  she  had  not  become  unconscious  of  the 
possession  of  these  charms  altogether,  she  had  so  far 
lost  the  vanity  of  her  girlhood  that  the  prudery  of  a 
quakeress  would  not  have  altered  a  fold  of  her  cash- 
mere- Her  bonnet,  as  she  walked,  had  fallen  back, 
and,  holding  it  by  one  string  over  her  shoulder,  she 
put  away  behind  her  "pearl-round  ear"  the  dark  and 
heavy  ringlet  it  had  tangled  in  iis  fall,  and,  with  its 
fellow  shading  her  cheek  and  shoulder  in  broken 
masses  of  auburn,  she  presented  a  picture  of  luxurious 
and  yet  neglected  beauty  such  as  the  undress  pencil 
of  Grenze  would  have  revelled  in  portraying.  The 
care  of  such  silken  fringes  as  veiled  her  indolent  eyes 
is  not  left  to  mortals,  and  the  covert  loves  who  curve 
these  soft  cradles  and  sleep  in  them,  had  kept  Julia 
Beverley's  with  the  fidelity  of  fairy  culture. 

The  Beverleys  had  married  their  daughter  to  Mr. 
Brown  with  the  usual  parental  care  as  to  his  fortune, 
and  the  usual  parental  forgetfulness  of  everything  else. 
There  was  a  better  chance  for  happiness,  it  is  true, 
than  in  most  matches  of  convenience,  for  the  bride- 
groom, though  past  his  meridian,  was  a  sensible  and 
very  presentable  sort  of  man,  and  the  bride  was  natural- 
ly indolent,  and  therefore  likely  to  travel  the  road 
shaped  out  for  her  by  the  very  marked  hedges  of  ex- 
pectation and  duty.  What  she  had  felt  for  Mr.  Clay 
during  their  casual  and  brief  intimacy,  will  be  seen  by- 
and-by,  but  it  had  made  no  barrier  to  her  union  with 
Mr.  Brown.  With  a  luxurious  house,  fine  horses, 
and  her  own  way,  the  stream  of  life,  for  the  first  year 
of  marriage,  ran  smoothly  off.  The  second  year  was 
chequered  with  misgivings  that  she  had  thrown  her- 
self away,  and  nights  of  bitter  weeping  over  a  destiny 
in  which  no  one  of  her  bright  dreams  of  love  seemed 
possible  to  be  realized,  and  still  habit  riveted  its  thou- 
sand chains,  her  children  grew  attractive  and  attach- 
ing, and  by  the  time  at  which  our  story  commences, 
the  warm  images  of  a  life  of  passionate  devotion  had 
cased  to  haunt  her  dreams,  sleeping  or  waking,  and 
she  bade  fair  to  live  and  die  one  of  the  happy  many 
about  whom  "  there  is  no  story  to  tell." 

Mr.  Brown  at  this  period  occupied  a  villa  in  the 
neighborhood  of  Florence,  and  on  the  arrival  of  Mr. 
('lay's  letter  at  English  Embassy,  it  was  at  once  for- 
warded to  Fiesole,  where  it  intruded  like  the  serpent 
of  old  on  the  domestic  paradise  to  which  the  reader 
has  been  introduced. 

Weak  and  ill-regulated  as  was  the  mind  of  Mrs. 
Brown,  her  first  feeling  after  reading  the  ardent  epistle 
of  Mr.  Clay,  was  unmingled  resentment  at  its  freedom. 
Her  husband's  back  was  turned  to  her  as  he  sat  on  the 
terrace,  and,  ascending  the  garden  steps,  she  threw  the 
letter  on  the  table. 

•'  Here  is  a  letter  of  condolence  on  your  death," 
she  said,  the  blood  mantling  in  her  cheek,  and  her 
lips  arched  into  an  expression  of  wounded  pride  and 
indignation. 

Alas  for  the  slight  pivot  on  which  turns  the  balance 
of  destiny — her  husband  slept ! 

"  William!"  she  said  again,  but  the  tone  was  fainter 
and  the  hand  she  raised  to  touch  him,  stayed  suspend- 
ed above  the  fated  letter. 

Waiting  one  instant  more  for  an  answer,  and  bending 
over  her  husband  to  be  sure  that  his  sleep  was  real, 
she  hastily  placed  the  letter  in  her  bosom,  and,  with 
pale  brow  and  limbs  trembling  beneath  her,  fled  to 
her  chamber.  Memory  had  required  but  an  instant 
to  call  up  the  past,  and  in  that  instant,  too,  the  honeyed 
ll  iiieiies  she  had  glanced  over  in  such  haste,  had 
burnt  into  her  imagination,  effacing  all  else,  even  the 
object  for  which  he  had  written,  and  the  reproaches 
he  had  lavished  on  her  unfaithfulness.     With  locked 


doors,  and  curtains  dropped  between  her  and  the 
glowing  twilight,  she  reperused  the  worshipping 
picture  of  herself,  drawn  so  covertly  under  the  sem- 
blance of  complaint,  and  the  feeling  of  conscious 
beauty  so  long  forgotten,  stole  back  into  her  veins 
like  the  reincarnation  of  a  departed  spirit.  With  a 
flashing  glance  at  the  tall  mirror  before  her,  she  stood 
up,  arching  her  white  neck  and  threading  her  fingers 
through  the  loosened  masses  of  her  hair.  She  felt 
that  she  was  beautiful — still  superbly  beautiful.  She 
advanced  to  the  mirror. 

Her  bright  lips,  her  pliant  motion,  the  smooth  trans- 
parence of  her  skin,  the  fulness  of  vein  and  limb,  all 
mingled  in  one  assurance  of  youth,  in  a  wild  desire 
for  admiration,  in  a  strange,  restless^  feverish  im- 
patience to  be  away  where  she  could  be  seen  and 
loved — away  to  fulfil  that  destiny  of  the  heart  which 
seemed  now  the  one  object  of  life,  though  for  years 
so  unaccountably  forgotten  ! 

"  1  was  born  to  be  loved  !"  she  wildly  exclaimed, 
pacing  her  chamber,  and  wondering  at  her  own  beauty 
as  the  mirror  gave  back  her  kindling  features  and 
animated  grace  of  movement;  "How  could  I  have 
forgotten  that  I  was  beautiful  ?"  But  at  that  instant 
her  husband's  voice,  cold,  harsh,  and  unimaginative, 
forced  its  way  to  her  ear,  and,  convulsed  with  a 
tumultuous  misery,  she  could  neither  struggle  with 
nor  define,  she  threw  herself  on  her  bed  and  abandoned 
herself  to  an  uncontrolled  agony  of  tears. 

Let  those  smile  at  this  paroxysm  of  feeling  whose 
"  dream  has  come  to  pass!"  Let  those  wonder  who 
have  never  been  startled  from  their  common-place 
existence  with  the  heart's  bitter  question — Is  tliis  alt! 

Reader  !  are  you  loved  ? — loved  as  you  dreamed  in 
youth  you  might  and  must  be — loved  by  the  matchless 
creature  you  painted  in  your  imagination,  lofty-hearted, 
confiding,  and  radiantly  fair?  Have  you  spent  your 
treasure  ?  Have  you  lavished  the  boundless  wealth 
of  your  affection  ?  Have  you  beggared  heart  and 
soul  by  the  wild  abandonment  to  love,  of  which  you 
once  felt  capable  ? 

Lady!  of  you  I  ask  :  Is  the  golden  flow  of  your 
youth  coined  as  it  melts  away  ?  Are  your  truth  and 
fervor,  your  delicacy  and  devotedness,  your  unutter- 
able depths  of  tenderness  and  tears — are  they  named 
on  another's  lips? — are  they  made  the  incense  to 
Heaven  of  another's  nightly  prayer? — Your  beauty 
is  in  its  pride  and  flower.  Who  lays  back  with  idola- 
trous caress  the  soft  parting  of  your  hair?  Who 
smiles  when  your  cheek  mantles,  and  shudders  when 
it  is  pale? — Who  sits  with  your  slenderfingers  clasped 
in  his, dumb  because  there  are  bounds  to  lan- 
guage, and  trembling  because  death  will  divide  you? 
Oh,  the  ray  of  light  wasted  on  the  ocean,  and  the  ray 
caught  and  made  priceless  in  a  king's  diamond — the 
wild-flower  perishing  in  the  woods,  and  its  sister  culled 
for  culture  in  the  garden  of  a  poet — are  not  wider 
apart  in  their  destiny  than  the  loved  and  the  neglected  ! 
— "  Blessed  are  the  beloved,"  should  read  a  new 
beatitude — "  for  theirs  is  the  foretaste  of  Paradise!" 


CHAPTER  VI. 

The  autumn  following  found  Mr.  Clay  a  pilgrim 
for  health  to  the  shores  of  the  Mediterranean.  Ex- 
hausted, body  and  soul,  with  the  life  of  alternate 
gayety  and  passion  into  which  his  celebrity  had  drawn 
him,  he  had  accepted,  with  a  sense  of  exquisite  relief, 
the  offer  of  a  cruise  among  the  Greek  Isles  in  a  friend's 
yacht,  and  in  the  pure  stillness  of  those  bright  seas, 
with  a  single  companion  and  his  books,  he  idled  away 
the  summer  in  a  luxury  of  repose  and  enjoyment  such 
as  only  the  pleasure-weary  can  understand.  Recruited 
in  health,  and  with  a  mind  beginning  to  yearn  once 


200 


ERNEST  CLAY. 


more  for  the  long  foregone  stimulus  of  society,  he 
landed  at  Naples  in  the  beginning  of  October. 

"  We  are  not  very  gay  just  now,"  said  the  English 
minister  with  whom  he  hastened  to  renew  an  ac- 
quaintance commenced  in  his  former  travels,  "but  the 
prettiest  woman  in  the  world  is  '  at  home'  to-night, 
and  if  you  are  as  susceptible  as  most  of  the  cavaliers 
of  the  Chiaja,  you  will  find  Naples  attractive  enough 
after  you  have  seen  her." 

"English?" 

•*  Yes — but  you  can  not  have  known  her,  for  I  think 
she  was  never  heard  of  till  she  came  to  Naples." 

"  Her  name?" 

"Why,  you  should  hear  that  after  seeing  her. 
Call  her  Queefl  Giovanna  and  she  will  come  nearer 
your  prepossession.  By-the-by,  what  have  you  to  do 
this  morning  ?" 

"  I  am  at  your  excellency's  disposal," 

"  Come  with  me  to  the  atelier  of  a  very  clever  artist 
then,  and  I  will  show  you  her  picture.  It  should  be 
the  man's  chef-d'teuvre,  for  he  has  lost  his  wits  in 
painting  it." 

"Literally,  do  you  mean  ?" 

"  It  would  seem  so — for  though  the  picture  was 
finished  some  months  since,  he  has  never  taken  it  off 
his  easel,  and  is  generally  found  looking  at  it.  Besides, 
he  has  neither  cleaned  pallet  nor  brush  since  the  last 
day  she  sat  to  him." 

"  If  he  were  young  and  handsome " 

"  So  he  is — and  so  are  scores  of  the  lady's  devoted 
admirers ;  but  she  is  either  prudent  or  cold  to  a  degree 
that  effectually  repels  hope,  and  the  painter  pines  with 
the  rest." 

A  few  minutes  walk  brought  them  to  a  large  room 
near  the  Corso,  tenanted  by  the  Venetian  artist, 
Ippolito  Incontri.  The  minister  presented  his  friend, 
and  Clay  forgot  their  errand  in  admiration  of  the 
magnificent  brigand  face  and  figure  of  the  painter, 
who,  after  a  cold  salutation,  retreated  into  the  darkest 
corner  of  the  point  of  view,  and  stood  gazing  past  them 
at  his  easel,  silent  and  unconscious  of  observation. 

"I  have  seen  your  wonder,"  said  Clay,  turning  to 
the  picture  with  a  smile,  and  at  the  first  glance  only 
remarking  its  resemblance  to  a  face  that  should  be 
familiar  to  him.  "  I  am  surprised  that  I  can  not 
name  her  at  once,  for  I  am  sure  I  know  her  well. 
But,  stay ! — the  light  grows  on  my  eye — no  ! — with 
that  expression,  certainly  not — I  am  sure,  now,  that  I 
have  not  seen  her.  Wonderful  beauty  !  Yet  there 
was  a  superficial  likeness  !  Have  you  ever  remarked, 
Signor  Incontri,  that,  through  very  intellectual  faces, 
such  as  this,  you  can  sometimes  see  what  the  counte- 
nance would  have  been  in  other  circumstances — with- 
out the  advantages  of  education,  I  mean  ?" 

No  answer.  The  painter  was  absorbed  in  his  pic- 
ture, and  Clay  turned  to  the  ambassador. 

"  I  have  seen  somewhere  a  face,  and  a  very  lovely 
one,  too,  that  was  strangely  like  these  features ;  yet, 
not  only  without  the  soul  that  is  here,  but  incapable, 
I  should  think,  of  acquiring  it  by  any  discipline,  ei- 
ther of  thought  or  feeling." 

"  Perhaps  it  was  the  original  of  this,  and  the  painter 
has  given  the  soul!" 

"  He  could  as  soon  warm  a  statue  into  life  as  do  it. 
Invent  that  look !  Oh,  he  would  be  a  god,  not  a 
painter!  Raphael  copied,  and  this  man  copies;  but 
nature  did  the  original  of  this,  as  he  did  of  Raphael's 
immortal  beauties;  and  the  departure  of  the  most 
vanishing  shadow  from  the  truth  would  be  a  blot  irre- 
mediable." 

Clay  lost  himself  in  the  picture  and  was  silent. 
Yeil  after  veil  fell  away  from  the  expression  as  he 
gazed,  and  the  woman  seemed  melting  out  from  the 
canvass  into  life.  The  pose  and  drapery  were  nothing. 
It  was  the  portrait  of  a  female  standing  still — perhaps 
looking  idly  out  on  the  sea — lost  in  revery  perhaps — 


perhaps  just  feeling  the  breath  of  a  coming  thought, 
the  stirring  of  some  lost  memory  that  would  presently 
awake.  The  lips  were  slightly  unclosed.  The  heavy 
eyelashes  were  wakeful  yet  couchant  in  their  expres- 
sion. The  large  dark  orbs  lustrous  and  suffused, 
looked  of  the  depth  and  intense  stillness  of  the  mid- 
night sky  close  to  the  silver  rim  of  a  moon  high  in 
heaven.  The  coloring  was  warm  and  Italian,  but 
every  vein  of  the  transparent  temple  was  steeped  in 
calmness;  and  even  through  the  bright  pomegranate 
richness  of  a  mouth  full  of  the  capability  of  passion, 
there  seemed  to  breathe  the  slumberous  fragrance  of 
a  flower  motionless  under  its  night-burthen  of  dew. 
It  portrayed  no  rank  in  life.  The  drapery  might  have 
been  a  queen's  or  a  contadina's.  It  was  a  woman  sto- 
len to  the  canvass  from  her  inmost  cell  of  privacy, 
with  her  soul  unstartled  by  a  human  look,  and  mere 
life  and  freedom  from  pain  or  care  expressed  in  her 
form  and  countenance — yet,  with  all  this,  a  radiance 
of  beauty,  and  a  sustained  loftiness  of  feeling,  as  ap- 
parent as  the  altitude  of  the  stars.  It  was  a  match- 
less woman  incomparably  painted  ;  and  though  not  a 
man  to  fall  in  love  with  a  semblance,  Clay  felt  and 
struggled  in  vain  against  the  feeling,  that  the  creature 
drawn  in  that  portrait  controlled  the  next  and  perhaps 
the  most  eventful  revolution  of  his  many-sphered  ex- 
istence. 

The  next  five  hours  have  (for  this  tale)  no  history. 

"I  have  perplexed  myself  in  vain  since  I  left  you," 
Clay  said  to  the  ambassador,  as  they  rolled  on  their 
way  to  the  palace  of  the  fair  Englishwoman;  "but 
when  I  yield  to  the  secret  conviction  that  I  have  seen 
the  adorable  original  of  the  picture,  I  am  lost  in  a 
greater  mystery — how  I  ever  could  have  forgotten  her. 
The  coming  five  minutes  will  undo  the  Sphinx's  riddle 
for  me." 

"My  life  on  it  you  have  never  seen  her,"  said  his 
friend,  as  the  carriage  turned  through  a  reverberating 
archway,  and  rapidly  making  the  circuit  of  a  large 
court,  stopped  at  the  door  of  a  palace  blazing  with 
light. 

An  opening  was  made  through  the  crowd,  as  the 
ambassador's  name  was  announced,  and  Clay  followed 
him  through  the  brilliant  rooms  with  an  agitation  to 
which  he  had  long  been  a  stranger.  Taste,  as  well 
as  sumptuous  expensiveness,  was  stamped  on  every- 
thing around,  and  there  was  that  indefinable  expres- 
sion in  the  assembly,  which  no  one  could  detect  or 
appreciate  better  than  Clay,  and  which  is  composed, 
among  other  things,  of  a  perfect  conviction  on  the 
part  of  the  guests,  that  their  time,  presence,  and  ap- 
probation, are  well  bestowed  where  they  are. 

At  the  curtained  door  of  a  small  boudoir,  draped 
like  a  tent,  a  Neapolitan  noble  of  high  rank  turned 
smiling  to  the  ambassador  and  placed  his  finger  on 
his  lip.  The  silken  pavilion  was  crowded,  and  only 
uniforms  and  heads,  fixed  in  attention,  could  be  seen 
by  those  without ;  but  from  the  arching  folds  of  the 
curtain  came  a  female  voice  of  the  deepest  and  sweet- 
est melodiousness,  reading  in  low  and  finely-measured 
cadence  from  an  English  poem. 

"  Do  you  know  the  voice  ?"  asked  the  ambassador, 
as  Clay  stood  like  a  man  fixed  to  marble,  eagerly 
listening. 

"  Perfectly !     I  implore  you  tell  me  who  reads!" 

"No  ! — though  your  twofold  recognisance  is  singu- 
lar. You  shall  see  her  before  you  hear  her  name. 
What  is  she  reading  ?" 

"  My  own  poetry,  by  Heaven  !  and  yet  I  can  not 
name  her!  This  passes  belief.  I  have  heard  that 
voice  sob — sob  convulsively,  and  with  accents  of  love — 
I  have  heard  it  whisper  and  entreat — you  look  incred- 
ulous, but  it  is  true.     If  she  do  not  know  me — nay, 

if  she  has  not "  he  would  have  said  "  loved  me" — 

but  the  look  of  scrutiny  and  surprise  on  the  counte- 
nance  of    the   ambassador   checked   the    imprudent 


ERNEST  CLAY. 


261 


avowal,  and  he  became  aware  that  he  was  on  danger- 
ous ground.  He  relapsed  into  silence,  and  crowding 
close  to  the  tent,  heard  the  numbers  he  had  long  ago 
linked  and  forgotten,  breathing  in  music  from  those 
mysterious  lips,  and,  possessed  as  he  was  by  suspense 
and  curiosity,  he  could  have  wished  that  sweet  mo- 
ment to  have  lasted  for  ever.  I  call  upon  the  poet,  if 
there  be  one  who  reads  this  idle  tale,  to  tell  me  if 
there  is  a  flattery  more  exquisite  on  earth,  if  there  is 
a  deeper-sinking  plummet  of  pride  ever  dropped  into 
the  profound  bosom  of  the  bard,  than  the  listening  to 
thoughts  born  in  pain  and  silence,  articulate  in  the 
honeyed  accents  of  woman!  Answer  me,  poet! 
Answer  me,  women  beloved  of  poets,  who  have 
breathed  their  worshipping  incense,  and  know  by 
what  its  bright  censor  was  kindled  ! 

The  voice  ceased,  and  there  was  one  moment  of 
stillness,  and  then  the  rooms  echoed  with  acclamation. 
"Crown  her!"  cried  a  tall  old  man,  who  stood  near 
the  entrance  covered  with  military  orders.  "Crown 
her!"  repeated  every  tongue;  and  from  a  vase  that 
hung  suspended  in  the  centre  of  the  pavilion,  the 
fresh  flowers  were  snatched  by  eager  hands  and 
wreathed  into  a  chaplet.  But  those  without  became 
clamorous  to  see  the  imposition  of  the  crown;  and, 
clearing  a  way  through  the  entrance,  the  old  man  took 
the  chaplet  from  the  busy  hands  that  had  entwined  it, 
and  crying  out  with  Italian  enthusiasm,  "A  triumph!  a 
triumph!"  led  forth  the  majestic  Corinna  to  the  crowd. 

The  ambassador  looked  at  Clay.  He  had  shrunk 
behind  the  statue  of  a  winged  cupid,  and  though  his 
eyes  were  fixed  with  a  gaze  of  stone  on  the  magnifi- 
cent creature  who  was  the  centre  of  all  regards,  he 
seemed  by  his  open  lips  and  heaving  chest,  to  be  gasp- 
ing with  some  powerful  emotion. 

"Give  me  the  chaplet!"  suddenly  exclaimed  the 
magnificent  idol  of  the  crowd.  And  with  no  apparent 
emotion,  except  a  glowing  spot  in  her  temples,  and  a 
quicker  throb  in  the  snowy  curve  of  her  neck  and 
bosom,  she  waved  back  the  throng  upon  her  right, 
and  advanced  with  majestic  steps  to  the  statue  of  Love. 

"Welcome,  Ernest!"  she  said  in  a  low  voice, 
taking  him  by  the  hand,  and  losing,  for  a  scarce  per- 
ceptible moment,  the  smile  from  her  lips.  "  Here, 
my  friends!"  she  exclaimed,  turning  again,  and  lead- 
ing him  from  his  concealment,  "honor  to  whom  hon- 
or is  due  !  A  crown  for  the  poet  of  my  country,  Er- 
nest Clay  !" 

"  Clay,  the  poet!"  "The  English  poet!"  "The 
author  of  the  poem!"  were  explanations  that  ran 
quickly  through  the  room,  and  as  the  crowd  pressed 
closer  around,  murmuring  the  enthusiasm  native  to 
that  southern  clime,  Julia  Beverley  sprang  upon  an  ot- 
toman, and  standing  in  her  magnificent  beauty  con- 
spicuous above  all,  she  placed  the  crown  upon  Clay's 
head,  and  bending  gracefully  and  smilingly  over  him, 
impressed  a  kiss  on  his  forehead,  and  said,  "  This  for 
the  poet  /" 

And  of  the  many  lovers  of  this  superb  woman  who 
saw  that  kiss,  not  one  showed  a  frown  or  turned  away, 
so  natural  to  the  warm  impulse  of  the  hour  did  it 
seem — so  pure  an  expression  of  admiration  of  genius — 
so  mere  a  tribute  of  welcome  from  Italy  to  the  bard, 
by  an  inspiration  born  of  its  sunny  air.  Surrounded 
with  eager  claimants  for  his  acquaintance,  intoxicated 
with  flattery,  giddy  with  indefinable  emotions  of  love 
and  pleasure,  Ernest  Clay  lost  sight  for  a  moment  of 
the  face  that  had  beamed  on  him,  and  in  that  moment 
she  had  made  an  apology  of  fatigue  and  retired,  leav- 
ing her  guests  to  their  pleasures. 


CHAPTER  VII. 

"  Un  amour  rechauffe  ne  vaut  jamais  rien,"  is  one 
oi  those  common-places  in  the  book  of  love,  which 


!  are  true  only  of  the  common-place  and  unimaginative. 
The  rich  gifts  of  affection,  which   surfeit  the  cold 
!  bosom  of  the  dull,  fall  upon  the  fiery  heart  of  genius 
j  like  spice-wood  and  incense,  and  long  after  the  giver's 
!  prodigality   has   ceased,  the   mouldering  embers   lie 
j  warm  beneath  the  ashes  of  silence,  and  a  breath  will 
I  uncover  and  rekindle  them.     The  love  of  common 
j  men  is  a  world  without  moon  or  stars.     When  the 
i  meridian  is  passed,   the  shadows  lengthen,  and   the 
light  departs,  and  the  night  that  follows  is  dark  indeed. 
But  as  the  twilight  closes  on  the  bright  and  warm  pas- 
sion of  the  poet,  memory  lights  her  pale  lamp,  like 
the  moon,  and  brightens  as  the  darkness  deepens  ;  and 
:  the  warm  sacrifices  made  in  love's  noon  and  eve,  go 
up  to  their  places  like  stars,  and  with  the  light  treasur- 
|  ed  from  that  fervid  day,  shine  in  the  still  heaven  of 
!  the  past,  steadfast  though  silent.     If  there  is  a  feature 
of  the  human  soul  in  which  more  than  in  all  others, 
the  fiend  is  manifest,  it  is  the  masculine  ingratitude 
for  love.     What  wrongs,  what  agonies,  what  unutter- 
able sorrows  are  the  reward  of  lavished  affection,  of 
;  generous  self-abandonment,  of  unhesitating  and  idola- 
|  trous  trust !     Yet  who  are  the  ungrateful  ?     Men  lack- 
;  ing  the  imagination  which  can  reclose  the  faded  form 
!  in  its  youthful  beauty  !     Men  dead  to  the  past — with 
I  no  perception  but  sight  and  touch — to  whom  woman 
!  is  a  flower  and  no  more — fair  to  look  on  and  sweet  to 
I  pluck   in  her  pride  and  perfume  but  scarce  possessed 
j  ere  trampled  on  and  forgotten  !    Genius  alone  treasures 
the  perishing  flower  and  remembers  its  dew  and  fra- 
i  grance,  and  so,  immemorially  and  well,  poets  have  been 
beloved  of  women. 

I  am  recording  the  passions  of  genius.  Let  me 
say  to  you,  lady  !  (reading  this  tale  understand  ingly, 
for  you  have  been  beloved  by  a  poet),  trust  neither 
absence,  nor  silence,  nor  untoward  circumstances  ! 
He  has  loved  you  once.  Let  not  your  eye  rest  on 
him  when  you  meet — and  if  you  speak,  speak  coldly  ! 
For,  with  a  passion  strengthened  and  embellished 
tenfold  by  a  memory  all  imagination,  he  will  love  you 
agaiu  !  The  hours  you  passed  with  him — the  caresses 
you  gave  him,  the  tears  you  shed,  and  the  beauty 
with  which  you  bewildered  him,  have  been  hallowed 
in  poetry,  and  glorified  in  revery  and  dream,  and  he 
will  come  back  to  you  as  he  would  spring  into  para- 
dise were  it  so  lost  and  recovered ! 
But  to  my  story  ! 

Clay's  memory  had  now  become  the  home  of  an  all- 
absorbing  passion.  By  a  succession  of  mischances, 
or  by  management  so  adroit  as  never  to  alarm  his  pride, 
a  week  passed  over,  and  he  had  found  no  opportunity 
of  speaking  alone  to  the  object  of  his  adoration.  She 
favored  him  in  public,  talked  to  him  at  the  opera, 
leaned  on  his  arm  in  the  crowd,  caressed  his  genius 
with  exquisite  flattery,  and  seemed  at  moments  to 
escape  narrowly  from  a  phrase  too  tender  or  a  subject 
that  would  lead  to  the  past — yet  without  a  violation 
of  the  most  palpable  tact,  love  was  still  an  impossible 
topic.  That  he  could  have  held  her  hand  in  his,  un- 
forbidden— that  he  could  have  pressed  her  to  his 
bosom  while  she  wept — that  she  could  have  loved 
him  ever,  though  but  for  an  hour — seemed  to  him 
sometimes  an  incredible  dream,  sometimes  a  most 
passionate  happiness  only  to  believe.  He  left  her  at 
night  to  pace  the  sands  of  the  bay  till  morning,  re- 
membering— for  ever  remembering — the  scene  by  the 
fountain  at  Florence  ;  and  he  passed  his  day  between 
|  her  palace  and  the  picture  of  poor  Incontri,  who  loved 
her  more  hopelessly  than  himself,  but  found  a  sym- 
pathy in  the  growing  melancholy  of  the  poet. 

"  She  has  no  heart,"  said  the  painter;  but  Clay  had 
felt  it  beat  against  his  own,  and  he  fed  his  love  in 
silence  on  that  remembrance. 

They  sat  upon  the  rocks  by  the  gate  of  the  Villa 
Real.  The  sun  was  just  setting  and  as  the  waves 
formed  near  the  shore  and  rode  in  upon  the  glassy 


262 


ERNEST  CLAY. 


6well  of  the  bay,  there  seemed  to  writhe  on  each  wavy 
hack  a  golden  serpent,  who  broke  on  the  sands  at  their 
feet  in  sparkles  of  fire.  At  a  little  distance  lay  the 
swallow-like  yacht,  in  which  Clay  had  threaded  the 
Archipelago,  and  as  the  wish  to  feel  the  little  craft 
bounding  once  more  beneath  him,  was  checked  by  the 
anchor-like  heaviness  of  his  heart,  an  equestrian  party 
stopped  suddenly  on  the  chiaja. 

41  There  is  Mr.  Clay  !"  said  the  thrilling  voice  of 
Julia  Beverley,  "  perhaps  he  will  take  us  over  in  the 
yacht.  Sorrento  looks  so  blue  and  tempting  in  the 
distance." 

Without  waiting  for  a  repetition  of  the  wish  he 
had  overheard,  Clay  sprang  upon  a  rock,  and  made 
signal  for  the  boat,  and  before  the  crimson  of  the  de- 
parting day  had  faded  from  the  sky,  the  fair  Julia  and 
her  party  of  cavaliers,  were  standing  on  the  deck  of  the 
swift  vesse!,  bound  on  a  moonlight  voyage  to  Sorrento, 
and  watching  on  their  lee  the  reddening  ribs  and  lurid 
eruption  of  (he  volcano.  The  night  was  Neapolitan, 
and  the  air  was  the  food  of  love. 

Jr  was  a  voyage  of  silence,  for  the  sweetness  of  life 
in  such  an  atmosphere  and  in  the  midstof  that  match- 
less bay,  lay  like  a  voluptuous  burthen  in  the  heart, 
and  the  ripple  under  the  clearing  prow  was  language 
enough  for  all.  Incontri  leaned  against  the  mast, 
watching  the  moonlit  features  of  the  signora  with  his 
melancholy  but  idolizing  gaze,  and  Clay  lay  on  the 
deck  at  her  feet,  trying  with  pressed-down  lids  to  recall 
the  tearful  eyes  of  the  Julia  Beverley  he  had  loved  at 
the  fountain. 

It  was  midnight  when  the  breath  of  the  orange 
groves  of  Sorrento,  stealing  seaward,  slackened  the 
way  of  the  little  craft,  and  running  in  close  under  the 
rocky  foundations  of  the  house  of  Tasso,  Clay  dropped 
his  anchor,  and  landed  his  silent  party  at  their  haven. 
Incontri  was  sent  forward  to  the  inn  to  prepare  their 
apartments,  and  leaning  on  Clay's  arm  and  her  hus- 
band's, the  superb  Englishwoman  ascended  to  the 
overhanging  balcony  of  the  dwelling  of  the  Italian 
bard,  and  in  a  few  words  of  eloquent  sympathy  in  the 
homage  paid  by  the  world  to  these  shrines  of  genius, 
added  to  the  overflowing  heart  of  her  gifted  lover  one 
more  intoxicating  drop  of  flattery  and  fascination. 
They  strolled  onward  to  the  inn,  and  he  bade  her  good 
night  at  the  gate,  for  he  could  no  longer  endure  the 
fetter  of  another's  presence,  and  the  emotion  stifled  in 
his  heart  and  lips. 

I  have  forgotten  the  name  of  that  pleasant  inn  at 
Sorrento,  built  against  the  side  of  its  mountain  shore, 
with  terraced  orange-groves  piled  above  its  roof,  and 
the  golden  fruit  nodding  in  at  its  windows.  From  the 
principal  floor,  you  will  remember,  projects  a  broad 
verandah,  jutting  upon  one  of  these  fruit-darkened 
alleys.  If  you  have  ever  slept  there  after  a  scramble 
over  Scaricatoja,  you  have  risen,  even  from  your 
fatigued  slumber,  to  go  out  and  pace  awhile  that  over- 
hanging garden,  oppressed  with  the  heavy  perfume  of 
the  orange  flowers.  Strange  that  I  should  forget  the 
name  of  that  inn !  I  thought,  when  the  busy  part  of 
mv  life  should  be  well  over,  I  should  go  back  and  die 
there. 

The  sea  had  long  closed  over  the  orbed  forehead  of 
the  moon,  and  still  Clay  restlessly  hovered  around  the 
garden  of  the  inn.  Mounting  at  last  to  the  alley  on 
a  level  with  the  principal  chambers  of  the  house,  he 
saw  outlined  in  shadow  upon  the  curtain  of  a  long 
window*  a  female  figure  holding  a  book,  with  her 
cheek  resting  on  her  hand.  He  threw  himself  on  the 
grass  and  gazed  steadily.  The  hand  moved  from  the 
cheek,  and  raised  a  pencil  from  the  table,  and  wrote 
upon  the  margin  of  the  volume,  and  then  the  pencil 
was  laid  down,  and  the  slender  fingers  raised  the 
masses  of  fallen  hair  from  the  shoulder,  and  threaded 
the  wavy  ringlets  indolently  as  she  read  :  From  the 
slightest,  motion  of  that  statuary  hand,  from  the  most 


fragmented  outline  of  that  bird-like  neck,  Clay  would 
have  known  Julia  Beverley  ;  and  as  he  watched  her 
graceful  shadow,  the  repressed  and  pent-up  feelings 
of  that  evening  of  restraint,  fed  as  they  had  been  by 
every  voluptuous  influence  known  beneath  the  moon, 
rose  to  a  height  that  absorbed  brain  and  soul  in  one 
wild  tumult  of  emotion.  He  sprang  to  his  feet  to  rush 
into  her  presence,  but  at  that  instant  a  footstep  started 
from  the  darkness  of  a  tree,  at  the  extremity  of  the 
alley.  He  paused  and  the  shadow  arose,  and  laying 
aside  the  book,  leaned  back,  and  lifted  the  tapering 
arms,  and  wound  up  the  long  masses  of  fallen  hair, 
and  then  kneeling,  remained  a  few  minutes  motion- 
less, with  the  face  buried  in  the  hands. 
Clay  trembled  and  felt  rebuked. 
Once  more  the  flowing  drapery  swept  across  the 
curtain,  the  light  was  extinguished,  and  the  window 
thrown  open  to  the  night  air;  and  then  all  was  still. 

Clay  walked  to  and  fro  in  an  agitation  bordering  on 

i  delirium.     "  I  must  speak  to  her  !"  he  said,  murmur- 

!  ing  audibly,  and  advancing  toward  the  window.     But 

'  hurried  footsteps  started  again  from  the  shadow  of  the 

;  pine,  and  he  stopped  to  listen.     All  was  silent,  and 

,  lie  stood  a  moment  pressing  his  hands  on   his   brow, 

and    trying  to  struggle  with   the  wild   impulse  in  his 

brain.     His  closed   eyes  brought   back  instantly  the 

unfading  picture  of  Julia  Beverley,  weeping  on  his 

breast  at  the  fountain,  and  with  one  rapid   movement 

'  he  divided  the  curtains  and  stood   breathless  in   her 

chamber. 

The  heavy  breathing  of  the  unconscious  husband 
'  fell  like  music  on  his  ear. 

"  Julia  !"  he  exclaimed  in  a  hoarse  whisper,  "I  am 
j  here — Ernest  Clay!" 

"You  are  frantic,  Ernest!"  said  a  voice  so  calm 
i  that  it  fell  on  his  ear  like  an  assurance  of  despair. 
'  "  I  have  no  feeling  for  you  that  answers  to  this  free- 
I  dom.     Leave  my  chamber  !" 

"  No  !"  said  Clay,  dropping  the  curtain  behind  him, 
and  advancing  into  the  room,  "  wake  your  husband  if 
you  will — this  is  the  only  spot  on  earth  where  I  can 
breathe,  and  if  you  are  relentless,  here  will  I  die  ' 
Was  it  false  when  you  said  you  loved  me  ?  Speak, 
Julia!" 

"Ernest  !"  she  said,  in  a  less  assured  tone,  "T  have 
done  wrong  not  to  check  this  wild  passiou  earlier,  and 
I  have  that  to  say  to  you  which,  perhaps,  had  better 
be  said  now.     I  will  come  to  you  in  the  garden." 

"  My  vessel  waits,  and  in  an  hour " 

"  Nay,  nay,  you  mistake  me.  But  go !  I  will 
follow  instantly  !" 

Vesuvius  was  burning  with  an  almost  smokeless 
flame  when  Clay  stood  again  in  the  night-air,  and  every 
object  was  illuminated  with  the  clearness  of  a  confla- 
gration. At  the  first  glance  around,  he  fancied  he 
saw  figures  gliding  behind  the  lurid  body  of  a  pine 
opposite  the  window,  but  in  the  next  moment  the  cur- 
tain again  parted,  and  Julia  Beverley,  wrapped  in  a 
I  cloak,  stood  beside  him  on  the  verandah. 

"Stand  back  !"  she  said,  as  he  endeavored  to  put 
|  his  arm  around  her,  "  I  have  more  than  one  defender 
I  within  call,  and  I  must  speak  to  you  where  I  am. 
[  Will  you  listen  to  me,  Ernest  ?" 

Clay's  breast  heaved ;  but  he  folded  his  arms  and 
j  leaned  against  the  slender  column  of  the  verandah  in 
I  silence. 

"  Were  it  any  other  person  who  had  so  far  forgot- 
ten himself,"  she  continued,  "it  would  be  sufficient 
j  to  say,  '  I  can  never  love  you,'  and  leave  my  privacy 
!  to  be  defended  by  my  natural  protector.  But  I  wish 
to  show  to  you,  Ernest,  not  only  that  you  can  have 
I  no  hope  in  loving  me,  but  that  you  have  made  me  the 
j  mischievous  woman  I  have  become.  From  an  hum- 
i  blc  wife  to  a  dangerous  coquette,  the  change  may 
I  well  seem  startling — but  it  is  of  your  working." 

"  Mine,    madam  !"   said    Clay,    whose    pride    was 


ERNEST  CLAY. 


263 


aroused  with  the  calm  self-possession  and  repulse  of 
her  tone  and  manner. 

"  1  have  never  answered  the  letter  you  wrote  me." 

"  Pardon  and  spare  me  !"  said  Clay,  who  remem- 
bered at  the  instant  only  the  whim  under  which  it 
was  written. 

"  It  awoke  me  to  a  new  existence,"  she  continued, 
without  heeding  his  confusion,  "  for  it  first  made  me 
aware  that  I  could  ever  be  the  theme  of  eloquent  ad- 
miration. I  had  never  been  praised  but  in  idle  com- 
pliment, and  by  those  whose  intellect  I  despised;  and 
though  as  a  girl  1  had  a  vague  feeling  that  I  was 
slighted  and  unappreciated,  I  yielded  gradually  to  the 
conviction  that  the  world  was  right,  and  that  women 
sung  by  poets  and  described  in  the  glowing  language 
of  romance,  were  of  another  mould,  I  scarce  rea- 
soned upon  it.  I  remember,  on  first  arriving  in  Italy, 
drawing  a  comparison  favorable  to  myself  between 
my  own  beauty  and  the  Fornarina's,  and  the  portraits 
of  Laura  and  Leonora  D'Este  ;  but  as  I  was  loved  by 
neither  painters  nor  poets,  1  accused  myself  of  pre- 
sumption, and  with  a  sigh,  returned  to  my  humility. 
My  life  seemed  more  vacant  than  it  should  be,  and  I 
sometimes  wept  from  an  unhappiness  I  could  not  de- 
fine; and  I  once  or  twice  met  persons  who  seemed 
to  have  begun  to  love  me,  and  appreciate  my  beauty 
as  I  wished,  and  in  this  lies  the  history  of  my  heart 
up  to  the  time  of  your  writing  to  me.  That  letter, 
Ernest "  * 

"  You  believed  that  I  loved  you  then  !"  passion- 
ately interrupted  her  listener,  "  you  know  now  that  I 
loved  you  !     Tell  me  so,  I  implore  you  !" 

"  My  dear  poet,"  said  the  self-possessed  beauty, 
with  a  smile  expressive  of  as  much  mischief  as  frank- 
ness, "let  us  be  honest.  You  never  loved  me!  I 
never  believed  it  but  for  one  silly  hour  !  Stay! — 
stay  ! — vou  shall  not  answer  me  !  I  have  not  left  my 
bed  at  this  unseasonable  hour  to  listen  to  protesta- 
tions. At  least,  let  me  first  conclude  the  history  of 
my  metempsychosis!  I  can  tell  it  to  nobody  else, 
and  like  the  Ancient  Mariner's,  it  is  a  tale  that  must 
be  told.  Revcnons  !  Your  very  brilliant  letter  awoke 
me  from  the  most  profound  lethargy  by  which  beauty 
such  as  mine  was  ever  overtaken.  A  moment's  in- 
ventory of  my  attractions  satisfied  me  that  your  ex- 
quisite description  (written,  I  have  since  suspected, 
to  amuse  an  idle  hour,  but  done,  nevertheless,  with 
the  fine  memory  and  graphic  power  of  genius)  was 
neither  fanciful  nor  over-colored,  and  for  the  first  time 
in  my  life  I  felt  beautiful.  You  are  an  anatomist  of 
the  heart,  and  I  may  say  to  you  that  I  looked  at  my 
own  dark  eyes  and  fine  features  and  person  with  the 
admiration  and  wonder  of  a  blind  beauty  restored  to 
sight  and  beholding  herself  in  a  mirror.  You  will 
think,  perhaps,  that  love  for  the  writer  of  this  magic 
letter  should  have  been  the  inevitable  sequel.  But  I 
am  here  to  avert  the  consequences  of  my  coquetry, 
and  I  will  be  frank  with  you.  I  forgot  you  in  a  day! 
In  the  almost  insane  desire  to  be  seen  and  appreciated, 
painted,  sung,  and  loved,  which-took  possession  of  me 
when  the  tumult  of  my  first  feeling  had  passed  away, 
your  self-controlled  and  manageable  passion  seemed 
to  me  frivolous  and  shallow." 

"  Have  you  been  better  loved  ?"  coldly  asked  Clay. 

"  I  will  answer  that  question  before  we  part.  I  did 
not  suffer  myself  to  think  of  a  love  that  could  be 
returned — for  I  had  husband  and  children — and 
though  I  felt  that  a  mutual  passion  such  as  I  could 
imagine,  would  have  absorbed,  under  happier  circum- 
stances, every  energy  of  my  soul,  1  had  no  disposition 
to  make  a  wreck  of  another's  happiness  and  honor, 
whatever  the  temptation.  Still  I  must  be  loved — I 
must  come  out  from  my  obscurity  and  shine — I  must 
be  the  idol  of  some  gifted  circle — I  must  control  the 
painter's  pencil  and  the  poet's  pen  and  the  statesman's 
pcbeme — I   must  sun   my  beauty  in  men's  eyes,  and 


be  caressed  and  conspicuous — I  must  use  my  gift  and 
fulfil  my  destiny !  I  told  my  husband  this.  He  se- 
cured my  devotion  lo  his  peace  and  honor  for  ever,  by 
giving  me  unlimited  control  over  his  fortune  and  him- 
self. We  came  to  Naples,  and  my  star,  hitherto 
clouded  in  its  own  humility,  sprang  at  once  to  the  as- 
cendant. The  "  attraction  of  unconscious  beauty"  is 
a  poet's  fiction,  believe  me!  Set  it  down  in  your 
books,  Ernest — we  are  our  own  nomenclators — the 
belle  as  well  as  the  hero  !  I  claimed  to  be  beautiful, 
and  queened  it  to  the  top  of  my  bent — and  all  Naples 
is  at  my  feet!  Oh,  Ernest!  it  is  a  delicious  power 
to  hold  human  happiness  in  your  control — to  be  the 
loadstar  of  eminent  men  and  bright  intellects!  Per- 
haps a  woman  who  is  absorbed  in  one  passion,  finds 
in  her  lover's  character  and  fame  room  enough  for  her 
pride  and  her  thirst  for  influence;  but  to  me,  giving 
nothing  in  return  but  the  light  of  my  eyes,  there 
seems  scarce  in  the  world  celebrity,  rank,  .genius 
enough,  to  limit  my  ambition.  I  would  be  Helen  ! 
I  would  be  Mary  of  Scots  !  I  would  have  my  beauty 
as  undisputed  and  renowned  as  the  Apollo's!  Am  I 
insane  or  heartless?" 

Clay  smiled  at  the  abrupt  naivete  of  the  question, 
but  his  eyes  were  full  of  visible  admiration  of  the 
glowing  pictures  before  him. 

"You  are  beautiful!"  was  his  answer. 

"Am  I  not!  Shall  I  be  celebrated  hereafter,  Er- 
nest? I  should  be  willing  to  grow  old,  if  my  beauty 
were  '  in  amber' — if  by  some  burning  line  in  your 
book,  some  wondrous  touch  of  the  pencil,  some  bold 
novejty  in  sculpture,  my  beauty  would  live  on  men's 
lips  for  ever!  Incontri's  picture  is  beautiful  and  like, 
but  it  is  not,  if  you  understand,  a  conception — it  is  not 
a  memoir  of  the  woman  as  the  Cenei's  is — it  does  not 
embody  a  complete  fame  in  itself,  like  the  '  Bella'  of 
Titian,  or  the  'Wife  of  Giorgione.'  If  you  loved 
me,  Ernest " 

"If  you  loved  me,  Julia!"  echoed  Clay,  with  a 
tone  rather  of  mockery  than  sincerity. 

"Ah,  but  you  threw  me  away  ;  and  even  with  my 
own  consent,  I  could  never  be  recovered !  Believe 
me,  Ernest,  there  never  was  a  coquette,  who,  in  some 
one  of  her  earlier  preferences,  had  not  made  a  des- 
perate and  single  venture  of  her  whole  heart's  devo- 
tion. That  wrecked,  she  was  lost  to  love.  I  em- 
barked with  you,  soul  and  heart,  and  you  left  to  the 
mercy  of  the  chance  wind  a  freight  that  no  tide  could 
bring  to  port  again  !" 

"You  forget  the  obstacles." 

"  A  poet !  and  talk  of  obstacles  in  love  !  Did  you 
even  ask  me  to  run  away  with  you,  Ernest!  I  would 
have  gone  !  Ay— coldly  as  I  talk  to  you  now,  I 
would  have  followed  you  to  a  hovel — for  it  was  first 
love  to  me.  Had  it  been  first  love  to  both  of  us,  I 
should  now  be  your  wife — sharer  of  your  fame  !  And 
oh,  how  jealous !" 

"  With  your  beauty,  jealous  ?" 

"  Not  of  fiesh-and-blood  women,  Ernest !  With  a 
wife's  opportunities,  I  could  outcharm,  with  half  my 
beauty,  the  whole  troop  of  Circe.  I  was  thinking  of 
the  favors  of  your  pen  !  Who  would  I  let  you  de- 
scribe !     What  eyes,  what  hair,  what  form  but  mine 

what  character,  what  name,  would  I  even  suffer  you 

to  make  immortal !  Paul  Veronese  had  a  wife  with 
my  avarice.  In  his  hundred  pictures  there  is  the 
same  blue-eyed,  golden-haired  woman,  as  much  link 
ed  to  his  fame  as  Laura  to  Petrarch's.  If  he  had 
drawn  her  but  once,  she  would  have  been  known  as 
the  woman  Paul  Veronese  painted  !  She  is  known 
now  as  the  woman  he  loved.     Delicious  immortality  !" 

"  Yet  she  could  not  have  exacted  it.  That  would 
have  required  an  intellect  which  looked  abroad— and 
poets  love  no  women  who  are  not  like  birds,  content 
with  the  summer  around  them,  and  with  every  thought 
in  their  nest.     Paul  Veronese's  Bionda,  with  her  soft 


264 


ERNEST  CLAY. 


mild  eyes  and  fair  hair,  is  the  very  type  of  such  a 
woman,  and  she  would  not  have  foregone  a  caress  for 
twenty  immortalities." 

"  May  1  ask  what  was  my  attraction,  then?"  said 
the  proud  beauty,  with  a  tone  of  pique. 

"  Julia  Beverley,  unconscious  and  unintellectual !" 
answered  Clay,  drawing  on  his  gloves  with  the  air  of 
a  man  who  has  got  through  with  an  interview.  "  You 
have  explained  your  '  metempsychosis,'  but  I  was  in 
love  with  the  form  you  have  cast  off.  The  night 
grows  chill.     Sweet  dreams  to  you  !" 

"  Stay,  Mr.  Clay  !  You  asked  me  if  I  had  been 
'  better  loved,'  and  I  promised  you  an  answer.  What 
think  you  of  a  lover  who  has  forgotten  the  occupation 
that  gave  him  bread,  abandoned  his  ambition,  and  at 
all  hours  of  the  night  is  an  unrewarded  and  hopeless 
watcher  beneath  my  window  ?" 

"  To-night  excepted,"  said  Clay,  looking  around. 

"  Incontri !"  called  Mrs.  Brown,  without  raising 
her  voice. 

Clay  started  and  frowned,  as  the  painter  sprang 
from  the  shadow  of  the  pine-tree  which  had  before 
attracted  his  attention.  Falling  on  his  knee,  the  un- 
happy lover  kissed  the  jewelled  fingers  extended  to 
him,  and  giving  Clay  his  hand  in  rising,  the  poet 
sprang  back,  for  he  had  elapsed  the  handle  of  a  stiletto ! 

"  Fear  not — she  does  not  love  you  !"  said  Incontri, 
remarking  his  surprise,  and  concealing  the  weapon  in 
his  sleeve. 

"  I  was  destined  to  be  cured  of  my  love,  either 
way,"  said  Clay,  bowing  himself  off  the  verandah  with 
half  a  shudder  and  half  a  smile. 

The  curtain  closed  at  the  same  moment  over  the 
retreating  form  of  Julia  Beverley,  and  so  turned 
another  leaf  of  Clay's  voluminous  book  of  love. 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

Clay  threw  the  volume  aside,  in  which  he  had  been 
reading,  and  taking  up  "  the  red  book,"  looked  for 
the  county  address  of  Sir  Harry  Freer,  the  exponent 
(only)  of  Lady  Fanny  Freer,  who,  though  the  "nicest 
possible  creature,"  is  not  the  heroine  of  this  story. 
Sir  Harry's  ancestral  domain  turned  out  to  be  a  por- 
tion of  the  earth's  surface  in  that  county  of  England 
where  the  old  gentry  look  down  upon  very  famous 
lords  as  too  new,  and  proportionately  upon  all  other 
families  that  have  not  degenerated  since  William  the 
conqueror. 

Sir  Harry  had  married  an  earl's  daughter ;  but  as 
the  earldom  was  not  only  the  fruit  of  two  generations 
of  public  and  political  eminence,  Sir  Harry  was  not 
considered  in  Cheshire  as  having  made  more  than  a 
tolerable  match;  and  if  she  passed  for  a  "  Cheshire 
cheese*'  in  London,  he  passed  for  but  the  rind  in  the 
county.  In  the  county  therefore  there  was  a  lord 
paramount  of  Freer  Hall,  and  in  town,  a  lady  par- 
amount of  Brook-street ;  and  it  was  under  the  town 
dynasty  that  Miss  Blanch  Beaufin  was  invited  up  from 
Cheshire  to  pass  a  first  winter  in  London — Miss 
Beaufin  being  the  daughter  of  a  descendant  of  a  Nor- 
man retainer  of  the  first  Sir  Harry,  and  the  relative 
position  of  the  families  having  been  rigidly  kept  up  to 
the  existing  epoch. 

The  address  found  in  the  red  book  was  described 
upon  the  following  letter: — 

"  Dear  Lady  Fanny  :  If  you  have  anything  be- 
side the  ghost-room  vacant  at  Freer  Hall,  I  will  run 
down  to  you.  Should  you,  by  chance,  be  alone,  ask 
up  the  curate  for  a  week  to  keep  Sir  Harry  off  my 
hands  ;  and,  as  you  don't  flirt,  provide  me  with  some- 
body   more    pretty   than    yourself   for    our    mutual 


security.     As  my  autograph  sells  for  eighteen  pence, 
you  will  excuse  the  brevity  of       Yours  truly, 

"  Ernest  Clay. 
"  N.  B.  Tell  me  in  your  answer  if  Blanch  Beaufit 
is  within  a  morning's  ride." 

Lady  Fanny  was  a  warm-hearted,  extravagant 
beautiful  creature  of  impulse,  a  passionate  friend  of 
Clay's  (for  such  women  there  are),  without  a  spice  of 
flirtation.  She  was  a  perennial  belle  in  London;  and 
he  had  begun  his  acquaintance  with  her  by  throwing 
himself  at  her  head  in  the  approved  fashion — in  love 
to  the  degree  of  rose-asking  and  sonnet-writing.  As 
she  did  not  laugh  when  he  sighed,  however,  but  only 
told  him  very  seriously  that  she  was  not  a  bit  in  love 
with  him,  and  thought  he  was  throwing  away  his 
time,  he  easily  forgave  her  insensibility,  and  they  be- 
came very  warm  allies.  Spoiled  favorite  as  he  was 
of  London  society,  Clay  had  qualities  for  a  very  sin- 
cere friendship  ;  and  Lady  Fanny,  full  of  irregular 
talent,  had  also  a  strong  vein  of  common  sense,  and 
perfectly  understood  him.  This  explanation  to  the 
reader.  It  would  have  saved  some  trouble  and  pain 
if  it  had  been  made  by  some  good  angel  to  Sir  Harry 
Freer. 

As  the  London  coach  rattled  under  the  bridged 
gate  of  the  gloomy  old  town  of  Chester,  Lady  Fanny's 
dashing  ponies  were  almost  on  their  haunches  with 
her  impetuous  pull-up  at  the  hotel ;  and  returning 
I  with  a  nod  the  coachman's  respectful  bow,  she  put 
|  her  long  whip  in  at  the  coach  window  to  shake  hands 
I  with  Clay,  and  in  a  few  minutes  they  were  again  off 
j  the  pavements,  and  taking  the  road  at  her  ladyship's 
j  usual  speed. 

"  Steady,  Flash  !  steady  !"  (she  ran  on,  talking  to 
I  Clay,  and  her  ponies  in  the  same  breath),  "  doleful 
ride  down,  isn't  it? — (keep  up,  Tom,  you  villain  .') — 
very  good  of  you  to  come,  I'm  sure,  dear  Ernest,  and 
you'll  stay;  how  long  will  you  stay  ?  (down,  Flash  !) 
— Oh,  Miss  Beaufin  !  I've  something  to  say  to  you 
about  Blanch  Beaufin  !  I  didn't  answer  your  Nota 
Bene — (go  along,  Tom  !  that  pony  wants  blooding) — 
because  to  tell  the  truth,  it's  a  delicate  subject  at 
Freer  Hall,  and  1  would  rather  talk  than  write  about 
it.  You  see — (will  you  be  done,  Flash  !) — the 
Beaufins,  though  very  nice  people,  and  Blanch  quite 
a  love — (go  along,  lazy  Tom  !) — the  Beaufins,  I  say, 
are  rated  rather  crockery  in  Cheshire.  And  I  am 
ashamed  to  own,  really  quite  ashamed,  I  have  not 
been  near  them  in  a  month.  Shameful,  isn't  it  ? 
There's  good  action,  Ernest !  Look  at  that  nigh 
pony  ;  not  a  blemish  in  him;  and  such  a  goer  in  sin- 
gle harness!  Well,  I'll  go  around  by  the  Beaufins 
now." 

"  Pray  consider,  Lady  Fanny  !"  interrupted  Clay 
deprecatingly,  "eighteen  hours  in  a  coach." 

"  Not  to  go  in !  oh,  not  to  go  in !  Blanch  is  very  ill, 
and  sees  nobody  ; — and  (come,  Tom  !  come  !) — 1  only 
heard  of  it  this  morning — (there's  for  your  laziness, 
you  stupid  horse !, — We'll,  just  call  and  ask  how  she  is, 

though  Sir  Harry " 

"  Is  she  very  ill,  then  ?"  asked  Clay,  with  a  concern 
which  made  Lady  Fanny  turn  her  eyes  from  her 
ponies'  ears  to  look  at  him. 

"  They  say,  very  !  Of  course,  Sir  Harry  can't  for- 
bid a  visit  to  the  sick." 

"  Surely  he  does  not  forbid  you  to  call  on  Blanch 
Beaufin !" 

"  Not  'forbid'  precisely;  that  wouldn't  do — (gently, 
sweet  Flash  !  now,  Tom  !  now,  lazy  !  trot  fair  through 
the  hollow  !) — but  I  invited  her  to  pass  the  winter 
with  me  without  consulting  him,  and  he  liked  it  well 
enough,  till  he  got  back  among  his  stupid  neighbors 
— (well  done,  Flash !  plague  take  that  bothering 
whipple-tree !) — and  they  and  their  awkward  daughters, 
whom  I  might  have  invited — (whoa  !  Flash  !) — if  J 


ERNEST  CLAY. 


2G5 


had  wanted  a  menagerie,  set  him  to  looking  into  her 
pedigree.  There's  the  house;  the  old  house  with 
the  vines  over  it  yonder!  So  then,  Sir  Harry — such 
a  sweet  girl,  too — set  his  face  against  the  acquaintance. 
Here  we  are  ! — (Whoa,  bays  !  whoa  !)  Hold  the 
reins  a  moment  while  I  run  in!" 

More  to  quell  a  vague  and  apprehensive  feeling  of 
remorse  than  to  wile  away  idle  time,  Clay  passed  the 
reins  back  to  the  stripling  in  gray  livery  behind,  and 
walked  round  Lady  Fanny's  ponies,  expressing  his 
admiration  of  them  and  the  turnout  altogether. 

"  Yes,  sir,"  said  the  lad,  who  seemed  to  have  caught 
some  of  the  cleverness  of  his  mistress,  for  he  scarce 
looked  fourteen,  "  they're  a  touch  above  anything  in 
Cheshire  !  Look  at  the  forehand  of  that  nigh  'an, 
sir! — arm  and  withers  like  a  greyhound,  and  yet  what 
a  quarter  for  trotting,  sir  !  Quite  the  right  thing  all 
over!  Carries  his  flag  that  way  quite  natural ;  never 
was  nicked,  sir  !  Did  you  take  notice,  begging  your 
pardon,  sir,  how  milady  put  through  that  hollow? 
Wasn't  it  fine,  sir  ?  Tother's  a  goodish  nag,  too, 
but,  nothing  to  Flash  ;  can't  spread,  somehow  ;  that's 
Sir  Harry's  picking  up,  and  never  was  a  match;  no 
blood  in  Tom,  sir  !  Look  at  his  fetlock  :  underbred, 
but  a  jimpy  nag  for  a  roadster,  if  a  man  wanted  work 
out  on  him.  See  how  he  blows,  sir,  and  Flash  as 
etill  as  a  stopped  wheel !" 

Lady  Fanny's  reappearance  at  the  door  of  the 
house  interrupted  her  page's  eulogy  on  the  bays  ;  and 
with  a  very  altered  expression  of  countenance  she  re- 
sumed the  reins,  and  drove  slowly  homeward. 

"  She  is  very  ill,  very  ill  !  but  she  wishes  to  see 
you,  and  you  must  go  there ;  but  not  to-morrow. 
She  is  passing  a  crisis  now,  and  her  physician  says, 
will  be  easier  if  not  better,  after  to-morrow.  Poor 
girl!  dear  Blanch  !  Ah,  Clay  !  but  no — no  matter; 
I  shall  talk  about  it  with  more  composure  by-and-by 
— poor  Blanch  !" 

Lady  Fanny's  tears  rained  upon  her  two  hands  as 
she  let  out  her  impatient  horses  to  be  sooner  at  home, 
and,  in  half  an  hour,  Clay  was  alone  in  his  luxurious 
quarters,  under  Sir  Harry's  roof,  with  two  hours  to 
dinner,  and  more  than  thoughts  enough,  and  very  sad 
ones,  to  make  him  glad  of  time  and  solitude. 

Freer  Hall  was  full  of  company — Sir  Harry's  com- 
pany— and  Clay,  with  the  quiet  assurance  of  a  London 
star,  used  to  the  dominant,  took  his  station  by  Lady 
Fanny  on  entering  the  drawing-room,  and  when  din- 
ner was  announced,  gave  her  his  arm,  without  troubling 
himself  to  remember  that  there  was  a  baronet  who  had 
claim  to  the  honor,  and  of  whom  he  must  simply  make 
a  mortal  enemy.  At  table,  the  conversation  ran  main- 
ly in  Sir  Harry's  vein,  hunting,  and  Clay  did  not  even 
take  the  listener's  part ;  but,  in  a  low  tone,  talked  of 
London  to  Lady  Fanny — her  ladyship  (unaccountably 
to  her  husband  and  his  friends,  who  were  used  to 
furnish  her  more  merriment  than  revery)  pensive 
and  out  of  spirits.  With  the  announcement  of  coffee 
in  the  drawing  room,  Clay  disappeared  with  her,  and 
their  evening  was  tete-a-tete,  for  Sir  Harry  and  his 
friends  were  three-bottle  men,  and  commonly  bade 
good-night  to  ladies  when  the  ladies  left  the  table. 
If  there  had  been  a  second  thought  in  the  convivial 
squirearchy,  they  would  have  troubled  their  heads 
less  about  a  man  who  did  not  exhibit  the  first  symptom 
of  love  for  the  wife — civility  to  the  husband.  But 
this  is  a  hand-to-mouth  world  in  the  way  of  knowl- 
edge, and  nothing  is  stored  but  experiences,  lifetime 
by  lifetime. 

Another  day  passed  and  another,  and  mystery  seem- 
ed the  ruling  spirit  of  the  hour,  for  there  were  enigmas 
for  all.  Regularly,  morning  and  afternoon,  the  high 
stepping  ponies  were  ordered  round,  and  Lady  Fanny 
(with  Mr.  Clay  for  company  to  the  gate)  visited  the 
Beaufins,  now  against  positive  orders  from  the  irate 
Sir  Harry,  and  daily,  Clay's  reserve  with  his  beautiful 


hostess  increased,  and  his  distress  of  mind  with  it,  for 
both  he  and  she  were  alarmed  with  the  one  piece  of 
unexplained  intelligence  between  them — MissBeaufin 
would  see  Mr.  Clay  when  she  should  be  dying! 
Not  before — for  worlds  not  before — and  of  the  phy- 
sician constantly  in  attendance  (Lady  Fanny  often 
present),  Clay  knew  that  the  poor  girl  besought  with 
an  eagerness,  to  the  last  degree  touching  and  ear- 
nest, to  know  when  hope  could  be  given  over.  She 
was  indulged,  unquestioned,  as  a  dying  daughter; 
and,  whatever  might  be  her  secret,  Lady  Fanny 
promised  that  at  the  turning  hour,  come  what  would 
,  of  distressing  and  painful,  she  would  herself  come 
i,  with  Mr.  Clay  to  her  death-bed. 

Sir  Harry  and  his  friends  were  in  the  billiard-room, 
and  Lady  Fanny  and  Clay  breakfasting  together,  when 
a  note  was  brought  in  by  one  of  the  footmen,  who 
waited  for  an  answer. 

"  Say  that  I  will  come,"  said  Lady  Fanny,  "  and 
stay,  George!  See  that  my  ponies  are  harnessed  im- 
mediately ;  put  the  head  of  the  phaeton  up,  and  let  it 
stand  in  the  coach-house.  And,  Timson  !"  she  added 
to  the  butler  who  stood  at  the  side-table,  "  if  Sir  Harry 
inquires  for  me,  say  that  I  am  gone  to  visit  a  sick 
friend." 

Lady  Fanny  walked  to  the  window.  It  rained  in 
torrents.  There  was  no  need  of  explanation  to  Clay; 
he  understood  the  note  and  its  meaning. 

"  The  offices  connect  with  the  stables  by  a  covered 
way,"  she  said,  "  and  we  will  get  in  there.  Shall  you 
be  ready  in  a  few  minutes  ?" 

"  Quite,  dear  Lady  Fanny !     I  am  ready  now." 

"  The  rain  is  rather  fortunate  than  otherwise,"  she 
added,  in  going  out,  "  for  Sir  Harry  will  not  see  ua 
go;  and  he  might  throw  an  obstacle  in  the  way,  and 
make  it  difficult  to  manage.     Wrap  well  up,  Ernest  !" 

The  butler  looked  inquisitively  at  Clay  and  his  mis- 
tress, but  both  were  preoccupied,  and  in  ten  minutes 
the  rapid  phaeton  was  on  its  way,  the  ponies  pressing 
on  the  bit  as  if  the  eagerness  of  the  two  hearts  beating 
behind  them  was  communicated  through  the  reins, 
and  Lady  Fanny,  contrary  to  her  wont,  driving  in  un- 
encouraging  silence.  The  three  or  four  miles  between 
Freer  Hall  and  their  destination  were  soon  traversed, 
and  under  the  small  porte-cochere  of  the  ancient  man- 
sion the  ponies  stood  panting  and  sheltered. 

"Kind  Lady  Fanny!  God  bless  you  !"  said  a  tall, 
dark  man,  of  a  very  striking  exterior,  coming  out  to 
the  phaeton.     "  And  you,  sir,  are  welcome  !" 

They  followed  him  into  the  little  parlor,  where  Clay 
was  presented  by  Lady  Fanny  to  the  mother  of  Miss 
Beaufin,  a  singularly  yet  sadly  sweet  woman  in  voice, 
person,  and  address;  to  the  old,  white-haired  vicar, 
and  to  the  physician,  who  returned  his  bow  with  a 
cold  and  very  formal  salute. 

"There  is  no  time  to  be  lost."  said  he,  "  and  at  the 
request  of  MissBeaufin,  Lady  Fanny  and  this  gentle- 
man will  please  go  to  her  chamber  without  us.  1  can 
trust  your  ladyship  to  see  that  her  remainder  of  life 
is  not  shortened  nor  harassed  by  needless  agitation." 

Clay's  heart  beat  violently.  At  the  extremity  of 
the  long  and  dimly-lighted  passage  thrown  open  by 
the  father  to  Lady  Fanny,  he  saw  a  while  curtained 
bed — the  death-bed,  he  knew,  of  the  gay  and  fair 
flower  of  a  London  season,  the  wonder  and  idol  of 
difficult  fashion,  and  unadmiring  rank.  Blanch  Beaufin 
had  appeared  like  a  marvel  in  the  brilliant  circles  of 
Lady  Fanny's  acquaintance,  a  distinguished,  uncon- 
scious, dazzling  girl,  of  whom  her  fair  introductress 
(either  in  mischief  or  good  nature)  would  say  nothing 
but  that  she  was  her  neighbor  in  Cheshire,  though 
all  that  nature  could  lavish  on  one  human  creature 
seemed  hers,  with  all  that  high  birth  could  stamp  on 
mien,  countenance,  and  manners.  Clay  paid  her  his 
tribute  with  the  rest — the  hundred  who  flattered  and 
followed  her ;  but  she  was  a  proud  girl,  and  though 


266 


ERNEST  CLAY. 


he  seized  every  opportunity  of  being  near  her,  nothing 
in  her  manner  betrayed  to  him  that  he  was  not  counted 
among  the  hundred.  A  London  season  fleets  fast, 
and,  taken  by  surprise  with  Lady  Fanny's  early  de- 
parture for  the  country,  her  farewells  were  written 
on  the  corners  of  cards,  and  with  a  secret  deep  buried 
in  the  heart,  she  was  brought  back  to  the  retirement 
of  home. 

Brief  history  of  the  breaking  of  a  heart ! 

Lady  Fanny  started  slightly  on  entering  the  cham- 
ber. The  sick  girl  sat  propped  in  an  arm  chair, 
dressed  in  snowy  white  ;  even  her  slight  foot  appear- 
ing beneath  the  edge  of  her  dress  in  a  slipper  of  white 
satin.  Her  brown  hair  fell  in  profuse  ringlets  over 
her  shoulders ;  but  it  was  gathered  behind  into  a 
knot,  and  from  it  depended  a  white  veil,  the  diamonds 
which  fastened  it,  pressing  to  the  glossy  curve  of  her 
head,  a  slender  stem  of  orange-flowers.  Her  features 
were  of  that  slight  mould  which  shows  sickness  by 
little  except  higher  transparency  of  the  blue  veins, 
and  brighter  redness  in  the  lips,  and  as  she  smiled 
with  suffused  cheek,  and  held  out  her  gloved  hand  to 
Clay,  with  a  vain  effort  to  articulate,  lie  passed  his 
hands  across  his  eyes  and  looked  inquiringly  at  his 
friend.  He  had  expected,  though  he  had  never 
realized,  that  she  would  be  altered.  She  looked 
almost  as  he  had  left  her.  He  remembered  her  only 
as  he  had  oftenest  seen  her — dressed  for  ball  or  party, 
and  but  for  the  solemnity  of  the  preparation  he  had 
gone  through,  he  might  have  thought  his  feelings 
had  been  played  upon  only;  that  Blanch  Beaufin 
was  well — still  beautiful  and  well ;  that  he  should 
again  see  her  in  the  brilliant  circles  of  London;  still 
love  her  as  he  secretly  did,  and  receive  what  he  now 
felt  would  be  under  any  circumstances  a  gift  of 
Heaven,  the  assurance  of  a  return.  This  and  a  world 
of  confused  emotion,  tumultuously  and  in  an  instant, 
rushed  through  his  heart ;  for  there  are  moments  in 
which  we  live  lives  of  feeling  and  thought;  moments, 
glances,  which  supply  years  of  secret  or  bitter  memory. 

This  is  but  a  sketch — but  an  outline  of  a  tale  over 
true.  Were  there  space,  were  there  time  to  follow 
out  the  traverse  thread  of  its  mere  mournful  incidents, 
we  might  write  the  reverse  side  of  a  leaf  of  life  ever 
read  partially  and  wrong — the  life  of  the  gay  and  un- 
lamenting.  Sickness  and  death  had  here  broken 
down  a  wall  of  adamant  between  two  creatures,  every 
way  formed  for  each  other.  In  health  and  ordinary 
regularity  of  circumstances,  they  would  have  loved  as 
truly  and  deeply  as  those  in  humbler  or  in  more  for- 
tunate relative  positions ;  but  they  probably  would 
never  have  been  united.  It  is  the  system,  the  neces- 
sary system  of  the  class  to  which  Clay  belonged,  to 
turn  adroitly  and  gayly  off  every  shaft  to  the  heart; 
to  take  advantage  of  no  opening  to  affection;  to 
smother  all  preference  that  would  lead  to  an  inter- 
change of  hallowed  vows ;  to  profess  insensibility 
equally  polished  and  hardened  on  the  subject  of  pure 
love ;  to  forswear  marriage,  and  make  of  it  a  mock 
and  an  impossibility.  And  whose  handiwork  is  this 
unnatural  order  of  society?  Was  it  established  by 
the  fortunate  and  joyous — by  the  wealthy  and  un- 
trammelled, at  liberty  to  range  the  world  if  they  liked, 
and  marry  where  they  chose,  but  preferring  gayety  to 
happiness,  and  lawless  liberty  to  virtuous  love  ?  No, 
indeed  !  not  by  these  !  Show  me  one  such  man,  and 
I  will  show  you  a  rare  perversion  of  common  feeling 

a  man  who  under  any  circumstances  would  have 

been  cold  and  eccentric.  It  is  not  to  those  able  to 
marry  where  they  will,  that  the  class  of  London  gay 
men  owe  their  system  of  mocking  opinions.  But  it 
is  to  the  companions  of  fortunate  men — gifted  like 
them,  in  all  but  fortune,  and  holding  their  caste  by 
the  tenure  of  forsworn  ties — abiding  in  the  paradise 
of  aristocracy,  with  pure  love  for  the  forbidden  fruit ! 
Are  such  men  insensible  to  love  ?     Has  this  forbidden 


joy — this  one  thing  hallowed  in  a  bad  world ;  has  it  no 
temptation  for  the  gay  man  ?  Is  his  better  nature 
quite  dead  within  him  ?  Is  he  never  ill  and  sad  where 
gayety  can  not  reach  him  ?  Does  he  envy  the  rich 
young  lord  (his  friend),  everything  but  his  blushing 
and  pure  bride  ?  Is  he  poet  or  wit,  or  the  mirror  of 
taste  and  elegance,  yet  incapable  of  discerning  the 
qualities  of  a  true  love  ;  the  celestial  refinement  of  a 
maiden  passion,  lawful  and  fearless,  devoted  because 
spotless,  and  enduring  because  made  up  half  of  prayer 
and  gratitude  to  her  Maker  ?  Does  he  not  know  dis- 
tinctions of  feeling,  as  he  knows  character  in  a  play  ? 
Does  he  not  discriminate  between  purity  and  guilt  in 
love,  as  he  does  in  his  nice  judgment  of  honor  and 
taste  ?  Is  he  gayly  dead  to  the  deepest  and  most 
elevated  cravings  of  nature — love,  passionate,  single- 
hearted,  and  holy  ?  Trust  me,  there  is  a  bitterness 
whose  depths  we  can  only  fathom  by  refinement ! 
To  move  among  creatures  embellished  and  elevated 
to  the  last  point  of  human  attainment,  lovely  and  un- 
sullied, and  know  yourself  (as  to  all  but  gazing  on  and 
appreciating  them)  a  pariah  and  an  outcast !  to  breathe 
their  air,  and  be  the  companion  and  apparent  equal  of 
those  for  whose  bliss  they  are  created,  and  to  whom 
they  are  offered  for  choice,  with  the  profusion  of 
flowers  in  a  garden — (the  chooser  and  possessor  of 
the  brightest  your  inferior  in  all  else)— to  live  thus ; 
to  suffer  thus,  and  still  smile  and  call  it  choice  and 
your  own  way  to  happiness — this  is  mockery  indeed  ! 
He  who  now  stood  in  the  death-room  of  Blanch 
Beaufin,  had  felt  it  in  its  bitterest  intensity  ! 

"  Mr.  Clay  ! — Ernest !"  said  the  now  pale  creature, 
breaking  the  silence  with  a  strong  effort,  for  he  had 
dropped  on  his  knee  at  her  side  in  ungovernable  emo- 
tion, and,  as  yet,  had  but  articulated  her  name — "Er- 
nest! I  have  but  little  time  for  anything — least  of  all 
for  disguise  or  ceremony.  I  am  assured  that  I  am  dy- 
ing. I  am  convinced,"  she  added  firmly,  taking  up 
the  watch  that  lay  beside  her,  "  that  I  have  been  told 
the  truth,  and  that  when  this  hourhand  comes  round 
again,  I  shall  be  dead.  I  will  conceal  nothing.  They 
have  given  me  cordials  that  will  support  me  one  hour, 
and  for  that  hour — and  for  eternity — I  wish — if  I  may 
be  so  blest — if  God  will  permit — to  be  your  wife  !" 

Lady  Fanny  Freer  rose  and  came  to  her  with  rapid 
steps,  and  Clay  sprang  to  his  feet,  and  in  a  passion  of 
tears  exclaimed,  "Oh  God!  can  this  be  true  !" 

"  Answer  me  quickly  !"  she  continued,  in  a  voice 
raised,  but  breaking  through  sobs,  "  an  hour  is  short — 
oh  hoxo  short,  when  it  is  the  last !  I  can  not  stay  with 
you  long,  were  you  a  thousand  times  mine.  Tell 
me,  Ernest ! — shall  it  be  ? — shall  I  be  wedded  ere  I 
die  ? — wedded  now  ?" 

A  passionate  gesture  to  Lady  Fanny  was  all  the 
answer  Clay  could  make,  and  in  another  moment  the 
aged  vicar  was  in  the  chamber,  with  her  parents  and 
the  physician,  to  all  of  whom  a  few  words  explained 
a  mystery  which  her  bridal  attire  had  already  half  un- 
ravelled. 

Blanch  spoke  quickly — "  Shall  he  proceed,  Er- 
nest?" 

Her  prayer-book  was  open  on  her  knee,  and  Clay 
gave  it  to  the  vicar,  who,  with  a  quick  sense  of  sym- 
pathy, and  with  but  a  glance  at  the  weeping  and  si- 
lent parents,  read  without  delay  the  hallowed  cercn;o- 
nial. 

Clay's  countenance  elevated  and  cleared  as  he  pro- 
ceeded, and  Blanch,  with  her  large  suffused  eyes  fixed 
on  his,  listened  with  a  smile,  serene,  but  expressive  of 
unspeakable  rapture.  Her  beauty  had  never  been  so 
radiant,  so  angelic.  In  heaven,  on  her  bridal  night, 
beatified  spirit  as  she  was,  she  could  not  have  been 
more  beautiful ! 

One  instant  of  embarrassment  occurred,  unobserved 
by  the  dying  bride,  but,  with  the  thoughtfulness  of 
womanly  generosity,  Lady  Fanny  had  foreseen  it,  and, 


ERNEST  CLAY. 


267 


drawing  off  her  own  wedding-ring,  she  passed  it  into 
Ernest's  hand  ere  the  interruption  became  apparent. 
Alas!  the  emaciated  hand  ungloved  to  receive  it! 
That  wasted  finger  pointed  indeed  to  heaven!  Till 
then,  Clay  had  felt  almost  in  a  dream.  But  here  was 
suffering— sickness — death  !  This  told  what  the  hec- 
tic brightness  and  the  faultless  features  would  fain 
deny— what  the  fragrant  and  still  unwithering  flowers 
upon  her  temples  would  seem  to  mock  !  But  the 
hectic  was  already  fading,  and  the  flowers  outlived  the 
light  in  the  dark  eyes  they  shaded! 

The  vicar  joined  their  hands  with  the  solemn  ad- 
juration, "Those  whom  God  hath  joined  together  let 
no  man  put  asunder ;"  and  Clay  rose  from  his  knees, 
and  pressing  his  first  kiss  upon  her  lips,  strained  her 
passionately  to  his  heart. 

"  .Mine  in  heaven!"'  she  cried,  giving  way  at  last  to 
her  tears,  as  she  closed  her  slight  arms  over  his  neck  ; 
"mine  in  heaven!  Is  it  not  so,  mother!  father!  is 
he  not  mine  now  ?  There  is  no  giving  in  marriage  in 
heaven,  but  the  ties,  hallowed  here,  are  not  forgotten 
there !  Tell  me  they  are  not !  Speak  to  me,  my  ! 
husband!  Press  me  to  your  heart,  Ernest !  Your  j 
wife — oh,  I  thank  God  !" 

The   physician  sprang  forward  and   laid   his  hand  j 
upon  her  pulse.     She  fell  back  upon  her  pillows,  and 
with  a  smile  upon  her  lips,  and  the  tears  still  wet  upon 
her  long  and  drooping  lashes,  lay  dead. 

Lady  Fanny  took  the  mother  by  the  arm,  and  with 
a  gesture  to  the  father  and  the  physician  to  follow, 
they  retired  and  left  the  bridegroom  alone. 
*  *  *  *  *  *  *  | 

Life  is  full  of  sudden  transitions ;  and  the  next  i 
event  in  that  of  Ernest  Clay,  was  a  duel  with  Sir  Har-  j 
ry  Freer — if  the  Morning  Post  was  to  be  believed —  \ 
"occasioned  by  the  indiscretion  of  Lady  Fanny,  who,  | 
'n  a  giddy  moment,  it  appears,  had  given  to  her  ad- 
nirer,  Sir  Harry's  opponent,  her  wedding-ring !" 


CHAPTER  IX. 

Late  one  night  in  June  two  gentlemen  arrived  at 
the  Villa  Hotel  of  the  Baths  of  Lucca.  They  stop- 
ped the  low  britzka  in  which  they  travelled,  and,  leav- 
ing a  servant  to  make  arrangements  for  their  lodging, 
linked  arms  and  strolled  up  the  road  toward  the  banks 
of  the  Lima.  The  moon  was  chequered  at  the  mo- 
ment with  the  poised  leaf  of  a  treetop,  and  as  it  pas- 
sed from  her  face,  she  arose  and  stood  alone  in  the  ! 
steel-blue  of  the  unclouded  heavens — a  luminous  and  ! 
tremulous  plate  of  gold.  And  you  know  how  beau- 
tiful must  have  been  the  night,  a  June  night  in  Italy, 
with  a  moon  at  the  full ! 

A  lady,  with  a  servant  following  her  at  a  little  dis- 
tance, passed  the  travellers  on  the  bridge  of  the  Lima. 
She  dropped  her  veil  and  went  by  in  silence.  But 
the  Freyherr  felt  the  arm  of  his  friend  tremble  within 
his  own. 

"Do  you  know  her,  then?"  asked  Von  Leisten. 

"By  the  thrill  in  my  veins  we  have  me*,  before," 
said  Clay;  "but  whether  this  involuntary  sensation 
was  pleasurable  or  painful,  I  have  not'  yet  decided. 
There  are  none  I  care  to  meet — none  who  can  be 
here."  He  added  the  last  few  words  after  a  moment's 
pause,  and  sadly. 

They  walked  on  in  silence  to  the  base  of  the  moun- 
tain, busy  each  with  such  coloring  as  the  moonlight 
threw  on  their  thoughts,  but  neither  of  them  was 
happy. 

Clay  was  humane,  and  a  lover  of  nature — a  poet, 
tha»  is  to  say — and,  in  a  world  so  beautiful,  could  nev- 
er be  a  prey  to  disgust;  but  he  was  satiated  with  the 
eoinmon  emotions  of  life.  His  heart,  for  ever  over- 
flowing, hnd    filled   many  a    cup   with    love,  but    with 


strange  tenacity  he  turned  back  for  ever  to  the  first. 
He  was  weary  of  the  beginnings  of  love — weary  of 
its  probations  and  changes.  He  had  passed  the  pe- 
riod of  life  when  inconstancy  was  tempting.  He 
longed  now  for  an  affection  that  would  continue  into 
another  world — holy  and  pure  enough  to  pass  a  gate 
guarded  by  angels.  And  his  first  love — recklessly  as 
he  had  thrown  it  away — was  now  the  thirst  of  his  ex- 
istence. 

]t  was  two  o'clock  at  night.  The  moon  lay  broad 
upon  the  southern  balconies  of  the  hotel,  and  every 
casement  was  open  to  its  luminous  and  fragrant  still- 
ness. Clay  and  the  Freyherr  Von  Leisten,  each  in 
his  apartment,  were  awake,  unwilling  to  lose  the  lux- 
ury of  the  night.  And  there  was  one  other  under 
that  roof  waking,  with  her  eyes  fixed  on  the  moon. 

As  Clay  leaned  his  head  on  his  hand,  and  looked 
outward  to  the  sky,  his  heart  began  to  be  troubled. 
There  was  a  point  in  the  path  of  the  moon's  rays 
where  his  spirit  turned  back.  There  was  an  influence 
abroad  in  the  dissolving  moonlight  around  him  which 
resistlessly  awakened  the  past— the  sealed  but  unfor- 
gottenpast.  He  could  not  single  out  the  emotion.  He 
knew  not  whether  it  was  fear  or  hope — pain  or  pleasure. 
He  called,  through  the  open  window,  to  Von  Leisten. 
The  Freyherr,  like  himself,  and  like  all  who  have 
outlived  the  effervescence  of  life,  was  enamored  of  the 
night.  A  moment  of  unfathomable  moonlight  was 
dearer  to  him  than  hours  disenchanted  with  the  sun. 
He,  too,  had  been  looking  outward  and  upward — but 
with  no  trouble  at  his  heart. 

"  The  night  is  inconceivably  sweet,"  he  said,  as  he 
entered,  "  and  your  voice  called  in  my  thought  and 
sense  from  the  intoxication  of  a  revel.  What  would 
you,  my  friend  ?" 

"  I  am  restless,  Von  Leisten!  There  is  some  one 
near  us  whose  glances  cross  mine  on  the  moonlight, 
and  agitate  and  perplex  me.  Yet  there  was  but  one 
on  earth  deep  enough  in  the  life-blood  of  my  being 
to  move  me  thus — even  were  she  here  !  And  she  is 
not  here  !" 

His  voice  trembled  and  softened,  and  the  last  word 
was  scarce  audible  on  his  closing  lips,  for  the  Frey- 
herr had  passed  his  hands  over  him  while  he  spoke, 
and  he  had  fallen  into  the  trance  of  the  spirit-world. 

Clay  and  Von  Leisten  had  retired  from  the  active 
passions  of  life  together,  and  had  met  and  mingled  at 
that  moment  of  void  and  thirst  when  each  supplied 
the  want  of  the  other.  The  Freyherr  was  a  German 
noble,  of  a  character  passionately  poetic,  and  of  sin- 
gular acquirement  in  the  mystic  fields  of  knowledge. 
Too  wealthy  to  need  labor,  and  too  proud  to  submit 
his  thoughts  or  his  attainments  to  the  criticism  or 
judgment  of  the  world,  he  lavished  on  his  own  life,  and 
on  those  linked  to  him  in  friendship,  the  strange  powers 
he  had  acquired,  and  the  prodigal  overthrow  of  his 
daily  thought  and  feeling.  Clay  was  his  superior, 
perhaps,  in  genius,  and  necessity  had  driven  him  to 
develop  the  type  of  his  inner  soul,  and  leave  its  im- 
press on  the  time.  But  he  was  inferior  to  Von  Leis- 
ten in  the  power  of  will,  and  he  lay  in  his  control  like 
a  child  in  its  mother's.  Four  years  they  had  passed 
together,  much  of  it  in  the  secluded  castle  of  Von 
Leisten,  busied  with  the  occult  studies  to  which  the 
Freyherr  was  secretly  devoted ;  but  travelling  down 
to  Italy  to  meet  the  luxurious  summer,  and  dividing 
their  lives  between  the  enjoyment  of  nature  and  the 
ideal  world  they  had  unlocked.  Von  Leisten  had 
lost,  by  death,  the  human  altar  on  which  his  heart 
could  alone  burn  the  incense  of  love;  and  Clay  had 
flung  aside  in  an  hour  of  intoxicating  passion  the  ODe 
pure  affection  in  which  his  happiness  was  sealed— 
and  both  were  desolate.  But  in  the  world  of  the 
past.  Von  Leisten,  though  more  irrevocably  lonely, 
was  more  tranquilly  blest. 

The  Freyherr  released    he  entranced  spirit  of  hia 


268 


ERNEST  CLAY. 


friend,  and  bade  him  follow  back  the  rays  of  the  moon 
to  the  source  of  his  agitation. 

A  smile  crept  slowly  over  the  speaker's  lips. 

In  an  apartment  flooded  with  the  silver  lustre  of  the 
night,  reclined,  in  an  invalid's  chair,  propped  with  pil- 
lows, a  woman  of  singular,  though  most  fragile  beauty. 
Books  and  music  lay  strewn  around,  and  a  lamp,  sub- 
dued to  the  tone  of  the  moonlight  by  an  orb  of  ala- 
baster, burned  beside  her.  She  lay  bathing  her  blue 
eyes  in  the  round  chalice  of  the  moon.  A  profusion 
of  brown  ringlets  fell  over  the  white  dress  that  envel- 
oped her,  and  her  oval  cheek  lay  supported  on  the 
palm  of  her  hand,  and  her  bright  red  lips  were  parted. 
The  pure,  yet  passionate  spell  of  that  soft  night  pos- 
sessed her. 

Over  her  leaned  the  disembodied  spirit  of  him  who 
had  once  loved  her — praying  to  God  that  his  soul 
might  be  so  purified  as  to  mingle  unstartingly,  unre- 
pulsively,  in  hallowed  harmony  with  hers.  And  pres- 
ently he  felt  the  coming  of  angels  toward  him,  breath- 
ing into  the  deepest  abysses  of  his  existence  a  tearful 
and  purifying  sadness.  And  with  a  trembling  aspira- 
tion of  grateful  humility  to  his  Maker,  he  stooped  to 
her  forehead,  and  with  his  impalpable  lips  impressed 
upon  its  snowy  tablet  a  kiss. 

It  seemed  to  Eve  Gore  a  thought  of  the  past  that 
brought  the  blood  suddenly  to  her  cheek.  She  started 
from  herrecliningposition,  and,  removing  theobscuring 
shade  from  her  lamp,  arose  and  crossed  her  hands 
upon  her  wrists,  and  paced  thoughtfully  to  and  fro. 
Her  lips  murmured  inarticulately.  But  the  thought, 
painfully  though  it  came,  changed  unaccountably  to 
melancholy  sweetness  ;  and,  subduing  her  lamp  again, 
she  resumed  her  steadfast  gaze  upon  the  moon. 

Ernest  knelt  beside  her,  and  with  his  invisible  brow 
bowed  upon  her  hand,  poured  forth,  in  the  voiceless 
language  of  the  soul,  his  memories  of  the  past,  his 
hope,  his  repentance,  his  pure  and  passionate  adora- 
tion at  the  present  hour. 

And  thinking  she  had  been  in  a  sweet  dream,  yet 
wondering  at  its  truthfulness  and  power,  Eve  wept, 
silently  and  long.  As  the  morning  touched  the  east, 
slumber  weighed  upon  her  moistened  eyelids,  and 
kneeling  by  her  bedside  she  murmured  her  gratitude 
to  God  for  a  heart  relieved  of  a  burden  long  borne, 
and  so  went  peacefully  to  her  sleep.         *         *         * 

It  was  in  the  following  year,  and  in  the  beginning 
of  May.  The  gay  world  of  England  was  concentra- 
ted in  London,  and  at  the  entertainments  of  noble 
houses  there  were  many  beautiful  women  and  many 
marked  men.  The  Freyherr  Von  Leisten,  after 
years  of  absence,  had  appeared  again,  his  mysterious 
and  undeniable  superiority  of  mien  and  influence 
again  yielded  to,  as  before,  and  again  bringing  to  his 
feet  the  homage  and  deference  of  the  crowd  he  moved 
among.  To  his  inscrutable  power  the  game  of  so- 
ciety was  easy,  and  he  walked  where  he  would  through 
*ts  barriers  of  form. 

He  stood  one  night  looking  on  at  a  dance.  A  lady 
of  a  noble  air  was  near  him,  and  both  were  watching 
the  movements  of  the  loveliest  woman  present,  a  crea- 
ture in  radiant  health,  apparently  about  twenty-three, 
and  of  matchless  fascination  of  person  and  manner. 
Von  Leisten  turned  to  the  lady  near  him  to  inquire 
her  name,  but  his  attention  was  arrested   by  the  re- 


semblance between  her  and  the  object  of  his  admiring 
curiosity,  and  he  was  silent. 

The  lady  had  bowed  before  he  withdrew  his  gaze, 
however. 

"I  think  we  have  met  before!"  she  said;  but  at 
the  next  instant  a  slight  flush  of  displeasure  came  to  her 
cheek,  and  she  seemed  regretting  that  she  had  spoken. 

"Pardon  me!"  said  Von  Leisten,  "but — if  the 
|  question  be  not  rude — do  you  remember  where  ?" 

She  hesitated  a  moment. 

"  I  have  recalled  it  since  I  have  spoken,"  she  con- 
j  tinued;  "  but  as  the  remembrance  of  the  person  who 
i  accompanied  you  always  gives  me  pain,  I  would  wil- 
!  lingly  have  unsaid  it.  One  evening  of  last  year,  cros- 
sing the  bridge  of  the  Lima,  you  were  walking  with 
Mr.  Clay.  Pardon  me — but,  though  I  left  Lucca 
|  with  my  daughter  on  the  following  morning,  and  saw 
i  you  no  more,  the  association,  or  your  appearance, 
j  had  imprinted  the  circumstance  on  my  mind." 

"And  is  that  Eve  Gore  ?"  said  Von  Leisten,  mu- 
singly, gazing  on  the  beautiful  creature  now  gliding 
with  light  step  to  her  mother's  side. 

But  the  Freyherr's  heart  was  gone  to  his  friend. 

As  the  burst  of  the  waltz  broke  in  upon  the  closing 
of  the  quadrille,  he  offered  his  hand  to  the  fair  girl, 
and  as  they  moved  round  to  the  entrancing  music,  he 
murmured  in  her  ear,  "  He  who  came  to  you  in  the 
moonlight  of  Italy  will  be  with  you  again,  if  you  are 
alone,  at  the  rising  of  to-night's  late  moon.  Believe 
the  voice  that  then  speaks  to  you  !"         *         *         * 

It  was  with  implacable  determination  that  Mrs. 
Gore  refused,  to  the  entreaties  of  Von  Leisten,  a  re- 
newal of  Clay's  acquaintance  with  her  daughter. 
Resentment  for  the  apparent  recklessness  with  which 
he  had  once  sacrificed  her  maiden  love  for  an  unlaw- 
ful passion — scornful  unbelief  of  any  change  in  his 
character — distrust  of  the  future  tendency  of  the 
powers  of  his  genius — all  mingled  together  in  a  hos- 
tility proof  against  persuasion.  She  had  expressed 
this  with  all  the  positiveness  of  language,  when  her 
daughter  suddenly  entered  the  room.  It  was  the 
morning  after  the  ball,  and  she  had  risen  late.  But 
though  subdued  and  pensive  in  her  air,  Von  Leisten 
saw  at  a  glance  that  she  was  happy. 

"  Can  you  bring  him  to  me  ?"  said  Eve,  letting  her 
hand  remain  in  Von  Leisten's,  and  bending  her  deep 
blue  eyes  inquiringly  on  his. 

And  with  no  argument  but  tears  and  caresses,  and 
an  unexplained  assurance  of  her  conviction  of  the  re- 
pentant purity  and  love  of  him  to  whom  her  heart 
was  once  given,  the  confiding  and  strong -hearted 
girl  bent,  at  last,  the  stern  will  that  forbade  her  happi- 
ness. Her  mother  unclasped  the  slight  arms  from  her 
neck,  and  gave  her  hand  in  silent  consent  to  Von  Leisten. 

The  Freyherr  stood  a  moment  with  his  eyes  fixed 
on  the  ground.  The  color  fled  from  his  cheeks,  and 
his  brow  moistened. 

"I  have  called  him,"  he  said — "  he  will  be  here  !" 

An  hour  elapsed,  and  Clay  entered  the  house.  He 
had  risen  from  a  bed  of  sickness,  and  came,  pale  and 
in  terror — for  the  spirit-summons  was  powerful.  But 
Von  Leisten  welcomed  him  at  the  door  with  a  smile, 
and  withdrew  the  mother  from  the  room,  and  left  Er- 
nest alone  with  his  future  bride — the  first  union,  save 
in  spirit,  after  years  of  separation. 


m 


THE  MARQUIS  IN  PETTICOATS. 


269 


THE   MARQUIS   IN  PETTICOATS 


(THE    OUTLINE    FROM    A    FRENCH   MEMOIR.) 


I  introduce  you  at  once  to  the  Marquis  de  la  Che- 
tardie— a  diplomatist  who  figured  largely  in  the  gay 
age  of  Louis  XV. — and  the  story  is  but  one  of  the 
illuminated  pages  of  the  dark  book  of  diplomacy. 

Charles  de  la  Chetardie  appeared  for  the  first  time 
to  the  eyes  of  the  king  at  a  masquerade  ball,  given  at 
Versailles,  under  the  auspices  of  la  belle  Pompadour. 
He  was  dressed  as  a  young  lady  of  high  rank,  making 
her  debut, ;  and,  so  perfect  was  his  acting,  and  the  de- 
ception altogether,  that  Louis  became  enamored 
of  the  disguised  marquis,  and  violently  excited  the 
jealousy  of  "Madame,"  by  his  amorous  attentions. 
An  eclaircissement,  of  course,  took  place,  and  the  re- 
sult was  a  great  partiality  for  the  marquis's  society, 
and  his  subsequent  employment,  in  and  out  of  petti- 
coats, in  many  a  scheme  of  state  diplomacy  and  royal 
amusement. 

La  Chetardie  was  at  this  time  just  eighteen.  He 
was  very  slight,  and  had  remarkably  small  hands  and 
feet,  and  the  radiant  fairness  of  his  skin  and  the  luxu- 
riant softness  of  his  profuse  chestnut  curls,  might 
justly  have  been  the  envy  of  the  most  delicate  woman. 
He  was,  at  first,  subjected  to  some  ridicule  for  his 
effeminacy,  but  the  merry  courtiers  were  soon  made 
aware,  that,  under  this  velvet  fragility  lay  concealed 
the  strength  and  ferocity  of  the  tiger.  The  grasp  of 
his  small  hand  was  like  an  iron  vice,  and  his  singular 
activity,  and  the  cool  courage  which  afterward  gave 
him  a  brilliant  career  on  the  battle-field,  established 
him,  in  a  very  short  time,  as  the  most  formidable 
swordsman  of  the  court.  His  ferocity,  however,  lay 
deeply  concealed  in  his  character,  and,  unprovoked, 
he  was  the  gayest  and  most  brilliant  of  merry  com- 
panions. 

This  was  the  age  of  occult  and  treacherous  diplo- 
macy, and  the  court  of  Russia,  where  Louis  would 
fain  have  exercised  an  influence  (private  as  well  as  po- 
litical in  its  results),  was  guarded  by  an  implacable 
Argus,  in  the  person  of  the  prime  minister,  Bestucheff. 
Aided  by  Sir  Hambury  Williams,  the  English  ambas- 
sador, one  of  the  craftiest  men  of  that  crafty  period,  he 
had  succeeded  for  some  years  in  defeating  every  at- 
tempt at  access  to  the  imperial  ear  by  the  secret  emis- 
saries of  France.  The  sudden  appearance  of  La 
Chetardie,  his  cool  self-command,  and  his  successful 
personation  of  a  female,  suggested  a  new  hope  to  the 
king,  however;  and,  called  to  Versailles  by  royal  man- 
date, the  young  marquis  was  taken  into  cabinet  confi- 
dence, and  a  secret  mission  to  St.  Petersburgh,  in 
petticoats,  proposed  to  him  and  accepted. 

With  his  instructions  and  secret  despatches  stitched 
into  his  corsets,  and  under  the  ostensible  protection  of 
a  scientific  man,  who  was  to  present  him  to  the  tzarine 
as  a  Mademoiselle  de  Beaumont,  desirous  of  entering 
the  service  of  Elizabeth,  the  marquis  reached  St.  Pe- 
tersburg without  accident  or  adventure.  "The  young 
lady's  guardian  requested  an  audience  through  Bestu- 
cheff, and  having  delivered  the  open  letters  recom- 
mending her  for  her  accomplishments  to  the  imperial 
protection,  he  begged  leave  to  continue  on  his  scien- 
tific tour  to  the  central  regions  of  Russia. 

Conge  was  immediately  granted,  and  on  the  disap- 
pearance of  the  savant,  and  before  the  departure  of 
Bestucheff,  the  tzarine  threw  off  all  ceremony,  and 
pinching  the  cheeks  and  imprinting  a  kiss  on  the  fore- 


head of  the  beautiful  stranger,  appointed  her,  by  one 
of  those  sudden  whims  of  preference  against  which 
her  ministers  had  so  much  trouble  to  guard,  lectrice 
intime  et  parliculiere — in  short,  confidential  personal 
attendant.  The  blushes  of  the  confused  marquis,  who 
was  unprepared  for  so  affectionate  a  reception,  served 
rather  to  heighten  the  disguise,  and  old  Bestucheff 
bowed  himself  out  with  a  compliment  to  the  beauty 
of  Mademoiselle  de  Beaumont,  veiled  in  a  diplomatic 
congratulation  to  her  imperial  mistress. 

Elizabeth  was  forty  and  a  little  passee,  but  she  still 
had  pretensions,  and  was  particularly  fond  of  beauty 
in  her  attendants,  female  as  well  as  male.  Her  favor- 
ite, of  her  personal  suite,  at  the  time  of  the  arrival  of 
the  marquis,  was  an  exquisite  little  creature  who  had 
been  sent  to  her,  as  a  compliment  to  this  particular 
taste,  by  the  Dutchess  of  Mecklenberg-Strelitz — a  kind 
of  German  "Fenella,"  or  "  Mignon,"  by  the  name  of 
Nadege  Stein.  Not  much  below  the  middle  size, 
Nadege  was  a  model  of  symmetrica]  proportion,  and 
of  very  extraordinary  beauty.  She  had  been  carefully 
educated  for  her  present  situation,  and  was  highly 
accomplished  ;  a  fine  reader,  and  a  singularly  sweet 
musician  and  dancer.  The  tzari  tie's  passion  for  this 
lovely  attendant  was  excessive,  and  the  arrival  of  a  new 
favorite  of  the  same  sex  was  looked  upon  with  some 
pleasure  by  the  eclipsed  remainder  of  the  palace 
idlers. 

Elizabeth  summoned  Nadege,  and  committed  Mad- 
emoiselle de  Beaumont  temporarily  to  her  charge; 
but  the  same  mysterious  magnetism  which  had  reached 
the  heart  of  the  tzarine,  seemed  to  kindle,  quite  as 
promptly,  the  affections  of  her  attendant.  Nadege 
was  no  sooner  alone  with  her  new  friend,  than  she 
jumped  to  her  neck,  smothered  her  with  kisses,  called 
her  by  every  endearing  epithet,  and  overwhelmed  her 
with  questions,  mingled  with  the  most  childlike  ex- 
clamations of  wonder  at  her  own  inexplicable  love  for 
a  stranger.  In  an  hour,  she  had  shown  to  the  new 
demoiselle  all  the  contents  of  the  little  boudoir  in  which 
she  lived  ;  talked  to  her  of  her  loves  and  hates  at  the 
Russian  court;  of  her  home  in  Mecklenberg,  and  her 
present  situation — in  short,  poured  out  her  heart  with 
the  naif  abandon  of  a  child.  The  young  marquis  had 
never  seen  so  lovely  a  creature;  and,  responsibly  as  he 
felt  his  difficult  and  delicate  situation,  he  returned  the 
affection  so  innocently  lavished  upon  him,  and  by  the 
end  of  this  first  fatal  hour,  was  irrecoverably  in  love. 
And,  gay  as  his  life  had  been  at  the  French  court,  it 
was  the  first,  and  subsequently  proved  to  be  the  deep- 
est, passion  of  his  life. 

On  the  tzarine's  return  to  her  private  apartment,  she 
summoned  her  new  favorite,  and  superintended,  with 
condescending  solicitude,  the  arrangements  for  hei 
palace  lodging.  Nadege  inhabited  a  small  tower  ad- 
joining the  bedroom  of  her  mistress,  and  above  this 
was  an  unoccupied  room,  which,  at  the  present  sug- 
gestion of  the  fairy  little  attendant,  was  allotted  to  the 
new-comer.  The  staircase  opened  by  one  door  into 
the  private  gardens,  and  by  the  opposite,  into  the  cor- 
ridor leading  immediately  to  the  imperial  chamber. 
The  marquis's  delicacy  would  fain  have  made  some 
objection  to  this  very  intimate  location  ;  but  he  could 
hazard  nothing  against  the  interests  of  his  sovereign, 
and  he  trusted  to  a  speedy  termination  of  his  disguise 


270 


THE  MARQUIS  IN   PETTICOATS. 


with  the  attainment  of  his  object.  Meantime,  the 
close  neighborhood  of  the  fair  Nadege  was  not  the  . 
most  intolerable  of  necessities. 

The   marquis's  task  was  a  very  difficult  one.     He 
was  instructed,  before  abandoning  his  disguise  and  de-  , 
livering  his  secret  despatches,  to  awaken  the  interest 
of  the  tzarine  on  the  two  subjects  to  which  the  docu-  j 
ments  had  reference  :  viz.,  a  former  partiality  of  her 
majesty  for  Louis,  and  a  formerly  discussed  project  of  ' 
seating  the  Prince  de  Conti  on  the  throne  of  Poland. 
Bestucheff  had  so  long  succeeded  in  cutting  off  all  | 
approach  of  these  topics  to  the  ear  of  the  tzarine,  that 
her  majesty  had  probably  forgotten  them  altogether. 

Weeks  passed,  and  the  opportunities  to  broach  these 
delicate  subjects  had  been  inauspiciously  rare.  Mad- 
emoiselle de  Beaumont,  it  is  true,  had  completely 
eclipsed  the  favorite  Nadege;  and  Elizabeth,  in  her 
hours  of  relaxation  from  state  affairs,  exacted  the  con- 
stant attendance  of  the  new  favorite  in  her  private 
apartments.  But  the  almost  constant  presence  of 
some  other  of  the  maids  of  honor,  opposed  continual 
obstacles  and  interruptions,  and  the  tzarine  herself 
was  not  always  disposed  to  talk  of  matters  more  seri- 
ous than  the  current  trifles  of  the  hour.  She  was 
extremely  indolent  in  her  personal  habits;  and  often 
reclining  at  length  upon  cushions  on  the  floor  of  her 
boudoir,  she  laid  her  imperial  head  in  the  lap  of  the 
embarrassed  demoiselle,  and  was  soothed  to  sleep  by 
reading  and  the  bathing  of  her  temples.  And  during 
this  period,  she  exacted  frequently  of  the  marquis,  with 
a  kind  of  instinctive  mistrust,  promises  of  continuance 
for  life  in  her  personal  service. 

But  there  were  sweeter  hours  for  the  enamored  La 
Chetardie  than  those  passed  in  the  presence  of  his 
partial  and  imperial  mistress.  Encircled  by  sentinels, 
and  guarded  from  all  intrusion  of  other  eyes,  in  the 
inviolable  sanctuary  of  royalty,  the  beautiful  Nadege, 
impassioned  she  knew  not  why,  in  her  love  for  her 
new  companion,  was  ever  within  call,  and  happy  in 
devoting  to  him  all  her  faculties  of  caressing  endear- 
ment. He  had  not  yet  dared  to  risk  the  interests  of 
his  sovereign  by  a  disclosure  of  his  sex,  even  in  the 
confidence  of  love.  He  could  not  trust  Nadege  to 
play  so  difficult  a  part  as  that  of  possessor  of  so  em- 
barrassing a  secret  in  the  presence  of  the  shrewd  and 
observing  tzarine.  A  betrayal,  too,  would  at  once  put 
an  end  to  his  happiness.  With  the  slight  arm  of  the 
fair  and  relying  creature  about  his  waist,  and  her  head 
pressed  close  against  his  breast,  they  passed  the  balmy 
nights  of  the  Russian  summer  in  pacing  the  flowery 
alleys  of  the  imperial  garden,  discoursing,  with  but 
one  reserve,  on  every  subject  that  floated  to  their  lips. 
It  required,  however,  all  the  self-control  of  La  Che- 
tardie, and  all  the  favoring  darkness  of  the  night,  to  con- 
ceal his  smiles  at  the  naive  confessions  of  the  uncon- 
scious girl,  and  herwonderings  at  the  peculiarity  of  her 
feelings.  She  had  thought,  hitherto,  that  there  were 
affections  in  her  nature  which  could  only  be  called  forth 
by  a  lover.  Yet  now,  the  thought  of  caressing  another 
than  her  friend — of  repeating  to  any  human  ear,  least 
of  all  to  a  man,  those  new-born  vows  of  love — filled 
her  with  alarm  and  horror.  She  felt  that  she  had 
given  her  heart  irrevocably  away — and  to  a  woman  ! 
Ah,  with  what  delirious,  though  silent  passion,  La 
Chetardie  drew  her  to  his  bosom,  and,  with  the  pres- 
sure of  his  lips  upon  hers,  interrupted  those  sweet 
confessions  ! 

Yet  the  time  at  last  drew  near  for  the  waking  from 
this  celestial  dream.  The  disguised  diplomatist  had 
found  his  opportunity,  and  had  successfully  awakened 
in  Elizabeth's  mind  both  curiosity  and  interest  as  to 
the  subjects  of  the  despatches  still  sewed  safely  in  his 
corsets.  There  remained  nothing  for  him  now  but  to 
seize  a  favorable  opportunity,  and,  with  the  delivery 
of  his  missives,  to  declare  his  sex  to  the  tzarine.  There 
wa3  risk  to  life  and  libert}'  in  this,   but  the  marquis 


knew  not  fear,  and  he  thought  but  of  its  consequences 
to  his  love. 

In  La  Chetardie's  last  interview  with  the  savant  who 
conducted  him  to  Russia,  his  male  attire  had  been 
successfully  transferred  from  one  portmanteau  to  the 
other,  and  it  was  now  in  his  possession,  ready  for  the 
moment  of  need.  With  his  plans  brought  to  within  a 
single  night  of  the  denouement,  he  parted  from  the 
tzarine,  having  asked  the  imperial  permission  for  an 
hour's  private  interview  on  the  morrow,  and,  with  gen- 
tle force  excluding  Nadege  from  his  apartment,  he 
dressed  himself  in  his  proper  costume,  and  cut  open 
the  warm  envelope  of' his  despatches.  This  done,  he 
threw  his  cloak  over  him,  and,  with  a  dark  lantern  in 
his  hand,  sought  Nadege  in  the  garden.  He  had  de- 
termined to  disclose  himself  to  her,  renew  his  vows  of 
love  in  his  proper  guise,  and  arrange,  while  he  had 
access  and  opportunity,  some  means  for  uniting  their 
destinies  hereafter. 

As  he  opened  the  door  of  the  turret,  Nadege  flew 
up  the  stair  to  meet  him,  and  observing  the  cloak  in 
the  faint  glimmer  of  the  stars,  she  playfully  endeavored 
to  envelope  herself  in  it.  But,  seizing  her  hands, 
La  Chetardie  turned  and  glided  backward,  drawing 
her  after  him  toward  a  small  pavilion  in  the  remoter 
part  of  the  garden.  Here  they  had  never  been  inter- 
rupted, the  empress  alone  having  the  power  to  intrude 
upon  them,  and  La  Chetardie  felt  safe  in  devoting  this 
place  and  time  to  the  double  disclosure  of  his  secret 
and  his  suppressed  passion. 

Persuading  her  with  difficulty  to  desist  from  putting 
her  arms  about  him  and  sit  down  without  a  caress,  he 
retreated  a  few  steps,  and  in  the  darkness  of  the  pa- 
vilion, shook  down  his  imprisoned  locks  to  their  mas- 
culine abandon,  threw  off  his  cloak,  and  drew  up  the 
blind  of  his  lantern.  The  scream  of  surprise,  which 
instantly  parted  from  the  lips  of  Nadege,  made  him 
regret  his  imprudence  in  not  having  prepared  her  for 
the  transformation,  but  her  second  thought  was  mirth, 
for  she  could  believe  it  of  course  to  be  nothing  but  a 
playful  masquerade;  and  with  delighted  laughter  she 
sprang  to  his  neck,  and  overwhelmed  him  with  her 
kisses — another  voice,  however,  joining  very  unexpect- 
edly in  the  laughter  ! 

The  empress  stood  before  them  ! 

For  an  instant,  with  all  his  self-possession,  La  Che- 
tardie was  confounded  and  dismayed.  Siberia,  the 
knout,  the  scaffold,  flitted  before  his  eyes,  and  Nadege 
I  was  the  sufferer !  But  a  glance  at  the  face  of  the 
!  tzarine  reassured  him.  She,  too,  took  it  for  a  girlish 
masquerade  ! 

But  the  empress,  unfortunately,  was  not  disposed  to 
have  a  partner  in  her  enjoyment  of  the  society  of  this 
new  apparition  of  "hose  and  doublet."  She  ordered 
Nadege  to  her  turret,  with  one  of  those  petulant  com- 
mands which  her  attendants  understood  to  admit  of  no 
delay,  and  while  the  eclipsed  favorite  disappeared  with 
the  tears  of  unwilling  submission  in  her  soft  eyes,  La 
Chetardie  looked  after  her  with  the  anguish  of  eternal 
separation  at  his  heart,  for  a  presentiment  crowded 
irresistibly  upon  him  that  he  should  never  see  her 
more  ! 

The  empress  was  in  slippers  and  robe  de  mtit,  and, 
as  if  fate  had  determined  that  this  well-kept  secret 
should  not  survive  the  hour,  her  majesty  laid  her  arm 
within  that  of  her  supposed  masquerader,  and  led  the 
way  to  the  palace.  She  was  wakeful,  and  wished  to 
be  read  to  sleep.  And,  with  many  a  compliment  to 
the  beauty  of  her  favorite  in  male  attire,  and  many  a 
playful  caress,  she  arrived  at  the  door  of  her  chamber. 

But  the  marquis  could  go  no  farther.  He  had  hith- 
erto been  spared  the  embarrassment  of  passing  this 
sacred  threshold,  for  the  passee  empress  had  secrets 
of  toilet  for  the  embellishment  of  her  person,  which 
she  trusted  only  to  the  eyes  of  an  antiquated  attend- 
ant.    La  Chetardie  had  never  passed  beyond  the  bo"- 


THE  MARQUIS  IN  PETTICOATS. 


271 


doir  which  was  between  the  antechamber  and  the  bed- 
room, and  the  time  had  come  for  the  disclosure  of  his 
secret.  He  fell  on  his  knees  and  announced  himself 
a  man .' 

Fortunately  they  were  alone.  Incredulous  at  first, 
the  empress  listened  to  his  asseverations,  however, 
with  more  amusement  than  displeasure,  and  the  im- 
mediate delivery  of  the  despatches,  with  the  commen- 
dations of  the  disguised  ambassador  by  his  royal  mas- 
ter to  the  forgiveness  and  kindness  of  the  empress, 
amply  secured  his  pardon.  But  it  was  on  condition 
that  he  should  resume  his  disguise  and  remain  in  her 
service. 

Alone  in*  his  tower  (for  Nadege  had  disappeared,  and 
he  knew  enough  of  the  cruelty  of  Elizabeth  to  dread 
the  consequences  to  the  poor  girl  of  venturing  on  di- 
rect inquiries  as  to  her  fate),  La  Chetardie  after  a  few 
weeks  fell  ill;  and  fortunate,  even  at  this  price,  to  I 
escape  from  the  silken  fetters  of  the  enamored  tzarine, 
be  departed  under  the  care  of  the  imperial  physician, 
for  the  more  genial  climate  of  France — not  without 
reiterated  promises  of  return,  however,  and  offers,  in 
that  event,  of  unlimited  wealth  and  advancement. 

But,  as  the  marquis  made  his  way  slowly  toward 
Vienna,  a  gleam  of  light  dawned  on  his  sadness. 
The  Princess  Sophia  Charlotte  was  newly  affianced  to 
George  the  Third  of  England,  and  this  daughter  of 
the  house  of  Mecklenberg  had  been  the  playmate  of 
Nadege  Stein,  from  infancy  till  the  time  when  Nadege  jj 
was  sent  to  the  tzarine  by  the  Dutchess  of  Mecklen- 
berg.  Making  a  confidant  of  the  kind  physician  who 
accompanied  him,  La  Chetardie  was  confirmed,  by  the 
good  man's  better  experience  and  knowledge,  in  the 
belief  that  Nadege  had  shared  the  same  fate  of  every 
female  of  the  court  who  had  ever  awakened  the  jeal- 
ousy  of  the  empress.  She  was  doubtless  exiled  to 
Siberia;  but,  as  she  had  committed  no  voluntary  fault, 
it  was  probably  without  other  punishment ;  and,  with 
a  playmate  on  the  throne  of  England,  she  might  be 
demanded  and  recovered  ere  long,  in  all  her  freshness  I 
and  beauty.  Yet  the  recent  fate  of  the  fair  Eudoxie 
Lapoukin,  who,  for  an  offence  but  little  more  distaste- 
ful to  the  tzarine,  had  been  pierced  through  the  tongue 
with  hot  iron,  whipped  with  the  knout,  and  exiled  for 
life  to  Siberia,  hung  like  a  cloud  of  evil  augury  over 
his  mind. 

The  marquis  suddenly  determined  that  he  would  see 
the  affianced  princess,  and  plead  with  her  for  her  friend,  ! 
before  the  splendors  of  a  throne  should  make  her  in- 
accessible.     The  excitement  of  this  hope  had  given  || 
him  new  life,  and  he  easily  persuaded  his  attendant,  as   j 
they  entered  the  gates  of  Vienna,  that  he  required  his 
attendance   no  farther.     Alone  with  his  own  servants, 
he  resumed  his  female  attire,  and  directed  his  course 
to  Mecklenberg-Strelitz. 

The  princess  had  maintained  an  intimate  corre- 
spondence with  her  playmate  up  to  the  time  of  her 
betrothal,  and  the  name  of  Mademoiselle  de  Beau- 
mont was  passport  enough.  La  Chetardie  had  sent 
forward  his  servant,  on  arriving  at  the  town,  in  the 
neighborhood  of  the  ducal  residence,  and  the  reply 


to  his  missive  was  brought  back  by  one  of  the  officers 
in  attendance,  with  orders  to  conduct  the  demoiseile 
to  apartments  in  the  castle.  He  was  received  with  all 
honor  at  the  palace-gate  by  a  chamberlain  in  waiting, 
who  led  the  way  to  a  suite  of  rooms  adjoining  those 
of  the  princess,  where,  after  being  left  alone  for  a  few 
minutes,  he  was  familiarly  visited  by  the  betrothed 
girl,  and  overwhelmed,  as  formerly  by  her  friend,  with 
most  embarrassing  caresses.  In  the  next  moment, 
however,  the  door  was  hastily  flung  open,  and  Nadege, 
like  a  stream  of  light,  fled  through  the  room,  hung 
upon  the  neck  of  the  speechless  and  overjoyed  mar- 
quis, and  ended  with  convulsions  of  mingled  tears  and 
laughter.  The  moment  that  he  could  disengage  him- 
self from  her  arms,  La  Chetardie  requested  to  be  left 
for  a  moment  alone.  He  felt  the  danger  and  impro- 
priety of  longer  maintaining  his  disguise.  He  closed 
his  door  on  the  unwilling  demoiselles,  hastily  changed 
his  dress,  and,  with  his  sword  at  his  side,  entered  the 
adjoining  reception-room  of  the  princess,  where  Made- 
moiselle de  Beaumont  was  impatiently  awaited. 

The  scene  which  followed,  the  mingled  confusion 
and  joy  of  Nadege,  the  subsequent  hilarity  and  mas- 
querading at  the  castle,  and  the  particulars  of  the 
marriage  of  the  Marquis  de  la  Chetardie  to  his  fair 
fellow  maid-of-honor,  must  be  left  to  the  reader's  im- 
agination. We  have  room  only  to  explain  the  reap- 
pearance of  Nadege  at  Mecklenberg. 

Nadege  retired  to  her  turret  at  the  imperative  com- 
mand of  the  empress,  sad  and  troubled  ;  but  waited 
wakefully  and  anxiously  for  the  re-entrance  of  her  dis- 
guised companion.  In  the  course  of  an  hour,  how- 
ever, the  sound  of  a  sentinel's  musket,  set  down  at  her 
door,  informed  her  that  she  was  a  prisoner.  She  knew 
Elizabeth,  and  the  Dutchess  of  Mecklenberg,  with  an 
equal  knowledge  of  the  tzarine's  character,  had  provi- 
ded her  with  a  resource  against  the  imperial  cruelty, 
should  she  have  occasion  to  use  it.  She  crept  to  the 
battlements  of  the  tower,  and  fastened  a  handkerchief 
to  the  side  looking  over  the  public  square. 

The  following  morning,  at  daylight,  Nadege  was 
summoned  to  prepare  for  a  journey,  and,  in  an  hour, 
she  was  led  between  soldiers  to  a  carriage  at  the  pal- 
ace-gate, and  departed  by  the  northern  egress  of  the 
city,  with  a  guard  of  three  mounted  cossacks.  In  two 
hours  from  that  time,  the  carriage  was  overtaken,  the 
guard  overpowered,  and  the  horses'  heads  turned  in 
the  direction  of  Moscow.  After  many  difficulties  and 
dangers,  during  which  she  found  herself  under  the 
charge  of  a  Mecklenbergian  officer  in  the  service  of 
the  tzarine,  she  reached  Vienna  in  safety,  and  was  im- 
mediately concealed  by  her  friends  in  the  neighbor- 
hood of  the  palace  at  Mecklenberg,  to  remain  hidden 
till  inquiry  should  be  over.  The  arrival  of  Mademoi- 
selle de  Beaumont,  for  the  loss  of  whose  life  or  liberty 
she  had  incessantly  wept  with  dread  and  apprehension, 
was  joyfully  communicated  to  her  by  her  friends  ;  and 
so  the  reader  knows  some  of  the  passages  in  the  early 
life  of  the  far-famed  beauty  in  the  French  couit  in 
the  time  of  Louis  XV. — the  Marchioness  de  la  Che- 
tardie. 


272 


BEAUTY  AND  THE  BEAST." 


BEAUTY  AND  THE  BEAST; 


." 


OR,  HANDSOME  MRS.  TITTON  AND  HER  PLAIN  HUSBAND. 


1  That  man  i'  the  world  who  shall  report  he  has 
A  better  wife,  let  him  in  naught  be  trusted 
For  speaking  false  in  that." — Henry  VIII. 


I  have  always  been  very  fond  of  the  society  of 
portrait-painters.  Whether  it  is,  that  the  pursuit  of 
a  beautiful  and  liberal  art  softens  their  natural  quali- 
ties, or  that,  from  the  habit  of  conversing  while  en- 
grossed with  the  pencil,  they  like  best  that  touch-and- 
go  talk  which  takes  care  of  itself;  or,  more  probably 
still,  whether  the  freedom  with  which  they  are  ad- 
mitted behind  the  curtains  of  vanity  and  affection  gives 
a  certain  freshness  and  truth  to  their  views  of  things 
around  them — certain  it  is,  that,  in  all  countries,  their 
rooms  are  the  most  agreeable  of  haunts,  and  they 
themselves  most  enjoyable  of  cronies. 

I  had  chanced  in  Italy  to  make  the  acquaintance  of 

S ,  an  English  artist  of  considerable  cleverness 

in  his  profession,  but  more  remarkable  for  his  frank 
good  breeding  and  his  abundant  good  nature.  Four 
years  after,  I  had  the  pleasure  of  renewing  my  inter- 
course with  him  in  London,  where  he  was  flourishing, 
quite  up  to  his  deserving,  as  a  portrait-painter.  His 
rooms  were  hard  by  one  of  the  principal  thorough- 
fares, and,  from  making  an  occasional  visit,  I  grew  to 
frequenting  them  daily,  often  joining  him  at  his  early 
breakfast,  and  often  taking  him  out  with  me  to  drive 
whenever  we  changed  to  tire  of  our  twilight  stroll. 
While  rambling  in  Hyde  Park,  one  evening,  I  men- 
tioned for  the  twentieth  time,  a  singularly  ill-assorted 
couple  I  had  once  or  twice  met  at  his  room — a  woman 
of  superb  beauty  attended  by  a  very  inferior-looking 

and  ill-dressed  man.      S ■ had,  previously,  with 

a  smile  at  my  speculations,  dismissed  the  subject 
rather  crisply  ;  but,  on  this  occasion,  I  went  into  some 
surmises  as  to  the  probable  results  of  such  "  pairing 
without  matching,"  and  he  either  felt  called  upon  to 
defend  the  lady,  or  made  my  misapprehension  of  her 
character  an  excuse  for  telling  me  what  he  knew  about 
her.  He  began  the  story  in  the  Park,  and  ended  it 
over  a  bottle  of  wine  in  the  Haymarket — of  course 
with  many  interruptions  and  digressions.  Let  me  see 
if  I  can  tie  his  broken  threads  together. 

"That  lady  is  Mrs.  Fortescue  Titton,  and  the 
gentleman  you  so  much  disparage  is,  if  you  please, 
the  incumbrance  to  ten  thousand  a  year — the  money 
as  much  at  her  service  as  the  husband  by  whom  she 
gets  it.     Whether  he  could  have  won  her  had  he  been 

"  Bereft  and  gelded  of  his  patrimony," 

I  will  not  assert,  especially  to  one  who  looks  on  them 
as  'Beauty  and  the  Beast;'  but  that  she  loves  him, 
or  at  least  prefers  to  him  no  handsomer  man,  I  may 
say  I  have  been  brought  to  believe,  in  the  way  of  my 
profession." 

"You  have  painted  her,  then?"  I  asked  rather 
eagerly,  thinking  I  might  get  a  sketch  of  her  face  to 
take  with  me  to  another  country. 

"No,  but  I  have  painted  him — and  for  her — and  it 
is  not  a  case  of  Titania  and  Bottom,  either.  She  is 
quite  aware  he  is  a  monster,  and  wanted  his  picture 
for  a  reason  you  would  never  divine.  But  I  must  be- 
gin at  the  beginning. 

"  After  you  left  me  in  Italy,  I  was  employed  by  the 

earl  of ,  to  copy  one  or  two   of  his  favorite 

pictures  in  the  Vatican,  and  that  brought  me  rather 


well  acquainted  with  his  son.  Lord  George  was  a  gay 
youth,  and  a  very  'look-and-die'  style  of  fellow,  and, 
as  much  from  admiration  of  his  beauty  as  anything 
else,  I  asked  him  to  sit  to  me,  on  our  return  to  Lon- 
don. I  painted  him  very  fantastically  in  an  Albanian 
cap  and  oriental  morning-gown  and  slippers,  smoking 
a  narghile — the  room  in  which  he  sat,  by  the  way, 
being  a  correct  portrait  of  his  own  den,  a  perfect 
museum  of  costly  luxury.  It  was  a  pretty  gorgeous 
turn-out  in  the  way  of  color,  and  was  ssverely  criticised, 
but  still  a  good  deal  noticed — for  I  sent  it  to  the  ex- 
hibition. 

"  I  was  one  day  going  into  Somerset-house,  when 
Lord  George  hailed  me  from  his  cab.  He  wished  to 
suggest  some  alteration  in  his  picture,  or  to  tell  me 
of  some  criticism  upon  it,  I  forget  exactly  what ;  but 
we  went  up  together.  Directly  before  the  portrait, 
gazing  at  it  with  marked  abstraction,  stood  a  beautiful 
woman,  quite  alone  ;  and  as  she  occupied  the  only 
point  where  the  light  was  favorable,  we  waited  a  mo- 
ment till  she  should  pass  on — Lord  George,  of  course, 
rather  disposed  to  shrink  from  being  recognised  as  the 
original.  The  woman's  interest  in  the  picture  seemed 
rather  to  increase,  however,  and  what  with  variations 
of  the  posture  of  her  head,  and  pulling  at  her  glove 
fingers,  and  other  female  indications  of  restlessness 
and  enthusiasm,  I  thought  I  was  doing  her  no  injus- 
tice by  turning  to  my  companion  with  a  congratulatory 
smile. 

"  '  It  seems  a  case,  by  Jove  !'  said  Lord  George,  try- 
ing to  look  as  if  it  was  a  matter  of  very  simple  occur- 
rence ;  '  and  she's  as  fine  a  creature  as  I've  seen  this 
season!  Eh,  old  boy?  we  must  run  her  down,  and 
see  where  she  burrows — and  there's  nobody  with  her, 
by  good  luck!' 

"A  party  entered  just  then,  and  passed  between  her 
and  the  picture.  She  looked  annoyed,  I  thought,  but 
started  forward  and  borrowed  a  catalogue  of  a  little 
girl,  and  we  could  see  that  she  turned  to  the  last  page, 
on  which  the  portrait  was  numbered,  with,  of  course, 
the  name  and  address  of  the  painter.  She  made  a 
memorandum  on  one  of  her  cards,  and  left  the  house. 
Lord  George  followed,  and  I  too,  as  far  as  the  door, 
where  I  saw  her  get  into  a  very  stylishly  appointed 
carriage  and  drive  away,  followed  closely  by  the  cab 
of  my  friend,  whom  I  had  declined  to  accompany. 

"You  wouldn't  have  given  very  heavy  odds  against 
his  chance,  would  you?"  said  S ,  after  a  mo- 
ment pause. 

"  No,  indeed  !"  I  answered  quite  sincerely. 

"  Well,  I  was  at  work,  the  next  morning,  glazing  a 
picture  I  had  just  finished,  when  the  servant  brought 
up  the  card  of  Mrs.  Fortescue  Titton.  I  chanced  to 
be  alone,  so  the  lady  was  shown  at  once  into  my  paint- 
ing room,  and  lo  !  the  incognita  of  Somerset-House. 
The  plot  thickens,  thought  I !  She  sat  down  in  my 
♦subject'  chair,  and,  faith!  her  beauty  quite  dazzled 
me  !  Her  first  smile — but  you  have  seen  her,  so  I'll 
not  bore  you  with  a  description. 

"  Mrs.  Titton  blushed  on  opening  her  errand  to  me, 
first  inquiring  if  1  was  the  painter  of  •  No  403'  in  the 
exhibition,  and  saying  some  very  civil  things  about  the 


"  BEAUTY  AND  THE  BEAST." 


273 


picture.     I  mentioned  that  it  was  a  portrait  of  Lord 

George (for  his  name  was  not  in  the  catalogue), 

and  I  thought  she  M&sh«d  still  more  confusedly — 
hut  that.  I  think  now.  was  fancy,  or  at  any  rate  had 
nothing  to  do  with  feeling  for  his  lordship.  It  was 
natural  enough  for  me  to  be  mistaken,  for  she  was  very 
particular  in  her  inquiries  as  to  the  costume,  furniture, 
and  little  belongings  of  the  picture,  and  asked  me 
among  other  things,  whether  it  was  a  flattered  like- 
ness : — this  last  question  very  pointedly,  too  ! 

"  She  arose  to  go.  Was  I  at  leisure,  and  could  I 
sketch  a  head  for  her,  and  when  ? 

"  I  appointed  the  next  day,  expecting  of  course  that 
the  subject  was  the  lady  herself,  and  scarcely  slept 
with  thinking  of  it,  and  starved  myself  at  breakfast  to 
have  a  clear  eye,  and  a  hand  wide  awake.  And  at 
ten  she  came,  with  her  Mr.  Fortescue  Titton  !  I  was 
sorry  to  see  that  she  had  a  husband,  for  I  had  indulged 
myself  with  a  vague  presentiment  that  she  was  a 
widow  ;  but  I  begged  him  to  take  a  chair,  and  prepar- 
ed the  platform  for  my  beautiful  subject. 

"'Will  you  take  your  seat  ?'  I  asked,  with  all  my 
suavity,  when  my  palette  was  ready. 

"  '  My  dear,'  said  she,  turning  to  her  husband,  and 
pointing  to  the  chair,  ■  Mr.  S is  ready  for  you.' 

"  I  begged  pardon  for  a  moment,  crossed  over  to 
Verey's  and  bolted  a  beef-steak  !  A  cup  of  coffee,  and 
a  glass  of  Curacoa,  and  a  little  walk  round  Hanover- 
square,  and  I  recovered  from  the  shock  a  little.  It 
went  very  hard,  I  give  you  my  word. 

"  I  returned,  and  took  a  look,  for  the  first  time,  at 
Mr.  Titton.  You  have  seen  him,  and  have  some  idea 
of  what  his  portrait  might  be,  considered  as  a  pleasure 
to  the  artist — what  it  might  promise,  I  should  rather 
say,  for,  after  all,  I  ultimately  enjoyed  working  at  it, 
quite  aside  from  the  presence  of  Mrs.  Titton.  It  was 
the  ugliest  face  in  the  world,  but  full  of  good-nature  ; 
and,  as  I  looked  closer  into  it,  I  saw,  among  its  coarse 
features,  lines  of  almost  feminine  delicacy,  and  capa- 
bilities of  enthusiasm  of  which  the  man  himself  was 
probably  unconscious.  Then  a  certain  helpless  style 
of  dress  was  a  wet  blanket  to  him.  Rich  from  his 
cradle,  I  suppose  his  qualities  had  never  been  needed 
on  the  surface.     His  wife  knew  them. 

"From  time  to  time,  as  I  worked,  Mrs.  Titton  came 
and  looked  over  my  shoulder.  With  a  natural  desire 
to  please  her,  I,  here  and  there,  softened  a  harsh  line, 
and  was  going  on  to  flatter  the  likeness — not  as  suc- 
cessful as  I  could  wish,  however,  for  it  is  much  easier 
to  get  a  faithful  likeness  than  to  flatter  without  destroy- 
ing it. 

"  'Mr.  S ,'  said  she,  laying  her  hand  on  my 

arm  as  I  thinned  away  the  lumpy  rim  of  his  nostril, 
'  I  want,  first,  a  literal  copy  of  my  husband's  features. 
Suppose,  with  this  idea,  you  take  a  fresh  canvass  ?' 

"  Thoroughly  mystified  by  the  whole  business,  I 
did  as  she  requested  ;  and,  in  two  sittings,  made  a 
likeness  of  Titton  which  would  have  given  you  a  face- 
ache.  He  shrugged  his  shoulders  at  it,  and  seemed 
very  glad  when  the  bore  of  sitting  was  over;  but  they 
seemed  to  understand  each  other  very  well,  or,  if  not, 
he  reserved  hisquestions  till  there  could  be  no  restraint 
upon  the  answer.  He  seemed  a  capital  fellow,  and  I 
liked  him  exceedingly. 

"I  asked  if  I  should  frame  the  picture  and  send  it 
home  ?  No  !  I  was  to  do  neither.  If  I  would  be  kind 
enough  not  to  show  it.  nor  to  mention  it  to  any  one, 
and  come  the  next  day  and  dine  with  them  en  famille, 
Mrs.  Titton  would  feel  very  much  obliged  to  me. 
And  this  dinner  was  followed  up  by  breakfasts  and 
lunches  and  suppers,  and,  for  a  fortnight,  I  really  lived 
with  the  Tittons — and  pleasanter  people  to  live  with, 
by  Jove,  you  haven't  seen  in  your  travels,  though  you 
are  'a  picked  man  of  countries!' 

"  I  should  mention,  by  the  way,  that  f.  was  always 
placed  opposite  Titton  at  table,  and  that  he  was  a  good 
IS 


deal  with  me,  one  way  and  another,  taking  me  out,  as 
you  do,  for  a  stroll,  calling  and  sitting  with  me  when 
I  was  at  work,  etc.  And  as  to  Mrs.  Ti-ton — if  I  did 
not  mistrust  your  arriere  pensei,  I  would  enlarge  a 
little  on  my  intimacy  with  Mrs.  Titton! — Hut,  believe 
me  when  I  tell  you,  that,  without  a  ray  of  flirtation, 
we  became  as  cozily  intimate  as  brother  and  sister." 

"  And  what  of  Lord  George,  all  this  time  ?"  I  asked. 

"Oh,  Lord  George! — Well,  Lord  George  of  course 
had  no  difficulty  in  making  Mrs.  Titton's  acquaintance, 
though  they  were  not  quite  in  the  same  circle,  and  he 
had  been  presented  to  her,  and  had  seen  her  at  a  party 
or  two,  where  he  managed  to  be  invited  on  purpose — 
but  of  this,  for  a  while,  J  heard  nothing.  She  had  not 
yet  seen  him  at  her  own  house,  and  1  had  not  chanced 
to  encounter  him.     But  let  me  go  on  with  my  story. 

"  Mrs.  Titton  sent  for  me  to  come  to  her,  one 
morning  rather  early.  I  found  her  in  her  boudoir,  in 
a  neglige  morning-dress,  and  looking  adorably  beauti- 
ful, and  as  pure  as  beautiful,  you  smiling  villain  !  She 
seemed  to  have  something  on  her  mind  about  which  she 
was  a  little  embarrassed,  but  I  knew  her  too  well  to  lay 
any  unction  to  my  soul.  We  chatted  about  the  weather 
a  few  moments,  and  she  came  to  the  point.  You  will 
see  that  she  was  a  woman  of  some  talent,  won  ami  ! 

" '  Have  you  looked  at  my  husband's  portrait  since 
you  finished  it  ?'  she  asked. 

"'No,  indeed!'  I  replied  rather  hastily — but  im 
mediately  apologized. 

" '  Oh,  if  I  had  not  been  certain  you  would  not,' 
she  said  with  a  smile,  '  I  should  have  requested  it,  for 
I  wished  you  to  forget  it,  as  far  as  possible.  And  now 
let  me  tell  you  what  I  want  of  you!  You  have  got, 
on  canvass,  a  likeness  of  Fortescue  as  the  world  sees 
him.  Since  taking  it,  however,  you  have  seen  him 
more  intimately,  and — and — like  his  face  better,  do 
you  not  ?' 

"'Certainly!  certainly!'  I  exclaimed,  in  all  sincerity. 

"  '  Thank  you  !  If  I  mistake  not,  then,  you  do  not, 
when  thinking  of  him,  call  up  to  your  mind  the 
features  in  your  portrait,  but  a  face  formed  rather  of 
his  good  qualities,  as  you  have  learned  to  trace  t^iem 
in  his  expression.' 

"  '  True,'  I  said,  '  very  true  !' 

"  '  Now,  then,'  she  continued,  leaning  over  to  me 
very  earnestly,  '  I  want  you  to  paint  a  new  picture, 
and  without  departing  from  the  real  likeness,  which 
you  will  have  to  guide  you,  breathe  into  it  the  expres- 
sion you  have  in  your  ideal  likeness.  Add,  to  what 
the  world  sees,  what  I  see,  what  you  see,  what  all  who 
love  him  see,  in  his  plain  features.  Idealize  it, 
spiritualize  it — and  without  lessening  the  resemblance. 
Can  this  be  done?' 

"  1  thought  it  could.     I  promised  to  do  my  utmost. 

"  '  I  shall  call  and  see  you  as  you  progress  in  it,' 
she  said,  '  and  now,  if  you  have  nothing  better  to  do, 
stay  to  lunch,  and  come  out  with  me  in  the  carriage. 
I  want  a  little  of  your  foreign  taste  in  the  selection  of 
some  pretty  nothings  for  a  gentleman's  toilet.' 

"  We  passed  the  morning  in  making  what  I  should 
consider  very  extravagent  purchases  for  anybody  but 
a  prince  royal,  winding  up  with  some  delicious  cabinet 
pictures  and  some  gems  of  statuary — all  suited  only, 
I  should  say,  to  the  apartments  of  a  fastidious  luxuriast. 
I  was  not  yet  at  the  bottom  of  her  secret. 

"I  went  to  work  upon  the  new  picture  with  the 
zeal  always  given  to  an  artist  by  an  appreciative  and 
confiding  employer.  She  called  every  day  and  made 
important  suggestions,  and  at  last  1  finished  it  to  her 
satisfaction  and  mine  ;  and,  without  speaking  of  it  as 
a  work  of  art,  I  may  give  you  my  opinion  that  Titton 
will  scarcely  be  more  embellished  in  the  other  world 
—that  is,  if  it  be  true,  as  the  divines  tell  us,  that  our 
mortal  likeness  will  be  so  far  preseived,  though  im- 
proved upon,  that  we  shall  be  recognisable  by  our 
friends.     Still  I  was  to  paiut  a  third  picture — a  cabinet 


•274 


" BEAUTY  AND  THE  BEAST. 


full  length — and  for  this  the  other  two  were  but  studies, 
and  so  intended  by  Mrs.  Fortescue  Titton.  It  was 
to  be  an  improvement  upon  Lord  George's  portrait 
(which  of  course  had  given  her  the  idea),  and  was  to 
represent  her  husband  in  a  very  costly,  and  an  exceed- 
ingly recherche  morning  costume — dressing-gown, 
slippers,  waistcoat,  and  neckcloth,  worn  with  perfect 
elegance,  and  representing  a  Titton  with  a  faultless 
attitude  (in  a  fauteuil,  reading),  a  faultless  exterior, 
and  around  him  the  most  sumptuous  appliances  of 
dressing-room  luxury.  This  picture  cost  me  a  great 
deal  of  vexation  and  labor,  for  it  was  emphatically  a 
fancy  picture — poor  Titton  never  having  appeared  in 
that  character,  even  '  by  particular  desire.'  I  finished 
it  however,  and  again,  to  her  satisfaction.  I  afterward 
added  some  finishing  touches  to  the  other  two,  and 
sent  them  home,  appropriately  framed  according  to 
very  minute  instructions." 

'•'■  How  long  ago  was  this  ?"  I  asked. 

"  Three  years,"  replied  S ,  musing  over  his  wine. 

"  Well — the  sequel  ?"  said  I,  a  little  impatient. 

"  I  was  thinking  how  I  should  let  it  break  upon  you, 
as  it  took  effect  upon  her  acquaintances — for,  under- 
stand, Mrs.  Titton  is  too  much  of  a  diplomatist  to  do 
anything  obviously  dramatic  in  this  age  of  ridicule. 
She  knows  very  well  that  any  sudden  'flare-up'  of  her 
husband's  consequence — any  new  light  on  his  charac- 
ter obviously  calling  for  attention — would  awaken 
speculation  and  set  to  work  the  watchful  anatomizers 
of  the  body  fashionable.  Let  me  see!  J  will  tell  you 
what  I  should  have  known  about  it,  had  I  been  only 
an  ordinary  acquaintance — not  in  the  secret,  and  not 
the  painter  of  the  pictures. 

"  Some  six  months  after  the  finishing  of  the  last 
portrait,  I  was  at  a  large  ball  at  their  house.  Mrs. 
Titton's  beauty,  I  should  have  told  you,  and  the  style 
in  which  they  lived,  and  very  possibly  a  little  of  Lord 
George's  good  will,  had  elevated  them  from  the  wealthy 
and  respectable  level  of  society  to  the  fashionable  and 
exclusive.  All  the  best  people  went  there.  As  I  was 
going  in,  I  overtook,  at  the  head  of  the  stairs,  a  very 
clever  little  widow,  an  acquaintance  of  mine,  and  she 
honored  me  by  taking  my  arm  and  keeping  it  for  a 
promenade  through  the  rooms.  We  made  our  bow 
to  Mrs.  Titton  and  strolled  across  the  reception  room, 
where  the  most  conspicuous  object,  dead  facing  us, 
with  a  flood  of  light  upon  it,  was  my  first  veracious 
portrait  of  Titton  !  As  I  was  not  known  as  the  artist, 
I  indulged  myself  in  some  commonplace  exclamations 
of  horror. 

"  '  Do  not  look  at  that,'  said  the  widow,  'you  will 
distress  poor  Mrs.  Titton.  What  a  quiz  that  clever 
husband  of  hers  must  be  to  insist  on  exposing  such  a 
caricatuie!' 

" '  How  insist  upon  it  ?'  I  asked. 

m  i  Why,  have  you  never  seen  the  one  in  her  boudoir? 
Come  with  me !' 

"  We  made  our  way  through  the  apartments  to  the 
little  retreat  lined  with  silk,  which  the  morning  lounge 
of  the  fair  mistress  of  the  house.  There  was  but  one 
picture,  with  a  curtain  drawn  carefully  across  it — my 
second  portrait !  We  sat  down  on  the  luxurious 
cushions,  and  the  widow  went  off  into  a  discussion  of 
it  and  the  original,  pronouncing  it  a  perfect  likeness, 
not  at  all  flattered,  and  very  soon  begging  me  to  re- 
draw the  curtain,  lest  we  should  be  surprised  by  Mr. 
Titton  himself. 

"  '  And  suppose  we  were?'  said  I. 

"  '  Why,  he  is  such  an  oddity  !'  replied  the  widow 
lowering  her  tone.  '  They  say  that  in  this  very  house 
he  has  a  suite  of  apartments  entirely  to  himself,  furnish- 
ed with  a  taste  and  luxury  really  wonderful !  There 
are  two  Mr.  Tittons,  my  dear  friend  ! — one  a  perfect 
Sybarite,  very  elegant  in  his  dress  when  he  chooses 
to  be,  excessively  accomplished  and  fastidious,  and 
brilliant  and  fascinating  to   a  degree  ! — (and  in  this  I 


character  they  say  he  won  that  superb  creature  for  a 
wife),  and  the  other  Mr.  Titton  is  just  the  slovenly 
monster  that  everybody  sees  !  Isn't  it  odd  !' 

"  '  Queer  enough  !'  said  I,  affecting  great  astonish- 
ment ;  *  pray,  have  you  ever  been  into  these  mysterious 
apartments  V 

"  '  No  ! — they  say  only  his  wife  and  himself  and  one 
confidential  servant  ever  pass  the  threshold.  Mrs. 
Titton  don't  like  to  talk  about  it — though  one  would 
think  she  could  scarcely  object  to  her  husband's  being 
thought  better  of.  It's  pride  on  his  part — sheer  pride 
— and  I  can  understand  the  feeling  very  well !  He's 
a  very  superior  man,  and  he  has  made  up  his  mind 
that  the  world  thinks  him  very  awkward  and 
ugly,  and  he  takes  a  pleasure  in  showing  the  world 
that  he  don't  care  a  rush  for  its  opinion,  and  has  re- 
sources quite  sufficient  within  himself.  That's  the 
reason  that  atrocious  portrait  is  hung  up  in  the  best 
room,  and  this  good-looking  one  covered  up  with  a 
curtain  !  I  suppose  this  wouldn't  be  here  if  he  could 
have  his  own  way,  and  if  his  wife  wasn't  so  much  in 
love  with  him  !' 

"  This,  1  assure  you,"  said  S ,  "  is  the  im- 
pression throughout  their  circle  of  acquaintances. 
The  Tittons  themselves  maintain  a  complete  silence 
on  the  subject.  Mr.  Fortescue  Titton  is  considered 
a  very  accomplished  man,  with  a  very  proud  and  very 
secret  contempt  for  the  opinions  of  the  world — dressing 
badly  on  purpose,  silent  and  simple  by  design,  and  only 
caring  to  show  himself  in  his  real  character  to  his 
beautiful  wife,  who  is  thought  to  be  completely  in  love 
with  him,  and  quite  excusable  for  it !  What  do  you 
think  of  the  woman's  diplomatic  talents?" 

"  I  think  I  should  like  to  know  her,"  said  I;  "  but 
what  says  Lord  George  to  all  this  ?" 

"  I  had  a  call  from  Lord  George  not  long  ago," 

replied   S ,   "  and  for  the  first  time  since  our 

chat  at  Somerset-House,  the  conversation  turned  upon 
the  Tittons. 

'"Devilish  sly  of  you  !'  said  his  lordship,  turning 
to  me  half  angry,  '  why  did  you  pretend  not  to  know 
the  woman  at  Somerset-House  ?  You  might  have 
saved  me  lots  of  trouble  and  money,  for  I  was  a  month 
or  two  finding  out  what  sort  of  people  they  were — 
feeing  the  servants  and  getting  them  called  on  and 
invited  here  and  there — all  with  the  idea  that  it  was 
a  rich  donkey  with  a  fine  toy  that  didn't  belong  to  him !" 

"  '  Well !'  exclaimed  I — 

"  '  Well! — not  at  all  well  !  I  made  a  great  ninny 
of  myself,  with  that  satirical  slyboots,  old  Titton, 
laughing  at  me  all  the  time,  when  you,  that  had 
painted  him  in  his  proper  character  and  knew  what  a 
deep  devil  he  was,  might  have  saved  me  with  but  half 
a  hint !' 

"  'You  have  been  in  the  lady's  boudoir  then  !' 

"  '  Yes,  and  in  the  gentleman's  sanctum  sanctorum  ! 
Mrs.  Titton  sent  for  me  about  some  trumpery  thing 
or  other,  and  when  I  called,  the  servant  showed  me  in 
there  by  mistake.  There  was  a  great  row  in  the  house 
about  it,  but  I  was  there  long  enough  to  see  what  a 
monstrous  nice  time  the  fellow  has  of  it,  all  to  him- 
self, and  to  see  your  picture  of  him  in  his  private 
character.  The  picture  you  made  of  me  was  only  a 
copy  of  that,  you  sly  traitor !  And  I  suppose  Mrs. 
Titton  didn't  like  your  stealing  from  hers,  did  she — 
for,  I  take  it  that  was  what  ailed  her  at  the  exhibition, 
when  you  allowed  me  to  be  so  humbugged  !' 

"  I  had  a  good  laugh,  but  it  was  as  much  at  the 
quiet  success  of  Mrs.  Titton's  tactics  as  at  Lord 
George's  discomfiture.  Of  course,  I  could  not  un- 
deceive him.     And  now,"   continued  S ,  very 

good-naturedly,  "just  ring  for  a  pen  and  ink,  and  I'll 
write  a  note  to  Mrs.  Tittop,  asking  leave  to  bring  you 
there  this  evening,  for  it's  her  'night  at  home,'  and 
she's  worth  seeing,  if  my  pictures,  which  you  will  see 
there,  are  not." 


BROWN'S  DAY   WITH  THE  MIMPSONS. 


275 


BROWN'S    DAY    WITH    THE    MIMPSONS. 


Wk  got  down  from  an  omnibus  in  Charing-Cross. 

"  Sovereign  or  ha'penny  ?"  said  the  cad,  rubbing 
the  coin  between  his  thumb  and  finger. 

•'Sovereign,  of  course  !"  said  B confidently, 

pocketing  the  change  which  the  man  had  ready  for 
the  emergency  in  a  bit  of  brown  paper. 

It  was  a  muggy,  misty,  London  twilight.  I  was 
coming  up  to  town  from  Blackheath,  and  in  the 
crowded  vehicle  had  chanced  to  encounter  my  com- 
patriot B (call  it  Brown),  who  had  been  lion- 
izing the  Thames  tunnel.  In  the  course  of  conver- 
sation, it  came  out  that  we  were  both  on  the  town  for 
our  dinner,  and  as  we  were  both  guests  at  the  Trav- 
eller's Club,  we  had  pulled  the  omnibus-string  at  the 
nearest  point,  and,  after  the  brief  dialogue  recorded 
above,  strolled  together  down  Pall  Mall. 

As  we  sat  waiting  for  our  fish,  one  of  us  made  a  re- 
mark as  to  the  difference  of  feel  between  gold  and 
copper  coin,  and  Brown,  fishing  in  his  pocket  for 
money  to  try  the  experiment,  discovered  that  the 
doubt  of  the  cad  was  well  founded,  for  he  had  uncon- 
sciously passed  a  halfpenny  for  a  sovereign. 

"  People  are  very  apt  to  take  your  coin  at  your  own 
valuation ."'  said  Brown,  with  a  smile  of  some  mean- 
ing, "  and  when  they  are  in  the  dark  as  to  your  original 
coinage  (as  the  English  are  with  regard  to  Americans 
abroad),  it  is  as  easy  to  pass  for  gold  as  for  copper. 
Indeed,  you  may  pass  for  both  in  a  day,  as  I  have 
lately  had  experience.  Remind  me  presently  to  tell 
yon  how.  Here  comes  the  fried  sole,  and  it's  trouble- 
some talking  when  there  are  bones  to  fight  shy  of — 
the  'flow  of  sole'  to  the  contrary  notwithstanding." 

I  will  take  advantage  of  the  hiatus  to  give  the  reader 
a  slight  idea  of  my  friend,  as  a  preparation  for  his 
story. 

Brown  was  the  "  mirror  of  courtesy."  He  was 
also  the  mirror  of  vulgarity.  And  he  was  the  mirror 
of  everything  else.  He  had  that  facility  of  adapta- 
tion to  the  society  he  was  in,  which  made  him  seem 
born  for  that  society,  and  that  only  ;  and,  without  cal- 
culation or  forethought — by  an  unconscious  instinct, 
indeed — he  cleverly  reflected  the  man  and  manners 
before  him.  The  result  was  a  popularity  of  a  most 
varied  quality.  Brown  was  a  man  of  moderate  for- 
tune and  no  profession.  He  had  travelled  for  some 
years  on  the  continent,  and  had  encountered  all  classes 
of  Englishmen,  from  peers  to  green-grocers,  and  as 
he  had  a  visit  to  England  in  prospect,  he  seldom  part- 
ed from  the  most  chance  acquaintance  without  a  vol- 
unteer of  letters  of  introduction,  exchange  of  addres- 
ses, and  similar  tokens  of  having  "pricked  through 
his  castle  wall."  When  he  did  arrive  in  London,  at 
last,  it  was  with  a  budget  like  the  postman's  on  Val- 
entine's day,  and  he  had  only  to  deliver  one  letter  in 
a  9core  to  be  put  on  velvet  in  any  street  or  square 
within  the  bills  of  mortality.  Sagacious  enough  to 
know  that  the  gradations  of  English  society  have  the 
facility  of  a  cat's  back  (smooth  enough  from  the  head 
downward),  he  began  with  a  most  noble  duke,  and  at 
the  date  of  his  introduction  to  the  reader,  was  on  the 
dinner-list  of  most  of  the  patricians  of  May  Fair. 

Presuming  that  you  see  your  man,  dear  reader,  let 
us  come  at  once  to  the  removal  of  the  cloth. 

"  As  1  was  calling  myself  to  account,  the  other  day, 
over  my  breakfast,"  said  Brown,  filling  his  glass  and 
pushing  the  bottle,  "  it  occurred  to  me  that  my  round 


of  engagements  required  some  little  variation.  There's 
a  '  toujours  perdiix,'  even  among  lords  and  ladies,  par- 
ticularly when  you  belong  as  much  to  their  sphere, 
and  are  as  likely  to  become  a  part  of  it,  as  the  fly  re- 
volving in  aristocratic  dust  on  the  wheel  of  my  lord's 
carriage.  I  thought,  perhaps,  I  had  better  see  some 
other  sort  of  people. 

"  I  had,  under  a  presse  papier  on  the  table,  about  a 
hundred  litters  of  introduction — the  condemned  re- 
mainder, after  the  selection,  by  advice,  of  four  or  five 
only.  I  determined  to  cut  this  heap  like  a  pack  of 
cards,  and  follow  up  the  trump. 

" '  John  Mimpson,  Esq.,  House  of  Mimpson  and 
Pkipps,  Mark's  Lane,  London.' 

"  The  gods  had  devoted  me  to  the  acquaintance  of 
Mr.  (and  probably  Mrs.)  John  Mimpson.  After  turn- 
ing over  a  deal  of  rubbish  in  my  mind,  I  remembered 
that  the  letter  had  been  given  me  five  years  before  by 
an  American  merchant — probably  the  correspondent 
of  the  firm  in  Mark's  Lane.  It  was  a  sealed  letter, 
and  said  in  brackets  on  the  back,  '  Introducing  Mr. 
Brown.''  I  had  a  mind  to  give  it  up  and  cut  again, 
for  I  could  not  guess  on  what  footing  I  was  intro- 
duced, nor  did  I  know  what  had  become  of  the  wri- 
ter— nor  had  I  a  very  clear  idea  how  long  a  letter  of 
recommendation  will  hold  its  virtue.  It  struck  me 
again  that  these  difficulties  rather  gave  it  a  zest,  and 
I  would  abide  by  the  oracle.  1  dressed,  and,  as  the 
day  was  fine,  started  to  stroll  leisurely  through  the 
Strand  and  Fleet  street,  and  look  into  the  shop-win- 
dows on  my  way — assuring  myself,  at  least,  thus 
much  of  diversion  in  my  adventure. 

"  Somewhere  about  two  o'clock,  I  left  daylight  be- 
hind, and  plunged  into  Mark's  Lane.  Up  one  side 
and  down  the  other — '  Mimpson  and  Co.'  at  last,  on  a 
small  brass  plate,  set  in  a  green  baize  door.  With  my 
unbuttoned  coat  nearly  wiped  off  my  shoulder  by  the 
strength  of  the  pulley,  I  shoved  through,  and  emerged 
in  a  large  room,  with  twenty  or  thirty  clerks  perched 
on  high  stools,  like  monkeys  in  a  menagerie. 

"  '  First  door  right!'  said  the  nearest  man,  without 
raising  his  eyes  from  the  desk,  in  reply  to  my  inquiry 
for  Mr.  Mimpson. 

"  I  entered  a  closet,  lighted  by  a  slanting  skylight, 
in  which  sat  my  man. 

"  '  Mr.  John  Mimpson  ?' 

"  '  Mr.  John  Mimpson  !' 

"  After  this  brief  dialogue  of  accost,  I  produced  my 
letter,  and  had  a  second's  leisure  to  examine  my  new 
friend  while  he  ran  his  eye  over  the  contents.  He 
was  a  rosy,  well-conditioned,  tight-skinned  little  man, 
with  black  hair,  and  looked  like  a  pear  on  a  chair. 
(Hang  the  bothering  rhymes !)  His  legs  were  com- 
pletely hid  under  the  desk,  so  that  the  ascending  eyf 
began  with  his  equatory  line,  and  whether  he  had  no 
shoulders  or  no  neck,  1  could  not  well  decide — but  it 
was  a  tolerably  smooth  plane  from  his  seat  to  the  top 
curl  of  his  sinciput.  He  was  scrupulously  well  dress- 
ed, and  had  that  highly  washed  look  which  marks  the 
city  man  in  London— bent  on  not  betraying  his  'dig- 
gins'  by  his  complexion. 

"I  answered  Mr.  Mimpson's  inquiries  about  our 
mutual  friend  with  rather  a  hazardous  particularity, 
and  assured  him  he  was  quite  well  (1  have  since  dis- 
covered that  he  has  been  dead  three  years),  and  con- 
versation warmed  between  us  for  ten  minutes,  till  we 


'?G 


BROWN'S  DAY  WITH  THE  MIMPSONS. 


were  ready  to  part  sworn  friends.     I  rose  to  go,  and 
the  merchant  seemed  very  much  perplexed. 

"  '  To-morrow,'  said  he,  rubbing  the  two  great  busi- 
ness bumps  over  his  eyebrows — 'no — yes — that  is  to 
say,  Mrs.  Mimpson — well,  it  shall  be  to-morrow! 
Can  you  come  out  to  Rose  Lodge,  and  spend  the  day 
to-morrow?' 

"  '  With  great  pleasure,'  said  I,  for  I  was  determined 
to  follow  my  trump  letter  to  extremities. 

•• '  Mrs.  Mimpson,'  he  next  went  on  to  say,  as  he 
wrote  down  the  geography  of  Rose  Lodge — 'Mrs. 
Mimpson  expects  some  friends  to-morrow — indeed, 
some  of  her  very  choice  friends.  If  you  come  early, 
you  will  see  more  of  her  than  if  you  just  save  your 
dinner.  Bring  your  carpetbag,  of  course,  and  stay 
over  night.  Lunch  at  two — dine  at  seven.  I  can't 
be  there  to  receive  you  myself,  but  I  will  prepare  Mrs. 
Mimpson  to  save  you  all  trouble  of  introduction. 
Hampstead  road.     Good  morning,  my  dear  sir.' 

"  So,  1  am  in  for  a  suburban  bucolic,  thought  I,  as  I 
regained  daylight  in  the  neighborhood  of  the  Mansion 
House. 

"It  turned  out  a  beautiful  day,  sunny  and  warm; 
and  had  I  been  sure  of  my  navigation,  and  sure  of  my 
disposition  to  stay  all  night,  I  should  have  gone  out 
oy  the  Hampstead  coach,  and  made  the  best  of  my 
way,  carpetbag  in  hand.  I  went  into  Newman's  for  a 
postchaise,  however,  and  on  showing  him  the  written 
address,  was  agreeably  surprised  to  find  he  knew 
Rose  Lodge.     His  boys  had  all  been  there. 

"Away  I  went  through  the  Regent's  park,  behind 
the  blood-posters,  blue  jacket  and  white  hat,  and, 
eomewhere  about  one  o'clock,  mounted  Hampstead 
Hill,  and  in  ten  minutes  thence  was  at  my  destination. 
The  postboy  was  about  driving  in  at  the  open  gate, 
but  I  dismounted  and  sent  him  back  to  the  inn  to 
leave  his  horses,  and  then  depositing  my  bag  at  the 
porter's  lodge,  walked  up  the  avenue.  It  was  a  much 
finer  place,  altogether,  than  I  expected  to  see. 

"Mrs.  Mimpson  was  in  the  garden.  The  dashing 
footman  who  gave  me  the  information,  led  me  through 
a  superb  drawing-room  and  out  at  a  glass  door  upon 
the  lawn,  and  left  me  to  make  my  own  way  to  the  la- 
dy's presence. 

"It  was  a  delicious  spot,  and  I  should  have  been 
very  glad  to  ramble  about  by  myself  till  dinner,  but, 
at  a  turn  in  the  grand-walk,  I  came  suddenly  upon 
two  ladies. 

"I  made  my  bow,  and  begged  leave  to  introduce 
myself  as  'Mr.  Brown.' 

"With  a  very  slight  inclination  of  the  head,  and  no 
smile  whatever,  one  of  the  ladies  asked  me  if  I  had 
walked  from  town,  and  begged  her  companion  (with- 
out introducing  me  to  her)  to  show  me  in  to  lunch. 
The  spokester  was  a  stout  and  tall  woman,  who  had 
rather  an  aristocratic  nose,  and  was  not  handsome, 
but,  to  give  her  her  due,  she  had  made  a  narrow 
escape  of  it.  She  was  dressed  very  showily,  and  evi- 
dently had  great  pretensions ;  but,  that  she  was  not 
at  all  glad  to  see  Mr.  Brown,  was  as  apparent  as  was 
at  all  necessary.  As  the  other,  and  younger  lady, 
who  was  to  accompany  me,  however,  was  very  pretty, 
though  dressed  very  plainly,  and  had,  withal,  a  look 
in  her  eye  which  assured  me  she  was  amused  with  my 
unwelcome  apparition,  I  determined,  as  I  should  not 
otherwise  have  done,  to  stay  it  out,  and  accepted 
her  convoy  with  submissive  civility — very  much  in- 
clined, however,  to  be  impudent  to  somebody,  some- 
how. 

"The  lunch  was  on  a  tray  in  a  side-room,  and  I 
rang  the  bell  and  ordered  a  bottle  of  champagne.  The 
servant  looked  surprised,  but  brought  it,  and  mean- 
time I  was  getting  through  the  weather  and  the  other 
commonplaces,  and  the  lady  saying  little,  was  watch- 
ing me  very  calmly.  I  liked  her  looks,  however,  and 
was  sure  she  was  not  a  Mimpson. 


" '  Hand  this  to  Miss  Armstrong !'  said  I  to  the  foot- 
man, pouring  out  a  glass  of  champagne. 

"'Miss  Bellamy,  you  mean,  sir.' 

"I  rose  and  bowed,  and,  with  as  grave  a  courtesy 
as  I  could  command,  expressed  my  pleasure  at  my 
first  introduction  to  Miss  Bellamy — through  Thomas, 
the  footman !  Miss  Bellamy  burst  into  a  laugh,  and 
was  pleased  to  compliment  my  American  manners, 
and  in  ten  minutes  we  were  a  very  merry  pair  of 
friends,  and  she  accepted  my  arm  for  a  stroll  through 
the  grounds,  carefully  avoiding  the  frigid  neighbor- 
hood of  Mrs.  Mimpson. 

"Of  course  I  set  about  picking  Miss  Bellamy's 
brains  for  what  information  I  wanted.  She  turned 
out  quite  the  nicest  creature  I  had  seen  in  England — 
fresh,  joyous,  natural,  and  clever  ;  and  as  I  was  deliv- 
ered over  to  her  bodily,  by  her  keeper  and  feeder,  she 
made  no  scruple  of  promenading  me  through  the 
grounds  till  the  dressing-bell — four  of  the  most  agree- 
able hours  I  have  to  record  in  my  travels. 

"By  Miss  Bellamy's  account,  my  advent  that  day 
was  looked  upon  by  Mrs.  Mimpson  as  an  enraging 
calamity.  Mrs.  Mimpson  was,  herself,  fourth  cousin 
to  a  Scotch  lord,  and  the  plague  of  her  life  was  the 
drawback  to  the  gentility  of  her  parties  in  Mimpson's 
mercantile  acquaintance.  She  had  married  the  little 
man  for  his  money,  and  had  thought,  by  living 
out  of  town,  to  choose  her  own  society,  with  her  hus- 
band for  her  only  incumbrance;  but  Mimpson  vowed 
that  he  should  be  ruined  in  Mark's  Lane,  if  he  did 
not  house  and  dine  his  mercantile  fraternity  and  their 
envoys  at  Rose  Lodge,  and  they  had  at  last  compro- 
mised the  matter.  No  Yankee  clerk,  or  German 
agent,  or  person  of  any  description,  defiled  by  trade, 
was  to  be  invited  to  the  Lodge  without  a  three  days' 
premonition  to  Mrs.  Mimpson,  and  no  additions  were 
to  be  made,  whatever,  by  Mr.  M.,  to  Mrs.  M's  din- 
ners, soirees,  matinees,  archery  parties,  suppers,  de- 
jeuners, tableaux,  or  private  theatricals.  This  holy 
treaty,  Mrs.  Mimpson  presumed,  was  written  'with  a 
gad  of  steel  on  a  leaf  of  brass' — inviolable  as  her  cous- 
in's coat-of-arms. 

"But  there  was  still  '  Ossa  on  Pelion.'  The  din- 
ner of  that  day  had  a  diplomatic  aim.  Miss  Mimp- 
son (whom  I  had  not  yet  seen)  was  ready  to  '  come 
out,'  and  her  mother  had  embarked  her  whole  soul  in 
the  enterprise  of  bringing  about  that  debut  at  Al- 

mack's.     Her  best   card  was  a  certain   Lady  S , 

who  chanced  to  be  passing  a  few  days  in  the  neigh- 
borhood, and  this  dinner  was  in  her  honor — the  com- 
pany chosen  to  impress  her  with  the  exclusiveness  of 
the  Mimpsons,  and  the  prayer  for  her  ladyship's  in- 
fluence (to  procure  vouchers  from  one  of  the  patron- 
esses) was  to  be  made,  when  she  was  '  dieted  to  their 
request.'     And  all  had   hitherto  worked  to  a  charm. 

Lady  S had   accepted — Ude  had  sent  his   best 

cook  from  Crockford's — the  Belgian  charge,  and  a 
Swedish  attache  were,  coming — the  day  was  beautiful, 
and  the  Lodge  was  sitting  for  its  picture ;  and  on  the 
very  morning,  when  every  chair  at  the  table  was  ticketed 
and  devoted,  what  should  Mr.  Mimpson  do,  but  send 
back  a  special  messenger  from  the  city,  to  say  that  he 
had  forgotten  to  mention  to  Mrs.  M.  at  breakfast,  that  he 
had  invited  Mr.  Brown!  Of  course  he  had  for got- 
ten it,  though  it  would  have  been  as  much  as  his 
eyes  were  worth  to  mention  it  in  person  to  Mrs. 
Mimpson. 

"To  this  information,  which  1  give  you  in  a  lump, 
but  which  came  to  light  in  the  course  of  rather  a  de- 
sultory conversation,  Miss  Bellamy  thought  I  had 
some  title,  from  the  rudeness  of  my  reception.  It 
was  given  in  the  shape  of  a  very  clever  banter,  it  is 
true,  but  she  was  evidently  interested  to  set  me  right 
with  regard  to  Mr.  Mimpson's  good  intentions  in  my 
behalf,  and,  as  far  as  that  and  her  own  civilities  would 
do  it,  to  apologise  for  the  inhospitality  of  Rose  Lodge. 


BROWN'S  DAY  WITH  THE  MIMPSONS. 


277 


Very  kind  of  the  girl— for  I  was  passing,  recollect, 
at  a  most  ha'penny  valuation. 

"I  had  made  some  casual  remark  touching  the  ab- 
surdity of  Almack's  aspirations  in  general,  and  Mrs. 
Mimpson's  in  particular,  and  my  fair  friend,  who  of 
course  fancied  an  Almack's  ticket  as  much  out  of  Mr. 
Brown's  reach  as  the  horn  of  the  new  moon,  took  up 
the  defence  of  Mrs.  Mimpson  on  that  point,  and  un- 
dertook to  dazzle  my  untutored  imagination  by  a  pic-  j 
ture  of  this  seventh  heaven — as  she  had  heard  it  de- 
scribed— for  to  herself,  she  freely  confessed,  it  was  not 
even  within  the  limits  of  dream-land.  I  knew  this 
was  true  of  herself,  and  thousands  of  highly-educated 
and  charming  girls  in  England;  but  still,  looking  at 
her  while  she  spoke,  and  seeing  what  an  ornament  she 
would  be  to  any  ballroom  in  the  world,  I  realized, 
with  more  repugnance  than  I  had  ever  felt  before,  the 
arbitrary  barriers  of  fashion  and  aristocracy.  As  ac-  j 
cident  had  placed  me  in  a  position  to  'look  on  the  re- 
verse of  the  shield,'  I  determined,  if  possible,  to  let  j 
Miss  Bellamy  judge  of  its  color  with  the  same  ad-  I 
vantage.  It  is  not  often  that  a  plebeian  like  myself 
has  the  authority  to 


"'  Bid  the  pebbles 
Fillip  the  stars.' 


the  hungry  beach 


"  We  were   near  the   open  window  of  the  library, 

and  I  stepped   in  and  wrote  a  note  to   Lady 

(one  of  the  lady  patronesses,  and  the  kindest  friend  I  \ 
have  in  England),  asking  for  three  vouchers  for  the 
next  ball.  I  had  had  occasion  once  or  twice  before  to 
apply  for  similar  favors,  for  the  countrywomen  of  my 
own,  passing  through  London  on  their  travels,  and  I 
knew  that  her  ladyship  thought  no  more  of  granting 
them  than  of  returning  bows  in  Hyde  Park.  I  did 
not  name  the  ladies  for  whom  the  three  tickets  were  j 
intended,  wishing  to  reserve  the  privilege  of  handing 
one  to  Miss  Mimpson,  should  she  turn  out  civil  and 
presentable.  The  third,  of  course,  was  to  Miss  Bel- 
lamy's chaperon,  whoever  that  might  be,  and  the 
party  might  be  extended  to  a  quartette  by  the  'Mon- 
sieur De  Trop'  of  the  hour — cela  selon.  Quite  a  dra- 
matic plot — wasn't  it? 

"  I  knew  that  Lady was  not  very  well,  and 

would  be  found  at  home  by  the  messenger  (my  post- 
boy), and  there  was  time  enough  between  soup  and 
coffee  to  go  to  London  and  back,  even  without  the 
spur  in  his  pocket. 

"The  bell  rang,  and  Miss  Bellamy  took  herself  off 
to  dress.  I  went  to  my  carpetbag  in  the  bachelor 
quarters  of  the  house,  and  through  a  discreet  entretien 
with  the  maid  who  brought  me  hot  water,  became 
somewhat  informed  as  to  my  fair  friend's  position  in 
the  family.  She  was  the  daughter  of  a  gentleman  who 
had  seen  better  days.  They  lived  in  a  retired  cottage 
in  the  neighborhood;  and,  as  Miss  Bellamy  and  a 
younger  sister  were  both  very  highly  accomplished, 
they  were  usually  asked  to  the  Lodge,  whenever  there 
was  company  to  be  entertained  with  their  music. 

"  I  was  early  in  the  drawing-room,  and  found  there 
Mrs.  Mimpson  and  a  tall  dragoon  of  a  young  lady  I 
presumed  to  be  her  daughter.  She  did  not  introduce 
me.  I  had  hardly  achieved  my  salutary  salaam  when 
Miss  Bellamy  came  in  opportunely,  and  took  me  off 
their  hands,  and  as  they  addressed  no  conversation  to 
us,  we  turned  over  music,  and  chatted  in  the  corner 
while  the  people  came  in.  It  was  twilight  in  the  re- 
ception-room, and   1   hoped,  by  getting  on   the  same 

side  of  the  table  with  Lady  S (whom  I  had 

the  honor  of  knowing),  to  escape  recognizance  till 
we  joined  the  ladies  in  the  drawing-room  after  dinner. 
As  the  guests  arrived,  they  were  formally  introduced 
to  Miss  Mimpson   by  the  mother,  and  everybody  but 

myself  was  formally  presented  to  Lady  S ,  the 

exception  not  noticeable,  of  course,  among  thirty 
people.     Mr.  Mimpson  came  late  from  the  city,  pos- 


sibly anxious  to  avoid  a  skirmish  on  the  subject  of  his 
friend  Brown,  and  he  entered  the  room  barely  in  time 
to  hand  Lady  S in  to  dinner. 

"  My  tactics  were  ably  seconded  by  my  unconscious 
ally.  I  placed  myself  in  such  a  position  at  table, 
that,  by  a  little  management,  I  kept  Miss  Bellamy's 

head  between  me  and  Lady  S ,  and  my  name 

was  not  so  remarkable  as  to  draw  attention  to  me 
when  called  on  to  take  wine  with  the  peccant  spouse 
of  the  Scotch  lord's  cousin.  Meantime  I  was  very 
charmingly  entertained — Miss  Bellamy  not  having,  at 
all,  the  fear  of  Mrs.  Mimpson  before  her  eyes,  and 
apparently  finding  the  Yankee  supercargo,  or  cotton 
clerk,  or  whatever  he  might  be,  quite  worth  trying  her 
hand  upon.  The  provender  was  good,  and  the  wine 
was  enough  to  verify  the  apocrypha — at  least  for  the 
night — '  a  man  remembering  neither  sorrow  nor  debt' 
with  such  glorious  claret. 

"  As  I  was  vis-a-vis  to  Miss  Mimpson,  and  only  two 
plates  removed  from  her  mother,  I  was  within  reach 
of  some  syllable  or  some  civility,  and  one  would  have 
thought  that  good-breeding  might  exact  some  slight 
notice  for  the  devil  himself,  under  one's  own  roof  by 
invitation ;  but  the  large  eyes  of  Miss  Aurelia  and  her 
mamma  passed  over  me  as  if  I  had  on  the  invisible 
ring  of  Gyges.  I  wonder,  by-the-way,  whether  the 
ambitious  youths  who  go  to  London  and  Paris  with 
samples,  and  come  back  and  sport  'the  complete  var- 
nish of  a  man'  acquired  in  foreign  society — I  wonder 
whether  they  take  these  rubs  to  be  part  of  their  pol- 
ishing ! 

"  The  ladies  rose  and  left  us,  and  as  I  had  no  more 
occasion  to  dodge  heads,  or  trouble  myself  with  hu- 
mility, I  took  Lady  S 's  place  at  old  Mimpson's 

right  hand,  and  was  immediately  recognised  with  great 
empressement  by  the  Belgian  charge,  who  had  met  me 
'very  often,  in  very  agreeable  society.'  Mimpson 
stared,  and  evidently  took  it  for  a  bit  of  flummery  or 
a  mistake  ;  but  he  presently  stared  again,  for  the  but- 
ler came  in  with  a  coronetted  note  on  his  silver  tray, 
and  the  seal  side  up,  and  presented  it  to  me  with  a 
most  deferential  bend  of  his  white  coat.  I  felt  the 
vouchers  within,  and  pocketed  it  without  opening,  and 
we  soon  after  rose  and  went  to  the  drawing-room  for 
our  coffee. 

"  Lady  S sat  with  her  back  to  the  door,  be- 
sieged by  Mrs.  Mimpson  ;  and  at  the  piano,  beside 
Miss  Bellamy,  who  was  preparing  to  play,  stood  one 
of  the  loveliest  young  creatures  possibly  to  fancy.  A 
pale  and  high-bred  looking  lady  in  widow's  weeds  sat 
near  them,  and  I  had  no  difficulty  in  making  out  who 
were  the  after-dinner  additions  to  the  party.  I  joined 
them,  and  was  immediately  introduced  by  Miss  Bel- 
lamy to  her  mother  and  sister,  with  whom  (after  a 
brilliant  duet  by  the  sisters)  I  strolled  out  upon  the 
lawn  for  an  hour — for  it  was  a  clear  night,  and  the 
moon  and  soft  air  almost  took  me  back  to  Italy.  And 
(perhaps  by  a  hint  from  Miss  Bellamy)  I  was  allowed 
to  get  on  very  expeditiously  in  my  acquaintance  with 
her  mother  and  sister. 

"  My  new  friends  returned  to  the  drawing-room, 
and  as  the  adjoining  library  was  lighted,  I  went  in  and 
filled  up  the  blank  vouchers  with  the  names  of  Mrs. 
Bellamy  and  her  daughters.  I  listened  a  moment  to 
the  conversation  in  the  next  room.  The  subject  was 
Almack's,  and   was   discussed   with   great  animation. 

Lady  S ,  who  seemed  to  me  trying  to   escape 

the  trap  they  had  baited  for  her,  was  quietly  setting 
forth  the  difficulties  of  procuring  vouchers,  and  rec- 
ommending to  Mrs.  Mimpson  not  to  subject  herself 
to  the  mortification  of  a  refusal.  Old  Mimpson 
backed  up  this  advice  with  a  stout  approval,  and  this 
brought  Mrs.  Mimpson  out  '  horse  and  foot,'  and  she 
declared  that  she  would  submit  to  anything,  do  any- 
thing, give  anything,  rather  than  fail  in  this  darling 
object  of  her  ambition.     She  would  feel  under  eternal, 


27S 


MR.  AND  MRS.  FOLLETT. 


inexpressible  obligations  to  any  friend  who  would  pro- 
cure, for  herself  and  daughter,  admission  for  but  one 
night  to  Almack'a. 

"  And  then  came  in  the  sweet  voice  of  Miss  Bel- 
lamy, who  '  knew  it  was  both  wrong  and  silly,  but  she 
would  give  ten  years  of  her  life  to  go  to  one  of  Al- 
mack's  balls,  and  in  a  long  conversation  she  had  had 
with  Mr.  Brown  on  the  subject  that  morning ' 

"  '  Ah  !'  interrupted  Lady  S ,  '  if  it  had  been 

the  Mr.  Brown,  you  would  have  had  very  little  trouble 
about  it.' 

"  '  And  who  is  the  Mr.  Brown?'  asked  Mis.  Mimpson. 

'"The  pet  and  protege  of  the  only  lady  patroness 

I  do   not  visit,'  said  Lady  S ,  '  and  unluckily. 

too,  the  only  one  who  thinks  the  vouchers  great  rub- 
bish, and  gives  them  away  without  thought  or  scruple.' 

"  At  that  moment  I  entered  the  room. 

"'Good    heavens."   screamed   Lady    S ,   'is 

that  his  ghost?  Why,  Mr.  Brown  !'  she  gasped,  giv- 
ing me  her  hand  very  cautiously,  '  do  you  appear 
when  you  are  talked  of  like — like — like ' 

"'Like  the  devil?  No!  But  I  am  here  in  the 
body,  and  very  much  at  your  ladyship's  service,'  said 
I,  '  for  of  course  you  are  going  to  the  duke's  to-night, 
and  so  am  I.  Will  you  take  me  with  you,  or  shall 
my  po-chay  follow  where  I  belong — in  your  train  ?" 

"  •  I'll  take  you,  of  course,'  said  her  ladyship,  rising, 
•  but  first  about  these  vouchers.  You  have  just  come, 
and  didn't  hear  our  discussion.  Mrs.  Mimpson  is  ex- 
tremely anxious  that  her  daughter  should  come  out 
at  Almack's,  and  as  I  happened  to  say,  the  moment 
before  you  entered,  that  you  were  the  very  person  to 

procure  the   tickets  from  Lady .     How  very 

odd  that  you  should  come  in  just  then  !  But  tell 
us — can  you?' 


"  A  dead  silence  followed  the  question.  Mrs. 
Mimpson  sat  with  her  eyes  on  the  floor,  the  picture 
of  dismay  and  mortification.  Miss  Mimpson  blushed 
and  twisted  her  handkerchief,  and  Miss  Bellamy 
looked  at  her  hostess,  half  amused  and  half  dis- 
tressed. 

"I  handed  the  three  vouchers  to  Miss  Bellamy, 
and  begged  her  acceptance  of  them,  and  then  turning 
to  Lady  S ,  without  waiting  for  a  reply,  regret- 
ted that,  not  having  had  the  pleasure  of  being  pre- 
sented to  Mrs.  Mimpson,  I  had  not  felt  authorized  to 
include  her  in  my  effort  to  oblige  Miss  Bellamy. 

"And  what  with  old  Mimpson's  astonishment,  and 

Lady  S 's  immediate  tact  in  covering,  by  the 

bustle  of  departure,  what  she  did  not  quite  under- 
stand, though  she  knew  it  was  some  awkward  contre 
temps  or  other,  I  found  time  to  receive  Miss  Bella- 
my's thanks,  and  get  permission  from  the  mother  to 
call  and  arrange  this  unexpected  party,  and  in  ten 
minutes  I  was  on  my  way  to  London  with  Lady 
S ,  amusing  her  almost  into  fits  with  my  expla- 
nations of  the  Mimpson  mystery. 

"  Lady  S was  to  be  still  at  Hampstead  for  a 

few  days,  and,  at  my  request,  she  called  with  me  on 
the  Bellamys,  and  invited  the  girls  up  to  town.  Rose 
Bellamy,  the  younger,  is  at  this  moment  one  of  the 
new  stars  of  the  season  accordingly,  and  Miss  Bel- 
lamy and  I  carry  on  the  war,  weekly,  at  Almack's, 
and  nightly  at  some  waxlight  paradise  or  other,  and 

Lady  S has  fallen  in  love  with  them  both,  and 

treats  them  like  daughters. 

"So  you  sec,  though  I  passed  for  a  ha'penny  with 
the  Mimpsons,  I  turned  out  a  sovereign  to  the  Bel- 
lamys. 

"  Pass  the  bottle  !" 


MR,  AND  MRS.  FOLLETT; 

OR,  THE  DANGERS  OF  MEDDLING  WITH  MARRIED  PEOPLE. 


There  are  two  commodities,  much  used  by  gentle- 
men, neither  of  which  will  bear  tinkering  or  tampering 
with — matrimony  and  patent  leather.  Their  necessi- 
ties are  fair  weather  and  untroubled  wear  and  tear. 
Ponder  on  the  following  melancholy  example  ! 

My  friend  Follett  married  a  lady  contrary  to  my 
advice.  I  gave  the  advice  contrary  to  my  wont  and 
against  my  will.  He  would  have  it.  The  lady  was  a 
tolerably  pretty  woman,  on  whose  original  destiny  it 
was  never  written  that  she  should  be  a  belle.  How 
she  became  one  is  not  much  matter;  but  nature  being 
thoroughly  taken  by  surprise  with  her  success,  had 
neglected  to  provide  the  counterpoise.  I  say  it  is  no 
great  matter  how  she  became  a  belle — nor  is  it — for  if 
such  things  were  to  be  accounted  for  to  the  satisfaction 
of  the  sex,  the  world  have  little  time  for  other  specu- 
lations ;  but  I  will  devote  a  single  paragraph  to  the 
elucidation  of  this  one  of  many  mysteries,  for  a  reason 
I  have.     Fcenam  habet  in  cornu. 

Poets  are  the  least  fastidious,  and  the  least  discrim- 
-inating  of  men,  in  their  admiration  of  women  (vide 
Byron),  partly  because  their  imagination,  like  sun- 
shine, glorifies  all  that  turns  to  it,  and  partly  because 
the  voluptuous  heart,  without  which  they  were  not 
poets,  is  both  indolent  and  imperial,  from  both  causes 
waiting  always  to  be  sought.  In  some  circles,  bards 
are  rather  comets  than  stars,  and  the  one  whose  orbit 
for  a  few  days  intersected  that  of  Miss  Adele  Burnham, 
vis  the  exclusive  marvel  of  the  hour.     Like  other  po- 


ets, the  one  of  which  I  speak  was  concentrative  in  his 
attentions,  and  he  chose  (why,  the  gods  knew  better 
than  the  belles  of  the  season)  to  have  neither  eyes  nor 
ears,  flowers,  flatteries,  nor  verses,  for  any  other  than 
Miss  Burnham.  He  went  on  his  way,  but  the  incense, 
in  which  he  had  enveloped  the  blest  Adele,  lingered 
like  a  magic  atmosphere  about  her,  and  Tom  Follett 
and  all  his  tribe  breathed  it  in  blind  adoration.  I  trust 
the  fair  reader  has  here  nodded  her  head,  in  evidence 
that  this  history  of  the  belleship  of  Miss  Burnham  is 
no  less  brief  than  natural  and  satisfactory. 

When  Follett  came  to  me  with  the  astounding  in- 
formation that  he  intended  to  propose  to  Miss  Burn- 
ham (he  had  already  proposed  and  been  accepted,  the 
traitor) !  my  fancy  at  once  took  the  prophetic  stride  so 
natural  on  the  first  breaking  of  such  news,  and  in  the 
five  minutes  which  I  took  for  reflection,  I  had  travelled 
far  into  that  land  of  few  delusions — holy  matrimony. 
Before  me,  in  all  the  changeful  variety  of  a  magic 
mirror,  came  and  went  the  many  phases  of  which  that 
multiform  creature,  woman,  is  susceptible.  I  saw  her 
in  diamonds  and  satin,  and  in  kitchen-apron  and  curl- 
papers; in  delight,  and  in  the  dumps;  in  supplication, 
and  in  resistance  ;  shod  like  a  fairy  in  French  shoes, 
and  slip-shod  (as  perhaps  fairies  are,  too,  in  their  bed- 
rooms and  dairies).  I  saw  her  approaching  the  cli- 
macteric of  age,  and  receding  from  it — a  mother,  a 
nurse,  an  invalid — mum  over  her  breakfast,  chatty  over 
her  tea—doing  the  honors  at  Tom's  table,  and  mend- 


MR.  AND  MRS.  FOLLETT. 


279 


ing  with  sober  diligence  Tom's  straps  and  suspenders. 
The  kaleidoscope  of  fancy  exhausted  its  combinations. 

"Tom!"  said  I  (looking  up  affectionately,  for  he 
was  one  of  my  weaknesses,  was  Tom,  and  I  indulged 
myself  in  loving  him  without  a  reason),  "Miss  Burn- 
ham  is  in  the  best  light  where  she  is.  If  she  cease 
to  be  a  belle,  as  of  course  she  will,  should  she  mar- 
ry  " 

"Of  course  !"  interrupted  Tom  very  gravely. 

"Well,  in  that  case,  she  lays  off  the  goddess,  trust 
me  !     You  will  like  her  to  dress  plainly  — — " 

"Quite  plain  !" 

"And  stripped  of  her  plumage,  your  bird  of  paradise  II 
would  be  nothing  but  a  very  indifferent  hen — with  the 
disadvantage  of  remembering  that  she  had  been  a  bird 
of  paradise." 

"But  it  was  not  her  dress  that  attracted  the  brilliant 
author  of " 

Possibly  not.  But  as  the  false  gods  of  mythology 
are  only  known  by  their  insignia,  Jupiter  by  his  thun- 
derbolt, and  Mercury  by  his  talaria  and  caduceus,  so 
a  woman,  worshipped  by  accident,  will  find  a  change 
of  exterior  nothing  less  than  a  laying  aside  of  her  di- 
vinity. That's  a  didactic  sentence,  but  you  will  know 
what  I  mean,  when  I  tell  you  that  I  myself  can  not  see 
a  pair  of  coral  ear-rings  without  a  sickness  of  the  j 
heart,  though  the  woman  who  once  wore  them,  and 
who  slighted  me  twenty  years  ago,  sits  before  me  in  ; 
church,  without  diverting  a  thought  from  the  sermon. 
Don't  marry  her,  Tom  !" 

Six  weeks  after  this  conversation,  I  was  at  the  wed- 
ding, and  the  reader  will  please  pass  to  the  rear  the 
six  succeeding  months — short  time  as  it  seems — to 
record  a  change  in  the  bland  sky  of  matrimony.  It  was 
an  ellipse  in  our  friendship  as  well  ;  for  advice  (con- 
trary  to  our  wishes  and  intentions)  is  apt  to  be  resent- 
ed, and  I  fancied,  from  the  northerly  bows  I  received 
from  Mrs.  Follett,  that  my  friend  had  made  a  merit  to 
her  of  having  married  contrary  to  my  counsel.  At  the  j 
end  of  this  period  Tom  called  on  me. 

Follett,  I  should  have  said,  was  a  man  of  that  unde-  | 
cided  exterior  which  is  perfectly  at  the  mercy  of  a  cra- 
vat or  waistcoat.  He  looked  "snob"  or  "nob,"  ac-  | 
cording  to  the  care  with  which  he  had  made  his  toilet,  j 
While  a  bachelor,  of  course,  he  could  never  afford  in 
public  a  negligence  or  a  mistake,  and  was  invariably 
an  elegant  man,  harmonious  and  "  pin-point"  from 
straps  to  whiskers.  But  alas!  the  security  of  wedded 
life  !  When  Tom  entered  my  room,  I  perused  him 
as  a  walking  homily.  His  coat,  still  made  on  the  old 
measure,  was  buttoned  only  at  the  top,  the  waist  being 
rather  snug,  and  his  waistcoat  pockets  loaded  with  the 
copper  which  in  his  gayer  days  he  always  left  on  the 
counter.  His  satin  cravat  was  frayed  and  brownish, 
with  the  tie  slipped  almost  under  his  ear.  The  heel 
of  his  right  boot  (he  trod  straight  on  the  other  foot) 
almost  looked  him  in  the  face.  His  pantaloons  (the 
one  article  of  dress  in  which  there  are  no  gradations — 
nothing,  if  not  perfect)  were  bulged  and  strained.  He 
wore  a  frightfully  new  hat,  no  gloves,  and  carried  a 
baggy  brown  umbrella,  which  was,  in  itself,  a  most  ex- 
pressive portrait  of  "gone  to  seed."  Tom  entered 
with  his  usual  uppish  carriage,  and.  through  the  how- 
d'ye-dos,  and  the  getting  into  his  chair,  carried  off  the 
old  manner  to  a  charm.  In  talking  of  the  weather,  a 
moment  after,  his  eye  fell  on  his  stumpy  umbrella, 
which,  with  an  unconscious  memory  of  an  old  affecta- 
tion with  his  cane,  he  was  balancing  on  the  toe  of  his 
boot,  and  the  married  look  slid  over  him  like  a  mist. 
Down  went  his  head  between  his  shoulders,  and  down 
went  the  corners  of  his  mouth — down  the  inflation  of 
his  chest  like  a  collapsed  balloon ;  and  down,  in  its 
youth  and  expression  it  seemed  to  me,  every  muscle 
of  his  face.  He  had  assumed  in  a  minute  the  style 
and  countenance  of  a  man  ten  years  older. 
I  smiled.     How  could  I  but  smile  ! 


"  Then  you  have  heard  of  it !"  exclaimed  Tom, 
suddenly  starting  to  his  feet,  and  flushing  purple  to  the 
roots  of  his  hair. 

"Heard  of  what  ?" 

My  look  of  surprise  evidently  took  him  aback  ;  and, 
seating  himself  again  with  confused  apologies,  Tom 
proceeded  to  "  make  a  clean  breast,"  on  a  subject 
which  I  had  not  anticipated. 

It  seemed  that,  far  from  moulting  her  feathers  after 
marriage,  according  to  my  prediction,  Mrs.  Follett 
clearly  thought  that  she  had  not  yet  "strutted  her 
hour,"  and,  though  everything  Tom  could  wish  behind 
the  curtain,  in  society  she  had  flaunted  and  flirted,  not 
merely  with  no  diminution  of  zest  from  the  wedding- 
day,  but,  her  husband  was  of  opinion,  with  a  ratio 
alarmingly  increasing.  Her  present  alliance  was  with 
a  certaiu  Count  Hautenbas,  the  lion  of  the  moment, 
and  though  doubtless  one  in  which  vanity  alone  was 
active,  Tom's  sense  of  connubial  propriety  was  at  its 
last  gasp.  He  could  stand  it  no  longer.  He  wished 
my  advice  in  the  choice  between  two  courses.  Should 
he  call  out  the  Frenchman,  or  should  he  take  advan- 
tage of  the  law's  construction  of  "  moral  insanity,"  and 
shut  her  up  in  a  mad-house. 

My  advice  had  been  of  so  little  avail  in  the  first  in- 
stance, that  I  shrank  from  troubling  Tom  with  any 
more  of  it,  and  certainly  should  have  evaded  it  alto- 
gether, but  for  an  experiment  I  wished  to  make,  as 
much  for  my  own  satisfaction  as  for  the  benefit  of  that 
large  class,  the  unhappy  married. 

"Your  wife  is  out  every  night,  I  suppose,  Tom  ?" 

"Every  night  when  she  has  no  party  at  home." 

"Do  you  go  with  her  always  ?" 

"  I  go  for  her  usually — but  the  truth  is,  that  since 
I  married,  parties  bore  me,  and  after  seeing  my  wife  off, 
I  commonly  smoke  and  snooze,  or  read,  or  run  into 
Bob  Thomas's  and  'talk  horse,'  till  I  have  just  time  to 
be  in  at  the  death." 

"And  when  you  get  there,  you  don't  dance  ?" 

"Not  I,  faith  !  I  haven't  danced  since  I  was  mar- 
ried !" 

"But  you  used  to  be  the  best  waltzer  of  the  day." 

"Well,  the  music  sometimes  gets  into  my  heels 
now,  but,  when  I  remember  I  am  married,  the  fit  cools 
off.  The  deuce  take  it !  a  married  man  shouldn't  be 
seen  whirling  round  the  room  with  a  girl  in  his  arms  !" 

"I  presume  that  were  you  still  single,  you  would 
fancy  your  chance  to  be  as  good  for  ladies'  favors  as 
any  French  count's  that  ever  came  over  ?" 

"Ehem  !  why — yes  !" 

Tom  pulled  up  his  collar. 

"And  if  you  had  access  to  her  society  all  day  and 
all  night,  and  the  Frenchman  only  an  hour  or  two  in 
the  evening,  any  given  lady  being  the  object,  you  would 
bet  freely  on  your  own  head  ?" 

"  I  see  your  drift,"  said  Tom,  with  a  melancholy 
smile,  "  but  it  won't  do  !" 

"No,  indeed — it  is  what  would  have  done.  You  had 
at  the  start  a  much  better  chance  with  your  wife  than 
Count  Hautenbas  ;  but  husbands  and  lovers  are  the 
'hare  and  the  tortoise'  of  the  fable.  We  must  resort 
now  to  other  means.  Will  you  follow  my  advice,  as 
well  as  lake  it,  should  I  be  willing  again  to  burn  my 
fingers  in  your  affairs  ?" 

The  eagerness  of  Tom's  protestations  quite  made 
the  amende  to  my  mortified  self-complacency,  and  I 
entered  zealousy  into  my  little  plot  for  his  happiness. 
At  this  moment  I  heartily  wish  I  had  sent  him  and  his 
affairs  to  the  devil,  and  (lest  I  should  forget  it  at  the 
close  of  this  tale)  I  here  caution  all  men,  single  and 
double,  against  "meddling  or  making"  marring  or 
mending,  in  matrimonial  matters.  The  alliteration 
may,  perhaps,  impress  this  salutary  counsel  on  the 
mind  of  the  reader. 

I  passed  the  remainder  of  the  day  in  repairing  the 
damage  of  Tom's  person.     I  had  his  whiskers  curled 


280 


MR.  AND  MRS.  FOLLETT. 


and  trimmed  even  (his  left  whisker  was  an  inch  nearer 
his  nose  than  the  right),  and  his  teeth  looked  to  by  the 
dentist.  I  stood  by,  to  be  sure  that  there  was  no  care- 
lessness in  his  selection  of  patent  leathers,  and  on  his 
assuring  me  that  he  was  otherwise  well  provided,  I 
suffered  him  to  go  home  to  dress,  engaging  him  to 
dine  with  me  at  seven. 

He  was  punctual  to  the  hour.  By  Jove,  I  could 
scarce  believe  it  was  the  same  man.  The  conscious- 
ness of  being  well  dressed  seemed  to  have  brightened 
his  eyes  and  lips,  as  it  certainly  changed  altogether  his 
address  and  movements.  He  had  a  narrow  escape  of 
being  handsome.  After  all,  it  is  only  a  "  man  of  mark," 
or  an  Apollo,  who  can  well  afford  to  neglect  the  outer 
man  ;  and  a  judicious  negligence,  or  a  judicious  plain- 
ness, is  probably  worth  the  attention  of  both  the  man 
of  m;irk  and  the  Apollo.  Tom  was  quite  another  or- 
der of  creature — a  butterfly  that  was  just  now  a  worm — 
and  would  have  been  treated  with  more  consideration 
in  consequence,  even  by  those  least  tolerant  of  "the 
pomps  and  vanities."  We  dined  temperately,  and  I 
superseded  the  bottle  by  a  cup  of  strong  green  tea,  at 
an  early  moment  after  the  removal  of  the  cloth,  deter- 
mined to  have  Tom's  wits  in  as  full  dress  as  his  per- 
son. Without  being  at  all  a  brilliant  man,  he  was — 
the  next  best  thing — a  steady  absorbent;  and  as  most 
women  are  more  fond  of  giving  than  receiving  in  all 
things,  but  particularly  in  conversation,  I  was  not  un- 
easy as  to  his  power  of  making  himself  agreeable.  Nor 
was  he,  faith  ! 

The  ball  of  the  night  was  at  the  house  of  an  old 
friend  of  my  own,  and  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Follett  were  but 
newly  introduced  to  the  circle.  I  had  the  company 
very  clearly  in  my  eye,  therefore,  while  casting  about 
for  dramatis  persona,  and  fixing  upon  Mrs.  Beverly 
Fairhe,  for  the  prominent  character,  I  assured  suc- 
cess, though  being  very  much  in  love  with  that  co- 
quettish widow  myself,  I  had  occasion  for  some  self- 
denial  in  the  matter.  Of  Mrs.  Fairlie's  weak  points 
(on  which  it  seemed  necessary  that  I  should  enlighten 
Tom),  I  had  information  not  to  be  acquired  short  of 
summering  and  wintering  her,  and  with  my  eye  solely 
directed  to  its  effect  upon  Mrs.  Follett,  I  put  the  clues 
into  my  friend's  hands  in  a  long  after-dinner  conversa- 
tion. As  he  seemed  impatient  to  open  the  campaign 
after  getting  these  definite  and  valuable  instructions,  I 
augured  well  for  his  success,  and  we  entered  the  ball- 
room in  high  spirits. 

It  was  quite  enough  to  say  to  the  mischievous  widow 
that  another  woman  was  to  be  piqued  by  any  attentions 
she  might  choose  to  pay  Mr.  Follett.  Having  said 
thus  much,  and  presented  Tom,  I  sought  out  Mrs. 
Follett  myself,  with  the  double  purpose  of  breaking 
up  the  monopoly  of  Mons.  Hautenbas,  and  of  direct- 
ing her  attention,  should  it  be  necessary,  to  the  suavi- 
ties between  Tom  and  the  widow. 

It  was  a  superb  ball,  and  the  music,  as  Tom  said, 
went  to  the  heels.  The  thing  he  did  well  was  waltz- 
ing, and  after  taking  a  turn  or  two  with  Mrs.  Fairlie, 
the  rustic  dame  ran  up  to  Mrs.  Follett  with  the  most 
innocent  air  imaginable,  and  begged  the  loan  of  her 
husband  for  the  rest  of  the  evening  !  I  did  not  half 
like  the  look  of  earnest  with  which  she  entered  into 


the  affair,  indeed,  and  there  was  little  need  of  my 
taking  much  trouble  to  enlighten  Mrs.  Follett;  for  a 
woman  so  surprised  with  a  six  months'  husband  I  never 
saw.  They  were  so  capitally  matched,  Tom  and  the 
widow,  in  size,  motion,  style  of  waltzing,  and  all,  that 
not  we  only,  but  the  whole  party,  were  occupied  with 
observing  and  admiring  them.  Mrs.  Follett  and  I  (for 
a  secret  sympathy,  somehow,  drew  us  together,  as  the 
thing  went  on)  kept  up  a  broken  conversation,  in  which 
the  count  was  even  less  interested  than  we  ;  and  after 
a  few  ineffectual  attempts  to  draw  her  into  the  tea- 
room, the  Frenchman  left  us  in  pique,  and  we  gave 
ourselves  up  to  the  observation  of  the  couple  who  (we 
presumed)  severally  belonged  to  us.  They  carried  on 
the  war  famously,  to  be  sure  !  Mrs.  Fairlie  was  a 
woman  who  could  do  as  she  liked,  because  she  would; 
and  she  cared  not  a  straw  for  the  very  pronounce  dem- 
onstration of  engrossing  one  man  for  all  the  quadrilles, 
waltzes,  and  galopades,  beside  being  with  him  to  sup- 
per. Once  or  twice  I  tried  to  find  an  excuse  for  leav- 
ing Mrs.  Follett,  to  put  in  an  oar  for  myself;  but  the 
little  woman  clung  to  me  as  if  she  had  not  the  courage 
to  undertake  another  person's  amusement,  and,  new 
and  sudden  as  the  feeling  must  have  been,  she  was 
pale  and  wretched,  with  a  jealousy  more  bitter  proba- 
bly than  mine.  Tom  never  gave  me  a  look  after  the 
first  waltz  ;  and  as  to  the  widow,  she  played  her  part 
with  rather  more  zeal  than  we  set  down  for  her. 
I  passed  altogether  an  uncomfortable  night,  for  a 
gay  one,  and  it  was  a  great  relief  to  me  when 
Mrs.  Follett  asked  me  to  send  Tom  for  the  car- 
riage. 

"Be  so  kind  as  to  send  a  servant  for  it,"  said  Fol- 
lett, very  coolly,  "and  say  to  Mrs.  Follett,  that  I  will 
join  her  at  home.  I  am  going  to  sup,  or  rather  break- 
fast, with  Mrs.  Beverly  Fairlie  !" 

Here  was  a  mess  ! 

"  Shall  1  send  the  count  for  your  shawl  ?"  I  asked, 
after  giving  this  message,  and  wishing  to  know  whether 
she  was  this  side  of  pride  in  her  unhappiness. 

The  little  woman  burst  into  tears. 

"I  will  sit  in  the  cloak-room  till  my  husband  is 
ready,"  she  said;  "go  to  him,  if  you  please,  and  im- 
plore him  to  come  and  speak  to  me." 

As  I  said  before,  I  wished  the  whole  plot  to  the 
devil.  We  had  achieved  our  object,  it  is  true — and 
so  did  the  man  who  knocked  the  breath  out  of  his 
friend's  body,  in  killing  a  fly  on  his  back.  Tom  is 
now  (this  was  years  ago)  a  married  flirt  of  some  celeb- 
rity, for  after  coming  out  of  the  widow's  hands  with  a 
three  months'  education,  he  had  quite  forgot  to  be 
troubled  about  Mrs.  Follett ;  and  instead  of  neglect- 
ing his  dress,  which  was  his  only  sin  when  I  took  him 
in  hand,  he  now  neglects  his  wife,  who  sees  him,  as 
women  are  apt  to  see  their  husbands,  through  other 
women's  eyes.  I  presume  they  are  doomed  to  quite 
as  much  unhappiness  as  would  have  fallen  to  their  lot, 
had  I  let  them  alone — had  Mrs.  Follett  ran  away  with 
the  Frenchman,  and  had  Tom  died  a  divorced  sloven. 
But  when  I  think  that,  beside  achieving  little  for  them, 
I  was  the  direct  means  of  spoiling  Mrs.  Beverly  Fair- 
lie  for  myself,  I  think  I  may  write  myself  down  as  a 
warning  to  meddlers  in  matrimony. 


THE  COUNTESS  NYSCHRIEM. 


281 


THE  COUNTESS  NYSCHRIEM, 


AND  THE  HANDSOME  ARTIST. 


That  favored  portion  of  the  light  of  one  summer's 
morning  that  was  destined  to  be  the  transparent  bath 
of  the  master-pieces  on  the  walls  of  the  Pitti,  was 
pouring  in  a  languishing  Hood  through  the  massive 
windows  of  the  palace.  The  ghosts  of  the  painters 
(who,  ministering  to  the  eye  only,  walk  the  world  from 
cock-crowing  to  sunset)  were  haunting  invisibly  the 
sumptuous  rooms  made  famous  by  their  pictures ; 
and  the  pictures  themselves,  conscious  of  the  presence 
of  the  fountain  of  soul  from  which  gushed  the  soul 
that  is  in  them,  glowed  with  intoxicated  mellowness 
and  splendor,  and  amazed  the  living  students  of  the 
gallery  with  effects  of  light  and  color  till  that  moment 
undiscovered. 

[And  now,  dear  reader,  having  paid  you  the  com- 
pliment of  commencing  my  story  in  your  vein  (poetical), 
let  me  come  down  to  a  little  every-day  brick-and-mor- 
tar,  and  build  up  a  fair  aud  square  common-sense 
foundation.] 

Graeme  McDonald  was  a  young  highlander  from 
Rob  Roy's  country,  come  to  Florence  to  study  the 
old  masters.     He  was  an  athletic,  wholesome,  hand- 
some fellow,  who  had  probably  made  a  narrow  escape 
of  being  simply  a  fine  animal ;  and,  as  it  was,  you 
never  would  have  picked  him  from  a  crowd  as  any- 
thing but  a  hussar  out  of  uniform,  or  a  brigand  per- 
verted to  honest  life.     His  peculiarity  was  (and  this  I 
foresee  is  to  be  an  ugly  sentence),  that  he  had  pecu- 
liarities which  did  not  seem  peculiar.     He  was  full  of 
genius  for  his  art,  but  the  canvass  which  served  him  I 
him  as  a  vent,  gave  him  no  more  anxiety  than  his 
pocket-handkerchief.     He   painted   in  the  palace,  or 
wiped  his  forehead  on  a  warm  day  with  equally  small  ; 
care,  to  all  appearance,  and  he  had  brought  his  mother 
and  two  sisters  to  Italy,  and  supported  them  by  a  most  I 
heroic  economy  and  industry — all  the  while  looking  as 
if  the  "  silver  moon"  and  all  the  small  change  of  the 
stars  would  scarce  serve  liim  for  a  day's  pocket-money. 
Indeed,  the  more  1  kuew  of  McDonald,  the  more  I  i 
became  convinced  that  there  was  another  man  built ! 
over  him.     The  painter  was  inside.     And  if  he  had  | 
free  thoroughfare  and  use  of  the  outer  man's  windows 
and  ivory  door,  he  was  at  any  rate  barred  from  hang- 
ing out  the  smallest  sign  or  indication  of  being  at  any 
time  "  within."     Think  as  hard  as  he  would — devise, 
combine,  study,  or  glow  with  enthusiasm — the  pro- 
prietor of  the  front  door  exhibited  the  same  careless 
and  smiling  bravery  of  mien,  behaving  invariably  as  if 
he  had  the  whole  tenement  to  himself,  and  was  neither 
proud   of,  nor  interested  in   the  doings   of  his  more 
spiritual   inmate — leading   you   to    suppose,    almost, 
that  the  latter,  though   billeted   upon  him,  had   not  I 
been  properly  introduced.     The  thatch  of  this  com-  ! 
mon  tenement  was  of  jetty  black  hair,  curling  in  most 
opulent   prodigality,  and,  altogether,  it  was  a  house  j 
that  Hadad,  the  fallen  spirit,  might  have  chosen,  when  | 
becoming  incarnate  to  tempt  the  sister  of  Absalom. 

Perhaps  you  have  been  in  Florence,  dear  reader,  ' 
aud  know  by  what  royal  liberality  artists  are  permitted 
to  bring  their  easels  into  the  splendid  apartments  of  j 
the  palace,  and  copy  from  the  priceless  pictures  on 
the  walls.  At  the  time  I  have  my  eye  upon  (some 
few  years  ago),  McDonald  was  making  a  beginning1 
ot   n  copy  of  Titian's  Bella,  and  near  him  stood  the! 


easel  of  a  female  artist  who  was  copying  from  the 
glorious  picture  of  "  Judith  and  Holofernes,"  in  the 
same  apartment.  Mademoiselle  Folie  (so  she  was 
called  by  the  elderly  lady  who  always  accompanied 
her)  was  a  small  and  very  gracefully-formed  creature, 
with  the  plainest  face  in  which  attraction  could  possi- 
bly reside.  She  was  a  passionate  student  of  her  art, 
J  pouring  upon  it  apparently  the  entire  fulness  of  her 
life,  and  as  unconsciously  forgetful  of  her  personal 
:  impressions  on  those  around  her,  as  if  she  wore  the 
invisible  ring  of  Gyges.  The  deference  with  which 
she  was  treated  by  her  staid  companion  drew  some 
notice  upon  her,  however,  and  her  progress,  in  the 
copy  she  was  making,  occasionally  gathered  the  artists 
about  her  easel ;  and,  altogether,  her  position  among 
the  silent  and  patient  company  at  work  in  the  different 
halls  of  the  palace,  was  one  of  affectionate  and  tacit 
respect.  McDonald  was  her  nearest  neighbor,  and 
they  frequently  looked  over  each  other's  pictures,  but, 
as  they  were  both  foreigners  in  Florence  (she  of  Polish 
birth,  as  he  understood),  their  conversation  was  in 
French  or  Italian,  neither  of  which  languages  were 
fluently  familiar  to  Graeme,  and  it  was  limited  gene- 
rally to  expressions  of  courtesy  or  brief  criticism  oi 
each  other's  labors. 

As  I  said  before,  it  was  a  "  proof-impression"  of  a 
celestial  summer's  morning,  and  the  thermometer 
stood  at  heavenly  idleness.  McDonald  sat  with  his 
maul-stick  across  his  knees,  drinking  from  Titian's 
picture.  An  artist,  who  had  lounged  in  from  the 
next  room,  had  hung  himself  by  the  crook  of  his  arm 
over  a  high  peg,  in  his  comrade's  easel,  and  every  now 
and  then  he  volunteered  an  observation  to  which  he 
expected  no  particular  answer. 

"  When  I  remember  how  little  beauty  ]  have  seen 
in  the  world,"  said  Ingarde  (this  artist),  "I  am  inclined 
to  believe  with  Saturninus,  that  there  is  no  resurrec- 
tion of  bodies,  and  that  only  the  spirits  of  the  good 
return  into  the  body  of  the  Godhead — for  what  is 
ugliness  to  do  in  heaven  !" 

McDonald  only  said,  "  hm — hm  !" 

"  Or  rather,"  said  Ingarde  again,  "  I  should  like  to 
fashion  a  creed  for  myself,  and  believe  that  nothing 
was  immortal  but  what  was  heavenly,  and  that  the 
good  among  men  and  the  beautiful  among  women 
would  be  the  only  reproductions  hereafter.  How  will 
this  little  plain  woman  look  in  the  streets  of  the  New 
Jerusalem,  for  example  ?  Yet  she  expects,  as  we  all 
do,  to  be  recognisable  by  her  friends  in  Heaven,  and, 
of  course,  to  have  the  same  irredeemably  plain  face  ! 
(Does  she  understand  English,  by  the  way — for  she 
might  not  be  altogether  pleased  with  my  theory  !") 

"I  have  spoken  to  her  very  often,"  said  McDonald, 
"  and  I  think  English  is  Hebrew  to  her — but  my  theo- 
ry of  beauty  crosses  at  least  one  corner  of  your  argu- 
ment, my  friend  !  I  believe  that  the  original  type  of 
every  human  face  is  beautiful,  and  that  every  human 
being  could  be  made  beautiful,  without,  in  any  essential 
particular,  destroying  the  visible  identity.  The  like- 
ness preserved  in  the  faces  of  a  family  through  several 
generations  is  modified  by  the  bad  mental  qualities, 
and  the  bad  health  of  those  who  hand  is  down.  Re- 
move these  modifications,  and,  without  destroying  the 
family  likeness,  you  would  take  away  all  that  mars  the 


282 


THE  COUNTESS  NYSCHRIEM. 


beauty  of  its  particular  type.  An  individual  coun- 
tenance is  an  integral  work  of  God's  making,  and  God 
'saw  that  it  was  good'  when  he  made  it.  Ugliness, 
as  you  phrase  it,  is  the  damage  that  type  of  countenance 
has  received  from  the  sin  and  suffering  of  life.  But 
the  type  can  be  restored,  and  will  be,  doubtless,  in 
Heaven  !" 

"  And  you  think  that  little  woman's  face  could  be 
made  beautiful  ?" 

"I  know  it." 

"Try  it,  then!  Here  is  your  copy  of  Titian's 
•Bella,'  all  finished  but  the  face.  Make  an  apotheosis 
portrait  of  your  neighbor,  and  while  it  harmonizes 
with  the  body  of  Titian's  beauty,  still  leave  it  recogni- 
sable as  her  portrait,  and  I'll  give  in  to  your  theory — 
believing  in  all  other  miracles,  if  you  like,  at  the  same 
time!" 

Ingarde  laughed,  as  he  went  back  to  his  own  picture, 
and  McDonald,  after  sitting  a  few  minutes  lost  in 
revery,  turned  his  easel  so  as  to  get  a  painter's  view 
of  his  female  neighbor.  He  thought  she  colored 
slightly  as  he  fixed  his  eyes  upon  her  ;  but,  if  so,  she 
apparently  became  very  soon  unconscious  of  his  gaze, 
and  he  was  soon  absorbed  himself  in  the  task  to  which 
his  friend  had  so  mockingly  challenged  him. 


II. 


[Excuse  me,  dear  reader,  while  with  two  epistles  I 
build  a  bridge  over  which  you  can  cross  a  chasm  of  a 
month  in  my  story.] 

41  To  Graeme  McDonald. 

"Sir:  I  am  intrusted  with  a  delicate  commission, 
which  I  know  not  how  to  broach  to  you,  except  by 
simple  proposal.  Will  you  forgive  my  abrupt  brevity, 
if  I  inform  you,  without  further  preface,  that  the 
Countess  Nyschriem,  a  Polish  lady  of  high  birth  and 
ample  fortune,  does  you  the  honor  to  propose  for  your 
hand.  If  you  are  disengaged,  and  your  affections  are 
not  irrevocably  given  to  another,  I  can  conceive  no 
sufficient  obstacle  to  your  acceptance  of  this  brilliant 
connexion.  The  countess  is  twenty-two,  and  not 
beautiful,  it  must  in  fairness  be  said ;  but  she  has 
high  qualities  of  head  and  heart,  and  is  worthy  of  any 
man's  respect  and  affection.  She  has  seen  you,  of 
course,  and  conceived  a  passion  for  you,  of  which  this 
is  the  result.  lam  directed  to  add,  that  should  you 
consent,  the  following  conditions  are  imposed — that 
you  marry  her  within  four  days,  making  no  inquiry 
except  as  to  her  age,  rank,  and  property,  and  that, 
without  previous  interview,  she  come  veiled  to  the 
altar. 

"An  answer  is  requested  in  the  course  of  to-morrow, 
addressed  to  '  The  Count  Hanswald,  minister  of  his 
majesty  the  king  of  Prussia.' 

"I  have  the  honor,  &c,  &c.         "Hanswald." 

McDonald's  answer  was  as  follows  : — 

"  To  his  Excellency,  Hanswald,  &c,  &c. 

"  You  will  pardon  me  that  I  have  taken  two  days  to 
consider  the  extraordinary  proposition  made  me  in 
your  letter.  The  subject,  since  it  is  to  be  entertained 
a  moment,  requires,  perhaps,  still  further  reflection — 
but  my  reply  shall  be  definite,  and  as  prompt  as  I  can 
bring  myself  to  be,  in  a  matter  so  important. 

"  My  first  impulsewns  to  return  your  letter, declining 
the  honor  you  would  do  me,  and  thanking  the  lady 
for  the  compliment  of  her  choice.  My  first  reflection 
was  the  relief  and  happiness  which  an  independence 
would  bring  to  a  mother  and  two  sisters  dependant, 
now,  on  the  precarious  profits  of  my  pencil.  And  I 
first  consented  to  ponder  the  matter  with  this  view, 
and  I  now  consent  to  marry  (frankly)  for  this  advan- 
tage.    But  still  I  have  a  condition  to  propose. 

•'  lu  the  studies  I  have  had  the  opportunity  to  make 


of  the  happiness  of  imaginative  men  in  matrimony,  I 
have  observed  that  their  two  worlds  of  fact  and  fancy 
were  seldom  under  the  control  of  one  mistress.  It 
must  be  a  very  extraordinary  woman  of  course,  who, 
with  the  sweet  domestic  qualities  needful  for  common 
life,  possesses  at  the  same  time  the  elevation  and 
spirituality  requisite  for  the  ideal  of  the  poet  and 
painter.  And  I  am  not  certain,  in  any  case,  whethej 
the  romance  of  some  secret  passion,  fed  and  pursued 
in  the  imagination  only,  be  not  the  inseparable  neces- 
sity of  a  poetical  nature.  For  the  imagination  is  in- 
capable of  being  chained,  and  it  is  at  once  disenchant- 
ed and  set  roaming  by  the  very  possession  and  cer 
tainty,  which  are  the  charms  of  matrimony.  Whethei 
exclusive  devotion  of  all  the  faculties  of  mind  and  bod} 
be  the  fidelity  exacted  in  marriage,  is  a  question  every 
woman  should  consider  before  making  a  husband  of 
an  imaginative  man.  As  I  have  not  seen  the  countess, 
I  can  generalize  on  the  subject  without  offence,  and 
she  is  the  best  judge  whether  she  can  chain  my  fancy 
as  well  as  my  affections,  or  yield  to  an  imaginative 
mistress  the  devotion  of  so  predominant  a  quality  of 
my  nature.  I  can  only  promise  her  the  constancy  of 
a  husband. 

"  Still — if  this  were  taken  for  only  vague  specula 
tion — she  might  be  deceived.  I  must  declare,  frankly, 
that  I  am,  at  present,  completely  possessed  with  an 
imaginative  passion.  The  object  of  it  is  probably  as 
poor  as  I,  and  I  could  never  marry  her  were  I  to  con- 
tinue free.  Probably,  too,  the  high-born  countess 
would  be  but  little  jealous  of  her  rival,  for  she  has  no 
pretensions  to  beauty,  and  is  an  humble  artist.  But, 
in  painting  this  lady's  portrait — (a  chance  experiment, 
to  try  whether  so  plain  a  face  could  be  made  lovely) 
— I  have  penetrated  to  so  beautiful  an  inner  counten- 
ance (so  to  speak) — I  have  found  charms  of  impres- 
sion so  subtly  masked  to  the  common  eye — I  have 
traced  such  exquisite  lineament  of  soul  and  feeling, 
visible,  for  the  present,  I  believe,  to  my  eye  only — 
that,  while  I  live.  I  shall  do  irresistible  homage  to  her 
as  the  embodiment  of  my  fancy's  want,  the  very  spirit 
and  essence  suitable  to  rule  over  my  unseen  world  of 
imagination.  Marry  whom  I  will,  and  be  true  to  hei 
as  I  shall,  this  lady  will  (perhaps  unknown  to  herself  J 
be  my  mistress  in  dream-land  and  revery. 

"  This  inevitable  license  allowed — my  ideal  world 
and  its  devotions,  that  is  to  say,  left  entirely  to  myself 
— I  am  ready  to  accept  the  honor  of  the  countess's 
hand.  If,  at  the  altar,  she  should  hear  me  murmur 
another  name  ivith  her  own — (for  the  bride  of  my  fancy 
must  be  present  when  I  wed,  and  I  shall  link  the  vows 
to  both  in  one  ceremony) — let  her  not  fear  for  my 
constancy  to  herself,  but  let  her  remember  that  it  is 
not  to  offend  her  hereafter,  if*  the  name  of  the  other 
come  to  my  lip  in  dreams. 

"  Your  excellency  may  command  my  time  and 
presence.      With  high  consideration,  &c. 

"Graeme  McDonald." 

Rather  agitated  than  surprised  seemed  Mademoiselle 
Folie,  when,  the  next  day,  as  she  arranged  her  brushes 
upon  the  shelf  of  her  easel,  her  handsome  neighbor 
commenced,  in  the  most  fluent  Italian  he  could  com- 
mand, to  invite  her  to  his  wedding.  Very  much 
surprised  was  McDonald  when  she  interrupted  him 
in  English,  and  begged  him  to  use  his  native  tongue, 
as  madame,  her  attendant,  would  not  then  understand 
him.  He  went  on  delightedly  in  his  own  honest 
language,  and  explained  to  her  his  imaginative  ad- 
miration, though  he  felt  compunctious,  somewhat, 
that  so  unreal  a  sentiment  should  bring  the  blood  into 
her  cheek.  She  thanked  him — drew  the  cloth  from 
the  upper  part  of  her  own  picture,  and  showed  him  an 
admirable  portrait  of  his  handsome  features,  substituted 
for  the  masculine  head  of  Judith  in  the  original  from 
which  she  copied — and  promised  to  be  at  his  weddiag. 


MY  ONE  ADVENTURE  AS  A  BRIGAND. 


283 


and  to  listen  sharply  for  her  murmured  name  in  his 
vow  at  the  altar.  He  chanced  to  wear  at  the  moment 
a  ring  of  red  cornelian,  and  he  agreed  with  her  that 
she  should  stand  whereuhe  could  see  her,  and,  at  the 
moment  of  his  putting  the  marriage  ring  upon  the 
bride's  fingers,  that  she  should  put  on  this,  and  for 
ever  after  wear  it,  as  a  token  of  having  received  his 
spiritual  vows  of  devotion. 

The  day  came,  and  the  splendid  equipage  of  the 
countess  dashed  into  the  square  of  Santa  Maria,  with 
a  veiled  bride  and  a  cold  bridegroom,  and  deposited 
them  at  the  steps  of  the  church.  And  they  were  fol- 
lowed by  other  coroneted  equipages,  and  gayly  dress- 
ed from  each — the  mother  and  sisters  of  the  bride- 
groom gayly  dressed,  among  them,  but  looking  pale 
with  incertitude  and  dread. 

The  veiled  bride  was  small,  but  she  moved  grace- 
fully up  the  aisle,  and  met  her  future  husband  ;it  the 
altar  with  a  low  courtesy,  and  made  a  sign  to  the  priest 
to  proceed  with  the  ceremony.     McDonald  was  color- 


less, but  firm,  and  indeed  showed  little  interest,  except 
by  an  anxious  look  now  and  then  among  the  crowd  of 
spectators  at  the  sides  of  the  altar.  He  pronounced 
with  a  steady  voice,  but  when  the  ring  was  to  be  put 
on,  he  looked  around  for  an  instant,  and  then  sudden- 
ly, and  to  the  great  scandal  of  the  church,  clasped  his 
bride  with  a  passionate  ejaculation  to  his  bosom. 
The  cornelian  ring  was  on  her  finger — and  the  Countess* 
Nyschriem  and  Mademoiselle  Folie — his  bride  and 
his  fancy  queen — were  one. 

This  curious  event  happened  in  Florence  some 
eight  years  since — as  all  people  then  there  will  re- 
member— and  it  was  prophesied  of  the  countess  that 
she  would  have  but  a  short  lease  of  her  handsome  and 
gay  husband.  But  time  does  not  say  so.  A  more 
constant  husband  than  McDonald  to  his  plain  and 
titled  wife,  and  one  more  continuously  in  love,  does 
not  travel  and  buy  pictures,  and  patronize  artists — 
though  few  except  yourself  and  I,  dear  reader,  know 
the  philosophy  of  it ! 


MY  ONE  ADVENTURE   AS   A   BRIGAND, 


I  was  standing  in  a  hostelry,  at  Geneva,  making  a 
bargain  with  an  Italian  for  a  place  in  a  return  carriage 
to  Florence,  when  an  Englishman,  who  had  been  in 
the  same  steamer  with  me  on  Lake  Leman,  the  day 
before,  came  in  and  stood  listening  to  the  conversa- 
tion. We  had  been  the  only  two  passengers  on  board, 
but  had  passed  six  hours  in  each  other's  company 
without  speaking.  The  road  to  an  Englishman's 
friendship  is  to  have  shown  yourself  perfectly  indiffer- 
ent to  his  acquaintance,  and,  as  I  liked  him  from  the 
first,  we  were  now  ready  to  be  conscious  of  each  oth- 
er's existence. 

"I  beg  pardon,"  said  he,  advancing  in  a  pause  of 
the  vetturino's  oration,  "will  you  allow  me  to  engage 
a  place  with  you  ?  1  am  going  to  Florence,  and,  if 
agreeable  to  you,  we  will  take  the  carriage  to  our- 
selves." 

I  agreed  very  willingly,  and  in  two  hours  we  were 
free  of  the  gates  of  Geneva,  and  keeping  along  the 
edge  of  the  lake  in  the  cool  twilight  of  one  of  the  love- 
liest of  heaven's  summer  evenings.  The  carriage  was 
spaciously  contrived  for  four;  and,  with  the  curtains 
up  all  around,  our  feet  on  the  forward  seat,  my  com- 
panion smoking,  and  conversation  bubbling  up  to 
please  itself,  we  rolled  over  the  smooth  road,  gliding 
into  the  first  chapter  of  our  acquaintance  as  tranquilly 
as  Geoffrey  Crayon  and  his  reader  into  the  first  chap- 
ter of  anything  he  has  written. 

My  companion  (Mr.  St.  John  Elmslie,  as  put  down 
in  his  passport)  seemed  to  have  something  to  think  of 
beside  propitiating  my  good  will,  but  he  was  consid- 
erate and  winning,  from  evident  high  breeding,  and 
quite  open,  himself,  to  my  most  scrutinizing  study. 
He  was  about  thirty,  and,  without  any  definite  beauty, 
was  a  fine  specimen  of  a  man.  Probably  most  per- 
sons would  have  called  him  handsome.  I  liked  him 
better,  probably,  from  the  subdued  melancholy  with 
which  he  brooded  on  his  secret  thought,  whatever  it 
might  be — sad  men,  in  this  world  of  boisterous  gayety 
or  selfish  ill-humor,  interesting  me  always. 

From  that  something,  on  which  his  memory  fed  in  j 
quiet  but  constant  revery,  nothing  aroused  my  com-  j 
panion  except  the  passing  of  a  travelling  carriage,  go-  \ 
log  in  the  other  direction,  on  our  own  arrival  at  an  inn.  j 
I  began  to  suspect,  indeed,  after  a  little  while,  that  j 
ElmsUe  had  some  understanding  with  our  vetturino,  I 


for,  on  the  approach  of  any  vehicle  of  pleasure,  our 
horses  became  restiff,  and,  with  a  sudden  pull-up, 
stood  directly  across  the  way.  Out  jumped  my  friend 
to  assist  in  controlling  the  restiff  animals,  and,  in  the 
five  minutes  during  which  the  strangers  were  obliged 
to  wait,  we  generally  saw  their  heads  once  or  twice 
thrust  inquiringly  from  the  carriage  window.  This 
done,  our  own  vehicle  was  again  wheeled  about,  and 
the  travellers  allowed  to  proceed. 

We  had  arrived  at  Bologna  with  but  one  interruption 
to  the  quiet  friendliness  of  our  intercourse.  Apropos 
of  some  vein  of  speculation,  1  had  asked  my  companion 
if  he  were  married.  He  was  silent  for  a  moment,  and 
then,  in  a  jocose  tone  of  voice,  which  was  new  to  me, 
replied,  "  I  believe  I  have  a  wife — somewhere  in  Scot- 
land." But  though  Elmslie  had  determined  to  show 
me  that  he  was  neither  annoyed  nor  offended  at  my 
inquisitiveness,  his  manner  changed.  He  grew  cere- 
monious. For  the  remainder  of  that  day,  I  felt  un- 
comfortable, I  scarce  knew  why;  and  I  silently  deter- 
mined that  if  my  friend  continued  so  exceedingly  well- 
bred  in  his  manner  for  another  day,  I  should  find  an 
excuse  for  leaving  him  at  Bologna. 

But  we  had  left  Bologna,  and,  at  sunset  of  a  warm 
day,  were  slowly  toiling  up  the  Apennines.  The  inn  to 
which  we  were  bound  was  in  sight,  a  mile  or  two  above 
us,  and,  as  the  vetturino  stopped  to  breathe  his  horses, 
Elmslie  jumped  from  the  carriage  and  started  to  walk 
on.  I  took  advantage  of  his  absence  to  stretch  myself 
over  the  vacated  cushions,  and,  on  our  arrival  at  the 
inn,  was  soundly  asleep. 

My  friend's  voice,  in  an  unusual  tone,  awoke  me, 
and,  by  his  face,  as  he  looked  in  at  the  carriage  win- 
dow, I  saw  that  he  was  under  some  extraordinary  ex- 
citement. This  I  observed  by  the  light  of  the  stable- 
lantern— for  the  hostelry,  Italian  fashion,  occupied 
the  lower  story  of  the  inn,  and  our  carriage  was  driven 
under  the  archway,  where  the  faint  light  from  without 
made  but  little  impression  on  the  darkness.  I  followed 
Elmslie's  beckoning  finger,  and  climbing  after  him  up 
the  stairway  of  stone,  stood  in  a  large  refectory  occu- 
pying the  whole  of  the  second  story  of  the  building. 

At  the  first  glance  I  saw  that  there  was  an  English 
party  in  the  house.  An  Italian  inn  of  the  lower  order 
has  no  provision  for  private  parties,  and  few,  except 
English  travellers,  object  to  joining  the  common  even- 


284 


MY  ONE  ADVENTURE  AS  A  BRIGAND. 


ing  meal.  The  hall  was  dark  with  the  twilight,  but  a 
large  curtain  was  suspended  across  the  farther  ex- 
tremity, and,  by  the  glimmer  of  lights,  and  an  occa- 
sional sound  of  a  knife,  a  party  was  within  supping  in 
silence. 

"If  you  speak,  speak  in  Italian,"  whispered  Elms- 
lie,  taking  me  by  the  arm,  and  leading  me  on  tiptoe  to 
bne  of  the  corners  of  the  curtain. 

I  looked  in  and  saw  two  persons  seated  at  a  table — 
a  bold  and  soldierly-looking  man  of  fifty,  and  a  young 
lady,  evidently  his  daughter.  The  beauty  of  the  last- 
mentioned  person  was  so  extraordinary  that  I  nearly 
committed  the  indiscretion  of  an  exclamation  in  Eng- 
lish. She  was  slight,  but  of  full  and  well-rounded 
proportions,  and  she  sat  and  moved  with  an  emi- 
nent grace  and  ladylikeness  altogether  captivating. 
Though  her  face  expressed  a  settled  sadness,  it  was 
of  unworn  and  faultless  youth  and  loveliness,  and 
while  her  heavily-fringed  eyes  would  have  done,  in 
their  expression,  for  a  Niobe,  Hebe's  lips  were  not 
more  ripe,  nor  Juno's  arched  more  proudly.  She  was 
a  blonde,  with  eyes  and  eyelashes  darker  than  her 
hair — a  kind  of  beauty  almost  peculiar  to  England. 

The  passing  in  of  a  tall  footman,  in  a  plain  livery  of 
gray,  interrupted  my  gaze,  and  Elmslie  drew  me  away 
by  the  arm,  and  led  me  into  the  road  in  front  of  the 
locanda.  The  night  had  now  fallen,  and  we  strolled 
up  and  down  in  the  glimmer  of  the  starlight.  My 
companion  was  evidently  much  disturbed,  and  we 
made  several  turns  after  I  had  seen  very  plainly  that 
he  was  making  up  his  mind  to  communicate  to  me  the 
secret. 

"1  have  a  request  to  make  of  you,"  he  said,  at  last; 
"  a  service  to  exact,  rather,  to  which  there  were  no 
hope  that  you  would  listen  for  a  moment  if  I  did  not 
first  tell  you  a  very  singular  story.  Have  a  little  pa- 
tience with  me,  and  I  will  make  it  as  brief  as  I  can — 
the  briefer,  that  I  have  no  little  pain  in  recalling  it  with 
the  distinctness  of  description." 

I  expressed  my  interest  in  all  that  concerned  my 
new  friend,  and  begged  him  to  go  on. 

"  Hardly  six  years  ago,"  said  Elmslie,  pressing  my 
arm  gently  in  acknowledgment  of  my  sympathy,  "  I 
left  college  and  joined  my  regiment,  for  the  first  time, 
in  Scotland.  By  the  way,  I  should  re-introduce  my- 
self to  you  as  Viscount  S ,  of  the  title  of  which, 

then,  I  was  in  prospect.  My  story  hinges  somewhat 
upon  the  fact  that,  as  an  honorable  captain,  a  noble- 
man in  expectancy,  I  was  an  object  of  some  extrane- 
ous interest  to  the  ladies  who  did  the  flirting  for  the 
garrison.  God  forgive  me  for  speaking  lightly  on  the 
subject ! 

"  A  few  evenings  after  my  arrival,  we  had  been  dining 
rather  freely  at  mess,  and  the  major  announced  to  us 
that  we  were  invited  to  take  tea  with  a  linen-draper, 
whose  house  was  a  popular  resort  of  the  officers  of 
the  regiment.  The  man  had  three  or  four  daughters, 
who,  as  the  phrase  goes,  '  gave  you  a  great  deal  for 
your  money,'  and,  for  romping  and  frolicking,  they 
had  good  looks  and  spirit  enough.  The  youngest  was 
really  very  pretty,  but  the  eldest,  to  whom  I  was  ex- 
clusively presented  by  the  major,  as  a  sort  of  quiz  on 
a  new-comer,  was  a  sharp  and  sneering  old  maid,  red- 
headed, freckled,  and  somewhat  lame.  Not  to  be  out- 
done in  frolic  by  my  persecutor,  I  commenced  making 
love  to  Miss  Jacky  in  mock  heroics,  and  we  were  soon 
marching  up  and  down  the  room,  to  the  infinite  enter- 
tainment of  my  brother  officers,  lavishing  on  each  other 
every  possible  term  of  endearment. 

"  In  the  midst  of  this,  the  major  came  up  to  me  with 
rather  a  serious  face. 

"  '  Whatever  you  do,'  said  he,  '  for  God's  sake  don't 
call  the  old  girl  your  wife.  The  joke  might  be  seri- 
ous.' 

"  It  was  quite  enough  that  I  was  desired  not  to  do 
anything  in  the  reign  of  misrule  then   prevailing.     I 


immediately  assumed  a  connubial  air,  to  the  best  of 
my  dramatic  ability,  begged  Miss  Jacky  to  join  me  in 
the  frolic,  and  made  the  rounds  of  the  room,  introdu- 
cing the  old  girl  as  Mrs.  Elmslie,  and  receiving  from 
her  quite  as  many  tendernesses  as  were  bearable  by 
myself  or  the  company  present.  I  observed  that  the 
lynx-eyed  linen-draper  watched  this  piece  of  fun  very 
closely,  and  my  friend,  the  major,  seemed  distressed 
and  grave  about  it.  But  we  carried  it  out  till  the 
party  broke  up,  and  the  next  day  the  regiment  was 
ordered  over  to  Ireland,  and  I  thought  no  more,  for 
awhile,  either  of  Miss  Jacky  or  my  own  absurdity. 

"  Two  years  afterward,  I  was,  at  a  drawing-room  at 
St.  James's,  presented,  for  the  first  time,  by  the  name 
which  I  bear.  It  was  not  a  very  agreeable  event  to  me, 
as  our  family  fortunes  were  inadequate  to  the  proper 
support  of  the  title,  and  on  the  generosity  of  a  maternal 
uncle,  who  had  been  at  mortal  variance  with  my  father, 
depended  our  hopes  of  restoration  to  prosperity.  From 
the  mood  of  bitter  melancholy  in  which  I  had  gone 
through  the  ceremony  of  an  introduction,  I  was  aroused 
by  the  murmur  in  the  crowd  at  the  approach  of  a  young 
girl  just  presented  to  the  king.  She  was  following  a 
lady  whom  I  slightly  knew,  and  had  evidently  been 
presented  by  her;  and,  before  I  had  begun  to  recover 
from  my  astonishment  at  her  beauty,  I  was  requested 
by  this  lady  to  give  her  protege  an  arm  and  follow  to  a 
less  crowded  apartment  of  the  palace. 

"Ah,  my  friend!  the  exquisite  beauty  of  Lady 
Meiicent — but  you  have  seen  her.  She  is  here,  and 
I  must  fold  her  in  my  arms  to-night,  or  perish  in  the 
attempt. 

"Pardon  me!"  he  added,  as  I  was  about  to  inter- 
rupt him  with  an  explanation.  "  She  has  been — she 
is — my  wife  !  She  loved  me  and  married  me,  making 
life  a  heaven  of  constant  ecstacy — for  I  worshipped 
her  with  every  fibre  of  my  existence." 

He  paused  and  gave  me  his  story  brokenly,  and  I 
waited  for  him  to  go  on  without  questioning. 

"We  had  lived  together  in  absolute  and  unclouded 
happiness  for  eight  months,  in  lover-like  seclusion  at 
her  father's  house,  and  I  was  looking  forward  to  the 
birth  of  my  child  with  anxiety  and  transport,  when  the 
death  of  my  uncle  left  me  heir  to  his  immense  fortune, 
and  I  parted  from  my  greater  treasure  to  go  and  pay 
the  fitting  respect  at  his  burial. 

"  I  returned,  after  a  week's  absence,  with  an  impa- 
tience and  ardor  almost  intolerable,  and  found  the  door 
closed  against  me. 

"  There  were  two  letters  for  me  at  the  porter's  lodge 

— one  from  Lord  A ,  my  wife's  father,  informing 

me  that  the  Lady  Meiicent  had  miscarried  and  was 
dangerously  ill,  and  enjoining  upon  me  as  a  man  of 
honor  and  delicacy,  never  to  attempt  to  see  her  again ; 
and  another  from  Scotland,  claiming  a  fitting  support 
for  my  lawful  wife,  the  daughter  of  the  linen-draper. 
The  proofs  of  the  marriage,  duly  sworn  to  and  certi- 
fied by  the  witnesses  of  my  fatal  frolic,  were  enclosed, 
and  on  my  recovery,  six  weeks  after,  from  the  delirium 
into  which  these  multiplied  horrors  precipitated  me,  I 
found  that,  by  the  Scotch  law,  the  first  marriage  was 
valid,  and  my  ruin  was  irrevocable." 

"And  how  long  since  was  this  ?"  I  inquired,  break- 
ing in  upon  his  narration  for  the  first  time. 

"A  year  and  a  month — and  till  to-night  I  have  not 
seen  her.  But  I  must  break  through  this  dreadful 
separation  now — and  I  must  speak  to  her,  and  press 
her  to  my  breast — and  you  will  aid  me  ?" 

"To  the  last  drop  of  my  blood,  assuredly.  But 
how  ?" 

"  Come  to  the  inn  !  You  have  not  supped,  and  we 
will  devise  as  you  eat.  And  you  must  lend  me  your 
invention,  for  my  heart  and  brain  seem  to  me  going 
wild." 

Two  hours  after,  with  a  pair  of  loaded  pistols  in  my 
breast,  we  went  to  the  chamber  of  the  host,  and  bound 


WIGWAM  versus  ALMACK'S. 


285 


him  and  his  wife  to  the  posts  of  their  beds.  There 
was  but  one  man  about  the  house,  the  hostler,  and  we 
had  made  him  intoxicated  with  our  travelling  flask  of 
brandy.  Lord  A and  his  daughter  were  still  sit- 
ting up,  and  she,  at  her  chamber  window,  was  watch- 
ing the  just  risen  moon,  over  which  the  clouds  were 
drifting  very  rapidly.  Our  business  was,  now,  only 
with  them,  as,  in  their  footman,  my  companion  had 
found  an  attached  creature,  who  remembered  him,  and 
willingly  agreed  to  offer  no  interruption. 

After  taking  a  pull  at  the  brandy-flask  myself  (for, 
in  spite  of  my  blackened  face  and  the  slouched  hat  of 
the  hostler,  I  required  some  fortification  of  the  mus- 
cles of  my  face  before  doing  violence  to  an  English 
nobleman),  I  opened  the  door  of  the  chamber  which 
must  be  passed  to  gain  access  to  that  of  Lady  Meli- 

cent.    It  was  Lord  A 's  sleeping-room,  and,  though 

the  light  was  extinguished,  I  could  see  that  he  was 
still  up,  and  sitting  at  the  window.  Turning  my  lan- 
tern inward,  I  entered  the  room  and  set  it  down,  and, 

to  my  relief,  Lord  A soliloquized  in  English,  that 

it  was  the  host  with  a  hint  that  it  was  time  to  go  to 
bed.  My  friend  was  at  the  door,  according  to  my  ar- 
rangement, ready  to  assist  me  should  I  find  any  diffi- 
culty; but,  from  the  dread  of  premature  discovery  of 
the  person,  he  was  to  let  me  manage  it  alone  if  pos- 
sible. 

Lord  A sat  unsuspectingly  in  his  chair,  with 

his  head  turned  half  way  over  his  shoulders  to  see  why 
the  officious  host  did  not  depart.  I  sprung  suddenly 
upon  him,  drew  him  backward  and  threw  him  on  his 
face,  and,  with  my  hand  over  his  mouth,  threatened 


him  with  death,  in  my  choicest  Italian,  if  he  did  not 
remain  passive  till  his  portmanteau  had  been  looked 
into.  I  thought  he  might  submit,  with  the  idea  that 
it  was  only  a  robbery,  and  so  it  proved.  He  allowed 
me,  after  a  short  struggle,  to  tie  his  hands  behind  him, 
and  march  him  down  to  his  carriage,  before  the  muz- 
zle of  my  pistol.  The  hostelry  was  still  as  death,  and, 
shutting  his  carriage  door  upon  his  lordship,  I  mount- 
ed guard. 

The  night  seemed  to  me  very  long,  but  morning 
dawned,  and,  with  the  earliest  gray,  the  postillions 
came  knocking  at  the  outer  door  of  the  locanda.  My 
friend  went  out  to  them,  while  I  marched  back  Lord 

A to  his  chamber,  and,  by  immense  bribing,  the 

horses  were  all  put  to  our  carriage  a  half  hour  after, 
and  the  outraged  nobleman  was  left  without  the  means 
of  pursuit  till  their  return.  We  reached  Florence  in 
safety,  and  pushed  on  immediately  to  Leghorn,  where 
we  took  the  steamer  for  Marseilles  and  eluded  arrest, 
very  much  to  my  most  agreeable  surprise. 

By  a  Providence  that  does  not  always  indulge  mor- 
tals with  removing  those  they  wish  in  another  world, 

Lord  S has  lately  been  freed  from  his  harrowing 

chain  by  the  death  of  his  so-called  lady;  and,  having 
re-married  Lady  Melicent,  their  happiness  is  renewed 
and  perfect.  In  his  letter  to  me,  announcing  it,  he 
gives  me  liberty  to  tell  the  story,  as  the  secret  was  di- 
vulged to  Lord  A on  the  day  of  his  second  nup- 
tials. He  said  nothing,  however,  of  his  lordship's 
forgiveness  for  my  rude  handling  of  his  person,  and, 
in  ceasing  to  be  considered  a  brigand,  possibly  I  am 
responsible  as  a  gentleman. 


WIGWAM  versus  ALMACK'S. 


CHAPTER  I. 

In  one  of  the  years  not  long  since  passed  to  your 
account  and  mine  by  the  recording  angel,  gentle  read- 
er, I  was  taking  my  fill  of  a  delicious  American  June, 
as  Ducrow  takes  his  bottle  of  wine,  on  the  back  of  a 
beloved  horse.  In  the  expressive  language  of  the 
raftsmen  on  the  streams  of  the  West,  I  was  "  follow- 
ing" the  Chemung — a  river  whose  wild  and  peculiar 
loveliness  is  destined  to  be  told  in  undying  song,  when- 
ever America  can  find  leisure  to  look  up  her  poets. 
Such  bathing  of  the  feet  of  precipices,  such  kissing 
of  flowery  slopes,  such  winding  in  and  out  of  the  bo- 
soms of  round  meadows,  such  frowning  amid  broken 
rocks,  and  smiling  through  smooth  valleys,  you  would 
never  believe  could  go  in  this  out-of-doors  world, 
unvisitod  and  uncelebrated. 

Not  far  from  the  ruins  of  a  fortification,  said  to  have 
been  built  by  the  Spaniards  before  the  settlement  of 
New-England  by  the  English,  the  road  along  the  Che- 
mung dwindles  into  a  mere  ledge  at  the  foot  of  a 
precipice,  the  river  wearing  into  the  rock  at  this  spot 
by  a  black  and  deep  eddy.  At  the  height  of  your  lip 
above  the  carriage  track,  there  gushes  from  the  rock 
a  stream  of  the  size  and  steady  clearness  of  a  glass 
rod,  and  all  around  it  in  the  small  rocky  lap  which  it 
has  worn  away,  there  grows  a  bed  of  fragrant  mint, 
kept  by  the  shade  and  moisture  of  a  perpetual  green, 
bright  as  emerald.  Here  stops  every  traveller  who  is 
not  upon  an  errand  of  life  or  death,  and  while  his 
horse  stands  up  to  his  fetlocks  in  the  river,  he  parts 
the  dewy  stems  of  the  mint,  and  drinks,  for  once  in 
his  life,  like  a  fay  or  a  poet.  It  is  one  of  those  ex- 
quisite spots  which  paint  their  own  picture  insensibly 


I  in  the  memory,  even  while  you  look  on  them,  natural 
;  "  Daguerrotypes,"  as  it  were  ;  and  you  are  surprised, 
!  years  afterward,  to  find  yourself  remembering  every 
leaf  and  stone,  and  the  song  of  every  bird  that  sung 
in  the  pine-trees  overhead  while  you  were  watching' 
the  curve  of  the  spring-leap.  As  I  said  before,  it  will 
be  sung  and  celebrated,  when  America  sits  down  weary 
with  her  first  century  of  toil,  and  calls  for  her  min- 
strels, now  toiling  with  her  in  the  fields. 

Within   a  mile   of  this  spot,  to  which  I  had  been 
looking  forward  with  delight  for  some  hours,  I  over- 
took a  horseman.     Before  coming  up  with  him  I  had 
;  at  once  decided  he  was  an  Indian.     His  relaxed  limbs 
swaying  to  every  motion  of  his  horse  with  the  grace 
and  ease  of  a  wreath  of  smoke,  his  neck  and  shoulders 
so  cleanly  shaped,  and  a  certain  watchful  look  about 
j   his  ears  which  I  cannot  define,  but  which  you  see  in 
a  spirited   horse — were   infallible   marks  of  the  race 
whom  we  have  driven  from  the  fair  land  of  our  inde- 
pendence.   He  was  mounted  upon  a  small  black  horse 
— of  the  breed  commonly  called  Indian  ponies,  now 
;  not  very  common  so  near  the  Atlantic — and  rode  with 
a  slack  rein  and  air,  I  thought,  rather  more  dispirited 
than  indolent. 

The  kind  of  morning  T  have  described,  is,  as  every 
one  must  remember,  of  a  sweetness  so  communicative 
that  one  would  think  two  birds  could  scarce  meet  on 
the  wing  without  exchanging  a  carol;  and  I  involun- 
tarily raised  my  bridle  after  a  minute's  study  of  the 
traveller  before  me,  and  in  a  brief  gallop  was  at  his 
side.  With  the  sound  of  my  horse's  feet,  however, 
he  changed  in  all  his  characteristics  to  another  man — 
sat  erect  in  his  saddle,  and  assumed  the  earnest  air  of 
an  American  who  never  rides  but  upon  some  erraud  ; 


286 


WIGvVAM  versus  ALMACK'S. 


and,  on  his  giving  me  back  my  "  good  morning"  in 
the  unexceptionable  accent  of  the  country,  1  presum- 
ed I  had  mistaken  my  man.  He  was  dark,  but  not 
darker  than  a  Spaniard,  of  features  singularly  hand- 
some and  regular,  dressed  with  no  peculiarity  except 
an  otter-skin  cap  of  a  silky  and  golden-colored  fur,  too 
expensive  and  rare  for  any  but  a  fanciful,  as  well  as  a 
luxurious  purchaser.  A  slight  wave  in  the  black  hair 
which  escaped  from  it,  and  fell  back  from  his  temples, 
confirmed  me  in  the  conviction  that  his  blood  was  of 
European  origin. 

We  rode  on  together  with  some  indifferent  conver- 
sation, till  we  arrived  at  the  spring-leap  I  have  de- 
scribed, and  here  my  companion,  throwing  his  right 
leg  over  the  neck  of  his  poney,  jumped  to  the  ground 
very  actively,  and  applying  his  lips  to  the  spring,  drank 
a  free  draught.  His  horse  seemed  to  know  the  spot, 
and,  with  the  reins  on  his  neck,  trotted  on  to  a  shal- 
lower ledge  in  the  river  and  stood  with  the  water  to 
his  knees,  and  his  quick  eye  turned  on  his  master  with 
an  expressive  look  of  satisfaction. 

"You  have  been  here  before,"  I  said,  tying  my 
less  disciplined  horse  to  the  branch  of  an  overhanging 
shrub. 

"  Yes — often  !"  was  his  reply,  with  a  tone  so  quick 
and  rude,  however,  that,  but  for  the  softening  quality 
of  the  day,  I  should  have  abandoned  there  all  thought 
of  further  acquaintance. 

I  took  a  small  valise  from  the  pommel  of  my  sad- 
dle, and  while  my  fellow-traveller  sat  on  the  rock-side 
looking  moodily  into  the  river,  I  drew  forth  a  flask  of 
wins  and  a  leathern  cup,  a  cold  pigeon  wrapped  in  a 
cool  cabbage  leaf,  the  bigger  end  of  a  large  loaf,  and 
as  much  salt  as  could  be  tied  up  in  the  cup  of  a  large 
water-lily — a  set-out  of  provender  which  owed  its 
daintiness  to  the  fair  hands  of  my  hostess  of  the  night 
before. 

The  stranger's  first  resemblance  to  an  Indian  had 
probably  given  a  color  to  my  thoughts,  for,  as  I  hand- 
ed him  a  cup  of  wine,  I  said,  "I  wish  the  Shawanee 
chief  to  whose  tribe  this  valley  belongs,  were  here  to 
get  a  cup  of  my  wine." 

The  young  man  sprang  to  his  feet  with  a  sudden 
flash  through  his  eyes,  and  while  he  looked  at  me,  he 
seemed  to  stand  taller  than,  from  my  previous  impres- 
sion of  his  height,  I  should  have  thought  possible. 
"  Surprised  as  I  was  at  the  effect  of  my  remark,  I  did 
not  withdraw  the  cup,  and  with  a  moment's  searching 
look  into  my  face,  he  changed  his  attitude,  begged 
pardon  rather  confusedly,  and,  draining  the  cup,  said 
with  a  faint  smile,  "  The  Shawanee  chief  thanks 
you  !" 

"  Do  you  know  the  price  of  land  in  the  valley?"  I 
asked,  handing  him  a  slice  of  bread  with  the  half 
pigeon  upon  it,  and  beginning  to  think  it  was  best  to 
stick  to  commonplace  subjects  with  a  stranger. 

"  Yes  !"  he  said,  his  brow  clouding  over  again.  "It 
was  bought  from  the  Shawanee  chief  you  speak  of  for 
a  string  of  beads  the  acre.  The  tribe  had  their  burial- 
place  on  the  Susquehannah,  some  twenty  miles  from 
this,  and  they  cared  little  about  a  strip  of  a  valley 
which,  now,  I  would  rather  have  for  my  inheritance 
than  the  fortune  of  any  white  man  in  the  land." 

"  Throw  in  the  landlord's  daughter  at  the  village 
below,"  said  I,  "  and  I  would  take  it  before  any  half- 
dozen  of  the  German  principalities.  Have  you  heard 
the  news  of  her  inheritance?" 

Another  moody  look  and  a  very  crisp  "  Yes,"  put 
a  stop  to  all  desire  on  my  part  to  make  further  advan- 
ces in  my  companion's  acquaintance.  Gathering  my 
pigeon  bones  together,  therefore,  and  putting  them  on 
the  top  of  a  stone  where  they  would  be  seen  by  the 
first  "lucky  dog"  that  passed,  flinging  my  emptied 
water-lily  on  the  river,  and  strapping  up  cup  and  flask 
once  more  in  my  valise,  I  mounted,  and  with  a  crusty 
good  morning,  set  off  at  a  hand-gallop  down  the  river. 


My  last  unsuccessful  topic  was,  at  the  time  I  write 
of,  the  subject  of  conversation  all  through  the  neigh- 
borhood of  the  village  toward  which  I  was  travelling. 
The  most  old-fashioned  and  comfortable  inn  on  the 
Susquehannah,  or  Chemung,  was  kept  at  the  junction 
of  these  two  noble  rivers,  by  a  certain  Robert  Plymton, 
who  had  "  one  fair  daughter  and  no  more."  He  was 
a  plain  farmer  of  Connecticut,  who  had  married  the 
grand-daughter  of  an  English  emigrant,  and  got,  with 
his  wife,  a  chest  of  old  papers,  which  he  thought  had 
better  be  used  to  mend  a  broken  pane  or  wrap  up  gro- 
ceries, but  which  his  wife,  on  her  death-bed,  told  him 
"  might  turn  out  worth  something."  With  this  slen- 
der thread  of  expectation,  he  had  kept  the  little  chest 
under  his  bed,  thinking  of  it  perhaps  once  a  year,  and 
satisfying  his  daughter's  inquisitive  queries  with  a 
shake  of  his  head,  and  something  about  "  her  poor 
mother's  tantrums,"  concluding  usually  with  some 
reminder  to  keep  the  parlor  in  order,  or  mind  her 
housekeeping.  Ruth  Plymton  had  had  some  sixteen 
"  winters'  schooling,"  and  was  known  to  be  much 
"smarter"  (Anslice,  cleverer),  than  was  quite  neces- 
sary for  the  fulfilment  of  her  manifold  duties.  Since 
twelve  years  of  age  (the  period  of  her  mother's  death) 
she  had  officiated  with  more  and  more  success  as  bar- 
maid and  host's  daughter  to  the  most  frequented  inn 
of  the  village,  till  now,  at  eighteen,  she  was  the  only 
ostensible  keeper  of  the  inn,  the  old  man  usually  be- 
ing absent  in  the  fields  with  his  men,  or  embarking  his 
grain  in  an  "  ark,"  to  take  advantage  of  the  first 
freshet.  She  was  civil  to  all  comers,  but  her  manner 
was  such  as  to  make  it  perfectly  plain  even  to  the 
rudest  raftsman  and  hunter,  that  the  highest  respect 
they  knew  how  to  render  to  a  woman  was  her  due. 
She  was  rather  unpopular  with  the  girls  of  the  village 
from  what  they  called  her  pride  and  "keeping  to  her- 
self," but  the  truth  was,  that  the  cheap  editions  ol 
romances  which  Ruth  took  instead  of  money  for  the 
lodging  of  the  itinerant  book-pedlars,  were  more 
agreeable  companions  to  her  than  the  girls  of  the  vil- 
lage ;  and  the  long  summer  forenoons,  and  half  the 
long  winter  nights,  were  little  enough  for  the  busy 
young  hostess,  who,  seated  on  her  bed,  devoured  tales 
of  high-life  which  harmonized  with  some  secret  long- 
ing in  her  breast — she  knew  not  and  scarce  thought 
of  asking  herself  why. 

I  had  been  twice  at  Athens  (by  this  classical  name 
is  known  the  village  I  speak  of),  and  each  time  had 
prolonged  my  stay  at  Plymton's  inn  for  a  day  longer 
than  my  horse  or  my  repose  strictly  exacted.  The 
scenery  at  the  junction  is  magnificent,  but  it  was 
scarce  that.  And  I  cannot  say  that  it  was  altogther 
admiration  of  the  host's  daughter;  for  though  I  break- 
fasted late  for  the  sake  of  having  a  clean  parlor  while 
I  ate  my  broiled  chicken,  and,  having  been  once  to 
Italy,  Miss  Plymton  liked  to  pour  out  my  tea  and  hear 
me  talk  of  St.  Peter's  and  the  Carnival,  yet  there  was 
that  marked  retenu  and  decision  in  her  manner  that 
made  me  feel  quite  too  much  like  a  culprit  at  school, 
and  large  and  black  as  her  eyes  were,  and  light  and 
airy  as  were  all  her  motions,  1  mixed  up  with  my  pro- 
pensity for  her  society,  a  sort  of  dislike.  In  short,  I 
never  felt  a  tenderness  for  a  woman  who  could  "queen 
it"  so  easily,  and  I  went  heart-whole  on  my  journey, 
though  always  with  a  high  respect  for  Ruth  Plymton, 
and  a  pleasant  remembrance  of  her  conversation. 

The  story  which  I  had  heard  farther  up  the  river 
was,  briefly,  that  there  had  arrived  at  Athens  an  Eng- 
lishman, who  had  found  in  Miss  Ruth  Plymton,  the 
last  surviving  descendant  of  the  family  of  her  mother; 
that  she  was  the  heiress  to  a  large  fortune,  if  the 
proof  of  her  descent  were  complete,  and  that  the  con- 
tents of  the  little  chest  had  been  the  subject  of  a 
week's  hard  study  by  the  stranger,  who  had  departed 
after  a  vain  attempt  to  persuade  old  Plymton  to  ac- 
company him  to  England  with  his  daughter.     This 


WIGWAM  versus  ALMACK'S. 


28t 


was  the  rumor,  the  allusion  to  which  had  been  re- 
ceived with  such  repulsive  coldness  by  my  dark  com- 
panion at  the  spring-leap. 

America  is  so  much  of  an  asylum  for  despairing 
younger  sons  and  the  proud  and  starving  branches  of 
great  families,  that  a  discovery  of  heirs  to  property 
among  people  of  very  inferior  condition,  is  by  no 
means  uncommon.  It  is  a  species  of  romance  in  real 
life,  however,  which  we  never  believe  upon  hearsay, 
and  I  rode  on  to  the  village,  expecting  my  usual  re- 
ception by  the  fair  damsel  of  the  inn.  The  old  sign 
still  hung  askew  as  I  approached,  and  the  pillars  of 
the  old  wooden  "stoop"  or  portico,  were  as  much  off 
their  perpendicular  as  before,  and  true  to  my  augury, 
out  stepped  my  fair  acquaintance  at  the  sound  of  my 
horse's  feet,  and  called  to  Reuben  the  ostler,  and  gave 
me  an  unchanged  welcome.  The  old  man  was  down 
at  the  river  side,  and  the  key  of  the  grated  bar  hung 
at  the  hostess's  girdle,  and  with  these  signs  of  times 
as  they  were,  my  belief  in  the  marvellous  tale  vanish- 
ed into  thin  air. 

"  So  you  are  not  gone  to  England  to  take  posses- 
sion ?"  1  said. 

Her  serious  "  No  !"  unsoftened  by  any  other  re- 
mark, put  a  stop  to  the  subject  again,  and  taking  my- 
self to  task  for  having  been  all  day  stumbling  on 
mal-apropos  subjects,  I  asked  to  be  shown  to  my  room, 
and  spent  the  hour  or  two  before  dinner  in  watching 
the  chickens  from  the  window,  and  wondering  a  great 
deal  as  to  the  "  whereabouts"  of  my  friend  in  the 
otter-skin  cap. 

The  evening  of  that  day  was  unusually  warm,  and 
I  strolled  down  to  the  bank  of  the  Susquehannah,  to 
bathe.  The  moon  was  nearly  full  and  halfway  to  the 
zenith,  and  between  the  lingering  sunset  and  the  clear 
splendor  of  the  moonlight,  the  dusk  of  the  "  folding 
hour"  was  forgotten,  and  the  night  went  on  almost  as 
radiant  as  day.  I  swam  across  the  river,  delighting 
myself  with  the  gold  rims  of  the  ripples  before  my 
breast,  and  was  within  a  yard  or  two  of  the  shore  on 
my  return,  when  I  heard  a  woman's  voice  approaching 
in  earnest  conversation.  I  shot  forward  and  drew  my- 
self in  beneath  a  large  clump  of  alders,  and  with  only 
my  head  out  of  water,  lay  in  perfect  concealment. 

"You  are  not  just,  Shahatan!"  were  the  first  words 
I  distinguished,  in  a  voice  I  immediately  recognised 
as  that  of  my  fair  hostess.  "You  are  not  just.  As 
far  as  I  know  myself  I  love  you  better  than  any  one  I 
ever  saw — but" — 

As  she  hesitated,  the  deep  low  voice  of  my  com- 
panion at  the  spring-leap,  uttered  in  a  suppressed  and 
impatient  guttural,  "But  what?"  He  stood  still  with 
his  back  to  the  moon,  and  while  the  light  fell  full  on 
her  face,  she  withdrew  her  arm  from  his  and  went  on. 

"  I  was  going  to  say  that  I  do  not  yet  know  myself 
or  the  world  sufficiently  to  decide  that  I  shall  always 
love  you.  I  would  not  be  too  hasty  in  so  important  a 
thing,  Shahatan  !  We  have  talked  of  it  before,  and 
therefore  I  may  say  to  you,  now,  that  the  prejudices 
of  my  father  and  all  my  friends  are  against  it." 
•  "  My  blood" — interrupted  the  young  man,  with  a 
movement  of  impatience. 

She  laid  her  hand  on  his  arm.  "  Stay  !  the  objec- 
tion is  not  mine.  Your  Spanish  mother,  besides, 
shows  more  in  your  look  and  features  than  the  blood 
of  your  father.  But  it  would  still  be  said  I  married 
an  Indian,  and  though  I  care  little  for  what  the  village 
would  say,  yet  I  must  be  certain  that  I  shall  love  you 
with  all  my  heart  and  till  death,  before  I  set  my  face 
with  yours  against  the  prejudices  of  every  white  man 
and  woman  in  my  native  land  !  You  have  urged  me 
for  my  secret,  and  there  it  is.  I  feel  relieved  to  have 
unburthened  my  heart  of  it." 

"  That  secret  is  but  a  summer  old  !"  said  he,  half 
turning  on  his  heel,  and  looking  from  her  upon  the 
moon's  path  across  the  river. 


"  Shame  !"  she  replied  ;  "you  know  that  Ions  be- 
fore this  news  came,  I  talked  with  you  constantly  of 
other  lands,  and  of  my  irresistible  desire  to  see  the 
people  of  great  cities,  and  satisfy  myself  whether  I 
was  like  them.  That  curiosity,  Shahatan,  is,  1  fear, 
even  stronger  than  my  love,  or  at  least,  it  is  more  im- 
patient ;  and  now  that  I  have  the  opportunity  fallen  to 
me  like  a  star  out  of  the  sky,  shall  I  not  go  ?  I  must. 
Indeed  I  must." 

The  lover  felt  that  all  had  been  said,  or  was  too 
proud  to  answer,  for  they  fell  into  the  path  again,  side 
by  side,  in  silence,  and  at  a  slow  step  were  soon  out  of 
my  sight  and  hearing.  I  emerged  from  my  compul- 
sory hiding-place  wiser  than  I  went  in,  dressed  and 
strolled  back  to  the  village,  and  finding  the  old  land- 
lord smoking  his  pipe  alone  under  the  portico,  I  light- 
ed a  cigar,  and  sat  down  to  pick  his  brains  of  the  little 
information  I  wanted  to  fill  out  the  story. 

I  took  my  leave  of  Athens  on  the  following  morn- 
ing, paying  my  bill  duly  to  Miss  Plymton,  from  whom 
I  requested  a  receipt  in  writing,  for  I  foresaw  without 
any  very  sagacious  augury  beside  what  the  old  man 
told  me,  that  it  might  be  an  amusing  document  by- 
and-by.  You  shall  judge  by  the  sequel  of  the  story, 
dear  reader,  whether  you  would  like  it  in  your  book 
of  autographs. 


Not  long  after  the  adventure  described  in  the  pre- 
ceding chapter,  I  embarked  for  a  ramble  in  Europe. 
Among  the  newspapers  which  were  lying  about  in  the 

[  cabin  of  the  packet,  was  one  which  contained  this 
paragraph,    extracted  from   a  New-Orleans   Gazette. 

:  The  American  reader  will  at  once  remember  it: — 

;  "  Extraordinary  attachment  to  savage  life. — The  of- 
ficers at  Fort (one  of  the  most  distant  outposts 

of  human  habitation  in  the  west),  extended  their  hos- 
pitality lately  to  one  of  the  young  proteges  of  govern- 
ment, a  young  Shawanee  chief,  who  has  been  educated 
at  public  expense  for  the  purpose  of  aiding  in  the 
civilization  of  his  tribe.     This  youth,  the  son  of  a 

|  Shawanee  chief  by  a  Spanish   mother,  was  put  to  a 

!  preparatory  school  in  a  small  village  on  the  Susque- 
hannah, and   subsequently  was  graduated  at  

i  College  with  the  first   honors  of  his  class.     He  had 

;  become  a  most  accomplished  gentleman,  was  appa- 
rently fond  of  society,  and,  except  in  a  scarce  distin- 

:  guishable  tinge  of  copper  color  in  his  skin,  retained 

j  no  trace  of  his  savage  origin.  Singular  to  relate, 
however,  he  disappeared  suddenly  from  the  fort,  leav- 

|  ing  behind  him  the  clothes  in  which  he  had  arrived, 
and  several  articles  of  a  gentleman's  toilet ;  and  as  the 
sentry  on  duty  was  passed  at  dawn  of  the  same  day  by 

\  a  mounted  Indian  in  the  usual  savage  dress,  who  gave 
the  pass- word  in  issuing  from  the  gate,  it  is  presumed 
it  was  no  other  than  the  young  Shahatan,  and  that  he 

j  has  joined   his  tribe,  who  were  removed  some  years 

I  since  beyond  the  Mississippi." 

The  reader  will  agree  with  me  that  I  possessed  the 
key  to  the  mystery. 

As  no  one  thinks  of  the  thread  that  disappears  in  an 

;  intricate  embroidery  till  it  comes   out  again   on  the 

|  surface,  I  was  too  busy  in  weaving  my  own  less  inter- 
esting woof  of  adventure  for  the  two  years  following, 

j  to  give  Shahatan  and  his  love  even  a  passing  thought. 

I  On  a  summer's  night  in  18 — ,  however,  I  found  my- 
self on  a  banquette  at  an  Almack's  ball,  seated  beside 

j  a  friend  who,  since  we  had  met  last  at  Almack's,  had 
given  up  the  white  rose  of  girlhood  for  the  diamonds 
of  the  dame,  timidity  and  blushes  for  self-possession 
and  serene  sweetness,  dancing  for  conversation,  and 

j  the  promise  of  beautiful  and  admired  seventeen  for  the 

|  perfection  of  more  lovely  and  adorable  twenty-two. 
She  was  there  as  chaperon  to  a  younger  sister,  and  it 

was  delightful  in  that  whirl  of  giddy  motion,  and  more 

giddy  thought,  to  sit  beside  a  tranquil  and  unfevered 


288 


WI'JWAM  versus  ALMACK'S. 


mind  and  talk  with  her  of  what  was  passing,  without 
either  bewilderment  or  effort. 

"  What  is  it,"  she  said,  "  that  constitutes  aristocratic 
beauty  ? — for  it  is  often  remarked  that  it  is  seen  no- 
where in  such  perfection  as  at  Almack's;  yet,  I  have 
for  a  half-hour  looked  in  vain  among  these  handsome 
faces  for  a  regular  profile,  or  even  a  perfect  figure.  It 
is  not  symmetry,  surely,  that  gives  a  look  of  high 
breeding — nor  regularity  of  feature." 

"  If  you  will  take  a  leaf  out  of  a  traveller's  book," 
I  replied,  "we  may  at  least  have  the  advantage  of 
a  comparison.  I  remember  recording,  when  travel- 
ling in  the  East,  that  for  months  I  had  not  seen  an 
irregular  nose  or  forehead  in  a  female  face  ;  and,  al- 
most universally,  the  mouth  and  chin  of  the  Orientals 
are,  as  well  as  the  upper  features,  of  the  most  classic 
correctness.  Yet  where,  in  civilized  countries,  do 
women  look  lower-born  or  more  degraded?" 

"Then  it  is  not  in  the  features,"  said  my  friend. 

"  No,  nor  in  the  figure,  strictly,"  I  went  on  to  say, 
"  for  the  French  and  Italian  women  (vide  the  same 
book  of  mems),  are  generally  remarkable  for  shape  and 
fine  contour  of  limb,  and  the  French  are,  we  all  know 
(begging  your  pardon),  much  better  dancers,  and  more 
graceful  in  their  movements,  than  all  other  nations. 
Yet  what  is  more  rare  than  a  'thorough-bred'  looking 
Frenchwoman  ?" 

"We  are  coming  to  a  conclusion  very  fast,"  she 
said,  smiling.  "  Perhaps  we  shall  find  the  great  secret 
in  delicacy  of  skin,  after  all." 

"  Not  unless  you  will  agree  that  Broadway  in  New- 
York  is  the  ' prato  fiarito,'  of  aristocratic  beauty — for 
nowhere  on  the  face  of  the  earth  do  you  see  such 
complexions.  Yet,  my  fair  countrywomen  stoop  too 
much,  and  are  rather  too  dressy  in  their  tastes  to  con- 
vey very  generally  the  impression  of  high  birth." 

"Stay!"  interrupted  my  companion,  laying  her 
hand  on  my  arm  with  a  look  of  more  meaning  than  I 
quite  understood  ;  "before  you  commit  yourself  far- 
ther on  that  point,  look  at  this  tall  girl  coming  up  the 
floor,  and  tell  me  what  you  think  of  her,  apropos  to 
the  subject." 

"Why,  that  she  is  the  very  forth-shadowing  of 
noble  parentage,"  I  replied,  "  in  step,  air,  form — every- 
thing.    But  surely  the  face  is  familiar  to  me." 

"  It  is  the  Miss  Trevanion  whom  you  said  you  had 
never  met.  Yet  she  is  an  American,  and  with  such  a 
fortune  as  hers,  I  wonder  you  should  not  have  heard 
of  her  at  least." 

"  Miss  Trevanion  !  I  never  knew  anybody  of  the 
name,  I  am  perfectly  sure — yet  that  face  I  have  seen 
before,  and  I  would  stake  my  life  I  have  known  the 
lady,  and  not  casually  either." 

My  eyes  were  riveted  to  the  beautiful  woman  who 
now  sailed  past  with  a  grace  and  stateliness  that  were 
the  subject  of  universal  admiration,  and  I  eagerly  at- 
tempted to  catch  her  eye  ;  but  on  the  other  side  of 
her  walked  one  of  the  most  agreeable  flatterers  of  the 
hour,  and  the  crowd  prevented  my  approaching  her, 
even  if  I  had  solved  the  mystery  so  far  as  to  know  in 
what  terms  to  address  her.  Yet  it  was  marvellous 
that  I  could  ever  have  seen  such  beauty  and  forgotten 
the  when  and  where,  or  that  such  fine  and  unusually 
lustrous  eyes  could  ever  have  shone  on  me  without 
inscribing  well  in  my  memory  their  "  whereabout" 
and  history. 

"Well!"  said  my  friend,  "are  you  making  out 
your  theory,  or  are  you  '  struck  home'  with  the  first 
impression,  like  many  another  dancer  here  to-night?" 

"  Pardon  me  !  I  shall  find  out  presently,  who  Miss 
Trevanion  is — but,  meantime,  revenous.  I  will  tell 
you  where  I  think  lies  the  secret  of  the  aristocratic 
beauty  of  England.  It  is  in  the  lofty  maintien  of  the 
head  and  bust — the  proud  carriage;  if  you  remark,  in 
all  these  women— the  head  set  back,  the  chest  eleva- 
ted and  expanded,  and  the  whole  port  and  expression, 


that  of  pride  and  conscious  superiority.  This,  mind 
you,  though  the  result  of  qualities  in  the  character,  is 
not  the  work  of  a  day,  nor  perhaps  of  a  single  gener- 
ation. The  effect  of  expanding  the  breast  and  pre- 
serving the  back  straight,  and  the  posture  generally 
erect,  is  the  high  health  and  consequent  beauty  of" 
those  portions  of  the  frame  ;  and  the  physical  advan 
tage,  handed  down  with  the  pride  which  produced  it, 
from  mother  to  child,  the  race  gradually  has  become 
perfect  in  those  points,  and  the  look  of  pride  and  high- 
bearing  is  now  easy,  natural,  and  unconscious.  Glance 
your  eye  around  and  you  will  see  that  there  is  not  a 
defective  bust,  and  hardly  a  head  ill  set  on,  in  the 
room.  In  an  assembly  in  any  other  part  of  the  world, 
to  find  a  perfect  bust  with  a  gracefully  carried  head,  is 
as  difficult  as  here  to  find  the  exception." 

"  What  a  proud  race  you  make  us  out,  to  be  sure," 
said  my  companion,  rather  dissentingly. 

"  And  so  you  are,  eminently  and  emphatically 
proud,"  I  replied.  "What  English  family  does  not 
revolt  from  any  proposition  of  marriage  from  a  for- 
eigner ?  For  an  English  girl  to  marry  a  Frenchman 
or  an  Italian,  a  German  or  a  Russiau,  Greek,  Turk,  or 
Spaniard,  is  to  forfeit  a  certain  degree  of  respectabili- 
ty, let  the  match  be  as  brilliant  as  it  may.  The  first 
feeling  on  hearing  of  it  is  against  the  girl's  sense  of 
delicacy.  It  extends  to  everything  else.  Your  sol- 
diers, your  sailors,  your  tradesmen,  your  gentlemen, 
your  common  people,  and  your  nobles,  are  all  (who 
ever  doubted  it,  you  are  mentally  asking)  out  of  all 
comparison  better  than  the  same  ranks  and  professions 
in  any  other  country.  John  Bull  is  literally  surprised 
if  any  one  doubts  this — nay,  he  does  not  believe  that 
any  one  does  doubt  it.  Yet  you  call  the  Americans 
ridiculously  vain  because  they  believe  their  institutions 
better  than  yours,  that  their  ships  fight  as  well,  their 
women  are  as  fair,  and  their  men  as  gentlemanly  as 
any  in  the  world.  The  '  vanity'  of  the  French,  who 
believe  in  themselves,  just  as  the  English  do,  only  in  a 
less  blind  entireness  of  self-glorification,  is  a  common 
theme  of  ridicule  in  English  newspapers  ;  and  the 
French  and  the  Americans,  for  a  twentieth  part  of 
English  intolerance  and  self-exaggeration,  are  written 
down  daily  by  the  English,  as  the  two  vainest  nations 
on  earth." 

"Stop!"  said  my  fair  listener,  who  was  beginning 
to  smile  at  my  digression  from  female  beauty  to  na- 
tional pride,  "let  me  make  a  distinction  there.  As  the 
English  and  French  are  quite  indifferent  to  the  opin- 
ion of  other  nations  on  these  points,  and  not  at  all 
shaken  in  their  self-admiration  by  foreign  incredulity, 
theirs  may  fairly  be  dignified  by  the  name  of  pride. 
But  what  shall  1  say  of  the  Americans,  who  are  in  a 
perpetual  fever  at  the  ridicule  of  English  newspapers, 
and  who  receive,  I  understand,  with  a  general  convul- 
sion throughout  the  states,  the  least  slur  in  a  review, 
or  the  smallest  expression  of  disparagement  in  a  tory 
newspaper.     This  is  not  pride,  but  vanity." 

"  I  am  hit,  I  grant  you.  A  home  thrust  that  I  wish 
I  could  foil.  But  here  comes  Miss  Trevanion,  again, 
and  I  must  make  her  out,  or  smother  of  curiosity.  I 
leave  you  a  victor." 

The  drawing  of  the  cord  which  encloses  the  dan- 
cers, narrowed  the  path  of  the  promenaders  so  effect- 
ually, that  I  could  easily  take  my  stand  in  such  a 
position  that  Miss  Trevanion  could  not  pass  without 
seeing  me.  With  my  back  to  one  of  the  slight  pil- 
lars of  the  orchestra,  I  stood  facing  her  as  she  came 
down  the  room  ;  and  within  a  foot  or  two  of  my  po- 
sition, yet  with  several  persons  between  us,  her  eye 
for  the  first  time  rested  on  me.  There  was  a  sudden 
flush,  a  look  of  embarrassed  but  momentary  curiosity, 
and  the  beautiful  features  cleared  up,  and  I  saw,  with 
vexatious  mortification,  that  she  had  the  advantage 
of  me,  and  was  even  pleased  to  remember  where  we 
had  met.     She  held  out  her  hand  the  next  moment, 


WIGWAM  versus  ALMACK'S. 


a  ay 


but  evidently  understood  my  reserve,  for,  with  a  mis- 
chievous compression  of  the  lips,  she  leaned  over,  and 
said  in  a  voice  intended  only  for  my  ear,  "Reuben! 
take  the  gentleman's  horse  I" 

My  sensations  were  very  much  those  of  the  Irish- 
man who  fell  into  a  pit  in  a  dirk  night,  and  catching 
a  straggling  root  in  his  descent,  hung  suspended  by 
incredible  exertion  and  strength  of  arm  till  morning, 
when  daylight  disclosed  the  bottom,  at  just  one  inch 
below  the  points  of  his  toes.  So  easy  seemed  the 
solution — after  it  was  discovered. 


Miss  Trevanion  (ci-devant  Plymton)  took  my  arm. 
Her  companion  was  engaged  to  dance.  Our  meeting 
at  Al mack's  was  certainly  one  of  the  last  events  either 
could  have  expected  when  we  parted— but  Almack's 
is  not  the  place  to  express  strong  emotions.  We 
walked  leisurely  down  the  sides  of  the  quadrilles  to 
the  tea-room,  and  between  her  bows  and  greetings  to 
her  acquaintances,  she  put  me  au  courant  of  her 
movements  for  the  last  two  years — Miss  Trevanion 
being  the  name  she  had  inherited  with  the  fortune 
from  her  mother's  family,  and  her  mother's  high  but 
distant  connexions  having  recognised  and  taken  her 
by  the  hand  in  England.  She  had  come  abroad  with 
the  representative  of  her  country,  who  had  been  at 
the  trouble  to  see  her  installed  in  her  rights,  and  had 
but  lately  left  heron  his  return  to  America.  A  house 
in  May  Fair,  and  a  chaperon  in  the  shape  of  a  card- 
playiog  and  aristocratic  aunt,  were  the  other  principal 
points  in  her  parenthetical  narration.  Her  communi- 
cativeness, of  course,  was  very  gracious,  and  indeed 
her  whole  manner  was  softened  and  mellowed  down, 
from  the  sharpness  and  hauteur  of  Miss  Plymton. 
Prosperity  had  improved  even  her  voice. 

As  she  bent  over  her  tea,  in  the  ante-room,  I  could 
not  but  remark  how  beautiful  she  was  by  the  change 
usually  wrought  by  the  soft  moisture  of  the  English 
air,  on  persons  from  dry  climates — Americans  particu- 
larly. That  filling  out  and  rounding  of  the  features, 
and  renewing  and  freshening  of  the  skin,  becoming 
and  improving  to  all,  had  to  her  been  like  Juno's 
bath.  Then  who  does  not  know  the  miracles  of 
dress  ?  A  circlet  of  diamonds  whose  "  water"  was 
hsjht  itself,  followed  the  fine  bend  on  either  side  back- 
ward from  her  brows,  supporting,  at  the  parting  of  her 
hair,  one  large  emerald.  And  on  what  neck  (ay — 
even  of  age)  is  not  a  diamond  necklace  beautiful  ? 
Miss  Trevanion  was  superb. 

The  house  in  Grosvenor  Place,  at  which  I  knocked 
the   next   morning,  I  well  remembered  as  one  of  the 

most  elegant  and  sumptuous  in  London.    Lady  L 

had  ruined  herself  in  completing  and  furnishing  it, 
and  her  parties  "in  my  time"  were  called,  by  the  most 
apathetic  blase,  truly  delightful. 

"  I  bought  this  house  of  Lady  L ,"  said  Miss 

Trevanion,  as  we  sat  down  to  breakfast,  "  with  all  its 
furniture,  pictures,  books,  incumbrances,  and  trifles, 
even  to  the  horses  in  the  stables,  and  the  coachman 
In  his  wig;  fori  had  too  many  things  to  learn,  to 
study  furniture  and  appointments,  and  in  this  very 
short  life,  time  is  sadly  wasted  in  beginnings.  People 
are  for  ever  getting  read;/  to  live.  What  think  you  ? 
Is  it  not  true  in  everything?" 

44  Not  in  love,  certainly." 

"Ah!  very  true!"  And  she  became  suddenly 
thoughtful,  and  for  some  minutes  sipped  her  coffee  in 
silence.  I  did  not  interrupt  it,  for  1  was  thinking  of 
Shahatan,  and  our  thoughts  very  possibly  were  on  the 
same  long  journey. 

"  You  are  quite  right,"  said  I,  looking  round  at  the 
exquisitely-furnished  room  in  which  we  were  break- 
tasting,  "you  have  bought  these  things  at  their  intrin- 
sic value,  and  you  have  all  Lady  L 's  taste,  trouble. 

and  vexation  for  twenty  years,  thrown  into  the  bar- 
19 


gain.  It  is  a  matter  of  a  lifetime  to  complete  a  house 
like  this,  and  just  as  it  is  all  done,  Lady  L re- 
tires, an  old  woman,  and  you  come  all  the  way  from  a 
country-inn  on  the  Susquehanuuh  to  enjoy  it.  Wh  t 
a  whimsical  world  we  live  in  !" 

"Yes!"  she   said,  in   a  sort  of  soliloquizing   tone, 
"  I  do  enjoy  it.     It  is  a  delightful  sensation  to  take  a 
long  stride  at  once  in  the  art  of  life — to  have  lived  for 
years  believing  that  the  wants  you  felt  could  only  be 
supplied  in  fairy-land,  and  suddenly  to  change  your 
sphere,  and  discover  that  not  ordy  these  wants,  but  a 
thousand   others,  more   unreasonable,  and    more  im- 
aginary,  had   been   the  subject  of  human   ingenuity 
and  talent,  till  those  who  live  in  luxury  have  no  wants — 
j  that  science   and  chymistry  and   mechanics  have  left 
I  no   nerve  in  the   human  system,  no  recess  in   human 
sense,  unquestioned  of  its   desire,  and  that  every  de- 
sire is  supplied !     What  mistaken  ideas  most  people 
have  of  luxury !     They  fancy  the  senses  of  the  rich 
;  are  over-pampered,  that  their  zest  of  pleasure  is  al- 
i  ways   dull   with   too    much    gratification,    that   their 
,  health  is  ruined  with  excess,  and  their  tempers  spoiled 
|  with  ease  and  subserviency.     It  is  a  picture  drawn  by 
j  the  poets  in  times  when  money  could  buy  nothing  but 
j  excess,  and  when  those  who  were  prodigal  could  only 
be  gaudy  and  intemperate.     It  was  necessary  to  prac- 
j  tise  upon  the  reverse,  too  ;  and  hence  all  the  world  is 
convinced  of  the  superior  happiness  of  the  plough- 
man, the  absolute  necessity  of  early  rising  and  coarse 
food  to  health,  and  the  pride  that  must  come  with  the 
flaunting  of  silk  and  satin." 

I  could  not   but  smile  at  this  cool  upset  of  all  the 
j  received  philosophy  of  the  poets. 

"You  laugh,"  she  continued,  "but  is  it  not  true 
that  in  England,  at  this  moment,  luxury  is  the  sci- 
ence of  keeping  up  the  zest  of  the  senses  rather  than 
of  pampering  them — that  the  children  of  the  wealthy 
are  the  healthiest  and  fairest,  and  the  sons  of  the  aris- 
tocracy are  the  most  athletic  and  rational,  as  well  as 
the  most  carefully  nurtured  and  expensive  of  all  clas- 
ses— that  the  most  costly  dinners  are  the  most  digesti- 
ble, the  most  expensive  wines  the  least  injurious,  the 
most  sumptuous  houses  the  best  ventilated  and  whole- 
some, and  the  most  aristocratic  habits  of  life  the  most 
\  conducive  to  the  preservation  of  the  constitution  and 
consequent  long  life.  There  will  be  excesses,  of 
course,  in  all  spheres,  but  is  not  this  true  ?" 

"  I  am  wondering  how  so  gay  a  life  as  yours  could 
furnish  such  very  grave  reflections." 

"  Pshaw  !  I  am  The  very  person  to  make  them.     My 
aunt  (who,  by-the-way,  never  rises  till  four  in  the  af- 
ternoon) has  always   lived  in  this  sublimated  sphere, 
and  takes  all  these  luxuries  to  be  matters  of  course, 
as  much  as  I  take  them  to    be  miracles.     She  thinks 
]  a  good  cook  as  natural  a  circumstance  as  a  fine  tree, 
\  and  would  be  as  much  surprised  and  shocked  at  the 
absence  of  wax  candles,  as  she  would  at  the  going  out 
!  of  the  stars.     She  talks  as  if  good  dentists,  good  mil- 
liners, opera-singers,   perfumers,  etc.,  were  the  com- 
mon supply  of  nature,  like  dew  and  sunshine  to   the 
flowers.     My  surprise  and  delight  amuse  her,  as  the 
child's  wonder  at  the  moon  amuses  the  nurse." 

"Yet  you  call  this  dull  unconsciousness  the  per- 
fection of  civilized  life." 

"I  think  my  aunt  altogether  is  not  a  bad  specimen 
of  it,  certainly.     You  have  seen  her,  I  think." 
"Frequently." 

"  Well,  you  will  allow  that  she  is  still  a  very  hand- 
some woman.     She  is  past  fifty,  and  has  every  fac- 
ulty in  perfect  preservation;  an  erect  figure,  undimin- 
ished  delicacy  and   quickness  in   all   her  senses   and 
j  tastes,  and   is  still  an  ornament  to  society,  and  an  at- 
tractive person  in  appearance  and  conversation.     Con- 
trast  her  (and  she   is   but  one  of  a   class)    with    the 
|  women  past  fifty  in  the  middle  and  lower  walks  of  life 
|  in   America.     At   that   age,   with   us,    they   are   old 


290 


WIGWAM  versus  ALMACK'S. 


women  in  the  commonest  acceptation  of  the  term. 
Their  teeth  are  gone  or  defective  from  neglect,  their 
faces  are  wrinkled,  their  backs  bent,  ther  feet  enlarged, 
their  voices  cracked,  their  senses  impaired,  their  rel- 
ish in  the  joys  of  the  young  entirely  gone  by.  What 
makes  the  difference  ?  Costly  care.  The  physician 
has  watched  over  her  health  at  a  guinea  a  visit.  The 
dentist  has  examined  her  teeth  at  twenty  guineas  a 
year.  Expensive  annual  visits  to  the  seaside  have  re- 
newed her  skin.  The  friction  of  the  weary  hands  of 
her  maid  has  kept  down  the  swelling  of  her  feet  and 
preserved  their  delicacy  of  shape.  Close  and  open 
carriages  at  will,  have  given  her  daily  exercise,  either 
protected  from  the  damp,  or  refreshed  with  the  fine 
lir  of  the  country.  A  good  cook  has  kept  her  diges- 
tion untaxed,  and  good  wines  have  invigorated  with- 
out poisoning  her  constitution." 

"  This  is  taking  very  unusual  care  of  oneself,  how- 
ever." 

"  Not  at  all.  My  aunt  gives  it  no  more  thought 
than  the  drawing  on  of  her  glove.  It  is  another  ad- 
vantage of  wealth,  too,  that  your  physician  and  den- 
tist are  distinguished  persons  who  meet  you  in  society, 
and  call  on  you  unprofessionally,  see  when  they  are 
needed,  and  detect  the  approach  of  disease  before 
you  are  aware  of  it  yourself.  My  aunt,  though  '  nat- 
urally delicate,'  has  never  been  ill.  She  was  watched 
in  childhood  with  great  cost  and  pains,  and,  with  the 
habit  of  common  caution  herself,  she  is  taken  such 
care  of  by  her  physician  and  servants,  that  nothing 
but  some  extraordinary  fatality  could  bring  disease 
near  her." 

"  Blessed  are  the  rich,  by  your  showing." 

"  Why,  the  beatitudes  were  not  written  in  our  times. 
If  long  life,  prolonged  youth  and  beauty,  and  almost 
perennial  health,  are  blessings,  certainly,  now-a-days, 
blessed  are  the  rich." 

"But  is  there  no  drawback  to  all  this?  Where 
people  have  surrounded  themselves  with  such  costly 
and  indispensable  luxuries,  are  they  not  made  selfish 
by  the  necessity  of  preserving  them?  Would  any 
exigence  of  hospitality,  for  instance,  induce  your  aunt 
to  give  up  her  bed,  and  the  comforts  of  her  own  room, 
to  a  stranger?" 

**  Oh  dear,  no  !" 

"Would  she  eat  her  dinner  cold  for  the  sake  of 
listening  to  an  appeal  to  her  charity?" 

"  How  can  you  fancy  such  a  thing  ?" 

"Would  she  take  a  wet  and  dirty,  but  perishing 
beggar-woman  into  her  chariot  on  her  way  to  a  din- 
ner-party, to  save  her  from  dying  by  the  roadside  ?" 

"Urn — why,  I  fear  she  would  be  very  nearsighted 
till  she  got  fairly  by." 

"  Yet  these  are  charities  that  require  no  great  ef- 
fort in  those  whose  chambers  are  less  costly,  whose 
stomachs  are  less  carefully  watched,  and  whose  car- 
riages and  dresses  are  of  a  plainer  fashion." 

"Very  true !" 

"  So  far,  then,  'blessed  are  the  poor!'  But  is  not 
the  heart  slower  in  all  its  sympathies  among  the  rich? 
Are  not  friends  chosen  and  discarded,  because  their 
friendship  is  convenient  or  the  contrary  ?  Are  not 
many  worthy  people  'ineligible'  acquaintances,  many 
near  relations  unwelcome  visiters,  because  they  are 
out  of  keeping  with  these  costly  circumstances,  or 
involve  some  sacrifice  of  personal  luxury  ?  Are  not 
people,  who  would  not  preserve  their  circle  choice 
and  aristocratic,  obliged  to  inflict  cruel  insults  on 
eensitive  minds,  to  slight,  to  repulse,  to  neglect,  to 
equivocate  and  play  the  unfeeling  and  ungrateful,  at 
the  same  time  that  to  their  superiors  they  must  often 
sacrifice  dignity,  and  contrive,  and  flatter,  and  de- 
ceive— all  to  preserve  the  magic  charm  of  the  life  you 
have  painted  so  attractive  and  enviable?" 

"Heigho!  it's  a  bad  world,  I  believe !"  said  Miss 
Trevanion,  betraying   by   that   ready  sigh,  that  even 


while  drawing  the  attractions  of  high  life,  she  had  not 
been  blind  to  this  more  unfavorable  side  of  the  pic- 
ture. 

"  And,  rather  more  important  query  still,  for  an 
heiress,"  I  said,  "does  not  an  intimate  acquaintance 
with  these  luxurious  necessities,  and  the  habit  of 
thinking  them  indispensable,  make  all  lovers  in  this 
class  mercenary,  and  their  admiration,  where  there  is 
wealth,  subject,  at  least,  to  scrutiny  and  suspicion  ?" 

A  quick  flush  almost  crimsoned  Miss  Trevanion's 
face,  and  she  fixed  her  eyes  upon  me  so  inquisitively 
as  to  leave  me  in  no  doubt  that  I  had  inadvertently 
touched  upon  a  delicate  subject.  Embarrassed  by  a 
searching  look,  and  not  seeing  how  I  could  explain 
that  I  meant  no  allusion,  I  said  hastily,  "  I  was  think- 
ing of  swimming  across  the  Susquehannah  by  moon- 
light." 

"Puck  is  at  the  door,  if  you  please,  miss!"  said 
the  butler,  entering  at  the  moment. 

"  Perhaps  while  I  am  putting  on  my  riding-hat," 
said  Miss  Trevanion,  with  a  laugh,  "I  may  discover 
the  connexion  between  your  last  two  observations.  It 
certainly  is  not  very  clear  at  present." 

I  took  up  my  hat. 

"Stay — you  must  ride  with  me.  You  shall  have 
the  groom's  horse,  and  we  will  go  without  him.  I 
hate  to  be  chased  through  the  park  by  a  flying  ser- 
vant— one  English  fashion,  at  least,  that  I  think  un- 
comfortable. They  manage  it  better  where  1  learned 
to  ride,"  she  added  with  a  laugh. 

"  Yes,  indeed  !  I  do  not  know  which  they  would 
first  starve  to  death  in  the  backwoods — the  master  for 
his  insolence  in  requiring  the  servant  to  follow  him, 
or  the  servant  for  being  such  a  slave  as  to  obey." 

I  never  remember  to  have  seen  a  more  beautiful 
animal  than  the  highbred  blood-mare  on  which  my 
ci-devant  hostess  of  the  Plymton  inn  rode  through 
the  park  gates,  and  took  the  serpentine  path  at  a  free 
gallop.  I  was  as  well  mounted  myself  as  I  had  ever 
been  in  my  life,  and  delighted,  for  once,  not  to  fret  a 
hundred  yards  behind  ;  the  ambitious  animal  seemed 
to  have  wings  to  his  feet. 

"  Who  ever  rode  such  a  horse  as  this,"  said  my 
companion,  "  without  confessing  the  happiness  of 
riches!  It  is  the  one  luxury  of  this  new  life  that  1 
should  find  it  misery  to  forego.  Look  at  the  eager- 
ness of  his  ears !  See  his  fine  limbs  as  he  strikes  for- 
ward !  What  nostrils!  What  glossy  shoulders! 
What  bounding  lightness  of  action  !  Beautiful  Puck  ! 
I  could  never  live  without  you!  What  a  shame  to 
nature  that  there  are  no  such  horses  in  the  wilder- 
ness !" 

"  I  remember  seeing  an  Indian  pony,"  said  I,  watch- 
ing her  face  for  the  effect  of  my  observation,  "  which 
had  as  many  fine  qualities,  though  of  a  different 
kind — at  least  when  his  master  was  on  him." 

She  looked  at  me  inquiringly. 

"By-the-way,  too,  it  was  at  your  house  on  the  Sus- 
quehannah," I  added,  "  you  must  remember  the 
horse — a  black,  double-jointed " 

"Yes,  yes!  I  know.  I  remember.  Shall  we 
quicken  our  pace  ?  I  hear  some  one  overtaking  us, 
and  to  be  passed  with  such  horses  as  ours  were  a 
shame  indeed." 

-We  loosed  our  bridles  and  flew  away  like  the  wind; 
but  a  bright  tear  was  presently  tossed  from  her 
dark  eyelash,  and  fell  glittering  on  the  dappled  shoul- 
der of  her  horse.  "  Her  heart  is  Shahatan's,"  thought 
I,  "whatever  chance  there  may  be  that  the  gay  hon- 
orable who  is  at  our  heels  may  dazzle  her  into  throw- 
ing away  her  hand." 

Mounted  on  a  magnificent  hunter,  whose  powerful 
and  straightforward  leaps  soon  told  against  the  lavish 
and  high  action  of  our  more  showy  horses,  the  Hon. 

Charles (the  gentleman  who  had  engrossed  the 

attention    of    Miss    Trevanion    the    night    before  at 


WIGWAM  versus  ALM AUK'S. 


291 


Almack's)  was  soon  beside  ray  companion,  and  leaning 
from  his  saddle,  was  taking  pains  to  address  conversa- 
tion to  her  in  a  tone  not  meant  for  my  ear.  As  the 
lady  picked  out  her  path  with  a  marked  preference 
for  his  side  of  the  road,  I  of  course  rode  with  a  free 
rein  on  the  other,  rather  discontented,  however,  I 
must  own,  to  be  playing  Monsieur  de  Trop.  The 
Hon.  Charles,  I  very  well  knew,  was  enjoying  a  tem- 
porary relief  from  the  most  pressing  of  his  acquaint- 
ances by  the  prospect  of  his  marrying  an  heiress,  and 
in  a  two  years'  gay  life  in  London  I  had  traversed  his 
threads  too  often  to  believe  that  he  had  a  heart  to  be 
redeemed  from  dissipation,  or  a  soul  to  appreciate  the 
virtues  of  a  high-minded  woman.  I  found  myself, 
besides,  without  wishing  it,  attorney  for  Shahatan  in 
the  case. 

Observing  that  I  "  sulked,"  Miss  Trevanion,  in  the 
next  round,  turned  her  horse's  head  toward  the  Ser- 
pentine Bridge,  and  we  entered  into  Kensington  Gar- 
dens. The  band  was  playing  on  the  other  side  of  the 
ha-ha,  and  fashionable  London  was  divided  between 
the  equestrians  on  the  road,  and  the  promenaders  on 
the  greensward.  We  drew  up  in  the  thickest  of  the 
crowd,  and  presuming  that,  by  Miss  Trevanion's  tac- 
tics, I  was  to  find  some  other  acquaintance  to  chat 
with  while  our  horses  drew  breath,  I  spurred  to  a  lit- 
tle distance,  and  sat  mum  in  my  saddle  with  forty  or 
fifty  horsemen  between  me  and  herself.  Her  other 
companion  had  put  his  horse  as  close  by  the  side  of  i 
Puck  as  possible;  but  there  were  other  dancers  at  i 
Almack's  \s  ho  had  an  eye  upon  the  heiress,  and  their 
ttte-a-tele  was  interrupted  presently  by  the  how-d'ye- 
do's  and  attentions  of  half  a  dozen  of  the  gayest  men 
about  town.     After  looking  black  at  them  for  a  mo- 

ment,  Charles drew   bridle,  and  backing   out  of 

the  press  rather  unceremoniously,  rode  to  the  side  of  I 
a  lady  who  sat  in  her  saddle  with  a  mounted  servant 
behind  her,  separated  from  me  by  only  the  trunk  of  a  j 
superb  lime-tree.     I  was  fated  to  see  all  the  workings 
of  Miss  Trevanion's  destiny. 

•'You  see  what  I  endure  for  you!"  he  said,  as  a 
flush  came  and  went  in  his  pale  face. 

"You  are  false!"  was  the  answer.  "I  saw  you 
ride  in — your  eyes  fastened  to  hers — your  lips  open 
with  watching  for  her  words — your  horse  in  a  foam 
with  your  agitated  and  nervous  riding.  Never  call 
her  a  giraffe,  or  laugh  at  her  again,  Charles !  She  is 
handsome  enougli  to  be  loved  for  herself,  and  you 
love  her  ."' 

"  No.  by  Heaven  !" 

The  lady  made  a  gesture  of  impatience  and  whipped 
her  stirrup  through  the  folds  of  her  riding-dress  till  it 
was  beard  even  above  the  tinkling  triangle  of  the  band. 

"  No  !"  he  continued,  "and  you  are  less  clever  than 
you  think,  if  you  interpret  my  excitement  into  love. 
I  am  excited — most  eager  in  my  chase  after  this  wo- 
man. You  shall  knoio  why.  But  for  herself— good 
heavens  ! — why,  you  have  never  heard  her  speak  ! 
She  is  never  done  wondering  at  silver  forks,  never 
done  with  ecstatics  about  finger-glasses  and  pastilles. 
She  is  a  boor — and  you  are  silly  enough  to  put  her 
beside  yourself!" 

The  lady's  frown  softened,  and  she  gave  him  her 
whip  to  hold  while  she  reimprisoned  a  stray  ringlet. 

"Keep  an  eye  on  her,  while  I  am  talking  to  you," 
he  continued,  "  for  I  must  stick  to  her  like  her  shad- 
ow. She  is  full  of  mistrust,  and  if  I  lose  her  by  the 
want  of  attention  for  a  single  hour,  that  hour  will  cost 
me  yourself,  dearest,  first  and  most  important  of  all, 
and  it  will  cost  me  England  or  my  liberty — for  failing 
this,  I  have  not  a  chance." 

44  Go  !  go !"  said  the  lady,  in  a  new  and  now  anx- 
ious tone,  touching  his  horse  at  the  same  time  with 
the  whip  he  had  just  restored  to  her,  "she  is  off! 
Adieu !" 

And  with  half  a  dozen  attendants,  Miss  Trevanion 


took  the  road  at  a  gallop,  while  her  contented  rival 
followed  at  a  pensive  amble,  apparently  quite  content 
to  waste  the  time  as  she  best  might  till  dinner.  The 
handsome  fortune-hunter  watched  his  opportunity 
and  regained  his  place  at  Miss  Trevanion's  side,  and 
with  an  acquaintance,  who  was  one  of  her  self-select- 
ed troop,  I  kept  in  the  rear,  chatting  of  the  opera, 
and  enjoying  the  movement  of  a  horse  of  as  free  and 
admirable  action  as  I  had  ever  felt  communicated, 
like  inspiration,  through  my  blood. 

I  was  resumed  as  sole  cavalier  and  attendant  at 
Hyde  Park  gate. 

44  Do  you   know  the   Baroness ?"   I  asked,  as 

we  walked  our  horses  slowly  down  Grosvenor  Place. 

44  Not  personally,"  she  replied,  "  but  I  have  heard 
my  aunt  speak  of  her,  and  I  know  she  is  a  woman  of 
most  seductive   manners,  though  said   to   be  one  of 

very  bad   morals.     But  from  what  Mr.  Charles 

tells  me,  I  fancy  high  play  is  her  only  vice.  And 
meantime  she  is  received  everywhere." 

41 1  fjancy,"  said  I,  "that  the  Hon.  Charles is 

good  authority  for  the  number  of  her  vices,  and  beg- 
ging you,  as  a  parting  request,  to  make  this  remark 
the  key  to  your  next  month's  observation,  I  have  the 
honor  to  return  this  fine  horse  to  you,  and  make  my 
adieux." 

44 But  you  will  come  to  dinner!  And,  by-the-by, 
you  have  not  explained  to  me  what  you  meant  by 
'swimming  across  the  Susquehannah,'  in  the  middle 
of  your  breakfast,  this  morning." 

While  Miss  Trevanion  gathered  up  her  dress  to 
mount  the  steps,  I  told  her  the  story  which  I  have 
already  told  the  reader,  of  my  involuntary  discovery, 
while  lying  in  that  moonlit  river,  of  Shahatan's  unfor- 
tunate passion.  Violently  agitated  by  the  few  words 
in  which  I  conveyed  it,  she  insisted  on  my  entering 
the  house,  and  waiting  while  she  recovered  herself 
sufficiently  to  talk  to  me  on  the  subject.  But  1  had 
no  fancy  for  match-making  or  breaking.  I  reiterated 
my  caution  touching  the  intimacy  of  her  fashionable 
admirer  with  the  baroness,  and  said  a  word  of  praise 
of  the  noble  savage  who  loved  her. 


CHAPTER  II. 

Ln  the  autumn  of  the  year  after  the  events  outlined 
in  the  previous  chapter,  I  received  a  visit  at  my  resi- 
dence on  the  Susquehannah,  from  a  friend  I  had  never 
before  seen  a  mile  from  St.  James's  street— a  May-fair 
man  of  fashion  who  took  me  in  his  way  back  from 
Santa  Fe.  He  stayed  a  few  days  to  brush  the  cob- 
webs from  a  fishing-rod  and  gun  which  he  found  in 
inglorious  retirement  in  the  lumber-room  of  my  cot- 
tage, and,  over  our  dinners,  embellished  with  his  trout 
and  woodcock,  the  relations  of  his  adventures  (com- 
pared, as  everything  was,  with  London  experience  ex- 
clusively) were  as  "delightful  to  me  as  the  tales  of 
Scheherezade  to  the  calif. 

41 1  have  saved  to  the  last,"  he  said,  pushing  me  the 
bottle,  the  evening  before  his  departure,  "  a  bit  of  ro- 
mance which  I  stumbled  over  in  the  prairie,  and  I 
dare  swear  it  will  surprise  you  as  much  as  it  did  me, 
for  I  think  you  will  remember  having  seen  the  heroine 
at  Almack's." 

44  At  Almack's  ?" 

"You  may  well  stare.  I  have  been  afraid  to  tell 
you  the  story,  lest  you  should  think  I  drew  too  long 
a  bow.  I  certainly  should  never  be  believed  in  Lon- 
don." 

44  Well — the  story  ?" 

"  I  told  you  of  my  leaving  St.  Louis  with  a  trading 
party  for  Santa  Fe.  Our  leader  was  a  rough  chap, 
big-boned,  and  ill  put  together,  but  honestly  fond  of 
fight,  and   never  content   with  a  stranger  till  he  had 


292 


WIGWAM  versus  ALMACK'S. 


settled  the  question  of  which  was  the  better  man.  He 
refused  at  first  to  take  rne  into  his  party,  assuring  me 
that  his  exclusive  services  and  those  of  his  company 
had  been  engaged  at  a  high  price,  by  another  gentle- 
man. By  dint  of  drinking  'juleps'  with  him,  how- 
ever, and  giving  him  a  thorough  •  mill'  (for  though 
strong  as  a  rhinoceros,  he  knew  nothing  of  'the  sci- 
ence'), he  at  last  elected  me  to  the  honor  of  his  friend- 
ship, and  took  me  into  the  party  as  one  of  his  own 
men. 

"  I  bought  a  strong  horse,  and  on  a  bright  May 
morning  the  party  set  forward,  bag  and  baggage,  the 
leader  having  stolen  a  march  upon  us,  however,  and 
gone  ahead  with  the  person  who  hired  his  guidance. 
It  was  fine  fun  at  first,  as  I  have  told  you,  to  gallop 
away  over  the  prairie  without  fence  or  ditch,  but  I 
soon  tired  of  the  slow  pace  and  the  monotony  of  the 
scenery,  and  began  to  wonder  why  the  deuce  our 
leader  kept  himself  so  carefully  out  of  sight — for  in 
three  days'  travel  I  had  seen  him  but  once,  and  then 
at  our  bivouac  fire  on  the  second  evening.  The  men 
knew  or  would  tell  nothing,  except  that  he  had  one 
man  and  a  packhorse  with  him,  and  that  the  '  gentle- 
man' and  he  encamped  farther  on.  I  was  under  prom- 
ise to  perform  only  the  part  of  one  of  the  hired  carriers 
of  the  party,  or  I  should  soon  have  made  a  push  to 
penetrate  'the  gentleman's'  mystery. 

"  I  think  it  was  on  the  tenth  day  of  our  travels  that 
the  men  began  to  talk  of  falling  in  with  a  tribe  of  In- 
dians, whose  hunting-grounds  we  were  close  upon, 
and  at  whose  village,  upon  the  bank  of  a  river,  they 
usually  got  fish  and  buffalo-hump,  and  other  luxuries 
not  picked  up  on  the  wing.  We  encamped  about 
sunset  that  night  as  usual,  and  after  picketing  my 
horse,  I  strolled  off  to  a  round  mound  not  far  from  the 
fire,  and  sat  down  upon  the  top  to  see  the  moon  rise. 
The  east  was  brightening,  and  the  evening  was  de- 
licious. 

"Up  came  the  moon,  looking  like  one  of  the  duke 
of  Devonshire's  gold  plates  (excuse  the  poetry  of  the 
comparison),  and  still  the  rosy  color  hung  on  in  the 
west,  and  turning  my  eyes  from  one  to  the  other,  I  at 
last  perceived,  over  the  southwestern  horizon,  a  mist 
slowly  coming  up,  which  indicated  the  course  of  a 
river.  It  was  just  in  our  track,  and  the  whim  struck 
me  to  saddle  my  horse  and  ride  on  in  search  of  the 
Indian  village,  which,  by  their  description,  must  be  on 
its  banks. 

"  The  men  were  singing  songs  over  their  supper, 
and  with  a  flask  of  brandy  in  my  pocket,  I  got  off  un- 
observed, and  was  soon  in  a  flourishing  gallop  over  the 
wild  prairie,  without  guide  or  compass.  It  was  a  silly 
freak,  and  might  have  ended  in  an  unpleasant  adven- 
ture. Pass  the  bottle  and  have  no  apprehensions, 
however. 

"  For  an  hour  or  so,  I  was  very  much  elated  with 
my  independence,  and  my  horse  too  seemed  delighted 
to  get  out  of  the  slow  pace  of  the  caravan.  It  was  as 
light  as  day  with  the  wonderful  clearness  of  the  atmo- 
sphere, and  the  full  moon  and  the  coolness  of  the 
evening  air  made  exercise  very  exhilarating.  I  rode 
on,  looking  up  occasionally  to  the  mist,  which  retreat- 
ed long  after  I  thought  I  should  have  reached  the 
river,  till  I  began  to  feel  uneasy  at  last,  and  wondered 
whether  I  had  not  embarked  in  a  very  mad  adventure. 
As  I  had  lost  sight  of  our  own  fires,  and  might  miss 
my  way  in  trying  to  retrace  my  steps,  I  determined  to 
push  on. 

"  My  horse  was  in  a  walk,  and  I  was  beginning  to 
feel  very  grave,  when  suddenly  the  beast  pricked  up 
his  ears  and  gave  a  loud  neigh.  I  rose  in  my  stirrups, 
and  looked  round  in  vain  for  the  secret  of  his  improved 
spirits,  till  with  a  second  glance  forward,  I  discovered 
what  seemed  the  faint  light  reflected  upon  the  smoke 
of  a  concealed  fire.  The  horse  took  his  own  counsel, 
and  set  up  a  sharp  gallop  for  the  spot,  and  a  few  min- 


utes brought  me  in  sight  of  a  fire  half  concealed  by  a 
clump  of  shrubs,  and  a  white  object  near  it,  which  to 
my  surprise  developed  to  a  tent.  Two  horses  picketed 
near,  and  a  man  sitting  by  the  fire  with  his  hands 
crossed  before  his  shins,  and  his  chin  on  his  knees, 
completed  the  very  agreeable  picture. 

"  'Who  goes  there?'  shouted  this  chap,  springing 
to  his  rifle  as  he  heard  my  horse's  feet  sliding  through 
the  grass. 

"  I  gave  the  name  of  the  leader,  comprehending  at 
once  that  this  was  the  advanced  guard  of  our  party ; 
but  though  the  fellow  lowered  his  rifle,  he  gave  me  a 
very  scant  welcome,  and  motioned  me  away  from  the 
tent-side  of  the  fire.  There  was  no  turning  a  man  out 
of  doors  in  the  midst  of  a  prairie ;  so,  without  cere- 
mony, I  tethered  my  horse  to  his  stake,  and  getting 
out  my  dried  beef  and  brandy,  made  a  second  supper 
with  quite  as  good  an  appetite  as  had  done  honor  to 
the  first. 

"  My  brandy-flask  opened  the  lips  of  my  sulky  friend 
after  a  while,  though  he  kept  his  carcass  very  obsti- 
nately between  me  and  the  tent,  and  I  learned  that  the 
leader  (his  name  was  Rolfe,  by-the-by),  had  gone  on 
to  the  Indian  village,  and  that  'the  gentleman'  had 
dropped  the  curtain  of  his  tent  at  my  approach,  and 
was  probably  asleep.  My  word  of  honor  to  Rolfe  that 
I  would  'cut  no  capers'  (his  own  phrase  in  adminis- 
tering the  obligation),  kept  down  my  excited  curiosity, 
and  prevented  me,  of  course,  from  even  pumping  the 
man  beside  me,  though  I  might  have  done  so  with  a 
little  more  of  the  contents  of  my  flask. 

"  The  moon  was  pretty  well  overhead  when  Rolfe 
returned,  and  found  me  fast  asleep  by  the  fire.  I  awoke 
with  the  trampling  and  neighing  of  horses,  and,  spring- 
ing to  my  feet,  I  saw  an  Indian  dismounting,  and  Rolfe 
and  the  fire-tender  conversing  together  while  picketing 
their  horses.  The  Indian  had  a  tall  feather  in  his  cap, 
and  trinkets  on  his  breast,  which  glittered  in  the  moon- 
light ;  but  he  was  dressed  otherwise  like  a  white  man, 
with  a  huuting-frock  and  very  loose  large  trowsers. 
By  the  way,  he  had  moccasins,  too,  and  a  wampum 
belt ;  but  he  was  a  clean-limbed,  lithe,  agile-looking 
devil,  with  an  oye  like  a  coal  of  fire. 

"  'You've  broke  your  contract,  mister!'  said  Rolfe, 
coming  up  to  me;  'but  stand  by  and  say  nolhing.' 

"He  then  went  to  the  tent,  gave  an  'ehem!'  by 
way  of  a  knock,  and  entered 

"  'It's  a  fine  night !'  said  the  Indian,  coming  up  to 
the  fire  and  touching  a  brand  with  the  toe  of  his  moc- 
casin. 

"  I  was  so  surprised  at  the  honest  English  in  which 
he  delivered  himself,  that  I  stared  at  him  without  an- 
swer. 

"  '  Do  you  speak  English  ?'  he  said. 

"  '  Tolerably  well,'  said  I,  '  but  I  beg  your  pardon 
for  being  so  surprised  at  your  own  accent  that  I  forgot 
to  reply  to  you.  And  now  I  look  at  you  more  closely, 
I  see  that  you  are  rather  Spanish  than  Indian.' 

"  '  My  mother's  blood,'  he  answered  rather  coldly, 
'but  my  father  was  an  Indian,  and  I  am  a  chief.' 

"  '  Well,  Rolfe,'  he  continued,  turning  the  next  in- 
stant to  the  trader,  who  came  toward  us,  '  who  is  this 
that  would  see  Shahatan  ?' 

"  The  trader  pointed  to  the  tent.  The  curtain  was 
put  aside,  and  a  smart-looking  youth,  in  a  blue  cap 
and  cloak,  stepped  out  and  took  his  way  off  into  the 
prairie,  motioning  to  the  chief  to  follow. 

"  '  Go  along  !  he  won't  eat  ye  !'  said  Rolfe,  as  the 
Indian  hesitated,  from  pride  or  distrust,  and  laid  his 
hand  on  his  tomahawk. 

"  I  wish  I  could  tell  you  what  was  said  at  that  in- 
terview, for  my  curiosity  was  never  so  strongly  excited. 
Rolfe  seemed  bent  on  preventing  both  interference  and 
observation,  however,  and  in  his  loud  and  coarse  voice 
commenced  singing  and  making  preparations  for  his 
supper;  and,  persuading  me  into  the  drinking  part  of 


WIGWAM  versus  ALMACK'S. 


293 


it,  I  listened  to  his  stories  and   toasted  my  shins  till  I  j 
was  too  sleepy  to  feel   either  romance  or  curiosity;; 
and  leaving  the  moon  to  waste  its  silver  on  the  wilder- 
new,  and  the  mysterious  colloquists  to  ramble  and  ! 
finish  their  conference  as  they  liked,  I  rolled  over  on 
my  buffalo-skin  and  dropped  off  to  sleep. 

"  The  next  morning  I  rubbed  my  eyes  to  discover 
whether  all  1  have  been  telling  you  was  not  a  dream, 
for  tent  and  demoiselle  had  evaporated,  and  I  lay  with 
toy  feet  to  the  smouldering  fire,  and  all  the  trading 
party  preparing:  for  breakfast  around  me.  Alarmed  at 
my  absence,  they  had  made  a  start  before  sunrise  to 
overtake  Rolfe,  and  had  come  up  while  I  slept.  The 
leader  after  a  while  gave  me  a  slip  of  paper  from  the 
chief,  saying  that  he  should  be  happy  to  give  me  a 
specimen  of  Indian  hospitality  at  the  Shawanee  vil-  ] 
lage,  on  my  return  from  Santa  Fe — a  neat  hint  that  I 
was  not  to  intrude  upon  him  at  present." 

'•  Which  you  took  ?" 

"  Rolfe  seemed  to  have  had  a  hint  which  was  prob- 
ably in  some  more  decided  shape,  since  he  took  it  for  i 
us  all.  The  men  grumbled  at  passing  the  village  with- 
out stopping  for  fish,  but  the  leader  was  inexorable,  \ 
and  we  left  it  to  the  right  and  'made  tracks,'  as  the 
hunters  say,  for  our  destination.  Two  days  from  there 
we  saw  a  buffalo " 

"  Which  you  demolished.  You  told  me  that  story 
last  night.  Come,  get  back  to  the  Shawanees  !  You 
called  on  the  village  at  your  return  ?" 

"  Yes,  and  an  odd  place  it  was.  We  came  upon  it 
from  the  west,  Rolfe  having  made  a  bend  to  the  west- 
ward, on  his  return  back.  We  had  been  travelling  all 
day  over  a  long  plain,  wooded  in  clumps,  looking  very 
much  like  an  immense  park,  and  I  began  to  think  that 
the  trader  intended  to  cheat  me  out  of  my  visit — for 
he  said  we  should  sup  with  the  Shawanees  that  night, 
and  I  did  not  in  the  least  recognise  the  outline  of  the  | 
country.  We  struck  the  bed  of  a  small  and  very  beau- 
tiful river,  presently,  however,  and  after  following  it  j 
through  a  wood  for  a  mile,  came  to  a  sharp  brow 
where  the  river  suddenly  descended  to  a  plain  at  least 
two  hundred  feet  lower  than  the  table-land  on  which 
we  had  been  travelling.  The  country  below  looked 
as  if  it  might  have  been  the  bed  of  an  immense  lake, 
and  we  stood  on  the  shore  of  it. 

"  I  sat  on  my  horse  geologizing  in  fancy  about  this 
singular  formation  of  land,  till,  hearing  a  shout,  I 
found  the  party  had  gone  on,  and  Rolfe  was  hallooing 
to  me  to  follow.  As  I  was  trying  to  get  a  glimpse  of 
him  through  the  trees,  up  rode  my  old  acquaintance 
Shahatan,  with  his  rifle  across  his  thigh,  and  gave  me 
a  very  cordial  welcome.  He  then  rode  on  to  show  me 
the  way.  We  left  the  river,  which  was  foaming  among 
some  fine  rapids,  and  by  a  zig-zag  side-path  through 
the  woods,  descended  about  half  way  to  the  plain, 
where  we  rounded  a  huge  rock,  and  stood  suddenly  in 
the  village  of  the  Shawanees.  You  can  not  fancy  any 
thing  so  picturesque.  On  the  left,  for  a  quarter  of  a 
mile,  extended  a  natural  steppe,  or  terrace,  a  hundred 
yards  wide,  and  rounding  in  a  crescent  to  the  south. 
The  river  came  in  toward  it  on  the  right  in  a  superb 
cascade,  visible  from  the  whole  of  the  platform,  and 
against  the  rocky  wall  at  the  back,  and  around  on  the 
edge  overlooking  the  plain,  were  built  the  wigwams 
and  log-huts  of  the  tribe,  in  front  of  which  lounged 
men,  women,  and  children,  enjoying  the  cool  of  the 
summer  evening.  Not  far  from  the  base  of  the  hill 
the  river  reappeared  from  the  woods,  and  I  distin- 
guished some  fields  planted  with  corn  along  its  banks, 
and  horses  and  cattle  grazing.  What,  with  the  pleas- 
ant sound  of  the  falls,  and  the  beauty  of  the  scene  al- 
together, it  was  to  me  more  like  the  primitive  Arcadia 
we  dream  about,  than  anything  I  ever  saw. 

"Well,  Rolfe  and  his  party  reached  the  village  pres- 
ently, for  the  chief  had  brought  me  by  a  shorter  cut, 
and  in  a  moment  the  whole  tribe  was  about  us,  and 
4 


the  trader  found  himself  apparently  among  old  ac- 
quaintances. The  chief  sent  a  lad  with  my  horse 
down  into  the  plain  to  be  picketed  where  the  grass  was 
better,  and  took  me  into  a  small  hut,  where  I  treated 
myself  to  a  little  more  of  a  toilet  than  I  had  been  ac- 
customed to  of  late,  in  compliment  to  the  unusual 
prospect  of  supping  with  a  lady.  The  hut  was  lined 
with  bark,  and  seemed  used  by  the  chief  for  the  same 
purpose,  as  there  were  sundry  articles  of  dress  and 
other  civilized  refinements  hanging  to  the  bracing- 
poles,  and  covering  a  rude  table  in  the  corner. 

"  Fancy  my  surprise,  on  coming  out,  to  meet  the 
chief  strolling  up  and  down  his  prairie  shelf  with,  not 
one  lady,  but  half  a  dozen — a  respectable  looking  gen- 
tleman in  black  (I  speak  of  his  coat),  and  a  bevy  of 
nice-looking  girls,  with  our  Almack's  acquaintance  in 
the  centre — the  whole  party,  except  the  chief,  dressed 
in  a  way  that  would  pass  muster  in  any  village  in  Eng- 
land. Shahatan  wore  the  Indian's  blanket,  modified 
with  a  large  mantle  of  fine  blue  cloth,  and  crossed  over 
his  handsome  bare  chest  something  after  the  style  of 
a  Hieland  tartan.  I  really  never  saw  a  better  made  or 
more  magnificent  looking  fellow,  though  I  am  not  sure 
that  his  easy  and  picturesque  dress  would  not  have  im- 
proved a  plainer  man. 

"  I  remembered  directly  that  Rolfe  had  said  some- 
thing to  me  about  missipnaries  living  among  the  Shaw- 
anees, and  I  was  not  surprised  to  hear  that  the  gentle- 
man in  a  black  coat  was  a  reverend,  and  the  ladies  the 

j  sisterhood  of  the  mission.     Miss  Trevanion  seemed 

j  rather  in  haste  to  inform  me  of  the  presence  of  'the 
cloth,'  and  in  the  next  breath  claimed  my  congratula- 

j  tions  on  her  marriage  !     She  had  been  a  chieftainess 

S  for  two  months. 

"We  strolled  up  and  down  the  grassy  terrace,  divi- 
ding our  attention  between  the  effects  of  the  sunset  on 
the  prairie  below  and  the  preparations  for  our  supper, 
which  was  going  on  by  the  light  of  pine-knots  stuck 
in  the  clefts  of  the  rock  in  the  rear.  A  dozen  Indian 
girls  were  crossing  and  recrossing  before  the  fires, 
and  with  the  bright  glare  upon  the  precipice,  and  the 
moving  figures,  wigwams,  &c,  it  was  like  a  picture  of 
Salvator  Rosa's.  The  fair  chieftainess,  as  she  glided 
across  occasionally  to  look  after  the  people,  with  a  step 
as  light  as  her  stately  figure  would  allow,  was  not  the 
least  beautiful  feature  of  the  scene.  We  lost  a  fine 
creature  when  we  let  her  slip  through  our  fingers,  my 
dear  fellow  !" 

"  Thereby  hangs  a  tale,  I  have  little  doubt,  and  I 
can  give  you  some  data  for  a  good  guess  at  it — but  as 
the  '  nigger  song'  has  it — 

"  Tell  us  what  dey  had  for  supper— 
Black-eyed  pease,  or  bread  and  butter  ?" 

"We  had  everything  the  wilderness  could  produce 
— appetites  included.  Lying  in  the  track  of  the  tra- 
ding-parties, Shahatan,  of  course,  made  what  additions 
he  liked  to  the  Indian  mode  of  living,  and  except  that 
our  table  was  a  huge  buffalo-skin  stretched  upon  stakes, 
the  supper  might  have  been  a  traveller's  meal  among 
Turks  or  Arabs,  for  all  that  was  peculiar  about  it.  I 
should  except,  perhaps,  that  no  Turk  or  Arab  ever  saw 
so  pretty  a  creature  as  the  chiefs  sister,  who  was  my 
neighbor  at  the  feast." 

"  So — another  romance  !" 

"  No,  indeed  !  For  though  her  eyes  were  eloquent 
enough  to  persuade  one  to  forswear  the  world  and  turn 
Shawanee,  she  had  no  tongue  for  a  stranger.  What 
little  English  she  had  learned  of  the  missionaries  she 
was  too  sly  to  use,  and  our  flirtation  was  a  very  unsat- 
isfactory pantomime.  I  parted  from  her  at  night  in 
the  big  wigwam,  without  having  been  out  of  ear-shot 
of  the  chief  for  a  single  moment;  and  as  Rolfe  was  in- 
exorable about  getting  off  with  the  daybreak  the  next 
morning,  it  was  the  last  I  saw  of  the  little  fawn.  But 
to  tell  you  the  truth,  I  had  forty  minds  between  that 


294 


MISS  JONES'S  SON. 


and  St.  Louis  to  turn  about  and  have  another  look 
at  her. 

"  The  big  wigwam,  I  should  tell  you,  was  as  large 
as  a  common  breakfast-room  in  London.  It  was  built 
of  bark  very  ingeniously  sewed  together,  and  lined 
throughout  with  the  most  costly  furs,  even  the  floor 
covered  with  highly-dressed  bear-skins.  After  finish- 
ing our  supper  in  the  open  air,  the  large  curtain  at  the 
door,  which  was  made  of  the  most  superb  gold-colored 
otters,  was  thrown  up  to  let  in  the  blaze  of  the  pine 
torches  stuck  in  the  rock  opposite,  and,  as  the  evening 
was  getting  cool,  we  followed  the  chiefiainess  to  her 
savage  drawing-room,  and  took  coffee  and  chatted  till 
a  late  hour,  lounging  on  the  rude,  fur-covered  couch- 
es. I  had  not  much  chance  to  talk  with  our  old 
friend,  but  I  gathered  from  what  little  she  said  that 
she  had  been  disgusted  with  the  heartlessness  of  Lon- 
don, and  preferred  the  wilderness  with  one  of  nature's 
nobility  to  all  the  splendors  of  matrimony  in  high-life. 


She  said,  however,  that  she  should  try  to  induce  Sha-. 
hatan  to  travel  abroad  for  a  year  or  two,  and  after  that, 
she  thought  their  time  would  be  agreeably  spent  in 
such  a  mixture  of  savage  and  civilized  life  as  her  for- 
tune and  his  control  over  the  tribe  would  enable  them 
to  manage." 

When  my  friend  had  concluded  his  story,  I  threw 
what  little  light  I  possessed  upon  the  undeveloped 
springs  of  Miss  Trevanion's  extraordinary  movements, 
and  we  ended  our  philosophizings  on  the  subject  by 
promising  ourselves  a  trip  to  the  Shawanees  some  day 
together.  Now  that  we  are  together  in  London,  how- 
ever, and  have  had  the  benefit  of  Mrs.  Melicent's  ad- 
ditional chapter,  with  the  still  later  news  that  Shahatan 
and  his  wife  were  travelling  by  the  last  accounts  in  the 
east,  we  have  limited  our  programme  to  meeting  them 
in  England,  and  have  no  little  curiosity  to  see  whether 
the  young  savage  will  decide  like  his  wife  in  the  ques- 
tion of  "Wigwam  versus  Almack's." 


MISS  JONES'S  SON, 


One  night,  toward  the  close  of  the  London  season 
— the  last  week  in  August,  or  thereabouts — the  Dept- 
ford  omnibus  set  down  a  gentleman  at  one  of  the  small 
brick-block  cottages  on  the  Kent  road.  He  was  a 
very  quietly  disposed  person,  with  a  face  rather  in- 
scrutable to  a  common  eye,  and  might,  or  might  not, 
pass  for  what  he  was — a  man  of  mark.  His  age  was 
perhaps  thirty,  and  his  manners  and  movements  had 
that  cool  security  which  can  come  only  from  con- 
versance with  a  class  of  society  that  is  beyond  being 
laughed  at.  He  was  handsome — but  when  the  style 
of  a  man  is  well  pronounced,  that  is  an  unobserved 
trifle. 

Perhaps  the  reader  will  step  in  to  No.  10,  Verandah 
Row,  without  further  ceremony. 

The  room — scarce  more  than  a  squirrel-box  from 
back  to  front — was  divided  by  folding  doors,  and  the 
furniture  was  fanciful  and  neatly  kept.  The  canary- 
bird,  in  a  very  small  cage,  in  the  corner,  seemed  rather 
an  intruder  on  such  small  quarters.  You  could  scarce 
give  a  guess  what  style  of  lady  was  the  tenant  of  such 
miniature  gentility. 

The  omnibus  passenger  sat  down  in  one  of  the  little 
cane-bottomed  and  straight  backed  chairs,  and  present- 
ly the  door  opened  and  a  stout  elderly  woman,  whose 
skirts  really  filled  up  the  remaining  void  of  the  little 
parlor,  entered  with  a  cordial  exclamation,  and  an 
affectionate  embrace  was  exchanged  between  them. 

"  Well,  my  dear  mother  !"  said  the  visiter,  "  I  am 
off  to-morrow  to  Warwickshire  to  pass  the  shooting 
season,  and  I  came  to  wind  up  your  household  clock- 
work, to  go  for  a  month — (ticking,  I  am  sorry  to  say!) 
What  do  you  want  ?     How  is  the  tea-caddy  ?" 

"Out  of  green,  James,  but  the  black  will  do  till  you 
come  back.  La!  don*t  talk  of  such  matters  when  you 
are  just  going  to  leave  me.  I'll  step  up  stairs  and 
make  you  out  a  list  of  my  wants  presently.  Tell  me 
— where  are  you  going  in  Warwickshire  ?  I  went  to 
school  in  Warwickshire.  Dear  me  !  the  lovers  I  had 
there  !  Well,  well !  Where  did  you  say  you  were 
going?" 

"  To  the  marquis  of  Headfort — Headfort  court,  I 
think  his  place  is  called — a  post  and  a  half  from  Strat- 
ford.    Were  you  ever  there,  mother  ?" 

"/  there,  indeed  !  no,  my  son  !  But  I  had  a  lover 
near  Stratford — young  Sir  Humphrey  Fencher,  he 
was  then — old  Sir  Humphrey  now  !     I'm  sure  he  re- 


members me,  lone;  as  it  is  since  I  saw  him — and,  James, 
I'll  give  you  a  letter  to  him.  Yes — I  should  like  to 
know  how  he  looks,  and  what  he  will  say  to  my  grown- 
up boy.  I'll  go  and  write  it  now,  and  I'll  look  over 
the  groceries  at  the  same  time.  If  you  move  your 
chair,  James,  don't  crush  the  canary-bird  !" 

The  mention  of  the  letter  of  introduction  lingered 
i  in  the  ear  of  the  gentleman  left  in  the  parlor,  and 
smiling  to  himself  with  a  look  of  covert  humor,  he 
drew  from  his  pocket  a  letter  of  which  it  reminded 
him — the  letter  of  introduction,  on  the  strength  of 
which  he  was  going  to  Warwickshire.  As  this  and 
the  one  which  was  being  written  up  stairs,  were  the 
two  pieces  of  ordnance  destined  to  propel  the  incidents 
of  our  story,  the  reader  will  excuse  us  for  presenting 
them  as  a  "  make  ready." 

"  Crockford's,  Monday. 

"  Dear  Fred  :  Nothing  going  on  in  town,  except 
a  little  affair  of  my  own,  which  I  can't  leave  to  go 
down  to  you.  Dull  even  at  Crocky's — nobody  plays 
this  hot  weather.  And  now,  as  to  your  commissions. 
You  will  receive  Dupree,  the  cook,  by  to-night's  mail. 
Grisi  won't  come  to  you  without  her  man — '  'twasn't 
thus  when  we  were  boys." — so  I  send  you  a  figurante, 
and  you  must  do  tableaux.     I  was  luckier  in  finding 

you  a  wit.     S will  be  withyou  to-morrow,  though, 

by  the  way,  it  is  only  on  condition  of  meeting  Lady 
Midge  Bellasys,  for  whom,  if  she  is  not  with  you,  you 
must  exert  your  inveiglements.  This,  by  way  only 
of  shuttlecock  and  battledore,  however,  for  they  play 
at  wit  together — nothing  more,  on  her  part  at  least. 
Look  out  for  this  devilish  fellow,  my  lord  Fred  ! — 
and  live  thin  till  you  see  the  last  of  him — for  he'll 
laugh  you  into  your  second  apoplexy  with  the  danger- 
ous ease  of  a  hair-trigger.  I  could  amuse  you  with 
a  turn  or  two  in  my  late  adventures,  but  black  and 
white  are  bad  confidants,  though  very  well  as  a  busi- 
ness firm.  And,  mentioning  them,  I  have  drawn  on 
you  for  a  temporary  d£500,  which  please  lump  with 
my  other  loan,  and  oblige  "  Yours,  faithfully, 

"  Vaurien." 

And  here  follows  the  letter  of  Mrs.  S to  her 

ancient  lover,  the  baronet  of  Warwickshire  : — 

M  No.  10,  Verandah  Row,  Kent  Road. 
"  Dear  Sir  Humphrey  :  Perhaps  you  will  scarce 
remember  Jane  Jones,  to  whom  you  presented   the 


MISS  JONES'S  SON. 


295 


brush  of  your  first  fox.  This  was  thirty  years  ago. 
I  was  then  at  school  in  the  little  village  near  Tally-ho 
hall.  Dear  ine !  how  well  1  remember  it !  On  hear- 
ing of  your  marriage,  I  accepted  an  offer  from  my  late 

husband,  Mr.  S ,   and  our  union  was   blessed 

with  one  boy,  who,  I  must  say,  is  an  angel  of  good- 
ness. Out  of  his  small  income,  my  dear  James  fur- 
nished and  rented  this  very  genteel  house,  and  he 
tells  me  f  shall  have  it  for  life,  and  provides  me  one 
servant,  and  everything  I  could  possibly  want.  Thrice 
a  week  he  comes  out  to  spend  the  day  and  dine  with 
me,  and,  in  short,  he  is  the  pattern  of  good  sons.  As 
this  dear  boy  is  going  down  to  Warwickshire,  I  can  not 
resist  the  desire  I  have  that  you  should  know  him, 
and  that  he  should  bring  me  back  an  account  of  my 
lover  in  days  gone  by.  Any  attention  to  him,  dear 
Sir  Humphrey,  will  very  much  oblige  one  whom  you 
once  was  happy  to  oblige,  and  still 

"  Your  sincere  friend,     Jane  S , 

"Formerly  Jones." 

It  was  a  morning  astray  from  paradise  when  S— 

awoke  at  Stratford.  Ringing  for  his  breakfast,  he  re- 
quested that  the  famous  hostess  of  the  red  horse 
would  grace  him  so  far  as  to  join  him  over  a  muffin 
and  a  cup  of  coffee,  and  between  the  pauses  of  his 
toilet,  he  indited  a  note,  enclosing  his  mother's  letter 
of  introduction  to  Sir  Humphrey. 

Enter  dame   hostess,  prim   and   respectful,  and  as 

breakfast  proceeded,  S easily  informed  himself 

of  the  geography  of  Tally-ho  hall,  and  the  existing 
branch  and  foliage  of  the  family  tree.  Sir  Humphrey's 
domestic  circle  consisted  of  a  daughter  and  a  neice 
(his  only  son  having  gone  with  his  regiment  to  the 
Canada  wars),  and  the  hall  lay  half  way  to  Headfort 
court — the  Fenchers  his  lordship's  nearest  neighbors, 
Mrs.  Boniface  was  inclined  to  think. 

S divided  his  morning  very  delightfully  be- 
tween the  banks  of  the  Avon,  and  the  be-scribbled 
localities  of  Shakspere's  birth  and  residence,  and  by 
two  o'clock  the  messenger  had  returned  with  this  note 
"rom  Sir  Humphrey  : — 

"Dear  Sir:  I  remember  Miss  Jones  very  well, 
God  bless  me,  I  thought  she  had  been  dead  many 
years.  I  am  sure  I  shall  be  very  happy  to  see  her 
6on.  Will  you  come  out  and  dine  with  us  ? — dinner 
at  seven.    Your ob't  servant,    "Humphrey  Fencher. 

"James  S -,  Esq." 


As  the  crack  wit  and  diner-out  of  his  time,  S- 


was  as  well  known  to  the  brilliant  society  of  London 
as  the  face  of  the  "gold  stick  in  waiting"  at  St. 
James's,  and,  with  his  very  common  name,  he  was  a 
little  likely  to  be  recognised  out  of  his  peculiar  sphere 
as  the  noble  lord,  when  walking  in  Cheapside,  to  be 
recognised  as  the  "  stick,"  so  often  mentioned  in  the 
Court  Journal.  He  had  delayed  his  visit  to  Headfort 
court  for  a  day,  and  undertaken  to  deliver  his  mother's 
letter,  and  look  up  her  lang-syne  lover,  very  much  as 
he  would  stop  in  the  Strand  to  purchase  her  a  parcel 
of  snuff— purely  from  the  filial  habit  of  always  doing 
her  bidding,  even  in  whims.  He  had  very  little  curiosi- 
ty to  see  a  Warwickshire  Nimrod,  and,  till  his  post- 
chaise  stopped  at  the  lodge-gate  of  Tally-ho  hall,  it 
had  never  entered  his  head  to  speculate  upon  the 
ground  of  his  introduction  to  Sir  Humphrey,  nor  to 
anticipate  the  nature  of  his  reception.  His  name  had 
been  so  long  to  him  an  "open  sesame,"  that  he  had 
no  doubt  of  its  potency,  and  least  of  all  when  he  pro- 
nounced it  at  an  inferior  gate  in  the  barriers  of  society. 

Thedressing-bell  had  rang, and  S was  shown 

into  the  vacant  drawing-room,  where  he  buried  him- 
self in  the  deepest  chair  he  could  find,  and  sat  looking 
at  the  wall  with  the  composure  of  a  barber's  customer 
waiting  to  be  shaved.  There  presently  entered  two 
young  ladies,  very  showily  dressed,  who  called  him 
Mr.  "Jones,"  in  replying  to  hia  salutation,  and  im- 


mediately fell  to  promenading  between  the  two  old 
mirrors  at  the  extremities  of  the  room,  discoursing 
upon  topics  evidently  chosen  to  exclude  the  new- 
comer from  the  conversation.     With  rather  a  feeling 

that  it  was  their  loss,  not  his,  S recomposed 

himself  in  the  leathern  chair  and  resumed  the  perusal 
of  the  oaken  ceiling.  The  neglect  sat  upon  him  a 
little  uncomfortable  withal. 

"  How  d'ye  do,  young  man  !  What !  you  are  Miss 
Jones's  son,  eh  ?"  was  the  salutation  of  a  burly  old 
gentleman,  who  now  entered  and  shook  hands  with 
the  great  incognito.  "  Here,  'Bel  !  Fan  !  Mr.  Jones, 
My  daughter  and  my  niece,  Mr.  Jones  !" 

S was  too  indignant  for  a  moment  to  explain 

that  Miss  Jones  had  changed  her  name  before  his 
birth,  and  on  second  thought,  finding  that  this  real 
character  was  not  suspected,  and  that  he  represented 
to  Sir  Humphrey  simply  the  obscure  son  of  an  obscure 
girl,  pretty,  thirty  years  ago,  he  fell  quietly  into  the 
role  expected  of  him,  and  walked  patiently  in  to  dinner 
with  Miss  Fencher,  who  accepted  his  arm  for  that 
purpose,  but  forgot  to  take  it  ! 

It  was  hard  to  be  witty  as  a  Mr.  Jones,  but  the  habil 
was   strong   and    the   opportunities   were    good,   and 

S ,  warming  with  his  first  glass  of  sherry,  struck 

out  some  sparks  that  would  have  passed  for  gems  of 
the  first  water,  with  choicer  listeners  ;  but  wit  is  slowly 
recognised  when  not  expected,  and  though  now  and 
then  the  young  ladies  stared,  and  now  and  then  the 
old  baronet  chuckled  and  said  "egad!  very  well!' 
there  was  evidently  no  material  rise  in  the  value  of 
Mr.  Jones,  and  he  at  last  confined  his  social  talents 
exclusively  to  his  wine-glass  and  nut-picker,  feeling, 
spite  of  himself,  as  stupid  as  he  seemed. 

Relieved  of  the  burden  of  replying  to  their  guess, 
the  young  ladies  now  took  up  a  subject  which  evident- 
ly lay  nearest  their  hearts — a  series  of  dejeuners,  the 
first  of  which  was  to  come  off  the  following  morning 
at  Headfort  court.  As  if  by  way  of  caveat,  in  case 
Mr.  Jones  should  fancy  that  he  could  be  invited  to 
accompany  Sir  Humphrey,  Miss  Fencher  took  the 
trouble  to  explain  that  these  were,  by  no  means,  com- 
mon country  entertainments,  but  exclusive  and  select 
parties,  under  the  patronage  of  the  beautiful  and  witty 
Lady  Imogen  Bellasys,  now  a  guest  at  Headfort. 
Her  ladyship  had  not  only  stipulated  for  societe  choisic, 
but  had  invited  down  a  celebrated  London  wit,  a  great 
friend  of  her  own,  to  do  the  mottoes  and  keep  up  the 
spirit  of  the  masques  and  tableaux.  Indeed,  Miss 
Fencher  considered  herself  as  more  particularly  the 
guest  and  ally  of  Lady  Imogen,  never  having  been 
permitted  during  her  mother's  life  to  visit  Headfort 
(though  she  did  not  see  what  the  marquis's  private 
character  had  to  do  with  his  visiting  list),  and  she  ex- 
pected to  be  called  upon  to  serve  as  a  sort  of  maid  of 
honor,  or  in  some  way  to  assist  Lady  Imogen,  who 
had  invited  her  very  affectionately,  after  church,  on 
Sunday.  She  thought,  perhaps,  she  had  better  wake 
up  Sir  Humphrey  while  she  thought  of  it  (and  while 
papa  was  good  natured,  as  he  always  was  after  dinner), 
and  exact  of  him  a  promise  that  the  great  London 
Mr.,  what  d'ye  call  'im,  should  be  invited  to  pass  a 
week  at  Tally-ho  hall — for,  of  course,  as  mutual 
allies  of  Lady  Imogen,  Miss  Fencher  and  he  would 
become  rather  well  acquainted. 

To  this  enlightenment,  0f  which  we  have  given  only 
a  brief  resumir,  Mr.  Jones  listened  attentively,  as  he 
was  expected  to  do,  and  was  very  graciously  answered, 
when  by  way  of  feeling  one  of  the  remote  pulses  of 
his  celebrity,  he  ventured  to  ask  for  some  further  par- 
ticulars about  the  London  wit  aforementioned.  He 
learned,  somewhat  to  his  disgust,  that  his  name  was 
either  Brown  or  Simpson,  some  very  common  name, 
however,  but  that  he  had  a  wonderful  talent  for  writing 
impromptu  epigrams  on  people  and  singing  them  after- 
ward to  impromptu  music  on  the  piano,  and  that  he 


296 


MISS  JONES'S  SON. 


was  supposed  to  be  a  natural  son  of  Talleyrand  or 
Lord  Byron,  Miss  Fencher  had  forgotten  which.  He 
had  written  something,  but  Miss  Fencher  had  for- 
gotten what.  He  was  very  handsome — no,  very  plain 
— indeed,  Miss  Fencher  had  forgotten  which — but  it 
was  one  or  the  other. 

At  this  crisis  of  the  conversation  Sir  Humphrey 
roused  from  his  post-prandial  snooze,  and  begged  Mr. 
Jones  to  pass  the  port  and  open  the  door  for  the 
ladies.  By  the  time  the  gloves  were  rescued  from 
under  the  table,  the  worthy  baronet  had  drained  a 
bumper,  and,  with  his  descending  glass,  dropped  his 
eyes  to  the  level  of  his  daughter's  face,  where  they 
rested  with  paternal  admiration.  Miss  Fencher  was 
far  from  ill-looking,  and  she  well  knew  that  her  father 
waxed  affectionate  over  his  wine. 

"Papa!"  said  she,  coming  behind  him,  and  looking 
down  his  throat,  as  he  strained  his  head  backward, 
leaving  his  reluctant  double  chin  resting  on  his  cravat. 
"  I  have  a  favor  to  ask,  my  dear  papa  !" 

"  He  shall  go,  my  dear!  he  shall  go  !  I  have  been 
thinking  of  it — I'll  arrange  it,  Bel,  I'll  arrange  it !  Go 
your  ways,  chick,  and  send  me  my  slippers  !"  gurgled 
the  baronet,  with  his  usual  rapid  brevity,  when  slight- 
ly elevated. 

Miss  Fencher  turned  quite  pale. 

"  Pa — pa !"  she  exclaimed,  with  horror  in  her  voice, 
coming  round  front,  "  pa — pa  ! — good  gtacious  !  Do  ! 
you  know  it  is  the  most  exclusive — however,  papa  ! 
let  us  talk  that  over  in  the  other  room.  What  1  wish 
to  ask  is  quite  another  matter.  You  know  that 
Mr —  Mr.—" 

"  The  gentleman  you  mean  is  probably  James 
S ,"  interrupted  Mr.  Jones. 

"  Thank  you,  sir,  so  it  is !"  continued  Miss  Fencher, 
putting  her  hand  upon  the  Baronet's  mouth,  who  was 

about   to  speak — "  It  is   Mr.   James  S ;   and 

what  I  wish,  papa,  is,  to  have  Mr.  James  S in- 
vited to  pass  a  week  with  us.     You  know,  papa,  we 

shall  be  very  intimate — James  S and  I — both 

of  us  assisting  Lady  Imogen,  you  know,  papa  !  and 
— and — stay  till  I  get  some  note-paper — will  you, 
dear  papa  ?" 

"  You  will  have  your  way,  chick,  you  will  have 
your  way,"  sighed  Sir  Humphrey,  getting  his  specta- 
cles out  of  a  very  tight  pocket  on  his  hip.  "But, 
bless  me,  I  can't  write  in  the  evening.  Mr.  Jones — 
perhaps  Mr.  Jones  will  write  the  note  for  me — just 

present  my  compliments  to  Mr.  S ,  and  request 

the  honor,  and  all  that — can  you  do  it,  Mr.  Jones?" 

S rapidly  indited  a  polite  note  to  himself, 

which  he  handed  to  Miss  Fencher  for  her  approba- 
tion, and  meantime  entered  the  butler  with  the  coffee. 

"  Stuggins  !"  cried  Sir  Humphrey — "  I  wish  Mr. 
Jones — " 

"  Good  Heavens!  papa  !"  exclaimed  Miss  Fencher, 
ending  the  remainder  of  her  objurgation  in  a  whisper 
in  her  father's  ear.  But  the  baronet  was  not  in  a 
mood  to  be  controlled. 

"  My  love!— Bel,  1  say !— he  shall  go.  You  d-d-d- 
diddedent  see  Miss  Jones's  letter.  He's  a  p-p-p-pattern 
of  filial  duty  ! — he  gives  his  mother  a  house,  and  all 
she  wants!— he's  a  good  son,  I  tell  you!  St-Stuggins, 
come  here  !     Pass  the  port,  Jones,  my  good  fellow !" 

Stuggins  stepped  forward  a  pace,  and  presented  his 
white  waistcoat,  and  Miss  Fencher  flounced  out  of  the 
room  in  a  passion. 

"  Stuggins!"  said  the  old  man,  a  little  more  tran- 
quilly, since  he  had  no  fear  now  of  being  interrupted, 
"  I  wish  my  friend,  Mr.  Jones,  here,  to  see  this  cock- 
a-hoop  business  to-morrow.  It'll  be  a  fine  sight,  they 
tell  me.  I  want  him  to  see  it,  Stuggins !  You  under- 
stand me.  His  mother,  Miss  Jones,  was  a  pretty  girl, 
Stuggins  !  And  she'll  be  very  glad  to  hear  that  her 
boy  has  seen  such  a  fine  show — eh,  Jones  ?  eh,  Stug- 
gins ?     Well,  you  know  what  I  want.     The  Headlort 


tenants  will  have  a  place  provided  for  them,  of  course 
— some  shrubbery,  eh? — some  gallery — some  place 
behind  the  musicians,  where  they  are  out  of  the  way, 
but  can  see — isn't  it  so?  eh  ?  eh  ?" 

"Yes,  Sir  Humphrey — no  doubt,  Sir  Humphrey.1" 
acceded  Stuggins,  with  his  ears  still  open  to  know  how 
the  details  were  to  be  managed. 

"  Well — very  well — and  you'll  take  Jones  with  you 
in  the  dickey — eh  ? — Thomas  will  go  on  the  box — eh  ? 
Will  that  do  ? — and  Mr.  Jones  will  stay  with  us 
to-nighl,  and  perhaps  you'll  show  him  his  room,  now, 
and  talk  it  over,  eh,  Stuggins  ? — good  night,  Mr. 
Jones  ! — good  night,  Jones,  my  good  fellow !" 

And  Sir  Humphrey,  having  done  this  act  of  grate- 
ful reminiscence  for  his  old  sweetheart,  managed  to 
find  his  way  into  the  next  room  unaided. 

S —  had  begun,  by  this  time,  to  see  "  straw  for 

his  bricks,"  in  the  course  matters  were  taking  ;  and 
instead  of  throwing  a  decanter  after  Sir  Humphrey, 
and  knocking  down  the  butler  for  calling  him  Mr. 
Jones,  he  accepted  Stuggins's  convoy  to  the  house- 
keeper's room,  and  with  his  droll  stories  and  funny 
ways,  kept  the  maids  and  footmen  in  convulsions  of 
laughter  till  break  of  day.  Such  a  merry  time  had 
not  come  off  in  servants'  hall  for  many  a  day,  and  of 
many  a  precious  morsel  of  the  high  life  below  stairs 
of  Tally-ho  hall  did  he  pick  the  brains  of  the  delight- 
ed Abigails. 

The  ladies,  busied  with  their  toilets,  had  their 
breakfasts  in  their  own  rooms,  and  Mr.  Jones  did  not 
make  his  appearance  till  after  the  baronet  had  achieved 
his  red  herring  and  seltzer.  The  carriage  came  round 
at  twelve,  and  the  ladies  stepped  in,  dressed  for  triumph, 
tumbled  after  by  burly  Sir  Humphrey,  who  required 
one  side  of  the  vehicle  to  himself — Mr.  Jones  outside, 
on  the  dickey  with  Stuggins,  as  previously  arranged. 

Half  way  up  the  long  avenue  of  Headfort  court, 
Stuggins  relinquished  the  dickey  to  its  rightful  oc- 
cupant, Thomas,  and,  with  Mr.  Jones,  turned  off  by 
a  side  path  that  led  to  the  dairy  and  offices — the  latter 
barely  saving  his  legs,  however,  for  the  manoeuvre 
was  performed  servant  fashion,  while  the  carriage  kept 
its  way. 

Lord  Headfort  was  a  widower,  and  his  niece,  Lady 
Imogen  Bellasys,  the  wittiest  and  loveliest  girl  in 
England,  stood  upon  the  lawn  for  the  mistress  of  the 
festivities.  She  had  occasion  for  a  petticoat  aid-de- 
camp, and  she  knew  that  Lord  Headfort  wished  to 
propitiate  his  Warwickshire  neighbors;  and  as  Miss 
Fencher  was  a  fine  grenadier  looking  girl,  she  pro- 
moted her  to  that  office  immediately  on  her  arrival, 
decking  her  for  the  nonce  with  a  broad  blue  riband  of 
authority.  Miss  Fencher  made  the  best  use  of  her 
powers  of  self  congratulation,  and  thanked  God  private- 
ly besides,  that  Sir  Humphrey  had  provided  an  eclipse 
for  Mr.  Jones ;  for  with  the  drawback  of  presenting 
such  a  superfluous  acquaintance  of  their  own  to  the 
fastidious  eyes  of  Lady  Imogen,  she  felt  assured  that 
her  new  honors  would  never  have  arrived  to  her. 
She  had  had  a  hint,  moreover,  from  her  dressing- 
maid,  of  Mr.  Jones'  comicalities  below  stairs ;  and 
the  fact  that  he  was  a  person  who  could  be  funny  in 
a  kitchen,  was  quite  enough  to  confirm  the  aristocratic 
instinct  by  which  she  had  at  once  pronounced  upon 
his  condition.  If  her  papahad  been  gay  in  his  youth, 
there  was  no  reason  why  every  Miss  Jones  should 
send  her  child  to  him  to  be  made  a  gentleman  of! 
"  Filial  pattern,"  indeed  ! 

The  gayeties  began.  The  French  figurante,  de- 
spatched by  Lord  Vaurien  from  the  opera,  made  up 
her  tableaux  from  the  beauties,  and  those  who  had 
ugly  faces,  but  good  figures,  tried  their  attitudes  on 
the  archery-lawn,  and  those  whose  complexions  would 
stand  the  aggravation,  tripped  to  the  dancing  tents, 
and  the  falcon  was  flown,  and  the  greyhounds  were 
coursed,  and  a  few  couple  of  Warwickshire  lads  tried 


MISS  JONES'S  SON. 


297 


their  backs  at  a  wrestling  fall,  and  the  time  wore  on. 
But  to  Lady  Imogen's  shrewd  apprehension,  it  wore 
on  very  heavily.  "There  was  no  wit  afloat.  Nobody 
seemed  gayer  than  he  meant  to  be.  The  bubble  was 
wanting  to  their  champagne  of  enjoyment.  Miss 
Fencher's  blue  riband  went  to  and  fro  like  a  pendulum, 
perpetually  crossing  the  lawn  between  Lady  Imogen 
and  the  footman  in  waiting,  to  inquire  if  a  post-chaise 
had  arrived  from  London. 

"  I  will  never  forgive  that  James  S ,  never  !" 

pettishly  vowed  her  ladyship,  as  Miss  Fencher  came 
back  for  the  fiftieth  time  with  no  news  of  his  arrival. 

"Better  feed  your  menagerie  at  once  !"  whispered 
Lord  Headfort  to  his  niece,  as  he  caught  a  glance  at 
her  vexed  face  in  passing. 

The  decision  with  which  the  order  was  given  to 
serve  breakfast,  seemed  to  hurry  the  very  heat  of  the 
kitchen  fires,  for  in  an  incredibly  short  time,  the  hot 
soups  and  delicate  entremets  of  Monsieur  Dupres 
were  on  the  tables,  and  breakfast  was  announced.  The 
band  played  a  march,  the  games  were  abandoned,  Miss 
Fencher  followed  close  upon  the  heels  of  her  chef,  to 
secure  a  seat  in  her  neighborhood,  and  in  ten  minutes 
a  hundred  questions  of  precedence  were  settled,  and 
Sir  Humphrey,  somewhat  to  his  surprise,  and  as  much 
to  his  delight,  was  called  to  the  left  hand  of  the  mar- 
quis.    Tally-ho  hall  was  in  the  ascendant. 

During  the  first  assault  upon  the  soups,  the  band 
played  a  delicious  set  of  waltzes,  terminating  with  the 
clatter  of  changing  plates.  But  at  the  same  moment, 
above  all  the  ring  of  impinging  china,  arose  a  shout 
of  laughter  from  a  party  somewhere  without  the 
pavilion,  and  so  sustained  and  hearty  was  the  peal, 
that  the  servants  stood  petrified  with  their  dishes, 
and  the  guests  sat  in  wondering  silence.  The  steward 
was  instantly  despatched  to  enforce  order,  and  Lord 
Headfort  explained,  that  the  tenants  were  feasted  on 
beef  and  ale,  in  the  thicket  beyond,  though  he  could 
scarce  imagine  what  should  amuse  them  so  uncom- 
monly. 

"  They  have  promised  to  maintain  order,  my  lord!" 
said  the  steward,  returning,  and  stooping  to  his  master's 
ear,  "  but  there  is  a  droll  gentleman  among  them,  my 
lord  !" 

"Then  I  dare  swear  it's  better  fun  than  this!" 
mumbled  his  lordship  for  the  steward's  hearing,  as 
he  looked  round  upon  the  unamused  faces  in  his 
neighborhood. 

"  Headfort,"  cried  Lady  Imogen,  presently,  from 
the  other  end  of  the  table,  "did  you  send  to  Stratford 

for  S ,  or  did  you  not  ?     Let  us  know  whether 

there  is  a  chance  of  his  coming  !" 

"  Upon  my  honor,  Lady  Imogen,  my  own  chariot 
has  been  at  the  Stratford  inn,  waiting  for  him  since 
morning,"  was  the  marquis's  answer.  "  Vaurien  wrote 
that  he  had  booked  him  by  the  mail  of  the  night  be- 
fore !     I'd  give  a  thousand  pounds  if  he  were  here !" 

Bursts  of  laughter,  breaking  through  all  efforts  to 
suppress  them,  again  rose  from  the  offending  quarter. 

"  It's  a  Mr.  Jones,  my  lord,"  said  the  steward, 
speaking  between  the  marquis  and  Sir  Humphrey  ; 
"  he's  a  friend  of  Sir  Humphrey's  butler — and — if  you 
will  excuse  me,  my  lord — Stuggins  says  he  is  the  son 
of  a  Miss  Jones,  formerly  an  acquaintance  of  Sir 
Humphrey's  !" 

Red  as  a  turkey-cock  grew  the  old  baronet  in  a 
moment.  "  I  beg  ten  thousand  pardons  for  having 
intruded  him  here,  my  lord  !"  said  Sir  Humphrey  ; 
•'  it's  a  poor  lad  that  brought  me  a  letter  from  his 
mother,  and  I  told  Stuggins—" 


But  here  Stuggins  approached  with  a  couple  of 
notes  for  his  master,  and,  begging  permission  of  the 
marquis,  Sir  Humphrey  put  on  his  spectacles  to  read. 
The  guests  at  the  table,  meantime,  were  passing  the 
wine  very  slowly,  and  conversation  more  slowly  still, 
and,  with  the  tranquillity  that  reigned  in  the  pavilion, 
the  continued  though  half-smothered  merriment  of 
the  other  party  was  provokingly  audible. 

"  Can't  we  borrow  a  little  fun  from  those  merry 
people  ?"  cried  Lady  Imogen,  throwing  up  her  eyes 
despairingly  as  the  marquis  exchanged  looks  with  her. 

"  [f  we  could  persuade  Sir  Humphrey  to  introduce 
his  friend,  Jones,  to  us — " 

"J  introduce  him!"  exclaimed  the  fuming  baronet, 

tearing  off  his  spectacles  in  a  rage,  "  read  that  before 

you  condescend   to   talk  of  noticing  such  a   varlet ! 

j  Faith !  I  think  he's  the  clown  from  a  theatre,  or  the 

I  waiter  from  a  pot-house!" 

The  marquis  read  : — 

"  Dear  Nu>tcle  :  It's  hard  on  to  six  o'clock,  and 
I'm  engaged  at  seven  to  a  junketing  at  the  '  Hen  and 
chickens,'  with  Stuggins  and  the  maids.  If  you  in- 
tend to  make  me  acquainted  with  your  great  lord,  now 
is  the  time.  If  you  don't,  I  shall  walk  in  presently, 
and  introduce  myself;  for  I  know  how  to  make  my 
own  way,  nuncle — ask  Miss  Bel's  maid,  and  the  other 
girls  you  introduced  me  to  at  Tally-ho  hall !  Be  in 
a  hurry,     I'm  just  outside.  Yours,  "  Jo^es. 

"  Sir  Humphrey  Fencher." 

The  excitement  of  Sir  Humphrey,  and  the  amused 
face  of  the  marquis  as  he  read,  had  drawn  Lady  Imogen 
from  her  seat,  and  as  he  read  aloud,  at  her  request,  the 
urgent  epistle  of  Mr.  Jones,  she  clapped  her  hands 
with  delight,  and  insisted  on  having  him  in.  Sir 
Humphrey  declared  he  should  take  it  as  an  affront  if 
the  thing  was  insisted  on,  and  Miss  Fencher,  who  had 
followed  to  her  father's  chair,  and  heard  the  reading 
of  the  note,  looked  the  picture  of  surprised  indignation. 
"Insolent!  vulgar!  abominable!"  was  all  the  com- 
pliment she  ventured  upon,  however. 

"  Will  you  let  me  look  at  Mr.  Jones's  note?"  said 
Lady  Imogen. 

"  Good  Heavens!"  she  exclaimed,  after  glancing  at 
it  an  instant,  "  I  was  sure  it  must  be  he !" 

And  out  ran  the  beautiful  queen  of  the  festivities, 
and  the  next  moment,  to  Sir  Humphrey's  amazement, 
and  Miss  Fencher's  utter  dismay,  she  returned,  drag- 
ging in,  with  her  own  scarf  around  his  body,  and  her 
own  wreath  of  roses  around  his  head,  the  friend  of 
Stuggins — the  abominable  Jones  !  Up  jumped  the 
marquis,  and  called  him  by  name  (not  Jones),  and 
seized  him  by  both  hands,  and  up  jumped  with  de- 
lighted acclamation  half  a  dozen  other  of  the  more 
distinguished  guests  at  table,  and  the  merriment  was 
now  on  the  other  side  of  the  thicket. 

It  was  five  or  ten  minutes  before  they  were  again 

seated  at  table,  S on  Lady  Imogen's  right  hand, 

but  there  were  two  vacant  chairs,  for  Sir  Humphrey 
and  his  daughter  had  taken  advantage  of  the  confusion 
to  disappear,  and  the  field  was  open,  therefore,  for  a 
full  account  of  Mr.  Jones's  adventures  above  and  below 
stairs  at  Tally-ho  hall.  A  better  subject  never  fell 
into  the  hand  of  that  inimitable  humorist,  and  glorious- 
ly he  made  use  of  it. 

As  he  concluded,  amid  convulsions  of  laughter,  the 

butler  brought  in  a  note  addressed  to  James  S , 

Esq.,  which  had  been  given  him  by  Stuggins  early 
in  the  day — his  own  autograph  invitation  to  the  hospi- 
talities of  Tally-ho  hall ! 


298 


LADY  RACHEL. 


LADY    RACHEL, 


"  Beauty,  alone,  is  lost,  too  warily  kept." 


I  once  had  a  long  conversation  with  a  fellow-trav- 
eller in  the  coupe  of  a  French  diligence.  It  was  a 
bright  moonlight  night,  early  in  June — not  at  all  the 
scene  or  season  for  talking  long  on  very  dry  topics — 
and  with  a  mutual  abandon  which  must  be  explained 
by  some  theory  of  the  silent  sympathies,  we  fell  to 
chatting  rather  confidentially  on  the  subject  of  love. 
He  gave  me  some  hints  as  to  a  passage  in  his  life 
which  seemed  to  me,  when  he  told  it,  a  definite  and 
interesting  story  ;  but  in  recalling  it  to  mind  after- 
ward, I  was  surprised  to  find  how  little  he  really  said, 
and  how  much,  from  seeing  the  man  and  hearing  his 
voice,  I  was  enabled  without,  effort  to  supply.  To 
save  roundabout,  I'll  tell  the  story  in  the  first  person, 
as  it  was  told  to  me,  begging  the  reader  to  take  my 
place  in  the  coupe  and  listen  to  a  very  gentlemanly 
man,  of  very  loveable  voice  and  manners;  supplying, 
also,  as  I  did,  by  the  imagination,  much  more  than  is 
told  in  the  narration. 

"  I  am  inclined  to  think  that  we  are  sometimes  best 
loved  by  those  whom  we  least  suspect  of  being  inter- 
ested in  us;  and  while  a  sudden  laying  open  of  hearts 
would  give  the  lie  to  many  a  love  professed,  it  would, 
here  and  there,  disclose  a  passion  which,  in  the  or- 
dinary course  of  things,  would  never  have  been  be- 
trayed. I  was  once  a  little  surprised  with  a  circum- 
stance of  the  kind  I  allude  to. 

"  I  had  become  completely  domesticated  in  a  fam- 
ily living  in  the  neighborhood  of  London — I  can 
scarce  tell  you  how,  even  if  it  were  worth  while.  A 
chance  introduction,  as  a  stranger  in  the  country, 
first  made  me  acquainted  with  them,  and  we  had  gone 
on,  from  one  degree  of  friendship  to  another,  till  I 
was  as  much  at  home  at  Lilybank  as  any  one  of  the 
children.  It  was  one  of  those  little  English  paradises, 
rural  and  luxurious,  where  love,  confidence,  simplicity, 
and  refinement,  seem  natural  to  the  atmosphere,  and  I 
thought,  when  I  was  there,  that  I  was  probably  as 
near  to  perfect  happiness  as  I  was  likely  to  be  in  the 
course  of  my  life.  But  I  had  my  annoyance  even 
there. 

"Mr.  Fleming  (the  name  is  fictitious,  of  course) 
was  a  man  of  sufficient  fortune,  living,  without  a  pro- 
fession, on  his  means.  He  was  avowedly  of  the  mid- 
dle class,  but  his  wife,  a  very  beautiful  specimen  of 
the  young  English  mother,  was  very  highly  connect- 
ed, and  might  have  moved  in  what  society  she  pleased. 
She  chose  to  find  her  happiness  at  home,  and  leave 
society  to  come  to  her  by  its  own  natural  impulse  and 
affinity — a  sensible  choice,  which  shows  you  at  once 
the  simple  and  rational  character  of  the  woman. 
Fleming  and  his  wife  were  very  fond  of  each  other, 
but,  at  the  same  time,  very  fond  of  the  companion- 
ship of  those  who  were  under  their  roof;  and  between 
them  and  their  three  or  four  lovely  children,  I  could 
have  been  almost  contented  to  have  been  a  prisoner 
at  Lilybank,  and  to  have  seen  nobody  but  its  charm- 
ing inmates  for  years  together. 

"I  had  become  acquainted  with  the  Flemings,  how- 
ever, during  the  absence  of  one  of  the  members  of 
the  family.  Without  being  at  all  aware  of  any  new 
arrival  in  the  course  of  the  morning,  I  went  late  to 
dinner  after  a  long  and  solitary  ride  on  horseback,  and 
was  presented  to  Lady  Rachel ,  a  tall  and  re- 
served-looking person,  sitting  on  Fleming's  right 
hand.     Seeing  no  reason  to  abate  any  of  my  outward 


show  of  happiness,  or  to  put  any  restraint  on  the  nat- 
ural impulse  of  my  attentions,  I  took  my  accustomed 
seat  by  the  sweet  mistress  of  the  house,  wrapped  up 
my  entire  heart,  as  usual,  in  every  word  and  look 
that  I  sent  toward  her,  and  played  the  schoolboy  that 
I  felt  myself,  uncloudedly  frank  and  happy.  Fleming 
laughed  and  mingled  in  our  chat  occasionally,  as  he 
was  wont  to  do,  but  a  glance  now  and  then  at  his 
stately  right-hand  neighbor,  made  me  aware  that  I 
was  looked  upon  with  some  coolness,  if  not  with  a 
marked  disapproval.  I  tried  the  usual  peace-offer- 
ings of  deference  and  marked  courtesy,  and  lessened 
somewhat  the  outward  show  of  my  happiness,  but 
Lady  Rachel  was  apparently  not  propitiated.  You 
know  what  it  is  to  have  one  link  cold  in  the  chain  of 
sympathy  around  a  table. 

"  The  next  morning  I  announced  my  intention  of 
returning  to  town.  I  had  hitherto  come  and  gone  at 
my  pleasure.  This  time  the  Flemings  showed  a  de- 
termined opposition  to  my  departure.  They  seemed 
aware  that  my  enjoyment  under  their  roof  had  been, 
for  the  first  time,  clouded  over,  and  they  were  not 
willing  I  should  leave  till  the  accustomed  sunshine 
was  restored.  I  felt  that  I  owed  them  too  much  to 
resist  any  persuasion  of  theirs  against  my  own  feelings 
merely,  and  I  remained. 

"But  I  determined  to  overcome  Lady  Rachel's 
aversion — a  little  from  pique,  I  may  as  well  confess, 
but  mostly  for  the  gratification  I  knew  it  would  give 
to  my  sweet  friends  and  entertainers.  The  saddle  is 
my  favorite  thinking-place.  I  mounted  a  beautiful 
hunter  which  Fleming  always  put  at  my  disposal 
while  I  stayed  with  them,  and  went  off  for  a  long  gal- 
lop. I  dismounted  at  an  inn,  some  miles  off,  called 
for  black  wax,  and  writing  myself  a  letter,  despatched 
it  to  Lilybank.  To  play  my  part  well,  you  will  easily 
conceive,  it  was  necessary  that  my  kind  friends  should 
not  be  in  the  secret. 

"  The  short  road  to  the  heart  of  a  proud  woman,  I 
well  knew,  was  pity.  I  came  to  dinner  that  day  a 
changed  man.  It  was  known  through  the  family,  of 
course,  that  a  letter  sealed  with  black  had  arrived  for 
me,  during  my  ride,  and  it  gave  me  the  apology  I 
needed  for  a  sudden  alteration  of  manner.  Delicacy 
would  prevent  any  one,  except  Mrs.  Fleming,  from 
alluding  to  it,  and  she  would  reserve  the  inquiry  till 
we  were  alone.  I  had  the  evening  before  me,  of 
course. 

"  Lady  Rachel,  I  had  remarked,  showed  her  supe- 
riority by  habitually  pitching  her  voice  a  note  or  two 
below  that  of  the  persons  around  her — as  if  the  re- 
pose of  her  calm  mind  was  beyond  the  plummet  of 
their  superficial  gayety.  I  had  also  observed,  how- 
ever, that  if  she  succeeded  in  rebuking  now  and  then 
the  high  spirits  of  her  friends,  and  lowered  the  gen- 
eral diapason  till  it  harmonized  with  her  own  voice, 
she  was  more  gratified  than  by  any  direct  compliment 
or  attention.  I  ate  my  soup  in  silence,  and  while  the 
children,  and  a  chance  guest  or  two,  were  carrying  on 
some  agreeable  banter  in  a  merry  key,  I  waited  fot 
the  first  opening  of  Lady  Rachel's  lips,  and,  when 
she  spoke,  took  her  tone  like  an  echo.  Without  look- 
ing at  her,  I  commenced  a  subdued  and  pensive  de- 
scription of  my  morning's  ride,  like  a  man  uncon- 
sciously awakened  from  his  revery  by  a  sympathetic 
voice,  and  betraying,  by  the  tone  in  which  he  spoke, 


LADY  RACHEL. 


299 


the  chord  to  which  he  responded.  A  newer  guest 
had  taken  my  place,  next  to  Mrs.  Fleming,  and  I  was 
opposite  Lady  Rachel.  I  could  feel  her  eyes  sud- 
denly fixed  on  me  as  1  spoke.  For  the  first  time,  she 
addressed  a  remark  to  me,  in  a  pause  of  my  descrip- 
tion. I  raised  my  eyes  to  her  with  as  much  earnest- 
ness and  deference  as  I  could  summon  into  them, 
and,  when  I  had  listened  to  her  and  answered  her  ob- 
servation, kept  them  fastened  on  her  lips,  as  if  I  hoped 
she  would  speak  to  me  again — yet  without  a  smile, 
and  with  an  expression  that  I  meant  should  be  that 
of  sadness,  forgetful  of  usages,  and  intent  only  on  an 
eager  longing  for  sympathy.  Lady  Rachel  showed 
her  woman's  heart,  by  an  almost  immediate  change 
of  countenance  and  manner.  She  leaned  slightly 
over  the  table  toward  me,  with  her  brows  lifted  from 
"  her  large  dark  eyes,  and  the  conversation  between  us 
became  continuous  and  exclusive.  After  a  little  while, 
my  kind  host,  finding  that  he  was  cut  off  from  his 
other  guests  by  the  fear  of  interrupting  us,  proposed 
to  give  me  the  head  of  the  table,  and  I  took  his  place 
at  the  left  hand  of  Lady  Rachel.  Her  dinner  was 
forgotten.  She  introduced  topics  of  conversation 
such  as  she  thought  harmonized  with  my  feelings, 
and  while  I  listened,  with  my  eyes  alternately  cast 
down  or  raised  timidly  to  hers,  she  opened  her  heart 
to  me  on  the  subject  of  death,  the  loss  of  friends,  the 
vanity  of  the  world,  and  the  charm,  to  herself,  of  sad- 
ness and  melancholy.  She  seemed  unconscious  of  the 
presence  of  others  as  she  talked.  The  tears  suffused 
her  fine  eyes,  and  her  lips  quivered,  and  I  found,  to 
my  surprise,  that  she  was  a  woman,  under  that  mask 
of  haughtiness,  of  the  keenest  sensibility  and  feeling. 
When  Mrs.  Fleming  left  the  table,  Lady  Rachel 
pressed  my  hand,  and,  instead  of  following  into  the 
drawing-room,  went  out  by  the  low  window  upon  the 
lawn.  I  had  laid  up  some  little  food  for  reflection  as 
you  may  conceive,  and  I  sat  the  next  hour  looking 
into  my  wineglass,  wondering  at  the  success  of  my 
manoeuvre,  but  a  little  out  of  humor  with  my  own  hy- 
pocrisy, notwithstanding. 

"Mrs.  Fleming's  tender  kindness  to  me  when  I 
joined  her  at  the  tea-table,  made  me  again  regret 
the  sacred  feelings  upon  which  I  had  drawn  for 
my  experiment.  But  there  was  no  retreat.  I  ex- 
cused myself  hastily,  and  went  out  in  search  of  Lady 
Rachel,  meeting  her  ladyship,  as  I  expected,  slowly 
pacing  the  dark  avenues  of  the  garden.  The  dimness 
of  the  starlight  relieved  me  from  the  effort  of  keeping 
sadness  in  my  countenance,  and  I  easily  played  out 
my  part  till  midnight,  listening  to  an  outpouring  of 
mingled  kindness  and  melancholy,  for  the  waste  of 
which  I  felt  some  need  to  be  forgiven. 

"Another  day  of  this,  however,  was  all  that  I  could 
bring  my  mind  to  support.  Fleming  and  his  wife  had 
entirely  lost  sight — in  sympathy  with  my  presumed 
affliction — of  the  object  of  detaining  me  at  Lilybank, 
and  I  took  my  leave,  hating  myself  for  the  tender 
pressure  of  the  hand,  and  the  sad  and  sympathizing 
farewells  which  I  was  obliged  to  receive  from  them. 
I  did  not  dare  to  tell  them  of  my  unworthy  ruse. 
Lady  Rachel  parted  from  me  as  kindly  as  the  rest, 
and  I  had  gained  my  point  with  the  loss  of  my  self- 
esteem.  With  a  prayer  that,  notwithstanding  this  de- 
ceit and  misuse,  I  might  find  pity  when  I  should  in- 
deed stand  in  need  of  it,  I  drove  from  the  door. 

"A  month  passed  away,  and  I  wrote,  once  more,  to 
my  friends  at  Lilybank,  that  I  would  pass  a  week 
with  them.  An  occurrence,  in  the  course  of  that 
month,  however,  had  thrown  another  mask  over  my 
face,  and  t  went  there  again  with  a  part  to  play — and, 
as  if  by  a  retributive  Providence,  it  was  now  my  need 
of  sympathy  that  1  was  most  forced  to  conceal.  An 
affair  which  I  saw  no  possibility  of  compromising,  had 
compelled  me  to  call  out  a  man  who  was  well  known 
as  a  practical  duelist.     The  particulars  would  not  in- 


terest you.  In  accepting  the  challenge,  my  antago- 
nist asked  a  week's  delay,  to  complete  some  import- 
ant business  from  which  he  could  not  withdraw  his  at- 
tention.    And  that  week  I  passed  with  the  Flemings. 

"The  gayety  of  Lilybank  was  resumed  with  the 
smile  I  brought  back,  and  chat  and  occupation  took 
their  natural  course.  Lady  Rachel,  though  kind  and 
courteous,  seemed  to  have  relapsed  into  her  reserve, 
and,  finding  society  an  effort,  I  rode  out  daily  alone, 
seeing  my  friends  only  at  dinner  and  in  the  evening. 
They  took  it  to  be  an  indulgence  of  some  remainder 
of  my  former  grief,  and  left  me  consequently  to  the 
disposition  of  my  own  time. 

"  The  last  evening  before  the  duel  arrived,  and  I 
bade  my  friends  good-night  as  usual,  though  with 
some  suppressed  emotion.  My  second,  who  was  to 
come  from  town  and  take  me  up  at  Lilybank  on  his 
way  to  the  ground,  had  written  to  me  that,  from  what 
he  could  gather,  my  best  way  was  to  be  prepared  for 
the  worst,  and,  looking  upon  it  as  very  probably  the 
last  night  of  my  life,  I  determined  to  pass  it  waking, 
and  writing  to  my  friends  at  a  distance.  I  sat  dcwn 
to  it,  accordingly,  without  undressing. 

"  Jt  was  toward  three  in  the  morning  that  I  sealed 
up  my  last  letter.  My  bedroom  was  on  the  ground- 
floor,  with  a  long  window  opening  into  the  garden; 
and,  as  I  lifted  my  head  up  from  leaning  over  the  seal, 
I  saw  a  white  object  standing  just  before  the  casement, 
but  at  some  little  distance,  and  half  buried  in  the  dark- 
ness. My  mind  was  in  a  fit  mood  for  a  superstitious 
feeling,  and  my  blood  crept  cold  for  a  moment;  I 
passed  my  hand  across  my  eyes — looked  again.  The 
figure  moved  slowly  away. 

"  To  direct  my  thoughts,  1  took  up  a  book  and 
read.  But,  on  looking  up,  the  figure  was  there  again, 
and,  with  an  irresistible  impulse,  I  rushed  out  to  the 
garden.  The  figure  came  toward  me,  but,  with  its 
first  movement,  I  recognised  the  stately  step  of  Lady 
Rachel. 

"  Confused  at  having  intruded  on  her  privacy,  for  I 
presumed  that  she  was  abroad  for  solitude,  and  with 
no  thought  of  being  disturbed,  I  turned  to  retire. 
She  called  to  me,  however,  and,  sinking  upon  a  gar- 
den-seat, covered  her  face  with  her  hands.  I  stood 
before  her,  for  a  moment,  in  embarrassed  silence. 

"  'You  keep  late  hours,'  she  said,  at  last,  with  a 
tremulous  voice,  but  rising  at  the  same  time  and,  with 
her  arm  put  through  mine,  leading  me  to  the  thickly- 
shaded  walk. 

"'To-night  I  do,'  I  replied;  'letters  I  could  not 
well  defer ' 

"'Listen  to  me!'  interrupted  Lady  Rachel.  »I 
know  your  business  for  the  morning ' 

"  I  involuntarily  released  my  arm  and  started  back. 
The  chance  of  an  interruption  that  would  seem  dis 
honorable  flashed  across  my  mind. 

"  '  Stay !'  she  continued  ;  '  I  am  the  only  one  in  the 
family  who  knows  of  it,  and  my  errand  with  you  is 
not  to  hinder  this  dreadful  meeting.  The  circum- 
stances are  such,  that,  with  society  as  it  is,  you  could 
not  avoid  it  with  honor.' 

"  I  pressed  her  arm  with  a  feeling  of  gratified  jus- 
tification which  quite  overcame,  for  the  moment,  my 
curiosity  as  to  the  source  of  her  knowledge  of  the 
affair. 

"  'You  must  forgive  me,'  she  said,  '  that  I  come  to 
you  like  a  bird  of  ill  omen.  I  can  not  spare  the  pre- 
cious moments  to  tell  you  how  I  came  by  my  infor- 
mation as  to  your  design.  I  have  walked  the  night 
away,  before  your  window,  not  daring  to  interrupt  you 
in  what  was  probably  the  performance  of  sacred  du- 
ties. But  T  know  your  antagonist — I  know  his  de- 
moniac nature,  and — pardon  me! — I  dread  the  worst!* 

"  I  still  walked  by  her  side  in  silence.  She  re- 
sumed, though  strongly  agitated. 

" '  I   have  said  that  I  justify  you   in   an   intention 


300 


THE  PHANTOxM-HEAD  UPON  THE  TABLE. 


which  will  probably  cost  you  your  life.  Yet,  but  for 
a  feeling  which  I  am  about  to  disclose  to  you,  I  should 
lose  no  time  and  spare  no  pains  in  preventing  this 
meeting.  Under  such  circumstances,  your  honor 
would  be  less  dear  to  me  than  now,  and  I  should  be 
acting  as  one  of  my  sex  who  had  but  a  share  of  in- 
terest in  resisting  and  striving  to  correct  this  murder- 
ous exaction  of  public  opinion.  I  would  condemn 
duelling  in  argument — avoid  the  duellist  in  society — 
make  any  sacrifice  with  others  to  suppress  it  in  the 
abstract — but,  till  the  feeling  changes  in  reference  to 
it,  I  could  not  bring  myself  to  sacrifice,  in  the  honor 
of  the  man  I  loved,  my  world  of  happiness  for  my 
share  only.' 

"'And  mean  you  to  say '  I  began,  but,  as  the 

light  broke  upon  my  mind,  amazement  stopped  my 
utterance. 

"  '  Yes — that  I  love  you  ! — that  I  love  you  !'  mur- 
mured Lady  Rachel,  throwing  herself  into  my  arms, 
and  fastening  her  lips  to  mine  in  a  long  and  passion- 
ate kiss — 'that  I  love  you,  and,  in  this  last  hour  of 
your  life,  must  breathe  to  you  what  I  never  before 
breathed  to  mortal !' 

"  She  sank  to  the  ground,  and,  with  handfuls  of 
dew,  swept  up  from  the  grass  of  the  lawn,  I  bathed 
her  temples,  as  she  leaned  senseless  against  my  knee. 
The  moon  had  risen  above  the  trees,  and  poured  its 
full  radiance  on  her  pale  face  and  closed  eyes.  Her 
hair  loosened  and  fell  in  heavy  masses  over  her  shoul- 
ders and  bosom,  and,  for  the  first  time,  I  realized 
Lady  Rachel's  extraordinary  beauty.  Her  features 
were  without  a  fault,  her  skin  was  of  marble  fairness 
and  paleness,  and  her  abandonment  to  passionate  feel- 
ing had  removed,  for  the  instant,  a  hateful  cloud  of 


pride  and  superciliousness  that,  at  all  other  times,  had 
obscured  her  loveliness.  With  a  newborn  emotion 
in  my  heart,  I  seized  the  first  instant  of  returning 
consciousness,  and  pressed  her,  with  a  convulsive  ea- 
gerness, to  my  bosom. 

"  The  sound  of  wheels  aroused  me  from  this  de- 
lirious dream,  and,  looking  up,  I  saw  the  gray  of 
the  dawn  struggling  with  the  moonlight.  I  tore  my- 
self from  her  arms,  and  the  moment  after  was  whirl- 
ing away  to  the  appointed  place  of  meeting. 


"  I  was  in  my  room,  at  Lilybank,  dressing,  at  eleven 
of  that  same  day.  My  honor  was  safe,  and  the  affair 
was  over,  and  now  my  whole  soul  was  bent  on  this 
new  and  unexpected  vision  of  love.  True — I  was 
but  twenty-five,  and  Lady  Rachel  probably  twenty 
years  older — but  she  loved  me — she  was  highborn  and 
beautiful — and  love  is  not  so  often  brought  to  the  lip 
in  this  world,  that  we  can  cavil  at  the  cup  which  holds 
it.  With  these  thoughts  and  feelings  wrangling  tu- 
multuously  in  my  heated  blood,  I  took  the  following 
note  from  a  servant  at  my  door. 

"  '  Lady  Rachel buries  in  eutire  oblivion  the 

last  night  past.  Feelings  over  which  she  has  full  con- 
trol in  ordinary  circumstances,  have  found  utterance 
under  the  conviction  that  they  were  words  to  the  dy- 
ing. They  would  never  have  been  betrayed  without 
impending  death,  and  they  will  never,  till  death  be 
near  to  one  of  us,  find  voice,  or  give  token  of  exist- 
ence again.  Delicacy  and  honor  will  prompt  you  to 
visit  Lilybank  no  more.' 

"Lady  Rachel  kept  her  room  till  I  left,  and  I  have 
never  visited  Lilybank,  nor  seen  her  since." 


THE    PHANTOM-HEAD   UPON   THE    TABLE, 


CHAPTER  I. 

SHOWING    THE     HUMILIATIONS    OF     THE     BARRIERS     OF 
HIGH-LIFE. 

There  is  no  aristocracy  in  the  time  o'  night.  It 
was  punctually  ten  o'clock,  in  Berkeley  square.  It 
rained  on  the  nobleman's  roof.  It  rained  on  the  beg- 
gar's head.  The  lamps,  for  all  that  was  visible  except 
themselves,  might  as  well  have  been  half  way  to  the 
moon,  but  even  that  was  not  particular  to  Berkeley 
square. 

A  hack  cabriolet  groped  in  from  Bruton  street. 

"  Shall  I  ring  any  bell  for  you,  sir?"  said  the  cab- 
man, pulling  aside  the  wet  leather  curtain. 

"  No !  I'll  get  out  anywhere  !  Pull  up  to  the  side- 
walk !" 

But  the  passenger's  mind  changed  while  paying  his 
shilling. 

"On  second  thoughts,  my  good  fellow,  you  may 
knock  at  the  large  door  on  the  right." 

The  driver  scrambled  up  the  high  steps  and  gave  a 
single  knock — such  a  knock  as  the  drivers  of  only  the 
poor  and  unfashionable  are  expected  to  give,  in  well- 
regulated  England. 

The  door  was  opened  only  to  a  crack,  and  a  glitter- 
ing livery  peered  through.  But  the  passenger  was 
close  behind,  and  setting  his  foot  against  the  door,  he 
drove  back  the  suspicious  menial  and  walked  in. 
Three  men,  powdered  and  emblazoned  in  blue  and 
Sold,  started  to  their  feet,  and  came  toward  the  appa- 
rent intruder.  He  took  the  wet  cap  from  his  head, 
deliberately  flung  his  well-worn  cloak  into  the  arms 


of  the  nearest  man,  and  beckoning  to  another,  pointed 
to  his  overshoes.  With  a  suppressed  titter,  two  of 
the  footmen  disappeared  through  a  side-door,  and  the 
third,  mumbling  something  about  sending  up  one  of 
the  stable-boys,  turned  to  follow  them. 

The  new-comer's  hand  passed  suddenly  into  the 
footman's  white  cravat,  and,  by  a  powerful  and  sud- 
den throw,  the  man  was  brought  to  his  knee. 

"  Oblige  me  by  unbuckling  that  shoe  !"  said  the 
stranger  in  a  tone  of  imperturbable  coolness,  setting 
his  foot  upon  the  upright  knee  of  the  astonished  me- 
nial. 

The  shoe  was  taken  off,  and  the  other  set  in  its 
place  upon  the  plush-covered  leg,  and  unbuckled,  as 
obediently. 

"  Keep  them  until  I  call  you  to  put  them  on  again  !" 
said  the  wearer,  taking  his  gloves  from  his  pockets,  as 
the  man  arose,  and  slowly  walking  up  and  down  the 
hall  while  he  drew  them  leisurely  on. 

From  the  wet  and  muddy  overshoes  had  been  de- 
livered two  slight  and  well-appointed  feet,  however, 
shining  in  pliable  and  unexceptionable  jet.  With  a 
second  look,  and  the  foul-weather  toggery  laid  aside, 
the  humbled  footman  saw  that  he  had  been  in  error, 
and  that,  hack-cab  and  dirty  overshoes  to  the  contrary 
notwithstanding,  the  economising  guest  of  "my  lord" 
would  appear,  on  the  other  side  of  the  drawing-room 
door,  only  at  home  on  "  velvet  of  three  pile" — an  ele- 
gant of  undepreciable  water! 

"  Shall  I  announce  you,  sir  ?"  respectfully  inquired 
the  servant. 

"  If  Lord  Aymar  has  come  up  from  the  dinner  ta- 
ble— yes!    If  the  ladies  are  alone — no  !" 


THE  PHANTOM-HEAD  UPON  THE  TABLE. 


301 


»«  Coffee  has  just  gone  in  to  the  ladies,  sir !" 

"  Then  I'll  find  my  own  way !" 

Lady  Aymar  was  jamming  the  projecting  diamond 
of  a  bracelet  through  and  through  the  thick  white 
leaf  of  an  Egyptian  kala,  lost  apparently  in  an  eclipse 
of  revery — possibly  in  a  swoon  of  slumberous  diges- 
tion. By  the  drawing-room  light,  in  her  negligent 
posture,  she  looked  of  a  ripeness  of  beauty  not  yet 
sapped  by  one  autumnal  minute — plump,  drowsy,  and 
voluptuous.     She  looked  up  as  the  door  opened. 

"  Spiridion  !" 

"Sappho  !" 

"Don't  be  silly  ! — how  are  you,  Count  Pallardos? 
And  how  like  a  ghost  you  come  in,  unannounced! 
Suppose  I  had  been  tying  my  shoe,  or  anything?" 

"  Is  your  ladyship  quite  well  ?" 

"  I  will  take  coffee  and  wake  up  to  tell  you  !  Was 
I  asleep  when  you  opened  the  door?  They  were  all 
so  dull  at  dinner.  Ah  me  !  stupid  or  agreeable,  we 
grow  old  all  the  same!  How  am  I  looking,  Spiri- 
dion?" 

"  Ravishingly  !     Where  is  Lady  Angelica?" 

"  Give  me  another  lump  of  sugar  !  La  !  don't  you 
take  coffee  ?" 

"  There  are  but  two  cups,  and  this  was  meant  for 
a  lip  of  more  celestial  earth — has  she  been  gone 
long  ?" 

The  door  opened,  and  the  rustling  dress  of  Lady 
Angelica  Aymar  made  music  in  the  room.  Oh,  how 
gloriously  beautiful  she  was,  and  how  changed  was 
Count  Spiridion  Pallardos  by  her  coming  in  !  A 
minute  before  so  inconsequent,  so  careless  and  com- 
plimentary— now  so  timid,  so  deferential,  so  almost 
awkward  in  every  motion  ! 

The  name  of  "  Greek  count"  has  been  for  a  long 
time,  in  Europe,  the  synonym  for  "  adventurer" — a 
worse  pendant  to  a  man's  name,  in  high  life  at  least, 
than  "  pirate"  or  "  robber."  Not  that  a  man  is  pecu- 
liar who  is  trying  to  make  the  most  out  of  society  and 
would  prefer  an  heiress  to  a  governess,  but  that  it  is  a 
disgrace  to  be  so  labelled  !  An  adventurer  is  the  same 
as  any  other  gentleman  who  is  not  rich,  only  without 
a  mask. 

Count  Pallardos  was  lately  arrived  from  Constanti- 
nople, and  was  recognised  and  received  by  Lord  Aymar 
as  the  son  of  a  reduced  Greek  noble  who  had  been 
the  dragoman  to  the  English  embassy  when  his  lord- 
ship was  ambassador  to  the  Porte.  With  a  prompt- 
ness a  little  singular  in  one  whose  patronage  was  so 
difficult  to  secure,  Lord  Aymar  had  immediately  pro- 
cured, for  the  son  of  his  old  dependant,  a  small  em- 
ployment as  translator  in  the  Foreign  office,  and  with 
its  most  limited  stipend  for  his  means,  the  young 
count  had  commenced  his  experience  of  English  life. 
His  acquaintance  with  the  ladies  of  Lord  Aymar's 
family  was  two  stages  in  advance  of  this,  however. 
Lady  Aymar  remembered  him  well  as  the  beautiful 
child  of  the  lovely  Countess  Pallardos,  the  playfellow 
of  her  daughter  Angelica  on  the  shore  of  the  Bos- 
phorus;  and  on  his  first  arrival  in  England,  hearing 
that  the  family  of  his  patron  was  on  the  coast  for  sea- 
bathing, Spiridion  had  prepared  to  report  himself  first 
to  the  female  portion  of  it.  Away  from  society  in  a 
retired  collage  ornee  upon  the  seashore,  they  had  re- 
ceived him  with  no  hinderance  to  their  appreciation  or 
hospitality  ;  and  he  had  thus  been  subjected,  by  acci- 
dent, to  a  month's  unshared  intoxication  with  the 
beauty  of  the  Lady  Angelica.  The  arrival  of  the 
young  Greek  had  been  made  known  to  Lord  Aymar 
by  his  lady's  letters,  and  the  situation  had  been  pro- 
cured for  him  ;  but  Pallardos  had  seen  his  lordship 
but  once,  and  this  was  his  first  visit  to  the  town  estab- 
lishment of  the  family. 

The  butler  came  in  with  a  petil  verre  of  Curagoa 
for  Miladi,  and  was  not  surprised,  as  the  footmen 
would  have  been,  to  see  Lady  Angelica  on  her  knee, 


and  Count  Pallardos  imprisoning  a  japonica  in  the 
knot  a  la  Grecque  of  that  head  of  Heaven's  most 
heavenly  moulding.  Brother  and  sister,  Cupid  and 
Psyche,  could  not  have  been  grouped  with  a  more 
playful  familiarity. 

"  Spiridion  !"— said  Lady  Aymar — "  I  shall  call  you 
Spiridion  till  the  men  come  up — how  are  you  lodged, 
my  dear !  Have  you  a  bath  in  your  dressing-room  ?" 
"  Pitcher  and  bowl  of  the  purest  crockery,  my  dear 
lady  !  May  I  venture  to  draw  this  braid  a  little  closer, 
Angelica — to  correct  the  line  of  this  raven  mass  on 
your  cheek  ?  It  robs  us  now  of  a  rose-leaf's  breadth 
at  least — flat  burglary,  my  sweet  friend  !" 

But  the  Lady  Angelica  sprang  to  her  feet,  for  a 
I  voice  was  heard  of  some  one  ascending  from  the 
dining-room.  She  flung  herself  into  a  dormeuse, 
Spiridion  twirled  his  two  fingers  at  the  fire,  as  if  bodi- 
ly warmth  was  the  uppermost  necessity  of  the  moment, 
and  enter  Lord  Aymar,  followed  by  a  great  statesman, 
j  a  famous  poet,  one  sprig  of  unsurpassed  nobility,  and 
one  wealthy  dandy  commoner. 

Lord  Aymar  nodded  to  his  protege,  but  the  gentle- 
men grouped  themselves,  for  a  moment,  around  a  silver 
easel,  upon  which  stood  a  Correggio,  a  late  purchase 
of  which  his  lordship  had  been  discoursing,  and  in 
that  minute  or  two  the  name  and  quality  of  the  stran- 
ger were  communicated  to  the  party — probably,  for 
they  took  their  coffee  without  further  consciousness 
I  of  his  presence. 

The  statesman  paired  off  to  a  corner  with  his  host 
!  to  talk  politics,  the  poet  took  the   punctured   flower 
!  from  the  lap  of  Lady  Aymar,  and  commenced  mend- 
'  ing,  with  patent  wax  wafers,  from  the  ormolu  desk 
!  near  by,  the  holes  in  the  white  leaves  ;  and  the  two  in- 
I  effables  lingered  a  moment  longer  over  their  Curar-oa. 
Pallardos  drew  a  chair  within  conversation-reach  of 
j  Lady  Angelica,  and  commenced  an  unskilful  discus- 
sion of  the  opera  of  the  night  before.    He  felt  angry, 
insulted,   unseated   from    his  self-possession,    yet   he 
could  not  have  told  why.  The  two  young  men  lounged 
leisurely  across  the  room,  and  the  careless  Lord  Fred- 
erick  drew   his  chair   partly  between   Pallardos  and 
Lady  Angelica,  while  Mr.  Townley  Manners  reclined 
upon  an  ottoman   behind   her  and   brought  his  lips 
within  whisper-shot  of  her  ear,  and,  with  ease  and  un- 
forced nonsense,  not  audible  nor  intended  to  be  audible 
to  the  "  Greek  adventurer,"  they  inevitably  engrossed 
the  noble  beauty. 

The  blood  of  Count  Spiridion  ran  round  his  heart 
like  a  snake  coiled  to  strike.     He  turned  to  a  portfolio 
of  drawings  for  a  cover  to  self-control  and  self-com- 
muning, for  he  felt  that  he  had  need  of  summoning 
his   keenest   and  coldest  judgment,   his  boldest  and 
I  wariest  courage  of  conduct  and  endurance,  to  submit 
!  to,  and  outnerve  and  overmaster,  his  humiliating  po- 
j  sition.     He  was  under  a  roof  of  which  he  well  knew 
that  the  pride  and  joy  of  it,  the  fair  Lady  Angelica, 
'  the  daughter  of  the   proud   earl,  had  given  him  her 
!  heart.     He  well  knew  that  he  had  needed  reserve  and 
management  to  avoid  becoming  too  much  the  favorite 
of  the  lady  mistress  of  that  mansion;  yet,  in  it,  he  had 
been  twice   insulted  grossly,    cuttingly,   but  in   both 
cases   unresentably — once   by  unpunishable   menials, 
of  whom  he  could  not  even  complain  without  expo- 
sing and  degrading  himself,  and  once  by  the  supercil- 
ious competitors  for  the  heart  he  knew  was  his  own— 
and  they  too,  unpunishable! 

At  this  moment,  at  a  sign  from  Lady  Aymar,  her 
lord  swung  open  the  door  of  a  conservatory  to  give 
the  room  air,  and  the  long  mirror,  set  in  the  panel, 
showed  to  Spiridion  his  own  pale  and  lowering  fea- 
tures. He  thanked  Heaven  for  the  chance .  To  see 
himself  once  more  was  what  he  bitterly  needed !— to 
see  whether  his  head  had  shrunk  between  his  shoul- 
ders—whether his  back  was  crouched— whether  Ins 
ey«s  and  lips  had  lost  their  fearlessness  and  pride!  He 


302 


THE  PHANTOM-HEAD  UPON  THE  TABLE. 


had  feared  so — felt  so  !  He  almost  wondered  that  he 
did  not  look  like  a  dependant  and  a  slave  !  But  oh, 
no  !  The  large  mirror  showed  the  grouped  figures 
of  the  drawing-room,  his  own  the  noblest  among  them 
by  nature's  undeniable  confession  !  His  clear,  statua- 
ry outline  of  features — the  finely-cut  arches  of  his 
lips — the  bold,  calm  darkness  of  his  passionate  eyes — 
his  graceful  and  high-born  mien,— all  apparent  enough 
to  his  own  eye  when  seen  in  the  contrast  of  that  mir- 
rored picture — he  was  not  changed  ! — not  a  slave — not 
metamorphosed  by  that  hour's  humiliation !  He 
clenched  his  right  hand,  once,  till  the  nails  were  dri- 
ven through  his  glove  into  the  clammy  palm,  and  then 
rose  with  a  soft  smile  on  his  features,  like  the  remain- 
der of  a  look  of  pleasure. 

"  I  have  found,"  said  he,  in  a  composed  and  musical 
tone,  "  I  have  found  what  we  were  looking  for,  Lady 
Angelica  !" 

He  raised  the  large  portfolio  from  the  print-stand, 
and  setting  it  open  on  his  knee,  directly  between  Lord 
Frederick  and  Lady  Angelica,  cut  off  that  nobleman's 
communication  with  her  ladyship  very  effectually, 
while  he  pointed  out  a  view  of  the  Acropolis  at  Athens. 
Her  ladyship  was  still  expressing  her  admiration  of  the 
drawing,  when  Spiridion  turned  to  the  astonished  gen- 
tleman at  her  ear. 

"Perhaps,  sir,"  said  he,  "  in  a  lady's  service,  I  may 
venture  to  dispossess  you  of  that  ottoman!  Will  you 
be  kind  enough  to  rise?" 

With  a  stare  of  astonishment,  the  elegant  Mr. 
Townley  Manners  reluctantly  complied  ;  and  Spiri- 
dion, drawing  the  ottoman  in  front  of  Lady  Angelica, 
set  the  broad  portfolio  upon  it,  and  seating  himself  at 
her  feet  upon  the  outer  edge,  commenced  a  detailed 
account  of  the  antiquities  of  the  grand  capitol.  The 
lady  listened  with  an  amused  look  of  mischief  in  her 
eye,  Lord  Frederick  walked  once  around  her  chair 
humming  an  air  very  rudely,  Mr.  Manners  attempted 
in  vain  to  call  Lady  Angelica  to  look  at  something 
wonderful  in  the  conservatory,  and  Spiridion's  triumph 
was  complete.  He  laid  aside  the  portfolio  after  a  mo- 
ment or  two,  drew  the  ottoman  back  to  its  advantageous 
position,  and,  self-assured  and  at  his  ease,  engrossed 
fully  and  agreeably  the  attention  of  his  heart's  mistress. 

Half  an  hour  elapsed.  Lord  Aymar  took  a  kind 
of  dismission  attitude  before  the  fire,  and  the  guests 
one  and  all  took  their  leave.  They  were  all  cloaking 
together  in  the  entry,  when  his  lordship  leaned  over 
the  bannister. 

"Have  you  your  chariot,  Lord  Frederick?"  he 
asked. 

"  Yes — it's  at  the  door  now  !" 

"  Lady  Aymar  suggests  that  perhaps  you'll  set  down 
Count  Pallardos,  on  your  way  !" 

"  Why — ah,  certainly,  certainly  !"  replied  Lord 
Frederick,  with  some  hesitation. 

"My  thanks  to  Lady  Aymar,"  said  Spiridion  very 
quietly,  "  but  say  to  her  ladyship  that  I  am  provided 
with  overshoes  and  umbrella  !  Shall  I  offer  your  lord- 
ship half  of  the  latter?"  added  he  in  another  key, 
leaning  with  cool  mock-earnestness  toward  Lord 
Frederick,  who  only  stared  a  reply  as  he  passed  out  to 
his  chariot. 

And  marvelling  who  would  undergo  such  humilia- 
tions and  such  antagonism  as  had  been  his  lot  that 
evening,  for  anything  else  than  the  love  of  a  Lady 
Angelica,  Count  Spiridion  stepped  forth  into  the  rain 
to  grope  his  way  to  his  obscure  lodgings  in  Parlia- 
ment street. 


CHAPTER  II. 

SHOWING    A    GENTLEMAN'S    NEED    OF    A    HORSE. 

It  was  the  hour  when  the  sun   in   heaven  is  sup- 
posed  to   be   least  promiscuous — the  hour  when  the 


five  hundred  fashionables  of  London  West-End  re- 
ceive his  visit  in  the  open  air,  to  the  entire  exclusion 
(it  is  presumed)  of  the  remaining  population  of  the 
globe.  The  cabs  and  jarveys,  the  vehicles  of  the  de- 
spised public,  rolled  past  the  forbidden  gate  of  Hyde 
park,  and  the  echo  stationed  in  the  arched  portal  an- 
nounced the  coroneted  carriages  as  they  nicely  nibbled 
the  pleased  gravel  in  passing  under.  A  plebeian  or 
two  stood  outside  to  get  a  look  at  the  superior  beings 
whose  daily  list  of  company  to  dine  is  the  news  most 
carefully  furnished  to  the  instructed  public.  The 
birds  (having  "  fine  feathers")  flew  over  the  iron  rail- 
ing unchallenged  by  the  gate-keeper.  Four  o'clock 
went  up  to  Heaven's  gate  with  the  souls  of  those  who 
had  died  since  three,  and  with  the  hour's  report  of  the 
world's  sins  and  good  deeds;  and  at  the  same  moment 
a  chariot  rolled  into  the  park,  holding  between  its 
claret  panels  the  embellished  flesh  and  blood  of  Lady 
Aymar  and  her  incomparable  daughter. 

A  group  of  gay  men  on  horseback  stood  at  the  bend 
of  "  Rotten  Row,"  watching  the  comers-in  ;  and  within 
the  inner  railing  of  the  park,  among  the  promenaders 
on  foot,  was  distinguishable  the  slight  figure  of  Count 
Pallardos,  pacing  to  and  fro  with  step  somewhat  irreg- 
ular. As  Lady  Aymar's  chariot  went  by,  he  bowed 
with  a  frank  and  ready  smile,  but  the  smile  was  quickly 
banished  by  a  flushed  cheek  and  lowering  brow,  for, 
from  the  group  of  mounted  dandies,  dashed  out  Lord 
Frederick  Beauchief,  upon  a  horse  of  unparalleled 
beauty,  and  with  a  short  gallop  took  and  kept  his  place 
close  at  the  chariot  window. 

Pallardos  watched  them  till  the  turn  of  the  ring  took 
them  from  his  sight.  The  fitness  of  the  group — tho 
evident  suitableness  of  Lord  Frederick's  position  at 
that  chariot  window,  filled  him  with  a  jealousy  he  could 
no  longer  stifle.  The  contest  was  all  unequal,  it  was 
too  palpable  to  deny.  He,  himself,  whatever  his  per- 
son or  qualities,  was,  when  on  foot,  in  the  place  allot- 
ted to  him  by  his  fortunes — not  only  unnoticed  by  the 
contagious  admiration  of  the  croud,  but  unable  even 
to  obey  his  mistress,  though  beckoned  by  her  smile  to 
follow  her !  That  superb  animal,  the  very  type  of 
pride  and  beauty,  arching  his  glossy  neck  and  tossing 
his  spirited  head  before  the  eyes  of  Lady  Angelica, 
was  one  of  those  unanalyzed,  undisputed  vouchers  for 
the  owner's  superiority,  which  make  wealth  the  devil's 
gift — irresistible  but  by  the  penetrating  and  cold  judg- 
ment of  superior  beings.  How  should  a  woman,  born 
with  the  susceptible  weaknesses  of  her  sex,  most  im- 
pressible by  that  which  is  most  showy  and  beautiful — 
how  should  she  be  expected  to  reason  coldly  and  with 
philosophic  discrimination  on  this  subject  ? — how  sep- 
arate from  Lord  Frederick,  the  mere  man,  his  subser- 
vient accompaniments  of  wealth,  attendance,  homage 
from  others,  and  infatuated  presumption  in  himself? 
Nay — what  presumption  in  Spiridion  Pallardos  (so 
he  felt,  with  his  teeth  set  together  in  despair,  as  he 
walked  rapidly  along) — to  suppose  that  he  could  con- 
tend successfully  against  this  and  a  thousand  such  ad- 
vantages and  opportunities,  with  only  his  unpriced, 
unproved  love  to  offer  her,  with  a  hand  of  poverty ! 
His  heart  ran  drowningly  over  with  the  bitterness  of 
conviction  ! 

After  a  few  steps,  Pallardos  turned  back  with  an  in 
stinctive  though  inexplicable  desire  to  hasten  the  pang 
of  once  more  meeting  them  as  they  came  round  the 
ring  of  the  park.  Coming  toward  him,  was  one  of  the 
honorable  officials  of  Downing  street,  with  whom  he 
had  been  thrown  in  contact,  a  conceited  and  well- 
born diner-out,  mounted  on  a  handsome  cob,  but 
with  his  servant  behind  him  on  a  blood  hunter. 
Mr.  Dallinger  was  walking  his  horse  slowly  along  the 
fence,  and,  as  he  came  opposite  Pallardos,  he  drew 
rein. 

"  Count !"  said  he,  in  that  patronising  tone  which  is 
tossed  over  the  head  of  the  patronised  like  a  swan's 


THE  PHANTOM-HEAD  UPON  THE  TABLE. 


303 


neck  over  the  worm  about  to  be  gobbled,  "  a — a — a — 
do  you  know  Spanish  ?" 

»  Yes.     Why  ?" 

»  A — a — I've  a  job  for  you  !  You  know  Moreno, 
the  Spanish  secretary — well,  his  wife — she  ivill  persist 
in  disguising  her  billet-doux  in  that  stilted  language, 
and — you  know  what  I  want — suppose  you  come  and 
breakfast  with  me  to-morrow  morning  ?" 

Pallardos  was  mentally  crowding  his  contemptuous 
refusal  into  the  smallest  phrase  that  could  convey  re- 
pulse to  insolence,  when  the  high-stepping  and  foam- 
spattered  forelegs  of  Lady  Aymar's  bays  appeared  un- 
der the  drooping  branch  of  the  tree  beyond  him.  The 
next  instant,  Lord  Frederick's  easily-carried  head 
danced  into  sight — a  smile  of  perfect  self-satisfaction 
on  his  face,  and  his  magnificent  horse,  excited  by  the 
constant  check,  prancing  at  his  proudest.  At  the  mo- 
ment they  passed,  Dallinger's  groom,  attempting  to 
restrain  the  impatience  of  the  spirited  hunter  he  was 
upon,  drew  the  curb  a  little  too  violently,  and  the  man 
was  thrown.  The  sight  of  the  empty  saddle  sent  a 
thought  through  the  brain  of  Pallardos  like  a  shaft. 

"  May  I  take  a  little  of  the  nonsense  out  of  that 
horse  for  you?"  said  he  quickly,  springing  over  the 
railing,  and  seizing  the  rein,  to  which  the  man  still 
held,  while  the  frighted  horse  backed  and  reared 
toward  his  master. 

"  A — a — ye9,  if  you  like  !" 

Pallardos  sprang  into  the  saddle,  loosened  the  rein 
and  leaned  forward,  and  with  three  or  four  powerful 
bounds,  the  horse  was  at  the  other  window  of  the 
chariot.  Away,  with  the  bursted  trammels  of  heart 
and  brain,  went  all  thoughts  of  the  horse's  owner,  and 
all  design,  if  any  had  flashed  on  his  mind,  of  time  or 
place  for  restoring  him.  Bred  in  a  half-civilized  coun- 
try, where  the  bold  hand  was  often  paramount  to  law, 
the  Greek  had  no  habit  of  mind  likely  to  recognise  in 
a  moment  of  passion  even  stronger  barriers  of  propri- 
ety than  he  was  now  violating  ;  and,  to  control  his 
countenance  and  his  tongue,  and  summon  his  resour- 
ces for  an  apparently  careless  and  9miling  contest  of 
attraction  with  his  untroubled  rival,  was  work  enough 
for  the  whole  mind  and  memory,  as  well  as  for  all  the 
nerve  aurl  spirit  of  the  excited  Greek.  He  laid  his 
hand  on  the  chariot  window,  and  thinking  no  more  of 
the  horse  he  was  subduing  than  the  air  he  breathed, 
broke  up  his  powerful  gallop  to  a  pace  that  suited  him, 
and  played  the  lover  to  the  best  of  his  coolness  and 
ability. 

"  We  saw  you  walking  just  now,  and  were  lament- 
ing that  you  were  not  on  horseback,"  said  Lady  Ay- 
mar,  "for  it  is  a  sweet  evening,  and  we  thought  of 
driving  out  for  a  stroll  in  old  Sir  John  Chasteney's 
grounds  at  Bayswater.  Will  you  come,  Spiridion  ? 
Tell  White  to  drive  there  !" 

Lord  Frederick  kept  his  place,  and  with  its  double 
escort,  the  equipage  of  the  Aymars  sped  on  its  way  to 
Bayswater.  Spiridion  was  the  handsomer  man,  and 
the  more  graceful  rider,  and,  without  forcing  the  diffi- 
cult part  of  keeping  up  a  conversation  with  those 
within  the  chariot,  he  soon  found  his  uneasiness  dis- 
placed by  a  glow  of  hope  and  happiness  ;  for  Lady 
Angelica,  leaning  far  back  in  her  seat,  and  completely 
hidden  from  Lord  Frederick,  kept  her  eyes  watchfully 
and  steadily  upon  the  opposite  side  where  rode  her  less 
confident  lover.  The  evening  was  of  summer's  softest 
and  richest  glory,  breezy  and  fragrant ;  and  as  the  sun 
grew  golden,  the  party  alighted  at  the  gates  of  Chas- 
teney  park — in  tune  for  love,  it  must  needs  be,  if  ever 
conspiring  smiles  in  nature  could  compel  accord  in 
human  affections. 

Ah,  happy  Spiridion  Pallardos  !  The  Lady  Ange- 
lica called  him  to  disengage  her  dress  from  the  step 
of  the  carriage,  and  her  arm  was  in  his  when  he  arose, 
placed  there  as  confidingly  as  a  bride's,  and  with  a 
gentle  pressure  that  was  half  love  and  half  mischief— - 


for  she  quite  comprehended  that  Lord  Frederick's 
ride  to  Bayswater  was  not  for  the  pleasure  of  a  twilight 
stroll  through  Chasteney  park  with  her  mother !  That 
mother,  fortunately,  was  no  duenna.  She  had  pre- 
tensions of  her  own  to  admiration,  and  she  was  only 
particular  as  to  the  quantity.  Her  daughter's  division 
with  her  of  the  homage  of  their  male  acquaintances, 
was  an  evil  she  indolently  submitted  to,  but  she  was 
pleased  in  proportion  as  it  was  not  obtruded  upon  her 
notice.  As  Pallardos  and  the  Lady  Angelica  turned 
into  one  of  the  winding  alleys  of  the  grounds,  Lady 
Aymar  bent  her  large  eyes  very  fixedly  upon  another, 
and  where  such  beautiful  eyes  went  before,  her  small 
feet  were  very  sure  to  follow.  The  twilight  threw  its 
first  blur  over  the  embowering  foliage  as  the  parties 
lost  sight  of  each  other,  and,  of  the  pair  who  are  the 
hero  and  heroine  of  this  story,  it  can  oidy  be  disclosed 
that  they  found  a  heaven  (embalmed,  for  their  partic- 
ular use,  in  the  golden  dusk  of  that  evening's  twi- 
light), and  returned  to  the  park  gate  in  the  latest  min- 
ute before  dark,  sworn  lovers,  let  come  what  would  ! 

i  But   meantime,   the   happy   man's   horse    had   disap- 

'  peared,  as  well  he  might  have  been  expected  to  do,  his 
bridle  having  been  thrown  over  a  bush  by  the  en- 
grossed Pallardos,  when  called  upon  to  assist  Lady 
Angelica  from  her  carriage,  and  milord's  groom  and 

j  miladi's  footman  having  no  sovereign  reasons  for  se- 
curing him.     Lord  Frederick  laughed  till  the  count 

I  accepted  the  offer  of  Lady  Aymar  to  take  him  home, 
bodkin-wise,  between  herself  and  hcrdaughter;  and  for 
the  happiness  of  being  close  pressed  to  the  loving  side 
of  the  Lady  Angelica  for  one  hour  more,  Pallardos 
would  willingly  have  lost  a  thousand  horses — his  own 

!  or  the  honorable  Mr.  Dallinger's.  And,  by  the  way, 
of  Mr.  Dallinger  and  his  wrath,  and  his  horseless 
groom,  Spiridion  began  now  to  have  a  thought  or  two 
of  an  uncomfortable  pertinacity  of  intrusion. 


CHAPTER  III. 

SHOWING    WHAT  MAKES    A    HORSE-STEALER    A  GENTLE- 
MAN. 

It  was  the  first  day  of  September,  and  most  of  the 
I  gold  threads  were  drawn  from  the  tangled  and  vari- 
1  colored  woof  of  London  society.  "  The  season"  was 
over.  Two  gentlemen  stood  in  the  window  of  Crock- 
ford's,  one  a  Jew  barrister  (kersey  enough  for  more 
russet  company  by  birth  and  character,  but  admitted 
to  the  society  of  "costly  stuff"  for  the  equivalent  he 
gave  as  a  purveyor  of  scandal),  and  the  other  a  com- 
moner, whose  wealth  and  fashion  gave  him  the  privi- 
lege of  out-staying  the  season  in  town,  without  pub- 
lishing in  the  Morning  Post  a  better  reason  than  incli- 
nation for  so  unnatural  a  procedure. 

Count  Spiridion  Pallardos  was  seen  to  stroll  slowly 
,  up  St.  James  street,  on  the  opposite  side. 

"Look   there,  Abrams!"  said   Mr.  Townley  Man- 
ners, "  there's  the  Greek  who  was  taken  up  at  one 
i  time  by  the  Aymars.     I  thought  he  was  transported." 
"No  !  he  still  goes  to  the  Aymars,  though  he  is 
j  'in   Coventry'  everywhere  else.     Dallinger  had   him 
i  arrested — for  horse-stealing,  wasn't  it  ?     The  officer 
\  nabbed  him  as  he  was  handing  Lady  Angelica  out  of 
her  carriage  in  Berkeley  square.     1  remember  hearing 
of  it  two  months  ago.  What  a  chop-fallen  blackguard 
it  looks !" 

"  Blackguard  !  Come,  come,  man  .'—give  the  devil 
his  due !"  deprecated  the  more  liberal  commoner ; 
"may  be  it's  from  not  having  seen  a  gentleman  for  the 
last  week,  but,  hang  me  if  I  don't  think  that  same 
horse-stealer  turning  the  corner  is  as  crack-looking  a 
man  as  I  ever  saw  from  this  window.  What's  o'clock  ?" 
"  Half-past  four,"  replied  the  gcandal-monger,  swal- 


304 


THE  PHANTOM-HEAD  UPON  THE  TABLE. 


lowing,  with  a  bland  smile,  what  there  tvas  to  swallow 
in  Manners's  Iwo-edged  remark,  and  turning  suddenly 
on  his  heel. 

Pallardos  slowly  took  his  way  along  Picadilly,  and 
was  presently  in  Berkeley  square,  at  the  door  of  the 
Aymars.  The  porter  admitted  him  without  question, 
and  he  mounted,  unannounced,  to  the  drawing-room. 
The  ladies  sat  by  the  window,  looking  out  upon  the 
garden. 

"Is  it  you,  Spiridion?"  said  Lady  Aymar,  "I  had 
hoped  you  would  not  come  to-day!" 

"  Oh,  mamma!"  appealed  Lady  Angelica. 
"Welcome  all  other  days  of  the  year,  my  dear 
Pallardos — warmly  welcome,  of  course" — continued 
Lady  Aymar,  "  but — to-day — oh  God  !  you  have  no 
idea  what  the  first  of  September  is — to  us — to  my 
husband !" 

Lady  Aymar  covered  her  face  with  her  hands,  and 
the  tears  streamed  through  her  fingers. 

"  Pardon  me,"  said  Pallardos — "  pardon  me,  my 
dear  lady,  but  I  am  here  by  the  earl's  invitation,  to 
dine  at  six." 

Lady  Aymar  sprang  from  her  seat  in  astonishment. 
"  By  the  earl's  invitation,  did  you  say  ?     Angelica, 
what  can  that  mean  ?     Was  it  bv  note,  Count  Pal- 
lardos ?" 

"  By  note,"  he  replied. 

"  I  am  amazed  !"  she  said,  "  truly  amazed!  Does 
he  mean  to  have  a  confidant  for  his  family  secret  ?  Is 
his  insanity  on  one  point  affecting  his  reason  on  all  ? 
What  shall  we  do,  Angelica  ?" 

"We  may  surely  confide  in  Spiridion,  whatever  the 
meaning  of  it,  or  the  result" — gently  murmured  Lady 
Angelica. 

"  We  may — we  may  !"  said  Lady  Aymar.  "  Prepare 
him  for  it  as  you  will.  I  pray  Heaven  to  help  me 
through  with  this  day  without  upsetting  my  own 
reason.     I  shall  meet  you  at  dinner,  Spiridion." 

With  her  hands  twisted  together  in  a  convulsive 
knot,  Lady  Aymar  slowly  and  musingly  passed  into 
the  conservatory  on  her  way  to  her  own  room,  leaving 
to  themselves  two  lovers  who  had  much  to  talk  of 
beside  dwelling  upon  a  mystery  which,  even  to  Lady 
Angelica,  who  knew  most  of  it,  was  wholly  inexpli- 
cable. Yet  it  was  partially  explained  by  the  trembling 
girl — explained  as  a  case  of  monomania,  and  with  the 
brevity  of  a  disagreeable  subject,  but  listened  to  by 
her  lover  with  a  different  feeling — a  conviction  as  of  a 
verified  dream,  and  a  vague,  inexplicable  terror  which 
he  could  neither  reason  down  nor  account  for.  But 
the  lovers  must  be  left  to  themselves,  by  the  reader  as 
well  as  by  Lady  Aymar;  and  meantime,  till  the  dinner 
hour,  when  our  story  begins  again,  we  may  glance  at 
a  note  which  was  received,  and  replied  to,  by  Lord 
Aymar  in  the  library  below. 

"  My  dear  Lord  :  In  the  belief  that  a  frank  com- 
munication would  be  best  under  the  circumstances,  I 
wish  to  make  an  inquiry,  prefacing  it  with  the  assu- 
rance that  my  only  hope  of  happiness  has  been  for 
some  time  staked  upon  the  successful  issue  of  my 
suit  for  your  daughter's  hand.  It  is  commonly  under- 
stood, I  believe,  that  the  bulk  of  your  lordship's  for- 
tune is  separate  from  the  entail,  and  may  be  disposed 
of  at  your  pleasure.  May  1  inquire  its  amount,  or 
rather,  may  I  ask  what  fortune  goes  with  the  hand  of 
Lady  Angelica.  The  Beauchief  estates  are  unfortu- 
nately much  embarrassed,  and  my  own  debts  (I  may 
frankly  confess)  are  very  considerable.  5Tou  will  at 
once  see,  my  lord,  that,  in  justice  to  your  daughter,  as 
well  as  to  myself,  I  could  not  do  otherwise  than  make 
this  frank  inquiry  before  pushing  my  suit  to  extremity. 
Begging  your  indulgence  and  an  immediate  answer,  I 
remain,  my  dear  lord,     Yours  very  faithfully, 

"  Frederick  Beauchief. 
"  Ths  Earl  of  Aymar." 


(reply.) 

"  Dear  Lord  Frederick  :  I  trust  you  will  not 
accuse  me  of  a  want  of  candor  in  declining  a  direct 
answer  to  your  question.  Though  I  freely  own  to  a 
friendly  wish  for  your  success  in  your  efforts  to  engage 
the  affections  of  Lady  Angelica,  with  a  view  to  mar- 
riage, it  can  only  be  in  the  irrevocable  process  of  a 
marriage  settlement  that  her  situation,  as  to  the  prob- 
able disposal  of  my  fortune,  can  be  disclosed.  I  may 
admit  to  you,  however,  that,  upon  the  events  of  this 
day  on  which  you  have  written  (it  so  chances),  may 
depend  the  question  whether  I  should  encourage  you 
to  pursue  further  your  addresses  to  Lady  Angelica. 
"Yours  very  faithfully,  "Aymar. 

"  Lord  Frederick  Beauchief." 

It  seemed  like  the  first  day  after  a  death,  in  the 
house  of  Lord  Aymar.  An  unaccountable  hush  pre- 
vailed through  the  servants'  offices  ;  the  gray-headed 
old  butler  crept  noiselessly  about,  making  his  prepa- 
rations for  dinner,  and  the  doors,  that  were  opened 
and  shut,  betrayed  the  careful  touch  of  apprehension. 
With  penetrating  and  glassy  clearness,  the  kitchen 
clock,  seldom  heard  above  stairs,  resounded  through 
the  house,  striking  six. 

In  the  same  neglected  attire  which  she  had  worn  in 
the  morning,  Lady  Aymar  re-entered  the  drawing- 
room.  The  lids  were  drawn  up  around  her  large  eyes 
with  a  look  of  unresisting  distress,  and  she  walked 
with  relaxed  steps,  and  had,  altogether,  an  air  absent 
and  full  of  dread.  The  interrupted  lovers  ceased 
talking  as  she  approached,  but  she  did  not  remark  the 
silence,  and  walked,  errandless,  from  corner  to  corner. 

The  butler  announced  dinner. 

"  May  I  give  your  ladyship  an  arm  ?"  asked  Pal- 
lardos. 

"  Oh  God  !  is  it  dinner-time  already  !"  she  exclaimed 
with  a  voice  of  terror.  "  Williams !  is  Lord  Aymar 
below  ?" 

"In  the  dining-room,  miladi." 

She  took  Spiridion's  arm,  and  they  descended  the 
stairs.  As  they  approached  the  dining-room,  her  arm 
trembled  so  violently  in  his  that  he  turned  to  her  with 
the  fear  that  she  was  about  to  fall.  He  did  not  speak. 
A  vague  dread,  which  was  more  than  he  had  caught 
from  her  looks — a  something  unaccountably  heavy  at 
his  own  heart — made  his  voice  cling  to  his  throat. 
He  bowed  to  Lord  Aymar. 

His  noble  host  stood  leaning  upon  the  mantel-piece, 
pale,  but  seeming  less  stern  and  cold  than  suffering 
and  nerved  to  bear  pain. 

"  I  am  glad  to  see  you,  my  dear  count !"  he  said, 
giving  him  his  hand  with  an  alfectionateness  that  he 
had  never  before  manifested.  "  Are  you  quite  well  ?" 
he  added,  scrutinizing  his  features  closely  with  the 
question — "  for,  like  myself,  you  seem  to  have  grown 
pale  upon  this September  dulness." 

"  I  am  commonly  less  well  in  this  month  than  in 
any  other,"  said  Pallardos,  "and — now  I  think  of  it — 
I  had  forgotten  that  I  arose  this  morning  with  a 
depression  of  spirits  as  singular  as  it  was  unendurable. 
I  forgot  it,  when  I  received  your  lordship's  note,  in 
the  happiness  the  day  was  to  bring  me." 

The  lovers  exchanged  looks,  unremarked,  appa- 
rently, by  either  Lord  or  Lady  Aymar,  and  the  con- 
versation relapsed  into  the  commonplaces  of  dinner- 
table  civility.  Spiridion  observed  that  the  footmen 
were  excluded,  the  old  butler  alone  serving  them  at 
table  ;  and  that  the  shutters,  of  which  he  got  a  chance 
glimpse  between  the  curtains,  were  carefully  closed. 
Once  or  twice  Pallardos  roused  himself  with  the 
thought  that  he  was  ill  playing  the  part  of  an  agree- 
able guest,  and  proposed  some  question  that  might 
lead  to  discussion  ;  but  the  spirits  of  Lady  Angelica 
seemed  frighted  to  silence,  and  Lord  and  Lady  Aymar 


THE  PHANTOM-HEAD  UPON  THE  TABLE. 


305 


were  wholly  absorbed,  or  were  at  least  unconscious  of 
their  singular  incommuriicativeness. 

Dinner  dragged  on  slowly — Lady  Aymar  retarding 
every  remove  with  terrified  and  flurried  eagerness. 
Pallardos  remarked  that  she  did  not  eat,  but  she  asked 
to  be  helped  again  from  every  dish  before  its  removal,  j 
Hei  fork  rattled  on  the  plate  with  the  trembling  of  her 
hand,  and,  once  or  twice,  an  outbreak  of  hysterical 
tears  was  evidently  prevented  by  a  stern  word  and  look 
from  Lord  Aymar. 

The  butler  leaned  over  to  his  mistress's  ear. 

•♦  No — no — no  !  Not  yet — not  yet !"  she  exclaimed, 
in  a  hurried  voice,  "  one  minute  more  !"  But  the 
clock  at  that  instant  struck  seven,  counted  by  that 
table  company  in  breathless  silence.  Pallardos  felt 
his  heart  sink,  he  knew  not  why. 

Lord  Aymar  spoke  quickly  and  hoarsely. 

"  Turn  the  key,  Williams."' 

Lady  Aymar  screamed  and  covered  her  face  with 
her  hands. 

"Remove  the  cloth!''  he  again  ordered  precipi- 
tately. 

The  butler's  hand  trembled.  He  fumbled  with  the 
corner  of  the  cloth  a  moment,  and  seemed  to  want 
strength  or  courage  to  fulfil  his  office.  With  a  sudden 
effort  Lord  Aymar  seized  and  threw  the  cloth  to  the 
other  end  of  the  apartment. 

"There  !"  cried  he,  starting  to  his  feet,  and  point- 
ing to  the  bare  table,  "there!  there!"  he  repeated, 
seizing  the  hand  of  Lady  Angelica,  as  she  arose  terrifi- 
ed upon  her  feet.  "  See  you  nothing?  Do  you  see 
nothing?'' 

With  a  look,  at  her  father,  of  blank  inquiry — a  look 
of  pity  at  her  mother,  sunk  helpless  upon  the  arm  of 
her  chair — a  look  at  Pallardos,  who  with  open  mouth, 
and  eyes  starling  from  their  sockets,  stood  gazing  upon 
the  table,  heedless  of  all  present — she  answered — 
"Nothing — my  dear  lather  ! — nothing  !" 

He  flung  her  arm  suddenly  from  his  hand. 

"  I  knew  it,"  said  he,  with  angry  emphasis.  "  Take 
her,  shameless  woman  !  Take  your  child,  and  be- 
gone !" 

But  Pallardos  laid  his  hand  upon  the  earl's  arm. 

"  My  lord  !  my  lord  !"  he  said,  in  a  tone  of  fearful 
suppression  of  outcry,  "  can  we  not  remove  this 
hideous  object!  How  it  glares  at  you! — at  me! 
Why  does  it  look  at  me  !  What  is  it,  Lord  Aymar  ? 
What  brings  that  ghastly  head  here  ?  Oh  God  ! 
oh  God!   1  have  seen  it  so  often  !"' 

"  You  1 — you  have  seen  it  ?"  suddenly  asked  Lady 
Aymar  in  a  whisper.  "  Is  there  anything  to  see  ?  Do 
you  see  the  same  dreadful  si«ht,  Spiridion  ?"  Her 
voice  rose  with  the  last  question  to  a  scream. 

Pallardos  did  not  answer.  He  had  forgotten  the 
presence  ol  them  all.  He  struggled  a  moment,  gasp- 
ing and  choking  for  self-control,  and  then,  with  a  sud- 
den movement,  clutched  at  the  bare  table.  His  empty 
hand  slowly  opened,  and  his  strength  sufficed  to  pass 
his  linger  across  the  palm.  He  staggered  backward 
with  an  idiotic  laugh,  and  was  received  in  his  fall  by 
the  trembling  arms  of  Lady  Angelica.  A  motion  ! 
from  Lord  Aymar  conveyed  to  his  faithful  servant  i 
that  the  phantom  was  vanishing  !  The  door  was  flung 
•pen  and  the  household  summoned. 

*•  Count  Pallardos  has  fainted  from  the  heat  of  the 
room,"  said  Lord  Aymar.  "  Place  him  upon  my 
bed!  And — Lady  Aymar! — will  you  step  into  the 
library — I  would  speak  with  you  a  moment !" 

There  was  humility  and   beseechingness  in  the  last 
few  words  of  Lord  Aymar,  which  (ell  strangely  on  the 
ear  of  the  affrighted  and  guilty  woman.     Her  mind 
had   been    too    fearfully    tasked    to    comprehend    the  j 
meaning   of  that   changed    tone,   but,   with  a  vague  ■ 
feeling  of  relief,  she  staggered  through  the  hall,  and  j 
the  door  of  the  library  closed  behind  her. 
20 


CHAPTER  IV. 


A  letter  from  Lord  Aymar  to  Lady  Angelica  will 
put  the  story  forward  a  little  : — 

"  My  dkar  Angklica  :  I  am  happy  to  know  thr.t 
there  are  circumstances  which  will  turn  aside  much 
of  the  poignancy  of  the  communication  I  am  about  to 
make  to  you.  If  I  am  not  mistaken  at  least,  in  be- 
lieving a  mutual  attachment  to  exist  between  your- 
self and  Count  Pallardos,  you  will  at  once  compre- 
hend the  ground  of  my  mental  relief,  and  perhaps,  in 
a  measure,  anticipate  what  I  am  about  to  say. 

"  I  have  never  spoken  to  you  of  the  fearful  in- 
heritance in  the  blood  of  the  Aymars.  This  would 
appear  a  singular  omission  between  two  members  of 
one  family,  but  I  had  strong  reasons  for  my  silence, 
one  of  which  was  your  possible  sympathy  with  your 
mother's  obstinate  incredulity.  Now — since  yester- 
day's appalling  proof — you  can  no  longer  doubt  the 
inheritance  of  the  phantom  head — the  fearful  record  of 
some  nameless  deed  of  guilt,  which  is  doomed  to 
haunt  out  festal  table  as  often  as  the  murderous  day 
shall  come  around  to  a  descendant  of  our  blood. 
Fortunately — mercifully,  I  shall  perhaps  say,  we  are 
not  visited  by  this  dread  avenger  till  the  maturity  of 
manhood  gives  us  the  courage  to  combat  with  its 
horror.  The  Septembers,  since  my  twentieth  year, 
have  brought  it  with  fatal  certainty  to  me.  God  alone 
knows  how  long  I  shall  be  able  to  withstand  the  taint 
it  gives  to  my  thoughts  when  waking,  and  to  the  dreams 
upon  my  haunted  pillow. 

"  You  will  readily  see,  in  what  I  have  said,  another 
reason  for  my  silence  toward  you  on  this  subject.  In 
the  strong  sympathy  and  sensitive  imagination  of  a 
woman,  might  easily  be  bred,  by  too  vivid  picturing, 
a  fancy  which  would  be  as  palpable  almost  as  the 
reality  ;  and  1  wished  you  to  arrive  at  woman's  years 
with  a  belief  that  it  was  but  a  monomaniac  affection  of 
my  own  brain — a  disease  to  pity  but  not  to  share  ! 
You  are  now  twenty.  The  females  of  my  family  have 
invariably  seen  the  phantom  at  seventeen  !  Do  you 
anticipate  the  painful  inference  1  draw  from  the  fact 
that  this  spectre  is  invisible  to  you  ! 

"  No,  Angelica!  you  are  not  my  daughter!  The 
Aymar  blood  does  not  run  in  your  veins,  and  I  know 
not  how  much  it  will  soften  the  knowledge  of  your 
mother's  frailty  to  know,  that  you  are  spared  the  dread 
inheritance  that  would  have  been  yours  with  a  legiti- 
macy of  honor.  I  had  grounds  for  this  belief  at  your 
birth,  but  I  thought  it  due  to  the  hallowed  character 
of  woman  and  wife  to  summon  courage  to  wait  for 
confirmation.  Had  I  acted  out  the  impulse,  then 
almost  uncontrollable  within  me,  I  should  have  piofit- 
ed  by  the  lawless  land  in  which  1  resided  to  add  more 
weight  to  the  errand  of  this  phantom  avenger.  But 
time  and  reason  have  done  their  work  upon  me.  Your 
mother  is  safe  from  open  retribution.  May  God 
pardon  her ! 

"You  will  have  said,  here,  that  since  Count  Pallar- 
dos has  been  revealed  by  the  same  pursuing  Provi- 
dence to  be  my  son,  I  may  well  refrain  from  appear- 
ing as  my  wife's  accuser.  I  have  no  wish  to  profit  by 
the  difference  the  world  makes  between  infidelity  in 
man,  and  infidelity  in  woman;  nor  to  look,  for  an 
apology,  into  the  law  of  nature  upon  which  so  general 
and  undisputed  a  distinction  must  needs  be  founded. 
I  confess  the  justice  of  Heaven's  vengeance  upon  the 
crime — visited  upon  me,  I  fearfully  believe,  in  the 
unconscious  retaliation  which  gave  you  birth.  Yet 
I  can  not,  for  this,  treat  you  as  the  daughter  of  my 
blood. 

"  And  this  brings  me  to  the  object  of  my  letter. 
With  the  care  of  years,  I  have  separated,  from  the 


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entail  of  Aymar,  the  bulk  of  my  fortune.  God  has 
denied  me  a  legitimate  male  heir,  and  I  have  long  ago 
determined,  to  leave,  to  its  natural  conflict  with  cir- 
cumstances, the  character  of  a  child  I  knew  to  be 
mine,  and  to  adopt  its  destiny,  if  it  proved  worthy, 
should  my  fears  as  to  your  own  parentage  be  confirm- 
ed by  the  undeniable  testimony  of  our  spectral  curse. 
Count  Pallardos  is  that  child.  Fate  drew  him  here, 
without  my  interference,  as  the  crisis  of  your  destiny 
turned  against  you.  The  innocent  was  not  to  be 
punished  for  the  guilty,  and  the  inheritance  he  takes 
from  you  goes  back  to  you — with  his  love  in  wedlock  ! 
So,  at  least,  appearances  have  led  me  to  believe,  and 
so  would  seem  to  be  made  apparent  the  kind  provisions 
of  Heaven  against  our  resentful  injustices.  I  must 
confess  that  I  shall  weep  tears  of  joy  if  it  be  so,  for, 
dear  Angelica,  you  have  wound  yourself  around  my 
heart,  nearer  to  its  core  than  the  coil  of  this  serpent 
of  revenge.  1  shall  find  it  to  be  so,  I  am  sadly  sure, 
if  I  prove  incorrect  in  my  suppositions  as  to  your  at- 
tachment. 

"I  have  now  to  submit  to  you,  I  trust  only  as  a 
matter  of  form,  two  offers  for  your  hand — one  from 
Mr.  Townley  Manners,  and  the  other  (conditional, 
however,  with  your  fortune)  from  Lord  Frederick 
Beauchief.  An  annuity  of  five  hundred  a  year  would 
be  all  you  would  receive  for  a  fortune,  and  your 
choice,  of  course,  is  free.     As  the  countess  Pallardos, 


you  would  share  a  very  large  fortune  (my  gifts  to  my 
son,  by  a  transfer  to  be  executed  this  day),  and  to  that 
destiny,  if  need  be,  I  tearfully  urge  you. 

"  Affectionately  yours,  my  dear  Angelica, 

"  Aymar." 

With   one  more  letter,  perhaps,  the  story  will  be 
sufficiently  told. 

"Dear  Count:  You  will  wonder  at  receiving  a 
friendly  note  from  me  after  my  refusal,  two  months 
since,  to  meet  you  over  '  pistols  and  coffee  ;'  but  rep- 
aration may  not  be  too  late,  and  this  is  to  say,  that 
you  have  your  choice  between  two  modes  of  settle- 
ment, viz  : — to  accept  for  your  stable  the  hunter  you 
stole  from  me  (vide  police  report)  and  allow  me  to  take 
a  glass  of  wine  with  you  at  my  own  table  and  bury  the 
hatchet,  or,  to  shoot  at  me  if  you  like,  according  to 
your  original  design.  Manners  and  Beauchief  hope 
you  will  select  the  latter,  as  they  owe  you  a  grudge 
for  the  possession  of  your  incomparable  bride  and  her 
fortune  ;  but  I  trust  you  will  prefer  the  horse,  which 
(if  I  am  rightly  informed)  bore  you  to  the  declaration 
of  love  at  Chasteney.  Reply  to  Crockford's. 
"  Yours  ever  (if  you  like), 

"  POMFRET    DALLINGER. 

"Count  Pallardos." 

Is  the  story  told  ?     I  think  so  ! 


GETTING    TO    WINDWARD. 


CHAPTER  I. 

London  is  an  abominable  place  to  dine.  I  mean, 
of  course,  unless  you  are  free  of  a  club,  invited  out,  or 
pay  a  ridiculous  price  for  a  French  dinner.  The  un- 
known stranger,  adrift  on  the  streets,  with  a  traveller's 
notions  of  the  worth  of  things  to  eat,  is  much  worse 
off,  as  to  his  venture  for  a  meal,  than  he  would  be  in 
the  worst  town  of  the  worst  province  of  France — much 
worse  off  than  he  would  be  in  New  York  or  New  Or- 
leans. There  is  a  "  Very's,"  it  is  true,  and  there  are 
one  or  two  restaurants,  so  called,  in  the  Haymarket; 
but  it  is  true,  notwithstanding,  that  short  of  a  two- 
guinea  dinner  at  the  Clarendon,  or  some  hotel  of  this 
class,  the  next  best  thing  is  a  simple  pointed  steak  with 
potatoes,  at  a  chop-house.  The  admirable  club-sys- 
tem (admirable  for  club-members)  has  absorbed  all  the 
intermediate  degrees  of  eating-houses,  and  the  travel- 
ler's chance  and  solitary  meal  must  be  either  absurdly 
expensive,  or  dismally  furnished  and  attended. 

The  only  real  liberty  one  ever  enjoys  in  a  metropo- 
lis is  the  interval  (longer  or  shorter,  as  one  is  more  or 
less  a  philosopher)  between  his  arrival  and  the  deliv- 
ery of  his  letters  of  introduction.  While  perfectly 
unknown,  dreading  no  rencontre  of  acquaintances,  sub- 
ject to"  no  care  of  dress,  equipage,  or  demeanor,  the 
stranger  feels,  what  he  never  feels  afterward,  a  com- 
plete abandon  to  what  immediately  surrounds  him,  a 
complete  willingness  to  be  amused  in  any  shape  which 
chance  pleases  to  offer,  and,  his  desponding  loneliness 
serving  him  like  the  dark  depths  of  a  well,  he  sees  lights 
invisible  from  the  higher  level  of  amusement. 

Tired  of  my  solitary  meals  in  the  parlor  of  a  hotel 
during  my  first  week  in  London,  I  made  the  round  of 
such  dining-places  as  I  could  inquire  out  at  the  West 
End — of  course,  from  the  reserved  habits  of  the  coun- 
try toward  strangers,   making  no  acquaintnnces,  and 


scarce  once  exchanging  a  glance  with  the  scores  who 
sat  at  the  tables  around  me.  Observation  was  my  only 
amusement,  and  I  felt  afterward  indebted  to  those  si- 
lent studies  of  character  for  more  acquaintance  with 
the  under-crust  of  John  Bull,  than  can  be  gathered 
from  books  or  closer  intercourse.  It  is  foreign  to  my 
present  purpose,  however,  to  tell  why  his  pride  should 
seem  want  of  curiosity,  and  why  his  caution  and  deli- 
cacy should  show  like  insensibility  and  coldness.  I 
am  straying  from  my  story. 

The  covered  promenade  of  the  Burlington  Arcade 
is,  on  rainy  days,  a  great  allure  for  a  small  chop-house 
hard  by,  called  "The  Blue  Posts."  This  is  a  snug 
little  tavern,  with  the  rear  of  its  two  stories  cut  into  a 
single  dining-room,  where  chops,  steaks,  ale,  and  punch, 
may  be  had  in  unusual  perfection.  It  is  frequented 
ordinarily  by  a  class  of  men  peculiar,  I  should  think, 
to  England — taciturn,  methodical  in  their  habits,  and 
highly  respectable  in  their  appearance — men  who  seem 
to  have  no  amusements  and  no  circle  of  friends,  but 
who  come  in  at  six  and  sit  over  their  punch  and  the 
newspapers  till  bed  time,  without  speaking  a  syllable, 
except  to  the  waiter,  and  apparently  turning  a  cold 
shoulder  of  discouragement  to  any  one  in  the  room 
who  may  be  disposed  to  offer  a  passing  remark.  They 
hang  their  hats  daily  on  the  same  peg,  daily  sit  at  the 
same  table  (where  the  chair  is  turned  down  for  them 
by  Villiam,  the  short  waiter),  daily  drink  a  small  pitcher 
of  punch  after  their  half-pint  of  sherry,  and  daily  read, 
from  beginning  to  end,  the  Herald,  Post,  and  Times, 
with  the  variation  of  the  Athenaeum  and  Spectator,  on 
Saturdays  and  Sundays.  I  at  first  hazarded  various 
conjectures  as  to  their  condition  in  life.  They  were 
evidently  unmarried,  and  men  of  easy  though  limited 
means — men  of  no  great  care,  and  no  high  hopes,  and 
in  a  fixed  station;  yet  of  that  degree  of  intelligence 
and  firm  self-respect  which,  in  other  countries  (the 


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307 


United  States,  certainly,  at  least),  would  have  made 
them  sought  for  in  some  more  social  and  higher  sphere 
than  that  with  which  they  seemed  content.  I  after- 
ward obtained  something  of  a  clue  to  the  mystery  of 
the  "Blue  Posts"  society,  by  discovering  two  of  the 
most  respeetable  looking  of  its  customers  in  the  exer- 
cise of  their  daily  vocations.  One.  a  man  of  fine  phre- 
nological development,  rather  bald,  and  altogether  very 
intellectual  in  his  l-os  sublime,"  I  met  at  the  rooms  of 
a  fashionable  friend,  taking  his  measure  for  pantaloons-. 
He  was  the  foreman  of  a  celebrated  Bond-street  tailor. 
The  other  was  the  head-shopman  of  a  famous  haber- 
dasher in  Regent  street ;  and  either  might  have  passed 
for  Godwin  the  novelist,  or  Babbidge  the  calculator — 
with  those  who  had  seen  those  great  intellects  only  in 
their  imaginations.  It  is  only  in  England,  that  men 
who,  like  these,  have  read  or  educated  themselves  far 
above  their  situations  in  life,  would  quietly  submit  to 
the  arbitrary  disqualifications  of  their  pursuits,  and 
agree  unresistingly  to  the  sentence  of  exile  from  the 
society  9uited  to  their  mental  grade.  But  here  again 
I  am  getting  away  from  my  story. 

It  was  the  close  of  a  London  rainy  day.  Weary  of 
pacing  my  solitary  room,  I  sallied  out  as  usual,  to  the 
Burlington  Arcade  (I  say  as  usual,  for  in  a  metropolis 
where  it  rains  nine  days  out  of  ten,  rainy-weather  re- 
sorts become  habitual).  The  little  shops  on  either 
side  were  brightly  lit,  the  rain  pattered  on  the  glass 
roof  overhead,  and  to  one  who  had  not  a  single  ac-  | 
quaintance  in  so  vast  a  city,  even  the  passing  of  the  | 
crowd  and  the  glittering  of  lights  seemed  a  kind  of  I 
society.  I  began  to  speculate  on  the  characters  of 
those  who  passed  and  repassed  me  in  the  turns  of  the  i 
short  »,illery  ;  and  the  dinner-hours  coming  round,  and  i 
the  men  gradually  thinning  off  from  the  crowd,  I  ad- 
journed to  the  Blue  Posts  with  very  much  the  feeling 
of  a  reader  interrupted  in  the  progress  of  a  novel.  One 
of  the  faces  that  had  most  interested  me  was  that  of  a 
foreigner,  who,  with  a  very  dejected  air,  leaned  on  the 
arm  of  an  older  man,  and  seemed  promenading  to  kill 
time,  without  any  hope  of  killing  his  ennui.  On  seat- 
ing myself  at  one  of  the  small  tables,  I  was  agreeably 
surprised  to  find  the  two  foreigners  my  close  neigh- 
bors, and  in  the  national  silence  of  the  company  pres- 
ent, broken  only  by  the  clatter  of  knives  and  forks,  it 
was  impossible  to  avoid  overhearing  every  word  spoken 
by  either.  After  a  look  at  me,  as  if  to  satisfy  them- 
selves that  I,  too,  was  a  John  Bull,  they  went  on  with 
their  conversation  in  French,  which,  so  long  as  it  was 
confined  to  topics  of  drink  and  platter,  weather  and 
news,  I  did  not  care  to  interrupt.  But  with  their 
progress  through  a  second  pint  of  sherry,  personal  top- 
ics came  up,  and  as  they  seemed  to  be  conversing  with 
an  impression  that  their  language  was  not  understood, 
I  felt  obliged  to  remind  them  that  I  was  overhearing 
unwillingly  what  they  probably  meant  for  a  private 
conversation.  With  a  frankness  which  I  scarcely  ex- 
pected, they  at  once  requested  me  to  transfer  my  glass 
to  their  table,  and  calling  for  a  pitcher  of  punch,  they 
extended  their  confidence  by  explaining  to  me  the 
grounds  of  the  remarks  I  had  heard,  and  continuing  to 
converse  freely  on  the  subject.  Through  this  means, 
and  a  subsequent  most  agreeable  acquaintance,  I  pos- 
sessed myself  of  the  circumstances  of  the  following 
story;  and  having  thus  shown  the  reader  (rather  di- 
gressively,  I  must  own)  how  I  came  by  it,  I  proceed 
in  the  third  person,  trusting  that  my  narration  will  not 
now  seem  like  the  "coinage  of  the  brain." 

The  two  gentlemen  dining  at  the  Blue  Posts  on  the 
rainy  day  just  mentioned,  were  Frenchmen,  and  polit- 
ical exiles.  With  the  fortunes  of  the  younger,  this 
story  has  chiefly  to  do.  He  was  a  man  past  the  senti- 
mental age.  perhaps  nearer  thirty-seven  than  thirty- 
five,  less  handsome  than  distinguished  in  his  appear- 
ance, yet  with  one  of  those  variable  faces  which 
are    handsome    for    single    instants    once    in    a    half 


hour,  more  or  less.     His  companion  called  him  Be- 
laccueil. 

"  I  could  come  down  to  my  circumstances,"  he  said 
to  Monsieur  St.  Leger,  his  friend,  "  if  I  knew  now.  It 
is  not  courage  that  is  wanting.  I  would  do  anything 
for  a  livelihood.  But  what  is  the  first  step  ?  What 
is  the  next  step  from  this  ?  This  last  dinner — this  last 
night's  lodging — I  am  at  the  end  of  my  means  ;  and 
unless  I  accept  of  charity  from  you,  which  I  will  not, 
to-morrow  must  begin  my  descent.  Where  to  put  my 
foot  ?" 

He  stopped  and  looked  down  into  his  glass,  with  the 
air  of  a  man  who  only  expects  an  answer  to  refute  its 
reasoning. 

"  My  dear  Belaccueil,"  said  the  other,  after  a  mo- 
ment's hesitation,  "you  were  famous  in  your  better 
days  for  almost  universal  accomplishment.  xMimic, 
dancer,  musician,  cook — what  was  there  in  our  merry 
carnival-time,  to  which  you  did  not  descend  with  suc- 
cess, for  mere  amusement  ?  Why  not  now  for  that 
independence  of  livelihood  to  which  you  adhere  so 
I  pertinaciously  ?" 

"You  will  be  amused  to  find,"  he  answered,  "how 
!  well  I  have  sounded  the  depths  of  every  one  of  these 
\  resources.     The  French  theatre  of  London  has  re- 
fused  me,  point-blank,  all  engagement,  spite  of  the 
most  humiliating  exhibitions  of  my  powers  of  mimicry 
before  the  stage-manager  and  a  fifth-rate  actress.     I 
j  am  not  musician  enough  for  a  professor,  though  very 
I  well  for  an  amateur,   and  have  advertised  in  vain  for 
employment  as  a  teacher  of  music,  and — what  was 
I  your  other  vocation! — cook!     Oh  no  !     I   have  just 
science  enough  to  mend  a  bad  dinner  and  spoil  a  good 
one,  though  I  declare  to  you,  I  would  willingly  don 
i  the  white  cap  and  apron  and  dive  for  life  to  the  base- 
|  ment.     No,  my  friend,  I  have  even  offered  myself  as 
j  assistant   dancing-master,    and    failed  !     Is    not   that 
!  enough  ?     If  it  is  not,  let  me  tell  you,  that  I  would 
j  sweep  the  crossings,  if  my  appearance  would  not  ex- 
I  cite  curiosity,  or  turn  dustman,  if  I  were  strong  enough 
!  for  the  labor.     Come  down  !     Show  me  how  to  come 
!  down,  and  see  whether  I  am  not  prepared   to  do  it. 
But  you  do  not  know  the  difficulty  of  earning  a  penny 
!  in  London.     Do  you  suppose,  with  all  the  influence 
I  and  accomplishments  I  possess,  I  could  get  the  place 
!  of  this  scrubby  waiter  who  brings  us  our  cigars  ?     No, 
j  indeed  !     His  situation  is  a  perfect  castle — impregna- 
I  ble  to  those  below  him.     There  are  hundreds  of  poor 
|  wretches  within  a  mile  of  us  who  would  think  them- 
i  selves  in  paradise  to  get  his  situation.     How  easy  it  is 
for  the  rich  to  say,  'go  and  work!'  and  how  difficult 
to  know  how  and  where  !" 

Belaccueil  looked  at  his  friend  as  if  he  felt  that  he 
had  justified  his  own  despair,  and  expected  no  com- 
fort. 

"Why  not  try  matrimony?"  said  St.  Leger.  "I 
can  provide  you  the  means  for  a  six  months'  siege, 
and  you  have  better  qualification  for  success  than  nine 
tenths  of  the  adventurers  who  have  succeeded." 

"  Why — 1  could  do  even  that — for  with  all  hope  of 
prosperity,  I  have  of  course  given  up  all  idea  of  a  ro- 
mantic love.  But  I  could  not  practise  deceit,  and 
without  pretending  to  some  little  fortune  of  my  own, 
the  chances  are  small.  Besides,  you  remember  my 
ill  luck  at  Naples." 

"Ah,  that  was  a  love  affair,  and  you  were  too  hon- 
est." 

"  Not  for  the  girl,  God  bless  her !     She  would  have 
married  me,  penniless  as  I  was,  but  through  the  inter- 
ference of  that  officious  and  purse-proud  Englishman, 
I  her  friends  put  me  hors  de  combat:' 

"What  was  his  name  ?     Was  he  a  relative  J 
"  \  mere  chance  acquaintance  ol  their  own,  but  he 
entered  at  once  upon  the  office  of  family  adviser.     He 
was  rich,  and  he  had  it  in  his  power  to  call  me  an  ad- 
venturer.    1  did  not  discover  his  interference  till  some 


308 


GETTING  TO  WINDWARD. 


time  after,  or  he  would  perhaps  have  paid  dearly  for 
his  nomenclature." 

"  Who  did  you  say  it  was  ?" 

"  Hitchings  !  Mr.  Plantagenet  Hitchings,  of  Hitch- 
ing Park,  Devonshire — and  the  one  point,  to  which  1 
cling,  of  a  gentleman's  privileges,  is  that  of  calling  him 
to  account,  should  I  ever  meet  him." 

St.  Leger  smiled  and  sat  thoughtfully  silent  for  a 
while.  Belaccueil  pulled  apart  the  stems  of  a  bunch 
of  grapes  on  his  plate,  and  was  silent  with  a  very  dif- 
ferent expression. 

"  You  are  willing,"  said  the  former,  at  last,  "  to  teach 
music  and  dancing,  for  a  proper  compensation." 

"  Parbleu  !     Yes  !" 

"And  if  you  could  unite  this  mode  of  support  with 
a  very  pretty  revenge  upon  Mr.  Plantagenet  Hitch- 
ings (with  whom,  by  the  way,  I  am  very  well  acquaint- 
ed), you  would  not  object  to  the  two-fold  thread  in 
your  destiny  ?" 

"They  would  be  threads  of  gold,  mon  ami/"  said 
the  surprised  Belaccueil. 

St.  Leger  called  for  pen,  ink,  and  paper,  and  wrote 
d  letter  at  the  Blue  Posts,  which  the  reader  will  follow 
to  its  destination,  as  the  next  step  in  thi3  story. 


CHAPTER  II. 

A  grekx  angel  (I  mean  an  angel  ignorant  of  the 
world)  would  probably  suppose  that  the  feeding  of 
these  animal  bodies  of  ours,  if  not  done  in  secret,  must 
at  least  be  the  one  act  of  human  life  separated  entirely 
from  the  more  heavenly  emotions.  Yet  the  dinner  is 
a  meal  dear  to  lovers  ;  and  novelists  and  tale-tellers 
choose  the  moments  stolen  from  fork  and  plate  for  the 
birth  and  interchange  of  the  most  delicious  and  tender 
sentiments  of  our  existence.  Miss  Hitchings,  while 
unconsciously  shocking  Monsieur  Sansou  by  tilting 
Tier  soup-plate  for  the  last  spoonful  of  vermicelli,  was 
controlling  the  beating  of  a  heart  full  of  feminine  and 
delicate  tenderness;  and  as  the  tutor  was  careful  never 
to  direct  his  regards  to  the  other  end  of  the  table  (for 
reasons  of  his  own),  Miss  Henrietta  laid  the  unction 
to  her  soul  that  such  indifference  to  the  prettiest  girl 
who  hud  ever  honored  them  as  a  guest,  proved  the 
strength  of  her  own  magnet,  and  put  her  more  at  ease 
on  the  subject  of  Monsieur  Sansou's  admiration".  He, 
indeed,  was  committing  the  common  fault  of  men 
whose  manners  are  naturally  agreeable — playing  that 
passive  and  grateful  game  of  courtesy  and  attention  so 
easy  to  the  object  of  regard,  and  so  delightful  to  wo- 
man, who  is  never  so  blest  as  in  bestowing.  Besides, 
he  had  an  object  in  suppressing  his  voice  to  the  lowest 
audible  pitch,  and  the  rich  and  deep  tone,  sunk  only  to 
escape  the  ear  of  another,  sounded,  to  the  watchful 
and  desiring  sense  of  her  to  whom  it  was  addressed, 
like  the  very  key-note  and  harmony  of  affection. 

At  a  table  so  surrounded  with  secrets,  conversation 
flagged,  of  course.  Mr.  Hitchings  thought  it  very 
uphill  work  to  entertain  Miss  Hervey,  whose  heart 
and  senses  were  completely  absorbed  in  the  riddle  of 
Belaccueil's  disguise  and  presence;  Mr.  Hervey,  the 
uncle,  found  old  Mrs.  Plantagenet  rather  absent,  for 
the  smitten  dame  had   eyes  for  every  movement  of 

Monsieur  Sansou ;  and  the  tutor  himself,  with  his  re- 
sentment toward  his  host,  and  his  suspicions  of  the 

ove  of  his  daugViter,  his  reviving  passion  for  Miss 
Hervey,  and  his  designs  on  Mrs.  Plantagenet,  had 
enough  to  render  him  as  silent  as  the  latter  could  wish, 

and  as  apparently  insensible  to  the  attraction  of  the 

fair  stranger. 

How  little  we  know  what  is  in  the  bosoms  of  those 

around  us  !     How  natural  it  is,  however,  to  feel  and 

act  as  if  we  knew — to  account  for  all  that  appears  on 

the  surface  by  the  limited  acquaintance  we  have  with 


circumstances  and  feelings — to  resent  an  indifference 
of  which  we  know  not  the  cause — to  approve  or  con- 
demn, without  allowance  for  chagrin,  or  despair,  or 
love,  or  hope,  or  distress — any  of  the  deep  undercur- 
rents for  ever  at  work  in  the  depths  of  human  bosoms. 
The  young  man  at  your  side  at  a  dinner-party  may 
have  a  duel  on  his  hands  for  the  morning,  or  a  disgrace 
imminent  in  credit  or  honor,  or  a  refused  heart  or  an 
accepted  one,  newly  crushed  or  newly  made  happy* 
or  (more  common  still,  and  less  allowed  for)  he  may 
feel  the  first  impression  of  disease,  or  the  consequen- 
ces of  an  indigestion ;  and,  for  his  agreeableness  or 
disagreeableness,  you  try  to  account  by  something  in 
yourself,  some  feeling  toward  yourself — as  if  you  and 
you  only  could  affect  his  spirits  or  give  a  color  to  his 
mood  of  manners.  The  old  man's  thought  of  death. 
the  mother's  overwhelming  interest  in  her  child,  the 
woman's  up-spring  of  emotion  or  love,  are  visiters  to 
the  soul  that  come  unbidden  and  out  of  time,  and  you 
can  neither  feast  nor  mourn,  secure  against  their  in- 
terruption. It  would  explain  many  a  coldness,  could 
we  look  into  the  heart  concealed  from  us.  We  should 
often  pity  when  we  hate,  love  when  we  think  we  can 
not  even  forgive,  admire  where  we  curl  the  lip  with 
scorn  and  indignation.  To  judge  without  reserve  of 
any  human  action  is  a  culpable  temerity,  of  all  our 
sins  the  most  ttnfeeling  and  frequent. 

I  will  deal  frankly  with  you,  dear  reader.     I  have 
arrived  at  a  stage  of  my  story  which,  of  all  the  stages 
of  story-writing,  I  detest  the  most  cordially.     Poets 
I  have  written  about  the  difficulty  of  beginning  a  story 
!  (vide  Byron) — Ca  ne  me  coule  pas  ;  others  of  the  end- 
j  ing.     That  I  do  with  facility,  joy,  and  rejoicing.     But 
the  love  pathos  of  a  story — the  place  where  the  reader 
is  expected  to  sigh,  weep,  or  otherwise  express  his 
emotion — that  is  the  point,  I  confess,  the  most  diffi- 
cult to  write,  and  the  most  unsatisfactory  when  written. 
"  Pourquoy,  Sir  Knight  ?"     Not  because  it  is  difficult 
to  write  love-scenes — according  to  the  received  mode — 
not  that  it  is  difficult  to  please  those  (a  large  majority) 
who  never  truly  loved,  and  whose  ideas,  therefore,  of 
love  and  its  making,  are  transcendentalized  out  of  all 
!  truth  and  nature — not  that  it  would  be  more  labor  to 
j  do  this  than  to  copy  a  circular,  or  write  a  love-letter 
I  for  a  modest  swain  (this  last  my  besetting  occupation) 
— but  because,  just  over  the  inkstand  there  peers  a 
!  face,  sometimes  of  a  man  of  forty,  past  the  nonsense 
of  life,  but  oftener  of  some  friend,  a  woman  who  has 
loved,    and    this   last   more    particularly    knows   that 
true  love  is  never  readable  or  sensible — that  if  its  lan- 
I  guage  be  truly  written,  it  is  never  in  polished  phrase 
[  or  musical  cadence — that  it  is  silly,  but  for  its  con- 
i  cealed  meaning,  embarrassed  and  blind,  but  for  the 
j  interpreting  and  wakeful  heart  of  one  listener — that 
!  love,  in  short,  is  the  god  of  unintelligibility,  mystery, 
and  adorable  nonsense,  and,  of  course,  that  which  1 
i  have  written  (if  readable  and  sensible)  is  out  of  taste 
i  and  out  of  sympathy,  and  none  but  fancy-lovers  and 
enamored  brains  (not  hearts)  will  approve  or  believe  it. 
D'Israeli  the  younger  is  one  of  the  few  men  of  ge- 
nius who,  having  seen  truth  without  a  veil,  dare  to  re- 
veal the  vision  ;  and  he  has  written  Henrietta  Temple 
!  — the  silliest  yet  truest  love-book  of  modern   time. 
|  The  critics   (not  an  amative  race)   have  given  him  a 
benefit  of  the  "besom"  of  ridicule,  but  D'Israeli,  far 
from  being  the  effeminate  intellect  they  would  make 
him,  is  one  of  the  most  original  and  intrepid  men  of 
genius  living,  and  whether  the  theme  be  "wine,  wo- 
man, or  war,"  he  writes  with  fearless  truth,  piquancy, 
and  grace.     Books  on  love,  however,  should  be  read 
i  by  lovers  only,  and  pity  it  is,  that  there  is  not  au  ink 
j  in  chemistry,  invisible  save  to  the  eye  kindled  with  ain- 
I   atory  fire.     But  "to  our  muttons." 

It  was  not  leap-year,  but  Monsieur  Belaccueil,  on 
j  i  the  day  of  the  dinner-party  at  Hitchings  park,  was 
I]  made  aware  (I  will  not  say  by  proposals,  for  ladies  make 


GETTING  TO  WINDWARD. 


309 


known  their  inclinations  in  ways  much  less  formidable) 
—lie  was  made  aware,  I  say,  that  the  hearts  of  three 
of  the  parly  were  within  the  flight  of  his  arrow.  Prob- 
ably his  humble  situation  reversed  the  usual  relative 
position  of  the  sexes  in  the  minds  of  the  dame  and 
damsels — and  certainly  there  is  no  power  woman  exer- 
cises so  willingly  as  a  usurpation  of  the  masculine 
privilege.  I  have  stated  my  objection  to  detail  the 
dialogue  between  Miss  Hitchings  and  her  tutor  at  the 
dinner-table.  To  be  recorded  faithfully,  the  clatter 
of  silver  forks  on  China,  the  gurgle  of  wine,  the  inter- 
ruptions of  the  footmen  with  champagne  and  vegeta- 
bles, should  all  be  literally  interspersed — for  to  all  the 
broken  sentences  (so  pathetic  when  properly  punctu- 
ated— vide  Neal's  novels)  these  were  the  sequels  and 
the  accompaniments:  "  No,  thank  you  !"  and  "If  you 
please,"  and  "  May  I  fill  your  glass  ?" — have  filled  out, 
to  the  perfect  satisfaction  of  the  lady,  many  an  unfin- 
ished sentence  upon  which  depended  the  "whole  des- 
tiny of  her  affections;  and,  as  I  said  before,  the  truth 
is  not  faithfully  rendered  when  these  interstices  are 
unsupplied. 

It  was  dark  when  the  ladies  left  the  dinner-table. 
followed  by  Monsieur  Sanson,  and,  at  the  distance  of 
a  few  feet  from  the  windows  opening  on  the  lawn,  the 
air  was  black  and  impenetrable.  There  were  no  stars 
visible  and  no  moon,  but  the  clouds  which  were  gath- 
ering alter  a  drought,  seemed  to  hush  the  air  With 
their  long  expected  approach,  and  it  was  one  of  those 
soft,  stiJ!,  yet  murky  and  fragrant  nights  when  the 
earth  seems  to  breathe  only — without  light,  sound,  or 
motion.   What  lover  does  not  remember  such  a  night  ? 

Oppressed  with  the  glaring  lights  and  the  company 
of  people  she  cared  nothing  about,  Miss  Hervey 
stepped  out  upon  the  lawn,  and  with  her  face  lifted  as 
if  to  draw  deeper  inhalations  of  the  dew  and  freshness, 
she  strolled  leisurely  over  the  smooth  carpet  of  grass. 
At  a  slight  turn  to  avoid  a  clump  of  shrubbery,  she 
encountered  Belaccueil,  who  was  apologizing  and 
about  to  pass  her,  when  she  called  him  by  his  name, 
and  passing  her  arm  through  his,  led  him  on  to  the 
extremity  of  the  lawn.  A  wire  fence  arrested  their 
progress,  and  leaning  against  it,  Miss  Hervey  inquired 
into  the  cause  of  the  disguise  she  had  penetrated,  and 
softened  and  emboldened  by  the  fragrant  darkness, 
said  all  that  a  woman  might  say  of  tenderness  and  en- 
couragement. Belaccueil's  heart  beat  with  pride  and 
gratified  amour  propre,  but  he  confined  himself  to  the 
expression  of  this  feeling,  and  leaving  the  subject  open, 
took  advantage  of  Mrs.  Plantagenet's  cali  to  Miss 
Hervey  from  the  window,  to  leave  her  and  resume  his 
ramble  through  the  grounds. 

The  supper  tray  had  been  brought  in,  and  the  party 
were  just  taking  their  candles  to  separate,  when  the 
tutor  entered  at  the  glass  door  and  arrested  the  steps 
of  Mrs.  Plantagenet.  She  set  down  her  candle  and 
courtesied  a  good-night  to  the  ladies  (Mr.  Hitchings  had 
gone  to  bed,  for  wine  made  him  sleepy,  and  Mr.  Her- 
vey always  retired  early— where  he  was  bored),  and 
closing  the  windows,  mixed  a  glass  of  negus  for  Mon- 
sieur Sansou  ;  and,  herself  pulling  a  sandwich  to 
pieces,  deliberately,  and  it  must  be  confessed,  some- 
what patronisingly,  invited  the  Frenchman  to  become 
her  lord.  And  after  a  conversation,  which  (la  verite 
avant  (out)  turned  mainly  on  will  and  investments,  the 
window  dame  sailed  blissfully  to  bed,  and  Belaccueil 
wrote  the  following  letter  to  his  friend  and  adviser  : — 

"Mv  dear  St.  Leger:  Enclosed  you  have  the 
on  y  surviving  lock  of  my  grizzled  wig— sign  and  sym- 
bol that  my  disguises  are  over  and  my  object  attained, 
lhe «  wig .burns  at  this  instant  in  the  grate,  item  my 
hand-ruffles,  item  sundry  embroidered  cravats  a  la 
vielle  cour,  Hem  (this  last  not  without  some  trouble  at 
my  heart)  a  solitary  love-token  from  Coustantia  Her- 
vey. One  faded  rose— given  me  at  Paestum,  the  day 
before  1  was  driven  disgraced   from  her  presence  by 


'  the  interference  of  this  insolent  fool— one  faded  rose 
has  crisped  and  faded  into  smoke  with  the  rest.     And 

:  so  fled  from  the  world  the  last  hope  of  a  warm  and 
passionate  heart,  which  never  gave  up  its  destiny  till 
now — never  felt  that  it  was  made  in  vain,  guarded,  re- 
fined, cherished  in  vain,  till  that  long-loved  flower  lay 
in  ashes.  I  am  accustomed  to  strip  emotion  of  its 
drapery — determined  to  feel  nothing  but  what  is  real — 
yet  this  moment,  turn  it  and  stiip  it,  and  deny  its  illu- 
sions as  I  will,  is  anguish.  '  Self-inflicted,'  you  smile 
and  say  ! 

"You  will  marvel  what  stars  will  not  come  into 
conjunction,  when  I  tell  you  that  Miss  Hervey  is  at 
this  moment  under  the  same  roof  with  me  and  my 
affianced  bride,  and  you  will  marvel  what  good  turn  I 
have  done  the  devil,  that  he  should,  in  one  day,  offer 

j  me  my  enemy's  daughter,  »my  enemy's  fortune  (with 
the  drawback  of  an  incumbrance),  and  the  woman  who 

j  I  thought  had   spurned   me.     After  all.  it  is  a  devil's 

;  gift — for  in  choosing  that  to  which  I  am  most  impelled, 
I  crush  hope,  and   inflict   pain,   and  darken  my  own 

|  heart  for  ever.     I   could    not  have  done  this  once. 

;  Manhood  and  poverty  have  embittered  me. 

"  Miss  Hitchings  has  chosen  to  fall  in  love  with  her 
tutor.     She  is  seventeen,  a  sweet  blonde,  with  large, 
suffused  eyes,  tender,  innocent,  and  (without  talent) 
singularly   earnest  and    confiding.     I   could   be  very 
happy  with  such  a  woman,  and  it  would  have  been  a 
very  tolerable  revenge  (failing  the  other)  to  have  stolen 
her  from  her  father.     But  he  would  have  disinherited 
and  forgotten  us,  and  I  have  had  enough  of  poverty, 
and  can  not  afford  to  be  forgotten — by  my  enemy. 
"You  never  saw  Miss  Hervey.     It  is  not  much  to 
i   tell  you  she  is  the  most  beautiful  woman  I  have  met. 
j  If  she  were  not  beautiful,  her  manners  would  win  all 
i   hearts.     If  her  manners  were  less  fascinating,  her  sin- 
gular talents  would  make  her  remarkable.     She  is  not 
:   appreciated,  because  her  beauty  blinds  people  to  her 

i  talents,  and  her  manners  make  them  forget  her  beauty. 
;  She  is  something  in  the  style  of  the  Giorgione  we 
adored  at  Venice — a  transparently  dark  beauty,  with 
unfathomable  eyes  and  lashes  that  sweep  her  cheek; 
her  person  tall  and  full,  and  her  neck  set  on  like  Ze- 
nobia's.  Yet  she  is  not  a  proud  woman — I  think  she 
is  not.  She  is  too  natural  and  true  to  do  anything 
which  looks  like  pride,  save  walk  like  an  empress. 
She  says  everything  rightly — penetrates  instantly  to 
the  core  of  meaning — sings,  dances,  talks,  with  the 
ease,  confidence,  grace,  faithlessness,  with  which  a 
swallow  flies.  Perfection  in  all  things  is  her  nature. 
I  am  jotting  down  her  qualities  now  as  they  are  al- 
lowed by  the  world.  I  will  not  write  of  them  like  a 
lover.  Oh,  my  friend,  with  what  plummet  can  you 
fathom  the  depth  of  my  resentments,  when,  for  them, 
I  forego  possession  of  this  woman  !  She  offered  me, 
two  hours  since,  the  unqualified  control  of  her  desti- 
ny !  She  asked  me  with  tremulous  voice  to  forgive 
her  for  the  wrong  done  me  in  Italy.  She  dropped 
that  faultless  and  superb  head  on  my  bosom,  and  told 
me  that  she  loved  me — and  I  never  answered  !  The 
serpent  in  my  heart  tied  up  my  tongue,  and  with  cold 
thanks  and  fiend-like  resistance  to  the  bliss  of  even 
once  pressing  her  to  my  bosom,  I  left  her.  I  do  not 
know  myself  when  I  remember  that  I  have  done  this. 
I  am  possessed — driven  out — by  some  hard  and  bitter 
spirit  who  neither  acts  nor  speaks  like  me.  Yet  could 
I  not  undo  what  I  have  done. 

"  To-morrow  morning  will  disappear  Monsieur  San- 
sou from  Hitchings  park,  and.  on  the  brief  condition 
of  a  brief  ceremony,  the  law,  the  omnipotent  law,  will 
deliver  into  my  hands  the  lauds,  tenements,  goods, 
chattels,  and  liberty  of  my  enemy — for  even  so  deeply 
has  he  sunk  into  the  open  pocket  of  Mrs.  Plantage- 
net !  She  holds  mortgages  on  all  he  has,  for  money 
advanced,  and  all  that  is  hers  will  be  mine,  without 
reserve.     The  roof  I  have  been  living  in  degradation 


310 


THE  WIFE  BEQUEATHED  AND  RESUMED. 


under,  will  be  to-morrow  my  own.  The  man  who 
called  me  an  adventurer,  who  stood  between  me  and 
my  love,  who  thrust  me  from  my  heaven  without  cause 
or  provocation — the  meddling  fool  who  boasts  that  he 
saved  a  countrywoman  from  a  French  swindler  (he 
has  recurred  to  it  often  in  my  presence),  will  be  to- 
morrow my  dependant,  beggar  for  shelter,  suppli- 
ant for  his  liberty  and  subsistence  !  Do  you  ask  if 
that  outweighs  the  love  of  the  woman  I  have  lost  ? 
Alas  !  yes. 

44  You  are  older,  and  have  less  taste  for  sentiment 
even  than  I.  I  will  not  bore  you  with  my  crowd  of 
new  feelings  in  this  situation.  My  future  wife  is  amia- 
ble and  good.  She  is  also  vain,  unattractive,  and  old. 
I  shall  be  kind  to  her  and  endeavor  that  she  shall  not 
be  disenchanted,  and  if  I  can  make  her  happy,  it  may 
mollify  my  penance  for  the  devil  with  which  I  am  pos- 
sessed. Miss  Hitchings  will  lose  nothing  by  having 
loved  me,  for  she  shall  be  the  heiress  of  my  wealth, 

and  her  father but  I  will   not  soil   my  heart  by 

thinking  of  an  alleviation  to  his  downfall. 

"Farewell,  mon  ami.     Congratulate  and  pily  me. 
"Adolphk  Belaccueil." 


In  one  of  the  most  fashionable  squares  of  London 
lives,  "in  the  season,"  Monsieur  Belaccueil,  one  of 
the  most  hospitable  foreigners  in  that  great  metropo- 
lis.    He  is  a  pensive  and  rather  melancholy-looking 
man  by  day;  but  society,  which  he  seems  to  seek  like 
an   opiate   to   restless   feeling,  changes  him  to  a  gay 
!  man,   the   most  mirth-loving   of  Amphytrions.     His 
i  establishment  is  presided  over  by  his  wife,  who,  as  his 
i  society  is  mostly  French,  preserves  a  respectable  si- 
i  lence,  but  seems  contented  with  her  lot  and  proud  of 
j  her  husband  ;  while   in   Miss  Plantagenet  (ci-devant 
|  Hitchings)  his  guests  find  his  table's  chief  attraction — 
|  one  of  the  prettiest  heiresses  and  most  loveable  girls  in 
I  London.  How  deeply  Monsieur  Belaccueil  still  rejoices 
I  at  his  success  in  "getting  to  windward,"  is  matter  of 
I  problem.     Certainly  there  is  one  chariot  which  passes 
!  him  in  his  solitary  ride  in  the  park,  to  which  he  bows 
with  a  pang  of  unabating  and  miserable  anguish.    And 
if  the  occupant  of  that  plain  chariot  share  at  all  in  bis 
suffering,  she  has  not  the  consolation  to  which  he  flies 
in  society — for  a  more  secluded   and  lonely  woman 
lives  not  in  the  great  solitude  of  London,  than  Con- 
stantia  Hervey. 


THE    WIFE    BEQUEATHED   AND   RESUMED. 


The  following  story  was  told  to  the  writer  by  a  lady 
in  France — told  during  supper  at  a  ball,  and  of  course 
only  partially.  The  interstices  have  been  supplied  in 
writing  it,  and  the  main  thread  of  the  narrative  may 
be  relied  on  as  fact.     The  names  are  fictitious : — 

A  beautiful  girl  of  seventeen,  in  the  convent-parlor 
of  Saint  Agatha.  She  is  dressed  as  a  novice,  and  the 
light  breaks  off  from  the  curve  of  the  raven  hair  put 
away  under  the  close-fitting  cap — breaks  off  almost  in 
sparkles.  For  so  it  may — as  an  artist  knows.  Her 
eyes  are  like  hounds  in  the  leash — fiery  and  eager. 
And  if,  in  those  ever-parted  and  forward-pressing  lips 
there  is  a  possibility  of  languid  repose,  the  proof  of  it 
lies  in  the  future.  They  are  sleepless  and  dreamless, 
as  yet,  with  a  thirst  unnamed  and  irrepressible,  for  the 
passions  of  life.     Her  name  is  Zelie. 

But  we  can  not  make  the  past  into  the  present. 
Change  the  tense — for  Zelie  is  dead  now,  or  we  could 
not  record  her  strange  story. 

There  was  a  ring  at  the  convent  door,  and  presently 
entered  Colonel  Count  Montalembert,  true  to  his  ap- 
pointment. He  had  written  to  the  lady-abbess  to 
request  an  interview  with  the  daughter  of  his  com- 
rade, dead  on  the  frozen  track  of  the  retreat  from 
Moscow.  Flahault  was  to  him,  as  his  right  hand  to 
his  left,  and  as  he  covered  up  the  stiffened  body  with 
snow,  he  had  sworn  to  devote  his  life  to  that  child 
whose  name  was  last  on  the  lips  closed  for  ever.  The 
Count  Montalembert  was  past  fifty,  and  a  constant 
sufferer  from  his  wounds;  and  his  physicians  had 
warned  him  that  death  was  not  far  off.  His  bearing 
was  still  noble  and  soldierly,  however,  and  his  frank 
and  clear  eye  had  lost  little  of  its  lustre. 

"  I  wrote  to  you  the  particulars  of  your  father's 
death,  my  child,"  said  the  colonel,  after  the  abbess 
had  left  them  alone,  at  his  request.  "I  could  not 
dwell  on  it  again  without  more  emotion  than  is  well 
for  me.  I  must  be  brief  even  with  what  I  have  to  say 
to  his  daughter — for  that,  too,  will  move  me  overmuch. 
You  are  very  lovely,  Zelie." 

"  You  are  very  kind  !"  answered  the  novice,  blush- 
ing, and  dropping  her  long  lashes  upon  her  cheek. 


"Very  lovely,  I  say,  and  must  love  and  be  beloved. 
It  is  a  woman's  destiny,  and  your  destiny  more  than 
most  women's." 

The  count  gazed  into  the  deep  eyes  of  his  eager 
listener,  and  seemed  embarrassed  to  know  how  to  pro- 
ceed. 

"  Hear  me  through,"  he  said,  "  before  you  form  an 
!  opinion  of  my  motives.     And  first  answer  me  a  bold 
question.     Have  you  any  attachment — have  you  ever 
seen  a  man  you  could  love  and  marry  ?" 

"  No  !"  murmured  the  blushing  novice,  after  a  mo- 
ment's hesitation. 

"  But  you  are  likely  to  love,  soon  and  rashly,  once 
free  in  the  world — and  that  is  one  evil  against  which 
I  will  make  myself  your  shield.  And  there  is  another 
— which  I  am  only  sorry  that  I  need  your  permission 
and  aid  in  averting." 

Zelie  looked  up  inquiringly. 

"  Poverty — the  grave  of  love — the  palsy  of  the 
heart — the  oblivion  of  beauty  and  grace  !  To  avert 
this  from  you,  I  have  a  sacrifice  to  demand  at  your 
hands." 

Again  the  count  stopped  in  embarrassment  almost 
painful,  and  Mademoiselle  Montalembert  with  diffi- 
culty suppressed  her  impatience. 

"  My  physicians  tell  me,"  he  resumed,  in  a  tone 
lower  and  calmer,  "  that  my  lease  of  life  is  wearing 
rapidly  to  a  close.  A  year  hence  lies  its  utmost  and 
inevitable  limit.  Could  you  live  in  the  world,  without 
love,  for  one  year,  Zelie?" 

"Monsieur  !"  was  her  surprised  exclamation. 

"  Then  listen  to  my  proposal.  I  have  a  fortune 
while  I  live,  large  enough  for  your  most  ambitious 
desires.  But  it  is  left  to  me  with  conditions  which 
forbid  my  conveying  it  through  any  link  save  mar- 
riage, and  to  my  widow  only  for  life.  To  give  it 
you,  I  regret  deeply  for  your  sake  to  say,  I  must  wed 
you.  You  start — do  not  answer  me  now.  I  leave  you 
to  revolve  this  in  your  mind  till  to-morrow.  Remem- 
ber that  I  shall  not  trouble  you  long,  and  that  the 
name  of  Montalembert  is  as  noble  as  your  own,  and 
that  you  require  a  year,  perhaps  more  than  a  year,  to 
recover  from  your  first  dizzy  gaze  upon  the  world.     1 


THE  WIFE  BEQUEATHED  AND  RESUMED. 


311 


shall  put  no  restraint  upon  you.  I  have  no  wish  but 
to  fulfil  mv  duty  to  my  dead  comrade  in  arms,  and  to 
die,  knowing  that  you  will  well  bestow  your  heart 
when  I  am  gone.     Adieu  !" 

The  count  disappeared,  and,  with  her  clasped  hands 
pressed  to  her  forehead,  the  novice  paced  the  convent- 
parlor  until  the  refectory  bell  rang  for  dinner.     *  *  * 

It  was  an  evening  of  June,  in  the  gardens  of  Ver- 
sailles. It  was  an  evening  of  June,  also,  in  the  pest- 
house  of  St.  Lazarus,  and  in  the  cell  of  the  condemned 
felon  in  St.  Pelagic  Time,  even  in  his  holyday  dress, 
visits  indiscriminately — the  levelling  caitiff!  Have  the 
unhappy  any  business  with  June  ? 

But  the  gardens  of  Versailles  were  beginning  to 
illuminate,  and  the  sky  faded,  with  a  glory  more  fes- 
tal than  sunlight,  with  the  radiance  of  a  myriad  of 
glittering  lamps,  embellishing  even  the  trees  and  (low- 
ers beyond  the  meaning  of  nature.  The  work  of  the 
architect  and  the  statuary  at  once  stood  idealized,  and 
draped  in  an  atmosphere  of  fairy-land,  and  the  most 
beautiful  woman  of  the  imperial  court  became  more 
beautiful  as  she  stepped  into  the  glare  of  the  alley  of 
fountains.  And  who  should  that  be — the  fairest  flower 
of  French  nobility — but  the  young  Countess  Monta- 
lembert,  just  blooming  through  the  close  of  her  first 
year  of  wedlock  ! 

The  Count  Montalembert  stepped  with  her  from  the 
shade  of  the  orange-grove,  and,  without  her  arm,  fell 
behind  scarce  perceptibly,  that  he  might  keep  his  eye 
filled  with  the  grace  of  her  motion,  without  seeming 
to  worship  her  before  the  world.  With  every  salient 
flow  of  that  cloud-like  drapery  onward — with  every 
twinkling  step  of  those  feet  of  airy  lightness — the  dark 
eyelashes  beneath  the  soldier's  brow  lifted  and  drooped 
again,  as  if  his  pulse  of  life  and  vision  were  alone 
governed  by  her  swan-like  motion.  The  count  had 
forgotten  that  he  was  to  die.  The  year  allotted  to 
him  by  his  physicians  had  passed,  and,  far  from  falling 
gradually  to  his  doom,  his  figure  had  straightened,  and 
his  step  grown  firm,  and  his  cheek  and  lip  and  eye  had 
brightened  with  returning  health.  He  had  drank  life 
from  love.  The  superb  Zelie  had  proved  grateful  and 
devoted,  and  at  the  chateau  of  Montalembert,  in 
southern  France,  she  had  seemed  content  to  live  with 
him,  and  him  only,  the  most  assiduous  of  nurses  in 
all  her  glorious  beauty.  But  though  this  was  Para- 
dise to  the  count,  his  reason,  not  his  heart,  told  him 
it  was  imprisonment  to  her,  and  he  had  now  been  a 
month  at  the  sumptuous  court  of  Napoleon,  an  at- 
tendant upon  a  wife  who  was  the  star  of  the  time — the 
beloved  of  all  the  court's  gay  beholders. 

As  the  Montalemberts  strolled  toward  the  chateau, 
which  was  now  emitting  floods  of  light  from  its  many 
windows,  a  young  soldier,  with  a  slight  mustache  just 
shading  his  Grecian  lip,  joined  them  from  a  side-path, 
and  claimed  the  hand  of  the  countess  for  a  waltz. 
The  mercurial  music  at  the  same  instant  fled  through 
the  air,  and  under  an  exclamation  at  its  thrilling 
sweetness,  the  countess  concealed  from  her  husband 
an  emotion  which  the  trembling  of  her  slight  hand' 
betrayed  instantly  to  her  partner.  With  a  bow  of  af- 
fected gayety  to  the  count,  she  quickened  her  pace, 
and  in  another  moment  stood  blushing  in  the  dazzling 
ring  of  waltzers,  the  focus  herself  of  all  eyes  open  to 
novelty  and  beauty. 

De  Mornay,  the  countess's  partner,  was  but  an  en- 
sign in  the  imperial  guard.  He  had  but  his  sword. 
Not  likely  to  be  called  handsome,  or  to  be  looked 
upon  as  attractive  or  dangerous  by  any  but  the  most 
penetrating  of  his  own  sex,  he  had  that  philtre,  that 
inexplicable  something,  which  at  once  commended 
him  to  woman.  His  air  was  all  earnest.  The  sup- 
pressed devotion  of  life  and  honor  breathed  in  his 
voice.  He  seemed  ever  hiding  his  heart  with  pain — 
shamed  with  betrayed  adoration— calm  by  the  force  of 
a  respect  that  rebuked  passion.    He  professed  no  gal- 


I  lantries.   He  professed  nothing.  His  eyes  alone,  large, 

[  steadfast,  imploring,  conveyed  language  of  love.  An 
hour  of  that  absorbing  regard — an  apparently  calm, 

!  unimpassioned   hour  of  the  intercourse  common  to 

i  those  newly  met — sufficed  to  awaken  in  the  bosom  of 
the  countess  an  interest  alarming  to  himself,  and  dan- 
gerous to  her  content  as  the  wife  of  another.  Strange 
she  thought  it,  that,  as  the  low  and  deferential  tones 
of  De  Mornay  fell  on  her  ear,  they  seemed  to  expel 

!  from  her  heart  all  she  bad  hitherto  treasured — ambi- 
tion for  the  splendors  of  the  court,  passion  for  admi- 

!  ration,  and  even  her  gratitude  for  her  husband.  A 
hut  in  the  forest,  with  De  Mornay  only,  was  the  Para- 
dise now  most  present  to  the  dreams  and  fancy  of  the 
proud  wife  of  Montalembert. 

As  his  wife  left  him,  the  count  thrust  his  hand  into 
his  breast  with  a  gesture  of  controlled  emotion,  and 
turned  aside,  as  if  to  seek  once  more  the  retired  covert 
he  had  left.  But  his  steps  were  faltering.  At  the 
entrance  of  the  alley  he  turned  again,  and   walking 

,  rapidly  to  the  chateau,  entered  the  saloon  trembling 
to  the  measured  motion  of  the  dancers. 

Waiting  for  an  opportunity  to  float  into  the  giddy 
ring,  De  Mornay  stood  with  his  arm  around  the  waist 

!  of  the  countess.  Montalembert's  face  flushed,  but  he 
stepped  to  a  column  which  supported  the  orchestra, 
and   looked  on  unobserved.     Her  transparent  cheek 

I  was  so  near  to  the  lips  of  her  partner,  that  his  breath 
must  warm  it.     Her  hand  was  pressed — ay,  by  the 

I  bend  of  her  gloved  wrist,   pressed    hard — upon    the 

'  shoulder  of  De  Mornay.  Her  bosom  throbbed  per- 
ceptibly in  its  jewelled  vest.     She  leaned  toward  him 

!  with  a  slight   sway   of  her  symmetrical   waist,    and 

!  away,  like  two  smoke  wreaths  uniting,  away  in  volup- 
tuous harmony  of  movement,  gazing  into  each  other's 
eyes,  murmuring  inaudibly  to  the  crowd — lips,  cheeks, 
and  eyes,  in  passionate  neighborhood — away  floated 
the  wife  and  friend  of  Montalembert  in  the  authorized 

I  commerce  of  the  gay  world.  Their  feet  chased  each 
other,  advancing,  retreating,  amid  the  velvet  folds  of 

i  her  dress.  Her  waist  was  drawn  close  to  his  side  in 
the  more  exciting  passages  of  the  music.  Her  luxu- 
riant tresses  floated  from  her  temples  to  his.  She 
curved  her  swan-like  neck  backward,  and,  with  a  look 
of  pleasure,  which  was  not  a  smile,  gave  herself  up  to 
the  thrilling  wedlock  of  music  and  motion,  her  eyes 
half-drooped  and  bathed  in  the  eager  gaze  of  De 
Mornay's.  Montalembert's  face  was  pallid  and  his 
eye  on  fire.  The  cold  sweat  stood  on  his  forehead. 
He  felt  wronged,  though  the  world  saw  all.  With  his 
concealed  hand  he  clenched  his  breast  till  he  drew 
blood.  There  was  a  pause  in  the  music,  and  with  a 
sudden  agony  at  the  thought  of  receiving  his  wife 
again  from  the  hands  of  De  Mornay,  Montalembert 
fled  on  to  the  open  air. 
An  hour  elapsed. 

"I  ask  a  Heaven  for  myself,  it  is  true,  but  not  much 
for  you  to  give  !"  said  a  voice  approaching  through 
the  shadowy  alley  of  the  garden. 

The  count  lay  on  the  ground  with  his  forehead 
pressed  to  the  marble  pedestal  of  a  statue,  and  he 
heard,  with  the  voice,  the  rustling  of  a  female  dress, 
and  the  rattling  of  a  sabre-chain  and  spurs. 

"  But  one  ringlet,  sacred  to  me,"  continued  the 
voice,  in  a  tone  almost  feminine  with  its  pleading  ear- 
nestness; "not  given  to  me,  no,  no! — that  were  a 
child's  desire  ! — but  mine,  though  still  playing  on  this 
ivory  shoulder,  and  still  lying  neatly  beneath  that  vein- 
ed temple — mine  with  your  knowledge  only,  and 
caressed  and  cared  for,  morn  and  night,  with  the 
thought  that  it  is  mine  !  Oh,  Zelie !  there  is  no 
wrong  to  Montalembert  in  this  !  Keep  it  from  his 
touch!  Let  him  not  breathe  upon  it!  Let  not  the 
wind  blow  that  one  ringlet  toward  him!  And  when  it 
kisses  your  cheek,  and  plays  with  the  envied  breeze 
upon  your  bosom — think — think  of  the  soul  of  Do 


312 


THE  WIFE  BEQUEATHED  AND  RESUMED. 


Mornay,   bound   in  it  !     Oh,  God  !    why  am   I  made 
capable  of  love  like  this  !" 

There  was  no  reply,  and  long  ere  Montalembert 
had  recovered  from  Lis  amazement  at  these  daring 
words,  the  sound  of  their  footsteps  had  died  away. 

Pass  two  years.  It  is  enough  to  wait  on  Time  in 
the  Present.  In  the  Past  and  Future,  the  graybeard, 
like  other  ministers  out  of  place,  must  do  without 
usher  and  secretary. 

It  was  a  summer's  noon  on  the  Quai  D'Orsay,  of 
Paris.     The   liveried   lacqueys  of  the  princely  hotels  j 
were  lounging   by  the  heavy  gateways  of  stone,   or 
leaning   over   the  massy   parapet  of  the   river.     And,  j 
true  to  his  wont,  the  old  soldier  came  with  the  noon,  j 
creeping  from  the  "  Invalides,"  to  take  his  seat  under 
the  carved  lion  of  the  Montalemberts.    He  had  served  \ 
under  the  late   count,  and  the   memory  of  his  house  j 
was  dear  to  the  old  veteran.  The  sabre-cut  which  had 
disfigured  his  face,  was  received,  he  said,  while  fight-  < 
ing  between  Montalembert  and  Flahault,  and  to  see  | 
the   daughter  of  the  one,    and   the  gay  heir  of  the  j 
other's  wife  and  fortune,  he  made  a  daily  pilgrimage  I 
to  the  Quai,  and  sat  in  the  sun  till  the  countess  drove  \ 
out  in  her  chariot. 

By  the  will  of  the  first  husband  of  Zelie  de  Fla- 
hault, the  young  De  Mornay,  to  become  her  husband  j 
and  share  her  fortune,  was  compelled  to  take  the  , 
name  and  title  of  Count  Montalembert,  subject  to  the  ; 
imperial  accord.  Napoleon  had  given  the  rank  un-  j 
willingly,  and  as  a  mark  of  respect  to  the  last  will  of  i 
a  brave  man  who  had  embellished  the  title — for  the 
eagle-eye  of  the  Corsican  read  the  soul  of  De  Mor-  | 
nay  like  an  illuminated  book,  and  knew  the  use  he  j 
would  make  of  fortune  and   power. 

In  the  quadrangle  of  the  hotel  Montalembert,  there  ; 
were  two   cnrriage-Iandings,  or  two  persons,  and  the  j 
apartments   were  separated  into  two  entirely  distinct 
establishments.     In  one  suite  the  young  count  chose 
to  live  at  his  pleasure,  en  garcon,  and  in  the  other  the    I 
mixed  hospitalities  of  the  house  were  given,  and  the   j 
coLintess  was  there,  and  there  only,  at  home.     At  this   | 
moment  the  court  was  ringing  with  the  merry  laugh- 
ter of  the  count's  convives,  for  he  had  a  bachelor  party  J 
to  breakfast,  and   the  wine  seemed,  even  at  that  early 
hour  of  the  day,  to  have  taken  the  ascendant.     The  i 
carriages  of  the   bacchanalians   lined  one  side  of  the 
court,  and   the  modest  chariot  of  the  countess  stood 
along)  at  the   door  on  the  other;  for  it  was  near  the  j 
hour  for  promenade  in  th^  Champs  Elysees. 

It  was  an  hour  after  noon  when  the  countess  de- 
scended.    She  came  slowly,  drawing  on  her  glove, 
and  the  old  soldier  at  the  gate  rose  quickly  to  his  feet, 
and  leaned  forward  to  gaze  on  her.    She  had  changed 
since  the  death  of  her  father's  friend — the  brave  Mon- 
talembert, to  whom  she  owed  her  fortune.     But  she 
was  still  eminently  beautiful.    Thought,  perhaps  sad- 
ness, had  dimmed  to  a  sweet   melancholy  the  bright  j 
sparkle   of  her   glance,    and   her   mouth,    no   longer  [ 
fiercely  spirited,  was   firm   but  gentle.     Her  curtains  I 
of  sable   lashes   moved   languidly  over  her  drooping  j 
eye.     She  looked  like  one  who  was  subdued  in  her  | 
hopes,  not  in  her  courage,  and  like  one  who  had  shut 
the  door  of  her  heart  upon  its  unextinguishable  fires 
to  let  them  burn  on,  but  in  secret.     She  was  dressed 
more   proudly  than   gayly,  and  she  wore  upon  her 
breast  one  memorial  of  her  first  husband — his  own 
black  cross  that  he  had  worn  in  battle,  and  in  the  few 
happy  days  of  his  wedlock,  and  which  he  had  sent  her 
from  his  death-bed. 

At  the  moment  the  countess  stepped  from  her 
threshold,  the  door  on  the  opposite  side  of  the  quad- 
rangle was  thrown  open,  and,  with  a  boisterous  laugh. 
the  count  sprang  into  his  phaeton,  calling  to  one  of 
his  party  to  follow  him.  His  companion  shrank  back 
on  seeing  the  countess,  and  in  that  moment's  delay 
the  door  of  the  carriage  was  closed  and  the  coachman 


ordered  to  drive  on.  The  count's  whip  had  waved 
over  his  spirited  horses,  however,  and  as  they  stood 
rearing  and  threatening  to  escape  from  their  excited 
master,  his  friend  sprang  to  his  side,  the  reins  were 
suddenly  loosed,  and  with  a  plunge  which  threatened 
to  tear  the  harness  from  their  backs,  they  leaped  for- 
ward. In  the  next  moment,  the  horses  of  both  vehicles 
were  drawn  upon  their  haunches,  half  locked  together 
in  the  narrow  gateway,  and  with  a  blow  from  the  crutch 
of  the  old  veteran  who  rushed  from  the  porter's  lodge, 
the  phaeton  was  driven  back  against  the  wall,  the  pole 
broken,  and  the  count  and  his  friend  precipitated  upon 
the  pavement.  The  liberated  horses  flew  wildly 
through  the  gate,  and  then  followed  a  stillness  like 
that  of  midnight  in  the  court — for  on  the  pavement, 
betrayed  by  her  profusion  of  fair  locks,  loosened  by 
the  fall,  lay  a  woman  in  man's  attire,  the  dissolute 
companion  of  the  count,  in  his  daylight  revel.  Un- 
injured himself,  the  count  stood  a  moment,  abashed 
and  motionless,  but  the  old  soldier,  with  folded  arms 
and  the  remnant  of  his  broken  crutch  in  his  hand, 
looked  sternly  on  the  scene,  and  as  the  servants  start- 
ed from  their  stupor  to  raise  the  insensible  woman, 
the  countess,  reading  her  husband's  impulse  in  his 
looks,  sprang  from  the  open  door  of  the  chariot,  and 
interposed  between  him  and  his  intended  victim. 
With  the  high-born  grace  of  noble,  the  soldierly  in- 
valid accepted  her  protection,  and  followed  her  to  her 
chariot ;  and,  ordered  to  drive  to  the  Hospital  of  the 
Invalides,  the  coachman  once  more  turned  slowly  to 
the  gateway. 

The  night  following,  at  the  opera.  Paris  was  on 
the  qui  vive  of  expectation,  for  a  new  prima  donna 
was  to  make  her  debut  before  the  emperor. 

Paris  was  also  on  the  qui  vive  for  the  upshot  of  a 
certain  matter  of  scandal.  The  eclair  cissement  at  the 
hotel  Montalembert  had  been  followed,  it  is  said,  by 
open  war  between  the  count  and  countess  ;  and,  de- 
termined to  carry  out  his  defiance,  the  dissolute  hus- 
band had  declared  to  his  associates  that  he  would 
produce  at  the  opera,  in  a  box  opposite  to  his  wife, 
the  same  person  whose  appearance  she  had  resented, 
and  in  the  same  attire.  It  was  presumed,  by  the 
graver  courtiers  who  had  heard  this,  that  the  actors  iu 
this  brutal  scene,  if  it  should  be  carried  out,  would  be 
immediately  arrested  by  the  imperial  guard. 

The  overture  commenced  to  a  crowded  house,  and 
before  it  was  half  played,  the  presence  of  the  count 
and  his  companion,  in  a  conspicuous  box  on  the  left 
of  the  circle,  drew  the  attention  of  every  eye.  The 
Montalemberts  were  the  one  subject  of  conversation. 
The  sudden  disappearance  of  the  old  count,  his  death 
in  a  distant  province,  his  will  relative  to  his  widow  and 
De  Mornay — all  the  particulars  of  that  curious  inher- 
itance of  wife  and  fortune,  by  written  testament — were 
passed  from  lip  to  lip. 

There  was  a  pause  at  the  close  of  the  overture. 
The  house  was  silent,  occupied  partly  in  looking  at 
the  audacious  count  and  his  companion,  partly  in 
watching  for  the  entrance  of  the  injured  countess. 

A  sudden  light  illuminated  the  empty  box,  shed 
from  the  lobby  lamps  upon  the  curtains  at  the  open- 
ing of  the  door,  and  the  Countess  Montalembert  en- 
tered, with  every  eye  in  that  vast  assembly  bent 
anxiously  upon  her.  But  how  radiantly  beautiful, 
and  how  strangely  dressed  !  Her  toilet  was  that  of 
a  bride.  Orange-flowers  were  woven  into  her  long 
raven  tresses,  and  her  robe  of  spotless  white  was  fold- 
ed across  her  bust  with  the  simplicity  of  girlhood.  A 
white  rose-bud  breathed  on  her  bosom,  and  bracelets 
of  pearls  encircled  her  wrists  of  alabaster.  And  her 
smile,  as  she  took  her  seat  and  looked  around  upon 
her  friends — oh!  that  was  bridal  too! — unlike  any 
look  known  lately  upon  her  face — joyous,  radiant, 
blissful,  as  the  first  hour  of  acknowledged  love.  Nev- 
er  had    Zelie  de  Flahault   looked  so  triumphantly 


A  REVELATION  OF  A  PREVIOUS  LIFE. 


313 


beautiful.  The  opera-glnsses  from  every  corner  of  the 
hoiise  remained  fixed  upon  her.  A  murmur  arose 
gradually,  a  murmur  of  admiration  succeeding  the 
silent  wonder  of  her  first  entrance;  and  but  for  the 
sudden  burst  of  music  from  the  orchestra,  heralding 
the  approach  of  the  emperor,  it  would  have  risen  into 
a  shout  of  spontaneous  homage. 

The  emperor  came  in. 

But  who  is  there  ! — at  the  right  hand  of  Napoleon 
— smiled  upon  by  the  emperor,  as  the  emperor  seldom 
smiled,  decorated  with  the  noblest  orders  of  France — 
a  star  on  his  breast? — Motalkmbert! 

"Montalembert!  Montalembert !"  resounded  from 
a  thousand  voices. 

Was  he  risen  from  the  dead?  Was  this  an  appa- 
rition— t he  indignant  apparition  of  the  first  husband — 
risen  to  rebuke  the  unmanly  brutality  of  the  second  ? 
Would  the  countess  start  at  the  si^ht  of  him  ? 

Look  !  she  turns  to  the  illuminated  box  of  the  em- 
peror I  She  smiles — with  a  radiant  blush  of  joy  and 
happiness   she   smiles — she  -lifts   that   ungloved   and 


nnjewelled  hand,  decorated  only  with  a  plain  gold 
ring,  and  waves  it  to  the  waved"  hand  of  Montalem- 
bert ! — the  brave,  true,  romantic  Montalembert.  For, 
with  the  quickness  of  French  divination,  the  whole 
story  is  understood  by  the  audience.  And  there  is 
not  a  brain  so  dull  as  not  to  know,  that  the  audacious 
invalid  veteran  was  the  disguised  count,  watching  over 
the  happiness  of  her  whose  destiny  of  love  he  had  too 
rashly  undertaken  to  make  cloudless — make  cloudless 
at  the  expense  of  a  crushed  heart,  and  a  usurped  hearth, 
and  asecretdeath  and  burial,  if  so  much  were  necessary. 
But  he  is  a  happy  bridegroom  now.  And  Adolphe 
de  Mornay  is  once  more  an  untitled  ensign — plucked 

j   for  ever  from  the  chaste  heart  and  bosom  of  the  de- 
voted wife  of  Montalembert. 

And  Montalembert  himself — whose  springs  of  life 

I  were  fed  only  by  love — died  when  that  fountain  of  love 

was   broken;  for  his   wife  died   in  childbed  one  year 

after  his  return  to  her,  and  he  followed  her  in  one  day. 

j  Never  man  was  more  loved  than  he.     Surely  never 

,  "man  more  deserved  it. 


A  REVELATION  OF   A   PREVIOUS   LIFE, 


1  Our  birth  is  but  a  sleep  and  a  forgetting, 

The  sou!  that  rises  in  us,  our  life's  star, 
Has  had  elsewhere  its  settine. 

And  cometh  from  afar."— Wordsworth. 


The  death  of  a  lady,  in  a  foreign  land,  leaves  me  at 
liberty  to  narrate  the  circumstances  which  follow. 

A  few  words  of  previous  explanation,  however. 

I  am  inclined  to  believe,  from  conversations  on  the 
subject  with  many  sensible  persons,  that  there  are  few 
men  who  have  not  had,  at  different  intervals  in  their 
lives,  sudden  emotions,  currents  of  thought,  affections 
of  mind  and  body,  which,  not  only  were  wholly  dis- 
connected with  the  course  of  life  thus  interrupted,  but 
seemed  to  belong  to  a  wholly  different  being. 

Perhaps  I  shall  somewhere  touch  the  reader's  expe- 
rience by  describing  rather  minutely,  and  in  the  first 
person,  some  sensations  of  this  kind  not  unusual  to 
myself. 

Walking  in  a  crowded  street,  for  example,  in  perfect 
health,  with  every  faculty  gayly  alive,  I  suddenly  lose 
the  sense   of    neighborhood.      I   see — I   hear — but   I 
feel  as  if  I  had  become  invisible  where  I  stand,  and 
was,  at  the  same  time,  present  and  visible  elsewhere. 
I  know  everything  that  passes  around  me,  but  I  seem 
disconnected    and    (magnetically   speaking)    unlinked 
from  the  human  beings  near.     Jf  spoken  to  at  such  a  j 
moment,  I  answer  with  difficulty.     The  person  who 
speaks  seems  addressing  me  from  a  world  to  which  I  I 
no  longer  belong.     At  the  same  time,  I  have  an  irre-H 
sistible  inner  consciousness  of  being  present  in  another  ' 
scene  of  every-day  life — where  there  are  streets,  and 
bouses,  and  people — where  I  am  looked  on  without 
surprise   as   a   familiar  object — where   I    have   cares,  i; 
fears,  objects  to  attain — a  different  scene  altogether, 
and  a  different  life,  from  the  scene  and  life  of  which  I 
was  a  moment  before  conscious.     I  have  a  dull  ache 
at  the  back  of  my  eyes  for  the  minute  or  two  that  this 
trance  lasts,   and   then,   slowly   and   reluctantly,    my, 
absent  soul  seems  creeping  back,  the  magnetic  links 
of  conscious  neighborhood,  one  by  one,  re-attach,  and 
I  resume  my  ordinary  life,  but  with  an  irrepressible 
feeling  of  sadness. 

It  is  in  vain  that  I  try  to  fix  these  shadows  as  they  \ 
recede.  I  have  struggled  a  thousand  times  in  vain  to  j 
particularize  and  note  down  what  I  saw  in  the  strange  | 


I  city  to  which  I  was  translated.     The  memory  glides 
from  my  grasp  with  preternatural  evasiveness. 

In  a  book  called  "  The  Man  of  Two  Lives,"  similar 
sensations  to  these  are   made  the   basis  of  the  story. 
j  Indeed,  till  I  saw  that  book,  the  fear  of  having  my 
;  sanity  suspected  sealed  my  lips  on  the  subject. 

1  have  still  a  reserve  in  my  confession.  I  have 
I  been  conscious,  since  boyhood,  of  a  mental  peculiarity 
j  which  I  fear  to  name  while  I  doubt  that  it  is  possessed 
by  others  than  myself — which  I  should  not  allude  to 
now,  but  that  it  forms  a  strange  link  of  identity 
betweeu  me  and  another  being  to  be  mentioned  in  this 
story. 

]  may  say,  also,  without  attaching  any  importance 
to  it,  except  as  it  bears  upon  this  same  identity,  that, 
of  those  things  which  I  have  no  occasion  to  be  taught, 
or  which  I  did,  as  the  common  phrase  is,  by  intuition, 
drawing  was  the  easiest  and  most  passionately  followed 
of  my  boyish  pursuits. 

With  these  preliminaries,  and  probably  some  simi- 
lar experience  of  his  own,  the  reader  may  happily  form 
a  woof  ou  which  to  embroider  the  following  circum- 
stances. 

Travelling  through  Styria,  some  years  since,  I 
chanced  to  have,  for  a  fellow-occupant  of  the  coupe 
of  a  diligence,  a  very  courteous  and  well-bred  person,  a 
gentleman  of  Gratz.  As  we  rolled  slowly  along  on  the 
banks  of  the  Muer,  approaching  his  native  town,  he 
very  kindly  invited  me  to  remain  with  him  a  day  or 
two,  offering  me,  as  an  inducement,  a  presentation  at 
the  soiree  of  a  certain  lady  of  consequence,  who  was 
to  receive,  on  the  night  of  our  arrival,  and  at  whose 
house  I  should  see  some  fair  specimens  of  the  beauty 
of  Styria. 

Accepted. 

It  was  a  lovely  summer's  night,  when  we  strolled 
through  the  principal  street  toward  our  gay  destina- 
tion, and  as  1  drew  upon  my  friend's  arm  to  stop  him 
while  the  military  band  of  the  fortress  finished  a  deli- 
cious waltz  (they  were  playing  in  the  public  square), 
he  pointed  out  to  me  the  spacious  balconies  of  the 


314 


A  REVELATION  OF  A  PREVIOUS  LIFE. 


countess's  palace,  whither  we  were  going,  crowded 
with  the  well-dressed  company,  listening  silently  to 
the  same  enchanting  music.  We  entered,  and  after 
an  interchange  of  compliments  with  the  hostess,  I 
availed  myself  of  my  friend's  second  introduction  to 
take  a  stand  in  one  of  the  balconies  beside  the  person  I 
was  presented  to,  and  under  cover  of  her  favor,  to  hear 
out  the  unfinished  music  of  the  band. 

As  the  evening  darkened,  the  lights  gleamed  out 
from  the  illuminated  rooms  more  brightly,  and  most 
of  the  guests  deserted  the  balconies  and  joined  the 
gayer  circles  within.  The  music  ceased  at  the  beat 
of  the  drum.  My  companion  in  the  balcony  was  a 
very  quiet  young  lady,  and,  like  myself,  she  seemed 
subdued  by  the  sweet  harmonies  we  had  listened  to, 
and  willing  to  remain  without  the  shadow  of  the  cur- 
tain. We  were  not  alone  there,  however.  A  tall 
lady,  of  very  stately  presence,  and  with  the  remains  of 
remarkable  beauty,  stood  on  the  opposite  side  of  the 
balcony,  and  she,  too,  seemed  to  shrink  from  the  glare 
within,  and  cling  to  the  dewy  darkness  of  the  summer 
night. 

After  the  cessation  of  the  music,  there  was  no 
longer  an  excuse  for  intermittent  conversation,  and, 
starting  a  subject  which  afforded  rather  freer  scope,  I 
did  my  best  to  credit  my  friend's  flattering  introduc- 
tion. I  had  discoursed  away  for  half  an  hour  very 
unreservedly,  before  I  discovered  that,  with  her  hand 
upon  her  side,  in  an  attitude  of  repressed  emotion,  the 
tall  lady  was  earnestly  listening  to  me.  A  third  person 
embarrasses  even  the  most  indifferent  dialogue.  The 
conversation  languished,  and  my  companion  rose  and 
took  my  arm  for  a  promenade  through  the  rooms. 

Later  in  the  evening,  my  friend  came  in  search  of 
me  to  the  supper-room. 

"  Mon  ami .'"  he  said,  "  a  great  honor  has  fallen  out 
of  the  sky  for  you.  I  am  sent  to  bring  you  to  the 
beau   reste   of   the   handsomest  woman   of    Styria — 

Margaret,  Baroness  R ,  whose  chateau  I  pointed 

out  to  you  in  the  gold  light  of  yesterday's  sunset. 
She  wishes  to  know  you — why  I  can  not  wholly  divine — 
for  it  is  the  first  sign  of  ordinary  feeling  that  she  has 
given  in  twenty  years.  But  she  seems  agitated,  and 
sits  alone  in  the  countess's  boudoir.     Allons-y .'" 

As  we  made  our  way  through  the  crowd,  he  hastily 
sketched  me  an  outline  of  the  lady's  history  :  "At 
seventeen  taken  from  a  convent  for  a  forced  marriage 
with  the  baron  whose  name  she  bears  ;  at  eighteen  a 
widow,  and,  for  the  first  time,  in  love — the  subject  of 
her  passion  a  young  artist  of  Vienna  on  his  way  to 
Italy.  The  artist  died  at  her  chateau — they  were  to 
have  been  married — she  has  ever  since  worn  weeds 
for  him.  And  the  remainder  you  must  imagine — for 
here  we  are!" 

The  baroness  leaned  with  her  elbow  upon  a  small 
table  of  or  molu,  and  her  position  was  so  taken  that  I 
seated  myself  necessarily  in  a  strong  light,  while  her 
features  were  in  shadow.  Still,  the  light  was  suffi- 
cient to  show  me  the  expression  of  her  countenance. 
She  was  a  woman  apparently  about  forty-five,  of  noble 
physiognomy,  and  a  peculiar  fulness  of  the  eyelid — 
something  like  to  which  I  thought  I  remembered  to 
have  seen  in  a  portrait  of  a  young  girl,  many  years 
before.     The  resemblance  troubled  me  somewhat. 

"  You  will  pardon  me  this  freedom,"  said  the  bar- 
oness with  forced  composure,  "  when  I  tell  you 
that — a  friend — whom  I  have  mourned  twenty-five 
years — seems  present  to  me  when  you  speak." 

I  was  silent,  for  I  knew  not  what  to  say.  The  bar- 
oness shaded  her  eyes  with  her  hand,  and  sat  silent 
for  a  few  moments,  gazing  at  me. 

"  You  are  not  like  him  in  a  single  feature,"  she 
resumed,  "  yet  the  expression  of  your  face,  strangely, 
very  strangely,  is  the  same.  .  He  was  darker — 
slighter" — 

"  Of  my  age  V  1  inquired,  to  break  my  own  silence. 


For  there  was  something  in  her  voice  which  gave  me 
the  sensation  of  a  voice  heard  in  a  dream. 

"  Oh  God  !  that  voice  !  that  voice  !"  she  exclaimed 
wildly,  burying  her  face  in  her  hands,  and  giving  way 
to  a  passionate  burst  of  tears. 

"  Rodolph,"  she  resumed,  recovering  herself  with 
a  strong  effort,  "  Rodolph  died  with  the  promise  on 
his  lips  that  death  should  not  divide  us.  And  I  have 
seen  him  !  Not  in  dreams — not  in  revery — not  at 
times  when  my  fancy  could  delude  me.  I  have  seen 
him  suddenly  before  me  in  the  street — in  Vienna— 
here — at  home  at  noonday — for  minutes  together, 
gazing  on  me.  It  is  more  in  latter  years  that  I  have 
been  visited  by  him  ;  and  a  hope  has  latterly  sprung 
into  being  in  my  heart — I  know  not  how — that  in 
person,  palpable  and  breathing,  I  should  again  hold 
converse  with  him — fold  him  living  to  my  bosom. 
Pardon  me !     You  will  think  me  mad  !" 

I  might  well  pardon  her ;  for,  as  she  talked,  a  vague 
sense  of  familiarity  with  her  voice,  a  memory,  pow- 
erful, though  indistinct,*  of  having  before  dwelt  on 
those  majestic  features,  an  impulse  of  tearful  passion- 
ateness  to  rush  to  her  embrace,  well  nigh  overpowered 
me.     She  turned  to  me  again. 

"  You  are  an  artist  ?"  she  said,  inquiringly. 

"  No  ;  though  intended  for  one,  I  believe,  by  na- 
ture." 

"And  you  were  born  in  the  year ." 

"  I  was  !" 

With  a  scream  she  added  the  day  of  my  birth,  and 
waiting  an  instant  for  my  assent,  dropped  to  the  floor 
and  clung  convulsively  and  weeping  to  my  knees. 

"  Rodolph  !  Rodolph  !"  she  murmured  faintly,  as 
her  long  gray  tresses  fell  over  her  shoulders,  and  her 
head  dropped  insensible  upon  her  breast. 

Her  cry  had  been  heard,  and  several  persons  entered 
the  room.  I  rushed  out  of  doors.  I  had  need  to  be 
in  darkness  and  alone. 

It  was  an  hour  after  midnight  when  I  re-entered  my 
hotel.  A  chasseur  stood  sentry  at  the  door  of  my 
apartment  with  a  letter  in  his  hand.  He  called  me  by 
name,  gave  me  his  missive,  and  disappeared.  It  was 
from  the  baroness,  and  ran  thus : — 

"  You  did  not  retire  from  me  to  sleep.  This  letter 
will  find  you  waking.  And  I  must  write,  for  my  heart 
and  brain  are  overflowing. 

"  Shall  I  write  to  you  as  a  stranger  ? — you  whom  I 
have  strained  so  often  to  my  bosom — you  whom  I  have 
loved  and  still  love  with  the  utmost  idolatry  of  mortal 
passion — you  who  have  once  given  me  the  soul  that, 
like  a  gem  long  lost,  is  found  again,  but  in  a  newer 
casket !  Mine  still — for  did  we  not  swear  to  love 
for  ever ! 

"  But  I  am  taking  counsel  of  my  own  heart  only. 
You  may  still  be  unconvinced.  You  may  think  that 
a  few  singular  coincidences  have  driven  me  mad. 
You  may  think  that,  though  born  in  the  same  hour 
that  my  Rodolph  died,  possessing  the  same  voice,  the 
same  countenance,  the  same  gifts — though  by  irresist- 
ible consciousness  I  knmv  you  to  be  him — my  lost 
lover  returned  in  another  body  to  life — you  may  still 
think  the  evidence  incomplete — you  may,  perhaps, 
even  now,  be  smiling  in  pity  at  my  delusion.  Indulge 
me  one  moment. 

"  The  Rodolph  Isenberg  whom  I  lost,  possessed  a 
faculty  of  mind,  which,  if  you  are  he,  answers  with  the 
voice  of  an  angel  to  my  appeal.  In  that  soul  resided, 
and  wherever  it  be,  must  noxo  reside,  the  singular 
power"  ****** 
******* 

(The  reader  must  be  content  with  my  omission  of 
this  fragment  of  the  letter.  It  contained  a  secret 
never  before  clothed  in  language — a  secret  that  will  die 
with  me,  unless  betrayed  by  what  indeed  it  may  lead 
to — madness  !  As  I  saw  it  in  writing — defined  accu- 
rately and  inevitably  in  the  words  of  another — 1  felt  as 


A  REVELATION  OF  A  PREVIOUS  LIFE. 


315 


if  the  innermosl  chamber  of  my  soul  was  suddenly 
laid  open  to  the  day— I  abandoned  doubt— I  answered 
to  the  name  by  which  she  called  me— I  believed  in  the 
previous  existence  of  which  my  whole  life,  no  less  than 
these  extraordinary  circumstances,  had  furnished  me 
with  repeated  evidence.     But,  to  resume  the  letter.) 

"And  now  that  we  know  each  other  again — now 
that  I  can  call  you  by  name,  as  in  the  past,  and  be 
sure  that  your  inmost  consciousness  must  reply— 
a  new  terror  seizes  me!  Your  soul  comes  back, 
youthfully  and  newly  clad,  while  mine,,  though  of 
unfading  freshness  and  youthfulness  within,  shows  to 
your  eye  the  same  outer  garment,  grown  dull  with 
mourning  and  faded  with  the  wear  of  time.  Am  I 
grown  distasteful  ?  Is  it  with  the  sight  only  of  this 
new  body  that  you  look  upon  me  ?  Rodolph  ! — spirit 
th;<t  was  my  devoted  and  passionate  admirer!  soul 
that  was  sworn  to  me  for  ever  ! — am  I — the  same  Mar- 
garet, refound  and  recognised,  grown  repulsive?  Oh 
God  !  What  a  bitter  answer  would  this  be  to  my 
prayers  for  your  return  to  me  ! 

"  I  will  trust  in  Him  whose  benign  goodness  smiles 
upon  fidelity  in  love.  I  will  prepare  a  fitter  meeting 
for  two  who  parted  as  lovers.  You  shall  not  see  me 
again  in  the  house  of  a  stranger  and  in  a  mourning 
attire.  When  this  letter  is  written,  I  will  depart  at 
once  for  the  scene  of  our  love.  I  hear  my  horses 
already  in  the  court-yard,  and  while  you  read  this  I 
am  speeding  swiftly  home.  The  bridal  dress  you  were 
secretly  shown  the  day  before  death  came  between  us, 
is  still  freshly  kept.  The  room  where  we  sat — the 
bowers  by  the  stream — the  walks  where  we  projected 
our  sweet  promise  of  a  future — they  shall  all  be  made 
ready.  They  shall  be  as  they  were!  And  I — oh 
Rodolph,  I  shall  be  the  same !  My  heart  is  not 
grown  old,  Rodolph  !     Believe  me,  I  am  unchanged 


in  soul  !  And  I  will  strive  to  be — I  will  strive  to 
look  —  God  help  me  to  look  and  be  —  as  of 
yore! 

"  Farewell  now  !  f  leave  horses  and  servants  to 
wait  on  you  till  I  send  to  bring  you  to  me.  Alas,  for 
any  delay  !  but  we  will  pass  this  life  and  all  other 
time  together.  We  have  seen  that  a  vow  of  eternal 
union  may  be  kept — that  death  can  not  divide  those 
who  will  to  love  for  ever  !     Farewell  now  ! 

44  Margaret." 

Circumstances  compelled  me  to  read  this  letter 
with  but  one  feeling,  exquisite  pain  !  Love  lasts  till 
death,  but  it  is  mortal  !  The  affections,  however 
intense  and  faithful  (I  now  know),  are  part  of  the 
perishable  coil,  forgotten  in  the  grave.  With  the 
memory  of  this  love  of  another  life,  haunting  me 
through  my  youth,  and  keeping  its  vow  of  visitation, 
|  I  had  given  the  whole  heart  of  my  second  youth  to 
I  another.  Affianced  to  her,  waited  for  by  her,  bound 
to  her  by  vows  which  death  had  not  divided,  I  had  but 
one  course  to  pursue.  I  left  Gratz  in  an  hour,  never 
to  return. 

A  (ew  days  since  I  was  walking  alone  in  the 
crowded  thoroughfare  of  the  city  where  I  live.  Sud- 
denly my  sense  of  presence  there  fell  oft*  me.  I 
walked  on,  but  my  inward  sight  absorbed  all  my  con- 
sciousness. A  room  which  was  familiar  to  me  shut 
me  in,  and  a  bed  hung  in  mourning  became  apparent. 
In  another  instant  a  figure  laid  out  in  a  winding-sheet, 
and  partially  covered  with  a  velvet  pall,  grew  distinct 
through  the  dimness,  and  in  the  low-laid  head  I  rec- 
ognised, what  a  presentiment  had  already  betrayed  to 

me,  the  features  of  Margaret,  Baroness  R .     It 

will  be  still  months  before  I  can  see  the  announce- 
ment of  her  death.     But  she  is  dead. 


AMERICAN    LIFE. 


COUNT   POTT'S   STRATEGY. 

"  L'Esprit  est  un  faux  monnayeur,  qui  change  continuellement  les  gros  sous  en  louis  d'or,  et  qui  souvent  fait  de  ses  louis  d'or  des 


Therk  were  five  hundred  guardian  angels  (and  of 
course  as  many  evil  spirits),  in  and  about  the  merry 
premises  of  Congress  Hall.  Each  gay  guest  had  his 
pair;  but  though  each  pair  had  their  special  ministry 
(and  there  was  here  and  there  a  guest  who  would  not 
have  objected  to  transform  his,  for  the  time  being,  into 
a  pair  of  trotting  ponies),  the  attention  of  the  cherubic 
troop,  it  may  fairly  be  piesumed,  was  directed  mainly 
to  tiie  momentous  flirtations  of  Miss  C.  Sophy  On- 
thank,  the  dread  disposer  of  the  destinies  of  eighty 
thousand  innocent  little  dollars. 

Miss  Chittaline  Sophy  (though  this  is  blabbing, 
for  that  mysterious  "  C."  was  generally  condemned 
to  travel  in  domino) — Miss  Chittaline  Sophy,  besides 
her  good  and  evil  spirit  already  referred  to,  was  under 
the  additional  watch  and  ward  of  a  pair  of  bombazine 
aunts,  Miss  Charity  Onthank  and  Miss  Sophy  the 
same,  of  whom  she  was  the  united  namesake. — 
"Chittaline"  being  the  embellished  diminutive  of 
"  Charity."  These  Hesperian  dragons  of  old  maids 
were  cut  after  the  common  pattern  of  such  utensils, 
and  of  course  would  not  dignify  a  description;  though 
this  disparaging  remark  (we  must  stop  long  enough  to 
say)  is  not  at  all  to  the  prejudice  of  that  occasional 
love-of-an-old-maid  that  one  does  sometimes  see — 
that  four-leaved  clover  of  virginity — that  star  aparl  in 
the  spilled  milk  of  the  Via  Lactea  : — 

"  For  now  and  then  you  find  one  who  could  rally 
At  forty,  and  go  back  to  twenty-three — 
A  handsome,  plump,  affectionate  •  Aunt  Sally,' 
With  no  rage  for  cats,  flannel,  and  Bohea/' 

But  the  two  elderly  Misses  Onthank  were  not  of  this 
category. 

By  the  absence  of  that  Junonic  assurance,  common 
to  those  ladies  who  are  born  and  bred  heiresses,  Miss 
C.  Sophy's  autograph  had  not  long  been  an  object  of 
interest  at  the  bank.  She  had  all  the  air  of  having 
been  "brought  up  at  the  trough,"  as  the  French 
phrase  it, 

"  Round  as  a  cipher,  simple  as  good  day," 
and  her  belle-ship  was  still  a  surprise  to  her.  Like 
the  red-haired  and  freckled  who  find,  when  they  get 
to  Italy,  that  their  flaming  peculiarities  are  considered 
as  captivating  signs  of  a  skin  too  delicate  for  exposure, 
she  received  with  a  slight  incredulity  the  homage  to 
her  unseen  charms — homage  not  the  less  welcome  for 
exacting  from  the  giver  an  exercise  of  faith  and  im- 
agination. The  same  faith  and  imagination,  she  was 
free  to  suppose,  might  find  a  Venus  within  her  girdle, 
as  the  sculptor  sees  one  in  the  goodly  block  of  marble, 
lacking  only  the  removal  of  its  clumsy  covering  by 
chisel  and  sandpaper.  With  no  visible  waist,  she  was 
as  tall  as  a  pump,  and  riotously  rosy  like  a  flowering 
rhododendron.     Hair  brown  and  plenty  of  it.     Teeth 


white  and  all  at  home.  And  her  voice,  with  but  one 
semitone  higher,  would  have  been  an  approved  con- 
tralto. 

Having  thus  compressed  into  a  couple  of  paragraphs 
what  would  have  served  a  novelist  for  his  first  ten 
chapters,  permit  us,  without  the  bother  of  intermediate 
mortar  or  moralizing  (though  this  is  rather  a  mixed 
I  figure),  to  lay  on  the  next  brick  in  the  shape  of  a  bint 
at  the  character  of  Miss  Onthank's  two  prominent 
admirers. 

Mr.  Greville  Seville  was  a  New  York  beau.  He 
had  all  the  refinement  that  could  possibly  be  imported. 
He  had  seen  those  who  had  seen  all  that  is  visible  m 
the  fashionable  man  of  London  and  Paris,  ar.d  he  wa* 
well  versed  in  the  conduits  through  which  theit 
several  peculiarities  found  their  way  across  the  Atlantic. 
Faultlessly  booted,  pantalooned,  waistcoated,  and  shirl- 
ed,  he  could  afford  to  trust  his  coat  and  scarf  to  Provi- 
dence, and  his  hat  to  Warnock  or  Leary.  He  wore 
a  slightly  restrained  whisker,  and  a  faint  smut  of  an 
imperial,  and  his  gloves  fitted  him  inexorably.  His 
figure  was  a  matter  of  course.  He  was  brought  up  in 
New  York,  and  was  one  of  the  four  hundred  thousand 
results  (more  or  less)  of  its  drastic  waters — washy  and 
short.  And  he  had  as  good  a  heart  as  is  compatible 
with  the  above  personal  advantages. 

It  would  very  much  have  surprised  the  "company" 
at  Congress  Hall,  to  have  seen  Mr.  Chesterfield  Potts 
put  down  as  No.  2,  in  the  emulous  contest  for  the  two 
hands  of  Miss  Onthank.     The  count  (he  was  com- 
monly called  "  Count  Potts,"  a  compliment  to  good 
manners  not  unusual  in  America),  was,  by  his  own 
label,  a  man  of  "  thirty  and  upward" — by  the  parish 
register  possibly  sixty-two.     He  was  an  upright,  well- 
preserved,  stylish  looking  man,  with  an  expensive  wig, 
fine  teeth  (commonly  supposed  not  to  be  indigenous), 
and  a  lavish  outlay  of  cotton  batting,  covering  the  re- 
treat of  such  of  his  muscular  forces  as  were  inclined 
to   retire  from  the  field.     What  his  native  qualities 
might  be  was  a  branch  of  knowledge  long  since  lost  to 
the  world.     His  politeness  had  superseded  the  neces- 
sity of  any  particular  inquiry  into  the  matter;  indeed, 
we  are  inclined  to  believe  his  politeness  had  superseded 
his  character  altogether.     He  was  as  incapable  of  the 
[  impolite  virtues  (of  which  there  are  several)  as  of  the 
j  impolite  vices.      Like   cricketing,  punning,   political 
speech   making,  and  other  mechanical  arts,  compli- 
j  menting  may  be  brought  to  a  high  degree  of  dexteri- 
|  ty,  and  Count  Potts,  after  a  practice  of  many  years, 
j  could,  over  most  kinds  of  female  platitude,  spread  a 
|  flattering  unction  huinbugative  to  the  most  suspicious 
J  incredulity.     As  he  told   no  stories,  made  no   puns, 
I  volunteered  but  little  conversation,  and  had  the  air  of 
a  modest  man  wishing  to  avoid  notice,  the  blockheads 
I  and  the  very  young  girls  stoutly  denied  his  fascination. 


COUNT  POTT'S  STRATEGY. 


317 


But  in  the  memory  of  the  riper  belles,  as  they  went 
to  sleep  night  after  night,  lay  snugly  lodged  and  care- 
fully treasured,  some  timely  compliment,  some  sooth- 
ing word,  and,  though  credited  to  "old  Potts,"  the 
smile  with  which  it  was  gracefully  re-acknowledged 
the  next  morning  at  breakfast,  would  have  been  warm 
enough  for  young  Ascanins.  "  Nice  old  Potts  !"  was 
the  faint  murmur  of  many  a  bright  lip  turning  down- 
ward to  the  pillow  in  the  "last  position." 

And  now.  dear  reader,  you  have  an  idea  of  the  forces 
in  the  field,  and  you  probably  know  how  "the  war  is 
carried  on"  at  Saratoga.  Two  aunts  and  a  guardian 
angel  versus  an  evil  spirit  and  two  lovers — Miss  On- 
thank's  hand,  the  (well-covered)  bone  of  contention. 
Whether  the  citadel  would  speedily  yield,  and  which 
of  these  two  rival  knights  would  bear  away  the  palm 
of  victory,  were  questions  upon  which  the  majority 
of  lookers-on  were  doomed  to  make  erroneous  predic- 
tions. The  reader  of  course  is  in  the  sagacious 
minority. 

Mr.  Potts'  income  was  a  net  answer  to  his  morning 
prayer.  It  provided  his  "daily  bread"  but  no  proven- 
der for  a  horse.  He  probably  coveted  Miss  Onthank 
as  much  for  her  accompanying  oats  as  for  her  personal 
avoirdupois,  since  the  only  complaint  with  which  he 
ever  troubled  his  acquaintances,  was  one  touching  his 
inability  to  keep  an  equipage.  Man  is  instinctively  a 
centaur,  he  used  to  say,  and  when  you  cut  him  off 
from  his  horse  and  reduce  him  to  his  simple  trunk 
(and  a  trunk  was  all  the  count's  worldly  furniture),  he 
is  but  a  mutilated  remainder,  robbed  of  his  natural 
locomotive. 

It  was  not  authenticated  in  Wall  street  that  Mr. 
Greville  Seville  was  reasonably  entitled  to  horse-flesh 
and  caparison  ;  but  he  had  a  trotting  wagon  and  two 
delicious  cropped  sorrels;  and  those  who  drove  in  his 
company  were  obliged  to  "  down  with  the  dust"  (a 
bon  mot  of  Count  Potts').  Science  explains  many  of 
the  eniamas  of  common  life,  however,  and  the  secret 
of  Mr.  Seville's  equipment  and  other  means  of  going 
on  swimmingly,  lay  in  his  unusually  large  organ  of 
hope.  He  was  simply  anticipating  the  arrival  of  1840, 
a  year  in  which  he  had  reason  to  believe  there  would 
be  paid  in  to  the  credit  of  the  present  Miss  Onthank 
a  sufficient  sum  to  cover  his  loosest  expenditure. 
The  intermediate  transfer  to  himself  of  her  rights  to 
the  same,  was  a  mere  filling  up  of  an  outline,  his  mind 
being  entirely  made  up  as  to  the  conditional  incum- 
brance of  the  lady's  person.  He  was  now  paying  her 
some  attentions  in  advance,  and  he  felt  justified  in 
charging  his  expenses  on  the  estate.  She  herself 
would  wish  it,  doubtless,  if  she  could  look  into  the 
future  with  his  eyes. 

By  all  the  common  data  of  matrimonial  skirmish- 
ing, a  lover  with  horses  easily  outstrips  a  lover  with 
none.  Miss  C.  Sophy,  besides,  was  particularly  fond  of 
driving,  and  Seville  was  an  accomplished  whip.  There 
was  no  lack  of  the  "  golden  opportunity"  of  tetc-d-tete, 
for,  with  a  deaf  aunt  and  somebody  else  on  the  back 
seat,  he  had  Miss  Onthank  to  himself  on  the  driving 
box,  and  could  talk  to  his  horses  in  the  embarrassing 
pauses.  It  looked  a  clear  case  to  most  observers; 
and  as  to  Seville,  he  had  studied  out  a  livery  for  his 
future  footman  and  tiger,  and  would  not  have  taken  an 
insurance  at  a  quarter  per  cent. 

But  Potts — ah  !  Potts  had  traced  back  the  wires  of 
woman's  weaknesses.  The  heiress  had  no  conversa- 
tion (why  should  she  have  it  and  money  too?),  and 
the  part  of  her  daily  drive  which  she  remembered  with 
must  pleasure,  was  the  flourish  of  starting  and  return- 
ing— managed  by  Potts  with  a  pomp  and  circumstance 
that  won!, |  have  done  honor  to  the  goings  and  comings 
hi  Queen  Victoria.  Once  away  from  the  portico,  it 
was  a  monotonous  drag  through  the  dust  for  two  or 
three  hours,  and  as  most  ladies  know,  it  takes  a  great 
deal  of  chit-chat  to  butter  so  large  a  slice  of  time  ; 


for  there  was  no  making  love,  parbleu  !  Miss  Chitta- 
line  Onthank  was  of  a  stratum  of  human  nature  sus- 
ceptible of  no  sentiment  less  substantial  than  a  kiss, 
and  when  the  news,  and  the  weather,  and  the  virtues 
of  the  sorrel  ponies,  were  exhausted,  the  talk  came  to 
a  stand-still.  The  heiress  began  to  remember  with 
alarm  that  her  education  had  been  neglected,  and  that 
it  was  a  relief  to  get  back  to  old  Potts  and  the  portico. 
Fresh  from  his  nap  and  warm  bath,  the  perfumed 
count  stepped  out  from  the  group  he  had  purposely 

j  collected,  gave  her  his  hand  with  a  deferential  inquiry, 
spread  the  loungers  to  the  right  and  left  like  an  "  usher 
of  the  black  rod,"  and  with  some  well-studied  im- 
promptu compliment,  waited  on  her  to  her  chamber 
door.     He  received  her  again  after  her  toilet,  and  for 

|  the  remainder  of  the  day  devoted   his  utmost  powers 

!  to  her  aggrandizement.     If  talking  alone  with  her,  it 

'  was  to  provoke  her  to  some  passage  of  school-girl 
autobiocraphv,  and  listen  like  a  charmed  stone  to  the 

:  harp  of  Orpheus.  If  others  were  near,  it  was  to  catch 
her  stupidities  half  uttered  and  twist  them  into  sense 
before   they   came  to  the  ground.     His  own  clever- 

i  nesses  were  prefaced  with  "  As  you  remarked  yester- 

;  day,  Miss  Onthank,"  or,  "As  you  were  about  to  say 
when  I  interrupted  you."     If  he  touched  her  foot,  it 

i  was  "so  small  he  didn't  see  it."  If  she  uttered  an 
irredeemable   and   immitigable  absurdity,  he  covered 

j  its  retreat  with  some  sudden  exclamation.  He  called 
her  pensive,  when  she   was  sleepy  and   vacant.     He 

j  called  her  romantic,  when  he  couldn't  understand  her. 

!  In    short,   her   vanity   was   embodied — turned  into   a 

I  magician  and  slave — and  in  the  shape  of  Count  Ches- 
terfield, Potts  ministeied  to  her  indefatigably. 

But  the  summer  solstice  began  to  wane.     A  week 

'  more  was  all   that  was  allotted  to  Saratoga  by  that 
great  American  commander,  General  Consent. 
Count  Potts  came  to  breakfast  in  a  shawl  cravat! 
"Off,  Potts?" 

"  Are  you  flitting,  my  dear  count  ?" 
"What — going  away,  dear  Mr.  Potts  ?" 
"  Gracious  me  !  don't  go,  Mr.  Potts  !" 
The  last  exclamation  was  sent  across  the  table  in  a 

i  tone  of  alarm  by  Miss  C.  Sophy,  and  responded  to 
only  by  a  bow  of  obsequious  melancholy. 

Breakfast  was  over,  and  Potts  arose.     His  baggage 

i  was  at  the  door.  He  sought  no  interview  with  Miss 
Onthank.  He  did  not  even  honor  the  two  bombazini- 
ties  with  a  farewell.      He  stepped   up  to  the  group  of 

i  belles,  airing  their  demi-toilettes  on   the  portico,  said 

j  "  Ladies  !  au  revoir!"  took  the  heiress's  hand  and  put 

'  it  gallantly  toward  his  lips,  and  walked  off  with  his 
umbrella,  requesting  the  driver  to  pick  him  up  at  the 

:  spring. 

"  He  has  been  refused  !"  said  one. 
"  He  has  given  Seville  a  clear  field  in  despair!"  said 
another.     And  this  was  the  general  opinion. 

The  day  crept  on.  But  there  was  an  emptiness 
without  Potts.  Seville  had  the  field  to  himself,  and 
as  there  was  no  fear  of  a  new  squatter,  he  thought  he 
might  dispense  with  tillage.  They  had  a  very  dull 
drive  and  a  very  dull  dinner,  and  in  the  evening,  as 
there  was  no  ball,  Seville  went  off  to  play  billiards. 
Miss  Onthank  was  surrounded,  as  usual,  by  the  belles 
and  beaux,  but  she  was  down  flat — unmagnetized,  un- 
galvanized.  The  magician  was  gone.  Her  stupid 
things  "stayed  put."  She  was  like  a  glass  bead  lost 
from  a  kaleidoscope. 

That  weary  week  was  spent  in  lamentations  over 
Potts.  Everybody  praised  him.  Everybody  com- 
plimented Miss  Onthank  on  her  exclusive  power  of 
monopoly  over  such  porcelain  ware.  The  two  aunts 
were  his  main  glorifiers ;  for,  as  Potts  knew,  they 
were  of  that  leathery  toughness  that  only  shines  on 
you  with  rouiih  usage. 

We  have  said  little,  as  yet,  of  MissOnthank's  capa- 
bilities in  the  love  line.      We  doubt,  indeed,  whethei 


318 


THE  FEMALE  WARD. 


she  rightly  understood  the  difference  between  loving 
and  being  born  again.  As  to  giving  away  her  heart, 
she  believed  she  could  do  what  her  mother  did  before 
her,  but  she  would  rather  it  would  be  one  of  her  back 
teeth,  if  that  would  do  as  well.  She  liked  Mr.  Potts 
because  he  never  made  any  difficulty  about  such 
things. 

Seville  considered  himself  accepted,  though  he  had 
made  no  direct  proposition.  He  had  asked  whether 
she  preferred  to  live  in  country  or  town — she  said 
"  town."  He  had  asked  if  she  would  leave  the  choice 
and  management  of  horses  and  equipages  to  him — 
she  said  "  be  sure  !"  He  had  asked  if  she  had  any 
objection  to  his  giving  bachelor  dinners  occasionally 
— she  said  "  la  !  no  !"  As  he  understood  it,  the  whole 
thing  was  most  comfortably  arranged,  and  he  lent 
money  to  several  of  his  friends  on  the  strength  of  it — 
giving  his  note,  this  is  to  say. 

On  a  certain  morning,  some  ten  days  after  the  de- 
parture of  the  count  from  Saratoga,  Miss  Onthank 
and  her  two  aunts  sat  up  in  state  in  their  parlor  at  the 
City  hotel.  They  always  went  to  the  City  hotel 
because  Willard  remembered  their  names,  and  asked 
after  their  uncle  the  major.  Mr.  Seville's  ponies  and 
wagon  were  at  the  door,  and  Mr.  Seville's  father, 
mother,  seven  sisters,  and  two  small  brothers,  were  in 
the  progress  of  a  betrothal  visit — calling  on  the  future 
Mrs.  Greville  Seville. 

All  of  a  sudden  the  door  was  thrown  open,  and  enter 
Count  Potts  ! 

Up  jumped  the  enchanted  Chittaline  Sophy. 

"  How  do  you  do,  Mr.  Potts?" 

"Good  morning,  Mr.  Potts!"  said  the  aunts  in  a 
breath. 

"D'ye-do,  Potts  !"said  Seville,  giving  him  his  fore- 
finger, with  the  air  of  a  man  rising  from  winning  at 
cards. 

Potts  made  his  compliments  all  round.  He  was 
about  sailing  for  Carolina,  he  said,  and  had  come  to 
ask  permission  of  Miss  Onthank  to  leave  her  sweet 
society  for  a  few  years  of  exile.  But  as  this  was  the 
last  of  his  days  of  pleasure,  at  least  till  he  saw  Miss 
Onthank  again,  he  wished  to  be  graced  with  the  honor 
of  her  arm  for  a  promenade  in  Broadway.  The  ladies 
and  Mr.  Seville  doubtless  would  excuse  her  if  she  put 
on  her  bonnet  without  further  ceremony. 

Now  Potts's  politenesses  had  such  an  air  of  irresisti- 
ble authority  that  people  fell  into  heir  track  like  cars 
after  a  locomotive.  While  Miss  Onthank  was  bonnet- 
ing and  shawling,  the  count  entertained  the  entire 
party  most  gayly,  though  the  Sevilles  thought  it  rather 


unceremonious  in  the  affianced  miss  to  leave  them  in 
the  midst  of  a  first  visit,  and  Mr.  Greville  Seville  had 
arranged  to  send  his  mother  home  on  foot,  and  drive 
Miss  Onthank  out  to  Harlem. 

"  Pll  keep  my  horses  here  till  you  come  back  !"  he 
shouted  after  them,  as  she  tripped  gayly  down  stairs 
on  the  count's  arm. 

And  so  he  did.  Though  it  was  two  hours  befote 
she  appeared  again,  the  impatient  youth  kept  the  old 
aunts  company,  and  would  have  stayed  till  night,  sorrels 
and  all — for  in  that  drive  he  meant  to  "  name  the  day," 
and  put  his  creditors  at  ease. 

"I  wouldn't  even  go  up  stairs,  my  dear!"  said  the 
count,  handing  her  to  the  wagon,  and  sending  up  the 
groom  for  his  master,  "  it's  but  an  hour  to  dine,  and 
you'll  like  the  air  after  your  fatigue.  Ah.  Seville, 
I've  brought  her  back  !  Take  good  care  of  her  for 
my  sake,  my  good  fellow!" 

"  What  the  devil  has  his  sake  to  do  with  it,  I  won- 
der?" said  Seville,  letting  his  horses  offlike  two  rockets 
in  harness. 

And  away  they  went  toward  Harlem  ;  and  in  about 
an  hour,  very  much  to  the  surprise  of  the  old  aunts, 
who  were  looking  out  of  the  parlor  window,  the  young 
lady  dismounted  from  an  omnibus  !  Count  Potts  had 
come  to  dine  with  them,  and  he  tripped  down  to  meet 
I  her  with  uncommon  agility. 

"  Why,  do  you  know,  aunties,"  she  exclaimed,  as 
she  came  up  stairs,  out  of  breath,  "do  you  know  that 
Mr.  Seville,  when  I  told  him  I  was  married  already  to 
Mr.  Potts,  stopped  his  wagon,  and  p-p-put  me  into  an 
omnibus  !" 

"  Married  to  Mr.  Potts  !"  screamed  Aunt  Charity. 

"  Married  to  Mr.  Potts  !"  screamed  Aunt  Sophy. 

"Why — yes,  aunties;  he  said  he  must  go  south, 
if  I  didn't !"  drawled  out  the  bride,  with  only  a  very 
little  blush  indeed.  "  Tell  aunties  all  about  it,  Mr. 
Potts!" 

And  Mr.  Potts,  with  the  same  smile  of  infallible 
propriety,  which  seemed  a  warrant  for  everything  he 
said  or  did,  gave  a  very  sketchy  account  of  his  morning's 
work,  which,  like  all  he  undertook,  had  been  exceed- 
ingly well  done — properly  witnessed,  certified,  dec, 
dec,  dec.  All  of  which  shows  the  very  sound  policy 
of  first  making  yourself  indispensable  to  people  you 
wish  to  manage.     Or,  put  it  receipt-wise  : — 

To  marry  a  fiat : — First,  raise  her  up  till  she  is 
giddy.  Second,  go  away,  and  let  her  down.  Third, 
come  back,  and  offer  to  support  her,  if  she  will  give 
you  her  hand. 

"  Simple  comme  bonjour  "  as  Balsac  says. 


THE    FEMALE    WARD. 


Most  men  have  two  or  more  souls,  and  Jem  Thal- 
imer  was  a  doublet,  with  sets  of  manners  correspond- 
ing. Indeed  one  identity  could  never  have  served  the 
pair  of  him  !  When  sad — that  is  to  say,  when  in  dis- 
grace or  out  of  money — he  had  the  air  of  a  good  man 
with  a  broken  heart.  When  gay — flush  in  pocket 
and  happy  in  his  little  ambitions — you  would  have 
thought  him  a  dangerous  companion  for  his  grand- 
mother. The  last  impression  did  him  more  injustice 
than  the  first,  for  he  was  really  very  amiably  disposed 
when  depressed,  and  not  always  wicked  when  gay — 
but  he  made  friends  in  both  characters.     People  sel- 


dom forgive  us  for  compelling  them  to  correct  then 
first  impressions  of  us,  and  as  this  was  uniformly  the 
case  with  Jem,  whether  he  had  begun  as  saint  or  sin- 
ner, he  was  commonly  reckoned  a  deep-water  fish  ; 
and,  where  there  were  young  ladies  in  the  case,  early 
warned  oft'  the  premises.  The  remarkable  exception 
to  this  rule,  in  the  incident  I  am  about  to  relate,  arose, 
as  may  naturally  be  supposed,  from  his  appearing,  du- 
ring a  certain  period,  in  one  character  only. 

To  begin  my  story  fairly,  I  must  go  back  for  a  mo- 
ment to  our  junior  Jem  in  college,  showing,  by  a  lit- 
tle passage  in  our  adventures,  how   Thalimer  and  1 


THE  FEMALE  WARD. 


319 


became  acquainted  with  the  confiding  gentleman  to 
be  referred  to. 

A  college  suspension,  very  agreeably  timed,  in  June, 
left  my  friend  Jem  and  myself  masters  of  our  travels 
for  an  uncertain  period  ;  and  as  our  purse  was  always 
in  common,  like  our  shirts,  love-letters,  and  disgraces, 
our  several  borrowings  were  thrust  into  a  wallet  which 
was  sometimes  in  his  pocket,  sometimes  in  mine,  as 
each  took  the  turn  to  be  paymaster.  With  the  (in- 
tercepted) letters  in  our  pockets,  informing  the  gov- 
ernors of  our  degraded  position,  we  travelled  very 
prosperously  on — bound  to  Niagara,but  very  ready  to  fall 
into  any  obliquity  by  the  way.  We  arrived  at  Albany, 
Thalimer  chancing  to  be  purser,  and  as  this  function 
tacitly  conferred,  on  the  holder,  all  other  responsibil- 
ities, I  made  myself  comfortable  at  the  hotel  for  the 
second  day  and  the  third— up  to  the  seventh — rather 
wondering  at  Jem's  depressed  spirits  and  the  sudden 
falling  off  of  his  enthusiasm  for  Niagara,  but  con- 
tent to  stay  if  he  liked,  and  amusing  myself  in  the 
side-hill  city  passably  well.  It  was  during  my  ram- 
bles without  him  in  this  week  that  he  made  the  ac- 
quaintance of  a  bilious-looking  person  lodging  at  the 
game  hotel — a  Louisianian  on  a  tour  of  health.  This 
gentleman,  whom  he  introduced  to  me  by  the  name 
of  Dauchy,  seemed  to  have  formed  a  sudden  attach- 
ment to  my  friend,  and  as  Jem  had  a  "  secret  sorrow" 
unusual  to  him,  and  the  other  an  unusual  secretion 
of  bile,  there  was  of  course  between  them  that  "se- 
cret sympathy"  which  is  the  basis  of  many  tender 
friendships.  I  rather  liked  Mr.  Dauchy.  He  seemed 
one  of  those  chivalric,  polysyllabic  southerners,  inca- 
pable of  a  short  word  or  a  mean  action,  and,  interested 
that  Jem  should  retain  his  friendship,  I  was  not  sorry 
to  find  our  departure  follow  close  on  the  recovery  of 
his  spirits. 

We  went  on  toward  Niagara,  and  in  the  irresistible 
confidence  of  canal  travelling  I  made  out  the  secret 
of  my  fidus  achates.  He  had  attempted  to  alleviate 
the  hardship  of  a  deck-passage  for  a  bright-eyed  girl 
on  board  the  steamer,  and,  on  going  below  to  his 
berth,  left  her  his  greatcoat  for  a  pillow.  The  stuffed 
wallet,  which  somewhat  distended  the  breast-pocket, 
was  probably  in  the  way  of  her  downy  cheek,  and 
Jem  supposed  that  she  simply  forgot  to  return  the 
"  removed  deposite" — but  he  did  not  miss  his  money 
till  twelve  hours  after,  and  then,  between  lack  of 
means  to  pursue  her,  and  shame  at  the  sentiment  he 
had  wasted,  he  kept  the  disaster  to  himself,  and  passed 
a  melancholy  week  in  devising  means  for  replenishing. 
Through  this  penseroso  vein,  however,  lay  his  way 
out  of  the  difficulty,  for  he  thus  touched  the  soul 
and  funds  of  Mr.  Dauchy.  The  correspondence 
(commenced  by  the  repayment  of  the  loan)  was  kept 
up  stragglingly  for  several  years,  bolstered  somewhat 
by  barrels  of  marmalade,  boxes  of  sugar,  hommony, 
&c,  till  finally  it  ended  in  the  unlooked-for  consign- 
ment which  forms  the  subject  of  my  story. 

Jem  and  myself  had  been  a  year  out  of  college,  and 
were  passing  through  that  "tight  place"  in  life,  com- 
monly understood  in  New  England  as  "  the  going  in 
at  the  little  end  of  the  horn."  Expected  by  our  pa- 
rents to  take  to  money-making  like  ducks  to  swim- 
ming, deprived  at  once  of  college  allowance,  called 
on  to  be  men  because  our  education  was  paid  for,  and 
frowned  upon  at  every  manifestation  of  a  lingering 
taste  for  pleasure — it  was  not  surprising  that  we  some- 
times gave  tokens  of  feeling  "crowded,"  and  obtained 
somewhat  the  reputation  of  "  bad  subjects" — (using 
this  expressive  phrase  quite  literally).  Jem's  share 
of  this  odor  of  wickedness  was  much  the  greater,  his 
unlucky  deviltry  of  countenance  doing  him  its  usual 
disservice  ;  but  like  the  gentleman  to  whom  he  was 
attributed  as  a  favorite  protege",  he  was  "not  so  black 
as  he  was  painted." 

We  had  been  so  fortunate  as  to  find  one  believer  in 


the  future  culmination  of  our  clouded  stars — Galla- 
gher, "mine  host" — and  for  value  to  be  received  when 
our  brains  should  fructify,  his  white  soup  and  "  red- 
string  Madeira,"  his  game,  turtle,  and  all  the  forth- 
comings of  the  best  restaurant  of  our  epoch,  were 
served  lovingly  and  charged  moderately.  Peace  be 
with  the  ashes  of  William  Gallagher  !  "  The  brains" 
have  fructified,  and  "the  value"  Acs  been  received — 
but  his  name  and  memory  are  not  "  filed  away"  with 
the  receipt ;  and  though  years  have  gone  over  his 
grave,  his  modest  welcome,  and  generous  dispensation 
of  entertainment  and  service,  are,  by  one  at  least  of 
those  who  enjoyed  them,  gratefully  and  freshly  re- 
membered ! 

We  were  to  dine  as  usual  at  Gallagher's  at  six — one 
May  day  which  I  well  remember.  I  was  just  addres- 
sing myself  to  my  day's  work,  when  Jem  broke  into 
my  room  with  a  letter  in  his  hand,  and  an  expression 
on  his  face  of  mingled  embarrassment  and  fear. 

"  What  the  deuce  to  do  with  her!"  said  he,  hand- 
ing me  the  letter. 

"  A  new  scrape,  Jem?"  I  asked,  as  I  looked  for  an 
instant  at  the  Dauchy  coat-of-arms  on  a  seal  as  big  as 
a  dollar. 

"Scrape? — yes,  it  is  a  scrape! — for  I  shall   never 

get  out  of  it  reputably.     What  a  dunce  old  Dauchy 

:  must   be  to  send  me  a  girl  to  educate  !     I  a  young 

lady's  guardian !     Why,  I  shall   be  the  laugh  of  the 

;  town  !     What  say  ?     Isn't  it  a  good  one  ?" 

I  had  been  carefully  perusing  the  letter  while  Thal- 
!  imer  walked  soliloquizing  about  the  room.     It  was 
from  his  old  friend  of  marmalades  and  sugars,  and  in 
j  the  most  confiding  and  grave  terms,  as  if  Jem  and  he 
had  been  a  couple  of  contemporaneous  old  bachelors, 
j  it  consigned  to  his  guardianship  and  friendly  counsel, 
Miss   Adelmine   Lasacque,  the   only   daughter  of  a 
neighboring  planter !     Mr.  Lasacque  having  no  friends 
at  the  north,  had  applied  to  Mr.  Dauchy  for  his  gui- 
I  dance  in  the  selection  of  a  proper  person  to  superin- 
tend her  education,  and  as  Thalimer  was  the  only  cor- 
respondent with  whom  Mr.  Dauchy  had  relations  of 
;  friendship,  and  was,  moreover,  "  fitted   admirably  for 
!  the  trust  by  his  impressive  and  dignified  address,"  (?) 
j  he  had  "taken  the  liberty,"  &c,  &c. 

"  Have  you  seen  her?"  I  asked,  after  a  long  laugh, 
in  which  Jem  joined  but  partially. 

"  No,  indeed  !  She  arrived  last  night  in  the  New 
Orleans  packet,  and  the  captain  brought  me  this  let- 
i  ter  at  daylight,  with  the  young  lady's  compliments. 
j  The  old  seadog  looked  a  little  astounded  when  I  an- 
I  nounced  myself.  Well  he  might,  faith  !  1  don't  look 
I  like  a  young  lady's  guardian,  do  I?" 

t.  Well — you  are  to  go  on  board  and  fetch  her — is 
that  it  ?" 

"  Fetch  her!  Where  shall  I  fetch  her?  Who  is 
to  take  a   young  lady  of  my  fetching?     I  can't  find  a 

female  academy  that  I  can  approve " 

I  burst  into  a  roar  of  laughter,  for  Jem  was  in  ear- 
j   nest  with  his  scruples,  and  looked  the  picture  of  un- 
happiness. 

"  I  say  I  can't  find  one  in  a  minute — don't  laugh, 
i;  you  blackguard  ! — and  where  to  lodge  her  meantime  ? 
!  What  should  I  say  to  the  hotel-keepers  ?  They  all 
j;  know  me  ?  It  looks  devilish  odd,  let  me  tell  you,  to 
jl  bring  a  young  girl,  without  matron  or  other  acquaint- 
I  ances  than  myself,  and  lodge  her  at  a  public  house." 
"Your  mother  must  take  your  charge  oil  your 
|  hands." 

"Of  course  that  was  the  first  thing  I  thought  of. 
You  know  my  mother  !  She  don't  half  believe  the 
I  story,  in  the  first  place.  If  there  u  such  a  man  as 
|  Mr.  Dauchv,  she  says,  and  if  this  is  a  '  Miss  La- 
sacque,' all  "the  way  from  Louisiana,  there  is  but  one 
thing  to  do— send'her  back  in  the  packet  she  came 
in!  She'll  have  nothing  to  do  with  it!  There's 
more    in    ii    than    I   am   willing   to   explain.     T  never 


320 


THE  FEMALE  WARD. 


mentioned  this  Mr.  Dauchy  before.  Mischief  will  come 
of  it!  Abduction's  a  dreadful  thing!  If  I  will  make 
myself  notoiious,  I  need  not  think  to  involve  my 
mother  and  sistprs  !   That's  the  way  she  talks  about  it." 

"But  couldn't  we  mollify  your  mother? — for,  after 
all,  her  countenance  in  the  matter  will  be  expected." 

"  Not  a  chance  of  it  !" 

**  The  money  part  of  it  is  all  right  ?" 

"  Turn  the  letter  over.  Credit  for  a  large  amount 
on  the  Robinsons,  payable  to  my  order  only  !" 

"Faith!  it's  a  very  hard  case  if  a  nice  girl  with 
plenty  of  money  can't  be  permitted  to  land  in  Boston! 
You  didn't  ask  the  captain  if  she  was  pretty?" 

"No,  indeed!  But  pretty  or  plain,  I  must  get  her 
ashore  and  be  civil  to  her.  I  must  ask  her  to  dine  ! 
I  must  do  something  besides  hand  her  over  to  a 
boarding-school  !  Will  you  come  down  to  the  ship 
with  me  ?" 

My  curiosity  was  quite  aroused,  and  I  dressed  im- 
mediately. On  our  way  down  we  stopped  at  Gallagher's, 
to  request  a  little  embellishment  to  our  ordinary  dinner. 
It  was  quite  clear,  for  a  variety  of  reasons,  that  she  must 
dine  with  her  guardian  there,  or  nowhere.  Gallagher 
looked  surprised,  to  say  the  least,  at  our  proposition 
to  bring  a  young  lady  to  dine  with  us,  but  he  made  no 
comment  beyond  a  respectful  remark  that  "  No.  2 
was  very  private !" 

We  had  gone  but  a  few  steps  from  Devonshire 
street  when  Jem  stopped  in  the  middle  of  the  side- 
walk. 

"  We  have  not  decided  yet  what  we  are  to  do  with 
Miss  Lasacque  all  day,  nor  where  we  shall  send  her 
baggage,  nor  where  she  is  to  lodge  to-night.  For 
Heaven's  sake,  suggest  something!"  added  Jem,  quite 
out  of  temper. 

"Why,  as  you  say,  it  would  be  heavy  work  to  walk 
her  about  the  streets  from  now  till  dinner-time — eight 
hours  or  more  !  Gallagher's  is  only  an  eating-house, 
unluckily,  and  you  are  so  well  known  at  all  the  ho- 
tels, that,  to  take  her  to  one  of  them  without  a  chap- 
eron, would,  to  say  the  least,  give  occasion  for  remark. 
But  here,  around  the  corner,  is  one  of  the  best  board- 
ing-houses in  town,  kept  by  the  two  old  Misses  Smith,  j 
You  might  offer  to  put  her  under  their  protection.  | 
Let's  try." 

The  Misses  Smith  were  a  couple  of  reduced  gen- 
tlewomen, who  charged  a  very  good  price  for  board 
and  lodging,  and  piqued  themselves  on  entertaining  ] 
only  very  good  company.     Begging  Jem  to  assume  ' 
the  confident  tone  which  the  virtuous  character  of  his  j 
errand  required,  I  rang  at  the  door,  and   in  answer  to 
our  inquiry  for  the  ladies  of  the  house,  we  were  shown  | 
into  the  basement  parlor,  where  the  eldest  Miss  Smith 
sat  with  her  spectacles  on,  adding  new  vine2ar  to  some 
pots  of  pickles.     Our  business  was  very  briefly  stated. 
Miss   Smith  had   plenty  of  spare  room.     Would  we 
wait  a  moment  till  she  tied  on  the  covers  to  her  pickle- 
jars  ? 

The  cordiality  of  the  venerable  demoiselle  evidently 
put  Thalimer  in  spirits.  He  gave  me  a  glance  which 
said  very  plainly,  "  You  see  we  needn't  have  troubled 
our  heads  about  this  !" — but  the  sequel  was  to  come. 

Miss  Smith  led  the  way  to  the  second  story,  where 
were  two  very  comfortable  unoccupied  bedrooms. 

"A  single  lady?"  she  asked. 

"Yes,"  said  Jem,  "a  Miss  Lasacque  of  Louisiana." 

"Young,  did  you  say  ?" 

"  Seventeen,  or  thereabout,  I  fancy."  (This  was  a 
guess,  but  Jem  chose  to  appear  to  know  all  about 
her.) 

"And — ehem  ! — and — quite  alone  ?" 

"Quite  alone — she  is  come  here  to  go  to  school." 

"  Oh,  to  go  to  school  !  Pray — will  she  pass  her 
vacations  with  your  mother?" 

"No!"  said  Jem,  coughing,  and  looking  rather  em- 
barrassed. 


"  Indeed  !  She  is  with  Mrs.  Thalimer  at  present, 
I  presume." 

"  No — she  is  still  on  shipboard  !  Why,  my  dear 
madam,  she  only  arrived  from  New  Orleans  this 
morning." 

"And  your  mother  has  not  had  time  to  see  her? 
I  understand.  Mrs.  Thalimer  will  accompany  her 
here,  of  course." 

Jem  began  to  see  the  end  of  the  old  maid's  cate- 
chism, and  thought  it  best  to  volunteer  the  remainder 
of  the  information. 

"My  mother  is  not  acquainted  with  this  young  la- 
dy's friends,"  he  said  ;  "  and,  in  fact,  she  comes  intro- 
duced only  to  myself." 

"  She  has  a  guardian,  surely  ?"  said  Miss  Smith, 
drawing  back  into  her  Elizabethan  ruff  with  more 
dignity  than  she  had  hitherto  worn. 

"  I  am  her  guardian!"  replied  Jem,  looking  as  red 
and  guilty  as  if  he  had  really  abducted  the  young  la- 
dy, and  was  ashamed  of  his  errand. 

The  spinster  bit  her  lips  and  looked  out  of  the 
window. 

"  Will  you  walk  down  stairs  for  a  moment,  gentle- 
men," she  resumed,  "and  let  me  speak  to  my  sister. 
I  should  have  told  you  that  the  rooms  might  possibly  be 
engaged.  I  am  not  quite  sure — indeed — ehem — pray 
walk  down  and  be  seated  a  moment !" 

Very  much  to  the  vexation  of  my  discomfited 
friend,  I  burst  into  a  laugh  as  we  closed  the  door  of 
the  basement  parlor  behind  us. 

"  You  don't  realize  my  confoundedly  awkward  po- 
sition," said  he.  "  I  am  responsible  for  every  step  I 
take,  to  the  girl's  father  in  the  first  place,  and  then  to 
my  friend  Dauchy,  one  of  the  most  chivalric  old 
cocks  in  the  world,  who,  at  the  same  time,  could  nev- 
er understand  why  there  was  any  difficulty  in  the 
matter !  And  it  does  seem  strange,  that  in  a  city  witl 
eighty  thousand  inhabitants,  it  should  be  n°xt  to  impos- 
sible to  find  lodging  for  a  virtuous  lady,  5  stranger!" 

I  was  contriving  how  to  tell  Thalimer  that  "  there 
was  no  objection  to  the  camel  but  for  the  dead  cat 
hung  upon  its  neck,"  when  a  maidservant  opened  the 
door  with  a  message — "  Miss  Smith's  compliments, 
and  she  was  very  sorry  she  had  no  room  to  spare  !" 

"  Pleasant!"  said  Jem,  "very  pleasant !  I  suppose 
every  other  keeper  of  a  respectable  house  will  be 
equally  sorry.  Meantime,  it's  getting  on  toward  noon, 
and  that  poor  girl  is  moping  on  shipboard,  wondering 
whether  she  is  ever  to  be  taken  ashore!  Do  you 
think  she  might  sleep  at  Gallagher's  ?" 

"Certainly  not!  He  has,  probably,  no  accommo- 
dations for  a  lady,  and,  to  lodge  in  a  restaurant,  after 
dining  with  yon  there,  would  be  an  indiscreet  first 
step,  in  a  strange  city,  to  say  the  least.  But  let  us 
make  our  visit  to  your  fair  ward,  my  dear  Jem !  Per- 
haps she  has  a  face  innocent  enough  to  tell  its  own 
story — like  the  lady  who  walked  through  Eriu  '  with 
the  snow-white  wand.'" 

The  vessel  had  lain  in  the  stream  all  night,  and  was 
just  hauling  up  to  the  wharf  with  the  moving  tide. 
A  crowd  of  spectators  stood  at  the  end  of  her  moor- 
ing cable,  and,  as  she  warped  in,  universal  attention 
seemed  to  be  given  to  a  single  object.  Upon  a  heap 
of  cotton-bales,  the  highest  point  of  the  confused 
lumber  of  the  deck,  sat  a  lady  under  a  sky-blue  par- 
asol. Her  gown  was  of  pink  silk ;  and  by  the  volume 
of  this  showy  material  which  was  presented  to  the 
eye,  the  wearer,  when  standing,  promised  to  turn  out 
of  rather  conspicuous  stature.  White  gloves,  a  pair 
of  superb  amethyst  bracelets,  a  string  of  gold  beads 
on  her  neck,  and  shoulders  quite  naked  enough  for  a 
ball,  were  all  the  disclosures  made  for  a  while  by  the 
envious  parasol,  if  we  except  a  little  object  in  blue, 
which  seemed  the  extremity  of  something  she  was 
sitting  on,  held  in  her  left  hand — and  which  turned 
out  to  be  her  right  foot  in  a  blue  satin  slipper ' 


THE  FEMALE  WARD. 


321 


I  turned  to  Thalimer.  He  was  literally  pale  with 
consternation. 

"  Hadn't  you  better  send  for  a  carriage  to  take  your 
ward  away  ?"  I  suggested. 

"  You  don't  believe  that  to  be  Miss  Lasacque,  sure- 
ly !"  exclaimed  Jem,  turning  upon  me  with  an  implo- 
ring look. 

"Such  is  my  foreboding,"  I  replied;  "but  wait  a 
moment.  Her  face  may  be  pretty,  and  you,  of  course, 
in  your  guardian  capacity,  may  suggest  a  simplifica- 
tion of  her  toilet.  Consider ! — the  poor  girl  was 
never  before  off  the  plantation — at  least,  so  says  old 
Dauchy's  letter." 

The  sailors  now  began  to  pull  upon  the  sternline, 
and,  as  the  ship  came  round,  the  face  of  the  unconscious 
object  of  curiosity  stole  into  view.  Most  of  the  spec- 
tators, after  a  single  glance,  turned  their  attention 
elsewhere  with  a  smile,  and  Jem,  putting  his  hands 
into  his  two  coat-pockets  behind  him,  walked  off  tow-  I 
ard  the  end  of  the  pier,  whistling  to  himself  very  en-  j 
ergetically.  She  was  an  exaggeration  of  the  peculiar 
physiognomy  of  the  south — lean  rather  than  slight, 
sallow  rather  than  pale.     Yet  I  thought  her  eyes  fine. 

Thalimer  joined  me  as  the  ship  touched  the  dock, 
and  we  stepped  on  board  together.  The  cabinboy 
confirmed  our  expectations  as  to  the  lady's  identity, 
and  putting  on  the  very  insinuating  manner  which 
was  part  of  his  objectionable  exterior,  Jem  advanced 
and  begged  to  know  if  he  had  the  honor  of  addressing 
Miss  Lasacque. 

Without  loosing  her  hold  upon  her  right  foot,  the 
lady  nodded. 

"Then,  madam!"  said  Jem,  "permit  me  to  intro- 
duce to  you  your  guardian,  Mr.  Thalimer  !" 

"What,  that  old  gentleman  coming  this  way?" 
asked  Miss  Lasacque,  fixing  her  eyes  on  a  custom- 
house officer  who  was  walking  the  deck. 

Jem  handed  the  lady  his  card. 

"That  is  my  name,"  said  he,  "and  I  should  be 
happy  to  know  how  I  can  begin  the  duties  of  my  of- 
fice !" 

"Dear  me!"  said  the  astonished  damsel,  dropping 
her  foot  to  take  his  hand,  "isn't  there  an  older  Mr. 
James  Thalimer?  Mr.  Dauchy  said  it  was  a  gentle- 
man near  his  own  age!" 

"I  grow  older,  as  you  know  me  longer!"  Jem  re- 
plied apologetically  ;  but  his  ward  was  too  well  satis- 
fied with  his  appearance,  to  need  even  this  remarka- 
ble fact  to  console  her.  She  came  down  with  a  slide 
from  her  cotton-bag  elevation,  called  to  the  cook  to 
bring  the  bandbox  with  the  bonnet  in  it,  and  mean- 
time gave  us  a  brief  history  of  the  inconveniences  she 
had  suffered  in  consequence,  of  the  loss  of  her  slave, 
Dinah,  who  had  died  of  sea-sickness  three  days  out. 
This,  to  me,  was  bad  news,  for  I  had  trusted  to  a  "la- 
dy's maid"  for  the  preservation  of  appearances,  and 
the  scandal  threatening  Jem's  guardianship  looked, 
in  consequence,  very  imminent. 

"  I  am  dying  to  get  my  feet  on  land  again  !"  said 
Miss  Lasacque,  putting  her  arm  in  her  guardian's, 
and  turning  toward  the  gangway — her  bonnet  not 
tied,  nor  her  neck  covered,  and  thin  blue  satin  slip- 
pers, though  her  feet  were  small,  showing  forth  in 
contrast  with  her  pink  silk  gown,  with  frightful  con- 
spicuousness  !  Jem  resisted  the  shoreward  pull,  and 
stood  motionless  and  aghast. 

"  Your  baggage,"  he  stammered  at  last. 

"  Here,  cook  !"  cried  the  lady,  "  tell  the  captain, 
when  he  comes  aboard,  to  send  my  trunks  to  Mr. 
Thalimer's  !  They  are  down  in  the  hold,  and  he  told 
me  he  couldn't  get  at  'em  till  to-morrow,"  she  added, 
by  way  of  explanation  to  Thalimer. 

I  felt  constrained  to  come  to  the  rescue. 

"  Pardon  me,  madam  !"  said   I,  "  there  is  a  little 
peculiarity  in  our  climate,  of  which  you  probably  are 
not  advised.     An   east  wind  commonly  sets  in  about 
21 


noon,  which  makes  a  shawl  very  necessary.  In  con- 
sequence, too,  of  the  bronchitis  which  this  sudden 
change  is  apt  to  give  people  of  tender  constitutions, 
the  ladies  of  Boslon  are  obliged  to  sacrifice  what  is 
becoming,  and  wear  their  dresses  very  high  in  the 
throat." 

"  La !"  said  the  astonished  damsel,  putting  her 
hand  upon  her  bare  neck,  "  is  it  sore  throat  that  you 
mean?  I'm  very  subject  to  it,  indeed  !  Cook!  bring 
me  that  fur-tippet  out  of  the  cabin  !  I'm  so  sorry  my 
dresses  are  all  made  so  low,  and  I  haven't  a  shawl  un- 
packed either  ! — dear!  dear!" 

Jem  and  I  exchanged  a  look  of  hopeless  resigna- 
tion, as  the  cook  appeared  with  the  chinchilli  tippet. 
A  bold  man  might  have  hesitated  to  share  the  con- 
spicuousness  of  such  a  figure  in  a  noon  promenade, 
but  we  each  gave  her  an  arm  when  she  had  tied  the 
soiled  riband  around  her  throat,  and  silently  set  for- 
ward. 

It  was  a  bright  and  very  warm  day,  and  there  seem- 
ed a  conspiracy  among  our  acquaintances,  to  cross 
our  path.  Once  in  the  street,  it  was  not  remarkable 
that  they  looked  at  us,  for  the  towering  height  at 
which  the  lady  carried  her  very  showy  bonnet,  the 
flashy  material  of  her  dress,  the  jewels  and  the  chin- 
chilli  tippet,  formed  an  ensemble  which  caught  the  eye 
like  a  rainbow;  and  truly  people  did  gaze,  and  the 
boys,  spite  of  the  unconscious  look  which  we  attempt- 
ed, did  give  rather  disagreeable  evidence  of  being 
amused.  I  had  various  misgivings,  myself,  as  to  the 
necessity  for  my  own  share  in  the  performance,  and, 
at  every  corner,  felt  sorely  tempted  to  bid  guardian 
and  ward  good  morning;  but  friendship  and  pity  pre- 
vailed. By  streets  and  lanes  not  calculated  to  give 
Miss  Lasacque  a  very  favorable  first  impression  of 
Boston,  we  reached  Washington  street,  and  made  an 
intrepid  dash  across  it,  to  the  Marlborough  hotel. 

Of  this  public  house,  Thalimer  had  asked  my  opin- 
ion during  our  walk,  by  way  of  introducing  an  apolo- 
gy to  Miss  Lasacque  for  not  taking  her  to  his  own 
home.  She  had  made  it  quite  clear  that  she  expected 
this,  and  Jem  had  nothing  for  it  but  to  draw  such  a 
picture  of  the  decrepitude  of  Mr.  Thalimer,  senior, 
and  the  bedridden  condition  of  his  mother  (as  stout 
a  couple  as  ever  plodded  to  church  !)  as  would  satisfy 
the  lady  for  his  short-comings  in  hospitality.  This 
had  passed  off"  very  smoothly,  and  Miss  Lasacque  en- 
tered the  Marlboro',  quite  prepared  to  lodge  there, 
but  very  little  aware  (poor  girl  !)  of  the  objections  to 
receiving  her  as  a  lodger. 

Mr. ,  the  proprietor,  had  stood  in  the  arch- 
way as  we  entered.  Seeing  no  baggage  in  the  lady's 
train,  however,  he  had  not  followed  us  in,  supposing, 
probably,  that  we  were  callers  on  some  of  his  guests. 
Jem  left  us  in  the  drawing-room,  and  went  upon  his 
errand  to  the  proprietor,  but  after  half  an  hour's  ab- 
sence, came  back,  looking  very  angry,  and  informed 
us  that  no  rooms  were  to  be  had  !  Instead  of  taking 
the  rooms  without  explanation,  he  had  been  unwise 

enough  to  "  make  a  clean  breast"  to  Mr. ,  and 

the  story  of  the  lady's  being  bis  "ward,"  and  come 
from  Louisiana  to  go  to  school,  rather  staggered  that 
discreet  person's  credulity. 

Jem  beckoned  me  out,  and  we  held  a  little  council 
of  war  in  the  entry.  Alas!  I  had  nothing  to  suggest. 
I  knew  the  puritan  metropolis  very  well — I  knew  its 
phobia  was  "  the  appearance  of  evil."  In  Jem's  care- 
for-nothing  face  lay  the  leprosy  which  closed  all  doors 
against  us.  Even  if  we  had  succeeded,  by  a  coup-de- 
main,  in  lodging  Miss  Lasacque  at  the  Marlboro',  her 
guardian's  daily  visits  would  have  procured  for  her,  in 
the  first  week,  some  intimation  that  she  could  no 
longer  be  accommodated. 

"  We  had  best  go  and  dine  upon  it,"  said  I ;  "  worst 
come  to  the  worst,  we  can  fiud  some  sort  of  dormitory 
for  her  at  Gallagher's,  and  to-morrow  sh«  must  b%  put 


322 


THE  FEMALE  WARD. 


to   school,  out  of  the  reach  of  your  'pleasant,  but 
wrong  society.' " 

"I  hope  to  Heaven  she'll  'stay  put,'"  said  Jem, 
with  a  long  sigh. 

We  got  Miss  Lasacque  again  underway,  and  avoid- 
ing the  now  crowded  pave  of  Washington  street,  made 
a  short  cut  by  Theatre  Alley  to  Devonshire  street  and 
Gallagher's.  Safely  landed  in  "No.  2,"  we  drew  a 
long  breath  of  relief.     Jem  rang  the  bell. 

"Dinner,  waiter,  as  soon  as  possible." 

"The  same  that  was  ordered  at  six,  sir?" 

"Yes,  only  more  champagne,  and  bring  it  imme- 
diately. Excuse  me,  Miss  Lasacque,"  added  Jem, 
with  a  grave  bow,  "  but  the  non-appearance  of  that 
east  wind  my  friend  spoke  of,  has  given  me  an  unnat- 
ural thirst.  Will  you  join  me  in  some  champagne 
after  your  hot  walk  ?" 

"  No,  thank  you,"  said  the  lady,  untying  her  tip- 
pet, "  but,  if  you  please,  I  will  go  to  my  room  before 
dinner!" 

Here  was  trouble,  again  .'  It  nad  never  occurred  (o 
either  of  us,  that  ladies  must  go  to  their  rooms  before 
bedtime. 

"  Stop !"  cried  Jem,  as  she  laid  her  hand  on  the 
bell  to  ring  for  the  chamber-maid,  "excuse  me — I 
must  first  speak  to  the  landlord — the  room — the  room 
is  not  ready,  probably  !" 

He  seized  his  hat,  and  made  his  exit,  probably  wish- 
ing all  confiding  friends,  with  their  neighbor's  daugh- 
ters, in  a  better  world !     He  had  to  do  with  a  man  of 
sense,  however.     Gallagher  had  but  one  bedroom  in 
the  house,  which  was  not  n  servant's  room,  and  that 
was  his  own.     In  ten  minutes  it  was  ready,  and  at  the  | 
lady's  service.    A  black  scullion  was  promoted  for  the  . 
nonce,  to  the  post  of  chamber-maid,  and,  fortunately,  i 
the   plantation-bred   girl   had  not  been  long  enough 
from  home  to  be  particular.     She  came  to  dinner  as 
radiant  as  a  summer-squash. 

With  the  door  shut,  and  the  soup  before  us,  Tha- 
iimer's  spirits  and  mine  flung  off  their  burthens  to- 
gether. Jem  was  the  pleasantest  table-companion  in 
the  world,  and  he  chatted  and  made  the  amiable  to  his 
ward,  as  if  he  owed  her  some  amends  for  the  awkward 
position  of  which  she  was  so  blessedly  unconscious. 
Your  "dangerous  man"  (such  as  he  was  voted),  in- 
spires, of  course,  no  distrust  in  those  to  whom  he 
chooses  to  be  agreeable.  Miss  Lasacque  grew,  every 
minute,  more  delighted  with  him.  She,  too,  improved 
on  acquaintance.  Come  to  look  at  her  closely,  Nature 
meant  her  for  a  fine  showy  creature,  and  she  was 
"  out  of  condition,"  as  the  jockeys  say — that  was  all ! 
Her  features  were  good,  though  gamboged  by  a 
southern  climate,  and  the  fever-and-ague  had  flatten- 
ed what  should  be  round  and  ripe  lips,  and  reduced 
to  the  mere  frame,  what  should  be  the  bust  and  neck 
of  a  Die  Vernon.  I  am  not  sure  I  saw  all  this  at  the 
time.  Her  subsequent  chrysalis  and  emergence  into 
a  beautiful  woman,  naturally  color  my  description 
now.  But  I  did  see,  then,  that  her  eyes  were  large 
and  lustrous,  and  that  naturally  she  had  high  spirit, 
good  abilities,  and  was  a  thorough  woman  in  senti- 
ment, though  deplorably  neglected— for,  at  the  age 
of  twenty,  she  could  hardly  read  and  write  !  It  was 
not  surprising  that  she  was  pleased  with  us  !  She  was 
the  only  lady  present,  and  we  were  the  first  coxcombs 
she  had  ever  seen,  and  the  day  was  summery,  and  the 
dinner  in  Gallagher's  best  style.  We  treated  her  like 
a  princess  ;  and  the  more  agreeable  man  of  the  two 
being  her  guardian,  and  responsible  for  the  propriety 
of  the  whole  affair,  there  was  no  chance  for  a  failure. 
We  lingered  over  our  coffee  ;  and  we  lingered  over 
our  chassecafe;  and  we  lingered  over  our  tea;  and, 
when  the  old  South  struck  twelve,  we  were  still  at  the 
table  in  "  No.  2,"  quite  too  much  delighted  with  each 
other  to  have  thought  of  separating.  It  was  the  ven- 
erated guardian  who  made  the  first  move,  and.  after 


ringing  up  the  waiter  to  discover  that  the  scullion  had, 
six  hours  before,  made  her  nightly  disappearance,  the 
lady  was  respectfully  dismissed  with  only  a  candle  for 
her  chamber-maid,  and  Mr.  Gallagher's  room  for  her 
destination — wherever  that  might  be  ! 

We  dined  together  every  successive  day  for  a  week, 
and  during  this  time  the  plot  rapidly  thickened.  Tha- 
limer,  of  course,  vexed  soul  and  body,  to  obtain  for 
Miss  Lasacque  a  less  objectionable  lodging — urged 
scarcely  more  by  his  sense  of  propriety  than  by  a 
feeling  for  her  good-natured  host,  who,  meantime, 
slept  on  a  sofa.  But  the  unlucky  first  step  of  dining 
and  lodging  a  young  lady  at  a  restaurant,  inevitable 
as  it  was,  gave  a  fatal  assurance  to  the  predisposed 
scandal  of  the  affair,  and  every  day's  events  heighten- 
ed its  glaring  complexion.  Miss  Lasacque  had  ideas 
of  her  own,  and  very  independent  ones,  as  to  the 
amusement  of  her  leisure  hours.  She  had  never  been 
before  where  there  were  shops,  and  she  spent  her  first 
two  or  three  mornings  in  perambulating  Washington 
street,  dressed  in  a  style  perfectly  amazing  to  behold- 
ers, and  purchasing  every  description  of  gay  trumpe- 
ry— the  parcels,  of  course,  sent  to  Gallagher's,  and 
the  bills  to  James  Thalimer,  Esq. !  To  keep  her  out 
of  the  street,  Jem  took  her,  on  the  third  day,  to  the 
riding-school,  leaving  her  (safely  enough,  he  thought), 
in  charge  of  the  authoritative  Mr.  Roulstone,  while 
he  besieged  some  school-mistress  or  other  to  under- 
take her  ciphering  and  geography.  She  was  all  but 
born  on  horseback,  however,  and  soon  tired  of  riding 
round  the  ring.  The  street-door  was  set  open  for  a 
moment,  leaving  exposed  a  tempting  tangent  to  the 
circle,  and  out  flew  Miss  Lasacque,  saving  her  "  Leg- 
horn flat"  by  a  bend  to  the  saddle-bow,  that  would 
have  done  credit  to  a  dragoon,  and  no  more  was  seen, 
for  hours,  of  the  "  bonnie  black  mare"  and  her  rider. 

The  deepening  of  Miss  Lasacque's  passion  for  Jem, 
would  not  interest  the  reader.  She  loved  like  other 
women,  timidly  and  pensively.  Young  as  the  passion 
was,  however,  it  came  too  late  to  affect  her  manners 
before  public  opinion  had  pronounced  on  them.  There 
was  neither  boarding-house  nor  "  private  female  acad- 
emy" within  ten  miles,  into  which  "Mr.  Thalimer's 
young  lady"  would  have  been  permitted  to  set  her 
foot — small  as  was  the  foot,  and  innocent  as  was  the 
pulse  to  which  it  stepped. 

Uncomfortable  as  was  this  state  of  suspense,  and 
anxious  as  we  were  to  fall  into  the  track  marked 
"virtuous,"  if  virtue  would  only  permit;  public  opin- 
ion seemed  to  think  we  were  enjoying  ourselves  quite 
too  prosperously.  On  the  morning  of  the  seventh  day 
of  our  guardianship.  I  had  two  calls  after  breakfast, 
one  from  poor  Gallagher,  who  reported  that  he  had 
been  threatened  with  a  prosecution  of  his  establish- 
ment as  a  nuisance,  and  another  from  poorer  Jem, 
whose  father  had  threatened  to  take  the  lady  out  of 
his  hands,  and  lodge  her  in  the  insane  asylum  ! 

"*  Not  that  I  don't  wish  she  was  there,"  added  Jem, 
"  for  it  is  a  very  fine  place,  with  a  nice  garden,  and 
luxurious  enough  for  those  who  can  pay  for  them,  and 
faith,  I  believe  it's  the  only  lodging-house  I've  not  ap- 
plied to  !" 

I  must  shorten  my  story.  Jem  anticipated  his 
father,  by  riding  over,  and  showing  his  papers  con- 
stituting him  the  guardian  of  Miss  Lasacque,  in  which 
capacity,  he  was,  of  course,  authorized  to  put  his 
ward  under  the  charge  of  keepers.  Everybody  who 
knows  Massachusetts,  knows  that  its  insane  asylums 
are  sometimes  brought  to  bear  on  irregular  morals,  as 
well  as  on  diseased  intellect*,  and  as  the  presiding  of- 
ficer of  the  institution  was  quite  well  assured  that 
Miss  Lasacque  was  well  qualified  to  become  a  patient, 
Jem  had  no  course  left  but  to  profit  by  the  error. 
The  poor  girl  was  invited,  that  afternoon,  to  take  a 
drive  in  the  country,  and  we  came  back  and  dined 
without  her.  in  abominable  spirits,  I  must  say 


TWO  BUCKETS  IN  A  WELL. 


323 


Provided  with  the  best  instruction,  the  best  of  care  ||  and  at  the  end  of  that  time  he  came  on,  accompanied 
taken  of  her  health,  and  the  most  exemplary  of  ma-  i|  by  his  friend,  Mr.  Danchy.  He  found  his  daughter 
trotis  interesting  herself  in  her  patient's  improvements,  ,j  sufficiently  improved  in  health,  manners,  and  beauty, 
Miss  Lasacque  rapidly  improved — more  rapidly,  no  I  to  be  quite  satisfied  with  Jems  discharge  of  his  trust, 
doubt,  than  she  ever  could  have  done  by  control  less  :i  and  we  all  dined  very  pleasantly  in  "  No.  2  ;"  Miss 
rigid  and  inevitable.  Her  father,  by  the  advice  of  the  <\  Lasacque  declining,  with  a  blush,  my  invitation  to  her 
matron,  was  not  informed  of  her  location  for  a  year,  ||  to  make  one  of  the  party. 


TWO    BUCKETS    IN    A    WELL 


"Five  hundred  dollars  a  year!"  echoed  Fanny 
Bellairs,  as  the  first  silver  gray  of  the  twilight  spread 
over  her  picture. 

"And  my  art,"  modestly  added  the  painter,  prying 
into  his  bright  copy  of  the  lips  pronouncing  upon 
his  destiny. 

"  And  how  much  may  that  be  at  the  present  rate 
of  patronage — one  picture  a  year  painted  for  love!" 

"  Fanny,  how  can  you  be  so  calculating  !" 

"By  the  bumps  over  my  eyebrows,  I  suppose. 
Why,  my  dear  coz,  we  have  another  state  of  existence 
to  look  forward  to — old  man-age  and  old  woman-age  ! 
What  am  I  to  do  with  five  hundred  dollars  a  year, 
when  my  old  frame  wants  gilding — (to  use  one  of 
your  own  similes) — I  shan't  always  be  pretty  Fanny 
Bellairs  !" 

"  But,  good  Heavens  !  we  shall  grow  old  together!" 
exclaimed  the  painter,  sitting  down  at  her  feet,  "  and 
what  will  you  care  for  other  admiration,  if  your  husband 
see  you  still  beautiful,  with  the  eyes  of  memory  and 
habit." 

"  Even  if  I  were  sure  he  would  so  look  upon  me  !" 
answered  Miss  Bellairs  more  seriously,  "  I  can  not 
but  dread  an  old  age  without  great  means  of  embellish- 
ment. Old  people,  except  in  poetry  and  in  very 
primitive  society,  are  dishonored  by  wants  and  cares. 
And,  indeed,  before  we  are  old — when  neither  young 
nor  old — we  want  horses  and  ottomans,  kalydor  and 
conservatories,  books,  pictures,  and  silk  curtains — all 
quite  out  of  the  range  of  your  little  allowance,  don't 
you  see  !" 

"  You  do  not  love  me,  Fanny  !" 

"  I  do — and  will  marry  you,  Philip — as  I,  long  ago, 
with  my  whole  heart  promised.  But  I  wish  to  be 
happy  with  you — as  happy,  quite  as  happy,  as  is  at  all 
possible,  with  our  best  efforts  and  coolest,  discreetest 
management.  I  laugh  the  matter  over  sometimes, 
but  I  may  tell  you,  since  you  are  determined  to  be  in 
earnest,  that  I  have  treated  it,  in  my  solitary  thought, 
as  the  one  important  event  of  my  life — (so  indeed  it 
is  !) — and,  as  such,  worthy  of  all  fore-thought,  patience, 
self-denial,  and  calculation.  To  inevitable  ills  1  can 
make  up  my  mind  like  other  people.  If  your  art  were 
your  only  hope  of  subsistence — why — I  don't  know — 
(should  I  look  well  as  a  page?) — 1  don't  know  that  I 
couldn't  run  your  errands  and  grind  your  paints  in 
hose  and  doublet.  But  there  is  another  door  open 
for  you — a  counting-house  door,  to  be  sure — leading 
to  opulence  and  all  the  appliances  of  dignity  and  happi- 
ness, and  through  this  door,  my  dear  Philip,  the  an 
you  would  live  by  comes  to  pay  tribute  and  beg  for 
patronage.  Now,  out  of  your  hundred  and  twenty 
reasons,  give  me  the  two  stoutest  and  best,  why  you 
should  refuse  your  brother's  golden  offer  of  partner- 
ship— my  share,  in  your  alternative  of  poverty,  left  for 
the  moment  out  of  the  question." 

Rather  overborne  by  the  confident  decision  of  his 


beautiful  cousin,  and  having  probably  made  up  his 
mind  that  he  must  ultimately  yield  to  her,  Philip  re- 
plied in  a  lower  and  more  dejected  tone  : — 

"  If  you  were  not  to  be  a  sharer  in  my  renown, 
should  I  be  so  fortunate  as  to  acquire  it,  I  should  feel 
as  if  it  were  selfish  to  dwell  so  much  on  my  passion 
for  distinction  and  my  devotion  to  my  pencil  as  the 
means  of  winning  it.  My  heart  is  full  of  you — but  it 
is  full  of  ambition  too,  paradox  though  it  be.  1  can 
not  live  ignoble.  I  should  not  have  felt  worthy  to 
press  my  love  upon  you — worthy  to  possess  you — 
except  with  the  prospect  of  celebrity  in  my  art.  You 
make  the  world  dark  to  me,  Fanny  !  You  closedown 
the  sky,  when  you  shut  out  this  hope  !  Yet  it  shall 
be  so." 

Philip  paused  a  moment  and  the  silence  was  unin- 
terrupted. 

"  There  was  another  feeling  I  had,  upon  which  I 
have  not  insisted,"  he  continued.  "By  my  brother's 
project,  I  am  to  reside  almost  wholly  abroad.  Even 
the  little  stipend  I  have  to  offer  you  now,  is  absorbed 
of  course  by  the  investment  of  my  property  in  his 
trading  capital,  and  marriage,  till  I  have  partly  enrich- 
ed myself,  would  be  even  more  hopeless  than  at  present. 
Say  the  interval  were  five  years — and  five  years  of 
separation  !" 

"  With  happiness  in  prospect,  it  would  soon  pass, 
my  dear  Philip!" 

"But  is  there  nothing  wasted  in  this  time?  My 
life  is  yours — the  gift  of  love.  Are  not  these  com- 
ing five  years  the  very  flower  of  it  ? — a  mutual  loss, 
too.  for  are  they  not,  even  more  emphatically,  the  very 
flower  of  yours?  Eighteenand  twenty-five  are  ages  at 
which  to  marry,  not  ages  to  defer.  During  this  time  the 
entire  flow  of  my  existence  is  at  its  crowning  fulness 
— passion,  thought,  joy,  tenderness,  susceptibility  to 
beauty  and  sweetness— —all  I  have  that  can  be  diminish- 
ed or  tarnished  or  made  dull  by  advancing  age  and 
contact  with  the  world,  is  thrown  away  for  its  spring 
and  summer.  Will  the  autumn  of  life  repay  us  for 
this?  Will  it — even  if  we  are  rich  and  blest  with 
health,  and  as  capable  of  an  unblemished  union  as 
now  ?     Think  of  this  a  moment,  dear  Fanny  !" 

"  I  do — it  is  full  of  force  and  meaning,  and  could 
we  marry  now,  with  a  tolerable  prospect  of  competen- 
cy, it  would  be  irresistible.  But  poverty  in  wedlock, 
Philip—" 

"  What  do  you  call  poverty  !  If  we  can  suffice  for 
each  other,  and  have  the  necessaries  of  life,  we  are  not 
poor  !  My  art  will  bring  us  consideration  enough — 
which  is  the  main  end  of  wealth,  after  all — and  of 
society,  speaking  for  myself  only,  I  want  nothing. 
Luxuries  for  yourself,  Fanny,  means  for  your  dear 
comfort  and  pleasure,  you  should  not  want  if  the 
world  held  them,  and  surely  the  unbounded  devotion 
of  one  man  to  the  support  of  the  one  woman  he  loves, 
ought   to  suffice  for  the  task  !    I  am   strong — I   am 


324 


TWO  BUCKETS  IN  A  WELL. 


capable  of  labor — I  have  limbs  to  toil,  if  my  genius 
and  my  present  means  fail  me,  and,  oh,  Heaven,  you 
could  not  want !" 

"  No,  no,  no !  I  thought  not  of  want !"  murmured 
Miss  Bellairs,  "I  thought  only — " 

But  she  was  not  permitted  to  finish  the  sentence. 

"  Then  my  bright  picture  for  the  future  may  be 
realized  !"  exclaimed  Philip,  knitting  his  hands  to- 
gether in  a  transport  of  hope.  "  I  may  build  up  a  I 
reputation,  with  you  for  the  constant  partner  of  its 
triumphs  and  excitements!  I  may  go  through  the 
world  and  have  some  care  in  life  besides  subsistence, 
how  I  shall  sleep,  and  eat,  and  accumulate  gold ;  some 
companion,  who,  from  the  threshold  of  manhood, 
shared  every  thought — and  knew  every  feeling — some 
pure  and  present  angel  who  walked  with  me  and  puri- 
fied my  motives  and  ennobled  my  ambitions,  and  re- 
ceived from  my  lips  and  eyes,  and  from  the  beating 
of  my  heart,  against  her  own,  all  the  love  I  had  to  give 
in  a  lifetime.  Tell  me,  Fanny!  tell  me,  my  sweet 
cousin  !  is  not  this  a  picture  of  bliss,  which,  combined 
with  success  in  my  noble  art,  might  make  a  Paradise 
on  earth  for  you  and  me  ?" 

The  hand  of  Fanny  Bellairs  rested  on  the  upturned 
forehead  of  her  lover  as  he  sat  at  her  feet  in  the 
deepening  twilight,  and  she  answered  him  with  such 
sweet  words  as  are  linked  together  by  spells  known 
only  to  woman — but  his  palette  and  pencils  were, 
nevertheless,  burned  in  solemn  holocaust  that  very 
night,  and  the  lady  carried  her  point,  as  ladies  must. 
And  to  the  importation  of  silks  from  Lyons  was  de- 
voted, thenceforth,  the  genius  of  a  Raphael — perhaps  • 
Who  knows  ? 

The  reader  will  naturally  have  gathered  from  this 
dialogue  that  Miss  Fanny  Bellairs  had  black  eyes, 
and  was  rather  below  the  middle  stature.  She  was  a 
belle,  and  it  is  only  belle-metal  of  this  particular 
description  which  is  not  fusible  by  "  burning  words." 
She  had  mind  enough  to  appreciate  fully  the  romance 
and  enthusiasm  of  her  cousin,  Philip  Ballister,  and 
knew  precisely  the  phenomena  which  a  tall  blonde 
(this  complexion  of  woman  being  soluble  in  love  and 
tears),  would  have  exhibited  under  a  similar  experi- 
ment. While  the  fire  of  her  love  glowed,  therefore, 
she  opposed  little  resistance  and  seemed  softened  and 
yielding,  but  her  purpose  remained  unaltered,  and  she 
rang  out  "no!"  the  next  morning,  with  a  tone  as  little 
changed  as  a  convent-bell  from  matins  to  vespers, 
though  it  has  passed  meantime  through  the  furnace  ' 
of  an  Italian  noon. 

Fanny  was  not  a  designing  girl,  either.  She  might 
have  found  a  wealthier  customer  for  her  heart  than 
her  cousin  Philip.  And  she  loved  this  cousin  as  truly 
and  well  as  her  nature  would  admit,  or  as  need  be, 
indeed.  But  two  things  had  conspired  to  give  her 
the  unmalleable  quality  just  described — a  natural  dis- 
position to  confide,  first  and  foremost,  on  all  occasions, 
in  her  own  sagacity,  and  a  vivid  impression  made  upon 
her  mind  by  a  childhood  of  poverty.  At  the  age  of 
twelve  she  had  been  transferred  from  the  distressed 
fireside  of  her  mother,  Mrs.  Bellairs,  to  the  luxurious 
roof  of  her  aunt,  Mrs.  Ballister,  and  her  mother  dying 
soon  after,  the  orphan  girl  was  adopted  and  treated  as 
a  child;  but  the  memory  of  the  troubled  health  at 
which  she  had  first  learned  to  observe  and  reason, 
colored  all  the  purposes  and  affections,  thoughts, 
impulses  and  wishes  of  the  ripening  girl,  and  to  think 
of  happiness  in  any  proximity  to  privation  seemed  to 
her  impossible,  even  though  it  were  in  the  bosom  of 
love.  Seeing  no  reason  to  give  her  cousin  credit  for 
any  knowledge  of  the  world  beyond  his  own  experience, 
she  decided  to  think  for  him  as  well  as  love  him,  and 
not  being  so  much  pressed  as  the  enthusiastic  painter 
by  the  "  besoin  d'aimer  et  de  se  faire  aimer"  she  very 
composedly   prefixed,  to  the  possession  of  her  hand, 


the  trifling  achievement  of  getting  rich — quite  sure 
that  if  he  knew  as  much  as  she,  he  would  willingly  run 
that  race  without  the  incumbrance  of  matrimony. 

The  death  of  Mr.  Ballister,  senior,  had  left  the 
widow  and  her  two  boys  more  slenderly  provided  for 
than  was  anticipated — Phil's  portion,  after  leaving 
college,  producing  the  moderate  income  before  men- 
tioned. The  elder  brother  had  embarked  in  his  father's 
business,  and  it  was  thought  best  on  all  hands  for  the 
younger  Ballister  to  follow  his  example.  But  Philip, 
whose  college  leisure  had  been  devoted  to  poetry  and 
painting,  and  whose  genius  for  the  latter,  certainly, 
was  very  decided,  brought  down  his  habits  by  a  res- 
olute economy  to  the  limits  of  his  income,  and  took 
up  the  pencil  for  a  profession.  With  passionate  en- 
thusiasm, great  purity  of  character,  distaste  for  all 
society  not  in  harmony  with  his  favorite  pursuit,  and 
an  industry  very  much  concentrated  and  rendered 
effective  by  abstemious  habits,  Philip  Ballister  was 
very  likely  to  develop  what  genius  might  lie  between 
his  head  and  hand,  and  his  progress  in  the  first  year 
had  been  allowed  by  eminent  artists  to  give  very 
unusual  promise.  The  Ballisters  were  still  together 
under  the  maternal  roof,  and  the  painter's  studies 
were  the  portraits  of  the  family,  and  Fanny's  picture 
of  course  much  the  most  difficult  to  finish.  It  would 
be  very  hard  if  a  painter's  portrait  of  his  liege  mistress, 
the  lady  of  his  heart,  were  not  a  good  picture,  and 
Fanny  Bellairs  on  canvass  was  divine  accordingly.  If 
the  copy  had  more  softness  of  expression  than  the 
original  (as  it  was  thought  to  have),  it  only  proves  that 
wise  men  have  for  some  lime  suspected,  that  love  is 
more  dumb  than  blind,  and  the  faults  of  our  faultless 
idols  are  noted,  however  unconsciously.  Neither 
thumb-screws  nor  hot  coals — nothing  piobably  but  re- 
pentance after  matrimony — would  have  drawn  from 
Philip  Ballister,  in  words,  the  same  confession  of  his 
mistress's  foible  that  had  oozed  out  through  his 
treacherous  pencil  ! 

Cupid  is  often  drawn  as  a  stranger  pleading  to  be 
"taken  in,"  but  it  is  a  miracle  that  he  is  not  invariably 
drawn  as  a  portrait-painter.  A  bird  tied  to  the  muzzle 
of  a  gun — an  enemy  who  has  written  a  book — an  Indian 
prince  under  the  protection  of  Giovanni  Bulletto  (Tus- 
can for  John  Bull), — is  not  more  close  upon  demoli- 
tion, one  would  think,  than  the  heart  of  a  lady  deliver- 
ed over  to  a  painter's  eyes,  posed,  draped  and  lighted 
with  the  one  object  of  studying  her  beauty.  If  there 
be  any  magnetism  in  isolated  attention,  any  in  stead- 
fast gazing,  any  in  passes  of  the  hand  hither  and  thither 
— if  there  be  any  magic  in  ce  doux  demi-jour  so  loved 
in  France,  in  stuff  for  flattery  ready  pointed  and  feather- 
ed, in  freedom  of  admiration,  "and  all  in  the  way  of 
business" — then  is  a  loveable  sitter  to  a  love  like 
painter  in  "  parlous"  vicinity  (as  the  new  school  would 
phrase  it),  to  sweet-heart-land  !  Pleasure  in  a  voca- 
tion has  no  offset  in  political  economy  as  honor  has 
("the  more  honor  the  less  profit,")  or  portrait-painters 
would  be  poorer  than  poets. 

And  malgre  his  consciousness  of  the  quality  which 
required  softening  in  his  cousin's  beauty,  and  malgre 
his  rare  advantages  for  obtaining  over  her  a  lover's 
proper  ascendency,  Mr.  Philip  Ballister  bowed  to  the 
stronger  will  of  Miss  Fanny  Bellairs,  and  sailed  for 
France  on  his  apprenticeship  to  Mammon. 

The  reader  will  please  to  advance  five  years-  Be- 
fore proceeding  thence  with  our  story,  however,  let 
us  take  a  Parthian  glance  at  the  overstepped  interval. 

Philip  Ballister  had  left  New  York  with  the  triple 
vow  that  he  would  enslave  every  faculty  of  his  mind 
and  body  to  business,  that  he  would  not  return  till  he 
had  made  a  fortune,  and  that  such  interstices  as  might 
occur  in  the  building  up  of  this  chateau  for  felicity 
should  be  filled  with  sweet  reveries  about  Fanny  Bel- 
lairs.    The  forsworn  painter  had  genius,  as  we  have 


TWO  BUCKETS  IN  A  WELL 


325 


before  hinted,  and  genius  is  (as  much  as  it  is  any  one 
thing),  the  power  of  concentration.  He  entered  upon 
his  duties  accordingly  with  a  force,  and  patience  of 
application,  which  soon  made  him  master  of  what  are 
called  business  habits,  and,  once  in  possession  of  the 
details,  his  natural  cleverness  gave  him  a  speedy  insight 
to  all  the  scope  and  tactics  of  his  particular  field  of 
•rade.  Under  his  guidance,  the  affairs  of  the  house 
.vere  soon  in  a  much  more  prosperous  train,  and  after 
a  year's  residence  at  Lyons,  Philip  saw  his  way  very 
clear  to  manage  them  with  a  long  arm  and  take  up  his 
quarters  in  Paris. 

'•  Les  fats  sont  les  seuls  homines  qui  aient  soin-d'eux 
mimes,'1'1  says  a  French  novelist,  but  there  is  a  period, 
early  or  late,  in  the  lives  of  the  cleverest  men,  when 
they  become  suddenly  curious  as  to  their  capacity  for 
the  graces.  Paris,  to  a  stranger  who  does  not  visit  in 
the  Faubourg  St.  Germain,  is  a  republic  of  personal 
exterior,  where  the  degree  of  privilege  depends  with 
Utopian  impartiality  on  the  style  of  the  outer  man; 
and  Paris,  therefore,  if  he  is  not  already  a  Bachelor 
of  Arts  (qu? — beau's  Arts),  usually  serves  the  traveller 
as  an  Alma  Mater  of  the  pomps  and  vanities. 

Phil.  Ballister,  up  to  the  time  of  his  matriculation 
in  Chaussee  D'Antin,  was  a  romantic-looking  sloven. 
From  this  to  a  very  dashing  coxcomb  is  but  half  a  step, 
and  to  be  rid  of  the  coxcombry  and  retain  a  look  of 
fashion,  is  still  within  the  easy  limits  of  imitation. 
But — to  obtain  superiority  of  presence  with  no  apparent 
aid  from  dress  and  no  describable  manner,  and  to  dis- 
play at  the  same  time  every  natural  advantage  in  ef- 
fective relief,  and,  withal,  to  adapt  this  subtle  philtre, 
not  only  to  the  approbation  of  the  critical  and  censori- 
ous, but  to  the  taste  of  fair  women  gifted  with  judg- 
ment as  God  pleases — this  is  a  finish  not  born  with 
any  man  (though  unsuccessful  if  it  do  not  seem  to  be), 
and  never  reached  in  the  apprenticeship  of  life,  and 
never  reached  at  all  by  men  not  much  above  their 
fellows.  He  who  has  it,  has  "  bought  his  doublet  in 
Italy,  his  round  hose  in  France,  his  bonnet  in  Germa- 
ny, and  his  behavior  everywhere,"  for  he  must  know, 
as  a  chart  of  quicksands,  the  pronounced  models  of 
other  nations  ;  but  to  be  a  "  picked  man  of  countries," 
and  to  have  been  a  coxcomb  and  a  man  of  fashion,  are, 
as  a  painter  would  say,  but  the  setting  of  the  palette 
toward  the  making  of  the  chef-d'ceuvre. 

Business  prospered  and  the  facilities  of  leisure  in- 
creased, while  Ballister  passed  through  these  transi- 
tions of  taste,  and  he  found  intervals  to  travel,  and 
time  to  read,  and  opportunity  to  indulge  ;  as  far  as  he 
could  with  the  eye  only,  his  passion  for  knowledge  in 
the  arts.  To  all  that  appertained  to  the  refinement 
of  himself,  he  applied  the  fine  feelers  of  a  delicate  and 
passionate  construction,  physical  and  mental,  and,  as 
the  reader  will  already  have  included,  wasted  on  culture 
comparatively  unprofitable,  faculties  that  would  have 
eeen  better  employed  but  for  the  meddling  of  Miss 
fanny  Bellairs. 

Ballister's  return  from  France  was  heralded  by  the 
jrrival  of  statuary  and  pictures,  books,  furniture,  and 
uumberless  articles  of  tasteful  and  costly  luxury.  The 
reception  of  these  by  the  family  at  home  threw  rather 
n  new  light  on  the  probable  changes  in  the  long-absent 
brother,  for,  from  the  signal  success  of  the  business 
he  had  managed,  they  had  very  naturally  supposed 
that  it  was  the  result  only  of  unremitted  and  plodding 
care.  Vague  rumors  of  changes  in  his  personal  ap- 
pearance had  reached  them,  such  as  might  be  expected 
from  conformity  to  foreign  fashions,  but  those  who 
had  seen  Philip  Ballister  in  France,  and  called  subse- 
quently on  the  family  in  New  York,  were  not  people 
qualified  to  judge  of  the  man,  either  from  their  own 
powers  of  observation  or  from  any  confidence  he  was 
likely  to  put  forward  while  in  their  society.  His 
letters  had  been  delightful,  but  they  were  confined  to 


third-person  topics,  descriptions  of  things  likely  to  in- 
terest them,  &c,  and  Fanny  had  few  addressed  per- 
sonally to  herself,  having  thought  it  worth  while,  for 
the  experiment's  sake  or  for  some  other  reason,  to  see 
whether  love  would  subsist  without  its  usual  pabulum 
of  tender  correspondence,  and  a  veto  on  love-letters 
having  served  her  for  a  parting  injunction  at  Phil's 
embarkation  for  Havre.  However  varied  by  their 
different  fancies,  the  transformation  looked  for  by  the 
whole  family  was  substantially  the  same — the  romantic 
artist  sobered  down  to  a  practical,  plain  man  of  busi- 
ness. And  Fanny  herself  had  an  occasional  misgiving 
as  to  her  relish  for  his  counting-house  virtues  and 
manners;  though,  on  the  detection  of  the  feeling,  she 
immediately  closed  her  eyes  upon  it,  and  drummed 
up  her  delinquent  constancy  for  "  parade  and  inspec- 
tion." 

All  bustles  are  very  much  alike  (we  use  the  word 
as  defined  in  Johnson),  and  the  reader  will  appreciate 
our  delicacy,  besides,  in  not  intruding  on  the  first  re- 
union of  relatives  and  lovers  long  separated. 

The  morning  after  Philip  Ballister's  arrival,  the 
family  sat  long  at  breakfast.  The  mother's  gaze 
fastened  untiringly  on  the  features  of  her  son — still  her 
I  boy — prying  into  them  with  a  vain  effort  to  reconcile 
the  face  of  the  man  with  the  cherished  picture  of  the 
child  with  sunny  locks,  and  noting  little  else  than  the 
work  of  inward  change  upon  the  countenance  and  ex- 
I  pression.  The  brother,  with  the  predominant  feeling 
I  of  respect  for  the  intelligence  and  industry  of  one  who 
had  made  the  fortunes  of  the  house,  read  only  subdued 
sagacity  in  the  perfect  simplicity  of  his  whole  exterior. 
And  Fanny — Fanny  was  puzzled.  The  bourgeoisie 
and  leger-bred  hardness  of  manner  which  she  had 
looked  for  were  not  there,  nor  any  variety  of  the 
"foreign  slip-slop"  common  to  travelled  youth,  nor 
any  superciliousness,  nor  (faith  !)  any  wear  and  tear 
of  youth  or  good  looks — nothing  that  she  expected — 
nothing  !     Not  even  a  French  guard-chain  ! 

What  there  was  in  her  cousin's  manners  and  ex- 
terior, however,  was  much  more  difficult  to  define  by 
Miss  Bellairs  than  what  there  was  not.  She  began  the 
j  renewal  of  their  intercourse  with  very  high  spirits, 
I  herself — the  simple  nature  and  unpretendingness  of 
his  address  awakening  only  an  unembarrassed  pleasure 
at  seeing  him  again — but  she  soon  began  to  suspect 
there  was  an  exquisite  refinement  in  this  very  sim- 
plicity, and  to  wonder  at  "the  trick  of  it;"  and  after 
the  first  day  passed  in  his  society,  her  heart  beat  when 
he  spoke  to  her,  as  it  did  not  use  to  beat  when  she 
was  sitting  to  him  for  her  picture,  and  listening  to  his 
passionate  love-making.  And  with  all  her  faculties  she 
studied  him.  What  was  the  charm  of  his  presence!  He 
was  himself,  and  himself  only.  He  seemed  perfect,  but 
he  seemed  to  have  arrived  at  perfection  like  a  statue, 
not  like  a  picture — by  what  had  been  taken  away,  not 
by  what  had  been  laid  on.  He  was  as  natural  as  a  bird, 
and  as  graceful  and  unembarrassed.  He  neither  forced 
conversation,  nor  pressed  the  little  attentions  of  the  draw- 
ing-room, and  his  attitudes  were  full  of  repose  ;  yet  she 
was  completely  absorbed  in  what  he  said,  and  she  had 
been  impressed  imperceptibly  with  his  high-bred  polite- 
ness, and  the  singular  elegance  of  his  person.  Fanny 
felt  there  was  a  change  in  her  relative  position  to  her 
cousin.  In  what  it  consisted,  or  which  had  the  ad- 
vantage, she  was  perplexed  to  discover — but  she  bit 
her  lips  as  she  caught  herself  thinking  that  if  she  were 
not  engaged  to  marry  Philip  Ballister,  she  should 
suspect  that  she  had  just  fallen  irrecoverably  in  love 
with  him. 

It  would  have  been  a  novelty  in  the  history  of  Miss 
Bellairs  that  any  event  to  which  she  had  once  con- 
sented, should  admit  of  reconsideration ;  and  the 
Ballister  family,  used  to  her  strong  will,  were  confirm- 
ed fatalists  as  to  the  coming  about  of  her  ends  and 
aims.       Her    marriage    with    Philip,    therefore,    was 


326 


TWO  BUCKETS  IN  A  WELL. 


discussed,  cceur  ouvert,  from  his  first  arrival,  and,  in- 
deed, in  her  usual  fashion  of  saving  others  the  trouble 
of  making  up  their  minds.  "  herself  had  named  the 
day."  This,  it  is  true,  was  before  his  landing,  and 
was  then,  an  effort  of  considerable  magnanimity,  as 
the  expectant  Penelope  was  not  yet  advised  of  her 
lover's  state  of  preservation  or  damages  by  cares  and 
keeping.  If  Philip  had  not  found  his  wedding-day 
fixed  on  his  arrival,  however,  he  probably  would  have 
had  a  voice  in  the  naming  of  it,  for  with  Fanny's  new 
inspirations  as  to  his  character,  there  had  grown  up  a 
new  flower  in  her  garden  of  beauties — timidity ! 
Whit  bird  of  the  air  had  sown  the  seed  in  such  a  soil 
was  a  problem  to  herself — but  true  it  was! — the  con- 
fident belle  had  grown  a  blushing  trembler!  She 
would  as  soon  have  thought  of  bespeaking  her  wings 
for  the  sky,  as  to  have  ventured  on  naming  the  day  in 
a  short  week  after. 

The  day  was  named,  however,  and  the  preparations 
went  on — nem.  con. — the  person  most  interested  (after 
herself)  accepting  every  congratulation  and  allusion, 
touching  the  event,  with  the  most  impenetrable  suavity. 
The  marbles  and   pictures,  upholstery  and   services, 
were  delivered  over  to  the  order  of  Miss  Bellairs,  and 
Philip,  disposed,  apparently,  to  be  very  much  a  recluse 
in  his  rooms,  or  at  other  times,  engrossed  by  troops 
of  welcoming  friends,  saw  much  less  of  his  bride  elect 
than  suited  her  wishes,  and  saw  her  seldom  alone.    By 
particular  request,  also,  he  took  no  part  in  the  'plenish- 
ing and  embellishing  of  the  new  abode — not  permitted  I 
even  to  inquire  where  it  was  situated,  and  under  this  ! 
cover,  besides  the  pleasure  of  having  her  own  way, 
Fanny  concealed  a  little  secret,  which,  when  disclosed, 
•he  now  felt,  would  figure  forth  to  Philip's  comprehen-  j 
sion,  her  whole  scheme  of  future  happiness.     She  had  [ 
taken  the  elder  brother  into  her  counsels  a  fortnight  j 
after  Philip's  return,  and,  with  his  aid  and  consent, 
bad  abandoned  the  original  idea  of  a  house  in  town, 
purchased   a   beautifully-secluded   estate  and  cottage  j 
ornee,  on  the  East  river,  and  transferred  thither  all  the 
objects  of  art,  furniture,  &c.     One  room  only  of  the  ! 
maternal    mansion    was   permitted    to    contribute   its  j 
quota  to  the  completion  of  the  bridal  dwelling — the  j 
wing,  never  since  inhabited,  in  which  Philip  had  made 
his  essay  as  a  painter — and  without  variation  of  a  cob- 
web, and  with  whimsical  care  and  effort  on  the  part 
of  Miss   Fanny,   this   apartment  was  reproduced   at  j 
Revedere — her  own   picture  on  the  easel,  as  it  stood  j 
on  the  night  of  his  abandonment  of  his  art,  and  palette,  j 
pencils  and  colors  in  tempting  readiness  on  the  table. 
Even  the  fire-grate  of  the  old  studio  had  been  re-set 
in  the  new,  and  the  cottage  throughout  had  been  re- 
fitted  with  a  view  to  occupation  in  the  winter.     And 
to  sundry  hints  on  the  part  of  the  elder  brother,  that  I 
Borne  thought  should  be  given  to  a  city  residence —  I 
for  the  Christmas  holydays,  at  least — Fanny  replied, 
through  a  blush,  that  she  should  never  wish  to  see  the 
town — with  Philip  at  Revedere! 

Five  years  had  ripened  and  mellowed  the  beauty 
of  Fanny  Bellairs,  and  the  same  summer-time  of  youth 
had  turned  into  fruit  the  feeling  left  by  Philip  in  bud 
and  flower.  She  was  ready  now  for  love.  She  had 
felt  the  variable  temper  of  society,  and  there  was  a 
presentiment  in  the  heart  of  receding  flatteries,  and 
the  winter  of  life.  It  was  with  mournful  self-reproach 
that  she  thought  of  the  years  wasted  in  separation,  of 
her  own  choosing,  from  the  man  she  loved,  and  with 
the  power  to  recall  time,  she  would  have  thanked 
God  with  tears  of  joy  for  the  privilege  of  retracing 
the  chain  of  life  to  that  link  of  parting.  Not  worth  a 
day  of  those  lost  years,  she  bitterly  confessed  to  her- 
self, was  the  wealth  they  had  purchased. 

It  lacked  as  little  as  one  week  of  '-the  happy  day,"' 
when  the  workmen  were  withdrawn  from  Revedere, 
and  the  preparations  for  a  family  breakfast,  to  be  suc- 
ceeded by  the  agreeable  surprise  to  Philip  of  inform- 


ing him  he  was  at  home,  were  finally  completed.  One 
or  two  very  intimate  friends  were  added  to  the  party, 
and  the  invitations  (from  the  elder  Ballister)  proposed 
simply  a  dejeuner  sur  Vherbe  in  the  grounds  of  an  un- 
occupied villa,  the  property  of  an  acquaintance. 

With  the  subsiding  of  the  excitement  of  return,  the 
early  associations  which  had  temporarily  confused  and 
colored  the  feelings  of  Philip  Ballister,  settled  gradu- 
ally away,* leaving  uppermost  once  more  the  fastidious 
refinement  of  the  Parisian.  Through  this  medium, 
thin  and  cold,  the  bubbles  from  the  breathing  of  the 
heart  of  youth,  rose  rarely  and  reluctantly.  The  Bal- 
listers  held  a  good  station  in  society,  without  caring 
for  much  beyond  the  easy  conveniences  of  life,  and 
Fanny,  though  capable  of  any  degree  of  elegance,  had 
not  seen  the  expediency  of  raising  the  tone  of  her 
manners  above  that  of  her  immediate  friends.  With- 
out being  positively  distasteful  to  Philip,  the  family 
circle,  Fanny  included,  left  him  much  to  desire  in  the 
way  of  society,  and  unwilling  to  abate  the  warmth  of 
his  attentions  while  with  them,  he  had  latterly  pleaded 
occupation  more  frequently,  and  passed  his  time  in 
the  more  congenial  company  of  his  library  of  art. 
This  was  the  less  noticed  that  it  gave  Miss  Bellairs 
the  opportunity  to  make  frequent  visits  to  the  work- 
men at  Revedere,  and  in  the  polished  devotion  of  her 
betrothed,  when  with  her,  Fanny  saw  nothing  reflected 
but  her  own  daily  increasing  tenderness  and  admira- 
tion. 

The  morning  of  the  fete  came  in  like  the  air  in  an 
overture — a  harmony  of  all  the  instruments  of  sum- 
mer. The  party  were  at  the  gate  of  Revedere  by  ten, 
and  the  drive  through  the  avenue  to  the  lawn  drew  a 
burst  of  delighted  admiration  from  all.  The  place  was 
exquisite,  and  seen  in  its  glory,  and  Fanny's  heart  was 
brimming  with  gratified  pride  and  exultation.  She 
assumed  at  once  the  dispensation  of  the  honors,  and 
beautiful  she  looked  with  her  snowy  dress  and  raven 
ringlets  flitting  across  the  lawn,  and  queening  it  like 
Perdita  among  the  flowers.  Having  narrowly  escaped 
bursting  into  tears  of  joy  when  Philip  pronounced  the 
place  prettier  than  anything  he  had  seen  in  his  travels, 
she  was,  for  the  rest  of  the  day,  calmly  happy,  and 
with  the  grateful  shade,  the  delicious  breakfast  in  the 
grove,  the  rambling  and  boating  on  the  river,  the  hours 
passed  off  like  dreams,  and  no  one  even  hinted  a  re- 
gret that  the  house  itself  was  under  lock  and  bar.  And 
so  the  sun  set,  and  the  twilight  came  on,  and  the 
guests  were  permitted  to  order  round  their  carriages 
and  depart,  the  Ballisters  accompanying  them  to  the 
gate.  And,  on  the  return  of  the  family  through  the 
avenue,  excuses  were  made  for  idling  hither  and  thith- 
er, till  lights  began  to  show  through  the  trees,  and  by 
the  time  of  their  arrival  at  the  lawn,  the  low  windows 
of  the  cottage  poured  forth  streams  of  light,  and  the 
open  doors^  and  servants  busy  within,  completed  a 
scene  more  like  magic  than  reality.  Philip  was  led  in 
by  the  excited  girl  who  was  the  fairy  of  the  spell,  and 
his  astonishment  at  the  discovery  of  his  statuary  and 
pictures,  books  and  furniture,  arranged  in  complete 
order  within,  was  fed  upon  with  the  passionate  delight 
of  love  in  authority. 

When  an  hour  had  been  spent  in  examining  and 
admiring  the  different  apartments,  an  inner  room  was 
thrown  open,  in  which  supper  was  prepared,  and  this 
fourth  act  in  the  day's  drama  was  lingered  over  in  un- 
tiring happiness  by  the  family. 

Mrs.  Ballister,  the  mother,  rose  and  retired,  and 
Philip  pleaded  indisposition,  and  begged  to  be  shown 
to  the  room  allotted  to  him.  This  was  ringing-up  the 
curtain  for  the  last  act  sooner  than  had  been  planned  by 
Fanny,  but  she  announced  herself  as  his  chamberlain, 
and  with  her  hands  affectionately  crossed  on  his  arm, 
led  him  to  a  suite  of  rooms  in  a  wing  still  unvisited, 
and  with  a  good-night  kiss  left  him  at  the  open  door 
of  the  revived   studio,  furnished  for  the  night  with  a 


TWO  BUCKETS  IN  A  WELL. 


327 


bachelor's  bed.  Turning  upon  the  threshold,  he 
closed  the  door  with  a  parting  wish  of  sweet  dreams, 
and  Fanny,  after  listening  a  moment  with  a  vain  hope 
of  overhearing  some  expression  of  pleasure,  and  lin- 
gering again  on  her  way  back,  to  be  overtaken  by  her 
surprised  lover,  sought  her  own  bed  without  rejoining 
the  circle,  and  passed  a  sleepless  and  happy  night  of 
tean  and  joy. 

Breakfast  was  served  the  next  morning  on  a  terrace 
overlooking  the  river,  and  it  was  voted  by  acclamation, 
that  Fanny  never  before  looked  so  lovely.  As  none 
but  the  family  were  to  be  present,  she  had  stolen  a 
march  on  her  marriage  wardrobe,  and  added  to  her 
demi-toilet  a  morning  cap  of  exquisite  becomingness. 
Altogether,  she  looked  deliciously  wife-like,  and  did 
the  honors  of  the  breakfast-table  with  a  grace  and 
sweetness  that  warmed  out  love  and  compliments  even 
from  the  sober  soil  of  household  intimacy.  Philip 
had  not  yet  made  his  appearance,  and  they  lingered 
long  at  table,  till  at  last  a  suggestion  that  he  might  be 
ill  started  Fanny  to  her  feet,  and  she  ran  to  his  door 
before  a  servant  could  be  summoned. 

The  rooms  were  open,  and  the  bed  had  not  been  j 
occupied.  The  candle  was  burned  to  the  socket,  and  | 
on  the  easel,  resting  against  the  picture,  was  a  letter 
addressed — "  Miss  Fanny  Bellairs." 

THE    LETTER. 

••  I  have  followed  up  to  this  hour,  my  fair  cousin,  in 
the  path  you  have  marked  out  for  me.    It  has  brought 
me  back,  in  this  chamber,  to  the  point  from  which  I 
started  under  your  guidance,  and  if  it  had  brought  me 
back  unchanged — if  it  restored   me  my  energy,  my 
hope,  and  my  prospect  of  fame,  I  should  pray  Heaven 
that  it  would  also  give  me  back  my  love,  and  be  con- 
tent— more  than  content,  if  it  gave  me  back  also  my 
poverty.     The  sight  of  my  easel,  and  of  the  surround- 
ings of  my   boyish  dreams  of  glory,  have  made  my 
heart   bitter.     They  have  given  form  and  voice  to  a 
vague  unhappiness,  which  has  haunted  me  through  all 
these  absent  years — years  of  degrading  pursuits  and 
wasted  powers — and  it  now  impels  me  from  you,  kind  , 
and  lovely  as  you  are,  with  an  aversion  I  can  not  con-  i 
trol.     I  can  not  forgive  you.     You  have  thwarted  my  : 
destiny.     You   have  extinguished  with  sordid  cares  a  | 
lamp  within  me  that  might,  by  this  time,  have  shone  ; 
through  the  world.     And  what  am  I,  since  your  wishes 
are  accomplished  ?    Enriched  in  pocket,  and  bankrupt 
in  happiness  and  self-respect. 

"  With  a  heart  sick,  and  a  brain  aching  for  distinc-  ! 
tion,  I  have  come  to  an  unhonored  stand-still  at  thirty  !  | 
I  am  a  successful   tradesman,  and  in  this  character  I  j 
shall  probably  die.     Could  I  begin  to  be  a  painter  now,  j 
say  you  ?     Alas  !  my  knowledge  of  the  art  is  too  great  ! 
for  patience  with  the  slow  hand  !      I  could  not  draw  a 
line  without  despair.     The  pliant  fingers  and  the  plas-  I 
tic  mind  must  keep  pace  to  make  progress,  in  art.     My  I 
taste  is  fixed,  and  my  imagination  uncreative,  because  j 
chained  down  by  certainties;  and  the  shortsighted  ar-  ] 
dor  and  daring  experiment  which  are  indispensable  to  ] 
sustain   and   advance  the  follower  in  Raphael's  foot-  j 
steps,  are  too  far  behind  for  my  resuming.     The  tide 
ebbed  from  me  at  the  accursed  burning  of  my  pencils  j 
by  your  pitiless  hand,  and  from  that  hour  I  have  felt 
hope  receding.     Could  I  be  happy  with  you,  stranded 
here  in  ignoble  idleness,  and  owing  to  you  the  loss  of 
my   whole  venture  of  opportunity  ?     No,  Fanny ! — 
surely  no  ! 

"  1  would  not  be  unnecessarily  harsh,  ^im  sensi- 
ble of  your  affection  and  constancy.  I  have  deferred 
this  explanation  unwisely,  till  the  time  and  place  make 
it  seem  more  cruel.     You  are  at  this  very  moment,  I 


well  know,  awake  in  your  chamber,  devoting  to  me  the 
vigils  of  a  heart  overflowing  with  tenderness.  And  1 
would — if  it  were  possible — if  it  were  not  utterly  be- 
yond my  powers  of  self-sacrifice  and  concealment — I 
would  affect  a  devotion  I  can  not  feel,  and  carry  out 
this  error  through  a  life  of  artifice  and  monotony.  But 
here,  again,  the  work  is  your  own,  and  my  feelings  re- 
vert bitterly  to  your  interference.  If  there  were  no 
other  obstacle  to  my  marrying  you — if  you  were  not 
associated  repulsively  with  the  dark  cloud  on  my  life, 
you  are  not  the  woman  I  could  now  enthrone  in  my 
bosom.  We  have  diverged  since  the  separation  which 
I  pleaded  against,  and  which  you  commanded.  I  need 
for  my  idolatry,  now,  a  creature  to  whom  the  sordid 
cares  you  have  sacrificed  me  to,  are  utterly  unknown 
— a  woman  born  and  educated  in  circumstances  where 
want  is  never  feared,  and  where  calculation  never  en- 
ters. I  must  lavish  my  wealth,  if  I  fulfil  my  desire, 
on  one  who  accepts  it  like  the  air  she  breathes,  and 
who  knows  the  value  of  nothing  but  love — a  bird  with 
a  huuaan  soul  and  form,  believing  herself  free  of  all 
the  world  is  rich  in,  and  careful  only  for  pleasure  and 
the  happiness  of  those  who  belong  to  her.  Such 
women,  beautiful  and  highly  educated,  are  found  only 
in  ranks  of  society  between  which  and  my  own  I  have 
been  increasing  in  distance — nay,  building  an  impassa- 
ble barrier,  in  obedience  to  your  control.  Where  I 
stop,  interdicted  by  the  stain  of  trade,  the  successful 
artist  is  free  to  enter.  You  have  stamped  me  plebeian 
— you  would  not  share  my  slow  progress  toward  a 
higher  sphere,  and  you  have  disqualified  me  for  attain- 
ing it  alone.  In  your  mercenary  and  immoveable  will, 
and  in  that  only,  lies  the  secret  of  our  twofold  unhap- 
piness. 

"  I  leave  you,  to  return  to  Europe.  My  brother  and 
my  friends  will  tell  you  I  am  mad  and  inexcusable,  and 
look  upon  you  as  a  victim.  They  will  say  that,  to 
have  been  a  painter,  were  nothing  to  the  career  that  1 
might  mark  out  for  my  ambition,  if  ambition  1  must 
have,  in  politics.  Politics  in  a  country  where  distinc- 
tion is  a  pillory  !  But  I  could  not  live  here.  It  is  my 
misfortune  that  my  tastes  are  so  modified  by  that  long 
and  compulsory  exile,  that  life,  here,  would  be  a  per- 
petual penance.  This  unmixed  air  of  merchandise 
suffocates  me.  Our  own  home  is  tinctured  black  with 
it.  You  yourself,  in  this  rural  paradise  you  have  con- 
jured up,  move  in  it  like  a  cloud.  The  counting- 
house  rings  in  your  voice,  calculation  draws  together 
your  brows,  you  look  on  everything  as  a  means,  and 
know  its  cost;  and  the  calm  and  means-forgetting// u- 
ition,  which  forms  the  charm  and  dignity  of  superior 
life,  is  utterly  unknown  to  you.  What  would  be  my 
happiness  with  such  a  wife  ?  What  would  be  yours 
with  such  a  husband  ?  Yet  I  consider  the  incompat- 
ibility between  us  as  no  advantage  on  my  part — on  the 
contrary,  a  punishment,  and  of  your  inflicting.  What 
shall  I  be  anywhere  but  a  Tantalus — a  fastidious  en- 
nuye,  with  a  thirst  for  the  inaccessible  burning  in  my 
bosom  continually  ! 

"  I  pray  you  let  us  avoid  another  meeting  before  my 
departure.  Though  I  can  not  forgive  you  as  a  lover. 
I  can  think  of  you  with  pleasure  as  a  cousin,  and  I 
give  you,  as  your  due  ("damages,"  the  law  would 
phrase  it),  the  portion  of  myself  which  you  thought 
most  important  when  I  offered  you  my  all.  You 
would  not  take  me  without  the  fortune,  but  perhaps 
you  will  be  content  with  the  fortune  without  me.  I 
shall  immediately  take  steps  to  convey  to  you  this 
property  of  Revedere,  with  an  income  sufficient  to 
maintain  it,  and  I  trust  soon  to  hear  that  you  have 
found  a  husband  better  worthy  of  you  than  your 
couam "Philip  Baluster," 


328 


LIGHT  VERVAIN. 


LIGHT  VERVAIN. 


And  thou  light  vervain,  too — thou  next  come  after, 
Provoking  souls  to  mirth  and  easy  laughter."— Old  Somebody. 


Rome,  May  30,  1832. 

Dined  with  F — ,  the  artist,  at  a  trattoria.  F —  is 
a  man  of  genius,  very  adventurous  and  imaginative  in 
his  art,  but  never  caring  to  show  the  least  touch  of 
these  qualities  in  his  conversation.  His  pictures  have 
given  him  great  vogue  and  consideration  at  Rome,  so 
that  his  daily  experience  furnishes  staple  enough  for 
his  evening's  chit-chat,  and  he  seems,  of  course,  to  be 
always  talking  of  himself.  He  is  very  generally  set 
down  as  an  egotist.  His  impulse  to  talk,  however, 
springs  from  no  wish  for  self-glorification,  but  rather 
from  an  indolent  aptness  to  lay  hands  on  the  readiest 
and  most  familiar  topic,  and  that  is  a  kind  of  egotism 
to  which  I  have  very  little  objection — particularly  i 
with  the  mind  fatigued,  as  it  commonly  is  m  Rome, 
by  a  long  day's  study  of  works  of  art. 

I  had  passed  the  morning  at  the  Barberini  palace 
with  a  party  of  picture-hunters,  and  I  made  some 
remark  as  to  the  variety  of  impressions  made  upon 
the  minds  of  different  people  by  the  same  picture. 
Apropos  of  this  remark,  F —  told  me  a  little  anecdote, 
which  I  must  try  to  put  down  by  way  of  a  new  shoal 
in  the  chart  of  human  nature. 

"  It  is  very  much  the  same  with  everything  else," 
said  F — ;  "no  two  people  see  with  the  same  eyes, 
physically  or  morally  ;  and  faith,  we  might  save  our- 
selves a  great  deal  of  care  and  bother  if  we  did  but 
keep  it  in  mind." 

"  As  how  ?"  I  asked,  for  I  saw  that  this  vague 
remark  was  premonitory  of  an  illustration. 

"  I  think  I  introduced  young  Skyring  to  you  at  a 
party  somewhere?" 

"A  youth  with  a  gay  waistcoat  and  nothing  to  say  ? 
Yes." 

"  Well — your  observation  just  now  reminded  me  of 
the  different  estimate  put  by  that  gentleman  and 
myself  upon  something,  and  if  I  could  give  you  any 
idea  of  my  month's  work  in  his  behalf,  you  would 
agree  with  me  that  I  might  have  spared  myself  some 
trouble — keeping  in  mind,  as  I  said  before,  the  differ- 
ence in  optics. 

"I  was  copying  a  bi't  of  foreshortening  from  a  pic- 
ture in  the  Vatican,  one  day,  when  this  youth  passed 
without  observing  me.  I  did  not  immediately  recol- 
lect him.  He  was  dressed  like  a  figure  in  a  tailor's 
widow,  and  with  Mrs.  Stark  in  his  hand  was  hunting 
up  the  pictures  marked  with  four  notes  of  admiration, 
and  I,  with  a  smile  at  the  waxy  dandyism  of  the  man, 
turned  to  my  work  and  forgot  him.  Presently  his 
face  recurred  to  me,  or  rather  his  sister's  face,  which 
some  family  likeness  had  insensibly  recalled,  and 
getting  another  look,  I  recognised  in  him  an  old, 
though  not  very  intimate  playmate  of  my  boyish  days. 
It  immediately  occurred  to  me  that  I  could  serve  him 
a  very  good  turn  by  giving  him  the  entree  to  society 
here,  and  quite  as  immediately,  it  occurred  to  me  to 
doubt  whether  it  was  worth  my  while." 

"  And  what  changed  your  mind,"  I  asked,  "  for  of 
course  you  came  to  the  conclusion  that  it  was  not  ?" 

"  Oh,  for  his  sake  alone  I  should  have  left  him  as 
he  was,  a  hermit  in  his  varnished  boots — for  he  had 
not  an  acquaintance  in  the  city — but  Kate  Skyring 
had  given  me  roses  when  roses  were  to  me,  each  a 
world;  and  for  her  sake,  though  I  was  a  rejected 
lover,  I  thought  better  of  my  demurrer.     Then  I  had 


a  little  pique  to  gratify — for  the  Skyrings  had  rather 
given  me  the  de  haut  en  has  in  declining  the  honor  of 
my  alliance  (lucky  for  me,  since  it  brought  me  here 
and  made  me  what  I  am),  and  I  was  not  indisposed  to 
show  that  the  power  to  serve,  to  say  the  least,  was  now 
on  my  side." 

"Two  sufficient,  as  well  as  dramatic  reasons  for 
being  civil  to  a  man." 

"  Only  arrived  at,  however,  by  a  night's  deliberation, 
for  it  cost  me  some  trouble  of  thought  and  memory  to 
get  back  into  my  chrysalis  and  imagine  myself  at  all 
subject  to  people  so  much  below  my  present  vogue — 
whatever  that  is  worth  !  Of  course  1  don't  think  of 
Kate  in  this  comparison,  for  a  woman  one  has  once 
loved  is  below  nothing.  We'll  drink  her  health,  God 
bless  her !" 

(A  bottle  of  Lagrima.) 

"  I  left  my  card  on  Mr.  Skyring  the  next  morning, 
with  a  note  enclosing  three  or  four  invitations  which  I 
had  been  at  some  trouble  to  procure,  and  a  hope  from 
myself  of  the  honor  of  his  company  to  a  quiet  dinner. 
He  took  it  as  a  statue  would  take  a  shower-bath,  wrote 
me  a  note  in  the  third  person  in  reply  to  mine  in  the 
first,  and  came  in  ball-dress  and  sulphur  gloves  at  pre- 
cisely the  canonical  fifteen  minutes  past  the  hour. 
Good  old  Thorwalsden  dined  with  me,  and  an  English 
viscount  for  whom  I  was  painting  a  picture,  and 
between  my  talking  Italian  to  the  venerable  sculptor, 
and  Skyring's  belording  and  belordshipping  the  good- 
natured  nobleman,  the  dinner  went  trippingly  off — the 
Little  Pedlington  of  our  mutual  nativity  furnishing 
less  than  its  share  to  the  conversation. 

"  We  drove,  all  together,  to  the  Palazzo  Rossi,  for 
its  was  the  night  of  the  Marchesa's  soiree.  As  spon- 
sor, I  looked  with  some  satisfaction  at  Skyring  in  the 
ante-room,  his  toggery  being  quite  unexceptionable, 
and  his  maintien  very  uppish  and  assured.  I  presented 
him  to  our  fair  hostess,  who  surveyed  him  as  he 
approached  with  a  satisfactory  look  of  approval,  and 
no  one  else  chancing  to  be  near,  I  left  him  to  improve 
what  was  rather  a  rare  opportunity — a  tete-a-tete  with 
the  prettiest  woman  in  Rome.  Five  minutes  after  I 
returned  to  reconnoitre,  and  there  he  stood,  stroking 
down  his  velvet  waistcoat  and  looking  from  the  carpet 
to  the  ceiling,  while  the  marchioness  was  quite  red 
with  embarrassment  and  vexation.  He  had  not  opened 
his  lips  !  She  had  tried  him  in  French  and  Italian 
(the  dunce  had  told  me  that  he  spoke  French  too), 
and  finally  she  had  ventured  upon  English,  which  she 
knew  very  little  of,  and  still  he  neither  spoke  nor  ran 
away  ! 

"  'Perhaps  Monsieur  would  like  to  dance,'  said  the 
marchioness,  gliding  away  from  him  with  a  look  of 
inexpressible  relief,  and  trusting  to  me  to  find  him  a 
partner. 

"  I  had  no  difficulty  in  finding  him  a  partner,  for 
(that  far)  his  waistcoat  'put  him  on  velvet' — but  I 
could  not  trust  him  alone  again  ;  so,  having  presented 
him  to  a  «ery  pretty  woman  and  got  them  vis-a-vis  in 
the  quadrille,  I  stood  by  to  supply  the  shortcomings. 
And  little  of  a  sinecure  it  was  !  The  man  had  nothing 
to  say  ;  nor,  confound  him,  had  he  any  embarrassment 
on  the  subject.  He  looked  at  his  varnished  pumps, 
and  coaxed  his  coat  to  his  waist,  and  set  back  his  neck 
like  a  goose  bolting  a  grasshopper,  and  took  as  much 


LIGHT  VERVAIN. 


329 


interest  in  the  conversation  as  a  footman  behind  your 
chair— deaf  and  dumb  apparently,  but  perfectly  at  his 
ease.  He  evidently  had  no  idea  that  there  was  any 
distinction  between  men  except  in  dress,  and  was  per- 
suaded that  he  was  entirely  successful  as  far  as  he  had 
gone  :  and  as  to  my  efforts  in  his  behalf,  he  clearly 
took  them  as  gratuitous  on  my  part — probably  thinking, 
from  the  difference  in  our  exteriors,  that  I  paid  myself 
in  the  glory  of  introducing  him. 

m  Well — I  had  begun  so  liberally  that  I  could  scarce 
refuse  to  find  my  friend  another  partner,  and  after  that 
another  and  another — 1,  to  avoid  the  odium  of  inflict- 
ing a  bore  on  my  fair  acquaintances,  feeling  compelled 
to  continue  my  service  as  chorus  in  the  pantomime — 
and,  you  will  scarce  believe  me  when  1  tell  you  that  I 
submitted  to  this  bore  nightly  for  a  month  !  1  could 
not  get  rid  of  him.  He  would  not  be  let  go.  With- 
out offending  him  mortally,  and  so  undoing  all  my 
sentimental  outlay  for  Kate  Skyring  and  her  short- 
sighted papa,  I  had  nothing  for  it  but  to  go  on  till  he 
should  »o  off— ridden  to  death  with  him  in  every  con- 
ceivable variety  of  bore." 

"  And  is  he  gone  ?" 

"  Gone.  And  now,  what  thanks  do  you  suppose  I 
got  for  all  this  ?" 

"  A  present  of  a  pencil-case  ?" 

"  No,  indeed  !  but  a  lesson  in  human  nature  that 
will  stick  by  me  much  longer.  He  called  at  my  studio 
yesterday  morning  to  say  good-by.  Through  all  my 
sense  of  his  boredom  and  relief  at  the  prospect  of 
being  rid  of  him,  I  felt  embarrassed  when  he  came  in, 
thinking  how  difficult  it  would  be  for  him  to  express 
properly  his  sense  of  the  obligation  he  was  under  to 
me.  After  half  an  hour's  monologue  (by  myself)  on 
pictures,  &c,  he  started  up  and  said  he  must  go. 
'  And  by-the-by,'  said  he,  coloring  a  little,  '  there  is 
one  thing  I  want  to  say  to  you,  Mr.  F —  !  Hang  it, 
it  has  stuck  in  my  throat  ever  since  I  met  you  ! 
You've  been  very  polite  and  I'm  obliged  to  you,  of 
course — but  I  don't  like  your  devilish,  patronizing 
manner!     Good-by,  Mr.  F — !'" 

****** 

The  foregoing  is  a  leaf  from  a  private  diary  which  I 
kept  at  Rome.  In  making  a  daily  entry  of  such 
passing  stuff  as  interests  us,  we  sometimes,  amid  much 
that  should  be  ticketed  for  oblivion,  record  that  which 
has  a  bearing,  important  or  amusing,  on  the  future; 
and  a  late  renewal  of  my  acquaintance  with  Mr.  F — , 
followed  by  a  knowledge  of  some  fortunate  changes 
in  his  worldly  condition,  has  given  that  interest  to  this 
otherwise  unimportant  scrap  of  diary  which  will  be 
made  apparent  presently  to  the  reader.  A  vague 
recollection  that  I  had  something  in  an  old  book 
which  referred  to  him,  induced  me  to  look  it  up,  and 
I  was  surprised  to  find  that  I  had  noted  down,  in  this 
trifling  anecdote,  what  turned  out  to  be  the  mainspring 
of  his  destiny. 

F —  returned  to  his  native  country  after  five  years 
study  of  the  great  masters  of  Italy.  His  first  pictures 
painted  at  Rome  procured  for  him,  as  is  stated  in  the 
diary  I  have  quoted,  a  high  reputation.  He  carried 
with  him  a  style  of  his  own  which  was  merely  stimu- 
lated and  heightened  by  his  first  year's  walk  through 
the  galleries  of  Florence,  and  the  originality  and  bold- 
ness of  his  manner  of  coloring  seemed  to  promise  a 
sustained  novelty  in  the  art.  Gradually,  however,  the 
awe  of  the  great  masters  seemed  to  overshadow  his 
confidence  in  himself,  and  as  he  travelled  and  deep- 
ened his  knowledge  of  painting,  he  threw  aside  feature 
after  feature  of  his  own  peculiar  style,  till  at  last  he 
fell  into  the  track  of  the  great  army  of  imitators,  Avho 
follow  the  immortals  of  the  Vatican  as  doomed  ships 
follow  the  Flying  Dutchman. 

Arrived  at  home,  and  depending  solely  on  his  art 
for  a  subsistence,  F —  commenced  the  profession  to 
which  he  had  served  so  long  an  apprenticeship.     But 


[  his  pictures  sadly  disappointed  his  friends.  After  the 
I  first  specimens  of  his  acquired  style  in  the  annual  ex- 
i  hibitions,  the  calls  at  his  rooms  became  fewer  and 
j  farther  between,  and  his  best  works  were  returned 
j  from  the  galleries  unsold.  Too  proud  to  humor  the 
,  popular  taste  by  returning  to  what  he  considered  an 
!  inferior  stage  of  his  art.  he  stood  still  with  his  reputa- 
I  tion  ebbing  from  him,  and  as  his  means,  of  course, 
':  depended  on  the  tide  of  public  favor,  he  was  soon  in- 
|  volved  in  troubles  before  which  his  once-brilliant  hopes 
rapidly  faded. 

"  You  will  be  surprised  on  glancing  at  the  signature 
!  to  this  letter.  You  will  be  still  more  surprised  when 
j  you  are  reminded  that  it  is  a  reply  to  an  unanswered 
I  one  of  your  own — written  years  ago.  That  letter  lies 
j  by  me,  expressed  with  all  the  diffidence  of  boyish 
1  feeling.  And  it  seems  as  if  its  diffidence  would  en- 
courage me  in  what  I  wish  to  say.  Yet  I  write  far 
j  more  tremblingly  than  you  could  have  done. 

"  Let  me  try  to  prepare  the  way  by  some  explana- 
■  tion  of  the  past. 

"You  were  my  first  lover.     I  was  not  forbidden,  at 
fourteen,  to  express  the  pleasure  I  felt  at  your  admi- 
ration, and  you  can  not   have  forgotten  the  ardor  and 
simplicity  with    which   I    returned    it.     I    remember 
!  giving  you  roses  better  than  I   remember  anything  so 
long  ago.     Now — writing  to  you  with  the  same  feel- 
j  ing  warm  at  my  heart — it  seems  to  me  as  if  it  needed 
j  but  a  rose,  could  I  give  it  you  in  the  same  garden,  to 
i  make   us   lovers   again.     Yet   I   know  you   must   be 
changed.    I  scarce  know  whether  I  should  go  on  with 
j  this  letter. 

"But  I  owe  you  reparation.  I  owe  you  an  answer 
i  to  this  which  lies  before  me  :  and  if  I  err  in  answer- 
!  ing  it  as  my  heart  burns  to  do,  you  will  at  least  be 
I  made  happier  by  knowing  that  when  treated  with 
!  neglect  and  repulsion,  you  were  still  beloved. 

"  I  think  it  was  not  long  before  the  receipt  of  this 
letter  that  my  father  first  spoke  to  me  of  our  attach- 
I  ment.     Till  then  I  had  only  thought  of  loving  you. 
I  That   you  were  graceful  and  manly,  that  your  voice 
I   was  sweet,  and  that  your  smile  made  me  happy,  was 
all  I  could  have  told  of  you  without  reflection.    I  had 
|j  never  reasoned  upon  your  qualities  of  mind,  though  I 
had  taken  an  unconscious  pride  in  your  superiority  to 
your  companions,  and  least  of  all  had  I  asked  myself 
whether  those   abilities   for  making  your  way  in  the 
world  which  my  father  denied  you,  were  among  your 
boyish  energies.     With  a  silent  conviction  that  you 
had  no  equal  among  your  companions,  in  anything,  I 
listened  to  my  father's  disparagement  of  you,  bewil- 
dered and  overawed,  the  very  novelty  and  unexpected- 
ness of  the   light  in  which  he  spoke  of  you,  sealing 
my  lips   completely.     Perhaps  resistance   to  his  will 
would  have   been   of  no  avail,  but  had  I  been  better 
prepared  to  reason  upon  what  he  urged,  I  might  have 
expressed  to  you   the   unwillingness   of  my   acquies- 
cence.    I  was  prevented   from  seeing  you  till  your 
[I  letter  came,   and   then  all   intercourse  with  you  was 
|:  formally  forbidden.     My  father  said  he  would  himself 
j  reply  to  your  proposal.     But  it  was  addressed  to  me, 
!;  and  I  have  only  recovered  possession  of  it  by  his  death. 
"  Though  it  may  seem   like  reproaching  you  for 
yielding  me  without  an  effort,  I  must  say,  to  complete 
|  the  history  of  my  own  feelings,  that  I  nursed  a  vague 
j   hope  of  hearing   from  you   until  your  departure  for 
;  Italy,  and  that  this  hope  was  extinguished  not  without 
i  bitter  tears.  The  partial  resentment  that  mingled  with 
i  this  unhappiness  aided  me  doubtless  in  making  up  my 
i  miud  to  forget  you,  and  for  a  while,  for  years  I  may 
!  say,  I  was  possessed  by  other  excitements  and  feel- 
ings.      It   is   strange,    however,   that,  though  scarce 
j  remembering  you  "when   waking,  I  still  saw  you  per- 
petually in  my  dreams.  0 


330 


NORA  MEHIDY. 


"And,  so  far,  this  is  a  cold  and  easy  recital.  How 
shall  I  describe  to  you  the  next  change,  the  re-awaken- 
mg  of  this  smothered  and  slumbering  affection  !  How 
shall  I  evade  your  contempt  when  I  tell  you  that  it 
awoke  wiih  your  renown!  But  my  first  feeling  was 
not  one  of  love.  When  your  name  began  to  come  to 
us  in  the  letters  of  travellers  and  in  the  rumor  of  lit- 
erary circles,  I  felt  as  if  something  that  belonged  to 
me  was  praised  and  honored  ;  a  pride,  an  exulting  and 
gratified  pride,  that  feeling  seemed  to  be,  as  if  the 
heart  of  my  childhood  had  been  staked  on  your  aspi- 
rations, and  was  borne  up  with  you,  a  part  and  a  par- 
taker of  your  fame.  With  all  my  soul  I  drank  in  the 
news  of  your  successes  in  the  art  ;  I  wrote  to  those 
who  came  home  from  Italy;  I  questioned  those  likely 
to  have  heard  of  you,  as  critics  and  connoisseurs  ;  I 
devoted  all  my  reading  to  the  literature  of  the  arts, 
and  the  history  of  painters,  for  my  life  was  poured 
into  yours  irresistibly,  by  a  power  I  could  not,  and 
cannot  now,  control.  My  own  imagination  turned 
painter,  indeed,  for  I  lived  on  revery,  calling  up,  with 
endless  variations,  pictures  of  yourself  amid  the  works 
of  your  pencil,  visited  and  honored  as  I  knew  you 
were,  yet  unchanged  in  the  graceful  and  boyish  beauty 
I  remembered.  I  was  proud  of  having  loved  you,  of 
having  been  the  object  of  the  earliest  and  purest  pref- 
erence of  a  creature  of  genius  ;  and  through  this 
pride,  supplanting  and  overflowing  it,  crept  and 
strengthened  a  warmer  feeling,  the  love  I  have  the 
hardihood  to  avow.  Oh  !  what  will  you  think  of  this 
boldness  !  Yet  to  conceal  my  love  were  now  a  se- 
verer task  than  to  wait  the  hazard  of  your  contempt. 

"One  explanation — a  palliative,  perhaps  you  will 
allow  it  to  be,  if  you  are  generous — remains  to  be 
given.  The  immediate  impulse  of  this  letter  was  in- 
formation from  my  brother,  long  withheld,  of  your 
kindness  to  him  in  Rome.     From  some  perverseness 


which  I  hardly  understand,  he  has  never  before  hinted 
in  my  presence  that  he  had  seen  you  in  Italy,  and  it 
was  only  by  needing  it  as  an  illustration  of  some  feel- 
ing which  seemed  to  have  piqued  him,  and  which  he 
was  expressing  to  a  friend,  that  he  gave  the  particulars 
of  your  month  of  devotion  to  him.  Knowing  the  dif- 
ference between  your  characters,  and  the  entire  want 
of  sympathy  between  your  pursuits  and  my  brother's, 
to  what  motive  could  I  attribute  your  unusual  and 
self-sacrificing  kindness  ? 

"  Did  I  err — was  I  presumptuous,  in  believing  that 
it  was  from  a  forgiving  and  tender  memory  of  myself? 

"  You  are  prepared  now,  if  you  can  be,  for  what  I 
would  say.  We  are  left  alone,  my  brother  and  I,  or- 
phan heirs  to  the  large  fortune  of  my  father.  I  have 
no  one  to  control  my  wishes,  no  one's  permission  to 
ask  for  any  disposition  of  my  hand  and  fortune.  Will 
you  have  them  ?  In  this  question  is  answered  the 
sweet,  and  long-treasured,  though  long-neglected  let- 
ter lying  beside  me.  "  Katherine  Skyring." 

Mrs.  F — ,  as  will  be  seen  from  the  style  of  her  let- 
ter, is  a  woman  of  decision  and  cleverness,  and  of  such 
a  helpmeet,  in  the  way  of  his  profession  as  well  as  in 
the  tenderer  relations  of  life,  F —  was  sorely  in  need. 
By  her  common-sense  counsels  and  persuasion,  he 
has  gone  back  with  his  knowledge  of  the  art  to  the 
first  lights  of  his  own  powerful  genius,  and  with 
means  to  command  leisure  and  experiment,  he  is, 
without  submitting  the  process  to  the  world,  perfect- 
ing a  manner  which  will  more  than  redeem  his  early 
promise. 

As  his  career,  though  not  very  uncommon  or  dra- 
matic, hinged  for  its  more  fortunate  events  on  an  act 
of  high-spirited  politeness,  I  have  thought,  that  in 
this  age  of  departed  chivalry,  the  story  was  worth 
preserving  for  its  lesson. 


NORA    MEHIDY; 


OR,  THE  STRANGE  ROAD  TO  THE  HEART  OF  MR.  HYPOLET  LEATHERS. 


Now,  Heaven  rest  the  Phoenicians  for  their  pleasant 
invention  of  the  art  of  travel. 


This  is  to  be  a  story  of  love  and  pride,  and  the  he- 
ro's name  is  Hypolet  Leathers. 


You  have  smiled  prematurely,  my  friend  and  reader,  j 
if  you  "think  you  see"  Mr.  Leathers  foreshadowed,  j 
as  it  were,  in  his  name. 


(Three  mortal  times  have  I  mended   this  son  of  a 
goose  of  a   pen,  and  it  will  not — as  you  see   bv  the  || 
three  unavailing  attempts  recorded  above — it  will  not  I 
commence,  for  me,  this  tale,  with  a  practicable  begin- 
ning.) 

The  sun  was  rising  (I  think  this  promises  well) — 
leisurely  rising  was  the  sun  on  the  opposite  side  of  the 
Susquehannah.  The  tall  corn  endeavored  to  lift  its 
silk  tassel  out  of  the  sloppy  fog  that  had  taken  upon 
itself  to  rise  from  the  water  and  prognosticate  a  hot  fair 
day,  and  the  driver  of  the  Binghamton  stage  drew  over 
his  legs  a  two-bushel  bag  as  he  cleared  the  street  of 
the  village,  and  thought  that,  for  a  summer's  morn- 
ing, it  was  "  very  cold" — wholly  unaware,  however, 
that,  in  murmuring  thus,  he  was  expressing  himself 
as  Hamlet  did  while  waiting  for  his  father's  ghost  upon 
the  platform.        • 


Inside  the  coach  were  three  passengers.  A  gentle- 
man sat  by  the  window  on  the  middle  seat,  with  his 
cloak  over  his  lap,  watching  the  going  to  heaven  of 
the  fog  that  had  fulfilled  its  destiuy.  His  mind  was 
melancholy — partly  for  the  contrast  he  could  not  but 
draw  between  this  exemplary  vapor  and  himself,  who 
was  "  but  a  vapor,"*  and  partly  that  his  pancreas  be- 
gan to  apprehend  some  interruption  of  the  thorough- 
fare above — or,  in  other  words,  that  he  was  hungry 
for  his  breakfast,  having  gone  supperless  to  bed.  He 
mused  as  he  rode.  He  was  a  young  man,  about 
twenty-five,  and  had  inherited  from  his  father,  John 
Leathers,  a  gentleman's  fortune,  with  the  two  draw- 
backs of  a  name  troublesome  to  Phoebus  ("Phoebus! 
what  a  name !"),  and  premature  gray  hair.  He  was, 
in  all  other  respects,  a  finished  and  well-conditioned 
hero — tall,  comely,  courtly,  and  accomplished — and 
had  seen  the  sight-worthy  portions  of  the  world,  and 
knew  their  differences.  Travel,  indeed,  had  become 
a  kind  of  diseased  necessity  with  him — for  he  fled 
from  the  knowledge  of  his  name,  and  from  the  obser- 
vation of  his  gray  hair,  like  a  man  fleeing  from  twe 
fell  phantoms.     He  was  now  returning  from  Niagara, 

*  "  Man's  but  a  vapor, 
Full  of  woes, 
Cuts  a  caper, 

And  down  he  goes." — Familiar  Ballad*. 


NORA  MEHIDY. 


331 


and  left  the  Mohawk  route  to  see  where  the  Susque- 
bannah  makes  its  Great  Bend  in  taking  final  leave  of  | 
Mr.  Cooper,  who  lives  above;  and  at  the  village  of  j 
the  Great  Bend  he  was  to  eat  (hat  day's  breakfast. 

On  the  back  seat,  upon  the  leather  cushion,  behind  | 
Mr.  Leathers,  sat  two  other  chilly  persons,  a  middle-  | 
aged   man  and  a  girl  of  sixteen— the   latter  wiih   her  j 
shawl  drawn  close  to  her  arms,  and  her  dark  eyes  bent  j 
upon  her  knees,  as  if  to  warm  them  (as  unquestion- 
ably  they  did).     Her  black  curls  swung  out  from  her 
bonnet,  like  ripe   grapes  from  the   top  of  an  arbor — 
heavy,  slumberous,  bulky,  prodigal  black   curls — oh, 
how  beautiful!     And  I  do  not  know  that  it  would  be 
a  "  trick  worth  an  egg"  to  make  any  mysiery  of  these 
two  persons.     The  gentleman  was  John  Mehidy.  the 
widowed  tailor  of  Binghamton,  and  the  lady  was  Nora  j 
Mehidy,  his  daughter";  and  they  were  on  their  way  to  j 
New  York  to  change  the  scene,  Mrs.  Mehidy  having  j 
left  the  painful  legacy  of  love — her  presence — behind  j 
her.     For,  ill  as  he  could  afford  the  journey,  Mr.  Me-  j 
hidy  thought  the  fire  of  Nora's  dark   eyes  might  be 
put  out   with   water,  and   he  must  go   where   every  j 
patch  and  shred  would  not  set  her  a  weeping.     She  j 
"  took  it  hard,"  as  they  describe  grief  for  the  dead  in  j 
the  country. 

The  Great  Bend  is  a  scene  you   may  look  at  with 
pleasure,  even  while  waiting   for  procrastinated  prog, 
and  Hypolet  Leathers  had  been  standing  for  ten  min- 
utes  on  the  high  bank  around  which  the  Susquehan- 
nah  sweeps,  like  a  train  of  silver  tissue  after  a  queen 
turning  a  corner,  when  past  him  suddenly  tripped  No-  j 
ra  Mehidy  honnetless,  and  stood  gazing  on  the  river  [ 
from  the  outer  edge  of  the  precipice.     Leathers's  vis-  j 
ual  consciousness  dropped  into  that  mass  of  cluster- 
ing  hair   like  a  ring   into   the  sea,  and   disappeared,  j 
His  soul  dived  after  it,  and  left  him  with  no  sense  or 
remembrance  of  how  his  outer  orbs  were   amusing 
themselves.     Of  what   unpatented   texture  of  velvet,  : 
aod  of  what  sifting  of  diamond  dust  were  those  lights 
and   shadows   manufactured  !      What   immeasurable 
thickness   in  those   black   flakes — compared,  with  all 
locks   that  he   had   ever  seen,  as  an   edge  of  cocoa-  j 
meat,  fragrantly  and  newly  broken,  to  a  torn  leaf,  limp 
with  wilting.     Nora  stood  motionless,  absorbed  in  the 
incomparable  splendor  of  that  silver  hook   bent  into  i 
the  forest — Leathers  as  motionless,  absorbed  in   her  [ 
wilderness  of  jetty  locks — till  the  barkeeper  rang  the 
bell   for  them  to  come  to   breakfast.     Ah,  Hypolet! 
Hypolet!   what  dark  thought  came  to  share,  with  that  j 
innocent  beefsteak,  your  morning's  digestion  ! 

That  tailors  have,  and  why  they  have,  the  hand-  j 
somest  daughters,  in  all  countries,  have  been  points 
of  observation  and  speculation  for  physiology,  written 
and  unwritten.  Most  men  know  the  fact.  Some 
writers  have  ventured  to  guess  at  the  occult  secret. 
But  I  think  "  it  needs  no  ghost,  come  from  the  grave," 
to  unravel  the  matter.  Their  vocation  is  the  embel- 
lishment— partly  indeed  the  creation — of  material 
beauty.  If  philosophy  sit  on  their  shears  (as  it  should 
ever),  there  are  questions  to  decide  which  discipline 
the  sense  of  beauty — the  degree  in  which  fashion 
should  be  sacrificed  to  becomingness,  and  the  resist- 
ance to  the  invasion  of  the  poetical  by  whim  and 
usage,  for  example — and  as  a  man  thinketh — to  a  cer- 
tain degree — so  is  his  daughter.  Beauty  is  the  busi- 
ness thought  of  every  day,  and  the  desire  to  know 
how  best  to  remedy  its  defects  is  the  ache  and  agony 
of  the  tailor's  soul,  if  he  be  ambitious.  Why  should 
not  this  have  its  exponent  on  the  features  of  the  race, 
as  other  strong  emotions  have — plastic  and  malleable 
as  the  human  body  is,  by  habit  and  practice.  Shak- 
spere,  by-the-way,  says — 

'Tis  use  that  breeds  a  habit  in  a  man, 

and  I  own  to  the  dulness  of  never  till  now  apprehend- 
ing that  this  remarkable  passage  typifies  the  steeping 


of  superfine  broadcloth  (made  into  superfine  habits) 
info  the  woof  and  warp  of  the  tailor's  idiosvncracy. 
Q.  E.  D. 

Nora  Mehidy  had  ways  with  her  that,  if  ihe  world 
had  not  been  thrown  into  a  muss  by  Eve  and  Adam, 
would  doubtless  have  been  kept  for  queens.  Leath- 
ers was  particularly  struck  with  her  never  lifting  up 
her  eyelids  till  she  was  ready.  If  she  chanced  to  be 
looking  thoughtfully  down  when  he  spoke  to  her, 
which  was  her  habit  of  sadness  just  now,  she  heard 
what  he  had  to  say  and  commenced  replying — and 
then,  slowly,  up  went  the  lids,  combing  the  loving  air 
with  their  long  lashes,  and  no  more  hurried  than  the 
twilight  taking  its  fringes  off  the  stars.  It  was  ado- 
rable— altogether  adorable!  And  her  hands  and  lips, 
and  feet  and  shoulders,  had  the  same  contemptuous 
and  delicious  deliberateness. 

On  the  second  evening,  at  half-past  five — just  half 
an  hour  too  late  for  the  "Highlander"  steamer — the 
"  Binghamton  stage"  slid  down  the  mountain  into 
Newburgh.  The  next  boat  was  to  touch  at  the  pier 
at  midnight,  and  Leathers  had  six  capacious  hours  to 
work  on  the  mind  of  John  Mehidy.  What  was  the 
process  of  that  fiendish  temptation,  what  the  lure  and 
the  resistance,  is  a  secret  locked  up  with  Moloch — 
but  it  was  successful !  The  glorious  chevelure  of  the 
victim — (sweet  descriptive  word — chevelure  ! ) — the 
matchless  locks  that  the  matchlocks  of  armies  should 
have  defended — went  down  in  the  same  boat  with  No- 
ra Mehidy,  but  tied  up  in  Mr.  leathers'  linen  pocket- 
handkerchief!  And,  in  one  week  from  that  day,  the 
head  of  Hypolet  Leathers  was  shaven  nude,  and  the 
black  curls  of  Nora  Mehidy  were  placed  upon  its 
irritated  organs  in  an  incomparable  wig  !  ! 

A  year  had  elapsed.  It  was  a  warm  day,  in  No.  77 
of  the  Astor,  and  Hypolet  Leathers,  Esq.,  arrived  a 
week  before  by  the  Great  Western,  sat  aiding  the 
evaporation  from  his  brain  by  lotions  of  iced  lavender. 
His  wig  stood  before  him,  on  the  blockhead  that  was 
now  his  inseparable  companion,  the  back  toward  him; 
and,  as  the  wind  chased  of  the  volatile  lavender  from 
the  pores  of  his  skull,  he  toyed  thoughtfully  with  the 
lustrous  curls  of  Nora  Mehidy.  His  heart  was  on 
that  wooden  block  !  He  dressed  his  own  wig  habit- 
ually, and  by  dint  of  perfuming,  combing,  and  cares- 
sing those  finger-like  ringlets — he  had  tangled  up  his 
!  heart  in  their  meshes.  A  phantom,  with  the  superb 
I  face  of  the  owner,  stayed  with  the  separated  locks,  and 
:  it  grew  hourly  more  palpable  and  controlling.  The 
sample  had  made  him  sick  at  heart  for  the  remainder. 
He  wanted  the  rest  of  Nora  Mehidy.  He  had  come 
|  over  for  her.  He  had  found  John  Mehidy,  following 
j  his  trade  obscurely  in  a  narrow  lane,  and  he  had  asked 
for  Nora's  hand.  But  though  this  was  not  the  whole 
of  his  daughter,  and  he  had  already  sold  part  of  her 
to  Leathers,  he  shook  his  head  over  his  shiny  shears. 
Even  if  Nora  could  be  propitiated  after  the  sacrifice 
she  had  made  (which  he  did  not  believe  she  could  be), 
he  would  as  lief  put  her  in  the  world  of  spirits  as  in  a 
world  above  him.  She  was  his  life,  and  he  would  not 
give  his  life  willingly  to  a  stranger  who  would  take  it 
from  him,  or  make  it  too  fine  for  his  using.  Oh,  no  ' 
Nora  must  marry  a  tailor,  if  she  marry  at  all— and 
this  was  the  adamantine  resolution,  stern  and  without 
appeal,  of  John  Mehidy. 

Some  six  weeks  after  this,  a  new  tailoring  estab- 
lishment of  great  outlay  and  magnificence  was  opened 
in  Broadway.  The  show-window  was  like  a  new  rev- 
elation of  stuff  for  trowsers,  and  resplendent,  but  not 
gaudy,  were  the  neckcloths  and  waistcoatings— for 
absolute  taste  reigned  over  all.  There  was  not  an  ar- 
ticle on  show  possible  to  William  street— not  a  waist- 
coat that,  seen  in  Maiden  lane,  would  not  have  been 
as  unsphered  as  the  Lost  Pleiad  in  Botany  Bay.  It 
was  quite  clear  that  there  was  some  one  of  the  firm 


332 


THE  PHARISEE  AND  THE  BARBER. 


of  "  Mehidy  &  Co."  (the  new  sign)  who  exercised 
his  taste  "  from  within,  out,"  as  the  Germans  say  of 
the  process  of  true  poetry.  He  began  inside  a  gen- 
tleman, that  is  to  say,  to  guess  at  what  was  wanted  for 
a  gentleman's  outside.  He  was  a  tailor-gentleman, 
and  was  therefore,  and  by  that  quality  only,  fitted  to 
be  a  gentleman's  tailor. 

The  dandies  flocked  to  Mehidy  &  Co.  They 
could  not  be  measured  immediately — oh  no  !  The 
gentleman  to  be  built  was  requested  to  walk  about  the 
shop  for  a  half  hour,  till  the  foreman  got  him  well  in 
his  eye,  and  then  to  call  again  in  a  week.  Meantime 
he  would  mark  his  customer  in  the  street,  to  see  how 
he  performed.  Mehidy  &  Co.  never  ventured  to  take 
measure  for  terra  incognita.  The  man's  gait,  shrug, 
speed,  style,  and  quality,  were  all  to  be  allowed  for, 
and  these  were  not  seen  in  a  minute.  And  a  very 
sharp  and  stylish  looking  fellow  seemed  that  foreman 
to  be.  There  was  evidently  spoiled  some  very  capa- 
ble stuff  for  a  lord  when  he  was  made  a  tailor. 

"  His  leaf, 
By  some  o'er  hasty  angel,  was  misplaced 
In  Fate's  eternal  volume." 

And,  faith  !  it  was  a  study  to  see  him  take  a  custom-  j 
er's  measure!  The  quiet  contempt  with  which  he  j 
overruled  the  man's  indigenous  idea  of  a  coat! — the  \ 
rather  satirical  comments  on  his  peculiarities  of  wear-  | 
ing  his  kerseymere ! — the  cool  survey  of  the  adult  to  i 
be  embellished,  as  if  he  were  inspecting  him  for  ad-  : 
mission  to  the  grenadiers  !  On  the  whole,  it  was  a 
nervous  business  to  be  measured  for  a  coat  by  that  I 
fellow  with  the  devilish  fine  head  of  black  hair! 

And,  with  the  hair  upon  his  head,  from  which  Nora  J 
had  once  no  secrets — with  the  curls  upon  his  cheek 
and  temples  which  had  once  slumbered  peacefully 
over  hers,  Hypolet  Leathers,  the  foreman  of  "  Mehi- 
dy &  Co.,"  made  persevering  love  to  the  tailor's  mag- 
nificent daughter.  For  she  was  magnificent!  She 
had  just  taken  that  long  stride  from  girl  to  woman, 
and  her  person  had  filled  out  to  the  imperial  and  vo- 
luptuous   model   indicated   by  her  deliberate    eyes. 


With  a  dusky  glow  in  her  cheek,  that  looked  like  a 
peach  teinted  by  a  rosy  twilight,  her  mouth,  up  to  the 
crimson  edge  of  its  bow  of  Cupid,  was  moulded  with 
the  slumberous  fairness  of  newly  wrought  sculpture, 
and  gloriously  beautiful  in  expression.  She  was  a 
creature  for  whom  a  butterfly  might  do  worm  over 
again — to  whose  condition  in  life,  if  need  be,  a  prince 
might  proudly  come  down.  Ah,  queenly  Nora  Me- 
hidy ! 

But  the  wooing — alas!  the  wooing  throve  slowly  • 
That  lovely  head  was  covered  again  with  prodigal 
locks,  in  short  and  massive  clusters,  but  Leathers  was 
pertinacious  as  to  his  property  in  the  wig,  and  its  he- 
comingness  and  indispensableness — and  to  be  made 
love  to  by  a  man  in  her  own  hair! — to  be  obliged  to 
keep  her  own  dark  curls  at  a  respectful  distance! — to 
forbid  all  intercourse  between  them  and  their  chil- 
dren-ringlets, as  it  were — it  roughened  the  course  of 
Leathers's  true  love  that  Nora  must  needs  be  obliged 
to  reason  on  such  singular  dilemmas.  For,  though  a 
tailor's  daughter,  she  had  been  furnished  by  nature 
with  an  imagination  ! 

But  virtue,  if  nothing  more  and  no  sooner,  is  its 
own  reward,  and  in  time  "  to  save  its  bacon."  John 
Mehidy's  fortune  was  pretty  well  assured  in  the  course 
of  two  years,  and  made,  in  his  own  line,  by  his  pro- 
posed son-in-law,  and  he  could  no  longer  refuse  to 
throw  into  the  scale  the  paternal  authority.  Nora's 
hair  was,  by  this  time,  too,  restored  to  its  pristine 
length  and  luxuriousness,  and,  on  condition  that  Hyp- 
olet would  not  exact  a  new  wig  from  his  new  posses- 
sions, Nora,  one  summer's  night,  made  over  to  him 
the  remainder.  The  long-exiled  locks  revisited  theii 
natal  soil,  during  the  caresses  which  sealed  the  com- 
pact, and  a  very  good  tailor  was  spoiled  the  week 
after,  for  the  married  Leathers  became  once  more  a 
gentleman  at  large,  having  bought,  in  two  instalments, 
at  an  expense  of  a  hundred  dollars,  a  heart,  and  two 
years  of  service,  one  of  the  finest  properties  of  which 
Heaven  and  a  gold  ring  ever  gave  mortal  the  copy- 
hold ! 


THE   PHARISEE   AND  THE   BARBER. 


Isheafe  lane,  in  Boston,  is  an  almost  unmention- 
able  and    plebeian   thoroughfare,    between   two  very 
mentionable  and  patrician  streets.     It  is  mainly  used 
by  bakers,   butchers,   urchins   going   to  school,   and  i 
clerks  carrying  home  parcels — in  short,  by  those  who  !j 
care  less  for  the  beauty  of  the  road  than  for  economy  jj 
of  time  and  shoe-leather.     If  you  please,  it  is  a  shabby   ; 
hole.     Children  are  born  there,  however,  and  people1 
die  and  marry  there,  and  are  happy  and  sad  there,  and  | 
the   great   events  of   life,   more  important  than    our  : 
liking  or  disliking  of  Sheafe    lane,   take   place  in  K[] 
continually.     It  used  not  to  be  a  very  savory  place. 
Yet  it  has  an  indirect  share  of  such  glory  as  attaches  | 
to  the  birth-places  of  men  above  the  common.     The 
(present)  great  light  of  the  Unitarian  church  was  born 
at  one  end  of  Sheafe  lane,  and  one  of  the  most  accom- 
plished merchant-gentlemen  in  the  gay  world  of  New 
York  was  born  at  the  other.     And  in  the  old  Hay- 
market  (a  kind  of   cul-de-sac,  buried  in  the  side  of 
Sheaf  lane),    stood    the  dusty  lists   of   chivalric   old 
Roulstone,   a   gallant  horseman,   who    in  other  days 
would  have  been  a  knight  of  noble  devoir,  though  in 
the  degeneracy  of  a  Yankee  lustrum,  he  devoted  his 


soldierly  abilities  to  the  teaching  of  young  ladies  how 
to  ride. 

Are  you  in  Sheafe  lane  ?  (as  the  magnetisers  in- 
quire). Please  to  step  back  twenty-odd  years,  and 
take  the  hand  of  a  lad  with  a  rosy  face  (ourself — for 
we  lived  in  Sheafe  lane  twenty-odd  years  ago),  and 
come  to  a  small  house,  dingy  yellow,  with  a  white 
gate.  The  yard  is  below  the  level  of  the  street. 
Mind  the  step. 

The  family  are  at  breakfast  in  the  small  parlor 
fronting  on  the  street.  But  come  up  this  dark  stair- 
case, to  the  bedroom  over  the  parlor — a  very  neat 
room,  plainly  furnished ;  and  the  windows  are  cur- 
tained, and  there  is  one  large  easy  chair,  and  a  stand 
with  a  bible  open  upon  it.  In  the  bed  lies  an  old  man 
of  seventy,  deaf,  nearly  blind,  and  bed-ridden. 

We  have  now  shown  you  what  comes  out  of  tha 
shadows  to  us,  when  we  remember  the  circumstances 
we  are  about  to  body  forth  in  a  sketch,  for  it  can 
scarcely  be  called  a  story. 

It  wanted  an  hour  to  noon.  The  Boylston  clock 
struck  eleven,  and  close  on  the  heel  of  the  last  stroke 
followed  the  ty-»  of  the  barber's  knuckle  on  the  door 


THE  PHARISEE  AND  THE  BARBER. 


333 


of  the  yellow  hofcse  in  Sheafe  lane.  Before  answering 
to  the  rap,  the  maid-of-all-work  filled  a  tin  can  from 
the  simmering  kettle,  and  surveying  herself  in  a  three- 
cornered  bit  of  looking-glass,  fastened  on  a  pane  of  the 
kitchen  window  :  then,  with  a  very  soft  and  sweet 
"  good  morning,"  to  Rosier,  the  barber,  she  led  the 
wav  to  the  old  man's  room. 

"He  looks  worse  to-day,"  said  the  barber,  as  the 
skinny  hand  of  the  old  man  crept  up  tremblingly  to 
his  face,  conscious  of  the  daily  office  about  to  be  per- 
formed for  him. 

"They  think  so  below  stairs,"  said  Harriet,  "and 
one  of  the  church  is  coming  to  pray  with  him  to-night. 
Shall  I  raise  him  up  now?" 

The  barber  nodded,  and  the  girl  seated  herself  near  11 
the  pillow,  and  lifting  the  old  man,  drew  him  upon  her  jj 
breast,  and  as  the  operation  went  rather  lingeringly  on,  | 
the  two  chatted  together  very  earnestly. 

Rosier  was  a  youth  of  about  twenty-one,  talkative 
and  caressing,  as  all  barbers  are;  and  what  with  his 
COrly  hair  and  ready  smile,  and  the  smell  of  soap  that 
seemed  to  be  one  of  his  natural  properties,  he  was  a 
man  to  be  thought  of  over  a  kitchen  fire.  Besides,  he 
was  thriving  in  his  trade,  and  not  a  bad  match.  All  of; 
which  was  duly  considered  by  the  family  with  which 
Harriet  lived,  for  they  loved  the  poor  girl. 

Poor  girl,  I  say.     But  she  was  not  poor,  at  least  if 
it  be  true  that  as  a  woman  thinketh  so  is  she.     Most 
people  would  have  described  her  as  a  romantic  girl. 
And  so  she  was,  but  without  deserving  a  breath  of  the 
-idicule  commonly  attached   to   the  word.     She  was 
uneducated,  too,  if  any  child  of  New  England  can  be 
called    uneducated.     Beyond    school-books   and    the 
Bible,  she  had  read  nothing  but  the  Scottish  Chiefs, 
and  this  novel  was  to  her  what  the  works  of  God  are  ; 
to  others.     Il  could  never  become  familiar.     It  must  j 
be  the  gate  of  dream-land ;  what  the  moon   is  to   a 
poet,  what  a  grove  is  to  a  man  of  revery,  what  sun- 
shine is  to  all  the  world.     And  she  mentioned  it  as  \ 
seldom  as  people  praise  sunshine,  and  lived  in   it  as  j 
unconsciously. 

Harriet  had  never  before  been  out  to  service.  She  | 
was  a  farmer's  daughter,  new  from  the  country.  If 
she  was  not  ignorant  of  the  degradation  of  her  condi- 
tion in  life,  she  forgot  it  habitually.  A  cheerful  and 
thoughtful  smile  was  perpetually  on  her  lips,  and  the 
hardships  of  her  daily  routine  were  encountered  as 
thinos  of  course,  as  clouds  in  the  sky,  as  pebbles  in 
the  inevitable  path.  Her  attention  seemed  to  belong 
to  her  body,  but  her  consciousness  only  to  her  j 
imagination.  In  her  voice  and  eyes  there  was  no 
touch  or  taint  of  her  laborious  servitude,  and  if 
she  had  suddenly  been  "  made  a  lady,"  there  would 
have  been  nothing  but  her  hard  hands  to  redeem  from 
her  low  condition.  Then,  hard-working  creature  as 
she  was,  she  was  touchinaly  beautiful.  A  coarse  eye 
would  have  passed  her  without  notice,  perhaps,  but  a 
painter  would  not.  She  was  of  a  fragile  shape,  and  had 
a  slight  stoop,  but  her  head  was  small  and  exquisitely 
moulded,  and  her  slender  neck,  round,  graceful,  and 
polished,  was  set  upon  her  shoulders  with  the  fluent 
grace  of  a  bird's.  Her  hair  was  profuse,  and  of  a 
tinge  almost  yellow  in  the  sun,  but  her  eyes  were  of  a 
blue,  deep  almost  to  blackness,  and  her  heavy  eye- 
lashes darkened  them  still  more  deeply.  She  had  the 
least  possible  color  in  her  cheeks.  Her  features  were 
soft  and  unmarked,  and  expressed  delicacy  and  repose, 
though  her  nostrils  were  capable  of  dilating  with  an 
energy  of  expression  that  seemed  wholly  foreign  to 
her  character. 

Rosier  had  first  seen  Harriet  when  called  in  to  the 
old  man,  six  months  before,  and  they  were  now  sup- 
posed by  the  family  to  be  engaged  lovers,  waiting  only 
for  a  little  more  sunshine  on  the  barber's  fortune. 
Meantime,  they  saw  each  other  at  least  half  an  hour 
every  morning,  and   commonly  passed  their  evenings 


together,  and  the  girl  seemed  very  tranquilly  happy  in 
her  prospect  of  marriage. 

At  four  o'clock  on  the  afternoon  of  the  day  before 
mentioned,  Mr.  Flint  was  to  make  a  spiritual  visit  to 
the  old  man.  Let  us  first  introduce  him  to  the  reader. 
Mr.  Asa  Flint  was  a  bachelor  of  about  forty-five, 
and  an  "active  member"  of  a  church  famed  for  its 
zeal.  He  was  a  tall  man,  with  a  little  bend  in  his 
back,  and  commonly  walked  with  his  eyes  upon  the 
ground,  like  one  intent  on  meditation.  His  complex- 
ion was  sallow,  and  his  eyes  dark  and  deeply  set ;  but 
by  dint  of  good  teeth,  and  a  little  "  wintry  redness  in 
his  cheek,"  he  was  good-looking  enough  for  all  his 
ends.  He  dressed  in  black,  as  all  religious  men  must 
(in  Boston),  and  wore  shoes  with  black  stockings  the 
year  round.  In  his  worldly  condition,  Mr.  Flint  had 
always  been  prospered.  He  spent  five  hundred  dollars 
a  year  in  his  personal  expenses,  and  made  five  thou- 
sand in  his  business,  and  subscribed,  say  two  hundred 
dollars  a  year  to  such  societies  as  printed  the  name  of 
the  donors.  Mr.  Flint  had  no  worldly  acquaintances. 
He  lived  in  a  pious  boarding-house,  and  sold  all  his 
goods  to  the  members  of  the  country  churches  in 
communion  with  his  own.  He  "  loved  the  brethren," 
for  he  wished  to  converse  with  no  one  who  did  not  see 
heaven  and  the  church  at  his  back— himself  in  the 
foreground,  and  the  other  two  accessories  in  the  per- 
spective. Piety  apart,  he  had  found  out  at  twenty-five, 
that,  as  a  sinner  he  would  pass  through  the  world 
simply  Asa  Flint — as  a  saint,  he  would  be  Asa  Flint 
plus  eternity  and  the  respect  of  a  large  congregation. 
He  was  a  shrewd  man,  and  chose  the  better  part. 
Also,  he  remembered,  sin  is  more  expensive  than 
sanctity. 

At  four  o'clock  Mr.  Flint  knocked  at  the  door.  At 
the  same  hour  there  was  a  maternal  prayer-meeting  at 
the  vestry,  and  of  course  it  was  to  be  numbered 
among  his  petty  trials  that  he  must  find  the  mistress 
of  the  house  absent  from  home.  He  walked  up 
stairs,  and  after  a  look  into  the  room  of  the  sick  man, 
despatched  the  lad  who  had  opened  the  door  for  him, 
to  request  the  "help"  of  the  family  to  be  present  at 
the  devotions. 

Harriet  had  a  rather  pleasing  recollection  of  Mr. 
Flint.  He  had  offered  her  his  arm,  a  week  before,  in 
coming  out  from  a  conference  meeting,  and  had  "  pre- 
sumed that  she  was  a  young  lady  on  a  visit"  to  the 
mistress !  She  arranged  her  'kerchief  and  took  the 
kettle  off  the  fire. 

Mr.  Flint  was  standing  by  the  bedside  with  folded 
hands.  The  old  man  lay  looking  at  him  with  a  kind 
of  uneasy  terror  in  his  face,  which  changed,  as  Harriet 
entered,  to  a  smile  of  relief.  She  retired  modestly  to 
the  foot  of  the  bed,  and,  hidden  by  the  curtain,  open 
only  at  the  side,  she  waited  the  commencement  of  the 
prayer. 

"Kneel  there,  little  boy  !"  said  Mr.  Flint,  pointing 
to  a  chair  on  the  other  side  of  the  light-stand,  "  and 
you,  my  dear,  kneel  here  by  me  !     Let  us  pray  !" 

Harriet  had  dropped  upon  her  knees  near  the  cor- 
ner of  the  bed,  and  Mr.  Flint  dropped  upon  his,  on 
i  the  other  side  of  the  post,  so  that  after  raising  his 
I   hands  in  the  first  adjuration,  they  descended  gradually, 
j   and  quite  naturally,  upon   the  folded   hands  of  th\i 
I   neighbor — and  there  they  remained.     She  dared  not 
withdraw  them,  but  as  his  body  rocked  to  and  fro  in 
j   his  devout  exercise,  she  drew  back  her  head  to  avoid 
coming  into  farther  contact,  and  escaped  with  only  his 
breath  upon  her  temples. 

It  was  a  very  eloquent  prayer.  Mr.  Flint  s  voice, 
in  a  worldly  man.  would  have  been  called  insinuating, 
but  its  kind  of  covert  sweetness,  low  and  soft,  seemed, 


in  a  prayer, 


onlv  the  subdued  monotony  of  reverence 


and  devotion.  "But  it  won  upon  the  ear  all  the  same. 
He  began,  with  a  repetition  of  all  the  most  sublime 
ascriptions  of  the  psalmist,  filling  the  room,  it  appeared 


334 


THE  PHARISEE  AND  THE  BARBER. 


to  Harriet,  with  a  superhuman  presence.  She  trem- 
bled to  be  so  near  him  with  his  words  of  awe.  Grad- 
ually he  took  up  the  more  affecting  and  lender  pas- 
sages of  scripture,  and  drew  the  tears  into  her  eyes 
with  the  pathos  of  his  tone  and  the  touching  images 
he  wove  together.  His  hand  grew  moist  upon  hers, 
and  he  leaned  closer  to  her.  He  began,  after  a  short 
pause,  to  pray  for  her  especially — that  her  remarkable 
beauty  might  not  be  a  snare  to  her — that  her  dove- 
like eyes  might  beam  only  on  the  saddened  faces  of 
the  saints — that  she  might  be  enabled  to  shun  the 
company  of  the  worldly,  and  consort  only  with  God's 
people — and  that  the  tones  of  prayer  now  in  her  ears 
might  sink  deep  into  her  heart  as  the  voice  of  one 
who  would  never  cease  to  feel  an  interest  in  her  tem- 
poral and  eternal  welfare.  His  hand  tightened  its 
grasp  upon  hers,  and  his  face  turned  more  toward 
her;  and  as  Harriet,  blushing,  spite  of  the  awe 
weighing  on  her  heart,  stole  a  look  at  the  devout 
man,  she  met  the  full  gaze  of  his  coal-black  eyes 
fixed  unwinkingly  upon  her.  She  was  entranced. 
She  dared  not  stir,  and  she  dared  not  take  her 
eyes  from  his.  And  when  he  came  to  his  amen,  she 
sank  back  upon  (he  ground,  and  covered  her  face  with 
her  hands.  And  presently  she  remembered,  with 
some  wonder,  that  the  old  man,  for  whom  Mr.  Flint 
had  come  to  pray,  had  not  been  even  mentioned  in 
the  prayer. 

The  lad  left  the  room  after  the  amen,  and  Mr.  FlirK 
raised  Harriet  from  the  floor  and  seated  her  upon  a 
chair  out  of  the  old  man's  sight,  and  pulled  a  hymn- 
book  from  his  pocket,  and  sat  down  beside  her.  She 
was  a  very  enthusiastic  singer,  to  say  the  least,  and  he 
commonly  led  the  singing  at  the  conferences,  and  so, 
holding  her  hand  that  she  might  beat  the  time  with 
him,  he  passed  an  hour  in  what  he  would  call  very- 
sweet  communion.  And  by  this  time  the  mistress  of 
the  family  came  home,  and  Mr.  Flint  took  his  leave. 

From  that  evening,  Mr.  Flint  fairly  undertook  the 
"  eternal  welfare''  of  the  beautiful  girl.  From  her 
kind  mistress  he  easily  procured  for  her  the  indul- 
gence due  to  an  awakened  sinner,  and  she  had  permis- 
sion to  frequent  the  nightly  conference,  Mr.  Flint 
always  charging  himself  with  the  duty  of  seeing  her 
safely  home.  He  called  sometimes  in  the  afternoon, 
and  had  a  private  interview  to  ascertain  the  "state  of 
her  mind,"  and  under  a  strong  "  conviction''  of  some- 
thing or  other,  the  excited  girl  lived  now  in  a  constant 
revery,  and  required  as  much  looking  after  as  a  child. 
She  was  spoiled  as  a  servant,  but  Mr.  Flint  had  only 
done  his  duty  by  her. 

This  seemed  all  wrong  to  Rosier,  the  barber,  how- 
ever. The  bright,  sweet  face  of  the  girl  he  thought 
to  marry,  had  grown  sad,  and  her  work  went  all  amiss 
— he  could  see  that.  She  had  no  smile,  and  almost 
no  word,  for  him.  He  liked  little  her  going  out  at 
dusk  when  he  could  not  accompany  her,  and  coming 
home  late  with  the  same  man  always,  though  a  very 
good  man,  no  doubt.  Then,  once  lately,  when  he 
had  spoken  of  the  future,  she  had  murmured  some- 
thing which  Mr.  Flint  had  said  about  "  marrying  with 
unbelievers,"  and  it  stuck  in  Rosier's  mind  and  trou- 
bled him.  Harriet  grew  thin  and  haggard  besides, 
though  she  paid  more  attention  to  her  dress,  and 
dressed  more  ambitiously  than  she  used  to  do. 


]      We  are  reaching  back  over  a  scire  or  more  of 

I  years  for  the  scenes  we  are  describing,  and   memory 

i  drops  here  and  there  a  circumstance  by  the  way.  The 
reader  can  perhaps  restore  the  lost  fragments,  if  we 
give  what  we  remember  of  the  outline. 

The  old  man  died,  and  Rosier  performed  the  last 
of  his  offices  to  fit  him  for  the  grave,  and  that,  if  we 
remember  rightly,  was  the  last  of  his  visits,  but  one, 
to  the  white  house  in  Sheafe  lane.  The  bed  was 
scarce  vacated  by  the  dead,  ere  it  was  required  again 

!  for  another  object  of  pity.  Harriet  was  put  into  it 
with  a  brain  fever.  She  was  ill  for  many  weeks,  and 
called  constantly  on  Mr.  Flint's  name  in  her  delirium; 

!  and  when  the  fever  left  her,  she   seemed  to  have  but 

i  one  desire  on  earth — that  he  should  come  and  see 
her.  Message  after  message  was  secretly  carried  to 
him  by  the  lad,  whom  she  had  attached  to  her  with 
her  uniform  kindness  and  sweet  temper,  but  he  never 
came.  She  relapsed  after  a  while  into  a  state  of  stu- 
por, like  idiocy,  and  when  day  after  day  passed  with- 
out amendment,  it  was  thought  necessary  to  send  for 
her  father  to  take  her  home. 

A  venerable  looking  old  farmer,  with  white  hairs, 
drove  his  rough  wagon  into  Sheafe  lane  one  evening, 
we  well  remember.     Slowly,  with  the  aid  of  his  long 

'  staff,  he  crept  up  the  narrow  staircase  to  his  daugh- 
ter's room,  and  stood  a  long  time,  looking  at  her  in 

|  silence.     She  did  not  speak  to  him. 

He  slept  upon  a  bed  made  up  at  the  side  of  hers, 

!  upon  the  floor,  and  the  next  morning  he  went  out 
early  for  his  horse,  and  she  was  taken  up  and  dressed 
for  the  journey.  She  spoke  to  no  one,  and  when  the 
old  man  had  breakfasted,  she  quietly  submitted  to  be 
carried  toward  the  door.  The  sight  of  the  street  first 
seemed  to  awaken  some  recollection,  and  suddenly  in 
a  whisper  she  called  to  Mr.  Flint. 

"  Who  is  Mr.  Flint  ?"  asked  the  old  man. 
Rosier  was  at  the  gate,  standing  there  with  his  hat 
off  to  bid  her  farewell.     She  stopped  upon  the  side- 
walk, and  looked  around  hurriedly. 

"He  is  not  here — I'll  wait  for  him."'  cried  Harriet, 
in   a  troubled  voice,   and   she  let  go  her  father's  arm 

;  and  stepped  back. 

They  took   hold  of  her  and   drew  her  toward  the 

!  wagon,  but  she  struggled  to  get  free,  and  moaned  like 
a  child  in  grief.  Rosier  took  her  by  the  hand  and 
tried   to*  speak  to  her,  but  he  choked,  and   the   tears 

|  came  to  his  eyes.     Apparently  she  did  not  know  him. 

A  few  passers-by  gathered  around  now,  and  it  was 

necessary  to  lift  her  into  the  wagon  by  force,  for  the 

distressed  father  was  confused  and  embarrassed  with 

|  her  struggles,  and  the  novel  scene  around  him.  At 
the   suggestion  of  the  mistress  of  the  family,  Rosier 

:  lifted  her  in  his  arms  and  seated   hsr  in  the  chair  in- 

!  tended  for  her,  but  her  screams  began  to  draw  a  crowd 
around,  and  her  struggles  to  free  herself  were  so  vio- 
lent, that  it  was  evident  the  old  man  could  never  take 
her  home  alone.  Rosier  kindly  offered  to  accompany 
him,  and  as  he  held  her  in  her  seat  and  tried  to  sooth  her, 

:  the  unhappy  father  got  in  beside  her  and  drove  away. 

She  reached  home.  Rosier  informed  us,  in  a  state 

of  dreadful  exhaustion,  still  calling  on  the  name  that 

:  haunted  her;  and  we  heard  soon  after,  that  she  re- 

I  lapsed  into  a  brain  fever,  and  death  soon  came  to  her 

!  with  a  timely  deliverance  from  her  trouble. 


' 


MRS.  PASSABLE  TROTT. 


335 


MRS.    PASSABLE    TROTT. 


Je  n'aimc  pas  que  Us  autres  soient  htureux.' 


The  temerity  with  which  I  hovered  on  the  brink 
of  matrimony  when  a  very  young  man  could  only  be 
appreciated  by  a  fatuitous  credulity.  The  number 
of  very  fat  mothers  of  very  plain  families  who  can 
point  me  out  to  their  respectable  offspring  as  their 
once  imminent  papa,  is  ludicrously  improbable.  The 
truth  was  that  I  had  a  powerful  imagination  in  my 
early  youth,  and  no  "realizing  sense."  A  coral  neck- 
lace, warm  from  the  wearer — a  shoe  with  a  little  round 
stain  in  the  sole — anything  flannel — a  bitten  rosebud 
with  the  mark  of  a  tooth  upon  it — a  rose,  a  glove,  a 
thimble— either  of  these  was  agony,  ecstasy  !  To  any- 
thing with  curls  and  skirts,  and  especially  if  encircled 
by  a  sky-blue  sash,  my  heart  was  as  prodigal  as  a 
Croton  hydrant.     Ah  me  ! 

But,  of  all  my  short  eternal  attachments,  Fidelia 
Balch  (since  Mrs.  P.  Trott)  was  the  kindest  and  fair- 
est. Faithless  of  course  she  was,  since  my  name 
does  not  begin  with  a  T. — but  if  she  did  not  continue 
to  love  me — P.  Trott  or  no  P.  Trott — she  was  shock- 
ingly forsworn,  as  can  be  proved  by  several  stars, 
usually  considered  very  attentive  listeners.  J  rather 
pitied  poor  Trott — for  1  knew 

"  Her  heart — it  was  another's," 

and  he  was  rich  and  forty-odd.  But  they  seemed  to 
live  very  harmoniously,  and  if  I  availed  myself  of 
such  little  consolations  as  fell  in  my  way,  it  was  the 
result  of  philosophy.  I  never  forgot  the  faithless 
Fidelia. 

This  is  to  be  a  disembowelled  narrative,  dear  reader 
— skipping  from  the  maidenhood  of  my  heroine  to 
her  widowhood,  fifteen  years — yet  I  would  have  you 
supply  here  and  there  a  betweenity.  My  own  suffer- 
ings at  seeing  my  adored  Fidelia  go  daily  into  another 
man's  house  and  shut  the  door  after  her,  you  can 
easily  conceive.  Though  not  in  the  habit  of  rebelling 
against  human  institutions,  it  did  seem  to  me  that  the 
marriage  ceremony  had  no  business  to  give  old  Trott 
quite  so  much  for  his  money.  But  the  aggravating 
part  of  it  was  to  come!  Mrs.  P.  Trott  grew  prettier 
every  day,  and  of  course  three  hundred  and  sixty- 
five  noticeable  degrees  prettier  every  year!  She 
seemed  incapable  of,  or  not  liable  to,  wear  and  tear; 
and  probably  old  Trott  was  a  man,  in-doors,  of  very 
even  behavior.  And,  it  should  be  said  too,  in  expla- 
nation, that,  as  Miss  Balch,  Fidelia  was  a  shade  too 
fat  for  her  model.  She  embellished  as  her  dimples 
grew  shallower.  Trifle  by  trifle,  like  the  progress  of 
a  statue,  the  superfluity  fell  away  from  nature's  ori- 
ginal Miss  Balch  (as  designed  in  Heaven),  and  when 
old  Passable  died  (and  no  one  knew  what  that  P. 
stood  for,  till  it  was  betrayed  by  the  indiscreet  plate 
on  his  coffin)  Mrs.  Trott,  thirty-three  years  old,  was 
at  her  maximum  of  beauty.  Plump,  taper,  transpa- 
rently fair,  with  an  arm  like  a  high-conditioned  Venus, 
and  a  neck  set  on  like  the  swell  of  a  French  horn, 
she  was  consumedly  good-looking.  When  I  saw  in 
the  paper,  "  Died.  Mr.  P.  Trott,"  I  went  out  and 
walked  passed  the  house,  with  overpowering  emotions. 
Thanks  to  a  great  many  refusals,  /had  been  faithful ! 
I  could  bring  her  the  same  heart,  unused  and  undam- 
aged, which  I  had  offered  her  before !  I  could 
generously  overlook  Mr.  Trott's  temporary  occupa- 
tion (sine*  he  had  left  us  his  money  !) — and  when  her 


j  mourning  should   be   over— the  very  day— the  very 
!  hour — her  first  love  should  be  ready  for  her,  good  as 
new! 

I  have  said  nothing  of  any  evidences  of  continued 
!  attachment   on  the   part  of  Mrs.  Trott.     She  was  a 
|  discreet  person,  and  not  likely  to  compromise  Mr.  P. 
!  Trott   till  she  knew  the  strength  of  his  constitution. 
|  But  there  was  one   evidence  of  lingering   prefetence 
;  which  I  built  upon  like  a  rock.     I  had  not  visited  her 
1  during  these  fifteen  years.     Trott  liked  me  not — you 
i  can  guess  why  !     But  I  had  a  nephew,  five  years  old 
j  when   Miss  Balch  was  my  "  privately  engaged,"   and 
I  as  like   me,  that  boy,  as  could   be   copied  by  nature. 
He  was  our  unsuspecting  messenger  of  love,  going  to 
play  in  old  Balch's  garden  when  I  was  forbidden  the 
house,  unconscious  of  the   billet-doux  in  the  pocket 
of  his  pinafore  ;  and  to  this  boy,  after  our  separation, 
!  seemed  Fidelia  to   cling.     He  grew  up  to  a  youth  of 
!  mind  and  manners,  and  still  she  cherished   him.     He 
i  all  but  lived  at  old  Trott's,  petted  and  made  much  of 
|  — her  constant  companion — reading,  walking,  riding — 
indeed,  when   home   from   college,   her  sole  society. 
Are  you  surprised  that,  in  all  this,  there  was  a  tender- 
ness of  reminiscence  that  touched  and  assured  me  ? 
Ah— 

"  On  revient  toujours 
A  ses  premiers  amours  !" 

I  thought  it  delicate,  and  best,  to  let  silence  do  its 
work  during  that  year  of  mourning.  I  did  not  whis- 
per even  to  my  nephew  Bob  the  secret  of  my  happi- 
ness. I  left  one  card  of  condolence  after  old  Trott's 
funeral,  and  lived  private,  counting  the  hours.  The 
slowest  kind  of  eternity  it  appeared  ! 

The  morning  never  seemed  to  me  to  break  with  so 
much  difficulty  and  reluctance  as  on  the  anniversary 
of  the  demise  of  Mr.  Passable  Trott— June  2,  1840. 
Time  is  a  comparative  thing,  I  well  know,  but  the 
minutes  seemed  to  stick,  on  that  interminable  morn- 
ing. I  began  to  dress  for  breakfast  at  four — but  de- 
tails are  tiresome.  Let  me  assure  you  that  twelve 
o'clock,  A.  M..  did  arrive  !  The  clocks  struck  it,  and 
the  shadows  verified  it. 

I  could  not  have  borne  an  accidental  "  not  at  home," 
and  I  resolved  not  to  run  the  risk  of  it.  Lovers,  be- 
sides, are  not  tied  to  knockers  and  ceremony.  1  bribed 
the  gardener.  Fidelia's  boudoir,  I  knew,  opened  upon 
the  lawn,  and  it  seemed  more  like  love  to  walk  in. 
She  knew — I  knew — Fate  and  circumstance  knew  and 
had  ordained — that  that  morning  was  to  be  shoved  up, 
joined  on,  and  dovetailed  to  our  last  separation.  The 
time  between  was  to  be  a  blank.  Of  course  she  ex- 
|  pected  me. 

The  garden  door  was  ajar— as  paid  for.  I  entered, 
traversed  the  vegetable  beds,  tripped  through  the  flow- 
er-walk, and — oh  bliss! — the  window  was  open!  I 
j  could  just  see  the  Egyptian  urn  on  its  pedestal  of 
'  sphinxes,  into  which  I  knew  (per  Bob)  she  threw  all 
I  her  fading  roses.  I  glided  near.  I  looked  in  at  the 
'.'■  window. 

Ah,  that  picture  !  She  sat  with  her  back  to  me— 
!!  her  arm— that  arm  of  rosy  alabaster— thrown  careless- 
!  ly  over  her  chair— her  egg-shell  chin  resting  on  her 
\\  other  thumb  and  forefinger— her  eyelids  sweeping  her 
!  cheek— and  a  white— ye»  !  a  whit*  bow  in  h«r  hair  . 


336 


THE  SPIRIT-LOVE  OF  "  IONE  S- 


And  her  dress  was  of  snowy  lawn — white,  bridal 
white  !     Adieu,  old  Passable  Trott ! 

1  wiped  my  eyes  and  looked  again.  Old  Trott's 
portrait  hung  on  the  wall,  but  that  was  nothing.  Her 
guitar  lay  on  the  table,  and — did  I  see  aright  ? — a 
miniature  just  beside  it !  Perhaps  of  old  Trott — ta- 
ken out  for  the  last  time.  Well — well  !  He  was  a 
very  respectable  man,  and  had  been  very  kind  to  her, 
most  likely. 

"  Ehem  !"  said  I,  stepping  over  the  sill,  "  Fidelia !" 

She  started  and  turned,  and  certainly  looked  sur- 
prised. 

»Mr.  G !"  said  she. 

"  It  is  long  since  we  parted  !"  I  said,  helping  my- 
self to  a  chair. 

"  Quite  long  !"  said  Fidelia. 

"  So  long  that  you  have  forgotten  the  name  of 
G ?"  I  asked  tremulously. 

"  Oh  no  !"  she  replied,  covering  up  the  miniature 
on  the  table  by  a  careless  movement  of  her  scarf. 

"  And  may  I  hope  that  that  name  has  not  grown 
distasteful  to  you  ?"  I  summoned  courage  to  say. 

"N ,  no!  I  do  not  know  that  it  has,  Mr.  G !" 

The  blood  returned  to  my  fainting  heart !  I  felt  as 
in  days  of  yore. 

"Fidelia  !"  said  I,  "  let  me  not  waste  the  precious 
moments.  You  loved  me  at  twenty — may  I  hope  that 
I  may  stand  to  you  in  a  nearer  relation  !  May  I  ven- 
ture to   think   that  our  family  is  not   unworthy  of  a 

union  with  the  Balches  ? — that,  as  Mrs.  G ,  you 

could  be  happy  ?" 

Fidelia  looked — hesitated — took  up  the  miniature, 
and  clasped  it  to  her  breast. 

"Do  1  understand  you  rightly,  Mr.  G !"  she 

tremulously  exclaimed.  "  But  I  think  I  do  !  Ire- 
member  well  what  you  were  at  twenty  !  This  picture 
is  like  what  you  were  then — with  differences,  it  is  true, 
but  still  like!  Dear  picture!"  she  exclaimed  again, 
kissing  it  with  rapture. 

(How  could  she  have  got  my  miniature? — but  no 
matter — taken  by  stealth,  I  presume.  Sweet  and  ea- 
ger anticipation!) 

"And  Robert  has  returned  from  college,  then  ?" 
she  said,  inquiringly. 

"Not  that  I  know  of,"  said  I. 

"  Indeed  ! — then  he  has  written  to  you !" 

"  Not  recently  !" 

"  Ah,  poor  boy  !  he  anticipated  !  Well,  Mr.  G ! 

1  will  not  affect  to  be  coy  where  my  heart  has  been  so 
long  interested." 

(I  stood  ready  to  clasp  her  to  my  bosom.) 

"  Tell  Robert  my  mourning  is  over — tell  him  his 
name"  (the  name  of  G ,  of  course)  "  is  the  mu- 
sic of  my  life,  and  that  I  will  marry  whenever  he 
pleases !" 


A  horrid  suspicion  crossed  my  mind. 

"Pardon  me!"  said  I;  "whenever  he  pleases,  did 
'  you  say  ?  Why,  particularly,  when  he  pleases?'" 

M  La  .'  his  not  being  of  age  is  no  impediment,  I 
hope!"  said  Mrs.  Trott,  with  some  surprise.     "Look 

at  his  miniature,  Mr.  G !     It  has  a  boyish  look, 

it's  true — but  so  had  you — at  twenty  !" 

Hope  sank  within  me  !  I  would  have  given  worlds 
to  be  away.  The  truth  was  apparent  to  me — perfect- 
ly apparent.  She  loved  that  boy  Bob — that  child — 
that  mere  child — and  meant  to  marry  him  !  Yet  how 
could  it  be  possible  !  I  might  be — yes — I  must  be, 
mistaken.  Fidelia  Balch — who  was  a  woman  when 
he  was  an  urchin  in  petticoats! — she  to  think  of  mar- 
rying that  boy  !  I  wronged  her — oh  1  wronged  her  ! 
But,  worst  come  to  the  worst,  there  was  no  harm  in 
having  it  perfectly  understood. 

"Pardon  me!"  said  I,  putting  on  a  look  as  if  I 
expected  a  shout  of  laughter  for  the  mere  supposi- 
tion, "  I  should  gather — (categorically,  mind  you  !— 
only  categorically) — 1  should  gather  from  what  you 
said  just  now — (had  I  been  a  third  person  listening, 
that  is  to  say — with  no  knowledge  of  the  parties) — I 
should  really  have  gathered  that  Bob — little  Bob — was 
the  happy  man,  and  not  I  !    Now  don't  laugh  at  me!" 

"  You  the  happy  man  ! — Oh  Mr.  G !  you  are 

joking  !  Oh  no!  pardon  me  if  I  have  unintentionally 

!  misled  you — but  if  I  marry  again,  Mr.  G ,  it  will 

be  a  young  man!  !  !  In  short,  not  to  mince  the  mat- 
ter, Mr.  G !  your  nephew  is  to  become  my  hus- 
band (nothing  unforeseen  turning  up),  in  the  course 
of  the  next  week  !  We  shall  have  the  pleasure  of 
seeing  you  at  the  wedding,  of  course  '  Oh  no  !  You! 
I  should  fancy  that  no  woman  would  make  hvo  une- 
qual   marriages,    Mr.   G !     Good   morning,    Mr. 

I  was  left  alone,  and  to  return  as  I  pleased,  by  the 
vegetable  garden  or  the  front  door.  I  chose  the  lat- 
ter, being  somewhat  piqued  as  well  as  inexpressibly 
grieved  and  disappointed.  But  philosophy  came  to 
my  aid,  and  I  soon  fell  into  a  mood  of  speculation. 

"  Fidelia  is  constant!"  said  I  to  myself — "  constant, 
after  all  !  She  made  up  her  mouth  for  me  at  twenty. 
But  I  did  not  stay  twenty!  Oh  no!  I,  unadvisedly, 
and  without  preparatively  cultivating  her  taste  for 
thirty-five,  became  thirty-five.  And  now  what  was  she 
to  do  ?  Her  taste  was  not  at  all  embarked  in  Passa- 
ble Trott,  and  it  stayed  just  as  it  was — waiting  to  be 
called  up  and  used.  She  locks  it  up  decently  till  old 
Trott  dies,  and  then  reproduces — what?  Why,  just 
what  she  locked  up — a  taste  for  a  young  man  at 
twenty — and  just  such  a  young  man  as  she  loved  when 
she  was  twenty  !  Bob — of  course  !  Bob  is  like  me — 
Bob  is  twenty  !  Be  Bob  her  husband  ! 

But  I  cannot  say  I  quite  like  such  constancy! 


THE   SPIRIT-LOVE   OF    "IONE    S- 


(SINCE  DISCOVERED  TO  BE  MISS  JONES.) 


Not  long  ago,  but  before  poetry  and  pin-money 
were  discovered  to  be  cause  and  effect,  Miss  Phebe 
Jane  Jones  was  one  of  the  most  charming  contributors 
to  a  certain  periodical  now  gone  over  "Lethe's  wharf." 

Her  signature  was  "  lone  S !"  a  neat  anagram, 

out  of  which  few  would  have  picked  the  monosyllable 
engraved  upon  her  father's  brass  knocker.  She  wrote 
mostly  in  verse  ;  but  her  prose,  of  which  you  will 
presently  see  a  specimen  or  two,  was  her  better  vein — 


as  being  more  easily  embroidered,  and  not  crampea 
with  the  inexorable  fetters  of  rhyme.  Miss  Jones 
abandoned  authorship  before  the  New  Mirror  was  es- 
tablished, or  she  would,  doubtless,  have  been  one  of 
its  paid  contributors — as  much  ("  we"  flatter  ourselves) 
as  could  well  be  said  of  her  abilities. 

The  beauty  of  hectics  and  hollow  chests  has  been 
written  out  of  fashion  ;  so  I  may  venture  upon  the 
simple  imagery  of  truth  and  nature.     Miss  Jones  was 


THE  SPIRIT-LOVE  OF  "  IONE  S- 


337 


as  handsome  as  a  prize  heifer.     She  was  a  compact,  | 
plump,  wholesome,  clean-limbed,  beautifully-marked 
animal,  with  eyes  like  inkstands  running  over;  and  a 
mouth  that  looked,  when  she  smiled,  as  if  it  had  never  J 
been  opened  before,  the  teeth  seemed  so  fresh  and  un-  j 
handled.     Her  voice  had  a  tone  clear  as  the  ring  of  a  ; 
silver  dollar;  and  her  lungs  must  have  been  as  sound 
as  a  pippin,  for  when  she  laughed  (which  she  never 
did  unless  she  was  surprised  into  it,  for  she  loved  mel- 
ancholy), it  was  like  the  gurgling  of  a  brook  over  the 
pebbles.     The   bran-new  people  made  by  Deucalion 
and  Pyrrha,  when  it  cleared  up  after  the  flood,  were 
probably  in  Miss  Jones's  style. 

But  do  you  suppose  that  "lone  S "  cared  any 

thing  for  her  looks  !  What — value  the  poor  perishing 
tenement  in  which  nature  had  chosen  to  lodge  her 
intellectual  and  spiritual  part !  What — care  for  her 
covering  of  clay  !  What — waste  thought  on  the  chain 
that  kept  her  from  the  Pleiades,  of  which,  perhaps, 
she  was  the  lost  sister  (who  knows)  ?  And,  more  than 
all — oh  gracious  ! — to  be  loved  for  this  trumpery-dra- 
pery of  her  immortal  essence  ! 

Yes — infra  dig.  as  it  may  seem  to  record  such  an 
unworthy  trifle — the  celestial  Phebe  had  the  superflu- 
ity of  an  every-day  lover.  Gideon  Flimmins  was  wil- 
ling to  take  her  on  her  outer  inventory  alone.  He 
loved  her  cheeks — he  did  not  hesitate  to  admit  !  He 
loved  her  lips — he  could  not  help  specifying  !  He  had 
been  known  to  name  her  shoulders  !  And,  in  taking 
out  a  thorn  for  her  with  a  pair  of  tweezers  one  day,  he 
had  literally  exclaimed  with  rapture  that   she  had  a 

heavenly  little  pink  thumb!     But  of  "  lone  S " 

he  had  never  spoken  a  word.  No,  though  she  read 
him  faithfully  every  effusion  that  appeared — asked  his 
opinion   of  every  separate   stanza — talked   of  "lone 

S "  as  the  person  on  earth  she  most  wished  to  see 

(for  she  kept  her  literary  incog.) — Gideon  had  never 
alluded  to  her  a  second  time,  and  perseveringly,  hate- 
fully, atrociously,  and  with  mundane  motive  only,  he 
made  industrious  love  to  the  outside  and  visible  Phe- 
be !     Well!  well! 

Contiguity  is  something,  in  love  ;  and  the  Flim- 
minses  were  neighbors  of  the  Joneses.  Gideon  had 
another  advantage — for  Ophelia  Flimmins,  his  eldest 
sister,  was  Miss  Jones's  eternally  attached  friend.  To 
explain  this,  I  must  trouble  the  reader  to  take  notice 
that  there  were  two  streaks  in  the  Flimmins  family. 
Fat  Mrs.  Flimmins,  the  mother  (who  had  been  dead  a 
year),  was  a  thorough  "man  of  business,"  and  it  was 
to  her  downright  and  upright  management  of  her  hus- 
band's wholesale  and  retail  hat-lining  establishment, 
that  the  family  owed  its  prosperity;  for  Herodotus 
Flimmins,  whose  name  was  on  the  sign,  was  a  flimsy- 
ish  kind  of  sighing-dying  man,  and  nobody  could  ever 
find  out  what  on  earth  he  wanted.  Gideon  and  the 
two  fleshy  Miss  Flimminses  took  after  their  mother; 
but  Ophelia,  whose  semi-translucent  frame  was  the 
envy  of  her  faithful  Phebe,  was,  with  very  trifling  ex- 
ceptions, the  perfect  model  of  her  sire.  She  devotedly 
loved  the  moon.  She  had  her  preferences  among  the 
stars  of  heaven.  She  abominated  the  garish  sun.  And 
she  and  Phebe  met  by  night — on  the  sidewalk  around 
their  mutual  nearest  corner — deeply  veiled  to  conceal 
their  emotion  from  the  intruding  gaze  of  such  stars  as 
they  were  not  acquainted  with — and  there  they  com- 
muned ! 

I  never  knew,  nor  have  I  any,  the  remotest  suspicion 
of  the  reasoning  by  which  these  commingled  spirits 
arrived  at  the  conclusion  that  there  was  a  want  in  their 
delicious  union.  They  might  have  known,  indeed, 
that  the  chain  of  bliss,  ever  so  far  extended,  breaks  off 
at  last  with  an  imperfect  link — that  though  mustard 
and  ham  may  turn  two  slices  of  innocent  bread  into  a 
sandwich,  there  will  still  be  an  unbuttered  outside. 
But  they  were  young— they  were  sanguine.  Phebe, 
at  least,  believed  that  in  the  regions  of  space  there  ex- 
22 


isted — "wandering  but  not  lost" — the  aching  worser 
half  of  which  she  was  the  "better" — some  lofty  intel- 
lect, capable  of  sounding  the  unfathomable  abysses  of 
hers — some  male  essence,  all  soul  and  romance,  with 
whom  she  could  soar  finally,  arm-in-arm,  to  their  na- 
tive star,  with  no  changes  of  any  consequence  between 
their  earthly  and  their  astral  communion.  It  occurred 
to  her  at  last  that  a  letter  addressed  to  him,  through 
her  favorite  periodical,  might  possibly  reach  his  eye. 
The  following  (which  the  reader  may  very  likely  re- 
member to  have  seen)  appeared  in  the  paper  of  the 
following  Saturday  : — 

"  To  my  spirit-husband,  greeting : — 

"Where  art  thou,  bridegroom  of  my  soul  ?     Thy 

lone  S calls  to  thee  from  the  aching  void  of  her 

lonely  spirit  !  What  name  bearest  thou  ?  What  path 
walkest  thou  ?  How  can  I,  glow-worm  like,  lift  my 
wings  and  show  thee  my  lamp  of  guiding  love  ?  Thus 
wing  I  these  words  to  thy  dwelling-place  (for  thou  art, 

perhaps,  &  subscriber  to  the  M r).     Go — truants  ! 

Best  not  till  ye  meet  his  eye. 

"But  I  must  speak  to  thee  after  the  manner  of  this 
world. 

"  I  am  a  poetess  of  eighteen  summers.  Eighteen 
weary  years  have  I  worn  this  prison-house  of  flesh,  in 
which,  when  torn  from  thee,  I  was  condemned  to  wan- 
der. But  my  soul  is  untamed  by  its  cage  of  dark- 
ness !  I  remember,  and  remember  only,  the  lost  hus- 
band of  my  spirit-world.  I  perform,  coldly  and  scorn- 
fully, the  unheavenly  necessities  of  this  temporary 
existence;  and  from  the  windows  of  my  prison  (black 
— like  the  glimpses  of  the  midnight  heaven  they  let  in) 
I  look  out  for  the  coming  of  my  spirit-lord.  Lonely  ! 
lonely ! 

"Thou  wouldst  know,  perhaps,  what  semblance  1 
bear  since  my  mortal  separation  from  thee.  Alas!  the 
rose,  not  the  lily,  reigns  upon  my  cheek  !  I  would 
not  disappoint  thee,  though  of  that  there  is  little  fear, 
for  thou  lovest  for  the  spirit  only.  But  believe  not, 
because  health  holds  me  rudely  down,  and  I  seem  not 
fragile  and  ready  to  depart — believe  not,  oh  bridegroom 
of  my  soul  !  that  I  bear  willingly  my  fleshly  fetter,  or 
endure  with  patience  the  degrading  homage  to  its 
beauty.  For  there  are  soulless  worms  who  think  mc 
fair.  Ay — in  the  strength  and  freshness  of  my  corpo- 
real covering,  there  are  those  who  rejoice!  Oh! 
mockery  !  mockery  ! 

"  List  to  me,  Ithuriel  (for  I  must  have  a  name  to 
call  thee  by,  and,  till  thou  breathest  thy  own  seraphic 
name  into  my  ear,  be  thou  Ithuriel)  !  List  !  I  would 
meet  thee  in  the  darkness  only  !  Thou  shalt  not  see 
me  with  thy  mortal  eyes  !  Penetrate  the  past,  and 
remember  the  smoke-curl  of  wavy  lightness  in  which 
I  floated  to  thy  embrace!  Remember  the  sunset- 
cloud  to  which  we  retired;  the  starry  lamps  that  hung 
over  our  slumbers!  And  on  the  softest  whisper  of 
our  voices  let  thy  thoughts  pass  to  mine!  Speak  not 
aloud!     Murmur!  murmur!  murmur! 

"Dost  thou  know,  Ithuriel,  I  would  fain  prove  to 
thee  my  freedom  from  the  trammels  of  this  world  ?  In 
what  chance  shape  thy  accident  of  clay  may  be  cast,  I 
know  not.  Ay,  and  1  care  not  !  I  would  thou  wert  a 
hunchback,  Ithuriel !  I  would  thou  wert  disguised 
as  a  monster,  my  spirit-husband  !  So  would  I  prove 
to  thee  my  elevation  above  mortality  !  So  would  I 
show  thee,  that  in  the  range  of  eternity  for  which  we 
are  wedded,  a  moment's  covering  darkens  thee  not — 
that,  like  a  star  sailing  through  a  cloud,  thy  brightness 
is  remembered  while  it  is  eclipsed— that  thy  lone 
would  recognise  thy  voice,  be  aware  of  thy  presence, 
adore  thee,  as  she  was  celestially  wont — ay,  though 
thou  wert  imprisoned  in  the  likeness  of  a  reptile! 
lone  care  for  mortal  beauty!  Ha!  ha!  ha!— Ha' 
ha!  ha! 

"  Come  to  me,  Ithuriel !     My  heart  writhes  in  its 


338 


THE  SPIRIT-LOVE  OF  "  IONE  S- 


cell  for  converse  with  thee  !  I  am  sick-thoughted  ! 
My  spirit  wrings  its  thin  fingers  to  play  with  thy  ethe- 
real hair  !  My  earthly  cheek,  though  it  obstinately 
refuses  to  pale,  tingles  with  fever  for  thy  coming. 
Glide  to  me  in  the  shadow  of  eve — softly  !  softly  ! 

"Address  'P.'  at  the  M r  office. 

"Thine,  "IoneS ." 

****** 

There  came  a  letter  to  "P." 

It  was  an  inky  night.  The  moon  was  in  her  private 
chamber.  The  stars  had  drawn  over  their  heads  the 
coverlet  of  clouds  and  pretended  to  sleep.  The  street 
lamps  heartlessly  burned  on. 

Twelve  struck  with  "damnable  iteration." 

On  tiptoe  and  with  beating  heart  Phebe  Jane  left 
her  father's  area.  Ophelia  Flimmins  followed  her  at 
a  little  distance,  for  lone  was  going  to  meet  her  spirit- 
bridegroom,  and  receive  a  renewal  of  his  ante-vital 
vows ;  and  she  wished  her  friend,  the  echo  of  her  soul, 
to  overhear  and  witness  them.  For  oh — if  words  were 
anything — if  the  soul  could  be  melted  and  poured, 
Java-like,  upon  "  satin  post" — if  there  was  truth  in  feel- 
ings magnetic  and  prophetic — then  was  he  who  had 

responded  to,  and  corresponded  with,  lone  S (she 

writing  to  "I,"  and  he  to  "P"),  the  ideal  for  whom 
she  had  so  long  sighed — the  lost  half  of  the  whole  so 
mournfully  incomplete — her  soul's  missing  and  once 
spiritually  Siamesed  twin  !  His  sweet  letters  had 
echoed  every  sentiment  of  her  heart.  He  had  agreed 
with  her  that  outside  was  nothing — that  earthly  beauty 
was  poor,  perishing,  pitiful — that  nothing  that  could 
be  seen,  touched,  or  described,  had  anything  to  do 
with  the  spiritually-passionate  intercourse  to  which 
their  respective  essences  achingly  yearned — that,  un- 
seen, unheard,  save  in  whispers  faint  as  a  rose's  sigh 
when  languishing  at  noon,  they  might  meet  in  com- 
munion blissful,  superhuman,  and  satisfactory. 

Yet  where  fittingly  to  meet — oh  agony  !  agony  ! 

The  street-lamps  two  squares  oft' had  been  taken  up 
to  lay  down  gas.  Ophelia  Flimmins  had  inwardly 
marked  it.  Between  No.  126  and  No.  132,  more  par- 
ticularly, the  echoing  sidewalk  was  bathed  in  unfath- 
omable night — for  there  were  vacant  lots  occupied  as 
a  repository  for  used-up  omnibuses.  At  the  most 
lonely  point  there  stood  a  tree,  and,  fortunately,  this 
night,  in  the  gutter  beneath  the  tree,  stood  a  newly- 
disabled  'bus  of  the  Knickerbocker  line — and  (sweet 
omen  !)  it  was  blue  !  In  this  covert  could  the  witness- 
ing Ophelia  lie  perdu,  observing  unseen  through  the 
open  door;  and  beneath  this  tree  was  to  take  place  the 
meeting  of  souls — the  re-interchange  of  sky-born  vows 
— the  immaterial  union  of  Ithuriel  and  lone  !  Bliss  ! 
bliss  ! — exquisite  to  anguish. 

But — oh  incontinent  vessel — Ophelia  had  blabbed  ! 
The  two  fat  Miss  Flimminses  were  in  the  secret — 
nay,  more — they  were  in  the  omnibus  !  Ay — deeply 
in,  and  portentously  silent,  they  sat,  warm  and  won- 
dering, on  either  side  of  the  lamp  probably  extin- 
guished for  ever  !  They  knew  not  well  what  was  to 
be.  But  whatever  sort,  of  thing  was  a  "marriage  of 
soul,"  and  whether  "  Ithuriel"  was  body  or  nobody — 
mortal  man  or  angel  in  a  blue  scarf — the  Miss  Flim- 
minses wished  to  see  him.  Half  an  hour  before  the 
trysting-time  they  had  fanned  their  way  thither,  for  a 
thunder-storm  was  in  the  air  and  the  night  was  intol- 
erably close;  and,  climbing  into  the  omnibus,  they  re- 
ciprocally loosened  each  other's  upper  hook,  and  with 
their  moistened  collars  laid  starchless  in  their  laps, 
awaited  the  opening  of  the  mystery. 

Enter  Ophelia,  as  expected.  She  laid  her  thin  hand 
upon  the  leather  string,  and,  drawing  the  door  after 


her,  leaned  out  of  its  open  window  in  breathless  sus- 
pense and  agitation. 

Ione's  step  was  now  audible,  returning  from  132. 
Slowly  she  came,  but  invisibly,  for  it  had  grown  sud- 
denly pitch-dark ;  and  only  the  far-off  lamps,  up  and 
down  the  street,  served  to  guide  her  footsteps. 

But  hark  !  the  sound  of  a  heel !  He  came  !  They 
met !  He  passed  his  arm  around  her  and  drew  her 
beneath  the  tree — and  with  whispers,  soft  and  low, 
leaned  breathing  to  her  ear.  He  was  tall.  He  was  in 
a  cloak.  And,  oh  ecstasy,  he  was  thin  !  But  thinkest 
thou  to  know,  oh  reader  of  dust,  what  passed  on  those 
ethereal  whispers  ?  Futile — futile  curiosity !  Even  to 
Ophelia's  straining  ear,  those  whispers  were  inaudible. 

But  hark  !  a  rumble  !  Something  wrong  in  the 
bowels  of  the  sky  !  And  pash  !  pash ! — on  the  re- 
sounding roof  of  the  omnibus — fell  drops  of  rain — fit- 
fully !  fitfully! 

"  My  dear!"  whispered  Ophelia  (for  lone  had  bor- 
rowed her  chip  hat,  the  better  to  elude  recognition), 
"ask  Ithuriel  to  step  in." 

Ithuriel  started  to  find  a  witness  near,  but  a  whisper 
from  lone  reassured  him,  and  gathering  his  cloak 
around  his  face,  he  followed  his  spirit-bride  into  the 
'bus. 

The  fat  Miss  Flimminses  contracted  their  orbed 
shapes,  and  made  themselves  small  against  the  padded 
extremity  of  the  vehicle ;  Ophelia  retreated  to  the  mid- 
dle, and,  next  the  door,  on  either  side,  sat  the  starry 
j  bride  and  bridegroom — all  breathlessly  silent.  Yet 
there  was  a  murmur — for  five  hearts  beat  within  that 
!  'bus's  duodecimal  womb ;  and  the  rain  pelted  on  the 
j  roof,  pailsful-like  and  unpityingly. 

But  slap!  dash!  whew!  heavens! — In  rushed  a 
youth,  dripping,  dripping  ! 

"  Get  out !"  cried  lone,  over  whose  knees  he  drew 
himself  like  an  eel  pulled  through  a  basket  of  con- 
torted other  eels. 

"  Come,  come,  young  man  !"  said  a  deep  bass  voice, 
of  which  everybody  had  some  faint  remembrance. 

"  Oh  !"  cried  one  fat  Miss  Flimmins. 

"Ah  !"  screamed  the  other. 

"  What  ? — dad  !"  exclaimed  Gideon  Flimmins,  who 
had  dashed  into  the  sheltering  'bus  to  save  his  new 
hat — "dad  here  with  a  girl !" 

But  the  fat  Flimminses  were  both  in  convulsions. 
Scream  !  scream  !  scream  ! 

A  moment  of  confusion  !  The  next  moment  a  sud- 
den light !  A  watchman  with  his  lantern  stood  at  the 
door. 

"Papa  !"  ejaculated  three  of  the  ladies. 

"Old  Flimmins! — my  heart  will  burst !"  murmured 
IoDe. 

The  two  fat  girls  hurried  on  their  collars;  and  Gid- 
eon, all  amazement  at  finding  himself  in  such  a  family 
party  at  midnight  in  a  lonely  'bus,  stepped  out  and  en- 
tered into  converse  wjth  the  guardian  of  the  night. 

The  rain  stopped  suddenly,  and  the  omnibus  gave 
up  its  homogeneous  contents.  Old  Flimmins,  who 
was  in  a  violent  perspiration,  gave  Gideon  his  cloak  to 
carry,  and  his  two  arms  to  his  two  pinguid  adult 
pledges.  Gideon  took  Ophelia  and  Phebe,  and  they 
mizzled.     Mockery  !  mockery  ! 

lone  is  not  yet  gone  to  the  spirit-sphere — kept  here 
partly  by  the  strength  of  the  fleshy  fetter  over  which 
she  mourned,  and  partly  by  the  dove-tailed  duties  con- 
sequent upon  annual  Flimminses.  Gideon  loves  her 
after  the  manner  of  this  world — but  she  sighs  "  when 
she  hears  sweet  music,"  that  her  better  part  is  still 
unappreciated — unfathomed — "cabined,  cribbed,  con- 
fined !" 


MABEL  WYNNE. 


339 


MABEL  WYNNE. 


Mabel  Wynne  was  the  topmost  sparkle  on  the 
crest  of  the  first  wave  of  luxury  that  swept  over  New 
York.  Up  to  her  time,  the  aristocratic  houses  were 
furnished  with  high  buffets,  high-backed  and  hair- 
bottomed  mahogany  chairs,  one  or  two  family  portraits, 
and  a  silver  tray  on  the  side-board,  containing  cordials 
and  brandy  for  morning-callers.  In  the  centre  of  the 
room  hung  a  chandelier  of  colored  lamps,  and  the 
lighting  of  this  and  the  hiring  of  three  negroes  (to 
"fatigue,"  as  the  French  say,  a  clarinet,  a  baseviol, 
and  a  violin)  were  the  only  preparations  necessary  for 
the  most  distinguished  ball.  About  the  time  that 
Mabel  left  school,  however,  some  adventurous  poineer 
of  the  Dutch  haul  ton  ventured  upon  lamp-stands  for 
the  corners  of  the  rooms,  stuffed  red  benches  along 
the  walls,  and  chalked  floors;  and  upon  this  a  French 
family  of  great  beauty,  residing  in  the  lower  part  of 
Broadway,  ventured  upon  a  fancy  ball  with  wax-candles 
instead  of  lamps,  French  dishes  and  sweetmeats  in- 
stead of  pickled  oysters  and  pink  champagne  ;  and, 
the  door  thus  opened,  luxury  came  in  like  a  flood. 
Houses  were  built  on  a  new  plan  of  sumptuous  ar- 
rangement, the  ceiling  stained  in  fresco,  and  the 
columns  of  the  doors  within  painted  iu  imitation  of 
bronze  and  marble;  and  at  last  the  climax  was  topped 
by  Mr.  Wynne,  who  sent  the  dimensions  of  every 
room  in  his  new  house  to  an  upholsterer  in  Paris, 
with  carte  blanche  as  to  costliness  and  style,  and  the 
fournisseur  to  comeout  himself  and  see  to  the  arrange- 
ment and  decoration. 

It  was  Manhattan  tea-time,  old  style,  and  while 
Mr.  Wynne,  who  had  the  luxury  of  a  little  plain 
furniture  in  the  basement,  was  comfortably  taking  his 
toast  and  hyson  below  stairs,  Miss  Wynne  was  just 
announced  as  "at  home,"  by  the  black  footman,  and 
two  of  her  admirers  made  their  highly-scented  entree. 
They  were  led  through  a  suite  of  superb  rooms,  light- 
ed with  lamps  hid  in  alabaster  vases,  and  ushered  in 
at  a  mirror-door  beyond,  where,  in  a  tent  of  fluted  silk, 
with  ottomans  and  draperies  of  the  same  stuff,  ex- 
quisitely arranged,  the  imperious  Ma°el  held  her 
court  of 'teens. 

Mabel  Wynne  was  one  of  those  accidents  of  sover- 
eign beauty  which  nature  seems  to  take  delight  in  mis- 
placing in  the  world — like  the  superb  lobelia  flashing 
among  the  sedges,  or  the  golden  oriole  pluming  his 
dazzling  wings  in  the  depth  of  a  wilderness.  She 
was  no  less  than  royal  in  all  her  belongings.  Her 
features  expressed  consciousness  of  sway — a  sway 
whose  dictates  had  been  from  infancy  anticipated. 
Never  a  surprise  had  startled  those  languishing  eyelids 
from  their  deliberateness — never  a  suffusion  other  than 
the   humid  cloud  of  a  tender  and  pensive  hour  had 

dimmed  those  adorable  dark  eyes.     Or,  so  at  least  it 

seemed  ! 

She    was    a    fine    creature,     nevertheless — Mabel 

Wynne!     But  she  looked  to  others  like  a  specimen 

of  such  fragile  and  costly  workmanship  that  nothing 

beneath  a  palace  would  be  a  becoming  home  for  her. 
"  For  the  present,"  said  Mr.  Bellallure,  one  of  the 

gentlemen  who  entered,  "  the  bird  has  a  fitting  cage." 
Miss  Wynne  only  smiled   in  reply,  and  the  other 

gentlemau  took  upon  himself  to  be  the  interpreter  of 

her  unexpressed  thought. 

"  The  cage  is  the  accessory — not  the  bird."  said 

Mr.  Blythe,  "  and,  for  my  part,  I  think  Miss  Wynne 


would  show  better  the  humbler  her  surroundings. 
As  Perdita  upon  the  greensward,  and  open  to  a  shep- 
herd's wooing,  I  should  inevitably  sling  my  heart  upon 
a  crook — " 

"And  forswear  that  formidable,  impregnable  vow  of 
celibacy  ?"  interrupted  Miss  Wynne. 

"  I  am  only  supposing  a  case,  and  you  are  not  likely 
to  be  a  shepherdess  on  the  green."  But  Mr.  Blythe's 
smile  ended  in  a  look  of  clouded  revery,  and,  after 
a  few  minutes'  conversation,  ill  sustained  by  the  gen- 
tlemen, who  seemed  each  in  the  other's  way,  they 
rose  and  took  their  leave — Mr.  Bellallure  lingering 
last,  for  he  was  a  lover  avowed. 

As  the  door  closed  upon  her  admirer,  Miss  Wynne 
ji  drew  a  letter  from  her  portfolio,  and  turning  it  over 
!  and  over  with  a  smile  of  abstracted  curiosity,  opened 
;  and  read  it  for  the  second  time.  She  had  received  it 
i  that  morning  from  an  unknown  source,  and  as  it  was 
]  rather  a  striking  communication,  perhaps  the  reader 
j  had  better  know  something  of  it  before  we  go  on. 
It  commenced  without  preface,  thus: — 

"  On  a  summer  morning,  twelve  years  ago,  a 
chimney-sweep,  after  doing  his  work  and  singing  his 
song,  commenced  his  descent.  It  was  the  chimney 
of  a  large  house,  and  becoming  embarrassed  among 
the  flues,  he  lost  his  way  and  found  himself  on  the 
hearth  of  a  sleeping-chamber  occupied  by  a  child. 
The  sun  was  just  breaking  through  the  curtains  of 
the  room,  a  vacated  bed  showed  that  some  one  had 
risen  lately,  probably  the  nurse,  and  the  sweep,  with 
,  an  irresistible  impulse,  approached  the  unconscious 
I  little  sleeper.  She  lay  with  her  head  upon  a  round 
arm  buried  in  flaxen  curls,  and  the  smile  of  a  dream 
on  her  rosy  and  parted  lips.  It  was  a  picture  of 
singular  loveliness,  and  something  in  the  heart  of  that 
boy-sweep,  as  he  stood  and  looked  upon  the  child, 
knelt  to  it  with  an  agony  of  worship.  The  tears  gush- 
ed to  his  eyes.  He  stripped  the  sooty  blanket  from 
his  breast,  and  looked  at  the  skin  white  upon  his  side. 
The  contrast  between  his  condition  and  that  of  the 
fair  child  sleeping  before  him  brought  the  blood  to  his 
blackened  brow  with  the  hot  rush  of  lava.  He  knelt 
beside  the  bed  on  which  she  slept,  took  her  hand  in 
his  sooty  grasp,  and  with  a  kiss  upon  the  white  and 
dewy  fingers  poured  his  whole  soul  with  passionate 
earnestness  into  a  resolve. 

"  Hereafter  you  may  learn,  if  you  wish,  the  first 
struggles  of  that  boy  in  the  attempt  to  diminish  the 
distance  between  yourself  and  him — for  you  will  have 
understood  that  you  were  the  beautiful  child  he  saw 
asleep.  I  repeat  that  it  is  twelve  years  since  he  stood 
in  your  chamber.  He  has  seen  you  almost  daily  since 
then — watched  your  going  out  and  coming  in — fed  his 
eyes  and  heart  on  your  expanding  beauty,  and  inform- 
ed himself  of  every  change  and  development  iu  your 
mind  and  character.  With  this  intimate  knowledge 
of  you,  and  with  the  expansion  of  his  own  intellect, 
his  passion  has  deepened  and  strengthened.  It  pos- 
sesses him  now  as  life  does  his  heart,  and  will  endure 
as  long.  But  his  views  with  regard  to  you  have 
changed,  nevertheless. 

"You  will  pardon  the  presumption  of  my  first 
feeling— that  to  attain  my  wishes  I  had  only  to  be- 
come your  equal.  It  was  a  natural  error— for  my 
agony  at  realizing  the  difference  of  our  conditions  iu 


340 


MABEL  WYNNE. 


life  was  enough  to  absorb  me  at  the  time — but  it  is 
surprising  to  me  how  long  that  delusion  lasted.  I  am 
rich  now.  I  have  lately  added  to  my  fortune  the  last 
acquisition  I  thought  desirable.  But  with  the  thought 
of  the  next  thing  to  be  done,  came  like  a  thunderbolt 
upon  me  the  fear  that  after  all  my  efforts  you  might 
be  destined  for  another!  The  thought  is  simple 
enough.  You  would  think  that  it  would  have  haunted 
me  from  the  beginning.  But  I  have  either  uncon- 
sciously shut  my  eyes  to  it,  or  I  have  been  so  absorbed 
in  educating  and  enriching  myself  that  that  goal  only 
was  visible  to  me.  It  was  perhaps  fortunate  for  my 
perseverance  that  I  was  so  blinded.  Of  my  midnight 
studies,  of  my  labors,  of  all  my  plans,  self-denials,  and 
anxieties,  you  have  seemed  the  reward  !  I  have  never 
gained  a  thought,  never  learned  a  refinement,  never 
turned  over  gold  and  silver,  that  it  was  not  a  step 
nearer  to  Mabel  Wynne.  And  now,  that  in  worldly 
advantages,  after  twelve  years  of  effort  and  trial,  I 
stand  by  your  side  at  last,  a  thousand  men  who  never 
thought  of  you  till  yesterday  are  equal  competitors 
with  me  for  your  hand  ! 

"But,  as  I  said,  my  views  with  regard  to  you  have 
changed.  I  have,  with  bitter  effort,  conquered  the 
selfishness  of  this  one  lifetime  ambition.  I  am  devo- 
ted to  you,  as  I  have  been  from  the  moment  I  first 
saw  you — life  and  fortune.  These  are  still  yours — 
but  without  the  price  at  which  you  might  spurn  them. 
My  person  is  plain  and  unattractive.  You  have  seen 
me,  and  shown  me  no  preference.  There  are  others 
whom  you  receive  with  favor.  And  with  your  glorious 
beauty,  and  sweet,  admirably  sweet  qualities  of  char- 
acter, it  would  be  an  outrage  to  nature  that  you  should 
not  choose  freely,  and  be  mated  with  something  of 
your  kind.  Of  those  who  now  surround  you  I  see  no 
one  worthy  of  you — but  he  may  come  !  Jealousy 
shall  not  blind  me  to  his  merits.  The  first  mark  of 
your  favor  (and  I  shall  be  aware  of  it)  will  turn  upon 
him  my  closest,  yet  most  candid  scrutiny.  He  must 
love  you  well — for  I  shall  measure  his  love  by  my 
own.  He  must  have  manly  beauty,  and  delicacy,  and 
honor — he  must  be  worthy  of  you,  in  short — but  he 
need  not  be  rich.  He  who  steps  between  me  and  you 
takes  the  fortune  I  had  amassed  for  you.  1  tell  you 
this  that  you  may  have  no  limit  in  your  choice — for  the 
worthiest  of  a  woman's  lovers  is  often  barred  from  her 
by  poverty. 

"Of  course  I  have  made  no  vow  against  seeking 
your  favor.  On  the  contrary,  I  shall  lose  no  oppor- 
tunity of  making  myself  agreeable  to  you.  It  is  against 
my  nature  to  abandon  hope,  though  I  am  painfully 
conscious  of  my  inferiority  to  other  men  in  the  quali- 
ties which  please  a  woman.  All  I  have  done  is  to 
deprive  my  pursuit  of  its  selfishness — to  make  it  sub- 
servient to  your  happiness  purely — as  it  still  would  be 
were  I  the  object  of  your  preference.  You  will  hear 
from  me  at  any  crisis  of  your  feelings.  Pardon  my 
being  a  spy  upon  you.  I  know  you  well  enough  to 
be  sure  that  this  letter  will  be  a  secret — since  1  wish 
it.     Adieu." 

Mabel  laid  her  cheek  in  the  hollow  of  her  hand  and 
mused  long  on  this  singular  communication.  It  stirred 
her  romance,  but  it  wakened  still  more  her  curiosity. 
Who  was  he?  She  had  "seen  him  and  shown  him 
no  preference !"  Which  could  it  be  of  the  hundred 
of  her  chance-made  acquaintances  ?  She  conjectured 
at  some  disadvantage,  for  "  she  had  come  out"  within 
the  past  year  only,  and  her  mother  having  long  been 
dead,  the  visiters  to  the  house  were  all  but  recently 
made  known  to  her.  She  could  set  aside  two  thirds 
of  them,  as  sons  of  families  well  known,  but  there 
were  at  least  a  score  of  others,  any  one  of  whom  might, 
twelve  years  before,  have  been  as  obscure  as  her 
anonymous  lover.  Whoever  he  might  be,  Mabel 
thought  he  could  hardly  come  into  her  presence  again 


without  betraying  himself,  and,  with  a  pleased  smile 
at  the  thought  of  the  discovery,  she  again  locked  up 
the  letter. 

Those  were  days  (to  be  regretted  or  not,  as  you 
please,  dear  reader !)  when  the  notable  society  of 
New  York  revolved  in  one  self-complacent  and  clear- 
ly-defined circle.  Call  it  a  wheel,  and  say  that  the 
centre  was  a  belle  and  the  radii  were  beaux— (the 
periphery  of  course  composed  of  those  who  could 
"  down  with  the  dust").  And  on  the  fifteenth  of  July, 
regularly  and  imperatively,  this  fashionable  wheel 
rolled  off  to  Saratoga. 

"Mabel!  my  daughter!"  said  old  Wynne,  as  he 
bade  her  good  night  the  evening  before  starting  for 
the  springs,  "  it  is  useless  to  be  blind  to  the  fact  that 
among  your  many  admirers  you  have  several  very 
pressing  lovers — suiters  for  your  hand  I  may  safely 
say.  Now,  I  do  not  wish  to  put  any  unnecessary  re- 
straint upon  your  choice,  but  as  you  are  going  to  a 
gay  place,  where  you  are  likely  to  decide  the  matter 
in  your  own  mind,  I  wish  to  express  an  opinion.  You 
may  give  it  what  weight  you  think  a  father's  judg- 
ment should  have  in  such  matters.  I  do  not  like  Mr. 
Bellallure — for,  beside  my  prejudice  against  the  man, 
we  know  nothing  of  his  previous  life,  and  he  may  be 
a  swindler  or  anything  else.  I  do  like  Mr.  Blythe — 
for  I  have  known  him  many  years,  he  comes  of  a 
most  respectable  family,  and  he  is  wealthy  and  worthy. 
These  two  seem  to  me  the  most  in  earnest,  and  you 
apparently  give  them  the  most  of  your  time.  If  thede- 
cision  is  to  be  between  them,  you  have  my  choice. 
Good  night,  my  love  !" 

Some  people  think  it  is  owing  to  the  Saratoga 
water.  I  differ  from  them.  The  wateris  an  "altera- 
tive,"  if  is  true — but  I  think  people  do  not  so  much 
alter  as  develop  at  Saratoga.  The  fact  is  clear  enough 
— that  at  the  springs  we  change  our  opinionsof  almost 
everybody — but  (though  it  seems  a  bold  supposition 
at  first  glance)  I  am  inclined  to  believe  it  is  because 
we  see  so  much  more  of  them  !  Knowing  people  in 
the  city  and  knowing  them  at  the  springs  is  very  much 
in  the  same  line  of  proof  as  tasting  wine  and  drinking 
a  bottle.  Why,  what  is  a  week's  history  of  a  city  ac- 
quaintance ?  A  morning  call  thrice  a  week,  a  diurnal 
bow  in  Broadway,  and  perhaps  a  quadrille  or  two  in 
the  party  season.  What  chance  in  that  to  ruffle  a 
temper  or  try  a  weakness?  At  the  springs,  now,  dear 
lady,  you  wear  a  man  all  day  like  a  shoe.  Down  at 
the  platform  with  him  to  drink  the  waters  before  break- 
fast— strolls  on  the  portico  with  him  till  ten — drives  with 
him  to  Barheight's  till  dinner — lounges  in  the  draw- 
ing-room with  him  till  tea — dancing  and  promenading 
with  him  till  midnight — very  little  short  altogether  of 
absolute  matrimony  ;  and,  like  matrimony,  it  is  a  very 
severe  trial.  Your  "  best  fellow"  is  sure,  to  be  found 
out,  and  so  is  your  plausible  fellow,  your  egotist,  and 
your  "spoon." 

Mr.  Beverly  Bellallure  had  cultivated  the  male 
attractions  with  marked  success.  At  times  he  proba- 
bly thought  himself  a  plain  man,  and  an  artist  who 
should  only  paint  what  could  be  measured  with  a  rule, 
would  have  made  a  plain  portrait  of  Mr.  Bellallure. 
But — the  atmosphere  of  the  man  !  There  is  a  phys- 
iognomy in  movement — there  is  aspect  in  the  har- 
monious link  between  mood  and  posture — there  is  ex- 
pression in  the  face  of  which  the  features  are  as  much 
a  portrait  as  a  bagpipe  is  a  copy  of  a  Scotch  song. 
Beauty,  my  dear  artist,  can  not  always  be  translated 
by  canvass  and  oils.  You  must  paint  "  the  magnetic 
fluid"  to  get  a  portrait  of  some  men.  Sir  Thomas 
Lawrence  seldom  painted  anything  else — as  you  may 
see  by  his  picture  of  Lady  Blessington,  which  is  like 
her  without  having  copied  a  single  feature  of  her  face. 
Yet  an  artist  would  be  very  much  surprised  if  you 
should  offer  to  sit  to  him  for  your  magnetic  atmo- 
sphere— though  it  expresses  (does  it  not  ?)  exactly 


MABEL  WYNNE. 


341 


what  you  want  when  you  order  a  picture !  You  wish 
to  be  painted  as  your  appear  to  those  who  love  you — 
a  picture  altogether  unrecognisable  by  those  who  love 
you  not. 

Mr.  Bellallure,  then,  was  magnetically  handsome 
—positively  plain.  He  dressed  with  an  art  beyond 
detection.  He  spent  his  money  as  if  he  could  dip  it 
at  will  out  of  Pactolus.  He  was  intimate  with  nobody, 
and  so  nobody  knew  his  history  ;  but  he  wrote  him- 
self on  the  register  of  Congress  hall  as  "  from  New 
York,"  and  he  threw  all  his  forces  into  one  unmista- 
kable demonstration — the  pursuit  of  Miss  Mabel 
Wynne. 

But  Mr.  Bellallure  had  a  formidable  rival.  Mr. 
Blytlie  was  as  much  in  earnest  as  he,  though  he  play- 
ed his  game  with  a  touch-and-go  freedom,  as  if  he 
was  prepared  to  lose  it.  And  Mr.  Blythe  had  very 
much  surprised  those  people  at  Saratoga  who  did  not 
know  that  between  a  very  plain  man  and  a  very  elegant 
man  there  is  often  but  the  adding  of  the  rose-leaf  to 
the  brimming  jar.  He  was  perhaps  a  little  gayer 
than  in  New  York,  certainly  a  little  more  dressed, 
certainly  a  little  more  prominent  in  general  conversa- 
tion— but  without  any  difference  that  you  could  swear 
to,  Mr.  Blythe,  the  plain  and  reliable  business  man, 
whom  everybody  esteemed  without  particularly  ad- 
miring, had  become  Mr.  Blythe  the  model  of*  ele- 
gance and  ease,  the  gentleman  and  conversationist 
par  excellence.  And  nobody  could  tell  how  the  statue 
could  have  lain  so  long  unsuspected  in  the  marble. 

The  race  for  Miss  Wynne's  hand  and  fortune  was 
a  general  sweepstakes,  and  there  were  a  hundred  men 
at  the  springs  ready  to  take  advantage  of  any  falling 
back  on  the  part  of  the  two  on  the  lead  ;  but  with 
Blythe  and  Bellallure  Miss  Wynne  herself  seemed 
fully  occupied.  The  latter  had  a  "  friend  at  court" 
— the  belief,  kept  secret  in  the  fair  Mabel's  heart,  that 
he  was  the  romantic  lover  of  whose  life  and  fortune 
she  had  been  the  inspiration.  She  was  an  eminently 
romantic  girl  with  all  her  strong  sense  ;  and  the  devo- 
tion which  had  proved  itself  so  deep  and  controlling 
was  in  reality  the  dominant  spell  upon  her  heart. 
She  felt  that  she  must  love  that  man,  whatever  his 
outside  might  be,  and  she  construed  the  impenetrable 
silence  with  which  Bellallure  received  her  occasional 
hints  as  to  his  identity,  into  a  magnanimous  deter- 
mination to  win  her  without  any  advantage  from  the 
romance  of  his  position. 

Yet  she  sometimes  wished  it  had  been  Mr.  Blythe! 
The  opinion  of  her  father  had  great  weight  with  her; 
but,  more  than  that,  she  felt  instinctively  that  he  was 
the  safer  man  to  be  intrusted  with  a  woman's  happi- 
ness. If  there  had  been  a  doubt — if  her  father  had 
not  assured  her  that  "  Mr.  Blythe  came  of  a  most 
respectable  family" — if  the  secret  had  wavered  be- 
tween them — she  would  have  given  up  to  Bellallure 
without  a  sigh.  Blythe  was  everything  she  admired 
and  wished  for  in  a  husband — but  the  man  who  had 
made  himself  for  her,  by  a  devotion  unparalleled  even 
in  her  reading  of  fiction,  held  captive  her  dazzled  im- 
agination, if  not  her  grateful  heart.  She  made  con- 
stant efforts  to  think  only  of  Bellallure,  but  the  efforts 
were  preceded  ominously  with  a  sigh. 

And  now  Bellallure'sstar  seemed  in  theascendant — 
for  urgent  business  called  Mr.  Wynne  to  the  city,  and 
on  the  succeeding  day  Mr.  Blythe  followed  him, 
though  with  an  assurance  of  speedy  return.  Mabel 
was  left  under  the  care  of  an  indulgent  chaperon,  who 
took  a  pleasure  in  promoting  the  happiness  of  the 
supposed  lovers  ;  and  driving,  lounging,  waltzing,  and 
promenading,  Bellallure  pushed  his  suit  with  ardor 
unremitted.  He  was  a  skilful  master  of  the  art  of 
wooing,  and  it  would  have  been  a  difficult  woman  in- 
deed who  wouldwiot  have  been  pleased  with  his  soci- 
ety— but  the  secret  in  Mabel's  breast  was  the  spell  by 
which  he  held  her. 


A  week  elapsed,  and  Bellallure  pleaded  the  receipt 
of  unexpected  news,  and  left  suddenly  for  New  York — 
to  Mabel's  surprise  exacting  no  promise  at  parting, 
though  she  felt  that  she  should  have  given  it  with  re- 
luctance. The  mail  of  the  second  day  following 
brought  her  a  brief  letter  from  her  father,  requesting 
her  immediate  return;  and  more  important  still,  a  note 
i1  from  her  incognito  lover.     It  ran  thus:  — 

"  You  will  recognise  my  handwriting  again.     I  have 
!  little  to  say — for  I  abandon  the  intention  I  had  formed 
|  to  comment  on  your  apparent  preference.     Your  hap- 
piness is  in  your  own  hands.     Circumstances  which 
I  will  be  explained  to  you,  and  which  will  excuse  this 
abrupt  forwardness,  compel  me  to  urge  you  to  an  im- 
!  mediate  choice.     On  your  arrival  at  home,  you  will 
{  meet  me  in  your  father's  house,  where  I  shall  call  to 
await  you.     I  confess  tremblingly,  that  I  still  cherish 
I  a  hope.     If  I  am  not  deceived — if  you  can  consent  to 
|  love  me — if  my  long  devotion  is  to  be  rewarded — take 
I  my  hand  when  you  meet  me.     That  moment  will  de- 
cide the  value  of  my  life.     But  be   prepared  also  to 
j  name  another  if  you  love  him — for  there  is  a  neces- 
|  sity,  which   I  can  not  explain  to  you   till  you  have 
chosen  your  husband,  that  this  choice  should  be  made 
on  your  arrival.     Trust  and  forgive  one  who  has  so 
long  loved  you!" 

Mabel  pondered  long  on  this  strange  letter.  Her 
spirit  at  moments  revolted  against  its  apparent  dicta- 
tion, but  there  was  the  assurance,  which  she  could 
not  resist  trusting,  that  it  could  be  explained  and  for- 
given. At  all  events,  she  was  at  liberty  to  fulfil  its 
requisitions  or  not — and  she  would  decide  when  the 
time  came.  Happy  was  Mabel — unconsciously  hap- 
py— in  the  generosity  and  delicacy  of  her  unnamed 
lover!  Her  father,  by  one  of  the  sudden  reverses  of 
mercantile  fortune,  had  been  stripped  of  his  wealth 
in  a  day !  Stunned  and  heart-broken,  he  knew  not 
how  to  break  it  to  his  daughter,  but  he  had  written 
for  her  to  return.  His  sumptuous  house  had  been 
sold  over  his  head,  yet  the  purchaser,  whom  he  did 
not  know,  had  liberally  offered  the  use  of  it  till  his 
affairs  were  settled.  And,  meantime,  his  ruin  was 
made  public.  The  news  of  it,  indeed,  had  reached 
Saratoga  before  the  departure  of  Mabel — but  there 
were  none  willing  to  wound  her  by  speaking  of  it. 

The  day  was  one  of  the  sweetest  of  summer,  and 
as  the  boat  ploughed  her  way  down  the  Hudson,  Ma- 
bel sat  on  the  deck  lost  in  thought.  Her  father's 
opinion  of  Bellallure,  and  his  probable  displeasure  at 
her  choice,  weighed  uncomfortably  on  her  mind. 
She  turned  her  thoughts  upon  Mr.  Blythe,  and  felt  sur- 
prised at  the  pleasure  with  which  she  remembered  his 
kind  manners  and  his  trust-inspiring  look.  She  be- 
gan to  reason  with  herself  more  calmly  than  she  had 
power  to  do  with  her  lovers  around  her.  She  con- 
fessed to  herself  that  Bellallure  might  have  the  ro- 
mantic perseverance  shown  in  the  career  of  the  chim- 
ney-sweep, and  still  be  deficient  in  qualities  necessary 
to  domestic  happiness.  There  seemed  to  her  some- 
thing false  about  Bellallure.  She  could  not  say  in 
what — but  he  had  so  impressed  her.  A  long  day's 
silent  reflection  deepened  this  impression,  and  Mabel 
arrived  at  the  city  with  changed  feelings.  She  pre- 
pared herself  to  meet  him  at  her  father's  house,  and 
show  him  by  her  manner  that  she  could  accept  nei- 
ther his  hand  nor  his  fortune. 

Mr.  Wynne  was  at  the  door  to  receive  his  daughter, 
and  Mabel  felt  relieved,  for  she  thought  that  his  pres- 
sence  would  bar  all  explanation  between  herself  and 
Bellallure.  The  old  man  embraced  her  with  an  effu- 
sion of  tears  which  she  did  not  quite  understand,  but 
he  led  her  to  the  drawing-room  and  closed  the  door. 
Mr.  Blythe  stood  before  her  ! 

Forgetting  the  letter — dissociated  wholly  as  it  was, 
in  her  mind,  with  Mr.  Blythe— Mabel  ran  to  him 
with  frank  cordiality  and  gave  him  her  hand  !     Blythe 


342 


THE  GHOST-BALL  AT  CONGRESS  HALL. 


stood  a  moment — his  hand  trembling  in  hers — and  as 
a  suspicion  of  the  truth  flashed  suddenly  on  Mabel's 
mind,  the  generous  lover  drew  her  to  his  bosom  and 
folded  her  passionately  in  his  embrace.  Mabel's 
struggles  were  slight,  and  her  happiness  unexpectedly 
complete. 

The  marriage  was  like  other  marriages. 

Mr.  Wynne  had  drawn  a  little  on  his  imagination 
in  recommending  Mr.  Blythe  to  his  daughter  as  "a 
young  man  of  most  respectable  family." 


Mr.  Blythe  was  the  purchaser  of  Mr.  Wynne's  su- 
perb house,  and  the  old  man  ended  his  days  under  its 
roof — happy  to  the  last  in  the  society  of  the  Blythes, 
large  and  little. 

Mr.  Bellallure  turned  out  to  be  a  clever  adventurer, 
and  had  Mabel  married  him,  she  would  have  been 
Mrs.  Bellallure  No.  2 — possibly  No.  4.  He  thought 
himself  too  nice  a  young  man  for  monopoly. 

I  think  my  story  is  told — if  your  imagination  has 
filled  up  the  interstices,  that  is  to  say. 


THE   GHOST-BALL  AT   CONGRESS   HALL. 


It  was  the  last  week  of  September,  and  the  keeper 
of  "  Congress  hail"  stood  on  his  deserted  colonnade. 
Ths  dusty  street  of  Saratoga  was  asleep  in  the  still- 
ness of  village  afternoon.  The  whittlings  of  the  stage- 
runners  at  the  corners,  and  around  the  leaning  posts, 
were  fading  into  dingy  undistinguishableness.  Stiff 
and  dry  hung  the  slop-cloths  at  the  door  of  the  livery 
stable,  and  drearily  clean  was  doorway  and  stall. 
*  The  season"  was  over. 

"  Well,    Mr.  B !"  said  the   Boniface   of  the 

great  caravansary,  to  a  gentlemanly-looking  invalid, 
crossing  over  from  the  village  tavern  on  his  way  to 
Congress  spring,  "  this  looks  like  the  end  of  it !     A 

slimmish  season,  though,  Mr.  B !     'Gad,  things 

isn't  as  they  used  to  be  in  your  time  !  Three  months 
we  used  to  have  of  it,  in  them  days,  and  the  same 
people  coming  and  going  all  summer,  and  folks'  own 
horses,  and  all  the  ladies  drinking  champagne  !  And 
every  '  hop'  was  as  good  as  a  ball,  and  a  ball — when  do 
you  ever  see  such  balls  now-a-days?  Why,  here's 
all  my  best  wines  in  the  cellar;  and  as  to  beauty — 
pooh! — they're  done  coming  here,  any  how,  are  the 
belles,  such  as  belles  ivas  .'" 

"  You  may  say  that,  mine  host,  you  may  say  that !" 
replied  the  damaged  Corydon,  leaning  heavily  on  his 
cane, — "  what — they're  all  gone,  now,  eh — nobody  at 
the  '  United  States  ?'  " 

"  Not  a  soul — and  here's  weather  like  August ! — 
capital  weather  for  young  ladies  to  walk  out  evenings, 
and,  for  a  drive  to  Barheight's — nothing  like  it !  It's 
a  sin,  /say,  to  pass  such  weather  in  the  city  !  Why 
shouldn't  they  come  to  the  springs  in  the  Indian 
summer,  Mr.  B ?" 

Coming  events  seemed  to  have  cast  their  shadows 
before.  As  Boniface  turned  his  eyes  instinctively 
toward  the  sand  hill,  whose  cloud  of  dust  was  the 
precursor  of  new  pilgrims  to  the  waters,  and  the  sign 
for  the  black  boy  to  ring  the  bell  of  arrival,  behold,  on 
its  summit,  gleaming  through  the  nebulous  pyramid, 
like  a  lobster  through  the  steam  of  the  fisherman's 
pot,  one  of  the  red  coaches  of  "  the  People's  Line." 

And  another! 

And  another! 

And  another! 

Down  the  sandy  descent  came  the  first,  while  the 
driver's  horn,  intermittent  with  the  crack  of  his  whip, 
set  to  bobbing  every  pine  cone  of  the  adjacent  wil- 
derness. 

»«  prrr — ru — te — too — toot — pash! — crack  ! — snap  ! 
— prrrr — r — rut — rut — xxui  !  !     G'lang  ! — Hip  !" 

Boniface  laid  his  hand  on  the  pull  of  the  porter's 
bell,  but  the  thought  flashed  through  his  mind  that 
he  might  have  been  dreaming — was  he  awake  ? 

And,  marvel  upon  wonder ! — a  horn  of  arrival  from 


the  other  end  of  the  village !  And  as  he  turned  his 
eyes  in  that  direction,  he  saw  the  dingier  turnouts 
from  Lake  Sacrament — extras,  wagons — every  variety 
of  rattletrap  conveyance — pouring  in  like  an  Irish 
funeral  on  the  return,  and  making  (oh,  climax  more 
satisfactory  !)  straight,  all,  for  Conijress  Hall ! 
Events  now  grew  precipitate — 
Ladies  were  helped  out  with  green  veils — parasols 
and  baskets  were  handed  after  them — baggage  was 
chalked  and  distributed — (and  parasols,  baskets,  and 
baggage,  be  it  noted,  were  all  of  the  complexion  that 
innkeepers  love,  the  indefinable  look  which  betrays 
the  owner's  addictedness  to  extras) — and  now  there 
was  ringing  of  bells ;  and  there  were  orders  for  the 
woodcocks  to  be  dressed  with  pork  chemises,  and  for 
the  champagne  to  be  iced,  the  sherry  not — and 
through  the  arid  corridors  of  Congress  hall  floated 
a  delicious  toilet  air  of  cold  cream  and  lavender — and 
ladies'  maids  came  down  to  press  out  white  dresses, 
while  the  cook  heated  the  curling  irons — and  up  and 
down  the  stairs  flitted,  with  the  blest  confusion  of 
other  days,  boots  and  iced  sangarees,  hot  water,  towels, 
and  mint-juleps — all  delightful,  but  all  incomprehen- 
sible !  Was  the  summer  encored,  or  had  the  Jews 
gone  back  to  Jerusalem?  To  the  keeper  of  Con- 
gress hall  the  restoration  of  the  millenium  would  have 
been  a  rush-light  to  this  second  advent  of  fun-and- 
fashion-dom  ! 

Thus  far  we  have  looked  through  the  eyes  of  the 

person  (pocket-ually  speaking)  most  interested  in  the 

singular  event  we  wished  to  describe.     Let  us  now 

j  (tea  being  over,  and  your  astonishment  having  had 

l  time  to  breathe)  take  the  devil's  place  at  the  elbow  ot 

the  invalided  dandy  beforementioned,  and  follow  him 

over  to  Congress  Hall.     It  was  a  mild  night  and,  as  I 

said  before  (or  meant  to,  if  I  did  not),  August,  having 

been   prematurely  cut  off  by  his  raining  successor, 

seemed  up  again,  like  Hamlet's  governor,  and  bent  on 

1  walking  out  his  time. 

Rice  (you  remember  Rice — famous  for  his  lemon- 
ades with  a  corrective) — Rice,  having  nearly  ignited 
his  forefinger  with  charging  wines  at  dinner,  was  out 

to    cool   on   the   colonnade,   and   B ,   not  strong 

enough  to  stand  about,  drew  a  chair  near  the  drawing- 
room  window,  and  begged  the  rosy  barkeeper  to  throw 
what  light  he  could  upon  this  multitudinous  appari- 
tion. Rice  could  only  feed  the  fire  of  his  wonder 
with  the  fuel  of  additional  circumstances.  Coaches 
had  been  arriving  from  every  direction  till  the  house 
was  full.  The  departed  black  band  had  been  stopped 
at  Albany,  and  sent  back.  There  seemed  no  married 
people  in  the  party — at  least,  judging  by  dress  and 
flirtation.  Here  and  there  a  belle,  a  little  on  the 
wane,  but  all  most  juvenescent  in  gayety,  and  (Rice 


THE  GHOST-BALL  AT  CONGRESS  HALL. 


343 


thought)  handsomer  girls  than  had  been  at  Congress 
hall  since  the  days  of  the  Albany  regency  (the  regency 
of  beauty),  ten  years  ago  !  Indeed,  it  struck  Rice 
that  he  had  seen  the  faces  of  these  lovely  girls  before, 
though  they  whom  he  thought  they  resembled  had 
long  since  gone  off  the  stage— grandmothers,  some  of 
them,  now! 

Rice  had  been  told,  also,  that  there  was  an  extraor- 
dinary and  overwhelming  arrival  of  children  and 
nurses  at  the  Pavilion  Hotel,  but  he  thought  the 
eport  smelt  rather  like  a  jealous  figment  of  the 
Pavilioners.     Odd,  if  true — that's  all  ! 

Mr.  ft had  taken  his  seat  on  the  colonnade,  as 

Shakspere  expresses  it,  "about  cock-shut  time" — 
twilight — and  in  the  darkness  made  visible  of  the 
rooms  within,  he  could  only  distinguish  the  outline  of 
some  very  exquisite,  and  exquisitely  plump  figures 
gliding  to  and  fro,  winged,  each  one,  with  a  pair  of 
rather  stoutish,  but  most  attentive  admirers.  As  the 
curfew  hour  stole  away,  however,  the  ladies  stole  away 
with  it,  to  dress;  and  at  ten  o'clock  the  sudden  out- 
break   of    the   full   band   in    a   mazurka,    drew    Mr. 

B 's  attention  to  the  dining-room  frontage  of  the  i 

colonnade,  and,  moving  his  chair  to  one  of  the  win-  ! 
dows,  the   cockles  of   his  heart  warmed    to  see  the  ! 
orchestra  in  its  glory  of  old — thirteen  black  Orpheuses  j 
perched  on  a  throne  of  dining-tables,  and  the  black 
veins  on  their  shining  temples  strained  to  the  crack 
of    mortality  with   their    zealous    execution.      The 
waiters,  meantime,  were  lighting  the  tinBriareus  (that 
spermaciti  monster  so  destructive  to  broadcloth),  and 
the  side-sconces   and   stand-lamps,    and   presently   a 
blaze  of   light  flooded  the  dusty  evergreens  of  the 
facade,  and  nothing  was  wanting  but  some  fashionable 
Curtius  to  plunge  first  into  the  void — some  adventu- 
rous Benton,  "  to  set  the  ball  in  motion." 

Wrapped  carefully  from  the  night-air  in  his  cloak 

and   belcher,  B sat,   looking   earnestly  into   the 

room,  and  to  his  excited  senses  there  seemed,  about 
all  this  supplement  to  the  summer's  gayety,  a  weird 
mysteriousness,  an  atmosphere  of  magic,  which  was 
observable,  he  thought,  even  in  the  burning  of  the 
candles!  And  as  to  Johnson,  the  sable  leader  of  the 
band — "  God's-my-Iife,"  as  Bottom  says,  how  like  a 
tormented  fiend  writhed  the  cremona  betwixt  his  chin 
and  white  waistcoat!  Such  music,  from  instruments 
so  vexed,  had  never  split  the  ears  of  the  Saratoga 
groundlings  since  the  rule  of  Saint  Dominick  (in 
whose  hands  even  wine  sparkled  to  song) — no,  not 
since  the  golden  age  of  the  Springs,  when  that  lord  of 
harmony  and  the  nabobs  of  lower  Broadway  made,  of 
Congress  hall,  a  paradise  for  the  unmarried  ?  Was 
Johnson  bewitched  ?     Was  Congress  hall  repossessed 

by  the  spirits  of  the  past  ?     If  ever  Mr.  B ,  sitting 

in  other  years  on  that  resounding  colonnade,  had  felt 
the  magnetic  atmosphere  of  people  he  knew  to  be  up 
staus,  he  felt  it  now  !  If  ever  he  had  been  contented, 
knowing  that  certain  bright  creatures  would  presently 
glide  into  the  visual  radius  of  black  Johnson,  he  felt 
contented,  inexplicably,  from  the  same  cause  now — 
expecting,  as  if  such  music  could  only  be  Oieir  herald, 
the  entrance  of  the  same  bright  creatures,  no  older, 
and  as  bright  after  years  of  matrimony.     And  now  and 

then  B pressed  his  hand  to  his  head — for  he  was 

not  quite  sure  that  he  might  not  be  a  little  wandering 
in  his  mind. 

But  suddenly  the  band  struck  up  a  march!     The 

first   bar  was  played  through,  and   B looked   at 

the  door,  sighing  that  this  sweet  hallucination — this 
waking  dream  of  other  days — was  now  to  be  scattered 
by  reality  He  could  have  filliped  that  mercenary 
Ethiopian  <  n  the  nose  for  playing  such  music  to  such 
falling  off  from  the  past  as  he  now  looked  to  see 
enter. 

A  lady  crossed  the  threshold  on  a  gentleman's  arm. 
"  Ha  !  ha !"  said  B ,  trying  with  a  wild  effort  to 


laugh,    and   pinching   his   arm   into   a   blood-blister, 

"  come — this  is  too  good  !     Helen  K !  oh,  no  ! 

Not  quite  crazy  yet,  I  hope — not  so  far  gone  yet ! 
Yet  it  is  !  I  swear  it  is!  And  not  changed  either ! 
Beautiful  as  ever,  by  all  that  is  wonderful!  Psha  ! 
I'll  not  be  mad  !     Rice  ! — are  you  there  ?    Why,  who 

are  these  coming  after   her?     Julia   L !     Anna 

K ,  and  my  friend  Fanny !     The  D s  !     The 

M s!     Nay,  I'm  dreaming,  silly  fool  that  I  am  ! 

I'll  call  for  a  light !  Waiter ! !  Where  the  devil's 
the  bell  ?" 

And  as  poor  B insisted  on  finding  himself  in 

bed,  reached  out  his  hand  to  find  the  bell-pull,  one  of 
the  waiters  of  Congress  hall  came  to  his  summons. 
The  gentleman  wanted  nothing,  and  the  waiter 
thought  he  had  cried  out  in  his  nap ;  and  rather 
embarrassed  to  explain  his  wants,  but  still  unconvinced 

of  his  freedom  from  dream-land,  B drew  his  hat 

over  his  eyes,  and  his  cloak  around  him,  and  screwed 
up  his  courage  to  look  again  into  the  enchanted  ball- 
room. 

The  quadrilles  were  formed,  and  the  lady  at  the 
head  of  the  first  set  was  spreading  her  skirts  for  the 
avant-deux.  She  was  a  tall  woman,  superbly  hand- 
some, and  moved  with  the  grace  of  a  frigate  at  sea 
with  a  nine-knot  breeze.  Eyes  capable  of  taking  in 
lodgers  (hearts,  that  is  to  say)  of  any  and  every  calibre 
and  quality,  a  bust  for  a  Cornelia,  a  shape  all  love  and 
lightness,  and  a  smile  like  a  temptation  of  Eblis— 
there  she  was — and  there  were  fifty  like  her — not  like 
her,  exactly,  either,  but  of  her  constellation — belles, 
every  one  of  them,  who  will  be  remembered  by  old 
men,  and  used  for  the  disparagement  of  degenerated 

younglings — splendid  women  of   Mr.   B 's   time, 

and  of  the  palmy  time  of  Congress  hall — 

"  The  past— the  past — the  past !" 

Out  on  your  staring  and  unsheltered  lantern  of 
brick — your  "  United  States  hotel,"  stiff,  modern,  and 
promiscuous !  Who  ever  passed  a  comfortable  hour 
in  its  glaring  cross-lights,  or  breathed  a  gentle  senti- 
ment in  its  unsubdued  air  and  townish  open-to-dusti- 
ness  !  What  is  it  to  the  leafy  dimness,  the  cool  shad- 
ows, the  perpetual  and  pensive  dcmi-jour — what  to  the 
ten  thousand  associations — of  Congress  hall  !  Who 
has  not  lost  a  heart  (or  two)  on  the  boards  of  that 
primitive  wilderness  of  a  colonnade  !  Whose  first 
adorations,  whose  sighs,  hopes,  strategies,  and  flirta- 
tions, are  not  ground  into  that  warped  and  slipper- 
polished  floor,  like  heartache  and  avarice  into  the 
bricks  of  Wall  street!  Lord  bless  you,  madam! 
don't  desert  old  Congress  hall !  We  have  done  going 
to  the  Springs — {we) — and  wouldn't  go  there  again 
for  anything,  but  a  good  price  for  a  pang — (that  is, 
except  to  see  such  a  sight  as  we  are  describing) — but 
we  can  not  bear,  in  our  midsummer  flit  through  the 
Astor,  to  see  charming  girls  bound  for  Saratoga,  and 
hear  no  talk  of  Congress  hall  !  What !  no  lounge 
on  those  proposal  sofas — no  pluck  at  the  bright  green 
leaves  of  those  luxuriant  creepers  while  listening  to 
"  the  voice  of  the  charmer" — no  dawdle  on  the  steps 
to  the  spring  (mamma  gone  on  before) — no  hunting 
for  that  glow-worm  in  the  shrubbery  by  the  music- 
room — no  swing — no  billiards — no  morning  gossips 
with  the  few  privileged  beaux  admitted  to  the  up- 
stairs entry,  ladies'  wing  ? 

«  I'd  sooner  be  set  quick  i'  the  earth. 
And  bowled  to  death  with  turnips,' 

than  assist  or  mingle  in  such  ungrateful  forgetfulnesa 
of  pleasure-land  !  But  what  do  we  with  a  digression 
in  a  ghost-story  ? 

The  ball  went  on.     Champagne  of  the  "  exploded 
color  (pink)  was  freely  circulated  between  the  dances— 
(rosy  wine  suited  to  the  bright  days  when  all  things 
were  tinted  rose)— and  wit,  exploded,  too,  in  these 


344 


THE  GHOST-BALL  AT  CONGRESS  HALL. 


leaden  times,  went  round  with  the  wine;  and  as  a 
glass  of  the  bright  vintage  was  handed  up  to  old 
Johnson,  B stretched  his  neck  over  the  window- 
sill  in  an  agony  of  expectation,  confident  that  the 
black  ghost,  if  ghost  he  were,  would  fail  to  recognise 
the  leaders  of  fashion,  as  he  was  wont  of  old,  and  to 
bow  respectfully  to  them  before  drinking  in  their  pres- 
ence. Oh,  murder  !  not  he  !  Down  went  his  black 
poll  to  the  music-stand,  and  up,  and  down  again,  and 
at  every  dip,  the  white  roller  of  that  unctuous  eye  was 
brought  to  bear  upon  some  well-remembered  star  of 

the  ascendant !     He  saw  them   as  B did  !     He 

was  not  playing  to  an  unrecognised  company  of  late- 
comers to  Saratoga — anybodies  from  any  place!     He, 
the   unimaginative   African,    believed    evidently  that 
they  were  there  in  flesh — Helen,  the  glorious,  and  all 
her  fair  troop  of  contemporaries  ! — and  that  with  them 
had  come  back  their  old  lovers,  the  gay  and  gallant  j 
Lotharios   of  the   time  of   Johnson's   first   blushing  | 
honors  of  renown  !     The  big  drops  of  agonized  horror  | 
and  incredulity  rolled  off  the  forehead  of  Mr.  B ! 

But  suddenly  the  waiters  radiated  to  the  side-doors, 
and  with  the  celestial  felicity  of  star-rising  and  mor- 
ning-breaking, a  waltz  was  found  playing  in  the  ears 
of  the  revellers  !  Perfect,  yet  when  it  did  begin  ! 
Waltzed  every  brain  and  vein,  waltzed  every  swim- 
ming eye  within  the  reach  of  its  magic  vibrations  ! 
Gently  away  floated  couple  after  couple,  and  as  they 

circled  round  to  his  point  of  observation,  B could 

have  called  every  waltzer  by  name — but  his  heart  was 
in  his  throat,  but  his  eyeballs  were  hot  with  the  stony 
immovableness  of  his  long  gazing. 

Another  change  in  the  music  !  Spirits  of  bedevil- 
ment !  could  not  that  waltz  have  been  spared  !  Boni- 
face stood  waltzing  his  head  from  shoulder  to  shoulder 
— Rice  twirled  the  head-chambermaid  in  the  entry — 
the  black  and  white  boys  spun  round  on  the  colonnade 
— the  wall-flowers  in  the  ball-room  crowded  their 
chairs  to  the  wall — the  candles  flared   embracingly — 

ghosts  or  no   ghosts,  dream  or  hallucination,   B 

could  endure  no  more  !  He  flung  off  his  cloak  and 
hat,  and  jumped  in  at  the  window.  The  divine  Emily 
C  had  that   moment  risen  from  tying  her  shoe. 

With  a  nod  to  her  partner,  and  a  smile  to  herself, 
B  encircled  her  round  waist,  and  away  he  flew 

like  Ariel,  light  on  the  toe,  but  his  face  pallid  and 
wild,  and  his  emaciated  legs  playing  like  sticks  in  his 
unfilled  trousers.  Twice  he  made  the  circuit  of  the 
room,  exciting  apparently  less  surprise  than  pleasure 
by  his  sudden  appearance  ;  then,  with  a  wavering  halt, 
and  his  hand  laid  tremulously  to  his  forehead,  he  flew 
at  the  hall-door  at  a  tangent,  and  rushing  through 
servants  and  spectators,  dashed  across  the  portico,  and 
disappeared  in  the  darkness  !  A  fortnight's  brain-fever 
deprived  him  of  the  opportunity  of  repeating  this  re- 
markable flourish,  and  his  subsequent  sanity  was  es- 
tablished through  some  critical  hazard. 

There   was   some   inquiry   at   supper   about   "  old 

B ,"   but  the  lady  who    waltzed   with  him  knew 

as  little  of  his  coming  and  going  as  the  managers; 
and,  by  one  belle,  who  had  been  at  some  trouble  in 
other  days  to  quench  his  ardor,  it  was  solemnly  be- 
lieved to  be  his  persevering  apparition. 

The  next  day  there  was  a  drive  and  dinner  at  Bar- 


height's,  and  back  in  time  for  ball  and  supper;  and 
the  day  after  there  was  a  most  hilarious  and  memora- 
ble fishing-party  to  Saratoga  lake,  and  all  back  again 
in  high  force  for  the  ball  and  supper;  and  so  like  a 
long  gala-day,  like  a  short  summer  carnival,  all  frolic, 
sped  the  week  away.  Boniface,  by  the  third  day,  had 
rallied  his  recollections,  and  with  many  a  scrape  and 
compliment,  he  renewed  his  acquaintance  with  the 
belles  and  beaux  of  a  brighter  period  of  beauty  and 
gallantry.  And  if  there  was  any  mystery  remaining 
in  the  old  functionary's  mind  as  to  the  identity  and 
miracle  of  their  presence  and  reunion,  it  was  on  the 
one  point  of  the  ladies'  unfaded  loveliness — for,  saving 
a  half  inch  aggregation  in  the  waist,  which  was  rather 
an  improvement  than  otherwise,  and  a  little  more  ful- 
ness in  the  bust,  which  was  a  most  embellishing  dif- 
ference, the  ten  years  that  had  gone  over  them  had 
made  no  mark  on  the  lady  portion  of  his  guests  ;  and 
as  to  the  gentlemen — but  that  is  neither  here  nor  there. 
They  were  "men  of  mark,"  young  or  old,  and  their 
wear  and  tear  is,  as  Flute  says,  "  a  thing  of  naught." 

It  was  revealed  by  the  keeper  of  the  Pavilion,  after 
the  departure  of  the  late-come  revellers  of  Congress 
hall,  that  there  had  been  constant  and  secret  visita- 
tions by  the  belles  of  the  latter  sojourn,  to  the  numer- 
ous infantine  lodgers  of  the  former.  Such  a  troop 
of  babies  and  boys,  and  all  so  lovely,  had  seldom 
gladdened  even  the  eyes  of  angels,  out  of  the  cheru- 
bic choir  (let  alone  the  Saratoga  Pavilion),  and  though, 
in  their  white  dresses  and  rose-buds,  the  belles  afore 
spoken  of  looked  like  beautiful  elder  sisters  to  those 
motherless  younglings,  yet  when  they  came  in,  moth- 
ers confessed,  on  the  morning  of  departure,  openly 
to  superintend  the  preparations  for  travel,  they  had  so 
put  off  the  untroubled  maiden  look  from  their  coun- 
tenances, and  so  put  on  the  indescribable  growing- 
old-iness  of  married  life  in  their  dress,  that,  to  the 
eye  of  an  observer,  they  might  well  have  passed  for 
the  mothers  of  the  girls  they  had  themselves  seemed 
to  be,  the  day  before,  only. 

Who  devised,  planned,  and  brought  about,  this  prac- 
tical comment  on  the  needlessness  of  the  American 
haste  to  be  old,  we  are  not  at  liberty  to  mention.  The 
reader  will  have  surmised,  however,  that  it  was  some 
one  who  had  observed  the  more  enduring  quality  of 
beauty  in  other  lands,  and  on  returning  to  his  own, 
looked  in  vain  for  those  who,  by  every  law  of  nature, 
should  be  still  embellishing  the  society  of  which  he 
had  left  them  the  budding  flower  and  ornament.  To 
get  them  together  again,  only  with  their  contempora- 
ries, in  one  of  their  familiar  haunts  of  pleasure — to 
suggest  the  exclusion  of  everything  but  youthfulness 
in  dress,  amusement,  and  occupation — to  bring  to 
meet  them  their  old  admirers,  married  like  themselves, 
but  entering  the  field  once  more  for  their  smiles  against 
their  rejuvenescent  husbands — to  array  them  as  belles 
again,  and  see  whether  it  was  any  falling  off  in  beauty 
or  the  power  of  pleasing  which  had  driven  them  from 
their  prominent  places  in  social  life — this  was  the  ob- 
vious best  way  of  doing  his  immediate  circles  of 
friends  the  service  his  feelings  exacted  of  him;  the 
only  way,  indeed,  of  convincing  these  bright  creatures 
that  they  had  far  anticipated  the  fading  hour  of  bloom 
and  youthfulness.     Pensez-y  ! 


BORN  TO  LOVE  PIGS  AND  CHICKENS. 


345 


BORN   TO   LOVE    PIGS   AND   CHICKENS, 


The  guests  at  the  Astor  House  were  looking  mourn- 
fully out  of  the  drawing-room  windows,  on  a  certain 
rainy  day  of  an  October  passed  over  to  history.  No 
shopping — no  visiting!  The  morning  must  be  passed 
in-doors.  And  it  was  some  consolation  to  those  who 
were  in  town  for  a  few  days  to  see  the  world,  that  their 
time  was  not  quite  lost,  for  the  assemblage  in  the  large 
drawing-room  was  numerous  and  gay.  A  very  dressy 
affair  is  the  drawing-room  of  the  Astor,  and  as  full  of 
eyes  as  a  peacock's  tail — (which,  by  the  way,  is  also  a 
very  dressy  affair).  Strangers  who  wish  to  see  and  be 
seen  (and  especially  "be  seen")  on  rainy  days,  as  well 
as  on  sunny  days,  in  their  visits  to  New  York,  should, 
as  the  phrase  goes,  "  patronize"  the  Astor.  As  if 
there  was  any  patronage  in  getting  the  worth  of  your 
money  ! 

Well — the  people  in  the  drawing-room  looked  a 
little  out  of  the  windows,  and  a  great  deal  at  each 
other.  Unfortunately,  it  is  only  among  angels  and 
underbred  persons  that  introductions  can  be  dispensed 
with,  and  as  the  guests  of  that  day  at  the  Astor  House 
were  mostly  strangers  to  each  other,  conversation  was 
very  fitful  and  guarded,  and  any  movement  whatever 
extremely  conspicuous.  There  were  four  very  silent 
ladies  on  the  sofa,  two  very  silent  ladies  in  each  of  the 
windows,  silent  ladies  on  the  ottomans,  silent  ladies  in 
the  chairs  at  the  corners,  and  one  silent  lady,  very 
highly  dressed,  sitting  on  the  music-stool,  with  her 
back  to  the  piano.  There  was  here  and  there  a  gen- 
tleman in  the  room,  weather-bound  and  silent;  but 
we  have  only  to  do  with  one  of  these,  and  with  the 
last-mentioned  much-embellished  young  lady. 

"  Well,  I  can't  sit  on  this  soft  chair  all  day,  cousin 
Meg  !"   said  the  gentleman. 

"  'Sh  ! — call  me  Margaret,  if  you  must  speak  so 
loud,"  said  the  lady.  "And  what  would  you  do  out 
of  doors  this  rainy  day  ?  I'm  sure  it's  very  pleasant 
here." 

«•  Not  for  me.  I'd  rather  be  thrashing  in  the  barn. 
But  there  must  be  some  'rainy-weather  work'  in  the 
city  as  well  as  the  country.  There's  some  fun,  /  know, 
that's  kept  for  a  wet  day,  as  we  keep  corn-shelling  and 
grinding  the  tools." 

"  Dear  me!" 

"Well — what  now?" 

"  Oh,  nothing  ! — but  I  do  wish  you  wouldn't  bring 
the  stable  with  you  to  the  Astor  House." 

The  gentleman  slightly  elevated  his  eyebrows,  and 
took  a  leaf  of  music  from  the  piano,  and  commenced 
diligently  reading  the  mystic  dots  and  lines.  We  have 
ten  minutes  to  spare  before  the  entrance  of  another 
person  upon  the  scene,  and  we  will  make  use  of  the 
silence  to  conjure  up  for  you,  in  our  mag;ic  mirror, 
the  semblance  of  the  two  whose  familiar  dialogue  we 
have  just  jotted  down. 

Miss  Margaret  Pifflit  was  a  young  lady  who  had  a 
large  share  of  what  the  French  call  la  beaute  du  dia- 
ble— youth  and  freshness.  (Though,  why  the  devil 
should  have  the  credit  of  what  never  belonged  to  him, 
it  takes  a  Frenchman,  perhaps,  to  explain.)  To  look 
at,  she  was  certainly  a  human  being  in  very  high  per- 
fection. Her  cheeks  were  like  two  sound  apples;  her 
waist  was  as  round  as  a  stove-pipe  ;  her  shoulders  had 
two  dimples  just  at  the  back,  that  looked  as  if  they 
defied  punching  to  make  them  any  deeper;  her  eyes 
looked  as  if  they  were  just  made,  they  were  so  bright 


and  new  ;  her  voice  sounded  like  "  C  sharp"  in  a  new 
piano  ;  and  her  teeth  were  like  a  fresh  break  in  a 
cocoa-nut.  She  was  inexorably,  unabatedly,  despe 
rately  healthy.  This  fact,  and  the  difficulty  of  uniting 
all  the  fashions  of  all  the  magazines  in  one  dress, 
were  her  two  principal  afflictions  in  this  world  of  care. 
She  had  an  ideal  model,  to  which  she  aspired  with 
constant  longings — a  model  resembling  in  figure  the 
high-born  creatures  whose  never-varied  face  is  seen 
in  all  the  plates  of  fashion,  yet,  if  possible,  paler  and 
more  disdainful.  If  Miss  Pifflit  could  have  bent  her 
short  wrist  with  the  curve  invariably  given  to  the  well- 
gloved  extremities  of  that  mysterious  and  nameless 
beauty  ;  if  she  could  but  have  sat  with  her  back  to 
her  friends,  and  thrown  her  head  languhhingly  over 
her  shoulder  without  dislocating  her  neck;  if  she 
could  but  have  protruded  from  the  flounce  of  her 
dress  a  foot  more  like  a  mincing  little  muscle-shell, 
and  less  like  a  jolly  fat  clam ;  in  brief,  if  she  could 
have  drawn  out  her  figure  like  the  enviable  joints  of  a 
spy-glass,  whittled  off  more  taperly  her  four  extremi- 
ties, sold  all  her  uproarious  and  indomitable  roses  for 
a  pot  of  carmine,  and  compelled  the  publishers  of  the 
magazines  to  refrain  from  the  distracting  multiplicity 
of  their  monthly  fashions — with  these  little  changes 
in  her  allotment,  Miss  Pifflit  would  have  realized  all 
her  maiden  aspirations  up  to  the  present  hour. 

A  glimpse  will  give  you  an  idea  of  the  gentleman 
in  question.  He  was  not  much  more  than  he  looked 
to  be — a  compact,  athletic  young  man  of  twenty- one, 
with  clear,  honest  blue  eyes,  brown  face,  where  it  was 
not  shaded  by  the  rim  of  his  hat,  curling  brown  hair, 
and  an  expression  of  fearless  qualities,  dashed  just 
now  by  a  tinge  of  rustic  bashfulness.  His  dress  was 
a  little  more  expensive  and  gayer  than  was  necessary, 
and  he  wore  his  clothes  in  a  way  which  betrayed  that 
he  would  be  more  at  home  in  shirt-sleeves.  His  hands 
were  rough,  and  his  attitude  that  of  a  man  who  was 
accustomed  to  fling  himself  down  on  the  nearest 
bench,  or  swing  his  legs  from  the  top  rail  of  a  fence, 
or  the  box  of  a  wagon.  We  speak  with  caution  of 
his  rusticity,  however,  for  he  had  a  printed  card,  "  Mr. 
Ephraim  Bracely,"  and  he  was  a  subscriber  to  the 
"  Spirit  of  the  Times."  We  shall  find  time  to  say  a 
thing  or  two  about  him  as  we  get  on. 

"Eph."  Bracely  and  "Meg"  Pifflit  were  "enga- 
ged." With  the  young  lady  it  was,  as  the  French 
say,  faute  de  mieux,  for  her  beau-ideal  (or,  in  plain 
English,  her  ideal  beau)  was  a  tall,  pale  young  gentle- 
man, with  white  gloves,  in  a  rapid  consumption.  She 
and  Eph.  were  second  cousins,  however,  and  as  she 
was  an  orphan,  and  had  lived  since  childhood  with  his 
father,  and,  moreover,  had  inherited  the  Pifflit  farm, 
which  adjoined  that  of  the  Bracelys,  and,  moreover, 
|  had  been  told  to  "  kiss  her  little  husband,  and  love 
him  always"  by  the  dying  breath  of  her  mother,  and 
(moreover  third)  had  been  "  let  be"  his  sweetheart  by 
the  unanimous  consent  of  the  neighborhood,  why,  it 
seemed  one  of  those  matches  made  in  Heaven,  and 
not  intended  to  be  travestied  on  earth.  It  was  under- 
stood that  they  were  to  be  married  as  soon  as  the 
young  man's  savings  should  enable  him  to  pull  down 
the  old  Pifflit  house  and  build  a  cottage,  and,  with  a 
fair  season,  that  might  be  done  in  another  year. 
Meantime,  Eph.  wa9  a  loyal  keeper  of  his  troth, 
though  never  having  the  trouble  to  win  the  young 


346 


BORN  TO  LOVE  PIGS  AND  CHICKENS. 


lady,  he  was  not  fully  aware  of  the  necessity  of  court- 
ship, whether  or  no  ;  and  was,  besides,  somewhat  un- 
susceptible of  the  charms  of  moonlight,  after  a  hard 
day's  work  at  haying  or  harvesting.  The  neighbors 
thought  it  proof  enough  of  his  love  that  he  never 
"  went  sparking"  elsewhere,  and  as  he  would  rather 
talk  of  his  gun  or  his  fishing-rod,  his  horse  or  his 
crop,  pigs,  politics,  or  anything  else,  than  of  love  or 
matrimony,  his  companions  took  his  engagement  with 
his  cousin  to  be  a  subject  upon  which  he  felt  too 
deeply  to  banter,  and  they  neither  invaded  his  domain 
by  attentions  to  his  sweetheart,  nor  suggested  thought 
by  allusions  to  her.  It  was  in  the  progress  of  this 
even  tenor  of  engagement,  that  some  law  business 
had  called  old  Farmer  Bracely  to  New  York,  and  the 
young  couple  had  managed  to  accompany  him.  And 
of  course  nothing  would  do  for  Miss  Pifflit  but  "  the 
Astor." 

And  now,  perhaps,  the  reader  is  ready  to  be  told 
whose  carriage  is  at  the  Vesey  street  door,  and 
who  sends  up  a  dripping  servant  to  inquire  for  Miss 
Pifflit. 

It  is  allotted  to  the  destiny  of  every  country-girl  to 
have  one  fashionable  female  friend  in  the  city — some- 
body to  correspond  with,  somebody  to  quote,  some- 
body to  write  her  the  particulars  of  the  last  elopement, 
somebody  to  send  her  patterns  of  collars,  and  the  rise 
and  fall  of  tournures,  and  such  other  things  as  are  not 
entered  into  by  the  monthly  magazines.  How  these 
apparently  unlikely  acquaintances  are  formed,  is  as 
much  a  mystery  as  the  eternal  youth  of  post-boys, 
and  the  eternal  duration  of  donkeys.  Far  be  it  from 
me  to  pry  irreverently  into  those  pokerish  corners  of 
the  machinery  of  the  world.  I  go  no  farther  than 
the  fact,  that  Miss  Julia  Hampson  was  an  acquaintance 
of  Miss  Pifflit's. 

Everybody  knows  "Hampson  and  Co." 
Miss  Hampson  was  a  good  deal  what  the  Fates  had 
tried  to  make  her.  If  she  had  not  been  admirably 
well  dressed,  it  would  have  been  by  violent  opposition 
to  the  united  zeal  and  talent  of  dressmakers  and  mil- 
liners. These  important  vicegerents  of  the  Hand  that 
reserves  to  itself  the  dressing  of  the  butterfly  and 
lily,  make  distinctions  in  the  exercise  of  their  voca- 
tion. Wo  be  to  an  unloveable  woman,  if  she  be  not 
endowed  with  taste  supreme.  She  may  buy  all  the 
stuffs  of  France,  and  all  the  colors  of  the  rainbow, 
but  she  will  never  get  from  those  keen  judges  of  fit- 
ness the  loving  hint,  the  admiring  and  selective  per- 
suasion, with  which  they  delight  to  influence  the 
embellishment  of  sweetness  and  loveliness.  They 
who  talk  of  "  anything's  looking  well  on  a  pretty 
woman,"  have  not  reflected  on  the  lesser  providence 
of  dressmakers  and  milliners.  Woman  is  never  mer- 
cenary but  in  monstrous  exceptions,  and  no  trades- 
woman of  the  fashion  will  sell  taste  or  counsel;  and, 
in  the  superior  style  of  all  charming  women,  you  see, 
not  the  influence  of  manners  upon"  dress,  but  the  af- 
fectionate tribute  of  these  dispensers  of  elegance  to 
the  qualities  they  admire.  Let  him  who  doubts,  go 
shopping  with  his  dressy  old  aunt  to-day,  and  to-mor- 
row with  his  dear  little  cousin. 

Miss  Hampson,  to  whom  the  supplies  of  elegance 
came  as  naturally  as  bread  and  butter,  and  occasioned 
as  little  speculation  as  to  the  whence  or  how,  was  as 
unconsciously  elegant,  of  course,  as  a  well-dressed 
lily.  She  was  abstractly  a  very  beautiful  girl,  though 
in  a  very  delicate  and  unconspicuous  style  ;  and  by 
dint  of  absolute  fitness  in  dressing,  the  merit  of  her 
beauty,  by  common  observers  at  least,  would  be  half 
given  to  her  fashionable  air  and  unexceptionable  toilet. 
The  damsel  and  her  choice  array,  indeed,  seemed 
the  harmonious  work  of  the  same  maker.  How  much 
was  nature's  gift,  and  how  much  was  bought  in  Broad- 
way, was  probably  never  duly  understood  by  even  her 
most  discriminate  admirer. 


But  we  have  kept  Miss  Hampson  too  long  upon  the 
stairs. 

The  two  young  ladies  met  with  a  kiss,  in  which  (to 
the  surprise  of  those  who  had  previously  observed 
Miss  Mifflit)  there  was  no  smack  of  the  latest  fashion. 

"My  dear  Julia!" 

"  My  dear  Margerine!"  (This  was  a  romantic  va- 
riation of  Meg's,  which  she  had  forced  upon  her 
intimate  friends  at  the  point  of  the  bayonet.) 

Eph.  twitched,  remindingly,  the  jupon  of  his  cousin, 
and  she  introduced  him  with  the  formula  which  she 
had  found  in  one  of  Miss  Austin's  novels. 

"  Oh,  but  there  was  a  mock  respectfulness  in  that 
deep  courtesy,"  thought  Eph.  (and  so  there  was — for 
Miss  Hampson  took  an  irresistible  cue  from  the  in- 
flated ceremoniousness  of  the  introduction). 

Eph.  made  a  bow  as  cold  and  stiff  as  a  frozen  horse- 
blanket.  And  if  he  could  have  commanded  the 
blood  in  his  face,  it  would  have  been  as  dignified  and 
resentful  as  the  eloquence  of  Red  Jacket — but  that 
rustic  blush,  up  to  his  hair,  was  like  a  mask  dropped 
over  his  features. 

"A  bashful  country-boy,"  thought  Miss  Hampson, 
as  she  looked  compassionately  upon  his  red  hot  fore- 
head, and  forthwith  dismissed  him  entirely  from  her 
thoughts. 

With  a  consciousness  that  he  had  better  leave  the 
room,  and  walk  off  his  mortification  under  an  um- 
brella, Eph.  took  his  seat,  and  silently  listened  to  the 
conversation  of  the  young  ladies.  Miss  Hampson  had 
come  to  pass  the  morning  with  her  friend,  and  she 
took  off  her  bonnet,  and  showered  down  upon  her 
dazzling  neck  a  profusion  of  the  most  adorable  brown 
ringlets.  Spite  of  his  angry  humiliation,  the  young 
farmer  felt  a  thrill  run  through  his  veins  as  the  heavy 
curls  fell  indolently  about  her  shoulders.  He  had 
j  never  before  looked  upon  a  woman  with  emotion.  He 
hated  her — oh,  yes  !  for  she  had  given  him  a  look 
I  that  could  never  be  forgiven — but  for  somebody,  she 
must  be  the  angel  of  the  world.  Eph.  would  have 
given  all  his  sheep  and  horses,  cows,  crops,  and  hay- 
stacks, to  have  seen  the  man  she  would  fancy  to  be 
{  her  equal.  He  could  not  give  even  a  guess  at  the 
height  of  that  conscious  superiority  from  which  she 
individually  looked  down  upon  him;  but  it  would 
have  satisfied  a  thirst  which  almost  made  him  scream, 
to  measure  himself  by  a  man  with  whom  she  could 
be  familiar.     Where  was  his  inferiority  ?     What  was 


it?     Why  had  he   been  blind  to  it 


now  ?     Was 


there  no  surgeon's  knife,  no  caustic,  that  could  carve 
out,  or  cut  away,  burn  or  scarify,  the  vulgarities  she 
looked  upon  so  contemptuously  ?  But  the  devil  take 
her  superciliousness,  nevertheless! 

It  was  a  bitter  morning  to  Eph.  Bracely,  but  still  it 
went  like  a  dream.  The  hotel  parlor  was  no  longer 
a  stupid  place.  His  cousin  Meg  had  gained  a  con- 
sequence in  his  eyes,  for  she  was  the  object  of  caress 
from  this  superior  creature — she  was  the  link  which 
kept  her  within  his  observation.  He  was  too  full  of 
other  feelings  just  now  to  do  more  than  acknowledge  the 
superiority  of  this  girl  to  his  cousin.  He  felt  it  in 
his  after  thoughts,  and  his  destiny  then,  for  the  firs' 
time,  seemed  crossed  and  inadequate  to  his  wishes. 
******* 

(We  hereby  draw  upon  your  imagination  for  six 
months,  courteous  reader.  Please  allow  the  teller  ta 
show  you  into  the  middle  of  the  following  July.) 

Bracely  farm,  ten  o'clock  of  a  glorious  summer 
morning — Miss  Pifflit  extended  upon  a  sofa  in  despair. 
But  let  us  go  back  a  little. 

A  week  before,  a  letter  had  been  received  from 
Miss  Hampson,  who,  to  the  delight  and  surprise  of 
her  friend  Margerine,  had  taken  the  whim  to  pass  a 
month  with  her.  She  was  at  Rockaway,  and  was 
sick  and  tired  of  waltzing  and  the  sea.  Had  Farmer 
Bracely  a  spare  corner  for  a  poor  girl  ? 


BORN  TO  LOVE  PIGS  AND  CHICKENS. 


347 


But  Miss  Pifflit's  "sober  second  thought"  was  utter 
consternalion.  How  to  lodge  fitly  the  elegant  Julia 
Hampson?  No  French  bed  in  the  house.no  bou- 
doir, no  ottomans,  no  pastilles,  no  baths,  no  Psyche  to 
dress  by.  What  vulgar  wretches  they  would  seem  to 
her.  What  insupportable  horror  she  would  feel  at 
the  dreadful  inelegance  of  the  farm.  Meg  was  pale 
with  terror  and  dismay  as  she  went  into  the  details  of 
anticipation. 

Something  must  be  done,  however.  A  sleepless 
night  of  reflection  and  contrivance  sufficed  to  give 
some  shape  to  the  capabilities  of  the  case,  and  by 
daylight  the  next  morning  the  whole  house  was  in 
commotion.  Meg  had  fortunately  a  large  bump  of 
constructiveness,  very  much  enlarged  by  her  habitual 
dilemmas-toilet.  A  boudoir  must  be  constructed. 
Farmer  Bracely  slept  in  the  dried  apple-room,  on 
the  lower  floor,  and  he  was  no  sooner  out  of  his 
bed  than  his  bag  and  baggage  were  tumbled  upstairs, 
his  gun  and  Sunday  whip  were  taken  down  from  their 
nails,  and  the  floor  scoured,  and  the  ceiling  white- 
washed. Eph.  was  by  this  time  returned  from  the 
village  with  all  the  chintz  that  could  be  bought,  and  a 
paper  of  tacks,  and  some  new  straw  carpeting;  and  by 
ten  o'clock  that  night  the  four  walls  of  the  apartment 
were  covered  with  the  gayly-flowered  material,  the 
carpet  was  nailed  down,  and  old  Farmer  Bracely 
thought  it  a  mighty  nice,  cool-looking  place.  Eph. 
was  a  bit  of  a  carpenter,  and  he  soon  knocked  togeth- 
er some  boxes,  which,  when  covered  with  chintz,  and 
stuffed  with  wool,  looked  very  like  ottomans;  and, 
with  a  handsome  cloth  on  the  round-table,  geraniums 
in  the  windows,  and  a  chintz  curtain  to  subdue  the 
light,  it  was  not  far  from  a  very  charming  boudoir, 
and  Meg  began  to  breathe  more  freely. 

But  Eph.  had  heard  this  news  with  the  blood  hot  in 
his  temples.     Was  that  proud  woman  coming  to  look  I 
again   upon  him  with  contempt,  and  here,  too,  where  | 
the  rusticity,  which  he  presumed  to  be  the  object  of 
her  scorn,  would   be  a  thousand  times  more  flagrant  j 
and  visible?     And  yet,  with   the  entreaty  on   his  lip  i 
that  his  cousin  would  refuse  to  receive  her,  his  heart 
had  checked  the  utterance — for  an  irresistible  desire  \ 
sprung  suddenly  within   him   to  see  her,  even  at  the  I 
bitter  cost  of  tenfold  his  former  mortification. 

Yet,  as  the  preparations  for  receiving  Miss  Hamp-  | 
son  went  on,  other  thoughts  took   possession   of  his  j 
mind.     Eph.  was  not  a  man,  indeed,  to  come  off  sec-  ; 
ond   best  in  the   long  pull  of  wrestling  with  a  weak-  ; 
ness.     His   pride   began  to   show  its  colors.     He  re-  j 
membered   his  independence  as  a   farmer,  dependant 
on  no  man,  and  a  little  comparison  between  his  pur- 
suits, and  life,  such  as  he  knew  it  to  be,  in  a  city,  soon 
put   him,  in  his  own  consciousness  at   least,  on  a  par  j 
with  Miss  Hampson's  connexions.     This  point  once 
attained,   Eph.  cleared  his  brow,  and  went  whistling  ' 
about   the   farm   as   usual — receiving    without  reply,  ! 
however,  a  suggestion   of  his  cousin   Meg's,  that  he 
had  better  burn   his  old  straw  hat,  for,  in  a  fit  of  ab- 
sence, he  might  possibly  put  it  on  while  Miss  Hamp- 
son was  there. 

Well,  it  was  ten  o'clock  on  the  morning  after  j 
Miss  Hampson's  arrival  at  Bracely  farm,  and,  as  we 
said  before,  Miss  Pifflit  was  in  despair.  Presuming 
that  her  friend  would  be  fatigued  with  her  journey,  i 
she  had  determined  not  to  wake  her,  but  to  order 
breakfast  in  the  boudoir  at  eleven.  Farmer  Bracely 
and  Eph.  must  have  their  breakfast  at  seven,  however, 
and  what  was  the  dismay  of  Meg,  who  was  pouring 
out  their  coffee  as  usual,  to  see  the  elegant  Julia  rush 
into  the  first  kitchen,  courtesy  very  sweetly  to  the  old 
man,  pull  up  a  chair  to  the  table,  apologise  for  being 
late,  and  end  this  extraordinary  scene  by  producing 
two  newly-hatched  chickens  from  her  bosom !  She 
had  been  up  since  sunrise,  and  out  at  the  barn,  down 
by  the  river,  and  up  in  the  haymow,  and  was  perfectly 


enchanted  with  everything,  especially  the  dear  little 
pigs  and  chickens  ! 

"A  very  sweet  young  lady!"  thought  old  Farmer 
Bracely. 

"  Very  well — but  hang  your  condescension !"  thought 
Eph..  distrustfully. 

"Mercy  on  me  ! — to  like  pigs  and  chickens!"  men- 
tally ejaculated  the  disturbed  and  bewildered  Miss  Pif- 
flit. 

But  with  her  two  chicks  pressed  to  her  breast 
with  one  hand,  Miss  Hampson  managed  her  coffee 
and  bread  and  butter  with  the  other,  and  chattered 
away  like  a  child  let  out  of  school.  The  air  was  so 
delicious,  and  the  hay  smelt  so  sweet,  and  the  trees  in 
the  meadow  were  so  beautiful,  and  there  were  no  stiff 
sidewalks,  and  no  brick  houses,  and  no  iron  railings, 
and  so  many  dear  speckled  hens,  and  funny  little 
chickens,  and  kind-looking  old  cows,  and  colts,  and 
calves,  and  ducks,  and  turkeys — it  was  delicious — it 
was  enchanting — it  was  worth  a  thousand  Saratogas 
and  Rockaways.  How  anybody  could  prefer  the  city 
to  the  country,  was  to  Miss  Hampson  matter  of  in- 
credulous wonder. 

"Will  you  come  into  the  boudoir?"  asked  Miss 
Pifflit,  with  a  languishing  air,  as  her  friend  Julia  rose 
from  breakfast. 

"Boudoir!"  exclaimed  the  city  damsel,  to  the  in- 
finite delight  of  old  Bracely,  "no,  dear!  I'd  rather  go 
out  to  the  barn!  Are  you  going  anywhere  with  the 
oxen  to-day,  sir?"  she  added,  going  up  to  the  gray- 
headed  farmer  caressingly,  "  I  should  so  like  to  ride 
in  that  great  cart!" 

Eph.  was  a  little  suspicious  of  all  this  unexpected 
agreeableness,  but  he  was  naturally  too  courteous  not 
to  give  way  to  a  lady's  whims.  He  put  on  his  old 
straw  hat,  and  tied  his  handkerchief  over  his  shoulder 
(not  to  imitate  the  broad  riband  of  a  royal  order,  but 
to  wipe  the  sweat  off  handily  while  mowing),  and  of- 
fering Miss  Hampson  a  rake  which  stood  outside  the 
door,  he  begged  her  to  be  ready  when  he  came  by 
with  the  team.  He  and  his  father  were  bound  to  the 
far  meadow,  where  they  were  cutting  hay,  and  would 
like  her  assistance  in  raking. 

It  was  a  "specimen"  morning,  as  the  magazines 
say,  for  the  air  was  temperate,  and  the  whole  country 
was  laden  with  the  smell  of  the  new  hay,  which  some- 
how or  other,  as  everybody  knows,  never  hinders  or 
overpowers  the  perfume  of  the  flowers.  Oh,  that 
winding  green  lane  between  the  bushes  was  like  an 
avenue  to  paradise.  The  old  cart  jolted  along 
through  the  ruts,  and  Miss  Hampson,  standing  up 
and  holding  on  to  old  Farmer  Bracely,  watched  the 
great  oxen  crowding  their  sides  together,  and  looked 
off  over  the  fields,  and  exclaimed,  as  she  saw  glimpses 
of  the  river  between  the  trees,  and  seemed  veritably 
and  unaffectedly  enchanted.  The  old  farmer,  at  least, 
had  no  doubt  of  her  sincerity,  and  he  watched  her, 
and  listened  to  her,  with  a  broad  honest  smile  of  ad- 
miration on  his  weather-browned  countenance. 

The  oxen  were  turned  up  to  the  fence,  while  the 
dew  dried  off  the  hay,  and  Eph.  and  his  father  turned 
to  mowing,  leaving  Miss  Hampson  to  ramble  about 
over  the  meadow,  and  gather  flowers  by  the  river-side. 
In  the  course  of  an  hour,  they  began  to  rake  up,  and 
she  came  to  offer  her  promised  assistance,  and  stoutly 
followed  Eph.  up  and  down  several  of  the  long  swaths, 
t: ill  1  her  face  glowed  under  her  sunbonnet  as  it  never 
had  glowed  with  waltzing.  Heated  and  tired  at  last, 
she  made  herself  a  seat  with  the  new  hay  under  a 
large  elm,  and,  with  her  back  to  the  tree,  watched  the 
labors  of  her  companions. 

Eph.  was  a  well-built  and  manly  figure,  and  all  he 
did  in  the  way  of  his  vocation,  he  did  with  a  fine  dis- 
play of  muscular  power,  and  (a  sculptor  would  have 
thought)  no  little  grace.  Julia  watched  him  a*  he 
stepped  along  after  his  rake  on  the  elastic  sward,  and 


348 


THE  WIDOW  BY  BREVET. 


she  thought,  for  the  first  time,  what  a  very  handsome 
man  was  young  Bracely,  and  how  much  more  finely 
a  man  looked  when  raking  hay,  than  a  dandy  when 
waltzing.  And  for  an  hour  she  sat  watching  his  mo- 
tion, admiring  the  strength  with  which  he  pitched  up 
the  hay,  and  the  grace  and  ease  of  all  his  movements 
and  postures;  and,  after  a  while,  she  began  to  feel 
drowsy  with  fatigue,  and  pulling  up  the  hay  into  a  fra- 
grant pillow,  she  lay  down  and  fell  fast  asleep. 

It  was  now  the  middle  of  the  forenoon,  and  the  old 
farmer,  who,  of  late  years,  had  fallen  into  the  habit 
of  taking  a  short  nap  before  dinner,  came  to  the  big  j 
elm  to  pick  up  his  waistcoat  and  go  home.  As  he  ap-  j 
preached  the  tree,  he  stopped,  and  beckoned  to  his  son. 

Eph.  came  up  and  stood  at  a  little  distance,  looking 
at  the  lovely  picture  before  him.  With  one  delicate 
hand  under  her  cheek,  and  a  smile  of  angelic  content 
and  enjoyment  on  her  finely  cut  lips,  Julia  Hampson 
slept  soundly  in  the  shade.  One  small  foot  escaped 
from  her  dress,  and  one  shoulder  of  faultless  polish 
and  whiteness  showed  between  her  kerchief  and  her 
sleeve.  Her  slight  waist  bent  to  the  swell  of  the  hay, 
throwing  her  delicate  and  well-moulded  bust  into 
high  relief;  and  all  over  her  neck,  and  in  large  clus- 
ters on  the  tumbled  hay,  lay  those  glossy  brown  ring- 
lets, admirably  beautiful  and  luxuriant. 

And  as  Eph.  looked  on  that  dangerous  picture  of 
loveliness,  the  passion,  already  lying  perdu  in  his 
bosom,  sprung  to  the  throne  of  heart  and  reason. 

(We  have  not  room  to  do  more  than  hint  at  the 
consequences  of  this  visit  of  Miss  Hampson  to  the 
country.  It  would  require  the  third  volume  of  a 
novel  to  describe  all  the  emotions  of  that  month  at 
Bracely  farm,  and  bring  the  reader,  point  by  point, 
gingerly  and  softly,  to  the  close.  We  must  touch 
here  and  there  a  point  only,  giving  the  reader's  im- 
agination some  gleaning  to  do  after  we  have  been  over 
the  ground.) 


Eph.  Bracely's  awakened  pride  served  him  the  good 
turn  of  making  him  appear  simply  in  his  natural  char- 
acter during  the  whole  of  Miss  Hampson's  visit.  By 
the  old  man's  advice,  however,  he  devoted  himself  to 
the  amusement  of  the  ladies  after  the  haying  was 
over ;  and  what  with  fishing,  and  riding,  and  scenery- 
hunting  in  the  neighborhood,  the  young  people  were 
together  from  morning  till  night.  Miss  Pifflit  came 
down  unwillingly  to  plain  Meg,  in  her  attendance  on 
her  friend  in  her  rustic  occupations,  and  Miss  Hamp- 
son saw  as  little  as  possible  of  the  inside  of  the  bou- 
doir. The  barn,  and  the  troops  of  chickens,  and  all 
the  out-door  belongings  of  the  farm,  interested  her 
daily,  and  with  no  diminution  of  her  zeal.  She 
seemed,  indeed,  to  have  found  her  natural  sphere  in 
the  simple  and  affectionate  life  which  her  friend  Mar- 
gerine  held  in  such  superfine  contempt;  and  Eph., 
who  was  the  natural  mate  to  such  a  spirit,  and  him- 
self, in  his  own  home,  most  unconsciously  worthy  of 
love  and  admiration,  gave  himself  up  irresistibly  to 
his  new  passion. 

And  this  new  passion  became  apparent,  at  last,  to 
the  incredulous  eyes  of  his  cousin.  And  that  it  was 
timidly,  but  fondly  returned  by  her  elegant  and  high- 
bred friend,  was  also  very  apparent  to  Miss  Pifflit. 
And  after  a  few  jealous  struggles,  and  a  night  or  two 
of  weeping,  she  gave  up  to  it  tranquilly — for,  a  city 
life  and  a  city  husband,  truth  to  say,  had  long  been 
her  secret  longing  and  secret  hope,  and  she  never  had 
fairly  looked  in  the  face  a  burial  in  the  country  with 
the  "pigs  and  chickens." 

She  is  not  married  yet,  Meg  Pifflit — but  the  rich 
merchant,  Mr.  Hampson,  wrecked  completely  with 
the  disastrous  times,  has  found  a  kindly  and  pleasant 
asylum  for  his  old  age  with  his  daughter,  Mrs.  Brace 
ly.  And  a  better  or  lovelier  farmer's  wife  than  Julia, 
or  a  happier  farmer  than  Eph.,  can  scarce  be  found 
in  the  valley  of  the  Susquehannah. 


THE   WIDOW   BY   BREVET 


Let  me  introduce  the  courteous  reader  to  two  la- 
dies. 

Miss  Picklin,  a  tall  young  lady  of  twenty-one,  near 
enough  to  good-looking  to  permit  of  a  delusion  on  the 
subject  (of  which,  however,  she  had  an  entire  monop- 
oly), with  cheeks  always  red  in  a  small  spot,  lips  not 
so  red  as  "the  cheeks,  and  rather  thin,  sharpish  nose, 
and  waist  very  slender;  and  last  (not  least  important), 
a  very  long  neck,  scalded  on  either  side  into  a  resem- 
blance to  a  scroll  of  shrivelled  parchment,  which  might 
or  might  not  be  considered  as  a  wu's-fortune — serving 
her  as  a  title-deed  to  twenty  thousand  dollars.  The 
scald  was  inflicted,  and  the  fortune  left  in  consequence, 
by  a  maiden  aunt  who,  in  the  babyhood  of  Miss  Pick- 
lin, attempted  to  cure  the  child's  sore  throat  by  an  ap- 
plication of  cabbage-leaves  steeped  in  hot  vinegar. 

Miss  Euphemia  Picklin,  commonly  called  Phemie 
— a  good-humored  girl,  rather  inclined  to  be  fat,  but 
gifted  with  several  points  of  beauty  of  which  she  was 
not  at  all  aware,  very  much  a  pet  among  her  female 
friends,  and  admitting,  with  perfect  sincerity  and  sub- 
mission, her  sister's  exclusive  right  to  the  admiration 
of  the  gentlemen  of  their  acquaintance. 

Captain  Isaiah  Picklin,  the  father  of  these  ladies, 
was  a  merchant  of  Salem,  an  importer  of  figs  and  opi- 
um, and  once  master  of  the  brig  "Simple  Susan," 
which  still  plied  between  his  warehouse  and  Constan- 
tinople— nails  and  codfish  the  cargo  outward.     I  have 


not  Miss  Picklin's  permission  to  mention  the  precise 
date  of  the  events  I  am  about  to  record,  and  leaving 
that  point  alone  to  the  imagination  of  the  reader,  I 
shall  set  down  the  other  particulars  and  impediments 
in  her  "course  of  true  love"  with  historital  fidelity. 

Ever  since  she  had  been  of  sufficient  age  to  turn  her 
attention  exclusively  to  matrimony,  Miss  Picklin  had 
nourished  a  presentiment  that  her  destiny  was  exotic ; 
that  the  soil  of  Salem  was  too  poor,  and  the  indigenous 
lovers  too  mean;  and  that,  potted  in  her  twenty  thou- 
sand dollars,  she  was  a  choice  production,  set  aside  for 
I  flowering  in  a  foreign  clime,  and  destined  to  be  trans- 
I  planted  by  a  foreign  lover.     With  this  secret  in  her 
|  bosom,  she  had  refused  one  or  two  gentlemen  of  mid- 
dle age,  recommended  by  her  father,  beside  sundry 
score  of  young  gentlemen  of  slender  revenues  in  her 
own  set  of  acquaintances,  till,  if  there  had  been  any- 
thing beside  poetry  in  Shakspere's  assertion  that  it  is — 

u  Broom  groves 
Whose  shadow  the  dismissed  bachelor  loves," 

the  neighboring  "brush  barrens"  of  Saugus  would 
have  sold  in  lots  at  a  premium.  It  was  possibly  from 
the  want  of  nightingales,  to  whose  complaining  notes 
the  gentleman  of  Verona  "turned  his  distresses,"  that 
the  discarded  of  Salem  preferred  the  consolations  of 
Phemie  Picklin. 

News  to  the  Picklins  !    Hassan  Keui,  the  son  of  old 


THE  WIDOW  BY  BREVET. 


349 


Abdoul  Keui,  was  coming  out  in  the  "  Simple  Susan !" 
A  Turk — a  live  Turk — a  young  Turk,  and  the  son  of 
her  father's  rich  correspondent  in  Turkey  !  "  Ah  me  !" 
thought  Miss  Picklin. 

The  captain  himself  was  rather  taken  aback.  He 
had  known  old  Abdoul  for  many  years,  had  traded  and 
smoked  with  him  in  the  cafes  of  Galata,  had  gone  out 
with  him  on  Sundays  to  lounge  on  the  tombstones  at 
Scutari,  and  had  never  thought  twice  about  his  yellow 
gown  and  red  trowsers ;  but  what  the  deuce  would  be 
thought  of  them  in  Salem?  True,  it  was  his  son; 
but  a  Turk's  clothes  descend  from  father  to  son 
through  three  generations  ;  he  knew  that,  from  re- 
membering this  very  boy  all  but  smothered  in  a  sort  of 
saffron  blanket,  with  sleeves  like  pillowcases — his  first 
assumption  of  the  toga  virilis  (not  that  old  Picklin 
knew  Latin,  but  such  was  "his  sentiment  better  ex- 
pressed"). Then  he  had  never  been  asked  to  the 
house  of  the  Stamboul  merchant,  not  introduced  to 
his  wives  nor  his  daughters  (indeed,  he  had  forgotten 
that  old  Keui  was  near  cutting  his  throat  for  asking 
after  them) — but  of  course  it  was  very  different  in  Sa- 
lem. Young  Keui  must  be  the  Picklin  guest,  fed  and 
lodged,  and  the  girls  would  want  to  give  him  a  tea- 
party.  Would  he  sit  on  a  chair,  or  want  cushions  on 
the  floor  ?  Would  he  come  to  dinner  with  his  breast 
bare,  and  leave  his  boots  outside  ?  Would  he  eat  rice 
pudding  with  his  fingers  ?  Would  he  think  it  inde- 
cent if  the  girls  didn't  wear  linen  cloths,  Turkey  fash- 
ion, over  their  mouths  and  noses  ?  Would  he  bring 
his  pipes  ?  Would  he  fall  on  his  face  and  say  his 
prayers  four  times  a  day,  wherever  he  should  be  (with 
a  clean  place  handy)?  What  would  the  neighbors 
say  ?  The  captain  worked  himself  into  a  violent  per- 
spiration with  merely  thinking  of  all  this. 

The  Salemites  have  a  famous  museum,  and  know 
"what  manner  of  thing  is  your  crocodile;"  but  a  live 
Turk  consigned  to  Captain  Picklin  !  It  set  the  town 
in  a  fever  ! 

It  would  leave  an  indelicate  opening  for  a  conjec- 
ture as  to  Miss  Picklin's  present  age,  were  I  to  state 
whether  or  not  the  arrival  of  the  "Simple  Susan"  was 
reported  by  telegraph.  She  ran  in  with  a  fair  wind 
one  Sunday  morning,  and  was  immediately  boarded  by 
the  harbor-master  and  Captain  Picklin ;  and  there,  true 
to  the  prophetic  boding  of  old  Isaiah,  the  young  Turk 
sat  cross-legged  on  the  quarter-deck,  in  a  white  tur- 
ban and  scarlet  et  ceteras,  smoking  his  father's  identical 
pipe — no  other,  the  captain  would  have  taken  his  oath  ! 

Up  rose  Hassan,  when  informed  who  was  his  visiter, 
and  taking  old  Picklin's  hand,  put  it  to  his  forehead. 
The  weather-stained  sea-captain  had  bleached  in  the 
counting-house,  and  he  had  not,  at  first  sight  remem- 
bered the  old  friend  of  his  father.  He  passed  the  pipe 
into  Isaiah's  hand  and  begged  him  to  keep  it  as  a  me- 
mento of  Abdoul,  for  his  father  had  died  at  the  last 
Ramazan.  Hassan  had  come  out  to  see  the  world, 
and  secure  a  continuance  of  codfish  and  good-will  from 
the  house  of  Picklin,  and  the  merchant  got  astride  the 
tiller  of  his  old  craft,  and  smoked  this  news  through 
his  amber-mouthed  legacy,  while  the  youth  went  be- 
low to  get  ready  to  go  ashore. 

The  reader  of  course  would  prefer  to  share  the  first 
impressions  of  the  ladies  as  to  the  young  Mussulman's 
personal  appearance,  and  I  pass  at  once,  therefore,  to 
their  disappointment,  surprise,  mortification,  and  vex- 
ation; when,  as  the  bells  were  ringing  for  church,  the 
front  door  opened,  their  father  entered,  and  in  followed 
a  young  gentleman  in  frockcoat  and  trowsers  !  Yes, 
and  in  his  hand  a  hat — a  black  hat — and  on  his  feet  no 
yellow  boots,  but  calfskin,  mundane  and  common  calf- 
skin, and  with  no  shaved  head,  and  no  twisted  shawl 
around  his  waist ;  nothing  to  be  seen  but  a  very  hand- 
some young  man  indeed,  with  teeth  like  a  fresh  slice 
of  cocoa-nut  meat,  and  a  very  deliberate  pronunciation 
to  his  bad  English. 


Miss  Picklin's  disappointment  had  to  be  slept  upon, 
for  she  had  made  great  outlay  of  imagination  upon  the 
pomp  and  circumstance  of  wedding  a  white  Othello  in 
the  eyes  of  wondering  Salem;  but  Phemie's  surprise 
took  but  five  minutes  to  grow  into  a  positive  pleasure; 
and  never  suspecting,  at  any  time,  that  she  was  visible 
to  the  naked  eye  during  the  eclipsing  presence  of  her 
sister,  she  sat  with  a  very  admiring  smile  upon  her 
lips,  and  her  soft  eyes  fixed  earnestly  on  the  stranger, 
till  she  had  made  out  a  full  inventory  of  his  features, 
proportions,  manners,  and  other  stuff  available  in 
dream-land.  What  might  be  Hassan's  impression  of 
the  young  ladies,  could  not  be  gathered  from  his  man- 
ner; for,  in  the  first  place,  there  was  the  reserve  which 
belonged  to  him  as  a  Turk,  and,  in  the  second  place, 
there  was  a  violation  of  all  oriental  notions  of  modesty 
in  their  exposing  their  chins  to  the  masculine  obser- 
vation; and  though  he  could  endure  the  exposure,  it 
was  of  course  with  that  diffidence  of  gaze  which  ac- 
companies the  consciousness  of  improper  objects — 
adding  to  his  demeanor  another  shade  of  timidity. 

Miss  Picklin's  shoulders  were  not  invaded  quite  to 
the  limits  of  terra  cognita  by  the  cabbage-leaves  which 
had  exercised  such  an  influence  on  her  destiny;  and 
as  the  scalds  somewhat  resembled  two  maps  of  South 
America  (with  Patagonia  under  each  ear),  she  usu- 
ally, in  full  dress,  gave  a  clear  view  of  the  surrounding 
ocean — wisely  thinking  it  better  to  have  the  geogra- 
phy of  her  disfigurement  well  understood,  than,  by 
covering  a  small  extremity  (as  it  were  the  isthmus  of 
Darien),  to  leave  an  undiscovered  North  America  to 
the  imagination.  She  appeared  accordingly  at  dinner 
in  a  costume  not  likely  to  diminish  the  modest  embar- 
rassment of  Mr.  Keui  (as  she  chose  to  call  him) — ex- 
tremely decollete,  in  a  pink  silk  dress  with  short  sleeves, 
and  in  a  turban  with  a  gold  fringe — the  latter,  of 
course,  out  of  compliment  to  his  country.  "Money 
is  power,"  even  in  family  circles,  and  it  was  only  Miss 
Picklin  who  exercised  the  privilege  of  full  dress  at 
a  mid-day  dinner.  Phemie  came  to  table  dressed  as 
at  breakfast,  and  if  she  felt  at  all  envious  of  her  sister's 
pink  gown  and  elbows  to  match,  it  did*not  appear  in 
her  pleasant  face  or  sisterly  attention.  The  captain 
would  allow  anything,  and  do  almost  anything,  for  his 
rich  daughter;  but  as  to  dining  with  his  coat  on,  in  hot 
weather,  company  or  no  company,  he  would  rather — 

'•'  be  set  quick  i'  the  earth, 
And  bowled  to  death  with  turnips" — 

though  that  is  not  the  way  he  expressed  it.  The  parti 
carre,  therefore  (for  there  was  no  Mrs.  Picklin),  was, 
in  the  matter  of  costume,  rather  incongruous,  but,  as 
the  Turk  took  it  for  granted  that  it  was  all  according 
to  the  custom  of  the  country,  the  carving  was  achieved 
by  the  shirt-sleeved  captain,  and  the  pudding  "helped" 
by  his  bare-armed  daughter,  with  no  particular  com- 
motion in  the  elements.  Earthquakes  do  not  invaria- 
bly follow  violations  of  etiquette — particularly  where 
nobody  is  offended. 

After  the  first  day,  things  took  their  natural  course 
— as  near  as  they  were  able.  Hassan  was  not  very 
quick  at  conversation,  always  taking  at  least  five  min- 
utes to  put  together  for  delivery  a  sentence  of  Eng- 
lish, but  his  laugh  did  not  hang  fire,  nor  did  his  nods 
and  smiles;  and  where  ladies  are  voluble  (as  ladies 
sometimes  are),  this  paucity  of  ammunition  on  the 
gentleman's  part  is  no  prelude  to  discomfiture.  Then 
Phemie  had  a  very  fair  smattering  of  Italian,  and  that 
being  the  business  language  of  the  Levant,  Hassan 
took  refuge  in  it  whenever  brought  to  a  stand-still  in 
English— a  refuge,  by  the  way,  of  which  he  seemed 
inclined  to  avail  himself  oftener  than  was  consistent 
with  Miss  Picklin's  exclusive  property  in  his  atten- 
tion. Rebellious  though  Hassan  might  secretly  have 
been  to  this  authority  over  himself,  Phemie  was  no  ac- 
complice, natural  modesty  combining  with  the  long 


350 


THE  WIDOW  BY  BREVET 


habit  of  subserviency  to  make  her  even  anticipate  the 
exactions  of  the  heiress;  and  so  Miss  Picklin  had 
41  Mr.  Keui"  principally  to  herself,  promenading  him 
through  the  streets  of  Salem,  and  bestowing  her 
sweetness  upon  him  from  his  morning  entrance  to  his 
evening  exit;  Phemie  relieving  guard  very  cheerfully, 
while  her  sister  dressed  for  dinner.  It  was  possibly 
from  being  permitted  to  converse  in  Italian  during  this 
half  hour,  that  Hassan  made  it  the  only  part  of  the 
day  in  which  he  talked  of  himself  and  his  house  on 
the  Bosphorus,  but  that  will  not  account  also  for  Phe- 
mie's  sighing  while  she  listened — never  having  sighed 
before  in  her  life,  not  even  while  the  same  voice  was 
talking  English  to  her  sister. 

Without  going  into  a  description  of  the  Picklin  tea- 
party,  at  which  Hassan  was  induced  to  figure  in  his 
oriental  costume,  while  Miss  Picklin  sat  by  him  on  a 
cushion,  turbaned  and  (probably)  cross-legged,  a  la 
Sultana,  and  without  recording  other  signs  satisfac- 
tory to  the  Salemites,  that  the  young  Turk  had  fallen 
to  the  scalded  heiress — 

"  As  does  the  ospray  to  the  fish,  that  takes  it, 
By  sovereignty  of  nature"  - 

I  must  come  plump  to  the  fact  that,  on  the  Monday 
following  (one  week  after  his  arrival),  Hassan  left  Sa- 
lem, wnaccompanied  by  Miss  Picklin.  As  he  had 
asked  for  no  private  interview  in  the  best  parlor,  and 
had  made  his  final  business  arrangements  with  the 
captain,  so  that  he  could  take  passage  from  New  York 
without  returning,  some  people  were  inclined  to  fancy 
that  Miss  Picklin's  demonstrations  with  regard  to  him 
had  been  a  little  premature.  And  "some  people" 
chose  to  smile.  But  it  was  reserved  for  Miss  Picklin 
to  look  round  in  church,  in  about  one  year  from  this 
event,  and  have  her  triumph  over  "some  people;" 
for  she  was  about  to  sail  for  Constantinople — "sent 
for,"  as  the  captain  rudely  expressed  it.  But  I  must 
explain. 

The  "Simple  Susan"  came  in,  heavily  freighted 
with  a  consignment  from  the  house  of  Keui  to  Picklin 
&  Co.,  and  a  letter  from  the  American  consul  at  Con- 
stantinople wrapped  in  the  invoice.  With  the  careful 
and  ornate  wording  of  an  official  epistle,  it  stated  that 
Effendi  Hassan  Keui  had  called  on  the  consul,  and 
partly  from  the  mistrust  of  his  ability  to  express  him- 
self in  English  on  so  delicate  a  subject,  but  more  par- 
ticularly for  the  sake  of  approaching  the  object  of  his 
affections  with  proper  deference  and  ceremony,  he  had 
requested  that  officer  to  prepare  a  document  convey- 
ing a  proposal  of  marriage  to  the  daughter  of  Captain 
Picklin.  The  incomplete  state  of  his  mercantile  ar- 
rangements, while  at  Salem  the  previous  year,  would 
account  for  his  silence  on  the  subject  at  that  time,  but 
he  trusted  that  his  preference  had  been  sufficiently 
manifest  to  the  lady  of  his  heart ;  and  as  his  prosper- 
ity in  business  depended  on  his  remaining  at  Constan- 
tinople, enriching  himself  only  for  her  sake,  he  was 
sure  that  the  singular  request  appended  to  his  offer 
would  be  taken  as  a  mark  of  his  prudence  rather  than 
as  a  presumption.  The  cabin  of  the  "  Simple  Susan," 
as  Captain  Picklin  knew,  was  engaged  on  her  next  pas- 
sage to  Constantinople  by  a  party  of  missionaries,  male 
and  female,  and  the  request  was  to  the  intent  that,  in 
case  of  an  acceptance  of  his  offer,  the  fair  daughter  of 
the  owner  would  come  out,  under  their  sufficient  pro- 
tection, to  be  wedded,  if  she  should  so  please,  on  the 
day  of  her  arrival  in  the  "Golden  Horn." 

As  Miss  Picklin  had  preserved  a  mysterious  silence 
on  the  subject  of  "  Mr.  Keui's"  attentions  since  his 
departure,  and  as  a  lady  with  twenty  thousand  dollars 
in  her  own  right  is,  of  course,  quite  independent  of 
parental  control,  the  captain,  after  running  his  eye 
hastily  through  the  document,  called  to  the  boy  who 
was  weighing  out  a  quintal  of  codfish,  and  bid  him 
wrap  the  letter  in  a  brown  paper  and  run  with  it  to 


Miss  Picklin — taking  it  for  granted  that  she  knew 
more  about  the  matter  than  he  did,  and  would  explain 
it  all,  when  he  came  home  to  dinner. 

In  thinking  the  matter  over,  on  his  way  home,  it 
occurred  to  old  Picklin  that  it  was  worded  as  if  he  had 
but  one  daughter.  At  any  rate,  he  was  quite  sure 
that  neither  of  his  daughters  was  particularly  specified, 
either  by  name  or  age.  No  doubt  it  was  all  right, 
however.     The  girls  understood  it. 

"So,  it's  you,  miss!"  he  said,  as  Miss  Picklin  look- 
ed round  from  the  turban  she  was  trying  on  before 
the  glass. 

"  Certainly,  pa  !  who  else  should  it  be  ?" 

And  there  ended  the  captain's  doubts,  for  he  never 
again  got  sight  of  the  letter,  and  the  turmoil  of  prep- 
aration for  Miss  Picklin's  voyage,  made  the  house 
anything  but  a  place  for  getting  answers  to  impertinent 
questions.  Phemie,  whom  the  news  had  made  silent 
and  thoughtful,  let  drop  a  hint  or  two  that  she  would 
like  to  see  the  letter  ;  but  a  mysterious  air,  and  "La  ' 
child,  you  wouldn't  understand  it,"  was  check  enough 
for  her  timid  curiosity,  and  she  plied  her  needle  upon 
her  sister's  wedding  dress  with  patient  submission. 

The  preparations  for  the  voyage  went  on  swimming- 
ly. The  missionaries  were  written  to,  and  willingly 
consented  to  chaperon  Miss  Picklin  over  the  seas, 
provided  her  union  with  a  pagan  was  to  be  sanctified 
with  a  Christian  ceremonial.  Miss  Picklin  replied 
with  virtuous  promptitude  that  the  cake  for  the  wed- 
ding was  already  soldered  up  in  a  tin  case,  and  that 
she  was  to  be  married  immediately  on  her  arrival, 
under  an  awning  on  the  brig's  deck,  and  she  hoped 
that  four  of  the  missionaries'  wives  would  oblige  her 
by  standing  up  as  her  bridesmaids.  Many  square 
feet  of  codfish  were  unladen  from  the  "Simple  Susan" 
to  make  room  for  boxes  and  bags,  and  one  large  case 
was  finally  shipped,  the  contents  of  which  had  been 
shopped  for  by  ladies  with  families — no  book  of  orien- 
tal travels  making  any  allusion  to  the  sale  of  such 
articles  in  Constantinople,  though,  in  the  natural 
course  of  things,  they  must  be  wanted  as  much  in 
Turkey  as  in  Salem. 

The  brig  was  finally  cleared  and  lay  off  in  the  stream, 
and  on  the  evening  before  the  embarkation  the  mis- 
sionaries arrived  and  were  invited  to  a  tea-party  at  the 
Picklins.  Miss  Picklin  had  got  up  a  little  surprise 
for  her  friends  with  which  to  close  the  party — a 
"  walking  tableau"  as  she  termed  it,  in  which  she 
should  suddenly  make  her  apparition  at  one  door, 
pass  through  the  room,  and  go  out  at  the  other, 
dressed  as  a  sultana,  with  a  muslin  kirtle  and  satin 
trowsers.  She  disappeared  accordingly  half  an  hour 
before  the  breaking  up ;  and,  conversation  rather 
languishing  in  her  absence,  the  eldest  of  the  mission- 
aries rose  to  conclude  the  evening  with  a  prayer,  in 
the  midst  of  which  Miss  Picklin  passed  through  the 
room  unperceived — the  faces  of  the  company  being 
turned  to  the  wall. 

The  next  morning  at  daylight  the  "  Simple  Susan" 
put  to  sea  with  a  fair  wind,  and  at  the  usual  hour  for 
opening  the  store  of  Picklin  and  Co.,  she  had  drop- 
ped below  the  horizon.  Phemie  sat  upon  the  end  of 
the  wharf  and  watched  her  till  she  was  out  of  sight, 
and  the  captain  walked  up  and  down  between  two 
puncheons  of  rum  which  stood  at  the  distance  of  a 
quarter-deck's  length  from  each  other,  and  both  father 
and  daughter  were  silent.  The  captain  had  a  confused 
thought  or  two  besides  the  grief  of  parting,  and  Phemie 
had  feelings  quite  as  confused,  which  were  not  all 
made  up  of  sorrow  for  the  loss  of  her  sister.  Perhaps 
the  reader  will  be  at  the  trouble  of  spelling  out  their 
riddles  while  I  try  to  let  him  dowD  softly  to  the  catas- 
trophe of  my  story. 

Without  confessing  to  any  ailment  whatever,  the 
plump  Phemie  paled  and  thinned  from  the  day  of  hei 
sister's  departure.     Her  spirits,  too,  seemed   to  keep 


THE  WIDOW  BY  BREVET. 


351 


ner  flesh  and  color  company,  and  at  the  end  of  a 
month  the  captain  was  told  by  one  of  the  good  dames 
of  Salem  that  he  had  better  ask  a  physician  what 
ailed  her.  The  doctor  could  make  nothing  out  of  it 
except  that  she  might  be  fretting  for  the  loss  of  her 
sister,  and  he  recommended  a  change  of  scene  and 
climate.  That  day  Captain  Brown,  an  old  mate  of 
Isaiah's,  dropped  in  to  eat  a  family  dinner  and  say 
good-by,  as  lie  was  about  sailing  iu  the  new  schooner 
Nancy  for  the  Black  sea — his  wife  for  his  only  passen- 
ger. Of  course  he  would  be  obliged  to  drop  anchor 
at  Constantinople  to  wait  for  a  fair  wind  up  the 
Bosphorus,  and  part  of  his  errand  was  to  offer  to  take 
letters  and  nicknackeries  to  Mrs.  Keui.  Old  Pickhn 
put  the  two  things  together,  and  over  their  glass  of 
wine  he  proposed  to  Brown  to  take  Phemie  with  Mrs. 
Brown  to  Constantinople,  leave  them  both  there  on  a 
visit  to  Mrs.  Keui,  till  the  return  of  the  Nancy  from 
the  Black  sea,  and  then  re-embark  them  for  Salem. 
Phemie  came  into  the  room  just  as  they  were  touch- 
ing glasses  on  the  agreement,  and  when  the  trip  was 
proposed  to  her  she  first  colored  violently,  then  grew 
pale  and  burst  into  tears  ;  but  consented  to  go.  And, 
with  such  preparations  as  she  could  make  that  even- 
ing, she  was  quite  ready  at  the  appointed  hour,  and 
was  off  with  the  land-breeze  the  next  morning,  taking 
leave  of  nobody  but  her  father.  And  this  time  the 
old  man  wiped  his  eyes  very  often  before  the  depart- 
ing vessel  was  "hull  down,"  and  was  heartily  sorry  he 
had  let  Phemie  go  without  a  great  many  presents  and 
a  great  many  more  kisses.     ******* 

A  fine,  breezy  morning  at  Constantinople  ! 

Rapidly  down  the  Bosphorus  shot  the  caique  of 
Hassan  Keui,  bearing  its  master  from  his  country- 
house  at  Dolma-batchi  to  his  warehouses  at  Galata. 
Just  before  the  sharp  prow  rounded  away  toward  the 
Golden  Horn,  the  merchant  motioned  to  the  caikjis 
to  rest  upon  their  oars,  and,  standing  erect  in  the 
Blender  craft,  he  strained  his  gaze  long  and  with  anxi- 
ous earnestness  toward  the  sea  of  Marmora.  Not  a 
sail  was  to  be  seen  coming  from  the  west,  except  a 
man-of-war  with  a  crescent  flag  at  the  peak,  lying  off 
toward  Scutari  from  Seraglio  point,  and  with  a  sigh 
that  carried  the  cloud  off  his  brow,  Hassan  gayly 
squatted  once  more  to  his  cushions,  and  the  caique 
sped  merrily  on.  In  and  out,  among  the  vessels  at 
anchor,  the  airy  bark  threaded  her  way  with  the  dex- 
terous swiftness  of  a  bird,  when  suddenly  a  cable  rose 
beneath  her  and  lifted  her  half  out  of  the  water.  A 
vessel  newly-arrived  was  hauling  in  to  a  close  anchor- 
age, and  they  had  crossed  her  hawser  as  it  rose  to  the 
surface.  Pitched  headlong  into  the  lap  of  the  nearest 
caikji,  the  Turk's  snowy  turban  fell  into  the  water  and 
was  carried  by  the  eddy  under  the  stern  of  the  vessel 
rounding  to,  and  as  the  caique  was  driven  backward 
to  regain  it,  the  bareheaded  owner  sank  back  aghast— 
Simple  Susan  of  Salem  staring  him  in  the  face  in 
golden  capitals. 

"  Oh!  Mr.  Keui !  how  do  you  do  !"  cried  a  well- 
remembered  voice,  as  he  raised  himself  to  fend  off 
by  the  rudder  of  the  brig.  And  there  she  stood 
within  two  feet  of  his  lips— Miss  Picklin  in  her  bridal 
veil,  waiting  below  in  expectant  modesty,  and  though 
surprised  by  his  peep  into  the  cabin  windows,  excusing 
it  as  a  natural  impatience  in  a  bridegroom  coming  to 
his  bride. 

The  captain-  of  the  Susan,  meantime,  had  looked 
over  the  tafferel  and  recognised  his  old  passenger,  and 
Hassan,  who  would  have  given  a  cargo  of  opium  for 
an  hour  to  compose  himself,  mounted  the  ladder 
which  was  thrown  out  to  him,  and  stepped  from  the 
gangway  into  Miss  Picklin's  arms  !  She  had  rushed 
up  to  receive  him,  dressed  in  her  muslin  kirtle  and 
satin  trousers,  though,  with  her  dramatic  sense  of 
propriety,  she  had  intended  to  remain  below  till  sum- 
moned to  the  bridal.     The  captain,  of  course,  kept 


back  from  delicacy,  but  the  missionaries  stood  in  a 
cluster  gazing  on  the  happy  meeting,  and  the  sailors 
looked  over  their  shoulders  as  they  heaved  at  the 
windlass.  As  Miss  Picklin  afterward  remarked,  "it 
would  have  been  a  tableau  vivant  if  the  deck  had  not 
been  so  very  dirty  ."' 

Hassan  wiped  his  eyes,  for  he  had  replaced  his  wet 
turban  on  his  head,  but  what  with  his  escape  from 
drowning,  and  what  with  his  surprise  and  embarrass- 
ment (for  he  had  a  difficult  part  to  play,  as  the  reader 
will  presently  understand),  he  had  lost  all  memory 
of  his  little  stock  of  English.  Miss  Picklin  drew  him 
gently  by  the  hand  to  the  quarter-deck,  where,  under 
an  awning  fringed  with  curtains  partly  drawn,  stood  a 
table  with  a  loaf  of  wedding-cake  upon  it,  and  a  bottle 
of  wine  and  a  bible.  She  nodded  to  the  Rev.  Mr. 
Griffin,  who  took  hold  of  a  chair  and  turned  it  round, 
and  placing  it  against  his  legs  with  the  back  toward 
him,  looked  steadfastly  at  the  happy  couple. 

"Good  morning — good  night — your  sister — aspetta! 
per  amor'1  di  Dio .'"  cried  the  bewildered  Hassan, 
giving  utterance  to  all  the  English  he  could  re- 
member, and  seizing  the  bride  by  the  arm. 

"  These  ladies  are  my  bridesmaids,"  said  Miss 
Picklin,  pointing  to  the  missionaries'  wives  who  stood 
by  in  their  bonnets  and  shawls.  "  I  dare  say  he  ex- 
pected my  sister  would  come  as  my  bridesmaid  !" 
she  added,  turning  to  Mr.  Griffin  to  explain  the  out- 
break as  she  understood  it. 

Hassan  beat  his  hand  upon  his  forehead,  walked 
twice  up  and  down  the  quarterdeck,  looked  around 
over  the  Golden  Horn  as  if  in  search  of  an  interpreter 
to  his  feelings,  and  finally  walked  up  to  Miss  Picklin 
with  a  look  of  calm  resignation,  and  addressed  to  her 
and  to  the  Rev.  Mr.  Griffin  a  speech  of  three  minutes, 
in  Italian.  At  the  close  of  it  he  made  a  very  cere- 
monious salaam,  and  offered  his  hand  to  the  bride  ; 
and,  as  no  one  present  understood  a  syllable  of  what 
he  had  intended  to  convey  in  his  address,  it  was  re- 
ceived as  probably  a  welcome  to  Turkey,  or  perhaps 
a  formal  repetition  of  his  offer  of  heart  and  hand.  At 
any  rate,  Miss  Picklin  took  it  to  be  high  time  to  blush 
and  take  off  her  glove,  and  the  Rev.  Mr.  Griffin  then 
bent  across  the  back  of  the  chair,  joined  their  hands 
and  went  through  the  ceremony,  ring  and  all.  The 
ladies  came  up,  one  after  another,  and  kissed  the 
bride,  and  the  gentlemen  shook  hands  with  Hassan, 
who  received  their  good  wishes  with  a  curious  look 
of  unhappy  resignation,  and  after  cutting  the  cake  and 
permitting  the  bride  to  retire  for  a  moment  to  calm 
her  feelings  and  put  on  her  bonnet,  the  bridegroom 
made  rather  a  peremptory  movement  of  departure, 
and  the  happy  couple  went  off  in  the  caique  toward 
Dolma-batchi  amid  much  waving  of  handkerchiefs 
from  the  missionaries,  and  hurrahs  from  the  Salem 
hands  of  the  Simple  Susan. 

And  now,  before  giving  the  reader  a  translation  of 
the  speech  of  Hassan  before  the  wedding,  we  must 
go  back  to  some  little  events  which  had  taken  place 
one  month  previously  at  Constantinople. 

The  Nancy  arrived  off  Seraglio  Point  after  a  very 
remarkable  passage,  having  still  on  her  quarter  the 
northwest  breeze  which  had  stuck  to  her  like  a  blood- 
hound ever  since  leaving  the  harbor  of  Salem.  She 
had  brought  it  with  her  to  Constantinople  indeed,  for 
twenty  or  thirty  vessels  which  had  been  long  waiting 
a  favorable  wind  to  encounter  the  adverse  current  of 
the  Bosphorus,  were  loosing  sail  and  getting  under 
way,  and  the  pilot,  knowing  that  the  destination  of  the 
Nancy  was  also  to  the  Black  sea,  strongly  dissuaded 
Captain  Brown  from  dropping  anchor  in  the  horn, 
with  a  chance  of  losing  the  good  luck,  and  lying,  per- 
haps a  month,  wind-bound  in  harbor.  Understanding 
that  the  captain's  only  object  in  stopping  was  to  leave 
the  two  ladies  with  Keui  the  opium-merchant,  the 
pilot,  who  knew  his  residence  at  Dolma-batchi,  made 


352 


THOSE  UNGRATEFUL  BLIDGIMSES. 


signal  for  a  caique,  and  kept  up  the  Bosphorus. 
Arriving  opposite  the  little  village  of  which  Has- 
san's house  was  one  of  the  chief  ornaments,  the  la- 
dies were  lowered  into  the  caique  and  sent  ashore — 
expecting  of  course  to  be  received  with  open  arms 
by  Mrs.  Keui — and  then,  spreading  all  her  canvass, 
the  swift  little  schooner  sped  on  her  way  to  Trebi- 
sond. 

Hassan  sat  in  the  little  pavilion  of  his  house  which 
looked  out  on  the  Bosphorus,  eating  his  piilau,  for  it 
was  the  noon  of  a  holyday,  and  he  had  not  been  that 
morning  to  Galata.  Recognising  at  once  the  sweet 
face  of  Phemie  as  the  caique  came  near  the  shore, 
he  flew  to  meet  her,  supposing  that  the  "  Simple 
Susan"  had  arrived,  and  that  the  lady  of  his  love 
had  chosen  to  come  and  seek  him.  The  reader 
will  understand  of  course  that  there  was  no  "  Mrs. 
Keui." 

And  now  to  shorten  my  story. 

Mrs.  Brown  and  Phemie  were  in  Hassan's  own  house, 
with  no  other  acquaintance  or  protector  on  that  side 
of  the  world,  and  there  was  no  possibility  of  escaping 
a  true  explanation.  The  mistake  was  explained,  and 
explained  to  Brown's  satisfaction.  Phemie  was  the 
"daughter"  of  Captain  Picklin,to  whom  the  offer  was 
transmitted,  and  as,  by  blessed  luck,  the  Nancy  had 
outsailed  the  Simple  Susan,  Providence  seemed  to 
have  chosen  to  set  right  for  once,  the  traverse  of  true 
love.  The  English  embassy  was  at  Burgurlu,  only 
six  miles  above,  on  the  Bosphorus,  and  Hassan  and 
his  mother  and  sisters,  and  Mrs.  Brown  and  Phemie 
were  soon  on  their  way  thither  in  swift  caiques,  and 
the  happy  couple  were  wedded  by  the  English  chaplain. 
The  arrival  of  the  Simple  Susan  was  of  course  looked 
for,  by  both  Hassan  and  his  bride,  with  no  little  dis- 
may. She  had  met  with  contrary  winds  on  the 
Atlantic,  and  had  been  caught  in  the  Archipelago  by 
a  Levanter,  and  from  the  damage  of  the  last  she  had 
been  obliged  to  come  to  anchor  off"  the  little  island  of 
Paros  and  repair.     This  had  been  a  job  of  six  weeks, 


and  meantime  the  Nancy  had  given  them  the  go-by, 
and  reached  Constantinople. 

Hassan  was  daily  on  the  look-out  for  the  brig  in  his 
trips  to  town,  and  on  the  morning  of  her  arrival,  his 
mind  being  put  at  ease  for  the  day  by  his  glance 
toward  the  sea  of  Marmora,  the  stumbling  so  suddenly 
and  so  unprepared  on  the  object  of  his  dread,  com- 
pletely bewildered  and  unnerved  him.  Through  all 
his  confusion,  however,  and  all  the  awkwardness  of 
his  situation,  there  ran  a  feeling  of  self-condemnation, 
as  well  as  pity  for  Miss  Picklin  ;  and  this  had  driven 
him  to  the  catastrophe  described  above.  He  felt  that 
he  owed  her  some  reparation,  and  as  the  religion 
which  he  was  educated  did  not  forbid  a  plurality  of 
wives,  and  there  was  no  knowing  but  possibly  she 
might  be  inclined  to  "  do  in  Turkey  as  Turkeys  do," 
he  felt  it  incumbent  on  himself  to  state  the  fact  of 
his  previous  marriage,  and  then  offer  her  the  privilege 
of  becoming  Mrs.  Keui  No.  2,  if  she  chose  to  accept. 
As  he  had  no  English  at  his  command,  he  stated  his 
dilemma  and  made  his  offer  in  the  best  language  he 
had — Italian— -and  with  the  results  the  reader  has  been 
made  acquainted. 

Of  the  return  passage  of  Miss  Picklin,  formerly 
Mrs.  Keui,  under  the  charge  of  Captain  and  Mrs. 
Brown,  in  the  schooner  Nancy,  I  have  never  learned 
the  particulars.  She  arrived  at  Salem  in  very  good 
health,  however,  and  has  since  been  distinguished 
principally  by  her  sympathy  for  widows — based  on 
what,  I  can  not  very  positively  say.  She  resides  at 
present  in  Salem  with  her  father,  Captain  Picklin, 
who  is  still  the  consignee  of  the  house  of  Keui,  having 
made  one  voyage  out  to  see  the  children  of  his 
daughter  Phemie  and  strengthen  the  mercantile  con- 
nexion. His  old  age  is  creeping  on  him,  undistinguish- 
ed by  anything  except  the  little  monomania  of  read- 
ing the  letters  from  his  son-in-law  at  least  a  hundred 
times,  and  then  wafering  them  up  over  the  fireplace 
of  his  counting-room — in  doubt,  apparently,  whethei 
he  rightly  understands  the  contents. 


THOSE     UNGRATEFUL    BLIDGIMSES. 


"For,  look  you,  he  hath  as  many  friends  as  enemies;  which  friends,  sir  (as  it  were),  durst  not  (look  you,  sir)    show 
themselves  (as  we  term  it)  his  friends,  while  he's  in  directitude." — Coriolanus. 

"  Hermione. — Our  praises  are  our  wages."—  Winter's  Tale. 


F ,  the  portrait-painter,  was  a  considerable  ally 

of  mine  at  one  time.  His  success  in  his  art  brought 
him  into  contact  with  many  people,  and  he  made 
friends  as  a  fastidious  lady  buys  shoes — trying  on  a 
great  many  that  were  destined  to  be  thrown  aside.  It 
was  the  prompting,  no  doubt,  of  a  generous  quality — 
that  of  believing  all  people  perfect  till  he  discovered 
their  faults — but  as  he  cut  loose  without  ceremony 
from  those  whose  faults  were  not  to  his  mind,  and  as 
ill-fitting  people  are  not  as  patient  of  rejection  as  ill- 
fitting  shoes,  the  quality  did  not  pass  for  its  full  value, 
and  his  abusers  were  "  thick  as  leaves  in  Vallambro- 
sa."  The  friends  who  "wore  his  bleeding  roses," 
however  (and  of  these  he  had  his  share),  fought  his 
battles  quite  at  their  own  charge.  What  with  plenty 
of  pride,  and  as  plentiful  a  lack  of  approbativeness, 
F took  abuse  as  a  duck's  back  takes  rain — buoy- 
ant in  the  shower  as  in  the  sunshine. 

"  Well,  F !"  I  said,  as  I  occupied  his  big  chair 

one  morning  while  he  was  at  work,  "  there  was  great 
skirmishing  about  you  last  night  at  the  tea-party  !" 


"  No  ! — really  ?     Who  was  the  enemy  ?" 

"Two  ladies,  who  said  they  travelled  with  you 
through  Italy,  and  knew  all  about  you — the  Blid- 
gimses." 

"Oh,  the  dear  old  Blidgimses — Crinny  and  Nin- 
ny— the  ungrateful  monsters  !  Did  I  ever  tell  you 
of  my  nursing  those  two  old  girls  through  the  chol- 
era?" 

"  No.  But  before  you  go  off  with  a  long  story, 
tell  me  how  you  can  stand  such  abominable  back- 
biting? It  isn't  once  in  a  way,  merely! — you  are 
their  whole  stock  in  trade,  and  they  vilify  you  in  ev- 
ery house  they  set  foot  in.  The  mildest  part  of  it  is 
criminal  slander,  my  good  fellow  !  Why  not  do  the 
world  a  service,  and  show  that  slander  is  actionable, 
though  it  is  committed  in  good  society  ?" 

"Pshaw!     What  does  it  amount  to? 
'  The  eagle  suffers  little  birds  to  sing, 
And  is  not  careful  what  they  mean  thereby,' 
and  in  this  particular  instance,  the  jury  would  prob- 
ably give  the  damages  the  other  way — for  if  they 


THOSE  UNGRATEFUL  BLIDGIMSES. 


353 


hammer  at  me  till  doomsday,  I  have  had  my  fun  out 
of  them — my  quid  pro  quo!" 

"  Well,  preface  your  story  by  telling  me  where 
you  met  them.  I  never  knew  by  what  perverse  thread 
you  were  drawn  together." 

"A  thread  that  might  have  drawn  me  into  much 
more  desperate  extremity — a  letter  from  the  most  lov- 
able of  women,  charging  me  to  become  the  trusty 
squire  of  these  errant  damsels  wherever  I  should  en- 
counter them.  1  was  then  studying  in  Italy.  They 
came  to  Florence,  where  I  chanced  to  be,  and  were 
handed  over  to  me  without  dog,  cat,  or  waiting-maid, 
by  a  man  who  seemed  ominously  glad  to  be  rid  of 
them.  As  it  was  the  ruralizing  season,  and  all  the 
world  was  flocking  to  the  baths  of  Lucca,  close  by, 
they  went  there  till  I  could  get  ready  to  undertake 
them — which  I  did,  with  the  devotion  of  a  courier  in 
a  new  place,  one  fig-desiring  evening  of  June." 

"Was  there  a  delivery  of  the  great  seal?"  I  asked, 

rather  amused  at  F 's  circumstantial  mention  of 

his  introitus  to  office. 

"  Something  very  like  it,  indeed.  I  had  not  fairly 
got  the  blood  out  of  my  face,  after  making  my  sa- 
laam, when  Miss  Crinny  Blidgims  fished  up  from 
some  deep  place  she  had  about  her,  a  memorandum- 
book,  with  a  well-thumbed  brown  paper  cover,  and 
gliding  across  the  room,  placed  it  in  my  hands  as  peo- 
ple on  the  stage  present  pocket  books — with  a  sort 
of  dust-flapping  parabola.  Now  if  I  have  any  partic- 
ular antipathy,  it  is  to  the  smell  of  old  flannel,  and  as 
this  equivocal-looking  object  descended  before  my 
nose — faith!  But  I  took  it.  It  was  the  account- 
book  of  the  eatables  and  drinkables  furnished  to  the 
ladies  in  their  travels,  the  prices  of  eggs,  bread,  figs, 
et  cetera,  and  I  was  to  begin  my  duties  by  having  up 
the  head  waiter  of  the  lodging-house,  and  holding  in- 
quisition on  his  charges.  The  Blidgimses  spoke  no 
Italian,  and  no  servant  in  the  house  spoke  English, 
and  they  were  bursting  for  a  translator  to  tell  him  that 
the  eggs  were  over-charged,  and  that  he  must  deduct 
threepence  a  day  for  wine,  for  they  never  touched  it!" 

"  '  What  do  the  ladies  wish  ?'  inquired  the  dumb- 
founded waiter,  in  civil  Tuscan. 

'"What  does  he  say?  what  does  he  say?' cried 
Miss  Corinna,  in  resounding  nasal. 

M '  Tell  the  impudent  fellow  what  eggs  are  in  Dutch- 
ess county  !'  peppered  out  Miss  Katrina,  very  sharply. 

"Of  course  I  translated  with  a  discretion.  There 
was  rather  an  incongruity  between  the  looks  of  the 
damsels  and  what  they  were  to  be  represented  as  say- 
ing— Katrina  Blidgims  living  altogether  in  a  blue  op- 
era-hat with  a  white  feather." 

I  interrupted  F to  say  that   the  blue  hat  was 

immortal,  for  it  was  worn  at  the  tea-party  of  the  night 
before. 

*'  I  had  enough  of  the  blue  hat  and  its  bandbox  be- 
fore we  parted.     It  was  the  one  lifetime  extravagance 
of  the  old  maid,  perpetrated   in  Paris,  and  as  it  cov- 
ered the  back  seam  of  a  wig  (a  subsequent  discovery 
of  mine),  she  was  never  without  it,  except  when  bon- 
neted to  go  out.     She  came  to  breakfast  in  it,  mended  j 
her  stockings  in  it,  went  to  parties  in  it.     I  fancy  it  j 
took  some  trouble  to  adjust  it  to  the  wig,  and  she  de-  j 
voted  to  it  the  usual  dressing-hours  of  morning  and  i 
dinner;    for  in  private  she  wore  a  handkerchief  over' 
it,  pinned  under  her  chin,  which  had  only  to  be  whip- 
ped off  when  company  was  announced,  and  this,  per- 
haps, is   one   of   the  secrets  of  its  immaculate,  yet 
threadbare  preservation.     She  called  it  her  abbo  /" 

"  Her  what?" 

"  You  have  heard  of  the  famous  Herbault,  the 
man-milliner,  of  Paris?  The  bonnet  was  his  pro- 
duction, and  called  after  him  with  great  propriety. 
In  Italy,  where  people  dress  according  to  their  con- 
dition in  life,  this  perpetual  abbo  was  something  a  la 
princess?,  and  henr*  my  embarrassment  in  explaining 
23 


to  Jacomo,  the  waiter,  that  Signorina  Katrina's  high 
summons  concerned  only  an  overcharge  of  a  penny 
in  the  eggs  !" 

"  And  what  said  Jacomo  ?" 

"Jacomo  was  incapable  of  an  incivility,  and  begged 
pardon  before  stating  that  the  usual  practice  of  the 
house  was  to  charge  half  a  dollar  a  day  for  board  and 
lodging,  including  a  private  parlor  and  bedroom,  three 
meals  and  a  bottle  of  wine.  The  ladies,  however, 
had  applied  through  an  English  gentleman  (who 
chanced  to  call  on  them,  and  who  spoke  Italian),  to 
have  reductions  made  on  their  dispensing  with  two 
dishes  of  meat  out  of  three,  drinking  no  wine,  and 
wanting  no  nuts  and  raisins.  Their  main  extrava- 
gance was  in  eggs,  which  they  ate  several  times  a 
day  between  meals,  and  wished  to  have  cooked  and 
served  up  at  the  price  per  dozen  in  the  market.  On 
this  they  had  held  conclave  below  stairs,  and  the  re- 
sult had  not  been  communicated,  because  there  was 
no  common  language  ;  but  Jacomo  wished,  through 
me,  respectfully  to  represent,  that  the  reductions  from 
j  the  half  dollar  a  day  should  be  made  as  requested, 
but  that  the  eggs  could  not  be  bought,  cooked,  and 
served  up  (with  salt  and  bread,  and  a  clean  napkin), 
j  for  just  their  price  in  the  market.  And  on  this  point 
the  ladies  were  obstinate.  And  to  settle  this  difficulty 
between  the  high  contracting  parties,  cost  an  argu- 
ment of  a  couple  of  hours,  my  first  performance  as 
translator  in  the  service  of  the  Blidgimses.  Thence- 
forward, I  was  as  necessary  to  Crinny  and  Ninny — 
(these  were  their  familiar  diminutives  for  Corinna  and 
Katrina) — as  necessary  to  Crinny  as  the  gift  of  speech, 
and  to  Ninny  as  the  wig  and  abbo  put  together.  Obe- 
dient to  the  mandate  of  the  fair  hand  which  had  con- 
signed me  to  them,  I  gave  myself  up  to  their  service, 
even  keeping  in  my  pocket  their  frowsy  grocery- 
book — though  not  without  some  private  outlay  in 
burnt  vinegar.  What  penance  a  man  will  undergo 
for  a  pretty  woman  who  cares  nothing  about  him!" 

"  But  what  could  have  started  such  a  helpless  pair 
of  old  quizzes  upon  their  travels  ?" 

"  I  wondered  myself  till  I  knew  them  better. 
Crinny  Blidgims  had  a  tongue  of  the  liveliness  of  an 
eel's  tail.  It  would  have  wagged  after  she  was  skinned 
and  roasted.  She  had,  beside,  a  kind  of  pinchbeck 
smartness,  and  these  two  gifts,  and  perhaps  the  name 
of  Corinna,  had  inspired  her  with  the  idea  that  she 
was  an  improrisatrice.  So,  how  could  she  die  without 
going  to  Italy  ?" 

"  And  Ninny  went  for  company  ?" 

"  Oh,  Miss  Ninny  Blidgims  had  a  passion  too ! 
She  had  come  out  to  see  Paris.  She  had  heard  that, 
in  Paris,  people  could  renew  their  youth,  and  she 
thought  she  had  done  it,  with  her  abbo.  She  thought, 
too,  that  she  must  have  manners  to  correspond.  So, 
while  travelling  in  her  old  bonnet,  she  blurted  out  her 
bad  grammer  as  she  had  done  for  fifty  years,  but  in 
her  blue  hat  she  simpered  and  frisked  to  the  best  ot 
her  recollection.  Silly  as  that  old  girl  was,  however 
she  had  the  most  pellucid  set  of  ideas  on  the  prices 
of  things  to  eat.  There  was  no  humbugging  her  on 
that  subject,  even  in  a  foreign  language.  She  filled 
her  pockets  with  apples,  usually,  in  our  walks  ;  and 
the  translating  between  her  and  a  street-huckster,  she 
in  her  abbo  and  the  apple-woman  in  Italian  rags,  was 
vexatious  to  endure,  but  very  funny  to  remember.  I 
have  thought  of  painting  it,  but,  to  understand  the 
picture,  the  spectator  must  make  the  acquaintance  of 
Miss  Fanny  Blidgims — rather  a  pill  for  a  connoisseur! 
But  by  this  time  you  are  ready  to  approfond,  as  the 
French  aptly  say,  the  depths  of  my  subsequent  dis- 
tresses. 

THE    STORY. 

"  I  had  been  about  a  month  at  Lucca,  when  it  was 
suddenly  proposed  by  Crinny  that  we  should  take  a 


354 


THOSE  UNGRATEFUL  BLIDGIMSES. 


vetturino  together,  and  go  to  Venice.  Ninny  and  she 
had  come  down  to  dinner  with  a  sudden  disgust  for 
the  baths — owing,  perhaps,  to  the  distinction  they  had 
received  as  the  only  strangers  in  the  place  who  were 
not  invited  to  the  ball  of  a  certain  prince,  our  next-door 
neighbor.  The  Blidgimses  and  their  economies,  in 
fact,  had  become  the  joke  of  the  season,  and,  as  the 
interpreter  in  the  egg-trades,  I  was  mixed  up  in  the 
omelette,  and  as  glad  to  escape  from  my  notoriety  as 
they.  So  I  set  about  looking  up  the  conveyance  with 
some  alacrity. 

"  By  the  mass,  it  was  evidently  a  great  saving  of 
distance  to  cross  the  mountains  to  Modena.  and  of 
course  a  great  saving  of  expense,  as  vetturinos  are 
paid  by  the  mile  ;  but  the  guide-books  stated  that  the 
road  was  rough,  and  the  inns  abominable,  and  recom- 
mended to  all  who  cared  for  comfort  to  make  a  circum- 
bendibus by  the  way  of  Florence  and  Bologna. 
Ninny  declared  she  could  live  on  bread  and  apples, 
however,  and  Crinny  delighted  in  mountain  air — in 
short,  economy  carried  it,  and  after  three  days'  chaf- 
fering with  the  owner  of  a  rattletrap  vettura,  we  set  off 
up  the  banks  of  the  Lima  without  the  blessing  of 
Jacomo,  the  head  waiter. 

"  We  soon  left  the  bright  little  river,  and  struck 
into  the  mountains,  and  as  the  carriage  crept  on  very 
slowly,  I  relieved  the  horses  of  my  weight  and  walked 
on.  The  ladies  did  the  same  thing  whenever  they 
came  in  sight  of  an  orchard,  and  for  the  first  day 
Ninny  munched  the  unripe  apples  and  seemed  getting 
along  very  comfortably.  The  first  night's  lodging 
was  execrable,  but  as  the  driver  assured  us  it  was  the 
best  on  the  route,  we  saved  our  tempers  for  the  worst, 
and  the  next  day  began  to  penetrate  a  country  that 
looked  deserted  of  man,  and  curst  with  uninhabitable 
sterility.  Its  effect  upon  my  spirits,  as  I  walked  on 
alone,  was  as  depressing  as  the  news  of  some  trying 
misfortune,  and  I  was  giving  it  credit  for  one  redeem- 
ing quality — that  of  an  opiate  to  a  tongue  like  Crinny 
Blidgims's — when  both  the  ladies  began  to  show  symp- 
toms of  illness.  It  was  not  long  after  noon,  and  we 
were  in  the  midst  of  a  waste  upland,  the  road  bending 
over  the  horizon  before  and  behind  us,  and  neither 
shed  nor  shelter,  bush,  wall,  or  tree,  within  reach  of 
the  eye.  The  only  habitation  we  had  seen  since  morn- 
ing was  a  wretched  hovel  where  the  horses  were  fed 
at  noon,  and  the  albergo,  where  we  should  pass  the 
night,  was  distant  several  hours — a  long  up-hill 
stretch,  on  which  the  pace  of  the  horses  could  not 
possibly  be  mended.  The  ladies  were  bent  double  in 
the  carriage,  and  said  they  could  not  possibly  go  on. 
Going  back  was  out  of  the  question.  The  readiest 
service  I  could  proffer  was  to  leave  them  and  hurry 
on  to  the  inn,  to  prepare  for  their  reception. 

"  Fortunately  our  team  was  unicorn-rigged — one 
horse  in  advance  of  a  pair.  I  took  off  the  leader,  and 
galloped  away. 

"  Well,  the  cholera  was  still  lingering  in  Italy,  and 
stomachs  must  be  cholera-proof  to  stand  a  perpetual 
diet  of  green  apples,  even  with  no  epidemic  in  the  air. 
So  I  had  a  very  clear  idea  of  the  remedies  that  would 
be  required  on  their  arrival. 

"  At  a  hand-gallop  I  reached  the  albergo  in  a  couple 
of  hours.  It  was  a  large  stone  barrack,  intended,  no 
doubt,  as  was  the  road  we  had  travelled,  for  military 
uses.  A  thick  stone  wall  surrounded  it,  and  it  stood 
in  the  midst,  in  a  pool  of  mud.  From  the  last  emi- 
nence before  arriving,  not  another  object  could  be 
descried  within  a  horizon  of  twenty  miles  diameter, 
and  a  whitish  soil  of  baked  clay,  browned  here  and 
there  by  a  bit  of  scanty  herbage,  was  foreground  and 
middle  and  background  to  the  pleasant  picture.  The 
site  of  the  barrack  had  probably  been  determined  by 
the  only  spring  within  many  miles,  and  by  the  dryness 
without  and  the  mud  within  the  walls,  it  was  contrived 
for  a  monopoly  by  the  besieged. 


"  I  cantered  in  at  the  unhinged  gate,  and  roared 
out  '  casa  !'  '  cameriere  !'  '  botega  !'  till  I  was  fright- 
ened at  my  own  voice. 

"  No  answer.  I  threw  my  bridle  over  a  projection 
of  the  stone  steps,  and  mounted,  from  an  empty 
stable  which  occupied  the  ground  floor  (Italian 
fashion),  to  the  second  story,  which  seemed  equally 
uninhabited.  Here  were  tables,  however,  and  wooden 
settees,  and  dirty  platters — the  first  signs  of  life.  On 
the  hearth  was  an  iron  pot  and  a  pair  of  tongs,  and 
with  these  two  musical  instruments  I  played  a  tune 
which  I  was  sure  would  find  ears,  if  ears  there  were 
on  the  premises.  And  presently  a  heavy  foot  was 
heard  on  the  stair  above,  and  with  a  sonorous  yawn 
descended  mine  host — dirty  and  stolid — a  goodly  pat- 
tern of  the  '  fat  weed  on  Lethe's  wharf,'  as  you  would 
meet  in  a  century.  He  had  been  taking  his  siesta, 
and  his  wife  had  had  a  colpo  di  sole,  and  was  confined 
helplessly  to  her  bed.  The  man  John  was  out  tend- 
i  ing  sheep,  and  he,  the  host,  was  vicariously,  cook, 
j  waiter,  and  chambermaid.  What  might  be  the  pleas- 
!  ure  of  il  signore  ? 

"  My  pleasure  was,  first,  to  see  the  fire  kindled  and 
the   pot   put  over,   and  then  to   fall  into   a    brown 
:  study. 

"  Two  fine  ladies  with  the  cholera — two  days'  jour- 
I  ney  from  a  physician — a  fat  old  Italian  landlord  for 
j  nurse  and  sole  counsellor — nobody  who  could  under- 
i  stand  a  word  they  uttered,  except  myself,  and  not  a 
'  drug  nor  a  ministering  petticoat  within  available 
■  limits  !  Then  the  doors  of  the  chambers  were  with- 
:  out  latches  or  hinges,  and  the  little  bed  in  each  great 
[  room  was  the  one  article  of  furniture,  and  the  house 
j  was  so  still  in  the  midst  of  that  great  waste,  that  all 
!  sounds  and  movements  whatever,  must  be  of  common 
cognisance  !  Should  I  be  discharging  my  duty  to 
ladies  under  my  care  to  leave  them  to  this  dirty  old 
j  man  ?  Should  I  offer  my  own  attendance  as  constant 
!  nurse,  and  would  the  service  be  accepted  ?  How,  in 
j  the  name  of  Robinson  Crusoe,  were  these  delicate 
damsels  to  be  '  done  for'  ? 

"  As  a  matter  of  economy  in  dominos,  as  well  as  to 
have  something  Italian  to  bring  home,  I  had  bought  at 
Naples  the  costume  of  a  sister  of  charity,  and  in  it  I 
had  done  all  my  masquerading  for  three  carnivals.  It 
,  was  among  my  baggage,  and  it  occurred  to  me 
whether  I  had  not  better  take  the  landlord  into  my 
confidence,  and  bribe  him  to  wait  upon  the  ladies,  dis- 
guised in  coif  and  petticoat.  No — for  he  had  a  mus- 
tache, and  spoke  nothing  but  Italian.  Should  1  do  it 
myself? 

"I  paced  up  and  down  the  stone  floor  in  an  agony 
of  dilemma. 

"  In  the  course  of  half  an  hour  I  had  made  up  my 
mind.  I  called  to  Boniface,  who  was  watching  the 
j  boiling  pot,  and  made  a  clean  breast  to  him  of  my 
impending  distresses,  aiding  his  comprehension  by 
such  eye-water  as  landlords  require.  He  readily  un- 
dertook the  necessary  lies,  brought  out  his  store  of 
brandy,  added  a  second  bed  to  one  of  the  apartments, 
and  promised  faithfully  to  bear  my  sex  in  mind,  and 
treat  me  with  the  reverence  due  my  cross  and  rosary. 
I  then  tore  out  a  leaf  of  the  grocery  book,  and  wrote 
with  my  pencil  a  note  to  this  effect,  to  be  delivered  to 
the  ladies  on  their  arrival : — 

"'Dear  Miss  Blidgims  :  Feeling  quite  indispo- 
sed myself,  apd  being  firmly  persuaded  that  we  are 
three  cases  of  cholera,  I  have  taken  advantage  of  a 
return  calesino  to  hurry  on  to  Modena  for  medical 
advice.  The  vehicle  I  take,  brought  hither  a  sister  of 
charity,  who  assures  me  she  will  wait  on  you,  even  in 
the  most  malignant  stage  of  your  disease.  She  is 
collecting  funds  for  an  hospital,  and  will  receive  com- 
pensation for  her  services  in  the  form  of  a  donation  to 
this  object.     I  shnll  send  you  a  physician  by  express 


THOSE  UNGRATEFUL  BLIDGIMSES. 


355 


from  Modena,  where  it  is  still  possible  we  may  meet. 
With  prayers,  <fcc,  &c. 

"  '  Yours  very  devotedly,  "  '  F. 

"  '  P.  S.  Sister  Benedetta  understands  French  when 
spoken,  though  she  speaks  only  Italian.' 

"  The  delivery  of  this  was  subject,  of  course,  to 
the  condition  of  the  ladies  when  they  should  arrive, 
though  I  had  a  presentiment  they  were  in  for  a  serious 
business. 

"And,  true  to  my  boding,  they  did  arrive,  exceed- 
ingly ill.  An  hour  earlier  than  I  had  looked  for  him, 
the  vetturino  came  up  with  foaming  horses  at  a  tug- 
ging trot,  frightened  half  out  of  his  senses.  The 
ladies  were  dying,  he  swore  by  all  the  saints,  before  he 
dismounted.  He  tore  open  the  carriage  door,  shouted 
for  il  sig  nore  and  the  landlord,  and  had  carried  both 
the  groaning  girls  up  stairs  in  his  arms,  before  fat 
Boniface,  who  had  been  killing  a  sheep  in  the  stable, 
could  wash  his  hands  and  come  out  to  him.  To  his 
violent  indignation,  the  landlord's  first  care  was  to 
unstrap  the  baggage  and  take  off  my  portmanteau, 
condescending  to  give  him  neither  why  nor  wherefore, 
and  as  it  mounted  the  stairs  on  the  broad  shoulders  of 
my  faithful  ally,  it  was  followed  by  a  string  of  oaths 
such  as  can  rattle  off  from  nothing  but  the  voluble 
tongue  of  an  Italian. 

"  I  immediately  despatched  the  note  by  the  host, 
requesting  him  to  come  back  and  'do  my  dress,'  and 
in  half  an  hour  sister  Benedetta's  troublesome  toilet 
was  achieved,  and  my  old  Abigail  walked  around  me, 
rubbing  his  hands,  and  swore  I  was  a  'meraviglia  di 
belleza.'  The  lower  part  of  my  face  was  covered  by 
the  linen  coif,  and  the  forehead  was  almost  completely 
concealed  in  the  plain  put-away  of  a  '  false  front ;' 
and,  unless  the  Blidgimses  had  reconnoitred  my  nose 
and  eyes  very  carefully,  I  was  sure  of  my  disguise. 
The  improvements  in  my  figure  were,  unluckily, 
fixtures  in  the  dress,  for  it  was  very  hot ;  but  by  the 
landlord's  account  they  were  very  becoming.  Do  you 
believe  the  old  dog  tried  to  kiss  me? 

"  The  groans  of  Ninny,  meantime,  resounded 
through  the  house,  for,  as  I  expected,  she  had  the 
worst  of  it.  Her  exclamations  of  pain  were  broken 
up,  I  could  also  hear,  by  sentences  in  a  sort  of  spiteful 
monotone,  answered  in  regular  '  humphs  !'  by  Crin- 
ny — Crinny  never  talking  except  to  astonish,  and  being 
as  habitually  crisp  to  her  half-witted  sister  as  she  was 
fluent  to  those  who  were  capable  of  surprise.  Fear- 
ing that  some  disapprobation  of  myself  might  find  its 
way  to  Ninny's  lips,  and  for  several  other  reasons 
which  occurred  to  me,  1  thought  it  best  to  give  the 
ladies  another  half  hour  to  themselves,  and  by  way  of 
testing  my  incognito,  bustled  about  in  the  presence  of 
the  vetturino,  warming  oil  and  mixing  brandies-and- 
water,  and  getting  used  to  the  suffocation  of  my  petti- 
coats— for  you  have  no  idea  how  intolerably  hot  they 
are,  with  trowsers  under. 

"  Quite  assured,  at  last,  I  knocked  at  the  door. 
"'That's  his  nun!'  said  Ninny,  after  listening  an 
instant. 

"'Come  in! — that  is  to  say,  cntrezV  feebly  mur- 
mured Crinny. 

"  They  were  both  in  bed,  rolled  up  like  pocket- 
handkerchiefs  ;  but  Ninny  had  found  strength  to  band- 
box her  wig  and  abbo,  and  array  herself  in  a  nightcap 
with  an  exceedingly  broad  frill.  But  1  must  not 
trench  upon  the  'secrets  of  the  prison-house.'  You 
are  a  baehelor,  and  the  Blidgimses  are  still  in  a  '  world 
of  hope.' 

"  1  walked  in  and  leaned  over  each  of  them,  and 
whispered  a  benedicite,  felt  their  pulses,  and  made 
signs  that  I  understood  their  complaints  and  they  need 
not  trouble  themselves  to  explain ;  and  forthwith  I  com- 
menced operations  by  giving  them  their  grog  (which 
I  bey  swallowed  without  making  farrs,  by-the-by),  and, 


as  they  relaxed  their  postures  a  little,  I  got  one  foot  at 
a  time  hung  over  to  me  from  the  side  of  the  bed  into 
the  pail  of  hot  water,  and  set  them  to  rubbing  them- 
selves with  the  warm  oil,  while  I  vigorously  bathed 
their  extremities.  Crinny,  as  I  very  well  knew,  had 
but  five-and-twenty  words  of  French,  just  sufficient  to 
hint  at  her  wants,  and  Ninny  spoke  only  such  English 
as  Heaven  pleased,  so  I  played  the  ministering  angel 
in  safe  silence — listening  to  my  praises,  however,  for  I 
handled  Ninny's  irregular  doigts  du  pied  with  a  ten- 
derness that  pleased  her. 

"Well — you  know  what  the  cholera  is.  I  knew 
that  at  the  Hotel  Dieu  at  Paris,  women  who  had  not 
been  intemperate  were  oftenest  cured  by  whiskey 
punches,  and  as  brandy  toddies  were  the  nearest  ap- 
proach of  which  the  resources  of  the  place  admitted, 
I  plied  my  patients  with  brandy  toddy.  In  the  weak 
I  state  of  their  stomachs,  it  produced,  of  course,  a  de- 
lirious intoxication,  and  as  I  began  very  early  in  the 
i  morning,  there  were  no  lucid  intervals  in  which  my 
incognito  might  be  endangered.  My  ministrations 
;  were,  consequently,  very  much  facilitatsd,  and  after 
:  the  second  day  (when  I  really  thought  the  poor  girls 
would  die),  we  fell  into  a  very  regular  course  of  hos- 
pital life,  and  for  one,  I  found  it  very  entertaining. 
Quite  impressed  with  the  idea  that  sister  Bellidettor 
i  (as  Ninny  called  me)  understood  not  a  word  of  Eng- 
lish, they  discoursed  to  please  themselves,  and  I  was 
'  obliged  to  get  a  book,  to  excuse,  even  to  their  tipsy 
j  comprehension,  my  outbreaks  of  laughter.  Crinny 
spouted  poetry  and  sobbed  about  Washington  Irving, 
|  who,  she  thought,  should  have  been  her  lover,  and 
j  Ninny  sat  up  in  bed,  and,  with  a  small  glass  she  had 
|  in  the  back  of  a  hair-brush,  tried  on  her  abbo  at  every 
|  possible  angle,  always  ending  by  making  signs  to  sister 
!  Bellidettor  to  come  and  comb  her  hair !  There  was  a 
long,  slender,  mustache  remaining  on  the  back  of  the 
bald  crown,  and  after  putting  this  into  my  hand,  with 
the  hair-brush,  she  sat  with  a  smile  of  delight  till  she 
found  my  brushing  did  not  come  round  to  the  front ! 

'"Why  don't  you  brush  this  lock?'  she  cried, 
'this — and  this — and  this!'  making  passes  from  her 
shining  skull  down  to  her  waist,  as  if,  in  every  one,  she 
had  a  handful  of  hair  !  And  so,  for  an  hour  together, 
I  threaded  these  imaginary  locks,  beginning  where 
they  were  rooted  '  long  time  ago,'  and  passing  the 
brush  off  to  the  length  of  my  arm — the  cranium, 
when  I  had  done,  looking  like  a  balloon  of  shot  silk, 
its  smooth  surface  was  so  purpled  with  the  friction  of 
the  bristles.  Poor  Ninny  !  She  has  great  temptation 
to  tipple,  I  think — that  is,  '  if  Macassar  won't  bring 
back  the  lost  chevelure  ." 

"  About  the  fifth  day,  the  ladies  began  to  show 
signs  of  convalescence,  and  it  became  necessary  to 
reduce  their  potations.  Of  course  they  grew  less 
entertaining,  and  1  was  obliged  to  be  much  more  on 
my  guard.  Crinny  fell  from  her  inspiration,  and 
Ninny  from  her  complacency,  and  they  came  down  to 
their  previous  condition  of  damaged  spinsters,  prim 
and  peevish.  'Needs  must'  that  1  should  '  play  out 
the  play,'  however,  and  I  abated  none  of  my  petits 
soins  for  their  comfort,  laying  out  very  large  anticipa- 
tions of  their  grateful  acknowledgments  lor  my  dra- 
matic chivalry,  devotion,  and  delicacy  !" 

"  Well— they  are  ungrateful  !"  said  I,  interrupting 

F for  the  first  time  in  his  story. 

"  Now,  are  not  they  ?  They  should  at  least,  since 
they  denv  me  my  honors,  pay  me  for  my  services  as 
maid-of-all-work,  nurse,  hair-dresser,  and  apothecary  ! 
Well,  if  I  hear  of  their  abusing  me  again,  I'll  send  in 
my  bills.  Wouldn't  you  ?  But,  to  wind  up  this  long 
story. 

"  [  thought  that  perhaps  there  might  be  some  little 
circumstances  connected  with  my  attentions  which 
would  look  best  at  a  distance,  and  that  it  would  be 
more  delicate  to  go  on   and   take   leave  at    Modena  as 


356 


THOSE  UNGRATEFUL  BLIDGIMSES. 


sister  Benedetfa,  and  rejoin  them  the  next  morning  in 
hose  and  doublet  as  before — reserving  to  some  future 
period  the  clearing  up  of  my  apparently  recreant  de- 
sertion. On  the  seventh  morning,  therefore,  I  in- 
structed old  Giuseppe,  the  landlord,  to  send  in  his  bill 
to  the  ladies  while  I  was  dressing,  and  give  notice  to 
the  vetturino  that  he  was  to  take  the  holy  sister  to 
Modena  in  the  place  of  il  signore,  who  had  gone  on 
before. 

*  Crinny  and  Ninny  were  their  own  reciprocal 
dressing-maids,  but  Crinny's  fingers  had  weakened  by 
sickness  much  more  than  hor  sister's  waist  had  dimin- 
ished, and,  in  the  midst  of  shaving,  in  my  own  room, 
I  was  called  to  '  finish  doing'  Ninny,  who  backed  up 
to  me  with  her  mouth  full  of  pins,  and  the  breath,  for 
the  time  being,  quite  expelled  from  her  body.  As  I 
was  straining,  very  red  in  the  face,  at  the  critical  hook, 
Giuseppe  knocked  at  the  door,  with  the  bill,  and  the 
lack  of  an  interpreter  to  dispute  the  charges,  brought 
up  the  memory  of  the  supposed  '  absquatulator'  with 
no  very  grateful  odor.  Before  I  could  finish  Miss 
Ninny  and  get  out  of  the  room,  I  heard  myself 
charged  with  more  abominations,  mental  and  personal, 
than  the  monster  that  would  have  made  the  fortune  of 
Trinculo.  Crinny  counted  down  half  the  money,  and 
attempted,  by  very  expressive  signs,  to  impress  upon 
Giuseppe  that  it  was  enough  ;  but  the  oiiy  palm  of 
the  old  publican  was  patiently  held  out  for  more,  and 
she  at  last  paid  the  full  demand,  fairly  crying  with  vex- 
ation. 

"Quite  sick  of  the  new  and  divers  functions  to 
which  I  had  been  serving  an  apprenticeship  in  my 
black  petticoat,  I  took  my  place  in  the  vettura,  and 
dropped  veil,  to  be  sulky  in  one  lump  as  far  as  Mode- 
na. I  would  willingly  have  stopped  my  ears,  but  after 
wearing  out  their  indignation  at  the  unabated  charges 
of  old  Giuseppe,  the  ladies  took  up  the  subject  of  the 
expected  donation  to  the  charity-fund  of  sister  Bene- 
detta,  and  their  expedients  to  get  rid  of  it  occupied 
(very  amusingly  to  me)  the  greater  part  of  a  day's 
travel.  They  made  up  their  minds  at  last,  that  half  a 
dollar  would  be  as  much  as  I  could  expect  for  my 
week's  attendance,  and  Crinny  requested  that  she 
should  not  be  interrupted  while  she  thought  out  the 
French  for  saying  as  much  when  we  should  come  to 
the  parting. 

"  I  was  sitting  quietly  in  the  corner  of  the  vellura, 
the  next  day,  felicitating  myself  on  the  success  of  my 
masquerade,  when  we  suddenly  came  to  a  halt  at  the 


gate  of  Modena,  and  the  doganiere  put  his  mustache 
in  at  the  window,  with  '■passaporti,  signore  !' 

"Murder!  thought  I — here's  a  difficulty  I  never 
provided  for! 

"  The  ladies  handed  out  their  papers,  and  I  thrust 
my  hand  through  the  slit  in  the  side  of  my  dress  and 
pulled  mine  from  my  pocket.  As  of  course  you 
know,  it  is  the  business  of  this  gatekeeper  to  compare 
every  traveller  with  the  description  given  of  him  in 
his  passport.  He  read  those  of  the  Blidgimses  and 
looked  at  them — all  right.  I  sat  still  while  he  opened 
mine,  thinking  it  possible  he  might  not  care  to  read 
the  description  of  a  sister  of  charity.  But  to  my  dis- 
may he  did — and  opened  his  eyes,  and  looked  again 
into  the  carriage. 

"'Aspetta,  caroV  said  I,  for  I  saw  it  was  of  no  use. 
I  gathered  up  my  bombazine  and  stepped  out  into  the 
road.  There  were  a  dozen  soldiers  and  two  or  three 
loungers  sitting  una  long  bench  in  the  shade  of  the  gate- 
way. The  officer  read  through  the  description  once 
more,  and  then  turned  to  me  with  the  look  of  a  func- 
tionary who  has  detected  a  culprit.  I  began  to  pull  up 
my  petticoat.  The  soldiers  took  their  pipes  out  of  their 
mouths  and  uttered  the  Italian  'keck'  of  surprise. 
When  I  had  got  as  far  as  the  knee,  however,  I  came 
to  the  rolled-up  trowsers,  and  the  officer  joined  in  the 
sudden  uproar  of  laughter.  I  pulled  my  black  petti- 
coat over  my  head,  and  stood  in  my  waistcoat  and 
shirt-sleeves,  and  bowed  to  the  merry  official.  The 
Blidgimses,  to  my  surprise,  uttered  no  exclamation, 
but  I  had  forgotten  my  coif.  When  that  was  unpin- 
ned, and  my  whiskers  came  to  light,  their  screams 
became  alarming.  The  vetturino  ran  for  water,  the 
soldiers  started  to  their  feet,  and  in  the  midst  of  the 
excitement,  I  ordered  down  my  baggage  and  resumed 
my  coat  and  cap,  and  repacked  under  lock  and  key 
the  sister  Benedetta.  And  not  quite  ready  to  en- 
counter the  Blidgimses,  I  walked  on  to  the  hotel  and 
left  the  vetturino  to  bring  on  the  ladies  at  his  leisure. 

"Of  course  I  had  no  control  over  accidents,  and 
this  exposure  was  unlucky  ;  but  if  I  had  had  time  to 
let  myself  down  softly  on  the  subject,  don't  you  see  it 
would  have  been  quite  a  different  sort  of  an  affair?  I 
parted  company  from  the  old  girls  at  Modena,  how- 
ever, and  they  were  obliged  to  hire  a  man-servant  who 
spoke  English  and  Italian,  and  probably  the  expense 
of  that  was  added  to  my  iniquities.  Anyhow,  abusing 
me  this  way  is  very  ungrateful  of  these  Blidgimses. 
Now,  isn't  it  ?" 


DASHES     AT     LIFE 


WITH  A  FREE  PENCIL 


PART      II; 


INKLINGS    OF    ADVENTURE, 


LOITERINGS    OF    TRAVEL. 


PREFACE 


The  following  passages  are  extracts  from  the 
prefaces  to  the  English  editions  of  the  two  works 
included  in  this  book — "  Inklings  of  Adventure" 
and  "  Loiterings  of  Travel :" — 

It  will  be  seen,  by  many  marks  in  the  narratives 
which  follow,  that  they  are  not  the  work  of  ima- 
gination. The  dramas  of  real  life  are  seldom  well 
wound  up,  and  the  imperfectness  of  plot  which 
might  be  objected  to  them  as  tales,  will  prove  to 
the  observant  reader  that  they  are  drawn  more 
from  memory  than  fancy.  It  is  because  they  are 
thus  imperfect  in  dramatic  accomplishment,  that  I 
have  called  them  by  the  name  under  which  they 
have  been  introduced.  They  are  rather  intima- 
tions of  what  seemed  to  lead  to  a  romantic  termi- 
nation than  complete  romances — in  short,  they  are 
Inklings  of  Adventure.  The  adventures  were  jotted 
down — the  events  recorded — the  poems  indited, 
and  the  letters  despatched,  while  the  thought  was 
freshly  born,  or  the  incident  freshly  heard  or  re- 
membered— at  the  first  place  which  afforded  the 
leisure — in  short,  during  Loiterings  of  Travel. 

For  the  living  portraitures  of  the  book  I  have  a 
word  to  say.  That  sketches  of  the  whim  of  the 
hour,  its  manners,  fashions,  and  those  ephemeral 
trifles,  which,  slight  as  they  are,  constitute  in  a 
great  measure  its  "  form  and  pressure" — that  these, 
and  familiar  traits  of  persons  distinguished  in  our 
time,  are  popular  and  amusing,  I  have  the  most 
weighty  reasons  certainly  to  know.  They  sell. 
"  Are  they  innocent  ?"  is  the  next  question.  And 
to  this  I  know  no  more  discreet  answer  than  that 
mine  have  offended  nobody  but  the  critics.  It  has 
been  said  that  sketches  of  contemporary  society 
require  little  talent,  and  belong  to  an  inferior  or- 
der of  literature.  Perhaps.  Yet  they  must  be  well 
done  to  attract  notice  at  all ;  and  if  true  and  graphic, 


they  are  not  only  excellent  material  for  future 
biographers,  but  to  all  who  live  out  of  the  magic 
circles  of  fashion  and  genius,  they  are  more  than 
amusing — they  are  instructive.  To  such  persons, 
living  authors,  orators,  and  statesmen,  are  as  much 
characters  of  history,  and  society  in  cities  is  as 
much  a  subject  of  philosophic  curiosity,  as  if  a 
century  had  intervened.  The  critic  who  finds 
these  matters  "  stale  and  unprofitable,"  lives  in  the 
circles  described,  and  the  pictures  drawn  at  his 
elbow  lack  to  his  eye  the  effect  of  distance  ;  but 
the  same  critic  woidd  delight  in  a  familiar  sketch 
of  a  supper  with  "  my  lord  of  Leicester"  in  Eliz- 
abeth's time,  of  an  evening  with  Raleigh  and 
Spenser,  or  perhaps  he  would  be  amused  with  a 
description  by  an  eye-witness  of  Mary  Queen  of 
Scots,  riding  home  to  Holyrood  with  her  train  of 
admiring  nobles.  I  have  not  named  in  the  same 
sentence  the  ever-deplored  blank  in  our  knowledge 
of  Shakspere's  person  and  manners.  What 
would  not  a  trait  by  the  most  unskilful  hand  be 
worth  now — if  it  were  nothing  but  how  he  gave 
the  good-morrow  to  Ben  Jonson  in  Eastcheap  ? 

How  far  sketches  of  the  living  are  a  breach  of 
courtesy  committed  by  the  author  toward  the  per- 
sons described,  depends,  of  course,  on  the  temper 
in  which  they  are  done.  To  select  a  subject  for 
complimentary  description  is  to  pay  the  most  un- 
doubted tribute  to  celebrity,  and,  as  far  as  I  have 
observed,  most  distinguished  persons  sympathize 
with  the  public  interest  in  them  and  their  belong- 
ings, and  are  willing  to  have  their  portraits  drawn, 
either  with  pen  or  pencil,  by  as  many  as  offer 
them  the  compliment.  It  would  be  ungracious  to 
the  admiring  world  if  they  were  not. 

The  outer  man  is  a  debtor  for  the  homage  paid 
to  the  soul  which  inhabits  him,  and  he  is  bound, 
like  a  porter  at  the  gate,  to  satisfy  all  reasonable 


360 


PREFACE. 


curiosity  as  to  the  habits  of  the  nobler  and  invis- 
ible tenant.  He  owes  his  peculiarities  to  the 
world. 


For  myself,  I  am  free  to  confess  that  no  age 
interests  me  like  the  present ;  that  no  pictures  of 
society  since  the  world  began,  are  half  so  enter- 
taining to  me  as  those  of  English  society  in  our 
day;  and  that,  whatever  comparison  the  living 
great  men  of  England  may  sustain  with  those  of 
other  days,  there  is  no  doubt  in  my  mind  that  Eng- 
lish social  life,  at  the  present  moment,  is  at  a  high- 
er pitch  of  refinement  and  cultivation  than  it  was 
ever  here  or  elsewhere  since  the  world  began — 
consequently  it,  and  all  who  form  and  figure  in  it, 
are  dignified  and  legitimate  subjects  of  curiosity 
and  speculation.  The  Count  Mirabel  and  Lady 
Bellair  of  D'Israeli's  last  romance,  are,  to  my 
mind,  the  cleverest  portraits,  as  well  as  the  most 
entertaining  characters,  of  modern  novel-writing  ; 
and  D'Israeli,  by  the  way,  is  the  only  English  au- 
thor who  seems  to  have  the  power  of  enlarging 
his  horizon,  and  getting  a  perspective  view  of  the 
times  he  lives  in.  His  novels  are  far  more  popu- 
lar in  America  than  in  England,  because  the  At- 


lantic is  to  us  a  century.  We  picture  to  ourselves 
England  and  Victoria  as  we  picture  to  ourselves 
England  and  Elizabeth.  We  relish  an  anecdote 
of  Sheridan  Knowles  as  we  should  one  of  Ford 
or  Marlowe.  This  immense  ocean  between  us  is 
like  the  distance  of  time  ;  and  while  all  that  is 
minute  and  bewildering  is  lost  to  us,  the  greater 
lights  of  the  age  and  the  prominent  features  of  so- 
ciety stand  out  apart,  and  we  judge  of  them  like 
posterity.  Much  as  I  have  myself  lived  in  Eng- 
land, I  have  never  been  able  to  remove  this  long 
perspective  from  between  my  eye  and  the  great  men 
of  whom  I  read  and  thought  on  the  other  side  of 
the  Atlantic.  When  I  find  myself  in  the  same 
room  with  the  hero  of  Waterloo,  my  blood  creeps 
as  if  I  had  seen  Cromwell  or  Marlborough ;  and 
I  sit  down  afterward  to  describe  how  he  looked, 
with  the  eagerness  with  which  I  should  commu- 
nicate to  my  friends  some  disinterred  description 
of  these  renowned  heroes  by  a  contemporary 
writer.  If  Cornelius  Agrippa  were  redivivus,  in 
short,  and  would  show  rne  his  magic  mirror,  I 
should  as  soon  call  up  Moore  as  Dryden — Words- 
worth or  Wilson  as  soon  as  Pope  or  Crichton. 


INKLINGS   OF   ADVENTURE. 


PEDLAR  KARL. 

"  Which  manner  of  digression,  however  some  dislike  as  frivo- 
lous and  impertinent,  yet  (  am  of  Beroaldus  his  opinion,  such  di- 
gressions do  mightily  delight  and  refresh  a  weary  reader :  they  are 
like  *awce  to  a  bad  stomach,  and  I  therefore  do  most  willingly  use 
them."— Burton. 

"  Bienheureuses  les  imparfaites  ;  a  elles  appartient  le  royaume 
de  l'amour." — L' Evangilc  des  Femmes. 

I  am  not  sure  whether  Lebanon  Springs,  the  scene 
of  a  romantic  story  I  am  about  to  tell,  belong  to  New 
York  or  Massachusetts.  It  is  not  very  important,  to 
be  sure,  in  a  country  where  people  take  Vermont  and 
Patagonia  to  be  neighboring  states,  but  I  have  a  natu- 
ral looseness  in  geography  which  I  take  pains  to  mor- 
tify by  exposure.  Very  odd  that  I  should  not  remem- 
ber more  of  the  spot  where  I  took  my  first  lessons  in 
philandering  ! — where  I  first  saw  you,  brightest  and 
most  beautiful  A.  D.  (not  Anno  Domini).,  in  your  white 
morning-frocks  and  black  French  aprons  ! 

Lebanon  Springs  are  the  rage  about  once  in  three 
years.  I  must  let  you  into  the  secret  of  these  things, 
gentle  reader,  for  perhaps  I  am  the  only  individual 
existing  who  has  penetrated  the  mysteries  of  the  four 
dynasties  of  American  fashion.  In  the  fourteen  mil- 
lions of  inhabitants  in  the  United  States,  there  are 
precisely  four  authenticated  and  undisputed  aristo- 
cratic families.  There  is  one  in  Boston,  one  in  New 
York,  one  in  Philadelphia,  and  one  in  Baltimore.  By 
a  blessed  Providence  they  are  not  all  in  one  state,  or 
we  should  have  a  civil  war  and  a  monarchy  in  no  time. 
With  two  hundred  miles'  interval  between  them,  they 
agree  passably,  and  generally  meet  at  one  or  another 
of  the  three  watering-places  of  Saratoga,  Ballston,  or 
Lebanon.  Their  meeting  is  as  mysterious  as  the  pro- 
cess of  crystallization,  for  it  is  not  by  agreement.  You 
must  explain  it  by  some  theory  of  homoeopathy  or 
magnetism.  As  it  is  not  known  till  the  moment  they 
arrive,  there  is  of  course  great  excitement  among  the 
hotel-keepers  in  these  different  parts  of  the  country, 
and  a  village  that  has  ten  thousand  transient  inhabit- 
ants one  summer,  has,  for  the  next,  scarcely  as  many 
score.  The  vast  and  solitary  temples  of  Paestum  are 
gay  in  comparison  with  these  halls  of  disappointment. 

As  I  make  a  point  of  dawdling  away  July  and  Au- 
gust in  this  locomotive  metropolis  of  pleasure,  and 
rather  prefer  Lebanon,  it  is  always  agreeable  to  me  to 
hear  that  the  nucleus  is  formed  in  that  valley  of  hem- 
locks.    Not  for  its  scenery,  for  really,  my  dear  east- 


ern-hemispherian  !  you  that  are  accustomed  to  what 
is  called  nature  in  England  (to  wit,  a  soft  park,  with  a 
gray  ruin  in  the  midst),  have  little  idea  how  wearily 
upon  heart  and  mind  presses  a  waste  wilderness  of 
mere  forest  and  water,  without  stone  or  story.  Trees 
in  England  have  characters  and  tongues  ;  if  you  see  a 
fine  one,  you  know  whose  father  planted  it,  and  for 
whose  pleasure  it  was  designed,  and  about  what  sum 
the  man  must  possess  to  afford  to  let  it  stand.  They 
are  statistics,  as  it  were — so  many  trees,  ergo  so  many 
owners  so  rich.  In  America,  on  the  contrary,  trees 
grow  and  waters  run,  as  the  stars  shine,  quite  unmean- 
ingly ;  there  may  be  ten  thousand  princely  elms,  and 
not  a  man  within  a  hundred  miles  worth  five  pounds 
five.  You  ask,  in  England,  who  has  the  privilege  of 
this  water  ?  or  you  say  of  an  oak,  that  it  stood  in  such 
a  man's  time  :  but  with  us,  water  is  an  element  un- 
claimed and  unrented,  and  a  tree  dabbles  in  the  clouds 
as  they  go  over,  and  is  like  a  great  idiot,  without  soul 
or  responsibility. 

If  Lebanon  had  a  history,  however,  it  would  have 
been  a  spot  for  a  pilgrimage,  for  its  natural  beauty. 
It  is  shaped  like  a  lotus,  with  one  leaf  laid  back  by 
the  wind.  It  is  a  great  green  cup,  with  a  scoop  for  a 
drinking-place.  As  you  walk  in  the  long  porticoes  of 
the  hotel,  the  dark  forest  mounts  up  before  you  like  a 
leafy  wall,  and  the  clouds  seem  just  to  clear  the  pine- 
tops,  and  the  eagles  sail  across  from  horizon  to  hori- 
zon, without  lifting  their  wings,  as  if  you  saw  them 
from  the  bottom  of  a  well.  People  born  there  think 
the  world  about  two  miles  square,  and  hilly. 

The  principal  charm  of  Lebanon  to  me  is  the  vil- 
lage of  "  shakers,"  lyiug  in  a  valley  about  three  miles 
of?.  As  Glaucus  wondered  at  the  inert  tortoise  of 
Pompeii,  and  loved  it  for  its  antipodal  contrast  to  him- 
self, so  do  I  affection  (a  French  verb  that  I  beg  leave 
to  introduce  to  the  English  language)  the  shaking 
quakers.  That  two  thousand  men  could  be  found  in 
the  New  World,  who  would  embrace  a  religion  en- 
joining a  frozen  and  unsympathetic  intercourse  with 
the  diviner  sex.  and  that  an  equal  number  of  females 
could  be  induced  to  live  in  the  same  community,  with- 
out locks  or  walls,  in  the  cold  and  rigid  observance 
of  a  creed  of  celibacy,  is  to  me  an  inexplicable  and 
grave  wonder.  My  delight  is  to  get  into  my  stanhope 
after  breakfast,  and  drive  over  and  spend  the  forenooc 
in  contemplating  them  at  their  work  in  the  fields 
They  have  a  peculiar  and  most  expressive  phvsiogno 


362 


INKLINGS  OF  ADVENTURE, 


my ;  the  women  are  pale,  or  of  a  wintry  redness  in 
the  cheek,  and  are  all  attenuated  and  spare.  Gravity, 
deep  and  habitual,  broods  in  every  line  of  their  thin 
faces.  They  go  out  to  their  labor  in  company  with 
those  serious  men,  and  are  never  seen  to  smile  ;  their 
eyes  are  all  hard  and  stony,  their  gait  is  precise  and 
stiff,  their  voices  are  of  a  croaking  hoarseness,  and  na- 
ture seems  dead  in  them.  I  would  bake  you  such  men 
and  women  in  a  brick-kiln. 

Do  they  think  the  world  is  coming  to  an  end  ?  Are 
there  to  be  no  more  children  ?  Is  Cupid  to  be  thrown 
out  of  business,  like  a  coach  proprietor  on  a  railroad  ? 
What  can  the  shakers  mean,  I  should  be  pleased  to 
know  ? 

The  oddity  is  that  most  of  them  are  young.  Men 
of  from  twenty  to  thirty,  and  women  from  sixteen  to 
twenty-five,  and  often,  spite  of  their  unbecoming  dress, 
good-looking  and  shapely,  meet  you  at  every  step.  In- 
dustrious, frugal,  and  self-denying,  they  certainly  are, 
and  there  is  every  appearance  that  their  tenets  of 
difficult  abstinence  are  kept  to  the  letter.  There  is 
little  temptation  beyond  principle  to  remain,  and  they 
are  free  to  go  and  come  as  they  list,  yet  there  they 
live  on  in  peace  and  unrepining  industry,  and  a  more 
thriving  community  does  not  exist  in  the  republic. 
Many  a  time  have  I  driven  over  on  a  Sunday,  and 
watched  those  solemn  virgins  dropping  in  one  after 
another  to  the  church ;  and  when  the  fine-limbed  and 
russet-faced  brotherhood  were  swimming  round  the 
floor  in  their  fanatical  dance,  I  have  watched  their 
countenances  for  some  look  of  preference,  some  be- 
trayal of  an  ill-suppressed  impulse,  till  my  eyes  ached 
again.  I  have  selected  the  youngest  and  fairest,  and 
have  not  lost  sight  of  her  for  two  hours,  and  she 
might  have  been  made  of  cheese-parings  for  any  trace 
of  emotion.  There  is  food  for  speculation  in  it.  Can 
we  do  without  matrimony  ?  Can  we  "strike,"  and  be 
independent  of  these  dear  delightful  tyrants,  for  whom 
we  "  live  and  move  and  have  our  being  ?"  Will  it 
ever  be  no  blot  on  our  escutcheon  to  have  attained 
thirty-five  as  an  unfructifying  unit  ?  Is  that  fearful 
campaign,  with  all  its  embarrassments  and  awkward- 
nesses, and  inquisitions  into  your  money  and  morals, 
its  bullyings  and  backings-out — is  it  inevitable  ? 

Lebanon  has  one  other  charm.  Within  a  morning 
drive  of  the  springs  lies  the  fairest  village  it  has  ever 
been  my  lot  to  see.  It  is  English  in  its  character, 
except  that  there  is  really  nothing  in  this  country 
so  perfect  of  its  kind.  There  are  many  towns  in  the 
United  States  more  picturesquely  situated,  but  this, 
before  I  had  been  abroad,  always  seemed  to  me  the 
very  ideal  of  English  rural  scenery,  and  the  kind  of 
place  to  set  apart  for  either  love  or  death — for  one's 
honeymoon  or  burial — the  two  periods  of  life  which 
I  have  always  hoped  would  find  me  in  the  loveliest 
spot  of  nature.  Stockbridge  lies  in  a  broad  sunny 
valley,  with  mountains  at  exactly  the  right  distance, 
and  a  river  in  its  bosom  that  is  as  delicate  in  its  wind- 
ings, and  as  suited  to  the  charms  it  wanders  among, 
as  a  vein  in  the  transparent  neck  of  beauty.  I  am 
not  going  into  a  regular  description,  but  I  have  car- 
ried myself  back  to  Lebanon  ;  and  the  remembrance 
of  the  leafy  mornings  of  summer  in  which  I  have 
driven  to  that  fair  earthly  paradise,  and  loitered  under 
its  elms,  imagining  myself  amid  the  scenes  of  song 
and  story  in  distant  England,  has  a  charm  for  me  now. 
I  have  seen  the  mother-land  ;  I  have  rambled  through 
park,  woodland,  and  village,  wherever  the  name  was 
old  and  the  scene  lovely,  and  it  pleases  me  to  go  back 
to  my  dreaming  days  and  compare  the  reality  with  the 
anticipation.  Most  small  towns  in  America  have  traces 
of  newness  about  them.  The  stumps  of  a  clearing,  or 
freshly-boarded  barns — something  that  is  the  antipodes 
of  romance — meets  your  eye  from  every  aspect.  Stock- 
bridge,  on  the  contrary,  is  an  old  town,  and  the  houses 


are  of  a  rural  structure;  the  fields  look  soft  and  genial 
the  grass  is  swardlike,  the  bridges  picturesque,  the 
hedges  old,  and  the  elms,  nowhere  so  many  and  so 
luxuriant,  are  full-grown  and  majestic.  The  village 
is  embowered  in  foliage. 

Greatest  attraction  of  all,  the  authoress  of  "  Redwood" 
and  "  Hope  Leslie,"  a  novelist  of  whom  America  has 
the  good  sense  to  be  proud,  is  the  Miss  Mitford  of  Stock- 
bridge.  A  man,  though  a  distinguished  one,  may  have 
little  influence  on  the  town  he  lives  in,  but  a  remarka- 
ble woman  is  the  invariable  cynosure  of  a  community, 
and  irradiates  it  all.  I  think  I  could  divine  the  presence 
of  one  almost  by  the  growing  of  the  trees  and  flowers. 
"  Our  Village"  does  not  look  like  other  villages. 

II. 

You  will  have  forgotten  that  I  had  a  story  to  tell. 

dear  reader.     I  was  at  Lebanon  in  the  summer  of 

(perhaps  you  don't  care  about  knowing  exactly  when 
it  was,  and  in  that  case  I  would  rather  keep  shy  of 
dates.  I  please  myself  with  the  idea  that  time  gets  on 
faster  than  I).  The  Springs  were  thronged.  The 
president's  lady  was  there  (this  was  under  our  admin- 
istration, the  Adams'),  and  all  the  four  cliques  spoken 
of  above  were  amicably  united — each  other's  beaux 
dancing  with  each  other's  belles,  and  so  on.  If  I  were 
writing  merely  for  American  eyes,  I  should  digress 
once  more  to  describe  the  distinctive  characters  of  the 
south,  north,  and  central  representations  of  beauty; 
but  it  would  scarcely  interest  the  general  reader.  I 
may  say,  in  passing,  that  the  Boston  belles  were  a 
V  Anglaise,  rosy  and  riantes  ;  the  New-Yorkers,  like 
Parisians,  cool,  dangerous,  and  dressy  ;  and  the  Balti- 
moreans  (and  so  south),  like  Ionians  or  Romans,  in- 
dolent, passionate,  lovely,  and  languishing.  Men, 
women,  and  pine-apples,  I  am  inclined  to  think,  flour- 
ish with  a  more  kindly  growth  in  the  fervid  latitudes. 

The  campaign  went  on,  and  a  pleasant  campaign  it 
was — for  the  parties  concerned  had  the  management 
of  their  own  affairs  ;  that  is,  they  who  had  hearts  to 
sell  made  the  bargain  for  themselves  (this  was  the 
greater  number),  and  they  who  disposed  of  this  com- 
modity gratis,  though  necessarily  young  and  ignorant 
of  the  world,  made  the  transfer  in  the  same  manner,  in 
person.  This  is  your  true  republic.  The  trading  in 
affections  by  reference — the  applying  to  an  old  and 
selfish  heart  for  the  purchase  of  a  young  and  ingenu- 
ous one — the  swearing  to  your  rents,  and  not  to  your 
faithful  passion — to  your  settlements,  and  not  your 
constancy — the  cold  distance  between  yourself  and 
the  young  creature  who  is  to  lie  in  your  bosom,  till 
the  purchase-money  is  secured — and  the  hasty  mar- 
riage and  sudden  abandonment  of  a  nature  thus 
chilled  and  put  on  its  guard,  to  a  freedom  with  one 
almost  a  stranger,  that  can  not  but  seem  licentious, 
and  can  not  but  break  down  that  sense  of  propriety  in 
which  modesty  is  most  strongly  intrenched — this 
seems  to  me  the  one  evil  of  your  old  worm-eaten  mon- 
archies this  side  the  water,  which  touches  the  essen- 
tial happiness  of  the  well-bred  individual.  Taxation 
and  oppression  are  but  things  he  reads  of  in  the  morn- 
ing paper. 

This  freedom  of  intercourse  between  unmarried 
people  has  a  single  disadvantage — one  gets  so  desper- 
ately soon  to  the  end  of  the  chapter  !  There  shall  be 
two  hundred  young  ladies  at  the  Springs  in  a  given 
season,  and,  by  the  difference  in  taste  so  wisely  ar- 
ranged by  Providence,  there  will  scarcely  be,  of  course, 
more  than  four  in  that  number  whom  any  one  gentle- 
man at  all  difficult  will  find  within  the  range  "of  his 
beau  ideal.  With  these  four  he  may  converse  freely 
twelve  hours  in  the  day — more,  if  he  particularly  de- 
sires it.  They  may  ride  together,  drive  together,  ram- 
ble together,  sing  together,  be  together  from  morning 


INKLINGS  OF  ADVENTURE. 


363 


till  night,  and  at  the  end  of  a  month  passed  in  this  way, 
if  he  escape  a  committal,  as  is  possible,  he  will  know 
all  that  are  agreeable,  in  one-large  circle,  at  least,  as  well 
as  he  knows  his  sisters — a  state  of  things  that  is  very 
likely  to  end  in  his  going  abroad  soon,  from  a  mere 
dearth  of  amusement.  I  have  imagined,  however, 
the  case  of  an  unmarrying  idle  man,  a  character  too 
rare  as  yet  in  America  to  affect  the  general  question. 
People  marry  as  they  die  in  that  country — when  their 
time  come.  We  must  all  marry  is  as  much  an  axiom 
is  we  must  all  die,  and  eke  as  melancholy. 

Shall  we  go  on  with  the  story  ?  I  had  escaped  for 
wo  blessed  weeks,  and  was  congratulating  the  sus- 
ceptible gentleman  under  my  waistcoat-pocket  that  we 
should  never  be  in  love  with  less  than  the  whole  sex 

again,  when  a  German  Baron  Von arrived  at 

the  Springs  with  a  lame  daughter.  She  was  eighteen, 
transparently  fair,  and,  at  first  sight,  so  shrinkingly 
dependant,  so  delicate,  so  childlike,  that  attention  to 
her  assumed  the  form  almost  of  pity,  and  sprang  as 
naturally  and  unsuspectingly  from  the  heart.  The 
only  womanly  trait  about  her  was  her  voice,  which 
was  so  deeply  soft  and  full,  so  earnest  and  yet  so  gen- 
tle, so  touched  with  subdued  pathos  and  yet  so  melan- 
choly calm,  that  if  she  spoke  after  a  long  silence,  I 
turned  to  her  involuntarily  with  the  feeling  that  she 
was  not  the  same — as  if  some  impassioned  and  elo- 
quent woman  had  taken  unaware  the  place  of  the 
simple  and  petted  child. 

I  am  inclined  to  think  there  is  a  particular  tender- 
ness in  the  human  breast  for  lame  women.  Any 
other  deformity  in  the  gentler  sex  is  monstrous  ;  but 
lameness  (the  devil's  defect)  is  "the  devil."  I  picture 
to  myself,  to  my  own  eye,  now — pacing  those  rickety 
colonnades  at  Lebanon  with  the  gentle  Meeta  hanging 
heavily,  and  with  the  dependance  inseparable  from 
her  infirmity,  on  my  arm,  while  the  moon  (which  was 
the  moon  of  the  Rhine  to  her,  full  of  thrilling  and  un-  j 
earthly  influences)  rode  solemnly  up  above  the  moun-  ! 
tain-tops.  And  that  strange  voice  filling  like  a  flute  | 
with  sweetness  as  the  night  advanced,  and  that  irregu- 
lar pressure  of  the  small  wrist  in  ber  forgotten  lame- 
ness, and  my  own  (I  thought)  almost  paternal  feeling 
as  she  leaned  more  and  more  heavily,  and  turned  her 
delicate  and  fair  face  confidingly  up  to  mine,  and  that ! 
dangerous  mixture  altogether  of  childlikeness  and 
womanly  passion,  of  dependance  and  superiority,  of 
reserve  on  the  one  subject  of  love,  and  absolute  confi- 
dence on  every  other — if  I  had  not  a  story  to  tell,  I 
could  prate  of  those  June  nights  and  their  witcheries 
till  you  would  think 

"  Tutti  gli  alberi  del  mondo 
Fossero  penne," 

and  myself  "  bitten  by  the  dipsas." 

We  were  walking  one  night  late  in  the  gallery  run- 
ning around  the  second  story  of  the  hotel.  There  was 
a  ball  on  the  floor  below,  and  the  music,  deadened 
somewhat  by  the  crowded  room,  came  up  softened  and 
mellowed  to  the  dark  and  solitary  colonnade,  and  added 
to  other  influences  in  putting  a  certain  lodger  in  my 
bosom  beyond  my  temporary  control.  I  told  Meeta 
that  I  loved  her. 

The  building  stands  against  the  side  of  a  steep  moun- 
tain high  up  above  the  valley,  and  the  pines  and  hem- 
locks at  that  time  hung  in  their  primeval  blackness 
almost  over  the  roof.  As  the  most  difficult  and  em- 
barrassed sentence  of  which  I  had  ever  been  delivered 
died  on  my  lips,  and  Meeta,  lightening  her  weight  on 
my  arm,  walked  in  apparently  offended  silence  by  my 
9ide,  a  deep-toned  guitar  was  suddenly  struck  in  the 
woods,  and  a  clear,  manly  voice  broke  forth  in  a  song. 
It  produced  an  instant  and  startling  effect  on  my  com- 
panion. With  the  first  word  she  quickly  withdrew 
her  arm ;  and,  after  a  moment's  pause,  listening  with 


her  hands  raised  in  an  attitude  of  the  most  intense  ea- 
gerness, she  sprang  to  the  extremity  of  the  balustrade, 
and  gazed  breathlessly  into  the  dark  depths  of  the  for- 
est. The  voice  ceased,  and  she  started  back,  and  laid 
her  hand  hastily  upon  my  arm. 

"  I  must  go,"  she  said,  in  a  voice  of  hurried  feeling  ; 
"  if  you  are  generous,  stay  here  and  await  me  !"  and  in 
another  moment  she  sprang  along  the  bridge  connect- 
ing the  gallery  with  the  rising  ground  in  the  rear,  and 
was  lost  in  the  shadows  of  the  hemlocks. 

"  I  have  made  a  declaration,"  thought  I,  "just  five 
minutes  too  soon." 

I  paced  up  and  down  the  now  too  lonely  colonnade, 
and  picked  up  the  fragments  of  my  dream  with  what 
philosophy  I  might.  By  the  time  Meeta  returned — 
perhaps  a  half  hour,  perhaps  an  age,  as  you  measure 
by  her  feelings  or  mine — I  had  hatched  up  a  very  pret- 
ty and  heroical  magnanimity.  She  would  have  spoken, 
but  was  breathless. 

"  Explain  nothing,"  I  said,  taking  her  arm  within 
mine,  "  and  let  us  mutually  forget.  If  I  can  serve  you 
better  than  by  silence,  command  me  entirely.  I  live 
but  for  your  happiness — even,"  I  added  after  a  pause, 
"  though  it  spring  from  another." 

We  were  at  her  chamber-door.  She  pressed  my 
hand  with  a  strength  of  which  I  did  not  think  those 
small,  slight  fingers  capable,  and  vanished,  leaving  me, 
I  am  free  to  confess,  less  resigned  than  you  would  sup- 
pose from  my  last  speech.  I  had  done  the  dramatic 
thing,  thanks  to  much  reading  of  you,  dear  Barry 
Cornwall !  but  it  was  not  in  a  play.  I  remained  killed 
after  the  audience  was  gone. 

III. 

The  next  day  a  new  character  appeared  on  the 
stage. 

"  Such  a  handsome  pedlar  !"  said  magnificent  Hel- 
en   to  me,  as  I  gave  my  horse  to  the  groom  after 

a  ride  in  search  of  hellebore,  and  joined  the  prome- 
nade at  the  well :  "  and  what  do  you  think  1  he  sells 
only  by  raffle  !  It's  so  nice !  All  sorts  of  Berlin  iron 
ornaments,  and  everything  German  and  sweet ;  and 
the  pedlar's  smile's  worth  more  than  the  prizes  ;  and 
such  a  mustache  !  See  !  there  he  is  ! — and  now,  if 
he  has  sold  all  his  tickets — will  you  come,  Master 
Gravity  ?" 

"  I  hear  a  voice  you  can  not  hear,"  thought  I,  as  I 
gave  the  beauty  my  arm,  and  joined  a  crowd  of  people 
gathered  about  a  pedlar's  box  in  the  centre  of  the 
parterre. 

The  itinerant  vender  spread  his  wares  in  the  midst 
of  the  gay  assemblage,  and  the  raffle  went  on.  He 
was  excessively  handsome.  A  head  of  the  sweet  gen- 
tleness of  Raphael's,  with  locks  flowing  to  his  shoul- 
ders in  the  fashion  of  German  students,  a  soft  brown 
mustache  curving  on  a  short  Phidian  upper  lip,  a 
large  blue  eye  expressive  of  enthusiasm  rather  than 
passion,  and  features  altogether  purely  intellectual — 
formed  a  portrait  of  which  even  jealousy  might  con- 
sole itself.  Through  all  the  disadvantages  of  a  dress 
suited  to  his  apparent  vocation,  an  eye  the  least  on 
the  alert  for  a  disguise  would  have  penetrated  his  in 
a  moment.  The  gay  and  thoughtless  crowd  about 
him,  not  accustomed  to  impostors  who  were  more  than 
they  pretended  to  be,  trusted  him  for  a  pedlar,  but 
treated  him  with  a  respect  far  above  his  station  msen- 

Whatever  his  object  was,  so  it  were  honorable,  I 
inly  determined  to  give  him  all  the  assistance  in  my 
power.  A  single  glance  at  the  face  of  Meeta,  who 
joined  the  circle  as  the  prizes  were  drawn-a  face  so 
changed  since  yesterday,  so  flushed  with  hope  and 
pleasure,  and  yet  so  saddened  by  doubt  and  fear,  the 
small  lips  compressed,  the  soft  black  eye  kindled  and 


364 


INKLINGS  OF  ADVENTURE, 


restless,  and  the  red  leaf  on  her  cheek  deepened  to  a 
feverish  beauty — left  me  no  shadow  of  hesitation.  I 
exchanged  a  look  with  her  that  I  intended  should  say 
as  much. 

IV. 

I  know  nothing  that  gives  one  such  an  elevated  idea 
of  human  nature  (in  one's  own  person)  as  helping 
another  man  to  a  woman  one  loves.  Oh  last  days  of 
minority  or  thereabout !  oh  primal  manhood !  oh 
golden  time,  when  we  have  let  go  all  but  the  enthu- 
siasm of  the  boy,  and  seized  hold  of  all  but  the  sel- 
fishness of  the  man  !  oh  blessed  interregnum  of  the 
evil  and  stronger  genius  !  why  can  we  not  bottle  up 
thy  hours  like"the~wine  of  a  better  vintage,  and  enjoy 
them  in  the  parched  world-weariness  of  age  ?  In  the 
tardy  honeymoon  of  a  bachelor  (as  mine  will  be,  if  it 
come  ever,  alas  !)  with  what  joy  of  paradise  should  we 
bring  up  from  the  cellars  of  the  past  a  hamper  of  that 
sunny  Hippocrene  ! 

Pedlar  Karl  and  "the  gentleman  in  No.  10"  would 
have  been  suspected  in  any  other  country  of  conspira- 
cy. (How  odd,  that  the  highest  crime  of  a  monarchy 
— the  attempt  to  supplant  the  existing  ruler — becomes 
in  a  republic  a  creditable  profession  !  You  are  a  trai- 
tor here,  a  politician  there  !)  We  sat  together  from 
midnight  onward,  discoursing  in  low  voices  over  sherry 
and  sandwiches;  and  in  that  crowded  Babylon,  his 
entrances  and  exits  required  a  very  conspirator-like 
management.  Known  as  my  friend,  his  trade  and  his 
disguise  were  up.  As  a  pedlar,  wandering  about 
where  he  listed  when  not  employed  over  his  wares,  his 
interviews  with  Meeta  were  easily  contrived,  and  his 
lover's  watch,  gazing  on  her  through  the  long  hours 
of  the  ball  from  the  crowd  of  villagers  at  the  windows, 
hovering  about  her  walks,  and  feeding  his  heart  on 
the  many,  many  chance  looks  of  fondness  given  him 
every  hour  in  that  out-of-doors  society,  kept  him  com- 
paratively happy. 

■  The  baron  looked  hard  at  you  to-day,"  said  I,  as 
he  closed  the  door  in  my  little  room,  and  sat  down  on 
the  bed. 

44  Yes  ;  he  takes  an  interest  in  me  as  a  countryman, 
but  he  does  not  know  me.  He  is  a  dull  observer,  and 
has  seen  me  but  once  in  Germany." 

44  How,  then,  have  you  known  Meeta  so  long  ?" 

44  I  accompanied  her  brother  home  from  the  uni- 
versity, when  the  baron  was  away,  and  for  a  long  month 
we  were  seldom  parted.  Riding,  boating  on  the  Rhine, 
watching  the  sunset  from  the  bartizan  of  the  old  castle- 
towers,  reading  in  the  old  library,  rambling  in  the  park 
and  forest — it  was  a  heaven,  my  friend,  than  which  I 
can  conceive  none  brighter." 

44  And  her  brother?" 

"  Alas  !  changed  !  We  were  both  boys  then,  and  a 
brother  is  slow  to  believe  his  sister's  beauty  dangerous. 
He  was  the  first  to  shut  the  doors  against  me,  when 
he  heard  that  the  poor  student  had  dared  to  love  his 
highborn  Meeta." 

Karl  covered  his  eyes  with  his  hand,  and  brooded 
for  a  while  in  silence  on  the  remembrances  he  had 
awakened. 

"  Do  you  think  the  baron  came  to  America  pur- 
posely to  avoid  you  ?" 

"  Partly,  I  have  no  doubt,  for  I  entered  the  castle 
one  night  in  my  despair,  when  I  had  been  forbidden 
entrance,  and  he  found  me  at  her  feet  in  the  old  cor- 
ridor. It  was  the  only  time  he  ever  saw  me,  if,  in- 
deed, he  saw  me  at  all  in  the  darkness :  and  he  imme- 
diately hastened  his  preparations  for  a  long-contem- 
plated journey,  1  knew  not  whither." 

44  Did  you  follow  him  soon  ?" 

44  No,  for  my  heart  was  crushed  at  first,  and  I  de- 
spaired.    The  possibility  of  following  them  in  my 


wretched  poverty  did  not  even  occur  to  me  for 
months." 

*4  How  did  you  track  them  hither,  of  all  places  in 
the  world  ?" 

44 1  sought  them  first  in  Italy.  It  is  easy  on  the 
continent  to  find  out  where  persons  are  not,  and  after 
two  years'  wanderings,  I  heard  of  them  in  Paris. 
They  had  just  sailed  for  America.  I  followed  ;  but 
in  a  country  where  there  are  no  passports,  and  no 
espionage,  it  is  difficult  to  trace  the  traveller.  It  was 
probable  only  that  they  would  be  at  a  place  of  general 
resort,  and  I  came  here  with  no  assurance  but  hope. 
Thanks  to  God,  the  first  sight  that  greeted  my  eyes 
was  my  dear  Meeta,  whose  irregular  step,  as  she 
walked  back  and  forth  with  you  in  the  gallery,  enabled 
me  to  recognise  her  in  the  darkness." 

Who  shall  say  the  days  of  romance  are  over  ?  The 
plot  is  not  brought  to  the  catastrophe,  but  we  hope  it 
is  near. 


V. 


My  aunt,  Isabella  Slingsby  (now  in  heaven,  with 
the  44 eleven  thousand  virgins,"  God  rest  her  soul!), 
was  at  this  time,  as  at  all  others,  under  my  respecta- 
ble charge.  She  would  have  said  I  was  under  hers — 
but  it  amounts  to  the  same  thing — we  lived  together 
in  peace  and  harmony.  She  said  what  she  pleased, 
for  I  loved  her — and  I  did  what  I  pleased,  for  she 
loved  me.  When  Karl  told  me  that  Meeta's  principal 
objection  to  an  elopement  was  the  want  of  a  matron, 
I  shut  the  teeth  of  my  resolution,  as  they  say  in  Per- 
sia, and  inwardly  vowed  my  unconscious  aunt  to  this 
exigency.  You  should  have  seen  Miss  Isabella  Slings- 
by to  know  what  a  desperate  man  may  be  brought  ;,» 
resolve  on. 

On  a  certain  day,  Count  Von  Raffle-off  (as  my  witty 
friend  and  ally,  Tom  Fane,  was  pleased  to  call  the 
handsome  pedlar)  departed  with  his  pack  and  the 
hearts  of  all  the  dressing-maids  and  some  of  their  mis- 
tresses, on  his  way  to  New  York.  1  drove  down  the 
road  to  take  my  leave  of  him  out  of  sight,  and  give 
him  my  last  instructions.* 

How  to  attack  my  aunt  was  a  subject  about  which 
I  had  many  unsatisfactory  thoughts.  .  If  there  was  one 
thing  she  disapproved  of  more  than  another,  it  was  an 
elopement ;  and  with  what  face  to  propose  to  her  to 
run  away  with  a  baron's  only  daughter,  and  leave  her 
in  the  hands  of  a  pedlar,  taking  upon  herself,  as  she 
must,  the  whole  sin  and  odium,  was  an  enigma  I  ate, 
drank,  and  slept  upon,  in  vain.  One  thing  at  last  be- 
came very  clear — she  would  do  it  for  nobody  but  me. 
Sequitur,  I  must  play  the  lover  myself. 

I  commenced  with  a  fit  of  illness.  What  was  the 
matter  ?  For  two  days  I  was  invisible.  Dear  Isabella  ! 
it  was  the  first  time  I  had  ever  drawn  seriously  on  thy 
fallow  sympathies,  and,  how  freely  they  flowed  at  my 
affected  sorrows,  I  shame  to  remember!  Did  ever 
woman  so  weep  ?  Did  ever  woman  so  take  antipathy 
to  man  as  she  to  that  innocent  old  baron  for  his  sup- 
posed refusal  of  his  daughter  to  Philip  Slingsby  ?  This 
revival  of  the  remembrance  shall  not  be  in  vain.  The 
mignonette  and  roses  planted  above  thy  grave,  dearest 
aunt,  shall  be  weeded  anew  ! 

Oh  that  long  week  of  management  and  hypocrisy  ! 
The  day  came  at  last. 

"Aunt  Bel!" 

44  What,  Philip,  dear  ?" 

44 1  think  I  feel  better  to-day." 

44  Yes  ?" 

44  Yes.  What  say  you  to  a  drive  ?  There  is  the 
stanhope." 

44  My  dear  Phil,  don't  mention  that  horrid  stanhope. 
I  am  sure,  if  you  valued  my  life — " 

44  Precisely,  aunt — (I  had  taken  care  to  give  her  j 


INKLINGS  OF  ADVENTURE. 


365 


good  fright  the  day  before) — but  Tom  Fane  has  offered 
me  his  ponies  and  Jersey  wagon,  and  that,  you  know, 
is  the  most  quiet  thing  in  the  world,  and  holds  four. 
So,  perhaps ehem  ! you'll ask  Meeta?" 

»•  Urn  !  Why,  you  see,  Philip—*' 

I  saw  at  once,  that,  if  it  got  to  an  argument,  I  was 
perdu.  Miss  Slingsby,  though  a  sincere  Christian, 
never  could  keep  her  temper  when  she  tried  to  reason. 
I  knelt  down  on  her  footstool,  smoothed  away  the  false 
hair  on  her  forehead,  and  kissed  her.  It  was  a  fasci- 
nating endearment  of  mine,  that  I  only  resorted  to  on 
great  emergencies.  The  hermit  tooth  in  my  aunt's 
mouth  became  gradually  visible,  heralding  what  in 
youth  had  been  a  smile  ;  and,  as  I  assisted  her  in  roll- 
ing up  her  embroidery,  she  looked  on  me  with  an  un- 
suspecting affection  that  touched  my  heart.  I  made 
a  silent  vow  that  if  she  survived  the  scrape  into  which 
6he  was  being  inveigled,  I  would  be  to  her  and  her 
dog  Wbimsiculo  (the  latter  my  foe  and  my  aversion) 
the  soul  of  exemplary  kindness  for  the  remainder  of 
their  natural  lives.  1  lay  the  unction  to  my  soul  that 
this  vow  was  kept.  My  aunt  blessed  me  shortly  before 
Bhe  was  called  to  "  walk  in  white"  (she  had  hitherto 
walked  in  yellow),  and  as  it  would  have  been  unnatu- 
ral in  Whimsiculo  to  survive  her,  I  considered  his 
44  natural  life"  as  ended  with  hers,  and  had  him  peace- 
fully strangled  on  the  same  day.  He  lies  at  her  feet, 
as  usual,  a  delicate  attention  of  which  (I  trust  in  Swe- 
denborg)  her  spirit  is  aware. 

With  the  exception  of  "  Tom  Thumb"  and  "  Rat- 
tler," who  were  of  the  same  double-jointed  family  of 
interminable  wind  and  bottom,  there  was  never  per- 
haps such  a  pair  of  goers  as  Tom  Fane's  ponies.  My 
aunt  had  a  lurking  hope,  I  believe,  that  the  baron 
would  refuse  Meeta  permission  to  join  us,  but  either 
he  did  not  think  me  a  dangerous  person  (I  have  said 
before  he  was  a  dull  man),  or  he  had  no  objection  to 
me  as  a  son-in-law,  which  my  aunt  and  myself  (against 
the  world)  would  have  thought  the  natural  construc- 
tion upon  his  indifference.  He  came  to  the  end  of  the 
colonnade  to  see  us  start,  and  as  I  eased  the  ribands 
and  let  the  ponies  off  like  a  shot  from  a  crossbow,  I 
stole  a  look  at  Meeta.  The  color  had  fled  from  cheek 
and  lip,  and  the  tears  streamed  over  them  like  rain. 
Aunt  Bel  was  on  the  back  seat,  grace  a  Dieu  ! 

We  met  Tom  at  the  foot  of  the  hill,  and  I  pulled 
up.     He  was  the  best  fellow,  that  Tom  Fane! 

44  Ease  both  the  bearing  reins,"  said  I,  "  I  am  going 
up  the  mountain." 

44  The  devil  you  are  !"  said  Tom, doing  my  bidding, 
however  ;  "  you'll  find  the  road  to  the  shakers  much 
pleasanter.  What  an  odd  whim  !  It's  a  perpendicu- 
lar three  miles,  Miss  Slingsby.  I  would  as  lief  be 
noisted  up  a  well  and  let  down  again.  Don't  go  that 
way,  Phil,  unless  you  are  going  to  run  away  with 

Miss  Von " 

"  Many  a  shaft  at  random  sent," 

thought  I,  and  waving  the  tandem  lash  over  the  ears 
of  the  ponies,  I  brought  up  the  silk  on  the  cheek  of 
their  malaprop  master,  and  spanked  away  up  the  hill, 
leaving  him  in  a  range  likely  to  get  a  fresh  supply  of 
fuel  by  dinner-time.  Tom  was  of  a  plethoric  habit, 
and  if  I  had  not  thought  he  could  afford  to  burst  a 
blood-vessel  better  than  two  lovers  to  break  their  hearts, 
I  should  not  have  ventured  on  the  bold  measure  of 
borrowing  his  horses  for  an  hour,  and  keeping  them  a 
week.  We  have  shaken  hands  upon  it  since,  but  it  is 
my  private  opinion  that  he  has  never  forgiven  me  in 
his  heart. 

As  we  wound  slowly  up  the  mountain,  I  gave  Meeta 
the  reins,  and  jumped  out  to  gather  some  wild  flowers 
for  my  aunt.  Dear  old  soul !  the  attention  reconciled 
her  to  what  she  considered  a  very  unwarrantable  ca- 
price of  mine.     What  I  could  wish  to  toil  up  that 


steep  mountain  for  ?  Well !  the  flowers  are  charming 
in  these  high  regions  ! 

"  Don't  you  see  my  reason  for  coming,  then,  aunt 
Bella?" 

44  Was  it  for  that,  dear  Philip  ?"  said  she,  putting 
the  wild  flowers  affectionately  into  her  bosom,  where 
they  bloomed  like  broidery  on  saffron  tapestry  ;  "  how 
considerate  of  you  !"  And  she  drew  her  shawl  around 
her,  and  was  at  peace  with  all  the  world.  So  easily 
are  the  old  made  happy  by  the  young  !  Reader,  I 
scent  a  moral  in  the  air ! 

We  were  at  the  top  of  the  hill.  If  I  was  sane,  my 
aunt  was  probably  thinking,  I  should  turn  here,  and 
go  back.  To  descend  the  other  side,  and  reascend 
and  descend  again  to  the  Springs,  was  hardly  a  sort  of 
thing  one  would  do  for  pleasure. 

"  Here's  a  good  place  to  turn,  Philip,"  said  she,  as 
we  entered  a  smooth  broad  hollow  on  the  top  of  the 
i  mountain. 

I  dashed  through  it  as  if  the  ponies  were  shod  with 
I  talaria.  My  aunt  said  nothing,  and  luckily  the  road 
<  was  very  narrow  for  a  mile,  and  she  had  a  horror  of  a 
'  short  turn.     A  new  thought  struck  me. 

"  Did  you  ever  know,  aunt,  that  there  was  a  way 
back  around  the  foot  of  the  mountain  ?" 

"  Dear,  no  ;  how  delightful !     Is  it  far  ?" 

44  A  couple  of  hours  or  so  ;  but  I  can  do  it  in  less. 
We'll  try  ;"  and  1  gave  the  sure-footed  Canadians  the 
whip,  and  scampered  down  the  hills  as  if  the  rock  of 
Sisyphus  had  been  rolling  after  us. 

We  were  soon  over  the  mountain-range,  and  the 
road  grew  better  and  more  level.  Oh,  how  fast  pat- 
tered those  little  hoofs,  and  how  full  of  spirit,  and 
excitement  looked  those  small  ears,  catching  the 
lightest  chirrup  I  could  whisper,  like  the  very  spell  of 
swiftness  !  Pines,  hemlocks  and  cedars,  farmhouses 
and  milestones,  flew  back  like  shadows.  My  nunt  sat 
speechless  in  the  middle  of  the  back  seat,  holding  on 
with  both  hands,  in  apprehensive  resignation  !  She 
expected  soon  to  come  in  sight  of  the  Springs,  and 
had  doubtless  taken  a  mental  resolution  that  if,  please 
God,  she  once  more  found  herself  at  home,  she  would 
never  "  tempt  Providence"  (it  was  a  favorite  expression 
of  hers)  by  trusting  herself  again  behind  such  a  pair 
of  fly-away  demons.  As  I  read  this  thought  in  her 
countenance  by  a  stolen  glance  over  my  shoulder,  we 
rattled  into  a  village  distant  from  Lebanon  twenty 
miles. 

44  There,  aunt,"  said  I,  as  I  pulled  up  at  the  door  of 
the  inn,  44  we  have  very  nearly  described  a  circle. 
Now,  don't  speak  !  if  you  do,  you'll  stait  the  horses. 
There's  nothing  they  are  so  much  afraid  of  as  a  wo- 
man's voice.  Very  odd,  isn't  it  ?  We'll  just  sponge 
their  mouths  now,  and  be  at  home  in  the  crack  of  a 
whip.     Five  miles  more,  only.     Come  !" 

Off  we  sped  again  like  the  wind,  aunt  Bel  just  ven- 
turing to  wonder  whether  the  horses  wouldn't  rather  go 
slower.  Meeta  had  hardly  spoken  ;  she  had  thoughts 
of  her  own  to  be  busy  with,  and  I  pretended  to  be  fully 
occupied  with  my  driving.  The  nonsense  I  talked  to 
those  horses,  to  do  away  the  embarrassment  of  her  si- 
lence, would  convict  me  of  insanity  before  any  jury  in 
the  world. 

The  sun  began  to  throw  long  shadows,  and  the  short- 
legged  ponies  figured  like  flying  giraffes  along  the  re- 
tiring hedges.  Luckily,  my  aunt  had  very  little  idea 
of  conjecturing  a  course  by  the  points  of  the  compass. 
We  sped  on  gloriously. 

"Philip,  dear  !  hav'n't  you  lost  your  way  ?  It  seems 
to  me  we've  come  more  than  five  miles  since  you 
stopped"  (ten  at  least),  "  and  I  don't  see  the  moun- 
tains about  Lebanon  at  all  !" 

44  Don't  be  alarmed,  aunty,  dear  !  We're  very  high, 
just  here,  and  shall  drop  down  on  Lebanon,  as  it  were. 
Are  you  afraid,  Meeta  ?" 


366 


INKLINGS  OF  ADVENTURE, 


"  Nein  ."'  she  answered.  She  was  thinking  in  Ger- 
man, poor  girl,  and  heart  and  memory  were  wrapped 
up  in  the  thought. 

I  drove  on  almost  cruelly.  Tom's  incomparable 
horses  justified  all  his  eulogiums  ;  they  were  indefati- 
gable. The  sun  blazed  a  moment  through  the  firs, 
and  disappeared  ;  the  gorgeous  changes  of  eve  came 
over  the  clouds  ;  the  twilight  stole  through  the  damp 
air  with  its  melancholy  gray  ;  and  the  whippoorwills, 
birds  of  evening,  came  abroad,  like  gentlemen  in  debt, 
to  flit  about  in  the  darkness.  Everything  was  sad- 
dening. My  own  volubility  ceased  ;  the  whiz  of  the 
lash,  as  I  waved  it  over  the  heads  of  my  foaming  po- 
nies, and  an  occasional  "  Steady  !"  as  one  or  the  other 
broke  into  a  gallop,  were  the  only  interruptions  to  the 
silence.  Meeta  buried  her  face  in  the  folds  of  her 
shawl,  and  sat  closer  to  my  side,  and  my  aunt,  soothed 
and  flattered  by  turns,  believed  and  doubted,  and  was 
finally  persuaded,  by  my  ingenious  and  well-inserted 
fibs,  that  it  was  only  somewhat  farther  than  I  antici- 
pated, and  we  should  arrive  "  presently." 

Somewhere  about  eight  o'clock  the  lights  of  a  town 
appeared  in  the  distance,  and,  straining  every  nerve, 
the  gallant  beasts  whirled  us  in  through  the  streets, 
and  I  pulled  up  suddenly  at  the  door  of  an  hotel. 

"  Why,  Philip  !"  said  my  aunt  in  a  tone  of  unut- 
terable astonishment,  looking  about  her  as  if  she  had 
awoke  from  a  dream,  "  this  is  Hudson  !" 

It  was  too  clear  to  be  disputed.  We  were  upon  the 
North  river,  forty  miles  from  Lebanon,  and  the  steam- 
er would  touch  at  the  pier  in  half  an  hour.  My  aunt 
was  to  be  one  of  the  passengers  to  New  York,  but  she 
was  yet  to  be  persuaded  of  it;  the  only  thing  now  was 
to  get  her  into  the  house,  and  enact  the  scene  as  soon 
as  possible. 

I  helped  her  out  as  tenderly  as  I  knew  how,  and,  as 
we  went  up  stairs,  I  requested  Meeta  to  sit  down  in  a 
corner  of  the  room,  and  cover  her  face  with  her  hand- 
kerchief. When  the  servant  was  locked  out,  I  took 
my  aunt  into  the  recess  of  the  window,  and  informed 
her,  to  her  very  great  surprise,  that  she  had  run  away 
with  the  baron's  daughter. 
"  Philip  Slingsby  !" 

My  aunt  was  overcome.  I  had  nothing  for  it  but  to 
be  overcome  too.  She  sunk  into  one  chair,  and  I  into 
the  other,  and  burying  my  face  in  my  hands,  I  looked 
through  my  fingers  to  watch  the  effect.  Five  mortal 
minutes  lasted  my  aunt's  wrath ;  gradually,  however, 
she  began  to  steal  a  look  at  me,  and  the  expression  of 
resentment  about  her  thin  lips  softened  into  something 
like  pity. 

"  Philip  !"  said  she,  taking  my  hand. 
"  My  dear  aunt !" 
"  What  is  to  be  done  ?" 

I  pointed  to  Meeta,  who  sat  with  her  head  on  her 
bosom,  pressed  my  hand  to  my  heart,  as  if  to  suppress 
a  pang,  and  proceeded  to  explain.  It  seemed  impos- 
sible for  my  aunt  to  forgive  the  deception  of  the  thing. 
Unsophisticated  Isabella  !  If  thou  hadst  known  that 
thou  wert,  even  yet,  one  fold  removed  from  the  truth, 
— if  thou  couldst  have  divined  that  it  was  not  for  the 
darling  of  thy  heart  that  thou  wert  yielding  a  point 
only  less  dear  to  thee  than  thy  maiden  reputation — 
if  it  could  have  entered  thy  region  of  possibilities  that 
thine  own  house  in  town  had  been  three  days  aired 
for  the  reception  of  a  bride,  run  away  with  by  thy  os- 
tensible connivance,  and  all  for  a  German  pedlar,  in 
whose  fortunes  and  loves  thou  hadst  no  shadow  of 
interest — I  think  the  brain  in  thee  would  have  turned, 
and  the  dry  heart  in  thy  bosom  have  broken  with  sur- 
prise and  grief! 

I  wrote  a  note  to  Tom,  left  his  horses  at  the  inn, 
and  at  nine  o'clock  we  were  steaming  down  the  Hud- 
son, my  aunt  in  bed,  and  Meeta  pacing  the  deck  with 
me,  and  pouring  forth  her  fears  and  hor  gratitude  in 


a  voice  of  music  that  made  me  almost  repent  my  self 
sacrificing  enterprise.  I  have  told  the  story  gayly, 
gentle  reader  !  but  there  was  a  nerve  ajar  in  my  heart 
while  its  little  events  went  on. 

How  we  sped  thereafter,  dear  reader ! — how  the 
consul  of  his  majesty  of  Prussia  was  persuaded  by  my 
aunt's  respectability  to  legalize  the  wedding  by  his 
presence — how  my  aunt  fainted  dead  away  when  the 
parson  arrived,  and  she  discovered  who  was  not  to  be 
the  bridegroom  and  who  was — how  I  persuaded  her 
she  had  gone  too  far  to  recede,  and  worked  on  her  ten- 
derness once  more — how  the  weeping  Karl,  and  his 
lame  and  lovely  bride,  lived  with  us  till  the  old  baron 
thought  it  fit  to  give  Meeta  his  blessing  and  some 
money — how  Tom  Fane  wished  no  good  to  the  ped- 
lar's eyes — and  lastly,  how  Miss  Isabella  Slingsby  lived 
and  died  wondering  what  earthly  motive  I  could  have 
for  my  absurd  share  in  these  events,  are  matters  of 
which  I  spare  you  the  particulars. 


NIAGAM- 


-LAKE  ONTARIO-THE  ST.  LAW- 
RENCE. 


"  He  was  born  when  the  crab  was  ascending,  and  all  his  affairs 
go  backward."— Love  for  Love. 

It  was  in  my  senior  vacation,  and  I  was  bound  to 
Niagara  for  the  first  time.  My  companion  was  a  spe- 
cimen of  the  human  race  found  rarely  in  Vermont,  and 
never  elsewhere.  He  was  nearly  seven  feet  high, 
walked  as  if  every  joint  in  his  body  was  in  a  hopeless 
state  of  dislocation,  and  was  hideously,  ludicrously, 
and  painfully  ugly.  This  whimsical  exterior  contained 
the  conscious  spirit  of  Apollo,  and  the  poetical  suscep- 
tibility of  Keats.  He  had  left  his  plough  in  the  Green 
mountains  at  the  age  of  twenty-five,  and  entered  as  a 
poor  student  at  the  university,  where,  with  the  usual 
policy  of  the  college  government,  he  was  allotted  to 
me  as  a  compulsory  chum,  on  the  principle  of  break- 
ing in  a  colt  with  a  cart-horse.  I  began  with  laughing 
at  him,  and  ended  with  loving  him.  He  rejoiced  in 
the  common  appellation  of  Job  Smith — a  synonymous 
soubriquet,  as  I  have  elsewhere  remarked,  which  was 
substituted  by  his  classmates  for  his  baptismal  name 
of  Forbearance. 

Getting  Job  away  with  infinite  difficulty  from  a 
young  Indian  girl  who  was  selling  moccasins  in  the 
streets  of  Buffalo  (a  straight,  slender  creature  of  eigh- 
teen, stepping  about  like  a  young  leopard,  cold,  stern, 
and  beautiful),  we  crossed  the  outlet  of  Lake  Erie  at 
the  ferry,  and  took  horses  on  the  northern  bank  of 
Niagara  river  to  ride  to  the  falls.  It  was  a  noble 
stream,  as  broad  as  the  Hellespont  and  as  blue  as  the 
sky,  and  I  could  not  look  at  it,  hurrying  on  headlong 
to  its  (earful  leap,  without  a  feeling  almost  of  dread. 

There  was  only  one  thing  to  which  Job  was  more 
susceptible  than  to  the  beauties  of  nature,  and  that 
was  the  beauty  of  woman.  His  romance  had  been 
stirred  by  the  lynx-eyed  Sioux,  who  took  her  money 
for  the  moccasins  with  such  haughty  and  thankless 
supcrbia,  and  full  five  miles  of  the  river,  with  all  the 
gorgeous  flowers  and  rich  shrubs  upon  its  rim,  might 
as  well  have  been  Lethe  for  his  admiration.  He  rode 
along,  like  the  man  of  rags  you  see  paraded  on  an  ass 
in  the  carnival,  his  legs  and  arms  dangling  about  in 
ludicrous  obedience  to  the  sidelong  hitch  of  his  pacer. 

The  roar  of  the  falls  was  soon  audible,  and  Job's 
enthusiasm  and  my  own,  if  the  increased  pace  of  our 
Narraganset  ponies  meant  anything,  were  fully  aroused. 
Thn  river  broke  into  rapids,  foaming  furiously  on  its 


INKLINGS  OF  ADVENTURE. 


367 


course,  and  the  subterranean  thunder  increased  like  a 
succession  of  earthquakes,  each  louder  than  the  last. 
I  had  never  heard  a  sound  so  broad  and  universal.  It 
was  impossible  not  to  suspend  the  breath,  and  feel  ab- 
sorbed, to  the  exclusion  of  all  other  thoughts,  in  the 
great  phenomenon  with  which  the  world  seemed  trem- 
bling to  its  centre.  A  tall,  misty  cloud,  changing  its 
shape  continually,  as  it  felt  the  shocks  of  the  air,  rose 
up  before  us,  and  with  our  eyes  fixed  upon  it,  and  our 
horses  at  a  hard  gallop,  we  found  ourselves  unexpect- 
edly in  front  of  a  vast  white hotel  !  which  sud- 
denly interposed  between  the  cloud  and  our  vision. 
Job  slapped  his  legs  against  the  sides  of  his  panting 
beast,  and  urged  him  on,  but  a  long  fence  on  either 
side  the  immense  building  cut  him  off  from  all  ap- 
proach ;  and  having  assured  ourselves  that  there  was 
no  access  to  Niagara  except  through  the  back-door  of 
the  gentleman's  house,  who  stood  with  hat  off  to  re- 
ceive us,  we  wished  no  good  to  his  majesty's  province 
of  Upper  Canada,  and  dismounted. 

"  Will  you  visit  the  falls  before  dinner,  gentlemen  ?" 
asked  mine  host. 

"  No,  sir  !"  thundered  Job,  in  a  voice  that,  for  a  mo- 
ment, stopped  the  roar  of  the  cataract. 

He  was  like  an  improvisatore  who  had  been  checked 
by  some  rude  birbone  in  the  very  crisis  of  his  elo- 
quence. He  would  not  have  gone  to  the  falls  that 
night  to  have  saved  the  world.     We  dined. 

As  it  was  the  first  meal  we  had  ever  eaten  under  a 
monarchy,  I  proposed  the  health  of  the  king  ;  but  Job 
refused  it.  There  was  an  impertinent  profanity,  he 
said,  in  fencing  up  the  entrance  to  Niagara  that  was  a 
greater  encroachment  on  natural  liberty  than  the  stamp 
act.  He  would  drink  to  no  king  or  parliament  under 
which  such  a  thing  could  be  conceived  possible.  I  left 
the  table  and  walked  to  the  window. 

"  Job,  come  here  !  Miss ,  by  all  that  is  love- 
ly !" 

He  flounced  up,  like  a  snake  touched  with  a  torpe- 
do, and  sprang  to  the  window.  Job  had  never  seen 
the  lady  whose  name  produced  such  a  sensation,  but 
he  had  heard  more  of  her  than  of  Niagara.  So  had 
every  soul  of  the  fifteen  millions  of  inhabitants  between 
us  and  the  gulf  of  Mexico.  She  was  one  of  those  mir- 
acles of  nature  that  occur,  perhaps,  once  in  the  rise 
and  fall  of  an  empire — a  woman  of  the  perfect  beauty 
of  an  angel,  with  the  most  winning  human  sweetness 
of  character  and  manner.  She  was  kind,  playful,  un- 
affected, and  radiantly,  gloriously  beautiful.  I  am  sor- 
ry I  may  not  mention  her  name,  for  in  more  chival- 
rous times  she  would  have  been  a  character  of  history. 
Everybody  who  has  been  in  America,  however,  will 
Know  who  I  am  describing,  and  I  am  sorry  for  those 
who  have  not.  The  country  of  Washington  will  be 
in  its  decadence  before  it  sees  such  another. 

She  had  been  to  the  fall  and  was  returning  with  her 
mother  and  a  troop  of  lovers,  who,  I  will  venture  to 
presume,  brought  away  a  very  imperfect  impression  of 
the  scene.  I  would  describe  her  as  she  came  laugh- 
ing up  that  green  bank,  unconscious  of  everything  but 
the  pleasure  of  life  in  a  summer  sunset ;  but  I  leave  it 
for  a  more  skilful  hand.  The  authoress  of  "  Hope 
Leslie"  will,  perhaps,  mould  her  image  into  one  of 
her  inimitable  heroines. 

I  presented  my  friend,  and  we  passed  the  evening 
in  her  dangerous  company.  After  making  an  engage- 
ment to  accompany  her  in  the  morning  behind  the 
sheet  of  the  fall,  we  said  "  Good-night"  at  twelve — one 
of  us  at  least  as  many  "  fathom  deep  in  love"  as  a  thou- 
sand Rosalinds.  My  poor  chum  !  The  roar  of  the 
cataract  that  shook  the  very  roof  over  thy  head  was 
less  loud  to  thee  that  night  than  the  beating  of  thine 
own  heart,  I  warrant  me  ! 

I  rose  at  sunrise  to  go  alone  to  the  fall,  hut  Job  was 
before  me,  and  the  angular  oulline  of  his  gaunt  ('mure, 
.ctrf  tohing  up  from  Table  Rock  in  strong  relief  against 


the  white  body  of  the  spray,  was  the  first  object  that 
caught  my  eye  as  I  descended. 

As  I  came  nearer  the  fall,  a  feeling  of  disappoint- 
ment came  over  me.  I  had  imagined  Niagara  a  vast 
body  of  water  descending  as  if  from  the  clouds.  The 
approach  to  most  falls  is  from  below,  and  we  get  an 
idea  of  them  as  of  rivers  pitching  down  to  the  plain 
from  the  brow  of  a  hill  or  mountain.  Niagara  river, 
on  the  contrary,  comes  out  from  Lake  Erie  through  a 
flat  plain.  The  top  of  the  cascade  is  ten  feet  perhaps 
below  the  level  of  the  country  around — consequently 
invisible  from  any  considerable  distance.  You  walk 
to  the  bank  of  a  broad  and  rapid  river,  and  look  over 
the  edge  of  a  rock,  where  the  outlet  flood  of  an  inland 
sea  seems  to  have  broken  through  the  crust  of  the 
earth,  and,  by  its  mere  weight,  plunged  with  an  awful 
leap  into  an  immeasurabb  and  resounding  abyss.  It 
seems  to  strike  and  thunder  upon  the  very  centre  of 
the  world,  and  the  ground  beneath  your  feet  quivers 
with  the  shock  till  you  feel  unsafe  upon  it. 

Othef  disappointment  than  this  I  can  not  conceive 
at  Niagara.     It  is  a  spectacle  so  awful,  so  beyond  the 

I  scope  and  power  of  every  other  phenomenon  in  the 

!  world,  that  I  think  people  who  are  disappointed  there 

I  mistake  the  incapacity  of  their  own  conception  for  the 

i  want  of  grandeur  in  the  scene. 

The  "hell  of  waters"  below  need  but  a  little  red 

'  ochre  to  out-Phlegethon  Phlegethon.  I  can  imagine 
the  surprise  of  the  gentle  element,  after  sleeping  away 
a  se'nnight  of  moonlight  in  the  peaceful  bosom  of 

i  Lake  Erie,  at  finding  itself  of  a  sudden  in  such  a  coil ! 
A  Mediterranean  sea-gull,  which  had  tossed  out  the 

!  whole  of  a  January  in  the  infernal  "  yeast"  of  the 
Archipelago  (was  1  not  all  but  wrecked  every  day  be- 
tween Troy  and  Malta  in  a  score  of  successive  hurri- 
canes?)— I  say,  the  most  weather-beaten  of  sea-birds 
would  look  twice  before  he  ventured  upon  the  roaring 
caldron  below  Niagara.  It  is  astonishing  to  see  how 
far  the  descending  mass  is  driven  under  the  surface  of 
the  stream.  As  far  down  toward  Lake  Ontario  as  the 
eye  can  reach,  the  immense  volumes  of  water  rise 
like  huge  monsters  to  the  light,  boiling  and  flashing 
out  in  rings  of  foam,  with  an  appearance  of  rage  and 
anger  that  I  have  seen  in  no  other  cataract  in  the 
world. 

"A  nice  fall,  as  an  Englishman  would  say,  my  dear 
Job." 

"Awful !" 

Halleck,  the  American  poet  (a  better  one  never 
"strung  pearls"),  has  written  some  admirable  verses 
on  Niagara,  describing  its  effect  on  the  different  indi- 

|  viduals  of  a  mixed  party,  among  whom  was  a  tailor. 
The  sea  of  incident  that  has  broken  over  me  in  years 
of  travel,  has  washed  out  of  my  memory  all  but  the 

|  two  lines  descriptive  of  its  impression  upon  Snip  : — 

"  The  tailor  made  one  single  note — 
'  Gods  !  what  a  place  to  sponge  a  coat !'  " 

"  Shall  we  go  to  breakfast,  Job  ?" 

"  How  slowly  and  solemnly  they  drop  into  the 
abysm !" 

It  was  not  an  original  remark  of  Mr.  Smith's.  Noth- 
ing is  so  surprising  to  the  observer  as  the  extraordi- 
nary deliberateness  with  which  the  waters  of  Niagara 
take  their  tremendous  plunge.  All  hurry  and  foam 
and  fret,  till  they  reach  the  smooth  limit  of  the  curve 
—and  then  the  laws  of  gravitation  seem  suspended, 
and,  like  Cesar,  they  pause,  and  determine,  since  it  is 
inevitable,  to  take  the  death-leap  with  becoming  dig- 

nit"  Shall  we  go  to  breakfast,  Job  ?"  I  was  obliged  to 
raise  my  voice,  to  be  heard,  to  a  pitch  rather  exhaust- 
ing to  an  empty  stomach. 

His  eyes  remained  fixed  upon  the  shifting  rainbows 
bendin"  and  vanishing  in  the  spray.  There  was  no 
moving  him.  and  T  gave  in  for  another  five  minutes 


368 


INKLINGS  OF  ADVENTURE. 


41  Do  you  think  it  probable,  Job,  that  the  waters  of 
Niagara  strike  on  the  axis  of  the  world  V 

No  answer. 

"Job!" 

44  What  ?" 

"  Do  you  think  his  majesty's  half  of  the  cataract  is 
finer  than  ours  ?" 

"  Much." 

<*  For  water,  merely,  perhaps.  But  look  at  the  de- 
licious verdure  on  the  American  shore,  the  glorious 
trees,  the  massed  foliage,  the  luxuriant  growth  even  to 
the  very  ritn  of  the  ravine  !  By  Jove  !  it  seems  to  me 
things  grow  better  in  a  republic.  Did  you  ever  see  a 
more  barren  and  scraggy  shore  than  the  one  you  stand 
upon  ?" 

41  How  exquisitely,"  said  Job,  soliloquizing,  "  that 
small  green  island  divides  the  fall !  What  a  rock  it 
must  be  founded  on,  not  to  have  been  washed  away 
in  the  ages  that  these  waters  have  split  against  it !" 

41  I'll  lay  you  a  bet  it  is  washed  away  before  the 
year  two  thousand — payable  in  any  currency  with 
which  we  may  then  be  conversant." 

"  Don't  trifle  !" 

"  With  time,  or  geology,  do  you  mean  ?  Isn't  it 
perfectly  clear  from  the  looks  of  that  ravine,  that  Ni- 
agara has  backed  up  all  the  way  from  Lake  Ontario  ? 
These  rocks  are  not  adamant,  and  the  very  precipice 
you  stand  on  has  cracked,  and  looks  ready  for  the 
plunge.*  It  must  gradually  wear  back  to  Lake  Erie, 
and  then  there  will  be  a  sweep,  I  should  like  to  live 
long  enough  to  see.  The  instantaneous  junction  of 
two  seas,  with  a  difference  of  two  hundred  feet  in  their 
levels,  will  be  a  spectacle — eh,  Job?" 

"  Tremendous  !" 

44  Do  you  intend  to  wait  and  see  it,  or  will  you  come 
to  breakfast  '.'" 

He  was  immoveable.  I  left  him  on  the  rock,  went 
up  to  the  hotel  and  ordered  mutton-chops  and  coffee, 
and  when  they  were  on  the  table,  gave  two  of  the 
waiters  a  .dollar  each  to  bring  him  up  nolens-volens. 
He  arrived  in  a  great  rage,  but  with  a  good  appetite, 
and  we  finished  our  breakfast  just  in  time  to  meet 

Miss ,  as   she  stepped   like  Aurora  from  her 

chamber. 

It  is  necessary  to  a  reputation  for  prowess  in  the 
United  States  to  have  been  behind  the  sheet  of  the 
fall  (supposing  you  to  have  been  to  Niagara).  This 
achievement  is  equivalent  to  a  hundred  shower-baths, 
one  severe  cold,  and  being  drowned  twice — but  most 
people  do  it. 

We  descended  to  the  bottom  of  the  precipice,  at  the 
side  of  the  fall,  where  we  found  a  small  house,  fur- 
nished with  coarse  linen  dresses  for  the  purpose,  and 
having  arranged  ourselves  in  habiliments  not  particu- 
larly improving  to  our  natural  beauty,  we  reappeared — 
only  three  out  of  a  party  of  ten  having  had  the  courage 
to  trust  their  attractions  to  such  a  trial.     Miss 


looked  like  a  fairy  in  disguise,  and  Job  like  the  most 
ghostly  and  diabolical  monster  that  ever  stalked  un- 
sepultured  abroad.  He  would  frighten  a  child  in  his 
best  black  suit — but  with  a  pair  of  wet  linen  trowsers 
scarcely  reaching  to  his  knees,  a  jacket  with  sleeves 
shrunk  to  the  elbows,  and  a  white  cap,  he  was  some- 
thing supernaturally  awful.  The  guide  hesitated 
about  going  under  the  fall  with  him. 

It  looked  rather  appalling.  Our  way  lay  through  a 
dense  descending  sheet  of  water,  along  a  slender 
pathway  of  rocks,  broken  into  small  fragments,  with 
an  overhanging  wall  on  one  side,  and  the  boiling 
caldron  of  the  cataract  on  the  other.  A  false  step, 
and  you  were  a  subject  for  the  "  shocking  accident" 
maker. 

•  It  has  since  fallen  into  the  abyss— fortunately  in  the  night, 
as  visiters  were  always  upon  it  during  the  day.  The  noise  was 
heard  at  an  incredible  distance. 


The  guide  went  f rst,  taking  Miss 


-'s  right 
hand.  She  gave  me  her  left,  and  Job  brought  up  the 
rear,  as  they  say  in  Connecticut,  "  on  his  own  hook." 
We  picked  our  way  boldly  up  to  the  water.  The  wall 
leaned  over  so  much,  and  the  fragmented  declivity 
was  so  narrow  and  steep,  that  if  it  had  not  been  done 
before,  1  should  have  turned  back  at  once.  Two 
steps  more,  and  the  small  hand  in  mine  began  to  strug- 
gle violently,  and,  in  the  same  instant,  the  torrent  beat 
into  my  eyes,  mouth,  and  nostrils,  and  I  felt  as  if  1 
was  drowning.  I  staggered  a  blind  step  onward,  but 
still  the  water  poured  into  my  nostrils,  and  the  con- 
viction rushed  for  a  moment  on  my  mind  that  we  were 
lost.  I  struggled  for  breath,  stumbled  forward,  and 
with  a  gasp  that  I  thought  was  my  last,  sunk  upon 
the  rocks  within  the  descending  waters.  Job  tumbled 
over  me  the  next  instant,  and  as  soon  as  I  could  clear 
my  eyes   sufficiently  to   look   about   me,  I  saw  the 

guide  sustaining  Miss ,  who  had  been  as  nearly 

drowned  as  most  of  the  subjects  of  the  Humane  So- 
ciety, but  was  apparently  in  a  state  of  resuscitation. 
None  but  the  half-drowned  know  the  pleasure  of 
breathing.    - 

Here  we  were  within  a  chamber  that  Undine  might 
have  coveted,  a  wall  of  rock  at  our  back,  and  a  trans- 
parent curtain  of  shifting  water  between  us  and  the 
world,  having  entitled  ourselves  a.  pcu  pres  to  the  same 
reputation  with  Hylas  and  Leander,  for  seduction  by 
the  Naiad9. 

Whatever  sister  of  Arethusa  inhabits  there,  we 
could  but  congratulate  her  on  the  beauty  of  her  abode. 
A  lofty  and  well-lighted  hall,  shaped  like  a  long  pavil- 
ion, extended  as  far  as  we  could  see  through  the  spray, 
and  with  the  two  objections,  that  you  could  not  have 
heard  a  pistol  at  your  ear  for  the  noise,  and  that  the 
floor  was  somewhat  precipitous,  one  could  scarce  im- 
agine a  more  agreeable  retreat  for  a  gentleman  who 
was  disgusted  with  the  world,  and  subject  to  dryness 
of  the  skin.  In  one  respect  it  resembled  the  enchanted 
dwelling  of  the  Witch  of  Atlas,  where,  Shelley  tells 


"  The  invisible  rain  did  ever  sing 
A  silver  music  on  the  mossy  lawn. 

It  is  lucky  for  Witches  and  Naiads  that  they  are  not 
subject  to  rheumatism. 

The  air  was  scarcely  breathable — (if  air  it  may  be 
called,  which  streams  down  the  face  with  the  density 
of  a  shower  from  a  watering-pot),  and  our  footing  upon 
the  slippery  rocks  was  so  insecure,  that  the  exertion 
of  continually  wiping  our  eyes  was  attended  with  im- 
minent danger.  Our  sight  was  valuable,  for  surely, 
never  was  such  a  brilliant  curtain  hung  up  to  the  sight 
of  mortals,  as  spread  apparently  from  the  zenith  to  our 
feet,  changing  in  thickness  and  lustre,  but  with  a  con- 
stant and  resplendent  curve.  It  was  what  a  child  might 
imagine  the  arch  of  the  sky  to  be  where  it  bends  over 
the  edge  of  the  horizon. 

The  sublime  is  certainly  very  much  diluted  when 
one  contemplates  it  with  his  back  to  a  dripping  and 
slimy  rock,  and  his  person  saturated  with  a  continual 
supply  of  water.  From  a  dry  window,  I  think  the  in- 
fernal writhe  and  agony  of  the  abyss  into  which  we 
were  continually  liable  to  slip,  would  have  been  as  fine 
a  thing  as  I  have  seen  in  my  travels;  but  I  am  free  to 
admit,  that,  at  the  moment,  I  would  have  exchanged 
my  experience  and  all  the  honor  attached  to  it,  for  a 
dry  escape.  The  idea  of  drowning  back  through  that 
thick  column  of  water,  was  at  least  a  damper  to  en- 
thusiasm. We  seemed  cut  off  from  the  living.  There 
was  a  death  between  us  and  the  vital  air  and  sunshine- 

1  was  screwing  up  my  courage  for  the  return,  when 
the  guide  seized  me  by  the  shoulder.  I  looked  around, 

and  what  was  my  horror  to  see  Miss standing 

far  in  behind  the  sheet  upon  the  last  visible  point  ol 


INKLINGS  OF  ADVENTURE. 


369 


rock,  with  the  water  pouring  over  her  in  torrents,  and 
a  gulf  of  foam  between  us,  which  I  could  in  no  way 
understand  how  she  had  passed  over. 

She  seemed  frightened  and  pale,  and  the  guide  ex- 
plained to  me  by  signs  (for  I  could  not  distinguish  a 
syllable  through  the  roar  of  the  cataract),  that  she  had 
walked  over  a  narrow  ledge,  which  had  broken  with 
her  weight.  A  long  fresh  mark  upon  the  rock  at  the 
foot  of  the  precipitous  wall,  made  it  sufficiently  evi- 
dent :  her  position  was  most  alarming. 

I  made  a  sign  to  her  to  look  well  to  her  feet;  for 
the  little  island  on  which  she  stood  was  green  with 
slime  and  scarce  larger  than  a  hat,  and  an  abyss  of  full 
six  feet  wide,  foaming  and  unfathomable,  raged  be- 
tween it  and  the  nearest  foothold.  What  was  to  be 
done?  Had  we  a  plank,  even,  there  was  no  possible 
hold  for  the  further  extremity,  and  the  shape  of  the 
rock  was  so  conical,  that  its  slippery  surface  evidently 
would  not  hold  a  rope  for  a  moment.  To  jump  to  her, 
even  if  it  were  possible,  would  endanger  her  life,  and  I 
while  I  was  smiling  and  encouraging  the  beautiful 
creature,  as  she  stood  trembling  and  pale  on  her  dan- 
gerous foothold,  I  felt  my  very  heart  sink  within  me. 

The  despairing  guide  said  something  which  I  could 
not  hear,  and  disappeared  through  the  watery  wall, 
and  I  fixed  my  eyes  upon  the  lovely  form,  standing, 
like  a  spirit  in  the  misty  shroud  of  the  spray,  as  if  the 
intensity  of  my  gaze  could  sustain  her  upon  her  dan- 
gerous foothold.  I  would  have  given  ten  years  of  my 
life  at  that  moment  to  have  clasped  her  hand  in  mine. 

I  bad  scarce  thought  of  Job  until  I  felt  him  trying 
to  pass  behind  me.  His  hand  was  trembling  as  he 
laid  it  on  my  shoulder  to  steady  his  steps  ;  but  there 
was  something  in  his  ill-hewn  features  that  shot  an 
indefinable  ray  of  hope  through  my  mind.  His  sandy 
hair  was  plastered  over  his  forehead,  and  his  scant 
dress  clung  to  him  like  a  skin  ;  but  though  I  recall 
his  image  ncnv  with  a  smile,  I  looked  upon  him  with  a 
feeling  far  enough  from  amusement  then.  God  bless 
thee,  my  dear  Job!  wherever  in  this  unfit  world  thy 
fine  spirit  may  be  fulfilling  its  destiny! 

He  crept  down  carefully  to  the  edge  of  the  foaming 
abyss,  till  he  stood  with  the  breaking  bubbles  at  his 
knees.  I  was  at  a  loss  to  know  what  he  intended. 
She  surely  would  not  dare  to  attempt  a  jump  to  his 
arms  from  that  slippery  rock,  and  to  reach  her  in  any 
way  seemed  impossible. 

The  next  instant  he  threw  himself  forward,  and 
while  I  covered  my  eyes  in  horror,  with  the  flashing 
conviction  that  he  had  gone  mad  and  flung  himself 
into  the  hopeless  whirlpool  to  reach  her,  she  had 
crossed  the  awful  gulf,  and  lay  trembling  and  ex- 
hausted at  my  feet !  He  had  thrown  himself  over  the 
chasm,  caught  the  rock  barely  with  the  extremities  of 
his  fingers,  and  with  certain  death  if  he  missed  his 
hold  or  slipped  from  his  uncertain  tenure,  had  sus- 
tained her  with  supernatural  strength  as  she  walked 
over  his  body  ! 

The  guide  providentially  returned  with  a  rope  in 
the  same  instant,  and  fastening  it  around  one  of  his 
feet,  we  dragged  him  back  through  the  whirlpool,  and 
after  a  moment  or  two  to  recover  from  the  suffocating 
immersion,  he  fell  on  his  knees,  and  we  joined  him, 
I  doubt  not  devoutly,  in  his  inaudible  thanks  to  God. 

II. — LAKE    ONTARIO. 

The  next  bravest  achievement  to  venturing  behind 
the  sheet  of  Niagara,  is  to  cross  the  river  in  a  small 
boat,  at  some  distance  below  the  Phlegethon  of  the 
abyss.  I  should  imagine  it  was  something  like  riding 
in  a  howdah  on  a  swimming  elephant.  The  im- 
mense masses  of  water  driven  under  by  the  Fall,  rise 
splashing  and  fuming  far  down  the  river;  and  they 
are  as  unlike  a  common  wave,  to  ride,  as  a  horse  and 
a  camel.  You  are,  perhaps,  ten  or  fifteen  minutes 
24 


pulling  across,  and  you  may  get  two  or  three  of  these 
lifts,  which  shove  you  straight  into  the  air  about  ten 
feet,  and  then  drop  you  into  the  cup  of  an  eddy,  as  if 
some  long-armed  Titan  had  his  hand  under  the  water, 
and  were  tossing  you  up  and  down  for  his  amuse- 
ment. It  imports  lovers  to  take  heed  how  their  mis- 
tresses are  seated,  as  all  ladies,  on  these  occasions, 
throw  themselves  into  the  arms  of  the  nearest  "  hose 
and  doublet." 

Job  and  I  went  over  to  dine  on  the  American  side 
and  refresh  our  patriotism.   We  dined  under  a  hickory- 
tree  on  Goat  island,  just  over  the  glassy  curve  of  the 
cataract;  and  as  we  grew  joyous  with  our  champagne, 
we  strolled  up  to  the  point  where  the  waters  divide 
for   the  American   and   British  Falls;    and   Job    ha- 
rangued the  "mistaken  gentleman  on  his  right,"  in 
I  eloquence  that  would  have  turned  a  division  in  the 
house  of  commons.     The  deluded  multitude,  how- 
!  ever,  rolled  away  in  crowds  for  the  monarchy,  and  at 
j  the  close  of  his  speech  the  British  Fall  was  still,  by  a 
'  melancholy  majority,  the  largest.     We  walked  back 
to  our  bottle  like  foiled  patriots,  and  soon  after,  hope- 
i  less  of  our  principles,  went  over  to  the  other  side  too  ! 
I  advise  all  people  going  to  Niagara  to  suspend  ma- 
I  king  a  note  in  their  journal  till  the  last  day  of  their 
visit.     You  might  as  well  teach  a  child  the  magni- 
\  tude  of  the  heavens  by  pointing  to  the  sky  with  your 
j  finger,  as  comprehend  Niagara  in  a  day.     It  has  to 
I  create  its  own  mighty  place  in  your  mind.    You  have 
j  no  comparison  through  which  it  can  enter.     It  is  too 
|  vast.     The  imagination  shrinks  from  it.     It  rolls  in 
i  gradually,  thunder  upon  thunder,  and  plunge  upon 
;  plunge  ;  and  the  mind  labors  with  it  to  an  exhaustion 

■  such  as  is  created  only  by  the  extremest  intellectual 

■  effort.  I  have  seen  men  sit  and  gaze  upon  it  in  a  cool 
!  day  of  autumn,  with  the  perspiration  standing  on 
\  their  foreheads  in  large  beads,  from  the  unconscious 

but  toilsome  agony  of  its  conception.  After  haunting 
its  precipices,  and  looking  on  its  solemn  waters  for 
seven  days,  sleeping  with  its  wind-played  monotony 
in  your  ears,  dreaming,  and  returning  to  it  till  it  has 
grown  the  one  object,  as  it  will,  of  your  perpetual 
thought,  you  feel,  all  at  once,  like  one  who  has  com- 
passed the  span  of  some  almighty  problem.  It  has 
stretched  itself  within  you.  Your  capacity  has  at- 
tained the  gigantic  standard,  and  you  feel  an  elevation 
and  breadth  of  nature  that  could  measure  girth  and 
stature  with  a  seraph.  We  had  fairly  "  done"  Niaga- 
ra. We  had  seen  it  by  sunrise,  sunset,  moonlight; 
from  top  and  bottom  ;  fasting  and  full ;  alone  and  to- 
gether. We  had  learned  by  heart  every  green  path 
on  the  island  of  perpetual  dew,  which  is  set  like  an 
imperial  emerald  on  its  front  (a  poetical  idea  of  my 
own,  much  admired  by  Job) — we  had  been  grave,  gay, 
I  tender,  and  sublime,  in  its  mighty  neighborhood,  we 
had  become  so  accustomed  to  the  base  of  its  broad 
thunder,  that  it  seemed  to  us  like  a  natural  property 
in  the  air,  and  we  were  unconscious  of  it  for  hours; 
our  voices  had  become  so  tuned  to  its  key,  and  our 
thoughts  so  tinged  by  its  grand  and  perpetual  anthem, 
that  I  almost  doubted  if  the  air  beyond  the  reach  of 
its  vibrations  would  not  agonize  us  with  its  unnatural 
silence,  and  the  common  features  of  the  world  seem 
of  an  unutterable  and  frivolous  littleness. 

We  were  eating  our  last  breakfast  there,  in  tender 
melancholy:  mine  for  the  Falls,  and  Job's  for  the 
Falls  and  Miss ,  to  whom  I  had  a  half  sus- 
picion that  he  had  made  a  declaration. 

"  Job!"  said  I. 

He  looked  up  from  his  egg. 

"  My  dear  Job  !" 

"  Don't  allude  to  it,  my  dear  chum,"  said  he,  drop- 
ping his  spoon,  and  rushing  to  the  window  to  hide  his 
agitation.     It  was  quite  clear. 

I  could  scarce  restrain  a  smile.  Psyche  in  the  em- 
brace of  a  respectable  giraffe  would  be  the  first  thought 


370 


INKLINGS  OF  ADVENTURE. 


in  anybody's  mind  who  should  see  them  together. 
And  yet  why  should  he  not  woo  her — and  win  her 
too  ?  He  had  saved  her  life  in  the  extremest  peril,  at 
the  most  extreme  hazard  of  his  own ;  he  had  a  heart 
as  high  and  worthy,  and  as  capable  of  an  undying 
worship  of  her  as  she  would  find  in  a  wilderness  of 
lovers;  he  felt  like  a  graceful  man,  and  acted  like  a 
brave  one,  and  was  sans  peur  et  sans  reproche,  and 
why  should  he  not  love  like  other  men  ?  My  dear 
Job  !  I  fear  thou  wilt  go  down  to  thy  grave,  and  but 
one  woman  in  this  wide  world  will  have  loved  thee — 
thy  mother  !  Thou  art  the  soul  of  a  preux  chevalier 
in  the  body  of  some  worthy  grave-digger,  who  is  strut- 
ting about  the  world,  perhaps,  in  thy  more  proper  car- 
cass.    These  angels  are  so  o'er  hasty  in  packing ! 

We  got  upon  our  horses,  and  had  a  pleasant  amble 
before  us  of  fifteen  miles,  on  the  British  side  of  the 
river.  We  cantered  off  stoutly  for  a  mile  to  settle  our 
regrets,  and  then  I  pulled  up,  and  requested  Job  to 
ride  near  me,  as  I  had  something  to  say  to  him. 

"  You  are  entering,"  said  I,  "  my  dear  Job,  upon 
your  first  journey  in  a  foreign  land.  You  will  see 
other  manners  than  your  own,  which  are  not  therefore 
laughable,  and  hear  a  different  pronunciation  from 
your  own,  which  is  not  therefore  vulgar.  You  are  to 
mix  with  British  subjects,  whom  you  have  attacked 
vigorously  in  your  school  declamations  as  '  the  enemy.' 
but  who  are  not  therefore  to  be  bullied  in  their  own 
country,  and  who  have  certain  tastes  of  their  own, 
upon  which  you  had  better  reserve  your  judgment. 
We  have  no  doubt  that  we  are  the  greatest  country 
that  ever  was,  is,  or  ever  shall  be  ;  but,  as  this  is  an 
unpalatable  piece  of  information  to  other  nations,  we 
will  not  stuff  it  into  their  teeth,  unless  by  particular 
request.  John  Bull  likes  his  coat  too  small.  Let  him 
wear  it.  John  Bull  prefers  his  beefsteak  to  a  frican- 
deau.  Let  him  eat  it.  John  Bull  will  leave  no  stone 
unturned  to  serve  you  in  his  own  country,  if  you  will 
let  him.  Let  him.  John  Bull  will  suffer  you  to  find 
fault  for  ever  with  king,  lords,  and  commons,  if  you 
do  not  compare  them  invidiously  with  other  govern- 
ments. Let  the  comparison  alone.  In  short,  my 
dear  chum,  as  we  insist  that  foreigners  should  adopt 
our  manners  while  they  are  travelling  in  the  United 
States,  we  had  better  adopt  theirs  when  we  return  the 
visit.  They  are  doubtless  quite  wOng  throughout, 
but  it  is  not  worth  while  to  bristlp  one's  back  against 
the  opinions  of  some  score  mi'hons." 

The  foam  disappeared  frr.n  the  stream,  as  we  fol- 
lowed it  on,  and  the  roar  A'  the  falls — 

*         *         *         "  Now  loud,  now  calm  again, 
Like  a  ring  of  bell;!,  whose  sound  the  wind  still  alters, ' 

was  soon  faint  in  our  ears,  and  like  the  regret  of  part- 
ing, lessened  with  the  increasing  distance  till  it  was 
lost.  Job  began  to  look  around  him,  and  see  some- 
thing else  besides  a  lovely  face  in  the  turnings  of  the 
road,  and  the  historian  of  this  memorable  journey, 
who  never  had  but  one  sorrow  that  "  would  not  budge 
with  a  fillip,"  rose  in  his  stirrups  as  he  descried  the 
broad  blue  bosom  of  Lake  Ontario,  and  gave  vent  to 
his  feelings  in  (he  begs  the  reader  to  believe)  the  most 
suitable  quotation. 

Seeing  any  celebrated  water  for  the  first  time  was 
always,  to  me,  an  event.  River,  waterfall,  or  lake,  if 
I  have  heard  of  it  and  thought  of  it  for  years,  has  a 
sensible  presence,  that  I  feel  like  the  approach  of  a 
human  being  in  whom  I  am  interested.  My  heart  flut- 
ters to  it.  It  is  thereafter  an  acquaintance,  and  I  de- 
fend its  beauty  or  its  grandeur  as  I  would  the  fair  fame 
and  worth  of  a  woman  that  had  shown  me  a  prefer- 
ence. My  dear  reader,  do  you  love  water?  Not  to 
drink,  for  I  own  it  is  detestable  in  small  quantities — 
but  water,  running  or  falling,  sleeping  or  gliding,  tin- 
ged by  the  sunset  glow,  or  silvered  by  the  gentle  al- 
chymist  of  the  midnight  heaven  ?     Do  you  love  a 


lake?  Do  you  love  a  river?  Do  you  "affect"  any 
one  laughing  and  sparkling  brook  that  has  flashed  on 
your  eye  like  a  fay  overtaken  by  the  cock-crowing, 
and  tripping  away  slily  to  dream-land?  As  you  see 
four  sisters,  and  but  one  to  love  ;  so,  in  the  family  of 
the  elements,  I  have  a  tenderness  for  water. 

Lake  Ontario  spread  away  to  the  horizon,  glittering 
in  the  summer  sun,  boundless  to  the  eye  as  the  Atlan- 
tic ;  and  directly  beneath  us  lay  the  small  town  of 
Fort  Niagara,  with  the  steamer  at  the  pier,  in  which 
we  "promised  ourselves  a  passage  down  the  St.  Law- 
rence. We  rode  on  to  the  hotel,  which  we  found  to 
our  surprise  crowded  with  English  officers,  and  having 
disposed  of  our  Narragansets,  we  inquired  the  hour 
of  departure,  and  what  we  could  eat  meantime,  in  as 
nearly  the  same  breath  as  possible. 

"  Cold  leg  of  mutton  and  the  steamboat's  engaged, 
sir !" 

The  mercury  in  Job's  Britishometer  fell  plump  to 
zero.  The  idea  of  a  monopoly  of  the  whole  steamer 
by  a  colonel  and  his  staff,  and  no  boat  again  for  a 
week  ! 

There  was  a  government  to  live  under ! 

We  sat  down  to  our  mutton,  and  presently  enter 
the  waiter. 

"Colonel 's   compliments;    hearing   that   two 

gentlemen  have  arrived  who  expected  to  go  by  the 
steamer,  he  is  happy  to  offer  them  a  passage  if  they 
can  put  up  with  rather  crowded  accommodations." 

"Well,  Job!  what  do  you  think  now  of  England, 
politically,  morally,  and  religiously  ?  Has  not  the 
gentlemanlike  courtesy  of  one  individual  materially 
changed  your  opinions  upon  every  subject  connected 
with  the  United  Kingdom  of  Great  Britain  ?" 

"  It  has." 

"  Then,  my  dear  Job,  I  recommend  you  never  again 
to  read  a  book  of  travels  without  writing  down  on  the 
margin  of  every  bilious  chapter,  'probably  lost  his 
passage  in  the  steamer,'  or  '  had  no  mustard  to  his 
mutton,' or  'could  find  no  ginger-nuts  for  the  interest- 
ing little  traveller,'  or  some  similar  annotation.  De* 
pend  upon  it,  that  dear  delightful  Mrs.  Trollope  would 
never  have  written  so  agreeable  a  book,  if  she  ha.d 
thriven  with  her  bazar  in  Cincinnati." 

We  paid  our  respects  to  the  colonel,  and  at  six 
o'clock  in  the  evening  got  on  board.  Part  of  an  Irish 
regiment  was  bivouacked  on  the  deck,  and  happier 
fellows  I  never  saw.  They  had  completed  their  nine 
years'  service  on  the  three  Canadian  stations,  and 
were  returning  to  the  ould  country,  wives,  children, 
and  all.  A  line  was  drawn  across  the  deck,  reserving 
the  after  quarter  for  the  officers ;  the  sick  were  dis- 
posed of  among  the  women  in  the  bows  of  the  boat, 
and  the  band  stood  ready  to  play  the  farewell  air  to  the 
cold  shores  of  Upper  Canada. 

The  line  was  cast  off,  when  a  boy  of  thirteen  rushed 
down  to  the  pier,  and  springing  on  board  with  a 
desperate  leap,  flew  from  one  end  of  the  deck  to  the 
other,  and  flung  himself  at  last  upon  the  neck  of  a 
pretty  girl  sitting  on  the  knee  of  one  of  the  privates. 

"  Mary,  dear  Mary  !"  was  all  he  could  utter.  His 
sobs  choked  him. 

"  Avast  with  the  line,  there !"  shouted  the  captain, 
who  had  no  wish  to  carry  off  this  unexpected  passen- 
ger. The  boat  was  again  swung  to  the  wharf,  and  the 
boy  very  roughly  ordered  ashore.  His  only  answer 
was  to  cling  closer  to  the  girl,  and  redouble  his  tears, 
and  by  this  time  the  colonel  had  stepped  aft,  and  the 
case  seemed  sure  of  a  fair  trial.  The  pretty  Canadian 
dropped  her  head  on  her  bosom,  and  seemed  divided 
between  contending  emotions,  and  the  soldier  stood  up 
and  raised  his  cap  to  his  commanding  officer,  but  held 
firmly  by  her  hand.  The  boy  threw  himself  on  his 
knees  to  the  colonel,  but  tried  in  vain  to  speak. 

"  Who's  this,  O'Shane  ?"  asked  the  officer. 

"  Sure,  my  swateheart,  your  honor." 


INKLINGS  OF  ADVENTURE. 


371 


"  And  how  dare  you  bring  her  on  board,  sir  ?" 
"  Och,  she'll  go  to  ould  Ireland  wid  us,  your  hon- 
or." 

"  No,  no,  no  !"  cried  the  convulsed  boy,  clasping 
the  colonel's  knees,  and  sobbing  as  if  his  heart  would 
break;  "she  is  my  sister  !  She  isn't  his  wife!  Fa- 
ther'Il  die  if  she  does  !  She  can't  go  with  him  !  She 
shu'n't  go  with  him  !" 

Job  began  to  snivel,  and  I  felt  warm  about  the  eyes 
myself. 

"  Have  you  got  a  wife,  O'Shane  ?"  asked  the 
colonel. 

"  Plase  your  honor,  never  a  bit,"  said  Paddy.  He 
was  a  tight,  good-looking  fellow,  by  the  way,  as  you 
would  wish  to  see. 

.i  Well — we'll  settle  this  thing  at  once.  Get  up,  my 
little  fellow  !  Come  here,  my  good  girl  !  Do  you 
love  O'Shane  well  enough  to  be  his  wife  ?" 

"  Indeed  I  do,  sir !"  said  Mary,  wiping  her  eyes  with  | 
the  back  of  her  hand,  and  stealing  a  look  at  the  "  six 
feet  one"  that  stood  as  straight  as  a  pike  beside  her. 
"  O'Shane  !  I  allow  this  girl  to  go  with  us  only  on 
condition  that  you  marry  her  at  the  first  place  where 
we  can  find  a  priest.  We  will  make  her  up  a  bit  of  a 
dowry,  and  I  will  look  after  her  comfort  as  long  as  she 
follows  the  regiment.  What  do  you  say,  sir?  Will 
you  marry  her?" 

O'Shane  began  to  waver  in  his  military  position, 
from  a  full  front  face  getting  to  very  nearly  a  right- 
about. It  was  plain  he  was  taken  by  surprise.  The 
eyes  of  the  company  were  on  him,  however,  and  pub- 
lic opinion,  which,  in  most  human  breasts,  is  consider- 
ably stronger  than  conscience,  had  its  effect. 

"  I'll  do  it,  your  honor  !"  said  he,  bolting  it  out  as 
a  man  volunteers  upon  a  "forlorn  hope." 

Tears  might  as  well  have  been  bespoken  for  the 
whole  company.  The  boy  was  torn  from  his  sister's 
neck,  and  set  ashore  in  the  arms  of  two  sailors,  and 
poor  Mary,  very  much  in  doubt  whether  she  was  hap- 
py or  miserable,  sank  upon  a  heap  of  knapsacks,  and 
buried  her  eyes  in  a  cotton  handkerchief  with  a  map 
of  London  upon  it,  probably  a  gage  d'amour  from  the 
desaving  O'Shane.  I  did  the  same  myself  with  a 
silk  one,  and  Job  item.  Hem  the  colonel  and  several 
officers. 

The  boat  was  shoved  off,  and  the  wheels  spattered 
away,  but  as  far  as  we  could  hear  his  voice,  the  cry 
came  following  on,  "  Mary,  Mary  !" 

It  rung  in  my  ears  all  night :  "  Mary,  Mary  !" 
I  was  up  in  the  morning  at  sunrise,  and  was  glad 
to  escape  from  the  confined  cabin  and  get  upon  deck 
The  steamer  was  booming  on  through  a  sea  as  calm 
as  a  mirror,  and  no  land  visible.  The  fresh  dewiness 
of  the  morning  air  ashore  played  in  my  nostrils,  and 
the  smell  of  grass  was  perceptible  in  the  mind,  but  in 
all  else  it  was  like  a  calm  in  mid  ocean.  The  soldiers 
were  asleep  along  the  decks,  with  their  wives  and 
children,  and  the  pretty  runaway  lay  with  her  head  on 
O'Shane's  bosom,  her  red  eyes  and  soiled  finery 
showing  too  plainly  how  she  had  passed  the  night. 
Poor  Mary  !  she  has  enough  of  following  a  soldier, 
by  this,  I  fear. 

I  stepped  forward,  and  was  not  a  little  surprised  to 
see  standing  against  the  railing  on  the  larboard  bow, 
the  motionless  figure  of  an  Indian  girl  of  sixteen. 
Her  dark  eye  was  fixed  on  the  line  of  the  horizon  we 
were  leaving  behind,  her  arms  were  folded  on  her 
bosom,  and  she  seemed  not  even  to  breathe.  A  com- 
mon shawl  was  wrapped  carelessly  around  her,  and 
another  glance  betrayed  to  me  that  she  was  in  a  situ- 
ation soon  to  become  a  mother.  Her  feet  were  pro- 
tected by  a  pair  of  once  gaudy  but  now  shabby  and 
torn  moccasins,  singularly  small ;  her  hands  were  of  a 
delicate  thinness  unusual  to  her  race,  and  her  hollow 
cheeks,  and  forehead  marked  with  an  expression  of 


pain,  told  all  I  could  have  prophesied  of  the  history  of 
a  white  man's  tender  mercies.  I  approached  very 
near,  quite  unperceived.  A  small  burning  spot  was 
just  perceptible  in  the  centre  of  her  dark  cheek,  and 
as  I  looked  at  her  steadfastly,  I  could  see  a  working  of 
the  muscles  of  her  dusky  brow,  which  betrayed,  in  one 
of  a  race  so  trained  to  stony  calmness,  an  unusual  fever 
of  feeling.  I  looked  around  for  the  place  in  which 
she  must  have  slept.  A  mantle  of  wampum-work, 
folded  across  a  heap  of  confused  baggage,  partly  oc- 
cupied as  a  pillow  by  a  brutal-looking  and  sleeping 
soldier,  told  at  once  the  main  part  of  her  story.  1  felt 
for  her,  from  my  soul ! 

"  You  can  hear  the  great  waterfall  no  more,"  I  said, 
touching  her  arm. 

"  I  hear  it  when  I  think  of  it,"  she  replied,  turning 
her  eyes  upon  me  as  slowly,  and  with  as  little  surprise, 
as  if  I  had  been  talking  to  her  an  hour. 

I  pointed  to  the  sleeping  soldier.  "Are  you  going 
with  him  to  his  country  ?" 

'Yes." 

"  Are  you  his  wife  ?" 

"  My  father  gave  me  to  him." 

"  Has  he  sworn  before  the  priest  in  the  name  of  the 
Great  Spirit  to  be  your  husband  !" 

"  No."  She  looked  intently  into  my  eyes  as  she 
answered,  as  if  she  tried  in  vain  to  read  my  meaning. 

"  Is  he  kind  to  you  ?" 

She  smiled  bitterly. 

"  Why  then  did  you  follow  him  ?" 

Her  eyes  dropped  upon  the  burden  she  bore  at  hei 
heart.  The  answer  could  not  have  been  clearer  if 
written  with  a  sunbeam.  I  said  a  few  words  of  kind- 
ness, and  left  her  to  turn  over  in  my  mind  how  I  could 
best  interfeie  for  her  happiness. 

III. — THE   ST.  LAWRENCE. 

On  the  third  evening  we  had  entered  upon  the  St. 
Lawrence,  and  were  winding  cautiously  into  the 
channel  of  the  Thousand  Isles.  I  think  there  is  not, 
within  the  knowledge  of  the  "all-beholding  sun,"  a 
spot  so  singularly  and  exquisitely  beautiful.  Between 
the  Mississippi  and  the  Cimmerian  Bosphorus,  I  know 
there  is  not,  for  I  have  pic-nicked  from  the  Sy  mplegades 
westward.  The  Thousand  Isles  of  the  St.  Lawrence 
are  as  imprinted  on  my  mind  as  the  stars  of  heaven. 
I  could  forget  them  as  soon. 

The  river  is  here  as  wide  as  a  lake,  while  the  chan- 
nel just  permits  the  passage  of  a  steamer.  The 
islands,  more  than  a  thousand  in  number,  are  a  sin- 
gular formation  of  flat,  rectangular  rock,  split,  as  it 
were,  by  regular  mathematical  fissures,  and  over- 
flowed nearly  to  the  tops,  which  are  loaded  with  a 
most  luxuriant  vegetation.  They  vary  in  size,  but 
the  generality  of  them  would  about  accommodate  a 
tea-party  of  six.  The  water  is  deep  enough  to  float  a 
large  steamer  directly  at  the  edge,  and  an  active  deer 
would  leap  across  from  one  to  the  other  in  any  direc- 
tion. What  is  very  singular,  these  little  rocky  plat- 
forms are  covered  with  a  rich  loam,  and  carpeted  with 
moss  and  flowers,  while  immense  trees  take  root  in  the 
clefts,  and  interlace  their  branches  with  those  of  the 
neighboring  islets,  shadowing  the  water  with  the  un- 
sunned dimness  of  the  wilderness.  It  is  a  very  odd 
thing  to  glide  through  in  a  steamer.  The  luxuriant 
leaves  sweep  the  deck,  and  the  black  funnel  parts  the 
drooping  sprays  as  it  keeps  its  way,  and  you  may 
pluck  the  blossoms  of  the  acacia,  or  the  rich  chestnut 
flowers,  sitting  on  the  tartVail,  and,  really,  a  mag.c  pas- 
sage in  a  witch's  steamer,  beneath  the  tree-tops  ol  an 
untrodden  forest,  could  not  be  more  novel  and  start- 
ling. Then  the  solitude  and  silence  of  tlie  dun  and 
still  waters  are  continually  broken  by  the  plunge  and 
leap  of  the  wild  deer  springing  or  swimming  from  one 


372 


INKLINGS  OF  ADVENTURE. 


island  to  another,  and  the  swift  and  shadowy  canoe  of 
the  Indian  glides  out  from  some  unseen  channel,  and 
with  a  single  stroke  of  his  broad  paddle  he  vanishes, 
and  is  lost  again,  even  to  the  ear.  If  the  beauty-sick 
and  nature-searching  spirit  of  Keats  is  abroad  in  the 
world,  "  my  basnet  to  a  'prentice-cap"  he  passes  his 
summers  amid  the  thousand  isles  of  the  St.  Law- 
rence !  I  would  we  were  there  with  our  tea-things, 
sweet  Rosa  Matilda! 

We  had  dined  on  the  quarter-deck,  and  were  sitting 
over  the  colonel's  wine,  pulling  the  elm-leaves  from 
the  branches  as  they  swept  saucily  over  the  table,  and 
listening  to  the  band,  who  were  playing  waltzes  that 
probably  ended  in  the  confirmed  insanity  of  every 
wild  heron  and  red  deer  that  happened  that  afternoon 
to  come  within  ear-shot  of  the  good  steamer  Queens- 
ton.  The  paddles  began  to  slacken  in  their  spattering, 
and  the  boat  came  to,  at  the  sharp  side  of  one  of  the 
largest  of  the  shadowy  islands.  We  were  to  stop  an 
hour  or  two,  and  take  in  wood. 

Everybody  was  soon  ashore  for  a  ramble,  leaving 
only  the  colonel,  who  was  a  cripple  from  a  score  of 
Waterloo  tokens,  and  your  servant,  reader,  who  had 
something  on  his  mind. 

"  Colonel !  will  you  oblige  me  by  sending  for  Ma- 
honey  ?  Steward  J  call  me  that  Indian  girl  sitting 
with  her  head  on  her  knees  in  the  boat's  bow." 

They  stood  before  us. 

"  How  is  this  ?"  exclaimed  the  colonel ;  "  another  ! 
good  God  !  these  Irishmen  !  Well,  sir!  what  do  you 
intend  to  do  with  this  girl,  now  that  you  have  ruined 
her?" 

Mahoney  looked  at  her  out  of  a  corner  of  his  eye 
with  a  libertine  contempt  that  made  my  blood  boil. 
The  girl  watched  for  his  answer  with  an  intense  but 
calm  gaze  into  his  face,  that  if  he  had  had  a  soul, 
would  have  killed  him.  Her  lips  were  set  firmly  but 
not  fiercely  together,  and  as  the  private  stood  looking 
from  one  side  to  the  other,  unable  or  unwilling  to  an- 
swer, she  suppressed  a  rising  emotion  in  her  throat, 
and  turned  her  look  on  the  commanding  officer  with  a 
proud  coldness  that  would  have  become  Medea. 

"Mahoney!"  said  the  colonel,  sternly,  "will  you 
marry  this  poor  girl  ?" 

"  Never,  I  hope,  your  honor  !" 

The  wasted  and  noble  creature  raised  her  burdened 
form  to  its  fullest  height,  and,  with  an  inaudible  mur- 
mur bursting  from  her  lips,  walked  back  to  the  bow 
of  the  vessel.  The  colonel  pursued  his  conversation 
with  Mahoney,  and  the  obstinate  brute  was  still  re- 
fusing the  only  reparation  he  could  make  the  poor 
Indian,  when  she  suddenly  reappeared.  The  shawl 
was  no  longer  around  her  shoulders.  A  coarse  blan- 
ket was  bound  below  her  breast  with  a  belt  of  wam- 
pum, leaving  her  fine  bust  entirely  bare,  her  small  feet 
trod  the  deck  with  the  elasticity  of  a  leopard  about  to 
leap  on  his  prey,  and  her  dark,  heavily- fringed  eyes, 
glowed  like  coals  of  fire.  She  seized  the  colonel's 
hand,  and  imprinted  a  kiss  upon  it,  another  upon  mine, 
and  without  a  look  at  the  father  of  her  child,  dived 
with  a  single  leap  over  the  gangway.  She  rose  di- 
rectly in  the  clear  water,  swam  with  powerful  strokes 
to  one  of  the  most  distant  islands,  and  turning  once 
more  to  wave  her  hand  as  she  stood  on  the  "shore, 
strode  on,  and  was  lost  in  the  tangles  of  the  forest. 


THE  CHEROKEE'S  THREAT. 

"  Notre  bonheur,  mon  cher,  se  liendra  toujours  etitre  la  planle  de 
nos  pieds  et,  notre  occiput ;  et  qu'il  coute  un  million  par  an  ou  cent 
louis,  la  perception  intrinsique  est  la  meme  au-dedans  de  nous." 

Le  Pere  Goriot, 

There  were  a  hundred  students  in  the  new  class 
matriculated  at  Yale  College  in  Connecticut,  in   the 


year  18 — .  They  were  young  men  of  different  ages 
and  of  all  conditions  in  life,  but  less  various  in  their 
mien  and  breeding  than  in  the  characteristics  of  the 
widely-separate  states  from  which  they  came.  It  is 
not  thought  extraordinary  in  Europe  that  the  French 
and  English,  the  German,  and  the  Italian,  should  pos- 
sess distinct  national  traits :  yet  one  American  is  sup- 
posed to  be  like  every  other,  though  the  two  between 
whom  the  comparison  is  drawn  were  born  and  bred  as 
far  apart,  and  in  as  different  latitudes,  as  the  Highland 
cateran  and  the  brigand  of  Calabria. 

I  looked  around  me  with  some  interest,  when,  on 
the  first  morning  of  the  term,  the  president,  professors, 
and  students  of  the  university  assembled  in  the  college 
chapel  at  the  sound  of  the  prayer-bell,  and,  with  my 
brother  freshmen,  I  stood  in  the  side  aisle,  closing 
up  with  our  motley,  and,  as  yet,  unclassical  heads  and 
habiliments,  the  long  files  of  the  more  initiated  classes. 
The  berry-brown  tan  of  the  sun  of  Georgia,  unblanched 
by  study,  was  still  dark  and  deep  on  the  cheek  of  one; 
the  look  of  command,  breathing  through  the  indolent 
attitude,  betrayed,  in  another,  the  young  Carolinian 
and  slave-master ;  a  coat  of  green,  garnished  with  fur 
and  bright  buttons,  and  shaped  less  by  the  tailor  than 
by  the  Herculean  and  expansive  frame  over  which  it 
was  strained,  had  a  taste  of  Kentucky  in  its  complex- 
ion ;  the  white  skin  and  red  or  sandy  hair,  cold  ex- 
pression, stiff  black  coat,  and  serious  attention  to  the 
service,  told  of  the  puritan  son  of  New  Hampshire  or 
Vermont ;  and,  perked  up  in  his  well-fitted  coat,  the 
exquisite  of  the  class,  stood  the  slight  and  metropolitan 
New-Yorker,  with  a  firm  belief  in  his  tailor  and  him- 
self written  on  his  effeminate  lip,  and  an  occasional 
look  at  his  neighbors'  coats  and  shoulders,  that  might 
have  been  construed  into  wonder  upon  what  western 
river  or  mountain  dwelt  the  builders  of  such  coats  and 
men  ! 

Rather  annoyed  at  last  by  the  glances  of  one  or  two 
seniors,  who  were  amusing  themselves  with  my  simple 
gaze  of  curiosity,  I  turned  my  attention  to  my  more 
immediate  neighborhood.  A  youth  with  close,  curl- 
ing, brown  hair,  rather  under-size,  but  with  a  certain 
decision  and  nerve  in  his  lip  which  struck  me  imme- 
diately, and  which  seemed  to  express  somehow  a  con- 
fidence in  himself  which  his  limbs  scarce  bore  out, 
stood  with  his  back  to  the  pulpit,  and,  with  his  foot  on 
the  seat  and  his  elbow  on  his  knee,  seemed  to  have 
fallen  at  once  into  the  habit  of  the  place,  and  to  be 
beyond  surprise  or  interest.  As  it  was  the  custom  of 
the  college  to  take  places  at  prayers  and  recitation 
alphabetically,  and  he  was  likely  to  be  my  neighbor 
in  chapel  and  hall  for  the  next  four  years,  I  speculated 
rather  more  than  I  should  else  have  done  on  his  face 
and  manner;  and  as  the  president  came  to  his  Amen, 
I  came  to  the  conclusion,  that  whatever  might  be  Mr. 
"S.'s"  capacity  for  friendship,  his  ill-will  would  be 
very  demonstrative  and  uncomfortable. 

The  term  went  on,  the  politics  of  the  little  republic 
fermented,  and  as  first  appearances  wore  away,  or 
peculiarities  wore  off  by  collision  or  developed  by  in- 
timacy, the  different  members  of  the  class  rose  or  fell 
in  the  general  estimation,  and  the  graduation  of  talent 
and  spirit  became  more  just  and  definite.  The 
"  Southerners  and  Northerners,"  as  they  are  called, 
soon  discovered,  like  the  classes  that  had  gone  before 
them,  that  they  had  no  qualities  in  common,  and,  of 
the  secret  societies  which  exist  among  the  students  in 
that  university,  joined  each  that  of  his  own  compatri- 
ots. The  Carolinian  or  Georgian,  who  had  passed  his 
life  on  a  plantation,  secluded  from  the  society  of  his 
equals,  soon  found  out  the  value  of  his  chivalrous  de- 
portment and  graceful  indolence  in  the  gay  society  for 
which  the  town  is  remarkable  ;  while  the  Vermontese, 
or  White-Mountaineer,  "  made  unfashionably,"  and  ill 
at  ease  on  a  carpet,  took  another  line  of  ambition,  and 
sat  down  with  the  advantage  of  constitutional  patience 


INKLINGS  OF  ADVENTURE. 


373 


aud  perseverance  to  the  study  which  he  would  find  in 
the  end  a  "  better  continuer,"  even  in  the  race  for  a 
lady's  favor. 

It  was  the  only  republic  I  have  ever  known — that 
class  of  freshmen.  It  was  a  fair  arena ;  and  neither 
in  politics,  nor  society,  nor  literature,  nor  love,  nor  re- 
ligion, have  I,  in  much  searching  through  the  world, 
found  the  same  fair  play  or  good  feeling.  Talk  of  our 
own  republic! — its  society  is  the  very  core  and  gall  of 
the  worst  growth  of  aristocracy.  Talk  of  the  republic 
of  letters !— the  two  graves  by  the  pyramid  of  Caius 
Cestius  laugh  it  to  scorn.  Of  love! — of  religion. 
What  is  bought  and  sold  like  that  which  has  the  name 
of  the  first  1  What  is  made  a  snare  and  a  tool  by  the 
designing  like  the  last?  But  here— with  a  govern- 
ment over  us  ever  kindly  aud  paternal,  no  favor  shown, 
aud  no  privilege  denied;  every  equality  in  the  com- 
petitors at  all  possible — age,  previous  education,  and, 
above  all,  worldly  position — it  was  an  arena  in  which 
a  generous  spirit  would  wrestle  with  an  abandon  of 
heart  and  limb  he  might  never  know  in  the  world 
again.  Every  individual  rising  or  falling  by  the  esti- 
mation he  exacts  of  his  fellows,  there  is  no  such 
school  of  honor  ;  each,  of  the  many  palms  of  scholar- 
ship, from  the  severest  to  the  lightest,  aiming  at  that 
which  best  suits  his  genius,  and  as  welcome  as  another 
to  the  goal,  there  is  no  apology  for  the  laggard.  Of 
the  feelings  that  stir  the  heart  in  our  youth — of  the 
few,  the  very  few,  which  have  no  recoil,  and  leave  no 
repentance — this  leaping  from  the  starting-post  of 
mind — this  first  spread  of  the  encouraged  wing  in  the 
free  heaven  of  thought  and  knowledge — is  recorded  in 
my  own  slender  experience  as  the  most  joyous  and 
the  most  unmingled.  He  who  has  soiled  his  bright 
honor  with  the  tools  of  political  ambition — he  who  has 
leant  his  soul  upon  the  charity  of  a  sect  in  religion — 
he  who  has  loved,  hoped,  and  trusted,  in  the  greater 
arena  of  life  and  manhood — must  look  back  on  days 
like  these  as  the  broken-winged  eagle  to  the  sky — as 
the  Indian's  subdued  horse  to  the  prairie. 


II. 


New  Haven  is  not  alone  the  seat  of  a  university. 
It  is  a  kind  of  metropolis  of  education.  The  excessive 
beauty  of  the  town,  with  its  embowered  streets  and 
sunny  gardens,  the  refinement  of  its  society,  its  cen- 
tral position  and  accessibility,  and  the  facilities  for  at- 
tending the  lectures  of  the  college  professors,  render 
it  a  most  desirable  place  of  instruction  in  every  de- 
partment. Among  others,  the  female  schools  of  the 
place  have  a  great  reputation,  and  this,  which  in  Eu- 
rope, or  with  a  European  state  of  society,  would 
probably  be  an  evil,  is,  from  the  simple  and  frank 
character  of  manners  in  America,  a  mutual  and  de- 
cided advantage.  The  daughters  of  the  first  families 
of  the  country  are  sent  here,  committed  for  two,  three, 
and  four  years,  to  the  exclusive  care  of  the  head  of 
the  establishment,  and  (as  one  of  the  privileges  and 
advantages  of  the  school)  associating  freely  with  the 
general  society  of  the  town,  the  male  part,  of  course, 
composed  principally  of  students.  A  more  easy  and 
liberal  intercourse  exists  in  no  society  in  the  world, 
and  in  no  society  that  I  have  ever  seen  is  the  tone  of 
morals  and  manners  so  high  and  unexceptionable. 
Attachments  are  often  formed,  and  little  harm  is 
thought  of  it ;  and  unless  it  is  a  very  strong  case  of 
disparity  or  objection,  no  obstacle  is  thrown  in  the 
way  of  the  common  intercourse  between  lovers;  and 
the  lady  returns  to  her  family,  and  the  gentleman 
senior  disappears  with  his  degree,  and  they  meet  and 
marry — if  they  like.  If  they  do  not,  the  lady  stands 
as  well  in  the  matrimonial  market  as  ever,  and  the 
gentleman  (unlike  his  horse)  is  not  damaged  by  hav- 
ing been  on  his  knees. 

Like  "  Le  Noir  Faineant,"   at  the  tournament,  my 


friend  St.  John  seemed  more  a  looker-on  than  an  actor 
in  the  various  pursuits  of  the  university.  A  sudden 
interference  in  a  quarrel,  in  which  a  brother  freshman 
was  contending  against  odds,  enlightened  the  class  as 
to  his  spirit  and  personal  strength;  he  acquitted  him- 
self at  recitations  with  the  air  of  self-contempt  for 
such  easy  excellence ;  he  dressed  plainly,  but  with 
instinctive  taste  ;  and  at  the  end  of  the  first  term, 
having  shrunk  from  all  intimacy,  and  lived  alone  with 
his  books  and  a  kind  of  trapper's  dog  he  had  brought 
with  him  from  the  west,  he  had  acquired  an  ascen- 
dency in  the  opinion  of  the  class  for  which  no  one 
could  well  account,  but  to  which  every  one  unhes- 
itatingly assented. 

We  returned  after  our  first  short  vacation,  and  of 
my  hundred  class-mates  there  was  but  one  whom  I 
much  cared  to  meet  again.  St.  John  had  passed  the 
vacation  in  his  rooms,  and  my  evident  pleasure  at 
meeting  him,  for  the  first  time,  seemed  to  open  his 
heart  to  me.  He  invited  me  to  breakfast  with  him. 
By  favor  seldom  granted  to  a  freshman,  he  had  a  lodg- 
ing in  the  town — the  rest  of  the  class  being  compelled 
to  live  with  a  chum  in  the  college  buildings.  I  found 
his  rooms — (I  was  the  first  of  the  class  who  had  en- 
tered them) — more  luxuriously  furnished  than  I  had 
expected  from  the  simplicity  of  his  appearance,  but 
his  books,  not  many,  but  select,  and  (what  is  in  America 
an  expensive  luxury)  in  the  best  English  editions  and 
superbly  bound,  excited  most  my  envy  and  surprise. 
How  he  should  have  acquired  tastes  of  such  ultra- 
civilization  in  the  forests  of  the  west  was  a  mystery 
that  remained  to  be  solved. 


III. 

At  the  extremity  of  a  green  lane  in  the  outer  skirt 
of  the  fashionable  suburb  of  New  Haven  stood  a  ram- 
bling old  Dutch  house,  built  probably  when  the  cattle 
of  Mynheer  grazed  over  the  present  site  of  the  town. 
It  was  a  wilderness  of  irregular  rooms,  of  no  describa- 
ble  shape  in  its  exterior,  and  from  its  southern  balcony, 
to  use  an  expressive  Gallicism,  "gave  upon  the  bay." 
Long  Island  sound,  the  great  highway  from  the  north- 
ern Atlantic  to  New  York,  weltered  in  alternate  lead 
and  silver  (oftener  like  the  brighter  metal,  for  the  cli- 
mate is  divine),  between  the  curving  lip  of  the  bay  and 
the  interminable  and  sandy  shore  of  the  island  some 
six  leagues  distant ;  the  procession  of  ships  and  steam- 
ers stole  past  with  an  imperceptible  progress  ;  the 
ceaseless  bells  of  the  college  chapel  came  deadened 
through  the  trees  from  behind,  and  (the  day  being  one 
of  golden  autumn,  and  myself  and  St.  John  waiting 
while  black  Agatha  answered  the  door-bell)  the  sun- 
steeped  precipice  of  East  Rock,  with  its  tiara  of  blood- 
red  maples  flushing  like  a  Turk's  banner  in  the  light, 
drew  from  us  both  a  truant  wish  for  a  ramble  and  a 
holyday.  I  shall  have  more  to  say  anon  of  the  foliage 
of  an  American  October:  but  just  now,  while  I  remem- 
ber it,  I  wish  to  record  a  belief  of  my  own,  that  if,  as 
philosophy  supposes,  we  have  lived  other  lives — if 

"our  star 

Hath  had  elsewhere  its  setting, 
And  cometh  from  afar" — 

it  is  surely  in  the  days  tempered  like  the  one  I  am  re- 
membering and  describing — profoundly  serene,  sunny 
as  the  top  of  Olympus,  heavenly  pure,  holy,  and  more 
invigorating  and  intoxicating  than  luxurious  or  balmy ; 
the  sort  of  air  that  the  visiting  angels  might  have 
brought  with  them  to  the  tent  of  Abraham— it  is  on 
such  days,  I  would  record,  that  my  own  memory  steps 
back  over  the  dim  threshold  of  life  (so  it  seems  to  me), 
and  on  such  days  only.  It  is  worth  the  translation  of 
our  youth  and  our  household  gods  to  a  sunnier  land, 
if  it  were  alone  for  those  immortal  revelations. 

In  a  few  minutes  from  this  time  were  assembled  in 


374 


INKLINGS  OF  ADVENTURE. 


Mrs.  Ilfrington's  drawing-room  the  six  or  seven  young 
ladies  of  my  more  particular  acquaintance  among  her 
pupils,  of  whom  one  was  a  newcomer,  and  the  object 
of  my  mingled  curiosity  and  admiration.  It  was  the 
one  day  of  the  week  when  morning  visiters  were  ad- 
mitted, and  I  was  there,  in  compliance  with  an  unex- 
pected request  from  my  friend,  to  present  him  to  the 
agreeable  circle  of  Mrs.  Ilfrington.  As  an  habitue  in 
her  family,  this  excellent  lady  had  taken  occasion  to 
introduce  to  me,  a  week  or  two  before,  the  newcomer 
of  whom  I  have  spoken  above — a  departure  from  the 
ordinary  rule  of  the  establishment,  which  I  felt  to  be 
a  compliment,  and  which  gave  me,  I  presumed,  a  tacit 
claim  to  mix  myself  up  in  that  young  lady's  destiny 
as  deeply  as  I  should  find  agreeable.  The  newcomer 
was  the  daughter  of  an  Indian  chief,  and  her  name 
was  Nunu. 

The  wrongs  of  civilization  to  the  noble  aborigines 
of  America  are  a  subject  of  much  poetical  feeling  in 
the  United  States,  and  will  ultimately  become  the  po- 
etry of  the  nation.  At  present  the  sentiment  takes 
occasionally  a  tangible  shape,  and  the  transmission  of 
the  daughter  of  a  Cherokee  chief  to  New  Haven,  to 
be  educated  at  the  expense  of  the  government,  and  of 
several  young  men  of  the  same  high  birth  to  different 
colleges,  will  be  recorded  among  the  evidences  in  his- 
tory that  we  did  not  plough  the  bones  of  their  fathers 
into  our  fields  without  some  feelings  of  compunction. 
Nunu  had  come  to  the  seaboard  under  the  charge  of  a 
female  missionary,  whose  pupil  she  had  been  in  one 
of  the  native  schools  of  the  west,  and  was  destined, 
though  a  chief's  daughter,  to  return  as  a  teacher  to 
her  tribe  when  she  should  have  mastered  some  of 
the  higher  accomplishments  of  her  sex.  She  was  an 
apt  scholar,  but  her  settled  melancholy,  when  away 
from  her  books,  had  determined  Mrs.  Ilfrington  to  try 
the  effect  of  a  little  society  upon  her,  and  hence  my 
privilege  to  ask  for  her  appearance  in  the  drawing- 
room. 

As  we  strolled  down  in  the  alternate  shade  and  sun- 
shine of  the  road,  I  had  been  a  little  piqued  at  the  want 
of  interest,  and  the  manner  of  course,  with  which  St. 
John  had  received  my  animated  descriptions  of  the 
personal  beauty  of  the  Cherokee. 

"  I  have  hunted  with  the  tribe,"  was  his  only  an- 
swer, "  and  know  their  features." 

"  But  she  is  not  like  them,"  I  replied,  with  a  tone 
of  some  impatience  ;  "  she  is  the  beau  ideal  of  a  red 
skin,  but  it  is  with  the  softened  features  of  an  Arab  or 
an  Egyptian.  She  is  more  willowy  than  erect,  and 
has  no  higher  cheek-bones  than  the  plaster  Venus  in 
your  chambers.  If  it  were  not  for  the  lambent  fire  in 
her  eye,  you  might  take  her,  in  the  sculptured  pose 
of  her  attitudes,  for  an  immortal  bronze  of  Cleopatra. 
I  tell  you  she  is  divine." 

St.  John  called  to  his  dog,  and  we  turned  along 
the  green  bank  above  the  beach,  with  Mrs.  Ilfrington's 
house  in  view,  and  so  opens  a  new  chapter  in  my  story. 

IV. 

In  the  united  pictures  of  Paul  Veronese  and  Ra- 
phael, steeped  as  their  colors  seem  to  have  been  in  the 
divinest  age  of  Venetian  and  Roman  female  beauty,  I 
have  scarcely  found  so  many  lovely  women,  of  so  dif- 
ferent models  and  so  perfect,  as  were  assembled  during 
my  sophomore  year  under  the  roof  of  Mrs.  Ilfrington. 
They  went  about  in  their  evening  walks,  graceful  and 
angelic,  but,  like  the  virgin  pearls  of  the  sea,  they 
poured  the  light  of  their  loveliness  on  the  vegeta- 
ting oysters  about  them,  and  no  diver  of  fashion  had 
yet  taught  them  their  value.  Ignorant  myself  in  those 
days  of  the  scale  of  beauty,  their  features  are  enam- 
elled in  my  memory,  and  I  have  tried  insensibly  by 
that  standard  (and  found  wanting)  of  every  court  in 
Europe  the  dames  most  worshipped  and  highest  born. 


Queen  of  the  Sicilies,  loveliest  in  your  own  realm  of 
sunshine  and  passion  !  Pale  and  transparent  princess 
— pearl  of  the  court  of  Florence — than  whom  the  cre- 
ations on  the  immortal  walls  of  the  Pitti  less  discipline 
our  eye  for  the  shapes  of  heaven  !  Gipsy  of  the  Pac- 
tolus  !  Jewess  of  the  Thracian  Gallipolis  !  Bright 
and  gifted  cynosure  of  the  aristocracy  of  England  ! — 
ye  are  five  women  I  have  seen  in  as  many  years'  wan- 
dering over  the  world,  lived  to  gaze  upon,  and  live  to 
remember  and  admire — a  constellation,  I  almost  be- 
lieve, that  has  absorbed  all  the  intensest  light  of  the 
beauty  of  a  hemisphere — yet,  with  your  pictures  col- 
ored to  life  in  my  memory,  and  the  pride  of  rank  and 
state  thrown  over  most  of  you  like  an  elevating  charm, 
I  go  back  to  the  school  of  Mrs.  Ilfrington,  and  (smile 
if  you  will !)  they  were  as  lovely,  and  stately,  and  as 
worthy  of  the  worship  of  the  world. 

I  introduced  St.  John  to  the  young  ladies  as  they 
came  in.  Having  never  seen  him,  except  in  the  pres- 
ence of  men,  1  was  a  little  curious  to  know  whether 
his  singular  aplomb  would  serve  him  as  well  with  the 
other  sex,  of  which  I  was  aware  he  had  had  a  very 
slender  experience.  My  attention  was  distracted  at 
the  moment  of  mentioning  his  name  to  a  lovely  little 
Georgian  (with  eyes  full  of  the  liquid  sunshine  of  the 
south),  by  a  sudden  bark  of  joy  from  the  dog,  who  had 
been  left  in  the  hall  ;  and  as  the  door  opened,  and  the 
slight  and  graceful  Indian  girl  entered  the  room,  the 
usually  unsocial  animal  sprang  bounding  in,  lavishing 
caresses  on  her,  and  seemingly  wild  with  the  delight 
of  a  recognition. 

In  the  confusion  of  taking  the  dog  from  the  room,  I 
had  again  lost  the  moment  of  remarking  St.  John's 
manner,  and  on  the  entrance  of  Mrs.  Ilfrington,  Nunu 
was  sitting  calmly  by  the  piano,  and  my  friend  was 
talking  in  a  quiet  undertone  with  the  passionate  Geor- 
gian. 

"  I  must  apologize  for  my  dog,"  said  St.  John,  bow- 
ing gracefully  to  the  mistress  of  the  house;  "  he  was 
bred  by  Indians,  and  the  sight  of  a  Cherokee  remind- 
ed him  of  happier  days — as  it  did  his  master." 

Nunu  turned  her  eyes  quickly  upon  him,  but  im- 
mediately resumed  her  apparent  deep  study  of  the  ab- 
struse figures  in  the  Kidderminster  carpet. 

"  You  are  well  arrived,  young  gentlemen,"  said  Mrs. 
Ilfrington  ;  "  we  press  you  into  our  service  for  a  bo- 
tanical ramble.  Mr.  Slingsby  is  at  leisure,  and  will  be 
delighted,  I  am  sure.  Shall  I  say  as  much  for  you, 
Mr.  St.  John  ?" 

St.  John  bowed,  and  the  ladies  left  the  room  for 
their  bonnets — Mrs.  Ilfrington  last.  The  door  was 
scarcely  closed  when  Nunu  reappeared,  and  checking 
herself  with  a  sudden  feeling  at  the  first  step  over  the 
threshold,  stood  gazing  at  St.  John,  evidently  under 
very  powerful  emotion. 

"  Nunu  !"  he  said,  smiling  slowly  and  unwillingly, 
and  holding  out  his  hand  with  the  air  of  one  who  for- 
gives an  offence. 

She  sprang  upon  his  bosom  with  the  bound  of  a 
leveret,  and  between  her  fast  kisses  broke  the  endear- 
ing epithets  of  her  native  tongue,  in  words  that  I  only 
understood  by  their  passionate  and  thrilling  accent. 
The  language  of  the  heart  is  universal. 

The  fair  scholars  came  in  one  after  another,  and  we 
were  soon  on  our  way  through  the  green  fields  to  the 
flowery  mountain-side  of  East  Rock;  Mrs.  Ilfrington's 
arm  and  conversation  having  fallen  to  my  share,  and 
St.  John  rambling  at  large  with  the  rest  of  the  party, 
but  more  particularly  beset  by  Miss  Temple,  whose 
Christian  name  was  Isabella,  and  whose  Christian  char- 
ity had  no  bowels  for  broken  hearts. 

The  most  sociable  individuals  of  the  party  for  a  while 
were  Nunu  and  Lash  ;  the  dog's  recollections  of  the 
past  seeming,  like  those  of  wiser  animals,  more  agreea- 
ble than  the  present.  The  Cherokee  astonished  Mrs. 
Ilfrington  by  an  abandonment  to  joy  and  frolic  whicb 


INKLINGS  OF  ADVENTURE. 


375 


she  had  never  displayed  before— sometimes  fairly  out- 
running the  dog  at  full  speed,  and  sometimes  sitting 
down  breathless  upon  a  green  bank,  while  the  rude 
creature  overpowered  her  with  his  caresses.  The 
scene  gave  origin  to  a  grave  discussion  between  that 
well-instructed  lady  and  myself,  upon  the  singular 
force  of  childish  association— the  extraordinary  intima- 
cy between  the  Indian  and  the  trapper's  dog  being 
explained  satisfactorily  (to  her,  at  least)  on  that  at- 
tractive principle.  Had  she  but  seen  Nunu  spring 
into  the  bosom  of  my  friend  half  an  hour  before,  she 
might  have  added  a  material  corollary  to  her  proposi- 
tion. If  the  dog  and  the  chief's  daughter  were  not 
old  friends,  the  chief's  daughter  and  St.  John  certain- 
ly were. 

A.s  well  as  I  could  judge  by  the  motions  of  two 
people  walking  before  me,  St.  John  was  advancing  fast 
in  the  favor  and  acquaintance  of  the  graceful  Georgian. 
Her  southern  indolence  was  probably  an  apology  in 
Mrs.  Ilfrington's  eyes  for  leaning  heavily  on  her  com- 
panion's arm  ;  but,  in  a  momentary  halt,  the  capricious 
beauty  disembarrassed  herself  of  the  bright  scarf  that 
had  floated  over  her  shoulders,  and  bound  it  playfully 
around  his  waist.  This  was  rather  strong  on  a  first 
acquaintance,  and  Mrs.  Ilfrington  was  of  that  opin- 
ion. 

"  Miss  Temple  !"  said  she,  advancing  to  whisper  a 
reproof  in  the  beauty's  ear. 

Before  she  had  taken  a  second  step,  Nunu  bounded 
over  the  low  hedge,  followed  by  the  dog,  with  whom 
she  had  been  chasing  a  butterfly,  and  springing  upon 
St.  John  with  eyes  that  flashed  fire,  she  tore  the  scarf 
into  shreds,  and  stood  trembling  and  pale,  with  her  feet 
on  the  silken  fragments. 

"  Madam !"  said  St.  John,  advancing  to  Mrs.  Ilfring- 
ton, after  casting  on  the  Cherokee  a  look  of  surprise 
and  displeasure,  "  I  should  have  told  you  before  that 
your  pupil  and  myself  are  not  new  acquaintances.  Her 
father  is  my  friend.  I  have  hunted  with  the  tribe,  and 
have  hitherto  looked  upon  Nunu  as  a  child.  You  will 
believe  me,  I  trust,  when  I  say  her  conduct  surprises 
me,  and  I  beg  to  assure  you  that  any  influence  I  may 
have  over  her  will  be  in  accordance  with  your  own 
wishes  exclusively." 

His  tone  was  cold,  and  Nunu  listened  with  fixed  lips 
and  frowning  eyes. 

"Have  you  seen  her  before  since  her  arrival?"  asked 
Mrs.  Ilfrington. 

"  My  dog  brought  me  yesterday  the  first  intelligence 
that  she  was  here :  he  returned  from  his  morning  ram- 
ble with  a  string  of  wampum  about  his  neck,  which 
had  the  mark  of  the  tribe.  He  was  her  gift,"  he  added, 
patting  the  head  of  the  dog,  and  looking  with  a  soft- 
ened expression  at  Nunu,  who  dropped  her  head  upon 
her  bosom,  and  walked  on  in  tears. 


The  chain  of  the  Green  mountains,  after  a  gallop  of 
some  five  hundred  miles,  from  Canada  to  Connecticut, 
suddenly  pulls  up  on  the  shore  of  Long-island  sound, 
and  stands  rearing  with  a  bristling  mane  of  pine-trees, 
three  hundred  feet  in  air,  as  if  checked  in  mid  career 
by  the  sea.  Standing  on  the  brink  of  this  bold  preci- 
pice, you  have  the  bald  face  of  the  rock  in  a  sheer  per- 
pendicular below  you  ;  and,  spreading  away  from  the 
broken  masses  at  its  feet,  lies  an  emerald  meadow,  in- 
laid with  a  crystal  and  rambling  river,  across  which, 
at  a  distance  of  a  mile  or  two,  rise  the  spires  of  the 
university,  from  what  else  were  a  thick-serried  wilder- 
ness of  elms.  Back  from  the  edge  of  the  precipice 
extends  a  wild  forest  of  hemlock  and  fir,  ploughed  on 
its  northern  side  by  a  mountain-torrent,  whose  bed  of 
marl,  dry  and  overhung  with  trees  in  the  summer,  serve 
as  a  path  and  a  guide  from  the  plain  to  the  summit.  It 
were  a  toilsome  ascent  but  for  that  smooth  and  hard 


pavement,  and  the  impervious  and  green  thatch  of 
pine  tassels  overhung. 

Antiquity  in  America  extends  no  farther  back  than 
the  days  of  Cromwell,  and  East  Rock  is  traditionary 
ground   with   us — for  there   harbored    the   regicides 
Whalley  and  Goffe,  and  many  a  breath-hushing  tale 
is  told  of  them  over  the  smouldering  log-fires  of  Con- 
necticut.    Not  to  rob  the  historian,  I  pass  on  to  say 
that  this  cavernous  path  to  the  mountain-top  was  the 
resort  in  the  holyday  summer  afternoons  of  most  of  the 
poetical  and  otherwise  well-disposed  gentlemen  sopho- 
mores, and,  on  the  day  of  which  I  speak,  of  Mrs.  Il- 
frington and  herseven-and-twenty  lovely  scholars.  The 
1  kind  mistress  ascended  with  the  assistance  of  my  arm, 
j  and  St.  John  drew  stoutly  between  Miss  Temple  and 
i  a  fat  young  lady  with  an  incipient  asthma.     Nunu  had 
!  not  been  seen  since  the  first  cluster  of  hanging  flow- 
ers had  hidden  her  from  our  sight,  as  she  bounded 
upward. 

The  hour  or  two  of  slanting  sunshine,  poured  in 
upon  the  summit  of  the  precipice  from  the  west,  had 
been  sufficient  to  induce  a  fine  and  silken  moss  to 
show  its  fibres  and  small  blossoms  above  the  carpet  of 
pine-tassels  ;  and  emerging  from  the  brown  shadow  of 
the  wood,  you  stood  on  a  verdant  platform,  the  foliage 
of  sighing  trees  overhead,  a  fairies' velvet  beneath  you, 
and  a  view  below  that  you  may  as  well  (if  you  would 
not  die  in  your  ignorance)  make  a  voyage  over  the 
water  to  see. 

We  found  Nunu  lying  thoughtfully  near  the  brink 
of  the  precipice,  and  gazing  oft*  over  the  waters  of  the 
sound,  as  if  she  watched  the  coming  or  going  of  a 
friend  under  the  white  sails  that  spotted  its  bosom. 
We  recovered  our  breath  in  silence,  I  alone,  perhaps, 
of  that  considerable  company  gazing  with  admiration 
at  the  lithe  and  unconscious  figure  of  grace  lying  in 
the  attitude  of  the  Grecian  Hermaphrodite  on  the  brow 
of  the  rock  before  us.  Her  eyes  were  moist  and  mo- 
tionless with  abstraction,  her  lips  just  perceptibly 
curved  in  an  expression  of  mingled  pride  and  sorrow, 
her  small  hand  buried  and  clinched  in  the  moss,  and 
|  her  left  foot  and  ankle,  models  of  spirited  symmetry,  es- 
caped carelessly  from  her  dress,  the  high  instep  strained 
back  as  if  recovering  from  a  leap,  with  the  tense  con- 
trol of  emotion. 

The  game  of  the  coquettish  Georgian  was  well 
played.  With  a  true  woman's  pique,  she  had  re- 
doubled her  attentions  to  my  friend  from  the  moment 
that  she  found  it  gave  pain  to  another  of  her  sex  ;  and 
St.  John,  like  most  men,  seemed  not  unwilling  to  see 
a  new  altar  kindled  to  his  vanity,  though  a  heart  he 
had  already  won  was  stifling  with  the  incense.  Miss 
Temple  was  very  lovely.  Her  skin,  of  that  teint  of 
opaque  and  patrican  white  which  is  found  oftenest  in 
Asian  latitudes,  was  just  perceptibly  warmed  toward 
the  centre  of  the  cheek  with  a  glow  like  sunshine 
through  the  thick  white  petal  of  a  magnolia;  her  eyes 
were  hazel,  with  those  inky  lashes  which  enhance  the 
expression  a  thousand-fold,  either  of  passion  or  mel- 
ancholy ;  .her  teeth  were  like  strips  from  the  lily's 
heart;  and  she  was  clever,  captivating,  graceful,  and  a 
thorough  coquette.  St.  John  was  mysterious,  roman- 
tic-looking, superior,  and,  just  now,  the  only  victim  in 
the  way.  He  admired,  as  all  men  do,  those  qualities 
which,  to  her  own  sex,  rendered  the  fair  Isabella  un- 
amiable ;  and  yielded  himself,  as  all  men  will,  a  satis- 
fied prey  to  enchantments  of  which  he  knew  the 
springs  were  the  pique  and  vanity  of  the  enchantress. 
How  singular  it  is  that  the  highest  and  best  qualities 
of  the  female  heart  are  those  with  which  men  are  the 
least  captivated ! 

A  rib  of  the  mountain  formed  a  natural  seat  a  little 
back  from  the  pitch  of  the  precipice,  and  here  sat  Miss 
Temple,  triumphant  in  drawing  all  eyes  upon  herself 
and  her  tamed  lion  ;  her  lap  full  of  flowers,  which  he 
had  found  time  to  gather  on  the  way,  and  her  white 


376 


INKLINGS  OF  ADVENTURE. 


hands  employed  in  arranging  a  bouquet,  of  which  the 
destiny  was  yet  a  secret.  Next 'to  their  own  loves, 
ladies  like  nothing  on  earth  like  mending  or  marring 
the  loves  of  others ;  and  while  the  violets  and  already- 
drooping  wild  flowers  were  coquettishly  chosen  or  re- 
jected by  those  slender  fingers,  the  sun  might  have 
swung  back  to  the  east  like  a  pendulum,  and  those 
seven-and-twenty  misses  would  have  watched  their 
lovely  schoolfellow  the  same.  Nunu  turned  her  head 
slowly  around  at  last,  and  silently  looked  on.  St. 
John  lay  at  the  feet  of  the  Georgian,  glancing  from 
the  flowers  to  her  face,  and  from  her  face  to  the  flow- 
ers, with  an  admiration  not  at  all  equivocal.  Mrs. 
Ufrington  sat  apart,  absorbed  in  finishing  a  sketch  of 
New-Haven  ;  and  I,  interested  painfully  in  watching 
the  emotions  of  the  Cherokee,  sat  with  my  back  to 
the  trunk  of  a  hemlock — the  only  spectator  who 
comprehended  the  whole  extent  of  the  drama. 

A  wild  rose  was  set  in  the  heart  of  the  bouquet  at 
last,  a  spear  of  riband-grass  added  to  give  it  grace 
and  point,  and  nothing  was  wanting  but  a  string.  Ret- 
icules were  searched,  pockets  turned  inside  out,  and 
never  a  bit  of  riband  to  be  found.  The  beauty  was 
in  despair 

"  Stay,"  said  St.  John,  springing  to  his  feet. 
"Lash!  Lash!" 

The  dog  came  coursing  in  from  the  wood,  and 
crouched  to  his  master's  hand. 

"  Will  a  string  of  wampum  do  ?"  he  asked,  feeling 
under  the  long  hair  on  the  dog's  neck,  and  untying  a 
fine  and  variegated  thread  of  many-colored  beads, 
worked  "exquisitely. 

The  dog  growled,  and  Nunu  sprang  into  the  mid- 
dle of  the  circle  with  the  fling  of  an  adder,  and  seiz- 
ing the  wampum  as  he  handed  it  to  her  rival,  called  the 
dog,  and  fastened  it  once  more  around  his  neck. 

The  ladies  rose  in  alarm  ;  the  belle  turned  pale,  and 
clung  to  St.  Johu's  arm  ;  the  dog,  with  his  hair  brist- 
ling upon  his  back,  stood  close  to  her  feet  in  an  atti- 
tude of  defiance  ;  and  the  superb  Indian,  the  peculiar 
genius  of  her  beauty  developed  by  her  indignation, 
her  nostrils  expanded,  and  her  eyes  almost  showering 
fire  in  their  flashes,  stood  before  them  like  a  young 
Pythoness,  ready  to  strike  them  dead  with  a  regard. 

St.  John  recovered  from  his  astonishment  after  a 
moment,  and  leaving  the  arm  of  Miss  Temple,  ad- 
vanced a  step,  and  called  to  his  dog. 

The  Cherokee  patted  the  animal  on  his  back,  and 
spoke  to  him  in  her  own  language  ;  and,  as  St.  John 
still  advanced,  Nunu  drew  herself  to  her  fullest  height, 
placed  herself  before  the  dog,  who  slunk  growling 
from  his  master,  and  said  to  him,  as  she  folded  her 
arms,  "  The  wampum  is  mine." 

St.  John  colored  to  the  temples  with  shame. 

44  Lash  !"  he  cried,  stamping  with  his  feet,  and  en- 
deavoring to  fright  him  from  his  protectress. 

The  dog  howled  and  crept  away,  half  crouching 
with  fear,  toward  the  precipice ;  and  St.  John  shoot- 
ing suddenly  past  Nunu,  seized  him  on  the  brink,  and 
held  him  down  by  the  throat. 

The  next  instant,  a  scream  of  horror  from  Mrs.  II- 
frington,  followed  by  a  terrific  echo  from  every  female 
present,  started  the  rude  Kentuckian  to  his  feet. 

Clear  over  the  abyss,  hanging  with  one  hand  by  an 
ashen  sapling,  the  point  of  her  tiny  foot  just  poising 
on  a  projecting  ledge  of  rock,  swung  the  desperate 
Cherokee,  sustaining  herself  with  perfect  ease,  but 
with  all  the  determination  of  her  iron  race  collected 
in  calm  concentration  on  her  lips. 

"  Restore  the  wampum  to  his  neck,"  she  cried,  with 
a  voice  that  thrilled  the  very  marrow  with  its  subdued 
fierceness,  "  or  my  blood  rest  on  your  soul !" 

St.  John  flung  it  toward  the  dog,  and  clasped  his 
hands  in  silent  horror. 

The  Cherokee  bore  down  the  sapling  till  its  slender 
stem  cracked  with  the  tension,  and  rising  lightly  with 


the  rebound,  alit  like  a  feather  upon  the  rock.  The 
subdued  student  sprang  to  her  side  ;  but  with  scorn 
on  her  lip,  and  the  flush  of  exertion  already  vanished 
from  her  cheek,  she  called  to  the  dog,  and  with  rapid 
strides  took  her  way  alone  down  the  mountain. 

VI. 

Five  years  had  elapsed.  I  had  put  to  sea  from  the 
sheltered  river  of  boyhood — had  encountered  the 
storms  of  a  first  entrance  into  life — had  trimmed  my 
boat,  shortened  sail,  and,  with  a  sharp  eye  to  wind- 
ward, was  lying  fairly  on  my  course.  Among  others 
from  whom  I  had  parted  company  was  Paul  St.  John, 
who  had  shaken  hands  with  me  at  the  university  gate, 
leaving  me,  after  four  years'  intimacy,  as  much  in 
doubt  as  to  his  real  character  and  history  as  the  first 
day  we  met.  I  had  never  heard  him  speak  of  either 
father  or  mother,  nor  had  he,  to  my  knowledge,  re- 
ceived a  letter  from  the  day  of  his  matriculation.  He 
passed  his  vacations  at  the  university ;  he  had  studied 
well,  yet  refused  one  of  the  highest  college  honors 
offered  him  with  his  degree  ;  he  had  shown  many 
good  qualities,  yet  some  unaccountable  faults  ;  and, 
all  in  all,  was  an  enigma  to  myself  and  the  class.  I 
knew  him,  clever,  accomplished,  and  conscious  of 
superiority  ;  and  my  knowledge  went  no  farther.  The 
coach  was  at  the  gate,  and  I  was  there  to  see  him  off; 
and,  after  four  years'  constant  association,  I  had  not 
an  idea  where  he  was  going,  or  to  what  he  was  des- 
tined. The  driver  blew  his  horn. 
"  God  bless  you,  Slingsby  !" 
"God  bless  you,  St.  John  " 
And  so  we  parted. 

It  was  five  years  from  this  time,  I  say,  and,  in  the 
bitter  struggles  of  first  manhood,  I  had  almost  forgot- 
ten there  was  such  a  being  in  the  world.     Late  in  the 
j  month  of  October,  in  1829,  I  was  on  my  way  west- 
ward, giving  myself  a  vacation  from  the  law.     I  em- 
barked, on  a  clear   and  delicious  day,    in  the  small 
steamer  which  plies  up  and  down  the  Cayuga  lake, 
!  looking  forward  to  a  calm  feast  of  scenery,  and  caring 
j  little  who  were  to  be  my  fellow-passengers.     As  we 
got  out  of  the  little  harbor  of  Cayuga,  I  walked  astern 
for  the  first  time,  and  saw  the  not  very  unusual  sight 
of  a   group  of  Indians   standing   motionless   by  the 
wheel.  They  were  chiefs,  returning  from  a  diplomatic 
visit  to  Washington. 

I  sat  down  by  the  companion-ladder,  and  opened 
I  soul  and  eye  to  the  glorious  scenery  we  were  gliding 
j  through.  The  first  severe  frost  had  come,  and  the 
j  miraculous  change  had  passed  upon  the  leaves  which 
j  is  known  only  in  America.  The  blood-red  sugar  ma- 
ple, with  a  leaf  brighter  and  more  delicate  than  a  Cir- 
cassian lip,  stood  here  and  there  in  the  forest  like  the 
Sultan's  standard  in  a  host — the  solitary  and  far-seen 
aristocrat  of  the  wilderness  ;  the  birch,  with  its  spirit- 
like and  amber  leaves,  ghosts  of  the  departed  summer, 
turned  out  along  the  edges  of  the  woods  like  a  lining 
of  the  palest  gold  ;  the  broad  sycamore  and  the  fan- 
like catalpa  flaunted  their  saffron  foliage  in  the  sun, 
spotted  with  gold  like  the  wings  of  a  lady-bird ;  the 
kingly  oak,  with  its  summit  shaken  bare,  still  hid  its 
majestic  trunk  in  a  drapery  of  sumptuous  dyes,  like  a 
stricken  monarch,  gathering  his  robes  of  state  about 
him  to  die  royally  in  his  purple ;  the  tall  poplar,  with 
its  minaret  of  silver  leaves,  stood  blanched  like  a  cow- 
ard in  the  dying  forest,  burthening  every  breeze  with 
its  complainings  ;  the  hickory  paled  through  its  en- 
during green  ;  the  bright  berries  of  the  mountain-ash 
flushed  with  a  more  sanguine  glory  in  the  unobstructed 
sun  ;  the  gaudy  tulip-tree,  the  Sybarite  of  vegetation, 
stripped  of  its  golden  cups,  still  drank  the  intoxicating 
light  of  noonday  in  leaves  than  which  the  lip  of  an 
Indian  shell  was  never  more  delicately  teinted  ;  the 
still  deeper-dyed  vines  of  the  lavish  wilderness,  perish- 


INKLINGS  OF  ADVENTURE. 


377 


ing  with  the  noble  things  whose  summer  they  had 
6hared,  outshone  them  in  their  decline,  as  woman  in 
her  death  is  heavenlier  than  the  being  on  whom  in  life 
she  leaned;  and  alone  and  unsympathizing  in  this 
universal  decay,  outlaws  from  Nature,  stood  the  fir 
and  the  hemlock,  their  frowning  and  sombre  heads 
darker  and  less  lovely  than  ever,  in  contrast  with  the 
death-struck  glory  of  their  companions. 

The  dull  colors  of  English  autumnal  foliage  give 
you  no  conception  of  this  marvellous  phenomenon. 
The  change  here  is  gradual ;  in  America  it  is  the 
work  of  a  night — of  a  single  frost ! 

Oh,  to  have  seen  the  sun  set  on  hills  bright  in  the 
still  green  and  lingering  summer,  and  to  wake  in  the 
morning  to  a  spectacle  like  this! 

It  is  as  if  a  myriad  of  rainbows  were  laced  through 
the  tree-tops — as  if  the  sunsets  of  a  summer — gold, 
purple,  and  crimson — had  been  fused  in  the  alembic 
of  the  west,  and  poured  back  in  a  new  deluge  of  light 
and  color  over  the  wilderness.  It  is  as  if  every  leaf 
in  those  countless  trees  had  been  painted  to  outflush 
the  tulip — as  if,  by  some  electric  miracle,  the  dyes  of 
the  earth's  heart  had  struck  upward,  and  her  crystals 
and  ores,  her  sapphires,  hyacinths,  and  rubies,  had  let 
forth  their  imprisoned  colors  to  mount  through  the 
roots  of  the  forest,  and,  like  the  angels  that  in  olden 
time  entered  the  body  of  the  dying,  reanimate  the  per- 
ishing leaves,  and  revel  an  hour  in  their  bravery. 

I  was  sitting  by  the  companion-ladder,  thinking  to 
what  on  earth  these  masses  of  foliage  could  be  resem- 
bled, when  a  dog  sprang  upon  my  knees,  and,  the 
moment  after,  a  hand  was  laid  on  my  shoulder. 

"St.  John?     Impossible!" 

"  Bodily!"  answered  my  quondam  classmate. 

I  looked  at  him  with  astonishment.  The  soigne 
man  of  fashion  I  had  once  known  was  enveloped  in  a 
kind  of  hunter's  frock,  loose  and  large,  and  girded  to 
his  waist  by  a  belt;  his  hat  was  exchanged  for  a  cap 
of  rich  otter  skin  ;  his  pantaloons  spread  with  a  slov- 
enly carelessness  over  his  feet ;  and,  altogether,  there 
was  that  in  his  air  which  told  me  at  a  glance  that  he 
had  renounced  the  world.  Lash  had  recovered  his 
leanness,  and,  after  wagging  out  his  joy,  he  crouched 
between  my  feet,  and  lay  looking  into  my  face,  as  if 
he  was  brooding  over  the  more  idle  days  in  which  we 
had  been  acquainted. 

"  And  where  are  you  bound  ?"  I  asked,  having  an- 
swered the  same  question  for  myself. 

"  Westward  with  the  chiefs  !" 

"For  how  long  ?" 

"  The  remainder  of  my  life." 

I  could  not  forbear  an  exclamation  of  surprise. 

"  You  would  wonder  less,"  said  he,  with  an  impa- 
tient gesture,  "if  you  knew  more  of  me.  And,  by- 
the-way,"  he  added  with  a  smile,  "  I  think  I  never 
told  you  the  first  half  of  the  story — my  life  up  to  the 
time  I  met  you." 

"  It  was  not  for  want  of  a  catechist,"  I  answered, 
settling  myself  in  an  attitifde  of  attention. 

"  No  ;  and  I  was  often  tempted  to  gratify  your  cu- 
riosity :  but  from  the  little  intercourse  I  had  had  with 
the  world,  I  had  adopted  some  precocious  principles; 
and  one  was,  that  a  man's  influence  over  others  was 
vulgarized  and  diminished  by  a  knowledge  of  his 
history." 

I  smiled,  and  as  the  boat  sped  on  her  way  over  the 
calm  waters  of  the  Cayuga,  St.  John  went  on  lei- 
surely with  a  story  which  is  scarce  remarkable  enough 
for  a  repetition.  He  believed  himself  the  natural  son 
of  a  western  hunter,  but  only  knew  that  he  had  passed 
his  early  youth  on  the  borders  of  civilization,  between 
whites  and  Indians,  and  that  he  had  been  more  par- 
ticularly indebted  for  protection  to  the  father  of  Nunu. 
Mingled  ambition  and  curiosity  had  led  him  eastward 
while  still  a  lad,  and  a  year  or  two  of  a  most  vagabond 
hfe  in  the  different  cities  had  taught  him  the  caution 


and  bitterness  for  which  he  was  so  remarkable.  A 
fortunate  experiment  in  lotteries  supplied  him  with 
the  means  of  education,  and,  with  singular  application 
in  a  youth  of  such  wandering  habits,  he  had  applied 
himself  to  study  under  a  private  master,  fitted  him- 
self for  the  university  in  half  the  usual  time,  and  cul- 
tivated, in  addition,  the  literary  taste  which  I  have  re- 
marked upon. 

"  This,"  he  said,  smiling  at  my  look  of  astonish- 
ment, "  brings  me  up  to  the  time  when  we  met.  I 
came  to  college  at  the  age  of  eighteen,  with  a  few 
hundred  dollars  in  my  pocket,  some  pregnant  experi- 
ence of  the  rough  side  of  the  world,  great  confidence 
in  myself,  and  distrust  of  others,  and,  I  believe,  a  kind 
of  instinct  of  good  manners,  which  made  me  ambi- 
tious of  shining  in  society.  Yon  were  a  witness  to 
my  debHt.  Miss  Temple  was  the  first  highly-edu- 
cated woman  I  had  ever  known,  and  you  saw  her 
effect  on  me." 

"  And  since  we  parted  ?" 

"  Oh,  since  we  parted  my  life  has  been  vulgar 
enough.  I  have  ransacked  civilized  life  to  the  bot- 
tom, and  found  it  a  heap  of  unredeemed  falsehoods. 
I  do  not  say  it  from  common  disappointment,  for  I 
I  may  say  I  succeeded  in  everything  I  undertook " 

"Except  Miss  Temple,"  1  said,  interrupting,  at  the 
I  hazard  of  wounding  him. 

"  No ;  she  was  a  coquette,  and  I  pursued  her  till  I 
!  had  my  turn.  You  see  me  in  my  new  character  now. 
But  a  month  ago  I  was  the  Apollo  of  Saratoga,  play- 
ing my  own  game  with  Miss  Temple.  I  left  her  for 
a  woman  worth  ten  thousand  of  her — and  here  she 
is." 

As  Nunu  came  up  the  companion-way  from  the 
cabin,  I  thought  I  had  never  seen  breathing  creature 
so  exquisitely  lovely.  With  the  exception  of  a  pair 
of  brilliant  moccasins  on  her  feet,  she  was  dressed  in 
the  usual  manner,  but  with  the  most  absolute  sim- 
plicity. She  had  changed  in  those  five  years  from 
the  child  to  the  woman,  and,  with  a  round  and  well- 
developed  figure,  additional  height,  and  manners  at 
once  gracious  and  dignified,  she  walked  and  looked 
the  chieftain's  daughter.  St.  John  took  her  hand, 
and  gazed  on  her  with  moisture  in  his  eyes. 

"  That  I  could  ever  have  put  a  creature  like  this," 
he  said,  "  into  comparison  with  the  dolls  of  civiliza- 
tion!" 

We  parted  at  Buffalo  ;  St.  John  with  his  wife  and 
the  chiefs  to  pursue  their  way  westward  by  Lake 
Erie,  and  I  to  go  moralizing  on  my  way  to  Niagara. 


F.  SMITH. 

"  Nature  had  made  him  for  some  other  planet, 
And  pressed  his  soul  into  a  human  shape 
By  accident  or  malice."  Coleridge. 

"  I  'U  have  you  chronicled,  and  chronicled,  and  cut-and-chron- 
icled,  and  sung  in  all-to-be-praised  sonnets,  and  graved  in  new 
brave  ballads,  that  all  tongues  shall  troule  you."— Philaster. 

If  you  can  imagine  a  buried  Titan  lying  along  the 
length  of  a  continent  with  one  arm  stretched  out  into 
the  midst  of  the  sea,  the  place  to  which  I  would  trans- 
port you,  reader  mine !  would  lie  as  it  were  in  the 
palm  of  the  giant's  hand.  The  small  promontory  to 
which  I  refer,  which  becomes  an  island  in  certain 
states  of  the  tide,  is  at  the  end  of  one  of  the  long  capes 
of  Massachusetts,  and  is  still  called  by  its  Indian  name, 
Nahant.  Not  to  make  you  uncomfortable,  I  beg  to 
introduce  you  at  once  to  a  pretentious  hotel,  "squat 
like  a  toad"  upon  the  unsheltered  and  highest  poiut 
of  this  citadel  in  mid  sea,  and  a  very  great  resort  for 
j  the  metropolitan    New-Englanders.     Nahant  is  per- 


378 


INKLINGS  OF  ADVENTURE. 


haps,  liberally  measured,  a  square  half-mile;  and  it  is 
distant  from  what  may  fairly  be  called  mainland,  per- 
haps a  league. 

Road  to  Nahant  there  is  none.  The  oi  polloi  go 
there  by  steam  ;  but  when  the  tide  is  down,  you  may 
drive  there  with  a  thousand  chariots  over  the  bottom 
of  the  sea.  As  I  suppose  there  is  not  such  another 
place  in  the  known  world,  my  tale  will  wait  while  I 
describe  it  more  fully.  If  the  Bible  had  been  a  fic- 
tion (not  to  speak  profanely),  I  should  have  thought 
the  idea  of  the  destruction  of  Pharaoh  and  his  host 
hud  its  origin  in  some  such  wonder  of  nature. 

Nahant  is  so  far  out  into  the  ocean,  that  what  is 
called  the  "ground  swell,"  the  majestic  heave  of  its 
great  bosom  going  on  for  ever  like  respiration  (though 
its  face  may  be  like  a  mirror  beneath  the  sun,  and  a 
wind  may  not  have  crisped  its  surface  for  days  and 
weeks),  is  as  broad  and  powerful  within  a  rood  of  the 
shore  as  it  is  a  thousand  miles  at  sea. 

The  promontory  itself  is  never  wholly  left  by  the 
ebb  ;  but,  from  its  western  extremity,  there  runs  a 
narrow  ridge,  scarce  broad  enough  for  a  horse-path, 
impassible  for  the  rocks  and  sea-weed  of  which  it  is 
matted,  and  extending  at  just  high-water  mark  from 
Nahant  to  the  mainland.  Seaward  from  this  ridge, 
which  is  the  only  connexion  of  the  promontory  with 
the  continent,  descends  an  expanse  of  sand,  left  bare 
six  hours  out  of  the  twelve  by  the  retreating  sea,  as 
smooth  and  hard  as  marble,  and  as  broad  and  appa- 
rently as  level  as  the  plain  of  the  Hermus.  For  three 
miles  it  stretches  away  without  shell  or  stone,  a  sur- 
face of  white,  fine-grained  sand,  beaten  so  hard  by  the 
eternal  hammer  of  the  surf,  that  the  hoof  of  a  horse 
scarce  marks  it,  and  the  heaviest  wheel  leaves  it  as 
printless  as  a  floor  of  granite.  This  will  be  easily  un- 
derstood when  you  remember  the  tremendous  rise  and 
fall  of  the  ocean  swell,  from  the  very  bosom  of  which, 
in  all  its  breadth  and  strength,  roll  in  the  waves  of  the 
flowing  tide,  breaking  down  on  the  beach,  every  one, 
with  tlie  thunder  of  a  host  precipitated  from  the  bat- 
tlements of  a  castle.  Nothing  could  be  more  solemn 
and  anthem-like  than  the  succession  of  these  plunging 
surges.  And  when  the  "  tenth  wave"  gathers,  far  out 
at  sea,  and  rolls  onward  to  the  shore,  first  with  a 
glassy  and  heaving  swell  as  if  some  mighty  monster 
were  lurching  inland  beneath  the  water,  and  then, 
bursting  up  into  foam,  with  a  front  like  an  endless  and 
sparry  crystal  wall,  advances  and  overwhelms  every- 
thing in  its  progress,  till  it  breaks  with  a  centupled 
thunder  on  the  beach — it  has  seemed  to  me,  standing 
there,  as  if  thus  might  have  beaten  the  first  surge  on 
the  shore  after  the  fiat  which  "  divided  sea  and  land." 
I  am  no  Cameronian,  but  the  sea  (myself  on  shore) 
always  drives  me  to  Scripture  for  an  illustration  of  my 
feelings.  I 

The  promontory  of  Nahant  must  be  based  on  the 
earth's  axle,  else  1  can  not  imagirie  how  it  should  have 
lasted  so  long.  In  the  mildest  weather,  the  ground- 
swell  of  the  sea  gives  it  a  fillip  at  every  heave  that 
would  lay  the  "  castled  crag  of  Drachenfels"  as  low  as 
Memphis.  The  wine  trembles  in  your  beaker  of 
claret  as  you  sit  after  dinner  at  the  hotel  ;  and  if  you 
look  out  at  the  eastern  balcony  (for  it  is  a  wooden 
pagoda,  with  balconies,  verandahs,  and  colonnades  ad 
Libitum),  you  will  see  the  grass  breathless  in  the  sun- 
shine upon  the  lawn,  and  the  ocean  as  polished  and 
calm  as  MilacWs  brow  beyond,  and  yet  the  spray  and 
foam  dashing  fifty  feet  into  the  air  between,  and  en- 
veloping the  "Devil's  Pulpit"  (a  tall  rock  split  off  from 
the  promontory's  front)  in  a  perpetual  kaleidoscope  of 
mist  and  rainbows.  Take  the  trouble  to  transport 
yourself  there !  I  will  do  the  remaining  honors  on  the 
spot.  A  cavern  as  cool  (not  as  silent)  as  those  of 
Trophonius  lies  just  under  the  brow  of  yonder  preci- 
pice, and  the  waiter  shall  come  after  us  with  our  wine. 
You  have  dined  with   the  Borromeo  in  the  grotto  of 


Isola  Bella,  I  doubt  not,  and  know  the  perfection  of 
art — I  will  show  you  that  of  nature.  (I  should  like  to 
transport  you  for  a  similar  contrast  from  Terni  to 
Niagara,  or  from  San  Giovanni  Laterano  to  an  aisle  in 
a  forest  of  Michigan  ;  but  the  Daedalian  mystery,  alas ! 
is  unsolved.     We  "fly  not  yet.") 

Here  we  are,  then,  in  the  "Swallow's  Cave."  The 
floor  descends  by  a  gentle  declivity  to  the  sea,  and 
from  the  long  dark  cleft  stretching  outward  you  look 
forth  upon  the  broad  Atlantic — the  shore  of  Ireland 
the  first  terra  firma  in  the  path  of  your  eye.  Here  is 
a  dark  pool  left  by  the  retreating  tide  for  a  refrigerator, 
and  with  the  champagne  in  the  midst,  we  will  recline 
about  it  like  the  soft  Asiatics  of  whom  we  learned 
pleasure  in  the  east,  and  drink  to  the  small-featured 
and  purple-lipped  "  Mignons"  of  Syria — those  fine- 
limbed  and  fiery  slaves,  adorable  as  Peris,  and  by  turns 
languishing  and  stormy,  whom  you  buy  for  a  pinch 
of  piastres  (say  bl.  bs.)  in  sunny  Damascus.  Your 
drowsy  Circassian,  faint  and  dreamy,  or  your  crockery 
Georgian — fit  dolls  for  the  sensual  Turk — is,  to  him 
who  would  buy  soul,  dear  at  a  para  the  hecatomb. 

We  recline,  as  it  were,  in  an  ebon  pyramid,  with  a 
hundred  feet  of  floor  and  sixty  of  wall,  and  the  fourth 
side  open  to  the  sky.  The  light  comes  in  mellow  and 
dim,  and  the  sharp  edges  of  the  rocky  portal  seem  let 
into  the  pearly  arch  of  heaven.  The  tide  is  at  half- 
ebb,  and  the  advancing  and  retreating  waves,  which  at 
first  just  lifted  the  fringe  of  crimson  dulse  at  the  lip 
of  the  cavern,  now  dash  their  spray-pearls  on  the  rock 
below,  the  "tenth"  surge  alone  rallying  as  if  in  scorn 
of  its  retreating  fellows,  and,  like  the  chieftain  of  Cul- 
loden  Moor,  rushing  back  singly  to  the  contest.  And 
now  that  the  waters  reach  the  entrance  no  more,  come 
forward  and  look  on  the  sea  !  The  swell  lifts  ! — would 
you  not  think  the  bases  of  the  earth  rising  beneath  it? 
It  falls ! — would  you  not  think  the  foundation  of  the 
deep  had  given  way?  A  plain,  broad  enough  for  the 
navies  of  the  world  to  ride  at  large,  heaves  up  evenly 
and  steadily  as  if  it  would  lie  against  the  sky,  rests  a 
moment  spell-bound  in  its  place,  and  falls  again  as 
far — the  respiration  of  a  sleeping  child  not  more  reg- 
ular and  full  of  slumber.  It  is  only  on  the  shore  that 
it  chafes.  Blessed  emblem  !  it  is  at  peace  with  itself! 
The  rocks  war  with  a  nature  so  unlike  their  own,  and 
the  hoarse  din  of  their  border  onsets  resounds  through 
the  caverns  they  have  rent  open ;  but  beyond,  in  the 
calm  bosom  of  the  ocean,  what  heavenly  dignity!  what 
godlike  unconsciousness  of  alarm !  I  did  not  think  we 
should  stumble  on  such  a  moral  in  the  cave ! 

By  the  deeper  base  of  its  hoarse  organ,  the  sea  is 
now  playing  upon  its  lowest  stops,  and  the  tide  is  down. 
Hear!  how  it  rushes  in  beneath  the  rocks,  broken  and 
stilled  in  its  tortuous  way,  till  it  ends  with  a  washing 
and  dull  hiss  among  the  sea-weed,  and,  like  a  myriad 
of  small  tinkling  bells,  the  dripping  from  the  crags  is 
audible.     There  is  fine  music  in  the  sea! 

And  now  the  beach  is  bare.  The  cave  begins  to 
cool  and  darken,  and  the  fifst  gold  teint  of  sunset  is 
stealing  into  the  sky,  and  the  sea  looks  of  a  changing 
opal,  green,  purple,  and  white,  as  if  its  floor  were 
paved  with  pearl,  and  the  changing  light  struck  up 
through  the  waters.  And  there  heaves  a  ship  into  the 
horizon,  like  a  white-winged  bird  lying  with  dark  breast 
on  the  waves,  abandoned  of  the  sea-breeze  within  sight 
of  port,  and  repelled  even  by  the  spicy  breath  that 
comes  with  a  welcome  off  the  shore.  She  comes  from 
"merry  England."  She  is  freighted  with  more  than 
merchandise.  The  home-sick  exile  will  gaze  on  her 
snowy  sail  as  she  sets  in  with  the  morning  breeze,  and 
bless  it ;  for  the  wind  that  first  filled  it  on  its  way 
swept  through  the  green  valley  of  his  home !  What 
links  of  human  affection  brings  she  over  the  sea? 
How  much  comes  in  her  that  is  not  in  her  "bill  of 
lading,"  yet  worth,  to  the  heart  that  is  waiting  for  it,  a 
thousand  times  the  purchase  of  her  whole  venture! 


INKLINGS  OF  ADVENTURE. 


379 


Mais  montons  nous !  I  hear  the  small  hoofs  of 
Thalaba;  my  stanhope  waits;  we  will  leave  this  half 
Dottle  of  champagne,  that  "  remainder  biscuit,"  and  the 
echoes  of  our  philosophy,  to  the  Naiads  who  have  lent 
us  their  drawing-room.  Undine,  or  Egeria!  Lurly, 
or  Arethusa!  whatever  thou  art  called,  nympth  of  this 
shadowy  cave!  adieu! 

Slowly,  Thalaba !  Tread  gingerly  down  this  rocky 
descent !  So  !  Here  we  are  on  the  floor  of  the  vasty 
deep!  What  a  glorious  race-course  !  The  polished 
and  printless  sand  spreads  away  before  you  as  far  as 
the  eye  can  see,  the  surf  comes  in  below,  breast-high 
ere  it  breaks,  and  the  white  fringe  of  the  sliding  wave 
shoots  up  the  beach,  but  leaves  room  for  the  marching 
of  a  Persian  phalanx  on  the  sands  it  has  deserted. 
Oh,  how  noiselessly  runs  the  wheel,  and  how  dreamily 
we  slide  along,  feeling  our  motion  but  in  the  resist- 
ance of  the  wind,  and  by  the  trout-like  pull  of  the 
ribands  by  the  excited  animal  before  us.  Mark  the 
color  of  the  sand !  White  at  high-water  mark,  and 
thence  deepening  to  a  silvery  gray  as  the  water  has 
evaporated  less — a  slab  of  Egyptian  granite  in  the 
obelisk  of  St.  Peter's  not  more  polished  and  unimpres- 
sible.  Shell  or  rock,  weed  or  quicksand,  there  is 
none  ;  and  mar  or  deface  its  bright  surface  as  you 
will,  it  is  ever  beaten  down  anew,  and  washed  even  of 
the  dust  of  the  foot  of  man,  by  the  returning  sea. 
You  may  write  upon  its  fine-grained  face  with  a  crow- 
quill — you  may  course  over  its  dazzling  expanse  with 
a  troop  of  chariots. 

Most  wondrous  and  beautiful  of  all,  within  twenty 
yards  of  the  surf,  or  for  an  hour  after  the  tide  has  left 
the  sand,  it  holds  the  water  without  losing  its  firm- 
ness, and  is  like  a  gray  mirror,  bright  as  the  bosom  of 
the  sea.  (By  your  leave,  Thalaba!)  And  now  lean 
over  the  dasher,  and  see  those  small  fetlocks  striking 
up  from  beneath — the  flying  mane,  the  thorough-bred 
action,  the  small  and  expressive  head,  as  perfect  in 
the  reflection  as  in  the  reality;  like  Wordsworth's 
swan,  he 

u  Trots  double,  horse  and  shadow." 

You  would  swear  you  were  skimming  the  surface  of 
the  sea;  and  the  delusion  is  more  complete  as  the 
white  foam  of  the  "tenth  wave"  skims  in  beneath 
wheel  and  hoof,  and  you  urge  on  with  the  treacherous 
element  gliding  away  visibly  beneath  you. 

We  seem  not  to  have  driven  fast,  yet  three  miles, 
fairly  measured,  are  left  behind,  and  Thalaba's  blood 
is  up.     Fine  creature!  I  would  not  give  him 

"  For  the  best  horse  the  Sun  has  in  his  stable." 

We  have  won  champagne  ere  now,  Thalaba,  and  I, 
trotting  on  this  silvery  beach  ;  and  if  ever  old  age 
comes  on  me,  and  I  intend  it  never  shall  on  aught 
save  my  mortal  coil  (my  spirit  vowed  to  perpetual 
youth),  I  think  these  vital  breezes,  and  a  trot  on  these 
exhilarating  sands,  would  sooner  renew  my  prime 
than  a  rock  in  St.  Hilary's  cradle,  or  a  dip  in  the  well 
of  Kanathos.  May  we  try  the  experiment  together, 
gentle  reader! 

I  am  not  settled  in  my  own  mind  whether  this  de- 
scription of  one  of  my  favorite  haunts  in  America 
was  written  most  to  introduce  the  story  that  is  to  fol- 
low, or  the  story  to  introduce  the  description.  Possi- 
bly the  latter,  for  having  consumed  by  callow  youth 
in  wandering  "  to  and  fro  in  the  earth,"  like  Sathanas 
of  old,  and  looking  on  my  country  now  with  an  eye 
from  which  all  the  minor  and  temporary  features  have 
gradually  faded,  I  find  my  pride  in  it  (after  its  glory 
as  a  republic)  settling  principally  on  the  superior 
handiwork  of  nature  in  its  land  and  water.  When 
I  talk  of  it  now,  it  is  looking  through  another's  eyes 
— his  who  listens.  I  do  not  describe  it  after  my  own 
memory  of  what  it  was  once  to  ?ne,  but  according  to 
my   idea   of  what   it  will    seem  now  to   a   stranger. 


Hence  I  speak  not  of  the  friends  I  made,  rambling  by 
lake  or  river.     The  lake  and  the  river  are  there,  but 
the   friends  are   changed — to  themselves  and  me.     I 
speak  not  of  the  lovely  and   loving  ones  that  stood  by 
me,  looking  on  glen  or  waterfall.     The  glen  and  the 
waterfall  ar«  romantic  still,  but  the  form  and  the  heart 
that  breathed  through  it  are  no  longer  lovely  or  loving. 
I   should  renew  my  joys  by  the  old    mountain  and 
river,  for,  all   they  ever  were  I  should  find  them  still, 
and  never  seem  to  myself  grown  old,  or  cankered  of 
the  world,  or  changed  in   form   or  spirit,  while   they 
reminded  me   but  of  my  youth,  with  their  familiar 
sunshine  and  beauty.     But  the  friends  that  I  knew — 
as  I   knew  them — are  dead.     They  look  no   longer 
the   same;   they   have   another   heart   in    them;  the 
kindness  of  the  eye,  the  smilingness  of  the  lip,  are 
no   more   there.     Philosophy   tells   me  the   material 
and  living  body  changes  and  renews,  particle   by  par- 
ticle,  with    time  ;  and  experience — cold-blooded  and 
j  stony  monitor — tells  me,  in  his  frozen  monotone,  that 
heart  and  spirit  change  with  it  and  renew  !     But  the 
1  name  remains,  mockery  that  it  is!  and  the  memory 
!  sometimes;  and  so  these  apparitions  of  the  past — that 
;  we  almost  fear  to  question  when   they  encounter  us, 
;  lest  the  change  they  have  undergone  should  freeze  our 
i  blood — stare  coldly  on  us,  yet  call  us  by  name,  and 
;  answer,  though  coldly  to   their  own,   and   have  that 
j  terrible  similitude   to  what  they  were,  mingled  with 
j  their  unsympathizing  and  hollow  mummery,  that  we 
wish  the  grave  of  the  past,  with  all  that  it  contained 
of  kind  or   lovely,   had   been  sealed   for  ever.     The 
|  heart  we  have  lain  near  before  our  birth  (so  read  I  the 
i  book  of  human  life)  is  the  only  one  that  can  not  for- 
get that  it  has  loved  us.     Saith   well  and   affection- 
ately an  American  poet,  in  some   birth-day  verses  to 
!  his  mother — 

"  Mother  !  dear  mother  !  the  feelings  nurst 
As  I  hung  at  thy  bosom,  clung  round  thee  first — 
'Twas  the  earliest  link  in  love's  warm  chain, 
'Tis  the  only  one  that  will  long  remain  ; 
And  as,  year  by  year,  and  day  by  day, 
Some  friend,  still  trusted,  drops  away, 
Mother  !  dear  mother  !  oh,  dost  thou  see 
How  the  shortened  chain  brings  me  nearer  thee .'" 

II. 

I  have  observed  that  of  all  the  friends  one  has  in  the 
course  of  his  life,  the  truest  and  most  attached  is  ex- 
actly the  one  who,  from  his  dissimilarity  to  yourself, 
the  world  finds  it  very  odd  you  should  fancy.  We 
hear  sometimes  of  lovers  who  "  are  made  for  each 
other,"  but  rarely  of  the  same  natural  match  in  friend- 
ship. It  is  no  great  marvel.  In  a  world  like  this, 
where  we  pluck  so  desperately  at  the  fruit  of  pleasure, 
we  prefer  for  company  those  who  are  not  formed  with 
precisely  the  same  palate  as  ourselves.  You  will  sel- 
dom go  wrong,  dear  reader,  if  you  refer  any  human 
question  about  which  you  are  in  doubt  to  that  icy 
oracle — selfishness. 

My  shadow  for  many  years  was  a  gentle  monster, 
whom  I  have  before  mentioned,  baptized  by  the  name 
of  Forbearance  Smith.  He  was  a  Vermontese,  a  de- 
scendant of  one  of  the  puritan  pilgrims,  and  the  first 
of  his  family  who  had  left  the  Green  mountains  since 
the  flight  of  the  regicides  to  America.  We  assimilate 
to  what  we  live  among,  and  Forbearance  was  very 
green,  and  very  like  a  mountain.  He  had  a  general 
resemblance  to  one  of  Thorwaldsen's  unfinished  apos- 
tles— larger  than  life,  and  just  hewn  into  outline.  My 
acquaintance  with  him  commenced  during  my  first 
year  at  the  university.  He  stalked  into  my  room  one 
morning  with  a  hair-trunk  on  his  back,  and  handed  me 
the  following  note  from  the  tutor  : — 

"  Sir  :  The  faculty  have  decided  to  impose  upon 
you  the  fine  of  ten  dollars  and  damages,  for  painting 


380 


INKLINGS  OF  ADVENTURE. 


the  president's  horse  on  sabbath  night  while  grazing 
on  the  college  green.  They,  moreover,  have  removed 
Freshman  Wilding  from  your  rooms,  and  appoint  as 
your  future  chum  the  studious  and  exemplary  bearer, 
Forbearance  Smith,  to  whom  you  are  desired  to  show 
a  becoming  respect. 

"  Your  obedient  servant, 

"  Erasmus  Snufflegreek. 
N  To  Freshman  Slingsby." 

Rather  relieved  by  my  lenient  sentence  (for,  till  the 
next  shedding  of  his  well-saturated  coat,  the  sky-blue 
body  and  red  mane  and  tail  of  the  president's  once 
gray  mare  would  interfere  with  that  esteemed  animal's 
usefulness),  I  received  Mr.  Smith  with  more  polite- 
ness than  he  expected.  He  deposited  his  hair-trunk  in 
the  vacant  bedroom,  remarked  with  a  good-humored 
smile  that  it  was  a  cold  morning,  and  seating  himself 
in  my  easiest  chair,  opened  his  Euclid,  and  went  to 
work  upon  a  problem,  as  perfectly  at  home  as  if  he 
had  furnished  the  room  himself,  and  lived  in  it  from 
his  matriculation.  I  had  expected  some  preparatory 
apology  at  least,  and  was  a  little  annoyed  ;  but  being 
upon  my  good  behavior,  I  bit  my  lips,  and  resumed 
the  "Art  of  Love,"  upon  which  I  was  just  then  prac- 
tising my  nascent  Latinity,  instead  of  calculating  loga- 
rithms for  recitation.  In  about  an  hour,  my  new  chum 
suddenly  vociferated  "Eureka!"  shut  up  his  book, 
and  having  stretched  himself  (a  very  unnecessary  op- 
eration), coolly  walked  to  my  dressing-table,  selected 
my  best  hair-brush,  redolent  of  Macassar,  and  used  it 
with  the  greatest  apparent  satisfaction. 

"  Have  you  done  with  that  hair-brush  ?"  I  asked,  as 
he  laid  it  in  its  place  again. 

"  Oh  yes  !" 

"  Then,  perhaps,  you  will  do  me  the  favor  to  throw 
it  out  of  the  window." 

He  did  it  without  the  slightest  hesitation.  He  then 
resumed  his  seat  by  the  fire,  and  I  went  on  with  my 
book  in  silence.  Twenty  minutes  had  elapsed,  per- 
haps, when  he  rose  very  deliberately,  and  without  a 
word  of  preparation,  gave  me  a  cuff  that  sent  me  fly- 
ing into  the  wood-basket  in  the  corner  behind  me.  As 
soon  as  I  could  pick  myself  out,  I  flew  upon  him,  but 
I  might  as  well  have  grappled  with  a  boa-constrictor. 
He  held  me  off  at  arm's  length  till  I  was  quite  ex- 
hausted with  rage,  and,  at  last,  when  I  could  struggle 
no  more,  I  found  breath  to  ask  him  what  the  devil  he 
meant. 

"  To  resent  what  seemed  to  me,  on  reflection,  to  be 
an  insult,"  he  answered,  in  the  calmest  tone,  "  and 
now  to  ask  your  pardon  for  a  fault  of  ignorance.  The 
first  was  due  to  myself,  the  second  to  you." 

Thenceforth,  to  the  surprise  of  everybody,  and  Bob 
Wilding  and  the  tutor,  we  were  inseparable.  I  took 
Bruin  (by  a  double  elision  Forbearance  became  "  bear," 
and  by  paraphrase  Bruin,  and  he  answered  to  the 
name)— I  took  him,  I  say,  to  the  omnium  shop,  and 
presented  him  with  a  dressing-case,  and  other  appli- 
ances for  his  outer  man  ;  and  as  my  inner  man  was 
relatively  as  much  in  need  of  his  assistance,  we  mu- 
tually improved.  I  instructed  him  in  poetry  and  po- 
liteness, and  he  returned  the  lesson  in  problems  and 
politics.  My  star  was  never  in  more  fortunate  con- 
junction. 

Four  years  had  woven  their  threads  of  memory  about 
us,  and  there  was  never  woof  more  free  from  blemish. 
Our  friendship  was  proverbial.  All  that  much  care 
and  Macassar  could  do  for  Bruin  had  been  done,  but 
there  was  no  abating  his  seven  feet  of  stature,  nor  re- 
ducing the  size  of  his  feet  proper,  nor  making  the  mus- 
cles of  his  face  answer  to  their  natural  wires.  At  his 
most  placid  smile,  a  strange  waiter  would  run  for  a 
hot  towel  and  the  doctor  (colic  was  not  more  like  it- 
self than  that  like  colic) ;  and  for  his  motions — oh 
Lord  !  a  skeleton,  with  each  individual  bone  append- 


ed to  its  neighbor  with  a  string,  would  execute  a  pas 
seul  with  the  same  expression.  His  mind,  however, 
had  none  of  the  awkwardness  of  his  body.  A  simpli- 
city and  truth,  amounting  to  the  greatest  naivete,  and 
a  fatuitous  unconsciousness  of  the  effect  on  beholders 
of  his  outer  man,  were  its  only  approaches  to  fault  or 
foible.  With  the  finest  sense  of  the  beautiful,  the 
most  unerring  judgment  in  literary  taste,  the  purest 
romance,  a  fervid  enthusiasm,  constancy,  courage,  and 
good  temper,  he  walked  about  the  world  in  a  mask — 
an  admirable  creature,  in  the  guise  and  seeming  of  a 
ludicrous  monster. 

Bruin  was  sensitive  on  but  one  point.  He  never 
could  forgive  his  father  and  mother  for  the  wrong  they 
had  entailed  on  him  at  his  baptism.  "Forbearance 
Smith  !"  he  would  say  to  himself  sometimes  in  uncon- 
scious soliloquy,  "they  should  have  given  me  the  vir- 
tue as  well  as  the  name  !"  And  then  he  would  sit 
with  a  pen,  and  scrawl  "  F.  Smith"  on  a  sheet  of  paper 
by  the  hour  together.  To  insist  upon  knowing  his 
Christian  name  was  the  one  impertinence  he  never 
forgave. 


III. 


My  party  at  Nahant  consisted  of  Thalaba,  Forbear- 
ance,  and    myself.     The  place  was   crowded,  but  1 
I  passed  my  time  very  much  between  my  horse  and  my 
J  friend,  and  was  as  certain  to  be  found  on  the  beach 
;   when  the  tide  was  down,  as  the  sea  to  have  left  the 

I  sands.  Job  (a  synonyme  for  Forbearance  which  be- 
!  came  at  this  time  his  common  soubriquet)  was,  of 

' !  course,  in  love.  Not  the  least  to  the  prejudice,  how- 
|  ever,  of  his  last  faithful  passion — for  he  was  as  fond 

;,  of  the  memory  of  an  old  love,  as  he  was  tender  in  the 
i  presence  of  the  new.  I  intended  to  have  had  him  dis- 
I  sected  after  his  death,  to  see  whether  his  organization 
|  was  not  peculiar.     I  strongly  incline  to  the  opinion 

II  that  we  should  have  found  a  mirror  in  the  place  of  his 
heart.  Strange  !  how  the  same  man  who  is  so  fickle 
in  love,  will  be  so  constant  in  friendship  !  But  is  it 
fickleness  ?  Is  it  not  rather  a  supcrjlu  of  tenderness  in 
the  nature,  which  overflows  to  all  who  approach  the 
fountain  ?  I  have  ever  observed  that  the  most  suscep- 
tible men  are  the  most  remarkable  for  the  finer  quali- 
ties of  character.  They  are  more  generous,  more 
delicate,  and  of  a  more  chivalrous  complexion  alto- 
gether, than  other  men.  It  was  surprising  how  reason- 
ably Bruin  would  argue  upon  this  point.  "  Because 
I  was  happy  at  Niagara,"  he  was  saying  one  day  as 
we  sat  upon  the  rocks,  "  shall  I  take  no  pleasure  in 
the  falls  of  Montmorenci  ?  Because  the  sunset  was 
glorious  yesterday,  shall  I  find  no  beauty  in  that  of 
to-day  ?  Is  my  fancy  to  be  used  but  once,  and  the 
key  turned  upon  it  for  ever?     Is  the  heart  like  a  bon- 

||  bon,  to  be  eaten  up  by  the  first  favorite,  and  thought 
I  of  no  more  ?     Are  our  eyes  blind,  save  to  one  shape 
! !  of  beauty  ?    Are  our  ears  insensible  to  the  music  save 
of  one  voice  ?" 

11  But  do  you  not  weaken  the  heart,  and  become  in- 
capable of  a  lasting  attachment,  by  this  habit  of  incon- 
stancy ?" 

"  How  long,  my  dear  Phil,  will  you  persist  in  talk- 
!  ing  as  if  the  heart  was  material,  and  held  so  much  love 
as  a  cup  so  much  water,  and  had  legs  to  be  weary,  or 
organs  to  grow  dull  ?  How  is  my  sensibility  lessened 
— how  my  capacity  enfeebled  ?  What  would  I  have 
done  for  my  first  love,  that  I  would  not  do  for  my  last  ? 
I  would  have  sacrificed  my  life  to  secure  the  happi- 
ness of  one  you  wot  of  in  days  gone  by  :  I  would  jump 
into  the  sea,  if  it  would  make  Blanche  Carroll  happier 
to-morrow." 

"  Sautez-donc  /"  said  a  thrilling  voice  behind  ;  and 
as  if  the  utterance  of  her  name  had  conjured  her  out 
of  the  ground,  the  object  of  all  Job's  admiration,  and 
a  little  of  my  own,  stood  before  us.     She  had  a  work- 


INKLINGS  OF  ADVENTURE. 


381 


basket  in  her  hand,  a  gipsy-hat  tossed  carelessly  on 
her  head,  and  had  preceded  a  whole  troop  of  belles 
and  matrons,  who  were  coming  out  to  while  away  the 
morning,  and  breathe  the  invigorating  sea-air  on  the 

rocks.  ,  ,j       11 

Blanche  Carroll  was  what  the  women  would  call 
"  a  little  love,"  but  that  phrase  of  endearment  would 
not  at  all  express  the  feeling  with  which  she  inspired 
the  men.  She  was  small,  and  her  face  and  figure 
might  have  been  framed  in  fairy-land  for  bewitching 
beauty  ;  but  with  the  manner  of  a  spoiled  child,  and, 
apparently,  the  most  thoughtless  playfulness  of  mind, 
she  was  as  veritable  a  little  devil  as  ever  took  the  shape 
of  woman.  Scarce  seventeen  at  this  time,  she  had 
a  knowledge  of  character  that  was  like  an  instinct,  and 
was  an  accomplished  actress  in  any  part  it  was  neces- 
sary for  her  purpose  to  play.  No  grave  Machiavel 
ever  managed  his  cards  with  more  finesse  than  that 
little  intriguante  the  limited  world  of  which  she  was 
the  star.  She  was  a  natural  master-spirit  and  plotter; 
and  the  talent  that  would  have  employed  itself  in  the 
deeper  game  of  politics,  had  she  been  born  a  woman 
of  rank  in  Europe,  displayed  itself,  in  the  simple  so- 
ciety of  a  republic,  in  subduing  to  her  power  every- 
thing in  the  shape  of  a  single  man  that  ventured  to  her 
net.  I  have  nothing  to  tell  of  her  at  all  commensu- 
rate with  the  character  I  have  drawn,  for  the  disposal 
of  her  own  heart  (if  she  has  one)  must  of  course  be 
the  most  important  event  of  her  life  ;  but  I  merely 
pencil  the  outline  of  the  portrait  in  passing,  as  a 
specimen  of  the  material  that  exists — even  in  the 
simplest  society — for  the  dramatis  personce  of  a 
court. 

We  followed  the  light-footed  beauty  to  the  shelter 
of  one  of  the  caves  opening  on  the  sea,  and  seated  our- 
selves about  her  upon  the  rocks.  Some  one  proposed 
that  Job  or  myself  should  read. 

"Oh,  Mr.  Smith,"  interrupted  the  belle,  "where  is 
my  bracelet  ? — and  where  are  my  verses  ?" 

At  the  ball  the  night  before  she  had  dropped  a 
Dracelet  in  the  waltz,  and  Job  had  been  permitted  to 
take  care  of  the  fragments,  on  condition  of  restoring 
them,  with  a  sonnet,  the  next  morning.  She  had  just 
thought  of  it. 

"  Read  them  out !  read  them  out !"  she  cried,  as 
Job,  blushing  a  deep  blue,  extracted  a  tri-colored  pink 
document  from  his  pocket,  and  tried  to  give  it  to  her 
unobservsd,  with  the  packet  of  jewelry.  Job  looked 
at  her  imploringly,  and  she  took  the  verses  from  his 
hand,  and  ran  her  eye  through  them. 

"  Pretty  well !"  she  said  ;  "  but  the  last  line  might 
be  improved.  Give  me  a  pencil,  some  one  !"  And 
bending  over  it,  till  her  luxuriant  hair  concealed  her 
fairy  fingers  in  their  employment,  she  wrote  a  moment 
upon  her  knee,  and  tossing  the  paper  to  me,  bade  me 
read  it  out  with  the  emendation.  Bruin  had,  mean- 
time, modestly  disappeared,  and  I  read  with  the  more 
freedom  • — 


"  'Twas  broken  in  the  gliding  dance, 

When  thou  wert  in  ihe  dream  of  power  ; 
When  shape  and  motion,  tone  and  glance, 

Were  glorious  all — the  woman's  hour  ! 
The  light  lay  soft  upon  thy  brow, 

The  music  melted  in  thine  ear, 
And  one  perhaps  forgotten  now, 

With  'wildered  thoughts  stood  listening  near, 
Marvelling  not  that  links  of  gold 
A  pulse  like  thine  had  not  controlled. 

"  'Tis  midnight  now.    The  dance  is  done, 

And  thou,  in  thy  soft  dreams,  asleep, 
And  I,  awake,  am  gazing  on 

The  fragments  given  me  to  keep : 
I  think  of  every  glowing  vein 

That  ran  beneath  these  links  of  gold, 
And  wonder  if  a  thrill  of  pain 

Made  those  bright  channels  ever  cold  ! 
With  gifts  like  thine,  I  can  not  think 
Orief  ever  chilled  this  broken  link. 


"  Good-night !     'Tis  little  now  to  thee 

That  in  my  ear  thy  words  were  spoken, 
And  thou  wilt  think  of  them  and  me 

As  long  as  of  the  bracelet  broken. 
For  thus  is  riven  many  a  chain 

That  thou  hast  fastened  but  to  break, 
And  thus  thou'lt  sink  to  sleep  again, 

As  careless  that  another  wake  : 
The  only  thought  thy  heart  can  rend 
Is— what  the  fellow'll  charge  to  mend .'" 

Job's  conclusion  was  more  pathetic,  but  probably 
less  true.  He  appeared  alter  the  applause  had  ceased, 
and  resumed  his  place  at  the  lady's  feet,  with  a  look 
in  his  countenance  of  having  deserved  an  abatement 
of  persecution.  The  beauty  spread  out  the  fragments 
of  the  broken  bracelet  on  the  rock  beside  her. 

"  Mr.  Smith  !"  said  she,  in  her  most  conciliating 
tone. 

Job  leaned  toward  her  with  a  look  of  devoted  in- 
quiry. 

"  Has  the  tide  turned  ?" 

"  Certainly.     Two  hours  since." 

"  The  beach  is  passable,  then  ?" 

"  Hardly,  I  fear." 

"  No  matter.  How  many  hours'  drive  is  it  to  Sa- 
lem ?" 

"  Mr.  Slingsby  drives  it  in  two." 

"  Then  you'll  get  Mr.  Slingsby  to  lend  you  his 
stanhope,  drive  to  Salem,  have  this  bracelet  mended, 
and  bring  it  back  in  time  for  the  ball.  /  have  spoken, 
as  the  grand  Turk  says.     Allez  !" 

"  But  my  dear  Miss  Carroll " 

She  laid  her  hand  on  his  mouth  as  he  began  to  re- 
monstrate, and  while  I  made  signs  to  him  to  refuse, 
she  said  something  to  him  which  I  lost  in  a  sudden 
dash  of  the  waters.     He  looked  at  me  for  my  consent. 

"  Oh  !  you  can  have  Mr.  Slingsby's  horse,"  said  the 
beauty,  as  I  hesitated  whether  my  refusal  would  not 
check  her  tyranny,  "  and  I'll  drive  him  out  this  even- 
ing for  his  reward,  iV est -ce pas?  you  cross  man  !" 

So,  with  a  sun  hot  enough  to  fry  the  brains  in  his 
skull,  and  a  quivering  reflection  on  the  sands  that 
would  burn  his  face  to  a  blister,  exit  Job,  with  the 
broken  bracelet  in  his  bosom. 

"Stop,  Mr.  Slingsby," said  the  imperious  little  belle, 
as  I  was  making  up  a  mouth,  after  his  departure,  to 
express  my  disapprobation  of  her  measures,  "no  lec- 
ture, if  you  please.  Give  me  that  book  of  plays,  and 
I'll  read  you  a  precedent.  Because  you  are  virtuous, 
shall  we  have  no  more  cakes  and  ale  ?  Ecoutez  !  And, 
with  an  emphasis  and  expression  that  would  have  been 
perfect  on  the  stage,  she  read  the  following  passage 
from  "  The  Careless  Husband  :" — 

"  Lady  Betty. — The  men  of  sense,  my  dear,  make 
the  best  Yools  in  the  world;  their  sincerity  and  good 
breeding  throw  them  so  entirely  into  one's  power,  and 
give  one  such  an  agreeable  thirst  of  using  them  ill,  to 
show  that  power — 'tis  impossible  not  to  quench  it. 

"Lady  Easy. — But,  my  Lord  Morelove — 

"  Lady  B. — Pooh  !  my  Lord  Morelove's  a  mere  In- 
dian damask — one  can't  wear  him  out:  o' my  con- 
science, I  must  give  him  to  my  woman  at  last.  1  begin 
to  be  known  by  him  ;  had  I  not  best  leave  him  oil",  tin- 
dear  ? 

"  Lady  E. — Why  did  .you  ever  encourage  him  > 

"  Lady  B.— Why,  what  would  you  have  one  do  ? 
For  my  part,  I  could  no  more  choose  a  man  by  my 
eye  than  a  shoe— one  must  draw  them  on  a  little,  to 
see  if  they  are  right  to  one's  foot. 

"  Lady  E— But  I'd  no  more  fool  on  with  a  man  I 
could  not  like,  than  wear  a  shoe  that  pinched  me. 

"  Lady  B.—Ay  ;  but  then  a  poor  wretch  tells  one 
he'll  widen  'em,  or  do  anything,  and  is  so  evil  and 
silly,  that  one  does  not  know  how  to  turn  such  a  trifle 
as  a  pair  of  shoes,  or  a  heart,  upon  a  fellow's  hands 
again. 

"  Lady  TS.—And  thpre's  my  Lord  Fnppington. 


382 


INKLINGS  OF  ADVENTURE. 


"Lady  B. — My  dear!  fine  fruit  will  have  flies  about 
it ;  but,  poor  things!  they  do  it  no  harm;  for,  if  you 
observe,  people  are  generally  most  apt  to  choose  that 
the  flies  have  been  busy  with.     Ha  !  ha  ! 

"  Lady  E. — Thou  art  a  strange,  giddy  creature ! 

14  Lady  B. — That  may  be  from  too  much  circula- 
tion of  thought,  my  dear  !" 

"  Pray,  Miss  Carroll,"  said  I,  as  she  threw  aside  the 
book  with  a  theatrical  air,  "  have  you  any  precedent 
for  broiling  a  man's  brains,  as  well  as  breaking  his 
heart  ?  For,  by  this  time,  my  friend  Forbearance  has 
a  coup  de  soleil,  and  is  hissing  over  the  beach  like  a 
steam-engine." 

"  How  tiresome  you  are  !  Do  you  really  think  it 
will  kill  him  ?" 

"  It  might  injure  him  seriously — let  alone  the  dan- 
ger of  driving  a  spirited  horse  over  the  beach,  with  the 
tide  quarter-down." 

"  What  shall  I  do  to  be  '  taken  out  of  the  corner,' 
Mr.  Slingsby  ?" 

"Order  your  horses  an  hour  sooner,  and  drive  to 
Lynn,  to  meet  him  halfway  on  his  return.  I  will  re- 
sume my  stanhope,  and  give  him  the  happiness  of 
driving  back  with  you." 

"  And  shall  I  be  gentle  Blanche  Carroll,  and  no 
ogre,  if  I  do?" 

"Yes;  Mr.  Smith  surviving." 

"  Take  the  trouble  to  give  my  orders,  then ;  and 
come  back  immediately,  and  read  to  me  till  it  is  time 
to  go.  Meantime,  I  shall  look  at  myself  in  this  black 
mirror."  And  the  spoilt,  but  most  lovely  girl  bent 
over  a  dark  pool  in  the  corner  of  the  cave,  forming  a 
picture  on  its  shadowy  background  that  drew  a  mur- 
mur of  admiration  even  from  the  neglected  group  who 
had  been  the  silent  and  disapproving  witnesses  of  her 
caprice." 


IV 


A  thunder-cloud  strode  into  the  sky  with  the  rapid- 
ity which  marks  that  common  phenomenon  of  a 
breathless  summer  afternoon  in  America,  darkened  the 
air  for  a  few  minutes,  so  that  the  birds  betook  them- 
selves to  their  nests,  and  then  poured  out  its  refresh- 
ing waters  with  the  most  terrific  flashes  of  lightning, 
and  crashes  of  thunder,  which  for  a  moment  seemed  to 
still  even  the  eternal  base  of  the  sea.  With  the  same 
fearful  rapidity,  the  black  roof  of  the  sky  tore  apart,  and 
fell  back,  in  rolling  and  changing  masses,  upon  the 
horizon ;  the  sun  darted  with  intense  brilliancy 
through  the  clarified  and  transparent  air ;  the  light- 
stirring  breeze  came  freighted  with  delicious  coolness; 
and  the  heavy  sea-birds,  who  had  lain  brooding  on  the 
waves  while  the  tumult  of  the  elements  went  on,  rose 
on  their  cimeter-like  wings,  and  fled  away,  with  in- 
comprehensible instinct,  from  the  beautiful  and  freshen- 
ed land.  The  whole  face  of  earth  and  sky  had  been 
changed  in  an  hour. 

Oh,  of  what  fulness  of  delight  are  even  the  senses 
capable  !  What  a  nerve  there  is  sometimes  in  every 
pore  !  What  love  for  all  living  and  all  inanimate 
things  may  be  born  of  a  summer  shower  !  How  stirs 
the  fancy,  and  brightens  hope,  and  warms  the  heart, 
and  sings  the  spirit  within  us,  at  the  mere  animal  joy 
with  which  the  lark  flees  into  heaven !  And  yet,  of 
this  exquisite  capacity  for  pleasure  we  take  so  little 
care  !  We  refine  our  taste,  we  elaborate  and  finish 
our  mental  perception,  we  study  the  beautiful,  that 
we  may  know  it  when  it  appears — yet  the  senses  by 
which  these  faculties  are  approached,  the  stops  by 
which  this  fine  instrument  is  played,  are  trifled  with 
and  neglected.  We  forget  that  a  single  excess  blurs 
and  confuses  the  music  written  on  our  minds ;  we 
forget  that  an  untimely  vigil  weakens  and  bewilders 
the  delicate  minister  to  our  inner  temple;  we  know 


not,  or  act  as  if  we  knew  not,  that  the  fine  and  easily- 
jarred  harmony  of  health  is  the  only  interpreter  of 
Nature  to  our  souls  ;  in  short,  we  drink  too  much 
claret,  and  eat  too  much  pale  foie  gras.  Do  you  un- 
derstand me,  gourmand  et  gourmet  ? 

Blanche  Carroll  was  a  beautiful  whip,  and  the  two 
bay  ponies  in  her  phaeton  were  quite  aware  of  it.  La 
Bruyere  says,  with  his  usual  wisdom,  "  Une  belle 
femme  qui  a  les  qualit6s  d'un  honnete  homme  est  ce 
qu'il  y  a  au  monde  d'un  commerce  plus  delicieux  ;" 
and,  to  a  certain  degree,  masculine  accomplishments 
too,  are  very  winning  in  a  woman — if  pretty  ;  if  plain, 
she  is  expected  not  only  to  be  quite  feminine,  but 
quite  perfect.  Foibles  are  as  hateful  in  a  woman  who 
does  not  possess  beauty,  as  they  are  engaging  in  a  wo- 
man who  does.  Clouds  are  only  lovely  when  the 
heavens  are  bright. 

She  looked  loveliest  while  driving,  did  Blanche 
Carroll,  for  she  was  born  to  rule,  and  the  expression 
native  to  her  lip  was  energy  and  nerve  ;  and  as  she 
sat  with  her  little  foot  pressed  against  the  dasher,  and 
reined  in  those  spirited  horses,  the  finely-pencilled 
mouth,  usually  playful  or  pettish,  was  pressed  to- 
gether in  a  curve  as  warlike  as  Minerva's,  and  twice 
as  captivating.  She  drove,  too,  as  capriciously  as 
she  acted.  At  one  moment  her  fleet  ponies  fled  over 
the  sand  at  the  top  of  their  speed,  and  at  the  next  they 
were  brought  down  to  a  walk,  with  a  suddenness 
which  threatened  to  bring  them  upon  their  haunches. 
Now  far  up  on  the  dry  sand,  cutting  a  zigzag  to 
lengthen  the  way,  and  again  below  at  the  tide  edge, 
with  the  waves  breaking  over  her  seaward  wheel ;  all 
her  powers  at  one  instant  engrossed  in  pushing  them 
to  their  fastest  trot,  and  in  another  the  reins  lying 
loose  on  their  backs,  while  she  discussed  some  sudden 
flight  of  philosophy.  "  Be  his  fairy,  his  page,  his 
everything  that  love  and  poetry  have  invented,"  said 
Roger  Ascham  to  Lady  Jane  Grey,  just  before  her 
marriage;  but  Blanche  Carroll  was  almost  the  only 
woman  I  ever  saw  capable  of  the  beau  ideal  of  fascina- 
ting characters. 

Between  Miss  Carroll  and  myself  there  was  a  safe 
and  cordial  friendship.  Besides  loving  another  better, 
she  was  neither  earnest,  nor  true,  nor  affectionate 
enough  to  come  at  all  within  the  range  of  my  possible 
attachments,  and  though  I  admired  her,  she  felt  that 
the  necessary  sympathy  was  wanting  for  love  ;  and, 
the  idea  of  fooling  me  with  the  rest  once  abandoned, 
we  were  the  greatest  of  allies.  She  told  me  all  her 
triumphs,  and  I  listened  and  laughed  without  thinking 
it  worth  while  to  burden  her  with  my  confidence  in 
return  ;  and  you  may  as  well  make  a  memorandum, 
gentle  reader,  that  that  is  a  very  good  basis  for  a  friend- 
ship. Nothing  bores  women  or  worldly  persons  so 
much  as  to  return  their  secrets  with  your  own. 

As  we  drew  near  the  extremity  of  the  beach,  a  boy 
rode  up  on  horseback,  and  presented  Miss  Carroll  with 
a  note  I  observed  that  it  was  written  on  a  very  dirty 
slip  of  paper,  and  was  waiting  to  be  enlightened  as  to 
its  contents,  when  she  slipped  it  into  her  belt,  took  the 
whip  from  the  box,  and  flogging  her  ponies  through 
the  heavy  sand  of  the  outer  beach,  went  off,  at  a  pace 
which  seemed  to  engross  all  her  attention,  on  her  road 
to  Lynn.  We  reached  the  hotel  and  she  had  not 
spoken  a  syllable,  and  as  I  made  a  point  of  never  in- 
quiring into  anything  that  seemed  odd  in  her  conduct, 
I  merely  stole  a  glance  at  her  face,  which  wore  the 
expression  of  mischievous  satisfaction  which  I  liked 
the  least  of  its  common  expressions,  and  descended 
from  the  phaeton  with  the  simple  remark,  that  Job 
could  not  have  arrived,  as  I  saw  nothing  of  my  stan- 
hope in  the  yard. 

"  Mr.  Slingsby."  It  was  the  usual  preface  to  asking 
some  particular  favor. 

"  Miss  Carroll." 

"  Will  you  be  so  kind  as  to  walk  to  the  library  and 


INKLINGS  OF  ADVENTURE. 


383 


select  me  a  book  to  your  own  taste,  and  ask  no  ques- 
tions as  to  what  I  do  with  myself  meantime  ?" 

"But,  my  dear  Miss  Carroll — your  father " 

"  Will  feel  quite  satisfied  when  he  hears  that  Cato 
was  with  me.  Leave  the  ponies  to  the  groom,  Cato, 
and  follow  me."  I  looked  after  her  as  she  walked 
down  the  village  street  with  the  old  black  behind  her, 
not  at  all  certain  of  the  propriety  of  my  acquiescence, 
but  feeling  that  there  was  no  help  for  it. 

I  lounged  away  a  half  hour  at  the  library,  and  found 
Miss  Carroll  waiting  for  me  on  my  return.  There 
were  no  signs  of  Bruin  ;  and  as  she  seemed  impatient 
to  be  off,  I  jumped  into  the  phaeton,  and  away  we  flew 
to  the  beach  as  fast  as  her  ponies  could  be  driven 
under  the  whip.  As  we  descended  upon  the  sands 
she  spoke  for  the  first  time. 

"  It  is  so  civil  of  you  to  ask  no  questions,  Mr.  Slings- 
by;  but  you  are  not  offended  with  me  ?" 

"  If  you  have  got  into  no  scrape  while  under  my 
charge,  I  shall  certainly  be  too  happy  to  shake  hands 
upon  it  to-morrow." 

"  Are  you  quite  sure  ?"  she  asked  archly. 

"  Quite  sure." 

"  So  am  not  I,"  she  said  with  a  merry  laugh;  and 
in  her  excessive  amusement  she  drove  down  to  the  sea, 
till  the  surf  broke  over  the  nearest  pony's  back,  and 
filled  the  bottom  of  the  phaeton  with  water.  Our  wet 
feet  were  now  a  fair  apology  for  haste,  and  taking  the 
reins  from  her,  I  drove  rapidly  home,  while  she  wrap- 
ped herself  in  her  shawl,  and  sat  apparently  absorbed 
in  the  coming  of  the  twilight  over  the  sea. 


I  slept  late  after  the  ball,  though  I  had  gone  to  bed 
exceedingly  anxious  about  Bruin,  who  had  not  yet 
made  his  appearance.  The  tide  would  prevent  his 
crossing  the  beach  afrer  ten  in  the  morning,  however, 
and  I  made  myself  tolerably  easy  till  the  sands  were 
passable  with  the  evening  ebb.  The  high-water  mark 
was  scarcely  deserted  by  the  waves,  when  the  same 
boy  who  had  delivered  the  note  to  Miss  Carroll  the 
day  before,  rode  up  from  the  beach  on  a  panting  horse, 
and  delivered  me  the  following  note : — 

"  Dear  Philip  :   You  will  be  surprised  to  hear 
that  I  am  in  the  Lynn  jail  on  a  charge  of  theft  and 
utterance  of  counterfeit  money.     I  do  not  wait  to  tell 
you  the  particulars.     Please  come  and  identify, 
"  Yours  truly, 

"  F.  Smith." 

I  got  upon  the  boy's  horse,  and  hurried  over  the 
beach  with  whip  and  spur.  I  stopped  at  the  justice's 
office,  and  that  worthy  seemed  uncommonly  pleased 
to  see  me. 

"  We  have  got  him,  sir,"  said  he. 

"  Got  whom  ?"  I  asked  rather  shortly. 

•«  Why,  the  fellow  that  stole  your  stanhope  and  Miss 
Carroll's  bracelet,  and  passed  a  twenty  dollar  counter- 
feit bill — ha'n't  you  hearn  on't  ?" 

The  justice's  incredulity,  when  I  told  him  it  was 
probably  the  most  intimate  friend  I  had  in  the  world, 
would  have  amused  me  at  any  other  time. 

"  Will  you  allow  me  to  see  the  prisoner?"  I  asked. 

"  Be  sure  I  will.  I  let  Miss  Carroll  have  a  peep  at 
him  yesterday,  and  what  do  you  think  ?  Oh,  Lord  ! 
he  wanted  to  make  her  believe  she  knew  him !  Good  ! 
wasn't  it?  Ha!  ha!  And  such  an  ill-looking  fel- 
low !  Why,  I'd  know  him  for  a  thief  anywhere  ! 
Your  intimate  friend,  Mr.  Slingsby !  Oh,  Lord ! 
when  you  come  to  see  him  !   Ha !  ha  !" 

We  were  at  the  prison-door.  The  grating  bolts 
turned  slowly,  the  door  swung  rustily  on  its  hinges  as 
if  it  was  not  often  used,  and  in  the  next  minute  I  was 
enfolded  in  Job's  arms,  who  sobbed  and  laughed,  and 
was  quite  hysterical  with  his  delight.     I  scarce  won- 


dered at  the  justice's  prepossessions  when  I  looked  at 
the  figure  he  made.  His  hat  knocked  in,  his  coat 
muddy,  his  hair  full  of  the  dust  of  straw — the  natural 
hideousness  of  poor  Job  had  every  possible  aggrava- 
tion. 

We  were  in  the  stanhope,  and  fairly  on  the  beach, 
before  he  had  sufficiently  recovered  to  tell  me  the 
story.  He  had  arrived  quite  overheated  at  Lynn,  but, 
in  a  hurry  to  execute  Miss  Carroll's  commission,  he 
merely  took  a  glass  of  soda-water,  had  Thalaba's 
mouth  washed,  and  drove  on.  A  mile  on  his  way,  he 
was  overtaken  by  a  couple  of  ostlers  on  horseback, 
who  very  roughly  ordered  him  back  to  the  inn.  He 
refused,  and  a  fight  ensued,  which  ended  in  his  being 
tied  into  the  stanhope,  and  driven  back  as  a  prisoner. 
The  large  note,  which  he  had  given  for  his  soda-water, 
it  appeared,  was  a  counterfeit,  and  placards,  offering  a 
reward  for  the  detection  of  a  villain,  described  in  the 
usual  manner  as  an  ill-looking  fellow,  had  been  stick- 
ing up  for  some  days  in  the  village.  He  was  taken 
before  the  justice,  who  declared  at  first  sight  that  he 
answered  the  description  in  the  advertisement.  His 
stubborn  refusal  to  give  the  whole  of  his  name  (he 
would  rather  have  died,  I  suppose),  his  possession  of 
my  stanhope,  which  was  immediately  recognised,  and 
lastly,  the  bracelet  found  in  his  pocket,  of  which  he 
refused  indignantly  to  give  any  account,  were  circum- 
stances enough  to  leave  no  doubt  on  the  mind  of  the 
worthy  justice.  He  made  out  his  mittimus  forthwith, 
granting  Job's  request  that  he  might  be  allowed  to 
write  a  note  to  Miss  Carroll  (who,  he  knew,  would 
drive  over  the  beach  toward  evening),  as  a  very  great 
favor.     She  arrived  as  he  expected. 

"  And  what  in  Heaven's  name  did  she  say  V-  said  I, 
interested  beyond  my  patience  at  this  part  of  the  story. 

"Expressed  the  greatest  astonishment  when  the 
justice  showed  her  the  bracelet,  and  declared  she 
never  saw  me  before  in  her  life  .'" 

That  Job  forgave  Blanche  Carroll  in  two  days,  and 
gave  her  a  pair  of  gloves  with  some  verses  on  the 
third,  will  surprise  only  those  who  have  not  seen  that 
lady.  It  would  seem  incredible,  but  here  are  the 
verses,  as  large  as  life  : — 

"  Slave  of  the  snow-white  hand  !  I  fold 

My  spirit  in  thy  fabric  fair  ; 
And  when  that  dainty  hand  is  cold, 

And  rudely  comes  the  wintry  air, 
Press  in  thy  light  and  straining  form 
Those  slender  fingers  soft  and  warm  ; 

And,  as  the  fine-traced  veins  within 
Quicken  their  bright  and  rosy  flow, 

And  gratefully  the  dewy  skin 
Clings  to  the  form  that  warms  it  so 

Tell  her  my  heart  is  hiding  there, 
Trembling  to  be  so  closely  prest, 

Yet  feels  how  brief  its  moments  are, 
And  saddens  even  to  be  blest — 
Fated  to  serve  her  for  a  day, 
And  then,  like  thee,  be  flung  away." 


EDITH  L1NSEY. 

PART  1. 

FROST    AND    FLIRTATION. 

Oh  yes — for  you're  in  love  with  me! 

(I'm  very  glad  of  it,  I'm  sure  ;) 
But  then  you  are  not  rich,  you  see, 

And  I you  know  I'm  very  poor  ! 

'Tis  true  that  I  can  drive  a  tandem— 

'Tis  true  that  I  can  turn  a  sonnet— 
'Tis  true  I  leave  the  law  at  random, 

When  I  should  study— plague  upon  it ! 
But  this  is  not— excuse  me  !— m y  ! 

(A  thing  they  give  for  house  and  land  ;) 
And  we  must  eat  in  matrimony— 
And  love  is  neither  bread  nor  honey— 

And  so you  understand  ?" 


384 


INKLINGS  OF  ADVENTURE. 


"  Thou  art  spotless  as  the  snow,  lady  mine,  lady  mine  ! 
Thou  art  spotless  as  the  snow,  lady  mine  ! 
But  the  noon  will  have  its  ray, 
And  snow-wreaths  melt  away — 
And  hearts — why  should  not  thevt — 
Why  not  thine  V 

It  began  to  snow.  The  air  softened;  the  pattering 
of  the  horse's  hoofs  was  muffled  with  the  impeded  vi- 
bration ;  the  sleigh  glided  on  with  a  duller  sound  ; 
the  large  loose  flakes  fell  soft  and  fast,  and  the  low 
and  just  audible  murmur,  like  the  tread  of  a  fairy 
host,  melted  on  the  ear  with  a  drowsy  influence,  as  if 
it  were  a  descent  of  palpable  sleep  upon  the  earth. 
You  may  talk  of  falling  water — of  the  running  of  a 
brook — of  the  humming  song  of  an  old  crone  on  a 
sick  vigil — or  of  the  levi  susurro  of  the  bees  of  Hybla 
— but  there  is  nothing  like  the  falling  of  the  snow  for 
soft  and  soothing  music.  You  hear  it  or  not,  as  you 
will,  but  it  melts  into  your  soul  unaware.  If  you  have 
ever  a  heartache,  or  feel  the  need  of  "poppy  or  man- 
dragora,"  or,  like  myself,  grow  sometimes  a-weary  of 
the  stale  repetitions  of  this  unvaried  world,  seek  me 
out  in  Massachusetts,  when  the  wind  softens  and  veers 
south,  after  a  frost — say  in  January.  There  shall 
have  been  a  long-lying  snow  on  the  ground,  well- 
trodden.  The  road  shall  be  as  smooth  as  the  paths 
to  our  first  sins — of  a  seeming  perpetual  declivity,  as 
it  were — and  never  a  jolt  or  jar  between  us  and  the 
edge  of  the  horizon ;  but  all  onward  and  down  appa- 
rently, with  an  insensible  ease.  You  sit  beside  me  in 
my  spring-sleigh,  hung  with  the  lightness  of  a  cob- 
web cradle  for  a  fairy's  child  in  the  trees.  Our  horse 
is,  in  the  harness,  of  a  swift  and  even  pace,  and  around 
his  neck  is  a  string  of  fine  small  bells,  that  ring  to  his 
measured  step  in  a  kind  of  muffled  music,  softer  and 
softer  as  the  snow-flakes  thicken  in  the  air.  Your 
seat  is  of  the  shape  of  the  fauteuil  in  your  library, 
cushioned  and  deep,  and  with  a  backward  and  gentle 
slope,  and  you  are  enveloped  to  the  eyelids  in  warm 
furs.  You  settle  down,  with  every  muscle  in  repose, 
the  visor  of  your  ermine  cap  just  shedding  the  snow 
from  your  forehead,  and  with  a  word,  the  groom  stands 
back,  and  the  horse  speeds  on,  steady,  but  beautifully 
fast.  The  bells,  which  you  hear  loudly  at  first,  begin 
to  dcaderi,  and  the  low  hum  of  the  alighting  flakes 
steals  gradually  on  your  ear ;  and  soon  the  hoof- 
strokes  are  as  silent  as  if  the  steed  were  shod  with 
wool,  and  away  you  flee  through  the  white  air,  like 
birds  asleep  upon  the  wing  diving  through  the  feathery 
fleeces  of  the  moon.  Your  eyelids  fall — forgetfulness 
steals  upon  the  senses — a  delicious  torpor  takes  pos- 
session of  the  uneasy  blood — and  brain  and  thought 
yield  to  an  intoxicating  and  trance-like  slumber.  It 
were  perhaps  too  much  to  ask  that  any  human  bosom 
may  go  scathless  to  the  grave  ;  but  in  my  own  un- 
worthy petitions  I  usually  supplicate  that  my  heart 
may  be  broken  about  Christmas.  I  know  an  anodyne 
o'  that  season. 

Fred  Fleming  and  I  occupied  one  of  the  seven  long 
seats  in  a  stage-sleigh,  flying  at  this  time  twelve  miles 
in  the  hour  (yet  not  fast  enough  for  our  impatience), 
westward  from  the  university  gates.  The  sleighing 
had  been  perfect  for  a  week,  and  the  cold  keen  air  had 
softened  for  the  first  time  that  morning,  and  assumed 
the  warm  and  woolly  complexion  that  foretokened 
snow.  Though  not  very  cheerful  in  its  aspect,  this  is 
an  atmosphere  particularly  pleasant  to  breathe,  and 
Fred,  who  was  making  his  first  move  after  a  six  weeks' 
fever,  sat  with  the  furs  away  from  his  mouth,  nostrils 
expanded,  lips  parted,  and  the  countenance  altogether 
of  a  man  in  a  high  state  of  physical  enjoyment.  I 
had  nursed  him  through  his  illness,  by-the-way,  in 
my  own  rooms,  and  hence  our  position  as  fellow- 
travellers.  A  pressing  invitation  from  his  father  to 
come  home  with  him  to  Skaneateles,  for  the  holydays, 
had  divened  me  from  my  usual  winter  journey  to  the 
North  ;  and  for  the  first  time  in  my  life,  I  was  going 


upon  a  long  visit  to  a  strange  roof.  My  imagination 
had  never  more  business  upon  its  hands. 

Fred  had  described  to  me,  over  and  over  again, 
every  person  I  was  to  meet,  brothers,  sisters,  aunts, 
cousins,  and  friends — a  household  of  thirty  people, 
guests  included  ;  but  there  was  one  person  among 
them  of  whom  his  descriptions,  amplified  as  they 
were,  were  very  unsatisfactory. 

'•  Is  she  so  very  plain  ?"  I  asked  for  the  twentieth 
time. 

m  Abominably !" 

"  And  immense  black  eyes?" 

"  Saucers  !" 

"And  large  mouth?" 

"Huge!" 

"  And  very  dark  ?" 

"  Like  a  squaw  !" 

"And  skinny  hands,  did  you  say  ?" 

"  Lean,  long,  and  pokerish  !" 

"  And  so  very  clever  ?" 

"  Knows  everything,  Phil  !" 

"  But  a  sweet  voice  ?" 

"  Um  !  everybody  says  so." 

"And  high  temper?" 

"  She's  the  devil,  Phil !  don't  ask  any  more  ques- 
tions about  her." 

"  You  don't  like  her,  then  ?" 

"  She  never  condescends  to  speak  to  me ;  how 
should  I  ?" 

And  thereupon  I  put  my  head  out  of  the  sleigh,  and 
employed  myself  with  catching  the  snow-flakes  on  my 
nose,  and  thinking  whether  Edith  Linsey  would  like 
me  or  no  ;  for  through  all  Fred's  derogatory  descrip- 
tions, it  was  clearly  evident  that  she  was  the  ruling 
spirit  of  the  hospitable  household  of  the  Flemings. 

As  we  got  farther  on,  the  new  snow  became  deeper, 
and  we  found  that  the  last  storm  had  been  heavier 
here  than  in  the  country  from  which  we  had  come. 
The  occasional  farm-houses  were  almost  wholly 
buried,  the  black  chimney  alone  appearing  above  the 
ridgy  drifts,  while  the  tops  of  the  doors  and  windows 
lay  below  the  level  of  the  trodden  road,  from  which  a 
descending  passage  was  cut  to  the  threshold,  like  the 
entrance  to  a  cave  in  the  earth.  The  fences  were 
quite  invisible.  The  fruit-trees  looked  diminished  to 
shrubberies  of  snow-flowers,  their  trunks  buried  under 
the  visible  surface,  and  their  branches  loaded  with  the 
still  falling  flakes,  till  they  bent  beneath  the  burden. 
Nothing  was  abroad,  for  nothing  could  stir  out  of  the 
road  without  danger  of  being  lost,  and  we  dreaded  to 
meet  even  a  single  sleigh,  lest  in  turning  out,  the 
horses  should  "slump"  beyond  their  depth,  in  the 
untrodden  drifts.  The  poor  animals  began  to  labor 
severely,  and  sunk  at  every  step  over  their  knees  in 
the  clogging  and  wool-like  substance  ;  and  the  long 
and  cumbrous  sleigh  rose  and  fell  in  the  deep  pits  like 
a  boat  in  a  heavy  sea.  It  seemed  impossible  to  get  on. 
Twice  we  brought  up  with  a  terrible  plunge  and  stood 
suddenly  still,  for  the  runners  had  struck  in  too  deep 
for  the  strength  of  the  horses;  and  with  the  snow- 
shovels,  which  formed  a  part  of  the  furniture  of  the 
vehicle,  we  dug  them  from  their  concrete  beds.  Our 
progress  at  last  was  reduced  to  scarce  a  mile  in  the 
hour,  and  we  began  to  have  apprehensions  that  our 
team  would  give  out  between  the  post-houses.  For- 
tunately it  was  still  warm,  for  the  numbness  of  cold 
would  have  paralyzed  our  already  flagging  exertions. 

"We  had  reached  the  summit  of  a  long  hill  with  the 
greatest  difficulty.  The  poor  beasts  stood  panting 
and  reeking  with  sweat ;  the  runners  of  the  sleigh 
were  clogged  with  hard  cakes  of  snow,  and  the  air 
was  close  and  dispiriting.  We  came  to  a  stand-still, 
with  the  vehicle  lying  over  almost  on  its  side,  and  I 
stepped  out  to  speak  to  the  driver  and  look  forward. 
It  was  a  discouraging  prospect ;  a  long  deep  valley 
lay  before  us,  closed  at  the  distance  of  a  couple  of 


INKLINGS  OF  ADVENTURE. 


385 


miles  by  another  steep  bill,  through  a  cleft  in  the  top 
of  wliicli  lay  our  way.  We  could  not  even  distinguish 
the  line  of  the  road  between.  Our  disheartened  ani- 
mals stood  at  this  moment  buried  to  their  breasts,  and 
to  get  forward  without  rearing  at  every  step  seemed 
impossible.  The  driver  sat  on  his  box  looking  un- 
easily down  into  the  valley.  It  was  one  undulating 
ocean  of  snow,  not  a  sign  of  a  human  habitation  to  be 
seen,  and  even  the  trees  indistinguishable  from  the 
general  mass  by  their  whitened  and  overladen  branch- 
es. The  storm  had  ceased,  but  the  usual  sharp  cold 
that  succeeds  a  warm  fall  of  snow  had  not  yet  light-  I 
ened  the  clamminess  of  the  new-fallen  flakes,  and 
they  clung  around  the  foot  like  clay,  rendering  every  ' 
step  a  toil. 

"  Your  leaders  are  quite  blown,"  I  said  to  the  dri- 
ver, as  he  slid  off  his  uncomfortable  seat. 

"  Pretty  nearly,  sir  !" 

"And  your  wheelers  are  not  much  better." 

"  Sca'cely." 

"And  what  do  you  think  of  the  weather?" 

"  It'll  be  darn  at  ion  cold  in  an  hour."  As  he  spoke 
he  looked  up  to  the  sky,  which  was  already  peeling 
off  its  clouds  in  long  stripes,  like  the  skin  of  an 
orange,  and  looked  as  hard  and  cold  as  marble  be- 
tween the  widening  rifts.  A  sudden  gust  of  a  more  \ 
chilling  temperature  followed  immediately  upon  his 
prediction,  and  the  long  cloth  curtains  of  the  sleigh 
flew  clear  of  their  slight  pillars,  and  shook  off  their 
fringes  of  icicles. 

"  Could  you  shovel  a  little,  mister?"  said  the  dri- 
ver, handing  me  one  of  the  broad  wooden  utensils 
from  his  foot-board,  and  commencing  himself,  after 
having  thrown  off  his  box-coat,  by  heaving  up  a  solid 
cake  of  the  moist  snow  at  the  side  of  the  road. 

"It's  just  to  make  a  place  to  rub  down  them  ere-  j 
turs,"  said  he,  as  I  looked   at  him,  quite  puzzled  to 
know  what  he  was  going  to  do. 

Fred  was  too  weak  to  assist  us,  and  having  righted 
the  vehicle  a  little,  and   tied  down  the  flapping  cur- 
tains, he  wrapped  himself  in  his  cloak,  and  I  set  heart-  ! 
ily  to  work  with  my  shovel.     In  a  (ew  minutes,  taking  i 
advantage  of  the  hollow  of  a  drift,  we  had  cleared  a  ' 
small  area  of  frozen  ground,  and  releasing  the  tired  i 
animals  from  their  harness,  we  rubbed  them  well  down 
with  the  straw  from  the  bottom  of  the  sleigh.     The  l 
persevering  driver  then  cleared  the  runners  of  their 
iced    and  clinging    masses,  and    a    half  hour  having 
elapsed,  he  produced  two  bottles  of  rum  from  his  box, 
and,  giving  each  of  the  horses  a  dose,  put  them  again 
to  their  traces. 

We  heaved  out  of  the  pit  into  which  the  sleigh  had 
settled,  and  for  the  first  mile  it  was  down-hill,  and  we  ! 
got  on  with  comparative  ease.     The  sky  was  by  this 
time  almost  bare,  a  dark,  slaty  mass  of  clouds  alone  ! 
settling  on   the  horizon   in  the  quarter  of  the  wind,  I 
while  the  sun,  as  powerless  as  moonlight,  poured  with 
dazzling  splendor  on  the  snow,  and   the  gusts  came 
keen  and   bitter  across  the  sparkling  waste,  rimming 
the  nostrils  as  if  with  bands  of  steel,  and  penetrating  to 
the  innermost  nerve  with  their  pungent  iciness.     No  ' 
protection  seemed  of  any  avail.     The  whole  surface 
of  the   body  ached  as   if  it  were  laid  against  a  slab  of  : 
ice.     The  throat  closed  instinctively,  and  contracted 
its  unpleasant  respiration — the  body  and  limbs  drew 
irresistibly  together,  to  economize,  like  a  hedge-hog, 
the  exposed  surface — the  hands  and  feet  felt  transmu- 
ted to  lead — and  across  the  forehead,  below  the  pres- 
sure of  the  cap,  there  was   a  binding  and  oppressive 
ache,  as  if  a  bar  of  frosty  iron  had  been  let  into  the 
scull.  The  mind,  meantime,  seemed  freezing  up — un- 
willingness to  stir,  and  inability  to  think  of  anything 
but  the  cold,  becoming  every  instant  more  decided. 

From  the  bend  of"  the  valley  our  difficulties  became 
more  serious.     The  drifts  often  lay  across  the  road 
like  a  wall,  some  feet  above  the  heads  of  the  horses, 
25 


and  we  had  dug  through  one  or  two,  and  had  been 
once  upset,  and  often  near  it,  before  we  came  to  the 
steepest  part  of  the  ascent.  The  horses  had  by  this 
time  begun  to  feel  the  excitement  of  the  rum.  and 
bounded  on  through  the  snow  with  continual  leaps, 
jerking  the  sleigh  after  them  with  a  violence  that 
threatened  momently  to  break  the  traces.  The  steam 
from  their  bodies  froze  instantly,  and  covered  them 
with  a  coat  like  hoar-frost,  and  spite  of  their  heat,  and 
the  unnatural  and  violent  exertions  they  were  making, 
it  was  evident  by  the  pricking  of  their  ears,  and  the 
sudden  crouch  of  the  body  when  a  stronger  blast 
swept  over,  that  the  cold  struck  through  even  their 
hot  and  intoxicated  blood. 

We  toiled  up,  leap  after  leap,  and  it  seemed  mirac- 
ulous to  me  that  the  now  infuriated  animals  did  not 
burst  a  blood-vessel  or  crack  a  sinew  with  every  one 
of  those  terrible  springs.  The  sleigh  plunged  on  af- 
ter them,  stopping  dead  and  short  at  every  other  mo- 
ment, and  reeling  over  the  heavy  drifts,  like  a  boat  in  a 
surging  sea.  A  finer  crystallization  had  meantime 
taken  place  upon  the  surface  of  the  moist  snow,  and 
the  powdered  particles  flew  almost  insensibly  on  the 
blasts  of  wind,  filling  the  eyes  and  hair,  and  cutting 
the  skin  with  a  sensation  like  the  touch  of  needle- 
points. The  driver  and  his  maddened  but  almost  ex- 
hausted team  were  blinded  by  the  glittering  and  «  hill- 
ing eddies,  the  cold  grew  in  tenser  every  moment,  the 
forward  motion  gradually  less  and  less,  and  when,  with 
the  very  last  effort  apparently,  we  reached  a  spot  on 
the  summit  of  the  hill,  which,  from  its  exposed  situa- 
tion, had  been  kept  bare  by  the  wind,  the  patient  and 
persevering  whip  brought  his  horses  to  a  stand,  and 
despaired,  for  the  first  time,  of  his  prospects  of  getting 
on.  I  crept  out  of  the  sleish,  the  iron-bound  runners 
of  which  now  grated  on  the  bare  ground,  but  found  it 
impossible  to  stand  upright. 

"  If  you  can  use  your  hands,"  said  the  driver,  turn- 
ing his  back  to  the  wind  which  stung  the  face  like  the 
lash  of  a  whip,  "  I'll  trouble  you  to  untackle  them 
horses." 

I  set  about  it,  while  he  buried  his  hands  and  face 
in  the  snow  to  relieve  them  for  a  moment  from  the 
agony  of  cold.  The  poor  animals  staggered  stiffly  as 
1  poshed  them  aside,  and  every  vein  stood  out  from 
their  bodies  like  ropes  under  the  skin. 

"  What  are  you  going  to  do  ?"  1  asked,  as  he  joined 
me  again,  and  taking  off  the  harness  of  one  of  the 
leaders,  flung  it  into  the  snow. 

"  Ride  for  life  !"  was  his  ominous  answer. 

"  Good  God  !  and  what  is  to  become  of  my  sick 
friend  ?" 

"  The  Almighty  knows — if  he  can't  ride  to  the 
tavern  !" 

I  sprang  instantly  to  poor  Fred,  who  was  lying  in 
the  bottom  of  the  sleigh  almost  frozen  to  death,  in- 
formed him  of  the  driver's  decision,  and  asked  him  if 
he  thought  he  could  ride  one  of  the  horses.  He  was 
beginning  to  grow  drowsy,  the  first  symptom  of"  death 
by  cold,  and  could  with  difficulty  be  roused.  With 
the  driver's  assistance,  however.  I  lifted  him  out  of  the 
sleigh,  shook  him  soundly,  and  making  stirrups  of  the 
traces,  set  him  upon  one  of  the  horses,  and  started 
him  off  before  us.  The  poor  beasts  seemed  to  have  a 
presentiment  of  the  necessity  of  exertion,  and  though 
stiff  and  sluggish,  entered  willingly  upon  the  deep 
drift  which  blocked  up  the  way,  and  toiled  exhaustedly 
I  on.  The  cold  in  our  exposed  position  was  agonizing. 
Every  small  fibre  in  the  skin  of  my  own  face  felt  split- 
ting and  cracked,  and  my  eyelids  seemed  made  of  ice. 
Our  limbs  soon  lost  all  sensation.  I  could  only  press 
1  with  my  knees  to  the  horse's  side,  and  the  whole  col- 
'  lected  energy  of  inv  frame  seemed  expended  in  the 
exertion.  Fred  held  on  wonderfully.  The  driver  had 
still  the  use  of  hi?  arm,  and  rode  beh'wd,  flogging  the 
i  poor  animals  on.  whose  every  step  seemed  to  be  the 


386 


INKLINGS  OF  ADVENTURE. 


last  summons  of  energy.  The  sun  set,  and  it  was 
rather  a  relief,  for  the  glitter  upon  the  snow  was  ex- 
ceedingly painful  to  the  sight,  and  there  was  no  warmth 
in  its  beams.  I  could  see  my  poor  friend  drooping 
gradually  to  the  neck  of  his  horse,  but  until  he  should 
drop  off  it  was  impossible  to  assist  him,  and  his  faith- 
ful animal  still  waded  on.  1  felt  my  own  strength  fast 
ebbing  away.  If  I  had  been  alone,  I  should  certainly 
have  lain  down,  with  the  almost  irresistible  inclination 
to  sleep ;  but  the  thought  of  my  friend,  and  the  shout- 
ing of  the  energetic  driver,  nerved  me  from  time  to 
time — and  with  hands  hanging  helplessly  down,  and 
elbows  fastened  convulsively  to  my  side,  we  plunged 
and  struggled  painfully  forward.  I  but  remember 
being  taken  afterward  to  a  fire,  and  shrinking  from  it 
with  a  shriek — the  suffering  of  reviving  consciousness 
was  so  intolerable.  We  had  reached  the  tavern  liter- 
ally frozen  upon  our  horses. 

II. 

I  was  balancing  my  spoon  on  the  edge  of  a  cup  at 
the  breakfast-table,  the  morning  after  our  arrival,  when 
Fred  stopped  in  the  middle  of  an  eulogium  on  my 
virtues  as  a  nurse,  and  a  lady  entering  at  the  same 
moment,  he  said  simply  in  parenthesis,  "  My  cousin 
Edith,  Mr.  Slingsby,"  and  went  on  with  his  story.  I 
rose  and  bowed,  and  as  Fred  had  the  parole,  I  had 
time  to  collect  my  courage,  and  take  a  look  at  the 
enemy's  camp — for,  of  that  considerable  household,  I 
felt  my  star  to  be  in  conjunction  or  opposition  with 
hers  only,  who  was  at  that  moment  my  vis-d-vis  across 
a  dish  of  stewed  oysters. 

In  about  five  minutes  of  rapid  mental  portrait-paint- 
ing, I  had  taken  a  likeness  of  Edith  Linsey,  which  I 
see  at  this  moment  (I  have  carried  it  about  the  world 
for  ten  years)  as  distinctly  as  the  incipient  lines  of  age 
in  this  thin-wearing  hand.  My  feelings  changed  in 
that  lime  from  dread  or  admiration,  or  something  be- 
tween these,  to  pity  ;  she  was  so  unscrupulously  and 
hopelessly  plain — so  wretchedly  ill  and  suffering  in 
her  aspect — so  spiritless  and  unhappy  in  every  motion 
and  look.  "  I'll  win  her  heart,"  thought  I,  "  by  being 
kind  to  her.  Poor  thing  !  it  will  be  something  new  to 
her,  1  daresay !"  Oh,  Philip  Slingsby  !  what  a  doomed 
donkey  thou  wert  for  that  silly  soliloquy! 

And  yet  even  as  she  sat  there,  leaning  over  her  un- 
tasted  breakfast,  listless,  ill,  and  melancholy — with  her 
large  mouth,  her  protruding  eyes,  her  dead  and  sallow 
complexion,  and  not  one  redeeming  feature — there 
was  something  in  her  face  which  produced  a  phantom 
of  beauty  in  my  mind — a  glimpse,  a  shadowing  of  a 
countenance  that  Beatrice  Cenci  might  have  worn  at 
her  last  innocent  orison — a  loveliness  moulded  and 
exalted  by  superhuman  and  overpowering  mind — in- 
stinct through  all  its  sweetness  with  energy  and  fire. 
So  strong  was  this  phantom  portrait,  that  in  all  my 
thoughts  of  her  as  an  angel  in  heaven  (for  [  supposed 
her  dying  for  many  a  month,  and  a  future  existence 
was  her  own  most  frequent  theme),  she  always  rose  to 
my  fancy  with  a  face  half  xN"iobe.  half  Psyche,  radiantly 
lovely.  And  this,  too,  with  a  face  of  her  own,  a  bond 
fide  physiognomy,  that  must  have  made  a  mirror  an 
unpleasant  article  of  furniture  in  her  chamber. 

I  have  no  suspicion  in  my  own  mind  whether  Time 
was  drunk  or  sober  during  the  succeeding  week  of 
those  Christmas  holydays.  The  second  Saturday  had 
come  round,  and  I  just  remember  that  Fred  was  very 
much  out  of  humor  with  me  for  having  appeared  to 
his  friends  to  be  everything  he  had  said  I  was  not,  and 
nothing  he  had  said  I  was.  He  had  described  me  as 
the  most  uproarious,  noisy,  good-humored,  and  agree- 
able dog  in  the  world.  And  I  was  not  that  at  all — 
particularly  the  last.  The  old  judge  told  him  he  had 
not  improved  in  his  penetration  at  the  university. 

A  week  !  and  what  a  life  had  been  clasped  within 


its  brief  calendar,  for  me  !  Edith  Linsey  was  two 
years  older  than  I,  and  I  was  considered  a  boy.  She 
was  thought  to  be  dying  slowly,  but  irretrievably,  of 
consumption  ;  and  it  was  little  matter  whom  she  loved, 
or  how.  They  would  only  have  been  pleased,  if,  by 
a  new  affection,  she  could  beguile  the  preying  melan- 
choly of  illness  ;  for  by  that  gentle  name  they  called, 
in  their  kindness,  a  caprice  and  a  bitterness  of  charac- 
ter that,  had  she  been  less  a  sufferer,  would  not  have 
been  endured  for  a  day.  But  she  was  not  capricious, 
or  bitter  to  vie  !  Oh  no  !  And  from  the  very  extreme 
of  her  impatience  with  others — from  her  rudeness,  her 
violence,  her  sarcasm — she  came  to  me  with  a  heart 
softer  than  a  child's,  and  wept  upon  my  hands,  and 
weighed  every  word  that  might  give  me  offence,  and 
watched  to  anticipate  my  lightest  wish,  and  was  hum- 
ble, and  generous,  and  passionately  loving  and  depen- 
dant. Her  heart  sprang  to  me  with  a  rebound.  She 
gave  herself  up  to  me  with  an  utter  and  desperate 
abandonment,  that  owed  something  to  her  peculiar 
character,  but  more  to  her  own  solemn  conviction  that 
she  was  dying — that  her  best  hope  of  life  was  not  worth 
a  week's  purchase. 

We  had  begun  with  books,  and  upon  them  her  past 
enthusiasm  had  hitherto  been  released.  She  loved  her 
favorite  authors  with  a  passion.  They  had  relieved 
her  heart ;  and  there  was  nothing  of  poetry  or  philoso- 
phy that  was  deep  or  beautiful,  in  which  she  had  not 
steeped  her  very  soul.  How  well  I  remember  her  re- 
peating to  me  from  Shelley  those  glorious  lines  to  the 
soaring  swan  : — 

"  Thou  hast  a  home, 
Beautiful  bird  !    Thou  voyagest  to  thy  home — 
Where  thy  sweet  mate  will  twine  her  downy  neck 
With  thine,  and  welcome  thy  return  with  eyes 
Bright  with  the  lustre  of  their  own  fond  joy  ! 
And  what  am  I,  that  I  should  linger  here, 
With  voice  far  sweeter  than  thy  dying  notes, 
Spirit  more  vast  than  thine,  frame  more  attuned 
To  beauty,  wasting  these  surpassing  powers 
To  the  deaf  air,  to  the  blind  earth,  and  heaven 
That  echoes  not  my  thoughts  !" 

There  was  a  long  room  in  the  southern  wing  of  the 
house,  fitted  up  as  a  library.  It  was  a  heavily-curtain- 
ed, dim  old  place,  with  deep-embayed  windows,  and  so 
many  nooks,  and  so  much  furniture,  that  there  was 
that  hushed  air,  that  absence  of  echo  within  it,  which 
is  the  great  charm  of  a  haunt  for  study  or  thought. 
It  was  Edith's  kingdom.  She  might  lock  the  door, 
if  she  pleased,  or  shut  or  open  the  windows  ;  in  short, 
when  she  was  there,  no  one  thought  of  disturbing  her, 
and  she  was  like  a  "  spirit  in  its  cell,"  invisible  and 
inviolate.  And  heie  I  drank  into  my  very  life  and 
soul  the  outpourings  of  a  bosom  that  had  been  locked 
till  (as  we  both  thought)  the  last  hour  of  its  life — a 
flow  of  mingled  intellect  and  passion  that  overran  my 
heart  like  lava,  sweeping  everything  into  its  resistless 
fire,  and  (may  God  forgive  her!)  leaving  it  scorched 
and  desolate  when  its  mocking  brightness  had  gone 
out. 

I  remember  that  "  Elia" — Charles  Lamb's  Elia — 
was  the  favorite  of  favorites  among  her  books  ;  and 
partly  that  the  late  death  of  this  most-to-be-loved  au- 
thor reminded  me  to  look  it  up,  and  partly  to  have 
time  to  draw  back  my  indifference  over  a  subject  that 
it  something  stirs  me  to  recall,  you  shall  read  an  imi- 
tation (or  continuation,  if  you  will)  that  I  did  for  Editli's 
eye,  of  his  "  Essay  on  Books  and  Reading."  I  sat 
with  her  dry  and  fleshless  hand  in  mine  while  I  read 
it  to  her,  and  the  fingers  of  Psyche  were  never  fairer 
to  Canova  than  they  to  me. 

"It  is  a  little  singular,"  I  began  (looking  into  her 
eyes  as  long  as  I  could  remember  what  I  had  written), 
"  that,  among  all  the  elegancies  of  sentiment  for  which 
the  age  is  remarkable,  no  one  should  ever  have  thought 
of  writing  a  book  upon  '  Reading.'     The  refinement* 


INKLINGS  OF  ADVENTURE. 


387 


of  the  true  epicure  in  hooks  are  3urelv  as  various  as 
those  of  the  gastronome  and  the  opium-eater;  and  I 
can  conceive  of  no  reason  why  a  topic  of  such  natural 
occurrence  should  have  been  so  long  neglected,  unless 
it  is  that  the  taste  itself,  being  rather  a  growth  of  indo- 
lence, has  never  numbered  among  its  votaries  one  of 
the  busy  craft  of  writers. 

M  The  great  proportion  of  men  read,  as  they  eat,  for 
hunger.  I  do  not  consider  them  readers.  The  true 
secret  of  the  thing  is  no  more  adapted  to  their  compre- 
hension, than  the  sublimations  of  Louis  Eustache  Ude 
for  the  taste  of  a  day-laborer.  The  refined  reading- 
taste,  like  the  palate  of  gourmand  eric,  must  have  got 
beyond  appetite — gross  appetite.  It  shall  be  that  of  a 
man  who,  having  fed  through  childhood  and  youth 
on  simple  knowledge,  values  now  only,  as  it  were,  the 
apotheosis  of  learning — the  spiritual  mire.  There  are, 
it  is  true,  instances  of  a  keen  natural  relish  :  a  boy,  as 
you  will  sometimes  find  one,  of  a  premature  thought- 
fulness,  will  carry  a  favorite  author  in  his  bosom,  and 
feast  greedily  on  it  in  his  stolen  hours.  Elia  tells  the 
exquisite  story  : — 

'  I  saw  a  hoy,  with  eager  eye, 
Open  a  book  upon  a  stall, 
And  read  as  he'd  devour  it  all  ; 
Which,  when  the  stall-mm  did  espy, 
Soon  to  the  boy  I  heard  him  call, 
"  You  sir,  you  never  buy  a  book, 
Therefore  in  one  you  •shall  not  look  !" 
The  boy  passed  slowly  on.  and  with  a  sigh, 
He  wished  he  had  never  been  taught  to  read — 
Then  of  the  old  churl's  books  he  should  have  had  no  need.' 

"The  pleasure  as  well  as  the  profit  of  reading  de- 
pends as  much  upon  time  and  manner,  as  upon  the 
book.  The  mind  is  an  opal — changing  its  color  with 
every  shifting  shade.  Ease  of  position  is  especially 
necessary.  A  muscle  strained,  a  nerve  unpoised,  an 
admitted  sunbeam  caught  upon  a  mirror,  are  slight 
circumstances;  but  a  feather  may  tickle  the  dreamer 
from  paradise  to  earth.  '  Many  a  fro  ward  axiom,' 
says  a  refined  writer,  '  many  an  inhumane  thought 
hath  arisen  from  sitting  uncomfortably,  or  from  a  want 
of  symmetry  in  your  chamber.'  Who  has  not  felt,  at 
times,  an  unaccountable  disrelish  for  a  favorite  author? 
Who  has  not,  by  a  sudden  noise  in  the  street,  been 
startled  from  a  reading  dream,  and  found,  afterward, 
that  the  broken  spell  was  not  to  be  rewound  ?  An 
ill-tied  cravat  may  unlink  the  rich  harmonies  of  Tay- 
lor. You  would  not  think  Barry  Cornwall  the  de- 
licious heart  he  is,  reading  him  in  a  tottering  chair. 

"There  is  much  in  the  mood  with  which  you  come 
to  a  book.  If  you  have  been  vexed  out  of  doors,  the 
good  humor  of  an  author  seems  unnatural.  I  think 
I  should  scarce  relish  the 'gentle  spiriting' of  Ariel 
with  a  pulse  of  ninety  in  the  minute.  Or  if  I  had 
been  touched  by  the  unkindness  of  a  friend,  Jack 
Falstalf  would  not  move  me  to  laughter  as  easily  as 
he  is  wont.  There  are  tones  of  the  mind,  however, 
to  which  a  book  will  vibrate  with  a  harmony  than 
which  there  is  nothing  more  exquisite  in  nature.  To 
go  abroad  at  sunrise  in  June,  and  admit  all  the  holy 
influences  of  the  hour — stillness,  and  purity,  and 
balm — to  a  mind  subdued  and  dignified,  as  the  mind 
will  be  by  the  sacred  tranquillity  of  sleep,  and  then  to 
come  in  with  bathed  and  refreshed  senses,  and  a  tem- 
per of  as  clear  joyfulness  as  the  soaring  lark's  and 
sit  down  to  Milton  or  Spenser,  or,  almost  loftier  still, 
the  divine  'Prometheus'  of  Shelley,  has  seemed  to 
me  a  harmony  of  delight  almost  too  heavenly  to  be 
human.  The  great  secret  of  such  pleasure  is  sym- 
pathy. You  must  climb  to  the  easle  poet's  eyry. 
You  hum  have  senses,  like  his,  for  the  music  that  is 
only  audible  to  the  fine  ear  of  thought,  and  the  beauty 
that  is  visible  only  to  the  "spirit-eye  of  a  clear,  and  for 
the  time,  unpolluted  fancy.  The  stamp  and  pressure 
of  the  magician's  own  time  and  season  must  be  upon 
you.     You  would  not  read  Ossian,  for  example,  in  a 


bath,  or  sitting  under  a  tree  in  a  sultry  noon;  but 
after  rushing  into  the  eye  of  the  wind  wish  a  fleet 
horse,  with  all  his  gallant  piide  and  glorious  stiength 
and  file  obedient  to  your  rem,  and  so  mingling,  as  it 
will,  with  his  rider's  consciousness,  that  you  feel  as 
if  you  were  gifted  in  your  own  body  with  the  swift- 
ness and  energy  of  an  angel  ;  after  this,  to  sit  down 
to  Ossian,  is  to  read  him  with  a  magnificence  of  de 
lusion,  to  my  mind  scarce  less  than  reality.  1  never 
envied   Napoleon  till  1  heard  it  was   his  habit,  alter  a 

j  battle,  to  read  Ossian. 

"You   can  not  often   read   to  music.     But  1  love, 

;  when  the  voluntary  is  pealing  in  church — every  breath 

|  in  the  congregation  suppressed,  and  the  deep  voiiimed 
notes  pouring  through  the  arches  of  the  roof  with  the 
sublime  and  almost  articulate  praise  of  the  organ — to 
read,  from  the   pew  Bible,  the   book    of  Ecelesiastes. 

j  The  solemn  stateliness  of  its  periods  is  fitted  to  music 
like  a  hymn.     It  is  to  me  a  spring   of  the  most  thril- 

{  ling  devotion — though  I  shame  to  confess  that  the 
richness  of  its  eastern  imagery,  and,  above  all,  the  in- 
imitable beauty  of  its  philosophy,  stand  out  somewhat 
definitely  in  the  reminiscences  of  the  hour. 

"A  taste  for  reading  comes  comparatively  late. 
'Robinson  Crusoe'  will  turn  a  boy's  head  at  ten. 
The  'Arabian  Nights'  are  taken  to  bed  with  us  at 
twelve.  At  fourteen,  a  forward  boy  will  read  the 
'  Lady  of  the  Lake,'  '  Tom  Jones,'  and  'Peregrine 
Pickle;'  and  at  seventeen  (not  before)  he  is  ready  for 
Shakspere,  and,  if  he  is  of  a  thoughtful  turn,  Milton. 
Most  men  do  not  read  these  last  with  a  true  relish  till 
after  this  period.  The  hidden  beauties  of  standard 
authors  break  upon  the  mind  by  sui prise.  It  is  like 
discovering  a  secret  spring  in  an  old  jewel.  You  take 
up  the  hook  in  an  idle  moment,  as  you  have  done  a 
thousand  times  before,  perhaps  wondering,  as  you 
turn  over  the  leaves,  what  the  world  finds  in  it  to  ad- 
mire, when  suddenly,  as  you  read,  your  fingers  press 
close  upon  the  covers,  your  frame  thrills,  and  the 
passage  you  have  chanced  upon  chains  you  like  a 
spell — it  is  so  vividly  true  and  beautiful.  Milton's 
'Comus'  flashed  upon  me  in  this  way.  J  never  could 
read  the  'Rape  of  the  Lock'  till  a  friend  quoted  some 
passages  from  it  during  a  walk.  I  know  no  more  ex- 
quisite sensation  than  this  wanning  of  the  heart  to  an 
old  author;  and  it  seems  to  me  that  the  most  delictus 
portion  of  intellectual  existence  is  the  brief  period  in 
which,  one  by  one,  the  great  minds  of  old  are  admit- 
ted with  all  their  time- mellowed  worth  to  the  affec- 
tions. With  what  delight  1  read,  for  the  fust  time, 
the 'kind-hearted  plays'  of  Beaumont  and  Fletcher! 
How  1  doated  on  Burton!  What  treasures  to  me 
were  the  'Fairy  Queen'  and  the  Lyrics  of  Milton! 

"I  used  to  think,  when  studying  the  Greek  and 
Latin  poets  in  my  boyhood,  that  to  be  made  a  school- 
author  was  a  fair  offset  against  immortality.  1  would 
as  lief,  it  seemed  to  me,  have  my  verses  handed  down 
by  the  town-crier.  But  latterly,  after  an  interval  of  a 
few  years,  I  have  taken  up  my  classics  (the  identical 
school  copies  with  the  hard  places  all  thummed  and 
pencilled)  and  have  read  them  with  no  little  pleasure. 
It  is  not  to  be  believed  with  what  a  satisfaction  the 
riper  eye  glides  smoothly  over  the  once  difficult  line, 
finding  the  golden  cadence  of  poetry  beneath  what 
once  seemed  only  a  tangled  chaos  of  inversion.  The 
associations  of  hard  study,  instead  of  reviving  the  old 
distaste,  added  wonderfully  to  the  interest  of  a  re- 
perusal.  I  could  see  now  what  brightened  the  sunken 
eye  of  the  pale  and  sickly  master,  as  he  took  up  the 
hesitating  passage,  and  read  on,  forgetful  of  the  delin- 
quent, to  the  end.  I  could  enjoy  now,  what  was  a 
dead  letter  to  me  then,  the  heightened  fulness  of  He- 
rodotus, and  the  strong-woven  style  of  Thucydides, 
and  the  magnificent  invention  of  Ks.hylus.  1  took 
an  aversion  to  Homer  from  hearing  a  classmate  in  the 
next   room    scan   it    perpetually    through   his    nose. 


388 


INKLINGS  OF  ADVENTURE. 


There  is  no  music  for  me  in  the  '  Iliad.'  But,  spite  of 
the  lecollections  scored  alike  upon  my  palm  and  the 
margin,  1  own  to  an  Augustan  relish  for  the  smooth 
melody  of  Virgil,  and  freely  forgive  the  sometime 
troublesome  ferule — enjoying  by  its  aid  the  raciness 
of  Horace  and  Juvenal,  and  the  lofty  philosophy  of 
Lucretius.  It  will  be  a  dear  friend  to  whom  1  put 
down  in  my  will  that  shelf  of  defaced  classics. 

"  There  are  some  books  that  bear  reading  pleasantly 
once  a  year.  'Tristram  Shandy'  is  an  annual  with 
me.  Tread  him  regularly  about  Christmas.  Jeremy 
Taylor  (not  to  mingle  things  holy  and  profane)  is  a 
good  table-book,  to  be  used  when  you  would  collect 
your  thoughts  and  be  serious  a  while.  A  man  of 
taste  need  never  want  for  Sunday  reading  while  he 
can  find  the  sermons  of  Taylor,  and  South,  and  Ful- 
ler— writers  of  good  theological  repute — though,  be- 
tween ourselves,  I  think  one  likelier  to  be  delighted 
with  the  poetry  and  quaint  fancifulness  of  their  style, 
than  edified  by  the  piety  it  covers.  I  like  to  have  a 
quarto  edition  of  Sir  Thomas  Brown  on  a  near  shelf, 
or  Milton's  prose  works,  or  Bacon.  These  are  health- 
ful moods  of  the  mind  when  lighter  nutriment  is  dis- 
tasteful. 

"  I  am  growing  fastidious  in  poetry,  and  confine 
myself  more  and  more  to  the  old  writers.  Castaly  of 
late  runs  shallow.  Shelley's  (peace  to  his  passionate 
heart!)  was  a  deep  draught,  and  Wordsworth  and 
Wilson  sit  near  the  well,  and  Keats  and  Barry  Corn- 
wall have  been  to  the  fountain's  lip,  feeding  their 
imaginations  (the  latter  his  heart  as  well),  but  they 
have  brought  back  little  for  the  world.  The  'small 
silver  stream'  will,  I  fear,  soon  cease  to  flow  down  to 
us,  and  as  it  dries  back  to  its  source,  we  shall  close 
nearer  and  nearer  upon  the  'pure  English  undefiled.' 
The  dabblers  in  muddy  waters  (tributaries  to  Lethe) 
will  liave  Parnassus  to  themselves. 

"The  finest  pleasures  of  reading  come  unbidden. 
You  can  not,  with  your  choicest  appliances  for  the 
boJy,  always  command  the  many-toned  mind.  In  the 
twilight  alcove  of  a  library,  with  a  time-mellowed 
chair  yielding  luxuriously  to  your  pressure,  a  June 
wind  laden  with  idleness  and  balm  floating  in  at  the 
window,  and  in  your  hand  some  Russia-bound  ram- 
bling old  author,  as  Izaak  Walton,  good-humored  and 
quaint,  one  would  think  the  spirit  could  scarce  fail  to 
be  conjureJ.  Yet  often,  after  spending  a  morning 
hour  restlessly  thus,  I  have  risen  with  my  mind  un- 
hinged, and  strolled  off  with  a  book  in  my  pocket  to 
the  woods;  and,  as  I  live,  the  mood  has  descended 
upon  me  under  some  chance  tree,  with  a  crooked  root 
under  my  head,  and  I  have  lain  there,  reading  and 
sleeping  by  turns,  till  the  letters  were  blurred  in  the 
dimness  of  twilight.  It  is  the  evil  of  refinement  that 
it  breeds  caprice.  You  will  sometimes  stand  unfa- 
tigued  for  hours  on  the  steps  of  a  library;  or  in  a 
shop,  the  eye  will  be  arrested,  and  all  the  jostling  of 
customers  and  the  looks  of  the  jealous  shopman  will 
not  divert  you  till  you  have  read  out  the  chapter. 

"I  do  not  often  indulge  in  the  supernatural,  for  I 
am  an  unwilling  believer  in  ghosts,  and  the  topic  ex- 
cites me.  But,  for  its  connexion  with  the  subject 
upon  which  I  am  writing,  I  must  conclude  these 
rambling  observations  with  a  late  mysterious  visitation 
of  my  own. 

"  1  had,  during  the  last  year,  given  up  the  early 
summer  tea-parties  common  in  the  town  in  which  the 
university  stands ;  and  having,  of  course,  three  or 
four  more  hours  than  usual  on  my  hands,  I  took  to  an 
afternoon  habit  of  imaginative  reading.  Shakspere 
came  first,  naturally;  and  I  feasted  for  the  hundredth 
time  upon  what  I  think  his  (and  the  world's)  most 
delicate  creation — the  'Tempest.'  The  twilight  of 
the  first  day  overtook  me  at  the  third  act,  where  the 
banquet  is  brought  in  with  solemn  music  by  the  fairy 
troop  of  Prospero,  and   set   before  th&  shipwrecked 


king  and  his  followers.  I  closed  the  book,  and  lean- 
ing back  in  my  chair,  abandoned  myself  to  the  crowd 
of  images  which  throng  always  upon  the  traces  of 
Shakspere.  The  fancy  music  was  still  in  my  mind, 
when  an  apparently  real  strain  of  the  most  solemn 
melody  came  to  my  ear,  dying,  it  seemed  to  me  as  it 
reached  it,  the  tones  were  so  expiringly  faint  and  low. 
I  was  not  startled,  but  lay  quietly,  holding  my  breath, 
and  more  fearing  when  the  strain  would  be  broken, 
than  curious  whence  it  came.  The  twilight  deepened, 
till  it  was  dark,  and  it  still  played  on,  changing  the 
tune  at  intervals,  but  always  of  the  same  melancholy 
sweetness;  till,  by-and-by,  I  lost  all  curiosity,  and, 
giving  in  to  the  charm,  the  scenes  I  had  been  reading 
began  to  form  again  in  my  mind,  and  Ariel,  with  his 
delicate  ministers,  and  Prospero,  and  Miranda,  and 
Caliban,  came  moving  before  me  to  the  measure,  as 
bright  and  vivid  as  the  reality.  I  was  disturbed  in  the 
midst  of  it  by  Alfonse,  who  came  in  at  the  usual 
hour  with  my  tea;  and,  on  starting  to  my  feet,  I  lis- 
tened in  vain  for  the  continuance  of  the  music.  I  sat 
thinking  of  it  a  while,  but  dismissed  it  at  last,  and  went 
out  to  enjoy,  in  a  solitary  walk,  the  loveliness  of  the 
summer  night.  The  next  day  I  resumed  my  book, 
with  a  smile  at  my  previous  credulity,  and  had  read 
through  the  last  scenes  of  the  'Tempest.'  when  the 
light  failed  me.  I  again  closed  the  book,  and  pres- 
ently again,  as  if  the  sympathy  was  instantaneous,  the 
strain  broke  in,  playing  the  same  low  and  solemn  mel- 
odies, and  falling  with  the  same  dying  cadence  upon 
the  ear.  I  listened  to  it,  as  before,  with  breathless  at- 
tention ;  abandoned  myself  once  more  to  its  irresistible 
spell;  and,  half-wakng,  half-sleeping,  fell  again  into 
a'vivid  dream,  brilliait  as  fairy-land,  and  creating  itself 
to  the  measures  of  the  still  audible  music.  1  could 
not  now  shake  off  my  belief  in  its  reality  ;  but  I  was  so 
wrapt  with  its  strange  sweetness,  and  the  beauty  of  my 
dream,  that  I  cared  not  whether  it  came  from  earth  or 
air.  My  indifference,  singularly  enough,  continued 
for  several  days;  and,  regularly  at  twilight,  I  threw 
aside  my  book,  and  listened  with  dreamy  wakefulness 
for  the  music.  It  never  failed  me,  and  its  results  were 
as  constant  as  its  coming.  Whatever  J  had  read — 
sometimes  a  canto  of  Spenser,  sometimes  an  act  of  a 
play,  or  a  chapter  of  romance — the  scene  rose  before 
me  with  the  stately  reality  of  a  pageant.  At  last  I 
began  to  think  of  it  more  seriously  ;  and  it  was  a  relief 
to  me  one  evening  when  Alfonse  came  in  earlier  than 
usual  with  a  message.  1  told  him  to  stand  perfectly 
still;  and  after  a  minute's  pause,  during  which  1  heard 
distinctly  an  entire  passage  of  a  funeral  hymn,  I  asked 
him  if  he  heard  any  music  ?  He  said  he  did  not.  My 
blood  chilled  at  his  positive  reply,  and  I  bade  him 
listen  once  more.  Still  he  heard  nothing.  1  could 
endure  it  no  longer.  It  was  to  me  as  distinct  and 
audible  as  my  own  voice;  and  I  rushed  from  my  room 
as  he  left  me,  shuddering  to  be  left  alone. 

"The  next  day  I  thought  of  nothing  but  death. 
Warnings  by  knells  in  the  air,  by  apparitions,  by  mys- 
terious voices,  were  things  I  had  believed  in  specula- 
tively for  years,  and  now  their  truth  came  upon  me 
like  conviction.  I  felt  a  dull,  leaden  presentiment 
about  my  heart,  growing  heavier  and  heavier  with 
every  passing  hour.  Evening  came  at  last,  and  with 
it,  like  a  summons  from  the  grave,  a  '  dead  march' 
swelled  clearly  on  the  air.  I  felt  faint  and  sick  at 
heart.  This  could  not  be  fancy;  and  why  was  it,  as 
I  thought  1  had  proved,  audible  to  my  ear  alone  ?  I 
threw  open  the  window,  and  the  first  rush  of  the  cool 
north  wind  refreshed  me  ;  but,  as  if  to  mock  my  at- 
tempts at  relief,  the  dirge-like  sounds  rose,  at  the  in- 
stant, with  treble  distinctness.  I  seized  my  hat  and 
rushed  into  the  street,  but,  to  my  dismay,  every  step 
seemed  to  bring  me  nearer  to  the  knell.  Still  I  hur- 
ried on,  the  dismal  sounds  growing  distractingly  loud- 
er, till,  on  turning  a  corner  that  leads  to  the  lovely 


INKLINGS  OF  ADVENTURE. 


389 


bury'mg-ground  of  New  Haven,  I  came  suddenly  upon 
— a  bell  foundry  !  In  the  rear  had  lately  been  hung, 
for  trial,  the  chiming  bells  just  completed  for  the  new 
Trinity  church,  and  the  master  of  the  establishment 
informed  me  that  one  of  his  journeymen  was  a  fine 
player,  and  every  day  after  his  work,  he  was  in  the 
habit  of  amusing  himself  with  the  4  Dead  March  in 
Saul,'  the  '  Marsellois  Hymn,'  and  other  melancholy 
and  easy  tunes,  muhTmg  the  hammers  that  he  might 
not  disturb  the  neighbors." 

I  have  had  my  reward  for  these  speculations,  dear 
reader — a  smile  that  is  lying  at  this  instant,  perdu,  in 
the  innermost  recess  of  memory — and  I  care  not  much 
(without  offence)  whether  you  like  it  or  no.  She 
thanked  me — she  thought  it  well  done — she  laid  her 
head  on  my  bosom  while  I  read  it  in  the  old  library  of 
the  Flemings,  and  every  word  has  been  "  paid  for  in 
fairy  gold." 

I  have  taken  up  a  thread  that  lengthens  as  I  unra- 
vel it,  and  I  can  not  well  see  how  I  shall  come  to  the 
end,  without  trespassing  on  your  patience.  We  will 
cut  it  here,  if  you  like,  and  resume  it  after  a  pause  ; 
but  before  1  close,  1  must  give  you  a  little  instance  of 
how  love  makes  the  dullest  earth  poetical.  Edith 
had  given  me  a  portefeuille  crammed  with  all  kinds  of 
embossed  and  curious  note-paper,  all  quite  too  pret- 
ty for  use,  and  what  I  would  show  you  are  my  verses 
on  the  occasion.  For  a  hand  unpractised,  then,  in 
aught  save  the  "  Gradus  ad  Parnassum,"  I  must  own 
I  have  fished  them  out  of  that  same  old  portefeuille 
(faded  now  from  its  glory,  and  worn  with  travel — but 
O  how  cherished  !)  with  a  pleasant  feeling  of  paternity  : 

i:  Thanks  for  thy  gift !     But  heardst  thou  ever 

A  story  of  a  wandering  fay, 
Who,  tired  of  playing  sylph  for  ever, 

Came  romping  to  the  earth  one  day  ; 
And,  flirting  like  a  little  love 

With  everything  that  flew  and  flirted, 
Made  captive  of  a  sober  dove, 

Whose  pinions  (so  the  tale  asserted), 
Though  neither  very  fresh  nor  fair, 
Were  well  enough  tor  common  wear. 

u  The  dove,  though  plain,  was  gentle  bred, 
And  cooed  agreeably,  though  low  ; 
But  still  the  fairy  shook  her  head, 

And,  patting  with  her  foot,  said  '  No ." 
'Twas  true  that  he  was  rather  fat : 

But  that  was  living  in  an  abbey  ; — 
.  And  solemn— but  it  was  not  that. 

'  What  then?'  '  Why,  sir,  your  wings  are  shabby.' 

"  The  dove  was  dumb  :  he  drooped,  and  sidled 

In  shame  along  the  abbey-wall ; 
And  then  the  haughty  fay  unbridled, 

And  blew  her  snail-shell  trumpet-call ; 
And  summoning  her  waiting-sprite, 

Who  bore  her  wardrobe  on  his  back, 
She  took  the  wings  she  wore  at  night, 

(Silvery  stars  on  plumes  of  black,) 
And,  smiling,  begged  that  he  would  take 
And  wear  them  for  his  lady's  sake. 

"  He  took  them  ;  but  he  could  not  fly  .' 

A  fay-wing  was  too  fine  for  him  ; 
And  when  she  pouted,  by-and-by, 

And  left  him  for  some  other  whim, 
He  laid  them  softly  in  his  nest, 

And  did  his  flying  with  his  own, 
And  they  were  soft  upon  his  breast, 

When  many  a  night  he  slept  alone  ; 
And  many  a  thought  those  wings  would  stir, 
And  many  a  dream  of  love  and  her." 


PART  II. 

LOVE    AND    SPECULATION. 

Edith  Linset  was  religious.  There  are  many 
intensijiers  (a  new  word,  that  I  can't  get  on  without : 
I  submit  it  for  admission  into  the  language) ; there 


are  many  intensifies,  I  say,  to  the  passion  of  love  : 
such  as  pride,  jealousy,  poetry  (money,  sometimes, 
Dio  mio !)  and  idleness:*  but,  if  the  experience  of 
one  who  first  studied  the  Art  of  Love  in  an  "evan- 
gelical" country  is  worth  a  para,  there  is  nothing 
within  the  bend  of  the  rainbow  that  deepens  the  ten- 
der passion  like  religion.  I  speak  it  not  irreverently. 
The  human  being  that  loves  us  throws  the  value  of 
its  existence  into  the  crucible,  and  it  can  do  no  more. 
Love's  best  alchymy  can  only  turn  into  affection  what 
is  in  the  heart.  The  vain,  the  proud,  the  poetical, 
the  selfish,  the  weak,  can  and  do  fling  their  vanity, 
pride,  poetry,  selfishness,  and  weakness,  into  a  first 
passion:  but  these  are  earthly  elements,  and  there  is 
an  antagonism  in  their  natures  that  is  for  ever  stri- 
ving to  resolve  them  back  to  their  original  earth.  But 
religion  is  of  the  soul  as  well  as  the  heart — the  mind 
as  well  as  the  affections — and  when  it  mingles  in  love, 
it  is  the  infusion  of  an  immortal  essence  into  an  un- 
worthy and  else  perishable  mixture. 

Edith's  religion  was  equally  without  cant,  and 
without  hesitation  or  disguise.  She  had  arrived 
at  it  by  elevation  of  mind,  aided  by  the  habit  of  never 
counting  on  her  tenure  of  life  beyond  the  setting  of 
the  next  sun,  and  with  her  it  was  rather  an  intellec- 
tual exaltation  than  an  humility  of  heart.  She  thought 
of  God  because  the  subject  was  illimitable,  and  her 
powerful  imagination  found  in  it  the  scope  for  which 
she  pined.  She  talked  of  goodness,  and  purity,  and 
disinterestedness,  because  she  found  them  easy  virtues 
with  a  frame  worn  down  with  disease,  and  she  was 
removed  by  the  sheltered  position  of  an  invalid  from 
the  collision  which  tries  so  shrewdly  in  common  life 
the  ring  of  our  metal.  She  prayed,  because  the  ful- 
ness of  her  heart  was  loosed  by  her  eloquence  when 
on  her  knees,  and  she  found  that  an  indistinct  and 
mystic  unburthening  of  her  bosom,  even  to  the  Deity, 
was  a  hush  and  a  relief.  The  heart  does  not  always 
require  rhyme  and  reason  of  language  and  tears. 

There  are  many  persons  of  religious  feeling  who, 
from  a  fear  of  ridicule  or  misconception,  conduct  them- 
selves as  if  to  express  a  devout  sentiment  was  a  want 
of  taste  or  good-breeding.  Edith  was  not  of  these. 
Religion  was  to  her  a  powerful  enthusiasm,  applied 
without  exception  to  every  pursuit  and  affection.  She 
used  it  as  a  painter  ventures  on  a  daring  color,  or  a 
musician  a  new  string  in  his  instrument.  She  felt 
that  she  aggrandized  botany,  or  history,  or  friendship, 
or  love,  or  what  you  will,  by  making  it  a  stepping- 
stone  to  heaven,  and  she  made  as  little  mystery  of  it  as 
she  did  of  breathing  and  sleep,  and  talked  o*f  subjects 
which  the  serious  usually  enter  upon  with  a  sup- 
pressed breath,  as  she  would  comment  upon  a  poem  or 
define  a  new  philosophy.  It  was  surprising  what  an 
impressiveness  this  threw  over  her  in  everything; 
how  elevated  she  seemed  above  the  best  of  those 
about  her;  and  with  what  a  worshipping  and  half- 
reverent  admiration  she  inspired  all  whom  she  did  not 
utterly  neglect  or  despise.  For  myself,  my  soul  was 
drank  up  in  hers  as  the  lark  is  taken  into  the  sky,  and 
I  forgot  there  was  a  world  beneath  me  in  my  intoxica- 
tion. I  thought  her  an  angel  unrecognised  on  earth. 
I  believed  her  as  pure  from  worldliness,  and  as  spot- 
less from  sin,  as  a  cherub  with  his  breast  upon  his 
lute;  and  I  knelt  by  her  when  she  prayed,  and  held 
her  upon  my  bosom  in  her  fits  of  faintness  and  ex- 
haustion, and  sat  at  her  feet  with  my  face  in  her  hands 
listening  to  her  wild  speculations  (often  till  the  morn- 
ing brightened  behind  the  curtains)  with  an  utter  and 
irresistible  abandonment  of  my  existence  to  hers, 
which  seems  to  me  now  like  a  recollection  of  another 
life — it  were,  with  this  conscious  body  and  mind,  a 
self-relinquishment  so  impossible  ! 

Our  life  was  a  singular  one.     Living  in  the  midst 

*  "  La  paresse  dans  les  femmes  est  le  presage  de  l'amour." 
—La  Bruvere. 


390 


INKLINGS  OF  ADVENTURE. 


of  a  numerous  household,  with  kind  and  cultivated 
people  about  us,  we  were  as  separated  from  them  as  if 
the  rin°  of  Gyges  encircled  us  from  their  sight.  Fred 
wished  me  juy  of  my  giraffe,  as  he  offensively  called 
his  cousin,  and  his  sisters,  who  were  quite  too  pretty  to 
have  been  left  out  of  my  story  so  long,  were  more  indul- 
gent, I  thought,  to  the  indigenous  beaux  of  Skaneat- 
eles  than  those  aboriginal  specimens  had  a  right  to 
expect;  but  I  had  no  eyes,  ears,  sense,  or  civility  for 
anything  but  Edith.  The  library  became  a  forbidden 
spot  to  all  feet  but  ours  ;  we  met  at  noon  after  our  late 
vigils  and  breakfasted  together;  a  light  sleigh  was  set 
apart  for  our  tele-a  tele  drives  over  the  frozen  lake, 
and  the  world  seemed  to  me  to  revolve  on  its  axle 
with  a  special  reference  to  Philip  Slingsby's  happiness. 
1  won  ler  whether  an  angel  out  of  heaven  would  have 
made  me  believe  that  I  should  ever  write  the  story  of 
those  passionate  hours  with  a  smile  and  a  sneer !  I 
tell  thee,  Edith  !  (for  thou  wilt  read  every  line  that  I 
have  written,  and  feel  it,  as  far  as  thou  canst  feel  any- 
thing), that  I  have  read  "  Faust"  since,  and  thought 
thee  Mephistopheles  !  I  have  looked  on  thee  since, 
with  thy  cheek  rosy  dark,  thy  lip  filled  with  the  blood 
of  health,  and  curled  with  thy  contempt  of  the  world 
and  thy  yet  wild  ambition  to  be  its  master-spirit  and 
idol,  and  struck  my  breast  with  instinctive  self-ques- 
tioning if  thou  hadst  given  back  my  soul  that  was 
thine  own  !  I  fear  thee,  Edith.  Thou  hast  grown 
beautiful  that  wert  so  hideous — the  wonder-wrought 
miricle  of  health  and  intellect,  filling  thy  veins,  and 
breathing  almost  a  newer  shape  over  form  and  feature; 
but  it  is  not  thy  beauty;  no,  nor  thy  enthronement 
in  the  admiration  of  thy  woman's  world.  These  are 
little  to  me  ;  for  [  saw  thy  loveliness  from  the  first, 
and  I  worshipped  thee  more  in  the  duration  of  a 
thought  than  a  hecatomb  of  these  worldlings  in  their 
lifetime.  I  fear  thy  mysterious  and  unaccountable 
power  over  the  human  soul!  I  can  scorn  thee  here, 
in  another  land,  with  an  ocean  weltering  between  us, 
and  anatomize  the  character  that  1  alone  have  read 
truly  and  too  well,  for  the  instruction  of  the  world  (its 
amusement,  too,  proud  woman — thou  wilt  writhe  at 
that) — but  [  confess  to  a  natural  and  irresistible  obedi- 
ence to  the  mastery  of  thy  spirit  over  mine.  I  would 
not  willingly  again  touch  the  radius  of  thy  sphere.  I 
would  come  out  of  Paradise  to  walk  alone  with  the 
devil  as  soon. 

How  little  even  the  most  instructed  women  knew 
the  secret  of  this  power  !  They  make  the  mistake  of 
cultivating  only  their  own  minds.  They  think  that, 
by  $e//*e  legation,  they  will  climb  up  to'lhe  intellects 
of  men,  and  win  them  by  seeming  their  equals.  Shal- 
low philosophers!  You  never  remember  that  to  sub- 
due a  human  being  to  your  will,  it  is  more  necessary 
to  know  his  mind  than  you  own—that,  in  conquering 
a  heart  vanity  is  the  first  out-post — that  while  your  are 
employing  your  wits  in  thinking  how  most  effectually 
to  dazzle  him,  you  should  be  sounding  his  character 
for  its  undeveloped  powers  to  assist  him  to  dazzle  you 
—that  love  is  a  reflected  light,  and  to  be  pleased  with 
others  we  must  be  first  pleased  with  ourselves  ! 

Edith  (it  his  occurred  to  me  in  my  speculations 
since)  seemed  to  me  always  an  echo  of  myself.  She 
expressed  my  thought  as  it  sprang  into  my  brain.  I 
thought  that  in  her  I  had  met  my  double  and  coun- 
terpirt,  with  the  reservation  that  I  was  a  little  the 
stronger  spirit,  and  that  in  my  mind  lay  the  material 
of  the  eloquence  that  flowed  from  her  lips — as  the  al- 
mond that  you  endeavor  to  split  equally  leaves  the 
kernel  in  the  deeper  cavity  of  its  shell.  Whatever 
the  topic,  she  seemed  using  my  thoughts,  anticipating 
mji  reflections,  and,  with  an  unobtrusive  but  thrilling 
flattery,  referring  me  to  myself  for  the  truth  of  what 
1  must  know  was  but  a  suggestion  of  my  own  !  O! 
Lucrezia  Borgia  !  if  iVIachiavelli  had  but  practised  that 
subtle  cunning  upon  thee,  thou  wouldst  have  had  lit- 


tle space  in  thy  delirious  heart  for  the  passion  that,  in 
the  history  of  crime,  has  made  thee  the  marvel  and 
the  monster. 

The  charm  of  Edith  to  most  people  was  that  she 


was  no  sublimation.     Her  mind  seemed  of  ai 


y  or  no 


stature.  She  was  as  natural,  and  earnest,  and  as  sat- 
isfied to  converse,  on  the  meanest  subject  as  on  the 
highest.  She  overpowered  nobody.  She  (apparently) 
eclipsed  nobody.  Her  passionate  and  powerful  elo- 
quence was  only  lavished  on  the  passionate  and  pow- 
eiful.  She  never  ?nisapplied  herself:  and  what  a 
secret  of  influence  and  superiority  is  contained  in  that 
single  phrase  !  We  so  hate  him  who  out-measures 
us,  as  we  stand  side  by  side  before  the  world  ! 

I  have  in  my  portfolio  several  numbers  of  a  manu- 
script "  Gazette,"  with  which  the  Flemings  amused 
themselves  during  the  deep  snows  of  the  winter  io 
which  I  visited  them.    It  was  contributed  to  by  every- 
body in  the  house,  and  read  aloud  at  the  breakfast 
j  table  on  the  day  of  its  weekly  appearance,  and,  quit* 
j  apropos  to  these   remarks   upon    the  universality  ol 
I  Edith's  mind,  there  is  in  one  of  them  an  essay  of  hers 
|  on  what  she  calls  minute  philosophies.     It  is  curiou9 
'  as  showing  how,  with  all  her  loftiness  of  speculation 
j  she  descended  sometimes  to  the  examination  of  the. 
j  smallest  machinery  of  enjoyment. 

"  The  principal  sources  of  everyday  happiness,"  (I 
am  copying  out  a  part  of  the  essay,  dear  reader),  "are 
I  too  obvious  to  need  a  place  in  a  chapter  of  breakfast- 
|  table  philosophy.  Occupation  and  a  clear  conscience, 
the  very  truant  in  the  fields  will  tell  you,  are  craving 
necessities.  But  when  these  are  secured,  there  are 
lighter  matters,  which,  to  the  sensitive  and  educated 
at  least,  are  to  happiness  what  foliage  is  to  the  tree. 
They  are  refinements  which  add  to  the  beauty  of  life 
without  diminishing  its  strength;  and,  as  they  spring 
only  from  a  better  use  of  our  common  gifts,  they  are 
neither  costly  nor  rare.  I  have  learned  secrets  under 
the  roof  of  a  poor  man,  which  would  add  to  the  lux- 
ury of  the  rich.  The  blessings  of  a  cheerful  fancy 
and  a  quick  eye  come  from  nature,  and  the  trailing  of 
a  vine  may  develop  them  as  well  as  the  curtaining  of 
a  king's  chamber. 

"  Riding  and  driving  are  such  stimulating  pleasures, 
that  to  talk  of  any  management,  in  their  indulgence 
seems  superfluous.  Yet  we  are,  in  motion  or  at  rest, 
equally  liable  to  the  caprices  of  feeling,  and,  perhaps, 
the  gayer  the  mood  the  deeper  the  shade  cast  on  it  by 
untoward  circumstances.  The  time  of  riding  should 
never  be  regular.  It  then  becomes  a  habit,  and  hab- 
its, though  sometimes  comfortable,  never  amount  to 
positive  pleasure.  I  would  ride  when  nature  prompt- 
ed— when  the  shower  was  past,  or  the  air  balmy,  or 
the  sky  beautiful— whenever  and  wherever  the  sig- 
nificant finger  of  Desire  pointed.  Oh!  to  leap  into 
the  saddle  when  the  west  wind  blows  freshly,  and  gal- 
lop off"  into  its  very  eye,  with  an  undrawn  rein,  care- 
less how  far  or  whither ;  or,  to  spring  up  from  a  hook 
when  the  sun  breaks  through  after  a  storm,  and  drive 
away  under  the  white  clouds,  through  light  and  shad- 
ow, while  the  trees  are  wet  and  the  earth  damp  and 
spicy;  or,  in  the  clear  sunny  afternoons  of  autumn, 
with  a  pleasant  companion  on  the  seat  beside  you,  and 
the  glorious  splendor  of  the  decaying  foliage  flushing 
in  the  sunshine,  to  loiter  up  the  valley  dreaming  over 
the  thousand  airy  castles  that  are  stirred  by  such 
shifting  beauty — these  are  pleasures  indeed,  and  such 
as  he  who  rides  regularly  after  his  dinner  knows  as 
little  of  as  the  dray-horse  of  the  exultation  of  the 
courser. 

"  There  is  a  great  deal  in  the  choice  of  a  compan- 
ion. If  he  is  an  indifferent  acquaintance,  or  an  indis- 
criminate talker,  or  has  a  coarse  eye  for  beauty,  or  is 
insensible  to  the  delicacies  of  sensation  or  thought — 
if  he  is  sensual,  or  stupid,  or  practical  constitutionally 
— he  will  never  do.     He  must  be  a  man  who  can  de- 


INKLINGS  OF  ADVENTITRE. 


391 


tect  a  rare  color  in  a  leaf,  or  appreciate  a  peculiar 
passage  in  scenery,  or  admire  a  grand  outline  in  a 
cloud  ;  he  must  have  accurate  and  fine  senses,  and  a 
heart,  noble  at  least  by  nature,  and  subject  still  to  her 
direct  influences  ;  lie  must  be  a  lover  of  the  beautiful 
in  whatever  shape  it  comes;  and,  above  all,  he  must 
have  read  and  thought  like  a  scholar,  if  not  like  a 
poet.  He  will  then  ride  by  your  side  without  crossing 
your  humor  :  if  talkative,  he  will  talk  well,  and  if 
silent,  you  are  content,  for  you  know  that  the  same 
grandeur  or  beauty  which  has  wrought  the  silence,  in 
your  own  thoughts  has  given  a  color  to  his. 

»•  There  is  much  in  the  manner  of  driving.  I  like 
a  capricious  rein — now  fast  through  a  hollow,  and 
now  loiteringly  on  the  edge  of  a  road  or  by  the  bank 
of  a  river.  There  is  a  singular  delight  in  quickening 
your  speed  in  the  animation  of  a  climax,  and  in 
coming  down  gently  to  a  walk  with  a  digression  of 
feeling,  or  a  sudden  sadness. 

"An  important  item  in  household  matters  is  the 
management  of  light.  A  small  room  well  lighted  is 
much  more  imposing  than  a  large  one  lighted  ill. 
Cross  lights  are  painful  to  the  eye,  and  they  destroy 
besides  the  cool  and  picturesque  shadows  of  the  fur- 
niture and  figures  1  would  have  a  room  always  par- 
tially darkened  :  there  is  a  repose  in  the  twilight  dim- 
ness of  a  drawing-room  which  affects  one  with  the 
proper  gentleness  of  the  place  :  the  out-of-door  hu- 
mor of  men  is  too  rude,  and  the  secluded  light  sub- 
dues them  fitly  as  they  enter.  I  like  curtains — heavy, 
and  of  the  richest  material:  there  is  a  magnificence 
in  large  crimson  folds  which  nothing  else  equals,  and 
the  color  gives  everything  a  beautiful  teint  as  the  light 
streams  through  them.  Plants  tastefully  arranged  are 
pretty;  flowers  are  always  beautiful.  I  would  have  my 
own  room  like  a  painter's — one  curtain  partly  drawn  ; 
a  double  shadow  has  a  nervous  look.  The  effect  of  a 
proper  disposal  of  light  upon  the  feelings  is  by  most 
people  surprisingly  neglected.  I  have  no  doubt  (hat 
as  an  habitual  thing  it  materially  affects  the  character ; 
the  disposition  for  study  and  thought  is  certainly  de- 
pendant on  it  in  no  slight  degree.  What  is  more 
contemplative  than  the  twilight  of  a  deep  alcove  in  a  | 
library  /  What  more  awakens  thought  than  the  dim 
interior  of  an  old  church  with  its  massive  and  shadowy 
pillars  ? 

"  There  may  be  the  most  exquisite  luxury  in  furni- 
ture. A  crowded  room  has  a  look  of  comfort,  and 
suspended  lamps  throw  a  mellow  depth  into  the  fea- 
tures. Descending  light  is  always  the  most  becoming  ; 
it  deepens  the  eye,  and  distributes  the  shadows  in  the 
face  judiciously.  Chairs  should  be  of  different  and 
curious  fashions,  made  to  humor  every  possible  wea- 
riness. A  spice-lamp  should  burn  in  the  corner,  and 
the  pictures  should  be  colored  of  a  pleasant  tone,  and 
the  subjects  should  be  subdued  and  dreamy.  It  should 
be  a  place  you  would  live  in  for  a  century  without  an 
uncomfortable  thought.  I  hate  a  neat  room.  A  dozen 
of  the  finest  old  authors  should  lie  about,  and  a  new 
novel,  and  the  last  new  prints.  I  rather  like  the  French 
fashion  of  a  bonbonniere,  though  that  perhaps  is  an  ex- 
travagance. 

*"  There  is  a  management  of  one's  own  familiar  in- 
tercourse which  is  more  neglected,  and  at  the  same 
time  more  important  to  happiness,  than  every  other; 
it  is  particularly  a  pity  that  this  is  not  oftener  under- 
stood by  newly-married  people  ;  as  far  as  my  own 
observation  goes,  I  have  rarely  failed  to  detect,  far  too 
early,  signs  of  ill-disguised  and  disappointed  weariness. 
It  was  not  the  reaction  of  excitement — not  the  return 
to  the  quiet  ways  of  home — but  a  new  manner — a  for- 
getful indifference,  believing  itself  concealed,  and  yet 
betraying  itself  continually  by  unconscious  and  irre- 
pressible symptoms.  I  believe  it  resulted  oftenest 
from  the  same  causes :  partly  that  they  saw  each 
other  too  much,  and  partly  that  when  the  form  of  eti- 


quette was  removed,  they  forgot  to  retain  its  invalua- 
ble essence — an   assiduous  and   minute  disinterested- 
ness.    It  seems  nonsense  tolovers,  but  absence  is  the 
secret  of  respect,  and  therefore  of  affection.     Love  is 
divine,  but  its  flame   is  too  del:cate  for  a  perpetual 
household  lamp;  it  should  be  burned  only  for  incense, 
and  even  then  trimmed  skilfully.     It  is  wonderful  how 
a  slight  neglect,  or  a  glimpse  of  a  weakness,  or  a  chance 
defect  of  knowledge,  dims  its  new  glory.    Lovers,  mar- 
ried  or  single,  should  have  separate  pursuits — they 
should  meet  to  respect  each  other  for  new  and  distinct 
acquisitions.     It  is  the  weakness  of  human  affections 
that  they  are  founded  on  pride,  and  waste  with  over- 
much familiarity.     And  oh,  the  delight  to  meet  alter 
hours  of  absence — to  sit  down  by  the  evening  lamp, 
and  with  a  mind  unexhausted  by  the  intercourse  of 
the  day,  to  yield  to  the  fascinating  freedom  of  conver- 
sation, and  clothe  the  rising  thoughts  of  affection  in 
i  fresh  and  unhackneyed  language  !     How  richly  the 
I  treasures  of   the   mind   are   colored — not  doled   out, 
i  counter  by  counter,  as  the  visible  machinery  of  thought 
'  coins  them,  but  heaped  upon  the  mutual  altar  in  lavish 
and  unhesitating  profusion  !   And  how  a  bold  fancy  as- 
;  sumes  beauty  and  power — not  traced  up  through  all  its 
petty  springs  till  its  dignity  is  lost  by  association,  but 
j  flashing  full-grown  and  suddenly  on  the  sense  !     The 
gifts  of  no  one  mind  are  equal  to  the  constant  draught 
of  a  lifetime  ;   and  even  if  they  were,  there  is  no  one 
taste  which  could  always  relish  them.    It  is  an  humilia- 
I  ting  thought  that  immortal  mind  must  be  husbanded 
j  like  material  treasure  ! 

"  There  is  a  remark  of  Godwin,  which,  in  rather 
j  too  strong  language,  contains  a  valuable  truth:  'A 
judicious  and  limited  voluptuousness,*  he  says,  '  is  ne- 
cessary to  the  cultivation  of  the  mind,  to  the  polishing 
;  of  the  manners,  to  the  refinement  of  the  sentiment, 
i  and  to  the  development  of  the  understanding  ;  and  a 
woman  deficient  in  this  respect  may  be  of  use  in  the 
government  of  our  families,  but  can  not  add  to  the 
enjoyment,  nor  fix  the  partiality  of  a  man  of  taste  !' 
Since  the  days  when  '  St.  Leon'  was  written,  the  word 
by  which  the  author  expressed  his  meaning  is  grown 
perhaps  into  disrepute,  but  the  remark  is  still  one  of 
!  keen  and  observant  discrimination.  It  refers  (at  least 
i  so  I  take  it)  to  that  susceptibility  to  delicate  attentions, 
that  fine  sense  of  the  nameless  and  exquisite  ten- 
derness of  manner  and  thought,  which  constitute  in 
the  minds  of  its  possessors  the  deepest  undercurrent 
of  life — the  felt  and  treasured,  but  unseen  and  inex- 
pressible richness  of  affection.  It  is  rarely  found  in 
the  characters  of  men,  but  it  outweighs,  when  it  is,  all 
grosser  qualities — for  its  possession  implies  a  generous 
nature,  purity,  fine  affections,  and  a  heart  open  to  all 
the  sunshine  and  meaning  of  the  universe.  It  belongs 
more  to  the  nature  of  woman  ;  but  indispensable  as  it 
is  to  her  character,  it  is  oftener  than  anything  else, 
wanting.  And  without  it,  what  is  she?  What  is  love 
to  a  being  of  such  dull  sense  that  she  hears  only  its 
common  and  audible  language,  and  sees  nothing  but 
what  it  brings  to  her  feet  to  be  eaten,  and  worn,  and 
looked  upon  ?  What  is  woman,  if  the  impassioned 
language  of  the  eye,  or  the  deepened  fulness  of  the 
tone,  or  the  tenderness  of  a  slight  attention,  are  things 
unnoticed  and  of  no  value  ? — one  who  answers  you 
when  you  speak,  smiles  when  you  tell  her  she  is  grave, 
assents  barely  to  the  expression  of  your  enthusiasm, 
but  has  no  dream  beyond — no  suspicion  that  she  has 
not  felt  and  reciprocated  your  feelings  as  fully  as  you 
could  expect  or  desire  ?  It  is  a  matter  too  little  looked 
to.  Sensitive  and  ardent  men  too  often  marry  with 
a  blindfold  admiration  of  mere  goodness  or  loveliness. 
The  abandon  of  matrimony  soon  dissipates  the  gay 
dream,  and  they  find  themselves  suddenly  unsphered, 
linked  indissolubly  with  affections  strangely  different 
from  their  own,  and  lavishing  their  only  treasure  on 
those  who  can  neither  appreciate  nor  return  it.     The 


INKLINGS  OF  ADVENTURE. 


after-life  of  such  men  is  a  stifling  solitude  of  feeling. 
Their  avenues  of  enjoyment  are  their  manifonn  sym- 
pathies, and  when  these  are  shut  up  or  neglected,  the 
h^art  is  dark,  and  they  have  nothing  to  do  thencefor- 
ward but  to  forget. 

"  There  are  many,  who,  possessed  of  the  capacity 
for  the  more  elevated  affections,  waste  and  lose  it  by 
a  careless  and  often  unconscious  neglect.  It  is  not  a 
plant  to  grow  untended.  The  breath  of  indifference, 
or  a  rude  touch,  may  destroy  for  ever  its  delicate  tex- 
ture. To  drop  the  figure,  there  is  a  daily  attention  to 
the  slight  courtesies  of  life,  and  an  artifice  in  detecting 
ihe  passing  shadows  of  feeling,  which  alone  can  pre- 
serve, through  life,  the  first  freshness  of  passion.  The 
easy  surprises  of  pleasure,  and  earnest  cheerfulness  of 
assent  to  slight  wishes,  the  habitual  respect  to  opin- 
ions, the  polite  abstinence  from  personal  topics  in  the 
company  of  others,  the  assiduous  and  unwavering  at- 
tention to  her  comfort,  at  home  and  abroad,  and,  above 
all,  the  absolute  preservation  in  private  of  those  pro- 
prieties of  conversation  and  manner  which  are  sacred 
before  the  world — are  some  of  the  thousand  secrets  of 
that  rare  happiness  which  age  and  habit  alike  fail  to 
impair  or  diminish." 

II. 

Vacation  was  over,  but  Fred  and  myself  were  still 
lingering  at  Fleming  Farm.  The  roads  were  impas- 
sable with  a  premature  thaw.  Perhaps  there  is  noth- 
ing so  peculiar  in  American  meteorology  as  the  phe- 
nomenon which  1  alone  probably,  of  all  the  imprisoned 
inhabitants  of  Skaneateles,  attributed  to  a  kind  and 
"  special  Providence."  Summer  had  come  back,  like 
Napoleon  from  Elba,  and  astonished  usurping  winter 
in  the  plenitude  of  apparent  possession  and  security. 
No  cloud  foreboded  the  change,  as  no  alarm  preceded 
the  apparition  of"  the  child  of  destiny."  We  awoke 
on  a  February  morning,  with  the  snow  lying  chin- 
deep  oil  the  earth,  and  it  was  June  !  The  air  was  soft 
and  warm — the  sky  was  clear,  and  of  the  milky  ceru- 
lean of  chrysoprase — the  south  wind  (the  same,  save 
his  unpeifumed  wings,  who  had  crept  off  like  a  sa- 
tiated lover  in  October)  stole  back  suddenly  from  the 
tropics,  and  found  his  flowery  mistress  asleep  and  in- 
sensible to  his  kisses  beneath  her  snowy  mantle.  The 
sunset  warmeJ  back  from  its  wintry  purple  to  the 
golden  teints  of  heat,  the  stars  burned  with  a  less 
vitreous  sparkle,  the  meteors  slid  once  more  lambent- 
ly  down  the  sky,  and  the  house-dove  sat  on  the  eaves, 
washing  her  breast  in  the  snow-water,  and  thinking 
(like  a  neglected  wife  at  a  capricious  return  of  her 
truant's  tenderness)  that  the  sunshine  would  last  for 
ever ! 

Th  air  was  now  full  of  music.  The  water  trickled 
away  under  the  snow,  and,  as  you  looked  around  and 
saw  no  change  or  motion  in  the  white  carpet  of  the 
earth,  it  seemed  as  if  a  myriad  of  small  bells  were  ring- 
ing under  ground — fairies,  perhaps,  startled  in  mid- 
revel  with  the  (alse  alarm  of  summer,  and  hurrying 
about  with  their  silver  anklets,  to  wake  up  the  slum- 
bering flowers.  The  mountain-torrents  were  loosed, 
and  rushed  down  upon  the  valleys  like  the  Children 
of  the  Mist;  and  the  hoarse  war-cry,  swelling  and  fal- 
ling upon  the  wind,  maintained  its  perpetual  undertone 
like  an  accompaniment  of  bassoons  ;  and  occasionally, 
in  a  sudden  lull  of  the  breeze,  you  would  hear  the 
click  of  the  undermined  snow-drifts  dropping  upon  the 
earth,  as  if  the  chorister  of  spring  were  beating  time 
to  the  reviving  anthem  of  nature. 

The  snow  sunk  perhaps  a  foot  in  a  day,  but  it  was 
only  perceptible  to  the  eye  where  you  could  measure 
its  wet  mark  against  a  tree  from  which  it  had  fallen 
away,  or  by  the  rock,  from  which  the  dissolving  bank 
shrunk  and  separated,  as  if  roclo  and  snow  were  as 
heartless  as  ourselves  and  threw  off  their  friends,  too, 


in  their  extremity  !  The  low-lying  lake,  meantime, 
surrounded  by  melting  mountains,  received  the  aban- 
doned waters  upon  its  frozen  bosom,  and,  spreading 
them  into  a  placid  and  shallow  lagoon,  separate  by  a 
crystal  plane  from  its  own  lower  depths,  gave  them  the 
repose  denied  in  the  more  elevated  sphere  in  which 
lay  their  birthright.  And  thus — (oh,  how  full  is  na- 
ture of  these  gentle  moralities  !) — and  thus  sometimes 
do  the  lowly,  whose  bosom,  like  the  frozen  lake,  is  at 
first  cold  and  unsympathetic  to  the  rich  and  noble, 
still  receive  them  in  adversity,  and,  when  neighbor- 
hood and  dependance  have  convinced  them  that  they 
are  made  of  the  same  common  element,  as  the  lake 
melts  its  dividing  and  icy  plane,  and  mingles  the  strange 
waters  with  its  own,  do  they  dissolve  the  unnatural  bar- 
rier of  prejudice,  and  take  the  humbled  wanderer  to 
their  bosom  ! 

The  face  of  the  snow  lost  its  dazzling  whiteness  as 
the  thaw  went  on — as  disease  steals  away  the  beauty 
of  those  we  love — but  it  was  only  in  the  distance, 
where  the  sun  threw  a  shadow  into  the  irregular  pits 
of  the  dissolving  surface.  Near  to  the  eye  (as  the 
dying  one  pressed  to  the  bosom),  it  was  still  of  its 
original  beauty,  unchanged  and  spotless.  And  now 
you  are  tired  of  my  loitering  speculations,  gentle  read- 
er, and  we  will  return  (please  Heaven,  only  on  paper!) 
to  Edith  Linsey. 

The  roads  were  at  last  reduced  to  what  is  expres- 
sively called,  in  New  England,  slosh  (in  New  York, 
posh,  but  equally  descriptive),  and  Fred  received  a 
hint  from  the  judge  that  the  mail  had  arrived  in  the 
usual  time,  and  his  beaux  jours  were  at  an  end. 

A  slighter  thing  than  my  departure  would  have  been 
sufficient  to  stagger  the  tottering  spirits  of  Edith.  We 
were  sitting  at  table  when  the  letters  came  in,  and  the 
dates  wete  announced  that  proved  the  opening  of  the 
roads  ;  and  I  scarce  dared  to  turn  my  eyes  upon  the 
pale  face  that  I  could  just  see  had  dropped  upon  her 
bosom.  The  next  instant  there  was  a  general  confu- 
sion, and  she  was  carried  lifeless  to  her  chamber. 

A  note,  scarce  legible,  was  put  into  my  hand  in  the 
course  of  the  evening,  requesting  me  to  sit  up  for  her 
in  the  library.  She  would  come  to  me,  she  said,  if 
she  had  strength. 

It  was  a  night  of  extraordinary  beauty.  The  full 
moon  was  high  in  the  heavens  at  midnight,  and  there 
had  been  a  slight  shower  soon  after  sunset,  which, 
with  the  clearing-up  wind,  had  frozen  thinly  into  a 
most  fragile  rime,  and  glazed  everything  open  to  the 
sky  with  transparent  crystal.  The  distant  forest  looked 
serried  with  metallic  trees,  dazzlingly  and  unspeakably 
gorgeous  ;  and,  as  the  night-wind  stirred  through  them 
and  shook  their  crystal  points  in  the  moonlight — the 
aggregated  stars  of  heaven  springing  from  their  Ma- 
ker's hand  to  the  spheres  of  their  destiny,  or  the 
march  of  the  host  of  the  archangel  Michael  with  their 
irradiate  spear-points  glittering  in  the  air,  or  the  dia- 
mond beds  of  central  earth  thrust  up  to  the  sun  in 
some  throe  of  the  universe — would,  each  or  all,  have 
been  well  bodied  forth  by  such  similitude. 

It  was  an  hour  after  midnight  when  Edith  was  sup- 
ported in  by  her  maid,  and,  choosing  her  own  position, 
sunk  into  the  broad  window-seat,  and  lay  with  her  head 
on  my  bosom,  and  her  face  turned  outward  to  the  glit- 
tering night.  Her  eyes  had  become.  I  thought,  un- 
naturally bright,  and  she  spoke  with  an  exhausted 
faintness  that  gradually  strengthened  to  a  tone  of  the 
most  thrilling  and  melodious  sweetness.  I  shall  never 
get  that  music  out  of  my  brain ! 

"  Philip  !"  she  said. 

"  I  listen,  dear  Edith  !" 

"  I  am  dying." 

And  she  looked  it,  and  I  believed  her;  and  my  heart 
sunk  to  its  deepest  abyss  of  wretchedness  with  the 
conviction. 

She  went  on  to  talk  of  death.     It  was  the  subject 


INKLINGS  OF  ADVENTURE. 


393 


that  pressed  most  upon  her  mind,  and  she  could  I 
scarce  fail  to  be.  eloquent  on  any  •abject.  She  was  j 
very  eloquent  on  this.  I  was  so  impressed  with  the  j 
manner  in  which  she  seemed  almost  to  rhapsodize  ; 
between  the  periods  of  her  fainlness,  as  she  lay  in  ! 
my  arms  that  night,  that  every  word  she  uttered  is  j 
stdl  fresh  in  my  memory.  She  seemed  to  forget  my 
presence,  and  to  commune  with  her  own  thoughts  . 
aloud. 

m  I  recollect,"  she  said,  "  when  I  was  strong  and  ; 
well  (years  ano,  dear  Philip!),  I   left  my  books  on   a 
morning  in  May,  and  look  ids;  up  to  find  the  course  of  j 
the  wind,  started  olf  alone  for  a  walk  into  its  very  eye.  i 
A  moist  steady  breeze  came  from  the  southwest,  dri-  | 
ving  before  it  fragments  of  the  dispersed  clouds.     The  ; 
air  was  elastic  and  clear — a  freshness  that  entered  free- 
It  at  every  pore  was  coming  up,  mingled  with  the  pro- 
fuse perfume  of  gr.iss  and  flowers — the  colors  of  the 
new,  tender  foliage  were  particularly  soothing  to  an 
eye  pained  with  close  attention — and  the  just  percep- 
tible murmur  of  the  drops  shaken  from  the  trees,  and 
the  peculiarly  soft  rustle  of  the  wet  leaves,  made  as  ! 
much  music  as  an  ear  accustomed  to  the  silence  of 
solitude  could  well  relish.      Altogether,  it  was  one  of  j 
those  rarely-tempered  days  when  every  sense  is  satis-  I 
fied,  and  the  mind  is  content  to  lie  still  with  its  com- 
mon thoughts,  and  simply  enjoy. 

"  I   had   proceeded   perhaps  a  mile — my  forehead 
held  up  to  the  wind,  my  hair   blowing  back,  and    the  j 
blood  slowing  in  my  cheeks  with  the  most  vivid  flush  j 
of  exercise  and  health — when    I   saw  coming  toward 
me  a  man  apparently  in  middle  life,  but  wasted  by  ill-  i 
ness  to  (he  extreinest  emaciation.     His  lip  was  color-  | 
less,  his  skin  dry  and  white,  and  his  sunken  eyes  had  j 
that  expression  of  inquiring  earnestness  which  comes  | 
always  with  impatient  sickness.     He  raised  his  head,  j 
and  looked  steadily  at  me  as  I  came  on.    My  lips  were  ! 
open,  and  my  whole  air  must  have  been  that  of  a  per-  , 
son  in  the  most  exulting  enjoyment  of  healih.     I  was  \ 
just   against  him,  gliding;   past  with  an   elastic  step,  j 
when,  with  his  eye  still   fixed  on   me,  he  half  turned,  j 
and   in   a  voice  of  inexpressible  meaning,  exclaimed,  i 
'  Merciful   Heaven  !  how  well  she  is ."     I  passed  on,  \ 
with  his  voice  still  ringing  in  my  ear.     It  haunted  me 
like  a  tone  in  the  air.     It  was  repeated  in  the  echo  of  j 
my  tread  —in  the  panting  of  my  heart.     I  felt  it  in  the  j 
beating  of  the  strong  pulse  in   my  temples.     As  if  it  j 
was  strange  that   I  should  be  so  well  !      I   had  never 
before  realized  that  it  could  be  otherwise.     It  seemed  j 
impossible,  to  me  that  my  strong  limbs  should  fail  me, 
or  the  pure  blood  I  felt  bounding  so  bravely  through  j 
my  veins  could   be  reached   and   tainted   by  disease. 
How  should  it  come  ?      [f  I  ate,  would  it  not  nourish  j 
me  ?     If  I  slept,  would  it  not  refresh  me  ?     If  I  came 
out  in  the  cool,  free  air,  would  not  my  lungs  heave,  j 
and   my  muscles  spring,  and  my  face  feel  its  grateful  I 
freshness  ?     I  held  out  my  arm,  for  the  first  time  in  my  ! 
life,  with  a  doubt  of  its  strength.     I  closed  my  hand 
unconsciously,  with  a  fear  it  would  not  obey.     I  drew  | 
a  deep  breath,  to  feel  if  it  was  difficult  to  breathe  ;  and  j 
even  my  bounding  step,  that  was  as  elastic  then  as  a  i 
fawn's,  seemed  to  my  excited  imagination  already  to 
have  become  decrepit  and  feeble. 

"  I  walked  on,  and  thought  of  death.     I  had  never; 
before  done  so  definitely  ;  it  was  like  a  terrible  shape  ! 
that  had  always  pursued   me  dimly,  but  which  I  had 
never  before  turned  and  looked  steadily  on.     Strange! 
that  we  can  live  so  constantly  with  that  threatening 
hand  hung  over  us,  and  not  think  of  italways!   Strange!  | 
that  we  can  use  a  limb,  or  enter  with  interest  into  any  j 
pursuit  of  time,  when  we  know  that  our  continued 
life  is  almost  a  daily  miracle  ! 

"  How  difficult  it  is  to  realize  death  !  How  difficult 
it  is  to  believe  that  the  hand  with  whose  every  vein 
you  are  familiar,  will  ever  lose  its  motion  and  its 
warmth  ?     That  the  quick  eye,  which  is  so  restless  | 


new,  will  settle  and  mow  dull  ?  That  the  refined  lip, 
which  now  shrinks  so  sensitively  from  defilement,  wdl 
not  feel  the  earth  lying  upon  it,  and  the  tooth  of  the 
feeding  worm  ?  That  the  free  breath  will  be  choked, 
and  the  forehead  be  pressed  heavily  on  by  the  decay- 
ing coffin,  and  the  light  and  air  of  heaven  be  shut  quite 
out ;  and  this  very  body,  warm,  and  breathing,  and 
active  as  it  is  now,  will  not  feel  uneasiness  or  pain  ? 
I  could  not  help  looking  at  my  frame  as  these  thoughts 
crowded  on  me;  and  I  confess  I  almost  doubted  my 
own  convictions — there  was  so  much  strength  and 
quickness  in  it — my  hand  opened  so  freely,  and  my 
nostrils  expanded  with  such  a  satisfied  thirst  to  the 
moist  air.  Ah  !  it  is  hard  to  believe  at  first  that  we 
must  die  !  harder  still  to  believe  and  realize  the  repul- 
sive circumstances  that  follow  that  terrible  change  ! 
It  is  a  bitter  thought  at  the  lightest.  There  is  little 
comfort  in  knowing  that  the  soul  will  not  be  there — 
that  the  sense  and  the  mind  that  feel  and  measure  suf- 
fering, will  be  gone.  The  separation  is  too  great  a 
mystery  to  satisfy  fear.  It  is  the  body  that  we  krtmo. 
It  is  this  material  frame  in  which  the  affections  have 
grown  up.  The  spirit  is  a  mere  thought — a  presence 
that  we  are  told  of,  but  do  not  see.  Philosophize  as 
we  will,  the  idea  of  existence  is  connected  indissolubly 
with  the  visible  body,  and  its  pleasant  and  familiar 
senses.  We  talk  of,  and  believe,  the  soul's  ascent  to 
its  Maker;  but  it  is  not  ourselves — it  is  not  our  own 
conscious  breathing  identity  that  we  send  up  in  ima- 
gination through  the  invisible  air.  It  is  some  phantom 
that  is  to  issue  forth  mysteriously,  and  leave  us  gazing 
on  it  in  wonder.  We  do  not  understand,  we  can  not 
realize  it. 

"At  the  time  I  speak  of,  my  health  had  been  always 
unbroken.  Since  then,  I  have  known  disease  in  many 
forms,  and  have  had,  of  course,  more  time  and  occa- 
sion for  the  contemplation  of  death.  I  have  never, 
till  late,  known  resignation.  With  my  utmost  energy 
I  was  merely  able,  in  other  days,  to  look  upon  it  with 
quiet  despair;  as  a  terrible,  unavoidable  evil.  Ire- 
member  once,  after  severe  suffering  for  weeks,  I  over- 
heard the  physician  telling  my  mother  that  I  must 
die,  and  from  that  moment  the  thought  never  left  me. 
A  thin  line  of  light  came  in  between  the  shutters  of 
the  south  window  ;  and,  with  this  one  thought  fasten- 
ed on  my  mind,  like  the  vulture  of  Prometheus,  1  lay 
and  watched  it,  day  after  day,  as  it  passed  with  its 
imperceptible  progress  over  the  folds  of  my  curtains. 
The  last  faint  gleam  of  sunset  never  faded  from  its 
damask  edge,  without  an  inexpressible  sinking  of  my 
heart,  and  a  belief  that  I  should  see  its  pleasant  light 
no  more.  I  turned  from  the  window  when  even  ima- 
gination could  find  the  daylight  no  longer  there,  and 
felt  my  pulse  and  lifted  my  head  to  try  my  remaining 
strength.  And  then  every  object,  yes,  even  the  mean- 
est, grew  unutterably  dear  to  me  ;  my  pillow,  and  the 
cup  with  which  my  lips  were  moistened,  and  the  cool- 
ing amber  which  1  had  held  in  my  hand,  and  pressed 
to  my  burning  lips  when  the  fever  was  on  me — every- 
thing that  was  connected  with  life,  and  that  would  re- 
main among  the  living  when  I  was  gone. 

"  It  is  strange,  but  with  all  this  clinging  to  the  world 
my  affection  for  the  living  decreased  sensibly.  I  grew 
selfish  in  my  weakness.  I  could  not  bear  that  they 
should  go  from  my  chamber  into  the  fresh  air,  and 
!  have  no  fear  of  sickness  and  no  pain.  It  seemed  un- 
feeling that  they  did  not  stay  and  breathe  the  close 
atmosphere  of  my  room — at  least  till  J  was  dead. — 
How  could  they  walk  round  so  carelessly,  and  look 
on  a  fellow-creature  dying  helplessly  and  unwillingly, 
and  never  shed  a  tear !  And  then  the  passing  cour- 
tesies exchanged  with  the  Aimily  at  the  door,  and  the 
quickened  step  on  the  sidewalk,  and  the  wandering  looks 
about  my  room,  even  while  I  was  answering  with  my 
difficult  breath  their  cold  inquiries!  There  was  an  in- 
human carelessness  in  all  this  that  stung  me  to  the  soul. 


394 


INKLINGS  OF  ADVENTURE. 


"  I  craved  sympathy  as  I  did  life  ;  and  yet  I  doubted 
it  all.  There  was  not  a  word  spoken  by  the  friends 
who  were  admitted  to  see  me,  that  I  did  not  ponder 
over  when  they  were  gone,  and  always  with  an  im- 
patient dissatisfaction.  The  tone,  and  the  manner, 
and  the  expression  of  face,  all  seemed  forced  ;  and 
often,  in  my  earlier  sickness,  when  I  had  pondered  for 
hours  on  the  expressed  sympathy  of  some  one  I  had 
loved,  the  sense  of  utter  helplessness  which  crowded 
on  me  with  my  conviction  of  their  insincerity,  quite 
overcame  me.  I  have  lain  night  after  night,  and 
looked  at  my  indifferent  watchers:  and  oh  how  I 
hated  them  for  their  careless  ease,  and  their  snatched 
moments  of  repose!  I  could  scarce  keep  from  dashing 
aside  the  cup  they  came  to  give  me  so  sluggishly. 

"  It  is  singular  that,  with  all  our  experience  of  sick- 
ness, we  do  not  attend  more  to  these  slight  circum- 
stances. It  can  scarce  be  conceived  how  an  ill-man- 
aged light,  or  a  suppressed  whispering,  or  a  careless 
change  of  attitude,  in  the  presence  of  one  whose  senses 
are  so  sharpened,  and  whose  mind  is  so  sensitive  as  a 
sick  person's,  irritate  and  annoy.  And,  perhaps,  more 
than  these  to  bear,  is  the  affectedly  subdued  tone  of 
condolence.  1  remember  nothing  which  I  endured  so 
impatiently. 

"  Annoyances  like  these,  however,  scarcely  diverted 
for  a  moment  the  one  great  thought  of  death.  It  be- 
came at  last  familiar,  but,  if  possible,  more  dreadfully 
horrible  from  that  very  fact.  It  was  giving  it  a  new 
character.  I  realized  it  more,  The  minute  circum- 
stances became  nearer  and  more  real — I  tried  the  posi- 
tion in  which  I  should  he  in  my  coffin — I  lay  with 
my  arms  to  my  side,  and  my  feet  together,  and  with 
the  cold  sweat  standing  in  large  drops  on  my  lip,  com- 
posed my  features  into  a  forced  expression  of  tran- 
quillity. 

"  I  awoke ^on  the  second  morning  after  the  hope  of 
my  recovery  had  been  abandoned.  There  was  a  nar- 
row sunbeam  lying  in  a  clear  crimson  line  across  the 
curtain,  and  I  lay  and  watched  the  specks  of  lint  sail- 
ing through  it,  like  silver-winged  insects,  and  the  thin 
dust,  quivering  and  disappearing  on  its  definite  limit, 
in  a  dream  of  wonder.  I  had  thought  not  to  see 
another  sun,  and  my  mind  was  still  fresh  with  the  ex- 
pectation of  an  immediate  change  ;  I  could  not  believe 
that  I  was  alive.  The  dizzy  throb  in  my  temples  was 
done  ;  my  limbs  felt  cool  and  refreshed;  my  mind  had 
that  feeling  of  transparency  which  is  common  after 
healthful  and  sweet  sleep;  and  an  indefinite  sensation 
of  pleasure  trembled  in  every  nerve.  I  thought  that 
this  might  be  death,  and  that,  with  this  exquisite  feel- 
ing of  repose,  I  was  to  linger  thus  consciously  with 
the  body  till  the  last  day  ;  and  I  dwelt  on  it  pleasantly 
with  my  delicious  freedom  from  pain.  I  felt  no  regret 
for  life — none  for  a  friend  even  :  I  was  willing — quite 
willing— to  lie  thus  for  ages.  Presently  the  physician 
entered;  he  came  and  laid  his  fingers  on  my'pulse, 
and  his  face  brightened.  '  You  will  get  well,'  he  said, 
and  I  heard  it  almost  without  emotion.  Gradually, 
however,  the  love  of  life  returned;  and  as  I  realized  it 
fully,  and  all  the  thousand  chords  which  bound  me  to 
it  vibrated  once  more,  the  tears  came  thickly  to  my  eyes, 
and  a  crowd  of  delightful  thoughts  pressed  cheerfully 
and  glowingly  on  me.  No  language  can  do  justice 
to  the  pleasure  of  convalescence  from  extreme  sick- 
ness. The  first  step  upon  the  living  grass — the  first 
breath  of  free  air — the  first  unsuppressed  salutation  of 
a  frieud — my  fainting  heart,  dear  Philip,  rallies  and 
quickens  even  now  with  the  recollection." 

I  have  thrown  into  a  continuous  strain  what  was 
murmured  to  me  between  pauses  of  faintness,  and  with 
difficulty  of  breath  that  seemed  overpowered  only  by 
the  mastery  of  the  eloquent  spirit  apparently  trembling 
on  its  departure.  I  believed  Edith  Linsey  would  die 
that  night;  I  believed  myself  listening  to  words  spoken 
almost  from  heaven  ;  and  if  I  have  wearied  you,  dear 


reader,  with  what  must  be  more  interesting  to  me  than 
to  you,  it  is  because  every  syllable  was  burnt  like 
enamel  into  my  soul,  in  my  boundless  reverence  and 
love. 

It  was  two  o'clock,  and  she  still  lay  breathing  pain- 
fully in  my  arms.  1  had  thrown  up  the  window,  and 
the  soft  south  wind,  stirring  gently  among  the  tinkling 
icicles  of  the  trees,  came  in,  warm  and  genial,  and  she 
leaned  over  to  inhale  it,  as  if  it  came  from  the  source 
of  life.  The  stars  burned  gloriously  in  the  heavens  ; 
and,  in  a  respite  of  her  pain,  she  lay  back  her  head, 
and  gazed  up  at  them  with  an  inarticulate  motion  of 
her  lips,  and  eyes  so  unnaturally  kindled,  that  I  thought 
reason  had  abandoned  her. 

"How  beautiful  are  the  stars  to  night,  Edith!"  I 
said,  with  half  a  fear  that  she  would  answer  me  in 
madness. 

"  Yes,"  she  said,  putting  my  hand  (that  pressed  her 
closer,  involuntary,  to  my  bosom)  first  to  her  lips — 
"Yes;  and,  beautiful  as  they  are,  they  are  all  accu- 
rately numbered  and  governed,  and  just  as  they  burn 
now  have  they  burned  since  the  creation,  never  'faint 
in  their  watches,'  aud  never  absent  from  their  place. 
Bow  glorious  they  are!  How  thrilling  it  is  to  see  them 
stand  with  such  a  constant  silence  in  the  sky,  un- 
steadied  and  unsupported,  obeying  the  great  law  of 
their  Maker!  What  pure  and  silvery  light  it  is!  How 
steadily  it  pours  from  those  small  fountains,  giving 
every  spot  of  earth  its  due  portion  !  The  hovel  and 
the  palace  are  shone  upon  equally,  and  the  shepherd 
gets  as  broad  a  beam  as  the  king,  and  these  few  rays 
that  are  now  streaming  into  my  feverish  eyes  were 
meant  and  lavished  only  for  me !  I  have  often 
thought — has  it  never  occurred  to  you,  dear  Philip  ? — 
how  ungrateful  we  are  to  call  ourselves  poor,  when 
there  is  so  much  that  no  poverty  can  take  away  ! 
Clusters  of  silver  rays  from  every  star  in  these  heavens 
are  mine.  Every  breeze  that  breaks  on  my  forehead 
was  sent  for  my  refreshment.  Every  tinkle  and  ray 
from  those  stirring  and  glistening  icicles,  and  the  in- 
vigorating freshness  of  this  unseasonable  and  delicious 
wind,  and  moonlight,  and  sunshine,  and  the  glory  of 
the  planets,  are  all  gifts  that  poverty  could  not  take 
away  !  It  is  not  often  that  I  forget  these  treasures  ;  for 
I  have  loved  nature,  and  the  skies  of  night  and  day,  in 
all  their  changes,  from  my  childhood,  and  they  have 
been  unspeakably  dear  to  me  ;  for  in  them  I  see  the 
evidence  of  an  Almighty  Maker,  and  in  the  excessive 
beauty  of  the  stars  and  the  unfading  and  equal  splen- 
dor of  their  steadfast  fires,  I  see  glimpses  of  an  im- 
mortal life,  and  find  an  answer  to  the  eternal  question- 
ing within  me  ! 

"  Three  !  The  village  clock  reaches  us  to  night. 
Nay,  the  wind  can  not  harm  me  now.  Turn  me  more 
to  the  window,  for  I  would  look  nearer  upon  the  stars: 
it  is  the  last  time — I  am  sure  of  it — the  very  last!  Yet 
to-morrow  night  those  stars  will  all  be  there — not  one 
missing  from  the  sky,  nor  shining  one  ray  the  less  be- 
cause I  am  dead  !  It  is  strange  that  this  thought 
should  be  so  bitter — strange  that  the  companionship 
should  be  so  close  between  our  earthly  affections  and 
those  spiritual  worlds — and  stranger  yet,  that,  satis- 
fied as  we  must  be  that  we  shall  know  them  nearer 
and  better  when  released  from  our  flesh,  we  still  cling 
so  fondly  to  our  earthly  and  imperfect  vision.  I  feel, 
Philip,  that  I  shall  traverse  hereafter  every  star  in  those 
bright  heavens.  If  the  course  of  that  career  of  knowl- 
edge, which  I  believe  in  my  soul  it  will  be  the  reward 
of  the  blessed  to  run,  be  determined  in  any  degree  by 
the  strong  desires  that  yearn  so  sickeningly  within  us, 
I  see  the  thousand  gates  of  my  future  heaven  shining 
at  this  instant  above  me.  There  they  are!  the  clus- 
tering Pleiades,  with  '  their  sweet  influences  ;'  and 
the  morning  star,  melting  into  the  east  with  its  trans- 
cendent lambency  and  whiteness;  and  the  broad  gal- 
axy, with  its  myriads  of  bright  spheres,  dissolving  into 


INKLINGS  OF  ADVENTURE. 


395 


each  other's  light,  nnd  belting  the  heavens  like  a  gir- 
dle.  J  shall  see  them  all !  1  shall  know  them  and 
the  r  inhabitant!  as  the  angels  of  (iod  know  them; 
the  mvsiery  of  their  order,  and  the  secret  of  their 
wond  li'ul  harmonv,  and  the  duration  of  their  appoint- 
ed  courses — all  will  he  made  clear!" 

J   have  trespassed  again,  most  indulgent  reader,  on 
the  limits  of  these  Procrustean  papers,     i  must  defer 
the  "  change"  that  "  came  o'er  the  spirit  of  my  dream" 
till  another  mood   an  I   time.      Meanwhile,   you   may 
consi  ler  Edith,  if  you  like,  the  true  heart  she  thought 
heiself  (and  I  thought  her)  during  her  nine  deaths  in 
the  library;  and  you  will  have  leisuie  to  imagine  the  i 
three   years  over  which  we  shall  skip  with  this  finale,  j 
during  which  1  made  a  journey  to  the  north,  and  danced  i 
out  a  winter  in  your  own  territories  at  Quebec — a  cir-  ; 
cums:ance  I  allu  le  to,  no  less  to  record  the  hospitali-  j 
ties  ol'ihe  garrison  of  that  time  (this  was  in  27' — were 
you  there  ?)  than  to  pluck  forth  from  Time's  hinder-  j 
most  wallet  a  modest  copy  of  verses  1  addressed  thence  | 
to  Edith.     She  sent   them    back   to  me  considerably 
mended;  but   I   give  you  the  original  draught,  scorn- 
ing her  finger  in  my  poesies. 

TO    EDITH,  FROM    THE    NORTH. 

As,  gazing  on  the  Pleiades, 

We  count  each  fair  and  starry  one, 
Yet  wander  from  the  light  of  these 

To  muse  upon  the  '  Pleiad  cone  ;' — 
As,  bendhig  o'er  fresh-g  uhered  flowers, 

The  rose  s  most  enchanting  hue 
Reminds  us  hut  of  other  hours, 

Whose  roses  were  all  lovely,  too  ; — 
So,  dearest,  when  I  rove  among 

The  brght  ones  of  this  northern  sky, 
And  mark  the  smile,  and  list  the  song, 

And  watch  the  dancers  gliding  by — 
The  fairer  still  they  seem  to  be, 
The  more  it  stirs  a  thought  of  thee. 

The  sad,  sweet  bells  of  twilight  chime, 

Of  many  hearts  may  touch  but  one, 
And  so  this  seeming  careless  rhyme 

Will  whisper  to  thy  heart  alone. 
I  give  it  to  the  winds.     The  bird, 

Let  loose,  to  his  far  nest  will  flee  : 
And  love,  though  breathed  but  on  a  word, 

Wid  find  thee  over  land  and  sea. 
Though  clouds  across    he  sky  have  driven, 

We  trust  the  star  at  last  will  shine  ; 
And  like  the  very  light  of  heaven, 

1  trust  thy  love — trust  thou  in  mine  ! 


PART  III. 


A  DIGRESSION. 

••  B"y.  Will  you  not  sleep,  sir? 

Knight  Fling  the  window  up  ! 

I'll  look  upon  the  stars.     Where  twinkle  now 
The  I'leiiides? 

Boy.  Here,  master ! 

K tight.  Throw  me  now 

Mv  cioak  upon  my  shou'ders,  and  good  night ! 
I  have  no  mind  to  sleep  !        *        *        * 
*         *         *         *        She  bade  me  look 
Upon  hi<  band  of  stars  when  other  eyes 
Beamed  on  me  brightly,  and  remember  her 
By  the  Lost  Pleiad. 

Roy.  Are  you  well,  sir  1 

Knight.  Boy ! 

Love  you  the  stars  7 

Boy.  When  they  first  spring:  at  eva 

Better  than  near  to  morning. 

Knight.  Fickle  child ! 

Are  they  more  fair  in  twilight  ? 

Hoy.  Master,  no  ! 

Brighter  as  nisht  wears  on— but  I  forget 
Their  beauty,  looking  on  thrni  long  ."' 

*   "Sir  Fabian,"  an  unpublished  Poem. 

It  was  a  September  night  at  the  university.  On  the 
morrow  I  was  to  appear  upon  the  stage  as  the  winner 
of  the  first  honors  of  my  year.  I  was  the  envy— the 
admiration— in  some  degree  the  wender,  of  the  col- 


legiate town  in  which  the  university  stands;  for  I  had 
commenced  my  career  as  the  idlest  and  most  riotous 
of  freshmen.  What  it  was  that  had  suddenly  made 
me  enamored  of  my  chambers  and  my  books — that 
had  saddened  my  manners  and  softened  my  voice — that 
had  given  me  a  disgust  to  champagne  and  my  old  al- 
lies, in  favor  of  cold  water  and  the  Platonists — that,  in 
short,  had  metamorphosed,  as  Bob  Wilding  would 
have  said,  a  gentleman-like  rake  and  vau-rien  into  so 
dull  a  thing  as  an  exemplary  academician — was  past 
the  divining  of  most  of  my  acquaintances.  Oh,  once- 
loved  Edith!  hast  thou  any  inkling  in  thy  downward 
metempsychosis  of  the  philosophy  of  this  marvel  ? 

If  you  were  to  set  a  poet  to  make  a  town,  with 
carte  blanche  as  to  trees,  gardens,  and  green  blinds, 
he  would  probably  turn  out  very  much  such  a  place 
as  New  Haven.  (Supposing  your  education  in  ge- 
ography to  have  been  neglected,  dear  reader,  this  is 
the  second  capital  of  Connecticut,  a  half-rural,  half- 
metropolitan  town,  lying  between  a  precipice  that 
makes  the  fag-end  of  the  (Jreen  mountains  and  a 
handsome  bay  in  Long-Island  sound.)  The  fust 
thought  of  the  inventor  of  New  Haven  was  to  lay  out 
the  streets  in  parallelograms,  and  the  second  was  to 
plant  them  from  suburb  to  water-side  with  the  mag- 
nificent elms  of  the  country.  The  result  is,  that  at 
the  end  of  fifty  years,  the  town  is  buried  in  leaves,  ff 
it  were  not  for  the  spires  of  the  churches,  a  bird  flying 
over  on  his  autumn  voyage  to  the  Floridas  would 
never  mention  having  seen  it  in  his  travels.  It  is  a 
glorious  tree,  the  elm — and  those  of  the  place  I  speak 
of  are  famous,  even  in  our  land  of  trees,  for  their  sur- 
prising size  and  beauty.  With  the  curve  of  their 
stems  in  the  sky,  the  long  weepers  of  their  outer  and 
lower  branches  drop  into  the  street,  fanning  your  face 
as  you  pass  under  wiih  their  geranium-like  leaves; 
and  close  overhead,  interwoven  like  the  trellice  of  a 
vine,  they  break  up  the  light  of  the  sky  into  golden 
flecks,  and  make  you,  of  the  common  highway,  a 
bower  of  the  most  approved  secludedness  and  beauty. 
The  houses  are  something  between  an  Italian  palace 
and  an  English  cottage — built  of  wood,  but,  in  the 
dim  light  of  those  overshadowing  trees,  as  fair  to  the 
eye  as  marble  with  their  triennial  coats  of  paint;  aud 
each  stands  in  the  midst  of  its  own  encircling  grass- 
plot,  half  buried  in  vines  and  flowers,  and  facing  out- 
ward from  a  cluster  of  gardens  divided  by  slender 
palings,  and  filling  up  with  fruit-trees  and  summer- 
houses  the  square  on  whose  limit  it  stands.  Then, 
like  the  vari-colored  parallelograms  upon  a  chess- 
board, green  openings  are  left  throughout  the  town, 
fringed  with  triple  and  interweaving  elm-rows,  the  long 
and  weeping  branches  sweeping  downward  to  the 
grass,  and  with  their  enclosing  shadows  keeping  moist 
and  cool  the  road  they  overhang;  and  fair  forms  (it  is 
the  garden  of  American  beauty — New-Haven)  flit 
about  in  the  green  light  in  primitive  security  and  free- 
dom, and  you  would  think  the  place,  if  you  alit  upon 
it  in  a  summer's  evening — what  it  seems  to  me  now 
in  memory,  and  what  I  have  made  it  in  this  Rosa- 
Matilda  description — a  scene  from  Boccacio,  or  a 
vision  from  long-lost  Arcady. 

New  Haven  may  have  eight  thousand  inhabitants. 
Its  steamers  run  to  New  York  in  six  hours  (or  did  in 
my  time — I  have  ceased  to  be  astonished  on  that  sub- 
ject, and  should  not  wonder  if  they  did  it  now  in  one 
— a  trifle  of  seventy  miles  up  the  sound),  and  the 
ladies  go  up  in  the  morning  for  a  yard  of  bobbin  and 
return  at  night,  and  the  gentlemen  the  same  for  a 
stroll  in  Broadway  ;  and  it  is  to  this  circumstance  that, 
while  it  preserves  its  rural  exterior,  it  is  a  very  metro- 
politan place  in  the  character  of  its  society.  The 
Armaryllis  of  the  petty  cottage  you  admire  wears  the 
fashion  twenty  days  from  Paris,  and  her  shepherd  has 
a  coat  from  Nugee,  the  divine  peculiarity  of  which  is 
not  yet  suspected  east  of  Bond  street ;  and,  in   the 


396 


INKLINGS  OF  ADVENTURE. 


newspaper  hanging  half  out  of  the  window,  there  is 
news,  red-hot  with  the  velocity  of  its  arrival,  from 
Russia  and  the  Rocky  Mountains,  from  the  sources  of 
the  Mississippi  and  the  brain  of  Monsieur  Herbault. 
Distance  is  an  imaginary  quantity,  and  Time,  that 
used  to  give  everything  the  go-by,  has  come  to  a 
stand-still  in  his  astonishment.  There  will  be  a  prop- 
osition in  congress  ere  long  to  do  without  him  alto- 
gether— every  new  thing  "  saves  time"  so  marvel- 
lously. 

Bright  as  seems  to  me  this  seat  of  my  Alma 
Mater,  however,  and  gayly  as  1  describe  it,  it  is  to 
me,  if  I  may  so  express  it,  a  picture  of  memory 
glazed  and  put  away;  if  I  see  it  ever  again,  it  will 
be  but  to  walk  through  its  embowered  streets  by 
a  midnight  moon.  It  is  vain  and  heart-breaking  to  go 
back,  after  absence,  to  any  spot  of  earth  of  which  the 
interest  was  the  human  love  whose  home  and  cradle  it 
had  been.  But  there  is  a  period  in  our  lives  when 
the  heart  fuses  and  compounds  with  the  things  about 
it,  and  the  close  enamel  with  which  it  overruns  and 
binds  in  the  affections,  and  which  hardens  in  the 
lapse  of  years  till  the  immortal  germ  within  is  not 
more  durable  and  unwasting,  warms  never  again,  nor 
softens;  and  there  is  nothing  on  earth  so  mournful 
and  unavailing  as  to  return  to  the  scenes  which  are 
unchanged,  and  look  to  return  to  ourselves  and  others 
as  we  were  when  we  thus  knew  them. 

Yet  we  think  (I  judge  you  by  my  own  soul,  gentle 
reader)  that  it  is  others — not  we — who  are  changed ! 
We  meet  the  friend  that  we  loved  in  our  youth,  and  it 
is  ever  he  who  is  cold  and  altered  !  We  take  the 
hand  that  we  bent  over  with  our  passionate  kisses  in 
boyhood,  and  our  raining  tears  when  we  last  parted, 
and  it  is  ever  hers  that  returns  not  the  pressure,  and 
her  eyes,  and  not  ours — oh,  not  ours! — that  look  back 
the  moistened  and  once  familiar  regard  with  a  dry  lid 
and  a  gaze  of  stone  !  Oh  God  !  it  is  ever  he — the 
friend  you  have  worshipped — for  whom  you  would 
have  died — who  gives  you  the  tips  of  his  ringers,  and 
greets  you  with  a  phrase  of  fashion,  when  you  would 
rush  into  his  bosom  and  break  your  heart  with  weep- 
ing out  the  imprisoned  tenderness  of  years  !  I  could 
carve  out  the  heart  from  my  bosom,  and  fling  it  with 
a  malison  into  the  sea,  when  I  think  how  utterly  and 
worse  than  useless  it  is  in  this  world  of  mocking 
names  !  Yet  "  love"  and  "  friendship"  are  words 
that  read  well.  You  could  scarce  spare  them  in 
poetry. 

II. 

It  was,  as  I  have  said,  a  moonlight  night  of  unpar- 
alleled splendor.  The  morrow  was  the  college  anni- 
versary—the day  of  the  departure  of  the  senior  class 
— and  the  town,  which  is,  as  it  were,  a  part  of  the  uni- 
versity, was  in  the  usual  tumult  of  the  gayest  and 
saddest  evening  of  the  year.  The  night  was  warm, 
and  the  houses,  of  which  the  drawing-rooms  are  all 
on  a  level  with  the  gardens  in  the  rear,  and  through 
which  a  long  hall  stretches  like  a  ball-room,  were 
thrown  open,  doors  and  windows,  and  the  thousand 
students  of  the  university,  and  the  crowds  of  their 
friends,  and  the  hosts  of  strangers  drawn  to  the  place 
at  this  season  by  the  annual  festivities,  and  the  fami- 
lies, every  one  with  a  troop  of  daughters  (as  the  leaves 
on  our  trees,  compared  with  those  of  old  countries — 
three  to  one — so  are  our  sons  and  daughters)  were  all 
sitting  without  lamps  in  the  moon-lit  rooms,  or  strol- 
ling together,  lovers  and  friends,  in  the  fragrant  gar- 
dens, or  looking  out  upon  the  street,  returning  the 
greetings  of  the  passers-by,  or,  with  heads  uncovered, 
pacing  backward  and  forward  beneath  the  elms  before 
the  door — the  whole  scene  one  that  the  angels  in 
heaven  might  make  a  holyday  to  see. 

There  were  a  hundred  of  my  fellow-seniors — young 


men  of  from  eighteen  to  twenty -four — every  one  of 
whom  was  passing  the  last  evening  of  the  four  most 
impressible  and  attaching  years  of  his  life,  with  the 
family  in  which  he  had  been  most  intimate,  in  a  town 
where  refinement  and  education  had  done  their  ut- 
most upon    the   society,  and   which  was   renowned 
throughout  America  for  the  extraordinary  beauty  of 
its  women.     They  had  come  from  every  state  in  the 
Union,  and  the  Georgian  and   the  Vermontese,  the 
Kentuckian  and  the  Virginian,  were  to  start  alike  on 
I  the  morrow-night  with  a  lengthening  chain  for  home, 
each  bearing  away  the  hearts  he  had  attached  to  him 
I  (one  or  more !)  and  leaving  his  own,  till,  like  the  mag- 
i  netized  needle,  it  should  drop  away  with  the  weak- 
j  ened  attraction  ;  and   there  was  probably  but  one  that 
i  night  in  the  departing  troop  who  was  no;  whispering 
in   some  throbbing  ear  the    passionate  but  vain  and 
j  mocking  avowal  of  fidelity  in  love  !     And  yet  I  had 
I  had  my  attachments   too ;   and    there   was   scarce   a 
house  in  that  leafy  and  murmuring  paradise  of  friend- 
ship and  trees,  that  would  not  have  hailed  me  with 
acclamation  had  I  entered  the  door;  and  I  make  this 
record  of  kindness  and  hospitality  (unforgotten  after 
long  years  of  vicissitude  and  travel),  with  the  hope 
that  there  may  yet  live  some  memory  as  constant  as 
mine,  and  that  some  eye  will  read  it  with  a  warmth  in 
its  lid,  and  some  lip — some  one  at  least — murmur,  "f 
remember  him!"    There  are  trees  in  that  town  whose 
drooping  leaves  I  could  press  to  my  lips  with  an  affec- 
|  tion  as  passionate  as  if  they  were  human,  though  the 
1  lips  and  voices  that  have  endeared  them  to  me  are  as 
changed  as  the  foliage  upon  the  branch,  and  would 
recognise  my  love  as  coldly. 

There  was  one,  I  say,  who  walked  the  thronged 
pavement  alone  that  night,  or  but  with  such  company 
as  Uhland's  ;*  yet  the  heart  of  that  solitary  senior  was 
far  from  lonely.  The  palm  of  years  of  ambition  was 
in  his  grasp — the  reward  of  daily  self-denial  and  mid- 
night watching — the  prize  of  a  straining  mind  and 
a  yearning  desire  ;  and  there  was  not  one  of  the  many 
who  spoke  of  him  that  night  in  those  crowded  rooms, 
either  to  rejoice  in  his  success  or  to  wonder  at  its  at- 
tainment, who  had  the  shadow  of  an  idea  what  spirit 
sat  uppermost  in  his  bosom.  Oh!  how  common  is 
this  ignorance  of  human  motives  !  How  distant,  and 
slight,  and  unsuspected,  are  the  springs  often  of  the 
most  desperate  achievement!  How  little  the  world 
knows  for  what  the  poet  writes,  the  scholar  toils,  the 
politician  sells  his  soul,  and  the  soldier  perils  his  life ! 
And  how  insignificant  and  unequal  to  the  result  would 
seem  these  invisible  wires,  could  they  be  traced  back 
from  the  hearts  whose  innermost  resource  and  faculty 
they  have  waked  and  exhausted  !  It  is  a  startling 
thing  to  question  even  your  own  soul  for  its  motive. 
Ay,  even  in  trifles.  Ten  to  one  yon  are  surprised  at 
the  answer.  I  have  asked  myself,  while  writing  this 
sentence,  whose  eye  it  is  most  meant  to  please;  and, 
as  I  live,  the  face  that  is  conjured  up  at  my  bidding  is 
of  one  of  whom  I  have  not  had  a  definite  thought  for 
years.  I  would  lay  my  life  she  thinks  at  this  instant 
I  have  forgotten  her  very  name.  Yet  I  know  she 
will  read  this  page  with  an  interest  no  other  could 
awaken,  striving  to  trace  in  it  the  changes  that  have 
come  over  me  since  we  parted.  I  know  (and  1  knew 
then,  though  we  never  exchanged  a  word  save  in 
friendship),  that  she  devoted  her  innermost  soul  when 
we  strayed  together  by  that  wild  river  in  the  West 
(dost  thou  remember  it,  dear  friend  ?  for  now  I  speak 
to  thee  !)  to  the  study  of  a  mind  and  character  of  which 

*  Almost  the  sweetest  thing  I  remeAber  is  the  German 
poet's  thought  when  crossing  the  ferry  to  his  wife  and 
child  ;— 

"  Take,  O  boatman  !  thrice  thy  fee, 
Take,  I  give  it  willingly : 
For,  invis/bly  to  thee, 
Spirits  twain  have  crossed  with  m*." 


INKLINGS  OF  ADVENTURE. 


397 


she  thought  better  than  the  world  or  their  possessor; 
BDd  I  know— oh,  how  well  I  know!— that  with  hus- 
band and  children  around  her,  whom  she  loves  and 
10  whom  she  is  devoted,  the  memory  ol  me  18  hud 
away  in  her  heart  like  a  fond  hut  incomplete  dream 
ol  what  once  seemed  possible— the  feeling  with  which 
the  mother  looks  on  her  witless  boy,  and  loves  him 
more  lor  what  he  wight  have  been,  than  his  brothers 
for  what  they  are! 

I  scarce  know  what  thread  I  dropped  to  take  up  this 
tm/romta  digression  (for,  like  "Opportunity  and   the 

..'  ..      T      ..  l__l.      1 1,     ."*\ 


Hours,"  I  ••  never  look  back  :"*)  but  let  us  return  to 
the  shadow  of  the  thousand  elms  of  New  Haven. 

The  Gascon  thought  his  own  thunder  and  lightning 
superior  to  that  ol  other  countries,  but  I  must  run  the 
hazard  of  your   incredulity  as  well,  in   preierrmg  an 
American  moon.     In  Greece  and  Asia  Minor,  perhaps 
tngione—ahe  was  first  worshipped   there),  Cythens 
shines  as  brightly;  but  the  Ephesian  of  Connecticut 
sees  the  flaws  upon  the  pearly  buckler  of  the  goddess, 
as  does  the  habitant  of  no  other  clime.     His  eye  lies 
close  to  the  moon.     There  is  no  film,  and  no  visible 
beam  in  the  clarified  atmosphere.     Her  light  is  less 
an  emanation  than  a  presence— the  difference  between  n 
the   water   in    a  thunder-shower   and   the  depths  of   | 
the  sea.     The  moon  struggles  to  you   in  England—  |; 
she  is  all  about  you,  like  an  element  of  the  air,  in  jj 
America 


unconsciously  stopped,  and  looked  unobserved  into 
the  rooms.  It  was  the  residence  of  a  magnificent 
girl,  who  was  generally  known  as  the  Connecticut 
beauty — a  singular  instance  in  America  of  what  is 
called  in  England  a  fine  woman.  (With  us  that  word 
applies  wholly  to  moral  qualities.)  She  was  as  large 
as  Juno,  and  a  great  deal  handsomer,  if  the  painters 
have  done  that  much-snubbed  goddess  justice.  She 
was  a  "book  of  beauty"  printed  with  virgin  type; 
and  that,  by  the  way,  suggests  to  me  what  I  have  all 
my  life  been  trying  to  express— that  some  women 
seem  wrought  of  new  material  altogether,  apropos  to 
others  who  seem  mortal  rechauffes— as  if  every  limb 
and  feature  had  been  used,  and  got  out  of  shape  in 
some  other  person's  service.  The  lady  I  speak  of 
looked  new — and  her  name  was  Isidora. 

She  was  standing  just  under  the  lamp,  with  a  single 
rose  in  her  hair,  listening  to  a  handsome  coxcomb  of 
a  classmate  of  mine  with  evident  pleasure.     She  was 
a  great   fool,  (did  I  mention  that  before?)  but  weak, 
and   vacant,   and    innocent   of  an    idea   as   she   was, 
Faustina  was  not  more  naturally  majestic,  nor  Psyche 
!  (soit   elle   en  grande)  more  divinely   and    meaningly 
'•  graceful.     Loveliness  and  fascination  came  to  her  as 
'  dew  and  sunshine  to  the  flowers,  and  she  obeyed  her 
instinct,  as  they  theirs,  and  was  helplessly,  and  with- 
out design,  the  loveliest  thing  in  nature.     1  do   not 


see    for  my  part,  why  all  women   should  not  be  so. 
ThTu'ight  was  breathless,  and  the  fragmented  light  jj  They  are  as  useful  as  flowers  ;  they  perpetuate   our 
lav  on  the  navement  in  motionless  stars,  as  clear  and  <    species.  . 

SMtelCS£«ifS«  "patines  of  bright  gold"  I  was  looking  at  her  with  irresistible  adm.ra  ion 
ha drop >e  through  the  trees/and  lay  glittering  be-  when  a  figure  stepped  out  from  the  shadow  of  a  tree, 
neat my  fee There  was  a  kind  of  darkness  visible  and  my  chum,  monster,  and  ally.  Job  Smith  (of  whom 
In  the  streets,  overshadowed  as  they  were  by  the  massy  ;!  I  have  before  spoken  in  these  historical  papers),  laid 
and  leaf-burthened  elms,  and  as  I  looked  through  the  ||  his  hand  on  my  should- 
houses,   standing   in    obscurity   myself,    the    gardens 


seemed  full  of  daylight— the  unobstructed  moon 
poured  with  such  a  flood  of  radiance  on  the  flowery 
alleys  within,  and  their  gay  troops  of  promenaders. 
And  as  I  distinguished  one  and  another  familiar  friend, 
with  a  form  as  familiar  clinging  to  his  side,  and,  with 
drooping  head  and  faltering  step,  listening  or  replying 
(I  well  knew),  to  the  avowals  of  love  and  truth,  I  mur- 
mured in  thought  to  my  own  far  away,  but  never-for- 
gotten Edith,  a  vow  as  deep— ay,  deeper  than  theirs, 
as  my  spirit  and  hers  had  been  sounded  by  the  pro- 
founder  plummet  of  sorrow  and  separation.  How  the 
very  moonlight— how  the  stars  of  heaven— how  the 
balm  in  the  air,  and  the  lahguor  of  summer  night  in 
my  indolent  frame,  seemed,  in  those  hours  of  loneli- 
ness, ministers  at  the  passionate  altar-fires  of  my  love! 
Forsworn  and  treacherous  Edith !  do  I  live  to  write 
this  for  thine  eye  ? 

I  linger  upon  these  trifles  of  the  past — these  hours 
for  which  I  would  have  borrowed  wings  when  they 
were  here— and,  as  then  they  seemed  but  the  flowering 
promise  of  happiness,  they  seem  vow  like  the  fruit, 
enjoyed  and  departed.  Past  and  future  bliss  there 
would  seem  to  be  in  the  world— knows  any  one  of 
such  a  commodity  in  the  present  1  I  have  not  seen 
it  in  my  travels. 

III. 


I  was  strolling  on  through  one  of  the  most  fashion- 
able and  romantic  streets  (when  did  these  two  words 
ever  before  find  themselves  in  a  sentence  together?) 
when  a  drawing-room  with  which  I  was  very  familiar, 
lit,  unlike  most  others  on  that  bright  night,  by  a  sus- 
pended lamp,  and  crowded  with  company,  attracted 
my  attention  for  a  moment.  Between  the  house  and 
the  street  there  was  a  slight  shrubbery  shut  in  by  a 
white  paling,  just  sufficient  to  give  an  air  of  seclusion 
to  the  low  windows  without  concealing  them  from  the 
passer-by,  and,  with  the  freedom  of  an  old  visiter,  1 
•  Walter  Savage  Landor. 


Do  you  know,  my  dear  Job,"  I  said,  in  a  solemn 
one  of  admonition,  "that  blind  John  was  imprisoned 
!  for  looking  into  people's  windows?" 

But  Job  was  not  in  the  vein  for  pleasantry.  The 
light  fell  on  his  face  as  I  spoke  to  him,  and  a  more 
haggard,  almost  blasted  expression  of  countenance,  I 
never  saw  even  in  a  madhouse.  I  well  knew  he  had 
loved  the  splendid  girl  that  stood  unconsciously  in  our 
sight,  since  his  first  year  in  college  ;  but  that  it  would 
ever  so  master  him,  or  that  he  could  link  his  mon- 
strous deformity,  even  in  thought,  with  that  radiant 
vision  of  beauty,  was  a  thing  that  I  thought  as  prob- 
able as  that  hirsute  Pan  would  tempt  from  her  sphere 
the  moon  that  kissed  Endymion. 

"  I  have  been  standing  here  looking  at  Isidora,  ever 
since  you  left  me,"  said  he.  (We  had  parted  three 
hours  "before,  at  twilight.) 

"And  why  not  go  in,  in  the  name  of  common 
sense 

"Oh!  God,  Phil! — with  this  demon  in  my  heart? 
Can  you  see  my  face  in  this  light  ?" 

It  was  too  true,  he  would  have  frightened  the 
household  gods  from  their  pedestals. 

"But  what  would  you  do,  my  dear  Job?  Why 
come  here  to  madden  yourself  with  a  sight  you  must 
have  known  you  would  see. 

"Phil?" 

"What,  my  dear  boy?" 

"Will  you  do  me  a  kindness?" 

"Certainly." 

"  Isidora  would  do  anything  you  wished  her  to  do. 

"Urn!  with  a  reservation,  my  dear  chum  !" 

"  But  she  would  give  you  the  rose  that  is  m  her 
hair." 

"  Without  a  doubt." 

"And  for  me— if  you  told  her  it  was  for  me. 
Would  she  not?" 

"Perhaps.     But  will  that  content  you  ! 

"  It  will  soften  my  despair.  I  will  never  look  on 
her  face  more  ;  but  I  should  like  my  last  sight  of  her 
to  be  associated  with  kindness  ?" 


398 


INKLINGS  OF  ADVENTURE. 


Poor  Job!  how  true  it   is  that  "  affection  is   a   fire 
which  kindleih  as  well  in  the  bramble  as  in  the  oak, 
and  catchelli  hold  where  it  first  lighteth,  not  where  it 
may  best   burn."     ]   do  believe  in  my  heart   that   the 
soul  in  thee  was  designed  for  a  presentable  body — thy 
instincts   were   so  invariably  mistaken.     When   didst 
thou  ever  think  a  thought,  or  stir  hand  or  foot,  that  it 
did  not  seem  prompted,  monster  though  thou  wert,  by  j 
conscious  good-looking-ness!     What  a  lying  simili-  j 
tude  it  was  that  was  written  on  every  blank   page  in  ! 
thy   Lexicon:   ''Larks  that   mount  in    the   air,   build  ; 
their  nests   below  in  the- earth;  and  women  that  cast 
their  eyes  upon  kings,  may  place   their  hearts   upon  | 
vassals."     Apelles  must  have  been  better  looking  than  ; 
Alexander,  when  Campaspe  said  that ! 

As  a  general  thing  you  may  ask  a  friend  freely  to  i 
break  any  three  of  the  commandments  in  your  service,  I 
but  you  should  hesitate  to  require  of  friendship  a  vio- 
lation of  etiquette.     1  was  in  a  round  jacket  and  boots, 
and  it  was  a  dress  evening  throughout  New  Haven.     I  : 
looked   at   my  dust-covered  feet,  when  Job  asked  me  ' 
to   enter  a  soiree   upon    his  errand,  and    passed   my  j 
thumb  and  finger  around  the  edge  of  my  white  jacket; 
but  I  loved  Job  as  the  Arabian  loves  his  camel,  and  for 
the  same  reason,  with  a  difference — the  imperishable  J 
well-spring  he  carried  in  his  heart  through  the  desert  j 
of  the  world,  and  which  I  well  knew  he  would  give  up  ! 
his  life   to  offer  at  need,  as  patiently  as  the   animal 
whose  construction  (inner  and  outer)  he  so  remarkably 
resembled.     When  I  hesitated,  and   looked  down   at  j 
my  boots,  therefore,  it  was  less  to  seek  for  an  excuse  | 
to  evade  the  sacrificing  office  required  of  me,  than  to 
beat  about  in  my  unprepared  mind  for  a  preface  to  my  [ 
request.     If  she  had  been  a  woman  of  sense,  1  should 
have  had   no  difficulty  ;  but  it  requires  caution  and 
skill  to  go  out  of  the  beaten  track  with  a  fool. 

"Would  not  the  rose  do  as  well,"  said  I,  in  despe- 
rate embarrassment,  "  if  she  does  not  know  that  it  is 
for  you,  my  dear  Job?"  It  would  have  been  very 
easy  to  have  asked  for  it  for  myself. 

Job  laid  his  hand  upon  his  side,  as  if  I  could  not 
comprehend  the  pang  my  proposition  gave  him. 

"Away  prop,  and  down,  scaffold,"  thought  I,  as  I 
gave  my  jacket  a  hitch,  and  entered  the  door. 

"Mr.  Slingsby,"  announced  the  servant. 

"  Mr.  Slingsby  ?"  inquired  the  mistress  of  the  house, 
seeing  only  a  white  jacket  in  the  clair  obscur  of  the 
hall. 

"Mr.  Slingsby!!!"  cried  out  twenty  voices  in 
amazement,  as  1  stepped  over  the  threshold  into  the 

light. 

It  has  happened  since  the  days  of  Thebet  Ren  Kho- 
rat,  that  scholars  have  gone  mad,  and  my  sanity  was 
evidently  the  uppermost  concern  in  the  minds  of  all 
present.  (I  should  observe,  that  in  those  days,  I  rel- 
ished rather  of  dandyism.)  As  I  read  the  suspicion 
in  their  minds,  however,  a  thought  struck  me.  I  went 
straight  up  to  xMiss  Higgins,  and,  sotto  voce,  asked  her 
to  take  a  turn  with  me  in  the  garden. 

"  Isidora,"  1  said,  "  i  have  long  known  your  supe- 
riority of  mind"  (when -you  want  anything  of  a  wo- 
man, praise  her  for  that  in  which  she  is  most  deficient, 
says  La  Bruyere),  "and  I  have  great  occasion  to  rely 
on  it  in  the  request  I  am  about  to  make  of  you." 

She  opened  her  eyes,  and  sailed  along  the  gravel- 
walk  with  heightened  majesty.  I  had  not  had  occa- 
sion to  pay  her  a  compliment  before  since  my  fresh- 
man year. 

"  What  is  it,  Mr.  Slingsby  ?" 

"You  know  Smith — my  chum." 

"Certainly." 

"  I  have  just  come  from  him." 

"Well!" 

"  He  is  gone  mad  !" 

"Mad!  Mr.  Slingsby?" 

"Stark  and  furious!" 


"  Gracious  goodness  !" 

"And  all  for  you  !" 

"  For  me ! !" 

"For  you  !"  I  thought  her  great  blue  eyes  would 
have  become  what  they  call  in  America  "sot,"  at  this 
astounding  communication. 

"Now,  Miss  Higgins,"  I  continued,  "pray  listen; 
my  poor  friend  has  such  extraordinary  muscular 
strength,  that  seven  men  can  not  hold  him." 

"  Gracious!" 

"And  he  has  broken  away,  and  is  here  at  your 
door." 

"  Good  gracious!" 

"  Don't  be  afraid  !  He  is  as  gentle  as  a  kitten  when 
I  am  present.  And  now  hear  my  request.  He  leaves 
town  to-morrow,  as  you  well  know,  not  to  return.  I 
shall  take  him  home  to  Vermont  with  keepers.  He 
is  bent  upon  one  thing,  and  in  that  you  must  humor 
him." 

Miss  Higgins  began  to  be  alarmed. 

"He  has  looked  through  the  window  and  seen  you 
with  a  rose  in  your  hair,  and,  despairing  even  in  his 
madness  of  your  love,  he  says,  that  if  you  would  give 
him  that  rose,  with  a  kind  word,  and  a  farewell,  he 
should  be  happy.     You  will  do  it,  will  you  not  ?" 

"  Dear  me  !  1  should  be  so  afraid  to  speak  to  him!" 

"  But  will  you  ?  and  I  'II  tell  you  what  to  say." 

Miss  Higgins  gave  a  reluctant  consent,  and  1  passed 
ten  minutes  in  drilling  her  upon  two  sentences,  which, 
with  her  fine  manner  and  sweet  voice,  really  sounded 
like  the  most  interesting  thing  in  the  world.  I  left  her 
in  the  summer-house  at  the  end  of  the  garden,  and 
returned  to  Job. 

"You  have  come  without  it !"  said  the  despairing 
lover,  falling  back  against  the  tree. 

"  Miss  Higgins'  compliments,  and  begs  you  will  go 
round  by  the  gate,  and  meet  her  in  the  summer-house. 
She  prefers  to  manage  her  own  affairs." 

"Good  God!  are  you  mocking  me?" 

"  I  will  accompany  you,  my  dear  boy." 

There  was  a  mixture  of  pathos  and  ludicrousness 
in  that  scene  which  starts  a  tear  and  a  laugh  together, 
whenever  I  recall  it  to  my  mind.  The  finest  heart  in 
the  world,  the  most  generous,  the  most  diffident  of 
itself,  yet  the  most  self  sacrificing  and  delicate,  was 
at  the  altar  of  its  devotion,  offering  its  all  in  passionate 
abandonment  for  a  flower  and  a  kind  word:  and  she, 
a  goose  in  the  guise  of  an  angel,  repeated  a  phrase  of 
kindness  of  which  she  could  not  comprehend  the 
meaning  or  the  worth,  but  which  was  to  be  garnered 
up  by  that  half-broken  heart,  as  a  treasure  that  repaid 
him  for  years  of  unrequited  affection!  She  recited  it 
really  very  well.  I  stood  at  the  latticed  door,  and  in- 
terrupted them  the  instant  there  was  a  pause  in  the 
dialogue;  and  getting  Job  away  as  fast  as  possible,  I 
left  Miss  Higgins  with  a  promise  of  secrecy,  and  re- 
sumed my  midnight  stroll. 

Apropos — among  Job's  letters  is  a  copy  of  verses, 
which,  spite  of  some  little  inconsistencies,  I  think 
were  written  on  this  very  occasion  : — 


Nay — smile  not  on  me — I  have  borne 

Indifference  and  repulse  from  thee  ; 
With  my  heart  sickening  1  have  worn 

A  brow,  as  thine  own  eoldxme,  free  ; 
My  lip  has  been  as  gay  as  thine, 

Ever  thine  own  light  mirth  repeating, 
Though,  in  this  burning  brain  of  mine, 

A  throb  the  while,  like  death,  was  beating : 
My  spirit  did  not  shrink  or  swerve — 
Thy  look — I  thank  thee  ! — froze  the  nerve  ! 


But  now  again,  as  when  I  met  . 

And  loved  thee  in  my  happier  days, 
A  smile  upon  thy  bright  lip  plays, 

And  kindness  in  thine  eye  is  set — 


INKLINGS  OF  ADVENTURE. 


399 


And  this  I  can  not  bear  ! 
It  melts  the  manhood  from  my  pride, 
It  brngs  me  closer  to  thy  side- 
Bewilders -chains  me  there — 
There — where  my  dearest  hope  was  crushed  and  died  ! 


Oh,  if  thou  couldsl  but  know  the  deep 

Of  love  that  hope  has  nursed  for  years, 
How  in  the  heart's  still  chambers  sleep 

Its  hoarded  thoughts,  its  trembling  fears — 
Treasure  that  love  has  brooded  o'er 
Till  life,  than  this,  has  nothing  more— 

And  couldst  thou — but  'tis  vain  ! — 
I  will  not,  can  not  tell  thee,  how 
That  hoard  consumes  its  coffer  now — 
I  may  not  write  of  pain 
That  sickens  in  the  heart,  and  maddens  in  the  brain 


Then  smile  not  on  me  !  pass  me  by 

Coldly,  and  with  a  careless  mien — 
'Twill  pierce  my  heart,  and  fill  mine  eye, 
But  1  shall  be  as  I  have  been — 
Quiet  in  my  despair  ! 
'Tis  better  than  the  throbbing  fever, 
That  else  were  in  my  brain  for  ever, 

And  easier  to  bear  ! 
I'll  not  upbraid  the  coldest  look — 
The  bitterest  word  thou  hast,  in  my  sad  pride  I'll  brook  ! 

If  Job  had  rejoiced  in  a  more  euphonious  name,  I 
should  have  bought  a  criticism  in  some  review,  and 
started  him  fairly  as  a  poet.  But  "  Job  Smith!" — 
"  Poems  by  Job  Smith  !" — It  would  never  do  !  If  he 
wrote  like  a  seraph,  and  printed  the  book  at  his  own 
expense,  illustrated  and  illuminated,  and  half-a-crown 
to  each  person  that  would  take  one  away,  the  critics 
would  damn  him  all  the  same  !  Really,  one's  father 
and  mother  have  a  great  deal  to  answer  for  ! 

But  Job  is  a  poet  who  should  have  lived  in  the 
middle  ages,  no  less  for  the  convenience  of  the  nom  de 
guerre,  fashionable  in  those  days,  than  because  his 
poetry,  being  chiefly  the  mixed  product  of  feeling  and 
courtesy,  is  particularly  susceptible  to  ridicule.  The 
philosophical  and  iron-wire  poetry  of  our  day  stands 
an  attack  like  a  fortification,  and  comes  down  upon 
the  besieger  with  reason  and  logic  as  good  as  his  own. 
But  the  more  delicate  offspring  of  tenderness  and  chiv- 
alry, intending  no  violence,  and  venturing  out  to  sea 
upon  a  rose -leaf,  is  destroyed  and  sunk  beyond  diving- 
bells  by  half  a  breath  of  scorn.  I  would  subscribe 
liberally  myself  to  a  private  press  and  a  court  of  honor 
in  poetry — critics,  if  admitted,  to  be  dumb  upon  a 
penalty.  Will  no  Howard  or  Wilberforce  act  upon 
this  hint  ?  Poets  now-a-days  ate  more  slaves  and 
felons  than  your  African,  or  your  culprit  at  the  old 
Bailey  ! 

1  would  go  a  great  way.  privately,  to  find  a  genuine 
spark  of  chivalry,  and  Job  lit  his  everyday  lamp  with 
it.  See  what  a  redolence  of  old  time  there  is  in  these 
verses,  which  I  copied  long  ago  from  a  lady's  album. 
Yet,  you  may  ridicule  them  if  you  like  ! — 

There  is  a  story  I  have  met, 

Of  a  high  angel,  pure  and  true, 
With  eyes  that  tears  had  never  wet, 

And  lips  that  pity  never  knew  ; 
But  ever  on  his  throne  he  sate, 

With  his  white  pinions  proudly  furled, 
And,  looking  from  his  high  estate, 

Beheld  the  errors  of  a  world  : 
Yet,  never,  as  they  rose  to  heaven, 
Plead  even  for  one  to  be  forgiven. 

God  looked  at  last  upon  his  pride, 
And  bade  him  fold  his  shining  wing, 

And  o'er  a  land  where  tempters  bide, 
He  made  the  heartless  angel  king. 

'Tis  lovely  reading  in  the  tale, 

The  glorious  spells  they  tried  on  him, 

Ere  gTew  his  heavenly  birth-star  pale, 
Ere  grew  his  frontlet  jewel  dim — 


Cups  of  such  rare  and  ravishing  wines 

As  even  a  god  might  drink  and  bless, 
Gems  from  unsearched  and  central  mines, 

Whose  light  than  heaven's  was  scarcely  less — 
Gold  of  a  sheen  like  crystal  spars, 

And  silver  whiter  than  the  moon's, 
And  music  like  the  songs  of  stars, 

And  perfume  like  a  thousand  Junes, 
And  breezes,  soft  as  heaven's  own  air 

Like  fingers  playing  in  his  hair  ! 
He  shut  his  eyes — he  closed  his  ears — 

He  bade  them,  in  God's  name,  begone  ! 
And,  through  the  yet  eternal  years, 

Had  stood,  the  tried  and  sinless  one  : 
But  there  was  yet  one  untried  spell — 
A  woman  tempted— and  he  fell  ! 

And  I — if  semblance  I  may  find 

Between  such  glorious  sphere  and  mine — 
Am  not  to  the  high  honor  blind, 

Of  filling  this  fair  page  of  thine — 
Writing  my  unheard  n.ime  among 
Sages  and  sires  and  men  of  song  ; 

But  honor,  though  the  best  e'er  given, 
And  glory,  though  it  were  a  king's, 

And  power,  though  loving  it  like  heaven, 
Were,  to  my  seeming,  lesser  things, 

And  less  temptation,  far,  to  me, 

Than  half  a  hope  of  serving  thee  ! 

I  am  mounted  upon  my  hobby  now,  dear  reader; 
for  Job  Smith,  though  as  hideous  an  idol  as  ever  was 
worshipped  on  the  Indus,  was  still  my  idol.  Here  is 
a  little  touch  of  his  quality  : — 

I  look  upon  the  fading  flowers 

Thou  gav'st  me,  lady,  in  thy  mirth, 
And  mourn,  that,  with  the  perishing  hours 

Such  fair  things  perish  from  the  earth — 
For  thus,  I  know,  the  moment's  feeling 

Its  own  light  web  of  life  unweaves, 
The  deepest  trace  from  memory  stealing, 

Like  perfume  from  these  dying  leaves — 
The  thought  that  gave  it,  anil  the  flower, 
Alike  the  creatures  of  an  hour. 

And  thus  it  better  were,  perhaps, 

For  feeling  is  the  nurse  of  pain, 
And  joys  that  linger  in  their  lapse, 

Must  die  at  last,  and  so  are  vain  ! 
Could  I  revive  these  faded  flowers, 

Could  1  call  back  departed  bliss, 
I  would  not,  though  this  world  of  ours 

Were  ten  times  brighter  than  it  is  ! 
They  must — and  let  them— pass  away  ! 
We  are  forgotten — even  as  they  ! 

I  think  I  must  give  Edith  another  reprieve.  I  have 
no  idea  why  I  have  digressed  this  time  from  the  story 
which  (you  may  see  by  the  motto  at  the  beginning  of 
the  paper)  I  have  not  yet  told.  I  can  conceive  easily 
how  people,  who  have  nothing  to  do,  betake  them- 
selves to  autobiography — it  is  so  pleasant  rambling 
about  over  the  past,  and  regathering  only  the  flowers. 
Why  should  pain  and  mortification  be  unsepultured  .' 
The  world  is  no  wiser  for  these  written  experiences. 
"  The  best  book,"  said  Southey,  "  does  but  little  good 
to  the  world,  and  much  harm  to  the  author."  I  shall 
deliberate  whether  to  enlighten  the  world  as  to  Edith's 
metempsychosis,  or  no. 


PART  IV. 


SCENERY    AND    A    SCENE. 

"  Truth  is  no  doctoresse  ;  she  takes  no  decrees  at  Paris  or  Oxford, 
among  great  clerks,  disputants,  subtle  Aristotles,  men  nodn.ri  mge- 
nii,  ab'e  to  take  Lully  by  the  chin  j  but  oftentimes,  to  such  a  one 
as  myself,  an  idiota  or  common  person,  no  great  things,  melanchoii- 
zing  in  woods  where  waters  are,  quiet  places  by  rivers,  fountains  ; 
whereas  the  sillv  man,  expecting  no  such  matter,  thinketh  only 
how  best  to  delectate  and  refresh  his  mynde  continually  with  na- 
ture, her  pleasaunt  scenes,  woods,  waterfalls:  on  a  sudden  the 
goddess  herself,  Truth,  has  appeared  with  a  shining  light  and  a 
sparkling  countenance,  so  as  ye  may  not  b«  able  lightly  to  resist 
her." — Bobtom. 


400 


INKLINGS  OF  ADVENTURE. 


"  Lver  thus 

Drop  from  us  treasures  one  tiy  one  ; 

They  who  have  been  frmn  youth  with  us, 
Whose  every  look,  whose  every  tone. 

Is  linked  to  us  like  leaves  to  flowers— 

They  who  have  shared  our  pleasant  hours— 
Whose  voices,  so  familiar  grown. 
They  almost  seem  to  us  our  own— 

The  echoes  of  each  breath  of  ours — 
They  who  have  ever  been  our  pride, 

Yet  in  their  hours  of  triumph  dearest — 
They  whom  we  must  have  known  and  tried, 

And  loved  the  most  when  tiied  the  nearest — 
They  pass  from  us,  like  stars  that  wane, 

The  brightest  still  before, 
Or  gold  links  broken  from  a  chain 

That  can  be  joined  no  more  !" 

Job  Smith  and  myself  were  on  the  return  from  Ni- 
agara.    It  was  in  the  slumberous  and  leafy  midst  of 
June.     Lake  Erie  had  lain  with  a  silver  glaze  upon 
its  bosom  for  days;  the  ragged  trees  upon  its  green 
shore  dropping  their  branches  into  the  stirless  water, 
as  if  it  were  some  rigid  imitation — the  lake  glass,  and 
the  leaves  emerald  ;  the  sky  was  of  an  April  blue,  as  ! 
if  a  night-rain  had  washed  out  its  milkiness.  till  you  J 
could  see  through  its  clarified  depths  to  the  gates  of  I 
heaven  ;    and  yet  breathless   and   sunny  as  was   the 
face  of  the  earth,  there  was  a  nerve  and  a  vitality  in  j 
the  air  that  exacted  of  every  pulse  its  full  compass —  J 
searched  every  pore  for  its  capacity  of  the  joy  of  ex-  I 
istence. 

No  one  can  conceive,  who  has  not  had  his  imagina- 
tion stretched  at  the  foot  of  Niagara,  or  in  the  Titanic 
solitudes  of  the  west,  the  vastness  of  the  unbroken 
phases  of  nature  ;  where  every  tree  looks  a  king,  and 
every  flower  a  marvel  of  glorious  form  and  color — 
where  the  rocks  are  rent  every  one  as  by  the  "  tenth" 
thunderbolt — and  lake,  mountain,  or  river,  ravine  or 
waterfall,  cave  or  eagle's  nest,  whatever  it  may  be  that 
feeds  the  eye  or  the  fancy,  is  as  the  elements  have 
shaped  and  left  it — where  the  sculpture,  and  the  paint- 
ing, and  the  poetry,  and  the  wonderful  alchymy  of 
nature,  go  on  under  the  naked  eye  of  the  Almighty, 
and  by  his  own  visible  and  uninterrupted  hand,  and 
where  the  music  of  nature,  from  the  anthem  of  the 
torrent  and  storm,  broken  only  by  the  scream  of  the 
vulture,  to  the  trill  of  the  rivulet  with  its  accompani- 
ment of  singing  birds  and  winds,  is  for  ever  ringing  its 
changes,  as  if  for  the  stars  to  hear — in  such  scenes,  I 
say,  and  in  such  scenes  only,  is  the  imagination  over- 
tasked or  stretched  to  the  capacity  of  a  seraph's  ;  and 
while  common  minds  sink  beneath  them  to  the  mere 
inanition  of  their  animal  senses,  the  loftier  spirit  takes 
their  color  and  stature,  and  outgrows  the  common  and 
pitiful  standards  of  the  world.  Cooper  and  Leather- 
stocking  thus  became  what  they  are — the  one  a  high- 
priest  of  imagination  and  poetry,  and  the  other  a  sim- 
ple-hearted but  mere  creature  of  instinct;  and  Cooper 
is  no  more  a  living  man,  liable  to  the  common  laws  of 
hum  an  nature,  than  Leatherstocking  a  true  and  life- 
like transcript  of  the  more  common  effect  of  those 
overpowering  solitudes  on  the  character. 

We  got  on  board  the  canal-boat  at  noon,  and  Job 
and  myself,  seated  on  the  well-cushioned  seats,  with 
the  blinds  half-turned  to  give  us  the  prospect  and  ex- 
clude the  sun,  sat  disputing  in  our  usual  amicable  way. 
He  was  the  only  man  I  ever  knew  with  whom  I  could 
argue  without  losing  my  temper ;  and  the  reason  was, 
that  I  always  had  the  last  word,  and  thought  myself 
victorious. 

"  We  are  about  to  return  into  the  bosom  of  society, 
my  dear  Job,"  said  I,  "  looking  with  unctuous  good 
nature  on  the  well-shaped  boot  I  had  put  on  for  the 
first  time  in  a  month  that  morning.  (It  is  an  unsen- 
timental fact  that  hob-nailed  shoes  are  indispensable  on 
the  most  poetical  spots  of  earth.) 

"  Yes,"  said  Job;  "  but  how  superior  is  the  society 
we  leave  behind  !  Niagara  and  Erie  *  What  in  your 
crowded  city  is  comparable  to  these  ?" 

"  Nothing,  for  size  '. — but  for  society — you  will  think 


me  a  pagan,  dear  chum — but,  on  my  honor,  straight 
from  Niagara  as  1  come,  I  feel  a  most  dissatisfied  yearn- 
ing for  the  society  of  Miss  Popkins  !" 

"Oh,  Phil!" 

"  On  my  honor  !" 

"  You,  who  were  in  such  raptures  at  the  falls  !" 

"  And  real  ones — but  I  wanted  a  woman  at  my  el- 
bow to  listen  to  them.  Do  you  know,  Job,  I  have 
made  up  my  mind  on  a  great  principle  since  we  have 
been  on  our  travels  ?  Have  you  observed  that  1  was 
pensive  ?" 

"  Not  particularly — but  what  is  your  principle  ?" 

"  That  a  man  is  a  much  more  interesting  object  than 
a  mountain." 

"A  man  !  did  you  say  ?" 

"  Yes — but  I  meant  a  woman  !" 

"  I  don't  think  so." 

"  I  do  ! — and  1  judge  by  myself.  When  did  I  ever 
see  wonder  of  nature — tree,  sunset,  waterfall,  rapid, 
lake,  or  river — that  I  would  not  rather  have  been  talk- 
ing to  a  woman  the  while  ?  Do  you  remember  the 
three  days  we  were  tramping  through  the  forest  with- 
out seeing  the  sun,  as  if  we  had  been  in  the  endless 
aisle  of  a  cathedral?.  Do  you  remember  the  long  morn- 
ing when  we  lay  on  the  moss  at  the  foot  of  Niagara, 
and  it  was  a  divine  luxury  only  10  breathe  ?  Do  you 
remember  the  lunar  rainbows  at  midnight  on  Goat 
island  ?  Do  you  remember  the  ten  thousand  glorious 
moments  we  have  enjoyed  between  weather  and  scene- 
ry since  the  bursting  of  these  summer  leaves?  Do 
you  ?"' 

"  Certainly,  my  dear  boy  !" 

"  Well,  then,  much  as  I  love  nature  and  you,  there 
has  not  been  an  hour  since  we  packed  our  knapsacks, 
that,  if  I  coul  I  have  distilled  a  charming  girl  out  of  a 
mixture  of  you  and  any  mountain,  river,  or  rock,  that 
I  have  seen,  I  would  not  have  flung  you,  without  re- 
morse, into  any  witch's  caldron  that  was  large  enough, 
and  would  boil  at  my  bidding." 

"  Monster !" 

"And  I  believe  I  should  have  the  same  feelings  in 
Italy  or  Greece,  or  wherever  people  go  into  raptures 
with  things  you  can  neither  eat  nor  make  love  to." 

"  Would  not  even  the  Venus  fill  your  fancy  for  a 
day  ?" 

"  An  hour,  perhaps,  it  might ;  for  I  should  be  study- 
ing, in  its  cold  Parian  proportions,  the  warm  structure 
of  some  living  Musidora — but  I  should  soon  tire  of  it, 
and  long  for  my  lunch  or  my  love  ;  and  I  give  you  my 
honor  I  would  not  lose  the  three  meals  of  a  single  day 
to  see  Santa  Croce  and  St.  Peter's." 
"  Both  ?" 
"Both." 

Job  disdained  to  argue  against  such  a  want  of  sen- 
timental principle,  and  pulling  up  the  blind,  he  fixed 
his  eyes  on  the  slowly-gliding  panorama  of  rock  and 
forest,  and  I  mounted  for  a  promenade  upon  the  deck. 
Mephistopheles  could  hardly  have  found  a  more 
striking  amusement  for  Faust  than  the  passage  of  three 
hundred  miles  in  the  canal  from  Lake  Erie  to  the 
Hudson.  As  I  walked  up  and  down  the  deck  of  the 
packet-boat.  I  thought  to  myself,  that  if  it  were  not 
for  thoughts  of  things  that  come  more  home  to  one's 
"  business  and  bosom"  (particularly  "  bosom"),  I  could 
be  content  to  retake  my  berth  at  Schenectady,  and  re- 
turn to  Buffalo  for  amusement.  The  P>ie  canal-boat 
is  a  long  and  very  pretty  drawing-room  afloat.  It  has 
a  library,  sofas,  a  tolerable  cook,  curtains  or  Venetian 
blinds,  a  civil  captain,  and  no  smell  of  steam  or  per- 
ceptible motion.  It  is  drawn  generally  by  three  horses 
at  a  fair  trot,  and  gets  you  through  about  a  hundred 
miles  a  day,  as  softly  as  if  you  were  witched  over  the 
ground  by  Puck  and  Mustard-seed.  The  company 
(say  fifty  people)  is  such  as  pleases  Heaven  ;  though  I 
must  say  (with  my  eye  all  along  the  shore,  collecting 
the  various  dear  friends  I  have  made  and  left  on  that 


INKLINGS  OF  ADVENTURE. 


401 


long  canal)  there  are  few  highways  on  which  you  will 
meet  so  many  lovely  and  loving  fellow-passengers 
On  this  occasion  my  star  was  bankrupt — Job  Smith 
being  my  only  civilized  companion — and  I  was  left  to 
the  unsatisfactory  society  of  my  own  thoughts  and  the 
scenery. 

Discontented  as  I  may  seem  to  have  been,  I  remem- 
ber, through  eight  or  ten  years  of  stirring  and  thickly- 
sown  manhood,  every  moment  of  that  lonely  evening. 
I  remember  the  progression  of  the  sunset,  from  the 
lengthening  shadows  and  the  first  gold  upon  the  clouds, 
to  the  deepening  twilight  and  the  new-sprung  star 
hung  over  the  wilderness.  And  I  remember  what  I 
am  going  to  describe — a  twilight  anthem  in  the  forest 
— as  you  remember  an  air  of  Rossini's,  or  a  transition 
in  the  half-fiendish,  half-heavenly  creations  of  Meyer- 
beer. I  thought  time  dragged  heavily  then,  but  I 
wish  I  had  as  light  a  heart  and  could  feel  as  vividly 
now  ! 

The  Erie  canal  is  cut  a  hundred  or  two  miles 
through  the  heart  of  the  primeval  wilderness  of 
America,  and  the  boat  was  gliding  on  silently  and 
swiftly,  and  never  sailed  a  lost  cloud  through  the 
abyss  of  space  on  a  course  more  apparently  new  and 
untrodden.  The  luxuriant  soil  had  sent  up  a  rank 
grass  that  covered  the  horse-path  like  velvet ;  the 
Erie  water  was  clear  as  a  brook  in  the  winding  canal ; 
the  old  shafts  of  the  gigantic  forest  spurred  into  the 
sky  by  thousands,  and  the  yet  unscared  eagle  swung 
off  from  the  dead  branch  of  the  pine,  and  skimmed  the 
tree-tops  for  another  perch,  as  if  he  had  grown  to 
believe  that  gliding  spectre  a  harmless  phenomenon 
of  nature.  The  horses  drew  steadily  and  unheard  at 
the  end  of  the  long  line  ;  the  steersman  stood  mo- 
tionless at  the  tiller,  and  I  lay  on  a  heap  of  baggage 
in  the  prow,  attentive  to  the  slightest  breathing  of  na- 
ture, but  thinking,  with  an  ache  at  my  heart,  of  Edith 
Linsey,  to  whose  feet  (did  I  mention  it?)  I  was  has- 
tening with  a  lover's  proper  impatience.  I  might  as 
well  have  taken  another  turn  in  my  "  fool's  paradise." 

The  gold  of  the  sunset  had  glided  up  the  dark  pine 
tops  and  disappeared,  like  a  ring  taken  slowly  from  an 
Ethiop's  finger;  the  whip-poor-will  had  chanted  the 
first  stave  of  his  lament;  the  bat  was  abroad,  and  the 
screech-owl,  like  all  bad  singers,  commenced  without 
waiting  to  be  importuned,  though  we  were  listening 
for  the  nightingale.  The  air,  as  I  said  before,  had 
been  all  day  breathless;  but  as  the  first  chill  of  eve- 
ning displaced  the  warm  atmosphere  of  the  departed 
sun,  a  slight  breeze  crisped  the  mirrored  bosom  of  the 
canal,  and  then  commenced  the  night  anthem  of  the 
forest,  audible,  I  would  fain  believe,  in  its  soothing 
changes,  by  the  dead  tribes  whose  bones  whiten  amid 
the  perishing  leaves.  First,  whisperingly  yet  articu- 
lately, the  suspended  and  wavering  foliage  of  the  birch 
was  touched  by  the  many-fingered  wind,  and,  like  a 
faint  prelude,  the  silver-lined  leaves  rustled  in  the  low 
branches  ;  and,  with  a  moment's  pause,  when  you 
could  hear  the  moving  of  the  vulture's  claws  upon 
the  bark,  as  he  turned  to  get  his  breast  to  the  wind, 
the  increasing  breeze  swept  into  the  pine-tops,  and 
drew  forth  from  their  fringe-like  and  myriad  tassels  a 
low  monotone  like  the  refrain  of  a  far-off  dirge;  and 
still  as  it  murmured  (seeming  to  you  sometimes  like 
the  confused  and  heart-broken  responses  of  the  peni- 
tents on  a  cathedral  floor),  the  blast  strengthened  and 
filled,  and  the  rigid  leaves  of  the  oak,  and  the  swaying 
fans  and  chalices  of  the  magnolia,  and  the  rich  cups 
of  the  tulip-trees,  stirred  and  answered  with  their  dif- 
ferent voices  like  many-toned  harps  ;  and  when  the 
wind  was  fully  abroad,  and  every  moving  thing  on  the 
breast  of  the  earth  was  roused  from  its  daylight  repose, 
the  irregular  and  capricious  blast,  like  a  player  on  an 
organ  of  a  thousand  stops,  lulled  and  strengthened  by 
turns,  and  from  the  hiss  in  the  rank  grass,  low  as  the 
whisper  of  fairies,  to  the  thunder  of  the  impinging 


and  groaning  branches  of  the  larch  and  the  fir,  the 
anthem  went  ceaselessly  through  its  changes,  and  the 
harmony  (though  the  owl  broke  in  with  his  scream, 
and  though  the  over-blown  monarch  of  the  wood 
came  crashing  to  the  earth),  was  still  perfect  and  with- 
out ajar.  It  is  strange  that  there  is  no  sound  of  na- 
ture out  of  tune.  The  roar  of  the  waterfall  comes 
into  this  anthem  of  the  forest  like  an  accompaniment 
of  bassoons,  and  the  occasional  bark  of  the  wolf,  or 
the  scream  of  a  night-bird,  or  even  the  deep-throated 
croak  of  the  frog,  is  no  more  discordant  than  the  out- 
burst of  an  octave  flute  above  the  even  melody  of  an 
orchestra  ;  and  it  is  surprising  how  the  large  rain- 
drops, pattering  on  the  leaves,  and  the  small  voice  of 
the  nightingale  (singing,  like  nothing  but  himself, 
sweetest  in  the  darkness)  seems  an  intensitive  and  a 
low  burthen  to  the  general  anthem  of  the  earth — as 
it  were,  a  single  voice  among  instruments. 

I  had  what  Wordsworth  calls  a  "  couchant  ear"  in 
my  youth,  and  my  story  will  wait,  dear  reader,  while 
I  tell  you  of  another  harmony  that  I  learned  to  love 
in  the  wilderness. 

There  will  come  sometimes  in  the  spring — say  in 
May,  or  whenever  the  snow-drops  and  sulphur  butter- 
flies are  tempted  out  by  the  first  timorous  sunshine — 
there  will  come,  I  say,  in  that  yearning  and  youth- 
I  renewing  season,  a  warm  shower  at  noon.  Our  tent 
shall  be  pitched  on  the  skirts  of  a  forest  of  young 
pines,  and  the  evergreen  foliage,  if  foliage  it  may  be 
called,  shall  be  a  daily  refreshment  to  our  eye  while 
watching,  with  the  west  wind  upon  our  cheeks,  the 
unclothed  branches  of  the  elm.  The  rain  descends 
softly  and  warm  ;  but  with  the  sunset  the  clouds  break 
away,  and  it  grows  suddenly  cold  enough  to  freeze. 
The  next  morning  you  shall  come  out  with  me  to  a 
hill-side  looking  upon  the  south,  and  lie  down  with 
your  ear  to  the  earth.  The  pine  tassels  hold  in  every 
four  of  their  fine  fingers  a  drop  of  rain  frozen  like  a 
pearl  in  a  long  ear-ring,  sustained  in  their  loose  grasp 
by  the  rigidity  of  the  cold.  The  sun  grows  warm  at 
ten,  and  the  slight  green  fingers  begin  to  relax  and 
yield,  and  by  eleven  they  are  all  drooping  their  icy 
pearls  upon  the  dead  leaves  with  a  murmur  through 
the  forest  like  the  swarming  of  the  bees  of  Hybla. 
There  is  not  much  variety  in  its  music,  but  it  is  a 
pleasant  monotone  for  thought,  and  if  you  have  a 
restless  fever  in  your  bosom  (as  I  had,  when  I  learned 
to  love  it,  for  the  travel  which  has  corrupted  the  heart 
and  the  ear  that  it  soothed  and  satisfied  then)  you  may 
lie  down  with  a  crooked  root  under  your  head  in  the 
skirts  of  the  forest,  and  thank  Heaven  for  an  anodyne 
to  care.  And  it  is  better  than  the  voice  of  your  friend, 
or  the  song  of  your  lady-love,  for  it  exacts  no  grati- 
tude, and  will  not  desert  you  ere  the  echo  dies  upon 
the  wind. 

Oh,  how  many  of  these  harmonies  there  are  ! — how 
many  that  we  hear,  and  how  many  that  are  "  too 
constant  to  be  heard!"  1  could  go  back  to  my  youth, 
now,  with  this  thread  of  recollection,  and  unsepulture 
a  hoard  of  simple  and  long-buried  joys  that  would 
bring  the  blush  upon  my  cheek  to  think  how  my  senses 
are  dulled  since  such  things  could  give  me  pleasure! 
Is  there  no  "  well  of  Kanathos"  for  renewing  the 
youth  of  the  soul  ? — no  St.  Hilary's  cradle?  no  elixir 
to  cast  the  slough  of  heart-sickening  and  heart-tar- 
nishing custom?  Find  me  an  alchymy  for  that,  with 
your  alembic  and  crucible,  and  you  may  resolve  to 
dross  again  your  philosopher's  stone  ! 

II. 

Everybody  who  makes  the  passage  of  the  Erie 
canal,  stops  at  the  half-way  town  of  Utica,  to  visit  a 
wonder  of  nature  fourteen  miles  to  the  west  of  it,  called 
Trenton  Falls.  It  would  be  becoming  in  me,  before 
mentioning  the  falls,  however,  to  sing  the  praises  of 


402 


INKLINGS  OF  ADVENTURE. 


Utica  and  its  twenty  thousand  inhabitants — having 
received  much  hospitality  from  the  worthy  burghers, 
and  philandered  up  and  down  their  well-flagged  trot- 
toir  very  much  to  my  private  satisfaction.  I  should 
scorn  any  man's  judgment  who  should  attempt  to  con- 
vince me  that  the  Erie  water,  which  comes  down  the 
canal  a  hundred  and  fifty  miles,  and  passes  through 
the  market-place  of  that  pleasant  town,  has  not  com- 
municated to  the  hearts  of  its  citizens  the  expansion 
and  depth  of  the  parent  lake  from  which  it  is  drawn. 
I  have  a  theory  on  that  subject  with  which  I  intend  to 
surprise  the  world  whenever  politics  and  Mr.  Bulwer 
draw  less  engrossingly  on  its  attention.  Will  any  one 
tell  me  that  the  dark  eyes  I  knew  there,  and  whose 
like  for  softness  and  meaning  I  have  inquired  for  in 
vain  through  Italy,  and  the  voice  that  accompanied 
their  gaze — (that  Pasta,  in  her  divinest  out-gush  of 
melody  and  soul,  alone  recalls  to  me) — that  these,  and 
the  noble  heart,  and  high  mind,  and  even  the  genius, 
that  were  other  gifts  of  the  same  marvel  among  wo- 
men— that  these  were  born  of  common  parentage,  and 
nursed  by  the  air  of  a  demi-metropolis?  We  were 
but  the  kindest  of  friends,  that  bright  creature  and  my- 
self, and  I  may  say,  without  charging  myself  with  the 
blindness  of  love,  that  I  believe  in  my  heart  she  was 
the  foster-child  of  the  water-spirits  on  whose  wander- 
ing streamlet  she  lived — that  the  thousand  odors  that 
swept  down  from  the  wilderness  upon  Lake  Erie,  and 
the  unseen  but  wild  and  innumerable  influences  of 
nature,  or  whatever  you  call  that  which  makes  the 
Indian  a  believer  in  the  Great  Spirit — that  these 
came  down  with  those  clear  waters,  ministering  to  the 
mind  and  watching  over  the  budding  beauty  of  this 
noble  and  most  high-hearted  woman!  If  you  do  not 
believe  it,  1  should  like  you  to  tell  me  how  else  such 
a  creature  was  "raised,"  as  they  phrase  it  in  Virginia. 
I  shall  hold  to  my  theory  till  you  furnish  me  with  a 
more  reasonable. 

We  heard  at  the  hotel  that  there  were  several  large 
parties  at  Trenton  Falls,  and  with  an  abridgment  of 
our  toilets  in  our  pockets,  Job  and  I  galloped  out  of 
Utica  about  four  o'clock  of  as  bright  a  summer's  after- 
noon as  was  ever  promised  in  the  almanac.  We  drew 
rein  a  mile  or  two  out  of  town,  and  dawdled  along  the 
wild  road  more  leisurely,  Job's  Green  mountain  pro- 
portions fitting  to  the  saddle  something  in  the  manner 
and  relative  fitness  of  a  skeleton  on  a  poodle.  By  the 
same  token  he  rode  safely,  the  looseness  of  his  bones 
accommodating  itself  with  singular  facility  to  the 
irregularities  in  the  pace  of  the  surprised  animal  be- 
neath him. 

I  dislike  to  pass  over  the  minutest  detail  of  a  period 
of  my  life  that  will  be  rather  interesting  in  my  biogra- 
phy (it  is  my  intention  to  be  famous  enough  to  merit 
that  distinction,  and  I  would  recommend  to  my  friends 
to  be  noting  my  "  little  peculiarities"),  and  with  this 
posthumous  benevolence  in  my  heart,  I  simply  record, 
that  our  conversation  on  the  road  turned  upon  Edith 
Linsey— at  this  time  the  lady  of  my  constant  love — for 
whose  sake  and  at  whose  bidding' I  was  just  conclu- 
ding (with  success  I  presumed)  a  probation  of  three 
years  of  absence,  silence,  hard  study,  and  rigid  morals, 
and  upon  whose  parting  promise  (God  forgive  her!)  I 
had  built  my  uttermost  gleaning  and  sand  of  earthly 
hope  and  desire.  I  tell  you  in  the  tail  of  this  mock- 
ing paragraph,  dear  reader,  that  the  bend  of  the  rain- 
bow spans  not  the  earth  more  perfectly  than  did  the 
love  of  that  woman  my  hopes  of  future  bliss;  and  the 
ephemeral  arc  does  not  sooner  melt  into  the  clouds — 
but  I  am  anticipating  my  story. 

Job's  extraordinary  appearance,  as  he  extricated 
himself  from  his  horse,  usually  attracted  the  entire  at- 
tention of  the  by-standers  at  a  strange  inn,  and  under 
cover  of  this,  I  usually  contrived  to  get  into  the  house 
and  commit  him  by  ordering  the  dinner  as  soon  as  it 
could  be  got  ready.     Else,  if  it  was  in  the  neighbor- 


hood of  scenery,  he  was  off  till  Heaven  knew  when, 
and  as  I  had  that  delicacy  for  his  feelings  never  to 
dine  without  him,  you  may  imagine  the  necessity  of 
my  hungry  manoeuvre. 

We  dined  upon  the  trout  of  the  glorious  stream  we 
had  come  to  see  ;  and  as  our  host's  eldest  daughter 
waited  upon  us  (recorded  in  Job's  journal,  in  my  pos- 
session at  this  moment,  as  "  the  most  comely  and  gra- 
cious virgin"  he  had  seen  in  his  travels),  we  felt  bound 
to  adapt  our  conversation  to  the  purity  of  her  mind, 
and  discussed  only  the  philosophical  point,  whether 
the  beauty  of  the  stream  could  be  tasted  in  the  flavor 
of  the  fish — Job  for  it,  I  against  it.  The  argument 
was  only  interrupted  by  the  entrance  of  an  apple- 
pudding,  so  hot  that  our  tongues  were  fully  occupied 
in  removing  it  from  place  to  place  as  the  mouth  felt 
its  heat  inconvenient,  and  then,  being  in  a  country 
of  liberty  and  equality,  and  the  damsel  in  waiting,  as 
Job  smilingly  remarked,  as  much  a  lady  as  the  Presi- 
dent's wife,  he  requested  permission  to  propose  her 
health  in  a  cool  tumbler  of  cider,  and  we  adjourned  to 
the  moonlight. 

III. 

Ten  or  fifteen  years  ago,  the  existence  of  Trenton 
Falls  was  not  known.  It  was  discovered,  like  Paestum, 
by  a  wandering  artist,  when  there  was  a  town  of  ten 
thousand  inhabitants,  a  canal,  a  theatre,  a  liberty- 
pole,  and  forty  churches,  within  fourteen  miles  of  it. 
It  may  be  mentioned  to  the  credit  of  the  Americans, 
that  in  the  "hardness"  of  character  of  which  travel- 
lers complain,  there  is  the  soft  trait  of  a  passion  for 
scenery ;  and  before  the  fact  of  its  discovery  had  got 
well  into  the  "Cahawba  Democrat"  and  "Go-the- 
whoIe-hog-Courier,"  there  was  a  splendid  wooden 
hotel  on  the  edge  of  the  precipice,  with  a  French 
cook,  soda-water,  and  olives,  and  a  law  was  passed  by 
the  Kentucky  Travellers'  Club,  requiring  a  hanging- 
bird's  nest  from  the  trees  "  frowning  down  the  awful 
abysm,"  (so  expressed  in  the  regulation),  as  a  qual- 
ification for  membership.  Thenceforward  to  the  pres- 
ent time  it  has  been  a  place  of  fashionable  resort 
during  the  summer  solstice,  and  the  pine  woods,  in 
which  the  hotel  stands,  being  impervious  to  the  sun, 
it  is  prescribed  by  oculists  for  gentlemen  and  ladies 
with  weak  eyes.  If  the  luxury  of  corn-cutters  had 
penetrated  to  the  United  States,  it  might  be  prescribed 
for  tender  feet  as  well — the  soft  floor  of  pine-tassels 
spread  under  the  grassless  woods,  being  considered 
an  improvement  upon  Turkey  carpets  and  green- 
sward. . 

Trenton  Falls  is  rather  a  misnomer.  I  scarcely 
know  what  you  would  call  it.  but  the  wonder  of  na- 
ture which  bears  the  name  is  a  tremendous  torrent, 
whose  bed,  for  several  miles,  is  sunk  fathoms  deep 
into  the  earth — a  roaring  and  dashing  stream,  so  far 
below  the  surface  of  the  forest  in  which  it  is  lost,  that 
you  would  think,  as  you  come  suddenly  upon  the 
edge  of  its  long  precipice,  that  it  was  a  river  in  some 
inner  world  (coiled  within  ours,  as  we  in  the  outer 
circle  of  the  firmament),  and  laid  open  by  some 
Titanic  throe  that  had  cracked  clear  asunder  the  crust 
of  this  "shallow  earth."  The  idea  is  rather  assisted 
if  you  happen  to  see  below  you,  on  its  abysmal  shore, 
a  party  of  adventurous  travellers;  for,  at  that  vast 
depth,  and  in  contrast  with  the  gigantic  trees  and 
rocks,  the  same  number  of  well-shaped  pismires, 
dressed  in  the  last  fashions,  and  philandering  upon 
your  parlor  floor,  would  be  about  of  their  apparent  size 
and  distinctness. 

They   showed   me  at  Eleusis  the  well   by  which 
!  Proserpine   ascends  to  the  regions  of  day  on  her  an- 
nual visit  to  the  plains  of  Thessaly — but  with   the 
J  genius  loci  at  my  elbow  in  the  shape  of  a  Greek  girl 
'■  as  lovely  as  Phryne,  my  memory  reverted  to  the  bared 


INKLINGS  OF  ADVENTURE. 


403 


axle  of  the  earth  in  the  bed  of  this  American  river, 
and  I  was  persuaded  (looking  the  while  at  the  fero- 
niere  of  gold  sequins  on  the  Phidian  forehead  of  my 
Katioka)  that  supposing  Hades  in  the  centre  of  the 
earth,  you  are  nearer  to  it  by  some  fathoms  at  Tren- 
ton. I  confess  I  have  had,  since  my  first  descent  into 
those  depths,  an  uncomfortable  doubt  of  the  solidity 
of  the  globe — how  the  deuse  it  can  hold  together  with 
such  a  crack  in  its  bottom  ! 

It  was  a  night  to  play  Endymion,  or  do  any  Tom- 
foolery that  could  be  laid  to  the  charge  of  the  moon, 
for  a  more  omnipresent  and  radiant  atmosphere  of 
moonlight  never  sprinkled  the  wilderness  with  silver. 
It  was  a  night  in  which  to  wish  it  might  never  be 
day  again — a  night  to  be  enamored  of  the  stars,  and 
bid  God  bless  them  like  human  creatures  on  their 
bright  journey — a  night  to  love  in,  to  dissolve  in — to 
do  everything  but  what  night  is  made  for — sleep  ! 
Oh  heaven  !  when  I  think  how  precious  is  life  in  such 
moments  ;  how  the  aroma — the  celestial  bloom  and 
flower  of  the  soul — the  yearning  and  fast-perishing 
enthusiasm  of  youth — waste  themselves  in  the  solitude 
of  such  nights  on  the  senseless  and  unanswering  air; 
when  I  wander  alone,  unloving  and  unloved,  beneath 
influences  that  could  inspire  me  with  the  elevation  of 
a  seraph,  were  I  at  the  ear  of  a  human  creature  that 
could  summon  forth  and  measure  my  limitless  capaci- 
ty of  devotion — when  I  think  this,  and  feel  this,  and 
so  waste  my  existence  in  vain  yearnings — I  could  ex- 
tinguish the  divine  spark  within  me  like  a  lamp  on  an 
unvisited  shrine,  and  thank  Heaven  for  an  assimila- 
tion to  the  animals  I  walk  among  !  And  that  is  the 
substance  of  a  speech  I  made  to  Job  as  a  sequitur  of  a 
well-meant  remark  of  his  own,  that  "  it  was  a  pity 
Edith  Linsey  was  not  there."  He  took  the  clause 
about  the  "  animals"  to  himself,  and  I  made  an  apology 
for  the  same  a  year  after.  We  sometimes  give  our 
friends,  quite  innocently,  such  terrible  knocks  in  our 
rhapsodies  ! 

Most  people  talk  of  the  sublimity  of  Trenton,  but  I 
have  haunted  it  by  the  week  together  for  its  mere 
loveliness.  The  river,  in  the  heart  of  that  fearful 
chasm,  is  the  most  varied  and  beautiful  assemblage  of 
the  thousand  forms  and  shapes  of  running  water  that 
I  know  in  the  world.  The  soil  and  the  deep-striking 
roots  of  the  forest  terminate  far  above  you,  looking  like 
a  black  rim  on  the  enclosing  precipices;  the  bed  of 
the  river  and  its  sky-sustaining  walls  are  of  solid  rock, 
and,  with  the  tremendous  descent  of  the  stream — 
forming  for  miles  one  continuous  succession  of  falls 
and  rapids — the  channel  is  worn  into  curves  and  cavi- 
ties which  throw  the  clear  waters  into  forms  of  in- 
conceivable brilliancy  and  variety.  It  is  a  sort  of 
half  twilight  below,  with  here  and  there  a  long  beam 
of  sunshine  reaching  down  to  kiss  the  lip  of  an  eddy 
or  form  a  rainbow  over  a  fall,  and  the  reverberating 
and  changing  echoes:— 

"  Like  a  ring  of  bells  whose  sound  the  wind  still  alters," 

maintain  a  constant  and  most  soothing  music,  varying 
at  every  step  with  the  varying  phase  of  the  current. 
Cascades  of  from  twenty  to  thirty  feet,  over  which 
the  river  flies  with  a  single  and  hurrying  leap  (not  a 
drop  missing  from  the  glassy  and  bending  sheet,)  oc- 
cur frequently  as  you  ascend;  and  it  is  from  these 
that  the  place  takes  its  name.  But  the  falls,  though 
beautiful,  are  only  peculiar  from  the  dazzling  and  un- 
equalled rapidity  with  which  the  waters  come  to  the 
leap.  If  it  were  not  for  the  leaf  which  drops  waver- 
ing down  into  the  abysm  from  trees  apparently  painted 
on  the  sky,  and  which  is  caught  away  by  the  flashing 
current  as  if  the  lightning  had  suddenly  crossed  it, 
you  would  think  the  vault  of  the  steadfast  heavens  a 
flying  element  as  soon.  The  spot  in  that  long  gulf  of 
beauty  that  I  best  remember  is  a  smooth  descent  of  some 
hundred  yards,  where  the  river  in  full  and  undivided 


volume  skims  over  a  plane  as  polished  as  a  table  of 
scagliola,  looking,  in  its  invisible  speed,  like  one  mir- 
ror of  gleaming  but  motionless  crystal.  Just  above, 
there  is  a  sudden  turn  in  the  glen  which  sends  the 
water  like  a  catapult  against  the  opposite  angle  of  the 
rock,  and,  in  the  action  of  years,  it  has  worn  out  a 
cavern  of  unknown  depth,  into  which  the  whole 
mass  of  the  river  plunges  with  the  abandonment  of  a 
flying  fiend  into  hell,  and,  reappearing  like  the  angel 
that  has  pursued  him,  glides  swiftly  but  with  divine 
serenity  on  its  way.  (I  am  indebted  for  that  last 
figure  to  Job,  who  travelled  with  a  Milton  in  his 
pocket,  and  had  a  natural  redolence  of  "  Paradise 
Lost"  in  his  conversation.) 

Much  as  I  detest  water  in  small  quantities  (to  drink), 
I  have  a  hydromania  in  the  way  of  lakes,  rivers,  and 
waterfalls.     It  is,  by  much,  the  belle  in  the  family  of 

i  the  elements.      Earth  is  never  tolerable  unless  dis- 

i  guised  in  green.  Air  is  so  thin  as  only  to  be  visible 
when  she  borrows  drapery  of  water ;  and  Fire  is  so 

j  staringly  bright  as  to  be  unpleasant  to  the  eyesight ; 

i  but  water!  soft,  pure,  graceful  water!  there  is  no 
shape  into  which  you  can  throw  her  that  she  does  not 

;  seem  lovelier  than  before.  She  can  borrow  nothing 
of  her  sisters.     Earth  has  no  jewels  in  her  lap  so  bril- 

|  liant  as  her  own  spray- pearls  and  emeralds;    Fire  has 

|  no  rubies  like  what  she  steals  from  the  sunset ;  Air 
has  no  robes  like  the  grace  of  her  fine-woven  and  ever- 

!  changing  drapery  of  silver.     A  health  (in  wine  !)  to 

;  Watkr  ! 

Who  is  there  that  did  not  love  some  stream  in  his 

!  youth  ?     Who   is  there  in  whose  vision  of  the  past 

j  there  does  not  sparkle  up,  from  every  picture  of  child- 

j  hood,  a  spring  or  a  rivulent  woven  through  the  darken- 
ed and  torn  woof  of  first  affections  like  a  thread  of 
unchanged  silver  ?  How  do  you  interpret  the  in- 
stinctive  yearning   with   which   you  search   for   the 

:  river-side  or  the  fountain  in  every  scene  of  nature — 

|  the  clinging  unaware  to  the  river's  course  when  a 
truant  in  the  fields  in  June — the  dull  void  you  find  in 

j  every  landscape  of  which  it  is  not  the  ornament  and 
the  centre  ?  For  myself,  I  hold  with  the  Greek  : 
"  Water  is  the  first  principle  of  all  things  :  we  were 

!  made  from  it  and  we  shall  be  resolved  into  it."* 


IV. 


The  awkward  thing  in  all  story-telling  is  transition. 
I  Invention  you  do  not  need  if  you  have  experience ; 
'  for  fact  is  stranger  than  fiction.  A  beginning  in  these 
days  of  startling  abruptness  is  as  simple  as  open  your 
mouth  ;  and  when  you  have  once  begun  you  can  end 
whenever  you  like,  and  leave  the  sequel  to  the  reader's 
imagination  :  but  the  hinges  of  a  story — the  turning 
gracefully  back  from  a  digression  (it  is  easy  to  turn 
into  one) — is  the  pas  qui  coute.  My  education  on  that 
point  was  neglected. 

It  was,  as  I  said  before,  a  moonlight  night,  and 
Job  and  myself  having,  like  Sir  Fabian,  "  no  mind 
to  sleep,"  followed  the  fashion  and  the  rest  of  the  com- 
pany at  the  inn,  and  strolled  down  to  see  the  falls  by 
moonlight.  I  had  been  there  before,  and  I  took  Job 
straight  to  the  spot  in  the  bed  of  the  river  which  I 
have  described  above  as  my  favorite,  and,  after  watch- 
ing it  for  a  few  minutes,  we  turned  back  to  a  dark 
cleft  in  the  rock  which  afforded  a  rude  seat,  and  sat 
musing  in  silence. 

Several  parties  had  strolled  past  without  seeing  us 

in  our  recess,   when  two   female  figures,  with  their 

!  arms   around   each  other's  waists,  sauntered   slowly 

|  around   the  jutting  rock  below,  and  approached  us, 

!  eagerly  engaged  in  conversation.     They  came  on  to 

the  very  edge   of  the  shadow   which  enveloped   us, 

and  turned  to  look  back  at  the  scene.     As  the  head 

nearest  me  was  raised  to  the  light,  I  started  half  to 

*  The  Ionic  philosophy,  supported  by  Thale*. 


404 


INKLINGS  OF  ADVENTURE. 


my  feet :  it  was  Edith !  In  the  same  instant  her 
voice  of  music  broke  on  my  ear,  and  an  irresistible 
impulse  to  listen  unobserved  drew  me  down  again 
upon  my  seat,  and  Job,  with  a  similar  instinct,  laid  his 
hand  on  my  arm. 

"It  was  his  favorite  spot!"  said  Edith.  (We  had 
been  at  Trenton  together  years  before.)  "I  stood  here 
with  him,  and  I  wish  he  stood  here  now,  that  I  might 
tell  him  what  my  hand  hesitates  to  write." 

"Poor  Philip  !"  said  her  companion,  whom  by  the 
voice  I  recognised  as  the  youngest  of  the  Flemings, 
"I  can  not  conceive  how  you  can  resolve  so  coldly  to 
break  his  heart." 

I  felt  a  dagger  entering  my  bosom,  but  still  I  listen- 
ed.    Edith  went  on. 

"  Why,  I  will  tell  you,  my  dear  little  innocent.  I 
loved  Philip  Slingsby  when  I  thought  I  was  going  to 
die.  It  was  then  a  fitting  attachment,  for  I  never 
thought  to  need,  of  the  goods  of  this  world,  more 
than  a  sick  chamber  and  a  nurse  ;  and  Phil  was  kind- 
hearted  and  devoted  to  me,  and  I  lived  at  home. 
But,  with  returned  health,  a  thousand  ambitious  de- 
sires have  sprung  up  in  my  heart,  and  I  find  myself 
admired  by  whom  I  will,  and  every  day  growing 
more  selfish  and  less  poetical.  Philip  is  poor,  and 
love  in  a  cottage,  though  very  well  for  you  if  you 
like  it,  would  never  do  for  me.  I  should  like  him 
very  well  for  a  friend,  for  he  is  gentlemanlike  and 
devoted,  but,  with  my  ideas,  I  should  only  make  him 
miserable,  and  so — I  think  I  had  better  put  him  out  of 
misery  at  once — don't  you  think? 

A  half-smothered  groan  of  anguish  escaped  my  lips ; 
but  it  was  lost  in  the  roar  of  the  waters,  and  Edith's 
voice,  as  she  walked  on,  lessened  and  became  inaudi- 
ble to  my  ear.  As  her  figure  was  lost  in  the  shadow 
of  the  rocks  beyond,  I  threw  myself  on  the  bosom  of 
my  friend,  and  wept  in  the  unutterable  agony  of  a 
crushed  heart.  I  know  not  how  that  night  was  spent, 
but  I  awoke  at  noon  of  the  next  day,  in  my  bed,  with 
Job's  hand  clasped  tenderly  in  my  own. 

V. 

I  kept  my  tryst.  I  was  to  meet  Edith  Linsey  at 
Saratoga  in  July — the  last  month  of  the  probation  by 
which  I  had  won  a  right  to  her  love.  I  had  not  spo- 
ken to  her,  or  written,  or  seen  her  (save,  unknown  to 
her,  in  the  moment  I  have  described),  in  the  three 
long  years  to  which  my  constancy  was  devoted.  I 
had  gained  the  usual  meed  of  industry  in  my  profes- 
sion, and  was  admitted  to  its  practice.  I  was  on  the 
threshold  of  manhood ;  and  she  had  promised,  before 
heaven,  here  to  give  me  heart  and  hand- 

I  had  parted  from  her  at  twelve  on  that  night  three 
years,  and,  as  the  clock  struck,  I  stood  again  by  her 
side  in  the  crowded  ballroom  of  Saratoga. 

"  Good  God  !  Mr.  Slingsby  !"  she  exclaimed,  as  I 
put  out  my  hand. 

"  Am  I  so  changed  that  you  do  not  know  me,  Miss 
Linsey  ?"  I  asked,  as  she  still  looked  with  a  wonder- 
ing gaze  into  my  face— pressing  my  hand,  however, 
with  real  warmth,  and  evidently  under  the  control, 
for  the  moment,  of  the  feelings  with  which  we  had 
parted. 

"  Changed,  indeed  !  Why,  you  have  studied  your- 
self to  a  skeleton  !     My  dear  Philip,  you  are  ill !" 

I  was — but  it  was  only  for  a  moment.  I  asked  her 
hand  for  a  waltz,  and  never  before  or  since  came  wit 
and  laughter  so  freely  to  my  lip.  I  was  collected,  but, 
at  the  same  time,  I  was  the  gayest  of  the  gay ;  and 
when  everybody  had  congratulated  me,  in  her  hear- 
ing, on  the  school  to  which  I  had  put  my  wits  in  my 
long  apprenticeship  to  the  law,  I  retired  to  the  gallery 
looking  down  upon  the  garden,  and  cooled  my  brow 
and  rallied  my  sinking  heart. 

The  candles  were  burning  low,  and  the  ball  whs 


nearly  over,  when  I  entered  the  room  again,  and  re 
quested  Edith  to  take  a  turn  with  me  on  the  colon- 
nade. She  at  once  assented,  and  I  could  feel  by  her 
arm  in  mine,  and  see  by  the  fixed  expression  on  her 
lip,  that  she  did  so  with  the  intention  of  revealing  to 
me  what  she  little  thought  I  could  so  well  anticipate. 

"  My  probation  is  over,"  I  said,  breaking  the  si- 
lence which  she  seemed  willing  to  prolong,  and  which 
had  lasted  till  we  had  twice  measured  the  long  colon- 
nade. 

"  It  was  three  years  ago  to-night,  I  think,  since  we 
parted."  She  spoke  in  an  absent  and  careless  tone,  as 
if  trying  to  work  out  another  more  prominent  thought 
in  her  mind. 

"  Do  you  find  me  changed  ?"  I  asked. 

"  Yes — oh,  yes  !  very  !" 

"  But  I  am  more  changed  than  I  seem,  dear  Edith  !" 

She  turned  to  me  as  if  to  ask  me  to  explain  my- 
self. 

"  Will  you  listen  to  me  while  I  tell  you  how  ?" 

"  What  can  you  mean  ?     Certainly." 

"  Then  listen,  for  I  fear  I  can  scarce  bring  myself 
to  repeat  what  I  am  going  to  say.  When  I  first  learned 
to  love  you,  and  when  I  promised  to  love  you  for 
life,  you  were  thought  to  be  dying,  and  I  was  a  boy. 
I  did  not  count  on  the  future,  for  I  despaired  of  your 
living  to  share  it  with  me,  and,  if  I  had  done  so,  I 
was  still  a  child,  and  knew  nothing  of  the  world.  I 
have  since  grown  more  ambitious,  and,  I  may  as  well 
say  at  once,  more  selfish  and  less  poetical.  You  will 
easily  divine  my  drift.  You  are  poor,  and  I  find  my- 
self, as  you  have  seen  to-night,  in  a  position  which 
will  enable  me  to  marry  more  to  my  advantage  ;  and, 
with  these  views,  I  am  sure  I  should  only  make  you 
miserable  by  fulfilling  my  contract  with  you,  and  you 
will  agree  with  me  that  I  consult  our  mutual  happi- 
ness by  this  course — don't  you  think  ?" 

At  this  instant  I  gave  a  signal  to  Job,  who  approached 
and  made  some  sensible  remarks  about  the  weather; 
and,  after  another  turn  or  two,  I  released  Miss  Linsey's 
arm,  and  cautioning  her  against  the  night  air,  left  her 
to  finish  her  promenade  and  swallow  her  own  project- 
ed speech  and  mine,  and  went  to  bed. 

And  so  ended  my  first  love  ! 


SCENES  OF  FEAR. 

No.  I. 

THE    DISTURBED    VIGIL. 

"  Antonio. — Get  me  a  conjurer,  I  say  !  Inquire  me  out  a  man  that 
lets  out  devils  '."  Old  Play. 

Such  a  night !  It  was  like  a  festival  of  Dian.  A 
burst  of  a  summer  shower  at  sunset,  with  a  clap  or 
two  of  thunder,  had  purified  the  air  to  an  intoxicating 
rareness,  and  the  free  breathing  of  the  flowers,  and 
the  delicious  perfume  from  the  earth  and  grass,  and 
the  fresh  foliage  of  the  new  spring,  showed  the  delight 
and  sympathy  of  inanimate  Nature  in  the  night's  beau- 
ty. There  was  no  atmosphere — nothing  between  the 
eye  and  the  pearly  moon — and  she  rode  through  the 
heavens  without  a  veil,  like  a  queen  as  she  is,  giving  a 
glimpse  of  her  nearer  beauty  for  a  festal  favor  to  the 
worshipping  stars. 

I  was  a  student  at  the  famed  university  of  Connecti- 
cut, and  the  bewilderments  of  philosophy  and  poetry 
were  strong  upon  me,  in  a  place  where  exquisite  natu- 
ral beauty,  and  the  absence  of  all  other  temptation, 
secure  to  the  classic  neophite  an  almost  supernatural 
wakefulness  of  fancy.  I  contracted  a  taste  for  the 
horrible  in  those  days,  which  still  clings  to  me.     I 


INKLINGS  OF  ADVENTURE. 


405 


have  travelled  the  world  over,  with  no  object  but  gen- 
eral observation,  and  have  dawdled  my  hour  at  courts 
and  operas  with  little  interest,  while  the  sacking  and 
drowning  of  a  woman  in  the  Bosphorus,  the  impale- 
ment of  a  robber  on  the  Nile,  and  the  insane  hospitals 
from  Liverpool  to  Cathay,  are  described  in  my  capri- 
cious journal  with  the  vividness  of  the  most  stirring 
adventure. 

There  is  a  kind  of  crystallization  in  the  circum- 
stances of  one's  life.  A  peculiar  turn  of  mind  draws 
to  itself  events  fitted  to  its  particular  nucleus,  and  it  is 
frequently  a  subject  of  wonder  why  one  man  meets 
with  more  remarkable  things  than  another,  when  it  is 
owing  merely  to  a  difference  of  natural  character. 

It  was,  as  I  was  saying,  a  night  of  wonderful  beauty. 
T  was  watching  a  corpse.  In  that  part  of  the  United 
States,  the  dead  are  never  left  alone  till  the  earth  is 
thrown  upon  them  ;  and,  as  a  friend  of  the  family,  I 
had  been  called  upon  for  this  melancholy  service  on 
the  night  preceding  the  interment.  It  was  a  death 
which  had  left  a  family  of  broken  hearts  ;  for,  beneath 
the  sheet  which  sank  so  appallingly  to  the  outline  of 
a  human  form,  lay  a  wreck  of  beauty  and  sweetness 
whose  loss  seemed  to  the  survivors  to  have  darkened 
the  face  of  the  earth.  The  ethereal  and  touching 
loveliness  of  that  dying  girl,  whom  I  had  known  only 
a  hopeless  victim  of  consumption,  springs  up  in  my 
memory  even  yet,  and  mingles  with  every  conception 
of  female  beauty. 

Two  ladies,  friends  of  the  deceased,  were  to  share 
my  vigils.  I  knew  them  but  slightly,  and,  having  read 
them  to  sleep  an  hour  after  midnight,  I  performed 
my  half-hourly  duty  of  entering  the  room  where  the 
corpse  lay,  to  look  after  the  lights,  and  then  strolled 
into  the  garden  to  enjoy  the  quiet  of  the  summer  night. 
The  flowers  were  glittering  in  their  pearl-drops,  and 
the  air  was  breathless. 

The  sight  of  the  long,  sheeted  corpse,  the  sudden 
flare  of  lights  as  the  long  snuffs  were  removed  from 
the  candles,  the  stillness  of  the  close-shuttered  room, 
and  my  own  predisposition  to  invest  death  with  a  su- 
pernatural interest,  had  raised  my  heart  to  my  throat. 
I  walked  backward  and  forward  in  the  garden-path  ; 
and  the  black  shadows  beneath  the  lilacs,  and  even 
the  glittering  of  the  glow-worms  within  them,  seemed 
weird  and  fearful. 

The  clock  struck,  and  I  re-entered.  My  compan- 
ions still  slept,  and  I  passed  on  to  the  inner  chamber. 
I  trimmed  the  lights,  and  stood  and  looked  at  the 
white  heap  lying  so  fearfully  still  within  the  shadow 
of  the  curtains  ;  and  my  blood  seemed  to  freeze.  At 
the  moment  when  I  was  turning  away  with  a  strong 
effort  at  a  more  composed  feeling,  a  noise  like  a  flutter 
of  wings,  followed  by  a  rush  and  a  sudden  silence, 
struck  on  my  startled  ear.  The  street  was  as  quiet  as 
death,  and  the  noise,  which  was  far  too  audible  to  be  a 
deception  of  the  fancy,  had  come  from  the  side  toward 
an  uninhabited  wing  of  the  house.  My  heart  stood 
still.  Another  instant,  and  the  fire-screen  was  dashed 
down,  and  a  white  cat  rushed  past  me,  and  with  the 
speed  of  light  sprang  like  an  hyena  upon  the  corpse. 
The  flight  of  a  vampyre  into  the  chamber  would  not 
have  more  curdled  my  veins.  A  convulsive  shudder 
ran  cold  over  me,  but  recovering  my  self-command,  I 
rushed  to  the  animal  (of  whose  horrible  appetite  for 
the  flesh  of  the  dead  I  had  read  incredulously),  and  at- 
tempted to  tear  her  from  the  body.  With  her  claws 
fixed  in  the  breast,  and  a  yowl  like  the  wail  of  an  infer- 
nal spirit,  she  crouched  fearlessly  upon  it,  and  the 
stains  already  upon  the  sheet  convinced  me  that  it 
would  be  impossible  to  remove  her  without  shockingly 
disfiguring  the  corpse.  I  seized  her  by  the  throat,  in 
the  hope  of  choking  her ;  but  with  the  first  pressure 
of  my  fingers,  she  flew  into  my  face,  and  the  infuriated 
animal  seemed  persuaded  that  it  was  a  contest  for  life. 
Half  blinded  by  the  fury  of  her  attack,  I  loosed  her 


for  a  moment,  and  she  immediately  leaped  again  upon 
the  corpse,  and  had  covered  her  feet  and  face  with 
blood  before  I  could  recover  my  hold  upon  her.  The 
body  was  no  longer  in  a  situation  to  be  spared,  and  I 
seized  her  with  a  desperate  grasp  to  draw  her  of! ;  but 
to  my  horror,  the  half-covered  and  bloody  corpse  rose 
upright  in  her  fangs,  and,  while  I  paused  in  fear,  sat 
with  drooping  arms,  and  head  fallen  with  ghastly  help- 
lessness over  the  shoulder.  Years  have  not  removed 
that  fearful  spectacle  from  my  eyes. 

The  corpse  sank  back,  and  I  succeeded  in  throttling 
the  monster,  and  threw  her  at  last  lifeless  from  the 
window.  I  then  composed  the  disturbed  limbs,  laid 
the  hair  away  once  more  smoothly  on  the  forehead, 
and,  crossing  the  hands  over  the  bosom,  covered  the 
violated  remains,  and  left  them  again  to  their  repose. 
My  companions,  strangely  enough,  slept  on,  and  I  paced 
the  garden-walk  alone,  till  the  day,  to  my  inexpressible 
relief,  dawned  over  the  mountains. 


No.  II. 

THE    MAD    SENIOR. 

I  was  called  upon  in  my  senior  year  to  watch  with 
an  insane  student.  He  was  a  man  who  had  attracted 
a  great  deal  of  attention  in  college.  He  appeared  in 
an  extraordinary  costume  at  the  beginning  of  our 
freshman  term,  and  wrote  himself  down  as  Washing- 
ton Greyling,  of ,  an  unheard-of  settlement 

somewhere  beyond  the  Mississippi.  His  coat  and  oth- 
er gear  might  have  been  the  work  of  a  Chickasaw 
tailor,  aided  by  the  superintending  taste  of  some  white 
huntsman,  who  remembered  faintly  the  outline  of  ha- 
biliments he  had  not  seen  for  half  a  century.  It  was 
a  body  of  green  cloth,  eked  out  with  wampum  and 
otter-skin,  and  would  have  been  ridiculous  if  it  had 
not  encased  one  of  the  finest  models  of  a  manly  frame 
that  ever  trod  the  earth.  With  close-curling  black 
hair,  a  fine  weather-browned  complexion,  Spanish  fea- 
tures (from  his  mother — a  frequent  physiognomy  in 
the  countries  bordering  on  Spanish  America),  and 
the  port  and  lithe  motion  of  a  lion,  he  was  a  figure  to 
look  upon  in  any  disguise  with  warm  admiration. 
He  was  soon  put  into  the  hands  of  a  tailor-proper, 
and,  with  the  facility  which  belongs  to  his  country- 
men, became  in  a  month  the  best-dressed  man  in  col- 
lege. His  manners  were  of  a  gentleman-like  mildness, 
energetic,  but  courteous  and  chivalresque,  and,  unlike 
most  savages  and  all  coins,  he  polished  without  "  losing 
his  mark."  At  the  end  of  his  first  term,  he  would 
have  been  called  a  high-bred  gentleman  at  any  court 
in  Europe. 

The  opening  of  his  mind  was  almost  as  rapid  and 
extraordinary.  He  seized  everything  with  an  ardor 
and  freshness  that  habit  and  difficulty  never  deadened. 
He  was  like  a  man  who  had  tumbled  into  a  new  star, 
and  was  collecting  knowledge  for  a  world  to  which  he 
was  to  return.  The  first  in  all  games,  the  wildest  in 
all  adventure,  the  most  distinguished  even  in  the  ele- 
gant society  for  which  the  town  is  remarkable,  nnd 
unfailingly  brilliant  in  his  recitations  and  college  per- 
formances, he  was  looked  upon  as  a  sort  of  admirable 
phenomenon,  and  neither  envied  nor  opposed  in  any- 
thing. I  have  often  thought,  in  looking  on  him,  that 
his  sensations  at  coming  fresh  from  a  wild  western 
prairie,  and,  at  the  first  measure  of  his  capacilies  with 
men  of  better  advantages,  finding  himself  so  uniformly 
superior,  must  have  been  stirringly  delightful.  It  is  a 
wonder  he  never  became  arrogant ;  but  it  was  the  last 
foible  of  which  he  could  have  been  accused. 

We  were  reading  hard  for  the  honors  in  the  senior 
year,  when  Greyling  suddenly  lost  his  reason.     He 


406 


INKLINGS  OF  ADVENTURE. 


had  not  been  otherwise  ill,  and  had,  apparently  in  the 
midst  of  high  health,  gone  mad  at  a  moment's  warn- 
ing. The  physicians  scarce  knew  how  to  treat  him. 
The  confinement  to  which  he  was  at  first  subjected, 
however,  was  thought  inexpedient,  and  he  seemed  to 
justify  their  lenity  by  the  gentlest  behavior  when  at 
liberty.  He  seemed  oppressed  by  a  heart-breaking 
melancholy.  We  took  our  turns  in  guarding  and 
watching  with  him,  and  it  was  upon  my  first  night  of 
duty  that  the  incident  happened  which  I  have  thus 
endeavored  to  intioduce. 

It  was  scarce  like  a  vigil  with  a  sick  man,  for  our 
patient  went  regularly  to  bed,  and  usually  slept  well. 
I  took  my  "  Lucretius"  and  the  "  Book  of  the  Mar- 
tyrs," which  was  just  then  my  favorite  reading,  and 
with  hot  punch,  a  cold  chicken,  books,  and  a  fire,  I 
looked  forward  to  it  as  merely  a  studious  night ;  and, 
as  the  wintry  wind  of  January  rattled  in  at  the  old 
college  windows,  I  thrust  my  feet  into  slippers,  drew 
my  dressing-gown  about  me,  and  congratulated  my- 
self on  the  excessive  comfortableness  of  my  position. 
The  Sybarite's  bed  of  roses  would  have  been  no  temp- 
tation. 

It  had  snowed  all  day,  but  the  sun  had  set  with  a 
red  rift  in  the  clouds,  and  the  face  of  the  sky  was 
swept  in  an  hour  to  the  clearness  of — I  want  a  com- 
parison— your  own  blue  eye,  dear  Mary  !  The  all- 
glorious  arch  of  heaven  was  a  mass  of  sparkling  stars. 

Grey  ling  slept,  and  I,  wearied  of  the  cold  philosophy 
of  the  Latin  poet,  took  to  my  "  Book  of  Martyrs."  I 
read  on,  and  read  on.  The  college  clock  struck,  it 
seemed  to  me,  the  quarters  rather  than  the  hours. 
Time  flew  :  it  was  three. 

"Horrible!  most  horrible  !"  I  started  from  my  chair 
with  the  exclamation,  and  felt  as  if  my  scalp  were 
self-lifted  from  my  head.  It  was  a  description  in  the 
harrowing  faithfulness  of  the  language  of  olden  time, 
painting  almost  the  articulate  groans  of  an  impaled 
Christian.  I  clasped  the  old  iron-bound  book,  and 
rushed  to  the  window  as  if  my  heart  was  stifling  for 
fresh  air. 

Again  at  the  fire.  The  large  walnut  fagots  had 
burnt  to  a  bed  of  bright  coals,  and  I  sat  gazing  into  it, 
totally  unable  to  shake  off  the  fearful  incubus  from 
my  breast.  The  martyr  was  there — on  the  very  hearth 
— with  the  stakes  scornfully  crossed  in  his  body  ;  and 
as  the  large  coals  cracked  asunder  and  revealed  the 
prightness  within,  I  seemed  to  follow  the  nerve-rending 
instrument  from  hip  to  shoulder,  and  suffer  with  him 
pang  for  pang,  as  if  the  burning  redness  were  the  pools 
of  his  fevered  blood. 

"Aha!" 

It  struck  on  my  ear  like  the  cry  of  an  exulting  fiend. 

"Aha!" 

I  shrunk  into  the  chair  as  the  awful  cry  was  re- 
peated, and  looked  slowly  and  with  difficult  courage 
over  my  shoulder.  A  single  fierce  eye  was  fixed  upon 
me  from  the  mass  of  bed-clothes,  and,  for  a  moment, 
the  relief  from  the  fear  of  some  supernatural  presence 
was  like  water  to  a  parched  tongue.  I  sank  back  re- 
lieved into  the  chair. 

There  was  a  rustling  immediately  in  the  bed,  and, 
starting  again,  I  found  the  wild  eyes  of  my  patient 
fixed  still  steadfastly  upon  me.  He  was  creeping 
stealthily  out  of  bed.  His  bare  foot  touched  the  floor, 
and  his  toes  worked  upon  it  as  if  he  was  feeling  its 
strength,  and  in  a  moment  he  stood  upright  on  his 
feet,  and,  with  his  head  forward  and  his  pale  face  livid 
with  rage,  stepped  toward  me.  I  looked  to  the  door. 
He  observed  the  glance,  and  in  the  next  instant  he 
sprang  clear  over  the  bed,  turned  the  key,  and  dashed 
it  furiously  through  the  window. 

"Now!"  said  he. 

"Greyling!"  I  said.  1  had  heard  that  a  calm  and 
fixed  gaze  would  control  a  madman,  and  with  the  most 
difficult  exertion  of  nerve,  I  met  his  lowering  eye,  and 


we  stood  looking  at  each  other  for  a  full  minute,  like 
men  of  marble. 

"  Why  have  you  left  your  bed  ?"     I  mildly  asked. 

"  To  kill  you!"  was  the  appalling  answer;  and  in 
another  moment  the  light-stand  was  swept  from  be- 
tween us,  and  he  struck  me  down  with  a  blow  that 
would  have  felled  a  giant.  Naked  as  he  was,  I  had 
no  hold  upon  him,  even  if  in  muscular  strength  I  had 
been  his  match ;  and  with  a  minute's  struggle  I  yielded, 
for  resistance  was  vain.  His  knee  was  now  upon  my 
breast  and  his  left  hand  in  my  hair,  and  he  seemed 
by  the  tremulousness  of  his  clutch  to  be  hesitating 
whether  he  should  dash  my  brains  out  on  the  hearth. 
I  could  scarce  breathe  with  his  weight  upon  my  chest, 
but  I  tried,  with  the  broken  words  I  could  command, 
to  move  his  pity.  He  laughed,  as  only  maniacs  can, 
and  placed  his  hand  on  my  throat.  Oh  God!  shall  I 
ever  forget  the  fiendish  deliberation  with  which  he 
closed  those  feverish  fingers? 

"  Greyling  !  for  God's  sake  !  Greyling !" 

"Die!  curse  you!" 

In  the  agonies  of  suffocation  I  struck  out  my  arm, 
and  almost  buried  it  in  the  fire  upon  the  hearth. 
With  an  expiring  thought,  I  grasped  a  handful  of  the 
red-hot  coals,  and  had  just  strength  sufficient  to  press 
them  hard  against  his  side. 

"Thank  God!"  I  exclaimed  with  my  first  breath, 
as  my  eyes  recovered  from  their  sickness,  and  I  looked 
upon  the  familiar  objects  of  my  chamber  once  more. 

The  madman  sat  crouched  like  a  whipped  dog  in 
the  farthest  corner  of  the  room,  gibbering  and  moan- 
ing, with  his  hands  upon  his  burnt  side.  I  felt  that  I 
had  escaped  death  by  a  miracle. 

The  door  was  locked,  and,  in  dread  of  another  at- 
tack, I  threw  up  the  broken  window,  and  to  my 
unutterable  joy  the  figure  of  a  man  was  visible  upon 
the  snow  near  the  out-buildings  of  the  college.  It 
was  a  charity-student,  risen  before  day  to  labor  in  the 
wood-yard.  I  shouted  to  him,  and  Greyling  leaped 
to  his  feet. 

"There  is  time  yet!"  said  the  madman;  but  as  he 
came  toward  me  again  with  the  same  panther-like 
caution  as  before,  I  seized  a  heavy  stone  pitcher 
standing  in  the  window-seat,  and  hurling  it  at  him 
with  a  fortunate  force  and  aim,  he  fell  stunned  and 
bleeding  on  the  floor.  The  door  was  burst  open  at 
the  next  moment,  and,  calling  for  assistance,  we  tied 
the  wild  Missourian  into  his  bed,  bound  up  his  head 
and  side,  and  committed  him  to  fresh  watchers.  .  .  . 

We  have  killed  bears  together  at  a  Missouri  salt- 
lick since  then;  but  I  never  see  Wash.  Greyling  with 
a  smile  off  his  face,  without  a  disposition  to  look 
around  for  the  door. 


No.  III. 

THE    LUNATIC'S    SKATE. 

I  have  only,  in  my  life,  known  one  lunatic — prop- 
erly so  called.  In  the  days  when  I  carried  a  satchel 
on  the  banks  of  the  Shawsheen  (a  river  whose  half- 
lovely,  half-wild  scenery  is  tied  like  a  silver  thread 
about  my  heart),  Larry  Wynn  and  myself  were  the 
farthest  boarders  from  school,  in  a  solitary  farm-house 
on  the  edge  of  a  lake  of  some  miles  square,  called  by 
the  undignified  title  of  Pomp's  pond.  An  old  negro, 
who  was  believed  by  the  boys  to  have  come  over  with 
Christopher  Columbus,  was  the  only  other  human 
being  within  anything  like  a  neighborhood  of  the 
lake  (it  took  its  name  from  him),  and  the  only  ap- 
proaches to  its  waters,  girded  in  as  it  was  by  an  almost 
impenetrable  forest,  were  the  path  through  old  Pomp's 
clearing,  and  that  by  our  own  door.  Out  of  school, 
Larry  and  I  were  inseparable.     He  was  a  pale,  sad- 


INKLINGS  OF  ADVENTURE. 


407 


faced  boy,  and,  in  the  first  days  of  our  intimacy,  he 
had  confided  a  secret  to  me  which,  from  its  uncom- 
mon nature,  and  the  excessive  caution  with  which  he 
kept  it  from  every  one  else,  bound  me  to  him  with 
more  than  the  common  ties  of  schoolfellow  attach- 
ment. "We  built  wigwams  together  in  the  woods,  had 
our  tomahawks  made  of  the  same  fashion,  united  our 
property  in  fox-traps,  and  played  Indians  with  perfect 
contentment  in  each  other's  approbation. 

I  had  found  out,  soon  after  my  arrival  at  school, 
that  Larry  never  slept  on  a  moonlight  night.  With 
the  first  slender  horn  that  dropped  its  silver  and  grace- 
ful shape  behind  the  hills,  his  uneasiness  commenced, 
and  by  the  time  its  full  and  perfect  orb  poured  a  flood 
of  radiance  over  vale  and  mountain,  he  was  like  one 
haunted  by  a  pursuing  demon.  At  early  twilight  he 
closed  the  shutters,  stuffing  every  crevice  that  could 
admit  a  ray;  and  then,  lighting  as  many  candles  as 
he  could  beg  or  steal  from  our  thrifty  landlord,  he  sat 
down  with  his  book  in  moody  silence,  or  paced  the 
room  with  an  uneven  step,  and  a  solemn  melancholy 
in  his  fine  countenance,  of  which,  with  all  my  famil- 
iarity with  him,  I  was  almost  afraid.  Violent  exer- 
cise seemed  the  only  relief,  and  when  the  candles 
burnt  low  after  midnight,  and  the  stillness  around  the 
lone  farm-house  became  too  absolute  to  endure,  he 
would  throw  up  the  window,  and,  leaping  desperately 
out  into  the  moonlight,  rush  up  the  hill  into  the 
depths  of  the  wild  forest,  and  walk  on  with  supernatural 
excitement  till  the  day  dawned.  Faint  and  pale  he 
would  then  creep  into  his  bed,  and,  begging  me  to 
make  his  very  common  and  always  credited  excuse  of 
illness,  sleep  soundly  till  I  returned  from  school.  I 
soon  became  used  to  his  way,  ceased  to  follow  him, 
as  I  had  once  or  twice  endeavored  to  do,  into  the 
forest,  and  never  attempted  to  break  in  on  the  fixed 
and  wrapt  silence  which  seemed  to  transform  his  lips 
to  marble.     And  for  all  this  Larry  loved  me. 

Our  preparatory  studies  were  completed,  and,  to 
our  mutual  despair,  we  were  destined  to  different 
universities.  Larry's  father  was  a  disciple  of  the  great 
Channing,  and  mine  a  Trinitarian  of  uncommon  zeal; 
and  the  two  institutions  of  Yale  and  Harvard  were  in 
the  hands  of  most  eminent  men  of  either  persuasion, 
and  few  are  the  minds  that  could  resist  a  four  years' 
ordeal  in  either.  A  student  was  as  certain  to  come 
forth  a  Unitarian  from  one  as  a  Calvinist  from  the 
other;  and  in  the  New  England  states  these  two  sects 
are  bitterly  hostile.  So,  to  the  glittering  atmosphere 
of  Channing  and  Everett  went  poor  Larry,  lonely 
and  dispirited;  and  I  was  committed  to  the  sincere 
zealots  of  Connecticut,  some  two  hundred  miles  off, 
to  learn  Latin  and  Greek,  if  it  pleased  Heaven,  but 
the  mysteries  of  "  election  and  free  grace,"  whether 
or  no. 

Time  crept,  ambled,  and  galloped,  by  turns,  as  we 
were  in  love  or  out,  moping  in  term-time,  or  revelling 
in  vacation,  and  gradually,  I  know  not  why,  our  cor- 
respondence had  dropped,  and  the  four  years  had 
come  to  their  successive  deaths,  and  we  had  never 
met.  I  grieved  over  it;  for  in  those  days  I  believed 
with  a  school-boy's  fatuity, 

"  That  two,  or  one,  are  almost  what  they  seem  ;" 
and  I  loved  Larry  Wynn,  as  I  hope  I  may  never  love 
man  or  woman  again — with  a  pain  at  my  heart.  I 
wrote  one  or  two  reproachful  letters  in  my  senior 
years,  but  his  answers  were  overstrained,  and  too  full 
of  protestations  by  half;  and  seeing  that  absence  had 
done  its  usual  work  on  him,  I  gave  it  up,  and  wrote 
an  epitaph  on  a  departed  friendship.  I  do  not  know, 
by  the  way,  why  I  am  detaining  you  with  all  this,  for 
it  has  nothing  to  do  with  my  story ;  but  let  it  pass  as 
an  evidence  that  it  is  a  true  one.  The  climax  of  things 
in  real  life  has  not  the  regular  procession  of  incidents 
in  a  tragedy. 


Some  two  or  three  years  after  we  had  taken  "  the 
irrevocable  yoke"  of  life  upon  us  (not  matrimony, 
but  money-making),  a  winter  occurred  of  uncom- 
monly fine  sleighing — sledging,  you  call  it  in  Eng- 
land. At  such  times  the  American  world  is  all 
abroad,  either  for  business  or  pleasure.  The  roads 
are  passable  at  any  rate  of  velocity  of  which  a  horse 
is  capable;  smooth  as  ?7ionlagnes  Russes,  and  hard 
as  is  good  for  hoofs;  and  a  hundred  miles  is  dimin- 
ished to  ten  in  facility  of  locomotion.  The  hunter 
brings  down  his  venison  to  the  cities,  the  western 
trader  takes  his  family  a  hundred  leagues  to  buy 
calicoes  and  tracts,  and  parties  of  all  kinds  scour  the 
country,  drinking  mulled  wine  and  "flip,"  and  shaking 
the  very  nests  out  of  the  fir-trees  with  the  ringing  of 
their  horses'  bells.  You  would  think  death  and  sor- 
row were  buried  in  the  snow  with  the  leaves  of  the 
last  autumn. 

I  do  not  know  why  I  undertook,  at  this  time,  a 
journey  to  the  west;  certainly  not  for  scenery,  for  it 
was  a  world  of  waste,  desolate,  and  dazzling  white- 
ness, for  a  thousand  unbroken  miles.  The  trees  were 
weighed  down  with  snow,  and  the  houses  were 
thatched  and  half-buried  in  it,  and  the  mountains  and 
valleys  were  like  the  vast  waves  of  an  illimitable  sea, 
congealed  with  its  yesty  foam  in  the  wildest  hour  of  a 
tempest.  The  eye  lost  its  powers  in  gazing  on  it. 
The  "  spirit-bird"  that  spread  his  refreshing  green 
wings  before  the  pained  eyes  of  Thalaba  would  have 
been  an  inestimable  fellow-traveller.  The  worth  of 
the  eyesight  lay  in  the  purchase  of  a  pair  of  green 
goggles. 

In  the  course  of  a  week  or  two,  after  skimming  over 
the  buried  scenery  of  half  a  dozen  states,  each  as 
large  as  Great  Britain  (more  or  less),  I  found  myself 
in  a  small  town  on  the  border  of  one  of  our  western 
lakes.  It  was  some  twenty  years  since  the  bears  had 
found  it  thinly  settled  enough  for  their  purposes,  and 
now  it  contained  perhaps  twenty  thousand  souls. 
The  oldest  inhabitant,  born  in  the  town,  was  a  youth 
in  his  minority.  With  the  usual  precocity  of  new 
settlements,  it  had  already  most  of  the  peculiarities  of 
an  old  metropolis.  The  burnt  stumps  still  stood  about 
among  the  houses,  but  there  was  a  fashionable  circle, 
at  the  head  of  which  were  the  lawyer's  wife  and  the 
member  of  Congress's  daughter;  and  people  ate  their 
peas  with  silver  forks,  and  drank  their  tea  with  scan- 
dal, and  forgave  men's  many  sins  and  refused  to  for- 
give woman's  one,  very  much  as  in  towns  whose  his- 
tory is  written  in  black  letter.  I  dare  say  there  were 
not  more  than  one  or  two  offences  against  the  moral 
and  Levitical  law,  fashionable  on  this  side  the  water, 
which  had  not  been  committed,  with   the  authentic 

aggravations,  in  the  town  of ;  I  would  mention 

the  name  if  this  were  not  a  true  story. 

Larry  Wynn  (now  Lawrence  Wynn,  Esq.)  lived 
here.  He  had,  as  they  say  in  the  United  States,  "hung 
out  a  shingle"  (Londonice,  put  up  a  sign)  as  attorney- 
at-law,  and  to  all  the  twenty  thousand  innocent  in- 
habitants of  the  place,  he  was  the  oracle  and  the  squire. 
He  was  besides  colonel  of  militia,  churchwarden, 
and  canal  commissioner;  appointments  which  speak 
volumes  for  the  prospects  of  "  rising  young  men"  in 
our  flourishing  republic. 

Larry  was  glad  to  see  me — very.  I  was  more  glad 
to  see  him.  I  have  a  soft  heart,  and  forgive  a  wrong 
generally,  if  it  touches  neither  my  vanity  nor  my 
!  purse.  I  forgot  his  neglect,  and  called  him  "  Larry." 
By  the  same  token  he  did  not  call  me  "  Phil."  (There 
are  very  few  that  love  me,  patient  reader ;  but  those 
who  do,  thus  abbreviate  my  pleasant  name  of  Philip. 
I  was  called  after  the  Indian  sachem  of  that  name, 
whose  blood  runs  in  this  tawny  hand.)  Larry  looked 
upon  me  as  a  man.  I  looked  on  him,  with  all  his 
dignities  and  changes,  through  the  sweet  vista  of 
memory — as  a  boy.     His  mouth   had   acquired   the 


408 


INKLINGS  OF  ADVENTURE. 


pinched  corners  of  caution  and  mistrust  common  to 
those  who  know  their  fellow-men  ;  but  I  never  saw  it 
unless  when  speculating  as  I  am  now.  He  was  to  me 
the  pale-faced  and  melancholy  friend  of  my  boyhood ; 
and  I  could  have  slept,  as  I  used  to  do,  with  my  arm 
around  his  neck,  and  feared  to  stir  lest  I  should  wake 
him.  Had  my  last  earthy  hope  lain  in  the  palm  of 
my  hand,  I  could  have  given  it  to  him,  had  he  needed 
it,  but  to  make  him  sleep  ;  and  yet  he  thought  of  me 
but  as  a  stranger  under  his  roof,  and  added,  in  his 
warmest  moments,  a  "Mr."  to  my  name!  There  is 
but  one  circumstance  in  my  life  that  has  wounded  me 
more.     Memory  avaunt ! 

Why  should  there  be  no  unchangeableness  in  the 
world  ?  why  no  friendship  ?  or  why  am  I,  and  you, 
gentle  reader  (for  by  your  continuing  to  pore  over 
these  idle  musings,  you  have  a  heart  too),  gifted  with 
this  useless  and  restless  organ  beating  in  our  bosoms, 
if  its  thirst  for  love  is  never  to  be  slaked,  and  its  ach- 
ing self-fulness  never  to  find  flow  or  utterance  ?  I 
would  positively  sell  my  whole  stock  of  affections  for 
three  farthings.     Will  you  say  "  two?" 

"  You  are  come  in  good  time,"  said  Larry  one  morn- 
ing, with  a  half-smile,  "  and  shall  be  groomsman  to 
me.     I  am  going  to  be  married." 

"Married?" 

"  Married." 

I  repeated  the  word  after  him,  for  I  was  surprised. 
He  had  never  opened  his  lips  about  his  unhappy  luna- 
cy since  my  arrival,  and  I  had  felt  hurt  at  this  ap- 
parent unwillingness  to  renew  our  ancient  confidence, 
but  had  felt  a  repugnance  to  any  forcing  of  the  topic 
upon  him,  and  could  only  hope  that  he  had  outgrown 
or  overcome  it.  I  argued,  immediately  on  this  infor- 
mation of  his  intended  marriage,  that  it  must  be  so. 
No  man  in  his  senses,  I  thought,  would  link'  an  im- 
pending madness  to  the  fate  of  a  confiding  and  lovely 
woman. 

He  took  me  into  his  sleigh,  and  we  drove  to  her 
father's  house.  She  was  a  flower  in  the  wilderness. 
Of  a  delicate  form,  as  all  my  countrywomen  are,  and 
lovely,  as  quite  all  certainly  are  not,  large-eyed,  soft 
in  her  manners,  and  yet  less  timid  than  confiding  and 
sister-like,  with  a  shade  of  melancholy  in  her  smile, 
caught,  perhaps,  with  the  "  trick  of  sadness"  from  him- 
self, and  a  patrician  slightness  of  reserve,  or  pride, 
which  Nature  sometimes,  in  very  mockery  of  high 
birth,  teaches  her  most  secluded  child — the  bride  elect 
was,  as  I  said  before,  a  flower  in  the  wilderness.  She 
was  one  of  those  women  we  sigh  to  look  upon  as  they 
pass  by,  as  if  there  went  a  fragment  of  the  wreck  of 
some  blessed  dream. 

The  day  arrived  for  the  wedding,  and  the  sleigh- 
bells  jingled  merrily  into  the  village.  The  morning 
was  as  soft  and  genial  as  June,  and  the  light  snow  on 
the  surface  of  the  lake  melted,  and  lay  on  the  breast 
of  the  solid  ice  beneath,  giving  it  the  effect  of  one  white 
silver  mirror,  stretching  to  the  edge  of  the  horizon. 
It  was  exquisitely  beautiful,  and  I  was  standing  at  the 
window  in  the  afternoon,  looking  off  upon  the  "shining 
expanse,  when  Larry  approached,  and  laid  his  hand 
familiarly  on  my  shoulder. 

"What  glorious  skating  we  shall  have,"  said  I,  "if 
this  smooth  water  freezes  to-night !" 

I  lurned  the  next  moment  to  look  at  him  ;  for  we 
had  not  skated  together  since  I  went  out,  at  his  earnest 
entreaty,  at  midnight,  to  skim  the  little  lake  where  we 
had  passed  our  boyhood,  and  drive  away  the  fever  from 
his  brain,  under  the  light  of  a  full  moon. 

He  remembered  it, and  so  did  I;  and  I  put  my  arm 
behind  him,  for  the  color  fled  from  his  face,  and  I 
thought  he  would  have  sunk  to  the  floor. 

"  The  moon  is  full  to-night,"  said  he,  recovering  in- 
stantly to  a  cold  self-possession. 

I  took  hold  of  his  hand  firmly,  and,  in  as  kind  a 
tone  as  I  could  summon,  spoke  of  our  early  friend- 


ship, and  apologizing  thus  for  the  freedom,  asked  if  he 
had  quite  overcome  his  melancholy  disease.  His  face 
worked  with  emotion,  and  he  tried  to  withdraw  his 
hand  from  my  clasp,  and  evidently  wished  to  avoid  an 
answer. 

"  Tell  me,  dear  Larry,"  said  I. 

"  Oh  God  !  No  /"  said  he,  breaking  violently  from 
me,  and  throwing  himself  with  his  face  downward  upon 
the  sofa.  The  tears  streamed  through  his  fingers  upon 
the  silken  cushion. 

"  Not  cured  ?     And  does  she  know  it  ?" 

"  No  !  no  !  thank  God  !  not  yet !" 

I  remained  silent  a  few  minutes,  listening  to  his 
suppressed  moans  (for  he  seemed  heart-broken  with 
the  confession),  and  pitying  while  I  inwardly  con- 
demned him.  And  then  the  picture  of  that  lovely  and 
fond  woman  rose  up  before  me,  and  the  impossibility 
of  concealing  his  fearful  malady  from  his  wife,  and 
the  fixed  insanity  in  which  it  must  end,  and  the  whole 
wreck  of  her  hopes  and  his  own  prospects  and  happi- 
ness— and  my  heart  grew  sick. 

I  sat  down  by  him,  and,  as  it  was  too  late  to  remon- 
strate on  the  injustice  he  was  committing  toward  her, 
I  asked  how  he  came  to  appoint  the  night  of  a  full 
moon  for  his  wedding.  He  gave  up  his  reserve,  calm- 
ed himself,  and  talked  of  it  at  last  as  if  he  were  relieved 
by  the  communication.  Never  shall  I  forget  the 
doomed  pallor,  the  straining  eye,  and  feverish  hand, 
of  my  poor  friend  during  that  half  hour. 

Since  he  had  left  college  he  had  striven  with  the 
whole  energy  of  his  soul  against  it.  He  had  plunged 
into  business — he  had  kept  his  bed  resolutely  night 
after  night,  till  his  brain  seemed  on  the  verge  of  phrensy 
with  the  effort — he  had  taken  opium  to  secure  to  him- 
self an  artificial  sleep  ;  but  he  had  never  dared  to  con- 
fide it  to  any  one,  and  he  had  no  friend  to  sustain  him 
in  his  fearful  and  lonely  hours  ;  and  it  grew  upon  him 
rather  than  diminished.  He  described  to  me  with  the 
most  touching  pathos  how  he  had  concealed  it  for 
years — how  he  had  stolen  out  like  a  thief  to  give  vent 
to  his  insane  restlessness  in  the  silent  streets  of  the  city 
at  midnight,  and  in  the  more  silent  solitudes  of  the 
forest — how  he  had  prayed,  and  wrestled,  and  wept 
over  it — and  finally,  how  he  had  come  to  believe  that 
there  was  no  hope  for  him  except  in  the  assistance  and 
constant  presence  of  some  one  who  would  devote  life 
to  him  in  love  and  pity.  Poor  Larry !  I  put  up  a  silent 
prayer  in  my  heart  that  the  desperate  experiment  might 
not  end  in  agony  and  death. 

The  sun  set,  and,  according  to  my  prediction,  the 
wind  changed  suddenly  to  the  north,  and  the  whole 
surface  of  the  lake  in  a  couple  of  hours  became  of  the 
lustre  of  polished  steel.     It  was  intensely  cold. 

The  fires  blazed  in  every  room  of  the  bride's  pater- 
nal mansion,  and  I  was  there  early  to  fulfil  my  office 
of  master  of  ceremonies  at  the  bridal.  My  heart  was 
weighed  down  with  a  sad  boding,  but  1  shook  off  at 
least  the  appearance  of  it,  and  superintended  the  con- 
coction of  a  huge  bowl  of  punch  with  a  merriment 
which  communicated  itself  in  the  shape  of  most  joyous 
hilarity  to  a  troop  of  juvenile  relations.  The  house 
resounded  with  their  shouts  of  laughter. 

In  the  midst  of  our  noise  in  the  small  inner  room 
entered  Larry.  I  started  back,  for  he  looked  more  like 
a  demon  possessed  than  a  Christian  man.  He  had  walk- 
ed to  the  house  alone  in  the  moonlight,  not  daring  to 
trust  himself  in  company.  I  turned  out  the  turbulent 
troop  about  me,  and  tried  to  dispel  his  gloom,  for  a  face 
like  his  at  that  moment  would  have  put  to  flight  the 
rudest  bridal  party  ever  assembled  on  holy  ground. 
He  seized  on  the  bowl  of  strong  spirits  which  I  had 
mixed  for  a  set  of  hardy  farmers,  and  before  I  could 
tear  it  from  his  lips  had  drank  a  quantity  which,  in  an 
ordinary  mood,  would  have  intoxicated  him  helplessly 
in  an  hour.  He  then  sat  down  with  his  face  buried  in 
his  hands,  and  in  a  few  minutes  rose,  his  eyes  spark- 


INKLINGS  OF  ADVENTURE. 


409 


ling  with  excitement,  and  the  whole  character  of  his 
face  utterly  changed.     I  thought  he  had  gone  wild. 

"  Now,  Phil,"  said  he  ;  "  now  for  my  bride  !"  And 
with  an  unbecoming  levity  he  threw  open  the  door, 
and  went  half  dancing  into  the  room  where  the  friends 
were  already  assembled  to  witness  the  ceremony. 

I  followed  with  fear  and  anxiety.  He  took  his  place 
by  the  side  of  the  fair  creature  on  whom  he  had  placed 
his  hopes  of  life,  and,  though  sobered  somewhat  by 
the  impressiveness  of  the  scene,  the  wild  sparkle  still 
danced  in  his  eyes,  and  I  could  see  that  every  nerve 
in  his  frame  was  excited  to  the  last  pitch  of  tension. 
If  he  had  fallen  a  gibbering  maniac  on  the  floor,  I 
should  not  have  been  astonished. 

The  ceremony  proceeded,  and  the  first  tone  of  his 
voice  in  the  response  startled  even  the  bride.  If  it  had 
rung  from  the  depths  of  a  cavern,  it  could  not  have 
been  more  sepulchral.  I  looked  at  him  with  a  shud-  i 
der.  His  lips  were  curled  with  an  exulting  expres- 
sion, mixed  with  an  indefinable  fear;  and  all  the  blood 
ia  his  face  seemed  settled  about  his  eyes,  which  were 
so  bloodshot  and  fiery,  that  I  have  ever  since  wondered 
he  was  not,  at  the  first  glance,  suspected  of  insanity. 
But  oh  !  the  heavenly  sweetness  with  which  that  love-  ; 
liest  of  creatures  promised  to  love  and  cherish  him,  in 
sickness  and  in  health  !  I  never  go  to  a  bridal  but  it 
half  breaks  my  heart ;  and  as  the  soft  voice  of  that 
beautiful  girl  fell  with  its  eloquent  meaning  on  my 
ear,  and  I  looked  at  her,  with  lips  calm  and  eyes  moist- 
Med,  vowing  a  love  which  I  knew  to  be  stronger  than  ; 
death,  to  one  who,  I  feared,  was  to  bring  only  pain  and 
sorrow  into  her  bosom,  my  eyes  warmed  with  irrepres- 
sible tears,  and  I  wept. 

The  stir  in  the  room  as  the  clergyman  closed  his 
prayer,  seemed  to  awake  him  from  a  trance.  He 
looked  around  with  a  troubled  face  for  a  moment ;  and 
then,  fixing  his  eyes  on  his  bride,  he  suddenly  clasped 
his  arms  about  her,  and  straining  her  violently  to  his 
bosom,  broke  into  an  hysterical  passion  of  tears  and 
laughter.  Then  suddenly  resuming  his  self-command, 
he  apologized  for  the  over-excitement  of  his  feelings, 
and  behaved  with  forced  and  gentle  propriety  till  the  j 
guests  departed. 

There  was  an  apprehensive  gloom  over  the  spirits 
of  the  small  bridal  party  left  in  the  lighted  rooms  ;  and  , 
as  they  gathered  round  the  fire,  I  approached,  and  en-  ' 
deavored  to  take  a  gay  farewell.  Larry  was  sitting 
with  his  arm  about  his  wife,  and  he  wrung  my  hand  in 
silence  as  1  said,  "  Good-night,"  and  dropped  his  head 
upon  her  shoulder.  I  made  some  futile  attempt  to 
rally  him,  but  it  jarred  on  the  general  feeling,  and  I 
ieft  the  house. 

It  was  a  glorious  night.     The  clear  piercing  air  had 
a  vitreous  brilliancy,  which  I  have  never  seen  in  any 
other  climate,  the  rays  of  the  moonlight  almost  visi-  j 
bly  splintering  with  the  keenness  of  the  frost.     The  \ 
moon  herself  was  in  the  zenith,  and  there  seemed 
nothing  between  her  and  the  earth  but  palpable  and  , 
glittering  cold. 

I  hurried  home  :  it  was  but  eleven  o'clock  ;  and,  ! 
heaping  up  the  wood  in  the  large  fireplace,  I  took  a  ' 
volume  of"  Ivanhoe,"  which  had  just  then  appeared,  ! 
and  endeavored  to  rid  myself  of  my  unpleasant  j 
thoughts.  I  read  on  till  midnight ;  and  then,  in  a  j 
pause  of  the  story,  I  rose  to  look  out  upon  the  night,  I 
hoping,  for  poor  Larry's  sake,  that  the  moon  was  j 
buried  in  clouds.  The  house  was  near  the  edge  of  i 
the  lake  ;  and  as  I  looked  down  upon  the  glassy  waste,  ! 
spreading  away  from  the  land,  I  saw  the  dark  figure  j 
of  a  man  kneeling  directly  in  the  path  of  the  moon's  j 
rays.  In  another  moment  he  rose  to  his  feet,  and  j 
the  tall,  slight  form  of  my  poor  friend  was  distinctly 
visible,  as,  with  long  and  powerful  strokes,  he  sped 
away  upon  his  skates  along  the  shore. 

To  take  my  own  Hollanders,  put  a  collar  of  fur  I 
around  my  mouth,  and  hurry  after  him,  was  the  work  | 


of  but  a  minute.  My  straps  were  soon  fastened  ;  and, 
following  in  the  marks  of  the  sharp  irons  at  the  top  of 
my  speed,  I  gained  sight  of  him  in  about  half  an  hour, 
and  with  great  effort  neared  him  sufficiently  to  shout 
his  name  with  a  hope  of  being  heard. 

"  Larry  !  Larry !" 

The  lofty  mountain-shore  gave  back  the  cry  in  re- 
peated echoes — but  he  redoubled  his  strokes,  and 
sped  on  faster  than  before.  At  my  utmost  speed  I 
followed  on  ;  and  when,  at  last,  I  could  almost  lay 
my  hand  on  his  shoulder,  I  summoned  my  strength 
to  my  breathless  lungs,  and  shouted  again — "  Larry  ! 
Larry !" 

He  half  looked  back,  and  the  full  moon  at  that  in- 
stant streamed  full  into  his  eyes.  I  have  thought 
since  that  he  could  not  have  seen  me  for  its  dazzling 
brightness ;  but  I  saw  every  line  of  his  features  with 
the  distinctness  of  daylight,  and  I  shall  never  forget 
them.  A  line  of  white  foam  ran  through  his  half- 
parted  lips  ;  his  hair  streamed  wildly  over  his  forehead, 
on  which  the  perspiration  glittered  in  large  drops;  and 
every  lineament  of  his  expressive  face  was  stamped  with 
unutterable  and  awful  horror.  He  looked  back  no 
more  ;  but,  increasing  his  speed  with  an  energy  of 
which  I  did  not  think  his  slender  frame  capable,  he 
began  gradually  to  outstrip  me.  Trees,  rocks,  and 
hills,  fled  back  like  magic.  My  limbs  began  to  grow 
numb  ;  my  fingers  had  lost  all  feeling,  but  a  strong 
northeast  wind  was  behind  us,  and  the  ice  smoother 
than  a  mirror  :  and  I  struck  out  my  feet  mechanically, 
and  still  sped  on. 

For  two  hours  we  had  kept  along  the  shore.  The 
branches  of  the  trees  were  reflected  in  the  polished 
ice,  and  the  hills  seemed  hanging  in  the  air,  and  float- 
ing past  us  with  the  velocity  of  storm-clouds.  Far 
down  the  lake,  however,  there  glimmered  the  just 
visible  light  of  a  fire,  and  I  was  thanking  God  that 
we  were  probably  approaching  some  human  succor, 
when,  to  my  horror,  the  retreating  figure  before  me 
suddenly  darted  off  to  the  left,  and  made  swifter  than 
before  toward  the  centre  of  the  icy  waste.  Oh,  God  ! 
what  feelings  were  mine  at  that  moment !  Follow  him 
far  I  dared  not ;  for,  the  sight  of  land  once  lost,  as  it 
would  be  almost  instantly  with  our  tremendous  speed, 
we  perished,  without  a  possibility  of  relief. 

He  was  far  beyond  my  voice,  and  to  overtake  him 
was  the  only  hope.  I  summoned  my  last  nerve  for* 
the  effort,  and  keeping  him  in  my  eye,  struck  across 
at  a  sharper  angle,  with  the  advantage  of  the  wind  full 
I  in  my  back.  I  had  taken  note  of  the  mountains,  and 
knew  that  we  were  already  forty  miles  from  home,  a 
distance  it  would  be  impossible  to  retrace  against  the 
wind ;  and  the  thought  of  freezing  to  death,  even  if 
I  could  overtake  him,  forced  itself  appallingly  upon 
me. 

Away  I  flew,  despair  giving  new  force  to  my  limbs, 
and  soon  gained  on  the  poor  lunatic,  whose  efforts 
seemed  flagging  and  faint.  I  neared  him.  Another 
struggle  !  I  could  have  dropped  down  where  I  was, 
and  slept,  if  there  were  death  in  the  first  minute,  so 
stiff  and  drowsy  was  every  muscle  in  my  frame. 

"  Larry  !"  I  shouted.     "  Larry  !" 

He  started  at  the  sound,  and  I  could  hear  a  smoth- 
ered and  breathless  shriek,  as,  with  supernatural 
strength,  he  straightened  up  his  bending  figure,  and, 
leaning  forward  again,  sped  away  from  me  like  a 
phantom  on  the  blast. 

I  could  follow  no  longer.  I  stood  stiff  on  my  skates, 
still  going  on  rapidly  before  the  wind,  and  tried  to 
look  after  him,  but  the  frost  had  stiffened  my  eyes, 
and  there  was  a  mist  before  them,  and  they  felt  like 
glass.  Nothing  was  visible  around  me  but  moonlight 
and  ice,  and  dimly  and  slowly  I  began  to  retrace  the 
slight  path  of  semicircles  toward  the  shore.  It  was 
painful  work.  The  wind  seemed  to  divide  the  very 
fibres  of  the  skin  upon  my  face.     Violent  exercise  no 


410 


INKLINGS  OF  ADVENTURE. 


longer  warmed  my  body,  and  I  felt  the  cold  shoot  |j 
sharply  into  my  loins,  and  bind  across  my  breast  like 
a  chain  of  ice;  and,  with  the  utmost  strength  of  mind 
at  my  command,  I  could  just  resist  the  terrible  incli- 
nation to  lie  down  and  sleep.  I  forgot  poor  Larry. 
Life — dear  life  ! — was  now  my  only  thought!  So  self- 
ish are  we  in  our  extremity  ! 

With  difficulty  I  at  last  reached  the  shore,  and  then, 
unbuttoning  my  co-it,  and  spreading  it  wide  for  a  sail, 
I  set  my  feet  together,  and  went  slowly  down  before 
the  wind,  till  the  fire  which  I  had  before  noticed  be- 
gan to  blaze  cheerily  in  the  distance.  It  seemed  an 
eternity  in  my  slow  progress.  Tree  after  tree  threw 
the  shadow  of  its  naked  branches  across  the  way  ;  hill 
after  hill  glided  slowly  backward ;  but  my  knees 
seemed  frozen  together,  and  my  joints  fixed  in  ice  ; 
and  if  my  life  had  depended  on  striking  out  my  feet, 
I  should  have  died  powerless.  My  jaws  were  locked, 
my  shoulders  drawn  half  down  to  my  knees,  and  in  a 
few  minutes  more,  I  am  well  convinced,  the  blood 
would  have  thickened  in  my  veins,  and  stood  still,  for 
ever. 

I  could  see  the  tongues  of  the  flames — I  counted 
the  burning  fagots — a  form  passed  between  me  and 
the  fire — I  struck,  and  fell  prostrate  on  the  snow ;  and 
I  remember  no  more. 

The  sun  was  darting  a  slant  beam  through  the  trees 
when  I  awoke.  The  genial  warmth  of  a  large  bed  of 
embers  played  on  my  cheek,  a  thick  blanket  enveloped 
me,  and  beneath  my  head  was  a  soft  cushion  of  with- 
ered leaves.  On  the  opposite  side  of  the  fire  lay  four 
Indians  wrapped  in  their  blankets,  and,  with  her  head 
on  her  knees,  and  her  hands  clasped  over  her  ankles, 
sat  an  Indian  woman,  who  had  apparently  fallen  asleep 
upon  her  watch.  The  stir  I  made  aroused  her,  and, 
as  she  piled  on  fresh  fagots,  and  kindled  them  to  a 
bright  blaze  with  a  handful  of  leaves,  drowsiness  came 
over  me  again,  and  I  wrapped  the  blanket  about  me 
more  closely,  and  shut  my  eyes  to  sleep. 

I  awoke  refreshed.  It  must  have  been  ten  o'clock 
by  the  sun.  The  Indians  were  about,  occupied  in  va- 
rious avocations,  and  the  woman  was  broiling  a  slice 
of  deer's  flesh  on  the  coals.  She  offered  it  to  me  as  I 
rose ;  and  having  eaten  part  of  it  with  a  piece  of  a  cake 
made  of  meal,  1  requested  her  to  call  in  the  men,  and, 
with  offers  of  reward,  easily  induced  them  to  go  with 
•me  in  search  of  my  lost  friend. 

We  found  him,  as  1  had  anticipated,  frozen  to  death, 
far  out  on  the  lake.  The  Indians  tracked  him  by  the 
marks  of  his  skate-irons,  and  from  their  appearance 
he  had  sunk  quietly  down,  probably  drowsy  and  ex- 
hausted, and  had  died  of  course  without  pain.  His  | 
last  act  seemed  to  have  been  under  the  influence  of 
his  strange  madness,  for  he  lay  on  his  face,  turned 
from  the  quarter  of  the  setting  moon. 

We  carried  him  home  to  his  bride.  Even  the  In- 
dians were  affected  by  her  uncontrollable  agony.  I 
can  not  describe  that  scene,  familiar  as  I  am  with  pic- 
tures of  horror. 

I  made  inquiries  with  respect  to  the  position  of  his 
bridal  chamber.  There  were  no  shutters,  and  the 
moon  streamed  broadly  into  it :  and  after  kissing  his 
shrinking  bride  with  the  violence  of  a  madman,  he 
sprang  out  of  the  room  with  a  terrific  scream,  and  she 
saw  him  no  more  till  he  lay  dead  on  his  bridal  bed. 


INCIDENTS  ON  THE  HUDSON. 

M.  Chabert,  the  fire-eater,  would  have  found  New 
York  uncomfortable.  I  would  mention  the  height  of 
the  thermometer,  but  for  an  aversion  I  have  to  figures. 
Broadway,  at  noon,  had  been  known  to  fry  soles. 


I  had  fixed  upon  the  first  of  August  for  my  annua 
trip  to  Saratoga — and  with  a  straw  hat,  a  portmanteau, 
and  a  black  boy,  was  huddled  into  the  "  rather-faster- 
than-lightning"  steamer,  "  North  America,"  with  about 
seven  hundred  other  people,  like  myself,  just  in  time. 
Some  hundred  and  fifty  gentlemen  and  ladies,  thirty 
seconds  too  late,  stood  "  larding"  the  pine  chips  upon 
the  pier,  gazing  after  the  vanishing  boat  through  show- 
ers of  perspiration.  Away  we  "  streaked"  at  the  rate 
of  twelve  miles  in  the  hour  against  the  current,  and 
by  the  time  I  had  penetrated  to  the  baggage-closet, 
and  seated  William  Wilberforce  upon  my  portmanteau, 
with  orders  not  to  stir  for  eleven  hours  and  seven  min- 
utes, we  were  far  up  the  Hudson,  opening  into  its  hills 
and  rocks,  like  a  witches'  party  steaming  through  the 
Hartz  in  a  caldron. 

A  North-river  steamboat,  as  a  Vermont  boy  would 
phrase  it,  is  another  guess  sort  o'  thing  from  a  Brit- 
isher. A  coal-barge  and  an  eight-oars  on  the  Thames 
are  scarce  more  dissimilar.  Built  for  smooth  water 
only,  our  river  boats  are  long,  shallow,  and  graceful, 
of  the  exquisite  proportions  of  a  pleasure-yacht,  and 
painted  as  brilliantly  and  fantastically  as  an  Indian 
shell.  With  her  bow  just  leaning  up  from  the  surface 
of  the  stream,  her  cut-water  throwing  off  a  curved  and 
transparent  sheet  from  either  side,  her  white  awnings, 
her  magical  speed,  and  the  gay  spectacle  of  a  thousand 
well-dressed  people  on  her  open  decks,  I  know  noth- 
ing prettier  than  the  vision  that  shoots  by  your  door 
as  you  sit  smoking  in  your  leaf-darkened  portico  on 
the  bold  shore  of  the  Hudson. 

The  American  edition  of  Mrs.  Trollope  (several 
copies  of  which  are  to  be  found  in  every  boat,  serving 
the  same  purpose  to  the  feelings  of  the  passengers  as 
the  escape-valve  to  the  engine)  lay  on  a  sofa  beside 
me,  and  taking  it  up,  as  to  say,  "  I  will  be  let  alone," 
I  commenced  dividing  my  attention  in  my  usual  quiet 
way  between  the  varied  panorama  of  rock  and  valley 
flying  backward  in  our  progress,  and  the  as  varied 
multitude  about  me. 

For  the  mass  of  the  women,  as  far  as  satin  slippers, 
hats,  dresses,  and  gloves,  could  go,  a  Frenchman  might 
have  fancied  himself  in  the  midst  of  a  transplantation 
from  the  Boulevards.  In  London,  French  fashions  are 
in  a  manner  Anglified  :  but  an  American  woman  looks 
on  the  productions  of  Herbault,  Boivin,  and  Maneuri, 
as  a  translator  of  the  Talmud  on  the  inspired  text.  The 
slight  figure  and  small  feet  of  the  race  rather  favor  the 
resemblance;  and  a  French  milliner, who  would  prob- 
ably come  to  America  expecting  to  see  bears  and  buf- 
faloes prowling  about  the  landing-place,  would  rub  her 
eyes  in  New  York,  and  imagine  she  was  still  in  France, 
and  had  crossed,  perhaps,  only  the  broad  part  of  the 
Seine. 

The  men  were  a  more  original  study.  Near  me  sat 
a  Kentuckian  on  three  chairs.  He  had  been  to  the  me- 
tropolis, evidently  for  the  first  time,  and  had  "  looked 
round  sharp."  In  a  fist  of  no  very  delicate  propor- 
tions, was  crushed  a  pair  of  French  kid-gloves,  which, 
if  they  fulfilled  to  him  a  glove's  destiny,  would  flatter 
"  the  rich  man"  that  "the  camel"  might  yet  give  him 
the  required  precedent.  His  hair  had  still  the  traces 
of  having  been  astonished  with  curling-tongs,  and 
across  his  Atlantean  breast  was  looped,  in  a  compli- 
cated zig-zag,  a  chain  that  must  have  cost  him  a  wil- 
derness of  rackoon-skins.  His  coat  was  evidently  the 
production  of  a  Mississippi  tailor,  though  of  the  finest 
English  material;  his  shirt-bosom  was  ruffled  like  a 
swan  with  her  feathers  full  spread,  and  a  black  silk 
cravat,  tied  in  a  kind  of  a  curse-me-if-I-care-sort-of-a- 
knot,  flung  out  its  ends  like  the  arms  of  an  Italian 
improvisatore.  With  all  this  he  was  a  man  to  look 
upon  with  respect.  His  under  jaw  was  set  up  to  its 
fellow  with  an  habitual  determination  that  would 
throw  a  hickory-tree  into  a  shiver ;  but  frank  good- 
nature, and  the   most  absolute  freedom  from  suspi-. 


INKLINGS  OF  ADVENTURE. 


411 


cion,  lay  at  large  on  his  Ajacean  features,  mixed  with 
an  earnestness  that  commended  itself  at  once  lo  your 
liking. 

In  a  retired  corner,  near  the  wheel,  stood  a  group 
of  Indians,  as  motionless  by  the  hour  together  as 
figures  carved  in  rosso  antico.  They  had  been  on 
their  melancholy  annual  visit  to  the  now-cultivated 
shores  of  Connecticut,  the  burial-place,  but  unforgot- 
ten  and  once  wild  home  of  their  fathers.  With  the 
money  given  them  by  the  romantic  persons  whose 
sympathies  are  yearly  moved  by  these  stern  and  poet- 
ical pilgrims,  they  had  taken  a  passage  in  the  "fire- 
canoe,"  which  would  set  them  two  hundred  miles  on 
their  weary  journey  back  to  the  prairies.  Their 
Apollo-like  forms  loosely  dressed  in  blankets,  their 
gaudy  wampum-belts  and  feathers,  the  muscular  arm 
and  close  clutch  upon  the  rifle,  the  total  absence  of 
surprise  at  the  unaccustomed  wonders  about  them, 
and  the  lowering  and  settled  scorn  and  dislike  ex- 
pressed in  their  copper  faces,  would  have  powerfully 
impressed  a  European.  The  only  person  on  whom 
they  deigned  to  cast  a  glance  was  the  Kentuckian, 
and  at  him  they  occasionally  stole  a  look,  as  if,  through 
all  his  metropolian  finery,  they  recognised  metal  with 
whose  ring  they  were  familiar. 

There  were  three  foreigners  on  board,  two  of  them 
companions,  and  one  apparently  alone.  With  their 
coats  too  small  for  them,  their  thick-soled  boots  and 
sturdy  figures,  collarless  cravats,  and  assumed  uncon- 
sciousness of  the  presence  of  another  living  soul,  they 
were  recognisable  at  once  as  Englishmen.  To  most 
of  the  people  on  board  they  probably  appeared  equally 
well-dressed,  and  of  equal  pretensions  to  the  character 
of  gentlemen;  but  any  one  who  had  made  observations 
between  Temple  Bar  and  the  steps  of  Crockford's, 
would  easily  resolve  them  into  two  Birmingham  bag- 
men "sinking  the  shop,"  and  a  quiet  gentleman  on  a 
tour  of  information. 

The  only  other  persons  I  particularly  noted  were  a 
southerner,  probably  the  son  of  a  planter  from  Ala- 
bama, and  a  beautiful  girl,  dressed  in  singularly  bad 
taste,  who  seemed  his  sister.  I  knew  the  "specimen" 
well.  The  indolent  attitude,  the  thin  but  powerfully- 
jointed  frame,  the  prompt  politeness,  the  air  of  superi- 
ority acquired  from  constant  command  over  slaves,  the 
mouth  habitually  flexible  and  looking  eloquent  even 
in  silence,  and  the  eye  in  which  slept  a  volcano  of  vio- 
lent passions,  were  the  marks  that  showed  him  of  a 
race  that  I  had  studied  much,  and  preferred  to  all  the 
many  and  distinct  classes  of  my  countrymen.  His 
sister  was  of  the  slightest  and  most  fragile  figure, 
graceful  as  a  fawn,  but  with  no  trace  of  the  dancing 
master's  precepts  in  her  motions,  vivid  in  her  attention 
to  everything  about  her,  and  amused  with  all  she  saw ; 
a  copy  of  Lalla  Rookh  sticking  from  the  pocket  of 
her  French  apron,  a  number  of  gold  chains  hung  out- 
side her  travelling  habit,  and  looped  to  her  belt,  and  a 
glorious  profusion  of  dark  curls  broken  loose  from  her 
combs  and  floating  unheeded  over  her  shoulders. 

Toward  noon  we  rounded  West  Point,  and  shot 
suddenly  into  the  overshadowed  gorge  of  the  moun- 
tains, as  if  we  were  dashing  into  the  vein  of  a  silver 
mine,  laid  open  and  molten  into  a  flowing  river  by  a 
flash  of  lightning.  (The  figure  should  be  Mont- 
gomery's; but  I  can  in  no  other  way  give  an  idea  of 
the  sudden  darkening  of  the  Hudson,  and  the  under- 
ground effect  of  the  sharp  over-hanging  mountains  as 
you  sweep  first  into  the  highlands.) 

The  solitary  Englishman,  who  had  been  watching 
the  southern  beauty  with  the  greatest  apparent  in- 
terest, had  lounged  over  to  her  side  of  the  boat,  and, 
with  the  instinctive  knowledge  that  women  have  of 
character,  she  had  shrunk  from  the  more  obtrusive 
attempts  of  the  Brummagems  to  engage  her  in  con- 
versation, and  had  addressed  some  remark  to  him, 
which  seemed  to  have  advanced  them  at  once  to  ac- 


quaintances of  a  year.  They  were  admiring  the  stu- 
pendous scenery  together  a  moment  before  the  boat 
stopped  for  a  passenger,  off  a  small  town  above  the 
point.  As  the  wheels  were  checked,  there  was  a  sud- 
den splash  in  the  water,  and  a  cry  of  "  a  lady  over- 
board !"  I  looked  for  the  fair  creature  who  had  been 
standing  before  me,  and  she  was  gone.  The  boat  was 
sweeping  on,  and  as  I  darted  to  the  railing  I  saw  the 
gurgling  eddy  where  something  had  just  gone  down; 
and  in  the  next  minute  the  Kentuckian  and  the 
youngest  of  the  Indians  rushed  together  to  the  stern, 
and  clearing  the  taffrail  with  tremendous  leaps,  dived 
side  by  side  into  the  very  centre  of  the  foaming  circle. 
The  Englishman  had  coolly  seized  a  rope,  and,  by  the 
time  they  reappeared,  stood  on  the  railing  with  a  coil 
in  his  hand,  and  flung  it  with  accurate  calculation 
directly  over  them.  With  immovably  grave  faces,  and 
eyes  blinded  with  water,  the  two  divers  rose,  holding 
high  between  them — a  large  pine  fagot !  Shouts  of 
laughter  pealed  from  the  boat,  and  the  Kentuckian, 
discovering  his  error,  gave  the  log  an  indignant  fling 
behind,  and,  taking  hold  of  the  rope,  lay  quietly  to  be 
drawn  in;  while  the  Indian,  disdaining  assistance, 
darted  through  the  wake  of  the  boat  with  arrowy 
swiftness,  and  sprang  up  the  side  with  the  agility  of  a 
tiger-cat.  The  lady  reappeared  from  the  cabin  as 
they  jumped  dripping  upon  the  deck  ;  the  Kentuckian 
shook  himself,  and  sat  down  in  the  sun  to  dry;  and 
the  graceful  and  stern  Indian,  too  proud  even  to  put 
<he  wet  hair  away  from  his  forehead,  resumed  his 
place,  and  folded  his  arms,  as  indifferent  and  calm, 
save  the  suppressed  heaving  of  his  chest,  as  if  he  had 
never  stirred  from  his  stone-like  posture. 

An  hour  or  two  more  brought  us  to  the  foot  of  the 
Catskills,  and  here  the  boat  lay  alongside  the  pier  to 
discharge  those  of  her  passengers  who  were  bound  to 
the  house  on  the  mountain.  A  hundred  or  more 
moved  to  the  gangway  at  the  summons  to  get  ready, 
and  among  them  the  southerners  and  the  Kentuckian. 
I  had  begun  to  feel  an  interest  in  our  fair  fellow-pas- 
senger, and  I  suddenly  determined  to  join  their  party 
— a  resolution  which  the  Englishman  seemed  to  come 
to  at  the  same  moment,  and  probably  for  the  same 
reason. 

We  slept  at  the  pretty  village  on  the  bank  of  the 
river,  and  the  next  day  made  the  twelve  hours'  ascent 
through  glen  and  forest,  our  way  skirted  with  the 
most  gorgeous  and  odorent  flowers,  and  turned  aside 
and  towered  over  the  trees  whose  hoary  and  moss- 
covered  trunks  would  have  stretched  the  conceptions 
of  the  "  Savage  Rosa."  Everything  that  was  not 
lovely  was  gigantesque  and  awful.  The  rocks  were 
split  with  the  visible  impress  of  the  Almighty  power 
that  had  torn  them  apart,  and  the  daring  and  dizzy 
crags  spurred  into  the  sky,  as  if  the  arms  of  a  buried 
and  phrensied  Titan  were  thrusting  them  from  the 
mountain's  bosom.  It  gave  one  a  kind  of  maddening 
desire  to  shout  and  leap — the  energy  with  which  it 
filled  the  mind  so  out-measured  the  power  of  the  frame. 

Near  the  end  of  our  journey,  we  stopped  together 
on  a  jutting  rock,  to  look  back  on  the  obstacles  we 
had  overcome.  The  view  extended  over  forty  or  fifty 
miles  of  vale  and  mountain,  and,  with  a  half-shut  eye, 
it  looked,  in  its  green  and  lavish  foliage,  like  a  near 
and  unequal  bed  of  verdure,  while  the  distant  Hudson 
crept  through  it  like  a  half-hid  satin  riband,  lost  as  if 
in  clumps  of  moss  among  the  broken  banks  of  the 
highlands.  I  was  trying  to  fix  the  eye  of  my  com- 
panion upon  West  Point,  when  a  steamer,  with  its 
black  funnel  and  retreating  line  of  smoke,  issued  as  if 
from  the  bosom  of  the  hills  into  an  open  break  of  the 
river.  It  was  as  small  apparently  as  the  white  hand 
that  pointed  to  it  so  rapturously. 

"Oh!"  said  the  half-breathless  girl,  "is  it  not  like 
some  fairy  bark  on  an  eastern  stream,  with  a  spice- 
lamp  alight  in  its  prow?" 


412 


INKLINGS  OF  ADVENTURE. 


"  More  like  an  old  shoe  afloat,  with  a  cigar  stuck  in 
it,"  interrupted  Kentucky. 

As  the  sun  began  to  kindle  into  a  blaze  of  fire,  the 
tumultuous  masses,  so  peculiar  to  an  American  sky, 
turning  every  tree  and  rock  to  a  lambent  and  rosy 
gold,  we  stood  on  the  broad  platform  on  which  the 
house  is  built,  braced  even  beyond  weariness  by  the 
invigorating  and  rarified  air  of  the  mountain.  A  hot 
supper  and  an  early  pillow,  with  the  feather  beds  and 
blankets  of  winter,  were  unromantic  circumstances, 
but  I  am  not  aware  that  any  one  of  the  party  made 
any  audible  objection  to  them;  I  sat  next  the  Ken- 
tuckian  at  table,  and  can  answer  for  two. 

A  mile  or  two  back  from  the  mountain-house,  on 
nearly  the  same  level,  the  gigantic  forest  suddenly 
sinks' two  or  three  hundred  feet  into  the  earth,  forming 
a  tremendous  chasm,  over  which  a  bold  stag  might 
almost  leap,  and  above  which  the  rocks  hang  on 
either  side  with  the  most  threatening  and  frowning 
grandeur.  A  mountain-stream  creeps  through  the 
forest  to  the  precipice,  and  leaps  as  suddenly  over,  as 
if,  Arethusa-like,  it  fled  into  the  earth  from  the  pur- 
suing steps  of  a  satyr.  Thirty  paces  from  its  brink, 
you  would  never  suspect,  but  for  the  hollow  rever- 
beration of  the  plunging  stream,  that  anything  but  a 
dim  and  mazy  wood  was  within  a  day's  journey.  It 
is  visited  as  a  great  curiosity  in  scenery,  under  the 
name  of  Cauterskill  Falls. 

We  were  all  on  the  spot  by  ten  the  next  morning, 
after  a  fatiguing  tramp  through  the  forest;  for  the 
Kentuckian  had  rejected  the  offer  of  a  guide,  under- 
taking to  bring  us  to  it  in  a  straight  line  by  only  the 
signs  of  the  water- course.  The  caprices  of  the  little 
stream  had  misled  him,  however,  and  we  arrived  half- 
dead  with  the  fatigue  of  our  cross-marches. 

I  sat  down  on  the  bald  edge  of  the  precipice,  and 
suffered  my  more  impatient  companions  to  attempt 
the  difficult  and  dizzy  descent  before  me.  The  Ken- 
tuckian leaped  from  rock  to  rock,  followed  daringly 
by  the  southerner;  and  the  Englishman,  thoroughly 
enamored  of  the  exquisite  child  of  nature,  who  knew 
no  reserve  beyond  her  maidenly  modesty,  devoted 
himself  to  her  assistance,  and  compelled  her  with 
anxious  entreaties  to  descend  more  cautiously.  I  lay 
at  my  length  as  they  proceeded,  and  with  my  head 
over  the  projecting  edge  of  the  most  prominent  crag, 
watched  them  in  a  giddy  dream,  half-stupified  by  the 
grandeur  of  the  scene,  half-interested  in  their  motions. 

They  reached  the  bottom  of  the  glen  at  last,  and 
shouted  to  the  two  who  had  gone  before,  but  they  had 
followed  the  dark  passage  of  the  stream  to  find  its 
vent,  and  were  beyond  sight  or  hearing. 

After  sitting  a  minute  or  two,  the  restless  but  over- 
fatigued  girl  rose  to  go  nearer  the  fall,  and  I  was  re- 
marking to  myself  the  sudden  heaviness  of  her  steps, 
when  she  staggered,  and  turning  toward  her  compan- 
ion, fell  senseless  into  his  arms.  The  closeness  of  the 
air  below,  combined  with  over-exertion,  had  been  too 
much  for  her. 

The  small  hut  of  an  old  man  who  served  as  a  guide 
stood  a  little  back  from  the  glen,  and  1  had  rushed 
into  it,  and  was  on  the  first  step  of  the  descent  with  a 
flask  of  spirits,  when  a  cry  from  the  opposite  crag,  in 
the  husky  and  choking  scream  of  infuriated  passion, 
suddenly  arrested  me.  On  the  edge  of  the  yawning 
chasm,  gazing  down  into  it  with  a  livid  and  death-like 
paleness,  stood  the  southerner.  I  mechanically  fol- 
lowed his  eye.  His  sister  lay  on  her  back  upon  a  flat 
rock  immediately  below  him,  and  over  her  knelt  the 
Englishman,  loosening  the  dress  that  pressed  close 
upon  her  throat,  and  with  his  face  so  near  to  hers  as  to 
conceal  it  entirely  from  the  view.  I  felt  the  brother's 
misapprehension  at  a  glance,  but  my  tongue  clung  to 
the  roof  of  my  mouth  ;  for  in  the  madness  of  his  fury 
he  stood  stretching  clear  over  the  brink,  and  every 
instant  I  looked  to  see  him  plunge  headlong.     Be- 


fore I  could  recover  my  breath,  he  started  back,  gazed 
wildly  round,  and  seizing  upon  a  huge  fragment  of 
rock,  heaved  it  up  with  supernatural  strength,  and 
hurled  it  into  the  abyss.  Giddy  and  sick  with  horror, 
I  turned  away  and  covered  up  my  eyes.  I  felt  assured 
he  had  dashed  them  to  atoms. 

The  lion  roar  of  the  Kentuckian  was  the  first  sound 
that  followed  the  thundering  crash  of  the  fragments. 

"  Hallo,  youngster !  what  in  tarnation  are  you  arter  ? 
You've  killed  the  gal,  by  gosh!" 

The  next  moment  I  heard  the  loosened  stones  as  he 
went  plunging  down  into  the  glen,  and  hurrying  after 
him  with  my  restorative,  I  found  the  poor  English- 
man lying  senseless  on  the  rocks,  and  the  fainting  girl, 
escaped  miraculously  from  harm,  struggling  slowly  to 
her  senses. 

On  examination,  the  new  sufferer  appeared  only 
stunned  by  a  small  fragment  which  had  struck  him 
on  the  temple,  and  the  Kentuckian,  taking  him  up  in 
his  arms  like  a  child,  strode  through  the  spray  of  the 
fall,  and  held  his  head  under  the  descending  torrent 
till  he  kicked  lustily  for  his  freedom.  With  a  draught 
from  the  flask,  the  pale  Alabamian  was  soon  perfectly 
restored,  and  we  stood  on  the  rock  together  looking 
at  each  other  like  people  who  had  survived  an  earth- 
quake. 

We  climbed  the  ascent  and  found  the  brother  lying 
with  his  face  to  the  earth,  beside  himself  with  his 
conflicting  feelings.  The  rough  tongue  of  the  Ken- 
tuckian to  whom  1  had  explained  the  apparent  cause 
of  the  rash  act,  soon  cleared  up  the  tempest,  and  he 
joined  us  presently,  and  walked  back  by  his  sister's 
side  in  silence. 

We  made  ourselves  into  a  party  to  pass  the  remain- 
der of  the  summer  on  the  lakes,  unwillingly  letting  off 
the  Kentuckian,  who  was  in  a  hurry  to  get  back  to 
propose  himself  for  the  legislature. 

Three  or  four  years  have  elapsed,  and  I  find  myself 
a  traveller  in  England.  Thickly  sown  as  are  the 
wonders  and  pleasures  of  London,  an  occasional  din- 
ner with  a  lovely  countrywoman  in Square,  and 

a  gossip  with  her  husband  over  a  glass  of  wine,  in 
which  Cauterskill  Falls  are  not  forgotten,  are  mem- 
orandums in  my  diary  never  written  but  in  "red 
letters." 


THE  GIPSY  OF  SARDIS. 


.    .     .    .    "  And  thou  art  far, 
Asia  !  who,  when  my  being  overflowed, 
Wert  like  a  golden  chalice  to  bright  wine, 
Which  else  had  sunk  into  the  thirsty  dust." 

Shelley's  Phombtheus. 

Our  tents  were  pitched  in  the  vestibule  of  the  house 
of  Croesus,  on  the  natural  terrace  which  was  once  the 
imperial  site  of  Sardis.  A  humpbacked  Dutch  artist, 
who  had  been  in  the  service  of  Lady  Hester  Stanhope 
as  a  draughtsman,  and  who  had  lingered  about  be- 
tween Jerusalem  and  the  Nile  till  he  was  as  much  at 
home  in  the  east  as  a  Hajji  or  a  crocodile  ;  an  Eng- 
lishman qualifying  himself  for  "The  Travellers';" 
a  Smyrniote  merchant  in  figs  and  opium ;  Job  Smith 
(my  inseparable  shadow)  and  myself,  composed  a 
party  at  this  time  (August,  1834),  rambling  about 
Asia  Minor  in  turbans  and  Turkish  saddles,  and  pitch- 
ing our  tents,  and  cooking  our  pilau,  wherever  it 
pleased  Heaven  and  the  inexorable  suridji  who  was 
our  guide  and  caterer. 

I  thought  at  the  time  that  I  would  compound  to 
abandon  all  the  romance  of  that  renowned  spot,  for  a 
clean  shirt  and  something  softer  than  a  marble  frustrum 
for  a  pillow  ;  but  in  the  distance  of  memory,  and  my- 


INKLINGS  OF  ADVENTURE. 


413 


self  at  this  present  in  a  deep  morocco  chair  in  the 
library  at  "  The  Travellers' ;"  the  same  scene  in  the 
ruins  of  Sardis  does  not  seem  destitute  of  interest. 

It  was  about  four  in  the  lazy  summer  afternoon. 
We  had  arrived  at  Sardis  at  mid-day,  and  after  a 
quarrel  whether  we  should  eat  immediately  or  wait  till 
the  fashionable  hour  of  three,  the  wooden  dish  con- 
taining two  chickens  buried  in  a  tumulus  of  rice, 
shaped  (in  compliment  to  the  spirit  of  the  spot)  like 
the  Mound  of  Alyattis  in  the  plain  below,  was  placed 
in  the  centre  of  a  marble  pedestal ;  and  with  Job  and 
the  Dutchman  seated  on  the  prostrate  column  dislodged 
for  our  benefit,  and  the  remainder  of  the  party  squatted 
in  the  high  grass,  which  grew  in  the  royal  palace  as  if 
it  had  no  memory  of  the  foot-prints  of  the  kings  of 
Lydia,  we  spooned  away  at  the  saturated  rice,  and 
pulled  the  smothered  chickens  to  pieces  with  an  inde- 
pendence of  knives  and  forks  that  was  worthy  of  the 
M  certain  poor  man  in  Attica."  Old  Solon  himself, 
who  stood,  we  will  suppose,  while  reproving  the  osten- 
tatious monarch,  at  the  base  of  that  very  column  now 
ridden  astride  by  an  inhabitant  of  a  country  of  which 
he  never  dreamed — (at  least  it  strikes  me  there  is  no 
mention  of  the  Yankees  in  hid  philosophy) — the  old 
graybeard  of  the  Academy  himself,  I  say,  would  have 
been  edified  at  the  primitive  simplicity  of  our  repast. 
The  salt  (he  would  have  asked  if  it  was  Attic)  was 
contained  in  a  ragged  play-bill,  which  the  Dutchman 
had  purloined  as  a  specimen  of  Modern  Greek,  from 
the  side  of  a  house  in  Corfu  ;  the  mustard  was  in  a 
cracked  powder-horn,  which  had  been  slung  at  the 
breast  of  old  Whalley  the  regicide,  in  the  American 
revolution,  and  which  Job  had  brought  from  the  Green 
mountains,  and  held,  till  its  present  base  uses,  in  re- 
ligious veneration  ;  the  ham  (I  should  have  mentioned 
that  respectable  entremet  before)  was  half  enveloped 
in  a  copy  of  the  "  Morning  Post ;"  and  the  bread, 
which  had  been  seven  days  out  from  Smyrna,  and  had 
been  kept  warm  in  the  suridji's  saddle  bags  twelve 
hours  in  the  twenty-four,  lay  in  disjecta  membra  around 
the  marble  table,  with  marks  of  vain  but  persevering 
attacks  in  its  nibbled  edges.  The  luxury  of  our  lar- 
der was  comprised  in  a  flask  which  had  once  held  Har- 
vey's sauce,  and  though  the  last  drop  had  served  as  a 
condiment  to  a  roasted  kid  some  three  months  before, 
in  the  Acropolis  at  Athens,  we  still  clung  to  it  with 
affectionate  remembrance,  and  it  was  offered  and  re- 
fused daily  around  the  table  for  the  melancholy  pleasure 
of  hearing  the  mention  of  its  name  It  was  unlucky 
that  the  only  thing  which  the  place  afforded  of  the 
best  quality,  and  in  sufficient  quanities,  was  precisely 
the  one  thing  in  the  world  for  which  no  individual  of 
the  party  had  any  particular  relish — water !  It  was 
brought  in  a  gourd  from  the  bed  of  the  "  golden-sand- 
ed Pactolus,"  rippling  away  to  the  plain  within  pistol- 
shot  of  the  dining-room  ;  but,  to  the  shame  of  our  sim- 
plicity I  must  record,  that  a  high-shouldered  jug  of 
the  rough  wine  of  Samos,  trodden  out  by  the  feet  of 
the  lovely  slaves  of  the  JEgean,  and  bought  for  a  far- 
thing the  bottle,  went  oftener  to  the  unclassical  lips  of 
the  company.  Methinks,  now  (the  wind  east  in  Lon- 
don, and  the  day  wet  and  abominable).  I  could  barter 
the  dinner  that  I  shall  presently  discuss,  with  its  suite 
of  sherries  and  anchovy,  to  kneel  down  by  that  golden 
river  in  the  sunshine,  and  drink  a  draught  of  pure 
lymph  under  the  sky  of  effeminate  Asia.  Yet,  when 
I  was  there — so  rarely  do  we  recognise  happiness  till 
she  is  gone — I  wished  myself  (where  I  had  never  been) 
in  "  merry  England."  "  Merry,"  quotha  ?  Scratch 
it  out,  and  write  comfortable'.  I  have  seen  none 
"  merry"  in  England,  save  those  who  have  most  cause 
to  be  sad — the  abandoned  of  themselves  and  the 
world  ! 

Out  of  the  reach  of  ladies  and  the  laws  of  society, 
the  most  refined  persons  return  very  much  to  the  na- 
tural instincts  from  which  they  have  departed  in  the 


progress  of  civilization.  Job  rolled  off  the  marble 
column  when  there  was  nothing  more  to  eat,  and  went 
to  sleep  with  the  marks  of  the  Samian  wine  turning 
up  the  corners  of  his  mouth  like  the  salacious  grin  of 
a  satyr.  The  Dutchman  got  his  hump  into  a  hollow, 
and  buried  his  head  in  the  long  grass  with  the  same  obe- 
dience to  the  prompting  of  nature,  and  idem  the  suridji 
and  the  fig-merchant,  leaving  me  seated  alone  among 
the  promiscuous  ruins  of  Sardis  and  the  dinner.  The 
dish  of  philosophy  I  had  with  myself  on  that  occasion 
will  appear  as  a  rechavffe  in  my  novel  (I  intend  to 
write  one) ;  but  meantime  I  may  as  well  give  you  the 
practical  inference  ;  that,  as  sleeping  after  dinner  is 
evidently  Nature's  law,  Washington  Irving  is  highly 
excusable  for  the  practice,  and  he  would  be  a  friend  of 
reason  who  should  introduce  couches  and  coffee  at  that 
somnolent  period,  the  digestive  nap  taking  the  place 
of  the  indigestible  politics  usually  forced  upon  the  com- 
pany on  the  disappearance  of  the  ladies.  Why  should 
the  world  be  wedded  for  ever  to  these  bigoted  incon- 
veniences ! 

The  grand  track  from  the  south  and  west  of  Asia 
Minor  passes  along  the  plain  between  the  lofty  Acropo- 
lis of  Sardis  and  the  tombs  of  her  kings  ;  and  with 
the  snore  of  travellers  from  five  different  nations  in 
my  ear,  I  sat  and  counted  the  camels  in  one  of  the 
immense  caravans  never  out  of  sight  in  the  valley  of 
the  Hermus.  The  long  procession  of  those  brown 
monsters  wound  slowly  past  on  their  way  to  Smyrna, 
their  enormous  burthens  covered  with  colored  trap- 
pings and  swaying  backward  and  forward  with  their  dis- 
jointed gait,  and  their  turbaned  masters  dozing  on  the 
backs  of  the  small  asses  of  the  east,  leading  each  a 
score  by  the  tether  at  his  back  ;  the  tinkling  of  their 
hundred  bells  swarmed  up  through  the  hot  air  of  the 
afternoon  with  the  drowsiest  of  monotones  ;  the  native 
oleanders,  slender-leaved  and  tall,  and  just  now  in  all 
their  glory,  with  a  color  in  their  bright  flowers  stolen 
from  the  bleeding  lips  of  Houris,  brightened  the  plains 
of  Lydia  like  the  flush  of  sunset  lying  low  on  the  earth  ; 
the  black  goats  of  uncounted  herds  browsed  along  the 
ancient  Sarabat,  with  their  bearded  faces  turned  every 
one  to  the  faintly  coming  wind  :  the  eagles  (that  abound 
now  in  the  mountains  from  which  Sardis  and  a  hundred 
silent  cities  once  scared  their  bold  progenitors)  sailed 
slowly  and  fearlessly  around  the  airy  citadel  that  flung 
open  its  gates  to  the  Lacedaemonian  ;  and,  gradually, 
as  you  may  have  lost  yourself  in  this  tangled  paragraph, 
dear  reader,  my  senses  became  confused  among  the 
objects  it  enumerates,  and  I  fell  asleep  with  the  speech 
of  Solon  in  my  ears,  and  my  back  to  the  crumbling 
portico  of  Croesus. 

The  Dutchman  was  drawing  my  picture  when  I 
awoke,  the  sun  was  setting,  and  Job  and  the  suridji 
were  making  tea.  I  am  not  a  very  picturesque  object, 
generally  speaking,  but  done  as  a  wild  Arab  lying  at 
the  base  of  a  column  in  a  white  turban,  with  a  stork's 
nest  over  my  head,  I  am  not  so  ill-looking  as  you  would 
suppose.  As  the  Dutchman  drew  for  gelt,  and  hoped 
to  sell  his  picture  to  some  traveller  at  Smyrna  who 
would  take  that  opportunity  to  affirm  in  his  book  that 
he  had  been  at  Sardis  (as  vide  his  own  sketch),  I  do 
not  despair  of  seeing  myself  yet  in  lithograph.  And, 
talking  of  pictures,  I  would  give  something  now  if  I 
had  engaged  that  hump-backed  draughtsman  to  make 
me  a  sketch  of  Job,  squat  on  his  hams  before  a  fire  in 
the  wall,  and  making  tea  in  a  tin  pot  with  a  "  malig- 
nant and  turbaned  Turk,"  feeding  the  blaze  with  the 
dry  thorn  of  Syria.*  It  would  have  been  consolation 
to  his  respectable  mother,  whom  he  left  in  the  Green 
mountains  (wondering  what  he  could  have  to  do  with 
following  such  a  scapegrace  as  myself  through  the 

*  It  has  the  peculiarity  of  a  hooked  thorn  alternating  with  the 
straight,  and  it  is  difficult  to  touch  it  without  lacerating  the 
hands.  It  is  the  common  thorn  of  the  east,  and  it  is  supposed 
that  our  Savior's  crown  at  his  crucifixion  was  made  of  it. 


414 


INKLINGS  OF  ADVENTURE. 


world),  to  have  seen  him  in  the  turban  of  a  Hajji  tak- 
ing his  tea  quietly  in  ancient  Lydia.  The  green  tur- 
ban, the  sign  of  the  Hajji,  belonged  more  properly  to 
myself;  for  though  it  was  Job  who  went  bodily  to 
Jerusalem  (leaving  me  ill  of  a  fig-fever  at  Smyrna),  the 
sanctity  of  the  pilgrimage  by  the  Mohammedan  law 
falls  on  him  who  provides  the  pilgrim  with  scallop-shell 
and  sandals,  aptly  figured  forth  in  this  case,  we  will  sup- 
pose, by  the  sixty  American  dollars  paid  by  myself  for 
his  voyage  to  Jaffa  and  back.  The  suridji  was  a 
Hajji,  too,  and  it  was  amusing  to  see  Job,  who  respect- 
ed every  man's  religious  opinions,  and  had  a  little 
vanity  besides  in  sharing  with  the  Turk*  the  dignity  of 
a  pilgrimage  to  the  sacred  city,  washing  his  knees  and 
elbows  at  the  hour  of  prayer,  and  considerately,  but 
very  much  to  his  own  inconvenience,  transferring  the 
ham  of  the  unclean  beast  from  the  Mussulman's  sad- 
dle-bags to  his  own.  It  was  a  delicate  sacrifice  to  a 
pagan's  prejudices  worthy  of  Socrates  or  a  Christian. 

II. 

In  all  simple  states  of  society,  sunset  is  the  hour  of 
better  angels.  The  traveller  in  the  desert  remembers 
his  home — the  sea-tost  boy  his  mother  and  her  last 
words — the  Turk  talks,  for  a  wonder,  and  the  chatter- 
ing Greek  is  silent,  for  the  same — the  Italian  forgets 
his  mustache,  and  hums  la patria — and  the  English- 
man delivers  himself  of  the  society  of  his  companions, 
and  "  takes  a  walk."  It  is  something  in  the  influences 
of  the  hour,  and  I  shall  take  trouble,  some  day.  to 
maintain  that  morn,  noon,  and  midnight,  have  their 
ministry  as  well,  and  exercise  each  an  unobserved  but 
salutary  and  peculiar  office  on  the  feelings. 

We  all  separated  "  after  tea  ;"  the  Suridji  was  off  to. 
find  a  tethering  place  for  his  horses;  the  Englishman 
strolled  away  by  himself  to  a  group  of  the  "  tents  of 
Kedar"  far  down  in  the  valley  with  their  herds  and 
herdsmen  ;  theSmyrniote  merchant  sat  by  the  camel- 
track  at  the  foot  of  the  hill  waiting  for  the  passing  of  a 
caravan;  the  Green-Mountaineer  was  wandering  around 
the  ruins  of  the  apostolic  church;  the  Dutchman  was 
sketching  the  two  Ionic  shafts  of  the  fair  temple  of 
Cybele  ;  and  I,  with  a  passion  for  running  water  which 
I  have  elsewhere  alluded  to,  idled  by  the  green  bank 
of  the  Pactolus,  dreaming  sometimes  of  Gyges  and 
Alexander,  and  sometimes  of  you,  dear  Mary! 

I  passed  Job  on  my  way,  for  the  four  walls  over 
which  the  "  Angel  of  the  Church  of  Sardis"  kept  his 
brooding  watch  in  the  days  of  the  Apocalypse  stand 
not  far  from  the  swelling  bank  of  the  Pactolus,  and 
nearly  in  a  line  between  it  and  the  palace  of  Croesus.  I 
must  say  that  my  heart  almost  stood  still  with  awe  as  I 
stepped  over  the  threshold.  In  the  next  moment,  the 
strong  and  never-wasting  under-current  of  early  reli- 
gious feeling  rushed  back  on  me,  and  I  involuntarily 
uncovered  my  head,  and  felt  myself  stricken  with  the 
spell  of  holy  ground.  My  friend,  who  was  never  with- 
out the  Bible  that  was  his  mother's  parting  gift,  sat  on 
the  end  of  the  broken  wall  of  the  vestibule  with  the 
sacred  volume  open  at  the  Revelation  in  his  hand. 

"  I  think,  Philip,"  said  he,  as  I  stood  looking  at  him 
in  silence,  "  I  think  my  mother  will  have  been  told  by 
an  angel  that  I  am  here." 

He  spoke  with  a  solemnity  that,  spite  of  every  other 
feeling,  seemed  to  me  as  weighty  and  true  as  prophecy. 

"  Listen,  Philip,"  said  he,  "it  will  be  something  to 
tell  your  mother  as  well  as  mine,  that  we  have  read  the 
Apocalypse  together  in  the  Church  of  Sardis." 

I  listened  with  what  I  never  thought  to  have  heard 

*  The  Mussulmans  make  pilgrimages  to  Jerusalem,  and  pray 
at  all  the  places  consecrated  to  our  Savior  and  the  Virein,  ex- 
cept only  the  tomb  of  Christ,  which  they  do  not  acknowledge. 
They  believe  that  Christ  did  not  die,  but  ascended  alive  into 
heaven,  leaving  the  likeness  of  his  face  to  Judas,  who  was 
«ruein>d  for  him. 


in  Asia — my  mother's  voice  loud  at  my  heart,  as  I  had 
heard  it  in  prayer  in  my  childhood  : — 

"  Thou  hast  a  few  names  even  in  Sardis  which  have 
not  defiled  their  garments  ;  and  they  shall  walk  with 
me  in  white:  for  they  are  worthy." 

I  strolled  on.  A  little  farther  up  the  Pactolus  stood 
the  Temple  of  Cybele.  The  church  to  which  "He" 
spoke  "  who  hath  the  seven  spirits  of  God  and  the  seven 
stars,"  was  a  small  and  humble  ruin  of  brick  and  mor- 
tar;  but,  of  the  temple  of  the  Heathen  Mother  of  the 
world,  remained  two  fair  columns  of  marble  with  their 
curiously  carved  capitals,  and  the  earth  around  was 
strewn  with  the  gigantic  frusta  of  an  edifice,  stately 
even  in  the  fragments  of  its  prostration.  I  saw  for  a 
moment  the  religion  of  Jupiter  and  of  Christ  with  the 
eyes  of  Croesus  and  the  philosopher  from  Athens;  and 
then  I  turned  to  the  living  nations  that  I  had  left  to 
wander  among  these  dead  empires,  and  looking  still 
on  the  eloquent  monuments  of  what  these  religions 
were,  thought  of  them  as  they  are,  in  wide-spread 
Christendom. 

We  visit  Rome  and  Athens,  and  walk  over  the  ruined 
temples  of  their  gods  of  wood  and  stone,  and  take  pride 
to  ourselves  that  our  imaginations  awake  the  •'  spirit 
of  the  spot."  But  the  primitive  church  of  Christ,  over 
which  an  angel  of  God  kept  watch — whose  undefiled 
members,  if  there  is  truth  in  Holy  Writ,  are  now 
"  walking  with  him  in  white"  before  the  face  of  the 
Almighty — a  spot  on  which  the  Savior  and  his  apos- 
tles prayed,  and  for  whose  weal,  with  the  other  church- 
es of  Asia,  the  sublime  revelation  was  made  to  John — 
this,  the  while,  is  an  unvisited  shrine,  and  the  "  classic" 
of  pagan  idolatry  is  dearer  to  the  memories  of  men 
than  the  holy  antiquities  of  a  religion  they  profess ! 

III. 

The  Ionic  capitals  of  the  two  fair  columns  of  the 
fallen  temple  were  still  tinged  with  rosy  light  on  the 
side  toward  the  sunset,  when  the  full  moon,  rising 
in  the  east,  burnished  the  other  like  a  shaft  of  sil- 
ver. The  two  lights  mingled  in  the  sky  in  a  twilight 
of  opal. 

"  Job,"  said  I,  stooping  to  reach  a  handful  of  sand 
as  we  strolled  up  the  western  bank  of  the  river,  "  can 
you  resolve  me  why  the  poets  have  chosen  to  call  this 
pretty  stream  the  'golden-sanded  Pactolus?'  Did  you 
ever  see  sand  of  a  duller  gray  ?" 

"As  easy  as  give  you  a  reason,"  answered  Job, 
"  why  we  found  the  turbidus  Hermus,  yesterday,  the 
clearest  stream  we  have  forded — why  1  am  no  more 
beautiful  than  before,  though  I  have  bathed  like  Ve- 
nus in  the  Scamander — why  the  pumice  of  Naxos  no 
longer  reduces  the  female  bust  to  its  virgin  propor- 
tions— and  why  Smyrna  and  Malta  are  not  the  best 
places  for  figs  and  oranges  !" 

"  And  why  the  old  king  of  Lydia,  who  possessed 
the  invisible  ring,  and  kept  a  devil  in  his  dog's  collar, 
lies  quietly  under  the  earth  in  the  plain  below  us,  and 
his  ring  and  his  devil  were  not  bequeathed  to  his  suc- 
cessors. What  a  pleasant  auxiliary  to  sin  must  have 
been  that  invisible  ring  !  Spirit  of  Gyges,  thrust  thy 
finger  out  of  the  earth,  and  commit  it  once  more  to  a 
mortal !  Sit  down,  my  dear  monster,  and  let  us  spec- 
ulate in  this  bright  moonshine  on  the  enormities  we 
would  commit !" 

As  Job  was  proceeding,  in  a  cautious  periphrasis, 
to  rebuke  my  irreverent  familiarity  with  the  prince  of 
darkness  and  his  works,  the  twilight  had  deepened, 
and  my  eye  was  caught  by  a  steady  light  twinkling  far 
above  us  in  the  ascending  bed  of  the  river.  The  green 
valley  wound  down  from  the  rear  of  the  Acropolis,  and 
the  single  frowning  tower  stood  in  broken  and  strong 
relief  against  the  sky  ;  and  from  the  mass  of  shadow  be- 
low peered  out,  like  a  star  from  a  cloud-rack,  the  steady 
blare  of  a  lamp. 


INKLINGS  OF  ADVENTURE. 


415 


"Allons!  Job  !"  said  I,  making  sure  of  an  adven- 
ture, "  let  us  see  for  whose  pleasure  a  lamp  is  lit  in 
the  solitude  of  this  ruined  city." 

"  I  could  not  answer  to  your  honored  mother,"  said 
my  scrupulous  friend,  "  if  I  did  not  remind  you  that 
this  is  a  spot  much  frequented  by  robbers,  and  that 
probably  no  honest  man  harbors  at  that  inconvenient 
altitude." 

I  made  a  leap  over  a  half-buried  frieze  that  had 
served  me  as  a  pillow,  and  commenced  the  ascent. 

"  I  could  as  ill  answer  to  your  anxious  parent,"  said 
Job,  following  with  uncommon  alacrity,  "  if  I  did  not 
partake  your  dangers  when  they  are  inevitable." 

We  scrambled  up  with  some  difficulty  in  the  dark- 
ness, now  rolling  into  an  unseen  hollow,  now  stumbling 
over  a  block  of  marble — held  fast  one  moment  by  the 
lacerating  hooked  thorn  of  Syria,  and  the  next  brought 
to  a  stand-still  by  impenetrable  thickets  of  brushwood. 
With  a  half  hour's  toil,  however,  we  stood  on  a  clear 
platform  of  grass,  panting  and  hot ;  and  as  I  was  sug- 
gesting to  Job  that  we  had  possibly  got  too  high,  he 
laid  his  hand  on  my  arm,  and,  with  a  sign  of  silence, 
drew  me  down  on  the  grass  beside  him. 

In  a  small  fairy  amphitheatre,  half  encircled  by  a 
bend  of  the  Pactolus,  and  lying  a  few  feet  below  the 
small  platform  from  which  we  looked,  lay  six  low  tents, 
disposed  in  a  crescent  opposite  to  that  of  the  stream, 
and  enclosing  a  circular  area  of  bright  and  dewy  grass, 
of  scarce  ten  feet  in  diameter.  The  tents  were  round, 
and  laced  neatly  with  wicker-work,  with  their  curtain- 
doors  opening  inward  upon  the  circle.  In  the  largest 
one,  which  faced  nearly  down  the  valley,  hung  a  small 
iron  lamp  of  an  antique  shape,  with  a  wick  alight  in 
one  of  its  two  projecting  extremities,  and  beneath  it 
swung  a  basket-cradle  suspended  between  two  stakes, 
and  kept  in  motion  by  a  woman  apparently  of  about 
forty,  whose  beauty,  but  for  another  more  attractive 
object,  would  have  rewarded  us  alone  for  our  toil.  The 
other  tents  were  closed  and  seemed  unoccupied,  but  the 
curtain  of  the  one  into  which  our  eyes  were  now  strain- 
ing with  intense  eagerness,  was  looped  entirely  back  to 
give  admission  to  the  cool  night  air;  and,  in  and  out, 
between  the  light  of  the  lamp  and  the  full  moon,  stole 
on  naked  feet  a  girl  of  fifteen,  whose  exquisite  symme- 
try and  unconscious  but  divine  grace  of  movement 
filled  my  sense  of  beauty  as  it  had  never  been  filled  by 
the  divinest  chisel  of  the  Tribune.  She  was  of  the 
height  and  mould  of  the  younger  water-nymph  in 
Gibson's  Hylas,*  with  limbs  and  lips  that,  had  I  cre- 
ated and  warmed  her  to  life  like  Pygmalion,  I  should 
have  just  hesitated  whether  or  not  they  wanted  anoth- 
er half-shade  of  fulness.  The  large  shawl  of  the  east, 
which  was  attached  to  her  girdle,  and  in  more  guard- 
ed hours  concealed  all  but  her  eyes,  hung  in  loose 
folds  from  her  waist  to  her  heels,  leaving  her  bust  and 
smoothly-rounded  shoulders  entirely  bare ;  and,  in 
strong  relief  even  upon  her  clear  brown  skin,  the  flakes 
of  her  glossy  and  raven  hair  floated  over  her  back,  and 
swept  around  her  with  a  grace  of  a  cloud  in  her  indo- 
lent motions.  A  short  petticoat  of  striped  Brusa  silk 
stretched  to  her  knees,  and  below  appeared  the  full 
trowser  of  the  east,  of  the  same  material,  narrowed  at 
the  ankle,  and  bound  with  what  looked  in  the  moon- 
light an  anklet  of  silver.  A  profusion  of  rings  on  her 
fingers,  and  a  gold  sequin  on  her  forehead,  suspended 
from  a  colored  fillet,  completed  her*  dr*»«»,  and  left 
nothing  to  be  added  by  the  prude  or  the  painter.  She 
was  at  that  ravishing  and  divinest  moment  of  female 
life,  when  almost  the  next  hour  would  complete  her 
womanhood — like  the  lotus  ere  it  lays  back  to  ihe 
prying  moonlight  the  snowy  leaf  nearest  its  heart. 

•  A  group  that  will  be  immortal  in  the  love  and  wonder  of 
the  world,  when  the  divine  hand  of  the  English  Praxiteles  has 
long  passed  from  the  earth.  Two  more  exquisite  shapes  of 
women  than  those  lily-crowned  nymphs  never  lay  in  the  womb 
—of  marble  or  human  mother.     Rome  is  brighter  for  them. 


She  was  employed  in  filling  a  large  jar  which  stood 
at  the  back  of  the  tent,  with  water  from  the  Pactolus, 
and  as  she  turned  with  her  empty  pitcher,  and  came 
under  the  full  blaze  of  the  lamp  in  her  way  outward, 
treading  lightly  lest  she  should  disturb  the  slumber  of 
the  child  in  the  cradle,  and  pressing  her  two  round 
hands  closely  to  the  sides  of  the  vessel,  the  gradual 
compression  of  my  arm  by  the  bony  hand  which  still  / 
held  it  for  sympathy,  satisfied  me  that  my  own  leaping 
pulse  of  admiration  found  an  answering  beat  in  the 
bosom  of  my  friend.  A  silent  nod  from  the  woman, 
whose  Greek  profile  was  turned  to  us  under  the  lamp- 
light, informed  the  lovely  water-bearer  that  her  labors 
were  at  an  end  ;  and  with  a  gesture  expressive  of  heat, 
she  drew  out  the  shawl  from  her  girdle,  untied  the 
short  petticoat,  and  threw  them  aside,  and  then  trip- 
ping out  into  the  moonlight  with  only  the  full  silken 
trowsers  from  her  waist  to  her  ankles,  she  sat  down  on 
the  brink  of  the  small  stream,  and  with  her  feet  in  the 
water,  dropped  her  head  on  her  knees,  and  sat  as  mo- 
tionless as  marble. 

"  Gibson  should  see  her  now,"  I  whispered  to  Job, 
"  with  the  glance  of  the  moonlight  on  that  dimpled 
and  polished  back,  and  her  almost  glittering  hair  veil- 
ing about  her  in  such  masses,  like  folds  of  gossamer  !" 

"And  those  slender  fingers  clasped  over  her  knees, 
and  the  air  of  melancholy  repose  which  is  breathed  into 
her  attitude,  and  which  seems  inseparable  from  those 
indolent  Asiatics.     She  is  probably  a  gipsy." 

The  noise  of  the  water  dashing  over  a  small  cascade 
a  little  farther  up  the  stream  had  covered  our  approach 
and  rendered  our  whispers  inaudible.  Job's  conjecture 
was  probably  right,  and  we  had  stumbled  on  a  small 
encampment  of  gipsies — the  men  possibly  asleep  in 
those  closed  tents,  or  possibly  absent  at  Smyrna.  Af- 
ter a  little  consultation,  I  agreed  with  Job  that  it  would 
be  impolitic  to  alarm  the  camp  at  night,  and  resolving 
on  a  visit  in  the  morning,  we  quietly  and  unobserved 
withdrew  from  our  position,  and  descended  to  our  own 
tents  in  the  ruins  of  the  palace. 

IV. 

The  suridji  had  given  us  our  spiced  coffee  in  the 
small  china  cups  and  filagree  holders,  and  we  sat  dis- 
cussing, to  the  great  annoyance  of  the  storks  over  our 
heads,  whether  we  should  loiter  another  day  at  Sardis, 
j  or  eat  melons  at  noon  at  Casabar  on  our  way  to  Con- 
1  stantinople.     To  the  very  great  surprise  of  the  Dutch- 
man, who  wished  to  stay  to  finish  his  drawings,  Job  and 
myself  voted  for  remaining — a  view  of  the  subject  which 
was  in  direct  contradiction  to  our  vote  of  the  preceding 
I  evening.     The  Englishman,  who  was  always  in  a  hur- 
|  ry,  flew  into  a  passion,  and  went  off  with  the  phleg- 
matic suridji  to  look  after  his  horse  ;   and  having  dis- 
posed of  our  Smyrniote,  by  seeing  a  caravan  (which 
was  not  to  be  seen)  coming  southward  from   Mount 
Tmolus,  I  and  my  monster  started  for  the  encamp- 
ment of  the  gipsies. 

As  we  rounded  the  battered  wall  of  the  Christian 
church,  a  woman  stepped  out  from  the  shadow ;  through 
a  tattered  dress,  and  under  a  turban  of  soiled  cotton  set 
far  over  her  forehead,  and  throwing  a  deep  shadow  into 
her  eyes,  I  recognised  at  once  the  gipsy  woman  whom 
we  had  seen  sitting  by  the  cradle. 

"  Buon  giorno,  signori"  she  said,  making  a  kind  of 
salaam,  and  relieving  me  at  once  by  the  Italian  saluta- 
tion of  my  fears  of  being  unintelligible. 

Job  gave  her  the  good-morning,  but  she  looked  at 
him  with  a  very  unsatisfactory  glance,  and  coming 
close  to  my  ear,  she  wished  me  to  speak  to  her  out  of 
the  hearing  of  "il  rnio  domestico .'" 

"Amicopiu  tosfo  /"  I  added  immediately  with  a  con- 
sideration for  Job's  feelings,  which,  I  must  do  myself 
the  justice  to  say,  I  always  manifested,  except  in  very 
elegant  society.     I  gave  myself  the  greater  credit  in 


416 


INKLINGS  OF  ADVENTURE. 


this  case,  as,  in  myimpatience  to  know  the  nature  of 
the  gipsy's  communication,  I  might  be  excused  for 
caring  little  at  the  moment  whether  my  friend  was 
taken  for  a  gentleman  or  a  gentleman's  gentleman. 

The  gipsy  looked  vexed  at  her  mistake,  and  with  a 
half-apologetic  inclination  to  Job,  she  drew  me  into 
the  shade  of  the  ruin,  and  perused  my  face  with  great 
earnestness.  "  The  same  to  yourself,"  thought  I,  as 
I  gave  back  her  glance,  and  searched  for  her  meaning 
in  two  as  liquid  and  loving  eyes  as  ever  looked  out  of 
the  gates  of  the  Prophet's  paradise  for  the  coming  of 
a  young  believer.  It  was  a  face  that  had  been  divine, 
and  in  the  hands  of  a  lady  of  fashion  would  have  still 
made  a  hello  rifacimenlo. 

"  Inglese  ?"  she  said  at  last. 

"  No,  madre — Americano." 

She  looked  disappointed. 

"  And  where  are  you  going,  Jilio  mio  ?" 

"  To  Stamboul." 

"  Benissimo ."'  she  answered,  and  her  face  bright- 
ened.    "  Do  you  want  a  servant  ?" 

"  Unless  it  is  yourself,  no  !" 

•'  It  is  my  son." 

It  was  on  my  lips  to  ask  if  he  was  like  her  daughter, 
but  an  air  of  uneasiness  and  mystery  in  her  manner  put 
me  on  the  reserve,  and  I  kept  my  knowledge  to  myself. 
She  persevered  in  her  suit,  and  at  last  the  truth  came 
out,  thai  her  boy  was  bound  on  an  errand  to  Constan- 
tinople, and  she  wished  safe  conduct  for  him.  The 
rest  of  the  troop,  she  said,  were  at  Smyrna,  and  she 
was  left  in  care  of  the  tents  with  the  boy  and  an  infant 
child.  As  she  did  not  mention  the  girl,  who,  from  the 
resemblance,  was  evidently  her  daughter — I  thought  it 
unwise  to  allude  to  our  discovery  :  and  promising  that, 
if  the  boy  was  mounted,  every  possible  care  should  be 
taken  of  him?  I  told  her  the  hour  on  the  following 
morning  when  we  should  be  in  the  saddle,  and  rid  my- 
self of  her  with  the  intention  of  stealing  a  march  on 
the  camp. 

I  took  rather  a  circuitous  route,  but  the  gipsy  was 
there  before  me,  and  apparently  alone.  She  had  sent 
the  boy  to  the  plains  for  a  horse,  and  though  I  pre- 
sumed that  the  loveliest  creature  in  Asia  was  concealed 
in  one  or  the  other  of  those  small  tents,  the  curtains 
were  closely  tied,  and  I  could  find  no  apology  for  in- 
truding either  my  eyes  or  my  inquiries.  The  hand- 
some Zingara,  too,  began  to  look  rather  becomingly 
jiere  ;  and  as  I  had  left  Job  behind,  and  was  always 
naturally  afraid  of  a  woman,  I  reluctantly  felt  myself 
under  the  necessity  of  comprehending  her  last  injunc- 
tion, and  with  a  promise  that  the  boy  should  join  us 
before  we  reached  the  foot  of  Mount  Sypilus,  she  fair- 
ly bowed  me  oft' the  premises.  I  could  have  forsworn 
my  complexion  and  studied  palmistry  for  a  gipsy,  had 
the  devil  then  tempted  me  ! 


We  struck  our  tents  at  sunrise,  and  were  soon  dash- 
ing on  through  the  oleanders  upon  the  broad  plain  of 
the  Hermus,  the  dew  lying  upon  their  bright  vermeil 
flowers  like  the  pellucid  gum  on  the  petals  of  the  ice- 
plant,  and  nature,  and  my  five  companions,  in  their 
gayest  humor.  I  was'  not.  My  thoughts  were  of 
moonlight  and  the  Pactolus,  and  two  round  feet 
ankle-deep  in  running  water.  Job  rode  up  to  my 
side. 

"  My  dear  Phil !  take  notice  that  you  are  nearing 
Mount  Sypilus,  in  which  the  magnetic  ore  was  first 
discovered." 

"  It  acts  negatively  on  me,  my  dear  chum  !  for  I 
drag  a  lengthening  chain  from  the  other  direction." 

Silence  once  more,  and  the  bright  red  flowers  still 
fled  backward  in  our  career.     Job  rode  up  again. 

"  You  must  excuse  my  interrupting  your  revery,but 
I  thought  you  would  like  to  know  that  the  town  where 


we  sleep  to-night  is  the  residence  of  the  '  beys  of  Og- 
lou,'  mentioned  in  the  '  Bride  of  Abydos.'  " 

No  answer,  and  the  bright  red  blossoms  still  flew 
scattered  in  our  path  as  our  steeds  flew  through  the 
coppice,  and  the  shovel-like  blades  of  the  Turkish  stir- 
rups cut  into  them  right  and  left  in  the  irregular  gallop. 
Job  rode  again  to  my  side. 

"  My  dear  Philip,  did  you  know  that  this  town  of 
Magnesia  was  once  the  capital  of  the  Turkish  empire — 
the  city  of  Timour  the  Tartar  ?" 

"Well!" 

"And  did  you  know  that  when  Themistocles  was 
in  exile,  and  Artaxerxes  presented  him  with  the  tribute 
of  three  cities  to  provide  the  necessaries  of  life,  Mag- 
nesia* found  him  in  bread?" 

"And  Lampascus  in  wine.     Don't  bore  me,  Job!" 

We  sped  on.  As  we  neared  Casabar  toward  noon, 
and  (spite  of  romance)  I  was  beginning  to  think  with 
complacency  upon  the  melons,  for  which  the  town  is 
famous,  a  rattling  of  hoofs  behind  put  our  horses  upon 
their  mettle,  and  in  another  moment  a  boy  dashed  into 
the  midst  of  our  troop,  and  reining  up  with  a  fine  dis- 
play of  horsemanship,  put  the  promised  token  into 
my  hand.  He  was  mounted  on  a  small  Arabian  mare, 
remarkable  for  nothing  but  a  thin  and  fiery  nostril, 
and  a  most  lavish  action,  and  his  jacket  and  turban 
were  fitted  to  a  shape  and  head  that  could  not  well 
be  disguised.  The  beauty  of  the  gipsy  camp  was 
beside  me ! 

It  was  as  well  for  my  self-command,  that  I  had 
sworn  Job  to  secrecy  in  case  of  the  boy's  joining  us, 
and  that  I  had  given  the  elder  gipsy,  as  a  token,  a  very 
voluminous  and  closely-written  letter  of  my  mother's. 
In  the  twenty  minutes  which  the  reading  of  so  appa- 
rently "lengthy"  a  document  would  occupy,  I  had 
leisure  to  resume  my  self-control,  and  resolve  on  my 
own  course  of  conduct  toward  the  fair  masquerader. 
My  travelling  companions  were  not  a  little  astonished 
to  see  me  receive  a  letter  by  courier  in  the  heart  of 
Asia,  but  that  was  for  their  own  digestion.  All  the 
information  I  condescended  to  give,  was  that  the  boy 
was  sent  to  my  charge  on  his  road  to  Constantinople; 
and  as  Job  displayed  no  astonishment,  and  entered 
simply  into  my  arrangements,  and  I  was  the  only  per- 
son in  the  company  who  could  communicate  with  the 
suridji  (I  had  picked  up  a  little  modern  Greek  in  the 
Morea),  they  were  compelled  (the  Dutchman,  John 
Bull,  and  the  fig-merchant)  to  content  themselves 
with  such  theories  on  the  subject  as  Heaven  might 
supply  them  withal. 

How  Job  and  I  speculated  apart  on  what  could  be 
the  errand  of  this  fair  creature  to  Constantinople — 
how  beautifully  she  rode  and  sustained  her  character 
as  a  boy — how  I  requested  her,  though  she  spoke 
Italian  like  her  mother,  never  to  open  her  lips  in  any 
Christian  language  to  my  companions — how  she  slept 
at  my  feet  at  the  khans,  and  rode  at  my  side  on  the 
journey,  and,  at  the  end  of  seven  days,  arriving  at 
Scutari,  and  beholding  across  the  Bosphorus  the  golden 
spires  of  Stamboul,  how  she  looked  at  me  with  tears 
in  her  unfathomable  eyes,  and  spurred  her  fleet  Arab 
to  his  speed  to  conceal  her  emotion,  and  how  1  felt 
that  I  could  bury  myself  with  her  in  the  vizier's 
tomb  we  were  passing  at  the  moment,  and  be  fed  on 
rice  with  a  goule's  bodkin,  if  so  alone  we  might  not 
be  parted-  -all  these  are  matters  which  would  make 
sundry  respectable  chapters  in  a  novel,  but  of  which 
you  are  spared  the  particulars  in  a  true  story.  There 
was  a  convenience  both  to  the  dramatist  and  the  au- 
dience in  the  "cetera  inlus  agentur"  of  the  Romans. 

VI. 

We  emerged  from  the  pinnacled  cypresses  of  the 
cemetery  overlooking  Constantinople,  and  dismount- 

*  Not  pronounced  as  in  the  apothecary's  shop.  It  is  a  fine 
large  town  at  th*»  foot  of  Mount  Sypilus 


INKLINGS  OF  ADVENTURE. 


417 


ing  from  my  horse,  I  climbed  upon  the  gilded  turban 
crowning  the  mausoleum  of  a  royal  Ichoglan  (a  sul- 
tan's page,  honored  more  in  his  burial  than  in  his  life), 
and  feasted  my  eyes  on  the  desecrated  but  princely 
fair  birth-right  of  the  Pakeologi.  The  Nekropolis — 
the  city  of  the  dead — on  the  outermost  tomb  of  whose 
gloomy  precincts  I  had  profanely  mounted,  stands 
high  and  black  over  the  Bosphorus  on  one  side,  while 
on  the  other,  upon  similar  eminences,  stand  the  gleam- 
ing minarets  and  latticed  gardens  of  the  matchless  city 
of  the  living — as  if,  while  Europe  flung  up  her  laugh- 
ing and  breathing  child  to  the  sun,  expiring  Asia,  the 
bereaved  emperess  of  the  world,  lifted  her  head  to  the 
same  heavens  in  majestic  and  speechless  sorrow. 

But  oh !  how  fairer  than  Venice  in  her  waters — 
than  Florence  and  Rome  in  their  hills  and  habitations, 
than  all  the  cities  of  the  world  in  that  which  is  most 
their  pride  and  glory — is  this  fairest  metropolis  of  the 
Mahomets !  With  its  two  hundred  mosques,  each 
with  a  golden  sheaf  of  minarets  laying  their  pointed 
fingers  against  the  stars,  and  encircled  with  the  fretted 
galleries  of  the  callers  to  prayer,  like  the  hand  of  a 
cardinal  with  its  costly  ring — with  its  seraglio  gardens 
washed  on  one  side  by  the  sea,  and  on  the  other  by  the 
gentle  stream  that  glides  out  of  the  "Valley  of  Sweet 
Waters;"  men-of-war  on  one  side,  flaunting  their  red 
pennants  over  the  nightingale's  nest  which  sings  for 
the  delight  of  a  princess,  and  the  swift  caique  on  the 
other  gliding  in  protected  waters,  where  the  same  im- 
prisoned fair  one  might  fling  into  it  a  flower  (so  slen- 
der is  the  dividing  cape  that  shuts  in  the  bay) — with 
its  Bosphorus,  its  radiant  and  unmatched  Bosphorus — 
the  most  richly-gemmed  river  within  the  span  of  the 
sun,  extending  with  its  fringe  of  palaces  and  castles 
from  sea  to  sea,  and  reflecting  in  its  glassy  eddies  a 
pomp  and  sumptuousness  of  costume  and  architecture 
which  exceeds  even  your  boyish  dreams  of  Bagdad 
and  the  califs — Constantinople,  I  say,  with  its  tur- 
baned  and  bright-garmented  population — its  swarm- 
ing sea  and  rivers — its  columns,  and  aqueducts,  and 
strange  ships  of  the  east — is  impenetrable  seraglio, 
and  its  close-shuttered  harems — its  bezestein  and  its 
Hippodrome — Constantinople  lay  before  me  !  If  the 
star  I  had  worshipped  had  descended  to  my  hand  out 
of  the  sky — if  my  unapproachable  and  yearning  dream 
of  woman's  beauty  had  been  bodied  forth  warm  and 
real — if  the  missing  star  in  the  heel  of  Serpentarius, 
and  the  lost  sister  of  the  Pleiades  had  waltzed  back 
together  to  their  places — if  poets  were  once  more 
prophets,  not  felons,  and  books  were  read  for  the  good 
that  is  in  them,  not  for  the  evil — if  love  and  truth  had 
been  seen  again,  or  any  impossible  or  improbable  thing 
had  come  to  pass — I  should  not  have  felt  more  thril- 
lingly  than  now  the  emotions  of  surprise  and  wonder! 

While  I  stood  upon  the  marble  turban  of  the  Icho- 
glan, my  companions  had  descended  the  streets  of 
Scutari,  and  I  was  left  alone  with  the  gipsy.  She  sat 
on  her  Arab  with  her  head  bowed  to  his  neck,  and 
when  I  withdrew  my  eye  from  the  scene  I  have  faintly 
described,  the  tear-drops  were  glistening  in  the  flow- 
ing mane,  and  her  breast  was  heaving  under  her  em- 
broidered jacket  with  uncontrollable  grief.  I  jumped 
to  the  ground,  and  taking  her  head  between  my  hands, 
pressed  her  wet  cheek  to  my  lips. 

"We  part  here,  signor,"  said  she,  winding  around 
her  head  the  masses  of  hair  that  had  escaped  from 
her  turban,  and  raising  herself  in  the  saddle  as  if  to 
go  on. 

"  I  hope  not,  Maimuna!" 

She  bent  her  moist  eyes  on  me  with  a  look  or  ear- 
nest inquiry. 

"  You  are  forbidden  to  intrust  me  with  your  errand 
to  Constantinople,  and  you  have  kept  your  word  to 
your  mother.  But  whatever  that  errand  may  be,  I 
hope  it  does  not  involve  your  personal  liberty  ?" 

She  looked  embarrassed,  hut  did  not  answer. 
27 


"You  are  very  young  to  be  trusted  so  far  from  your 
mother,  Maimuna!" 

"Signor,  si!" 

"But  I  think  she  can  scarce  have  loved  you  so  well 
as  I  do  to  have  suffered  you  to  come  here  alone !" 

"  She  intrusted  me  to  you,  signor." 

I  was  well  reminded  of  my  promise.  I  had  given 
my  word  to  the  gipsy  that  I  would  leave  her  child  at 
the  Persian  fountain  of  Tophana.  Maimuna  was 
evidently  under  a  control  stronger  than  the  love  I  half- 
hoped  and  half-feared  I  had  awakened. 

"  Andiamo!"  she  said,  dropping  her  head  upon  her 
bosom  with  the  tears  pouring  once  more  over  it  like 
rain ;  and  driving  her  stirrups  with  abandoned  energy 
into  the  sides  of  her  Arabian,  she  dashed  headlong 
down  the  uneven  streets  of  Scutari,  and  in  a  few  min- 
utes we  stood  on  the  limit  of  Asia. 

We  left  our  horses  in  the  "silver  city,"*  crossing  to 
the  "golden"  in  a  caique,  and  with  Maimuna  in  my 
bosom,  and  every  contending  emotion  at  work  in  my 
heart,  the  scene  about  me  still  made  an  indelible  im- 
pression on  my  memory.  The  star-shaped  bay,  a 
mile  perhaps  in  diameter,  was  one  swarm  of  boats  of 
every  most  slender  and  graceful  form,  the  caikjis,  in 
their  silken  shirts,  and  vari-colored  turbans,  driving 
them  through  the  water  with  a  speed  and  skill  which 
put  to  shame  the  gondolier  of  Venice,  and  almost  the 
Indian  in  his  canoe;  the  gilded  lattices  and  belvideres 
of  the  seraglio,  and  the  cypresses  and  flowering  trees 
that  mingle  their  gay  and  sad  foliage  above  them, 
were  already  so  near  that  I  could  count  the  roses  upon 
the  bars,  and  see  the  moving  of  the  trees  in  the  evening 
wind;  the  muezzins  were  calling  to  sunset-prayer, 
their  voices  coming  clear  and  prolonged  over  the 
water;  the  men-of-war  in  the  mouth  of  the  Bosphorus 
were  lowering  their  blood-red  flags;  the  shore  we 
were  approaching  was  thronged  with  veiled  women, 
and  bearded  old  men,  and  boys  with  the  yellow  slipper 
and  red  scull-cap  of  the  east;  and  watching  our  ap- 
proach, stood  apart,  a  group  of  Jews  and  Armenians, 
marked  by  their  costume  for  an  inferior  race,  but  look- 
ing to  my  cosmopolite  eye  as  noble  in  their  black 
robes  and  towering  caps  as  the  haughty  Mussulman 
that  stood  aloof  from  their  company. 

We  set  foot  in  Constantinople.  It  was  the  suburb 
of  Tophana,  and  the  suridji  pointed  out  to  Maimuna, 
as  we  landed,  a  fountain  of  inlaid  marble  and  brass, 
around  whose  projecting  frieze  were  traced  inscrip- 
tions in  the  Persian.     She  sprang  to  my  hand. 

"Remember,  Maimuna!"  I  said,  "that  I  offer  you 
a  mother  and  a  home  in  another  and  a  happier  land. 
I  will  not  interfere  with  your  duty,  but  when  your 
errand  is  done,  you  may  find  me  if"  you  will.  Fare- 
well." 

With  a  passionate  kiss  in  the  palm  of  my  hand,  and 
one  beaming  look  of  love  and  sorrow  in  her  large  and 
lustrous  eyes,  the  gipsy  turned  to  the  fountain,  and 
striking  suddenly  to  the  left  around  the  mosque  of 
Sultan  Selim,  she  plunged  into  the  narrow  street  run- 
ning along  the  water-side  to  Galata. 

VII. 

We  had  wandered  out  from  our  semi-European, 
semi-Turkish  lodgings  on  the  third  morning  after  our 
arrival  at  Constantinople,  and  picking  our  way  list- 
lessly over  the  bad  pavement  of  the  suburb  of  Pera, 
stood  at  last  in  the  small  burying-ground  at  the  sum- 
mit of  the  hill,  disputing  amicably  upon  what  quarter 
of  the  fair  city  beneath  us  we  should  bestow  our  share 
in  the  bliss  of  that  June  morning. 

"It  is  a  heavenly  day,"  said  Job,  sitting  down  un- 
thinkingly upon  a  large  sculptured  turban  that  formed 

*  Galata,  the  suburb  on  the  European  side,  was  the  Chrysop. 
olis,  and  Scutari,  on  the  Asian,  the  Argentopolis  of  the  an- 
cients. 


418 


INKLINGS  OF  ADVENTURE. 


the  head-stone  to  the  grave  of  some  once-wealthy 
pagan,  and  looking  off  wistfully  toward  the  green  sum- 
mit of  Bulgurlu. 

The  difference  between  Job  and  myself  was  a  mania, 
on  his  part  for  green  fields,  and  on  mine  for  human 
faces.  I  knew  very  well  that  his  remark  was  a  leader 
to  some  proposition  for  a  stroll  over  the  wilder  hills  of 
the  Bosphorus,  and  I  was  determined  that  he  should 
enjoy,  instead,  the  pleasure  of  sympathy  in  my  never- 
tiring  amusement  of  wandering  in  the  crowded  bazars 
on  the  other  side  of  the  water.  The  only  way  to  ac- 
complish it,  was  to  appear  to  yield  the  point,  and  then 
rally  upon  his  generosity.  I  had  that  delicacy  for  his 
feelings  (I  had  brought  him  all  the  way  from  the  Green 
mountains  at  my  own  expense)  never  to  carry  my 
measures  too  ostentatiously. 

Job  was  looking  south,  and  my  face  was  as  resolute- 
ly turned  north.  "We  must  take  a  caique  in  any  case 
at  Galata  (lying  just  below  us)  but  if  we  turned  the 
prow  south  in  the  first  instance,  farewell  at  every 
stroke  to  the  city  !  Whereas  a  northern  course  took 
us  straight  up  the  Golden  Horn,  and  I  could  appear  to 
change  my  mind  at  any  moment,  and  land  immediate- 
ly in  a  street  leading  to  the  bazars.  Luckily,  while 
I  was  devising  an  errand  to  go  up  the  channel  instead 
of  down,  a  small  red  flag  appeared  gliding  through  the 
forest  of  masts  around  the  curve  of  the  water-side  at 
Tophana,  and,  in  a  moment  more,  a  high-pooped 
vessel;  with  the  carved  railings  and  outlandish  rigging 
of  the  ships  from  the  far  east,  shot  out  into  the 
middle  of  the  bay  with  the  strong  current  of  the 
Bosphorus,  and  squaring  her  lateen  sail,  she  rounded 
a  vessel  lying  at  anchor  with  the  flag  of  Palestine,  and 
steered  with  a  fair  wind  up  the  channel  of  the  Golden 
Horn.  A  second  look  at  her  deck  disclosed  to  me  a 
crowd  of  people,  mostly  women,  standing  amid-ships, 
and  the  supposition  with  which  I  was  about  inducing 
Job  to  take  a  caique  and  pull  up  the  harbor  after  her 
seemed  to  me  now  almost  a  certainty. 

"  It  is  a  slave-ship  from  Trebizond,  ten  to  one,  my 
dear  Job  !" 

He  slid  off  the  marble  turban  which  he  had  pro- 
faned so  unscrupulously,  and  the  next  minute  we 
passed  the  gate  that  divides  the  European  from  the 
commercial  suburb,  and  were  plunging  down  the  steep 
and  narrow  straits  of  Galata  with  a  haste  that,  to  the 
slippered  and  shuffling  Turks  we  met  or  left  behind, 
seemed  propably  little  short  of  madness.  Of  a  hun- 
dred slender  and  tossing  caiques  lying  in  the  disturbed 
waters  of  the  bay,  we  selected  the  slenderest  and  best 
manned  ;  and  getting  Job  in  with  the  usual  imminent 
danger  of  driving  his  long  lea;s  through  the  bottom  of 
the  egg-shell  craft,  we  took  in  one  of  the  obsequious 
Jews  who  swarm  about  the  pier  as  interpreters,  coiled 
our  legs  under  us  in  the  hollow  womb  of  the  caique, 
and  shot  away  like  a  nautilus  after  the  slaver. 

The  deep-lying  river  that  coils  around  the  throbbing 
heart  of  Constantinople  is  a  place  of  as  delicate  navi- 
gation as  a  Venetian  lagoon  on  a  festa,  or  a  soiree  of 
middling  authors.  The  Turk,  like  your  plain-spoken 
friend,  rows  backward,  and  with  ten  thousand  egg- 
shells swarming  about  him  in  every  direction,  and  his 
own  prow  rounded  off  in  a  pretty  iron  point,  an  extra 
piastre  for  speed  draws  down  curses  on  the  caikji  and 
the  Christian  dogs  who  pay  him  for  the  holes  he  lets 
into  his  neighbors'  boats,  which  is  only  equalled  in  bit- 
terness and  profusion  by  the  execrations  which  follow 
what  is  called  "speaking  your  mind."  The  Jew 
laughed,  as  Jews  do  since  Shylock,  at  the  misfortunes 
of  his  oppressors  ;  and,  in  the  exercise  of  his  vocation, 
translated  us  the  oaths  as  they  came  in  right  and  left 
— most  of  them  very  gratuitous  attacks  on  those  (as 
Job  gravely  remarked),  of  whom  they  could  know  very 
little — our  respected  mothers. 

The  slackening  vessel  lost  her  way  as  she  got  oppo- 
site the  bazar  of  dried  fruits,  and,  as  her  yards  came 


down  by  the  run,  she  put  up  her  helm,  and  ran  her 
towering  prow  between  a  piratical-looking  Egyptian 
craft,  and  a  black  and  bluff  English  collier,  inscribed 
appropriately  on  the  stern  as  the  "  snow-drop"  from 
Newcastle.  Down  plumped  her  anchor,  and  in  the 
next  moment  the  Jew  hailed  her  by  our  orders,  and 
my  conjecture  was  proved  to  be  right.  She  was  from 
Trebizond,  with  slaves  and  spices. 

"  What  would  they  do  if  we  were  to  climb  up  her 
side  ?"  I  asked  the  Israelite. 

He  stretched  up  his  crouching  neck  till  his  twisted 
beard  hung  clear  off  like  a  waterfall  from  his  chin,  and 
looked  through  the  carved  railing  very  intently. 

"  The  slaves  are  Georgians,"  he  answered,  after 
awhile,  "and  if  there  were  no  Turkish  purchasers  on 
board,  they  might  simply  order  you  down  again." 

"  And  if  there  were " 

"  The  women  would  be  considered  damaged  by  a 
Christian  eye,  and  the  slave  merchant  might  shoot  you 
or  pitch  you  overboard." 

"Is  that  all?"  said  Job,  evolving  his  length  very 
deliberately  from  his  coil,  and  offering  me  a  hand  the 
next  moment  from  the  deck  of  the  slaver.  Whether 
the  precedence  he  took  in  all  dangers  arose  from  affec- 
tion for  me,  or  from  a  praiseworthy  indifference  to  the 
fate  of  such  a  trumpery  collection  as  his  own  body 
and  limbs,  I  have  never  decided  to  my  own  satisfac- 
tion. 

In  the  confusion  of  port-officers  and  boats  alongside, 
all  hailing  and  crying  out  together,  we  stood  on  the 
outer  side  of  the  deck  unobserved,  and  I  was  soon  in- 
tently occupied  in  watching  the  surprise  and  wonder 
of  the  pretty  toys  who  found  themselves  for  the  first 
time  in  the  heart  of  a  great  city.  The  owner  of  their 
charms,  whichever  of  a  dozen  villanous  Turks  I  saw 
about  them  it  might  be,  had  no  time  to  pay  them  very 
particular  attention,  and  dropping  their  dirty  veils 
about  their  shoulders,  they  stood  open-mouthed  and 
staring — ten  or  twelve  rosy  damsels  in  their  teens,  with 
eyes  as  deep  as  a  well,  and  almost  as  large  and  liquid. 
Their  features  were  all  good,  their  skins  without  a 
flaw,  hair  abundant,  and  figures  of  a  healthy  plump- 
ness— looking,  with  the  exception  of  their  eyes,  which 
were  very  oriental  and  magnificent,  like  the  great,  fat, 
pie-eating,  yawning,  boarding-school  misses  one  sees 
over  a  hedge  at  Hampstead.  It  was  delicious  to  see 
their  excessive  astonishment  at  the  splendors  of  the 
Golden  Horn — they  from  the  desert  mountains  of 
Georgia  or  Circassia,  and  the  scene  about  them 
(mosques,  minarets,  people,  and  men-of-war,  all  to- 
gether), probably  the  most  brilliant  and  striking  in  the 
world.  I  was  busy  following  their  eyes  and  trying  to 
divine  their  impressions,  when  Job  seized  me  by  the 
arm.  An  old  Turk  had  just  entered  the  vessel  from 
the  land-side,  and  was  assisting  a  closely-veiled  female 
to  mount  after  him.  Half  a  glance  satisfied  me  that  it 
was  the  Gipsy  of  Sardis — the  lovely  companion  of  our 
journey  to  Constantinople. 

"  Maimuna !"  I  exclaimed,  darting  forward  on  the 
instant. 

A  heavy  hand  struck  me  back  as  I  touched  her,  and 
as  I  returned  the  blow,  the  swarthy  crew  of  Arabs 
closed  about  us,  and  we  were  hurried  with  a  most  un- 
ceremonious haste  to  the  side  of  the  vessel.  I  scarce 
know,  between  my  indignation  and  the  stunning  effect 
of  the  blow  I  had  received,  how  I  got  into  the  caique, 
but  we  were  pulling  fast  up  the  Golden  Horn  by  the 
time  I  could  speak,  and  in  half  an  hour  were  set  ashore 
on  the  green  bank  of  the  Barbyses,  bound  on  a  solita- 
ry ramble  up  the  valley  of  Sweet  Waters. 

VIII. 

The  art  of  printing  was  introduced  into  the  Mo- 
hammedan empire  in  the  reigns  of  Achmet  III.  and 
Louis  XV.     I  seldom  state  a  statistical  fact,  but  this 


INKLINGS  OF  ADVENTURE. 


419 


ia  one  I  happen  to  know,  and  I  mention  it  because  the 
most  fanciful  and  romantic  abode  with  which  I  am  ac- 
quainted in  the  world  was  originally  built  to  contain 
the  first  printing-press  brought  from  the  court  of  Ver- 
sailles by  Mehemet  Effendi,  ambassador  from  the 
"Brother  of  the  Sun."  It  is  now  a  maison  de plais- 
ancc  for  the  sultan's  favorite  women,  and  in  all  the 
dreams  of  perfect  felicity  which  visit  those  who  have 
once  seen  it,  it  rises  as  the  Paradise  of  retreats  from 
the  world. 

The  serai  of  Khyat-Khana  is  a  building  of  gold  and  j 
marble,    dropped   down   unfenced   upon    the    green-  j 
sward  in  the  middle  of  a  long  emerald  valley,  more 
like  some  fairy  vision,  conjured  and  forgotten  to   be  ! 
dissolved,  than  a  house  to  live  in,  real  weather-proof,  j 
and  to  be  seen  for  the  value  of  one  and  sixpence.     The  [ 
Barbyses   falls  over  the  lip  of  a  sea-shell  (a  marble 
cascade  sculptured  in  that  pretty  device),  sending  up 
its  spray  and  its  perpetual  music  close  under  the  gilded 
lattice  of  the  sultana,  and  following  it  back  with  the 
eye,  like  a  silver  thread  in  a  broidery  of  green  velvet, 
it  comes  stealing  down  through  miles  of  the  tenderest 
verdure,  without  tree  or  shrub  upon  its  borders,  but 
shut  in  with  the  seclusion  of  an  enchanted  stream  and  I 
valley   by  mountains  which  rise  in  abrupt  precipices 
from  the  edges  of  its  carpet  of  grass,  and  fling  their 
irregular  shadows  across  it  at  every  hour  save  high 
noon— sacred  in  the  east  to  the  sleep  of  beauty  and 
idleness. 

\n  the  loving  month  of  May  it  is  death  to  set  foot  in 
the  Khyat-Khana.  The  ascending  caique  is  Stopped 
in  the  Golden  Horn,  and  on  the  point  of  every  hill  is 
stationed  a  mounted  eunuch  with  drawn  sabre.  The 
Arab  steeds  of  the  sultan  are  picketed  on  the  low-ly- 
ing grass  of  the  valley,  and  his  hundred  Circassians 
come  from  their  perfumed  chambers  in  the  seraglio, 
and  sun  their  untold  loveliness  on  the  velvet  banks  of 
the  Barbyses.  From  the  Golden  Horn  to  Belgrade, 
twelve  miles  of  greensward  (sheltered  like  a  vein  of 
ore  in  the  bosom  of  the  earth,  and  winding  away  after 
the  course  of  that  pebbly  river,  unseen,  save  by  the 
eye  of  the  sun  and  stars),  are  sacred  in  this  passion- 
born  month  from  the  foot  of  man,  and,  riding  in  their 
scarlet  arubas  with  the  many-colored  ribands  floating 
back  from  the  horns  of  their  bullocks,  and  their  own 
snowy  veils  dropped  from  their  guarded  shoulders  and 
deep-dyed  lips,  wander,  from  sunrise  to  sunset,  these 
caged  birds  of  a  sultan's  delight,  longing  as  wildly 
(who  shall  doubt?)  to  pass  that  guarded  barrier  into 
the  forbidden  world,  as  we,  who  sigh  for  them  without,  j 
to  fly  from  falsehood  and  wrong,  and  forget  that  same 
world  in  their  bosoms! 

How  few  are  content !  How  restless  are  even  the 
most  spoiled  children  of  fortune  !  How  inevitably 
the  heart  sighs  for  that  which  it  has  not,  even  though 
its  only  want  is  a  cloud  on  its  perpetual  sunshine ! 
We  were  not  of  those — Job  and  I — for  we  were  of 
that  school  of  philosophers*  who  "had  little  and 
wanted  nothing  ;"  but  we  agreed,  as  we  sat  upon  the 
marble  bridge  sprung  like  a  wind-lifted  cobweb  over 
the  Barbyses,  that  the  envy  of  a  human  heart  would 
poison  even  the  content  of  a  beggar !  He  is  a  fool 
who  is  sheltered  from  hunger  and  cold  and  still  com- 
plains of  fortune ;  but  he  is  only  not  a  slave  or  a  seraph, 
who  feeling  on  the  innermost  fibre  of  his  sensibility  the 
icy  breath  of  malice,  utters  his  eternal  malison  on  the  j 
fiend  who  can  neither  be  grappled  with  nor  avoided.  ' 
I  could  make  a  paradise  with  loveliness  and  sunshine, 
if  envy  could  be  forbidden  at  the  gate  ! 

We  had  walked  around  the  Serai  and  tried  all  its 
entrances  in  vain,  when  Job  spied,  under  the  shelter 
of  the  southern  hill,  a  blood-red  flag  flying  at  the  top 
of  a  small  tent  of  the  Prophet's  green — doubtless  con- 
cealing the  kervas,  who  kept  his  lonely  guard  over  the 

#  With  a  difference  "  Nihil  est,  nihil  deest,"  was  their 
motto. 


precincts.  I  sent  my  friend  with  a  "  pinch  of  piastres" 
to  tempt  the  trowsered  infidel  to  our  will,  and  he  soon 
came  shuffling  in  his  unmilitary  slippers,  with  keys, 
which,  the  month  before,  were  guarded  like  the  lamp 
of  Aladdin.  We  entered.  We  rambled  over  the 
chambers  of  the  chosen  houries  of  the  east ;  we  looked 
through  their  lattices,  and  laid  the  palms  of  our  hands 
on  the  silken  cushions  dimmed  in  oval  spots  by  the 
moisture  of  their  cheeks  as  they  slept ;  we  could  see  by 
the  tarnished  gold,  breast-high  at  the  windows,  where 
they  had  pressed  to  the  slender  lattices  to  look  forth 
upon  the  valley  ;  and  Job,  more  watchfully  alive  to 
the  thrilling  traces  of  beauty,  showed  me  in  the  dia- 
mond-shaped bars  the  marks  of  their  moist  fingers  and 
the  stain  as  of  lips  between,  betraying  where  they  had 
clung  and  laid  their  faces  against  the  trellis  in  the 
indoient  attitude  of  gazers  from  a  wearisome  prison. 
Mirrors  and  ottomans  were  the  only  furniture  ;  and 
never,  for  me,  would  the  wand  of  Cornelius  Agrippa 
have  been  more  welcome,  than  to  wave  back  into 
those  senseless  mirrors  the  images  of  beauty  they  had 
lost. 

I  sat  down  on  a  raised  corner  of  the  divan,  probably 
the  privileged  seat  of  the  favorite  of  the  hour.  Job 
stood  with  his  lips  apart,  brooding  in  speechless  poeti- 
calness  on  his  own  thoughts. 

"  Do  you  think,  after  all,"  said  I,  reverting  to  the 
matter-of-fact  vein  of  my  own  mind,  which  was  para- 
mount usually  to  the  romantic — "  do  you  think  really, 
Job,  that  the  Zuleikas  and  Fatimas  who  have  by  turns 
pressed  this  silken  cushion  with  their  crossed  feet 
were  not  probably  inferior  in  attraction  to  the  most 
third-rate  belle  of  New  England  ?  How  long  would 
you  love  a  woman  that  could  neither  read,  nor  write, 
nor  think  five  minutes  on  any  given  theme  ?  The  ut- 
most exertion  of  intellect  in  the  loveliest  of  these  deep- 
eyed  Circassians  is  probably  the  language  of  flowers  ; 
and,  good  Heavens  !  think  how  one  of  your  della 
Cruscan  sentiments  would  be  lost  upon  her  !  And  yet, 
here  you  are,  ready  to  go  mad  with  romantic  fan- 
cies about  women  that  were  never  taught  even  their 
letters." 

Job  began  to  hum  a  stave  of  his  favorite  song,  which 
was  always  a  sign  that  he  was  vexed  and  disenchanted 
of  himself. 

"  How  little  women  think,"  said  I,  proceeding  with 
my  unsentimental  vein,  while  Job  looked  out  of  the 
window,  and  the  kervas  smoked  his  pipe  on  the  sul- 
tana's ottoman — "  how  little  women  think  that  the 
birch  and  the  dark  closet,  and  the  thumbed  and  dog- 
eared spelling-book  (or  whatever  else  more  refined  tor- 
ments their  tender  years  in  the  shape  of  education), 
was,  after  all,  the  groundwork  and  secret  of  their  fas- 
cination over  men  !  What  a  process  it  is  to  arrive  at 
love!  '  D-o-g,  dog — c-a-t,  catP  If  you  had  not 
learned  this,  bright  Lady  Melicent,  I  fear  Captain 
Augustus  Fitz-Somerset  would  never  have  sat.  as  1 
saw  him  last  night,  cutting  your  initials  with  a  dia- 
mond ring  on  the  purple-claret  glass  which  had  just 
poured  a  bumper  to  your  beauty  !" 

"  You  are  not  far  wrong,"  said  Job,  after  a  long 
pause,  during  which  I  had  delivered  myself,  unheard, 
of  the  above  practical  apostrophe—"  you  are  not  far 
wrong,  quoad  the  women  of  New  England.  They 
would  be  considerable  bores  if  they  had  not  learned, 
in  their  days  of  bread-and-butter,  to  read,  write,  and 
reason.  But,  for  the  women  of  the  softer  south  and 
east,  I  am  by  no  means  clear  that  education  would 
not  be  inconsistent  with  the  genius  of  the  clime.  Take 
yourself  back  to  Italy,  for  example,  where,  for  two 
mortal  years,  you  philandered  up  and  down  between 
Venice  and  Amalfi,  never  out  of  the  sunshine  or  away 
from  the  feet  of  women,  and,  in  all  that  precious  epi- 
sode of  your  youth,  never  guilty,  I  will  venture  to  pre- 
sume, of  either  suggesting  or  expressing  a  new  thought. 
And  the  reason  is,  not  that  the  imagination  is  dull,  bu 


420 


INKLINGS  OF  ADVENTURE. 


that  nobody  thinks,  except  upon  exigency,  in  these 
latitudes.  It  would  be  violent  and  inapt  to  the  spirit 
of  the  hour.  Indolence,  voluptuous  indolence  of  body 
and  mind  (the  latter  at  the  same  time  lying  broad 
awake  in  its  chamber,  and  alive  to  every  pleasurable 
image  that  passes  uncalled  before  its  windows)  is  the 
genius,  the  only  genius,  of  the  night  and  day.  What 
would  be  so  discordant  as  an  argument  by  moonlight 
in  the  Coliseum  ?  What  so  ill-bred  and  atrocious  as 
the  destruction  by  logic  of  the  most  loose-spun  theory 
by  the  murmuring  fountains  of  the  Pamfili  1  To  live 
is  enough  in  these  lands  of  the  sun.  But  merely  to 
live,  in  ours,  is  to  be  bound,  Prometheus-like,  to  a 
rock,  with  a  vulture  at  our  vitals.  Even  in  the  most 
passionate  intercourse  of  love  in  your  northern  clime, 
you  read  to  your  mistress,  or  she  sings  to  you,  or  you 
think  it  necessary  to  drive  or  ride  ;  but  I  know  nothing 
that  would  more  have  astonished  your  Venetian  Honda 
than,  when  the  lamp  was  lit  in  the  gondola  that  you 
might  see  her  beauty  on  the  lagune  in  the  starless 
night,  to  have  pulled  a  book  from  your  pocket,  and 
read  even  a  tale  of  love  from  Boccaccio.  And  that  is 
why  I  could  be  more  content  to  be  a  pipe-bearer  in 
Asia  than  a  schoolmaster  in  Vermont,  or,  sooner  than 
a  judge's  ermine  in  England,  to  wear  a  scrivener's 
rags,  and  sit  in  the  shade  of  a  portico,  writing  love-let- 
ters for  the  peasant-girls  of  Rome.  Talk  of  republics 
— your  only  land  of  equality  is  that  in  which  to  breathe 
is  the  supreme  happiness.  The  monarch  throws  open 
his  window  for  the  air  that  comes  to  him  past  the  brow 
of  a  lazzaroni,  and  the  wine  on  the  patrician's  lip  in- 
toxicates less  than  the  water  from  the  fountain  that  is 
free  to  all,  though  it  gush  from  the  marble  bosom  of  a 
nymph.  If  I  were  to  make  a  world,  I  would  have  the 
climate  of  Greece,  and  no  knowledge  that  did  not 
come  by  intuition.  Men  and  women  should  grow 
wise  enough,  as  the  flowers  grow  fair  enough,  with 
sunshine  and  air,  and  they  should  follow  their  instincts 
like  the  birds,  and  go  from  sweet  to  sweet  with  as  lit- 
tle reason  or  trouble.  Exertion  should  be  a  misde- 
meanor, and  desire  of  action,  if  it  were  not  too  mon- 
strous to  require  legislation,  should  be  treason  to  the 
-tate." 
"  Long  live  King  Job !" 


PART  II. 

I  had  many  unhappy  thougnts  about  Maimuna  :  the 
gince  I  had  snatched  on  board  the  Trebizond  slaver 
lo  t  in  my  memory  a  pair  of  dark  eyes  full  of  uneasi- 
ness and  doubt,  and  I  knew  her  elastic  motions  so  well, 
that  there  was  something  in  her  single  step  as  she 
came  over  the  gangway  which  assured  me  that  she 
wau  dispirited  and  uncertain  of  her  errand.  Who  was 
the  old  Turk  who  dragged  her  up  the  vessel's  side 
with  so  little  ceremony  ?  What  could  the  child  of 
a  gipsy  be  doing  on  the  deck  of  a  slaver  from  Trebi- 
zond ? 

With  no  very  definite  ideas  as  to  the  disposal  of 
this  lovely  child  should  I  succeed  in  my  wishes,  I  had 
insensibly  made  up  my  mind  that  she  could  never  be 
happy  without  me,  and  that  my  one  object  in  Constan- 
tinople was  to  get  her  into  my  possession.  I  had  a 
delicacy  in  communicating  the  full  extent  of  my  design 
to  Job,  for,  aside  from  the  grave  view  he  would  take 
of  the  morality  of  the  step,  and  her  probable  fate  as  a 
woman,  he  would  have  painful  and  just  doubts  of  my 
ability  to  bear  this  additional  demand  upon  my  means. 
Though  entirely  dependant  himself,  Job  had  that  nat- 
ural contempt  for  the  precions  metals,  that  he  could 
not  too  freely  assist  any  one  to  their  possession  who 
happened  to  set  a  value  on  the  amount  in  his  pocket ; 
and  this,  I  may  say,  was  the  one  point  which,  between 
my  affectionate  monster  and  myself,  was  not  discussed 


as  harmoniously  as  the  loves  of  Corydon  and  Alexis. 
The  account  of  his  expenditure,  which  I  regularly  ex- 
acted of  him  before  he  tied  on  his  bandanna  at  night, 
was  always  more  or  less  unsatisfactory  ;  and  though 
he  would  not  have  hesitated  to  bestow  a  whole  scudo 
unthinkingly  on  the  first  dirty  dervish  he  should  meet, 
he  was  still  sufficiently  impressed  with  the  necessity 
of  economy  to  remember  it  in  an  argument  of  any 
length  or  importance  :  and  for  this  and  some  other 
reasons  I  reserved  my  confidence  upon  the  intended 
addition  to  my  suite. 

Not  far  from  the  Burnt  Column,  in  the  very  heart 
of  Stamboul,  lived  an  old  merchant  in  attar  and  jessa- 
mine, called  Mustapha.  Every  one  who  has  been  at 
Constantinople  will  remember  him  and  his  Nubian 
slave  in  a  small  shop  on  the  right,  as  you  ascend  to 
the  Hippodrome.  He  calls  himself  essence-seller  to 
the  sultan,  but  his  principal  source  of  profit  is  the 
stranger  who  is  brought  to  his  divans  by  the  interpre- 
ters in  his  pay  ;  and  to  his  credit  be  it  said,  that,  for  the 
courtesy  of  his  dealings,  and  for  the  excellence  of  his 
extracts,  the  stranger  could  not  well  fall  into  better 
hands. 

It  had  been  my  fortune,  on  my  first  visit  to  Musta- 
pha, to  conciliate  his  good  will.  I  had  laid  in  my 
small  stock  of  spice-woods  and  essences  on  that  occa- 
sion, and  the  call  which  I  made  religiously  every  time 
I  crossed  the  Golden  Horn  was  purely  a  matter  of 
friendship.  In  addition  to  one  or  two  trifling  pres- 
ents, vv^ich  (with  a  knowledge  of  human  nature)  I 
had  returned  in  the  shape  of  two  mortal  sins — a  keg 
of  brandy  and  a  flask  of  gin,  bought  out  of  the  Eng- 
lish collier  lying  in  the  bay — in  addition  to  his  kind 
presents,  I  say,  my  large-trovvsered  friend  had  made 
me  many  pressing  offers  of  service.  There  was  little 
probability,  it  was  true,  that  I  should  ever  find  occa- 
sion to  profit  by  them  ;  but  I  nevertheless  believed 
that  his  hand  was  laid  upon  his  heart  in  earnest  sin- 
cerity, and  in  the  course  of  my  reflections  upon  the 
fate  of  Maimuna,  it  had  occurred  to  me  more  than 
once  that  he  might  be  of  use  in  clearing  up  the  mys- 
tery of  her  motions. 

"  Job !"  said  I,  as  we  were  dawdling  along  the  street 
of  confectioners  with  our  Jew  behind  us  one  lovely 
morning,  "I  am  going  to  call  at  Mustapha's." 

We  had  started  to  go  to  the  haunt  of  the  opium- 
eaters,  and  he  was  rather  surprised  at  my  proposition, 
but,  with  his  usual  amiableness  (very  inconvenient 
and  vexatious  in  this  particular  instance),  he  stepped 
over  the  gutter  without  saying  a  word,  and  made  for 
the  first  turning  to  the  right.  It  was  the  first  time 
since  we  had  left  New  England  that  I  wished  myself 
rid  of  his  company. 

"But,  Job,"  said  I,  calling  him  back  to  the  shady 
side  of  the  street,  and  giving  him  a  great  lump  of 
candy  from  the  nearest  stall  (its  oriental  name,  by  the 
way,  is  "  peace-to-your-throat,")  "  I  thought  you  were 
bent  on  eating  opium  to-day?" 

My  poor  friend  looked  at  me  for  a  minute,  as  if  to 
comprehend  the  drift  of  my  remark,  and  as  he  arrived 
by  regular  deduction  at  the  result,  I  read  very  clearly 
in  his  hideous  physiognomy  the  painful  embarrassment 
it  occasioned  him.  It  was  only  the  day  before,  that, 
in  descending  the  Bosphorus,  we  had  seen  a  party  of 
the  summary  administrators  of  justice  quietly  sus- 
pending a  Turkish  woman  and  her  Greek  paramour 
from  the  shutters  of  a  chamber-window — intercourse 
with  a  Christian  in  that  country  of  liberal  legislation 
being  punishable  without  trial  or  benefit  of  dervish. 
From  certain  observations  on  my  disposition  in  the 
course  of  my  adventures,  Job  had  made  up  his  mind, 
I  well  knew,  that  my  danger  was  more  from  Delilah 
than  the  Philistines  ;  and  while  these  victims  of  love 
were  kicking  their  silken  trowsers  in  the  air,  I  saw,  by 
the  look  of  tender  anxiety  he  cast  upon  me,  from  the 
bottom  of  the  caique,  that  the  moral  in  his  mind  would 


INKLINGS  OF  ADVENTURE. 


421 


result  in  an  increased  vigilance  over  my  motions. 
While  he  stood  with  his  teeth  stuck  full  of  "  peace- 
to-your-throat,"  therefore,  forgetting  even  the  instinct 
of  mastication  in  his  surprise  and  sorrow,  I  well  un- 
derstood what  picture  was  in  his  mind,  and  what  con- 
struction he  put  upon  my  sudden  desire  to  solitude. 

"My  dear  Philip!"  he  began,  speaking  with  dif- 
ficulty from  the  stickiness  of  the  candy  in  his  teeth, 

"your  respected  mother " 

At  this  instant  a  kervas,  preceding  a  Turk  of  rank, 
jostled  suddenly  against  him,  and  as  the  mounted 
Mussulman,  with  his  train  of  runners  and  pipe-bearers, 
came  sweeping  by,  I  took  the  opportunity  of  Job's 
surprise  to  slip  past  with  the  rest,  and,  turning  down 
an  ally,  quietly  mounted  one  of  the  saddle-horses 
standing  for  hire  at  the  first  mosque,  and  pursued  my 
way  alone  to  the  shop  of  the  attar-merchant.  To 
dismount  and  hurry  Mustapha  into  his  inner  and  pri- 
vate apartment,  with  aa  order  to  the  Nubian  to  deny 
me  to  everybody  who  should  inquire,  was  the  work  of 
a  minute,  but  it  was  scarcely  done  before  I  heard  Job 
breathless  at  the  door. 

"Ha  visto  il  signore?'"  he  exclaimed,  getting  to  the 
back  of  the  shop  with  a  single  stride. 

"  Effcndi,  no!"  said  the  imperturbable  Turk,  and  he 
laid  his  hand  on  his  heart,  as  he  advanced,  and  offered 
him  with  grave  courtesy  the  pipe  from  his  lips. 

The  Jew  had  come  puffing  into  the  shop  with  his 
slippers  in  his  hand,  and  dropping  upon  his  hams  near 
the  door,  he  took  oft'  his  small  gray  turban,  and  was 
wiping  the  perspiration  from  his  high  and  narrow  fore- 
head, when  Job  darted  again  into  the  street  with  a 
sign  to  him  to  follow.  The  look  of  despair  and  ex- 
haustion with  which  he  shook  out  his  baggy  trowsers 
and  made  after  the  striding  Yankee,  was  too  much 
even  for  the  gravity  of  Mustapha.  He  laid  aside  his 
pipe,  and,  as  the  Nubian  struck  in  with  the  peculiar 
cackle  of  his  race,  I  joined  myself  in  their  merriment 
with  a  heartiness  to  which  many  a  better  joke  might 
have  failed  to  move  me. 

While  Mustapha  was  concluding  his  laugh  between 
the  puffs  of  his  amber  pipe,  I  had  thrown  myself  along 
the  divan,  and  was  studying  with  some  curiosity  the 
inner  apartment  in  which  I  had  been  concealed.  A 
curtain  of  thick  but  tarnished  gold  cloth  (as  sacred 
from  intrusion  in  the  east  as  the  bolted  and  barred 
doors  of  Europe)  separated  from  the  outer  shop  a 
small  octagonal  room,  that,  in  size  and  furniture,  re- 
sembled the  Turkish  boudoirs,  which,  in  the  luxurious 
palaces  of  Europe,  sometimes  adjoin  a  lady's  chamber. 
The  slippered  foot  was  almost  buried  in  the  rich  car- 
pets laid,  but  not  fitted  to  the  floor.  The  divans  were 
covered  with  the  flowered  and  lustrous  silk  of  Brusa, 
and  piled  with  vari-colored  cushions.  A  perpetual 
spice-lamp  sent  up  its  thin  wreaths  of  smoke  to  the 
black  and  carved  ceiling,  diffusing  through  the  room  a 
perfume  which,  while  it  stole  to  the  innermost  fibres 
of  the  brain  with  a  sense  of  pleasure,  weighed  on  the 
eyelids  and  relaxed  the  limbs ;  and  as  the  eye  became 
more  accustomed  to  the  dim  light  which  struggled  in 
from  a  window  in  the  arched  ceiling,  and  dissolved  in 
the  luxurious  and  spicy  atmosphere,  heaps  of  the  rich 
shawls  of  the  east  became  distinguishable  with  their 
sumptuous  dyes,  and,  in  a  corner,  stood  a  cluster  of 
crystal  narghiles,  faintly  reflecting  the  light  in  their 
dim  globes  of  rose-water,  while  costly  pipes,  silver- 
mounted  pistols,  and  a  rich  Damascus  sabre  in  a 
sheath  of  red  velvet,  added  gorgeousness  to  the  apart- 
ment. 

Mustapha  was  a  bit  of  a  philosopher  in  his  way,  and 
he  had  made  his  own  observations  on  the  Europeans 
who  came  to  his  shop.  The  secluded  and  oriental 
luxuriousness  of  the  room  I  have  described  was  one  of 
his  lures  to  that  passion  for  the  picturesque  which  he 
saw  in  every  traveller;  and  another  was  his  gigantic 
Nubian,  who,  with  bracelets  and  anklets  of  gold,  a 


!  white  turban,  and  naked  legs  and  arms,  stood  always 
at  the  door  of  his  shop,  inviting  the  passers-by — not  to 
buy  essences  and  pastilles — but  to  come  in  and  take 
I  sherbet  with  his  master.     You  will  have  been  an  hour 
i  upon  his  comfortable  divans,  have  smoked  a  pipe  or 
j  two,  and  eaten  a  snowy  sherbet  or  a  dish  of  rice-paste 
I  and  sugar,  before  Mustapha  nods  to  his  slave,  and  pro- 
!  duces  his  gold-rimmed  jars  of  essences,  from  which, 
:  with  his   fat  fore-finger,  he  anoints  the  palm  of  your 
hand,  or,  with  a  compliment  to  the   beauty  of  your 
hair,  throws  a  drop   into  the  curl   on  your  temples. 
i  Meanwhile,  as  you  smoke,  the  slave  lays  in  the  bowl 
of  your   pipe  a  small  pastille  wrapped  in  gold  leaf, 
from  which  presently  arrives  to  your  nostrils  a  per- 
fume that  might  delight  a  sultan  ;  and  then,  from  the 
two  black  hands  which  are  held  to  you  full  of  cubical- 
|  edged   vials  with   gilded  stoppers,  you  are  requested 
i  with  the   same  bland  courtesy  to  select  such  as  in 
j  size  or  shape  suit  your  taste  and  convenience — the 
smallest  of  them,  when  filled  with  attar,  worth  near  a 
gold  piastre. 

This  is  not  very  ruinous,  and  your  next  temptation 
comes  in  the  shape  of  a  curiously-wrought  censer, 
upon  the  filagree  grating  of  which  is  laid  strips  of 
odorent  wood  which,  with  the  heat  of  the  coals  be- 
neath, give  out  a  perfume  like  gums  from  Araby. 
This,  Mustapha  swears  to  you  by  his  beard,  has  a 
spell  in  its  spicy  breath  provocative  as  a  philtre,  and 
is  to  be  burnt  in  your  lady's  chamber.  It  is  worth  its 
weight  in  gold,  and  for  a  handful  of  black  chips  you 
are  persuaded  to  pay  a  price  which  would  freight  a 
caique  with  cinnamon.  Then  come  bracelets,  and 
amulets,  and  purses,  all  fragrant  and  precious,  and, 
while  you  hesitate,  the  Nubian  brings  you  coffee  that 
1  would  open  the  heart  of  Shylock,  and  you  drink  and 
pnrchase.  And  when  you  have  spent  all  your  money, 
you  go  away  delighted  with  Mustapha,  and  quite  per- 
I  suaded  that  you  are  vastly  obliged  to  him.  And,  all 
things  considered,  so  you  are  ! 

When  Mustapha  had  finished  his  prayers  (did  I  say 
that  it  was  noon?)  he  called  in  the  Nubian  to  roll  up 
the  sacred  carpet,  and  then  closing  the  curtain  be- 
I  tween  us  and  the  shop,  listened  patiently  to  my  story 
I  of  the  gipsy,  which  I  told  him  faithfully  from  the 
beginning.  When  I  arrived  at  the  incident  on  board 
the  slaver,  a  sudden  light  seemed  to  strike  upon  his 
mind. 

"Pekhe,  filio  mio  !  pekhe!"  he  exclaimed,  running 

his   fore-finger  down  the   middle   of  his   beard,   and 

I  pouring  out  a  volume  of  smoke  from  his  mouth  and 

|  nostrils  which  obscured  him  for  a  moment  from  my 

j  sight. 

(I  dislike  the  introduction  of  foreign  words  into  a 
story,  but  the  Turkish  dissyllable  in  the  foregoing 
sentence  is  as  constantly  on  an  eastern  lip  as  the  amber 
of  the  pipe.) 

He  clapped  his  hands  as  I  finished  my  narration, 
and  the  Nubian  appeared.  Some  conversation  passed 
between  them  in  Turkish,  and  the  slave  tightened  his 
girdle,  made  a  salaam,  and  taking  his  slippers  at  the 
outer  door,  left  the  shop. 

"  We  shall  find  her  at  the  slave-market,"  said  Mus- 
tapha. 

I  started.  The  thought  had  once  or  twice  passed 
through  my  mind,  but  I  had  as  often  rejected  it  as 
impossible.  A  freeborn  Zingara,  and  on  a  confiden- 
tial errand  from  her  own  mother!— I  did  not  see  how 
her  freedom,  if  there  were  danger,  should  have  been 
so  carelessly  put  in  peril.  _ 

"And  if  she  is  there!"  said  I;  remembering,  first, 
that  it  was  against  the  Mohammedan  law  lor  a  Christian 
to  purchase  a  slave,  and  next,  that  the  price,  if  it  did 
not  ruin  me  at  once,  would  certainly  leave  me  in  a  sit- 
uation rather  to  lessen  than  increase  my  expenses. 
"  I  will  buy  her  for  you,"  said  Mustapha. 
The  Nubian  returned  at  this  moment,  and  laid  at 


422 


INKLINGS  OF  ADVENTURE. 


my  feet  a  bundle  of  wearing  apparel.  He  then  took 
from  a  shelf  a  shaving  apparatus,  with  which  he  pro- 
ceeded to  lather  my  forehead  and  temples,  and  after  a 
short  argument  with  Mustapha,  in  which  I  pleaded  in 
vain  for  two  very  seducing  clusters  of  curls,  those 
caressed  minions  dropped  into  the  black  hand  of  the 
slave,  and  nothing  was  left  for  the  petils  soins  of  my 
thumb  and  fore-finger  in  their  leisure  hours  save  a 
well-coaxed  and  rather  respectable  mustache.  A 
scull-cap  and  turban  completed  the  transformation  of 
my  head,  and  then,  with  some  awkwardness,  I  got 
into  a  silk  shirt,  big  trowsers,  jacket,  and  slippers,  and 
stood  up  to  look  at  myself  in  the  mirror.  I  was  as 
like  one  of  the  common  Turks  of  the  street  as  possi- 
ble, save  that  the  European  cravat  and  stockings  had 
preserved  an  unoriental  whiteness  in  my  neck  and 
ankles.  This  was  soon  remedied  with  a  little  brown 
juice,  and  after  a  few  cautions  from  Mustapha  as  to  my 
behavior,  I  settled  my  turban  and  followed  him  into 
the  street. 

It  is  a  singular  sensation  to  be  walking  about  in  a 
strange  costume,  and  find  that  nobody  looks  surprised. 
I  could  not  avoid  a  slight  feeling  of  mortification  at 
the  rude  manner  with  which  every  dirty  mussulman 
took  the  wall  of  me.  After  long  travel  in  foreign 
lands,  the  habit  of  everywhere  exciting  notice  as  a 
stranger,  and  the  species  of  consequence  attached  to 
the  person  and  movements  of  a  traveller,  become 
rather  pleasures  than  otherwise,  and  it  is  not  without 
pain  that  one  finds  oneself  once  more  like  common 
people.  I  have  not  yet  returned  to  my  own  land 
(Slingsby  is  an  American,  gentle  reader),  and  can  not 
judge,  therefore,  how  far  this  feeling  is  modified  by 
the  pleasures  of  a  recovered  home ;  but  I  was  vexed 
not  to  be  stared  at  when  playing  the  Turk  at  Con- 
stantinople, and,  amusing  as  it  was  to  betaken  for  an 
Englishman  on  first  arriving  in  England  (different  as 
it  is  from  every  land  I  have  seen,  and  still  more  differ- 
ent from  my  own),  I  must  confess  to  have  experienced 
again  a  feeling  of  lessened  consequence,  when,  on  my 
first  entrance  into  an  hotel  in  London,  I  was  taken  for 
an  Oxonian,  "  come  up  for  a  lark"  in  term-time.  Per- 
haps I  have  stumbled  in  this  remark  upon  one  of  those 
unconfessed  reasons  why  a  returned  traveller  is  pro- 
verbially discontented  with  his  home. 

Whether  Mustapha  wished  to  exhibit  his  new  pipe- 
bearer  to  his  acquaintances,  or  whether  there  was  fun 
enough  in  his  obese  composition  to  enjoy  my  difficul- 
ties in  adapting  myself  to  my  new  circumstances,  I 
can  not  precisely  say  ;  but  I  soon  found  that  we  were 
not  going  straight  to  the  slave-market.  I  had  several 
times  forgotten  my  disguise  so  far  as  to  keep  the  nar- 
row walk  till  I  stood  face  to  face  with  the  bearded 
Mussulmans,  who  were  only  so  much  astonished  at  my 
audacity  that  they  forgot  to  kick  me  over  the  gutter ; 
and  passing,  in  the  bazar  of  saddle-cloths,  an  Eng- 
lish officer  of  my  acquaintance,  who  belonged  to  the 
corvette  lying  in  the  Bosphorus,  I  could  not  resist  the 
temptation  of  whispering  in  his  ear  the  name  of  his 
sweetheart  (which  he  had  confided  to  me  over  a  bot- 
tle at  Smyrna),  though  I  rather  expected  to  be  seized 
by  the  turban  the  next  moment,  with  the  pleasant  con- 
sequences of  a  mob  and  an  exposure.  My  friend  was 
so  thoroughly  amazed,  however,  that  I  was  deep  in 
the  crowd  before  he  had  drawn  breath,  and  I  look 
daily  now  for  his  arrival  in  England  (I  have  not  seen 
him  since),  with  a  curiosity  to  know  how  he  supposes 
a  "blackguard  Turk"  knew  anything  of  the  lock  of 
hair  he  carried  in  his  waistcoat  pocket. 

The  essence-seller  had  stopped  in  the  book-bazar, 
and  was  condescendingly  smoking  a  pipe,  with  his 
legs  crossed  on  the  counter  of  a  venerable  Armenian,  I 
who  sat  buried  to  the  chin  in  his  own  wares,  when  ! 
who  should  come  pottering  along  (as  Mrs.  Butler  would  ' 
say)  but  Job  with  his  Jew  behind  him.  Mustapha  I 
(probably  unwilling  to  be  seen  smoking  with  an  Ar-  | 


menian)  had  ensconced  himself  behind  a  towering 
heap  of  folios,  and  his  vexed  and  impatient  pipe-bearer 
had  taken  his  more  humble  position  on  the  narrow 
base  of  one  of  the  chequered  columns  which  are  pe- 
culiar to  the  bazar  devoted  to  the  bibliopolists.  As 
my  friend  came  floundering  along  "  all  abroad"  with 
his  legs  and  arms,  as  usual,  1  contrived,  by  an  adroit 
insertion  of  one  of  my  feet  between  his,  to  spread  him 
over  the  musty  tomes  of  the  Armenian  in  away  calcu- 
lated to  derange  materially  the  well-ordered  sequence 
of  the  volumes. 

"  Allah  !  Mashallah  !"  exclaimed  Mustapha,  whose 
spreading  lap  was  filled  with  black-letter  copies  of  the 
Khoran,  while  the  bowl  of  his  pipe  was  buried  in  the 
fallen  pyramid. 

"  Bestia  Inglese  !"  muttered  the  Armenian,  as  Job 
put  oue  hand  in  the  inkstand  in  endeavoring  to  rise, 
and  with  the  next  effort  laid  his  blackened  fingers  on 
a  heap  of  choice  volumes  bound  in  snowy  vellum. 

The  officious  Jew  took  up  the  topmost  copy,  marked 
like  a  cinq-foil  with  his  spreading  thumb  and  fingers, 
and  quietly  asked  the  Armenian  what  il  signore  would 
be  expected  to  pay.  As  I  knew  he  had  no  money  in 
his  pocket,  I  calculated  safely  on  his  new  embarrass- 
ment to  divert  his  anger  from  the  original  cause  of  his 
overthrow. 

"Tre  colonati,"  said  the  bookseller. 

Job  opened  the  book,  and  his  well-known  guttural 
of  surprise  and  delight  assured  me  that  I  might  come 
out  from  behind  the  column  and  look  over  his  shoul- 
der. It  was  an  illuminated  copy  of  Hafiz,  with  a 
Latin  translation — a  treasure  which  his  heart  had 
been  set  upon  from  our  first  arrival  in  the  east, 
and  for  which  I  well  knew  he  would  sell  his  coat 
off  his  back  without  hesitation.  The  desire  to  give 
it  him  passed  through  my  mind,  but  I  could  see  no 
means,  under  my  present  circumstances,  either  of 
buying  the  book  or  relieving  him  from  his  embar- 
rassment ;  and  as  he  buried  his  nose  deeper  between 
the  leaves,  and  sat  down  on  the  low  counter,  forget- 
ful alike  of  his  dilemma  and  his  lost  friend,  I  nod- 
ded to  Mustapha  to  get  off  as  quietly  as  possible, 
and,  fortunately  slipping  past  both  him  and  the 
Jew  unrecognised,  left  him  to  finish  the  loves  of 
Gulistan  and  settle  his  account  with  the  incensed 
Armenian. 


II. 


As  we  entered  the  gates  of  the  slave- market,  Mus- 
tapha renewed  his  cautions  to  me  with  regard  to  my 
conduct,  reminded  me  that,  as  a  Christian,  I  should  see 
the  white  female  slaves  at  the  peril  of  my  life,  and  imme- 
diately assumed,  himself,  a  sauntering  and poco-curante 
manner,  equally  favorable  to  concealment  and  to  his 
interests  as  a  purchaser.  I  followed  close  at  his  heels 
with  his  pipe,  and,  as  he  stopped  to  chat  with  his  ac- 
quaintances, I  now  and  then  gave  a  shove  with  the  bowl 
between  his  jacket  and  girdle,  rendered  impatient  to  the 
last  degree  by  the  sight  of  the  close  lattices  on  every 
side  of  us,  and  the  sounds  of  the  chattering  voices 
within. 

I  should  have  been  interested,  had  I  been  a  mere 
spectator,  in  the  scene  about  me,  but  Mustapha's  unne- 
cessary and  provoking  delay,  while  (as  I  thought  pos- 
sible, if  she  really  were  in  the  market),  Maimuna  might 
be  bartered  for  at  that  moment  within,  wound  my  rage 
to  a  pitch  at  last  scarcely  endurable. 

We  had  come  up  from  a  cellar  to  which  one  of  Mus- 
tapha's acquaintances  had  taken  him  to  see  a  young 
white  lad  he  was  about  to  purchase,  and  I  was  hoping 
that  my  suspense  was  nearly  over,  when  a  man  came  for- 
ward into  the  middle  of  the  court,  ringing  a  hand-bell, 
and  followed  by  a  black  girl,  covered  with  a  scant  blank- 
et. Like  most  of  her  race  (she  was  an  Abyssinian),  her 
head  was  that  of  a  brute,  but  never  were  body  and  limbs 


INKLINGS  OF  ADVENTURE. 


423 


more  exquisitely  moulded.  She  gazed  about  without 
either  surprise  or  shame,  stepping  after  the  crier  with 
an  elastic,  leopard-like  tread,  her  feet  turned  in  like 
those  of  the  North  American  Indian,  her  neck  bent 
gracefully  forward,  and  her  shoulders  and  hips  working 
with  that  easy  play  so  lost  in  the  constrained  dress  and 
motion  of  civilized  women.  The  Mercury  of  Giovanni 
di  Bologna  springs  not  lighter  from  the  jet  of  the  foun- 
tain than  did  this  ebon  Venus  from  the  ground  on  which  j 
she  stood. 

I  ventured  to  whisper  to  Mustapha,  that,  under  cover  i 
of  the  sale  of  the  Abyssinian,  we  might  see  the  white  ! 
slaves  more  unobserved. 

A  bid  was  made  for  her. 

"  Fifteen  piastres  !"  said  the  attar-seller,  wholly  ab- 
sorbed in  the  sale,  and  not  hearing  a  syllable  I  said  to 
him,  "  She  would  be  worth  twice  as  much  to  gild  my  | 
pastilles  !"  And  handing  me  his  pipe,  he  waddled  into  ! 
the  centre  of  the  court,  lifted  the  blanket  from  the  slave's 
shoulders,  turned  her  round  and  round,  like  a  Venus 
on  a  pivot,  looked  at  her  teeth  and  hands,  and  after  a 
conversation  aside  with  the  crier,  he  resumed  his  pipe, 
and  the  black  disappeared  from  the  ground. 

"  I  have  bought  her  !"  he  said,  with  a  salacious  grin, 
as  I  handed  him  his  tobacco-bag,  and  muttered  a  round  , 
Italian  execration  in  his  ear. 

The  idea  that  Maimuna  might  have  become  the 
property  of  that  gross  and  sensual  mousterjustas  easily 
as  the  pretty  negress  he  had  brought,  sent  my  blood 
boiling  for  an  instant  to  my  cheek.  Yet  I  had  seen  this 
poor  savage  of  seventeen  sold  without  a  thought,  save 
mental  congratulation  that  she  would  be  better  fed  and 
clad.  What  a  difference  one's  private  feelings  make 
in  one's  sympathies  ! 

I  was  speculating,  in  a  kind  of  tranquil  despair,  on  I 
the  luxurious  evils  of  slavery,  when  Mustapha  called  to 
him  an  Egyptian,  in  a  hooded  blue  cloak,  whom  I  re-  j 
membered  to  have  seen  on  board  the  Trebisondian. 
He  was  a  small-featured,  black-lipped,  willowy  Asiatic, 
with  heavy-lidded  eyes,  and  hands  as  dry  and  rusty  as  j 
the  claws  of  a  harpy.  After  a  little  conversation,  he 
rose  from  the  platform  on  which  he  had  crossed  his 
legs,  and  taking  my  pro-tern  pore  master  by  the  sleeve, 
traversed  the  quadrangle  to  a  closed  door  in  the  best- 
looking  of  the  miserable  houses  that  surrounded  the 
court.  I  followed  close  upon  his  heels  with  a  beating 
heart.  It  seemed  to  me  as  if  every  eye  in  the  crowded 
market-place  must  penetrate  my  disguise.  He  knock- 
ed, and  answering  to  some  one  who  spoke  from  within, 
the  door  was  opened,  and  the  next  moment  I  found  my- 
self in  the  presence  of  a  dozen  veiled  women,  seated  in 
various  attitudes  on  the  floor.  At  the  command  of  our 
conductor,  carpets  were  brought  for  Mustapha  and  him- 
self; and,  as  they  dropped  upon  their  hams,  every  veil 
was  removed,  and  a  battery  of  staring  and  unwinking 
eyes  was  levelled  full  upon  us. 

'•  Is  she  here?"  said  Mustapha  to  me  in  Italian,  as 
I  stooped  over  to  hand  him  his  eternal  pipe. 

"  Dio  mio !  no  !" 

I  felt  insulted,  that  with  half  a  glance  at  the  Circas- 
sian and  Georgian  dolls  sitting  before  us,  he  could  ask 
me  the  question.  Yet  they  were  handsome!  Red 
cheeks,  white  teeth,  black  eyes,  and  youth  could  scarce 
compose  a  plain  woman  ;  and  thus  much  of  beauty 
seemed  equally  bestowed  on  all. 

"  Has  he  no  more  ?"  I  asked,  stooping  to  Mus- 
tapha's  ear. 

I  looked  around  while  he  was  getting  the  informa- 
tion I  wanted  in  his  own  deliberate  way ;  and,  scarce 
knowing  what  I  did,  applied  my  eye  to  a  crack  in  the 
wall,  through  which  had  been  coming  for  some  time  a 
strong  aroma  of  coffee.  I  saw  at  first  only  a  small  dim 
room,  in  the  midst  of  which  stood  a  Turkish  manghal, 
or  brazier  of  coals,  sustaining  the  coffee-pot  from  which 
came  the  agreeable  prefume  I  had  inhaled.  As  my 
eye  became  accustomed  to  the  light,  I  could  distinguish 


a  heap  of  what  I  took  to  be  shawls  lying  in  the  centre 
of  the  floor;  and  presuming  it  was  the  dormitory  of  one 
of  the  slave-owners,  I  was  about  turning  my  head  away, 
when  the  coffee  on  the  manghal  suddenly  boiled  over, 
and  at  the  same  instant  started,  from  the  heap  at  which 
I  had  been  gazing,  the  living  form  of  Maimuna  ! 

"  Mustapha  !"  I  cried,  starting  back,  and  clasping 
my  hands  before  him. 

Before  I  could  utter  another  word,  a  grasp  upon  my 
ankle,  that  drew  blood  with  every  nail,  restored  me  to 
my  self-possession.  The  Circassians  began  to  giggle, 
and  the  wary  old  Turk,  taking  no  apparent  notice  of 
my  agitation,  ordered  me,  in  a  stern  tone,  to  fill  his 
pipe,  and  went  on  conversing  with  the  Egyptian. 

I  leaned  with  an  effort  at  carelessness  against  the 
wall,  and  looked  once  more  through  the  crevice.  She 
stood  by  the  manghal,  filling  a  cup  with  a  small  fila- 
gree-holder from  the  coffee-pot,  and  by  the  light  of  the 
fire  I  could  see  every  feature  of  her  face  as  distinctly 
as  daylight.  She  was  alone,  and  had  been  sitting 
with  her  head  on  her  knees,  and  the  shawl,  which  had 
now  fallen  to  her  shoulders,  drawn  over  her  till  it  con- 
cealed her  feet.  A  narrow  carpet  was  beneath  her, 
and  as  she  moved  from  the  fire,  a  slight  noise  drew  my 
attention  downward,  and  I  saw  that  she  was  chained  by 
the  ankle  to  the  floor.  I  stooped  to  the  ear  of  Mus- 
tapha, told  him  in  a  whisper  of  my  discovery,  and  im- 
plored him,  for  the  love  of  Heaven,  to  get  admission 
into  her  apartment. 

"  Pekhe  !  pekhe  !  filio  mio  /"  was  the  unsatisfactory 
answer  to  my  impatience,  while  the  Egyptian  rose  and 
proceeded  to  turn  around,  in  the  light  of  the  window, 
the  fattest  of  the  fair  Circassians,  from  whom  he  had 
removed  every  article  of  dress  save  her  slippers  and 
trousers. 

I  returned  to  the  crevice.  Maimuna  had  drunk  her 
coffee,  and  stood,  with  her  arms  folded,  thoughtfully 
gazing  on  the  fire.  The  expression  in  her  beautiful 
and  youthful  face  was  one  I  could  scarcely  read  to  my 
satisfaction.  The  slight  lips  were  firmly  but  calmly 
compressed,  the  forehead  untroubled,  the  eye  alone 
strained,  and  unnaturally  fixed  and  lowering.  I 
looked  at  her  with  the  heart  beating  like  a  hammer  in 
my  bosom,  and  the  impatience  in  my  trembling  limbs 
which  it  required  every  consideration  of  prudence  to 
suppress.  She  moved  slowly  away  at  last,  and  sink- 
ing again  to  her  carpet,  drew  out  the  chain  from  be- 
neath her,  and  drawing  the  shawl  once  more  over  her 
head,  lav  down,  and  sunk  apparently  to  sleep. 

Mustapha  left  the  Circassian,  whose  beauties  he  had 
risen  to  examine  more  nearly,  and  came  to  my  side. 

"  Are  you  sure  that  it  is  she?"  he  asked,  in  an  al- 
most inaudible  whisper. 

"  Si ."' 

He  took  the  pipe  from  my  hand,  and  requested  me, 
in  the  same  suppressed  voice,  to  return  to  his  shop. 

"  And  Maimuna" 

His  only  answer  was  to  point  to  the  door,  and  think- 
ing it  best  to  obey  his  orders  implicity,  I  made  the 
best  of  my  way  out  of  the  slave-market,  and  was  soon 
drinking  a  sherbet  in  his  inner  apartment,  and  listen- 
ing to  the  shuffle  of  every  passing  slipper  for  the  com- 
ing of  the  light  step  of  the  gipsy. 

III. 

The  rules  of  good-breeding  discountenance  in  socie- 
ty what  is  usually  called  "  a  scene."  I  detest  it  as 
well  on  paper.  There  is  no  sufficient  reason,  f.ppa- 
rent  to  me,  why  my  sensibilities  should  be  drawj  upon 
at  sight,  as  I  read,  any  more  than  when  I  pie?  je  myself 
by  following  my  own  devices  in  company.  Violent 
sensations  are,  abstractly  as  well  as  conventionally, 
ill-bred.  They  derange  the  serenitv,  fluster  the  man- 
ner, and  irritate  the  complexion.  It  is  for  this  reason 
that  I  forbear  to  describe  the  meeting  between  Maimu- 


424 


INKLINGS  OF  ADVENTURE. 


na  and  myself  after  she  had  been  bought  for  forty 
pounds  by  the  wily  and  worthy  seller  of  essences  and 
pastilles — how  she  fell  on  ray  neck  when  she  discovered 
that  I,  and  not  Mustapha,  was  her  purchaser  and  mas- 
ter— how  she  explained,  between  her  hysterical  sobs, 
that  the  Turk  who  had  sold  her  to  the  slave-dealer  was 
a  renegade  gipsy,  and  her  mother's  brother  (to  whom 
she  had  been  on  an  errand  of  affection) — and  how  she 
sobbed  herself  to  sleep  with  her  face  in  the  palms  of 
my  hands,  and  her  masses  of  raven  hair  covering  my 
knees  and  feet  like  the  spreading  fountains  of  San  Pie- 
tro — and  how  I  pressed  my  lips  to  the  starry  parting 
of  those  raven  tresses  on  the  top  of  her  fairest  head, 
and  blessed  the  relying  child  as  she  slept — are  circum- 
stances, you  will  allow,  my  dear  madam  !  that  could 
not  be  told  passably  well  without  moving  your  amiable 
tenderness  to  tears.  You  will  consider  this  paragraph, 
therefore,  less  as  an  ingenious  manner  of  disposing  of 
the  awkward  angles  of  my  story,  than  as  a  polite  and 
praise-worthy  consideration  of  your  feelings  and  com- 
plexion.    Flushed  eyelids  are  so  very  unbecoming  ! 

IV. 

My  confidential  interviews  with  Job  began  to  take 
rather  an  unpleasant  coloring.  The  forty  pounds  I 
had  paid  for  Maimuna's  liberty,  with  the  premium  to 
Mustapha,  the  suit  of  European  clothes  necessary  to 
disguise  my  new  companion,  and  the  addition  of  a 
third  person  in  our  European  lodgings  at  Pera,  rather 
drove  my  finances  to  the  wall.  Job  cared  very  little 
for  the  loss  of  his  allowance  of  pocket-money,  and 
made  no  resistance  to  eating  kibaubs  at  a  meat-shop, 
instead  of  his  usual  silver  fork  and  French  dinner  at 
Madame  Josepino's.  He  submitted  with  the  same 
resignation  to  a  one-oared  caique  on  the  Bosphorus, 
and  several  minor  reductions  in  his  expenses,  thinking 
nothing  a  hardship,  in  short,  which  I  shared  cheerfully 
with  him.  He  would  have  donned  the  sugar-loaf  hat 
of  a  dervish,  and  begged  his  way  home  by  Jerusalem 
or  Mecca,  so  only  I  was  content.  But  the  morality  of 
the  thing ! 

"  What  will  you  do  with  this  beautiful  girl  when 
you  get  to  Rome?  how  will  you  dispose  of  her  in 
Paris  ?  how  will  your  friends  receive  a  female,  already 
arrived  at  the  age  of  womanhood,  who  shall  have 
travelled  with  you  two  or  three  years  on  the  continent  ? 
how  will  you  provide  for  her?  how  educate  her?  how 
rid  yourself  of  her,  with  any  Christian  feeling  of  com- 
passion, when  she  has  become  irrevocably  attached  to 
you?" 

We  were  pulling  up  to  the  Rymplegades  while  my 
plain-spoken  Mentor  thrust  me  these  home  questions, 
and  Maimuna  sat  coiled  between  my  feet  in  the  bottom 
of  the  caique,  gazing  into  my  face  with  eyes  that 
seemed  as  if  they  would  search  my  very  soul  for  the 
cause  of  my  emotion.  We  seldom  spoke  English  in 
her  presence,  for  the  pain  it  gave  her  when  she  felt 
excluded  from  the  conversation  amounted  in  her  all- 
expressive  features  to  a  look  of  anguish  that  made  it 
seem  to  me  a  cruelty.  She  dared  not  ask  me,  in 
words,  why  I  was  vexed  ;  but  she  gathered  from  Job's 
tone  that  there  was  reproof  in  what  he  said,  and 
flashing  a  glance  of  inquiring  anger  at  his  serious 
face,  she  gently  stole  her  hand  under  the  cloak  to 
mine,  and  laid  the  back  of  it  softly  in  my  palm.  There 
was  a  delicacy  and  a  confidingness  in  the  motion  that 
started  a  tear  into  my  eye ;  and  as  I  smiled  through  it, 
and  drew  her  to  me  and  impressed  a  kiss  on  her  fore- 
head, I  inwardly  resolved,  that,  as  long  as  that  lovely 
creature  should  choose  to  eat  of  my  bread,  it  should 
be  free  to  her  in  all  honor  and  kindness,  and,  if  need 
were,  I  would  supply  to  her,  with  the  devotion  of  my 
life,  the  wrong  and  misconstruction  of  the  world. 
As  I  turned  over  that  leaf  in  my  heart,  there  crept 
through  it  a  breath  of  peace,  and  I  felt  that  my  good 


angel  had  taken  me  into  favor.  Job  began  to  fumble 
for  the  lunch,  and  the  dancing  caique  shot  forth  mer- 
rily into  the  Black  sea. 

"My  dearest  chum!"  said  I,  as  we  sat  round  our 
brown  paper  of  kibaubs  on  the  highest  point  of  the 
Symplegades,  "you  see  yourself  here  at  the  outer- 
most limit  of  your  travels." 

His  mouth  was  full,  but  as  soon  as  he  could  con- 
veniently swallow,  he  responded  with  the  appropriate 
sigh. 

"  Six  thousand  miles,  more  or  less,  lie  between  you 
and  your  spectacled  and  respectable  mother;  but 
nineteen  thousand,  the  small  remainder  of  the  earth's 
circumference,  extending  due  east  from  this  paper  of 
cold  meat,  remain  to  you  untravelled !" 

Job  fixed  his  eye  on  a  white  sea-bird  apparently 
asleep  on  the  wing,  but  diving  away  eastward  into  the 
sky,  as  if  it  were  the  heart  within  us  sped  onward  with 
our  boundless  wishes. 

"Do  you  not  envy  him?"  he  asked  enthusiastically. 

"Yes;  for  nature  pays  his  travelling  expenses,  and 
I  would  our  common  mother  were  as  considerate  to 
me  !  How  soon,  think  you,  he  will  see  Trebisond, 
posting  at  that  courier  speed  ?" 

"  And  Shiraz,  and  Isaphan,  and  the  valley  of  Cash- 
mere!  To  think  how  that  stupid  bird  will  flyover 
them,  and,  spite  of  all  that  Hafiz,  and  Saadi,  and  Tom 
Moore,  have  written  on  the  lands  that  his  shadow  may 
glide  throught,  will  return,  as  wise  as  he  went,  to 
Marmora  !  To  compound  natures  with  him  were  a 
nice  arrangement,  now!" 

"You  would  be  better  looking,  my  dear  Job!" 

"  How  very  unpleasant  you  are,  Mr.  Slingsby !  But 
really,  Philip,  to  cast  the  slough  of  this  expensive  and 
il-locomotive  humanity,  and  find  yourself  afloat  with 
all  the  necessary  apparatus  of  life  stowed  snugly  into 
breast  and  tail,  your  legs  tucked  quietly  away  under 
you,  and,  instead  of  coat  and  unmentionables  to  be  put 
off  and  on  and  renewed  at  such  inconvenient  expense,  a 
self-renewing  tegument  of  cleanly  feathers,  brushed 
and  washed  in  the  common  course  of  nature  by  wind 
and  rain — no  valet  to  be  paid  and  drilled — no  dressing- 
case  to  be  supplied  and  left  behind — no  tooth-brushes 
to  be  mislaid — no  tight  boots — no  corns — no  passports 
nor  host-horses!  Do  you  know,  Phil,  on  reflection,  I 
find  this  'mortal  coil'  a  very  inferior  and  inconvenient 
apparatus!" 

"If  you  mean  your  own,  I  quite  agree  with  you." 

"I  am  surprised,  Mr.  Slingsby,  that  you,  who  value 
yourself  on  knowing  what  is  due  from  one  highly- 
civilized  individual  to  another,  should  indulge  in  these 
very  disagreeable  reflections !" 

Maimuna  did  not  quite  comprehend  the  argument, 
but  she  saw  that  the  tables  were  turned,  and,  without 
ill-will  to  Job,  she  paid  me  the  compliment  of  always 
taking  my  side.  I  felt  her  slender  arm  around  my 
neck,  and  as  she  got  upon  her  knees  behind  me  and 
put  forward  her  little  head  to  get  a  peep  at  my  lips,  her 
clear  bird-like  laugh  of  enjoyment  and  triumph  added 
visibly  to  my  friend's  mortification.  A  compunctious 
visiting  stole  over  me,  and  I  began  to  feel  that  I  should 
scarce  have  revenged  myself  for  what  was,  after  all, 
but  a  kind  severity. 

"  Do  you  know,  Job,"  said  I  (anxious  to  restore  his 
self-complacency  without  a  direct  apology  for  my  ruds- 
ness),  "do  you  know  there  is  a  very  deep  human  truth 
hidden  in  the  familiar  story  of  '  Beauty  and  the  Beast  ?' 
I  really  am  of  opinion,  that,  between  the  extremes  of 
hideousness  and  the  highest  perfection  of  loveliness, 
there  is  no  face  which,  after  a  month's  intercourse, 
does  not  depend  exclusively  on  its  expression  (or,  in 
other  words,  on  the  amiable  qualities  of  the  individual) 
for  the  admiration  it  excites.  The  plainest  features 
become  handsome  unaware  when  associated  only  with 
kind  feelings,  and  the  loveliest  face  disagreeable  when 
linked  with  ill-humor  or  caprice.     People  should  re- 


INKLINGS  OF  ADVENTURE. 


425 


member  this  when  selecting  a  face  which  they  are  to 
see  every  morning  across  the  breakfast-table  for  the  re- 
mainder of  their  natural  lives." 

Job  was  appeased  by  the  indirect  compliment  con- 
tained in  this  speech;  and,  gathering  up  our  kibaubs, 
we  descended  to  the  caique,  and  pulling  around  the 
easternmost  point  of  the  Symplegades,  bade  adieu  to 
the  orient,  and  took  the  first  step  westward  with  the 
smile  of  conciliation  on  our  lips. 

We  were  soon  in  the  strong  current  of  the  Bospho- 
rus,  and  shot  swiftly  down  between  Europe  and  Asia, 
by  the  light  of  a  sunset  that  seemed  to  brighten  the 
west  for  our  return.  It  was  a  golden  path  homeward. 
The  east  looked  cold  behind ;  and  the  welcome  of 
our  far-away  kinsmen  seemed  sent  to  us  on  those  pur- 
pling clouds,  winning  us  back.  Beneath  that  kindling 
horizon — below  that  departed  sun — lay  the  fresh  and 
free  land  of  our  inheritance.  The  light  of  the  world 
seemed  gone  over  to  it.  These,  from  which  the  day 
had  declined,  were  countries  of  memory — ours,  of 
hope.  The  sun,  that  was  setting  on  these,  was  dawn- 
ing gloriously  on  ours. 

On  ordinary  occasions,  Job  would  have  given  me  a 
stave  of  "  Hail  Columbia  !"  after  such  a  burst  of  pa- 
triotism.    The  cloud  was  on  his  soul,  however. 

"We  have  turned  to  go  back,''''  he  said,  in  a  kind  of 
musing  bitterness,  "  and  see  what  we  are  leaving  be- 
hind !  In  this  fairy-shaped  boat  you  are  gliding  like  a 
dream  down  the  Bosphorus.  The  curving  shore  of 
Therapia  yonder  is  fringed  for  miles  with  the  pleasure- 
loving  inhabitants  of  this  delicious  land,  who  think  a 
life  too  short,  of  which  the  highest  pleasure  is  to  ram- 
ble on  the  edge  of  these  calm  waters  with  their  kins- 
men and  children.  Is  there  a  picture  in  the  woild 
more  beautiful  than  that  palace-lined  shore  ?  Is  there 
a  city  so  magnificent  under  the  sun  as  that  in  which  it 
terminates?  Are  there  softer  skies,  greener  hills, 
simpler  or  better  people,  to  live  among,  than  these  ? 
Oh,  Philip!  ours,  with  all  its  freedom,  is  a  'working- 
day'  land.  There  is  no  idleness  there  !  The  sweat  is 
ever  on  the  brow,  the  'serpent  of  care'  never  loosened 
about  the  heart!  I  confess  myself  a  worshipper  of 
leisure :  I  would  let  no  moment  of  my  golden  youth 
go  by  unrecorded  with  a  pleasure.  Toil  is  ungodlike, 
and  unworthy  of  the  immortal  spirit,  that  should  walk 
unchained  through  the  world.  I  love  these  idle  orien- 
tals. Their  sliding  and  haste-forbidding  slippers,  their 
flowing  and  ungirded  habiliments,  are  signs  most  ex- 
pressive of  their  joy  in  life.  Look  around,  and  see 
how  on  every  hill-top  stands  a  maison  de  plaisance  ; 
how  every  hill-side  is  shelved  into  those  green  plat- 
forms,* so  expressive  of  their  habits  of  enjoyment! 
Rich  or  poor,  their  pleasures  are  the  same.  The 
open  air,  freedom  to  roam,  a  caique  at  the  water-side, 
and  a  sairgah  on  the  hill — these  are  their  means  of 
happiness,  and  they  are  within  the  reach  of  all ;  they 
are  nearer  Utopia  than  we,  my  dear  Philip !  We  shall 
be  more  like  Turks  than  Christians  in  paradise!" 

"  Inglorious  Job!" 

"Why?  Because  I  love  idleness?  Are  there 
braver  people  in  the  world  than  the  Turks?  Are 
there  people  more  capable  of  the  romance  of  heroism  ? 
Energy,  though  it  sound  a  paradox,  is  the  child  of 
idleness.  All  extremes  are  natural  and  easy;  and  the 
most  indolent  in  peace  is  likely  to  be  the  most  fiery  in 
war.  Here  we  are,  opposite  the  summer  serai  of  Sul- 
tan Mahmoud;  and  who  more  luxurious  and  idle? 
Yet  the  massacre  of  the  Janissaries  was  one  of  the 
boldest  measures  in  history.  There  is  the  most  per- 
fect orientalism  in  the  description  of  the  Persian  beauty 
byHafiz:—  J 

'  Her  heart  is  full  of  passion,  and  her  eyes  are  full  of  sleep.' 

•  All  around  Constantinople  are  seen  what  are  called  sair- 
gafts— small  greensward  platforms  levelled  in  the  side  of  a 
hill,  and  usually  commanding  some  lovely  view,  intended  as 
spots  on  which  those  who  are  abroad  for  pleasure  may  spread 


Perhaps  nothing  would  be  so  contradictory  as  the  true 
analysis  of  the  character  of  what  is  called  jan  indolent 
man.     With  all   the  tastes  I  have  just  professed,  my 
strongest  feeling  on  leaving  the  Symplegades,  for  ex- 
ample, was,  and  is  still,  an  unwillingness  to  retrace  my 
steps.     '  Onward !  onward ."  is  the  perpetual   cry  of 
my  heart.     I  could  pass  my  life  in  going  from  land  to 
land,  so  only  that  every  successive  one  was  new.     Italy 
will  be  old  to  us  ;  France,  Germany,  can  scarce  lure 
the  imagination  to  adventure,  with  the  knowledge  we 
have:  and  England,  though  we  have  not  seen  it,  is  so 
familiar  to  us  from  its  universality  that  it  will  not  seem, 
even  on  a  first  visit,  a  strange  country.     We  have  sa- 
tiety before  us,  and  the  thought  saddens  me.     I  hate 
J  to  go  back.     I  could  start  now,  with  Maimuna  for  a 
I  guide,  and  turn  gipsy  in  the  wilds  of  Asia." 
"Will  you  go  with  him,  Maimuna?" 
" Signor,  no!" 

I  am  the  worst  of  story-tellers,  gentle  reader ;  for  I 
|  never  get  to  the  end.     The  truth  is,  that  in  these  ram- 
1  bling  papers,  I  go  over  the  incidents  I  describe,  not  as 
!  they  should  be  written  in  a  romance,  but  as  they  oc- 
curred in  my  travels  :  I  write  what  I  remember.    There 
i  are,  of  course,  long  intervals  in  adventure,  filled   up 
,  sometimes  by  feasting  or  philosophy,  sometimes  with 
idleness,  or  love;  and,  to   please  myself,  I  must  un- 
'  weave  the  thread  as  it  was  woven.     It  is  strange  how, 
in  the  memory  of  a  traveller,  the  most  wayside  and  un- 
important things  are  the  best  remembered.     You  may 
have  stood  in  the  Parthenon,  and,  looking  back  upon 
,  it  through  the  distance  of  years,  a  chance  word  of  the 
j  companion  who  happened  to  be  with  you,  or  the  atti- 
tude of  a  Greek  seen  in  the  plain  below,  may  come  up 
more  vividly  to   the  recollection   than  the   immortal 
|  sculptures  on  the  frieze.     There  is  a  natural  antipathy 
j  in  the  human  mind  to  fulfil  expectations.     We  wander 
j  from  the   thing   we   are  told   to   admire,  to  dwell   on 
i  something  we  have  discovered  ourselves.     The  child 
;  in  church  occupies  itself  with  the  fly  on  its  prayer- 
I  book,  and  "the  child  is  father  of  the  man."     If  I  in- 
|  dulge   in    the   same   perversity  in  story-telling,   dear 
!  reader — if,  in  the   most  important  crisis  of  my  tale,  I 
I  digress  to  some  trifling  vein  of  speculation — if,  at  the 
|  close  even,  the  climax  seem  incomplete,  and  the  moral 
i  vain — I  plead,  upon  all  these  counts,  an  adherence  to 
truth  and  nature.     Life — real  life — is  made  up  of  half- 
finished  romance.     The  most  interesting  procession  of 
events  is  delayed,  and  travestied,  and  mixed  with  the 
I  ridiculous  and  the  trifling,  and  at  the  end,  oftenest  left 
imperfect.     Who  ever  saw,  off  the   stage,  a  five-act 
tragedy,  with  its  proprieties  and  its  climax? 


PART  III. 

Ten  o'clock  A.  M.,  and  the  weather  like  the  prophet's 
paradise, 

"  Warmth  without  heat,  and  coolness  without  cold." 

Madame  Josepino  stood  at  the  door  of  her  Turco-Ital- 

j  ian  boarding-house  in  the  nasty  and  fashionable  main 

j  street  of  Pera,  dividing  her  attention  between  a  hand- 

i  some  Armenian,  with  a  red  button  in  the  top  of  his 

black  lamb's-wool  cap,f  and  her  three  boarders,  Job, 

Maimuna,  and  myself,  at  that  critical  moment  about 

mounting  our  horses  for  a  gallop  to  Belgrade. 

their  carpets.     I  know  nothing  so  expressive  as  this  of  the 
simple  and  natural  lives  led  by  these  gentle  orientals. 

tThe  Armenians  at  Constantinople  are  despised  by  the 
Turks,  and  tacily  submit,  like  the  Jews,  to  occupy  a  degraded 
position  as  a  people.  A  few,  however,  are  employed  as  in- 
terpreters by  the  embassies,  and  these  are  allowed  to  wear 
the  mark  of  a  red  worsted  button  in  the  high  black  cap  of  the 
race — a  distinction  which  just  serves  to  make  them  the  great- 
est possible  coxcombs. 


426 


INKLINGS  OF  ADVENTURE. 


We  kissed  our  hands  to  the  fat  and  fair  Italian,  and 
with  a  promise  to  be  at  home  for  supper,  kicked  our 
shovel-shaped  stirrups  into  the  sides  of  our  horses,  and 
pranced  away  up  the  street,  getting  many  a  glance  of 
curiosity,  and  one  or  two  that  might  be  more  freely 
translated,  from  the  dark  eyes  that  are  seen  day  and 
night  at  the  windows  of  the  leaden-colored  houses  of 
the  Armenians. 

We  should  have  been  an  odd-looking  cavalcade  for 
the  Boulevard  or  Bond  street,  but,  blessed  privilege  of 
the  east !  we  were  sufficiently  comme  il  faut  for  Pera. 
To  avoid  the  embarrassment  of  Maimuna's  sex,  I  had 
dressed  her,  from  an  English  "slop-shop"  at  Galata, 
in  the  checked  shirt,  jacket,  and  trowsers  of  a  sailor- 
boy,  but  as  she  was  obstinately  determined  that  her 
long  black  hair  should  not  be  shorn,  a  turban  was  her 
only  resource  for  concealment,  and  the  dark  and 
glossy  mass  was  hidden  in  the  folds  of  an  Albanian 
shawl,  forming  altogether  as  inharmonious  a  costume 
as  could  well  be  imagined.  With  the  white  duck 
trowsers  tight  over  her  hips,  and  the  jacket,  which  was 
a  little  too  large  for  her,  loose  over  her  shoulders  and 
breast,  the  checked  collar  tied  with  a  black  silk  cravat 
close  round  her  throat,  and  the  silken  and  gold  fringe 
of  the  shawl  flowing  coquetishly  over  her  left  cheek 
and  ear,  she  was  certainly  an  odd  figure  on  horseback, 
and,  but  for  her  admirable  riding  and  excessive  grace  of 
altitude,  she  might  have  been  as  much  a  subject  for  a 
caricature  as  her  companion.  Job  rode  soberly  along 
at  her  side,  in  the  green  turban  of  a  Hajji  (which  he 
had  persisted  in  wearing  ever  since  his  pilgrimage  to 
Jerusalem),  and,  as  he  usually  put  it  on  askew,  the 
gaillard  and  rakish  character  of  his  head-dress,  and 
the  grave  respectability  of  his  black  coat  and  salt-and- 
pepper  trowsers,  produced  a  contrast  which  elicited 
a  smile  even  from  the  admiring  damsels  at  the  win- 
dows. 

Maimuna  went  caracoling  along  till  the  road  entered 
the  black  shadow  of  the  cemetery  of  Pera,  and  then, 
pulling  up  her  well-managed  horse,  she  rode  close  to 
my  side,  with  the  air  of  subdued  respect  which  was 
more  fitting  to  the  spirit  of  the  scene.  It  was  a  lovely 
morning,  as  I  said,  and  the  Turks,  who  are  early  risers, 
were  sitting  on  the  graves  of  their  kindred  with  their 
veiled  wives  and  children,  the  marble  turbans  in  that 
thickly-sown  nekropolis  less  numerous  than  those  of  the 
living,  who  had  come,  not  to  mourn  the  dead  who  lay 
beneath,  but  to  pass  a  day  of  idleness  and  pleasure  on 
the  spot  endeared  by  their  memories. 

"  I  declare  to  you,"  said  Job,  following  Maimuna's 
example  in  waiting  till  I  came  up,  "  that  I  think  the 
Turks  the  most  misrepresented  and  abused  people  on 
earth.  Look  at  this  scene  !  Here  are  whole  families 
seated  upon  graves  over  which  the  grass  grows  green 
and  fresh,  the  children  playing  at  their  feet,  and  their 
own  faces  the  pictures  of  calm  cheerfulness  and  enjoy- 
ment. They  are  the  by-word  for  brutes,  and  there  is 
not  a  gentler  or  more  poetical  race  of  beings  between 
the  Indus  and  the  Arkansas  !" 

It  was  really  a  scene  of  great  beauty.  The  Turkish 
tombs  are  as  splendid  as  white  marble  can  make  them, 
with  letters  and  devices  in  red  and  gold,  and  often  the 
most  delicious  sculptures,  and,  with  the  crowded  close- 
ness of  the  monuments,  the  vast  extent  of  the  burial- 
ground  over  hill  and  dale,  and  the  cypresses  (nowhere 
so  magnificent)  veiling  all  in  a  deep  religious  shadow, 
dim,  and  yet  broken  by  spots  of  the  clearest  sunshine, 
a  more  impressive  and  peculiar  scene  could  scarce  be 
imagined.  It  might  exist  in  other  countries,  but  it 
would  be  a  desert.  To  the  Mussulman  death  is  not 
repulsive,  and  he  makes  it  a  resort  when  he  would  be 
happiest.  At  all  hours  of  the  day  you  find  the 
tombs  of  Constantinople  surrounded  by  the  living. 
They  spread  their  carpets,  and  arrange  their  simple 
repast  around  the  stone  which  records  the  name  and 
virtues  of  their  own  dead,  and  talk  of  them  as  they  do 


of  the  living  and  absent — parted  from  them  to  meet 
again,  if  not  in  life,  in  paradise. 

"  For  my  own  part,"  continued  Job,  "  I  see  nothing 
in  scripture  which  contradicts  the  supposition  that  we 
shall  haunt,  in  the  intermediate  state  between  death 
and  heaven,  the  familiar  places  to  which  we  have  been 
accustomed.  In  that  case,  how  delightful  are  the  hab- 
its of  these  people,  and  how  cheeringly  vanish  the  hor- 
rors of  the  grave  !  Death,  with  us,  is  appalling !  The 
smile  has  scarce  faded  from  our  lips,  the  light  scarce 
dead  in  our  eye,  when  we  are  thrust  into  a  noisome 
vault,  and  thought  of  but  with  a  shudder  and  a  fear. 
We  are  connected  thenceforth,  in  the  memories  of  our 
friends,  with  the  pestilent  air  in  which  we  lie,  with  the 
vermin  that  infest  the  gloom,  with  dullness,  with  dark- 
ness, with  disease;  and,  memento  as  it  is  of  their  own 
coming  destiny,  what  wonder  if  they  chase  us,  and  the 
forecast  shadows  of  the  grave,  with  the  same  hurried 
disgust  from  their  remembrance.  Suppose,  for  an  in- 
stant (what  is  by  no  means  improbable),  that  the 
spirits  of  the  dead  are  about  us,  conscious  and  watch- 
ful !  Suppose  that  they  have  still  a  feeling  of  sympa- 
thy in  the  decaying  form  they  have  so  long  inhabited, 
in  its  organs,  its  senses,  its  once-admired  and  long- 
cherished  grace  and  proportion;  that  they  feel  the 
contumely  and  disgust  with  which  the  features  we  pro- 
fessed to  love  are  cast  like  garbage  into  the  earth,  and 
the  indecent  haste  with  which  we  turn  away  from  the 
solitary  spot,  and  think  of  it  but  as  the  abode  of  fester- 
ing and  revolting  corruption  !" 

At  this  moment  we  turned  to  the  left,  descending  to 
the  Bosphorus,  and  Maimuna,  who  had  ridden  a  little 
in  advance  during  Job's  unintelligible  monologue,  came 
galloping  back  to  tell  us  that  there  was  a  corpse  in  the 
road.  We  quickened  our  pace,  and  the  next  moment 
our  horses  started  aside  from  the  bier,  left  in  a  bend  of 
the  highway  with  a  single  individual,  the  grave-digger, 
sitting  cross-legged  beside  it.  Without  looking  up  at 
our  approach,  the  man  mumbled  something  between 
his  teeth,  and  held  up  his  hand  as  if  to  arrest  us  in  our 
path. 

"What  does  he  say  ?"  I  asked  of  Maimuna. 

"  He  repeats  a  verse  of  the  Koran,"  she  replied, 
"  which  promises  a  reward  in  paradise  to  him  who 
bears  the  dead  forty  steps  on  its  way  to  the  grave." 

Job  sprang  instantly  from  his  horse,  threw  the  bridle 
over  the  nearest  tombstone,  and  made  a  sign  to  the 
grave-digger  that  he  would  officiate  as  bearer.  The 
man  nodded  assent,  but  looked  down  the  road  without 
arising  from  his  seat. 

"  You  are  but  three,"  said  Maimuna,  "  and  he  waits 
for  a  fourth." 

I  had  dismounted  by  this  time,  not  to  be  behind  my 
friend  in  the  humanities  of  life,  and  the  grave-digger, 
seeing  that  we  were  Europeans,  smiled  with  a  kind 
of  pleased  surprise,  and  uttering  the  all-expressive 
"  Pekkhe  /"  resumed  his  look-out  for  the  fourth 
bearer. 

The  corpse  was  that  of  a  poor  old  man.  The  cof- 
fin was  without  a  cover,  and  he  lay  in  it,  in  his  turban 
and  slippers,  his  hands  crossed  over  his  breast,  and 
the  folds  of  his  girdle  stuck  full  of  flowers.  He  might 
have  been  asleep,  for  any  look  of  death  about  him. 
His  lips  were  slightly  unclosed,  and  his  long  beard  was 
combed  smoothly  over  his  breast.  The  odor  of  the 
pipe  and  the  pastille  struggled  with  the  perfume  of  the 
flowers,  and  there  was  in  his  whole  aspect  a  life-like- 
ness and  peace,  that  the  shroud  and  the  close  coffin, 
and  the  additional  horrors  of  approaching  death,  per- 
haps, combine,  in  other  countries,  utterly  to  do  away. 

"  Hitherto,"  said  Job,  as  he  gazed  attentively  on  the 
calm  old  man,  "  I  have  envied  the  Scaligers  their  up- 
lifted and  airy  tombs  in  the  midst  of  the  cheerful  street 
of  Verona,  and,  next  to  theirs,  the  sunny  sarcophagus 
of  Petrarch,  looking  away  over  the  peaceful  Campagna 
of  Lombardy  ;  but  here  is  a  Turkish  beggar  who  will 


INKLINGS  OF  ADVENTURE. 


427 


be  buried  still  more  enviably.     Is  it  not  a  paradise  of 
tombs — a  kind  of  Utopia  of  the  dead  ?" 

A  young  man  with  a  load  of  vegetables  for  the 
market  of  Pera,  came  toiling;  up  the  hill  behind  his 
mule.  Sure  of  his  assistance,  the  grave-digger  arose, 
and  as  we  took  our  places  at  the  poles,  the  marketer 
quietly  turned  his  beast  out  of  the  road,  and  assisted 
us  in  lifting  the  dead  on  our  shoulders.  The  grave 
was  not  far  off,  and  having  deposited  the  corpse  on  its 
border,  we  returned  to  our  horses,  and,  soon  getting 
clear  of  the  cemetery,  galloped  away  with  light  hearts 
toward  the  valley  of  Sweet  Waters. 

II. 

We  were  taking  breath  on  the  silken  banks  of  the 
Barbyses — Maimuna  prancing  along  the  pebbly  bed, 
up  to  her  barb's  girths  in  sparkling  water,  and  Job  and 
myself  laughing  at  her  frolics  from  either  side,  when 
an  old  woman,  bent  double  with  age,  came  hobbling 
toward  us  from  a  hovel  in  the  hill-side. 

"  Maimuna,"  said  Job,  fishing  out  some  trumpery 
paras  from  the  corner  of  his  waistcoat  pocket,  "  give 
this  to  that  good  woman,  and  tell  her  that  he  who  gives 
it  is  happy,  and  would  share  his  joy  with  her." 

The  gipsy  spurred  up  the  bank,  dismounted  at  a 
short  distance  from  the  decrepit  creature,  and  after  a 
little  conversation  returned,  leading  her  horse. 

"  She  is  not  a  beggar,  and  wishes  to  know  why  you 
give  her  money  ?" 

"  Tell  her,  to  buy  bread  for  her  children."  said  my 
patriarchal  friend. 

Maimuna  went  back,  conversed  with  her  again,  and 
returned  with  the  money. 

"  She  says  she  has  no  need  of  it.  There  is  nohuman 
creature  between  her  and  Allah  /" 

The  old  woman  hobbled  on,  Job  pocketed  his  re- 
jected paras,  and  Maimuna  rode  between  us  in  silence. 

It  was  a  gem  of  natural  poetry  that  was  worthy  of 
the  lips  of  an  angel. 

III. 

We  kept  up  the  valley  of  Sweet  Waters,  tracing 
the  Barbyses  through  its  bosom,  to  the  hills  ;  and  then 
mounting  a  steep  ascent,  struck  across  to  the  east,  over 
a  country,  which,  though  so  near  the  capital  of  the 
Turkish  empire,  is  as  wild  as  the  plains  of  the  Hermus. 
Shrubs,  forest-trees,  and  wild  grass,  cover  the  appa- 
rently illimitable  waste,  and  save  a  half-visible  horse- 
path which  guides  the  traveller  across,  there  is  scarce 
an  evidence  that  you  are  not  the  first  adventurer  in  the 
wilderness. 

What  a  natural  delight  is  freedom  !  What  a  bound 
gives  the  heart  at  the  sight  of  the  unfenced  earth,  the 
unseparated  hill-sides,  the  unhedged  and  unharvested 
valleys  !  How  thrilling  it  is — unlike  any  other  joy — 
to  spur  a  fiery  horse  to  the  hill-top,  and  gaze  away 
over  dell  and  precipice  to  the  horizon,  and  never  a 
wall  between,  nor  a  human  limit  to  say  "  Thus  far 
shalt  thou  go,  and  no  farther !"  Oh,  I  think  we  have 
an  instinct,  dulled  by  civilization,  which  is  like  the 
caged  eaglet's,  or  the  antelope's  that  is  reared  in  the 
Arab's  tent ;  an  instinct  of  nature  that  scorns  boundary 
and  chain  ;  that  yearns  to  the  free  desert ;  that  would 
have  the  earth,  like  the  sea  or  the  sky,  unappropriated 
and  open  ;  that  rejoices  in  immeasurable  liberty  of  foot 
and  dwelling-place,  and  springs  passionately  back  to 
its  freedom  even  after  years  of  subduing  method  and 
spirit-breaking  confinement !  I  have  felt  it  on  the  sea, 
in  the  forests  of  America,  on  the  desolated  plains  of 
Asia  and  Roumelia ;  I  should  feel  it  till  my  heart 
burst,  had  I  the  wings  of  a  bird ! 

The  house  once  occupied  by  Lady  Mary  Wortley 
Montagu  stands  on  the  descent  of  a  hill  in  the  little  vil- 
lage of  Belgrade,  some  twelve  or  fourteen  miles  from 


Constantinople.  It  is  a  common-place  two-story  affair, 
but  the  best  house  of  the  dozen  that  form  the  village, 
and  overlooks  a  dell  below  that  reminds  one  of  the 
"Emerald  valleys  of  Cashmeer."  We  wandered 
through  its  deserted  rooms,  discussed  the  clever  wo- 
man who  has  described  her  travels  so  graphically,  and 
then  followed  Maimuna  to  the  narrow  street,  in  search 
ofkibaubs.  The  butcher's  shop  in  Turkey  is  as  open 
as  the  trottoir  to  the  street,  and  with  only  an  entire 
sheep  hanging  between  us  and  a  dozen  hungry  beg- 
gars, attracted  by  the  presence  of  strangers,  we  crossed 
our  legs  on  the  straw  carpet,  and  setting  the  wooden 
tripod  in  the  centre,  waited  patiently  the  movements  of 
our  feeder,  who  combined  in  his  single  person  the 
three  vocations  of  butcher,  cook,  and  waiter.  One 
must  have  travelled  east  of  Cape  Colonna  to  relish  a 
dinner  so  slightly  disguised,  but,  once  rid  of  European 
prejudices,  there  is  nothing  more  simple  than  the  fact 
that  it  is  rather  an  attractive  mode  of  feeding — a  travel- 
ler's appetite  subauditur. 

Our  friend  was  a  wholesome-looking  Turk,  with  a 
snow-white  turban,  a  black,  well-conditioned   beard,  a 
mouth  incapable  of  a  smile,  yet  honest,  and  a  most 
trenchant    and  janissarcsque    style   of  handling    his 
cleaver.     Having  laid  open   his  bed  of  coals  with  a 
,  kind  of  conjurer's  flourish  of  the  poker,  he  slapped  the 
;  pendent  mutton  on  the  thigh  in  a  fashion  of  encourage- 
ment,  and  waiting  an  instant  for  our  admiration  to  sub- 
'  side,  he  whipping  his  knife  from  its  sheath,  and  had  out 
J  a  dozen  strips  from  the  chine  (as  Job  expressed  it  in 
'  Vermontese)  "  in  no  time."     With  the  same  alacrity 
these  were  cut  into  bits  "  of  the  size  of  a  piece  of 
chalk"    (another   favorite    expression   of  Job's),    run 
j  upon  a  skewer,  and   laid  on  the  coals,  and   in   three 
I  minutes,  more  or  less,  they  appeared  smoking  on  the 
j  trencher,  half  lost  in  a  fine  green  salad,  well  peppered, 
I  and  of  a  most  seducing  and  provocative  savor.     If  you 
have  performed  your  four  ablutions  A.  M.,  like  adevout 
I  Mussulman,  it  is  not  conceived  in  Turkey  that  you 
I  have  occasion  for  the  medium  of  a  fork,  and  I  frankly 
own,  that  I  might  have  been  seen  at  Belgrade,  cross- 
legged  in  a  kibaub-shay,  betwee«  my  friend  and  the 
gipsy,  and  making  a  most  diligent  use  of  my  thumb 
and  fore-finger.     I  have  dined  since  at  the  Rocher  de 
J  Cancale  and  the  Traveller's  with  less  satisfaction. 

Having  paid   something   like   sixpence  sterling  for 

our  three   dinners  (rather   an   overcharge,  Maimuna 

thought),  we  unpicketed  our  horses  from  the  long 

grass,  and  bade  adieu  to  Belgrade,  on  our  way  to  the 

aqueducts.     We  were  to   follow  down  a  verdant  val- 

\  ley,  and,  exhilarated  by  a  flask  of  Greek  wine  (which 

;  I  forgot  to  mention),  and  the  ever-thrilling  circum- 

I  stances  of  unlimited  greensward  and  horses   that  wait 

not  for  the  spur,  we  followed  the  daring  little  Asiatic 

:  up  hill  and  down,  over  bush  and   precipice,  till  Job 

;  cried  us  mercy.     We  pulled  up  on  the  edge  of  a  sheet 

'  of  calm  water,  and  the  vast  marble  wall,  built  by  the 

sultans  in  the  days  of  their  magnificence  and  crossing 

the  valley  from  side  to  side,  burst  upon  us  like  a  scene 

of  enchantment  in  the  wilderness. 

Those  same  sultans  must  have  lived  a  great  deal  at 
Belgrade.     Save  these  vast  aqueducts,  which  are  splen- 
did  monuments  of  architecture,  there  is  little  in  the 
first  aspect  to  remind  you  that  you  are  not  in  the  wilds 
!  of  Missouri;  but  a  further  search  discloses,  in  the  re- 
\  cesses  of  the  hidden  windings  of  the  valley,  circular 
'  staircases  of  marble  leading  to  secluded  baths,  now 
1  filled  with   leaves  and  neglected,  but  evidently  on  a 
I  scale  of  the  most  imperial  sumptuousness.     From  the 
perishable  construction  of  Turkish  dwelling-houses,  all 
traces  even  of  the  most  costly  serai  may  easily  have 
disappeared  in  a  few  years,  when  once  abandoned  to 
ruin;  and    I    pleased   myself  with  imagining,   as   we 
slackened  bridle,  and  rode  slowly  beneath  the  gigantic 
trees  of  the  forest,  the  gilded  pavilions,  and  gay  scenes 
of  oriental   pleasure  that  must   have  existed  here  in 


428 


INKLINGS  OF  ADVENTURE. 


the  days  of  the  warlike  yet  effeminate  Selims.  It  is  a 
place  for  the  enchantments  of  the  "Arabian  Nights" 
to  have  been  realized. 

I  have  followed  the  common  error  in  giving  these 
structures  in  the  forest  of  Belgrade  the  name  of  aque- 
ducts. They  are  rather  walls  built  across  the  deep 
valleys,  of  different  altitudes,  to  create  reservoirs  for 
the  supply  of  aqueducts,  but  are  built  with  all  the 
magnificence  and  ornament  of  a  facade  to  a  temple. 

We  rode  on  from  one  to  the  other, 'arriving  at  last  at 
the  lowest,  which  divides  the  valley  at  its  wildest  part, 
forming  a  giddy  wall  across  an  apparently  bottomless 
ravine,  as  dark  and  impracticable  as  the  glen  of  the 
Cauterskill  in  America.  Our  road  lay  on  the  other 
side,  but  though  with  a  steady  eye  one  might  venture 
to  cross  the  parapet  on  foot,  there  were  no  means  of 
getting  our  horses  over,  short  of  a  return  of  half  a  mile 
to  the  path  we  had  neglected  higher  up  the  valley. 
We  might  swim  it,  above  the  embankment,  but  the 
opposite  shore  was  a  precipice. 

"  What  shall  we  do  ?"  I  asked. 

Job  made  no  answer,  but  pulled  round  his  beast, 
and  started  off  in  a  sober  canter  to  return. 

I  stood  a  moment,  gazing  on  the  placid  sheet  of 
water  above,  and  the  abyss  of  rock  and  darkness  be- 
low, and  then  calling  to  Maimuna,  who  had  ridden 
farther  down  the  bank,  I  turned  my  horse's  head  after 
him. 

"Signore!"  cried  the  gipsy  from  below. 

"What  is  it,  Carissima  ?" 

"Maimuna  never  goes  back!" 

"Silly  child!"  I  answered,  "you  are  not  going  to 
cross  the  ravine  ?" 

"  Yes !"  was  the  reply,  and  the  voice  became  more 
indistinguishable  as  she  galloped  away.  "  I  will  be 
over  before  you!" 

I  was  vexed,  but  I  knew  the  self-will  and  temerity 
of  the  wild  Asiatic,  and,  very  certain  that  if  there 
were  danger  it  would  be  run  before  I  could  reach 
her,  I  drove  the  stirrups  into  my  horse's  sides,  and 
overtook  Job  at  the  descent  into  the  valley.  We  as- 
cended again,  and  rod*  down  the  opposite  shore  to  the 
embankment,  at  a  sharp  gallop.  Maimuna  was  not 
there. 

"  She  will  have  perished  in  the  abyss,"  said  Job. 

I  sprang  from  my  horse  to  cross  the  parapet  on  foot 
in  search  of  her,  when  I  heard  her  horse's  footsteps, 
and  the  next  moment  she  dashed  up  the  steep,  having 
failed  in  her  attempt,  and  stood  once  more  where  we 
had  parted.  The  sun  was  setting,  and  we  had  ten 
miles  to  ride,  and  impatient  of  her  obstinacy,  I  sharply 
ordered  her  to  go  up  the  ravine  at  speed,  and  cross  as 
we  had  done. 

I  think  I  never  shall  forget,  angry  as  I  was  at  the 
moment,  the  appearance  of  that  lovely  creature,  as 
she  resolutely  refused  to  obey  me.  Her  horse,  the 
same  fiery  Arabian  she  had  ridden  from  Sardis  (an 
animal  that,  except  when  she  was  on  his  back,  would 
scarce  have  sold  for  a  gold  sequin),  stood  with  head 
erect  and  panting  nostrils,  glancing  down  with  his 
wild  eyes  upon  the  abyss  into  which  he  had  been 
urged— the  whole  group,  horse  and  rider,  completely 
relieved  against  the  sky  from  the  isolated  mound  they 
occupied,  and,  at  this  instant,  the  gold  flood  of  the  set- 
ting sun  pouring  full  on  them  through  a  break  in  the 
masses  of  the  forest.  Her  own  fierce  attitude,  and 
beautiful  and  frowning  face,  the  thin  lip  curled  reso- 
lutely, and  the  brown  and  polished  cheek  deepened 
with  a  rosy  glow,  her  full  and  breathing  bosom  swell- 
ing beneath  its  jacket,  and  her  hair,  which  had  escaped 
from  the  turban,  flowing  over  her  neck  and  shoulders, 
and  mingling  with  the  loosened  fringes  of  red  and  gold 
in  rich  disorder — it  was  a  picture  which  the  pencil  of 
Martin  (and  it  would  have  suited  his  genius)  could 
scarce  have  exaggerated.  The  stately  half  Arabic, 
half  Grecian  architecture  of  the  aqueducts,  and  the 


cold  and  frowning  tints  of  the  abyss  and  the  forest 
around,  would  have  left  him  nothing  to  add  to  it  as  a 
composition. 

I  was  crossing  the  giddy  edge  of  the  parapet,  look- 
ing well  to  my  feet,  with  the  intention  of  reasoning 
with  the  obstinate  being,  who,  vexed  at  my  reproaches 
and  her  own  failure,  was  now  in  as  pretty  a  rage  as 
myself,  when  I  heard  the  trampling  of  horses  in  the 
forest.  I  stopped  mid-way  to  listen,  and  presently 
there  sprang  a  horseman  up  the  bank  in  an  oriental 
costume,  with  pistols  and  ataghan  flashing  in  the 
sun,  and  a  cast  of  features  that  at  once  betrayed  his 
origin. 

"A  Zingara!"  I  shouted  back  to  Job. 

The  gipsy,  who  was  about  nineteen,  and  as  well- 
made  and  gallant  a  figure  for  a  man  as  Maimuna  for  a 
woman,  seemed  as  much  astonished  as  ourselves,  and 
sat  in  his  saddle  gazing  on  the  extraordinary  figure  I 
have  described,  evidently  recognising  one  of  his  own 
race,  but  probably  puzzled  with  the  mixture  of  cos- 
tumes, and  struck  at  the  same  time  with  Maimuna's 
excessive  beauty.  Lovely  as  she  always  was,  I  had 
never  seen  her  to  such  advantage  as  now.  She  might 
have  come  from  fairy-land,  for  the  radiant  vision  she 
seemed  in  the  gold  of  that  burning  sunset. 

I  gazed  on  them  both  a  moment,  and  was  about 
finishing  my  traverse  of  the  parapet,  when  a  troop  of 
mounted  gipsies  and  baggage-horses  came  up  the  bank 
at  a  quick  pace,  and  in  another  minute  Maimuna  was 
surrounded.  I  sprang  to  her  bridle,  and  apprehensive 
of,  I  scarce  knew  what  danger,  gave  her  one  of  the 
two  pistols  I  carried  always  in  my  bosom. 

The  gipsy  chief  (for  such  he  evidently  was)  meas- 
ured me  from  head  to  foot  with  a  look  of  dislike,  and 
speaking  for  the  first  time,  addressed  Maimuna  in  his 
own  language,  with  a  remark  which  sent  the  blood  to 
her  temples  with  a  suddenness  I  had  never  before 
seen. 

"  What  does  he  say  ?"  I  asked. 

"  It  is  no  matter,  signore,  but  it  is  false !"  Hei 
black  eyes  were  like  coals  of  fire,  as  she  spoke. 

"  Leave  your  horse,"  I  said  to  her,  in  a  low  tone, 
"  and  cross  the  parapet.  I  will  prevent  his  following 
you,  and  will  join  you  on  your  own  before  you  can 
reach  Constantinople.  Turn  the  horses'  heads  home- 
ward!" I  continued  in  English  to  Job,  who  was  crying 
out  to  me  from  the  other  side  to  come  back. 

Maimuna  laid  her  hand  on  the  pommel  to  dismount, 
but  the  gipsy,  anticipating  her  motion,  touched  his 
horse  with  the  stirrup,  and  sprang  with  a  single  leap 
between  her  and  the  parapet.  The  troop  had  gath- 
ered into  a  circle  behind  us,  and  seeing  our  retreat 
thus  cut  off,  I  presented  my  pistol  to  the  young  chief, 
and  demanded,  in  Italian,  that  he  should  clear  the 
way. 

A  blow  from  behind,  the  instant  that  I  was  pulling 
the  trigger,  sent  the  discharged  pistol  into  the  ravine, 
and,  in  the  same  instant,  Maimuna  dashed  her  horse 
against  the  unguarded  gipsy,  nearly  overturning  him 
into  the  abyss,  and  spurred  desperately  upon  the  para- 
pet. One  cry  from  the  whole  gipsy  troop,  and  then 
all  was  as  silent  as  the  grave,  except  the  click  of  her 
horse's  hoofs  on  the  marble  verge,  as,  trembling  pal- 
pably in  every  limb,  the  terrified  animal  crossed  the 
giddy  chasm  at  a  half  trot,  and,  in  the  next  minute, 
bounded  up  the  opposite  bank,  and  disappeared  with 
a  snort  of  fear  and  delight  amid  the  branches  of  the 
forest. 

What  with  horror  and  wonder,  and  the  shock  of  the 
blow  which  had  nearly  broken  my  arm,  I  stood  mo- 
tionless where  Maimuna  had  left  me,  till  the  gipsy,  re- 
covering from  his  amazement,  dismounted  and  put  his 
pistol  to  my  breast. 

"  Call  her  back !"  he  said  to  me,  in  very  good  Ital- 
ian, and  with  a  tone  in  which  rage  and  determination 
were  strangely  mingled,  "or  you  die  where  you  stand ! 


INKLINGS  OF  ADVENTURE. 


429 


Without  regarding  his  threat,  I  looked  at  him,  with 
a  new  thought  stealing  into  my  mind.  He  probably 
read  the  pacific  change  in  my  feelings,  for  he  dropped 
his  arm,  and  the  frown  on  his  own  features  moderated 
to  a  steadfast  and  inquisitive  regard. 

'•Zingara!"  I  said,  "Maimuna  is  my  slave." 

A  clutch  of  his  pistol-stock,  and  a  fiery  and  impa- 
tient look  from  his  fine  eyes,  interrupted  me  for  an  in- 
stant. I  proceeded  to  tell  him  briefly  how  I  had  ob- 
tained possession  of  her,  while  the  troop  gradually 
closed  around,  attracted  by  his  excessive  look  of  in- 
terest in  the  tale,  though  they  probably  did  not  under- 
stand the  language  in  which  I  spoke,  and  all  fixing 
their  wild  eyes  earnestly  on  my  face. 

"  And  now,  Zingara,"  I  said,  "I  will  bring  her  back 
on  one  condition — that,  when  the  offer  is  fairly  made 
her,  if  she  chooses  still  to  go  with  me,  she  shall  be 
free  to  do  so.  I  have  protected  her,  and  sworn  still 
to  protect  her  as  long  as  she  should  choose  to  eat  of 
my  bread.  Though  my  slave,  she  is  pure  and  guilt- 
less as  when  she  left  the  tent  of  her  mother,  and  is 
worthy  of  the  bosom  of  an  emperor." 

The  Zingara  took  my  hand,  and  put  it  to  his  lips. 

"You  agree  to  our  compact,  then?"  I  asked. 

He  put  his  hand  on  his  forehead,  and  then  laid  it, 
with  a  slight  inclination,  on  his  breast. 

"  She  can  not  have  gone  far,"  I  said,  and  stepping 
on  the  mound  above  the  parapet,  I  shouted  her  name 
till  the  woods  rang  again  with  the  echo. 

A  moment,  and  Job  and  Maimuna  came  riding  to 
the  verge  of  the  opposite  hill,  and  with  a  few  words 
of  explanation,  fastened  their  horses  to  a  tree,  and 
crossed  to  us  by  the  parapet. 

The  chief  returned  his  pistols  to  his  girdle,  and 
Btood  aside  while  I  spoke  to  Maimuna.  It  was  a  diffi- 
cult task,  but  I  felt  that  it  was  a  moment  decisive  of 
her  destiny,  and  the  responsibility  weighed  heavily  on 
my  breast.  Though  excessively  attached  to  her — 
though  she  had  been  endeared  to  me  by  sacrifices,  and 
by  the  ties  of  protection — though,  in  short,  I  loved 
her,  not  with  a  passion,  but  with  an  affection — as  a 
father  more  than  as  a  lover — I  still  felt  it  to  be  my  duty 
to  leave  no  means  untried  to  induce  her  to  abandon 
me,  to  return  to  her  own  people  and  remain  in  her  own 
land  of  the  sun.  What  her  fate  would  be  in  the  state 
of  society  to  which  I  must  else  introduce  her,  had 
been  eloquently  depicted  by  Job,  and  will  readily  be 
imagined  by  the  reader. 

After  the  first  burst  of  incredulity  and  astonishment 
at  my  proposal,  she  folded  her  arms  on  her  bosom, 
and,  with  the  tears  streaming  like  rain  over  her  jacket, 
listened  in  silence  and  with  averted  eyes.  I  conclu- 
ded with  representing  to  her,  in  rather  strong  colors, 
the  feelings  with  which  she  might  be  received  by  my 
friends,  and  the  difficulty  she  would  find  in  accommo- 
dating herself  to  the  customs  of  people,  to  whom  not 
only  she  must  be  inferior  in  the  accomplishments  of 
a  woman,  but  who  might  find,  even  in  the  color  of  that 
loveliest  cheek,  a  reason  to  despise  her. 

Her  lip  curled  for  an  instant,  but  the  grief  in  her 
heart  was  stronger  than  the  scorn  for  an  imaginary 
wrong,  and  she  bowed  her  head  again,  and  her  tears 
flowed  on. 

I  was  silent  at  last,  and  she  looked  up  into  my  face. 

41  I  am  a  burthen  to  you,"  she  said. 

"  No,  dearest  Maimuna  !  no  !  but  if  I  were  to  see 
you  wretched  hereafter,  you  would  become  so.  Tell 
me  !  the  chief  will  make  you  his  wife  ;  will  you  re- 
join your  people  ?" 

She  flung  herself  upon  the  ground,  and  wept  as  if 
her  heart  would  break.  I  thought  it  best  to  let  her 
feelings  have  away,  and  walking  apart  with  the  young 
gipsy,  I  gave  him  more  of  the  particulars  of  her  his- 
tory, and  exacted  a  promise  that,  if  she  should  finally 
be  left  with  the  troop,  he  would  return  with  her  to  the 
tribe  of  her  mother,  at  Sardis. 


Maimuna  stood  gazing  fixedly  inlo  the  ravine  when 
we  turned  back,  and  there  was  an  erectness  in  her  at- 
titude, and  afierte  in  the  air  of  her  head,  that,  I  must 
acknowledge,  promised  more  for  my  fears  than  my 
wishes.  Her  pride  was  roused,  it  was  easy  with  half 
a  glance  to  see. 

With  the  suddenness  of  oriental  passion,  the  young 
chief  had  become  already  enamored  of  her,  and,  with 
a  feeling  of  jealousy  which,  even  though  I  wished  him 
success,  I  could  not  control,  I  saw  him  kneel  at  her 
feet  and  plead  with  her  in  an  inaudible  tone.  She  had 
been  less  than  woman  if  she  had  been  insensible  to 
that  passionate  cadence,  and  the  imploring  earnest- 
ness of  the  noble  countenance  on  which  she  looked. 
It  was  evident  that  she  was  interested,  though  she 
began  with  scarce  deigning  to  lift  her  eyes  from  the 
ground. 

1  felt  a  sinking  of  the  heart  which  I  can  not  describe 
when  he  rose  to  his  feet  and  left  her  standing  alone. 
The  troop  had  withdrawn  at  his  command,  and  Job, 
to  whom  the  scene  was  too  painful,  had  recrossed  the 
;  parapet,  and  stood  by  his  horse's  head  waiting  the  re- 
j  suit.  The  twilight  had  deepened,  the  forest  looked 
black  around  us,  and  a  single  star  sprang  int&  the  sky, 
while  the  west  was  still  glowing  in  a  fast  purpling  gold 
and  crimson. 

"  Signore  !"  said  Maimuna,  walking  calmly  to  my 
hand,  which  I  stretched  instinctively  to  receive  her, 
"  I  am  breaking  my  heart ;  1  know  not  what  to  do." 

At  this  instant  a  faint  meteor  shot  over  the  sky,  and 
drew  its  reflection  across  the  calm  mirror  whose  verge 
we  were  approaching. 

"Stay  !"  she  cried  ;  "  the  next  shall  decide  the  fate 
of  Maimuna  !  If  it  cross  to  the  east,  the  will  of  Al- 
lah be  done  !     I  will  leave  you  !" 

I  called  to  the  gipsy,  and  we  stood  on  the  verge  of 
the  parapet  in  breathless  expectation.     The  darkness 
\  deepened  around  us,  the  abyss  grew  black  and  indis- 
I  tinguishable,  and  the  night-birds  flitted  past  like  audi- 
ble shadows.     I   drew   Maimuna  to   my   bosom,  and 
with  my  hands  buried  in  her  long  hair,  pressed  her  to 
my  heart,  that  beat  as  painfully  and  as  heavily  as  her 
!  own. 

A  sudden  shriek  !  She  started  from  my  bosom,  and 
as  she  fell  upon  the  earth,  my  eye  caught,  on  the  face 
of  the  mirror  from  which  1  had  forgetfully  withdrawn 
my  gaze,  the  vanishing  pencil  of  a  meteor,  drawn  like 
a  beam  of  the  sunset,  from  west  to  east ! 

I  lifted  the  insensible  child,  impressed  one  long  kiss 
!  on  her  lips,  and  flinging  her  into  the  arms  of  the  gipsy, 
I  crossed  the  parapet,  and  rode,  with  a  speed  that  tried 
I  in  vain  to  outrun  my  anguish,  to  Constantinople. 


TOM  FANE  AND  I. 


Tom  Fane's  four  Canadian  ponies  were  whizzing 
his  light  phaeton  through  the  sand  at  a  rate  that  would 
have  put  spirits  into  anything  but  a  lover  absent  from 
his  mistress.  The  "  heaven-kissing"  pines  towered  on 
every  side  like  the  thousand  and  one  columns  of  the 
Palseologi  at  Constantinople  ;  their  flat  and  spreading 
tops  shutting  out  the  light  of  heaven  almost  as  effec- 
tually as  the  world  of  mussulmans,  mosques,  kiosks, 
bazars,  and  Giaours,  sustained  on  those  innumerable 
capitals,  darkens  the  subterranean  wonder  of  Stam- 
boul.  An  American  pine  forest  is  as  like  a  temple, 
and  a  sublime  one,  as  any  dream  that  ever  entered 
into  the  architectural  brain  of  the  slumbering  Martin. 
The  Vankee  methodists  in  their  camp-meetings,  have 


430 


INKLINGS  OF  ADVENTURE. 


but  followed  an  irresistible  instinct  to  worship  God  in 
the  religious  dimness  of  these  interminable  aisles  of  the 
wilderness. 

Tom  Fane  and  I  had  stoned  the  storks  together  in 
the  palace  of  Croesus  at  Sardis.  We  had  read  Anas- 
tasius  on  a  mufti's  tomb  in  the  Nekropolis  of  Scutari. 
We  had  burned  with  fig-fevers  in  the  same  caravanse- 
rai at  Smyrna.  We  had  cooled  our  hot  foreheads 
and  cursed  the  Greeks  in  emulous  Romaic  in  the  dim 
tomb  of  Agamemnon  at  Argos.  We  had  been  grave 
at  Paris,  and  merry  at  Rome  ;  and  we  had  pic-nic'd 
with  the  beauties  of  the  Fanar  in  the  Valley  of  Sweet 
Waters  in  pleasant  Roumelia  ;  and  when,  after  parting 
in  France,  he  had  returned  to  England  and  his  regi- 
ment, and  I  to  New  England  and  law,  whom  should 
I  meet  in  a  summers  trip  to  the  St.  Lawrence  but 

Captain  Tom  Fane  of  the th,  quartered  at  the 

cliff-perched  and  doughty  garrison  of  Quebec,  and 
ready  for  any  "  lark"  that  would  vary  the  monotony 
of  duty  ! 

Having  eaten  seven  mess-dinners,  driven  to  the 
falls  of  Montmorenci,  and  paid  my  respects  to  Lord 
Dalhousie,  the  hospitable  and  able  governor  of  the 
Canadas*  Quebec  had  no  longer  a  temptation:  and 
obeying  a  magnet,  of  which  more  anon,  I  announced 
to  Fane  that  my  traps  were  packed,  and  my  heart  sent 
on,  a  Vavant  courier,  to  Saratoga. 

"  Is  she  pretty  ?"  said  Tom. 

"As the  starry-eyed  Circassian  we  gazed  at  through 
the  grill  in  the  slave-market  at  Constantinople  !" — 
(Heaven  and  my  mistress  forgive  me  for  the  compari- 
son ! — but  it  conveyed  more  to  Tom  Fane  than  a  folio 
of  more  respectful  similitudes.) 

"  Have  you  any  objection  to  be  drawn  to  your  lady- 
love by  four  cattle  that  would  buy  the  soul  of  Osbal- 
diston  ?" 

"'Objection!'  quotha?" 

The  next  morning,  four  double-jointed  and  well- 
groomed  ponies  were  munching  their  corn  in  the  bow 
of  a  steamer,  upon  the  St.  Lawrence,  wondering  pos- 
sibly what,  in  the  name  of  Bucephalus,  had  set  the 
hills  and  churches  flying  at  such  a  rate  down  the  river. 
The  hills  and  churches  came  to  a  stand-still  with  the 
steamer  opposite  Montreal,  and  the  ponies  were  landed 
and  put  to  their  mettle  for  some  twenty  miles,  where 
they  were  destined  to  be  astonished  by  a  similar  flying 
phenomenon  in  the  mountains  girding  the  lengthening 
waters  of  Lake  Champlain.  Landed  at  Ticonderoga, 
a  few  miles'  trot  brought  them  to  Lake  George  and  a 
third  steamer,  and,  with  a  winding  passage  among 
green  islands  and  overhanging  precipices  loaded  like 
a  harvest-wagon  with  vegetation,  we  made  our  last 
landing  on  the  edge  of  the  pine  forest,  where  our  story 
opens. 

"  Well,  I  must  object,'*  says  Tom,  setting  his  whip 
in  the  socket,  and  edging  round  upon  his  driving-box, 
"  I  must  object  to  this  republican  gravity  of  yours.  I 
should  take  it  for  melancholy,  did  I  not  know  it  was 
the  '  complexion'  of  your  never-smiling  countrymen." 

"  Spare  me,  Tom  !  '  I  see  a  hand  you  can  not  see.' 
Talk  to  your  ponies,  and  let  me  be  miserable,  if  you 
love  me." 

"  For  what,  in  the  name  of  common  sense  ?  Are 
you  not  within  five  hours  of  your  mistress?  Is  not 
this  cursed  sand  your  natal  soil  ?     Do  not 

'  The  pine-boughs  sing 
Old  songs  with  new  gladness  ?' 

and  in  the  years  that  we  have  dangled  about,  '  here- 
and-there-ians'  together,  were  you  ever  before  grave, 
sad,  or  sulky  ?  and  will  you  without  a  precedent,  and 
you  a  lawyer,  inflict  your  stupidity  upon  me  for  the 
first  time  in  this  waste,  and  being-less  solitude  ?  Half 
an  hour  more  of  the  dread  silence  of  this  forest,  and 
it  will  not  need  the  horn  of  Astolpho  to  set  me  irre- 
mediably mad  !" 


"  If  employment  will  save  your  wits,  you  may  in- 
vent a  scheme  for  marrying  the  son  of  a  poor  gentle- 
man to  the  ward  of  a  rich  trader  in  rice  and  molas- 
ses." 

"  The  programme  of  our  approaching  campaign,  I 
presume  ?" 

"  Simply." 

"  Is  the  lady  willing  ?" 

"  I  would  fain  believe  so." 

"  Is  Mr.  Popkins  unwilling  ?" 

"As  the  most  romantic  lover  could  desire." 

"And  the  state  of  the  campaign  ?" 

"  Why,  thus  :  Mr.  George  Washington  Jefferson 
Frump,  whom  you  have  irreverently  called  Mr.  Pop- 
kins,  is  sole  guardian  to  the  daughter  of  a  dead  West 
Indian  planter,  of  whom  he  was  once  the  agent.  I  fell 
in  love  with  Kate  Lorimer  from  description,  when  she 
was  at  school  with  my  sister,  saw  her  by  favor  of  a 
garden-wall,  and  after  the  usual  vows — " 

"  Too  romantic  for  a  Yankee,  by  half!" 

"  — Proposed  by  letter  to  Mr.  Frump." 

"  Oh,  bathos  !" 

"  He  refused  me." 

"  Because " 

"Imprimis,  I  was  not  myself  in  the  'sugar  line,' and 
in  secundis,  my  father  wore  gloves  and  '  did  nothing 
for  a  living' — two  blots  in  the  eyes  of  Mr.  Frump, 
which  all  the  waters  of  Niagara  would  never  wash  from 
my  escutcheon." 

"And  what  the  devil  hindered  you  from  running  ofl' 
with  her  ?" 

"  Fifty  shares  in  the  Manhattan  Insurance  Compa- 
ny, a  gold  mine  in  Florida,  Heaven  knows  how  many 
hogsheads  of  treacle,  and  a  million  of  acres  on  the 
banks  of  the  Missouri." 

"  'Pluto's  flame-colored  daughter' defend  us  !  what 
a  living  El  Dorado  !" 

"All  of  which  she  forfeits  if  she  marries  without  old 
Frump's  consent." 

"  I  see — I  see  !  And  this  Io  and  her  Argus  are  now 
drinking  the  waters  at  Saratoga  ?" 

"Even  so." 

"I'll  bet  you  my  four-in-hand  to  a  sonnet,  that  I  get 
her  for  you  before  the  season  is  over." 

"  Money  and  all  ?" 

"  Mines,  molasses,  and  Missouri  acres  !" 

"And  if  you  do,  Tom,  I'll  give  you  a  team  of  Vir- 
ginian bloods  that  would  astonish  Ascot,  and  throw  you 
into  the  bargain  a  forgiveness  for  riding  over  me  with 
your  camel  on  the  banks  of  the  Hermus." 

"  Santa  Maria  !  do  you  remember  that  spongy  foot 
stepping  over  your  frontispiece  ?  I  had  already  cast 
my  eyes  up  to  Mont  Sypilus  to  choose  a  clean  niche 
for  you  out  of  the  rock-hewn  tombs  of  the  kings  of 
Lydia.  I  thought  you  would  sleep  with  Alyattis, 
Phil  !" 

We  dashed  on  through  dark  forest  and  open  clear- 
ing, through  glens  of  tangled  cedar  and  wild  vine,  over 
log  bridges,  corduroy  marshes,  and  sand  hills,  till,  tow- 
ard evening,  a  scattering  shanty  or  two,  and  an  occa- 
sional sound  of  a  woodman's  axe,  betokened  our  vi- 
cinity to  Saratoga.  A  turn  around  a  clump  of  tall  pines 
brought  us  immediately  into  the  broad  street  of  the 
village,  and  the  flaunting  shops,  the  overgrown,  un- 
sightly hotels,  riddled  with  windows  like  honeycombs, 
the  fashionable  idlers  out  for  their  evening  lounge  to 
the  waters,  the  indolent  smokers  on  the  colonnades, 
and  the  dusty  and  loaded  coaches  driving  from  door 
to  door  in  search  of  lodgings,  formed  the  usual  evening 
picture  of  the  Bath  of  America. 

As  it  was  necessary  to  Tom's  plan  that  my  arrival 
at  Saratoga  should  not  be  known,  he  pulled  up  at  a 
small  tavern  at  the  entrance  of  the  street,  and  drop- 
ping me  and  my  baggage,  drove  on  to  Congress  Hall, 
with  my  best  prayers,  and  a  letter  of  introduction  to 
my  sister,  whom  I  had  left  on  her  way  to  the  Springs 


INKLINGS  OF  ADVENTURE. 


431 


with  a  party  at  my  departure  for  Montreal.  Unwil- 
ling to  remain  in  such  a  tantalising  vicinity,  I  hired  a 
chaise  the  next  morning,  ana  despatching  a  note  to 
Tom,  drove  to  seek  a  retreat  at  Barhydt's — a  spot  that 
can  not  well  be  described  in  the  tail  of  a  paragraph. 

Herr  Barhydt  is  an  old  Dutch  settler,  who,  till  the 
mineral  springs  of  Saratoga  were  discovered  some  five 
miles  from  his  door,  was  buried  in  the  depth  of  a  forest 
solitude,  unknown  to  all  but  the  prowling  Indian.  The 
sky  is  supported  above  him  (or  looks  to  be)  by  a  wil- 
derness of  straight,  columnar  pine  shafts,  gigantic  in 
girth,  and  with  no  foliage  except  at  the  top,  where 
they  branch  out  like  round  tables  spread  for  a  banquet 
in  the  clouds.  A  small  ear-shaped  lake,  sunk  as  deep 
into  the  earth  as  the  firs  shoot  above  it,  black  as  Ere- 
bus in  the  dim  shadow  of  its  hilly  shore  and  the  ob- 
structed light  of  the  trees  that  nearly  meet  over  it,  and 
clear  and  unbroken  as  a  mirror,  save  the  pearl-spots 
of  the  thousand  lotuses  holding  up  their  cups  to  the 
blue  eye  of  heaven  that  peers  through  the  leafy  vault, 
sleeps  beneath  his  window  ;  and  around  him,  in  the 
forest,  lies,  still  unbroken,  the  elastic  and  brown  carpet 
of  the  faded  pine  tassels,  deposited  in  yearly  layers 
since  the  continent  rose  from  the  flood,  and  rooted  a 
foot  beneath  the  surface  to  a  rich  mould  that  would 
fatten  the  Sympleglades  to  a  flower-garden.  With  his 
black  tarn  well  stocked  with  trout,  his  bit  of  a  farm 
in  the  clearing  near  by,  and  an  old  Dutch  bible,  Herr 
Barhydt  lived  a  life  of  Dutch  musing,  talked  Dutch  to 
his  geese  and  chickens,  sung  Dutch  psalms  to  the 
echoes  of  the  mighty  forest,  and,  except  on  his  far- 
between  visits  to  Albany,  which  grew  rarer  and  rarer 
as  the  old  Dutch  inhabitants  dropped  faster  away,  saw 
never  a  white  human  face  from  one  maple-blossoming 
to  another. 

A  roving  mineralogist  tasted  the  waters  of  Saratoga, 
and,  like  the  work  of  a  lath-and-plaster  Aladdin,  up 
sprung  a  thriving  village  around  the  fountain's  lip,  and 
hotels,  tin  tumblers,  and  apothecaries,  multiplied  in  the 
usual  proportion  to  each  other,  but  out  of  all  prece- 
dent, with  everything  else  for  rapidity.  Libraries, 
newspapers,  churches,  livery  stables,  and  lawyers,  fol- 
lowed in  their  train  ;  and  it  was  soon  established,  from 
the  plams  of  Abraham  to  the  savannahs  of  Alabama, 
that  no  person  of  fashionable  taste  or  broken  constitu- 
tion could  exist  through  the  months  of  July  and  Au- 
gust without  a  visit  to  the  chalybeate  springs  and  pop- 
ulous village  of  Saratoga.  It  contained  seven  thou- 
sand inhabitants  before  Herr  Barhydt,  living  in  his 
wooded  seclusion  only  five  miles  off,  became  aware  of 
its  existence.  A  pair  of  lovers,  philandering  about  the 
forest  on  horseback,  popped  in  upon  him  one  June 
morning,  and  thenceforth  there  was  no  rest  for  the 
soul  of  the  Dutchman.  Everybody  rode  down  to  eat 
his  trout  and  make  love  in  the  dark  shades  of  his  mir- 
rored lagoon ;  and  at  last,  in  self-defence,  he  added  a 
room  or  two  to  his  shanty,  enclosed  his  cabbage-gar- 
den, and  put  a  price  upon  his  trout-dinners.  The 
traveller  now-a-days  who  has  not  dined  at  Barhydt's 
with  his  own  champagne  cold  from  the  tarn,  and  the 
white-headed  old  settler  "  gargling"  Dutch  about  the 
house,  in  his  manifold  vocation  of  cook,  ostler,  and 
waiter,  may  as  well  not  have  seen  Niagara. 

Installed  in  the  back-chamber  of  the  old  man's  last 
addition  to  his  house,  with  Barry  Cornwall  and  Elia 
(old  fellow-travellers  of  mine),  a  rude  chair,  a  ruder, 
but  clean  bed,  and  a  troop  of  thoughts  so  perpetually 
from  home,  that  it  mattered  very  little  what  was  the 
complexion  of  anything  about  me,  I  waited  Tom's  op- 
erations with  a  lover's  usual  patience.  Barhydt's  visit- 
ers seldom  arrived  before  two  or  three  o'clock,  and  the 
long,  soft  mornings,  quiet  as  a  shadowy  Elysium  on  the 
rim  of  that  ebon  lake,  were  as  solitary  as  a  melancholy 
man  could  desire.  Didst  thou  but  know,  oh  !  gentle 
Barry  Cornwall !  how  gratefully  thou  hast  been  read 
and  mused  upon  in  those  dim  and  whispering  aisles  of 


the  forest,  three  thousand  and  more  miles  from  thy 
smoky  whereabout,  methinks  it  would  warm  up  the 
flush  of  pleasure  around  thine  eyelids,  though  the 
"  golden-tressed  Adelaide"  were  waiting  her  good- 
night kisses  at  thy  knee  ! 

I  could  stand  it  no  longer.  On  the  second  evening 
of  my  seclusion,  I  made  bold  to  borrow  old  Barhydt's 
superannuated  roadster,  and  getting  up  the  steam  with 
infinite  difficulty  in  his  rickety  engine,  higgled  away, 
with  a  pace  to  which  I  could  not  venture  to  affix  a 
name,  to  the  gay  scenes  of  Saratoga. 

It  was  ten  o'clock  when  I  dismounted  at  the  stable 
in  Congress  Hall,  and,  giving  dcr  Teufel,  as  the  old 
man  ambitiously  styled  his  steed,  to  the  hands  of  the 
ostler,  stole  round  through  the  garden  to  the  eastern 
colonnade. 

I  feel   called   upon  to   describe  "  Congress  Hall." 

Some  fourteen  or  fifteen  millions  of  white  gentlemen 

and  ladies  consider  that  wooden  and  windowed  Baby- 

I  Ion  as  the  proper  palace  of  Delight — a  sojourn  to   be 

sighed  for,  and  sacrificed  for,  and   economized  for — 

the  birthplace  of  Love,  the  haunt  of  Hymen,  the  arena 

!  of  fashion — a  place  without  which  a  new  lease  of  life 

j  were  valueless — for  which,  if  the  conjuring  cap  of  King 

|  Erricus  itself  could  not   furnish   a   season  ticket,  it 

might  lie  on  a  lady's  toilet  as  unnoticed  as  a  bride's  " 
!  night-cap  a  twelvemonth  after  marriage.  I  say  to  my- 
self, sometimes,  as  I  pass  the  window  at  White's,  and 
see  a  worldsick  worldling  with  the  curl  of  satiety  and 
disgust  on  his  lip,  wondering  how  the  next  hour  will 
come  to  its  death,  "  If  you  but  knew,  my  friend,  what 
a  campaign  of  pleasure  you  are  losing  in  America — 
what  belles  than  the  bluebell  slighter  and  fairer — what 
hearts  than  the  dewdrops  fresher  and  clearer — are  liv- 
ing their  pretty  hour,  like  gems  undived  for  in  the 
ocean — what  loads  of  foliage,  what  Titans  of  trees, 
what  glorious  wildernesses  of  rocks  and  waters,  are 
lavishing  their  splendors  on  the  clouds  that  sail  over 
them,  and  all  within  the  magic  circle  of  which  Con- 
gress Hall  is  the  centre,  and  which  a  circling  dove 
would  measure  to  get  an  appetite  for  his  breakfast — if 
you  but  knew  this,  my  lord,  as  I  know  it,  you  would 
not  be  gazing  so  vacantly  on  the  steps  of  Crockford's, 
nor  consider  « the  graybeard'  such  a  laggard  in  his 
hours  !" 

Congress  Hall  is  a  wooden  building,  of  which  the 
size  and  capacity  could  never  be  definitely  ascertained. 
It  is  built  on  a  slight  elevation,  just  above  the  strongly- 
impregnated  spring  whose  name  it  bears,  with  little  at- 
tempt at  architecture,  save  a  spacious  and  vine-covered 
colonnade,  serving  as  a  promenade  on  either  side,  and 
two  wings,  the  extremities  of  which  are  lost  in  the  dis- 
tance. A  relic  or  two  of  the  still-astonished  forest 
towers  above  the  chimneys,  in  the  shape  of  a  melan- 
choly group  of  firs  ;  and,  five  minutes'  walk  from  the 
door,  the  dim  old  wilderness  stands  looking  down  on 
the  village  in  its  primeval  grandeur,  like  the  spirits  of 
the  wronged  Indians,  whose  tracks  are  scarce  vanished 
from  the  sand.  In  the  strength  of  the  summer  sol- 
stice, from  five  hundred  to  a  thousand  people  dine  to- 
gether at  Congress  Hall,  and  after  absorbing  as  many 
bottles  of  the  best  wines  of  the  world,  a  sunset  prome- 
nade plays  the  valve  to  the  sentiment  thus  generated, 
and,  with  a  cup  of  tea,  the  crowd  separates  to  dress 
for  the  nightly  ball.  There  are  several  other  hotels 
in  the  village,  equally  crowded  and  equally  spacious, 
and  the  ball  is  given  alternately  at  each.  Congress 
i  Hall  is  the  "  crack"  place,  however,  and  I  expect  that 
|  Mr.  Westcott,  the  obliging  proprietor,  will  give  me  the 
preference  of  rooms,  on  my  next  annual  visit,  for  this 
just  and  honorable  mention. 

The  dinner-tables  were  piled  into  an  orchestra,  and 

|  draped  with  green  baize  and  green  wreaths,  the  floor 

of  the  immense  hall  was  chalked  with  American  flags 

and  the  initials  of  all  the  heroes  of  the  Revolution,  and 

the  band  were  playing  a  waltz  in  a  style  that  made 


432 


INKLINGS  OF  ADVENTURE. 


the  candles  quiver,  and  the  pines  tremble  audibly  in 
their  tassels.  The  ballroom  was  on  the  ground  floor, 
and  the  colonnade  upon  the  garden  side  was  crowded 
with  spectators,  a  row  of  grinning  black  fellows  edging 
the  cluster  of  heads  at  every  window,  and  keeping 
time  with  their  hands  and  feet  in  the  irresistible  sym- 
pathy of  their  music-»loving  natures.  Drawing  my  hat 
over  my  eyes,  I  stood  at  the  least-thronged  window, 
and  concealing  my  face  in  the  curtain,  waited  impa- 
tiently for  the  appearance  of  the  dancers. 

The  bevy  in  the  drawing-room  was  sufficiently 
strong  at  last,  and  the  lady  patronesses,  handed  in  by 
a  state  governor  or  two,  and  here  and  there  a  member 
of  congress,  achieved  the  entree  with  their  usual  intre- 
pidity. Followed  beaux  and  followed  belles.  Such 
belles  !  Slight,  delicate,  fragile-looking  creatures,  ele- 
gant as  Retzsch's  angels,  warm-eyed  as  Mohammedan 
houries,  yet  timid  as  the  antelope  whose  hazel  orbs 
they  eclipse,  limbed  like  nothing  earthly  except  an 
American  woman — I  would  rather  not  go  on  !  When 
I  speak  of  the  beauty  of  my  countrywomen,  my  heart 
swells.  I  do  believe  the  New  World  has  a  newer 
mould  for  its  mothers  and  daughters.  I  think  I  am 
not  prejudiced.  I  have  been  years  away.  I  have 
sighed  in  France  ;  I  have  loved  in  Italy  ;  I  have  bar- 
gained for  Circassians  in  an  eastern  bezestein,  and  I 
have  lounged  at  Howell  and  James's  on  a  sunny  day 
in  the  season  ;  and  my  eye  is  trained,  and  my  percep- 
tions quickened  :  but  I  do  think  (honor  bright !  and 
Heath's  "  Book  of  Beauty"  forgiving  me)  that  there 
is  no  such  beautiful  work  of  God  under  the  arch  of 
the  sky  as  an  American  girl  in  her  bellehood. 

Enter  Tom  Fane  in  a  Stultz  coat  and  Sparding 
tights,  looking  as  a  man  who  had  been  the  mirror  of 
Bond  street  might  be  supposed  to  look,  a  thousand 
leagues  from  his  club-house.  She  leaned  on  his  arm. 
I  had  never  seen  her  half  so  lovely.  Fresh  and  calm 
from  the  seclusion  of  her  chamber,  her  transparent 
cheek  was  just  tinged  with  the  first  mounting  blood, 
from  the  excitement  of  lights  and  music.  Her  lips 
were  slightly  parted,  her  fine-lined  eyebrows  were 
arched  with  a  girlish  surprise,  and  her  ungloved  arm 
lay  carelessly  and  confidingly  within  his,  as  white, 
round,  and  slender,  as  if  Canova  had  wrought  it  in 
Parian  for  his  Psyche.  If  you  have  never  seen  a 
beauty  of  northern  blood  nurtured  in  a  southern  clime, 
the  cold  fairness  of  her  race  warmed  up  as  if  it  had 
been  steeped  in  some  golden  sunset,  and  her  deep  blue 
eye  darkened  and  filled  with  a  fire  as  unnaturally  re- 
splendent as  the  fusion  of  crysoprase  into  a  diamond, 
and  if  you  have  never  known  the  corresponding  con- 
trast in  the  character,  the  intelligence  and  constancy 
of  the  north  kindling  with  the  enthusiasm  and  impulse, 
the  passionateness  and  the  abandon  of  a  more  burning 
latitude — you  have  seen  nothing,  let  me  insinuate, 
thougli  you  "  have  been  i'  the  Indies  twice,"  that 
could  give  you  an  idea  of  Kate  Lorimer. 

She  waltzed,  and  then  Tom  danced  with  my  sister, 
and  then,  resigning  her  to  another  partner,  he  offered 
his  arm  again  to  Miss  Lorimer,  and  left  the  ballroom 
with  several  other  couples  for  a  turn  in  the  fresh  air 
of  the  colonnade.  I  was  not  jealous,  but  I  felt  un- 
pleasantly at  his  returning  to  her  so  immediately.  He 
was  the  handsomest  man,  out  of  all  comparison,  in  the 
room,  and  he  had  dimmed  my  star  too  often  in  our 
rambles  in  Europe  and  Asia,  not  to  suggest  a  thought, 
at  least,  that  the  same  pleasant  eclipse  might  occur  in 
our  American  astronomy.  I  stepped  off  the  colonnade, 
and  took  a  turn  in  the  garden. 

Those  "children  of  eternity,"  as  Walter  Savage 
Landor  poetically  calls  "  the  breezes,"  performed  their 
soothing  ministry  upon  my  temples,  and  I  replaced 
Tom  in  my  confidence  with  an  heroic  effort,  and  turned 
back.  A  swing  hung  between  two  gigantic  pines,  just 
under  the  balustrade,  and  flinging  myself  into  the  cush- 
ioned seat,  I  abandoned  myself  to  the  musings  natural 


to  a  person  "  in  my  situation."  The  sentimentalizing 
promenaders  lounged  backward  and  forward  above  me, 
and  not  hearing  Tom's  drawl  among  them,  I  presumed 
he  had  returned  to  the  ballroom.  A  lady  and  gentle- 
man, walking  in  silence,  stopped  presently,  and  leaned 
upon  the  railing  opposite  the  swing.  They  stood  a 
moment,  looking  into  the  dim  shadow  of  the  pine- 
grove,  and  then  a  voice,  that  I  knew  better  than  my 
own,  remarked  in  a  low  and  silvery  tone  upon  the 
beauty  of  the  night. 

She  was  not  answered,  and  after  a  moment's  pause, 
as  if  resuming  a  conversation  that  had  been  interrupted, 
she  turned  very  earnestly  to  her  companion,  and  asked, 
"Are  you  sure,  quite  sure,  that  you  could  venture  to 
marry  without  a  fortune  ?" 

"  Quite,  dear  Miss  Lorimer  !" 

I  started  from  the  swing,  but  before  the  words  of 
execration  that  rushed  choking  from  my  heart  could 
struggle  to  my  lips,  they  had  mingled  with  the  crowd 
and  vanished. 

I  strode  down  the  garden-walk  in  a  phrensy  of  pas- 
sion. Should  I  call  him  immediately  to  account  ? 
Should  I  rush  into  the  ballroom  and  accuse  him  of 
his  treachery  to  her  face  ?  Should  I  drown  myself  in 
old  Barhydt's  tarn,  or  join  an  Indian  tribe,  and  make 
war  upon  the  whites  ?  Or  should  I — could  I — be  mag- 
nanimous— and  write  him  a  note  immediately,  offering 
to  be  his  groomsman  at  the  wedding  ? 

I  stepped  into  the  punch-room,  asked  for  pen,  ink, 
and  paper,  and  indited  the  following  note  : — 

"  Dear  Tom  :  If  your  approaching  nuptials  are  to 
be  sufficiently  public  to  admit  of  a  groomsman,  you 
will  make  me  the  happiest  of  friends  by  selecting  me 
for  that  office. 

"  Yours  ever  truly, 

"  Phil." 

Having  despatched  it  to  his  room,  I  flew  to  the  stable, 
roused  der  Teufcl,  who  had  gathered  up  his  legs  in  the 
straw  for  the  night,  flogged  him  furiously  out  of  the 
village,  and  giving  him  the  rein  as  he  entered  the  for- 
est, enjoyed  the  scenery  in  the  humor  of  mad  old  Hie- 
ronymo  in  the  Spanish  tragedy — "  the  moon  dark,  the 
stars  extinct,  the  winds  blowing,  the  owls  shrieking, 
the  toads  croaking,  the  minutes  jarring,  and  the  clock 
striking  twelve  !" 

Early  the  next  day  Tom's  "tiger"  dismounted  at 
Barhydt's  door,  with  an  answer  to  my  note,  as  fol- 
lows : — 

"  Dear  Phil  :  The  devil  must  have  informed  you 
of  a  secret  I  supposed  safe  from  all  the  world.  Be  as- 
sured I  should  have  chosen  no  one  but  yourself  to 
support  me  on  the  occasion  ;  and  however  you  have 
discovered  my  design  upon  your  treasure,  a  thousand 
thanks  for  your  generous  consent.  I  expected  no  less 
from  your  noble  nature. 

"  Yours  devotedly, 

"  Tom. 

"  P.  S. — I  shall  endeavor  to  be  at  Barhydt's,  with 
materials  for  the  fifth  act  of  our  comedy,  to-morrow 
morning." 

"  «  Comedy  !'  call  you  this,  Mr.  Fane  ?"  I  felt  my 
heart  turn  black  as  I  threw  down  the  letter.  After  a 
thousand  plans  of  revenge  formed  and  abandoned — 
borrowing  old  Barhydt's  rifles,  loading  them  deliber- 
ately, and  discharging  them  again  into  the  air — I  flung 
myself  exhausted  on  the  bed,  and  reasoned  myself  back 
to  my  magnanimity.     I  would  be  his  groomsman  ! 

It  was  a  morning  like  the  burst  of  a  millennium  on 
the  world.  I  felt  as  if  1  should  never  forgive  the  birds 
for  their  mocking  enjoyment  of  it.  The  wild  heron 
swung  up  fro-m  the  reeds,  the  lotuses  shook  out  their 
dew  into  the  lake  as  the  breeze  stirred  ihem,  and  the 


INKLINGS  OF  ADVENTURE. 


433 


senseless  old  Dutchman  sat  fishing  in  his  canoe,  sing- 
ing one  of  his  unintelligible  psalms  to  a  quick  measure 
that  half  maddened  me.  I  threw  myself  upon  the 
yielding  floor  of  pine-tassels  on  the  edge  of  the  lake, 
and  with  the  wretched  school  philosophy,  "  Si  gravis 
est,  brevis  est,"  endeavored  to  put  down  the  tempest 
of  my  feelings. 

A  carriage  rattled  over  the  little  bridge,  mounted  the 
ascent  rapidly,  and  brought  up  at  Barhydt's  door. 

"  Phil !"  shouted  Tom,  "  Phil !" 

I  gulped  down  a  choking  sensation  in  my  throat,  and 
rushed  up  the  bank  to  him.  A  stranger  was  dismount- 
ing from  his  horse. 

"  Quick  !"  said  Tom,  shaking  my  hand  hurriedly — 
"  there  is  no  time  to  lose.  Out  with  your  inkhorn, 
Mr.  Poppletree,  and  have  your  papers  signed  while  I 
tie  up  my  ponies." 

"  What  is  this,  sir  ?"  said  I,  starting  back  as  the 
stranger  deliberately  presented  me  with  a  paper,  in 
which  my  own  name  was  written  in  conspicuous  let- 
ters. 

The  magistrate  gazed  at  me  with  a  look  of  aston- 
ishment. "  A  contract  of  marriage,  I  think,  between 
Mr.  Philip  Slingsby  and  Miss  Katherine  Lorimer,  spin- 
ster. Are  you  the  gentleman  named  in  that  instrument, 
sir?" 

At  this  moment  my  sister,  leading  the  blushing  girl 
by  the  hand,  came  and  threw  her  arms  about  my  neck, 
and  drawing  her  within  my  reach,  ran  oft"  and  left  us 
together. 

There  are  some  pure  moments  in  this  life  that  de- 
scription would  only  profane. 

We  were  married  by  the  village  magistrate  in  that 
magnificent  sanctuary  of  the  forest,  old  Barhydt  and 
his  lotuses  the  only  indifferent  witnesses  of  vows  as 
passionate  as  ever  trembled  upon  human  lips. 

I  had  scarce  pressed  her  to  my  heart  and  dashed  the 
tears  from  my  eyes,  when  Fane,  who  had  looked  more 
at  my  sister  than  at  the  bride  during  the  ceremony,  left 
her  suddenly,  and  thrusting  a  roll  of  parchment  into 
my  pocket,  ran  off  to  bring  up  his  ponies.  I  was  on 
the  way  to  Saratoga,  a  married  man,  and  my  bride  on 
the  seat  beside  me,  before  I  had  recovered  from  my 
astonishment. 

"  Pray,"  said  Tom,  "  if  it  be  not  an  impertinent 
question,  and  you  can  find  breath  in  your  ecstasies, 
how  did  you  find  out  that  your  sister  had  done  me 
the  honor  to  accept  the  offer  of  my  hand  ?" 

The  resounding  woods  rung  with  his  unmerciful 
laughter  at  the  explanation. 

"  And  pray,"  said  I,  in  my  turn,  "  if  it  is  not  an  im- 
pertinent question,  and  you  can  find  a  spare  breath  in 
your  ecstasies,  by  what  magic  did  you  persuade  old 
Frump  to  trust  his  ward  and  her  title-deeds  in  your 
treacherous  keeping  ?" 

"  It  is  a  long  story,  my  dear  Phil,  and  I  will  give  you 
die  particulars  when  you  pay  me  the  '  Virginia  bloods' 
you  wot  of.  Suffice  it  for  the  present,  that  Mr.  Frump 
believes  Mr.  Tom  Fane  (alias  Jacob  Phipps,  Esq., 
sleeping  partner  of  a  banking-house  at  Liverpool)  to 
be  the  accepted  suitor  of  his  fair  ward.  In  his  extreme 
delight  at  seeing  her  in  so  fair  a  way  to  marry  into  a 
bank,  he  generously  made  her  a  present  of  her  own 
fortune,  signed  over  his  right  to  control  it  by  a  docu- 
ment in  your  possession,  and  will  undergo  as  agreeable 
a  surprise  in  about  five  minutes  as  the  greatest  lover 
of  excitement  could  desire." 

The  ponies  dashed  on.  The  sandy  ascent  by  the 
Pavilion  Spring  was  surmounted,  and  in  another  min- 
ute we  were  at  the  door  of  Congress  Hall.  The  last 
straj^lers  from  the  breakfast-table  were  lounging  down 
the  colonnade,  and  old  Frump  sat  reading  the  newspa- 
per under  the  portico. 

"  Aha  !  Mr.  Phipps,"  said  he,  as  Tom  drove  up — 
"  back  so  soon,  eh  ?     Why,  I  thought  you  and  Kitty 
would  be  billing  it  till  dinner-time  !" 
28 


"  Sir  !"  said  Tom,  very  gravely,  "  you  have  the  hon- 
or of  addressing  Captain  Thomas  Fane,  of  his  majesty's 
— -th  Fusileers ;  and  whenever  you  have  a  moment's 
leisure,  I  shall  be  happy  to  submit  to  your  perusal  a 
certificate  of  the  marriage  of  Miss  Katherine  Lorimer 
to  the  gentleman  I  have  the  pleasure  to  present  to  you. 
Mr.  Frump,  Mr.  Slingsby  !" 

At  the  mention  of  my  name,  the  blood  in  Mr. 
Frump's  ruddy  complexion  turned  suddenly  to  the 
color  of  the  Tiber.  Poetry  alone  can  express  the 
feeling  pictured  in  his  countenance  : — 

"  If  every  atom  of  a  dead  man's  flesh 
Should  creep,  each  one  with  a  particular  life, 
Yet  all  as  cold  as  ever — 'twas  just  so  : 
Or  had  it  drizzled  needle-points  of  frost, 
Upon  a  feverish  head  made  suddenly  bald.'' 

George  Washington  Jefferson  Frump,  Esq.,  left 
Congress  Hall  the  same  evening,  and  has  since  ungra- 
ciously refused  an  invitation  to  Captain  Fane's  wedding 
— possibly  from  his  having  neglected  to  invite  him  on 
a  similar  occasion  at  Saratoga.  This  last,  however,  I 
am  free  to  say,  is  a  gratuitous  supposition  of  my  own. 


LARKS  IN  VACATION. 

CHAPTER  I. 

DRIVING     STANHOPE     PRO     TEM. 

In  the  edge  of  a  June  evening  in  the  summer  vaca- 
tion of  1827,  I  was  set  down  by  the  coach  at  the  gate 
of  my  friend  Horace  Van  Pelt's  paternal  mansion — a 
large,  old-fashioned,  comfortable  Dutch  house,  cling- 
ing to  the  side  of  one  of  the  most  romantic  dells  on 
the  North  river.  In  the  absence  of  his  whole  family 
on  the  summer  excursion  to  the  falls  and  lakes  (taken 
by  almost  every  "  well-to-do"  citizen  of  the  United 
States),  Horace  was  emperor  of  the  long-descended, 
and  as  progressively  enriched  domain  of  one  of  the 
earliest  Dutch  settlers — a  brief  authority  which  he  ex- 
ercised more  particularly  over  an  extensive  stud,  and 
bins  number  one  and  two. 

The  west  was  piled  with  gold  castles,  breaking  up 
the  horizon  with  their  burnished  pinnacles  and  turrets, 
the  fragrant  dampness  of  the  thunder-shower  that  had 
followed  the  heat  of  noon  was  in  the  air,  and  in  a  low 
room,  whose  floor  opened  out  so  exactly  upon  the 
shaven  sward,  that  a  blind  man  would  not  have  known 
when  he  passed  from  the  heavily-piled  carpet  to  the 
grass,  I  found  Horace  sitting  over  his  olives  and  claret, 
having  waited  dinner  for  me  till  five  (long  beyond  the 
latest  American  hour),  and,  in  despair  of  my  arrival, 
having  dined  without  me.  The  old  black  cook  was 
too  happy  to  vary  her  vocation  by  getting  a  second 
dinner ;  and  when  I  had  appeased  my  appetite,  and 
overtaken  my  friend  in  his  claret,  we  sat  with  the 
moonlight  breaking  across  a  vine  at  our  feet,  and  cof- 
fee worthy  of  a  filagree  cup  in  the  Bezestein,  and  de- 
bated, amid  a  true  embarras  des  richesses,  our  plans 
for  the  next  week's  amusement. 

The  seven  days  wore  on,  merrily  at  first,  but  each 
succeeding  one  growing  less  merry  than  the  last.  By 
the  fifth  eve  of  my  sojourn,  we  had  exhausted  variety. 
All  sorts  of  headaches  and  megrims  in  the  morning, 
all  sorts  of  birds,  beasts,  and  fishes,  for  dinner,  all  sorts 
of  accidents  in  all  sorts  of  vehicles,  left  us  on  the  sev- 
enth day  out  of  sorts  altogether.  We  were  two  dis- 
contented Rasselasesin  the  Happy  Valley.  Rejoicing 
as  we  were  in  vacation,  it  would  have  been  a  relief  to 
have  had  a  recitation  to  read  up,  or  a  prayer-lull  to 
mark  the  time.     Two  idle  sophomores  in  a  rambling, 


434 


INKLINGS  OF  ADVENTURE. 


lonely  old  mansion,  were,  we  discovered,  a  very  insuf- 
ficient dramatis  persons  for  the  scene. 

It  was  Saturday  night.  A  violent  clap  of  thunder 
had  interrupted  some  daring  theory  of  Van  Pelt's  on 
the  rising  of  champagne-bubbles,  and  there  we  sat, 
mum  and  melancholy,  two  sated  Sybarites,  silent  an 
hour  by  the  clock.  The  mahogany  was  bare  between 
us.  Any  number  of  glasses  and  bottles  stood  in  their 
lees  about  the  table ;  the  thrice-fished  juice  of  an 
olive-dish  and  a  solitary  cigar  in  a  silver  case  had  been 
thrust  aside  in  a  warm  argument,  and,  in  his  father's 
sacred  gout-chair,  buried  to  the  eyes  in  his  loosened 
cravat,  one  leg  on  the  table,  and  one  somewhere  in 
the  neighborhood  of  my  own,  sat  Van  Pelt,  the  eidolon 
of  exhausted  amusement. 

"  Phil !"  said  he,  starting  suddenly  to  an  erect  posi- 
tion, "  a  thought  strikes  me  !" 

I  dropped  the  claret-cork,  from  which  I  was  at  the 
moment  trying  to  efface  the  "  Margaux"  brand,  and 
sat  in  silent  expectation.  I  had  thought  his  brains  as 
well  evaporated  as  the  last  bottle  of  champagne. 

He  rested  his  elbows  on  the  table,  and  set  his  chin 
between  his  two  palms. 

"  I'll  resign  the  keys  of  this  mournful  old  den  to  the 
butler,  and  we'll  go  to  Saratoga  for  a  week.  What 
say  ?" 

"  It  would  be  a  reprieve  from  death  by  inanition," 
I  answered,  "  but,  as  the  rhetorical  professor  would 
phrase  it,  amplify  your  meaning,  young  gentleman." 

"  Thus  :  To-morrow  is  Sunday.  We  will  sleep  till 
Monday  morning  to  purge  our  brains  of  these  cloudy 
vapors,  and  restore  the  freshness  of  our  complexions. 
If  a  fair  day,  you  shall  start  alone  in  the  stanhope,  and 
on  Monday  night  sleep  in  classic  quarters  at  Titus's 
in  Troy." 

"  And  you  !"  I' interrupted,  rather  ■astonished  at  his 
arrangement  for  one. 

Horace  laid  his  hand  on  his  pocket  with  a  look  of 
embarrassed  care. 

"  I  will  overtake  you  with  the  bay  colts  in  the 
drosky,  but  I  must  first  go  to  Albany.  The  circula- 
ting medium — " 

"  I  understand." 

II. 

We  met  on  Monday  morning  in  the  breakfast-room 
in  mutual  spirits.  The  sun  was  two  hours  high,  the 
birds  in  the  trees  were  wild  with  the  beauty  and  elas- 
ticity of  the  day,  the  dew  glistened  on  every  bough, 
and  the  whole  scene,  over  river  and  hill,  was  a  heaven 
of  natural  delight.  As  we  finished  our  breakfast,  the 
light  spattering  of  a  horse's  feet  up  the  avenue,  and 
the  airy  whirl  of  quick-following  wheels,  announced 
the  stanhope.  It  was  in  beautiful  order,  and  what 
would  have  been  termed  on  any  pave  in  the  world  a 
tasteful  turn-out.  Light  cream-colored  body,  black 
wheels  and  shafts,  drab  lining  edged  with  green,  dead- 
black  harness,  light  as  that  on  the  panthers  of  Bac- 
chus—it was  the  last  style  of  thing  you  would  have 
looked  for  at  the  "  stoup"  of  a  Dutch  homestead. 
And  Tempest !  I  think  I  see  him  now  ! — his  small  in- 
quisitive ears,  arched  neck,  eager  eye,  and  fine,  thin 
nostril— his  dainty  feet  flung  out  with  the  grace'  of  a 
flaunted  riband — his  true  and  majestic  action  and  his 
spirited  champ  of  the  bit,  nibbling  at  the  tight  rein  with 
the  exciting  pull  of  a  hooked  trout — how  evenly  he 
drew  !— how  insensibly  the  compact  stanhope,  just 
touching  his  iron-gray  tail,  bowled  along  on  the  road 
after  him  ! 

Horace  was  behind  with  the  drosky  and  black  boy, 
and  with  a  parting  nod  at  the  gate,  I  turned  north- 
ward, and  Tempest  took  the  road  in  beautiful  style.  I 
do  not  remember  to  have  been  ever  so  elated.  I  was 
always  of  the  Cyrenaic  philosophy  that  "  happiness  is 
motion,"  and  the  bland  vitality  of  the  air  had  refined 


my  senses.  The  delightful  feel  of  the  reins  thrilled  me 
to  the  shoulder.  Driving  is  like  any  other  appetite, 
dependant  for  the  delicacy  of  its  enjoyment  on  the 
system,  and  a  day's  temperate  abstinence,  long  sleep, 
and  the  glorious  perfection  of  the  morning,  had  put 
my  nerves  "  in  condition."  I  felt  the  air  as  I  rushed 
through.  The  power  of  the  horse  was  added  to  my 
consciousness  of  enjoyment,  and  if  you  can  imagine  a 
centaur  with  a  harness  and  stanhope  added  to  his  liv- 
ing body,  I  felt  the  triple  enjoyment  of  animal  exer- 
cise which  would  then  be  his. 

It  is  delightful  driving  on  the  Hudson.  The  road  is 
very  fair  beneath  your  wheels,  the  river  courses  away 
under  the  bold  shore  with  the  majesty  inseparable 
from  its  mighty  flood,  and  the  constant  change  of  out- 
line in  its  banks  gives  you,  as  you  proceed,  a  constant 
variety  of  pictures,  from  the  loveliest  to  the  most  sub- 
lime. The  eagle's  nest  above  you  at  one  moment,  a 
sunny  and  fertile  farm  below  you  at  the  next — rocks, 
trees,  and  waterfalls,  wedded  and  clustered  as,  it 
seems  to  me,  they  are  nowhere  else  done  so  pictu- 
resquely— it  is  a  noble  river,  the  Hudson  !  And  every 
few  minutes,  while  you  gaze  down  upon  the  broad 
waters  spreading  from  hill  to  hill  like  a  round  lake,  a 
gayly-painted  steamer  with  her  fringed  and  white  awn- 
ings and  streaming  flag,  shoots  out  as  if  from  a  sudden 
cleft  in  the  rock,  and  draws  across  it  her  track  of 
foam. 

Well — I  bowled  along.  Ten  o'clock  brought  me 
to  a  snug  Dutch  tavern,  where  I  sponged  Tempest's 
mouth  and  nostrils,  lunched  and  was  stared  at  by  the 
natives,  and  continuing  my  journey,  at  one  I  loosed 
rein  and  clashed  into  the  pretty  village  of ,  Tem- 
pest in  a  foam,  and  himself  and  his  extempore  master 
creating  a  great  sensation  in  a  crowd  of  people,  who 
stood  in  the  shade  of  the  verandah  of  the  hotel,  as  if 
that  asylum  for  the  weary  traveller  had  been  a  shop  for 
the  sale  of  gentlemen  in  shirt-sleeves. 

Tempest  was  taken  round  to  the  "  barn,"  and  I  or- 
dered rather  an  elaborate  dinner,  designing  still  to  go 
on  some  ten  miles  in  the  cool  of  the  evening,  and  hav- 
ing, of  course,  some  mortal  hours  upon  my  hands. 
The  cook  had  probably  never  heard  of  more  than 
three  dishes  in  her  life,  but  those  three  were  garnished 
with  all  manner  of  herbs,  and  sent  up  in  the  best 
china  as  a  warranty  for  an  unusual  bill,  and  what  with 
coffee,  a  small  glass  of  new  rum  as  an  apology  for  a 
chasse  cafe,  and  a  nap  in  a  straight-backed  chair,  I 
killed  the  enemy  to  my  satisfaction  till  the  shadows  of 
the  poplars  lengthened  across  the  barnyard. 

I  was  awoke  by  Tempest,  prancing  round  to  the 
door  in  undiminished  spirits  ;  and  as  I  had  begun  the 
day  en  grand  seigneur,  I  did  not  object  to  the  bill, 
which  considerably  exceeded  the  outside  of  my  calcu- 
lation, but  giving  the  landlord  a  twenty-dollar  note, 
received  the  change  unquestioned,  doubled  the  usual 
fee  to  the  ostler,  and  let  Tempest  off  with  a  bend  for- 
ward which  served  at  the  same  time  for  a  gracious  bow 
to  the  spectators.  So  remarkable  a  coxcomb  had  prob- 
ably not  been  seen  in  the  village  since  the  passing  of 
Cornwallis's  army. 

The  day  was  still  hot,  and  as  I  got  into  the  open 
country,  I  drew  rein  and  paced  quietly  up  hill  and 
down,  picking  the  road  delicately,  and  in  a  humor  of 
thoughtful  contentment,  trying  my  skill  in  keeping  the 
edges  of  the  green  sod  as  it  leaned  in  and  out  from  the 
walls  and  ditches.  With  the  long  whip  I  now  and 
then  touched  the  wing  of  a  sulphur  butterfly  hovering 
over  a  pool,  and  now  and  then  I  stopped  and  gathered 
a  violet  from  the  unsunned  edge  of  the  wood. 

I  had  proceeded  three  or  four  miles  in  this  way, 
when  I  was  overtaken  by  three  stout  fellows,  gallop- 
ing at  speed,  who  rode  past  and  faced  round  with  a 
peremptory  order  to  me  to  stop.  A  formidable  pitch- 
fork in  the  hand  of  each  horseman  left  me  no  alterna- 
tive.    I  made  up  my  mind  immediately  to  be  robbed 


INKLINGS  OF  ADVENTURE. 


435 


quietly  of  my  own  personals,  but  to  show  fight,  if  ne- 
cessary, for  Tempest  and  the  stanhope. 

"  Well,  gentlemen,"  said  I,  coaxing  my  impatient 
horse,  who  had  been  rather  excited  by  the  clatter  of 
hoofs  behind  him,  "  what  is  the  meaning  of  this  ?" 

Before  I  could  get  an  answer,  one  of  the  fellows 
had  dismounted  and  given  his  bridle  to  another,  and 
coming  round  to  the  left  side,  he  sprang  suddenly  into 
the  stanhope.  I  received  him  as  he  rose  with  a  well- 
placed  thrust  of  my  heel  which  sent  him  back  into  the 
road,  and  with  a  chirrup  to  Tempest,  I  dashed  through 
the  phalanx  and  took  the  road  at  a  top  speed.  The 
short  lash  once  waved  round  the  small  ears  before  me, 
there  was  no  stopping  in  a  hurry,  and  away  sped  the 
gallant  gray,  and  fast  behind  followed  my  friends  in 
their  short  sleeves,  all  in  a  lathering  gallop.  A  couple 
of  miles  was  the  work  of  no  time,  Tempest  laying  his 
legs  to  it  as  if  the  stanhope  had  been  a  cobweb  at  his 
heels  ;  but  at  the  end  of  that  distance  there  came  a 
sharp  descent  to  a  mill-stream,  and  I  just  remember 
an  unavoidable  milestone  and  a  jerk  over  a  wall,  and 
the  next  minute,  it  seemed  to  me,  I  was  in  the  room 
where  I  had  dined,  with  my  hands  tied,  and  a  hundred 
people  about  me.  My  cool  white  waistcoat  was  mat- 
ted with  mud,  and  my  left  temple  was,  by  the  glass 
opposite  me,  both  bloody  and  begrimed. 

The  opening  of  my  eyes  was  a  signal  for  a  closer 
gathering  around  me,  and  between  exhaustion  and  the 
close  air  I  was  half  suffocated.  I  was  soon  made  to 
understand  that  I  was  a  prisoner,  and  that  the  three 
white-frocked  highwaymen,  as  I  took  them  to  be,  were 
amoiiir  the  spectators.  On  a  polite  application  to  the 
landlord,  who,  I  found  out,  was  a  justice  of  the  peace 
as  well,  I  was  informed  that  he  had  made  out  my  mit- 
timus as  a  counterfeiter,  and  that  the  spurious  note  I 
had  passed  upon  him  for  my  dinner  was  safe  in  his 
possession  !  He  pointed  at  the  same  time  to  a  placard 
newly  stuck  against  the  wall,  offering  a  reward  for  the 
apprehension  of  a  notorious  practiser  of  my  supposed 
craft,  to  the  description  of  whose  person  I  answered, 
to  the  satisfaction  of  all  present. 

Quite  too  indignant  to  remonstrate,  I  seated  myself 
in  the  chair  considerately  offered  me  by  the  waiter, 
and  listening  to  the  whispers  of  the  persons  who  were 
still  permitted  to  throng  the  room,  I  discovered,  what 
might  have  struck  me  before,  that  the  initials  on  the 
panel  of  the  stanhope  and  the  handle  of  the  whip  had 
been  compared  with  the  card  pasted  in  the  bottom  of 
my  hat,  and  the  want  of  correspondence  was  taken  as 
decided  corroboration.  It  was  remarked  also  by  a  by- 
stander that  I  was  quite  too  much  of  a  dash  for  an 
honest  man,  and  that  he  had  suspected  me  from  first 
seeing  me  drive  into  the  village  !  I  was  sufficiently 
humbled  by  this  time  to  make  an  inward  vow  never 
again  to  take  airs  upon  myself  if  I  escaped  the  county 
jail. 

The  justice  meanwhile  had  made  out  my  orders, 
and  a  horse  and  cart  had  been  provided  to  take  me  to 
the  next  town.  I  endeavored  to  get  speech  of  his 
worship  as  I  was  marched  out  of  the  inn  parlor,  but 
the  crowd  pressed  close  upon  my  heels,  and  the  digni- 
tary-landlord seemed  anxious  to  rid  his  house  of  me.  j 
I  had  no  papers,  and  no  proofs  of  my  character,  and  j 
assertion  went  for  nothing.  Besides,  I  was  muddy,  I 
and  my  hat  was  broken  in  on  one  side,  proofs  of  vil-  | 
lany  which  appeal  to  the  commonest  understanding,     j 

I  begged  for  a  little  straw  in  the  bottom  of  the  cart,  j 
and  had  made  myself  as  comfortable  as  my  two  rustic  ] 
constables  thought  fitting  for  a  culprit,  when  the  vehi- 
cle was  quickly  ordered  from  the  door  to  make  away 
for  a  carriage  coming  at  a  dashing  pace  up  the  road. 
It  was  Van  Pelt  in  his  drosky. 

Horace  was  well  known  on  the  road,  and  the  stan- 
hope had  already  been  recognised  as  his.  By  this 
time  it  was  deep  in  the  twilight,  and  though  he  was  in- 
stantly known  by  the  landlord,  he  might  be  excused 


for  not  so  readily  identifying  the  person  of  his  friend 
in  the  damaged  gentleman  in  the  straw. 

"  Ay,  ay!  I  see  you  don't  know  him,"  said  the  land- 
lord, while  Van  Pelt  surveyed  me  rather  coldly  ;  "  on 
with  him,  constables  !  he  wouid  have  us  believe  you 
knew  him,  sir!  walk  in,  Mr.  Van  Pelt !  Ostler,  look 
to  Mr.  Van  Pelt's  horses  !     Walk  in,  sir  !" 

"  Stop  !"  I  cried  out  in  a  voice  of  thunder,  seeing 
that  Horace  really  had  not  looked  at  me,  "  Van  Pelt ! 
stop,  I  say  !" 

The  driver  of  the  cart  seemed  more  impressed  by 
the  energy  of  my  cries  than  my  friends  the  constables, 
and  pulled  up  his  horse.  Some  one  in  the  crowd  cried 
out  that  I  should  have  a  hearing  or  he  would  "  wallup 
the  comitatus,"  and  the  justice,  called  back  by  this  ex- 
pression of  an  opinion  from  the  sovereign  people,  re- 
quested his  new  guest  to  look  at  the  prisoner. 

I  was  preparing  to  have  my  hands  untied,  yet  feel- 
ing so  indignant  at  Van  Pelt  for  not  having  recognised 
me  that  I  would  not  look  at  him,  when,  to  my  surprise, 
the  horse  started  off  once  more,  and  looking  back,  I 
saw  my  friend  patting  the  neck  of  his  near  horse,  evi- 
dently not  having  thought  it  worth  his  while  to  take 
any  notice  of  the  justice's  observation.  Choking  with 
rage,  I  flung  myself  down  upon  the  straw,  and  jolted 
on  without  further  remonstrance  to  the  county  town. 

I  had  been  incarcerated  an  hour  when  Van  Pelt's 
voice,  half  angry  with  the  turnkey  and  half  ready  to 
burst  into  a  laugh,  resounded  outside.  He  had  not 
heard  a  word  spoken  by  the  officious  landlord,  till  after 
the  cart  had  been  some  time  gone.  Even  then,  be- 
lieving it  to  be  a  cock-and-bull  story,  he  had  quietly 
dined,  and  it  was  only  on  going  into  the  yard  to  see 
after  his  horses  that  he  recognised  the  debris  of  his 
stanhope. 

The  landlord's  apologies,  when  we  returned  to  the 
inn,  were  more  amusing  to  Van  Pelt  than  consolatory 
to  Philip  Slingsby. 


CHAPTER  II. 

SARATOGA    SPRINGS. 

Jt  was  about  seven  o'clock  of  a  hot  evening  when 
Van  Pelt's  exhausted  horses  toiled  out  from  the  Pine 
Forest,  and  stood,  fetlock  deep  in  sand,  on  the  brow 
of  the  small  hill  overlooking  the  muslnoom  village  of 
Saratoga.  One  or  two  straggling  horsemen  were  re- 
turning late  from  their  afternoon  ride,  and  looked  at 
us,  as  they  passed  on  their  fresher  hacks,  with  the  cu- 
riosity which  attaches  to  new-comers  in  a  watering- 
place  ;  here  and  there  a  genuine  invalid,  who  had 
come  to  the  waters  for  life,  not  for  pleasure,  took  ad- 
vantage of  the  coolness  of  the  hour  and  crept  down 
the  foot-path  to  the  Spring  ;  and  as  Horace  encour- 
aged his  flagging  cattle  into  a  trot  to  bring  up  gal- 
lantly at  the  door  of  "  Congress  Hall,"  the  great  bell 
of  that  vast  caravanserai  resounded  through  the  dusty 
air,  and  by  the  shuffling  of  a  thousand  feet,  audible  as 
we  approached,  we  knew  that  the  fashionable  world 
of  Saratoga  were  rushing  down,  en  ?nasse,  "  to  lea." 

Having  driven  through  a  sand-cloud  for  the  prece- 
ding three  hours,  and,  to  say  nothing  of  myself,  Van 
Pelt  being  a  man,  who,  in  his  character  as  the  most 
considerable  beau  of  the  University,  calculated  his  first 
impression,  it  was  not  thought  advisable  to  encounter, 
uncleansed,  the  tide  of  fashion  at  that  moment  stream- 
ing through  the  hall.  We  drove  round  to  the  side- 
door,  and  gained  our  pigeon-hole  quarters  under  cover 
of  the  back-staircase. 

The  bachelors'  wing  of  Congress  Hall  is  a  long,  uti- 
slightly,  wooden  barrack,  divided  into  chambers  six  feet 
by  four,  and  of  an  airiness  of  partition  which  enables 


436 


INKLINGS  OF  ADVENTURE. 


the  occupant  to  converse  with  his  neighbor  three  rooms 
off,  with  the  ease  of  clerks  calling  out  entries  to  the 
leger  across  the  desks  of  a  counting-house.  The 
clatter  of  knives  and  plates  came  up  to  our  ears  in  a 
confused  murmur,  and  V  an  Pelt  having  refused  to  dine 
at  the  only  inn  upon  the  route,  for  some  reason  best 
known  to  himself,  I  commenced  the  progress  of  a  long 
toilet  with  an  appetite  not  rendered  patient  by  the 
sounds  of  cheer  below. 

I  had  washed  the  dust  out  of  my  eyes  and  mouth, 
and,  overcome  with  heat  and  hunger,  I  knotted  a  cool 
cravat  loosely  round  my  neck,  and  sat  down  in  the  one 
chair. 

"  Van  Pelt !"  I  shouted. 

"  Well,  Phil !" 

"  Are  you  dressed  ?" 

"  Dressed  !  I  am  as  pinguid  as  a  pate  foie  gras — 
greased  to  the  eyelids  in  cold  cream  !" 

I  took  up  the  sixpenny  glass  and  looked  at  my  own 
newly-washed  physiognomy.  From  the  temples  to  the 
chin  it  was  one  unmitigated  red — burned  to  a  blister 
with  the  sun  !  I  had  been  obliged  to  deluge  my  head 
like  a  mop  to  get  out  the  dust,  and  not  naturally  re- 
markable for  my  good  looks,  I  could,  much  worse  than 
Van  Pelt,  afford  these  startling  additions  to  my  disad- 
vantages. Hunger  is  a  subtle  excuse-finder,  however, 
and,  remembering  there  were  five  hundred  people  in 
this  formidable  crowd,  and  all  busy  with  satisfying  their 
appetites,  I  trusted  to  escape  observation,  and  deter- 
mined to  "  go  down  to  tea."  With  the  just-named 
number  of  guests,  it  will  easily  be  understood  why  it 
is  impossible  to  obtain  a  meal  at  Congress  Hall,  out  of 
the  stated  time  and  place. 

In  a  white  roundabout,  a  checked  cravat,  my  hair 
plastered  over  my  eyes  a  la  Mawivorm,  and  a  face  like 
the  sign  of  the  "  Rising  Sun,"  1  stopped  at  Van  Pelt's 
door. 

"  The  most  hideous  figure  my  eyes  ever  looked 
upon  !"  was  his  first  consolatory  observation. 

"  Handsome,  or  hideous,"  I  answered,  "  I'll  not 
starve!  So  here  goes  for  some  bread  and  butter!" 
and  leaving  him  to  his  "appliances,"  I  descended  to  the 
immense  hall  which  serves  the  comers  to  Saratoga,  for 
dining,  dancing,  and  breakfasting,  and  in  wet  weather, 
between  meals,  for  shuttlecock  and  promenading. 

Two  interminable  tables  extended  down  the  hall, 
filled  by  .all  the  beauty  and  fashion  of  the  United  States. 
Luckily,  I  thought,  for  me,  there  are  distinctions  in  this 
republic  of  dissipation,  and  the  upper  end  is  reserved 
for  those  who  have  servants  to  turn  down  the  chairs 
and  stand  over  them.  The  end  of  the  tables  nearest 
the  door,  consequently,  is  occupied  by  those  whose 
opinion  of  my  appearance  is  not  without  appeal,  if  they 
trouble  their  heads  about  it  at  all,  and  I  may  glide  in, 
in  my  white  roundabout  (permitted  in  this  sultry 
weather),  and  retrieve  exhausted  nature  in  obscurity. 

An  empty  chair  stood  between  an  old  gentleman 
and  a  very  plain  young  lady,  and  seeing  no  remembered 
faces  opposite,  I  glided  to  the  place,  and  was  soon  lost 
to  apprehension  in  the  abysm  of  a  cold  pie.  The  table 
was  covered  with  meats,  berries,  bottles  of  chalybeate 
water,  tea  appurtenances,  jams,  jellies,  and  radishes, 
and,  but  for  the  absence  of  the  roast,  you  might  have 
doubted  whether  the  meal  was  breakfast  or  dinner, 
lunch  or  supper.  Happy  country !  in  which  any  one 
of  the  four  meals  may  serve  a  hungry  man  for  all. 

The  pigeon-pie  stood,  at  last,  well  quarried  before 
me,  the  debris  of  the  excavation  heaped  upon  my  plate ; 
and,  appetite  appeased,  and  made  bold  by  my  half 
hour's  obscurity,  I  leaned  forward  and  perused  with 
curious  attention  the  long  line  of  faces  on  the  opposite 
side  of  the  table,  to  some  of  whom,  doubtless,  I  was  to 
be  indebted  for  the  pleasures  of  the  coming  fort- 
night. 

My  eyes  were  fixed  on  the  features  of  a  talkative 
woman  just  above,  and  I  had  quite  forgotten  the  fact 


of  my  dishabille  of  complexion  and  dress,  when  two 
persons  entered  who  made  considerable  stir  among 
the  servants,  and  eventually  were  seated  directly  op- 
posite me. 

"  We  loitered  too  long  at  Barhydt's,"  said  one  of  the 
most  beautiful  women  I  had  ever  seen,  as  she  pulled 
her  chair  nearer  to  the  table  and  looked  around  her 
with  a  glance  of  disapproval. 

In  following  her  eyes  to  see  who  was  so  happy  as 
to  sympathize  with  such  a  divine  creature  even  in  the 
loss  of  a  place  at  table,  I  met  the  fixed  and  astonished 
gaze  of  my  most  intimate  friend  at  the  University. 
'   "Ellerton!" 

"  Slingsby  !" 

Overjoyed  at  meeting  him,  I  stretched  both  hands 
across  the  narrow  table,  and  had  shaken  his  arm  nearly 
off  his  shoulders,  and  asked  him  a  dozen  questions,  be- 
fore I  became  conscious  that  a  pair  of  large  wondering 
eyes  were  coldly  taking  an  inventory  of  my  person 
and  features.  Van  Pelt's  unflattering  exclamation 
upon  my  appearance  at  his  door,  flashed  across  my 
mind  like  a  thunderstroke,  and,  coloring  through  my 
burned  skin  to  the  temples,  I  bowed  and  stammered  I 
know  not  what,  as  Ellerton  introduced  me  to  his 
sister ! 

To  enter  fully  into  my  distress,  you  should  be  ap- 
prized that  a  correspondence  arising  from  my  long  and 
constant  intimacy  with  Tom  Ellerton,  had  been  carried 
on  for  a  year  between  me  and  his  sister,  and  that,  being 
constantly  in  the  habit  of  yielding  to  me  in  manners  of 
taste,  he  had,  I  well  knew,  so  exaggerated  to  her  my 
personal  qualities,  dress,  and  manners,  that  she  could 
not  in  any  case  fail  to  be  disappointed  in  seeing  me. 
Believing  her  to  be  at  that  moment  two  thousand  miles 
off  in  Alabama,  and  never  having  hoped  for  the  pleas- 
ure of  seeing  her  at  all,  I  had  foolishly  suffered  this 
good-natured  exaggeration  to  go  on,  pleased  with  seeing 
the  reflex  of  his  praises  in  her  letters,  and,  Heaven 
knows,  little  anticipating  the  disastrous  interview  upon 
which  my  accursed  star  would  precipitate  me  !  As  I 
went  over,  mentally,  the  particulars  of  my  unbecom- 
ingness,  and  saw  Miss  Ellerton's  eyes  resting  inquisi- 
tively and  furtively  on  the  mountain  of  pigeon  bones 
lifting  their  well-picked  pyramid  to  my  chin,  I  wished 
myself  an  ink-fish  at  the  bottom  of  the  sea. 

Three  minutes  after,  I  burst  into  Van  Pelt's  room, 
tearing  my  hair  and  abusing  Tom  Ellerton's  good  na- 
ture, and  my  friend's  headless  drosky,  in  alternate 
breaths.  Without  disturbing  the  subsiding  blood  in  his 
own  face  by  entering  into  my  violence,  Horace  coolly 
asked  me  what  the  devil  was  the  matter. 

I  told  him. 

"  Lie  down  here  !"  said  Van  Pelt,  who  was  a  small 
Napoleon  in  such  trying  extremities;  "lie  down  on 
the  bed,  and  anoint  your  phiz  with  this  unguent.  I  see 
good  luck  for  you  in  this  accident,  and  you  have  only 
to  follow  my  instructions.  Phil  Slingsby,  sunburnt, 
in  a  white  roundabout,  and  Phil  Slingsby,  pale  and  well 
dressed,  are  as  different  as  this  potted  cream  and  a  dan- 
cing cow.  You  shall  see  what  a  little  drama  I'll  work 
out  for  you !" 

I  lay  down  on  my  back,  and  Horace  kindly  anointed 
me  from  the  trachea  to  the  forelock,  and  from  ear  to 
ear. 

"  Egad,"  said  he,  warming  with  his  study  of  his  pro- 
posed plot  as  he  slid  his  fore-fingers  over  the  bridge  of 
my  nose,  "every  circumstance  tells  for  us.  Tall  man 
as  you  are,  you  are  as  short-bodied  as  a  monkey  (no 
offence,  Phil !)  and  when  you  sit  at  table,  you  are  rather 
an  under-sized  gentleman.  I  have  been  astonished 
every  day  these  three  years,  at  seeing  you  rise  after 
dinner  in  Commons'  Hall.  A  thousand  to  one,  Fanny 
Ellerton  thinks  you  a  stumpy  man." 

"And  then,  Phil,"  he  continued,  with  a  patronising 
tone,  "you  have  studied  minute  philosophy  to  little 
purpose  if  you  do  not  know  that  the  first  step  in  win- 


INKLINGS  OF  ADVENTURE. 


437 


ning  a  woman  to  whom  you  have  been  overpraised,  is 
to  disenchant  her  at  all  hazards,  on  your  first  inter- 
view. You  will  never  rise  above  the  ideal  she  has 
formed,  and  to  sink  below  it  gradually,  or  to  remain 
stationary,  is  not  to  thrive  in  your  wooing." 

Leaving  me  this  precocious  wisdom  to  digest, 
Horace  descended  to  the  foot  of  the  garden  to  take  a 
warm  bath,  and  overcome  with  fatigue,  and  the  recum- 
bent posture,  I  soon  fell  asleep  and  dreamed  of  the 
great  blue  eyes  of  Fanny  Ellerton. 


II. 


The  soaring  of  the  octave  flute  in  "  Hail  Columbia," 
with  which  the  band  was  patriotically  opening  the 
ball,  woke  me  from  the  midst  of  a  long  apologetic  let- 
ter to  my  friend's  sister,  and  I  found  Van  Pelt's  black 
boy  Juba  waiting  patiently  at  the  bed-side  with  curl- 
ing-tongs and  Cologne-water,  ordered  to  superintend 
my  toilet  by  his  master,  who  had  gone  early  to  the 
drawing-room  to  pay  his  respects  to  Miss  Ellerton.  ! 
With  the  cold  cream  disappeared  entirely  from  my  ' 
face  the  uncomfortable  redness  to  which  I  had  been  a 
martyr,  and,  thanks  to  my  ebony  coijfetir,  my  straight 
and  plastered  locks  soon  grew  as  different  to  their  i 
"  umquhile  guise"  as  Hyperion's  to  a  satyr's.  Hav-  j 
ing  appeared  to  the  eyes  of  the  lady,  in  whose  favor  I  , 
hoped  to  prosper,  in  red  and  white  (red  phiz  and  white 
jacket),  1  trusted  that  in  white  and  black  (black  suit  \ 
and  paleviznomy),  I  should  look  quite  another  person,  j 
Juba  was  pleased  to  show  his  ivory  in  a  complimen-  ! 
tary  smile  at  my  transformation,  and  I  descended  to  | 
the  drawing-room,  on  the  best  terms  with  the  coxcomb 
in  my  bosom. 

Horace  met  me  at  the  door. 

'■'■Proteus  redivivvs  /"  was  his  exclamation.  "  Your 
new  name  is  Wrongham.  You  are  a  gentle  senior, 
instead  of  a  bedeviled  sophomore,  and  your  cue  is  to 
be  poetical.  She  will  never  think  again  of  the  mon- 
ster in  the  white  jacket,  and  I  have  prepared  her  for 
the  acquaintance  of  a  new  friend,  whom  I  have  just 
described  to  you. 

I  took  his  arm,  and  with  the  courage  of  a  man  in  a 
mask,  went  through  another  presentation  to  Miss  El- 
lerton.    Her  brother  had   been  let  into  the  secret  by  j 
Van  Pelt,  and  received  me  with  great  ceremony  as  his  I 
college  superior;  and,  as  there  was  no  other  person  at  ! 
the  Springs  who  knew  Mr.  Slingsby,  Mr.  Wrongham 
was  likely  to  have  an  undisturbed  reign   of  it.     Miss  \ 
Ellerton   looked  hard   at  me  for  a  moment,  but  the  ! 
gravity  with  which  I  was  presented  and  received,  dis-  | 
sipated  a  doubt   if  one  had   arisen    in  her  mind,  and 
she    took    my   arm  to  go   to  the   ball-room,  with   an 
undisturbed  belief  in   my  assumed  name  and  charac- 
ter. 

I  commenced  the  acquaintance  of  the  fair  Alaba- 
mian  with  great  advantages.  Received  as  a  perfect 
stranger,  I  possessed,  from  long  correspondence  with 
her,  the  most  minute  knowledge  of  the  springs,  of  her 
character,  and  of  her  favorite  reading  and  pursuits, 
and,  with  the  little  knowledge  of  the  world  which  she 
had  gained  on  a  plantation,  she  was  not  likely  to  pene- 
trate my  game  from  my  playing  it  too  freely.  Her 
confidence  was  immediately  won  by  the  readiness 
with  which  I  entered  into  her  enthusiasm  and  antici- 
pated her  thoughts  ;  and  before  the  first  quadrille  was 
well  over,  she  had  evidently  made  up  her  mind  that 
she  had  never  in  her  life  met  one  who  so  well  "under- 
stood her."  Oh !  how  much  women  include  in  that 
apparently  indefinite  expression,  "He  understands 
me .'" 

The  colonnade  of  Congress  Hall  is  a  long  prom- 
enade laced  in  with  vines  and  columns,  on  the  same 
level  with  the  vast  ball-room  and  drawing-room,  and 
(the  light   of  heaven    not   being  taxed   at  Saratoga) 


opening  at  every  three  steps  by  a  long  window  into 
the  carpeted**floors.  When  the  rooms  within  are  lit 
in  a  summer's  night,  that  cool  and  airy  colonnade  is 
thronged  by  truants  from  the  dance,  and  collectively 
by  all  who  have  anything  to  express  that  is  meant  for 
one  ear  only.  The  mineral  waters  of  Saratoga  are  no 
less  celebrated  as  a  soporific  for  chaperons  than  as  a 
tonic  for  the  dyspeptic,  and  while  the  female  Argus 
dozes  in  the  drawing-room,  the  fair  Io  and  her  Jupi- 
ter (represented  in  this  case,  we  will  say,  by  Miss  El- 
lerton and  myself)  range  at  liberty  the  fertde  fields  of 
flirtation. 

I  had  easily  put  Miss  Ellerton  in  surprised  good 
humor  with  herself  and  me  during  the  first  quadrille, 
and  with  a  freedom  based  partly  upon  my  certainty  of 
pleasing  her,  partly  on  the  peculiar  manners  of  the 
place,  1  coolly  requested  that  she  would  continue  to 
dance  with  me  for  the  rest  of  the  evening. 

"One  unhappy  quadrille  excepted,"  she  replied, 
with  a  look  meant  to  be  mournful. 

"May  I  ask  with  whom?" 

"  Oh,  he  has  not  asked  me  yet ;  but  my  brother  has 
bound  me  over  to  be  civil  to  him — a  spectre,  Mr. 
Wrongham !  a  positive  spectre." 

"  How  denominated  ?"  I  inquired,  with  a  forced  in- 
difference, for  I  had  a  presentiment  I  should  hear  my 
own  name. 

"Slingsby— Mr.  Philip  Slingsby— Tom's  fidus 
Achates,  and  a  proposed  lover  of  my  own.  But  you 
don't  seem  surprised!" 

"Surprised!  E-hem!     I  know  the  gentleman  !" 

"Then  did  you  ever  see  such  a  monster!  Tom 
told  me  he  was  another  Hyperion.  He  half  admitted 
it  himself,  indeed  ;  for  to  tell  you  a  secret,  I  have  cor- 
responded with  him  a  year!" 

"Giddy  Miss  Fanny  Ellerton! — and  never  saw 
him!" 

"  Never  till  to-night !  He  sat  at  supper  in  a  white 
jacket  and  red  face,  with  a  pile  of  bones  upon  his  plate 
like  an  Indian  tumulus." 

"And  your  brother  introduced  you  ?" 

"  Ah,  you  were  at  table !  Well,  did  you  ever  see  in 
your  travels,  a  man  so  unpleasantly  hideous?" 

"Fanny!"  said  her  brother,  coming  up  at  the  mo- 
ment, "  Slingsby  presents  his  apologies  to  you  for  not 
joining  your  cordon  to-night — but  he's  gone  to  bed 
with  a  head-ache." 

"Indigestion,  I  dare  say,"  said  the  young  lady. 
"  Never  mind,  Tom,  I'll  break  my  heart  when  \  have 
leisure.  And  now,  Mr.  Wrongham,  since  the  spectre 
walks  not  forth  to-night,  I  am  yours  for  a  cool  hour 
on  the  colonnade." 

Vegetation  is  rapid  in  Alabama,  and  love  is  a  weed 
that  thrives  in  the  soil  of  the  tropics.  We  discoursed 
of  the  lost  Pleiad  and  the  Berlin  bracelets,  of  the  five 
hundred  people  about  us,  and  the  feasibility  of  boiling 
a  pot  on  five  hundred  a  year — the  unmatrimonial  sum 
total  of  my  paternal  allowance.  She  had  as  many  ne- 
groes as  I  had  dollars,  I  well  knew,  but  it  was  my  cue 
to  seem  disinterested. 

"  And  where  do  you  mean  to  live,  when  you  marry, 
Mr.  Wrongham?"  asked  Miss  Ellerton,  at  the  two 
hundredth  turn  on  the  colonnade. 

"Would  you  like  to  live  in  Italy?"  I  asked  again, 
as  if  I  had  not  heard  her. 

"  Do  you  mean  that  as  a  scquitur  to  my  question, 
Mr.  Wrongham  ?"  said  she,  half  stopping  in  her  walk  ; 
and  though  the  sentence  was  commenced  playfully, 
dropping  her  voice  at  the  last  word,  with  something,  I 
thought,  very  like  emotion. 

I  drew  her  off  the  colonnade  to  the  small  garden 
between  the  house  and  the  spring,  and  in  a  giddy 
dream  of  fear  and  surprise  at  my  own  rashness  and 
success,  I  made,  and  won  from  her,  a  frank  avowal  of 
preference. 

Matches  have  been  made  more  suddenly. 


438 


INKLINGS  OF  ADVENTURE. 


hi. 


Miss  Ellerton  sat  in  the  music-room  the  next  morn- 
ing after  breakfast,  preventing  pauses  in  a  rather  in- 
teresting conversation,  by  a  running  accompaniment 
upon  the  guitar.  A  single  gold  thread  formed  a  fillet 
about  her  temples,  and  from  beneath  it,  in  clouds  of 
silken  ringlets,  floated  the  softest  raven  hair  that  ever 
grew  enamored  of  an  ivory  shoulder.  Hers  was  a 
skin  that  seemed  woven  of  the  lily-white,  but  opaque 
fibre  of  the  magnolia,  yet  of  that  side  of  its  cup  turned 
toward  the  fading  sunset.  There  is  no  term  in  paint- 
ing, because  there  is  no  touch  of  pencil  or  color,  that 
could  express  the  vanishing  and  impalpable  breath 
that  assured  the  healthiness  of  so  pale  a  cheek.  She 
was  slight  as  all  southern  women  are  in  America,  and 
of  a  flexible  and  luxurious  gracefulness  equalled  by 
nothing  but  the  movings  of  a  smoke-curl.  Without 
the  elastic  nerve  remarkable  in  the  motions  of  Taglioni, 
she  appeared,  like  her,  to  be  born  with  a  lighter  spe- 
cific gravity  than  her  fellow-creatures.  If  she  had 
floated  away  upon  some  chance  breeze  you  would  only 
have  been  surprised  upon  reflection. 

"  I  am  afraid  you  are  too  fond  of  society,"  said  Miss 
Ellerton,  as  Juba  came  in  hesitatingly  and  delivered 
her  a  note  in  the  hand- writing  of  an  old  correspondent. 
She  turned  pale  on  seeing  the  superscription,  and 
crushed  the  note  up  in  her  hand,  unread.  I  was  not 
sorry  to  defer  the  denouement  of  my  little  drama,  and 
taking  up  the  rema.rk  which  she  seemed  disposed  to 
forgel,  I  referred  her  to  a  scrap-book  of  Van  Pelt's, 
which  she  had  brought  home  with  her,  containing 
some  verses  of  my  own,  copied  (by  good  luck)  in  that 
sentimental  sophomore's  own  hand. 

"Are  these  yours,  really  and  really?"  she  asked, 
looking  pryingly  into  my  face,  and  showing  me  my 
own  verses,  against  which  she  had  already  run  a  pen- 
cil line  of  approbation. 

"Peccavi!"  I  answered.  "But  will  you  make  me 
in  love  with  my  offspring  by  reading  them  in  your  own 
voice." 

They  were  some  lines  written  in  a  balcony  at  day- 
break, while  a  ball  was  still  going  on  within,  and  con- 
tained an  allusion  (which  I  had  quite  overlooked)  to 
some  one  of  my  ever-changing  admirations.  As  well 
as  I  remember  they  ran  thus : — 

Morn  in  the  east !     How  coldly  fair 

It  breaks  upon  my  fevered  eye  ! 
How  chides  the  calm  and  dewy  air  I 

How  chides  the  pure  and  pearly  sky  ! 
The  stars  melt  in  a  brighter  fire, 

The  dew  in  sunshine  leaves  the  flowers  ; 
They  from  their  watch,  in  light  retire, 

While  we  in  sadness  pass  from  ours  ! 

I  turn  from  the  rebuking  morn. 

The  cold  gray  sky  and  fading  star, 
And  listen  to  the  harp  and  horn, 

And  see  the  waltzers  near  and  far  : 
The  lamps  and  flowers  are  bright  as  yet, 

And  lips  beneath  more  bright  than  they— 
How  can  a  scene  so  fair  beget 

The  mournful  thoughts  we  bear  away. 

'Tis  something  that  thou  art  not  here, 

Sweet  lover  of  my  lightest  word  ! 
'Tis  something  that  my  mother's  tear 

By  these  forgetful  hours  is  stirred  ? 
But  I  have  long  a  loiterer  been 

In  haunts  where  Joy  is  said  to  be  ; 
And  though  with  Peace  I  enter  in, 

The  nymph  comes  never  forth  with  me ! 

"And  who  was  this  •  sweet  lover,'  Mr.  Wrongham  ? 
I  should  know,  I  think,  before  I  go  farther  with  so  ex- 
peditious a  gentleman." 

"  As  Shelley  says  of  his  ideal  mistress — 

'  I  loved — oh,  no  I     I  mean  not  one  of  ye, 
Or  any  earthly  one— though  ye  are  fair  !' 


It  was  but  an  apostrophe  to  the  presentiment  of  that 
which  I  have  found,  dear  Miss  Ellerton  !  But  will  you 
read  that  ill-treated  billet-doux,  and  remember  that 
Juba  stands  with  the  patience  of  an  ebon  statue  wait- 
ing for  an  answer  ?" 

I  knew  the  contents  of  the  letter,  and  I  watched  the 
expression  of  her  face,  as  she  read  it,  with  no  little 
interest.  Her  temples  flushed,  and  her  delicate  lips 
gradually  curled  into  an  expression  of  anger  and  scorn, 
and  having  finished  the  perusal  of  it,  she  put  it  into 
my  hand,  and  asked  me  if  so  impertinent  a  production 
deserved  an  answer. 

I  began  to  fear  that  the  eclaircisscment  would  not 
leave  me  on  the  sunny  side  of  the  lady's  favor,  and  felt 
the  need  of  the  moment's  reflection  given  me  while 
running  my  eye  over  the  letter. 

"  Mr.  Slingsby,"  said  I,  with  the  deliberation  of  an 
attorney,  "  has  been  some  time  in  correspondence  with 
you  ?" 

"  Yes." 

"  And,  from  his  letters  and  your  brother's  commen- 
dations, you  had  formed  a  high  opinion  of  his  charac- 
ter, and  had  expressed  as  much  in  your  letters  ?" 

"  Yes — perhaps  I  did." 

"  And  from  this  paper  intimacy  he  conceives  him- 
self sufficiently  acquainted  with  you  to  request  leave 
to  pay  his  addresses  ?" 

A  dignified  bow  put  a  stop  to  my  catechism. 

"  Dear  Miss  Ellerton  !"  I  said,  "  this  is  scarcely  a 
question  upon  which  I  ought  to  speak,  but  by  putting 
this  letter  into  my  hand,  you  seemed  to  ask  my  opin- 
ion." 

"  I  did — I  do,"  said  the  lovely  girl,  taking  my  hand, 
and  looking  appealingly  into  my  face  ;  "  answer  it  for 
me  !  I  have  done  wrong  in  encouraging  that  foolish 
correspondence,  and  I  owe  perhaps  to  this  forward 
man  a  kinder  reply  than  my  first  feeling  would  have 
dictated.  Decide  for  me — write  for  me — relieve  me 
from  the  first  burden  that  has  lain  on  my  heart 
since " 

She  burst  into  tears,  and  my  dread  of  an  explanation 
increased. 

"  Will  you  follow  my  advice  implicitly  ?"  I  asked. 

"  Yes — oh,  yes  !" 

"  You  promise  ?" 

"  Indeed,  indeed  !" 

"  Well,  then,  listen  to  me  !  However  painful  the 
task,  I  must  tell  you  that  the  encouragement  you  have 
given  Mr.  Slingsby,  the  admiration  you  have  expressed 
in  your  letters  of  his  talents  and  acquirements,  and  the 
confidences  you  have  reposed  in  him  respecting  your- 
self, warrant  him  in  claiming  as  a  right,  a  fair  trial  of 
his  attractions.  You  have  known  and  approved  Mr. 
Slingsby's  mind  for  years — you  know  me  but  for  a  tew 
hours.  You  saw  him  under  the  most  unfavorable 
auspices  (for  I  know  him  intimately),  and  I  feel  bound 
in  justice  to  assure  you  that  you  will  like  him  much 
better  upon  acquaintance." 

Miss  Ellerton  had  gradually  drawn  herself  up  du- 
ring this  splendid  speech,  and  sat  at  last  as  erect  and 
as  cold  as  Agrippina  upon  her  marble  chair. 

"Will  you  allow  me  to  send  Mr.  Slingsby  to  you," 
I  continued,  rising — "  and  suffer  him  to  plead  his  own 
cause  ?" 

"  If  you  will  call  my  brother,  Mr.  Wrongham,  I 
shall  feel  obliged  to  you,"  said  Miss  Ellerton. 

I  left  the  room,  and  hurrying  to  my  chamber,  dipped 
my  head  into  a  basin  of  water,  and  plastered  my  long 
locks  over  my  eyes,  slipped  on  a  white  roundabout, 
and  tied  around  my  neck  the  identical  checked  cravat 
in  which  I  had  made  such  an  unfavorable  impression 
on  the  first  day  of  my  arrival.  Tom  Ellerton  was  soon 
found,  and  easily  agreed  to  go  before  and  announce  me 
by  my  proper  name  to  his  sister  ;  and  treading  close- 
ly on  his  heels,  I  followed  to  the  door  of  the  music- 
room. 


INKLINGS  OF  ADVENTURE. 


439 


"  Ah,  Ellen  !"  said  he,  without  giving  her  time  for 
a  scene,  "  I  was  looking  for  you.  Slingsby  is  better, 
and  will  pay  his  respects  to  you  presently.  And,  I 
say — y0u  will  treat  him  well,  Ellen,  and — and,  don't 
flirt  with  Wrongham  the  way  you  did  last  night ! — 
Slingby's  a  devilish  sight  better  fellow.  Oh,  here  he 
is  !" 

As  I  stepped  over  the  threshold,  Miss  Ellerton  gave 
me  just  enough  of  a  look  to  assure  herself  that  it  was 
the  identical  monster  she  had  seen  at  the  tea-table, 
and  not  deigning  me  another  glance,  immediately  com- 
menced talking  violently  to  her  brother  on  the  state  of 
the  weather.  Tom  bore  it  for  a  moment  or  two  with 
remarkable  gravity,  but  at  my  first  attempt  to  join  in 
the  conversation,  my  voice  was  lost  in  an  explosion  of 
laughter  which  would  have  been  the  death  of  a  gentle- 
man with  a  full  habit. 

Indignant  and  astonished,  Miss  Ellerton  rose  to  her 
full  height,  and  slowly  turned  to  me. 

44  Peccari .'"  said  I,  crossing  my  hands  on  my  bosom, 
and  looking  up  penitently  to  her  face. 

She  ran  to  me,  and  seized  my  hand,  but  recovered 
herself  instantly,  and  the  next  moment  was  gone  from 
the  room. 

Whether  from  wounded  pride  at  having  been  the 
subject  of  a  mystification,  or  whether  from  that  female 
caprice  by  which  most  men  suffer  at  one  period  or 
other  of  their  bachelor  lives,  I  know  not — but  I  never 
could  bring  Miss  Ellerton  again  to  the  same  interest- 
ing crisis  with  which  she  ended  her  intimacy  with  Mr. 
\Vrongham.  She  proffered  to  forgive  me,  and  talked 
laughingly  enough  of  our  old  correspondence  ;  but 
whenever  1  grew  tender,  she  referred  me  to  the  "  sweet 
lover,"  mentioned  in  my  verses  in  the  balcony,  and 
looked  around  for  Van  Pelt.  That  accomplished 
beau,  on  observing  my  discomfiture,  began  to  find  out 
Miss  Ellerton's  graces  without  the  aid  of  his  quizzing- 
glass,  and  I  soon  found  it  necessary  to  yield  the  pas 
altogether.  She  has  since  become  Mrs.  Van  Pelt, 
and  when  I  last  heard  from  her  was  "  as  well  as  could 
be  expected." 


CHAPTER  III. 

MRS.    CAPTAIN    THOMPSON. 

The  last  of  August  came  sweltering  in,  hot,  dusty, 
and  faint,  and  the  most  indefatigable  belles  of  Sarato- 
ga began  to  show  symptoms  of  weariness.  The  stars 
disappeared  gradually  from  the  ballroom;  the  bar- 
keeper grew  thin  under  the  thickening  accounts  for 
lemonades ;  the  fat  fellow  in  the  black  band,  who 
"  vexed"  the  bassoon,  had  blown  himself  from  the 
girth  of  Falstaff  to  an  "  eagle's  talon  in  the  waist ;" 
papas  began  to  be  waylaid  in  their  morning  walks  by 
young  gentlemen  with  propositions;  and  stage-coaches 
that  came  in  with  their  baggageless  tails  in  the  air,  and 
the  driver's  weight  pressing  the  foot-board  upon  the 
astonished  backs  of  his  wheelers,  went  out  with  the 
trim  of  a  Venetian  gondola — the  driver's  up-hoisted 
figure  answering  to  the  curved  proboscis  of  that  stern- 
laden  craft. 

The  vocation  of  tin-tumblers  and  water-dippers  was 
gone.  The  fashionable  world  {brazen  in  its  general 
habit)  had  drank  its  fill  of  the  ferrugineous  waters. 
Mammas  thanked  Heaven  for  the  conclusion  of  the 
chaperon's  summer  solstice  ;  and  those  who  came  to 
bet,  and  those  who  came  to  marry,  "  made  up  their 
books,"  and  walked  off  (if  they  had  won)  with  their 
winnings. 

Having  taken  a  less  cordial  farewell  of  Van  Pelt 
than  I  might  have  done  had  not  Miss  Ellerton  been 
hanging  confidingly  on  his  arm,  I  followed  my  baggage 


to  the  door,  where  that  small  epitome  of  the  inherit- 
ance of  the  prince  of  darkness,  an  American  stage- 
coach, awaited  me  as  its  ninth  inside  passenger.  As 
the  last  person  picked  up,  I  knew  very  well  the  seat 
to  which  I  was  destined,  and  drawing  a  final  cool 
breath  in  the  breezy  colonnade,  I  summoned  resolu- 
tion and  abandoned  myself  to  the  tender  mercies  of 
the  driver. 

The  "  ray  of  contempt"  that  "  will  pierce  through 
the  shell  of  the  tortoise,"  is  a  shaft  from  the  horn  of 
a  new  moon  in  comparison  with  the  beating  of  an 
American  sun  through  the  top  of  a  stage-coach.  This 
"  accommodation,"  as  it  is  sometimes  bitterly  called, 
not  being  intended  to  carry  outside  passengers,  has  a 
top  as  thin  as  your  grandmother's  umbrella,  black,  po- 
rous, and  cracked  ;  and  while  intended  for  a  protec- 
tion from  the  heat,  it  just  suffices  to  collect  the  sun's 
rays  with  an  incredible  power  and  sultriness,  and  ex- 
clude the  air  that  makes  it  sufferable  to  the  beasts  of 
the  field.  Of  the  nine  places  inside  this  "  dilly,"  the 
four  seats  in  the  corners  are  so  far  preferable  that  the 
occupant  has  the  outer  side  of  his  body  exempt  from 
a  perspirative  application  of  human  flesh  (the  ther- 
mometer at  100  degrees  of  Fahrenheit),  while,  of  the 
three  middle  places  on  the  three  seats,  the  man  in  the 
centre  of  the  coach,  with  no  support  for  his  back,  yet 
buried  to  the  chin  in  men,  women,  and  children,  is  at 
the  ninth  and  lowest  degree  of  human  suffering.  I 
left  Saratoga  in  such  a  state  of  happiness  as  you 
might  suppose  for  a  gentleman,  who,  besides  fulfilling 
this  latter  category,  had  been  previously  unhappy  in 
his  love. 

I  was  dressed  in  a  white  roundabout  and  trowsers 
of  the  same,  a  straw  hat,  thread  stockings,  and  pumps, 
and  was  so  far  a  blessing  to  my,  neighbors  that  1  looked 
cool.  Directly  behind  me,  occupying  the  middle  of 
the  back  seat,  sat  a  young  woman  with  a  gratis  passen- 
ger in  her  lap  (who,  of  course,  did  not  count  among 
the  nine),  in  the  shape  of  a  fat  and  a  very  hot  child 
of  three  years  of  age,  whom  she  called  John,  Jacky, 
Johnny,  Jocket,  Jacket,  and  the  other  endearing  di- 
minutives of  the  namesakes  of  the  great  apostle.  Like 
the  saint  who  had  been  selected  for  his  patron,  he  was 
a  "  voice  crying  in  the  wilderness."  This  little  gen- 
tleman was  exceedingly  unpopular  with  his  two  neigh- 
bors at  the  windows,  and  his  incursions  upon  their  legs 
and  shoulders  in  his  occasional  forays  for  fresh  air, 
ended  in  his  being  forbidden  to  look  out  at  either  win- 
dow, and  plied  largely  with  gingerbread  to  content  him 
with  the  warm  lap  of  his  mother.  Though  I  had  no 
eyes  in  the  back  of  my  straw  hat,  I  conceived  very 
well  the  state  in  which  a  compost  of  soft  gingerbread, 
tears,  ai.d  perspiration,  would  soon  leave  the  two  un- 
scrupulous hands  behind  me  ;  and  as  the  jolts  of  the 
coach  frequently  threw  me  back  upon  the  knees  of 
his  mother,  I  could  not  consistently  complain  of  the 
familiar  use  made  of  my  roundabout  and  shoulders  in 
Master  John's  constant  changes  of  position.  I  vowed 
my  jacket  to  the  first  river,  the  moment  I  could  make 
sure  that  the  soft  gingerbread  was  exhausted — but  I 
kept  my  temper. 

How  an  American  Jehu  gets  his  team  over  ten 
miles  in  the  hour,  through  all  the  variety  of  sand,  ruts, 
clay-pits,  and  slump-thickets,  is  a  problem  that  can 
only  be  resolved  by  riding  beside  him  on  the  box.  In 
the  usual  time  we  arrived  at  the  pretty  village  of  Troy, 
some  thirty  miles  from  Saratoga  ;  and  here,  having  ex- 
changed my  bedaubed  jacket  for  a  clean  one,  I  freely 
forgave  little  Pickle  his  freedoms,  for  I  hoped  never 
to  set  eyes  on  him  again  during  his  natural  life.  I  was 
going  eastward  by  another  coach. 

Having  eaten  a  salad  for  my  dinner,  and  drank  a 
bottle  of  iced  claret,  I  stepped  forth  in  my  »  blanched 
and  lavendered"  jacket  to  take  my  place  in  the  other 
coach,  trusting  Providence  not  to  afflict  me  twice  in 


440 


INKLINGS  OF  ADVENTURE. 


the  same  day  with  the  evil  I  had  just  escaped,  and  feel- 
ing, on  the  whole,  reconciled  to  my  troubled  dividend 
of  eternity.  I  got  up  the  steps  of  the  coach  with  as 
much  alacrity  as  the  state  of  the  thermometer  would 
permit,  and  was  about  drawing  my  legs  after  me  upon 
the  forward  seat,  when  a  clammy  hand  caught  me 
unceremoniously  by  the  shirt-collar,  and  the  voice  I 
was  just  beginning  to  forget  cried  out  with  a  chuckle, 
"Dada ."' 

"  Madam!"  I  said,  picking  off  the  gingerbread  from 
my  shirt  as  the  coach  rolled  down  the  street,  "I  had 
hoped  that  your  infernal  child " 

I  stopped  in  the  middle  of  the  sentence,  for  a  pair 
of  large  blue  eyes  were  looking  wonderingly  into  mine, 
and  for  the  first  time  I  observed  that  the  mother  of 
this  familiar  nuisance  was  one  of  the  prettiest  women  I 
had  seen  since  I  had  become  susceptible  to  the  charms 
of  the  sex. 

"  Are  you  going  to  Boston,  sir  ?"  she  inquired,  with 
a  half-timid  smile,  as  if,  in  that  case,  she  appealed  to 
me  for  protection  on  the  road. 

"  Yes,  madam  !"  I  answered,  taking  little  Jocket's 
pasty  hand  into  mine,  affectionately,  as  I  returned  her 
hesitating  look  ;  "  may  I  hope  for  your  society  so 
far  ?" 

My  fresh  white  waistcoat  was  soon  embossed  with  a 
dingy  yellow,  where  my  enterprising  fellow-passenger 
had  thrust  his  sticky  fist  into  the  pockets,  and  my  sham 
shirt-bosom  was  reduced  incontinently  to  the  complex- 
ion of  a  painter's  rag  after  doing  a  sunset  in  gamboge. 
I  saw  everything,  however,  through  the  blue  eyes  of 
his  mother,  and  was  soon  on  such  pleasant  terms  with 
Master  John,  that,  at  one  of  the  stopping-places,  I  in- 
veigled him  out  of  the  coach  and  dropped  him  acci- 
dentally into  the  horse-trough,  contriving  to  scrub  him 
passably  clean  before  he  could  recover  breath  enough 
for  an  outcry.  I  had  already  thrown  the  residuum 
of  his  gingerbread  out  of  the  window,  so  that  his  fa- 
miliarities for  the  rest  of  the  day  were,  at  least,  less 
adhesive. 

We  dropped  one  or  two  way-passengers  at  Lebanon, 
and  I  was  left  in  the  coach  with  Mrs.  Captain  and 
Master  John  Thompson,  in  both  whose  favors  I  made 
a  progress  that  (I  may  as  well  depone)  considerably 
restored  my  spirits — laid  flat  by  my  unthrift  wooing  at 
Saratoga.  If  a  fly  hath  but  alit  on  my  nose  when  my 
self-esteem  hath  been  thus  at  a  discount,  I  have 
soothed  myself  with  the  fancy  that  it  preferred  me — a 
drowning  vanity  will  so  catch  at  a  straw ! 

As  we  bowled  along  through  some  of  the  loveliest 
scenery  of  Massachusetts,  my  companion  (now  become 
my  charge),  let  me  a  little  into  her  history,  and  at  the 
same  time,  by  those  shades  of  insinuation  of  which 
women  so  instinctively  know  the  uses,  gave  me  per- 
fectly to  comprehend  that  1  might  as  well  economize 
my  tenderness.  The  father  of  the  riotous  young  gen- 
tleman who  had  made  so  free  with  my  Valencia  waist- 
coat and  linen  roundabouts,  had  the  exclusive  copy- 
hold of  her  affections.  He  had  been  three  years  at 
sea  (I  think  I  said  before),  and  she  was  hastening  to 
show  him  the  pledge  of  their  affections — come  into 
the  world  since  the  good  brig  Dolly  made  her  last 
clearance  from  Boston  bay. 

I  was  equally  attentive  to  Mrs.  Thompson  after  this 
illumination,  though  I  was,  perhaps,  a  shade  less  en- 
amored of  the  interesting  freedoms  of  Master  John. 
One's  taste  for  children  depends  so  much  upon  one's 
love  for  their  mothers  ! 

It  was  twelve  o'clock  at  night  when  the  coach  rat- 
tled in  upon  the  pavements  of  Boston.  Mrs.  Thomp- 
son had  expressed  so  much  impatience  during  the  last 
few  miles,  and  seemed  to  shrink  so  sensitively  from 
being  left  to  herself  in  a  strange  city,  that  I  offered  my 
services  till  she  should  find  herself  in  better  hands, 
and,  as  a  briefer  way  of  disposing  of  her,  had  bribed 


the  coachman,  who  was  in  a  hurry  with  the  mail,  to 
turn  a  little  out  of  his  way,  and  leave  her  at  her  hus- 
band's hotel. 

We  drew  up  with  a  prodigious  clatter,  accordingly, 
at  the  Marlborough  hotel,  where,  no  coach  being  ex- 
pected, the  boots  and  bar-keeper  were  not  immediately 
forthcoming.  After  a  rap  "to  wake  the  dead,''  I  set 
about  assisting  the  impatient  driver  in  getting  off  the 
lady's  trunks  and  boxes,  and  they  stood  in  a  large 
pyramid  on  the  sidewalk  when  the  door  was  opened. 
A  man  in  his  shirt,  three  parts  asleep,  held  a  flaring 
candle  over  his  head,  and  looked  through  the  half- 
opened  door. 

"  Is  Captain  Thompson  up  ?"  I  asked  rather  brusque- 
ly, irritated  at  the  sour  visage  of  the  bar-keeper. 

"Captain  Thompson,  sir!" 

"Captain  Thompson,  sir!!"  I  repeated  my  words 
with  a  voice  that  sent  him  three  paces  back  into  the 
hall. 

"No,  sir,"  he  said  at  last,  slipping  one  leg  into  his 
trowsers,  which  had  hitherto  been  under  his  arm. 

"  Then  wake  him  immediately,  and  tell  him  Mrs. 
Thompson  is  arrived."  Here's  a  husband,  thought  I, 
as  I  heard  something  between  a  sob  and  a  complaint 
issue  from  the  coach-window  at  the  bar-keeper's  intel- 
ligence. To  go  to  bed  when  he  expected  his  wife  and 
child,  and  after  three  years'  separation !  She  might 
as  well  have  made  a  parenthesis  in  her  constancy  ! 

"Have  you  called  the  captain?"  I  asked,  as  I  set 
Master  John  upon  the  steps,  and  observed  the  man 
still  standing  with  the  candle  in  his  hand,  grinning 
from  ear  to  ear. 

"  No,  sir,"  said  the  man. 

"  No  !"  I  thundered,  "  and  what  in  the  devil's  name 
is  the  reason  ?" 

"Boots!"  he  cried  out  in  reply,  "  show  this  gentle- 
man '  forty-one.'  Them  may  wake  Captain  Thompson 
as  likes!  /never  hearra  of  no  Mrs.  Thompson!" 

Rejecting  an  ungenerous  suspicion  that  flashed 
across -my  mind,  and  informing  the  bar-keeper  en  pas- 
sant, that  he  was  a  brute  and  a  donkey,  I  sprang  up 
the  staircase  after  a  boy,  and  quite  out  of  breath,  ar- 
rived at  a  long  gallery  of  bachelors'  rooms  on  the  fifth 
floor.  The  boy  pointed  to  a  door  at  the  end  of  the 
gallery,  and  retreated  to  the  banisters  as  if  to  escape 
the  blowing  up  of  a  petard. 

Rat-a-tat-tat! 

"  Come  in  !"  thundered  a  voice  like  a  hailing  trum- 
pet. I  took  the  lamp  from  the  boy,  and  opened  the 
door.  On  a  narrow  bed  well  tucked  up,  lay  a  most 
formidable  looking  individual,  with  a  face  glowing 
with  carbuncles,  a  pair  of  deep-set  eyes  inflamed  and 
fiery,  and  hair  and  eyebrows  of  glaring  red,  mixed 
slightly  with  gray  ;  while  outside  the  bed  lay  a  hairy 
arm,  with  a  fist  like  the  end  of  the  club  of  Hercules. 
His  head  tied  loosely  in  a  black  silk  handkerchief,  and 
on  the  light-stand  stood  a  tumbler  of  brandy-and-water. 

"  What  do  you  want  ?"  he  thundered  again,  as  I  step- 
ped over  a  threshold  and  lifted  my  hat,  struck  speech- 
less for  a  moment  with  this  unexpected  apparition. 

"  Have  I  the  pleasure,"  I  asked,  in  a  hesitating 
voice,  "to  address  Captain  Thompson?" 

"  That's  my  name !" 

"Ah!  then,  captain,  I  have  the  pleasure  to  inform 
you  that  Mrs.  Thompson  and  little  John  are  arrived. 
They  are  at  the  door  at  this  moment." 

A  change  in  the  expression  of  Captain  Thompson's 
face  checked  my  information  in  the  middle,  and  as  I 
took  a  step  backward,  he  raised  himself  on  his  elbow, 
and  looked  at  me  in  a  way  that  did  not  diminish  my 
embarrassment. 

"I'll  tell  you  what,  Mr.  Milk-and-water,"  said  he, 
with  an  emphasis  on  every  word  like  the  descent  of  a 
sledge-hammer ;  "if  you're  not  out  of  this  room  in 
two  seconds  with  your  'Mrs.  Thompson  and  little 


INKLINGS  OF  ADVENTURE. 


441 


John,'  I  Ml  slam  you  through  that  window,  or  the  devil 
take  me !" 

I  reflected  as  I  took  another  step  backward,  that  if 
I  were   thrown  down  to  Mrs.  Thompson  from  a  fifth 

story  window  I  should  not  he  in  a  state  to  render  her 
i lie  assistance  she  required;  and  remarking  with  an 
ill-feigned  gayety  to  Captain  Thompson  that  so  de- 
cided a  measure  would  not  l)e  necessary,  I  backed 
expeditiously  over  the  threshold.  As  I  was  closing 
his  door,  I  heard  the  gulp  of  his  brandy-and-water, 
and  the  next  instant  the  empty  glass  whizzed  past  my 
retreating  head,  and  was  shattered  to  pieces  on  the 
wall  behind  me. 

I  gave  the  "  boots"  a  cuff  for  an  untimely  roar  of 
laughter  as  I  reached  the  6taircase,  and  descended, 
very  much  discomfited  and  embarrassed,  to  Mrs. 
Thompson.  My  delay  had  thrown  that  lady  into  a 
very  moving  state  of  unhappiness.  Her  tears  were 
glistening  in  the  light  of  the  street  lamp,  and  Master  I 
John  was  pulling  away  unheeded  at  her  stomacher, 
and  crying  as  if  he  would  split  his  diaphragm.  What 
to  do  ?  1  would  have  offered  to  take  her  to  my  pater- 
nal roof  till  the  mystery  could  be  cleared  up — but  I 
had  been  absent  two  years,  and  to  arrive  at  midnight 
with  a  woman  and  a  young  child,  and  such  an  im- 
probable story — I  did  not  think  my  reputation  at 
home  would  bear  me  out.  The  coachman,  too,  began 
to  swear  and  make  demonstrations  of  leaving  us  in  the 
street,  and  it  was  necessary  to  decide. 

"Shove  the  baggage  inside  the  coach,"  I  said  at 
last,  "and  drive  on.  Don't  be  unhappy  Mrs.  Thomp- 
son! Jocket,  stop  crying,  you  villain!  I'll  see  that 
you  are  comfortably  disposed  of  for  the  night  where 
the  coach  stops,  madam,  and  to-morrow  I'll  try  a 
little  reason  with  Captain  Thompson.  How  the  devil 
can  she  love  such  a  volcanic  specimen !"  I  muttered 
to  myself,  dodging  instinctively  at  the  bare  remem- 
brance of  the  glass  of  brandy-and-water. 

The  coachman  made  up  for  lost  time,  and  we  rattled 
over  the  pavements  at  a  rate  that  made  .locket's  hully- 
baloo  quite  inaudible.  As  we  passed  the  door  of  my 
own  home,  1  wondered  what  would  be  the  impression 
of  my  respectable  parent,  could  he  see  me  whisking 
by,  after  midnight,  with  a  rejected  woman  and  her 
progeny  upon  my  hands ;  but  smothering  the  un- 
worthy doubt  that  re-arose  in  my  mind,  touching  the 
legitimacy  of  Master  John,  I  inwardly  vowed  that  I 
would  see  Mrs.  Thompson  at  all  risks  fairly  out  of 
her  imbroglio. 

We  pulled  up  with  a  noise  like  the  discharge  of  a 
load  of  paving-stones,  and  I  was  about  saying  some- 
thing botli  affectionate  and  consolatory  to  my  weeping 
charge,  when  a  tall  handsome  fellow,  with  a  face  as 
brown  as  a  berry,  sprang  to  the  coach-door,  and  seized 
her  in  his  arms!  A  shower  of  kisses  and  tender  ep- 
ithets left  me  not  a  moment  in  doubt.  There  was 
another  Captain  Thompson! 

He  had  not  been  able  to  get  rooms  at  the  Marl- 
borough,  as  he  had  anticipated  when  he  wrote,  and 
presuming  that  the  mail  would  come  first  to  the  post- 
office,  he  had  waited  for  her  there. 

As  1  was  passing  the  Marlborough  a  week  or  two 
afterward,  I  stopped  to  inquire  about  Captain  Thomp- 
son.    I  found  that  he  was  an  old  West  India  captain,  \ 
who   had   lived  there  between    his  cruises  for  twenty  j 
years  more  or  less,  and  had  generally  been  supposed  a 
bachelor.     He  had  suddenly  gone  to  sea,  the   land-  i 
lord  told  me,  smiling  at  the  same  time,  as  if  thereby 
hung  a  tale  if  he  chose  to  tell  it. 

"  The  fact  is,"  said  Boniface,  when  I  pushed  him  a 
little  on  the  subject,  "he  was  sheared  off." 

"What  scared  him?"  I  asked  very  innocently. 
"A  wife  and  child  from  some  foreign  port!"  he  an- 
swered laughing  as  if  he  would  burst  his  waistband, 
and  taking  me  into  the  back  parlor  to  tell  me  the  par- 
ticulars. 


A  LOG  IN  THE  ARCHIPELAGO. 

The  American  frigate,  in  which  I  had  cruised  as 
the  ward-room  guest  for  more  than  six  months,  had 
sailed  for  winter  quarters  at  Mahon,  and  my  name  was 
up  at  the  pier  of  Smyrna,  as  a  passenger  in  the  first 
ship  that  should  leave  the  port,  whatever  her  destina- 
tion. 

The  flags  of  all  nations  flew  at  the  crowded  peaks  of 
the  merchantmen  lying  offthe  Marina,  and  among  them 
lay  two  small  twin  brigs,  loading  with  figs  and  opium 
for  my  native  town  in  America.  They  were  owned  by 
an  old  schoolfellow  of  my  own,  one  of  the  most  distin- 
guished and  hospitable  of  the  Smyrniote  merchants, 
and,  if  nothing  more  adventurous  turned  up,  he  had 
offered  to  land  me  from  one  of  his  craft  at  Malta  oi 
Gibraltar. 

Time  wore  on,  and  I  had  loitered  up  and  down  the 
narrow  street  "  in  melancholy  idleness"  by  day,  and 
smoked  the  narghile  with  those  "  merchant  princes" 
by  night,  till  I  knew  every  paving-stone  between  the 
beach  and  the  bazar,  and  had  learned  the  thrilling 
events  of  the  Greek  persecution  with  the  particularity 
of  a  historian.  My  heart,  too,  unsusceptible  enough 
when  "packed  for  travel,"  began  to  uncoil  with  ab- 
sence of  adventure,  and  expose  its  sluggish  pulses  to 
the  "Creek  fire,"  still  burning  in  those  Asiatic  eyes, 
and  I  felt  sensibly,  that  if,  Telemachus-like,  I  did  not 
soon  throw  myself  into  the  sea,  I  should  yield,  past 
praying  for,  to  the  cup  of  some  Smyrniote  Circe. 
Darker  eyes  than  are  seen  on  that  Marina  swim  not  in 
delight  out  of  paradise  ! 

I  was  sitting  on  an  opium-box  in  the  counting-house 
of  my  friend  L n(the  princely  and  hospitable  mer- 
chant spoken  of  above),  when  enter  a  Yankee  "skip- 
per," whom  I  would  have  clapped  on  the  shoulder  for 
a  townsman  if  I  had  seen  him  on  the  top  of  the  minaret 
of  the  mosque  of  Sultan  Bajazet.  His  go-ashore  black 
coat  and  trowsers,  worn  only  one  month  in  twelve, 
were  of  costly  cloth,  but  of  the  fashion  prevailing  in 
the  days  of  his  promotion  to  be  second  mate  of  a  cod- 
fisher  ;  his  hat  was  of  the  richest  beaver,  but  getting 
brown  with  the  same  paucity  of  wear,  and  exposure  to 
the  corroding  air  of  the  ocean  ;  and  on  his  hands  were 
stretched  (and  they  had  well  need  to  be  elastic)  a  pair 
of  Woodstock  gloves  that  might  have  descended  to 
him  from  Paul  Jones  "  the  pilot."  A  bulge  just  over 
his  lowest  rib  gave  token  of  the  ship's  chronometer, 
and,  in  obedience  to  the  new  fashion  of  a  guard,  a  fine 
chain  of  the  softest  auburn  hair  (doubtless  his  wife's, 
and,  1  would  have  wagered  my  passage-money,  as  pret- 
ty a  woman  as  he  would  see  in  his  v'yage) — a  chain,  1 
say,  braided  of  silken  blond  ringlets  passed  around  his 
neck,  and  drew  its  glossy  line  over  his  broad-breasted 
white  waistcoat — the  dewdrop  on  the  lion's  mane  not 
more  entitled  to  be  astonished. 

A  face  of  hard-weather,  but  with  an  expression  of 
care  equal  to  the  amount  of  his  invoice,  yet  honest  and 
fearless  as  the  truck  of  his  mainmast;  a  round  sailor's 
back,  that  looked  as  if  he  would  hoist  up  his  deck  if 
you  battered  him  beneath  hatches  against  his  will ; 
and  teeth  as  white  as  his  new  foresail,  completed  the 
picture  of  the  master  of  the  brig  Metamora.     Jolly  old 

H 1, 1  shall  never  feel  the  grip  of  an  honester  hand, 

nor  return  one  (as  far  as  1  can  with  the  fist  you  crip- 
pled at  parting)  with  a  more  kindly  pressure  !  A  fair 
wind  on  your  quarter,  my  old  boy,  wherever  you  may 
be  trading  ! 

"What  sort  of  accommodations  have  you,  captain?" 

I  asked,  as  my  friend  introduced  me. 

"  Why,  none  to  speak  of,  sir  !  There's  a  starboard 
birth  that  a'n't  got  much  in  it— a  few  boxes  of  figs,  and 
the  new  spritsail,  and  some  of  the  mate's  traps— but  1 
could  stow  away  a  little  perhaps,  sir." 

"  You  sail  to-morrow  morning  ?" 

"  Off  with  the  land-breeze,  sir." 


442 


INKLINGS  OF  ADVENTURE. 


I  took  leave  of  the  kindest  of  friends,  laid  in  a  few 
hasty  stores,  and  was  on  board  at  midnight.  The  next 
morning  I  awoke  with  the  water  rippling  beside  me, 
and  creeping  on  deck,  I  saw  a  line  of  foam  stretching 
behind  us  far  up  the  gulf,  and  the  ruins  of  the  primi- 
tive church  of  Smyrna,  mingled  with  the  turrets  of  a 
Turkish  castle,  far  away  in  the  horizon. 

The  morning  was  cool  and  fresh,  the  sky  of  an  ori- 
ental purity,  and  the  small  low  brig  sped  on  like  a 
nautilus.  The  captain  stood  by  the  binnacle,  looking 
off  to  the  westward  with  a  glass,  a,  tarpaulin  hat  over 
his  black  locks,  a  pair  of  sail-cloth  pumps  on  his  feet, 
and  trowsers  and  roundabout  of  an  indefinable  tarri- 
ness  and  texture.  He  handed  me  the  glass,  and,  obey- 
ing his  direction,  I  saw,  stealing  from  behind  a  point  of 
land,  shaped  like  a  cat's  back,  the  well-known  topsails 
of  the  two  frigates  that  had  sailed  before  us. 

We  were  off  Vourla,  and  the  commodore  had  gone 
to  pay  his  respects  to  Sir  Pulteney  Malcolm,  then  ly- 
ing with  his  fleet  in  this  little  bay,  and  waiting,  we 
supposed,  for  orders  to  force  the  Dardanelles.  The 
frigates  soon  appeared  on  the  bosom  of  the  gulf,  and 
heading  down,  neared  our  larboard  bow,  and  stood  for 
the  Archipelago.  The  Metamora  kept  her  way,  but 
the  "  United  States,"  the  fleetest  of  our  ships,  soon 
left  us  behind  with  a  strengthening  breeze,  and,  fol- 
lowing her  with  the  glass  till  I  could  no  longer  distin- 
guish the  cap  of  the  officer  of  the  deck,  I  breathed  a 
blessing  after  her,  and  went  below  to  breakfast.  It  is 
strange  how  the  lessening  in  the  distance  of  a  ship  in 
which  one  has  cruised  in  these  southern  seas,  pulls  on 
the  heartstrings  ! 

I  sat  on  deck  most  of  the  day,  cracking  pecan-nuts 
with  the  captain,  and  gossiping  about  schooldays  in 
jur  native  town,  occasionally  looking  off  over  the  hills 
of  Asia  Minor,  and  trying  to  realize  (the  Ixion  labor  of 
the  imagination  in  travel)  the  history  of  which  these 
barren  lands  have  been  the  scene.  1  know  not  wheth- 
er it  is  easy  for  a  native  of  old  countries  to  people  these 
desolated  lands  from  the  past,  but  for  me,  accustomed 
to  look  on  the  face  of  the  surrounding  earth  as  mere 
vegetation,  unstoried  and  unassociated,  it  is  with  a  con- 
stant mental  effort  alone  that  I  can  be  classic  on  clas- 
sic ground — find  Plato  in  the  desert  wastes  of  the 
Academy,  or  Priam  among  the  Turk-stridden  and 
prostrate  columns  of  Troy.  In  my  recollections  of 
Athens,  the  Parthenon  and  the  Theseion  and  the  sol- 
emn and  sublime  ruins  by  the  Fount  of  Callirhoe  stand 
forth  prominent  enough  ;  but  when  I  was  on  the  spot 
— a  biped  to  whom  three  meals  a  day,  a  washerwo- 
man, and  a  banker,  were  urgent  necessities — I  shame 
to  confess  that  I  sat  dangling  my  legs  over  the  classic 
Pelasgicum,  not  "  fishing  for  philosophers  with  gold 
and  figs,"  but  musing  on  the  mundane  and  proximate 
matters  of  daily  economy.  I  could  see  my  six  shirts 
hanging  to  dry,  close  by  the  temple  of  the  Winds,  and 
I  knew  my  dinner  was  cooking  three  doors  from  the 
crumbling  capitals  of  the  Agora. 

As  the  sun  set  over  Ephesus,  we  neared  the  mouth 
of  the  gulf  of  Smyrna,  and  the  captain  stood  looking 
over  the  leeward-bow  rather  earnestly. 

"  We  shall  have  a  snorter  out  of  the  nor'east,"  he 
said,  taking  hold  of  the  tiller,  and  sending  the  helms- 
man forward — "  I  never  was  up  this  sea  but  once 
afore,  and  it's  a  dirty  passage  through  these  islands  in 
any  weather,  let  alone  a  Levanter." 

He  followed  up  his  soliloquy  by  jamming  his  tiller 
hard  a-port,  and  in  ten  minutes  the  little  brig  was  run- 
ning her  nose,  as  it  seemed  to  me,  right  upon  an  in- 
hospitable rock  at  the  northern  headland  of  the  gulf. 
At  the  distance  of  a  biscuit-toss  from  the  shore,  how- 
ever, the  rock  was  dropped  to  leeward,  and  a  small 
passage  appeared,  opening  with  a  sharp  curve  into 
the  miniature  but  sheltered  bay  of  Fourgas.  We 
dropped  anchor  off  a  small  hamlet  of  forty  or  fifty 
houses,  and  lay  beyond  the  reach  of  Levanters  in  a 


circular  basin  that  seemed  shut  in  by  a  rim  of  granite 
from  the  sea. 

The  captain's  judgment  of  the  weather  was  correct, 
and,  after  the  sun  set,  the  wind  rose  gradually  to  a  vi- 
olence which  sent  the  spray  high  over  the  barriers  of 
our  protected  position.  Congratulating  ourselves  that 
we  were  on  the  right  side  of  the  granite  wall,  we  got 
out  our  jolly-boat  on  the  following  morning,  and  ran 
ashore  upon  the  beach  half  a  mile  from  town,  propo- 
sing to  climb  first  to  the  peak  of  the  neighboring  hill, 
and  then  forage  for  a  dinner  in  the  village  below. 

We  scrambled  up  the  rocky  mountain-side,  with 
some  loss  of  our  private  stock  of  wind,  and  considera- 
ble increase  from  the  nor'easter,  and  getting  under  the 
lee  of  a  projecting  shelf,  sat  looking  over  toward  Les- 
bos, and  ruminating  in  silence — I,  upon  the  old  ques- 
tion, "  an  Sappho publica  fuerit,"  and  the  captain  prob- 
ably on  his  wife  at  Cape  Cod,  and  his  pecan-nuts,  figs, 
and  opium,  in  the  emerald-green  brig  below  us.  I 
don't  know  why  she  should  have  been  painted  green, 
by-the-by  (and  I  never  thought  to  suggest  that  to  the 
captain),  being  named  after  an  Indian  chief,  who  was 
as  red  as  her  copper  bottom. 

The  sea  toward  Mitylene  looked  as  wild  as  an  ea- 
gle's wing  ruffling  against  the  wind,  and  there  was  that 
smoke  in  the  sky  as  if  the  blast  was  igniting  with  its 
speed — the  look  of  a  gale  in  those  seas  when  unac- 
companied with  rain.  The  crazy-looking  vessels  of 
the  Levant  were  scudding  with  mere  rags  of  sails  for 
the  gulf;  and  while  we  sat  on  the  rock,  eight  or  ten 
of  those  black  and  unsightly  craft  shot  into  the  little 
bay  below  us,  and  dropped  anchor — blessing,  no  doubt, 
j  every  saint  in  the  Greek  calendar. 

Having  looked  toward  Lesbos  an  hour,  and  come  to 
the  conclusion,  that,  admitting  the  worst  with  regard 
'  to  the  private  character  of  Sappho,  it  would  have  been 
very  pleasant  to  have  known  her ;  and  the  captain 
having  washed  his  feet  in  a  slender  tricklet  oozing 
from  a  cleft  in  a  rock,  we  descended  the  hill  on  the 
other  side,  and  stole  a  march  on  the  rear  to  the  town 
of  Fourgas.  Four  or  five  Greek  women  were  picking 
up  olives  in  a  grove  lying  halfway  down  the  hill,  and 
on  our  coming  in  sight,  they  made  for  us  with  such 
speed,  that  I  feared  the  reverse  of  the  Sabine  rape — 
not  yet  having  seen  a  man  on  this  desolate  shore  ;  they 
ran  well,  but  they  resembled  Atalanta  in  no  other  pos- 
sible particular.  We  should  have  taken  them  for  the 
Furies,  but  there  were  five.  They  wanted  snuff  and 
money — making  signs  easily  for  the  first,  but  attempt- 
ing amicably  to  put  their  hands  in  our  pockets  when 
we  refused  to  comprehend  the  Greek  for  "  Give  us  a 
para."  The  captain  pulled  from  his  pocket  an  Amer- 
ican dollar-note  (payable  at  Nantucket),  and  offered  it 
to  the  youngest  of  the  women,  who  smelt  at  it  and  re- 
turned it  to  him,  evidently  unacquainted  with  the  Cape 
Cod  currency.  On  farther  search  he  found  a  few  of 
the  tinsel  paras  of  the  country,  which  he  substituted 
for  his  "  dollar-bill,"  a  saving  of  ninety-nine  cents  to 
him,  if  the  bank  has  not  broke  when  he  arrives  at  Mas- 
sachusetts. 

Fourgas  is  surrounded  by  a  very  old  wall,  very  much 
battered.  We  passed  under  a  high  arch  containing 
marks  of  having  once  been  closed  with  a  heavy  gate  • 
and,  disputing  our  passage  with  cows,  and  men  that 
seemed  less  cleanly  and  civilized,  penetrated  to  the 
heart  of  the  town  in  search  of  the  barber's  shop,  cafe 
and  kibaub  shop — three  conveniences  usually  united 
in  a  single  room  and  dispensed  by  a  single  Figaro  in 
Turkish  and  Greek  towns  of  this  description.  The 
word  cafe  is  universal,  and  we  needed  only  to  pio- 
nounce  it  to  be  led  by  a  low  door  into  a  square  apart- 
ment of  a  ruinous  old  building,  around  which,  upon  a 
kind  of  shelf,  waist-high,  sat  as  many  of  the  inhabit- 
ants of  the  town  as  could  cross  their  legs  conveniently. 
As  soon  as  we  were  discerned  through  the  smoke  by 
the  omnifarious  proprietor  of  the  establishment,  two 


INKLINGS  OF  ADVENTURE. 


443 


of  the  worst-dressed  customers  were  turned  off  the 
shelf  unceremoniously  to  make  room  for  us,  the  fire 
beneath  the  coffeepot  was  raked  open,  and  the  agree- 
able flavor  of  the  spiced  beverage  of  the  east  ascended 
refreshingly  to  our  nostrils.  With  his  baggy  frowsers 
tucked  up  to  his  thigh,  his  silk  shirt  to  his  armpits, 
and  his  smoke-dried  but  clean  feet  wandering  at  large 
in  a  pair  of  red  morocco  slippers,  our  Turkish  Gany- 
mede presented  the  small  cups  in  their  filagree  hold- 
ers, and  never  was  beverage  more  delicious  or  more 
welcome.  Thirsty  with  our  ramble,  and  unaccus- 
tomed to  such  small  quantities  as  seem  to  satisfy  the 
natives  of  the  east,  the  captain  and  myself  soon  became 
objects  of  no  small  amusement  to  the  wondering  beards 
about  us.  A  large  tablespoon  holds  rather  more  than 
a  Turkish  coffee-cup,  and  one,  or,  at  most,  two  of 
these,  satisfies  the  dryest  clay  in  the  Orient.  To  us, 
a  dozen  of  them  was  a  bagatelle,  and  we  soon  ex- 
hausted the  copper  pot,  and  intimated  to  the  aston- 
ished Gafidji  that  we  should  want  another.  He  looked 
at  us  a  minute  to  see  if  we  were  in  earnest,  and  then 
laid  his  hand  on  his  stomach,  and  rolling  up  his  eyes, 
made  some  remark  to  his  other  customers  which  pro- 
voked a  general  laugh.  It  was  our  last  "  lark"  ashore 
for  some  time,  however,  and  spite  of  this  apparent 
prophecy  of  a  colic,  we  smoked  our  narghiles  and 
kept  him  running  with  his  fairy  cups  for  some  time 
longer.  One  never  gets  enough  of  that  fragrant  li- 
quor. 

The  sun  broke  through  the  clouds  as  we  sat  on  the 
high  bench,  and,  hastily  paying  our  Turk,  we  hurried 
to  the  seaside.  The  wind  seemed  to  have  lulled,  and 
was  blowing  lightly  offshore  ;  and,  impatient  of  loiter- 
ing on  his  voyage,  the  captain  got  up  his  anchor  and 
ran  across  the  bay,  and  in  half  an  hour  was  driving 
through  a  sea  that  left  not  a  dry  plank  on  the  deck  of 
the  Metamora. 

The  other  vessels  at  Fourgas  had  not  stirred,  and 
the  sky  in  the  northeast  looked  to  my  eye  very  threat- 
ening. It  was  the  middle  of  the  afternoon,  and  the 
captain  crowded  sail  and  sped  on  like  a  sea-bird, 
though  I  could  see  by  his  face  when  he  looked  in  the 
quarter  of  the  wind,  that  he  had  acted  more  from  im- 
pulse than  judgment  in  leaving  his  shelter.  The  heavy 
sea  kicked  us  on  our  course,  however,  and  the  smart 
little  brig  shot  buoyantly  over  the  crests  of  the  waves 
as  she  outran  them,  and  it  was  difficult  not  to  feel  that 
the  bounding  and  obedient  fabric  beneath  our  feet  was 
instinct  with  self-confidence,  and  rode  the  waters  like 
their  master. 

I  well  knew  that  the  passage  of  the  Archipelago  was 
a  difficult  one  in  a  storm  even  to  an  experienced  pilot, 
and  with  the  advantage  of  daylight ;  and  I  could  not 
but  remember  with  some  anxiety  that  we  were  enter- 
ing upon  it  at  nightfall,  and  with  a  wind  strengthening 
every  moment,  while  the  captain  confessedly  had  made 
the  passage  but  once  before,  and  then  in  a  calm  sea  of 
August.  The  skipper,  however,  walked  his  deck  con- 
fidently, though  he  began  to  manage  his  canvass  with  a 
more  wary  care,  and,  before  dark,  we  were  scudding 
under  a  single  sail,  and  pitching  onward  with  the  heave 
of  the  sea  at  a  rate  that,  if  we  were  to  see  Malta  at  all, 
promised  a  speedy  arrival.  As  the  night  closed  in  we 
passed  a  large  frigate  lying-to,  which  we  afterward 
found  out  was  the  Superbe,  a  French  eighty-gun  ship 
(wrecked  a  few  hours  after  on  the  island  of  Andros). 
The  two  American  frigates  had  run  up  by  Mitylene, 
and  were  still  behind  us  :  and  the  fear  of  being  run 
down  in  the  night,  in  our  small  craft,  induced  the 
captain  to  scud  on,  though  he  would  else  have  lain-to 
with  the  Frenchman,  and  perhaps  have  shared  his 
fate. 

I  stayed  on  deck  an  hour  or  two  after  dark,  and  be- 
fore going  below  satisfied  myself  that  we  should  owe 
it  to  the  merest  chance  if  we  escaped  striking  in  the 
night.     The  storm  had  become  so  furious  that  we  ran 


with  bare  poles  before  it ;  and  though  it  set  us  pretty 
fairly  on  our  way,  the  course  lay  through  a  narrow 
and  most  intricate  channel,  among  small  and  rocky 
islands,  and  we  had  nothing  for  it  but  to  trust  to  a 
providential  drift. 

The  captain  prepared  himself  for  a  night  on  deck, 
lashed  everything  that  was  loose,  and  filled  the  two 
jugs  suspended  in  the  cabin,  which,  as  the  sea  had 
been  too  violent  for  any  hope  from  the  cook,  were  to 
sustain  us  through  the  storm.  We  took  a  biscuit  and 
a  glass  of  Hollands  and  water,  holding  on  hard  by  the 
berths  lest  we  should  be  pitched  through  the  skylight, 
and  as  the  captain  tied  up  the  dim  lantern,  I  got  a 
look  at  his  face,  which  would  have  told  me,  if  I  had 
not  known  it  before,  that  though  resolute  and  un- 
moved, he  knew  himself  to  be  entering  on  the  most 
imminent  hazard  of  his  life. 

The  waves  now  broke  over  the  brig  at  every  heave, 
and  occasionally  the  descent  of  the  solid  mass  of  water 
on  the  quarter-deck  seemed  to  drive  her  under  like  a 
cork.     My  own  situation  was  the  worst  on  board,  for 
I  was  inactive.    It  required  a  seaman  to  keep  the  deck, 
and  as  there  was  no  standing  in  the  cabin  without  great 
effort,  I  disembarrassed  myself  of  all  that  would  impede 
a  swimmer,  and  got  into  my  berth  to  await  a  wreck 
which  I  considered   almost  inevitable.     Braced  with 
both  hands  and  feet,  I  lay  and  watched  the  imbroglio 
in  the   bottom   of  the   cabin,   my  own  dressing-case 
among  other  things  emptied  of  its  contents  and  swim- 
ming with  some  of  my  own  clothes  and  the  captain's, 
and  the  water  rushing  down  the  companion-way  with 
j  every  wave  that  broke  over  us.    The  last  voice  I  heard 
:  on  deck  was  from  the  deep  throat  of  the  captain  cal- 
!  ling  his  men  aft  to  assist  in  lashing  the  helm,  and  then, 
:  in  the  pauses  of  the  gale,  came  the  awful  crash  upon 
I  deck,  more  like  the  descent  of  a  falling  house  than  a 
body  of  water,  and  a  swash  through  the  scuppers  im- 
i  mediately  after,  seconded  by  the  smaller  sea  below,  in 
1  which  my  coat  and  waistcoat  were   undergoing  a  re- 
;  hearsal  of  the  tragedy  outside. 

At  midnight  the  gale  increased,  and  the  seas  that  de- 
1  scended  on  the  brig  shook  her  to  the  very  keel.  We 
could  feel  her  struck  under  by  the  shock,  and  reel  and 
quiver  as  she  recovered  and  rose  again  ;  and,  as  if  to 
distract  my  attention,  the  little  epitome  of  the  tempest 
going  on  in  the  bottom  of  the  cabin  grew  more  and 
more  serious.  The  unoccupied  berths  were  packed 
with  boxes  of  figs  and  bags  of  nuts,  which  "  brought 
away"  one  after  another,  and  rolled  from  side  to  side 
with  a  violence  which  threatened  to  drive  them  through 
the  side  of  the  vessel ;  my  portmanteau  broke  its  lash- 
ings and  shot  heavily  backward  and  forward  with  the 
roll  of  the  sea  ;  and  if  I  was  not  to  be  drowned  like  a 
dog  in  a  locked  cabin,  I  feared,  at  least,  I  should  have 
my  legs  broken  by  the  leap  of  a  fig-box  into  my  berth. 
My  situation  was  wholly  uncomfortable,  yet  half  ludi- 
crous. 

An  hour  after  midnight  the  captain  came  down,  pale 
and  exhausted,  and  with  no  small  difficulty  managed 
to  get  a  tumbler  of  grog. 

"  How  does  she  head  ?"  I  asked. 
"  Side  to  wind,  drifting  five  knots  an  hour." 
"Where  are  you?" 

"God  only  knows.  I  expect  her  to  strike  every 
minute." 

He  quietly  picked  up  the  wick  of  the  lamp  as  it 
tossed  to  and  fro,  and  watching  the  roll  of  the  vessel, 
gained  the  companion-way,  and  mounted  to  the  deck. 
The  door  was  locked,  and  I  was  once  more  a  prisoner 
and  alone. 

An  hour  elapsed— the  sea,  it  appeared  to  me, 
strengthening  in  its  heaves  beneath  us,  and  the  wind 
howling  and  hissing  in  the  rigging  like  a  hundred 
devils.  An  awful  surge  then  burst  down  upon  the 
deck,  racking  the  brig  in  every  seam :  the  hurried 
tread  of  feet  overhead  told  me  that  they  were  cutting 


444 


INKLINGS  OF  ADVENTURE. 


the  lashings  of  the  helm  ;  the  seas  succeeded  each 
other  quicker  and  quicker,  and,  conjecturing  from  the 
shortness  of  the  pitch,  that  we  were  nearing  a  reef,  I 
was  half  out  of  my  berth  when  the  cabin  door  was 
wrenched  open,  and  a  deluging  sea  washed  down  the 
companion-way. 

"  On  deck  for  your  life  !"  screamed  the  hoarse  voice 
of  the  captain. 

I  sprang  up  through  streaming  water,  barefoot  and 
bareheaded,  but  the  pitch  of  the  brig  was  so  violent 
that  I  dared  not  leave  the  ropes  of  the  companion  lad- 
der, and,  almost  blinded  with  the  spray  and  wind,  I 
stood  waiting  for  the  stroke. 

"  Hard  down  !"  cried  the  captain  in  a  voice  I  shall 
never  forget,  and  as  the  rudder  creaked  with  the  strain, 
the  brig  fell  slightly  off,  and  rising  with  a  tremendous 
surge,  I  saw  the  sky  dimly  relieved  against  the  edge 
of  a  ragged  precipice,  and  in  the  next  moment,  as  if 
with  the  repulse  of  a  catapult,  we  were  flung  back 
into  the  trough  of  the  sea  by  the  retreating  wave,  and 
surged  heavily  beyond  the  rock.  The  noise  of  the 
breakers,  and  the  rapid  commands  of  the  captain 
now  drowned  the  hiss  of  the  wind,  and  in  a  few  min- 
utes we  were  plunging  once  more  through  the  un- 
certain darkness,  the  long  and  regular  heavings  of 
the  sea  alone  assuring  us  that  we  were  driving  from 
the  shore. 

The  wind  was  cold,  and  I  was  wet  to  the  skin. 
Every  third  sea  broke  over  the  brig  and  added  to  the 
deluge  in  the  cabin,  and  from  the  straining  of  the  ; 
masts  I  feared  they  would  come  down  with  every  sue-  j 
ceeding  shock.  I  crept  once  more  below,  and  regained  j 
my  berth,  where  wet  and  aching  in  every  joint,  I 
awaited  fate  or  the  daylight. 

Morning  broke,  but  no  abatement  of  the  storm. 
The  captain  came  below  and  informed  me  (what  I  had 
already  presumed)  that  we  had  run  upon  the  southern- 
most point  of  Negropont,  and  had  been  saved  by  a 
miracle  from  shipwreck.  The  back  wave  had  taken 
us  ofl",  and  with  the  next  sea  we  had  shot  beyond  it. 
We  were  now  running  in  the  same  narrow  channel  for 
Cape  Colonna,  and  were  surrounded  with  dangers. 
The  skipper  looked  beaten  out ;  his  eyes  were  protru- 
ding and  strained,  and  his  face  seemed  to  me  to  have 
emaciated  in  the  night.  He  swallowed  his  grog,  and 
flung  himself  for  half  an  hour  into  his  berth,  and  then 
went  on  deck  again  to  relieve  his  mate,  where  tired  of 
my  wretched  berth,  I  soon  followed  him. 

The  deck  was  a  scene  of  desolation.  The  bulwarks 
were  carried  clean  away,  the  jolly-boat  swept  off,  and 
the  long-boat  the  only  moveable  thing  remaining. 
The  men  were  holding  on  to  the  shrouds,  haggard  and 
sleepy,  clinging  mechanically  to  their  support  as  the 
sea  broke  down  upon  them,  and,  silent  at  the  helm, 
stood  the  captain  and  the  second  mate  keeping  the 
brig  stern-on  to  the  sea,  and  straining  their  eyes  for 
land  through  the  thick  spray  before  them. 

The  day  crept  on,  and  another  night,  and  we  passed 
it  like  the  last.  The  storm  never  slacked,  and  all 
through  the  long  hours  the  same  succession  went  on, 
the  brig  plunging  and  rising,  struggling  beneath  the 
overwhelming  and  overtaking  waves,  and  recovering 
herself  again,  till  it  seemed  to  me  as  if  I  had  never 
known  any  other  motion.  The  captain  came  below 
for  his  biscuit  and  grog  and  went  up  again  without 
speaking  a  word,  the  mates  did  the  same  with  the  same 
silence,  and  at  last  the  bracing  and  holding  on  to  pre- 
vent being  flung  from  my  berth  became  mechanical, 
and  I  did  it  while  I  slept.  Cold,  wet,  hungry,  and 
exhausted,  what  a  blessing  from  Heaven  were  five 
minutes  of  forgetfulness ! 

How  the  third  night  wore  on  I  scarce  remember. 
The  storm  continued  with  unabated  fury,  and  when 
the  dawn  of  the  third  morning  broke  upon  us  the  cap- 
tain conjectured  that  we  had  drifted  four  hundred 
miles  before  the  wind.     The   crew  were  exhausted 


with  watching,  the  brig  labored  more  and  more  heavily, 
and  the  storm  seemed  eternal. 

At  noon  of  the  third  day  the  clouds  broke  up  a  little, 
and  the  wind,  though  still  violent,  slacked  somewhat 
in  its  fury.  The  sun  struggled  down  upon  the  lashed 
and  raging  sea,  and,  taking  our  bearings,  we  found  our- 
selves about  two  hundred  miles  from  Malta.  With 
great  exertions,  the  cook  contrived  to  get  up  a  fire  in 
the  binnacle  and  boil  a  little  rice,  and  never  gourmet 
sucked  the  brain  of  a  woodcock  with  the  relish  which 
welcomed  that  dark  mess  of  pottage. 

It  was  still  impossible  to  carry  more  than  a  hand's 
breadth  of  sail,  but  we  were  now  in  open  waters  and 
flew  merrily  before  the  driving  sea.  The  pitching  and 
racking  motion,  and  the  occasional  shipping  of  a  heavy 
wave,  still  forbade  all  thoughts  or  hopes  of  comfort, 
but  the  dread  of  shipwreck  troubled  us  no  more,  and 
I  passed  the  day  in  contriving  how  to  stand  long 
enough  on  my  legs  to  get  my  wet  traps  from  my 
floating  portmanteau,  and  go  into  quarantine  like  a 
Christian. 

The  following  day,  at  noon,  Malta  became  visible 
from  the  top  of  an  occasional  mountain  wave;  and  still 
driving  under  a  reefed  topsail  before  the  hurricane,  we 
rapidly  neared  it,  and  I  began  to  hope  for  the  repose 
of  terra  firma.  The  watch  towers  of  the  castellated 
rock  soon  became  distinct  through  the  atmosphere  of 
spray,  and  at  a  distance  of  a  mile,  we  took  in  sail  and 
waited  for  a  pilot. 

While  tossing  in  the  trough  of  the  sea  the  following 
half  hour,  the  captain  communicated  to  me  some  em- 
barrassment with  respect  to  my  landing  which  had  not 
occurred  to  me.  It  appeared  that  the  agreement  to 
land  me  at  Malta  was  not  mentioned  in  his  policy  of 
insurance,  and  the  underwriters  of  course  were  not  re- 
sponsible for  any  accident  that  might  happen  to  the 
brig  after  a  variation  from  his  original  plan  of  passage. 
This  he  would  not  have  minded  if  he  could  have  set 
me  ashore  in  a  half  hour,  as  he  had  anticipated,  but 
his  small  boat  was  lost  in  the  storm,  and  it  was  now  a 
question  whether  the  pilot-boat  would  take  ashore  a 
passenger  liable  to  quarantine.  To  run  his  brig  into 
harbor  would  be  a  great  expense  and  positive  loss  of 
insurance,  and  to  get  out  the  long-boat  with  his  broken 
tackle  and  exhausted  crew  was  not  to  be  thought  of. 
I  knew  very  well  that  no  passenger  from  a  plague  port 
(such  as  Smyrna  and  Constantinople)  was  permitted 
to  land  on  any  terms  at  Gibraltar,  and  if  the  pilot  here 
should  refuse  to  take  me  off",  the  alternative  was  clear, 
I  must  make  a  voyage  against  my  will  to  America ! 

I  was  not  in  a  very  pleasant  state  of  mind  during  the 
delay  which  followed ;  for,  though  I  had  been  three 
years  absent  from  my  country  and  loved  it  well,  I  had 
laid  my  plans  for  still  two  years  of  travel  on  this  side 
the  Atlantic,  and  certain  moneys  for  my  "  charges"  lay 
waiting  my  arrival  at  Malta.  Among  lesser  reasons, 
I  had  not  a  rag  of  clothes  dry  or  clean,  and  was 
heartily  out  of  love  with  salt  water  and  the  smell  of 
figs. 

As  if  to  aggravate  my  unhappiness,  the  sun  broke 
through  a  rift  in  the  clouds  and  lit  up  the  white  and 
turreted  battlements  of  Malta  like  an  isle  of  the  blessed 
— the  only  bright  spot  within  the  limits  of  the  stormy 
horizon.  The  mountain  waves  on  which  we  were 
tossing  were  tempestuous  and  black,  the  comfortless 
and  battered  brig  with  her  weary  crew  looked  more 
like  a  wreck  than  a  seaworthy  merchantman,  and  no 
pilot  appearing,  the  captain  looked  anxiously  seaward, 
as  if  he  grudged  every  minute  of  the  strong  wind  rush- 
ing by  on  his  course. 

A  small  speck  at  last  appeared  making  toward  ua 
from  the  shore,  and,  riding  slowly  over  the  tremendous 
waves,  a  boat  manned  by  four  men  came  within  hailing 
distance.  One  moment  as  high  as  our  topmast,  and 
another  in  the  depths  of  the  gulf  a  hundred  feet  below 
us,  it  was  like  conversing  from  two  buckets  in  a  well. 


INKLINGS  OF  ADVENTURE. 


445 


"  Do  you  want  a  pilot  ?"  screamed  the  Maltese  in 
English,  as  the  American  flag  blew  out  to  the  wind 

"No!"  roared  the  captain,  like  a  thunder-peal, 
through  his  tin-trumpet. 

The  Maltese,  without  deigning  another  look,  put 
up  his  helm  with  a  gesture  of  disappointment,  and 
bore  away. 

"Boat  ahoy!"  bellowed  the  captain. 
"Ahoy!  ahoy!"  answered  the  pilot. 
"  Will  you  take  a  passenger  ashore  ?" 
"Where  from?" 
"  Smyrna !" 
"No — o — o — o  !" 

There  was  a  sound  of  doom  in  the  angry  prolonga- 
tion of  that  detested  monosyllable  that  sunk  to  the 
bottom  of  my  heart  like  lead. 

"  Clear  away  the  mainsail,"  cried  the  captain  get- 
ting round  once  more  to  the  wind.  "  I  knew  how  it 
would  be,  sir,"  he  continued,  to  me,  as  I  bit  my  lips  in 
the  effort  to  be  reconciled  to  an  involuntary  voyage  of 
four  thousand  miles  ;  "it  wasn't  likely  he'd  put  him- 
self and  his  boat's  crew  into  twenty  days'  quarantine 
to  oblige  you  and  me." 

I  could  not  but  own  that  it  was  an  unreasonable  ex- 
pectation. 

"Never  mind,  sir,"  said  the  skipper,  consolingly, 
"  plenty  of  salt  fish  in  the  locker,  and  I'll  set  you  on 
Long  Wharf  in  no  time  !" 

"Brig  ahoy!"  came  a  voice  faintly  across  the  waves. 
The  captain  looked  over  his  shoulder  without  losing 
a  capful  of  wind  from  his  sail,  and  sent  back  the  hail 
impatiently. 

The  pilot  was  running  rapidly  down  upon  us,  and 
had  come  back  to  offer  to  tow  me  ashore  in  the  brig's 
jolly-boat  for  a  large  sum  of  money. 

"  We've  lost  our  boat,  and  you're  a  bloody  shark," 
answered  the  skipper,  enraged  at  the  attempt  at  extor-  j 
tion.     "  Head  your  course  !"  he  muttered   gruffly  to 
the  man  at  the  helm,  who  had  let  the  brig  fall  off  that 
the  pilot  might  come  up. 

Irritated  by  this  new  and  gratuitous  disappointment, 
I  stamped  on  the  deck  in  an  ungovernable  fit  of  rage, 
and  wished  the  brig  at  the  devil. 

The  skipper  looked  at  me  a  moment,  and  instead  of 
the  angry  answer  I  expected,  an  expression  of  kind 
commiseration  stole  over  his  rough  face.  The  next 
moment  he  seized  the  helm  and  put  the  brig  away 
from  the  wind,  and  then  making  a  trumpet  of  his  two 
immense  hands,  he  once  more  hailed  the  returning 
pilot. 

"  I  can't  bear  to  see  you  take  it  so  much  to  heart, 
sir,"  said  the  kind  sailor,  "and  I'll  do  for  you  what  I 
wouldn't  do  for  another  man  on  the  face  o'  the  'arth. 
All  hands  there !" 

The  men  came  aft,  and  the  captain  in  brief  words 
stated  the  case  to  them,  and  appealed  to  their  sense 
of  kindness  for  a  fellow-countryman,  to  undertake  a 
task,  which,  in  the  sea  then  running,  and  with  their 
exhausted  strength,  was  not  a  service  he  could  well 
demand  in  other  terms.  It  was  to  get  out  the  long- 
boat, and  wait  off  while  the  pilot  towed  me  ashore  and 
returned  with  her. 

"Ay,  ay!  sir,"  was  the  immediate  response  from 
every  lip,  and  from  the  chief  mate  to  the  black  cabin- 
boy,  every  man  sprang  cheerily  to  the  lashings.  It 
was  no  momentary  task,  for  the  boat  was  as  firmly  set 
in  her  place  as  the  mainmast,  and  stowed  compactly 
with  barrels  of  pork,  extra  rigging,  and  spars — in  short, 
all  the  furniture  and  provision  of  the  voyage.  In  the 
course  of  an  hour,  however,  the  tackle  was  rigged  on 
the  fore  and  main  yards,  and  with  a  desperate  effort 
its  immense  bulk  was  heaved  over  the  side,  and  lay 
tossing  on  the  tempestuous  waters.  I  shook  hands 
with  the  men,  who  refused  every  remuneration  be- 
yond my  thanks,  and,  following  the  captain  over  the 
side,  was  soon  toiling  heavily  on  the  surging  waters, 


thanking  Heaven  for  the  generous  sympathies  of  home 
and  country  implanted  in  the  human  bosom.  Those 
who  know  the  reluctance  with  which  a  merchant  cap- 
tain lays-to,  even  to  pick  up  a  man  overboard  in  a  fair 
wind,  and  those  who  understand  the  meaning  of  a  for- 
feited insurance,  will  appreciate  this  instance  of  dif- 
ficult generosity.  I  shook  the  hard  fist  of  the  kind- 
hearted  skipper  on  the  quarantine  stairs,  and  watched 
his  heavy  boat  as  she  crept  out  of  the  little  harbor 
with  the  tears  in  my  eyes.  I  shall  travel  far  before  I 
find  again  a  man  I  honor  more  heartily. 


THE  REVENGE  OF  THE  SIGNOR  BASIL. 

PART  I. 

"  Un  homme  capable  de  faire  des  dominos  av  ec  les  os  do  son 
pere."— Pere  Gok:ot. 

It  was  in  the  golden  month  of  August,  not  very 
long  ago,  that  the  steamer  which  plies  between  St. 
Mark's  Stairs,  at  Venice,  and  the  river  into  which 
Phaeton  turned  a  somerset  with  the  horses  of  the  sun, 
started  on  its  course  over  the  lagoon  with  an  unusual 
God-send  of  passengers.  The  moon  was  rising  from 
the  unchaste  bed  of  the  Adriatic  (wedded  every  year 
to  Venice,  yet  every  day  and  night  sending  the  sun 
and  moon  from  her  lovely  bosom  to  the  sky),  and  while 
the  gold  of  the  west  was  still  glowing  on  the  landward 
side  of  the  Campanile,  a  silver  gleam  was  brightening 
momently  on  the  other,  and  the  Arabic  domes  of  St. 
Mark  and  the  flying  Mercury  on  the  Dogana  paled  to 
the  setting  orb  and  kindled  to  the  rising  with  the  same 
Talleyrand-esque  facility. 

For  the  first  hour  the  Mangia-foco  sputtered  on  her 
way  with  a  silent  company  ;  the  poetry  of  the  scene, 
or  the  regrets  at  leaving  the  delicious  city  lessening 
in  the  distance,  affecting  all  alike  with  a  thoughtful 
incoinmunicativeness.  Gradually,  however,  the  dol- 
phin hues  over  the  Brenta  faded  away— the  marble 
'  city  sank  into  the  sea,  with  its  turrets  and  bright  spires 
— the  still  lagoon  became  a  sheet  of  polished  glass — 
and  the  silent  groups  leaning  over  the  rails  found 
!  tongues  and  feet,  and  began  to  stir  and  murmur. 

With  the  usual  unconscious  crystallization  of  so- 
ciety, the  passengers  of  the  Mangia-foco  had  yielded 
one  side  of  the  dock  to  a  party  of  some  rank,  who  had 
left  their  carriages  at  Ferrara  in  coming  from  Florence 
to  Venice,  and  were  now  upon  their  return  to  the  city 
of  Tasso,  stomaching,  with  what  grace  they  might,  the 
contact  of  a  vulgar  conveyance,  which  saved  them  the 
I  hundred  miles  of  posting  between  Ferrara  and  the 
i  Brenta.  In  the  centre  of  the  aristocratic  circle  stood 
;  a  lady  enveloped  in  a  cashmere,  but  with  her  bonnet 
hung  by  the  string  over  her  arm — one  of  those  women 
of  Italy' upon  whom  the  divinest  gifts  of  loveliness  are 
showered  with  a  profusion  which  apparently  impover- 
ishes the  sex  of  the  whole  nation.  A  beautiful  woman 
in  that  land  is  rarely  met ;  but  when  she  docs  appear, 
she  is  what  Venus  would  have  been  after  the  contest 
for  beauty  on  Ida,  had  the  weapons  of  her  antagonists, 
as  in  the  tournaments  of  chivalry,  been  added  to  the 
palm  of  victory.  The  marchesa  del  Marmore  was  ap- 
parently twenty-three,  and  she  might  have  been  an 
incarnation  of  the  morning-star  for  pride  and  bright- 
er, the  other  side  of  the  deck  stood  a  group  of 
vouikt  men,  who,  by  their  careless  and  rather  shabby 
dress,  but  pale  and  intellectual  faces,  were  of  that  class 
met  in  every  public  conveyance  of  Italy.  I  he  port- 
folios under  their  arms,  ready  for  a  sketch,  would  have 
removed  a  doubt  of  their  profession,  had  one  existed  ; 
and  with  that  proud  independence  for  which  the  class 


446 


INKLINGS  OF  ADVENTURE. 


is  remarkable,  they  had  separated  themselves  equally 
from  the  noble  and  ignoble — disqualified  by  inward 
superiority  from  association  with  the  one,  and  by  acci- 
dental poverty  from  the  claims  cultivation  might  give 
them  upon  the  other.  Their  glances  at  the  divine 
face  turned  toward  them  from  the  party  I  have  alluded 
to,  were  less  constant  than  those  of  the  vulgar,  who 
could  not  offend  ;  but  they  were  evidently  occupied 
more  with  it  than  with  the  fishing-boats  lying  asleep 
on  the  lagoon  :  and  one  of  them,  half-buried  in  the 
coil  of  rone,  and  looking  under  the  arm  of  another, 
had  already  made  a  sketch  of  her  that  might  some  day 
make  the  world  wonder  from  what  seventh  heaven  of 
fancy  such  an  angelic  vision  of  a  head  had  descended 
upon  the  painter's  dream. 

In  the  rear  of  this  group,  with  the  air  of  one  who 
would  conceal  himself  from  view,  stood  a  young  man 
who  belonged  to  the  party,  but  who,  with  less  of  the 
paHor  of  intellectual  habits  in  his  face,  was  much  bet- 
ter dressed  than  his  companions,  and  had,  in  spite  of 
the  portfolio  under  his  arm,  and  a  hat  of  the  Salvator 
breadth  of  rim,  the  undisguisable  air  of  a  person  ac- 
customed  to  the  best  society.  While  maintaining  a  j 
straggling  conversation  with  his  friends,  with  whom  he  | 
seemed  a  favorite,  Signor  Basil  employed  himself  in  | 
looking  over  the  sketch  of  the  lovely  marchesa  going 
on  at  his  elbow — occasionally,  as  if  to  compare  it  with 
the  original,  stealing  a  long  look  from  between  his 
hand  and  his  slouched  hat  at  the  radiant  creature  sit- 
ting so  unconsciously  for  her  picture,  and  in  a  low 
voice  correcting,  as  by  ihe  result  of  his  gaze,  the  rapid 
touches  of  the  artist. 

"  Take  a  finer  pencil  for  the  nostril,  caro  mio  !"  said 
he  ;  "it  is  as  thin  as  the  edge  of  a  violet,  and  its  trans- 
parent curve " 

"  Cospetto  !"  said  the  youth  ;  "  but  you  see  by  this 
faint  light  better  than  I :  if  she  would  but  turn  to  the 
moon " 

The  signor  Basil  suddenly  flung  his  handkerchief 
into  the  lagoon,  bringing  its  shadow  between  the  queen 
of  night  and  the  marchesa  del  Marmore  ;  and,  attract- 
ed from  her  revery  by  the  passing  object,  the  lady 
moved  her  head  quickly  to  the  light,  and  in  that  mo- 
ment the  spirited  lip  and  nostril  were  transferred  to  the 
painter's  sketch. 

"  Thanks,  mio  bravo  !"  enthusiastically  exclaimed 
the  looker-on  ;  "  Giorgione  would  not  have  beaten 
thee  with  the  crayon  !" — and,  with  a  rudeness  which 
surprised  the  artist,  he  seized  the  paper  from  beneath 
his  hand,  walked  away  with  it  to  the  stern,  and  lean- 
ing far  over  the  rails,  perused  it  fixedly  by  the  mellow 
lustre  of  the  moon.  The  youth  presently  followed 
him,  and  after  a  few  words  exchanged  in  an  under- 
tone, Signor  Basil  slipped  a  piece  of  gold  into  his 
hand,  and  carefully  placed  the  sketch  in  his  own  port- 
folio. 


II. 


It  was  toward  midnight  when  the  Mangia-foco  en- 
tered the  Adige,  and  keeping  its  steady  way  between 
the  low  banks  of  the  river,  made  for  the  grass-grown 
and  flowery  canal  which  connects  its  waters  with  the 
Po.  Most  of  the  passengers  had  yielded  to  the  drowsy 
influence  of  the  night  air,  and,  of  the  aristocratic  party 
on  the  larboard  side,  the  young  marchesa  alone  was 
waking  :  her  friends  had  made  couches  of  their  cloaks 
and  baggage,  and  were  reclining  at  her  feet,  while  the 
artists,  all  except  the  signor  Basil,  were  stretched  fairly 
on  the  deck,  their  portfolios  beneath  their  heads,  and 
their  large  hats  covering  their  faces  from  the  powerful 
rays  of  the  moon. 

"  Miladi  does  justice  to  the  beauty  of  the  night," 
said  the  waking  artist,  in  a  low  and  respectful  tone, 
as  he  rose  from  her  feet  with  a  cluster  of  tuberoses  she 
had  let  fall  from  her  hand. 


"  It  is  indeed  lovely,  Signor  Pittore,"  responded  the 
marchesa,  glancing  at  his  portfolio,  and  receiving  the 
flowers  with  a  gracious  inclination  ;  "  have  you  touched 
Venice  from  the  lagoon  to-night  ?" 

The  signor  Basil  opened  his  portfolio,  and  replied 
to  the  indirect  request  of  the  lady  by  showing  her  a 
very  indifferent  sketch  of  Venice  from  the  island  of 
St.  Lazzaro.  As  if  to  escape  from  the  necessity  of 
praising  what  had  evidently  disappointed  her,  she 
turned  the  cartoon  hastily,  and  exposed,  on  the  sheet 
beneath,  the  spirited  and  admirable  outline  of  her  own 
matchless  features. 

A  slight  start  alone  betrayed  the  surprise  of  the 
highborn  lady,  and  raising  the  cartoon  to  examine  it 
more  closely,  she  said  with  a  smile,  "  You  may  easier 
tread  on  Titian's  heels  than  Canaletti's.  Bezzuoli  has 
painted  me,  and  not  so  well.  I  will  awake  the  mar- 
quis, and  he  shall  purchase  it  of  you." 

"  Not  for  the  wealth  of  the  Medici,  madam  !"  said 
the  young  man,  clasping  his  portfolio  hastily,  "  pray 
do  not  disturb  monsignore  !  The  picture  is  dear  to 
me  !" 

The  marchesa,  looking  into  his  face,  and  with  a 
glance  around,  which  the  accomplished  courtier  be- 
fore her  read  better  than  she  dreamed,  she  drew  her 
shawl  over  her  blanched  shoulders,  and  settled  her- 
self to  listen  to  the  conversation  of  her  new  acquaint- 
ance. 

"  You  would  be  less  gracious  if  you  were  observed, 
proud  beauty,"  thought  Basil ;  "  but  while  you  think 
the  poor  painter  may  while  away  the  tediousness  of  a 
vigil,  he  may  feed  his  eyes  on  your  beauty  as  well." 

The  Mangia-foco  turned  into  the  canal,  threaded 
its  lily-paved  waters  for  a  mile  or  two.  and  then,  put- 
ting forth  upon  the  broad  bosom  of  the  Po,  went  on 
her  course  against  the  stream,  and,  with  retarded  pace, 
penetrated  toward  the  sun-beloved  heart  of  Italy.  And 
while  the  later  hours  performed  their  procession  with 
the  stars,  the  marchesa  del  Marmore  leaned  sleepless 
and  unfatigued  against  the  railing,  listening  with  min- 
gled curiosity  and  scorn  to  the  passionate  love-murmui 
of  the  enamored  painter.  His  hat  was  thrown  aside, 
his  fair  and  curling  locks  were  flowing  in  the  night 
air,  his  form  was  bent  earnestly  but  respectfully  toward 
her,  and  on  his  lip,  with  all  its  submissive  tenderness, 
there  sat  a  shadow  of  something  she  could  not  define, 
but  which  rebuked,  ever  and  anon,  as  with  the  fierce 
regard  of  a  noble,  the  condescension  she  felt  toward 
him  as  an  artist. 


III. 


Upon  the  lofty  dome  of  the  altar  in  the  cathedral  of 
Bologna  stands  poised  an  angel  in  marble,  not  spoken 
of  in  the  books  of  travellers,  but  perhaps  the  loveliest 
incarnation  of  a  blessed  cherub  that  ever  lay  in  the 
veined  bosom  of  Pentelicus.  Lost  and  unobserved  on 
the  vast  floor  of  the  nave,  the  group  of  artists,  who  had 
made  a  day's  journey  from  Ferrara,  sat  in  the  wicker 
chairs  hired  for  a  baioch  during  the  vesper,  and  drew 
silently  from  this  angel,  while  the  devout  people  of 
Bologna  murmured  their  Ave  Marias  around.  Signor 
Basil  alone  was  content  to  look  over  the  work  of  his 
companions,  and  the  twilight  had  already  begun  to 
brighten  the  undying  lamps  at  the  shrine,  when  he 
started  from  the  pillar  against  which  he  leaned,  and 
crossed  hastily  toward  a  group  issuing  from  a  private 
chapel  in  the  western  aisle.  A  lady  walked  between 
two  gentlemen  of  noble  mien,  and  behind  her,  attend- 
ed by  an  equally  distinguished  company,  followed  that 
lady's  husband,  the  marchese  del  Marmore.  They 
were  strangers  passing  through  Bologna,  and  had  been 
attended  to  vespers  by  some  noble  friends. 

The  companions  of  the  signor  Basil  looked  on  with 
some  surprise  as  their  enamored  friend  stepped  confi- 
dently before  the  two  nobles  in  attendance  upon  the 


INKLINGS  OF  ADVENTURE. 


447 


lady,  and  arrested  her  steps  with  a  salutation  which, 
though  respectful  as  became  a  gentleman,  was  marked 
with  the  easy  politeness  of  one  accustomed  to  a  favora- 
ble reception. 

"  .May  I  congratulate  miladi,"  he  said,  rising  slowly 
from  his  bow,  and  fixing  his  ryes  with  unembarrassed 
admiration  on  her  own  liquid  but  now  frowning  orbs, 
"  upon  her  safe  journey  over  the  marches  !  Bologna," 
he  continued,  glancing  at  the  nobles  with  a  courteous 
smile,  "welcomes  her  fittingly." 

The  lady  listened  with  a  look  of  surprise,  and  the 
Bolognese  glanced  from  the  dusty  boots  of  the  artist 
to  bis  portfolio. 

•'Has  the  painter  the  honor  to  know  lasignora?" 
asked  the  cavalier  on  her  right. 

"  Signor,  si  !"  said  the  painter,  fiercely,  as  a  curl 
arched  the  lady's  lip,  and  she  prepared  to  answer. 

The  color  mounted  to  the  temples  of  the  marchesa, 
and  her  husband,  who  had  loitered  beneath  the  ma- 
donna of  Domenichino,  coming  up  at  the  instant,  she 
bowed  coldlv  to  the  signor  Basil,  and  continued  down  | 
the  aisle.     The   artist   followed  to    her  carriage,  and  j 
lifted  his  hat  respectfully  as  the  lumbering  equipage  | 
took  its  way  by  the  famous  statue  of  Neptune,  and  j 
then  with  a  confident  smile,  which  seemed  to  his  com-  , 
panions  somewhat  mistimed,  he  muttered  between  his 
teeth,  "  Ciascuno  son  bel'  giorno  !"  and  strolled  loiter- 
in";  on  with  them  to  the  trattoria. 


IV. 

The  court  of  the  grand-duke  of  Florence  is  perhaps 
the  most  cosmopolitan  and  the  most  easy  of  access  in 
all  Europe-  The  Austrian-born  monarch  himself, 
adopting  in  some  degree  the  frank  and  joyous  charac- 
ter of  the  people  over  whom  he  reigns,  throws  open 
his  parks  and  palaces,  his  gardens  and  galleries,  to  the 
strangers  passing  through  ;  and  in  the  season  of  gayety 
almost  any  presentable  person,  resident  at  Florence, 
may  procure  the  entree  to  the  court  balls,  and  start  j 
fair  with  noble  dames  and  gentlemen  for  grace  in  | 
courtly  favor.  The  files  at  the  Palazzo  Pitti,  albeit 
not  always  exempt  from  a  leaven  of  vulgarity,  are  al- 
ways  brilliant  and  amusing,  and  the  exclusives  of  the 
court,  though  they  draw  the  line  distinctly  enough  to 
their  own  eye,  mix  with  apparent  abandonment  in  the 
motley  waltz  and  mazurka,  and  either  from  good-na- 
ture or  a  haughty  conviction  of  their  superiority,  never 
suffer  the  offensive  cordon  to  be  felt,  scarce  to  be  sus- 
pected, by  the  multitude  who  divert  them.  The 
grand-duke,  to  common  eyes,  is  a  grave  and  rather 
timid  person,  with  more  of  the  appearance  of  the 
scholar  than  of  the  sovereign,  courteous  in  public,  and 
benevolent  and  earnest  in  his  personal  attentions  to 
his  guests  at  the  palace.  The  royal  quadrille  may  be 
shared  without  permission  of  the  grand  chamberlain, 
and  the  royal  eye,  after  the  first  one  or  two  dances  of 
ceremony,  searches  for  partners  by  the  lamp  of  beauty, 
heedless  of  the  diamonds  on  the  brow,  or  the  star  of 
nobility  on  the  shoulder.  The  grand  supper  is  scarce 
more  exclusive,  and  on  the  disappearance  of  the  royal 
cortege,  the  delighted  crowd  take  their  departure, 
having  seen  no  class  more  favored  than  themselves, 
and  enchanted  with  the  gracious  absence  of  pretension 
in  the  nobilita  of  Tuscany. 

Built  against  the  side  of  a  steep  hill,  the  Palazzo 
Pitti  encloses  its  rooms  of  state  within  massive  and 
sombre  walls  in  front,  while  in  the  rear  the  higher  sto- 
ries of  the  palace  open  forth  on  a  level  with  the  deli- 
cious gardens  of  the  Boboli,  and  contain  suites  of 
smaller  apartments,  fitted  up  with  a  cost  and  luxury 
which  would  beggar  the  dream  of  a  Sybarite.  Here 
lives  the  monarch,  in  a  seclusion  rendered  deeper  and 
more  sacred  by  the  propinquity  of  the  admitted  world 
in  the  apartments  below;  and  in  this  sanctuary  of  roy- 
alty is  enclosed  a  tide  of  life  as  silent  and  unsuspected 


by  the  common  inhabitant  of  Florence  as  the  flow  of 
the  ocean-veiled  Arethusa  by  the  mariner  of  the  Ionian 
main.  Here  the  invention  of  the  fiery  genius  of  Italy 
is  exhausted  in  poetical  luxury;  here  the  reserved  and 
silent  sovereign  throws  off  his  maintein  of  royal  conde- 
scension, and  enters  with  equal  arms  into  the  lists  of 
love  and  wit ;  here  burn  (as  if  upon  an  altar  fed  with 
spice-woods  and  precious  gums)  the  fervent  and  uncal- 
culating  passions  of  this  glowing  clime,  in  senses  re- 
fined by  noble  nurture,  and  hearts  prompted  by  the 
haughty  pulses  of  noble  blood  ;  and  here — to  the 
threshold  of  this  sanctuary  of  royal  pleasure — press  all 
who  know  its  secrets,  and  who  imagine  a  claim  to  it 
in  their  birth  and  attractions,  while  the  lascia-passarc 
is  accorded  with  a  difficulty  which  alone  preserves  its 
splendor. 

Some  two  or  three  days  after  the  repulse  of  the 
signor  Basil  in  the  cathedral  of  Bologna,  the  group  of 
travelling  artists  were  on  their  way  from  the  grand  gal- 
lery at  Florence  to  their  noonday  meal.  Loitering 
with  slow  feet  through  the  crowded  and  narrow  Via 
Calzaiole,  they  emerged  into  the  sunny  Piazza,  and 
looking  up  with  understanding  eyes  at  the  slender  shaft 
of  the  Campanile  (than  which  a  fairer  figure  of  reli- 
gious architecture  points  not  to  heaven),  they  took 
their  way  toward  the  church  of  Santa  Trinita,  propo- 
sing to  eat  their  early  dinner  at  a  house  named,  from 
its  excellence  in  a  certain  temperate  beverage,  La 
Birra.  The  traveller  should  be  advised,  also,  that  by 
paying  an  extra  paul  in  the  bottle,  he  may  have  at  this 
renowned  eating-house  an  old  wine  sunned  on  the 
southern  shoulder  of  Fiesole,  that  hath  in  its  flavor  a 
certain  redolence  of  Boccaccio — scarce  remarkable, 
since  it  grew  in  the  scene  of  the  Decameron — but  of  a 
virtue  which,  to  the  Hundred  Tales  of  Love  (read 
drinking),  is  what  the  Gracilis  ad  Parnassum  should 
be  to  the  building  of  a  dithyrambic.  The  oil  of  two 
crazie  upon  the  palm  of  the  fat  waiter  Giuseppe  will 
assist  in  calling  the  vintage  to  his  memory. 

A  thundering  rap  upon  the  gate  of  the  adjoining 
Palazzo  arrested  the  attention  of  the  artists  as  they 
were  about  to  enter  the  Birra,  and  in  the  occupant  of 
a  dark-green  cabriolet,  drawn  by  a  pampered  horse  of 
the  duke's  breed,  they  recognised,  elegantly  dressed 
and  posed  on  his  seat  a  la  d.Orsay,  the  signor  Basil. 
His  coat  was  of  an  undecided  cut  and  color,  and  his 
gloves  were  of  primrose  purity. 

The  recognition  was  immediate,  and  the  cordiality 
of  the  greeting  mutual.  They  had  parted  from  their 
companion  at  the  gate  of  Florence,  as  travellers  part, 
without  question,  and  they  met  without  reserve  to  part 
as  questionless  again.  The  artists  were  surprised  at 
the  signor  Basil's  transformation,  but  no  follower  of 
their  refined  art  would  have  been  so  ill-bred  as  to  ex- 
press it.  He  wished  them  the  hon  appedto,  as  a  tall 
chasseur  came  out  to  say  that  her  ladyship  was  at 
home;  and  with  a  slacked  rein  the  fiery  horse  sprang 
through  the  gateway,  and  the  marble  court  of  the 
palace  rang  with  his  prancing  hoofs. 

He  who  was  idle  and  bought  flowers  at  the  Cafe  of 
the  Colonna  at  Florence  will  have  remarked,  as  lie  sat 
in  his  chair  upon  the  street  in  the  sultry  evening  the 
richly  ornamented  terrace  and  balustrade  of  the  Pa- 
lazzo Corsi  giving  upon  the  Piazza  Trinita.  The 
dark  old  Ghibelline  palace  of  the  Strozzi  lets  the  eye 
down  upon  it,  as  it  might  pass  from  a  helmeted  knight 
with  closed  vizor  to  his  unbonneted  and  laughing 
page.  The  crimson  curtains  of  the  window  opening 
upon  the  terrace,  at  the  time  of  our  story,  reminded 
every  passing  Florentine  of  the  lady  who  dwelt  within 
—a  descendant  of  one  of  the  haughtiest  lines  of  Eng- 
lish chivalry— resident  in  Italy  since  many  years  for 
health,  but  bearing  in  her  delicate  frame  and  ex- 
quisitely  transparent  features,  the  loftiest  type  of  pa- 
trician beauty  that  had  ever  filled  the  eye  that  looked 
upon  her.      In  the  inner  heaven  of  royal  exclusiveness 


448 


INKLINGS  OF  ADVENTURE. 


at  the  Pitti — in  its  constellation  of  rank  and  wit — the 
lady  Geraldine  had  long  been  the  worshipped  and  as- 
cendant cynosure.  Happy  in  a  husband  without  rank 
and  but  of  moderate  fortune,  she  maintained  the  spot- 
less character  of  an  English  wife  in  this  sphere  of 
conventional  corruption ;  and  though  the  idol  of  the 
duke  and  his  nobles,  it  would  have  been  like  a  whisper 
against  the  purity  of  the  brightest  Pleiad,  to  have 
linked  her  name  with  love. 

With  her  feet  upon  a  sofa  covered  with  a  gossamer 
cashmere,  her  lovely  head  pillowed  on  a  cushion  of 
silk,  and  a  slight  stand  within  arm's  length  holding  a 
vase  of  flowers  and  the  volume  from  which  she  had 
been  reading,  the  lady  Geraldine  received  the  count 
Basil  Spiriford,  some  time  attache  to  the  Russian  em- 
bassy at  Paris  (where  he  had  first  sunned  his  eyes  in 
her  beauty),  and  at  present  the  newly-appointed  sec- 
retary to  the  minister  of  the  same  monarch  near  the 
court  of  Tuscany. 

Without  a  bow,  but  with  the  hasty  step  and  gesture 
of  a  long  absent  and  favored  friend,  the  count  Basil 
ran  to  the  proffered  hand,  and  pressed  its  alabaster 
fingers  to  his  lips.  Had  the  more  common  acquaint- 
ances of  the  diplomate  seen  him  at  this  moment,  they 
would  have  marvelled  how  the  mask  of  manhood  may 
drop,  and  disclose  the  ingenuous  features  of  the  boy. 
The  secretary  knew  his  species,  and  the  lady  Geral- 
dine was  one  of  those  women  for  whom  the  soul  is 
unwilling  to  possess  a  secret. 

After  the  first  inquiries  were  over,  the  lady  ques- 
tioned her  recovered  favorite  of  his  history  since  they 
had  parted.  "I  left  you,"  she  said,  "swimming  the 
dangerous  tide  of  life  at  Paris.  How  have  you  come 
to  shore?" 

"  Thanks,  perhaps,  to  your  friendship,  which  made 
life  worth  the  struggle !  For  the  two  extremes,  how- 
ever, you  know  what  I  was  at  Paris — and  yesterday  I 
was  a  wandering  artist  in  velveteen  and  a  sombrero !" 

Lady  Geraldine  laughed. 

"Ah!  you  look  at  my  curls — but  Macassar  is  at  a 
discount !  It  is  the  only  grace  I  cherished  in  my  in- 
cognito. A  resumer — I  got  terribly  out  of  love  by  the 
end  of  the  year  after  we  parted,  and  as  terribly  in 
debt.  My  promotion  in  diplomacy  did  not  arrive,  and 
the  extreme  hour  for  my  credit  did.  Pozzo  di  Borgo 
kindly  procured  me  conge  for  a  couple  of  years,  and  I 
dived  presently  under  a  broad-rimmed  hat,  got  into  a 
vetturino  with  portfolio  and  pencils,  joined  a  troop  of 
wandering  artists,  and  with  my  patrimony  at  nurse, 
have  been  two  years  looking  at  life  without  spectacles 
at  Venice." 

"And  painting?" 

"Painting!" 

"  Might  one  see  a  specimen  ?"  asked  the  lady  Geral- 
dine, with  an  incredulous  smile. 

"  I  regret  that  my  immortal  efforts  in  oils  are  in  the 
possession  of  a  certain  Venetian,  who  lets  the  fifth 
floor  of  a  tenement  washed  by  the  narrowest  canal  in 
that  fair  city.  But  if  your  ladyship  cares  to  see  a 
drawing  or  two — " 

He  rang  the  bell,  and  his  jocki  Anglais  presently 
brought  from  the  pocket  of  his  cabriolet  a  wayworn 
and  thinly  furnished  portfolio.  The  lady  Geraldine 
turned  over  a  half-dozen  indifferent  views  of  Venice, 
but  the  last  cartoon  in  the  portfolio  made  her  start. 

"La  Marchesa  del  Marmore!"  she  exclaimed,  look- 
ing at  Count  Basil  with  an  inquiring  and  half  uneasy 
eye. 

"Is  it  well  drawn?"  he  asked  quietly. 

"  Well  drawn  ?  It  is  a  sketch  worthy  of  Raphael. 
Do  you  really  draw  so  well  as  this,  or" — she  added, 
after  a  slight  hesitation — "is  it  a  miracle  of  love?" 

"  It  is  a  divine  head,"  soliloquized  the  Russian,  half 
closing  his  eyes,  and  looking  at  the  drawing  from  a 
distance,  as  if  to  fill  up  the  imperfect  outline  from  his 
memory. 


The  lady  Geraldine  laid  her  hand  on  his  arm.  "  My 
dear  Basil,"  she  said  seriously,  "  I  should  be  wretched 
if  I  thought  your  happiness  was  in  the  power  of  this 
woman.     Do  you  love  her?" 

"  The  portrait  was  not  drawn  by  me,"  he  answered, 
"  though  I  have  a  reason  for  wishing  her  to  think  so. 
It  was  done  by  a  fellow-traveller  of  mine,  whom  I  wish 
to  make  a  sketch  of  yourself,  and  I  have  brought  it 
here  to  interest  you  in  him  as  an  artist.  Mais  revenons 
a  nos  moutons — la  marchesa  was  also  a  fellow-traveller 
of  mine,  and  without  loving  her  too  violently,  1  owe 
her  a  certain  debt  of  courtesy  contracted  on  the  way. 
Will  you  assist  me  to  pay  it?" 

Relieved  of  her  fears,  and  not  at  all  suspecting  the 
good  faith  of  the  diplomatist  in  his  acknowledgments 
of  gratitude,  the  lady  Geraldine  inquired  simply  how 
she  could  serve  him. 

"  In  the  twenty-four  hours  since  my  arrival  at  Flor- 
ence," he  said,  "I  have  put  myself,  as  you  will  see, 
au  courant  of  the  minor  politics  of  the  Pitti.  Thanks 
to  my  Parisian  renown,  the  duke  has  enrolled  me  al- 
ready under  the  back-stairs  oligarchy,  and  to-morrow 
night  I  shall  sup  with  you  in  the  saloon  of  Hercules 
after  the  ball  is  over.  La  marchesa,  as  you  well  know, 
has,  with  all  her  rank  and  beauty,  never  been  able  to 
set  foot  within  those  guarded  penetralia — soit  her  ma- 
licious tongue,  soit  the  interest  against  her  of  the  men 
she  has  played  upon  her  hook  too  freely.  The  road 
to  her  heart,  if  there  be  one,  lies  over  that  threshold, 
and  I  would  take  the  toll.  Do  you  understand  me, 
most  beautiful  lady  Geraldine?" 

The  count  Basil  imprinted  another  kiss  upon  the 
fingers  of  the  fair  Englishwoman,  as  she  promised  to 
put  into  his  hand  the  following  night  the  illuminated 
ticket  which  was  to  repay,  as  she  thought,  too  gener- 
ously, a  debt  of  gratitude  ;  and  plucking  a  flower  from 
her  vase  for  his  bosom,  he  took  his  leave  to  return  at 
twilight  to  dinner.  Dismissing  his  cabriolet  at  the 
gale,  he  turned  on  foot  toward  the  church  of  San 
Gaetano,  and  with  an  expression  of  unusual  elation  in 
his  step  and  countenance,  entered  the  trattoria,  where 
dined  at  that  moment  his  companions  of  the  pencil. 


The  green  lamps  glittering  by  thousands  amid  the 
foliage  of  the  Boboli  had  attained  their  full  brightness, 
and  the  long-lived  Italian  day  had  died  over  the  distant 
mountains  of  Carrara,  leaving  its  inheritance  of  light 
apparently  to  the  stars,  who,  on  their  fields  of  deepen- 
ing blue,  sparkled,  each  one  like  the  leader  of  an  un- 
seen host  in  the  depths  of  heaven,  himself  the  fore- 
most and  the  most  radiant.  The  night  was  balmy  and 
voluptuous.  The  music  of  the  ducal  band  swelled 
forth  from  the  perfumed  apartments  on  the  air.  A 
single  nightingale,  far  back  in  the  wilderness  of  the 
garden,  poured  from  his  melodious  heart  a  chant  of 
the  most  passionate  melancholy.  The  sentinel  of  the 
body-guard  stationed  at  the  limit  of  the  spray  of  the 
fountain  leaned  on  his  halberd  and  felt  his  rude  senses 
melt  in  the  united  spells  of  luxury  and  nature.  The 
ministers  of  a  monarch's  pleasure  had  done  their  ut- 
most to  prepare  a  scene  of  royal  delight,  and  night  and 
summer  had  flung  in  their  enchantments  when  in- 
genuity was  exhausted. 

The  dark  architectural  mass  of  the  Pitti,  pouring  a 
blaze  of  light  scarce  endurable  from  its  deeply-sunk 
windows,  looked  like  the  side  of  an  enchanted  moun- 
tain laid  open  for  the  revels  of  sorcery.  The  aigrette 
and  plume  passed  by ;  the  tiara  and  the  jewel  upon 
the  breast ;  the  gayly-dressed  courtiers  and  glittering 
dames;  and  to  that  soldier  at  his  dewy  post,  it  seemed 
like  the  realized  raving  of  the  improvisatore  when  he 
is  lost  in  some  fable  of  Araby.  Yet  within  walked 
malice  and  hate,  and  the  light  and  perfume  that  might 
have  fed  an  angel's  heart   with  love,   but   deepened 


INKLINGS  OF  ADVENTURE. 


449 


in  many  a  beating  bosom  the  consuming  fires  of 
envy. 

With  the  gold  key  of  office  on  his  cape,  the  grand 
chamberlain  stood  at  the  feet  of  the  dowager  grand 
dutchess,  and  by  a  sign  to  the  musicians,  hidden  in 
a  latticed  gallery  behind  the  Corinthian  capital  of  the 
hall,  retarded  or  accelerated  the  soft  measure  of  the 
waltz.  On  a  raised  seat  in  the  rear  of  the  chairs  of 
state,  sat  the  ladies  of  honor  and  the  noble  dames 
nearest  allied  to  royal  blood  ;  one  solitary  and  privi- 
leged intruder  alone  sharing  the  elevated  place — the 
lady  Geraldine.  Dressed  in  white,  her  hair  wound 
about  her  head  in  the  simplest  form,  yet  developing 
its  divine  shape  with  the  clear  outline  of  statuary,  her 
eyes  lambent  with  purity  and  sweetness,  heavily  fring- 
ed with  lashes  a  shade  darker  than  the  light  auburn 
braided  on  her  temples,  and  the  tint  of  the  summer's 
most  glowing  rose  turned  out  from  the  threadlike  part- 
ing of  her  lips  ;  she  was  a  vision  of  loveliness  to  take 
into  the  memory,  as  the  poet  enshrines  in  his  soul 
the  impossible  shape  of  his  ideal,  and  consumes  youth 
and  age  searching  in  vain  for  its  like.  Fair  Lady  Ger- 
aldine !  thou  wilt  read  these  passionate  words  from 
one  whose  worship  of  thy  intoxicating  loveliness  has 
never  before  found  utterance,  but  if  this  truly-told  tale 
should  betray  the  hand  that  has  dared  to  describe  thy 
beauty,  in  thy  next  orisons  to  St.  Mary  of  pity,  breathe 
from  those  bright  lips  a  prayer  that  he  may  forget 
thee  ! 

By  the  side  of  the  lady  Geraldine,  but  behind  the 
chair  of  the  grand  dutchess,  who  listened  to  his  con- 
versation with  singular  delight,  stood  a  slight  young 
man  of  uncommon  personal  beauty,  a  stranger  appa- 
rently to  every  other  person  present.  His  brilliant  uni- 
form alone  betrayed  him  to  be  in  the  Russian  diploma- 
cy ;  and  the  marked  distinction  shown  him,  both  by  the 
reigning  queen  of  the  court,  and  the  more  powerful 
and  inaccessible  queen  of  beauty,  marked  him  as  an 
object  of  keen  and  universal  curiosity.  By  the  time 
the  fifth  mazurka  had  concluded  its  pendulous  refrain, 
the  grand  chamberlain  had  tolerably  well  circulated 
the  name  and  rank  of  Count  Basil  Spirifort,  the  re- 
nowned wit  and  elegant  of  Paris,  newly  appointed  to 
the  court  of  his  royal  highness  of  Tuscany.  Fair 
eyes  wandered  amid  his  sunny  curls,  and  beating  bo- 
soms hushed  their  pulses  as  he  passed. 

Count  Basil  knew  the  weight  of  a  first  impression. 
Count  Basil  knew  also  the  uses  of  contempt.  Upon 
the  first  principle  he  kept  his  place  between  the  grand 
dutchess  and  Lady  Geraldine,  exerting  his  deeply- 
studied  art  of  pleasing,  to  draw  upon  himself  their  ex- 
clusive attention.  Upon  the  second  principle,  he  was 
perfectly  unconscious  of  the  presence  of  another  hu- 
man being  ;  and  neither  the  gliding  step  of  the  small- 
eared  princess  S in  the  waltz,  nor  the  stately 

advance  of  the  last  female  of  the  Medici  in  the  mazur- 
ka, distracted  his  large  blue  eyes  a  moment  from  their 
idleness.  With  one  hand  on  the  eagle-hilt  of  his 
sword,  and  his  side  leaned  against  the  high  cushion  of 
red  velvet  honored  by  the  pressure  of  the  lady  Geral- 
dine, he  gazed  up  into  that  beaming  face,  when  not 
bending  respectfully  to  the  dutchess,  and  drank  stead- 
fastly from  her  beauty,  as  the  lotus-cup  drinks  light 
from  the  sun. 

The  new  secretary  had  calculated  well.  In  the 
deep  recess  of  the  window  looking  toward  San  Minia- 
to,  stood  a  lady  nearly  hidden  from  view  by  the  muslin 
curtains  just  stirring  with  the  vibration  of  the  music, 
who  gazed  on  the  immediate  circle  of  the  grand  dutch- 
ess with  an  interest  that  was  not  attempted  to  be  dis- 
guised. On  her  first  entrance  into  the  hall,  the  mar- 
chess del  Marmore  had  recognised  in  the  new  minion 
of  favor  her  impassioned  lover  of  the  lagoon,  her  slight- 
ed acquaintance  of  the  cathedral.  When  the  first  shock 
of  surprise  was  over,  she  looked  on  the  form  which 
she  had  found  beautiful  even  in  the  disguise  of  pover- 
20 


ty,  and,  forgetting  her  insulting  repulse  when  he  would 
have  claimed  in  public  the  smile  she  had  given  him 
when  unobserved,  she  recalled  with  delight  every  syl- 
lable he  had  murmured  in  her  ear,  and  every  look  she 
had  called  forth  in  the  light  of  a  Venetian  moon.  The 
man  who  had  burned  upon  the  altar  of  her  vanity  the 
most  intoxicating  incense — who  had  broken  through 
the  iron  rules  of  convention  and  ceremony,  to  throw 
his  homage  at  her  feet — who  had  portrayed  so  incom- 
parably (she  believed)  with  his  love-inspired  pencil 
the  features  imprinted  on  his  heart — this  chance-won 
worshipper,  this  daring  but  gifted  plebeian,  as  she  had 
thought  him,  had  suddenly  shot  into  her  sphere  and 
become  a  legitimate  object  of  love  ;  and,  beautified  by 
the  splendor  of  dress,  and  distinguished  by  the  prefer- 
ence and  favor  of  those  incomparably  above  her,  he 
seemed  tenfold,  to  her  eyes,  the  perfection  of  adorable 
beauty.  As  she  remembered  his  eloquent  devotion  to 
herself,  and  saw  the  interest  taken  in  him  by  a  woman 
whom  she  hated  and  had  calumniated — a  woman  who 
she  believed  stood  between  her  and  all  the  light  of  ex- 
istence— she  anticipated  the  triumph  of  taking  him 
from  her  side,  of  exhibiting  him  to  the  world  as  a  fal- 
con seduced  from  his  first  quarry  ;  and  never  doubting 
that  so  brilliant  a  favorite  would  control  the  talisman 
of  the  paradise  she  had  so  long  wished  to  enter,  she 
panted  for  the  moment  when  she  should  catch  his  eye 
and  draw  him  from  his  lure,  and  already  heard  the 
chamberlain's  voice  in  her  ear  commanding  her  pres- 
ence after  the  ball  in  the  saloon  of  Hercules. 

The  marchesa  had  been  well  observed  from  the  first 
by  the  wily  diplomate.  A  thorough  adept  in  the  art 
(so  necessary  to  his  profession)  of  seeing  without  ap- 
pearing to  see,  he  had  scarce  lost  a  shade  of  the  vary- 
ing expressions  of  her  countenance  ;  and  while  she 
fancied  him  perfectly  unconscious  of  her  presence,  he 
read  her  tell-tale  features  as  if  they  had  given  utter- 
ance to  her  thoughts.  He  saw,  with  secret  triumph, 
j  the  effect  of  his  brilliant  position  upon  her  proud  and 
i  vain  heart  ;  watched  her  while  she  made  use  of  her 
throng  of  despised  admirers  to  create  a  sensation  near 
him  and  attract  his  notice;  and  when  the  ball  wore  on, 
and  he  was  still  in  unwearied  and  exclusive  attendance 
upon  the  lady  Geraldine,  he  gazed  after  her  with  a 
momentary  curl  of  triumph  on  his  lip,  as  she  took  up 
her  concealed  position  in  the  embayed  window,  and 
abandoned  herself  to  the  bitter  occupation  of  watching 
the  happiness  of  her  rival.  The  lady  Geraldine  had 
never  been  so  animated  since  her  first  appearance  at 
the  court  of  Tuscany. 

It  w;is  past  midnight  when  the  grand-duke,  flushed 
and  tired  with  dancing,  came  to  the  side  of  the  lady 
Geraldine.  Count  Basil  gave  place,  and,  remaining  a 
moment  in  nominal  obedience  to  the  sovereign's  polite 
request  which  he  was  too  politic  to  construe  literally, 
he  looked  down  the  dance  with  the  air  of  one  who  has 
turned  his  back  on  all  that  could  interest  him,  and, 
passing  close  to  the  concealed  position  of  the  marche- 
sa, stepped  out  upon  the  balcony. 

The  air  was  cool,  and  the  fountain  played  refresh- 
ingly below.  The  count  Basil  was  one  of  those  minds 
which  never  have  so  much  leisure  for  digression  as 
when  they  are  most  occupied.  A  love,  as  deep  and 
profound  as  the  abysses  of  his  soul,  was  weaving  thread 
for  thread  with  a  revenge  worthy  of  a  Mohican  ;  yet, 
after  trying  in  vain  to  count  eight  in  the  Pleiades,  he 
raised  himself  upon  the  marble  balustrade,  and  perfect- 
ly anticipating  the  interruption  to  his  solitude  which 
presently  occurred,  began  to  speculate  aloud  on  the 
dead  and  living  at  that  hour  beneath  the  roof  of  the 
Pitti. 

"  A  painter's  mistress,"  he  said,  "  immortal  in  her 
touch  of  her  paramour's  pencil,  is  worshipped  for  cen- 
turies on  these  walls  by  the  pilgrims  of  art ;  while  the 
warm  perfection  of  all  loveliness— the  purest  and  di- 
vinest  of  highborn  women — will  perish  utterly  with  the 


450 


INKLINGS  OF  ADVENTURE. 


eyes  that  have  seen  her !  The  Bella  of  Titian,  the 
Fornarina  of  Raffaelle — peasant-girls  of  Italy — have, 
at  this  moment,  more  value  in  this  royal  palace  than 
the  breathing  forms  that  inhabit  it !  The  lady  Geral- 
dine  herself,  to  whom  the  sovereign  offers  at  this  mo- 
ment his  most  flattering  homage,  would  be  less  a  loss 
to  him  than  either  !  Yet  they  despise  the  gods  of  the 
pencil  who  may  thus  make  them  immortal !  The  dull 
blood  in  their  noble  veins,  that  never  bred  a  thought 
beyond  the  instincts  of  their  kind,  would  look  down, 
forsooth,  on  the  inventive  and  celestial  ichor  that  in- 
flames the  brain,  and  prompts  the  fiery  hand  of  the 
painter!  How  long  will  this  very  sovereign  live  in  the 
memories  of  men  ?  The  murderous  Medici,  the  am- 
bitious cardinals,  the  abandoned  women,  of  an  age  gone 
by,  hang  in  imperishable  colors  on  his  walls  ;  while  of 
him,  the  lord  of  this  land  of  genius,  there  is  not  a  bust 
or  a  picture  that  would  bring  a  sequin  in  the  market- 
place !  They  would  buy  genius  in  these  days  like 
wine,  and  throw  aside  the  flask  in  which  it  ripened. 
Raffaelle  and  Buonarotti  were  companions  for  a  pope 
and  his  cardinals  :  Titian  was  an  honored  guest  for  the 
doge.  The  stimul  us  to  immortalize  these  noble  friends 
was  in  the  love  they  bore  them  ;  and  the  secret  of  their 
power  to  do  it  lay  half  in  the  knowledge  of  their  char- 
acters, gained  by  daily  intimacy.  Painters  were  princes 
then,  as  they  are  beggars  now;  and  the  princely  art  is 
beggared  as  well !" 

The  marchesa  del  Marmore  stepped  out  upon 
the  balcony,  leaning  on  the  arm  of  the  grand 
chamberlain.  The  soliloquizing  secretary  had  fore- 
told to  himself  both  her  coming  and  her  compan- 
on. 

"  Monsieur  le  comte,"  said  the  chamberlain,  "  la 
marchesa  del  Marmore  wishes  for  the  pleasure  of  your 
acquaintance." 

Count  Basil  bowed  low,  and  in  that  low  and  musical 
tone  of  respectful  devotion  which,  real  or  counterfeit, 
made  him  irresistible  to  a  woman  who  had  a  soul  to  be 
thrilled,  he  repeated  the  usual  nothings  upon  the  beau- 
ty of  the  night ;  and  when  the  chamberlain  returned 
to  his  duties,  the  marchesa  walked  forth  with  her 
companion  to  the  cool  and  fragrant  alleys  of  the  gar- 
den, and,  under  the  silent  and  listening  stars,  implored 
forgiveness  for  her  pride  ;  and,  with  the  sudden  aban- 
donment peculiar  to  the  clime,  poured  into  his  ear 
the  passionate  and  weeping  avowal  of  her  sorrow  and 
love. 

"  Those  hours  of  penitence  in  the  embayed  win- 
dow," thought  Count  Basil,  "  were  healthy  for  your 
soul."  And  as  she  walked  by  his  side,  leaning  heavi- 
ly on  his  arm,  and  half-dissolved  in  a  confiding  tender- 
ness, his  thoughts  reverted  to  another  and  a  far  sweet- 
er voioe ;  and  while  the  caressing  words  of  the  marchesa 
fell  on  an  unlistening  ear,  his  footsteps  insensibly  turned 
back  to  the  lighted  hall. 


VI. 


As  the  daylight  stole  softly  over  Vallombrosa,  the 
luxurious  chariot  of  the  marchesadel  Marmore  stopped 
at  the  door  of  Count  Basil.  The  lady  Geraldine's  suit 
had  been  successful ;  and  the  hitherto  excluded  Flor- 
entine had  received,  from  the  hand  of  the  man  she  had 
once  so  ignorantly  scorned,  a  privilege  for  which  she 
would  have  bartered  her  salvation  :  she  had  supped  at 
his  side  in  the  saloon  of  Hercules.  With  many  faults 
of  character,  she  was  an  Italian  in  feeling,  and  had  a 
capacity,  like  all  her  countrywomen,  for  a  consuming 
and  headlong  passion.  She  had  better  have  been  born 
of  marble. 

"  I  have  lifted  you  to  heaven,"  said  Count  Basil,  as 
her  chariot-wheels  rolled  from  his  door  ;  "  but  it  is  as 
the  eagle  soars  into  the  clouds  with  the  serpent.  We 
will  see  how  you  will  relish  the  fall !" 


PART  II. 

The  grand-duke's  carriages,  with  their  six  horses 
and  outriders,  had  turned  down  the  Borg'ognisanti, 
and  the  "  City  of  the  Red  Lily,"  waking  from  her 
noonday  slumber,  was  alive  with  the  sound  of  wheels. 
The  sun  was  sinking  over  the  Apennine  which  kneels 
at  the  gate  of  Florence  ;  the  streets  were  cool  and 
shadowy ;  the  old  women,  with  the  bambino,  between 
their  knees,  braided  straw  at  the  doors  ;  the  booted 
guardsman  paced  his  black  charger  slowly  over  the 
jeweller's  bridge  ;  the  picture-dealer  brought  forward 
his  brightest  "  master"  to  the  fading  light ;  and  while 
the  famous  churches  of  that  fairest  city  of  the  earth 
called  to  the  Ave-Maria  with  impatient  bell,  the  gal- 
lantry and  beauty  of  Tuscany  sped  through  the  damp- 
ening air  with  their  swift  horses,  meeting  and  passing 
with  gay  greetings  amid  the  green  alleys  of  the  Cas- 
cine. 

The  twilight  had  become  gray,  when  the  carriages 
and  horsemen,  scattered  in  hundreds  through  the  in- 
terlaced roads  of  this  loveliest  of  parks,  turned  by  com- 
mon consent  toward  the  spacious  square  in  the  centre, 
and  drawing  up  in  thickly-serried  ranks,  the  soiree  on 
wheels,  the  reunion  en  plein  air,  which  is  one  of  the 
most  delightful  of  the  peculiar  customs  of  Florence, 
commenced  its  healthful  gayeties.  The  showy  car- 
riages of  the  grand-duke  and  the  ex-king  of  Wurtem- 
berg  (whose  rank  would  not  permit  them  to  share  in 
the  familiarities  of  the  hour)  disappeared  by  the  avenue 
skirting  the  bank  of  the  Arno,  and  with  much  delicate 
and  some  desperate  specimens  of  skill,  the  coachmen 
of  the  more  exclusive  nobility  threaded  the  embar- 
rassed press  of  vehicles,  and  laid  their  wheels  together 
on  the  southern  edge  of  the  piazza.  The  beaux  in  the 
saddle,  disembarrassed  of  ladies  and  axletrees,  enjoyed 
their  usual  butterfly  privilege  of  roving,  and  with  light 
rein  and  ready  spur  pushed  their  impatient  horses  to 
the  coronetted  panels  of  the  loveliest  or  most  power- 
ful ;  the  laugh  of  the  giddy  was  heard  here  and  there 
over  the  pawing  of  restless  hoofs ;  an  occasional  scream 
— half  of  apprehension,  half  of  admiration— rewarded 
the  daring  caracole  of  some  young  and  bold  rider ; 
and  while  the  first  star  sprang  to  its  place,  and  the  dew 
of  heaven  dropped  into  the  false  flowers  in  the  hat  of 
the  belle,  and  into  the  thirsting  lips  of  the  violet  in  the 
field  (simplicity,  like  virtue,  is  its  own  reward  !),  the 
low  murmur  of  calumny  and  compliment,  of  love  and 
ligl.Jieartedness,  of  politeness,  politics,  puns,  and  po- 
etry, arose  over  that  assembly  upon  wheels  :  and  if  it 
was  not  a  scene  and  an  hour  of  happiness,  it  was  the 
fault  neither  of  the  fragrant  eve  nor  of  the  provisions 
of  nature  and  fortune.  The  material  for  happiness 
was  there. 

A  showy  caleclie  with  panels  of  dusky  crimson,  the 
hammer-cloth  of  the  same  shade,  edged  with  a  broad 
fringe  of  white,  the  wheels  slightly  picked  out  with  the 
same  colors,  and  the  coachman  and  footman  in  corre- 
sponding liveries,  was  drawn  up  near  the  southern  edge 
of  the  Piazzi.  A  narrow  alley  had  been  left  for  horse- 
men between  this  equipage  and  the  adjoining  ones, 
closed  up  at  the  extremity,  however,  by  a  dark-green 
and  very  plain  chariot,  placed  with  a  bold  violation  of 
etiquetle  directly  across  the  line,  and  surrounded  just 
now  by  two  or  three  persons  of  the  highest  rank  lean- 
ing from  their  saddles  in  earnest  conversation  with  the 
occupant.  Not  far  from  the  caleclie,  mounted  upon 
an  English  blood-horse  of  great  beauty,  a  young  man 
had  just  drawn  rein  as  if  interrupted  only  for  a  mo- 
ment on  some  pressing  errand,  and  with  his  hat  slight- 
ly raised,  was  paying  his  compliments  to  the  venerable 
Prince  Poniatowski,  at  that  time  the  Ampbytrion  of 
Florence.  From  moment  to  moment,  as  the  pauses 
occurred  in  the  exchange  of  courteous  phrases,  the 
rider,  whose  spurred  heel  was  close  at  his  saddle- 
girths,  stole  an  impatient  glance  up  the  avenue  of 


INKLINGS  OF  ADVENTURE. 


451 


carriages  to  the  dark-green  chariot,  and,  excited  by 
the  lifted  rein  and  the  proximity  of  the  spur,  the  grace- 
ful horse  fretted  on  his  minion  feet,  and  the  bending 
figures  from  a  hundred  vehicles,  and  the  focus  of 
bright  eyes  radiating  from  all  sides  to  the  spot,  would 
have  betrayed,  even  to  a  stranger,  that  the  horseman 
was  of  no  common  mark.  Around  his  uncovered  tem- 
ples floated  fair  and  well-cherished  locks  of  the  sunni- 
est auburn  ;  and  if  there  was  beauty  in  the  finely-drawn 
lines  of  his  lips,  there  was  an  inexpressibly  fierce  spirit 
as  well. 


II. 


The  count  Basil  had  been  a  month  at  Florence.  In 
that  time  he  had  contrived  to  place  himself  betwflen 
the  duke's  ear  and  all  the  avenues  of  favor,  and  had 
approached  as  near,  perhaps  nearer,  to  the  hearts  of 
the  women  of  his  court.  A  singular  and'  instinctive 
knowledge  of  the  weaknesses  of  human  nature,  per- 
fected and  concealed  by  conversance  with  the  consum- 
mate refinement  of  life  at  Paris,  remarkable  personal 
beauty,  and  a  quality  of  scornful  bitterness  for  which 
no  one  could  divine  a  reason  in  a  character  and  fate 
else  so  happily  mingled,  but  which  at  the  same  time 
added  to  his  fascination,  had  given  Count  Basil  a  com- 
mand over  the  varied  stops  of  society,  equalled  by  few 
players  on  that  difficult  and  capricious  instrument. 
His  worldly  ambition  went  swimmingly  on,  and  the 
same  wind  filled  the  sails  of  his  lighter  ventures  as 
well.  The  love  of  the  marchesa  del  Marmore,  as  he 
had  very  well  anticipated,  grew  with  his  influence  and 
renown.  A  woman's  pride,  he  perfectly  knew,  is  diffi- 
cult to  wake  after  she  has  once  believed  herself  adored  ; 
and,  satisfied  that  the  portrait  taken  on  the  lagoon,  and 
the  introduction  he  had  given  her  to  the  exclusive  pen- 
etralia of  the  Pitti,  would  hold  her  till  his  revenge  was 
complete,  he  left  her  love  for  him  to  find  its  own  food 
in  his  successes,  and  never  approached  her  but  to  lay 
to  her  heart  more  mordently  the  serpents  of  jealousy 
and  despair. 

For  the  lady  Geraldine  the  count  Basil  had  con- 
ceived a  love,  the  deepest  of  which  his  nature  was  ca- 
pable. Long  as  he  had  known  her,  it  was  a  passion 
born  in  Italy,  and  while  it  partook  of  the  qualities  of 
the  clime,  it  had  for  its  basis  the  habitual  and  well- 
founded  respect  of  a  virtuous  and  sincere  friendship. 
At  their  first  acquaintance  at  Paris,  the  lovely  English- 
woman, newly  arrived  from  the  purer  moral  atmo- 
sphere of  her  own  country,  was  moving  in  the  disso- 
lute, but  skilfully  disguised  society  of  the  Faubourg 
St.  Germain,  with  the  simple  unconsciousness  of  the 
pure  in  heart,  innocent  herself,  and  naturally  unsus- 
picious of  others.  The  perfect  frankness  with  which 
she  established  an  intimacy  with  the  clever  and  accom- 
plished attache,  had  soon  satisfied  that  clear-sighted 
person  that  there  was  no  passion  in  her  preference, 
and,  giddy  with  the  thousand  pleasures  of  that  me- 
tropolis of  delight,  he  had  readily  sunk  his  first  startled 
admiration  of  her  beauty  in  an  affectionate  and  con- 
fiding friendship.  He  had  thus  shown  her  the  better 
qualities  of  his  character  only,  and,  charmed  with  his 
wit  and  penetration,  and  something  flattered,  perhaps, 
with  the  devotion  of  so  acknowledged  an  autocrat  of 
fashion  and  talent,  she  had  formed  an  attachment  for 
him  that  had  all  the  earnestness  of  love  without  its 
passion.  They  met  at  Florence,  but  the  "  knowledge 
of  good  and  evil"  had  by  this  time  driven  the  lady 
Geraldine  from  her  Eden  of  unconsciousness.  Still 
as  irreproachable  in  conduct,  and  perhaps  as  pure  in 
heart  as  before,  an  acquaintance  with  the  forms  of  vice 
had  introduced  into  her  manners  those  ostensible  cau- 
tions which,  while  they  protect,  suggest  also  what  is 
to  be  feared. 

A  change  had  taken  place  also  in  Count  Basil.  He 
had  left  the  vitreous  and   mercurial  clime  of  France, 


with  its  volatile  and  superficial  occupations,  for  the 
voluptuous  and  indolent  air  of  Italy,  and  the  study  of 
its  impassioned  deifications  of  beauty.  That  which 
had  before  been  in  him  an  instinct  of  gay  pleasure — a 
pursuit  which  palled  in  the  first  moment  of  success, 
and  was  second  to  his  ambition  or  his  vanity — had  be- 
come, in  those  two  years  of  a  painter's  life,  a  thirst 
both  of  the  senses  and  the  imagination,  which  had 
usurped  the  very  throne  of  his  soul.  Like  the  Hindoo 
youth,  who  finds  the  gilded  plaything  of  his  childhood 
elevated  in  his  maturer  years  into  a  god,  he  bowed  his 
heart  to  what  he  held  so  lightly,  and  brought  the 
costly  sacrifice  of  time  and  thought  to  its  altars.  He 
had  fed  his  eyes  upon  the  divine  glories  of  the  pencil, 
and  upon  the  breathing  wonders  of  love  in  marble,  be- 
neath the  sky  and  in  the  dissolving  air  in  which  they 
rose  to  the  hand  of  inspiration ;  and  with  his  eye  dis- 
ciplined, and  his  blood  fused  with  taste  and  enthusi- 
asm, that  idolatry  of  beauty,  which  had  before  seemed 
sensual  or  unreal,  kindled  its  first  fires  in  his  mind, 
and  his  senses  were  intoxicated  with  the  incense. 
There  is  a  kind  of  compromise  in  the  effects  of  the 
atmosphere  and  arts  of  Italy.  If  the  intellect  takes 
a  warmer  hue  in  its  study  of  the  fair  models  of  an- 
tiquity, the  senses  in  turn  become  more  refined  and 
intellectual.  In  other  latitudes  and  lands  woman  is 
loved  more  coldly.  After  the  brief  reign  of  a  passion 
of  instinct,  she  is  happy  if  she  can  retain  her  empire 
by  habit,  or  the  qualities  of  the  heart.  That  divine 
form,  meant  to  assimilate  her  to  the  angels,  has  never 
been  recognised  by  the  dull  eye  that  should  have 
seen  in  it  a  type  of  her  soul.  To  the  love  of  the  painter 
or  the  statuary,  or  to  his  who  has  made  himself  con- 
versant with  their  models,  is  added  the  imperishable 
enthusiasm  of  a  captivating  and  exalted  study.  The 
mistress  of  his  heart  is  the  mistress  of  his  mind.  She 
is  the  breathing  realization  of  that  secret  ideal  which 
exists  in  every  mind,  but  which,  in  men  ignorant  of  the 
fine  arts,  takes  another  form,  and  becomes  a  woman's 
rival  and  usurper.  She  is  like  nothing  in  ambition — 
she  is  like  nothing  in  science  or  business — nothing  in 
out-of-door  pleasures.  If  politics,  or  the  chase,  or  the 
acquisition  of  wealth,  is  the  form  of  this  ruling  passion, 
she  is  unassociated  with  that  which  is  nearest  his  heart, 
and  he  returns  to  her  with  an  exhausted  interest  and  a 
flagging  fancy.  It  is  her  strongest  tie  upon  his  affec- 
tion, even,  that  she  is  his  refuge  when  unfit  for  that 
i  which  occupies  him  most — in  his  fatigue,  his  disap- 
I  pointment,  his  vacuity  of  head  and  heart.  He  thinks 
j  of  her  only  as  she  receives  him  in  his  most  worthless 
J  hours;  and,  as  his  refreshed  intellects  awake,  she  is 
forgotten  with  the  first  thought  of  his  favorite  theme — 
for  what  has  a  woman's  loveliness  to  do  with  that? 

Count  Basil  had  not  concluded  his  first  interview 
with  the  lady  Geraldine,  without  marvelling  at  the  new 
feelings  with  which  he  looked  upon  her.  He  had 
never  before  realized  her  singular  and  adorable  beauty. 
!  The  exquisitely  turned  head,  the  small  and  pearly 
i  ears,  the  spiritual  nostril,  the  softly  moulded  chin,  the 
clear  loftiness  of  expression  yet  inexpressible  delicacy 
and  brightness  in  the  lips,  and  a  throat  and  bust  than 
which  those  of  Faustina  in  the  delicious  marble  of  the 
Gallery  of  Florence  might  be  less  envied  by  the  queen 
of  love— his  gaze  wandered  over  these,  and  followed 
her  in  the  harmony  of  her  motions,  and  the  native  and 
unapproachable  grace  of  every  attitude;  and  the  pic- 
tures he  had  so  passionately  studied  seemed  to  fade  in 
his  mind,  and  the  statues  he  had  half  worshipped 
seemed  to  descend  from  their  pedestals  depreciated. 
The  lady  Geraldine,  for  the  first  time,  felt  his  eye. 
For  the  first  time  in  their  acquaintance,  she  was  of- 
fended with  its  regard.  Her  embarrassment  was  rend 
by  the  quick  dipfoniate,  and  at  that  moment  sprang 
into  being  a  passion,  which  perhaps  had  died  but  for 
the  conscious  acknowledgment  of  her  rebuke. 

Up  to  the  evening  in  the  Cascine,  with  which  the 


452 


INKLINGS  OF  ADVENTURE. 


second  chapter  of  this  simply  true  tale  commences, 
but  one  of  the  two  leading  threads  in  the  count  Basil's 
woof  had  woven  well.  "  The  jealous  are  the  damned," 
and  the  daily  and  deadly  agony  of  the  marchesa  del 
Marmore  was  a  dark  ground  from  which  his  love  to 
the  lady  Geraldine  rose  to  his  own  eye  in  heightened 
relief.  His  dearest  joy  forwarded  with  equal  step  his 
dearest  revenge ;  and  while  he  could  watch  the  work- 
ing of  his  slow  torture  in  the  fascinated  heart  of  his 
victim,  he  was  content  to  suspend  a  blow  to  which 
that  of  death  would  be  a  mercy.  "  The  law,"  said 
Count  Basil,  as  he  watched  her  quivering  and  im- 
ploring lip,  "takes  cognizance  but  of  the  murder  of 
the  body.  It  has  no  retribution  for  the  keener  dagger 
of  the  sowL" 

III. 

The  conversation  between  the  Russian  secretary 
and  the  prince  Poniatowski  ended  at  last  in  a  graceful 
bow  from  the  former  to  his  horse's  neck;  and  the 
quicker  rattling  of  the  small  hoofs  on  the  ground,  as 
the  fine  creature  felt  the  movement  in  the  saddle  and 
prepared  to  bound  away,  drew  all  eyes  once  more 
upon  the  handsomest  and  most  idolized  gallant  of 
Florence.  The  narrow  lane  of  carriages,  commencing 
with  the  showy  caleche  of  the  marchesa  del  Marmore, 
and  closed  up  by  the  plain  chariot  of  the  lady  Geral- 
dine, was  still  open,  and  with  a  glance  at  the  latter 
which  sufficiently  indicated  his  destination,  Count 
Basil  raised  his  spurred  heel,  and  with  a  smile  of  de- 
light and  the  quickness  of  a  barb  in  the  desert,  gal- 
loped toward  the  opening.  In  the  same  instant  the 
marchesa  del  Marmore  gave  a  convulsive  spring  for- 
ward, and,  in  obedience  to  an  imperative  order,  her 
coachman  violently  drew  rein  and  shot  the  back  and 
forward  wheels  of  the  caleche  directly  across  his  path. 
Met  in  full  career  by  this  sudden  obstacle,  the  horse 
of  the  Russian  reared  high  in  air;  but  ere  the  screams 
of  apprehension  had  arisen  from  the  adjacent  carriages, 
the  silken  bridle  was  slacked,  and  with  a  low  bow  to 
the  foiled  and  beautiful  marchesa  as  he  shot  past,  he 
brushed  the  hammer-cloths  of  the  two  scarce  separa- 
ted carriages,  and  at  the  same  instant  stood  at  the 
chariot  window  of  the  lady  Geraldine,  as  calm  and 
respectful  as  if  he  had  never  known  danger  or  emotion. 

A  hundred  eyes  had  seen  the  expression  of  his  face 
as  he  leaped  past  the  unhappy  woman,  and  the  drama 
of  which  that  look  was  the  key  was  understood  in  Flor- 
ence. The  lady  Geraldine  alone,  seated  far  back  in 
her  chariot,  was  unconscious  of  the  risk  run  for  the 
smile  with  which  she  greeted  its  hero ;  and  uncon- 
scious, as  well,  of  the  poignant  jealousy  and  open  mor- 
tification she  had  innocently  assisted  to  inflict,  she 
stretched  her  fair  and  transparent  hand  from  the  car- 
riage, and  stroked  the  glossy  neck  of  his  horse,  and 
while  the  marchesa  del  Marmore  drove  past  with  a 
look  of  inexpressible  anguish  and  hate,  and  the  dis- 
persing nobles  and  dames  took  their  way  to  the  city 
gates,  Count  Basil  leaned  close  to  the  ear  of  that  love- 
liest of  breathing  creatures,  and  forgot,  as  she  forgot 
in  listening  to  the  bewildering  music  of  his  voice,  that 
the  stars  had  risen,  or  that  the  night  was  closing 
around  them. 

The  Cascine  had  long  been  silent  when  the  chariot 
of  the  lady  Geraldine  took  its  way  to  the  town,  and, 
with  the  reins  loose  upon  his  horse's  neck,  Count 
Basil  followed  at  a  slower  pace,  lost  in  the  revery  of  a 
tumultuous  passion.  The  sparkling  and  unobstructed 
stars  broke  through  the  leafy  roof  of  the  avenue  whose 
silence  was  disturbed  by  those  fine  and  light-stepping 
hoofs,  and  the  challenge  of  the  duke's  forester,  going 
his  rounds  ere  the  gates  closed,  had  its  own  deep- 
throated  echo  for  its  answer.  The  Arno  rippled 
among  the  rushes  on  its  banks,  the  occasional  roll  of 
wheels  passing  the  paved  arch  of  the  Ponte  Seraglio, 


came  faintly  down  the  river  upon  the  moist  wind,  the 
pointed  cypresses  of  the  convent  of  Bello  Sguardo 
laid  their  slender  fingers  against  the  lowest  stars  in  the 
southern  horizon,  and  with  his  feet  pressed,  carelessly, 
far  through  his  stirrups,  and  his  head  dropped  on  his 
bosom,  the  softened  diplomaie  turned  instinctively  to 
the  left  in  the  last  diverging  point  of  the  green  al- 
leys, and  his  horse's  ears  were  already  pricked  at 
the  tread,  before  the  gate,  of  the  watchful  and  idle 
doganieri. 

Close  under  the  city  wall  on  this  side  Florence, 
the  traveller  will  remember  that  the  trees  are  more 
thickly  serried,  and  the  stone  seats,  for  the  comfort 
and  pleasure  of  those  who  would  step  forth  from  the 
hot  streets  for  an  hour  of  fresh  air  and  rest,  are  mossy 
with  the  depth  of  the  perpetual  shade.  In  the  midst 
of  this  dark  avenue,  the  unguided  animal  beneath  the 
careless  and  forgetful  rider  suddenly  stood  still,  and 
the  next  moment  starting  aside,  a  female  sprang  high 
against  his  neck,  and  Count  Basil,  ere  awake  from  his 
revery,  felt  the  glance  of  a  dagger-blade  across  his  bo- 
som. 

With  the  slender  wrist  that  had  given  the  blow 
firmly  arrested  in  his  left  hand,  the  count  Basil  slowly 
dismounted,  and  after  a  steadfast  look,  by  the  dim 
light,  into  the  face  of  the  lovely  assassin,  he  pressed 
her  fingers  respectfully,  and  with  well  counterfeited 
emotion,  to  his  lips. 

"  Twice  since  the  Ave-Maria  !"  he  said  in  atone  of 
reproachful  tenderness,  "  and  against  a  life  that  is  your 
own  !" 

He  could  see,  even  in  that  faint  light,  the  stern  com- 
pression of  those  haughty  lips,  and  the  flash  of  the 
darkest  eyes  of  the  Val  d'Arno.  But  leading  her  gen- 
tly to  a  seat,  he  sat  beside  her,  and  with  scarce  ten 
brief  moments  of  low-toned  and  consummate  elo- 
quence, he  once  more  deluded  her  soul ! 

"  We  meet  to-morrow,"  she  said,  as,  after  a  burst 
of  irrepressible  tears,  she  disengaged  herself  from  his 
neck,  and  looked  toward  the  end  of  the  avenue,  where 
Count  Basil  had  already  heard  the  pawing  of  her  im- 
patient horses. 

"  To-morrow!"  he  answered  ;  "  but,m?'a  carissima!" 
he  continued,  opening  his  breast  to  stanch  the  blood  of 
his  wound,  "you  owe  me  a  concession  after  this  rude 
evidence  of  your  love." 

She  looked  into  his  face  as  if  answer  were  superflu- 
ous. 

"  Drive  to  my  palazzo  at  noon,  and  remain  with  me 
till  the  Ave-Maria." 

For  but  half  a  moment  the  impassioned  Italian  hesi- 
tated. Though  the  step  he  demanded  of  her  was  ap- 
parently without  motive  or  reason — though  it  was  one 
that  sacrificed  to  a  whim  her  station,  her  fortune,  and 
her  friends — she  hesitated  but  to  question  her  reason 
if  the  wretched  price  of  this  sacrifice  would  be  paid — 
if  the  love,  to  which  she  fled  from  this  world  and  heav- 
en, was  her  own.  In  other  countries,  the  crime  of  in- 
fidelity is  punished  :  in  Italy  it  is  the  appearance  only 
that  is  criminal.  In  proportion  as  the  sin  is  overlook- 
ed, the  violation  of  the  outward  proprieties  of  life  is 
severely  visited  ;  and  while  a  lover  is  stipulated  for  iff 
the  marriage-contract,  an  open  visit  to  that  lover'* 
house  is  an  offence  which  brands  the  perpetrator  with 
irremediable  shame.  The  marchesa  del  Marmore 
well  knew  that  in  going  forth  from  the  ancestral  pal- 
ace of  her  husband  on  a  visit  to  Count  Basil,  she  took 
leave  of  it  for  ever.  The  equipage  that  would  bear 
her  to  him  would  never  return  for  her  ;  the  protection, 
the  fortune,  the  noble  relations,  the  troops  of  friends, 
would  all  drop  from  her.  In  the  pride  of  her  youth 
and  beauty — from  the  highest  pinnacle  of  rank — from 
the  shelter  of  fortune  and  esteem — she  would  descend, 
by  a  single  step,  to  be  a  beggar  for  life  and  love  from 
the  mercy  of  the  heart  she  fled  to  ! 

"  I  will   come,"  she  said,  in   a   firm  voice,  looking 


INKLINGS  OF  ADVENTURE. 


453 


close  into  his  face,  as  if  she  would  read  in  his  dim  fea- 
tures the  prophetic  answer  of  his  soul. 

The  count  Basil  strained  her  to  his  bosom,  and  start- 
in<*  back  as  if  with  the  pain  of  his  wound,  he  pleaded 
the  necessity  of  a  surgeon,  and  bade  her  a  hasty  good- 
night. And  while  she  gained  her  own  carriage  in  se- 
crecy, he  rode  round  to  the  other  gate,  which  opens 
upon  the  Borg'ognisanti,  and  dismounting  at  the 
Cafe  Colonna,  where  the  artists  were  at  this  hour  usu- 
ally assembled,  he  sought  out  his  fellow-traveller, 
Giannino  Speranza,  who  had  sketched  the  marchesa 
upon  the  lagoon,  and  made  an  appointment  with  him 
for  the  morrow. 

IV. 

While  the  count  Basil's  revenge  sped  thus  merrily, 
the  just  Fates  were  preparing  for  him  a  retribution  in 
his  love.  The  mortification  of  the  marchesa  del  Mar- 
more,  at  the  Cascine,  had  been  made  the  subject  of 
conversation  at  the  prima  sera  of  the  lady  Geraldine  ; 
and  other  details  of  the  same  secret  drama  transpiring 
at  the  same  time,  the  whole  secret  of  Count  Basil's 
feelings  toward  that  unfortunate  woman  flashed  clearly 
and  fully  upon  her.  His  motives  for  pretending  to 
have  drawn  the  portrait  of  the  lagoon — for  procuring 
her  an  admission  to  the  exclusive  suppers  of  the  Pitti 
— for  a  thousand  things  which  had  been  unaccounta- 
ble, or  referred  to  more  amiable  causes — were  at  once 
unveiled.  Even  yet,  with  no  suspicion  of  the  extent 
of  his  revenge,  the  lady  Geraldine  felt  an  indignant  pity 
for  the  unconscious  victim,  and  a  surprised  disappro- 
val of  the  character  thus  unmasked  to  her  eye.  Upon 
further  reflection,  her  brow  flushed  to  remember  that 
she  herself  had  been  made  the  most  effective  tool  of 
his  revenge  ;  and  as  she  recalled  circumstance  after 
circumstance  in  the  last  month's  history,  the  attention 
and  preference  he  had  shown  her,  and  which  had  grat- 
ified her,  perhaps,  more  than  she  admitted  to  herself, 
seemed  to  her  sensitive  and  resentful  mind  to  have 
been  only  the  cold  instruments  of  jealousy.  Incapable 
as  she  was  of  an  unlawful  passion,  the  unequalled  fas- 
cinations of  Count  Basil  had  silently  found  their  way 
to  her  heart,  and  if  her  indignation  was  kindled  by  a 
sense  of  justice  and  womanly  pity,  it  was  fed  and 
fanned  unaware  by  mortified  pride.  She  rang,  and 
sent  an  order  to  the  gate  that  she  was  to  be  denied  for 
the  future  to  Count  Basil  Spirifort. 

The  servant  had  appeared  with  his  silver  tray  in  his 
hand,  and  before  leaving  her  presence  to  communi- 
cate the  order,  he  presented  her  with  a  letter.  Well 
foreseeing  the  eclaircissement  which  must  follow  the 
public  scene  in  the  Cascine,  the  count  Basil  had  left 
the  cafe  for  his  own  palazzo ;  and,  in  a  letter,  of  which 
the  following  is  the  passage  most  important  to  our 
story,  he  revealed  to  the  lady  he  loved  a  secret,  which 
he  hoped  would  anticipate  the  common  rumor : — 

*****  "But  these  passionate  words  will  have 
offended  your  ear,  dearest  lady,  and  1  must  pass  to  a 
theme  on  which  I  shall  be  less  eloquent.  You  will 
hear  to-night,  perhaps,  that  which,  with  all  your  im- 
agination, will  scarce  prepare  you  for  what  you  will 
hear  to-morrow.  The  marchesa  del  Marmore  is  the 
victim  of  a  revenge  which  has  only  been  second  in  my 
heart  to  the  love  I  have  for  the  first  time  breathed  to 
you.  I  can  never  hope  that  you  will  either  under- 
stand or  forgive  the  bitterness  in  which  it  springs  ;  yet 
it  is  a  demon  to  which  I  am  delivered,  soul  and  body, 
and  no  spirit  but  my  own  can  know  its  power.  When 
I  have  called  it  by  its  name,  and  told  you  of  its  exas- 
peration, if  you  do  not  pardon,  you  will  pity  me. 

"  You  know  that  I  am  a  Russian,  and  you  know  the 
station  my  talents  have  won  me  ;  but  you  do  not  know 
that  I  was  born  a  serf  and  a  slave  !  If  you  could  rend 
open  my  heart  and  see  the  pool  of  blackness  and  bit- 
terness that  lies  in  its  bottom — fallen,  drop  by  drop, 


from  this  accursed  remembrance — there  would  be  lit- 
tle need  to  explain  to  you  how  this  woman  has  offend- 
ed me.  Had  I  been  honorably  born,  like  yourself,  I 
feel  that  I  could  have  been,  like  you,  an  angel  of  light : 
as  it  is,  the  contumely  of  a  look  has  stirred  me  to  a 
revenge  which  has  in  it,  I  do  not  need  to  be  told,  the 
darkest  elements  of  murder. 

"  My  early  history  is  of  no  importance,  yet  I  may 
tell  you  it  was  such  as  to  expose  to  every  wind  this 
lacerated  nerve.  In  a  foreign  land,  and  holding  an 
official  rank,  it  was  seldom  breathed  upon.  I  wore, 
mostly,  a  gay  heart  at  Paris.  In  my  late  exile  at  Ven- 
ice I  had  time  to  brood  upon  my  dark  remembrance, 
and  it  was  revived  and  fed  by  the  melancholy  of  my 
solitude.  The  obscurity  in  which  I  lived,  and  the  oc- 
casional comparison  between  myself  and  some  passing 
noble  in  the  Piazza,  served  to  remind  me,  could  I  have 
forgotten  it.  I  never  dreamed  of  love  in  this  humble 
disguise,  and  so  never  felt  the  contempt  that  had  most 
power  to  wound  me.  On  receiving  the  letters  of  my 
new  appointment,  however,  this  cautious  humility  did 
not  wait  to  be  put  off  with  my  sombrero.  I  started 
for  Florence,  clad  in  the  habiliments  of  poverty,  but 
with  the  gay  mood  of  a  courtier  beneath.  The  first 
burst  of  my  newly-released  feelings  was  admiration  for 
a  woman  of  singular  beauty,  who  stood  n6ar  me  on 
one  of  the  most  love-awakening  and  delicious  eves 
that  I  ever  remember.  My  heart  was  overflowing,  and 
she  permitted  me  to  breathe  my  passionate  adoration 
in  her  ear.  The  marchesa  del  Marmore,  but  for  the 
scorn  of  the  succeeding  day,  would,  I  think,  have  been 
the  mistress  of  my  soul.  Strangely  enough,  I  had 
seen  you  without  loving  you. 

"  I  have  told  you,  as  a  bagatelle  that  might  amuse 
you,  my  rencontre  with  del  Marmore  and  his  dame  in 
the  cathedral  of  Bologna.  The  look  she  gave  me 
there  sealed  her  doom.  It  was  witnessed  by  the  com- 
panions of  my  poverty,  and  the  concentrated  resent 
ment  of  years  sprang  up  at  the  insult.  Had  it  been  a 
man,  I  must  have  struck  him  dead  where  he  stood  : 
she  was  a  woman,  and  I  swore  the  downfall  of  her 
pride."  *  *  * 

Thus  briefly  dismissing  the  chief  topic  of  his  letter, 
Count  Basil  returned  to  the  pleading  of  his  love.  It 
was  dwelt  on  more  eloquently  than  his  revenge  ;  but 
as  the  lady  Geraldine  scarce  read  it  to  the  end,  it  need 
not  retard  the  procession  of  events  in  our  story.  The 
fair  Englishwoman  sat  down  beneath  the  Etruscan 
lamp,  whose  soft  light  illumined  a  brow  cleared,  as  if 
by  a  sweep  from  the  wing  of  her  good  angel,  of  the 
troubled  dream  which  had  overhung  it,  and  in  brief 
and  decided,  but  kind  and  warning  words,  replied  to 
the  letter  of  Count  Basil. 


It  was  noon  on  the  following  day,  and  the  Contadini 
from  the  hills  were  settling  to  their  siesta  on  the  steps 
of  the  churches,  and  against  the  columns  of  the  Piaz- 
za del  Gran'  Duca.  The  artists  alone,  in  the  cool  gal- 
lery, and  in  the  tempered  halls  of  the  Pitti,  shook  off 
the  drowsiness  of  the  hour,  and  strained  sight  and 
thought  upon  the  immortal  canvass  from  which  they 
drew  ;  while  the  sculptor,  in  his  brightening  studio, 
weary  of  the  mallet,  yet  excited  by  the  bolder  light, 
leaned  on  the  rough  block  behind  him,  and  with  list- 
less body  but  wakeful  and  fervent  eye,  studied  the  last 
touches  upon  his  marble. 

Prancing  hoofs,  and  the  sharp  quick  roll  peculiar  to 
the  wheels  of  carriages  of  pleasure,  awakened  the  aris- 
tocratic sleepers  of  the  Via  del  Servi,  and  wnh  a  lash 
and  jerk  of  violence,  the  coachman  of  the  marchesa 
del  Marmore,  enraged  at  the  loss  of  his  noonday  re- 
pose, brought  up  her  showy  caliche  at  the  door  of 
Count  Basil  Spirifort.    The  fair  occupant  of  that  luxu- 


454 


INKLINGS  OF  ADVENTURE. 


rious  vehicle  was  pale,  but  the  brightness  of  joy  and 
hope  burned  almost  fiercely  in  her  eye. 

The  doors  flew  open  as  the  marchesa  descended, 
and  following  a  servant  in  the  count's  livery,  of  whom 
she  asked  no  question,  she  found  herself  in  a  small  sa- 
loon, furnished  with  the  peculiar  luxury  which  marks 
the  apartment  of  a  bachelor,  and  darkened  like  a  paint- 
er's room.  The  light  came  in  from  a  single  tall  win- 
dow, curtained  below,  and  under  it  stood  an  easel,  at 
which,  on  her  first  entrance,  a  young  man  stood 
sketching  the  outline  of  a  female  head.  As  she  ad- 
vanced, looking  eagerly  around  for  another  face,  the 
artist  laid  down  his  palette,  and  with  a  low  reverence 
presented  her  with  a  note  from  Count  Basil.  It  in- 
formed her  that  political  news  of  the  highest  impor- 
tance had  called  him  suddenly  to  the  cabinet  of  his 
chef,  but  that  he  hoped  to  be  with  her  soon  ;  and, 
meantime,  he  begged  of  her,  as  a  first  favor  in  his 
newly-prospered  love,  to  bless  him  with  the  possession 
of  her  portrait,  done  by  the  incomparable  artist  who 
would  receive  her. 

Disappointment  and  vexation  overwhelmed  the  heart 
of  the  marchesa,  and  she  burst  into  tears.  She  read 
the  letter  again,  and  grew  calmer;  for  it  was  laden  with 
epithets  of  endearment,  and  seemed  to  her  written  in 
the  most  Sudden  haste.  Never  doubting  for  an  instant 
the  truth  of  his  apology,  she  removed  her  hat,  and 
with  a  look  at  the  deeply-shaded  mirror,  while  she 
shook  out  from  their  confinement  the  masses  of  her 
luxuriant  hair,  she  approached  the  painter's  easel,  and 
with  a  forced  cheerfulness  inquired  in  what  attitude 
she  should  sit  to  him. 

"  If  the  signora  will  amuse  herself,"  he  replied, 
with  a  bow,  "  it  will  be  easy  to  compose  the  picture, 
and  seize  the  expression  without  annoying  her  with  a 
pose." 

Relieved  thus  of  any  imperative  occupation,  the  un- 
happy marchesa  seated  herself  by  a  table  of  intaglios 
and  prints,  and  while  she  apparently  occupied  herself 
in  the  examination  of  these  specimens  of  art,  she  was 
delivered,  as  her  tormentor  had  well  anticipated,  to  the 
alternate  tortures  of  impatience  and  remorse.  And 
while  the  hours  wore  on,  and  her  face  paled,  and  her 
eyes  grew  bloodshot  with  doubt  and  fear,  the  skilful 
painter,  forgetting  everything  in  the  enthusiasm  of  his 
art,  and  forgotten  utterly  by  his  unconscious  subject, 
transferred  too  faithfully  to  the  canvass  that  picture  of 
agonized  expectation. 

The  afternoon,  meantime,  had  worn  away,  and  the 
gay  world  of  Florence,  from  the  side  toward  Fiesole, 
rolled  past  the  Via  dei  Servi  on  their  circuitous  way 
to  the  Cascine,  and  saw,  with  dumb  astonishment,  the 
carriage  and  liveries  of  the  marchesa  del  Marmore  at 
the  door  of  Count  Basil  Spirifort.  On  they  swept  by 
the  Via  Mercata  Nova  to  the  Lung'  Arno,  and  there 
their  astonishment  redoubled  :  for  in  the  window  of 
the  Casino  dei  Nobili,  playing  with  a  billiard-cue,  and 
laughing  with  a  group  of  lounging  exquisites,  stood 
Count  Basil  himself,  the  most  unoccupied  and  listless 
of  sunset  idlers.  There  was  but  one  deduction  to  be 
drawn  from  this  sequence  of  events ;  and  when  they 
remembered  the  demonstration  of  passionate  jealousy 
on  the  previous  evening  in  the  Cascine,  Count  Basil, 
evidently  innocent  of  participation  in  her  passion,  was 
deemed  a  persecuted  man,  and  the  marchesa  del  Mar- 
more  was  lost  to  herself  and  the  world  ! 

Three  days  after  this  well-remembered  circumstance 
in  the  history  of  Florence,  an  order  was  received  from 
the  grand-duke  to  admit  into  the  exhibition  of  mod- 
ern artists  a  picture  by  a  young  Venetian  painter,  an 
eleve  of  Count  Basil  Spirifort.  It  was  called  "  The 
Lady  expecting  an  Inconstant,"  and  had  been  pro- 
nounced by  a  virtuoso,  who  had  seen  it  on  private 
view,  to  be  a  masterpiece  of  expression  and  color.  It 
was  instantly  and  indignantly  recognised  as  the  por- 
trait of  the  unfortunate  marchesa,  whose  late  aban- 


donment of  her  husband  was  fresh  on  the  lips  of  com- 
mon rumor ;  but  ere  it  could  be  officially  removed, 
the  circumstance  had  been  noised  abroad,  and  the 
picture  had  been  seen  by  all  the  curious  in  Florence. 
The  order  for  its  removal  was  given  ;  but  the  purpose 
of  Count  Basil  had  been  effected,  and  the  name  of  the 
unhappy  marchesa  had  become  a  jest  on  the  vulgar 
tongue. 

This  tale  had  not  been  told,  had  there  not  been 
more  than  a  common  justice  in  its  sequel.  The  worst 
passions  of  men,  in  common  life,  are  sometimes  in- 
scrutably prospered.  The  revenge  of  Count  Basil, 
however,  was  betrayed  by  the  last  which  completed 
it ;  and  while  the  victim  of  his  fiendish  resentment 
finds  a  peaceful  asylum  in  England  under  the  roof  of 
the  compassionate  Lady  Geraldine,  the  once  gay  and 
admired  Russian  wanders  from  city  to  city,  followed 
by  an  evil  reputation,  and  stamped  unaccountably  as  a 
jattatore.* 


LOVE  AND  DIPLOMACY. 

"  Pray  pardon  me, 
For  I  am  like  a  boy  that  hath  found  money- 
Afraid  I  dream  still." 

Ford  or  Webster. 

It  was  on  a  fine  September  evening,  within  my  time 
(and  I  am  not,  I  trust,  too  old  to  be  loved),  that  Count 

Anatole  L ,  of  the  impertinent  and  particularly 

useless  profession  of  attache,  walked  up  and  down  be- 
fore the  glass  in  his  rooms  at  the  "Archduke  Charles," 
the  first  hotel,  as  you  know,  if  you  have  travelled,  in 
the  green-belted  and  fair  city  of  Vienna.  The  brass 
ring  was  still  swinging  on  the  end  of  the  bell-rope,  and, 
in  a  respectful  attitude  at  the  door,  stood  the  just- 
summoned  Signor  Attilio,  valet  and  privy  councillor 
to  one  of  the  handsomest  coxcombs  errant  through 
the  world.  Signor  Attilio  was  a  Tyrolese,  and,  like 
his  master,  was  very  handsome. 

Count  Anatole  had  been  idling  away  three  golden 
summer  months  in  the  Tyrol,  for  the  sole  purpose, 
as  far  as  mortal  eyes  could  see,  of  disguising  his  fine 
Phidian  features  in  a  callow  mustache  and  whiskers. 
The  crines  ridentes  (as  Eneas  Sylvius  has  it)  being  now 
in  a  condition  beyond  improvement,  Signor  Attilio  had 
for  some  days  been  rather  curious  to  know  what  course 
of  events  would  next  occupy  the  diplomatic  talents  of 
his  master. 

After  a  turn  or  two  more,  taken  in  silence,  Count 
Anatole  stopped  in  the  middle  of  the  floor,  and  eying 
the  well-made  Tyrolese  from  head  to  foot,  begged  to 
know  if  he  wore  at  the  present  moment  his  most  be- 
coming breeches,  jacket,  and  beaver. 

Attilio  was  never  astonished  at  anything  his  master 
did  or  said.     He  simply  answered,  "Si,  signore." 

"  Be  so  kind  as  to  strip  immediately,  and  dress  your- 
self in  that  travelling  suit  lying  on  the  sofa." 

As  the  green,  gold-corded  jacket,  knee-breeches, 
buckles,  and  stockings,  were  laid  aside,  Count  Anatole 
threw  off  his  dressing-gown,  and  commenced  encasing 
his  handsome  proportions  in  the  cast-off  habiliments. 
He  then  put  on  the  conical,  slouch-rimmed  hat,  with 
the  tall  eagle's-feather  stuck  jauntily  on  the  side,  and 
the  two  rich  tassels  pendant  over  his  left  eye  ;  and,  the 
toilet  of  the  valet  being  completed  at  the  same  moment, 
they  stood  looking  at  one  another  with  perfect  gravity 
— rathertransformed,  but  each  apparently  quite  at  home 
in  his  new  character. 

"  You  look  very  like  a  gentleman,  Attilio,"  said  the 
count. 

"  Your  excellency  has  caught  to  admiration,  Varia 


*  A  man  with  an  evil  eye. 


INKLINGS  OF  ADVENTURE. 


455 


del  paese"  complimented  back  again  the  sometime 
Tyrolese. 

"  Attilio!" 
"  Signore?" 

"  Do  you  remember  the  lady  in  the  forest  of 
Friuli  ?" 

Attilio  began  to  have  a  glimmering  of  things.  Some 
three  months  before,  the  count  was  dashing  on  at  a 
rapid  post-pace  through  a  deep  wood  in  the  moun- 
tains which  head  in  the  Adriatic.  A  sudden  pull-up 
at  a  turning  in  the  road  nearly  threw  him  from  his 
britska  ;  and  looking  out  at  the  "  anima  di  porco  /"  of 
the  postilion,  he  found  his  way  impeded  by  an  overset 
carriage,  from  which  three  or  four  servants  were  en- 
deavoring to  extract  the  body  of  an  old  man,  killed 
by  the  accident. 

There  was  more  attractive  metal  for  the  traveller, 
however,  in  the  shape  of  a  young  and  beautiful  woman,  j 
leaning,  pale  and  faint,  against  a  tree,  and   apparently  j 
about lo  sink  to  the  ground,  unassisted.     To  bring  a 
hat  full  of  water  from  the  nearest  brook,  and  receive  j 
her  falling  head  on  his  shoulder,  was  the  work    of  a 
thought.      She  had  fainted  quite  away,  and  taking  her, 
like  a  child,  into  his  arms,  he  placed  her  on  a  bank  by  j 
the  road-side,  bathed  her  forehead  and  lips,  and  chafed 
her  small  white  hands,  till  his  heart,  with  all  the  dis-  I 
tress  of  the  scene,  was  quite  mad  with  her  perfect  ! 
beauty. 

Animation  at  last  began  to  return,  and  as  the  flush 
was  stealing  into  her  lips,  another  carriage  drove  up 
with  servants  in  the  same  livery,  and  Count  Anatole, 
thoroughly  bewildered  in  his  new  dream,  mechanically 
assisted  them  in  getting  their  living  mistress  and  dead 
master  into  it,  and  until  they  were  fairly  out  of  sight, 
it  had  never  occurred  to  him  that  he  might  possibly 
wish  to  know  the  name  and  condition  of  the  fairest 
piece  of  work  he  had  ever  seen  from  the  hands  of  his 
Maker. 

An  hour  before,  he  had  doubled  his  bono  mano  to 
the  postilion,  and  was  driving  on  to  Vienna  as  if  to  sit 
at  a  new  congress.  Now,  he  stood  leaning  against  the 
tree,  at  the  foot  of  which  the  grass  and  wild  flowers 
showed  the  print  of  a  new-made  pressure,  and  the 
postilion  cracked  his  whip,  and  Attilio  reminded  him 
of  the  hour  he  was  losing,  in  vain. 

He  remounted  after  a  while  ;  but  the  order  was  to 
go  back  to  the  last  post-house. 

Three  or  four  months  at  a  solitary  albergo  in  the 
neighborhood  of  this  adventure,  passed  by  the  count 
in  scouring  the  country  on  horseback  in  every  direc- 
tion, and  by  his  servant  in  very  particular  ennui,  brings 
up  the  story  nearly  to  where  the  scene  opens. 
"  I  have  seen  her!"  said  the  count. 
Attilio  only  lilted  up  his  eyebrows. 
"She  is  here,  in  Vienna!" 
"Felice  lei!"  murmured  Attilio. 
"  She    is   the    princess   Leichstenfels,  and,   by  the 
death  of  that  old  man,  a  widow." 

"  VcramentcV  responded  the  valet,  with  a  rising 
inflexion  ;  for  he  knew  his  master  and  French  morals 
too  well  not  to  foresee  a  damper  in  the  possibility  of 
matrimony. 

"  Veramenle .'"  gravely  echoed  the  count.  "And 
now  listen.  The  princess  lives  in  close  retirement. 
An  old  friend  or  two,  and  a  tried  servant,  are  the  only 
persons  who  see  her.  You  are  to  contrive  to  see  this 
servant  to-morrow,  corrupt  him  to  leave  her,  and  rec- 
ommend me  in  his  place,  and  then  you  are  to  take 
him  as  your  courier  to  Paris  ;  whence,  if  I  calculate 
well,  you  will  return  to  me  before  long,  with  impor- 
tant despatches.  Do  you  understand  me  ?" 
"  Signor,  si !" 

In  the  small  boudoir  of  a  masio  de  plaisancc,  be- 
longing to  the  noble  family  of  Leichstenfels,  sat  the 
widowed  mistress  of  one  of  the  oldest  titles  and  finest 
estates  of  Austria.     The  light  from  a  single  long  win- 


dow opening  down  to  the  floor  and  leading  out  upon 
a  terrace  of  flowers,  was  subdued  by  a  heavy  crimson 
curtain,  looped  partially  away,  a  pastille  lamp  was 
sending  up  from  its  porphyry  pedestal  a  thin  and  just 
perceptible  curl  of  smoke,  through  which  the  lady 
musingly  passed  backward  and  forward  one  of  her 
slender  fingers,  and,  on  a  table  near,  lay  a  sheet  of 
black-edged  paper,  crossed  by  a  small  silver  pen,  and 
scrawled  over  irregularly  with  devices  and  discon- 
nected words,  the  work  evidently  of  a  fit  of  the  most 
absolute  and  listless  idleness. 

The  door  opened,  and  a  servant  in  mourning  livery 
stood  before  the  lady. 

"  I  have  thought  over  your  request,  Wilhelm,"  she 
said.  "  I  had  become  accustomed  to  your  services, 
and  regret  to  lose  you;  but  I  should  regret  more  to 
stand  in  the  way  of  your  interest.  You  have  my  per- 
mission." 

Wilhelm  expressed  his  thanks  with  an  effort  that 
showed  he  had  not  obeyed  the  call  of  mammon  with- 
out regret,  and  requested  leave  to  introduce  the  person 
he  had  proposed  as  his  successor. 
"  Of  what  country  is  he  ?" 
"Tyrolese,  your  excellency." 

"And  why  does  he  leave  the  gentleman  with  whom 
he  came  to  Vienna?" 

"II  est  amoureux  d'une  Viennaise,  madamc,"  an 
swered  the  ex-valet,  resorting  to  French  to  express 
what  he  considered  a  delicate  circumstance. 

"Pauvre  enfant!"  said  the  princess,  with  a  sigh 
that  partook  as  much  of  envy  as  of  pity  ;  let  him 
come  in!" 

And  the  count  Anatole,  as  the  sweet  accents  reached 
his  ear,  stepped  over  the  threshold,  and  in  the  coarse 
but  gay  dress  of  the  Tyrol,  stood  in  the  presence  of 
her  whose  dewy  temples  he  had  bathed  in  the  forest, 
whose  lips  he  had  almost  "pried  into  for  breath," 
whose  snowy  hands  he  had  chafed  and  kissed  when  the 
senses  had  deserted  their  celestial  organs— the  angel 
of  his  perpetual  dream,  the  lady  of  his  wild  and  un- 
controllable, but  respectful  and  honorable  love. 

The  princess  looked  carelessly  up  as  he  approached, 
but  her  eyes  seemed  arrested  in  passing  over  his  fea- 
tures. It  was  but  momentary.  She  resumed  her 
occupation  of  winding  her  taper  fingers  in  the  smoke- 
curls  of  the  incense-lamp,  and  with  half  a  sigh,  as  if 
she  had  repelled  a  pleasing  thought,  she  leaned  back 
in  the  silken  fauteuil,  and  asked  the  new-comer  his 
name. 

"Anatole,  your  excellency." 

The  voice  again  seemed  to  stir  something  in  her 
memory.  She  passed  her  hand  over  her  eyes,  and 
was  for  a  moment  lost  in  thought. 

"Anatole,"  she  said  (oh,  how  the  sound  of  his  own 
name,  murmured  in  that  voice  of  music  thrilled 
through  the  fiery  veins  of  the  disguised  lover!) 
"Anatole,  I  receive  you  into  my  service.  Wilhelm 
will  inform  you  of  your  duties,  and — I  have  a  fancy 
for  the  dress  of  the  Tyrol— you  may  wear  it  instead 
of  my  livery,  if  you  will." 

And  with  one  stolen  and  warm  gaze  from  under  his 
drooping  eyelids,  and  heart  and  lips  on  fire,  as  he 
thanked  her  for  her  condescension,  the  new  retainer 
took  his  leave. 

Month  after  month  passed  on— to  Count  Anatole  in 
a  bewildering  dream  of  ever  deepening  passion.  Jt 
was  upon  a  soft  and  amorous  morning  oi  April,  that  a 
dashing  equipage  stood  at  the  door  of  the  proud  palace 

of  Leichstenfels.     The  arms  of  E blazed  on  the 

panels,  and  the  insoucianls  chasseurs  leaned  against 
[he  marble  columns  of  the  portico,  waiting  for  their 
master,  and  speculating  on  the  gayety  likely  to  ensue 
from  the  suite  he  was  prosecuting  within.     How  could 

a  prince  of  E be  supposed  to  sue  in  vain  ? 

The  disguised  footman  had  ushered  the  gay  and 
handsome  nobleman  to  his  mistress'  presence. 


After 


456 


INKLINGS  OF  ADVENTURE. 


rearranging  a  family  of  very  well-arranged  flower- 
pots, shutting  the  window  to  open  it  again,  changing 
the  folds  of  the  curtains  not  at  all  for  the  better,  and 
looking  a  stolen  and  fierce  look  at  the  unconscious 
visiter,  he  could  find  no  longer  an  apology  for  remain- 
ing in  the  room.  He  shut  the  door  after  him  in  a 
tempest  of  jealousy. 

"Did  your  excellency  ring?"  said  he,  opening  the 
door  again,  after  a  few  minutes  of  intolerable  torture. 

The  prince  was  on  his  knees  at  her  feet ! 

"  No,  Anatole ;  but  you  may  bring  me  a  glass  of 
water." 

As  he  entered  with  a  silver  tray  trembling  in  his 
hand,  the  prince  was  rising  to  go.  His  face  expressed 
delight,  hope,  triumph — everything  that  could  mad- 
den the  soul  of  the  irritated  lover.  After  waiting  on 
his  rival  to  his  carriage,  he  returned  to  his  mistress, 
and  receiving  the  glass  upon  the  tray,  was  about 
leaving  the  room  in  silence,  when  the  princess  called 
to  him. 

In  all  this  lapse  of  time  it  is  not  to  be  supposed  that 
Count  Anatole  played  merely  his  footman's  part.  His 
respectful  and  elegant  demeanor,  the  propriety  of  his 
language,  and  that  deep  devotedness  of  manner  which 
wins  a  woman  more  than  all  things  else,  soon  gained 
upon  the  confidence  of  the  princess;  and  before  a 
week  was  passed  she  found  that  she  was  happier  when 
he  stood  behind  her  chair,  and  gave  him,  with  some 
self-denial,  those  frequent  permissions  of  absence  from 
the  palace  which  she  supposed  he  asked  to  prosecute 
the  amour  disclosed  to  her  on  his  introduction  to  her 
service.  As  time  flew  on,  she  attributed  his  earnest- 
ness and  occasional  warmth  of  manner  to  gratitude; 
and,  without  reasoning  much  on  her  feelings,  gave 
herself  up  to  the  indulgence  of  a  degree  of  interest  in 
him  which  would  have  alarmed  a  woman  more  skilled 
in  the  knowledge  of  the  heart.  Married  from  a  con- 
vent, however,  to  an  old  man  who  had  secluded  her 
from  the  world,  the  voice  of  the  passionate  count  in 
the  forest  of  Friuli  was  the  first  sound  of  love  that  had 
ever  entered  her  ears.  She  knew  not  why  it  was  that 
the  tones  of  her  new  footman,  and  now  and  then  a  look 
of  his  eyes,  as  he  leaned  over  to  assist  her  at  table, 
troubled  her  memory  like  a  trace  of  a  long-lost  dream. 

But,  oh,  what  moments  had  been  his  in  these  fleet- 
ing months!  Admitted  to  her  presence  in  her  most 
unguarded  hours — seeing  her  at  morning,  at  noon,  at 
night,  in  all  her  unstudied  and  surpassing  loveliness — 
for  ever  near  her,  and  with  the  world  shut  out — her 
rich  hair  blowing  with  the  lightest  breeze  across  his 
fingers  in  his  assiduous  service — her  dark  full  eyes, 
unconscious  of  an  observer,  filling  with  unrepressed 
tears,  or  glowing  with  pleasure  over  some  tale  of  love 
— her  exquisite  form  flung  upon  a  couch,  or  bending 
over  flowers,  or  moving  about  the  room  in  all  its  native 
and  untrammelled  grace — and  her  voice,  tender,  most 
tender  to  him,  though  she  knew  it  not,  and  her  eyes, 
herself  unaware,  ever  following  him  in  his  loitering 
attendance — and  he,  the  while,  losing  never  a  glance 
nor  a  motion,  but  treasuring  all  up  in  his  heart  with 
the  avarice  of  a  miser— what,  in  common  life,  though 
it  were  the  life  of  fortune's  most  favored  child,  could 
compare  with  it  for  bliss? 

Pale  and  agitated,  the  count  turned  back  at  the  call 
of  his  mistress,  and  stood  waiting  her  pleasure. 

"Anatole!" 

"Madame!" 

The  answer  was  so  low  and  deep  it  startled  even 
himself. 

She  motioned  him  to  come  nearer.  She  had  sunk 
upon  the  sofa,  and  as  he  stood  at  her  feet  she  leaned 
forward,  buried  her  hands  and  arms  in  the  long  curls 
which,  in  her  retirement,  she  allowed  to  float  luxuri- 
antly over  her  shoulders,  and  sobbed  aloud.     Over- 


come and  forgetful  of  all  but  the  distress  of  the  lovely 
creature  before  him,  the  count  dropped  upon  the  cush- 
ion on  which  rested  the  small  foot  in  its  mourning 
slipper,  and  taking  her  hand,  pressed  it  suddenly  and 
fervently  to  his  lips. 

The  reality  broke  upon  her!  She  was  beloved — 
but  by  whom?  A  menial !  and  the  appalling  answer 
drove  all  the  blood  of  her  proud  race  in  a  torrent  upon 
her  heart,  sweeping  away  all  affection  as  if  her  nature 
had  never  known  its  name.  She  sprang  to  her  feet, 
and  laid  her  hand  upon  the  bell. 

"Madame!"  said  Anatole,  in  a  cold  proud  tone. 

She  stayed  her  arm  to  listen. 

"I  leave  you  for  ever." 

And  again,  with  the  quick  revulsion  of  youth  and 
passion,  her  woman's  heart  rose  within  her,  and  she 
buried  her  face  in  her  hands,  and  dropped  her  head  in 
utter  abandonment  on  her  bosom. 

It  was  the  birthday  of  the  emperor,  and  the  courtly 
nobles  of  Austria  were  rolling  out  from  the  capital  to 
offer  their  congratulations  at  the  royal  palace  of 
Schoenbrunn.  In  addition  to  the  usual  attractions 
of  the  scene,  the  drawing-room  was  to  be  graced  by 
the  first  public  appearance  of  a  new  ambassador, 
whose  reputed  personal  beauty,  and  the  talents  he  had 
displayed  in  a  late  secret  negotiation,  had  set  the  whole 
court,  from  the  queen  of  Hungary  to  the  youngest 
dame  d'honneur,  in  a  flame  of  curiosity. 

To  the  prince  E there  was  another  reason  for 

writing  the  day  in  red  letters.  The  princess  Leich- 
stenfels,  by  an  express  message  from  the  emperess, 
was  to  throw  aside  her  widow's  weeds,  and  appear 
once  more  to  the  admiring  world.  She  had  yielded  \ 
to  the  summons,  but  it  was  to  be  her  last  day  of  splen- 
dor. Her  heart  and  hand  were  plighted  to  her  Ty- 
rolese  minion  ;  and  the  brightest  and  loveliest  ornament 
of  the  court  of  Austria,  when  the  ceremonies  of  the 
day  were  over,  was  to  lay  aside  the  costly  bauble 
from  her  shoulder,  and  the  glistening  tiara  from  her 
brow,  and  forget  rank  and  fortune  as  the  wife  of  his 
bosom  ! 

The  dazzling  hours  flew  on.  The  plain  and  kind 
old  emperor  welcomed  and  smiled  upon  all.  The 
wily  Metternich,  in  the  crime  of  his  successful  man- 
hood, cool,  polite,  handsome,  and  winning,  gathered 
golden  opinions  by  every  word  and  look  ;  the  young 
duke  of  Reichstadt,  the  mild  and  gentle  son  of  the 
struck  eagle  of  St.  Helena,  surrounded  and  caressed 
by  a  continual  cordon  of  admiring  women,  seemed  for- 
getful that  opportunity  and  expectation  awaited  him, 
like  two  angels  with  their  wings  outspread  ;  and  haugh- 
ty nobles  and  their  haughtier  dames,  statesmen,  schol- 
ars, soldiers,  and  priests,  crowded  upon  each  other's 
heels,  and  mixed  together  in  that  doubtful  podrida, 
which  goes  by  the  name  of  pleasure.  I  could  moralize 
here  had  I  time  ! 

The  princess  of  Leichstenfelshad  gone  through  the 
ceremony  of  presentation,  and  had  heard  the  murmur 
of  admiration,  drawn  by  her  beauty,  from  all  lips.  Diz- 
zy with  the  scene,  and  with  a  bosom  full  of  painful  and 
conflicting  emotions,  she  had  accepted  the  proffered 

arm  of  Prince  E to  breathe  a  fresher  air  upon 

the  terrace.  They  stood  near  a  window,  and  he  was 
pointing  out  to  his  fair  but  inattentive  companion  the 
various  characters  as  they- passed  within. 

"  I  must  contrive,"  said  the  prince,  "  to  show  you 
the  new  envoy.  Oh  !  you  have  not  heard  of  him. 
Beautiful  as  Narcissus,  modest  as  Pastor  Corydon, 
clever  as  the  prime  minister  himself,  this  paragon  of 
diplomatists  has  been  here  in  disguise  these  three 
months,  negotiating  about — Metternich  and  the  devil 
knows  what — but  rewarded  at  last  with  an  ambassa- 
dor's star,  and — but  here  he  is  :  Princess  Leichsten- 
fels,  permit  me  to  present " 

She  heard  no  more.     A  glance  from  the  diamond 


INKLINGS  OF  ADVENTURE. 


457 


\ 


star  on  his  breast  to  the  Hephaestion  mouth  and  keen 
dark  eye  of  Count  Anatole,  revealed  to  her  the  mys- 
tery of  months.  And  as  she  leaned  against  the  win- 
dow for  support,  the  hand  that  sustained  her  in  the 
forest  of  Friuli,  and  the  same  thrilling  voice,  in  almost 
the  same  never-forgotten  cadence,  offered  his  impas- 
sioned sympathy  and  aid — and  she  recognised  and  re- 
membered all. 

I  must  go  back  so  far  as  to  inform  you,  that  Count 
Anatole,  on  the  morning  of  this  memorable  day,  had 
sacrificed  a  silky  but  prurient  mustache,  and  a  pair 
of  the  very  sauciest  dark  whiskers  out  of  Coventry. 

Whether  the  prince  E recognised  in  the  new 

envoy  the  lady's  gentleman  who  so  inopportunely 
broke  in  upon  his  tender  avowal,  I  am  not  prepared  to 
say.  I  only  know  (for  I  was  there)  that  the  princess 
Leichstenfels  was  wedded  to  the  new  ambassador  in 

the  "  leafy  month  of  June  ;"  and  the  prince  E , 

unfortunately  prevented  by  illness  from  attending  the 
nuptials,  lost  a  very  handsome  opportunity  of  singing 
with  effect — 

"  If  she  be  not  fair  for  me" — 

supposing  it  translated  into  German. 

Whether  the  enamored  ambassadress  prefers  her 
husband  in  his  new  character,  I  am  equally  uncertain  ; 
though  from  much  knowledge  of  German  courts  and 
a  little  of  human  nature,  I  think  she  will  be  happy  if 
at  some  future  day  she  would  not  willingly  exchange 
her  proud  envoy  for  the  devoted  Tyrolese,  and  does 
not  sigh  that  she  can  no  more  bring  him  to  her  feet 
with  a  pull  of  a  silken  string. 


THE  MADHOUSE  OF  PALERMO, 

He  who  has  not  skimmed  over  the  silvery  waters  of 
the  Lipari,  with  a  summer  breeze  right  fro*  Italy  in 
his  topsails,  the  smoke  of  Stromboli  alone  staining  the 
unfathomable-looking  blue  of  the  sky,  and,  as  the  sun 
dipped  his  flaming  disk  in  the  sea,  put  up  his  helm  for 
the  bosom  of  La  Concha  cVOro,  the  Golden  Shell,  as 
they  beautifully  call  the  bay  of  Palermo  :  he  who  has 
not  thus  entered,  I  say,  to  the  fairest  spot  on  the  face 
of  this  very  fair  earth,  has  a  leaf  worth  the  turning  in 
his  book  of  observation. 

In  ten  minutes  after  dropping  the  anchor,  with  sky 
and  water  still  in  a  glow,  the  men  were  all  out  of  the 
rigging,  the  spars  of  the  tall  frigate  were  like  lines  pen- 
cilled on  the  sky,  the  band  played  inspiringly  on  the 
poop,  and  every  boat  along  the  gay  Marina  was  freight- 
ed with  fair  Palermitans  on  its  way  to  the  stranger 
ship. 

I  was  standing  with  the  officer-of-the-deck  by  the 
capstan,  looking  at  the  first  star  which  had  just  sprung 
into  its  place  like  a  thing  created  with  a  glance  of  the 
eye. 

"  Shall  we  let  the  ladies  aboard,  sir  ?"  said  a  smiling 
middy,  coming  aft  from  the  gangway. 

"  Yes,  sir.  And  tell  the  boatswain's  mate  to  clear 
away  for  a  dance  on  the  quarter-deck." 

In  most  of  the  ports  of  the  Mediterranean,  a  ship-of- 
war,  on  a  summer  cruise,  is  as  welcome  as  the  breeze 
from  the  sea.  Bringing  with  her  forty  or  fifty  gay 
young  officers  overcharged  with  life  and  spirits,  a  band 
of  music  never  so  well  occupied  as  when  playing  for  a 
dance,  and  a  deck  whiter  and  smoother  than  a  ball- 
room floor,  the  warlike  vessel  seems  made  for  a  scene 
of  pleasure.  Whatever  her  nation,  she  no  sooner 
drops  her  anchor,  than  she  is  surrounded  by  boats  from 
the  shore  ;  and  when  the  word  is  passed  for  admission, 
her  gangway  is  crowded  with  the  mirth-loving  and 
warm  people  of  these  southern  climes,  as  much  at 


home  on  board,  and  as  ready  to  enter  into  any  scheme 
of  amusement,  as  the  maddest-brained  midshipman 
could  desire. 

The  companion-hatch  was  covered  with  its  grating, 
lest  some  dizzy  waltzer  should  drop  his  partner  into  the 
steerage,  the  band  got  out  their  music-stand,  and  the 
bright  buttons  were  soon  whirling  round  from  larboard 
to  starboard,  with  forms  in  their  clasp,  and  dark  eyes 
glowing  over  their  shoulders,  that  might  have  tempted 
the  devil  out  of  Stromboli. 

Being  only  a  passenger  myself,  I  was  contented  with 
sitting  on  the  slide  of  a  carronade,  and  with  the  music 
in  my  ear,  and  the  twilight  flush  deepening  in  the  fine- 
traced  angles  of  the  rigging,  abandoning  myself  to  the 
delicious  listlessness  with  which  the  very  air  is  pregnant 
in  these  climates  of  paradise. 

The  light  feet  slid  by,  and  the  waltz,  the  gallopade, 
and  the  mazurka,  had  followed  each  other  till  it  was 
broad  moonlight  on  the  decks.  It  was  like  a  night 
without  an  atmosphere,  the  radiant  flood  poured  down 
with  such  an  invisible  and  moonlike  clearness. 

"  Do  you  see  the  lady  leaning  on  that  old  gentle- 
man's arm  by  the  hammock-rail  ?"  said  the  first  lieu- 
tenant, who  sat  upon  the  next  gun — like  myself,  a 
spectator  of  the  scene. 

I  had  remarked  her  well.  She  had  been  in  the  ship 
five  or  ten  minutes,  and  in  that  time,  it  seemed  to  me, 
I  had  drunk  her  beauty,  even  to  intoxication.  The 
frigate  was  slowly  swinging  round  to  the  land  breeze, 
and  the  moon,  from  drawing  the  curved  line  of  a  gip- 
sy-shaped capella  di  jtaglia  with  bewitching  conceal- 
ment across  her  features,  gradually  fell  full  upon  the 
dark  limit  of  her  orbed  forehead.  Heaven  !  what  a 
vision  of  beauty!  Solemn,  and  full  of  subdued  pain 
as  the  countenance  seemed,  it  was  radiant  with  an  al- 
most supernatual  light  of  mind.  Thought  and  feeling 
seemed  steeped  into  every  line.  Her  mouth  was  large 
— the  only  departure  from  the  severest  model  of  the 
Greek — and  stamped  with  calmness,  as  if  it  had  been 
a  legible  word  upon  her  lips.  But  her  eyes — what  can 
I  say  of  their  unnatural  lightning — of  the  depth,  the 
fulness,  the  wild  and  maniac-like  passionateness  of  their 
every  look  ? 

My  curiosity  was  strongly  moved.  I  walked  aft  to 
the  capstan,  and  throwing  off  my  habitual  reserve  with 
some  effort,  approached  the  old  gentleman  on  whose 
arm  she  leaned,  and  begged  permission  to  lead  her  out 
for  a  waltz. 

"  If  you  wish  it,  carissima  mia  /"  said  he,  turning  to 
her  with  all  the  tenderness  in  his  tone  of  which  the 
honeyed  language  of  Italy  is  capable. 

But  she  clung  to  his  arm  with  startled  closeness,  and 
without  even  looking  at  me,  turned  her  lips  up  to  his 
ear,  and  murmured,  "  Mai  piu  .'" 

At  my  request  the  officer  on  duty  paid  them  the  com- 
pliment of  sending  them  ashore  in  one  of  the  frigate's 
boats;  and  after  assisting  them  down  the  ladder,  I  stood 
upon  the  broad  stair  on  the  level  of  the  water,  and 
watched  the  phosphoric  wake  of  the  swift  cutter  till 
the  bright  sparkles  were  lost  amid  the  vessels  nearer 
land.  The  coxswain  reported  the  boat's  return  ;  but 
all  that  belonged  to  the  ship  had  not  come  back  in  her. 
My  heart  was  left  behind. 

The  next  morning  there  was  the  usual  bustle  in  the 
gunroom  preparatory  to  going  ashore.  Glittering  uni- 
forms lay  about  upon  the  chairs  and  tables,  sprinkled 
with  swords,  epaulettes,  and  cocked  hats  ;  very  well- 
brushed  boots  were  sent  to  be  rebrushed,  and  very 
nice  coats  to  be  made,  if  possible,  to  look  nicer ;  the 
ship's  barber  was  cursed  for  not  having  the  hands  of 
Briareus,  and  no  good  was  wished  to  the  eyes  of  the 
washerwoman  of  the  last  port  where  the  frigate  had 
anchored.  Cologne-water  was  in  great  request,  and 
the  purser  had  an  uncommon  number  of  "  private  in- 
terviews." 

Amid  all  the  bustle:  .'he  question  of  how  to  pass  th» 


458 


INKLINGS  OF  ADVENTURE. 


day  was  busily  agitated.  Twenty  plans  were  proposed  ; 
but  the  sequel — a  dinner  at  the  Hotel  Anglais,  and  a 

stroll  for  a  lark"  after  it — was  the  only  point  on  which 
the  speakers  were  quite  unanimous. 

One  proposition  was  to  go  to  Bagaria,  and  see  the 
palace  of  Monsters.  This  is  a  villa  about  ten  miles 
from  Palermo,  which  the  owner,  Count  Pallagonia,  an 
eccentric  Sicilian  noble,  has  ornamented  with  some 
hundreds  of  statues  of  the  finest  workmanship,  repre- 
senting the  form  of  woman  in  every  possible  combina- 
tion, with  beasts,  fishes,  and  birds.  It  looks  like  the 
temptation  of  St.  Anthony  on  a  splendid  scale,  and  is 
certainly  one  of  the  most  extraordinary  spectacles  in 
the  world. 

Near  it  stands  another  villa,  the  property  of  Prince 
Butera  (the  present  minister  of  Naples  at  the  court  of 
France),  containing,  in  the  depths  of  its  pleasure- 
grounds,  a  large  monastery,  with  wax  monks,  of  the 
size  and  appearance  of  life,  scattered  about  the  pas- 
sages and  cells,  and  engaged  in  every  possible  uncleri- 
cal  avocation.  It  is  a  whimsical  satire  on  the  order, 
done  to  the  life. 

Another  plan  was  to  go  to  the  Capuchin  convent, 
and  see  the  dried  friars — six  or  eight  hundred  bearded 
old  men,  baked,  as  they  died,  in  their  cowls  and  beards, 
and  standing  against  the  walls  in  ghastly  rows,  in  the 
spacious  vaults  of  the  monastery.  A  more  infernal 
spectacle  never  was  seen  by  mortal  eyes. 

A  drive  to  Monreale,  a  nest  of  a  village  on  the  moun- 
tain above  the  town — a  visit  to  the  gardens  of  a  noble- 
man who  salutes  the  stranger  with  a  jet  tVeau  at  every 
turning — and  a  lounge  in  the  public  promenade  of 
Palermo  itself — shared  the  honors  of  the  argument. 

I  had  been  in  Sicily  before,  and  was  hesitating  which 
of  these  various  lions  was  worthy  of  a  second  visit, 
when  the  surgeon  proposed  to  me  to  accompany  him 
on  a  visit  to  a  Sicilian  count  living  in  the  neighborhood, 
who  had  converted  his  chateau  into  a  lunatic  asylum, 
and  devoted  his  time  and  a  large  fortune  entirely  to 
this  singular  hobby.  He  was  the  first  to  try  the  sys- 
tem, now,  thank  God,  generally  approved,  of  winning 
back  reason  to  these  most  wretched  of  human  suffer- 
ers by  kindness  and  gentle  treatment. 

We  jumped  into  one  of  the  rattling  calesini  standing 
in  the  handsome  corso  of  Palermo,  and  fifteen  minutes 
beyond  the  gates  brought  us  to  the  Casa  dei  Pazzi. 
My  friend's  uniform  and  profession  were  an  immediate 
passport,  and  we  were  introduced  into  a  handsome 
court,  surrounded  by  a  colonnade,  and  cooled  by  a 
fountain,  in  which  were  walking  several  well-dressed 
people,  with  books,  drawing-boards,  battledores,  and 
other  means  of  amusement.  They  all  bowed  politely 
as  we  passed,  and  at  the  door  of  the  interior  we  were 
met  by  the  count. 

"  Good  God  !"  I  exclaimed — "  she  was  insane, 
then  !" 

It  was  the  old  man  who  was  on  board  the  night  be- 
fore! 

"E  ella  ?"  said  I,  seizing  his  arm,  before  he  had 
concluded  his  bow,  quite  sure  that  he  must  under- 
stand me  with  a  word. 

"  Era  pazza."  He  looked  at  me  as  he  answered, 
with  a  scrutiny,  as  if  he  half  suspected  my  friend  had 
brought  him  a  subject. 

The  singular  character  of  her  beauty  was  quite  ex- 
plained.    Yet  what  a  wreck  ! 

I  followed  the  old  count  around  his  establishment 
in  a  kind  of  dream,  but  I  could  not  avoid  being  inter- 
ested at  every  step.  Here  were  no  chains,  no  whips, 
no  harsh  keepers,  no  cells  of  stone  and  straw.  The 
walls  of  the  long  corridors  were  painted  in  fresco,  rep- 
resenting sunny  landscapes,  and  gay  dancing  figures. 
Fountains  and  shrubs  met  us  at  every  turn.  The 
people  were  dressed  in  their  ordinary  clothes,  and  all 
employed  in  some  light  work  or  amusement.  It  was 
like  what  it  might  have  been  in  the  days  of  the  count's 


ancestors — a  gay  chateau,  filled  with  guests  and  de- 
pendants, with  no  more  apparent  constraint  than  the 
ties  of  hospitality  and  service. 

We  went  first  to  the  kitchen.  Here  were  tsn 
people,  all,  but  the  cook,  stark  mad !  It  was  one  of 
the  peculiarities  of  the  count's  system,  that  his  pa- 
tients led  in  his  house  the  lives  to  which  they  had  pre- 
viously been  accustomed.  A  stout  Sicilian  peasant 
girl  was  employed  in  filling  a  large  brasier  from  the 
basin  of  a  fountain.  While  we  were  watching  her 
task,  the  fit  began  to  come  on  her,  and  after  a  fierce 
look  or  two  around  the  room,  she  commenced  dashing 
the  water  about  her  with  great  violence.  The  cook 
turned,  not  at  all  surprised,  and  patting  her  on  the 
back,  with  a  loud  laugh,  cried,  "  Brava,  Pepina! 
brava  /"  ringing  at  the  same  moment  a  secret  bell. 

A  young  girl  of  sixteen  with  a  sweet,  smiling  coun- 
tenance, answered  the  summons,  and  immediately 
comprehending  the  case,  approached  the  enraged 
creature,  and  putting  her  arms  affectionately  round  her 
neck,  whispered  something  in  her  ear.  The  expres- 
sion of  her  face  changed  immediately  to  a  look  of  de- 
light, and  dropping  the  bucket,  she  followed  the  young 
attendant  out  of  the  room  with  peals  of  laughter. 

"  VeniteV  said  the  count,  "you  shall  see  how  we 
manage  our  furies." 

We  followed  across  a  garden  filled  with  the  sweet- 
est flowers  to  a  small  room  opening  on  a  lawn.  From 
the  centre  of  the  ceiling  was  suspended  a  hammock, 
and  Pepina  was  already  in  it,  swung  lightly  from  side 
to  side  by  a  servant,  while  the  attendant  stood  by,  and, 
as  if  in  play,  threw  water  upon  her  face  at  every  ap- 
proach. It  had  all  the  air  of  a  frolic.  The  violent 
laughter  of  the  poor  maniac  grew  less  and  less  as  the 
soothing  motion  and  the  coolness  of  the  water  took 
effect,  and  in  a  few  minutes  her  strained  eyes  gently 
closed,  the  hammock  was  swung  more  and  more 
gently,  and  she  fell  asleep. 

"  This,"  said  the  count,  with  a  gratified  smile,  "  is 
my  substitute  for  a  forced  shower-bath  and  chains; 
and  tbis,'i  kissing  his  little  attendant  on  the  forehead, 
"  for  the  whip  and  the  grim  turnkey."  I  blessed  him 
in  my  heart. 

"  Come !"  said  he,  as  we  left  the  sleeper  to  her  re- 
pose, "I  must  show  you  my  grounds." 

We  followed  him  to  an  extensive  garden,  opening 
from  the  back  of  the  chateau,  laid  out  originally  in  the 
formal  style  of  an  Italian  villa.  The  long  walks  had 
been  broken  up,  however,  by  beautiful  arbors  with 
grottoes  in  their  depths,  in  which  wooden  figures,  of 
the  color  and  size  of  life,  stood  or  sat  in  every  attitude 
of  gayety  or  grotesqueness.  It  was  difficult,  in  the 
deep  shadow  of  the  vines  and  oleanders,  not  to  believe 
them  real.  We  walked  on  through  many  a  winding 
shrubbery,  perfumed  with  all  the  scented  flowers  of 
the  luxuriant  climate,  continually  surprised  with  little 
deceptions  of  perspective,  or  figures  half  concealed  in 
the  leaves,  till  we  emerged  at  the  entrance  of  a  charm- 
ing summer  theatre,  with  sodded  seats,  stage,  orches- 
tra, and  scenery,  complete.  Orange-trees,  roses,  and 
clematis,  were  laced  together  for  a  wall  in  the  rear. 

"Here,"  said  the  old  man,  bounding  gayly  upon  the 
stage,  "here  we  act  plays  the  summer  long." 

"What!  not  with  your  patients?" 

" Si,  signore !  Who  else?"  And  he  went  on  to 
describe  to  us  the  interest  they  took  in  it,  and  the  sin- 
gular power  with  which  the  odd  idea  seized  upon  their 
whimsied  intellects.  We  had  been  accompanied  from 
the  first,  by  a  grave,  respectable  looking  man,  whom  I 
had  taken  for  an  assistant.  While  we  were  listening 
to  the  description  of  the  first  attempt  they  had  made 
at  a  play,  he  started  out  from  the  group,  and  putting 
himself  in  an  attitude  upon  the  stage,  commenced 
spouting  a  furious  passage  in  Italian. 

The  count  pointed  to  his  forehead,  and  made  a  sign 
to  us  to  listen.     The  tragedian  stopped  at  the  end  of 


INKLINGS  OF  ADVENTURE. 


459 


his  sentence,  and  after  a  moment's  delay,  apparently 
in  expectation  of  a  reply,  darted  suddenly  off  and  dis- 
appeared behind  the  scenes. 

"Poveretto!"  said  the  count,  "it  is  my  best  actor!" 

Near  the  theatre  stood  a  small  chapel,  with  a  circu- 
lar lawn  before  it,  on  which  the  grass  had  been  lately 
much  trodden.  It  was  surrounded  partly  by  a  green 
bank,  and  here  the  count  seated  us,  saying  with  a  sig- 
nificant look  at  me,  that  he  would  tell  us  a  story. 

I  should  like  to  give  it  you  in  his  own  words — still 
more  with  his  own  manner;  for  never  was  a  tale  told 
with  more  elegance  of  language,  or  a  more  natural 
and  pleasant  simplicity.  But  a  sheet  of  "  wire-wove" 
is  not  a  Palermitan  cavaliere,  and  the  cold  English 
has  not  the  warm  eloquence  of  the  Italian.  He  laid 
aside  his  hat,  ordered  fruit  and  wine,  and  proceeded. 

"Almost  a  year  ago  I  was  called  upon  by  a  gen- 
tleman of  a  noble  physiognomy  and  address,  who  in- 
quired very  particularly  into  my  system.  I  explained 
it  to  him  at  his  request,  and  he  did  me  the  honor,  as 
you  gentlemen  have  done,  to  go  over  my  little  establish- 
ment. He  seemed  satisfied,  and  with  some  hesitation 
informed  me  that  he  had  a  daughter  in  a  very  des- 
perate state  of  mental  alienation.  Would  I  go  and 
see  her? 

"  This  is  not,  you  know,  gentlemen,  a  public  insti- 
tution. I  am  crazy,"  he  said  it  very  gravely,  "quite 
crazy — the  first  of  my  family  of  fools,  on  this  particular 
theme — and  this  asylum  is  my  toy.  Of  course  it  is 
only  as  the  whim  seizes  me  that  I  admit  a  patient;  for 
there  are  some  diseases  of  the  brain  seated  in  causes 
with  which  I  wish  not  to  meddle. 

"However,  I  went.  With  the  freedom  of  a  physi- 
cian I  questioned  the  father,  upon  the  road,  of  the 
girl's  history.  He  was  a  Greek,  a  prince  of  the  Fanar, 
who  had  left  his  degraded  people  in  their  dirty  and 
dangerous  suburb  at  Constantinople,  to  forget  oppres- 
sion and  meanness  in  a  voluntary  exile.  It  was  just 
before  the  breaking  out  of  the  last  Greek  revolution, 
and  so  many  of  his  kinsmen  and  friends  had  been  sac- 
rificed to  the  fury  of  the  Turks,  that  he  had  renounced 
all  idea  of  ever  returning  to  his  country. 

"'And  your  daughter?' 

"'My  dear  Katinka,  my  only  child,  fell  ill  upon  re- 
ceiving distressing  news  from  the  Fanar,  and  her 
health  and  reason  never  rallied  after.  It  is  now  several 
years,  and  she  has  lain  in  bed  till  her  limbs  are  with- 
ered, never  having  uttered  a  word,  or  made  a  sign 
which  would  indicate  even  consciousness  of  the  pres- 
ence of  those  about  her.' 

"  I  could  not  get  from  him  that  there  was  any  disap- 
pointment of  the  heart  at  the  bottom  of  it.  It  seemed 
to  be  one  of  those  cases  of  sudden  stupefaction,  to 
which  nervously  sensitive  minds  are  liable  after  a  vio- 
ent  burst  of  grief;  and  I  began,  before  I  had  seen  her, 
lo  indulge  in  bright  hopes  of  starting  once  more  the 
sealed  fountains  of  thought  and  feeling. 

"  We  entered  Palermo,  and  passing  out  at  the  other 
gate,  stopped  at  a  vine-laced  casino  on  the  lip  of  the 
bay,  scarcely  a  mile  from  the  city  wall.  It  was  a 
pretty,  fanciful  place,  and,  on  a  bed  in  its  inner  cham- 
ber, lay  the  most  poetical-looking  creature  I  had  ever 
seen  out  of  my  dreams.  Her  head  was  pillowed  in  an 
abundance  of  dark  hair,  which  fell  away  from  her  fore- 
head in  masses  of  glossy  curls,  relieving  with  a  striking 
effect,  the  wan  and  transparent  paleness  of  a  face  which 
the  divinest  chisel  could  scarce  have  copied  in  alabas- 
ter. Dio  mio  ! — how  transcendant  was  the  beauty  of 
that  poor  girl !" 

The  count  stopped  and  fed  his  memory  a  moment 
with  closed  eyes  upon  the  image. 

"  At  the  first  glance  I  inwardly  put  up  a  prayer  to 
the  Virgin,  and  determined,  with  her  sweet  help,  to 
restore  reason  to  the  fairest  of  its  earthly  temples.  I 
took  up  her  shadow  of  a  hand,  and  spread  out  the  thin 
fingers  in  my  palm,  ard  as  she  turned  her  large  wan- 


dering eye  toward  me,  I  felt  that  the  blessed  Mary 
had  heard  my  prayer,  '  You  shall  see  her  well  again,' 
said  I  confidently. 

"  Quite  overcome,  the  prince  Ghika  fell  on  the  bed 
and  embraced  his  daughter's  knees  in  an  agony  of 
tears. 

"You  shall  not  have  the  seccatura,  gentlemen,  of 
listening  to  the  recital  of  all  my  tedious  experiments 
for  the  first  month  or  two.  I  brought  her  to  my  house 
upon  a  litter,  placed  her  in  a  room  filled  with  every 
luxury  of  the  east,  and  suffered  no  one  to  approach 
her  except  two  Greek  attendants,  to  whose  services 
she  was  accustomed.  I  succeeded  in  partially  re- 
storing animation  to  her  benumbed  limbs  by  friction, 
and  made  her  sensible  of  music,  and  of  the  perfumes 
of  the  east,  which  I  burned  in  a  pastille-lamp  in 
her  chamber.  Here,  however,  my  skill  was  baffled. 
I  could  neither  amuse  nor  vex.  Her  mind  was  beyond 
me.  After  trying  every  possible  experiment,  as  it 
seemed  to  me,  my  invention  was  exhausted,  and  I 
despaired. 

"She  occupied,  however,  much  of  my  mind. 
Walking  up  and  down  yonder  orange-alley  one  sweet 
morning,  about  two  months  ago,  I  started  off  suddenly 
to  my  chamber  with  a  new  thought.  You  would 
have  thought  me  the  maddest  of  my  household,  to 
have  seen  me,  gentlemen.  I  turned  out  by  the  shoul- 
ders the  regazza,  who  was  making  my  bed,  washed 
and  scented  myself,  as  if  for  a  ball,  covered  my  white 
hairs  with  a  handsome  brown  wig,  a  relic  of  my  cox- 
combical days,  rouged  faintly,  and,  with  white  gloves, 
and  a  most  youthful  appearance  altogether,  sought 
the  chamber  of  my  patient. 

"She  was  lying  with  her  head  in  the  hollow  of  her 
thin  arm,  and",  as  I  entered,  her  dark  eyes  rested  full 
upon  me.  I  approached,  kissed  her  hand  with  a  re- 
spectful gallantry,  and  in  the  tenderest  tones  of  which 
my  damaged  voice  was  susceptible,  breathed  into  her 
ear  a  succession  of  delicately-turned  compliments  to 
her  beauty. 

"She  lay  as  immovable  as  marble,  but  I  had  not 
calculated  upon  the  ruling  passion  of  the  sex  in  vain. 
A  thin  flush  on  her  cheek,  and  a  flutter  in  her  temple, 
only  perceptible  to  my  practised  eye,  told  me  that  the 
words  had  found  their  way  to  her  long-lost  conscious- 
ness. 

"I  waited  a  few  moments,  and  then  took  up  a  ring- 
let that  fell  negligently  over  her  hand,  and  asked  per- 
mission to  sever  it  from  the  glossy  mass  in  which  the 
arm  under  her  head  was  literally  buried. 

"  She  clutched  her  fingers  suddenly  upon  it,  and 
glancing  at  me  with  the  fury  of  a  roused  tigress,  ex- 
claimed in  a  husky  whisper,  •  Lasciate  me,  signore  ." 

"  I  obeyed  her,  and,  as  I  left  the  room,  1  thanked 
the  Virgin  in  my  heart.  It  was  the  first  word  she  had 
spoken  for  years. 

"  The  next  day,  having  patched  myself  up  more 
successfully  in  my  leisure,  in  a  disguise  so  absolute 
that  not  one  even  of  my  pets  knew  me  as  I  passed 
through  the  corridor,  I  bowed  myself  up  once  more  to 
her  bedside. 

"  She  lay  with  her  hands  clasped  over  her  eyes,  and 
took  no  notice  of  my  first  salutation.  I  commenced 
with  a  little  raillery,  and  under  cover  of  finding  fault 
with  her  attitude,  contrived  to  pay  an  adroit  compli- 
ment to  the  glorious  orbs  she  was  hiding  from  admira- 
tion. She  lay  a  moment  or  two  without  motion,  but 
the  muscles  of  her  slight  mouth  stirred  just  percepti- 
bly, and  presently  she  drew  her  fingers  quickly  apart, 
and  looking  at  me  with  a  most  confiding  expression 
in  her  pale  features,  a  full  sweet  smile  broke  like  sud- 
den sunshine  through  her  lips.     I  could  have  wept  for 

"I  soon  acquired  all  the  influence  over  her  I  could 
wish.  She  made  an  effort  at  my  request  to  leave  her 
bed,  and  in  a  week  or  two  walked  with  me  in  the  gar- 


460 


INKLINGS  OF  ADVENTURE. 


den.  Her  mind,  however,  seemed  to  have  capacity 
but  for  one  thought,  and  she  soon  began  to  grow  un- 
happy, and  would  weep  for  hours.  I  endeavored  to 
draw  from  her  the  cause,  but  she  only  buried  her  face 
in  my  bosom,  and  wept  more  violently,  till  one  day, 
sobbing  out  her  broken  words  almost  inarticulately,  I 
gathered  her  meaning.  She  was  grieved  that  I  did  not 
marry  her  ! 

"  Poor  girl !"  soliloquized  the  count,  after  a  brief 
pause,  "she  was  only  true  to  her  woman's  nature.  In- 
sanity had  but  removed  the  veil  of  custom  and  restraint. 
She  would  have  broken  her  heart  before  she  had  be- 
trayed such  a  secret,  with  her  reason. 

"  I  was  afraid  at  last  she  would  go  melancholy  mad, 
this  one  thought  preyed  so  perpetually  on  her  brain — 
and  I  resolved  to  delude  her  into  the  cheerfulness  ne- 
cessary to  her  health  by  a  mock  ceremony. 

"  The  delight  with  which  she  received  my  promise 
almost  alarmed  me.  I  made  several  delays,  with  the 
hope  that  in  the  convulsion  of  her  feelings  a  ray  of 
reason  would  break  through  the  darkness;  but  she 
took  every  hour  to  heart,  and  I  found  it  was  inevi- 
table. 

"  You  are  sitting,  gentlemen,  in  the  very  scene  of  our 
mad  bridal.  My  poor  grass  has  not  yet  recovered,  you 
see,  from  the  tread  of  the  dancers.  Imagine  the  spec- 
tacle. The  chapel  was  splendidly  decorated,  and  at 
the  bottom  of  the  lawn  stood  three  long  tables,  cov- 
ered with  fruits  and  flowers,  and  sprinkled  here  and 
there  with  bottles  of  colored  water  (to  imitate  wine), 
sherbels,  cakes,  and  other  such  innocent  things  as  I 
could  allow  my  crazy  ones.     They  were  all  invited." 

"  Good  God  !"  said  the  surgeon,  "  your  lunatics  ?" 

"All — all!  And  never  was  such  a  sensation  pro- 
duced in  a  household  since  the  world  was  created. 
Nothing  else  was  talked  of  for  a  week.  My  worst  pa- 
tients seemed  to  suspend  for  the  time  their  fits  of  vio- 
lence. I  sent  to  (own  for  quantities  of  tricksy  stuffs, 
and  allowed  the  women  to  deck  themselves  entirely 
after  their  own  taste.  You  can  conceive  nothing  like 
the  business  they  made  of  it !  Such  apparitions  ! — 
Santa  Maria  !  shall  I  ever  forget  that  Babel  ? 

"  The  morning  came.  My  bride's  attendants  had 
dressed  her  from  her  Grecian  wardrobe ;  and  with  her 
long  braid  parted  over  her  forehead,  and  hanging  back 
from  her  shoulders  to  her  very  heels,  her  close-fitted 
jacket,  of  gorgeous  velvet  and  gold,  her  costly  brace- 
lets, and  the  small  spangled  slippers  upon  her  unstock- 
inged  feet,  she  was  positively  an  angelic  vision  of  beau- 
ty. Her  countenance  was  thoughtful,  but  her  step  was 
unusually  elastic,  and  a  small  red  spot,  like  a  rose-leaf 
under  the  skin,  blushed  through  the  alabaster  paleness 
of  her  cheek. 

"  My  maniacs  received  her  with  shouts  of  admira- 
tion. The  women  were  kept  from  her  at  first  with 
great  difficulty,  and  it  was  only  by  drawing  their  at- 
tention to  their  own  gaudier  apparel,  that  their  anx- 
iety to  touch  her  was  distracted.  The  men  looked  at 
her,  as  she  passed  along  like  a  queen  of  love  and 
beauty,  and  their  wild,  gleaming  eyes,  and  quickened 
breaths,  showed  the  effect  of  such  loveliness  upon  the 
unconcealed  feelings.  I  had  multiplied  my  attend- 
ants, scarce  knowing  how  the  excitement  of  the  scene 
might  affect  them  ;  but  the  interest  of  the  occasion, 
and  the  imposing  decencies  of  dress  and  show,  seemed 
to  overcome  them  effectually.  The  most  sane  guests 
at  a  bridal  could  scarce  have  behaved  with  more  pro- 
priety. 

"  The  ceremony  was  performed  by  an  elderly  friend 
of  mine,  the  physician  to  my  establishment.  Old  as  I 
am,  gentlemen,  I  could  have  wished  that  ceremony  to 
have  been  in  earnest.  As  she  lifted  up  her  large  liquid 
eyes  to  heaven,  and  swore  to  be  true  to  me  till  death,  I 
forgot  my  manhood,  and  wept.  If  I  had  been  younger 
— ma  che  porcheria  ! 

"  After  the  marriage  the  women  were  invited  to  sa- 


lute the  bride,  and  then  all  eyes  in  my  natural  party 
turned  at  once  to  the  feast.  I  gave  the  word.  Fruits, 
cakes,  and  sherbets,  disappeared  with  the  rapidity  of 
magic,  and  then  the  music  struck  up  from  the  shrub- 
bery, and  they  danced — as  you  see  by  the  grass. 

"  I  committed  the  bride  to  her  attendants  at  sunset, 
but  I  could  with  difficulty  tear  myself  away.  On  the 
following  day  I  called  at  her  door,  but  she  refused  to 
see  me.  The  next  day  and  the  next  I  could  gain  no 
admittance  without  exerting  my  authority.  On  the 
fourth  morning  I  was  permitted  to  enter.  She  had  re- 
sumed her  usual  dress,  and  was  sad,  calm,  and  gentle. 
She  said  little,  but  seemed  lost  in  thought  to  which 
she  was  unwilling  or  unable  to  give  utterance. 

"  She  has  never  spoken  of  it  since.  Her  mind,  I 
think,  has  nearly  recovered  its  tone,  but  her  memory 
seems  confused.  I  scarce  think  she  remembers  her 
illness,  and  its  singular  events,  as  more  than  a  troubled 
dream.  On  all  the  common  affairs  of  life  she  seems 
quite  sane,  and  I  drive  out  with  her  daily,  and  have 
taken  her  once  or  twice  to  the  opera.  Last  night  we 
were  strolling  on  the  Marina  when  your  frigate  came 
into  the  bay,  and  she  proposed  to  join  the  crowd  and 
go  off  to  hear  the  music.  We  went  on  board,  as  you 
know ;  and  now,  if  you  choose  to  pay  your  respects 
to  the  lady  who  refused  to  waltz  with  you,  take  an- 
other sip  of  your  sherbet  and  wine,  and  come  with 
me." 

To  say  more  would  be  trespassing  perhaps  on  the 
patience  of  my  readers,  but  certainly  on  my  own  feel- 
ings. I  have  described  this  singular  case  of  madness 
and  its  cure,  because  I  think  it  contains  in  itself  the 
seeds  of  much  philosophy  on  the  subject.  It  is  only 
within  a  very  few  years  that  these  poor  sufferers  have 
been  treated  otherwise  than  as  the  possessors  of  in- 
carnate devils,  whom  it  was  necessary  to  scourge  out 
with  unsparing  cruelty.  If  this  literal  statement  of  a 
cure  in  the  private  madhouse  of  the  eccentric  conte 
of  Palermo,  induce  the  friends  of  a  single  un- 


fortunate maniac  to  adopt  a  kind  and  rational  system 
for  his  restoration,  the  writer  will  have  been  repaid  for 
bringing  circumstances  before  the  public  which  have 
since  had  much  to  do  with  his  own  feelings. 


MINUTE  PHILOSOPHIES. 


"  Nature  there 
Was  with  thee  ;  she  who  loved  us  both,  she  still 
Was  with  thee  ;  and  even  so  didst  thou  become 
A  silent  poet  ;  from  the  solitude 
Of  the  vast  sea  didst  bring  a  watchful  heart 
Still  couchant,  an  inevitable  ear, 
And  an  eye  practised  like  a  blind  man's  touch." 

Wordsworth. 

A  summer  or  two  since,  I  was  wasting  a  college  va- 
cation among  the  beautiful  creeks  and  falls  in  the 
neighborhood  of  New  York.  In  the  course  of  my 
wanderings,  up-stream  and  down-stream,  sometimes 
on  foot,  sometimes  on  horseback,  and  never  without 
a  book  for  an  excuse  to  loiter  on  the  mossy  banks  and 
beside  the  edge  of  running  water,  I  met  frequently  a 
young  man  of  a  peculiarly  still  and  collected  eye,  and 
a  forehead  more  like  a  broad  slab  of  marble  than  a  hu- 
man brow.  His  mouth  was  small  and  thinly  cut ;  his 
chin  had  no  superfluous  flesh  upon  it;  and  his  whole 
appearance  was  that  of  a  man  whose  intellectual  na- 
ture prevailed  over  the  animal.  He  was  evidently  a 
scholar.  We  had  met  so  frequently  at  last,  that,  on 
passing  each  other  one  delicious  morning,  we  bowed 
and  smiled  simultaneously,  and,  without  further  intro- 
duction, entered  into  conversation. 

It  was  a  temperate  day  in  August,  with  a  clear  but 
not  oppressive  sun,  and  we  wandered  down  a  long 


INKLINGS  OF  ADVENTURE. 


461 


creek  together,  mineralizing  here,  botanizing  there, 
and  examining  the  strata  of  the  ravines,  with  that  sort 
>f  instinctive  certainty  of  each  other's  attainments 
which  scholars  always  feel,  and  thrusting  in  many  a 
.ittle  wayside  parenthesis,  explanatory  of  each  other's 
\istory  and  circumstances.  I  found  that  he  was  one 
of  those  pure  and  unambitious  men,  who,  by  close 
application  and  moderate  living  while  in  college,  be- 
come in  love  with  their  books  ;  and,  caring  little  for 
anything  more  than  the  subsistence,  which  philosophy 
.ells  them  is  enough  to  have  of  this  world,  settle  down 
for  life  into  a  wicker-bottomed  chair,  more  content- 
edly than  if  it  were  the  cushion  of  a  throne. 

We  were  together  three  or  four  days,  and  when  I 
left  him,  he  gave  me  his  address,  and  promised  to  write 
to  me.  I  shall  give  below  an  extract  from  one  of  his 
letters.  I  had  asked  him  for  a  history  of  his  daily 
habits,  and  any  incidents  which  he  might  choose  to 
throw  in — hinting  to  him  that  I  was  a  dabbler  in  lit- 
erature, and  would  be  obliged  to  him  if  he  would  do  it 
minutely,  and  in  a  form  of  which  I  might  avail  myself 
in  the  way  of  publication. 

After  some  particulars,  unimportant  to  the  reader, 
he  proceeds  : — 

"  I  keep  a  room  at  a  country  tavern.  It  is  a  quiet, 
out-of-the-way  place,  with  a  whole  generation  of  elms 
about  it ;  and  the  greenest  grass  up  to  the  very  door, 
and  the  pleasantest  view  in  the  whole  country  round 
from  my  chamber-window.  Though  it  is  a  public 
house,  and  the  word  4  hotel'  swings  in  golden  capi- 
tals under  a  landscape  of  two  hills  and  a  river,  painted 
for  a  sign  by  some  wandering  Tinto,  it  is  so  orderly  a 
town,  that  not  a  lounger  is  ever  seen  about  the  door  ; 
and  the  noisiest  traveller  is  changed  to  a  quiet  man,  as 
if  it  were  by  the  very  hush  of  the  atmosphere. 

44  Here,  in  my  pleasant  room,  upon  the  second  floor, 
with  my  round  table  covered  with  choice  books,  my 
shutters  closed  just  so  much  as  to  admit  light  enough 
for  a  painter,  and  my  walls  hung  with  the  pictures 
which  adorned  my  college  chambers,  and  are  there- 
fore linked  with  a  thousand  delightful  associations — I 
can  study  my  twelve  hours  a  day,  in  a  state  of  mind 
sufficiently  even  and  philosophical.  I  do  not  want  for 
excitement.  The  animal  spirits,  thanks  to  the  Crea- 
tor, are  enough  at  all  times,  with  employment  and 
temperate  living,  to  raise  us  above  the  common  shad- 
ows of  life  ;  and  after  a  day  of  studious  confinement, 
when  my  mind  is  unbound,  and  I  go  out  and  give  it 
up  to  reckless  association,  and  lay  myself  open  unre- 
servedly to  the  influences  of  nature — at  such  a  time, 
there  comes  mysteriously  upon  me  a  degree  of  pure 
joy,  unmingled  and  unaccountable,  which  is  worth 
years  of  artificial  excitement.  The  common  air  seems 
to  have  grown  rarer;  my  step  is  strangely  elastic  ;  my 
sense  of  motion  full  of  unwonted  dignity ;  my  thoughts 
elevated  ;  my  perceptions  of  beauty  acuter  and  more 
pleasurable  ;  and  my  better  nature  predominant  and 
sublime.  There  is  nothing  in  the  future  which  looks 
difficult,  nothing  in  my  ambition  unattainable,  nothing 
in  the  past  which  can  not  be  reconciled  with  good  :  I 
am  a  purer  and  a  better  man;  and  though  I  am  ele- 
vated in  my  own  thoughts,  it  will  not  lead  to  vanity, 
for  my  ideas  of  God,  and  of  my  fellow-men,  have  been 
enlarged  also.  This  excitement  ceases  soon  ;  but  it 
ceases  like  the  bubbling  of  a  fountain,  which  leaves 
the  waters  purer  for  the  influence  which  has  passed 
through  them — not  like  the  mirth  of  the  world,  which 
ebbs  like  an  unnatural  tide,  and  leaves  loathsomeness 
and  disgust. 

"  Let  no  one  say  that  such  a  mode  of  life  is  adapted 
to  peculiar  constitutions,  and  can  be  relished  by  those 
only.  Give  me  the  veriest  worldling — the  most  de- 
voted, and  the  happiest  of  fashionable  ephemera,  and 
it  he  has  material  for  a  thought,  and  can  take  pride 
in  the  improvement  of  his  nature,  I  will  so  order  his 
daily  round,  that,  with  temperance  and  exercise,  he 


shall  be  happier  in  one  hour  spent  within  himself, 
than  in  ten  wasted  on  folly. 

"  Few  know  the  treasures  in  their  own  bosoms — 
very  few  the  elasticity  and  capacity  of  a  well-regulated 
mind  for  enjoyment.  The  whole  world  of  philoso- 
phers, and  historians,  and  poets,  seem,  to  the  secluded 
student,  but  to  have  labored  for  his  pleasure  ;  and  as 
he  comes  to  one  new  truth  and  beautiful  thought  after 
another,  there  answers  a  chord  of  joy,  richer  than 
music,  in  his  heart — which  spoils  him  for  the  coarser 
pleasures  of  the  world.  I  have  seen  my  college  chum 
— a  man,  who,  from  a  life  of  mingled  business  and 
pleasure,  became  suddenly  a  student — lean  back  in  his 
chair,  at  the  triumph  of  an  argument,  or  the  discovery 
of  a  philosophical  truth,  and  give  himself  up  for  a  few 
moments  to  the  enjoyment  of  sensations,  which,  he 
assured  me,  surpassed  exceedingly  the  most  vivid 
pleasures  of  his  life.  The  mind  is  like  the  appetite — 
when  healthy  and  well-toned,  receiving  pleasure  from 
the  commonest  food  ;  but  becoming  a  disease,  when 
pampered  and  neglected.  Give  it  time  to  turn  in  upon 
itself,  satisfy  its  restless  thirst  for  knowledge,  and  it 
will  give  birth  to  health,  to  animal  spirits,  to  every- 
thing which  invigorates  the  body,  while  it  is  advan- 
cing by  every  step  the  capacities  of  the  soul.  Oh  !  if 
the  runners  after  pleasure  would  stoop  down  by  the 
wayside,  they  might  drink  waters  better  even  than 
those  which  they  see  only  in  their  dreams.  They  will 
not  be  told  that  they  have  in  their  possession  the  gold- 
en key  which  they  covet ;  they  will  not  know  that  the 
music  they  look  to  enchant  them,  is  sleeping  in  their 
own  untouched  instruments  ;  that  the  lamp  which 
they  vainly  ask  from  the  enchanter,  is  burning  in 
their  own  bosoms  ! 

"  When  I  first  came  here,  my  host's  eldest  daughter 
was  about  twelve  years  of  age.  She  was,  without  be- 
ing beautiful,  an  engaging  child,  rather  disposed  to  be 
contemplative,  and,  like  all  children,  at  that  age,  very 
inquisitive  and  curious.  She  was  shy  at  first,  but  soon 
became  acquainted  with  me  ;  and  would  come  into 
my  room  in  her  idle  hours,  and  look  at  my  pictures 
and  read.  She  never  disturbed  me,  because  her  nat- 
ural politeness  forbade  it ;  and  I  pursued  my  thoughts 
or  my  studies  just  as  if  she  were  not  there,  till,  by-and- 
by,  I  grew  fond  of  her  quiet  company,  and  was  hap- 
pier when  she  was  moving  stealthily  around,  and  look- 
ing into  a  book  here  and  there  in  her  quiet  way. 

"She  had  been  my  companion  thus  for  some  time, 
when  it  occurred  to  me  that  I  might  be  of  use  to  her 
in  leading  her  to  cultivate  a  love  for  study.  I  seized 
the  idea  enthusiastically.  Now,  thought  I,  I  will  see 
the  process  of  a  human  mind.  I  have  studied  its  phi- 
losophy from  books,  and  now  I  will  take  a  single 
original,  and  compare  them,  step  by  step.  I  have 
seen  the  bud,  and  the  flower  full  blown,  and  I  am  told 
that  the  change  was  gradual,  and  effected  thus — leaf 
after  leaf.  Now  I  will  watch  the  expansion,  and  while 
I  water  it  and  let  in  the  sunshine  to  its  bosom,  detect 
the  secret  springs  which  move  to  such  beautiful  re- 
sults.    The  idea  delighted  me. 

"I  was  aware  that  there  was  great  drudgery  in  the 
first  steps,  and  I  determined  to  avoid  it,  and  connect 
the  idea  of  my  own  instruction  with  all  that  was  de- 
lightful and  interesting  to  her  mind.  For  this  pur- 
pose I  persuaded  her  father  to  send  her  to  a  better 
school  than  she  had  been  accustomed  to  attend,  and, 
by  a  little  conversation,  stimulated  her  to  enter  upon 
her  studies  with  alacrity. 

»  She  was  now  grown  to  a  girl,  and  had  begun  to 
assume  the  naive,  womanly  airs  which  girls  do  at  her 
age.  Her  figure  had  rounded  into  a  flowing  sym- 
metry, and  her  face,  whether  from  associating  princi- 
pally with  an  older  person,  or  for  what  other  reason  I 
know  not,  had  assumed  a  thoughtful  cast,  and  she 
was  really  a  girl  of  most  interesting  and  striking  per- 
sonal appearance. 


462 


INKLINGS  OF  ADVENTURE. 


"  I  did  not  expect  much  from  the  first  year  of  my 
experiment.  I  calculated  justly  on  its  being  irksome 
and  common-place.  Still  I  was  amused  and  interested. 
I  could  hear  her  light  step  on  the  stair,  always  at  the 
same  early  hour  of  the  evening,  and  it  was  a  pleasure 
to  me  to  say  '  Come  in,'  to  her  timid  rap,  and  set  her 
a  chair  by  my  own,  that  I  might  look  over  her  book, 
or  talk  in  a  low  tone  to  her.  I  then  asked  her  about 
her  lessons,  and  found  out  what  had  most  attracted  her 
notice,  and  I  could  always  find  some  interesting  fact 
connected  with  it,  or  strike  off  into  some  pleasant  as- 
sociation, till  she  acquired  a  habit  of  selection  in  her 
reading,  and  looked  at  me  earnestly  to  know  what  I 
would  say  upon  it.  You  would  have  smiled  to  see 
her  leaning  forward,  with  her  soft  blue  eye  fixed  on 
me,  and  her  lips  half  parted  with  attention,  waiting  for 
my  ideas  upon  some  bare  fact  in  geography  or  his- 
tory ;  and  it  would  have  convinced  you  that  the  nat- 
ural, unstimulated  mind,  takes  pleasure  in  the  simplest 
addition  to  its  knowledge. 

"  All  this  time  I  kept  out  of  her  way  everything 
that  would  have  a  tendency  to  destroy  a  taste  for  mere 
knowledge,  and  had  the  pleasure  to  see  that  she 
passed  with  keen  relish  from  her  text  books  to  my  ob- 
servations, which  were  as  dry  as  they,  though  recom- 
mended by  kindness  of  tone  and  an  interested  manner. 
She  acquired  gradually,  by  this  process,  a  habit  of 
reasoning  upon  everything  which  admitted  it,  which 
was  afterward  of  great  use  in  fixing  and  retaining  the 
leading  features  of  her  attainments. 

"  I  proceeded  in  this  way  till  she  was  fifteen.  Her 
mind  had  now  become  inured  to  regular  habits  of  in- 
quiry, and  she  began  to  ask  difficult  questions  and 
wonder  at  common  things.  Her  thoughts  assumed  a 
graver  complexion,  and  she  asked  for  books  upon  sub- 
jects of  which  she  felt  the  want  of  information.  She 
was  ready  to  receive  and  appreciate  truth  and  instruc- 
tion, and  here  was  to  begin  my  pleasure. 

"  She  came  up  one  evening  with  an  air  of  embar- 
rassment approaching  to  distress.  She  took  her  usual 
seat,  and  told  me  that  she  had  been  thinking  all  day 
that  it  was  useless  to  study  any  more.  There  were  so 
many  mysterious  things — so  much,  even  that  she  could 
see,  which  she  could  not  account  for,  and,  with  all  her 
efforts,  she  got  on  so  slowly,  that  she  was  discouraged. 
It  was  better,  she  said,  to  be  happy  in  ignorance,  than 
to  be  constantly  tormented  with  the  sight  of  knowledge 
to  which  she  could  not  attain,  and  which  she  only  knew 
enough  to  value.  Poor  child  !  she  did  not  know  that 
she  was  making  the  same  complaint  with  Newton,  and 
Locke,  and  Bacon,  and  that  the  wisest  of  men  were 
only  '  gatherers  of  pebbles  on  the  shore  of  an  illimita- 
ble sea  !'  I  began  to  talk  to  her  of  the  mind.  I  spoke 
of  its  grandeur,  and  its  capacities,  and  its  destiny.  I 
told  her  instances  of  high  attainment  and  wonderful 
discovery— sketched  the  sublime  philosophies  of  the 
soul— the  possibility  that  this  life  was  but  a  link  in  a 
chain  of  existences,  and  the  glorious  power,  if  it  were 
true,  of  entering  upon  another  world,  with  a  loftier  ca- 
pacity than  your  fellow-beings  for  the  comprehension 
of  its  mysteries.  I  then  touched  upon  the  duty  of  self- 
cultivation — the  pride  of  a  high  consciousness  of  im- 
proved time,  and  the  delicious  feelings  of  self-respect 
and  true  appreciation. 

"  She  listened  to  me  in  silence,  and  wept.  It  was 
one  of  those  periods  which  occur  to  all  delicate  minds, 
of  distrust  and  fear;  and  when  it  passed  by,  and  her 
ambition  stirred  again,  she  gave  vent  to  her  feelings 
with  a  woman's  beautiful  privilege.  I  had  no  more 
trouble  to  urge  her  on.  She  began  the  next  day  with 
the  philosophy  of  the  mind,  and  I  was  never  happier 
than  while  following  her  from  step  to  step  in  this  de- 
lightful study. 

"  I  have  always  thought  that  the  most  triumphant 
intellectual  feeling  we  ever  experience,  is  felt  upon  the 
lirst  opening  of  philosophy.     It  is  like  the  interpreta- 


tion of  a  dream  of  a  lifetime.  Every  topic  seems  to 
you  like  a  phantom  of  your  own  mind,  from  which  a 
mist  has  suddenly  melted.  Every  feature  has  a  kind 
of  half-familiarity,  and  you  remember  musing  upon  it 
for  hours,  till  you  gave  it  up  with  an  impatient  dissat- 
isfaction. Without  a  definite  shape,  this  or  that  very 
idea  has  floated  in  your  mind  continually.  It  was  a  phe- 
nomenon without  a  name — a  something  which  you 
could  not  describe  to  your  friend,  and  which,  by-and- 
by,  you  came  to  believe  was  peculiar  to  yourself,  and 
would  never  be  brought  out  or  unravelled.  You  read 
on,  and  the  blood  rushes  to  your  face  in  a  tumultu- 
ous consciousness — you  have  had  feelings  in  pecu- 
liar situations  which  you  could  not  define,  and  here 
are  their  very  features — and  you  know,  now,  that  it  was 
jealousy,  or  ambition,  or  love.  There  have  been  mo- 
ments when  your  faculties  seemed  blinded  or  reversed. 
You  could  not  express  yourself  at  all  when  you  felt 
you  should  be  eloquent.  You  could  not  fix  your 
mind  upon  the  subject,  of  which,  before,  you  had  been 
passionately  fond.  You  felt  an  aversion  for  your  very 
partialities,  or  a  strange  warming  in  your  heart  toward 
people  or  pursuits  that  you  had  disliked ;  and  when 
the  beauty  of  the  natural  world  has  burst  upon  you, 
as  it  sometimes  will,  with  an  exceeding  glory,  you 
have  turned  away  from  it  with  a  deadly  sickness  of 
heart,  and  a  wish  that  you  might  die. 

"  These  are  mysteries  which  are  not  all  soluble  even 
by  philosophy.  But  you  can  see  enough  of  the  ma- 
chinery of  thought  to  know  its  tendencies,  and  like 
the  listener  to  mysterious  music,  it  is  enough  to  have 
seen  the  instrument,  without  knowing  the  cunning 
craft  of  the  player. 

"  I  remembered  my  school-day  feelings,  and  lived 
them  over  again  with  my  beautiful  pupil.  I  entered 
with  as  much  enthusiasm  as  she,  into  the  strength  and 
sublimity  which  I  had  wondered  at  before  ;  and  I  be- 
lieve that,  even  as  she  sat  reading  by  herself,  my  blood 
thrilled,  and  my  pulses  quickened,  as  vividly  as  her 
own,  when  I  saw,  by  the  deepening  color  of  her  cheek, 
or  the  marked  passages  of  my  book,  that  she  had  found 
a  noble  thought  or  a  daring  hypothesis. 

"  She  proceeded  with  her  course  of  philosophy  rap- 
idly and  eagerly.  Her  mind  was  well  prepared  for  its 
relish.  She  said  she  felt  as  if  a  new  sense  had  been 
given  her — an  inner  eye  which  she  could  turn  in  upon 
herself,  and  by  which  she  could,  as  it  were,  stand  aside 
while  the  process  of  thought  went  on.  She  began  to 
respect  and  to  rely  upon  her  own  mind,  and  the  eleva- 
tion of  countenance  and  manner,  which  so  certainly 
and  so  beautifully  accompanies  inward  refinement, 
stole  over  her  daily.  I  began  to  feel  respectful  in  her 
presence,  and  when,  with  the  peculiar  elegance  of  a 
woman's  mind,  she  discovered  a  delicate  shade  of ' 
meaning  which  I  had  not  seen,  or  traced  an  associa- 
tion which  could  spring  only  from  an  unsullied  heart, 
I  experienced  a  sensation  like  the  consciousness  of  an 
unseen  presence — elevating,  without  alarming  me. 

"  It  was  probably  well  that  with  all  this  change  in 
her  mind  and  manner,  her  person  still  retained  its 
childish  grace  and  flexibility.  She  had  not  grown 
tall,  and  she  wore  her  hair  yet  as  she  used  to  do — fall- 
ing with  a  luxuriant  fulness  upon  her  shoulders. 
Hence  she  was  still  a  child,  when,  had  she  been  taller 
or  more  womanly,  the  demands  upon  her  attention, 
and  the  attractiveness  of  mature  society,  might  have 
divided  that  engrossing  interest  which  is  necessary  to 
successful  study. 

"  I  have  often  wished  I  was  a  painter;  but  never  so 
much  as  when  looking  on  this  beautiful  being  as  she 
sat  absorbed  in  her  studies,  or  turned  to  gaze  up  a 
moment  to  my  face,  with  that  delicious  expression  of 
inquiry  and  affection.  Every  one  knows  the  elevation 
given  to  the  countenance  of  a  man  by  contemplative 
habits.  Perhaps  the  natural  delicacy  of  feminine  fea- 
tures has  combined  with  its  rarity,  to  make  this  ex- 


INKLINGS  OF  ADVENTURE. 


463 


pression  less  observable  in  woman ;  but,  to  one  famil- 
iar with  the  study  of  the  human  face,  there  is,  in  the 
look  of  a  truly  intellectual  woman,  a  keen  subtlety  of 
refinement,  a  separation  from  everything  gross  and 
material,  which  comes  up  to  our  highest  dream  of  the 
angelic.  For  myself,  I  care  not  to  analyze  it.  I  leave 
it  to  philosophy  to  find  out  its  secret.  It  is  enough 
for  me  that  I  can  see  and  feel  it  in  every  pulse  of  my 
being.  It  is  not  a  peculiar  susceptibility.  Every  man 
who  approaches  such  a  woman  feels  it.  He  may  not 
define  it ;  he  may  be  totally  unconscious  what  it  is 
that  awes  him ;  but  he  feels  as  if  a  mysterious  and  in- 
visible veil  were  about  her,  and  every  dark  thought  is 
quenched  suddenly  in  his  heart,  as  if  he  had  come 
into  the  atmosphere  of  a  spirit.  I  would  have  every 
woman  know  this.  I  would  tell  every  mother  who 
prays  nightly  for  the  peculiar  watchfulness  of  good 
spirits  over  the  purity  of  her  child,  that  she  may  weave 
round  her  a  defence  stronger  than  steel — that  she  may 
place  in  her  heart  a  living  amulet  whose  virtue  is  like 
a  circle  of  fire  to  pollution.  I  am  not '  stringing  pearls.' 
I  have  seen,  and  I  know,  that  an  empty  mind  is  not  a 
strong  citadel;  and  in  the  melancholy  chronicle  of 
female  ruin,  the  instances  are  rare  of  victims  distin- 
guished for  mental  cultivation.  I  would  my  pen  were 
the  'point  of  a  diamond,'  and  I  were  writing  on  living 
hearts !  for  when  I  think  how  the  daughters  of  a  house 
are  its  grace  and  honor — and  when  I  think  how  the 
father  and  mother  that  loved  her,  and  the  brother  that 
made  her  his  pride,  and  the  sister  in  whose  bosom  she 
slept,  are  all  crushed,  utterly,  by  a  daughter's  degra- 
dation, I  feel,  that  if  every  word  were  a  burning  coal, 
my  language  could  not  be  extravagant ! 

"My  pupil,  had,  as  yet,  read  no  poetry.  I  was  un- 
certain how  to  enter  upon  it.  Her  taste  for  the  beau- 
tiful in  prose  had  become  so  decided,  that  I  feared  for 
the  first  impression  of  my  poetical  world.  I  wished  it 
to  burst  upon  her  brilliantly — like  the  entrance  to  an 
inner  and  more  magnificent  temple  of  knowledge.  I 
hoped  to  dazzle  her  with  a  high  and  unimagined 
beauty,  which  should  exceed  far  the  massive  but  plain 
splendors  of  philosophy.  We  had  often  conversed  on 
the  probability  of  a  previous  existence,  and,  one  eve- 
ning, I  opened  Wordsworth,  and  read  his  sublime 
'Ode  upon  Intimations  of  Immortality.'  She  did  not 
interrupt  me,  but  1  looked  up  at  the  conclusion,  and 
she  was  in  tears.  I  made  no  remark,  but  took  Byron, 
and  read  some  of  the  finest  passages  in  Childe  Harold, 
and  Manfred,  and  Cain— and,  from  that  time,  poetry 
has  been  her  world  ! 

"  It  would  not  have  been  so  earlier.  It  needs  the 
simple  and  strong  nutriment  of  truth  to  fit  us  to  relish 
and  feel  poetry.  The  mind  must  have  strength  and 
cultivated  taste,  and  then  it  is  like  a  language  from 
Heaven.  We  are  astonished  at  its  power  and  mag- 
nificence. We  have  been  familiar  with  knowledge  as 
with  a  person  of  plain  garment  and  a  homely  presence 
— and  he  comes  to  us  in  poetry,  with  the  state  of  a 
king,  glorious  in  purple  and  gold.  We  have  known 
him  as  an  unassuming  friend  who  talked  with  us  by 
the  wayside,  and  kept  us  company  on  our  familiar 
paths — and  we  see  him  coming  with  a  stately  step,  and 
a  glittering  diadem  on  his  brow;  and  we  wonder  that 
we  did  not  see  that  his  plain  garment  honored  him 
not,  and  his  bearing  were  fitter  for  a  king! 

"Poetry  entered  to  the  very  soul  of  Caroline  Grey. 
It  was  touching  an  unreached  string,  and  she  felt  as 
if  the  whole  compass  of  her  heart  were  given  out.  I 
used  to  read  to  her  for  hours,  and  it  was  beautiful  to 
see  her  eye  kindle,  and  her  cheek  burn  with  excite- 
ment. The  sublimed  mysticism  and  spirituality  of 
Wordsworth  were  her  delight,  and  she  feasted  upon 
the  deep  philosophy  and  half-hidden  tenderness  of 
Coleridge. 

"  I  had  observed,  with  some  satisfaction,  that,  in  the 
rapid  development  of  her  mental  powers,  she  had  not 


found  time  to  study  nature.  She  knew  little  of  the 
character  of  the  material  creation,  and  I  now  com- 
menced walking  constantly  abroad  with  her  at  sunset, 
and  at  all  the  delicious  seasons  of  moonlight  and  star- 
light and  dawn.  It  came  in  well  with  her  poetry.  I 
can  not  describe  the  effect.  She  became,  like  all  who 
are,  for  the  first  time,  made  sensible  of  the  glories 
around  them,  a  worshipper  of  the  external  world. 

"  There  is  a  time  when  nature  first  loses  its  famil- 
iarity, and  seems  suddenly  to  have  become  beautiful. 
This  is  true  even  of  those  who  have  been  taught  early 
habits  of  observation.  The  mind  of  a  child  is  too 
feeble  to  comprehend,  and  does  not  soon  learn,  the 
scale  of  sublimity  and  beauty.  He  would  not  be  sur- 
prised if  the  sun  were  brighter,  or  if  the  stars  were 
sown  thicker  in  the  sky.  He  sees  that  the  flower  is 
beautiful,  and  he  feels  admiration  at  the  rainbow  ;  but 
he  would  not  wonder  if  the  dyes  of  the  flower  were 
deeper,  or  if  the  sky  were  laced  to  the  four  corners 
with  the  colors  of  a  prism.  He  grows  up  with  these 
splendid  phenomena  at  work  about  him,  till  they  have 
become  common,  and,  in  their  most  wonderful  forms, 
cease  to  attract  his  attention.  Then  his  senses  are 
suddenly,  as  by  an  invisible  influence,  unsealed,  and, 
like  the  proselyte  of  the  Egyptian  pyramids,  he  finds 
himself  in  a  magnificent  temple,  and  hears  exquisite 
music,  and  is  dazzled  by  surpassing  glory.  He  never 
recovers  his  indifference.  The  perpetual  changes  of 
nature  keep  alive  his  enthusiasm,  and  if  his  taste  is  not 
dulled  by  subsequent  debasement,  the  pleasure  he  re- 
ceives from  it  flows  on  like  a  stream — wearing  deeper 
and  calmer. 

"  Caroline  became  now  my  constant  companion. 
The  changes  of  the  natural  world  have  always  been 
my  chief  source  of  happiness,  and  I  was  curious  to 
know  whether  my  different  sensations,  under  different 
circumstances,  were  peculiar  to  myself.  I  left  her, 
therefore,  to  lead  the  conversation,  without  any  ex- 
pression of  my  feelings,  and,  to  my  surprise  and  de- 
light, she  invariably  struck  their  tone,  and  pursued  the 
same  vein  of  reflection.  It  convinced  me  of  what  I 
had  long  thought  might  be  true— that  there  was,  in 
the  varieties  of  natural  beauty,  a  hidden  meaning,  and 
a  delightful  purpose  of  good  ;  and,  if  I  am  not  de- 
ceived, it  is  a  new  and  beautiful  evidence  of  the  pro- 
portion and  extent  of  God's  benevolent  wisdom. 
Thus,  you  may  remember  the  peculiar  effect  of  the 
early  dawn — the  deep,  unruffled  serenity,  and  the  per- 
fect collectedness  of  your  senses.  You  may  remem- 
ber the  remarkable  purity  that  pervades  the  stealing 
in  of  color,  and  the  vanishing  of  the  cold  shadows  of 
gray — the  heavenly  quiet  that  seems  infused,  like  a 
visible  spirit,  into  the  pearly  depths  of  the  east,  as  the 
light  violet  tints  become  deeper  in  the  upper  sky,  and 
the  morning  mist  rises  up  like  a  veil  of  silvery  film, 
and  softens  away  its  intensity ;  and  then  you  will  re- 
member how  the  very  beatings  of  your  heart  grew 
quiet,  and  you  felt  an  irresistible  impulse  to  pray! 
There  was  no  irregular  delight,  no  indefinite  sensa- 
tion, no  ecstacy.  It  was  deep,  unbroken  repose,  and 
your  pulses  were  free  from  the  fever  of  life,  and  your 
reason  was  lying  awake  in  its  chamber. 

"There  is  a  hush  also  at  noon;  but  it  is  not  like 
the  morning.  You  have  been  mingling  in  the  business 
of  the  world,  and  you  turn  aside,  weary  and  distracted, 
for  rest.  There  is  a  far  depth,  in  the  intense  blue  of 
the  sky  which  takes  in  the  spirit,  and  you  are  content 
to  lie  down  and  sleep  in  the  cool  shadow,  and  forgec 
even  your  existence.  How  different  from  the  cool 
wakefulness  of  the  morning,  and  yet  how  fitted  for  the 
necessity  of  the  hour! 

"The  day  wears  on  and  comes  to  the  sunsetting. 
The  strong  light  passes  off  from  the  hills,  and  the 
leaves  are  mingled  in  golden  masses,  and  the  tips  of  the 
long  grass,  and  the  blades  of  maize,  and  the  luxuriant 
graiii,  are  all  sleeping  in  a  rich  glow,  as  if  the  daylight 


464 


INKLINGS  OF  ADVENTURE. 


had  melted  into  gold  and  descended  upon  every  living 
thing  like  dew.  The  sun  goes  down,  and  there  is  a 
tissue  of  indescribable-  glory  floating  upon  the  clouds, 
and  the  almost  imperceptible  blending  of  the  sunset 
color  with  the  blue  sky,  is  far  up  toward  the  zenith. 
Presently  the  pomp  of  the  early  sunset  passes  away  ; 
and  the  clouds  are  all  clad  in  purple,  with  edges  of 
metallic  lustre;  and  very  far  in  the  west,  as  if  they 
were  sailing  away  into  another  world,  are  seen  spots 
of  intense  brightness,  and  the  tall  trees  on  the  hilly 
edge  of  the  horizon  seem  piercing  the  sky,  on  fire  with 
its  consuming  heat.  There  is  a  tumultuous  joy  in 
the  contemplation  of  this  hour  which  is  peculiar  to 
itself.  You  feel  as  if  you  should  have  had  wings;  for 
there  is  a  strange  stirring  in  your  heart  to  follow  on — 
and  your  imagination  bursts  away  into  that  beautiful 
world,  and  revels  among  the  unsubstantial  clouds  till 
they  become  cold.  It  is  a  triumphant  and  extravagant 
hour.  Its  joyousness  is  an  intoxication,  and  its  pleas- 
ure dies  with  the  day. 

H  The  night,  starry  and  beautiful,  comes  on.  The 
sky  has  a  blue,  intense  almost  to  blackness,  and  the 
stars  are  set  in  it  like  gems.  They  are  of  different 
glory,  and  there  are  some  that  burn,  and  some  that 
have  a  twinkling  lustre,  and  some  are  just  visible  and 
faint.  You  know  their  nature,  and  their  motion  ;  and 
there  is  something  awful  in  so  many  worlds  moving  on 
through  the  firmament  so  silently  and  in  order.  You 
feel  an  indescribable  awe  stealing  upon  you,  and  your 
imagination  trembles  as  it  goes  up  among  them.  You 
gaze  on,  and  on,  and  the  superstitions  of  olden  time, 
and  the  wild  visions  of  astrology,  steal  over  your  mem- 
ory, till,  by-and-by,  you  hear  the  music  which  they 
'  give  out  as  they  go,'  and  drink  in  the  mysteries  of 
their  hidden  meaning,  and  believe  that  your  destiny  is 
woven  by  their  burning  spheres.  There  comes  on 
you  a  delirious  joy,  and  a  kind  of  terrible  fellowship 
with  their  sublime  nature,  and  you  feel  as  if  you  could 
go  up  to  a  starry  place  and  course  the  heavens  in  com- 
pany. There  is  a  spirituality  in  this  hour,  a  separa- 
tion from  material  things,  which  is  of  a  fine  order  of 
happiness.  The  purity  of  the  morning,  and  the  noon- 
tide quietness,  and  the  rapture  of  the  glorious  sunset, 
are  all  human  and  comprehensible  feelings  ;  but  this 
has  the  mystery  and  the  lofty  energy  of  a  higher  world, 
and  you  return  to  your  human  nature  with  a  refreshed 
spirit  and  an  elevated  purpose  :  see  now  the  wisdom 
of  God  ! — the  collected  intellect  for  the  morning  pray- 
er and  our  daily  duty — the  delicious  repose  for  our 
noontide  weariness — and  the  rapt  fervor  to  purify  us 
by  night  from  our  worldliness,  and  keep  wakeful  the 
eye  of  immortality  !  They  are  all  suited  to  our  need  ; 
and  it  is  pleasant  to  think,  when  we  go  out  at  this  or 
that  season,  that  its  peculiar  beauty  is  fitted  to  our  pe- 
culiar wants,  and  that  it  is  not  a  chance  harmony  of  our 
hearts  with  nature. 

"The  world  had  become  to  Caroline  a  new  place. 
No  change  in  the  season  was  indifferent  to  her— noth- 
ing was  common  or  familiar.  She  found  beauty  in 
things  you  would  pass  by,  and  a  lesson  for  her  mind  or 
her  heart  in  the  minutest  workmanship  of  nature.  Her 
character  assumed  a  cheerful  dignity,  and  an  elevation 
above  ordinary  amusements  or  annoyances.  She  was 
equable  and  calm,  because  her  feelings  were  never 
reached  by  ordinary  irritations  ;  and,  if  there  were  no 
other  benefit  in  cultivation,  this  were  almost  argument 
enough  to  induce  it. 

"  It  is  now  five  years  since  I  commenced  my  tutor- 
ship. I  have  given  you  the  history  of  two  of  them.  In 
the  remaining  three  there  has  been  much  that  has  in- 
terested my  mind — probably  little  that  would  interest 
yours.  We  have  read  together,  and,  as  far  as  possible, 
9tudied  together.  She  has  walked  with  me,  and  shared 
all  my  leisure,  and  known  every  thought.  She  is  now  a 
woman  of  eighteen.  Her  childish  graces  are  matured, 
and  her  blue  eye  would  send  a  thrill  through  you.  You 


might  object  to  her  want  of  fashionable  tournure,  and 
find  fault  with  her  unfashionable  impulses.  I  do  not. 
She  is  a  high-minded,  noble,  impassioned  being,  with 
an  enthusiasm  that  is  not  without  reason,  and  a  com- 
mon sense  that  is  not  a  regard  to  self-interest.  Her 
motion  was  not  learned  at  schools,  but  it  is  unembar- 
rassed and  free  ;  and  her  tone  has  not  been  educated 
to  a  refined  whisper,  but  it  expresses  the  meaning  of 
her  heart,  as  if  its  very  pulse  had  become  articulate. 
The  many  might  not  admire  her — I  know  she  would 
be  idolized  by  the  few. 

"  Our  intercourse  is  as  intimate  still ;  and  it  could 
not  change  without  being  less  so — for  we  are  constant- 
ly together.  There  is — to  be  sure — lately — a  slight 
degree  of  embarrassment — and — somehow — we  read 
more  poetry  than  we  used  to  do — but  it  is  nothing  at 
all — nothing." 

My  friend  was  married  to  his  pupil 'a  few  months 
after  writing  the  foregoing.  He  has  written  to  me 
since,  and  I  will  show  you  the  letter  if  you  will  call, 
any  time.  It  will  not  do  to  print  it,  because  there  are 
some  domestic  details  not  proper  for  the  general  eye  ; 
but,  to  me,  who  am  a  bachelor,  bent  upon  matrimony, 
it  is  interesting  to  the  last  degree.  He  lives  the  same 
quiet,  retired  life,  that  he  did  before  he  was  married. 
His  room  is  arranged  with  the  same  taste,  and  with 
reference  to  the  same  habits  as  before.  The  light 
comes  in  as  timidly  through  the  half-closed  window, 
and  his  pictures  look  as  shadowy  and  dim,  and  the 
rustle  of  the  turned  leaf  adds  as  mysteriously  to  the 
silence.  He  is  the  fondest  of  husbands,  but  his  affec- 
tion does  not  encroach  on  the  habits  of  his  mind.  Now 
and  then  he  looks  up  from  his  book,  and,  resting  his 
head  upon  his  hand,  lets  his  eye  wander  over  the  pale 
cheek  and  drooping  lid  of  the  beautiful  being  who  sits 
reading  beside  him  ;  but  he  soon  returns  to  his  half- 
forgotten  page,  and  the  smile  of  affection  which  had 
stolen  over  his  features  fades  gradually  away  into  the 
habitual  soberness  of  thought.  There  sits  his  wife, 
hour  after  hour,  in  the  same  chair  which  she  occupied 
when  she  first  came,  a  curious  loiterer  to  his  room; 
and  though  she  does  not  study  so  much,  because  other 
cares  have  a  claim  upon  her  now,  she  still  keeps  pace 
with  him  in  the  pleasanter  branches  of  knowledge,  and 
they  talk  as  often  and  as  earnestly  as  before  on  the 
thousand  topics  of  a  scholar's  contemplation.  Her 
cares  may  and  will  multiply  ;  but  she  understands  the 
economy  of  time,  and  I  have  no  doubt  that,  with  every 
attention  to  her  daily  duties,  she  will  find  ample  time 
for  her  mind,  and  be  always  as  well  fitted  as  now  for 
the  companionship  of  an  intellectual  being. 

I  have,  like  all  bachelors,  speculated  a  great  deal 
upon  matrimony.  I  have  seen  young  and  beautiful 
women,  the  pride  of  gay  circles,  married — as  the  world 
said — well !  Some  have  moved  into  costly  houses,  and 
their  friends  have  all  come  and  looked  at  their  fine 
furniture  and  their  splendid  arrangements  for  happi- 
ness, and  they  have  gone  away  and  committed  them  to 
their  sunny  hopes,  cheerfully,  and  without  fear.  It  is 
natural  to  be  sanguine  for  the  young,  and,  at  such 
times,  I  am  carried  away  by  similar  feelings.  I  love  to 
get  unobserved  into  a  corner,  and  watch  the  bride  in 
her  white  attire,  and  with  her  smiling  face  and  her  soft 
eyes  moving  before  me  in  their  pride  of  life,  weave  a 
waking  dream  of  her  future  happiness,  and  persuade 
myself  that  it  will  be  true.  I  think  how  they  will  sit 
upon  that  luxurious  sofa  as  the  twilight  falls,  and  build 
gay  hopes,  and  murmur  in  low  tones  the  now  unfor- 
bidden tenderness,  and  how  thrillingly  the  allowed  kiss 
and  the  beautiful  endearments  of  wedded  life,  will 
make  even  their  parting  joyous,  and  how  gladly  they 
will  come  back  from  the  crowd  and  the  empty  mirth 
of  the  gay,  to  each  other's  quiet  company.  I  picture 
to  myself  that  young  creature,  who  blushes,  even  now, 
at  his  hesitating  caress,  listening  eagerly  for  his  foot- 


INKLINGS  OF  ADVENTURE. 


465 


steps  as  the  night  steals  on,  and  wishing  that  he  would 
come ;  and  when  he  enters  at  last,  and,  with  an  affec- 
tion as  undying  as  his  pulse,  folds  her  to  his  bosom,  I 
can  feel  the  very  tide  that  goes  flowing  through  his 
heart,  and  gaze  with  him  on  her  graceful  form  as 
she  moves  about  him  for  the  kind  offices  of  affec- 
tion, soothing  all  his  unquiet  cares,  and  making  him 
forget  even  himself,  in  her  young  and  unshadowed 
beauty. 

I  go  forward  for  years,  and  see  her  luxuriant  hair 
put  soberly  away  from  her  brow,  and  her  girlish  graces 
ripened  into  dignity,  and  her  bright  loveliness  chast- 
ened with  the  gentle  meekness  of  maternal  affection. 
Her  husband  looks  on  her  with  a  proud  eye,  and 
shows  the  same  fervent  love  and  delicate  attention 
which  first  won  her,  and  fair  children  are  growing 
up  about  them,  and  they  go  on,  full  of  honor  and 
untroubled  years,  and  are  remembered  when  they 
die! 

I  say  I  love  to  dream  thus  when  I  go  to  give  the 
young  bride  joy.  It  is  the  natural  tendency  of  feel- 
ings touched  by  loveliness  that  fears  nothing  for  itself, 
and,  if  I  ever  yield  to  darker  feelings,  it  is  because  the 
light  of  the  picture  is  changed.  I  am  not  fond  of 
dwelling  on  such  changes,  and  I  will  not,  minutely, 
now.  1  allude  to  it  only  because  I  trust  that  my  sim- 
ple page  will  be  read  by  some  of  the  young  and  beau- 
tiful beings  who  move  daily  across  my  path,  and  I 
would  whisper  to  them  as  they  glide  by,  joyously  and 
confidingly,  the  secret  of  an  unclouded  future. 

The  picture  I  have  drawn  above  is  not  peculiar.  It 
is  colored  like  the  fancies  of  the  bride  ;  and  many — oh 
many  an  hour  will  she  sit,  with  her  rich  jewels  lying 
loose  in  her  fingers,  and  dream  such  dreams  as  these. 
She  believes  them,  too — and  she  goes  on,  for  a  while, 
undeceived.  The  evening  is  not  too  long  while  they 
talk  of  their  plans  for  happiness,  and  the  quiet  meal  is 
still  pleasant  with  the  delightful  novelty  of  mutual  re- 
liance and  attention.  There  comes  soon,  however,  a 
time  when  personal  topics  become  bare  and  wearisome, 


and  slight  attentions  will  not  alone  keep  up  the  social 
excitement.  There  are  long  intervals  of  silence,  and 
detected  symptoms  of  weariness,  and  the  husband,  first 
in  his  impatient  manhood,  breaks  in  upon  the  hours 
they  were  to  spend  together.  I  can  not  follow  it  cir- 
cumstantially. There  come  long  hours  of  unhappy 
listlessness,  and  terrible  misgivings  of  each  other's  worth 
and  affection,  till,  by-and-by,  they  can  conceal  their 
uneasiness  no  longer,  and  go  out  separately  to  seek 
relief,  and  lean  upon  a  hollow  world  for  the  support 
which  one  who  was  their  "lover  and  friend"  could  not 
give  them  ! 

Heed  this,  ye  who  are  winning,  by  your  innocent 
beauty,  the  affections  of  highminded  and  thinking 
beings  !  Remember  that  he  will  give  up  the  brother 
of  his  heart  with  whom  he  has  had,  ever,  a  fellowship 
of  mind — the  society  of  his  contemporary  runners  in 
the  race  of  fame,  who  have  held  with  him  a  stern 
companionship — and  frequently,  in  his  passionate  love, 
he  will  break  away  from  the  arena  of  his  burning  am- 
bition, to  come  and  listen  to  the  "voice  of  the  charm- 
er." It  will  bewilder  him  at  first,  but  it  will  not  long  ; 
and  then,  think  you  that  an  idle  blandishment  will 
chain  the  mind  that  has  been  used,  for  years,  to  an 
equal  communion  ?  Think  you  he  will  give  up,  for  a 
weak  dalliance,  the  animating  themes  of  men,  and  the 
search  into  the  fine  mysteries  of  knowledge  ? — Oh  no, 
lady  ! — believe  me — no  !  Trust  not  your  influence  to 
such  light  fetters  !  Credit  not  the  old-fashioned  ab- 
surdity that  woman's  is  a  secondary  lot — ministering 
to  the  necessities  of  her  lord  and  master  !  It  is  a 
higher  destiny  I  would  award  you.  If  your  immor- 
tality is  as  complete,  and  your  gift  of  mind  as  capable 
as  ours  of  increase  and  elevation,  I  would  put  no  wis- 
dom of  mine  against  God's  evident  allotment.  I 
would  charge  you  to  water  the  undying  bud,  and  give 
it  healthy  culture,  and  open  its  beauty  to  the  sun — 
and  then  you  may  hope,  that  when  your  life  is  bound 
up  with  another,  you  will  go  on  equally,  and  in  a 
fellowship  that  shall  pervade  every  earthly  interest ' 


END    OF    INKLINGS    OF    ADVENTURE. 


30 


LOITERINGS    OF    TRAVEL 


LADY  RAVELGOLD. 


CHAPTER  I. 

"  What  wouid  it  pleasure  me  to  have  my  throat  cut 
With  diamonds  ?  or  to  be  smothered  quick 
With  cassia,  or  be  shot  to  death  with  pearls  V 

Dutchess  of  Malfy. 

"  I've  been  i'  the  Indies  twice,  and  seen  strange  things— 
But  two  honest  women  '.—One,  I  read  of  once  !" 

Rule  a  Wife. 

It  was  what  is  called  by  people  on  the  continent  a 
"  London  day."  A  thin,  gray  mist  drizzled  down 
through  the  smoke  which  darkened  the  long  cavern 
of  Fleet  street ;  the  sidewalks  were  slippery  and  clam- 
my ;  the  drays  slid  from  side  to  side  on  the  greasy 
pavement,  creating  a  perpetual  clamor  among  the 
lighter  carriages  with  which  they  came  in  contact ; 
the  porters  wondered  that  "gemmen"  would  carry 
their  umbrellas  up  when  there  was  no  rain,  and  the 
gentlemen  wondered  that  porters  should  be  permitted 
on  the  sidewalks ;  there  were  passengers  in  box-coats, 
though  it  was  the  first  of  May,  and  beggars  with  bare 
breasts,  though  it  was  chilly  as  November ;  the  boys 
were  looking  wistfully  into  the  hosier's  windows  who 
were  generally  at  the  pastry-cook's  ;  and  there  were 
persons  who  wished  to  know  the  time,  trying  in  vain 
to  see  the  dial  of  St.  Paul's  through  the  gamboge  at- 
mosphere. 

It  was  twelve  o'clock,  and  a  plain  chariot  with  a 
simple  crest  on  the  panels,  slowly  picked  its  way 
through  the  choked  and  disputed  thoroughfare  east 
of  Temple  Bar.  The  smart  glazed  hat  of  the  coach- 
man, the  well-fitted  drab  greatcoat  and  gaiters  of  the 
footman,  and  the  sort  of  half-submissive,  half-con- 
temptuous look  on  both  their  faces  (implying  that  they 
were  bound  to  drive  to  the  devil  if  it  were  miladi's  or- 
ders, but  that  the  rabble  of  Fleet  street  was  a  leetle  too 
vulgar  for  their  contact),  expressed  very  plainly  that 
the  lady  within  was  a  denizen  of  a  more  privileged 
quarter,  but  had  chosen  a  rainy  day  for  some  compul- 
sory visit  to  "  the  city." 

At  the  rate  of  perhaps  a  mile  an  hour,  the  well- 
groomed  night-horses  (a  pair  of  smart,  hardy,  twelve- 
mile  cabs,  all  bottom,  but  little  style,  kept  for  night- 
work  and  forced  journeys)  had  threaded  the  tortuous 
entrails  of  London,  and  had  arrived  at  the  arch  of  a 
dark  court  in  Throgmorton  street.  The  coachman 
put  his  wheels  snug  against  the  edge  of  the  sidewalk, 
to  avoid  being  crushed  by  the  passing  drays,  and  set- 
tled his  many-caped  benjamin  about  him ;  while  the 
footman  spread  his  umbrella,  and  making  a  balustrade 
of  his  arm  for  his  mistress's  assistance,  a  closely-veiled 
lady  descended  and  disappeared  up  the  wet  and  ill- 
paved  avenue. 


The  green-baize  door  of  Firkins  and  Co.  opened  on 
its  silent  hinges  and  admitted  the  mysterious  visiter, 
who,  inquiring  of  the  nearest  clerk  if  the  junior  part- 
ner were  in,  was  shown  to  a  small  inner  room  contain- 
ing a  desk,  two  chairs,  a  coal  fire,  and  a  young  gentle- 
man. The  last  article  of  furniture  rose  on  the  lady's 
entrance,  and  as  she  threw  off  her  veil  he  made  a  low 
bow,  with  the  air  of  a  gentleman,  who  is  neither  sur- 
prised nor  embarrassed,  and  pushing  aside  the  door- 
check,  they  were  left  alone. 

There  was  that  forced  complaisance  in  the  lady's 
manner  on  her  first  entrance,  which  produced  the 
slightest  possible  elevation  in  a  very  scornful  lip  owned 
by  the  junior  partner,  but  the  lady  was  only  forty-five, 
highborn,  and  very  handsome,  and  as  she  looked  at 
the  fine  specimen  of  nature's  nobility,  who  met  her 
with  a  look  as  proud  and  yet  as  gentle  as  her  own,  the 
smoke  of  Fleet  street  passed  away  from  her  memory, 
and  she  became  natural  and  even  gracious.  The 
effect  upon  the  junior  partner  was  simply  that  of  re- 
moving from  his  breast  the  shade  of  her  first  impres- 
sion. 

"  I  have  brought  you,"  said  his  visiter,  drawing  a 
card  from  her  reticule,  "  an  invitation  to  the  dutchess 
of  Hautaigle's  ball.  She  sent  me  half  a  dozen  to  fill 
up  for  what  she  calls  '  ornamentals' — and  I  am  sure  I 
shall  scarce  find  another  who  comes  so  decidedly  under 
her  grace's  category." 

The  fair  speaker  had  delivered  this  pretty  speech 
in  the  sweetest  and  best-bred  tone  of  St.  James's, 
looking  the  while  at  the  toe  of  the  small  brodequin 
which  she  held  up  to  the  fire— perhaps  thinking  only 
of  drying  it.  As  she  concluded  her  sentence,  she 
turned  to  her  companion  for  an  answer,  and  was  sur- 
prised at  the  impassive  politeness  of  his  bow  of  ac- 
knowledgment. 

"  I  regret  that  I  shall  not  be  able  to  avail  myself  of 
vour  ladyship's  kindness,"  said  the  junior  partner,  in 
the  same  well-enunciated  tone  of  courtesy. 

"  Then,"  replied  the  lady  with  a  smile,  "  Lord  Au- 
gustus Fitz-Moi,  who  looks  at  himself  all  dinner-time 
in  a  spoon,  will  be  the  Apollo  of  the  hour.  What  a 
pity  such  a  handsome  creature  should  be  so  vain  ! — 
By-the-way,  Mr.  Firkins,  you  live  without  a  looking- 
glass,  I  see." 

"  Your  ladyship  reminds  me  that  this  is  merely  a 
place  of  business.  May  I  ask  at  once  what  errand 
has  procured  me  the  honor  of  a  visit  on  so  unpleasant 
a  day  ?" 

A  slight  flush  brightened  the  cheek  and  forehead 
of  the  beautiful  woman,  as  she  compressed  her  lips, 
and  forced  herself  to  say  with  affected  ease,  "  The 
want  of  five  hundred  pounds." 

The  junior  partner  paused  an  instant,  while  the  lady 
tapped  with  her  boot  upon  the  fender  in  ill-dissembled 
anxiety,  and  then,  turning  to  his  desk,  he  filled  up  the 


LADY  RAVELGOLD. 


467 


check  without  remark,  presented  it,  and  took  his  hat 
to  wait  on  her  to  her  carriage.  A  gleam  of  relief  and 
pleasure  shot  over  her  countenance  as  she  closed  her 
small  jewelled  hand  over  it,  followed  immediately  by  a 
look  of  embarrassed  inquiry  into  the  face  of  the  un- 
questioning banker. 

"  I  am  in  your  debt  already." 

"  Thirty  thousand  pounds,  madam  !" 

"And  for  this  you  think  the  securities  on  the  estate 
of  Rockland — " 

"Are  worth  nothing,  madam  !  But  it  rains.  I  re- 
gret that  your  ladyship's  carriage  can  not  come  to  the 
door.  In  the  old-fashioned  days  of  sedan-chairs,  now, 
the  dark  courts  of  Lothbury  must  have  been  more  at- 
tractive. By-the-way,  talking  of  Lothbury,  there  is 
Lady  Roseberry's  fete  champetre  next  week.  If  you 
should  chance  to  have  a  spare  card " 

"  Twenty,  if  you  like — I  am  too  happy — really,  Mr. 
Firkins " 

"  It's  on  the  fifteenth ;  I  shall  have  the  honor  of 
seeing  your  ladyship  there  !  Good-morning  !  Home, 
coachman  !" 

"  Does  this  man  love  me  ?"  was  Lady  Ravelgold's 
first  thought,  as  she  sank  back  in  her  returning  char- 
iot. "  Yet  no  !  he  was  even  rude  in  his  haste  to  be 
rid  of  me.  And  I  would  willingly  have  stayed  too,  for 
there  is  something  about  him  of  a  mark  that  I  like. 
Ay,  and  he  must  have  seen  it — a  lighter  encourage- 
ment has  been  interpreted  more  readily.  Five  hun- 
dred pounds  ! — really  five  hundred  pounds  !  And  thir- 
ty thousand  at  the  back  of  it !  What  does  he  mean  ? 
Heavens  !  if  he  should  be  deeper  than  I  thought !  If 
he  should  wish  to  involve  me  first  !" 

And  spite  of  the  horror  with  which  the  thought  was 
met  in  the  mind  of  Lavy  Ravelgold,  the  blush  over 
her  forehead  died  away  into  a  half  smile  and  a  bright- 
er tint  in  her  lips  ;  and  as  the  carriage  wound  slowly 
on  through  the  confused  press  of  Fleet  street  and  the 
Strand,  the  image  of  the  handsome  and  haughty  young 
banker  shut  her  eyes  from  all  sounds  without,  and  she 
was  at  her  own  door  in  Grosvenor  square  before  she 
had  changed  position  or  wandered  half  a  moment  from 
the  subject  of  those  busy  dreams. 


CHAPTER  II. 

The  morning  of  the  fifteenth  of  May  seemed  to 
have  been  appointed  by  all  the  flowers  as  a  jubilee  of 
perfume  and  bloom.  The  birds  had  been  invited,  and 
sang  in  the  summer  with  a  welcome  as  full-throated 
as  a  prima  donna  singing  down  the  tenor  in  a  duet ; 
the  most  laggard  buds  turned  out  their  hearts  to  the 
sunshine,  and  promised  leaves  on  the  morrow  ;  and 
that  portion  of  London  that  had  been  invited  to  Lady 
Roseberry's  fete,  thought  it  a  very  fine  day  !  That 
portion  which  was  not,  wondered  how  people  would 
go  sweltering  about  in  such  a  glare  for  a  cold  dinner  ! 

At  about  half  past  two,  a  very  elegant  dark-green 
cab  without  a  crest,  and  with  a  servant  in  whose  slight 
figure  and  plain  blue  livery  there  was  not  a  fault, 
whirled  out  at  the  gate  of  the  Regent's  Park,  and  took 
its  way  up  the  well-watered  road  leading  to  Hamp- 
stead.  The  gentlemen  whom  it  passed  or  met  turned 
to  admire  the  performance  of  the  dark-gray  horse,  and 
the  ladies  looked  after  the  cab  as  if  they  could  see  the 
handsome  occupant  once  more  through  its  leather 
back.  Whether  by  conspiracy  among  the  coach- 
makers,  or  by  an  aristocracy  of  taste,  the  degree  of 
elegance  in  a  turn-out  attained  by  the  cab  just  de- 
scribed, is  usually  confined  to  the  acquaintances  of 

Lady — ;   that  list  being  understood  to  enumerate 

all  "  the  nice  young  men"  of  the  West  End,  beside 
the  guardsmen.  (The  ton  of  the  latter,  in  all  matters 
hat  affect  the  style  of  the  regiment,  is  looked  after  by 


the  club  and  the  colonel.)  The  junior  Firkins  seemed 
an  exception  to  this  exclusive  rule.  No  "  nice  man" 
could  come  from  Lothbury,  and  he  did  not  visit  Lady 

;  but  his  horse  was  faultless,  and  when  he  turned 

into  the  gate  of  Rose-Eden,  the  policeman  at  the 
porter's  lodge,  though  he  did  not  know  him,  thought 
it  unnecessary  to  ask  for  his  name.  Away  he  spat- 
tered up  the  hilly  avenue,  and  giving  the  reins  to  his 
groom  at  the  end  of  a  green  arbor  leading  to  the  re- 
ception-lawn, he  walked  in  and  made  his  bow  to  Lady 
Roseberry,  who  remarked,  "  How  very  handsome  ! 
Who  can  he  be  ?" — and  the  junior  partner  walked  on 
and  disappeared  down  an  avenue  of  laburnums. 

Ah  !  but  Rose-Eden  looked  a  paradise  that  day  ! 
Hundreds  had  passed  across  the  close-shaven  lawn, 
with  a  bow  to  the  lady-mistress  of  this  fair  abode.  Yet 
the  grounds  were  still  private  enough  for  Milton's  pair, 
so  lost  were  they  in  the  green  labyrinths  of  hill  and 
dale.  Some  had  descended  through  heavily-shaded 
paths  to  a  fancy  dairy,  built  over  a  fountain  in  the  bot- 
tom of  a  cool  dell  ;  and  here,  amid  her  milk-pans  of 
old  and  costly  china,  the  prettiest  maid  in  the  country 
round  pattered  about  upon  a  floor  of  Dutch  tiles,  and 
served  her  visiters  with  creams  and  ices — already,  as  it 
were,  adapted  to  fashionable  comprehension.  Some 
had  strayed  to  the  ornamental  cottages  in  the  skirts 
of  the  flower-garden — poetical  abodes,  built  from  a 
picturesque  drawing,  with  imitation  roughness ;  thatch, 
lattice-window,  and  low  paling,  all  complete;  and  in- 
habited by  superannuated  dependants  of  Lord  Rose- 
berry,  whose  only  duties  were  to  look  like  patriarchs, 
and  give  tea  and  new  cream-cheese  to  visiters  on  fete- 
days.  Some  had  gone  to  see  the  silver  and  gold  pheas- 
ants in  their  wire-houses,  stately  aristocrats  of  the  game 
tribe,  who  carry  their  finely-pencilled  feathers  like 
"  Marmalet  Madarus,"  strutting  in  hoop  and  farthin- 
gale. Some  had  gone  to  the  kennels,  to  see  setters 
and  pointers,  hounds  and  terriers,  lodged  like  gentle- 
men, each  breed  in  its  own  apartment — the  puppies,  as 
elsewhere,  treated  with  most  attention.  Some  were 
in  the  flower-garden,  some  in  the  greenhouses,  some 
in  the  graperies,  aviaries,  and  grottoes  ;  and  at  the  side 
of  a  bright  sparkling  fountain,  in  the  recesses  of  a  fir- 
grove,  with  her  foot  upon  its  marble  lip,  and  one  hand 
on  the  shoulder  of  a  small  Cupid  who  archly  made  a 
drinking-cup  of  his  wing,  and  caught  the  bright  water 
as  it  fell,  stood  Lady  Imogen  Ravelgold,  the  loveliest 
girl  of  nineteen  that  prayed  night  and  morning  within 
the  parish  of  May  Fair,  listening  to  very  passionate 
language  from  the  young  banker  of  Lothbury. 

A  bugle  on  the  lawn  rang  a  recall.  From  every 
alley,  and  by  every  path,  poured  in  the  gay  multitude, 
and  the  smooth  sward  looked  like  a  plateau  of  ani- 
mated flowers,  waked  by  magic  from  a  broidery  on 
green  velvet.  Ah  !  the  beautiful  demi-toilcttcs  ! — so 
difficult  to  attain,  yet,  when  attained,  the  dress  most 
modest,  most  captivating,  most  worthy  the  divine  grace 
of  woman.  Those  airy  hats,  sheltering  from  the  sun, 
yet  not  enviously  concealing  a  feature  or  a  ringlet  that 
a  painter  would  draw  for  his  exhibition-picture ! 
Those  summery  and  shapeless  robes,  covering  the 
person  more  to  show  its  outline  better,  and  provoke 
more  the  worship,  which,  like  all  worship,  is  made 
more  adoring  by  mystery  !  Those  complexions  which 
but  betray  their  transparency  in  the  sun  ;  lips  in  which 
the  blood  is  translucent  when  between  you  and  the 
light  ;  cheeks  finer-grained  than  alabaster,  yet  as  cool 
in  their  virgin  purity  as  a  tint  in  the  dark  corner  of  a 
Ruysdael  :  the  human  race  was  at  less  perfection  in 
Athens  in  the  days  of  Lais— in  Egypt  in  the  days  of 
Cleopatra— than  that  day  on  the  lawn  of  Rose- Eden. 

Cart-loads  of  ribands,  of  every  gay  color,  had  been 
laced  through  the  trees  in  all  directions:  and  amid 
every  variety  of  foliage,  and  every  shade  of  green,  the 
tulip-iints  shone  vivid  and  brilliant,  like  an  American 
forest  after  the  first  frost.     From  the  left  edge  of  the 


468 


LADY  RAVELGOLD. 


lawn,  the  ground  suddenly  sunk  into  a  dell,  shaped 
like  an  amphitheatre,  with  a  level  platform  at  its  bot- 
tom, and  all  around,  above  and  below,  thickened  a 
shady  wood.  The  music  of  a  delicious  band  stole  up 
from  the  recesses  of  a  grove,  draped  as  an  orchestra 
and  green-room  on  the  lower  side,  and  while  the 
audience  disposed  themselves  in  the  shade  of  the  up- 
per grove,  a  company  of  players  and  dancing-girls 
commenced  their  theatricals. — Imogen  Ravelgold, 
who  was  separated,  by  a  pine  tree  only,  from  the  junior 
partner,  could  scarce  tell  you,  when  it  was  finished, 
what  was  the  plot  of  the  play. 

The  recall-bugle  sounded  again,  and  the  band 
wound  away  from  the  lawn,  playing  a  gay  march. 
Followed  Lady  Roseberry  and  her  suite  of  gentlemen, 
followed  dames  and  their  daughters,  followed  all  who 
wished  to  see  the  flight  of  my  lord's  falcons.  By  a 
narrow  path  and  a  wicket-gate,  the  long  music-guided 
train  stole  out  upon  an  open  hill-side,  looking  down 
on  a  verdant  and  spreading  meadow.  The  band  play- 
ed at  a  short  distance  behind  the  gay  groups  of  spec- 
tators, and  it  was  a  pretty  picture  to  look  down  upon 
the  splendidly-dressed  falconer  and  his  men,  holding 
their  fierce  birds  upon  their  wrists,  in  their  hoods  and 
jesses,  a  foreground  of  old  chivalry  and  romance  ; 
while  far  beyond  extended,  like  a  sea  over  the  horizon, 
the  smoke-clad  pinnacles  of  busy  and  every-day  Lon- 
don. There  are  such  contrasts  of  the  eyes  of  the 
rich  ! 

The  scarlet  hood  was  taken  from  the  trustiest 
falcon,  and  a  dove,  confined,  at  first,  with  a  string, 
was  thrown  up,  and  brought  back,  to  excite  his  alten- 
tion.  As  he  fixed  his  eye  upon  him,  the  frightened 
victim  was  let  loose,  and  the  falcon  flung  off;  away 
skimmed  the  dove  in  a  low  flight  over  the  meadow, 
and  up  to  the  very  zenith,  in  circles  of  amazing  swift- 
ness and  power,  sped  the  exulting  falcon,  apparently 
forgetful  of  his  prey,  and  bound  for  the  eye  of  the  sun 
with  his  strong  wings  and  his  liberty.  The  falconer's 
whistle  and  cry  were  heard  ;  the  dove  circled  round 
the  edge  of  the  meadow  in  his  wavy  flight ;  and  down, 
with  the  speed  of  lightning,  shot  the  falcon,  striking 
his  prey  dead  to  the  earth  before  the  eye  could  settle 
on  his  form.  As  the  proud  bird  stood  upon  his 
victim,  looking  around  with  a  lifted  crest  and  fierce  eye, 
Lady  Imogen  Ravengold  heard,  in  a  voice  of  which 
her  heart  knew  the  music,  "  They  who  soar  highest 
strike  surest ;  the  dove  lies  in  the  falcon's  bosom." 


CHAPTER  III. 

The  afternoon  had,  meantime,  been  wearing  on, 
and  at  six  the  "  breakfast"  was  announced.  The 
tents  beneath  which  the  tables  were  spread  were  in 
different  parts  of  the  grounds,  and  the  guests  had 
made  up  their  own  parties.  Each  sped  to  his  ren- 
dezvous, and  as  the  last  loiterers  disappeared  from 
the  lawn,  a  gentleman  in  a  claret  coat  and  a  brown 
study,  found  himself  stopping  to  let  a  lady  pass  who 
had  obeying  the  summons  as  tardily  as  himself.  In 
a  white  chip  hat,  Hairbault's  last,  a  few  lilies  of  the 
valley  laid  among  her  raven  curls  beneath,  a  simple 
white  robe,  the  chef-d'muvre  of  Victotine  in  style  and 
tournure,  Lady  Ravelgold  would  have  been  the  belle 
of  the  fete,  but  for  her  daughter. 

"Well  emerged  from  Lothbury  !"  she  said,  court- 
esying,  with  a  slight  flush  over  her  features,  but  im- 
mediately taking  his  arm  ;  "  I  have  lost  my  party,  and 
meeting  you  is  opportune.    Where  shall  we  breakfast?" 

There  was  a  small  tent  standing  invitingly  open  on 
the  opposite  side  of  the  lawn,  and  by  the  fainter  rattle 
of  soup-spoons  from  that  quarter,  it  promised  to  be 
less  crowded  than  the  others.  The  junior  partner 
would  willingly  have  declined  the  proffered  honor,  but 


he  saw  at  a  glance  that  there  was  no  escape,  and  sub- 
mitted with  a  grace. 

"You  know  very  few  people  here,"  said  his  fair 
creditor,  taking  the  bread  from  her  napkin. 

"Your  ladyship  and  one  other." 

"  Ah,  we  shall  have  dancing  by-and-by,  and  I  must 
introduce  you  to  my  daughter.  By  the  way,  have 
you  no  name  from  your  mother's  side  ?  '  Firkins' 
sounds  so  very  odd.  Give  me  some  prettier  word  to 
drink  in  this  champagne." 

"  What  do  you  think  of  Tremlet?" 

"  Too  effeminate  for  your  severe  style  of  beauty — 
but  it  will  do.  Mr.  Tremlet,  your  health  !  Will  you 
give  me  a  little  of  the  pate,  before  you?  Pray,  if  it 
is  not  indiscreet,  how  comes  that  classic  profile,  and 
more  surprising  still,  that  distinguished  look  of  yours, 
to  have  found  no  gayer  destiny  than  the  signing  of 
'  Firkins  and  Co.'  to  notes  of  hand  ?  Though  I  thought 
you  became  your  den  in  Lothbury,  upon  my  honoryou 
look  more  at  home  here." 

And  Lady  Ravengold  fixed  her  superb  eyes  upon 
the  beautiful  features  of  her  companion,  wondering 
partly  why  he  did  not  speak,  and  partly  why  she  had 
not  observed  before  that  he  was  incomparably  the 
handsomest  creature  she  had  ever  seen. 

"  I  can  regret  no  vocation,"  he  answered  after  a 
moment,  "  which  procures  me  an  acquaintance  with 
your  ladyship's  family." 

"  There  is  an  arriere  penste  in  that  formal  speech, 
Mr.  Tremlet.  You  are  insincere.  I  am  the  only 
one  in  my  family  whom  you  know,  and  what  pleas- 
ure have  you  taken  in  my  acquaintance  ?  And,  now 
I  think  of  it,  there  is  a  mystery  about  you,  which,  but 
for  the  noble  truth  written  so  legibly  on  your  features, 
I  should  be  afraid  to  fathom.  Why  have  you  suffered 
me  to  over-draw  my  credit  so  enormously,  and  without 
a  shadow  of  a  protest  ?" 

When  Lady  Ravelgold  had  disburdened  her  heart 
of  this  direct  question,  she  turned  half  round  and 
looked  her  companion  in  the  face  with  an  intense 
interest,  which  produced  upon  her  own  features  an 
expression  of  earnestness  very  uncommon  upon  their 
pale  and  impassive  lines.  She  was  one  of  those  per- 
sons of  little  thought,  who  care  nothing  for  causes  or 
consequences,  so  that  the  present  difficulty  is  removed, 
or  the  present  hour  provided  with  its  wings  ;  but  the 
repeated  relief  she  had  received  from  the  young  banker, 
when  total  ruin  would  have  been  the  consequence  of 
his  refusal,  and  his  marked  coldness  in  his  manner  to 
her,  had  stimulated  the  utmost  curiosity  of  which  she 
was  capable.  Her  vanity,  founded  upon  her  high  rank 
and  great  renown  as  a  beauty,  would  have  agreed  that 
he  might  be  willing  to  get  her  into  his  power  at  that 
price,  had  he  been  less  agreeable  in  his  own  person, 
or  more  eager  in  his  manner.  But  she  had  wanted 
money  sufficiently  to  know,  that  thirty  thousand  pounds 
are  not  a  bagatelle,  and  her  brain  was  busy  till  she  dis- 
covered the  equivalent  he  sought  for  it.  Meantime 
her  fear  that  he  would  turn  out  to  be  a  lover,  grew 
rapidly  into  a  fear  that  he  would  not. 

Lady  Ravelgold  had  been  the  wife  of  a  dissolute 
earl,  who  had  died,  leaving  his  estate  inextricably  in- 
volved. With  no  male  heir  to  the  title  or  property, 
and  no  very  near  relation,  the  beautiful  widow  shut 
her  eyes  to  the  difficulties  by  which  she  was  sur- 
rounded, and  at  the  first  decent  moment  after  the 
death  of  her  lord,  she  had  re-entered  the  gay  society 
of  which  she  had  been  the  bright  and  particular  star, 
and  never  dreamed  either  of  diminishing  her  establish- 
ment, or  of  calculating  her  possible  income.  The 
first  heavy  draft  she  had  made  upon  the  house  of 
Firkins  and  Co.,  her  husband's  bankers,  had  been  re- 
turned with  a  statement  of  the  Ravelgold  debt  and 
credit  on  their  books,  by  which  it  appeared  that  Lord 
Ravelgold  had  overdrawn  four  or  five  thousand  pounds 
before  his  death,  and  that  from  some  legal  difficulties, 


LADY  RAVELGOLD. 


469 


nothing  could  be  realized  from  the  securities  given 
on  his  estates.  This  bad  news  arrived  on  the  morning 
of  a  fete  to  be  given  by  the  Russian  ambassador,  at 
which  her  only  child.  Lady  Imogen,  was  to  make  her 
debut  in  society.  With  the  facility  of  disposition 
which  was  peculiar  to  her,  Lady  Ravelgold  thrust  the 
papers  into  her  drawer,  and  determining  to  visit  her 
banker  on  the  following  morning,  threw  the  matter 
entirely  from  her  mind  and  made  preparations  for  the 
ball.  With  the  Russian  government  the  house  of 
Firkins  and  Co.  had  long  carried  on  very  extensive 
fiscal  transactions,  and  in  obedience  to  instructions 
from  the  emperor,  regular  invitations  for  the  embassy 
fetes  were  sent  to  the  bankers,  accepted  occasionally 
by  the  junior  partner  only,  who  was  generally  sup- 
posed to  be  a  natural  son  of  old  Firkins.  Out  of  the 
banking-house  he  was  known  as  Mr.  Tremlet,  and  it 
was  by  this  name,  which  was  presumed  to  be  his 
mother's,  that  he  was  casually  introduced  to  Lady 
Imogen  on  the  night  of  the  fete,  while  she  was  separa- 
ted from  her  mother  in  the  dancing-room.  The  con- 
sequence was  a  sudden,  deep,  ineffaceable  passion  in 
the  bosom  of  the  young  banker,  checked  and  silenced, 
but  never  lessened  or  chilled  by  the  recollection  of 
the  obstacle  of  his  birth.  The  impression  of  his  sub- 
dued manner,  his  worshipping,  yet  most  respectful 
tones,  and  the  bright  soul  that  breathed  through  his 
handsome  features  with  his  unusual  excitement,  was, 
to  say  the  least,  favorable  upon  Lady  Imogen,  and  they 
parted  on  the  night»of  the  fete,  mutually  aware  of  each 
other's  preference. 

On  the  following  morning  Lady  Ravelgold  made 
her  proposed  visit  to  the  city  ;  and  inquiring  for  Mr. 
Firkins,  was  shown  in  as  usual  to  the  junior  partner, 
to  whom  the  colloquial  business  of  the  concern  had 
long  been  intrusted.  To  her  surprise  she  found  no 
difficulty  in  obtaining  the  sum  of  money  which  had 
been  refused  her  on  the  preceding  day — a  result  which 
she  attributed  to  her  powers  of  persuasion,  or  to  some 
new  turn  in  the  affairs  of  the  estate  ;  and  for  two  years 
these  visits  had  been  repeated  at  intervals  of  three  or 
four  months,  with  the  same  success,  though  not  with 
the  same  delusion  as  to  the  cause.  She  had  discover- 
ed that  the  estate  was  worse  than  nothing,  and  the 
junior  partner  cared  little  to  prolong  his  tetes-d-teles 
with  her,  and,  up  to  the  visit  with  which  this  tale 
opened,  she  had  looked  to  every  succeeding  one  with 
iucreased  fear  and  doubt. 

During  these  two  years,  Tremlet  had  seen  Lady 
Imogen  occasionally  at  balls  and  public  places,  and 
every  look  they  exchanged  wove  more  strongly  be- 
tween them  the  subtle  threads  of  love.  Once  or  twice 
she  had  endeavored  to  interest  her  mother  in  conver- 
sation on  the  subject,  with  the  intention  of  making 
•a  confidence  of  her  feelings  ;  but  Lady  Ravengold, 
when  not  anxious,  was  giddy  with  her  own  success, 
and  the  unfamiliar  name  never  rested  a  moment  on  her 
ear.  With  this  explanation  to  render  the  tale  in- 
telligible, "  let  us,"  as  the  French  say,  "  return  to  our 
muttons." 

Of  the  conversation  between  Tremlet  and  her  moth- 
er, Lady  Imogen  was  an  unobserved  and  astonished 
witness.  The  tent  which  they  had  entered  was  large, 
with  a  buffet  in  the  centre,  and  a  circular  table  waited 
on  by  servants  within  the  ring  ;  and,  just  concealed 
by  the  drapery  around  the  pole,  sat  Lady  Imogen 
with  a  party  of  her  friends,  discussing  very  seriously 
the  threatened  fashion  of  tight  sleeves.  She  had  half 
risen,  when  her  mother  entered,  to  offer  her  a  seat  by 
her  side,  but  the  sight  of  Tremlet,  who  immediately 
followed,  had  checked  the  words  upon  her  lip,  and  to 
her  surprise  they  seated  themselves  on  the  side  that 
was  wholly  unoccupied,  and  conversed  in  a  tone  in- 
audible to  all  but  themselves.  Not  aware  that  her 
lover  knew  Lady  Ravelgold,  she  supposed  that  they 
might  have  been  casually  introduced,  till  the  earnest- 


ness of  her  mother's  manner,  and  a  certain  ease  be- 
tween them  in  the  little  courtesies  of  the  table,  assured 
her  that  this  could  not  be  their  first  interview.  Trem- 
let's  face  was  turned  from  her,  and  she  could  not 
judge  whether  he  was  equally  interested  ;  but  she 
had  been  so  accustomed  to  consider  her  mother  as 
irresistible  when  she  chose  to  please,  that  she  supposed 
it  of  course  ;  and  very  soon  the  heightened  color  of 
Lady  Ravelgold,  and  the  unwavering  look  of  mingled 
admiration  and  curiosity  which  she  bent  upon  the 
handsome  face  of  her  companion,  left  no  doubt  in  her 
mind  that  her  reserved  and  exclusive  lover  was  in  the 
dangerous  toils  of  a  rival  whose  power  she  knew. 
From  the  mortal  pangs  of  a  first  jealousy,  Heaven  send 
thee  deliverance,  fair  Lady  Imogen  ! 

"  We  shall  find  our  account  in  the  advances  on 
your  ladyship's  credit ;"  said  Tremlet,  in  reply  to  the 
direct  question  that  was  put  to  him.  "  Meantime 
permit  me  to  admire  the  courage  with  which  you  look 
so  disagreeable  a  subject  in  the  face." 

"  For  '  disagreeable  subject,'  read  '  Mr.  Tremlet.' 

I  show  my  temerity  more  in  that.     Apropos  of  faces, 

yours  would  become  the  new  fashion  of  cravat.     The 

!  men   at  Crockford's  slip  the  ends  through  a  ring  of 

■  their  lady-love's,  if  they  chance  to  have  one — thus  !" 

j  and  untying  the  loose  knot  of  his  black  satin  cravat, 

Lady  Ravelgold  slipped  over  the  ends  a  diamond  of 

small  value,  conspicuously  set  in  pearls. 

M  The  men  at  Crockford's,"  said  Tremlet,  hesita- 
ting to  commit  the  rudeness  of  removing  the  ring, 
"  are  not  of  my  school  of  manners.  If  I  had  been  so 
fortunate  as  to  inspire  a  lady  with  a  preference  for  me, 
I  should  not  advertise  it  on  my  cravat." 

"  But  suppose  the  lady  were  proud  of  her  preference 
as  dames  were  of  the  devotion  of  their  knights  in  the 
days  of  chivalry — would  you  not  wear  her  favor  as 
conspicuously  as  they  ?" 

A  flush  of  mingled  embarrassment  and  surprise 
shot  over  the  forehead  of  Tremlet,  and  he  was  turning 
the  ring  with  his  fingers,  when  Lady  Imogen,  at- 
tempting to  pass  out  of  the  tent,  was  stopped  by  her 
mother. 

"Imogen,  my  daughter!  this  is  Mr.  Tremlet.  La- 
dy Imogen  Ravelgold,  Mr.  Tremlet!" 

The  cold  and  scarce  perceptible  bow  which  the 
wounded  girl  gave  to  her  lover,  betrayed  no  previous 
acquaintance  to  the  careless  Lady  Ravelgold.  With- 
out giving  a  second  thought  to  her  daughter,  she  held 
her  glass  for  some  champagne  to  a  passing  servant, 
and  as  Lady  Imogen  and  her  friends  crossed  the  lawn 
to  the  dancing-tent,  she  resumed  the  conversation 
which  they  had  interrupt3d;  while  Tremlet,  with  his 
heart  brooding  on  the  altered  look  he  had  received, 
listened  and  replied  almost  unconsciously ;  yet  from 
this  very  circumstance,  in  a  manner  which  was  in- 
terpreted by  his  companion  as  the  embarrassment  of  a 
timid  and  long-repressed  passion  for  herself. 

While  Lady  Ravelgold  and  the  junior  partner  were 
thus  playing  at  cross  purposes  over  their  champagne 
and  bons-bons,  Grisi  and  Lablanche  were  singing  a 
duet  from  /  Puritani,  to  a  full  audience  in  the  saloon ; 
the  drinking  young  men  sat  over  their  wine  at  the 
nearly-deserted  tables  ;  Lady  Imogen  and  her  friends 
waltzed  to  Collinet's  band,  and  the  artisans  were  busy 
below  the  lawn,  erecting  the  machinery  for  the  fire- 
works. Meantime  every  alley  and  avenue,  grot  and 
labyrinth,  had  been  dimly  illuminated  with  colored 
lamps,  showing  like  vari-colored  glow-worms  amid 
the  foliage  and  shells;  and  if  the  bright  scenery  of 
Rose-Eden  had  been  lovely  by  day,  it  was  fay-land 
and  witchery  by  night.  Fatal  impulse  of  our  nature, 
that  these  approaches  to  paradise  in  the  "delight  of 
the  eye,"  stir  only  in  our  bosoms  the  passions  upon 
which  law  and  holy  writ  have  put  ban  and  bridle ! 

"Shall  we  stroll  down  this  alley  of  crimson  lamps?" 
said  Lady  Ravelgold,  crossing  the  lawn  from  the  tent 


470 


LADY  RAVELGOLD. 


where  their  coffee  had  been  brought  to  them,  and  put- 
ting her  slender  arm  far  into  that  of  her  now  pale  and 
silent  companion. 

A  lady  in  a  white  dress  stood  at  the  entrance  of  that 
crimson  avenue,  as  Tremlet  and  his  passionate  ad- 
mirer disappeared  beneath  the  closing  lines  of  the 
long  perspective,  and,  remaining  a  moment  gazing 
through  the  unbroken  twinkle  of  the  confusing  lamps, 
she  pressed  her  hand  hard  upon  her  forehead,  drew 
up  her  form  as  if  struggling  with  some  irrepressible 
feeling,  and  in  another  moment  was  whirling  in  the 
waltz  with  Lord  Ernest  Fitzantelope,  whose  mother 
wrote  a  complimentary  paragraph  about  their  per- 
formance for  the  next  Saturday's  Court  Journal. 

The  bugle  sounded,  and  the  band  played  a  march 
upon  the  lawn.  From  the  breakfast  tents,  from  the 
coffee-rooms,  from  the  dance,  from  the  card-tables, 
poured  all  who  wished  to  witness  the  marvels  that  lie 
in  saltpetre.  Gentlemen  who  stood  in  a  tender  attitude 
in  the  darkness,  held  themselves  ready  to  lean  the 
other  way  when  the  rockets  blazed  up,  and  mammas 
who  were  encouraging  flirtations  with  eligibles,  whis- 
pered a  caution  on  the  same  subject  to  their  less  ex- 
perienced daughters. 

Up  sped  the  missiles,  round  spun  the  wheels,  fair 
burned  the  pagodas,  swift  flew  the  fire-doves  off  and 
back  again  on  their  wires,  and  softly  floated  down 
through  the  dewy  atmosphere  of  that  May  night  the 
lambent  and  many-colored  stars,  flung  burning  from 
the  exploded  rockets.  Device  followed  device,  and 
Lady  Imogen  almost  forgot,  in  her  child's  delight  at 
the  spectacle,  that  she  had  taken  into  her  bosom  a 
green  serpent,  whose  folds  were  closing  like  suffoca- 
tion about  her  heart. 

The  finale  was  to  consist  of  a  new  light,  invented 
by  the  pyrotechnist,  promised  to  Lady  Roseberry  to 
be  several  degrees  brighter  than  the  sun — compara- 
tively with  the  quantity  of  matter.  Before  this  last 
flourish  came  a  pause ;  and  while  all  the  world  were 
murmuring  love  and  applause  around  her,  Lady 
Imogen,  with  her  eyes  fixed  on  an  indefinite  point  in 
the  darkness,  took  advantage  of  the  cessation  of  light 
to  feed  her  serpent  with  thoughts  of  passionate  and 
uncontrollable  pain.  A  French  attache.,  Phillipiste  to 
the  very  tips  of  his  mustache,  addressed  to  her  ear, 
meantime,  the  compliments  he  had  found  most  effect- 
ive in  the  Cfiaussee  d1  Antin. 

The  light  burst  suddenly  from  a  hundred  blazing 
points,  clear,  dazzling,  intense — illuminating,  as  by 
the  instantaneous  burst  of  day,  the  farthest  corner  of 
Rose-Eden.  And  Monsieur  Mangepoire,  with  a 
French  contempt  for  English  fireworks,  took  advan- 
tage of  the  first  ray  to  look   into  Lady  Imogen's  eyes. 

"Mais,  Miladi!"  was  his  immediate  exclamation, 
after  following  their  direction  with  a  glance,  "ce  nest 
qu'un  tableau  vivant,cela!  Help,  gentlemen!  Elle 
s'evanomt.  Some  salts!  Misericorde !  Mon  Dicu! 
Mon  Dieu  /"  And  Lady  Imogen  Ravelgold  was  car- 
ried fainting  to  Lady  Roseberry's  chamber. 

In  a  small  opening  at  the  end  of  a  long  avenue  of 
hlacs,  extended  from  the  lawn  in  the  direction  of 
Lady  Imogen's  fixed  and  unconscious  gaze,  was  pre- 
sented, by  the  unexpected  illumination,  the  tableau 
vivant,  seen  by  her  ladyship  and  Monsieur  Mange- 
poire at  the  same  instant — a  gentleman  drawn  up  to 
his  fullest  height,  with  his  arms  folded,  and  a  lady 
kneeling  on  the  ground  at  his  feet  with  her  arms 
stretched  up  to  his  bosom. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

A  little  after  two  o'clock  on  the  following 
Wednesday,  Tremlet's  cabriolet  stopped  near  the 
perron  of  Willis's  rooms  in  King  street,  and  while  he 


sent  up  his  card  to  the  lady  patronesses  for  his  ticket 
to  that  night's  Almack's,  he  busied  himself  in  looking 
into  the  crowd  of  carriages  about  him,  and  reading  on 
the  faces  of  their  fair  occupants  the  hope  and  anxiety 
to  which  they  were  a  prey  till  John  the  footman 
brought  them  tickets  or  despair.  Drawn  up  on  the 
opposite  side  of  the  street,  stood  a  family- carriage  of 
the  old  style,  covered  with  half  the  arms  of  the  herald's 
office,  and  containing  a  fat  dowager  and  three  very  over- 
dressed daughters.  Watching  them,  to  see  the  effect 
of  their  application,  stood  upon  the  sidewalk  three  or 
four  young  men  from  the  neighboring  club-house,  and 
at  the  moment  Tremlet  was  observing  these  circum- 
stances, a  foreign  britscka,  containing  a  beautiful  wo- 
man of  a  reputation  better  understood  than  expressed 
in  the  conclave  above  stairs,  flew  round  the  corner  of 
St.  James's  street,  and  very  nearly  drove  into  the  open 
mouth  of  the  junior  partner's  cabriolet. 

"I  will  bet  you  a  Ukraine  colt  against  this  fine  bay 
of  yours,"  said  the  Russian  secretary  of  legation,  ad- 
vancing from  the  group  of  dandies  to  Tremlet,  "that 
miladi,  yonder,  with  all  the  best  blood  of  England  in 
her  own  and  her  daughters'  red  faces,  gets  no  tickets 
this  morning." 

"I'll  take  a  bet  upon  the  lady  who  has  nearly 
extinguished  me,  if  you  like,"  answered  Tremlet, 
gazing  with  admiration  at  the  calm,  delicate,  child- 
like looking  creature,  who  sat  before  him  in  the 
britscka. 

"  No !"  said  the  secretary,  "  for  Almack's  is  a  re- 
public of  beauty,  and  she'll  be  voted  in  without  either 
blood  or  virtue.  Par  exemple,  Lady  Ravelgold's 
voucher  is  good  here,  though  she  does  study  tableaux 
in  Lothbury — eh,  Tremlet?" 

Totally  unaware  of  the  unlucky  discovery  by  the 
fireworks  at  Lady  Roseberry's  fete,  Tremlet  colored 
and  was  inclined  to  take  the  insinuation  as  an  affront; 
but  a  laugh  from  the  dandies  drew  off  his  companion's 
attention,  and  he  observed  the  dowager's  footman 
standing  at  her  coach  window  with  his  empty  hands 
held  up  in  most  expressive  negation,  while  the  three 
young  ladies  within  sat  aghast,  in  all  the  agonies  of 
disappointed  hopes.  The  lumbering  carriage  got  into 
motion — its  ineffective  blazonry  paled  by  the  mortified 
blush  of  its  occupants — and,  as  the  junior  partner 
drove  away,  philosophizing  on  the  arbitrary  opinions 
and  unprovoked  insults  of  polite  society,  the  britscka 
shot  by,  showing  him,  as  he  leaned  forward,  a  lovely 
woman  who  bent  on  him  the  most  dangerous  eyes  in 
London,  and  an  Almack's  ticket  lying  on  the  unoccu- 
pied cushion  beside  her. 

The  white  relievo  upon  the  pale  blue  wall  of  Al- 
mack's showed  every  crack  in  its  stucco  flowers,  and 
the  faded  chaperons  who  had  defects  of  a  similar  de- 
scription to  conceal,  took  warning  of  the  walls,  and 
retreated  to  the  friendlier  dimness  of  the  tea-room. 
Collinet  was  beginning  the  second  set  of  quadrilles, 
and  among  the  fairest  of  the  surpassingly  beautiful 
women  who  were  moving  to  his  heavenly  music,  was 
Lady  Imogen  Ravelgold,  the  lovelier  to-night  for  the 
first  heavy  sadness  that  had  ever  dimmed  the  roses 
in  her  cheek.  Her  lady-mother  divided  her  thoughts 
between  what  this  could  mean,  and  whether  Mr. 
Tremlet  would  come  to  the  ball;  and  when,  presently 
after,  in  the  dos-a-dos,  she  forgot  to  look  at  her  daugh- 
ter, on  seeing  that  gentleman  enter,  she  lost  a  very 
good  opportunity  for  a  guess  at  the  cause  of  Lady 
Imogen's  paleness. 

To  the  pure  and  true  eye  that  appreciates  the 
divinity  of  the  form  after  which  woman  is  made,  it 
would  have  been  a  glorious  feast  to  have  seen  the  per- 
fection of  shape,  color,  motion,  and  countenance,  shown 
that  night  on  the  bright  floor  of  Almack's.  For  the 
young  and  beautiful  girls  whose  envied  destiny  is  to 
commence   their  woman's    history  in  this  exclusive 


LADY  RAVELGOLD. 


471 


hall,  there  exists  aids  to  beauty  known  to  no  other 
class  or  nation.  Perpetual  vigilance  over  every  limb 
from  the  cradle  up ;  physical  education  of  a  perfec- 
tion, discipline,  and  judgment,  pursued  only  at  great 
expense  and  under  great  responsibility  ;  moral  educa- 
tion of  the  highest  kind,  habitual  consciousness  of 
rank,  exclusive  contact  with  elegance  and  luxury,  and 
a  freedom  of  intellectual  culture  which  breathes  a  soul 
through  the  face  before  passion  has  touched  it  with  a 
line  or  a  shade — these  are  some  of  the  circumstances 
which  make  Almack's  the  cynosure  of  the  world  for 
adorable  and  radiant  beauty. 

There  were  three  ladies  who  had  come  to  Almack's 
with  a  definite  object  that  night,  each  of  whom  was 
destined  to  be  surprised  and  foiled :  Lady  Ravelgold, 
who  feared  she  had  been  abrupt  with  the  inexperienced 
banker,  but  trusted  to  find  him  softened  by  a  day  or 
two's  reflection;  Mrs.  St.  Leger,  the  lady  of  the 
britscka,  who  had  ordered  supper  for  two  on  her  ar- 
rival at  home  from  her  morning's  drive,  and  intended 
to  have  the  company  of  the  handsome  creature  she 
had  nearly  run  over  in  King  street;  and  Lady  Imogen 
Ravelgold  as  will  appear  in  the  sequel. 

Tremlet  stood  in  the  entrance  from  the  tea-room  a 
moment,  gathering  courage  to  walk  alone  into  such  a 
dazzling  scene,  and  then,  having  caught  a  glimpse  of 
the  glossy  lines  of  Lady  Imogen's  head  at  the  farthest 
end  of  the  room,  he  was  advancing  toward  her,  when  he 
was  addressed  by  a  lady  who  leaned  against  one  of  the 
slender  columns  of  the  orchestra.  After  a  sweetly- 
phrased  apology  for  having  nearly  knocked  out  his 
brains  that  morning  with  her  horses'  fore  feet,  Mrs.  St. 
Leger  took  his  arm,  and  walking  deliberately  two  or 
three  times  up  and  down  the  room,  took  possession,  at 
last,  of  a  banquette  on  the  highest  range,  so  far  from  any 
other  person,  that  it  would  have  been  a  marked  rude- 
ness to  have  left  her  alone.  Tremlet  took  his  seat  by 
her  with  this  instinctive  feeling,  trusting  that  some  of 
her  acquaintances  would  soon  approach,  and  give  him 
a  fair  excuse  to  leave  her;  but  he  soon  became 
amused  with  her  piquant  style  of  conversation,  and, 
not  aware  of  being  observed,  fell  into  the  attitude  of  a 
pleased  and  earnest  listener. 

Lady  Ravelgold's  feelings  during  this  petit  entre- 
tlen,  were  of  a  very  positive  description.  She  had 
an  instinctive  knowledge,  and  consequently  a  jealous 
dislike  of  Mrs.  St.  Leger's  character;  and, still  under 
the  delusion  that  the  young  banker's  liberality  was 
prompted  by  a  secret  passion  for  herself,  she  saw  her 
credit  in  the  city  and  her  hold  upon  the  affections  of 
Tremlet  (for  whom  she  had  really  conceived  a  violent 
affection),  melting  away  in  every  smile  of  the  dangerous 
woman  who  engrossed  him.  As  she  looked  around 
for  a  friend,  to  whose  ear  she  might  communicate 
some  of  the  suffocating  poison  in  her  own  heart,  Lady 
Imogen  returned  to  her  from  a  galopade  ;  and,  like  a 
second  dagger  into  the  heart  of  the  pure-minded  girl, 
went  this  second  proof  of  her  lover's  corrupt  principle 
and  conduct.  Unwilling  to  believe  even  her  own  eyes 
on  the  night  of  Lady  Roseberry's  fete,  she  had  sum- 
moned resolution  on  the  road  home  to  ask  an  explana- 
tion of  her  mother.  Embarrassed  by  the  abrupt  ques- 
tion, Lady  Ravelgold  felt  obliged  to  make  a  partial 
confidence  of  the  state  of  her  pecuniary  affairs ;  and 
to  clear  herself,  she  represented  Tremlet  as  having 
taken  advantage  of  her  obligations  to  him,  to  push  a 
dishonorable  suit.  The  scene  disclosed  by  the  sud- 
den blaze  of  the  fireworks  being  thus  simply  explain- 
ed, Lady  Imogen  determined  at  once  to  give  up 
Tremlet's  acquaintance  altogether;  a  resolution  which 
his  open  flirtation  with  a  woman  of  Mrs.  St.  Leger's 
character  served  to  confirm.  She  had,  however,  one 
errand  with  him,  prompted  by  her  filial  feelings  and 
favored  by  an  accidental  circumstance  which  will  ap- 
pear. 

"Do  you  believe   in    animal   magnetism?"  asked 


Mrs.  St.  Leger,  "for  by  the  fixedness  of  Lady  Ravel- 
gold's eyes  in  this  quarter,  something  is  going  to  happen 
to  one  of  us." 

The  next  moment  the  Russian  secretary  approach- 
ed and  took  his  seat  by  Mrs.  St.  Leger,  and  with 
diplomatic  address  contrived  to  convey  to  Tremlet's 
ear  that  Lady  Ravelgold  wished  to  speak  with  him. 
The  banker  rose,  but  the  quick  wit  of  his  companion 
comprehended  the  manoeuvre. 

"  Ah  !  I  see  how  it  is,"  she  said,  "  but  stay — you'll 
sup  with  me  to-night  ?  Promise  me — parole  iVhon- 
neur  /" 

"  Parole  /"  answered  Tremlet,  making  his  way 
out  between  the  seats,  half  pleased  and  half  embar- 


"  As  for  you,  Monsieur  le  Secretaire,"  said  Mrs. 
St.  Leger,  "you  have  forfeited  my  favor,  and  may 
sup  elsewhere.     How  dare  you  conspire  against  me  ?" 

While  the  Russian  was  making  his  peace,  Trem- 
let crossed  over  to  Lady  Ravelgold  ;  but,  astonished 
at  the  change  in  Lady  Imogen,  he  soon  broke  in 
abruptly  upon  her  mother's  conversation,  to  ask  her 
to  dance.  She  accepted  his  hand  for  a  quadrille; 
but  as  they  walked  down  the  room  in  search  of  a  vis- 
a-i'is,  she  complained  of  heat,  and  asked  timidly  if  he 
would  take  her  to  the  tea-room. 

"  Mr.  Tremlet,"  she  said,  fixing  her  eyes  upon  the 
cup  of  tea  which  he  had  given  her,  and  which  she 
found  some  difficulty  in  holding,  "  I  have  come  here 
to-night  to  communicate  to  you  some  important  in- 
formation, to  ask  a  favor,  and  to  break  off  an  acquaint- 
ance which  has  lasted  too  long." 

Lady  Imogen  stopped,  for  the  blood  had  fled  from 
her  lips,  and  she  was  compelled  to  ask  his  arm  for  a 
support.  She  drew  herself  up  to  her  fullest  height 
the  next  moment,  looked  at  Tremlet,  who  stood  in 
speechless  astonishment,  and  with  a  strong  effort,  com- 
menced again  in  a  low,  firm  tone — 

"  I  have  been  acquainted  with  you  some  time,  sir, 
and  have  never  inquired,  nor  knew  more  than  your 
name,  up  to  this  day.  I  suffered  myself  to  be  pleased 
too  blindly — " 

"  Dear  Lady  Imogen  !" 

"Stay  a  moment,  sir !  I  will  proceed  directly  to 
my  business.  I  received  this  morning  a  letter  from 
the  senior  partner  of  a  mercantile  house  in  the  city, 
with  which  you  are  connected.  It  is  written  on  the 
supposition  that  I  have  some  interest  in  you,  and  in- 
forms me  that  you  are  not,  as  you  yourself  suppose, 
the  son  of  the  gentleman  who  writes  the  letter." 

"  Madam !" 

"That  gentleman,  sir,  as  you  know,  never  was 
married.  He  informs  me  that  in  the  course  of  many 
financial  visits  to  St.  Petersburgh,  he  formed  a  friend- 
ship with  Count  Manteuffel,  then  minister  of  finance 
to  the  emperor,  whose  tragical  end,  in  consequence 
of  his  extensive  defalcations,  is  well  known.  In 
brief,  sir,  you  were  his  child,  and  were  taken  by  this 
English  banker,  and  carefully  educated  as  his  own,  in 
happy  ignorance,  as  he  imagined,  of  your  father's  mis- 
fortunes and  mournful  death." 

Tremlet  leaned  against  the  wall,  unable  to  reply 
to  this  astounding  intelligence,  and  Lady  Imogen 
went  on. 

"Your  title  and  estates  have  been  restored  to  you 
at  the  request  of  your  kind  benefactor,  and  you  are 
now  the  heir  to  a  princely  foitune,  and  a  count  of 
the  Russian  empire.  Here  is  the  letter,  sir,  which 
is  of  no  value  to  me  now.  Mr.  Tremlet !  one  word 
more,  sir." 

Lady  Imogen  grasped  for  breath. 

"  In  return,  sir,  for  much  interest  given  you  here- 
tofore— in  return,  sir,  for  this  information — " 

"  Speak,  dear  Lady  Imogen  !" 

"  Spare  my  mother  !" 

"  Mrs.  St.  Leger's  carriage  stops  the  way  !"  shout- 


472 


LADY  RAVELGOLD. 


ed  a  servant  at  that  moment,  at  the  top  of  the  stairs  ; 
and  as  if  there  were  a  spell  in  the  sound  to  nerve  her 
resolution  anew,  Lady  Imogen  Ravelgold  shook  the 
tears  from  her  eyes,  bowed  coldly  to  Tremlet,  and 
passed  out  into  the  dressing-room. 

"If  you  please,  sir,"  said  a  servant,  approaching  the 
amazed  banker,  "  Mrs.  St.  Leger  waits  for  you  in  her 
carriage." 

"  Will  you  come  home  and  sup  with  us  ?"  said 
Lady  Ravelgold  at  the  same  instant,  joining  him  in 
the  tea-room. 

"  I  shall  be  only  too  happy,  Lady  Ravelgold." 

The  bold  coachman  of  Mrs.  St.  Leger  continued 
to  "  stop  the  way,"  spite  of  policemen  and  infuriated 
footmen,  for  some  fifteen  minutes.  At  the  end  of 
that  time  Mr.  Tremlet  appeared,  handing  down 
Lady  Ravelgold  and  her  daughter,  who  walked  to 
their  chariot,  which  was  a  few  steps  behind ;  and 
very  much  to  Mrs.  St.  Leger's  astonishment,  the 
handsome  banker  sprang  past  her  horses'  heads  a 
minute  after,  jumped  into  his  cabriolet,  which  stood 
on  the  opposite  side  of  the  street,  and  drove  after 
the  vanishing  chariot  as  if  his  life  depended  on  over- 
taking it.  Still  Mrs.  St.  Leger's  carriage  "  stopped 
the  way."  But,  in  a  few  minutes  after,  the  same 
footman  who  had  summoned  Tremlet  in  vain,  re- 
turned with  the  Russian  secretary,  doomed  in  blessed 
unconsciousness  to  play  the  pis  ailer  at  her  tete-a-tete 
supper  in  Spring  Gardens. 


CHAPTER  V. 

If  Lady  Ravelgold  showed  beautiful  by  the  un- 
compromising light  and  in  the  ornamented  hall  of 
Almack's,  she  was  radiant  as  she  came  through  the 
mirror  door  of  her  own  loved-contrived  and  beauty- 
breathing  boudoir.  Tremlet  had  been  showed  into 
this  recess  of  luxury  and  elegance  on  his  arrival,  and 
Lady  Ravelgold  and  her  daughter,  who  preceded  her 
by  a  minute  or  two,  had  gone  to  their  chambers,  the 
first  to  make  some  slight  changes  in  her  toilet,  and 
the  latter  (entirely  ignorant  of  her  lover's  presence  in 
the  house),  to  be  alone  with  a  heart  never  before  in 
such  painful  need  of  self-abandonment  and  solitude. 

Tremlet  looked  about  him  in  the  enchanted  room 
in  which  he  found  himself  alone,  and,  spite  of  the 
prepossessed  agitation  of  his  feelings,  the  voluptuous 
beauty  of  every  object  had  the  effect  to  divert  and 
tranquillize  him.  The  light  was  profuse,  but  it  came 
softened  through  the  thinnest  alabaster;  and  while 
every  object  in  the  room  was  distinctly  and  minutely 
visible,  the  effect  of  moonlight  was  not  more  soft  and 
dreamy.  The  general  form  of  the  boudoir  was  an 
oval,  but  within  the  pilasters  of  folded  silk  with  their 
cornices  of  gold,  lay  crypts  containing  copies  exquisite- 
ly done  in  marble  of  the  most  graceful  statues  of  an- 
tiquity, one  of  which  seemed,  by  the  curtain  drawn 
quite  aside  and  a  small  antique  lamp  burning  near  it, 
to  be  the  divinity  of  the  place — the  Greek  Antinous, 
with  his  drooped  head  and  full,  smooth  limbs,  the 
most  passionate  and  life-like  representation  of  voluptu- 
ous beauty  that  intoxicates  the  slumberous  air  of 
Italy.  Opposite  this,  another  niche  contained  a  few 
books,  whose  retreating  shelves  swung  on  a  secret 
door,  and  as  it  stood  half  open,  the  nodding  head  of  a 
snowy  magnolia  leaned  through,  as  if  pouring  from 
the  lips  of  its  broad  chalice  the  mingled  odors  of  the 
unseen  conservatory  it  betrayed.  The  first  sketch  in 
crayons  of  a  portrait  of  Lady  Ravelgold  by  young 
Lawrence,  stood  against  the  wall,  with  the  frame  half 
buried  in  a  satin  ottoman  ;  and,  as  Tremlet  stood  be- 
fore it,  admiring  the  clear,  classic  outline  of  the  head 
and  bust,  and  wondering  in  what  chamber  of  his  brain 
the  gifted  artist  had  found  the  beautiful  drapery  in 


which  he  had  drawn  her,  the  dim  light  glanced  faintly 
on  the  left,  and  the  broad  mirror  by  which  he  had 
entered  swung  again  on  its  silver  hinges,  and  admitted 
the  very  presentment  of  what  he  gazed  on.  Lady 
Ravelgold  had  removed  the  jewels  from  her  hair,  and 
the  robe  of  wrought  lace,  which  she  had  worn  that 
night  over  a  boddice  of  white  satin  laced  loosely  below 
the  bosom.  In  the  place  of  this  she  had  thrown  upon 
her  shoulders  a  flowing  wrapper  of  purple  velvet, 
made  open  after  the  Persian  fashion,  with  a  short  and 
large  sleeve,  and  embroidered  richly  with  gold  upon 
the  skirts.  Her  admirable  figure,  gracefully  defined 
by  the  satin  petticoat  and  boddice,  showed  against  the 
gorgeous  purple  as  it  flowed  back  in  her  advancing 
motion,  with  a  relief  which  would  have  waked  the  very 
soul  of  Titian  ;  her  complexion  was  dazzling  and 
faultless  in  the  flattering  light  of  her  own  rooms  ;  and 
there  are  those  who  will  read  this  who  know  how  the 
circumstances  which  surround  a  woman — luxury, 
elegance,  taste,  or  the  opposite  of  these — enhance  or 
dim,  beyond  help  or  calculation,  even  the  highest  order 
of  woman's  beauty. 

Lady  Ravelgold  held  a  bracelet  in  her  hand  as  she 
came  in. 

"  In  my  own  house,"  she  said,  holding  the  glitter- 
ing jewel  to  Tremlet,  "  1  have  a  fancy  for  the  style 
antique.  Tasseline,  my  maid,  has  gone  to  bed,  and 
you  must  do  the  devoir  of  a  knight,  or  an  abigail,  and 
loop  up  this  Tyrian  sleeve.  Stay — look  first  at  the 
model — that  small  statue  of  Cytheris,  yonder !  Not 
the  shoulder — for  you  are  to  swear  mine  is  prettier — 
but  the  clasp.  Fasten  it  like  that.  So!  Now  take 
me  for  a  Grecian  nymph  the  rest  of  the  evening." 

"  Lady  Ravelgold!" 

"  Hermione  or  Aglae,  if  you  please  !  But  let  us 
ring  for  supper !" 

As  the  bell  sounded,  a  superb  South  American 
trulian  darted  in  from  the  conservatory,  and,  spread- 
ing his  gorgeous  black  and  gold  wings  a  moment 
over  the  alabaster  shoulder  of  Lady  Ravelgold,  as  if 
he  took  a  pleasure  in  prolonging  the  first  touch  as 
he  alighted,  turned  his  large  liquid  eye  fiercely  on 
Tremlet. 

"  Thus  it  is,"  said  Lady  Ravelgold,  "  we  forget  our 
old  favorites  in  our  new.     See  how  jealous  he  is  !" 

"  Supper  is  served,  miladi !"  said  a  servant  entering. 

"  A  hand  to  each,  then,  for  the  present,"  she  said, 
putting  one  into  Tremlet's,  and  holding  up  the  trulian 
with  the  other.  "  He  who  behaves  best  shall  drink 
first  with  me." 

"  I  beg  your  ladyship's  pardon,"  said  Tremlet, 
drawing  back,  and  looked  at  the  servant,  who  im- 
mediately left  the  room.  "  Let  us  understand  each 
other!     Does  Lady  Imogen  sup  with  us  to-night  ?" 

"  Lady  Imogen  has  retired,"  said  her  mother,  in 
some  surprise. 

"  Then,  madam,  will  you  be  seated  one  moment  and 
listen  to  me  ?" 

Lady  Ravelgold  sat  down  on  the  nearest  ottoman, 
with  the  air  of  a  person  too  high  bred  to  be  taken  by 
surprise,  but  the  color  deepened  to  crimson  in  the 
centre  of  her  cheek,  and  the  bird  on  her  hand  be- 
trayed by  one  of  his  gurgling  notes  that  he  was  held 
more  tightly  than  pleased  him.  With  a  calm  and  de- 
cisive tone,  Tremlet  went  through  the  explanation 
given  in  the  previous  parts  of  this  narration.  He  de- 
clared his  love  for  Lady  Imogen,  his  hopes  (while  he 
had  doubts  of  his  birth)  that  Lady  Ravelgold's  increas- 
ing obligations  and  embarrassments  and  his  own  wealth 
might  weigh  against  his  disadvantages  ;  and  now,  his 
honorable  descent  being  established,  and  his  rank  en- 
titling him  to  propose  for  her  hand,  he  called  upon 
Lady  Ravelgold  to  redeem  her  obligations  to  him  by 
an  immediate  explanation  to  her  daughter  of  his  con- 
duct toward  herself,  and  by  lending  her  whole  influ- 
i  ence  to  the  success  of  his  suit. 


LADY  RAVELGOLD. 


473 


Five  minutes  are  brief  time  to  change  a  lover  into  a 
son-in-law  ;  and  Lady  Ravelgold,  as  we  have  seen  in 
the  course  of  this  story,  was  no  philosopher.  She 
buried  her  face  in  her  hands,  and  sat  silent  for  a  while 
after  Tremlet  had  concluded  :  but  the  case  was  a  very 
clear  one.  Ruin  and  mortification  were  in  one  scale, 
mortification  and  prosperity  in  the  other.  She  rose, 
pale  but  decided,  and  requesting  Monsieur  le  conte 
Manteuffel  to  await  her  a  few  minutes,  ascended  to 
her  daughter's  chamber. 

"  If  you  please,  sir,"  said  a  servant,  entering  in  about 
half  an  hour,  "  miladi  and  Lady  Imogen  beg  that  you 
will  join  them  in  the  supper-room." 


CHAPTER  VI. 

The  spirit  of  beauty,  if  it  haunt  in  such  artificial  at- 
mospheres as  Belgrave  square,  might  have  been  pleased 
to  sit  invisibly  on  the  vacant  side  of  Lady  Ravelgold's 
table.  Tremlet  had  been  shown  in  by  the  servant  to  a 
small  apartment,  built  like  a  belvidere  over  the  garden, 
half  boudoir  in  its  character,  yet  intended  as  a  supper- 
room,  and  at  the  long  window  (opening  forth  upon 
descending  terraces  laden  with  flowers,  and  just  now 
flooded  with  the  light  of  a  glorious  moon)  stood  Lady 
Imogen,  with  her  glossy  head  laid  against  the  case- 
ment, and  the  palm  of  her  left  hand  pressed  close  upon 
her  heart.  If  those  two  lights — the  moon  faintly  shed 
off  from  the  divine  curve  of  her  temple,  and  the  stained 
rose-lamp  pouring  its  mellow  tint  full  on  the  heavenly 
shape  and  whiteness  of  hershoulder  and  neck — if  those 
two  lights,  I  say,  could  have  been  skilfully  managed, 
Mr.  Lawrence  !  what  a  picture  you  might  have  made 
of  Lady  Imogen  Ravelgold  ! 

"  Imogen,  my  daughter  !  Mr.  Tremlet !"  said  her 
mother  as  he  entered. 

Without  changing  her  position,  she  gave  him  the 
hand  she  had  been  pressing  on  her  heart. 

"  Mr.  Tremlet  !"  said  Lady  Ravelgold,  evidently 
entering  into  her  daughter's  embarrassment,  "  trouble 
yourself  to  come  to  the  table  and  give  me  a  bit  of  this 
pheasant.  Imogen,  George  waits  to  give  you  some 
champagne." 

"  Can  you  forgive  me  ?"  said  the  beautiful  girl,  be- 
fore turning  to  betray  her  blushing  cheek  and  suffused 
eyes  to  her  mother. 

Tremlet  stopped  as  if  to  pluck  a  leaf  from  the  ver- 
bena at  her  feet,  and  passed  his  lips  over  the  slight  fin- 
gers he  held. 

"  Pretty  trulian  !"  murmured  Lady  Ravelgold  to  her 
bird,  as  he  stood  on  the  edge  of  her  champagne-glass, 
and  curving  his  superb  neck  nearly  double,  contrived 
to  drink  from  the  sparkling  brim — "  pretty  trulian  ! 
you  will  be  merry  after  this  !  What  ancient  Sybarite, 
think  you,  Mr.  Tremlet,  inhabits  the  body  of  this 
bright  bird  ?  Look  up,  mignon,  and  tell  us  if  you  were 
Hylas  or  Alcibiades  !  Is  the  pheasant  good,  Mr.  Trem- 
let ?" 

"  Too  good  to  come  from  Hades,  miladi.  Is  it  true 
thai  you  have  your  table  supplied  from  Crockford's  ?" 

"  Tout  bonnement  !  I  make  it  a  principle  to  avoid  all 
great  anxieties,  and  I  can  trust  nobody  but  Ude.  He 
sends  my  dinners  quite  hot,  and  if  there  is  a  particular 
dish  of  game,  he  drives  round  at  the  hour  and  gives  it 
the  last  turn  in  my  own  kitchen.  I  should  die,  to  be 
responsible  for  my  dinners.  I  don't  know  how  people 
get  on  that  have  no  grand  artiste.  Pray,  Mr.  Trem- 
let (I  beg  pardon — Monsieur  le  conte,  perhaps  I  should 
say  ?") 

"  No,  no,  I  implore  you  !  '  Tremlet'  has  been  spoken 
too  musically  to  be  so  soon  forgotten.  Tremlet  or 
Charles,  which  you  will  !" 

Lady  Ravelgold  put  her  hand  in  his,  and  looked 
from  his  face  to  her  daughter's  with  a  smile,  which  as- 


sured him  that  she  had  obtained  a  victory  over  herself. 
Shrinking  immediately,  however,  from  anything  like 
sentiment  (with  the  nervous  dread  of  pathos  so  pecu- 
liar to  the  English),  she  threw  off  her  trulian,  that 
made  a  circle  and  alighted  on  the  emerald  bracelet  of 
Lady  Imogen,  and  rang  the  bell  for  coffee. 

"I  flatter  myself,  Mr.  Tremlet,"  she  said,  "that  I, 
have  made  a  new  application  of  the  homoeopathic  phi- 
losophy. Hahnemann,  they  say,  cures  fevers  by  ag- 
gravating the  disease  ;  and  when  I  can  not  sleep,  I 
drink  coffee.  J' en  suis passablement  Jiere  !  You  did 
not  know  I  was  a  philosopher  ?" 

"  No,  indeed  !" 

"  Well,  take  some  of  this  spiced  mocha.  I  got  it  of 
the  Turkish  ambassador,  to  whom  I  made  beaux  yeux 
on  purpose.  Stop !  you  shall  have  it  in  the  little  tin- 
sel cups  he  sent  me.  George,  bring  those  filagree 
things  !  Now,  Mr.  Tremlet,  imagine  yourself  in  the 
serail  du  Bosphore — Imogen  and  I  two  lovely  Circas- 
sians, par  exemple!  Is  it  not  delicious  ?  Talking  of 
the  Bosphorus,  nobody  was  classical  enough  to  under- 
stand the  device  in  my  coiffure  to-night." 

"What  was  it?"  asked  Tremlet,  absently,  gazing 
while  he  spoke,  with  eyes  of  envy  at  the  trulian,  who 
was  whetting  his  bill  backward  and  forward  on  the 
clear  bright  lips  of  Lady  Imogen. 

"  Do  you  think  my  profile  Grecian  ?"  asked  Lady 
Ravelgold. 

"  Perfectly !" 

"  And  my  hair  is  coiffed  a  la  Grec  ?" 

"  Most  becomingly." 

"  But  still  you  won't  see  my  golden  grasshopper  ! 
Do  you  happen  to  know,  sir,  that  to  wear  the  golden 
grasshopper  was  the  birthright  of  an  Athenian  ?  I  saw 
it  in  a  book.  Well  !  I  had  to  explain  it  to  everybody. 
By-the-way,  what  did  that  gambler,  George  Heriot, 
mean,  by  telling  me  that  its  legs  should  be  black  ? — 
'All  Greeks  have  black  legs,'  said  he,  yawning  in  his 
stupid  way.     What  did  he  mean,  Mr.  Tremlet  ?" 

"  '  Greeks'  and  blacklegs  are  convertible  terms.  He 
thought  you  were  more  aufait  of  the  slang  dictionary. 
Will  you  permit  me  to  coax  my  beautiful  rival  from 
your  hand,  Lady  Imogen  ?" 

She  smiled,  and  put  forward  her  wrist,  with  a  bend 
of  its  slender  and  alabaster  lines  which  would  have 
drawn  a  sigh  from  Praxiteles.  The  trulian  glanced 
his  fiery  eyes  from  his  mistress's  face  to  Tremlet's, 
and  as  the  strange  hand  was  put  out  to  take  him  from 
his  emerald  perch,  he  flew  with  the  quickness  of  light- 
ning into  the  face  of  her  lover,  and  buried  the  sharp 
beak  in  his  lip.  The  blood  followed  copiously,  and 
Lady  Imogen,  startled  from  her  timidity,  sprang  from 
her  chair  and  pressed  her  hands  one  after  the  other 
upon  the  wound,  in  passionate  and  girlish  abandon- 
ment. Lady  Ravelgold  hurried  to  her  dressing-room 
for  something  to  stanch  the  wound,  and,  left  alone 
with  the  divine  creature  who  hung  over  him,  Tremlet 
drew  her  to  his  bosom  and  pressed  his  cheek  long  and 
closely  to  hers,  while  to  his  lips,  as  if  to  keep  in  life, 
clung  her  own  crimsoned  and  trembling  fingers. 

"  Imogen  !"  said  Lady  Ravelgold,  entering,  "  take 
him  to  the  fountain  in  the  garden  and  wash  the  wound  ; 
then  put  on  this  bit  of  gold-beater's  skin.  I  will  come 
to  you  when  I  have  locked  up  the  trulian.  Is  it  pain- 
ful, Mr.  Tremlet  ?" 

Tremlet  could  not  trust  his  voice  to  answer,  but 
with  his  arm  still  around  Lady  Imogen,  he  descended 
by  the  terrace  of  flowers  to  the  fountain. 

They  sat  upon  the  edge  of  the  marble  basin,  and 
the  moonlight  striking  through  the  jet  of  the  fountain, 
descended  upon  them  like  a  rain  of  silver.  Lady  Imo- 
gen had  recovered  from  her  fright,  and  buried  her  face 
in  her  hands,  remembering  into  what  her  feelings  had 
betrayed  her;  and  Tremlet,  sometimes  listening  to  the 
clear  bell-like  music  of  the  descending  water,  some 
times  uttering  the  broken  sentences  which  are  most 


474 


PALETTO'S  BRIDE. 


eloquent  in  love,  sat  out  the  hours  till  the  stars  began 
to  pale,  undisturbed  by  Lady  Ravelgold,  who,  on  the 
upper  stair  of  the  terrace,  read  by  a  small  lamp,  which, 
in  the  calm  of  that  heavenly  summer  night,  burned 
unflickeringly  in  the  open  air. 


It  was  broad  daylight  when  Tremlet,  on  foot,  saun- 
tered slowly  past  Hyde  Park  corner  on  his  way  to  the 
Albany.  The  lamps  were  still  struggling  with  the 
brightening  approach  to  sunrise,  the  cabmen  and  their 
horses  slept  on  the  stand  by  the  Green  Park,  and  with 
cheerful  faces  the  laborers  went  to  their  work,  and  with 
haggard  faces  the  night-birds  of  dissipation  crept  wea- 
rily home.  The  well-ground  dust  lay  in  confused  heel- 
marks  on  the  sidewalk,  a  little  dampened  by  the  night- 
dew  ;  the  atmosphere  in  the  street  was  clear,  as  it  never 
is  after  the  stir  of  day  commences  ;  a  dandy,  stealing 
out  from  Crockford's,  crossed  Piccadilly,  lifting  up  his 
head  to  draw  in  long  breaths  of  the  cool  air,  after  the 
closeness  of  over-lighted  rooms  and  excitement ;  and 
Tremlet,  marking  none  of  these  things,  was  making 
his  way  through  a  line  of  carriages  slowly  drawing  up 
to  take  off  their  wearied  masters  from  a  prolonged  fete 
at  Devonshire  house,  when  a  rude  hand  clapped  him 
on  the  shoulder. 

"  Monsieur  Tremlet !" 

"Ah,  Baron!  bien  bonjour!" 

"  Bien  rencontre,  Monsieur  !  You  have  insulted  a 
lady  to-night,  who  has  confided  her  cause  to  my  hands. 
Madam  St.  Leger,  sir,  is  without  a  natural  protector, 
and  you  have  taken  advantage  of  her  position  to  insult 
her — grossly,  Mr.  Tremlet,  grossly!" 

Tremlet  looked  at  the  Russian  during  this  extraor- 
dinary address,  and  saw  that  he  was  evidently  highly 
excited  with  wine.  He  drew  him  aside  into  Berkeley 
street,  and  in  the  calmest  manner  attempted  to  explain 
what  was  not  very  clear  to  himself.  He  had  totally 
forgotten  Mrs.  St.  Leger.  The  diplomate,  though 
quite  beyond  himself  with  his  excitement,  had  suffi- 
cient perception  left  to  see  the  weak  point  of  his  state- 
ment ;  and  infuriated  with  the  placid  manner  in  which 
he  attempted  to  excuse  himself,  suddenly  struck  his 
glove  into  his  face,  and  turned  upon  his  heel.  They 
had  been  observed  by  a  policeman,  and  at  the  moment 
that  Tremlet,  recovering  from  his  astonishment,  sprang 
forward  to  resent  the  blow,  the  gray-coated  guardian 
of  the  place  laid  his  hand  upon  his  collar  and  detained 
him  till  the  baron  had  disappeared. 

More  than  once  on  his  way  to  the  Albany,  Tremlet 
surprised  himself  forgetting  both  the  baron  and  the  in- 
sult, and  feeding  his  heart  in  delicious  abandonment 
with  the  dreams  of  his  new  happiness.  He  reached 
his  rooms  and  threw  himself  on  the  bed,  forcing  from 
his  mind,  with  a  strong  effort,  the  presence  of  Lady 
Imogen,  and  trying  to  look  calmly  on  the  unpleasant 
circumstance  before  him.  A  quarrel  which,  the  day 
before,  he  would  have  looked  upon  merely  as  an  in- 
convenience, or  which,  under  the  insult  of  a  blow,  he 
would  have  eagerly  sought,  became  now  an  almost  in- 
supportable evil.  When  he  reflected  on  the  subject 
of  the  dispute — a  contention  about  a  woman  of  doubt- 
ful reputation  taking  place  in  the  same  hour  with  a 
first  avowal  from  the  delicate  and  pure  Lady  Imogen — 
when  he  remembered  the  change  in  his  fortunes, 
which  he  had  as  yet  scarcely  found  time  to  realize — 
on  the  consequences  to  her  who  was  so  newly  dear  to 
him,  and  on  all  he  might  lose,  now  that  life  had  be- 
come invaluable — his  thoughts  were  almost  too  painful 
to  bear.  How  seldom  do  men  play  with  an  equal  stake 
in  the  game  of  taking  life,  and  how  strange  it  is  that 
equality  of  weapons  is  the  only  comparison  made  ne- 
cessary by  the  laws  of  honor  ! 

Tremlet  was  not  a  man  to  be  long  undecided.  He 
rose,  after  an  hour's  reflection,  and  wrote  as  fol- 
lows : — 


"  Baron  :  Before  taking  the  usual  notice  of  the  oc- 
currence of  this  morning,  I  wish  to  rectify  one  or  two 
points  in  which  our  position  is  false.  I  find  myself, 
since  last  night,  the  accepted  lover  of  Lady  Imogen 
Ravelgold,  and  the  master  of  estates  and  title  as  a 
count  of  the  Russian  empire.  Under  the  etourdisse- 
ment  of  such  sudden  changes  in  feelings  and  fortune, 
perhaps  my  forgetful ness  of  the  lady,  in  whose  cause 
you  are  so  interested,  admits  of  indulgence.  At  any 
rate,  I  am  so  newly  in  love  with  life,  that  I  am  willing 
to  suppose  for  an  hour  that  had  you  known  these  cir- 
cumstances, you  would  have  taken  a  different  view  of 
the  offence  in  question.  I  shall  remain  at  home  till 
two,  and  it  is  in  your  power  till  then  to  make  me  the 
reparation  necessary  to  my  honor.     Yours,  etc., 

"  Tremlet." 

There  was  a  bridal  on  the  following  Monday  at  St. 
George's  church,  and  the  Russian  secretary  stood  be- 
hind the  bridegroom.  Lady  Ravelgold  had  never  been 
seen  so  pale,  but  her  face  was  clear  of  all  painful  feel- 
ing ;  and  it  was  observed  by  one  who  knew  her  well, 
that  her  beauty  had  acquired,  during  the  brief  engage- 
ment of  her  daughter,  a  singular  and  undefinable  ele- 
vation. As  the  carriages  with  their  white  favors  turned 
into  Bond  street,  on  their  way  back  to  Belgrave  square, 
the  cortege  was  checked  by  the  press  of  vehicles,  and 
the  Russian,  who  accompanied  Lady  Ravelgold  in  her 
chariot,  found  himself  opposite  the  open  britscka  of  a 
lady  who  fixed  her  glass  full  upon  him  without  recog- 
nising a  feature  of  his  face. 

"  I  am  afraid  you  have  affronted  Mrs.  St.  Leger, 
baron  !"  said  Lady  Ravelgold. 

"  Or  I  should  not  have  been  here  !"  said  the  Rus- 
sian ;  and  as  they  drove  up  Piccadilly,  he  had  just  time 
between  Bond  street  and  Milton  Crescent  to  tell  her 
ladyship  the  foregone  chapter  of  this  story. 

The  trulian,  on  that  day,  was  fed  with  wedding-cake, 
and  the  wound  on  Mr.  Tremlet's  lip  was  not  cured  by 
letting  alone. 


PALETTO'S  BRIDE. 

CHAPTER  I. 

"  As  a  fish  will  sometimes  gather  force,  and,  with  a  longing,  per- 
haps, for  the  brightness  of  upper  air,  leap  from  its  prescribed  ele- 
ment, and  glitter  a  moment  among  the  birds,  so  will  there  be  found 
men  whose  souls  revolt  against  destiny,  and  make  a  fiery  pluck  at 
things  above  them.  But,  like  the  fish,  who  drops,  panting,  with 
dry  scales,  backward,  the  aspiring  man  oftenest  regrets  the  native 
element  he  has  left ;  and,  with  the  failure  of  his  unnatural  effort, 
drops  back,  content,  to  obscurity."— Jeremy  Taylor. 

"  Mr  daughter!"  said  the  count  Spinola. 

The  lady  so  addressed  threw  off  a  slight  mantle  and 
turned  her  fair  features  inquiringly  to  her  father.  Heed- 
less of  the  attention  he  had  arrested,  the  abstracted 
count  paced  up  and  down  the  marble  pavement  of  his 
hall,  and  when,  a  moment  after,  Francesca  came  to 
him  for  his  good-night  kiss,  he  imprinted  it  silently 
on  her  forehead,  and  stepped  out  on  the  balcony  to 
pursue,  under  the  aiding  light  of  the  stars,  thoughts 
that  were  more  imperative  than  sleep. 

There  had  been  a  fete  of  great  splendor  in  the  ducal 
gardens  of  the  Boboli,  and  Francesca  Spinola  had 
shown  there,  as  usual,  the  most  radiant  and  worship- 
ped daughter  of  the  nobilita  of  Florence.  The  mel- 
ancholy duke  himself  (this  was  in  the  days  of  his  first 
marriage)  had  seemed  even  gay  in  presenting  her  with 
flowers  which  he  had  gathered  at  her  side,  with  the 
dew  on  them  (in  an  alley  glittering  with  the  diamonds  on 
noble  bosoms,  and  dewdrops  on  roses  that  would  slum- 
ber, though  it  was  the  birth-night  of  a  princess),  and 


PALETTO'S  BRIDE. 


475 


marked  as  was  the  royal  attention  to  the  envied  beauty, 
it  was  more  easily  forgiven  her  than  her  usual  tri- 
umphs— for  it  cost  no  one  a  lover.  True  to  his  con- 
jugal vows,  the  sad-featured  monarch  paid  to  beauty 
onfy  the  homage  exacted  alike  by  every  most  admira- 
ble work  of  nature. 

The  grand-duke  Leopold  had  not  been  the  only  ad- 
mirer whose  attentions  to  Francesca  Spinola  had  been 
remarked.  A  stranger,  dressed  with  a  magnificence 
that  seemed  more  fitted  for  a  masquerade  than  a  court- 
ball,  and  yet  of  a  mieu  that  promised  danger  to  the 
too  inquisitive,  had  entered  alone,  and,  marking  out  the 
daughter  of  the  haughty  count  from  the  first,  had 
procured  an  introduction,  no  one  knew  how,  and 
sought  every  opportunity  which  the  intervals  of  the 
dance  afforded,  to  place  himself  at  her  side.  Occu- 
pied with  the  courtly  devoirs  of  his  rank,  the  count 
was,  for  a  while,  unaware  of  what  struck  almost  every 
one  else,  and  it  was  only  when  the  stranger's  name 
was  inquired  of  him  by  the  duke,  that  his  dark  and 
jealous  eye  fell  upon  a  face  whose  language  of  kindling 
and  undisguised  admiration  a  child  would  have  inter- 
preted aright.  It  was  one  of  those  faces  that  are  of 
no  degree — that  may  belong  to  a  barbaric  king,  or  to 
a  Greek  slave — that  no  refinement  would  improve,  and 
no  servile  habits  degrade;  faces  which  lake  their 
changes  from  an  indomitable  and  powerful  soul,  and 
are  beyond  the  trifling  impression  of  the  common  usages 
of  life.  Spinola  was  offended  with  the  daring  and 
passionate  freedom  of  the  stranger's  gaze  upon  his 
daughter;  but  he  hesitated  to  interrupt  their  conver- 
sation too  rudely.  He  stayed  to  exchange  a  compli- 
ment with  some  fair  obstruction  in  his  way  across  the 
crowded  saloon,  and,  in  the  next  moment,  Francesca 
stood  alone. 

"  Who  left  you  this  moment,  my  Francesca?"  asked 
the  count,  with  affected  unconcern. 
"I  think,  a  Venetian,"  she  answered. 
"And  his  name?" 
"  I  know  not,  my  father !" 
The  count's  face  flashed. 

"Who  presented  him  to  my  darling?"  he  asked, 
again  forcing  himself  to  composure. 

Francesca  colored ;  and,  with  downcast  eyes,  an- 
swered : — 

"No  one,  my  father!  He  seemed  to  know  me,  and 
I  thought  I  might  have  forgotten  him." 

Spinola  turned  on  his  heel,  and,  after  a  few  vain  in- 
quiries, and  as  vain  a  search  for  the  stranger,  ordered 
his  attendants,  and  drove  silently  home. 

It  was  close  upon  the  gray  of  the  morning,  and  the 
count  still  leaned  over  the  stone-railing  of  his  balcony. 
Francesca  had  been  gone  an  hour  to  her  chamber. 
A  guitar-string  sounded  from  the  street  below,  and,  a 
moment  after,  a  manly  and  mellow  voice  broke  into  a 
Venetian  barcarole,  and  sang  with  a  skill  and  tender- 
ness which  a  vestal  could  scarce  have  listened  to  un- 
moved. Spinola  stepped  back  and  laid  his  hand  upon 
his  sword  ;  but,  changing  his  thought,  he  took  a  lamp 
from  the  wall  within,  and  crept  noiselessly  to  his  I 
daughter's  chamber.  She  lay  within  her  silken  cur- 
tains, with  her  hands  crossed  on  her  bosom,  and  from 
her  parted  lips  came  the  low  breath  of  innocent  and 
untroubled  sleep.  Reassured,  the  count  closed  her 
window  and  extinguished  his  lamp;  and,  when  the 
guitar  was  no  longer  heard  echoing  from  the  old 
palace  walls,  and  the  rich  voice  of  the  serenader  had 
died  away  with  his  footsteps,  the  lord  of  the  Palazzo 
Spinola  betook  himself  to  sleep  with  a  heart  somewhat 
relieved  of  its  burden. 

On  the  following  day,  the  count  pleaded  the  early- 
coming  heats  of  summer;  and,  with  slight  prepara- 
tion, left  Florence  for  his  summer-palace  in  the  Ap- 
ennines. When  Francesca  joined  him  cheerfully,  and 
even  gayly,  in  his  sudden  plan,  he  threw  aside  the 
jealous  fears  that  had  haunted  his  breast,  and  forgot 


the  stranger  and  his  barcarole.  The  old  trees  of  his 
maison  tie  plaisance  were  heavy  with  the  leaves  of  the 
Italian  May;  the  statues  stood  cool  in  the  shade;  the 
mountain  rivulets  forgot  their  birth  in  the  rocky 
brooks,  and  ran  over  channels  of  marble,  and  played 
up  through  cactus-leaves  and  sea-shells,  and  nereids' 
horns,  all  carved  by  the  contemporaries  of  Donatello. 
"  And  here,"  thought  the  proud  noble,  "  I  am  a  Vecart 
of  the  designs  of  adventurers,  and  the  temptations  and 
dangers  of  gayety,  and  the  child  of  my  hopes  will  re- 
fresh her  beauty  and  her  innocence,  under  the  watchful 
eye,  ever  present,  of  my  love. 

Francesca  Spinola  was  one  of  those  Italian  natures 
of  which  it  is  difficult  for  the  inhabitants  of  other 
climes  to  conceive.  She  had  no  feelings.  She  had 
passions.  She  could  love — but  it  sprang  in  an  instant 
to  its  fullest  power — and  maidenly  reserve  and  hesita- 
tion were  incompatible  with  its  existence.  She  had 
listened,  unmoved,  to  all  the  adulation  of  the  duke's 
court,  and  had  been  amused  with  the  devotion  of  all 
around  her — but  never  touched.  The  voice  of  the 
stranger  at  the  fete  of  the  Boboli — the  daring  words 
he  had  addressed  to  her — had  arrested  her  attention  ; 
and  it  needed  scarce  the  hour — which  flew  like  a  mo- 
ment at  his  side — to  send  a  new  sensation,  like  a  tem- 
pest, through  her  heart.  She  reasoned  upon  nothing 
— asked  nothing  ;  but,  while  she  gave  up  her  soul 
wholly  to  a  passion  hitherto  unfelt,  the  deep  dissimula 
tion  which  seems  a  natural  part  of  the  love  of  that 
burning  clime,  prompted  her,  by  an  unquestioned  im 
pulse,  to  conceal  it  entirely  from  her  father.  She  had 
counterfeited  sleep  when  nearly  surprised  in  listening 
to  the  barcarole,  and  she  had  little  need  to  counterfeit 
joy  at  her  departure  for  the  mountains. 

The  long  valley  of  the  Arno  lay  marked  out  upon 
the  landscape  by  a  wreath  of  vapor,  stealing  up  as  if 
enamored  of  the  fading  color  of  the  clouds ;  and  far 
away,  like  a  silver  bar  on  the  rim  of  the  horizon,  shone 
the  long  line  of  the  Mediterranean.  The  mountain 
sides  lay  bathed  in  azure;  and,  echoing  from  the 
nearest,  came  the  vesper-bells  of  Vallombrosa.  Peace 
and  purity  were  stamped  upon  the  hour. 

"My  child,"  said  the  softened  count,  drawing  Fran- 
cesca to  his  bosom,  as  they  stood  looking  off  upon 
this  scene  from  the  flowery  terrace  beneath  the  por- 
tico;  "does  my  child  love  me?" 

Francesca  placed  her  hands  upon  his  shoulders  and 
kissed  him  for  reply. 

"I  feel  impelled,"  he  continued,  "to  talk  to  you 
while  this  beautiful  hour  is  around  us,  of  an  affection 
that  resembles  it." 

"  Resembles  the  sunset,  my  father  ?" 

"  Yes  !  Shall  I  tell  you  how  ?  By  affecting  with 
its  soft  influence  every  object  under  the  bend  of  the 
sky !  My  Francesca !  there  are  parents  who  love 
their  children,  and  love  them  well,  and  yet  find  feel- 
ings for  other  attachments,  and  devotion  for  every 
other  interest  in  life.  Not  so  mine!  My  love  for 
my  child  is  a  whole  existence  poured  into  hers. 
Look  at  me,  Francesca!  I  am  not  old.  I  am  capa- 
ble, perhaps,  of  other  love  than  a  parent's.  There  are 
among  the  young  and  beautiful  who  have  looked  on 
me  with  favoring  eyes.  My  blood  runs  warm  yet,  and 
my  step  is  as  full  of  manhood — perhaps  my  heart  as 
prompt  to  be  gay— as  ever.  I  mean  to  say  that  I  am 
not  too  old  for  a  lover.     Hoes  my  daughter  think  so  ?" 

"  I  have  been  long  vain  of  your  beauty,  dear  fa- 
ther," said  Francesca,  threading  her  hand  in  his  dark 
curls.  .  ,       . 

"There  are  other  things  that  might  share  your 
empire  in  my  heart— politics,  play,  the  arts— a  hun- 
dred passions  which  possess  themselves  of  men  whose 
fortune  or  position  gives  them  means  and  leisure. 
Now  listen,  my  daughter!  You  have  supplanted  all 
these!     You    have   filled    my    heart   with    yourself. 


476 


PALETTO'S  BRIDE. 


T.  am  tempted  to  love — my  heart  is  my  daughter's. 
I  am  asked  to  play — my  thoughts  are  with  my  child. 
I  have  neither  time  for  politics,  nor  attention  for  the 
arts — my  being  breathes  through  my  child.  I  am 
incapable  of  all  else.     Do  you  hear  me,  Francesca  ?" 

"I  do,  dear  father  !" 

"Then,  one  moment  more  !  I  can  not  conceal  my 
thoughts  from  you,  and  you  will  pardon  love  like  mine 
for  ungrounded  fears.  I  liked  not  the  stranger  at  the 
duke's  palace." 

Francesca  stole  a  quick  look  at  her  father,  and, 
with  the  rapidity  of  light,  her  dark  eye  resumed  its 
tranquillity. 

"  I  say  I  liked  him  not !  No  one  knew  him  !  He 
is  gone,  no  one  knows  whither!  I  trust  he  will  never 
be  seen  more  in  Florence.  But  I  will  not  disguise 
from  you  that  I  thought  you — pleased  with  him !" 

"Father!" 

"  Forgive  me  if  I  wrong  you — but,  without  pursu- 
ing the  subject,  let  your  father  implore  you,  on  his 
knees,  for  the  confidence  of  your  heart.  Will  you 
tell  me  your  thoughts,  Francesca  ?  Will  you  love 
me  with  but  the  thousandth  part  of  my  adoration,  my 
devotion,  for  my  child?" 

"Father!  I  will !" 

The  count  rose  from  the  knee  on  which  he  had 
fallen,  gave  his  daughter  a  long  embrace,  and  led  her 
in.  And  that  night  she  fled  over  the  Tuscan  border, 
into  neighboring  Romagna,  and,  with  the  stranger  at 
her  side,  sped  away,  under  the  cover  of  night,  toward 
the  shores  of  the  Brenta. 


Like  a  city  of  secrets,  sleeps  silent  Venice.  Her 
sea-washed  foundations  are  buried  under  the  smooth 
glass  of  the  tide.  Her  palace-entrances  are  dark  cav- 
erns, impenetrable  to  the  eye.  Her  veiled  dames  are 
unseen  in  their  floating  chambers,  as  they  go  from 
street  to  street ;  and  mysteriously  and  silently  glide  to 
and  fro  those  swift  gondolas,  black  as  night,  yet  carry- 
ing sadness  and  mirth,  innocence  and  guilt,  alike 
swiftly,  mysteriously,  and  silently.  Water,  that  be- 
trays no  footstep,  and  covers  all  with  the  same  mantle 
of  light,  fills  her  streets.  Silence,  that  is  the  seal  of 
secrecy,  reigns  day  and  night  over  her  thousand 
palaces. 

For  an  hour  the  smooth  mirror  of  the  broad  canal 
that  sweeps  under  the  Rialto,  had  not  been  divided  by 
the  steel  prow  of  a  gondola.  Francesca  Spinola  stood 
at  the  window  of  a  chamber  in  a  palace  of  gorgeous 
magnificence,  watching  that  still  water  for  the  coming 
of  her  husband.  The  silver  lines  of  the  moon  stole 
back  imperceptibly,  as  her  full  orb  sailed  up  the 
heavens,  and  the  turrets  of  the  old  architecture  of 
Venice,  drawn  clearly  on  the  unruffled  bosom  of  the 
canal,  seemed  retiring  before  a  consuming  sheet  of 
silver.  The  silence  seemed  painful.  To  the  ear  of 
the  beautiful  Florentine,  the  want  of  the  sound  of  a 
footstep,  of  the  echo  of  some  distant  wheel,  the  utter 
death  of  all  sound  common  to  even  the  stillest  hour  of 
a  paved  city,  seemed  oppressive  and  awful.  Behind 
her  burned  lamps  of  alabaster,  and  perfumes  filled  the 
chamber,  and  on  a  cushion  of  costly  velvet  lay  a  mean 
and  unornamented  guitar.  Its  presence  in  so  costly  a 
palace  was  a  secret  yet  withheld.  She  wished  to 
touch  its  strings,  if  only  to  disperse  the  horror  of  si- 
lence. But  she  raised  her  fingers,  and  again,  without 
touching  it,  leaned  out  and  watched  the  dark  arch  of 
the  Rialto. 

A  gondola,  with  a  single  oar,  sped  swiftly  from  its 
black  shadow.  It  could  not  be  Paletto.  He  had 
gone  with  his  two  faithful  servants  to  St.  Mark's. 
The  oar  ceased — the  bark  headed  in — the  water 
splashed  on  the  marble  stair — and  the  gondolier  step- 
ped on  shore.  Ah,  who  but  Paletto  had  such  a  form 
as  stood  there  in  the  moonlight? 


"  Are  we  to  be  married  again,"  said  Francesca,  as 
her  husband  entered  the  chamber,  "  that  you  have 
once  more  disguised  yourself  as  a  fisherman  ?" 

Paletto  turned  from  the  light,  and  took  up  the 
mysterious  guitar.  "  It  is  no  night  to  be  in-doors,  my 
Francesca!  Come  with  me  to  the  lagoon,  and  I  will 
tell  you  the  story  of  this  despised  instrument.  Will 
you  come  ?"  he  pursued,  as  she  stood  looking  at  him 
in  wonder  at  his  strange  dress  and  disturbed  look. 
"  Will  you  come,  my  wife?" 

"  But  you  have  returned  without  your  gondoliers!" 
she  said,  advancing  a  step  to  take  his  hand. 

"I  have  rowed  a  gondola  ere  now,"  he  answered; 
and,  without  further  explanation,  he  led  her  down  the 
lofty  staircase,  and  seating  her  in  the  stern  of  the  bark 
which  he  had  brought  with  him,  stepped  upon  the 
platform,  and,  with  masterly  skill  and  power,  drove  it 
like  a  shadow  under  the  Rialto. 

He  who  has  watched  the  horn  of  a  quarter-moon 
gliding  past  the  towers,  pinnacles  and  palaces  of  the 
drifting  clouds,  and  in  his  youthful  and  restless  brain, 
fancied  such  must  be  the  smooth  delight  and  chang- 
ing vision  of  a  traveller  in  strange  lands — one  who  has 
thus  dreamed  in  his  boyhood  will  scarce  shoot  though 
Venice  for  the  first  time  in  a  gondola,  without  a 
sense  of  familiarity  with  the  scene  and  motion.  The 
architecture  of  the  clouds  is  again  drifting  past,  and 
himself  seems  borne  onward  by  the  silver  shallop  of 
the  moon. 

Francesca  sat  on  the  low  cushion  of  the  gondola, 
watching  and  wondering.  How  should  her  luxurious 
Paletto  have  acquired  the  exquisite  skill  with  which 
he  drove  the  noiseless  boat  like  a  lance-fly  over  the 
water.  Another  gondola  approached  or  was  left  be- 
hind, the  corner  of  a  palace  was  to  be  rounded,  or  the 
black  arch  of  a  bridge  to  be  shot  under,  and  the 
peculiar  warning-cry  of  the  gondoliers,  giving  notice 
of  their  unheard  approach,  fell  from  his  lips  so  me- 
chanically, that  the  hireling  oarsmen  of  the  city,  mar- 
velling at  his  speed,  but  never  doubting  that  it  was  a 
comrade  of  the  Piazza,  added  the  "fratello  mio"  to 
their  passing  salutation.  She  saw  by  every  broad 
beam  of  light,  which,  between  the  palaces,  came  down 
across  them,  a  brow  clouded  and  a  mind  far  from  the 
oar  he  turned  so  skilfully.  She  looked  at  the  gondola 
in  which  she  sat.  It  was  old  and  mean.  In  the  prow 
lay  a  fisher's  net,  and  the  shabby  guitar,  thrown  upon 
it,  seemed  now,  at  least,  not  out  of  place.  She  looked 
up  at  Paletto  once  more,  and,  in  his  bare  throat  and 
bosom,  his  loose  cap  and  neglected  hair,  she  could 
with  difficulty  recognise  the  haughty  stranger  of  the 
Boboli.  She  spoke  to  him.  It  was  necessary  to 
break  the  low-born  spell  that  seemed  closing  around 
her.  Paletto  started  at  her  voice,  and  suspending  his 
oar,  while  the  gondola  still  kept  way  as  if  with  its  own 
irresistible  volition,  he  passed  his  hand  over  his  eyes, 
and  seemed  waking  from  some  painful  dream. 

The  gondola  was  now  far  out  in  the  lagoon. — 
Around  them  floated  an  almost  impalpable  vapor, 
just  making  the  moonlight  visible,  and  the  soft  click 
of  the  water  beneath  the  rising  and  dropping  prow  was 
the  only  sound  between  them  and  the  cloudless  heaven. 
In  that  silence  Paletto  strung  his  guitar  and  sang  to 
his  bride  with  a  strange  energy.  She  listened  and 
played  with  his  tangled  locks,  but  there  seemed  a  spell 
upon  her  tongue  when  she  would  ask  the  meaning  of 
this  mystery. 

"Francesca!"  he  said  at  last,  raising  his  head  from 
her  lap. 

"What  says  my  fisherman?"  she  replied,  holding 
up  his  rough  cap  with  a  smile. 

Paletto  started,  but  recovering  his  composure,  in- 
stantly took  the  cap  from  her  jewelled  fingers  and 
threw  it  carelessly  upon  his  head. 

"  Francesca  !  who  is  your  husband  ?" 

"Paletto?" 


PALETTO'S  BRIDE. 


477 


"  And  who  is  Paletto  ?" 

"  I  would  have  asked  sometimes,  but  your  kisses 
have  interrupted  me.     Yet  I  know  enough." 

"  What  know  you?" 

"  That  he  is  a  rich  and  noble  seignior  of  Venice  !" 

"  Do  I  look  one  to-night  ?" 

"  Nay — for  a  masquerade,  I  have  never  seen  a 
better!  Where  learned  you  to  look  so  like  a  fisher- 
man and  row  so  like  a  gondolier  ?" 

Paletto  frowned. 

"  Francesca  !"  said  he  folding  his  arms  across  his 
bosom,  "  I  am  the  son  of  a  fisherman,  and  1  was  bred 
to  row  the  gondola  beneath  you  !" 

The  sternness  of  his  tone  checked  the  smile  upon 
her  beautiful  lip,  and  when  she  spoke  it  was  with  a 
look  almost  as  stern  as  his  own. 

"You  mock  me  too  gravely,  Paletto  !  But  come! 
I  will  question  you  in  your  own  humor.  Who  educa- 
ted the  fisherman's  son?" 

"  The  fisherman." 

"  And  his  palace  and  his  wealth — whence  came 
they,  Signor  Pescatore?" 

The  scornful  smile  of  incredulity  with  which  this 
question  was  asked,  speedily  fled  from  her  lip  as  Pal- 
etto answered  it. 

"  Listen  !  Three  months  since  I  had  never  known 
other  condition  than  a  fisherman  of  the  lagoon,  nor 
worn  other  dress  than  this  in  whichyou  see  me.  The 
first  property  I  ever  possessed  beyond  my  day's  earn- 
ings, was  this  gondola.  It  was  my  father's,  Giannotto 
the  fisherman.  When  it  became  mine  by  his  death, 
I  suddenly  wearied  of  my  tame  life,  sold  boat  and  nets, 
and  with  thoughts  which  you  can  not  understand, 
but  which  have  brought  you  here,  took  my  way  to 
the  Piazza.  A  night  of  chance,  begun  with  the  whole 
of  my  inheritance  staked  upon  a  throw,  left  me  mas- 
ter of  wealth  I  had  never  dreamed  of.  I  became  a 
gay  signore.  It  seemed  to  me  that  my  soul  had  gone 
out  of  me,  and  a  new  spirit,  demoniac  if  you  will,  had 
taken  possession.  I  no  longer  recognised  myself.  I 
passed  for  an  equal  with  the  best-born,  my  language 
altered,  my  gait,  my  humor.  One  strong  feeling  alone 
predominated — an  insane  hatred  to  the  rank  in  which 
you  were  born,  Francesca  !  It  was  strange,  too,  that 
I  tried  to  ape  its  manners.  I  bought  the  palace  you 
have  just  left,  and  filled  it  with  costly  luxuries.  And 
then  there  grew  upon  me  the  desire  to  humiliate  that 
rank — to  pluck  down  to  myself  some  one  of  its  proud 
and  cherished  daughters — such  as  you  !" 

Francesca  muttered  something  between  her  teeth, 
and  folded  her  small  arms  over  her  bosom.  Paletto 
went  on. 

"  I  crossed  to  Florence  with  this  sole  intention. 
Unknown  and  uninvited,  I  entered  the  palace  at  the 
fete  of  the  Boboli,  and  looked  around  for  a  victim. 
You  were  the  proudest  and  most  beautiful.  I  chose 
you  and  you  are  here." 

Paletto  looked  at  her  with  a  smile,  and  never  sun- 
beam was  more  unmixed  with  shadow  than  the  smile 
which  answered  it  on  the  lips  of  Spinola's  daughter. 

"  My  Paletto  !"  she  said,  "  you  have  the  soul  of  a 
noble,  and  the  look  of  one,  and  I  am  your  bride.  Let 
us  return  to  the  palace !" 

"  I  have  no  palace  but  this  !"  he  said,  striking  his 
hand  like  a  bar  of  iron  upon  the  side  of  the  gondola. 
"  You  have  not  heard  out  my  tale." 

Francesca  sat  with  a  face  unmoved  as  marble. 

"This  night,  at  play,  I  lost  all.  My  servants  are 
dismissed,  my  palace  belongs  to  another,  and  with 
this  bark  which  I  had  repurchased,  I  am  once  more 
Paletto  the  fisherman!" 

A  slight  heave  of  the  bosom  of  the  fair  Florentine 
was  her  only  response  to  this  astounding  announce- 
ment. Her  eyes  turned  slowly  from  the  face  of  the 
fisherman,  and  fixing  apparently  on  some  point  far  out 
in  the  Adriatic,  she  sat  silent,  motionless,  and  cold- 


"  I  am  a  man,  Francesca !"  said  Paletto  after  a  pause 
which,  in  the  utter  stillness  of  the  lagoon  around  them, 
seemed  like  a  suspension  of  the  breathing  of  nature, 
and  "I  have  not  gone  through  this  insane  dream  with- 
out some  turning  aside  of  the  heart.  Spite  of  my- 
self, I  loved  you:  and  I  could  not  dishonor  you.  We 
are  married,  Francesca  !" 

The  small  dark  brows  of  the  Florentine  lowered 
till  the  silken  lashes  they  overhung  seemed  starting 
from  beneath  her  forehead.  Her  eyes  flashed  fire 
below. 

"  Bene  .'"  said  Paletto,  rising  to  his  feet ;  "  one 
word  more  while  we  have  silence  around  us  and  are 
alone.  You  are  free  to  leave  me,  and  I  will  so  far  re- 
pair the  wrong  I  have  done  you,  as  to  point  out  the 
way.  It  will  be  daylight  in  an  hour.  Fly  to  the 
governor's  palace,  announce  your  birth,  declare  that 
you  were  forced  from  your  father  by  brigands,  and 
claim  his  protection.  The  world  will  believe  you,  and 
the  consequences  to  myself  I  will  suffer  in  silence." 

With  a  sudden,  convulsive  motion,  Francesca  thrust 
out  her  arm,  and  pointed  a  single  finger  toward  Venice. 
Paletto  bent  to  his  oar,  and  quivering  in  every  seam 
beneath  its  blade,  the  gondola  sped  on  his  way.  The 
steel  prow  struck  fire  on  the  granite  steps  of  the 
Piazza,  the  superb  daughter  of  Spinola  stepped  over 
the  trembling  side,  and  with  a  half-wave  of  her  hand, 
strode  past  the  Lion  of  St.  Mark,  and  approached  the 
sentinel  at  the  palace-gate.  And  as  her  figure  was 
lost  among  the  arabesque  columns  shaded  from  the 
moon,Paletto's  lonely  gondola  shot  once  more  silently 
and  slowly  from  the  shore. 


CHAPTER  II. 

The  smooth,  flat  pavement  of  the  Borg'ognisanti 

had  been  covered  since  morning  with  earth,  and  the 

windows  and  balconies  on  either  side  were  flaunting 

with  draperies  of  the  most  gorgeous   colors.     The 

'  riderless  horse-races,  which  conclude  the  carnival  in 

Florence,  were  to  be  honored  by  the  presence  of  the 

j  court.     At  the  far  extremity  of  the  street,  close  by  the 

I  gate  of  the  Cascine,  an  open  veranda,  painted  in  fresco, 

i  stood  glittering  with  the  preparations  for  the  royal  party, 

and  near  it  the  costlier  hangings  of  here  and  there  a 

window  or  balustrade,  showed  the  embroidered  crests 

of  the  different  nobles  of  Tuscany.     It  was  the  people's 

place  and  hour,  and  beneath  the  damask  and  cloth  of 

gold,  the  rough  stone  windows  were  worn  smooth  by 

the  touch  of  peasant  hands,  and  the  smutched  occu- 

!  pants,  looking  down  from  the  balconies  above,  upon 

the  usupers  of  their  week-day  habitations,  formed,  to 

the  stranger's  eye,  not  the  least  interesting  feature  of 

the  scene. 

As  evening  approached,  the  balconies  began  to 
show  their  burden  of  rank  and  beauty,  and  the  street 
below  filled  with  the  press  of  the  gay  contadini. 
The  ducal  cortege,  in  open  carriages,  drove  down 
the  length  of  the  course  to  their  veranda  at  the  gate, 
but  no  other  vehicle  was  permitted  to  enter  the  ser- 
ried crowd;  and,  on  foot  like  the  peasant -girl,  the 
noble's  daughter  followed  the  servants  of  her  house, 
who  slowly  opened  for  her  a  passage  to  the  balcony 
she  sought.  The  sun-light  began  to  grow  golden. 
The  convent-bell  across  the  Arno  rang  the  first  peal 
of  vespers,  and  the  horses  were  led  in. 

It  was  a  puzzle  to  any  but  an  Italian  how  that  race 
was  to  be  run.  The  entire  population  of  Florence 
was  crowded  into  a  single  narrow  street — men,  women, 
and  children,  struggling  only  for  a  foothold.  The  sig- 
nal was  about  to  be  given  for  the  start,  yet  no  attempt 
was  made  to  clear  a  passage.  Twenty  high-spirited 
horses  fretted  behind  the  rope,  each  with  a  dozen 
spurs  hung  to  his  surcingales,  which,  at  the  least  mo- 


478 


PALETTO'S  BRIDE. 


tion,  must  drive  him  onward  like  the  steed  of  Mazep- 
pa.  Gay  ribands  were  braided  in  their  manes,  and  the 
bets  ran  high.  All  sounded  and  looked  merry,  yet  it 
would  seem  as  if  the  loosing  of  the  start-rope  must  be 
like  the  letting  in  of  destruction  upon  the  crowd. 

In  a  projecting  gallery  of  a  house  on  the  side  next 
the  Arno,  was  a  party  that  attracted  attention,  some- 
what from  their  rank  and  splendid  attire,  but  more 
from  the  remarkable  beauty  of  a  female,  who  seemed 
their  star  and  idol.  She  was  something  above  the 
middle  height  of  the  women  of  Italy,  and  of  the  style 
of  face  seen  in  the  famous  Judith  of  the  Pitti — dark, 
and  of  melancholy  so  unfathomable  as  almost  to  af- 
fray the  beholder.  She  looked  a  brooding  prophet- 
ess ;  yet  through  the  sad  expression  of  her  features 
there  was  a  gleam  of  fierceness,  that  to  the  more  criti- 
cal eye  betrayed  a  more  earthly  gleam  of  human  pas- 
sion and  suffering.  As  if  to  belie  the  maturity  of  years 
of  which  such  an  expression  should  be  the  work,  an 
ungloved  hand  and  arm  of  almost  childlike  softness 
and  roundness  lay  on  the  drapery  of  the  railed  gallery  ; 
and  stealing  from  that  to  her  just-perfected  form,  the 
gazer  made  a  new  judgment  of  her  years,  while  he 
wondered  whal  strange  fires  had  forced  outward  the 
riper  lineaments  of  her  character. 

The  count  Fazelli,  the  husband  of  this  fair  dame, 
stood  within  reach  of  her  hand,  for  it  was  pressed  on 
his  arm  with  no  gentle  touch,  yet  his  face  was  turned 
from  her.  He  was  a  slight  youth,  little  older,  appa- 
rently, than  herself,  of  an  effeminate  and  yet  wilful  cast 
of  countenance,  and  would  have  been  pronounced  by 
women  (what  a  man  would  scarce  allow  him  to  be) 
eminently  handsome.  Effeminate  coxcomb  as  he  was, 
he  had  power  over  the  stronger  nature  beside  him,  and 
of  such  stuff,  in  courts  and  cities,  are  made  sometimes 
the  heroes  whose  success  makes  worthier  men  almost 
forswear  the  worship  due  to  women. 

There  were  two  other  persons  in  the  balconies  of 
the  Corso,  who  were  actors  in  the  drama  of  which  this 
was  a  scene.  The  first  was  the  prima  donna  of  the 
Cocomero,  to  whose  rather  mature  charms  the  capri- 
cious Fazelli  had  been  for  a  month  paying  a  too  open 
homage  ;  and  the  second  was  a  captain  in  the  duke's 
guard,  whose  personal  daring  in  the  extermination  of 
a  troop  of  brigands,  had  won  for  him  some  celebrity 
and  his  present  commission.  What  thread  of  sympa- 
thy rested  between  so  humble  an  individual  and  the 
haughty  countess  Fazelli,  will  be  shown  in  the  sequel. 
Enough  for  the  present,  that,  as  he  stood  leaning 
against  the  pillar  of  an  opposite  gallery,  looking  care- 
lessly on  the  preparations  for  the  course,  that  proud 
dame  saw  and  remembered  him. 

A  blast  from  a  bugle  drew  all  eyes  to  the  starting- 
post,  and  in  another  minute  the  rope  was  dropped,  and 
the  fiery  horses  loosed  upon  their  career.  Right  into 
the  crowd,  as  if  the  bodies  of  the  good  citizens  of 
Florence  were  made  of  air,  sprang  the  goaded  troop, 
and  the  impossible  thing  was  done,  for  the  suffocating 
throngs  divided  like  waves  before  the  prow,  and  united 
again  as  scathless  and  as  soon.  The  spurs  played 
merrily  upon  the  flanks  of  the  affrighted  animals,  and 
in  an  instant  they  had  swept  through  the  Borg'ogni- 
eanti,  and  disappeared  into  the  narrow  lane  leading  to 
the  Trinita.  It  was  more  a  scramble  than  a  race,  yet 
there  must  be  a  winner,  and  all  eyes  were  now  occu- 
pied in  gazing  after  the  first  glimpse  of  his  ribands  as 
he  was  led  back  in  triumph. 

Uncompelled  by  danger,  the  suffocating  crowd  made 
way  with  more  difficulty  for  the  one  winning  horse 
than  they  had  done  for  the  score  that  had  contended 
with  him.  Yet,  champing  the  bit,  and  tossing  his 
ribands  into  the  air,  he  came  slowly  back,  and  after 
passing  in  front  of  the  royal  veranda,  where  a  small 
flag  was  thrown  down  to  be  set  into  the  rosette  of  his 
bridle,  he  returned  a  few  steps,  and  was  checked  by 
the  groom  under  the  balcony  of  the  prima  donna.     A 


moment  after,  the  winning  flag  was  waving  from  the 
rails  above,  and  as  the  sign  that  she  was  the  owner  of 
the  victorious  horse  was  seen  by  the  people,  a  shout 
arose  which  thrilled  the  veins  of  the  fair  singer  more 
than  all  the  plaudits  of  the  Cocomero.  It  is  thought 
to  be  pleasant  to  succeed  in  that  for  which  we  have 
most  struggled — that  for  which  our  ambition  and  our 
efforts  are  known  to  the  world — to  be  eminent,  in 
short,  in  our  metier,  our  vocation.  I  am  inclined  to 
think  it  natural  to  most  men,  however,  and  to  all  pos- 
sessors of  genius,  to  undervalue  that  for  which  the 
world  is  most  willing  to  praise  them,  and  to  delight 
more  in  excelling  in  that  which  seems  foreign  to  their 
usual  pursuits,  even  if  it  be  a  trifle.  It  is  delightful  to 
disappoint  the  world  by  success  in  anything.  Detrac- 
tion, that  follows  genius  to  the  grave,  sometimes  ad- 
mits its  triumph,  but  never  without  the  "  back-water" 
that  it  could  do  no  more.  The  fine  actress  had  won  a 
shout  from  assembled  Florence,  yet  off  the  scene.  She 
laid  one  hand  upon  her  heart,  and  the  other,  in  the 
rash  exultation  of  the  moment,  ventured  to  wave  a 
kiss  of  gratitude  to  the  count  Fazelli. 

As  that  favored  signor  crossed  to  offer  his  congratu- 
lations, his  place  beside  the  countess  was  filled  by  a 
young  noble,  who  gave  her  the  explanatory  informa- 
tion— that  the  horse  was  Fazelli's  gift.  Calmly,  almost 
without  a  sign  of  interest  or  emotion,  she  turned  her 
eyes  upon  the  opposite  balcony.  A  less  searching  and 
interested  glance  would  have  discovered,  that  if  the 
young  count  had  hitherto  shared  the  favor  of  the  ad- 
mired singer  with  his  rivals,  he  had  no  rival  now. 
There  was  in  the  demeanor  of  both  an  undisguised 
tenderness  that  the  young  countess  had  little  need  to 
watch  long,  and  retiring  from  the  balcony,  she  accept- 
ed the  attendance  of  her  communicative  companion, 
and  was  soon  whirling  in  her  chariot  over  the  Ponte 
St.  Angelo,  on  her  way  to  the  princely  palace  that 
would  soon  cease  to  call  her  its  mistress. 

Like  square  ingots  of  silver,  the  moonlight  came 
through  the  battlements  of  the  royal  abode  of  the 
Medici.  It  was  an  hour  before  day.  The  heavy  heel 
of  the  sentry  was  the  only  sound  near  the  walls  of  the 
Pitti,  save,  when  he  passed  to  turn,  the  ripple  of  the 
Arno  beneath  the  arches  of  the  jeweller's  bridge  broke 
faintly  on  the  ear.  The  captain  of  the  guard  had 
strolled  from  the  deep  shadow  of  the  palace  into  the 
open  moonlight,  and  leaned  against  a  small  stone  shrine 
of  the  Virgin  set  into  the  opposite  wall,  watching  mu- 
singly the  companionable  and  thought-stirring  em- 
peress  of  the  night. 

"  Paletto  !"  suddenly  uttered  a  voice  near  him. 

The  guardsman  started,  but  instantly  recovered  his 
position,  and  stood  looking  over  his  epaulet  at  the 
intruder,  with  folded  arms. 

"  Paletto  !"  she  said  again,  in  a  lower  and  more  ap- 
pealing tone — "  will  you  listen  to  me  ?" 

"  Say  on,  Countess  Fazelli !" 

"  Countess  Fazelli  no  longer,  but  Paletto's  wife !" 

"  Ha  !  ha  !"  laughed  the  guardsman  bitterly,  "  that 
story  is  old,  for  so  false  a  one." 

"  Scorn  me  not !  I  am  changed."  The  dark  eyes 
of  Francesca  Cappone  lifted  up,  moist  and  full,  into 
the  moonlight,  and  fixing  them  steadfastly  on  the  sol- 
dier's, she  seemed  to  demand  that  he  should  read  her 
soul  in  them.  For  an  instant,  as  he  did  so,  a  troubled 
emotion  was  visible  in  his  own  features,  but  a  new 
thought  seemed  to  succeed  the  feeling,  and  turning 
away  with  a  cold  gesture,  he  said,  "  I  knew  you  false, 
but  till  now  I  thought  you  pure.  Tempt  me  not  to 
despise  as  well  as  hate  you  !" 

"  I  have  deserved  much  at  your  hand, "she  answered, 
with  a  deeper  tone,  "  but  not  this.  You  are  my  hus- 
band, Paletto  !" 

"  One  of  them  !"  he  replied,  with  a  sneer. 

Francesca  clasped  her  hands  in  agony.  "  I  have 
come  to  you,"  she  said,  "trusting the  generous  nature 


VIOLANTA  CESARINI. 


479 


which  I  have  proved  so  well.  I  can  not  live  unloved. 
I  deserted  you,  for  I  was  ignorant  of  myself.  I  have 
tried  splendor  and  the  love  of  my  own  rank,  but  one 
is  hollow  and  the  last  is  selfish.  Oh,  Paletto  !  what 
love  is  generous  like  yours?" 

The  guardsman's  bosom  heaved,  but  he  did  not  turn 
to  her.  She  laid  her  hand  upon  his  arm  :  "  I  have 
come  to  implore  you  to  take  me  back,  Paletto.  False 
as  I  was  to  you,  you  have  been  true  to  me.  I  would 
be  your  wife  again.  I  would  share  your  poverty,  if 
you  were  once  more  a  fisherman  on  the  lagoon.  Are 
you  inexorable,  Paletto  ?" 

Her  hand  stole  up  to  his  shoulder  :  she  crept  closer 
to  him,  and  buried  her  head,  unrepelled,  in  his  bosom. 
Paletto  laid  his  hand  upon  the  mass  of  raven  hair 
whose  touch  had  once  been  to  him  so  familiar,  and 
while  the  moon  drew  their  shadows  as  one  on  the 
shrine  of  the  Virgin,  the  vows  of  early  love  were  re- 
peated with  a  fervor  unknown  hitherto  to  the  lips  of 
Cappone's  daughter,  and  Paletto  replied,  not  like  a 
courtly  noble,  but  like  that  which  was  more  eloquent 
— his  own  love-prompted  and  fiery  spirit. 

The  next  day  there  was  a  brief  but  fierce  rencontre 
between  Count  Fazelli  and  the  guardsman  Paletto,  at 
the  door  of  the  church  of  Santa  Trinita.  Francesca 
had  gone  openly  with  her  husband  to  vespers,  attend- 
ed by  a  monk.  When  attacked  by  the  young  count 
as  the  daring  abducer  of  his  wife,  he  had  placed  her 
under  that  monk's  protection  till  the  quarrel  should  be 
over,  and,  with  the  same  holy  man  to  plead  his  cause, 
he  boldly  claimed  his  wife  at  the  duke's  hands,  and 
bore  her  triumphantly  from  Florence. 

I  heard  this  story  in  Venice.  The  gondolier  Pa- 
letto, they  say,  still  rows  his  boat  on  the  lagoon  :  and 
sometimes  his  wife  is  with  him,  and  sometimes  a  daugh- 
ter, whose  exquisite  beauty,  though  she  is  still  a  child, 
is  the  wonder  of  the  Rialto  as  he  passes  under.  I 
never  chanced  to  see  him,  but  many  a  stranger  has 
hired  the  best  oar  of  the  Piazza,  to  pull  out  toward  the 
Adriatic  in  the  hope  of  finding  Paletto's  boat  and  get- 
ting a  glimpse  of  his  proud  and  still  most  beautiful 
wife — a  wife,  it  is  said,  than  whom  a  happier  or  more 
contented  one  with  her  lot  lives  not  in  the  "  city  of 
;he  sea." 


VIOLANTA  CESARINI. 

CHAPTER  I. 

"  When  every  feather  sticks  in  its  own  wing, 
Lord  Timon  will  be  left  a  naked  gull." 

It  was  an  eve  fit  for  an  angel's  birthnight  (and  we 
know  angels  are  born  in  this  loving  world),  and  while 
the  moon,  as  if  shining  only  for  artists'  eyes,  drew  the 
outlines  of  palace  and  chapel,  stern  turret  and  sere- 
naded belvidere,  with  her  silver  pencil  on  the  street, 
two  grave  seniors,  guardians  in  their  own  veins  of  the 
blood  of  two  lofty  names  known  long  to  Roman  story, 
leaned  together  over  a  balcony  of  fretted  stone,  jutting 
out  upon  the  Corso,  and  affianced  a  fair  and  noble 
maid  of  seventeen  summers  to  a  gentleman  whose 
character  you  shall  learn,  if  we  come  safe  to  the  se- 
quel. 

"  The  cardinal  has  offered  me  a  thousand  scudi  for 
my  Giorgione,  said  the  old  count  Malaspina,  at  last, 
changing  his  attitude  and  the  subject  at  the  same 
time. 

"  Anima  diporco  .'"  exclaimed  the  other, "  what  stirs 
the  curtain  ?  The  wind  is  changing,  Malaspina.  Let 
us  in  !    So,  he  offers  but  a  thousand  !    I  shall  feel  my 


Bui  a  thou- 


rheumatism  to-morrow  with  this  change, 
sand  ! — ha  !  ha  !     Let  us  in,  let  us  in  !" 

"  Let  us  out,  say  I!"  murmured  two  lips  that  were 
never  made  of  cherries,  though  a  bird  would  have 
pecked  at  them ;  and  stealing  from  behind  the  curtain, 
whose  agitation  had  persuaded  her  father  that  the  wind 
was  rising,  Violanta  Cesarini,  countess  in  her  own  right, 
and  beautiful  by  Heaven's  rare  grace,  stepped  forth 
into  the  moonlight. 

She  drew  a  long  breath  as  she  looked  down  into  the 
Corso.  The  carriages  were  creeping  up  and  down  at 
a  foot-pace,  and  the  luxurious  dames,  thrown  back  on 
their  soft  cushions,  nodded  to  the  passers-by,  as  they 
recognised  friends  and  acquaintances  where  the  moon- 
light broke  through;  crowds  of  slowpromenaders  loi- 
tered indolently  on,  now  turning  to  look  at  the  berry- 
brown  back  of  a  contadini,  with  her  stride  like  a  tra- 
gedy-queen, and  her  eyes  like  wells  of  jet,  and  now 
leaning  against  a  palace  wall,  while  a  wandering  harp- 
girl  sung  better  for  a  baiocco  than  noble  ladies  for  the 
praise  of  a  cardinal;  at  one  corner  stood  an  artist  with 
his  tablet,  catching  some  chance  effect  perhaps  in  the 
drapery  of  a  marble  saint,  perhaps  in  the  softer  dra- 
pery of  a  sinner;  the  cafes,  far  up  and  dawn,  looked 
like  festas  out  of  doors,  with  their  groups  of  gayly- 
dressed  idlers,  eating  sherbets  and  buying  flowers  ;  a 
gray  friar  passed  now  with  his  low-toned  benedicite ; 
and  again  a  black  cowl  with  a  face  that  reddened  the 
very  moonbeam  that  peeped  under;  hunchbacks  con- 
tended testily  for  the  wall,  and  tall  fellows  (by  their 
lone  hair  and  fine  symmetry,  professed  models  for 
sculptors  and  painters)  yielded  to  them  with  a  gibe. 
And  this  is  Rome  when  the  moon  shines  well,  and  on 
this  care-cheating  scene  looked  down  the  countess 
Violanta,  with  her  heart  as  full  of  perplexity  as  her 
silk  boddice-lace  would  bear  without  breaking. 

I  dare  say  you  did  not  observe,  if  you  were  in  Rome 
that  night,  and  strolling,  as  you  would  have  been  in 
the  Corso  (this  was  three  years  ago  last  May,  and  if 
you  were  in  the  habit  of  reading  the  Diario  di  Roma, 
the  story  will  not  be  new  to  you) ;  you  did  not  observe, 
I  am  sure,  that  a  thread  ran  across  from  the  balcony  I 
speak  of,  in  the  Palazzo  Cesarim,  to  a  high  window 
in  an  old  palace  opposite,  inhabited,  as  are  many 
palaces  in  Rome,  by  a  decayed  family  and  several  ar- 
tists. On  the  two  sides  of  this  thread,  pressed,  while 
she  mused,  the  slight  fingers  of  Violanta  Cesarini; 
and,  as  if  it  descended  from  the  stars  at  every  pull 
which  the  light  May-breeze  gave  it  in  passing,  she 
turned  her  soft  blue  eyes  upward,  and  her  face  grew 
radiant  with  hope— not  such  as  is  fed  with  star-gazing  ! 
Like  a  white  dove  shooting  with  slant  wings  down- 
ward a  folded  slip  of  paper  flew  across  on  this  invisible 
thread,  and,  by  heaven's  unflickering  lamp,  Violanta 
read  some  characters  traced  with  a  rough  crayon,  but 
in  most  sweet  Italian.  A  look  upward,  and  a  nod,  as 
if  she  were  answering  the  stars  that  peeped  over  her, 
and  the  fair  form  had  gone  with  its  snowy  robes  from 
the  balcony,  and  across  the  high  window  from  which 
the  messenger  had  come,  dropped  the  thick  and  im- 
penetrable folds  of  the  gray  curtain  of  an  artist. 

It  was  a  large  upper  room,  such  as  is  found  in  the 
vast  houses  of  the  decayed  nobility  of  Rome,  and  of 
its  two  windows  one  was  roughly  boarded  up  to  ex- 
clude the  light,  while  a  coarse  gray  cloth  did  nearly 
the  same  service  at  the  other,  shutting  out  all  but  an 
artist's  modicum  of  day.  The  walls  of  rough  plaster 
were  covered  with  grotesque  drawings,  done  apparently 
with  bits  of  coal,  varied  here  and  there  with  scraps  of 
unframed  canvass,  nailed  carelessly  up,  and  covered 
with  the  study  of  some  head,  by  a  famous  master.  A 
large  table  on  one  side  of  the  room  was  burdened  with 
a  confused  heap  of  brushes  pa.nt-bags,  and  discolored 
cloths,  surmounted  with  a  clean  palette ;  and  not  far 
off  stood  an  easel,  covered  with  thumb-marks  of  all 


480 


VIOLANTA  CESARINI. 


dyes,  and  supporting  a  new  canvass,  on  which  was 
outlined  the  figure  of  a  nymph,  with  the  head  finished 
in  a  style  that  would  have  stirred  the  warm  blood  of 
Raphael  himself  with  emulous  admiration.  A  low 
flock  bed,  and  a  chair  without  a  bottom,  but  with  a 
large  cloak  hung  over  its  back,  a  pair  of  foils  and  a 
rapier,  completed  so  much  of  the  furniture  of  the 
room  as  belonged  to  a  gay  student  of  Corregio's  art, 
who  wrote  himself  Biondo  Amieri. 

By  the  light  of  the  same  antique  lamp,  hung  on  a 
rusty  nail  against  the  wall,  you  might  see  a  very  good 
effect  on  the  face  of  an  unfinished  group  in  marble, 
of  which  the  model,  in  plaster,  stood  a  little  behind, 
representing  a  youth  with  a  dagger  at  his  heart,  ar- 
rested in  the  act  of  self-murder  by  a  female  whose 
softened  resemblance  to  him  proclaimed  her  at  the  first 
glauce  his  sister.  A  mallet,  chisels,  and  other  im- 
plements used  in  sculpture,  lay  on  the  rough  base  of 
the  unfinished  group,  and  half-disclosed,  half-con- 
cealed, by  a  screen  covered  with  prints  by  some  curi- 
ous female  hand,  stood  a  bed  with  white  curtains,  and 
an  oratory  of  carved  oak  at  its  head,  supporting  a 
clasped  missal.  A  chair  or  two,  whose  seats  of  worked 
satin  had  figured  one  day  in  more  luxurious  neighbor- 
hood, a  table  covered  with  a  few  books  and  several 
drawings  from  the  antique,  and  a  carefully-locked 
escritoire,  served,  with  other  appearances,  to  distin- 
guish this  side  of  the  room  as  belonging  to  a  separate 
occupant,  of  gentler  taste  or  nurture. 

While  the  adventurous  Violanta  is  preparing  her- 
self to  take  advantage  of  the  information  received  by 
her  secret  telegraph,  I  shall  have  time,  dear  reader, 
to  put  you  up  to  a  little  of  the  family  history  of  the 
Cesarini,  necessary  no  less  to  a  proper  understanding 
of  the  story,  than  to  the  heroine's  character  for  dis- 
cretion. On  the  latter  point,  I  would  suggest  to  you, 
you  may  as  well  suspend  your  opinion. 

It  is  well  known  to  all  the  gossips  in  Rome,  that, 
for  four  successive  generations,  the  marquises  of 
Cesarini  have  obtained  dispensations  of  the  pope  for 
marrying  beautiful  peasant-girls  from  the  neighbor- 
hood of  their  castle,  in  Romagna.  The  considerable 
sums  paid  for  these  dispensations,  reconciled  the  holy 
see  to  such  an  unprecedented  introduction  of  vulgar 
blood  into  the  veins  of  the  nobility,  and  the  remarkable 
female  beauty  of  the  race  (heightened  by  the  addition 
of  nature's  aristocracy  to  its  own),  contributed  to  main- 
tain good  will  at  a  court,  devoted  above  all  others  to 
the  cultivation  of  the  fine  arts,  of  which  woman  is  the 
Eidolon  and  the  soul.  The  last  marquis,  educated 
like  his  fathers,  in  their  wild  domain  among  the  moun- 
tains, selected,  like  them,  the  fairest  wild-flower  that 
sprung  at  his  feet,  and  after  the  birth  of  one  son,  ap- 
plied for  the  tardy  dispensation.  From  some  un- 
known cause  (possibly  a  diminished  bribe,  as  the  mar- 
quis was  less  lavish  in  his  disposition  than  his  prede- 
cessors), the  pope  sanctioned  the  marriage,  but  re- 
fused to  legitimatize  the  son,  unless  the  next  born 
should  be  a  daughter.  The  marchioness  soon  after 
retired  (from  mortification  it  is  supposed)  to  her  home 
in  the  mountains,  and  after  two  years  of  close  seclu- 
sion, returned  to  Rome,  bringing  with  her  an  infant 
daughter,  then  three  months  of  age,  destined  to  be  the 
heroine  of  our  story.  No  other  child  appearing,  the 
young  Cesarini  was  legitimatized,  and  with  his  infant 
sister  passed  most  of  his  youth  at  Rome.  Some  three 
or  four  years  before  the  time  when  our  tale  com- 
mences, this  youth,  who  had  betrayed  always,  a  coarse 
and  brutal  temper,  administered  his  stiletto  to  a  gen- 
tleman on  the  Corso,  and  flying  from  Rome,  became 
a  brigand  in  the  Abruzzi.  His  violence  and  atrocity 
in  this  congenial  life,  soon  put  him  beyond  hope  of 
pardon,  and  on  his  outlawry  by  the  pope,  Violanta  be- 
came the  heiress  of  the  estates  of  Cesarini. 

The  marchioness  had  died  w'hen  Violanta  was  be- 
tween seven  and  eight  years  of  age,  leaving  her,  by  a 


death-bed  injunction,  in  the  charge  of  her  own  con- 
stant attendant,  a  faithful  servant  from  Romagno,  sup- 
posed to  be  distant  kinswoman  to  her  mistress.  "With 
this  tried  dependant,  the  young  countess  was  permit- 
ted to  go  where  she  pleased,  at  all  hours  when  not  at- 
tended by  her  masters,  and  seeing  her  tractable  and 
lovely,  the  old  marquis,  whose  pride  in  the  beauty  ot 
his  family  was  the  passion  next  to  love  of  money  in 
his  heart,  gave  himself  little  trouble,  and  thought  him- 
self consoled  for  the  loss  of  his  son  in  the  growing  at- 
tractions and  filial  virtues  of  his  daughter. 

On  a  bright  morning  in  early  spring,  six  years  before 
the  date  of  our  lale,  the  young  countess  and  her  at- 
tendant were  gathering  wild  flowers  near  the  fountain 
of  Egeria  (of  all  spots  of  earth,  that  on  which  the  wild 
flowers  are  most  profuse  and  sweetest),  when  a  de- 
formed youth,  who  seemed  to  be  no  stranger  to  Donna 
Bettina,  addressed  Violanta  in  a  tone  of  voice  so  mu- 
sical, and  with  a  look  so  kindly  and  winning,  that  the 
frank  child  took  his  hand,  and  led  him  oft'  in  search  of 
cardinals  and  blue-bells,  with  the  familiarity  of  an  es- 
tablished playfellow.  After  this  day,  the  little  countess 
never  came  home  pleased  from  a  morning  drive  and 
ramble  in  which  she  had  not  seen  her  friend  Signor 
Giulio;  and  the  romantic  baths  of  Caracalla,  and  the 
many  delicious  haunts  among  the  ruins  about  Rome, 
had  borne  witness  to  the  growth  of  a  friendship,  all 
fondness  and  impulse  on  the  part  of  Violanta,  all  ten- 
derness and  delicacy  on  that  of  the  deformed  youth. 
By  what  wonderful  instinct  they  happened  always  to 
meet,  the  delighted  child  never  found  time  or  thought 
to  inquire. 

Two  or  three  years  passed  on  thus,  and  the  old 
marquis  had  grown  to  listen  with  amused  familiarity 
to  his  daughter's  prattle  about  the  deformed  youth, 
and  no  incident  had  varied  the  pleasant  tenor  of  their 
lives  and  rambles,  except  that,  Giulio  once  falling  ill, 
Bettina  had  taken  the  young  countess  to  his  home, 
where  she  discovered  that,  young  as  he  was,  he  made 
some  progress  in  moulding  in  clay,  and  was  destined  for 
a  sculptor.  This  visit  to  the  apartment  of  an  obscure 
youth,  however,  the  marquis  had  seen  fit  to  object  to ; 
and  though,  at  his  daughter's  request,  he  sent  the 
young  sculptor  an  order  for  his  first  statue,  he  per- 
emptorily forbade  all  further  intercourse  between  him 
and  Violanta.  In  the  paroxysm  of  her  grief  at  the 
first  disgrace  she  had  ever  fallen  into  with  her  master, 
Bettina  disclosed  to  her  young  mistress,  by  way  of 
justification,  a  secret  she  had  been  bound  by  the 
most  solemn  oaths  to  conceal,  and  of  which  she  now 
was  the  sole  living  depository — that  this  deformed 
youth  was  born  in  the  castle  of  the  Cesarini,  in  Ro- 
magna, of  no  less  obscure  parentage  than  the  castle's 
lord  and  lady,  and  being  the  first  child  after  the  dis- 
pensation of  marriage,  and  a  son,  he  was  consequently 
the  rightful  heir  to  the  marquisate  and  estates  of  Cesa- 
rini; and  the  elder  son,  by  the  terms  of  that  dispen- 
sation, was  illegitimate. 

This  was  astounding  intelligence  to  Violanti,  who, 
nevertheless,  child  as  she  was,  felt  its  truth  in  the 
yearnings  of  her  heart  to  Giulio ;  but  it  was  with  no 
little  pains  and  difficulty  on  Bettina's  part,  that  she  was 
persuaded  to  preserve  the  secret  from  her  father.  The 
Romagnese  knew  her  master's  weakness  ;  and  as  tht 
birth  of  the  child  had  occurred  during  his  long  ab- 
sence from  the  castle,  and  the  marchioness,  proud  of 
her  eldest-born,  had  determined  from  the  first  that  he 
alone  should  enjoy  the  name  and  honors  of  his  father, 
it  was  not  very  probable  that  upon  the  simple  word  of 
a  domestic,  he  would  believe  a  deformed  hunchback 
to  be  his  son  and  heir. 

The  intermediate  history  of  Giulio,  Bettina  knew 
little  about,  simply  informing  her  mistress,  that  dis- 
gusted with  his  deformity,  the  unnatural  mother  had 
sent  him  to  nurse  in  a  far-off  village  of  Romagna,  and 
that  the  interest  of  a  small  sum  which  the   marquis 


VIOLANTA  CESAR1NL 


481 


supposed  had  been  expended  on  masses  for  the  souls 
of  his  ancestors,  was  still  paid  to  his  foster-parents  for 
his  use. 

From  the  time  of  this  disclosure,  Violanta's  life  had 
been  but  too  happy.  Feeling  justified  in  contriving 
secret  interviews  with  her  brother;  and  possessing  the 
efficient  connivance  of  Bettina,  who  grew,  like  her- 
self, almost  to  worship  the  pure-minded  and  the  gentle 
Giulio,  her  heart  and  her  time  were  blissfully  crowded 
with  interest.  So  far,  the  love  that  had  welled  from 
her  heart  had  been  all  joyous  and  untroubled. 

It  was  during  the  absence  of  the  marquis  and  his 
daughter  from  Rome,  and  in  an  unhealthy  season, 
that  Giulio,  always  delicate  in  health  and  liable  to  ex- 
cessive fits  of  depression,  had  fallen  ill  in  his  solitary 
room,  and,  but  for  the  friendly  care  of  a  young  artist 
whom  he  had  long  known,  must  have  died  of  want 
and  neglect.  As  he  began  to  recover,  he  accepted  the 
offer  of  Amieri,  his  friend,  to  share  with  him  a  lodging 
in  the  more  elevated  air  of  the  Corso,  and,  the  more 
readily,  that  this  room  chanced  to  overlook  the  palace 
of  Cesarina.  Here  Violanta  found  him  on  her  return, 
and  though  displeased  that  he  was  no  longer  alone, 
she  still  continued,  when  Amieri  was  absent,  to  see 
him  sometimes  in  his  room,  and  their  old  haunts 
without  the  walls  were  frequented  as  often  as  his 
health  and  strength  would  permit.  A  chance  meeting 
of  Violanta  and  Amieri  in  his  own  studio,  however, 
made  it  necessary  that  he  should  be  admitted  to  their 
secret,  and  the  consequence'of  that  interview,  and 
others  which  Violanta  found  it  impossible  to  avoid, 
was  a  passion  in  the  heart  of  the  enthusiastic  painter, 
which  consumed,  as  it  well  might,  every  faculty  of 
his  soul. 

We  are  thus  brought  to  an  evening  of  balmy  May, 
when  Giulio  found  himself  alone.  Biondo  had  been 
painting  all  day  on  the  face  of  his  nymph,  endeavoring 
in  vain  to  give  it  any  other  features  than  those  of  the 
lady  of  his  intense  worship,  and  having  gone  out  to 
ramble  for  fresh  air  and  relaxation  in  the  Corso, 
Giulio  thought  he  might  venture  to  throw  across  his 
ball  of  thread  and  send  a  missive  to  his  sister,  promising 
her  an  uninterrupted  hour  of  his  society. 

With  these  preliminaries,  our  story  will  now  run 
smoothly  on. 


CHAPTER  II. 

"  Come  in,  carissima .'"'  said  the  low,  silver-toned 
voice  of  the  deformed  sculptor,  as  a  female  figure,  in 
the  hood  and  cloak  of  an  old  woman,  crossed  the 
threshold  of  his  chamber. 

"  Dear  Giulio  !"  And  she  leaned  slightly  over  the 
diminutive  form  of  her  brother,  and  first  kissing  his 
pale  forehead,  while  she  unfastened  the  clasp  of 
Bettina's  cloak  of  black  silk,  threw  her  arms  about 
him  as  the  disguise  fell  oft',  and  multiplied,  between 
her  caresses,  the  endearing  terms  in  which  the  lan- 
guage of  that  soft  clime  is  so  prodigal. 

They  sat  down  at  the  foot  of  his  group  in  marble, 
and  each  told  the  little  history  of  the  hours  they  had 
spent  apart.  They  grew  alike  as  they  conversed  ; 
for  theirs  was  that  resemblance  of  the  soul,  to  which 
the  features  answer  only  when  the  soul  is  breathing 
through.  Unless  seen  together,  and  not  only  together, 
but  gazing  on  each  other  in  complete  abandonment 
of  heart,  the  friends  that  knew  them  best  would  have 
said  they  were  unlike.  Yet  Amieri's  nymph  on  the 
canvass  was  like  both,  for  Amieri  drewfromthe  picture 
burnt  on  his  own  heart  by  love,  and  the  soul  of  Violanta 
lay  breathing  beneath  every  lineament. 

"You  have  not  touched  the  marble  to-day!"  said 
the  countess,  taking  the  lamp  from  its  nail,  and  shed- 
ding the  light  aslant  on  the  back  of  the  statue. 
31 


"  No  !  I  have  lifted  the  hammer  twenty  times  to 
break  it  in  pieces." 

"  Ah  !  dearest  Giulio  !  talk  not  thus  !  Think  it  is 
my  image  you  would  destroy  !" 

"  If  it  were,  and  truly  done,  I  would  sooner  strike 
the  blessed  crucifix.  But,  Violanta!  there  is  a  link 
wanting  in  this  deformed  frame  of  mine  !  The  sense 
of  beauty,  or  the  power  to  body  it  forth,  wants  room  in 
me.     I  feel  it — I  feel  it !" 

Violanta  ran  to  him  and  pressed  the  long  curls  that 
fell  over  his  pallid  temples  to  her  bosom.  There  was 
a  tone  of  conviction  in  his  voice  that  she  knew  not  how 
to  answer. 

He  continued,  as  if  he  were  musing  aloud : — 

"  I  have  tried  to  stifle  this  belief  in  my  bosom,  and 
have  never  spoken  of  it  till  now — but  it  is  true.1 
Look  at  that  statue  !  Parts  of  it  are  like  nature— 
but  it  wants  uniformity — it  wants  grace — it  want9 
what  i"  want — proportion!  I  never  shall  give  it  that, 
because  I  want  the  sense,  the  consciousness,  the  emo- 
tion, of  complete  godlike  movement.  It  is  only  the 
well  formed  who  feci  this.  Sculptors  may  imitate 
gods  !  for  they  are  made  in  God's  image.  But  oh, 
Violanta  !  /  am  not !" 

"  My  poor  brother  !" 

"  Our  blessed  Savior  was  not  more  beautiful  than 
the  Apollo,"  he  passionately  continued,  "  but  could  j 
feel  like  the  Apollo!  Can  /stand  before  the  clay  and 
straighten  myself  to  his  attitude,  and  fancy,  by  the 
most  delirious  effort  of  imagination,  that  I  realize  in 
this  frame,  and  could  ever  have  conceived  and  moulded 
his  indignant  and  lofty  beauty  ?     No — no — no  !" 

"Dear — dear  Giulio."  He  dropped  his  head  again 
and  she  felt  his  tears  penetrate  to  her  bosom. 

"  Leave  this  melancholy  theme,"  she  said,  in  an 
imploring  tone,  "  and  let  us  talk  of  other  things,  I  have 
something  to  tell  you,  Giulio  !" 

"  Raphael  was  beautiful,"  he  said,  raising  himself 
up,  unconscious  of  the  interruption,  "  and  Giorgione, 
and  Titian,  both  nobly  formed,  and  Michael  Angelo 
had  the  port  of  an  archangel !  Yes,  the  soul  inhabits 
the  whole  body,  and  the  sentiment  of  beauty  moves 
and  quickens  through  it  all.  My  tenement  is  cramp- 
ed ! — Violanta  !" 

"  Well,  dear  brother  !" 

"Tell  me  your  feelings  when  you  first  breathe  the 
air  in  a  bright  morning  in  spring.  Do  you  feci  grace- 
ful ?  Js  there  a  sensation  of  beauty?  Do  you  lilt 
yourself  and  feel  swan-like  and  lofty,  and  worthy  of 
the  divine  image  in  which  you  breathe.  Tell  me 
truly,  Violanta." 

"  Yes,  brother!" 

"  I  knew  it !  I  have  a  faint  dream  of  such  a  feel- 
ing— a  sensation  that  is  confined  to  my  brain  somehow 
which  I  struggle  to  express  in  motion — but  if  I  lilt 
my  finger,  it  is  gone.  I  watch  Amieri  sometimes, 
when  he  draws.  He  pierces  my  very  soul  by  as- 
suming, always,  the  attitude  on  his  canvass.  Violanta! 
how  can  /  stand  like  a  statue  that  would  please  the 
eye  ?" 

"  Giulio  !  Giulio  !" 

"Well,  I  will  not  burden  you  with  my  sadness. 
Let  us  look  at  Biondo's  nymph.  Pray  the  Virgin,  he 
come  not  in  the  while — for  painting,  by  lamp-light, 
shows  less  fairly  than  marble." 

He  took  the  lamp,  and  while  Violanta  shook  the 
tears  from  her  eyes,  he  drew  out  the  pegs  of  the  easel, 
and  lowered  the  picture  to  the  light. 

"  Are  you  sure  Amieri  will  not  come  in,  Giulio  ?" 
inquired  his  sister,  looking  back  timidly  at  the  door 
while  she  advanced. 

"I  think  he  will  not.  The  Corso  is  gay  to  night, 
and  his  handsome  face  and  frank  carriage,  win  greet- 
ings, as  the  diamond  draws  light.  Look  at  his  pic- 
ture, Violanta!  With  what  triumph  he  paints!  How 
different  from  my  hesitating  hand  !     The  thought  that 


482 


VIOLANTA  CESAR1NI. 


is  born  in  his  fancy,  collects  instant  fire  in  his  veins 
and  comes  prompt  and  proportionate  to  his  hand.  It 
looks  like  a  thing  born,  not  wrought !  How  beautiful 
you  are,  my  Violanta  !  He  has  done  well — brave 
Biondo  !" 

"  It  is  like  me,  yet  fairer." 

"  I  wish  it  were  done!  There  is  a  look  on  the  lips 
that  is  like  a  sensation  1  feel  sometimes  on  my  own  I 
almost  feel  as  if  I  should  straighten  and  grow  fair  as  it 
advances.    Would  it  not  be  a  blessed  thing,  Violanta  ?'* 

"  I  love  you  as  you  are,  dear  Giulio  !" 

"But  I  thirst  to  be  loved  like  other  men  !  I  would 
pass  in  the  street  and  not  read  pity  in  all  eyes.  I 
would  go  out  like  Biondo,  and  be  greeted  in  the  street 
with  t  Mio  bravo  !'  «  Mio  bello  !'  I  would  be  beloved 
by  some  one  that  is  not  my  sister,  Violanta!  I  would 
have  my  share — only  my  share — of  human  joy  and  re- 
gard. I  were  better  dead  than  be  a  hunchback.  I 
would  die,  but  for  you — to-night — yes,  to  night." 

With  a  convulsive  hand  he  pulled  aside  the  curtain, 
and  sent  a  long,  earnest  look  up  to  the  stars.  Violanta 
had  never  before  heard  him  give  words  to  his  melan- 
choly thoughts,  and  she  felt  appalled  and  silenced  by 
the  inexpressible  poignancy  of  his  tones,  and  the  fever- 
ish, tearless,  broken-heartedness  of  his  whole  manner. 
As  she  took  his  hand,  there  was  a  noise  in  the  street 
below,  and  presently  after,  a  hurried  step  was  heard 
on  the  stair,  and  Amieri  rushed  in,  seized  the  rapier 
which  hung  over  his  bed  and  without  observing  Vio- 
lanta, was  flying  again  from  the  apartment. 

"  Biondo  !"  cried  a  voice  which  would  have  stayed 
him  were  next  breath  to  have  been  drawn  in  heaven. 

"  Contessa  Violanta  !" 

"What  is  it,  Amieri?  Where  go  you  now?" 
asked  Giulio,  gliding  between  him  and  the  door. 
Biondo's  cheek  and  brow  had  flushed  when  first  ar- 
rested by  the  voice  of  the  countess,  but  now  he  stood 
silent  and  with  his  eyes  on  the  floor,  pale  as  the  statue 
before  him. 

"  A  quarrel,  Giulio  !"  he  said  at  length. 

"Biondo!"  The  countess  sprang  to  his  side  with 
the  simple  utterance  of  his  name,  and  laid  her  small 
hand  on  his  arm.  "  You  shall  not  go!  You  are  dear 
to  us — dear  to  Guilio,  Signor  Amieri!  If  you  love  us 
— if  you  care  for  Giulio — nay,  I  will  say  it — if  you 
care  for  me,  dear  Biondo,  put  not  your  life  in  peril." 

"  Lady  !"  said  the  painter,  bowing  his  head  to  his 
wrist,  and  kissing  lightly  the  small  white  fingers  that 
pressed  it,  "  if  I  were  to  lose  my  life  this  hour,  I  should 
bless  with  my  dying  lips  the  occasion  which  had  drawn 
from  you  the  blessed  words  I  hear.  But  the  more 
life  is  valuable  to  me  by  your  regard,  the  more  need 
you  should  not  delay  me.  I  am  waited  for.  Fare- 
well!" 

Disengaging  himself  from  Violanta's  grasp,  quickly 
but  gently,  Amieri  darted  through  the  door,  and  was 
gone. 


CHAPTER  IIT. 

Biondo  had  readily  found  a  second  in  the  first 
artist  he  met  on  the  Corso,  and  after  a  rapid  walk 
they  turned  on  the  lonely  and  lofty  wall  of  the  Pala- 
tine, to  look  back  on  the  ruins  of  the  Forum. — At  a 
fountain  side,  not  far  beyond,  he  had  agreed  to  find 
his  antagonist;  but  spite  of  the  pressing  business  of 
the  hour,  the  wonderful  and  solemn  beauty  of  the  ruins 
that  lay  steeped  in  moonlight  at  his  feet,  awoke,  for 
an  instant,  all  of  the  painter  in  his  soul. 

"  Is  it  not  glorious,  Lenzoni  ?"  he  said,  pointing  with 
his  rapier  to  the  softened  and  tall  columns  that  carried 
their  capitals  among  the  stars. 

"  We  have  not  come  out  to  sketch,  Amieri !"  was 


the  reply. 


"True,  caro!  but  my  fingers  work  as  if  the  pencil 
was  in  them,  and  I  forget  revenge  while  1  see  what  I 
shall  never  sketch  again!" 

Lenzoni  struck  Ins  hand  heavily  on  Amieri's  shoul- 
der, as  if  to  wake  him  from  a  dream,  and  looked  close 
into  his  face. 

"If  you  fight  in  this  spirit,  Biondo " 

"I  shall  fight  with  heart  and  soul,  Lenzoni;  fear 
me  not!  But  when  I  saw,  just  now,  the  beVeffelto  of 
the  sharp-drawn  shadows  under  the  arch  of  Constan- 
tine,  and  felt  instinctively  for  my  pencil,  something 
told  me,  at  my  heart's  ear — you  will  never  trace  line 
again,  Amieri!" 

"Take  heart,  caro  amico!" 

My  heart  is  ready,  but  my  thoughts  come  fast! 
What  were  my  blood,  I  can  not  but  reflect,  added  to 
the  ashes  of  Rome?  We  fight  in  the  grave  of  an 
empire!  But  you  will  not  philosophize,  dull  Len- 
zoni!    Come  on  to  the  fountain!" 

The  moon  shone  soft  on  the  greensward  rim  of  the 
neglected  fountain  that  once  sparkled  through  the 
"gold  palace"  of  Nero.  The  white  edges  of  half- 
buried  marble  peeped  here  and  there  from  the  grass, 
I  and  beneath  the  shadow  of  an  ivy-covered  and  totter- 
!  ing  arch,  sang  a  nightingale,  the  triumphant  posses- 
sor of  life  amid  the  forgotton  ashes  of  the  Caesars. 
Amieri  listened  to  his  song. 

"You  are  prompt,  signor!"  said  a  gay-voiced  gen- 
tleman, turning  the  corner  of  the  ruined  wall,  as 
Biondo,  still  listening  to  the  nightingale,  fed  his  heart 
with  the  last  sweet  words  of  Violanta. 

"'  Sempre  pronto,'  is  a  good  device,"  answered  Len- 
zoni, springing  to  his  feet.  "  Will  you  fight,  side  to 
the  moon,  signors,  or  shall  we  pull  straws  for  the 
choice  of  light?" 

Amieri's  antagonist  was  a  strongly-made  man  of 
thirty,  costly  in  his  dress,  and  of  that  class  of  features 
eminently  handsome,  yet  eminently  displeasing.  The 
origin  of  the  quarrel  was  an  insulting  observation, 
coupled  with  the  name  of  the  young  countess  Cesa- 
rini,  which  Biondo,  who  was  standing  in  the  shadow 
of  a  wall,  watching  her  window  from  the  Corso,  acci- 
dentally overheard.  A  blow  on  the  mouth  was  the 
first  warning  the  stranger  received  of  a  listener's 
neighborhood,  and  after  a  momentary  struggle  they 
exchanged  cards,  and  separated  to  meet  in  an  hour, 
with  swords,  at  the  fountain,  on  the  Palatine. 

Amieri  was  accounted  the  best  foil  in  the  ateliers  of 
Rome,  but  his  antagonist,  the  count  Lamba  Malas- 
pina  had  just  returned  from  a  long  residence  in  France, 
and  had  the  reputation  of  an  accomplished  swordsman. 
Amieri  was  slighter  in  person,  but  well-made,  and 
agile  as  a  leopard;  but  when  Lenzoni  looked  into  the 
cool  eye  of  Malaspina,  the  spirit  and  fire  which  he 
would  have  relied  upon  to  ensure  his  friend  success  in 
an  ordinary  contest,  made  him  tremble  now. 

Count  Lamba  bowed,  and  they  crossed  swords. 
Amieri  had  read  his  antagonist's  character,  like  his 
friend,  and,  at  the  instant  their  blades  parted,  he  broke 
down  his  guard  with  the  quickness  of  lightning,  and 
wounded  him  in  the  face.  Malaspina  smiled  as  he 
crossed  his  rapier  again,  and  in  the  next  moment 
Amieri's  sword  flew  high  above  his  head,  and  the 
count's  was  at  his  breast. 

"Ask  for  your  life,  mio  bravo!"  he  said,  as  calmly 
as  if  they  had  met  by  chance  in  the  Corso. 

"A'morte!  villain  and  slanderer!"  cried  Amieri,  and 
striking  the  sword  from  his  bosom,  he  aimed  a  blow 
at  Malaspina,  which  by  a  backward  movement,  was 
received  on  the  point  of  the  blade.  Transfixed  through 
the  wrist,  Amieri  struggled  in  vain  against  the  supe- 
rior strength  and  coolness  of  his  antagonist,  and  falling 
on  his  knee,  waited  in  silence  for  his  death-blow. 
Malaspina  drew  his  sword  gently  as  possible  from  the 
wound,  and  recommending  a  tourniquet  to  Lenzoni 
till   a  surgeon   could   be  procured,  washed  the  blood 


VIOLANTA  CESARINI. 


483 


from  bis  face  in  the  fountain,  and  descended  into  the 
Forum,  humming  the  air  of  a  new  song. 

Faint  with  loss  of  blood,  and  with  his  left  arm 
around  Lenzoni's  neck,  Biondo  arrived  at  the  sur- 
geon's door. 

"  Can  you  save  his  hand  ?"  was  the  first  eager  ques- 
tion. 

Amieri  held  up  his  bleeding  wrist  with  difficulty, 
and  the  surgeon  shook  his  head  as  he  laid  the  help- 
less fingers  in  his  palm.  The  tendon  was  entirely 
parted. 

"  I  may  save  the  hand."  he  said,  "  but  he  will  never 
use  it  more .'" 

Amieri  gave  his  friend  a  look  full  of  anguish,  and 
fell  back  insensible. 

"Poor  Biondo!"  said  Lenzoni,  as  he  raised  his 
pallid  head  from  the  surgeon's  pillow.  "  Death  were 
less  misfortune  than  the  loss  of  a  hand  like  thine. 
The  foreboding  was  too  true,  alas!  that  thou  never 
wouldst  use  pencil  more!'1'' 


CHAPTER  IV. 

Thk  frowning  battlements  of  St.  Angelo  were 
brightened  with  the  glare  of  lamps  across  the  Tiber, 
and  the  dark  breast  of  the  river  was  laced  with  bars  of 
gold  like  the  coat  of  a  captain  of  dragoons.  Here  and 
there  lay  a  boat  in  mid-stream,  and  while  the  drift  of 
the  current  was  counteracted  by  an  occasional  stroke 
at  the  oar,  the  boatman  listened  to  the  heavenly  strains 
of  a  waltz,  dying  and  triumphing  in  alternate  cadences 
upon  the  breath  of  night  and  the  pope's  band.  A 
platform  was  built  out  over  the  river,  forming  a  con- 
tinuation of  the  stage;  the  pit  was  floored  over,  and 
all  draped  like  a  Persian  harem  ;  and  thus  began  a 
masquerade  at  the  Teatro  della  Pergola  at  Rome, 
which  stands,  if  you  will  take  the  trouble  to  remem- 
ber, close  by  the  bridge  and  castle  of  St.  Angelo  upon 
the  bank  of  the  "yellow  Tiber." 

The  entrance  of  the  crowd  to  the  theatre  was  like  a 
procession  intended  to  represent  the  things  of  which 
we  are  commanded  not  to   make  graven  images,  nor 
to  bow  down  and  worship  them.     There  was  the  like- 
ness of  everything   in   heaven  above  and  on   the  earth  ' 
beneath,   and   in  the  waters  under  the  eaith.     There 
were  angels,  devils,  serpents,  birds,  beasts,  fishes,  and  j 
fair  women — of  which  none  except  the  last  occasioned 
much    transgression    of  the    commandment.      Oddly  j 
enough,  the  fishes  waltzed — and  so  did  the  beasts  and 
fair  women,  the  serpents  and  birds — pairing  off  as  they  j 
came  within  sound  of  the  music,  with  a  defiance  of  j 
natural  antipathies  which  would  have  driven  a  natural- 
ist out  of  his  senses. 

A  chariot  drove  up  with  the  crest  of  the   Cesarini 
on  the  panne],  and  out  of  it  stepped  rather  a  stiff  figure 
dressed  as  a  wandering  palmer,  with  serge  and  scallop- 
shells,  followed    by  a  masked  hunchback  whose   cos- 
tume, even  to  the  threadbare  spot  on  the  ridge  of  his 
deformity,  was  approved,  by  the  loungers  at  the  door, 
in  a  general  "bravissimo."     They  entered  the  dress- 
ing-room,  and   the   cloak-keeper   was    not   surprised 
when  the  lump  was  withdrawn  in  the  shape  of  a  pad 
of  wool,  and  by  the    aid  of  a  hood  and   petticoat  of 
black  silk,  the  deformed  was  transformed  into  a  slender 
domino,  undistinguished   but  for  the  grace  and  elas-  j 
ticity  of  her   movements.     The  attendant   was   sur-  j 
prised,  however,  when  having  stepped  aside  to  deposite  J 
the  pad  given  in  charge  to  her,  she  turned  and  saw  the  ! 
domino  flitting   from  the   room,  but  the  hunchback 
with  his  threadbare  hump  still  leaning  on  the  palmer's 
arm! 

"Santissima  Vergine!"  she  exclaimed,  pulling  out 
her  cross  and  holding  it  between  herself  and  Oiulio,  i 
"the  fiend— the  unholy  fiend!" 


Donna  Bettina  laughed  under  her  palmer's  cowl, 
and  drawing  Giulio's  arm  within  her  own,  they  min- 
gled in  the  masquerade. 

The  old  count  Cesarini  arrived  a  few  minutes  after 
in  one  of  the  equipages  of  the  Malaspina,  accompanied 
by  a  red-cross  knight  in  a  magnificent  armor,  his 
sword-hilt  sparkling  with  diamonds,  and  the  bars  of 
his  visor  half-drawn,  yet  showing  a  beard  of  jetty  and 
curling  black,  and  a  mouth  of  the  most  regular,  yet 
unpleasant  beauty.  The  upper  part  of  his  face  was 
quite  concealed,  yet  the  sneer  on  his  lips  promised  a 
cold  and  unfeeling  eye. 

"As  a  hunchback,  did  you  say.  count?" 

"  It  was  her  whim,"  answered  Cesarini.  "  She  has 
given  alms  to  a  poor  sculptor  with  that  deformity  till 
her  brain  is  filled  with  it.  Pray  the  saints  to  affect 
not  your  offspring,  Lamba!" 

Malaspina  surveyed  himself  in  the  long  mirror  at 
the  entrance  of  the  saloon,  and  smiled  back  incredu- 
lously with  his  white  teeth. 

"  I  gave  Bettina  strict  orders  not  to  leave  her  side," 
said  Cesarini.  "  You  will  find  the  old  donna  by  her 
palmer's  dress.  The  saints  speed  your  suite,  Lamba ! 
I  will  await  you  in  the  card-room  when  the  dance 
wearies  you !" 

It  was  not  for  some  time  after  the  two  old  nobles 
had  affianced  their  children,  that  Cesarini  had  found 
a  fitting  opportunity  to  break  the  subject  to  his  daugh- 
ter. When  he  did  so,  somewhat  to  his  embarrass- 
ment, Violanta  listened  to  it  without  surprise;  and 
after  hearing  all  he  had  to  say  upon  the  honorable  de- 
scent, large  fortune,  and  courtly  accomplishments  of 
the  young  count  Lamba,  she  only  permitted  her  fa- 
ther to  entertain  any  future  hope  on  the  subject,  upon 
the  condition,  that,  till  she  was  of  age,  her  proposed 
husband  should  not  even  be  presented  to  her.  For 
this  victory  over  the  most  cherished  ambition  of  the 
old  count,  Violanta  was  indebted  partly  to  the  holy 
see,  and  partly  to  some  qualities  in  her  own  character, 
of  which  her  father  knew  the  force.  He  was  aware 
with  what  readiness  the  cardinal  would  seize  upon  the 
slightest  wish  she  might  express  to  take  the  veil  and 
bring  her  possessions  into  the  church,  and  he  was 
sufficiently  acquainted  with  the  qualities  of  a  Cesa- 
rini, not  to  drive  one  of  their  daughters  to  extremity. 

With  some  embarrassment  the  old  count  made  a 
clean  breast  to  Malaspina  and  his  son,  and  was  ex- 
hausting language  in  regrets,  when  he  was  relieved  by 
an  assurance  from  Lamba  that  the  difficulty  increased 
his  zest  for  the  match,  and  that,  with  Cesarini's  per- 
mission, he  would  find  opportunities  to  encounter  her 
in  her  walks  as  a  stranger,  and  make  his  way  after  the 
romantic  taste  which  he  supposed  was  alone  at  the  bot- 
tom of  her  refusal  For  success  in  this,  Count  Lamba 
relied  on  his  personal  beauty  and  on  that  address  in 
the  arts  of  adventure  which  is  acquired  by  a  residence 
in  France. 

Since  his  duel,  Amieri  had  been  confined  to  his 
bed  with  a  violent  fever,  dangerously  aggravated  by 
the  peculiar  nature  of  his  calamity.  The  love  of  the 
pencil  was  the  breath  of  his  soul,  and  in  all  his 
thoughts  of  Violanta,  it  was  only  as  a  rival  of  the 
lofty  fame  of  painters  who  had  made  themselves  the 
companions  of  kings,  that  he  could  imagine  himself  a 
claimant  for  her  love.  It  seemed  to  him  that  his 
nerveless  hand  had  shut  out  heaven's  entire  light. 

Giulio  had  watched  by  his  friend  with  the  faithful 
fondness  of  a  woman,  and  had  gathered  from  his  mo- 
ments of  delirium,  what  Biondo  had  from  delicacy  to 
Violanta  never  revealed  to  his  second,  Lenzoni— the 
cause  of  his  quarrel  with  Malaspina.  Touched  with 
this  chivalric  tenderness  toward  his  sister,  the  kind 
Giulio  hung  over  him  with  renewed  affection,  and 
when,  in  subsequent  ravings,  the  maimed  youth  be- 
trayed the  real  sting  of  his  misfortune — the  death  of 
bis  hopes  of  her  love — the  unambitious  brother  re- 


484 


V10LANTA  CESARINI. 


solved  in  his  heart  that  if  he  could  aid  him  by  service 
or  sacrifice,  by  influence  with  Violanta,  or  by  making 
the  almost  desperate  attempt  to  establish  his  own 
claims  to  the  name  and  fortunes  of  Cesarini,  he  would 
devote  himself  to  his  service  heart  and  soul. 

During  the  confinement  of  Amieri  to  his  room,  the 
young  countess  had  of  course  been  unable  to  visit  her 
brother,  and  as  he  scarce  left  the  patient's  side  for  a 
moment,  their  intercourse  for  two  or  three  weeks  had 
been  entirely  interrupted.  On  the  first  day  the  con- 
valescent youth  could  walk  out,  she  had  stolen  to  the 
studio,  and  heard  from  Giulio  the  whole  history  of 
the  duel  and  its  consequences.  When  he  had  finished 
his  narrative,  Violanta  sat,  for  a  few  minutes,  lost  in 
thought. 

"  Giulio !"  she  said  at  last,  with  a  gayety  of  tone  j 
which  startled  him. 
"  Violanta !" 

"  Did  you  ever  remark  that  our  voices  are  very 
much  alike?" 

"Biondo  often  says  so." 

"And  you  have  a  foot  almost  as  small  as  mine." 
"  I  have  not  the  proportions  of  a  man,  Violanta !" 
"  Nay,  brother,  but  I  mean  that — that — we  might 
pass  for  each  other,  if  we  were  masked.     Our  height 
is  the  same.     Stand  up,  Giulio  '" 

"  You  would  not  mock  me !"  said  the  melancholy 
youth  with  a  faint  smile,  as  he  rose  and  set  his  bent 
back  beside  the  straight  and  lithe  form  of  his  sister. 

"Listen  to  me,  amaio-bene /"  she  replied,  sitting 
down  and  drawing  him  upon  her  knee,  after  satisfying 
himself  that  there  was  no  perceptible  difference  in 
their  height.  "Put  your  arm  about  my  neck,  and 
■  ove  me  while  1  tell  you  of  my  little  plot." 

Giulio  impressed  a  kiss  upon  the  clear,  alabaster 
forehead  of  the  beautiful  girl,  and  looked  into  her  face 
inquiringly. 

"  There  is  to  be  a  masquerade  at  La  Pergola,"  she 
said — "a  superb  masquerade  given  to  some  prince! 
And  I  am  to  go,   Giulio  mio .'" 

"Well,"  answered  the  listener,  sadly. 
"But  do  you  not  seem  surprised  that  I  am  permitted 
to  go!     Shall  I  tell  you  the  reason  why  papa  gave  me 
permission  ?" 

"If you  will,  Violanta!" 

"  A  little  bird  told  me  that  Malaspina  means  to  be 
there  !" 

"  And  you  will  go  to  meet  him  ?" 
"  You  shall  go  to  meet  him,  and  I "  she  hesi- 
tated and  cast  down  the  long  dark  fringes  of  her  eyes; 
"I  will  meet  Biondo  !" 

Giulio  clasped  her  passionately  to  his  heart. 
"  I  see  ! — I  see!"  he  cried,  springing  upon  his  feet, 
as  he  anticipated  the  remaining  circumstances  of  the 
plot.  "  We  shall  be  two  hunchbacks — they  will  little 
think  that  we  are  two  Cesarini.  Dear,  noble  Violanta ! 
you  will  speak  kindly  to  Biondo.  Send  Bettina  for 
the  clothes,  carina  mia!  You  will  get  twin  masks  in 
the  Corso.  And,  Violanta?" 
"  What,  Giulio  ?" 

"  Tell  Bettina  to  breathe  no  word  of  our  project  to 
Amieri!  I  will  persuade  him  to  go  but  to  see  you 
dance  !  Poor  Amieri  '  Dear,  dear  sister  !  Farewell 
now  !  He  will  be  returning,  and  you  must  be  gone. 
The  Holy  Virgin  guard  you,  my  Violanta!" 


CHAPTER  V. 

The  reader  will  long  since  have  been  reminded,  by 
the  trouble  we  have  to  whip  in  and  flog  up  the  lagging 
and  straggling  members  of  our  story,  of  a  flock  of 
sheep  driven  unwillingly  to  market.  Indeed,  to  stop 
at  the  confessional  (as  you  will  see  many  a  shepherd 
of  the   Campagna,  on  his  way  to  Rome),  this  tale  of 


many  tails  should  have  been  a  novel.  You  have,  in 
brief,  what  should  have  been  well  elaborated,  embar- 
rassed with  difficulties,  relieved  by  digressions,  tipped 
with  a  moral,  and  bound  in  two  volumes,  with  a  portrait 
of  the  author.  We  are  sacrificed  to  the  spirit  of  the 
age.  The  eighteenth  century  will  be  known  in 
hieroglyphics  by  a  pair  of  shears.  But,  "  to  return  to 
our  muttons." 

The  masquerade  went  merrily  on,  or,  if  there  were 
more  than  one  heavy  heart  among  those  light  heels, 
it  was  not  known,  as  the  newspapers  say,  "  to  our  re- 
porter." One,  there  certainly  was — heavy  as  Etna  on 
the  breast  of  Enceladus.  Biondo  Amieri  sat  in  a  cor- 
ner of  the  gallery,  with  his  swathed  hand  laid  before 
him,  pale  as  a  new  statue,  and  with  a  melancholy  in 
his  soft  dark  eyes,  which  would  have  touched  the  exe- 
cutioners of  St.  Agatha.  Beside  him  sat  Lenzoni, 
who  was  content  to  forego  the  waltz  for  a  while,  and 
keep  company  for  pity  with  a  friend  who  was  too  busy 
with  his  own  thoughts  to  give  him  word  or  look,  but 
still  keeping  sharp  watch  on  the  scene  below,  and 
betraying  by  unconscious  ejaculations  how  great  a 
penance  he  had  put  on  himself  for  love  and  charity. 

"  Ah,  la  bella  musica,  Biondo!"  he  exclaimed 
drumming  on  the  banquette,  while  his  friend  held 
up  his  wounded  hand  to  escape  the  jar,  "  listen  to  that 
waltz,  that  might  set  fire  to  the  heels  of  St.  Peter. 
Corpo  di  Bacco !  look  at  the  dragon! — a  dragon 
making  love  to  a  nun,  Amieri!  Ah!  San  Pietro  ! 
what  a  foot !  Wait  till  I  come,  sweet  goblin  !  That 
a  goblin's  tail  should  follow  such  ankles,  Biondo  ! 
Eh  !  bellissimo  !  the  knight !  Look  at  the  red-cross 
knight,  Amieri!  and — what? — il  gobbo,  by  St.  An- 
thony !  and  the  red-cross  takes  him  for  a  woman ! 
It  is  Giulio,  for  there  never  were  two  hunchbacks  so 
wondrous  like  !     Ecco,  Biondo  !" 

But  there  was  little  need  to  cry  "look"  to  Amieri, 
now.  A  hunchback,  closely  masked,  and  leaning  on 
a  palmer's  arm,  made  his  way  slowly  through  the 
crowd,  and  a  red-cross  knight,  a  figure  gallant  enough 
to  have  made  a  monarch  jealous,  whispered  with  courte- 
ous and  courtly  deference  in  his  ear. 

"  Cielo !  it  is  she!"  said  Biondo,  with  mournful 
earnestness,  not  heeding  his  companion,  and  laying 
his  hand  upon  his  wounded  wrist,  as  if  the  sight  he 
looked  on  gave  it  a  fresher  pang. 

'■'She?"  answered  Lenzoni,  with  a  laugh.  "  If  it 
is  not  he — not  gobbo  Giulio — I'll  eat  that  cross-hilted 
rapier !     What  '■she''  should  it  be,  caro  Biondo  !" 

"  I  tell  thee,"  said  Amieri,  "  Giulio  is  asleep  at  the 
foot  of  his  marred  statue  !  I  left  him  but  now,  he  is 
too  ill  with  his  late  vigils  to  be  here — but  his  clothes, 
I  may  tell  thee,  are  borrowed  by  one  who  wears  them 
as  you  see.     Look  at  the  foot,  Lenzoni!" 

"  A  woman,  true  enough,  if  the  shoe  were  all ! 
But  I'll  have  a  close  look!  Stay  for  me,  dear  Amieri! 
I  will  return  ere  you  have  looked  twice  at  them  '" 

And  happy,  with  all  his  kind  sympathy,  to  find  a 
fair  apology  to  be  free,  Lenzoni  leaped  over  the 
benches  and  mingled  in  the  crowd  below. 

Left  alone,  Biondo  devoured  with  his  eyes,  every 
movement  of  the  group  in  which  he  was  so  deeply 
interested,  and  the  wound  in  his  hand  seemed  burn- 
ing with  a  throb  of  fire,  while  he  tried  in  vain  to  de- 
tect, in  the  manner  of  the  hunchback,  that  coyness 
which  might  show,  even  through  a  mask,  dislike  or 
indifference.  There  was  even,  he  thought  (and  he 
delivered  his  soul  over  to  Apollyon  in  the  usual  phrase 
for  thinking  such  ill  of  such  an  angel) ;  there  was 
even  in  her  manner  a  levity  and  freedom  of  gesture 
for  which  the  mask  she  wore  should  be  no  apology. 
He  was  about  to  curse  Malaspina  for  having  spared 
his  life  at  the  fountain,  when  some  one  jumped  lightly 
over  the  seat,  and  took  a  place  beside  him.  It  was 
a  female  in  a  black  domino,  closely  masked,  and 
through  the  pasteboard  mouth  protruded  the  bit  of 


VIOLANTA  CESARINI. 


485 


ivory,  commonly  held  in  the  teeth  by  maskers,  to  dis- 
guise the  voice. 

"  Good  evening  to  you.  fair  signor  !" 

"  Good  even  to  you,  lady  ."' 

"  I  am  come  to  share  youf  melancholy,  signor !" 

"  I  have  none  to  give  away  unless  you  will  take  all ; 
and  just  now,  my  fair  one.  it  is  rather  anger  than  sad- 
ness.    If  it  please  you.  leave  me  '" 

"  What  if  I  am  more  pleased  to  stay  "' 

"Briefly,  I  would  be  alone  .  I  am  not  of  the  festa. 
I  but  look  on,  here !"  And  Biondo  turned  his  shoulder 
to  the  mask,  and  fixed  his  eyes  again  on  the  hunch- 
back, who  having  taken  the  knight's  arm,  was  talking 
and  promenading  most  gayly  between  him  and  the 
palmer. 

"  You  have  a  wounded  hand,  signor  !"  resumed  his 
importunate  neighbor. 

"A  useless  one,  lady.     Would  it  were  well!" 

"  Signor  Melancholy,  repine  not  against  providence. 
I  that  am  no  witch,  tell  thee  that  thou  wilt  yet  bless 
Heaven  that  this  hand  is  disabled." 

Biondo  turned  and  looked  at  the  bold  prophetess, 
but  her  disguise  was  impenetrable. 

"  You  are  a  masker,  lady,  and  talk  at  random  !" 

"  No !  I  will  tell  you  the  thought  uppermost  in  your 
bosom!" 

"What  is  it?" 

"  A  longing  for  a  pluck  at  the  red-cross,  yonder!" 

"  True,  by  St.  Mary  !"  said  Biondo,  starting  ener- 
getically :  "  but  you  read  it  in  my  eyes  !" 

"  I  have  told  you  your  first  thought,  signor,  and  I  will 
give  you  a  hint  of  the  second  Is  there  a  likeness 
between  a  nymph  on  canvass,  and  a  gobbo  in  a  mask  !"  j 

"  Giulio  !"    exclaimed    Amieri,    turning    suddenly 
round;  but  the  straight  back  of  the  domino  met  his  | 
eye,  and  totally  bewildered,  he  resumed  his  seat,  and 
slowly  perused  the  stranger  from  head  to  foot. 

"  Talk  to  me  as  if  my  mask  were  the  mirror  of  your 
soul,  Amieri,"  said  the  soft  but  disguised  voice. 
"  You  need  sympathy  in  this  mood,  and  I  am  your 
good  angel.     Is  your  wrist  painful  to-night  ?" 

"  I  can  not  talk  to  you,"  he  said,  turning  to  resume 
his  observation  on  the  scene  below.  "  If  you  know 
the  face  beneath  the  gobbo's  mask,  you  know  the 
heaven  from  which  I  am  shut  out.  But  I  must  gaze 
on  it  still." 

"  Is  it  a  woman  ?" 

"No  !  an  angel." 

"  And  encourages  the  devil  in  the  shape  of  Ma- 
laspina  ?     You  miscall  her,  Amieri !" 

The  answer  was  interrupted  by  Lenzoni,  who  ran 
into  the  gallery,  but  seeing  his  friend  beset  by  a  mask, 
he  gave  him  joy  of  his  good  luck,  and  refusing  to  in- 
terrupt the  tete-a-tete,  disappeared  with  a  laugh. 

"  Brave,  kind  Lenzoni  !"  said  the  stranger. 

"  Are  you  his  good  angel,  too  ?"  asked  Amieri, 
surprised  again  at  the  knowledge  so  mysteriously  dis- 
played. 

"  No  !  Little  as  you  know  of  me  you  would  not  be 
willing  to  share  me  with  another  !  Say,  Amieri!  love 
you  the  gobbo  on  the  knight's  arm  ?" 

"  You  have  read  me  riddles  less  clear,  my  fair  in- 
cognita !  I  would  die  at  rnorn  but  to  say  farewell  to 
her  at  midnight!" 

"  Do  you  despair  of  her  love  ?" 

"  Do  I  despair  of  excelling  Raphael  with  these 
unstrung  fingers  ?  I  never  hoped — but  in  my  dreams, 
lady!" 

"  Then  hope,  waking !  For  as  there  is  truth  in 
heaven,  Violanta  Cesarini  loves  you,  Biondo  !" 

Laying  his  left  hand  sternly  on  the  arm  of  the 
stranger,  Biondo  raised  his  helpless  wrist  and  pointed 
toward  the  hunchback,  who,  seated  by  the  red-cross 
knight,  played  with  the  diamond  cross  of  his  sword- 
hilt,  while  the  palmer  turned  his  back,  as  if  to  give 
two  lovers  an  opportunity. 


With  a  heart  overwhelmed  with  bitterness,  he  then 
turned  to  the  mocking  incognito.  Violanta  sat  be- 
side him  ! 

Holding  her  mask  between  her  and  the  crowd  be- 
low, the  maiden  blush  mounted  to  her  temples,  and 
the  long  sweeping  lashes  dropped  over  her  eyes  their 
veiling  and  silken  fringes.  And  while  the  red-cross 
knight  still  made  eloquent  love  to  Giulio  in  the  saloon 
of  the  masquerade,  Amieri  and  Violanta,  in  their  un- 
observed retreat,  exchanged  vows,  faint  and  choked 
with  emotion  on  his  part,  but  all  hope,  encouragement, 
and  assurance,  on  hers 


CHAPTER  VI. 

"  Will  you  waltz  ?"  said  a  merry-voiced  domino 
to  the  red-cross  knight,  a  few  minutes  after  tapping 
him  smartly  on  the  corslet  with  her  black  fan,  and 
pointing,  for  the  first  step,  a  foot  that  would  have 
tempted  St.  Anthony. 

"By  the  mass !"  answered  Malaspina,  "I  should 
pay  an  ill  compliment  to  the  sweetest  voice  that  ever 
enchanted  human  ear"  (and  he  bowed  low  to  Guilio), 
"  did  1  refuse  invitation  so  sweetly  toned.  Yet  my 
Milan  armor  is  not  light !" 

"I  have  been  refusing  his  entreaties  this  hour," 
said  Giulio,  as  the  knight  whirled  away  with  Violanta, 
"  for  though  I  can  chatter  like  a  woman,  I  should 
dance  like  myself.  He  is  not  unwilling  to  show  his 
grace  to  'his  lady-mistress!'  Ha!  ha!  It  is  worth 
while  to  sham  the  petticoat  for  once  to  see  what  fools 
men  are  when  they  would  please  a  woman  !  But, 
close  mask  !     Here  comes  the  count  Cesarini  !" 

"How  fares  my  child?"  said  the  old  noble,  leaning 
over  the  masked  Giulio,  and  touching  with  his  lips  the 
glossy  curl  which  concealed  his  temple.  Are  you 
amused,  idolo  mioV 

A  sudden  tremor  shot  through  the  frame  of  poor 
Giulio  at  the  first  endearment  ever  addressed  to  his 
ear  by  the  voice  of  a  parent.  The  tears  coursed  down 
under  his  mask,  and  for  all  answer  to  the  question,  he 
could  only  lay  his  small  soft  hand  in  his  father's  and 
return  his  pressure  with  irresistible  strength  and  emo- 
tion. 

"  You  are  not  well,  my  child !"  he  said,  surprised  at 
not  receiving  an  answer,  "this  ugly  hump  oppresses 
you !  Come  to  the  air!  So — lean  on'me,  caro  tesoro! 
We  will  remove  the  hump  presently.  A  Cesarini  with 
a  hump  indeed !  Straighten  yourself,  my  life,  my 
child,  and  you  will  breathe  more  freely  !" 

Thus  entered,  at  one  wound,  daggers  and  balm  into 
the  heart  of  the  deformed  youth;  and  while  Bettina, 
trembling  in  every  limb,  grew  giddy  with  fear  as  they 
made  their  way  through  the  crowd,  Giulio,  relieved 
by  his  tears,  nerved  himself  with  a  strong  effort  and 
prepared  to  play  out  his  difficult  part  with  calmness. 

They  threaded  slowly  the  crowded  maze  of  waltzers, 
and,  emerging  from  the  close  saloons,  stood  at  last  in 
the  gallery  overhanging  the  river.  The  moon  was 
rising,  and  touched  with  a  pale  light  the  dark  face  of 
the  Tiber;  the  music  came  faintly  out  to  the  night 
air,  and  a  fresh  west  wind,  cool  and  balmy  from  the 
verdant  campagna,  breathed  softly  through  the  lat- 
tices. 

Refusing  a  chair,  Giuho  leaned  over  the  balustrade, 
and  the  count  stood  by  his  side  and  encircled  his  waist 
with  his  arm. 

"  I  can  not  bear  this  deformity,  my  Violanta !"  he 
said,  "  you  look  so  unlike  my  child  with  it ;  I  need 
this  little  hand  to  reassure  me." 

"  Should  you  know  that  was  my  hand,  father?"  said 
Giulio. 

"  Should  I  not !  I  have  told  you  a  thousand  times 
that  the  nails  of  a  Cesarini  were  marked — let  me  see 


486 


PASQUALI,  THE  TAILOR  OF  VENICE. 


you  again — by  the  arch  of  this  rosy  line!  See,  my 
little  Gobbo  !  They  are  like  four  pink  fairy  shells  of 
India  laid  over  rolled  leaves  of  roses.  What  was  the 
poet's  name  who  said  that  of  the  old  countess  Giulia 
Cesarini — la  bella  Giulia?" 

"  Should  you  have  known  my  voice,  father  ?"  asked 
Giulio,  evading  the  question. 

"  Yes,  my  darling,  why  ask  me?" 

"But,  father! — if  I  had  been  stolen  by  brigands 
from  the  cradle — or  you  had  not  seen  me  for  many, 
many  years — and  I  had  met  you  to-night  as  a  #0660 
and  had  spoken  to  you — only  in  sport — and  had 
called  you  'father,  dear  father ."  should  you  have 
known  my  voice?  would  you  have  owned  me  for  a 
Cesarini?" 

"  Instantly,  my  child  !" 

"But  suppose  my  back  had  been  broken — suppose 
1  were  a  gobbo — a  deformed  hunchback  indeed,  in- 
deed— but  had  still  nails  with  a  rosy  arch,  and  the 
same  voice  with  which  I  speak  to  you  now — and 
pressed  your  hand  thus — and  loved  you — would  you 
disown  me,  father?" 

Giulio  had  raised  himself  while  he  spoke,  and  taken 
his  hand  from  his  father's  with  a  feeling  that  life  or 
death  would  be  in  his  answer  to  that  question.  Cesa- 
rini was  disturbed,  and  did  not  reply  for  a  moment. 

"  My  child !"  said  he  at  last,  "  there  is  that  in  your 
voice  that  would  convince  me  you  are  mine,  against 
all  the  evidence  in  the  universe.  I  can  not  imagine 
the  dreadful  image  you  have  conjured  up,  for  the 
Cesarini  are  beautiful  and  straight  by  long  inheritance. 
But  if  a  monster  spoke  to  me  thus,  I  should  love 
him  !  Come  to  my  bosom,  my  blessed  child !  and 
dispel  those  wild  dreams  !     Come,  Violanta  !" 

Giulio  attempted  to  raise  his  arms  to  his  father's 
neck,  but  the  strength  that  had  sustained  him  so  well, 
began  to  ebb  from  him.  He  uttered  some  indistinct 
words,  lifted  his  hand  to  his  mask  as  if  to  remove  it 
for  breath,  and  sunk  slowly  to  the  floor. 

"It  is  your  son,  my  lord!"  cried  Bettina.  "Lift 
him,  Count  Cesarini !  Lift  your  child  to  the  air  be- 
fore he  dies !" 

She  tore  off  his  mask  and  disclosed  to  the  thunder- 
stricken  count  the  face  of  the  stranger  !  As  he  stood 
pale  and  aghast,  too  much  confounded  for  utterance  or 
action,  the  black  domino  tripped  into  the  gallery,  follow- 
ed by  the  red-cross  knight,  panting  under  his  armor. 

"  Giulio  !  my  own  Giulio  !"  cried  Violanta,  throw- 
ing herself  on  her  knees  beside  her  pale  and  insensible 
brother,  and  covering  his  forehead  and  lips  with  kisses. 
"Is  he  hurt?  Is  he  dead?  Water!  for  the  love 
of  Heaven  !  Will  no  one  bring  water?"  And  tear- 
ing away  her  own  mask,  she  lifted  him  from  the 
ground,  and,  totally  regardless  of  the  astonished  group 
who  looked  on  in  petrified  silence,  fanned  and  caressed 
him  into  life  and  consciousness. 

"  Come  away,  Violanta  !"  said  her  father  at  last,  in 
a  hoarse  voice. 

"Never,  my  father  !  he  is  our  own  blood!  How 
feel  you  now,  Giulio?" 

"  Better,  sweet !  where  is  Biondo  ?" 

"Near  by!  But  you  shall  go  home  with  me. 
Signor  Malaspina,  as  you  hope  for  my  favor,  lend  my 
brother  an  arm.  Bettina,  call  up  the  chariot.  Nay, 
father !  he  goes  home  with  me,  or  I  with  him,  we 
never  part  more  !" 

The  red-cross  knight  gave  Giulio  an  arm,  and  lean- 
ing on  him  and  Violanta,  the  poor  youth  made  his 
way  to  the  carriage.  Amieri  sat  at  the  door,  and  re- 
ceived only  a  look  as  she  passed,  and  helping  Giulio 
tenderly  in,  she  gave  the  order  to  drive  swiftly  home, 
and  in  a  few  minutes  they  entered  together  the  palace 
of  their  common  inheritance. 

It  would  be  superfluous  to  dwell  on  the  incidents 
of  the  sequel,  which  were  detailed  in  the  Diario  di 


Roma,  and  are  known  to  all  the  world.  The  hunch- 
back Count  Cesarini  has  succeeded  his  father  in  his 
title  and  estates,  and  is  beloved  of  all  Rome.  The 
next  heir  to  the  title  is  a  son  (now  two  years  of  age) 
of  the  countess  Amieri,  who  is  to  take  the  name  of 
Cesarini  on  coming  to  his  majority.  They  live  to- 
gether in  the  old  palazzo,  and  all  strangers  go  to  see 
their  gallery  of  pictures,  of  which  none  are  bad,  except 
some  well  intended  but  not  very  felicitously  executed 
compositions  by  one  Lenzoni. 

Count  Lamba  Malaspina  is  at  present  in  exile,  having 
been  convicted  of  drawing  a  sword  on  a  disabled  gentle- 
man, on  his  way  from  a  masquerade  at  La  Pergola. 
His  seclusion  is  rendered  the  more  tolerable  by  the 
loss  of  his  teeth,  which  were  rudely  thrust  down  his 
throat  by  this  same  Lenzoni  (fated  to  have  a  finger  in 
every  pie)  in  defence  of  the  attacked  party  on  that  oc- 
casion. You  will  hear  Lenzoni's  address  (should  you 
wish  to  purchase  a  picture  of  his  painting)  at  the  Caffe 
del  Gioco,  opposite  the  trattoria  of  La  Bella  Donna 
in  the  Corso. 


PASQUALI,  THE  TAILOR  OF  VENICE, 

CHAPTER  I. 

Giannino  Pasquali  was  a  smart  tailor  some  five 
years  ago,  occupying  a  cool  shop  on  one  of  the  smaller 
canals  of  Venice.  Four  pairs  of  suspenders,  a  print 
of  the  fashions,  and  a  motley  row  of  the  gay-colored 
trousers  worn  by  the  gondoliers,  ornamented  the  win- 
dow looking  on  the  dark  alley  in  the  rear,  and,  attach- 
ed to  the  post  of  the  water-gate  on  the  canal  side. 
floated  a  small  black  gondola,  the  possession  of  which 
afforded  the  same  proof  of  prosperity  of  the  Venetian 
tailor  which  is  expressed  by  a  horse  and  buggy  at  the 
door  of  a  snip  in  London.  The  place-seeking  travel- 
ler, who,  nez  en  iair,  threaded  the  tangled  labyrinth 
of  alleys  and  bridges  between  the  Rialto  and  St. 
Mark's,  would  scarce  have  observed  the  humble  shop- 
window  of  Pasquali,  yet  he  had  a  consequence  on  the 
Piazza,  and  the  lagoon  had  seen  his  triumphs  as  an 
amateur  gondolier.  Giannino  was  some  thirty  years 
of  age,  and  his  wife  Fiametta,  whom  he  had  married 
for  her  zecchini,  was  on  the  shady  side  of  fifty. 

If  the  truth  must  be  told,  Pasquali  had  discovered 
that,  even  with  a  bag  of  sequins  for  eye-water,  Fi- 
ametta was  not  always  the  most  lovely  woman  in 
Venice.  Just  across  the  canal  lived  old  Donna 
Bentoccata,  the  nurse,  whose  daughter  Tutturilla 
was  like  the  blonde  in  Titian's  picture  of  the  Marys  ; 
and  to  the  charms  of  Turturilla,  even  seen  through 
the  leaden  light  of  poverty,  tlie  unhappy  Pasquali  was 
far  from  insensible. 

The  festa  of  San  Antonio  arrived  after  a  damp  week 
of  November,  and  though  you  would  suppose  the  at- 
mosphere of  Venice  not  liable  to  any  very  sensible  in- 
crease of  moisture,  Fiametta,  like  people  who  live  on 
land,  and  who  have  the  rheumatism  as  a  punishment 
for  their  age  and  ugliness,  was  usually  confined  to  her 
brazero  of  hot  coals  till  it  was  dry  enough  on  the  Lido 
for  the  peacocks  to  walk  abroad.  On  this  festa,  how- 
ever, San  Antonio  being,  as  every  one  knows,  the 
patron  saint  of  Padua,  the  Padovese  were  to  come 
down  the  Brenta,  as  was  their  custom,  and  cross  over 
the  sea  to  Venice  to  assist  in  the  celebration  ;  and 
Fiametta  once  more  thought  Pasquali  loved  her  for 
herself  alone  when  he  swore  by  his  rosary  that  unless 
she  accompanied  him  to  the  festa  in  her  wedding  dress, 
he  would  not  turn  an  oar  in  the  race,  nor  unfasten  his 
gondola  from   the  door-post.      Alas  !    Fiametta   was 


PASQUALI,  THE  TAILOR  OF  VENICE. 


487 


married  in  the  summer  solstice,  and  her  dress  was 
permeable  to  the  wind  as  a  cobweb  or  gossamer.  Is 
it  possible  you  could  have  remembered  that,  oh,  wick- 
ed Pasquali  ? 

It  was  a  day  to  puzzle  a  barometer;  now  bright, 
now  rainy  ;  now  gusty  as  a  corridor  in  a  novel,  and 
now  calm  as  a  lady  after  a  fit  of  tears.     Pasquali  was 
up  early  and  waked  Fiametta  with  a  kiss,  and,  by  way 
of  unusual  tenderness,  or  by  way  of  ensuring:  the  wed- 
ding dress,  he  chose  to  play  dressing  maid,  and  ar- 
ranged with  his  own  hands  hereupon  and  fezzoletta. 
She  emerged  from  her  chamber  looking  like  a  slice 
of  orange-peel  in  a  flower-bed,  but  smiling  and  nod-  I 
ding,  and  vowing  the  day  warm  as  April,  and  the  sky  [ 
without  a  cloud.     The  widening  circles  of  an  occa- 
sional drop  of  rain  in  the  canal  were  nothing  but  the  j 
bubbles  bursting  after  a  passing  oar,  or  perhaps  the  last  | 
flies  ofsummer.     Pasquali  swore  it  was  weather  to  win  j 
down  a  peri. 

As  Fiametta  stepped  into  the  gondola,  she  glanced 
her  eyes  overlhe  way  and  saw  Turturilla,  with  a  face  ] 
as  sorrowful  as  the  first  day  in  Lent,  seated  at  her 
window.  Her  lap  was  full  of  work,  and  it  was  quite 
evident  that  she  had  not  thought  of  being  at  the  festa.  j 
Fiametta's  heart  was  already  warm,  and  it  melted  quite 
at  the  view  of  the  poor  girl's  loneliness. 

"  Pasquali  mio  !"  she  said,  in  a  deprecating  tone, 
as  if  she  were  uncertain  how  the  proposition  would 
be  received,  "  I  think  we  could  make  room  for  poor 
Turturilla  !" 

A  gleam  of  pleasure,  unobserved  by  the  confiding 
sposa,  tinted  faintly  the  smooth  olive  cheek  of  Pasquali.  ] 

"  Eh  !  diavolo  /"  he  replied,  so  loud  that  the  sor-  | 
rowful  seamstress  heard,  and  hung  down  her  head  | 
still  lower;  "must  you  take  pity  on  every  cheese-  | 
paring  of  a  regezza  who  happens  to  have  no  lover!  I 
Have  reason  !  have  reason  !  The  gondola  is  narrower  j 
than  your  brave  heart  my  fine  Fiametta  !"  And  away  \ 
he  pushed  from  the  water-steps. 

Turturilla  rose  from  her  work  and  stepped  out  upon  ' 
the  rusty  gratings  of  the  balcony  to  see  them  depart.  ; 
Pasquali  stopped  to  grease  the  notch  of  his  oar,  and 
between  that  and   some   other   embarrassments,   the 
gondola    was    suffered    to   float   directly   under    her 
window.     The  compliment  to  the  generous  nature  , 
of  Fiametta,  was,  meantime,  working,  and  as  she  was 
compelled  to  exchange  a  word  or  two  with  Turturilla 
while  her  husband  was  getting  his  oar  into  the  socket, 
it  resulted  (as  he  thought  it  very  probable  it  would), 
in  the  good  wife's  renewing  her  proposition,  and  ma-  [ 
king  a  point  of  sending  the  deserted  girl  for  her  holy-  ; 
day   bonnet.     Pasquali   swore  through  all   the  saints 
and  angels  by  the  time  she  had   made  herself  ready, 
though  she  was  but  five  minutes  gone  from  the  window, 
and  telling  Fiametta  in  her  ear  that  she  must  consider  ; 
it  as  the  purest  obligation,  he  backed  up  to  the  steps  of 
old  Donna  Jientoccata,  helped  in  her  daughter  with  a 
better  grace  than  could  have  been  expected,  and  with 
one  or  two  short  and  deep  strokes,  put  forth  into  the 
grand  canal  with  the  velocity  of  a  lance-fly. 

A  gleam  of  sunshine  lay  along  the  bosom  of  the 
broad  silver  sheet,  and  it  was  beautiful  to  see  the 
gondolas  with-  their  gay  colored  freights  all  hastening 
in  one  direction,  and  with  swift  track  to  the  festa. 
Far  up  and  down  they  rippled  the  smooth  water,  here 
gliding  out  from  below  a  palace-arch,  there  from  a  nar- 
row and  unseen  canal,  the  steel  beaks  curved  and  flash- 
ing, the  water  glancing  on  the  oar-blades,  the  curtains 
moving,  and  the  fair  women  of  Venice  leaning  out  and 
touching  hands  as  they  Beared  neighbor  or  acquaint- 
ance in  the  close-pressing  gondolas.  It  was  a  beauti- 
ful sight,  indeed,  and  three  of  the  happiest  hearts  in 
that  swift  gliding  company  were  in  Pasquali's  gondola, 
though  the  bliss  of  Fiametta,  I  am  compelled  to  say, 
was  entirely  owing  to  the  bandage  with  which  love  is 
so  significantly  painted.     Ah  !   poor  Fiametta! 


From  the  Lido,  from  Fusina,  from  under  the  Bridge 
of  Sighs,  from  all  quarters  of  the  lagoon,  and  from  all 
points  of  the  floating  city  of  Venice,  streamed  the  fly- 
ing gondolas  to  the  Giudecca.  The  narrow  walk 
along  the  edge  of  the  long  and  close-built  island  was 
thronged  with  booths  and  promenaders,  and  the  black 
barks  by  hundreds  bumped  their  steel  noses  against 
the  pier  as  the  agitated  water  rose  and  fell  beneath 
them.  The  gondolas  intended  for  the  face  pulled 
slowly  up  and  down,  close  to  the  shore,  exhibifrag 
their  fairy-like  forms  and  their  sinewy  and  gayly  dress- 
ed gondoliers  to  the  crowds  on  land  and  water ;  the 
bands  of  music,  attached  to  different  parties,  played 
here  and  there  a  strain  ;  the  criers  of  holy  pictures 
and  gingerbread  made  the  air  vocal  with  their  lisping 
and  soft  Venetian  ;  and  all  over  the  scene,  as  if  it  was 
the  light  of  the  sky  or  some  other  light  as  blessed  but 
less  common,  shone  glowing  black  eyes,  black  as 
night,  and  sparkling  as  the  stars  on  night's  darkest 
bosom.  He  who  thinks  lightly  of  Italian  beauty 
should  have  seen  the  women  of  Venice  on  St.  An- 
tonio's day  '32,  or  on  any  or  at  any  hour  when  their 
pulses  are  beating  high  and  theireyes  alight — for  they 
are  neither  one  nor  the  other  always.  The  women 
of  that  fair  clime,  to  borrow  the  simile  of  Moore,  are 
like  lava-streams,  only  bright  when  the  volcano  kindles. 
Their  long  lashes  cover  lustreless  eyes,  and  their  blood 
shows  dully  through  the  cheek  in  common  and  listless 
hours.  The  calm,  the  passive  tranquillity  in  which 
the  delicate  graces  of  colder  climes  find  their  element 
are  to  them  a  torpor  of  the  heart  when  the  blood  scarce 
seems  to  flow.  They  are  wakeful  only  to  the  ener- 
getic, the  passionate,  the  joyous  movements  of  the 
soul. 

Pasquali  stood  erect  in  the  prow  of  his  gondola,  and 
stole  furtive  glances  at  Turturilla  while  he  pointed 
away  with  his  finger  to  call  off  the  sharp  eyes  of  Fi- 
ametta ;  but  Fiametta  was  happy  and  unsuspicious. 
Only  when  now  and  then  the  wind  came  up  chilly 
from  the  Adriatic,  the  poor  wife  shivered  and  sat 
closer  to  Turturilla,  who  in  her  plainer  but  thicker 
dress,  to  say  nothing  of  younger  blood,  sat  more  com- 
fortably on  the  black  cushion  and  thought  less  about 
the  weather.  An  occasional  drop  of  rain  fell  on  the 
nose  of  poor  Fiametta,  but  if  she  did  not  believe  it  was 
the  spray  from  Pasquali's  oar,  she  at  least  did  her  best 
to  believe  so  ;  and  the  perfidious  tailor  swore  by  St. 
Anthony  that  the  clouds  were  as  dry  as  her  eyelashes. 
1  never  was  very  certain  that  Turturilla  was  not  in  the 
secret  of  this  day's  treacheries. 

The  broad  centre  of  the  Giudecca  was  cleared,  and 
the  boats  took  their  places  for  the  race.  Pasquali 
ranged  his  gondola  with  those  of  the  other  spectators, 
and  telling  Fiametta  in  her  ear  that  he  should  sit  on 
the  other  side  of  Turturilla  as  a  punishment  for  their 
malapropos  invitation,  he  placed  himself  on  the  small 
remainder  of  the  deep  cushion  on  the  farthest  side 
from  his  now  penitent  spouse,  and  while  he  complain- 
ed almost  rudely  of  the  narrowness  of  his  seat,  he 
made  free  to  hold  on  by  Turturilla's  waist  which  no 
doubt  made  the  poor  girl's  mind  more  easy  on  the 
subject  of  her  intrusion. 

Who  won  and  who  lost  the  race,  what  was  the 
device  of  each  flag,  and  what  bets  and  bright  eyes 
changed  owners  by  the  result,  no  personage  of  this 
tale  knew  or  cared,  save  Fiametta.  She  looked  on 
eagerly.  Pasquali  and  Turturilla,  as  the  French  say, 
trouvaient  autress  chats  a  /roller. 

After  the  decision  of  the  grand  race,  St.  Antonio 
being  the  protector,  more  particularly  of  the  humble 
("  patron  of  pigs"  in  the  saints'  calendar),  the  seignoria 
and  the  grand  people  generally,  pulled  away  for  St. 
Mark's,  leaving  the  crowded  Giudecca  to  the  people. 
Pasquali,  as  was  said  before,  had  some  renown  as  a 
gondolier.  Something  what  would  be  called  in  other 
countries  a  scrub  race,  followed  the  departure  of  the 


488 


PASQUALI,  THE  TAILOR  OF  VENICE. 


winning  boat,  and  several  gondolas,  holding  each  one 
person  only,  took  their  places  for  the  start.  The 
tailor  laid  his  hand  on  his  bosom,  and,  with  the  smile 
that  had  first  stirred  the  heart  and  the  sequins  of 
Fiametta,  begged  her  to  gratify  his  love  by  acting  as 
his  make-weight  while  he  turned  an  oar  for  the  pig  of 
St.  Antonio.  The  prize  roasted  to  an  appetizing 
crisp,  stood  high  on  a  platter  in  front  of  one  of  the 
booths  on  shore,  and  Fiametta  smacked  her  lips, 
ovfrcame  her  tears  with  an  effort,  and  told  him,  in 
accents  as  little  as  possible  like  the  creak  of  a  dry  oar 
in  the  socket,  that  he  might  set  Turturilla  on  shore. 

A  word  in  her  ear,  as  he  handed  her  over  the  gun- 
wale, reconciled  Bonna  Bentoccata's  fair  daughter  to 
this  conjugal  partiality,  and  stripping  his  manly  figure 
of  its  upper  disguises,  Pasquali  straightened  out  his 
fine  limbs,  and  drove  his  bark  to  the  line  in  a  style  that 
drew  applause  from  even  his  competitors.  As  a  mark 
of  their  approbation,  they  offered  him  an  outside  place 
where  his  fair  dame  would  be  less  likely  to  be  spatter- 
ed with  the  contending  oars  ;  but  he  was  too  generous 
to  take  advantage  of  this  considerate  offer,  and  crying 
out  as  he  took  the  middle,  "  ben  pronto,  signori  V  gave 
Fiametta  a  confident  look  and  stood  like  a  hound  in 
the  leash. 

Off  they  went  at  the  tap  of  the  drum,  poor  Fiametta 
holding  her  breath  and  clinging  to  the  sides  of  the 
gondola,  and  Pasquali  developing  skill  and  muscle — 
not  for  Fiametta's  eyes  only.  It  was  a  short,  sharp 
race,  without  jockeying  or  management,  all  fair  play 
and  main  strength,  and  the  tailor  shot  past  the  end  of 
the  Giudecca  a  boat's  length  ahead.  Much  more  ap- 
plauded than  a  king  at  a  coronation  or  a  lord-mayor 
taking  water  at  London  stairs,  he  slowly  made  his  way 
back  to  Turturilla,  and  it  was  only  when  that  demure 
damsel  rather  shrunk  from  sitting  down  in  two  inches 
of  water,  that  he  discovered  how  the  disturbed  element 
had  quite  filled  up  the  hollow  of  the  leather  cushion 
and  made  a  peninsula  of  the  uncomplaining  Fiametta. 
She  was  as  well  watered,  as  a  favorite  plant  in  a  flower- 
garden. 

"  Pasquali  mio  /"  she  said  in  an  imploring  tone, 
holding  up  the  skirt  of  her  dress  with  the  tips  of  her 
thumb  and  finger,  "  could  you  just  take  me  home 
while  I  change  my  dress." 

"  One  moment,  Fiametta  cara  !  they  are  bringing 
the  pig  !" 

The  crisp  and  succulent  trophy  was  salemnly  placed 
in  the  prow  of  the  victor's  gondola,  and  preparation 
was  made  to  convoy  him  home  with  a  triumphant 
procession.  A  half  hour  before  it  was  in  order  to 
move — an  hour  in  first  making  the  circuit  of  the  grand 
canal,  and  an  hour  more  in  drinking  a  glass  and  ex- 
changing good  wishes  at  the  stairs  of  the  Rialto,  and 
Donna  Fiametta  had  sat  too  long  by  two  hours  and  a 
half  with  scarce  a  dry  thread  on  her  body.  What 
afterward  befell  will  be  seen  in  the  more  melancholy 
sequel. 


CHAPTER  II. 

The  hospital  of  St.  Girolamo  is  attached  to  the 
convent  of  that  name,  standing  on  one  of  the  canals 
which  put  forth  on  the  seaward  side  of  Venice.  It  is 
a  long  building,  with  its  low  windows  and  latticed 
doors  opening  almost  on  the  level  of  the  sea,  and  the 
wards  for  the  sick  are  large  and  well  aired  ;  but,  ex- 
cept when  the  breeze  is  stirring,  impregnated  with  a 
saline  dampness  from  the  canal,  which,  as  Pasquali 
remarked,  was  good  for  the  rheumatism.  It  was  not 
so  good  for  the  patient. 

The  loving  wife  Fiametta  grew  worse  and  worse 
after  the  fatal  festa,  and  the  fit  of  rheumatism  brought 
on  by  the  slightness  of  her  dress  and  the  spattering  he 


had  given  her  in  the  race,  had  increased  by  the  end  of 
the  week,  to  a  rheumatic  fever.  Fiametta  was  old 
and  tough,  however,  and  struggled  manfully  (woman 
as  she  was)  with  the  disease,  but  being  one  night  a 
little  out  of  her  head,  her  loving  husband  took  occa- 
sion to  shudder  at  the  responsibility  of  taking  care  of 
her,  and  jumping  into  his  gondola,  he  pulled  across  to 
St.  Girolamo  and  bespoke  a  dry  bed  and  a  sister  of 
charity,  and  brought  back  the  pious  father  Gasparo 
and  a  comfortable  litter.  Fiametta  was  dozing  when 
they  arrived,  and  the  kind-hearted  tailor  willing  to 
spare  her  the  pain  of  knowing  that  she  was  on  her  way 
to  the  hospital  for  the  poor,  set  out  some  meat  and 
wine  for  the  monk,  and  sending  over  for  Turturilla 
and  the  nurse  to  mix  the  salad,  they  sat  and  ate  away 
the  hours  till  the  poor  dame's  brain  should  be  wander- 
ing again. 

Toward  night  the  monk  and  Dame  Bentoccata  were 
comfortably  dozing  with  each  other's  support  (having 
fallen  asleep  at  table),  and  Pasquali  with  a  kiss  from 
Turturilla,  stole  softly  up  stairs.  Fiametta  was  mut- 
turingunquietly,  and  working  her  fingers  in  the  palms 
of  her  hands,  and  on  feeling  her  pulse  he  found  the 
fever  was  at  its  height.  She  took  him,  besides,  for  the 
prize  pig  of  the  festa,  for  he  knew  her  wits  were  fairly 
abroad.  He  crept  down  stairs,  gave  the  monk  a  strong 
cup  of  coffee  to  get  him  well  awake,  and,  between  the 
four  of  them,  they  got  poor  Fiametta  into  the  litter, 
drew  the  curtains  tenderly  around  and  deposited  her 
safely  in  the  bottom  of  the  gondola. 

Lightly  and  smoothly  the  winner  of  the  pig  pulled 
away  with  his  loving  burden,  and  gliding  around  the 
slimy  corners  of  the  palaces,  and  hushing  his  voice 
as  he  cried  out  "right!"  or  "left!"  to  guard  the 
coming  gondoliers  of  his  vicinity,  he  arrived,  like  a 
thought  of  love  to  a  maid's  mind  in  sleep,  at  the  door 
of  St.  Girolamo.  The  abbess  looked  out  and  said, 
"  Benedicite  .'"  and  the  monk  stood  firm  on  his  brown 
sandals  to  receive  the  precious  burden  from  the  arms 
of  Pasquali.  Believing  firmly  that  it  was  equivalent 
to  committing  her  to  the  hand  of  St.  Peter,  and  of 
course  abandoning  all  hope  of  seeing  her  again  in 
this  world,  the  soft-hearted  tailor  wiped  his  eye  as 
she  was  lifted  in,  and  receiving  a  promise  from  Father 
Gasparo  that  he  would  communicate  faithfully  the 
state  of  her  soul  in  the  last  agony,  he  pulled,  with 
lightened  gondola  and  heart,  back  to  his  widower's 
home  and  Turturilla. 

For  many  good  reasons,  and  apparent  as  good,  it  is 
a  rule  in  the  hospital  of  St.  Girolamo,  that  the  sick 
under  its  holy  charge  shall  receive  the  visit  of  neither 
friend  nor  relative.  If  they  recover,  they  return  to 
their  abodes  to  earn  candles  for  the  altar  of  the  restor- 
ing saint.  If  they  die,  their  clothes  are  sent  to  their 
surviving  friends,  and  this  affecting  memorial,  besides 
communicating  the  melancholy  news,  affords  all  the 
particulars  and  all  the  consolation  they  are  supposed 
to  require  upon  the  subject  of  their  loss. 

Waiting  patiently  for  Father  Gasparo  and  his  bundle, 
Pasquali  and  Turturilla  gave  themselves  up  to  hopes, 
which  on  the  tailor's  part  (we fear  it  must  be  admitted), 
augured  a  quicker  recovery  from  grief  than  might  be 
credited  to  an  elastic  constitution.  The  fortune  of 
poor  Fiametta  was  sufficient  to  warrant  Pasquali  in 
neglecting  his  shop  to  celebrate  every  festa  that  the 
church  acknowledged,  and  for  ten  days  subsequent  to 
the  committal  of  his  wife  to  the  tender  mercies  of  St. 
Girolamo,  five  days  out  of  seven  was  the  proportion  of 
merry  holydays  with  his  new  betrothed. 

They  were  sitting  one  evening  in  the  open  piazza 
of  St.  Mark,  in  front  of  the  most  thronged  cafe  of 
that  matchless  square.  The  moon  was  resting  her 
silver  disk  on  the  point  of  the  Campanile,  and  the 
shadows  of  thousands  of  gay  Venetians  fell  on  the 
immense  pavement  below,  clear  and  sharply  drawn 
as  a  black  cartoon.     The  four  extending  sides  of  the 


THE  BANDIT  OF  AUSTRIA. 


489 


square  lay  half  in  shades  half  in  light,  wiih  their 
innumerable  columns  and  balconies  and  sculptured 
work,  and,  frowning  down  on  all,  in  broken  light  and 
shadow,  stood  the  arabesque  structure  of  St.  Mark's 
itself  dizzying  the  eyes  with  its  mosaics  and  confused 
devices,  and  thrusting  forth  the  heads  of  her  four 
golden-collared  steeds  into  the  moonbeams,  till  they 
looked  on  that  black  relief,  like  the  horses  of  Pluto 
issuing  from  the  gates  of  Hades.  In  the  centre  of 
the  square  stood  a  tall  woman,  singing,  in  rich  con- 
tralto, an  old  song  of  the  better  days  of  Venice  ;  and 
against  one  of  the  pillars,  Polichinello  had  backed 
his  wooden  stage,  and  beat  about  his  puppets  with 
an  energy  worthy  of  old  Dandolo  and  his  helmeted 
galley-men.  To  those  who  wore  not  the  spectacles 
of  grief  or  discontent,  the  square  of  St.  Mark's  that 
night  was  like  some  cozening  tableau.  I  never  saw 
anything  so  gay. 

Everybody  who  has  "  swam  in  a  gondola,"  knows 
how  the  cafes  of  Venice  thrust  out  their  checkered 
awnings  over  a  portion  of  the  square,  and  filled  the 
shaded  space  below  with  chairs  and  marble  tables. 
In  a  corner  of  the  shadow  thus  afforded,  with  ice  and 
coffee  on  a  small  round  slab  between  them,  and  the 
flat  pavement  of  the  public  promenade  under  their  feet, 
sat  our  two  lovers.  With  neither  hoof  nor  wheel  to 
drown  or  interrupt  their  voices  (as  in  cities  whose 
streets  are  stones,  not  water),  they  murmured  their 
hopes  and  wishes  in  the  softest  language  under  the 
sun,  and  with  the  sotto  voce  acquired  by  all  the  inhabi- 
tants of  this  noiseless  city.  Turturilla  had  taken  ice  to 
cool  her  and  coffee  to  take  off  the  chill  of  her  ice,  and 
a  bicchiere  del  pcrfetto  amme  to  reconcile  these  two 
antagonists  in  her  digestion,  when  the  slippers  of  a 
monk  glided  by,  and  in  a  moment  the  recognised 
Father  Gasparo  made  a  third  in  the  shadowy  corner. 
The  expected  bundle  was  under  his  arm,  and  he  was 
on  his  way  to  Pasquali's  dwelling.  Having  assured 
the  disconsolate  tailor  that  she  had  unction  and  wafer 
as  became  the  wife  of  a  citizen  of  Venice  like  himself, 
he  took  heart  and  grew  contenithat  she  was  in  heaven. 
It  was  a  better  place,  and  Turturilla  for  so  little  as  a 
gold  ring,  would  supply  her  place  in  his  bosom. 

The  moon  was  but  a  brief  week  older  when  Pas- 
quali  and  Turturilla  stood  in  the  church  of  our  lady 
of  grief,  and  Father  Gasparo  within  the  palings  of  the 
altar.  She  was  as  fair  a  maid  as  ever  bloomed  in  the 
garden  of  beauty  beloved  of  Titian,  and  the  tailor  was 
nearer  worth  nine  men  to  look  at,  than  the  fraction  of 
a  man  considered  usually  the  exponent  of  his  profes- 
sion. Away  mumbled  the  good  father  upon  the  mat- 
rimonial service,  thinking  of  the  old  wine  and  rich 
pastries  that  were  holding  their  sweetness  under  cork 
and  crust  only  till  he  had  done  his  ceremony,  and 
quicker  by  some  seconds  than  had  ever  been  achieved 
before  by  priest  or  bishop,  he  arrived  at  the  putting  on 
of  the  ring.  His  hand  was  tremulous,  and  (oh  un- 
lucky omen  !)  he  dropped  it  within  the  gilden  fence 
of  the  chancel.  The  choristers  were  called,  and 
Father  Gasparo  dropped  on  his  knees  to  look  for  it — 
but  if  the  devil  had  not  spirited  it  away,  there  was  no 
other  reason  why  that  search  was  in  vain.  Short  of 
an  errand  to  the  goldsmith  on  the  Rialto,  it  was  at 
last  determined  the  wedding  could  not  proceed.  Fa- 
ther Gasparo  went  to  hide  his  impatience  within  the 
restiary,  and  Turturilla  knelt  down  to  pray  against  the 
arts  of  Sathanas.  Before  they  had  settled  severally 
to  their  pious  occupations,  Pasquali  was  half  way  to 
the  Rialto. 

Half  an  hour  elapsed,  and  then  instead  of  the  light 
grazing  of  a  swift-sped  gondola  along  the  church 
stairs,  the  splash  of  a  sullen  oar  was  heard,  and  Pas- 
quali stepped  on  shore.  They  had  hastened  to  the 
door  to  receive  him — monk,  choristers  and  bride — 
and  to  their  surprise  and  bewilderment,  he  waited  to 
hand  out  a  woman  in  a  strange  dress,  who  seemed  dis- 


posed, bridegroom  as  he  was,  to  make  him  wait  her 
leisure.  Her  clothes  fitted  her  ill,  and  she  carried  in 
her  hand  a  pair  of  shoes,  it  was  easy  to  see  were  never 
made  for  her.  She  rose  at  last,  and  as  her  face  be- 
came visible,  down  dropped  Turturilla  and  the  pious 
father,  and  motionless  and  aghast  stood  the  simple 
Pasquali.     Fiametta  stepped  on  shore  ! 

In  broken  words  Pasquali  explained.  He  had 
landed  at  the  stairs  near  the  fish  market,  and  with  two 
leaps  reaching  the  top,  sped  off  past  the  buttress  in 
the  direction  of  the  goldsmith,  when  his  course  was 
arrested  by  encountering  at  full  speed,  the  person  of 
an  old  woman.  Hastily  raising  her  up,  he  recognised 
his  wife,  who,  fully  recovered,  but  without  a  gondola, 
was  threading  the  zig-zag  alleys  on  foot,  on  her  way 
to  her  own  domicil.  After  the  first  astonishment  was 
over,  her  dress  explained  the  error  of  the  good  father 
and  the  extent  of  his  own  misfortune.  The  clothes 
had  been  hung  between  the  bed  of  Fiametta  and  that 
of  a  smaller  woman  who  had  been  long  languishing 
of  a  consumption.  She  died,  and  Fiametta's  clothes, 
brought  to  the  door  by  mistake,  were  recognised  by 
Father  Gasparo  and  taken  to  Pasquali. 

The  holy  monk,  chop-fallen  and  sad,  took  his  soli- 
tary way  to  the  convent,  but  with  the  first  step  he  felt 
something  slide  into  the  heel  of  his  sandal.  He  sat 
down  on  the  church  stairs  and  absolved  the  devil  from 
theft — it  was  the  lost  ring,  which  had  fallen  upon  his 
foot  and  saved  Pasquali  the  tailor  from  the  pains  of 
bigamy. 


THE  BANDIT  OF  AUSTRIA. 


I      "  Affection  is  a  fire  which  kindleth  as  well  in  the  bramble  as  in 

I  the  oak,  and  catcheth  hold  where  it  first  lighteth,  not  where  it  may 

best  burn.    Larks  that  mount  in  the  air  build  their  nests  below  in 

the  earth ;  and  women  that  cast  their  eyes  upon  kings,  may  place 

their  hearts  upon  vassals." — Marlowe. 

"  Vagrement  est  arbitraire  :  la  beaute  est  quclque  chose  de  plus  reel 
1  et  de  plus  independent  du  gout  et  de  I 'opinion ."—La.  Bruyere. 

Fast  and  rebukingly    rang   the   matins  from   the 
:  towers  of  St.  Etienne,  and,  though  unused  to  wake, 
i  much  less  to  pray,  at  that  sunrise  hour,  I  felt  a  com- 
punctious visiting  as  my  postillion  cracked  his  whip 
and  flew  past  the  sacred  threshold,  over  which  trip- 
ped, as  if  every  stroke  would  be  the  last,  the  tardy  yV. 
light-footed  mass-goers  of  Vienna.     It  was  my  firsv 
entrance  into  this  Paris  of  Germany,  and  I  stretched 
my  head  from  the  window  to  look  back  with  delight 
upon  the  fretted  gothic  pile,  so  cumbered  with  orna- 
ment, yet  so  light  and  airy — so  vast  in  the  area  it 
covered,  yet  so  crusted  in  every  part  with  delicate  de- 
j  vice  and  sculpture.     On  sped  the  merciless  postillion, 
and  the  next  moment  we  rattled  into  the  court-yard  of 
the  hotel. 

I  gave  my  keys  to  the  most  faithful  and  intelligent 
of  valets— an  English  boy  of  sixteen,  promoted  from 
white  top-boots  and  a  cabriolet  in  London,  to  a  plain 
coat  and  almost  his  master's  friendship  upon  the  con- 
tinent—and leaving  him  to  find  rooms  to  my  taste, 
make  them  habitable  and  get  breakfast,  I  retraced  my 
way  to  ramble  a  half  hour  through  the  aisles  of  St. 
Etienne.  .  .  , 

The  lingering  bell  was  still  beating  its  quick  and 
monotonous  call,  and  just  before  me,  followed  closely 
by  a  female  domestic,  a  veiled  and  slightly-formed  lady 
stepped  over  the  threshold  of  the  cathedral,  and  took 
her  way  by  the  least-frequented  aisle  to  the  a  tar.  I 
gave  a  passing  glance  of  admiration  at  the  small  ankle 
and  dainty  chaussure  betrayed  by  her  hurried  step; 
k..»  w^oinhArim/ with  a  slight  effort  that  I  had  sought 


but  remembering  with  a  slight 


490 


THE  BANDIT  OF  AUSTRIA. 


the  church  with  at  least  some  feeble  intentions  of  re- 
ligious worship,  I  crossed  the  broad  nave  to  the  oppo- 
site side,  and  was  soon  leaning  against  a  pillar,  and 
listening  to  the  heavenly-breathed  music  of  the  volun- 
tary, with  a  confused,  but  I  trust,  not  altogether  un- 
profitable feeling  of  devotion. 

The  peasants,  with  their  baskets  standing  beside 
them  on  the  tesselated  floor,  counted  their  beads  upon 
their  knees  ;  the  murmur,  low-toned  and  universal, 
rose  through  the  vibrations  of  the  anthem  with  an  ac- 
companiment upon  which  I  have  always  thought  the 
great  composers  calculated,  no  less  than  upon  the 
echoing  arches,  and  atmosphere  thickened  with  in- 
cense ;  and  the  deep-throated  priest  muttered  his 
Latin  prayer,  more  edifying  to  me  that  it  left  my 
thoughts  to  their  own  impulses  of  worship,  unde- 
meaned  by  the  irresistible  littleness  of  criticism,  and 
unchecked  by  the  narrow  bounds  of  another's  com- 
prehension of  the  Divinity.  Without  being  in  any 
leaning  of  opinion  a  son  of  the  church  of  Rome,  I 
confess  my  soul  gets  nearer  to  heaven  ;  and  my  re-  I 
ligious  tendencies,  dulled  and  diverted  from  improve-  i 
menf  by  a  life  of  travel  and  excitement,  are  more  ! 
gratefully  ministered  to,  in  the  indistinct  worship  of  I 
the  catholics.  It  seems  to  me  that  no  man  can  pray  ! 
well  through  the  hesitating  lips  of  another.  The  i 
inflated  style  or  rhetorical  efforts  of  many,  addres-  j 
sing  Heaven  with  difficult  grammar  and  embarrass- 
ed logic — and  the  weary  monotony  of  others,  re- 
peating without  interest  and  apparently  without 
thought,  the  most  solemn  appeals  to  the  mercy  of 
the  Almighty — are  imperfect  vehicles,  at  least  to 
me,  for  a  fresh  and  apprehensive  spirit  of  worship. 
The  religious  architecture  of  the  catholics  favors  the 
solitary  prayer  of  the  heart.  The  vast  floor  of  the 
cathedral,  the  far  receding  aisles  with  their  solemn 
light,  to  which  penetrate  only  the  indistinct  murmur 
of  priest  and  penitent,  and  the  affecting  wail  or  tri- 
umphant hallelujah  of  the  choir;  the  touching  atti- 
tudes and  utter  abandonment  of  all  around  to  their 
unarticulated  devotions;  the  freedom  to  enter  and  de- 
part, unquestioned  and  unnoticed,  and  the  wonderful 
impressiveness  of  the  lofty  architecture,  clustered 
with  mementoes  of  death,  and  presenting  through 
every  sense,  some  unobtrusive  persuasion  to  the  duties 
of  the  spot— all  these,  I  can  not  but  think,  are  aids, 
not  unimportant  to  devout  feeling,  nor  to  the  most 
careless  keeper  of  his  creed  and  conscience,  entirely 
without  salutary  use. 

My  eye  had  been  resting  unconsciously  on  the 
drapery  of  a  statue,  upon  which  the  light  of  a  painted 
oriel  window  threw  the  mingled  dyes  of  a  peacock. 
It  was  the  figure  of  an  apostle  ;  and  curious  at  last  to 
see  whence  the  colors  came  which  turned  the  saintly 
garb  into  a  mantle  of  shot  silk,  I  strayed  toward  the 
eastern  window,  and  was  studying  the  gorgeous  dyes 
and  grotesque  drawing  of  an  art  lost  to  the  world,  when 
I  discovered  that  I  was  in  the  neighborhood  of  the 
pretty  figure  that  had  tripped  into  church  so  lightly 
before  me.  She  knelt  near  the  altar,  a  little  forward 
from  one  of  the  heavy  gothic  pillars,  with  her  maid 
beside  her,  and,  close  behind  knelt  a  gentleman,  who 
I  observed  at  a  second  glance,  was  paying  his  devo- 
tions exclusively  to  the  small  foot  that  peeped  from 
the  edge  of  a  snowy  peignoir,  the  dishabille  of  which 
was  covered  and  betrayed  by  a  lace-veil  and  mantle. 
As  I  stood  thinking  what  a  graceful  study  her  figure 
would  make  for  a  sculptor,  and  what  an  irreligious  im- 
pertinence was  visible  in  the  air  of  the  gentleman  be- 
hind, he  leaned  forward  as  if  to  prostrate  his  face  upon 
the  pavement,  and  pressed  his  lips  upon  the  slender 
sole  of  (I  have  no  doubt)  the  prettiest  shoe  in  Vienna. 
The  natural  aversion  which  all  men  have  for  each 
other  as  strangers,  was  quickened  in  my  bosom  by  a 
feeling  much  more  vivid,  and  said  to  be  quite  as  natu- 
ral— resentment  at  any  demonstration  by  another  of 


preference  for  the  woman  one  has  admired.  If  I  have 
not  mistaken  human  nature,  there  is  a  sort  of  imagina- 
ry property  which  every  man  feels  in  a  woman  he  has 
looked  upon  with  even  the  most  transient  regard, 
which  is  violated  malgre  lui,  by  a  similar  feeling  on 
the  part  of  any  other  individual. 

Not  sure  that  the  gentleman,  who  had  so  suddenly 
become  my  enemy,  had  any  warrant  in  the  lady's  con- 
nivance for  his  attentions,  I  retreated  to  the  shelter 
of  the  pillar,  and  was  presently  satisfied  that  he  was  as 
much  a  stranger  to  her  as  myself,  and  was  decidedly 
annoying  her.  A  slight  advance  in  her  position  to 
escape  his  contact  gave  me  the  opportunity  I  wished, 
j  and  stepping  upon  the  small  space  between  the  skirt 
of  her  dress  and  the  outpost  of  his  ebony  cane,  I  began 
to  study  the  architecture  of  the  roof  with  great  serious- 
ness. The  gothic  order,  it  is  said,  sprang  from  the 
first  attempts  at  constructing  roofs  from  the  branches 
of  trees,  and  is  more  perfect  as  it  imitates  more  closely 
the  natural  wilderness  with  its  tall  tree-shafts  and  in- 
terlacing limbs.  With  my  eyes  half  shut  I  endeavor- 
ed to  transport  myself  to  an  American  forest,  and  con- 
vert the  beams  and  angles  of  this  vast  gothic  structure 
into  a  primitive  temple  of  pines,  with  the  sunshine 
coming  brokingly  through;  but  the  delusion,  other- 
wise easy  enough,  was  destroyed  by  the  cherubs  roost- 
ing on  the  cornices,  and  the  apostles  and  saints  perch- 
ed as  it  were  in  the  branches;  and,  spite  of  myself,  I 
thought  it  represented  best  Shylock's  "wilderness  of 
monkeys." 

"  S'iL  vous  plait,  monsieur  /"  said  the  gentleman, 
pulling  me  by  the  pantaloons  as  I  was  losing  myself 
in  these  ill-timed  speculations. 
I  looked  down. 
"  Vous  me  genez,  monsieur .'" 

"J'en  suis  Men  sure,  monsieur  /" — and  I  resumed  my 
study  of  the  roof,  turning  gradually  round  till  my  heels 
were  against  his  knees,  and  backing  peu-d-peu. 

It  has  often  occurred  to  me  as  a  defect  in  the  system 
of  civil  justice,  that  the  time  of  the  day  at  which  a 
crime  is  committed  is  never  taken  into  account  by  judge 
or  jury.  The  humors  of  an  empty  stomach  act  so  ener- 
getically on  the  judgment  and  temper  of  a  man,  and 
the  same  act  appears  so  differently  to  him,  fasting  and 
full,  that  I  presume  an  inquiry  into  the  subject  would 
prove  that  few  offences  against  law  and  human  pity 
were  ever  perpetrated  by  villains  who  had  dined.  In 
the  adventure  before  us,  the  best-disposed  reader  will 
condemn  my  interference  in  a  stranger's  gallantries  as 
I  impertinent  and  quixotic.  Later  in  the  day,  I  should 
as  soon  have  thought  of  ordering  water-cresses  for  the 
j  gentleman's  dindon  aux.  trvffes. 

j  .  I  was  calling  myself  to  account  something  after  the 
j  above  fashion,  the  gentleman  in  question  standing  near 
i  me,  drumming  on  his  boot  with  his  ebony  cane,  when 
I  the  lady   rose,  threw  her  rosary  over  her  neck,  and 
|  turning'to  me  with  a  graceful  smile,  courtesied  slight- 
ly and  disappeared.     1  was  struck  so  exceedingly  with 
!  the  intense  melancholy  in  the  expression  of  the  face — 
an  expression  so  totally  at  variance  with  the  elasticity 
of  the  step,  and  the  promise  of  the  slight  and  riante 
figure   and   air — that  I  quite  forgot  I   had   drawn  a 
j  quarrel  on  myself,  and  was  loitering  slowly  toward  the 
door  of  the  church,  when  the  gentleman  I  had  offend- 
ed touched  me  on  the  arm,  and  in  the  politest  manner 
possible  requested  my  address.     We  exchanged  cards, 
and  I  hastened  home  to   breakfast,   musing  on   the 
facility  with  which  the  current  of  our  daily  life  may  be 
thickened.     I  fancied  I  had  a  new  love  on  my  hands, 
and  I  was  tolerably  sure  of  a  quarrel — yet  I  had  been 
in  Vienna  but  fifty-four  minutes  by  Breguet. 

My  breakfast  was  waiting,  and  Percie  had  found 
time  to  turn  a  comb  through  his  brown  curls,  and  get 
the  dust  off  his  gaiters.  He  was  tall  for  his  age,  and 
(unaware  to  himself,  poor  boy  !)  every  word  and  action 
reflected  upon  the  handsome  seamstress  in  Cianbourne 


THE  BANDIT  OF  AUSTRIA. 


491 


Alley,  whom  he  called  his  mother— for  he  showed 
blood.     His  father  was  a  gentleman,  or  there  is  no 
truth  in  thorough-breeding.     As  I  looked  at  him,  a 
difficulty  vanished  from  my  mind. 
«  Percie!" 

"Get  into  your  best  suit  of  plain  clothes,  and  if  a 
foreigner  calls  on  me  this  morning,  come  in  and  forget 
that  you  are  a  valet.     I  have  occasion  to  use  you  for 
a  gentleman." 
m  Yes,  sir !" 

"  My  pistols  are  clean,  I  presume  ?" 
"Yes,  sir!" 

I  wrote  a  letter  or  two,  read  a  volume  of  "  Ni 
jamais,  ni  toujours"  and  about  noon  a  captain  of 
dragoons  was  announced,  bringing  me  the  expected 
cartel.  Percie  came  in,  treading  gingerly  in  a  pair 
of  tight  French  boots,  but  behaving  exceedingly  like 
a  gentleman,  and  after  a  little  conversation,  managed  on 
his  part  strictly  according  to  my  instructions,  he  took 
his  cane  and  walked  off  with  his  friend  of  the  steel 
scabbard  to  become  acquainted  with  the  ground. 

The   gray   of   a    heavenly   summer   morning   was 
brightening  above  the  chimneys  of  the   fair  city  of  j  i 
Vienna  as  I  stepped  into  a  caliche,  followed   by  Per- 
cie.     With  aspecial  passport  (procured  by  the  polite- 
nessof  my  antagonist)  we  made  our  sortie  at  that  early 
bour  from  the  gates,  and  crossing  the  glacis,  took  the 
road  to  the  banks  of  the  Danube.     It  was  but  a  mile 
from  the  city,  and  the  mist  lay  low  on  the  face  of  the 
troubled  current  of  the  river,   while  the  towers  and  j 
pinnacles  of  the  silent  capital  cut  the  sky  in  clear  and  ' 
sharp  lines — as  if  tranquillity  and  purity,  those  im- 
maculate hand-maidens  of  nature,  had  tired  of  inno- 
cence and  their  mistress — and  slept  in  town  ! 

I  had  taken  some  coffee  and  broiled  chicken  before 
starting,  and  (removed  thus  from  the  category  of  the 
savage  unbreakfasted)  I  was  in  one  of  those  moods  of 
universal  benevolence,  said  (erroneously)  to  be  pro- 
duced only  by  a  clean  breast  and  milk  diet.  I  could 
have  wept,  with  Wordsworth,  over  a  violet. 

My  opponent  was  there  with  his  dragoon,  and  Per- 
cie, cool   and   gentlemanlike,  like  a  man  who  "  had 
served,"  looked  on  at  the  loading  of  the  pistols,  and 
gave  me  mine  with  a  very  firm  hand,  but  with  a  mois- 
ture and  anxiety  in  his  eye  which  I  have  remembered  j 
since.     We  were  to  fire  any  time  after  the  counting 
of  three,  and   having  no  malice   against   my   friend,  j 
whose  impertinence  to  a  lady  was  (really!)  no  business  ' 
of  mine,  I  intended,  of  course,  to  throw  away  my  fire. 

The  first  word  was  given  and  I  looked  at  my  an-  [ 
tagonist,  who,  I  saw  at  a  glance,  had  no  such  gentle 
intentions.  He  was  taking  deliberate  aim,  and  in  the 
four  seconds  that  elapsed  between  the  remaining  two 
words,  I  changed  my  mind  (one  thinks  so  fast  when 
his  leisure  is  limited  !)  at  least  twenty  times  whether  I 
should  fire  at  him  or  no. 

"  Trois  .'"  pronounced  the  dragoon,  from  a  throat 
like  a  trombone,  and  with  the  last  thought,  up  flew 
my  hand,  and  as  my  pistol  discharged  in  the  air,  my 
friend's  shot  struck  upon  a  large  turquoise  which  I 
wore  on  my  third  finger,  and  drew  a  slight  pencil-line 
across  my  left  organ  of  causality.  It  was  well  aimed 
for  my  temple,  but  the  ring  had  saved  me. 

Friend  of  those  days,  regretted  and  unforgotten  ! 
days  of  the  deepest  sadness  and  heart-heaviness,  yet 
somehow  dearer  in  remembrance  than  all  the  joys  I 
can  recall — there  was  a  talisman  in  thy  parting  gift  thou 
didst  not  think  would  be,  one  day,  my  angel ! 

"  You  will  be  able  to  wear  your  hair  over  the  scar, 
sir!"  said  Percie,  coming  up  and  putting  his  finger  on 
the  wound. 

"Monsieur!"  said  the  dragoon,  advancing  to  Per- 
cie after  a  short  conference  with  his  principal,  and 
looking  twice  as  fierce  as  before. 

"  Monsieur !"  said  Percie,  wheeling  short  updn  him. 


"  My  friend  is  not  satisfied.  He  presumes  that 
monsieur  V Anglais  wishes  to  trifle  with  him." 

"  Then  let  your  friend  take  care  of  himself,"  said  I, 
roused  by  the  unprovoked  murderousness  of  the  feel- 
ing. Load  the  pistols,  Percie  !  In  my  country,"  I 
continued,  turning  to  the  dragoon,  "  a  man  isdisgraced 
who  fires  twice  upon  an  antagonist  who  has  spared 
him  !  Your  friend  is  a  ruffian,  and  the  consequences 
be  on  his  own  hand  !" 

We  took  our  places  and  the  first  word  was  given, 
when  a  man  dashed  between  us  on  horseback  at  top- 
speed.  The  violence  with  which  he  drew  rein  brought 
his  horse  upon  his  haunches,  and  he  was  on  his  feet  in 
half  a  breath. 

The  idea  that  he  was  an  officer  of  the  police  was 
immediately  dissipated  by  his  step  and  air.  Of  the 
finest  athletic  form  I  had  ever  seen,  agile,  graceful, 
and  dressed  pointedly  well,  there  was  still  an  inde- 
finable something  about  him,  either  above  or  below 
a  gentleman — which,  it  was  difficult  to  say.  His 
features  were  slight,  fair,  and,  except  a  brow  too 
heavy  for  them  and  a  lip  of  singular  and  (I  thought) 
habitual  defiance,  almost  feminine.  His  hair  grew 
long  and  had  been  soigne,  probably  by  more  cares- 
sing fingers  than  his  own,  and  his  rather  silken  mus- 
tache was  glossy  with  some  odorent  oil.  As  he 
approached  me  and  took  my  hand,  with  a  clasp  like  a 
smith's  vice,  I  observed  these  circumstances,  and  could 
have  drawn  his  portrait  without  ever  seeing  him  again 
— so  marked  a  man  was  he,  in  every  point  and  feature. 
His  business  was  soon  explained.  He  was  the 
husband  of  the  lady  my  opponent  had  insulted,  and 
that  pleasant  gentleman  could,  of  course,  make  no  ob- 
jection to  his  taking  my  place.  I  officiated  as  tbnoin, 
and,  as  they  took  their  position,  1  anticipated  for  the 
dragoon  and  myself  the  trouble  of  carrying  them  toth 
off  the  field.  1  had  a  practical  assurance  of  my  friend's 
pistol,  and  the  stranger  was  not  the  looking  man  to 
miss  a  hair's  breadth  of  his  aim. 

The  word  was  not  fairly  off  my  lips  when  both 
pistols  cracked  like  one  discharge,  and  high  into  the 
air  sprang  my  revengeful  opponent,  and  dropped  like 
a  clod  upon  the  grass.  The  stranger  opened  his 
waistcoat,  thrust  his  fore-finger  into  a  wound  in  his 
left  breast,  and  slightly  closing  his  teeth,  pushed  a 
bullet  through,  which  had  been  checked  by  the  bone 
and  lodged  in  the  flesh  near  the  skin.  The  surgeon 
who  had  accompanied  my  unfortunate  antagonist,  left 
the  body,  which  he  had  found  beyond  his  art,  and 
readily  gave  his  assistance  to  stanch  the  blood  of  my 
preserver;  and  jumping  with  the  latter  into  my  caliche, 
I  put  Percie  upon  the  stranger's  horse,  and  we  drove 
back  to  Vienna. 

The  market  people  were  crowding  in  at  the  gate, 

the  merry  peasant  girls  glanced  at  us  with  their  blue, 

German   eyes,  the  shopmen  laid  out  their  gay  wares 

I  to- the  street,  and  the  tide  of  life  ran  on  as  busily  and 

!  as  gayly,  though  a  drop  had  been  extracted,  within 

!  scarce  ten  minutes,  from  its  quickest  vein.     I  felt  a 

!  revulsion  at  my  heart,  and  grew  faint  and  sick.     Is  a 

human  life — is  my  life  worth  anything,  even  a  thought, 

I  to  my  fellow-creatures  ?  was  the  bitter  question  forced 

|  upon  my  soul.     How  icily  and  keenly  the  unconscious 

!  indifference  of  the  world  penetrates  to  the  nerve  and 

!  marrow  of  him  who  suddenly  realizes  it. 

We  dashed  through  the  kohl-market,  and  driving 
into  the  porte-cochere  of  a  dark-looking  house  in  one 
of  the  cross  streets  of  that  quarter,  were  ushered  into 
apartments  of  extraordinary  magnificence. 

CHAPTER  II. 

"  What  do  you  want,  Percie  ?" 
He   was  walking  into  the  room  with  all  the  deli- 
berate  politeness  of  a  "  gold-stick-in-waiting." 


492 


THE  BANDIT  OF  AUSTRIA. 


"  I  beg  pardon,  sir,  but  I  was  asked  to  walk  up,  and 
I  was  nol  sure  whether  I  was  still  a  gentleman." 

It  instantly  struck  me  that  it  might  seem  rather 
infra  dig  to  the  chevalier  (my  new  friend  had  thus 
announced  himself)  to  have  had  a  valet  for  a  second,  and 
as  he  immediately  after  entered  the  room,  having  step- 
ped below  to  give  orders  about  his  horse,  I  presented 
Percie  as  a  gentleman  and  my  friend,  and  resumed  my 
observation  of  the  singular  apartment  in  which  I  found 
myself. 

The  effect  on  coming  first  in  at  the  door,  was  that 
of  a  small  and  lofty  chapel,  where  the  light  struggled 
in  from  an  unseen  aperture  above  the  altar.  There 
were  two  windows  at  the  farther  extremity,  but  cur- 
tained so  heavily,  and  set  so  deeply  into  the  wall,  that 
I  did  not  at  first  observe  the  six  richly-carpeted  steps 
which  led  up  to  them,  nor  the  luxuriously  cushioned 
seats  on  either  side  of  the  casement,  within  the  niche, 
for  those  who  would  mount  thither  for  fresh  air.  The 
walls  were  tapestried,  but  very  ragged  and  dusty,  and 
the  floor,  though  there  were  several  thicknesses  of  the 
heavy-piled,  small,  Turkey  carpets  laid  loosely  over  it, 
was  irregular  and  sunken.  The  corners  were  heaped 
with  various  articles  I  could  not  at  first  distinguish. 
My  host  fortunately  gave  me  an  opportunity  to  gratify 
my  curiosity  by  frequent  absences  under  the  house- 
keeper's apology  (odd  I  thought  for  a  chevalier)  of 
expediting  breakfast ;  and  with  the  aid  of  Percie,  I 
tumbled  his  chattels  about  with  all  necessary  freedom. 

"  That,"  said  the  chevalier,  entering,  as  I  turned  out 
the  face  of  a  fresh  colored  picture  to  the  light,  "  is  a 
capo  d'opera  of  a  French  artist,  who  painted  it,  as  you 
may  say,  by  the  gleam  of  the  dagger." 

"  A  cool  light,  as  a  painter  would  say  !" 

"  He  was  a  cool  fellow,  sir,  and  would  have  handled 
a  broa'dsword  better  than  a  pencil." 

Percie  stepped  up  while  I  was  examining  the  ex- 
quisite finish  of  the  picture,  and  asked  very  respect- 
fully if  the  chevalier  would  give  him  the  particulars 
of  the  story.  It  was  a  full-length  portrait  of  a  young 
and  excessively  beautiful  girl,  of  apparently  scarce 
fifteen,  entirely  nude,  and  lying  upon  a  black  velvet 
couch,  with  one  foot  laid  on  a  broken  diadem,  and  her 
right  hand  pressing  a  wild  rose  to  her  heart. 

"  It  was  the  fancy,  sir,"  continued  the  chevalier, 
"  of  a  bold  outlaw,  who  loved  the  only  daughter  of  a 
noble  of  Hungary." 

"  Is  this  the  lady,  sir?"  asked  Percie,  in  his  politest 
valet  French. 

The  chevalier  hesitated  a  moment  and  looked  over 
his  shoulder  as  if  he  might  be  overheard. 

|*  This  is  she — copied  to  the  minutest  shadow  of  a 
hair  !  He  was  a  bold  outlaw,  gentlemen,  and  had 
plueked  the  lady  from  her  father's  castle  with  his 
own  hand." 

"Against  her  will?"  interrupted  Percie,  rather 
energetically. 

"  No  !"  scowled  the  chevalier,  as  if  his  lowering 
brows  had  articulated  the  word,  "  by  her  own  will  and 
connivance;  for  she  loved  him." 

Percie  drew  a  long  breath,  and  looked  more  close- 
ly at  the  taper  limbs  and  the  exquisitely-chiselled 
features  of  the  face,  which  was  turned"  over  the 
shoulder  with  a  look  of  timid  shame  inimitably  true 
to  nature. 

"  She  loved  him,"  continued  our  fierce  narrator, 
who,  I  almost  began  to  suspect  was  the  outlaw  him- 
self, by  the  energy  with  which  he  enforced  the  tale, 
'•  and  after  a  moonlight  ramble  or  two  with  him  in  the 
forest  of  her  father's  domain,  she  fled  and  became  his 
wife.  You  are  admiring  the  hair,  sir !  It  is  as 
luxuriant  and  glossy  now  !" 

"  If  you  please,  sir,  it  is  the  villain  himself!"  said 
Percie  in  an  undertone. 

"Bref,"  continued  the  chevalier,  either  not  under- 
standing English  or  not  heeding  the  interruption,  "an 


adventurous  painter,  one  day  hunting  the  picturesque 
in  the  neighborhood  of  the  outlaw's  retreat,  surprised 
this  fair  creature  bathing  in  one  of  the  loneliest  moun- 
tain-streams in  Hungary.  His  art  appeared  to  be  his 
first  passion,  for  he  hid  himself  in  the  trees  and  drew 
her  as  she  stood  dallying  on  the  margin  of  the  small 
pool  in  which  the  brook  loitered;  and  so  busy  was  he 
with  his  own  work,  or  so  soft  was  the  mountain  moss 
under  its  master's  tread,  that  the  outlaw  looked,  un- 
perceived  the  while,  over  his  shoulder,  and  fell  in  love 
anew  with  the  admirable  counterfeit.  She  looked 
like  a  naiad,  sir,  new-born  of  a  dew-drop  and  a  violet." 

I  nodded  an  assent  to  Percie. 

"The  sketch,  excellent  as  it  seemed,  was  still  un- 
finished when  the  painter,  enamored  as  he  might 
well  be,  of  these  sweet  limbs,  glossy  with  the  shining 
water,  flung  down  his  book  and  sprang  toward  her 
The  outlaw " 

"  Struck  him  to  the  heart  ?  Oh  Heaven  !"  said 
Percie,  covering  his  eyes  as  if  he  could  see  the 
murder. 

"  No !  he  was  a  student  of  the  human  soul,  and  de- 
ferred his  vengeance." 

Percie  looked  up  and  listened,  like  a  man  whose 
wits  were  perfectly  abroad. 

"  He  was  not  unwilling  since  her  person  had  been 
seen  irretrievably,  to  know  how  his  shrinking  Iminild 
(this  was  her  name  of  melody)  would  have  escaped, 
had  she  been  found  alone." 

"  The  painter" — prompted  Percie,  impatient  for 
the  sequel. 

"  The  painter  flew  over  rock  and  brake,  and  sprang 
into  the  pool  in  which  she  was  half  immersed  ;  and 
my  brave  girl " 

He  hesitated,  for  he  had  betrayed  himself. 

"  Ay — she  is  mine,  gentlemen ;  and  I  am  Yvain, 
the  outlaw — my  brave  wife,  I  say  with  a  single  bound, 
leaped  to  the  rock  where  her  dress  was  concealed, 
seized  a  short  spear  which  she  used  as  a  staff  in  her 
climbing  rambles,  and  struck  it  through  his  shoulder 
as  he  pursued  !" 

"  Bravely  done  !"  I  thought  aloud. 

"  Was  it  not  ?  I  came  up  the  next  moment,  but  the 
spear  stuck  in  his  shoulder,  and  I  could  not  fall  upon 
a  wounded  man.  We  carried  him  to  our  ruined 
castle  in  the  mountains,  and  while  my  Iminild  cured 
her  own  wound,  I  sent  for  his  paints,  and  let  him 
finish  his  bold  beginning  with  a  difference  of  my  own. 
You  see  the  picture." 

"  Was  the  painter's  love  cured  with  his  wound  !" 
I  asked  with  a  smile. 

"No,  by  St.  Stephen!  He  grew  ten  times  more 
enamored  as  he  drew.  He  was  as  fierce  as  a  welk 
hawk,  and  as  willing  to  quarrel  for  his  prey.  I  could 
have  driven  my  dagger  to  his  heart  a  hundred  times 
for  the  mutter  of  his  lips  and  the  flash  of  his  dark  eyes 
as  he  fed  his  gaze  upon  her ;  but  he  finished  the  pic- 
ture, and  I  gave  him  a  fair  field.  He  chose  the  broad- 
sword, and  hacked  away  at  me  like  a  man." 

"And  the  result" — 1  asked. 

"  I  am  here  !"  replied  the  outlaw  significantly. 

Percie  leaped  upon  the  carpeted  steps,  and  pushed 
back  the  window  for  fresh  air;  and,  for  myself,  1  scarce 
knew  how  to  act  under  the  roof  of  a  man,  who,  though 
he  confessed  himself  an  outlaw  and  almost  an  assassin, 
was  bound  to  me  by  the  ties  of  our  own  critical  ad- 
venture, and  had  confided  his  condition  to  me  with  so 
ready  a  reliance  on  my  honor.  In  the  midst  of  my 
dilemma,  while  I  was  pretending  to  occupy  myself 
with  examining  a  silver  mounted  and  peaked  saddle, 
which  I  foundbehind  the  picture  in  the  corner,  a  deep 
and  unpleasant  voice  announced  breakfast. 

"Wolfen  is  rather  a  grim  chamberlain,"  said  the 
chevalier,  bowing  with  the  grace  and  smile  of  the 
softest  courtier,  "  but  he  will  usher  you  to  breakfast 
and  I  am  sure  you  stand  in  need  of  it.     For  myself, 


THE  BANDIT  OF  AUSTRIA. 


493 


I  could  eat  worse  meat  than  my  grandfather  with  this 
appetite."  .  .        .  ■, 

Percie  gave  me  a  look  of  inquiry  and  uneasiness 
when  he  found  we  were  to  follow  the  rough  domestic 
through  the  dark  corridors  of  the  old  house,  and 
through  his  underbred  politeness  of  insisting  on  fol- 
lowing  his  host,  I  could  see  that  he  was  unwilling  to 
trust  "the  outlaw  with  the  rear ;  but  a  massive  and 
broad  door,  flung  open  at  the  end  of  the  passage,  let 
in  upon  us  presently  the  cool  and  fresh  air  from  a 
northern  exposure,  and,  stepping  forward  quickly  to 
the  threshold,  we  beheld  a  picture  which  changed  the 
current  and  color  of  our  thoughts. 

In  the  bottom  of  an  excavated  area,  which,  as 
well  as  I  could  judge,  must  be  forty  feet  below  the 
level  of  the  court,  lay  a  small  and  antique  garden, 
brilliant  with  the  most  costly  flowers,  and  cooled  by 
a  fountain  gushing  from  under  the  foot  of  a  nymph  in 
marble.  The  spreading  tops  of  six  alleys  of  lindens 
reaching  to  the  level  of  the  street,  formed  a  living 
roof  to  the  grot-like  depths  of  the  garden,  and  con- 
cealed it  from  all  view  but  that  of  persons  descend- 
ing like  ourselves  from  the  house  ;  while,  instead  of 
walls  to  shut  in  this  paradise  in  the  heart  of  a  city, 
sharply  inclined  slopes  of  green-sward  leaned  in 
under  the  branches  of  the  lindens,  and  completed  the 
fairy-like  enclosure  of  shade  and  verdure.  As  we 
descended  the  rose-laden  steps  and  terraces,  I  ob- 
served, that,  of  the  immense  profusion  of  flowers  in 
the  area  below,  nearly  all  were  costly  exotics,  whose 
pots  were  set  in  the  earth,  and  probably  brought 
away  from  the  sunshine  only  when  in  high  bloom; 
and  as  we  rounded  the  spreading  basin  of  the  foun- 
tain which  broke  the  perspective  of  the  alley,  a  table, 
which  had  been  concealed  by  the  marble  nymph, 
and  a  skilfully-disposed  array  of  rhododendrons  lay 
just  beneath  our  feet,  while  a  lady,  whose  features 
1  could  not  fail  to  remember,  smiled  up  from  her 
couch  of  crimson  cushions  and  gave  us  a  graceful 
welcome. 

The  same  taste  for  depth  which  had  been  shown 
in  the  room  sunk  below  the  windows,  and  the  garden 
below  the  street,  was  continued  in  the  kind  of  mar- 
ble divan  in  which  we  were  to  breakfast.  Four  steps 
descending  from  the  pavement  of  the  alley  introduc- 
ed us  into  a  circular  excavation,  whose  marble  seats, 
covered  with  cushions  of  crimson  silk,  surrounded  a 
table  laden  with  the  substantial  viands  which  are 
common  to  a  morning  meal  in  Vienna,  and  smoking 
with  coffee,  whose  aroma  (Percie  agreed  with  me) 
exceeded  even  the  tube  roses  in  grateful  sweetness. 
Between  the  cushions  at  our  backs  and  the  pave- 
ments just  above  the  level  of  our  heads,  were  piled  cir- 
cles of  thickly-flowering  geraniums,  which  enclosed 
us  in  rings  of  perfume,  and,  pouring  from  the  cup  of 
a  sculptured  flower,  held  in  the  hand  of  the  nymph, 
a  smooth  stream  like  a  silver  rod  supplied  a  channel 
grooved  around  the  centre  of  the  marble  table,  through 
which  the  bright  water,  with  the  impulse  of  its  descent, 
made  a  swift  revolution  and  disappeared. 

It  was  a  scene  to  give  memory  the  lie  if  it  could 
have  recalled  the  bloodshed  of  the  morning.  The 
green  light  flecked  down  through  the  lofty  roof  upon 
the  glittering  and  singing  water ;  a  nightingale  in  a 
recess  of  the  garden,  gurgled  through  his  wires  as  if 
intoxicated  with  the  congenial  twilight  of  his  prison  ; 
the  heavy-cupped  flowers  of  the  tropics  nodded  with 
the  rain  of  the  fountain  spray;  the  distant  roll  of 
wheels  in  the  neighboring  streets  came  with  an 
assurance  of  reality  to  this  dream-land,  yet  softened 
by  the  unreverberating  roof  and  an  air  crowded  with 
flowers  and  trembling  with  the  pulsations  of  falling 
water;  the  lowering  forehead  of  the  outlaw  cleared 
u])  like  a  sky  of  June  after  a  thunder-shower,  and  his 
•  voice  grew  gentle  and  caressing ;  and  the  delicate 
mistress  of  all   (by  birth,  Countess   Iininilrl),  a  crea- 


ture as  slight  as  Psyche,  and  as  white  as  the  lotus, 
whose  flexile  stem  served  her  for  a  bracelet,  wel- 
comed us  with  her  soft  voice  and  humid  eyes,  and 
saddened  by  the  event  of  the  morning,  looked  on  her 
husband  with  a  tenderness  that  would  have  assoiled 
her  of  her  sins  against  delicacy,  I  thought  even  in  the 
mind  of  an  angel. 

"  We  live,  like  truth,  here,  in  the  bottom  of  a  well," 
said  the  countess  to  Percie,  as  she  gave  him  his  cof- 
fee ;  "  how  do  you  like  my  whimsical  abode,  sir?" 

"  I  should  like  any  place  where  you  were,  Miladi !" 
he  answered,  blushing  and  stealing  his  eyes  across  at 
me,  either  in  doubt  how  far  he  might  presume  upon 
his  new  character,  or  suspecting  that  I  should  smile 
at  his  gallantry. 

The  outlaw  glanced  his  eyes  over  the  curling  head 
of  the  boy,  with  one  of  those  just  perceptible  smiles 
which  developed,  occasionally,  in  great  beauty,  the 
gentle  spirit  in  his  bosom  ;  and  Iminild,  pleased  with 
the  compliment  or  the  blush,  threw  off  her  pensive 
mood,  and  assumed  in  an  instant,  the  coquettish  air 
which  had  attracted  my  notice  as  she  stepped  before 
me  into  the  church  of  St.  Etienne. 

"You  had  hard  work,"  she  said,  "to  keep  up 
with  your  long-legged  dragoon  yesterday,  Monsieur 
Percie  !" 

"  Miladi  ?"  he  answered,  with  a  look  of  inquiry. 
"  Oh,  I  was  behind  you,  and  my  legs  are  not  much 
longer  than  yours.  How  he  strided  away  with  his 
long  spurs,  to  be  sure  !  Do  you  remember  a  smart 
young  gentleman  with  a  blue  cap  that  walked  past 
you  on  the  glacis  occasionally." 

"  Ah,  with  laced  boots,  like  a  Hungarian  ?" 
"  I  see  I  am  ever  to  be  known  by  my  foot,"  said 
she,  putting  it  out  upon  the  cushion,  and  turning  it 
about  with  naive  admiration  ;  "  that  poor  captain  of 
the  imperial  guard  paid  dearly  for  kissing  it,  holy 
virgin  !"  and  she  crossed  herself  and  was  silent  for  a 
moment. 

«  If  I  might  take  the  freedom,  chevalier,"  I  said, 
"  pray  how  came  I  indebted  to  your  assistance  in  this 
affair  ?" 

"Iminild  has  partly  explained,"  he  answered. 
"  She  knew,  of  course,  that  a  challenge  would  follow 
your  interference,  and  it  was  very  easy  to  know  that 
an  officer  of  some  sort  would  take  a  message  in  the 
course  of  the  morning  to  Le  Prince  Charles,  the  only 
hotel  frequented  by  the  English  d'un  certain  gens. 
I  bowed  to  the  compliment. 

"  Arriving  in  Vienna  late  last  night,  I  found  Iminild 
(who  had  followed  this  gentleman  and  the  dragoon 
unperceived)  in  possession  of  all  the  circumstances  ; 
and,  but  for  oversleeping  myself  this  morning,  I  should 
have  saved  your  turquoise,  man  seigneur  /" 

"  Have  you  lived  here  long,  Miladi  ?"  asked  Per- 
cie, looking  up  into  her  eyes  with  an  unconscious 
passionateness  which  made  the  countess  Iminild  color 
slightly,  and  bite  her  lips  to  retain  an  expression  of 
pleasure. 

»  I  have  not  lived  long,  anywhere,  sir!"  she  answer- 
ed half  archly,  "but  I  played  in  this  garden  when  not 
much  older  than  you  !" 

Percie  looked  confused  and  pulled  up  his  cravat. 
"  This  house  said  the  chevalier,  willing  apparently 
to  spare  the  countess  a  painful  narration,  "  is  the 
property  of  the  old  count  Ildefert,  my  wile's  lather. 
He  has  long  ceased  to  visit  Vienna,  and  has  lelt  it,  he 
supposes,  to  a  stranger.  When  Iminild  tires  of  the 
forest,  she  comes  here,  and  I  join  her  if  I  can  find 
time.    I  must  to  the  saddle  to-morrow,  by  St.  Jacques. 

The  word  had  scarce  died  on  his  lips  when  the  door 
by  which  we  had  entered  the  garden  was  flung  open, 
and  the  measured  tread  of  gens-cParmes  resounded  in 
the  corridor.  The  first  man  who  stood  out  upon  the 
upper  terrace  was  the  dragoon  who  had  been  second 
to  mv  opponent. 


494 


THE  BANDIT  OF  AUSTRIA. 


"  Trailer  and  villain  !"  muttered  the  outlaw  between 
his  teeth,  "  I  thought  I  remembered  you  !  It  is  that 
false  comrade  Berthold,  Iminild  !" 

Yvain  had  risen  from  the  table  as  if  but  to  stretch 
his  legs ;  and  drawing  a  pistol  from  his  bosom  he 
cocked  it  as  he  quietly  stepped  up  into  the  garden. 
I  saw  at  a  glance  that  there  was  no  chance  for  his 
escape,  and  laid  my  hand  on  his  arm. 

"  Chevalier  !"  I  said,  "  surrender  and  trust  to  op- 
portunity.    It  is  madness  to  resist  here." 

"  Yvain  !"  said  Iminild,  in  a  low  voice,  flying  to  his 
side  as  she  comprehended  his  intention,  "  leave  me 
that  vengeance,  and  try  the  parapet.  I'll  kill  him  be- 
fore he  sleeps!     Quick  !  Ah,  Heavens  !" 

The  dragoon  had  turned  at  that  instant  to  fly,  and 
with  suddenness  of  thought  the  pistol  flashed,  and 
the  traitor  dropped  heavily  on  the  terrace.  Spring- 
ing like  a  cut  up  the  slope  of  green  sward,  Yvain  stood 
an  instant  on  the  summit  of  the  wall,  hesitating  where 
to  jump  beyond,  and  in  the  next  moment  rolled  heavily 
back,  stabbed  through  and  through  with  a  bayonet 
from  the  opposite  side. 

The  blood  left  the  lips  and  cheek  of  Iminild ;  but 
without  a  word  or  a  sign  of  terror,  she  sprang  to  the 
side  of  the  fallen  outlaw  and  lifted  him  up  against 
her  knee.  The  gens-d'  armes  rushed  to  the  spot,  but 
the  subaltern  who  commanded  them  yielded  instantly 
to  my  wish  that  they  should  retire  to  the  skirts  of  the 
garden ;  and,  sending  Percie  to  the  fountain  for  water, 
we  bathed  the  lips  and  forehead  of  the  dying  man  and 
set  him  against  the  sloping  parapet.  With  one  hand 
grasping  the  dress  of  Iminild  and  the  other  clasped  in 
mine,  he  struggled  to  speak. 

"  The  cross  !"  he  gasped,  "  the  cross  !" 

Iminild  drew  a  silver  crucifix  from  her  bosom. 

"Swear  on  this,"  he  said,  putting  it  to  my  lips  and 
speaking  with  terrible  energy,  "  swear  that  you  will 
protect  her  while  you  live  !" 

"  I  swear!" 

He  shut  our  hands  together  convulsively,  gasped 
slightly  as  if  he  would  speak  again,  and,  in  another 
instant  sunk,  relaxed  and  lifeless,  on  the  shoulder  of 
Iminild. 


CHAPTER  III. 

The  fate  and  history  of  Yvain,  the  outlaw,  became, 
on  the  following  day,  the  talk  of  Vienna.  He  had 
been  long  known  as  the  daring  horse-stealer  of  Hun- 
gary ;  and,  though  it  was  not  doubted  that  his  sway 
was  exercised  over  plunderers  of  every  description, 
even  pirates  upon  the  high  seas,  his  own  courage  and 
address  were  principally  applied  to  robbery  of  the  well- 
guarded  steeds  of  the  emperor  and  his  nobles.  It  was 
said  that  there  was  not  a  horse  in  the  dominions  of 
Austria  whose  qualities  and  breeding  were  not  known 
to  him,  nor  one  he  cared  to  have  which  was  not  in  his 
concealed  stables  in  the  forest.  The  most  incredible 
stories  were  told  of  his  horsemanship.  He  would  so 
disguise  the  animal  on  which  he  rode,  either  by  forcing 
him  into  new  paces  or  by  other  arts  only  known  to  him- 
self, that  he  would  make  the  tour  of  the  Glacis  on  the 
emperor's  best  horse,  newly  stolen,  unsuspected  even 
by  the  royal  grooms.  The  roadsters  of  his  own  troop 
were  the  best  steeds  bred  on  the  banks  of  the  Danube; 
but,  though  always  in  the  highest  condition,  they 
would  never  have  been  suspected  to  be  worth  a  florin 
till  put  upon  their  mettle.  The  extraordinary  escapes 
of  his  band  from  the  vigilant  and  well-mounted  gens- 
cVarmes  were  thus  accounted  for  ;  and,  in  most  of  the 
villages  in  Austria,  the  people,  on  some  market-day 
or  other,  had  seen  a  body  of  apparently  ill-mounted 
peasants  suddenly  start  off  with  the  speed  of  lightning 
at  the  appearance  of  gens-d'armes,  and,  flying  over 


fence  and  wall,  draw  a  straight  course  for  the  mount- 
ains, distancing  their  pursuers  with  the  ease  of  swal- 
lows on  the  wing. 

After  the  death  of  Yvain  in  the  garden,  I  had  been 
forced  with  Percie  into  a  carriage,  standing  in  the 
court,  and  accompanied  by  a  guard,  driven  to  my 
hotel,  where  I  was  given  to  understand  that  I  was  to 
remain  under  arrest  till  further  orders.  A  sentinel  at 
the  door  forbade  all  ingress  or  egress  except  to  the 
people  of  the  house :  a  circumstance  which  was  only 
distressing  to  me,  as  it  precluded  my  inquiries  after 
the  countress  Iminild,  of  whom  common  rumor,  the 
servants  informed  me,  made  not  the  slightest  mention. 

Four  days  after  this,  on  the  relief  of  the  guard  at 
noon,  a  subaltern,  entered  my  room  and  informed  me 
that  I  was  at  liberty.  I  instantly  made  preparations  to 
go  out,  and  was  drawing  on  my  boots,  when  Percie, 
who  had  not  yet  recovered  from  the  shock  of  his 
arrest,  entered  in  some  alarm,  and  informed  me  that 
one  of  the  royal  grooins  was  in  the  court  with  a  letter, 
which  he  would  deliver  only  into  my  own  hands.  He 
had  orders  beside,  he  said,  not  to  leave  his  saddle. 
Wondering  what  new  leaf  of  my  destiny  was  to  turn 
over,  I  went  below  and  received  a  letter,  with  apparent- 
ly the  imperial  seal,  from  a  well-dressed  groom  in  the 
livery  of  the  emperor's  brother,  the  king  of  Hungary. 
He  was  mounted  on  a  compact,  yet  fine-limbed  horse, 
and  both  horse  and  rider  were  as  still  as  if  cut  in 
marble. 

I  returned  to  my  room  and  broke  the  seal.  It  was 
a  letter  from  Iminild,  and  the  bold  bearer  was  an  out- 
law disguised  !  She  had  heard  that  I  was  to  be  re- 
leased that  morning,  and  desired  me  to  ride  out  on  the 
road  to  Gratz.  In  a  postscript  she  begged  I  would 
request  Monsieur  Percie  to  accompany  me. 

I  sent  for  horses,  and,  wishing  to  be  left  to  my  own 
thoughts,  ordered  Percie  to  fall  behind,  and  rode 
slowly  out  of  the  southern  gate.  If  the  countess 
Iminild  were  safe,  I  had  enough  of  the  adventure  for 
my  taste.  My  oath  bound  me  to  protect  this  wild  and 
unsexed  woman,  but  farther  intercourse  with  a  band 
of  outlaws,  or  farther  peril  of  my  head  for  no  reason 
that  either  a  court  of  gallantry  orof  justice  would  rec- 
ognise, was  beyond  my  usual  programme  of  pleasant 
events.  The  road  was  a  gentle  ascent,  and  with,  the 
bridle  on  the  neck  of  my  hack  I  paced  thoughtfully  on, 
till,  at  a  slight  turn,  we  stood  at  a  fair  height  above 
|  Vienna. 

"  It  is  a  beautiful  city,  sir,"  said  Percie,  riding  up. 

"  How  the  deuce  could  she  have  escaped  ?"  said  I, 
thinking  aloud. 

"  Has  she  escaped,  sir  ?  Ah,  thank  Heaven  !"  ex- 
claimed the  passionate  boy,  the  tears  rushing  to  his 
eyes. 

"  Why,  Percie  !"  I  said  with  a  tone  of  surprise 
which  called  a  blush  into  his  face,  "  have  you  really 
found  leisure  to  fall  in  love  amid  all  this  imbroglio  ?'' 

"  I  beg  pardon,  my  dear  master !"  he  replied  in  a 
confused  voice,  "I  scarce  know  what  it  is  to  fall  in 
love  ;  but  I  would  die  for  Miladi  Iminild." 

"  Not  at  all  an  impossible  sequel,  my  poor  boy  ! 
But  wheel  about  and  touch  your  hat,  for  here  comes 
some  one  of  the  royal  family  !" 

A  horseman  was  approaching  at  an  easy  canter, 
over  the  broad  and  unfenced  plain  of  table-land  which 
overlooks  Vienna  on  the  south,  attended  by  six  mount- 
ed servants  in  the  white  kerseymere  frocks,  braided 
with  the  two-headed  black  eagle,  which  distinguish  the 
members  of  the  imperial  household. 

The  carriages  on  the  road  stopped  while  he  passed, 
the  foot-passengers  touched  their  caps,  and,  as  he  came 
near,  I  perceived  that  he  was  slight  and  young,  but 
rode  with  a  confidence  and  a  grace  not  often  attained. 
His  horse  had  the  subdued,  half-fiery  action  of  an 
A.rab,  and  Percie  nearly  dropped  from  his  saddle  when 
the   young    horseman  suddenly  drove    in    his  spurs, 


THE  BANDIT  OF  AUSTRIA. 


495 


and  with  almost  a  single  vault  stood  motionless  be- 
fore us. 

"  Monsieur  /" 

"  Madame  la  Contesse  .'" 

I  was  uncertain  how  to  receive  her,  and  took  refuge 
in  civility.  Whether  she  would  be  overwhelmed  with 
the  recollection  of  Yvain's  death,  or  had  put  away  the 
thought  altogether  with  her  masculine  firmness,  was 
a  dilemma  for  which  the  eccentric  contradictions  of 
her  character  left  me  no  probable  solution.  Motion- 
ing with  her  hand  after  saluting  me,  two  of  the  party 
rode  back  and  forward  in  different  directions,  as  if 
patrolling;  and  giving  a  look  between  a  tear  and  a 
smile  at  Percie,  she  placed  her  hand  in  mine,  and 
shook  off  her  sadness  with  a  strong  effort. 

"  You  did  not  expect  so  large  a  suite  with  your 
protegee"  she  said,  rather  gayly,  after  a  moment. 

41  Do  I  understand  that  you  come  now  to  put  your- 
self under  my  protection?"  I  asked  in  reply. 

"  Soon,  but  not  now,  nor  here.  I  have  a  hundred 
men  at  the  foot  of  Mount  Semering,  whose  future 
fate,  in  some  important  respects,  none  can  decide  but 
myself.  Yva'm  was  always  prepared  for  this,  and 
everything  is  en  train.  I  come  now  but  to  appoint  a 
place  of  meeting.  Quick  !  my  patrole  comes  in,  and 
some  one  approaches  whom  we  must  fly.  Can  you 
await  me  at  Gratz  ?"' 

"  I  can  and  will !" 

She  put  her  slight  hand  to  my  lips,  waved  a  kiss 
at  Percie,  and  away  with  the  speed  of  wind,  flew  her 
swift  Arab  over  the  plain,  followed  by  the  six  horse- 
men, every  one  of  whom  seemed  part  of  the  animal 
that  carried  him — he  rode  so  admirably- 

The  slight  figure  of  Iminild  in  the  close  fitting  dress 
of  a  Hungarian  page,  her  jacket  open  and  her  beauti- 
ful limbs  perfectly  defined,  silver  fringes  at  her  ankles 
and  waist,  and  a  row  of  silver  buttons  gallonne  down 
to  the  instep,  her  bright,  flashing  eyes,  her  short  curls 
escaping  from  her  cap  and  tangled  over  her  left  temple, 
with  the  gold  tassel,  dirk  and  pistol  at  her  belt  and 
spurs  upon  her  heels — it  was  an  apparition  I  had 
scarce  time  to  realize,  but  it  seemed  painted  on  my 
eyes.  The  cloud  of  dust  which  followed  their  rapid 
flight  faded  away  as  f  watched  it,  but  I  saw  her  still. 

"  Shall  I  ride  back  and  order  post-horses,  sir !" 
asked  Percie  standing  up  in  his  stirrups. 

"No  ;  but  you  may  order  dinner  at  six.  And  Per- 
cie !"  he  was  riding  away  with  a  gloomy  air  ;  "  you 
may  go  to  the  police  and  get  our  passports  for  Venice." 

"  By  the  way  of  Gratz,  sir!" 

"  Yes,  simpleton  !" 

There  is  a  difference  between  sixteen  and  twenty- 
six,  I  thought  to  myself,  as  the  handsome  boy  flogged 
his  horse  into  a  gallop.  The  time  is  gone  when  I 
could  love  without  reason.  Yet  1  remember  when  a 
feather,  stuck  jauntily  into  a  bonnet,  would  have  made 
any  woman  a  princess;  and  in  those  days.  Heaven  help 
tis  !  I  should  have  loved  this  woman  more  for  her 
galliardize  than  ten  times  a  prettier  one  with  all  the 
virtues  of  Dorcas.  For  which  of  my  sins  am  I  made 
guardian  to  a  robber's  wife,  I  wonder  ! 

The  heavy  German  postillions,  with  their  cocked 
hats  and  yellow  coats,  got  us  over  the  ground  after  a 
manner,  and  toward  the  sunset  of  a  summer's  evening 
the  tall  castle  of  Gratz,  perched  on  a  pinnacle  of  rock 
in  the  centre  of  a  vast  plain,  stood  up  boldly  against 
the  reddening  sky.  The  rich  fields  of  Styria  were 
ripening  to  an  early  harvest,  the  people  sat  at  their 
doors  with  the  look  of  household  happiness  for  which 
the  inhabitants  of  these  "despotic  countries"  are  so 
remarkable  ;  and  now  and  then  on  the  road  the  rattling 
of  steel  scabbards  drew  my  attention  from  a  book  or  a 
revery,  and  the  mounted  troops,  so  perpetually  seen 
on  the  broad  roads  of  Austria,  lingered  slowly  past 
with  their  dust  and  baggage-trains. 


It  had  been  a  long  summer's  day,  and,  contrary  to 
my  usual  practice,  I  had  not  mounted,  even  for  half  a 
post,  to  Percie's  side  in  the  rumble.  Out  of  humor 
with  fate  for  having  drawn  me  into  very  embarrassing 
circumstances — out  of  humor  with  myself  for  the 
quixotic  step  which  had  first  brought  it  on  me — and  a 
little  of  out  humor  with  Percie  (perhaps  from  an  un- 
acknowledged jealousy  of  Iminild's  marked  preference 
for  the  varlet),  I  left  him  to  toast  alone  in  the  sun, 
while  I  tried  to  forget  him  and  myself  in  "  Le  Marquis 
de  Pontangos."  What  a  very  clever  book  it  is,  by 
the  way ! 

The  pompous  sergeant  of  the  guard  performed  his 
office  upon  my  passport  at  the  gate — giving  me  at 
least  a  kreutzer  worth  of  his  majesty's  black  sand  in 
exchange  for  my  florin  and  my  English  curse  (I  said 
before  I  was  out  of  temper,  and  he  was  half  an  hour 
writing  his  abominable  name),  and  leaving  my  carriage 
and  Percie  to  find  their  way  together  to  the  hotel,  I 
dismounted  at  the  foot  of  a  steep  street  and  made  my 
way  to  the  battlements  of  the  castle,  in  search  of  scene- 
ry and  equanimity. 

Ah  !  what  a  glorious  landscape  !  The  precipitous 
rock  on  which  the  old  fortress  is  built  seems  dropped 
by  the  Titans  in  the  midst  of  a  plain,  extending  miles 
i  in  every  direction,  with  scarce  another  pebble.  Close 
at  its  base  run  the  populous  streets,  coiling  about  it 
like  serpents  around  a  pyramid,  and  away  from  the 
walls  of  the  city  spread  the  broad  fields,  laden,  as  far 
as  the  eye  can  see,  with  tribute  for  the  emperor!  The 
tall  castle,  with  its  armed  crest,  looks  down  among  the 
reapers. 

"  You  have  not  lost  your  friend  and  lover,  yet  you 
are  melancholy !"  said  a  voice  behind  me,  that  I  was 
scarce  startled  to  hear. 

"Is  it  you,  Iminild  ?" 

"  Scarce  the  same — forlmiuild  was  never  before  so 

sad.    It  is  something  in  the  sunset.    Come  away  while 

the  woman  keeps  down  in  me,  and  let  us  stroll  through 

the  Plaza,  where  the  band  is  playing.     Do  you  love 

;  military  music  ?" 

I   looked  at  the  costume  and  figure  of  the  extra 

ordinary   creature   before  I  ventured   with   her  on  s 

public  promenade.     She  was  dressed  like  one  of  thf 

travelling  apprentices  of  Germany,  with  cap  and  bleuzcr. 

and  had  assumed  the  air  of  the  craft  with  a  succes? 

absolutely  beyond  detection.     I  gave  her  my  arm  and 

we   sauntered    through   the   crowd,   listening    to    the 

thrilling  music  of  one  of  the  finest  bands  in  Germany. 

i  The   privileged   character  and   free    manners   of  the 

wandering  craftsmen  whose  dress  she  had   adopted, 

i  I   was   well   aware,  reconciled,  in  the  eyes  of  the  in- 

1  habitants,  the  marked  contrast  between  our  conditions 

in   life.     They  would  simply  have  said,  if  they  had 

made  a  remark  at  all,  that  the  Englishman  was  bon 

enfant  and  the  craftsman  bon  camarade. 

"  You  had  better  look  at  me,  messieurs  !"  said  the 
dusty  apprentice,  as  two  officers  of  the  regiment  passed 
and  gave  me  the  usual  strangers'  stare  ;  "lam  better 
worth  your  while  by  exactly  five  thousand  florins." 

"  And  pray  how  ?"  I  asked. 

"  That  price  is  set  on  my  head  !" 

"Heavens!  and  you  walk  here  !" 

"  They  kept  you  longer  than  usual  with  your  pass 
j  port,  I  presume  ?" 

"At  the  gate?  yes." 

"  I  came  in  with  my  pack  at  the  time.     They  have 
orders  to  examine  all  travellers  and   passports  with 
!  unusual  care,  these  sharp  officials!     But  I  shall  get 
j  out  as  easily  as  I  got  in  !" 

"  My  dear  countess!"  I  said,  in  a  tone  of  serious 
|  remonstrance,  "do  not  trifle  with  the  vigilance  of  the 
I  best  police  in  Europe !  I  am  your  guardian,  and  you 
owe  my  advice  some  respect.  Come  away  from  the 
I  square  and  let  us  talk  of  it  in  earnest." 
'        -Wise   seignior!    suffer  me  to   remind  you   how 


496 


THE  BANDIT  OF  AUSTRIA. 


deftly  I  slipped  through  the  fingers  of  these  gentry 
after  our  tragedy  in  Vienna,  and  pay  my  opinion  some 
respect!  It  was  my  vanity  that  brought  me,  with 
my  lackeys,  to  meet  you  a  la  prince  royale  so  near 
Vienna  ;  and  hence  this  alarm  in  the  police,  for  1  was 
seen  and  suspected.  I  have  shown  myself  to  you 
in  my  favorite  character,  however,  and  have  done 
with  such  measures.  You  shall  see  me  on  the  road 
to-morrow,  safe  as  the  heart  in  your  bosom.  Where 
is  Monsieur  Percie  !" 

"  At  the  hotel.  But  stay  !  can  I  trust  you  with 
yourself?" 

"  Yes,  and  dull  company,  too  !  A  revoir  .'" 
And  whistling  the  popular  air  of  the  craft  she  had 
assumed,  the  countess  Iminild  struck  her  long  staff 
on  the  pavement,  and  with  the  gait  of  a  tired  and 
habitual  pedestrian,  disappeared  by  a  narrow  street 
leading  under  the  precipitory  battlements  of  the 
castle. 

Percie  made  his  appearance  with  a  cup  of  coffee 
the  following  morning,  and,  with  the  intention  of  post- 
ing a  couple  of  leagues  to  breakfast,  I  hurried  through 
my  toilet  and  was  in  my  carriage  an  hour  after  sun- 
rise. The  postillion  was  in  his  saddle  and  only  waited 
for  Percie,  who,  upon  inquiry,  was  nowhere  to  be 
found.  I  sat  fifteen  minutes,  and  just  as  I  was  be- 
ginning to  be  alarmed  he  ran  into  the  large  court  of 
the  hotel,  and,  crying  out  to  the  postillions  that  all 
was  right,  jumped  into  his  place  with  an  agility, 
it  struck  me,  very  unlike  his  usual  gentlemanlike 
deliberation.  Determining  to  take  advantage  of  the 
first  up-hill  to  catechize  him  upon  his  matutinal  ram- 
bles, I  read  the  signs  along  the  street  till  we  pulled 
up  at  the  gate. 

Iminild's  communication  had  prepared  me  for  un- 
usual delay  with  my  passport,  and  I  was  not  surprised 
when  the  officer,  in  returning  it  to  me,  requested  me 
as  a  matter  of  form,  to  declare,  upon  my  honor,  that 
the  servant  behind  my  carriage  was  an  Englishman, 
and  the  person  mentioned  in  my  passport. 

"  Foi  d'honneur,  monsieur,"  I  said,  placing  my  hand 
politely  on  my  heart,  and  off  trotted  the  postillion, 
while  the  captain  of  the  guard,  flattered  with  my  civili- 
ty, touched  his  foraging-cap,  and  sent  me  a  German 
blessing  through  his  mustache. 

It  was  a  divine  morning,  and  the  fresh  and  dewy 
air  took  me  back  many  a  year,  to  the  days  when  1 
was  more  familiar  with  the  hour.  We  had  a  long 
Irajet  across  the  plain,  and  unlooping  an  antivibration 
tablet,  for  the  invention  of  which  my  ingenuity  took 
great  credit  to  itself  (suspended  on  caoutchouc  cords 
from  the  roof  of  the  carriage — and  deserving  of  a 
patent  I  trust  you  will  allow  !)  I  let  off  my  poetical 
vein  in  the  following  beginning  to  what  might  have 
turned  out,  but  for  the  interruption,  a  very  edifying 
copy  of  verses  : — 

'  Ye  are  not  what  ye  were  to  me, 

Oh  waning  night  and  morning  star  ! 
Though  silent  still  your  watches  flee 

Though  hang  yon  lamp  in  heaven  as  far— 

Though  live  the  thoughts  ye  fed  of  yore 

I'm  thine,  oh  starry  dawn,  no  more  ! 
Yet  to  that  dew-pearled  hour  alone 

I  was  not  folly's  blindest  child  ; 
It  came  when  wearied  mirth  had  flown, 

And  sleep  was  on  the  gay  and  wild ; 
And  wakeful  with  repentant  pain, 

I  lay  amid  its  lap  of  flowers, 
And  with  a  truant's  earnest  brain 

Turned  back  the  leaves  of  wasted  hours. 
The  angels  that  by  day  would  flee, 
Returned,  oh  morning  star  !  with  thee  ! 
Yet  now  again *      *      *      * 

A  foot  thrust  into  my  carriage-window  rudely  broke 
the  thread  of  these  delicate  musings.     The  postillion 


was  on  a  walk,  and  before  I  could  get  my  wits  back 
from  their  wool-gathering,  the  countess  Iminild,  in 
Percie's  clothes,  sat  laughing  on  the  cushion  beside 
me. 

"On  what  bird's  back  has  your  ladyship  descended 
from  the  clouds?"  I  asked  with  unfeigned  astonish- 
ment. 

"  The  same  bird  has  brought  us  both  down — c'est 
a  dire,  if  you  are  not  still  en  /'air,"  she  added,  looking 
from  my  scrawled  tablets  to  my  perplexed  face. 

"Are  you  really  and  really  the  countess  Iminild  ?" 
I  asked  with  a  smile,  looking  down  at  the  trowsered 
feet  and  loose-fitting  boots  of  the  pseudo-valet. 

"  Yes,  indeed  !  but  I  leave  it  to  you  to  swear, 
lfoi  d'honneur,''  that  a  born  countess  is  an  English 
valet !"  And  she  laughed  so  long  and  merrily  that 
the  postillion  looked  over  his  yellow  epaulets  in  as- 
tonishment. 

"  Kind,  generous  Percie  !'*  she  said,  changing  her 
tone  presently  to  one  of  great  feeling,  "  I  would  scarce 
believe  him  last  night  when  he  informed  me,  as  as  in- 
!  ducement  to  leave  him  behind,  that  he  was  only  a  ser- 
vant !     You  never  told  me  this.     But  he  is  a  gentle- 
J  man,  in  every  feeling  as  well  as  in  every  feature,  and, 
|  by  Heavens!  he  shall  be  a  menial  no  longer!" 

This  speech,  begun  with  much  tenderness,  rose, 
toward  the  close,  to  the  violence  of  passion ;  and 
folding  her  arms  with  an  air  of  defiance,  the  lady- 
outlaw  threw  herself  back  in  the  carriage. 

"  I  have  no  objection,"  I  said,  after  a  short  silence, 
"  that  Percie  should  set  up  for  a  gentleman.  Nature 
has  certainly  done  her  part  to  make  him  one  ;  but  till 
you  can  give  him  means  and  education,  the  coat  which 
you  wear,  with  such  a  grace,  is  his  safest  shell.  'Ants 
live  safely  till  they  have  gotten  wings,'  says  the  old 
proverb." 

The  blowing  of  the  postillion's  horn  interrupted  the 
argument,  and,  a  moment  after,  we  were  rolled  up, 
with  German  leisure,  to  the  door  of  the  small  inn  where 
I  had  designed  to  breakfast.  Thinking  it  probable 
that  the  people  of  the  house,  in  so  small  a  village, 
would  be  too  simple  to  make  any  dangerous  comments 
upon  our  appearance,  I  politely  handed  the  countess 
out  of  the  carriage,  and  ordered  plates  for  two. 

"  It  is  scarce  worth  while,"  she  said,  as  she  heard 
the  order,  "for  I  shall  remain  at  the  door  on  the  look 
out.  The  eil-waggen,  for  Trieste,  which  was  to  leave 
Gratz  an  hour  after  us,  will  be  soon  here,  and  (if  my 
friends  have  served  me  well),  Percie  in  it.  St.  Mary 
speed  him  safely!" 

She  strode  away  to  a  small  hillock  to  look  out  for  the 
lumbering  diligence,  with  a  gait  that  was  no  stranger 
to,  "doublet  and  hose."  It  soon  came  on  with  its 
usual  tempest  of  whip-cracking  and  bugle-blasts,  and 
nearly  overturning  a  fat  burgher,  who  would  have 
proffered  the  assistance  of  his  hand,  out  jumped  a 
petticoat,  which  I  saw,  at  a  glance,  gave  a  very  em- 
barrassed motion  to  gentleman  Percie. 

"  This  young  lady,"  said  the  countess,  dragging 
the  striding  and  unwilling  damsel  into  the  little  parlor 
where  I  was  breakfasting  "  travels  under  the  charge  of 
a  deaf  old  brazier,  who  has  been  requested  to  protect  her 
modesty  as  far  as  Laybach.     Make  a  courtesy,  child !" 

"I  beg  pardon,  sir!"  began  Percie. 

"  Hush,  hush!  no  English  .'  Walls  have  ears,  and 
your  voice  is  rather  gruffish,  mademoiselle.  Show 
me  your  passport?  Cunegunda  Von  Krakenpate, 
eighteen  years  of  age,  blue  eyes,  nose  and  chin  mid- 
dling, etc  !  Thereis  the  conductor's  horn  !  Allez 
vite !  We  meet  at  Laybach.  Adieu,  charwante 
femme!     Adieu!" 

And  with  the  sort  of  caricatured  elegance  which 
women  always  assume  in  their  imitations  of  our  sex, 
Countess  Iminild,  in  frock-coat  and  trowsers,  helped 
into  the  diligence,  in  hood  and  petticoat,  my  "  tiger' 
from  Cranbourne-alley  ! 


THE   BANDIT  OF  AUSTRIA. 


497 


CHAPTER  IV. 

Spite  of  remonstrance  on  my  part,  the  imperative 
countess,  who  had  asserted  her  authority  more  than 
once  on  our  way  to  Laybach,  insisted  on  the  com- 
pany of  Miss  Cunegunda  Von  Krakenpate,  in  an 
evening  walk  around  the  town.  Fearing  that  Per- 
cie's  masculine  stride  would  betray  him,  and  object- 
in"  to  lend  myself  to  a  farce  with  my  valet,  I  opposed 
the  freak  as  long  as  it  was  courteous — but  it  was  not 
the  first  time  I  had  learned  that  a  spoiled  woman 
would  have  her  own  way,  and  too  vexed  to  laugh,  I 
soberly  promenaded  the  broad  avenue  of  the  capital 
of  Styria,  with  a  valet  en  demoiselle,  and  a  dame  en 
valet. 

It  was  but  a  few  hours  hence  to  Planina,  and  Iminild, 
who  seemed  to  fear  no  risk  out  of  a  walled  city,  waited 
on  Percie  to  the  carriage  the  following  morning,  and 
in  a  few  hours  we  drove  up  to  the  rural  inn  of  this 
small  town  of  Littorale. 

I  had  been  too  much  out  of  humor  to  ask  the 
countess,  a  second  time,  what  errand  she  could  have 
in  so  rustic  a  neighborhood.  She  had  made  a  mystery 
of  it,  merely  requiring  of  me  that  I  should  defer  all 
arrangements  for  the  future,  as  far  as  she  was  concern- 
ed, tiil  we  had  visited  a  spot  in  Littorale,  upon  which 
her  fate  in  many  respects  depended.  After  twenty 
fruitless  conjectures,  1  abandoned  myself  to  the  course 
of  circumstances,  reserving  ODly  the  determination,  if  it 
should  prove  a  haunt  of  Yvain's  troop,  to  separate  at 
once  from  her  company  and  await  her  at  Trieste. 

Our  dinner  was  preparing  at  the  inn,  and  tired  of 
the  embarrassment  Percie  exhibited  in  my  presence, 
I  walked  out  and  seated  myself  under  an  immense 
linden,  that  every  traveller  will  remember,  standing 
in  the  centre  of  the  motley  and  indescribable  clusters 
of  buildings,  which  serve  the  innkeeper  and  black- 
smith of  Planina  for  barns,  forge,  dwelling,  and  out- 
houses. The  tree  seems  the  father  of  the  village. 
It  was  a  hot  afternoon,  and  I  was  compelled  to  dis- 
pute the  shade  with  a  congregation  of  cows  and  double- 
jointed  posthorses ;  but  finding  a  seat  high  up  on  the 
root,  at  last  I  busied  myself  with  gazing  down  the 
road,  and  conjecturing  what  a  cloud  of  dust  might  con- 
tain, which,  in  an  opposite  direction  from  that  which 
we  had  come,  was  slowly  creeping  onward  to  the  inn. 

Four  roughly-harnessed  horses  at  length,  appeared, 
with  their  traces  tied  over  their  backs — one  of  them 
ridden  by  a  man  in  a  farmer's  frock.  They  struck  me 
at  first  as  fine  specimens  of  the  German  breed  of 
draught-horses,  with  their  shaggy  fetlocks  and  long 
manes ;  but  while  they  drank  at  the  trough  which 
stood  in  the  shade  of  the  linden,  the  low  tone  in  which 
the  man  checked  their  greedy  thirst,  and  the  instant 
obedience  of  the  well-trained  animals,  awakened  at 
once  my  suspicions  that  we  were  to  become  better 
acquainted.  A  more  narrow  examination  convinced 
me  that,  covered  with  dust  and  disguised  with  coarse 
harness  as  they  were,  they  were  four  horses  of  such 
bone  and  condition,  as  were  never  seen  in  a  farmer's 
stables.  The  rider  dismounted  at  the  inn  door,  and 
very  much  to  the  embarrassment  of  my  suppositions, 
the  landlord,  a  stupid  and  heavy  Boniface,  greeted  him 
with  the  familiarity  of  an  old  acquaintance,  and  in  an- 
swer, apparently  to  an  inquiry,  pointed  to  my  carriage, 
and  led  him  into  the  house. 

"  Monsieur  Tyrell,"  said  Iminild,  coming  out  to 
me  a  moment  after,  "  a  servant  whom  I  had  expected 
has  arrived  with  my  horses,  and  with  your  consent, 
they  shall  be  put  to  your  carriage  immediately." 
"  To  take  us  where?" 
"  To  our  place  of  destination." 
"  Too  indefinite,  by  half,  countess  !     Listen  to  me! 
I  have  very  sufficient  reason  to  fancy  that,  in  leaving 
the  post-road  to  Trieste,  I  shall  leave  the  society  of 
honest  men.     You  and  your  l  minions  of  the  moon' 
32 


may  be  very  pleasant,  but  you  are  not  very  safe  com- 
panions ;  and  having  really  a  wish  to  die  quietly  in 
my  bed — " 

The  countess  burst  into  a  laugh. 

"  If  you  will  have  the  character  of  the  gentleman 
you  are  about  to  visit  from  the  landlord  here — " 

"  Who  is  one  of  your  ruffians  himself,  I'll  be  sworn !" 

"  No,  on  my  honor !  A  more  innocent  old  beer- 
guzzler  lives  not  on  the  road.  But  I  will  tell  you 
thus  much,  and  it  ought  to  content  you.  Ten  miles 
to  the  west  of  this  dwells  a  country  gentleman,  who, 
the  landlord  will  certify,  is  as  honest  a  subject  of  his 
gracious  majesty  as  is  to  be  found  in  Littorale.  He 
lives  freely  on  his  means,  and  entertains  strangers 
occasionally  from  all  countries,  for  he  has  been  a 
traveller  in  his  time.  You  are  invited  to  pass  a  day 
or  two  with  this  Mynheer  Krakenpate  (who,  by  the 
way,  has  no  objection  to  pass  for  father  of  the  young 
lady  you  have  so  kindly  brought  from  Laybach), 
and  he  has  sent  you  his  horses,  like  a  generous  host, 
to  bring  you  to  his  door.  More  seriously,  this  was 
a  retreat  of  Yvain's,  where  he  would  live  quietly  and 
play  bon  citoyen,  and  you  have  nothing  earthly  to  fear 
in  accompanying  me  thither.  And  now  will  you  wait 
and  eat  the  greasy  meal  you  have  ordered,  or  will  you 
save  your  appetite  for  la  fortune  de  pot  at  Mynheer 
Krakenpate's,  and  get  presently  on  the  road !" 

I  yielded  rather  to  the  seducing  smile  and  capti- 
vating beauty  of  my  pleasing  ward,  than  to  any  con- 
fidence in  the  honesty  of  Mynheer  Krakenpate  ;  and 
Percie  being  once  more  ceremoniously  handed  in,  we 
left  the  village  at  the  sober  trot  becoming  the  fat  steeds 
of  a  landholder.  A  quarter  of  a  mile  of  this  was  quite 
sufficient  for  Iminild,  and  a  word  to  the  postillion 
changed,  like  a  metamorphosis,  both  horse  and  rider. 
From  a  heavy  unelastic  figure,  he  rose  into  a  gallant 
and  withy  horseman,  and,  with  one  of  his  low-spoken 
words,  away  flew  the  four  compact  animals,  treading 
lightly  as  cats,  and.  with  the  greatest  apparent  ease, 
putting  us  over  the  ground  at  the  rate  of  fourteen 
miles  in  the  hour. 

The  dust  was  distanced,  a  pleasant  breeze  was 
created  by  the  motion,  and  when  at  last  we  turned 
from  the  main  road,  and  sped  off  to  the  right  at  the 
same  exhilarating  pace,  I  returned  Iminild's  arch 
look  of  remonstrance  with  my  best-humored  smile 
and  an  affectionate  je  me  fie  a  vous!  Miss  Krakenpate, 
I  observed,  echoed  the  sentiment  by  a  slight  pressure 
of  the  countess's  arm,  looking  very  innocently  out  of 
the  window  all  the  while. 

A  couple  of  miles,  soon  done,  brought  us  round  the 
face  of  a  craggy  precipice,  forming  the  brow  of  a  hill, 
and  with  a  continuation  of  the  turn,  we  drew  up  at  the 
gate  of  a  substantial-looking  building,  something  be- 
tween a  villa  and  a  farm-house,  built  against  the  rock, 
as  if  for  the  purpose  of  shelter  from  the  north  winds. 
Two  beautiful  Angora  hounds  sprang  out  at  the  noise, 
and  recognised  Iminild  through  all  her  disguise,  and 
presently,  with  a  look  offorced  courtesy,  as  if  not  quite 
sure  whether  he  might  throw  oft'  the  mask,  a  stout 
man  of  about  fifty,  hardly  a  gentleman,  yet  above  a 
common  peasant  in  his  manners,  stepped  forward  from 
the  garden  to  give  Miss  Krakenpate  his  assistance  in 
alighting. 

"Dinner  in  half  an  hour!"  was  Iminild's  brief 
greeting,  and,  stepping  between  her  bowing  dependant 
and  Percie,  she  led  the  way  into  the  house. 

I  was  shown  into  a  chamber,  furnished  scarce  above 
the  common  style  of  a  German  inn,  where  I  made  a 
hungry  man's  despatch  in  my  toilet,  and  descended 
at  once  to  the  parlor.  The  doors  were  all  open  upon 
the  ground  floor,  and,  finding  myself  quite  alone,  I 
sauntered  from  room  to  room,  wondering  at  the  scanti- 
ness of  the  furniture  and  general  air  of  discomfort,  and 
scarce  able  to  believe  that  the  same  mistress  presided 
over   this  and   the  singular  paradise  in  which  I  had 


498 


THE  BANDIT  OF  AUSTRIA. 


first  found  her  at  Vienna.  After  visiting  every  corner 
of  the  ground  floor  with  a  freedom  which  I  assumed  in 
my  character  as  guardian,  it  occurred  to  me  that  I 
had  not  yet  found  the  dining-room,  and  I  was  making 
a  new  search,  when  Iminild  entered. 

I  have  said  she  was  a  beautiful  woman.  She  was 
dressed  now  in  the  Albanian  costume,  with  the  addi- 
tional gorgeousness  of  gold  embroidery,  which  might 
distinguish  the  favorite  child  of  a  chief  of  Suli.  It 
was  tlie  male  attire,  with  a  snowy  white  juktanilla 
reaching  to  the  knee,  a  short  jacket  of  crimson  velvet, 
and  a  close-buttoned  vest  of  silver  cloth,  fitting  ad- 
mirably to  her  girlish  bust,  and  leaving  her  slender  and 
pearly  neck  to  rise  bare  and  swan-like  into  the  masses 
of  her  clustering  hair.  Her  slight  waist  was  defined 
by  the  girdle  of  fine  linen  edged  with  fringe  of  gold, 
which  was  tied  coquettishly  over  her  left  side  and  fell 
to  her  ankle,  and  below  the  embroidered  leggin  appear- 
ed the  fairy  foot,  which  had  drawn  upon  me  all  this 
long  train  of  adventure,  thrust  into  a  Turkish  slipper 
with  a  sparkling  emerald  on  its  instep.  A.  feroniere 
of  the  yellowest  gold  sequins  bound  her  hair  back 
from  her  temples,  and  this  was  the  only  confinement 
to  the  dark  brown  meshes  which,  in  wavy  lines  and 
in  the  richest  profusion,  fell  almost  to  her  feet.  The 
only  blemish  to  this  vision  of  loveliness  was  a  flush 
about  her  eyes.  The  place  had  recalled  Yvain  to  her 
memory. 

"  I  am  about  to  disclose  to  you  secrets,"  said  she, 
laying  her  hand  on  my  arm,  "  which  have  never  been 
revealed  but  to  the  most  trusty  of  Yvain's  confederates. 
To  satisfy  those  whom  you  will  meet  you  must  swear 
to  me  on  the  same  cross  which  he  pressed  to  your  lips 
when  dying,  that  you  will  never  violate,  while  I  live, 
the  trust  we  repose  in  you." 

"  I  will  take  no  oath,"  I  said  ;  "  for  you  are  leading 
me  blindfolded.  If  you  are  not  satisfied  with  the 
assurance  that  I  can  betray  no  confidence  which  honor 
would  preserve,  hungry  as  I  am,  I  will  yet  dine  in 
Planina." 

"  Then  I  will  trust  to  the  faith  of  an  Englishman. 
And  now  I  have  a  favor,  not  to  beg,  but  to  insist  upon 
— that  from  this  moment  you  consider  Percie  as  dis- 
missed from  your  service,  and  treat  him,  while  here 
at  least,  as  my  equal  and  friend." 

"  Willingly!"  I  said;  and  as  the  word  left  my  lips, 
enter  Percie  in  the  counterpart  dress  of  Iminild,  with 
a  silver-sheathed  ataghan  at  his  side,  and  the  bluish 
muzzles  of  a  pair  of  Egg's  hair-triggers  peeping  from 
below  his  girdle.  To  do  the  rascal  justice,  he  was  as 
handsome  in  his  new  toggery  as  his  mistress,  and  carried 
it  as  gallantly.  They  would  have  made  the  prettiest 
tableau  as  Juan  and  Haidee. 

"  Is  there  any  chance  that  these  '  persuaders'  may 
be  necessary,"  I  asked,  pointing  to  his  pistols  which 
awoke  in  my  mind  a  momentary  suspicion. 

"  No— none  that  I  can  foresee— but  they  are  loaded. 
A  favorite,  among  men  whose  passions  are  profession- 
ally wild,"  she  continued  with  a  meaning  glance  at 
Percie  ;  "  should  be  ready  to  lay  his  hand  on  them, 
even  if  stirred  in  his  sleep  !" 

I  had  been  so  accustomed  to  surprises  of  late,  that 
I  scarce  started  to  observe,  while  Iminild  was  speak- 
ing, that  an  old-fashioned  clock,  which  stood  in  a 
niche  in  the  wall,  was  slowly  swinging  out  upon 
hinges.  A  narrow  aperture  of  sufficient  breadth  to 
admit  one  person  at  a  time,  was  disclosed  when  it 
had  made  its  entire  revolution,  and  in  it  stood,  with 
a  lighted  torch,  the  stout  landlord  Von  Krakenpate. 
Iminild  looked  at  me  an  instant  as  if  to  enjoy  my 
surprise. 

"  Will  you  lead  me  in  to  dinner,  Mr.  Tyrell?"  she 
said  at  last,  with  a  laugh. 

"  If  we  are  to  follow  Mynheer  Von  Krakenpate,"  I 
replied,  "  give  me  hold  of  the  skirt  of  your  juktanilla, 
rather,  and  let  me  follow  !     Do  we  dine  in  the  cellar  ?" 


I  stepped  before  Percie,  who  was  inclined  to  take 
advantage  of  my  hesitation  to  precede  me,  and  fol- 
lowed the  countess  into  the  opening,  which,  from 
the  position  of  the  house,  I  saw  must  lead  directly 
into  the  face  of  the  rock.  Two  or  three  descending 
steps  convinced  me  that  it  was  a  natural  opening  en- 
larged by  art ;  and  after  one  or  two  sharp  turns,  and 
a  descent  of  perhaps  fifty  feet,  we  came  to  a  door 
which,  suddenly  flung  open  by  our  torch-bearer, 
deluged  the  dark  passage  with  a  blaze  of  light  which 
the  eyesight  almost  refused  to  bear.  Recovering 
from  my  amazement,  I  stepped  over  the  threshold 
of  the  door,  and  stood  upon  a  carpet  in  a  gallery  of 
sparkling  stalactites,  the  dazzling  reflection  of  innu- 
merable lamps  flooding  the  air  around,  and  a  long 
snow-white  vista  of  the  same  brilliancy  and  effect 
stretching  downward  before  me.  Two  ridges  of 
the  calcareous  strata  running  almost  parallel  over 
our  heads,  formed  the  cornices  of  the  descending 
corridor,  and  from  these,  with  a  regularity  that 
seemed  like  design,  the  sparkling  pillars,  white  as 
alabaster,  and  shaped  like  inverted  cones,  dropped 
nearly  to  the  floor,  their  transparent  points  resting  on 
the  peaks  of  the  corresponding  stalagmites,  which,  of 
a  darker  hue  and  coarser  grain,  seemed  designed  as 
bases  to  a  new  order  of  architectural  columns.  The 
reflection  from  the  pure  crystalline  rock  gave  to  this 
singular  gallery  a  splendor  which  only  the  palace  of 
Aladdin  could  have  equalled.  The  lamps  were  hung 
between  in  irregular  but  effective  ranges,  and  in  our 
descent,  like  Thalaba,  who  refreshed  his  dazzled  eyes 
in  the  desert  of  snow  by  looking  on  the  green  wings  of 
the  spirit  bird,  I  was  compelled  to  bend  my  eyes  per- 
petually for  relief  upon  the  soft,  dark  masses  of  hair 
which  floated  upon  the  lovely  shoulders  of  Iminild. 

At  the  extremity  of  the  gallery  we  turned  short  to 
the  right,  and  followed  an  irregular  passage,  some- 
times so  low  that  we  could  scarce  stand  upright,  but 
all  lighted  with  the  same  intense  brilliancy,  and  formed 
of  the  same  glittering  and  snow-white  substance.  We 
had  been  rambling  on  thus  far  perhaps  ten  minutes, 
when  suddenly  the  air,  which  I  had  felt  uncomfort- 
ably chili,  grew  warm  and  soft,  and  the  low  reverbera- 
tion of  running  water  fell  delightfully  on  our  ears. 
Far  ahead  we  could  see  two  sparry  columns  standing 
close  together,  and  apparently  closing  up  the  way. 

"  Courage!  my  venerable  guardian  !"  cried  Iminild, 
laughing  over  her  shoulder ;  "  you  will  see  your  dinner 
presently.     Are  you  hungry,  Percie  ?" 

"  Not  while  you  look  back,  Madame  la  Comtesse  !" 
answered  the  callow  gentleman,  with  an  instinctive 
tact  at  his  new  vocation. 

We  stood  at  the  two  pillars  which  formed  the  ex- 
tremity of  the  passage,  and  looked  down  upon  a  scene 
of  which  all  description  must  be  faint  and  imperfect. 
A  hundred  feet  below  ran  a  broad  subterraneous  river, 
whose  waters  sparkling  in  the  blaze  of  a  thousand 
torches,  sprang  into  light  from  the  deepest  darkness, 
crossed  with  foaming  rapidity  the  bosom  of  the  vast 
illuminated  cavern,  and  disappeared  again  in  the  same 
inscrutable  gloom.  Whence  it  came  or  whither  it 
fled  was  a  mystery  beyond  the  reach  of  the  eye.  The 
deep  recesses  of  the  cavern  seemed  darker  for  the  in- 
tense light  gathered  about  the  centre. 

After  the  first  few  minutes  of  bewilderment,  I  en- 
deavored to  realize  in  detail  the  wondrous  scene  be- 
fore me.  The  cavern  was  of  an  irregular  shape,  but 
all  studded  above  with  the  same  sparry  incrustation, 
thousands  upon  thousands  of  pendent  stalactites  glit- 
tering on  the  roof,  and  showering  back  light  upon  the 
clusters  of  blazing  torches  fastened  everywhere  upon 
the  shelvy  sides.  Here  and  there  vast  columns, 
alabaster  white,  with  bases  of  gold  color,  fell  from  the 
roof  to  the  floor,  like  pillars  left  standing  in  the  ruined 
aisle  of  a  cathedral,  and  from  corner  to  corner  ran 
their  curtains  of  the  same  brilliant  calcareous  spar. 


THE  BANDIT  OF  AUSTRIA. 


499 


shaped  like  the  sharp  edge  of  a  snow-drift,  and  almost 
while.  It  was  like  laying  bare  the  palace  of  some 
king-wizard  of  the  mine  to  gaze  down  upon  it. 

'•  What  think  you  of  Mynheer  Krakenpate's  taste 
in  a  dining-room,  Monsieur  Tyrell  I"  asked  the  count- 
ess,  who  stood   between   Percie  and   myself,   with  a  '. 
hand  on  the  shoulder  of  each. 

I  had  scarce  found  time,  as  yet,  to  scrutinize  the  I 
artificial  portion  of  the  marvellous  scene,  but,  at  the  i 
question  of  Iminild,  I  bent  my  gaze  on  a  broad  plat- 
form, rising  high  above  the  river  on  its  opposite  bank, 
the  rear  of  which  was  closed  in   by  perhaps  forty  ir- 
regular columns,  leaving  between  them  and  the  sharp 
precipice  on  the  river-side,  an  area,  in  height  and  ex-  ! 
tent  of  about  the  capacity  of  a   ball-room.     A   rude 
bridge,  of  very   light  construction,   rose  in  a  single 
arch  across  the  river,  forming  the  only  possible  access  j 
to  the   platform  from  the  side   where  we  stood,  and,  j 
following  the  path   back  with  my  eye,  I  observed  a 
narrow  and  spiral  staircase,  partly  of  wood  and  partly  j 
cut  in  the  rock,  ascending  from  the  bridge  to  the  galle-  j 
ry  we  had  followed  hither.     The  platform  was  carpet-  I 
ed   richly,  and   flooded  with  intense  light,  and   in  its 
centre  stood   a   gorgeous   array  of  smoking   dishes,  j 
served  after  the  Turkish  fashion,  with  a  cloth  upon 
the  floor,  and  surrounded  with  cushions  and  ottomans 
of  every  shape  and  color.     A  troop  of  black  slaves,  j 
whose  silver  anklets,  glittered  as  they   moved,  were 
busy  bringing  wines  and  completing  the  arrangements  : 
for  the  meal. 

"  Allons,  mignon  /"cried  Iminild,  getting  impatient 
and  seizing  Percie's  arm,  "  let  us  get  over  the  river, 
and  perhaps  Mr.  Tyrell  will  look  down  upon  us  with 
his  grands  yeux  while  we  dine.  Oh,  you  will  come 
with  us  !     Suivcz  done!" 

An  iron  door,  which  I  had  not  hitherto  observed, 
let  us  out  from  the  gallery  upon  the  staircase,  and  [ 
Mynheer  Von  Krakenpate  carefully  turned  the  key  j 
behind  us.  We  crept  slowly  down  the  narrow  stair-  i 
case  and  reached  the  edge  of  the  river,  where  the 
warm  air  from  the  open  sunshine  came  pouring  through 
the  cavern  with  the  current,  bringing  with  it  a  smell 
of  green  fields  and  flowers,  and  removing  entirely  the 
chill  of  the  cavernous  and  confined  atmosphere  I  had 
found  so  uncomfortable  above.  We  crossed  the 
bridge,  and  stepping  upon  the  elastic  carpets  piled 
thickly  on  the  platform,  arranged  ourselves  about  the 
smoking  repast,  Mynheer  Von  Krakenpate  sitting  down 
after  permission  from  Iminild,  and  Percie  by  order  of 
the  same  imperative  dictatress,  throwing  his  graceful 
length  at  her  feet. 


CHAPTER  V. 

"  Take  a  lesson  in  flattery  from  Percie,  Mr.  Tyrell, 
and  be  satisfied  with  your  bliss  in  my  society  without 
asking  for  explanations.  I  would  fain  have  the  use 
of  my  tongue  (to  swallow)  for  ten  minutes,  and  I  see 
you  making  up  your  mouth  for  a  question.  Try  this 
pilau  !  It  is  made  by  a  Greek  cook,  who  fries,  boils, 
and  stews,  in  a  kitchen  with  a  river  for  a  chimney." 

•'  Precisely  what  I  was  going  to  ask  you.  1  was 
wondering  how  you  cook  without  smoking  your  snow- 
white  roof." 

"  Yes,  the  river  is  a  good  slave,  and  steals  wood  as 
well.  We  have  only  to  cut  it  by  moonlight  and  com- 
mit it  to  the  current." 

"  The  kitchen  is  down  stream,  then  ?" 
"Down  stream;  and  down  stream  lives  jolly  Per- 
dicaris  the  cook,  who  having  lost  his  nose  in  a  sea- 
fiiht,  is  reconciled  to  forswear  sunshine  and  mankind, 
and  cook  rice  for  pirates." 

"  Is  it  true  then  that  Yvain  held  command  on  the 


"No,  not  Yvain,  but  Tranchcoeur — his  equal  in 
command  over  this  honest  confederacy.  By  the  way, 
he  is  your  countryman,  Mr.  Tyrell,  though  he  fights 
under  a  nom  de  guerre.  You  are  very  iikely  to  see 
him,  too,  for  his  bark  is  at  Trieste,  and  he  is  the  only 
human  being  besides  myself  (and  my  company  here) 
who  can  come  and  go  at  will  in  this  robber's  paradise. 
He  is  a  lover  of  mine,  parbleu  !  and  since  Yvain's 
death,  Heaven  knows  what  fancy  he  may  bring  hith- 
er in  his  hot  brain!  I  have  armed  Percie  for  the 
hazard?" 

The  thin  nostrils  of  my  friend  from  Cranbourne- 
alley  dilated  with  prophetic  dislike  of  a  rival  thus 
abruptly  alluded  to,  and  there  was  that  in  his  face 
which  would  have  proved,  against  all  the  nurses' 
oaths  in  Christendom,  that  the  spirit  of  a  gentleman's 
blood  ran  warm  through  his  heart.  Signor  Tranch- 
coeur must  be  gentle  in  his  suit,  I  said  to  myself, 
or  he  will  find  what  virtue  lies  in  a  hair-trigger! 
Percie  had  forgot  to  eat  since  the  mention  of  the 
pirate's  name,  and  sat  with  folded  arms  and  his  right 
hand  on  his  pistol. 

A  black  slave  brought  in  an  omelette  soufflee,  as 
light  and  delicate  as  the  chef-d'eeuvre  of  an  artiste  in 
the  Palais  Royal.  Iminild  spoke  to  him  in  Greek,  as 
he  knelt  and  placed  it  before  her. 

"I  have  a  presentiment,"  she  said,  looking  at  me 
as  the  slave  disappeared,  "  that  Tranchcoeur  will  be 
here  presently.  I  have  ordered  another  omelette  on  the 
strength  of  the  feeling,  for  he  is  fond  of  it,  and  may  be 
soothed  by  the  attention." 

"You  fear  him,  then  ?" 

"  Not  if  I  were  alone,  for  he  is  as  gentle  as  a  woman 
when  he  has  no  rival  near  him — but  I  doubt  his  relish 
of  Percie.     Have  you  dined  ?" 

"  Quite." 

"  Then  come  and  look  at  my  garden,  and  have  a 
peep  at  old  Perdicaris.  Stay  here,  Percie,  and  finish 
your  grapes,  mon-mignon  !  I  have  a  word  to  say  to 
Mr.  Tyrell." 

We  walked  across  the  platform,  and  passing  be- 
tween two  of  the  sparry  columns  forming  its  bound- 
ary, entered  upon  a  low  passage  which  led  to  a  large 
opening,  resembling  singularly  a  garden  of  low  shrubs 
turned  by  some  magic  to  sparkling  marble. 

Two  or  three  hundred  of  these  stalagmite  cones, 
formed  by  the  dripping  of  calcareous  water  from  the 
roof  (as  those  on  the  roof  were  formed  by  the  same 
fluid  which  hardened  and  pondered),  stood  about  in 
the  spacious  area,  every  shrub  having  an  answering 
cone  on  the  roof,  like  the  reflection  of  the  same  mar- 
ble garden  in  a  mirror.  One  side  of  this  singular 
apartment  was  used  as  a  treasury  for  the  spoils  of  the 
band,  and  on  the  points  of  the  white  cones  hung 
pitchers  and  altar  lamps  of  silver,  gold  drinking-cups. 
and  chains,  and  plate  and  jewellery  of  every  age  and 
description.  Farther  on  were  piled,  in  unthrifty  con- 
fusion, heaps  of  velvets  and  silks,  fine  broadcloths, 
French  gloves,  shoes,  and  slippers,  brocades  of  Genoa, 
pieces  of  English  linen,  damask  curtains  still  fasten- 
ed to  their  cornices,  a  harp  and  mandolin,  cases  of 
damaged  bons-bons,  two  or  three  richly-bound  books, 
and  (last  and  most  valuable  in  my  eyes),  a  miniature 
bureau,  evidently  the  plunder  of  some  antiquary's 
treasure,  containing  in  its  little  drawers  antique  gold 
coins  of  India,  carefully  dated  and  arranged,  with  a 
list  of  its  contents  half  torn  from  the  lid. 

"You  should  hear  Tranchcoeur's  sermons  on 
these  pretty  texts,"  said  the  countess,  trying  to  thrust 
open  a  bale  of  Brusa  silk  with  her  Turkish  slipper. 

"He  will  beat  oft"  the  top  of  a  stalagmite  with  his 
sabre-hilt,  and  sit  down  and  talk  over  his  spoils  and  the 
adventures  they  recall,  till  morning  dawns." 

"  And  how  is  that  discovered  in  this  sunless  cave  ?" 

"  By  the  perfume.  The  river  brings  news  of  it, 
and  fills  the  cavern  with  the  sun's  first  kisses.     Those 


500 


THE  BANDIT  OF  AUSTRIA. 


violets  '  kiss  and  tell,'  Mr.  Tyrell !  Apropos  des 
bottes,  let  us  look  into  the  kitchen." 

We  turned  to  the  right,  keeping  on  the  same  level, 
and  a  few  steps  brought  us  to  the  brow  of  a  consider- 
able descent  forming  the  lower  edge  of  the  carpeted 
platform,  but  separated  from  it  by  a  wall  of  close 
stalactites.  At  the  bottom  of  the  descent  ran  the 
river,  but  just  along  the  brink,  forming  a  considerable 
crescent,  extended  a  flat  rock,  occupied  by  all  the 
varied  implements  of  a  kitchen,  and  lighted  by  the 
glare  of  two  or  three  different  fires  blazing  against 
the  perpendicular  limit  of  the  cave.  The  smoke  of 
these  followed  the  inclination  of  the  wall,  and  was 
swept  entirely  down  with  the  current  of  the  river. 
At  the  nearest  fire  stood  Perdicaris,  a  fat,  long-haired 
and  sinister-looking  rascal,  his  noseless  face  glowing 
with  the  heat,  and  at  his  side  waited,  with  a  silver 
dish,  the  Nubian  slave  who  had  been  sent  for  Tranch- 
coeur's  omelette. 

"  One  of  the  most  bloody  fights  of  my  friend  the 
rover,"  said  Iminild,  "  was  with  an  armed  slaver,  from 
whom  he  took  these  six  pages  of  mine.  They  have 
reason  enough  to  comprehended  an  order,  but  too 
little  to  dream  of  liberty.  They  are  as  contented  as 
tortoises,  za-6as." 

"  Is  there  no  egress  hence  but  by  the  iron  door  ?" 

"  None  that  I  know  of,  unless  one  could  swim  up 
this  swift  river  like  a  salmon.  You  may  have  sur- 
mised by  this  time,  that  we  monopolize  an  unexplored 
part  of  the  great  cave  of  Adelsberg.  Common  report 
says  it  extends  ten  miles  under  ground,  but  common 
report  has  never  burrowed  as  far  as  this,  and  I  doubt 
whether  there  is  any  communication.  Father  Kraken- 
pate's  clock  conceals  an  entrance,  discovered  first  by 
robbers,  and  handed  down  by  tradition,  Heaven  knows 
how  long.  But — hark  !  Tranchcceur,  by  Heaven! 
my  heart  foreboded  it !" 

I  sprang  after  the  countess,  who,  with  her  last  ex- 
clamation, darted  between  twoof  the  glitteringcolumns 
separating  us  from  the  platform,  and  my  first  glance 
convinced  me  that  her  fullest  anticipations  of  the 
pirate's  jealousy  were  more  than  realized.  Percie 
stood  with  his  back  to  a  tall  pillar  on  the  farther  side, 
with  his  pistol  levelled,  calm  and  immoveable  as  a 
stalactite;  and,  with  his  sabre  drawn  and  his  eyes 
flashing  fire,  a  tall  powerfully-built  man  in  a  sailors 
dress,  was  arrested  by  Iminild  in  the  act  of  rushing  on 
him.  "Stop!  or  you  die,  Tranchcceur!"  said  the 
countess,  in  a  tone  of  trifling  command.  "  He  is  my 
guest!" 

"  He  is  my  prisoner,  madame  !"  was  the  answer,  as 
the  pirate  changed  his  position  to  one  of  perfect  repose 
and  shot  his  sabre  into  his  sheath,  as  if  a  brief  delay 
could  make  little  difference. 

"  We  shall  see  that,"  said  the  countess,  once  inore, 
with  as  soft  a  voice  as  was  ever  heard  in  a  lady's 
boudoir;  and  stepping  to  the  edge  of  the  platform, 
she  touched  with  her  slipper  a  suspended  gong,  which 
sent  through  the  cavern  a  shrill  reverberation  heard 
clearly  over  the  rushing  music  of  the  river. 

In  an  instant  the  click  of  forty  muskets  from  the 
other  side  fell  on  our  ears ;  and,  at  a  wave  of  her 
hand,  the  butts  rattled  on  the  rocks,  and  all  was  still 
again. 

"  I  have  not  trusted  myself  within  your  reach, 
Monsieur  Tranchcceur,"  said  Iminild,  flinging  herself 
carelessly  on  an  ottoman,  and  motioning  to  Percie  to 
keep  his  stand,  "  without  a  score  or  two  of  my  free- 
riders  from  Mount  Semering  to  regulate  your  con- 
science. I  am  mistress  here,  sir!  You  may  sit 
down !" 

Tranchcceur  had  assumed  an  air  of  the  most  gen- 
tlemanly tranquillity,  and  motioning  to  one  of  the 
slaves  for  his  pipe,  he  politely  begged  pardon  for 
smoking  in  the  countess's  presence,  and  filled  the 
enamelled  bowl  with  Shiraz  tobacco. 


"You  heard  of  Yvain's  death  ?"  she  remarked  after 
a  moment  passing  her  hand  over  her  eyes. 

"  Yes,  at  Venice." 

"  With  his  dying  words,  he  gave  me  and  mine  in 
charge  to  this  Englishman.  Mr.  Tyrell,  Monsieur 
Tranchcceur." 

The  pirate  bowed. 

"  Have  you  been  long  from  England  ?"  he  askea 
with  an  accent  and  voice  that  even  in  that  brief 
question,  savored  of  the  nonchalant  English  of  the 
west  end. 

"  Two  years  1"  I  answered. 

"  I  should  have  supposed  much  longer  from  your 
chivalry  in  St.Etienne,  Mr.  Tyrell.  My  countrymen 
generally  are  less  hasty.  Your  valet  there,"  he  con- 
tinued, looking  sneeringly  at  Percie,  "seems  as  quick 
on  the  trigger  as  his  master." 

Percie  turned  on  his  heel,  and  walked  to  the  edge 
of  the  platform  as  if  uneasy  at  the  remark,  and  Iminild 
rose  to  her  feet. 

"Look  you,  Tranchcceur!  I'll  have  none  of  your 
sneers.  That  youth  is  as  well-born  and  better  bred 
than  yourself,  and  with  his  consent,  shall  have  the 
authority  of  the  holy  church  ere  long  to  protect  my 
property  and  me.  Will  you  aid  me  in  this,  Mr. 
Tyrell  ?" 

"  Willingly,  countess  !" 

"  Then,  Tranchcceur,  farewell  !  I  have  withdrawn 
from  the  common  stock  Yvain's  gold  and  jewels,  and 
I  trust  to  your  sense  of  honor  to  render  me  at  Venice 
whatever  else  of  his  private  property  may  be  concealed 
in  the  island." 

"  Iminild  !"  cried  the  pirate,  springing  to  his  feet. 
"I  did  not  think  to  show  a  weakness  before  this 
stranger,  but  I  implore  you  to  delay  !" 

His  bosom  heaved  with  strong  emotion  as  he  spoke, 
and  the  color  fled  from  his  bronzed  features  as  if  he 
were  struck  with  a  mortal  sickness. 

"  I  can  not  lose  you,  Iminild  !  I  have  loved  you 
too  long.     You  must " 

She  motioned  to  Percie  to  pass  on. 

"  By  Heaven,  you  shall !"  he  cried,  in  a  voice  sud- 
denly become  hoarse  with  passion  ;  and  reckless  of 
consequences,  he  leaped  across  the  heaps  of  cushion, 
and,  seizing  Percie  by  the  throat,  flung  him  with 
terrible  and  headlong  violence  into  the  river.' 

A  scream  from  Iminild,  and  the  report  of  a  musket 
from  the  other  side,  rang  at  the  same  instant  through 
the  cavern,  and  as  I  rushed  forward  to  seize  the  pistol 
which  he  had  struck  from  Percie's  hand,  his  half- 
drawn  sabre  slid  back  powerless  into  the  sheath,  and 
Tranchcceur  dropped  heavily  on  his  knee. 

"  I  am  peppered,  Mr.  Tyrell !"  he  said,  waving  me 
off  with  difficult  effort  to  smile,  "  look  after  the  boy, 
if  you  care  for  him  !     A  curse  on  her  German  wolves !" 

Percie  met  me  on  the  bridge,  supporting  Iminild, 
who  hung  on  his  neck,  smothering  him  with  kisses. 

"  Where  is  that  dog  of  a  pirate  ?"  she  cried,  sud- 
denly snatching  herataghan  from  the  sheath  and  flying 
across  the  platform.     "  Tranchcceur  !" 

Her  hand  was  arrested  by  the  deadly  pallor  and 
helpless  attitude  of  the  wounded  man,  and  the  weapon 
dropped  as  she  stood  over  him. 

"I  think  it  is  not  mortal,"  he  said,  groaning  as  he 
pressed  his  hand  to  his  side,  "  but  take  your  boy  out 
of  my  sight !  Iminild  !" 

"  Well,  Tranchcceur !" 

"  I  have  not  done  well — but  you  know  my  nature 
— and  my  love  !  Forgive  me,  and  farewell  !  Send 
Bertram  to  stanch  this  blood — I  get  faint!  A  little 
wine,  Iminild  !" 

He  took  the  massive  flagon  from  her  hand,  and 
drank  a  long  draught,  and  then  drawing  to  him  a  cloak 
which  lay  near,  he  covered  his  head  and  dropped  on 
his  side  as  if  to  sleep. 

Iminild   knelt  beside  him  and  tore  open  the  shirt 


OONDER-HOOFDEN. 


501 


beneath  his  jacket,  and  while  she  busied  herself  in 
stanching  the  blood,  Perdicaris,  apparently  well  pre- 
pared for  such  accidents,  arrived  with  a  surgeon's 
probe,  and,  on  examination  of  the  wound,  assured 
Iminild  that  she  might  safely  leave  him.  Washing 
her  hands  in  the  flagon  of  wine,  she  threw  a  cloak  over 
the  wet  and  shivering  Percie,  and,  silent  with  horror 
at  the  scene  behind  us,  we  made  our  way  over  the 
bridge,  and  in  a  short  time,  to  my  infinite  relief,  stood 
in  the  broad  moonlight  on  the  portico  of  Mynheer 
Krakenpate. 

My  carriage  was  soon  loaded  with  the  baggage  and 
treasure  of  the  countess,  and  with  the  same  swift 
horses  that  had  brought  us  from  Planina,  we  regained 
the  post-road,  and  sped  on  toward  Venice  by  the 
Friuli.  We  arrived  on  the  following  night  at  the  fair 
city  so  beloved  of  romance,  and  with  what  haste  I 
might,  I  procured  a  priest  and  married  the  Countess 
Iminild  to  gentleman  Percie. 

As  she  possessed  now  a  natural  guardian,  and  a 
sufficient  means  of  life,  I  felt  released  from  my  death 
vow  to  Yvain,  and  bidding  farewell  to  the  •'  happy 
couple,"  I  resumed  my  quiet  habit  of  travel,  and  three 
days  after  my  arrival  at  Venice,  was  on  the  road  to 
Padua  by  the  Brenta. 


OONDER-HOOFDEN,  OR  THE  UNDERCLIFF. 

A  TALE  OF  THE  VOYAGE  OF  HENDRICK  HUDSON. 


CHAPTER  I. 

••  It  is  but  an  arm  of  the  sea,  as  I  told  thee,  skip- 
per," said  John  Fleming,  the  mate  of  the  "  Halve- 
Mane,"  standing  ready  to  jam  down  the  tiller  and  bring- 
to,  if  his  master  should  agree  with  him  in  opinion. 

Hudson  stood  by  his  steersman,  with  folded  arms, 
now  looking  at  the  high-water  mark  on  the  rocks, 
which  betrayed  a  falling  tide,  now  turning  his  ear 
slightly  forward  to  catch  the  cry  of  the  man  who  stood 
heaving  the  lead  from  the  larboard  bow.  The  wind 
drew  lightly  across  the  starboard  quarter,  and,  with  a 
counter-tide,  the  little  vessel  stole  on  scarce  percepti- 
bly, though  her  mainsail  was  kept  full — the  slowly 
passing  forest  trees  on  the  shore  giving  the  lie  to  the 
merry  and  gurgling  ripple  at  the  prow. 

The  noble  river,  or  creek,  which  they  had  followed 
in  admiring  astonishment  for  fifty  miles,  had  hitherto 
opened  fairly  and  broadly  before  them,  though,  once 
or  twice,  its  widening  and  mountain-girt  bosom  had 
deceived  the  bold  navigator  into  the  belief,  that  he 
was  entering  upon  some  inland  lake.  The  wind  still 
blew  kindly  and  steadily  from  the  southeast,  and  the 
sunset  of  the  second  day — a  spectacle  of  tumultuous 
and  gorgeous  glory  which  Hudson  attributed  justly 
to  the  more  violet  atmospheric  laws  of  an  unsettled 
continent — had  found  them  apparently  closed  in  by 
impenetrable  mountains,  and  running  immediately  on 
the  head  shore  of  an  extended  arm  of  the  sea. 

"  She'll  strike  before  she  can  follow  her  helm," 
cried  the  young  sailor  in  an  impatient  tone,  yet  still 
with  habitual  obedience  keeping  her  duly  on  her 
course. 

"  Port  a  little  !"  answered  the  skipper,  a  moment 
after,  as  if  he  had  not  heard  the  querulous  comment 
of  his  mate. 

Fleming's  attention  was  withdrawn  an  instant  by 
a  low  guttural  sound  of  satisfaction,  which  reached 
his  ear  as  the  head  of  the  vessel  went  round,  and, 
casting  his  eye  amidships,  he  observed  the  three 
Indians  who   had   come  off  to  the  Half-Moon  in  a 


canoe,  and  had  been  received  on  board  by  the  master, 
standing  together  in  the  chains,  and  looking  forward 
to  the  rocks  they  were  approaching  with  countenances 
of  the  most  eager  interest. 

•«  Master  Hendrick  !"  he  vociferated  in  the  tone  of 
a  man  who  can  contain  his  anger  no  longer,  "will you 
look  at  these  grinning  red-devils,  who  are  rejoicing  to 
see  you  run  so  blindly  ashore?" 

The  adventurous  little  bark  was  by  this  time  within 
a  biscuit  toss  of  a  rocky  point  that  jutted  forth  into 
the  river  with  the  grace  of  a  lady's  foot  dallying  with 
the  water  in  her  bath  ;  and,  beyond  the  sedgy  bank 
disappeared  in  an  apparent  inlet,  barely  deep  enough, 
it  seemed  to  the  irritated  steersman,  to  shelter  a 
canoe. 

As  the  Half-Moon  obeyed  her  last  order,  and  headed 
a  point  more  to  the  west,  Hudson  strode  forward  to 
the  bow,  and  sprang  upon  the  windlass,  stretching  his 
gaze  eagerly  into  the  bosom  of  the  hills  that  were  now 
darkening  with  the  heavy  shadows  of  twilight,  though 
the  sky  was  still  gorgeously  purple  overhead. 

The  crew  had  by  this  time  gathered  with  uncon- 
scious apprehension  at  the  halyards,  ready  to  let  go 
at  the  slightest  gesture  of  the  master,  but,  in  the  slow 
progress  of  the  little  bark,  the  minute  or  two  which 
she  took  to  advance  beyond  the  point  on  which  his 
eye  was  fixed,  seemed  an  age  of  suspense. 

The  Half-Moon  seemed  now  almost  immoveable, 
for  the  current,  which  convinced  Hudson  there  was 
a  passage  beyond,  set  her  back  from  the  point  with 
increasing  force,  and  the  wind  lulled  a  little  with  the 
sunset.  Tnch  by  inch,  however,  she  crept  on,  till  at 
last  the  silent  skipper  sprang  from  the  windlass  upon 
the  bowsprit,  and  running  out  with  the  agility  of  a 
boy,  gave  a  single  glance  ahead,  and  the  next  mo- 
ment had  the  tiller  in  his  hand,  and  cried  out  with  a 
voice  of  thunder,  "  Stand  by  the  halyards!  helm's- 
a-lee !" 

In  a  moment,  as  if  his  words  had  been  lightning, 
the  blocks  rattled,  the  heavy  boom  swung  round  like 
a  willow  spray,  and  the  white  canvass,  after  fluttering 
an  instant  in  the  wind,  filled  and  drew  steadily  on  the 
other  lack. 

Looks  of  satisfaction  were  exchanged  between  the 
crew,  who  expected  the  next  instant  an  order  to  take 
in  the  sail  and  drop  anchor  ;  but  the  master  was  at  the 
helm,  and  to  their  utter  consternation,  he  kept  her 
steadily  to  the  wind,  and  drove  straight  on,  while  a 
gorge,  that,  in  the  increasing  darkness,  seemed  the 
entrance  to  a  cavern,  opened  its  rocky#sides  as  they 
advanced. 

The  apprehensions  of  the  crew  were  half  lost  in 
their  astonishment  at  the  grandeur  of  the  scene.  The 
cliffs  seemed  to  close  up  behind  them;  a  mountain, 
that  reached  apparently  to  the  now  colorless  clouds, 
rose  up  gigantic,  in  the  increasing  twilight,  over  the 
prow  ;  on  the  right,  where  the  water  seemed  to  bend, 
a  craggy  precipice  extended  its  threatening  wall  ;  and 
in  the  midst  of  this  round  bay,  which  seemed  to  them 
to  be  an  enclosed  lake  in  the  bottom  of  an  abyss,  the 
wind  suddenly  took  them  aback,  the  Halve-Mane  lost 
her  headway,  and  threatened  to  go  on  the  rocks  with 
the  current,  and  audible  curses  at  his  folly  reached 
the  ears  of  the  determined  master. 

More  to  divert  their  attention  than  with  a  prognos- 
tic of  the  direction  of  the  wind,  Hudson  gave  the 
order  to  tack,  and,  more  slowly  this  time,  but  still 
with  sufficient  expedition,  the  movement  was  execu- 
ted, and  the  flapping  sails  swung  round.  The  hal- 
yards were  not  belayed  before  the  breeze,  rush- 
ing down  a  steep  valley  on  the  left,  struck  full  on 
the  larboard  quarter,  and,  running  sharp  past  the  face 
of  the  precipice  over  the  starboard  bow,  Hudson 
pointed  out,  exultingly,  to  his  astonished  men,  the 
broad  waters  of  the  mighty  river,  extending  far  through 
the  gorge  beyond — the  dim  purple  of  the  lingering 


502 


OONDER-HOOFDEN. 


day,  which  had  been  long  lost  to  the  cavernous  and 
overshadowed  pass  they  bad  penetrated,  tinting  its  far 
bosom  like  the  last  faint  hue  of  the  expiring  dolphin. 

The  exulting  glow  of  triumph  suffused  the  face 
of  the  skipper,  and  relinquishing  the  tiller  once  more 
to  the  mortified  Fleming,  he  walked  forward  to  look 
out  for  an  anchorage.  The  Indians,  who  still  stood 
in  the  chains  together,  and  who  had  continued  to 
express  their  satisfaction  as  the  vessel  made  her  way 
through  the  pass,  now  pointed  eagerly  to  a  little 
bay  on  the  left,  across  which  a  canoe  was  shooting 
like  the  reflection  of  a  lance  in  the  air,  and,  the  wind 
dying  momently  away,  Hudson  gave  the  order  to 
rouud  to,  and  dropped  his  anchor  for  the  night. 

In  obedience  to  the  politic  orders  of  Hudson  the 
men  were  endeavoring,  by  presents  and  signs,  to 
induce  the  Indians  to  leave  the  vessel,  and  the  mas- 
ter himself  stood  on  the  poop  with  his  mate,  gazing 
back  on  the  wonderful  scene  they  had  passed  through. 

"  This  passage,"  said  Hudson,  musingly,  "has  been 
rent  open  by  an  earthquake,  and  the  rocks  look  still  as 
if  they  felt  the  agony  of  the  throe." 

"It  is  a  pity  the  earthquake  did  its  job  so  raggedly, 
then  !"'  answered  his  sulky  companion,  who  had  not 
yet  forgiven  the  mountains  for  the  shame  their  zig-zag 
precipices  had  put  upon  his  sagacity. 

At  that  instant  a  sound,  like  that  of  a  heavy  body 
sliding  into  the  water,  struck  the  ear  of  Fleming, 
and  looking  quickly  over  the  stern,  he  saw  one  of 
the  Indians  swimming  from  the  vessel  with  a  pillow 
in  his  hand,  which  he  had  evidently  stolen  from  the 
cabin  window.  To  seize  a  musket,  which  lay  ready 
for  attack  on  the  quarter-deck,  and  fire  upon  the  poor 
savage,,  was  the  sudden  thought  and  action  of  a  man  on 
the  watch,  for  a  vent  to  incensed  feelings. 

The  Indian  gave  a  yell  which  mingled  wildly  with 
the  echoes  of  the  report  from  the  reverberating  hills, 
and  springing  waist-high  out  of  the  water,  the  gurgling 
eddy  closed  suddenly  over  his  head. 

The  canoe  in  which  the  other  savages  were  already 
embarked  shot  away,  like  an  arrow,  to  the  shore,  and 
Hudson,  grieved  and  alarmed  inexpressibly  at  the  fool- 
hardy rashness  of  his  mate,  ordered  all  hands  to  arms, 
and  established  a  double  watch  for  the  night. 

Hour  after  hour,  the  master  and  the  non-repent- 
ant Fleming  paced  fore  and  aft,  each  in  his  own 
quarter  of  the  vessel,  watching  the  shore  and  the 
dark  face  of  the  water  with  straining  eyes:  but  no 
sound  came  from  the  low  cliff  round  which  the  fly- 
ing canoe  had  vanished,  and  the  stars  seemed  to 
wink  almost  audibly  in  the  dread  stillness  of  nature. 
The  men  alarmed  at  the  evident  agitation  of  Hudson, 
who,  in  these  pent-up  waters,  anticipated  a  most  ef- 
fective and  speedy  revenge  from  the  surrounding 
tribes,  drowsed  not  upon  their  watch,  and  the  gray 
light  of  the  morning  began  to  show  faintly  over  the 
mountains  before  the  anxious  master  withdrew  his 
aching  eyes  from  the  still  and  star  waters. 


CHAPTER  II. 

Like  a  web  woven  of  gold  by  the  lightning,  the 
sun's  rays  ran  in  swift  threads  from  summit  to  sum- 
mit of  the  dark  green  mountains,  and  the  soft  mist 
that  slept  on  the  breast  of  the  river  began  to  lift  like 
the  slumberous  lid  from  the  eye  of  woman,  when  her 
dream  is  broken  at  dawn.  Not  so  poetically  were 
these  daily  glories  regarded,  however,  by  the  morning 
watch  of  the  Half- Moon,  who,  between  the  desire  to 
drop  asleep  with  their  heads  on  the  capstan,  and  the 
necessity  of  keeping  sharper  watch  lest  the  Indians 
should  come  off  through  the  rising  mist,  bore  the 
double  pains  of  Tantalus  and  Sysiphus — ungratified 
desire  at  their  lips  and  threatening  ruin  over  their  heads. 


After  dividing  the  watch  at  the  break  of  day,  Hud- 
son, with  the  relieved  part  of  his  crew,  had  gone  be- 
low, and  might  have  been  asleep  an  hour,  when  Flem- 
ing suddenly  entered  the  cabin  and  laid  his  hand  upon 
his  shoulder.  The  skipper  sprang  from  his  berth 
with  the  habitual  readiness  of  a  seaman,  and  followed 
his  mate  upon  deck,  where  he  found  his  men  standing 
to  their  arms,  and  watching  an  object  that,  to  his  first 
glance,  seemed  like  a  canoe  sailing  down  upon  them 
through  the  air.  The  rash  homicide  drew  close  to 
Hendrick  as  he  regarded  it,  and  the  chatter  of  his 
teeth  betrayed  that,  during  the  long  and  anxious 
watches  of  the  night,  his  conscience  had  not  justified 
him  for  the  hasty  death  he  had  awarded  to  a  fellow- 
creature. 

"  She  but  looms  through  the  mist !"  said  the  skip- 
per, after  regarding  the  advancing  object  for  a  moment. 
"  It  is  a  single  canoe,  and  can  scarce  harm  us.  Let 
her  come  alongside!" 

The  natural  explanation  of  the  phenomenon  at  once 
satisfied  the  crew,  who  had  taken  their  superstitious 
fears  rather  from  Fleming's  evident  alarm  than  from 
their  own  want  of  reflection  ;  but  the  guilty  man  him- 
self still  gazed  on  the  advancing  phantom,  and  when 
a  slight  stir  of  the  breeze  raised  the  mist  like  the  cor- 
ner of  a  curtain,  and  dropped  the  canoe  plain  upon 
the  surface  of  the  river,  he  turned  gloomily  on  his 
heel,  and  muttered  in  an  undertone  to  Hudson,  "  It 
brings  no  good,  Skipper  Hendrick  !" 

Meanwhile  the  canoe  advanced  slowly.  The  single 
paddle  which  propelled  her  paused  before  every  turn, 
and  as  the  mist  lifted  quite  up  and  showed  a  long 
green  line  of  shore  between  its  shadowy  fringe  and 
the  water,  an  Indian,  highly-painted,  and  more  orna- 
mented than  any  they  had  hitherto  seen,  appeared 
gazing  earnestly  at  the  vessel,  and  evidently  approach- 
ing with  fear  and  caution. 

The  Half-Moon  was  heading  up  the  river  with 
the  rising  tide,  and  Hudson  walked  forward  to  the 
bows  to  look  at  the  savage  more  closely.  By  the 
eagle  and  bear,  so  richly  embroidered  in  the  gay- 
colored  quills  of  the  porcupine  on  his  belt  of  wam- 
pum, he  presumed  him  to  be  a  chief;  and  glancing 
his  eye  into  the  canoe,  he  saw  the  pillow  which  had 
occasioned  the  death  of  the  plunderer  the  night  before, 
and  on  it  lay  two  ears  of  corn,  and  two  broken  arrows. 
Pausing  a  moment  as  he  drew  near,  the  Indian  pointed 
to  these  signs  of  peace,  and  Hudson,  in  reply,  spread 
out  his  open  hands  and  beckoned  him  to  come  on 
board.  In  an  instant  the  slight  canoe  shot  under  the 
starboard  bow,  and  with  a  noble  confidence  which  the 
skipper  remarked  upon  with  admiration,  the  tall  savage 
sprang  upon  the  deck  and  laid  the  hand  of  the  com- 
mander to  his  breast. 

The  noon  arrived,  hot  and  sultry,  and  there  was  no 
likelihood  of  a  wind  till  sunset.  The  chief  had  been 
feasted  on  board,  and  had  shown,  in  his  delight,  the 
most  unequivocal  evidence  of  good  feeling;  and  even 
Fleming,  at  last,  who  had  drank  more  freely  than  usual 
during  "the  morning,  abandoned  his  suspicion,  and 
joined  in  amusing  the  superb  savage  who  was  their 
guest.  In  the  course  of  the  forenoon,  another  canoe 
came  off,  paddled  by  a  single  young  woman,  whom 
Fleming,  recoguised  as  having  accompanied  the  plun- 
derers the  night  before,  but  in  his  half-intoxicated 
state,  it  seemed  to  recall  none  of  his  previous  bodings, 
and  to  his  own  surprise,  and  that  of  the  crew,  she 
evidently  regarded  him  with  particular  favor,  and  by 
pertinacious  and  ingenious  signs,  endeavored  to  in- 
duce him  to  go  ashore  with  her  in  the  canoe.  Tho 
particular  character  of  her  face  and  form  would  have 
given  the  mate  a  clue  to  her  probable  motives,  had  he 
been  less  reckless  from  his  excitement.  She  was 
taller  than  is  common  for  females  of  the  savage  tribes, 
and  her  polished  limbs,  as  gracefully  moulded  in  their 


OONDER-HOOFDEN. 


503 


dark  hues  as  those  of  the  mercury  of  the  fountain, 
combined,  with  their  slightness,  a  nerve  and  steadi- 
ness of  action  which  betrayed  strength  and  resolution 
of  heart  and  frame.  Her  face  was  highly  beautiful, 
but  the  voluptuous  fulness  of  the  lips  was  contradicted 
by  a  fierce  fire  in  her  night-dark  eyes,  and  a  quickness 
of  the  brow  to  descend,  which  told  of  angry  passions 
habitually  on  the  alert.  It  was  remarked  by  Hans 
Christaern,  one  of  the  crew,  that  when  Fleming  left 
her  for  an  instant,  she  abstracted  herself  from  the 
other  joyous  groups,  and,  with  folded  arms  and  looks 
of  brooding  thoughtfulness,  stood  looking  over  the 
stern;  but  immediately  on  his  reappearance,  her  j i 
snowy  teeth  became  visible  between  her  relaxing  lips, 
and  she  resumed  her  patient  gaze  upon  his  counten- 
ance, and  her  occasional  efforts  to  draw  him  into  the 
canoe. 

Quite  regardless  of  the  presence  of  the  woman,  the 
chief  sat  apart  with  Hudson,  communicating  his  ideas 
by   intelligent  signs,  and   after  a  while,  the  skipper 
called    his  mate,  and   informed  him  that,  as  far  as  he 
could   understand,  the   chief  wished   to   give  them   a 
feast   on   shore.     "Arm   yourselves   well,"   said   he,  L 
"  though  I  look  for  no  treachery  from  this  noble  pagan  ;  j 
and  if  chance  should   put  us  in  danger,  we  shall  be 
more  than  a  match  for  the  whole  tribe.     Come  with 
me,  Fleming,"  he  continued,  after  a  pause,  "you  are 
too  rash  with  your  firearms  to  be  left  in  command.  | 
Man  the  watch,  four  of  you,  and  the  rest  get  into  the 
long-boat.     We'll  while  away  these  sluggish  hours, 
though  danger  is  in  it  " 

The   men  sprang  gayly  below  for  their  arms,  and 
were  soon  equipped  and  ready,  and  the  chief,  with  an 
expression  of  delight,  put  off  in  his  canoe,  followed  j! 
more  slowly  by  the  heavy  long-boat,  into  which  Hud-   j 
son,  having  given  particular  orders  to  the  watch  to  let 
DO  savages  on  board  during  his  absence,  was  the  last 
to  embark.     The  woman,  whom  the  chief  had  called 
to  him  before  his  departure  by  the  name  of  Kihyalee, 
■ped  oft*  before  in  her  swift  canoe  to  another  point  of 
the  shore,  and  when  Fleming  cried  out  from  the  bow 
of  the  boat,  impatiently  motioning  her  to  follow,  she 
smiled   in  a  manner  that  sent  a  momentary  shudder- 
through  the  veins  of  the  skipper  who  chanced  to  ob- 
serve  the  action,  and  by  a  circular  movement  of  her 
arm  conveyed  to  him  that  she  should  meet  him  from 
the  other  side  of  the  hill.     As  they  followed  the  chief,  j; 
they  discovered  the  wigwams  of  an  Indian  village  be-  | 
hind  the  rocky  point  for  which  she  was  making,  and 
understood  that  the  chief  had  sent  her  thither  on  some 
errand  connected  with  his  proposed  hospitality. 

A  large  square  rock,  which  had  the  look  of  having 
been  hurled  with  some  avalanche  from  the  mountain, 
lay  in  the  curve  of  a  small  beach  of  sand,  surrounded 
by  the  shallow  water,  and,  on  the  left  of  this,  the  chief 
pointed  out  to  the  skipper  a  deeper  channel,  hollowed 
by  the  entrance  of  a  mountain-torrent  into  the  river, 
through  which  he  might  bring  his  boat  to  land.  At 
the  edge  of  this  torrent's  bed,  the  scene  of  the  first  act 
of  hospitality  to  our  race  upon  the  Hudson,  stands  at 
this  day  the  gate  to  the  most  hospitable  mansion  on 
the  river,  as  if  the  spirit  of  the  spot  had  consecrated  it 
to  its  first  association  with  the  white  man. 

The  chief  led  the  way  when  the  crew  had  disem- 
barked, by  a  path  skirting  the  deep-worn  bed  of  the 
torrent,  and  after  an  ascent  of  a  few  minutes,  through 
a  grove  of  tall  firs,  a  short  turn  to  the  left  brought 
them  upon  an  open  table  of  land,  a  hundred  and  fifty 
feet  above  the  river  shut  in  by  a  circle  of  forest-trees, 
and  frowned  over  on  the  east  by  a  tall  and  bald  cliff, 
which  shot  up  in  a  perpendicular  line  to  the  height 
of  three  hundred  feet.  From  a  cleft  in  the  face  of 
•his  precipice  a  natural  spring  oozed  forth,  drawing 
a  darker  line  down  the  sun-parched  rock,  and  feeding 
a  small  stream  that  found  its  way  to  the  river  on  the 
northern  side  of  the  platform  just  mentioned,  creating 


between  itself  and  the  deeper  torrent  to  the  south,  a 
sort  of  highland  peninsula,  now  constituting  the  estate 
of  the  hospitable  gentleman  above  alluded  to. 

Hudson  looked  around  him  with  delight  and  sur- 
prise when  he  stood  on  the  highest  part  of  the  broad 
natural  table  selected  by  the  chief  for  his  entertain- 
ment. The  view  north  showed  a  cleft  through  the 
hills,  with  the  river  coiled  like  a  lake  in  its  widening 
bed,  while  a  blue  and  wavy  line  of  mountains  form- 
ed the  far  horizon  at  its  back ;  south,  the  bold  eminen- 
ces, between  which  he  had  found  his  adventurous 
way,  closed  in  like  the  hollowed  sides  of  a  bright- 
green  vase,  with  glimpses  of  the  river  lying  in  its 
bottom  like  crystal;  below  him  descended  a  sharp 
and  wooded  bank,  with  the  river  at  its  foot,  and 
directly  opposite  rose  a  hill  in  a  magnificent  cone  to 
the  very  sky,  sending  its  shadow  down  through  the 
mirrored  water,  as  if  it  entered  to  some  inner  world. 
The  excessive  lavishness  of  the  foliage  clothed  these 
bold  natural  features  with  a  grace  and  richness  al- 
together captivating  to  the  senses,  and  Hudson  long 
stood,  gazing  around  him,  believing  that  the  tales  of 
brighter  and  happier  lands  were  truer  than  he  had 
deemed,  and  that  it  was  his  lucky  destiny  to  have  been 
the  discoverer  of  a  future  Utopia. 

A  little  later,  several  groups  of  Indians  were  seen 
advancing  from  the  village,  bearing  the  materials  for 
a  feast,  which  they  deposited  under  a  large  tree,  indi- 
cated by  the  chief.  It  was  soon  arranged,  and  Hud- 
son with  his  men  surrounded  the  dishes  of  shell  and 
wood,  one  of  which,  placed  in  the  centre,  contained  a 
roasted  dog,  half  buried  in  Indian-corn.  While  the 
chief  and  several  of  his  warriors  sat  down  in  company 
with  the  whites,  the  young  men  danced  the  calumet- 
dance  to  the  sound  of  a  rude  drum,  formed  by  drawing 
a  skin  tightly  over  a  wooden  bowl,  and  near  them,  in 
groups,  stood  the  women  and  children  of  the  village, 
glancing  with  looks  of  curiosity  from  the  feats  of  the 
young  men  to  the  unaccustomed  faces  of  the  strangers. 

Among  the  women  stood  Kihyalee,  who  kept  her 
large  bright  eyes  fixed  almost  fiercely  upon  Fleming, 
yet  when  he  looked  toward  her,  she  smiled  and  turned 
as  if  she  would  beckon  him  away — a  bidding  which  he 
tried  in  vain  to  obey,  under  the  vigilant  watch  of  his 
master. 

The  feast  went  on,  and  the  Indians  having  produced 
gourds,  filled  with  a  slight  intoxicating  liquor  made 
from  the  corn,  Hudson  offered  to  the  chief,  some 
spirits  from  a  bottle  which  he  had  intrusted  to  one 
of  the  men  to  wash  down  the  expected  roughness  of 
the  savage  viands.  The  bottle  passed  in  turn  to  the 
mate,  who  was  observed  to  drink  freely,  and,  a  few 
minutes  after,  Hudson  rising  to  see  more  nearly  a  trial 
of  skill  with  the  bow  and  arrow,  Fleming  found  the 
desired  opportunity,  and  followed  the  tempting  Kihyalee 
into  the  forest. 

The  sun  began  to  throw  the  shadows  of  the  tall 
pines  in  gigantic  pinnacles  along  the  ground,  and  the 
youths  of  the  friendly  tribe,  who  had  entertained  the 
great  navigator,  ceased  from  their  dances  and  feats 
of  skill,  and  clustered  around  the  feast-tree.  Intend- 
ing to  get  under  weigh  with  the  evening  breeze  and 
proceed  still  farther  up  the  river,  Hudson  rose  to  col- 
lect his  men,  and  bid  the  chief  farewell.  Taking  the 
hand  of  the  majestic  savage  and  putting  it  to  his 
breast,  to  express  in  his  own  manner  the  kind  feel- 
ings he  entertained  for  him,  he  turned  toward  the  path 
by  which  he  came,  and  was  glancing  round  at  his  men, 
when  Hans  Christaern  inquired  if  he  had  sent  the 
mate  back  to  the  vessel. 

"  Der  teufel,  no  !"  answered  the  skipper,  missing 
him  for  the  first  time;   "has  he  been  long  gone  ?" 

"  A  full  hour !"  said  one  of  the  men. 

Hudson  put  his  hand  to  his  head,  and  remembered 
the  deep  wrong  Fleming  had  done  to  the  tribe.     Re- 


504 


THE  PICKER  AND  PILER. 


tribution,  he  feared,  had  over-taken  him — but  how  was 
it  done  so  silently?  How  had  the  guilty  man  been 
induced  to  "leave  his  comrades,  and  accelerate  his 
doom  by  his  own  voluntary  act  ? 

The  next  instant  resolved  the  question.  A  distant 
and  prolonged  scream,  as  of  a  man  in  mortal  agony, 
drew  all  eyes  to  the  summit  of  the  beetling  cliff,  which 
overhung  them.  On  its  extremest  verge,  outlined 
distinctly  against  the  sky,  stood  the  tall  figure  of  Kih- 
yalee,  holding  from  her,  yet  poised  over  the  precipice, 
the  writhing  form  of  her  victim,  while  in  the  other 
hand,  flashing  in  the  rays  of  the  sun,  glittered  the 
bright  hatchet  she  had  plucked  from  his  girdle.  In- 
furiated at  the  sight,  and  suspecting  collision  on  the 
part  of  the  chief,  Hudson  drew  his  cutlass  and  gave 
the  order  to  stand  to  arms,  but  as  he  turned,  the  gigan- 
tic savage  had  drawn  an  arrow  to  its  head  with  incredi- 
ble force,  and  though  it  fell  far  short  of  its  mark,  there 
was  that  in  the  action  and  in  his  look  which,  in  the 
passing  of  a  thought,  changed  the  mind  of  the  skipper. 
In  another  instant,  the  hesitating  arm  of  the  widowed 
Kihyalee  descended,  and  loosening  her  hold  upon  the 
relaxed  body  of  her  victim,  the  doomed  mate  fell 
heavily  down  the  face  of  the  precipice. 

The  chief  turned  to  Hudson,  who  stood  trembling 
and  aghast  at  the  awful  scene,  and  plucked  the  re- 
maining arrows  from  his  quiver,  he  broke  them  and 
threw  himself  on  the  ground.  The  tribe  gathered 
around,  their  chief,  Hudson  moved  his  hand  to  them 
in  token  of  forgiveness,  and  in  a  melancholy  silence 
the  crew  took  their  way  after  him  to  the  shore. 


THE  PICKER  AND  PILER. 

The  nature  of  the  strange  incident  I  have  to  relate 
forbids  me  to  record  either  place  or  time. 

On  one  of  the  wildest  nights  in  which  I  had  ever 
been  abroad,  I  drove  my  panting  horses  through  a 
snowdrift  breast  high,  to  the  door  of  a  small  tavern  in 
the  western  country.  The  host  turned  out  unwilling- 
ly at  the  knock  of  my  whip  handle  on  the  outer  door, 
and,  wading  before  the  tired  animals  to  the  barn,  which 
was  nearly  inaccessible  from  the  banks  of  snow,  he 
assisted  me  in  getting  off  their  frozen  harnesses,  and 
bestowing  them  safely  for  the  night. 

The  "  bar-room"  fire  burnt  brightly,  and  never  was 
fire  more  welcome.  Room  was  made  for  me  by  four 
or  five  rough  men  who  sat  silent  around  it,  and  with  a 
keen  comprehension  of  »•  pleasure  after  pain,"  I  took 
off  my  furs  and  moccasins,  and  stretched  my  cold  con- 
tracted limbs  to  the  blaze.  When,  a  few  minutes 
after,  a  plate  of  cold  salt  beef  was  brought  me,  with  a 
corn  cake  and  a  mug  of  "  flip"  hissing  from  the  poker, 
it  certainly  would  have  been  hard  to  convince  me  that 
I  would  have  put  on  my  coats  and  moccasins  again  to 
have  ridden  a  mile  to  paradise. 

The  faces  of  my  new  companions,  which  I  had  not 
found  time  to  inspect  very  closely  while  my  supper 
lasted,  were  fully  revealed  by  the  light  of  a  pitch-pine 
knot,  thrown  on  the  hearth  by  the  landlord,  and  their 
grim  reserve  and  ferocity  put  me  in  mind,  for  the  first 
time  since  I  had  entered  the  room,  of  my  errand  in 
that  quarter  of  the  country. 

The  timber-tracts  which  lie  convenient  to  the  rivers 
of  the  west,  offer  to  the  refugee  and  desperado  of  every 
description,  a  resource  from  want  and  (in  their  own 
opinion)  from  crime,  which  is  seized  upon  by  all  at 
least  who  are  willing  to  labor.  The  owners  of  the  ex- 
tensive forests,  destined  to  become  so  valuable,  are 
mostly  men  of  large  speculation,  living  in  cities,  who, 
satisfied  with  the  constant  advance  in  the  price  of 


lumber,  consider  their  pine-trees  as  liable  to  nothing 
but  the  laws  of  nature,  and  leave  them  unfenced  and 
unprotected,  to  increase  in  size  and  value  till  the  land 
beneath  them  is  wanted  for  culture.  It  is  natural 
enough  that  solitary  settlers,  living  in  the  neighbor- 
hood of  miles  of  apparently  unclaimed  land,  should 
think  seldom  of  the  owner,  and  in  time  grow  to  the 
opinion  of  the  Indian,  that  the  Great  Spirit  gave  the 
land,  the  air,  and  the  water,  to  all  his  children,  and 
they  are  free  to  all  alike.  Furnishing  the  requisite 
teams  and  implements,  therefore,  the  inhabitants  of 
these  tracts  collect  a  number  of  the  stragglers  through 
the  country,  and  forming  what  is  called  a  "  bee,"  go 
into  the  nearest  woods,  and  for  a  month  or  more,  work 
laboriously  at  selecting,  and  felling  the  tallest  and 
straightest  pines.  In  their  rude  shanty  at  night  they 
have  bread,  pork,  and  whiskey,  which  hard  labor  makes 
sufficiently  palatable,  and  the  time  is  passed  merrily 
till  the  snow  is  right  for  sledding.  The  logs  are  then 
drawn  to  the  water  sides,  rafts  are  formed,  and  the 
valuable  lumber,  for  which  they  paid  nothing  but  their 
labor  is  run  to  the  cities  for  their  common  advantage. 
The  only  enemies  of  this  class  of  men  are  the  agents 
who  are  sometimes  sent  out  in  the  winter  to  defect 
them  in  the  act  of  felling  or  drawing  off  timber,  and 
in  the  dark  countenances  around  the  fire,  I  read  this 
as  the  interpretation  of  my  own  visit  to  the  woods. 
They  soon  brightened  and  grew  talkative  when  they 
discovered  that  I  was  in  search  of  hands  to  fell  and 
burn,  and  make  clearing  for  a  farm;  and  after  a  talk 
of  an  hour  or  two,  I  was  told  in  answer  to  my  inquiries, 
that  all  the  "  men  people"  in  the  country  were  busy 

"  lumbering  for  themselves,"  unless  it  were 

the  "  Picker  and  Piler." 

As  the  words  were  pronounced,  a  shrill  neigh 
outside  the  door  pronounced  the  arrival  of  a  new-comer. 
"Talk  of  the  devil" — said  the  man  in  a  lower  tone, 
and  without  finishing  the  proverb  he  rose  with  a 
respect  which  he  had  not  accorded  to  me,  to  make 
room  for  the  Picker  and  Piler. 

A  man  of  rather  low  stature  entered,  and  turned  to 
drive  back  his  horse,  who  had  followed  him  nearly  in. 
I  observed  that  the  animal  had  neithersaddle  nor  bridle. 
Shutting  the  door  upon  him  without  violence,  he  ex- 
changed nods  with  one  or  two  of  the  men,  and  giving 
the  landlord  a  small  keg  which  he  had  brought,  he 
pleaded  haste  for  refusing  the  offered  chair,  and  stood 
silent  by  the  fire.  His  features  were  blackened  with 
smoke,  but  I  could  see  that  they  were  small  and  regu- 
lar, and  his  voice,  though  it  conveyed  in  its  deliberate 
accents  an  indefinable  resolution,  was  almost  feminine- 
ly soft  and  winning. 

"  That  stranger  yonder  has  got  a  job  for  you,"  said 
the  landlord,  as  he  gave  him  back  the  keg  and  received 
the  money. 

Turning  quickly  upon  me,  he  detected  me  in  a  very 
eager  scrutiny  of  himself,  and  for  a  moment  I  was 
thrown  too  much  off  my  guard  to  address  him. 

"  Is  it  you,  sir  ?"  he  asked,  after  waiting  a  moment. 
"  Yes, — I  have  some  work  to  be  done  hereabouts, 
but — you  seem  in  a  hurry.     Could  you  call  here  to- 
morrow." 

"I  may  not  be  here  again  in  a  week." 
"  Do  you  live  far  from  here  ?"    He  smiled. 
"  I  scarce  know  where  I  live,  but  I  am  burning  a 
piece  of  wood  a  mile  or  two  up  the  run,  and  if  you 
would  like  a  warmer  bed  than  the  landlord  will  give 
you — " 

That  personage  decided  the  question  for  me  by 
telling  me  in  so  many  words  that  I  had  better  go. 
His  beds  were  all  taken  up,  and  my  horses  should  be 
taken  care  of  till  my  return.  I  saw  that  my  presence 
had  interrupted  something,  probably  the  formation  of 
a  "  bee,"  and  more  willingly  than  I  would  have  be- 
lieved possible  an  hour  before,  I  resumed  my  furs  and 
wrappers,  and  declared  that  I  was  ready.     The  Picker 


THE  PICKER  AND  PILER. 


505 


and  Piler  had  inspired  me,  and  I  knew  not  why,  with 
an  involuntary  respect  and  liking. 

••  It  is  a  rough  night,  sir,"  said  he,  as  he  shouldered 
a  rifle  he  had  left  outside,  and  slung  the  keg  by  a 
leather  strap  over  the  neck  of  his  horse,  "  but  I  will 
soon  show  you  a  better  climate.  Come,  sir,  jump  on  !" 
"  And  you  ?"  I  said  inquisitively,  as  he  held  his 
horse  by  the  mane  for  me  to  mount.  It  was  a  Cana- 
dian pony,  scarce  larger  than  a  Newfoundland  dog. 

"  I  am  more  used^to  the  road,  sir,  and  will  walk. 
Come  ?" 

It  was  no  time  to  stand  upon  etiquette,  even  if  it 
had  been  possible  to  resist  the  strange  tone  of  authori- 
ty with  which  he  spoke.  So  without  more  ado,  I 
sprang  upon  the  animal's  back,  and  holding  on  by  the  j 
long  tuft  upon  his  withers,  suffered  him  passively  to 
plunge  through  the  drift  after  his  master. 

Wondering  at  the  readiness  with  which  I  had  en-  j 
tered  upon  this  equivocal  adventure,  but  never  for  an  | 
instant  losing  confidence  in  my  guide,  I  shut  my  eyes   l 
to  the  blinding  cold,  and  accommodated  my  limbs  as 
well  as  I  could  to  the  bare  back  and  scrambling  paces 
of  the   Canadian.     The  Picker  and  Piler  strode  on 
before,  the  pony  following  like  a  spaniel  at  his  heels,  ! 
and  after  a  half  hour's  tramp,  during  which  I  had 
merely  observed  that  we  were  rounding  the  base  of  a 
considerable   hill,  we  turned  short  to  the  right,  and 
were  met  by  a  column  of  smoke,  which,  lifting,  the 
moment  after,  disclosed  the  two  slopes  of  a  consider- 
able valley  enveloped  in  one  sea  of  fire.     A  red,  lurid 
cloud,  overhung  it  at  the  tops  of  the  tallest  trees,  and 
far  and  wide,  above  that,  spread  a  covering  of  black 
smoke,  heaving  upward  in  vast  and  billowy  masses,  and 
rolling  away  on  every  side  into  the  darkness. 

We  approached  a  pine  of  gigantic  height,  on  fire  J 
to  the  very  peak,  not  a  branch  left  on  the  trunk,  and  : 
its  pitchy  knots  distributed  likethe  eyes  of  the  lamprey, 
burning  pure  and  steady  amid  the  irregular  flame.     I 
had  once  or  twice,  with  an  instinctive  wish  to  draw 
rein,  pulled  hard  upon  the  tangled  tuft  in  my  hand, 
but   master  and   horse  kept  on.     This  burning  tree, 
however,  was  the  first  of  a  thousand,  and  as  the  pony  j 
turned  his  eyes  away  from  the  intense  heat  to  pass  be-  ( 
tween  it  and  a  bare  rock,  I  glanced  into  the  glowing 
labyrinth  beyond,  and  my  faith  gave  way.     I  jumped 
from  his  back  and  hailed  the  Picker  and  Piler,  with  a  | 
halloo  scarcely  audible  amid  the  tumult  of  the  crack-  j 
ling  branches.     My  voice  did  not  evidently  reach  his  j 
ear,  but  the  pony,  relieved  from  my  weight,  galloped 
to  his  side,  and  rubbed  his  muzzle  against  the  unoc-  j 
cupied  hand  of  his  master. 

He  turned  back  immediately.  "  I  beg  pardon,"  he 
said,  "I  have  that  to  think  of  just  now  which  makes 
me  forgetful.  I  am  not  surprised  at  your  hesitation, 
but  mount  again  and  trust  the  pony." 

The  animal  turned  rather  unwillingly  at  his  mas- 
ter's bidding,  and  a  little  ashamed  of  having  shown 
fear,  while  a  horse  would  follow,  I  jumped  again  on 
his  back. 

"  If  you  find  the  heat  inconvenient,  cover  your  face." 
And  with  this  laconic  advice,  the  Picker  and  Piler 
turned  on  his  heel,  and  once  more  strode  away  be- 
fore us. 

Sheltering  the  sides  of  my  face  by  holding  up  the 
corners  of  my  wrapper  with  both  hands,  I  abandoned 
myself  to  the  horse.  He  overtook  his  master  with  a 
shuffling  canter,  and  putting  his  nose  as  close  to  the 
ground  as  he  could  carry  it  without  stumbling,  fol- 
lowed closely  at  his  heels.  I  observed,  by  the  green 
logs  lying  immediately  along  our  path,  that  we  were 
following  an  avenue  of  prostrate  timber  which  had  been 
felled  before  the  wood  was  fired  ;  but  descending 
presently  to  the  left,  we  struck  at  once  into  the  deep 
bed  of  a  brook,  and  by  the  lifted  head  and  slower  gait 
of  the  pony,  as  well  as  my  own  easier  respiration,  I 
found  that  the  hollow  through  which  it  ran,  contained 


a  body  of  pure  air  unreached  by  the  swaying  curtains 
of  smoke  or  the  excessive  heat  of  the  fiery  currents 
above.  The  pony  now  picked  his  way  leisurely  along 
the  brookside,  and  while  my  lungs  expanded  with  the 
relief  of  breathing  a  more  temperate  atmosphere,  I 
raised  myself  from  my  stooping  posture  in  a  profuse 
perspiration,  and  one  by  one  disembarrassed  myself 
from  my  protectives  against  the  cold. 

I  had  lost  sight  for  several  minutes  of  the  Picker 
and  Piler,  and  presumed  by  the  pony's  desultory 
movements  that  lie  was  near  the  end  of  his  journey, 
when,  rounding  a  shelvy  point  of  rock,  we  stood  sud- 
denly upon  the  brink  of  a  slight  waterfall,  where  the 
brook  leaped  four  or  five  feet  into  a  shrunken  dell,  and 
after  describing  a  half  circle  on  a  rocky  platform,  re- 
sumed its  onward  course  in  the  same  direction  as  be- 
fore. This  curve  of  the  brook  and  the  platform  it 
enclosed  lay  lower  than  the  general  level  of  the  forest, 
and  the  air  around  and  within  it,  it  seemed  to  me,  was 
as  clear  and  genial  as  the  summer  noon.  Over  one 
side,  from  the  rocky  wall,  a  rude  and  temporary  roof 
of  pine  slabs  drooped  upon  a  barricade  of  logs,  forming 
a  low  hut,  and  before  the  entrance  of  this,  at  the  mo- 
ment of  my  appearance,  stood  a  woman  and  a  showily- 
dressed  young  man,  both  evidently  confused  at  the 
sudden  apparition  of  the  Picker  and  Piler.  My  eyes 
had  scarce  rested  on  the  latter,  when,  from  standing 
!  at  his  fullest  height  with  his  rifle  raised  as  if  to  beat 
I  the  other  to  the  earth,  he  suddenly  resumed  his  stoop- 
ing and  quiet  mien,  set  his  rifle  against  the  rock,  and 
came  forward  to  give  me  his  hand. 

"  My  daughter!"  he  said,  more  in  the  way  of  ex- 
planation than  introduction,  and  without  taking  fur- 
ther notice  of  the  young  man  whose  presence  seemed 
so  unwelcome,  he  poured  me  a  draught  from  the  keg 
he  had  brought,  pointed  to  the  water  falling  close  at 
my  hand,  and  threw  himself  at  his  length  upon  the 
I  ground. 

The  face  and  general  appearance  of  the  young  man, 
now  seated  directly  opposite  me,  offered  no  temptation 
i  for  more  than  a  single  glance,  and  my  whole  attention 
|  was  soon  absorbed  by  the  daughter  of  my  singular 
host,  who,  crossing  from  the  platform  to  the  hut, 
i  divided  her  attention  between  a  haunch  of  venison 
roasting  before  a  burning  log  of  hickory,  and  the  ar- 
rangement of  a  few  most  primitive  implements  for  our 
coming  supper.  She  was  slight,  like  her  father,  in 
form,  and  as  far  as  1  had  been  able  to  distinguish  his 
blackened  features,  resembled  him  in  the  general  out- 
line. But  in  the  place  of  his  thin  and  determined 
mouth,  her  lips  were  round  and  voluptuous,  and 
though  her  eye  looked  as  if  it  might  wake,  it  ex- 
pressed, even  in  the  presence  of  her  moody  father,  a 
drowsy  and  soft  indolence,  common  enough  to  the 
Asiatics,  but  seldom  seen  in  America.  Herdress  was 
coarse  and  careless,  but  she  was  beautiful  with  every 
possible  disadvantage,  and,  whether  married  or  not, 
evidently  soon  to  become  a  mother. 

The  venison  was  placed  before  us  on  the  rock,  and 
the  young  man,  uninvited,  and  with  rather  an. air  of 
bravado,  cut  himself  a  steak  from  the  haunch  and 
broiled  it  on  the  hickory  coals,  while  the  daughter  kept 
as  near  him  as  her  attention  to  her  father's  wants  would 
permit,  but  neither  joined  us  in  eating,  nor  encouraged 
my  attempts  at  conversation.  The  Picker  and  Piler 
ate  in  silence,  leaving  me  to  be  my  own  carver,  and 
finishing  his  repast  by  a  deep  draught  from  the  keg 
which  had  been  the  means  of  our  acquaintance,  he 
sprang  upon  his  feet  and  disappeared. 

"  The  wind  has  changed,"  said  the  daughter,  look- 
ing up  at  the  smoke,  »  and  he  has  gone  to  the  western 
edge  to  start  a  new  fire.  It's  a  full  half  mile,  and  he  11 
be  gone  an  hour." 

This  was  said  with  a  look  at  me  which  was  any- 
thing but  equivocal.  I  was  de  trop.  1  took  up  the 
rifle  of  the  Picker  and  Piler,  forgetting  that  there  wa. 


506 


THE  PICKER  AND  PILER. 


probably  nothing  to  shoot  in  a  burning  wood,  and  re- 
marking that  I  would  have  a  look  for  a  deer,  jumped 
up  the  water-fall  side,  and  was  immediately  hidden  by 
the  rocks. 

I  had  no  conception  of  the  scene  that  lay  around 
me.  The  natural  cave  or  hollow  of  rock  in  which  the 
hut  lay  embosomed,  was  the  centre  of  an  area  of  per- 
haps an  acre,  which  had  been  felled  in  the  heart  of  the 
wood  before  it  was  set  on  fire.  The  forest  encircled 
it  with  blazing  columns,  whose  capitals  were  ap- 
parently lost  in  the  sky,  and  curtains  of  smoke  and 
flame,  which  flew  as  if  lashed  into  ribands  by  a  whirl- 
wind. The  grandeur,  the  violence,  the  intense  bright- 
ness of  the  spectacle,  outran  all  imagination.  The 
pines,  on  fire  to  the  peak,  and  straight  as  arrows, 
seemed  to  resemble,  at  one  moment  the  conflagration 
of  an  eastern  city,  with  innumerable  minarets  aban- 
doned to  the  devouring  element.  At  the  next  moment, 
the  wind,  changing  its  direction,  swept  out  every 
vestige  of  smoke,  and  extinguished  every  tongue  of 
flame,  and  the  tall  trees,  in  clear  and  flameless  igni- 
tion, standing  parallel  in  thousands,  resembled  some 
blinding  temple  of  the  genii,  whose  columns  of 
miraculous  rubies,  sparkling  audibly,  outshone  the 
day.  By  single  glances,  my  eye  penetrated  into  aisles 
of  blazing  pillars,  extending  far  into  the  forest,  and  the 
next  instant,  like  a  tremendous  surge  alive  with  ser- 
pents of  fire,  the  smoke  and  flame  swept  through  it, 
and  it  seemed  to  me  as  if  some  glorious  structure  had 
been  consumed  in  the  passing  of  a  thought.  For  a 
minute,  again,  all  would  be  still  except  the  crackling 
of  the  fibres  of  the  wood,  and  with  the  first  stir  of  the 
wind,  like  a  shower  of  flashing  gems,  the  bright  coals 
rained  down  through  the  forest,  and  for  a  moment  the 
earth  glowed  under  the  trees  as  if  its  whole  crust  were 
alive  with  one  bright  ignition. 

With  the  pungency  of  the  smoke  and  heat,  and  the 
variety  and  bewilderment  of  the  spectacle,  I  found  my 
eyes  and  brain  growing  giddy.  The  brook  ran  cool 
below,  and  the  heat  had  dried  the  leaves  in  the  small 
clearing,  and  with  the  abandonment  of  a  man  overcome 
with  the  sultriness  of  summer,  I  lay  down  on  the 
rivulet's  bank,  and  dipped  my  head  and  bathed  my 
eyes  in  the  running  water.  Close  to  its  surface  there 
was  not  a  particle  of  smoke  in  the  air,  and,  exceeding- 
ly refreshed  with  its  temperate  coolness,  1  lay  for  some- 
time in  luxurious  ease,  trying  in  vain  to  fancy  the 
winter  that  howled  without.  Frost  and  cold  were 
never  more  difficult  to  realize  in  midsummer,  though 
within  a  hundred  rods,  probably,  a  sleeping  man  would 
freeze  to  death  in  an  hour. 

"  I  have  a  better  bed  for  you  in  the  shanty,"  said  the 
Picker  and  Piler,  who  had  approached  unheard  in  the 
noise  of  the  fires,  and  suddenly  stood  over  me. 

He  took  up  his  rifle,  which  I  had  laid  against  a 
prostrate  log,  and  looked  anxiously  toward  the  descent 
to  the  hut. 

"  I  am  little  inclined  for  sleep,"  I  answered,  "  and 
perhaps  you  will  give  me  an  hour  of  conversation  here. 
The  scene  is  new  to  me" — 

"  I  have  another  guest  to  dispose  of,"  he  answered, 
"  and  we  shall  be  more  out  of  the  smoke  near  the 
shanty." 

I  was  not  surprised,  as  I  jumped  upon  the  platform, 
to  find  him  angrily  separating  his  daughter  and  the 
stranger.  The  girl  entered  the  hut,  and  with  a  de- 
cisive gesture,  he  pointed  the  young  man  to  a  "shake- 
down" of  straw  in  the  remotest  corner  of  the  rocky 
enclosure. 

"With  your  leave,  old  gentleman,"  said  the  in- 
truder, after  glancing  at  his  intended  place  of  repose, 
'  I'll  find  a  crib  for  myself."  And  springing  up  the 
craggy  rock  opposite  the  door  of  the  shanty  he  gather- 
ed a  slight  heap  of  brush,  and  threw  it  into  a  hollow 
left  in  the  earth  by  a  tree,  which,  though  full  grown 
and  green,  had  been  borne  to  the  earth  and  partly 


uprooted  by  the  falling  across  it  of  an  overblown  and 
gigantic  pine.  The  earth  and  stones  had  followed  the 
uptorn  mass,  forming  a  solid  upright  wall,  from  which, 
like  struggling  fingers,  stretching  back  in  agony  to 
the  ground  from  which  they  had  parted,  a  few  rent 
and  naked  roots  pointed  into  the  cavity.  The  sequel 
will  show  why  I  am  so  particular  in  this  description. 

"  When  peace  was  declared  between  England  and 
this  country,"  said  the  Picker  and  Piler  (after  an 
hour's  conversation,  which  had  led  insensibly  to  his 
own  history),  I  was  in  command  of  a  privateer.  Not 
choosing  to  become  a  pirate,  by  continuing  the  cruise, 
I  was  set  ashore  in  the  West  Indies  by  a  crew  in  open 
mutiny.  My  property  was  all  on  board,  and  I  was 
left  a  beggar.  I  had  one  child,  a  daughter,  whose 
mother  died  in  giving  her  birth. 

"  Having  left  a  sufficient  sum  for  her  education  in 
the  hands  of  a  brother  of  my  own,  under  whose  roof 
she  had  passed  the  first  years  of  her  life,  I  determined 
to  retrieve  my  fortunes  before  she  or  my  friends  should 
be  made  acquainted  with  my  disaster. 

"  Ten  years  passed  over,  and  I  was  still  a  wanderer 
and  a  beggar. 

"  I  determined  to  see  my  child,  and  came  back 
like  one  from  the  dead,  to  my  brother's  door.  He  had 
forgotten  me,  and  abused  his  trust.  My  daughter, 
then  seventeen,  and  such  as  you  see  her  here,  was  the 
drudge  in  the  family  of  a  stranger — ignorant  and  friend- 
less. My  heart  turned  against  mankind  with  this  last 
drop  in  a  bitter  cup,  and,  unfitted  for  quiet  life,  I  look- 
ed around  for  some  channel  of  desperate  adventure. 
But  my  daughter  was  the  perpetual  obstacle.  What 
to  do  with  her  ?  She  had  neither  the  manners  nor 
the  education  of  a  lady,  and  to  leave  her  a  servant  was 
impossible.  I  started  with  her  for  the  west,  with  the 
vague  design  of  joining  some  tribe  of  Indians,  and 
chance  and  want  have  thrown  me  into  the  only  mode 
of  life  on  earth  that  could  now  be  palatable  to  me." 

"  Is  it  not  lonely,"  I  asked,  "  after  your  stirring  ad- 
ventures ?" 

"  Lonely  !  If  you  knew  the  delight  with  which  I 
live  in  the  wilderness,  with  a  circle  of  fire  to  shut  out 
the  world  !  The  labor  is  hard  it  is  true,  but  I  need  it, 
to  sleep  and  forget.  There  is  no  way  else  in  which  I 
could  seclude  my  daughter.  Till  lately,  she  has  been 
contented,  too.  We  live  a  month  together  in  one 
place — the  centre  like  this  of  a  burning  wood.  I  can 
bear  hardship,  but  I  love  a  high  temperature — the 
climate  of  the  tropics — and  I  have  it  here.  For  weeks 
I  forget  that  it  is  winter,  tending  my  fires  and  living 
on  the  game  I  have  stored  up.  There  is  a  hollow  or 
a  brook — a  bed  or  a  cave,  in  every  wood,  where  the 
cool  air,  as  here,  sinks  to  the  bottom,  and  there  I  can 
put  up  my  shanty,  secure  from  all  intrusion — but  such 
as  I  bring  upon  myself." 

The  look  he  gave  to  the  uprooted  ash  and  the 
sleeper  beneath  it,  made  an  apology  for  this  last  clause 
unnecessary.     He  thought  not  of  me. 

"  Some  months  since,"  continued  the  Picker  and 
Piler,  in  a  voice  husky  with  suppressed  feeling,  "  I 
met  the  villain  who  sleeps  yonder,  accidentally,  as  I 
met  you.  He  is  the  owner  of  this  land.  After 
engaging  to  clear  and  burn  it,  I  invited  him,  as  I 
did  yourself,  from  a  momentary  fever  for  company 
which  sometimes  comes  over  the  solitary,  to  go  with 
me  to  the  fallow  I  was  clearing.  He  loitered  in  the 
neighborhood  awhile,  under  pretext  of  hunting,  and 
twice  on  my  return  from  the  village,  I  found  that  my 
daughter  had  seen  him.  Time  has  betrayed  the 
wrong  he  inflicted  on  me. 

The  voice  of  the  agitated  father  sank  almost  to  a 
whisper  as  he  pronounced  the  last  few  words,  and, 
rising  from  the  rock  on  which  we  were  sitting,  he 
paced  for  a  few  minutes  up  and  down  the  platform  in 
silence. 

The  reader  must  fill  up  from  his  own  imagination 


KATE  CREDIFORD. 


507 


the  drama  of  which  this  is  but  the  outline,  for  the 
Picker  and  Piler  was  not  a  man  to  be  questioned,  and 
lean  tell  but  what  I  saw  and  heard.  In  the  narration 
of  his  story  he  seemed  but  recapitulating  the  promi- 
nent events  for  his  own  self-converse,  rather  than  at- 
tempting to  tell  a  tale  to  me,  and  it  was  hurried  over 
as  brokenly  and  briefly  as  I  have  put  it  down.  I  sat  in 
a  listening  attitude  after  he  concluded,  but  he  seemed 
to  have  unburthened  his  bosom  sufficiently,  and  his 
lips  were  closed  with  stern  compression. 

"  You  forget,"  he  said,  after  pacing  awhile,  "that  I 
offered  you  a  place  to  sleep.  The  night  wears  late. 
Stretch  yourself  on  that  straw,  with  your  cloak  over 
you.     Good  night!" 

I  lay  down  and  looked  up  at  the  smoke  rolling 
heavily  into  the  sky  till  I  slept. 

I  awoke,  feeling  chilled,  for  the  rock  sheltered  me 
from   the  rays  of  the  fire.     I  stepped  out  from  the 
hollow.     The  fires  were  pale  with   the  gray  of  the 
morning,  and  the  sky  was  visible  through  the  smoke.  I 
I  looked  around   for  a  place  to  warm  myself.     The  j 
hickory  log  had  smouldered  out,  but  a  fire  had  been 
kindled  under  the  overblown  pine,  and  its  pitchy  heart 
was  now  flowing  with  the  steady  brilliancy  of  a  torch. 
I  took  up  one  of  its  broken  branches,  cracked  it  on  my 
knee,  and  stirring  up  the  coals  below,  soon  sent  up  a  : 
merry  blaze,  which  enveloped  the  whole  trunk. 

Turning  my  back  to  the  increasing  heat,  I  started, 
for,  creeping  toward  me,  with  a  look  of  eagerness  for 
which  I  was  at  a  loss  to  account,  came  the  Picker  and 
Piler. 

"  Twice  doomed  !"  he  muttered  between  his  teeth, 
"  but  not  by  me  !" 

He  threw  down  a  handful  of  pitch  pine  knots,  laid  \ 
his  axe  against  a  burning  tree,  and  with  a  branch  of  ! 
hemlock,  swept  off  the  flame  from  the  spot  where  the 
Ire  was  eating  through,  as  if  to  see  how  nearly  it  was  ! 
divided. 

I  began  to  think  him   insane,  for  I  could  get  no 
answer  to  my  questions,  and  when  he  spoke,  it  was   j 
half  audible,  and  with  his  eyes  turned  from  me  fixedly.   : 
I  looked  in  the  same  direction,  but  could  see  nothing   ! 
remarkable.     The  seducer  slept  soundly  beneath  his 
matted  wall,  and  the  rude  door  of  the  shanty  was  be- 
hind  us.     Leaving  him  to  see  phantoms  in  the  air,  as   j 
I  thought,  I  turned  my  eyes  to  the  drips  of  the  water- 
fall,  and  was  absorbed  in  memories  of  my  own,  when 
I  saw  the  girl  steal  from  the  shanty,  and   with  one   j 
bound  overleap  the  rocky  barrier  of  the  platform.     1 
laid  my  hand  on  the  shoulder  of  my  host,  and  pointed 
after  her,  as  with  stealthy  pace  looking   back   occa- 
sionally to  the  hut,  where  she  evidently  thought  her 
father  slept,  she  crept  round  toward  her  lover. 

"He  dies!"  cried  the   infuriated  man:  but  as  he, 
jumped  from  me  to  seize  his  axe,  the  girl  crouched  ; 
out  of  sight,  and  my  own  first  thought  was  to  awake 
the  sleeper.     I  made  two  bounds  and  looked  back,  for  | 
I  heard  no  footstep. 

"Stand  clear!"  shouted  a  voice  of  almost  super-  i 
natural  shrillness!  and  as  I  caught  sight  of  the  Picker 
and  Piler  standing  enveloped  in  smoke  upon  the  burn-  , 
ing  tree,  with  his  axe  high  in  the  air,  the  truth  flash- 
ed on  me. 

Down  came  the  axe  into  the  very  heart  of  the  pitchy 
flame,  and  trembling  with  the  tremendous  smoke,  the 
trunk  slowly  bent  upward  from  the  fire. 

The  Picker  and  Piler  sprang  clear,  the  overborne 
ash  creaked  and  heaved,  and  with  a  sick  giddiness  in 
my  eyes,  I  look  at  the  unwarned  sleeper. 

One  half  of  the  dissevered  pine  fell  to  the  earth, 
"md  the  shock  startled  him  from  his  sleep.  A  whole 
age  seemed  to  me  elapsing  while  the  other  rose  with 
the  slow  lift  of  the  ash.  \s  it  slid  heavily  away,  the 
vigorous  tree  righted,  like  a  giant  springing  to  his 
feet.  I  saw  the  root  pin  the  hand  of  the  seducer  to 
the  earth — a  struggle — a  contortion  and   the   leafless 


and  waving  top  of  the  recovered  and  upright  tree 
rocked  with  its  effort,  and  a  long,  sharp  cry  had  gone 
out  echoing  through  the  woods,  and  was  still.  I  felt 
my  brain  reel. 

Blanched  to  a  livid  paleness,  the  girl  moved  about 
in  the  sickly  daylight,  when  I  recovered  ;  but  the 
Picker  and  Piler,  with  a  clearer  brow  than  I  had  yet 
seen  him  wear,  was  kindling  fires  beneath  the  remnants 
of  the  pine. 


KATE   CREDIFORD. 


I  found  myself  looking  with  some  interest  at  the 
back  of  a  lady's  head.  The  theatre  was  crowded,  and 
I  had  come'  in  late,  and  the  object  of  my  curiosity, 
whoever  she  might  be,  was  listening  very  attentively  to 
the  play. — She  did  not  move.  I  had  time  to  build  a 
life-time  romance  about  her  before  Thad  seen  a  feature 
of  her  face.  But  her  ears  were  small  and  of  an  ex- 
quisite oval,  and  she  had  that  rarest  beauty  of  woman 
— the  hair  arched  and  joined  to  the  white  neck  with 
the  same  finish  as  on  the  temples.  Nature  often 
slights  this  part  of  her  masterpiece. 

The  curtain  dropped,  and  I  stretched  eagerly  for- 
ward to  catch  a  glimse  of  the  profile. — But  no  !  she 
sat  next  one  of  the  slender  pilasters,  and  with  her  head 
leaned  against  it,  remained  immovable. 

I  left  the  box,  and  with  some  difficulty  made  my 
way  into  the  crowded  pit.  Elbowing,  apologizing, 
persevering,  I  at  last  gained  a  point  where  I  knew  I 
could  see  my  incognita  at  the  most  advantage.  I 
turned — pshaw  ! — how  was  it  possible  I  had  not  recog- 
nised her? 

Kate  Crediford  ! 

There  was  no  getting  out  again,  for  a  while  at  least, 
without  giving  offence  to  the  crowd  I  had  jostled  so 
unceremoniously.  I  sat  down — vexed — and  commen- 
ced a  desperate  study  of  the  figure  of  Shakspere  on 
the  drop-curtain. 

Of  course  I  had  been  a  lover  of  Miss  Crediford's, 
or  I  could  not  have  turned  with  indifference  from  the 
handsomest  woman  in  the  theatre.  She  was  very 
beautiful — there  was  no  disputing.  But  we  love  wo- 
men a  little  for  what  we  do  know  of  them,  and  a  great 
deal  more  for  what  we  do  not.  I  had  love-read  Kate 
Crediford  to  the  last  leaf.  We  parted  as  easily  as  a 
reader  and  a  book.  Flirtation  is  a  circulating  library, 
in  which  we  seldom  ask  twice  for  the  same  volume, 
and  I  gave  up  Kate  to  the  next  reader,  feeling  no 
property  even  in  the  marks  I  had  made  in  her  perusal. 
A  little  quarrel  sufficed  as  an  excuse  for  the  closing  of 
the  book,  and  both  of  us  studiously  avoided  a  recon- 
ciliation. 

As  I  sat  in  the  pit,  I  remembered  suddenly  a  mole 
on  her  left  cheek,  and  I  turned  toward  her  with  the 
simple  curiosity  to  knew  whether  it  was  visible  at  that 
distance.  Kate  looked  sad.  She  still  leaned  immove- 
able against  the  slight  column,  and  her  dark  eyes,  it 
struck  me,  were  moist.  Her  mouth,  with  this  pecu- 
liar expression  upon  her  countenance,  was  certainly 
inexpressibly  sweet— the  turned-down  corners  ending 
in  dimples,  which  in  that  particular  place,  I  have  al- 
ways observed,  are  like  wells  of  unfathomable  melan- 
choly.    Poor  Kate  !  what  was  the  matter  with  her  ? 

As  I  turned  back  to  my  dull  study  of  the  curtain  a 
little  pettish  with  myself  for  the  interest  with  which  1 
had  looked  at  an  old  flame,  I  detected  half  a  sigh 
under  my  white  waistcoat ;  but  instantly  persuading 
myself  that  it  was  a  disposition  to  cough,  coughed,  and 
began  to  hum  "suoni  la  tromba."  The  curiam  rose 
and  the  play  went  on. 


508 


KATE  CREDIFORD. 


It  was  odd  that  I  never  had  seen  Kate  in  that  humor 
before.  I  did  not  think  she  could  be  sad.  Kate 
Crediford  sad !  Why,  she  was  the  most  volatile,  light- 
hearted,  care-for-nothing  coquette  that  ever  held  up 
her  fingers  to  be  kissed.  I  wonder,  has  any  one  really 
annoyed  you,  my  poor  Kate  !  thought  I.  Could  I, 
by  chance,  be  of  any  service  to  you — for,  after  all,  I 
owe  you  something!     I  looked  at  her  again. 

Strange  that  I  had  ever  looked  at  that  face  without 
emotion !  The  vigils  of  an  ever-wakeful,  ever-passion- 
ate, yet  ever-tearful  and  melancholy  spirit,  seemed  set, 
and  kept  under  those  heavy  and  motionless  eyelids. 
And  she,  as  I  saw  her  now,  was  the  very  model  and 
semblance  of  the  character  that  I  had  all  my  life  been 
vainly  seeking  !  This  was  the  creature  I  had  sighed 
for  when  turning  away  from  the  too  mirthful  tender- 
ness of  Kate  Crediford  !  There  was  something  new, 
or  something  for  the  moment  miswritten.  in  that 
familiar  countenance. 

I  made  my  way  out  of  the  pit  with  some  difficulty, 
and  returned  to  sit  near  her.  After  a  few  minutes,  a 
gentleman  in  the  next  box  rose  and  left  the  seat  vacant 
on  the  other  side  of  the  pilaster  against  which  she 
leaned.  I  went  around  while  the  orchestra  were  play- 
ing a  loud  march,  and,  without  being  observed  by  the 
thoughtful  beauty,  seated  myself  in  the  vacant  place.    ! 

Why  did  my  eyes  flush  and  moisten,  as  I  looked 
upon  the  small  white  hand  lying  on  the  cushioned  J 
barrier  between  us  !  I  knew  every  vein  of  it,  like  the  i 
strings  of  my  own  heart. — I  had  held  it  spread  out  in  j 
my  own,  and  followed  its  delicate  blue  traceries  with 
a  rose-stem,  for  hours  and  hours,  while  imploring,  and 
reproaching,  and  reasoning  over  love's  lights  and 
shadows.  I  knew  the  feel  of  every  one  of  those  ex- 
quisite fingers — those  rolled  up  rose-leaves,  with  nails 
like  pieces  cut  from  the  lip  of  a  shell  !  Oh,  the 
promises  I  had  kissed  into  oaths  on  that  little  chef- 
d'ceuvre  of  nature's  tinted  alabaster!  the  psalms  and 
sermons  I  had  sat  out  holding  it,  in  her  father's  pew  ! 
the  moons  I  had  tired  out  of  the  sky,  making  of  it  a 
bridge  for  our  hearts  passing  backward  and  forward  ! 
And  how  could  that  little  wretch  of  a  hand,  that  knew 
me  better  than  its  own  other  hand  (for  we  had  been 
more  together),  lie  there,  so  unconscious  of  my  pres- 
ence ?  How  could  she — Kate  Crediford — sit  next  to 
me  as  she  was  doing,  with  only  a  stuffed  partition  be- 
tween us,  and  her  head  leaning  on  one  side  of  a  pilaster, 
and  mine  on  the  other,  and  never  start,  nor  recognise, 
nor  be  at  all  aware  of  my  neighborhood  ?  She  was 
not  playing  a  part,  it  was  easy  to  see.  Oh,  I  knew 
those  little  relaxed  fingers  too  well !  Sadness,  indolent 
and  luxurious  sadness,  was  expressed  in  her  counten- 
ance, and  her  abstraction  was  unfeigned  and  contem- 
plative. Could  she  have  so  utterly  forgotten  me — 
magnetically,  that  is  to  say?— Could  the  atmosphere 
about  her,  that  would  once  have  trembled  betrayingly 
at  my  approach,  like  the  fanning  of  an  angel's  invisi- 
ble wing,  have  lost  the  sense  of  my  presence  ? 

I  tried  to  magnetize  her  hand.  I  fixed  my  eyes  on 
that  little  open  palm,  and  with  all  the  intensity  I  could 
summon,  kissed  it  mentally  in  its  rosy  centre.  I  re- 
proached the  ungrateful  little  thing  for  its  dulness  and 
forgetfulness,  and  brought  to  bear  upon  it  a  focus  of 
old  memories  of  pressures  and  caresses,  to  which  a 
stone  would  scarce  have  the  heart  to  be  insensible. 

But  I  belie  myself  in  writing  this  with  a  smile.  I 
watched  those  unmoving  fingers  with  a  heart.  I  could 
not  see  the  face,  nor  read  the  thought,  of  the  woman 
who  had  once  loved  me,  and  who  sat  near  me,  now,  so 
unconsciously — but  if  a  memory  had  stirred,  if  a  pulse 
had  quickened  its  beat,  those  finely-strung  fingers  I 
well  know  would  have  trembled  responsively.  Had 
she  forgotten  me  altogether?  Is  that  possible ?  Can 
a  woman  close  the  leaves  of  her  heart  over  a  once-loved 
and  deeply-written  name,  like  the  waves  over  a  vessel's 
track — like  the  air  over  the  division  of  a  bird's  flight  ? 


I  had  intended  to  speak  presently  to  Miss  Crediford, 
but  every  moment  the  restraint  became  greater.  I  felt 
no  more  privileged  to  speak  to  her  than  the  stranger 
who  had  left  the  seat  I  occupied.  I  drew  back,  for 
fear  of  encroaching  on  her  room,  or  disturbing  the 
folds  of  her  shawl.  I  dared  not  speak  to  her.  And, 
while  I  was  arguing  the  matter  to  myself,  the  party 
who  were  with  her,  apparently  tired  of  the  play,  arose 
and  left  the  theatre,  Kate  following  last,  but  unspoken 
to,  and  unconscious  altogether  of  having  been  near 
any  one  whom  she  knew. 

I  went  home  and  wrote  to  her  all  night,  for  there  was 
no  sleeping  till  I  had  given  vent  to  this  new  fever  at  my 
heart.  And  in  the  morning,  I  took  the  leading  thoughts 
from  my  heap  in  incoherent  scribblings,  and  embodied 
them  more  coolly  in  a  letter : — 

"  You  will  think,  when  you  look  at  the  signature, 
that  this  is  to  be  the  old  story.  And  you  will  be  as 
much  mistaken  as  you  are  in  believing  that  I  was  ever 
your  lover,  till  a  few  hours  ago.  I  have  declared  love 
to  you,  it  is  true.  I  have  been  happy  with  you,  and 
wretched  without  you  ;  I  have  thought  of  you,  dream- 
ed of  you,  haunted  you,  sworn  to  you,  and  devoted  to 
you  all  and  more  than  you  exacted,  of  time  and  out- 
ward service  and  adoration  ;  but  I  love  you  now  for 
|  the  first  time  in  my  life.  Shall  I  be  so  happy  as  to 
!  make  you  comprehend  this  startling  contradiction  ? 
"  There  are  many  chambers  in  the  heart,  Kate ;  and 
the  spirits  of  some  of  us  dwell,  most  fondly  and  secret- 
ly, in  the  chamber  of  tears — avowedly,  however,  in  the 
outer  and  ever-open  chamber  of  mirth.  Over  the 
sacred  threshold,  guarded  by  sadness,  much  that  we 
select,  and  smile  upon,  and  follow  with  adulation  in 
the  common  walks  of  life,  never  passes.  We  admire 
the  gay.  They  make  our  melancholy  sweeter  by  con- 
trast, when  we  retire  within  ourselves.  We  pursue 
them.  We  take  them  to  our  hearts — to  the  outer 
vestibules  of  our  hearts — and  if  they  are  gay  only,  they 
are  content  with  the  unconsecrated  tribute  which  we 
pay  them  there.  But  the  chamber  within  is,  mean- 
time, lonely.  It  aches  with  its  desolation.  The  echo 
of  the  mirthful  admiration  without  jars  upon  its 
mournful  silence. — It  longs  for  love,  but  love  toned 
with  its  own  sadness — love  that  can  penetrate  deeper 
than  smiles  ever  came — love  that,  having  once  entered, 
can  be  locked  in  with  its  key  of  melancholy,  and 
brooded  over  with  the  long  dream  of  a  life-time.  But 
that  deep-hidden  and  unseen  chamber  of  the  heart 
may  be  long  untenanted.  And,  meantime,  the  spirit 
becomes  weary  of  mirth,  and  impatiently  quenches  the 
fire  even  upon  its  outer  altar,  and  in  the  complete 
loneliness  of  a  heart  that  has  no  inmate  or  idol,  gay 
or  tearful,  lives  mechanically  on. 

"  Do  you  guess  at  my  meaning,  Kate  ? — Do  you 
remember  the  merriment  of  our  first  meeting  ?  Do 
you  remember  in  what  a  frolic  of  thoughtlessness  you 
first  permitted  me  to  raise  to  my  lips  those  restless 
fingers  ?  Do  you  remember  the  mock  condescension, 
the  merry  haughtinsss,  the  rallying  and  feigned  in- 
credulity, with  which  you  first  received  my  successive 
steps  of  vowing  and  love-making — the  arch  look  when 
it  was  begun,  the  laugh  when  it  was  over,  the  untiring 
follies  we  kept  up,  after  vows  plighted,  and  the  future 
planned  and  sworn  to  ?  That  you  were  in  earnest,  as 
much  as  you  were  capable  of  being,  I  fully  believe. 
You  would  not  else  have  been  so  prodigal  of  the  sweet 
bestowings  of  a  maiden's  tenderness.  But  how  often 
have  I  left  you  with  the  feeling,  that  in  the  hours  I 
had  passed  with  you,  my  spirit  had  been  alone  !  How 
often  have  I  wondered  if  there  were  depths  in  my  heart, 
which  love  can  never  reach  !  How  often  mourned 
that  in  the  procession  of  love  there  was  no  place  allot- 
ted for  its  sweetest  and  dearest  followers — tears  and 
silence  !  Oh,  Kate  !  sweet  as  was  that  sun-gleam  of 
early   passion,  I  did  not  love  you .'     I  tired  of  your 


FLIRTATION  AND  FOX-CHASING. 


509 


smiles,  waiting  in  vain  for  your  sadness.     I  left  you, 
and  thought  of  you  no  more  ? 

"But  now  (and  you  will  be  surprised  to  know  that 
I  have  been  so  near  to  you  unperceived)— I  have  drank 
an  intoxication  from  one  glance  into  your  eyes,  which 
throws  open  to  you  every  door  of  my  heart,  subdues 
to  your  control  every  nerve  and  feeling  of  my  exis- 
tence. Last  night,  1  sat  an  hour,  tracing  again  the 
transparent  and  well-remembered  veins  upon  your 
hand,  and  oh!  how  the  language  written  in  those 
branching  and  mystic  lines  had  changed  in  meaning 
and  power. — You  were  sad.  I  saw  you  from  a  dis- 
tance, and,  with  amazement  at  an  expression  upon 
your  face  which  I  had  never  before  seen.  I  came  and 
sat  near  you.  It  was  the  look  I  had  longed  for  when 
I  knew  you,  and  when  tired  of  your  mirth.  It  was 
the  look  I  had  searched  the  world  for,  combined  with 
such  beauty  as  yours.  It  was  a  look  of  tender  and 
passionate  melancholy,  which  revealed  to  me  an  un- 
suspected chamber  in  your  heart — a  chamber  of  tears. 
Ah,  why  were  you  never  sad  before  ?  Why  have  we 
lost— why  have  I  lost  the  eternity's  worth  of  sweet 
hours  when  you  love  me  with  that  concealed  treasure 
in  your  bosom  ? — Alas  !  that  angels  must  walk  the 
world,  unrecognised,  till  too  late  !  Alas,  that  I  have 
held  in  my  arms  and  pressed  to  my  lips,  and  loosed 
again  with  trifling  and  weariness,  the  creature  whom 
it  was  my  life's  errand,  the  thirst  and  passionate  long- 
ing of  my  nature,  to  find  and  worship  ! 

"  Oh,  Heaven !  with  what  new  value  do  I  now 
number  over  your  adorable  graces  of  person  !  How 
spiritualized  is  every  familiar  feature,  once  so  deplor- 
ably misappreciated  ! — How  compulsive  of  respectful 
adoration  is  that  flexible  waist,  that  step  of  aerial  light- 
ness, that  swan-like  motion,  which  I  once  dared  to 
praise  triflingly  and  half-mockingly,  like  the  tints  of  a 
flower  or  the  chance  beauty  of  a  bird  !  And  those 
bright  lips  !  How  did  I  ever  look  on  them,  and  not 
know  that  within  their  rosy  portal  slept  voiceless,  for 
a  while,  the  controlling  spell  of  my  destiny — the  tear- 
ful spirit  followed  and  "called  in  my  dreams,  with  per- 
petual longing  ?  Strange  value  given  to  features  and 
outward  loveliness  by  qualities  within  !  Strange 
witchery  of  sadness  in  a  woman!  Oh,  there  is,  in 
mirth  and  folly,  dear  Kate,  no  air  for  love's  breathing, 
still  less  of  food  for  constancy,  or  of  holiness  to  con- 
secrate and  heighten  beauty  of  person. 

»  What  can  I  say  else,  except  implore  to  be  per- 
mitted to  approach  you — to  offer  my  life  to  you — to 
begin,  thus  late,  after  being  known  so  long,  the  wor- 
■hip  which  till  death  is  your  due  ?  Pardon  me  if  I 
have  written  abruptly  and  wildly.  I  shall  await  your 
answer  in  an  agony  of  expectation.  I  do  not  willingly 
breathe  till  1  see  you — till  I  weep  at  your  feet  over  my 
blindness  and  forgetfulness.  Adieu  !  but  let  it  not  be 
for  long  I  pray  you  !" 

I  despatched  this  letter,  and  it  would  be  difficult  to 
embody  in  language  the  agony  I  suffered  in  waiting 
for  a  reply.  I  walked  my  room,  that  endless  morning, 
with  a  death-pang  in  every  step — so  fearful  was  I — so 
prophetically  fearful — that  I  had  forfeited  for  ever  the 
heart  I  had  once  flung  from  me. 

It  was  noon  when  a  letter  arrived.  It  was  in  a  hand- 
writing new  to  me.  But  it  was  on  the  subject  which 
possessed  my  existence,  and  it  was  of  final  import. 
It  follows  : — 

"  Dear  Sir  :  My  wife  wishes  me  to  write  to  you, 
and  inform  you  of  her  marriage,  which  took  place  a 
week  or  two  since,  and  of  which  she  presumes  you 
are  not  aware.  She  remarked  to  me,  that  you  thought 
her  looking  unhappy  last  evening,  when  you  chanced 
to  see  her  at  the  play.  As  she  seemed  to  regret  not 
being  able  to  answer  your  note  herself,  I  may  perhaps 
convey  the  proper  apology  by  taking  upon  myself  to 


mention  to  you,  that,  in  consequence  of  eating  an  im- 
prudent quantity  of  unripe  fruit,  she  felt  ill  before  go- 
ing to  the  theatre,  and  was  obliged  to  leave  early. 
To  day  she  seems  seriously  indisposed.  I  trust  she 
will  be  well  enough  to  see  you  in  a  day  or  two — and 
remain,  "  Yours,  truly, 

"  Samuel  Smithers." 

But  I  never  called  on  Mrs.  Samuel  Smithers. 


FLIRTATION  AND  FOX-CHASING. 

"  The  only  heart  that  I  have  known  of  late,  has  been  an  easy, 
excitable  sort  of  gentleman,  quickly  roused  and  quickly  calmed— 
sensitive  enough  to  confer  a  great  deal  of  pleasure,  and  not  sensi- 
tive enough  to  give  a  moment's  pain.  The  heart  of  other  days  was 
a  very  different  person  indeed." — Bulwer. 

I  was  moping  one  day  in  solitary  confinement  in 
quarantine  at  Malta,  when,  in  a  turn  between  my  stone 
window  and  the  back  wall  I  saw  the  yards  of  a  vessel 
suddently  cross  the  light,  and  heard  the  next  moment 
the  rattle  of  a  chain  let  go,  and  all  the  bustle  of  a 
merchantman  coming  to  anchor.  1  had  the  privilege 
of  promenading  between  two  ring-bolts  on  the  wharf 
below  the  lazaretto,  and  with  the  attraction  of  a  new- 
comer to  the  sleepy  company  of  vessels  under  the 
yellow  flag,  I  lost  no  time  in  descending  the  stone 
stairs,  and  was  immediately  joined  by  my  vigilant  sen- 
tinel, the  guardiano,  whose  business  it  was  to  prevent 
my  contact  with  the  other  visiters  to  the  wharf.  The 
tricolor  flew  at  the  peak  of  the  stranger,  and  we  easily 
made  out  that  she  was  a  merchantman  from  Marseilles, 
subject  therefore  to  a  week's  quarantine  on  ac- 
count of  the  cholera.  I  had  myself  come  from  a 
i  plague  port,  Smyrna,  and  was  subjected  to  twenty 
j  days'  quarantine,  six  of  which  had  passed  ;  so  that  the 
Frenchman,  though  but  beginning  his  imprisonment, 
i  was  in  a  position  comparatively  enviable. 

I  had  watched  for  an  hour  the  getting  of  the  vessel 

|  into  mooring   trim,  and  was  beginning   to  conclude 

that  she  had  come  without  passengers,  when  a  gentle- 

;  man  made  his  appearance  on  deck,  and  the  jolly-boat 

!  was  immediately  lowered  and  manned.     A  traveller's 

I  baggage  was  handed  over  the  side,  the  gentleman  took 

leave  of  the   captain,  and,  in  obedience  to  directions 

|  from  the  quarantine  officer  on  the  quarterdeck,  the 

!  boat  was  pulled  directly  to  the  wharf  on  which  I  stood. 

;  The  guardiano  gave  me  a  caution  to  retire  a  little,  as 

the  stranger  was  coming  to  take  possession  of  the  next 

apartment  to  my  own,  and  must  land  at  the  stairs  near 

by;  but,  before  I  had  taken  two  steps  backward,  I 

began  to  recognise  features  familar  to  me,  and  with  a 

turn  of  the  head  as  he  sprang  on  the  wharf  the  identity 

was  established  completely.     Tom  Berryman,  by  all 

that  was  wonderful  !     I  had  not  seen  him  since  we 

were  suspended  from  college  together  ten  years  before. 

Forgetting  lazaretto  and  guardiano,  and  all  the  salt 

water  between  New  Haven  and  Malta,  I  rushed  up  to 

Tom  with  the  cordiality  of  other  days  (a  little  sharpen- 

■  ed  by  abstinence  from  society),  and  we  still  had  hold 

!  of  hands  with  a  firm  grip,  when  the  quarantine  master 

1  gravely  accosted  us,  and  informed  my  friend  that  he 

had   incurred  an  additional  week  by  touching  me— in 

short,  that  he  must  partake  of  the  remainder  of  my 

'  quarantine. 

Aghast  and  chap-fallen  as  Berryman  was  at  the  con- 
sequences of  our  rencontre  (for  he  had  fully  calculated 
on  getting  into  Malta  in  time  for  the  carnival),  he  was 
soniewhat  reconciled  to  his  lot  by  being  permitted  to 
share  my  room  and  table  instead  of  living  his  week  in 
solitude  ;  and,  by  enriching  our  supplies  a  little  from 


510 


FLIRTATION  AND  FOX-CHASING. 


town,  sleeping  much,  and  chatting  through  the  day  in 
the  rich  sunshine  of  that  climate  of  Paradise,  we  con- 
trived to  shove  off  the  fortnight  without  any  very  in- 
tolerable tedium. 

My  friend  and  I  had  begun  our  travels  differently — 
he  taken  England  first,  which  I  proposed  visiting  last. 
It  is  of  course  the  bonne  bouche  of  travel  to  everybody, 
and  I  was  very  curious  to  know  Tom's  experiences  ; 
and,  as  I  was  soon  bound  thitherward,  anxious  to  pick 
out  of  his  descriptions  some  chart  of  the  rocks  and 
shoals  in  the  "  British  channel"  of  society. 

I  should  say,  before  quoting  my  friend,  that  he  was 
a  Kentuckian.  with  the  manner  (to  ladies)  of  mingled 
devotion  and  nonchalance  so  popular  with  the  sex, 
and  a  chivalric  quality  of  man  altogether.  His  father's 
political  influence  had  obtained  for  him  personal  letters 
of  introduction  from  the  president,  and,  with  this  ad- 
vantage, and  his  natural  air  of  fashion,  he  had  found 
no  obstacle  to  choosing  his  society  in  England ; 
choosing  the  first,  of  course,  like  a  true  republican  ! 

We  were  sitting  on  the  water-steps  with  our  feet 
immersed  up  to  the  ankles  (in  January  too),  and  in 
reply  to  some  question  of  mine  as  to  the  approacha- 
bility  of  noble  ladies  by  such  plebeian  lovers  as  him- 
self, Tom  told  me  the  story  which  follows.  I  take  the 
names  at  random,  of  course,  but,  in  all  else,  I  shall  try 
to  "  tell  the  tale  as  'twas  told  to  me." 

Why,  circumstances,  as  you  know,  sometimes  put 
people  in  the  attitude  of  lovers  whether  they  will  or  no; 
and  it  is  but  civil  in  such  a  case,  to  do  what  fate  ex- 
pects of  you.  I  knew  too  much  of  the  difference  be- 
tween crockery  and  porcelain  to  enter  English  society 
with  the  remotest  idea  of  making  love  within  the  red 
book  of  the  peerage,  and  though  I've  a  story  to  tell,  I 
swear  I  never  put  a  foot  forward  till  I  thought  it  was 
knightly  devoir;  inevitable,  though  ever  so  ridiculous. 
Still,  I  must  say,  with  a  beautiful  and  unreserved 
woman  beside  one,  very  much  like  other  beautiful  and 
unreserved  woman,  a  republican  might  be  pardoned  for 
forgetting  the  invisible  wall.  "  Right  honorable"  love- 
liness has  as  much  attraction  about  it,  let  me  tell  you, 
and  is  quite  as  difficult  to  resist,  as  loveliness  that  is 
honored,  right  or  wrong,  and  a  man  must  be  brought 
up  to  it,  as  Englishmen  are,  to  see  the  heraldric  dragons 
and  griffins  in  the  air  when  a  charming  girl  is  talking 
to  him. 

11  Why  should  a  man,  whose  blood  is  warm  within, 
Sit  like  (her)  grandsire  cut  in  alabaster  ?" 

Eh  ?     But  to  begin  with  the  "  Tityre  tu  patulaa." 
I  had  been  passing  a  fortnight  at  the  hunting  lodge 

of  that  wild  devil,  Lord ,  in  the  Scotch  Highlands, 

and  what  with  being  freely  wet  outside  every  day,  and 
freely  wet  inside  every  night,  I  had  given  my  principle 
of  life  rather  a  disgust  to  its  lodgings,  and  there  were 
some  symptoms  of  preparation  for  leave-taking.  Un- 
willing to  be  ill  in  a  bachelor's  den,  with  no  solace 
tenderer  than  a  dandy  lord's  tiger,  I  made  a  twilight 
flit  to  the  nearest  post-town,  and  tightening  my  life- 
screws  a  little  with  the  aid  of  the  village  apothecary, 
started  southward  the  next  morning  with  four  posters. 
I  expected  to  be  obliged  to  pull  up  at  Edinboro',  but 
the  doctor's  opiates,  and  abstinence,  and  quiet  did 
more  for  me  than  I  had  hoped,  and  I  went  on  very 
comfortably  to  Carlisle.  I  arrived  at  this  place  after 
nightfall,  and  found  the  taverns  overflowing  with  the 
crowds  of  a  fair,  and  no  bed  to  be  had  unless  I  could 
make  one  in  a  quartette  of  snoring  graziers.  At  the 
same  time  there  was  a  great  political  meeting  at 
Edinboro',  and  every  leg  of  a  poster  had  gone  north 
— those  I  had  brought  with  me  having  been  trans- 
hitched  to  a  return  chaise,  and  gone  off  while  I  was 
looking  for  accommodations. 

Regularly  stranded,  I  sat  down  by  the  tap-room 
fire,  and  was  mourning  my  disaster,  when  the  horn 
of  the  night-coach  reached  my  ear,  and  in  the  minute 


of  its  rattling  up  to  the  door,  I  hastily  resolved  that  it 
was  the  least  of  two  evils,  and  booked  myself  accord- 
ingly. There  was  but  one  vacant  place,  an  outsider ! 
With  hardly  time  enough  to  resolve,  and  none  to  re- 
pent, I  was  presently  rolling  over  the  dark  road,  chilled 
to  the  bone  in  the  first  five  minutes,  and  wet  through 
with  a  "  Scotch  mist"  in  the  next  half  hour.  Some- 
where about  daybreak  we  rolled  into  the  little  town 

of ,  five  miles  from  the  seat  of  the  earl  of  Trese- 

then,  to  whose  hospitalities  I  stood  invited,  and  I  went 
to  bed  in  a  most  comfortable  inn  and  slept  till  noon. 

Before  going  to  bed  I  had  written  a  note  to  be  des- 
patched to  Tresethen  castle,  and  the  earl's  carriage 
was  waiting  for  me  when  I  awoke.  I  found  myself 
better  than  I  had  expected,  and  dressing  at  once  for 
dinner,  managed  to  reach  the  castle  just  in  time  to 
hand  in  Lady  Tresethen.  Of  that  dinner  1  but  re- 
member that  I  was  the  only  guest,  and  that  the  earl 
regretted  his  daughter's  absence  from  table,  Lady 
Caroline  having  been  thrown  that  morning  from  her 
horse.  I  fainted  somewhere  about  the  second  remove, 
and  recovered  my  wits  some  days  after,  on  the  safe  side 
of  the  crisis  of  a  fever. 

I  shall  never  forget  that  first  half  hour  of  conscious 
curiosity.  An  exquisite  sense  of  bodily  repose  mingled 
with  a  vague  notion  of  recent  relief  from  pain,  made 
me  afraid  to  speak  lest  I  should  awoke  from  a  dream, 
yet,  if  not  a  dream,  what  a  delicious  reality  !  A  lady 
of  most  noble  presence,  in  a  half-mourning  dress,  sat 
by  the  sideof  a  cheerful  fire,  turning  her  large  dark  eyes 
on  me,  in  the  pauses  of  a  conversation  with  a  gray- 
headed  servant.  My  bed  was  of  the  most  sumptuous 
luxury;  the  chamber  .was  hung  with  pictures  and 
draped  with  spotless  white  ;  the  table  covered  with 
the  costliest  elegancies  of  the  toilet ;  and  in  the  gentle 
and  deferential  manner  of  the  old  liveried  menial,  and 
the  subdued  tones  of  inquiry  by  the  lady,  there  was  a 
refinement  and  tenderness  which,  with  the  keen  sus- 
ceptibility of  my  senses,  "lapt  me  in  Elysium."  I  was 
long  in  remembering  where  1  was.  The  lady  glided 
from  the  room,  the  old  servant  resumed  his  seat  by 
my  bedside,  other  servants  in  the  same  livery  came 
softly  in  on  errands  of  service,  and,  at  the  striking  of 
the  half  hour  by  a  clock  on  the  mantelpiece,  the  lady 
returned,  and  I  was  raised  to  receive  something  from 
her  hand.  As  she  came  nearer,  I  remembered  the 
Countess  Tresethen. 

Three  days  after  this  I  was  permitted  to  take  the 
air  of  a  conservatory  which  opened  from  the  countess's 
boudoir.  My  old  attendant  assisted  me  to  dress,  and, 
with  another  servant,  took  me  down  in  a  fauteuil.  I 
was  in  slippers  and  robe-de-chambre,  and  presumed 
that  I  should  see  no  one  except  the  kind  and  noble 
Lady  Tresethen,  but  I  had  scarce  taken  one  turn  up 
the  long  alley  of  flowering  plants,  when  the  countess 
came  toward  me  from  the  glass  door  beyond,  and  on 
her  arm  a  girl  leaned  for  support,  whose  beauty 

(Here  Tom  dabbled  his  feet  for  some  minutes  in 
the  water  in  silence.) 

God  bless  me  !  I  can  never  give  you  an  idea  of  it! 
It  was  a  new  revelation  of  woman  to  me;  the  opening 
of  an  eighth  seal.  In  the  minute  occupied  by  her 
approach,  my  imagination  (accelerated,  as  that  faculty 
always  is,  by  the  clairvoyance  of  sickness),  had  gone 
through  a  whole  drama  of  love — fear,  adoration,  des- 
peration, and  rejection — and  so  complete  was  it,  that 
in  after  moments  when  these  phases  of  passion  came 
round  in  the  proper  lapse  of  days  and  weeks,  it  seemed 
to  me  that  I  had  been  through  with  them  before ;  that 
it  was  all  familiar;  that  I  had  met  and  loved  in  some 
other  world,  this  same  glorious  creature,  with  the 
same  looks,  words,  and  heart-ache  ;  in  the  same  con- 
servatory of  bright  flowers,  and  faith,  myself  in  the 
same  pattern  of  a  brocade  dressing-gown  ! 

Heavens!  what  a  beautiful  girl  was  that  Lady  Caro- 
line !     Her  eyes  were  of  a  light  gray,  the  rim  of  the 


FLIRTATION  AND  FOX-CHASING. 


511 


lids  perfectly  inky  with  the  darkness  of  the  long  sweep- 
ing lashes,  and  in  her  brown  h;iir  there  was  a  gold 
lustre  that  seemed  somehow  to  illuminate  the  curves 
of  her  small  head  like  a  halo.  Her  mouth  had  too 
much  character  for  a  perfectly  agreeable  first  impres- 
sion. It  was  nobility  and  sweetness  educated  oyer 
native  high  spirit  andscornfulness — the  nature  shining 
through  °the  transparent  blood,  like  a  flaw  through 
enamel.  She  would  have  been,  in  other  circumstan- 
ces, a  maid  of  Saragossa  or  a  Gertrude  Von  Wart ; 
a  heroine  ;  perhaps  a  devil.  But  her  fascination  was 
resistless ! 

"My  daughter,"  said  Lady  Tresethen  (and  in  that 
beginning  was  all  the  introduction  she  thought  neces- 
sary), "  is,  like  yourself,  an  invalid  just  escaped  from 
the  doctor  ;  you  must  congratulate  each  other.  Are 
you  strong  enough  to  lend  her  an  arm,  Mr.  Berry- 
man  ?" 

The  countess  left  us,  and  with  the  composure  of  a 
sister  who  had  seen  me  every  day  of  my  life,  Lady 
Caroline  took  my  arm  and  strolled  slowly  to  and  fro, 
questioning  me  of  my  shooting  at  the  lodge,  and  talk- 
ing to  me  of  her  late  accident,  her  eyes  sometimes 
fixed  upon  her  little  embroidered  slippers,  as  they 
peeped  from  her  snowy  morning  dress,  and  sometimes 
indolently  raised  and  brought  to  bear  on  my  flushed 
cheek  and  trembling  lips;  her  singular  serenity  opera- 
ting on  me  as  anything  but  a  sedative  !  I  was  taken 
up  stairs  again,  after  an  hour's  conversation,  in  a  fair 
way  for  a  relapse,  and  the  doctor  put  me  under  em- 
bargo again  for  another  week,  which,  spite  of  all  the 
renewed  care  and  tenderness  of  Lady  Tresethen, 
seemed  to  me  an  eternity  !  I'll  not  bother  you  with 
what  I  felt  and  thought  all  that  time  ! 

It  was  a  brilliant  autumnal  day  when  I  got  leave  to 
make  my  second  exodus,  and  with  the  doctor's  per- 
mission I  prepared  for  a  short  walk  in  the  park.  I 
declined  the  convoy  of  the  old  servant,  for  I  had  heard 
Lady  Caroline's  horse  gallop  away  down  the  avenue, 
and  I  wished  to  watch  her  return  unobserved.  I  had 
just  lost  sight  of  the  castle  in  the  first  bend  of  the  path, 
when  I  saw  her  quietly  walking  her  horse  under  the 
trees  at  a  short  distance,  and  the  moment  after  she 
observed  and  came  toward  me  at  an  easy  canter.  I 
had  schooled  myself  to  a  little  more  self-possession, 
but  I  was  not  prepared  for  such  an  apparition  of  splen- 
did beauty  as  that  woman  on  horseback.  She  rode  an 
Arabian  bay  of  the  finest  blood;  a  lofty,  fiery,  match- 
less creature,  with  an  expression  of  eye  and  nostril 
which  I  could  not  but  think  a  proper  pendant  to  her 
own,  limbed  as  I  had  seldom  seen  a  horse,  and  his 
arched  neck,  and  forehead,  altogether,  proud  as  a  steed 
for  Lucifer.  She  sat  on  him  as  if  it  were  a  throne 
she  was  born  to,  and  the  flow  of  her  riding-dress 
seemed  as  much  a  part  of  him  as  his  mane,  lie  ap- 
peared ready  to  bound  into  the  air,  like  Pegasus,  but 
one  hand  calmly  stroked  his  mane,  and  her  face  was 
as  tranquil  as  marble. 

"  Well  met !"  she  said  ;  "  I  was  just  wishing  for  a 
cavalier.  What  sort  of  a  horse  would  you  like,  Mr. 
Berryman?  Ellis!"  (speaking  to  her  groom),  "is  old 
Curtal  taken  up  from  grass  ?" 

"  Yes,  miladi!" 

"  Curtal  is  our  invalid  horse,  and  as  you  are  not 
trery  strong,  perhaps  his  easy  pace  will  be  best  for  you. 
Bring  him  out  directly,  Ellis.  We'll  just  walk  along 
the  road  a  little  way  ;  for  I  must  show  you  my  Ara-  ] 
bian  ;  and  we'll  not  go  back  to  ask  mamma's  permis- 
sion, for  we  shouldn't  get  it !  You  won't  mind  riding 
a  little  way,  will  you?" 

Of  course  I  would  have  bestrided  a  hippogriff  at 
her  bidding,  and  when  the  groom  came  out,  leading 
a  thorough-bred  hunter,  with  apparently  a  very  elastic 
and  gentle  action,  I  forgot  the  doctor  and  mounted 
with  great  alacrity.  We  walked  our  horses  slowly 
down  the  avenue  and  out  at  the  castle  gate,  followed 


by  the  groom,  and  after  trying  a  little  quicker  pace  on 
the  public  road,  I  pronounced  old  Curtal  worthy  of 
her  ladyship's  eulogium,  and  her  own  Saladin  worthy, 
if  horse  could  be  worthy,  of  his  burthen. 

We  had  ridden  perhaps  a  mile,  and  Lady  Caroline 
was  giving  me  a  slight  history  of  the  wonderful  feats 
of  the  old  veteran  under  me,  when  the  sound  of  a  horn 
made  both  horses  prick  up  their  ears,  and  on  rising 
a  little  acclivity,  we  caught  sight  of  a  pack  of  hounds 
coming  across  the  fields  directly  toward  us,  followed 
by  some  twenty  red-coated  horsemen.  Old  Curtal 
trembled  and  showed  a  disposition  to  fret,  and  I  ob- 
served that  Lady  Caroline  dexterously  lengthened 
her  own  stirrup  and  loosened  the  belt  of  her  riding- 
dress,  and  the  next  minute  the  hounds  were  over  the 
hedge,  and  the  horsemen,  leap  after  leap,  after  them, 
and  with  every  successive  jump,  my  own  steed  reared 
and  plunged  unmanageably. 

"  Indeed,  I  can  not  stand  this  !"  cried  Lady  Caro- 
line, gathering  up  her  reins,  "  Ellis  !  see  Mr.  Berry- 
man  home  !"  and  away  went  the  flying  Arabian  over 
the  hedge  with  a  vault  that  left  me  breathless  with 
astonishment.  One  minute  I  made  the  vain  effort  to 
control  my  own  horse  and  turn  his  head  in  the  other 
direction,  but  my  strength  was  gone.  I  had  never 
leaped  a  fence  in  my  life  on  horseback,  though  a 
tolerable  rider  on  the  road  ;  but  before  I  could  think 
how  it  was  to  be  done,  or  gather  myself  together  for 
the  leap,  Curtal  was  over  the  hedge  with  me,  and 
flying  across  a  ploughed  field  like  the  wind — Saladin 
not  far  before  him.  With  a  glance  ahead  I  saw  the 
red  coats  rising  into  the  air  and  disappearing  over 
another  green  hedge,  and  though  the  field  was  crossed 
iu  twenty  leaps,  I  had  time  to  feel  my  blood  run  cold 
with  the  prospect  of  describing  another  parabola  in 
the  air,  and  to  speculate  on  the  best  attitude  for  a 
projectile  on  horseback.  Over  went  Saladin  like  a 
greyhound,  but  his  mistress's  riding-cap  caught  the 
wind  at  the  highest  point  of  the  curve,  and  flew  back 
into  my  face  as  Curtal  rose  on  his  haunches,  and  over 
I  went  again,  blinded  and  giddy,  and,  with  the  cap 
held  flat  against  my  bosom  by  the  pressure  of  the  air, 
flew  once  more  at  a  tremendous  pace  onward.  My 
feet  were  now  plunged  to  the  instep  in  the  stirrups, 
and  my  back,  too  weak  to  support  me  erect,  let  me 
down  to  my  horse's  mane,  and  one  by  one,  along  the 
skirt  of  a  rising  woodland,  I  could  see  the  red  coats 
dropping  slowly  behind.  Right  before  me  like  a 
meieor,  however,  streamed  back  the  loosened  tresses 
of  Lady  Caroline,  and  Curtal  kept  close  on  the  track 
of  Saladin,  neither  losing  nor  gaining  an  inch  apparent- 
ly, and  nearer  and  nearer  sounded  the  baying  of  the 
hounds,  and  clearer  became  my  view  of  the  steady  and 
slight  waist  riding  so  fearlessly  onward.  Of  my  horse 
I  had  neither  guidance  nor  control.  He  needed  none. 
The  hounds  had  crossed  a  morass,  and  we  were  round- 
ing a  half-circle  on  an  acclivity  to  come  up  with  them, 
and  Curtal  went  at  it  too  confidently  to  be  in  error. 
Evenly  as  a  hand-gallop  on  a  green  sward  his  tremen- 
dous pace  told  off,  and  if  his  was  the  ease  of  muscular 
power,  the  graceful  speed  of  the  beautiful  creature 
moving  before  me  seemed  the  aerial  buoyancy  of  a 
bird.  Obstructions  seemed  nothing.  That  flowing 
dress  and  streaming  hair  sailed  over  rocks  and  ditches, 
and  over  them,  like  their  inseparable  shadow,  glided 
I,  and,  except  one  horseman  who  still  kept  his  dis- 
tance ahead,  we  seemed  alone  in  the  field.  1  he 
clatter  of  hoofs,  and  the  exclamations  of  excitement 
had  ceased  behind  me,  and  though  I  was  capable  of 
no  exertion  beyond  that  of  keeping  my  seat,  I  no 
longer  feared  the  leap  nor  the  pace,  and  began  to  an- 
ticipate a  safe  termination  to  my  perilous  adventure. 
A  slight  exclamation  from  Lady  Caroline  reached  my 
ear  and  I  looked  forward.  A  small  river  was  before 
us,  and,  from  the  opposite  bank,  of  steep  clay,  the 
rider  who  had  preceded  us  was  falling  back,  his  horsed 


512 


THE  POET  AND  THE  MANDARIN. 


forefeet  high  in  the  air,  and  his  arms  already  in  the 
water.  I  tried  to  pull  my  reins.  I  shouted  to  my 
horse  in  desperation.  And  with  the  exertion,  my 
heart  seemed  to  give  way  within  me.  Giddy  and  faint 
1  abandoned  myself  to  my  fate.  I  just  saw  the  flying 
heels  of  Saladin  planted  on  the  opposite  bank  and  the 
streaming  hair  still  flying  onward,  when,  with  a  bound 
that,  it  seemed  to  me,  must  rend  every  fibre  of  the 
creature  beneath  me,  I  saw  the  water  gleam  under 
my  feet,  and  still  I  kept  on.  We  flew  over  a  fence 
into  a  stubble  field,  the  hounds  just  before  us,  and  over 
a  gate  into  the  public  highway,  which  we  followed  for 
a  dozen  bounds,  and  then,  with  a  pace  slightly  mode- 
rated, we  successively  cleared  a  low  wall  and  brought 
up,  on  our  horses'  haunches,  in  the  midst  of  an  uproar 
of  dogs,  cows,  and  scattering  poultry — the  fox  having 
been  run  down  at  last  in  the  enclosure  of  a  barn.  I 
had  just  strength  to  extricate  my  feet  from  the  stirrups, 
take  Lady  Caroline's  cap,  which  had  kept  its  place 
between  my  elbows  and  knees,  and  present  it  to  her 
as  she  sat  in  her  saddle,  and  my  legs  gave  way  under 
me.  I  was  taken  into  the  farmhouse,  and,  at  the  close 
of  a  temporary  ellipse,  I  was  sent  back  to  Tresethen 
Castle  in  a  post-chaise,  and  once  more  handed  over  to 
the  doctor ! 

Well,  my  third  siege  of  illness  was  more  tolerable, 
for  I  received  daily,  now,  some  message  of  inquiry  or 
some  token  of  interest  from  Lady  Caroline,  though  I 
learned  from  the  countess  that  she  was  in  sad  disgrace 
for  her  inveiglement  of  my  trusting  innocence.  I  also 
received  the  cards  of  the  members  of  the  hunt,  with 
many  inquiries  complimentary  to  what  they  were 
pleased  to  consider  American  horsemanship,  and  I 
found  that  my  seizure  of  the  flying  cap  of  Lady  Caro- 
line and  presentation  of  it  to  her  ladyship  at  "the 
death,"  was  thought  to  be  worthy,  in  chivalry  of 
Bayard,  and  in  dexterity  of  Ducrow.  Indeed,  when 
let  out  again  to  the  convalescent  walk  in  the  conser- 
vatory, I  found  that  1  was  counted  a  hero  even  by  the 
stately  earl.  There  slipped  a  compliment,  too,  here 
and  there,  through  the  matronly  disapprobation  of 
Lady  Tresethen — and  all  this  was  too  pleasant  to  put 
aside  with  a  disclaimer — so  I  bid  truth  and  modesty 
hold  their  peace,  and  took  the  honor  the  gods  chose 
to  provide ! 

But  now  came  dangers  more  perilous  than  my  ride 
on  Curtal.  Lady  Caroline  was  called  upon  to  be  kind 
to  me  !  Daily  as  the  old  servant  left  me  in  the  alley 
of  japonicas,  she  appeared  from  the  glass  door  of  her 
mother's  boudoir  and  devoted  herself  to  my  comfort — 
walking  with  me,  while  I  could  walk,  in  those  fragrant 
and  balmy  avenues  of  flowers,  and  then  bringing  me 
into  her  mother's  luxurious  apartment,  where  books, 
and  music,  and  conversation  as  frank  and  untrammelled 
as  man  in  love  could  ask,  wiled  away  the  day.  Wiled 
it  away  ? — winged  it — shod  it  with  velvet  and  silence, 
for  I  never  knew  how  it  passed  !  Lady  Caroline  had 
a  mind  of  the  superiority  stamped  so  consciously  on 
her  lip.  She  anticipated  no  consequences  from  her 
kindness,  therefore  she  was  playful  and  unembarrassed. 
She  sang  to  me,  and  I  read  to  her.  Her  rides  were 
given  up,  and  Saladin  daily  went  past  the  window  to 
his  exercise,  and  with  my  most  zealous  scrutiny  I 
could  detect  in  her  face  neither  impatience  of  con- 
finement nor  regret  at  the  loss  of  weathar  fitter  for 
pleasures  out  of  doors.  Spite  of  every  caution  with 
which  hope  could  be  chained  down,  I  was  flattered. 

You  smile — (Tom  said,  though  he  was  looking 
straight  into  the  water,  and  had  not  seen  my  face  for 
half  an  hour) — but,  without  the  remotest  hope  of 
taking  Lady  Caroline  to  Kentucky,  or  of  becoming 
English  on  the  splendid  dowry  of  the  heiress  of  Trese- 
then, I  still  felt  it  impossible  to  escape  from  my  lover's 
attitude — impossible  to  avoid  hoarding  up  symptoms, 
encouragements,  flatteries,  and  all  the  moonshine  of  am- 
atory anxiety.    I  was  in  love — and  who  reasons  in  love? 


One  morning,  after  I  had  become  an  honorary 
patient — an  invalid  only  by  sufferance — and  was  slow- 
ly admitting  the  unwelcome  conviction  that  it  was 
time  for  me  to  be  shaping  my  adieux — the  conversa- 
tion took  rather  a  philosophical  turn.  The  starting 
point  was  a  quotation  in  a  magazine  from  Richter : 
"  Is  not  a  man's  unirerse  within  his  head,  whether  a 
king's  diadem  or  a  torn  scullcap  be  without  ?" — and  I 
had  insisted  rather  strenuously  on  the  levelling  privilege 
we  enjoyed  in  the  existence  of  a  second  world  around 
us — the  world  of  revery  and  dream — wherein  the  tyran- 
ny, and  check,  and  the  arbitrary  distinctions  of  the 
world  of  fact,  were  never  felt — and  where  he,  though 
he  might  be  a  peasant,  who  had  the  consciousness  in 
his  soul  that  he  was  a  worthy  object  of  love  to  a  prin- 
cess, could  fancy  himself  beloved  and  revel  in  imagin- 
ary possession. 

"  Why,"  said  I.  turning  with  a  sudden  flush  of  self- 
confidence  to  Lady  Caroline,  "  Why  should  not  the 
passions  of  such  a  world,  the  loving  and  returning  of 
love  infancy,  have  the  privilege  of  language  ?  Why 
should  not  matches  be  made,  love  confessed,  vows  ex- 
changed, and  fidelity  sworn,  valid  within  the  realm  of 
dream-land  only  ?  Why  should  I  not  say  to  you,  for 
example,  I  adore  you,  dear  lady,  and  in  my  world  of 
thought  you  shall,  if  you  so  condescend,  be  my  bride 
and  mistress  ;  and  why,  if  you  responded  to  this  and 
listened  to  my  vows  of  fancy,  should  your  bridegroom 
of  the  world  of  fact  feel  his  rights  invaded  ?" 

"  In  fancy  let  it  be  then  !"  said  Lady  Caroline,  with 
a  blush  and  a  covert  smile,  and  she  rang  the  bell  for 
luncheon. 

Well,  I  still  lingered  a  couple  of  days,  and  on  the 
last  day  of  my  stay  at  Tresethen,  I  became  sufficiently 
emboldened  to  take  Lady  Caroline's  hand  behind  the 
fountain  of  the  conservatory,  and  to  press  it  to  my  lips 
with  a  daring  wish  that  its  warm  pulses  belonged  to 
the  world  of  fancy. 

She  withdrew  it  very  kindly,  and  (1  thought)  sadly, 
aud  begged  me  to  go  to  the  boudoir  and  bring  her  a 
volume  of  Byron  that  lay  onher  work-table. 

I  brought  it,  and  she  turned  over  the  leaves  a  mo- 
ment, and,  with  her  pencil,  marked  two  lines  and  gave 
me  the  book,  bidding  me  an  abrupt  good  morning. 
I  stood  a  few  minutes  with  my  heart  beating  and  my 
brain  faint,  but  finally  summoned  courage  to  read  ■ — 

"  I  can  not  lose  a  world  for  thee — 
But  would  not  lose  thee  for  the  world  !" 

I   left  Tresethen  the  next  morning,  and 

"Hold  on,  Tom  !"  cried  I — "  there  comes  the  boat 
with  our  dinner  from  Valletta,  and  we'll  have  your 
sorrows  over  our  Burgundy." 

"  Sorrows  !"  exclaimed  Tom,  "  I  was  going  to  tell 
you  of  the  fun  I  had  at  her  wedding  !" 

"  Lord  preserve  us  !" 

"Bigamy — wasn't  it? — after  our  little  nuptials  in 
dream-land  !  She  told  her  husband  all  about  it  at  the 
wedding  breakfast,  and  his  lordship  (she  married  the 

Marquis  of )  begged  to  know  the  extent  of  my 

prerogatives.  I  was  sorry  to  confess  that  they  did  not 
interfere  very  particularly  with  his  .'" 


THE  POET  AND  THE  MANDARIN. 


The  moon  shone  like  glorified  and  floating  dew  on 
the  bosom  of  the  tranquil  Pei-ho,  and  the  heart  of  the 
young  poet  Le-pih  was  like  a  cup  running  over  with 
wine.  It  was  no  abatement  of  his  exulting  fulness 
that  he  was  as  yet  the  sole  possessor  of  the  secret  of 
his  own  genius.  Conscious  of  exquisite  susceptibility 
to  beauty,  fragrance  and  music  (the  three  graces  of 


THE  POET  AND  THE  MANDARIN. 


513 


the  Chinese),  he  was  more  intent  upon  enjoying  his 
gilts  than  upon  the  awakening  of  envy  for  their  posses- 
sion  the  latter  being  the  second  leaf  in  the  book  of 

genius,  and  only  turned  over  by  the  finger  of  satiety. 
Thoughtless  of  the  acquisition  of  fame  as  the  youth- 
ful poet  may  be,  however,  he  is  always  ready  to  an- 
ticipate its  fruits,  and  Le-pih  committed  but  the  poet's 
error,  when,  having  the  gem  in  his  bosom  which 
could  buy  the  favor  of  the  world,  he  took  the  favor 
for  granted  without  producing  the  gem. 

Kwonfootse  had  returned  a  conqueror,  from  the  wars 
with  the  Hwong-kin,  and  this  night,  on  which  the 
moon  shone  so  gloriously,  was  the  hour  of  his  triumph, 
for  the  Emperor  Tang  had  condescended  to  honor 
with  his  presence,  a  gala  given  by  the  victorious  gene- 
ral at  his  gardens  on  the  Pei-ho.  Softened  by  his 
exulting  feelings  (for  though  a  brave  soldier,  he  was 
as  haughty  as  Lnykong  the  thunder-god,  or  Hwuyloo 
the  monarch  of  fire),  the  warlike  mandarin  threw  open 
his  gardens  on  this  joyful  night,  not  only  to  those  who 
wore  in  their  caps  the  gold  ball  significant  of  patrician 
birth,  but  to  all  whose  dress  and  mien  warranted  their 
appearance  in  the  presence  of  the  emperor. 

Like  the  realms  of  the  blest  shone  the  gardens  of 
Kwonfootse.  Occupying  the  whole  valley  of  the 
Pei-ho,  at  a  spot  where  it  curved  like  the  twisted 
cavity  of  a  shell,  the  sky  seemed  to  shut  in  the  grounds 
like  the  cover  of  a  vase,  and  the  stars  seemed  but  the 
garden-lights  overhead.  From  one  edge  of  the  vase 
to  the  other — from  hill-top  to  hill-top — extended  a 
broad  avenue,  a  pagoda  at  either  extremity  glittering 
with  gold  and  scarlet,  the  sides  flaming  with  colored 
lamps  and  flaunting  with  gay  streamers  of  barbarian 
stuffs,  and  the  moonlit  river  cutting  it  in  the  centre,  the 
whole  vista,  at  the  first  glance,  resembling  a  girdle  of 
precious  stones  with  a  fastening  of  opal.  Off  from 
this  central  division  radiated  in  all  directions  alleys  of 
camphor  and  cinnamon  trees,  lighted  with  amorous 
dimness,  and  leading  away  to  bowers  upon  the  hill- 
side, and  from  every  quarter  resounded  music,  and  in 
every  nook  was  seen  feasting  and  merriment. 

In  disguise,  the  emperor  and  imperial  family  mingled 
in  the  crowd,  and  no  one  save  the  host  and  his  daugh- 
ters knew  what  part  of  the  gardens  was  honored  with 
their  presence.  There  was,  however,  a  retreat  in  the 
grounds,  sacred  to  the  privileged  few,  and  here,  when 
fatigued  or  desirous  of  refreshment,  the  royal  person- 
ages laid  aside  disguise  and  were  surrounded  with 
the  deferential  honors  of  the  court.  It  was  so  con- 
trived that  the  access  was  unobserved  by  the  people, 
and  there  was,  therefore,  no  feeling  of  exclusion  to 
qualify  the  hilarity  of  the  entertainment,  Kwonfootse, 
with  all  his  pride,  looking  carefully  to  his  popularity. 
At  the  foot  of  each  descent,  upon  the  matted  banks 
of  the  river,  floated  gilded  boats  with  lamps  burning  in 
their  prows,  and  gayly-dressed  boatmen  offering  con- 
veyance across  to  all  who  required  it;  but  there  were 
also,  unobserved  by  the  crowd,  boats  unlighted  and 
undecorated  holding  oft'  from  the  shore,  which,  at  a 
sign  given  by  the  initiated,  silently  approached  a  mar- 
ble stair  without  the  line  of  the  blazing  avenue,  and  tak- 
ing their  freight  on  board,  swiftly  pulled  up  the  moonlit 
river,  to  a  landing  concealed  by  the  shoulder  of  the  hill. 
No  path  led  from  the  gardens  hither,  and  from  no  point 
of  view  could  be  overlooked  the  more  brilliant  scene 
of  imperial  revel. 

It  was  verging  toward  midnight  when  the  unknown 
poet,  with  brain  floating  in  a  celestial  giddiness  of  delight, 
stood  on  the  brink  of  the  gleaming  river.  The  boats 
plied  to  and  fro  with  their  freights  of  fair  damsels  and 
gayly-dressed  youths,  the  many-colored  lamps  throw- 
ing a  rainbow  profusion  of  tints  on  the  water,  and 
many  a  voice  addressed  him  with  merry  invitation,  for 
Le-pih's  beauty,  so  famous  now  in  history,  was  of  no 
forbidding  stateliness,  and  his  motions,  like  his  coun- 
tenance, were  as  franklv  joyous  as  the  gambols  of  a 
33 


young  leopard.  Not  inclined  to  boisterous  gayety  at 
the  moment,  Le-pih  stepped  between  the  lamp-bearing 
trees  of  the  avenue,  and  folding  his  arms  in  his  silken 
vest,  stood  gazing  in  revery  on  the  dancing  waters. 
After  a  few  moments,  one  of  the  dark  boats  on  which 
he  had  unconsciously  fixed  his  gaze  drew  silently 
toward  him,  and  as  the  cushioned  stern  was  brought 
round  to  the  bank,  the  boatman  made  a  reverence  to 
his  knees  and  sat  waiting  the  poet's  pleasure. 

Like  all  men  born  to  good  fortune,  Le-pih  was 
prompt  to  follow  the  first  beckoningsof  adventure,  and 
asking  no  questions,  he  quietly  embarked,  and  with  a 
quick  dip  of  the  oars  the  boat  shot  from  the  shore  and 
took  the  descending  current.  Almost  in  the  next  in- 
stant she  neared  again  to  the  curving  and  willow-fringed 
margin  of  the  stream,  and  lights  glimmered  through 
the  branches,  and  sweet,  low  music  became  audible, 
and  by  rapid  degrees,  a  scene  burst  on  his  eye,  which 
the  first  glimpse  into  the  gate  of  paradise  (a  subsequent 
agreeable  surprise,  let  us  presume)  could  scarcely  have 
exceeded. 

Without  an  exchange  of  a  syllable  between  the 
boatman  and  his  freight,  the  stern  was  set  against  a 
carpeted  stair  at  the  edge  of  the  river,  and  Le-pih  dis- 
embarked with  a  bound,  and  stood  upon  a  spacious 
area  lying  in  a  lap  of  the  hill,  the  entire  surface  carpeted 
smoothly  with  Persian  stuffs,  and  dotted  here  and  there 
with  striped  tents  piched  with  poles  of  silver.  Gar- 
lands of  flowers  hung  in  festoons  against  the  brilliant- 
colored  cloths,  and  in  the  centre  of  each  tent  stood  a 
low  tablet  surrounded  with  couches  and  laden  with 
meats  and  wine.  The  guests,  for  whom  this  portion 
of  the  entertainment  was  provided,  were  apparently 
assembled  at  a  spot  farther  on,  from  which  proceeded 
the  delicious  music  heard  by  the  poet  in  approaching  ; 
and,  first  entering  one  of  the  abandoned  tents  for  a 
goblet  of  wine,  Le-pih  followed  to  the  scene  of  attrac- 
tion. 

Under  a  canopy  of  gold  cloth  held  by  six  bearers, 
stood  the  imperial  chair  upon  a  raised  platform — not 
occupied,  however,  the  august  Tang  reclining  more  at ' 
his  ease,  a  little  out  of  the  circle,  upon  cushions 
canopied  by  the  moonlight.  Around  upon  the  steps 
of  the  platform  and  near  by,  were  grouped  the  noble 
ladies  of  the  court  and  the  royal  princesses  (Tang 
living  much  in  the  female  apartments  and  his  daugh- 
ters numbering  several  score),  and  all,  at  the  moment 
of  Le-pih's  joining  the  assemblage,  turning  to  observe 
a  damsel  with  a  lute,  to  whose  performance  the  low 
sweet  music  of  the  band  had  been  a  prelude.  The 
first  touch  of  the  strings  betrayed  a  trembling  hand, 
and  the  poet's  sympathies  were  stirred,  though  from 
her  bent  posture  and  her  distant  position  he  had  not 
yet  seen  the  features  of  the  player.  As  the  tremulous 
notes  grew  firmer,  and  the  lute  began  to  give  out  a 
flowing  harmony,  Le-pih  approached,  and  at  the  same 
time,  the  listening  groups  of  ladies  began  to  whisper 
and  move  away,  and  of  those  who  remained,  none 
seemed  to  listen  with  pleasure  except  Kwonfootse  and 
the  emperor.  The  latter,  indeed,  rivalled  the  intruding 
bard  in  his  interest,  rolling  over  upon  the  cushions 
and  resting  on  the  other  imperial  elbow  in  close  at- 
tention. 

Gaining  confidence  evidently  from  the  neglect  of 
her  auditory,  or,  as  is  natural  to  women,  less  afraid  of 
the  judgment  of  the  other  sex,  who  were  her  only 
listeners,  the  fair  Taya  (the  youngest  daughter  of 
Kwonfootse),  now  joined  her  voice  to  her  instrument, 
and  sang  with  a  sweetness  that  dropped  like  a  plum- 
met to  the  soul  of  Le-pih.  He  fell  to  his  knee  upon 
a  heap  of  cushions  and  leaned  eagerly  forward.  As 
she  became  afterward  one  of  his  most  passionate 
themes,  we  are  enabled  to  reconjure  the  features  that 
were  presented  to  his  admiring  wonder.  The  envy 
of  the  princesses  was  sufficient  proof  that  Taya  was  of 
rare  beauty;  she  had  that  wonderful   perfection  of 


514 


THE  POET  AND  THE  MANDARIN. 


feature  to  which  envy  pays  its  bitterest  tribute,  which 
is  apologized  for  if  not  found  in  the  poet's  ideal,  which 
we  thirst  after  in  pictures  and  marble,  of  which  loveli- 
ness and  expression  are  but  lesser  degrees — fainter 
shadowings.  She  was  adorably  beautiful.  The  outer 
corners  of  her  long  almond-shaped  eyes,  the  dipping 
crescent  of  her  forehead,  the  pencil  of  her  eyebrow 
and  the  indented  corners  of  her  mouth — all  these 
turned  downward  ;  and  this  peculiarity  which,  in  faces 
of  a  less  elevated  character,  indicates  a  temper  morose 
and  repulsive,  in  Taya's  expressed  the  very  soul  of 
gentle  and  lofty  melancholy.  There  was  something 
infantine  about  her  mouth,  the  teeth  were  so  small 
and  regular,  and  their  dazzling  whiteness,  shining  be- 
tween lips  of  the  brilliant  color  of  a  cherry  freshly 
torn  apart,  was  in  startling  contrast  with  the  dark 
lustre  of  her  eyes.  Le-pilrs  poetry  makes  constant 
allusion  to  those  small  and  snowy  teeth,  and  the  turn- 
ed-down corners  of  the  lips  and  eyes  of  his  incompar- 
able mistress. 

Taya's   song    was   a   fragment   of   that   celebrated 
Chinese  romance  from  which  Moore  has  borrowed  so  ! 
largely  in  his  loves  of  the  angels,  and  it  chanced  to 
be   particularly  appropriate  to  her  deserted  position  | 
(she  was  alone  now  with  her  three  listeners),  dwelling  as  j 
it  did  upon  the  loneliness  of  a  disguised  Peri,  wander-  j 
ing  in  exile  upon  earth.     The  lute  fell  from  her  hands  | 
when  she  ceased,  and  while  the  emperor  applauded,  j 
and  Kwonfootse  looked  on  her  with  paternal  pride,  j 
Le-pih  modestly  advanced  to  the  fallen  instrument,    j 
and  with  a  low  obeisance  to  the  emperor  and  a  hesita-  j 
ting  apology  to  Taya,  struck  a  prelude  in  the  same  J 
air,  and  broke  forth  into  an  impulsive  expression  of 
his  feelings  in  verse.     It  would  be  quite  impossible  to 
give  a   translation  of  this  famous  effusion  with   its  I 
oriental  load  of  imagery,  but  in  modifying  it  to  the 
spirit  of  our  language  (giving  little  more  than  its  thread  , 
of  thought),  the  reader  may  see  glimpses  of  the  ma- 
terial  from  which  the  great  Irish  lyrist  spun  his  woof 
of  sweet  fable.     Fixing  his  keen  eyes  upon  the  bright  i 
lips  just  closed,  Le-pih  sang  : — 

"  When  first  from  heaven's  immortal  throngs 

The  earth-doomed  angels  downward  came, 
And  mourning  their  enraptured  songs, 

Walked  sadly  in  our  mortal  frame  ; 
To  those,  whose  lyres  of  loftier  string 

Had  taught  the  myriad  lips  of  heaven, 
The  song  that  they  tor  ever  sing, 

A  wondrous  lyre,  'tis  said,  was  given. 
'  And  go,'  the  seraph  warder  said, 

As  from  the  diamond  gates  they  flew, 
'  And  wake  the  songs  ye  here  have  led 
In  earthly  numbers,  pure  and  new  ! 
And  yours  shall  be  the  hallowed  power 

To  win  the  lost  to  heaven  again. 
And  when  earth's  clouds  shall  darkest  lower 

Your  lyre  shall  breathe  its  holiest  strain  ! 
Yet,  chastened  by  this  inward  fire, 

Your  lot  shall  be  to  walk  alone, 
I  Save  when,  perchance,  with  echoing  lyre, 

You  touch  a  spirit  like  your  own  ; 
And  whatsoe'er  the  guise  your  wear, 

To  him,  'tis  given  to  know  you  there.'  " 

The  song  over,  Le-pih  sat  with  his  hands  folded 
across  the  instrument  and  his  eyes  cast  down,  and 
Taya  gazed  on  him  with  wondering  looks,  yet  slowly, 
and  as  if  unconsciously,  she  took  from  her  breast  a 
rose,  and  with  a  half-stolen  glance  at  her  father,  threw 
it  upon  the  lute.  But  frowningly  Kwonfootse  rose 
from  his  seat  and  approached  the  poet. 

"Who  are  you?"  he  demanded  angrily,  as  the  bard 
placed  the  rose  reverently  in  his  bosom. 

"  Le-pih  !" 

With  another  obeisance  to  the  emperor,  and  a  deeper 
one  to  the  fair  Taya,  he  turned,  after  this  concise  an- 
swer, upon  his  heel,  lifting  his  cap  to  his  head,  which, 
to  the,  rage  of  Kwonfootse,  bore  not  even  the  gold  ball 
of  aristocracy. 


"  Bind  him  for  the  bastinado  !"  cried  the  infuriated 
mandarin  to  the  bearers  of  the  canopy. 

The  six  soldiers  dropped  their  poles  to  the  ground, 
but  the  emperor's  voice  arrested  them. 

"  He  shall  have  no  violence  but  from  you,  fair 
Taya,"  said  the  softened  monarch  ;  "  call  to  him  by 
the  name  he  has  just  pronounced,  for  I  would  hear 
that  lute  again  !" 

"  Le-pih  !  Le-pih  !"  cried  instantly  the  musical 
voice  of  the  fair  girl. 

The  poet  turned  and  listened,  incredulous  of  his 
own  ears. 

"  Le-pih!   Le-pih!"  she  repeated,  in  a  soft  tone. 

Half-hesitating,  half-bounding,  as  if  still  scarce  be- 
lieving he  had  heard  aright,  Le-pih  flew  to  her  feet, 
and  dropped  to  one  knee  upon  the  cushion  before  her, 
his  breast  heaving  and  his  eyes  flashing  with  eager 
wonder.  Taya's  courage  was  at  an  end,  and  she  sat 
with  her  eyes  upon  the  ground. 

"  Give  him  the  lute,  Kwonfootse !"  said  the  em- 
peror, swinging  himself  on  the  raised  chair  with  an 
abandonment  of  the  imperial  avoirdupois,  which  set 
ringing  violently  the  hundred  bells  suspended  in  the 
golden  fringes. 

"  Let  not  the  crow  venture  again  into  the  nest  of 
the  eagle,"  muttered  the  mandarin  between  his  teeth 
as  he  handed  the  instrument  to  the  poet. 

The  sound  of  the  bells  brought  in  the  women  and 
courtiers  from  every  quarter  of  the  privileged  area, 
and,  preluding  upon  the  strings  to  gather  his  scattered 
senses,  while  they  were  seating  themselves  around 
him,  Le-pih  at  last  fixed  his  gaze  upon  the  lips  of 
Taya,  and  commenced  his  song  to  an  irregular  harmo- 
ny well  adapted  to  extempore  verse.  We  have  tried 
in  vain  to  put  this  celebrated  song  of  compliment  into 
English  stanzas.  It  commenced  with  a  description 
of  Taya's  beauty,  and  an  enumeration  of  things  she 
resembled,  dwelling  most  upon  the  blue  lily,  which 
seems  to  have  been  Le-pilrs  favorite  flower.  The 
burthen  of  the  conclusion,  however,  is  the  new  value 
everything  assumed  in  her  presence.  "Of  the  light 
in  this  garden,"  he  says,  "there  is  one  beam  worth  all 
the  glory  of  the  moon,  for  it  sleeps  on  the  eye  of  Taya. 
Of  the  air  about  me  there  is  one  breath  which  my  soul 
drinks  like  wine— it  is  from  the  lips  of  Taya.  Taya 
looks  on  a  flower,  and  that  flower  seems  to  me,  with 
its  pure  eye,  to  gaze  after  her  for  ever.  Taya's  jacket 
of  blue  silk  is  my  passion.  If  angels  visit  me  in  my 
dreams,  let  them  be  dressed  like  Taya.  I  love  the 
broken  spangle  in  her  slipper  better  than  the  first  star 
of  evening.  Bring  me,  till  I  die,  inner  leaves  from 
the  water-lily,  since  white  and  fragrant  like  them  are 
the  teeth  of  Taya.  Call  me,  should  I  sleep,  when 
rises  the  crescent  moon,  for  the  blue  sky  in  its  bend 
curves  like  the  drooped  eye  of  Taya,"  &c,  &c. 

"By  the  immortal  Fo  !"  cried  the  emperor,  raising 
himself  bolt  upright  in  his  chair,  as  the  poet  ceased, 
"you  shall  be  the  bard  of  Tang  !  Those  are  my  sen- 
timents better  expressed  !  The  lute,  in  your  hands, 
is  my  heart  turned  inside  out !  Lend  me  your  gold 
chain,  Kwonfootse,  and,  Taya !  come  hither  and  put 
it  on  his  neck  !" 

Taya  glided  to  the  emperor,  but  Le-pih  rose  to  his 
feet,  with  a  slight  flush  on  his  forehead,  and  stood 
erect  and  motionless. 

"  Let  it  please  your  imperial  majesty,"  he  said, 
after  a  moment's  pause,  "to  bestow  upon  me  some 
gift  less  binding  than  a  chain." 

"Carbuncle of  Budha!  What  would  theyouth  have!" 
exclaimed  Tang  in  astonishment.  "  Is  not  the  gold 
chain  of  a  mandarin  good  enough  for  his  acceptance  ?" 

"My  poor  song,"  replied  Le-pih,  modestly  casting 
down  his  eyes,  "  is  sufficiently  repaid  by  your  majesty's 
praises.  The  chain  of  the  mandarin  would  gall  the 
neck  of  the  poet.  Yet — if  I  might  have  a"  reward 
more  valuable — " 


THE  POET  AND  THE  MANDARIN. 


515 


"  In  Fo's  name  what  is  it  ?*'  said  the  embarrassed 
emperor. 

Kwonfootse  laid  his  hand  on  his  cimeter,  and  his 
daughter  blushed  and  trembled. 

"  The  broken  spangle  on  the  slipper  of  Taya  !"  said 
Le-pih,  turning  half  indifferently  away. 

Loud  laughed  the  ladies  of  the  court,  and  Kwon- 
footse walked  from  the  bard  with  a  look  of  contempt, 
but  the  emperor  read  more  truly  the  proud  and  deli- 
cate spirit  that  dictated  the  reply  :  and  in  that  moment 
probably  commenced  the  friendship  with  which,  to  the 
end  of  his  peaceful  reign,  Tang  distinguished  the  most 
gifted  poet  of  his  time. 

The  lovely  daughter  of  the  mandarin  was  not  behind 
the  emperor  in  her  interpretation  of  the  character  of 
Le-pih,  and  as  she  stepped  forward  to  put  the  detach- 
ed spangle  into  his  hand,  she  bent  on  him  a  look  full 
of  earnest  curiosity  and  admiration. 

"  What  others  give  me,"  he  murmured  in  a  low 
voice,  pressing  the  worthless  trifle  to  his  lips,  "  makes 
me  their  slave;  but  what  Taya  gives  me  is  a  link  that 
draws  her  to  my  bosom." 

Kwonfootse  probably  thought  that  Le-pih's  audi- 
ence had  lasted  long  enough,  for  at  this  moment  the 
sky  seemed  bursting  into  flame  with  a  sudden  tumult 
of  fireworks,  and  in  the  confusion  that  immediately 
succeeded,  the  poet  made  his  way  unquestioned  to 
the  bank  of  the  river,  and  was  reconveyed  to  the  spot 
of  his  first  embarkation,  in  the  same  silent  manner  with 
which  he  had  approached  the  privileged  area. 

During  the  following  month,  Le-pih  seemed  much 
in  request  at  the  imperial  palace,  but,  to  the  surprise 
of  his  friends,  the  keeping  of  "worshipful  society" 
was  not  followed  by  any  change  in  his  merry  manners, 
nor  apparently  by  any  improvement  in  his  worldly 
condition.  His  mother  still  sold  mats  in  the  public 
market,  and  Le-pih  still  rode,  every  few  days,  to  the 
marsh,  for  his  panniers  of  rushes,  and  to  all  comers, 
among  his  old  acquaintances,  his  lute  and  song  were 
as  ready  and  gratuitous  as  ever. 

All  this  time,  however,  the  fair  Taya  was  consuming 
with  a  passionate  melancholy  which  made  startling 
ravages  in  her  health,  and  the  proud  mandarin,  whose 
affection  for  his  children  was  equal  to  his  pride,  in  vain 
shut  his  eyes  to  the  cause,  and  eat  up  his  heart  with 
mortification.  When  thefull  moon  came  round  again, 
reminding  him  of  the  scenes  the  last  moon  had  shone 
upon,  Kwonfootse  seemed  suddenly  lightened  of  his 
care,  and  his  superb  gardens  on  the  Pei-ho  were  sud- 
denly alive  with  preparations  for  another  festival.  Kept 
in  close  confinement,  poor  Taya  fed  on  her  sorrow, 
indifferent  to  the  rumors  of  marriage  which  could 
concern  only  her  sisters  ;  and  the  other  demoiselles 
Kwonfootse  tried  in  vain,  with  fluttering  hearts,  to  pry 
into  their  father's  secret.  A  marriage  it  certainly  was 
to  be,  for  the  lanterns  were  painted  of  the  color  of 
peach-blossoms — but  whose  marriage  ? 

It  was  an  intoxicating  summer's  morning,  and  the 
sun  was  busy  calling  the  dew  back  to  heaven,  and  the 
birds  wild  with  entreating  it  to  stay  (so  Le-pih  de- 
scribes it),  when  down  the  narrow  street  in  which  the 
poet's  mother  piled  her  vocation,  there  came  a  gay 
procession  of  mounted  servants  with  a  led  horse  richly 
caparisoned,  in  the  centre.  The  one  who  rode  before 
held  on  his  pommel  a  velvet  cushion,  and  upon  it  lay 
the  cap  of  a  noble,  with  its  gold  ball  shining  in  the  sun. 
Out  flew  the  neighbors  as  the  clattering  hoofs  came 
on,  and  roused  by  the  cries  and  the  barking  of  dogs, 
forth  came  the  mother  of  Le-pih,  followed  by  the 
poet  himself,  but  leading  his  horse  by  the  bridle,  for 
he  had  just  thrown  on  his  panniers,  and  was  bound 
out  of  the  city  to  cut  his  bundle  of  rushes.  The  poet 
gazed  on  the  pageant  with  the  amused  curiosity  of 
others,  wondering  what  it  could  mean,  abroad  at  so 
early  an  hour;  but,  holding  back  his  sorry  beast  to 
let  the  prancing  horsemen  have  all  the  room  they  re- 


quired, he  was  startled  by  a  reverential  salute  from 
the  bearer  of  the  velvet  cushion,  who,  drawing  up  his 
followers  in  front  of  the  poet's  house,  dismounted  and 
requested  to  speak  with  him  in  private. 

Tying  his  horse  to  the  door-post,  Le-pih  led  the 
way  into  the  small  room,  where  sat  his  mother  braid- 
ing her  mats  to  a  cheerful  song  of  her  son's  making, 
and  here  the  messenger  informed  the  bard,  with  much 
circumstance  and  ceremony,  that  in  consequence  of 
the  pressing  suit  of  Kwonfootse,  the  emperor  had  been 
pleased  to  grant  to  the  gifted  Le-pih,  the  rank  ex- 
pressed by  the  cap  borne  upon  the  velvet  cushion,  and 
that  as  a  noble  of  the  celestial  empire,  he  was  now  a 
match  for  the  incomparable  Taya.  Fnthermore  the 
condescending  Kwonfootse  had  secretly  arranged  the 
ceremonial  for  the  bridal,  and  Le-pih  was  commanded 
to  mount  the  led  horse  and  come  up  with  his  cap  and 
gold  ball  to  be  made  forthwith  supremely  happy. 

An  indefinable  expression  stole  over  the  features  of 
the  poet  as  he  took  up  the  cap,  and  placing  it  on  his 
head,  stood  gayly  before  his  mother.  The  old  dame 
looked  at  him  a  moment,  and  the  tears  started  to  her 
eyes.  Instantly  Le-pih  plucked  it  off  and  flung  it  on 
'  the  waste  heap  at  her  side,  throwing  himself  on  his 
knees  before  her  in  the  same  breath,  and  begging  her 
forgiveness  for  his  silly  jest. 

"  Take  back  your  bauble  to  Kwonfootse  !"  he  said, 
rising  proudly  to  his  feet,  "and  tell  him  that  the  em- 
peror, to  whom  I  know  how  to  excuse  myself,  can 
easily  make  a  poet  into  a  noble,  but  he  can  not  make 
a  noble  into  a  poet.  The  male  bird  does  not  borrow 
its  brighter  plumage  from  its  mate,  and  she  who  mar- 
ries Le-pih  will  braid  rushes  for  his  mother!" 

Astonished,  indeed,  were  the  neighbors,  who  had 
learned  the  errand  of  the  messenger  from  his  attendants 
without,  to  see  the  crest-fallen  man  come  forth  again 
with  his  cap  and  cushion.  Astonished  much  more 
were  they,  ere  the  gay  cavalcade  were  well  out  of  sight, 
to  see  Le-pih  appear  with  his  merry  countenance  and 
plebeian  cap,  and,  mounting  his  old  horse,  trot  briskly 
away,  sickle  in  hand,  to  the  marshes.  The  day  passed 
in  wondering  and  gossip,  interrupted  by  the  entrance 
of  one  person  to  the  house  while  the  old  dame  was 
gone  with  her  mats  to  the  market,  but  she  returned 
duly  before  sunset,  and  went  in  as  usual  to  prepare 
supper  for  her  son. 

The  last  beams  of  day  were  on  the  tops  of  the 
pagodas  when  Le-pih  returned,  walking  beside  his 
heavy-laden  beast,  and  singing  a  merry  song.  He 
threw  off  his  rushes  at  the  door  and  entered,  but  his 
song  was  abruptly  checked,  for  a  female  sat  on  a  low 
seat  by  his  mother,  stooping  over  a  half-braided  mat, 
and  the  next  moment,  the  blushing  Taya  lifted  up  her 
brimming  eyes  and  gazed  at  him  with  silent  but  plead- 
ing love. 

Now,  at  last,  the  proud  merriment  and  self  respect- 
ing confidence  of  Le-pih  were  overcome.     His  eyes 
I  grew  flushed  and  his  lips  trembled  without  utterance. 
j  With  both  his  hands  pressed  on  his  beating  heart,  he 
stood  gazing  on  the  lovely  Taya. 

"  Ah  !"  cried   the   old   dame,  who  sat  with  folded 
hands  and  smiling  face,  looking  on  at  a  scene  she  did 
not    quite   understand,  though  it  gave  her  pleasure, 
"  Ah  !   this  is  a  wife  for  my  boy,  sent  from  heaven  ! 
i  No  haughty  mandarin's  daughter  she  !  no  proud  minx, 
j  to  fall  in  love  with  the  son  and  despise  the  mother. 
[I  Let  them  keep  their  smart  caps  and  gift-horses  (or 
'  those  who  can  be  bought  at  such  prices  !     My  son  is 
a  noble  by  the  gift  of  his  Maker— better  than  an  em- 
peror's gold   ball !     Come  to  your  supper,  Le-pih  . 
Come,  my  sweet  daughter  !" 

Taya  placed  her  finger  on  her  lip,  and  Le-pih 
agreed  that  the  moment  was  not  yet  come  to  enlighten 
his  mother  as  to  the  quality  of  her  guest.  She  was 
not  long  in  ignorance,  however,  for  before  they  could 
seat  themselves  at  table,  there  was  a  loud  knocking  at 


516 


MEENA  DIMITY. 


the  door,  and  before  the  old  dame  could  bless  herself, 
an  officer  entered  and  arrested  the  daughter  of  Kvvon- 
footse  by  name,  and  Le-pih  and  his  mother  at  the 
same  time,  and  there  was  no  dismissing  the  messenger 
now.  Oft'  they  marched,  amid  the  silent  consterna- 
tion and  pity  of  the  neighbors — not  toward  the  palace 
of  justice,  however,  but  to  the  palace  of  the  emperor, 
where  his  majesty,  to  save  all  chances  of  mistake, 
chose  to  see  the  poet  wedded,  and  sit,  himself,  at  the 
bridal  feast.  Tang  had  a  romantic  heart,  fat  and 
voluptuous  as  he  was,  and  the  end  of  his  favor  to  Le- 
pih  and  Taya  was  the  end  of  his  life. 


MEENA  DIMITY; 

OR,  WHY  MR.  BROWN  CRASH  TOOK  THE  TOUR. 

Fashion  is  arbitrary,  we  all  know.  What  it  was 
that  originally  gave  Sassafras  street  the  right  to  de- 
spise Pepperidge  street,  the  oldest  inhabitant  of  the 
village  of  Slimford  could  not  positively  say.  The 
courthouse  and  jail  were  in  Sassafras  street;  but  the 
orthodox  church  and  female  seminary  were  in  Pep- 
peridge street.  Two  directors  of  the  Slimford  bank 
lived  in  Sassafras  street — two  in  Pepperidge  street. 
The  Dyaper  family  lived  in  Sassafras  street — the 
Dimity  family  in  Pepperidge  street ;  and  the  fathers 
of  the  Dyaper  girls  and  the  Dimity  girls  were  worth 
about  the  same  money,  and  had  both  made  it  in  the 
lumber  line.  There  was  no  difference  to  speak  of  in 
their  respective  mode  of  living — none  in  the  educa- 
tion of  the  girls — none  in  the  family  gravestones  or 
church-pews.  Yet,  deny  it  who  liked,  the  Dyapers 
were  the  aristocracy  of  Slimford. 

It  may  be  a  prejudice,  but  I  am  inclined  to  think 
there  is  always  something  in  a  nose.  (I  am  about  to 
mention  a  trifle,  but  trifles  are  the  beginning  of  most 
things,  and  I  would  account  for  the  pride  paramount 
of  the  Dyapers,  if  it  is  any  way  possible.)  The  most 
stylish  of  the  Miss  Dyapers — Harriet  Dyaper — had  a 
nose  like  his  grace  the  Duke  of  Wellington.  Nei- 
ther her  father  nor  mother  had  such  a  feature  ;  but 
there  was  a  foreign  umbrella  in  the  family  with  ex- 
actly the  same  shaped  nose  on  the  ivory  handle.  Old 
Dyaper  had  once  kept  a  tavern,  and  he  had  taken  this 
umbrella  from  a  stranger  for  a  night's  lodging.  But 
that  is  neither  here  nor  there.  To  the  nose  of  Har- 
riet Dyaper,  resistlessly  and  instinctively,  the  Dimity 
girls  had  knocked  under  at  school.  There  was  au- 
thority in  it ;  for  the  American  eagle  had  such  a  nose, 
and  the  Duke  of  Wellington  had  such  a  nose;  and 
when,  to  these  two  warlike  instances,  was  added  the 
nose  of  Harriet  Dyaper,  the  tripod  stood  firm.  Am 
I  visionary  in  believing  that  the  authority  introduced 
into  that  village  by  a  foreigner's  umbrella  (so  unac- 
countable is  fate)  gave  the  dynasty  to  the  Dyapers? 

I  have  mentioned  but  two  families— one  in  each  of 
the  two  principal  streets  of  Slimford.  Having  a  little 
story  to  tell,  I  can  not  afford  to  distract  my  narrative 
with  unnecessary  "asides;"  and  I  must  not  only 
omit  all  description  of  the  other  Sassafrasers  and 
Pepperidgers,  but  I  must  leave  to  your  imagination 
several  Miss  Dyapers  and  several  Miss  Dimitys — Har- 
riet Dyaper  and  Meena  Dimity  being  the  two  exclu- 
sive objects  of  my  hero's  Sunday  and  evening  atten- 
tions. 

For  eleven  months  in  the  year,  the  loves  of  the 
ladies  of  Slimford  were  presided  over  by  indigenous 
Cupids.  Brown  Crash  and  the  other  boys  of  the  vil- 
lage had  the  Dyapers  and  the  Dimitys  for  that  respect- 
ive period  to  themselves.  The  remaining  month, 
when  their  sun  of  favor  was  eclipsed,  was  during  the 


falling  of  the  leaf,  when  the  "  drummers"  came  up  to 
dun.  The  townish  clerks  of  the  drygoods  merchants 
were  too  much  for  the  provincials.  Brown  Crash 
knocked  under  and  sulked,  owing,  as  he  said,  to  the 
melancholy  depression  accompanying  the  fall  of  the 
deciduous  vegetation.  But  I  have  not  yet  introduced 
you  to  my  hero. 

Brown  Crash  was  the  Slimford  stage-agent.  He 
was  the  son  of  a  retired  watch-maker,  and  had  been 
laughed  at  in  his  boyhood  for  what  they  called  his 
"airs."  He  loved,  even  as  a  lad,  to  be  at  the  tavern 
when  the  stage  came  in,  and  help  out  the  ladies. 
With  instinctive  leisureliness  he  pulled  off  his  cap 
as  soon  after  the  "  whoa-hup"  as  was  necessary  (and 
no  sooner),  and  asked  the  ladies  if  they  would  "alight 
and  take  dinner,"  with  a  seductive  smile  which  began, 
as  the  landlord  said,  "  to  pay."  Hence  his  promotion. 
At  sixteen  he  was  nominated  stage-agent,  and  thence- 
forward was  the  most  conspicuous  man  in  the  village; 
for  "  man"  he  was,  if  speech  and  gait  go  for  any- 
thing. 

But  we  must  minister  a  moment  to  the  reader's 
inner  sense  ;  for  we  do  not  write  altogether  for  Slim- 
ford comprehension.  Brown  Crash  had  something 
in  his  composition  "above  the  vulgar."  If  men's 
qualities  were  mixed  like  salads,  and  I  were  giving  a 
"  recipe  for  Brown  Crashes,"  in  Mrs.  Glass's  style,  1 
should  say  his  two  principal  ingredients  were  a  dic- 
tionary and  a  dunghill  cock — for  his  language  was  as 
ornate  as  his  style  of  ambulation  was  deliberate 
and  imposing.  What  Brown  Crash  would  have  been, 
born  Right  Honorable,  I  leave  (with  the  smaller  Dy- 
apers and  Dimitys)  to  the  reader's  fancy.  My  object 
is  to  show  what  he  was,  minus  patrician  nurture  and 
valuation.  Words,  with  Brown  Crash,  were  suscep- 
tible of  being  dirtied  by  use.  He  liked  a  clean  tow- 
el— he  preferred  an  unused  phrase.  But  here  stopped 
his  peculiarities.  Below  the  epidermis  he  was  like 
other  men,  subject  to  like  tastes  and  passions.  And 
if  he  expressed  his  loves  and  hates  with  grandiloquent 
imagery,  they  were  the  honest  loves  and  hates  of  a 
week-day  world — no  finer  nor  flimsier  for  their  be- 
decked plumage. 

To  use  his  own  phrase,  Brown  frequented  but  two 
ladies  in  Slimford — Miss  Harriet  Dyaper  and  Miss 
Meena  Dimity.  The  first  we  have  described  in 
describing  her  nose,  for  her  remainder  was  compara- 
tively inconsiderable.  The  latter  was  "a  love,"  and 
of  course  had  nothing  peculiar  about  her.  She  was 
a  lamp — nothing  till  lighted.  She  was  a  mantle — 
nothing,  except  as  worn  by  the  owner.  She  was  a 
mirror — blank  and  unconscious  till  something  came 
to  be  reflected.  She  was  anything,  loved — unloved, 
nothing!  And  this  (it  is  our  opinion  after  half  a 
life)  is  the  most  delicious  and  adorable  variety  of 
woman  that  has  been  spared  to  us  from  the  museum 
of  specimen  angels.  (A  remark  of  Brown  Crash's, 
by  the  way,  of  which  he  may  as  well  have  the  credit.) 

Now  Mr.  Crash  had  an  ambitious  weakness  for  the 
best  society,  and  he  liked  to  appear  intimate  with  the 
Dyapers.  But  in  Meena  Dimity  there  was  a  secret 
charm  which  made  him  wish  she  was  an  ever-to-be- 
handed-out  lady-stage-passenger.  He  could  have 
given  her  a  hand,  and  brought  in  her  umbrella  and 
bandbox,  all  day  long.  In  his  hours  of  pride  he 
thought  of  the  Dyapers — in  his  hours  of  affection  of 
Meena  Dimity.  But  the  Dyapers  looked  down  upon 
the  Dimitys;  and  to  play  his  card  delicately  between 
Harriet  and  Meena,  took  all  the  diplomacy  of  Brown 
Crash.  The  unconscious  Meena  would  walk  up 
Sassafras  street  when  she  had  his  arm,  and  the  scorn- 
ful Harriet  would  be  there  with  her  nose  over  the 
front  gate  to  sneer  at  them.  He  managed  as  well  as 
he  could.  He  went  on  light  evenings  to  the  Dya- 
pers— on  dark  evenings  to  the  Dimitys.  He  took 
town-walks   with  the   Dyapers — country-walks  with 


MEENA  DIMITY. 


517 


the  Dimitys.  But  his  acquaintance  with  the  Dyapers 
hung  by  the  eyelids.  Harriet  liked  him  ;  for  he  was 
the  only  beau  in  Slimford  whose  manners  were  not 
belittled  beside  her  nose.  But  her  acquaintance  with 
him  was  a  condescension,  and  he  well  knew  that  he 
could  not  "hold  her  by  the  nose"  if  she  were  offend- 
ed. Oh  no!  Though  their  respective  progenitors 
were  of  no  very  unequal  rank — though  a  horologist 
and  a  "  boss  lumberman"  might  abstractly  be  equals — 
the  Dyapers  had  the  power!  Yes — they  could  lift 
him  to  themselves,  or  dash  him  down  to  the  Dimitys; 
and  all  Slimford  would  agree  in  the  latter  case  that 
he  was  a  "slab"  and  a  "small  potato  !" 

But  a  change  came  o'er  the  spirit  of  Brown  Crash's 
dream  !  The  drummers  were  lording  it  in  Slimford, 
and  Brown,  reduced  to  Meena  Dimity  (for  he  was  too 
proud  to  play  second  fiddle  to  a  town  dandy),  was 
walking  with  her  on  a  dark  night  past  the  Dyapers. 
The  Dyapers  were  hanging  over  the  gate  unluckily, 
and  their  Pearl-street  admirers  sitting  on  the  top  rail 
of  the  fence. 

"Who  is  it  ?"  said  a  strange  voice. 

The  reply,  sent  upward  from  a  scornfully  pro- 
jecting under  lip,  rebounded  in  echoes  from  the  tense 
nose  of  Miss  Dyaper. 

"A  Mr.  Crash,  and  a  girl  from  the  back  street !" 

It  was  enough.  A  hot  spot  on  his  cheek,  a  warm 
rim  round  his  eyes,  a  pimply  pricking  in  his  skin, 
and  it  was  all  over  !  His  vow  was  made.  He  coldly 
bid  Meena  good  night  at  her  father's  door,  and  went 
home  and  counted  his  money.  And  from  that  hour, 
without  regard  to  sex,  he  secretly  accepted  shillings 
from  gratified  travellers,  and  "stood  treat"  no  more. 
******* 

Saratoga  was  crowded  with  the  dispersed  nuclei  of 
the  metropolises.  Fashion,  wealth,  and  beauty,  were 
there.  Brown  Crash  was  there,  on  his  return  from  a 
tour  to  Niagara  and  the  lakes. 

"  Brown  Crash,  Esq.,"  was  one  of  the  notabilities 
of  Congress  Hall.  Here  and  there  a  dandy  "  could 
not  quite  make  him  out;"  but  there  was  evidently 
something  uncommon  about  him.  The  ladies  thought 
him  "  of  the  old  school  of  politeness,"  and  the  pol- 
iticians thought  he  had  the  air  of  one  used  to  influ- 
ence in  his  county.  His  language  was  certainly  very 
choice  and  peculiar,  and  his  gait  was  conscious  dig- 
nity itself.  He  must  have  been  carefully  educated  ; 
yet  his  manners  were  popular,  and  he  was  particularly 
courteous  on  a  first  introduction.  The  elegance  and 
ease  with  which  he  helped  the  ladies  out  of  their 
carriages  were  particularly  remarked,  and  a  shrewd 
observer  said  of  him,  that  "  that  point  of  high  breed- 
ing was  only  acquired  by  daily  habit.  He  must  have 
been  brought  up  where  there  were  carriages  and  la- 
dies." A  member  of  congress,  who  expected  to  run 
for  governor,  inquired  his  county,  and  took  wine 
with  him.  His  name  was  mentioned  by  the  letter- 
writers  from  the  springs.  Brown  Crash  was  in  his 
perihelion! 

The  season  leaned  to  its  close,  and  the  following 
paragraph  appeared  in  the  New  York  American  : — 

"  Fashionable  Intelligence. — The  company  at  the 
Springs  is  breaking  up.  We  understand  that  the 
Vice-President  and  Brown  Crash,  Esq.,  have  already 
left  for  their  respective  residences.  The  latter  gen- 
tleman, it  is  understood,  has  formed  a  matrimonial 
engagement  with  a  family  of  wealth  and  distinction 
from  the  south.  We  trust  that  these  interesting 
bonds,  binding  together  the  leading  families  of  the 
far-divided  extremities  of  our  country,  may  tend  to 
strengthen  the  tenacity  of  the  great  American  Union !" 

It  was  not  surprising  that  the  class  in  Slimford  who 
knew  everything — the  milliners,  to-wit — moralized 
somewhat  bitterly  on  Mr.  Crash's  devotion  to  the 
Dyapers  after  his  return,  and  his  consequent  slight  to 


Meena  Dimity.  "  If  that  was  the  effect  of  fashion 
and  distinction  on  the  heart,  Mr.  Crash  was  welcome 
to  his  honors!  Let  him  marry  Miss  Dyaper,  and 
they  wished  him  much  joy  of  her  nose;  but  they 
would  never  believe  that  he  had  not  ruthlessly  broken 
the  heart  of  Meena  Dimity,  and  he  ought  to  be 
ashamed  of  himself,  if  there  was  any  shame  in  such 
a  dandy." 

But  the  milliners,  though  powerful  people  in  their 
way,  could  little  affect  the  momentum  of  Brown 
Crash's  glories.  The  paragraph  from  the  "Ameri- 
can" had  been  copied  into  the  "  Slimford  Advertiser," 
and  the  eyes  of  Sassafras  street  and  Pepperidge  street 
were  alike  opened.  They  had  undervalued  their  in- 
digenous "prophet."  They  had  misinterpreted  and 
misread  the  stamp  of  his  superiority.  He  had  been 
obliged  to  go  from  them  to  be  recognised.  But  he 
was  returned.  He  was  there  to  have  reparation 
made — justice  done.  And  now,  what  office  would  he 
like,  from  Assessor  to  Pathmaster,  and  would  he  be 
good  enough  to  name  it  before  the  next  town-meet- 
ing.    Brown  Crash  was  king  of  Slimford ! 

And  Harriet  Dyaper !  The  scorn  from  her  lip  had 
gone,  like  the  blue  from  a  radish  !  Notes  for  "  B. 
Crash, Esq.,"  showered  from  Sassafras  street — bouquets 
from  old  Dyaper's  front  yard  glided  to  him,  per  black 
boy — no  end  to  the  endearing  attentions,  undisguised 
and  unequivocal.  Brown  Crash  and  Harriet  Dyaper 
were  engaged,  if  having  the  front  parlor  entirely  given 
up  to  them  of  an  evening  meant  anything — if  his 
being  expected  every  night  to  tea  meant  anything — 
if  his  devoted  (though  she  thought  rather  cold)  at- 
tentions meant  anything. 

They  did  n't  mean  anything  !  They  all  did  n't 
mean  anything  !  What  does  the  orthodox  minister 
do,  the  third  Sunday  after  Brown  Crash's  return,  but 
read  the  banns  of  matrimony  between  that  faithless 
man  and  Meena  Dimity  ! 

But  this  was  not  to  be  endured.  Harriet  Dyaper 
had  a  cousin  who  was  a  "  strapper."  He  was  boss  of 
a  sawmill  in  the  next  county,  and  he  must  be  sent  for. 

He  was  sent  for. 
******* 

The  fight  was  over.  Boss  Dyaper  had  undertaken 
to  flog  Brown  Crash,  but  it  was  a  drawn  battle — for 
the  combatants  had  been  pulled  apart  by  their  coat- 
tails.  They  stepped  into  the  barroom  and  stood  re- 
covering their  breath.  The  people  of  Slimford 
crowded  in,  and  wanted  to  have  the  matter  talked 
over.     Boss  Dyaper  bolted  out  his  grievance. 

"Gentlemen  !"  said  Brown  Crash,  with  one  of  his 
irresistible  come-to-dinner  smiles,  "  I  am  culpable, 
perhaps,  in  the  minutiae  of  this  business— justifiable, 
I  trust  you  will  say,  in  the  general  scope  and  tendency. 
You,  all  of  you,  probably,  had  mothers,  and  some  of 
you  have  wives  and  sis'ters;  and  your 'silver  cord' 
naturally  sympathizes  with  a  worsted  woman.  But, 
gentlemen,  you  are  republicans  !  You,  all  of  you, 
are  the  rulers  of  a  country  very  large  indeed  ;  and 
you  are  not  limited  in  your  views  to  one  woman,  nor 
to  a  thousand  women— to  one  mile,  nor  to  a  thousand 
miles.  You  generalize  !  you  go  for  magnificent  prin- 
ciples, gentlemen  !  You  scorn  high-and-mightmess, 
and  supercilious  aristocracy  !" 

"  Hurra  for  Mr.  Crash !"  cried  a  stagednver  from 
the  outside.  „  ,  ,  T  , 

"Well,  gentleman  !  In  what  I  have  done,  I  have 
deserved  well  of  a  republican  country !  True— it  has 
been  my  misfortune  to  roll  my  Juggernaut  of  prin- 
ciple over  the  sensibilities  of  that  gentleman  s  re- 
spectable female  relative.  But,  gentlernen,  she  of- 
fended, remedilessly  and  grossly,  one  ol  the  sovereign 
neonle  '  She  scorned  one  of  earth's  fairest  daughters, 
who  lives  in  a  back  street !  Gentlemen,  you  know 
that  pride  tripped  up  Lucifer !  Shall  a  tiptop  angel  fall 
for  it,  and  a  young  woman  who  is  nothing  particular 


518 


THE  POWER  OF  AN  "INJURED  LOOK. 


be  left  scornfully  standing?  Shall  Miss  Dyaper  have 
more  privileges  than  Lucifer  ?  I  appreciate  your  in- 
dignant negative  ! 

"  But,  gentlemen,  I  am  free  to  confess,  I  had  also 
my  republican  private  end.  You  know  my  early  his- 
tory. You  have  witnessed  my  struggles  to  be  respect- 
ed by  my  honorable  contemporaries.  If  it  be  my 
weakness  to  be  sensitive  to  the  finger  of  scorn,  be  it 
so.  You  will  know  how  to  pardon  me.  But  I  will 
be  brief.  At  a  particular  crisis  of  my  acquaintance 
with  Miss  Dyaper,  I  found  it  expedient  to  transfer  my 
untrammelled  tendernesses  to  Pepperidge  street.  My 
heart  had  long  been  in  Pepperidge  street.  But, 
gentlemen,  to  have  done  it  without  removing  from 
before  my  eyes  the  contumelious  finger  of  the  scorn 
of  Sassafras  street,  was  beyond  my  capabilities  of  en- 
durance. Injustice  to  my  present  '  future,'  gentle- 
men, I  felt  that  I  must  remove  '  sour  grapes'  from  my 
escutcheon — that  I  must  soar  to  a  point,  whence, 
swooping  proudly  to  Meena  Dimity,  I  should  pass 
the  Dyapers  in  descending  ! 

(Cheers  and  murmurs.) 

"  Gentlemen  and  friends !  This  world  is  all  a  fleet- 
ing show.  The  bell  has  rung,  and  1  keep  you  from 
your  suppers.  Briefly.  I  found  the  means  to  travel 
and  test  the  ring  of  my  metal  among  unprejudiced 
strangers.  I  wished  to  achieve  distinction  and  return 
to  my  birthplace;  but  for  what?  Do  me  justice, 
gentlemen.  Not  to  lord  it  in  Sassafras  street.  Not 
to  carry  off  a  Dyaper  with  triumphant  elation! 
Not  to  pounce  on  your  aristocratic  No.  1,  and 
link  my  destiny  with  the  disdainful  Dyapers!  No! 
But  to  choose  where  I  liked,  and  have  the  credit 
of  liking  it !  To  have  Slimford  believe  that  if  I 
preferred  their  No.  2,  it  was  because  I  liked  it  bet- 
ter than  No.  1.  Gentlemen,  I  am  a  republican!  I 
may  find  my  congenial  spirit  among  the  wealthy — I 
may  find  it  among  the  humble.  But  I  want  the  lib- 
erty to  choose.  And  I  have  achieved  it,  I  trust  you 
will  permit  me  to  say.  Having  been  honored  by  the 
dignitaries  of  a  metropolis — having  consorted  with  a 
candidate  for  gubernatorial  distinction — having  been 
recorded  in  a  public  journal  as  a  companion  of  the 
Vice-President  of  this  free  and  happy  country — you 
will  believe  me  when  I  declare  that  I  prefer  Pepper- 
idge street  to  Sassafras — you  will  credit  my  sincerity, 
when,  having  been  approved  by  the  Dyapers'  betters, 
1  give  them  the  go-by  for  the  Dimitys  !  Gentlemen, 
I  have  done." 

The  reader  will  not  be  surprised  to  learn  that  Mr. 
Brown  Crash  is  now  a  prominent  member  of  the 
legislature,  and  an  excessive  aristocrat — Pepperidge 
street  and  very  democratic  speeches  to  the  contrary 
notwithstanding. 


THE  POWER  OF  AN  "INJURED   LOOK." 

CHAPTER  I. 


1  HAD  a  sort  of  candle-light  acquaintance  with  Mr. 
Philip  McRueit  when  we  were  in  college.  I  mean  to 
say  that  I  had  a  daylight  repugnance  to  him,  and  never 
walked  with  him,  or  talked  with  him,  or  rode  with 
him,  or  sat  with  him;  and,  indeed,  seldom  saw  him — 
expect  as  one  of  a  club  oyster-party  of  six.  He  was 
a  short,  sharp,  satirical  man  (nicknamed  "  my  cruet," 
by  his  cronies — rather  descriptively!)  but  as  plausible 
and  as  vindictive  as  Mephistopheles  before  and  after 
the  ruin  of  a  soul.     In  some  other  state  of  existence 


I  had  probably  known  and  suffered  by  Phil.  McRueit 
— for  I  knew  him  like  the  sleeve  of  an  old  coal,  the 
first  day  I  laid  eyes  on  him  ;  though  other  people 
seemed  to  have  no  such  instinct.  Oh,  we  were  not 
new  acquaintances — from  whatever  star  he  had  been 
transported,  for  his  sins,  to  this  planet  of  dirt.  I  think 
he  was  of  the  same  opinion,  himself.  He  chose  be- 
tween open  warfare  and  conciliation  in  the  first  five 
minutes — after  seeing  me  as  a  stranger — chose  the 
latter. 

Six  or  seven  years  after  leaving  college,  I  was  fol- 
lowing my  candle  up  to  bed  rather  musingly,  one  night 
at  the  Astor,  and  on  turning  a  corner,  I  was  obliged  to 
walk  round  a  short  gentleman  who  stood  at  the  head 
of  the  stairs  in  an  attitude  of  fixed  contemplation.  As 
I  weathered  the  top  of  his  hat  rather  closely,  I  caught 
the  direction  of  his  eye,  and  saw  that  he  was  regard- 
ing, very  fixedly,  a  pair  of  rather  dusty  kid  slippers, 
which  had  been  set  outside  the  door,  probably  for 
cleaning,  by  the  occupant  of  the  chamber  opposite. 
As  the  gentleman  did  not  move,  I  turned  on  the  half 
landing  of  the  next  flight  of  stairs,  and  looked  back, 
breaking  in,  by  my  sudden  pause,  upon  his  fit  of  ab- 
straction. It  was  McRueit,  and  on  recognising  me, 
he  immediately  beckoned  me  to  his  side. 

"Does  it  strike  you,"  said  he,  "  that  there  is  any- 
thing peculiar  in  that  pair  of  shoes  ?" 

"  No — except  that  they  certify  to  two  very  small 
feet  on  the  other  side  of  the  door." 

"Not  merely  'small,'  my  dear  fellow!  Do  you 
see  where  the  pressure  has  been  in  those  slender  shoes, 
how  straight  the  inside  line,  how  arched  the  instep, 
how  confidingly  flat  the  pressure  downward  of  the 
little  great  toe  !  It's  a  woman  of  sweet  and  relying 
character  who  wore  that  shoe  to-day,  and  I  must  know 
her.  More,  sir,  I  must  marry  her  !  Ah,  you  laugb 
— but  I  will .'  There's  a  magnetism  in  that  pair  of 
shoes  addressed  to  me  only.  Beg  your  pardon — good 
night — I'll  go  down  stairs  and  find  out  her  number— 
'74!'  I'll  be  well  acquainted  with  '74'  by  this  time 
to-morrow  !" 

For  the  unconscious  young  lady  asleep  in  that  room, 
I  lay  awake  half  the  night,  troubled  with  foreboding 
pity.  I  knew  the  man  so  well,  I  was  so  certain  that 
he  would  leave  nothing  possible  undone  to  carry  out 
this  whimsical  purpose!  I  knew  that  from  that  mo- 
ment was  levelled,  point-blank,  at  the  lady,  whoever 
she  might  be  (if  single)  a  battery  of  devilish  and  per- 
tinacious ingenuity,  which  would  carry  most  any 
small  fort  of  a  heart,  most  any  way  barricaded  and 
defended.  He  was  well  off;  he  was  well-looking 
enough;  he  was  deep  and  crafty.  But  if  he  did  win 
her,  she  was  gone!  gone,  I  knew,  from  happiness, 
like  a  stone  from  a  sling.  He  was  a  tyrant — subtle 
in  his  cruelties  to  all  people  dependant  on  him— and 
her  life  would  be  one  of  refined  torture,  neglect,  be- 
trayal, and  tears. 

A  fit  of  intermittent  disgust  for  strangers,  to  which 
all  persons  living  in  hotels  are  more  or  less  liable, 
confined  my  travels,  for  some  days  after  this  rencontre, 
to  the  silence-and-slop  thorough-fare  of  the  back 
stairs,  "  Coming  to  my  feed"  of  society  one  rainy 
morning,  I  went  into  the  drawing-room  after  breakfast, 
and  was  not  surprised  to  see  McRueit  in  a  posture  of 
absorbed  attention  beside  a  lady.  His  stick  stood  on 
the  floor,  and  with  his  left  cheek  rested  on  the  gold 
head,  he  was  gazing  into  her  face,  and  evidently  keep- 
ing her  perfectly  at  her  ease  as  to  the  wants  and  gaps 
of  conversation,  as  he  knew  how  to  do — for  he  was  the 
readiest  man  with  his  brick  and  mortar  whom  I  ever 
had  encountered. 

"  Who  is  that  lady  ?"  I  asked  of  an  omni-acquainted 
old  bachelor  friend  of  mine. 

"  Miss  Jonthee  Twitt — and  what  can  be  the  secret 
of  that  rather  exclusive  gentleman's  attention  to  her. 
I  can  not  fancy." 


THE  POWER  OF  AN  "INJURED  LOOK." 


519 


I  pulled  a  newspaper  from  my  pocket,  and  seating 
myself  in  one  of  the  deep  windows,  commenced  rather 
a  compassionate  study  of  Miss  Twitt— intending  fully, 
if  I  should  find  her  interesting,  to  save  her  from  the 
clutches  of  my  detestable  classmate. 

She  was  a  slight,  hollow-chested,  consumptive- 
looking  girl,  with  a  cast  of  features  that  any  casual 
observer  would  be  certain  to  describe  as  "interesting." 
With  the  first  two  minutes'  gaze  upon  her,  my  sym- 
pathies were  active  enough  for  a  crusade  against  a 
whole  army  of  connubial  tyrants.  I  suddenly  paused, 
however.  Something  McRueit  said  made  a  change 
in  the  lady's  countenance.  She  sat  just  as  still ;  she 
did  not  move  her  head  from  its  negligent  posture;  her 
eyebrows  did  not  contract;  her  lips  did  not  stir;  but 
the  dull,  sickly-colored  lids  descended  calmly  and 
fixedly  till  they  hid  from  sight  the  upper  edges  of  the 
pupils  !  and  by  this  slight  but  infallible  sign  1  knew 
— but  the  story  will  tell  what  I  knew.  Napoleon  was 
nearly,  but  not  quite  right,  when  he  said  that  there 
was  no  reliance  to  be  placed  on  peculiarities  of  feature 
or  expression. 


CHAPTER  II. 

In  August  of  that  same  year,  I  followed  the  world 
to  Saratoga.     In  my  first  reconnoitre  of  the  drawing-  j 
room  of  Congress  Hall,  I  caught  the  eye  of  Mr.  Mc- 
Rueit, and   received  from  him  a  cordial  salutation.  | 
As  I  put  my  head  right,  upon  its  pivot,  after  an  easy  j 
nod  to  my  familiar  aversion,  my  eyes  fell  upon   Miss  j 
Jonthee   Twitt — that    was — for   I    had   seen,    in   the 
newspapers   of  two   months  before,  that  the  resolve  I 
(born  of  the  dusty  slipper  outside  her  door),  had  been 
brought  about,  and  she  was  now  on  the  irrevocable 
side  of  a  honeymoon  sixty  days  old. 

Her  eyelid  was  down  upon  the  pupil — motionless, 
concentrated,  and  vigilant  as  a  couched  panther — and 
from  beneath  the  hem  of  her  dress  curved  out  the 
high  arched  instep  of  a  foot  pointed  with  desperate 
tension  to  the  carpet ;  the  little  great  toe  (whose  rely- 
ing pressure  on  the  soiled  slipper  Mr.  McRueit  had 
been  captivated  by),-riow  rigid  with  as  strong  a  pur- 
pose as  spiritual  homeopathy  could  concentrate  in  so 
small  a  tenement.  1  thought  I  would  make  Mr.  and 
Mrs.  McRueit  the  subject  of  quiet  study  while  I  re- 
mained at  Saratoga. 

But  I  have  not  mentioned  the  immediate  cause  of 
Mrs.  McRueit's  resentment.  Her  bridegroom  was 
walking  up  and  down  the  room  with  a  certain  Mrs. 
Wanmaker,  a  widow,  who  was  a  better  woman  than 
she  looked  to  be,  as  I  chanced  to  know,  but  as  nobody 
could  know  without  the  intimate  acquaintance  with 
Mrs.  Wanmaker  upon  which  I  base  this  remark. 
With  beauty  of  the  most  voluptuous  cast,  and  a 
passion  for  admiration  which  induced  her  to  throw 
out  every  possible  lure  to  men  any  way  worth  her 
time  as  victims,  Mrs.  Wanmaker's  blood  was  as 
"  cold  as  the  flow  of  Iser,"  and  her  propriety,  in  fact, 
wholly  impregnable.  I  had  been  myself  "tried  on" 
by  the  widow  Wanmaker,  and  twenty  caravan-marches 
might  have  been  made  across  the  Desert  of  Sahara, 
while  the  conviction  I  have  just  stated  was  "  getting 
through  my  hair."  It  was  not  wonderful,  therefore, 
that  both  the  bride  and  her  (usually)  most  penetratious 
bridegroom,  had  sailed  over  the  widow's  shallows,  un- 
conscious of  soundings.  She  was  a  "deep"  woman, 
too — but  in  the  love  line. 

I  thought  McRueit  singularly  off  his  guard,  if  it 
were  only  for  "  appearances."  He  monopolized  the 
widow  effectually,  and  she  thought  it  worth  her  while 
to  let  the  world  think  him  (a  bridegroom  and  a  rising 
young  politician),  mad  for  her,  and,  truth  to  say,  they 


carried  on  the  war  strenuously.  Perfectly  certain  as  I 
was  that  "  the  whirligig  of  time"  would  "  bring  about 
the  revenges"  of  Mrs.  McRueit,  I  began  to  feel  a 
meantime  pity  for  her,  and  had  myself  presented  duly 
by  McRueit  the  next  morning  after  breakfast. 

It  was  a  tepid,  flaccid,  revery-colored  August  morn- 
ing, and  the  sole  thought  of  the  universe  seemed  to 
be  to  sit  down.  The  devotees  to  gayety  and  mineral 
water  dawdled  out  to  the  porticoes,  and  some  sat  on 
chairs  under  the  trees,  and  the  dandies  lay  on  the 
grass,  and  the  old  ladies  on  the  steps  and  the  settees, 
and  here  and  there,  a  man  on  the  balustrade,  and,  in 
the  large  swing,  vis-a-vis,  sat  McRueit  and  the  widow 
Wanmaker,  chattering  in  an  undertone  quite  inaudi- 
ble. Mrs.  McRueit  sat  on  a  bench,  with  her  back 
against  one  of  the  high-shouldered  pine  trees  in  the 
court-yard,  and  I  had  called  McRueit  out  of  his  swing 
to  present  me.  But  he  returned  immediately  to  the 
widow. 

I  thought  it  would  be  alieviative  and  good-natured 
to  give  Mrs.  McRueit  an  insight  to  the  harmlessness 
of  Mrs.  Wanmaker,  and  I  had  done  so  very  nearly  to 
my  satisfaction,  when  I  discovered  that  the  slighted 
wife  did  not  care  sixpence  about  the  fact,  and  that, 
unlike  Hamlet,  she  only  knew  seems.  The  more  I 
developed  the  innocent  object  of  the  widow's  outlay 
of  smiles  and  confidentialities,  the  more  Mrs.  McRueit 
placed  herself  in  a  posture  to  be  remarked  by  the 
loungers  in  the  court-yard  and  the  dawdlers  on  the 
portico,  and  the  more  she  deepened  a  certain  look — 
you  must  imagine  it  for  the  present,  dear  reader.  It 
would  take  a  razor's  edge  of  analysis,  and  a  Flemish 
paint-pot  and  patience,  to  carve  that  injured  look  into 
language,  or  paint  it  truthfully  to  the  eye  !  Juries 
would  hang  husbands,  and  recording  angels  "ruthless- 
ly overcharge,"  upon  the  unsupported  evidence  of 
such  a  look.  She  looked  as  if  her  heart  must  have 
suffocated  with  forbearance  long  before  she  began  to 
look  so.  She  looked  as  if  she  had  forgiven  and  wept, 
and  was  ready  to  forgive  and  weep  again.  She  looked 
as  if  she  would  give  her  life  if  she  could  conceal  "her 
feelings,"  and  as  if  she  was  nerving  soul,  and  heart, 
and  eyelids,  and  lachrymatory  glands— all  to  agony— 
to  prevent  bursting  into  tears  with  her  unutterable 
anguish  !  It  was  the  most  unresisting,  unresentful, 
patient,  sweet  miserableness!  A  lamb's  willingness 
to  "furnish  forth  another  meal"  of  chops  and  sweet- 
bread, was  testy  to  such  meek  endurance  !  She  was 
evidently  a  martyr,  a  victim,  a  crushed  flower,  a  "poor 
thing  !"  But  she  did,  now  and  then— unseen  by  any- 
body but  me— give  a  glance  from  that  truncated  orb 
of  a  pupil  of  hers,  over  the  top  of  her  handkerchief, 
that,  if  incarnated,  would  have  made  a  hole  in  the  hide 
of  a  rhinoceros !  It  was  triumph,  venom,  implacabili- 
ty— such  as  I  had  never  before  seen  expressed  in  hu- 
man glances. 

There  are  many  persons  with  but  one  idea,  and  that 
a  good  one.  Mrs.  McRueit,  I  presume,  was  inca- 
pable of  appreciating  my  interest  in  her.  At  any  rate 
she  played  the  same  game  with  me  as  with  other 
people,  and  managed  her  affairs  altogether  with  per- 
fect unity.  It  was  in  vain  that  I  endeavored  to  hear 
from  her  tongue  what  I  read  in  the  lowering  pupil  of 
her  eye.  She  spoke  of  McRueit  with  evident  re- 
luctance, but  always  with  discretion— never  blaming 
him,  nor  leaving  any  opening  that  should  betray  re- 
sentment, or  turn  the  current  of  sympathy  from  her- 
self. The  result  was  immediate.  The  women  in  the 
house  began  to  look  black  upon  McRueit. 


'sent  him  to  Coventry"  more  unwillingly,  for  lie  was 
amusing  and  popular- but  "to  Coventry     he  went! 


to  Coventry' 
AnTatlast'the  widow  Wanmaker  became  aware  that 
she  was  wasting  her  time  on  a  man  whose  attentions 
were  not  wanted  elsewhere— and  she  (the  unkmdest 
cut  of  all)  found  reasons  fi^looking  another  way  when 
he  approached  her. 


He  had  became  aware,  during 


520 


THE  POWER  OF  AN  "INJURED  LOOK. 


this  process,  what  was  "  in  the  wind,"  but  he  knew 
too  much  to  stay  in  the  public  eye  when  it  was  in- 
flamed. With  his  brows  lowering,  and  his  face 
gloomy  with  feelings  I  could  easily  interpret,  he  took 
the  early  coach  on  the  third  morning  after  my  intro- 
duction to  Mrs.  McRueit,  and  departed,  probably  for 
a  discipline  trip,  to  some  place  where  sympathy  with 
his  wife  would  be  less  dangerous. 


CHAPTER  III. 

I  think,  that  within  the  next  two  or  three  years,  I 
heard  McRueit's  name  mentioned  several  times,  or 
saw  it  in  the  papers,  connected  with  strong  political 
movements.  I  had  no  very  definite  idea  of  where  he 
was  residing,  however.  Business  called  me  to  a 
western  county,  and  on  the  road  I  fell  into  the  com- 
pany of  a  great  political  schemer  and  partisan — one 
of  those  joints  (of  the  feline  political  body),  the  next 
remove  from  the  "  cat's  paw."  Finding  that  I  cared 
not  a  straw  for  politics,  and  that  we  were  going  to  the 
same  town,  he  undertook  the  blandishment  of  an  over- 
flow of  confidence  upon  me,  probably  with  the  remote 
possibility  that  he  might  have  occasion  to  use  me.  I 
gave  in  to  it  so  far  as  courteously  to  receive  all  his 
secrets,  and  we  arrived  at  our  destination  excellent 
friends. 

.  The  town  was  in  a  ferment  with  the  coming  election 
of  a  member  for  the  legislature,  and  the  hotel  being 
very  crowded,  Mr.  Develin  (my  fellow-traveller)  and 
myself  were  put  into  a  double-bedded  room.  Busy 
with  my  own  affairs,  I  saw  but  little  of  him,  and  he 
seemed  quite  too  much  occupied  for  conversation,  till 
the  third  night  after  our  arrival.  Lying  in  bed  with 
the  moonlight  streaming  into  the  room,  he  began  to 
give  me  some  account  of  the  campaign,  preparing  for, 
around  us,  and  presently  mentioned  the  name  of 
McRueit — (the  name,  by  the  way,  that  I  had  seen 
upon  the  placards,  without  caring  particularly  to  in- 
quire whether  or  not  it  was  "  mine  aucient"  aversion). 

"  They  are  not  aware,"  said  Mr.  Develin,  after 
talking  on  the  subject  awhile,  "that  this  petty  election, 
is,  in  fact,  the  grain  of  sand  that  is  to  turn  the  presi- 
dential scale.  If  McRueit  should  be  elected  (as  1 
am  sorry  to  say  there  seems  every  chance  he  will  be), 
Van  Buren's  doom  is  sealed.  I  have  come  a  little 
too  late  here.  I  should  have  had  time  to  know  some- 
thing more  of  this  man  McRueit — " 

"  Perhaps  I  can  give  you  some  idea  of  him,"  inter- 
rupted I,  "  for  he  has  chanced  to  be  more  in  my  way 
than  I  would  have  bargained  for.  But  what  do  you 
wish  to  know  particularly?"  (1  spoke,  as  the  reader 
will  see,  in  the  unsuspecting  innocence  of  my  heart.) 

"  Oh—anything— anything  !  Tell  me  all  you  know 
of  him  !" 

Mr.  Develin"s  vividness  rather  surprised  me,  for  he 
raised  himself  on  his  elbow  in  bed — but  I  went  on  and 
narrated  very  much  what  I  have  put  down  for  the 
reader  in  the  two  preceding  chapters. 

"How  do  you  spell  Mrs.  Wanmaker's  name?" 
asked  my  imbedded  vis-d-vis,  as  I  stopped  and  turned 
over  to  go  to  sleep. 

I  spelt  it  for  him. 

He  jumped  out  of  bed,  dressed  himself  and  left  the 
room.  Will  the  reader  permit  me  to  follow  him,  like 
Asmodeus,  giving  with  Asmodean  brevity  the  knowl- 
edge I  afterward  gained  of  his  use  of  my  involuntary 
revelation? 

Mr.  Develin  roused  the  active  member  of  the  Van 
Buren  committee  from  his  slumber,  and  in  an  hour 
had  the  printers  of  their  party  paper  at  work  upon  a 
placard.     A  large  meeting  was  to  be  held  the  next 


day  in  the  town-hall,  during  which  both  candidates,  it 
was  supposed,  would  address  the  people.  Lacries 
were  to  occupy  the  galleries.  The  hour  came  round. 
Mrs.  McRueit's  carriage  drove  into  the  village  a  few 
minutes  before  eleven,  and  as  she  stopped  at  a  shop 
for  a  moment,  a  letter  was  handed  her  by  a  boy.  She 
sat  still  and  read  it.  She  was  alone.  Her  face  turned 
livid  with  paleness  alter  its  first  flush,  and  forgetting 
her  errand  at  the  shop,  she  drove  on  to  the  town-hall. 
She  took  her  seat  in  a  prominent  part  of  the  gallery. 
The  preliminaries  were  gone  through  with,  and  her 
husband  rose  to  speak.  He  was  a  plausible  orator, 
an  eloquent  man.  But  there  was  a  sentiment  circula- 
ting in  the  audience — something  whispered  from  man 
to  man — that  strangely  took  off'  the  attention  of  the 
audience.  He  could  not,  as  he  had  never  before  found 
difficulty  in  doing,  keep  their  eyes  upon  his  lips. 
Every  one  was  gazing  on  his  wife  !  And  there  she 
sat — with  her  injured  look  ! — pale,  sad,  apparently 
striving  to  listen  and  conceal  her  mental  suffering.  It 
was  as  convincing  to  the  audience  of  the  truth  of  the 
insinuation  that  was  passing  from  mouth  to  mouth — 
as  convincing  as  would  have  been  a  revelation  from 
Heaven.  McRueit  followed  the  many  upturned  eyes 
at  last,  and  saw  that  they  were  bent  on  his  wife,  and 
that — once  more — after  years  of  conciliation,  she  wore 
that  injurkd  look  !  His  heart  failed  him.  He 
evidently  comprehended  that  the  spirit  that  had  driven 
him  from  Saratoga,  years  before — -popular  sympathy 
with  women — had  overtaken  him  and  was  plotting 
against  him  once  more.  His  speech  began  to  lose 
its  concentration.  He  talked  wide.  The  increasing 
noise  overpowered  him,  and  he  descended  at  last  from 
the  platform  in  the  midst  of  a  universal  hiss.  The 
other  candidate  rose  and  spoke;  and  at  the  close  of 
his  speech  the  meeting  broke  up,  and  as  they  dis- 
persed, their  eyes  were  met  at  every  corner  with  a 
large  placard,  in  which  "  injured  wife."  "unfaithful 
husband,"  "widow  W — n — k — r,"  were  the  words  in 
prominent  capitals.  The  election  came  on  the  next 
day,  and  Mr.  McRueit  being  signally  defeated,  Mr. 
Van  Buren's  election  to  the  Presidency  (if  Mr.  Develin 
knew  anything)  was  made  certain — brought  about  by 
a  woman's  injured  look. 

My  business  in  the  county  was  the  purchase  of  land, 
and  for  a  year  or  two  afterward,  I  was  a  great  deal 
there.  Feeling  that  I  had  unintentionally  furnished 
a  weapon  to  his  enemies,  I  did  penance  by  cultivating 
McRueit.  I  went  often  to  his  house.  He  was  at 
first  a  good  deal  broken  up  by  the  sudden  check  to 
his  ambition,  but  he  rallied  with  a  change  in  his 
character  for  which  I  was  not  prepared.  He  gave  up 
all  antagonism  toward  his  wife.  He  assumed  a  new 
manner  to  her.  She  had  been  skilfully  managed  be- 
fore— but  he  took  her  now  confidingly  behind  his 
shield.  He  felt  overmastered  by  the  key  she  had  to 
popular  sympathy,  and  he  determined  wisely  to  make 
it  turn  in  his  favor.  By  assiduity,  by  tenderness, 
childlikeness,  he  succeeded  in  completely  convincing 
her  that  he  had  but  one  out-of-doors  wish — that  of 
embellishing  her  existence  by  his  success.  The  effort 
on  her  was  marvellous.  She  recovered  her  health, 
gradually  changed  to  a  joyous  and  earnest  promoter 
of  her  husband's  interests,  and  they  were  soon  a  mark- 
ed model  in  the  county  for  conjugal  devotion.  The 
popular  impression  soon  gained  ground  that  Mr.  Mc- 
Rueit had  been  shamefully  wronged  by  the  previous 
prejudice  against  his  character  as  a  husband.  The 
tide  that  had  already  turned,  soon  swelled  to  a  flood, 
and  Mr.  McRueit  now — but  Mr.  McRueit  is  too  power- 
ful a  person  in  the  present  government  to  follow  any 
farther.  Suffice  it  to  say  that  he  might  return  to  Mrs. 
Wanmaker  and  his  old  courses  if  he  liked — for  his 
wife's  injured  look  is  entirely  fattened  out  of  possi- 
bility by  her  happiness.  She  weighs  two  hundred,  and 
couid  no  more  look  injured  than  Sir  John  Falstaff. 


BEWARE  OF  DOGS  AND  WALTZING. 


521 


BEWARE  OF  DOGS  AND  WALTZING. 


The  birds  that  flew  over  County  Surrey  on  the 
twelfth  of  June,  1835,  looked  down  upon  a  scene  of 
which  manv  a  "lord  of  creation,"  travelling  only  by 
the  roads,  might  well  have  envied  them  the  seeing. 
For,  ever  so  merry  let  it  be  within  the  lordly  parks  of 
England,  the  trees  that  look  over  the  ring  fence  upon 
the  world  without,  keep  their  countenance — aristocrats 
that  they  are!  Round  and  round  Beckton  Park  you 
might  have  travelled  that  sunny  day,  and  often  within 
arrow-shot  of  its  hidden  and  fairy  lawn,  and  never 
suspected,  but  by  the  magnetic  tremor  in  your  veins, 
that  beautiful  women  were  dancing  near  by,  and  "  mar- 
vellous proper  men,"  more  or  less  enamored,  looking 
on — every  pink  and  blue  girdle  a  noose  for  a  heart, 
of  course,  and  every  gay  waistcoat  a  victim  venturing 
near  the  trap  (though  this  last  is  mentioned  entirely 
on  my  own  responsibility). 

But  what  have  we  to  do  with  the  unhappy  exiles 
without  this  pretty  paradise  !  You  are  an  invited 
guest,  dear  reader.     Pray  walk  in  ! 

Did  you  ask  about  the  Becktons?  The  Becktons 
are  people  blessed  with  money  and  a  very  charming 
acquaintance.  That  is  enough  to  know  about  them. 
Yet  stay  !  Sir  Thomas  was  knighted  for  his  behavior 
at  some  great  crisis  in  India  (for  he  made  his  fortune 
in  India) — and  Lady  Beckton  is  no  great  beauty,  but 
she  has  the  mania  of  getting  handsome  people  together, 
and  making  them  happier  than  belongs  properly  to 
handsome  people's  destiny.  And  this,  I  think,  must 
suffice  for  a  first  introduction. 

The  lawn,  as  you  see,  has  the  long  portico  of  the 
house  on  one  side  of  it,  a  bend  of  the  river  on  two 
other  sides,  and  a  thick  shrubbery  on  the  fourth. 
The  dancing-floor  is  in  the  centre,  inlaid  at  the  level 
of  the  smooth  sward,  and  it  is  just  now  vibrating  to 
the  measured  step  of  the  mazurka — beautifully  danced, 
we  must  say ! 

And  now  let  me  point  out  to  you  the  persons  most 
concerned  in  this  gossip  of  mine. 

First,  the  ladies. 

Miss  Blakeney — (and  she  was  never  called  anything 
but  Miss  Blakeney — never  Kate,  or  Kitty,  or  Kathleen, 
I  mean,  though  her  name  was  Catherine) — Miss 
Blakeney  is  that  very  stylish,  very  striking,  very 
magnificent  girl,  I  think  I  may  say,  with  the  white 
chip  hat  and  black  feather.  Nobody  but  Miss  Blake- 
ney could  venture  to  wear  just  the  dress  she  is  sport- 
ing, but  she  must  dash,  though  she  is  in  half-mourn- 
ing, and,  faith !  there  is  nothing  out  of  keeping,  artisti- 
cally speaking,  after  all.  A  white  dress  embroidered 
with  black  flowers,  dazzling  white  shoulders  turned 
over  with  black  lace,  white  neck  and  forehead  (brilliant- 
ly white),  waved  over  and  kissed  by  luxuriant  black 
ringlets  (brilliantly  black).  And  very  white  temples 
with  very  black  eyes,  and  very  white  eyelids  with  long 
black  lashes,  and,  since  those  dazzling  white  teeth 
were  without  a  contrast,  there  hung  upon  her  neck  a 
black  cross  of  ebony — and  now  we  have  put  her  in 
black  and  white,  where  she  will  "  stay  put."  Scripta 
verba  manent,  saith  the  cautionary  proverb. 

Here  and  there,  you  observe,  there  is  a  small  Per- 
sian carpet  spread  on  the  sward  for  those  who  like  to 
lounge  and  look  at  the  dancers,  and  though  a  score  of 
people,  at  least,  are  availing  themselves  of  this  oriental 
luxury,  no  one  looks  so  modestly  pretty,  half-couched 
on  the  richly-colored  woof,  as  that  simply  dressed 
blonde,  with  a  straw  hat  in  her  lap,  and  her  light 
auburn  curls  taking  their  saucy  will  of  her  blue-veined 
neck  and  shoulders.  That  lady's  plain  name  is  Mabel 
Brown,  and,  like  yourself,  many  persons  have  wished 
to  change  it  for  her.  She  is  half-married,  indeed,  to 
several  persons  here  present,  for  there  \sone  consenting 
party.     Mais  Vautrc  nc  veut  pas,  as  a  French  novelist 


laments,  it  stating  a  similar  dilemma.  Meantime,  Miss 
Brown  is  the  adopted  sister  of  the  black  and  white  Miss 
Blakeney. 

One  more  exercise  of  my  function  of  cicerone  ! 

Lying  upon  the  bank  of  the  river,  with  his  shoulder 
against  that  fine  oak,  and  apparently  deeply  absorbed 
in  the  fate  of  the  acorn-cups  which  he  throws  into  the 
current,  you  may  survey  the  elegant  person  of  Mr. 
Lindsay  Maud — a  gentleman  whom  I  wish  you  to  take 
for  rather  more  than  his  outer  seeming,  since  he  will 
show  you  at  the  first  turn  of  his  head,  that  he  cares 
nothing  for  your  opinion,  though  entitled,  as  the 
diplomatists  phrase  it,  to  your  "  high  consideration." 
Mr.  Maud  is  twenty-five,  more  or  less — six  feet,  or 
thereabouts.  He  has  the  sanguineous  tint,  rather 
odd  for  so  phlegmatic  a  person  as  he  seems.  His 
nose  is  un  petit  pen  retrousse,  his  lips  full,  and  his 
smile  easy  and  ready.  His  eyes  are  like  the  surface 
of  a  very  deep  well.  Curling  brown  hair,  broad  and 
calm  forehead,  merry  chin  with  a  dimple  in  it,  and 
i  mouth  expressive  of  great  good  humor,  and  quite 
|  enough  of  fastidiousness.  If  this  is  not  your  beau 
ideal,  I  am  very  sorry — but  experience  went  to  show 
that  Lindsay  Maud  was  a  very  agreeable  man,  and 
j  pleased  generally  where  he  undertook  it. 

And  now,  if  you  please,  having  done  the  honors,  I 
will  take  up  the  story  en  simple  conteur. 

The  sky  was  beginning  to  blush  about  the  sun's 
going  to  bed,  and  the  dancers  and  archers  were  pair- 
ing off,  couple  by  couple,  to  stroll  and  cool  in  the  dim 
shrubberies  of  Beckton  Park.  It  was  an  hour  to 
breakfast,  so  called,  for  breakfast  was  to  be  served  in 
the  darker  edge  of  the  twilight.  With  the  afore- 
named oak-tree  between  him  and  the  gay  company, 
Mr.  Lindsay  Maud  beguiled  his  hunger  (for  hungry 
he  was),  by  reading  a  volume  of  that  very  clever  novel, 
"  Le  Pere  Goriot,"  and,  chapter  by  chapter,  he 
"  cocked  up  his  ear,"  as  the  story-books  say,  hoping 
to  hear  the  cheerful  bell  of  the  tower  announce  the 
serving  of  the  soup  and  champagne. 

"Well,  Sir  Knight  Faineant !"  said  Lady  Beckton, 
stepping  in  suddenly  between  his  feet  and  the  river 
brink,  "  since  when  have  you  turned  woman-hater, 
and  enrolled  among  the  unavailables  ?  Here  have  you 
lain  all  day  in  the  shade,  with  scores  of  nice  girls 
dancing  on  the  other  side  of  your  hermit  tree,  and  not 
a  sign  of  life — not  a  look  even  to  see  whether  my 
party,  got  up  with  so  much  pains,  flourished  or  lan- 
guished !    I'll  cross  you  out  of  my  little  book,  recreant!" 

Maud  was  by  this  time  on  his  feet,  and  he  penitent- 
ly and  respectfully  kissed  the  fingers  threateningly 
held  up  to  him — for  the  unpardonable  sin  in  a  single 
man  is  to  appear  unamused,  let  alone  failing  to  amuse 
others — at  a  party  sworn  to  be  agreeable. 

"  1  have  but  half  an  apology,"  he  said,  "  that  of 
knowing  that  your  parties  go  swimmingly  off,  whether 
I  pull  an  oar  or  no  ;  but  I  deserve  not  the  less  to  be 
crossed  out  of  your  book.  Something  ails  me.  lam 
growing  old,  or  my  curiosity  has  burnt  out,  or  I  am 
touched  with  some  fatal  lethargy.  Upon  my  word  1 
would  as  lief  listen  to  a  Latin  sermon  as  chat  for  the 
next  half  hour  with  the  prettiest  girl  at  Beckton  ! 
There's  no  inducement,  my  dear  Lady  Beckton  ! 
I'm  not  a  marrying  man,  you  know,  and  flirtation — 
flirtation  is  such  tiresome  repetition — endless  reading 
of  prefaces,  and  never  coming  to  the  agreeable  first 
chapter.  Hut  I'll  obey  orders.  Which  is  the  destitute 
woman  ?  You  shall  see  how  I  will  redeem  my  dam- 
aged reputation  !" 

But  Lady  Beckton,  who  seldom  refused  an  offer 
from  a  beau  to  make  himself  useful  at  her  parties, 
seemed  hardly  to  listen  to  Maud's  justification.  She 
placed  her  arm  in  his,  and  led  him  across  the  bridge 
which  spanned  the  river  a  little  above,  and  they  were 
presently  out  of  hearing  in  one  of  the  cool  and  shaded 
avenues  of  the  park. 


522 


BEWARE  OF  DOGS  AND  WALTZING. 


"A  penny  for  your  thought!"  said  Mauri,  after 
walking  at  her  side  a  few  minutes  in  silence. 

"  It  is  a  thought,  certainly,  in  which  pennies  are 
concerned,"  replied  Lady  Beckton,  "  and  that  is  why 
I  find  any  trouble  in  giving  expression  to  it.  It  is 
difficult  enough  to  talk  with  gentlemen  about  love,  but 
that  is  easy  to  talking  about  money." 

"Yet  they  make  a  pretty  tandem,  money  on  the 
lead!" 

"Oh!  are  you  there  ?"  exclaimed  Lady  Beckton, 
with  a  laugh  ;  "  I  was  beginning  too  far  back,  al- 
together !  My  dear  Lindsay,  see  how  much  better  I 
thought  of  you  than  you  deserved!  I  was  turning 
over  in  my  mind  with  great  trepidation  and  embarrass- 
ment how'lshould  venture  to  talk  to  you  about  amoney- 
and-love  match!" 

"  Indeed  !   for  what  happy  man  ?" 

u  Toi  mime,  man  ami.'" 

"  Heavens!  you  quite  take  away  my  breath!  Spare 
yourself  the  overture,  my  dear  Lady  Beckton!  I 
agree  !  I  am  quite  ready — sold  from  this  hour  if  you 
can  produce  a  purchaser,  and  possession  given  im- 
mediately !" 

"  Now  you  go  too  fast ;  for  1  ha^e  not  time  to  banter, 
and  I  wish  to  see  my  way  in  earnest  before  I  leave  you. 
Listen  to  me.  I  was  talking  you  over  with  Beckton 
this  morning.  I'll  not  trouble  you  with  the  discus- 
sion— it  would  make  you  vain,  perhaps.  But  we  ar- 
rived at  this  :  Miss  Blakeney  would  be  a  very  good 
match  for  you,  and  if  you  are  inclined  to  make  a  dem- 
onstration that  way,  why,  we  will  do  what  we  can  to 
make  it  plain  sailing.  Stay  with  us  a  week,  for  in- 
stance, and  we  will  keep  the  Blakeneys.  It's  a  sweet 
month  for  pairing,  and  you  are  an  expeditious  love- 
maker,  I  know.     Is  it  agreed  ?" 

"  You  are  quite  serious!" 

"Quite!" 

"  I'll  go  back  with  you  to  the  bridge,  kindest  of 
friends,  and  return  and  ramble  here  till  the  bell  rings, 
by  myself.  I'll  find  you  at  table,  by-and-by,  and  ex- 
press my  gratitude  at  least.  Will  that  be  time  enough 
for  an  answer  ?" 

"  Yes — but  no  ceremony  with  me  !  Stay  and 
ponder  where  you  are  !  Au  revoir  !  I  must  see  after 
my  breakfast !" 

And  away  tripped  the  kind-hearted  Lady  Beckton. 

Maud  resumed  his  walk.  He  was  rather  taken 
aback.  He  knew  Miss  Blakeney  but  as  a  waltzing 
partner,  yet  that  should  be  but  little  matter;  for  he 
had  long  ago  made  up  his  mind  that,  if  he  did  not 
marry  rich,  he  could  not  marry  at  all. 

Maud  was  poor — that  is  to  say,  he  had  all  that -an 
angel  would  suppose  necessary  in  this  hungry  and  cold 
world — assurance  of  food  and  clothing — in  other  words, 
three  hundred  a  year.  He  had  had  his  unripe  time 
like  other  youths,  in  which  he  was  ready  to  marry  for 
love  and  no  money  ;  but  his  timid  advances  at  that 
soft  period  had  not  been  responsibly  met  by  his  first 
course  of  sweethearts,  and  he  had  congratulated  him- 
self and  put  a  price  on  his  heart  accordingly.  Mean- 
time, he  thought,  the  world  is  a  very  entertaining 
place,  and  the  belonging  to  nobody  in  particular,  has 
its  little  advantages. 

And  very  gayly  sped  on  the  second  epoch  of  Mr. 
Lindsay  Maud's  history.  He  lived  in  a  country  where, 
to  shine  in  a  profession,  requires  the  "  audace,  patience 
et  volonte  de  quoi  renverser  le  mondc"  and  having  turn- 
ed his  ambition  well  about,  like  a  strange  coin  that 
might  perhaps  have  passed  current  in  other  times,  he 
laid  it  away  with  romance  and  chivalry,  and  other 
things  suited  only  to  the  cabinets  of  the  curious.  He 
was  well  born.  He  was  well  bred.  He  was  a  fair 
candidate  for  the  honors  of  a  "gay  man  about  town" 
— that  untaxed  exempt — that  guest  by  privilege — that 
irresponsible  denizen  of  high  life,  possessed  of  every 
luxury  on  earth  except  matrimony  and  the  pleasures 


of  payment.  And,  for  a  year  or  two,  this  was  very 
delightful.  He  had  a  half  dozen  of  those  charming 
female  friendships  which,  like  other  ephemera  in  this 
changing  world,  must  die  or  turn  into  something  else 
at  the  close  of  a  season,  and,  if  this  makes  the  feelings 
very  hard,  it  makes  the  manners  very  soft ;  and  Maud 
was  content  with  the  compensation.  If  he  felt,  now 
and  then,  that  he  was  idling  life  away,  he  looked  about 
him  and  found  countenance  at  least ;  for  all  his  friends 
were  as  idle,  and  there  was  an  analogy  to  his  condi- 
tion in  nature  (if  need  were  to  find  one),'  for  the  but- 
terfly had  his  destiny  like  the  bee,  and  was  neither 
pitied  nor  reproached  that  he  was  not  a  honey-maker. 
But  Maud  was  now  in  a  third  lustrum  of  his  exist- 
ence, and  it  was  tinted  somewhat  differently  from  the 
rose-colored  epochs  precedent.  The  twilight  of 
|  satisfied  curiosity  had  fallen  imperceptibly  around 
j  him.  The  inner  veils  of  society  had  one  by  one  lifted, 
and  there  could  be  nothing  new  for  his  eye  in  the 
world  to  which  he  belonged. 

A  gay  party,  which  was  once  to  him  as  full  of  un- 
;  attained  objects  as  the  festal  mysteries  of  Eleusinia  to 
|  a  rustic  worshipper  of  Ceres,  was  now  as  readable  at 
I  a  glance  as  the  stripes  of  a  backgammon-board.  He 
knew  every  man's  pretensions  and  chances,  every  wo- 
;  man's  expectations  and  defences.  Not  a  damsel  whose 
|  defects  he  had  not  discovered,  whose  mind  he  had  not 
sounded,  whose  dowry  he  did  not  know.  Not  a  beauty, 
married  or  single,  whose  nightly  game  in  society  he 
could  not  perfectly  foretell ;  not  an  affection  unoccupied 
of  which  he  could  not  put  you  down  the  cost  of  en- 
gaging it  in  your  favor,  the  chances  of  constancy,  the 
dangers  of  following  or  abandoning.  He  had  no  stake 
in  society,  meantime,  yet  society  itself  was  all  his 
world.  He  had  no  ambitions  to  further  by  its  aid. 
And  until  now,  he  had  looked  on  matrimony  as  a 
closed  door — for  he  had  neither  property,  nor  profes- 
sion likely  to  secure  it,  and  circumstances  like  these, 
in  the  rank  in  which  he  moved,  are  comprehended 
among  the  "  any  impediments."  To  have  his  own 
way,  Maud  would  have  accepted  no  invitations  except 
to  dine  with  the  beaux  esprits,  and  he  would  have  con- 
centrated the  remainder  of  his  leisure  and  attentions 
upon  one  agreeable  woman  (at  a  time) — two  selfish- 
nesses very  attractive  to  a  blase,  but  not  permitted  to 
any  member  of  society  short  of  a  duke  or  a  Croesus. 

And  now,  with  a  new  leaf  turning  over  in  his  dull 
book  of  life — a  morning  of  a  new  day  breaking  on 
his  increasing  night — Lindsay  Maud  tightly  screwed 
his  arms  across  his  breast,  and  paced  the  darkening 
avenue  of  Beckton  Park.  The  difference  between 
figuring  as  a  fortune-hunter,  and  having  a  fortune 
hunted  for  him  by  others,  he  perfectly  understood. 
In  old  and  aristocratic  societies,  where  wealth  is  at 
the  same  time  so  much  more  coveted  and  so  much 
more  difficult  to  win,  the  eyes  of  "  envy,  malice,  and 
all  uncharitableness,"  are  alike  an  omnipresent  argus, 
in  their  watch  over  the  avenues  to  its  acquisition.  No 
step,  the  slightest,  the  least  suspicious,  is  ever  taken 
toward  the  hand  of  an  heiress,  or  the  attainment  of 
an  inheritance,  without  awakening  and  counter-work- 
ing of  these  busy  monsters ;  and,  for  a  society-man, 
better  to  be  a  gambler  or  seducer,  better  to  have  all 
the  fashionable  vices  ticketed  on  his  name,  than  to 
stand  qffiched  as  a  fortune-hunter.  If  to  have  a  for- 
tune cleverly  put  within  reach  by  a  powerful  friend, 
however,  be  a  proportionate  beatitude,  blessed  was 
Maud.  So  thought  he,  at  least,  as  the  merry  bell  of 
Beckton  tower  sent  its  summons  through  the  woods, 
and  his  revery  gave  place  to  thoughts  of  something 
more  substantial. 

And  thus  far,  oh  adorable  reader !  (for  I  see  what 
unfathomable  eyes  are  looking  over  my  shoulder)  thus 
far,  like  an  artist  making  a  sketch,  of  which  one  part 
is  to  be  finished,  I  have  dwelt  a  little  on  the  touches 
of  my  pencil.     But,  by  those  same  unfathomable  eyes 


BEWARE  OF  DOGS  AND  WALTZING. 


523 


I  know  (for  in  those  depths  dwell  imagination),  that 
if  the  remainder  be  done  ever  so  lightly  in  outline, 
even  then  there  will  be  more  than  was  needed  for  the 
comprehension  of  the  story.  Thy  ready  and  bound- 
less faucy,  sweet  lady,  would  supply  it  all.  Given, 
the  characters  and  scene,  what  fair  creature  who  has 
loved,  could  fail  to  picture  forth  the  sequel  and  its 
more  minute  surroundings,  with  rapidity  and  truth 
daguerreotypical  ? 

Sketchily,  then,  touch  we  the  unfinished  denouement 
of  our  story. 

The  long  saloon  was  already  in  glittering  progress 
wken  Maud  entered.  The  servants  in  their  blue  and 
white  liveries  were  gliding  rapidly  about  with  the  ter- 
restrial nutriment  for  eyes  celestial — to-wit,  wines  and 
oysters. 

Half  blinded  with  the  glare  of  the  numberless 
lights,  he  stood  a  moment  at  the  door. 

"  Lady  Beckton's  compliments,  and  she  has  re- 
served a  seat  for  you!"  said  a  footman  approaching 
him. 

He  glanced  at  the  head  of  the  table.  The  vacant 
chair  was  near  Lady  Beckton  and  opposite  Miss  Blake- 
ney.  "Is  a  vis-a-vis  better  for  love-making  than  a 
seat  at  the  lady's  ear  ?"  thought  Maud.  But  Lady 
Beckton's  tactics  were  to  spare  his  ear  and  dazzle  his 
eye,  without  reference  especially  to  the  corresponding 
impressions  on  the  eyes  and  ear  of  the  lady.  And 
she  had  the  secondary  object  of  avoiding  any  betrayal 
of  her  designs  till  they  were  too  far  matured  to  be  de- 
feated by  publicity. 

"  Can  you  tell  me,  Mr.  Maud,"  said  the  sweet 
voice  of  Mabel  Brown  as  he  drew  his  chair  to  the 
table,  "what  is  the  secret  of  Lady  Beckton's  putting 
you  next  me  so  pertinaciously  ?" 

"  A  greater  regard  for  my  happiness  than  yours, 
probably,"  said  Maud;  "but  why  'pertinaciously?' 
Has  there  been  a  skirmish  for  this  particular  chair  ?" 

"  No  skirmish,  but  three  attempts  at  seizure  by 
three  of  my  admirers." 

"  If  they  admire  you  more  than  I,  they  are  fitter 
companions  for  a  tete-a-tete  than  a  crowded  party," 
said  Maud.  "  I  am  as  near  a  lover  as  I  can  be,  and 
be  agreeable !" 

To  this  Maud  expected  the  gay  retort  due  to  a  bag- 
atelle of  gallantry ;  but  the  pretty  Mabel  was  silent. 
The  soup  disappeared  and  the  entremets  were  served. 
Maud  was  hungry,  and  he  had  sent  a  cutlet  and  a 
glass  of  Johannisberg  to  the  clamorous  quarter  be- 
fore he  ventured  to  look  toward  his  hostess. 

He  felt  her  eye  upon  him.  A  covert  smile  stole 
through  her  lips  as  they  exchanged  glances. 

"Yes  ?"  she  asked,  with  a  meaning  look. 

"Yes!" 

And  in  that  dialogue  of  two  monosyllables  Lady 
Beckton  presumed  that  the  hand  and  five  thousand  a 
year  of  Miss  Catherine  Blakeney,  were  virtually  made 
over  to  Mr.  Lindsay  Maud.  And  her  diplomacy 
made  play  to  that  end  without  farther  deliberation. 

Very  unconscious  indeed  that  she  was  under  the 
eye  of  the  man  who  had  entered  into  a  conspiracy  to 
become  her  husband,  Miss  Blakeney  sat  between  a 
guardsman  and  a  diplomatist,  carrying  on  the  war  in 
her  usual  trenchant  and  triumphant  fashion.  She 
looked  exceedingly  handsome — that  Maud  could  not 
but  admit.  With  no  intention  of  becoming  respon- 
sible for  her  manners,  he  would  even  have  admired, 
as  he  often  had  done,  her  skilful  coquetries  and  adroit 
displays  of  the  beauty  with  which  nature  had  en- 
dowed her.  She  succeeded,  Maud  thought,  in  giving 
both  of  her  admirers  the  apparent  preference  (appa- 
rent to  themselves,  that  is  to  say),  and  considering  her 
vis-a-vis  worth  a  chance  shaft  at  least,  she  honored 
that  very  attentive  gentleman  with  such  occasional 
notice,  as,  under  other  circumstances,  would  have 
been  far  from  disagreeable.     It   might  have  worn  a 


better  grace,  however,  coming  from  simple  Miss 
Blakeney.  From  the  future  Mrs.  Lindsay  Maud,  he 
could  have  wished  those  pretty  inveiglements  very 
much  reduced  and  modified. 

At  his  side,  the  while,  sweet  Mabel  Brown  carried 
on  with  him  a  conversation,  which  to  the  high  tone 
of  merriment  opposite,  was  like  the  intermitted  mur- 
mur of  a  brook  heard  in  the  pauses  of  merry  instru- 
ments. At  the  same  time  that  nothing  brilliant  or 
gay  seemed  to  escape  her  notice,  she  toned  her  own 
voice  and  flow  of  thought  so  winningly  below  the  ex- 
citement around  her,  that  Maud,  who  was  sensible  of 
every  indication  of  superiority,  could  not  but  pay  her 
a  silent  tribute  of  admiration.  "  If  this  were  but  the 
heiress  !"  he  ejaculated  inwardly.  But  Mabel  Brown 
was  a  dependant. 

Coffee  was  served. 

The  door  at  the  end  of  the  long  saloon  was  sud- 
denly thrown  open,  and  as  every  eye  turned  to  gaze 
into  the  blazing  ballroom,  a  march  with  the  full  power 
of  the  band  burst  upon  the  ear. 

The  diplomatist  who  had   been  sitting  at  the  side 

|   of  Miss  Blakeney  was  a  German,  and  a  waltzer  comme 

\\ily  en  a  peu.     At  the  bidding  of  Lady  Beckton,  he 

|  put  his  arm  around  the  waist  of  the  heiress,  and  bore 

||her  away  to  the  delicious  music  of  Strauss,  and,  by 

!  general  consent,  the  entire  floor  was  left  to  this  pair 

i:  for  a  dozen  circles.     Miss  Blakeney  was  passionately 

i;  fond   of  waltzing,  and   built  for  it,  like  a   Baltimore 

clipper  for  running  close  to  the  wind.     If  she  had  a 

fault  that  her  friends  were  afraid  to  jog   her  memory 

about,  it  was  the  wearing  her  dresses  a   flounce  too 

short.     Her  feet  and  ankles  were  Fenella's  own,  while 

her  figure  and  breezy  motion  would  have  stolen  En- 

dymion  from    Diana.     She   waltzed   too    well   for   a 

lady — all  but  well  enough  for  a  premiere  danseuse  de 

Vopera.     Lady  Beckton   was  a  shrewd   woman,   but 

she  made  a   mistake   in  crying  "  encore  /"  when  this 

single  couple  stopped  from  their  admired  pas  de  deux. 

She  thought  Maud  was  just  the  man  to  be  captivated 

by  that  display.     But  the  future  Mrs.  Lindsay  Maud 

must  not  have  ankles  for  general  admiration.     Oh,  no  ! 

Maud  wished  to  efface  the  feeling  this  exhibition 
had  caused  by  sharing  in  the  excitement. 

"  Miss  Brown,"  he  said,  as  two  or  three  couples 
went  off,  "permit  me  the  happiness  of  one  turn!" 
and,  scarce  waiting  for  an  answer,  he  raised  his  arm 
to  encircle  her  waist. 

Mabel  took  his  hands,  and  playfully  laid  them 
across  each  other  on  his  own  breast  in  an  attitude  of 
resignation. 

"  I  never  waltz,"  she  said.  "But  don't  think  me 
a  prude !  I  don't  consider  it  wrong  in  those  who 
think  it  right." 

"But  with  this  music  tugging  at  your  heels!"  said 
Maud,  who  did  not  care  to  express  how  much  he  ad- 
mired the  delicacy  of  her  distinction. 

"Ah,  with  a  husband  or  a  brother,  I  should  think 
one  could  scarce  resist  bounding  away;  but  I  can 
not — " 

"  Can  not  what  ? — can  not  take  me  for  either  ?"  in- 
terrupted Maud,  with  an  air  of  affected  malice  that 
covered  a  very  strong  desire  to  ask  the  question  in 
earnest. 

She  turned  her  eyes  suddenly  upon  him  with  a  rapid 
look  of  inquiry,  and,  slightly  coloring,  fixed  her  at- 
tention silently  on  the  waltzers. 

Lady  Beckton  came,  making  her  way  through  the 
crowd/    She  touched  Maud  on  the  arm. 

•"Hold  hook  and  line!'— is  it  not?"  she  said,  in  a 
whisper. 

After  an  instant's  hesitation,  Maud  answered> 
"Yes!" — but  pages,  often,  would  not  suffice  to  ex- 
press all  that  passes  through  the  mind  in  "an  instant's 
hesitation."  All  Lindsay  Maud's  prospects  and  cir- 
i  cumstances  were   reviewed  in  that   moment ;  all  his 


524 


THE  INLET  OF  PEACH-BLOSSOMS. 


many  steps  by  which  he  had  arrived  at  the  conclusion 
that  marriage  with  him  must  be  a  matter  of  convenance 
merely  ;  all  his  put-down  impulses  and  built-up  reso- 
lutions;  all  his  regrets,  consolations,  and  offsets;  all 
his  better  and  worser  feelings  ;  all  his  former  loves 
(and  in  that  connexion,  strangely  enough,  Mabel 
Brown) ;  all  his  schemes,  in  short,  for  smothering  his 
pain  in  the  sacrifice  of  his  heart,  and  making  the 
most  of  the  gain  to  his  pocket,  passed  before  him  in 
that  half  minute's  review.     But  he  said  "  Yes  !" 

The  Blakeney  carriage  was  dismissed  that  night, 
with  orders  to  bring  certain  dressing-maids  and  cer- 
tain sequents  of  that  useful  race,  on  the  following 
morning  to  Beckton  Park,  and  the  three  persons  who 
composed  the  Blakeney  party,  an  old  aunt,  Miss 
Blakeney,  and  Mabel  Brown,  went  quietly  to  bed  un- 
der the  hospitable  roof  of  Lady  Beckton. 

How  describe  (and  what  need  of  it,  indeed  !)  a  week 
at  an  English  country-house,  with  all  its  age  of 
chances  for  loving  and  hating,  its  eternity  of  oppor- 
tunities for  all  that  hearts  can  have  to  regulate  in  this 
shorthand  life  of  ours?  Let  us  come  at  once  to  the 
closing  day  of  this  visit. 

Maud  lay  late  abed  on  the  day  that  the  Blakeneys 
were  to  leave  Beckton  Park.  Fixed  from  morning 
till  night  in  the  firm  resolution  at  which  he  had  ar- 
rived with  so  much  trouble  and  self-control,  he  was 
dreaming  from  night  till  morning  of  a  felicity  in 
which  Miss  Blakeney  had  little  share.  He  wished 
the  marriage  could  be  all  achieved  in  the  signing  of  a 
bond.  He  found  that  he  had  miscalculated  his  phi- 
losophy in  supposing  that  he  could  venture  to  loose 
thought  and  revery  upon  the  long-forbidden  subject 
of  marriage.  In  all  the  scenes  eternally  being  con- 
jured up  to  his  fancy — scenes  of  domestic  life — the 
bringing  of  Miss  Blakeney  into  the  picture  was  an 
after  effort.  Mabel  Brown  stole  into  it,  spite  of  him- 
self— the  sweetest  and  dearest  feature  of  that  enchant- 
ing picture,  in  its  first  warm  coloring  by  the  heart. 
But,  day  by  day,  he  took  the  place  assigned  him  by 
Lady  Beckton  at  the  side  of  Miss  Blakeney,  riding, 
driving,  dining,  strolling,  with  reference  to  being  near 
her  only,  and  still  scarce  an  hour  could  pass  in  which, 
spite  of  all  effort  to  the  contrary,  he  did  not  betray 
his  passionate  interest  in  Mabel  Brown. 

He  arose  and  breakfasted.  Lady  Beckton  and  the 
young  ladies  were  bonneted  and  ready  for  a  stroll  in 
the  park  woods,  and  her  ladyship  came  and  whispered 
in  Maud's  ear,  as  he  leaned  over  his  coffee,  that  he 
must  join  them  presently,  and  that  she  had  prepared 
Miss  Blakeney  for  an  interview  with  him,  which  she 
would  arrange  as  they  rambled. 

"  Take  no  refusal  !"  were  her  parting  words  as  she 
stepped  out  upon  the  verandah. 

Maud  strolled  leisurely  toward  the  rendezvous  in- 
dicated by  Lady  Beckton.  He  required  all  the  time 
he  could  get  to  confirm  his  resolutions  and  recover 
his  usual  maintien  of  repose.  With  his  mind  made 
up  at  last,  and  a  face  in  which  few  would  have  read 
the  heart  in  fetters  beneath,  he  jumped  a  wicker- 
fence,  and,  by  a  cross  path,  brought  the  ladies  in 
view.  They  were  walking  separately,  but  as  his  foot- 
steps were  heard,  Lady  Beckton  slipped  her  arm  into 
Miss  Brown's,  and  commenced  apparently  a  very  ear- 
nest undertone  of  conversation.  Miss  Blakeney 
turned.  Her  face  glowed  with  exercise,  and  Maud 
confessed  to  himself  that  he  rarely  had  seen  so  beau- 
tiful a  woman. 

"You  are  come  in  time,  Mr.  Maud,"  she  said,  "for 
something  is  going  on  between  my  companions  from 
which  I  am  excluded." 

"En  revanche,  suppose  we  have  our  little  exclusive 
secret!"  said  Maud,  offering  his  arm. 

Miss  Blakeney  colored  slightly,  and  consented  to 
obey  the  slight  resistance  of  his  arm  by  which  they 
fell  behind.     A  silence  of  a  few  moments  followed, 


for  if  the  proposed  secret  were  a  proposal  of  mar- 
riage, it  had  been  too  bluntly  approached.  Maud  felt 
that  he  must  once  more  return  to  indifferent  topics, 
and  lead  on  the  delicate  subject  at  his  lips  with  more 
tact  and  preparation. 

They  rose  a  slight  elevation  in  the  walk  which  over- 
looked the  wilder  confines  of  the  park.  A  slight 
smoke  rose  from  a  clump  of  trees,  indicating  an  in- 
trusion of  gipsies  within,  and  the  next  instant,  a  deep- 
mouthed  bark  rang  out  before  them,  and  the  two  la- 
dies came  rushing  back  in  violent  terror,  assailed  at 
every  step  of  their  flight  by  a  powerful  and  infuriated 
mastiff.  Maud  ran  forward  immediately,  and  suc- 
ceeded in  driving  the  dog  back  to  the  tents;  but  on  his 
return  he  found  only  the  terrified  Mabel,  who,  lean- 
ing against  a  tree,  and  partly  recovered  from  her 
breathless  flight,  was  quietly  awaiting  him. 

"  Here  is  a  change  of  partners  as  my  heart  would 
have  it !"  thought  Maud,  as  he  drew  her  slight  arm 
within  his  own.  "  The  transfer  looks  to  me  like  the 
interposition  of  my  good  angel,  and  I  accept  the 
warning!" 

And  in  words  that  needed  no  management  to  bring 
them  skilfully  on — with  the  eloquence  of  a  heart  re- 
leased from  fetters  all  but  intolerable,  and  from  a 
threatened  slavery  for  life — Lindsay  Maud  poured 
out  the  fervent  passion  of  his  heart  to  Mabel  Brown. 
The  crust  of  a  selfish  and  artificial  life  broke  up  in 
the  tumult  of  that  declaration,  and  he  found  himself 
once  more  natural  and  true  to  the  instincts  and  better 
impulses  of  his  character.  He  was  met  with  the 
trembling  response  that  such  pure  love  looks  for 
when  it  finds  utterance,  and  without  a  thought  of 
worldly  calculation,  or  a  shadow  of  a  scheme  for  their 
means  and  manner  of  life,  they  exchanged  promises 
to  which  the  subsequent  ceremony  of  marriage  was 
but  the  formal  seal. 

And  at  the  announcement  of  this  termination  to 
her  matrimonial  schemes,  Lady  Beckton  seemed 
much  more  troubled  than  Miss  Blakeney. 

But  Lady  Beckton's  disappointment  was  somewhat 
modified  when  she  discovered  that  Miss  Blakeney  had 
long  before  secretly  endowed  her  adopted  sister  Ma- 
bel with  the  half  of  her  fortune. 


THE  INLET  OF  PEACH-BLOSSOMS. 

The  Emperor  Yuentsoong,  of  the  dynasty  Chow, 
was  the  most  magnificent  of  the  long-descended  suc- 
cession of  Chinese  sovereigns.  On  his  first  accession 
to  the  throne,  his  character  was  so  little  understood, 
that  a  conspiracy  was  set  on  foot  among  the  yellow- 
caps,  or  eunuchs,  to  put  out  his  eyes,  and  place  upon 
the  throne  the  rebel  Szema,  in  whose  warlike  hands, 
they  asserted,  the  empire  would  more  properly  main- 
tain its  ancient  glory.  The  gravity  and  reserve  which 
these  myrmidons  of  the  palace  had  construed  into 
stupidity  and  fear,  soon  assumed  another  complexion, 
however.  The  eunuchs  silently  disappeared ;  the 
mandarins  and  princes  whom  they  had  seduced  from 
their  allegiance,  were  made  loyal  subjects  by  a  gen- 
erous pardon ;  and  in  a  few  days  after  the  period  fixed 
upon  for  the  consummation  of  the  plot,  Yuentsoong 
set  forth  in  complete  armor  at  the  head  of  his  troops 
to  give  battle  to  the  rebel  in  the  mountains. 

In  Chinese  annals  this  first  enterprise  of  the  youth- 
ful Yuentsoong  is  recorded  with  great  pomp  and  par- 
ticularity. Szema  was  a  Tartar  prince  of  uncommon 
ability,  young  like  the  emperor,  and,  during  the  few 
last  imbecile  years  of  the  old  sovereign,  he  had  gath- 
ered strength  in  his  rebellion,  till  now  he  was  at  the 
head  of  ninety  thousand  men,  all  soldiers  of  repute 


THE  INLET  OF  PEACH-BLOSSOMS. 


525 


and  tried  valor.  The  historian  has  unfortunately 
dimmed  the  emperor's  fame  to  European  eyes,  by  at- 
tributing his  wonderful  achievements  in  this  expe- 
dition to  his  superiority  in  arts  of  magic.  As  this  ac- 
count of  his  exploits  is  only  prefatory  to  our  tale,  we 
will  simply  give  the  reader  an  idea  of  the  style  of  the 
historian,  by  translating  literally  a  passage  or  two  of 
his  description  of  the  battle : — 

"Szema  now  took  refuge  within  a  cleft  of  the 
mountain,  and  Yuentsoong,  upon  his  swift  steed,  out- 
stripping the  body-guard  in  his  ardor,  dashed  amid 
the  paralyzed  troops  with  poised  spear,  his  eyes  fixed 
only  on  the  rebel.  There  was  a  silence  of  an  instant, 
broken  only  by  the  rattling  hoofs  of  the  intruder,  and 
then,  with  dishevelled  hair  and  waving  sword,  Szema 
uttered  a  fearful  imprecation.  In  a  moment  the  wind 
rushed,  the  air  blackened,  and  with  the  suddenness  of 
a  fallen  rock,  a  large  cloud  enveloped  the  rebel,  and 
innumerable  men  and  horses  issued  out  of  it.  Wings 
flapped  against  the  eyes  of  the  emperor's  horse,  hel- 
lish noises  screamed  in  his  ears,  and,  completely  be- 
yond control,  the  animal  turned  and  fled  back  through 
the  narrow  pass,  bearing  his  imperial  master  safe  into 
the  heart  of  his  army. 

"Yuentsoong,  that  night,  commanded  some  of  his 
most  expert  soldiers  to  scale  the  beetling  heights  of 
the  ravine,  bearing  upon  their  backs  the  blood  of 
Bwine,  sheep,  and  dogs,  with  other  impure  things,  and 
these  they  were  ordered  to  shower  upon  the  combat- 
ants at  the  sound  of  the  imperial  clarion.  On  the  fol- 
lowing morning,  Szema  came  forth  again  to  offer  bat- 
tie,  with  flags  displayed,  drums  beating,  and  shouts 
of  triumph  and  defiance.  As  on  the  day  previous,  the 
bold  emperor  divided,  in  his  impatience,  rank  after 
rank  of  his  own  soldiery,  and,  followed  closely  by  his 
body-guard,  drove  the  rebel  army  once  more  into  their 
fastness.  Szema  sat  upon  his  warhorse  as  before,  in- 
trenched amid  his  officers  and  ranks  of  the  tallest  Tar- 
tar spearmen,  and  as  the  emperor  contended  hand  to 
hand  with  one  of  the  opposing  rebels,  the  magic  im- 
precation was  again  uttered,  the  air  again  filled  with 
cloudy  horsemen  and  chariots,  and  the  mountain  sha- 
ken with  discordant  thunder.  Backing  his  willing 
steed,  the  emperor  blew  a  long  sharp  note  upon  his 
silver  clarion,  and  in  an  instant  the  sun  broke  through 
\he  darkness,  and  the  air  seemed  filled  with  paper  men, 
Oorses  of  straw,  and  phantoms  dissolving  into  smoke. 
Yuentsoong  and  Szema  now  stood  face  to  face,  with 
only  mortal  aid  and  weapons." 

The  historian  goes  on  to  record  that  the  two  armies 
suspended  hostilities  at  the  command  of  their  leaders, 
and  that  the  emperor  and  his  rebel  subject  having  en- 
gaged in  single  combat,  Yuentsoong  was  victorious, 
and  returned  to  his  capital  with  the  formidable  enemy, 
whose  life  he  had  spared,  riding  beside  him  like  a 
brother.  The  conqueror's  career,  for  several  years 
after  this,  seems  to  have  been  a  series  of  exploits  of 
personal  valor,  and  the  Tartar  prince  shared  in  all  his 
dangers  and  pleasures,  his  inseparable  friend.  It  was 
during  this  period  of  romantic  friendship  that  the 
events  occurred  which  have  made  Yuentsoong  one  of 
the  idols  of  Chinese  poetry. 

By  the  side  of  a  lake  in  a  distant  province  of  the 
empire,  stood  one  of  the  imperial  palaces  of  pleasure, 
seldom  visited,  and  almost  in  ruins.  Hither,  in  one 
of  his  moody  periods  of  repose  from  war,  came  the 
conqueror  Yuentsoong,  for  the  first  time  in  years  sep- 
arated from  his  faithful  Szema.  In  disguise,  and 
with  only  one  or  two  attendants,  he  established  him- 
self in  the  long  silent  halls  of  his  ancestor  Tsinche- 
mong,  and  with  his  boat  upon  the  lake,  and  his  spear 
in  the  forest,  seemed  to  find  all  the  amusement  of 
which  his  melancholy  was  susceptible.  On  a  certain 
day  in  the  latter  part  of  April,  the  emperor  had  set 
his  sail  to  a  fragrant  south  wind,  and  reclining  on  the 
cushions  of  his  bark,  watched  the  shore  as  it  softly 


and  silently  glided  past,  and,  the  lake  being  entirely 
encircled  by  the  imperial  forest,  he  felt  immersed  in 
what  he  believed  to  be  the  solitude  of  a  deserted  par- 
adise. After  skirting  the  fringed  sheet  of  water  in 
this  manner  for  several  hours,  he  suddenly  observed 
that  he  had  shot  through  a  streak  of  peach-blossoms 
floating  from  the  shore,  and  at  the  same  moment  he 
became  conscious  that  his  boat  was  slightly  headed 
off  by  a  current  setting  outward.  Putting  up  his 
helm,  he  returned  to  the  spot,  and  beneath  the  droop- 
ing branches  of  some  luxuriant  willows,  thus  early  in 
leaf,  he  discovered  the  mouth  of  an  inlet,  which,  but 
for  the  floating  blossoms  it  brought  to  the  lake,  would 
have  escaped  the  notice  of  the  closest  observer.  The 
emperor  now  lowered  his  sail,  unshipped  the  slender 
mast,  and  betook  him  to  the  ours,  and  as  the  current 
was  gentle,  and  the  inlet  wider  within  the  mouth,  he 
sped  rapidly  on,  through  what  appeared  to  be  but  a 
lovely  and  luxuriant  vale  of  the  forest.  Still,  those 
blushing  betrayers  of  some  flowering  spot  beyond, 
extended  like  a  rosy  clue  before  him,  and  with  im- 
pulse of  muscles  swelled  and  indurated  in  warlike  ex- 
ercise, the  swift  keel  divided  the  besprent  mirror  wind- 
ing temptingly  onward,  and,  for  a  long  hour,  the  royal 
oarsman  untiringly  threaded  this  sweet  vein  of  the 
wilderness. 

Resting  a  moment  on  his  oars  while  the  slender 
bark  still  kept  her  way,  he  turned  his  head  toward 
what  seemed  to  be  an  opening  in  the  forest  on  the 
left,  and  in  the  same  instant  the  boat  ran,  head  on,  to 
the  shore,  the  inlet  at  this  point  almost  doubling  on 
its  course.  Beyond,  by  the  humming  of  bees,  and 
the  singing  of  birds,  there  should  be  a  spot  more  open 
than  the  tangled  wilderness  he  had  passed,  and  disen- 
gaging his  prow  from  the  alders,  he  shoved  the  boat 
again  into  the  stream,  and  pulled  round  a  high  rock, 
by  which  the  inlet  seemed  to  have  been  compelled  to 
curve  its  channel.  The  edge  of  a  bright  green  mead- 
ow now  stole  into  the  perspective,  and,  still  widening 
with  his  approach,  disclosed  a  slightly  rising  terrace 
clustered  with  shrubs,  and  studded  here  and  there 
with  vases  ;  and  farther  on,  upon  the  same  side  of  the 
stream,  a  skirting  edge  of  peach-trees,  loaded  with  the 
gay  blossoms  which  had  guided  him  hither. 

Astonished  at  these  signs  of  habitation  in  what  was 
well  understood  to  be  a  privileged  wilderness,  Yuent- 
soong kept  his  boat  in  mid-stream,  and  with  his  eyes 
vigilantly  on  the  alert,  slowly  made  headway  against 
the  current.  A  few  strokes  with  his  oars,  however, 
traced  another  curve  of  the  inlet,  and  brought  into 
view  a  grove  of  ancient  trees  scattered  over  a  gently 
ascending  lawn,  beyond  which,  hidden  by  the  river 
till  now  by  the  projecting  shoulder  of  a  mound,  lay  a 
small  pavilion  with  gilded  pillars,  glittering  like  fairy 
work  in  the  sun.  The  emperor  fastened  his  boat  to  a 
tree  leaning  over  the  water,  and  with  his  short  spear 
in  his  hand,  bounded  upon  the  shore,  and  took  his 
way  toward  the  shining  structure,  his  heart  beating 
with  a  feeling  of  wonder  and  interest  altogether  new. 
On  a  nearer  approach,  the  bases  of  the  pillars  seemed 
decayed  by  time,  and  the  gilding  weather-stained  and 
tarnished,  but  the  trellised  porticoes  on  the  southern 
aspect  were  laden  with  flowering  shrubs,  in  vases  of 
porcelain,  and  caged  birds  sang  between  the  pointed 
arches,  and  there  were  manifest  signs  of  luxurious 
taste,  elegance,  and  care. 

A  moment,  with  an  indefinable  timidity,  the  em- 
peror paused  before  stepping  from  the  green  sward 
upon  the  marble  floor  of  the  pavilion,  and  in  that 
moment  a  curtain  was  withdrawn  from  the  door,  and 
a  female,  with  step  suddenly  arrested  by  the  sight  of 
the  stranger,  stood  motionless  before  him.  Ravished 
with  her  extraordinary  beauty,  and  awe-struck  with 
the  suddenness  of  the  apparition  and  the  novelty  of 
the  adventure,  the  emperor's  tongue  cleaved  to  his 
mouth,   and  ere  he  could  summon   resolution,  even 


526 


THE  INLET  OF  PEACH-BLOSSOMS. 


for  a  gesture  of  courtesy,  the  fair  creature  had  fled 
within,  and  the  curtain  closed  the  entrance  as  before. 

Wishing  to  recover  his  composure,  so  strangely 
troubled,  and  taking  it  for  granted  that  some  other  in- 
mate of  the  house  would  soon  appear,  Yuentsoong 
turned  his  steps  aside  to  the  grove,  and  with  his  head 
bowed,  and  his  spear  in  the  hollow  of  his  arm,  tried 
to  recall  more  vividly  the  features  of  the  vision  he 
had  seen.  He  had  walked  but  a  few  paces,  when 
there  came  toward  him  from  the  upper  skirt  of  the 
grove,  a  man  of  unusual  stature  and  erectness,  with 
white  hair,  unbraided  on  his  shoulders,  and  every  sign 
of  age  except  infirmity  of  step  and  mien.  The  em- 
peror's habitual  dignity  had  now  rallied,  and  on  his 
first  salutation,  the  countenance  of  the  old  man  soft- 
ened, and  he  quickened  his  pace  to  meet  and  give  him 
welcome. 

"You  are  noble?"  he  said,  with  confident  inquiry. 

Yuentsoong  colored  slightly. 

"  I  am,"  he  replied,  "  Lew-melin,  a  prince  of  the 
empire." 

"And  by  what  accident  here  ?" 

Yuentsoong  explained  the  clue  of  the  peach-blos- 
soms, and  represented  himself  as  exiled  for  a  time  to 
the  deserted  palace  upon  the  lakes. 

"  I  have  a  daughter,"  said  the  old  man,  abruptly, 
"who  has  never  looked  on  human  face,  save  mine." 

"  Pardon  me !"  replied  his  visiter ;  "  I  have  thought- 
lessly intruded  on  her  sight,  and  a  face  more  heavenly 
fair — " 

The  emperor  hesitated,  but  the  old  man  smiled  en- 
couragingly. 

"It  is  time,"  he  said,  "that  I  should  provide  a 
younger  defender  for  my  bright  Teh-leen,  and  Heaven 
has  sent  you  in  the  season  of  peach-blossoms,  with 
provident  kindness.*  You  have  frankly  revealed  to 
me  your  name  and  rank.  Before  I  offer  you  the  hos- 
pitality of  my  roof,  I  must  tell  you  mine.  I  am 
Choo-tseen,  the  outlaw,  once  of  your  own  rank,  and 
the  general  of  the  Celestial  army." 

The  emperor  started,  remembering  that  this  cele- 
brated rebel  was  the  terror  of  his  father's  throne. 

"  You  have  heard  my  history,"  the  old  man  con- 
tinued. "  I  had  been,  before  my  rebellion,  in  charge 
of  the  imperial  palace  on  the  lake.  Anticipating  an 
evil  day,  I  secretly  prepared  this  retreat  for  my  fami- 
ly ;  and  when  my  soldiers  deserted  me  at  the  battle  of 
Ke-chow,  and  a  price  was  set  upon  my  head,  hither  I 
fled  with  my  women  and  children  ;  and  the  last  alive 
is  my  beautiful  Teh-leen.  With  this  brief  outline  of 
my  life,  you  are  at  liberty  to  leave  me  as  you  came, 
or  to  enter  my  house,  on  the  condition  that  you  be- 
come the  protector  of  my  child." 

The  emperor  eagerly  turned  toward  the  pavilion, 
and,  with  a  step  as  light  as  his  own,  the  erect  and 
stately  outlaw  hastened  to  lift  the  curtain  before  him. 
Leaving  his  guest  for  a  moment  in  the  outer  apart- 
ment, he  entered  to  an  inner  chamber  in  search  of  his 
daughter,  whom  he  brought,  panting  with  fear,  and 
blushing  with  surprise  and  delight,  to  her  future  lover 
and  protector.  A  portion  of  an  historical  tale  so  deli- 
cate as  the  description  of  the  heroine  is  not  work  for 
imitators,  however,  and  we  must  copy  strictly  the  por- 
trait of  the  matchless  Teh-leen,  as  drawn  by  Le-pih, 
the  Anacreon  of  Chinese  poetry,  and  the  contempo- 
rary and  favorite  of  Yuentsoong. 

"  Teh-leen  was  born  while  the  morning  star  shone 
upon  the  bosom  of  her  mother.  Her  eye  was  like 
the  unblemished  blue  lily,  and  its  light  like  the  white 
gem  unfractured.  The  plum-blossom  is  most  fra- 
grant when  the  cold  has  penetrated  its  stem,  and  the 
mother  of  Teh-leen  had  known  sorrow.  The  head 
of  her  child  drooped  in  thought,  like  a  violet  over- 
laden  with  dew.     Bewildering  was   Teh-leen.     Her 

*  The  season  of  peach-blossoms  was  the  only  season  of 
marriage  in  ancient  China. 


mouth's  corners  were  dimpled,  yet  pensive.  The 
arch  of  her  brows  was  like  the  vein  in  the  tulip's 
heart,  and  the  lashes  shaded  the  blushes  on  her  cheek. 
With  the  delicacy  of  a  pale  rose,  her  complexion  put 
to  shame  the  floating  light  of  day.  Her  waist,  like  a 
thread  in  fineness,  seemed  ready  to  break  ;  yet  was  it 
straight  and  erect,  and  feared  not  the  fanning  breeze ; 

j  and  her  shadowy  grace  was  as  difficult  to  delineate,  as 
the  form  of  the  white  bird  rising  from  the  ground  by 
moonlight.     The  natural  gloss  of  her  hair  resembled 

j  the  uncertain  sheen  of  calm  water,  yet  without  the 
false  aid  of  unguents.  The  native  intelligence  of  her 
mind  seemed  to  have  gained   strength  by  retirement, 

i  and  he  who  beheld  her,  thought  not  of  her  as  human. 
Of  rare  beauty,  of  rarer  intellect  was  Teh-leen,  and 
her  heart  responded  to  the  poet's  lute." 

We  have  not  sp<ice,  nor  could  we,  without  copying 
directly  from  the  admired  Le-pih,  venture  to  describe 
the  bringing  of  Teh-leen  to  court,  and  her  surprise  at 
finding  herself  the  favorite  of  the  emperor.  It  is  a 
romantic  circumstance,  besides,  which  has  had  its 
parallels  in  other  countries.  But  the  sad  sequel  to 
the  loves  of  poor  Teh-leen  is  but  recorded  in  the  cold 
page  of  history;  and  if  the  poet,  who  wound  up  the 
climax  of  her  perfections,  with  her  susceptibility  to 
his  lute,  embalmed  her  sorrows  in  verse,  he  was  prob- 
ably too  politic  to  bring  it  ever  to  light.  Pass  we  to« 
these  neglected  and  unadorned  passages  of  her  history. 
Yuentsoong's  nature  was  passionately  devoted  and 
confiding;  and,  like  two  brothers  with  one  favorite 
sister,  lived  together  Teh-leen,  Szema,  and  the  emper- 
or. The  Tartar  prince,  if  his  heart  knew  a  mistress 
before  the  arrival  of  Teh-leen  at  the  palace,  owned 
afterward  no  other  than  her;  and  fearless  of  check 
or  suspicion  from  the  noble   confidence  and  generous 

|  friendship  of  Yuentsoong,  he  seemed  to  live  but  for 
her  service,  and  to  have  neither  energies  nor  ambition 
except  for  the  winning  of  her  smiles.  Szema  was  of 
great  personal  beauty,  frank  when  it  did  not  serve  him 
to  be  wily,  bold  in  his  pleasures,  and  of  manners  al- 
most femininely  soft  and  voluptuous.  He  was  re- 
nowned as  a  soldier,  and,  for  Teh-leen,  he  became  a 
poet  and  master  of  the  lute  ;  and,  like  all  men  formed 
for  ensnaring  the  heart  of  women,  he  seemed  to  forget 
himself  in  the  absorbing  devotion  of  his  idolatry.  His 
friend,  the  emperor,  was  of  another  mould.  Yuent- 
soong's  heart  had  three  chambers — love,  friendship, 
and  glory.  Teh-leen  was  but  a  third  in  his  existence, 
yet  he  loved  her — the  sequel  will  show  how  well!  In 
person  he  was  less  beautiful  than  majestic,  of  large 
stature,  and  with  a  brow  and  lip  naturally  stern  and 
lofty.  He  seldom  smiled,  even  upon  Teh-leen,  whom 
he  would  watch  for  hours  in  pensive  and  absorbed  de- 
light;  but  his  smile,  when  it  did  awake,  broke  over 
his  sad  countenance  like  morning.  All  men  loved  and 
honored  Yuentsoong,  and  all  men,  except  only  the 
emperor,  looked  on  Szema  with  antipathy.  To  such 
natures  as  the  former,  women  give  all  honor  and  ap- 
probation ;  but  for  such  as  the  latter,  they  reserve 
their  weakness  ! 

Wrapt  up  in  his  friend  and  mistress,  and  reserved 
in  his  intercourse  with  his  counsellors,  Yuentsoong 
knew  not  that,  throughout  the  imperial  city,  Szema 
was  called  "  the  liieu"  or  robber-bird,  and  his  fair 
Teh-leen  openly  charged  with  dishonor.  Going  out 
alone  to  hunt  as  was  his  custom,  and  having  left  his 
signet  with  Szema,  to  pass  and  repass  through  the 
private  apartments  at  his  pleasure,  his  horse  fell  with 
him  unaccountably  in  the  open  field.  Somewhat 
superstitious,  and  remembering  that  good  spirits  some- 
times "  knit  the  grass,"  when  other  obstacles  fail  to 
bar  our  way  into  danger,  the  emperor  drew  rein  and 
returned  to  his  palace.  It  was  an  hour  after  noon, 
and  having  dismissed  his  attendants  at  the  city  gate, 
he  entered  by  a  postern  to  the  imperial  garden,  and 
bethought  himself  of  the  concealed  couch  in  a  cool 


THE  INLET  OF  PEACH-BLOSSOMS. 


527 


grot  by  a  fountain  (a  favorite  retreat,  sacred  to  him- 
self and  Teh-leen),  where  he  fancied  it  would  be  re- 
freshing to  sleep  away  the  sultriness  of  the  remaining 
hours  till  evening.  Sitting  down  by  the  side  of  the 
murmuring  fount,  he  bathed  his  feet,  and  left  his  slip- 
pers on  the  lip  of  the  basin  to  be  unencumbered  in 
his  repose  within,  and  so  with  unechoing  step  entered 
the  resounding  grotto.  Alas!  there  slumbered  the 
faithless  friend  with  the  guilty  Teh-leen  upon  his 
bosom ! 

Grief  struck  through  the  noble  heart  of  the  em- 
peror like  a  sword  in  cold  blood.  With  a  word  he 
could  consign  to  torture  and  death  the  robber  of  his 
honor,  but  there  was  agony  in  his  bosom  deeper  than 
revenge.  He  turned  silently  away,  recalled  his  horse 
and  huntsmen,  and,  outstripping  all,  plunged  on 
through  the  forest  till  night  gathered  around  him. 

Yuentsoong  had  been  absent  many  days  from  his 
capitol,  and  his  subjects  were  murmuring  their  fears 
for  his  safety,  when  a  messenger  arrived  to  the  coun- 
sellors informing  them  of  the  appointment  of  the 
captive  Tartar  prince  to  the  government  of  the  pro- 
vince of  Szechuen,  the  second  honor  of  the  Celestial 
empire.  A  private  order  accompanied  the  announce- 
ment, commanding  the  immediate  departure  of  Szema 
for  the  scene  of  his  new  authority.  Inexplicable  as 
was  this  riddle  to  the  multitude,  there  were  those  who 
read  it  truly  by  their  knowledge  of  the  magnanimous 
soul  of  the  emperor;  and  among  these  was  the  crafty 
object  of  his  generosity.  Losing  no  time,  he  set  for- 
ward with  great  pomp  for  Szechuen,  and  in  their  joy 
to  see  him  no  more  in  the  palace,  the  slighted  princes 
of  the  empire  forgave  his  unmerited  advancement. 
Yuentsoong  returned  to  his  capitol ;  but  to  the  terror 
of  his  counsellors  and  people,  his  hair  was  blanched 
white  as  the  head  of  an  old  man  !  He  was  pale  as 
well,  but  he  was  cheerful  and  kind  beyond  his  wont, 
and  to  Teh-leen  untiring  in  pensive  and  humble  at- 
tentions. He  pleaded  only  impaired  health  and  rest- 
less slumbers  as  an  apology  for  nights  of  solitude. 
Once,  Teh-leen  penetrated  to  his  lonely  chamber,  but 
by  the  dim  night  lamp  she  saw  that  the  scroll  over  her 
window*  was  changed,  and  instead  of  the  stimulus  to 
glory  which  formerly  hung  in  golden  letters  before 
his  eyes,  there  was  a  sentence  written  tremblingly  in 
black  :— 
u  The  close  wing  of  love  covers  the  death-throb  of  honor." 

Six  months  from  this  period  the  capitol  was  thrown 
into  a  tumult  with  the  intelligence  that  the  province 
of  Szechuen  was  in  rebellion,  and  Szema  at  the  head 
of  a  numerous  army  on  his  way  to  seize  the  throne 
of  Yuentsoong.  This  last  sting  betrayed  the  serpent 
even  to  the  forgiving  emperor,  and  tearing  the  reptile 
at  last  from  his  heart,  he  entered  with  the  spirit  of 
other  times  into  the  warlike  preparations.  The  im- 
perial army  was  in  a  few  days  on  its  march,  and  at 
Keo-yang  the  opposing  forces  met  and  prepared  for 
encounter. 

With  a  dread  of  the  popular  feeling  toward  Teh- 
leen,  Yuentsoong  had  commanded  for  her  a  close 
litter,  and  she  was  borne  after  the  imperial  standard  in 
the  centre  of  the  army.  On  the  eve  before  the  battle, 
ere  the  watch-fires  were  lit,  the  emperor  came  to 
her  tent,  set  apart  from  his  own,  and  with  the  delicate 
care  and  kind  gentleness  from  which  he  never  varied, 
inquired  how  her  wants  were  supplied,  and  bade  her, 
thus  early,  farewell  for  the  night ;  his  own  custom  of 

•The  most  common  decorations  of  rooms,  halls,  and  tem- 
ples, in  China,  arc  ornamental  scrolls  or  labels  of  colored  paper, 
or  wood,  painted  and  gilded,  and  hunsr  over  doors  or  windows, 
and  inscribed  with  a  line  or  couplet  conveying  some  allusion 
to  the  circumstances  of  the  inhabitant,  or  some  pious  or  phi- 
losophical axiom.  For  instance,  a  poetical  one  recorded  by 
Dr.  .Morrison  : — 

"  From  the  pine  forest  the  azute  dragon  awrnds  to  the  milky  way," 

typical  of  the  prosperous  man  arising  to  wealth  and  honors. 


passing  among  his  soldiers  on  the  evening  previous  to 
an  engagement,  promising  to  interfere  with  what  was 
usually   his   last    duty  before   retiring  to   his  couch. 
Teh-leen   on   this   occasion  seemed  moved   by  some 
irrepressible  emotion,  and  as  he  rose  to  depart,  she  fell 
forward  upon  her  face,  and   bathed   his  feet  with  her 
tears.     Attributing  it  to  one  of  those  excesses  of  feel- 
ing to  which  all,  but  especially  hearts  ill  at  ease,  are 
j  liable,  the  noble  monarch  gently  raised  her,  and,  wiih 
repeated  efforts  at  reassurance,  committed  her  to  the 
j  hands  of  her  women.     His  own   heart  beat  far  from 
I  tranquilly,  for,  in  the  excess  of  his  pity  for  her  grief 
he   had  unguardedly  called  her  by  one  of  the  sweet 
names  of  their  early  days  of  love — strange  word  now 
upon   his  lip — and  it  brought  back,  spite  of  memory 
and  truth,  happiness  that  would  not  be  forgotten  ! 
It  was  past  midnight,  and  the  moon  was  riding  high 
j  in  heaven,  when  the  emperor,  returning  between  the 
j  lengthening  watch-fires,  sought  the  small  lamp  which, 
i  suspended  like  a  star  above  his  own  tent,  guided  him 
l  back  from  the  irregular  mazes  of  the  camp.     Paled 
i  by  the  intense  radiance  of  the  moonlight,  the  small 
globe  of  alabaster  at  length  became  apparent  to  his 
weary  eye,  and  with  one  glance  at  the  peaceful  beauty 
of  the  heavens,  he  parted  the  curtained  door  beneath 
it,  and  stood  within.     The   Chinese  historian   asserts 
that   a    bird,   from  whose  wing   Teh-leen   had    once 
plucked   an  arrow,  restoring  it  to  liberty  and  life,  and 
in  grateful  attachment  to    her  destiny,    removed   the 
lamp  from  the  imperial  tent,  and  suspended   it  over 
hers.    The  emperor  stood  beside  her  couch.    Startled 
j  at  his  inadvertent  error,  he  turned  to  retire  ;  but  the 
lifted   curtain  let  in   a  flood   of  moonlight   upon  the 
sleeping  features  of  Teh-leen,  and  like  dew-drops,  the 
|  undried  tears  glistened  in  her  silken  lashes.     A  lamp 
j  burned  faintly  in  the  inner  apartment  of  the  tent,  and 
her  attendants  slept  soundly.      His  soft  heart  gave 
way.     Taking  up  the  lamp,  he  held  it  over  his  beau- 
tiful mistress,  and  once  more  gazed  passionately  and 
unrestrainedly   on    her    unparalleled    beauty.      The 
past — the  early  past — was  alone  before  him.     He  for- 
!  gave   her — there,   as  she  slept,   unconscious  of   the 
throbbing  of  his  injured,   but  noble   heart,   so   close 
beside  her — he  forgave  her  in  the  long  silent  abysses 
of  his  soul !     Unwilling  to  wake  her  from  her  tran- 
quil slumber,  but  promising  to  himself,  from  that  hour, 
such  sweets  of  confiding  love  as  had  well  nigh  been 
lost  to  him  for  ever,  he  imprinted  one  kiss  upon  the 
parted   lips  of  Teh-leen,  and  sought  his  couch  for 
slumber. 

Ere  daybreak  the  emperor  was  aroused  by  one  of 
his  attendants  with  news  too  important  for  delay. 
Szema,  the  rebel,  had  been  arrested  in  the  imperial 
camp,  disguised,  and  on  his  way  back  to  his  own 
forces,  and  like  wildfire,  the  information  had  spread 
among  the  soldiery,  who,  in  a  state  of  mutinous 
excitement,  were  with  difficulty  restrained  from  rush- 
ing upon  the  tent  of  Teh-leen.  At  the  door  of  his 
tent,  Yuentsoong  found  messengers  from  the  alarmed 
princes  and  officers  of  the  different  commands,  implo- 
ring immediate  aid  and  the  imperial  presence  to  allay 
the  excitement,  and  while  the  emperor  prepared  to 
mount  his  horse,  the  guard  arrived  with  the  Tartar 
prince,  ignominiously  tied,  and  bearing  marks  of 
rough  usage  from  his  indignant  captors. 

"  Loose  him  !"  cried  the  emperor,  in  a  voice  of 
thunder. 

The  cords  were  severed,  and  with  a  glance  whose 
ferocity  expressed  no  thanks,  Szema  reared  himself 
up  to  his  fullest  height,  and  looked  scornfully  around 
him.  Daylight  had  now  broke,  and  as  the  group 
stood  upon  an  eminence  in  sight  of  the  whole  army, 
shouts  began  to  ascend,  and  the  armed  multitude, 
breaking  through  all  restraint,  rolled  in  toward  the 
centre.  Attracted  by  the  commotion,  Yuentsoong 
turned  to  give  some  orders  to  those  near  him,  when 


528 


THE  BELLE  OF  THE  BELFRY. 


Szema  suddenly  sprang  upon  an  officer  of  the  guard, 
wrenched  his  drawn  sword  from  his  grasp,  and  in  an 
instant  was  lost  to  sight  in  the  tent  of  Teh-leen.  A 
sharp  scream,  a  second  of  thought,  and  forth  again 
rushed  the  desperate  murderer,  with  his  sword  flinging 
drops  of  drops  of  blood,  and  ere  a  foot  stirred  in  the 
paralyzed  group,  the  avenging  cimeter  of  Yuentsoong 
had  cleft  him  to  the  chin. 

A  hush,  as  if  the  whole  army  was  struck  dumb  by 
a  bolt  from  heaven,  followed  this  rapid  tragedy. 
Dropping  the  polluted  sword  from  his  hand,  the 
emperor,  with  uncertain  step,  and  the  pallor  of  death 
upon  his  countenance,  entered  the  fatal  tent. 

He  came  no  more  forth  that  day.  The  army  was 
marshalled  by  the  princes,  and  the  rebels  were  routed 
with  great  slaughter;  but  Yuentsoong  never  more 
wielded  sword.  "  He  pined  to  death,"  says  the  histo- 
rian, "  with  the  wane  of  the  same  moon  that  shone 
upon  the  forgiveness  of  Teh-leen." 


THE   BELLE    OF    THE   BELFRY; 

OR,    THE    DARING   LOVER. 

A  grisette  is  something  else  beside  a  "mean  girl" 
or  a  "gray  gown,"  the  French  dictionary  to  the  contra- 
ry notwithstanding.  Bless  me  !  you  should  see  the 
griset'es  of  Rochepot !  And  if  you  wished  to  take  a 
lesson  in  political  compacts,  you  should  understand 
the  grisette  confederacy  of  Rochepot !  They  were 
working-girls,  it  is  true — dressmakers,  milliners,  shoe- 
binders,  tailoresses,  flowermakers,  embroideresses — 
and  they  never  expected  to  be  anything  more  aristo- 
cratic.    And  in  that  content  lay  their  power. 

The  grisettes  of  Rochepot  were  a  good  fourth  of 
the  female  population.  They  had  their  jealousies, 
and  little  scandals,  and  heart-burnings,  and  plottings, 
and  counterplottings  (for  they  were  women)  among 
themselves.  But  they  made  common  cause  against 
the  enemy.  They  would  bear  no  disparagement. 
They  knew  exactly  what  was  due  to  them,  and  what 
was  due  to  their  superiors,  and  they  paid  and  gave 
credit  in  the  coin  of  good  manners,  as  can  not  be  done 
in  countries  of  "liberty  and  equality."  Still  there 
were  little  shades  of  difference  in  the  attention  shown 
them  by  their  employers,  and  they  worked  twice  as 
much  in  a  day  when  sewing  for  Madame  Durozel, 
who  took  her  dinner  with  them,  sans  f aeon  in  the 
work-room,  as  for  old  Madame  Chiquette,  who  dined 
all  alone  in  her  grand  saloon,  and  left  them  to  eat  by 
themselves  among  their  shreds  and  scissors.  But 
these  were  not  slights  which  they  seriously  resented. 
Wo  only  to  the  incautious  dame  who  dared  to  scan- 
dalize one  of  their  number,  or  dispute  her  dues,  or 
encroach  upon  her  privileges  !  They  would  make 
Rochepot  as  uncomfortable  for  her,  parhleu  !  as  a 
kettle  to  a  slow-boiled  lobster. 

But  the  prettiest  grisette  of  Rochepot  was  not  often 
permitted  to  join  her  companions  in  their  self-chap- 
eroned excursions  on  the  holydays.  Old  Dame 
Pomponney  was  the  sexton's  widow,  and  she  had  the 
care  of  the  great  clock  of  St.  Roch,  and  of  one  only 
daughter;  and  excellent  care  she  took  of  both  her 
charges.  They  lived  all  three  in  the  belfry — dame, 
clock,  and  daughter — and  it  was  a  bright  day  for 
Thenais  when  she  got  out  of  hearing  of  that  "  lick, 
tick,  tick,"  and  of  the  thumping  of  her  mother's 
cane  on  the  long  staircase,  which  always  kept  time 
with  it. 

Not  that  old  Dame  Pomponney  had  any  objection 
to  have  her  daughter  -convenably  married.  She  had 
been  deceived   in  her  youth  (or  so  it  was  whispered) 


by  a  lover  above  her  condition,  and  she  vowed,  by  thi 
cross  on  her  cane,  that  her  daughter  should  have  no 
sweetheart  above  a  journeyman  mechanic.  Now  tht 
romance  of  the  grisettes  (parlons  bas .')  was  to  have 
one  charming  little  flirtation  with  a  gentleman  before 
they  married  the  leather-apron — just  to  show  that, 
had  they  by  chance  been  born  ladies,  they  could  have 
played  their  part  to  the  taste  of  their  lords.  But  it 
was  at  this  game  that  Dame  Pomponney  had  burnt  her 
fingers,  and  she  had  this  one  subject  for  the  exercise 
of  her  powers  of  mortal  aversion. 

When  I  have  added  that,  four  miles  from  Roche 
pot,  stood  the  chateau  de  Brevanne,  and  that  the  old 
Count  de  Brevanne  was  a  proud  aristocrat  of  the  an 
cien  regime,  with  one  son,  the  young  Count  Felix, 
whom  he  had  educated  at  Paris,  I  think  I  have  pre- 
pared you  tolerably  for  the  little  romance  I  have  to 
tell  you. 

It  was  a  fine  Sunday  morning  that  a  mounted  hus- 
sar appeared  in  the  street  of  Rochepot.  The  grisettes 
were  all  abroad  in  their  holyday  parure,  and  the  gay 
soldier  soon  made  an  acquaintance  with  one  of  them 
at  the  door  of  the  inn,  and  informed  her  that  he  had 
been  sent  on  to  prepare  the  old  barracks  for  his  troop. 
The  hussars  were  to  be  quartered  a  month  at  Roche- 
pot. Ah  !  what  a  joyous  bit  of  news  !  And  six  offi- 
cers beside  the  colonel!  And  the  trumpeters  were 
miracles  at  playing  quadrilles  and  waltzes  !  And  not 
a  plain  man  in  the  regiment — except  always  the 
speaker.  And  none,  except  the  old  colonel,  had  ever 
been  in  love  in  his  life.  But  as  this  last  fact  required 
to  be  sworn  to,  of  course  he  was  ready  to  kiss  the 
book — or,  in  the  absence  of  the  book,  the  next  most 
sacred  object  of  his  adoration. 

"  Finissez  done,  Monsieur  .'"  exclaimed  his  pretty 
listener,  and  away  she  ran  to  spread  the  welcome  in- 
telligence with  its  delightful  particulars. 

The  next  day  the  troop  rode  into  Rochepot,  and 
formed  in  the  great  square  in  front  of  St.  Roch;  and 
by  the  time  the  trumpeters  had  played  themselves  red 
in  the  face,  the  hussars  were  all  appropriated,  to  a 
man — for  the  grisettes  knew  enough  of  a  marching 
regiment  to  lose  no  time.  They  all  found  leisure  to 
pity  poor  Thenais,  however,  for  there  she  stood  in 
one  of  the  high  windows  of  the  belfry,  looking  down 
on  the  gay  crowd  below,  and  they  knew  very  well 
that  old  Dame  Pomponney  had  declared  all  soldiers 
to  be  gay  deceivers,  and  forbidden  her  daughter  to 
stir  into  the  street  while  they  were  quartered  at 
Rochepot. 

Of  course  the  grisettes  managed  to  agree  as  to  each 
other's  selection  of  a  sweetheart  from  the  troop,  and 
of  course  each  hussar  thankfully  accepted  the  pair  of 
eyes  that  fell  to  him.  For,  aside  from  the  limited 
duration  of  their  stay,  soldiers  are  philosophers,  and 
know  that  "life  is  short,"  and  it  is  better  to  "  take  the 
goods  the  gods  provide."  But  "  after  everybody  was 
helped,"  as  they  say  at  a  feast,  there  appeared  another 
short  jacket  and  foraging  cap,  very  much  to  the  re- 
lief of  red-headed  Susette,  the  shoebinder,  who  had 
been  left  out  in  the  previous  allotment.  And  Susette 
made  the  amiable  accordingly,  but  to  no  purpose,  for 
the  lad  seemed  an  idiot  with  but  one  idea — looking 
for  ever  at  St.  Roch's  clock  to  know  the  time  of  day  ! 
The  grisettes  laughed  and  asked  their  sweethearts  his 
name,  but  they  significantly  pointed  to  their  foreheads 
and  whispered  something  about  poorRobertin's  being 
a  privileged  follower  of  the  regiment  and  a  protege  of 
the  colonel. 

Well,  the  grisettes  flirted,  and  the  old  clock  of  St. 
Roch  ticked  on,  and  Susette  and  Thenais,  the  plain- 
est and  the  prettiest  girl  in  the  village,  seemed  the 
only  two  who  were  left  out  in  the  extra  dispensation 
of  lovers.  And  poor  Robertin  still  persisted  in  oc- 
cupying most  of  his  leisure  with  watching  the  time 
of  day. 


THE  BELLE  OF  THE  BELFRY. 


529 


It  was  on  the  Sunday  morning  after  the  arrival  of 
the  troop  that  old  Dame  Pomponney  went  up,  as 
usual,  to  do  her  Sunday's  duty  in  winding  up  the 
clock.  She  had  previously  locked  the  belfry  door  to 
be  sure  that  no  one  entered  below  while  she  was 
above  ;  but— the  Virgin  help  us  ! — on  the  top  stair, 
gazing  into  the  machinery  of  the  clock  with  absorbed 
attention,  sat  one  of  those  devils  of  hussars !  "  Thief," 
"  vagabond,"  and  "  house-breaker,"  were  the  most 
moderate  epithets  with  which  Dame  Pomponney  ac- 
companied the  enraged  beating  of  her  stick  on  the 
resounding  platform.  She  was  almost  beside  herself 
with  rage.  And  Thenais  had  been  up  to  dust  the 
wheels  of  the  clock  !  And  how  did  she  know  that 
that  scclerat  of  a  trooper  was  not  there  all  the  time! 

But  the  intruder,  whose  face  had  been  concealed 
till  now,  turned  suddenly  round  and  began  to  gibber 
and  grin  like  a  possessed  monkey.  He  pointed  at  the 
clock,  imitated  the  "tick,  tick,  tick,"  laughed  till  the 
big  bell  gave  out  an  echo  like  a  groan,  and  then  sud- 
denly jumped  over  the  old  dame's  stick  and  ran  down 
stairs. 

"Eh,  Sainte  Viei ge .'"  exclaimed  the  old  dame,  "  it's 
a  poor  idiot  after  all  !  And  he  has  stolen  up  to  see 
what  made  the  clock  tick  !  Ha  !  ha  !  ha  !  Well  ! — 
well !  I  can  not  come  up  these  weary  stairs  twice  a 
day,  and  I  must  witid  up  the  clock  before  I  go  down 
to  let  him  out.  •  Tick,  tick,  tick!' — poor  lad  !  poor 
ad!  They  must  have  dressed  him  up  to  make  fun 
of  him — those  vicious  troopers  !    Well ! — well !" 

And  with  pity  in  her  heart,  Dame  Pomponney  hob- 
bled down,  stair  after  stair,  to  her  chamber  in  the 
square  turret  of  the  belfry,  and  there  she  found  the 
poor  idiot  on  his  knees  before  Thenais,  and  Thenais 
was  just  preparing  to  put  a  skein  of  thread  over  his 
thumbs,  for  she  thought  she  might  make  him  useful 
and  amuse  him  with  the  winding  of  it  till  her  mother 
came  down.  But  as  the  thread  got  vexatiously  en- 
tangled, and  the  poor  lad  sat  as  patiently  as  a  wooden 
reel,  and  it  was  time  to  go  below  to  mass,  the  dame 
thought  she  might  as  well  leave  him  there  till  she 
came  back,  and  down  she  stumped,  locking  the  door 
very  safely  behind  her. 

Poor  Thenais  was  very  lonely  in  the  belfry,  and 
Dame  Pomponney,  who  had  a  tender  heart  where  her 
duty  was  not  involved,  rather  rejoiced  when  she  re- 
turned, to  find  an  unusual  glow  of  delight  on  her 
daughter's  cheek  ;  and  if  Thenais  could  find  so  much 
pleasure  in  the  society  of  a  poor  idiot  lad,  it  was  a 
sign,  too,  that  her  heart  was  not  gone  altogether  after 
those  abominable  troopers.  It  was  time  to  send  the 
innocent  youth  about  his  business,  however,  so  she 
gave  him  a  holyday  cake  and  led  him  down  stairs  and 
dismissed  him  with  a  pat  on  his  back  and  a  strict  in- 
junction never  to  venture  again  up  to  the  "  tick,  tick, 
tick."  But  as  she  had  had  a  lesson  as  to  the  acces- 
sibility of  her  bird's  nest,  she  determined  thenceforth 
to  lock  the  door  invariably  and  carry  the  key  in  her 
pocket. 

'  While  poor  Robertin  was  occupied  with  his  re- 
searches into  the  "  tick,  tick,  tick,"  never  absent  a 
day  from  the  neighborhood  of  the  tower,  the  more 
fortunate  hussars  were  planning  to  give  the  grisettes 
a  fete  champetre.  One  of  the  saints'  days  was  coining 
round,  and,  the  weather  permitting,  all  the  vehicles 
of  the  village  were  to  be  levied,  and,  with  the  troop- 
horses  in  harness,  they  were  to  drive  to  a  small  wood- 
ed valley  in  the  neighborhood  of  the  chateau  de 
Brevanne,  where  seclusion  and  a  mossy  carpet  of 
grass  were  combined  in  a  little  paradise  for  such  en- 
joyment. 

The  morning  of  this  merry  day  dawned,  at  last, 
and  the  grisettes  and  their  admirers  were  stirring  be- 
times, for  they  were  to  breakfast  sur  Vherbe,  and  they 
were  not  the  people  to  turn  breakfast  into  dinner.  The 
sky  was  clear,  and  the  dew  was  not  verv  heavy  on  the 
34 


grass,  and  merrily  the  vehicles  rattled  about  the  town, 
picking  up  their  fair  freights  from  its  obscurest  cor- 
ners. But  poor  Thenais  looked  out,  a  sad  prisoner, 
from  her  high  window  in  the  belfry. 

It  was  a  half  hour  after  sunrise  and  Dame  Pompon- 
ney was  creeping  up  stairs  after  her  matins,  thanking 
Heaven  that  she  had  been  firm  in  her  refusals — at 
least  twenty  of  the  grisettes  having  gathered  about 
her,  and  pleaded  for  a  day's  freedom  for  her  imprison- 
ed daughter.  She  rested  on  the  last  landing  but  one 
to  take  a  little  breath — but  hark  ! — a  man's  voice  talk- 
ing in  the  belfry  !  She  listened  again,  and  quietly 
slipped  her  feet  out  of  her  high-heeled  shoes.  The 
voice  was  again  audible — yet  how  could  it  be  !  She 
knew  that  no  one  could  have  passed  up  the  stair,  for 
the  key  had  been  kept  in  her  pocket  more  carefully 
than  usual,  and,  save  by  the  wings  of  one  of  her  own 
pigeons,  the  belfry  window  was  inaccessible,  she  was 
sure.  Still  the  voice  went  on  in  a  kind  of  pleading 
murmur,  and  the  dame  stole  softly  up  in  her  stock- 
ings, and  noiselessly  opened  the  door.  There  stood 
Thenais  at  the  window,  but  she  was  alone  in  the  room. 
I  At  the  same  instant  the  voice  was  heard  again,  and 
j  sure  now  that  one  of  those  desperate  hussars  had 
climbed  the  tower,  and  unable  to  control  her  rage  at 
!  the  audacity  of  the  attempt,  Dame  Pomponney  clutch- 
It  ed  her  cane  and  rushed  forward  to  aim  a  blow  at  the 
military  cap  now  visible  at  the  sill  of  the  window. 
But  at  the  same  instant  the  head  of  the  intruder  was 
|  thrown  back,  and  the  gibbering  and  idiotic  smile  of 
poor  Robertin  checked  her  blow  in  its  descent,  and 
turned  all  her  anger  into  pity.  Poor,  silly  lad  !  he 
had  contrived  to  draw  up  the  garden  ladder  and  place 
it  upon  the  roof  of  the  stone  porch  below,  to  climb 
and  offer  a  flower  to  Thenais  !  Not  unwilling  to  have 
her  daughter's  mind  occupied  with  some  other  thought 
than  the  forbidden  excursion,  the  dame  offered  her 
hand  to  Robertin  and  drew  him  gently  in  at  the  win- 
dow. And  as  it  was  now  market-time  she  bid  The- 
nais be  kind  to  the  poor  boy,  and  locking  the  door 
behind  her,  trudged  contentedly  off  with  her  stick  and 
basket. 

I  am  sorry  to  be  obliged  to  record  an  act  of  filial 
disobedience  in  the  heroine  of  my  story.  An  hour 
after,  Thenais  was  welcomed  with  acclamations  as  she 
suddenly  appeared  with  Robertin  in  the  midst  of  the 
merry  party  of  grisettes.  With  Robertin — not  as  he 
had  hitherto  been  seen,  his  cap  on  the  back  of  his 
head  and  his  under  lip  hanging  loose  like  an  idiot's — 
but  with  Robertin,  gallant,  spirited,  and  gay,  the  hand- 
somest of  hussars,  and  the  most  joyous  of  companions. 
And  Thenais,  spite  of  her  hasty  toilet  and  the  cloud 
of  conscious  disobedience  which  now  and  then  shaded 
her  sweet  smile,  was,  by  many  degrees,  the  belle  of 
the  hour;  and  the  palm  of  beauty,  for  once  in  the 
world  at  least,  was  yielded  without  envy.  The  gri- 
settes dearly  love  a  bit  of  romance,  too,  and  the  cir- 
cumventing of  old  Dame  Pomponney  by  his  ruse  of 
idiocy,  and  the  safe  extrication  of  the  prettiest  girl 
of  the  village  from  that  gloomy  old  tower,  was  quite 
enough  to  make  Robertin  a  hero,  and  his  sweetheart 
Thenais  more  interesting  than  a  persecuted  princess. 
And,  seated  on  the  ground  while  their  glittering 
cavaliers  served  them  with  breakfast,  the  light-hearted 
grisettes  of  Rochepot  were  happy  enough  to  be  en- 
vied by  their  betters.  But  suddenly  the  sky  darkened, 
and  a  slight  gust  murmuring  among  the  trees,  an- 
nounced the  coming  up  of  a  summer  storm.  Sauve 
qui  peut  !  The  soldiers  were  used  to  emergencies, 
and  they  had  packed  up  and  reloaded  their  cars  and 
were  under  way  for  shelter  almost  as  soon  as  the 
grisettes,  and  away  they  all  fled  toward  the  nearest 
grange— one  of  the  dependancies  of  the  chateau  de 
Brevanne. 

But   Robertin,  now,  had  suddenly  become   the  di- 
rector and  ruling  spirit  of  the  festivities.    The  soldiers 


530 


PASSAGES  FROM  AN  EPISTOLARY  JOURNAL. 


treated  him  with  instinctive  deference,  the  old  farmer 
of  the  grange  hurried  out  with  his  keys  and  unlocked 
the  great  storehouse,  and  disposed  of  the  horses  un- 
der shelter  ;  and  by  the  time  the  big  drops  began  to 
fall,  the  party  were  dancing  gayly  and  securely  on  the 
dry  and  smooth  thrashing-floor,  and  the  merry  har- 
mony of  the  martial  trumpets  and  horns  rang  out  far 
and  wide  through  the  gathering  tempest. 

The  rain  began  to  come  down  very  heavily,  and  the 
clatter  of  a  horse's  feet  in  a  rapid  gallop  was  heard  in 
one  of  the  pauses  in  the  waltz.  Some  one  seeking 
shelter,  no  doubt.  On  went  the  bewitching  music 
again,  and  at  this  moment  two  or  three  couples  ceased 
waltzing,  and  the  floor  was  left  to  Robertin  and  The- 
nais, whose  graceful  motions  drew  all  eyes  upon  them 
in  admiration.  Smiling  in  each  other's  faces,  and 
wholly  unconscious  of  any  other  presence  than  their 
own,  they  whirled  blissfully  around — but  there  was 
now  another  spectator.  The  horseman  who  had  been 
heard  to  approach,  had  silently  joined  the  party,  and 
making  a  courteous  gesture  to  signify  that  the  dan- 
cing was  not  to  be  interrupted,  he  smiled  back  the 
courtesies  of  the  pretty  grisettes — for,  aristocratic  as 
he  was,  he  was  a  polite  man  to  the  sex,  was  the  Count 
de  Brevanne. 

"Felix  !"  he  suddenly  cried  out,  in  a  tone  of  sur- 
prise and  anger. 

The  music  stopped  at  that  imperative  call,  and 
Robertin  turned  his  eyes,  astonished,  in  the  direction 
from  which  it  came. 

The  name  was  repeated  from  lip  to  lip  among  the 
grisettes,  "  Felix  !"   "  Count  Felix  de  Brevanne  !" 

But  without  deigning  another  word,  the  old  man 
pointed  with  his  riding-whip  to  the  farm-house.  The 
disguised  count  respectfully  bowed  his  head,  but  held 
Thenais  by  the  hand  and  drew  her  gently  with  him. 

"Leave  her!  disobedient  boy!"  exclaimed  the 
father. 

But  as  Count  Felix  tightened  his  hold  upon  the 
small  hand  he  held,  and  Thenais  tried  to  shrink  back 
from  the  advancing  old  man,  old  Dame  Pomponney, 
streaming  with  rain,  broke  in  unexpectedly  upon  the 
scene. 

"  Disgrace  not  your  blood,"  said  the  Count  de  Bre- 
vanne at  that  moment. 

The  offending  couple  stood  alone  in  the  centre  of 
the  floor,  and  the  dame  comprehended  that  her  daugh- 
ter was  disparaged. 

"And  who  is  disgraced  by  dancing  with  my  daugh- 
ter?" she  screamed  with  furious  gesticulation. 

The  old  noble  made  no  answer,  but  the  grisettes, 
in  an  under  tone,  murmured  the  name  of  Count 
Felix  ! 

"  Is  it  he — the  changeling  !  the  son  of  a  poor  gar- 
dener, that  is  disgraced  by  the  touch  of  my  daughter  ?" 

A  dead  silence  followed  this  astounding  exclama- 
tion. The  old  dame  had  forgotten  herself  in  her  rage, 
and  she  looked  about  with  a  terrified  bewilderment— 
but  the  mischief  was  done.  The  old  man  stood  aghast. 
Count  Felix  clung  still  closer  to  Thenais,  but  his 
face  expressed  the  most  eager  inquisitiveness.  The 
grisettes  gathered  around  Dame  Pomponney,  and  the 
old  count,  left  standing  and  alone,  suddenly  drew  his 
cloak  about  him  and  stepped  forth  into  the  rain  ;  and 
in  another  moment  his  horse's  feet  were  heard  clat- 
tering away  in  the  direction  of  the  chateau  de  Bre- 
vanne. 

We  have  but  to  tell  the  sequel. 

The  incautious  revelation  of  the  old  dame  turned 
out  to  be  true.  The  dying  infant  daughter  of  the 
Marchioness  de  Brevanne  had  been  changed  for  the 
healthy  son  of  the  count's  gardener,  to  secure  an  heir 
to  the  name  and  estates  of  the  nearly  extinct  family 
of  Brevanne.  Dame  Pomponney  had  assisted  in 
this  secret,  and  but  for  her  heart  full  of  rage  at  the 
moment,  to  which  the  old  count's  taunt  was  but  the 


last  drop,  the  secret  would  probably  have  never  been 
revealed.  Count  Felix,  who  had  played  truant  from 
bis  college  at  Paris,  to  come  and  hunt  up  some  of  his 
childish  playfellows,  in  disguise,  had  remembered  and 
disclosed  himself  to  the  little  Thenais,  who  was  not 
sorry  to  recognise  him,  while  he  played  the  idiot  in 
the  belfry.  But  of  course  there  was  now  no  obstacle 
to  their  union,  and  united  they  were.  The  old  count 
pardoned  him,  and  gave  the  new  couple  a  portion  of 
his  estate,  and  they  named  their  first  child  Robertin, 
as  was  natural  enough. 


PASSAGES  FROM  AN  EPISTOLARY  JOURNAL. 


KEPT    ON    A    LATE    VISIT    TO    ENGLAND. 


Ship  Gladiator,  off  the  Isle  of  Wight, 
Evening  of  June  9th,  1839. 

The  bullet  which  preserves  the  perpendicular  of 
my  cabin-lamp  is  at  last  still,  1  congratulate  myself; 
and  with  it  my  optic  nerve  resumes  its  proper  and 
steady  function.  The  vagrant  tumblers,  the  peripatet- 
ic teeth-brushes,  the  dancing  stools,  the  sidling  wash- 
basins and  et-ceteras,  have  returned  to  a  quiet  life. 
The  creaking  bulk-heads  cry  no  more.  I  sit  on  a 
trunk  which  will  not  run  away  with  me,  and  pen  and 
paper  look  up  into  my  face  with  their  natural  sobriety 
and  attention.  I  have  no  apology  for  not  writing  to 
you,  except  want  of  event  since  we  parted.  There  is 
not  a  milestone  in  the  three  thousand  four  hundred 
miles  I  have  travelled.  "  Travelled  !"  said  I.  I  am 
as  unconscious  of  having  moved  from  the  wave  on 
which  you  left  me  at  Staten  Island  as  the  prisoner  in 
the  hulk.  I  have  pitched  forward  and  backward,  and 
rolled  from  my  left  cheek  to  my  right ;  but  as  to  any 
feeling  of  having  gone  onward  I  am  as  unconscious 
of  it  as  a  lobster  backing  after  the  ebb.  The  sea  is  a 
dreary  vacuity,  in  which  he,  perhaps,  who  was  ever 
well  upon  it,  can  find  material  for  thought.  But  for 
one,  I  will  sell,  at  sixpence  a  month,  all  copyhold 
upon  so  much  of  my  life  as  is  destined  "to  the  deep, 
the  blue,  the  black"  (and  whatever  else  he  calls  it)  of 
my  friend  the  song-writer. 

Yet  there  are  some  moments  recorded,  first  with  a 
sigh,  which  we  find  afterward  copied  into  memory 
with  a  smile.  Here  and  there  a  thought  has  come 
to  me  from  the  wave,  snatched  listlessly  from  the 
elements — here  and  there  a  word  has  been  said  which 
on  shore  should  have  been  wit  or  good  feeling — here 
and  there  a  good  morning,  responded  to  with  an  effort, 
has,  from  its  courtesy  or  heartiness,  left  an  impression 
which  will  make  to-morrow's  parting  phrases  more 
earnest  than  1  had  anticipated. — With  this  green  isle 
to  windward,  and  the  smell  of  earth  and  flowers  com- 
ing to  my  nostrils  once  more,  I  begin  to  feel  an  in- 
terest in  several  who  have  sailed  with  me.  Humanity, 
killed  in  me  invariably  by  salt  water,  revives,  I  think, 
with  this  breath  of  hawthorn. 

The  pilot  tells  us  that  the  Montreal,  which  sailed 
ten  days  before  us,  has  not  yet  passed  up  the  channel, 
and  that  we  have  brought  with  us  the  first  west  wind 
they  have  had  in  many  weeks.  The  sailors  do  not 
know  what  to  say  to  this,  for  we  had  four  parsons  on 
board,  and,  by  all  sea-canons,  they  are  invariable 
Jonahs.  One  of  these  gentlemen,  by  the  way,  is  an 
abolitionist,  on  a  begging  crusade  for  a  school  devoted 
to  the  amalgam  of  color,  and  very  much  to  the  amuse- 
ment of  the  passengers  he  met  the  steward's  usual 
demand  for  a  fee  with  an  application  for  a  contribu- 
tion to  the  funds  of  his  society  !     His  expectations 


PASSAGES  FROM  AN  EPISTOLARY  JOURNAL. 


531 


from  British  sympathy  are  large,  for  he  is  accom- 
panied by  a  lay  brother  "  used  to  keeping  accounts," 
whose  sole  errand  is  to  record  the  golden  results  of 
his  friend's  eloquence.  Bul"eigbl  bells"  warn  me 
to  bed  ;  so  when  I  have  recorded  the  good  qualities 
of  the  Gladiator,  which  are  many,  and  those  of  her 
captain,  which  are  more,  I  will  put  out  my  sea-lamp 
for  the  last  time,  and  get  into  my  premonitory  "  six 
feet  by  two." 

The  George  Inn,  Portsmouth. — This  is  a  morning 
in  which  (under  my  circumstances)  it  would  be  diffi- 
cult not  to  be  pleased  with  the  entire  world.     A  fair 
day  in  June,  newly  from  sea,  and  with  a  journey  of 
seventy   miles  before  me  on   a  swift  coach,  through 
rural  England,  is  what  I  call  a  programme  of  a  pleas- 
ant day/   Determined  not  to  put  myself  in  the  way 
of  a  disappointment,  I  accepted,  without  the  slightest 
hesitation,  on  landing  at  the  wharf,  the  services  of  an 
elderly  gentleman  in  shabby  black,  who  proposed  to 
stand    between   me   and    all"  my   annoyances   of  the 
morning.     He  was  to  get  my  baggage  through  the 
customs,  submit  for  me  to  all  the  inevitable  imposi- 
tions of  tide-waiters,  secure  my  place  in  the  coach, 
bespeak  me  a  fried  sole  and  green  peas,  and  sum  up 
his  services,  all  in  one  short  phrase  of  I.  s.  d.     So 
putting  my  temper  into  my  pocket,  and  making  up 
my  mind  to  let  roguery  take  the  wall  of  me  for  one  i 
day  unchallenged,  I  mounted  to  the  grassy  ramparts  , 
of  the  town  to  walk  off  the  small  remainder  of  sea-air 
from  iny  stomach,  and  admire  everything  that  came 
in  my  way.     I  would  recommend  to  all  newly-landed 
passengers  from  the  packets  to  step  up  and  accept  of  | 
the  sympathy  of  the  oaks  of  the  "  king's  bastion"  in  j 
their    disgust    for   the   sea.      Those   sensible   trees,  ! 
leaning   toward    the    earth,   and   throwing   out   their 
boughs  as  usual  to  the  landward,  present  to  the  sea- 
ward exposure  a  turned-up  and  gnarled  look  of  nausea 
and  disgust,  which  is  as  expressive  to  the  commonest  ; 
observer  as  a  sick  man's  first  look  at  his  bolus.     I  ] 
have  great  affinity  with  trees,  and  I  believe  implicitly 
that  what  is  disagreeable  to  the  tree  can  not  be  pleas- 
mt  to  the  man.     The  salt  air  is  not  so  corrosive  here 
as  in  the  Mediterranean,  where  the  leaves  of  the  olive 
are  eaten  off  entirely  on  the  side  toward  the  sea;   but 
it  is  quite  enough  to  make  a  sensible  tree  turn  up  its 
nose,  and  in   that  attitude  stands  most  expressively 
every  oak  on  the  "  king's  bastion." 

The  first  few  miles  out  of  Portsmouth  form  one 
long  alley  of  ornamented  cottages — wood-bine  creep- 
ing and  roses  flowering  over  them  all.  If  there  were 
but  two  between  Portsmouth  and  London — two  even 
of  the  meanest  we  saw — a  traveller  from  any  other 
land  would  think  it  worth  his  while  to  describe  them 
minutely.  As  there  are  two  thousand  (more  or  less), 
they  must  pass  with  a  bare  mention.  Yet  I  became 
conscious  of  a  new  feeling  in  seeing  these  rural  para- 
dises ;  and  I  record  it  as  the  first  point  in  which  1  find 
myself  worse  for  having  become  a  "  dweller  in  the 
shade."  I  was  envious.  Formerly,  in  passing  a 
tasteful  retreat,  or  a  fine  manor,  I  could  say,  "  What 
a  bright  lawn  !  What  a  trim  and  fragrant  hedge  ! 
What  luxuriant  creepers  !  I  congratulate  their 
fortunate  owner!"  Now  it  is,  "How  I  wish  I  had 
that  hedge  at  Glenmary !  How  I  envy  these  people 
their  shrubs,  trellices,  and  flowers!"  I  wonder  not 
a  little  how  the  English  emigrant  can  make  a  home 
among  our  unsightly  stumps  that  can  ever  breed  a 
forgetfulness  of  all  these  refined  ruralities. 

After  the  first  few  miles,  I  discovered  that  the  two 
windows  of  the  coach  were  very  limited  frames  for 
the  rapid  succession  of  pictures  presented  to  my  eye, 
and  changing  places  with  William,  who  was  on  the 
top  of  the  coach,  I  found  myself  between  two  tory 
politicians, setting  forth  to  each  other  most  eloquently 


the  maladministrations  of  the  whigs,  and  the  queen's 
mismanagement.  As  I  was  two  months  behind  the 
English  news,  1  listened  with  some  interest.  They 
made  out  to  their  own  satisfaction  that  the  queen  was 
a  silly  gill  ;  that  she  had  been  caught  in  a  decided 
fib  about  Sir  Robert  Peel's  exactions  with  respect  to 
the  household  ;  and  one  of  the  Jeremiahs,  who  seem- 
ed to  be  a  sturdy  grazier,  said  that  "  in  'igh  life  the 
queen-dowager's  'ealth  was  now  received  uniwersally 
with  three  times  three,  while  Victoria's  was  drank  in 
solemn  silence."  Her  majesty  received  no  better 
treatment  at  the  hands  of  a  whig  on  the  other  end  of 
the  seat ;  and  as  we  whirled  under  the  long  park  fence 
of  Claremont,  the  country  palace  of  Leopold  and  the 
Princess  Charlotte,  he  took  the  pension  of  the  Belgian 
king  for  the  burden  of  his  lamentation,  and,  between 
whig  and  tory,  England  certainly  seemed  to  be  in 
a  bad  way.  This  Claremont,  it  will  be  remembered 
by  the  readers  of  D'Israeli's  novels,  is  the  original  of 
the  picture  of  the  luxurious  maison  de plaisance,  drawn 
in  the  young  duke. 

We  got  glimpses  of  the  old  palace  at  Esher,  of 
Hampton  court,  of  Pitt's  country  seat  at  Putney,  and 
of  Jane  Porter's  cottage  at  Esher,  and  in  the  seventh 
hour  from  leaving  Portsmouth  (seventy-four  miles) 
we  found  the  vehicles  thickening,  the  omnibuses 
passing,  the  blue-coated  policemen  occurring  at  short 
intervals,  and  the  roads  delightfully  watered— symp- 
toms of  suburban  London.  We  skirted  the  privileged 
paling  of  Hyde  Park  ;  and  I  could  see,  over  the  rails, 
the  flying  and  gay-colored  equipages,  the  dandy  horse- 
men, the  pedestrian  ladies  followed  by  footmen  with 
their  gold  sticks,  the  fashionable  throng,  in  short, 
which,  separated  by  an  iron  barrier  from  all  contact 
withunsightliness  and  vulgarity,  struts  its  hour  in  this 
green  cage  of  aristocracy. 

Around  the  triumphal  arch  opposite  the  duke  of 
Wellington's  was  assembled  a  large  crowd  of  carriages 
and  horsemen.  The  queen  was  coming  from  Buck- 
ingham palace  through  the  Green  park,  and  they 
were  waiting  for  a  glimpse  of  her  majesty  on  horse- 
back. The  regulator  whirled  mercilessly  on;  but 
far  down,  through  the  long  avenues  of  trees,  I  could 
see  a  movement  of  scarlet  liveries,  and  a  party  coming 
rapidly  toward  us  on  horseback.  We  missed  the 
queen  by  a  couple  of  minutes. 

It  was  just  the  hour  when  all  London  is  abroad, 
and  Piccadilly  was  one  long  cavalcade  of  splendid 
equipages  on  their  way  to  the  park.  I  remembered 
many  a  face,  and  many  a  crest ;  but  either  the  faces 
had  beautified  in  my  memory,  or  three  years  had 
done  time's  pitiless  work  on  them  all.  Near  Devon 
shire  house  I  saw,  fretting  behind  the  slow-moving 
press  of  vehicles,  a  pair  of  magnificent  and  fiery  blood 
horses,  drawing  a  coach,  which,  though  quite  new, 
was  of  a  color  and  picked  out  with  a  peculiar  stripe 
thai  was  familiar  to  my  eye.  The  next  glance  con- 
vinced me  that  the  livery  was  that  of  Lady  B.  ;  but, 
for  the  light  chariot  in  which  she  used  to  drive,  here 
was  a  stately  coach — for  the  one  tall  footman,  two — 
for  the  plain  but  elegant  harness,  a  sumptuous  and 
superb  caparison — the  whole  turn-out  on  a  scale  of 
splendor  unequalled  by  anything  around  us.  Another 
moment  decided  the  doubt— for  as  we  came  against 
the  carriage,  following,  ourselves,  an  embarrassed 
press  of  vehicles,  her  ladyship  appeared,  leaning  back 
in  the  corner  with  her  wrists  crossed,  the  same  in  the 
grace  of  her  attitude  and  the  elegance  of  her  toilet, 
but  stouter,  more  energetic,  and  graver  m  the  expres- 
sion of  her  face,  than  I  ever  remembered  to  have  seen 
her.  From  the  top  of  the  stage-coach  1  looked, 
unseen,  directly  down  upon  her,  and  probably  got,  by 
chance,  a  davlight  and  more  correct  view  of  her 
countenance  than  1  should  obtain  to  a  year  of  opera 
and  drawing-room  observation. 

Tired  and  dusty,  we  were  turned  from  hotel  to  ho- 


532 


PASSAGES  FROM  AN  EPISTOLARY  JOURNAL. 


tel,  all  full  and  overflowing  ;  and  finding  at  last  a  cor- 
ner at  Raggett's,  in  Dover  street,  we  dressed,  dined, 
and  posted  to  Woolwich.  Unexpected  and  mournful 
news  closed  our  first  day  in  England  with  tears. 

****** 

I  drove  up  to  London  the  second  day  after  our  ar- 
rival, and  having  a  little  "  Grub-street"  business,  made 
my  way  to  the  purlieus  of  publishers  in  Paternoster 
row.  If  you  could  imagine  a  paper  mine,  with  a  very 
deep-cut  shaft  laid  open  to  the  surface  of  the  earth, 
you  might  get  some  idea  of  Ivy  lane.  One  walks 
along  through  its  dim  subterranean  light,  with  no  idea 
of  breathing  the  proper  atmosphere  of  day  and  open 
air.  A  strong  smell  of  new  books  in  the  nostrils,  and 
one  long  stripe  of  blue  sky  much  farther  off  than  usu- 
al, are  the  predominant  impressions. 

From  the  dens  of  the  publishers,  I  wormed  my  way 
through  the  crowds  of  Cheapside  and  the  Strand,  tow- 
ard that  part  of  London  which,  as  Horace  Smith  says, 
is  "open  at  the  top."  Something  in  the  way  of  a 
ship's  fender,  to  save  the  hips  and  elbows,  would  sell 
well  I  should  think  to  pedestrians  in  London.  What 
crowds,  to  be  sure  !  On  a  Sunday  in  New  York, 
when  all  the  churches  are  pouring  forth  their  congre- 
gations at  the  same  moment,  you  have  seen  a  faint 
image  of  the  Strand.  The  style  of  the  hack  cabriolets 
is  very  much  changed  since  I  was  in  London.  The 
passenger  sits  about  as  high  up  from  the  ground  as  he 
would  in  a  common  chair — the  body  of  the  vehicle 
suspended  from  the  axle  instead  of  being  placed  upon 
it,  and  the  wheels  very  high.  The  driver's  seat  would 
suit  a  sailor,  for  it  answers  to  the  ship's  tiller,  well  astern. 
He  whips  over  the  passenger's  head.  I  saw  one  or 
two  private  vehicles  built  on  this  principle,  certainly 
one  of  safety,  though  they  have  something  the  beauty 
of  a  prize  hog. 

The  new  National  Gallery  in  Trafalgar  square,  not 
finished  when  I  left  England,  opened  upon  me  as  I 
entered  Charing  Cross,  with  what  I  could  not  but  feel 
was  a  very  fine  effect,  though  critically,  its  "  pepper- 
boxity"  is  not  very  creditable  to  the  architect.  Fine 
old  Northumberland  house,  with  its  stern  lion  atop  on 
one  side,  the  beautiful  Club  house  on  the  other,  St. 
Martin's  noble  church  and  the  Gallery — with  such  a 
fine  opening  in  the  very  cor  cordium  of  London,  could 
not  fail  of  producing  a  noble  metropolitan  view. 

The  street  in  front  of  the  gallery  was  crowded  with 
carriages,  showing  a  throng  of  visiters  within  ;  and 
mounting  the  imposing  steps  (the  loftiness  of  the  ves- 
tibule dropping  plump  as  I  paid  my  shilling  entrance), 
I  found  myself  in  a  hall  whose  extending  lines  of  pil- 
lars ran  through  the  entire  length  of  the  building, 
offering  to  the  eye  a  truly  noble  perspective.  Off 
from  this  hall,  to  the  right  and  left,  lay  the  galleries 
of  antique  and  modern  paintings,  and  the  latter  were 
crowded  with  the  fair  and  fashionable  mistresses  of  the 
equipages  without.  You  will  not  care  to  be  bothered 
with  criticisms  on  pictures,  and  mine  was  a  cursory 
glance — but  a  delicious,  full-length  portrait  of  a  noble 
lady  by  Grant,  whose  talent  is  now  making  some  noise 
in  London,  a  glorious  painting  of  Van  Amburgh 
among  his  lions  by  Edwin  Landseer,  and  a  portrait  of 
Miss  Pardoe  in  a  Turkish  costume,  with  her  pretty 
feet  coiled  under  her  on  a  Persian  carpet,  by  Pickers- 
gill,  are  among  those  I  remember.  I  found  a  great 
many  acquaintances  in  the  gallery ;  and  I  was  sitting  up- 
on a  bench  with  a  lady,  who  pointed  out  to  me  a  portrait 
of  'Lord  Lyndhurst  in  his  chancellor's  wig  and  robes 
— a  very  fine  picture  of  a  man  of  sixty  or  thereabouts. 
Directly  between  me  and  it,  as  I  looked,  sidled  a  per- 
son with  his  back  to  me,  cutting  oft'  my  view  very  pro- 
vokingly.  "  When  this  dandy  gets  out  of  the  way  with 
his  eyeglass,"  said  I,  "I  shall  be  able  to  see  the  pic- 
ture." My  friend  smiled.  "  Who  do  you  take  the 
dandy  to  be  ?"  It  was  a  well-formed  man,  dressed  in 
the  top  of  the  fashion,  with  a  very  straight  back,  curl- 


ing brown  hair,  and  the  look  of  perhaps  thirty  years 
of  age.  As  he  passed  on  and  I  caught  his  profile,  I 
saw  it  was  Lord  Lyndhurst  himself. 

****** 

I  had  not  seen  Taglioni  since  the  first  representa- 
tion of  the  Sylphide,  eight  or  nine  years  ago  at  Paris 
Last  night  I  was  at  the  opera,  and  saw  her  in  La 
Gitana  ;  and  except  that  her  limbs  are  the  least  in  the 
world  rounder  and  fuller,  she  is,  in  person,  absolutely 
unchanged.  I  can  appreciate  now,  better  than  I  could 
then  (when  opera  dancing  was  new  to  me),  what  it  is 
that  gives  this  divine  woman  the  right  to  her  proud 
title  of  La  Deesse  de  la  Dame.  It  is  easy  for  the 
Ellslers,  and  Augusta,  and  others,  who  are  said  to  be 
only  second  to  her,  to  copy  her  flying  steps,  and  even 
to  produce,  by  elasticity  of  limb,  the  beautiful  effect 
of  touching  the  earth,  like  a  thing  afloat,  without  be- 
ing indebted  to  it  for  the  rebound.  But  Taglioni  alone 
finishes  the  step,  or  the  pirouette,  or  the  arrowy  bound 
over  the  scene,  as  calmly,  as  accurately,  as  faultlessly, 
as  she  begins  it.  She  floats  out  of  a  pirouette  as  if, 
instead  of  being  made  giddy,  she  had  been  lulled  by 
it  into  a  smiling  and  child-like  dream,  and  instead  of 
trying  herself  and  a  plonib  (as  is  seen  in  all  other  dan- 
cers, by  their  effort  to  recover  composure),  it  had  been 
the  moment  when  she  had  rallied  and  been  refreshed. 
The  smile,  so  expressive  of  enjoyment  in  her  own 
grace,  which  steals  over  Taglioni's  lips  when  she  closes 
a  difficult  step,  seems  communicated,  in  an  indefina- 
ble languor,  to  her  limbs.  You  can  not  fancy  her  fa- 
tigued when,  with  her  peculiar  softness  of  motion,  she 
courtesies  to  the  applause  of  the  enchanted  audience, 
and  walks  lightly  away.  You  are  never  apprehensive 
that  she  has  undertaken  too  much.  You  never  de- 
tect, as  you  do  in  all  other  dancers,  defects  slurred 
over  adroitly,  and  movements  that,  from  their  antici- 
pating the  music  of  the  ballet,  are  known  by  the  criti 
cal  eye  to  cover  some  flaw  in  the  step,  from  giddiness 
or  loss  of  balance.  But  oh  what  a  new  relation  bears 
the  music  to  the  dance,  when  this  spirit  of  grace  re- 
places her  companions  in  the  ballet !  Whether  the 
motion  seems  born  of  the  music,  or  the  music  floats 
out  of  her  dreamy  motion,  the  enchanted  gazer  might 
be  almost  embarrassed  to  know. 

In  the  new  ballet  of  La  Gitana,  the  music  is  based 
upon  the  Mazurka.  The  story  is  the  old  one  of  the 
child  of  a  grandee  of  Spain,  stolen  by  gipsies,  and  re- 
covered by  chance  in  Russia.  The  gradual  stealing 
over  her  of  a  recollection  of  music  she  had  heard  in 
her  childhood  was  the  finest  piece  of  pantomimic  act- 
ing I  ever  saw.  But  there  is  one  dance,  the  Cachucha, 
introduced  at  the  close  of  the  ballet,  in  which  Taglioni 
has  enchanted  the  world  anew.  It  could  only  be  done 
by  herself;  for  there  is  a  succession  of  flying  move- 
ments expressive  of  alarm,  in  the  midst  of  which  she 
alights  and  stands  poised  upon  the  points  of  her  feet, 
with  a  look  over  her  shoulder  of  ficrte  and  animation 
possible  to  no  other  face,  I  think,  in  the  world.  It 
was  like  a  deer  standing  with  expanded  nostril  and 
neck  uplifted  to  its  loftiest  height,  at  the  first  scent  of 
his  pursuers  in  the  breeze.  It  was  the  very  soul  of 
swiftness  embodied  in  a  look  !  How  can  I  describe  it 
to  you  ? 

****** 

My  last  eight  hours  have  been  spent  between  Bed- 
lam and  the  opera — one  of  those  antipodal  contrasts 
of  which  London  life  affords  so  many.  Thanks  to 
God,  and  to  the  Howards  who  have  arisen  in  our  time, 
a  madhouse  is  no  longer  the  heart-rending  scene  that 
it  used  to  be;  and  Bedlam,  though  a  place  of  melan- 
choly imprisonment,  is  as  cheering  a  spectacle  to  the 
humane  as  imprisonment  can  be  made  by  care  and 
kindness.  Of  the  three  hundred  persons  who  are  in- 
mates of  its  wards,  the  greater  part  seemed  quiet  and 
content,  some  playing  at  ball  in  the  spacious  court- 
yards, some  lying  on  the  grass,  and  some  working  vol- 


PASSAGES  FROM  AN  EPISTOLARY  JOURNAL. 


533 


untarily  at  a  kind  of  wheel  arranged  for  raising  water 
to  their  rooms. 

On  the  end  of  a  bench  in  one  of  the  courts,  quite 
apart  from  the  other  patients,  sat  the  youth  who  came 
up  two  hundred  miles  from  the  country  to  marry  the 
queen  !  You  will  remember  the  story  of  his  forcing 
himself  into  Buckingham  palace.  He  was  a  stout, 
sandy-haired,  sad-looking  young  man,  of  perhaps 
twenty-four;  and  with  his  arms  crossed,  and  his  eyes 
on  the  ground,  he  sat  like  a  statue,  never  moving  even 
an  eyelash  while  we  were  there.  There  was  a  very 
gentlemanlike  man  working  at  the  watervvheel,  or 
rather  walking  round,  with  his  hand  on  the  bar,  in  a 
gait  that  would  have  suited  the  most  finished  exquis- 
ite of  a  drawing-room — Mr.  Davis,  who  shot  (I  think) 
at  Lord  Londonderry.  Then  in  an  upper  room  we 
saw  the  Captain  Brown  who  shook  his  fist  in  the 
queen's  face  when  she  went  to  the  city — really  a  most 
officer-like  and  handsome  fellow ;  and  in  the  next 
room,  poor  old  Hatfield,  who  shot  at  George  the  Third, 
and  has  been  in  Bedlam  for  forty  years — quite  sane! 
He  was  a  gallant  dragoon,  and  his  face  is  seamed  with 
scars  got  in  battle  before  his  crime.  He  employs  him- 
self with  writing  poetry  on  the  death  of  his  birds  and 
cats  whom  he  has  outlived  in  prison — all  the  society 
he  has  had  in  this  long  and  weary  imprisonment.  He 
received  us  very  courteously,  and  called  our  attention 
to  his  favorite  canary  showed  us  his  poetry,  and  all 
with  a  sad,  mild,  subdued  resignation,  that  quite 
moved  me. 

In  the  female  wards  I  saw  nothing  very  striking,  ex- 
cept one  very  noble-looking  woman  who  was  standing 
at  her  grated  window,  entirely  absorbed  in  reading  the 
Bible.  Her  face  expressed  the  most  heart-rending 
melancholy  I  had  ever  witnessed.  She  has  been  for 
years  under  the  terrible  belief  that  she  has  committed 
14  the  unpardonable  sin,"  and  though  quiet  all  the  day, 
her  agony  at  night  becomes  horrible.  What  a  com- 
ment on  a  much-practised  mode  of  preaching  the  mild 
and  forgiving  religion  of  our  Savior  ! 

As  I  was  leaving  one  of  the  wards,  a  young  woman 
of  nineteen  or  twenty  came  up  to  me  with  a  very  po- 
lite courtesy,  and  said,  "  Will  you  be  so  kind  as  to 
have  me  released  from  this  dreadful  place  ?"  "I  am 
afraid  I  can  not,"  said  I.  "  Then,"  she  replied,  lay- 
ing her  hand  on  my  arm,  with  a  most  appealing  ear- 
nestness, "  perhaps  you  will  on  Monday — you  know 
I've  nothing  to  pack  !"  The  matron  here  interposed, 
and  led  her  away,  but  she  kept  her  eyes  on  us  till  the  | 
door  closed.  She  was  confined  there  for  the  murder 
of  her  child. 

We  visited  the  kitchens,  wash-houses,  bakery,  &c, 
&c. — all  clean,  orderly,  and  admirable,  and  left  our 
names  on  the  visiters'  book,  quite  of  the  opinion  of  a 
Frenchman  who  was  there  just  before  us,  and  who  had 
written  under  his  own  name  this  expressive  praise  : — 
44  J'ai  visite  certains  palais  moins  beaux  et  moins  bien 
entretenus  que  cette  maison  de  la  folie." 

Two  hours  after,  I  was  listening  to  the  overture  of 
La  Cenerentola,  and  watching  the  entrance  to  the  op- 
era of  the  gay,  the  celebrated,  and  the  noble.  In  the 
house  I  had  left,  night  had  brought  with  it  (as  it  does 
always  to  the  insane)  a  maddening  and  terrific  exalta- 
tion of  brain  and  spirit — but  how  different  from  that 
exaltation  of  brain  and  spirit  sought  at  the  same  hour, 
by  creatures  of  the  same  human  family,  at  the  opera  ! 
It  was  difficult  not  to  wonder  at  the  distribution  of 
allotments  to  mankind.  In  a  box  on  the  left  of  me  sat 
the  queen,  keeping  time  with  a  fan  to  the  delicious 
singing  of  Pauline  Garcia,  her  favorite  minister  stand- 
ing behind  her  chair,  and  her  maids  of  honor  around 
— herself  the  smiling,  youthful,  and  admired  sovereign 
of  the  most  powerful  nation  on  earth  !  I  thought  of 
the  poor  girl  in  her  miserable  cell  at  Bedlam  imploring 
release. 

The  queen's  face  has  thinned  and  grown  more  oval 


since  I  saw  her  at  a  drawing-room,  four  years  ago,  as 
Princess  Victoria.  She  has  been  compelled  to  think 
since  then,  and  such  exigencies,  in  all  stations  of  life, 
work  out  the  expression  of  the  face.  She  has  now 
what  I  should  pronounce  a  decidedly  intellectual 
countenance,  a  little  petulant  withal  when  she  turns 
to  speak,  but,  on  the  whole,  quite  beautiful  enough 
for  a  virgin  queen.  No  particular  attention  seemed 
paid  to  her  by  the  audience.  She  was  dressed  less 
gayly  than  many  others  around  her.  Her  box  was  at 
the  left  side  of  the  house/undistinguished  by  any  mark 
of  royalty,  and  a  stranger  would  never  have  suspected 
her  presence. 

Pauline  Garcia  sang  better  than  I  thought  it  possi- 
ble for  any  one  to  sing  after  Malibran  was  dead.  She 
has  her  sister's  look  about  the  forehead  and  eyes,  and 
all  her  sister's  soul  and  passionateness  in  her  style  of 
singing.  Her  face  is  otherwise  very  plain,  but,  plain 
as  it  is,  and  young  as  she  is,  the  opera-going  pubiic 
prefer  her  already  to  the  beautiful  and  more  powerful 
Grisi.  The  latter  long  triumphant  prima  donna  is 
said  to  be  very  unhappy  at  her  eclipse  by  this  new  fa- 
vorite ;  and  it  is  curious  enough  to  hear  the  hundred 
and  one  faults  found  in  the  declining  songstress  by 
those  who  once  would  not  admit  that  she  could  be 
transcended  on  earth.  A  very  celebrated  person,  whom 
I  remembered,  when  in  London  before,  giving  Grisi 
the  most  unqualified  eulogy,  assured  the  gay  admirers 
in  her  box  last  night  that  she  had  always  said  that 
Grisi  had  nothing  but  lungs  and  fine  eyes.  She  was 
a  great  healthy  Italian  girl,  and  could  sing  in  tune; 
but  soul  or  sentiment  she  never  had  !  Poor  Grisi ! 
Hers  is  the  lot  of  all  who  are  so  unhappy  as  to  have 
been  much  admired.  "  Le  monde  ne  hdit  rien  aulant 
que  ses  idoles  quand  Us  sont  a  terrc"  said  the  wise  La 
Bruyere. 

#  *  *  *  *  * 

Some  of  the  most  delightful  events  in  one's  travels 
;  are  those  which  afford  the  least  materiel  for  descrip- 
I  tion,  and  such  is  our  sejour  of  a  few  days  at  the  vicar- 

:  age  of  B It  was  a  venerable  old  house  with 

pointed  gables,  elaborate  and  pointed  windows,  with 
panes  of  glass  of  the  size  of  the  palm  of  the  hand, 
\  low  doors,  narrow  staircases,  all  sorts  of  unsuspected 
i  rooms,  and  creepers  outside,  trellised  and  trained  to 
'  every  corner  and  angle.     Then  there  was  the  modern 
j  wing,  with   library  and  dining-room,   large  windows, 
■  marble  fireplaces,  and  French   paper;  and  in  going 
,  from   your  bedroom  to   breakfast,   you   might   fancy 
yourself  stepping   from   Queen   Elizabeth's   time   to 
Queen  Victoria's.     A  high  hedge  of  holly  divided  the 
smoothly-shaven  lawn  from  the  churchyard,   and  in 
the  midst  of  the  moss-grown  headstones  stood  a  gray 
old  church  with  four  venerable  towers,  one  of  the  most 
picturesque  and  beautiful  specimens  of  the  old  Eng- 
lish architecture  that  I  have  ever  seen.     The  whole 
group,  church,  vicarage,  and  a  small  hamlet  of  vine- 
covered  and  embowered  stone  cottages,  lay  in  the  lap 
of  a  gently  rising  sweep  of  hills,  and  all  around  were 
spread  landscapes  of  the  finished  and  serene  character 
peculiar  to  England— rich  fields  framed  in  flowering 
hedges,   clumps  of  forest  trees,   glimpses   of  distant 
parks,  country  seats,   and  village  spires,   and  on  the 
horizon  a  line  of  mist-clad  hills,  scarce  ever  more  dis- 
tinct than  the  banks  of  low-lying  clouds  ret.-rmg  alter 
a  thunderstorm  in  America.  ,  , 

Earlv  on  Sunday  morning  we  were  awakened  by 
the  melody  of  the  bells  in  the  old  triers;  and  with 
brief  pauses  between  the  tunes,  the;  were  played  upon 
most  musically,  till  the  hour  for  *1e  morning  services 
We  have  little  idea  in  Amen*  °4  he  perfect,™  to 
which  the  chiming  of  bells  fs  carried  in  England.  In 
the  towers  of  this  small  raral  church  are  hung  eight 
bells  of  different  tone,  and  the  tunes  played  on  them 
by  the  more  accomplished  ringers  of  the  neighboring 
hamlet  are  varied  endlessly.     1  lay  and  listened  to  the 


534 


PASSAGES  FROxM  AN  EPISTOLARY  JOURNAL. 


simple  airs  as  they  died  away  over  the  valley,  with  a 
pleasure  I  can  scarcely  express.  The  morning  was 
serene  and  bright,  the  perfume  of  the  clematis  and 
jasmine  flowers  at  the  window  penetrated  to  the  cur- 
tains of  my  bed,  and  Sunday  seemed  to  have  dawned 
with  the  audible  worship  and  palpable  incense  of  na- 
ture. We  were  told  at  breakfast  that  the  chimes  had 
been  unusually  merry,  and  were  a  compliment  to  our- 
selves, the  villagers  always  expressing  thus  their  con- 
gratulations on  the  arrival  of  guests  at  the  vicarage. 
The  compliment  was  repeated  between  services,  and  a 
very  long  peal  rang  in  the  twilight — our  near  relation- 
ship to  the  vicar's  family  authorizing  a  very  special 
rejoicing. 

The  interior  of  the  church  was  very  ancient  look- 
ing and  rough,  the  pews  of  unpainted  oak,  and  the 
massive  stone  walls  simply  whitewashed.  The  con- 
gregation was  small,  perhaps  fifty  persons,  and  the 
men  were  (with  two  exceptions)  dressed  in  russet 
carters'  frocks,  and  most  of  them  in  leather  leggins. 
The  children  sat  on  low  benches  placed  in  the  centre 
of  the  one  aisle,  and  the  boys,  like  their  fathers,  were 
in  smock  frocks  of  homespun,  their  heavy  shoes  shod 
with  iron  like  horses'  hoofs,  and  their  little  legs  button- 
ed up  in  the  impenetrable  gaiters  of  coarse  leather. 
They  looked,  men  and  boys,  as  if  they  were  intended 
to  wear  but  one  suit  in  this  world. 

I  was  struck  with  the  solemnity  of  the  service,  and 
the  decorous  attention  of  men,  women,  and  children, 
to  the  responses.  It  was  a  beautiful  specimen  of 
simple  and  pastoral  worship.  Each  family  had  the 
name  of  their  farm  or  place  of  residence  printed  on 
the  back  of  the  pew,  with  the  number  of  seats  to 
which  they  were  entitled,  probably  in  proportion  to 
their  tithes.  The  "  living"  is  worth,  if  I  remember 
right,  not  much  over  a  hundred  pounds — an  insuffi- 
cient sum  to  support  so  luxurious  a  vicarage  as  is 
appended  to  it ;  but,  happily  for  the  people,  the  vicar 
chances  to  be  a  man  of  fortune,  and  he  unites  in  his 
excellent  character  the   exemplary  pastor   with   the 

physician  and  lord  of  the  manor.     I  left  B with 

the  conviction  that  if  peace,  contentment,  and  happi- 
ness, inhabit  one  spot  more  than  all  others  in  a  world 
whose  allotments  are  so  difficult  to  estimate,  it  is  the 
vicarage'in  the  bosom  of  that  rural  upland. 

****** 

We  left  B at  twelve  in  the  Brighton  "Age" — 

the  "swell  coach"  of  England.     We  were  to   dine 

thirty  miles  nearer  London,  at Park,  and  we  did 

the  distance  in  exactly  three  hours,  including  a  stop 
of  fifteen  minutes  to  dine.  We  are  abused  by  all 
travellers  for  our  alacrity  in  dining  on  the  road  ;  but 
what  stage-coach  in  the  United  States  ever  limited 
its  dining  time  to  fifteen  minutes,  and  what  American 
dinner  of  roast,  pastry,  and  cheese,  was  ever  despatch- 
ed so  briefly  ?  Yet  the  travellers  to  Brighton  are  of 
the  better  class ;  and  whose  who  were  my  fellow- 
passengers  the  day  I  refer  to  were  particularly  well 
dressed  and  gentlemanly— yet  all  of  them  achieved  a 
substantial  dinner  of  beef,  pudding,  and  cheese,  paid 
their  bills,  and  drained  their  glass  of  porter,  within 
the  quarter  of  an  hour.  John  Bull's  blindness  to  the 
beam  in  his  own  eye  is  perhaps  owing  to  the  fact  that 
this  lusty  meal  is  sometimes  called  a  "  lunch  !" 

The  tvjo  places  beside  our  own  in  the  inside  were 
occupied  '»y  a  lady  and  her  maid  and  two  children — 
an  interpretation  of  the  number  two  to  which  I  would 
not  have  agree&if  I  could  have  helped  it.  We  can  not 
always  tell  at  fint  sight  what  will  be  most  amusing, 
however ;  and  the  ohild  of  two  years,  who  sprawled 
oyer  my  rheumatic  k^ees  with  her  mother's  permis- 
sion, thereby  oceasionihg  on  my  part  a  most  fixed 
look  out  of  the  window,  furnished  me  after  a  while 
with  a  curious  bit  of  observation.  At  one  of  the 
commons  we  passed,  the  children  running  out  from  a 
gipsy  encampment  flung  buoches  of  heath  flowers 


i  into  the  coach,  which  the  little  girl  appropriated,  and 
j  commenced  presenting  rather  graciously  to  her  mother, 
the  maid,  and  Mrs.  W.,  all  of  whom  received  them 
|  with  smiles  and  thanks.     Having  rather  a  sulky  face 
I  of  my  own  when  not   particularly   called  on  to  be 
pleased,  the  child  omitted  me  for  a  long  time  in  he> 
i  distributions.     At  last,  after  collecting  and  re-distribu 
j  ting  the  flowers  for  about  an  hour,  she  grew  suddenly 
j  grave,  laid  the  heath  all  out  upon  her  lap,  selected  the 
j  largest  and  brightest  flowers,  and  made  them  into  a 
nosegay.     My  attention  was  attracted  by  the  serious- 
ness of  the  child's  occupation  ;  and  I  was  watching 
her  without  thinking  my  notice  observed,  when  she 
raised  her  eyes  to  me  very  timidly,  turned   her  new 
;  bouquet   over   and   over,  and  at  last,  with  a  blush, 
deeper  than  I  ever  saw  before  upon  a  child,  placed 
j  the  flowers  in  my  hand  and  hid  her  face  in  her  mother's 
bosom.     My  sulkiness  gave  way,  of  course,  and  the 
little  coquette's  pleasure  in  her  victory  was  excessive. 
j  For  the  remainder  of  the  journey,   those  who   had 
given  her  their  smiles  too  readily  were  entirely  neg- 
!  lected,  and  all  her  attentions  were  showered  upon  the 
only  one  she  had  found  it  difficult  to  please.     I  thought 
it  as  pretty  a  specimen  of  the  ruling  passion  strong  in 
baby-hood  as  I  ever  saw.     It  was  a  piece  of  finished 
i  coquetry  in  a  child  not  old  enough  to  speak  plain. 

The  coachman  of  "  the  age"  was  a  young  man  of 
j  perhaps  thirty,  who  is  understood  to  have  run  through 
j  a  considerable  fortune,  and  drives  for  a  living — but  he 
j  was  not  at  all  the  sort  of  looking  person  you  would 
fancy  for  a  "swell  whip."     He  drove  beautifully,  and 
helped  the  passengers  out  and  in,  lifted  their  baggage, 
&c,  very  handily,  but  evidently  shunned  notice,  and 
had  no  desire  to  chat  with  the  "  outsides."     The  ex- 
cessive difficulty  in  England  of  finding  any  clean  way 
of  making  a  living  after  the  initiatory  age  is  passed  — 
a  difficulty  which  reduced  gentlemen  feel  most  keen- 
ly— probably  forced   this  person  as  it  has  others  to 
take  up  a  vocation  for  which   the  world  fortunately 
finds  an  excuse  in  eccentricity.     He  touches  his  hat 
for  the  half  crown  or  shilling,  although  probably  if  it 
were  offered  to  him  when  the  whip  was  out  of  his 
hand  he  would  knock  the  giver  down  for  his  imperti- 
nence.    I  may  as  well  record  here,  by  the  way,  for 
the  benefit  of  those  who  may  wish  to  know  a  compari- 
son between  the  expense  of  travelling   here  and  at 
i  home,  that  for  two  inside  places  for  thirty  miles  the 
I  coach  fare  was  two  pounds,  and  the  coachman's  fee 
j  five  shillings,   or  half-a-crown  each  inside.     To  get 

from  the  post  town  to  Park  (two  miles)  cost  me 

five-and-sixpence  for  a  "  fly,"  so  that  for  thirty-two 
|  miles   travel  I  paid  21.  10s.   6d.,  a  little  more  than 
twelve  dollars. 

And  speaking  of  vocations,  it  would  be  a  useful 
lesson  to  some  of  our  ambitious  youths  to  try  a  be- 
ginning at  getting  a  living  in  England.  I  was  never 
at  all  aware  of  the  difficulty  of  finding  even  bread  and 
salt  for  a  young  man,  till  I  had  occasion  lately  to  en- 
deavor to  better  the  condition  of  a  servant  of  my  own 
— a  lad  who  has  been  with  me  four  or  five  years,  and 
whose  singular  intelligence,  good  principles,  and  high 
self-improvement,  fitted  him,  I  thought,  for  any  con- 
fidential trust  or  place  whatever.  His  own  ideas,  too 
(I  thought,  not  unreasonably),  had  become  somewhat 
sublimated  in  America,  and  he  was  unwilling  to  con- 
tinue longer  as  a  servant.  He  went  home  to  his 
mother,  a  working-woman  of  London,  and  I  did  my 
utmost,  the  month  I  was  in  town,  inquiring  among  all 
classes  of  my  friends,  advertising,  &c,  to  find  him  any 
possible  livelihood  above  menial  service.  I  was  met 
everywhere  with  the  same  answer :  "  There  are 
hundreds  of  gentlemen's  sons  wearing  out  their  youth 
in  looking  for  the  same  thing."  I  was  told  daily  that 
it  was  quite  in  vain — that  apprenticeships  were  as 
much  sought  as  clerkships,  and  that  every  avenue  to 
the  making  of  a  sixpence  was  overcrammed  and  inac- 


PASSAGES  FROM  AN  EPISTOLARY  JOURNAL. 


535 


cessible.  My  boy  and  his  mother  at  last  came  to 
their  senses ;  and,  consenting  to  apply  once  more  for 
a  servant's  place,  he  was  fortunate  enough  to  engage 
as  valet  to  a  bachelor,  and  is  now  gone  with  his  new 
master  on  a  tour  to  France.  As  Harding  the  painter 
said  to  me,  when  he  returned  after  his  foreign  trip, 
"England  is  a  great  place  to  take  the  nonsense  out  of 

PeoPje-"         * 

When  London  shall  have  become  the  Rome  or 
Athens  of  a  fallen  empire  (qu.  will  it  ever  ?)  the  ter- 
mini of  the  railways  will  be  among  its  finest  ruins. 
That  of  the  Birmingham  and  Liverpool  track  is  al- 
most as  magnificent  as  that  flower  of  sumptuousness, 
the  royal  palace  of  Caserta,  near  Naples.  It  is  really 
an  impressive  scene  simply  to  embark  for  "  Brum- 
magem ;"  and  there  is  that  utility  in  all  this  showy 
expenditure  for  arch,  gateway,  and  pillar,  that  no  one 
is  admitted  but  the  passenger,  and  you  are  refreshing- 
ly permitted  to  manage  your  baggage,  &c,  without 
the  assistance  of  a  hundred  blackguards  at  a  shilling 
each.  Then  there  are  "  ladies'  waiting-rooms,"  and 
"gentlemen's  waiting-rooms,"  and  attached  to  them 
every  possible  convenience,  studiously  clean  and  order- 
ly. I  wish  the  president  and  directors  of  the  Utica 
and   other   American  railroads  would  step  over  and 


The  Adelphi  is  the  Astor  house  of  Liverpool,  a 
very  large  and  showy  hotel  near  the  terminus  of  the 
railway.  We  were  shown  into  rather  a  magnificent 
parlor  on  our  arrival ;  and  very  hungry  with  rail-road- 
ing  since  six  in  the  morning,  we  ordered  dinner  at 
their  earliest  convenience.  It  came  after  a  full  hour, 
and  we  sat  down  to  four  superb  silver  covers,  anticipa- 
ting a  meal  corresponding  to  the  stout  person  and 
pompous  manners  of  the  fattest  waiter  I  have  seen  in  my 
travels.  The  grand  cover  was  removed  with  a  flourish 
and  disclosed— divers  small  bits  of  second-hand  beef- 
steak, toasted  brown  and  warped  at  the  corners  by  a 
second  fire,  and  on  the  removal  of  the  other  three 
silver  pagodas,  our  eyes  were  gratified  by  a  dish  of 
peas  that  had  been  once  used  for  green  soup,  three 
similarly  toasted  and  warped  mutton  chops,  and  three 
potatoes.  Quite  incredulous  of  the  cook's  intentions, 
I  ventured  to  suggest  to  the  waiter  that  he  bad  proba- 
bly mistaken  the  tray  and  brought  us  the  dinner  of 
some  sportsman's  respectable  brace  of  pointers;  but 
on  being  assured  that  there  were  no  dogs  in  the  cellar, 
I  sent  word  to  the  master  of  the  house  that  we  had 
rather  a  preference  for  a  dinner  new  and  hot,  and 
would  wait  till  he  could  provide  it.  Half  an  hour 
more  brought  up  the  landlord's  apologies  and  a  fresh 
and  hot  beef-steak,  followed  by  a  tough-crusted  apple- 
pie,  custard,  and  cheese— and  with  a  bottle  of  Moselle, 
which  teas  good,  we  finished  our  dinner  at  one  of  the 

The 


<e  a  sumptuary  hint. 

The  cars  are  divided  into  stalls,  t.  e.  each  passenger 

cushioned  off  by  a  stuffed  partition  from  his  neigh-  most  expensive  and  showy  hotels  in  England.      Ih 

r's  shoulder,  an/sleeps  without  offence  or  encroach-  manners  and  fare  at  the  American  hotels  being ■  .Iway 


bor's  shoulder,  and  sleep 

ment.  When  they  are  crowded,  that  is  an  admirable 
arrangement ;  but  I  have  found  it  very  comfortable  in 
long  journeys  in  America  to  take  advantage  of  an  j 
empty  car,  and  stretch  myself  to  sleep  along  the 
vacant  seat.  Here,  full  or  empty,  you  can  occupy 
but  your  upright  place.  In  every  car  are  suspended 
lamps  to  give  light  during  the  long  passages  through 
the  subterranean  tunnels. 

We  rolled  from  under  the  Brobdignag  roof  of  the 
terminus,  as  the  church  of  Mary-le-bone  (Cockney 
for  Marie-la-bonne,  but  so  carved  on  the  frieze)  struck 
six.  Our  speed  was  increased  presently  to  thirty 
miles  in  the  hour ;  and  with  the  exception  of  the 
slower  rate  in  passing  the  tunnels,  and  the  slackening 
and  getting  under  way  at  the  different  stations,  this 
rate  was  kept  up  throughout.  We  arrived  at  Liver-  i 
pool  (205  miles  or  upward)  at  three  o'clock,  our 
stoppages  having  exceeded  an  hour  altogether. 

I  thought,  toward  the  end,  that  all  this  might  be 
very   pleasant  with  a  consignment  of  buttons,  or  an 
errand  to  Gretna  Green.     But  for  the  pleasure  of  the 
thing,  I  would  as  lief  sit  in  an  arm-chair  and  see  bales 
of  striped  green  silk  unfolded  for  eight  hours,  as  travel 
the  same  length  of  time  by  the  railroad.     (I  have  de- 
scribed in  this  simile  exactly  the  appearance  of  the 
fields  as  you  see  them  in  flying  past.)     The  old  wo- 
men and  cabbages  gain  by  it,  perhaps,  for  you  can  not 
tell  whether  they  are  not  girls  and  roses.     The  washer- 
woman at  her  tub  follows  the  lady   on  the  lawn  so 
quickly  that  you  confound  the  two  irresistibly — the 
thatched  cottages  look  like  browsing  donkeys,  and  the 
browsing  donkeys  like  thatched  cottages— you  ask  the 
name  of  a  town,  and  by  the  time  you  get  up  your 
finger,  your  point  at  a  spot  three  miles  off — in  short, 
the  salmon  well  packed  in  straw  on  the  top  of  the 
coach,   and  called   fresh-fish  after  a  journey  of  200 
miles,  sees  quite  as  much  of  the  country  as  his  most 
intellectual  fellow-passenger.     I  foresee  in  all  this  a 
new  distinction  in  phraseology.     "  Have  you  travel- 
led in  England?"  will  soon  be  a  question  having  no 
reference   to  railroads.-     The  winding  turnpike    and 
cross-roads,  the  coaches  and  post-carriages,  will  be 
resumed  by  all  those  who  consider  the  sense  of  sight  | 
as  useful  in  travel,  and  the  bagmen  and  letter-bags 
will  have  almost  undisputed  possession   of  the  rail- 
cars. 


described  as  exponents  of  civilization  by  English 
travellers,  I  shall  be  excused  for  giving  a  counter- 
picture  of  one  of  the  most  boasted  of  their  own. 

Regretting  exceedingly  that  the  recent  mourning 
of  my  two  companions  must  prevent  their  presence 
at  the  gay  festivities  of  Eglinton,  I  put  them  on  board 
the  steamer,  bound  on  a  visit  to  relatives  in  Dublin, 
and  returned  to  the  Adelphi  to  wait  en  garcon  for  the 
Glasgow  steamer  of  Monday.  My  chamber  is  a  large 
and  well-furnished  room,  with  windows  looking  out 
on  the  area  shut  in  by  the  wings  of  the  house  ;  and  I 
must  make  you  still  more  contented  at  the  A.stor,  by 
describing  what  is  going  on  below  at  this  moment. 
It  is  half-past  eight,  and  a  Sunday  morning.  All  the 
bells  of  the  house,  it  seems  to  me,  are  ringing,  most 
of  them  very  impatiently,  and  in  the  area  before  the 
kitchen  windows  are  six  or  eight  idle  waiters,  and  four 
or  five  female  scullions,  playing,  quarrelling,  scolding, 
and  screaming;  the  language  of  both  men  and  women 
more  profane  and  indecent  than  anything  I  have  ever 
before  chanced  to  hear,  and  every  word  audible  in 
every  room  in  this  quarter  of  the  hotel.  This  has 
been  going  on  since  six  this  morning;  and  I  seriously 
declare  I  do  not  think  I  ever  heard  as  much  indecent 
conversation  in  my  life  as  for  three  mortal  hours  must 
have  "  murdered  sleep"  for  every  lady  and  gentleman 
lodged  on  the  rear  side  of  the  "  crack  hotel"  of  Liver- 
pool. 

Sick  of  the  scene  described  above,  I  went  out  just 
now  to  take  a  turn  or  two  in  my  slippers  in  the  long 
entry.  Up  and  down,  giving  me  a  most  appealing 
stare  whenever  we  met,  dawdled  also  the  fat  waiter 
who  served  up  the  cold  victuals  of  yesterday.  He 
evidently  had  some  errand  with  me,  but  what  1  did 
not  immediately  fathom.  At  last  he  approached— 
"  You — a — got  your  things,  sir  ?" 
"  What  things?"  .    .  .    . 

"The  stick  and  umbrella,  I  carried  to  your  bed- 
room, sir."  ,  ,, 
"  Yes,  thank  you,"  and  I  resumed  my  walk. 
The  waiter  resumed  his,  and  presently  approached 

agl 'you— a— Jon't  intend  to  use  the  parlor  again,  sir  ?" 
"  No  ■  I  have  explained  to  the  master  of  the  house 
that  I  shall  breakfast  in  the  coffee-room  "     And  agam 
I  walked  on. 


536 


PASSAGES  FROM  AN  EPISTOLARY  JOURNAL. 


My  friend  began  again  at  the  next  turn. 

"You — a — pay  for  those  ladies'  dinner  yourself, 
sir?" 

"Yes."     I  walked  on  once  more. 

Once  more  approaches  my  fat  incubus,  and  with  a 
twirl  of  the  towel  in  his  hand  looks  as  if  he  would  fain 
be  delivered  of  something. 

"  Why  the  d — 1  am  I  badgered  in  this  way  ?"  I 
stormed  out  at  last,  losing  patience  at  his  stammering 
hesitation,  and  making  a  move  to  get  round  the  fat 
obstruction  and  pursue  my  walk. 

"Will  you — a — remember  the  waiter,  if  you  please, 
sir  7" 

"  Oh  !  I  was  not  aware  that  I  was  to  pay  the  waiter 
at  every  meal.  I  generally  do  it  when  I  leave  the 
house.  Perhaps  you'll  be  kind  enough  to  let  me 
finish  my  walk,  and  trust  me  till  to-morrow  morning?" 

P.  S.  Evening  in  the  coffee-room. — They  say  the 
best  beginning  in  love  is  a  decided  aversion,  and  badly 
as  I  began  at  Liverpool,  I  shall  always  have  a  tender 
recollection  of  it  for  the  admirable  and  unequalled 
luxury  of  its  balks.  A  long  and  beautiful  Grecian 
building  crests  the  head  of  George's  pier,  built  by  the 
corporation  of  Liverpool,  and  devoted  exclusively  to 
salt-water  baths.  I  walked  down  in  the  twilight  to 
enjoy  this  refreshing  luxury,  and  it  being  Sunday 
evening,  I  was  shown  into  the  ladies'  end  of  the 
building.  The  room  where  I  waited  till  the  bath 
was  prepared  was  a  lofty  and  finely  proportioned 
apartment,  elegantly  furnished,  and  lined  with  superb- 
ly bound  books  and  pictures,  the  tables  covered  with 
engravings,  and  the  whole  thing  looked  like  a  central 
apartment  in  a  nobleman's  residence.  A  boy  showed 
me  presently  into  a  small  drawing-room,  to  which  was 
attached  a  bath  closet,  the  two  rooms  lined,  boudoir 
fashion,  with  chintz,  a  clock  over  the  bath,  a  nice 
carpet  and  stove,  in  short,  every  luxury  possible  to 
such  an  establishment.  I  asked  the  boy  if  the  gentle- 
men's baths  were  as  elegant  as  these.  "  Oh  yes,"  he 
said:  "there  are  two  splendid  pictures  of  Niagara 
Falls  and  Catskill."  "Who  painted  them  ?"  "Mr. 
Wall."  "  And  whose  are  they?"  "  They  belong  to 
our  father,  sir !"  I  made  up  my  mind  that  "  our 
father"  was  a  man  of  taste  and  a  credit  to  Liverpool. 
******* 

I  have  just  returned  from  the  dinner  given  to  Mac- 
ready  at  the  Freemason's  tavern.  The  hall,  so  cele- 
brated for  public  "  feeds,"  is  a  beautiful  room  of  a 
very  showy  style  of  architecture,  with  three  galleries, 
and  a  raised  floor  at  the  end  usually  occupied  by  the 
cross  table.  It  accommodated  on  this  occasion  four 
hundred  persons. 

From  the  peculiar  object  of  the  meeting  to  do 
honor  to  an  actor  for  his  intellectual  qualities,  and  for 
his  efforts  to  spiritualise  and  elevate  the  stage,  there 
probably  never  was  collected  together  in  one  room  so 
much  talent  and  accomplishment.  Artists,  authors, 
critics,  publishers,  and  amateurs  of  the  stage — a  large 
body  in  London — made  up  the  company.  My  atten- 
tion was  called  by  one  of  my  neighbors  to  the  singu- 
larly superior  character  of  the  heads  about  us,  and  I 
had  already  observed  the  striking  difference,  both  in 
head  and  physiognomy,  between  this  and  a  common 
assemblage  of  men.  Most  of  the  persons  connected 
with  the  press,  it  was  said,  were  present;  and  perhaps 
it  would  have  been  a  worthy  service  to  the  world  had 
some  shorn  Samson,  among  the  authors,  pulled  the 
temple  upon  the  heads  of  the  Philistines. 

The  cry  of  "  make  way  !"  introduced  the  duke  of 
Sussex,  the  chairman  of  the  meeting — a  stout,  mild- 
looking,  dignified  old  man,  wearing  a  close  black  scull- 
cap  and  the  star  and  riband.  He  was  followed  by 
Lord  Conyngham,  who,  as  grand  chamberlain,  had 
done  much  to  promote  the  interests  of  the  drama;  by 
Lord  Nugent  (whom  I  had  last  seen  sailing  a  scampavia 
in  the  bay  of  Corfu),   by  Sir  Lytton  Bulwer,   Mr. 


Sheil,  Sir  Martin  Shee,  Young,  the  actor,  Mr.  Milnes, 
the  poet,  and  other  distinguished  men.  I  should 
have  said,  by  the  way  Mr.  Macready  followed  next 
his  royal  highness. 

The  cheering  and  huzzas,  as  this  procession  walked 
up  the  room,  were  completely  deafening.  Macready 
looked  deadly  pale  and  rather  overcome ;  and  amid 
the  waving  of  handkerchiefs  and  the  stunning  uproat 
of  four  hundred  "  gentlemen  and  scholars,"  the  duke 
placed  the  tragedian  at  his  right  hand,  and  took  his 
seat  before  the  turbot. 

The  dinner  was  an  uncommonly  bad  one;  but  of 
this  I  had  been  forewarned,  and  so  had  taken  a  provi- 
sory chop  at  the  club.  I  had  leisure,  therefore,  to 
look  about  me,  and  truly  there  was  work  enough  for 

the  eyes.     M 's  head   interested   me   more  than 

any  one's  else,  for  it  was  the  personification  of  his 
lofty,  liberal,  and  poetic  genius.  His  hair,  which 
was  long  and  profuse,  curled  in  tendrils  over  the 
loftiest  forehead  ;  but  about  the  lower  part  of  the  face 
lay  all  the  characteristics  which  go  to  make  up  a 
voluptuous  yet  generous,  an  enthusiastic  and  fiery, 
yet  self-possessed  and  well  directed  character.  He  was 
excessively  handsome ;  yet  it  was  the  beauty  of 
Masaniello,  or  Salvator  Rosa,  with  more  of  intellect 
than  both  together.  All  in  all,  I  never  saw  a  finer 
face  for  an  artist;  and  judging  from  his  looks  and 
from  his  works  (he  is  perhaps  twenty-four),  I  would 
stake  my  sagacity  on  a  bold  prophecy  of  his  greatness. 

On  the  same  side  were  the  L s,  very  quiet-look- 
ing men,  and  S the  portrait-painter,  a  merry- 
looking  grenadier,  and  L B the  poet,  with  a 

face  like  a  poet.     Near  me  was  L ,  the  painter, 

poet,  novelist,  song  and  music  writer,  dramatist,  and 
good  fellow — seven  characters  of  which  his  friends 
scarce  know  in  which  he  is  most  excellent — and  he 
has  a  round  Irish  face,  with  a  bright  twinkle  in  his 
eye,  and  a  plump  little  body  which  carries  off  all  his 
gifts  as  if  they  were  no  load  at  all. — And  on  my  left 

was  S ,   the  glorious  painter  of  Venice,  of  the 

battle  of  Trafalgar,  the  unequalled  painter  of  the  sea 
in  all  its  belongings;  and  you  would  take  him  for  a 
gallant  lieutenant  of  the  navy,  with  the  fire  of  a  score 
of  battles  asleep  in  his  eye,  and  the  roughening  of  a 
hundred  tempests  in  his  cheek.  A  franker  and  more 
manly  face  would  not  cross  your  eye  in  a  year's  travel. 

Mr.  J was  just  beyond,  a  tall,  sagacious-look- 
ing, good  humored  person  of  forty-five.  He  was  a 
man  of  very  kind  manners,  and  was  treated  with  great 
marks  of  liking  and  respect  by  all  about  him.  But 
directly  opposite  to  me  sat  so  exact  a  picture  of  Paul 
Pry  as  he  is  represented  on  the  stage,  particularly  of 
my  friend  Finn  in  that  character,  that  it  was  difficult 
not  to  smile  in  looking  at  him.  To  my  surprise,  I 
heard  some  one  behind  me  point  him  out,  soon  after, 
as  the  well-known  original  in  that  character — the 
gentleman,  whose  peculiarities  of  person,  as  well  as 
manners,  were  copied  in  the  farce  of  Mr.  Poole. — 
"  That's  my  name — what's  yours  ?"  said  he  the  mo- 
ment after  he  had  seated  himself,  thrusting  his  card 
close  to  the  nose  of  the  gentleman  next  him.  I  took 
it  of  course  for  a  piece  of  fun  between  two  very  old 
friends,  but  to  my  astonishment  the  gentlemen  next 
him  was  as  much  astonished  as  I. 

The  few  servants  scaltered  up  and  down  were  deaf 
to  everything  but  calls  for  champagne  (furnished  only 
at  an  extra  charge  when  called  for — a  very  mean 
system  for  a  public  dinner,  by  the  way),  and  the 
wines  on  the  table  seemed  selected  to  drive  one  to 
champagne  or  the  doctor.  Each  person  had  four 
plates,  and  when  used,  they  were  to  be  put  under  the 
bench,  or  on  the  top  of  your  head,  or  to  be  sat  upon, 
or  what  you  would,  except  to  be  taken  away,  and  the 
soup  and  fish,  and  the  roast  and  boiled  and  all,  having 
been  put  on  together,  was  all  removed  at  one  fell 
swoop — the  entire  operation  of  dinner  having  lasted 


PASSAGES  FROM  AN  EPISTOLARY  JOURNAL. 


537 


just  twenty-five  minutes.  Keep  this  fact  till  we  are  re- 
corded by  some  new  English  traveller  as  the  most  ex- 
peditious eaters  in  Christendom. 

Here  end  my  croakings,  however,  for  the  speeches 
commenced  directly,  and  admirable  they  were.  To 
the  undoing  of  much  prejudice  got  by  hearsay,  I 
listened  to  Bulwer.  He  is,  beyond  all  comparison, 
the  most  graceful  and  effective  speaker  I  ever  heard 
in  England.  All  the  world  tells  you  that  he  makes 
signal  failures  in  oratory — yet  he  rose,  when  his  health 
was  drank,  and,  in  self-possessed,  graceful,  unhesita- 
ting language,  playful,  yet  dignified,  warm,  yet  not 
extravagant,  he  replied  to  the  compliments  of  his 
royal  highness,  and  brought  forward  his  plan  (as  you 
have  seen  it  reported  in  the  papers)  for  the  erection 
of  a  new  theatre  for  the  legitimate  drama  and  Mac- 
ready.  I  remember  once  hearing  that  Bulwer  had  a 
belief  in  his  future  eminence  as  an  orator — and  I  would 
warrant  his  warmest  anticipations  in  that  career  of 
ambition.  He  is  a  better  speaker  than  Sheil,  who  follow- 
ed him,  and  Sheil  is  renowned  as  an  orator.  Really 
there  is  nothing  like  one's  own  eyes  and  ears  in  this 
world  of  envy  and  misrepresentation. 

D sat  near  Sheil,  at  the  cross  table,  very  silent, 

as  is  his  custom  and  that  of  most  keen  observers. 
The  courtly  Sir  M S was  near  B ,  look- 
ing like  some  fine  old  picture  of  a  wit  of  Charles  the 

second's  time,  and  he  and  Y the  actor  made  two 

very  opposite  and  gentlemanlike  speeches.  1  believe 
I  have  told  you  nearly  all  that  struck  me,  except  what 
was  reported  in  the  gazettes,  and  that  you  have  no 
need  to  read  over  again.  I  got  away  at  eleven,  and 
reached  the  opera  in  time  to  hear  the  last  act  of  the 
Puritani,  and  see  the  Elsslers  dance  in  the  ballet,  and 
with  a  look-in  at  a  ball,  I  concluded  one  of  those  ex- 
hausting, exciting,  overdone  London  days,  which  are 
pleasanter  to  remember  than  to  enjoy,  and  pleasanter 
to  read  about  than  either. 
♦  **###* 

One  of  the  most  elegant  and  agreeable  persons  I 
ever  saw  was  Miss  P ,  and  I  think  her  conversa- 
tion more  delightful  to  remember  than  any  person's 
I  ever  knew.  A  distinguished  artist  told  me  that  he 
remembered  her  when  she  was  his  beau-ideal  of  female 
beauty;  but  in  those  days  she  was  more  "fancy-rapt," 
and  gave  in  less  to  the  current  and  spirit  of  society. 
Age  has  made  her,  if  it  may  be  so  expressed,  less 
selfish  in  her  use  of  thought,  and  she  pours  it  forth, 
like  Pactolus — that  gold  which  is  sand  from  others. 
She  is  still  what  I  should  call  a  handsome  woman,  or, 
if  that  be  not  allowed,  she  is  the  wreck  of  more  than 
a  common  allotment  of  beauty,  and  looks  it.  Her 
person  is  remarkably  erect,  her  eyes  and  eyelids  (in 
this  latter  resembling  Scott)  very  heavily  moulded, 
and  her  smile  is  beautiful.  It  strikes  me  that  it  always 
is  so — where  it  ever  was.  The  smile  seems  to  be  the 
work  of  the  soul. 

I  have  passed  months  underthe  same  roof  with  .Miss 

P ,  and   nothing  gave  me  more  pleasure  than  to 

find  the  company  in  that  hospitable  house  dwindled 
to  a  "fit  audience  though  few,"  and  gathered  around 
the  figure  in  deep  mourning  which  occupied  the 
warmest  corner  of  the  sofa.  In  any  vein,  and  a-propos 
to  the  gravest  and  the  gayest  subject,  her  well-stored 
mind  and  memory  flowed  forth  in  the  same  rich  cur- 
rent of  mingled  story  and  reflection,  and  I  never  saw 
an  impatient  listener  beside  her.  I  recollect,  one  even- 
ing a  lady's  singing  "Auld  Robin  Gray,"  and  some 
one  remarking  (rather  unsentimentally),  at  the  close, 

"  By-the-by,  what  is  Lady (the  authoress  of  the 

ballad)  doing  with  so  many  carpenters.  Berkeley 
square    is   quite   deafened   with   their   hammering !" 

"A-propos  of  carpenters  and  Lady ,"  said   Miss 

P- ,  "  this  same  charming  ballad-writer  owes  some- 

thinS  [°  the  craft.  She  was  better-born  than  provided 
with  the  gifts  of  fortune,  and  in  her  younger  days  was 


once  on  a  visit  to  a  noble  house,  when  to  her  dismay 
a  large  and  fashionable  company  arrived,  who  brought 
with  them  a  mania  for  private  theatricals.  Her  ward- 
robe was  very  slender,  barely  sufficient  for  the  ordinary 
events  of  a  week-day,  and  her  purse  contained  one 
solitary  shilling.  To  leave  the  house  was  out  of  the 
question,  to  feign  illness  as  much  so,  and  to  decline 
taking  a  part  was  impossible,  for  hor  talent  and  spright- 
liness  were  the  hope  of  the  theatre.  A  part  was  cast 
for  her,  and,  in  despair,  she  excused  herself  from  the 
gay  party  bound  to  the  country  town  to  make  purcha- 
ses of  silk  and  satin,  and  shut  herself  up,  a  prey  to 
mortified  low  spirits.  The  character  required  a  smart 
village  dress,  and  it  certainly  did  not  seem  that  it  could 
come  out  of  a  shilling.  She  sat  at  her  window,  biting 
her  lips,  and  turning  over  in  her  mind  whether  she 
could  borrow  of  some  one,  when  her  attention  was  at- 
tracted to  a  carpenter,  who  was  employed  in  the  con- 
struction of  a  stage  in  the  large  hall,  and  who,  in  the 
court  below,  was  turning  off  from  his  plane  broad  and 
long  shavings  of  a  peculiarly  striped  wood.  It  struck 
her  that  it  was  like  riband.  The  next  moment  she 
was  below,  and  begged  of  the  man  to  give  her  half-a- 
dozen  lengths  as  smooth  as  he  could  shave  them.  He 
performed  his  task  well,  and  depositing  them  in  her 
apartment,  she  set  off  alone  on  horseback  to  the  vil- 
I  lage,  and  with  her  single  shilling  succeeded  in  pur- 
chasing a  chip  hat  of  frhe  coarsest  fabric.  She  carried 
it  home,  exultingly,  trimmed  it  with  her  pine  shavings, 
and  on  the  evening  of  the  performance  appeared  with 
a  white  dress,  and  hat  and  belt-ribands  which  were 
the  envy  of  the  audience.  The  success  of  her  inven- 
tion gave  her  spirits  and  assurance,  and  she  played  to 
admiration.  The  sequel  will  justify  my  first  remark. 
She  made  a  conquest  on  that  night  of  one  of  her  titled 
auditors,  whom  she  afterward  married.  You  will  al- 
low that  Lady may  afford  to  be  tolerant  of  car- 
penters." 

An  eminent  clergyman  one  evening  became  the  sub- 
ject of  conversation,  and  a  wonder  was  expressed  that 
he  had  never  married.  "That  wonder,"  said  Miss 
P ,  "  was  once  expressed  to  the  reverend  gentle- 
man himself  in  my  hearing,  and  he  told  a  story  in  an- 
swer which  1  will  tell  you — and  perhaps,  slight  as  it 
may  seem,  it  is  the  history  of  other  hearts  as  sensitive 
and  delicate  as  his  own.  Soon  after  his  ordination, 
he  preached  once  every  Sabbath,  for  a  clergyman  in 
a  small  village  not  twenty  miles  from  London.  Among 
his  auditors,  from  Sunday  to  Sunday,  he  observed  a 
young  lady,  who  always  occupied  a  certain  seat,  and 
whose  close  attention  began  insensibly  to  grow  to  him 
an  object  of  thought  and  pleasure.  She  left  the 
church  as  soon  as  service  was  over,  and  it  so  chanced 
that  he  went  on  for  a  year  without  knowing  her  name; 
but  his  sermon  was  never  written  without  many  a 
thought  how  she  would  approve  it,  nor  preached  with 
satisfaction  unless  he  read  approbation  in  her  face. 
Gradually  he  came  to  think  of  her  at  other  times  than 
when  writing  sermons,  and  to  wish  to  see  her  on  other 
days  than  Sundays  ;  but  the  weeks  slipped  on,  and 
though  he  fancied  she  grew  paler  and  thinner,  he 
never  brought  himself  to  the  resolution  either  to  ask 
her  name  or  to  seek  to  speak  with  her.  By  these 
silent  steps,  however,  love  had  worked  into  his  heart, 
and  he  had  made  up  his  mind  to  seek  her  acquaint- 
ance and  marry  her,  if  possible,  when  one  day  he  was 
sent  for  to  minister  at  a  funeral.  The  face  of  the 
corpse  was  the  same  that  had  looked  up  to  him  Sun- 
day after  Sunday,  till  he  had  learned  to  make  it  a  part 
of  his  religion  and  his  life.  He  was  unable  to  perform 
the  service,  and  another  clergyman  present  officiated  ; 
and  after  she  was  buried,  her  father  took  him  aside  and 
begged  his  pardon  for  giving  him  pain — but  he  could 
not  resist  the  impulse  to  tell  him  that  his  daughter 
had  mentioned  his  name  with  her  last  breath,  and  he 
was  afraid  that  a  concealed  affection  for  him  had  hur 


538 


PASSAGES  FROM  AN  EPISTOLARY  JOURNAL. 


ried  her  to  the  grave.  Since  that,  said  the  clergyman 
in  question,  my  heart  has  been  dead  within  me,  and  I 
Iooa  forward  only.     I  shall  speak  to  her  in  heaven." 

London  is  wonderfully  embellished  within  the  last 
three  years — not  so  much  by  new  buildings,  public  or 
private,  but  by  the  almost  insane  rivalry  that  exists 
among  the  tradesmen  to  outsbow  each  other  in  the  ex- 
pensive magnificence  of  their  shops.  When  I  was  in 
England  before,  there  were  two  or  three  of  these  pal- 
aces of  columns  and  plate-glass — a  couple  of  shawl- 
shops,  and  a  glass  warehouse  or  two,  but  now  the 
west  end  and  the  city  have  each  their  scores  of  estab- 
lishments of  which  you  would  think  the  plate-glass 
alone  would  ruin  anybody  but  Aladdin.  After  an  ab- 
sence of  a  month  from  town  lately,  I  gave  myself  the 
always  delightful  treat  of  an  after-dinner  ramble  among 
the  illuminated  palaces  of  Regent  street  and  its  neigh- 
borhood, and  to  my  surprise,  found  four  new  wonders 
of  this  description — a  shawl-house  in  the  upper  Re- 
gent Circus,  a  silk-mercer's  in  Oxford  street,  a  whip- 
maker's  in  Regent  street,  and  a  fancy  stationer's  in  the 
Quadrant — either  of  which  establishments  fifty  years 
ago  would  have  been  the  talk  of  all  Europe.  The 
first-mentioned  warehouse  lines  one  of  the  quarters  of 
the  Regent  Circus,  and  turns  the  corner  of  Oxford 
street  with  what  seems  but  one  window — a  series  of 
glass  plates,  only  divided  by  brass  rods,  reaching  from 
the  ground  to  the  roof — window-panes  twelve  feet  high, 
and  four  or  five  feet  broad!  The  opportunity  which 
this  immense  transparency  of  front  gives  for  the  dis- 
play of  goods  is  proportionately  improved  ;  and  in  the 
mixture  of  colors  and  fabrics  to  attract  attention  there 
is  evidently  no  small  degree  of  art — so  harmonious  are 
the  colors  and  yet  so  gorgeous  the  show.  I  see  that 
several  more  renovations  are  taking  pkice  in  different 
parts  of  both  "  city"  and  "  town  ;"  and  London  prom- 
ises, somewhere  in  the  next  decimals,  to  complete  its 
emergence  from  the  chrysalis  with  a  glory  to  which 
eastern  tales  will  be  very  gingerbread  matters  indeed. 

If  I  may  judge  by  my  own  experience  and  by  what 
I  can  see  in  the  streets,  all  this  night-splendor  out  of 
doors  empties  the  play-houses — for  I  would  rather 
walk  Regent  street  of  an  evening  than  see  ninety-nine 
plays  in  a  hundred  ;  and  so  think,  apparently,  multi- 
tudes of  people,  who  stroll  up  and  down  the  clean  and 
broad  London  sidewalks,  gazing  in  at  the  gorgeous 
succession  of  shop-windows,  and  by  the  day-bright 
glare  of  the  illumination  exchanging  nods  and  smiles 
— the  street,  indeed,  becoming  gradually  a  fashionable 
evening  promenade,  as  cheap  as  it  is  amusing  and  de- 
lightful. There  are  large  classes  of  society,  who  find 
the  evenings  long  in  their  dingy  and  inconvenient 
homes,  and  who  must  go  somewhere ;  and  while  the 
streets  were  dark,  and  poorly  paved  and  lighted,  the 
play-house  was  the  only  resort  where  they  could  be- 
guile their  cares  with  splendor  and  amusement,  and 
in  those  days  theatricals  flourished,  as  in  these  days 
'  of  improved  thoroughfares  and  gay  shops  they  evi- 
dently languish.  I  will  lend  a  hint  to  the  next  essay- 
ist on  the  "  Decline  of  the  Drama." 

The  increased  attractiveness  of  London,  from  thus 
disclosing  the  secrets  of  its  wondrous  wealth,  compen- 
sates in  a  degree  for  what  increases  as  rapidly  on  me 
— the  distastefulness  of  the  country,  from  the  forbid- 
ding and  repulsive  exclusiveness  of  high  garden-walls, 
impermeable  shrubberies,  and  every  sort  of  contrivance 
for  confining  the  traveller  to  the  road,  and  nothing  but 
the  road.  What  should  we  say  in  America  to  travel- 
ling miles  between  two  brick  walls,  with  no  prospect 
but  the  branches  of  overhanging  trees  from  the  invis- 
ible park  lands  on  either  side,  and  the  alley  of  cloudy 
sky  overhead ?  How  tantalizing  to  pass  daily  by  a 
noble  estate  with  a  fine  specimen  of  architecture  in  its 
centre,  and  see  no  more  of  it  than  a  rustic  lodge  and 
some  miles  of  the  tops  of  trees  over  a  paling  !     All 


this  to  me  is  oppressive — I  feel  abridged  of  breathing- 
room  and  eyesight — deprived  of  my  liberty — robbed 
of  my  horizon  Much  as  I  admire  high  preservation 
and  cultivation,  I  would  compromise  for  a  "  snake- 
fence"  all  over  England. 

On  a  visit  to  a  friend  a  week  or  two  since  in  the 
neighborhood  of  London,  I  chanced,  during  a  long 
walk,  to  get  a  glimpse  over  the  wall  of  a  nicely-grav- 
elled and  secluded  path,  which  commanded  what  the 
proprietor's  fence  enviously  shut  from  the  road — a 
noble  view  of  London  and  the  Thames.  Accustomed 
to  see  people  traversing  my  own  lawn  and  fields  in 
America  without  question,  as  suits  their  purpose,  and 
tired  of  the  bricks,  hedges  and  placards  of  blacking 
and  pills,  I  jumped  the  fence,  and  with  feelings  of 
great  relief  and  expansion  aired  my  eyes  and  my  im- 
agination in  the  beautiful  grounds  of  my  friend's  op- 
ulent neighbor.  The  Thames  with  its  innumerable 
steamers,  men-of-war,  yachts,  wherries,  and  ships — a 
vein  of  commercial  and  maritime  life  lying  between  the 
soft  green  meadows  of  Kent  and  Essex — formed  a  de- 
licious picture  of  contrast  and  meaning  beauty,  which 
I  gazed  upon  with  great  delight  for — some  ten  minutes. 

!  In  about  that  time   I  was  perceived  by  Mr.  B 's 

gardener,  who,  with  a  very  pokerish-looking  stick  in 

i  his  hand,  came  running  toward  me,  evidently,  by  his 

;  pace,  prepared  for  a  vigorous  pursuit  of  the  audacious 

;  intruder.     He  came  up  to  where  I  stood,  quite  out  of 

breath,  and  demanded,  with  a  tight  grasp  of  his  stick, 

what  business  I  had  there.     I  was  not  very  well  pre- 

f  pared  with  an  answer,  and  short  of  beating  the   man 

for  his  impudence  (which  in  several  ways  might  have 

;  been  a  losing  job),  I  did  not  see  my  way  very  clearly 

j  out  of  Mr.  B 's  grounds.     My  first  intention,  to 

j  call  on  the  proprietor  and  apologise  for  my  intrusion 
while  I  complained  of  the  man's  insolence,  was  defeat- 
ed   by    the   information,  evidently  correct,   that   Mr. 

B was  not  resident  at  the  place,  and  so  I  was  walk- 

J  ed  out  of  the  lodge-gate  with  a  vagabond's  warning — • 
j  never  to  let  him  "  catch  me  there  again  !"  So  much 
|  for  my  liberal  translation  of  a  park-fence! 

This  spirit  of  exclusion  makes  itself  even  more  dis- 
agreeably felt  where  a  gentleman's  paling  chances  to 
include  any  natural  curiosity.  One  of  the  wildest,  as 
well  as  most  exquisitely  beautiful  spots  on  earth,  is 
the  Dargle,  in  the  county  Wicklow,  in  Ireland.  It  is 
interesting,  besides,  as  belonging  to  the  estate  of  the 
orator  and  patriot  Grattan.  To  get  to  it,  we  were  let 
through  a  gate  by  an  old  man,  who  received  a 
douceur ;  we  crossed  a  newly-reaped  field,  and  came 
to  another  gate;  another  person  opened  this,  and  we 
paid  another  shilling.  We  walked  on  toward  the 
glen,  and  in  the  middle  of  the  path,  without  any  ob- 
ject apparently  but  the  loll,  there  was  another  locked 
gate,  and  another  porter  to  pay ;  and  when  we  made 
our  exit  from  the  opposite  extremity  of  the  grounds, 
after  seeing  the  Dargle,  there  was  a  fourth  gate  and  a 
fourth  porter.  The  first  field  and  fee  belonged,  if  I 
remember  rightly,  to  a  Captain  Somebody,  but  the 
other  three  gates  belong  to  the  present  Mr.  Grattan, 
who  is  very  welcome  to  my  three  shillings,  either  as 
a  tribute  to  his  father's  memory,  or  to  the  beauty  of 
Tinnehinch  and  the  Dargle.  But  on  whichever 
ground  he  pockets  it,  the  mode  of  assessment  is,  to  say 
the  least,  ungracious.  Without  subjecting  myself 
to  the  charge  of  a  mercenary  feeling,  I  think  1  may 
say  that  the  enthusiasm  for  natural  scenery  is  very 
much  clipped  and  belittled  by  seeing  it  at  a  shilling 
the  perch — paying  the  money  and  taking  the  look.  I 
should  think  no  sum  lost  which  was  expended  in 
bringing  me  to  so  romantic  a  glen  as  the  Dargle ;  but 
it  should  be  levied  somewhere  else  than  within  sound 
of  its  wild  waterfall — somewhere  else  than  midway 
between  the  waterfall  and  the  fine  mansion  of  Tin- 
nehinch. 


PASSAGES  FROM  AN  EPISTOLARY  JOURNAL. 


539 


The  fish  most  "out  of  water"  in  the  world  is  cer- 
tainly a  Frenchman  in  England  without  acquaint- 
ances. The  illness  of  a  friend  has  lately  occasioned 
me  one  or  two  hasty  visits  to  Brighton;  and  being 
abandoned  on  the  first  evening  to  the  solitary  mercies 
of  the  coffee-room  of  the  hotel,  I  amused  myself  not 
a  little  with  watching  the  ennui  of  one  of  these  unfor- 
tunate foreigners,  who  was  evidently  there  simply  to 
qualify  himself  to  say  that  he  had  been  at  Brighton 
in  the  season.  I  arrived  late,  and  was  dining  by  my- 
self at  one  of  the  small  tables,  when,  without  looking 
up,  I  became  aware  that  some  one  at  the  other  end  of 
the  room  was  watching  me  very  steadily.  The  place 
was  as  silent  as  coffee-rooms  usually  are  after  the 
dinner-hour,  the  rustling  of  newspapers  the  only  sound 
that  disturbed  the  digestion  of  the  eight  or  ten  per- 
sons present,  when  the  unmistakeable  call  of"  Vaitare !" 
informed  me  that  if  I  looked  up  1  should  encounter 
the  eyes  of  a  Frenchman.  The  waiter  entered  at  the 
call,  and  after  a  considerable  parley  with  my  opposite 
neighbor,  came  over  to  me  and  said  in  rather  an 
apologetic  tone,  "  Beg  pardon,  sir,  but  the  shevaleer 
wishes  to  know  if  your  name  is  Coopair.,f  Not  very 
much  inclined,  fatigued  as  I  was,  for  a  conversation 
in  French,  which  I  saw  would  be  the  result  of  a  polite 
answer  to  his  question,  I  merely  shook  my  head,  and 
took  up  the  newspaper.  The  Frenchman  drew  a  long 
sigh,  poured  out  his  last  glass  of  claret,  and  crossing 
his  thumbs  on  the  edge  of  the  table,  fell  into  a  pro- 
found study  of  the  grain  of  the  mahogany. 

What  with  dawdling  over  coffee  and  tea  and  reading 
half-a-dozen  newspapers,  I  whiled  away  the  time  till 
ten  o'clock,  pitying  occasionally  the  unhappy  chevalier, 
who  exhibited  every  symptom  of  a  person  bored  to 
the  last  extremity.  One  person  after  another  called 
for  a  bed-room  candle,  and  exit  finally  the  French- 
man himself,  making  me,  however,  a  most  courteous 
bow  as  he  passed  out.  There  were  two  gentlemen 
left  in  the  room,  one  a  tall  and  thin  old  man  of  seventy, 
the  other  a  short  portly  gentleman  of  fifty  or  there- 
abouts, both  quite  bald.  They  rose  together  and 
came  to  the  fire  near  which  I  was  sitting. 

"That  last  man  who  went  out  calls  himself  a  cheva- 
lier," said  the  thin  gentleman. 

"Yes,"  said  his  stout  friend — "he  took  me  for  a 
Mr.  Cooper  he  had  travelled  with." 

"  The  deuce  he  did,"  said  the  other — "  why  he 
took  me  for  a  Mr.  Cooper,  too,  and  we  are  not  very 
much  alike." 

"  I  beg  pardon,  gentlemen,"  said  I — "he  took  me 
for  this  Mr.  Cooper  too." 

The  Frenchman's  ruse  was  discovered.  It  was  in- 
stead of  a  snuff-box — a  way  he  had  of  making  ac- 
quaintance. We  had  a  good  laugh  at  our  triple  re- 
semblance (three  men  more  unlike  it  would  be  diffi- 
cult to  find),  and  bidding  the  two  Messrs.  Cooper 
good  night,  I  followed  the  ingenious  chevalier  up 
stairs. 

The  next  morning  I  came  down  rather  late  to  break- 
fast, and  found  my  friend  chipping  his  egg-shells  to 
pieces  at  the  table  next  to  the  one  I  had  occupied  the 
night  before.  He  rose  immediately  with  a  look  of 
radiant  relief  in  his  countenance,  made  a  most  elabo- 
rate apology  for  having  taken  me  for  Mr.  Cooper 
(whom  I  was  so  like,  cependant,  that  we  should  be 
mistaken  for  each  other  by  our  nearest  friends),  and 
in  a  few  minutes,  Mr.  Cooper  himself,  if  he  had  en- 
tered by  chance,  would  have  returned  the  compliment, 
and  taken  me  for  the  chevalier's  most  intimate  friend 
and  fellow-traveller. 

1  remained  three  or  four  days  at  Brighton,  and 
never  discovered  in  that  time  that  the  chevalier's  ruse 
succeeded  with  any  other  person.  I  was  his  only 
successful  resemblance  to  "  Monsieur  Coopair."  He 
always  waited  breakfast  for  me  in  the  coffee-room, 
and  when  I  called  for  my  bill  on  the  last  morning,  he 


dropped  his  knife  and  asked  if  I  was  going  to  London 
— and  at  what  hour — and  if  I  would  be  so  obliging  as 
to  take  a  place  for  him  in  the  same  coach. 

It  was  a  remarkably  fine  day  ;   and  with  my  friend 

j  by  my  side  outside  of  "  the  Age,"  we  sped  on  toward 
London,  the  sun  getting;  dimmer  and  dimmer,  and  the 
fog  thicker  and  more  chilly  at  every  mile  farther  from 

i  the  sea.     It  was  a  trying  atmosphere  for  the  best  of 

;  spirits — let  alone  the  ever-depressed  bosom  of  a  stran- 
ger in  England.  The  coach  stopped  at  the  Elephant 
and  Castle,  and  I  ordered  down  my  baggage,  and  in- 
formed my  friend,  for  the  first  time,  that  I  was  bound 
j  to  a  country-house  six  miles  from  town.  I  scarce 
know  how  I  had  escaped  telling  him  of  it  before,  but 
;j  his  "impossible  mon  ami!"  was  said  in  a  tone  and 
accompanied  with  a  look  of  the  most  complete  sur- 

i  prise  and  despair.     I  was  evidently  his  only  hope  in 

:  London. 

I  went  up  to  town  a  day  or  two  after ;  and  in  ma- 
king my  way  to  Paternoster  Row,  I  saw  my  friend  on 
the  opposite  side  of  the  strand,  with  his  hands  thrust 
up  to  the  wrists  in  the  pockets  of  his  "Taglioni,"  and 
his  hat  jammed  down  over  his  eyes,  looking  into  the 
shop  windows  without  much  distinction  between  the 
trunkmaker's  and  the  printsellers — evidently  miser- 
able beyond  being  amused  at  anything.  I  was  too 
much  in  a  hurry  to  cross  over  and  resume  my  office 
of  escape-valve  to  his  ennui,  and  I  soon  outwalked  his 
slow  pace,  and  lost  sight  of  him.     Whatever  title  he 

I  had  to  the  "chevalier"  (and  he  was  decidedly  too 
deficient   in   address   to   belong  to   the   order  "d'in- 

i  dustrie"),  he  had  no  letter  of  recommendation  in  his 
;  personal  appearance,  and  as  little  the  air  of  even  a 
!  Frenchman  of  "quality"  as  any  man  I  ever  saw  in 
i  the  station  of  a  gentleman.  He  is,  in  short,  the  per- 
I  son  who  would  first  occur  to  me  if  I  were  to  see  a 
paragraph  in  the  times  headed  "suicide  by  a  for- 
jj  eigner." 

Revenons  un  peu.  Brighton  at  this  season  (Novem- 
j!  ber)  enjoys  a  climate,  which,  as  a  change  from  the 
heavy  air  in  the  neighborhood  of  London,  is  extremely 
exhilarating  and  agreeable.  Though  the  first  day  of 
my  arrival  was  rainy,  a  walk  up  the  west  cliff  gave  me  a 
feeling  of  elasticity  and  lightness  of  spirits,  of  which  I 
was  beginning  to  forget  the  very  existence,  in  the 
eternal  fogs  of  the  six  months  I  had  passed  inland. 
I  do  not  wonder  at  the  passion  of  the  English  for 
Brighton.  It  is,  in  addition  to  the  excellence  of  the 
air,  both  a  magnificent  city  and  the  most  advantageous 
ground  for  the  discomfiture  of  the  common  enemy, 
"  winter  and  rough  weather."  The  miles  of  broad 
gravel-walk  just  out  of  reach  of  the  surf  of  the  sea,  so 
hard  and  so  smoothly  rolled  that  they  are  dry  in  five 
minutes  after  the  rain  has  ceased  to  fall,  are  alone  no 
small  item  in  the  comfort  of  a  town  of  professed  idlers 
and  invalids.  I  was  never  tired  of  sauntering  along 
this  smooth  promenade  so  close  to  the  sea.  The 
beautiful  children,  who  throng  the  walks  in  almost  all 
weathers  (and  what  children  on  earth  are  half  as 
beautiful  as  English  children?)  were  to  me  a  constant 
source  of  pleasure  and  amusement.     Tire  of  this,  and 

II  by  crossing  the  street  you  meet  a  transfer  of  the  gay 
throngs  of  Regent  street  and  Hyde  Park,  with  splen- 
did shops  and  all  the  features  of  a  metropolis,  while 
midway  between  the  sea  and  this  crowded  sidewalk 
pours  a  tide  of  handsome  equipages,  parties  on  horse- 
back, and  vehicles  of  every  description,  all  subservient 
to  exercise  and  pleasure. 

My  first  visit  to  Brighton  was  made  in  a  very  cold 
day  in  summer,  and  I  saw  it  through  most  unfavorable 
spectacles.  But  1  should  think  that  along  the  cliffs, 
where  there  are  no  trees  or  vendure  to  be  seen,  there 
is  very  little  apparent  difference  between  summer  and 
winter;  and  coming  here  with  the  additional  clothing 
of  a  severer  season,  the  temperature  of  the  elastic  and 
saline  air  is  not  even  chilly.     The  most  delicate  chil- 


540 


PASSAGES  FROxM  AN  EPISTOLARY  JOURNAL. 


dren  play  upon  the  Beach  in  days  when  there  is  no 
sunshine;  and  invalids,  wheeled  out  in  these  conve- 
nient bath  chairs,  sit  for  hours  by  the  seaside,  watch- 
ing the  coming  and  retreating  oi"  the  waves,  apparently 
without  any  sensation  of  cold — and  this  in  December. 
In  America  (in  the  same  latitudes  with  Leghorn  and 
Venice),  an  invalid  sitting  out  of  doors  at  this  season 
would  freeze  to  death  in  half  an  hour.  Yet  it  was  as 
cold  in  August,  in  England,  as  it  has  been  in  Novem- 
ber, and  it  is  this  temperate  evenness  of  the  weather 
throughout  ihe  year  which  makes  English  climate, 
on  the  whole,  perhaps  the  healthiest  in  the  world. 

In  the  few  days  I  was  at  Brighton,  I  became  very  | 
fond  of  the  perpetual  ioud  beat  of  the  sea  upon  the 
shore.     Whether,  like  the  "  music  of  the  spheres,"  i 
it  becomes  at  last  "  too  constant  to  be  heard,"  I  did  [ 
not  ask — but  I  never  lost  the  consciousness  of  it  ex-  , 
cept  when  engaged  in  conversation,  and   I  found  it 
company  to  my  thoughts  when  I   dined  or  walked 
alone,  and  a  most  agreeable  lullaby  at  night.     This  j 
majestic  monotone   is  audible  all  over  Brighton,  in- 
doors and  out,   and  nothing  overpowers  it   but   the 
wind  in  a  storm  ;  it  is  even  then  only  by  fits,  and  the 
alternation  of  the  hissing  and  moaning  of  the  blast 
with  the  broken  and  heavy  plash  of  the  waters,  is  so  ' 
like  the  sound  of  a  tempest  at  sea  (the  whistling  in  the 
rigging,  and  the  burst  of  the  waves),  that  those  who  j 
have  beeD  at  Brighton  in  rough  weather  have  realized 
all  of  a  storm  at  sea  but  the  motion  and  the  sea-sick- 
ness— rather  a  large  but  not  an  undesirable  diminution  , 
of  experience. 

Calling  on  a  friend  at  Brighton,  I  was  introduced 
casually  to  a  Mr.  Smith.     The  name,  of  course,  did 
not  awaken  any  immediate  curiosity,  but   a  second 
look  at  the  gentleman  did — for  I  thought  1  had  never  j 
seen  a  more   intellectual   or   finer   head.     A   fifteen  j 
minutes'  conversation,  which  touched  upon  nothing 
that  could  give  me  a  clue  to  his  profession,  still  satis- 
fied me  that  so  distinguished  an  address,  and  so  keen 
an  eye,  could  belong  to  no  nameless  person,  and  I  was  ! 
scarcely  surprised  when  I  read  upon  his  card  at  part- 
ing— Horace  Smith.     I  need  not  say  it  was  a  very 
great  pleasure  to  meet  him.     I   was  delighted,  too, 
that  the  author  of  books  we  love  as  much  as  "  Zillah," 
and  "  Brambletye-House,"  looks  unlike  other  men. 
It  gratifies  somehow  a  personal  feeling — as  if  those  j 
who  had  won  so  much  admiration  from  us  should,  for  j 
our  pride's  sake,  wear  the  undeniable  stamp  of  supe-  I 
riority — as  if  we  had  acquired  a  property  in  him  by  I 
loving  him.     How  natural  it  is,  when  we  have  talked  i 
and  thought  a  great  deal  about  an  author,  to  call  him  ! 
"ours."     "What  Smith?     Why  our  Smith — Horace 
Smith" — is  as  common  a  dialogue  between  persons 
who  never  saw  him  as  it  is  among  his  personal  friends. 

These  two  ren.arkable  brothers,  James  and  Horace 
Smith,  are  both  gifted  with  exteriors  such  as  are  not 
often  possessed  with  genius — yet  only  James  is  so 
fortunate  as  to  have  stumbled  upon  a  good  painter. 
Lonsdale's  portrait  of  James  Smith,  engraved  by 
Cousens,  is  both  the  author  and  the  man — as  fine  a 
picture  of  him,  with  his  mind  seen  through  his  features, 
as  was  ever  done.  But  there  is  an  engraved  picture 
extant  of  the  author  of  Zillah,  that,  though  it  is  no 
likeness  of  the  author,  is  a  detestable  caricature  of  the 
man.  Really  this  is  a  point  about  which  distinguish- 
ed men,  in  justice  to  themselves,  should  take  some 
little  care.  Sir  Thomas  Lawrence's  portraits,  and 
Sir  Joshua  Reynolds's,  are  a  sort  of  biography  of  the 
eminent  men  they  painted.  The  most  enduring 
history,  it  has  been  said,  is  written  in  coins.  Certain- 
ly the  most  effective  biography  is  expressed  in  por- 
traits. Long  after  the  book  and  your  impressions  of 
the  character  of  which  it  treats  have  become  dim  in 
your  memory  your  impression  of  the  features  and 
mien  of  a  hero  or  a  poet,  as  received  from  a  picture, 
remains  indelible.     How  often  does  the  face  belie  the 


biography — making  us  think  better  or  worse  of  the 
man,  after  forming  an  opinion  from  a  portrait  in  words, 
that  was  either  partial  or  malicious  !  I  am  persuaded 
the  world  would  think  better  of  Shelley,  if  there  were 
a  correct  and  adequate  portrait  of  his  face,  as  it  has 
been  described  to  me  by  one  or  two  who  knew  him. 
How  much  of  the  Byronic  idolatry  is  born  and  fed 
from  the  idealized  pictures  of  him  treasured  in  every 
portfolio  !  Sir  Thomas  Lawrence,  Chalon,  and  Par- 
ris,  have  composed  between  them  a  biography  of  Lady 
Blessington,  that  have  made  her  quite  independent 
of  the  "  memoirs"  of  the  next  century.  And  who,  I 
may  safely  ask,  even  in  America,  has  seen  the  nice, 
cheerful,  sensible,  and  motherly  face  which  prefaces 
the  new  edition  of  "  The  Manners  of  the  American 
Domestics"  (I  beg  pardon  for  giving  the  title  from  my 
Kentucky  copy),  without  liking  Mrs.  Trollope  a  great 
deal  better,  and  at  once  dismissing  all  idea  of  "the 
bazar"  as  a  libel  on  that  most  lady-like  countenance  ? 
*  *  *  *  *  *  * 

1  think  Lady  S had  more  talent  and  distinction 

crowded  into  her  pretty  rooms,  last  night,  than  I  ever 
before  saw  in  such  small  compass.  It  is  a  bijou  of  a 
house,  full  of  gems  of  statuary  and  painting,  but  all 
its  capacity  for  company  lies  in  a  small  drawing-room, 
a  smaller  reception-room,  and  a  very  small,  but  very 
exquisite  boudoir — yet  to  tell  you  who  were  there 
would  read  like  Colburn's  list  of  authors,  added  to  a 
paragraph  of  noble  diners-out  from  the  Morning  Post. 

The  largest  lion  of  the  evening  certainly  was  the 
new  Persian  ambassador,  a  man  six  feet  in  his  slippers; 
a  height  which,  with  his  peaked  calpack,  of  a  foot  and 
a  half,  superadded,  keeps  him  very  much  among  the 
chandeliers.  The  principal  article  of  his  dress  does 
not  diminish  the  effect  of  his  eminence — a  long  white 
shawl  worn  like  a  cloak,  and  completely  enveloping 
him  from  beard  to  toe.  From  the  twisted  shawl 
around  his  waist  glitters  a  dagger's  hilt,  lumped  with 
diamonds — and  diamonds,  in  most  dazzling  profu- 
sion, almost  cover  his  breast.  1  never  saw  so  many 
together  except  in  a  cabinet  of  regalia.  Close  behind 
this  steeple  of  shawl  and  gem,  keeps,  like  a  short 
shadow  when  the  sun  is  high,  his  excellency's  secre- 
tary, a  dwarfishly  small  man,  dressed  also  in  cashmere 
and  calpack,  and  of  a  most  ill-favored  and  bow-stringish 
countenance  and  mien.  The  master  and  man  seem 
chosen  for  contrast,  the  countenance  of  the  ambassa- 
dor expressing  nothing  but  serene  good  nature.  The 
ambassador  talks,  too,  and  the  secretary  is  dumb. 

T H stood  bolt  upright  against  a  mirror- 
door,  looking  like  two  T H s   trying   to  see 

which  was  taller.  The  one  with  his  face  to  me  looked 
like  the  incarnation  of  the  John  Bull  newspaper,  for 
which  expression  he  was  indebted  to  a  very  hearty 
face,  and  a  very  round  subject  for  a  buttoned-up  coat; 

while  the  H with  his  back  to  me  looked  like  an 

author,  for  which  he  was  indebted  to  an  exclusive  view 

of  his  cranium.     I  dare  say  Mr.  H would  agree 

with  me  that  he  was  seen,  on  the  whole,  at  a  most  en- 
viable advantage.  It  is  so  seldom  we  look,  beyond  the 
■man,  at  the  author. 

I  have  rarely  seen  a  greater  contrast  in  person  and 

expression  than  between  H and  B ,  who  stood 

near  him.  Both  were  talking  to  ladies — one  bald, 
burly,  upright,  and  with  a  face  of  immovable  gravity, 
the  other  slight,  with  a  profusion  of  curling  hair,  rest- 
less in  his  movements,  and  of  a  countenance  which 
lights  up  with  a  sudden  inward  illumination.  H— — 's 
partner  in  the  conversation  looked  into  his  face  with  a 
ready-prepared  smile  for  what  he  was  going  to  say, 

B 's  listened  with  an  interest  complete,  but  without 

effort.     H was  suffering  from  what  I  think  is  the 

common  curse  of  a  reputation  for  wit — the  expectation 
of  the  listener  had  outrun  the  performance. 

H B ,  whose  diplomatic  promotion  goes  on 

much  faster  than  can  be  pleasing  to  "  Lady  Qievdty" 


PASSAGES  FROM  AN  EPISTOLARY  JOURNAL. 


541 


has  just  received  his  appointment  to  Paris— the  object 
of  his  first  wishes.  He  stood  near  his  brother,  talking 
to  a  very  beautiful  and  celebrated  woman,  and  I 
thought,  spite  of  her  ladyship's  unflattering  descrip- 
tion, I  had  seldom  seen  a  more  intellectual  face,  or  a 
more  gentlemanly  and  elegant  exterior. 

Late  in  the  evening  came  in  his  royal  highness  the 

duke  of  C -,  and  I  wondered,  as  I  had  done  many 

times  before,  when  in  company  with  one  of  these  royal 
brothers,  at  the  uncomfortable  etiquette  so  laboriously 
observed  toward  them.  Wherever  he  moved  in  the 
crowded  rooms,  everybody  rose  and  stood  silent,  and 
by  giving  way  much  more  than  for  any  one  else,  left 
a  perpetual  circular  space  around  him,  in  which,  of 
course,  his  conversation  had  the  effect  of  a  lecture  to 
a  listeukig  audience.  A  more  embarrassed  manner 
and  a  more  hesitating  mode  of  speech  than  the  duke's, 
I  can  not  conceive.  He  is  evidently  gene  to  the  last 
degree  with  this  burdensome  deference;  and  one 
would  think  that  in  the  society  of  highly-cultivated 
and  aristocratic  persons,  such  as  were  present,  he 
would  be  delighted  to  put  his  highness  into  his  pocket 
when  the  footman  leaves  him  at  the  door,  and  hear  no 
more  of  it  till  he  goes  again  to  his  carriage.  There 
was  great  curiosity  to  know  whether  the  duke  would 
think  it  etiquetical  to  speak  to  the  Persian,  as  in  con- 
sequence of  the  difference  between  the  .shah  and  the 
British  envoy  the  tall  minister  is  not  received  at  the 
court  of  St.  James.  Lady  S— —  introduced  them, 
however,  and  then  the  duke  again  must  have  felt  his 
rank  nothing  less  than  a  nuisance.  It  is  awkward 
enough,  at  any  time,  to  converse  with  a  foreigner  who 
has  not  forty  English  words  in  his  vocabulary,  but 
what  with  the  duke's  hesitating  and  difficult  utterance, 
the  silence  and  attention  of  the  listening  guests,  and 
the  Persian's  deference  and  complete  inability  to  com- 
prehend a  syllable,  the  scene  was  quite  painful. 

There  was  some  of  the  most  exquisite  amateur  sing- 
ing I  ever  heard  after  the  company  thinned  oft*  a  little, 
and  the  fashionable  song  of  the  day  was  sung  by  a 
most  beautiful  woman  in  a  way  to  move  half  the  com- 
pany to  tears.  It  is  called  "Ruth,"  and  is  a  kind  of 
recitative  of  the  passage  in  Scripture,  "  Where  thou 
goest  I  will  go,"  Sec. 

****** 

I  have  driven  in  the  park  several  days,  admiring  the 
queen  on  horseback,  and  observing  the  changes  in  the 
fashions  of  driving,  equipages,  &c,  &c.  Her  majesty 
seems  to  me  to  ride  very  securely  and  fearlessly, 
though  it  is  no  wonder  that  in  a  country  where  every- 
body rides,  there  should  be  bolder  and  better  horse- 
women. Miss  Quentin,  one  of  the  maids  of  honor, 
said  to  be  the  best  female  equestrian  in  England, 
•«  takes  the  courage  out"  of  the  queen's  horse  every 
morning  before  the  ride — so  she  is  secured  against  one 
class  of  accidents.  I  met  the  royal  party  yesterday  in 
full  gallop  near  the  centre  of  Rotten  Row,  and  the  two 
grooms  who  ride  ahead  had  brief  time  to  do  their  work 
of  making  the  crowd  of  carriages  give  way.  On  came 
the  queen  upon  a  dun-colored,  highly-groomed  horse, 
with  her  prime  minister  on  one  side  of  her  and  Lord 
Byron  upon  the  other,  her  cortege  of  maids  of  honor 
and  ladies  and  lords  in  waiting  checking  their  more 
spirited  horses,  and  preserving  always  a  slight  distance 
between  themselves  and  her  majesty.  Victoria's  round 
and  plump  figure  looks  extremely  well  in  her  dark- 
green  riding-dress,  but  I  thought  the  man's  hat  un- 
becoming. Her  profile  is  not  sufficiently  good  for 
that  trying  style,  and  the  cloth  riding-cap  is  so  much 
prettier,  that  I  wonder  she  does  not  remember  that 
"  nice  customs  courtesy  to  great  queens,"  and  wear 
what  suits  her.  She  ro'de  with  her  mouth  open,  and 
looked  exhilarated  with  the  exercise.  Lord  Melbourne, 
it  struck  me,  was  the  only  person  in  her  party  whose 
face  had  not  the  constrained  look  of  consciousness  of 
observation. 


I  observe  that  the  "  crack  men"  ride  without  mar- 
tingals,  and  that  the  best  turnouts  are  driven  without 
a  check-rein.     The  outstretched  neck  which  is  the 
consequence,  has  a  sort  of  Arab  or  blood  look,  proba- 
;  bly  the  object  of  the  change;  but  the  drooping  head 
when  the  horse  is  walking  or  standing  seems  to   me 
ugly  and  out  of  taste.     All  the  new  carriages  are  built 
|  near  the   ground.     The  low  park-phaeton,  light,  as  a 
j  child's  plaything,  and  drawn  by  a  pair  of  ponies,  is  the 
j  fashionable  equipage.     I  saw  the  prettiest  thing  con- 
!  ceivable   of  this  kind  yesterday  in   the  park — a  lady 
driving  a  pair  of  small  cream-colored   horses  of  great 
beauty,  with  her  two  children  in  the  phaeton,  and  two 
grooms    behind   mounted   on   cream-colored    saddle- 
horses,  all  four  of  the  animals  of  the  finest  shape  and 
action.     The  new  street  cabs  (precisely  the  old-fash- 
ioned sedan-chair  suspended  between  four  wheels,  a 
foot  from  the  ground)  are  imitated  by  private  carriages, 
and  driven  with  two  horses — ugly  enough.     The  cab- 
phaeton,  is  in   great  fashion,  with  either  one  or  two 
horses.     The  race  of  ponies  is  greatly  improved  since 
I  was  in   England.     They  are  as  well-shaped   as  the 
[  large  horse,  with  very  fine  coats  and  great  spirit.     The 
'  children  of  the  nobility  go  scampering  through  the 
!  park  upon   them,  looking  like  horsemen  and  horse- 
women seen  through  a  reversed  opera-glass.     They 
;  are  scarce  larger  than  a  Newfoundland  dog,  but  they 
patter  along  with  great  speed.     There  is  one  fine  lad 
of  about  eight  years,  whose  parents  seem  to  have  very 
little  care  for  his  neck,  and  who,  upon  a  fleet,  milk- 
white,  long-tailed  pony,  is  seen  daily  riding  at  a  rate 
:  of  twelve  miles  an  hour  through  the  most  crowded 
streets,  with  a  servant  on  a  tall  horse  plying  whip  and 
spur  to  keep  up  with  him.     The  whole  system  has  the 
droll  effect  of  a  mixture  of  Lilliput  and  Brobdignag. 

We  met  the  king  of  Oude  a  few  days  since  at  a  party, 
and  were  honored  by  an  invitation  to  dine  with  his 
majesty  at  his  house  in  the  Regent's  park.  Yester- 
day was  the  appointed  day  ;  and  with  the  pleasant  an- 
ticipation of  an  oriental  feast,  we  drove  up  at  seven, 
and  were  received  by  his  turbaned  ayahs,  who  took 
shawl  and  hat  with  a  reverential  salaam,  and  introduced 
us  to  the  large  drawing-room  overlooking  the  park. 
The  king  was  not  yet  down;  but  in  the  corner  sat 
three  parsees  or  fire-worshippers,  guests  like  ourselves, 
who  in  their  long  white  linen  robes,  bronze  faces,  and 
high  caps,  looked  like  anything  but  "  diners-out"  iu 
London.  To  our  surprise  they  addressed  us  in  ex- 
I  cellent  English,  and  we  were  told  afterward  that  they 
I  were  all  learned  men — facts  not  put  down  to  the  credit 
of  the  Ghebirs  in  Lalla  Rookh. 

We  were   called  out  upon  the  balcony  to  look  at  a 
i  balloon  that  was  hovering  over  the  park,  and  on  step- 
!  ping  back  into  the  drawing-room,  we  found  the  com- 
pany all  assembled,  and  our  royal  host  alone  wanting. 
There  were  sixteen  English  ladies  present,  and   five 
white  gentlemen   beside  myself.     The  Orient,   how- 
!  ever,  was  well  represented.     In   a  corner,  leaning  si- 
lently against  a  table,  stood  Prince  Hussein  Mirza,  the 
king's  cousin,  and  a  more  romantic   and  captivating 
specimen   of  Hindoo   beauty  could   scarcely   be   im- 
agined.    He  was  slender,  tall,  and  of  the  clearest  olive 
complexion,   his   night-black    hair    falling    over   his 
shoulders  in  profusion,  and  his   large  antelope  eyes 
fixed  with  calm  and  lustrous  surprise  upon  the  half- 
denuded  forms  sitting   in  a  circle  before  him.     We 
heard  afterward  that  he  has  conceived  a  most  uncon- 
trollable   and  unhappy  passion   for  a  high-born   and 
I  beautiful  English  girl  whom  he  met  in  society,  and 
j  that  it  is  with  difficulty  he  is  persuaded  to  come  out 
of  his  room.     His  dress  was  of  shawls  most  gracefully 
draped  about  him,  and  a  cap  of  gold  cloth  was  thrown 
carelessly  on  the  side  of  his  head.     Altogether  he  was 
like  a  picture  of  the  imagination. 

A  middle-aged  stout  man,  ashy  black,  with  Grecian 


542 


PASSAGES  FROM  AN  EPISTOLARY  JOURNAL. 


features,  and  a  most  determined  and  dignified  expres- 
sion of  mouth,  sat  between  Lady and  Miss  Por- 
ter, and  this  was  the  waked  or  ambassador  of  the 
prince  of  Sutara,  by  name  Afzul  Ali.  He  is  in  Eng- 
land on  business  for  his  master,  and  if  he  does  not  suc- 
ceed it  will  be  no  fault  of  his  under  lip.  His  secretary, 
Keeram  Ali,  stood  behind  him — the  wakeel  dressed  in 
shawls  of  bright  scarlet,  with  a  white  cashmere  turban,  j 
and  the  scribe  in  darker  stuffs  of  the  same  fashion. 
Then  there  was  the  king's  physician,  a  short,  wiry, 
merry-looking,  quick-eyed  Hindoo,  with  a  sort  of  quiz- 
zical angle  in  the  pose  of  his  turban:  the  high-priest, 
also  a  most  merry-looking  Oriental,  and  Ali  Acbar,  a 
Persian  attache.     I  think  these  were  all  the  Asiatics. 

The  king  entered  in  a  few  minutes,  and  made  the 
circuit  of  the  room,  shaking  hands  most  cordially  with 
all  his  guests.  He  is  a  very  royal-looking  person  in- 
deed. Perhaps  you  might  call  him  too  corpulent,  if 
his  fine  height  (a  little  over  six  feet),  and  very  fine 
proportions,  did  not  give  his  large  size  a  character  of  j 
majesty.  His  chest  is  full  and  round,  and  his  walk  | 
erect  and  full  of  dignity.  He  has  the  Italian  olive  j 
complexion,  with  straight  hair,  and  my  own  remark  at 
first  seeing  him  was  that  of  many  others,  "How  like 
a  bronze  cast  of  Napoleon  !"  The  subsequent  study 
of  his  features  remove  this  impression,  however,  for 
he  is  a  most  "  merry  monarch,"  and  is  seldom  seen 
without  a  smile.  His  dress  was  a  mixture  of  oriental 
and  English  fashions — a  pair  of  baggy  blue  pantaloons, 
bound  around  the  waist  with  a  rich  shawl,  a  splendid 
scarlet  waistcoat  buttoned  close  over  his  spacious 
chest,  and  a  robe  of  very  fine  snuff-colored  cloth  some- 
thing like  a  loose  dressing-gown  without  a  collar.  A 
cap  of  silver  cloth,  and  a  brilliant  blue  satin  cravat 
completed  his  costume,  unless  in  his  covering  should 
be  reckoned  an  enormous  turquoise  ring,  which  al- 
most entirely  concealed  one  of  his  fingers. 

Ekbal-ood-Doivlah,  Nawaub  of  Oude  (his  name  and 
title),  is  at  present  appealing  to  the  English  against 
his  uncle,  who  usurps  his  throne  by  the  aid  and  counte- 
nance of  the  East  India  company.  The  Mohamme- 
dan law,  as  I  understand,  empowers  a  king  to  choose 
his  successor  from  his  children  without  reference 
to  primogeniture,  and  the  usurper,  though  an  elder 
brother,  having  been  imbecile  from  his  youth,  Ekbal's 
father  was  selected  by  the  then  king  of  Oude  to  suc- 
ceed him.  The  question  having  been  referred  to 
Lord  AYellesley,  however,  then  governor  of  India,  he 
decided  that  the  English  law  of  primogeniture  should 
prevail,  or  in  other  words  (as  the  king's  friends  say) 
preferred  to  have  for  the  king  of  a  subject  province  an 
imbecile  who  would  give  him  no  trouble.  So  slipped 
from  the  Nawaub's  hands  a  pretty  kingdom  of  six 
millions  of  faithful  Mohammedans  !  I  believe  this  is 
the  "short"  of  the  story.  I  wonder  (we  are  reproach- 
ed so  very  often  by  the  English  for  our  treatment  of 
the  Indians)  whether  a  counter-chapter  of  "  expedient 
wrong"  might  not  be  made  out  from  the  history  of  the 
Indians  under  British  government  in  the  east  ? 

Dinner  was  announced  with  a  Hindostanee  salaam, 

and  the  king  gave  his  arm  to  Lady .     The  rest 

of  us  "stood  not  upon  the  order  of  our  going,"  and 
I  found  myself  seated  at  table  between  my  wife  and  a 
Polish  countess,  some  half  dozen  removes  from  the 
Nawaub's  right  hand.  His  highnesscommenced  help- 
ing those  about  him  most  plentifully  from  a  large 
pillau,  talking  all  the  while  most  merrily  in  broken 
English,  or  resorting  to  Hindostanee  and  his  inter- 
preter whenever  his  tongue  got  into  trouble.  With 
the  exception  of  one  or  two  English  joints,  all  the 
dishes  were  prepared  with  rice  or  saffron,  and  (wine 
being  forbidden  by  the  Mahommedan  law)  iced  water 
was  served  round  from  Indian  coolers  freely.  For 
one,  I  would  have  compounded  for  a  bottle  of  wine 
by  taking  the  sin  of  the  entire  party  on  my  soul,  for, 
what  with  the*exhaustion  of  a  long  London  day,  and 


the  cloying  quality  of  the  Nawaub's  rich  dishes,  I 
began  to  be  sorry  I  had  not  brought  a  flask  in  my 
pocket.  His  majesty's  spirits  seemed  to  require  no 
aid  from  wine.  He  talked  constantly,  and  shrewdly, 
and  well.  He  impresses  every  one  wifrh  a  high 
estimate  of  his  talents,  though  a  more  complete  and 
undisguised  child  of  nature  I  never  saw.  Good  sense, 
with  good  humor,  frankness,  and  simplicity,  seem  to 
be  his  leading  qualities. 

We  were  obliged  to  take  our  leave  early  after  din- 
ner, having  other  engagements  for  the  evening,  but 
while  coffee  was  serving,  the  Hindostanee  cook,  a 
funny  little  old  man,  came  in  to  receive  the  compli- 
ments of  the  company  upon  his  dinner,  and  to  play 
and  dance  for  his  majesty's  amusement.  He  had  at 
his  back  a  long  Indian  drum,  which  he  called  his 
"turn  turn,"  and  playing  himself  an  accompaniment 
upon  this,  he  sang  two  or  three  comic  songs  in  his 
own  language  to  a  sort  of  wild  yet  merry  air,  very 
much  to  the  delight  of  all  the  orientals.  Singer, 
dancer,  musician,  and  cook,  the  king  certainly  has  a 
jewel  of  a  servant  in  him. 

One  moment  bowing  ourselves  out  from  the  pres- 
ence of  a  Hindoo  king,  and  the  next  beset  by  an  Irish- 
man with  "  Heaven  bless  your  honor  for  the  sixpence 
you  mean  to  give  me !"  what  contrasts  strike  the  travel- 
ler in  this  great  heart  of  the  world  !  Paddy  lighted 
us  to  our  carriage  with  his  lantern,  implored  the  coach- 
man to  "  dhrive  carefully,"  and  then  stood  with  his 
head  bent  to  catch  the  sound  upon  the  pavement  of 
another  sixpence  for  his  tenderness.  Wherever  there 
is  a  party  in  the  fashionable  quarters  of  London,  these 
Tantaluses  flit  about  with  their  lanterns — for  ever  at 
the  door  of  pleasure,  yet  shivering  and  starving  for 
ever  in  their  rags.     What  a  life  ! 

****** 

One  of  the  most  rational  and  agreeable  of  the  fashion- 
able resorts  in  London  is  Kensington  Gardens,  on  the 
days  when  the  royal  band  plays  from  five  to  seven 
near  the  bridge  of  the  Serpentine.  Some  twenty  of 
the  best  instrumental  musicians  of  London  station 
themselves  under  the  trees  in  this  superb  park  (for 
though  called  "  gardens,"  it  is  but  a  park  with  old 
trees  and  greensward),  and  up  and  down  the  fine  silky 
carpet  stroll  hundreds  of  the  fashionables  of  "  May 
fair  and  Belgrave  square,"  listening  a  little  perhaps, 
and  chattering  a  great  deal  certainly.  It  is  a  good 
opportunity  to  see  what  celebrated  beauties  look  like 
by  daylight;  and,  truth  to  say,  one  comes  to  the  con- 
clusion there,  that  candle-light  is  your  true  kalydor. 
It  is  very  ingeniously  contrived  by  the  grand  chamber- 
lain that  this  public  music  should  be  played  in  a  far 
away  corner  of  the  park,  inaccessible  except  by  those 
who  have  carriages.  The  plebeians,  for  whose  use 
and  pleasure  it  seems  at  first  sight  graciously  con- 
trived, are  pretty  well  sifted  by  the  two  miles  walk, 
and  a  very  aristocratic  and  well-dressed  assembly  in- 
deed is  that  of  Kensington  gardens. 

Near  the  usual  stand  of  the  musicians  runs  a  bridle- 
path for  horsemen,  separated  from  the  greensward  by 
a  sunk  fence,  and  as  I  was  standing  by  the  edge  of  the 
ditch  yesterday,  the  queen  rode  by,  pulling  up  to  listen 
to  the  music,  and  smile  right  and  left  to  the  crowd  of 
cavaliers  drawn  up  in  the  road.  I  pulled  off  my  hat 
and  stood  uncovered  instinctively,  but  looking  around 
to  see  how  the  promenades  received  her,  I  found  to 
my  surprise  that  with  the  exception  of  a  bald-headed 
nobleman  whem  I  chanced  to  know,  the  Yankee  stood 
alone  in  his  homage  to  her. 

I  thought  before  I  left  America  that  I  should  find 
the  stamp  of  the  new  reign  on  manners,  usages,  con- 
versation, and  all  the  outer  form  and  pressure  of  socie- 
ty. One  can  not  fancy  England  under  Elizabeth  to 
have  struck  a  stranger  as  did  England  under  James. 
We  think  of  Shakspere,  Leicester,  and  Raleigh,  and 
conclude  that  under  a  female  sovereign  chivalry  at 


MY  ADVENTURES  AT  THE  TOURNAMENT. 


543 


least  shines  brighter,  and  poetry  should.  A  good 
deal  to  my  disappointment,  1  have  looked  in  vain  for 
even  a  symptom  of  the  queen's  influence  on  anything. 
She  is  as  completely  isolated  in  England,  as  entirely 
above  and  out  of  the  reach  of  the  sympathies  and 
common  thoughts  of  society,  as  the  gilt  grasshopper 
on  the  steeple.  At  the  opera  and  play,  half  the 
audience  do  not  even  know  she  is  there  ;  in  the  park, 
she  rides  among  the  throng  with  scarcely  a  head 
turned  to  look  after  her;  she  is  unthought  of,  and 
almost  unmentioned  at  balls,  routes,  and  soirees  ;  in 
short,  the  throne  seems  to  stand  on  glass — with  no  one 
conductor  to  connect  it  with  the  electric  chain  of  hu- 
man hearts  and  sympathies. 


MY  ADVENTURES  AT  THE  TOURNAMENT. 

That  Irish  Channel  has,  as  the  English  say,  "  a 
nasty  way  with  it."  I  embarked  at  noon  on  the  2Gth, 
in  a  magnificent  steamer,  the  Royal  Sovereign,  which 
had  been  engaged  by  Lord  Eglinton  (as  per  advertise- 
ment) to  set  down  at  Ardrossan  all  passengers  bound 
to  the  tournament.  This  was  a  seventeen  hours'  job, 
including  a  very  cold,  blowy,  and  rough  night ;  and 
of  the  two  hundred  passengers  on  board,  one  half 
were  so  blest  as  to  have  berths  or  settees — the  others 
were  unbtest,  indeed. 

I  found  on  board  several  Americans  ;  and  by  the 
time  I  had  looked  at  the  shape  of  the  Liverpool  har- 
bor, and  seen  one  or  two  vessels  run  in  before  a  slap- 
ping breeze,  the  premonitory  symptom  (which  had  : 
already  sent  many  to  their  berths)  sent  me  to  mine. 
The  boat  was  pitching  backward  and  forward  with  a 
sort  of  handsaw  action  that  was  not  endurable.  By  : 
foregoing  my  dinner  and  preserving  a  horizontal  posi- 
tion, I  escaped  all  sickness,  and  landed  at  Ardrossan 
at  six  the  next  morning,  with  a  thirty-six  hours'  fast 
upon  me,  which  I  trusted  my  incipient  gout  would  re- 
member as  a  per  contra  to  the  feast  in  the  promised 
"  banquet." 

Ardrossan,  built  chiefly,  I  believe,  by  Lord  Eglin- 
ton's  family,  and  about  eight  miles  from  the  castle,  is 
a  small  but  very  clean  and  thrifty-looking  hamlet  on 
that  part  of  the  western  coast  of  Scotland  which  lies 
opposite  the  Isle  of  Arran.  Ailsa  Rock,  famous  in 
song,  slumbers  like  a  cloud  in  the  southwestern  hori- 
zon. The  long  breakers  of  the  channel  lay  their  lines 
of  foam  almost  upon  the  street,  and  the  harbor  is 
formed  by  a  pier  jutting  out  from  a  little  promontory 
on  the  northern  extremity  of  the  town.  The  one 
thoroughfare  of  Ardrossan  is  kept  clean  by  the  broom 
of  every  wind  that  sweeps  the  Irish  sea.  A  cleaner  or 
bleaker  spot  I  never  saw. 

A  Gael,  who  did  not  comprehend  a  syllable  of  such 
English  as  a  Yankee  delivers,  shouldered  my  port- 
manteau without  direction  or  request,  and  travelled 
away  to  the  inn,  where  he  deposited  it  and  held  out 
his  hand  in  silence.  There  was  certainly  quite  enough 
said  between  us  ;  and  remembering  the  boisterous  ac- 
companiment with  which  the  claims  of  porters  are 
usually  pushed  upon  one's  notice,  I  could  well  wish 
that  Gaelic  tide-waiters  were  more  common. 

"  Any  room,  landlord  ?"  was  the  first  question — 
"  Not  a  cupboard,  sir,"  was  the  answer. — "  Can  you 
give  me  some  breakfast?"  asked  fifty  others  in  a  breath. 
— "  Breakfast  will  be  put  upon  all  the  tables  presently, 
gentlemen,"  said  the  dismayed  Boniface,  glancing  at 
the  crowds  who  were  pouring  in,  and,  Scotchmanlike, 
making  no  promises  to  individuals. — "  Landlord  !" 
vociferated  a  gentleman   from  the  other  side  of  the 


hall — "what  the  devil  does  this  mean?  Here's  the 
room  I  engaged  a  fortnight  ago  occupied  by  a  dozen 
people  shaving  and  dressing  !" — "  I  canna  help  it,  sir  ! 
Ye're  welcome  to  turn  'em  a'  out — if  ye  can  .'"  said 
the  poor  man,  lifting  up  his  hands  in  despair,  and  re- 
treating to  the  kitchen.  The  hint  was  a  good  one, 
and  taking  up  my  own  portmanteau,  I  opened  a  door 
in  one  of  the  passages.  It  led  into  a  small  apartment, 
which  in  more  roomy  times  might  have  been  a  pantry, 
but  was  now  occupied  by  three  beds  and  a  great  varie- 
ty of  baggage.  There  was  a  twopenny  glass  on  the 
mantel-piece,  and  a  drop  or  two  of  water  in  a  pitcher, 
and  where  there  were  sheets  I  could  make  shift  for  a 
towel.  I  found  presently,  by  the  way,  that  I  had  had 
a  narrow  escape  of  surprising  some  one  in  bed,  for 
the  sheet  which  did  duty  as  a  napkin  was  still  warm 
with  the  pressure  of  the  newly-fled  occupant. 

Three  or  four  smart-looking  damsels  in  caps  looked 
in  while  I  was  engaged  in  my  toilet,  and  this,  with  one 
or  two  slight  observations  made  in  the  apartment,  con- 
vinced me  that  I  had  intruded  on  the  dormitory  of  the 
ladies'  maids  belonging  to  the  various  parties  in  the 
house.  A  hurried  "  God  bless  us!"  as  they  retreated, 
however,  was  all  either  of  reproach  or  remonstrance 
that  I  was  troubled  with;  and  I  emerged  with  a 
smooth  chin  in  time  for  breakfast,  very  much  to  the 
envy  and  surprise  of  my  less-enterprising  compan- 
ions. 

There  was  a  great  scramble  for  the  tea  and  toast ; 
but,  uniting  forces  with  a  distinguished  literary  man 
whose  acquaintance  I  had  been  fortunate  enough  to 
make  on  board  the  steamer,  we  managed  to  get  places 
at  one  of  the  tables,  and  achieved  our  breakfasts  in 
tolerable  comfort.  We  were  still  eight  miles  from 
Eglinton,  however,  and  a  lodging  was  the  next  matter 
of  moment.  My  friend  thought  he  was  provided  for 
nearer  the  castle,  and  I  went  into  the  street,  which  I 
found  crowded  with  distressed-looking  people,  flying 
from  door  to  door,  with  ladies  on  their  arms  and  wheel- 
barrows of  baggage  at  their  heels,  the  townspeople 
standing  at  the  doors  and  corners  staring  at  the  novel 
spectacle  in  open-mouthed  wonder.  Quite  in  a  di- 
lemma whether  or  not  to  go  on  to  Irvine  (which,  being 
within  two  miles  of  the  castle,  was  probably  much 
more  over-run  than  Ardrossan),  I  was  standing  at  the 
corner  of  the  street,  when  a  Liverpool  gentleman, 
whose  kindness  I  must  record  as  well  as  my  pleasure 
in  his  society  for  the  two  or  three  days  we  were  to- 
gether, came  up  and  offered  me  a  part  of  a  lodging  he 
had  that  moment  taken-  The  bed  was  what  we  call 
in  America  a  bunk,  or  a  kind  of  berth  sunk  into  the 
wall,  and  there  were  two  in  the  same  garret,  but  the 
sheets  were  clean  ;  and  there  was  a  large  bible  on  the 
table — the  latter  a  warrant  for  civility,  neatness,  and 
honesty,  which,  after  many  years  of  travel,  I  have 
never  found  deceptive.  I  closed  immediately  with 
my  friend ;  and  whether  it  was  from  a  smack  of  au- 
thorship or  no,  I  must  say  I  took  to  my  garret  very 
kindly. 

It  was  but  nine  o'clock,  and  the  day  was  on  my 
hands.  Just  beneath  the  window  ran  a  railroad,  built 
to  bring  coal  to  the  seaside,  and  extending  to  within 
la  mile  of  the  castle;  and  with  some  thirty  or  forty 
|  others,  I  embarked  in  a  horse-car  for  Eglinton  to  see 
the  preparations  for  the  following  day's  tournament. 
We  were  landed  near  the  park  gate,  after  an  hour  s 
drive  through  a  flat  country  blackened  with  coal-pits; 
and  it  was  with  no  little  relief  to  the  eye  that  I  en- 
tered upon  a  smooth  and  gravelled  avenue  eading  by 
a  mile  of  shaded  windings  to  the  castle.  1  he  day  was 
heavenly;  the  sun-flecks  lay  bright  as  "patines  of 
gold"  on  the  close-shaven  grass  beneath  the  trees  ; 
and  I  thought  that  nature  had  consented  for  once  to 
remove  her  eternal  mist-veil  from  Scotland,  and  let 
pleasure  and  sunshine  have  a  holydav  together.  The 
sky  looked  hard  and  deep;  and  I  had  no  more  appre- 


544 


MY  ADVENTURES  AT  THE  TOURNAMENT. 


hension  of  rain  for  the  morrow  than  I  should  have  had 
under  a  July  sun  in  Asia. 

Crossing  a  bright  little  river  (the  Lugton,  1  think 
it  is  called),  whose  sloping  banks,  as  far  as  I  could  see 
up  and  down,  were  shaven  to  the  rich  smoothness  of 
"  velvet  of  three-pile,"  I  came  in  sight  of  the  castle 
towers.  Another  bridge  over  a  winding  of  the  same 
river  lay  to  the  left,  a  Gothic  structure  of  the  most 
rich  and  airy  mould,  and  from  either  end  of  this  ex- 
tended the  enclosed  passage  for  the  procession  to  the 
lists.  The  castle  stood  high  upon  a  mound  beyond.  Its 
round  towers  were  half  concealed  by  some  of  the  finest 
trees  I  ever  saw ;  and  though  less  antique  and  of  a  less 
frowning  and  rude  aspect  than  I  had  expected,  it  was 
a  very  perfect  specimen  of  modern  castellated  archi- 
tecture. On  ascending  to  the  lawn  in  front  of  the 
castle,  I  found  that  it  was  built  less  upon  a  mound 
than  upon  the  brow  of  a  broad  plateau  of  table-land, 
turned  sharply  by  the  Lugton,  close  under  the  castle 
walls — a  natural  sight  of  singular  beauty.  Two  Sara- 
cenic-looking tents  of  the  gayest  colors  were  pitched 
upon  the  bright-green  lawn  at  a  short  distance,  and 
off  to  the  left,  by  several  glimpses  through  the  trees, 
I  traced  along  the  banks  of  the  river  the  winding  en- 
closures for  the  procession. 

The  large  hall  was  crowded  with  servants  ;  but  pre- 
suming that  a  knight  who  was  to  do  his  devoir  so  con- 
spicuously on  the  morrow  would  not  be  stirring  at  so 
early  Ml  hour,  I  took  merely  a  glance  of  the  armor 
upon  the  walls  in  passing,  and  deferring  the  honor  of 
paying  my  respects,  crossed  the  lawn  and  passed  over 
the  Lugton  by  a  rustic  foot-bridge  in  search  of  the 
lists.  A  cross-path  (leading  by  a  small  temple  en- 
closed with  wire  netting,  once  an  aviary,  perhaps,  but 
now  hung  around  in  glorious  profusion  with  game, 
venison,  a  boar's  head,  and  other  comestibles),  brought 
me  in  two  or  three  minutes  to  a  hill-side  overlooking 
the  chivahic  arena.  It  was  a  beautiful  sight  of  itself 
without  plume  or  armor.  In  the  centre  of  a  verdant 
plain,  shut  in  by  hills  of  an  easy  slope,  wooded  richly, 
appeared  an  oblong  enclosure  glittering  at  either  end 
with  a  cluster  of  tents,  striped  with  the  gayest  colors 
of  the  rainbow.  Between  them,  on  the  farther  side, 
stood  three  galleries,  of  which  the  centre  was  covered 
with  a  Gothic  roof  highly  ornamented,  the  four  front 
pillars  draped  with  blue  damask,  and  supporting  a  can- 
opy over  the  throne  intended  for  the  queen  of  beauty. 
A  strongly-built  barrier  extended  through  the  lists; 
and  heaps  of  lances,  gay  flags,  and  the  heraldic  orna- 
ments, still  to  be  added  to  the  tents,  lay  around  on 
the  bright  grass  in  a  picture  of  no  little  richness.  I 
was  glad  afterward  that  I  had  seen  thus  much  with 
the  advantage  of  an  unclouded  sun. 

In  returning,  I  passed  in  the  rear  of  the  castle,  and 
looked  into  the  temporary  pavilions  erected  for  the 
banquet  and  ball.  They  were  covered  exteriorly  with 
rough  board  and  sails,  and  communicated  by  an  en- 
closed gallery  with  one  of  the  larger  apartments  of  the 
castle.  The  workmen  were  still  nailing  up  the  drapery, 
and  arranging  lamps  and  flowers;  but  with  all  this  dis- 
advantage, the  effect  of  the  two  immense  halls,  lined  as 
they  were  with  crimson  and  white  in  broad  alternate 
stripes,  resembling  in  shape  and  fashion  two  gigantic 
tents,  was  exceedingly  imposing.  Had  the  magnificent 
design  of  Lord  Eglinton  been  successfully  carried  out, 
it  would  have  been  a  scene,  with  the  splendor  of  the 
costumes,  the  lights,  music,  and  revelry,  unsurpassed, 
probably,  by  anything  short  of  enchantment. 


PRINCIPAL    DAY. 


I  was  awakened  at  an  early  hour  the  morning  after 
my  arrival  at  Ardrossan  by  a  band  of  music  in  the 
street.     My  first  feeling  was  delight  at  seeing  a  bit  of 


blue  sky  of  the  size  of  my  garret  skylight,  and  a  daz- 
zling sunshine  on  the  floor.  "  Skirling"  above  all  the 
other  instruments  of  the  band,  the  Highland  bagpipe 
made  the  air  reel  with  "  A'  the  blue  bonnets  are  over 
the  border,"  and,  hoisting  the  window  above  my  head, 
I  strained  over  the  house-leads  to  get  a  look  at  the 
performer.  A  band  of  a  dozen  men  in  kilt  and  bonnet 
were  marching  up  and  down,  led  by  a  piper,  something 
in  the  face  like  the  heathen  representations  of  Boreas; 
and  on  a  long  line  of  roughly-constructed  rail-cars 
were  piled,  two  or  three  deep,  a  crowd  resembling,  at 
first  sight,  a  crushed  bed  of  tulips.  Bonnets  of  every 
cut  and  color,  from  the  courtier's  green  velvet  to  the 
shepherd's  homely  gray,  struggled  at  the  top  ;  and 
over  the  sides  hung  red  legs  and  yellow  legs,  cross- 
barred  stockings  and  buff  boots,  bare  feet  and  pilgrim's 
sandals.  The  masqueraders  scolded  and  laughed,  the 
boys  halloed,  the  quiet  people  of  Ardrossan  stared  in 
grave  astonishment,  and,  with  the  assistance  of  some 
brawny  shoulders,  applied  to  the  sides  of  the  over- 
laden vehicles,  the  one  unhappy  horse  got  his  whim- 
sical load  under  way  for  the  tournament. 

Train  followed  train,  packed  with  the  same  motley 
array  ;  and  at  ten  o'clock,  after  a  clean  and  comforta- 
ble Scotch  breakfast  in  our  host's  little  parlor,  we  sal- 
lied forth  to  try  our  luck  in  the  scramble  for  places. 
!  After  a  considerable  fight  we  were  seated,  each  with  a 
|  man  in  his  lap,  when  we  were  ordered  down  by  the 
.  conductor,  who  informed  us  that  the  chief  of  the 
Campbells  had  taken  the  car  for  his  party,  and  that, 
with  his  band  in  the  succeeding  one,  he  was  to  go  in 
state  (upon  a  railroad!)  to  Eglinton.  Up  swore  half- 
a-dozen  Glasgow  people,  usurpers  like  ourselves,  that 
they  would  give  way  for  no  Campbell  in  the  world ; 
and  finding  a  stout  hand  laid  on  my  leg  to  prevent  my 
yielding  to  the  order  to  quit,  I  gave  in  to  what  might 
be  called  as  pretty  a  bit  of  rebellious  republicanism  as 
you  would  find  on  the  Mississippi.  The  conductor 
stormed,  but  the  Scotch  bodies  sat  firm;  and  as  Scot 
met  Scot  in  the  fight,  I  was  content  to  sit  in  silence 
and  take  advantage  of  the  victory.  I  learned  after- 
ward that  the  Campbell  chieftain  was  a  Glasgow  man- 
ufacturer; and  though  he  undoubtedly  had  a  right  to 
gather  his  clan,  and  take  piper  and  eagle's  plume,  there 
might,  possibly,  be  some  jealous  disapprobation  at  the 
bottom  of  his  townsmen's  rudeness. 

Campbell  and  his  party  presently  appeared,  and  a 
dozen  or  twenty  very  fine  looking  men  they  were.  One 
of  the  ladies,  as  well  as  I  could  see  through  the  black 
lace  veil  thrown  over  her  cap  and  plumes,  was  a  re- 
markably handsome  woman  ;  and  I  was  very  glad  when 
the  matter  was  compromised,  and  the  Campbells  were 
distributed  among  our  company.  We  jogged  on  at  a 
slow  pace  toward  the  tournament,  passing  thousands 
of  pedestrians,  the  men  all  shod,  and  the  women  all 
barefoot,  with  their  shoes  in  their  hands,  and  nearly 
every  one,  in  accordance  with  Lord  Eglinton's  printed 
request,  showing  some  touch  of  fancy  in  his  dress.  A 
plaid  over  the  shoulder,  or  a  Glengary  bonnet,  or,  per- 
haps, a  goose-feather  stuck  jauntily  in  the  cap,  was 
enough  to  show  the  feeling  of  the  wearer,  and  quite 
enough  to  give  the  crowd,  all  in  all,  a  most  festal  and 
joyous  aspect. 

The  secluded  bit  of  road  between  the  rail-track  and 
the  castle  lodge,  probably  never  before  disturbed  by 
more  than  two  vehicles  at  a  time,  was  thronged  with  a 
press  of  wheels,  as  closely  jammed  as  Fleet  street  at 
noon.  Countrymen's  carts  piled  with  women  and 
children  like  loads  of  market-baskets  in  Kent;  post- 
chaises  with  exhausted  horses  and  occupants  straining 
their  eyes  forward  for  a  sight  of  the  castle  ;  carriages 
of  the  neighboring  gentry  with  "  bodkins"  and  over- 
packed  dickeys,  all  in  costume ;  stout  farmers  on 
horseback,  with  plaid  and  bonnet;  gingerbread  and 
ale-carts,  pony-carts,  and  coal-carts;  wheelbarrows 
with  baggage,  and   porters  with  carpet-bags  and  hat- 


MY  ADVENTURES  AT  THE  TOURNAMENT 


545 


boxes,  were  mixed  up  in  merry  confusion  with  the 
most  motley  throng  of  pedestiians  it  has  ever  been  my 
fortune  to  join.  The  van-colored  tide  poured  in  at 
the  open  gate  of  the  castle;  and  if  [  had  seen  no  other 
procession,  the  Jong-extended  mass  of  caps,  bonnets, 
and  plumes,  winding  through  that  shaded  and  beautiful 
avenue,  would  have  repaid  me  for  no  small  proportion 
of  my  subsequent  discomfort.  I  remarked,  by  the 
way,  that  I  did  not  see  a  hat  in  the  entire  mile  between 
the  porter's  lodge  and  the  castle. 

The  stables,  which  lay  on  the  left  of  the  approach 
(a  large  square  structure  with  turret  and  clock,  very 
like  four  methodist  churches,  dos-d-dos),  presented 
another  busy  and  picturesque  scene — horses  half- 
caparisoned,  men-at-arms  in  buff  and  steel,  and  the 
gay  liveries  of  the  nineteenth  century  paled  by  the  re- 
vived glories  of  the  servitude  of  more  knightly  times. 
And  this  part  of  the  scene,  loo,  had  its  crowd  of  laugh- 
ing and  wondeiing  spectators. 

On  reaching  the  Gothic   bridge  over  the   Lugton, 
we  came  upon  a  cordon  of  police  who  encircled  the  ; 
castle,  turning  the  crowd  off  by  the  bridge  in  the  di-  i 
rection  of  the   lists.     Sorry  to  leave   my  merry  and 
motley  fellow-pedestrians,  1  presented  my  card  of  in-  | 
vitation  and   passed   on  alone  to  the  castle.     The  sun 
was  at  this  time  shining  with  occasional  cloudings- 
over  ;  and  the  sward  and  road,  after  the  two  or  three 
fine  days  we  had  had,  were   in  the   best  condition  for 
every  purpose  of  the  tournament. 

Two  or  three  noble  trees  with  their  foliage  nearly 
to  the  ground  stood  between  me  and  the  front  of  the 
castle,  as  I  ascended  the  slope  above  the  river  ;  and 
the  lifting  of  a  stage  curtain  could  scarce  be  more 
sudden,  or  the  scene  of  a  drama  more  effectively  com- 
posed, than  the  picture  disclosed  by  the  last  step  upon 
the  terrace.  Any  just  description  of  it,  indeed,  must 
read  like  a  passage  from  the  "  prompter's  book."  I 
stood  for  a  moment,  exactly  where  you  would  have 
placed  an  audience.  On  my  left  rose  a  noble  castle 
with  four  round  towers,  the  entrance  thronged  with 
men-at-arms,  and  busy  comers  and  goers  in  every 
variety  of  costume.  On  the  greensward  in  front  of  the 
castle  lounged  three  or  four  gentlemen  archers  in 
suits  of  green  silk  and  velvet.  A  cluster  of  grooms 
under  an  immense  tree  on  the  right  were  fitting  two 
or  three  superb  horses  with  theirarmorand  caparisons, 
while  one  beautiful  blood  palfrey,  whose  fine  limbs 
and  delicately  veined  head  and  neck  were  alone  visible  | 
under  his  embroidered  saddle  and  gorgeous  trappings 
of  silk,  was  held  by  two  "  tigers"  at  a  short  distance. 
Still  farther  on  the  right,  stood  a  cluster  of  gayly  dec- 
orated tents;  and  in  and  out  of  the  looped-up  curtain 
of  the  farthest  passed  constantly  the  slight  forms  of 
lady  archers  in  caps  with  snowy  plumes,  kirtles  of 
green  velvet,  and  petticoats  of  white  satin,  quivers  at 
their  backs  and  bows  in  their  hands — one  tall  and 
stately  girl  (an  Ayrshire  lady  of  very  uncommon 
beauty,  whose  name  I  took  some  pains  to  inquire), 
conspicuous  by  her  grace  and  dignity  above  all. 

The  back-ground  was  equally  well  composed — the 
farther  side  of  the  lawn  making  a  sharp  descent  to  the 
small  river  which  bends  around  the  castle,  the  opposite 
shore  thronged  with  thousands  of  spectators  watching 
the  scene  1  have  described  ;  and  in  the  distance  be- 
hind them,  the  winding  avenue,  railed  in  for  the  pro- 
cession, hidden  and  disclosed  by  turns  among  the 
noble  trees  of  the  park,  and  alive  throughout  its  whole 
extent  with  the  multitudes  crowding  to  the  lists. 
There  was  a  chivalric  splendor  in  the  whole  scene, 
which  I  thought  at  the  time  would  repay  one  for  a 
long  pilgrimage  to  see  it — even  should  the  clouds, 
which  by  this  time  were  coming  up  very  threatening- 
ly from  the  horizon,  put  a  stop  to  the  tournament  al- 
together. 

On  entering  the   castle  hall,   a  lofty   room   hung 
round    with    arms,    trophies    of   the    chase,    ancient 
35 


shields,  and  armor  of  every  description,  I  found  my- 
self in  a  crowd  of  a  very  merry  and  rather  a  motley 
character— knights  half  armed,  esquires  in  buff',  pal- 
mers, halberdiers,  archers,  and  servants  in  modern 
livery,  here  and  there  a  lady,  and  here  and  there  a 
spectator  like  myself,  and  in  a  corner  by  one  of  the 
Gothic  windows — what  think  you? — a  minstrel? — a 
gray-haired  harper? — a  jester?  Guess  again — a  re- 
porter for  the  Times!  With  a  "walking  dictionary" 
at  his  elbow,  in  the  person  of  the  fat  butler  of  the 
castle,  he  was  inquiring  out  the  various  characters  in 
the  crowd,  and  the  rapidity  of  his  stenographic  jot- 
tings-down (with  their  lucid  apparition  in  print  two 
days  after  in  London)  would-,  in  the  times  represented 
by  the  costumes  about  him,  have  burnt  him  at  the 
stake  for  a  wizard  with  the  consent  of  every  knight  in 
Christendom. 

I  was  received  by  the  knight-marshal  of  the  lists, 
who  did  the  honors  of  hospitality  for  Lord  Eglinton 
during  his  preparation  for  the  "  passage  of  arms  ;" 
and  finding  an  old  friend  under  the  gray  beard  and 
scallop  shell  of  a  venerable  palmer,  whose  sandal  and 
bare  toes  I  chanced  to  stumble  over,  we  passed  in 
together  to  the  large  dining-room  of  the  castle. 
"  Lunch"  was  on  the  long  table,  and  some  two  hun- 
dred of  the  earl's  out-lodging  guests  were  busy  at 
knife  and  fork,  while  here  and  there  were  visible  some 
of  those  anachronisms  which,  to  me,  made  the  zest 
of  the  tournament — pilgrims  eating  Perigord  pics, 
esquires  dressing  after  the  manner  of  the  thirteenth 
century  diving  most  scientifically  into  the  richer  veins 
of  pates  defoie-gras,  dames  in  ruff  and  farthingale  dis- 
cussing blue  blanc-mange,  and  a  knight  with  an  over- 
night headache  calling  out  for  a  cup  of  tea  ! 

On  returning  to  the  hall  of  the  castle,  which  was 
the  principal  place  of  assemblage,  I  saw  with  no  little 
regret  that  ladies  were  coming  from  their  carriages 
under  umbrellas.  The  fair  archers  tripped  in  doors 
from  their  crowded  tent,  the  knight  of  the  dragon, 
who  had  been  out  to  look  after  his  charger,  was  being 
wiped  dry  by  a  friendly  pocket  handerckief,  and  all 
countenances  had  fallen  with  the  barometer.  It  was 
time  for  the  procession  to  start,  however,  and  the 
knights  appeared,  one  by  one,  armed  cap-a-pie,  all 
save  the  helmet,  till  at  last  the  hall  was  crowded  with 
steel-clad  and  chivalric  forms ;  and  they  waited  only 
for  the  advent  of  the  queen  of  beauty.  After  admiring 
not  a  little  the  manly  bearing  and  powerful  "  thewes 
and  sinews"  displayed  by  the  array  of  modern  English 
nobility  in  the  trying  costumes  and  harness  of  olden 
time,  I  stepped  out  upon  the  lawn  with  some  curiosity 
to  see  how  so  much  heavy  metal  was  to  be  got  into  a 
demipique  saddle.  After  one  or  two  ineffectual  at- 
tempts, foiled  partly  by  the  restlessness  of  his  horse, 
the  first  knight  called  ingloriously  for  a  chair.  Another 
scrambled  over  with  great  difficulty  ;  and  I  fancy, 
though  Lord  Waterford  and  Lord  Eglinton,  and  one 
other  whom  I  noticed,  mounted  very  gallantly  and 
gracefully,  the  getting  to  saddle  was  possibly  the  most 
difficult  feat  of  the  day.  The  ancient  achievement 
of  leaping  on  the  steed's  back  from  the  ground  in 
complete  armor  would  certainly  have  broken  the 
spine  of  any  horse  present,  and  was  probably  never 
|  done  but  in  story.  Once  in  the  saddle,  however, 
English  horsemanship  told  well ;  and  one  of  the  finest 
:  sights  of  the  day  I  thought  was  the  breaking  away  of 
a  powerful  horse  from  the  grooms,  before  his  rider  had 
gathered  up  his  reins,  and  a  career  at  furious  speed 
through  the  open  park,  during  which  the  steel-encum- 
bered horseman  rode  as  safely  as  a  fox-hunter,  and 
subdued  the  affrighted  animal,  and  brought  him  back 
in  a  style  worthy  of  a  wr-ath  from  the  queen  of 
beautv. 

Driven  in  by  the  rain,  I  v  is  standing  at  the  upper 
side  of  the  hall,  when  a  movement  in  the  crowd  and 
an  unusual  "  making-way"  announced  the  coming  of 


546 


MY  ADVENTURES  AT  THE  TOURNAMENT. 


the  "cynosure  of  all  eyes."  She  enteied  from  the 
interior  of  the  castle  with  her  train  held  up  by  two 
beautiful  pages  of  ten  or  twelve  years  of  age,  and  at- 
tended by  two  fair  and  very  young  maids  of  honor. 
Her  jacket  of  ermine,  her  drapery  of  violet  and  blue 
velvet,  the  collars  of  superb  jewels  which  embraced 
her  throat  and  bosom,  and  her  sparkling  crown,  were 
on  her  (what  they  seldom  are.  but  should  be  only) 
mere  accessaries  to  her  own  predominating  and  radiant 
beauty.  Lady  Seymour's  features  are  as  nearly  fault- 
less as  is  consistent  with  expression  ;  her  figure  and 
face  are  rounded  to  the  complete  fulness  of  the  mould 
for  a  Juno  ;  her  walk  is  queenly,  and  peculiarly  un- 
studied and  graceful,  yet  (I  could  not  but  think  then 
and  since)  she  was  not  well  chosen  for  the  queen  of  a 
tournament.  The  character  of  her  beauty,  uncom- 
mon and  perfect  as  it  is,  is  that  of  delicacy  and  loveli- 
ness— the  lily  rather  than  the  rose — the  modest  pearl, 
not  the  imperial  diamond.  The  eyes  to  flash  over  a 
crowd  at  a  tournament,  to  be  admired  from  a  distance, 
to  beam  down  upon  a  knight  kneeling  for  a  public 
award  of  honor,  should  be  full  of  command,  dark, 
lustrous,  and  fiery.  Hers  are  of  the  sweetest  and 
most  tranquil  blue  that  ever  reflected  the  serene 
heaven  of  a  happy  hearth — eyes  to  love,  not  wonder 
at,  to  adore  and  rely  upon,  not  admire  and  tremble  for. 
At  the  distance  at  which  most  of  the  spectators  of  the 
tournament  saw  Lady  Seymour,  Fanny  Kemble's 
stormy  orbs  would  have  shown  much  finer,  and  the 
forced  and  imperative  action  of  a  stage-taught  head 
and  figure  would  have  been  more  applauded  than  the 
quiet,  nameless,  and  indescribable  grace  lost  to  all  but 
those  immediately  round  her.  J  had  seen  the  Queen 
of  Beauty  in  a  small  society,  dressed  in  simple  white, 
without  an  ornament,  when  she  was  far  more  becom- 
ingly dressed  and  more  beautiful  than  here,  and  I  have 
never  seen,  since,  the  engravings  and  prints  of  Lady 
Seymour  which  fill  every  window  in  the  London 
shops,  without  feeling  that  it  was  a  profanation  of  a 
style  of  loveliness  that  would  be 

"prodigal  enough 

If  it  unveiled  its  beauty  to  the  moon." 

The  day  wore  on,  and  the  knight-marshal  of  the 
lists  (Sir  Charles  Lamb,  the  stepfather  of  Lord 
Eglinton,  by  far  the  most  knightly  looking  person  at 
the  tournament),  appeared  in  his  rich  surcoat  and 
embossed  armor,  and  with  a  despairing  look  at  the  in- 
creasing torrents  of  rain,  gave  the  order  to  get  to 
horse.  At  the  first  blast  of  the  trumpet,  the  thick- 
leaved  trees  around  the  castle  gave  out  each  a  dozen 
or  two  of  gay  colored  horsemen  who  had  stood  almost 
unseen  under  the  low-hanging  branches — mounted 
musicians  in  silk  and  gay  trappings,  mounted  men-at- 
arms  in  demi-suits  of  armor,  deputy  marshals  and 
halberdiers;  and  around  the  western  tower,  where 
their  caparisons  had  been  arranged  and  their  horse- 
armor  carefully  looked  to,  rode  the  glittering  and 
noble  company  of  knights,  Lord  Eglinton  in  his  armor 
of  inlaid  gold,  and  Lord  Alford,  with  his  athletic 
frame  and  very  handsome  features,  conspicuous  above 
all.  The  rain,  meantime,  spared  neither  the  rich 
tabard  of  the  pursuivant,  nor  the  embroidered  saddle- 
cloths of  the  queen's  impatient  palfrey  ;  and  after  a 
half-dozen  of  dripping  detachments  had  formed  and 
led  on,  as  the  head  of  the  procession,  the  lady-archers 
(who  were  to  go  on  foot)  were  called  by  the  marshal  i 
with  a  smile  and  a  glance  upward  which  might  have  ' 
been  construed  into  a  tacit  advice  to  stay  in  doors.  I 
Gracefully  and  majestically,  however,  with  quiver  at 
her  back,  and  bow  in  hand,  the  tall  and  fair  archer  of 
whose  uncommon  beauty  I  have  already  spoken, 
stepped  from  the  castle  loor ;  and,  regardless  of  the 
rain  which  fell  in  drops  ;  s  large  as  pearls  on  her  un- 
protected forehead  and  suowy  shoulders,  she  took  her 
place  in  the  procession  with  her  silken-booted  troop 


picking  their  way  very  gingerly  over  the  pools  behind 
her.  Slight  as  the  circumstance  may  seem,  there 
was  in  the  manner  of  the  lady,  and  her  calm  disregard 
of  self  in  the  cause  she  had  undertaken,  which  would 
leave  me  in  no  doubt  where  to  look  for  a  heroine 
were  the  days  of  Wallace  (whose  compatriot  she  is) 
to  come  over  again.  The  knight-marshal  put  spurs 
to  his  horse,  and  re-ordered  the  little  troop  to  the 
castle  ;  and  regretting  that  I  had  not  the  honor  of  the 
lady's  acquaintance  for  my  authority,  I  performed  my 
only  chivalric  achievement  for  the  day,  the  sending  a 
halberdier  whom  I  had  chanced  to  remember  as  the 
servant  of  an  old  friend,  on  a  crusade  into  the  castle 
for  a  lady's  maid  and  a  pair  of  dry  stockings!  Whether 
they  were  found,  and  the  fair  archer  wore  them,  or 
where  she  and  her  silk-shod  company  have  the  tourna- 
ment consumption,  rheumatism,  or  cough,  at  this 
hour,  I  am  sorry  I  can  not  say. 

The  judge  of  peace,  Lord  Saltoun,  with  his  wand, 
and  retainers  on  foot  bearing  heavy  battle-axes,  was 
one  of  the  best  figures  in  the  procession  ;  though,  as 
he  was  slightly  gray,  and  his  ruby  velvet  cap  and  sat- 
urated ruff  were  poor  substitutes  for  a  warm  cravat 
and  hat-brim,  I  could  not  but  associate  his  fine  horse- 
manship with  a  sore  throat,  and  his  retainers  and  their 
battle-axes  with  relays  of  nurses  and  hot  flannels.  The 
flower  of  the  tournament,  in  the  representing  and 
keeping  up  of  the  assumed  character,  however,  was  its 
king,  Lord  Londonderry.  He,  too,  is  a  man,  I  should 
think,  on  the  shady  side  of  fifty,  but  of  just  the  high 
preservation  and  embonpoint  necessary  for  a  royal  pres- 
ence. His  robe  of  red  velvet  and  ermine  swept  the 
ground  as  he  sat  in  his  saddle;  and  he  managed  to 
keep  its  immense  folds  free  of  his  horse's  legs,  and 
yet  to  preserve  its  flow  in  his  prancing  motion,  with  a 
grace  and  ease,  I  must  say,  which  seemed  truly  im- 
perial. His  palfrey  was  like  a  fiery  Arabian,  all  ac- 
tion, nerve,  and  fire;  and  every  step  was  a  rearing 
prance,  which,  but  for  the  tranquil  self-possession  and 
easy  control  of  the  king,  would  have  given  the  specta- 
tors some  fears  for  his  royal  safety.  Lord  Londc 
derry's  whole  performance  of  his  part  was  without  a 
fault,  and  chiefly  admirable,  I  thought,  from  his  s 
taining  it  with  that  unconsciousness  and  entire  freedom 
from  mauvaise  honte  which  the  English  seldom  can 
command  in  new  or  conspicuous  situations. 

The  queen  of  beauty  was  called,  and  her  horse  led 
to  the  door;  but  the  water  ran  from  the  blue  saddle- 
cloth and  housings  like  rain  from  a  roof,  and  the  storm 
seemed  to  have  increased  with  the  sound  of  her  name. 
She  came  to  the  door,  and  gave  a  deprecating  look 
upward  which  would  have  mollified  anything  but  a 
Scotch  sky,  and,  by  the  command  of  the  knight  mar- 
shal, retired  again  to  wait  for  a  less  chivalric  but  drier 
conveyance.  Her  example  was  followed  by  the  other 
ladies,  and  their  horses  were  led  riderless  in  the  pro- 
cession. 

The  knights  were  but  half  called  when  I  accepted 
a  friend's  kind  offer  of  a  seat  in  his  carriage  to  the  lists. 
The  entire  park,  as  we  drove  along,  was  one  vast  ex- 
panse of  umbrellas  ;  and  it  looked  from  the  carriage- 
window,  like  an  army  of  animated  and  gigantic  mush- 
rooms, shouldering  each  other  in  a  march.  I  had  no 
idea  till  then  of  the  immense  crowd  the  occasion  had 
drawn  together.  The  circuitous  route  railed  in  for 
the  procession  was  lined  with  spectators  six  or  seven 
deep,  on  either  side,  throughout  its  whole  extent  of  a 
mile ;  the  most  distant  recesses  of  the  park  were 
crowded  with  men,  horses,  and  vehicles,  all  pressing 
onward  ;  and  as  we  approached  the  lists  we  found  the 
multitude  full  a  quarter  of  a  mile  deep,  standing  on  all 
the  eminences  which  looked  down  upon  the  enclosure, 
as  closely  serried  almost  as  the  pit  of  the  opera,  and 
all  eyes  bent  in  one  direction,  anxiously  watching  the 
guarded  entrance.  I  heard  the  number  of  persons 
present  variously  estimated  during  the  day,  the  esti 


MY  ADVENTURES  AT  THE  TOURNAMENT. 


547 


mates  ranging  from  fifty  to  seventy-five  thousand,  but 
I  should  think  the  latter  was  nearer  the  mark. 

We  presented  our  tickets  at  the  private  door,  in  the 
rear  of  the  principal  gallery,  and  found  ourselves  intro- 
duced to  a  very  dry  place  among  the  supports  and 
rafters  of  the  privileged  structure.  The  look-out  was 
excellent  in  front,  and  here  I  proposed  to  remain,  de- 
clining the  wet  honor  of  a  place  above  stairs.  The 
gentleman-usher,  however,  was  very  urgent  for  our 
promotion  ;  but  as  we  found  him  afterward  chatting 
very  familiarly  with  a  party  who  occupied  the  seats 
we  had  selected,  we  were  compelled  to  relinquish  the 
flattering  unction  that  he  was  actuated  by  an  intuitive 
sense  of  our  deservings.  On  ascending  to  the  covered 
gallery,  I  saw,  to  my  surprise,  that  some  of  the  best 
seats  in  front  were  left  vacant,  and  here  and  there, 
along  the  different  tiers  of  benches,  ladies  were  crowd- 
ing excessively  close  together,  while  before  or  behind 
them  there  seemed  plenty  of  unoccupied  room.  A 
second  look  showed  me  small  streams  of  water  coming 
through  the  roof,  and  I  found  that  a  dry  seat  was 
totally  unattainable.  The  gallery  held  about  a  thou- 
sand persons  (the  number  Lord  Eglinton  had  invited 
to  the  banquet  and  ball),  and  the  greater  part  of  these 
were  ladies,  most  of  them  in  fancy  dresses,  and  the  re- 
mainder in  very  slight  demi-toilette — everybody  having 
dressed  apparently  with  a  full  reliance  on  the  morn- 
ing's promise  of  fair  weather.  Less  fortunate  than 
the  multitude  outside,  the  earl's  guests  seemed  not  to 
have  numbered  umbrellas  among  the  necessities  of  a 
tournament;  and  the  demand  for  this  despised  inven- 
tion was  sufficient  (if  merit  were  ever  rewaided)  to 
elevate  it  for  ever  after  to  a  rank  among  chivalric  ap- 
pointments. Substitutes  and  imitations  of  it  were 
made  of  swords  and  cashmeres  ;  and  the  lenders  of 
veritable  umbrellas  received  smiles  which  should  in- 
duce them,  one  would  think,  to  carry  half-a-dozen  to 
all  future  tournaments  in  Scotland.  It  was  pitiable 
to  see  the  wreck  going  on  among  the  perishable  ele-  | 
gancies  of  Victorine  and  Herbault — chip  hats  of  the 
most  faultless  lournure  collapsing  with  the  wet ; 
starched  ruffs  quite  flat ;  dresses  passing  helplessly 
from  "  Lesbia's"  style  to  "Nora  Creina's;"  shawls, 
tied  by  anxious  mammas  over  chapeau  and  coiffure, 
crushing  pitilessly  the  delicate  fabric  of  months  of  in- 
vention ;  and,  more  lamentable  still,  the  fair  brows  and 
shoulders  of  many  a  lovely  woman  proving  with  rain- 
bow clearness  that  the  colors  of  the  silk  or  velvet  com- 
posing her  head-dress  were  by  no  means  "  fast."  The 
Irvine  aichers,  by  the  way,  who,  as  the  queen's  body- 
guard, were  compelled  to  expose  themselves  to  the 
rain  on  the  grand  staircase,  resembled  a  troop  of  Nevv- 
Zealanders  with  their  faces  tattooed  of  a  delicate 
green ;  though,  as  their  Lincoln  bonnets  were  all 
made  of  the  same  faithless  velvet,  they  were  fortunately 
streaked  so  nearly  alike  as  to  preserve  their  uniform. 

After  a  brief  consultation  between  the  rheumatisms 
in  my  different  limbs,  it  was  decided  (since  it  was  vain 
to  hope  for  shelter  for  the  entire  person)  that  my  cloth- 
cap  would  be  the  best  recipient  for  the  inevitable  wet; 
and  selecting  the  best  of  the  vacated  places,  I  seated 
myself  so  as  to  receive  one  of  the  small  streams  as  ; 
nearly  as  possible  on  my  organ  of  firmness.  Here  I 
was  undisturbed,  except  that  once  I  was  asked  (my 
seat  supposed  to  be  a  dry  one)  to  give  place  to  a  lady 
newly  arrived,  who,  receiving  my  appropriated  rivulet 
in  her  neck,  immediately  restored  it  to  me  with  many 
acknowledgments,  and  passed  on.  Jn  point  of  posi- 
tion, my  seat,  which  was  very  near  the  pavilion  of  the 
queen  of  beauty,  was  one  of  the  best  at  the  tourna- 
MU'iit;  and  diverting  my  aqueduct,  by  a  little  manage- 
ment, over  my  left  shoulder,  I  contrived  to  be  more 
comfortable,  probably,  than  most  of  my  shivering  and 
melancholy  neighbors. 

A  great  agitation  in  the  crowd,  and  a  dampish  sound 
i)f  coming  trumpets,  announced  the  approach  of  the 


procession.  As  it  came  in  sight,  and  wound  along  the 
curved  passage  to  the  lists,  its  long  and  serpentine  line 
of  helmets  and  glittering  armor,  gonfalons,  spear- 
points,  and  plumes,  just  surging  above  the  moving  sea 
of  umbrellas,  had  the  effect  of  some  gorgeous  and 
bright-scaled  dragon  swimming  in  troubled  waters. 
The  leaders  of  the  long  cavalcade  pranced  into  the 
arena  at  last,  and  a  tremendous  shout  from  the  multi- 
tude announced  their  admiration  of  the  spectacle.  On 
they  came  toward  the  canopy  of  the  queen  of  beauty, 
men-at-arms,  trumpeters,  heralds,  and  halberdiers,  and 
soon  after  them  the  king  of  the  tournament,  with  his 
long  scarlet  robe  flying  to  the  tempest,  and  his  rearing 
palfrey  straining  every  nerve  to  6how  his  pride  and 
beauty.  The  first  shout  from  the  principal  gallery 
was  given  in  approbation  of  this  display  of  horseman- 
ship, as  Lord  Londonderry  rode  past ;  and  consider- 
ing the  damp  state  of  the  enthusiasm  which  prompted 
it,  it  should  have  been  considered  rather  flattering. 
Lord  Eglinton  came  on  presently,  distinguished  above 
all  others  no  less  by  the  magnificence  of  his  appoint- 
ments than  by  the  ease  and  dignity  with  which  he 
rode,  and  his  knightly  bearing  and  stature.  His 
golden  armor  sat  on  him  as  if  he  had  been  used  to 
wear  it ;  and  he  managed  his  beautiful  charger,  and 
bowed  in  reply  to  the  reiterated  shouts  of  the  multitude 
and  his  friends,  with  a  grace  and  chivalric  courtesy 
which  drew  murmurs  of  applause  from  the  spectators 
long  after  the  cheering  had  subsided. 

The  jester  rode  into  the  lists  upon  a  <rray  steed, 
shaking  his  bells  over  his  head,  and  dressed  in  an  odd 
costume  of  blue  and  yellow,  with  a  broad-flapped  hat, 
asses'  ears,  &c.  His  character  was  not  at  first  under- 
stood by  the  crowd,  but  he  soon  began  to  excile  mer- 
riment by  his  jokes,  and  no  little  admiration  by  his 
capital  riding.  He  was  a  professional  person,  I  think 
it  was  said,  from  Astley's,  but  as  he  spoke  with  a  most 
excellent  Scotch  "burr,"  he  easily  passed  for  an  in- 
digenous "  fool."  He  rode  from  side  to  side  of  the 
lists  during  the  whole  of  the  tournament,  borrowing 
umbrellas,  quizzing  the  knights,  A:c. 

One  of  the  most  striking  features  of  the  procession 
was  the  turn-out  of  the  knight  of  the  Gael,  Lord 
Glenlyon,  with  seventy  of  his  clansmen  at  his  back 
in  plaid  and  philibeg,  and  a  finer  exhibition  of  calves 
(without  a  joke)  could  scarce  be  desired.  They  fol- 
lowed their  chieftain  on  foot,  and  when  the  procession 
separated,  took  up  their  places  in  line  along  the 
palisade,  serving  as  a  guard  to  the  lists. 

After  the  procession  had  twice  made  the  circuit  of 
the  enclosure,  doing  obeisance  to  the  queen  of  beauty, 
the  jester  had  possession  of  the  field  while  the  knights 
retired  to  don  their  helmets  (hitherto  carried  by  their 
esquires),  and  to  await  the  challenge  to  combat.  All 
eyes  were  now  bent  upon  the  gorgeous  clusters  of 
tents  at  either  extremity  of  the  oblong  area  ;  and  in  a 
very  few  minutes  the  herald's  trumpet  sounded,  and 
the  knight  of  the  swan  rode  forth,  having  sent  his  de- 
fiance to  the  knight  of  the  golden  lion.  At  another 
blast  of  the  trumpet  they  set  their  lances  in  rest,  se- 
lected opposite  sides  of  the  long  fence  or  barrier  run- 
ning lengthwise  through  the  lists,  and  rode  furiously 
past  each  other,  the  fence  of  course  preventing  any 
contact  except  that  of  their  lances.  This  part  of  the 
tournament  (the  essential  part,  one  would  think)  was, 
from  the  necessity  of  the  case,  the  least  satisfactory  of 
all.  The  knights,  though  they  rode  admirably,  were 
so  oppressed  by  the  weight  of  their  armor,  and  so  em- 
barrassed in  their  motions  by  the  ill-adjusted  joints, 
that  they  were  like  men  of  wood,  unable  apparently 
even  to  raise  the  lance  from  the  thigh  on  which  it 
rested.  I  presume  no  one  of  them  either  saw  where 
he  should  strike  his  opponent,  or  had  any  power  of 
directing  the  weapon.  As  they  rode  close  to  the 
fence,  however,  and  a  ten-foot  pole  sawed  nearly  off 
in  two  or  three  places  was  laid  crosswise  on  the  legs 


548 


MY  ADVENTURES  AT  THE  TOURNAMENT. 


of  each,  it  would  be  odd  if  they  did  not  come  in  con- 
tact; and  the  least  shock  of  course  splintered  the  lance 
— in  other  words,  finished  what  was  begun  by  the  car- 
penter's saw.  The  great  difficulty  was  to  ride  at  all 
under  such  a  tremendous  weight,  and  manage  a  horse 
of  spirit,  totally  unused  both  to  the  weight  and  the 
clatter  of  his  own  and  his  rider's  armor.  I  am  sure 
that  Lord  Eglinton's  horse,  for  one,  would  have 
bothered  Ivanhoe  himself  to  "bring  to  the  scratch ;" 
and  Lord  Waterford's  was  the  only  one  that,  for  all 
the  fright  he  showed,  might  have  been  selected  (as 
they  all  should  have  been)  for  the  virtue  of  having 
peddled  tin-ware.  These  two  knights,  by  the  way,  ran 
the  best  career,  Lord  Eglinton,  malgrc  his  bolter, 
coming  off  the  vicior. 

The  rain,  meantime,  had  increased  to  a  deluge,  the 
queen  of  beauty  sat  shivering  under  an  umbrella,  the 
jester's  long  ears  were  water-logged,  and  lay  fiat  on 
his  shoulders,  and  everybody  in  my  neighborhood  had 
expressed  a  wish  for  a  dry  seat  and  a  glass  of  sherry. 
The  word  "banquet"  occurred  frequently  right  and 
left;  hopes  for  "  mulled  wine  or  something  hot  be- 
fore dinner"  stole  from  the  lips  of  a  mamma  on  the 
seat  behind ;  and  there  seemed  to  be  but  one  chance 
for  the  salvation  of  health  predominant  in  the  minds 
of  all,  and  that  was  drinking  rather  more  freely  than 
usual  at  the  approaching  banquet.  Judge  what  must 
have  been  the  astonishment,  vexation,  dread,  and  de- 
spair, of  the  one  thousand  wet,  shivering,  and  hungry 
candidates  for  the  feast,  when  Lord  Eglinton  rode  up 
to  the  gallery  unhelmeted,  and  delivered  himself  as 
follows: — 

"  Ladies  and  gentlemen,  I  had  hoped  to  have  given 
you  all  a  good  dinner;  but  to  my  extreme  mortifica- 
tion and  regret,  I  am  just  informed  that  the  rain  has 
penetrated  the  banqueting  pavilions,  and  that,  in  con- 
sequence, I  shall  only  be  able  to  entertain  so  many  of 
my  friends  as  can  meet  around  my  ordinary  table." 

About  as  uncomfortable  a  piece  of  intelligence,  to 
some  nine  hundred  and  sixty  of  his  audience,  as  they 
could  have  received,  short  of  a  sentence  for  their  im- 
mediate execution. 

To  comprehend  fully  the  disastrous  extent  of  the 
disappointment  in  the  principal  gallery,  it  must  be 
taken  into  consideration  that  the  domicils-,  fixed  or 
temporary,  of  the  rejected  sufferers,  were  from  five  to 
twenty  miles  distant — a  long  ride  at  best,  if  begun  on 
the  point  of  famishing,  and  in  very  thin  and  well- 
saturated  fancy  dresses.  Grievance  the  first,  however, 
was  nothing  to  grievance  the  second;  viz.,  that  from 
the  tremendous  run  upon  post-horses  and  horses  of  all 
descriptions,  during  the  three  or  four  previous  days, 
the  getting  to  the  tournament  was  the  utmost  that 
many  parties  could  achieve.  The  nearest  baiting- 
place  was  several  miles  off;  and  in  compassion  to  the 
poor  beasts,  and  with  the  weather  promising  fair  on 
their  arrival,  most  persons  had  consented  to  take 
their  chance  for  the  quarter  of  a  mile  from  the  lists  to 
the  castle,  and  had  dismissed  their  carriages  with 
orders  to  return  at  the  close  of  the  banquet  and  ball 
— daylight  the  next  morning  !  The  castle,  everybody 
knew,  was  crammed,  from  "  donjon-keep  to  turret- 
top,"  with  the  relatives  and  intimate  friends  of  the 
noble  earl,  and  his  private  table  could  accommodate 
no  more  than  these.  To  get  home  was  the  inevitable 
alternative. 

The  rain  poured  in  a  deluge.  The  entire  park  was 
trodden  into  a  slough,  or  standing  in  pools  of  water — 
carts,  carriages,  and  horsemen,  with  fifty  thousand 
flying  pedestrians,  crowding  every  road  and  avenue. 
How  to  get  home  with  a  carriage  !  How  the  deuce 
to  get  home  without  one ! 

A  gentleman,  who  had  been  sent  out  on  the  errand 
of  Noah's  dove  by  a  lady  whose  carriage  and  horses 
were  ordered  at  four  the  following  morning,  came 
back  w;th  the  mud  up  to  his  knees,  and  reported  that 


there  was  not  a  wheel-barrow  to  be  had  for  love  or 
money.  After  threading  the  crowd  in  every  direction, 
he  had  offered  a  large  sum,  in  vain,  for  a  one-horse 
cart ! 

Night  was  coming  on,  meantime,  very  fast ;  but 
absorbed  by  the  distresses  of  the  shivering  groups 
around  me,  I  had  scarce  remembered  that  my  own  in- 
vitation was  but  to  the  banquet  and  ball — and  my 
dinner,  consequently,  nine  miles  off,  at  Ardrossan. 
Thanking  Heaven,  that,  at  least,  I  had  no  ladies  to 
share  my  evening's  pilgrimage,  I  followed  the  queen 
of  beauty  down  the  muddy  and  slippery  staircase,  and, 
when  her  majesty  had  stepped  into  her  carriage,  I 
stepped  over  ankles  in  mud  and  water,  and  began  my 
luade  toward  the  castle. 

Six  hours  of  rain,  and  the  trampling  of  such  an  im- 
mense multitude  of  men  and  horses,  had  converted 
the  soft  and  moist  sod  and  soil  of  the  park  into  a  deep 
and  most  adhesive  quagmire.  Glancing  through  the 
labyrinth  of  vehicles  on  every  side,  and  seeing  men 
and  horses  with  their  feet  completely  sunk  below  the 
surface,  I  saw  that  there  was  no  possibility  of  shying 
the  matter,  and  that  wade  was  the  word.  I  thought, 
at  first,  that  I  had  a  claim  for  a  little  sympathy  on  the 
score  of  being  rather  slenderly  shod  (the  impalpable 
sole  of  a  pattern  leather-boot  being  all  that  separated 
me  from  the  subsoil  of  the  estate  of  Eglinton);  but 
overtaking,  presently,  a  party  of  four  ladies  who  had 
lost  several  shoes  in  the  mire,  and  were  positively 
wading  on  in  silk  stockings,  I  took  patience  to  myself 
from  my  advantage  in  the  comparison,  and  thanked 
fate  for  the  thinnest  sole  with  leather  to  keep  it  on. 
The  ladies  I  speak  of  were  under  the  charge  of  a  most 
despairing-looking  gentleman,  but  had  neither  cloak 
nor  umbrella,  and  had  evidently  made  no  calculations 
for  a  walk.  We  differed  in  our  choice  of  the  two 
sides  of  a  slough,  presently,  and  they  were  lost  in  the 
crowd  ;  but  I  could  not  help  smiling,  with  all  my  pity 
of  their  woes,  to  think  what  a  turning  up  of  prunella 
shoes  there  will  be,  should  Lord  Eglinton  ever  plough 
the  chivalric  field  of  the  Tournament. 

As  I  reached  the  castle,  I  got  upon  the  Macadamised 
road,  which  had  the  advantage  of  a  bottom  somewhere, 
though  it  was  covered  with  a  liquid  mud,  of  which 
every  passing  foot  gave  you  a  spatter  tp  the  hips.  My 
exterior  was  by  this  time  equally  divided  between 
water  and  dirt,  and  I  trudged  on  in  comfortable  fellow- 
ship with  farmers,  coal-miners,  and  Scotch  lasses — ■ 
envying  very  much  the  last,  for  they  carried  their 
shoes  in  their  hands,  and  held  their  petticoats,  to  say 
the  least,  clear  of  the  mud.  Many  a  good  joke  they 
seemed  to  have  among  them,  but  as  they  spoke  in 
Gaelic,  it  was  lost  on  my  Sassenach  ears. 

I  had  looked  forward  with  a  faint  hope  to  a  ginger- 
bread and  ale-cart,  which  I  remembered  having  seen 
in  the  morning  established  near  the  terminus  of  the 
railroad,  trusting  to  refresh  my  strength  and  patience 
with  a  glass  of  anything  that  goes  under  the  generic 
appellation  of  "  summat ;"  but  though  the  cart  was 
there,  the  gingerbread  shelf  was  occupied  by  a  row  of 
Scotch  lasses,  crouching  together  under  cover  from 
the  rain,  and  the  pedlar  assured  me  that  "there  wasna 
a  drap  o'  speerit  to  be  got  within  ten  mileo'  the  castle." 
One  glance  at  the  railroad,  where  a  car  with  a  single 
horse  was  beset  by  some  thousands  of  shoving  and 
fighting  applicants,  convinced  me  that  I  had  a  walk 
of  eight  miles  to  finish  my  "  purgation  by"  tourna- 
ment ;  and  as  it  was  getting  too  dark  to  trust  to  any 
picking  of  the  way,  I  took  the  middle  of  the  rail-track, 
and  set  forward. 

"  Oh.  but  a  weary  wight  was  he 
When  he  reached  the  foot  of  the  dogwood  tree." 

Eight  miles  in  a  heavy  rain,  with  boots  of  the  con- 
sistence of  brown  paper,  and  a  road  of  alternate  deep 
mud  and  broken  stone,  should  entitle  one  to  the  green 


SKETCHES  OF  TRAVEL. 


549 


turban.  I  will  make  the  pilgrimage  of  a  Hadji  from 
the  "  farthest  inn"  with  half  the  endurance. 

I  found  my  Liverpool  friends  over  a  mutton-chop 
in  the  snug  parlor  of  our  host,  and  with  a  strong  brew 
of  hot  toddy,  and  many  a  laugh  at  the  day's  adventures 
by  land  and  water,  we  got  comfortably  to  bed  "  some- 
where in  the  small  hours."  And  so  ended  the  great 
day  of  the  tournament. 

After  witnessing  the  disasters  of  the  first  day,  the 
demolition  of  costumes,  and  the  perils  by  water,  of 
masqueraders  and  spectators,  it  was  natural  to  fancy 
that  the  tournament  was  over.  So  did  not  seem  to 
think  several  thousands  of  newly-arrived  persons, 
pouring  from  steamer  after  steamer  upon  the  pier  of 
Ardrossan,  and  in  every  variety  of  costume,  from  the 
shepherd's  maud  to  the  courtier's  satin,  crowding  to 
the  rail-cars  for  Eglinton.  It  appeared  from  the 
chance  remarks  of  one  or  two  who  came  to  our  lodg- 
ings to  deposite  their  carpet-bags,  that  it  had  rained 
very  little  in  the  places  from  which  the  steamers  had 
come,  and  that  they  had  calculated  on  the  second  as 
the  great  day  of  the  joust.  No  dissuasion  had  the 
least  effect  upon  them,  and  away  they  went,  bedecked 
and  merry,  the  sufferers  of  the  day  before  looking  out 
upon  them,  from  comfortable  hotel  and  lodging,  with 
prophetic  pity. 

At  noon  the  sky  brightened  ;  and  as  the  cars  were 
running  by  this  time  with  diminished  loads,  I  parted 
from  my  agreeable  friends,  and  bade  adieu  to  my 
garret  at  Ardrossan.  I  was  bound  to  Ireland,  and  my 
road  lay  by  Eglinton  to  Irvine  and  Ayr.  Fellow- 
passengers  with  me  were  twenty  or  thirty  men  in 
Glengary  bonnets,  plaids,  &c. ;  and  I  came  in  for  my 
share  of  the  jeers  and  jokes  showered  upon  them  by 
the  passengers  in  the  return-cars,  as  men  bound  on  a 
fruitless  errand.  As  we  neared  the  castle,  the  crowds 
of  people  with  disconsolate  faces  waiting  for  convey- 
ances, or  standing  by  the  reopened  gingerbread  carts 
in  listless  idleness,  convinced  my  companions,  at  last 
that  there  was  nothing  to  be  seen,  for  that  day  at  least, 
at  Eglinton.  I  left  them  sitting  in  the  cars,  undecided 
whether  to  go  on  or  return  without  losing  their  places  ; 
and  seeing  a  coach  marked  "  Irvine"  standing  in  the 
road,  1  jumped  in  without  question  or  ceremony.  It 
belonged  to  a  private  party  of  gentlemen,  who  were  to 
visit  the  castle  and  tilting-ground  on  their  way  to 
Irvine  ;  and  as  ihey  very  kindly  insisted  on  my  re- 
maining after  I  had  apologised  for  the  intrusion,  I 
found  myself  "booked"  for  a  glimpse  of  the  second 
day's  attractions. 

The  avenue  to  the  castle  was  as  crowded  as  on  the 
day  before  ;  but  it  was  curious  to  remark  how  the 
general  aspect  of  the  multitude  was  changed  by  the 
substitution  of  disappointment  for  expectation.  The 
lagging  gait  and  surly  silence,  instead  of  the  elastic 
step  and  merry  joke,  seemed  to  have  darkened  the 
scene  more  than  the  withdrawal  of  the  sun,  and  I  was 
glad  to  wrap  myself  in  my  cloak,  and  remember  that 
I  was  on  the  wing.  The  banner  flying  at  the  castle 
tower  was  the  only  sign  of  motion  I  could  see  in  its 
immediate  vicinity ;  the  sail-cloth  coverings  of  the 
pavilion  were  dark  with  wet;  the  fine  sward  was  every- 
where disfigured  with  traces  of  mud,  and  the  whole 
scene  was  dismal  and  uncomfortable.  We  kept  on  to 
the  lists,  and  found  them,  as  one  of  my  companions 
expressed  it,  more  like  a  cattle-pen  after  a  fair  than  a 
scene  of  pleasure — trodden,  wet,  miry,  and  deserted. 
The  crowd,  content  to  view  them  from  a  distance, 
were  assembled  around  the  large  booths  on  the  ascent 
of  the  rising  ground  toward  the  castle,  where  a  band 
was  playing  some  merry  reels,  and  the  gingerbread 
and  ale  venders  plied  a  busy  vocation.  A  look  was 
enough;  and  we  shaped  our  course  for  Irvine,  sympa- 
thizing deeply  with  the  disappointment  of  the  high- 
spirited  and  generous  lord  of  the  Tourney.  I  heard 
at  Irvine,  and  farther  on,  that  the  tilting  would  be  re- 


newed, and  the  banquet  and  ball  given  on  the  succeed- 
ing days  ;  but  after  the  wreck  of  dresses  and  peril  of 
health  I  had  witnessed,  I  was  persuaded  that  the  best 
that  could  be  done  would  be  but  a  slender  patching 
up  of  the  original  glories,  as  well  as  a  halting  rally  of 
the  original  spirits  of  the  tournament.  So  I  kept  on 
my  way. 


SKETCHES  OF  TRAVEL. 

CHAPTER  I. 


There  is  an  inborn  and  inbred  distrust  of  "foreign- 
ers" in  England — continental  foreigners,  I  should  say 
— which  keeps  the  current  of  French  and  Italian  so- 
ciety as  distinct  amid  the  sea  of  London,  as  the  blue 
Rhone  in  Lake  Leman.     The  word  "  foreigner,"  in 
England,  conveys  exclusively  the  idea  of  a  dark-com- 
plexioned and  whiskered  individual,  in  a  frogged  coat 
1   and    distressed    circumstances;    and    to   introduce   a 
srnooth-cheeked,  plainly-dressed,  ^wje^-looking  person 
|   by  that  name,  would  strike  any  circle  of  ladies  and 
;    gentlemen  as  a  palpable  misnomer.     The  violent  and 
|    unhappy  contrast  between  the  Parisian's  mode  of  life 
i    in  London  and  in  Paris,  makes  it  very  certain  that  few 
!   of  those  bien  nes  et  convert ablement  riches  will  live  in 
I    London  for  pleasure;   and  then  the  flood  of  political 
|i  emigres,  for   the  last  half  century,  has   monopolised 
hair-dressing,  &c.,  &c,  to  such  a  degree,  that  the 
word  Frenchman  is  synonymous  in  English  ears  with 
|   barber   and   dancing-master.      If  a  dark   gentleman, 
;  wearing   either  whisker  or  mustache,  chance   to  of- 
j  fend  John  Bull  in  the  street,  the  first  opprobrious  lan- 
!  guage  he  hears — the  strongest  that  occurs  to  the  fel- 

j  low's  mind — is,  "  Get  out,  you Frenchman  !" 

All  this, malgre  the  rage  for  foreign  lions  in  London 
;  society.  A  well-introduced  foreigner  gets  easily  into 
this,  and  while  he  keeps  his  cabriolet  and  confines 
himself  to  frequentingsoir&*  and  accepting  invitations 
to  dine,  he  will  never  suspect  that  he  is  not  on  an 
equal  footing  with  any  "milor"  in  London.  If  he 
wishes  to  be  disenchanted,  he  has  only  to  change  his 
lodgings  from  Long's  to  Great  Russell  street,  or  (bit- 
'  terer  and  readier  trial)  to  propose  marriage  to  the 
honorable  Augusta  or  Lady  Fanny. 

Everybody  who  knows  the  society  of  Paris,  knows 
something  of  a  handsome  and  very  elegant  young 
baron  of  the  Faubourg  St.  Germain,  who,  with  small 
fortune,  very  great  taste,  and  greater  credit,  contrived 
to  go  on  very  swimmingly  as  an  adorable  roue  and 
vaurien  till  he  was  hard  upon  twenty-five.  At  the 
first  crisis  in  his  affairs,  the  ladies,  who  hold  all  the 
politics  in  their  laps,  got  him  appointed  consul  to 
Algiers,  or  minister  to  Venezuela,  and  with  this  pretty 
pretext  for  selling  his  horses  and  dressing-gowns,  these 
cherished  articles  brought  twice  their  original  value, 
saved  his  loyaute,  and  set  him  up  in  fans  and  monkeys 
at  his  place  of  exile.  A  year  of  this  was  enough  for 
the  darling  of  Paris,  and  not  more  than  a  day  before 
his  desolate  loves  would  have  ceased  to  mourn  for 
hi«  ae  galloped  into  his  hotel  with  a  new  fashion  of 
whiskers,  a  black  female  slave,  and  the  most  delicious 
histories  of  his  adventures  during  the  ages  he  had 
been  exiled.  Down  to  the  earth  and  their  previous 
obscurity  dropped  the  rivals  who  were  just  beginning 
to  usurp  his  glories.  A  new  stud,  an  indescribable 
vehicle,  a  suite  of  rooms  d  VAfncaine,  and  a  mystery, 
preserved  at  some  expense,  about  his  negress,  kept  all 
Paris,  including  his  new  creditors,  in  admiring  aston- 


550 


SKETCHES  OF  TRAVEL. 


ishment  for  a  year.  Among  the  crowd  of  his  worship- 
pers, not  the  last  or  least  fervent,  were  the  fair-haired 
and  glowing  beauties  who  assemble  at  the  levees  of 
their  ambassador  in  the  Rue  St.  Honore,  and  upon 
whom  le  beau  Adolphe  had  looked  as  pretty  savages, 
whose  frightful  toilets  and  horrid  French  accent 
might  be  tolerated  one  evening  in  the  week — vu  le 
souper  ! 

Eclipses  will  arrive  as  calculated  by  insignificant 
astronomers,  however,  and  debts  will  become  due  as 
presumed  by  vulgar  tradesmen.  Le  beau  Adolphe 
began  to  see  another  crisis,  and  betook  himself  to  his 
old  advisers,  who  were  dcsoles  to  the  last  degree;  but 
there  was  a  new  government,  and  the  blood  of  the 
Faubourg  was  at  a  discount.  No  embassies  were  to 
be  had  for  nothing.  With  a  deep  sigh,  and  a  gentle 
tone,  to  spare  his  feelings  as  much  as  possible,  his 
friend  ventures  to  suggest  to  him  that  it  will  be  neces- 
sary to  sacrifice  himself. 
"  Ahi  !  mais  comment/" 

"  Marry  one  of  these  betes  Anglaises,  who  drink 
you  up  with  their  great  blue  eyes,  and  are  made  of 
gold  !" 

Adolphe  buried  his  face  in  his  gold-fringed  oriental 
pocket-handkerchief;  but  when  the  first  agony  was 
passed,  his  resolution  was  taken,  and  he  determined  to 
go  to  England.  The  first  beautiful  creature  he  should 
see,  whose  funds  were  enormous  and  well-invested, 
should  bear  away  from  all  the  love,  rank,  and  poverty 
of  France,  the  perfumed  hand  he  looked  upon. 

A  flourishing  letter,  written  in  a  small,  cramped 
hand,  but  with  a  seal  on  whose  breadth  of  wax  and 
dazon  all  the  united  heraldry  of  France  was  inter- 
woven,   arrived,   through   the   ambassador's  despatch 

box,  to  the  address  of  Miladi  ,  Belgrave  square, 

announcing,  in  full,  that  le  beau  Adolphe  was  coming 
to  London  to  marry  the  richest  heiress  in  good  socie- 
ty ;  and  as  Paris  could  not  spare  him  more  thau  a 
week,  he  wished  those  who  had  daughters  to  marry, 
answering  the  description,  to  be  Men  prevenus  of  his 
visit  and  errand.  With  the  letter  came  a  compend  of 
his  genealogy,  from  the  man  who  spoke  French  in  the 
confusion  of  Babel  to  le  dit  Baron  Adolphe. 

To  London  came  the  valet  of  le  beau  baron,  two 
days  before  his  master,  bringing  his  slippers  and  dres- 
sing-gown to  be  aired  after  their  sea-voyage  across  the 
channel.  To  London  followed  the  irresistible  youth, 
cursing,  in  the  politest  French,  the  necessity  which 
subtracted  a  week  from  a  life  measured  with  such 
"diamond  sparks"  as  his  own  in  Paris.  He  sat  him- 
self down  in  his  hotel,  sent  his  man  Porphyre  with  his 
card  to  every  noble  and  rich  house,  whose  barbarian 
tenants  he  had  ever  seen  in  the  Champs  Elysees,  and 
waited  the  result.  Invitations  from  fair  ladies,  who 
remembered  him  as  the  man  the  French  belles  were 
mad  about,  and  from  literary  ladies,  who  wanted  his 
whiskers  and  black  eyes  to  give  their  soirees  the  neces- 
sary foreign  complexion,  flowed  in  on  all  sides,  and 
Monsieur  Adolphe  selected  his  most  mignon  cane  and 
his  happiest  design  in  a  stocking,  and  "  rendered  him- 
self" through  the  rain  like  a  martyr. 

No  offers  of  marriage  the  first  evening ! 

None  the  second  !  ! 

None  the  third!  !  ! 

Le  beau  Adolphe  began  to  think  either  that  English 
papas  did  not  propose  their  daughters  to  people  as  in 
France  ;  or,  perhaps,  that  the  lady  whom  he  had  com- 
missioned to  circulate  his  wishes  had  not  sufficiently 
advertised  him.     She  had,  however. 

He  took  advice,  and  found  it  would  be  necessary  to 
take  the  first  step  himself.     This  was  disagreeable, 


and  he  said  to  himself,  "Le  jeu  ne  vaut  pas  le  chan- 
delle  ;"  but  his  youth  was  passing,  and  his  English 
fortune  was  at  interest. 


He  went    to   Almack's  and   proposed   to   the   first 
authenticated  fortune  that   accepted  his  hand  for  a 


waltz.  The  young  lady  first  laughed,  and  then  told 
her  mother,  who  told  her  son,  who  thought  it  an  in- 
sult, and  called  out  le  beau  Adolphe,  very  much  to  the 
astonishment  of  himself  and  Porphyre.  The  thing 
was  explained,  and  the  baron  looked  about  the  next 
day  for  one  pas  si  bete.  Found  a  young  lady  with 
half  a  million  sterling,  proposed  in  a  morning  call, 
and  was  obliged  to  ring  for  assistance,  his  intended 
having  gone  into  convulsions  with  laughing  at  him. 
The  story  by  this  time  had  got  pretty  well  distributed 
through  the  different  strata  of  London  society  ;  and 
when  le  beau  Adolphe  convinced  that  he  would  not 
succeed  with  the  noble  heiresses  of  Belgrave  square, 
condescended,  in  his  extremity,  to  send  his  heart  by 
his  valet  to  a  rich  little  vulgarian,  who  "  never  had  a 
grandfather,"  and  lived  in  Harley  street,  he  narrowly 
escaped  being  prosecuted  for  a  nuisance,  and,  Paris 
being  now  in  the  possession  of  the  enemy,  he  buried 
his  sorrows  in  Belgium.  After  a  short  exile  his  friends 
procured  him  a  vice-consulate  in  some  port  in  the 
north  sea,  and  there  probably  at  this  moment  he  sor- 
rowfully vegetates. 

This  is  not  a  story  founded  upon  fact,  but  literally 
true.  Many  of  the  circumstances  came  under  my  own 
observation  ;  and  the  whole  thus  affords  a  laughable 
example  of  the  esteem  in  which  what  an  English  fox- 
hunter  would  call  a  "  trashy  Frenchman"  is  held  in 
England,  as  well  as  of  the  travestie  produced  by  trans- 
planting the  usages  of  one  country  to  another. 

Ridiculous  as  any  intimate  mixture  of  English  and 
French  ideas  and  persons  seems  to  be  in  London,  the 
foreign  society  of  itself  in  that  capital  is  exceedingly 
spiritual  and  agreeable.  The  various  European  em- 
bassies and  their  attaches,  with  their  distinguished 
travellers,  from  their  several  countries,  accidentally 
belonging  to  each ;  the  French  and  Italians,  married 
to  English  noblemen  and  gentry,  and  living  in  Lon- 
don, and  the  English  themselves,  who  have  become 
cosmopolite  by  residence  in  other  countries,  form  a 
very  large,  society  in  which  mix,  on  perfectly  equal 
terms,  the  first  singers  of  the  opera,  and  foreign  musi- 
cians and  artists  generally.  This  last  circumstance 
gives  a  peculiar  charm  to  these  reunions,  though  it 
imparts  a  pride  and  haughty  bearing  to  the  prima 
donna  and  her  fraternity,  which  is,  at  least,  sometimes 
very  inconvenient  to  themselves.  The  remark  recalls 
to  my  mind  a  scene  I  once  witnessed  in  London, 
which  will  illustrate  the  feeling  better  than  an  essay 
upon  it. 

I  was  at  one  of  those  private  concerts  given  at  an 
enormous  expense  during  the  opera  season,  at  which 
"  assisted"  Julia  Grisi,  Rubini,  Lablache,  Tamburini, 
and  Ivanhoff.  Grisi  came  in  the  carriage  of  a  foreign 
lady  of  rank,  who  had  dined  with  her,  and  she  walked 
into  the  room  looking  like  an  empress.  She  was 
dressed  in  the  plainest  white,  with  her  glossy  hair  put 
smooth  from  her  brow,  and  a  single  white  japonica 
dropped  over  one  of  her  temples.  The  lady  who 
brought  her  chaperoned  her  during  the  evening,  as  if 
she  had  been  her  daughter,  and  under  the  excitement 
of  her  own  table  and  the  kindness  of  her  friends,  she 
sung  with  a  rapture  and  a  freshet  of  glory  (if  one  may 
borrow  a  word  from  the  Mississippi)  which  set  all 
hearts  on  fire.  She  surpassed  her  most  applauded 
hour  on  the  stage — for  it  was  worth  her  while.  The 
audience  was  composed,  almost  exclusively,  of  those 
who  are  not  only  cultivated  judges,  but  who  some- 
times repay  delight  with  a  present  of  diamonds. 

Lablache  shook  the  house  to  its  foundations  in  his 
turn  ;  Rubini  ran  through  his  miraculous  compass 
with  the  ease,  truth,  and  melody,  for  which  his  singing 
is  unsurpassed  ;  Tamburini  poured  his  rich  and  even 
fulness  on  the  ear,  and  Russian  Ivanhoff,  the  one 
southern  singing-bird  who  has  come  out  of  the  north, 
wire-drew  his  fine  and  spiritual  notes,  till  they  who  had 
been  flushed,  and  tearful,  and  silent,  when  the  others 


SKETCHES  OF  TRAVEL. 


551 


had  sang,  drowned  his  voice  in  the  poorer  applause 
of  exclamation  and  surprise. 

The  concert  was  over  by  twelve,  the  gold  and  silver 
paper  bills  of  the  performance  were  turned  into  fans,  and 
every  one  was  waiting  till  supper  should  be  announced 
— the  prima  donna  still  sitting  by  her  friend,  but  sur- 
rounded by  foreign  attaches,  and  in  the  highest  elation 
at  her  own  success.  The  doors  of  an  inner  suite  of 
rooms  were  thrown  open  at  last,  and  Grisi's  cordon  of 
admirers  prepared  to  follow  her  in  and  wait  on  her  at 
supper.  At  this  moment,  one  of  the  powdered  menials 
of  the  house  stepped  up  and  informed  her  very  respect- 
fully that  supper  icas  prepared  in  a  separate  room  for 
the  sinners  ! 

Medea,  in  her  most  tragic  hour,  never  stood  so 
absolutely  the  picture  of  hate  as  did  Grisi  for  a  single 
instant,  in  the  centre  of  that  aristocratic  crowd.  Her 
chest  swelled  and  rose,  her  lips  closed  over  her  snowy 
teeth,  and  compressed  till  the  blood  left  them,  and,  for 
myself,  I  looked  unconsciously  to  see  where  she  would 
strike.     I  knew,  then,  that  there  was  more  than  fancy 

there  was  nature  and  capability  of  the  real — in  the 

imaginary  passions  she  plays  so  powerfully.  A  laugh 
of  extreme  amusement  at  the  scene  from  the  high- 
born woman  who  had  accompanied  her,  suddenly- 
turned  her  humor,  and  she  stopped  in  the  midst  of  a 
muttering  of  Italian,  in  which  I  could  distinguish 
only  the  terminations,  and,  with  a  sort  of  theatrical 
quickness  of  transition,  joined  heartily  in  her  mirth. 
It  was  immediately  proposed  by  this  lady,  however, 
that  herself  and  their  particular  circle  should  join  the 
insulted  prima  donna  at  the  lower  table,  and  they  suc- 
ceeded by  this  manoeuvre  in  retaining  Rubini  and  the 
others,  who  were  leaving  the  house  in  a  most  un- 
equivocal Italian  fury. 

I  had  been  fortunate  enough  to  be  included  in  the 
invitation,  and,  with  one  or  two  foreign  diplomatic 
men,  1  followed  Grisi  and  her  amused  friend  to  a 
small  room  on  a  lower  floor,  that  seemed  to  be  the 
housekeeper's  parlor.  Here  supper  was  set  for  six 
(including  the  man  who  had  played  the  piano),  and 
on  the  side-table  stood  every  variety  of  wine  and  fruit, 
and  there  was  nothing  in  the  supper,  at  least,  to  make 
us  regret  the  table  we  had  left.  With  a  most  im- 
perative gesture  and  rather  an  amusing  attempt  at 
English,  Grisi  ordered  the  servants  out  of  the  room, 
and  locked  the  door,  and  from  that  moment  the  con- 
versation commenced  and  continued  in  their  own 
musical,  passionate,  and  energetic  Italian.  My  long 
residence  in  that  country  had  made  me  at  home  in  it ; 
every  one  present  spoke  it  fluently  ;  and  I  had  an 
opportunity  I  might  never  have  again,  of  seeing  with 
what  abandonment  these  children  of  the  sun  throw 
aside  rank  and  distinction  (yet  without  forgetting  it). 
and  join  with  those  who  are  their  superiors  in  every 
circumstance  of  life,  in  the  gayeties  of  a  chance  hour. 
Out  of  their  own  country  these  singers  would  prob- 
ably acknowledge  no  higher  lank  than  that  of  the  kind 
and  gifted  lady  who  was  their  guest ;  yet,  with  the 
briefest  apology  at  finding  the  room  too  cold  after  the 
heat  of  the  concert,  they  put  on  their  cloaks  and  hats 
as  a  safeguard  to  their  lungs  (more  valuable  to  them 
than  to  others)  ;  and  as  most  of  the  cloaks  were  the 
worse  for  travel,  and  the  hats  opera-hats  with  two 
corners,  the  grotesque  contrast  with  the  diamonds  of 
one  lady,  and  the  radiant  beauty  of  the  other,  may 
easily  be  imagined. 

Singing  should  be  hungry  work,  by  the  knife  and 
fork  they  played  ;  and  between  the  excavations  of 
truffle  pies,  and  the  bumpers  of  champagne  and  bur- 
gundy, the  words  were  few.  Lablache  appeared  to  be 
an  established  droll,  and  every  syllable  he  found  time 
to  utter  was  received  with  the  most  unbounded  laughter. 
Rubini  could  not  recover  from  the  slight  he  conceived 
put  upon  him  and  his  profession  by  the  separate  table; 
and  he  continually  reminded  Grisi,  who  by  this  time 


had  quite  recovered  her  good  humor,  that,  the  night 
before,  supping  at  Devonshire  house,  the  duke  of 
Wellington  had  held  her  gloves  on  one  side,  while  his 
grace,  their  host  attended  to  her  on  the  other. 

"  E  vero  /"  said  Ivanhoff,  with  a  look  of  modest  ad- 
miration at  the  prima  donna. 

"E  vero,  e  bravo.'"  cried  Tamburini,  with  his  sepul- 
chral-talking tone,  much  deeper  than  his  singing. 
"  Si,  si,  si,  bravo  /"  echoed  all  the  company;   and 
j  the  haughty  and  happy  actress  nodded  all  round  with 
i  a  radiant   smile,   and   repeated,   in    her   silver  tones, 
|  "  Grazit  !  cari  amid  !  grazie  /" 

As  the  servants  had  been  turned  out,  the  removal 
of  the  first  course  was  managed  in  jnc-nic  fashion  ; 
and  when  the  fruit  and  fresh  bottles  of  wine  were  set 
upon  the  table  by  the  attaches,  and  younger  gentle- 
men, the  health  of  the  princess  who  honored  them  by 
|  her  presence  was  proposed  in  that  language,  which,  it 
seems  to  me,  is  more  capable  than  all  others  of  ex- 
pressing affectionate  and  respectful  devotion.  All  un- 
covered and  stood  up,  and  Grisi,  with  tears  in  her  eyes, 
kissed  the  hand  of  her  benefactress  and  friend,  and 
j  drank  her  health  in  silence. 

It  is  a  polite  and  common  accomplishment  in  Italy 
to  improvise  in  verse,  and  the  lady  I  speak  of  is  well 
,  known  among  her  immediate  friends  for  a  singular 
facility  in  this  beautiful  art.     She  reflected  a  moment 
i  or  two  with  the  moisture  in  her  eyes,  and  then  com- 
menced, low  and  soft,  a  poem,  of  which  it  would  be 
I  difficult,   nay   impossible,  to   convey,  in   English,  an 
idea  of  its  music  and  beauty.     It  took  us  back  to  Italy, 
to  its  heavenly  climate,  its  glorious  arts,  its  beauty  and 
its  ruins,  and  concluded  with  a  line  of  which  1  remem- 
'  ber  the  sentiment  to  have  been,  "  out  of  Italy  every 
\  land  is  exile  .'" 

The  glasses  were  raised  as  she  ceased,  and  every 
one  repeated  after  her,  "  Fuori  d' Italia  tutto  e  esilio  .'" 
"  Ma  .'"  cried  out  the  fat  Lablache,  holding  up  his 
glass  of  champagne,  and  looking  through  it  with  one 
I  eye,  "  siamo  ben  esiliali  qua  .'"  and,  with  a  word  of 
drollery,  the  party  recovered  its  gayer  tone,  and  the 
humor  and  wit  flowed  on  brilliantly  as  before. 

The  house  had  long  been  still,  and  the  last  carriage 
belonging  to  the  company  above  stairs  had  rolled  from 
the  door,  when  Grisi  suddenly  remembered  a  bird  that 
she  had  latelv  bought,  of  which  she  proceeded  to  give 
'  us  a  description,  that  probably    penetrated    to   every 
corner  of  the  silent  mansion.     It  was  a  mocking-bird, 
that  had  been  kept  two  years  in  the  opera-house,  and 
between  rehearsal  and  performance  had  learned  parts 
of  everything  it  had  overheard.     It  was  the  property 
of  the  woman  who  took  care  of  the  wardrobes.     Grisi 
'  had  accidentally  seen  it,  and  immediately  purchased 
i  it  for  two  guineas.     How  much  of  embellishment  there 
'  was  in  her  imitations  of  her  treasure  I  do  not  know; 
!  but  certainly  the  whole  power  of  her  wondrous  voice, 
j  passion,  and  knowledge  of  music,  seemed  drunk  up  at 
!  once  in  the  wild,  various,  difficult,  and  rapid  mixture 
of  the  capricious  melody  she  undertook.     First  came, 
without  the  passage  which  it  usually  terminates,  the 
long,  throat-down,  gurgling,  water-toned  trill,  in  which 
!  Rubini  (but  for  the  bird  and  its  mistress,  it  seemed  to 
1  me)  would  have  been  inimitable :  then,  right  upon  it, 
j  as  if  it  were  the  beginning  of  a  bar,  and   in  the   most 
unbreathing   continuity,   followed   a   brilliant   passage 
from  the  Barber  of  Seville,  run  into   the   passionate 
prayer  of  Anna  Bolena  in  her  madness,  and  lollowed 
by  the  air  of  »  Suoni  la  tromba  intrepida,"  the  tremen- 
dous duet   in   the   Puritani,  between   Tamburini   and 
Lablache.     Up  to  the  sky,  and  down  to  the  -earth 
again— away  with  a  note  of  the  wildest  gladness,  and 
back  upon  a  note  of  the  most  touching  melancholy— 
if  the  bird  but  half  equals  the  imitation  ot  his  mistress, 
he  were  worth  the  jewel  in  a  sultan's  turban. 

"Giulia"'    "Giulietta!"    "Giuliettina!"   cried   out 
one  and   another,  as  she  ceased,  expressing  in  their 


552 


SKETCHES  OF  TRAVEL. 


Italian  diminutives,  the  love  and  delight  she  had  in- 
spired by  her  incomparable  execution. 

The  stillness  of  the  house  in  the  occasional  pauses 
of  conversation  reminded  the  gay  party,  at  last,  that  it 
was  wearing  late.  The  door  was  unlocked,  and  the 
half-dozen  sleepy  footmen  hanging  about  the  hall  were 
despatched  for  the  cloaks  and  carriages;  the  drowsy 
porter  was  roused  from  his  deep  leathern  dormeuse, 
and  opened  the  door — and  broad  upon  the  street  lay 
the  cold  gray  light  of  a  summer's  morning.  I  declined 
an  offer  to  be  set  down  by  a  friend's  cab,  and  strolled 
off  to  Hyde  Park  to  surprise  myself  with  a  sunrise ; 
balancing  the  silent  rebuke  in  the  fresh  and  healthy 
countenances  of  early  laborers  going  to  their  toil, 
against  the  effervescence  of  a  champagne  hour,  which, 
since  such  come  so  rarely,  may  come,  for  me,  with 
what  untimeliness  they  please. 


CHAPTER  II. 


THE    STREETS    OF    LONDON. 


It  has  been  said,  that  "few  men  know  how  to  take 
a  walk."  In  London  it  requires  some  experience  to 
know  where  to  take  a  walk.  The  taste  of  the  peram- 
bulator, the  hour  of  the  day,  and  the  season  of  the 
year,  would  each  affect  materially  the  decision  of  the 
question. 

If  you  are  up  early — I  mean  early  for  London — say 
ten  o'clock — we  would  start  from  your  hotel  in  Bond 
street,  and  hastening  through  Regent  street  and  the 
Quadrant  (deserts  at  that  hour),  strike  into  the  zigzag 
of  thronged  alleys,  cutting  traversely  from  Coventry 
street  to  Covent  Garden.  The  horses  on  the  cab- 
stand in  the  Haymarket  "are  at  this  hour  asleep." 
The  late  supper-eaters  at  Dubourg's  and  the  Cafe  de 
l' Europe  were  the  last  infliction  upon  their  galled 
withers,  and  while  dissipation  slumbers  they  may  find 
an  hour  to  hang  their  heads  upon  the  bit,  and  forget 
gall  and  spavin  in  the  sunshiny  drowse  of  morning. 
The  cabman,  too,  nods  on  his  perch  outside,  careless 
of  the  custom  of  "  them  as  pays  only  their  fare,"  and 
quite  sure  not  to  get  "a  gemman  to  drive"  at  that  un- 
seasonable hour.  The  "waterman"  (called  a  "  loater- 
man,"  as  he  will  tell  you,  "because  he  gives  hay  to 
the  'orses")  leans  against  the  gas-lamp  at  the  corner, 
looking  with  a  vacant  indifference  of  habit  at  the 
splendid  coach  with  its  four  blood  bays  just  starting  from 
the  Brighton  coach-office  in  the  Crescent.  The  side- 
walk of  Coventry  street,  usually  radiant  with  the 
flaunting  dresses  of  the  fail  and  vicious,  is  now  sober 
with  the  dull  habiliments  of  the  early-stirring  and  the 
poor.  The  town  (for  this  is  town,  not  city)  beats  its 
more  honest  pulse.     Industry  alone  is  abroad. 

Rupert  street  on  the  left  is  the  haunt  of  shabby- 
genteel  poverty.  To  its  low-doored  chop-houses  steal 
the  more  needy  loungers  of  Regent  street,  and  in  con- 
fined and  greasy,  but  separate  and  exclusive  boxes, 
they  eat  their  mutton-chop  and  potato,  unseen  of  their 
gayer  acquaintances.  Here  comes  the  half-pay  of- 
ficer, whose  half-pay  is  halved  or  quartered  with  wife 
and  children,  to  drink  his  solitary  half-pint  of  sherry 
and  over  a  niggardly  portion  of  soup  and  vegetables] 
recall,  as  well  as  he  may  in  imagination,  the  gay  din- 
ners at  mess,  and  the  companions  now  grown  cold in 

death  or  worldliness!  Here  comes  the  sharper  out 
of  luck,  the  debtor  newly  out  of  prison.  And  here 
comes  many  a  "gay  fellow  about  town,"  who  will  dine 
to-morrow,  or  may  have  dined  yesterday,  at  a  table  of 
unsparing  luxury,  but  who  now  turns  up  Rupert  street 
at  seven,  cursing  the  mischance  that  draws  upon  his 
own  slender  pocket  for  the  dinner  of  to-day.  Here 
are  found  the  watchful  host  and  the  suspicious  waiter 
— the  closely-measured   wine,  and  the  more  closely- 


measured  attention — the  silent  and  shrinking  compa- 
ny, the  close-drawn  curtain,  the  suppressed  call  for 
the  bill,  the  lingering  at  the  table  of  those  who  value 
the  retreat  and  the  shelter  to  recover  from  the  embar- 
rassing recognition  and  the  objectless  saunter  through 
the  streets.  The  ruin,  the  distress,  the  despair,  that 
wait  so  closely  upon  the  heels  of  fashion,  pass  hero 
with  their  victims.  It  is  the  last  step  within  tho 
bounds  of  respectability.  They  still  live  "  at  the  West 
end,"  while  they  dine  in  Rupert  street.  They  may 
still  linger  in  the  park,  or  stroll  in  Bond  street,  till 
their  better-fledged  friends  flit  to  dinner  at  the  club's, 
and  within  a  stone's  throw  of  the  luxurious  tables  and 
the  gay  mirth  they  so  bitterly  remember,  sit  down  to 
an  ill-dressed  meal,  and  satisfy  the  calls  of  hunger  in 
silence.  Ah,  the  outskirts  of  the  bright  places  in  life 
are  darker  for  the  light  that  shines  so  near  them! 
How  much  sweeter  is  the  coarsest  meal  shared  with 
the  savage  in  the  wilderness,  than  the  comparative 
comfort  of  cooked  meats  and  wine  in  a  neighborhood 
like  this! 

Come  through  this  narrow  lane  into  Leicester 
square.  You  cross  here  the  first  limit  of  the  fashion- 
able quarter.  The  Sabloniere  hotel  is  in  this  square; 
but  you  may  not  give  it  as  your  address  unless  you 
are  a  foreigner.  This  is  the  home  of  that  most  mis- 
erable fish  out  of  water — a  Frenchman  in  London. 
A  bad  French  hotel,  and  two  or  three  execrable 
French  restaurants,  make  this  spot  of  the  metropolis 
the  most  habitable  to  the  exiled  habitue  of  the  Palais 
Royal.  Here  he  gets  a  mocking  imitation  of  what,  iu 
any  possible  degree,  is  better  than  the  nacre  biflek,  or 
the  half-raw  mutton-chop  and  barbarous  boiled  potato! 
Here  he  comes  forth,  if  the  sunshine  perchance  for 
one  hour  at  noon,  and  paces  up  and  down  on  the  side- 
walk, trying  to  get.  the  better  of  his  bile  and  his  bad 
breakfast.  Here  waits  for  him  at  three,  the  shabby, 
but  most  expensive  remise  cab,  hired  by  the  day  for 
as  much  as  would  support  him  a  month  in  Paris. 
Leicester  square  is  the  place  for  conjurors,  bird- 
fanciers,  showmen,  and  generally  for  every  foreign 
novelty  in  the  line  of  nostrums  and  marvels.  If  there 
is  a  dwarf  in  London,  or  a  child  with  two  heads,  or  a 
learned  pig,  you  will  see  one  or  all  in  that  building,  so 
radiant  with  placards,  and  so  thronged  with  beggars. 

Come  on  through  Cranbourne  alley.  Old  clothes, 
second-hand  stays,  idem  shawls,  capes,  collars,  and 
ladies'  articles  of  ornamental  wear  generally  :  cheap 
straw-bonnets,  old  books,  gingerbread,  and  stationery ! 
Look  at  this  once-expensive  and  finely-worked  muslin 
cape !  What  fair  shoulders  did  it  adorn  when  these 
dingy  flowers  were  new — when  this  fine  lace-edging 
bounded  some  heaving  bosom,  perhaps,  like  frost-work 
on  the  edge  of  a  snow-drift.  It  has  been  the  property 
of  some  minion  of  elegance  and  wealth,  vicious  or  vir- 
tuous, and  by  what  hard  necessity  came  it  here  ?  Ten 
to  one,  could  it  speak,  its  history  would  keep  us  stand- 
ing at  this  shop  window,  indifferent  alike  to  the  curi- 
ous glances  of  these  passing  damsels  and  the  gentle 
eloquence  of  the  Jew  on  the  other  side,  who  pays  us 
the  unflattering  compliment  of  suggesting  an  improve- 
ment in  our  toilet  by  the  purchase  of  the  half-worn 
habiliments  he  exposes. 

I  like  Cranbourne  alley,  because  it  reminds  me  of 
Venice.  The  half-daylight  between  the  high  and 
overhanging  roofs,  the  just  audible  hum  of  voices  and 
occupation  from  the  different  shops,  the  shuffling  of 
hasty  feet  over  the  smooth  flags,  and  particularly  the 
absence  of  horses  and  wheels,  make  it  (in  all  but  the 
damp  air  and  the  softer  speech)  a  fair  resemblance  to 
those  close  passages  in  the  rear  of  the  canals  between 
St.  Mark's  and  the  Rialto.  Then  I  like  studying  a 
pawnbroker's  window,  and  I  like  ferreting  in  the  old 
book-stalls  that  abound  here.  It  is  a  good  lesson  in 
humility  for  an  author  to  see  what  he  can  be  bought 
for  in  Cranbourne  alley.     Some  "gentle  reader,"  who 


SKETCHES  OF  TRAVEL. 


553 


has  paid  a  guinea  and  a  half  for  you,  has  resold  you 
for  two-and-sixpence.  For  three  shillings  you  may 
have  the  three  volumes,  "  as  good  as  new,"  and  the 
shopman,  by  his  civility,  pleased  to  be  rid  of  it  on  the 
terms.  If  you  would  console  yourself,  however,  buy 
Milton  for  one-and-sixpence,  and  credit  your  vanity 
with  the  eighteen-pence  of  the  remainder. 

The  labyrinth  of  alleys  between  this  and  Covent 
Garden,  are  redolent  of  poverty  and  pot-houses.  In 
crossing  St.  Martin's  lane,  life  appears  to  have  be- 
come suddenly  a  struggle  and  a  calamity.  Turbulent 
and  dirty  women  are  everywhere  visible  through  the 
open  windows;  the  half-naked  children  at  the  doors 
look  already  care-worn  and  incapable  of  a  smile ;  and 
the  men  throng  the  gin-shops,  bloated,  surly,  and  re- 
pulsive. Hurry  through  this  leprous  spot  in  the  vast 
body  of  London,  and  let  us  emerge  in  the  Strand. 

You  would  think  London  Strand  the  main  artery  j 
of  the  world.     I  suppose  there  is  no  thoroughfare  on 
the  face  of  the  earth  where  the  stream  of  human  life 
runs    with   a   tide   so    overwhelming.     In    any   other 
street  in  the  world  you  catch  the  eye  of  the  passer-by.  j 
In  the  Strand,  no  man  sees  another  except  as  a  solid 
bodv,  whose  contact  is  to  be  avoided.     You  are  safe 
nowhere  on  the  pavement  without  all  the  vigilance  of 
your  senses.     Omnibuses  and   cabs,  drays,  carriages, 
wheelbarrows,  and    porters,  beset  the  street.     News- 
paper-hawkers, pickpockets,  shop-boys,  coal-heavers, 
and  a  perpetual  and  selfish  crowd  dispute  the  sidewalk.  ■ 
If  you  venture  to   look   at  a  print  in  a  shop-window, 
you   arrest  the   tide   of  passengers,  who  immediately 
walk  over  you;  and,  if  you  stop  to  speak  with  a  friend, 
who  by  chance  has  run  his  nose  against  yours  rather 
than   another  man's,  you   impede   the  way,   and   are 
made  to  understand  it  by  the  force  of  jostling.     If  you 
would  get  into  an  omnibus  you  are  quarrelled  for  by 
half-a-dozen  who  catch  your  eye  at  once,  and  after  j 
using  all  your  physical  strength  and  most  of  your  dis-  j 
crimination,  you  are  most  probably  embarked  in  the  t 
wrong  one,  and   are   going   at  ten  miles  the  hour  to  [ 
Blackwell,    when    you    are   bound    to    Islington.     A 
Londoner  passes  his  life  in  learning  the  most  adroit 
mode  of  threading  a  crowd,  and  escaping  compulsory 
journeys  in  cabs   and  omnibuses;  and  dine  with  any 
man  in  that  metropolis  from  twenty-five  to  sixty  years 
of  age,  and  he  will  entertain  you,  from  the  soup  to  the 
Cura^oa,  with  his  hair-breadth  escapes  and  difficulties 
with  cads  and  coach-drivers. 


CHAPTER  III. 


A  Londoner,  if  met  abroad,  answers  very  vaguely 
any  questions  you  may  be  rash  enough  to  put  to  him 
about  "the  city."  Talk  to  him  of  "town,"  and  he 
would  rather  miss  seeing  St.  Peter's,  than  appear  ig- 
norant of  any  person,  thing,  custom,  or  fashion,  con- 
cerning whom  or  which  you  might  have  a  curiosity. 
It  is  understood  all  over  the  world  that  the  "city"  of 
London  is  that  crowded,  smoky,  jostling,  omnibus  and 
cab-haunted  portion  of  the  metropolis  of  England 
which  lies  east  of  Temple  Bar.  A  kind  of  debatable 
country,  consisting  of  the  Strand,  Covent  Garden,  and 
Tottenham  Court  road,  then  intervenes,  and  west  of 
these  lies  what  is  called  "the  town."  A  transit  from 
one  to  the  other  by  an  inhabitant  of  either  is  a  matter 
of  some  forethought  and  provision.  If  milord,  in 
Carlton  Terrace,  for  example,  finds  it  necessary  to 
visit  his  banker  in  Lombard  street,  he  orders — not  the 
blood  bay  and  the  cane  tilbury  which  he  is  wont  to 
(hive  in  the  morning — but  the  crop  roadster  in  the 
cab,  with  the  night  harness,  and  Poppet  his  tiger  in 
plain   hat  and  gaiters.     If  the   banker  in   Lombard 


street,  on  the  contrary,  emerges  from  the  twilight  of 
his  counting-house  to  make  a  morning  call  on  the 
wife  of  some  foreign  correspondent,  lodging  at  the 
Clarendon,  he  steps  into  a  Piccadilly  omnibus,  not  in 
the  salt-and-pepper  creations  of  his  Cheapside  tailor, 
but  (for  he  has  an  account  with  Stultz  also  for  the 
west-end  business)  in  a  claret-colored  frock  of  the  last 
fashion  at  Crockford's,  a  fresh  hat  from  New  Bond 
street,  and  (if  he  is  young)  a  pair  of  cherished  boots 
from  the  Rue  St.  Honore.  He  sits  very  clear  of  his 
neighbors  on  the  way,  and,  getting  out  at  the  crossing 
at  Farrance's,  the  pastry  cook,  steps  in  and  indulges 
in  a  soup,  and  then  walks  slowly  past  the  clubs  to  his 
rendezvous,  at  a  pace  that  would  ruin  his  credit  irre- 
vocably if  practised  a  mile  to  the  eastward.  The  dif- 
ference between  the  two  migrations  is,  simply,  that 
though  the  nobleman  affects  the  plainness  of  the  city, 
he  would  not  for  the  world  be  taken  for  a  citizen; 
while  the  junior  partner  of  the  house  of  Firkins  and 
Co.  would  feel  unpleasantly  surprised  if  he  were  not 
supposed  to  be  a  member  of  the  clubs,  lounging  to  a 
late  breakfast. 

There  is  a  "  town"  manner,  too,  and  a  "  city"  man- 
ner, practised  with  great  nicety  by  all  who  frequent 
both  extremities  of  London.  Nothing  could  be  in 
more  violent  contrast,  for  example,  than  the  manner 
of  your  banker  when  you  dine  with  him  at  his  coun- 
try-house, and  the  same  person  when  you  meet  him 
on  the  narrow  sidewalk  in  Throgmorton  street.  If  you 
had  seen  him  first  in  his  suburban  retreat,  you  would 
wonder  how  the  deuce  such  a  cordial,  joyous,  spare- 
nothing  sort  of  good  fellow  could  ever  reduce  himself 
to  the  cautious  proportions  of  Change  alley.  If  you 
met  him  first  in  Change  alley,  on  the  contrary,  you 
would  wonder,  with  quite  as  much  embarrassment, 
how  such  a  cold,  two-fingered,  pucker-browed  slave 
of  mammon  could  ever,  by  any  license  of  interpreta- 
tion, be  called  a  gentleman.  And  when  you  have 
seen  him  in  both  places,  and  know  him  well,  if  he  is 
a  favorable  specimen  of  his  class,  you  will  be  aston- 
ished still  more  to  see  how  completely  he  will  sustain 
both  characters — giving  you  the  cold  shoulder,  in  a 
way  that  half  insults  you,  at  twelve  in  the  morning, 
and  putting  his  home,  horses,  cellar,  and  servants, 
completely  at  your  disposal  at  four  in  the  afternoon. 
Two  souls  inhabit  the  banker"s  body,  and  each  is  ap- 
parently sole  tenant  in  turn.  As  the  Hampstead  early 
coach  turns  the  corner  by  St.  Giles's,  on  its  way  to 
the  bank,  the  spirit  of  gain  enters  into  the  bosom  of 
the  junior  Firkins,  ejecting,  till  the  coach  passes  the 
same  spot  at  three  in  the  afternoon,  the  more  gentle- 
manly inhabitants.  Between  those  hours,  look  to 
Firkins  for  no  larger  sentiment  than  may  be  written 
upon  the  blank  lines  of  a  note  of  hand,  and  expect  no 
courtesy  that  would  occupy  the  head  or  hands  of  the 
junior  partner  longer  than  one  second  by  St.  Paul's. 
With  the  broad  beam  of  sunshine  that  inundates  the 
returning  omnibus  emerging  from  Holborn  into  Tot- 
tenham Court  road,  the  angel  of  port  wine  and  green 
fields  passes  his  finger  across  Firkins's  brow,  and 
presto!  the  man  is  changed.  The  sight  of  a  long 
and  narrow  strip  of  paper,  sticking  from  his  neighbor's 
pocket,  depreciates  that  person  in  his  estimation,  he 
criticises  the  livery  and  riding  of  the  jiroom  trotting 
past,  says  some  very  true  things  of  the  architecture  of 
the  new  cottage  on  the  roadside,  and  is  landed  at  the 
end  of  his  own  shrubbery,  as  pleasant  and  joyous- 
looking  a  fellow  as  you  would  meet  on  that  side  of 
London.  You  have  ridden  out  to  dine  with  him,  and 
as  he  meets  you  on  the  lawn,  there  is  still  an  hour  to 
dinner,  and  a  blood  horse  spatters  round  from  the  sta- 
bles, which  you  are  welcome  to  drive  to  the  devil  if 
you  like,  accompanied  either  by  Mrs.  Firkins  or  him- 
self; or,  if  you  like  it  better,  there  are  Mrs.  Firkins's 
two  ponies,  and  the  chaise  holds  two  and  the  tiger. 
Ten  to  one  Mrs.  Firkins  is  a  pretty  woman,  and  has 


554 


SKETCHES  OF  TRAVEL. 


her  whims,  and  when  you  are  fairly  on  the  road,  she 
proposes  to  leave  the  soup  and  champagne  at  home 
to  equalize  their  extremes  of  temperature,  drive  to 
Whitehall  Stairs,  take  boat  and  dine,  extempore,  at 
Richmond.  And  Firkins,  to  whom  it  will  be  at  least 
twenty  pounds  out  of  pocket,  claps  his  hands  and 
says — "  By  Jove,  it's  a  bright  thought !  touch  up  the 
near  pony,  Mrs.  Firkins."  And  away  you  go,  Firkins 
amusing  himself  the  whole  way  from  Hampstead  to 
Richmond,  imagining  the  consternation  of  his  cook 
and  butler  when  nobody  comes  to  dine. 

There  is  an  aristocracy  in  the  city,  of  course,  and 
Firkins  will  do  business  with  twenty  persons  in  a  day 
whom  he  could  never  introduce  to  Mrs.  Firkins.  The 
situation  of  that  lady  with  respect  to  her  society  is 
(she  will  tell  you  in  confidence)  rather  embarrassing. 
There  are  many  very  worthy  persons,  she  will  say, 
who  represent  large  sums  of  money  or  great  interests 
in  trade,  whom  it  is  necessary  to  ask  to  the  Lodge, 
but  who  are  far  from  being  ornamental  to  her  new 
blue  satin  boudoir.  She  has  often  proposed  to  Fir- 
kins to  have  them  labelled  in  tens  and  thousands  ac- 
cording to  their  fortunes  ;  that  if,  by  any  unpleasant 
accident,  Lord  Augustus  should  meet  them  there,  he 
might  respect  them  like  =  in  algebra,  for  what  they 
stand  for.  But  as  it  is,  she  is  really  never  safe  in  cal- 
culating on  a  societe  choisie  to  dine  or  sup.  When 
Hook  or  Smith  is  just  beginning  lo  melt  out,  or  Lady 
Priscilla  is  in  the  middle  of  a  charade,  in  walks  Mr. 
Snooks,  of  the  foreign  house  of  Snooks,  Son,  and  j 
Co. — "  unexpectedly  arrived  from  Lisbon,  and  run 
down  without  ceremony  to  call  on  his  respectable  cor- 
respondent." 

"  Isn't  it  tiresome  ?" 

"Very,  my  dear  madam  !  But  then  you  have  the 
happiness  of  knowing  that  you  promote  very  essen- 
tially your  husband's  interests,  and  when  he  has  made 
a  plum " 

"  Yes,  very  true ;  and  then,  to  be  sure,  Firkins  has 
had  to  build  papa  a  villa,  and  buy  my  brother  Wilfred 
a  commission,  and  settle  an  annuity  on  my  aunt,  and 
fit  out  my  youngest  brother  Bob  to  India  ;  and  when  I 
think  of  what  he  does  for  my  family,  why  I  don't  mind 
making  now  and  then  a  sacrifice  ;  but,  after  all,  it's  a 
great  evil  not  to  be  able  to  cultivate  one's  own  class 
of  society." 

And  so  murmurs  Mrs.  Firkins,  who  is  the  prettiest 
and  sweetest  creature  in  the  world,  and  really  loves 
the  husband  she  married  for  his  fortune  ;  but  as  the 
prosperity  of  Haman  was  nothing  while  Mordecai  sat 
at  the  gate,  it  is  nothing  to  Mrs.  Firkins  that  her  fa- 
ther lives  in  luxury,  that  her  brothers  are  portioned 
oft',  and  that  she  herself  can  have  blue  boudoirs  and 
pony-chaises  ad  libitum,  while  Snooks,  Son,  and  Co., 
may  at  any  moment  break  in  upon  the  charade  of 
Lady  Priscilla  ! 

There  is  a  class  of  business  people  in  London, 
mostly  bachelors,  who  have  wisely  declared  themselves 
independent  of  the  West  End,  and  live  in  a  style  of 
their  own  in  the  dark  courts  and  alleys  about  the  Ex- 
change, but  with  a  luxury  not  exceeded  even  in  the 
silken  recesses  of  May  Fair.  You  will  sometimes 
meet  at  the  opera  a  young  man  of  decided  style,  un- 
exceptionable in  his  toilet,  and  quiet  and  gentleman- 
like in  his  address,  who  contents  himself  with  the  side 
alley  of  the  pit,  and  looks  at  the  bright  circles  of  beau- 
ty and  fashion  about  him  with  an  indifference  it  is  dif- 
ficult to  explain.  Make  his  acquaintance  by  chance, 
and  he  takes  you  home  to  supper  in  a  plain  chariot  on 
the  best  springs  Long  Acre  can  turn  out ;  and  while 
you  are  speculating  where,  in  the  name  of  the  prince 
of  darkness,  these  narrow  streets  will  bring  you  to, 
you  are  introduced  through  a  small  door  into  saloons, 
perfect  in  taste  and  luxury,  where,  ten  to  one,  you  sup 
with  the  prima  donna,  or  la  premiere  danseuse,  but 
certainly  with  the  most  polished  persons  of  your  own 


sex,  not  one  of  whom,  though  you  may  have  passed  a 
life  in  London,  you  ever  met  in  society  before.  There 
are,  I  doubt  not,  in  that  vast  metropolis,  hundreds  of 
small  circles  of  society,  composed  thus  of  persons 
refined  by  travel  and  luxury,  whose  very  existence  is 
unsuspected  by  the  fine  gentleman  at  the  West  End, 
but  who,  in  the  science  of  living  agreeably,  are  almost 
as  well  entitled  to  rank  among  the  cognoscenti  as  Lord 
Sefton  or  the  "  member  for  Finsbury." 


CHAPTER  IV. 


You  return  from  your  ramble  in  "the  city"  by  two 
o'clock.  A  bright  day  "  toward,"  and  the  season  in 
its  palmy  time.  The  old  veterans  are  just  creeping 
out  upon  the  portico  of  the  United  Service  club,  hav- 
ing crammed  "The  Times"  over  their  late  breakfast, 
and  thus  prepared  their  politics  against  surprise  for 
the  day ;  the  broad  steps  of  the  Athenaeum  are  as  yet 
unthronged  by  the  shuffling  feet  of  the  literati,  whose 
morning  is  longer  and  more  secluded  than  that  of  idler 
men,  but  who  will  be  seen  in  swarms,  at  four,  entering 
that  superb  edifice  in  company  with  the  employes  and 
politicians  who  affect  their  society.  Not  a  cab  stands 
yet  at  the  "Travellers,"  whose  members,  noble  or 
fashionable,  are  probably  at  this  hour  in  their  dres- 
sing-gowns of  brocade  or  shawl  of  the  orient,  smoking 
a  hookah  over  Balzac's  last  romance,  or  pursuing  at 
this  (to  them)  desert  time  of  day  some  adventure  which 
waited  upon  their  love  and  leisure.  It  is  early  yet  for 
the  park;  but  the  equipages  you  will  see  by-and-by 
"in  the  ring"  are  standing  now  at  Howell  and  James's, 
and  while  the  high-bred  horses  are  fretting  at  the 
door,  and  the  liveried  footmen  lean  on  their  gold- 
headed  sticks  on  the  pavement,  the  fair  creature  whose 
slightest  nod  these  trained  minions  and  their  fine- 
limbed  animals  live  to  obey,  sits  upon  a  three-legged 
stool  within,  and  in  the  voice  which  is  a  spell  upon  al< 
hearts,  and  with  eyes  to  which  rank  and  genius  turn 
like  Persians  to  the  sun,  discusses  with  a  pert  clerk 
the  quality  of  stockings  ! 

Look  at  these  equipages  and  their  appointments  ! 
Mark  the  exquisite  balanceof  that  claret-bodied  chariot 
upon  its  springs — the  fine  sway  of  its  sumptuous  ham- 
mer-cloth in  which  the  un-smiling  coachman  sits 
buried  to  the  middle — the  exact  fit  of  the  saddles,  set- 
ting into  the  curve  of  the  horses'  backs  so  as  not  break, 
to  the  most  careless  eye,  the  fine  lines  which  exhibit 
action  and  grace!  See  how  they  stand  together, 
alert,  fiery,  yet  obedient  to  the  weight  of  a  silken 
thread  ;  and  as  the  coachman  sees  you  studying  his 
turn-out,  observe  the  imperceptible  feel  of  the  reins 
and  the  just-visible  motion  of  his  lips,  conveying  to 
the  quick  ears  of  his  horses  the  premonitory,  and,  to 
us,  inaudible  sound,  to  which,  without  drawing  a 
hair's  breadth  upon  the  traces,  they  paw  their  fine 
hoofs,  and  expand  their  nostrils  impatiently  !  Come 
nearer,  and  find  a  speck  or  a  raised  hair,  if  you  can, 
on  these  glossy  coats  !  Observe  the  nice  fitness  of 
the  dead-black  harness,  the  modest  crest  upon  the 
panel,  the  delicate  picking  out  of  white  in  the  wheels, 
and,  if  you  will  venture  upon  a  freedom  in  manners, 
look  in  through  the  window  of  rose-teinled  glass,  and 
see  the  splendid  cushions  and  the  costly  and  perfect 
adaptation  of  the  interior.  The  twinmated  footmen 
fly  to  the  carriage-door,  and  the  pomatumed  clerk  who 
has  enjoyed  a  tete-a-tete  for  which  a  prince-royal  might 
sigh,  and  an  ambassador  negotiate  in  vain,  hands  in 
his  parcel.  The  small  foot  presses  on  the  carpeted 
step,  the  airy  vehicle  yields  lightly  and  recovers  from 
the  slight  weight  of  the  descending  form,  the  coach- 
man  inclines    his   ear  for  the  half-suppressed   order 


SKETCHES  OF  TRAVEL. 


555 


from  the  footman,  and  oft'  whirls  the  admirable  struc- 
ture, compact,   true,  steady,  but  magically  free   and 

(asl as  if  horses,  footmen,  and  chariot  were  but  the 

parts  of  some  complicated  centaur — some  swift-moving 
monster  upon  legs  and  wheels  ! 

Walk  on  a  little  farther  to  the  Quadrant.  Here 
commences  the  most  thronged  promenade  in  London. 
These  crescent  colonnades  are  the  haunt  of  foreigners 
on  the  lookout  for  amusement,  and  of  strangers  in  the 
metropolis  generally.  You  will  seldom  find  a  town- 
bred  man  there,  for  he  prefers  haunting  his  clubs;  or, 
if  he  is  not  a  member  of  them,  he  avoids  lounging 
much  in  the  Quadrant,  lest  he  should  apj>ear  to  have 
no  other  resort.  You  will  observe  a  town  dandy 
getting  fidgety  after  his  second  turn  in  the  Quadrant, 
while  you  will  meet* the  same  Frenchman  there  from 
noon  till  dusk,  bounding  his  walk  by  those  columns  as 
if  they  were  the  bars  of  a  cage.  The  western  side 
toward  Piccadilly  is  the  thoroughfare  of  the  honest 
passer-by  ;  but  under  the  long  portico  opposite,  you 
will  meet  vice  in  every  degree,  and  perhaps  more 
beauty  than  on  any  other  pave  in  the  world.  It  is 
given  up  to  the  vicious  and  their  followers  by  general 
consent.  To  frequent  it,  or  to  be  seen  loitering  there 
at  all,  is  to  make  but  one  impression  on  the  mind  of 
those  who  may  observe  you. 

The  two  sides  of  Regent  street  continue  to  partake 
of  this  distinction  to  the  end.  Go  up  on  the  left,  and 
you  meet  the  sober  citizen  perambulating  with  his 
wife,  the  lady  followed  by  her  footman,  the  grave  and 
the  respectable  of  all  classes.  Go  up  on  the  other, 
and  in  color  and  mien  it  is  the  difference  between  a 
grass-walk  and  a  bed  of  tulips.  What  proof  is  here 
that  beauty  is  dangerous  to  its  possessor !  It  is  said 
commonly  of  Regent  street,  that  it  shows  more  beauty 
in  an  hour  than  could  be  found  in  all  the  capitals  of 
the  continent.  It  is  the  beauty,  however,  of  brilliant 
health — of  complexion  and  freshness,  more  than  of 
sentiment  or  classic  correctness.  The  English  features, 
at  least  in  the  middle  and  lower  ranks,  are  seldom 
good,  though  the  round  cheek,  the  sparkling  lip,  the 
soft  blue  eyes  and  hair  of  dark  auburn,  common  as 
health  and  youth,  produce  the  effect  of  high  and  al- 
most universal  beauty  on  the  eye  of  the  stranger.  The 
larest  thing  in  these  classes  is  a  finely-turned  limb, 
and  to  the  clumsiness  of  their  feet  and  ankles  must  be 
attributed  the  want  of  grace  usually  remarked  in  their 
movements. 

Regent  street  has  appeared  to  me  the  greatest  and 
most  oppressive  solitude  in  the  world.  In  a  crowd  of 
business  men,  or  in  the  thronged  and  mixed  gardens 
of  the  continent,  the  pre-occupation  of  others  is  less 
attractive,  or  at  least,  more  within  our  reach,  if  we 
would  share  in  it.  Here,  it  is  wealth  beyond  com- 
petition, exclusiveness  and  indifference  perfectly  un- 
approachable. In  the  cold  and  stern  mien  of  the 
practised  Londoner,  it  is  difficult  for  a  stranger  not  to 
read  distrust,  and  very  difficult  for  a  depressed  mind 
not  to  feel  a  marked  repulsion.  There  is  no  solitude, 
after  all,  like  the  solitude  of  cities. 

"  O  dear,  dear  London"  (says  the  companion  of 
Asmodeus  on  his  return  from  France),  "dear  even  in 
October  !  Regent  street,  I  saluteyou  !  Bond  street, 
my  good  fellow,  how  are  you  ?  And  you,  oh,  beloved 
Oxford  street,  whom  the  opium-eater  called  '  stony- 
hearted,' and  whom  I,  eating  no  opium,  and  speaking 
as  I  find,  shall  ever  consider  the  most  kindly  and  ma- 
ternal of  all  streets — the  street  of  the  middle  classes — 
busy  without  uproar,  wealthy  without  ostentation. 
Ah,  the  pretty  ankles  that  trip  along  thy  pavement ! 
Ah  !  the  odd  country-cousin  bonnets  that  peer  into 
thy  windows,  which  are  lined  with  cheap  yellow  shawls, 
price  one  pound  four  shillings,  marked  in  the  corner  ! 
Ah  !  the  brisk  young  lawyers  flocking  from  their  quar- 
ters at  the  back  of  Holborn  !  Ah !  the  quiet  old  ladies, 
living  in  Duchess  street,  and  visiting  thee  with  their 


eldest  daughters  in  the  hope  of  a  bargain  !     Ah,  the 

bumpkins  from  Norfolk  just  disgorged  by  the  Bull  and 

Month — the  soldiers — the  milliners — the  Frenchmen 

— the  swindlers — the  porters  with  four-post  beds  on 

their  backs,  who  add  the  excitement  of  danger  to  that  of 

amusement!     The  various  shifting,  motley  group  that 

belong  to  Oxford  street,  and  Oxford  street  alone !    What 

thoroughfares  equal   thee    in    the  variety   of  human 

i  specimens  !  in  the  choice  of  objects  for  remark,  satire, 

admiration  !     Besides,  the  other  streets  seem  chalked 

out  for  a  sect — narrow-minded  and  devoted  to  ^coterie. 

Thou  alone  art  catholic — all-receiving.     Regent  street 

belongs  to   foreigners,  cigars,  and   ladies  in  red  silk, 

I  whose  characters  are  above  scandal.     Bond  street  be- 

j  longs  to    dandies  and    picture-dealers.     St.   James's 

I  street  to  club  loungers  and  young  men  in  the  guards, 

|  with   mustaches    properly    blackened  by  the  cire  of 

j  Mr.  Delcroix;  but  thou,  Oxford  street,  what  class  can 

;  especially  claim  thee  as  its  own  ?     Thou  mockest  at 

|  oligarchies  ;  thou  knowest  nothing  of  select  orders  ! 

I  Thou  art  liberal  as  air — a  chartered  libertine;  accept- 

j  ing  the  homage  of  all,  and   retaining  the  stamp  of 

'none.     And  to   call  thee  'storfy-hearted  !' — certainly 

j  thou  art  so  to  beggars — to  people  who  have  not  the 

|  wherewithal.     But  thou  wouldst  not  be  so  respect- 

'  able  if  thou  wert  not  capable  of  a  certain  reserve  to 

paupers.     Thou  art  civil  enough,  in  all  conscience, 

to  those  who  have  a  shilling  in  their  pocket — those 

who  have  not,  why  do  they  live  at  all  ?" 


CHAPTER  V. 


It  is  near  four  o'clock,  and  in  Bond  street  you 
might  almost  walk  on  the  heads  of  livery-servants — ■ 
at  every  stride  stepping  over  the  heads  of  two  ladies 
and  a  dandy  exclusive.  Thoroughfare  it  is  none,  for 
the  carriages  are  creeping  on,  inch  by  inch,  the  blood- 
horses  "  marking  time,"  the  coachman  watchful  for 
his  panels  and  whippletrees,  and  the  lady  within  her 
silken  chariot,  lounging  back,  with  her  eyes  upon  the 
passing  line,  neither  impatient  nor  surprised  at  the 
delay,  for  she  came  there  on  purpose.  Between  the 
swaying  bodies  of  the  carriages,  hesitating  past,  she 
receives  the  smiles  and  recognitions  of  all  her  male 
acquaintances  ;  while  occasionally  a  female  ally  (for 
allies  against  the  rest  of  the  sex  are  as  necessary  in 
society  to  women,  as  in  war  to  monarchs) — occasion- 
ally, I  say,  a  female  ally  announced  by  the  crest  upon 
the  blinker  of  an  advancing  horse,  arrives  opposite  her 
window,  and,  with  only  the  necessary  delay  in  passing, 
they  exchange,  perhaps,  inquiries  for  health,  but,  cer- 
tainly, programmes,  comprehensive  though  brief,  for 
the  prosecution  of  each  other's  loves  or  hates.  Occa- 
sionally a  hack  cab,  seduced  into  attempting  Bond 
street  by  some  momentary  opening,  finds  itself  closed 
in,  forty  deep,  by  chariots,  butckas,  landaus,  and  fam- 
ily coaches  ;  and  amid  the  imperturbable  and  unan- 
swering  whips  of  the  hammercloth,  with  a  passenger 
who  is  losing  the  coach  by  the  delay,  he  must  wait, 
will-he-nill-he,  till  some  "pottering"  dowager  has 
purchased  the  old  lord  his  winter  flannels,  or  till  the 
countess  of  Loiter  has  said  all  she  has  to  say  to  the 
guardsman  whom  she  has  met  accidentally  at  Pluck- 
rose,  the  perfumer's.  The  three  tall  fellows,  with 
gold  sticks,  would  see  the  entire  plebeian  population 
of  London  thrice-sodden  in  vitriol,  before  they  would 
advance  miladi's  carriage  a  step,  or  appear  to  possess 
eyes  or  ears  for  the  infuriated  cabman. 

Bond  street,  at  this  hour,  is  a  study  for  such  ob- 
servers, as,  having  gone  through  an  apprenticeship  of 
criticism  upon  all  the  other  races  and  grades  of  men 
and  gentlemen  in  the  world,  are  now  prepared  to  study 


556 


SKETCHES  OF  TRAVEL. 


their  species  in  its  highest  fashionable  phase — that  of 
"nice  persons"  at  the  West  End.  The  Oxford-street 
"swell,"  and  the  Regent-street  dandy,  if  seen  here, 
are  out  of  place.  The  expressive  word  "quiet"  (with 
its  present  London  signification),  defines  the  dress, 
manner,  bow,  and  even  physiognomy,  of  every  true 
denizen  of  St.  James's  and  Bond  street.  The  great 
principle  among  men  of  the  clubs,  in  all  these  partic- 
ulars, is  to  subdue — to  deprive  their  coats,  hats,  and 
manners,  of  everything  sufficiently  marked  to  be  cari- 
catured by  the  satirical  or  imitated  by  the  vulgar. 
The  triumph  of  style  seems  to  be  that  the  lines  which 
define  it  shall  be  imperceptible  to  the  common  eye — 
that  it  shall  require  the  difficult  education  which  cre- 
ates it  to  know  its  form  and  limit.  Hence  an  almost 
universal  error  with  regard  to  English  gentlemen — 
that  they  are  repulsive  and  cold.  With  a  thousand 
times  the  heart  and  real  politeness  of  the  Frenchman, 
they  meet  you  with  the  simple  and  unaffected  address 
which  would  probably  be  that  of  shades  in  Elysium, 
between  whom  (we  may  suppose)  there  is  no  longer 
etiquette  or  concealment.     The  only  exceptions  to  I 

this  rule  in  London,  are,  first  and  alone,  Count ,  | 

whose  extraordinary  and  original  style,  marked  as  it 
is,  is  inimitable  by  any  man   of  less  brilliant  talents  ' 
and  less  beauty  of  person,  and  the  king's  guardsmen,  | 
who  are  dandies  by  prescriptive  right,  or,  as  it  were,  j 
professionally.     All  other  men  who  are  members  of  i 
Brooks's  and  the  Traveller's,  and  frequent  Bond  street 
in  the  flush  of  the  afternoon,  are  what  would  be  called 
in  America,   plain,   unornamental,   and,   perhaps,   ill- 
dressed  individuals,  who  would  strike  you  more  by  the  j 
absence  than  the  possession   of  all  the   peculiarities  ! 
which  we  generally  suppose  marks  a  "  picked  man  of 
countries."     In  America,  particularly,  we  are  liable  to 
error  on  this  point,  as,  of  the  great  number  of  our 
travellers  for  improvement,  scarce  one  in  a  thousand 
remains  longer  in  London  than  to  visit  the  tower  and 
the  Thames  tunnel.     The  nine  hundred  and  ninety- 
nine  reside  principally,  and  acquire  all  they  get  of  for- 
eign manner  and  style,  at  Paris — the  very  most  artifi- 
cial, corrupt,  and  affected  school  for  gentlemen  in  the 
polite  world. 

Prejudice  against  any  one  country  is  an  illiberal 
feeling,  which  common  reflection  should,  and  which 
enlightened  travel  usually  does,  entirely  remove. 
There  is  a  vulgar  prejudice  against  the  English  in 
almost  all  countries,  but  more  particularly  in  ours, 
which  blinds  its  entertainers  to  much  that  is  admira- 
ble, and  deprives  them  of  the  good  drawn  from  the 
best  models.  The  troop  of  scurrilous  critics,  the  class 
of  English  bagmen,  and  errant  vulgarians  of  all  kinds, 
and  the  industriously-blown  coals  of  old  hostilities, 
are  barriers  which  an  educated  mind  may  well  over- 
look, and  barriers  beyond  which  lie,  no  doubt,  the  best 
examples  of  true  civilization  and  refinement  the  world 
ever  saw.  But  we  are  getting  into  an  essay  when  we 
should  be  turning  down  Bruton  street,  on  our  way  to 
the  park,  with  all  the  fashion  of  Bond  street  and  Mav 
Fair.  J 

May  Fair  !  what  a  name  for  the  core  of  dissipated 
and  exclusive  London !  A  name  that  brings  with  it 
only  the  scent  of  crushed  flowers  in  a  green  field,  of  a 
pole  wreathed  with  rose,  booths  crowded  with  dancing 

peasant-girls,  and   nature  in  its  holyday!     This to 

express  the  costly,  the  courtlike,  the  so-called  "  heart- 
less" precinct  of  fashion  and  art,  in  their  most  authen- 
tic and  envied  perfection.  Mais,  les  extremes  se  tou- 
chent,  and,  perhaps,  there  is  more  nature  in  May  Fair 
than  in  Rose  Cottage  or  Honeysuckle  Lodge. 

We  stroll  on  through  Berkeley  square,  by  Chester- 
field and  Curzon  streets  to  the  park  gate.  What  an 
aristocratic  quiet  reigns  here !  How  plain  are  the  ex- 
teriors of  these  houses :  how  unexpressive  these  doors, 
without  a  name,  of  the  luxury  and  high-born  pride 
within  !     At  the  open  window  of  the  hall  sit  the  butler 


and  footman,  reading  the  morning  paper,  while  they 
wait  to  dispense  the  "not  at  home"  to  callers  not  dis- 
appointed. The  rooks  are  noisy  in  the  old  trees  of 
Chesterfield  house.  The  painted  window-screens  of 
the  probably  still-slumbering  Count ,  in  his  bach- 
elor's den,  are  closely  drawn,  and,  as  we  pass  Seymour 
place,  a  crowd  of  gay  cabs  and  diplomatic  chariots, 
drawn  up  before  the  dark-green  door  at  the  farther  ex- 
tremity, announce  to  you  the  residence  of  one  whose 
morning  and  evening  levees  are  alike  thronged  by  dis- 
tinction and  talent — the  beautiful  Lady . 

This  short  turn  brings  us  to  the  park,  which  is  rap- 
idly filling  with  vehicles  of  every  fashion  and  color, 
and  with  pedestrians  and  horsemen  innumerable.  No 
hackney-coach,  street-cab,  cart,  or  pauper,  is  allowed 
to  pass  the  porters  at  the  several#gates  :  the  road  is 
macadamized  and  watered,  and  the  grass  within  the 
ring  is  fresh  and  verdant.  The  sun  here  triumphs 
partially  over  the  skirt  of  London  smoke,  which  sways 
backward  and  forward  over  the  chimneys  of  Park  lane, 
and,  as  far  as  it  is  possible  so  near  the  dingy  halo  of 
the  metropolis,  the  gay  occupants  of  these  varied  con- 
veyances "  take  the  air." 

Let  us  stand  by  the  railing  a  moment,  and  see  what 
comes  by.  This  is  the  field  of  display  for  the  coach- 
man, who  sits  upon  his  sumptuous  hamrnercloth, 
and  takes  more  pride  in  his  horses  than  their  owner, 
and  considers  them,  if  not  like  his  own  honor  and 
blood,  very  like  his  own  property.  Watch  the  delicate 
handling  of  his  ribands,  the  affected  nonchalance  of 
his  air,  and  see  how  perfectly,  how  admirably,  how 
beautifully,  move  his  blood  horses,  and  how  steadily 
and  well  follows  the  compact  carriage  !  Within  (it  is 
a  dark-green  caliche,  and  the  liveries  are  drab,  with 
red  edgings)  sits  the  oriental  form  and  bright  spiritual 
face  of  a  banker's  wife,  the  daughter  of  a  noble  race, 
who  might  have  been,  but  was  not,  sacrificed  in  "  mar- 
rying into  the  finance,"  and  who  soars  up  into  the  sky 
of  happiness,  like  the  unconscious  bird  that  has  es- 
caped the  silent  arrow  of  the  savage,  as  if  her  destiny 
could  not  but  have  been  thus  fulfilled.  Who  follows? 
D'Israeli,  alone  in  his  cab;  thoughtful,  melancholy, 
disappointed  in  his  political  schemes,  and  undervaluing 
his  literary  success,  and  expressing,  in  his  scholar-like 
and  beautiful  profile,  as  he  passes  us,  both  the  thirst 
at  his  heart  and  the  satiety  at  his  lips.  The  livery  of 
his  "  tiger"  is  neglected,  and  he  drives  like  a  man  who 
has  to  choose  between  running  and  being  run  against, 
and  takes  that  which  leaves  him  the  most  leisure  for  re- 
flection. Poor  D'Israeli !  With  a  kind  and  generous 
heart,  talents  of  the  most  brilliant  order,  an  ambition 
which  consumes  his  soul,  and  a  father  who  expects 
everything  from  his  son ;  lost  for  the  want  of  a  tact 
common  to  understandings  fathoms  deep  below  his 
own,  and  likely  to  drive  in  Hyde  Park  forty  years 
hence,  if  he  die  not  of  the  corrosion  of  disappointment, 
no  more  distinguished  than  now,  and  a  thousand  times 
more  melancholy. 

An  open  barouche  follows,  drawn  by  a  pair  of  dark 
bays,  the  coachman  and  footman  in  suits  of  plain  gray, 
and  no  crest  on  the  panels.  A  lady,  of  remarkable 
small  person,  sits,  with  the  fairest  foot  ever  seen,  just 
peeping  from  under  a  cashmere,  on  the  forward  cush- 
ion, and  from  under  her  peculiarly  plain  and  small 
bonnet  burn,  in  liquid  fire,  the  most  lambent  and 
spiritual  eyes  that  night  and  sleep  ever  hid  from  the 
world.  She  is  a  niece  of  Napoleon,  married  to  an 
English  nobleman  ;  and  beside  her  sits  her  father, 
who  refused  the  throne  of  Tuscany,  a  noble-looking 
man,  with  an  expression  of  calm  and  tranquil  resigna- 
tion in  his  face,  unusually  plain  in  his  exterior,  and 
less  alive  than  most  of  the  gay  promenaders  to  the 
bright  scene  passing  about  him. "  He  will  play  in  the 
charade  at  his  daughter's  soiree  in  the  evening,  how- 
ever, and  forget  his  exile  and  his  misfortunes ;  for  he 
is  a  fond  father  and  a  true  philosopher. 


SKETCHES  OF  TRAVEL. 


557 


CHAPTER  VI. 


If  you  dine  with  all  the  world  at  seven,  you  have 
still  an  hour  or  more  for  Hyde  Park,  and  "  Rotten 
Row;"  this  half  mile  between  Oxford  street  and  Pic- 
cadilly, to  which  the  fashion  of  London  confines  itself, 
as  if  the  remainder  of  the  bright  green  park  were  for- 
bidden ground,  is  now  fuller  than  ever.  There  is  the 
advantage  in  this  condensed  drive,  that  you  are  sure  to 
see  your  friends  here,  earlier  or  later,  in  every  day — 
(for  wherever  you  are  to  go  with  horses,  the  conclu- 
sion of  the  order  to  the  coachman  is,  "  home  by  the 
park") — and  then  if  there  is  anything  new  in  the  way 
of  an  arrival,  a  pretty  foreigner,  or  a  fresh  face  from 
the  country,  some  dandy's  tiger  leaves  his  master  at 
the  gate,  and  brings  him  at  his  club,  over  his  coffee, 
all  possible  particulars  of  her  name,  residence,  con- 
dition, and  whatever  other  circumstances  fall  in  his 

way.     By  dropping   in   at  Lady 's  soiree  in  the 

evening,  if  you  were  interested  in  the  face,  you  may  i 
inform  yourself  of  more  than  you  would  have  drawn 
in  a  year's  acquaintance  from  the  subject  of  your  cu-  | 
riosity.     Malapropos  to   my   remark,   here   comes   a 
turn-out,  concerning  which  and  its  occupant  I  have 
made  many  inquiries  in  vain — the  pale-colored  chariot,  j 
with  a  pair  of  grays,  dashing  toward  us  from  the  Sey-  | 
mour  gate.     As  it  comes  by  you  will  see,  sitting  quite  ■ 
in  the  corner,  and  in  a  very  languid  and  elegant  atti-  \ 
tude,  a  slight  woman  of  perhaps  twenty-four,  dressed  ; 
in  the  simplest  white  cottage-bonnet  that  could  be  ! 
made,  and,  with  her  head  down,  looking  up  through 
heavy  black  eyelashes,  as  if  she  but  waited  till  she  had  j 
passed  a  particular  object,  to  resume  some  engrossing  ! 
revery.     Her  features  are  Italian,  and   her  attitude, 
always  the  same  indolent  one,  has  also  a  redolence  of  ! 
that  land   of  repose  ;    but  there  has  been  an  English 
taste,  and  no  ordinary  one,  in  the  arrangement  of  that  ] 
equipage  and  its  dependants  ;  and  by  the  expression, 
never  mistaken  in  London,  of  the  well-appointed  me-  ; 
nials,  you  may  be  certain  that  both   master  and   mis-  J 
tress  (if  master  there  be),  exact  no  common  deference.  J 
She  is  always  alone,  and  not  often  seen  in  the  park  ;  \ 
and  whenever  I  have  inquired  of  those  likely  to  know, 
I  found  that  she  had  been  observed,  but  could  get  no  I 
satisfactory  information.     She  disappears  by  the  side  j 
toward  the  Regent's  park,  and  when  once  out  of  the 
gate,  her  horses  are  let  off  at  a  speed  that  distances  j 
all  pursuit  that  would  not  attract  observation.     There 
is  a  look  of  "  Who  the  deuce  can  it  be  ?"  in  the  faces  ; 
of  all  the  mounted  dandies,  wherever  she  passes,  for 
it  is  a  face  which  once  seen  is  not  easily  thought  of 
with  indifference,  or  forgotten.     Immense  as  London 
is,   a  woman  of  anything  like   extraordinary   beauty 
would  find  it  difficult  to  live  there  incognito  a  week  ; 
and  how  this  fair  incomprehensible  has  contrived  to 
elude  the  curiosity  of  Hyde-park  admiration,  for  nearly 
two  years,  is  rather  a  marvel.     There  she  goes,  how- 
ever, and  without  danger  of  being  arrested  for  a  flying 
highwayman  you  could  scarcely  follow. 

It  is  getting  late,  and,  as  we  turn  down  toward  the 
clubs,  we  shall  meet  the  last  and  most  fashionable 
comers  to  the  park.  Here  is  a  horseman,  surrounded 
with  half  a  dozen  of  the  first  young  noblemen  of  Eng- 
land. He  rides  a  light  bay  horse  with  dark  legs, 
whose  delicate  veins  are  like  the  tracery  of  silken 
threads  beneath  the  gloss  of  his  limbs,  and  whose 
small,  animated  head  seems  to  express  the  very  es- 
sence of  speed  and  fire.  He  is  the  most  beautiful 
park  horse  in  England  ;  and  behind  follows  a  high- 
bred milk-white  pony,  ridden  by  a  small,  faultlessly- 
dressed  groom,  who  sits  the  spirited  and  fretting  crea- 
ture as  if  he  anticipated  every  movement  before  the 
fine  hoof  rose  from  the  ground.     He  rides  admirably, 


but  his  master  is  more  of  a  study.  A  luxuriance  of 
black  curls  escapes  from  the  broad  rim  of  a  peculiar 
hat,  and  forms  a  relief  to  the  small  and  sculpture-like 
profile  of  a  face  as  perfect,  by  every  rule  of  beauty,  as 
the  Greek  Antinous.  It  would  be  too  feminine  but 
for  the  muscular  neck  and  broad  chest  from  which 
the  head  rises,  and  the  indications  of  great  personal 
strength  in  the  Herculean  shoulders.  His  loose  coat 
would  disguise  the  proportions  of  a  less  admirable 
figure ;  but,  au  reste,  his  dress  is  without  fold  or 
wrinkle,  and  no  figurante  of  the  ballet  ever  showed 
finer  or  more  skilfully  developed  limbs.  He  is  one 
of  the  most  daring  in  this  country  of  bold  riders  ;  but 
modifies  the  stiff  English  school  of  equestrianism, 
with  the  ease  and  grace  of  that  of  his  own  country. 
His  manner,  though  he  is  rather  Angtomane,  is  in 
striking  contrast  to  the  grave  and  quiet  air  of  his  com- 
panions; and  between  his  recognitions,  right  and  left, 
to  the  passing  promenaders,  he  laughs  and  amuses 
himself  with  the  joyous  and  thoughtless  gayety  of  a 
child.  Acknowledged  by  all  his  acquaintances  to  pos- 
sess splendid  talents,  this  "  observed  of  all  observers" 
is  a  singular  instance  of  a  modern  Sybarite — content 
to  sacrifice  time,  opportunity,  and  the  highest  advan- 
tages of  mind  and  body,  to  the  pleasure  of  the  moment. 
He  seems  exempt  from  all  the  usual  penalties  of  such 
a  career.  Nothing  seems  to  do  its  usual  work  on  him 
— care,  nor  exhaustion,  nor  recklessness,  nor  the  dis- 
approbation of  the  heavy-handed  opinion  of  the  world. 
Always  gay,  always  brilliant,  ready  to  embark  at  any 
moment,  or  at  any  hazard,  in  anything  that  will  amuse 
an  hour,  one  wonders  how  and  where  such  an  un- 
wonted meteor  will  disappear. 

But  here  comes  a  carriage  without  hammercloth  or 
liveries;  one  of  those  shabby-genteel  conveyances, 
hired  by  the  week,  containing  three  or  four  persons  in 
the  highest  spirits,  all  talking  and  gesticulating  at  once. 

As  the  carriage  passes  the  "  beau-knot"  (as ,  and 

his  inseparable  troop  are  sometimes  called),  one  or 
two  of  the  dandies  spur  up,  and  resting  their  hands  on 
the  windows,  offer  the  compliments  of  the  day  to  the 
only  lady  within,  with  the  most  earnest  looks  of  ad- 
miration. The  gentlemen  in  her  company  become 
silent:  and  answer  to  the  slight  bows  of  the  cavaliers 
with  foreign  monosyllables,  and  presently  the  coach- 
man whips  up  once  more,  the  horsemen  drop  off,  and 
the  excessive  gayety  of  the  party  resumes  its  tone. 
You  must  have  been  struck,  as  the  carriage  passed, 
with  the  brilliant  whiteness  and  regularity  of  the  lady's 
teeth,  and  still  more  with  the  remarkable  play  of  her 
lips,  which  move  as  if  the  blood  in  them  were  im- 
prisoned lightning.  (The  figure  is  strong,  but  nothing 
else  conveys  to  my  own  mind  what  1  am  trying  to  de- 
scribe.) Energy,  grace,  fire,  rapidity,  and  a  capabili- 
ty of  utter  abandoment  to  passion  and  expression,  live 
visibly  on  those  lips.  Her  eyes  are  magnificent.  Her 
nose  is  regular,  with  nostrils  rimmed  round  with  an 
expansive  nerve,  that  gives  them  constantly  the  kind 
of  animation  visible  in  the  head  of  a  fiery  Arab.  Her 
complexion  is  one  of  those  which,  dark  and  wanting 
in  brilliance  by  day,  light  up  at  night  with  an  alabaster 
fairness ;  and  when  the  glossy  black  hair,  which  is 
now  put  away  so  plainly  under  her  simple  bonnet, 
falls  over  her  shoulders  in  heavy  masses,  the  contrast 
is  radiant.  The  gentlemen  in  that  carriage  are  Rubini, 
Lablache,  and  a  gentleman  who  passes  for  the  lady'* 
uncle  ;   and  the  lady  is  Julia  Grisi. 

The  smoke  over  the  heart  of  the  city  begins  to 
thicken  into  darkness,  the  gas-lamps  are  shooting  up, 
bright  and  star-like,  along  the  Kensington  road,  and 
the  last  promenaders  disappear.  And  now  the  world 
of  London,  the  rich  and  gay  portion  of  it  at  least, 
that  which  compensates  them  tor  the  absence 


enjoy   ... 

of  the  bright  nights  and  skies  ot  Italy — a  climate 
within  doors,  of  comfort  and  luxury,  unknown  under 
brighter  heavens. 


558 


SKETCHES  OF  TRAVEL. 


CHAPTER  VII. 


ISLE    OF    WIGHT RYDE. 


"Instead  of  parboiling  you  with  a  soiree  or  a  din- 
ner," said  a  sensible  and  kind  friend,  who  called  on  us 
at  Ryde,  "  I  shall  make  a  pic-nic  to  Netley."  And  on 
a  bright,  breezy  morning  of  June,  a  merry  party  of 
some  twenty  of  the  inhabitants  of  the  green  Isle  of 
Wight  shot  away  from  the  long  pier,  in  one  of  the 
swift  boats  of  those  waters,  with  a  fair  wind  for  South- 
ampton. 

Ryde  is  the  most  American-looking  town  I  have 
seen  abroad;  a  cluster  of  white  houses  and  summery 
villas  on  the  side  of  a  hill,  leaning  up  from  the 
sea.  Geneva,  on  the  Seneca  lake,  resembles  it.  It 
is  a  place  of  baths,  boarding-houses,  and  people  of 
damaged  constitutions,  with  very  select  society,  and 
quiet  and  rather  primitive  habits.  The  climate  is  de- 
liciously  soft,  and  the  sun  seems  always  to  shine 
there. 

As  we  got  out  into  the  open  channel,  I  was  assisting 
the  skipper  to  tighten  his  bowline,  when  a  beautiful 
ship,  in  the  distance,  putting  about  on  a  fresh  track, 
caught  the  sun  full  on  her  snowy  sails,  and  seemed  to 
start  like  an  apparition  from  the  sea. 

"She's  a  Liner,  sir!''  said  the  bronzed  boatman,  sus- 
pending his  haul  to  give  her  a  look  of  involuntary  ad- 
miration. 

"An  American  packet,  you  mean?" 

"They're  the  prettiest  ships  afloat,  sir,"  he  contin- 
ued, "  and  the  smartest  handled.  They're  out  to  New 
York,  and  back  again,  before  you  can  look  round, 
a'most.  Ah,  I  see  her  flag  now — stars  and  stripes. 
Can  you  see  it,  sir?" 

"Are  the  captains  Englishmen,  principally?"  I 
asked. 

"No,  sir!  all  '  calculators ;'  sharp  as  a  needle!" 

"  Thank  you,"  said  I ;  "  I  am  a  calculator  too  !" 

The  conversation  ceased,  and  I  thought  from  the 
boatman's  look,  that  he  had  more  respect  than  love 
for  us.  The  cloud  of  snowy  sail  traversed  the  breadth 
of  the  channel  with  the  speed  of  a  bird,  wheeled  again 
upon  her  opposite  tack,  and  soon  disappeared  from 
view,  taking  with  her  the  dove  of  my  imagination  to 
return  with  an  olive-branch  from  home.  It  must  be 
a  cold  American  heart  whose  strings  are  not  swept  by 
that  bright  flag  in  a  foreign  land,  like  a  harp  with  the 
impassioned  prelude  of  the  master. 

Cowes  was  soon  upon  our  lee,  with  her  fairy  fleet 
of  yachts  lying  at  anchor— Lord  Yarborough's  frigate- 
looking  craft  asleep  amid  its  dependant  brood,  with  all 
its  fine  tracery  of  rigging  drawn  on  a  cloudless  sky,  the 
picture  of  what  it  is,  and  what  all  vessels  seem  to  me 
a  thing  for  pleasure  only.  Dinting  about  like  a  swal- 
low on  the  wing,  a  small,  gayly-painted  sloop-yacht, 
as  graceful  and  slender  as  the  first  bow  of  the  new 
moon,  played  off  the  roadstead  for  the  sole  pleasure 
of  motion,  careless  whither ;  and  meantime  the  low- 
fringed  shoves  of  the  Southampton  side  grew  more 
and  more  distinct,  and  before  we  had  well  settled  upon 
our  cushions,  the  old  tower  of  the  abbey  lay  sharp 
over  the  bow. 

We  enjoyed  the  first  ramble  through  the  ruins  the 
better,  that  to  see  them  was  a  secondary  object.  The 
first  was  to  select  a  grassy  spot  for  our  table.  Thread- 
ing the  old  unroofed  vaults  with  this  errand,  the  pause 
of  involuntary  homage  exacted  by  a  sudden  burst  upon 
an  arch  or  a  fretted  window,  was  natural  and  true;  and 
for  those  who  are  disturbed  by  the  formal  and  trite 
enthusiasm  of  companions  who  admire  by  a  prompter, 
this  stalking-horse  of  another  pursuit  was  not  an  in- 
different advantage. 

The  great  roof  over  the  principal  nave  of  the  abbey 
has  fallen  in,  and  lies  in  rugged  and  picturesque  masses 


within  the  Gothic  shell — windows,  arches,  secret  stair- 
cases, and  gray  walls,  all  breaking  up  the  blue  sky 
around,  but  leaving  above,  for  a  smooth  and  eternal 
roof,  an  oblong  and  ivy-fringed  segment  of  the  blue 
plane  of  heaven.  It  seems  to  rest  on  those  crumbling 
corners  as  you  stand  within. 

We  selected  a  rising  ba-nk  under  the  shoulder  of  a 
rock,  grown  over  with  moss  and  ivy,  and  following  the 
suggestion  of  a  pretty  lover  of  the  picturesque,  the 
shawls  and  cloaks,  with  their  bright  colors,  were 
thrown  over  the  nearest  fragments  of  the  roof,  and  every- 
body unbonneted  and  assisted  in  the  arrangements.  An 
old  woman  who  sold  apples  outside  the  walls  was  em- 
ployed to  build  a  fire  for  our  teakettle  in  a  niche 
where,  doubtless,  in  its  holier  days,  had  stood  the 
effigy  of  a  saint ;  and  at  the  pedestals  of  a  cluster  of 
slender  columns  our  attendants  displayed  upon  a  table 
a  show  of  pasties  and  bright  wines,  that,  if  there  be 
monkish  spirits  who  walk  at  Netley,  we  have  added  a 
poignant  regret  to  their  purgatories,  that  their  airy 
stomachs  can  be  no  more  vino  ciboque  gravati. 

We  were  doing  justice  to  a  pretty  shoulder  of  lamb, 
with  mint  sauce,  when  a  slender  youth  who  had  been 
wandering  around  with  a  portfolio,  took  up  an  artist's 
position  in  the  farther  corner  of  the  ruins,  and  began 
to  sketch  the  scene.  I  mentally  felicitated  him  on  the 
accident  that  had  brought  him  to  Netley  at  that  par- 
ticular moment,  for  a  prettier  picture  than  that  before 
him  an  artist  could  scarce  have  thrown  together.  The 
inequalities  of  the  floor  of  the  abbey  provided  a  mossy 
table  for  every  two  or  three  of  the  gayly-dressed  ladies, 
and  there  they  reclined  in  small  and  graceful  groups, 
their  white  dresses  relieved  on  the  luxuriant  grass, 
and  between  them,  half  buried  in  moss,  the  sparkling 
glasses  full  of  bright  wines,  and  an  air  of  ease  and 
grace  over  all,  which  could  belong  only  to  the  two 
extremes  of  Arcadian  simplicity,  or  its  high-bred  im- 
itation. We  amused  ourselves  with  the  idea  of  ap- 
pearing, some  six  months  after,  in  the  middle  ground 
of  a  landscape,  in  a  picturesque  annual  ;  and  I  am 
afraid  that  I  detected,  on  the  first  suggestion  of  the 
idea,  a  little  unconscious  attitudinizing  in  some  of  the 
younger  members  of  the  party.  It  was  proposed  that 
the  artist  should  be  invited  to  take  wine  with  us  :  but 
as  a  rosy-cheeked  page  donned  his  gold  hat  to  carry 
our  compliments,  the  busy  draughtsman  was  joined 
by  one  or  two  ladies  not  quite  so  attractive-looking  as 
himself,  but  evidently  of  his  own  party,  and  our  mes- 
senger was  recalled.  Sequitur — they  who  would  find 
adventure  should  travel  alone. 

The  monastic  ruins  of  England  derive  a  very  pecu- 
liar and  touching  beauty  from  the  bright  veil  of  ivy 
which  almost  buries  them  from  the  sun.  This  con- 
stant and  affectionate  mourner  draws  from  the  moist- 
ure of  the  climate  a  vividness  and  luxuriance  which  is 
found  in  no  other  land.  Hence  the  remarkable  love- 
liness of  Netley — a  quality  which  impresses  the  visit- 
ers to  this  spot,  far  more  than  the  melancholy  usually 
inspired  by  decay. 

Our  gayety  shocked  some  of  the  sentimental  people 
rambling  about  the  ruins,  for  it  is  difficult  for  those 
who  have  not  dined  to  sympathize  with  the  mirth  of 
those  who  have.  How  often  we  mistake  for  sadness 
the  depression  of  an  empty  stomach  !  How  differently 
authors  and  travellers  would  write,  if  they  commenced 
the  day,  instead  of  ending  it,  with  meats  and  wine!  1 
was  led  to  these  reflections  by  coming  suddenly  upon 
a  young  lady  and  her  companion  (possibly  her  lover), 
in  climbing  a  ruined  staircase  sheathed  within  the 
wall  of  the  abbey.  They  were  standing  at  one  of  the 
windows,  quite  unconscious  of  my  neighborhood,  and 
looking  down  upon  the  gay  party  of  ladies  below,  who 
were  still  amid  the  debris  of  the  feast  arranging  their 
bonnets  for  a  walk. 

"  What  a  want  of  soul,"  said  the  lady,  "to  be  eat- 
ing and  drinking  in  such  a  place!" 


SKETCHES  OF  TRAVEL. 


559 


"  Some  people  have  no  souls,"  responded  the  gentle- 
After  this  verdict,  I  thought  the  best  thing  I  could 
do  was  to  take  care  of  my  body,  and  I  very  carefully 
backed  down  the  old  staircase,  which  is  probably  more 
hazardous  now  than  in  the  days  when  it  was  used  to 
admit  damsels  and  haunchesof  venison  to  the  reverend 
fathers. 

I  reached  the  bottom  in  safety,  and  informed  my 
friends  that  they  had  no  souls,  but  they  manifested 
the  usual  unconcern  on  the  subject,  and  strolled  away 
through  the  echoing  arches,  in  search  of  new  points 
of  view  and  fresh  wild-Mowers.  "  Commend  me  at 
least,"'  I  thought,  as  I  followed  on,  "to  those  whose 
pulses  can  be  quickened  even  by  a  cold  pie  and  a  glass 
of  champagne.  Sadness  and  envy  are  sown  thickly 
enough  by  any  wayside." 

We  were  embarked  once  more  by  the  middle  of  the 
afternoon,  and  with  a  head  wind,  but  smooth  water  and 
cool  temperature,  beat  back  to  Ryde.  If  the  young 
lady  and  her  lover  have  forgiven  or  forgotten  us,  and 
the  ghosts  of  Netley,  frocked  or  petticoated,  have 
taken  no  umbrage,  1  have  not  done  amiss  in  marking 
the  day  with  a  stone  of  the  purest  white.  How  much 
more  sensible  is  a  party  like  this,  in  the  open  air,  and 
at  healthy  hours,  than  the  untimely  and  ceremonious 
civilities  usually  paid  to  strangers.  If  the  world  would 
mend  by  moralising,  however,  we  should  have  had  a 
Utopia  long  ago. 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

COMPARISON      OF     THE     CLIMATE     OF     EUROPE     AND 
AMERICA. 

One  of  Hazlitt's  nail-driving  remarks  is  to  the  effect 
that  he  should  like  very  well  to  pass  the  whole  of  his  life 
in  travelling,  if  he  could  anywhere  borrow  another  life 
to  spend  afterward  at  home.  How  far  action  is  neces- 
sary to  happiness,  and  how  far  repose — how  far  the 
appetite  for  novelty  and  adventure  will  drive,  and  how 
far  the  attractions  of  home  and  domestic  comfort  will 
recall  us — in  short,  what  are  the  precise  exactions  of 
the  antagonist  principles  in  our  bosoms  of  curiosity 
and  sloth,  energy  and  sufferance,  hope  and  memory — 
are  questions  which  each  one  must  settle  for  himself, 
and  which  none  can  settle  but  he  who  has  passed  his 
life  in  the  eternal  and  fruitless  search  after  the  happi- 
est place,  climate,  and  station. 

Conteutment  depends  upon  many  things  within  our 
own  control,  but,  with  a  certain  education,  it  depends 
partly  upon  things  beyond  it.  To  persons  delicately 
constituted  or  delicately  brought  up,  and  to  all  idle 
persons,  the  principal  ingredient  in  the  cup  of  enjoy- 
ment is  climate  ;  and  Providence,  that  consults  "the 
greatest  happiness  of  the  greatest  number,"  has  made 
the  poor  and  the  roughly-nurtured  independent  of  the 
changes  of  the  wind.  Those  who  have  the  misfortune 
to  be  delicate  as  well  as  poor — those,  particularly,  for 
whom  there  is  no  hope  but  in  a  change  of  clime,  but 
whom  pitiless  poverty  compels  to  languish  in  vain 
after  the  reviving  south,  are  happily  few ;  but  they 
have  thus  much  more  than  their  share  of  human  ca- 
lamity. 

In  throwing  together  my  recollections  of  the  cli- 
mates with  which  I  have  become  acquainted  in  other 
lands,  I  am  aware  that  there  is  a  greater  difference  of 
opinion  on  this  subject  than  on  most  others.  A  man 
who  has  agreeable  society  about  him  in  Montreal,  but 
who  was  without  friends  in  Florence,  would  be  very 
likely  to  bring  the  climate  in  for  its  share  of  the  dif- 
ference, and  prefer  Canada  to  Italy;  and  health  and 
circumstances  of  all  kinds  affect,  in  no  slight  degree, 
our  susceptibility  to  skies  and  atmosphere.     But  it  is 


sometimes  interesting  to  know  the  impressions  of  oth- 
ers, even  though  they  agree  not  with  our  own  ;  and  I 
will  only  say  of  mine  on  this  subject,  that  they  are  so 
far  likely  to  be  fair,  as  I  have  been  blessed  with  the 
same  perfect  health  in  all  countries,  and  have  been 
happy  alike  in  every  latitude  and  season. 

It  is  almost  a  matter  of  course  to  decry  the  climate 
of  England.  The  English  writers  themselves  talk  of 
the  suicidal  months  ;  and  it  is  the  only  country  where 
part  of  the  livery  of  a  mounted  groom  is  his  master's 
great-coat  strapped  about  his  waist.  It  is  certainly  a 
damp  climate,  and  the  sun  shines  less  in  England  than 

j  in  most  other  countries.  But  to  persons  of  full  habit 
this  moisture  in  the  air  is  extremely  agreeable  ;  and 
the  high  condition  of  all  animals  in  England,  from 
man  downward,  proves  its  healthfulness.  A  stranger 
who  has   been   accustomed  to  a  brighter  sky,  will,  at 

I  first,  find  a  gloom  in  the  gray  light  so  characteristic  of 

I  an  English  atmosphere;  but  this  soon  wears  off,  and 
he  finds  a  compensation,  as  far  as  the  eye  is  con- 
cerned, in  the  exquisite  softness  of  the  verdure,  and 

|  the  deep  and  enduring  brightness  of  the  foliage.  The 
effect  of  this  moisture  on  the  skin  is  singularly  grate- 
ful. The  pores  become  accustomed  to  a  healthy  ac- 
tion, which  is  unknown  in  other  countries  ;  and  the 
bloom  by  which  an  English  complexion  is  known  all 
over  the  world  is  the  index  of  an  activity  in  this  im- 
portant part  of  the  system,  which,  when  first  experi- 
enced, is  almost  like  a  new  sensation.  The  transition 
to  a  dry  climate,  such  as  ours,  deteriorates  the  condi- 
tion and  quality  of  the  skin,  and  produces  a  feeling, 
if  I  may  so  express  it,  like  that  of  being  glazed.  It  is 
a  common  remark  in  England,  that  an  officer's  wife 
and  daughters  follow  his  regiment  to  Canada  at  the 
expense  of  their  complexions  ;  and  it  is  a  well-known 
fact  that  the  bloom  of  female  beauty  is,  in  our  coun- 
try, painfully  evanescent. 

The  climate  of  America  is,  in  many  points,  very 
different  from  that  of  France  and  Great  Britain.  In 
the  middle  and  northern  states,  it  is  a  dry,  invigora- 
ting, bracing  climate,  in  which  a  strong  man  may  do 
more  work  than  in  almost  any  other,  and  which  makes 
continual  exercise,  or  occupation  of  some  sort,  abso- 
lutely necessary.  With  the  exception  of  the  "  Indian 
summer,"  and  here  and  there  a  day  scattered  through 
the  spring  and  the  hot  months,  there  is  no  weather 
tempered  so  finely  that  one  would  think  of  passing 
the  day  in  merely  enjoying  it,  and  life  is  passed,  by 
those  who  have  the  misfortune  to  be  idle,  in  continual 
and  active  dread  of  the  elements.  The  cold  is  so 
acrid,  and  the  heat  so  sultry,  and  the  changes  from 
one  to  the  other  are  so  sudden  and  violent,  that  no 
enjoyment  can  be  depended  upon  out-of-doors,  and 
no  system  of  clothing  or  protection  is  good  for  a  day 
together.  He  who  has  full  occupation  for  head  and 
hand  (as  by  far  the  greatest  majority  of  our  country- 
men have)  may  live  as  long  in  America  as  in  any  por- 
tion of  the  globe— vide  the  bills  of  mortality.  He 
whose  spirits  lean  upon  the  temperature  of  the  wind, 
or  whose  nerves  require  a  genial  and  constant  atmo- 
sphere, may  find  more  favorable  climes  ;  and  the  hab- 
its and  delicate  constitutions  of  scholars  and  people 
of  sedentary  pursuits  generally,  in  the  United  States, 
prove  the  truth  of  the  observation. 

The  habit  of  regular  exercise  in  the  open  air,  which 
is  found  to  be  so  salutary  in  England,  is  scarcely  pos- 
sible in  America.  It  is  said,  and  said  truly,  of  the 
first,  that  there  is  no  day  in  the  year  when  a  lady  may 
not  ride  comfortably  on  horseback  ;  but  with  us,  the 
extremes  of  heat  and  cold,  and  the  tempestuous  char- 
acter of  our  snows  and  rains,  totally  forbid,  to  a  deli- 
cate person,  anything  like  regularity  in  exercise.  The 
consequence  is,  that  the  habit  rarely  exists,  and  the 
high  and  glowing  health  so  common  in  England,  and 
consequent,  no  doubt,  upon  the  equable  character  of 
the  climate   in  some  measure,  is  with  us  sufficiently 


560 


SKETCHES  OF  TRAVEL. 


rare  to  excite  remark.  "Very  English-looking,"  is  a 
common  phrase,  and  means  very  healthy-looking. 
Still  our  people  last — and  though  I  should  define  the 
English  climate  as  the  one  in  which  the  human  frame 
is  in  the  highest  condition,  I  should  say  of  America, 
that  it  is  the  one  in  which  you  could  get  the  most 
work  out  of  it. 

Atmosphere,  in  England  and  America,  is  the  first 
of  the  necessaries  of  life.  In  Italy,  it  is  the  first  of  its 
luxuries.  We  breathe  in  America,  and  walk  abroad, 
without  thinking  of  these  common  acts  but  as  a  means 
of  arriving  at  happiness.  In  Italy,  to  breathe  and  to 
walk  abroad  are  themselves  happiness.  Day  after  day 
— week  after  week — month  after  month — you  wake 
with  the  breath  of  flowers  coming  in  at  your  open 
window,  and  a  sky  of  serene  and  unfathomable  blue, 
and  mornings  and  evenings  of  tranquil,  assured,  heav- 
enly purity  and  beauty.  The  few  weeks  of  the  rainy 
season  are  forgotten  in  these  long  halcyon  months  of 
sunshine.  No  one  can  have  lived  in  Italy  a  year,  who 
remembers  anything  but  the  sapphire  sky  and  the 
kindling  and  ever-seen  stars.  You  grow  insensibly  to 
associate  the  sunshine  and  moonlight  only  with  the 
fountain  you  have  lived  near,  or  the  columns  of  the 
temple  you  have  seen  from  your  window,  for  on  no 
objects  in  other  lands  have  you  seen  their  light  so 
constant. 

I  scarce  know  how  to  convey,  in  language,  the  effect 
of  the  climate  of  Italy  on  mind  and  body.  Sitting 
here,  indeed,  in  the  latitude  of  thirty-nine,  in  the 
middle  of  April,  by  a  warm  fire,  and  with  a  cold  wind 
whistling  at  the  window,  it  is  difficult  to  recall  it,  even 
to  the  fancy.  I  do  not  know  whether  life  is  pro- 
longed, but  it  is  infinitely  enriched  and  brightened,  by 
the  delicious  atmosphere  of  Italy.  You  rise  in  the 
morning,  thanking  Heaven  for  life  and  liberty  to  go 
abroad.  There  is  a  sort  of  opiate  in  the  air,  which 
makes  idleness,  that  would  be  the  vulture  of  Prome- 
theus in  America,  the  dove  of  promise  in  Italy.  It  is 
delicious  to  do  nothing — delicious  to  stand  an  hour 
looking  at  a  Savoyard  and  his  monkey — delicious  to 
sit  away  the  long,  silent  noon,  in  the  shade  of  a  col- 
umn, or  on  the  grass  of  a  fountain — delicious  to  be 
with  a  friend  without  the  interchange  of  an  idea — to 
dabble  in  a  book,  or  look  into  the  cup  of  a  flower. 
You  do  not  read,  for  you  wish  to  enjoy  the  weather. 
You  do  not  visit,  for  you  hate  to  enter  a  door  while 
the  weather  is  so  fine.  You  lie  down  unwillingly  for 
your  siesta  in  the  hot  noon,  for  you  fear  you  may 
oversleep  the  first  coolness  of  the  long  shadows  of 
sunset.  The  fancy,  meantime,  is  free,  and  seems  lib- 
erated by  the  same  languor  that  enervates  the  severer 
faculties ;  and  nothing  seems  fed  by  the  air  but 
thoughts,  which  minister  to  enjoyment. 

The  climate  of  Greece  is  very  much  that  of  Italy. 
The  Mediterranean  is  all  beloved  of  the  sun.  Life 
has  a  value  there,  of  which  the  rheumatic,  shivering, 
snow-breasting,  blue-devilled  idler  of  northern  regions 
has  no  shadow,  even  in  a  dream.  No  wonder  Dante 
mourned  and  languished  for  it.  No  wonder  at  the 
sentiment  I  once  heard  from  distinguished  lips — Fuori 
d' Italia  lutto  e  esilio. 

This  appears  like  describing  a  Utopia  ;  but  it  is 
what  Italy  seemed  to  me.  I  have  expressed  myself 
much  more  to  my  mind,  however,  in  rhyme,  for  a 
prose  essay  is,  at  best,  but  a  cold  medium. 


CHAPTER  IX. 

STRATFORD-ON-AVON. 

"  One-p'un'-five  outside,  sir,  two  p'un'  in." 
It  was  a  bright,  calm  afternoon  in  September,  prom- 
ising nothing  but  a  morrow  of  sunshine  and  autumn, 


when  I  stepped  in  at  the  "  White  Horse  Cellar,"  in 
Piccadilly,  to  take  my  place  in  the  Tantivy  coach  for 
Stratford-on-Avon.  Preferring  the  outside  of  the 
coach,  at  least  by  as  much  as  the  difference  in  the 
prices,  and  accustomed  from  long  habit  to  pay  dearest 
for  that  which  most  pleased  me,  I  wrote  myself  down 
for  the  outside,  and  deposited  my  two  pounds  in  the 
horny  palm  of  the  old  ex-coachman,  retired  from  the 
box,  and  playing  clerk  in  this  dingy  den  of  parcels  and 
portmanteaus.  Supposing  my  business  concluded,  I 
stood  a  minute  speculating  on  the  weather-beaten, 
cramp-handed  old  Jehu  before  me,  and  trying  to  rec- 
oncile his  ideas  of  "retirement  from  office"  with  those 
of  his  almost  next  door  neighbor,  the  hero  of  Strath- 
fieldsaye. 

I  had  mounted  the  first  stair  toward  daylight,  when 
a  touch  on  the  shoulder  with  the  end  of  a  long  whip 
— a  technical  "reminder,"  which  probably  came  easier 
to  the  old  driver  than  the  phrasing  of  a  sentence  to  a 
"gemman" — recalled  me  to  the  cellar. 

"  Fifteen  shillin',  sir,"  said  he  laconically,  pointing 
with  the  same  expressive  exponent  of  his  profession 
to  the  change  for  my  outside  place,  which  I  had  left 
lying  on  the  counter. 

"  You  are  at  least  as  honest  as  the  duke,"  I  solilo- 
quised, as  I  pocketed  the  six  bright  and  substantial 
half-crowns. 

I  was  at  the  "  White  Horse  Cellar"  again  the  fol- 
lowing morning  at  six,  promising  myself  with  great 
sincerity  never  to  rely  again  on  the  constancy  of  an 
English  sky.  It  rained  in  torrents.  The  four  inside 
places  were  all  taken,  and  with  twelve  fellow-outsides, 
J  mounted  to  the  wet  seat,  and  begging  a  little  straw 
by  way  of  cushion  from  the  ostler,  spread  my  um- 
brella, abandoned  my  knees  with  a  single  effort  of 
mind  to  the  drippings  of  the  driver's  weather-proof 
upper  Benjamin,  and  away  we  sped.  1  was  "due"  at 
the  house  of  a  hospitable  catholic  baronet,  a  hundred 
and  two  miles  from  London,  at  the  dinner-hour  of  that 
day,  and  to  wait  till  it  had  done  raining  in  England  is 
to  expect  the  millennium. 

London  in  the  morning — I  mean  the  poor  man's 
morning,  daylight — is  to  me  matter  for  the  most 
speculative  and  intense  melancholy.  Hyde  park  in 
the  sunshine  of  a  bright  afternoon,  glittering  with 
equipages  and  gay  with  the  Aladdin  splendors  of  rank 
and  wealth,  is  a  scene  which  sends  the  mercurial  quali- 
ties of  the  blood  trippingly  through  the  veins.  But 
Hyde  park  at  daylight  seen  from  Piccadilly  through 
fog  and  rain,  is  perhaps,  of  all  contrasts,  to  one  who 
has  frequented  it  in  its  bright  hours,  the  most  dispirit- 
ing and  dreary.  To  remember  that  behind  the  barri- 
caded and  wet  windows  of  Apsley  house  sleeps  the 
hero  of  Waterloo — that  under  these  crowded  and  fog- 
wrapped  houses  lie,  in  their  dim  chambers  breathing 
of  perfume  and  luxury,  the  high-born  and  nobly- 
moulded  creatures  who  preserve  for  the  aristocracy 
of  England  the  palm  of  the  world's  beauty — to  remem- 
ber this,  and  a  thousand  other  associations  linked  with 
the  spot,  is  not  at  all  to  diminish,  but  rather  to  deepen, 
the  melancholy  of  the  picture.  Why  is  it  that  the 
deserted  stage  of  a  theatre,  the  echo  of  an  empty  ball- 
room, the  loneliness  of  a  frequented  promenade  in 
untimely  hours — any  scene,  in  short,  of  gayety  gone 
by  but  remembered — oppresses  and  dissatisfies  the 
heart !  One  would  think  memory  should  re-brighten 
and  re-populate  such  places. 

The  wheels  hissed  through  the  shallow  pools  in  the 
Macadam  road,  the  regular  pattering  of  the  small 
hoofs  in  the  wet  carriage-tracks  maintained  its  quick 
and  monotonous  beat  on  the  ear;  the  silent  driver  kept 
his  eye  on  the  traces,  and  "reminded"  now  and  then 
with  but  the  weight  of  his  slight  lash  a  lagging  wheeler 
or  leader,  and  the  complicated  but  compact  machine 
of  which  the  square  foot  that  I  occupied  had  been  so 
nicely  calculated,  sped  on  its  ten  miles  in  the  hour 


SKETCHES  OF  TRAVEL. 


561 


with  the  steadfastness  of  a  star  in  its  orbit,  and  as  in- 
dependent of  clouds  and  rain. 

"Est  ce  que  monsieur  parte  Francois!"  asked  at  the 
end  of  the  first  stage  my  right-hand  neighbor,  a  little 
gentleman,  of  whom  I  had  hitherto  only  remarked  that  I 
he  was  holding  on  to  the  iron  railing  of  the  seat  with 
great  tenacity. 

Having  admitted  in  an  evil  moment  that  J  had  been 
in   France,  I  was  first  distinctly  made  to  understand 
that    my  neighbor  was  on    his  way   to  Birmingham 
purely  for  pleasure,  and  without  the  most  distant  ob- 
ject of  business — a  point  on  which  he  insisted  so  long,  | 
and  recurred  to  so  often,  that  he  succeeded  at  last  in 
persuading  me  that  he  was  doubtless  a  candidate  for 
the   French   clerkship  of  some  exporter  of  buttons. 
After  listening  to  an  amusing  dissertation  on  the  rash-  i 
ness  of  committing  one's  life  to   an  English   stage-  j 
coach,  with  scarce  room  enough  for  the  perch  of  a  j 
parrot,  and  a  velocity  so  diablement  dangercux,  I  tired  I 
of  my  Frenchman  ;  and,  since  I  could  not  have  my  j 
own  thoughts  in  peace,  opened  a  conversation  with  a 
straw-bonnet  and   shawl  on  my  left — the  property,   I 
soon  discovered,  of  a  very  smart  lady's  maid,  very  in-  ! 
-  dignant  at  having  been  'made  to  change  places  with 
Master  George,  who,  with  his  mother  and  her  mistress, 
were  dry  and   comfortable  inside.     She  "would  not 
have  minded  the  outside  place,''  she  said,  "  for  there 
were  sometimes  very  agreeable  gentlemen  on  the  out- 
side, very  ! — but  she  had  been  promised  to  go  inside, 
and  had  dressed  accordingly  ;  and  it  was  very  pro- 
voking to  spoil  a  nice  new  shawl  and  best  bonnet,  just 
because  a  great  school-boy,  that  had  nothing  on  that 
would  damage  chose  not  to  ride  in  the  rain." 

"  Very  provoking,  indeed  !"  I  responded,  letting  in 
the  rain  upon  myself  unconsciously,  in  extending  my 
umbrella  forward  so  as  to  protect  her  on  the  side  of 
the  wind. 

"  Wc  should  have  gone  down  in  the  carriage,  sir," 
she  continued,  edging  a  little  closer  to  get  the  full  ad- 
vantage of  my  umbrella  ;  "  but  John  the  coachman 
has  got  the  Irinjluenzy,  and  my  missis  wo'n't  be  driven 
by  no  other  coachman  ;  she's  as  obstinate  as  a  mule, 
sir.  And  that  isn't  all  I  could  tell,  sir;  but  1  scorns 
to  hurt  the  character  of  one  of  my  own  sex."  And 
the  pretty  abigail  pursed  up  her  red  lips,  and  looked 
determined  not  to  destroy  her  mistress's  character — 
unless  particularly  requested. 

I  detest  what  may  be  called  a  proper  road-book — 
even  would  it  be  less  absurd  than  it  is  to  write  one  on 
a  country  so  well  conned  as  England. 

I  shall  say  nothing,  therefore,  of  Marlow,  which 
looked  the  picture  of  rural  loveliness  though  seen 
through  fog,  nor  of  Oxford,  of  which  all  I  remember 
is  that  I  dined  there  with  my  teeth  chattering,  and 
my  knees  saturated  with  rain.  All  England  is  lovely 
to  the  wild  eye  of  an  American  unused  to  high  cultiva- 
tion ;  and  though  my  enthusiasm  was  somewhat  damp, 
I  arrived  at  the  bridge  over  the  Avon,  blessing  England 
sufficiently  for  its  beauty,  and  much  more  for  the  speed 
of  its  coaches. 

The  Avon,  above  and  below  the  bridge,  ran  brightly 
alonn  between  low  banks,  half  sward,  half  meadow; 
and  on  the  other  side  lay  the  native  town  of  the  im- 
mortal wool-comber— a  gay  cheerful-looking  village, 
natrowing  in  the  centre  to  a  closely-built  street,  across 
which  swung,  broad  and  fair,  the  sign  of  the  "  Red 
horse."  More  ambitious  hotels  lay  beyond,  and 
broader  streets;  but  while  Washington  living  is  re- 
membered (and  that  will  be  while  the  language  lasts), 
the  quiet  inn  in  which  the  great  Geoffrey  thought 
and  wrote  of  Shakspere  will  be  the  altar  of  the  pil- 
grim's devotions. 

My  baggage  was  set  down,  the  coachman  and  guard 

tipped  their  hats  for  a  shilling,  and,  chilled  to  the  bone, 

I  raised  my  hat  instinctively  to  the  courtesy  of  a  slender 

gentlewoman  in  black,  who,  by  the  kevs  at  her  girdle, 

3G 


should  be  the  landlady.  Having  expected  to  see  a 
rosy  little  Mrs.  Boniface,  with  a  brown  pinafore  and 
worsted  mittens,  I  made  up  my  mind  at  once  that  the 
inn  had  changed  mistresses.  On  the  right  of  the  old- 
fashioned  entrance  blazed  cheerily  the  kitchen  fire, 
and  with  my  enthusiasm  rather  dashed  by  my  disap- 
pointment, 1  stepped  in  to  make  friends  with  the  cook, 
and  get  a  little  warmth  and  information. 

"  So  your  old  mistress  is  dead,  Mrs.  Cook,"  said  I, 
rubbing  my  hands  with  great  satisfaction  between  the 
fire  and  a  well-roasted  chicken. 

"  Lauk,  sir,  no,  she  isn't  !"  answered  the  rosy  lass, 
pointing  with  a  dredging-box  to  the  same  respectable 
lady  in  black  who  was  just  entering  to  look  after  me. 

"I  beg  pardon,  sir,"  she  said,  dropping  a  cour- 
tesy ;  "  but  are  you  the  gentleman  expected  by  Sir 
Charles ?" 

"Yes,  madam.  And  can  you  tell  me  anything  of 
your  predecessor  who  had  the  inn  in  the  days  of 
Washington  Irving?" 

She  dropped  another  courtesy,  and  drew  up  her 
thin  person  to  its  full  height,  while  a  smile  of  gratified 
vanity  stole  out  at  the  corners  of  her  mouth. 

"The  carriage  has  been  waiting  some  time  for  you, 
sir,"  she  said,  with  a  softer  tone  than  that  in  which 
she  had  hitherto  addressed  me;   "  and  you  will  hardly 

be  at  C in  time  for  dinner.     You  will  be  coming 

over  to-morrow  or  the  day  after,  perhaps,  sir;  and 
then,  if  you  would  honor  my  little  room  by  taking  a 
cup  of  tea  with  me,  I  should  be  pleased  to  tell  you  all 
about  it,  sir." 

I  remembered  a  promise  I  had  nearly  forgotten, 
that  I  would  reserve  my  visit  to  Stratford  till  1  could 

be   accompanied  by  Miss  J.  P ,  whom  I   was  to 

have  the  honor  of  meeting  at  my  place  of  destination  ; 
and  promising  an  early  acceptance  of  the  kind  land- 
lady's invitation,  I  hurried  on  to  my  appointment  over 
the  fertile  hills  of  Warwickshire. 

I  was  established  in  one  of  those  old  Elizabethan 
country-houses,  which,  with  their  vast  parks,  their 
self-sufficing  resources  of  subsistence  and  company, 
and  the  absolute  deference  shown  on  all  sides  to  the 
lord  of  the  manor,  give  one  the  impression  rather  of  a 
little  kingdom  with  a  castle  in  its  heart,  than  of  an 
abode  for  a  gentleman  subject.  The  house  itself 
(called,  like  most  houses  of  this  size  and  consequence 
in  Warwickshire,  a  "Court,")  was  a  Gothic,  half- 
castellated  square,  with  four  round  towers,  and  in- 
numerable embrasures  and  windows;  two  wings  in 
front,  probably  more  modern  than  the  body  of  the 
house,  and  again  two  long  wings  extending  to  the  rear, 
at  right  angles,  and  enclosing  a  flowery  and  formal 
parterre.  There  had  been  a  trench  about  it,  now 
filled  up,  and  at  a  short  distance  from  the  house  stood 
a  polyangular  and  massive  structure,  well  calculated 
for  defence,  and  intended  as  a  strong-hold  for  the  re- 
treat of  the  family  and  tenants  in  more  troubled  times. 
One  of  these  rear  wings  enclosed  a  catholic  chapel, 
for  the  worship  of  the  baronet  and  those  of  his  tenants 
who  professed  the  same  faith  ;  while  on  the  northern 
side,  between  the  house  and  the  garden,  stood  a  large 
protestant  stone  church,  with  a  turret  and  spire,  both 
chapel  and  church,  with  their  clergyman  and  priest, 
'  dependant  on  the  estate,  and  equally  favored  by  the 
liberal  and  high-minded  brronet.  The  tenantry  form- 
ed two  considerable  congregations,  and  lived  and  wor- 
shipped side  by  side,  with  the  most  perfect  harmony 
—an  instance  of  real  Christianity,  in  my  opinion,  which 
the  angels  of  heaven  might  come  down  to  see.  A 
lovely  rural  graveyard  for  the  lord  and  tenants,  and  a 
secluded  lake  below  the  garden,  in  which  hundreds  of 
wild  ducks  swam  and  screamed  unmolested,  completed 
the  outward  features  of  C c°urt;      ,       .  .  . 

There  are  noble  houses  in  England,  with  a  door 
communicating  from  the  dining-room  to  the  stables, 
that  the  master  and  his  friends  may  see  their  favorites, 


562 


SKETCHES  OF  TRAVEL. 


after  dinner,  without  exposure  to  the  weather.  In  the 
place  of  this  rather  bizarre  luxury,  the  oak-panelled 

and  spacious  dining-hall  of  C is  on  a  level  with 

the  organ  loft  of  the  chapel,  and  when  the  cloth  is  re- 
moved, the  large  door  between  is  thrown  open,  and 
the  noble  instrument  pours  the  rich  and  thrilling 
music  of  vespers  through  the  rooms.  When  the 
service  is  concluded,  and  the  lights  on  the  altar  ex- 
tinguished, the  blind  organist  (an  accomplished  musi- 
cian, and  a  tenant  on  the  estate),  continues  his  volun- 
taries in  the  dark  until  the  hall-door  informs  him  of 
the  retreat  of  the  company  to  the  drawing-room. 
There  is  not  only  refinement  and  luxury  in  this 
beautiful  arrangement,  but  food  for  the  soul  and 
heart. 

I  chose  my  room  from  among  the  endless  vacant 
but  equally  luxurious  chambers  of  the  rambling  old 
house  ;  my  preference  solely  directed  by  the  portrait 
of  a  nun,  one  of  the  family  in  ages  gone  by — a  picture 
full  of  melancholy  beauty,  which  hung  opposite  the 
window.  The  face  was  distinguished  by  all  that  in 
England  marks  the  gentlewoman  of  ancisnt  and  pure 
descent ;  and  while  it  was  a  woman  with  the  more 
tender  qualities  of  her  sex  breathing  through  her  fea- 
tures, it  was  still  a  lofty  and  sainted  sister,  true  to  her 
cross,  and  sincere  in  her  vows  and  seclusion.  It  was 
the  work  of  a  master,  probably  Vandyke,  and  a  picture 
in  which  the  most  solitary  man  would  find  company 
and  communion.  On  the  other  walls,  and  in  most  of 
the  other  rooms  and  corridors,  were  distributed  por- 
traits of  the  gentlemen  and  soldiers  of  the  family,  most 
of  them  bearing  some  resemblance  to  the  nun,  but 
differing,  as  brothers  in  those  wild  times  may  be  sup- 
posed to  have  differed,  from  the  gentle  creatures  of  the 
same  blood,  nursed  in  the  privacy  of  peace. 


CHAPTER  X. 

VISIT    TO    STRATFORD-ON-AVON SHAKSPERE. 

One  of  the  first  visits  in  the  neighborhood  was  nat- 
urally to  Stratford-on-Avon.  It  lay  some  ten  miles 
south  of  us,  and  I  drove  down,  with  the  distinguished 
literary  friend  I  have  before  mentioned,  in  the  car- 
riage of  our  kind  host,  securing,  by  the  presence  of 
his  servants  and  equipage,  a  degree  of  respect  and  at- 
tention which  would  not  have  been  accorded  to  us  in 
our  simple  character  of  travellers.  The  prim  mistress 
of  the  "Red  Horse,"  in  her  close  black  bonnet  and 
widow's  weeds,  received  us  at  the  door  with  a  deeper 
courtesy  than  usual,  and  a  smile  of  less  wintry  formal- 
ity; and  proposing  to  dine  at  the  inn,  and  "suck  the 
brain"  of  the  hostess  more  at  our  leisure,  we  started 
immediately  for  the  house  of  the  wool-comber— the 
birthplace  of  Shakspere. 

Stratford  should  have  been  forbidden  ground  to 
builders,  masons,  shopkeepers,  and  generally  to  all 
people  of  thrift  and  whitewash.  It  is  now  rather  a 
smart  town,  with  gay  calicoes,  shawls  of  the  last  pat- 
tern, hardware,  and  millinery,  exhibited  in  all  their 
splendor  down  the' widened  and  newer  streets;  and 
though  here  and  there  remains  a  glorious  old  gloomy 
and  inconvenient  abode,  which  looks  as  if  Shakspere 
might  have  taken  shelter  under  its  eaves,  the  gayer 
features  of  the  town  have  the  best  of  it,  and  flaunt  their 
gaudy  and  unrespected  newness  in  the  very  windows 
of  that  immortal  birthplace.  I  stepped  into  a  shop  to 
inquire  the  way  to  it. 

"  Shiksper's  'ouse,  sir?  Yes,  sir!"  said  a  dapper 
clerk,  with  his  hair  astonished  into  the  most  impossi- 
ble directions  by  force  of  brushing;  "keep  to  the 
right,  sir!  Shiksper  lived  in  the  wife  'ouse,  sir — the 
'ouse,  you  see  beyond,  with  the  windy  swung  up,  sir." 

A   low,   old-fashioned   house,  with   a   window  sus- 


pended on  a  hinge,  newly  whitewashed  and  scrubbed, 
stood  a  little  up  the  street.  A  sign  over  the  door  in- 
formed us  in  an  inflated  paragraph,  that  the  immortal 
Will  Shakspere  was  born  under  this  roof,  and  that  an 
old  woman  within  would  show  it  to  us  for  a  considera- 
tion. It  had  been  used  until  very  lately,  I  had  been 
told,  for  a  butcher's  shop. 

A  "garrulous  old  lady"  met  us  at  the  bottom  of  the 
narrow  stair  leading  to  the  second  floor,  and  began — 
not  to  say  anything  of  Shakspere — but  to  show  us  the 
names  of  Byron,  Moore,  Rogers,  &c,  written  among 
thousands  of  others  on  the  wall !  She  had  worn  out 
Shakspere  !  She  had  told  that  story  till  she  was  tired 
of  it!  or  (what,  perhaps,  is  more  proballe)  most 
people  who  go  there  fall  to  reading  the  names  of  the 
visiters  so  industriously,  that  she  has  grown  to  think 
some  of  Shakspere's  pilgrims  greater  than  Shakspere. 

"Was  this  old  oaken  chest  here  in  the  days  of 
Shakspere,  madam?"  I  asked. 

"Yes,  sir,  and  here's  the  name  of  Byron — here  with 
a  capital  B.     Here's  a  curiosity,  sir." 

"And  this  small  wooden  box?" 

"  Made  of  Shakspere's  mulberry,  sir.  I  had  sich  a 
time  about  that  box,  sir.  Two  young  geminen  were 
here  the  other  day — just  run  up,  while  the  coach  was 
changing  horses,  to  see  the  house.  As  soon  as  they 
were  gone  I  misses  the  box.  Off  scuds  my  son  to  the 
'  Red  Horse,'  and  there  they  sat  on  the  top  looking  as 
innocent  as  may  be.  '  Stop  the  coach,'  says  my  son. 
'What  do  you  want?'  says  the  driver.  '  My  mother's 
mulberry-box  ! — Shakspere's  mulberry-box  ! — One  of 
them  'ere  young  men's  got  it  in  his  pocket.'  And 
true  enough,  sir,  one  on  'em  had  the  imperence  to 
take  it  out  of  his  pocket,  and  flings  it  into  my  son's 
face  ;  and  you  know  the  coach  never  stops  a  minnit  for 
nothing,  sir,  or  he'd  a'  smarted  for  it." 

Spirit  of  Shakspere  !  dost  thou  not  sometimes  walk 
alone  in  this  humble  chamber !  Must  one's  inmost 
soul  be  fretted  and  frighted  always  from  its  devotion 
by  an  abominable  old  woman  ?  Why  should  not  such 
lucrative  occupations  be  given  in  charity  to  the  deaf 
and  dumb  ?  The  pointing  of  a  finger  were  enough  in 
such  spots  of  earth  ! 

I  sat  down  in  despair  to  look  over  the  book  of  visit- 
ers, trusting  that  she  would  tire  of  my  inattention. 
As  it  was  of  no  use  to  point  out  names  to  those  who 
would  not  look,  however,  she  commenced  a  long  story 
of  an  American  who  had  lately  taken  the  whim  to 
sleep  in  Shakspere's  birth-chamber.  She  had  shaken 
him  down  a  bed  on  the  floor,  and  he  had  passed  the 
night  there.  It  seemed  to  bother  her  to  comprehend 
why  two  thirds  of  her  visiters  should  be  Americans— 
a  circumstance  that  was  abundantly  proved  by  the 
books. 

It  was  only  when  we  were  fairly  in  the  street  that  I 
began  to  realize  that  I  had  seen  one  of  the  most  glori- 
ous altars  of  memory — that  deathless  Will  Shakspere, 
the  mortal,  who  was,  perhaps  (not  to  speak  profanely), 
next  to  his  Maker,  in  the  divine  faculty  of  creation, 
first  saw  the  light  through  the  low  lattice  on  which 
we  turned  back  to  look. 

The  single  window  of  the  room  in  which  Scott  died 
at  Abbotsford,  and  this  in  the  birth-chamber  of  Shak- 
spere, have  seemed  to  me  almost  marked  with  the 
touch  of  the  fire  of  those  great  souls — for  I  think  we 
have  an  instinct  which  tells  us  on  the  spot  where 
mighty  spirits  have  come  or  gone,  that  they  came  and 
went  with  the  light  of  heaven. 

We  walked  down  the  street  to  see  the  house  where 
Shakspere  lived  on  his  return  to  Stratford.  It  stands 
at  the  corner  of  a  lane,  not  far  from  the  church  where 
he  was  buried,  and  is  a  newish  un-Shaksperian  looking 
place — no  doubt,  if  it  be  indeed  the  same  house,  most 
profanely  and  considerably  altered.  The  present  pro- 
prietor or  occupant  of  the  house  or  site  took  upon 
himself  some  time  since  the  odium  of  cutting  down 


SKETCHES  OF  TRAVEL. 


563 


the  famous  mulberry-tree  planted  by  the  poet's  hand 
in  the  garden. 

I  forgot  to  mention  in  the  beginning  of  these  notes 
that  two  or  three  miles  before  coming  to  Stratford  we 
passed  through  Shottery,  where  Anne  Hathaway  lived. 
A  nephew  of  the  excellent  baronet  whose  guests  we 
were  occupies  the  house.  I  looked  up  and  down  the 
green  lanes  about  it,  and  glanced  my  eye  round  upon 
the  hills  over  which  the  sun  has  continued  to  set  and 
the  moon  to  ride  in  her  love-inspiring  beauty  ever 
since.  There  were  doubtless  outlines  in  the  landscape 
which  had  been  followed  by  the 'eye  of  Shakspere 
when  coming,  a  trembling  lover,  to  Shottrey — doubt- 
less, teints  in  the  sky,  crops  on  the  fields,  smoke- 
wreaths  from  the  old  homesteads  on  the  high  hill- 
sides, which  are  little  altered  now.  How  daringly  the 
imagination  plucks  back  the  past  in  such  places ! 
How  boldly  we  ask  of  fancy  and  probability  the  thou- 
sand questions  we  would  put,  if  we  might,  to  the  magic 
mirror  of  Agrippa  ?  Did  that  great  mortal  love  timid- 
ly, like  ourselves?  Was  the  passionate  outpouring 
of  his  heart  simple,  and  suited  to  the  humble  condition 
of  Anne  Hathaway,  or  was  it  the  first  fiery  coinage  of 
Homeo  and  Othello  ?  Did  she  know  the  immortal 
honor  and  light  poured  upon  woman  by  the  love  of 
genius  ?  Did  she  know  how  this  common  and  often- 
est  terrestrial  passion  becomes  fused  in  the  poet's  bo- 
som with  celestial  fire,  and,  in  its  wondrous  elevation 
and  purity,  ascends  lambently  and  musically  to  the 
very  stars?  Did  she  coy  it  with  him?  Was  she  a 
woman  to  him,  as  commoner  mortals  find  woman — ca- 
pricious, tender,  cruel,  intoxicating,  cold — everything 
by  changes  impossible  to  calculate  or  foresee  ?  Did 
he  walk  home  to  Stratford,  sometimes,  despairing,  in 
perfect  sick-heartedness,  of  her  alfection,  and  was  he 
recalled  by  a  message  or  a  lover's  instinct  to  find  her 
weeping  and  passionately  repentant? 

How  natural  it  is  by  such  questions  and  specula- 
tions to  betray  our  innate  desire  to  bring  the  lofty 
spirits  of  our  common  mould  to  our  own  inward  level — 
to  seek  analogies  between  our  affections,  passions,  appe- 
tites, and  theirs — to  wish  they  might  have  been  no  more 
exalted,  no  more  fervent,  no  more  worthy  of  the  adora- 
ble love  of  woman  than  ourselves!  The  same  temper 
that  prompts  the  depregiation,  the  envy,  the  hatred, 
exercised  toward  the  poet  in  his  lifetime,  mingles,  not 
inconsiderably,  in  the  researches  so  industriously  prose- 
cuted after  his  death  into  his  youth  and  history.  To 
be  admired  in  this  world,  and  much  more  to  be  beloved 
for  higher  qualities  than  his  fellow-men,  insures  to 
genius  not  only  to  be  persecuted  in  life,  but  to  be 
ferreted  out  with  all  his  frailties  and  imperfections 
from  the  grave. 

The  church  in  which  Shakspere  is  buried  stands 
near  the  banks  of  the  Avon,  and  is  a  most  picturesque 
and  proper  place  of  repose  for  his  ashes.  An  avenue 
of  small  trees  and  vines,  ingeniously  overlaced,  ex- 
tends from  the  street  to  the  principal  door,  and  the 
interior  is  broken  up  into  that  confused  and  accidental 
medley  of  tombs,  pews,  cross-lights,  and  pillars,  for 
which  the  old  churches  of  England  are  remarkable. 
The  tomb  and  effigy  of  the  great  poet  lie  in  an  inner 
chapel,  and  are  as  described  in  every  traveller's  book. 
I  will  not  take  up  room  with  the  repetition. 

It  gives  one  an  odd  feeling  to  see  the  tomb  of  his 
wife  and  daughter  beside  him.  One  does  not  realize 
before,  that  Shakspere  had  wife,  children,  kinsmen, 
like  other  men — that  there  were  those  who  had  a  right 
to  lie  in  the  same  tomb;  to  whom  he  owed  the  chari- 
ties of  life  ;  whom  he  may  have  benefited  or  offended  ; 
who  in. iv  have  influenced  materially  his  destiny,  or 
he  theirs  ;  who  were  the  inheritors  of  his  household 
good*,  his  wardrobe,  his  books — people  who  looked 
an  him — on  Shakspere — as  a  landholder,  a  renter  of  a 
pew,  a  townsman  :  a  relative,  in  short,  who  had  claims 
upon  them,  not  for  the  eternal  homage  due  to  celestial 


inspiration,  but  for  the  charity  of  shelter  and  bread 
had  he  been  poor,  for  kindness  and  ministry  had  he 
been  sick,  for  burial  and  the  tears  of  natural  affection 
when  he  died.  It  is  painful  and  embarrassing  to  the 
mind  to  go  to  Stratford — to  reconcile  the  immortality 
and  the  incomprehensible  power  of  genius  like  Shak- 
spere's,  with  the  space,  tenement,  and  circumstance 
of  a  man  !  The  poet  should  be  like  the  sea-bird,  seen 
only  on  the  wing — his  birth,  his  slumber,  and  his 
death,  mysteries  alike. 

I  had  stipulated  with  the  hostess  that  my  baggage 
should  be  put  into  the  chamber  occupied  by  Wash- 
ington Irving.  I  was  shown  into  it  to  dress  for  dinner 
— a  small  neat  room,  a  perfect  specimen,  in  short,  of 
an  English  bedroom,  with  snow-white  curtains,  a  look- 
ing-glass the  size  of  the  face,  a  well-polished  grate 
and  poker,  a  well-fitted  carpet,  and  as  much  light  as 
heaven  permits  to  the  climate. 

Our' dinner  for  two  was  served  in  a  neat  parlor  on 
the  same  floor — an  English  inn  dinner — simple,  neat, 
and  comfortable,  in  the  sense  of  that  word  unknown  in 
other  countries.  There  was  just  fire  enough,  in  the 
grate,  just  enough  for  two  in  the  different  dishes,  a 
servant  who  was  just  enough  in  the  room,  and  just 
civil  enough — in  short,  it  was,  like  everything  else  in 
that  country  of  adaptation  and  fitness,  just  what  was 
ordered  and  wanted,  and  no  more. 

The  evening  turned  out  stormy,  and  the  rain  pat- 
tered merrily  against  the  windows.  The  shutters  were 
closed,  the  fire  blazed  up  with  new  brightness,  the 
well-fitted  wax  lights  were  set  on  the  table  ;  and  when 
the  dishes  were  removed,  we  replaced  the  wine  with  a 
tea-tray,  and  sent  for  the  hostess  to  give  us  her  com- 
pany and  a  little  gossip  over  our  cups. 

Nothing  could  be  more  nicely  understood  and  de- 
fined than  the  manner  of  English  hostesses  generally 
in  such  situations,  and  of  Mrs.  Gardiner  particularly 
in  this.  Respectful  without  servility,  perfectly  sure 
of  the  propriety  of  her  own  manner  and  mode  of  ex- 
pression, yet  preserving  in  every  look  and  word  the 
proper  distinction  between  herself  and  her  guests,  she 
insured  from  them  that  kindness  and  ease  of  commu- 
nication which  would  make  a  long  evening  of  social 
conversation  pass,  not  only  without  embarrassment  on 
either  side,  but  with  mutual  pleasure  and  gratification. 

"I  have  brought  up,  mem,"  she  said,  producing  a 
well-polished  poker  from  under  her  black  apron,  be- 
fore she  took  the  chair  set  for  her  at  the  table — "I 
have  brought  up  a  relic  for  you  to  see,  that  no  money 
would  buy  from  me." 

She  turned  it  over  in  my  hand,  and  I  read  on  one 
of  the  flat  sides  at  the  bottom — "gkoffrey  crayon's 

SCEPTRE." 

"  Do  you  remember  Mr.  Irving,"  asked  my  friend, 
"or  have  you  supposed,  since  reading  his  sketch  of 
Stratford-on-Avon,  that  the  gentleman  in  number 
three  might  be  the  person  ?" 

The  hostess  drew  up  her  thin  figure,  and  the  ex- 
pression of  a  person  about  to  compliment  herself  stole 
into  the  corners  of  her  mouth. 

"  Why,  you  see,  mem,  I  am  very  much  in  the  habit 
of  observing  my  guests,  and  I  think  I  may  say  I  knows 
a  superior  gentleman  when  I  sees  him.  If  you  re- 
member, mem"  (and  she  took  down  from  the  mantle- 
piece  a  much-worn  copy  of  the  Sketch-15ook),  "  Geof- 
frey Crayon  tells  the  circumstance  of  my  stepping  in 
when  it  was  getting  late,  and  asking  if  he  had  rung. 
I  knows  it  by  that,  and  then  the  gentleman  I  mean 
was  an  American,  and  I  think,  mem,  besides"  (and  she 
hesitated  a  little,  as  if  she  was  about  to  advance  an 
I  original  and  rather  venturesome  opinion)— "  I  think 
I  can  see  that  gentleman's  likeness  all  through  this 
book."  .  ... 

A  truer  remark  or  a  more  just  criticism  was  per- 
haps never  made  on  the  Sketch-Book.  We  smiled, 
and  Mrs.  Gardiner  proceeded  : — 


564 


SKETCHES  OF  TRAVEL. 


"  I  was  in  and  out  of  the  coffee-room  the  night  he 
arrived,  mem,  and  I  sees  directly  by  his  modest  ways 
and  timid  look  that  he  was  a  gentleman,  and  not  fit 
company  for  the  other  travellers.  They  were  all  young 
men,  sir,  and  business  travellers,  and  you  know,  mem, 
ignorance  takes  the  advantage  of  modest  merit,  and  af- 
ter their  dinner  they  were  very  noisy  and  rude.  So,  I 
says  to  Sarah,  the  chambermaid,  says  I,  '  That  nice 
gentleman  can't  get  near  the  fire,  and  you  go  and  light 
a  fire  in  number  three,  and  he  shall  sit  alone,  and  it 
shan't  cost  him  nothing,  for  I  like  the  look  on  him.' 
Well,  mem,  he  seemed  pleased  to  be  alone,  and  after 
his  tea,  he  puts  his  legs  up  over  the  grate,  and  there 
he  sits  with  the  poker  in  his  hand  till  ten  o'clock. 
The  other  travellers  went  to  bed,  and  at  last  the  house 
was  as  still  as  midnight,  all  but  a  poke  in  the  grate 
now  and  then  in  number  three,  and  every  time  I  heard 
it,  I  jumped  up  and  lit  a  bed-candle,  for  I  was  getting 
very  sleepy,  and  I  hoped  he  was  getting  up  to  ring  for 
a  light.  Well,  mem,  I  nodded  and  nodded,  and  still 
no  ring  at  the  bell.  At  last  I  says  to  Sarah,  says  I, 
4  Go  into  number  three,  and  upset  something,  for  1  am 
sure  that  gentleman  has  fallen  asleep.' — '  La,  ma'am,' 
says  Sarah,  'I  don't  dare.' — 'Well,  then,'  says  I,  'I'll 
go.'  So  I  opens  the  door,  and  I  says,  'If  you  please, 
sir,  did  you  ring  ?' — little  thinking  that  question  would 
ever  be  written  down  in  such  a  beautiful  book,  mem. 
He  sat  with  his  feet  on  the  fender  poking  the  fire,  and 
a  smile  on  his  face,  as  if  some  pleasant  thought  was 
in  his  mind.  'No,  ma'am,'  says  he,  'I  did  not.'  I 
shuts  the  door,  and  sits  down  again,  for  I  hadn't  the 
heart  to  tell  him  that  it  was  late,  for  he  was  a  gentle- 
man not  to  speak  rudely  to,  mem.  Well,  it  was  past 
twelve  o'clock,  when  the  bell  did  ring.  'There,'  says 
I  to  Sarah,  '  thank  Heaven  he  has  done  thinking,  and 
we  can  go  to  bed.'  So  he  walked  up  stairs  with  his 
light,  aud  the  next  morning  he  was  up  early  and  off 
to  the  Shakspere  house,  and  he  brings  me  home  a  box 
of  the  mulberry-tree,  and  asks  me  if  I  thought  it  was 
genuine,  and  said  it  was  for  his  mother  in  America. 
And  I  loved  him  still  more  for  that,  and  I'm  sure  I 
prayed  she  might  live  to  see  him  return." 

"I  believe  she  did,  Mrs.  Gardiner;  but  how  soon 
after  did  you  set  aside  the  poker  ?" 

"  Why,  sir,  you  see  there's  a  Mr.  Vincent  that 
comes  here  sometimes,  and  he  says  to  me  one  day — 
•  So,  Mrs.  Gardiner,  you're  finely  immortalized.  Read 
that.'  So  the  minnit  I  read  it,  I  remembered  who  it 
was,  and  all  about  it,  and  I  runs  and  gets  the  number 
three  poker,  and  locks  it  up  safe  and  sound,  and  by- 
and-by  I  sends  it  to  Brummagem,  and  has  his  name 
engraved  on  it,  and  here  you  see  it,  sir — and  I  wouldn't 
take  no  money  for  it." 

I  had  never  the  honor  to  meet  or  know  Mr.  Irving, 
and  I  evidently  lost  ground  with  the  hostess  of  the 
"Red  Horse"  for  that  misfortune.  I  delighted  her, 
however,  with  the  account  which  I  had  seen  in  a  late 
newspaper,  of  his  having  shot  a  buffalo  in  the  prairies 
of  the  west ;  and  she  soon  courtesied  herself  out,  and 
left  me  to  the  delightful  society  of  the  distinguished 
lady  who  had  accompanied  me.  Among  all  my  many 
loitenngs  in  many  lands,  I  remember  none  more  in- 
tellectually pure  and  gratifying,  than  this  at  Stratford- 
on-Avon.  My  sleep,  in  the  little  bed  consecrated  by 
the  slumbers  of  the  immortal  Geoffrey,  was  sweet  and 
light ;  and  I  write  myself  his  debtor  for  a  large  share 
of  the  pleasure  which  genius  like  his  lavishes  on  the 
world. 


CHAPTER  XI. 

CHARLECOTE. 

Once  more  posting  through  Shottery  and  Stratford- 
on-Avon,  on  the  road  to  Kenilworth  and  Warwick,  I 


felt  a  pleasure  in  becoming  an  habitue  in  Shakspere's 
town — in  being  recognised  by  the  Stratford  post-boys, 
known  at  the  Stratford  inn,  and  remembered  at  the 
toll-gates.  It  is  pleasant  to  be  welcomed  by  name 
anywhere  ;  but  at  Stratford-on-Avon,  it  is  a  recogni- 
tion by  those  whose  fathers  or  predecessors  were  the 
companions  of  Shakspere's  frolics.  Every  fellow  in 
a  slouched  hat — every  idler  on  a  tavern  bench — every 
saunterer  with  a  dog  at  his  heels  on  the  highway — 
should  be  a  deer-stealer  from  Charlecote.  You  would 
almost  ask  him,  "  Was  Will  Shakspere  with  you  last 
night  ?" 

The  Lucys  still  live  at  Charlecote,  immortalized 
by  a  varlet  poacher  who  was  tried  before  old  Sir 
Thomas  for  stealing  a  buck.  They  have  drawn  an 
apology  from  Walter  Savage  Landor  for  making  too 
free  with  the  family  history,  under  cover  of  an  im- 
aginary account  of  the  trial.  I  thought,  as  we  drove 
along  in  sight  of  the  fine  old  hall,  with  its  broad  park 
and  majestic  trees — very  much  as  it  stood  in  the 
days  of  Sir  Thomas,  I  believe — that  most  probably 
the  descendants  of  the  old  justice  look  even  now  upon 
Shakspere  more  as  an  offender  against  the  game-laws 
than  as  a  writer  of  immortal  plays.  I  venture  to  say, 
it  would  be  bad  tact  in  a  visiter  to  Charlecote  to  felici- 
tate the  family  on  the  honor  of  possessing  a  park  in 
which  Shakspere  had  stolen  deer — to  show  more  in- 
terest in  seeing  the  hall  in  which  he  was  tried  than  in 
the  family  portraits. 

On  the  road  which  I  was  travelling  (from  Stratford 
to  Charlecote)  Shakspere  had  been  dragged  as  a  cul- 
prit. What  were  his  feelings  before  Sir  Thomas ! 
He  felt,  doubtless,  as  every  possessor  of  the  divine  fire 
of  genius  must  feel,  when  brought  rudely  in  contact 
with  his  fellow-men,  that  he  was  too  much  their  supe- 
rior to  be  angry.  The  humor  in  which  he  has  drawn 
Justice  Shallow  proves  abundantly  that  he  was  more 
amused  then  displeased  with  his  own  trial.  But  was 
there  no  vexation  at  the  moment?  A  reflection,  it 
might  be,  from  the  estimate  of  his  position  in  the 
minds  of  those  who  were  about  him — who  looked  on 
him  simply  as  a  stealer  of  so  much  venison.  Did  he 
care  for  Anne  Hathaway's  opinion  then  ? 

How  little  did  Sir  Thomas  Lucy  understand  the 
relation  between  judge  and  culprit  on  that  trial  !  How 
little  did  he  dream  he  was  sitting  for  his  picture  to  the 
pestilent  varlet  at  the  bar  ;  that  the  deer-stealer  could 
better  afford  to  forgive  him  than  he  the  deer-stealer  ! 
Genius  forgives,  or  rather  forgets,  all  wrongs  done  in 
ignorance  of  its  immortal  presence.  Had  Ben  Jonson 
made  a  wilful  jest  on  a  line  in  his  new  play,  it  would 
have  rankled  longer  than  fine  and  imprisonment  for 
deer-stealing.  Those  who  crowd  back  and  trample 
upon  men  of  genius  in  the  common  walk  of  life  ;  who 
cheat  them,  misrepresent  them,  take  advantage  of  their 
inattention  or  their  generosity  in  worldly  matters,  are 
sometimes  surprised  how  their  injuries,  if  not  them- 
selves, are  forgotten.  Old  Adam  Woodcock  might 
as  well  have  held  malice  against  Roland  Graeme  for 
the  stab  in  the  stuffed  doublet  of  the  Abbot  of  Mis- 
rule. 

Yet,  as  I  might  have  remarked  in  the  paragraph 
gone  before,  it  is  probably  not  easy  to  put  conscious 
and  secret  superiority  entirely  between  the  mind  and 
the  opinions  of  those  around  who  think  differently. 
It  is  one  reason  why  men  of  genius  love  more  than 
the  common  share  of  solitude — to  recover  self-respect. 
In  the  midst  of  the  amusing  travesty  he  was  drawing 
in  his  own  mind  of  the  grave  scene  about  him,  Shak- 
spere possibly  felt  at  moments  as  like  a  detected  culprit 
as  he  seemed  to  the  gamekeeper  and  the  justice.  It 
is  a  small  penalty  to1  pay  for  the  after  worship  of  the 
world  !  The  ragged  and  proverbially  ill-dressed 
peasants  who  are  selected  from  the  whole  campagna, 
as  models  to  the  sculptors  of  Rome,  care  little  what 
is  thought  of  their  good  looks  in  the  Corso.     The 


SKETCHES  OF  TRAVEL. 


565 


disguised  proportions  beneath  their  rags  will  be  ad- 
mired in  deathless  marble,  when  the  noble  who  scarce 
deigns  their  possessor  a  look  will  lie  in  forgotten  dust 
under  his  stone  scutcheon. 


CHAPTER  XII. 


WARWICK    CASTLE. 


Were  it  not  for  the  "  out-heroded"  descriptions  in 
the  guide-books,  one  might  say  a  great  deal  of  War-  j 
wick  castle.     It  is  the  quality  of  overdone  or  ill-ex- 
pressed   enthusiasm   to   silence  that  which  is   more  | 
rational  and  real.     Warwick  is,  perhaps,  the  best  kept  • 
of  all  the  famous  old  castles  of  England.    It  is  a  superb  j 
and  admirably-appointed  modern  dwelling,  in  the  shell, 
and  with  all  the  means  and  appliances  preserved,  of 
an  ancient  stronghold.     It  is  a  curious  union,  too.     My 
lady's  maid  and  my  lord's  valet  coquet  upon  the  bar- 
tizan, where  old  Guy  of  Warwick  stalked  in  his  coat- 
of-mail.      The  London  cockney,  from  his  two  days' 
watering  at  Leamington,  stops  his  pony-chaise,  hired  . 
ai  half-a-crown  the  hour,  and   walks  Mrs.  Popkins 
over  the  old  draw-bridge  as  peacefully  as  if  it  were  the 
threshold  of  his  shop  in  the  Strand.     Scot  and  French-  ; 
man  saunter  through  fosse  and  tower,  and  no  ghost  of  , 
the    middle   ages  stalks  forth,   with  closed  visor,   to  J 
challenge   these  once  natural  foes.     The   powdered 
butler  yawns  through  an  embrasure,  expecting  "mila- 
di,"  the  countess  of  this  fair  domain,  who  in  one  day's  j 
posting  from  London  seeks  relief  in  Warwick  Castle  j 
from  the  routs  and  soirees  of  town.     What  would  old  j 
Guy  say,  or  the  "  noble  imp"  whose  effigy  is  among  I 
the  escutcheoned  tombs  of  his  fathers,  if  they  could  ; 
rise  through  their  marble  slabs,  and  be  whirled  over  the  j 
drawbridge  in  a  post-chaise  ?     How  indignantly  they  j 
would  listen  to  the  reckoning  within  their  own  port-  j 
cullis,  of  the   rates  for  chaise   and   postillion.     How  j 
astonished  they  would  be  at  the  butler's  bow,  and  the 
proffered   officiousness  of  the  valet.     "  Shall  I  draw 
off  your  lordship's  boots  ?     Which  of  these  new  vests 
from  Staub  will  your  lordship  put  on  for  dinner  ?" 

Among  the  pictures  at  Warwick,  I  was  interested 
by  a  portrait  of  Queen  Elizabeth  (the  best  of  that  sov- 
ereign I  ever  saw) ;  one  of  Machiavelli,  one  of  Essex, 
and  one  of  Sir  Philip  Sidney.  The  delightful  and 
gifted  woman  whom  I  had  accompanied  to  the  castle 
observed  of  the  latter,  that  the  hand  alone  expressed 
all  his  character.  I  had  often  made  the  remark  in 
real  life,  but  I  had  never  seen  an  instance  on  painting 
where  the  likeness  was  so  true.  No  one  could  doubt, 
who  knew  Sir  Philip  Sidney's  character,  that  it  was  a 
literal  portrait  of  his  hand.  In  our  day,  if  you  have  j 
an  artist  for  a  friend,  he  makes  use  of  you  while  you 
call,  to  "sit  for  the  hand"  of  the  portrait  on  his  easel. 
Having  a  preference  for  the  society  of  artists  myself, 
and  frequenting  their  studios  habitually,  I  know  of 
some  hundred  and  fifty  unsuspecting  gentlemen  on 
canvass,  who  have  procured  for  posterity  and  their 
children  portraits  of  their  own  heads  and  dress-coats 
to  be  sure,  but  of  the  hands  of  other  persons  ! 

The  head  of  Machiavelli  is,  as  is  seen  in  the  marble 
in  the  gallery  of  Florence,  small,  slender,  and  visibly 
"  made  to  creep  into  crevices."     The  face  is  impassive 
and  calm,  and  the  lips,  though  slight  and  almost  femi- 
nine, have  an  indefinable  firmness  and  character.     Es- 
sex is  the  bold,  plain,  and  blunt  soldier  history  makes 
him,  and  Elizabeth  not  unqueenly,  nor  (to  my  think-  | 
ing)  of  an  uninteresting  countenance;   but,  with  all  j 
the  artist's  flattery,  ugly  enough  to  be  the  abode  of  | 
the  murderous  envy  that  brought  Mary  to  the  block.  I 

We  paid  our  five  shillings  for  having  been  walked 
through  the  marble  hall  of  Castle  Warwick,  and  the 
dressing-room  of  its  modern  lady,  and,  gratified  much 


more  by  our  visit  than  I  have  expressed  in  this  brief 
description,  posted  on  to  Kenilworth. 


CHAPTER  XIII. 

KENILWORTH. 

On  the  road  from  Warwick  to  Kenilworth,  I  thought 
more  of  poor  Pierce  Gaveston  than  of  Elizabeth  and 
her  proud  earls.  Edward's  gay  favorite  was  tried  at 
Warwick,  and  beheaded  on  Blacklow  hill,  which  we 
passed  soon  after  leaving  the  town.  He  was  executed 
in  June;  and  I  looked  about  on  the  lovely  hills  and 
valleys  that  surround  the  place  of  his  last  moments, 
and  figured  to  myself  very  vividly  his  despair  at  ihis 
hurried  leave-taking  of  this  bright  world  in  its  bright- 
est spot  and  hour.  Poor  Gaveston!  It  was  not  in 
his  vocation  to  die  !  He  was  neither  soldier  nor  prel- 
ate, hermit  nor  monk.  His  political  sius,  for  which 
he  suffered,  were  no  offence  against  good-fellowship, 
and  were  ten  times  more  venial  than  those  of  the 
"black  dog  of  Arden,"  who  betrayed  and  helped  to 
murder  him.  He  was  the  reckless  minion  of  a  king, 
but  he  must  have  been  a  merry  and  pleasant  fellow  ; 
and  now  that  the  world  (on  our  side  the  water  at  least), 
is  grown  so  grave,  one  could  go  back  with  Old  Mor- 
tality, and  freshen  the  epitaph  of  a  heart  that  took  life 
more  gayly. 

As  we  approached  the  castle  of  the  proud  Leices- 
ter, I  found  it  easier  to  people  the  road  with  the  flying 
Amy  Robsart  and  her  faithful  attendant,  with  Mike  Lam- 
bourne,  Flibbertigibbet,  Richard  Varney,  and  the  troop 
of  mummurs  and  players,  than  with  the  more  real 
characters  of  history.  To  assist  the  romance,  a  little 
Italian  boy,  with  his  organ  and  monkey,  was  fording 
the  brook  on  his  way  to  the  castle,  as  if  its  old  towers 
still  held  listeners  for  the  wandering  minstrel.  I 
tossed  him  a  shilling  from  the  carriage  window,  and 
while  the  horses  slowly  forded  the  brook,  asked  him 
in  his  own  delicious  tongue,  where  he  was  from. 

"  Son'  di  Firenze,  signore  .'" 

"  And  where  are  you  going  ?" 

"  Li  !  at  castello." 

Come  from  Florence  and  bound  to  Kenilworth ! 
Who  would  not  grind  an  organ  and  sleep  under  a  hedge, 
to  answer  the  hail  of  the  passing  traveller  in  terms 
like  these  ?  I  have  seen  many  a  beggar  in  Italy, 
whose  inheritance  of  sunshine  and  leisure  in  that  de- 
licious clime  I  could  have  found  it  in  my  heart  to 
envy,  even  with  all  its  concomitants  of  uncertainty 
and  want;  but  here  was  a  bright-faced  and  inky-eyed 
child  of  the  sun,  with  his  wardrobe  and  means  upon 
his  back,  travelling  from  one  land  to  another,  and  loiter- 
ing wherever  there  was  a  resort  for  pleasure,  without 
a  friend  or  a  care  ;  and,  upon  my  life,  I  could  have 
donned  his  velveteen  jacket,  and  with  his  cheerful 
heart  to  button  it  over,  have  shouldered  his  organ, 
put  my  trust  in  iforestieri,  and  kept  on  for  Kenilworth. 
There  really  is,  I  thought,  as  I  left  him  behind,  no 
profit  or  reward  consequent  upon  a  life  of  confinement 
and  toil  ;  no  moss  ever  gathered  by  the  unturned 
stone,  that  repavs,  by  a  thousandth  part,  the  loss  of 
even  this  poor  boy's  share  of  the  pleasures  of  change. 
What  would  not  the  tardy  winner  of  fortune  give  to 
exchange  his  worn-out  frame,  his  unloveable  and 
furrowed  features,  his  dulled  senses,  and  his  vain 
regrets,  for  the  elastic  frame,  the  unbroken  spirits, 
and  the  redeemable,  yet  not  oppressive  poverty  of  this 
Florentine  reeazzo  !  The  irrecoverable  gem  of  youth 
is  too  often  dissolved,  like  the  pearl  of  Cleopatra,  in  a 
cup  which  thins  the  blood  and  leaves  disgust  upon 

tne  1'P-  „,     ..        .  ,     .     . 

The  magnificent  ruins  of  Kenilworth  broke  in  upon 
my  moralities,  and  a  crowd  of  halt  and  crippled  ciceroni 

p 


566 


SKETCHES  OF  TRAVEL. 


beset  the  carriage-door  as  we  alighted  at  the  outer 
tower.  The  neighborhood  of  the  Spa  of  Leamington, 
makes  Kenilworth  a  place  of  easy  resort ;  and  the 
beggars  of  Warwickshire  have  discovered  that  your 
traveller  is  more  liberal  of  his  coin  than  your  sitter-at- 
home.  Some  dozens  of  pony-chaises  and  small,  crop 
saddle-horses,  clustered  around  the  gate,  assured  us 
that  we  should  not  muse  alone  amid  the  ruins  of 
Elizabeth's  princely  gift  to  her  favorite.  We  passed 
into  the  tilt-yard,  leaving  on  our  left  the  tower  in 
which  Edward  was  confined,  now  the  only  habitable 
part  of  Kenilworth.  It  gives  a  comfortable  shelter  to 
an  old  seneschal,  who  stands  where  the  giant  probably 
stood,  with  Flibbertigibbet  under  his  doublet  for  a 
prompter ;  but  it  is  not  the  tail  of  a  rhyme  that  serves 
now  for  a  passport. 

Kenilworth,  as  it  now  stands,  would  probably  dis- 
enchant almost  any  one  of  the  gorgeous  dreams  con- 
jured up  by  reading  Scott's  romance.  Yet  it  is  one 
of  the  most  superb  ruins  in  the  world.  It  would  scarce 
be  complete  to  a  novel-reader,  naturally,  without  a 
warder  at  the  gate,  and  the  flashing  of  a  spear-point 
and  helmet  through  the  embrasures  of  the  tower.  A 
horseman  in  armor  should  pace  over  the  draw-bridge, 
and  a  squire  be  seen  polishing  his  cuiras  through 
the  opening  gate;  while  on  the  airy  bartizan  should 
be  observed  a  lady  in  hoop  and  farthingale,  philander- 
ing with  my  lord  of  Leicester  in  silk  doublet  and 
rapier.  In  the  place  of  this,  the  visiter  enters  Kenil- 
worth as  I  have  already  described,  and  stepping  out 
into  the  tilt-yard,  he  sees,  on  an  elevation  before  him, 
a  fretted  and  ivy-covered  ruin,  relieved  like  a  cloud- 
castle  on  the  sky  ;  the  bright  blue  plane  of  the  western 
heavens  shining  through  window  and  broken  wall, 
flecked  with  waving  and  luxuriant  leaves,  and  the 
crusted  and  ornamental  pinnacles  of  tottering  masonry 
and  sculpture  just  leaning  to  their  fall,  though  the 
foundations  upon  which  they  were  laid,  one  would 
still  think,  might  sustain  the  firmament.  The  swelling 
root  of  a  creeper  has  lifted  that  arch  from  its  base, 
and  the  protruding  branch  of  a  chance-sprung  tree 
(sown  perhaps  by  a  field-sparrow)  has  unseated  the 
key-stone  of  the  next ;  and  so  perish  castles  and  repu- 
tations, the  masonry  of  the  human  hand,  and  the 
fabrics  of  human  forethought ;  not  by  the  strength 
which  they  feared,  but  by  the  weakness  they  despised  ! 
Little  thought  old  John  of  Gaunt,  when  these  rudely- 
hewn  blocks  were  heaved  into  their  seat  by  his  hercu- 
lean workmen,  that,  after  resisting  fire  and  foe,  they 
would  be  sapped  and  overthrown  at  last  by  a  vine-ten- 
dril and  a  sparrow  ! 

Clinging  against  the  outer  wall,  on  that  side  of  the 
castle  overlooking  the  meadow,  which  was  overflowed 
for  the  aquatic  spots  of  Kenilworth,  stands  an  antique 
and  highly  ornamental  fireplace,  which  belonged, 
doubtless,  to  the  principal  hall.  The  windows  on 
either  side  looking  forth  upon  the  fields  below,  must 
have  been  those  from  which  Elizabeth  and  her  train 
observed  the  feats  of  Arion  and  his  dolphin;  and  at  all 
times,  the  large  and  spacious  chimney-place,  from  the 
castle's  first  occupation  to  its  last,  must  have  been  the 
centre  of  the  evening  revelry,  and  conversation  of  its 
guests.  It  was  a  hook  whereon  to  hang  a  revery,  and 
between  the  roars  of  vulgar  laughter  which  assailed 
my  ears  from  a  party  lolling  on  the  grass  below,  I  con- 
trived to  figure  to  myself,  with  some  distinctness,  the 
personages  who  had  stood  about  it.  A  visit  to  Kenil- 
worth, without  the  deceptions  of  fancy,  would  be  as 
disconnected  from  our  previous  enthusiasm  on  the 
subject  as  from  any  other  scene  with  which  it  had  no 
relation.  The  general  effect  at  first,  in  any  such  spot, 
is  only  to  dispossess  us,  by  a  powerful  violence,  of  the 
cherished  picture  we  had  drawn  of  it  in  imagination  ; 
and  it  is  only  after  the  real  recollection  has  taken  root 
and  ripened — after  months,  it  may  be — that  we  can 
fully  bring  the  visionary  characters  we  have  drawn  to 


inhabit  it.  If  I  read  Kenilworth  now,  I  see  Mike 
Lambourne  stealing  out,  not  from  the  ruined  postern 
which  I  clambered  through,  over  heaps  of  rubbish, 
but  from  a  little  gate  that  turned  noiselessly  on  its 
hinges,  in  the  unreal  castle  built  ten  years  ago  in  my 
brain. 

I  had  wandered  away  from  my  companion,  Miss 
Jane  Porter,  to  climb  up  a  secret  staircase  in  the  wall, 
rather  too  difficult  of  ascent  for  a  female  foot,  and 
from  my  elevated  position  I  caught  an  accidental  view 
of  that  distinguished  lady  through  the  arch  of  a  Gothic 
window,  with  a  background  of  broken  architecture  and 
foliage — presenting,  by  chance,  perhaps  the  most  fit- 
ting and  admirable  picture  of  the  authoress  of  the 
Scottish  Chiefs,  that  a  painter  in  his  brightest  hour 
could  have  fancied.  Miss  Porter,  with  her  tall  and 
striking  figure,  her  noble  face  (said  by  Sir  Martin  Shee 
to  have  approached  nearer  in  its  youth  to  his  beau 
ideal  of  the  female  features  than  any  other,  and  still 
possessing  the  remains  of  uncommon  beauty),  is  at  all 
times  a  person  whom  it  would  be  difficult  to  see  with- 
out a  feeling  of  involuntary  admiration.  But  standing, 
as  I  saw  her  at  that  moment,  motionless  and  erect,  in 
the  morning  dress,  with  dark  feathers,  which  she  has 
worn  since  the  death  of  her  beloved  and  gifted  sister, 
her  wrists  folded  across,  her  large  and  still  beautiful 
eyes  fixed  on  a  distant  object  in  the  view,  and  her 
nobly-cast  lineaments  reposing  in  their  usual  calm  and 
benevolent  tranquillity,  while,  around  and  above  her, 
lay  the  material  and  breathed  the  spirit  over  which  she 
had  held  the  first  great  mastery — it  was  a  tableau 
vivant  which  I  was  sorry  to  be  alone  to  see. 

Was  she  thinking  of  the  great  mind  that  had  evoked 
the  spirits  of  the  ruins  she  stood  among — a  mind  in 
which  (by  Sir  Walter's  own  c^u  *ssion)  she  had  first 
bared  the  vein  of  romance  which  breathed  so  freely 
for  the  world's  delight  ?  Were  the  visions  which 
sweep  with  such  supernatural  distinctness  and  rapidity 
through  the  imagination  of  genius — visions  of  which 
the  millionth  portion  is  probablyscarce  communicated 
to  the  world  in  a  literary  lifetime — were  Elizabeth's 
courtiers,  Elizabeth's  passions,  secret  hours,  inter- 
views with  Leicester — were  the  imprisoned  king's 
nights  of  loneliness  and  dread,  his  hopes,  his  indignant, 
but  unheeded  thoughts — were  all  the  possible  circum- 
stances, real  or  imaginary,  of  which  that  proud  castle 
might  have  been  the  scene,  thronging  in  those  few 
moments  of  revery  through  her  fancy  ?  Or  was  her 
heart  busy  with  its  kindly  affections,  and  had  the 
beauty  and  interest  of  the  scene  but  awakened  a  thought 
of  one  who  was  most  wont  to  number  with  her  the 
sands  of  those  brighter  hours  ? 

Who  shall  say  ?  The  very  question  would  perhaps 
startle  the  thoughts  beyond  recall — so  elusive  are  even 
the  most  angelic  of  the  mind's  unseen  visitants  ? 

I  have  recorded  here  the  speculations  of  a  moment 
while  I  leaned  over  the  wall  of  Kenilworth,  but  as  1 
descended  by  the  giddy  staircase,  a  peal  of  rude 
laughter  broke  from  the  party  in  the  fosse  below,  and 
I  could  not  but  speculate  on  the  difference  between 
the  various  classes  whom  curiosity  draws  to  the  spot. 
The  distinguished  mind  that  conceives  a  romance 
which  enchants  the  world,  comes  in  the  same  guise 
and  is  treated  but  with  the  same  respect  as  theirs. 
The  old  porter  makes  no  distinction  in  his  charge  of 
half-a-crown,  and  the  grocer's  wife  who  sucks  an 
orange  on  the  grass,  looks  at  the  dark  crape  hat  and 
plain  exterior — her  only  standards — and  thinks  herself 
as  well  dressed,  and  therefore  equal  or  superior  to  the 
tall  lady,  whom  she  presumes  is  out  like  herself  on  a 
day's  pleasuring.  One  comes  and  goes  like  the  other, 
and  is  forgotten  alike  by  the  beggars  at  the  gate  and 
the  seneschal  within,  and  thus  invisibly  and  unsuspect- 
ed, before  our  very  eyes,  does  genius  gather  its  gold- 
en fruit,  and  while  we  walk  in  a  plain  and  common- 
place world,  with  commonplace  and  sordid  thoughts 


SKETCHES  OF  TRAVEL. 


567 


and  feelings,  the  gifted  walk  side  by  side  with  us  in  a 
world  of  their  own— a  world  of  which  we  see  distant 
glimpses  in  their  after-creations,  and  marvel  in  what 
unsunned  mine  its  gems  of  thought  were  gathered ! 


CHAPTER  XIV. 

A  VISIT  TO  DUBLIN  ABOUT    THE  TIME  OF  THE  QUEEN'S 
MARRIAGE. 

The  usual  directions  for  costume,  in  the  corner  of 
the  court  card  of  invitation,  included,  on  the  occasion 
of  the  queen's  marriage,  a  wedding  favor,  to  be  worn 
by  ladies  on  the  shoulder,  and  by  gentlemen  on  the 
left  breast.  This  trifling  addition  to  the  dress  of  the 
individual  was  a  matter  of  considerable  importance  to 
the  milliners,  hatters,  etc.,  who,  in  a  sale  of  ten  or 
twelve  hundred  white  cockades  (price  from  two  dollars 
to  five)  made  a  very  pretty  profit.  The  power  of  giv- 
ing a  large  ball  to  the  more  expensive  classes,  and  or- 
dering  a  particular  addition  to  the  costume — in  other 
words,  of  laying  a  tax  on  the  rich  for  the  benefit  of 
the  poor,  is  exercised  more  frequently  in  Ireland  than 
in  other  countries,  and  serves  the  double  purpose  of 
popularity  to  the  lord  lieutenant,  and  benefit  to  any 
particular  branch  of  industry  that  may  be  suffering 
from  the  decline  of  a  fashion. 

The  large  quadrangular  court-yard  of  the  castle 
rattled  with  the  tramp  of  horses'  feet  and  the  clatter  of 
sabres  and  spurs,  and  in  the  uncertain  glare  of  torches 
and  lamps,  the  gay  colors  and  glittering  arms  of  the 
mounted  guard  of  lancers  had  a  most  warlike  appear- 
ance. The  procession  which  the  guard  was  stationed 
to  regulate  and  protect,  rather  detracted  from  the  ro- 
mantic effect — the  greater  proportion  of  equipages 
being  the  covered  hack  cars  of  the  city — vehicles  of 
the  most  unmitigated  and  ludicrous  vulgarity.  A 
coffin  for  two,  set  on  its  end,  with  the  driver  riding  on 
the  turned-down  lid,  would  be  a  very  near  resemblance ; 
and  the  rags  of  the  driver,  and  the  translucent  leanness 
of  his  beast,  make  it  altogether  the  most  deplorable 
of  conveyances.  Here  and  there  a  carriage  with 
liveries,  and  here  and  there  a  sedan-chair  with  four 
stout  Milesian  calves  in  blue  stockings  trotting  under 
the  poles,  rather  served  as  a  foil  than  a  mitigation  of 
the  effect,  and  the  hour  we  passed  in  the  line,  edging 
slowly  toward  the  castle,  was  far  from  unfruitful  in 
amusement.  I  learned  afterward  that  even  those  who 
have  equipages  in  Dublin  go  to  court  in  hack  cars  as 
a  matter  of  economy — one  of  the  many  indications  of 
that  feeling  of  lost  pride  which  has  existed  in  Ireland 
since  the  removal  of  the  parliament. 

A  hall  and  staircase  lined  with  files  of  soldiers  is  not 
quite  as  festive  an  entrance  to  a  ball  as  the  more  com- 
mon one  of  alleys  of  flowering  shrubs  ;  but  with  a 
waltz  by  a  military  band  resounding  from  the  lofty 
ceiling,  I  am  not  sure  that  it  does  not  temper  the  blood 
as  aptly  for  the  spirit  of  the  hour.  It  was  a  rainy 
night,  and  the  streets  were  dark,  and  the  effect  upon 
myself  of  coming  suddenly  into  so  enchanted  a  scene 
— arms  glittering  on  either  side,  and  a  procession  of 
uniforms  and  plumed  dames  winding  up  the  spacious 
stairs — was  thrilling,  even  with  the  chivalric  scenes  of 
Eglinton  fresh  in  my  remembrance. 

At  the  head  of  the  ascent  we  entered  a  long  hall, 
lined  with  the  private  servants  of  Lord  Ebrington,  and 
the  ceremony  of  presentation  having  been  achieved  the 
week  before,  we  left  the  throne-room  on  the  right,  and 
passed  directly  to  St.  Patrick's  Hall,  the  grand  scene 
of  the  evening's  festivities.  This,  I  have  said  before, 
is  the  finest  ball-room  I  remember  in  Europe.  Twelve 
hundred  people,  seated,  dancing,  or  promenading, 
were  within  its  lofty  walls  on  the  night  whose  festivi- 
ties I  am  describing ;  and  at  either  end  a  gallery,  sup- 


ported by  columns  of  marble,  contained  a  band  of 
music,  relieving  each  other  with  alternate  waltzes  and 
quadrilles.  On  the  long  sides  of  the  hall  were  raised 
tiers  of  divans,  filled  with  chaperons,  veteran  officers, 
and  other  lookers-on,  and  at  the  upper  end  was  raised 
a  platform  with  a  throne  in  the  centre,  and  seats  on 
either  side  for  the  family  of  the  lord  lieutenant  and  the 
more  distinguished  persons  of  the  nobility.  Lord 
Ebrington  was  rather  in  his  character  of  a  noble  host 
than  that  of  viceroy,  and  I  did  not  observe  him  once 
seated  under  his  canopy  of  state  ;  but  with  his  aids 
and  some  one  of  the  noble  ladies  of  his  family  on  his 
arm,  he  promenaded  the  hall  conversing  with  his  ac- 
quaintances, and  seemingly  enjoying  in  a  high  degree 
the  brilliant  gayety  of  the  scene.  His  dress,  by  the 
way,  was  the  simple  diplomatic  dress  of  most  conti- 
nental courts,  a  blue  uniform  embroidered  with  gold, 
the  various  orders  on  his  breast  forming  its  principal 
distinction.  I  seldom  have  seen  a  man  of  a  more 
calm  and  noble  dignity  of  presence  than  the  lord  lieu- 
tenant, and  never  a  face  that  expressed  more  strongly 
the  benevolence  and  high  purity  of  character  for  which 
he  is  distinguished.  In  person,  except  that  he  is 
taller,  he  bears  a  remarkably  close  resemblance  to  the 
Duke  of  Wellington. 

We  can  scarcely  conceive,  in  this  country  of  black 
coats,  the  brilliant  effect  of  a  large  assembly  in  which 
there  is  no  person  out  of  uniform  or  court-dress — 
every  lady's  head  nodding  with  plumes,  and  every 
gentleman  in  military  scarlet  and  gold  or  lace  and 
embroidery.  I  may  add,  too,  that  in  this  country  of 
care-worn  and  pale  faces,  we  can  as  little  conceive  the 
effect  of  an  assembly  rosy  with  universal  health, 
habitually  unacquainted  with  care,  and  abandoned  with 
the  apparent  child-like  simplicity  of  high  breeding,  to 
the  inspiring  gayety  of  the  hour.  The  greater  con- 
trast, however,  is  between  a  nation  where  health  is  the 
first  care,  and  one  in  which  health  is  never  thought 
of  till  lost;  and  light  and  shade  are  not  more  con- 
trasted than  the  mere  general  effect  of  countenance 
in  one  and  in  the  other.  A  stranger  travelling  in  our 
country,  once  remarked  to  me  that  a  party  he  had  at- 
tended seemed  like  an  entertainment  given  in  the  con- 
valescent ward  of  a  hospital — the  ladies  were  so  pale 
and  fragile,  and  the  men  so  unjoyous  and  sallow.  And 
my  own  invariable  impression,  in  the  assemblies  I 
have  first  seen  after  leaving  my  own  country  was  a 
corresponding  one — that  the  men  and  women  had  the 
rosy  health  and  untroubled  gnyety  of  children  round  a 
May-pole.  That  this  is  not  the  effect  of  climate,  I  do 
most  religiously  believe.  It  is  over-much  care  and  over- 
much carelessness — the  corroding  care  of  an  avid  temer- 
ity in  business,  and  the  carelessness  of  all  the  functions 
of  life  till  their  complaints  become  too  imperative  to 
be  disregarded.     But  this  is  a  theme  out  of  place. 

The  ball  was  managed  by  the  grand  chamberlain 
(Sir  William  Leeson),  and  the  aids-de-camp  of  the 
lord  lieutenant,  and  except  that  now  and  then  you 
were  reminded  by  the  movement  around  you  that  you 
stood  with  your  back  to  the  representative  of  royalty, 
there  was  little  to  draw  your  attention  from  the  attrac- 
tions of  the  dance.  Waltz,  quadrille,  and  gallop,  fol- 
lowed each  other  in  giddy  succession,  and  "what  do 
you  think  of  Irish  beauty?"  had  been  asked  me  as 
often  as  "how  do  you  like  America  /"  was  ever  mum- 
bled through  the  trumpet  of  Miss  Martineau,  when  I 
mounted  with  a  frieud  to  one  of  the  upper  divans,  and 
tried,  what  is  always  a  difficult  task,  and  nowhere  so 
difficult  as  in  Ireland,  to  call  in  the  intoxicated  fancy, 
and  anatomize  the  charm  of  the  hour. 

Moore's  remark  has  been  often  quoted— "  there  is 
nothing  like  an  Irish  woman  to  take  a  man  of!  his 
feet;"  but  whether  this  figure  of  speech  was  suggested 
by  the  little  bard's  common  soubriquet  of  "Jump-up- 
and-kiss-me*  Tom  Moore,"  or  simply  conveyed  his 
•  The  name  of  a  small  flower,  common  in  Ireland 


568 


SKETCHES  OF  TRAVEL. 


idea  of  the  bewildering  character  of  Irish  beauty,  it 
contains,  to  any  one  who  has  ever  travelled  (or  waltzed) 
in  that  country,  a  very  just,  as  well  as  realizing  descrip- 
tion. Physically,  Irish  women  are  probably  the  finest 
race  in  the  world — I  mean,  taller,  better  limbed  and 
chested,  larger  eyed,  and  with  more  luxuriant  hair, 
and  freer  action,  than  any  other  nation  I  have  ob- 
served. The  Phoenician  and  Spanish  blood  which 
has  run  hundreds  of  years  in  their  veins,  still  kindles 
its  dark  fire  in  their  eyes,  and  with  the  vivacity  of  the 
northern  mind  and  the  bright  color  of  the  nor  hern 
skin,  these  southern  qualities  mingle  in  most  admira- 
ble and  superb  harmony.  The  idea  we  form  of  Ital- 
ian and  Grecian  beauty  is  never  realized  in  Greece  and 
Italy,  but  we  find  it  in  Ireland,  heightened  and  ex- 
ceeded. Cheeks  and  lips  of  the  delicacy  and  bright 
teint  of  carnation,  with  snowy  teeth,  and  hair  and  eye- 
brows of  jet,  are  what  we  should  look  for  on  the  palette 
of  Appelies,  could  we  recall  the  painter,  and  reanimate 
his  far-famed  models ;  and  these  varied  charms,  united, 
fall  very  commonly  to  the  share  of  the  fair  Milesian 
of  the  upper  classes.  In  other  lands  of  dark  eyes,  the 
rareness  of  a  fine-grained  skin,  so  necessary  to  a  bru- 
nette, makes  beauty  as  rare — but  whether  it  is  the 
damp  softness  of  the  climate  or  the  infusion  of  Saxon 
blood,  a  coarse  skin  is  almost  never  seen  in  Ireland. 
I  speak  now  only  of  the  better-born  ranks  of  society, 
for  in  all  my  travels  in  Ireland,  I  did  not  chance  to 
see  even  one  peasant-girl  of  any  pretensions  to  good 
looks.  From  north  to  south,  they  looked,  to  me, 
coarse,  ill-formed,  and  repulsive. 

I  noticed  in  St.  Patrick's  Hall  what  1  had  remarked 
ever  since  I  had  been  in  the  country,  that  with  all 
their  beauty,  the  Irish  women  are  very  deficient  in 
what  in  England  is  called  style.  The  men,  on  the 
contrary,  were  particularly  comme  ilfaut,  and  as  they 
are  a  magnificent  race  (corresponding  to  such  mothers 
and  sisters),  I  frequently  observed  I  had  never  seen 
so  many  handsome  and  elegant  men  in  a  day.  When- 
ever I  saw  a  gentleman  and  lady  together,  riding, 
driving,  or  walking,  my  first  impression  was,  almost 
universally,  that  the  man  was  in  attendance  upon  a 
woman  of  an  inferior  class  to  his  own.  This  differ- 
ence may  be  partly  accounted  for  by  the  reduced  cir- 
cumstances of  the  gentry  of  Ireland,  which  keeps  the 
daughters  at  home,  that  the  sons  may  travel  and  im- 
prove;  but  it  works  differently  in  America,  where, 
spite  of  travel  and  every  other  advantage  to  the  con- 
trary, the  daughters  of  a  family  are  much  oftener 
lady-like  than  the  sons  are  gentleman-like.  After 
wondering  for  some  time,  however,  why  the  quick- 
witted women  of  Ireland  should  be  less  apt  than  those 
of  other  countries  in  catching  the  air  of  high  breeding 
usually  deemed  so  desirable,  I  began  to  like  them  bet- 
ter for  the  deficiency,  and  to  find  a  reason  for  it  in  the 
very  qualities  which  make  them  so  attractive.  Noth- 
ing could  be  more  captivating  and  delightful  than  the 
manners  of  Irish  women,  and  nothing,  at  the  same 
time,  could  be  more  at  war  with  the  first  principles  of 
English  high  breeding— coldness  and  relenu.  The 
frank,  almost  hilarious  "how  are  you?"  of  an  Irish 
girl,  her  whole-handed  and  cordial  grasp,  as  often  in 
the  day  as  you  meet  her,  the  perfectly  un-missy-ish, 
confiding,  direct  character  of  her  conversation,  are  all 
traits  which  would  stamp  her  as  somewhat  rudely  bred 
in  England,  and  as  desperately  vulgar  in  New  York 
or  Philadelphia. 

Modest  to  a  proverb,  the  Irish  woman  is  as  unsus- 
pecting of  an  impropriety  as  if  it  were  an  impossible 
thing,  and  she  is  as  fearless  and  joyous  as  a  midship- 
man, and  sometimes  as  noisy.  In  a  ball-room  she 
looks  ill-dressed,  not  because  her  dress  was  ill-put-on, 
but  because  she  dances,  not  gHdes,  sits  down  without 
care,  pulls  her  flowers  to  pieces,  and  if  her  head-dress 
incommodes  her,  gives  it  a  pull  or  a  push — acts  which 
would  be  perfect  insanity  at  Almack's.     If  she  is  of- 


fended, she  asks  for  an  explanation.  If  she  does  not 
understand  you,  she  confesses  her  ignorance.  If  she 
wishes  to  see  you  the  next  day,  she  tells  you  how  and 
when.  She  is  the  child  of  nature,  and  children  are 
not  "stylish."  The  niminy-piminy,  eye-avoiding, 
finger-tipped,  drawling,  don't-touch-me  manner  of 
some  of  the  fashionable  ladies  of  our  country,  would 
amuse  a  cold  and  reserved  English  woman  sufficiently, 
but  they  would  drive  an  Irish  girl  into  hysterics.  1 
have  met  one  of  our  fair  country-people  abroad,  whose 
"Grecian  stoop,"  and  exquisitely  subdued  manner, 
was  invariably  taken  for  a  fit  of  indigestion. 

The  ball-supper  was  royally  sumptuous,  and  served 
in  a  long  hall  thrown  open  at  midnight ;  and  in  the 
gray  of  the  morning,  I  left  the  floor  covered  with 
waltzers,  and  confessed  to  an  Irish  friend,  that  I  never 
in  my  life,  not  even  at  Almack's,  had  seen  the  half  as 
much  true  beauty  as  had  brightened  St.  Patrick's  Hall 
at  the  celebration  of  the  queen's  marriage. 


CHAPTER  XV. 

CLOSING    SCENES    OF    THE    SESSION    AT  WASHINGTON. 

The  paradox  of"  the  more  one  does,  the  more  one 
can  do,"  is  resolved  in  life  at  Washington  with  more 
success  than  I  have  seen  it  elsewhere.     The  inexora- 
I  ble  bell  at  the  hotel  or  boarding-house  pronounces  the 
I  irrevocable  and  swift  transit  of  breakfast  to  all  sleepers 
j  after  eight.     The  elastic  depths  of  the  pillow  have 
!  scarcely  yielded  their  last  feather  to  the  pressure  of 
the  sleeper's  head,  before  the  drowse  is  rudely  shaken 
from  his  eyelids,  and  with  an  alacrity  which  surprises 
i  himself,  he  finds  his  toilet  achieved,  his  breakfast  over, 
and  himself  abroad  to  lounge  in  the  sunshine  till  the 
\  flag   waves  on  the  capitol.     He  would  retire  to   his 
I  chamber  to  read  during   these  two   or  three  vacant 
j  hours,  but  the  one  chair  in  his  pigeon-hole  creaks,  ot 
has  no  back  or  bottom,  or  his  anthracite  fire  is  out,  or 
is  too  hot  for  the  size  of  the  room  :  or,  in  short,  Wash- 
ington, from  whatever  cause,  is  a  place  where  none 
read  except  those  who  stand  up  to  a  padlocked  news- 
1  paper.     The  stars  and  stripes,  moving  over  the  two 
!  wings  of  the  capitol  at  eleven,  announce  that  the  two 
J  chambers  of  legislation  are  in  session,  and  the  hard- 
i  working   idler  makes   his  way  to   the  senate   or  the 
I  house.     He  lingers  in  the  lobby  awhile,  amused  with 
1  the   button-hole  seizers  plying  the  unwilling  ears  of 
|  members  with   their   claims,    or   enters   the    library, 
|  where  ladies  turn  over  prints,  and  enfilade,  with  their 
'  battery  of  truant  eyes,   the  comers-in  at  the   green 
!  door.     He  then  gropes  up  the  dark  staircase  to  the 
j  senate  gallery,   and   stifles  in  the  pressure   of  a   hot 
gallery,  forgetting,  like  listeners  at  a  crowded  opera, 
that  bodily  discomfort  will  unlink  the  finest  harmonies 
of  song  or  oratory.    Thence  he  descends  to  the  rotunda 
to  draw  breath  and  listen  to  the  more  practical,  but 
quite  as  earnest  eloquence  of  candidates  for  patents; 
and  passes,  after  while,  to  the  crowded  gallery  of  the 
house,   where,   by  some  acoustic  phenomena  in  the 
construction  of  the  building,  the  voicesof  the  speakers 
comes  to  his  ear  as  articulate  as  water  from  a  narrow- 
necked   bottle.     "Small  blame  to  them !"  he  thinks, 
however  :  for  behind  the  brexia  columns  are  grouped 
all  the  fair  forms  of  Washington  ;    and  in  making  his 
bow  to  two  hundred  despotic  lawgivers  in  feathers  and 
velvet,  he  is  readily  consoled  that  the  duller  legislators 
who  yield  to   their  sway  are  inaudible  and  forgotten. 
To  this  upper  house  drop  in,  occasionally,  the  younger 
or  gayer  members  of  the  lower,  bringing,  if  not  politi- 
cal scandal,  at  least  some  slight  resumer  of  what  Mr. 
Somebody  is  beating  his  desk  about  below  ;  and  thus, 
crammed  with  the  day's  trifles  or  the  day's  business, 
and  fatigued  from  heel  to  eyelid,  our  idler  goes  home 


SKETCHES  OF  TRAVEL. 


569 


at  five  to  dress  for  dinner  and  the  night's  campaign, 
having  been  up  and  on  his  legs  for  ten  mortal  hours. 

Cold  water  and  a  little  silence  in  his  own  room  have 
rather  refreshed  him,  and  he  dines  at  six  with  a  party 
of  from  fifteen  to  tweuty-five  persons.  He  discusses 
the  vital  interests  of  fourteen  millions  of  people  over 
a  glass  of  wine  with  the  man  whose  vote,  possibly, 
will  decide  their  destiny,  and  thence  hurries  to  a  ball- 
room crammed  like  a  perigord-pie,  where  he  pants, 
efoows,  eats  supper,  and  waltzes  till  three  in  the 
morning.  How  human  constitutions  stand  this,  and 
stand  it  daily  and  nightly,  from  the  beginning  to  the 
end  of  a  session,  may  well  puzzle  the  philosophy  of 
those  who  rise  and  breakfast  in  comfortable  leisure. 

I  joined  the  crowd  on  the  twenty-second  of  Februa- 
ry, to  pay  my  respects  to  the  president,  and  see  the  J 
cheese.     Whatever  veneration  existed  in  the  minds  of  j 
the   people  toward   the  former,  their  curiosity  in  ref-  i 
erence   to  the    latter   predominated,   unquestionably. 
The  circular  pave,  extending  from  the  gate  to  the 
White  House,  was  thronged  with  citizens  of  all  classes,  I 
those  coming  away  having  each  a  small  brown  paper  j 
parcel  and  a  very  strong  smell;  those  advancing mani-  j 
festing,  by  shakings  of  the  head  and  frequent  exclama- 
tions, that  there  may  be  too  much  of  a  good  thing,  j 
and  particularly  of  a  cheese.     The  beautiful  portico  ; 
was   thronged  with  boys  and  coach-drivers,  and  the  j 
odor  strengthened  with  every  step.     We  forced  our 
way  over  the   threshold,   and   encountered  an  atmo- 
sphere, to  which  the  mephitic  gas  floating  over  Aver- 
nus  must  be  faint  and  innocuous.     On  the  side  of  the  i 
hall  hung  a  rough  likeness  of  the  general,  emblazoned  [ 
with  eagle   and  stars,  forming   a   background   to   the 
huge  tub  in  which  the  cheese  had  been  packed  ;  and  , 
in  the  centre  of  the  vestibule  stood  the  "fragrant  gift,"  j 
surrounded  with  a  dense  crowd,  who,  without  crackers,  [ 
or  even  *'  malt  to  their  cheese,"  had,  in  two  hours, 
eaten  and   purveyed  away  fourteen  hundred  pounds  ! 
The  small  segment  reserved  for  the  president's  use 
counted  for  nothing  in  the  abstractions. 

Glad  to  compromise  for  a  breath  of  cheeseless  air, 
we  desisted  from  the  struggle  to  obtain  a  sight  of  the 
table,  and  mingled  with  the  crowd  in  the  east  room. 
Here  were  diplo mates  in  their  gold  coats  and  officers 
in  uniform,  ladies  of  secretaries  and  other  ladies, 
soldiers  on  volunteer  duty,  and  Indians  in  war-dress 
and  paint.  Bonnets,  feathers,  uniforms,  and  all — it 
was  rather  a  gay  assemblage.  I  remembered  the  de- 
scriptions in  travellers'  books,  and  looked  out  for 
millers  and  blacksmiths  in  their  working  gear,  and  for 
rudeness  and  vulgarity  in  all.  The  offer  of  a  mam- 
moth cheese  to  the  public  was  likely  to  attract  to  the 
presidental  mansion  more  of  the  lower  class  than  would 
throng  to  a  common  levee.  Great-coats  there  were, 
and  not  a  few  of  them,  for  the  day  was  raw,  and  unless 
they  were  hung  on  the  palings  outside,  they  must  re- 
main on  the  owners'  shoulders  ;  but,  with  a  single  ex- 
ception (a  fellow  with  his  coat  torn  down  his  back, 
possibly  in  getting  at  the  cheese),  I  saw  no  man  in  a 
dress  that  was  not  respectable  and  clean  of  its  kind, 
and  abundantly  fit  for  a  tradesman  out  of  his  shop. 
Those  who  were  much  pressed  by  the  crowd  put  their 
hats  on  ;  but  there  was  a  general  air  of  decorum 
which  would  surprise  any  one  who  had  pinned  his 
faith  on  travellers.  An  intelligent  Englishman,  very 
much  inclined  to  take  a  disgust  to  mobocracy,  ex- 
pressed to  me  great  surprise  at  the  decency  and  proper 
behavior  of  the  people.  The  same  experiment  in 
England,  he  thought,  would  result  in  as  pretty  a  riot 
as  i  paragraph-monger  would  desire  to  see. 

The  president  was  down  stairs  in  the  oval  reception 
room,  and,  though  his  health  would  not  permit  him 
to  stand,  he  sat  in  his  chair  for  two  or  three  hours,  and 
received  his  friends  with  his  usual  bland  and  dignified 
courtesy.  By  his  side  stood  the  lady  of  the  mansion, 
dressed  in  full   court  costume,  and  doing  the  honors 


of  her  place  with  a  grace  and  amenity  which  every  one 
felt,  and  which  threw  a  bloom  over  the  hour.  Gene- 
ral Jackson  retired,  after  a  while,  to  his  chamber,  and 
the  president  elect  remained  to  support  his  relative, 
and  present  to  her  the  still  thronging  multitude,  and 
by  four  o'clock  the  guests  were  gone,  and  the  "  ban- 
quet hall"  was  deserted.  Not  to  leave  a  wrong  im- 
pression of  the  cheese,  I  dined  afterward  at  a  table  to 
which  the  president  had  sent  a  piece  of  it,  and  found 
it  of  excellent  quality.  It  is  like  many  other  things, 
more  agreeable  in  small  quantities. 

Some  eccentric  mechanic  has  presented  the  presi- 
dent with  a  sulkey,  made  entirely  (except  the  wheels) 
of  rough-cut  hickory,  with  the  bark  on.  It  looks 
rude  enough,  but  has  very  much  the  everlasting  look 
of  old  Hickory  himself;  and  if  he  could  be  seen  dri- 
ving a  high-stepping,  bony  old  iron-gray  steed  in  it, 
any  passer  by  would  see  that  there  was  as  much  fitness 
in  the  whole  thing  as  in  the  chariot  of  Bacchus  and 
his  reeling  leopards.  Some  curiously-twisted  and 
gnarled  branches  have  been  very  ingeniously  turned 
into  handles  and  whip-box.  and  the  vehicle  is  compact 
and  strong.  The  president  has  left  it  to  Mr.  Van 
Buren. 

In  very  strong  contrast  to  the  sulkey,  stood  close  by, 
the  elegant  phaeton,  made  of  the  wood  of  the  old 
frigate  Constitution.  It  has  a  seat  for  two,  with  a 
driver's  box,  covered  with  a  superb  hammercloth,  and 
set  up  rather  high  in  front;  the  wheels  and  body  are 
low.  and  there  are  bars  for  baggage  behind  ;  altogeth- 
er, for  lightness  and  elegance,  it  would  be  a  creditable 
turn  out  for  Long  Acre.  The  material  is  excessively 
beautiful — a  fine-grained  oak,  polished  to  a  very  high 
degree,  with  its  colors  delicately  brought  out  by  a  co<n 
of  varnish.  The  wheels  are  very  slender  and  light,  but 
strong,  and,  with  all  its  finish,  it  looks  a  vehicle  capa- 
ble of  a  great  deal  of  service.  A  portrait  of  the  Con- 
stitution, under  full  sail,  is  painted  on  the  panels. 


CHAPTER  XVI. 

THE    INAUGURATION. 

While  the  votes  for  president  were  being  counted 
in  the  senate,  Mr.  Clay  remarked  to  Mr.  Van  Buren, 
with  courteous  significance  : — 

"  It  is  a  cloudy  day,  sir !" 

"  The  sun  will  shine  on  the  fourth  of  March!"  was 
the  confident  reply. 

True  to  his  augury,  the  sun  shone  out  of  heaven 
without  a  cloud  on  the  inaugural  morning.  The  air 
was  cold,  but  clear  and  life-giving  ;  and  the  broad 
avenues  of  Washington  for  once  seemed  not  too  large 
for  the  thronging  population.  The  crowds  who  had 
been  pouring  in  from  every  direction  for  several  days 
before,  ransacking  the  town  for  but  a  shelter  from  the 
night,  were  apparent  on  the  spacious  sidewalks  ;  and 
the  old  campaigners  of  the  winter  seemed  but  a  thin 
sprinkling  among  the  thousands  of  new  and  strange 
faces.  The  sun  shone  alike  on  the  friends  and  oppo- 
nents of  the  new  administration,  and,  as  far  as  one 
might  observe  in  a  walk  to  the  capitol,  all  were  made 
cheerful  alike  by  its  brightness.  It  was  another 
augury,  perhaps,  and  may  foretell  a  more  extended 
fusion  under  the  light  of  the  luminary  new  risen.  In 
a  whole  day  passed  in  a  crowd  composed  of  all  classes 
and  parties,  I  heard  no  remark  that  the  president  would 
have  been  unwilling  to  hear. 

I  was  at  the  capitol  a  half  hour  before  the  proces- 
sion arrived,  and  had  leisure  to  study  a  scene  for 
I  which  I  was  not  at  all  prepared.  The  noble  starrcase 
of  the  east  front  of  the  building  leaps  over  three 
i  arches,  under  one  of  which  carriages  pass  to  the  base- 
'  meut  door;  and,  as  you  approach  from  the  gate,  the 


570 


SKETCHES  OF  TRAVEL. 


eye  cuts  the  ascent  at  right  angles,  and  the  sky,  broken 
Dy  a  small  spire  at  a  short  distance,  is  visible  beneath. 
Broad  stairs  occur  at  equal  distances,  with  corre- 
sponding projections  ;  and  from  the  upper  platform  rise 
the  outer  columns  of  the  portico,  with  ranges  of  col- 
umns three  deep  extending  back  to  the  pilasters.  I 
had  often  admired  this  front  with  its  many  graceful 
columns,  and  its  superb  flight  of  stairs,  as  one  of  the 
finest  things  I  had  seen  in  the  world.  Like  the  effect 
of  the  assembled  population  of  Rome  waiting  to  re- 
ceive the  blessing  before  the  front  of  St.  Peter's,  how- 
ever, the  assembled  crowd  on  the  steps  and  at  the 
base  of  the  capitol  heightened  inconceivably  the  gran- 
deur of  the  design.  They  were  piled  up  like  the 
people  on  the  temples  of  Babylon  in  one  of  Martin's 
sublime  pictures — every  projection  covered,  and  an 
inexpressible  soul  and  character  given  by  their  pres- 
ence to  the  architecture.  Boys  climbed  about  the 
bases  of  the  columns,  single  figures  stood  on  the  posts 
of  the  surrounding  railings  in  the  boldest  relief  against 
the  sky ;  and  the  whole  thing  was  exactly  what  Paul 
Veronese  would  have  delighted  to  draw.  I  stood  near 
an  accomplished  artist  who  is  commissioned  to  fill  one 
of  the  panels  of  the  rotunda,  and  I  can  not  but  hope 
he  may  have  chosen  this  magnificent  scene  for  his 
subject. 

The  republican  procession,  consisting  of  the  presi- 
dents and  their  families,  escorted  by  a  small  volunteer 
corps,  arrived  soon  after  twelve.  The  General  and 
Mr.  Van  Buren  were  in  the  constitution  phaeton, 
drawn  by  four  grays,  and  as  it  entered  the  gate,  they 
both  rode  uncovered.  Descending  from  the  carriage 
at  the  foot  of  the  steps,  a  passage  was  made  for  them 
through  the  dense  crowd,  and  the  tall  white  head  of 
the  old  chieftain,  still  uncovered,  went  steadily  up 
through  the  agitated  mass,  marked  by  its  peculiarity 
from  all  around  it. 

I  was  in  the  crowd  thronging  the  opposite  side  of 
the  court,  and  lost  sight  of  the  principal  actors  in  this 
imposing  drama,  till  they  returned  from  the  senate 
chamber.  A  temporary  platform  had  been  laid,  and 
railed  in  on  the  broad  stair  which  supports  the  por- 
tico, and,  for  all  preparation  to  one  of  the  most  impor- 
tant and  most  meaning  and  solemn  ceremonies  on 
earth — for  the  inauguration  of  a  chief  magistrate  over  a 
republic  of  fifteen  millions  of  freemen — the  whole  ad- 
dition to  the  open  air,  and  the  presence  of  the  people, 
was  a  volume  of  holy  writ.  In  comparing  the  impres- 
sive simplicity  of  this  consummation  of  the  wishes  of 
a  mighty  people,  with  the  tricked-out  ceremonial,  and 
hollow  show,  which  embarrass  a  corresponding  event 
in  other  lands,  it  was  impossible  not  to  feel  that  the 
moral  sublime  was  here — that  a  transaction  so  impor- 
tant, and  of  such  extended  and  weighty  import,  could 
borrow  nothing  from  drapery  or  decoration,  and  that 
the  simple  presence  of  the  sacred  volume,  consecrating 
the  act,  spoke  more  thrillingly  to  the  heart  than  the 
trumpets  of  a  thousand  heralds. 

The  crowd  of  diplomatists  and  senators  in  the  rear 
of  the  columns  made  way,  and  the  ex-president  and 
Mr.  Van  Buren  advanced  with  uncovered  heads.  A 
murmur  of  feeling  rose  up  from  the  moving  mass  be- 
low, and  the  infirm  old  man,  emerged  from  a  sick- 
chamber,  which  his  physician  had  thought  it  impossi- 
ble he  should  leave,  bowed  to  the  people,  and,  still 
uncovered  in  the  cold  air,  took  his  seat  beneath  the 
portico.  Mr.  Van  Buren  then  advanced,  and  with  a 
voice  remarkably  distinct,  and  with  great  dignity,  read 
his  address  to  the  people.  The  air  was  elastic,  and 
the  day  still ;  and  it  is  supposed  that  near  twenty  thou- 
sand persons  heard  him  from  his  elevated  position  dis- 
tinctly. I  stood  myself  on  the  outer  limit  of  the 
crowd,  and  though  I  lost  occasionally  a  sentence  from 
the  interruption  near  by,  his  words  came  clearly  ar- 
ticulated to  my  ear. 

When  the  address  was  closed,  the  chief  justice  ad- 


vanced and  administered  the  oath.  As  the  book 
touched  the  lips  of  the  new  president,  there  arose  a 
general  shout,  and  expression  of  feeling  common 
enough  in  other  countries,  but  drawn  with  difficulty 
from  an  American  assemblage.  The  sons,  and  the 
immediate  friends  of  Mr.  Van  Buren,  then  closed 
about  him  ;  the  ex-president,  the  chief  justice,  and 
others,  gave  him  the  hand  of  congratulation,  and  the 
ceremony  was  over.  They  descended  the  steps,  the 
people  gave  one  more  shout  as  they  mounted  the  con- 
stitution carriage  together,  and  the  procession  returned 
through  the  avenue,  followed  by  the  whole  population 
of  Washington. 

Mr.  Van  Buren  held  a  levee  immediately  afterward, 
but  I  endeavored  in  vain  to  get  my  foot  over  the 
threshold.  The  crowd  was  tremendous.  At  four, 
the  diplomatic  body  had  an  audience ;  and  in  replying 
to  the  address  of  Don  Angel  Calderon,  the  president 
astonished  the  gold  coats,  by  addressing  them  as  the 
democratic  corps.  The  representatives  of  the  crowned 
heads  of  Europe  stood  rather  uneasily  under  the 
epithet,  till  it  was  suggested  that  he  possibly  meant  to 
say  diplomatic. 


CHAPTER  XVII. 

WASHINGTON    IN    THE    SESSION. 

Thkrk  is  a  sagacity  acquired  by  travel  on  the  sub- 
ject of  forage  and  quarters,  which  is  useful  in  all  other 
cities  in  the  world  where  one  may  happen  to  be  a 
stranger,  but  which  is  as  inapplicable  to  the  emergen- 
cies of  an  arrival  in  Washington  as  waltzing  in  a  ship- 
wreck. It  is  a  capital  whose  peculiarities  are  as  much 
sui  generis  as  those  of  Venice;  but  as  those  who  have 
become  wise  by  a  season's  experience  neither  remain 
on  the  spot  to  give  warning,  nor  have  recorded  thei 
experiences  in  a  book,  the  stranger  is  worse  off*  in  a 
coach  in  Washington  than  in  a  gondola  in  the  "city 
of  silver  streets." 

It  is  well  known,  I  believe,  that  when  the  future 
city  of  Washington  was  about  being  laid  out,  there 
were  two  large  lot-buyers  or  land-owners,  living  two 
miles  apart,  each  of  whom  was  interested  in  having 
the  public  buildings  upon  the  centre  of  his  own  do- 
main. Like  children  quarrelling  for  a  sugar  horse, 
the  subject  of  dispute  was  pulled  in  two,  and  one  got 
the  head,  the  other  the  tail.  The  capitol  stands  on  a 
rising  ground  in  solitary  grandeur,  and  the  president's 
house  and  department  buildings  two  miles  off  on  an- 
other. The  city  straddles  and  stretches  between, 
doing  its  best  to  look  continuous  and  compact;  but 
the  stranger  soon  sees  that  it  is,  after  all,  but  a  "city 
of  magnificent  distances,"  built  to  please  nobody  on 
earth  but  a  hackney-coachman. 

The  new-comer,  when  asked  what  hotel  he  will 
drive  to,  thinks  himself  very  safe  if  he  chooses  that 
nearest  the  capitol — supposing,  of  course,  that,  as 
Washington  is  purely  a  legislative  metropolis,  the 
most  central  part  will  naturally  be  near  the  scene  of 
action.  He  is  accordingly  set  down  at  Gadsby's,  and, 
at  a  price  that  would  startle  an  English  nobleman,  he 
engages  a  pigeon-hole  in  the  seventh  heaven  of  that 
boundless  caravansary.  Even  at  Gadsby's,  however, 
he  finds  himself  over  half  a  mile  from  the  capitol,  and 
wonders,  for  two  or  three  days,  why  the  deuce  the 
hotel  was  not  built  on  some  of  the  waste  lots  at  the 
foot  of  Capitol  hill,  an  improvement  which  might 
have  saved  him,  in  rainy  weather,  at  least  five  dollars 
a  day  in  hack-hire.  Meantime  the  secretaries  and 
foreign  ministers  leave  their  cards,  and  the  party  and 
dinner-giving  people  shower  upon  him  the  "  small 
rain"  of  pink  billets.  He  sets  apart  the  third  or  fourth 
day  to  return   their  calls,  and  inquires  the  addresses 


SKETCHES  OF  TRAVEL. 


571 


of  his  friends  (which  they  never  write  on  their  cards, 
because,  if  they  did,  it  would  be  no  guide),  and  is  told 
it  is  impossible  to  direct  him,  but  the  hackney-coachmen  | 
all  know!     He  calls  the  least  ferocious-looking  of  the 
most  bullying  and  ragged  set  of  tatterdemalions  he  has 
ever  seen,  and  delivers  himself  and  his  visiting-list  into 
his  hands.     The   first  thing  is  a  straight  drive  two 
miles  away  from  the   capitol.     He  passes  the  presi- 
dent's house,  and  getting  oft'  the  smooth  road,  begins  j 
to  drive  and  drag  through  cross  lanes  and  open  lots,  , 
laid  out  according  to  no  plan  that  his  loose  ideas  of 
geometry  can   comprehend,  and  finds  his  friends  liv- 
ing in  houses  that  want  nothing  of  being  in  the  coun- 
try, but  trees,  garden,  and  fences.     It  looks  as  if  it  had  j 
rained    naked   brick   houses  upon  a  waste  plain,  and 
each  occupant  had  made  a  street  with  reference  to  his  '■ 
own  front  door.     The  much-shaken  and  more-aston-  ' 
ished  victim  consumes  his  morning  and  his  temper, 
and  has   made,  by  dinner-time,  but  six  out  of  forty 
calls,  all  imperatively  due,  and  all  scattered  far  and 
wide  with  the  same  loose  and  irreconcilable  geogra- 
phy. 

A  fortnight's  experience  satisfies  the  stranger  that 
this  same  journey  is  worss  at  night  than  at  morning; 
and  that,  as  he  leaves  his  dinner  which  he  pays  for  at 
home,  runs  the  risk  of  his  neck,  passes  an  hour  or 
two  on  the  road,  and  ruins  himself  in  hack-hire,  it 
must  be  a  very — yes,  a  very  pleasant  dinner-party  to 
compensate  him.  Consequently,  he  either  sends  a 
*' p.  p.  c."  to  all  his  acquaintances,  and  lives  incog., 
or,  which  is  a  more  sensible  thing,  moves  up  to  the 
other  settlement,  and  abandons  the  capitol. 

Those  who  live  on  the  other  side  of  the  president's 
house  are  the  secretaries,  diplomatists,  and  a  few 
wealthy  citizens.  There  is  no  hotel  in  this  quarter, 
but  there  are  one  or  two  boarding-houses,  and  (what 
we  have  been  lucky  enough  to  secure  ourselves)  fur- 
nished lodgings,  in  which  you  have  everything  but 
board.  Your  dinner  is  sent  you  from  a  French  cook's 
near  by,  and  your  servant  gets  your  breakfast — a  plan 
which  gives  you  the  advantage  of  dining  at  your  own 
hour,  choosing  your  own  society,  and  of  having  covers 
for  a  friend  or  two  whenever  it  suits  your  humor,  and 
at  half  an  hour's  warning.  There  are  very  (ew  of 
these  lodgings  (which  combine  many  other  advantages 
over  a  boarding-house),  but  more  of  them  would  be  a 
good  speculation  to  house-owners,  and  I  wish  it  were 
suggested,  not  only  here,  but  in  every  city  in  our 
country. 

Aside  from  society,  the  only  amusement  in  Wash- 
ington is  frequenting  the  capitol.  If  one  has  a  great 
deal  of  patience  and  nothing  better  to  do,  this  is  very 
well ;  and  it  is  very  well  at  any  rate  till  one  becomes 
acquainted  with  the  heads  of  the  celebrated  men  in 
both  the  chambers,  with  the  noble  architecture  of  the 
building,  and  the  routine  of  business.  This  done,  it 
is  time  wearily  speut  for  a  spectator.  The  finer  orators 
seldom  speak,  or  seldom  speak  warmly,  the  floor  is 
oftenest  occupied  by  prosing  and  very  sensible  gentle- 
men, whose  excellent  ideas  enter  the  mind  more 
agreeably  by  the  eye  than  the  ear,  or,  in  other  words, 
are  better  delivered  by  the  newspapers,  and  there  is  a 
great  deal  of  formula  and  etiquetical  sparring  which 
is  not  even  entertaining  to  the  members,  and  which 
consumes  time  "  consumedly."  Now  and  then  the 
senate  adjourns  when  some  one  of  the  great  orators 
has  taken  the  floor,  and  you  are  sure  of  a  great  effort 
the  next  morning.  If  you  are  there  in  time,  and  can 
sit,  like  Atlas  with  a  world  on  your  back,  you  may  en- 
joy a  front  seat  and  hear  oratory,  unsurpassed,  in  my 
opinion,  in  the  world. 

The  society  in  Washington,  take  it  all  in  all,  is  by 
many  degrees  the  best  in  the  United  States.  One  is 
prepared,  though  I  can  not  conceive  why,  for  the  con- 
trary. We  read  in  books  of  travels,  and  we  are  told 
by  everybody,  that  the  society  here   is  promiscuous, 


rough,  inelegant,   and   even   baibarous.     This  is  an 
untrue  representation,  or  it  has  very  much  changed. 

There  is  no  city,  probably  no  village  in  America, 
where  the  female  society  is  not  refined,  cultivated,  and 
elegant.  With  or  without  regular  advantages,  woman 
attains  the  refinements  and  the  tact  necessary  to  polite 
intercourse.  No  traveller  ever  ventured  to  complain 
of  this  part  of  American  society.  The  great  deficiency 
is  that  of  agreeable,  highly-cultivated  men,  whose  pur- 
suits have  been  elevated,  and  whose  minds  are  pliable 
to  the  grace  and  changing  spirit  of  conversation. 
Every  man  of  talents  possesses  these  qualities  naturally, 
and  hence  the  great  advantage  which  Washington  en- 
joys over  every  other  city  in  our  country.  None  but 
a  shallow  observer,  or  a  malicious  book-maker,  would 
ever  sneer  at  the  exteriors  or  talk  of  the  ill-breeding 
of  such  men  as  form,  in  great  numbers,  the  agreeable 
society  of  this  place — for  a  man  of  great  talents  never 
could  be  vulgar;  and  there  is  a  superiority  about  most 
of  these  which  raises  them  above  the  petty  standard 
which  regulates  the  outside  of  a  coxcomb.  Even 
compared  with  the  dress  and  address  of  men  of  similar 
positions  and  pursuits  in  Europe,  however  (members 
of  the  house  of  commons,  for  example,  or  of  the  cham- 
ber of  deputies  in  France),  it  is  positively  the  fact  that 
the  senators  and  representatives  of  the  United  States 
have  a  decided  advantage.  It  is  all  very  well  for  Mr. 
Hamilton,  and  other  scribblers  whose  books  must  be 
spiced  to  go  down,  to  ridicule  a  Washington  soiree  for 
English  readers;  but  if  the  observation  of  one  who 
has  seen  assemblies  of  legislators  and  diplomatists  in 
all  the  countries  of  Europe  may  be  fairly  placed 
against  his  and  Mrs.  Trollope's,  1  may  assert,  upon 
my  own  authority,  that  they  will  not  find,  out  of  May 
Fair  in  England,  so  well-dressed  and  dignified  a  body 
of  men.  I  have  seen  as  yet  no  specimen  of  the  rough 
animal  described  by  them  and  others  as  the  "  western 
member;"  and  if  David  Crockett  (whom  I  was  never 
so  fortunate  as  to  see)  was  of  that  description,  the  race 
must  have  died  with  him.  It  is  a  tiling  1  have  learned 
since  I  have  been  in  Washington,  to  feel  a  wish  that 
foreigners  should  see  congress  in  session.  We  are 
so  humbugged,  one  way  and  another,  by  travellers' 
lies. 

I  have  heard  the  observation  once  or  twice  from 
strangers  since  I  have  been  here,  and  it  struck  myself 
on  my  first  arrival,  that  I  had  never  seen  within  the 
same  limit  before,  so  many  of  what  may  be  called 
"men  of  mark."  You  will  scarce  meet  a  gentleman 
on  the  sidewalk  in  Washington  who  would  not  attract 
your  notice,  seen  elsewhere,  as  an  individual  possess- 
ing in  his  eye  or  general  features  a  certain  superiority. 
Never  having  seen  most  of  the  celebrated  speakers  of 
the  senate,  1  busied  myself  for  the  first  day  or  two  in 
examining  the  faces  that  passed  me  in  the  street,  in 
the  hope  of  knowing  them  by  the  outward  stamp 
which,  we  are  apt  to  suppose,  belongs  to  greatness. 
I  gave  it  up  at  last,  simply  from  the  great  number  I 
met  who  might  be  (for  all  that  features  had  to  do  with 
it)  the  remarkable  men  I  sought. 

There  is  a  very  simple  reason  why  a  congress  of  the 
United  States  should  be,  as  they  certainly  are,  a  much 
more  marked  body  of  men  than  the  English  house  of 
commons  or  lords,  or  the  chamber  of  peers  or  deputies 
in  France.  I  refer  to  the  mere  means  by  which,  in 
either  case,  they  come  by  their  honors.  In  England 
and  France  the  lords  and  peers  are  legislators  by  hered- 
itary right,  and  the  members  of  the  commons  and 
deputies  from  the  possession  of  extensive  property  or 
family  influence,  or  some  other  cause,  arguing,  in 
most  cases,  no  great  personal  talent  in  the  individual. 
They  are  legislators,  but  they  are  devoted  v.iry  often 
much  more  heartily  to  other  pursuits— hunting  or 
farming,  racing,  driving,  and  similar  out-ot-door  pas- 
sions common  to  English  gentlemen  and  lords,  or  the 
I  corresponding  penchants  of  French  peers  and  deputies 


572 


SKETCHES  OF  TRAVEL. 


It  is  only  the  few  great  leaders  and  orators  who  devote 
themselves  to  politics  exclusively.  With  us  every 
one  knows  it  is  quite  the  contrary.  An  American 
politician  delivers  himself,  body  and  soul,  to  his  pur- 
suit. He  never  sleeps,  eats,  walks,  or  dreams,  but  in 
subservience  to  his  aim.  He  can  not  afford  to  have 
another  passion  of  any  kind  till  he  has  reached  the 
point  of  his  ambition — and  then  it  has  become  a 
mordent  necessity  from  habit.  The  consequence  is, 
that  no  man  can  be  found  in  an  elevated  sphere  in  our 
country,  who  has  not  had  occasion  for  more  than  ordi- 
nary talent  to  arrive  there.  He  inherited  nothing  of 
his  distinction,  and  has  made  himself.  Such  ordeals 
leave  their  marks,  and  they  who  have  thought,  and 
watched,  and  struggled,  and  contended  with  the  pas- 
sions of  men  as  an  American  politician  inevitably 
must,  can  not  well  escape  the  traces  of  such  work. 
It  usually  elevates  the  character  of  the  face — it  always 
strongly  marks  it. 

A-propos  of  "  men  of  mark  ;"  the  dress  circle  of  the 
theatre,  at  Power's  benefit,  not  long  since,  was  graced 
by  three  Indians  in  full  costume — the  chief  of  the 
Foxes,  the  chief  of  the  Ioways,  and  a  celebrated  war- 
rior of  the  latter  tribe,  called  the  Sioux-killer.  The 
Fox  is  an  old  man  of  apparently  fifty,  with  a  heavy, 
aquiline  nose,  a  treacherous  eye,  sharp  as  an  eagle's, 
and  a  person  rather  small  in  proportion  to  his  head 
and  features.  He  was  "dressed  in  a  bright  scarlet 
blanket,  and  a  crown  of  feathers,  with  an  eagle's  plume, 
standing  erect  on  the  top  of  his  head,  all  dyed  in  the 
same  deep  hue.  His  face  was  painted  to  match,  ex- 
cept his  lips,  which  looked  of  a  most  ghastly  sallow, 
in  contrast  with  his  fiery  nose,  forehead,  and  cheeks. 
His  tomahawk  lay  in  the  hollow  of  his  arm,  decked 
with  feathers  of  the  same  brilliant  color  with  the  rest 
of  his  drapery.  Next  him  sat  the  Sioux-killer,  in  a 
dingy  blanket,  with  a  crown  made  of  a  great  quantity 
of  the  feathers  of  a  pea-hen,  which  fell  over  his  face, 
and  concealed  his  features  almost  entirely.  He  is 
very  small,  but  is  famous  for  his  personal  feats,  having, 
among  other  things,  walked  one  hundred  and  thirty 
miles  in  thirty  successive  hours,  and  killed  three  Sioux 
(hence  his  name)  in  one  battle  with  that  nation.  He 
is  but  twenty-three,  but  very  compact  and  wiry-looking, 
and  his  eye  glowed  through  his  veil  of  hen-feathers 
like  a  coal  of  fire. 

Next  to  the  Sioux-killer  sat  "White  Cloud,"  the 
chief  of  the  Ioways.  His  face  was  the  least  warlike 
of  the  three,  and  expressed  a  good  nature  and  freedom 
from  guile,  remarkable  in  an  Indian.  He  is  about 
twenty-four,  has  very  large  features,  and  a  fine,  erect 
person,  with  broad  shoulders  and  chest.  He  was 
painted  less  than  the  Fox  chief,  but  of  nearly  the  same 
color,  and  carried,  in  the  hollow  of  his  arm,  a  small, 
glittering  tomahawk,  ornamented  with  blue  feathers. 
His  head  was  encircled  by  a  kind  of  turban  of  silver- 
fringed  cloth,  with  some  metallic  pendents  for  earrings, 
and  his  blanket,  not  particularly  clean  or  handsome, 
was  partly  open  on  the  breast,  and  disclosed  a  calico 
shirt,  which  was  probably  sold  to  him  by  a  trader  in 
the  west.  They  were  all  very  attentive  to  the  play, 
but  the  Fox  chief  and  White  Cloud  departed  from  the 
traditionary  dignity  of  Indians,  and  laughed  a  great 
deal  at  some  of  Power's  fun.  The  Sioux-killer  sat 
between  them,  as  motionless  and  grim  as  a  marble 
knight  on  a  tomb-stone. 

The  next  day  I  had  the  pleasure  of  dining  with 
Mr.  Power,  who  lived  at  the  same  hotel  with  the  In- 
dian delegation  ;  and  while  at  dinner  he  received  a 
message  from  the  Ioways,  expressing  a  wish  to  call  on 
him.  We  were  sitting  over  our  wine  when  White 
Cloud  and  the  Sioux-killer  came  in  with  their  inter- 
preter. There  were  several  gentlemen  present,  one 
of  them  in  the  naval  undress  uniform,  whose  face  the 
Sioux-killer  scrutinized  very  sharply.  They  smiled 
in  bowing  to  Power,  but  made  very  grave  inclinations 


to  the  rest  of  us.  The  chief  took  his  seat,  assuming 
a  very  erect  and  dignified  attitude,  which  he  preserved 
immoveable  during  the  interview ;  but  the  Sioux-killer 
drew  up  his  legs,  resting  them  on  the  round  of  the 
chair,  and,  with  his  head  and  body  bent  forward, 
seemed  to  forget  himself,  and  give  his  undivided  atten- 
tion to  the  study  of  Power  and  his  naval  friend. 

Tumblers  of  champagne  were  given  them,  which 
they  drank  with  great  relish,  though  the  Sioux-killer 
provoked  a  little  ridicule  from  White  Cloud,  by  cough- 
ing as  he  swallowed  it.  The  interpreter  was  a  half- 
breed  between  an  Indian  and  a  negro,  and  a  most  in- 
telligent fellow.  He  had  been  reared  in  the  Ioway 
tribe,  but  had  been  among  the  whites  a  great  deal  for 
the  last  few  years,  and  had  picked  up  English  very 
fairly.  He  told  us  that  White  Cloud  was  the  son  of 
old  White  Cloud,  who  died  three  years  since,  and 
that  the  young  chief  had  acquired  entire  command 
over  the  tribe  by  his  mildness  and  dignity.  He  had 
paid  the  debts  of  the  Ioways  to  the  traders,  very  much 
against  the  will  of  the  tribe;  but  he  commenced  by 
declaring  firmly  that  he  would  be  just,  and  had  carried 
his  point.  He  had  come  to  Washington  to  receive  a 
great  deal  of  money  from  the  sale  of  the  lands  of  the 
tribe,  and  the  distribution  of  it  lay  entirely  in  his  own 
power.  Only  one  old  warrior  had  ventured  to  rise  in 
council  and  object  to  his  measures;  but  when  White 
Cloud  spoke,  he  had  dropped  his  head  on  his  bosom 
and  submitted.  This  information  and  that  which 
followed  was  given  in  English,  of  which  neither  of  the 
Ioways  understood  a  word. 

Mr.  Power  expressed  a  surprise  that  the  Sioux- 
killer  should  have  known  him  in  his  citizen's  dress. 
The  interpreter  translated  it,  and  the  Indian  said  in 
answer: — 

"  The  dress  is  very  different,  but  when  I  see  a  man's 
eye  I  know  him  again." 

He  then  told  Power  that  he  wished,  in  the  theatre, 
to  raise  his  war-cry  and  help  him  fight  the  three  bad- 
looking  men  who  were  his  enemies  (referring  to  the 
three  bailiffs  in  the  scene  in  Paddy  Carey).  Power 
asked  what  part  of  the  play  he  liked  best.  He  said 
that  part  where  he  seized  the  girl  in  his  arms  and  ran 
off  the  stage  with  her  (at  the  close  of  an  Irish  jig  in 
the  same  play). 

The  interpreter  informed  us  that  this  was  the  first 
time  the  Sioux-killer  had  come  among  the  whites. 
He  had  disliked  them  always  till  now,  but  he  said  he 
had  seen  enough  to  keep  him  telling  tales  all  the  rest 
of  his  life.  Power  offered  them  cigars,  which  they 
refused.  We  expressed  our  surprise  ;  and  the  Sioux- 
killer  said  that  the  Indians  who  smoked  gave  out 
soonest  in  the  chase ;  and  White  Cloud  added,  very 
gravely,  that  the  young  women  of  his  tribe  did  not 
like  the  breaths  of  the  smokers.  In  answer  to  an  in- 
quiry I  made  about  the  comparative  size  of  Indians 
and  white  men,  the  chief  said  that  the  old  men  of  the 
whites  were  larger  than  old  Indians,  but  the  young 
whites  were  not  so  tall  and  straight  as  the  youths  of 
his  tribe.  We  were  struck  with  the  smallness  of  the 
chief's  hands  and  feet ;  but  he  seemed  very  much 
mortified  when  the  interpreter  translated  our  remark  to 
him.  He  turned  the  little  sallow  fingers  over  and  over, 
and  said  that  old  White  Cloud,  his  father,  who  had 
been  a  great  warrior,  had  small  hands  like  his.  The 
young  chief,  we  were  told  by  the  interpreter,  has  never 
yet  been  in  an  engagement,  and  is  always  spared  from 
the  heavier  fatigues  undergone  by  the  rest  of  the 
tribe. 

They  showed  great  good  nature  in  allowing  us  to 
look  at  their  ornaments,  tomahawks,  &c.  White 
;  Cloud  wore  a  collar  of  bear's  claws,  which  marked 
i  him  for  a  chief;  and  the  Sioux-killer  carried  a  great 
;  cluster  of  brass  bells  on  the  end  of  his  tomahawk,  of 
I  which  he  explained  the  use  very  energetically.  It 
!  was  to  shake  when  he  stood  over  his  fallen  enemy  in 


SKETCHES  OF  TRAVEL. 


573 


he  fi^ht,  to  let  the  tribe  know  he  had  killed  him. 
After  another  tumbler  of  champagne  each,  they  rose 
to  take  their  leave,  and  White  Cloud  gave  us  his  hand 
gently,  with  a  friendly  nod.  We  were  all  amused, 
however,  with  the  Sioux-killer's  more  characteristic 
adieu.  He  looked  us  in  the  eye  like  a  hawk,  and  gave 
us  each  a  <*rip  of  his  iron  fist,  that  made  the  blood 
tingle  under  our  nails.  He  would  be  an  awkward 
customer  in  a  fight,  or  his  fixed  lips  and  keen  eye  very 
much  belie  him. 


CHA*PTER  XVIII. 

WASHINGTON    AFTER    THE    SESSION. 

The  leaf  that  is  lodged  in  some  sunny  dell,  after 
drifting  on  the  whirlwind — the  Indian's  canoe,  after  it 
has  shot  the  rapids — the  drop  of  water  that  has  strug- 
gled out  from  the  Phlegethon  of  Niagara,  and  sleeps 
on  the  tranquil  bosom  of  Ontario — are  faint  images 
of  contrast  and  repose,  compared  with  a  Washingtoni- 
an  after  the  session.  I  have  read  somewhere,  in  an 
oriental  tale,  that  a  lover,  having  agreed  to  share  his 
life  with  his  dying  mistress,  took  her  place  in  the 
grave  six  months  in  the  year.  In  Bagdad  it  might 
have  been  a  sacrifice.  In  Washington  I  could  con- 
ceive such  an  arrangement  to  make  very  little  dif- 
ference. 

Nothing  is  done  leisurely  in  our  country  ;  and,  by 
the  haste  with  which  everybody  rushes  to  the  rail- 
road  the   morning   after  the  rising  of  congress,  you 
would  fancy  that   the   cars,  like   Cinderella's   coach, 
would   be   changed  into   pumpkins   at  the  stroke  of 
twelve.     The  town  was  evacuated  in  a  day.     On  the 
fifth   of  March  a   placard  was  sent  back  by  the  inn- 
keepers at  Baltimore,  declaring  that  there  was  not  so 
much  as  a  garret  to  be  had  in  that  city,  and  imploring 
gentlemen  and  ladies  to  remain  quietly  at  Washington 
for  twenty-four  hours.     The  railroad  engine,  twice  a 
day.  tugged  and  puffed  away  through  the  hills,  draw- 
ing after  it,  on  its  sinuous  course,  a  train  of  brick-color- 
ed cars,  that  resembled  the  fabulous  red  dragon  trailing 
its  slimy  length  through  the  valley  of  Crete.     The 
gentlemen    who   sit  by   the  fire   in  the   bar-room   at 
Gadsby's.  like  Theodore  Hook's  secretary,  who  could 
hear  his  master  write  "  Yours  faithfully"  in  the  next  | 
room,  learned    to   distinguish    "  Received    payment"  j 
from  "  Sundries,"  by  listening  to  the  ceaseless  scratch  ! 
of  the  bookkeeper.     The  ticket-office   at  the  depot  j 
was  a  scene  of  struggle  and   confusion  between  those  ! 
who  wanted  places  ;  while,  looking  their  last  on  these 
vanishing  paymasters,  stood  hundreds  of  tatterdema-  \ 
lions,  white,  yellow,  and   black,  with  their  hands  in  j 
their  pockets,  and  (if  sincere  regret  at  their  departure 
could  have  wrung  it  forth)  a  tear  in  their  eye.     The  i 
bell  rang,  and  the  six  hundred  departures  flocked  to 
their  places — young   ladies,  with  long  faces,  leaving 
the  delights  of  Washington  for  the  dull  repose  of  the  \ 
country — their  lovers,  with  longer  faces,  trying,  in  vain,  I 
to  solve  the   X  quantity  expressed  by  the  aforesaid 
"  Sundries"  in  their  bill — and   members  of  congress  I 
with  long  faces,  too — for  not  one  in  twenty  has  "  made 
the  impression"  he  expected  ;  and   he  is  moralizing 
on  the  decline  of  the  taste  for  eloquence,  and  on  the  < 
want  of  "  golden  opportunity"  for  the  display  of  indig- 
nant virtue! 

Nothing  but  an  army,  or  such  a  concourse  of  people 
as  collects  to  witness  an  inauguration,  could  ever  make 
Washington  look  populous.  But  when  congress,  and 
its  train  of  ten  thousand  casual  visiters  are  gone,  and 
only  the  official  and  indigenous  inhabitants  remain, 
Balbec,  or  Palmyra,  with  a  dozen  Arabs  scattered 
among  its  ruins,  has  less  a  look  of  desolation.  The 
few  stragglers  in  the  streets  add  to  its  loneliness — pro- 


ducing exactly  the  effect  sometimes  given  to  a  wood- 
land solitude  by  the  presence  of  a  single  bird.  The 
vast  streets  seem  grown  vaster  and  more  dispropor- 
tionate— the  houses  seem  straggling  to  greater  distan- 
ces— the  walk  from  the  presidents  house  to  the  capitol 
seems  twice  as  long — and  new  faces  are  seen  here  and 
there,  at  the  doors  and  windows — for  cooks  and  inn- 
keepers that  had  never  time  to  lounge,  lounge  nov/, 
and  their  families  take  quiet  possession  of  the  unrented 
front  parlor.  He  who  would  be  reminded  of  his  de- 
parted friends  should  walk  down  on  the  avenue.  The 
carpet,  associated  with  so  many  pleasant  recollections 
— which  has  been  pressed  by  the  dainty  feet  of  wits 
and  beauties — to  tread  on  which  was  a  privilege  and 
a  delight — is  displayed  on  a  heap  of  old  furniture,  and 
while  its  sacred  defects  are  rudely  scanned  by  the  curi- 
ous, is  knocked  down,  with  all  its  memories,  under  the 
hammer  of  the  auctioneer.  Tables,  chairs,  ottomans 
— all  linked  with  the  same  glowing  recollections— go 
for  most  unworthy  prices  ;  and  while,  humiliated  with 
the  sight,  you  wonder  at  the  artificial  value  given  to 
things  by  their  possessors,  you  begin  to  wonder  wheth- 
er your  friends  themselves,  subjected  to  the  same 
searching  valuation,  would  not  be  depreciated  too! 
Ten  to  one,  if  their  characters  were  displayed  like 
their  carpets,  there  would  come  to  light  defects  as  un- 
suspected ! 

The  person  to  whom  this  desolation  is  the  »«  un- 
kindest  cut"  is  the  hackney-coachman.  "His  voca- 
tion" is  emphatically  gone  !  Gone  is  the  dollar  made 
every  successive  half  hour!  Gone  is  the  pleasant  sum 
in  compound  addition,  done  "in  the  head,"  while  wait- 
ing at  the  doors  of  the  public  offices!  Gone  are  the 
short,  but  profitable,  trips  to  the  theatre  !  Gone  the 
four  or  five  families,  all  taken  the  same  evening  to  par- 
ties, and  each  paying  the  item  of"  carriage  from  nine 
till  twelve  !"  Gone  the  absorbed  politician,  who  would 
rather  give  the  five-dollar  bill  than  wait  for  his  change  ! 
the  lady  who  sends  the  driver  to  be  paid  at  "the  bar;" 
the  uplifted  fingers,  hither  and  thither,  which  embar- 
rass his  choice  of  a  fare — gone,  all!  The  chop-fallen 
coachy  drives  to  the  stand  in  the  morning  and  drives 
home  at  noon;  he  creeps  up  to  Fuller's  at  a  snail- 
pace,  and,  in  very  mockery  of  hope,  asks  the  home- 
ward-bound clerk  from  the  department  if  he  wants  a 
coach!  Night  comes  on,  and  his  horses  begin  to  be- 
lieve in  the  millenium — and  the  cobwebs  are  wove 
over  his  whip-socket. 

These  changes,  however,  affect  not  unpleasantly  the 
diplomatic  and  official  colony  extending  westward  from 
the  president's.  The  inhabitants  of  this  thin-sprinkled 
settlement  are  away  from  the  great  thoroughfare,  and 
do  not  miss  its  crowds.  The  cessation  of  parties  is  to 
them  a  relief  from  night-journeys,  colds,  card-leavings, 
and  much  wear  and  tear  of  carriage-horses.  They 
live  now  in  dressing-gowns  and  slippers,  read  the  re- 
views and  the  French  papers,  get  their  dinners  com- 
fortably from  the  restaurateurs,  and  thank  Heaven  that 
the  capitol  is  locked  up.  The  attaches  grow  fat,  and 
the  despatches  grow  thin. 

There  are  several  reasons  why  Washington,  till  the 
month  of  May,  spite  of  all  the  drawbacks  in  the  pic- 
ture delineated  above,  is  a  more  agreeable  residence 
than  the  northern  cities.  In  the  first  place,  its  climate 
is  at  least  a  month  earlier  than  that  of  New  York,  and, 
in  the  spring,  is  delightful.  The  trees  are  at  this  mo- 
ment (the  last  week  in  March)  bursting  into  buds; 
open  carriages  are  everywhere  in  use  ;  walking  in  the 
i  sun  is  oppressive  ;  and  for  the  last  fortnight,  this  has 
!  been  a  fair  chronicle  of  the  weather.  Boston  and 
I  New  York  have  been  corroded  with  east  winds,  mean- 
i  time,  and  even  so  near  as  Baltimore,  they  are  still 
I  wrapped  in  cloaks  and  shawls.  To  those  who,  in 
I  reckoning  the  comforts  of  life,  agree  with  me  in  making 
j  climate  stand  for  nine  tenths,  this  is  powerful  attrac- 
'  tion. 


574 


SKETCHES  OF  TRAVEL. 


Then  the  country  about  Washington,  the  drives 
and  rides,  are  among  the  most  lovely  in  the  world, 
the  banks  of  Rock  creek  are  a  little  wilderness  of 
beauty.  More  bright  waters,  more  secluded  bridle- 
paths, more  sunny  and  sheltered  hill-sides,  or  finer 
mingling  of  rock,  hill,  and  valley,  I  never  rode  among. 
Within  a  half  hour's  gallop,  you  have  a  sylvan  retreat 
of  every  variety  of  beauty,  and  in  almost  any  direction ; 
and  from  this  you  come  home  (and  this  is  not  the 
case  with  most  sylvan  rides)  to  an  excellent  French 
dinner  and  agreeable  society,  if  you  like  it.  You  have 
all  the  seclusion  of  a  rural  town,  and  none  of  its  petty 
politics  and  scandal — all  the  means  and  appliances  of 
a  large  metropolis,  and  none  of  its  exactions  and  lim- 
itations. That  which  makes  the  charm  of  a  city,  and 
that  for  which  we  seek  the  country,  are  equally  here, 
and  the  penalties  of  both  are  removed. 

Until  the  reflux  of  population  from  the  Rocky 
mountains,  I  suppose  Washington  will  never  be  a  me- 
tropolis of  residence.  But  if  it  were  an  object  with 
the  inhabitants  to  make  it  more  so,  the  advantages  I 
have  just  enumerated,  and  a  little  outlay  of  capital  and 
enterprise,  would  certainly,  in  some  degree,  effect  it. 
People  especially  who  come  from  Europe,  or  have 
been  accustomed  to  foreign  modes  of  living,  would  be 
glad  to  live  near  a  society  composed  of  such  attractive 
materials  as  the  official  and  diplomatic  persons  at  the 
seat  of  government.  That  which  keeps  them  away  is, 
principally,  want  of  accommodation,  and,  in  a  less  de- 
gree, it  is  want  of  comfortable  accommodation  in  the 
other  cities  which  drives  them  back  to  Europe.  In 
Washington  you  must  either  live  at  an  hotel  or  a 
boarding-house.  In  either  case,  the  mode  of  life  is 
only  endurable  for  the  shortest  possible  period,  and 
the  moment  congress  rises,  every  sufferer  in  these  de- 
testable places  is  off  for  relief.  The  hotels  are  crowd- 
ed to  suffocation ;  there  is  an  utter  want  of  privacy  in 
the  arrangement  of  the  suites  of  apartments  ;  the  ser- 
vice is  ill-ordered,  and  the  prices  out  of  all  sense  or 
reason.  You  pay  for  that  which  you  have  not,  and 
you  can  not  get  by  paying  for  it  that  which  you  want. 

The  boarding-house  system  is  worse  yet.  To  pos- 
sess but  one  room  in  privacy,  and  that  opening  on  a 
common  passage;  to  be  obliged  to  come  to  meals  at 
certain  hours,  with  chance  table  companions,  and  no 
place  for  a  friend,  and  to  live  entirely  in  your  bedroom 
or  in  a  public  parlor,  may  truly  be  called  as  abominable 
a  routine  as  a  gentleman  could  well  suffer.  Yet  the 
great  majority  of  those  who  come  to  Washington  are 
in  one  or  the  other  of  these  two  categories. 

The  use  of  lodgings  for  strangers  or  transient  resi- 
dents in  the  city  does  not,  after  all  the  descriptions  in 
books,  seem  at  all  understood  in  our  country.  This 
is  what  Washington^wants,  but  it  is  what  every  city  in 
the  country  wants  generally.  Let  us  describe  it  as  if 
it  was  never  before  heard  of,  and  perhaps  some  en- 
lightened speculator  may  advance  us  half  a  century  in 
some  of  the  cities,  by  creating  this  luxury. 

Lodgings  of  the  ordinary  kind  in  Europe  generally 
consist  of  the  apartments  on  one  floor.  The  house, 
we  will  suppose,  consists  of  three  stories  above  the 
basement,  and  each  floor  contains  a  parlor,  bedroom, 
and  dressing-room,  with  a  small  antechamber.  (This 
arrangement  of  rooms  varies,  of  course,  and  a  larger 
family  occupies  two  floors.)  These  three  suites  of 
apartments  are  neatly  furnished;  bed-clothes,  table- 
linen,  and  plate,  if  required,  are  found  by  the  proprie- 
tor, and  in  the  basement  story  usually  lives  a  man  and 
his  wife,  who  attend  to  the  service  of  the  lodgers ; 
i.  e.,  bring  water,  answer  the  door-bell,  take  in  letters, 
keep  the  rooms  in  order,  make  the  fires,  and,  if  it  is 
wished,  do  any  little  cookery  in  case  of  sickness. 
These  people  are  paid  by  the  proprietor,  but  receive  a 
fee  for  extra  service,  and  a  small  gratuity,  at  departure, 
from  the  lodger.  It  should  be  added  to  this,  that  it  is 
not  infra,  dig.  to  live  in  the  second  or  third  story. 


In  connexion  with  lodgings,  there  must  be  of  course 
a  cook  or  restaurateur  within  a  quarter  of  a  mile. 
The  stranger  agrees  with  him  for  his  dinner,  to  consist 
of  so  many  dishes,  and  to  be  sent  to  him  at  a  certain 
hour.  He  gives  notice  in  the  morning  if  he  dines  out 
buys  his  own  wine  of  the  wine-merchant,  and  thus 
saves  two  heavy  items  of  overcharge  in  the  hotel  or 
boarding-house.  His  own  servant  makes  his  tea  or 
coffee  (and  for  this  purpose  has  access  to  the  fire  in 
the  basement),  and  does  all  personal  service,  such  as 
brushing  clothes,  waiting  at  table,  going  on  errands, 
&c,  &c.  The  stranger  comes  in,  in  short,  at  a  mo- 
ment's warning,  brings  nothing  but  his  servant  and 
baggage,  and  finds  himself  in  five  minutes  at  home, 
his  apartments  private,  and  every  comfort  and  con- 
venience as  completely  about  him  as  if  he  had  lived 
there  for  years. 

At  from  ten  to  fourteen  dollars  a  week,  such  apart- 
ments would  pay  the  proprietor  handsomely,  and  af- 
ford a  reasonable  luxury  to  the  lodger.  A  cook  would 
make  a  good  thing  of  sending  in  a  plain  dinner  for  a 
dollar  a  head  (or  more  if  the  dinner  were  more  expen- 
sive), and  at  this  rate,  a  family  of  two  or  more  persons 
might  have  a  hundred  times  the  comfort  now  enjoyed 
at  hotels,  at  certainly  half  the  cost. 

We  have  been  seduced  into  a  very  unsentimental 
chapter  of  "ways  and  means,"  but  we  trust  the  sug- 
gestions, though  containing  nothing  new,  may  not  be 
altogether  without  use.  The  want  of  some  such  thing 
as  we  have  recommended  is  daily  and  hourly  felt  and 
complained  of. 


THE  FOUR  RIVERS. 


THE    HUDSON — TnE    MOHAWK THE    CHENANGO — THE 

SUSQTJEHANNAH. 

Some  observer  of  nature  offered  a  considerable  re- 
ward for  two  blades  of  striped  grass  exactly  similar. 
The  infinite  diversity,  of  which  this  is  one  instance, 
exists  in  a  thousand  other  features  of  nature,  but  in 
none  more  strikingly  than  in  the  scenery  of  rivers. 
What  two  in  the  world  are  alike  !  How  often  does 
the  attempt  fail  to  compare  the  Hudson  with  the  Rhine 
— the  two,  perhaps,  among  celebrated  rivers,  which 
are  the  nearest  to  a  resemblance  ?  Yet  looking  at  the 
first  determination  of  a  river's  course,  and  the  natural 
operation  of  its  search  for  the  sea,  one  would  suppose 
that,  in  a  thousand  features,  their  valleys  would  scarce 
be  distinguishable. 

I  think,  of  all  excitements  in  the  world,  that  of  the 
first  discovery  and  explanation  of  a  noble  river,  must 
be  the  most  eager  and  enjoyable.  Fancy  "  the  bold 
Englishman,"  as  the  Dutch  called  Hendrich  Hudson, 
steering  his  little  yacht,  the  Halve-Mane,  for  the  first 
time  through  the  Highlands  !  Imagine  his  anxiety 
for  the  channel  forgotten  as  he  gazed  up  at  the  tower- 
ing rocks,  and  round  upon  the  green  shores,  and  on- 
ward, past  point  and  opening  bend,  miles  away  into  the 
heart  of  the  country;  yet  with  no  lessening  of  the 
glorious  stream  beneath  him,  and  no  decrease  of 
promise  in  the  bold  and  luxuriant  shores  !  Picture 
him  lying  at  anchor  below  Newburgh,  with  the  dark 
pass  of  the  "  Wey-Gat"  frowning  behind  him,  the 
lofty  and  blue  Catskills  beyond,  and  the  hill-sides 
around  covered  with  the  red  lords  of  the  soil,  exhibit- 
ing only  less  wonder  than  friendliness.  And  how 
beautifully  was  the  assurance  of  welcome  expressed, 
when  the  "very  kind  old  man"  brought  a  bunch  of 
arrows,  and  broke  them  before  the  stranger,  to  induce 
him  to  partake  fearlessly  of  his  hospitality! 


SKETCHES  OF  TRAVEL. 


575 


The  qualities  of  the  Hudson  are  those  most  likely 
to  impress  a  stranger.  It  chances  felicitously  that  the 
traveller's  first  entrance  beyond  the  sea-board  is  usually 
made  by  the  steamer  to  Albany 


The  grand  and  im 
ies  of  rock  and  horizon  answer  to  his  an- 


ticipations  of  the  magnificence  of  a  new  world  ;  and  if 
he  finds  smaller  rivers  and  softer  scenery  beyond,  it 
strikes  him  but  as  a  slighter  lineament  of  a  more  en- 
larged design.  To  the  great  majority  of  tastes,  this, 
toot  is  the  scenery  to  live  among.  The  stronger  lines 
of  natural  beauty  affect  most  tastes  ;  and  there  are 
few  who  would  select  country  residence  by  beauty  at 
all,  who  would  not  sacrifice  something  to  their  prefer-  , 
ence  for  the  neighborhood  of  sublime  scenery.  The 
quiet,  the  merely  rural— a  thread  of  a  rivulet  instead 
of  a  broad  river— a  small  and  secluded  valley,  rather 
than  a  wide  extent  of  view,  bounded  by  bold  moun- 
tains, is  the  choice  of  but  few.  The  Hudson,  there- 
fore, stands  usually  foremost  in  men's  aspirations  for 
escape  from  the  turmoil  of  cities;  but  to  my  taste, 
though  there  are  none  more  desirable  to  see,  there 
are  sweeter  rivers  to  live  upon. 

I  made  one  of  a  party,  very  lately,  bound  upon  a 
rambling  excursion  up  and  down  some  of  the  river- 
courses  of  New  York.  We  had  anticipated  empty 
boats,  and  an  absence  of  all  the  gay  company  usually 
found  radiating  from  the  city  in  June,  and  had  made 
up  our  minds  for  once  to  be  contented  with  the  study 
of  inanimate  nature.  Never  were  wiseheads  more 
mistaken.  Our  kind  friend,  Captain  Dean,  of  the  j 
Stevens,  stood  by  his  plank  when  we  arrived,  doing  his  | 
best  to  save  the  lives  of  the  female  portion  of  the 
crowd  rushing  on  board  ;  and  never,  in  the  most  palmy  ; 
days  of  the  prosperity  of  our  country,  have  we  seen  a  j 
greater  number  of  people  on  board  a  boat,  nor  a  strong-  j 
er  expression  of  that  busy  and  thriving  haste,  which 
is  thought  to  be  an  exponent  of  national  industry. 
How  those  varlets  of  newsboys  contrive  to  escape  in 
time,  or  escape  at  all,  from  being  crushed  or  carried 
off;  how  everybody's  baggage  gets  on  board,  and 
everybody's  wife  and  child ;  how  the  hawsers  are  | 
slipped,  and  the  boat  got  under  way,  in  such  a  crowd 
and  such  a  crush,  are  matters  understood,  I  suppose, 
by  Providence  and  the  captain  of  the  Stevens — but 
they  are  beyond  the  comprehension  of  the  passenger. 
Having  got  out  of  hearing  of  "fere's  the  Star  !" 
"Buy  the  old  major's  paper,  sir?"  "Here's  the  Ex- 
press !"  "  Buy  the  New-En/  ?"  "  Would  you  like  a 
New-Era,  sir  ?"  "  Take  a  Sun,  miss  ?"  and  a  hun- 
dred such  deafening  cties,  to  which  New  York  has  of 
late  years  become  subject,  we  drew  breath  and  com- 
parative silence  off  the  green  shore  of  Hoboken,  thank- 
ing  Heaven  for  even  the  repose  of  a  steamboat,  after 
the  babel  of  a  metropolis.  Stillness,  like  all  other 
things,  is  relative. 

The  passage  of  the  Hudson  is  doomed  to  be  be-writ- 
ten,  and  we  will  not  again  swell  its  great  multitude  of 
describers.  Bound  onward,  we  but  gave  a  glance,  in 
passing,  to  romantic  Undercliffand  Cro'-Nest,  hallow- 
ed by  the  sweetest  poetry  our  country  has  yet  com- 
mitted to  immortality  ;  gave  our  malison  to  the  black 
smoke  of  iron-works  defacing  the  green  mantle  of 
nature,  and  our  benison  to  every  dweller  on  the  shore 
who  has  painted  his  fence  white,  and  smoothed  his 
lawn  to  the  river ;  and  sooner  than  we  used  to  do  by 
some  five  or  six  hours  (ere  railroads  had  supplanted 
the  ploughing  and  crawling  coaches  to  Schenectady), 
we  fed  our  eyes  on  the  slumbering  and  broad  valley 
of  the  Mohawk. 

How  startled  must  be  the  Naiad  of  this  lovely  river 
to  find  her  willowy  form  embraced  between  railroad 
and  canal !  one  intruder  on  either  side  of  the  bed  so 
sacredly  overshaded !  Pity  but  there  were  a  new 
knight  of  La  Mancha  to  avenge  the  hamadryads  and 
water-nymphs  of  their  wrongs  from  wood-cutters  and 
contractors  !     Where  sleep  Pan  and  vengeful  Oread, 


when  a  Yankee  settler  hews  me  down  twenty  wood- 
nymphs  of  a  morning  !  There  lie  their  bodies,  limb- 
less trunks,  on  the  banks  of  the  Mohawk,  yet  no  Dutch- 
man stands  sprouting  into  leaves  near  by,  nor  woollen 
jacket  turning  into  bark,  as  in  the  retributive  olden 
time!  We  are  abandoned  of  these  gods  of  Arcady ! 
They  like  not  the  smoke  of  steam  funnels  ! 

Talking  of  smoke  reminds  me  of  ashes.  Is  there 
no  way  of  frequenting  railroads  without  the  loss  of 
one's  eyes.  Must  one  pay  for  velocity  as  dearly  as 
Cacus  for  his  oxen  ?  Really  this  new  invention  is  .1 
blessing — to  the  oculists !  Ten  thousand  small  crystals 
of  carbon  cutting  right  and  left  among  the  fine  vessels 
and  delicate  membranes  of  the  eye,  and  all  this  amid 
glorious  scenery,  where  to  go  bandaged  (as  needs 
must),  is  to  slight  the  master-work  of  nature  !  Either 
run  your  railroads  away  from  the  river  courses,  gentle- 
men contractors,  or  find  some  other  place  than  your 
passengers'  eyes  to  bestow  your  waste  ashes !  I  have 
heard  of  "  lies  in  smiles,"  but  there's  a  lye  in  tears, 
that  touches  the  sensibilities  more  nearly  ! 

There  is  a  drowsy  beauty  in  these  German  flats  that 
seems  strangely  profaned  by  a  smoky  monster  whisk- 
ing along  twenty  miles  in  the  hour.  The  gentle  canal- 
boat  was  more  homogeneous  to  the  scene.  The  hills 
lay  off  from  the  river  in  easy  and  sleepy  curves,  and 
the  amber  Mohawk  creeps  down  over  its  shallow  gravel 
with  a  deliberateness  altogether  and  abominably  out 
of  tune  with  the  iron  rails.  Perhaps  it  is  the  rails  out 
of  tune  with  the  river — but  any  way  there  is  a  discord. 
I  am  content  to  see  the  Mohawk,  canal,  and  railroad 
inclusive,  but  once  a  year. 

We  reached  the  head  waters  of  the  Chenango  river, 
by  what  Miss  Martineau  celebrates  as  an  "  exclusive 
extra,"  in  an  afternoon's  ride  from  Utica.  The  latter 
thrifty  and  hospitable  town  was  as  redolent  of  red 
bricks  and  sunshine  as  usual ;  and  the  streets,  to  my 
regret,  had  grown  no  narrower.  They  who  laid  out 
the  future  legislative  capital  of  New  York,  must  have 
been  lovers  of  winter's  wind  and  summer's  sun.  They 
forgot  the  troubles  of  the  near-sighted— (it  requires 
spectacles  to  read  the  signs  or  see  the  shops  from  one 
side  to  the  other);  they  forgot  the  perils  of  old  women 
and  children  in  the  wide  crossings  ;  they  forgot  the 
pleasures  of  shelter  and  shade,  of  neighborly  vis-a-vis, 
of  comfortable-lookingness.  I  maintain  that  Utica  is 
■not  a  comfortable-looking  town.  ]t  affects  me  like  the 
clown  in  the  pantomime,  when  he  sits  down  without 
bending  his  legs— by  mere  straddling.  I  would  not 
say  anything  so  ungracious  if  it  were  not  to  suggest  a 
remedy— a  shady  mall  upand  down  the  middle  !  What 
a  beautiful  town  it  would  be — like  an  old-fashioned 
shirt  bosom,  with  a  frill  of  elms!  Your  children 
would  walk  safely  within  the  rails,  and  your  country- 
neighbors  would  expose  their  "  sa'ace,"  and  cool  their 
tired  oxen  in  the  shade.  We  felt  ourselves  compen- 
sated for  paying  nearly  double  price  for  our  "  extra," 
by  the  remarkable  alacrity  with  which  the  coach  came 
to  the  door  after  the  bargain  was  concluded,  and  the 
politeness  with  which  the  "  gentleman  who  made  out 
the  way-bill,"  acceded  to  our  stipulation.  He  bowed 
us  off,  expressed  his  happiness  to  serve  us,  and  away 
we  went. 

The  Chenango,  one  of  the  largest  tributaries  to  the 
Susquehannah,  began  to  show  itself,  like  a  small  brook, 
some  fifteen  or  twenty  miles  from  Utica.  Its  course 
lay  directly  south— and  the  new  canal  kept  along  its 
bank,  as  deserted,  but  a  thousand  times  less  beautiful 
in  its  loneliness  than  the  river,  whose  rambling  curves 
it  seemed  made  to  straighten.  We  were  not  in  the 
best  humor,  for  our  double-priced  »  extra"  turned  out 
to  be  the  regular  stage  ;  and  while  we  were  delivering 
and  waiting  for  mails,  and  taking  in  passengers,  the 
troop  of  idlers  at  tavern-doors  amused  themselves  with 
reading  the  imaginative  production  called  our  "extra 
way-bill,"  as  it  was  transferred,  with  a  sagacious  wink. 


576 


SKETCHES  OF  TRAVEL. 


from  one  driver's  hat  to  the  other.  I  thought  of 
Paddy's  sedan-chair,  with  the  bottom  out.  "If  it 
were  not  for  the  name  of  the  thing,"  said  he,  as  he 
trotted  along  with  a  box  over  his  head. 

I  say  we  were  not  in  the  best  of  humors  with  our 
prompt  and  polite  friend  at  Utica,  but  even  through 
these  bilious  spectacles,  the  Chenango  was  beautiful. 
Its  valley  is  wide  and  wild,  and  the  reaches  of  the 
capricious  stream  through  the  farms  and  woods  along 
which  it  loiters,  were  among  the  prettiest  effects  of 
water  scenery  I  have  ever  met.  There  is  a  strange 
loneliness  about  it ;  and  the  small  towns  which  were 
sprinkled  along  the  hundred  miles  of  its  course,  seem 
rather  the  poineers  into  a  western  wilderness,  than 
settlements  so  near  the  great  thoroughfare  to  the  lakes. 
It  is  a  delicious  valley  to  travel  through,  barring 
"corduroy."  Tre-men-dous  !  exclaims  the  traveller, 
as  the  coach  drops  into  a  pit  between  two  logs,  and 
surges  up  again — Heaven  only  knows  how.  And,  as 
my  fellow-passenger  remarked,  it  is  a  wonder  the  road 
does  not  echo — '•  iree-mcnd-us  .'" 

Five  miles  before  reaching  the  Susquehannah,  the 
road  began  to  mend,  the  hills  and  valleys  assumed  the 
smile  of  cultivation,  and  the  scenery  before  us  took  a 
bolder  and  broader  outline.  The  Chenango  came 
down  full  and  sunny  to  her  junction,  like  the  bride, 
who  is  most  lovely  when  just  losing  her  virgin  name, 
and  pouring  the  wealth  of  her  whole  existence  into 
the  bosom  of  another;  and,  untroubled  with  his  new 
burden,  the  lordly  Susquehannah  kept  on  his  majestic 
way,  a  type  of  such  vainly-dreaded,  but  easily-borne 
responsibilities. 

At  Binghamton,  we  turned  our  course  down  the 
Susquehannah.  This  delicious  word,  in  the  Indian 
tongue,  describes  its  peculiar  and  constant  windings, 
and  I  venture  to  say  that  on  no  river  in  the  world  are 
the  grand  and  beautiful  in  scenery  so  gloriously  mixed. 
The  road  to  Owego  follows  the  course  of  the  valley 
rather  than  of  the  river,  but  the  silver  curves  are  con- 
stantly in  view;  and,  from  every  slight  elevation,  the 
majestic  windings  are  seen — like  the  wanderings  of  a 
vein,  gleaming  through  green  fringes  of  trees,  and 
circling  the  bright  islands  which  occasionally  divide 
their  waters.  It  is  a  swift  river,  and  singularly  living 
and  joyous  in  its  expression. 

At  Owego  there  is  a  remarkable  combination  of  bold 
scenery  and  habitable  plain.  One  of  those  small, 
bright  rivers,  which  are  called  "creeks"  in  this  coun- 
try, comes  in  with  its  valley  at  right  angles,  to  the  vale 
and  stream  of  the  Susquehannah,  forming  a  star  with 


three  rays,  or  a  plain  with  three  radiating  valleys,  or  a 
city  (in  the  future,  perhaps),  with  three  magnificent 
exits  and  entrances.  The  angle  is  a  round  mountain, 
some  four  or  five  hundred  feet  in  height,  which  kneels 
fairly  down  at  the  meeting  of  the  two  streams,  while 
another  round  mountain,  of  an  easy  acclivity,  lifts 
gracefully  from  the  opposite  bank,  as  if  rising  from 
the  same  act  of  homage  to  Nature.  Below  the  town 
and  above  it,  the  mountains,  for  the  first  time,  give  in 
to  the  exact  shape  of  the  river's  short  and  capricious 
course  ;  and  the  plain  on  which  the  town  stands,  is 
enclosed  between  two  amphitheatres  of  lofty  hills, 
shaped  with  the  regularity  and  even  edge  of  a  coliseum, 
and  resembling  the  two  halves  of  a  leaf-lined  vase, 
struck  apart  by  a  twisted  wand  of  silver. 

Owego  creek  should  have  a  .prettier  name — for  its 
small  vale  is  the  soul  and  essence  of  loveliness.  A 
meadow  of  a  mile  in  breadth,  fertile,  soft,  and  sprink- 
led with  stately  trees,  furnishes  a  bed  for  its  swift 
windings  ;  and  from  the  edge  of  this  new  tempe,  on 
the  southern  side,  rise  three  steppes,  or  natural  ter- 
races, over  the  highest  of  which  the  forest  rears  its 
head,  and  looks  in  upon  the  meeting  of  the  rivers, 
while  down  the  sides,  terrace  by  terrace,  leap  the  small 
streamlets  from  the  mountain-springs,  forming  each 
again  its  own  smaller  dimple  in  this  loveliest  face  of 
Nature. 

There  are  more  romantic,  wilder  places  than  this 
in  the  world,  but  none  on  earth  more  habitably  beauti- 
ful. In  these  broad  valleys,  where  the  grain-fields, 
and  the  meadows,  and  the  sunny  farms,  are  walled  in 
by  glorious  mountain  sides,  not  obtrusively  near,  yet 
by  their  noble  and  wondrous  outlines,  giving  a  per- 
petual refreshment,  and  an  hourly-changing  feast  to 
J  the  eye — in  these  valleys,  a  man's  household  gods 
j  yearn  for  an  altar.  Here  are  mountains  that,  to  look 
on  but  once,  "become  a  feeling" — a  river  at  whose 
grandeur  to  marvel — and  a  hundred  streamlets  to  lace 
about  the  heart.  Here  are  fertile  fields,  nodding  with 
grain  ;  "  a  thousand  cattle"  grazing  on  the  hills — here 
is  assembled  together,  in  one  wondrous  centre,  a  spe- 
cimen of  every  most  loved  lineament  of  Nature.  Here 
would  I  have  a  home  !  Give  me  a  cottage  by  one  of 
these  shining  streamlets — upon  one  of  these  terraces, 
that  seem  steps  to  Olympus,  and  let  me  ramble  over 
these  mountain  Aies,  while  my  flowers  are  growing, 
and  my  head  silvering  in  tranquil  happiness.  He 
wfcfose  Penates  would  not  root  ineradicably  here,  has 
no  heart  for  a  home,  nor  senses  for  the  glory  of  Na- 
ture ! 


END    OF    LOITERINGS    OF    TRAVEL. 


DASHES     AT     LIFE 


WITH    A    FREE    PENCIL. 


PART       III; 


EPHEMERA 


37 


EPHEMERA. 


FROM  SARATOGA. 

TO  THE   JULIA  OF  SOME  YEARS  AGO. 

Augusts,  1843. 

I  have  not  written  to  you  in  your  boy's  lifetime — 
that  fine  lad,  a  shade  taller  than  yourself,  whom  T 
sometimes  meet  at  my  tailor's  and  bootmaker's.  I 
am  not  very  sure,  that  after  the  first  month  (bitter 
month)  of  your  marriage,  I  have  thought  of  you  for 
the  duration  of  a  revery — fit  to  be  so  called.  I  loved 
you — lost  you — swore  your  ruin  and  forgot  you — 
which  is  love's  climax  when  jilted.  And  I  never  ex- 
pected to  think  of  you  again. 

Beside  the  astonishment  at  hearing  from  me  at  all, 
you  will  be  surprised  at  receiving  a  letter  from  me  at 
Saratoga.  Here  where  the  stars  are,  that  you  swore 
by — here,  where  the  springs  and  colonnades,  the 
woodwalks  and  drives,  the  sofas  and  swings,  are  all 
coated  over  with  your  delicious  perjuries,  your  "pro- 
tested" protestations,  your  incalculable  bankruptcy  of 
sighs,  tears,  caresses,  promises!  Oh,  Julia — amis, 
retiens  (oi,  ma  plume! 

I  assure  you  I  had  not  the  slightest  idea  of  ever 
coming  here  again  in  the  world — not  the  slightest ! 
I  had  a  vow  in  heaven  against  it,  indeed.  While  I 
hated  you — before  I  forgot  you,  that  is  to  say — I 
would  not  have  come  for  your  husband's  million — 
(your  price,  Julia  !)  I  had  laid  Saratoga  away  with 
a  great  seal,  to  be  reopened  in  the  next  star  I  shall 
inhabit,  and  used  as  a  lighthouse  of  warning.  There 
was  one  bannister  at  Congress  Hall,  particularly — 
across  which  we  parted  nightly — the  next  object  my 
hand  touched  after  losing  the  warm  pressure  of 
yours — the  place  I  leaned  over  with  a  heart  under  my 
waistcoat  which  would  have  scaled  Olympus  to  be 
nearer  to  you,  yet  was  kept  back  by  that  mahogany 
and  your  "no" — and  I  will  believe  that  devils  may 
become  dolls,  and  ghosts  play  around  us  like  the 
smoke  of  a  cigar,  since  over  that  bannister  I  have 
thrown  my  leg  and  sat  thinking  of  the  past  without 
phrensy  or  emotion !  And  none  have  abetter  right 
than  we  to  laugh  now  at  love's  passionate  eternities! 
For  we  were  lovers,  Julia — I,  as  I  know,  and  you,  as  I 
believe — and  in  that  entry,  when  we  parted  to  dream, 
write,  contrive  for  the  blissful  morrow — anything  but 
sleep  and  forget — in  that  entry  and  over  that  bannister 
were  said  words  of  tenderness  and  devotion,  from  as 
deep  soundings  of  two  hearts  as  ever  plummet  of  this 
world  could  by  possibility  fathom.  You  did  love  me — 
monster  of  untruth  and  forgetfulness  as  you  have 
since  been  bought  for — you  did  lovr.  me!  And  that 
you  can  ride  in  your  husband's  carriage  and  grow 
fat,  and  that  I  can  come  here  and  make  a  mock  of  it, 
are  two  comments  on  love  worthy  of  the  common- 
place-book of  Mephistophiles.     Fie  ou  us' 


II  T  came  to  Saratoga  as  I  would  look  at  a  coat  that  i 
had  worn  twenty  years  before — with  a  sort  of  vacant 
I  curiosity  to  see  the  shell  in  which  I  had  once  figured. 

j  A  friend  said,  "Join  me  at  Saratoga  !"  and  it  sounded 
like,  "Come  and  see  where  Julia  was  adorable."  I 
came  in  a  railcar,  under  a  hot  sun.  and  wanted  my 
dinner,  and  wished  myself  where  Julia,  indeed,  sat 
fat  in  her fauteuil — wished  it,  for  the  good  wine  in  the 
cellar  and  the  French  cook  in  the  kitchen.  And  I 
did  not^ go  down  to  "Congress  Hall,"  the  old  palais 
d1  amour — but  in  the  modern  and  comfortable  parlor 
of  the  "  United  States,"  sat  down  by  a  pretty  woman 
of  these  days,  and  chatted  about  the  water-lily  in  her 
bosom  and  the  boy  she  had  up  stairs — coldly  and  ev- 
ery-day-ishly.  I  had  been  there  six  hours,  and  you 
had  not  entered  my  thoughts.  Please  to  believe 
that,  Julia! 

But  in  the  evening  there  was  a  ball  at  Congress 
Hall.  And  though  the  old  house  is  unfashionable 
now,  and  the  lies  of  love  are  elsewhere  told  and  lis- 
tened to,  there  was  a  movement  among  the  belles  in 
its  favor,  and  I  appended  myself  to  a  lady's  arm  and 
went  boldly.  ]  say  boldly,  for  it  required  an  effort. 
The  twilight  had  fallen,  and  with  it  had  come  a  mem- 
ory or  two  of  the  Springs  in  our  time.  I  had  seated 
myself  against  a  pillar  of  the  colonnade  of  the  "Uni- 
ted States,"  and  looked  down  toward  Congress  Hall — 
and  you  were  under  the  old  vineclad  portico,  as  I 
should  have  seen  you  from  the  same  spot,  and  with 
the  same  eye  of  fancy,  sundry  years  ago.  So  it  was 
not  quite  like  a  passionless  antiquary  that  I  set  foot 
again  on  that  old-time  colonnade,  and,  to  say  truth, 
as  the  band  struck  up  a  waltz,  I  might  have  had  in 
my  lip  a  momentary  quiver,  and  some  dimness  in  my 
world-weary  eye.     But  it  passed  away. 

The  ball  was  comme  ca,  and  I  found  sweet  women 
(as  where  are  they  not — given,  candles  and  music?) 
and  aired  my  homage  as  an  old  stager  may.  I  danced 
without  thinking  of  you  uncomfortably,  though  the 
ten  years*  washing  of  that  white  floor  has  not  quite 
washed  out  the  memory   of   your  Arab  instep  with 

t   its  embracing  and  envied  sandal,  gliding  and  bound- 

I  ing,  oh  how  airily!  For  you  had  feet,  absolute  in 
their  perfection,  dear  Julia! — had  you  not  ? 

But  I  went  out  for  fresh  air  on  the  colonnade,  in 
an  evil  and  forgetful  moment.  I  strolled  alone  tow- 
ard the  spring.     The  lamp  burned  dim,  as  it  used  to 

I  burn,  tended  by  Cupid's  minions.  And  on  the  end 
of  the  portico,  by  the  last  window  of  the  music-room, 

:  under  that  overhanging  ivy,  with  stars  in  sight  that  I 
would  have  sworn  to  for  the  very  same— sat  a  lady  in 

'  a  dress  like  yours  as  I  saw  you  last,  and  black  eyes, 
like  jet  lamps  framed  in  velvet,  turning  indolently  tow- 

|  ard  me.  I  held  by  the  railing,  for  I  am  superst.tM.us, 
and  it  seemed  to  me  that  I  had  only  to  ask  why  you 
were  there— for,  ghostly  or  bodily,  there  I  saw  you ! 
Back  came  your  beauty  on  my  memory  with  yester- 


580 


EPHEMERA. 


day's  freshness  of  recollection.  Back  came  into  my 
heart  the  Julia  of  my  long-accursed  adoration!  I 
saw  your  confiding  and  bewildering  smile,  your  fine- 
cut  teeth  of  pearl,  your  over-bent  brow  and  arch  look 
from  under,  your  lily  shoulders,  your  dimpled  hands. 
You  were  there,  if  my  senses  were  sufficient  evidence, 
if  presence  be  anything  without  touch — bodily  there ! 
Of  course  it  was  somebody  else,  I  went  in  and 
took  a  julep.  But  I  write  to  tell  you  that  for  a  min- 
ute— a  minute  of  enormous  capacity — I  have  loved 
you  once  more.  For  one  minute,  while  you  probably 
were  buried  deep  in  your  frilled  pillow — (snoring,  per- 
haps— who  knows  ?) — for  one  minute,  fleeting  and 
blissful,  you  have  been  loved  again — with  heart,  brain, 
blood,  all  on  fire  with  truth,  tenderness,  and  passionate 
adoration — by  a  man  who  could  have  bought  you 
(you  know  I  could!)  for  half  the  money  you  sold  for! 
And  I  thought  you  would  like  to  know  this,  Julia! 
And  now,  hating  you  as  before,  in  your  fleshy  forget- 
fulness,  Yours  not  at  all. 


Did  it  ever  strike  you  how  much  more  French  than 
English  we  are  in  many  of  the  qualities,  especially  the 
superficies  and  physiognomy,  of  our  national  charac- 
ter? In  dressing,  dancing,  congregating — in  chivalry 
to  women,  facility  of  adaptation  to  new  circumstances, 
inflammability  of  excitement,  elasticity  of  recupera- 
tion from  trouble — in  complexion  and  figu«  even, 
how  very  French!  The  remark,  perhaps,  is  more 
particularly  true  of  New  York.  Where  in  the  world 
is  there  such  a  copy  of  the  sweeter  features  of  the 
jour  de  Van  at  Paris,  as  to  day  in  the  hons-bons  shops 
of  Broadway  ?  Here,  as  there,  ingenuity  and  art  are 
taxed  to  their  utmost  to  provide  gay  and  significant 
presents  of  confectionary  for  children  and  friends,  and 
the  shops  are  museums  of  curiosities.  Everybody 
has  a  child  or  two  by  the  hand  ;  everybody  is  abroad, 
and  alive  to  the  spirit  and  baby-supremacy  of  the 
hour;  everybody  abandons  his  mouotone  of  daily  life, 
to  strike  into  the  general  diapason,  a  full  octave 
higher,  for  Christmas.  But  Christmas  has  not  these 
superficial  features  in  England.  This  is  the  way  they 
keep  Christmas  in  France  ;  and  the  French  extrava- 
gance of  confectionary  is  one  of  the  outer  indices  of 
the  original  from  which  we  copy,  and  points  us 
directly  to  Paris. 

Were  the  language  of  the  three  countries  the  same, 
we  should  seem  to  a  traveller's  eye,  I  am  inclined  to 
think,  much  more  like  a  nation  of  French  origin  than 
English.  Although  our  communication  with  England 
is  much  more  intimate,  we  hardly  copy  anything 
English  except  its  literature  and  religion.  Our  fash- 
ions in  dress,  male  as  well  as  female,  are  principally 
Parisian.  The  style  of  cookery  in  our  hotels,  and  at 
all  private  tables  of  any  pretension,  is  French.  Our 
houses  are  furnished  a  la  Francaise  ;  our  habits  of 
society,  our  balls,  private  concerts,  and  places  of  en- 
tertainment for  the  idlers  about  town,  are  all  French. 
We  have  a  hundred  French  bootmakers  to  one  Eng- 
lish. We  have  a  large  colony  of  Americans  in  Paris 
engaged  in  the  business  of  exporting  French  fabrics, 
elegancies,  and  conveniences,  for  this  country,  and 
almost  none  of  the  same  class  in  England.  In  fact, 
if  England  is  our  mother-country,  France  is  the 
foster-nurse  from  whom  we  draw  the  most  of  our 
nourishment,  of  the  tasteful  and  ornamental  order. 

In  the  society  of  New  York  I  think  the  predomi- 
nance of  Gallicism  over  Anglicism  is  still  more  stri- 
king. The  French  language  is  heard  all  over  a 
crowded  drawing-room  ;  and  with  costume  entirely, 
and  furniture  mainly,  French,  it  is  difficult  sometimes 
at  a  party  in  this  city,  not  to  fancy  one's  self  on  the 
other  side  of  the  Atlantic.  Frenchmen  are  quite  at 
home  in  New  York,  while  no  Frenchman  is  at  home 


in  England.  And  lately  the  fashion  of  soirees,  begin- 
ning with  music  and  ending  with  a  dance,  another 
Parisian  usage,  has  followed  on  the  heels  of  the 
matinees  which  I  referred  to  in  a  previous  letter.  We 
certainly  have  not  inherited,  with  our  English  blood, 
the  English  reluctance  to  copy  even  an  excellence,  if 
it  be  French;  and  it  is  a  curious  mark  of  the  differ- 
ence made  in  such  matters  by  national  antipathy,  that, 
with  a  separation  of  only  twenty  miles  from  the 
French  coast,  the  English  assimilate  not  at  all,  even  to 
the  acknowledged  superiorities  of  French  life,  while 
we,  at  a  distance  of  three  thousand  miles,  copy  them 
with  the  readiness  of  a  contiguous  country. 

There  was,  of  course,  a  period  when  every  work  on 
the  country  was  English  ;  and  it  would  be  a  curious 
chapter  in  a  historical  memoir  to  trace  back  our  Gal- 
licism to  its  incipient  point,  and  give  its  rise  and  prog- 
ress in  detail.  And,  apropos  of  suggestions,  which 
sometimes  travel  like  the  seed  in  the  migrating  bird, 
what  an  interesting  book  might  be  written  (and  by  no 
man  living  so  admirably  and  ably  as  by  your  corres- 
pondent, Mr.  Walsh)  tracing  the  influences  that  have 
spread  from  our  country  eastward  ;  and  to  what  de- 
gree our  institutions,  opinions,  and  discoveries,  have 
affected  European  countries,  and  paid  back  our  debt 
of  literature  and  refinement ! 


The  snow-storm  of  Wednesday  cleared  up  at  night- 
fall with  an  old-fashioned  frosty  and  sparkling  north- 
wester. While  the  south  wind  was  disputing  his 
ground,  however,  the  sun  found  a  chink  to  creep 
through,  and  quietly  took  to  himself  the  scanty  re- 
mainder of  the  city's  mantle  of  snow.  I  chanced  to 
look  down  upon  the  Park  while  the  ground  was  cov- 
ered, and  I  wished  that  the  common  council  might 
see  it  with  my  eyes,  for  the  fountain  was  playing  beau- 
tifully in  a  basin  of  spotless  white,  which,  if  exactly 
imitated  in  marble,  would  be  better  worthy  of  that 
radiant  column  than  the  mingled  mud  and  greensward 
that  commonly  surround  it.  I  have  been  surprised  to 
notice  the  complete  satiety  of  public  curiosity  to  this 
superb  object.  A  column  of  water,  fifty  or  sixty  feet 
high,  is  continually  playing  in  the  most  thronged 
thoroughfare  of  the  city,  and  it  already  attracts  as 
little  attention  as  the  trees  in  the  Park,  or  the  liberty- 
cap  on  Tammany  hall.  Seldom  a  passer-by  stops  to 
gaze  at  it;  and  I  have  watched  in  vain,  in  my  daily 
stroll  through  Broadway,  for  the  turning  toward  it  of 
the  refined  eyes  of  shoppers  and  danglers.  I  under- 
stand there  is  to  be  another  jet  in  the  Bowling-Green, 
and  another  on  the  Battery — though  this  last  will  be 
bringing  the  rural  water-nymph  into  very  close  con- 
tact with  the  uproarious  Neptune. 


The  joy  of  New  York  comes  to  Broadway  as  color 
comes  with  the  same  impulse  to  the  cheek.  The  ex- 
citement of  shoving  off  the  old  year  and  helping  in 
the  new,  was  made  visible  by  a  pave  as  thronged  on 
Saturday  night  at  twelve,  as  it  commonly  is  on  a  holy- 
day  at  noon.  Sunday  (the  superseded  first)  was  pretty 
gayly  infringed  upon  by  sleighing  parties  ;  for  even  in 
Broadway  the  sleighing  was  tolerable,  and,  out  of 
town,  said  to  be  excellent.  To-day  is  "  black  Mon- 
day" for  horse-flesh  !  Such  ringing  of  sleigh-bells 
and  plunging  of  runners  through  the  mud-holes,  and 
laughing,  and  whipping,  and  hurrying  by,  is  enough 
to  give  inexperienced  Forty-three  a  most  confused 
impression  of  the  world  he  is  called  upon  to  govern. 
It  is  snowing  slightly  at  this  moment,  and  gives  prom- 
ise of  a  violent  storm  by  noon. 

The  temperance  people  have  made  a  strong  effort 
to  discountenance,  this  year,  the  giving  of  wine  and 


EPHEMERA. 


581 


other  stimulants  to  visiters  on  New  Year's  day.  But 
there  is  a  much  more  powerful  principle  at  work  in 
the  same  cause,  or  rather  in  a  cause  which  covers 
this — the  destroying  of  the  custom  of  New  dear's 
visiting  altogether — and  that  principle  is  omnipotent 
fashion.  The  aristocratic  feeling  now  is  against  the 
receiving  on  that  day  ;  and  some  of  the  leading  fash- 
ionables have  reduced  their  observance  of  the  custom 
to  a  matter  of  pasteboard — a  servant  standing  at  the 
door  to  take  in  cards.  The  truth  is,  the  good  feeling 
of  the  day  has  been  abused  of  late  years.  The  hilar- 
ity amounted  to  a  general  saturnalia,  in  which  every- 
body went  anywhere  and  everywhere  to  drink  and 
shake  hands,  and  exclusiveness  was  very  much  of- 
fended, and  so,  very  often  were  propriety  and  deli- 
cacy— three  very  implacable  members  of  society  ! 
Once  well  understood  that  fashionable  people  do  not 
receive — -presto!  the  custom  will  vanish  like  a  ghost  at 
cock-crowing.  If  this  formidable  gun  could  be 
brought  to  bear  upon  some  other  things,  now  ? 


A  score  at   least  of  the  aristocratic  dames  in  the 
upper  part  of  Broadway  have  adopted  the  fashion  of  a 
matinee — receiving   visits   one   morning   only   in   the 
week.     This   is  rather  a  usage  en  prince,  but,  ambi-  i 
tious  as  it  seems,  it  is  a  novelty  which  common  sense 
might  father  if  it  had  been  disowned  by  fashion.     In 
the  first  place,  it  leaves  to  those  who  thus  entertain, 
six  mornings  in  the  week,  if  they  please,  of  excusable  j 
closed  doors — a  very  available  privilege  for  very  many 
important  uses.     In  the  second  place,  it  saves  much 
outlay  of  time  consumed  in  ineffectual  attempts  to  see  \ 
people  ;  it  times  your  visit  when  the  ladies  are  in  a  j 
dress-humor  to   receive  !    and   (last,    though  perhaps  ' 
least  important)  the  class  of  gregarious  idlers,  so  fast 
increasing  in  our  country,  are  provided  with  a  resource 
against  ennui,  which  may  profitably  take  the  place  of  j 
less  innocent  amusement.     It  may  be  put  down  as  an  I 
accidental  advantage,  also,  that  ladies  may  dress  very 
gayly  with  propriety  to  pass  two  or  three  hours  in  a 
reception-room,  and,  with  this  compensation,  perhaps  j 
our  fair  countrywomen  may  be  willing  to  forego  that 
•how mess  of  street  costume  which  has  been  so  often  i 
objected    to.     The   most  becoming   toilet  (which  is 
undoubtedly  that  of  out-doors,  at  least  to  all  women  I 
past  seventeen)  must  have  its  field  of  display,  and  this 
necessity  has  been  amply  proved  by  the  fashion  pecu-  i 
liar  to  our  country  of  dressing  highly  for  steamboat- 
decks  and  street  promenades — the  only  opportunities 
for  showing  the  hat  and  iis  accompaniments.     In  Eng- 
land, ladies  dress  plainly  in  the  street,  but  they  dress 
showily  for  Hyde  park  and  the  opera.     In  default  of  a 
Hyde   park   and  an  opera,  our  persevering   country- 
women have  adopted  the  matinee.     Sequitur — Broad- 
way will  be  shorn  of  the  genteeler  rays  of  its  splen- 
dor; ladies  will  heighten   the  style  of  their  visiting 
toilets  till  they  can  not  visit  without  equipages,   and 
so  the  aristocracy  of  money  takes  another  long  stride 
toward  exclusiveness  and  empire. 


An  advertisement  of  '■'■fifteen  Indians  and  squaws  to 
be  seen  at  the  American  Museum  in  their  native  cos- 
tume," drew  me  into  this  place  of  popular  resort  last 
evening.  I  found  a  crowd  of  five  or  six  hundred  peo- 
ple collected  in  the  upper  story,  and  the  performances 
of  a  small  theatre  going  on,  with  the  Indians  sitting, 
in  full  costume,  on  the  stage  ;  not  "  native  costume," 
certainly,  unless  they  are  born  in  wampum  and  feath- 
ers. There  were  only  nine  Indians  upon  the  stage, 
and  several  of  these  seemed  to  have  bad  coughs;  and 
I  was  told  that  those  who  were  not  visible  were  con- 
fined to  their  skins  with  severe  colds  and  fevers.  I  am 
not  surprised  that  these  hardy  sons  of  the  forest  suc- 


cumb under  the  delicacies  (?)  of  civilization.  They 
all  sleep  in  one  small  room  in  the  museum  building, 
their  buffalo-skins  spread  around  a  stove — heated  to 
an  insufferable  degree  with  anthracite  coal — and  they 
ascend  to  the  terrace-roof  of  the  house  to  smoke  their 
pipes,  and  are  regaled  with  a  daily  sleigh-ride, 
changing  their  temperature  continually  from  ninety 
to  zero.  The  old  chief  who  "  has  killed  with  his  own 
hand  one  hundred  Osages,  three  Mohawks,  two 
Sioux,  and  one  Pawnee,"  and  "  No-chee,  or  the  Man 
of  Fire,"  are  the  principal  victims  to  the  luxury  of 
anthracite.  I  saw  but  one  of  the  squaws,  '•  Do-hum- 
me,  or  the  Productive  Pumpkin,"  a  handsome  and 
benign  looking  woman,  who  was  married  a  few  days 
ago  to  Cow-kiclc-ke,  son  of  the  principal  chief  of  the 
lowas.  The  bride  and  bridegroom  sat  together,  she 
leaning  very  affectionately  upon  her  husband  ;  but  I 
observed  that  the  "  Productive  Pumpkin"  modestly 
turned  her  eyes  away  during  the  pirouettes  of  La 
Petite  Celeste,  a  savage  niaiserie  which  will,  of  course, 
wear  away  with  civilization.  Still,  I  could  wish  that 
some  of  the  "  daughters  of  the  pale  faces,"  in  this 
respect,  at  least,  were  more  like  "  Productive  Pump- 
kin." These  Indians,  I  believe,  are  well  authenti- 
cated as  the  first  people  of  their  important  tribes  ;  and 
the  question  arises  whether,  in  becoming  a  shilling 
show  at  the  museum,  they  have  entered  civilized  so- 
ciety upon  a  stratum  parallel  to  their  own.  Is  "No- 
nos-ee,  the  She-Wolf"  (a  niece  of  Blackhawk,  and, 
of  course,  an  Indian  princess),  on  a  level,  as  to  rank, 
with  the  dancing  and  singing  girls  of  a  museum  ?  But 
this  question  of  comparative  rank  would  lead  a  great 
way,  and,  as  it  stands,  it  makes  a  very  pretty  topic  of 
discussion  for  your  female  readers. 


You  will  have  seen  mentioned  in  the  papers  the 
death  of  the  young  squaw  at  the  museum.  She  had 
been  married  but  six  weeks,  and  was  a  very  beautiful 
creature.  I  saw  her,  a  few  days  ago,  at  the  Park 
theatre,  with  a  circlet  of  jewels  around  her  head,  and 
thought  her  by  far  the  prettiest  woman  in  the  house. 
She  was  the  survivor  of  the  two  females  of  the  party, 
the  other  squaw  having  died  a  few  weeks  since.  The 
immediate  cause  of  her  death  was  a  violent  cold, 
taken  in  coming  home  a  night  or  two  before  from  a 
ball  at  the  Tivoli.  The  omnibus  in  which  they  were 
returning  broke  down  in  Hudson  street,  and  they  were 
obliged  to  walk  a  mile  through  a  light  snow  falling  at 
the  time.  Their  thin  moccasins  were  no  protection, 
and  four  or  five  of  the  Indians  were  ill  the  next  morn- 
ing, the  bride  worst  of  all.  She  died  in  dreadful 
agony,  of  congestion  of  the  blood,  on  the  third  day, 
spite  of  the  best  medical  attendance  and  every  care  on 
the  part  of  the  ladies  of  the  neighborhood.  The  In- 
dians were  all  standing  around  her,  and  on  being  told 
that  she  was  dead,  they  tore  the  rings  from  their  ears, 
and  stood  for  some  minutes  in  silence,  with  the  blood 
streaming  upon  their  cheeks.  Their  grief  afterward 
became  quite  uncontrollable.  They  washed  off  all  the 
paint  with  which  they  have  been  so  gayly  bedecked 
while  here,  and  painted  the  dead  bride  very  gaudily 
for  burial.  She  was  interred  in  the  Greenwood  ceme- 
tery. The  most  passionate  affection  existed  between 
her  and  her  husband.  He  is  a  magnificent  fellow,  the 
handsomest  Indian  we  have  ever  had  in  the  cities,  and 
a  happier  marriage  was  never  celebrated.  She  fol- 
lowed close  at  his  heels  wherever  he  went,  and  had 
scarce  been  separated  from  him  five  minutes  at  a  time 
since  her  marriage.  The  poor  fellow  is  an  object  of 
great  commiseration  now,  for  he  seems  completely  in- 
consolable. His  wife  was  the  idol  of  the  party.  They 
are  very  impatient  to  be  away  since  this  melancholy 
event,  and  will  start  westward  as  soon  as  the  sick 
recover. 


582 


EPHEMERA. 


Public  opinion,  which  is  notoriously  unkind  to  the 
misdoings  of  old  men,  has  at  last  taken  up  the  matter 
of— 

"  Winter  lingering  in  the  lap  of  May." 

There  are  strong  symptoms  (in  everything  but  the  in- 
flexible thermometer)  that  the  spring  is  universally 
believed  to  have  arrived.  A  steamboat  made  its  way 
on  Wednesday  as  far  as  Poughkeepsie,  ploughing  up 
the  ice  where  it  was  at  least  eighteen  inches  thick. 
People  were  running  out  from  every  side  to  meet  her, 
and  many  climbed  up  her  sides  while  she  was  making 
way.  Some  heavily-laden  sleighs  were  obliged  to 
whip  up  to  get  out  of  her  course,  and  altogether  the 
skirmish  between  hot  and  cold  water  (both  a  Vou- 
trance)  is  said  to  have  been  very  daringly  fought. 


The  "  town"  is  "  verdant."  The  enchanting  spring- 
hats  of  the  ladies  are  breezily  exposed  in  the  plate- 
glass  windows  of  the  milliners.  The  airy,  delicate, 
daisy-mead  patterns  for  ladies'  wear  in  the  transition 
month  make  every  shop-window  like  a  landscape  of 
May  in  Arcady  ;  the  men-tailors  "  turn  out  for  lining 
to  the  sun"  the  light  woofs  of  the  "  demme  !"  tribe 
for  the  demi-senson ;  the  Ctoton  pipers  water  the 
streets  ;  the  small  wooden  signs  hang  on  every  leafless 
tree  in  the  park,  warning  you  to  "  keep  off  the  grass;" 
people  are  beginning  to  discuss  the  resorts  of  the  sultry 
season  ;  and,  in  fact,  everything  is  here  but  the  month 
itself.  The  table  is  set,  and  the  hour  and  the  appe- 
tite come,  but  the  dinner  is  not  served. 

"  Oh  !  ever  thus  from  childhood's  hour  !"  &c. 

Apropos  of  Croton  water — there  has  been  a  great 
overturn  lately  of  "  mill-privileges"  in  some  of  the 
cellars  of  New  York.  The  authorities  have  ferreted 
out,  it  is  said,  an  incredible  quantity  of  usurped  water- 
power,  applied  to  almost  every  branch  of  mechanism, 
and  drawn  very  quietly  from  the  main  "race"  down 
Broadway.  One  scratches  one's  head  and  wonders 
he  never  thought  of  it  before,  the  adaptation  seems 
so  simple  ;  but  as  the  Common  Council  will  hear  no 
argument  about  "natural  privileges"  and  "backwater," 
the  interloping  wheels  will  easily  be  stopped  turning. 


As  I  presume  you  are  interested  in  the  one  portion 
of  New  York  made  classic  by  a  foreign  pen,  let  me 
jot  you  down  a  mem.  or  two  from  my  first  visit  to 
Dickens's  Hole  at  the  Five  Points,  made  one  evening 
last  week  with  a  distinguished  party  under  the  charge 
of  the  Boz  officer. 

I  had  had  an  idea  that  this  celebrated  spot  was  on 
the  eastern  limit  of  the  city,  at  the  end  of  one  of  the 
omnibus-routes,  and  was  surprised  to  find  that  it  was 
not  more  than  three  minutes'  walk  from  Broadway, 
and  in  full  view  from  one  of  the  fashionable  corners. 
It  lies,  indeed,  in  a  lap  between  Broadway  and  the 
Bowery,  in  what  was  once  a  secluded  valley  of  the 
island  of  Manhattan,  though  to  believe  it  ever  to  have 
been  green  or  clean,  requires  a  powerful  effort  of  im- 
agination. We  turned  into  Anthony  street  at  half- 
past  ten,  passed  "  the  Tombs,"  and  took  the  down- 
ward road,  as  did  Orpheus  and  Dickens  before  us.  It 
was  a  cold  night,  but  women  stood  at  every  door  with 
bare  heads  and  shoulders,  most  of  them  with  some- 
thing to  say,  and,  by  their  attitudes,  showing  a  com- 
plete insensibility  to  cold.  In  everything  they  said, 
they  contrived  to  bring  in  the  word  "  shilling."  There 
were  very  i'ew  men  to  be  seen,  and  those  whom  we 
met  skulked  past  as  if  avoiding  observation — possibly 
ashamed  to  be  there,  possibly  shrinking  from  any  fur- 
ther acquaintance  with  officer  Stevens,  though  neither 


of  these  feelings  seemed  to  be  shared  by  the  females 
of  the  community.  A  little  turn  to  the  left  brought 
us  up  against  what  looked  to  me  a  blind,  tumble-down 
board  fence;  but  the  officer  pulled  a  latch  and  opened 
a  door,  and  a  flight  of  steps  was  disclosed.  He  went 
down  first  and  threw  open  a  door  at  the  bottom,  let- 
ting up  a  blaze  of  light,  and  we  followed  into  the 
grand  subterranean  Almack's  of  the  Five  Points. 
And  really  it  looked  very  clean  and  cheerful.  It  was 
a  spacious  room  with  a  low  ceiling,  excessively  white- 
washed, nicely  sanded,  and  well  lit,  and  the  black  pro- 
prietor and  his  "  ministering  spirits"  (literally  fulfilling 
their  vocation  behind  a  very  tidy  bar)  were  well-dress- 
ed and  well-mannered  people,  and  received  Mr.  Ste- 
vens and  his  friends  with  the  politeness  of  grand 
chamberlains.  We  were  a  little  early  for  the  fashion- 
able hour,  the  "ladies  not  having  arrived  from  the 
theatres;"  and,  proposing  to  look  in  again  after  making 
the  round  of  the  other  resorts,  we  crept  up  again  to 
the  street. 

Our  next  dive  was  iDto  a  cellar  crowded  with  ne- 
groes, eating,  drinking,  and  dancing,  one  very  well 
made  mulatto-girl  playing  the  castinets,  and  imitating 
Elssler  in  what  she  called  the  cracoveragain.  In  their 
way,  these  people  seemed  cheerful,  dirty,  and  com- 
fortable. We  looked  in  afterward  at  several  drinking- 
places,  thronged  with  creatures  who  looked  over  their 
shoulders  very  significantly  at  the  officer;  found  one 
or  two  barrooms  kept  by  women  who  had  preserved 
the  one  virtue  of  neatness  (though  in  every  clean 
place  the  hostess  seemed  a  terrible  virago),  and  it  was 
then  proposed  that  we  should  see  some  of  the  dor- 
mitories of  this  Alsatia.  And  at  this  point  must  end 
all  the  cheerfulness  of  my  description.  This  is  called 
"  murdering  alley,"  said  our  guide.  We  entered  be- 
tween two  high  brick  walls,  with  barely  room  to  pass, 
and  by  the  police-lantern  made  our  way  up  a  broken 
and  filthy  staircase,  to  the  first  floor  of  a  large  building. 
Under  its  one  roof  the  officer  thought  there  usually 
slept  a  thousand  of  these  wretched  outcasts.  He 
knocked  at  a  door  on  the  left.  It  was  opened  unwil- 
lingly by  a  woman  who  held  a  dirty  horse-blanket 
over  her  breast,  but  at  the  sight  of  the  police-lantern 
she  stepped  back  and  let  us  pass  in.  The  floor  was 
covered  with  human  beings  asleep  in  their  rags  ;  and 
when  called  by  the  officer  to  look  in  at  a  low  closet 
beyond,  we  could  hardly  put  our  feet  to  the  ground, 
they  lay  so  closely  together,  black  and  white,  men, 
women,  and  children.  The  doorless  apartment  be- 
yond, of  the  size  of  a  kennel,  was  occupied  by  a  wo- 
man and  her  daughter,  and  the  daughter's  child,  lying 
together  on  the  floor,  and  covered  by  rags  and  cloths 
of  no  distinguishable  color,  the  rubbish  of  bones  and 
dirt  only  displaced  by  their  emaciated  limbs.  The 
sight  was  too  sickening  to  endure,  but  there  was  no 
egress  without  following  close  to  the  lantern.  Anoth- 
er door  was  opened  to  the  right.  It  disclosed  a  low 
and  gloomy  apartment,  perhaps  eight  feet  square. 
Six  or  seven  black  women  lay  together  in  a  heap,  all 
sleeping  except  the  one  who  opened  the  door.  Some- 
thing stirred  in  a  heap  of  rags,  and  one  of  the  party 
removing  a  dirty  piece  of  carpet  with  his  cane,  dis- 
covered a  newborn  child.  It  belonged  to  one  of  the 
sleepers  in  the  rags,  and  had  had  an  hour's  experience 
of  the  tender  mercies  of  this  world  !  But  these  de- 
tails are  disgusting,  and  have  gone  far  enough  when 
they  have  shown  those  who  have  the  common  com- 
forts of  life  how  inestimably,  by  comparison,  they  are 
blessed  !  For  one,  I  had  never  before  any  adequate 
idea  of  poverty  in  cities.  I  did  not  dream  that  hu- 
man beings,  within  reach  of  human  aid,  could  be 
abandoned  to  the  wretchedness  which  I  there  saw— 
and  I  have  not  described  the  half  of  it,  for  the  deli- 
cacy of  your  readers  would  not  bear  it,  even  in  de- 
scription. And  all  these  horrors  of  want  and  aban- 
donment lie  almost  within  sound  of  your  voice,  as 


EPHEMERA. 


583 


you  pass  Broadway !  The  officers  sometimes  make  a 
descent,  and  carry  off  swarms  to  Blackwell's  Island — 
for  all  the  inhabitants  of  the  Five  Points  are  supposed 
to  be  criminal  and  vicious — but  still  thousands  are 
there,  subjects  for  tears  and  pity,  starving,  like  rats 
and  dogs,  with  the  sensibilities  of  human  beings  ! 

As  we  returned  we  heard  screams  and  fighting  on 
every  side,  and  the  officers  of  the  watch  were  carry- 
ing off  a  party  to  the  lock-up-house.  We  descended 
once  more  to  the  grand  ballroom,  and  found  the  dance 
going  on  very  merrily.  Several  very  handsome  mu- 
latto women  were  in  the  crowd,  and  a  few  "young 
men  about  town,"  mixed  up  with  the  blacks;  and  al- 
together it  was  a  picture  of  "  amalgamation,"  such 
as  I  had  never  before  seen.  I  was  very  glad  to  get 
out  of  the  neighborhood,  leaving  behind  me,  I  am 
free  to  confess,  all  discontent  with  my  earthly  allot- 
ment. One  gentleman  who  was  with  us  left  behind 
him  something  of  more  value,  having  been  robbed  at 
Almack's  of  his  keys,  pencilcase,  and  a  few  dollars, 
the  contents  of  two  or  three  pockets.  I  wind  up  my 
"  notes"  with  the  hope  that  the  true  picture  I  have 
drawn  may  touch  some  moving-spring  of  benevolence 
in  private  societies,  or  in  the  Common  Council,  and 
that  something  may  be  soon  done  to  alleviate  the  hor- 
rors of  the  Five  Points. 


I  took  a  stroll  or  two  while  in  Boston,  and  was 
struck  with  the  contrast  of  its  physiognomy  to  that 
of  New  York.  There  is  a  look  of  staid  respectabil- 
ity and  thrift  in  everything  that  strikes  the  eye  in  Bos- 
ton. The  drays,  carts,  omnibuses,  and  public  vehicles, 
are  well  horsed  and  appointed,  and  driven  by  respect- 
able-looking men.  The  people  are  all  clad  very 
warmly  and  very  inelegantly.  The  face  of  every  pe- 
destrian in  the  street  has  a  marked  errand  in  it — gen- 
tlemen holding  their  nerves  to  the  screw  till  they 
have  achieved  the  object  of  being  out  of  doors,  and 
ladies  undergoing  a  "constitutional"  to  carry  out  a 
system.  There  are  no  individuals  in  Boston — they 
are  all  classes.  It  is  a  cohesive  and  gregarious  town, 
and  half  a  dozen  portraits  would  give  you  the  entire 
population.  Every  eye  in  Boston  seems  to  move  in 
its  socket  with  a  check — a  fear  of  meeting  something 
that  may  offend  it — and  all  heads  are  carried  in  a  pos- 
ture of  worthy  gravity,  singularly  contagious.  It 
struck  me  the  very  loaves  in  the  bakers'  windows  had 
a  look  of  virtuous  exaction,  to  be  eaten  gravely,  if  at 
all. 

New  York  seems  to  me  to  differ  from  all  this,  as  a 
dish  of  rice,  boiled  to  let  every  grain  fall  apart,  differs 
from  a  pot  of  mush.  Every  man  you  meet  with  in 
our  city  walks  with  his  countenance  free  of  any  sense 
of  observation  or  any  dread  of  his  neighbor.  He  has 
evidently  dressed  to  please  himself,  and  he  looks  about 
with  an  eye  wholly  at  ease.  He  is  an  integer  in  the 
throng,  untroubled  with  any  influence  beyond  the 
risks  of  personal  accident.  There  is  neither  restraint 
nor  curiosity  in  his  look,  and  he  neither  expects  to  be 
noticed  by  the  passers-by,  nor  to  see  anything  worthy 
of  more  than  half  a  glance  in  the  persons  he  meets. 
The  moving  sights  of  the  city  have  all  the  same  inte- 
gral and  stand-alone  character.  The  drays,  instead 
of  belonging  to  a  company,  are  each  the  property  of 
the  man  who  drives  it;  the  hacks  and  cabs  are  under 
no  corporate  discipline,  every  ragged  whip  doing  as 
he  likes  with  his  own  vehicle;  and  all  the  smaller 
trades  seem  followed  by  individual  impulse,  respons- 
ible to  nothing  but  police-law.  Boston  has  the  ad- 
vantage in  many  things,  but  a  man  who  has  any  taste 
for  cosmopolitism  would  very  much  prefer  New  York. 


Wednesday  was  a  long  warm  summer's  day,  with 
no   treachery  in   it  to   the  close  ;  and   the  rivulet  of 


Croton,  which  ripples  round  the  sidewalk  of  the  park, 
and  goes  down  the  great  throat  of  the  drain,  seemed 
giving  the  dry  city  to  drink.  The  pavement  of 
Broadway  burst  into  flower.  Birds  were  hung  out  at 
the  windows ;  hyacinths  were  put  out  to  breathe ; 
and  open  casements  and  doors,  lounging  footsteps  and 
cheerful  voices  in  the  street,  all  gave  sweet  token  of 
summer.  Thursday  was  a  fine  day,  too,  with  a  little 
soupcon  of  east  wind  in  its  blandishments,  and  the 
evening  set  in  with  a  gentle  summer  rain,  welcome  as 
most  things  are  after  their  opposites,  for  the  dust  was 
a  nuisance;  and  to-day,  Friday,  it  rains  mildly  and 
steadily. 


March  made  an  expiring  effort  to  give  us  a  spring- 
day  yesterday.  The  morning  dawned  mild  and  bright, 
and  there  was  a  voluptuous  contralto  in  the  cries  of 
the  milkmen  and  the  sweeps,  which  satisfied  me,  be- 
fore I  was  out  of  bed,  that  there  was  an  arrival  of  a 
south  wind.  The  Chinese  proverb  says,  "when  thou 
hast  a  day  to  be  idle,  be  idle  for  a  day ;"  but  for  that 
very  elusive  "  time  when,"  I  irresistibly  substitute  the 
day  the  wind  sweetens  after  a  sour  northeaster.  Oh, 
the  luxury  (or  curse,  as  the  case  may  be!)  of  break- 
fasting leisurely  with  an  idle  day  before  one  ! 

I  strolled  up  Broadway  between  nine  and  ten,  and 
encountered  the  morning  tide  down;  and  if  you  never 
have  studied  the  physiognomy  of  this  great  thorough- 
fare in  its  various  fluxes  and  refluxes,  the  differences 
would  amuse  you.  The  clerks  and  workies  have 
passed  down  an  hour  before  the  nine  o'clock  tide,  and 
the  sidewalk  is  filled  at  this  time  with  bankers,  brokers, 
and  speculators,  bound  to  Wall  street ;  old  merchants 
and  junior  partners,  bound  to  Pearl  and  Water;  and 
lawyers,  young  and  old,  bound  for  Nassau  and  Pine. 
Ah,  the  faces  of  care !  The  day's  operations  are 
working  out  in  their  eyes;  their  hats  are  pitched  for- 
ward at  the  angle  of  a  stagecoach  with  all  the  load  on 
the  driver's  seat,  their  shoulders  are  raised  with  the 
shrug  of  anxiety,  their  steps  are  hurried  and  short, 
and  mortal  face  and  gait  could  scarcely  express  a 
heavier  burden  of  solicitude  than  every  man  seems  to 
bear.  They  nod  to  you  without  a  smile,  and  with  a 
kind  of  unconscious  recognition  ;  and,  if  you  are  un- 
accustomed to  walk  out  at  that  hour,  you  might  fancy 
that,  if  there  were  not  some  great  public  calamity, 
your  friends,  at  least,  had  done  smiling  on  you. 
Walk  as  far  as  Niblo's,  stop  at  the  greenhouse  there, 
and  breathe  an  hour  in  the  delicious  atmosphere  of 
flowering  plants,  and  then  return.  There  is  no  longer 
any  particular  current  in  Broadway.  Foreigners  com- 
ing out  from  the  cafes,  after  their  late  breakfast,  and 
idling  up  and  down,  for  fresh  air;  country-people 
shopping  early;  ladies  going  to  their  dress-makers  in 
close  veils  and  demi-toilets;  errand-boys,  news-boys, 
duns,  and  doctors,  make  up  the  .throng.  Toward 
twelve  o'clock  there  is  a  sprinkling  of  mechanics  go- 
ing to  dinner — a  merry,  short-jacketed,  independent- 
looking  troop,  glancing  gayly  at  the  women  as  they 
pass,  and  disappearing  around  corners  and  up  alleys, 
and  an  hour  later  Broadway  begins  to  brighten.  The 
omnibuses  go  along  empty,  and  at  a  slow  pace,  for 
people  would  rather  walk  than  ride.  The  side-streets 
are  tributaries  of  silks  and  velvets,  flowers  and  feath- 
ers, to  the  great  thoroughfare;  and  ladies,  whose 
proper  mates  (judging  by  the  dress  alone)  should  be 
lords  and  princes,  and  dandies,  shoppers,  and  loungers 
of  every  description,  take  crowded  possession  of  the 
pave.  At  nine  o'clock  you  look  into  the  troubled 
faces  of  men  going  to  their  business,  and  ask  your- 
self "  to  what  end  is  all  this  burden  of  care?"  and  at 
two,  you  gaze  on  the  universal  prodigality  of  exterior, 
and  wonder  what  fills  the  multitude  of  pockets  that 
pay  for  it!  The  faces  are  beautiful,  the  shops  are 
thronged,   the   sidewalks  crowded  far  an  hour,  and 


584 


EPHEMERA. 


then  the  full  tide  turns,  and  sets  upward.  The  most 
of  those  who  are  out  at  three  are  bound  to  the  upper 
part  of  the  city  to  dine;  and  the  merchants  and  law- 
yers, excited  by  collision  and  contest  above  the  de- 
pression of  care,  join,  smiling,  in  the  throng.  The 
physiognomy  of  the  crowd  is  at  its  brightest.  Din- 
ner is  the  smile  of  the  day  to  most  people,  and  the 
hour  approaches.  Whatever  has  happened  in  stocks 
or  politics,  whoever  is  dead,  whoever  ruined  since 
morning,  Broadway  is  thronged  with  cheerful  faces 
and  good  appetites  at  three  !  The  world  will  prob- 
ably dine  with  pleasure  up  to  the  last  day — perhaps 
breakfast  with  worldly  care  for  the  future  on  dooms- 
day morning !  And  here  I  must  break  off  my  Da- 
guerreotype of  yesterday's  idling,  for  the  wiud  came 
round  easterly  and  raw  at  three  o'clock,  and  I  was 
driven  in-doors  to  try  industry  as  an  opiate. 


The  first  day  of  freedom  from  medical  embargo  is 
equivalent,  in  most  men's  memories,  to  a  new  first  im- 
pression of  existence.  Dame  Nature,  like  a  provident 
housewife,  seems  to  take  the  opportunity  of  a  sick 
man's  absence  to  whitewash  and  freshen  the  world  he 
occupies.  Certainly,  I  never  saw  the  bay  of  New 
York  look  so  beautiful  as  on  Sunday  noon;  and  you 
may  attribute  as  much  as  you  please  of  this  impres- 
sion to  the  "Claude  Lorraine  spectacles"  of  conva- 
lescence, and  as  much  more  as  pleases  you  to  the 
fact  that  it  was  an  intoxicating  and  dissolving  day  of 
spring. 

The  Battery  on  Sunday  is  the  Champs-Elysees  of 
foreigners.  I  heard  nothing  spoken  around  me  but 
French  and  German.  Wrapped  in  my  cloak  and 
seated  on  a  bench,  I  watched  the  children  and  the 
poodle-dogs  at  their  gambols,  and  it  seemed  to  me  as 
if  I  were  in  some  public  resort  over  the  water.  They 
bring  such  happiness  to  a  day  of  idleness — these  for- 
eigners— laughing,  talking  nonsense,  totally  uncon- 
scious of  observation,  and  delighted  as  much  with  the 
passing  of  a  rowboat,  or  a  steamer,  as  an  American 
with  the  arrival  of  his  own  "  argosy"  from  sea.  They 
are  not  the  better  class  of  foreigners  who  frequent  the 
Battery  on  Sunday.  They  are  the  newly-arrived,  the 
artisans,  the  German  toymakers  and  the  French  boot- 
makers— people  who  still  wear  the  spacious-hipped 
trousers  and  scant  coats,  the  gold  rings  in  the  ears, 
and  the  ruffled  shirts  of  the  lands  of  undandyfied 
poverty.  They  are  there  by  hundreds.  They  hang 
over  the  railing  and  look  off  upon  the  sea.  They  sit 
and  smoke  on  the  long  benches.  They  run  hither 
and  thither  with  their  children,  and  behave  as  they 
would  in  their  own  garden,  using  and  enjoying  it  just 
as  if  it  were  their  own.  And  an  enviable  power  they 
have  of  it ! 

There  had  been  a  heavy  fog  on  the  water  all  the 
morning,  and  quite  a  fleet  of  the  river-craft  had  drift- 
ed with  the  tide  close  on  to  the  Battery.  The  soft 
south  wind  was  lifting  the  mist  in  undulating  sweeps, 
and  covering  and  disclosing  the  spars  and  sails  with  a 
phantom  effect  quite  melo-dramatic.  By  two  o'clock 
the  breeze  was  steady  and  the  bay  clear,  and  the  ho- 
rizon was  completely  concealed  with  the  spread  of  can- 
vass. The  grass  in  the  Battery  plots  seemed  to  be 
growing  visibly  meantime,  and  to  this  animated  sea- 
picture  gave  a  foreground  of  tender  and  sparkling 
green  ;  the  trees  look  feathery  with  the  opening  buds; 
the  children  rolled  on  the  grass,  and  the  summer 
seemed  come.  Much  as  Nature  loves  the  country, 
she  opens  her  green  lap  first  in  the  cities.  The  val- 
leys are  asleep  under  the  snow,  and  will  be  for  weeks. 


1  think  I  may  safely  announce  to  you  the  opening  of 
a  new  channel  for  literature.     Mr.  Stetson,  mine  host 


of  the  Astor,asyou  are  aware,  is  a  man  of  genius,  whose 
advent,  like  Napoleon's,  was  the  answer  to  a  demand 
in  the  national  character.  The  peculiarly  American 
passion  for  life  in  hotels,  and  the  mammoth  size  to  which 
these  luxurious  caravansaries  have  grown,  demanded 
some  mind  capable  of  systematizing  and  generalizing, 
and  of  bringing  these  Napoleonic  qualities  to  bear  upon 
the  confused  details  of  comfort  and  comestibles.  I 
need  not  enlarge  upon  the  well-known  military  disci- 
pline of  the  Johns  and  Thomases  at  the  Astor,  as  most 
of  your  readers  have  witnessed  their  matutinal  drill, 
and  seen  the  simultaneous  apparition  of  the  smoking 
joints,  when  the  hundred  and  ten  covers  have  been 
whisked  off  by  the  word  of  command,  like  the  heads 
of  so  many  Paynim  knights  decapitated  in  their  hel- 
mets. It  has  been  reserved  for  this  epoch  to  take  and 
digest  beef  and  pudding  by  platoon,  in  martinet  obe- 
dience to  a  controlling  spirit  in  white  apron  and  car- 
ving-knife ;  but,  as  I  said  before,  it  was  the  exigency 
of  the  era,  and  the  historian  who  records  the  national 
trait  will  emblazon  the  name  of  Stetson  as  its  interpre- 
ter and  moulding  genius.  I  am  wandering  a  little 
from  my  design,  however,  which  was  simply  to  make 
an  admiring  comment  on  the  tact  and  adaptation  of 
Mr.  Stetson,  and  to  show  how  such  minds  open  the 
doors  to  important  changes  and  innovations.  Mr. 
Stetson's  observing  eye  had  long  since  detected,  that, 
if  there  was  any  point  in  which  his  table  d'hote  suf- 
fered by  comparison  with  private  and  princely  ban- 
quets, it  was  in  the  poverty  of  conversation  and  the 
absence  of  general  hilarity.  This,  of  course,  was  ow- 
ing partly  to  the  temperance  reform,  but  more  partic- 
ularly to  the  want  of  topics  common  to  the  guests, 
the  persons  meeting  there  being  but  slightly  acquaint- 
ed. Music  would  have  furnished  a  good  diapason  for 
!  harmonizing  the  animal  spirits  of  the  company,  but 
this  was  too  expensive;  and  the  first  tentative  to  the 
present  experiment  was  the  introduction  of  a  very  fa- 
cetious wine  list  on  the  back  of  the  carte.  When 
people  no  longer  smiled  at  "  Wedding  Wine,"  "  Wan- 
ton Madeira,  exceedingly  delicate,"  &c,  the  French 
carte  was  suddenly  turned  into  English  (explaining 
many  a  sphinx  riddle  to  faithful  believers  in  the  cook), 
and  a  postscript  was  added,  containing  a  list  of  the  times 
of  arrival  and  departure  of  the  mails,  and  information 
relative  to  steamboats  and  railroads.  And  with  the 
spring,  I  understand,  this  is  to  be  extended  into  a 
"  Daily  Prandial  Gazette,"  and  a  copy  to  be  furnished 
to  each  guest  with  the  soup,  containing  the  arrivals 
of  the  day  at  the  hotel,  the  range  of  the  thermometer, 
the  prospect  of  rain,  "  burstings-up"  in  Wall  street, 
and  general  advice  as  to  the  use  of  the  castors — the 
whole  adapted  to  the  meridian  of  a  table  d'hote,  and 
the  ascertained  demand  of  subjects  for  conversation. 

In  this  improvement  your  prophetic  eye  will  see, 
probably,  a  new  field  for  the  ambition  of  authors  (the 
addition  of  one  poem  per  diem,  for  example,  coming 
quite  within  the  capacity  of  such  a  gazette),  and,  if  I 
might  venture  to  saddle  Mr.  Stetson  with  advice,  I 
should  recommend  that  it  be  confined  as  long  as  pos- 
sible to  the  debuts  of  young  poets,  the  genial  criticism 
with  which  they  would  be  read  at  such  time  and  place 
being  an  "  aching  void"  in  their  present  destiny. 


The  City  Hotel  re-opens  to-morrow  under  the  care 
of  the  omni-recognisant  Willard  and  his  partner  of 
the  olden  time.  The  building  has  been  entirely  re- 
freshed, refitted,  and  refurnished,  and  I  am  told  that 
in  comfort  and  luxury  it  far  exceeds  any  hotel  in  this 
country.  The  advances  in  the  commodiousness  and 
elegance  of  these  public  houses,  their  economy  com- 
pared with  housekeeping,  and  the  difficulty  of  ob 
taining  tolerable  servants,  combine  to  make  an  inroad 
upon  the  Lares  and  Penates  of  the  metropolis,  which 


EPHEMERA. 


585 


may  have  an  influence  upon  national  character  at 
least  worth  the  noting.  Hundreds  of  persons  who,  up 
to  these  disastrous  times,  have  nursed  their  domestic 
virtues  in  the  privacy  of  their  own  firesides,  are  now 
living  at  these  gregarious  palaces,  passing  their  even- 
U>g*  in  such  society  as  chance  brings  together,  and  | 
subjecting  their  children  to  such  influences  of  body  j 
and  mind  as  belong  more  properly  to  a  community  of  ! 
Owen.  Other  more  obvious  objections  aside,  these  ! 
collections  of  families  are  not  the  most  harmonious 
communities  in  the  world,  and  the  histories  of  the 
conflicting  dignities  and  jostling  interests  of  these 
huddled  masses  will  yet  furnish  most  amusing  mate- 
rial to  some  future  Pickwickian  writer.  The  ladies 
of  the  Carlton  have  lately  sent  in  a  remonstrance 
against  the  admission  of  errandless  bachelors  into  their 
privileged  drawing-room,  and  the  brawls  of  the  Gu- 
elphs  and  Ghibellines  are  but  a  faint  type  of  the  con- 
tentions in  the  ladies'  wing  of  the  Astor  for  places  at 
table,  &cc,  &c.  I  should  like  to  have  the  opinion  of 
some  such  generalizing  mind  as  Dr.  Channing's  or 
Mr.  Adams's  as  to  whether  the  peculiar  gregarious- 
ness  of  Americans  is  a  crudity  of  national  character 
which  will  refine  away,  or  is  only  a  kind  of  bolder 
crystallization  characteristic  of  the  freer  nuclei  of  our 
institutions.  Channing  long  ago  fastened  the  re- 
proach upon  us  of  having  weaker  domestic  ties  than 
the  nations  of  Europe,  though  he  did  not  see  in  it  a 
possible  adaptation  of  Providence  to  the  wants  of  a 
wide  country  waiting  for  emigrants  from  families 
easily  dismembered  ;  and  it  would  not  require  much 
ingenuity,  perhaps,  to  find  a  special  Providence  in  the 
fact  commented  on  above.  But  this  is  getting  to  be 
a  seriuon. 

Since  commencing  this  letter,  1  have  taken  a  stroll 
up  Broadway,  and  looked  in  at  the  City  hotel.  Wil- 
lard  was  in  his  place  behind  the  bar,  a  little  fatter  than  of 
old,  and  somewhat  gray  with  cabbage-growing,  but  his 
wonderful  memory  of  names  and  (aces  seemed  in  full 
vigor ;  and,  what  with  the  tone  of  voice,  the  dexterity 
of  furnishing  drinks,  the  off-hand  welcome  to  every 
comer-in,  and  the  mechanical  answering  of  questions 
and  calling  to  servauts,  he  seemed  to  have  begun  pre- 
cisely where  he  left  oft",  and  his  little  episode  of  farm- 
ing must  seem  to  him  scarcely  better  than  a  dream. 
A  servant  showed  us  over  the  house.  A  new  gentle- 
men's dining-room,  lighted  from  the  roof,  has  been 
built  in  the  area  behind,  and  the  old  dining-room  is 
cut  up  into  a  reading-room  and  private  parlors.  The 
famous  assembly-room  in  the  second  story  is  also  di- 
vided up  into  parlors  and  ladies'  dining-room  ;  but  the 
garnishing  and  furnishing  of  the  public  and  private 
parlors  are  quite  beyond  anything  I  know  of  short  of 
the  houses  of  nobility  and  royal  palaces.  The  car- 
pets are  of  the  finest  Wilton  and  Brussels;  the  paper 
upon  the  walls  of  the  latest  Parisian  pattern  ;  a  new 
piano  in  every  parlor  ;  and  the  beds  and  their  belong- 
ings of  the  most  enticing  freshness  and  comfortability. 
The  proprietors  have  not  seen  fit,  however,  to  adopt 
the  fashion  of  "  prices  to  suit  the  times,"  but  have 
begun,  plump  and  bold,  at  two  dollars  a  day,  and  a 
shilling  a  drink.  Until  the  fine  edge  of  all  this  nov- 
elty wears  off",  they  may  reap  a  harvest  which  will  re- 
pay them  for  their  outlay  in  paint  and  garnish.  One 
remark  might  be  dropped  into  Willard's  ear  to  some  j 
advantage — that  while  he  has  been  resting  on  his  oars 
at  Dorchester,  the  people  "on  the  town"  have  become 
over-epicurean  in  their  exactions  of  luxuries  at  hotels, 
.and  it  will  take  some  "  sharp  practice"  to  beat  the 
"United  States"  at  Philadelphia,  and  the  Astor  here. 
People,  at  first,  who  have  been  accustomed  to  live  at 
the  latter  place,  will  find  a  certain  relief  at  not  being 
helped  to  fish  and  pudding  by  fire  of  platoon,  but  in 
the  long  run  the  systematic  service  of  the  Astor 
achieves  comfort.  The  Atlantic  hotel,  opposite  the 
Bowling  Green,  is  also  in  progress  of  rifarimento  ;  and 
its  old  landlord,  Anderson,  who  made  a  fortune  in  it 


once,  and  kept  one  of  the  best  houses  in  the  country, 
opens  with  it  again  on  the  1st  of  May. 


I  am  happy  to  announce  to  you  that  the  leaves  of 
the  trees  in  Trinity  churchyard  have  fairly  come  to 
light.  The  foliage  in  this  enclosure  is  always  a  week 
in  advance  of  all  others  in  the  city,  possibly  from  ca- 
daverous stimulus  ("to  such  base  uses  may  we  come 
at  last"),  and  perhaps  accelerated  particularly,  this 
year,  by  the  heat  of  the  steam-engine,  which,  with 
remorseless  travestie,  perpetually  saws  stone  for  the 
new  building  over  the  "  requiescat  in  pace  .'"  I  read 
the  names  on  desecrated  tombstones  every  day  in  pas- 
sing, and  associate  them  in  my  mind  with  the  people  ag- 
grieved (of  whom  one  always  has  a  list,  longer  or  short- 
er). Poor  ghosts  !  as  if  there  was  no  other  place  for  a 
steam-engine  and  a  stonecutter's  saw  than  a-top  of  the 
sod  which  (if  hymn  and  prayer  go  for  anything)  is  ex- 
pected to  "lie  lightly  on  the  dead  man's  breast!" 
There  is  many  a  once  wealthy  aristocrat,  powdered 
over  with  the  pumice  of  that  abominable  saw,  who,  if 
he  could  rise  and  step  down  into  Wall  street,  would 
make  sharp  reckoning  with  heirs  and  executors  for 
suffering  his  small  remainder  of  this  world's  room  and 
remembrance  to  be  so  robbed  of  its  poetry  and  re- 
spect !  Meantime,  this  exquisitely-conceived  piece 
of  architecture  (Trinity  church)  is  rising  with  admira- 
ble effect,  and,  when  completed,  it  will  doubtless  be 
the  first  Gothic  structure  in  America. 


We  had  rather  a  novel  turn-out  of  a  four-in-hand 
yesterday  in  Broadway — a  vehicle  drawn  by  four  ele- 
phants. There  was  some  grandeur  in  the  spectacle, 
and  some  drollery.  These  enormous  specimens  of 
the  animal,  most  like  us  in  intellect  and  least  like  us 
in  frame,  are  part  of  a  menagerie  ;  and  they  drew,  in 
the  wagon  to  which  they  were  attached,  a  band  of  mu- 
sic belonging  to  the  concern.  They  were,  all  four, 
en  chemise — covered  with  white  cotton  cloths  to  the 
knees— but,  Elssler-like,  making  great  display  of  their 
legs  and  ivory.  The  ropes  were  fastened  to  their 
tusks,  and  they  were  urged  by  simple  pounding  on 
the  rear — which  was  very  like  flogging  the  side  of  a 
hill,  for  they  were  up  to  the  second  stories  of  the 
houses.  To  walk  round  one  of  these  animals  in  a 
tight  fit  of  a  booth  is  a  very  different  thing  from  see- 
ing him  paraded  under  the  suitable  ceiling  of  the  sky. 
I  had  no  idea  they  could  go  over  the  ground  so  swim- 
mingly. They  glided  along  with  the  ease  of  scows 
going  down  with  the  tide,  and,  with  their  trunks  play- 
ing about  close  to  the  pavement,  seemed  to  be  walk- 
ing Broadway  like  some  other  loafers — looking  for 
something  green! 


The  Battery,  or,  as  it  has  been  called  in  England, 
the  "Marine  Parade,"  is  never  lovelier  than  in  the 
early  freshness  of  the  morning.  The  air  is  yet  unim- 
paired by  the  myriad  fires  of  the  city — the  dew  is  un- 
trodden, and  the  velvet  sheensparkles  in  the  sunshine — 
the  walks  are  all  neatly  swept;  and,  treading  pleas- 
antly upon  the  elastic  earth,  invigorated  by  the  fresh 
breeze  from  the  sea,  we  cast  our  eyes  over  a  scene  of 
beauty  and  enchantment  unsurpassed  in  the  world. 
The  correspondent  of  the  Intelligencer  says:  I  have 
been  out  on  the  Battery  this  morning  enjoying  life, 
and  everything  I  saw  was  in  the  same  humor — trees, 
children,  ladies,  and  ships-of-war.  The  very  port- 
holes of  the  Warspite  seemed  pleased  to  have  their 
eyelids  up.  The  Battery  is  a  good  deal  thronged 
before  breakfast,  and  really  I  do  not  remember  a  prom- 
enade in  Europe  which  contains  so  much  that  is 
beautiful.     Just  now  we  have  three  men-of-war  lying 


586 


EPHEMERA. 


on  the  stream — the  majestic  North  Carolina  and  the 
Independence  having  come  round  to  their  summer 
moorings.  Jersey  shore  looks  fringed  with  willows, 
and  the  islands  and  Brooklyn  heights  are  bright  and 
verdant.  The  Croton  river  is  bubbling  up  in  a  superb 
fountain  in  Castle  Garden.  The  craft  in  the  bay 
always  seem  doing  a  melo-drama — they  cross  and 
mingle  so  picturesquely  ;  and  the  trees  are  always 
there;  and  the  grass  grows  better  for  the  children's 
playing  on  it.  Many  thanks  to  fashion  for  having 
taken  the  rich  up-town  and  left  their  palaces  and  the 
Battery  to  those  who  "board." 

I  have  spent  an  afternoon,  since  I  wrote  to  you,  in 
the  "  animal  kingdom"  of  Herr  Driesbach.  Four  ele- 
phants together  were  rather  an  uncommon  sight,  to 
say  nothing  of  the  melo-drama  performed  by  the  lion- 
tamer.  There  was  another  accidental  feature  of  in- 
terest, too — the  presence  of  one  or  two  hundred  deaf 
and  dumb  children,  whose  gestures  and  looks  of  aston- 
ishment quite  divided  my  curiosity  with  the  show. 
Spite  of  the  repulsiveness  of  the  thought,  it  was 
impossible  not  to  reflect  how  much  of  the  difference 
between  us  and  some  of  the  brute  animals  lies  merely 
in  the  gift  of  speech,  and  how  nearly  some  human 
beings,  by  losing  this  gift,  would  be  brought  to  their 
level.  I  was  struck  with  the  predominating  animal- 
look  in  the  faces  of  the  boys  of  the  school,  though 
there  were  some  female  children  with  countenances  of 
a  very  delicate  and  intellectual  cast. 

I  was  an  hour  too  early  for  the  "  performances," 
and  I  climbed  into  the  big  saddle  worn  by  "  Siam," 
and  made  a  leisurely  study  of  the  four  elephants  and 
their  keepers  and  visiters.  I  had  not  noticed  before 
that  the  eyes  of  these  huge  animals  were  so  small. 
Those  of"  Hannibal,"  the  nearest  elephant  to  me,  re- 
sembled the  eyes  of  Sir  Walter  Scott ;  and  I  thought, 
too,  that  the  forehead  was  not  unlike  Sir  Walter's. 
And,  as  if  this  was  not  resemblance  enough,  there  was 
a  copious  issue  from  a  bump  between  his  forehead  and 
his  ear!  (What  might  we  not  expect  if  elephants 
had  "  eaten  paper  and  drunk  ink  ?")  The  resemblance 
ceased  with  the  legs,  it  is  but  respectful  to  Sir  Walter 
to  say  ;  for  Hannibal  is  a  dandy,  and  wears  the  fash- 
ionable gaiter-trowser,  with  a  difference — the  gaiter 
fitted  neatly  to  every  toe!  The  warlike  name  of  this 
elephant  should  be  given  to  Siam,  for  the  latter  is  the 
great  warrior  of  the  party,  and  in  a  fight  of  six  hours 
with  "  Napoleon,"  some  three  months  since,  broke  off 
both  his  tusks.  He  looks  like  a  most  determined 
bruise.  "  Virginius"  (the  showman  told  me)  killed 
his  keeper,  and  made  an  escapade  into  the  marshes  of 
Carolina,  not  long  ago  ;  and,  after  an  absence  of  six 
weeks,  was  subdued  and  brought  back  by  a  former 
keeper,  of  whose  discipline  he  had  a  terrific  recollec- 
tion. There  are  certainly  different  degrees  of  amia- 
bility in  their  countenances.  I  looked  in  vain  for 
some  of  the  wrinkles  of  age,  in  the  one  they  said  was 
much  the  oldest.  Unlike  us,  their  skins  grow  smoother 
with  time — the  enviable  rascals!  I  noticed,  by-the- 
way,  that  though  the  proboscis  of  each  of  the  others 
was  as  smooth  as  dressed  leather,  that  of  Siam  resem- 
bled, in  texture,  a  scrubbing-brush,  or  the  third  day  of 
a  stiff  beard.  Why  he  should  travel  with  a  "  hair- 
trunk,"  and  the  others  not,  I  could  not  get  out  of  the 
showman.  The  expense  of  training  and  importing 
these  animals  is  enormous,  and  they  are  considered 
worth  a  great  deal  of  money.  The  four  together  con- 
sume about  two  hundred  weight  of  hay  and  six  bush- 
els of  oats  per  diem.  Fortunately  they  do  their  own 
land  transportation,  and  carry  their  own  trunks. 

At  four  o'clock  Siam  knelt  down,  and  four  or  five 
men  lifted  his  omnibus  of  a  saddle  upon  his  back. 
The  band  then  struck  up  a  march,  and  he  made  the 
circuit  of  the  immense  tent;  but  the  effect  of  an  ele- 
phant in  motion,  with  only  his  legs  and  trunk  visible 
(his   body    quite   covered    with   the   trappings),    was 


singularly  droll.  It  looked  like  an  avenue  taking  a 
walk,  preceded  by  a  huge  caterpillar.  I  could  not 
resist  laughing  heartily.  After  one  round,  Siam 
stopped,  and  knelt  again  to  receive  passengers.  The 
wooden  steps  were  laid  against  his  eyebrow,  and 
thence  the  children  stepped  to  the  top  of  his  head, 
though  here  and  there  a  scrambler  shortened  the  step 
by  putting  his  foot  into  the  ear  of  the  patient  animal 
The  saddle  was  at  last  loaded  with  twelve  girls ;  and 
with  this  "  fearful  responsibility"  on  his  back,  the  ele- 
phant rose  and  made  his  rounds,  kneeling  and  renew- 
ing his  load  of  "  innocence"  at  every  circuit. 

The  lion-tamer  presently  appeared,  and  astonished 
the  crowd  rather  more  than  the  elephant.  A  prologue 
was  pronounced,  setting  forth  that  a  slave  was  to  be 
delivered  up  to  wild  beasts,  etc.,  etc.  A  green  cloth 
was  spread  before  the  cages  in  the  open  tent  ("  parlous 
work,"  I  thought,  among  such  tender  meat  as  two 
hundred  children),  and  out  sprung  suddenly  a  full- 
grown  tiger,  who  seized  the  gentleman  in  flesh-colored 
tights  by  the  throat.  A  struggle  ensues,  in  which 
they  roll  over  and  over  on  the  ground,  and  finally,  the 
victim  gets  the  upper  hand,  and  drags  out  his  devourer 
by  the  nape  of  his  neck.  I  was  inclined  to  think  once 
or  twice  that  the  tiger  was  doing  more  than  was  set 
down  for  him  in  the  play ;  but  as  the  Newfoundland 
dog  of  the  establishment  looked  on  very  quietly,  I 
reserved  my  criticism. 

The  Herr  next  appeared  in  the  long  cage  with  all 
his  animals — lions,  tigers,  leopards,  etc.  He  pulled 
them  about,  put  his  hands  in  their  mouths,  and  took 
as  many  liberties  with  his  stock  of  peltry  as  if  it  was 
already  made  into  muffs  and  tippets.  They  growled 
and  showed  their  teeth,  but  came  when  they  were 
called,  and  did  as  they  were  bid,  very  much  to  my 
astonishment.  He  made  a  bed  of  them,  among  other 
things — putting  the  tiger  across  the  lion  for  a  pillow, 
stretching  himself  on  the  lion  and  another  tiger,  and 
then  pulling  the  leopard  over  his  breast  for  a  "  com- 
forter !"  He  then  sat  down,  and  played  nursery.  The 
tiger  was  as  much  as  he  could  lift,  but  he  seated  him 
upright  on  his  knees,  dandled  and  caressed  him,  and 
finally  rocked  him  apparently  asleep  in  his  arms !  He 
closed  with  an  imitation  of  Fanny  Elssler's  pirouette, 
with  a  tiger  standing  on  his  back.  I  was  very  glad,  for 
one,  when  I  saw  him  go  out  and  shut  the  door. 

A  man  then  brought  out  a  young  anaconda,  and 
twisted  him  round  his  neck  (a  devil  of  a  boa  it  looked), 
and,  after  enveloping  himself  completely  in  other 
snakes,  took  them  off  again  like  cravats,  and  vanished. 
And  so  ended  the  show.  Herr  Driesbach  stood  at  the 
door  to  bow  us  out,  and  a  fine,  handsome,  determined- 
looking  fellow  he  is. 

Pardon  us,  ladies — those  riding-hats  let  the  sun 
look  in  upon  your  alabaster  foreheads — ay,  and  ever? 
cross  the  bridge  of  your  delicate  noses !  Take  ad- 
vice !  Wear  your  hats  with  a  pitch  forward  rather, 
like  the  dames  in  Charles  the  Second's  time.  You 
look  very  charmingly  on  Roulstone's  well-broken  and 
well-trained  horses,  but  take  not  your  pleasure  at  the 
expense  of  the  bright  complexions  which  we  admire. 
"  Sun-burnt,"  in  old  English,  was  an  epithet  of  contu- 
mely, and 

"  The  chariest  maid  is  prodigal  enough, 
If  she  unveil  her  beauty  to  the  moon," 

let  alone  the  sun. 


We  have  been  paid  for  letting  the  world  know  a 
great  many  things  that  were  of  no  consequence  to  the 
world  whatever — and,  among  other  nothings,  a  certain 
metropoliphobia  of  our  own,  on  which  we  have  ex- 
pended a  great  deal  of  choice  grammar  and  punctua- 
tion. We  trust  the  world  believes,  by  this,  that,  ca- 
pable as  we  are  of  loving  our  entire  species  (one  at  a 


EPHEMERA. 


587 


time),  we  hate  a  city  collectively.  Having  a  little 
moan  to  make,  with  a  little  moral  at  the  close,  we  put 
this  private  prejudice  once  more  into  type,  trusting  to 
your  indulgence,  good  reader. 

This  is  June — and  "where  are  you  going  this  sum- 
mer?" though  a  pertinent  question  enough,  and  sea- 
sonable, and  just  what  anybody  says  to  everybody  he 
meets,  has  to  our  ear  a  little  offence  in  it.  If  it  were 
asked  for  information — a  la  bonne  heure  .' — we  are 
willing  to  tell  any  friend  where  we  are  going — this  side 
the  Styx.  But  though  the  question  (asked  with 
most  affectionate  earnestness  by  your  friend)  is  merely 
a  preface  to  enlightening  youas  to  his  own  "watering- 
place,"  there  must  still  bean  answer!  And  suppose 
that  answer,  though  not  a  whit  attended  to,  touches 
upon  your  secret  sorrow — your  deucedest  bore  !   Sup-  I 

pose but  you  see  our  drift !     You  understand,  that 

we  are  to  sweat  out  the  summer  solstice  within  the 
"  bills  of  mortality  !"  You  see  that  we  are  to  comfort 
our  bucolic  nostrils  as  we  best  may,  with  municipal 
grass — picking  here  and  there  a  clover-top  or  an  ag- 
gravating dandelion  'twixt  postoffice  and  city-hall. 
Heaven  help  us ! 

True,  New  York  is  "  open  at  the  top."  We  are 
prepared  to  be  thankful  for  what  comes  down  to  us — 
air,  light,  and  dew.  But  alas!  Earth  is  our  mother! — 
Earth,  who  sends  all  her  blessings  upward — Earth, 
who,  in  the  city,  is  stoned  over  and  hammered  down, 
paved,  flagged,  suffocated — her  natural  breath  quite 
cut  off,  or  driven  to  escape  by  drain  and  gas-pipe — her 
flowers  and  herbs  prevented — her  springs  shut  down 
from  gushing  !  This  arid  pavement,  this  hot  smell  of 
dust,  this  brick-color  and  paint — what  are  they  to  the 
fragrant  lap  of  our  overlaid  mother,  with  her  drapery 
of  bright  colors  and  tender  green  ?  Answer,  oh 
omnibus-horse!     Answer,  oh  worky-editor  ! 

But  there  be  alleviations!  It  is  to  these  that  hangs 
"the  moral  of  our  tale."  We  presume  most  men 
think  themselves  more  worthy  than  "sparrows"  of  the 
attention  of  Providence,  and  of  course  most  men  be- 
lieve in  a  special  Providence  for  themselves.  We  do. 
We  believe  that  we  shall  not  "fall  to  the  ground  with- 
out" (a)  "notice."  (But  this,  let  us  hope,  is  antici- 
pating.) We  wish  to  speak  now  of  the  succedaneum 
thrown  in  our  path  for  our  pastoral  deprivations — for  , 
the  lost  brook  whose  babbling  current  turned  the 
wheel  of  our  idleness.  Sweet  brook,  that  never 
robbed  the  pebbles  of  a  ray  of  light  in  running  over 
them!  It  became  a  type  to  us — that  brook.  Our 
thoughts  ran  brook-wise.  Bright  water,  braiding  its 
ripples  as  its  ran,  became  our  vehicle  of  fancy.  We 
lagged,  we  dragged,  we  were  "  gravelled  for  lack  of 
matter"  without  it.  And  now  mark  ! — Providence  has 
supplied  it — (through  his  honor  the  mayor).  A 
brook — a  clear  brook — not  pellucid,  merely,  but  trans- 
parent— a  brook  with  a  song,  tripping  as  musically 
(when  the  carts  are  not  goin^  by)  as  the  beloved  brook 
now  sequestered  to  the  Philistines — trips  daily  before  I 
us!  Our  daily  walk  is  along  its  border — for  (say)  a  I 
rod  and  a  half.  Meet  us  there  if  you  will,  oh  conge- 
nial spirit !  As  we  go  to  the  postoffice,  we  span  its 
fair  current  at  the  broadest,  and  take  a  fillip  in  our 
fancy  for  the  day.  Would  you  know  its  geography 
more  definitely  ?  Stand  on  the  steps  of  the  Astor, 
and  gaze  over  to  the  sign  of  "  P.  Pussedu,  wig-maker, 
from  Italy."  Drop  then  the  divining-rod  to  the  left, 
and  a  much  frequented  pump  will  become  apparent, 
perched  over  a  projecting  curb-stone,  around  which 
the  dancing  and  bright  water  trips  with  sparkling  feet, 
and  a  murmur  audible  at  least  to  itself.  It  is  the 
outlet  of  the  fountain  in  the  Park,  and,  as  Wordsworth 
says, 

"  Parching  summer  hath  no  warrant 
To  consume  this  crystal  well,'' 

as  an  order  is  first  necessary  from  the  corporation. 


Oh  !  (if  it  were  not  for  being  taken  to  the  watch- 
house)  we  could  sit  by  this  brook  in  the  moonlight, 
and  pour  forth  our  melancholy  moan!  But  the  cab- 
men wash  their  wheels  in  it  now,  and  the  echo  would 
be,  "Want  a  cab,  sir?"     Metropolises,  avaunt ! 


Lady  Sale's  Journal  of  the  Disasters  in  Afghanistan 
impresses  us  somewhat  with  the  idea  that  her  ladyship 
was  a  Tartar;  and  she  was,  perhaps,  as  "well  bestow- 
ed" in  the  army  as  anywhere  else,  in  a  world  so  gene- 
rally peaceful.  It  is  a  roughly-written  book,  too,  in 
point  of  style.  Indeed  she  avows  :  "  I  do  not  attempt 
to  shine  in  rounded  periods,  but  give  everything  that 
occurs  as  it  comes  to  my  knowledge."  It  appears, 
however,  that  some  injustice  to  officers,  committed,  as 
she  acknowledges,  "in  the  heat  of  temper,"  have 
awakened  a  little  censure  in  England,  and  have  been 
apologized  for  by  her  ladyship.  This  allowed,  there 
is  much  to  admire — her  manly  modesty,  among  other 
things.  Toward  the  close  of  her  journal,  she  re- 
marks :  "  Nothing  can  exceed  the  folly  I  have  seen  in 
the  papers  regarding  my  wonderful  self — how  I  headed 
the  troops,  &c.  Certainly  I  have  headed  the  troops, 
for  the  chiefs  told  me  to  come  on  with  them  for  safety 
sake  ;  and  thus  I  certainly  did  go  far  in  advance  of  the 
column;  but  it  was  no  proof  of  valor,  though  one  of 
prudence."  We  can  readily  believe  that  the  qualities 
which  gained  her  ladyship  such  general  admiration, 
were  not  of  a  showy  order.  As  a  "  soldier's  wife," 
the  title  she  gives  herself,  she  esteemed  it  her  duty  to 
take  her  part  in  danger,  hardship,  and  captivity,  with- 
out complaint — to  oppose  a  brave  resistance  to  the  foe 
when  others  thought  only  of  base  submission,  and  to 
set  an  example  of  invincible  fortitude  to  the  host  of 
meaner  spirits  in  the  camp.  In  the  extremity  of  peril 
and  suffering  she  never  murmurs,  except  when  the 
weakness  of  the  commanders  wrings  from  her  some 
expression  of  disgust  and  contempt.  Of  all  the  per- 
sons attached  to  the  army,  she  had  the  most  real  cause 
of  alarm,  yet  manifested  the  least.  Unlike  the  other 
ladies,  she  was  separated  from  her  husband,  and  heard 
continually  of  his  battles,  his  exposure,  his  wounds. 
Her  son-in-law  dies  in  her  arms,  and  she  is  left  with 
her  widowed  daughter  in  the  hands  of  a  band  of  mer- 
ciless savages,  without  one  male  relative  to  support 
her.  She  is  harassed  by  continual  marches  in  the 
depth  of  winter  among  mountain  passes,  where  the 
path  is  so  thickly  strewn  with  the  mangled  corpses  of 
her  countrymen,  that  the  hoofs  of  her  horse  tread 
them  into  the  earth  ;  yet  these  multiplied  ills  fail  to 
quell  her  spirits  or  conquer  her  presence  of  mind.  A 
bullet  pierces  her  arm  ;  but  when  the  ball  is  extracted, 
she  treats  the  wound  as  a  scratch.  This  kind  of  for- 
titude is  the  only  courage  which  appears  estimable  or 
becoming  in  a  woman,  and  shines  with  as  much  lustre 
in  the  conduct  of  Lady  Sale  throughout  those  trying 
transactions,  as  in  any  character  of  which  history 
makes  mention.  It  is  scarcely  necessary  to  add,  that 
few  books  published  of  late  years  have  such  strong 
claims  upon  the  attention  of  the  public  as  the  present. 
The  author  evidently  does  not  desire  display;  but  her 
courage  and  magnanimity  will  secure,  in  the  annals  of 
heroic  women,  a  foremost  place  for  the  name  of  Flor- 
entine Sale. 

Porcelain  and  crockery,  champagne  and  cider,  sun- 
shine and  candlelight,  silver  cup  and  tin  dipper,  are 
not  of  more  different  quality  to  our  apprehension,  than 
people  beautiful  and  people  plain.  We  do  not  be- 
lieve they  are  to  have  the  same  destiny.  We  believe 
that  the  plain  and  the  beautiful  are  to  be  reproduced 
in  their  own  likeness  in  another  world,  and  that 
beauty  must  be  paramount  alike  among  men  and  an- 


588 


EPHEMERA. 


gels.  We  believe  everything  should  be  given  to 
beauty  that  beauty  wants  —  everything  forgiven  if 
beauty  err.  We  have  no  limit  to  our  service  of 
beauty — no  imaginable  bound  to  our  devotion.  We 
are  secondary —subject — born  thrall  to  beauty.  And 
in  this  faith  we  shall  die. 

But  beauty  in  America  is  a  very  differently  prized 
commodity  from  beauty  in  England.  Let  us  keep 
clear  of  making  an  essay  of  this,  and  show  what  we 
mean  by  parallel  examples.  Take  two  beautiful  girls, 
of  the  same  comparative  station — Miss  Smith,  of  Lon- 
don, daughter  of  a  master-in-chancery,  and  Miss 
Brown,  of  New  York,  daughter  of  a  master-carpenter: 
— for  the  former  gentleman  is  about  as  far  below  an 
earl  as  the  latter  is  below  any  aristocrat  of  New  York, 
supposed  or  acknowledged. 

Miss  Brown,  of  the  Bowery,  is  a  lovely  creature. 
She  excites  curiosity  in  Broadway.  She  hinders  de- 
votion, right  and  left,  when  she  turns  round  in  church. 
In  the  best  society  of  New  York  there  is  not  a  pret- 
tier girl,  and  nature  has  made  her  elegant  in  her  man- 
ners, and  education  has  done  as  much  for  her  as  was 
at  all  necessary.  Her  father  delights  in  her  beauty, 
and  her  mother  is  very  proud  of  her,  and  she  carries 
her  heart  in  her  bosom  to  do  what  she  pleases  with  it 
— but  neither  Mr.  Brown,  nor  Mrs.  Brown,  nor  Miss 
Brown,  ever  dream  that  her  beauty  will  advance  their 
condition  in  life  one  peg.  They  love  her  for  it — she 
controls  the  family  by  it — she  exercises  influence  as 
a  belle  in  their  own  circle  of  acquaintance — but  that 
is  all.  She  lives  a  very  gay  and  pleasant  life,  hears 
of  balls  in  more  fashionable  parts  of  the  town  without 
dreaming  that,  for  her  beauty,  she  should  be  there, 
and  continues  a  Bowery  belle  till  she  marries  a  Bow- 
ery beau.  And  beauty,  once  married,  in  that  class 
of  our  country,  is  like  a  pair  of  shoes  once  sold — 
never  inquired  for  again. 

Miss  Smith,  of  London,  is  a  superb  girl.  Her  fa- 
ther was  of  dark  complexion  and  her  mother  a  blonde  ; 
and  jet  and  pearl  have  done  their  daintiest  in  her  dark 
eyes  and  radiant  skin.  At  twelve  she  is  considered  a 
beauty  past  accident.  Her  sisters,  who  were  either 
"all  father"  or  "  all  mother,"  grimy  dark,  or  parsnip 
blonde,  are  married  off  to  such  husbands  as  would  un- 
dertake them.  But  for  the  youngest  there  is  a  differ- 
ent destiny — for  she  is  a  beauty.  The  father  wishes 
for  advancement  and  a  title.  The  mother  wishes  to 
figure  in  high  life  before  she  dies.  And  Miss  Smith, 
young  as  she  is,  is  taught  the  difference  between  a 
plain  young  lord  in  a  cab  and  a  handsome  lawyer's 
clerk  with  a  green  bag.  Beauty,  well  managed,  may 
be  made  to  open  every  door  in  England.  Masters — 
the  best  of  masters  for  Miss  Smith  !  More  money 
is  spent  in  "  finishing"  her  than  was  given  to  all  her 
sisters  for  dowries.  She  is  permitted  to  form  few 
acquaintances  of  her  own  sex,  none  of  the  other. 
And  when  Miss  Smith  is  sixteen,  Mrs.  Smith  makes 
her  first  strong  push  at  Lady  Frippery  (for  Mr.  Smith 
has  put  Lord  Frippery  under  obligations,  which  make 
it  inevitable  that  the  first  favor  asked  should  be  grant- 
ed), and  out  comes  Miss  Smith,  chaperoned  by  Lady 
Frippery  at  a  mixed  subscription  ball.  It  is  for  the  ben- 
efit of  the  Poles,  and  the  liberal  nobility  are  all  there  ; 
and  all  the  beaux  of  St.  James's  street,  of  course,  for  they 
like  to  see  what  novelty  will  turn  up  in  such  places. 
One  hour  after  the  ball  opens,  Miss  Smith's  beauty  has 
been  pronounced  upon  by  half  the  noble  eyes  of  Lon- 
don, and  Lady  Frippery  is  assailed  for  introductions. 
The  beauty  turns  out  high-bred.  Lord  George  and 
Lord  Frederick  torment  their  Right  Honorable  mam- 
mas into  calling  on  Mrs.  Smith,  and  having  the 
beauty  at  their  next  ball ;  and  so  climbs  Miss  Smith 
to  a  stratum  of  society  unattainable  by  her  father's 
law  or  her  mothers  wealth,  or  anything  in  the  world 
but  beauty.  She  is  carefully  watched,  keeps  herself 
chary,  and  by-and-by  chooses  between  Lord  Freder- 


ick and  Lord  George,  and  elevates  her  whole  family 
by  an  alliance  with  the  peerage — for  in  England  there 
is  no  mesalliance  if  the  lady  descended  to  be  of  great 
beauty,  as  well  as  virtuous,  modest,  and  well  edu- 
cated. 

But — as  we  would  show  by  these  examples — per- 
sonal beauty  is  undervalued  in  America.  At  least,  it 
is  less  valued  than  in  England  and  older  countries. 
An  eminent  English  artist,  recently  returned  home, 
expressed  his  surprise  that  he  had  so  few  beauties 
among  his  sitters.  "  The  motive  to  have  a  miniature 
done,"  said  he,  "  seems,  in  America,  to  be  affection. 
In  England  it  is  pride.  Most  of  my  sitters"  (and  he 
had  a  great  many  at  a  very  high  price)  "  have  been 
old  people  or  invalids,  or  persons  going  away  ;  and 
though  they  wished  their  pictures  made  as  good-look- 
ing as  possible,  their  claim  to  good  looks  was  no  part 
of  the  reason  for  sitting.  It  was  only  to  perpetuate 
that  which  was  loved  and  would  soon  be  lost." 

Pray  take  notice,  madam,  that  we  give  no  opinion 
as  to  the  desirableness  of  the  English  value  of  beauty. 
Whether  beauty  and  worldly  profit  should  be  kept 
separate,  like  church  and  state — whether  it  is  desecra- 
ted by  aiding  the  uses  of  ambition — whether  it  should 
be  the  loadstar  of  affection  or  pride — we  leave  with 
you  as  an  open  question. 


We  know  nothing  of  a  more  restless  tendency  than 
a  fine,  old-fashioned  June  day — one  that  begins  with 
a  morning  damp  with  a  fresh  south  wind,  and  gradu- 
ally clears  away  in  a  thin  white  mist,  till  the  sun 
shines  through  at  last,  genial  and  luxurious,  but  not 
sultry,  and  everything  looks  clear  and  bright  in  the 
transparent  atmosphere.  We  know  nothing  which  so 
seduces  the  very  eye  and  spirit  of  a  man,  and  stirs  in 
him  that  gipsy  longing,  which,  spite  of  disgrace  and 
punishment,  made  him  a  truant  in  his  boyhood. 
There  is  an  expansive  rarity  in  the  air  of  such  a  day 
— a  something  that  lifts  up  the  lungs,  and  plays  in  the 
nostrils  with  a  delicious  sensation  of  freshness  and 
elasticity.  The  close  room  grows  sadly  dull  under  it. 
The  half-open  blind,  with  its  tempting  glimpse  of  the 
sky,  and  branch  of  idle  leaves  flickering  in  the  sun. 
has  a  strange  witchery.  The  poor  pursuits  of  this 
drossy  world  grow  passing  insignificant ;  and  the 
scrawled  and  blotted  manuscripts  of  an  editor's  table 
— pleasant  anodyne  as  they  are  when  the  wind  is  in 
the  east — are,  at  these  seasons,  but  the  "  Diary  of  an 
Ennuyee" — the  notched  calendar  of  confinement  and 
unrest.  The  commendatory  sentence  stands  half- 
completed;  the  fate  of  the  author  under  review,  with 
his  two  volumes,  is  altogether  of  less  importance  than 
five  minutes  of  the  life  of  that  tame  pigeon  that  sits 
on  the  eaves  washing  his  white  breast  in  the  spout ; 
and  the  public  good-will,  and  the  cause  of  literature, 
and  our  own  precarious  livelihood,  all  fade  into  dim 
shadow,  and  leave  us  listening  dreamily  to  the  creep- 
ing of  the  sweet  south  upon  the  vine,  or  the  far-off 
rattle  of  the  hourly,  with  its  freight  of  happy  bowlers 
and  gentlemen  of  suburban  idleness. 

What  is  it  to  us,  when  the  sun  is  shining,  and  the 
winds  bland  and  balmy,  and  the  moist  roads  with  theii 
fresh  smell  of  earth  tempting  us  away  to  the  hills — 
what  is  it,  then,  to  us,  whether  a  poor-devil-author 
has  a  flaw  in  his  style,  or  our  own  leading  article  a 
"local  habitation  and  a  name?"  Are  we  to  thrust 
down  our  heart  like  a  reptile  into  its  cage,  and  close 
our  shutter  to  the  cheerful  light,  and  our  ear  to  all 
sounds  of  out-door  happiness  ?  Are  we  to  smother 
our  uneasy  impulses,  and  chain  ourselves  down  to  a 
poor,  dry  thought,  that  has  neither  light,  nor  music, 
nor  any  spell  in  it,  save  the  poor  necessity  of  occu- 
pation ?  Shall  we  forget  the  turn  in  the  green  lane 
where  we  are  wont  to  loiter  in  our  drive,  and  the  cool 


EPHEMERA. 


589 


claret  of  our  friend  at  the  Hermitage,  and  the  glorious 
golden  summer  sunset  in  which  we  bowl  away  to  the 
city_mUsing  and  refreshed?  Alas— yes!  the  heart 
must  be  closed,  and  the  green  lane  and  the  friend  that 
is  happier  than  we  (for  he  is  idle)  must  be  forgotten, 
and  the  dry  tboafht  must  be  dragged  up  like  a  wilful 
steer  and  yoked  to  its  fellow,  and  the  magnificent  sun- 
set, with  all  its  glorious  dreams  and  forgetful  hap- 
piness, must  be  seen  in  the  pauses  of  articles,  and 
the  "bleared  een"  of  painful  attention — and  all  this 
in  June — prodigal  June — when  the  very  worm  is  all 
day  out  in  the  sun,  and  the  birds  scarce  stop  their 
singing  from  the  gray  light  to  the  dewfall ! 

What  an  insufferable  state  of  the  thermometer! 
We  knock  under  to  Heraclitus,  that  fire  is  the  first 
principle  of  all  things.  Fahrenheit  at  one  hundred 
degrees  in  the  shade  !  Our  curtain  in  the  attic 
unstirred  !  Our  japonica  drooping  its  great  white 
flowers  lower  and  lower.  It  is  a  fair  scene,  indeed ! 
not  a  ripple  from  the  pier  to  the  castle,  and  the  sur- 
face of  the  water,  as  Shelley  says,  "  like  a  plane  of 
glass  spread  out  between  two  heavens" — and  there  is 
a  solitary  sloop,  with  the  light  and  shade  flickering  on 
its  loose  sail,  positively  hung  in  the  air — and  a  gull,  it 
is  refreshing  to  see  him,  keeping  down  with  his  white 
wings  close  to  the  water,  as  if  to  meet  his  own  snowy 
and  perfect  shadow.  Was  ever  such  intense,  unmiti- 
gated sunshine  ?  There  is  nothing  on  the  hard, 
opaque  sky,  but  a  mere  rag  of  a  cloud,  like  a  handker- 
chief on  a  tablet  of  blue  marble,  and  the  edge  of  the 
shadow  of  that  tall  chimney  is  as  definite  as  a  hair, 
and  the  young  elm  that  leans  over  the  fence  is  copied 
in  perfect  and  motionless  leaves  like  a  very  painting 
on  the  broad  sidewalk.  How  delightful  the  night 
will  be  after  such  a  deluge  of  light !  How  beautiful 
the  modest  rays  of  the  starlight,  and  the  cool  dark 
blue  of  the  heavens  will  seem  after  the  dazzling  clear- 
ness of  this  sultry  noon  !  It  reminds  one  of  that  ex- 
quisite passage  in  Thalaba,  where  the  spirit-bird 
comes,  when  his  eyes  are  blinded  with  the  intense 
brightness  of  the  snow,  and  spreads  her  green  wings 
before  him ! 


I  went  to  the  Opera  last  night  for  the  first  time. 
The  theatre  was  filled  half  an  hour  before  the  rising 
of  the  curtain,  and  with  a  very  fashionable  audience. 
The  ladies  had  not  quite  made  up  their  minds  whether 
it  was  a  full-dress  affair,  but  the  pit  and  boxes  had  a 
very  pari.  look.  The  neighborhood  of  the  orchestra, 
particularly,  looked  very  Parisian  and  dressy,  as  the 
French  beaux  (whose  heads  are  distinguishable  from 
Yankee  heads  by  their  soigne  trimness  and  polish) 
crystallize  to  the  beau-nucleus  of  foreign  theatres — 
the  stalies  between  stage  and  pit!  One  of  the  drop- 
curtains  was  a  view  of  Paris;  and  the  principal  cur- 
tain, though  representing,  I  believe,  the  Croton  res- 
ervoirs, had  a  foreground  of  figures  such  as  are  never 
to  be  seen  on  this  side  of  the  Atlantic. 

The  opera  was  "  L'Ambassadrice,  by  Auber,"  and 
the  orchestra  played  the  overture  with  a  spirit  and  fin- 
ish of  execution  which  was  quite  enchanting.  It 
was  much  the  highest  treat  in  music  which  I  have 
yet  had  in  this  country.  The  story  of  the  opera  has 
been  the  rounds  of  the  papers — an  actress  marrying 
an  ambassador,  trying  the  mortifications  and  vexations 
of  sudden  elevation  to  high-life,  and  returning  to  her 
profession.  As  a  play,  it  was  very  indifferently  per- 
formed, with  the  exception  only  of  the  part  of  the 
duenna  by  Madame  Mathieu.  As  an  actress  of  com- 
edy (if  I  may  judge  after  seeing  her  once)  we  have  no 
one  in  our  theatres  at  all  comparable  to  this  lady. 
Madame  Lecourt  was  next  best,  and  the  rest,  as  play- 
ers, were  not  worth  criticising.  As  an  opera,  the  mu- 
sic rested  entirely  on  the  orchestra  and  the  prima  don- 
na, the  tenor  being   good   for  nothing,  and   the   rest 


mere  stopgaps.  The  great  attraction  put  forward  in 
the  advertisements  was  Mademoiselle  Calve\  the  pri- 
ma donna,  and,  seeing  and  hearing  her  over  such  very 
large  capitals,  I  was  somewhat  disappointed.  Mad- 
emoiselle Calve  has  had  a  very  narrow  escape  of  be- 
ing a  remarkably  pretty  person.  Indeed,  filled  out  to 
her  model — plump  as  Nature  intended  her  to  be — she 
would  be  very  handsome;  and  to  be  what  every  young 
Frenchwoman  is,  is  far  on  the  road  to  beauty — grace 
and  manner,  which  are  common  to  them  all,  having 
so  much  to  do  with  the  effect  of  the  celestial  gift. 
But  though  she  trips  charmingly  across  the  stage, 
gives  charming  glances,  dresses  charmingly,  and  would 
probably  be  a  very  charming  acquaintance,  she  is  an 
inanimate  and  inexpressive  actress.  When,  for  ex- 
ample, she  discovers  suddenly  that  her  old  lover  is  in 
her  presence  (she  becomes  a  dutchess  and  he  still  in 
his  profession  as  first  tenor),  she  exclaims,  "  Bene- 
dict!" as  quietly  as  if  she  were  calling  her  brother  to 
bring  her  a  chair.  There  is  no  interest  in  her  acting 
— far  less  any  enthusiasm  or  passion.  She  sings, 
however,  with  great  sweetness  and  correctness,  and, 
if  she  were  not  over-advertised,  she  would  probably 
surprise  most  persons  agreeably.  After  all,  she  is  a 
great  acquisition  to  the  amusements  of  the  city,  and 
I  hope,  for  one,  that  she  and  the  "troop"  may  find  it 
worth  their  while  to  do  pendulum  regularly  between 
this  and  New  Orleans. 

Niblo's  Garden  opened  last  week  for  the  season, 
and  to  compare  it  to  "a  scene  of  enchantment"  would 
be  doing  great  injustice  to  its  things  to  drink.  I  spe- 
cify this  because  public  gardens  are  commonly  very 
slipslop  in  what  they  term  their  "  refreshments,"  and 
(as  it  was  a  very  exhausting  night  for  the  bodily 
juices)  we  had  an  opportunity  of  testing  the  quality 
of  ices  and  "  coblers."  This  aside,  there  is  a  great 
deal  about  Niblo's,  probably,  that  is  very  like  enchant- 
ment. The  ticket  (price  fifty  cents)  admits  you  to  a 
brilliantly-illuminated  hall,  opening  on  one  side  to  a 
delicious  conservatory  full  of  the  rarest  plants,  and  on 
the  other  to  a  labyrinthine  garden  glittering  with 
lights  and  flowers ;  large  mirrors  at  either  end  of  the 
hall  make  it  look  interminable,  and  the  walks  are  so 
ingeniously  twisted  around  fountains  and  shrubberies, 
as  to  seem  interminable  too;  and  in  the  immense  hall 
of  refreshment  there  is  a  bifrons  bar,  which  effectu- 
ally embarrasses  you  as  to  the  geography  of  your  ju- 
lep— all  very  mystical  and  stimulative.  Thus  far, 
however,  it  is  only  tributary  to  the  French  theatre, 
which  is  completely  open  on  one  side  to  the  garden, 
with  half  the  audience  out  of  doors,  and  the  lobby  as 
cool  and  summery  as  a  garden-alley.  Between  the 
acts  the  audience  go  out  and  air  and  ice  themselves, 
and  a  resounding  gong  gives  notice  to  the  stragglers 
in  the  labyrinths  that  the  curtain  is  rising.  I  have 
seen  no  public  place  so  well  appointed  as  this — waiters 
badged  and  numbered — seats  commodious,  and  ser- 
vice prompt — and,  above  all,  a  very  strict  watch  at  the 
door  for  the  exclusion  of  miscellany. 

The  play  was  "Z,e  Vicomle  de  Peturieres" — a  kind 
of  Frenchification  of  Don  Juan.  The  young  vaurien 
was  played  by  Madame  Lecourt,  and  played  with  a 
charm  of  talent  and  vivacity  for  which  her  personifi- 
cation of  Charlotte,  in  "  L,Ambassadrice,,,  had  not 
prepared  me.  She  is  the  very  soul  of  witching  espie- 
glerie,  and  made  love  and  did  mischief  in  her  hose 
and  doublet  to  the  perfect  delight  of  the  audience. 
The  other  members  of  the  French  company  have 
very  much  improved  on  the  public  liking  since  their 
first  appearance,  and,  with  more  or  less  excellence, 
they  all  belong  to  a  good  school  of  acting.  The  pri- 
ma donna,  Mademoiselle  Calve,  is  too  ill  to  appear. 


One  likes  to  see  every  best  thing  of  its  kind  in  the 
world,  and  never  having  been   pretent  at  any  of  the 


590 


EPHEMERA. 


Fashion's  races,  I  took  a  cold  ride  to  Long  Island 
to  see  her  gallop  over  the  course.  On  the  way  I 
picked  up  some  of  the  statistics  of  milk,  from  a  com- 
municative fellow-passenger  "who  knew,"  and  it 
may  or  may  not  surprise  you  to  know  that  there  are 
three  qualities  in  this  supposed  innocent  simple  of  na- 
ture. There  is  milk — milk  once  watered,  and  milk 
twice  watered  ;  and  sold  as  such,  with  three  prices,  by 
the  owners  of  the  dairies,  to  the  venders  in  the  city. 
A  friend  of  my  companion  is  a  dairyman,  he  told  me, 
and  supplies  the  American  hotel  with  milk  No.  1,  at 
a  high  price  ;  so  that  in  the  milk  line,  at  least,  we 
may  certify  that  Mr.  Cozzens  cozens  us  not.  Un- 
luckily for  the  Long  Island  cowmongers,  the  long  arm 
of  the  Erie  railroad  has  taken  to  milking  Orange 
county  for  the  New  York  market,  and  the  profits  of 
milk  and  water  have  very  much  diminished  with  the 
competition. 

It  was  the  great  day  of  the  Union  races,  but  the 
course  presented  a  very  dreary  sight.  There  were 
just  people  enough  to  make  solitude  visible,  and  the 
"timer"  in  the  stand  looked  as  bleak  as  a  bell-ringer 
setting  the  clock  on  a  cold  day  in  a  country  belfry. 
Here  and  there  one  of  the  jockey-club  walked  about 
with  bis  blue  badge  forlorn  in  his  buttonhole,  and 
here  and  there  an  unhappy-looking  pie-seller  set  down 
his  full  baskets  to  blow  his  fingers;  and  there  were  a 
few  sporting  trotters  in  sulkies,  and  two  turnouts  such 
as  are  common  at  races,  and  a  wight  or  two  like  my- 
self wondering  who  enjoyed  the  "  sport"  except  the 
riders.  All  of  a  sudden  a  single  horse  was  discovered 
half  round  the  course,  and  before  I  could  find  out 
what  it  was,  Fashion  had  made  one  of  her  two-hun- 
dred-dollar rounds.  To  take  the  eight  hundred  (un- 
contested sweepstakes),  she  was  obliged  to  go  around 
four  times,  and  I  had  a  good  opportunity  to  see  her 
movement.  She  is  smaller  than  I  expected,  and  runs 
less  like  a  horse  and  more  like  a  greyhound  than  any 
racer  I  have  seen.  Sorrel  is  a  color  I  dislike  in  beard 
or  horsehair,  and  her  complexion  suited  me  not;  but, 
in  make,  action,  and  particularly  in  expression  of  face, 
Fashion  is  an  admirable  creature.  Of  course  it  takes 
a  sporting-eye  to  admire  the  tension  of  muscle  in 
high  training,  and  the  queen  of  the  course  would  be 
a  better  model  for  a  sculptor  after  a  month's  grass  ; 
but  she  is  a  beautiful  sight,  and  even  with  the  little  I 
have  seen  of  her,  I  should  know  her  again  among  a 
thousand  horses — so  marked  is  superiority,  in  horse  or 
man. 

The  other  races  were  nothing  very  extraordinary. 
I  started  for  home,  cold  and  sorry.  On  the  road  our 
jarvey  stopped  to  "  water  horses  and  liquor  passen- 
gers," and  I  got  sight  of  a  dance  calculated  to  soften 
my  next  criticism  of  the  Park  ballet.  A  ferret-eyed 
fiddler  struck  up  a  tune,  and  an  old  farmer  with  gray 
hairs  and  one  "hermit  tooth,"  jumped  into  the  mid- 
dle of  the  barroom  and  commenced  a  jig.  As  the 
spring  of  his  instep  had  gone  with  his  teeth,  he  did 
the  work  on  his  unmitigated  heels,  and  a  more  sturdy 
performance  I  never  saw.  He  danced  in  greatcoat 
and  hat,  with  whip  in  hand,  and,  after  ending  his 
dance  by  jumping  up  into  a  chair  and  dropping  down 
from  it  like  a  pavior's  beetle,  he  paid  for  amusing  the 
spectators  (and  this  was  not  a  la  Fanny  the  "divine") 
by  giving  the  fiddler  half  a  dollar.  With  a  look 
round  at  the  company,  and  an  inquiry  whether  any- 
body would  like  "something  wet,"  he  took  his  drink 
and  got  into  his  wagon.  This  is  one  man's  taste  in  a 
flare-up. 


There  is  a  great  change  in  the  "surface  of  society" 
within  the  last  two  days — straw  and  white  hats  having 
become  nearly  universal.  As  we  are  a  nation  of  black 
coats  (the  English  call  Broadway  a  procession  of  un- 
dertakers), this  somewhat  brightens  up  the  superficial 


aspect  of  the  city.  Summer  came  upon  us  with  a 
jump  out  of  a  raw  easterly  fog,  and  what  with  the 
lack  of  premonition,  and  the  natural  incredulity  of 
flannel  waistcoats,  people  went  about  yesterday  clad 
for  cold  weather  and  looking  uncomfortably  hot.  To- 
day the  surprised  clouds  are  gathering  for  a  thunder- 
storm. 

I  see  by  the  papers  that  the  snow  prophesied  for 
June  by  Lorenzo  Dow,  has  fallen  in  several  parts  of 
the  country.  The  other  two  horns  of  his  triple 
prophesy  for  June,  1843,  have  also  come  true,  for 
there  is  "no  king  in  England,"  and  "no  president 
over  the  United  States" — strictly  speaking. 

I  quite  longed  yesterday  for  a  magnetic  eye,  to 
look  into  the  heads  of  two  or  three  Chinese  who 
were  let  loose  in  the  vestibule  of  the  Astor,  newly 
landed  from  a  Canton  trader.  Their  "  first  impres- 
sions" of  New  York,  fully  daguerreotyped,  would  be 
amusing.  I  understand  they  have  come  over  in  the 
suite  of  the  Rev.  Mr.  Boone,  missionary  from  Ku- 
lang-sa  (wherever  that  is). 

During  the  summer  solstice,  the  guests  at  the  gen- 
tleman's ordinary  at  the  Astor  are  to  be  furnished 
with  linen  jackets  to  dine  in — one  on  the  back  of  ev- 
ery chair,  "without  respect  of  (the  size  of)  persons." 
I  am  told  privately  that  half  the  expense  of  these  airy 
furnishings  is  borne  by  the  venders  of  fancy  suspend- 
ers, as  it  is  presumed  that  no  gentleman  will  be  willing 
to  "  shift  himself"  before  company  who  is  not  daintily 
provided  in  this  line. 

Fond,  as  we  are  reproached  with  being,  of  foreign- 
ers in  the  ornamental  walks  of  society,  I  observe,  by 
the  general  tenor  of  advertisements,  that  we  prefer  the 
indigenous  worky.  "  Wanted,"  says  an  advertiser  in 
the  True  Sun,  "  a  smart  American  woman  xcho  can  go 
right  through  with  the  work  of  a  small  religious  fam- 
ily." Vague  as  this  specification  would  seem  to  an 
English  eye,  the  advertiser's  want  is  most  definitely 
expressed  to  an  American. 

You  will  have  seen  with  regret  the  accounts  of  the 
sudden  death  of  Mr.  Abbott — one  of  the  few  remain- 
ing actors  of  the  Kemble  school.  He  was,  in  private 
life,  one  of  the  most  agreeable  and  cultivated  of  men, 
and  is  deeply  regretted.  I  understand  that  his  widow 
is  entitled  to  a  pension  from  the  Theatrical  Fund  of 
London,  of  about  seven  hundred  dollars  per  annum. 
She  was  married  to  him  a  few  months  since — a  Miss 
Buloid  of  the  Park  theatre.  Abbott  is  said  to  have 
been,  in  his  youth,  one  of  the  gay  associates  of  the 
Prince  of  Wales. 

The  Broughams  have  returned  from  Boston,  and 
commenced  an  engagement  at  the  Park  Theatre. 
We  are  likely  to  have  no  more  theatrical  importations 
for  some  time,  I  think,  the  late  declension  of  the 
drama  having  somewhat  damped  the  repute  in  Lon- 
don of  American  starring.  Actors  coming  out,  now, 
require  an  advance,  and  an  insurance  of  a  certain  de- 
gree of  success,  and  this  our  managers  are  not  in  a 
condition  to  pay.  The  sufferers  by  theatrical  depres- 
sion in  this  country  are  the  actors,  who  do  not  get 
their  money  unless  they  draw  it.  In  England  the 
manager  must  pay  his  company,  by  the  law  of  rigor- 
ous usage,  and  he  is  the  sufferer  till  his  theatre  closes. 
Booth  has  been  playing  wonderfully  well  at  the 
Park  of  late,  and  I  understand  that  the  prelty  Mrs. 
Hunt  has  been  cast  in  one  or  two  new  characters, 
which  have  drawn  out  her  abilities,  very  much  to  the 
pleasure  and  surprise  of  the  theatre-goers. 

Broadway  has  a  very  holyday  aspect  now  from  the 
competition  in  the  splendor  of  omnibuses.  Several 
new  ones  of  mammoth  size  have  been  turned  out, 
drawn  by  four  and  six  horses,  and  painted  in  the  gay- 
est colors.  The  handsomest  one  I  have  seen  is  called 
"The  Edwin  Forrest." 

The  Scotch,  who  have  formed  themselves  into  a 
military  company,  and  dress  in  the  uniform  of  the 


EPHEMERA. 


591 


highland  regiments  of  the  British  army,  came  out 
yesterday  in  philebig  and  tartan,  making  a  most  im- 
posing and  gallant  appearance.     The  bare  legs  looked 
rather  cool  in  Broadway,  but  nature  suits  the  animal 
to  his  native  climate,  and  Scotch  legs  are  very  com- 
fortably hair*"      2  observed  that  a  physician,  with  no 
distinctive  dress  except  a  plaid  scarf  over  his  shoul- 
der, walked  with  the  lieutenant — ready  for  minister-  I 
ing  to  any  member  of  the  corps  who  might  find  the  ! 
exposure  unsalutary.     He  should  be  skilled  in  curing  | 
rheumatism,  I  should  say.     Apropos  of  adaptations  of  ; 
the  physiological  features  to  climate,  it  is  said,  I  know 
not  with  how  much  truth,  that  there  are  islands  north  i 
of  Great  Britain  where  the   females  are  web-footed.  I 
Hence,  perhaps,  Grace  Darling's  heroic  self-confidence  j 
on  the  water. 

New  York  is  all  alive  with  a  new  musical  prodigy —  j 
Mr.  Wallace.     There  is  no  doubt  that  he  is  so  far  the  ] 
best  pianist  we  have  ever  heard  in  this  country,  as  to  | 
dwarf  all  others  in  comparison.     The  musical  people  j 
all  allow  this  with  enthusiasm.     As  a  violinist,  those 
who  should  know  say  he  is  equal  to  Paganini.     I  have  j 
not  heard  him,  but  I  understand  he  is  a  most  uncon-  i 
scions   man  of  genius,  very  eccentric,  and  is  on  his 
way  back  to  Ireland,  after  having  traversed  South  and  [ 
North  America  on  foot.     His  pedestrian  and  musical  \ 
passions  are  strangely  compounded.     He  has  set  to  a  j 
magnificent  air  a  national  anthem,  which   has  been 
sung  by  the  class  under  the  direction  of  Mr.  George 
Loder,  of  this  city,  with  immense  eflfect.     In  this  an- 
them Mr.  Wallace  has  made  a  remarkable  contribu- 
tion to  the  musical  stores  of  this  country. 


Editors  have  a  very  sublime  way  of  lumping  Eu- 
rope, Asia,  Africa,  and  America,  and  under  the  dimin- 
ished monosyllable  of  the  "world,"  spanning  it  with 
their  reflections  as  they  would  shade  an  ant-hill  with 
an  umbrella.  We  tell  you  with  becoming  coolness 
what  the  "  gay  world"  is  about,  viz. :  that  a  few  fami- 
lies up-town  have  taken  to  giving  matinees.  By  the 
"pious  world,"  we  convey  the  Broadway  Tabernacle — 
by  the  "  mercantile  world,"  Wall  street  or  Pearl.  The 
English  have  become  tired  of  the  phrase,  and  call  the 
world  "Mrs.  Grundy."  What  will  be  said  about  any- 
thing, anywhere  between  the  antipodes,  is,  "  what  will 
Mrs.  Grundy  say?"  And  we  like  this — (as  we  like  I 
anything  which  aggrandizes  the  editorial  individual) — 
only  there  is  the  little  inconvenience,  that  when  we 
wish  to  speak  of  the  world,  as  defined  in  the  diction- 
ary, we  are  subjected  to  a  periphrasis  which  cumbers 
our  style,  or  we  have  to  explain  that  we  really  mean 
Europe,  Asia,  Africa,  and  America. 

The  world  is  getting  on — wrote  we  at  the  head  of 
this  article,  and  scratched  it  out  again  till  we  had  made 
a  comment  on  the  phrase.  We  were  going  into  a 
little  disquisition  on  the  evident  approach  of  a  new 
order  of  things  under  the  sun,  as  shown  by  wonderful 
changes  and  discoveries  all  over  the  world — apropos, 
however,  of  a  very  interesting  book  which  has  just 
fallen  into  our  hands,  and  of  which  we  wish  to  give  the 
essence  to  the  reader,  in  brief.  We  will  omit  the  dis- 
quisition on  the  approach  of  the  millenium  (to  write 
which,  to  say  the  truth,  we  sat  down  this  morning), 
for  the  weather  is  too  hot,  on  second  thoughts,  to  do 
more  than  allude  to  a  subject  connected  with  a  gen- 
eral conflagration.  Let  us  come  at  once  to  the  book 
in  question. 

Elevation  by  hemp  has  been  considered  a  sovereign 
remedy  for  low  spirits,  and  indeed  for  most  of  the  in- 
tolerable evils  of  life — subject,  however,  to  the  draw- 
back that  the  remedy  could  be  used  but  once.  Will  our 
readers  believe  that  this  drawback  is  entirely  removed 
by  a  late  discovery  ? 


Intoxication  has  been  long  known  to  be  a  state  of  very 
considerable  happiness,  subject  to  a  "  tariff  which 
amounts  to  a  prohibition,"  viz. :  complete  destruction 
of  the  physical  man  by  the  residuum.  Will  the 
reader  believe  that,  by  this  same  discovery,  the  resid- 
uous  penalty  is  removed  ? 

By  the  same  discovery,  the  hydrophobia  is  changed 
to  a  death  of  physical  pleasure — acute  and  chronic 
rheumatism  are  first  modified  into  ecstasy,  then 
cured — a  "  persuasion  of  high  rank"  is  engendered  in 
the  bosom  of  the  humblest,  a  "  feeling  as  if  flying"  is 
communicated  to  the  dullest  and  most  plethoric.  And 
all  this  with  no  penalty,  no  subsequent  physical  pros- 
tration, none  of  the  long  train  of  evils  which,  till  now, 
have  been  the  inseparable  pursuers  of  intoxication. 

In  telling  our  readers  thus  much,  we  have  given 
them  the  butt-end  of  one  of  the  most  curious  subjects 
we  have  for  a  long  time  been  called  upon  to  handle. 
What  we  have  said  is  far  from  a  joke.  A  drug  has 
been  discovered  by  the  English  in  India,  which  has 
these  wonderful  properties  ;  and  the  mode  in  which  it 
is  gathered,  which  we  will  tell  with  the  same  butt- 
endity,  is  as  novel  as  the  drug.  "  Men  clad  in  leathern 
dresses  run  through  the  fields,  brushing  through  the 
plant  with  all  possible  violence;  the  soft  resin  adheres 
to  the  leather,  and  is  subsequently  scraped  off,  and 
kneaded  into  balls.  In  Nipal  the  leathern  attire  is 
dispensed  with,  and  the  resin  is  gathered  on  the  skins 
of  naked  natives." 

The  plant  from  which  this  extraordinary  drug  is  ex- 
tracted, is  Indian  hemp  ;  differing  from  the  hemp  of 
this  and  other  northern  countries  only  by  the  presence 
of  this  narcotic  stimulant.  There  are  several  prepara- 
tions of  it — one  for  smoking,  one  for  sweetmeats,  and 
others  for  beverages  and  medical  compounds — but  the 
effects  are,  with  slight  variations,  the  same.  "From 
the  beverage,  intoxication  ensues  in  half  an  hour. 
The  inebriation  is  of  the  most  cheerful  kind,  causing 
the  person  to  sing  and  dance,  to  eat  food  with  great 
relish.  The  intoxication  lasts  about  three  hours, 
when  sleep  supervenes.  No  nausea  or  sickness  of  the 
stomach  succeeds,  nor  are  the  bowels  at  all  affected." 

The  preparation  for  smoking  is  called  gunjah,  the 
confection  is  called  majoon,  and  the  resin  is  called 
churrus.  Gunjah  is  used  for  smoking  only.  One 
hundred  and  eighty  grains,  and  a  little  dried  tobacco, 
are  rubbed  in  the  palm  of  the  hand,  with  a  few  drops 
of  water.  This  suffices  for  three  persons.  A  little 
tobacco  is  placed  in  the  pipe  first,  then  a  layer  of  the 
prepared  gunjah,  then  more  tobacco,  and  the  fire 
above  all. 

Four  or  five  persons  usually  join  in  this  debauch. 
The  hookah  is  passed  round,  and  each  person  takes  a 
single  draught.  Intoxication  ensues  almost  instantly; 
and  from  one  draught  to  the  unaccustomed,  within 
half  an  hour;  and  after  four  or  five  inspirations  to 
those  more  practised  in  the  vice.  The  effects  differ 
from  those  occasioned  by  the  sidhee.  Heaviness,  la- 
ziness, and  agreeable  reveries,  ensue  ;  but  the  person 
can  be  readily  roused,  and  is  able  to  discharge  routine 
occupations,  such  as  pulling  the  punkah,  waiting  at 
table,  &c.  We  add  the  following  passages  from  the 
treatise : — 

"  The  fourth  case  of  trial  was  an  old  muscular 
cooley,  a  rheumatic  malingerer,  and  to  him  half  a 
grain  of  hemp  resin  was  given  in  a  little  spirit.  The 
first  day's  report  will  suffice  for  all :  In  two  hours  the 
old  gentleman  became  talkative  and  musical,  told  sev- 
eral stories,  and  sang  songs  to  a  circle  of  highly-de- 
lighted auditors,  ate  the  dinners  of  two  persons  sub- 
scribed for  him  in  the  ward,  sought  also  for  other  lux- 
uries we  can  scarcely  venture  to  allude  to,  and  finally 
fell  soundly  asleep,  and  so  continued  till  the  following 
morning.  On  the  noonday  visit,  he  expressed  himself 
free  from  headache  or  any  other  unpleasant  sequel, 
and  begged  hard  for  a  repetition  of  the  medicine,  in 


592 


EPHEMERA. 


which  he  was  indulged  for  a  few  days  and  then  dis- 
charged. 

"While  the  preceding  case  was  under  treatment, 
and  exciting  the  utmost  interest  in  the  school,  several 
pupils  commenced  experiments  on  themselves  to  as- 
certain the  effects  of  the  drug.  In  all,  the  state  of  the 
pulse  was  noted  before  taking  a  dose,  and  subsequently 
the  effects  were  observed  by  two  pupils  of  much  intel- 
ligence. The  result  of  several  trials  was,  that  in  as 
small  doses  as  a  quarter  of  a  grain  the  pulse  was 
increased  in  fulness  and  frequency  ;  the  surface  of 
the  body  glowed;  the  appetite  became  extraordinary  ; 
vivid  ideas  crowded  the  mind  ;  unusual  loquacity  oc- 
curred ;  and,  with  scarcely  any  exception,  great  aph- 
rodisia  was  experienced. 

"  In  one  pupil,  Dinonath  Dhur,  a  retiring  lad  of 
excellent  habits,  ten  drops  of  the  tincture,  equal  to  a 
quarter  of  a  grain  of  the  resin,  induced  in  twenty 
minutes  the  most  amusing  effects  I  ever  witnessed.  A. 
shout  of  laughter  ushered  in  the  symptoms,  and  a 
transitory  state  of  cataleptic  rigidity  occurred  for  two 
or  three  minutes.  Summoned  to  witness  the  effects, 
we  found  him  enacting  the  part  of  a  rajah  giving  or- 
ders to  his  courtiers.  He  could  recognise  none  of  his 
fellow-students  or  acquaintances;  all,  to  his  mind, 
seemed  as  altered  as  his  own  condition.  He  spoke 
of  many  years  having  passed  since  his  student's  days ; 
described  his  teachers  and  friends  with  a  piquancy 
which  a  dramatist  would  envy;  detailed  the  adventures 
of  an  imaginary  series  of  years,  his  travels,  his  attain- 
ment of  wealth  and  power.  He  entered  on  discus- 
sions on  religious,  scientific,  and  political  topics,  with 
astonishing  eloquence,  and  disclosed  an  extent  of 
knowledge,  reading,  and  a  ready,  apposite  wit,  which 
those  who  knew  him  best  were  altogether  unprepared 
for.  For  three  hours,  and  upward,  he  maintained  the 
character  he  at  first  assumed,  and  with  a  degree  of 
ease  and  dignity  perfectly  becoming  his  high  situation. 
A  scene  more  interesting,  it  would  be  difficult  to  ima- 
gine. It  terminated  nearly  as  suddenly  as  it  com- 
menced, and  no  headache,  sickness,  or  other  unpleas- 
ant symptom,  followed  the  innocent  excess." 

The  treatise  on  this  subject,  from  which  we  have 
made  the  foregoing  extracts,  is  a  reprint  from  the 
Transactions  of  the  Medical  Society  of  Calcutta,  and 
written  by  a  surgeon  in  the  Bengal  army,  Mr. 
O'Shaughnessy,  now  in  this  country.  It  is,  as  our 
readers  will  have  seen  by  the  extracts,  a  very  able 
treatise  ;  and  the  experiments,  of  which  we  had  only 
room  to  quote  here  and  there  an  exponent  passage, 
are  described  with  most  lucid  clearness.  We  may 
refer  to  this  interesting  topic  again. 


On  the  day  the  president  arrived,  the  be-windowed 
houses  of  New  York  seemed  to  have  none  too  many 
windows,  and  if  all  the  men  on  the  tiles  had  been  Ty- 
ler men,  the  president's  party  might  for  once  have 
been  declared  formidably  uppermost.  We  know  sev- 
eral things  since  Mr.  Tyler's  visit:  how  many  people 
roofs  will  hold  ;  how  many  heads  can  look  out  of  one 
window  ;  for  how  little  ladies  will  wave  their  pocket- 
handkerchiefs  ;  "  what  swells  the  soldier's  warlike 
breast"  (or,  rather,  what  becomes  of  all  the  cotton) ; 
how  much  extra  horse  hair  it  takes  to  make  a  dra- 
goon ;  how  unanimous  a  prayer  may  be  put  up  by 
four  hundred  thousand  people,  for  the  cutting  of  the 
hair  of  a  "prince  royal ;"  how  the  devils  may  be  cast 
out  of  a  barouche  and  four,  commonly  used  to  take 
frailty  to  the  races,  and  how  a  chief  magistrate  and  his 
suite  may  innocently  enter  in  ;  how  gayly  a  city  may 
be  dressed  with  flags,  partly  for  the  president  of  fif- 
teen millions  of  freemen,  and  partly  for  the  "  fat  girl" 
of  the  museum ;  what  endurance  of  horses'  hoofs  lies 
in  the  toes  of  female  "freemen;"  and  how  long  and 


far,  at  a  "sink-a-pace,"  will  last  the  smile  of  Mr 
Tyler. 

I  presume  the  entire  sanitary  and  locomotive  popu. 
lation  of  New  York  turned  out  to  the  show,  and  a  very 
fine  show  it  was  altogether.  The  military  companies 
would  alone  have  made  a  sight  worth  coming  far  to  see, 
for  (by  the  measurement  on  Broadway)  their  brilliant 
uniforms  cover  a  mile  and  a  half — an  expanse  of  tail- 
oring (with  the  exception  of  the  trouserless  High- 
landers) that  should  make  politicians  deal  kindly  with 
"  cross-legs."  I  remarked,  by  the  way,  that,  though 
all  the  officers  of  the  companies  are  not  fat  men,  all 
the  fat  men  among  them  are  officers — a  tribute  to 
avoirdupois  which  should  delight  the  ghost  of  Sir 
John  Falstaff,  spite  of  his  "  give  me  the  spare  men, 
and  spare  me  the  great  ones."  I  saw  one  of  the 
plethoric  captains  rubbing  the  calf  of  his  leg,  after  his 
march  of  five  or  six  miles  over  the  round  stones,  and 
I  presume  he  might  have  said  to  the  "prince  royal," 
as  Sir  John  did  at  Gadshill,  "  S'blood  !  I'll  not  bear 
mine  own  flesh  as  far  afoot  again,  for  all  the  coin  in 
thy  father's  exchequer." 

Some  English  friends  who  were  with  me,  expressed 
continual  wonder  at  the  total  absence  of  raggedness  or 
poverty  in  the  dress  of  the  populace.  We  can  hardly 
realize  how  striking  is  this  feature  of  our  country  to 
the  eye  of  a  European.  They  were  a  good  deal 
amused,  too,  with  the  republican  license  given  to  a 
fellow  on  horseback,  either  drunk  or  saucy,  who  chose 
to  ride  in  the  staff  of  one  of  the  generals  with  his  coat 
off,  and  with  the  good-nature  and  forbearance  mani- 
fested by  the  crowd  in  their  occasional  resistings  of  the 
encroachments  of  mounted  constables. 

I  was  told  that  not  only  the  president,  but  his 
friends  and  suite,  were  exceedingly  surprised'  at  the 
reception  given  him.  It  was  certainly,  in  every  way, 
calculated  to  show  the  honor  paid  by  the  people  to 
the  office  of  the  chief  magistrate  ;  and  Mr.  Tyler  can 
not  but  feel,  that  while  hedged  in  with  the  dignity  of 
his  office,  he  is  an  object  of  interest  and  attention 
with  which  mere  politics  conld  have  but  little  to  do. 

The  president  having  got  through  with  the  weather 
of  New  York,  it  was  at  liberty  to  rain  next  day,  and  it 
rained.  The  clouds  parenthesised  his  visit,  laying  the 
dust  the  night  before  he  arrived,  and  holding  up  till  the 
night  after  his  departure.  I  presume  it  did  not  rain  in 
Boston  next  morning — King  Lucky  having  occasion  for 
a  dry  day.  I  have  heard  of  but  one  partial  exception 
to  the  accurate  culmination  of  the  Tyler  star.  The 
officer  in  command  on  the  Battery,  finding  that  he 
could  uot  see  through  the  walls  of  Castle  Garden,  re- 
quested to  have  a  flag  raised,  or  some  other  sign  giv- 
en, to  make  the  movement  for  the  salute,  when  the 
president  should  land.  "  Oh  !"  said  the  marshal, 
"  you  needn't  bother  about  that.  You'll  know  by 
the  cheers."  The  cheers  not  being  audible,  however, 
the  artillery  rather  "  hung  fire,"  letting  off  their  con- 
gratulatory welcome  as  the  president  landed — from 
the  high  flight  of  his  oration.  He  had  been  landed 
from  the  steamboat  some  time  before  !  Perhaps  the 
congratulation  was  well  timed,  and  so,  very  likely, 
his  star  (which  must  be  a  planet)  intended  to  plan  it. 
A  man  should  be  felicitated  when  he  touches  terra 
firma  once  more,  after  most  public  speeches. 

There  seems  to  be  a  finger  pointing  the  way,  even 
in  the  picking  of  flowers  by  the  wayside,  for  his  happy 
"Accidency."  Some  pleasurable  surprise  has  been 
expressed  at  the  careful  zeal  with  which  the  president 
kissed  the  ladies  twice  round  on  several  occasions, 
where  a  limited  number  had  been  introduced  to  him. 
I  was  at  a  loss  to  know  how  a  man,  bred  in  a  state 
distinguished  for  the  deferential  proprieties,  should 
have  jumped,  ready-armed,  to  such  an  act  of  popular- 
ity, when  a  visit  to  the  presidential  parlor  at  How- 
ard's explained  the  "  starry  influence."  A  French 
painting,  with  figures  of  the  size  of  life,  representing 


KPHEMERA. 


59* 


Don  Juan  giving  Haidee  a  most  realizing  kiss,  had 
been  introduced  into  the  apartment  by  the  sumptuary 
committee!  There  it  stood,  a  silent  indication  to 
thought  during  his  hours  of  revery,  and  as  the  mys- 
tic intimation  occupied,  frame  and  all,  one  entire 
wall  of  the  room,  the  lesson  was  inevitable.  Sequitur 
the  above-mentioned  liberal  dispensation  of  kisses. 

I  am  told  that  a  game  of  chess  is  child's  play  to  the 
diplomacy  at  work,  during  the  president's  visit,  for  the 
control  of  his  movements.  Office-seekers  and  office- 
holders, "authorities,"  private  friends,  Spartans,  re- 
pealers, whigs,  and  locofocos,  tugged  at  his  ear  and 
button  continually.  I  trust,  if  he  is  fond  of  contrast, 
that  his  ex-excellency  will  try  a  second  first  impres- 
sion of  New  York  a  year  or  two  hence. 

The  president's  departure  was  most  felicitous  as  to 
weather — the  loveliness  of  the  sunset,  and  the  beauty 
of  the  bay,  making  up  for  him  the  finest  of  back- 
ground effects.  Some  hundreds  of  people  were  on 
the  Battery,  and  the  steamboat-wharf  was  crowded 
with  spectators.  As  the  boat  started,  the  crews  of  the 
men-of-war  ran  up  the  rigging  like  disturbed  ants,  and 
saluted  her  as  she  passed  with  three  cheers.  He  went 
out  of  the  harbor  with  relays  of  "  Hail  Columbia," 
the  band  on  board  the  boat  beginning  with  it,  and  the 
two  ships  taking  it  up  as  he  went  along.  So  Colum- 
bia is  decidedly  hailed — if  it  will  do  it  any  good  ! 

t  saw  an  amusing  resurrection  of  a  horse  yesterday. 
One  of  the  military  companies  were  marching  gayly 
down  the  street  on  their  way  to  embark  for  Boston, 
when  a  blind  horse  in  a  swill-cart,  whose  calamity  was 
forgotten  for  the  instant  by  his  occupied  master, 
walked  deliberately  into  one  of  the  Croton  excava- 
tions. The  harness  was  just  strong  enough  to  break 
his  fall,  the  cart  was  left  above  ground,  and  he  stood 
on  the  bottom,  as  comfortably  out  of  the  way  as 
'•  truth  in  a  well."  The  driver  was  a  man  for  an 
emergency,  and,  indeed,  acted  so  much  as  if  it  was 
"  part  of  the  play,"  that  a  Chinese  traveller  would 
probably  have  recorded  it  as  a  melo-dramatic  accom- 
paniment to  the  show.  He  took  off  his  coat  very  qui- 
etly, picked  up  one  of  the  shovels  of  the  absent  work- 
men, and  commenced  filling  up  the  ditch.  The  loose 
dirt  went  in  very  fast,  and  the  horse,  with  an  in- 
stinct against  being  buried  alive,  rose  with  the  sur- 
face. From  being  some  inches  below  the  pavement, 
his  head  was  getting  above  ground  when  I  left  him; 
and  as  the  old  man  was  still  piling  on  very  industri- 
ously, I  presume  he  soon  had  him  once  more  at  the 
level  of  cock-crowing. 

There  have  been  various  definitions  of  "a  gentle- 
man," but  the  prettiest  and  most  poetic  is  that  given 
by  a  young  lady  of  this  city  the  other  day:  "  A  gen- 
tleman," said  she,  "  is  a  human  being,  combining  a 
woman's  tenderness  with  a  man's  courage." 

"  Cheap  literature"  is  shaking  in  its  shoes.  I  un- 
derstand the  publishers  "see  the  expediency"  of  ma- 
king their  editions  more  costly,  and  accommodating 
them  to  the  smaller  sales.  The  great  American  maw 
is  surfeited  with  "  new  novels"  at  last.  I  trust  that 
booksellers  and  authors  will  now  become  slightly  ac- 
quainted. 


What  shall  it  be  ?  If  we  understand  you  rightly, 
you  would  prefer  on  this  last  page,  some  well-con- 
trived nonsense — to  wind  off  trippingly,  as  it  were. 
Wisdom  is  respectable.  Pictures,  poetry,  prose,  pa- 
thos, and  puffery,  are  all  very  well — but  after  being 
instructed,  you  wish  to  be  let  out  of  school.  Js 
that  it? 

Something  about  "  town,"  of  course.  Folly  lives 
here,  all  the  year  round.  Fashion  is  exclusively  ur- 
han.  And  when  we  have  mentioned  these  two,  we 
have  named  the  persons  in  our  acquaintance  about 
•vliom  there  is,  by  much,  the  liveliest  curiosity.  What 
38 


Folly  is  doing  in  town,  and  what  is  the  last  antic  of 
Fashion,  are  departments  of  news  that  are  read  before 
the  deaths  and  marriages — "  as  nobody  can  deny." 
Fashion  be  our  theme,  then,  "for  the  nonce."  We 
would  devote  this  page  to  it  eternally,  if  we  dared. 
That  we  should  please  you  by  so  doing,  we  very  well 
know.  But  the  owl  is  the  king  of  types,  and  wisdom 
has,  of  print,  a  chartered  monopoly — hang  her! 

Well,  madam,  the  fashions.  Let  us  begin  at  the 
small  end  of  the  horn,  and  touch  first  upon  the  crock- 
ery sex — winding  off  with  the  china  and  porcelain. 

The  gentlemen,  who  had  been  previously  let  up, 
have  been  lately  let  down.  Straps  were  abandoned  by 
the  cognoscenti  last  autumn — with  the  first  "slosh." 
Suspenders  were  abandoned  with  the  first  intimation 
of  the  present  summer  solstice.  There  is  at  present 
no  unnatural  restraint  upon  trousers.  They  are  pre- 
vented from  coming  up  by  their  natural  gravity — from 
coming  down  by  being  "caught  on  the  hip."  Shoul- 
ders are  emancipated  from  the  caprices  of  genuflec- 
tion. The  hollow  of  the  foot  suffers  no  longer  from 
the  shrug  of  incredulity.  The  nether  man,  in  short, 
is  free,  sovereign,  and  independent. 

Among  the  advantages  of  this  revolution  is  the 
cleanly  circumstance  that  the  boot,  in  its  nightly  exit, 
is  no  longer  compelled  to  make  a  thoroughfare  of  the 
leg  of  the  pantaloon.  This  is  an  "  inexpressible"  re- 
lief. Buttons,  also,  are  subjected  no  longer  to  the 
severe  trials  of  stooping.  Boots,  unhappily,  can  no 
longer  conceal  their  "  often  infirmities" — high  polish 
and  indifference  to  surprise  and  exposure  being  indis- 
pensable accompaniments  to  their  present  loose  asso- 
ciations. As  an  offset  to  the  expensiveness  of  this, 
the  pantaloons  themselves  will  not  be  so  frequently 
in-kneed. 

Frock-coats  are  going  out  of  fashion,  and  Newmar- 
ket cut-aways  are  worn  for  the  morning.  Very  well 
for  those  who  have  small  hips,  as  the  latter  are  rather 
spready.  This  exacts  also  great  tidiness  in  the  cut  of 
the  "continuations."  Waistcoats  are  made  longer, 
and  with  drooping  wings,  to  conceal  any  little  vagaries 
in  the  newly  emancipated  trousers.  But  this,  too, 
exaggerates  unbecomingly  the  apparent  size  of  the 
hips.  "  The  pyramid  inverted"  is  our  model,  by  the 
laws  of  art,  as  the  "  pyramid  proper"  is  that  of  the 
ladies.  Gaiters  are  the  mode  —  but  they  require  a 
neat  pastern.  Your  greyhound  breed  of  man  looks 
well  in  them.  They  should  be  made  separate  from 
the  shoe,  for  they  require  washing,  and  your  unscru- 
pulous dingy  shoe  is  an  abomination.  Patent  leather, 
of  course,  till  death. 

Hats  are  a  delicate  subject.  There  should  be  as 
many  fashions  of  them  as  there  are  varieties  of  human 
faces.  Indeed,  hats  should  be  destined  and  allotted 
to  men,  as  irrevocably  as  noses  and  hair — suitable  by 
infallible  harmonies  of  physiognomy.  We  should  be 
born  in  hats — hats  that  would  grow  without  materially 
altering  in  shape  or  expression.  We  would  as  soon 
let  a  barber  choose  us  a  nose  as  a  hatter  a  hat.  And 
as  to  a  fashion  in  hats — one  fashion  for  all  men — 
where  is  thy  rebuke,  oh  Nature,  tortured  and  traves- 
tied !  But  still,  fashions  there  be  !  John  Bull  is  at 
present  wearing  his  hat  very  small — the  Frenchman  is 
wearing  his  very  large.  The  Yankee  wears  his  very 
peaked — the  German  wears  his  very  flat.  We  scorn 
to  give  the  encouragement  of  print  to  any  one  of 
these.  Suit  yourself— since  Nature  has  left  you  un- 
finished. Take  counsel  of  an  artist  or  of  a  woman. 
Buy  no  hat  rashly. 

As  to  the  ladies,  we  would  not,  like 

"  Fools,  rush  in  where  angels  fear  to  tread," 
but  we  must  be  permitted  to  record  our  little  private 
distress  and  apprehension  at  the  utter  cessation  of  all 
novelty  in  their  fashions.  The  one  new  stuff  of 
"Balzarine,"  unless  we  are  in  a  most  benighted  state 
of  ignorance,  comprises  the  entire  variety  of  the  sea- 


594 


EPHEMERA. 


son.  We  meet  our  few  sins  of  idolatry  in  the  very 
bonnets,  the  very  boddices,  the  very  namelessnesses 
of  last  year's  product  and  admiration  !  Are  the  brains 
of  milliners  subject  to  drought  ?  Is  invention  dried  up 
— fancy,  imagination,  quite  squeezed  dry?  Are  we  to 
be  subjected  to  sameness  in  angels — one  eternal  and 
unchanging  exterior  ?  Forbid  it,  while  the  world 
continues  sinful,  oh  sumptuary  powers!  We  could 
not  bear,  in  our  present  state  of  mind,  the  angelic  liv- 
ery of  one  eternal  gown  (wings,  if  you  like  to  call  it 
so),  with  no  new  hat,  no  ravishing  garniture  for  the 
shoulders!  Oh  no  !  Immolate  the  milliners  for  their 
dull  brains  !  Turn  your  genius  into  this  seemingly 
exhausted  channel,  oh,  unemployed  painters!  Show 
us  woman — like  the  opal  or  the  cloud — dressed  in 
new  colors  whenever  she  comes  into  the  sun  !  Adora- 
bly sweet  as  she  is,  she  is  sweeter  for  the  outer  spice 
of  variety ! 


If  to  lack  classes  of  society  which  another  nation 
possesses,  be  a  falling  behind  that  nation  in  refine- 
ment (query,  whether !),  we  are  behind  England,  at 
least,  in  this  degree,  that  we  possess  no  class  of  table- 
talkers.  Dinner-parties  in  this  country  are  gather- 
ings-together of  friends,  chiefly  to  eat,  and  to  chat, 
as  it  may  happen.  The  host  has  been  at  great  pains 
to  procure  a  haunch  of  venison,  but  he  has  not 
thought  of  "  the  wit"  for  dinner.  He  has  neither 
overlooked  the  olives  nor  the  currant-jelly — but,  alas! 
the  attic  salt  is  forgotten  !  The  tomatoes  will  flank 
the  roast,  and  the  celery-sauce  the  boiled — but  who 
is  to  listen  to  Doctor  Gabble,  or  draw  out  Alderman 
Mumchance  ?  There  will  be  two  misses  and  no  "  el- 
igible," or  two  eligibles  and  no  miss.  The  dinner  is 
arranged  with  studied  selection,  but  the  guests  are  in- 
vited by  the  alphabet.  The  eating  will  be  zealous  and 
satisfactory,  but  the  "  entertainment"  as  the  god  of 
dulness  pleases. 

So  provides  not  his  dinner,  this  gentleman's  foreign 
correspondent  (we  take  one  of  the  same  class),  in 
Russell  square.  Mr.  Mordaunt  Figgins  (large  trader 
and  small  banker,  of  Throgmorton  street)  wishes,  we 
will  say  for  example,  to  give  a  very  smart  and  impres- 
sive dinner  to  Mr.  Washington,  Wall  street,  just  ar- 
rived with  a  travelling  credit  from  New  York.  The 
butler  sees  to  the  dinner — ca  va  sans  dire.  Who 
shall  be  asked  ?  Smith,  of  course.  His  jokes  will  be  | 
all  new  to  the  Yankee,  and  it  will  look  spirituelle  to 
have  an  author.  He  will  be  sure  to  come — for  Fig- 
gins  discounts  his  bills.  Put  down  Smith.  Who 
next?  We  must  have  a  lord.  Smith  won't  show  off 
without  a  lord,  and  the  American  will  all  but  go  into 
fits  to  meet  one  at  dinner.  Let's  see  !  There's  old 
Lord  Fumble,  always  wanting  to  borrow  ten  pounds. 
Put  down  Lord  Fumble.  So— a  lord  and  a  wit.  Now, 
two  good  listeners.  They  must  be  ladies,  of  course. 
We  shall  have  too  many  black-coats.  What,  ladies 
listen,  Mrs.  Figgins?  The  Pimpkinsons.  Well— they 
are  poor  and  stylish-looking,  and  the  Yankee  knows 
nothing  of  the  blue-book.  Say  the  Pimpkinsons. 
Now  for  a  dandy  or  two,  and  one  handsome  woman 
that  flirts,  in  case  Jonathan  is  a  gay  man.  And,  I 
say,  Mrs.  Figgins,  there'll  be  a  spare  seat,  and  you 
may  ask  your  mother — only  she  must  dress  well  and 
say  nothing  of  "the  shop."  And  duly  at  eight 
o'clock  Mr.  Figgins's  guests  arrive — Smith  wishing 
bills  could  be  discounted  without  black-mail  interest— 
my  Lord  Fumble  turning  up  his  (inward)  nose,  but 
relieved  to  meet  Smith — the  dandies  hungry  and  su- 
percilious— the  Misses  P.  delighted  and  frisky — and 
the  Yankee  excessively  well-dressed  and  dumbfound- 
ed to  meet  Smith  and  a  live  lord.  Smith  talks  to  the 
lord  and  at  the  Yankee,  the  rest  play  their  parts  "as 
cast  in  the  bill,"  and  everybody  goes  off  delighted. 
The  dinner  was  a  hit,  and  Smith  was  "  never  so  bril- 


liant"— if  Mrs.  Figgins  and  Mr.  Washington,  Wall 
street,  can  be  relied  on. 

Let  us  glance  at  another  phase  of  the  "life  of  thf 
diner-out."  Mr.  Smith  has  accepted  one  of  his  mos 
agreeable  invitations — a  west-end  dinnei,  with  a  no- 
bleman for  his  host.  Mr.  Smith  is  the  son  of  a  music- 
master,  and  of  course  was  born  with  an  indisputable 
claim  to  the  supreme  contempt  of  his  noble  convives. 
By  his  talents,  and  more  particularly  by  his  agreenbla 
powers,  however,  he  has  uncurled  the  lip  of  scorn, 
and  moves  in  aristocratic  society,  a  privileged  intru- 
der. In  the  drawing-room,  before  dinner,  Mr.  Smith 
is  ceremoniously  polite — he  is  the  one  man  in  the  com- 
pany who  dare  not  venture  to  be  at  his  ease.  Dinner 
is  announced.  The  ladies  are  handed  down  by  those 
who  are  born  his  betters,  and  he  follows,  silent  and 
alone.  He  takes  the  seat  that  is  left,  wherever  it  be, 
and  feels  that  he  must  be  agreeable  to  his  neighbor, 
whoever  it  be — at  least  till  the  conversation  becomes 
general,  when  he  is  expected  to  shine.  Meantime 
his  brain  is  busier  than  his  stomach,  for  he  is  watch- 
ing for  an  opening  to  a  pun,  and  studying  the  guests 
around  him  to  arm  his  wit  and  lay  traps  for  his  sto- 
ries. If,  by  chance,  he  is  moody  or  ill  at  ease,  he 
has  not  the  noble  privilege  of  reserve  or  silence. 
Not  to  talk — Smith  not  to  be  funny — were  outrageous! 
"  What  was  the  man  asked  for  ?"  would  have  been 
the  first  exclamation  after  his  departure.  Oh,  no !  he 
must  be  brilliant,  route  quHlcoute;  and  as  he  is  ex- 
pected to  extemporize  verses  at  the  piano  after  dinner, 
he  must  be  cudgelling  his  invention  at  the  same  time 
to  get  together  the  material,  and  weave  in  the  current 
news  of  the  day,  and  the  current  scandal  of  the  hour, 
with,  of  course,  the  proper  seasoning  of  compliment 
to  lords  and  ladies  present.  Hie,  labor,  hie  opus  est! 
The  dishes  are  removed  and  the  desert  is  set  on  the 
table,  and  Mr.  Smith,- who  hrfjj  hitherto  kept  up  a 
small  fire  of  not  very  old  puns  on  the  meats  and  their 
concomitants,  becomes  the  object  of  general,  but  im- 
passive and  supercilious  expectation.  His  listeners 
are  waiting  to  be  amused,  without  feeling  the  slightest 
obligation  to  draw  out  his  wit  by  their  own,  and  after 
this  wet  blanket  has  made  his  efforts  hang  fire  for 
some  time,  the  master  of  the  house  calls  for  "that 
very  droll  story" — the  same  song  and  story  having 
been  not  only  told  often  before,  but  expanded  and  em- 
bellished in  the  New  Monthly  or  the  John  Bull. 
Wishing  lords  would  tell  stories  of  their  own  (which 
they  never  do),  and  dreading  lest  the  company  are  al- 
ready familiar  with  his  story,  Smith  affects  to  select 
one  listener  to  whom  it  is  quite  new,  and  to  tell  it  for 
his  individual  amusement.  In  the  midst  of  his  narra- 
tion, he  discovers  by  some  maladroit  interruption  that 
this  person  knows  the  story  by  heart,  and,  obliged  to 
finish  it  without  the  zest  of  novelty,  he  makes  a 
failure,  and  concludes  amid  a  general  silence.  We 
have  seen  this  happen  once,  and,  from  the  nature  of 
things,  it  must  happen  often.  Who  would  wear  such 
laurels  ?  Who  would  wish  this  state  of  society  intro- 
duced— this  yet  unforged  link  added  to  the  social 
chain  of  America  ? 

It  is  the  common  argument  with  the  advocates  of  a 
monarchical  form  of  government,  that  the  arts  and 
literature  would  be  better  fostered — that  the  wealth 
of  which  'patronage  is  a  growth,  is  only  accumulated 
by  primogeniture  and  entail.  Heaven  defend  us  from 
such  fostering,  say  we !  Heaven  defend  us  from  such 
patronage  !  No,  no  !  Genius  is  proud  !  Genius  is 
humbled  and  cowed,  damped  and  degraded  by  pat- 
ronage— "  patronage"  so  called,  we  mean.  The  man 
gifted  by  his  God  with  superiority  to  his  fellows,  does 
not,  without  an  anguish  of  shame,  yield  precedence 
to  the  nobility  of  a  king's  patent.  He  is  self-humbled 
when  he  does  it.  He  loses  the  sense  of  superiority, 
without  which  he  is  no  more  noble  in  genius  than  the 
knight  is  noble  in  the  field  when  his  spurs  are  hacked 


EPHEMERA. 


595 


off  by  the  herald.  There  is  no  equality,  felt  or  un- 
derstood, between  lord  and  author  in  England.  It 
pleases  authors  so  to  represent  it  in  books,  but  they 
never  felt  it.  We  have  seen  the  favorites  of  the  day 
in  their  hour  of  favor,  and  heard  enough  said  of  them 
to  show  us  how  much  more  would  be  said  to  ears 
more  confidential.  Through  all  the  abandon,  through 
all  the  familiarity  of  festive  moments,  when  there  is 
nothing  which  could  be  named  which  marks  a  distinc- 
tion between  noble  and  simple,  there  is  an  invisible 
arm  for  ever  extended,  with  reversed  hand,  which  the 
patronized  author  feels  on  his  breast  like  a  bar  of  iron. 
He  never  puts  it  aside.  He  never  loses  the  remem- 
brance of  his  inferiority.  He  is  always  a  parasite— 
always  a  belier  of  God's  mark  of  greatness,  the  no- 
bility of  mind. 


If  we  are  remarkable  for  anything  worth  putting 
your  finger  on,  it  is  for  a  kind  of  divining-rod  faculty 
that  we  have — useful  to  everybody  but  ourself.  We 
can  point  to  hidden  treasure  with  a  dip  infallible — if 
it  be  for  another  man'a  benefit.  In  our  own  case,  and 
for  our  own  profit,  we  are,  like  all  enchanted  rods 
when  dropped  from  the  hand  of  the  enchanter — a 
manifest  and  incapable  stick.  In  the  exercise  of  this 
vicarious  faculty,  we  are  about  to  take  a  walk  up 
Broadway  (on  paper),  and  by  pointing  to  undiscovered 
values,  show  to  several  persons  how  they  can  make 
their  fortunes. 

Here  we  are  at  the  Battery — the  most  popular  re- 
sort in  town,  and  the  most  beautiful  promenade  in  the 
known  world.  Within  three  minutes'  walk  of  this 
lovely  spot  reside  at  least  two  or  three  thousand  for- 
eigners, the  lower  part  of  Broadway  being  their  cho- 
sen and  favorite  quarter,  and  the  "  marine  walk"  their 
constant  lounge.  Bachelors  innumerable  of  our  own 
nation  herd  hereabout.  The  great  baths  of  the  city 
are  near  by,  and  any  additional  inducement  would  be 
the  last  drop  in  the  bucket  of  attraction,  and  would 
double  the  number  of  Battery-frequenters.  Where 
in  the  world  beside,  is  there — unoccupied — such  a 
place  for  a  cafe  ? 

Dispossess  yourself,  dear  reader,  of  all  impressions 
of  cafes  as  you  see  them  now,  and  of  all  idea  of  cof- 
fee and  other  friandises  such  as  are  commonly  served 
to  you  in  places  so  called.  We  speak  of  a  Parisian 
cafe, — a  palace  of  cushions,  gilding  and  mirrors,  sump- 
tuous as  a  thing  rubbed  out  of  the  lamp  of  Aladdin, 
and  presided  over  by  a  queen  of  the  counter  in  the 
shape  of  a  lady  only  less  pretty  than  respectable. 
We  speak  of  a  luxurious  and  fashionable  saloon, 
where,  in  the  neighborhood  of  a  lovely  promenade, 
gentlemen  and  their  dames  and  daughters  can  find 
faultless  coffee,  and  faultless  ices  and  fruits— a  place 
to  resort  to  in  the  slow  hours,  to  rest  in  after  a  walk,  to 
find  refreshment  after  a  bath,  to  meet  friends  and  ac- 
quaintances. Why,  in  any  city  of  Europe  there 
would  be  dozens  of  cafes  around  a  spot  so  enchanting. 
And  we  are  fast  overtaking  Europe  in  the  taste  for 
these  approved  luxuries,  and,  in  our  opinion,  the  pub- 
lic is  quite  ready  for  this  !  In  the  month  of  April 
just  gone  by,  there  were  placards  "  to  let"  upon  the 
doors  of  the  two  houses  facing  the  Battery  between 
Greenwich  street  and  Broadway.  What  an  opportu- 
nity lost!  What  safer  investment  of  capital  could 
there  be  than  to  have  expended  a  few  thousand  dol- 
lars upon  the  lower  story  and  basement  of  this  block, 
making  of  it  a  grand  cafe?  What  in  Europe  could  ex- 
ceed the  beauty  of  the  prospect  from  its  windows  and 
doors,  the  freshness  of  its  unpolluted  air,  the  shade 
upon  its  sidewalk  from  the  magnificent  trees  in  front, 
and  the  charms  of  scenery  and  promenade  immedi- 
ately adjoining?  We  only  wonder  that  to  such  a 
"call"  of  opportunity,  a  cafe did  not  spring  through  the 


ground  like  a  mushroom,  ready  furnished  with  coffee 
and  curacoa,  silver  spoons  and  a  lady  at  the  counter! 

Since  we  are  not  a  Frenchman,  nor  a  German,  no. 
an  "adult  alien"  of  any  description,  we  are  sorry  to 
saythat  these  ultra-marine  dwellers  among  us  have 
more  taste  than  we  for  fine  scenery,  elegant  resorts, 
and  fresh  air.  Foreigners  monopolize  the  bright  spot 
of  Manhattan.  The  Battery  is  their  nucleus.  Fash- 
ion, indigenous  fashion,  has  gone  up  town — an  "  up- 
town" hedged  off  from  the  rivers  on  either  side  by 
streets  unfootworthy,  and  neighborhoods  never  pene- 
trated to  the  water-side  on  any  errand  but  business 
— leaving  to  foreigners  the  only  spot  in  this  vast 
island-city  where  the  view  and  fresh  air  of  the  sea  are 
decently  accessible.  On  this  string  we  have  harped 
before,  and  we  leave  it  now  with  a  little  suggestion 
that  we  can  not  so  well  bestow  elsewhere — that  while 
this  cafe  project  is  in  process  of  incubation,  the  au- 
thorities would  oblige  us  and  the  remainder  of  the 
public  by  giving  us  a  comfortable  seat  or  two  with 
backs  to  "them  in  the  shady  avenues  of  the  Battery. 

And  now,  to  come  up  Broadway  a  little.  In  all 
countries  but  this,  rooms  commanding  advantages  of 
vierv  have  a  proportionate  high  value  as  lodgings,  and 
are  furnished  and  let  accordingly.  Without  stopping 
at  the  buildings  whose  value  as  residences  are  so  much 
increased  by  the  oppositeness  of  the  superb  structure 
and  its  leafy  surroundings  in  Trinity  churchyard,  let 
us  come  at  once  to  the  Park.  From  the  corner  of 
the  American  Museum  to  the  church  in  Beekman 
street  extends  a  line  of  buildings,  the  advantages  of 
which  as  to  neighborhood  and  prospect  would  com- 
mand the  highest  price,  as  lodgings,  in  any  other  city 
in  the  world.  The  superb  fountain — the  trees  and 
grass  of  the  enclosure — the  views  of  the  magnificent 
church  and  hotels,  and  the  thronged  pavement  of 
Broadway  opposite,  are  all  visible  from  those  desirable 
chambers.  The  large  company  of  single  gentlemen 
who  occupy  rooms  similarly  situated  in  other  cities — 
gentlemen  who  want  lodging-rooms  and  breakfast,  and 
dine  wherever  they  like — are  compelled  to  dive  into 
the  dark  side-streets,  and  either  live  in  pent-up  quar- 
ters quite  away  from  this  centre  of  attraction,  or  un- 
dertake the  life  of  hotels  which  has,  for  many  of 
them,  serious  objections.  Luxuriously  fitted  and 
furnished,  with  a  housekeeper  and  the  usual  appli- 
ances of  English  lodging-houses,  this  line  of  build- 
ings would  be  unequalled  in  attractions  to  bachelors. 
Everything  they  desire  in  a  residence  would  be  there 
attained — centrality,  comfort,  and  accessibility.  We 
recommend  to  the  landlords  who  now  let  rooms,  com- 
manding such  advantages,  for  cheap  lodgings,  bar- 
ber's shops,  and  lumber-rooms,  to  turn  their  attention 
forthwith  to  this  obviously  better  account,  and  at  the 
same  time  embellish  and  improve  the  most  conspic- 
uous part  of  the  city. 

We  were  going  into  various  other  details  of  the  un- 
improved capabilities  of  New  York,  but  verbum  sap. 
Our  drift  is  visible,  and  it  is  only  necessary  in  refer- 
ence to  such  subjects  to  set  the  wide-awake  to  think- 
ing. 


The  extreme  heats  of  the  last  week  or  two  have 
depopulated  country-seats,  and  driven  thousands  from 
the  open  glare  and  thin  roofs  of  rural  resorts,  to  the 
shady  sidewalks  and  stone  walls  of  the  more  temperate 
city.  The  dim  and  cool  vestibules  of  the  large  hotels 
are  thronged  with  these  driven-in  strangers;  ftlfl  in 
the  refreshing  atmosphere  of  the  manifold  iced  drinks 
and  their  varied  odors  of  mint  and  pine-apple,  they 
bless  Heaven  for  the  cooling  luxuries  of  cities,  pitying 
all  those  whose  destiny  or  poverty  confines  them  to 
the  unmitigated  country.  Enjoying,  as  we  do,  the 
blessings  of  metropolitan  protection  in  July,  we  feel 
called  upon  to  express  our  deep  sympathy  with  those 


596 


EPHEMERA 


unfortunate  beings,  who,  in  places  of  public  resort,  or 
in  private  cottages,  are  fulfilling  their  sad  destiny  of 
sultry  exposure.  The  once  porous  hill-sides  and  val- 
leys, baked  by  the  sun  to  the  induration  of  a  paved 
street,  lack  the  delicious  sprinklings  of  Croton  water- 
pipes.  The  warm  milestones,  few  and  far  between, 
do  but  remind  the  scorched  passer-by  of  the  gushing 
hydrants  of  Broadway.  The  tepid  spruce-beer  and 
chalky  soda-water  of  the  country-inns  only  deepen  the 
agony  of  absence  from  "juleps"  and  "cobblers." 
What  would  not  these  poor  sufferers  give  for  a  brick 
block  between  them  and  the  sun  !  How  would  they 
not  bless  Heaven  for  the  sight  of  the  cold  sweat  on  a 
wall  of  unheated  and  impermeable  granite  !  What 
celestial  bliss  would  it  not  be,  to  see,  on  a  country  j 
road,  at  every  few  yards'  distance,  black  boys,  unpaid 
and  unthanked,  directing,  like  benign  angels,  streams 
of  the  pellucid  element  across  their  sultry  way  !  Ah! 
the  luxury,  in  the  summer-heats,  of  city-walls  and 
city  refrigerations ! 

It  has  been  unreflectingly  thought  that  there  were 
two  classes  of  human  beings  overworked  and  uncared 
for.     It  has  been  said  that  there  was  no  Providence  j 
for   housemaids   and   editors.     The   predecessors   of 
these  laborious  animals,  it  was  supposed,  had,  in  some  j 
previous    metempsychosis,    committed     sins    which 
doomed  their  posterity  to  perpetual  toil.     It  is  true,  I 
theirs  is  a  destiny  of  crash,  in  a  world,  for  others,  of  j 
comparative  diaper  and  dimity.     But,  mark  the  alle-  j 
viations  !     The  first  of  July  comes  round,  and  Heaven 
inflicts  upon  the  task-masters  and  mistresses  of  these  \ 
oppressed  maids,   a  locomotive   insanity.     With   toil 
and  sweat  they  pack  up  their  voluminous  traps,  and 
embarking  in  a  seething  boat  they  depart,  prating  and 
red-faced,  on  their  demented  travels.     They  go  from 
place  to  place,   packing  and  unpacking,  fretting  and  j 
sweating  from  day  to  day,  and  arriving  at  last  at  the 
grand  fool-doni  of  Saratoga,  they  take  up  their  lodg-  i 
ing  for  a  month  in  chambers  of  pill-box  dimensions, 
pitiably  persuaded   that  the  smell  of  pine  partitions,  ; 
and  the  pitchy  closeness  of  shingled  roofs  reeking  in 
the  sun,  are  the  fragrance  of  the  fields,  and  a  blessed 
relief  from  the  close  air  of  the  city  !     So,  for  weeks, 
they  absent  themselves,   deluded.     The   housemaid,  j 
meantime,   has  possession  of  the  cool   and  spacious  j 
dwellings  deserted  for  her  use.     The  dragged  muscles 
relax  over  her  collar-bone  and  shoulders,  for  she  has 
now  no  water  to  carry  up-stairs  and  down.     She  re- 
covers the  elasticity  in  the  small  of  her  back,  and  the 
natural  distribution  of  red  and  white  in  her  flushed 
and  overheated  complexion.  The  well-contrived  blinds, 
closed  in  the  freshness  of  the  morning-hours,  keep  the 
house  cool  and  dim  for  her  noontide  repose.  The  spa- 
cious drawing-rooms  are  hers,  in  which  to  wander  at 
will,  barefoot  if  she  likes,  on  the  luxurious  carpets. 
The  bath-rooms  are  near  her  bed,  and  the  ice-man 
comes  daily  to  the  door,  and  unless  she  choose  to  step 
out  upon  the  sidewalk  at  noon,  she  scarce  need  know 
it  is  summer.     Ah,  the  still  coolness  of  thick  brick 
walls  and  ample  rooms  within  !     Her  worn-out  frame 
recovers  its  powers,  and  in  the  goodness  of  her  heart 
she  can  afford  to  send  pitying  thoughts  after  the  exiled 
and  infatuated  sufferers  at  Saratoga! 

Negatively  blessed  is  her  fellow-sufferer,  the  editor, 
meantime — liable  as  he  is  to  this  same  locomotive  lu- 
nacy, and  kept  within  reach  of  enjoyable  and  health- 
preserving  luxuries  by  the  un-let-up-able  nature  of  his 
vocation.  Nor  this  alone.  He  has  his  minor  reliefs. 
Omfri-acquainted  as  he  necessarily  is,  and  mostly  with 
the  unhappy  class  self-exiled  to  the  inclement  coun- 
try, his  weary  arm  now  lies  supine  in  delicious  indo- 
lence at  his  side.  The  habitual  five  hundred  visits, 
per  diem,  of  his  right  hand  to  the  rim  of  his  hat,  are 
no  more  exacted.  The  two  hundred  and  fifty  sugges- 
tions, per  diem,  as  to  the  conduct  of  his  paper,  the 
course  of  his  politics,  and  his  private  morals,  are  no 


longer  to  be  thankfully  received.  The  city  is  full,  but 
full  of  strangers,  charmingly  unconscious  of  his  ex- 
treme need  of  counsel.  He  walks  to  and  fro  at 
ease,  looking  blandly  at  the  hydrants,  blandly  at  the 
strange  faces,  blandly  at  the  deliciously  unfamiliar 
contents  of  the  omnibuses.  He  dwells  in  a  crowd,  in 
heavenly  solitude.  He  is  like  a  magnetized  finger  on 
the  body  of  a  man  with  a  toothache — apart  from  the 
common  pulse,  sequestered  from  the  common  pain — 
yet  in  his  habitual  place  and  subject  to  no  separation. 
He  has  no  engagements  to  meet  gentlemen  or  com- 
mittees, for  the  better  manufacture  of  public  opinion. 
He  can  shilling  it  to  Staten  Island  for  sea-air,  or  six- 
pence it  to  Harlem  for  an  evening  sight  of  the  blood- 
warm  grass,  in  blessed  silence!  And  so  fly  the  sum- 
mer months,  like  three  leaves  of  the  book  of  paradise 
turned  back  by  chance ;  and,  refreshed  with  new  cour- 
age, the  doomed  editor  renews,  in  September,  the 
multitudinous  extras  of  his  vocation.  Oh  kindly 
Providence,  even  for  housemaids  and  editors ! 


A  true  leaf  from  the  thoughts  of  a  woman  of  genius 
on  the  subject  of  woman's  love,  is  stuff  to  dwell  upon 
in  the  reading.  We  totally  differ  from  one  of  the 
sweetest  writers  of  the  time,  Mrs.  Seba  Smith,  on  the 
following  disparaging  passage  touching  the  love  of  a 
gentle  and  confiding  woman  as  contrasted  with  that 
of  a  proud  one.  Let  our  readers  judge.  The  pas- 
sage occurs,  by-the-way,  in  a  story  which  is  the  gem 
of  the  whole  year  of  monthlies,  called  "The  Proud 
Ladye" — in  Godey's  Lady's  Book.  "The  love  of  a 
gentle  and  confiding  woman,  with  its  perpetual  ap- 
peals to  tenderness  and  protection,  must  be  dear,  very 
dear  to  a  manly  heart ;  but  then  it  too  often  lacketh 
that  exclusive  and  earnest  devotion  which  imparts  a 
last  toucli  of  value,  its  sympathies  are  too  readily  ex- 
cited, and  the  images  of  others,  faint  and  shadowy  it 
may  be,  yet  still  images,  too  often  sit,  side  by  side,  with 
the  beloved.  But  the  love  of  a  proud  woman,  with 
its  depths  of  untold  tenderness,  rarely  stirred,  yet, 
when  once  awakened,  welling  up  a  perpetual  fountain 
of  freshness  and  beauty,  its  concentred  and  earnest 
faith,  its  unmingled  sympathies,  its  pure  shrine,  raised 
to  the  beloved,  burning  no  incense  upon  strange  altars, 
and  admitting  no  strange  oblations,  the  love  of  such  a 
one  should  invest  manhood  with  tenfold  dignity — 
should  make  him  fee)  as  a  priest  in  the  very  presence 
of  the  divinity." 


"  Things  lost  in  air"  are  not  always  unproductive, 
Signora  Castellan  having  received,  last  night,  about 
two  thousand  dollars  for  singing  four  songs.  Signor 
Giampietro,  her  husband,  may  well  say  that  "  a  sweet 
voice  is  a  most  excellent  thing  in  woman."  I  made 
one  of  the  twenty-five  hundred  who  composed  the 
audience  of  this  successful  cantatrice  last  evening,  and 
having  missed  her  introductory  concert,  this  was  the 
first  time  I  had  seen  her.  I  should  take  Madame 
Castellan  to  be  about  twenty-three.  She  is  a  plump 
little  Jewess,  with  an  advantage  not  common  to  plump- 
titude — a  very  uppish  and  thoroughbred  neck,  charm- 
ingly set  on.  A  portrait  of  her  dimpled  shoulders 
and  the  back  of  her  head  would  be  a  fit  subject  for 
Titian.  Her  countenance  expresses  an  indolent  sweet- 
ness, with  none  of  the  wide-awakity  so  common  to  her 
tribe — and,  indeed,  the  description  of  the  Persian 
beauty  by  Hafiz  occurred  to  me  in  looking  at  her: — 
"  Her  heart  is  full  of  passion  and  her  eyes  are  full  of  sleep." 

A  most  amiable  person  I  am  sure  she  is — but,  unless 
I  am  much  mistaken,  there  is  none  of  Malibran's 
intellectual  volcano  in  the  "crayther,"  and  the  molten 
lava  is  what  is  wanting  to  make  her  equal  or  compar- 


EPHEMERA. 


597 


able  to  that  wonderful  woman.  I  certainly  do  not 
think  we  have  heard  a  voice  in  this  country,  not  even 
Malibran's,  of  more  astonishing  compass  tlian  Ma- 
dame Castellan's.  There  is  not  a  chamber  in  her 
throat  where  a  cobweb  could  remain  unswept  for  a 
moment.  Her  contralto  notes  are  far  beyond  the  plum- 
met of  ordinary  "soundings,"  and  as  rich  and  effort- 
less as  the  gurgle  of  a  ringdove,  while  her  soprano 
tones  go  up  with  the  buoyancy  of  a  lark,  and  raise  on 
tiptoe  all  the  audience  who  are  not  fortunate  enough 
to  obtain  seats.  Still,  in  ascending  and  descending  on 
this  angel's  ladder,  she  misses  a  round  now  and  then. 
There  are  transitions  which  catch,  somehow.  She 
wants  fusion.  In  her  trills  more  particularly,  the  bal- 
ance is  one-sided,  and  there  is  a  nerve  in  the  listener's 
besoin  which  is  not  reached  by  the  warble.  Give  her 
more  practice,  however,  more  passionateness  or  brandy 
and  water,  and  she  would  melt  over  these  trifling 
flaws,  without  a  doubt.  So  near  perfection  as  she  is, 
it  seems  almost  impertinent  to  criticise  her. 


New  York  has  some  radii  to  its  outer  periphery 
which  are  well  worth  the  stranger's  following  in  the 
way  of  excursions.  The  promontory  which  makes 
the  jumping-off"  place  at  the  seaward  end  of  the  Nar- 
rows, is  one  of  these,  and  upon  it  (next  door  to  the 
fishing-huts  of  Galway),  stands  one  of  the  most  luxu- 
rious hotels  in  this  country.  A  friend  gave  me  a 
delightful  drive  to  it  the  other  day,  via  a  little  flourish 
among  the  knolls  of  Long  Island,  and,  as  it  chanced 
to  be  the  hottest  day  of  the  season,  I  can  speak  advi- 
sedly of  the  ocean  air  of  Fort  Hamilton.  To  be 
handed  over  from  the  Battery  to  such  a  cool  place,  in 
half  an  hour,  by  the  long  arm  of  a  steamer,  is  one  of 
the  possibilities  that  make  New  York  very  habitable. 

The  marvel  of  New  York  just  now  is"tiik  Al- 
hamra" — an  ice-cream  resort  lately  opened  a  little 
below  Niblo's.  The  depth  of  the  building  on  Broad- 
way is  pierced  for  a  corridor  entrance,  and  this  is  lined 
with  counters  tended  by  the  prettiest  Hebes  of  their 
class.  Traversing  this  alley  of  temptation,  you  de- 
scend to  a  marble-paved  circular  court,  tented  with 
gayly-striped  awnings  and  gorgeous  colors  of  barbaric 
architecture.  The  seats  are  around  a  fountain,  and  a 
statue  of  a  water-nymph  stands  in  the  centre,  holding 
above  her  head  a  horn,  from  which  issues  the  water, 
in  a  jet  resembling  a  glass  umbrella.  The  basin  is 
rimmed  with  flowers,  the  falling  water  makes  the  con- 
stant murmur  which  is  needful  for  a  tete-a-tete,  the  sky 
looks  in  through  the  lacings  of  the  blue  and  white  awn- 
ing, and  "  the  ices  are  made  of  pure  cream."  The 
whole  scene  is  more  oriental  than  Spanish,  and  would 
have  been  better  named  a  serail  or  a  kiosk  than  the 
Alhamra,  but  it  is  a  "fairy-spot"  (as  well  as  a  man 
can  judge  who  has  not  seen  fairy-land),  and,  for  the 
price  of  an  ice-cream,  it  gives  the  untravelled  a  new 
idea  of  luxury. 

Great  as  the  difference  is  between  the  scents  of 
moist  earth  and  splashed  dust,  the  latter,  faule  de 
mieux,  comes  up  to  your  nostrils  very  agreeably,  as 
you  sit  at  your  summer  morning's  work  in  a  city  win- 
dow. It  is  a  day  to  be  thankful  for  "wet"  in  almost 
any  shape.  Yet  it  shows  of  what  accommodating 
stuff  we  are  made,  when,  instead  of  the  gentle  minis- 
try of  the  exhaling  dews,  we  feel  prepared  to  bless  a 
fat  negro  with  a  leathern  pipe,  dispensing,  as  it  were, 
the  city  branch  of  nature's  distribution  of  moisture. 
The  sable  vicegerent  of  the  Croton,  whom  I  have  in 
my  eye  (hight  Jackson) — now  brushing  the  boots  of 
Mr.  Stopintown,  the  poor  scribbler,  now  directing  at 
will  the  prodigal  oulgush  of  water  that  comes  forty 
miles  to  do  his  bidding — stands,  as  well  he  may,  pet- 
rified with  astonishment  at  the  zealous  activity  with 
which  the  obedient  element  follows  the  turn  of  his 


finger.  Negro  amazement  is  evidently  taken  in  at  the 
mouth.  My  friendly  moistener  airs  his  trachea  very 
fixedly  from  the  beginning  to  the  end  of  his  easy 
function.  Thanks  to  his  influence,  the  thermometer 
beside  me,  1  observe,  has  sunk  two  degrees  with  the 
tepid  abatement  of  the  morning  air. 


Whatever  else  may  be  left  unfinished  at  the  end  of 
the  world,  we  are  quite  sure  that  there  has  been 
enough  written  !  The  "  bow  of  promise"  was  no  se- 
curity against  a  deluge  of  books — and  it  has  come! 

"  Oh,  for  a  perch  on  Ararat  with  Noah'' — 
the  waves  of  this  great  flood  receding,  and  nothing 
visible  but  the  "  unwritten"   mud !     We  would  fain 
have  books  "done   away."     We  would  begin   again 
with  "two  of"  every  kind,"  and  wait  with  patience  for 
a  posthumous  work  by  Ham,  Shem,  or  Japhet! 
"  Our  eyes  are  sick  of  this  perpetual  flow 
Of  (Extras)—  and  our  heart  of  (things  to  read  !)" 

which,  we  believe  are  Shelley's  "sentiments  better 
expressed." 

And,  by-thc-way,  it  is  a  marvel  where  all  these 
books  go  to.     We  do  not  mean,  of  course,  the  type 

I  and  paper.  We  mean  the  spirit,  black,  or  white,  or 
gray,  that  on  this  bridge  of  print  passes  from  the  au- 
thor's heart  into  the  reader's  and  there  abides — more 
difficult  to  cast  out  than  the  devils  exiled  into  pork 
three  thousand  years  ago,  and  still  guarded  against  by 
the   abhorrent  synagogue.     Fifteen   millions  of  peo- 

j  pie,  all   ductile,   imitative,   and   plastic — all,  at  some 

|  moment  or  other,  waiting  for  a  type  upon  which  to 
mould  their  characters — and  all  supplied,  helter-skel- 
ter, at  a  shilling  the  pair,  with  heroes  and  heroines 

I  made  to  sell — the  creatures  God  has  first  created  in 
his  own  image,  taken  soft  from  his  hand,  and  shaped, 
moulded,  and  finished  by  De  Kock  and  Bulwer !  Who 
is  there,  high  or  low,  that  is  not  reached  by  these  pos- 
sessing and  enchanting  spirits?  We  are  sure  we  do 
not  overrate  their  power.  In  our  own  case,  a  novel  of 
Bulwer's,  read  in  a  day,  possesses  us  exclusively  and 
irresistibly  for  a  week,  and  lingers  in  our  brain  for 
many  a  day  after.  Like  or  dislike  the  character  he 
draws — we  can  not  resist  the  fascination.  Yet  you 
would  think  the  reading  of  a  book,  by  an  editor,  would 
be  like  sweeping  out  the  water  from  a  brook.  What 
must  it  be  to  the  farmer  who  reads  it  by  his  pine-knot 
fire  in  the  country,  and  thinks  of  it  all  day  over  his 
plough — to  the  apprentice  who  reads  it  on  Sunday  and 
ponders  on  it  for  a  week  over  his  bench.  We  are  only 
looking  at  them  as  infusions- into  the  fountains  of 
opinion  and  impulse;  and,  if  we  had  time,  we  should 
like  to  trace  them  till  they  appeared  in  classes  of 
event--,  or  in  features  of  national  character.  To  do 
this  in  detail  would  require  the  space  of  a  lecture  or 
an  essay.  But,  at  a  glance — to  what  do  we  owe  the 
fact,  that,  throughout  all  the  middle  and  lower  classes 
of  American  life,  everything  except  toil  and  daily 
bread  is  looked  at  through  the  most  sentimental  and 
romantic  medium  ?  In  their  notions,  affections,  and 
views  of  life,  the  Americans  are  really  the  most  ro- 
mantic people  on  earth.  We  do  not  get  this  from  our 
English  forefathers — the  English  are  as  much  the 
contrary  as  is  possible.  We  do  not  get  it  from 
our  pursuits — what  can  be  tnore  unromantic  than  the 
daily  cares  of  an  American  ?  We  do  not  get  it  from 
our  climate — it  is  a  wonder  how  romance,  fled  from 
the  soft  skies  of  Spain  and  Italy,  can  stay  among  us. 
We  get  it  from  books — from  the  hoisting  of  the  flood- 
gates of  copyright — from  the  inundation  of  works  of 
fiction.  There  are  few,  we  venture  to  say — few  below 
the  more  intellectual  classes,  whose  views  of  life  are 
not  shaped  and  modelled,  and  whose  ambitions  are  not 
aimed  by  characters  and  impulses  found  in  the  attrac- 


598 


EPHEMERA. 


tive  pages  of  "cheap  literature."  We  do  not  con- 
demn this,  we  repeat — we  do  not  know  that  we  would 
stop  it  if  we  could.  At  any  rate,  we  prefer  it  to  the 
inoculation  of  English  low  life — the  brutality  of  the 
Jack  Sheppard  school  of  novels;  and  we  vastly  prefer 
it  to  the  voluptuousness  of  the  literature  most  popular 
in  France.  Thieves  are  not  heroes  among  us,  and 
woman  is  enshrined  in  respect  and  honor;  and  with 
these  respective  differences  from  England  and  France, 
we  can  almost  rest  content  under  the  influences  that 
make  us  what  we  are. 


Sit  back  in  your  chair,  and  let  me  babble!  I  like 
just  to  pull  the  spiggot  out  of  my  discretion,  and  let 
myself  run.  No  criticisms  if  you  please,  and  don't 
stare!     Eyelids  down,  and  stand  ready  for  slip-slop. 

I  was  sitting  last  night  by  the  lady  with  the  horn 
and  the  glass  umbrella,  at  the  Alhamra — I  drinking  a 
julep,  she  (my  companion)  eating  an  ice.  The  water 
dribbled,  and  the  moon  looked  through  the  slits  in  the 
awning,  and  we  chatted  about  Saratoga.  My  com- 
panion has  a  very  generalizing  mind,  situated  just  in 
the  rear  of  a  very  particularly  fine  pair  of  black  velvet 
eyes,  and  her  opinions  usually  come  out  by  a  little 
ivory  gate  witli  a  pink  portico— charming  gate,  charm- 
ing portico,  charming  opinions.  I  must  say  I  think 
more  of  intellect  when  it  is  well  lodged. 

I  am  literally  at  a  dead  loss  to  know  whether  she 
said  it,  or  I  said  it — what  my  mind  runs  on  at  this  mo- 
ment. It's  all  one,  for  if  I  said  it,  it  was  with  the  vel- 
vet approbation  of  her  ineffable  eyes,  and  before  such 
eyes  I  absorb  and  give  back,  like  the  mirror  that  I  am. 
These,  then,  are  her  reflections  about  Saratoga. 

Why,  in  mamma's  time,  it  was  a  different  affair. 
There  was  a  cabinet  of  fashion  in  those  days,  and  the 
question  was  settled  with  closed  doors.  Giants  have 
done  being  born,  and  so  have  super-beautiful  women — 
such  women  as  used  to  lay  down  hearts  like  blocks  in 
the  wooden  pavement,  and  walk  on  nothing  else. 
There  were  about  three  in  each  city — three  belles  of 
whom  every  baptized  person  in  the  country  knew  the 
name,  style,  and  probable  number  of  victims.  Their 
history  should  have  been  written  while  they  lasted — for 
of  course  the  gods  loved  them,  and  "  whom  the  gods 
love  die  first,''  and  they  are  dead,  and  have  left  no 
manuscripts  nor  models.  Well,  these  belles  were 
leagued,  and  kept  up  their  dynasty  by  correspondence. 
New  York  was  the  seat  of  government,  and  the  next 
strongest  branch  was  at  Albany  (where  the  women  at 
one  time  were  lovelier  than  at  any  known  place  and 
period  since  the  memory  of  woman).  In  New  York 
alone,  however,  were  married  ladies  admitted  to  the 
councils.  Here  and  there  a  renowned  beau  was  kept 
in  the  antechamber  for  advice.  April  came,  and  then 
commenced  a  vigorous  exchange  of  couriers.  "The 
Springs,"  of  course,  but  which?  Saratoga,  or  Leba- 
non, or  Ballston  ?  What  carried  it,  or  who  decided  it, 
was  enshrined  in  the  most  eternal  mystery — but  it  was 
decided  and  known  to  a  few  beaux  and  the  proprietors 
of  the  hotels  by  the  middle  of  May.  Wine  and 
Johnson's  band  were  provided  accordingly.  The  sum- 
mer was  more  punctual  in  those  days,  and  July  par- 
ticularly was  seldom  belated.  After  the  fourth,  the 
cabinet  started,  and  then  commenced  a  longitudinal 
radiation  from  north  to  south — after  what,  and  to  fol- 
low whom,  was  only  a  secret  to  the  uninitiated.  And 
such  times — for  then  the  people  had  fortunes,  and  the 
ladies  drank  champagne!    La!  how 'ma  talks  about  it! 

But  now! — Eheu  fugaces  !  (Latin  for  "bless  my 
soul") — change  has  drank  all  the  spirit  of  our  dream. 
There  is  so  much  aristocracy  in  New  York  that  there 
is  none  at  all.  Beauty  has  been  scrambled  for,  and 
everybody  has  picked  up  a  little.  There  must  be 
valleys  to  make  mountains — ugly  people  before  there 
can  be  belles — hut  everybody  being  rather  pretty,  who 


can  be  divine?  Idem,  gentility!  Who  knows  who 
isn't  "genteel"  in  New  York?  There  are  fifty  circles 
as  like  as  peas — and  not  even  an  argument  as  to  the 
perihelion.  Live  where  you  please,  know  whom  you 
please,  wear  what  you  please,  and  ride  freely  in  the 
omnibuses,  and  nobody  makes  a  remark !  Social 
anarchy ! 

Why,  what  a  state  of  things  it  is  when  it  is  as  much 
trouble  to  find  out  where  the  prettiest  people  have 
gone  to  pass  the  summer  as  it  is  to  inquire  out 
"good"ness  in  Wall  street!  No  cherishing,  either, 
of  belle  or  beau  descent!  The  daughters  of  the 
charming  tyrants  of  ten  or  twenty  years  ago,  the  boys 
of  the  beaux  of  that  time,  walk  about  unpointed  at 
and  degenerate.  The  "good  society"  of  twenty  years 
ago  is  most  indifferent  society  now. 

"  The  vase  in  which  roses  have  once  been  distilled" 

goes  for  a  crockery  pipkin. 

A  great  pity  they  don't  have  coffee  at  the  Alhamra ! 
And  no  curacoa — and  what  is  ice-cream  without  a 
drop  of  curacoa !  It's  a  pretty  place — a  very  pretty 
place!  And  there  should  be  nobody  to  wait  on  you 
here  but  dainty  and  dapper  slaves — such  as  the  Moors 
had,  with  golden  rings  on  their  ankles,  in  the  veritable 
Alhambra.  That  tall,  crooked  blackamoor  hurts  my 
eye. 

So  there  was  no  "Mr.  Hicks,"  and  no  "legacy  to 
Washington  Irving."  More's  the  pity  !  I  wish  a 
Mr.  Hicks  might  be  created  impromptu,  on  purpose. 
And  more  Mr.  Hickses  for  more  authors.  Birds  that 
sing  should  be  "provided  with  cages  and  full  cups. 
What  could  be  done  better  with  spare  moneys  than  to 
take  the  footworn  pilgrim  of  genius  and  send  him 
softly  down  from  the  temple  of  fame  shod  with  velvet! 
In  every  rich  man's  will  there  should  be  at  least  one 
line  illuminated  with  a  bequest  to  genius.  Heaven 
give  us  a  million  that  we  may  set  the  glorious  ex- 
ample ! 

And  now,  lady,  who  are  you  that  in  this  gossiping 
dream  has  held  converse  with  me  !  I  have  murmured 
to  the  black  cross,  suspended  by  its  braid  of  hair  upon 
your  throat  of  ivory,  without  asking  your  name — con- 
tent that  you  listened.  But  now  (if  spiritual  visiters 
have  arms) — put  your  arm  in  mine  and  come  out 
under  a  better-devised  ceiling  !  The  night  is  fra- 
grant. Heaven  is  sifting  love  upon  us  through  the 
sieve  of  the  firmament — starlight,  you  took  it  for! 
And  as  much  falls  in  Broadway  as  elsewhere.  And 
the  stars  are  as  sweet,  seen  from  this  sidewalk,  as  they 
are  from  the  fountain  of  Egeria.  I  have  sighed  in 
both  places,  and  know.  "  Allons  !  faites  moi  Vamour — 
car  je  suis  dans  mon  humeur  des  Dimanches." 


We  are  making  a  study  of  this  big  book  of  a  city 
we  live  in.  We  mean,  in  good  time,  to  peruse  it  all — 
its  blotted  passages  no  less  than  the  lines  of  it  which 
fall  in  pleasant  places.  And  we'll  tell  you  what  we 
think  of  it  as  we  go  along.  Not  with  shovel  and 
pickaxe.  Order  is  a  law  of  industry,  and  industry,  as 
the  child  of  sin,  we  virtuously  abhor.  We  shall  read 
this  great  book,  as  we  do  everything  else — in  the  style 
of  the  antelapsarians — idly  and  paradise-wise.  The 
ant  and  the  "little  busy  bee"  were  unknown  to  Adam 
and  Eve,  it  may  be  safely  conjectured ;  and  we  scorn 
to  take  them  for  models,  as  enjoined  in  the  primer. 
Butterflies  for  ever!  We  shall  flit  from  flower  to 
flower,  and  tilt  upon  any  stem  that  we  fancy  will  sup- 
port us — as  do  these  full-dress  and  faineant  gentlemen 
of  no  care.  Pray  expect  nothing  in  particular! 
Stand  ready  to  hop  off.  Any  perfume  that  comes 
down  the  wind  may  tempt  us  to  follow  its  invisible 
track  back — for  so  butterflies  detect  the  self-betraying 


EPHEMERA. 


599 


flowers  of  Paradise.  (Though,  for  this  zigzagery  in 
our  courses  it  is,  that  we  butterflies  are  called  volatile 
and  capricious — as  if  we  had  no  right,  in  our  own 
wav,  to  follow  our  more  spiritual  and  finer  noses! 
And  to  be  blamed,  too,  for  imitating,  as  far  as  in  us 
lies,  the  innocent  nothing-to-do-ity  of  angels  !) 

But,  the  animated  book  of  Manhattan.  Turn  we 
to  a  plain  passage,  on  which  we  were  just  now  pon- 
dering. 

There  seems  to  us  a  poor  economy  of  the  animal 
spirits  in  the  mode  of  life  of  the  New-Yorkers.  Let 
us  take  a  single  example,  for  the  convenience  of  our 
over-worked  adjectives  and  pronouns. 

Mr.  Splitfig,  the  eminent  wholesale  grocer,  is  at  the 
age  of  virtue — thirty-five.  He  rises  in  the  morning 
at  half-past  seven,  makes  so  much  of  his  toilet  as  ap- 
pears above  the  tablecloth,  and  makes  his  breakfast  of 
the  morning  paper,  a  nibble  at  a  roll,  and  coffee  at 
discretion.  He  is  too  newly  up  to  eat — too  recently 
arrived  from  the  spiritual  land  of  dreams,  as  my  ado- 
rable friend  Lyra  would  express  it.  He  is  grave  and 
quiet.  The  sobriety  of  a  fifteen  hours'  fast  is  upou 
him — for  he  has  not  eaten  meat  since  yesterday  at 
three.  Refreshed  by  sleep,  however,  and  cheerful 
alter  his  coffee,  he  draws  on  his  walking  seldom-allu- 
ded-tos,  and  goes  out  to  be  gone  till  dinner.  At  elev- 
en, or  thereabout,  his  spirits  begin  to  flag.  He  would 
rather  not  see  a  friend,  except  on  business,  for  he 
hates  the  trouble  of  talking.  Debts  and  peccadilloes 
lie  at  the  bottom  of  the  stomach,  and  his  heart  drops 
down  to  them  for  want  of  a  betweenity  of  beefsteak. 
He  begins  to  be  faintish,  but  he  is  principled  against 
lunching  or  drinking  before  dinner,  and  by  one  o'clock 
his  animal  spirits  have  sunk  into  his  boots,  and,  from 
that  time  till  three,  he  is  a  dispirited  fag,  going  through 
with  his  habitual  routine  of  business,  but,  of  a  civil 
word  or  a  smile  as  incapable  as  Caliban.  It  is  while 
the  chambers  of  his  head  are  thus  unlighted  and  un- 
tenanted, however,  that  the  most  of  his  friends  and 
acquaintances  see  him  and  judge  of  his  capacity  for 
entertainment.  He  speaks  to  fifty  people  in  the 
course  of  those  two  exhausted  hours,  and  speaks  sul- 
lenly and  coldly,  and,  of  these  fifty,  not  one  considers 
that 

"  The  very  road  into  his  kindness" 

lies  over  a  floating  bridge  of  comestibles  which  has 
sunk  with  an  unnatural  ebbtide.  What  says  Mene- 
nius,  the  rough  and  wise  ? — 

"  He  had  not  dined  : 
The  veins  unfilled,  the  blood  is  cold,  and  then 
We  pout  upon  the  morning  ;  are  unapt 
To  give  or  to  forgive  ;  but  when  we  have  stuffed 
These  pipes  and  these  conveyances  of  our  blood 
With  wine  and  feeding,  we  have  suppler  souls 
Than  in  our  priest-like  fasts." 

But,  at  three,  Mr.  Splitfig  dines — and  as  he  gives 
them  something  to  stand  on,  his  spirits  jump  up  and 
look  out  of  his  eyes.  His  tongue  feels  the  inoisture 
at  its  root,  and  grows  flowery,  and  the  one  man  who 
sits  opposite  to  the  unctuous  grocer  at  table  thinks 
him  the  best  of  fellows. 

Splitfig  keeps  a  trotter,  and,  after  dinner,  happy  and 
agreeable,  he  jumps  into  his  wagon,  and  distributes, 
along  the  milestones  and  hedges  of  the  Bloomingdale 
road,  smiles  and  good-natured  glances,  that  were  much 
more  wisely  got  up  four  hours  earlier  in  the  day,  and 
sown  among  his  friends  for  a  crop  of  popularity.  To 
change  the  similitude,  Splitfig  makes  his  day's  voy- 
age with  a  cold  boiler,  and  gets  up  the  steam  on  ar- 
riving at  the  wharf! 

Not  so  Monsieur  Toutavous,  the  French  importer. 
Toutavous  takes  a  cup  of  coffee  at  waking,  and  on 
the  strength  of  it,  dresses,  reads  the  papers,  and  writes 
the  two  or  three  business-letters  which  require  the 
coolest  head.     He   keeps  for  his  own  society  exclu- 


sively the  melancholy  hour  or  two  of  every  day,  du- 
ring which  "  the  stomach  is  apprehensive  that  the 
throat  is  cut" — the  communication  is  so  interrupted. 
Yet  as  these  unsmiling  hours  are  excellent  for 
thought  and  calculation,  he  so  shapes  his  business 
that  he  can  pass  them,  alone,  without  inconvenience. 
He  has  taken  his  coffee,  observe,  but  he  has  not  break- 
fasted. At  eleven  he  goes  to  Delmonico's  on  his  way 
to  the  "  shop."  A  beefsteak  and  a  pint  of  claret  dress 
his  countenance  in  smiles,  and  invigorate  his  fingers 
for  the  friendly  clasp  exacted  by  courtesy.  He  gets  to 
his  counting-house  a  little  before  twelve,  enters  upon 
the  hard  work  of  the  day  with  a  system  alert  and  lively, 
and  impresses  everybody  whom  he  sees  with  the  idea 
that  he  is  born  to  good  fortune,  and  has  the  look  of 
it,  and  is  a  good  fellow,  with  no  distrust  of  his  credit 
nor  of  himself.     Sensible  of  Toutavous — is  it  not  ? 

Pity,  we  say  again,  that  the  personal,  physical  econ- 
omies are  so  little  regarded  among  us.  The  ladies 
lack  also  a  little  "  fernseed  in  their  ears,"  but  we 
would  not  put  them  off  with  the  tail  of  a  paragraph. 
We  have,  for  them,  a  chapter  in  lavender;  not  of  our 
own  devising  altogether  !  A  superb  female  Machia- 
vel  whom  we  once  knew,  who  came  always  to  a  ball 
at  three  in  the  morning,  fresh  as  a  rosebud  after  a 
night's  sleep,  entrancing  you  with  her  dewy  coolness 
when  everybody  else  was  hot  and  weary — she,  capa- 
ble of  this  brilliant  absurdity,  once  discoursed  to  us 
on  the  economies  of  heart-breaking.  We  will  show 
you  the  trick  some  day.     Meantime,  salaam) 

"  As  much  good  stay  with  thee  as  go  with  me  "' 


The  first  visiter  to  the  bay  of  New  York,  and  the 
writer  of  the  first  description  on  record,  was  John 
de  Verrazzano,  a  Florentine,  in  the  service  of  Fran- 
cis the  First.  This  bold  navigator  had  been  for  some 
time  in  command  of  four  ships,  cruising  against  the 
Spaniards.  But  his  little  fleet  being  separated  in  a 
storm,  Verrazzano  determined,  with  one  of  them,  the 
Dauphin,  to  take  a  voyage  in  search  of  new  countries. 
He  arrived  on  the  American  coast,  somewhere  near 
North  Carolina,  and  first  proceeded  south  as  far  as 
"  the  region  of  palm-trees,"  probably  Florida.  He 
then  turned,  and  proceeded  north  till  he  entered  a 
harbor,  which  he  describes  thus,  in  a  passage  of  a  let- 
ter addressed  by  him  to  his  royal  master  : — 

"This  land  is  situated  in  the  paralele  of  Rome,  in 
forty-one  degrees  and  two  terces;  but  somewhat  more 
colde  by  accidental!  causes.  The  mouth  of  the  ha- 
ven lieth  open  to  the  south,  half  a  league  broad;  and 
being  entred  within  it,  between  the  east  and  the  north, 
it  stretcheth  twelve  leagues,  where  it  wareth  broader 
and  broader,  and  maketh  a  gulfe  about  twenty  leagues 
in  compass,  wherein  are  five  small  islands,  very  fruit- 
full  and  pleasant,  full  of  hie  and  broad  trees,  among 
the  which  islands  any  great  navie  may  ride  without 
any  lea  re  of  tempest  or  other  danger." 

In  this  harbor  Verrazzano  appears  to  have  remained 
about  fifteen  days.  He  and  his  men  frequently  went 
on  shore  to  obtain  supplies  and  see  the  country.  He 
says,  in  another  part  of  his  letter  :  "  Sometimes  our 
men  stayed  two  or  three  daies  on  a  little  island  neere 
tin:  ship  for  divers  necessaries.  We  were  oftentimes 
within  the  land  five  or  six  leagues,  which  we  found  as 
pleasant  as  is  possible  to  declare,  very  apt  for  any 
kind  of  husbandry,  of  corne,  wine,  and  ayle.  We 
entered  aflerward  into  the  woods,  which  we  found  so 
thicke  that  any  army,  were  it  never  so  great,  might 
have  hid  itself  therein ;  the  trees  whereof  are  okes, 
cypress-trees,  and  other  sorts  unknown  in  Europe." 

These  were  probably  the  first  European  feet  that 
ever  trod  on  any  part  of  the  territory  now  included  iu 
the  state  of  New    York.     Verrazzano  and  his  crew 


600 


EPHEMERA. 


seem  to  have  had  considerable  intercourse  with  the 
natives,  and  generally  to  have  been  treated  well, 
though  by  his  own  account  he  did  not  always  deserve 
it.  Speaking  of  an  excursion  made  by  his  men  some- 
where on  the  coast,  he  says :  "  They  saw  only  one 
old  woman,  with  a  young  maid  of  eighteen  or  twenty 
yeeres  old,  which,  seeing  our  companie,  hid  them- 
selves in  the  grasse  for  feare.  The  old  woman  car- 
ried two  infants  on  her  shoulders,  and  the  young 
woman  was  laden  with  as  many.  As  soon  as  they 
saw  us,  to  quiet  them  and  win  their  favors,  our  men 
gave  them  victuals  to  eate,  which  the  old  woman  re- 
ceived thankfully,  but  the  young  woman  threw  them 
disdainfully  on  the  ground.  They  took  a  child  from 
the  old  ivoman  to  bring  into  France  ;  and  going  about 
to  take  the  young  ivoman,  tvhich  teas  very  beautiful, 
and  of  tall  stature,  they  could  not  possibly,  for  the 
great  outcries  that  she  made,  bring  her  to  the  sea ; 
and  especially  having  great  woods  to  pass  thorow,  and 
being  far  from  the  ship,  we  proposed  to  leave  her  be- 
hind, bearing  away  the  child  only." 

In  a  subsequent  part  of  this  narrative,  Verrazzano 
presents  a  very  favorable  picture,  not  only  of  the  ame- 
nity, but  of  the  discretion  of  the  aborigines:  "They 
came  in  great  companies  of  their  small  boats  unto  the 
ship,  with  their  faces  all  bepainted  with  divers  colors, 
and  bringing  their  wives  with  them,  whereof  they 
were  very  jealous;  they  themselves  entering  aboard 
the  ship,  and  staying  there  a  good  space,  but  causing 
their  wives  to  stay  in  their  boats  ;  and  for  all  the  en- 
treatie  that  we  could  make,  offering  to  give  them  di- 
vers things,  we  could  never  obtaine  that  they  would 
suffer  them  to  come  aboard  the  ship.  And  oftentimes 
one  of  the  two  kings  coming  with  his  queene,  and  j 
many  gentlemen  for  their  pleasure  to  see  us,  they  all  j 
stayed  on  shore,  two  hundred  paces  from  us,  sending  [ 
us  a  small  boat  to  give  us  intelligence  of  their  com-  | 
ing ;  and  as  soon  as  they  had  answere  from  us  they 
came  immediately,  and  wondered  at  hearing  the  cries 
and  noyses  of  the  mariners.  The  queene  and  her 
maids  stayed  in  a  very  light  boat  at  an  island  a  quarter 
of  a  league  off,  while  the  king  abode  a  long  space  in 
our  ship,  uttering  divers  conceits  with  gestures,  view- 
ing with  great  admiration  the  furniture  of  the  shippe. 
And  sometimes  our  men  staying  one  or  two  days  on 
a  little  island  near  the  ship,  he  returned  with  seven  or 
eight  of  his  gentlemen  to  see  what  we  did  ;  then  the 
king  drawing  his  bow,  and  running  up  and  down  with 
his  gentlemen,  made  much  sport  to  gratify  our  men." 

The  sail-studded  bay  of  New  York  at  this  day  pre- 
sents another  scene;  and  one  of  these  same  "gentle- 
men" is  now  almost  as  great  a  curiosity  here  as  was 
John  de  Verrazzano,  only  three  centuries  ago,  to  the 
rightful  lords  of  this  fair  land  and  water. 

If  we  are  not  "qualifying"  for  the  doom  of  Sodom 
and  Gomorrah,  we  must  look  elsewhere  for  the  causes 
of  the  accelerated  pace  at  which  goes  on  our  national 
demoralization.  How  many  pegs  down  we  have 
dropped  within  three  or  four  years,  in  political  prin- 
ciple, how  many  in  mercantile  honor  and  credit,  how 
many  in  the  demand  and  consequent  quality  of  litera- 
ture, and  how  many  in  the  dignity  of  the  periodical 
press,  are  four  very  pregnant  texts  for  sermons,  as 
well  as  questions  for  political  economy.  But  more 
striking  than  any  of  these  changes  for  the  worse, 
seems  to  us  the  demoralization  of  private  life — the 
increase  of  scenes  of  bloodshed,  of  shocking  immor- 
raliiies,  of  violence  toward  the  unprotected,  of  calum- 
nies, revenges,  sabbath-breakings,  and  all  the  abomi- 
nations common  to  more  corrupt  and  older  countries. 
When  is  this  unnaturally  rapid  tide  to  ebb,  and  to 
what  is  it  tending  ? 

In  the  comparative  idleness  of  Americans  at  pres- 
ent— the  stagnation  of  business  and  the  food  for  bad 
passions,  which  always  lies  under  misfortune  and  des- 
peration— we  may  doubtless  find  the  immediate  causes 


of  these  evil  changes,  and  in  this  there  lies  a  hope, 
that,  with  the  country's  reviving  prosperity  and  indus- 
try, its  morals,  public  and  private,  will  mend.  But 
there  are  other  and  more  permanent  principles  of  evil 
at  work  among  us,  which  will  grow  with  our  growth 
and  strengthen  with  our  strength — as  they  have  grown 
and  strengthened  with  the  progress  and  prosperity  of 
every  country  under  the  sun.  In  a  most  philosoph- 
ical and  able  letter  on  the  condition  of  the  different 
countries  of  Europe,  which  appeared  lately  in  the 
National  Intelligencer,  the  writer  (President  Durbin) 
remarks  upon  the  gradual  diminution  of  the  middle 
classes  in  England,  and  the  "widening  separation  be- 
tween the  rich,  who  are  becoming;  richer,  and  the 
poor,  who  are  becoming  poorer."  This  middle  class 
— which  is  the  population  without  its  extremes  of  aris- 
tocracy and  beggary — constitutes  the  body  and 
strength  of  England,  and  when  its  wealth  has  been 
drawn  to  the  aristocracy,  and  its  wants  to  the  beggary 
of  that  country,  she  will  be  ready  for  the  next  stages 
of  national  history — revolution  and  downfall.  Amer- 
ica, however,  has  as  yet  neither  extreme  to  any  con- 
siderable extent.  Our  population  are  almost  entirely 
persons  of  such  means  and  pursuits  as  would  place 
them  within  the  pale  of  the  middle  class  in  England. 
There  is  no  well-defined  aristocracy — no  inevitable 
and  irremediable  beggary.  But  the  tendency  is  tow- 
ard these  extremes,  and  in  that  tendency — irritated 
and  strengthened  just  now  by  the  peculiar  prostration 
of  "the  times" — we  see  the  causes  of  no  small  por- 
tion of  the  evils  we  have  alluded  to.  The  first  step 
taken  toward  the  formation  of  an  aristocracy  is  the 
adoption  of  its  vices,  as  the  first  result  of  inevitable 
or  impending  beggary  is  the  contemplation  of  crime. 
The  refined  pursuits  of  a  man  born  to  a  certainty  of 
wealth  and  station,  can  not  be  adopted  in  a  moment, 
nor  can  suffice  for  the  desires  of  a  man  suddenly 
grown  rich.  Nor  are  the  higher  pleasures  of  taste 
and  intellect  at  all  satisfying,  except  after  a  youth  of 
high  culture  and  ennobled  association.  The  result  is, 
that  the  corrupted  or  vacant  mind  of  the  fortunate 
possessor  of  wealth  turns  to  the  pursuit  of  pleasure, 
and  pleasure  in  such  minds  soon  degenerates  into  vice. 
A  virtuous  aristocracy,  if  it  ever  exist  at  all,  is  the 
slow  creation  of  pride  of  ancestry,  and  a  well-instilled 
conviction  of  the  true  path  of  distinction  and  honor — 
but  meantime  the  beginners  at  luxury  and  power  are 
established  as  a  class  of  ostentatious  and  unprincipled 
members  of  society,  and  the  license  and  indulgence 
they  exact  is  yielded  them  with  exasperation  on  the 
part  of  those  they  displace  and  injure.  Seduction 
and  intrigue,  hushed  up,  winked  at,  paid  for  with 
money,  in  European  countries,  is  here  resented  with 
the  murder  of  the  offender.  Public  opinion,  which, 
in  Europe,  under  such  circumstances,  would  forgive 
the  offence,  and  sympathise  only  with  the  seducer, 
takes,  in  this  country,  as  yet,  the  other  side.  To  be 
idle,  which  was  formerly  a  reproach,  is  becoming  a 
merit  here,  as  it  is  in  countries  where  none  are  gen- 
tlemen but  the  idle.  But  gambling  by  night  for  the 
means  of  extravagant  idleness  takes  the  place  of  in- 
dustry by  day,  and  the  heart-burnings,  jealousies,  and 
unemployed  passions  of  this  class,  lead  almost  cer- 
tainly to  scenes  of  violence  and  bloodshed.  The 
presence  in  our  community  of  a  large  body  of  idlers 
(such  as  exists  in  all  the  countries  of  Europe),  whose 
whole  occupation  in  life  is  profligacy,  is  an  evil  very 
fast  coming  upon  this  country,  and  one  which  should 
at  least  be  guarded  against  by  a  total  change  in  the 
education  and  guardianship  of  women. 


If  you  have  never  been  on  the  Beacon  course  at 
Hoboken,  you  have  never  seen  the  opening  lips  of 
the  Hudson  river  to  advantage.     As  if  nature  was  of 


EPHEMERA. 


601 


the  same  opinion,  the  long  city,  with  the  dot  of  Gov- 
ernor's island  below  it,  looks  like  a  note  of  admira- 
tion jotted  down  on  the  other  side.  This  high  table 
of  hind  in  so  near  neighborhood  to  New  York  is  a  su- 
perb natural  esplanade,  and  T  marvel  much  that  such 
unequalled  sites  for  villas  can  be  monopolized  by  a 
racecourse.  I  will  spare  you  the  "  fine  writing"  with 
which  the  view  inspired  me  while  there.  It  cools  too 
rosy  for  prose. 

I  went  over  in  the  suite  of  a  choice  "  Spirit  of  the 
Times,"  to  see  the  great  match  between  saddle  and 
wheels — the  Oneida  Chief,  a  pacer  in  harness,  against 
Lady  Suffolk  and  Beppo,  two  trotters,  under  jockeys 
in  stirrups.  It  was  rather  a  new  mode  of  racing — 
new  to  me,  at  least — and  I  expected  a  great  crowd, 
but  the  spectators  were  in  scores  instead  of  thousands. 
On  the  way,  and  in  the  stand,  I  was  amused  with  the 
physiognomy  and  phraseology  of  the  persons  drawn 
from  the  city  by  the  sporting  nucleus.  There  was  a 
sprinkling  of  nobodies,  like  myself,  of  course,  and 
some  strangers  from  the  hotels;  but  the  remainder 
had  a  peculiarity  which  marked  them  as  a  class,  and 
at  which  I  can  only  fling  a  conjecture  in  the  way  of  a 
definition.  Every  sense  and  faculty  about  them 
seemed  abandoned  to  jollity,  except  the  eye.  The 
eye  looked  cool  and  unsympathetic.  In  the  heartiest 
laugh,  the  lids  did  not  relax.  The  sharp  scrutinizing 
wrinkle  and  the  brow  pressed  down,  remained  im- 
movable while  the  sides  were  shaking.  I  am  not  sure 
that  the  whole  expression  lay  in  this;  but  there  was 
an  expression,  very  decided,  about  them  of  a  reserva- 
tion from  fun  somewhere,  and,  with  all  their  frolic  and 
nonsense,  they  looked  as  cool  and  ready  as  a  slate 
and  pencil.  Sharp  boys,  I  should  take  them  to  be, 
seen  singly  anywhere. 

The  horses  were  breathed  a  little  before  the  race, 
and  as  they  went  to  and  fro  before  the  stand,  I  had  a 
fair  look  at  them.  Lady  Suffolk  has  all  the  showi- 
ness  of  the  trio,  and  she  looks  more  like  a  narrow  es- 
cape of  beauty  than  beauty  itself.  She  is  a  large  dap- 
pled gray  mare,  with  a  tail  fit  for  a  pacha's  standard, 
legs  not  particularly  blood-like,  stiff  walking  gait,  and 
falls  off  behind  and  slopes  under  the  hamstrings  like  a 
corn-crib  built  to  shed  rain.  Cover  her  head  up 
(which  looks  knowing  enough  for  a  Wall  street  bro- 
ker's), and  she  would  not  sell,  standing  still  at  a  coun- 
try market,  for  a  hundred  dollars.  A  little  study  of 
her  structure,  however,  shows  you  that  she  is  made 
for  something  or  other  very  extraordinary,  and  when 
she  starts  from  you  with  a  rider  on  her  back,  she  goes 
off  like  something  entirely  different  from  any  velocity 
of  leg  that  you  are  acquainted  with.  The  speed  of 
two  passing  steamers  going  at  twenty  miles  an  hour — 
you  on  one  and  a  horse  on  the  deck  of  the  other — 
would  give  you  the  same  sensation  of  unnatural  go- 
away-ness.  Seen  coming,  from  a  little  distance,  she 
rocks  like  a  pendulum  swinging  from  the  rider's  head, 
and  when  she  goes  by  at  full  speed,  a  more  poker- 
ish,  awkward,  and  supernatual  gait  could  scarce  be 
got  out  of  a  cross  between  a  steam-paddle  and  an 
ostrich.  Every  time  her  haunches  draw  up,  she 
shoots  ahead  as  if  she  was  hit  behind  with  an  in- 
visible beetle.  Nothing  in  the  way  of  legs  seems  to 
explain  it. 

The  Oneida  Chief  is  not  half  so  fine  an  animal 
to  look  at  as  his  driver,  Hiram  Woodruff,  the  great 
whip  of  the  turf.  He  is  as  fine  a  specimen  of  the 
open-air  man,  born  for  a  field  open  to  all  comers,  as  I 
have  met  with  in  my  life.  He  has  a  fine  frank  coun- 
tenance, a  step  like  a  leopard,  a  bold  eye,  and  a  most 
compact,  symmetrical,  and  elastic  frame,  fit  for  a 
gladiator.  In  his  sulky,  he  looked  as  all  riders  in 
those  ugly  contrivances  do,  like  an  animal  with  an 
axletree  through  him,  and  wheels  to  his  hips,  but  he 
drove  so  beautifully  as  to  abate  the  usual  ridicule  of 
the  vehicle.     The  Oneida   Chief  is  a   sorrel,  and   a 


wonderful  pacer,  but,  as  he  was  beaten,  I  will  say  no 
more  about  him. 

Beppo,  the  second  best  horse,  is  the  most  comical 
little  animal  I  have  ever  seen.  His  color  is  like  a 
shabby  brown  plush,  and  he  looks,  at  a  first  glance,  as 
if  he  might  have  been  a  cab-horse,  or  a  baker's  horse, 
or  in  some  other  mnch-abused  line,  but  retaining, 
withal,  a  sort  of  cocked-pistol  expression  of  eye  and 
limb,  and  a  most  catgut  extension  of  muscle.  His 
loins  are  like  a  greyhound,  and  every  hair  on  him  seems 
laid  in  the  most  economical  way  to  to,  and  when  he 
does  go  there  is  no  outlay  for  any  other  purpose.  A 
more  mere  piece  of  straightforward  work  than  Beppo's 
action  I  could  never  imagine.  Whatever  balk  there 
was  in  starting,  he  was  just  at  the  mark,  and  he  nei- 
ther broke  nor  bothered,  but  did  it  all  in  round  honest 
trotting,  coming  up  on  the  last  quarter  stretch  like  a 
whipped-up  arrow.  As  he  only  lost  the  first  heat  by 
a  head,  he  of  course  did  his  mile,  as  Lady  Suffolk 
did,  in  two  minutes  twenty-six  seconds — the  fastest 
trotting  on  record. 


"  How  d'ye  do  ! — how  d'ye  do  !"  as  greetings,  have 
passed  away.  Those  two  never-answered  interrogato- 
ries have  yielded  to  the  equally  meaning  salutations, 
"  Eh,  back  !"  "Where?"  In  your  autumn  trip  to 
the  city  remember  to  salute  your  friends  and  acquaint- 
ances. For  some  three  weeks  this  has  been  the 
vogue,  and  (grown  a  gravity  with  use)  people  now 
shake  hands  over  "Eh  back!"  "  Where  ?"  with  all 
the  sober  earnestness  which  attended  the  habitual 
"  how  d'ye  do  ?"  "how  d'ye  do  ?"  I  give  it  you  by 
way  of  early  report  of  the  prevailing  fashion. 

Since  I  wrote  to  you  I  have  aired  my  magnetic 
circle  with  a  trip  into  the  solitude  of  the  Highlands. 
"  Retiring  from  the  crowd"  is  an  impoverished  phrase 
for  the  withdrawal  of  one's  ten  thousand  spiritual  feel- 
ers from  the  interlaced  contact  and  influence  of  four 
hundred  thousand  neighbors.  We  can  get  used  to 
anything — thanks  to  the  adaptability  of  our  natures — 
and  my  four  hundred  thousandth  part  of  the  space, 
light,  air,  and  locomotion  of  the  island  of  Manhattan, 
had  grown  by  habit  to  be  a  comfortable  allowance; 
but  it  was  no  less  a  relief  to  send  up  my  breath  to  the 
sky  without  mixture,  and  to  look  about  without  tan- 
gling my  retina  with  the  optic  nerves  of  other  peo- 
ple. The  ordinary  accompaniments  of  departure  from 
town  give  the  fullest  effect  to  the  contrast.  The  pel- 
let of  potato,  crowded  into  the  quill  of  a  boy's  pop- 
gun, does  not  escape  with  a  more  sudden  relief  than 
the  passenger  departing  by  the  North  river  steamer. 
The  crowd  grows  closer  and  tighter  as  you  get  to  the 
wharf,  and  the  last  five  minutes  before  casting  off  are 
as  close  a  pressure  of  flesh,  blood,  and  personal  atmo- 
sphere, as  can  well  be  endured  with  any  prospect  of 
recovered  elasticity.  Suddenly  there  is  a  rush  ashore, 
and  you  shoot  out  into  the  calm  and  open  bay,  and 
dropping  into  a  chair,  instantly  commence  the  peru- 
sal of  a  rural  shore,  gliding  stilly  athwart  your  eye  like 
the  lines  of  a  pastoral  poem  : — no  people  between  you 
and  it,  no  eyes  looking  at  you  from  the  Palisades,  no 
hats  on  the  trees,  no  bows  from  the  ripples  as  you  pass, 
no  jostle  in  the  fresh  air,  no  greeting,  no  beggar,  no 
bore.  As  a  sudden  release  of  mind  and  body  from  a 
tight  place,  I  know  nothing  (short  of  death  at  the 
Five  Points)  to  exceed  it. 

I  was  on  board  "the  Swallow,"  the  stillest  skimmer 
of  the  waters  in  which  I  have  yet  travelled,  and  I  trust 
the  green  trees,  and  indented  bays,  nooks,  and  knolls 
of  Hoboken  and  Westchester,  were  sensible  of  the 
fresh  intensity  of  my  admiration,  as  we  glided,  dream- 
like and  un-steamer-like,  by.  I  made  one  or  two 
mundane  and  gregarious  observations,  by-the-by,  on 
the  voyage,  and  the  principal  one  was  the  watchful 
and  delicate  attention  of  the  captain  of  the  boat  to  the 


602 


EPHEMERA. 


comfort  of  the  ladies  and  children  on  board,  and, 
apropos  of  that,  the  superiority  of  this  class  in  our 
country  over  those  of  every  other.  I  could  wish  the 
foreign  travellers  among  us  might  take  our  steamboat 
captains  on  the  Hudson  as  specimens  of  our  habits 
and  manners,  and,  for  the  three  whom  I  have  the 
pleasure  to  know  (the  captains  of  the  Troy,  Swallow, 
and  Empire),  I  am  quite  sure  that  no  gentleman  could 
desire,  for  wife  or  daughter,  more  courteous  and  well- 
bred  care  than  they  habitually  bestow  on  the  passen- 
gers who  embark  with  them.  As  an  instance  (which 
I  noticed  and  think  worth  recording),  Captain  McLean 
chanced  to  discover,  at  the  moment  a  lady  was  going 
ashore  with  a  child  and  a  nurse  at  nine  o'clock  at 
night,  that  her  destination  was  on  the  other  side  of  the 
river,  near  a  landing  where  the  boats  do  not  regularly 
touch.  As  it  looked  like  rain,  and  she  was  to  cross  in 
a  row-boat,  he  stopped  the  baggage  on  the  plank, 
begged  her  to  be  seated  for  a  few  minutes,  and  ran 
"  The  Swallow"  across,  landing  her  almost  at  her 
own  door,  very  much  to  her  delight  and  relief.  It 
should  be  set  down  in  his  honor,  and  long  may  devo- 
tion to  women  be,  as  it  certainly  is  now,  a  national 
and  peculiar  feature  of  the  Americans. 


When  I  stated  to  you  that  Mr.  Morse  would  prob- 
ably be  the  biographer  of  Allston,  I  had  for  the  mo- 
ment forgotten  that  the  great  artist  married  a  sister  of 
Richard  Dana,  who,  by  every  claim  and  qualification, 
is,  of  course,  the  proper  person  to  undertake  it.  I 
trust  it  will  not  be  a  "  cold  abstraction."  It  is  true, 
the  personal  and  familiar  character  of  all  men  of  ge- 
nius will  not  bear  posthumous  unveiling — but  All- 
ston's  will.  He  was,  in  the  phraseology  of  the  old 
dramatists,  "  a  sweet  gentleman."  God  never  wove 
the  woof  and  warp  of  taste,  feeling,  and  intellect,  un- 
der a  more  clear  and  transparent  surface  than  in  the 
"  Paint  King"  of  our  country.  You  read  his  mind 
first,  in  seeing  him.  His  frame  was  but  the  net  that 
held  it  in.  Everybody  loved  him.  Everybody  did 
homage  to  him — as  a  man  no  less  than  as  an  artist. 
Mr.  Dana  would  write  for  his  family  circle  the  kind  of 
memoir  we  want  for  the  world.  He  lives  in  an  atmo- 
sphere of  cold,  un-cosmopolite,  provincial  observance, 
in  Boston,  and  I  am  afraid  his  book  will  smack  of  the 
place  and  climate.  I  wish  he  would  go  to  Florence 
and  write  it — off,  among  the  artists,  at  a  proper  per- 
spective distance,  and  with  his  blood  warmed  up  with 
the  climate  and  his  kinsman's  far-off  praises.  The 
biography  of  Allston  should  embrace  the  history  of 
the  first  cycle  of  American  art — from  the  beginning 
to  Allston's  death.  It  is  truly  a  rare  chance  for  a 
model  biography,  and  Dana  has  it  in  him — minus 
fusion.  But  he  will  think  "  the  schoolmaster  is 
abroad,"  and  I  will  say  no  more. 


If  you  are  uot  particularly  acquainted  with  us,  dear 
reader,  pray  consider  this  last  page  in  the  light  of  a 
private  letter — inviolable  if  not  addressed  simply  to 
yourself.  We  have  tried  to  convey  this  for  some 
weeks  past  by  caption  —  as  "  More  Particularly," 
"Confidentially,"  "Just  you  and  I,"  etc.,  etc. — but 
with  no  apparent  success.  We  are  evidently  read. 
Our  private  slip-slop, ''twaddled  under  the  secrecy 
of  this  page  en  dishabille,  comes  back  to  us,  com- 
mented on  with  full-dress  criticism  by  the  pasto- 
ral editors.  Now  (courage,  while  we  administer  a 
slice  of  the  dictionary!)  our  idiosyncracy  is  a  pas- 
sion for  individual  proximity.  We  would  fain  be  fa- 
miliar— with  one  at  a  time.  We  write  and  compile 
fifteen  mortal  pages,  addressed  to  the  universe.  We 
know  by  education  that  it  is  proper  to  do  so.  The 
snail  comes  out  occasionally  from  his  suitable  house, 


and  walks  in  the  open  globe.  But  we  are  a-cold  out 
of  our  privacy.  We  want  something  between  us  and 
the  promiscuous  points  of  compass.  We  yearn  to  be 
personal  and  particular — tele-d-tete.  And  on  this  six- 
teenth page  we  indulge  our  little  weakness.  ,  If  you 
do  not  love  us — you  that  have  turned  over  this  leaf 
— pardon  us,  but  you  intrude  ! 

If  there  be  a  time  for  all  things,  there  is  a  time  to 
cease  to  be  gregarious.  To  measure  age  by  years  is 
to  weigh  gems  against  paving-stones — but  there  is  a 
point  in  middle  age — (from  thirty  to  fifty,  as  you  wear) 
— when  the  card-case  should  be  burnt  in  solemn  hol- 
ocaust. For  acquaintances  you  have  no  more  time. 
The  remainder  of  life  is  little  enough  for  friends,  and, 
between  friends,  pasteboard  is  superfluous.  We  have 
I  ripened  to  that  point — we!  In  our  pyramid  of  life 
|  the  base  was  broad  and  sympathetic.  We  spread 
j  ourselves  as  far  as  we  could  reach- — but  with  the  rise 
of  the  pyramid  of  years  the  outer  edges  have  dropped 
away,  and  the  planes  have  lessened.  We  are  limited 
to  friends,  now.  Our  mind  runs  friendship-wise.  We 
tu-toi,  as  the  French  say.  We  like  to  chat  familiarly 
— with  the  world  shut  out — indulged  and  slip-shod. 

We  have  knocked  our  head  against  this  corner  of 
speculation,  while  making  threescore  or  more  bows  of 
acknowledgment  to  editors  kind  and  complimentary. 
Somebody  loves  us,  there  is  no  doubt.  We  are 
wished  well  in  our  vocation.  And  that  is  much  in 
a  world  where  it  is  so  difficult  to  butter  the  dry  crust 
of  industry.  But,  with  no  design  to  annoy  or  rebuke 
us,  there  is  a  leaning,  in  these  friendly  notices,  to  find 
fault  with  our  frivolity.  We  are  too  frisky  for  break- 
fast reading.  "  The  spirits  of  the  wise  sit  in  the 
clouds  and  mock  us."     And  for  this  we  are  sorry. 

That  the  following  (from  the  New  Bedford  Bulle- 
tin) was  written  by  a  man  who  loves  us,  nobody  will 
doubt — yet  see  the  word  we  have  underlined  ! — 

"  The  New  Mirror  for  last  week  is  an  exquisite  number. 
Willis  has  scattered  his  gems  of  humor,  wit,  and  puppyism, 
all  over  it,  mating  it  odorous  and  sparkling  as  a  fountain 
playing  rose-water.  Willis  is  the  best  American  prose-writer 
of  a  certain  class  now  living.  He  is  as  delicious  as  Tom 
Moore,  and  a  great  deal  more  decent." 

Now,  what  is  "  puppyism?"  That  it  is  "odorous," 
we  may  venture  to  take  upon  our  friend's  authority. 
But,  if  "sparkling  as  a  fountain  playing  rose-water," 
Heaven  bless  the  puppy-most,  still  say  we !  Would 
you  have  us  graver  ?  Is  there  not  gravity  enough  in 
the  world  that  you  can  forego  our  little  contribution? 
Have  you  no  funerals,  no  false  friends,  no  leaden  pol- 
itics, and  no  notes  to  pay — that  you  must  come  for  our 
gravity  to  eke  you  out  ?  Or  do  you  find  fault  with 
our  dabble  in  the  superfineries?  Is  that  it  ?  Mustn't 
we  mention  "  patent  leather"  and  "  velvet  eyes  ?" 
Can't  we  call  the  mouth  of  a  charming  woman  a 
"  pink  portico  with  an  ivory  door" — without  offending 
you  ?  Come,  come,  you  are  not  quite  the  anchorite 
you  would  label  yourself,  and,  while  flowers  will 
bloom,  horlus  siccus  be  hanged — say  you  not  so  ?  Let 
us  talk  about  the  things  we  like.  Life  is  too  short  for 
hypocrisy.  Try  the  trick  yourself.  Write  a  para- 
graph or  two  in  our  flummery  way,  and  see  how  trip- 
pingly it  comes  off,  and  what  an  uncoiling  from  your 
heart  it  is  of  the  dull  serpent  of  care! 

Put  this  French  proverb  in  your  pipe  and  smoke  it 
— "  Ne  pouvoir  tolerer  les  faiblesses  d'autrui,  voila  la 
faiblesse."  If  you  never  thought  of  that,  thank  us 
for  a  new  precept,  and  slip  a  copy  of  it  under  your 
friendships.     It  keeps  out  moths  like  camphor. 


Not  quite  one  hundred  years  after  Verrazzano's  dis- 
covery of  the  bay  of  New  York,  during  all  which 
period  we  have  no  account  of  its  having  been  visited 
by  a  European  vessel,  Hudson  made  the  capes  of 
Virginia  on  his  third  cruise  in  search  of  the  northwest 


EPHEMERA. 


603 


passage.  Standing  still  on  a  northward  course,  he 
arrived  in  sight  of  the  Narrows,  distinguishing  from  a 
great  distance  the  highlands  of  Neversink,  which  his 
mate,  Robert  Juet,  described  in  the  journal  he  kept  as 
a  "  very  good  land  to  fall  with,  and  a  pleasant  land  to 
see." 

The  most  interesting  peculiarity  of  our  country  to 
a  European  observer,  is  the  freshness  of  its  early  his- 
tory, and  the  strong  contrast  it  presents  of  most  of  the 
features  of  a  highly-civilized  land,  with  the  youth  and 
recent  adventures  of  a  newly-discovered  one.  The 
details  of  these  first  discoveries  are  becoming  every 
day  more  interesting;  and  that  part  of  the  journal  of 
the  great  navigator  which  relates  to  his  first  view  of 
them  is  very  interesting.  The  following  extracts  de- 
scribe the  Narrows  as  they  were  two  hundred  years  ago : 

"At  three  of  the  clock  in  the  afternoone  we  came 
to  three  great  rivers.  So  we  stood  along  to  the  nor- 
thernmost, thinking  to  have  gone  into  it,  but  we  found 
it  to  have  a  very  shoald  barre  before  it,  for  we  had  but 
ten  foot  water.  Then  we  cast  about  to  the  southward, 
and  found  two  fathoms,  three  fathoms,  and  three  and 
a  quarter,  till  we  came  to  the  souther  side  of  them, 
then  we  had  five  or  six  fathoms,  and  anchored.  So  we 
sent  in  our  boat  to  sound,  and  they  found  no  less  water 
than  foure,  five,  six,  and  seven  fathoms,  and  returned 
in  an  hour  and  a  halfe.  So  we  weighed  and  went  in, 
and  rode  in  five  fathoms,  ose  ground,  and  saw  many 
salmons,  and  mullets,  and  rayes,  very  great. 

"  The  fourth,  in  the  morning,  as  soone  as  the  day 
was  light,  we  saw  that  it  was  good  riding  farther  up. 
So  we  sent  our  boate  to  sound,  and  found  that  it  was  a 
very  good  harbour;  then  we  weighed  and  went  in  with 
our  ship.  Then  our  boat  went  on  land  with  our  net 
to  fish,  and  caught  ten  great  mullets,  of  a  foot  and  a 
half  long  apeece,  and  a  ray  as  great  as  foure  men  could 
hale  into  the  ship.  So  we  trimmed  our  boat,  and 
rode  still  all  day.  At  night  the  wind  blew  hard  at  the 
northwest  and  our  anchor  came  home,  and  we  drove 
on  shore,  but  took  no  hurt,  thanked  bee  God,  for  the 
ground  is  soft  sand  and  ose.  This  day  the  people  of 
the  country  came  aboard  of  us,  seeming  very  glad  of 
our  comming,  and  brought  greene  tobacco,  and  gave 
us  of  it  for  knives  and  beads.  They  go  in  deere 
skins  loose,  well  dressed.  They  have  yellow  copper. 
They  desire  cloathes,  and  are  very  civil!.  They  have 
great  store  of  maise,  or  Indian  wheate,  whereof  they 
make  good  bread.  The  country  is  full  of  great  and 
tall  oaks. 

"  The  fifth,  in  the  morning,  as  soone  as  the  day  was 
light,  the  wind  ceased;  so  we  sent  our  boate  in  to 
sound  the  bay.  Our  men  went  on  land  there  and  saw 
great  store  of  men,  women,  and  children,  who  gave 
them  tobacco  at  their  coming  on  land.  So  they  went 
up  into  the  woods,  and  saw  great  store  of  very  goodly 
oakes,  and  some  currants. 

"  The  sixth,  in  the  morning,  was  faire  weather,  and 
our  master  sent  John  Colman  with  foure  other  men  in 
our  boat  over  to  the  north  side,  to  sound  the  other 
river"  (the  Narrows).  "They  found  very  good  riding 
for  ships,  and  a  narrow  river  to  the  westward"  (probably 
what  is  now  called  the  Kills,  or  the  passage  between 
Bergen  Neck  and  Staten  Island),  "  between  two 
islands.  The  lands,  they  told  us,  were  as  pleasant, 
with  grasse  and  flowers,  and  goodly  trees,  as  they  ever 
had  seen,  and  very  sweet  smells  came  from  them.  So 
they  went  in  two  leagues  and  saw  an  open  sea,  and 
returned  ;  and  as  they  came  backe  they  were  set  upon 
by  two  canoes,  the  one  having  twelve,  the  other  four- 
teen men.  The  night  came  on,  and  it  began  to  raine, 
so  that  their  match  went  out ;  and  they  had  one  man 
slain  in  the  fight,  which  was  an  Englishman,  named 
John  Colman,  with  an  arrow  shot  into  his  throat,  and 
two  more  hurt.  It  grew  so  dark  that  they  could  not 
find  the  shippe  that  night,  but  laboured  to  and  fro  on 
their  oares. 


"The  seventh  was  fair,  and  they  returned  aboard 
the  ship,  and  brought  our  dead  man  with  them,  whom 
we  carried  on  land  and  buried." 

On  the  eighth,  Hudson  lay  still,  to  be  more  sure  of 

the  disposition  of  the  natives  before  venturing  farther 

!  in.     Several  came  on  board,  but  no  disturbance  oc- 

;  curred,  and  on  the  ninth  he  got  under  weigh,  passed 

\  the  Narrows,  and  proceeded  by  slow  degrees  up  the 

river  destined  to  bear  his  name. 

The  current  of  life  seems  to  be  too  rapid  in  Amer- 
ica to  allow  time  for  reflection  upon  anything  which 
can  possibly  be  deferred.  The  monuments  are  left 
unfinished  on  our  battle-field  ;  the  tombs  of  great  men 
become  indistinguishable  before  marked  with  a  stone  ; 
and  the  sacred  places  where  patriotism  has  dwelt,  are 
rated  by  the  value  of  their  material,  and  left  to  decay. 
It  is  difficult  to  visit  Mount  Vernon,  and  feel,  from 
any  mark  of  care  or  respect  visible  about  it,  that 
America  owes  anything  to  the  sacred  ashes  it  entombs. 
The  family  tomb  at  Mount  Vernon  has  once  been 
'  robbed  by  a  sacrilegious  ruffian,  whose  ignorance 
alone  preserved  for  us  the  remains  of  Washington.  It 
has  been  proposed  to  Congress  to  buy  Mount  Vernon, 
and  establish  a  guard  over  relics  so  hallowed.  Why 
should  not  this  be  done,  and  a  sufficient  sum  be  ap- 
propriated to  enclose  and  keep  in  order  the  whole 
estate,  improve  the  execrable  road  leading  to  it  from 
:  Alexandria,  and  employ  persons  to  conduct  strangers 
over  the  place? 

The  vault  in  which  the  ashes  of  Washington  re- 
I  pose,  is  at  the  distance  of,  perhaps,  thirty  rods  from 
I  the  house,  immediately  upon  the  bank  of  the  river. 
|  A  more  romantic  and  picturesque  site  for  a  tomb  can 
scarcely  be  imagined.  Between  it  and  the  Potomac 
is  a  curtain  of  forest-trees,  covering  the  steep  declivity 
to  the  water's  edge,  breaking  the  glare  of  the  pros- 
pect, and  yet  affording  glimpses,  of  the  river,  where 
the  foliage  is  thickest.  The  tomb  is  surrounded  by- 
several  large  native  oaks,  which  are  venerable  by  their 
years,  and  which  annually  strew  the  sepulchre  with 
autumnal  leaves,  furnishing  the  most  appropriate  dra- 
pery for  the  place,  and  giving  a  still  deeper  impression 
to  the  memento  mori.  Interspersed  among  the  oaks, 
and  overhanging  the  tomb,  is  a  copse  of  red  cedar, 
whose  evergreen  boughs  present  a  fine  contrast  to  the 
hoary  and  leafless  branches  of  the  oak  ;  and  while  the 
deciduous  foliage  of  the  latter  indicates  the  decay  of 
the  body,  the  eternal  verdure  of  the  former  furnishes 
a  fitting  emblem  of  the  immortal  spirit.  The  sacred 
and  symbolic  cassia  was  familiar  to  Washington,  and, 
perhaps,  led  to  the  selection  of  a  spot  where  the  ever- 
green flourished. 

One  of  the  most  interesting  associations  with  the 
tomb  of  Washington,  is  Lafayette's  visit  to  it,  as 
related  by  Levasseur: — 

"  After  a  voyage  of  two  hours,  the  guns  of  Port 
Washington  announced  that  we  were  approaching  the 
last  abode  of  the  father  of  his  country.  At  this 
solemn  signal,  to  which  the  military  band  accompa- 
nying us  responded  by  plaintive  strains,  we  went  on 
deck,  and  the  venerable  soil  of  Mount  Vernon  was  be- 
fore us.  At  this  view  an  involuntary  and  spontaneous 
movement  made  us  kneel.  We  landed  in  boats,  and 
trod  upon  the  ground  so  often  trod  by  the  feet  of 
Washington.  A  carriage  received  General  Lafayette; 
and  the  other  visiters  silently  ascended  the  precipitous 
path  which  conducted  to  the  solitary  habitation  of 
Mount  Vernon.  In  re-entering  beneath  this  hospit- 
able roof,  which  had  sheltered  him  when  the  reign  of 
terror  tore  him  violently  from  his  country  and  family, 
George  Lafayette  felt  his  heart  sink  within  him,  at  no 
more  finding  him  whose  paternal  care  had  softened  his 
misfortunes ;  while  his  father  sought  with  emotion  for 
everything  which  reminded  him  of  the  companion  of 
his  glorious  toils. 

"  Three  nephews  of  General  Washington  took  La- 


604 


EPHExMERA. 


fayette,  his  son,  and  myself,  to  conduct  us  to  the  tomb 
of  their  uncle  ;  our  numerous  companions  remained 
in  the  house.  In  a  few  minutes  the  cannon,  thunder- 
ing anew,  announced  that  Lafayette  rendered  homage 
to  the  ashes  of  Washington.  Simple  and  modest  as 
he  was  during  life,  the  tomb  of  the  citizen  hero  is 
scarcely  perceived  among  the  sombre  cypresses  by 
which  it  is  surrounded.  A  vault,  slightly  elevated  and 
dotted  over — a  wooden  door  without  inscriptions — 
some  withered  and  green  garlands,  indicate  to  the  trav- 
eller who  visits  the  spot  where  rest  in  peace  the  puis- 
sant arms  which  broke  the  chains  of  his  country.  As 
we  approached,  the  door  was  opened.  Lafayette  de- 
scended alone  into  the  vault,  and  a  few  minutes  after 
reappeared,  with  his  eyes  overflowing  with  tears.  He 
took  his  son  and  me  by  the  hand,  and  led  us  into  the 
tomb,  where,  by  a  sign,  he  indicated  the  coffin.  We 
knelt  reverentially,  and  rising,  threw  ourselves  into 
the  arms  of  Lafayette,  and  mingled  our  tears  with 
his." 


There  are  manifest  signs  that  the  summer  is  here. 
The  ladies  who  are  on  their  travels,  and  the  ladies  who 
are   not,  wear  alike  the  toilet  of  transit — dust-proof; 
dresses  and  green  veils.     "  Bound  for  the  Springs"  is  j 
palpably  intended  to  be  expressed  by  every  apparition  ! 
of  beauty  in  Broadway.     The  gentlemen,  in  the  ab- 
sence  of  the  more   approved  targets  at  which  their  | 
irresistiblenesses  are  aimed,  go  about  in  calico  coats,  j 
ungloved,  unwaistcoated,  unstrapped,  and  uncravatted.  I 
Hot   corn   is   cried    at    midnight.     Raspberries    are  j 
treacherous.     Green  apples  and  pears  grace  the  tables 
of  the  hucksters.     The  daily  papers  show  signs  of  the 
rustication  of  the  leading  editors.     Hotels  crammed, 
and  a  pervading  odor  of  the  fruity  drinks  extending  a 
hundred  yards  from  them   in   every  direction.     The 
summer  has  arrived,  I  believe — but  I  feel  called  upon 
to  admit  that  count   D'Orsay  and  Lady  Blessington 
have   not.     Colonel  Stone's  virtuous  horrification  at  j 
the  mention  of  such  improper  people  by  your  corres- 
pondent has  probably  driven  them  into  an  incognitude 
which  has  cost  the  count  his  whiskers,  at  least.  With- 
out them,  Niagara  itself  would  not  recognise  him — 
brother  wonder  as  he  is — and,  if  in  the  land  of  Boz- 
worship  at  all,  they  probably  pass  for  a  big  Kentuck- 
ian   and   his  handsome   mother.     Keep  a  look  out  ars 
you  travel,  however,  amis  voyageurs  ! 

Kissing  has  no  longer  the  drawback  of  wear  and 
tear.  I  see  that  Dr.  Ellsworth  of  Hartford  has  suc- 
ceeded in  restoring  a  lost  upper  lip.  The  paper 
which  describes  it  says  :  "  Upon  the  red  facing  may 
possibly  be  detected  the  point  of  connexion  between 
the  two  halves.  The  lip  is  really  a  handsome 
one — quite  equal  to  the  best  cures  of  hare-lip.  No 
one  would  for  a  moment  suspect  that  it  had  travelled 
from  the  cheeks  to  its  present  location,  which  it 
graces  as  well  as  the  original,  except  that  it  has  not 
quite  as  free  and  easy  a  motion,  although  enough  for 
all  common  purposes." 

Passengers  up  the  Hudson  who  wish  to  take  the 
early  trains  west,  embark  at  present  on  the  forward 
deck  of  the  "Empire."  Those  who  are  not  in  a 
hurry  take  passage  in  the  after  cabin,  and  on  the 
mooring  of  the  boat  at  Albany,  pay  their  respects  to 
the  ex-president  at  Kinderhook,  from  the  stern  taffrail. 
She  is  commanded  by  Captain  Roe,  who,  in  the  extent 
of  his  jurisdiction,  ranks  with  the  governor  of  Rhode 
Island,  and  is  a  potentate  to  be  propitiated  in  politics. 
Seriously,  this  noble  steamer  is  a  very  great  curiosity. 
The  saloon  on  her  promenade  deck  is  nearly  three 
hundred  feet  long,  and,  with  four  or  five  hundred  peo- 
ple on  board,  she  seems  to  have  few  passengers.  The 
sight  of  her  engine  at  work  is  an  imposing  affair. 
Some  of  the  state-rooms  above  are  small  drawing- 
rooms  to  accommodate  parties,  and  she  is  furnished 


and  managed  with  a  luxury  and  tact  worth  making  a 
trip  to  see. 


I  understand  it  has  lately  occurred  to  some  gentle- 
men with  open  eyes,  that  anchorage  is  cheaper  than 
ground-rent — that  a  ship-of-war  is  but  a  spacious 
hotel  upside-down,  and  that  the  most  desirable  site  for 
a  summer  residence,  as  to  pure  air,  neighborhood, 
novelty,  and  economy,  is  now  occupied  by  the  "Inde- 
pendence" and  "North  Carolina,"  the  men-of-war 
just  off  the  Battery.  The  latter  ship  being  unsea- 
worthy,  it  is  proposed  to  purchase  her  of  the  govern- 
ment for  the  experiment.  It  is  estimated  that  she  can 
accommodate  comfortably  three  hundred  persons.  The 
immense  upper-deck  is  to  be  covered  with  a  weather- 
proof awning,  blue  and  white,  in  the  style  of  the  Al- 
hamra,  and  given  up  entirely  to  dining,  dancing, 
lounging,  and  the  other  uses  of  hotel  drawing-rooms. 
A  more  magnificent  promenade  than  this  immense 
deck,  cleared  of  guns  and  lumber  fore-and-aft,  and 
surrounded  entirely  by  luxurious  sofas,  could  scarcely 
be  imagined.  The  kitchens  and  offices  are  to  occupy 
the  forward  part  of  the  second  deck,  or,  if  the  vessel 
is  crowded,  to  be  transferred  to  a  small  tender  along- 
side. The  port-holes  are  to  be  enlarged  to  spacious 
windows,  and  the  two  decks  below,  which  are  above 
the  water-line,  will  be  entirely  occupied  by  splendid 
rooms,  open  to  the  entire  breadth  of  the  bay,  and  fur- 
nished in  the  oriental  and  cushioned  style,  suitable  to 
the  luxurious  wants  of  hot  weather.  Minute-barges 
will  ply  to  and  from  the  shore,  connected  with  the 
Waverley  line  of  omnibuses ;  bath-houses  will  be 
anchored  just  astern;  a  cafe  and  ice-cream  shop  will 
be  established  in  the  main  and  mizen-tops  (to  be 
reached  by  a  covered  staircase) ;  and  sofas,  for  the 
accommodation  of  smokers,  will  be  put  under  a  peril- 
house  roof,  outside  the  vessel,  in  the  main-chains. 
The  cockpit  and  hold  will  of  course  unite  the  uses  of 
a  hotel-garret  and  cellar.  It  will  have  the  advantage 
of  other  hotels,  in  swinging  round  with  the  tide,  so 
that  the  lodgers  on  both  sides  of  the  ship  will  see,  by 
turns,  from  the  windows,  the  entire  panorama  of  the  bay. 
When  lightened  of  her  guns,  and  her  upper  spars  and 
rigging,  it  is  thought  she  will  float  so  much  higher  as 
to  bear  piercing  for  another  line  of  port-hole  windows, 
affording  some  bachelor's  rooms  at  the  water-line,  cor- 
responding in  price  and  convenience  with  the  sky- 
chambers  of  the  Astor.  An  eccentric  individual,  I 
am  told,  has  bargained  for  a  private  parlor,  to  be  sus- 
pended under  the  bowsprit,  in  imitation  of  the  nest  of 
the  hanging-bird.  Altogether,  the  scheme  seems 
charming  and  feasible.  The  name  of  the  hotel,  by- 
the-way,  is  to  be  "  Saratoga  Afloat;"  the  waiters  are 
to  be  dressed  in  the  becoming  toggery  of  tars  ;  and 
the  keeper  of  the  house  is  to  wear  a  folded  napkin, 
epaulet  fashion,  on  either  shoulder,  and  to  be  called 
invariably  "  commodore." 

This  seems  to  be  the  age  of  invention.  Several 
houses  in  the  city  are  being  made  rather  higher,  by 
raising  them  ten  feet  on  screws,  and  building  a  story 
under  them — a  great  economy  of  the  loins  of  hod- 


As  a  metropolis  of  wealth  and  fashion,  New  York 
has  one  great  deficiency — that  of  a  driving  j)ark. 
Rome  has  ils  Pincian  Hill,  Florence  its  Cascine, 
Paris  its  Bois  de  Bologne,  and  London  its  Hyde  Park; 
and  most  other  capitals  have  places  of  resort-on- 
wheels,  where  fresh  air  and  congenial  society  may 
be  met  in  the  afternoon  hours.  Such  a  place  is 
only  not  considered  indispensable  in  New  York,  be- 
cause it  has  never  been  enjoyed.  It  is,  for  the  rich, 
the  highest  of  luxuries.     The  Cascine  of  Florence, 


EPHEMERA. 


605 


for  example,  is  a  park  of  two  miles  square,  laid  out  in 
wooded  avenues;  and  to  its  winding  roads  and  forest 
glades  resort,  every  afternoon,  the  entire  equipaged 
population  of  the  court  and  city.  At  sunset,  the  car- 
riages meet  in  an  open  square  in  the  centre,  and  the 
"lords  and  ladies''  pass  the  two  hours  of  the  delicious 
twilight  in  visiting  from  vehicle  to  vehicle,  forming 
parties  for  the  evening,  flirting,  making  acquaintances, 
talking  scandal,  and  other  dainty  diversions — breaking 
up  in  time  to  go  to  the  opera  or  dress  for  a  ball.  There 
is  enough  room  for  such  a  park  in  the  neighborhood 
of  Union  square,  or  on  the  East  or  North  river  ;  and 
the  importance  of  such  spaces,  left  open  for  lungs  to 
a  crowded  city,  has  been  long  inculcated  by  physicians. 
I  think  it  possible  such  an  exclusive  resort  might  be  at 
first  a  little  unpopular  (remembering  that  some  three 
years  ago  a  millionaire  was  stoned  for  riding  through 
Broadway  with  a  mounted  servant  in  livery  behind 
him),  but,  as  one  of  the  hand-to-mouth  class,  I  do 
not  care  how  soon  the  rich  get  richer  and  the  poor 
poorer — leaving  a  comfortable  middle  class,  in  which 
ambition  might  stop  to  breathe. 

I  notice  the  introduction  of  the  Italian  verandah 
curtains  to  New  York — the  sort  of  striped  demi-um-  j| 
brella,  put  out  from  the  top  of  the  window  with  falling 
side  folds,  which  are  so  common  in  Venice  and  Na-  \ 
pies.  Two  or  three  shops  in  Broadway  have  them,  ! 
and  Cozzens  has  lately  fitted  them  on  to  the  windows  | 
of  his  ladies'  dining-room — and  most  showy  and  pic-  I 
turesque  luxuries  they  are. 

Howard  has  chosen,  for  the  decoy  of  his  hotel,  an  j 
intermittent  relay  of  governors.     The  immense  flag 
which  sweeps  the  top  of  the  omnibuses  in  Broadway  ! 
on  the  arrival  of  such  functionaries,  seems  to  have  no 
sinecure  of  it,  and  his  house  is,  in  consequence,  con-  j 
tinually  overrun.     He  keeps  a  table  suitable  to  a  court 
hotel,  and  seems  to  be  the  only  one  of  his  class  who  j 
is  independent  of  "travelling  seasons." 

I  observe  that  the  paviors  are  at  work  in  the  upper 
part  of  Broadway,  removing  the  wooden  pavement, 
and  substituting  the  broad,  flat  stones,  such  as  are  laid 
in  the  streets  of  Florence.  The  wooden  blocks  were 
certainly  in  a  deplorable  condition,  but  I  do  not  think 
they  have  had  fair  play  as  an  experiment.  They  were 
badly  laid,  and  were  left  to  annoy  the  public  long  after 
thty  should  have  been  repaired. 

A  periodical  journal  in  Boston  gives  the  name  and 
true  history  of  Tom  Thumb,  the  dwarf  now  at  the 
Museum.  He  was  christened  Charles  Stratton.  His  j 
parents  were  of  the  usual  size,  and  he  has  two  sisters 
of  the  usual  proportions.  General  Thumb  has  not 
grown  since  he  was  six  months  old,  and  he  is  now  ' 
eleven,  and  twenty-two  inches  tall.  He  is  perfectly 
formed,  very  athletic  for  his  size,  and  in  perfect  health 
ind  spirits.  In  mind  he  remains  childish  and  un- 
changed, as  in  body. 

You  may  have  noticed  in  the  New  York   papers, 
ately,   a  great   abundance   of   essays   upou   bathing. 
Since  the  Croton  facilities,  public  attention  has  been 
urned  a  good  deal  that  way,  and  the  prices  of  baths  j 
Mave  been  universally  diminished,  while  new  bathing  | 
establishments  have  been  advertised  in  various  parts  of 
ihe  city.     The  new  one  lately  opened   by  Stoppani  in  : 
Broadway,  near  the  Apollo  rooms,  exceeds  in  splendor  ! 
anything  we  have  yet  seen  in  this  line.     A  sumptuous  i 
refectory  is  part  of  it;  and  the  long,  arched- passages 
of  bathing-rooms  remind  one  of  the  Roman  establish- 
ments in   the  way  of  baths.     These  were,  anciently, 
the  centres  around  which  luxuries  of  every  description 
were  clustered  ;  and  Stoppani  seems  to  have  built  this 
with  B  view  to  sumptuous  idling  and  enjoyment. 


The  most  comprehensive  view   of  Niagara  is,  no 
doubt,   that    from    the    galleries  of    Clifton    house; 


but  it  is,  at  the  same  time,  for  a  first  view,  one  of  the 
most  unfavorable.  Clifton  house  stands  nearly  op- 
posite the  centre  of  the  irregular  crescent  formed  by 
the  Falls;  but  it  is  so  far  back  from  the  line  of  the 
arc,  that  the  height  and  grandeur  of  the  two  cataracts, 
to  an  eye  unacquainted  with  the  scene,  are  deceptively 
diminished.  After  once  making  the  tour  of  the  points 
of  view,  however,  the  distance  and  elevation  of  the 
hotel  are  allowed  for  by  the  eye,  and  the  situation 
seems  most  advantageous.  This  is  the  only  house  at 
Niagara  where  a  traveller,  on  his  second  visit,  would 
be  content  to  live. 

Clifton  house  is  kept  in  the  best  style  of  hotels  in 
this  country ;  but  the  usual  routine  of  such  places, 
going  on  in  the  very  eye  of  Niagara,  weaves  in  very 
whimsically  with  the  eternal  presence  and  power  of 
the  cataract.  We  must  eat,  drink,  and  sleep,  it  is 
true,  at  Niagara,  as  elsewhere ;  and  indeed,  what  with 
the  exhaustion  of  mind  and  fatigue  of  body,  we  re- 
quire at  the  Falls  perhaps  more  than  usual  of  these 
three  "  blessed  inventions."  The  leaf  that  is  caught 
away  by  the  rapids,  however,  is  not  more  entirely  pos- 
sessed by  this  wonder  of  nature,  than  is  the  mind  and 
imagination  of  i»he  traveller;  and  the  arrest  of  that 
leaf  by  the  touch  of  the  overhanging  tree,  or  the 
point  of  a  rock  amid  the  breakers,  is  scarce  more  mo- 
mentary than  the  interruption  to  the  traveller's  en- 
chantment by  the  circumstances  of  daily  life.  He 
falls  asleep  with  its  surging  thunders  in  his  ear,  and 
wakes — to  wonder,  for  an  instant,  if  his  yesterday's 
astonishment  was  a  dream.  With  the  succeeding 
thought,  his  mind  refills,  like  a  mountain  channel, 
whose  torrent  has  been  suspended  by  the  frost,  and  he 
is  overwhelmed  with  sensations  that  are  almost  pain- 
ful, from  the  suddenness  of  their  return.  He  rises 
and  throws  up  his  window,  and  there  it  flashes,  and 
thunders,  and  agonizes — the  same  almighty  miracle 
of  grandeur  for  ever  going  on;  and  he  turns  and  won- 
ders— what  the  deuce  can  have  become  of  his  stock- 
ings! He  slips  on  his  dressing-gown  and  commences 
his  toilet.  The  glass  stands  in  the  window,  and  with 
his  beard  half  achieved,  he  gets  a  glimpse  of  the  foam- 
cloud  rising  majestically  over  the  top  of  the  mahog- 
any frame.  Almost  persuaded,  like  Queen  Christina 
at  the  fountains  of  St.  Peter's,  that  a  spectacle  of 
such  splendor  is  not  intended  to  last,  he  drops  his 
razor,  and  with  the  soap  drying  unheeded  on  his  chin, 
he  leans  on  his  elbows,  and  watches  the  yesty  writhe 
in  the  abysm,  and  the  solemn  pillars  pf  crystal  eter- 
nally falling,  like  the  fragments  of  some  palace-crested 
star,  descending  through  interminable  space.  The 
white  field  of  the  iris  forms  over  the  brow  of  the  cat- 
aract, exhibits  its  radiant  bow,  and  sails  away  in  a  van- 
ishing cloud  of  vapor  upon  the  wind;  the  tortured 
and  convulsed  surface  of  the  caldron  below  shoots  out 
its  frothy  and  seething  circles  in  perpetual  torment ; 
the  thunders  are  heaped  upon  each  other,  the  earth 
trembles,  and — the  bell  rings  for  breakfast!  A  vision 
of  cold  rolls,  clammy  omelets,  and  tepid  tea,  succeeds 
these  sublime  images,  and  the  traveller  completes  his 
toilet.  Breakfast  over,  he  resorts  to  the  colonnade, 
to  contemplate  untiringly  the  scene  before  him,  and 
in  the  midst  of  a  calculation  of  the  progress  of  the 
fall  toward  Lake  Erie — with  the  perspiration  standing 
on  his  forehead,  while  he  struggles  to  conceive  the 
junction  of  its  waters  with  Lake  Ontario— the  rocks 
rent,  the  hills  swept  away,  forests  prostrated,  and  the 
islands  uprooted  in  the  mighty  conflux— some  one's 
child  escapes  from  its  nurse,  and  seizing  him  by  the 
legs,  cries  out,  "  Da-da." 

The  ennui  attendant  upon  public  houses  can  never 
be  felt  at  Clifton  house.  The  most  common  mind 
finds  the  spectacle  from  its  balconies  a  sufficient  and 
untiring  occupation.  The  loneliness  of  uninhabited 
parlors,  the  discord  of  baby-thrummed  pianos,  the 
dreariness  of  great  staircases,  long  entries,  and  bar- 


606 


EPHEMERA. 


rooms  filled  with  strangers,  are  pains  and  penalties  of 
travel  never  felt  at  Niagara.  If  there  is  a  vacant  half- 
hour  to  dinner,  or  if  indisposition  to  sleep  create  that 
sickening  yearning  for  society,  which  sometimes 
comes  upon  a  stranger  in  a  strange  land,  like  the  cal- 
enture of  a  fever — the  eternal  marvel  going  on  with- 
out is  more  engrossing  than  friend  or  conversation, 
more  beguiling  from  sad  thought  than  the  Corso  in 
carnival-time.  To  lean  over  the  balustrade  and  watch 
the  flying  of  the  ferry-boat  below,  with  its  terrified 
freight  of  adventurers,  one  moment  gliding;  swiftly 
down  the  stream  in  the  round  of  an  eddy,  the  next, 
lifted  up  by  a  boiling  wave,  as  if  it  were  tossed  up 
from  the  scoop  of  a  giant's  hand  beneath  the  water; 
to  gaze  hour  after  hour  into  the  face  of  the  cataract, 
to  trace  the  rainbows,  delight  like  a  child  in  the 
shooting  spray-clouds,  and  calculate  fruitlessly  and 
endlessly  by  the  force,  weight,  speed,  and  change  of 
the  tremendous  waters — is  amusement  and  occupa- 
tion enough  to  draw  the  mind  from  anything — to  cure 
madness  or  create  it. 


I  met  Weir,  the  painter,  at  West  Point,  and  he 
was  kind  enough  to  give  me  a  look  at  his  just-finished 
picture  for  the  Rotundo  at  Washington.  It  was  but 
a  glimpse  of  five  minutes,  while  I  was  waiting  for  the 
boat,  but  I  have  remembered  every  line  of  the  pic- 
ture so  distinctly  since,  that  I  can  speak  confidently, 
at  least,  of  its  effect  and  power  of  possessing  the 
spectator.  Let  me  transcribe  for  you  the  historical 
passage  taken  for  illustration  : — 

"  And  the  time  being  come  that  they  must  depart, 
they  were  accompanied  with  most  of  their  brethren 
out  of  the  city  to  a  town  called  Delft-Haven,  where 
the  ship  lay  ready  to  receive  them.  The  next  day 
the  wind  ^eing  fair,  they  went  on  board,  and  their 
friends  with  them,  where  truly  doleful  was  the  sight 
of  that  sad  and  mournful  parting,  to  hear  what  sighs 
and  sobs  and  prayers  did  sound  amongst  them,  what 
tears  did  gush  from  every  eye,  and  pithy  speeches 
pierced  each  other's  heart,  that  sundry  of  the  Dutch 
strangers  that  stood  on  the  key  as  spectators  could 
not  refrain  from  tears;  yet  comfortable  and  sweet  it 
was  to  see  such  lively  and  true  expressions  of  dear 
and  unfeigned  love.  But  the  tide,  which  stays  for  no 
man,  calling  them  away  that  were  thus  loath  to  depart, 
their  reverend  .pastor  falling  down  on  his  knees,  and 
they  all  with  him,  with  watery  cheeks  commended 
them  with  most  fervent  prayers  unto  the  Lord  and  his 
blessing;  and  then,  with  mutual  embraces  and  many 
tears,  they  took  their  leave  one  of  another,  which 
proved  to  be  the  last  leave  to  many  of  them.  Thus 
hoisting  sail,  with  a  prosperous  gale  of  wind,  they 
came  in  a  short  time  to  Southampton,  where  they 
found  the  bigger  ship  come  from  London." 

It  would  be  a  curious  subject  of  thought  to  a  man 
unfamiliar  with  the  wardrobe  of  the  imagination,  if 
he  would  keep  this  plain  and  simple  passage  of  histo- 
ry in  his  mind  while  he  looks  at  the  gorgeous  inves- 
titure in  which  it  is  clad  by  the  genius  of  the  painter — 
to  compare  the  picture  in  his  mind  while  he  read  it 
with  the  picture  made  of  it  on  this  canvass.  I  will 
not  attempt  here — indeed  I  could  not  attempt,  with- 
out seeing  it  again — anything  like  a  criticism  on  this 
painting — but  may  say  what  I  feel  while  it  deepens  in 
my  memory,  that  I  have  seen  no  such  glorious  work 
of  art  in  this  country,  and  I  have  not  been  more  filled 
and  wrought  upon  by  any  of  the  great  chefs  d'ceuvre 
of  the  masters  in  Europe.  The  effect  on  the  mind 
is  that  of  expanding  the  capacity  to  embrace  it. 
Weir  has  drawn  his  figures  on  a  scale  larger  than 
life,  and  the  immense  canvass  is  filled  with  groups  of 
the  most  exquisite  naturalness  of  posture  and  rela- 
tion to  each  other,  but  at  the  same  time  finished  with 


a  breadth  and  strength  of  effect  that  looks  done  with 
a  hand  accustomed  to  minister  only  to  power  without 
limit.  The  coloring  in  the  two  wings  of  the  picture 
is  exceedingly  gorgeous,  but  the  centre,  around  the 
kneeling  pastor,  is  admirably  subdued  in  middle  teints 
appropriate  to  the  objects  they  envelope,  and  the  pas- 
tor himself,  in  face,  attitude,  and  costume,  is  the  most 
masterly  embodiment  of  hallowed  piety  and  devotion 
which  it  is  possible  for  poet  to  conceive.  The  pres- 
ence, on  board  of  the  vessel,  of  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Wins- 
low  (the  new-married  people  of  fortune,  who,  while 
travelling  for  pleasure,  fell  in  with  and  joined  the  emi- 
grants for  conscience  sake),  gives  the  artist  the  neces- 
sary liberty  to  enrich  the  costume  of  his  picture,  and 
there  are  two  or  three  other  female  figures  very  splen- 
didly drawn  and  colored — among  them  the  wife  of 
Miles  Standish,  whose  soldierly  form  in  the  foreground 
is  one  of  the  most  conspicuous  objects.  Of  the 
twenty-odd  figures  in  this  grand  picture,  there  is  not 
one  about  which  a  great  deal  might  not  be  written, 
even  with  my  transiently  impressed  memory  of  it,  but 
I  reserve  it  for  a  more  detailed  description  after  anoth- 
er visit.  Weir  has  flung  his  soul  upon  this  work  with 
the  complete  abandonment  of  inspiration,  and  he  has 
wrought  out  of  it,  for  his  country  as  well  as  himself, 
honor  imperishable. 

I  think  it  is  some  thirty  miles  from  Albany  to  Sar- 
atoga, and  we  did  it  at  the  respectable  leisure  of  five 
hours — rather  more  time  than  it  took  formerly  on 
wheels.  True,  we  did  not  "devour  the  way"  as  we 
used  to  do,  and  it  was  a  comfort  to  arrive  without  a 
lining  of  dust  in  one's  mouth,  but  I  missed  the  blow 
ing  of  the  horn,  the  chirrup  and  crack  of  the  whip 
with  which  we  used  to  dash  through  the  sandy  hoi 
low  of  Congress  Spring  and  pull  up  at  Congress  Hall 
and  I  missed  the  group  in  the  portico,  and  the  greet 
ings  and  the  green  vines,  and  I  missed — alas,  for  all 
the  misses  of  the  past !  The  cars  stop  in  the  rear  of 
the  "United  States,"  and  the  outstretched  arms  of 
that  new  caravansary,  in  the  shape  of  two  yellow 
wings  extending  to  the  depot,  embrace  you  as  you 
come  to  the  ground.  My  friends  were  all  there,  and 
Congress  Hall  was  down  hill,  in  fact  and  in  figure  of 
speech,  and  casting  poetry  and  the  past  behind  me,  [ 
rattled  to  the  rising  sun  and  took  lodgings  with  the 
Marvins.  The  ex-president  was  there,  with  the  thir- 
ty or  forty  pounds  of  flesh  that  would  not  be  recog- 
nised by  the  presidential  chair,  and  from  five  to  six 
hundred  of  his  former  subjects  sat  down  with  him  to 
dine.  Mr.  Van  Buren  has  stuck  to  the  "United 
States,"  till  fashion  has  gone  over  to  him,  for  he  fre- 
quented the  house  when  the  belles  were  on  the  other 
side  of  the  street.  Whether  in  the  dance  of  politics, 
the  democracy  "chassez  across,"  and  leave  him  on 
the  fashionable  side,  remains  to  be  seen. 

I  had  not  been  at  "The  Springs"  for  some  years, 
and  between  the  changes  in  the  place  and  the  changes 
in  myself,  I  was,  for  a  while  (as  the  French  charmingly 
express  it)  desoriente.     In  the  times  that  were,  a  gen- 
tleman, on  arriving  at  Saratoga,  made  his  submission 
to  one  or  two  ladies  in  whom  was  vested  the  gyndcra- 
cy  of  the  season — the  mother  of  a  belle,  or  an  ex- 
belle  well   preserved,  or  some  marvellous   old  maid, 
witty  and  kindly.     Through  this  door,  and  this  only, 
;  could  the  society  of  the  place  be  reached,  and  to  this 
authority  the  last  appeal  was  made  in  all  cases  of  doubt 
and  difficulty.     The  beaux  and  belles  conformed  and 
submitted,  exchanged  hearts  and  promised  hands,  and 
;  drove  and  danced,  fished  and  picnicked,  in  obedience 
to   this  administration — Coventry  the  dreadful  alter- 
I  native.     There  were   fashionable  old-bachelor  beaux 
I  in  those  days  who  were  the  masters  of  ceremony,  and 
I  there  were   belles,  upon  whom,  individually,  was  con- 
:  centrated  the  beauty  now  distributed  in  small  parcels 
j  over  the  female  population  of  a  state.     Every  girl  is 
|  tolerably  pretty  now.     Everybody  is,  to  the  extent  of 


EPHEMERA. 


607 


his  natural  capacity,  a  beau.  There  is  no  authority 
higher  than  every  young  lady's  mamma.  Sent  to 
Coventry  by  one  party,  you  may  stay  "  at  court"  with 
another.  Flirts  are  let  flirt  without  snaflie  or  martin- 
gal.  Fortunes  are  guarded  only  by  the  parental 
dragon.  Nabobs  and  aristocrats  are  received  upon 
their  natural  advantages  without  prestige  or  favor,  and 
everybody  knows  everybody,  particularly  if  not  from 
the  same  city.  Having  been  happiest  myself  under 
the  old  regime,  this  agrarian  anarchy  somewhat  of- 
fended me;  and  the  more,  perhaps,  that  among  the 
company  at  the  "United  States,"  naturally  secluding 
herself  somewhat  from  the  crowd,  is  one  of  the  con- 
centrations of  the  beauty  of  ten  years  ago — a  most 
magnificent  woman  whom  that  lustrum  of  time  has 
passed  over  as  lightly  as  a  night's  sleep. 

Still,  there  is  beauty  at  Saratoga — enough,  indeed, 
for  all  purposes  of  dreaming  or  waking.  The  ball  at 
the  "  United  States"  on  Friday  evening  was  exceed- 
ingly brilliant,  and  at  the  concert  of  Castellan  on  Sat- 
urday, when  the  more  serious  beauties  of  Union  Hall  i 
were  added  to  the  assembly,  the  large  saloon  was 
Bought  to  be  very  thickly  spangled  with  loveliness. 
At  this  last-named  hotel,  by  the  way,  they  have  intro-  ! 
duced  family  prayers  at  nine  o'clock,  and  at  another 
less-frequented  house  they  give  tea  with  the  dinner — 
little  differences  which  seem  to  classify  the  patronage 
very  effectively.  This  is  the  great  season  of  Saratoga,  j 
more  persons  being  now  at  its  different  hotels  than  i 
were  ever  recorded  in  any  previous  season.  I  must 
not  omit  to  mention  the  charming  improvements  by 
Mr.  Clark  in  the  gem  of  a  valley  above  Congress 
spring  (by  walks,  shrubbery,  etc.),  nor  the  elegance 
of  Marvin's  grounds  and  embellishments  at  the  United 
States — a  superb  hotel  indeed,  in  all  its  appointments. 
This  is  "hop-night"  at  the  Astor,  and  among  the 
crowd  of  ladies  in  the  house  are  a  few  on  their  return 
from  Saratoga.  The  beaux  tire  of  "  The  Springs" 
sooner  than  the  belles,  and  in  Broadway  yesterday  I 
saw  a  thick  sprinkling  of  the  desirables.  Indeed,  the 
weather  has  been  temperate  enough  to  make  the  city 
agreeable,  and  the  southerners  prefer  enjoying  Niblo's 
and  the  comfortable  hotels,  when  the  thermometer 
ranges  below  ninety.  The  boats  down  the  river  are 
very  full  just  now.  I  came  down  from  West  Point  in 
the  Empire  on  Thursday,  and  found  her  crowded 
with  presentable  company  ;  and  with  the  elegance  of 
the  saloons  and  decks,  looking  very  drawing-rooms- 
ical  and  gay.  There  is  a  great  deal  of  gammon  in  the 
reasons  given  for  going  and  for  not  going  to  the  Springs ; 
and  it  is  the  fashion  now  for  those  who  are  not  there 
to  ascribe  their  absence  to  a  horror  of  the  letter-wri- 
ters, as  if  any  would  be  mentioned  at  all  by  those  im- 
mortality-bestowing gentry  who  did  not,  by  flirting 
and  display,  show  an  appetite  for  notoriety,  and  in  a 
crowd,  too,  quite  as  promiscuous  as  the  reading  pub- 
lic !  It  would  surprise  a  believing  Judeus,  after  lis- 
tening to  the  indignation  current  in  the  saloon  of  Sar- 
atoga in  the  evening,  on  the  subject  of  the  penny  pa- 
pers, to  see  with  what  eagerness  they  are  read  the 
next  morning,  and  with  what  manifest  pleasure  each 
lady  mentioned  shows  to  her  admirers  the  paragraph 
peccant.  That  such  letters  as  1  refer  to  are  a  very 
great  evil  no  man  who  respects  the  delicacy  of  private 
life  can  doubt ;  but  one  half  of  the  mischief,  at  least, 
lies  in  the  unwomanly  passion  for  notoriety  to  which 
they  minister. 

Those  who  linger  longest  at  Saratoga  are  the  fami- 
lies of  resident  New-Yorkers,  their  return  to  town  be- 
ing the  return  to  the  solitude  of  a  house  to  themselves. 
For  "  mineral  waters"  read  "  society  in  large  doses  ;" 
and  the  real  object  of  attraction  is  as  easily  found  at 
the  "  Astor"  or  the  "American"  as  at  Saratoga.  The 
sea  air  of  Rockaway  may  stand  for  a  tenth  of  its  at- 
tractions, and  the  other  nine  parts  lie  in  the  necessity 
of  some  excusable  resort  in  the  neighborhood  of  the 


city,  which  shall  supply  to  the  New-Yorkers  what  the 
hotels  (as  a  sequel  to  the  Springs)  are  to  travelling 
strangers.  From  about  the  twentieth  of  this  month 
to  the  first  cool  weather,  Rockaway  will  be  thronged 
with  excellent  society,  mostly  from  this  city  ;  and 
there  is  a  nucleus  of  half  a  dozen  of  the  most  delight- 
ful women  in  any  country,  summering  there  regularly  ; 
three  admirably  lively  and  accomplished  ladies  of  one 
family  the  leading  constellation.  It  is  a  part  of  the 
commonplacery  of  fashionable  chat  to  fret  at  the 
crowd,  and  wish  for  more  suitable  privacy  ;  but  it  is 
amusing  to  observe  what  a  difference  of  opinion  there 
seems  to  be  between  the  feet  and  tongue  of  the  fair 
exclusive.  The  belle  at  Saratoga  rises  at  six  and 
walks  to  Congress  spring.  The  ostensible  object  is 
to  drink  the  waters,  which  she  might  have  in  quite  as 
salutary  a  state  by  ringing  the  bell  of  her  apartment. 
The  platform  around  the  spring  is  crowded  with  fash- 
ionables ;  and,  elbowed  and  stared  at  rather  freely,  and 
complaining  of  both  very  feelingly,  she  remains  in  the 
crowd  till  breakfast — solitary  walks  of  the  most  sha- 
ded coolness  though  there  be,  hard  by  and  accessible. 
She  breakfasts  with  five  hundred  persons,  and  from 
the  table  comes  to  the  drawing-room,  where  she 
promenades,  and  is  elbowed  as  before,  till  eleven.  At 
that  hour  she  goes  with  a  party  to  the  bowling-alleys, 
where  she  amuses  herself  till  the  dressing-bell  for  din- 
ner. And  after  dinner  she  mingles  in  the  full-dress  crowd 
once  more  till  tea-time  (with  perhaps  the  parenthesis 
of  a  drive  with  a  party  to  the  lake),  and  from  tea-time 
till  midnight  she  is  in  the  same  crowd,  and  goes  to 
bed  late  to  get  up  again  early,  and  so,  burning  her 
candle  at  both  ends,  finds  Saratoga  enchanting.  But 
it  is  not  the  less  "  dreadfully  crowded,"  and  "  horridly 
mixed." 

The  music  at  Saratoga  was  one  of  its  pleasures  to 
me.  The  band  plays  at  the  spring  from  six  to  eight 
in  the  morning,  and  the  morning  hours  (anacreon- 
tics to  the  contrary  notwithstanding)  are  the  part 
of  the  day  when  the  senses  are  most  acutely  sensitive 
to  pleasure.  If  I  am  to  see  a  fine  picture  with  the 
clearest  eye,  or  read  a  page  of  poetry  with  the  subtlest 
appreciation,  or  listen  to  the  sweet  divisions  of  music 
with  the  nicest  and  most  interpreting  ear,  or  hear  a 
deep-found  thought  of  love,  friendship,  or  philosophy, 
give  it  me  in  the  early  morning  of  midsummer.  The 
perturbed  blood  flows  evenly,  and  the  perceptions 
have  settled  over-night  like  a  roiled  well  ;  and  (if  in 
temperate  health)  the  heart  is  softer  and  more  sus- 
ceptible. To  express  a  plain  fact  poetically — the  mar- 
ble lid  is  lifted  from  the  fountain  of  tears  at  that  hour, 
and  though  the  waters  do  not  "  well  forth,"  they  are 
open  to  the  dropping  in  of  those  pearls  of  attendant 
angels  —  love,  beauty,  and  music.  Yet,  "  before 
breakfast"  is  said  commonly  to  be  the  prose  of  the  day. 
One  hour  of  music  after  dinner  is  made  tributary  to 
the  smokers.  The  ladies  and  the  tobacco  escheweis 
are  out  of  its  reach  in  the  drawing-room,  but  the  pa- 
pas and  the  inveterates  bring  their  chairs  out  to  the 
grassy  area  of  the  "  United  States,"  and  smoke  under 
the  shade,  listening  to  the  German  band  contentedly 
and  contemplatively.  And  that  is  a  very  pleasant 
hour;  and  taken  advantage  of  by  those  who,  like  my* 
self,  find  comfort  in  the  ellipses  of  conversation. 

As  to  living  at  Saratoga,  no  reasonable  person  would 
expect  a  comfortable  dinner,  sitting  down  with  five  or 
six  hundred  persons.  The  meats  get  cold  in  the 
spreading.  But,  to  those  who  are  drinking  the  wa- 
ters, any  check  upon  the  appetite  is  not  unsalutary, 
and,  for  the  gourmet,  the  Lake  House,  and  one  or  two 
other  resorts  in  the  neighborhood,  offer  game  and  fish 
dinners  in  compensatory  perfection.  1  went  over  to 
Barhydt's  dark  lake,  the  scene  of  the  loves  of  the  lus- 
trum gone  by,  and  found  it  looking  neglected  and  for- 
saken. The  old  Dutchman  is  dead,  and  his  quiet 
successors  look  out  with  repelling  surprise  upon  the 


608 


EPHEMERA. 


gay  and  intruding  visiters.     It  has  ceased  to  be  fre- 
quented. 

I  saw  at  the  engraver's  yesterday  a  portrait  of 
Halleck,  engraved  for  Graham's  Magazine,  which  ex- 
ceeds anything  I  have  before  seen,  as  a  worthy  and 
truthful  representation  of  a  poet.  It  is  to  be  published 
in  the  September  number,  I  believe,  and  is  one  of  the 
well-conceived  series  of  portraits  in  progress  of  publi- 
cation in  that  magazine.  The  keen,  joyous,  analyti- 
cal gusto  which  give  such  a  "  sauce  Robert"  to  Hal- 
leck's  poetry  is  admirably  conveyed  in  this  picture, 
and  a  more  faithful  likeness  was  never  drawn.  The 
original  is  by  Inman. 


Broadway  in  August  is  like  a  pocket-full  of  change 
with  the  gold  and  silver  picked  out  of  it;  and  like  the 
disrespectful  finger  thrust  by  its  owner  into  its  scarce 
diminished  bulk,  Mr.  Stopintown,  the  lounger,  con- 
temptuously threads  the  crowd,  of  which  he  knows 
the  less  precious  and  residual  quality.  But  let  us  try 
again — for  this  beginning  is  too  Jeremy-Taylor-ous. 

Have  you  ever  started  at  Niblo's,  dear  reader,  and, 
with  your  eyes  particularly  open,  walked  down  the 
"shilling  side"  of  Broadway  to  the  Park?  You 
must  have  done  this,  and  with  speculation  in  your 
eyes  too,  before  you  can  detect,  on  the  fashionable 
side  of  Broadway  in  August,  a  certain  class  of  prome- 
naders  visible  there  in  no  other  month,  by  gas  or  day- 
light. Now  it  occurs  to  us,  that,  in  the  spiritual  geog- 
raphy of  this  shop-and-show  land,  we  can  very  possi- 
bly give  you  a  lesson. 

Few  people  live  more  in  the  eye  of  the  world  than 
than  those  who  are  in  transition  from  poverty  to  rich- 
es, bound  upward.  None  are  so  invisible  as  those 
who  are  going  over  the  same  road,  downward.  The 
eye,  in  the  city,  acquires  a  habit  of  selecting  what  it 
shall  see.  Glimpse,  the  porter  (to  put  it  figuratively), 
sits  in  the  outer  vestibule  of  sight,  and  passes  his 
judgment  on  all  comers  before  they  are  admitted 
to  the  presence  of  consciousness.  Prosperity  has  a 
color  of  its  own,  and  a  coat  with  a  needy  pocket  in  its 
skirt  is  as  invisible  as  the  sick  heart  it  is  buttoned 
over.  You  walk  Broadway  from  the  Battery  to  Bond 
street  (on  the  golden  side),  and  you  remark  every  flip- 
pery-flirt  and  boy-beau,  and  could  recal  upon  oath 
their  respective  riband  and  waistcoat ;  yet  a  man  of 
genius  has  gone  by,  with  a  thought  in  his  brain  new 
from  God,  but  under  a  hat  set  distrustfully  on,  and 
you  would  swear  in  a  witness-box  that  he  never 
crossed  your  eye.  Visible  is  an  arbitrary  word  in 
large  cities. 

But  it  is  a  devilish  truth  that  in  proportion  as  the 
poverty-stricken  become  invisible,  their  consciousness 
of  being  seen  becomes  painfully  sensitive.  They  feel 
pointed  at  with  the  finger  when  they  are  as  totally  un- 
observed as  the  driver  of  an  omnibus.  The  prosper- 
ous and  gay,  too— the  very  persons  who  are  blindest 
to  their  presence— seem  to  them  their  most  vigilant 
and  insulting  observers.  And  as  there  is  a  side  of  the 
street  proper  to  the  rich  and  the  happy,  the  poor  and 
Wretched  walk  on  the  other.  The  great  haunt  of  the 
distressed — the  Alsatia  of  poverty  and  crime — the  lair 
of  the  outcast  of  hope  and  pity — borders  Broadway 
on  the  east.  In  their  recoil  from  the  abyss  they  hang 
over — turning  back  in  terror  from  the  fiendish  aban- 
donment of  the  Five  Points,  the  last  platform  between 
despair  and  death — the  unhappy  come  to  that  limit  of 
Broadway  and  look  across.  And  up  and  down,  be- 
tween Prince  street  and  Chamber,  they  walk,  with  a 
shunning  gait,  and  shoulders  shrinking  at  your  look 
as  from  a  blow,  and  watch  the  happy  on  the  other 
side — wretched  men  of  all  degrees  of  desperation, 
from  the  first  downward  step  to  the  last. 

Oh,  you  should  walk  there,  now  and  then  !     You 


roiil  walk  there — perhaps  you  have,  with  unconscious 
selection,  already — when  in  want  of  money.  With 
the  same  olothes  you  wore  when  you  had  enough — 
with  a  cravat  as  saucily  expensive — gloved  and  booted 
comme  il  faut — you  will  instinctively  take  the  other 
side  of  the  street  if  out  of  pocket — if  a  five-dollar  bill, 
that  is  to  say — unconsidered  rag  not  long  before — cov- 
ers now  as  much  void  as  the  zodiac  !  Oh,  most  com- 
parative five-dollar  bill ! 

But  the  faces  on  the  "shilling  side"  of  Broadway  ! 
If  you  want  a  heart-ache,  to  be  succeeded  by  content 
with  your  lot  and  a  prayer  to  God,  cross  over  and  look 
at  one  or  two.  The  eyelid  unrelaxed — the  mouth 
shut  up  within,  and  the  lips  bloodless  with  the  com- 
pression of  the  tongue  matted  to  the  teeth — the  livid 
pits  beneath  the  eyes,  and  the  veins  blood-shot  round 
the  pupil — the  rigid  neck — the  jaw  set  up  with  despe- 
rate endurance — the  contracted  nostril,  and  the  com- 
plexion set  and  dead.  And  this  is  the  countenance 
of  only  poverty— only  the  agony  of  one  man  want- 
ing a  little  of  what  another  has  too  much  of — of 
which  the  church,  building  for  the  God  of  mercy  at 
the  head  of  Wall  street,  has  millions  more  than  it  can 
spend  without  ingenuity  of  extravagance  !  Are  you 
and  I  parts  of  a  world  like  this,  dear  reader  ! 

But  in  August  the  gay  and  prosperous  go  ofT,  and 
the  golden-side  of  Broadway  is  left  to  the  mechanical 
and  the  stranger.  Of  these  the  shabby  and  unhappy 
have  no  dread,  and  they  come  over  and  walk,  with 
only  their  despair,  in  the  haunts  they  once  frequented. 
You  will  see  them  in  Broadway  now — your  attention 
once  directed  to  them — and  if  it  be  on  Saturday,  preach 
who  will  on  Sunday,  you  will  have  profited  the  day 
before  by  a  better  sermon. 


In  looking  down  on  the  valley  of  Wyoming,  made 
memorable  by  savage  barbarity  and  famous  by  the 
poet's  wand  of  enchantment,  it  is  natural  to  indulge 
in  resentful  feeling  toward  the  sanguinary  race  whose 
atrocities  make  up  its  page  in  story.  It  is  a  pity,  how- 
ever, that  they,  too,  had  not  a  poet  and  a  partial  chron- 
j  icier.  Leaving  entirely  out  of  view  the  ten  thousand 
!  wrongs  done  by  the  white  man  to  the  Indian,  in  the 
|  corruption,  robbery,  and  rapid  extinction  of  his  race, 
there  are  personal  atrocities,  on  our  own  records  ex- 
ercised toward  that  ill-fated  people,  which,  in  impar- 
tial history  hereafter,  will  redeem  them  from  all  charge 
except  that  of  irresistible  retaliation.  The  brief  story 
of  the  famous  Cornstalk,  sachem  of  the  Shawanees, 
and  king  of  the  northern  confederacy,  is  sermon 
enough  on  this  text. 

The  northwestern  corner  of  Virginia,  and  that  part 
of  Pennsylvania  contiguous,  on  the  south,  was  the 
scene  of  some  of  the  bloodiest  events  of  Indian  war- 
fare. Distinguished  over  all  other  red  men  of  this 
this  region,  was  Cornstalk.  He  was  equally  a  terror 
to  the  men  of  his  own  tribe  (whom  he  did  not  hesitate 
to  hew  down  with  his  tomahawk  if  they  showed  any 
cowardice  in  fight),  and  a  formidable  opponent  to  our 
troops,  from  his  military  talents  and  personal  daring. 
He  was,  at  the  same  time,  more  than  all  the  other 
chiefs  of  the  confederacy,  a  friend  to  the  whites  ;  and, 
energetic  as  he  was  when  once  engaged  in  battle, 
never  took  up  arms  willingly  against  them.  After  the 
bloody  contest  at  Point  Pleasant,  in  which  Cornstalk 
had  displayed  his  generalship  and  bravery,  to  the  ad- 
miration of  his  foes,  he  came  in  to  the  camp  of  Lord 
Dunmore,  to  make  negotiations  for  peace.  Colonel 
Wilson,  one  of  the  staff,  thus  describes  his  oratory : 
"  When  he  arose,  he  was  nowise  confused  or  daunted, 
but  spoke  in  a  distinct  and  audible  voice,  without 
stammering  or  repetition,  and  with  peculiar  emphasis. 
His  looks,  while  addressing  Dunmore,  were  truly 
grand  and  majestic,  yet  graceful  and  attractive.  I  have 


EPHEMERA 


609 


heard  many  celebrated  orators,  but  never  one  whose 
powers  of  delivery  surpassed  those  of  Cornstalk  on 
this  occasion." 

In  the  spring  of  1777,  it  was  known  that  an  exten- 
sive coalition  was  forming  among  the  tribes,  and  that 
it  only  waited  the  consent  and  powerful  aid  of  the 
Shawanees,  to  commence  war  upon  the  whites.  At 
this  critical  time,  Cornstalk,  accompanied  by  Red 
Hawk,  came  on  a  friendly  visit  to  the  fort  at  Point 
Pleasant,  communicated  the  intentions  of  the  tribes, 
and  expressed  his  sorrow  that  the  tide  set  so  strongly 
against  the  colonists,  that  he  must  go  with  it  in  spite 
of  all  his  endeavors. 

Upon  receiving  this  information,  given  by  the  noble 
savage  in  the  spirit  of  a  generous  enemy,  the  com- 
mander of  the  garrison  seized  upon  Cornstalk  and  his 
companion  as  hostages  for  the  peaceful  conduct  of  his 
nation,  and  set  about  availing  himself  of  the  advan- 
tage he  had  gained  by  his  suggestions.  During  his 
captivity,  Cornstalk  held  frequent  conversations  with 
the  officers,  and  took  pleasure  in  describing  to  them 
the  geography  of  the  west,  then  little  known.  One 
afternoon,  while  he  was  engaged  in  drawing  on  the 
floor  a  map  of  the  Missouri  territory,  its  water-courses 
and  mountains,  a  halloo  was  heard  from  the  forest, 
which  he  recognised  as  the  voice  of  his  son  Ellinip- 
eico,  a  young  warrior,  whose  courage  and  address 
were  almost  as  celebrated  as  his  own.  Ellinipsico  en- 
tered the  fort,  and  embraced  his  father  most  affection- 
ately, having  been  uneasy  at  his  long  absence,  and 
come  hither  in  search  of  him. 

The  day  after  his  arrival,  a  soldier  went  out  from 
the  fort  on  a  hunting  excursion,  and  was  shot  by  In- 
dians. His  infuriated  companions  instantly  resolved 
to  sacrifice  Cornstalk  and  his  son.  They  charged 
upon  Ellinipsico  that  the  offenders  were  in  his  com- 
pany, but  he  declared  that  he  had  come  alone,  and 
with  the  sole  object  of  seeking  his  father.  When  the 
soldiers  came  within  hearing,  the  young  warrior  ap- 
peared agitated.  Cornstalk  encouraged  him  to  meet 
his  fate  composedly,  and  said  to  him,  "  My  son,  the 
Great  Spirit  has  sent  you  here  that  we  may  die  to- 
gether!" He  turned  to  meet  his  murderers  the  next 
instant,  and  receiving  seven  bullets  in  his  body, 
expired  without  a  groan. 

When  Cornstalk  had  fallen,  Ellinipsico  continued 
still  and  passive,  not  even  raising  himself  from  his 
seat.  He  met  death  in  that  position  with  the  utmost 
calmness.  "The  other  Indian,"  says  the  chronicle, 
•'was  murdered  piecemeal,  and  with  all  those  circum- 
stances of  cruelty  with  which  the  savage  wreaks  his 
vengeance  on  his  enemy." 

The  day  before  his  death,  Cornstalk  had  been  pres- 
ent at  a  council  of  the  officers,  and  had  spoken  to 
them  on  the  subject  of  the  war,  with  his  own  peculiar 
eloquence.  In  the  course  of  his  remarks,  he  expres- 
sed something  like  a  presentiment  of  his  fate.  "  When 
I  was  young,"  he  said,  "and  went  out  to  war,  I  often 
thought  each  would  be  my  last  adventure,  and  I 
should  return  no  more.  I  still  lived.  Now  I  am  in 
the  midst  of  you,  and,  if  you  choose,  you  may  kill 
me.  I  can  die  but  once.  It  is  alike  to  me  whether 
now  or  hereafter!" 

His  atrocious  murder  was  dearly  expiated.  The 
Shawanees,  the  most  warlike  tribe  of  the  west,  became 
thenceforward  the  most  deadly  and  implacable  foes  to 
the  white  man. 

Nine  o'clock — an  A  ugust  morning — and  every  breath 
out  of  doors  like  a  bird's  life  pressed  into  a  minute  ! 
The  breast  of  the  earth  naked  to  the  sun — the  air  in 
a  trance— the  river  breathless  with  the  beauty  of  the 
sky  it  mirrors— and  at  such  an  hour  to  see  the  ghost 
of  a  mended  pen  and  a  stubborn  resolution  !  Out 
upon  the  art  of  writing!  Is  there  no  honest  wood- 
39 


chopper,  no  dog,  no  squirrel,  no  anything  out  of 
doors,  that  will  change  lives  with  me !  Down,  school- 
boy heart!  and  come  hither,  since  thou  must,  pen, 
ink,  and  paper! — stationary,  indeed! 

Close  the  shutters  now,  and  bring  candles!  If  I  am 
to  sit  at  this  table  till  noon,  I  will  have  it  night.  Slip- 
pers, Thomas!  And  then  shut  the  stable-door ;  my 
horse  neighs;  lock  up  the  saddle  and  lose  the  key  ! 
And,  Thomas!  lend  old  Peter  my  boat,  and  break  the 
fishing-rod,  and  scare  away  the  birds  from  the  win- 
dow. Has  a  skylark  possessed  my  soul  or  no — 
that  I  so  hate  the  roof  over  my  head  this  radiant 
morning. 

Play  to  me  ere  I  begin  !  Music  is  creative  !  What 
a  benefactor  to  the  world  is  John  Chickering  !  How 
exquisitely  balanced  are  those  octaves,  and  how  glo- 
riously (with  that  touch)  the  rich  instrument  revels 
through  the  music  !  The  builder  of  these  caves  of 
harmony  has  a  poet's  vocation.  What  rs  poetry  but 
the  vehicle  of  man's  enthusiasm — the  element  in 
which  float  fancy  and  feeling — the  suggestive  awakener 
of  intellect — the  soother  of  care  and  pain  !  He  who 
writes  a  poem  that  is  read  and  loved  by  a  thousand 
hearths,  links  himself  with  an  angel's  round  of  delight 
and  sympathy  ;  and  the  builder  of  a  thousand  harmo* 
nious  instruments  follows  in  the  same  bright  orbit  of 
influence.  It  has  been  said  that  "  he  who  can  not  find 
happiness  can  not  find  an  easy-chair."  For  easy-chair 
I  read  one  of  the  evenly-balanced,  rich,  true,  round- 
toned  and  incomparable  instruments  of  John  Chicker- 
ing.    I  have  erected  mine  into  a  household  god! 

Play  me  those  "  Hope  Waltzes"  again.  They 
come  off  like  Ariel's  spiriting.  But  to  bewitch  the 
heels  and  stir  the  brain  the  "  Flower  Waltzes"  against 
the  world  !  I  have  made  out  their  language  by  daily 
listening  to  them,  and  if  I  can  not  divine  the  compo- 
ser's thought  when  they  were  born,  I  can  tell  what 
they  express,  as  I  can  what  all  music  expresses  that  I 
love  and  hear  often.  It  is  the  difference  between  good 
and  bad  music,  that  one  is  an  articulate  thought,  and 
the  other  mere  jingle  and  gibberish.  Among  the 
"  coming  events"  that  "cast  their  shadows  before,"  is, 
I  think,  a  musical  era,  in  which  the  intellectual  quali- 
ties of  harmony  in  sounds  will  be  studied  and  under- 
stood. For  one  of  the  most  powerful  levers  on  the 
human  heart,  singly  or  in  mass,  music  has  been 
strangely  undervalued,  and  its  professors  and  masters 
have  been  as  strangely  stigmatized  as  an  idle  and  unin- 
tellectual  class  of  people.  A  revolution  has  begun  in 
church  music,  and  in  Boston  (by  the  efforts  of  one 
educated  and  enthusiastic  man,  Mr.  Mason)  the 
church  choirs  have  become  as  effective  and  eloquent 
as  the  sermon.  The  perfection  to  which  Chickering 
has  brought  the  structure  of  that  universal  instru- 
ment, the  piano;  this  musical  reform  in  Boston;  the 
introduction  of  singing  into  the  systems  of  education 
for  children,  and  last  (not  least  surprising),  the  adop- 
tion of  music  as  a  political  engine,  and  its  powerful 
operation,  are  "  signs  of  the  times"  which  would  war- 
rant a  musical  man  of  genius  in  creating  a  new  liberal 
profession — the  adaptation  of  expression  to  sound, 
and  the  marriage  of  emotion  to  music.  Moore  under- 
stands this  mystery,  and  when  in  Spain  (I  once  heard 
him  say)  wrote  several  of  his  most  pathetic  songs  to 
the  gayest  airs  of  the  peasantry.  We  have  tried  re- 
wording old  songs  with  some  effect,  and  it  is  like 
bringing  notes  to  their  right  mind  and  making  them 
talk  sense.  There  is  a  delicious  thing  by  Topliff— 
"  Consider  the  lilies  how  I  hey  grow"— which  makes 
one  feel  as  if  the  whole  Bible  should  be  chanted  ;  and 
the  "  Six  Songs  from  Scripture,"  by  Moore,  are  very 
beautiful.  But  admirably  as  Moore's  words  are  al- 
ways married  to  his  music,  there  is  one  song  of  his 
set  to  an  air  of  Bellini's,  which  seems  to  me  the  mas- 
terpiece of  sense  linked  to  corresponding  harmony.  I 
can  not  at  this  moment  name  the  opera  from  which 


610 


EPHEMERA. 


the  air  is  taken,  nor  the  volume  of  Moore  which  con- 
tains the  poetry.     It  commences 

"  Is  it  not  sweet  to  think,  hereafter, 
When  the  spirit  leaves  this  sphere," 

and  is  published  in  a  book  called  "  Kingsley's  Choir." 
It  is  a  song  to  "  lap  you  in  Elysium." 

From  Memnon  to  Helicon  is  but  to  "jump  Jim 
Crow."  Who  is  writing  poetry?  Nobody  in  Eng- 
land, I  think,  but  Mrs.  Norton,  and  out  of  her  sorrows 
this  beautiful  woman  is  beginning  to  weave  herself  an 
immortality.  The  allusion  to  her  mother  in  one  of 
her  late  fugitive  pieces,  and  the  frequent  mention  of 
her  children,  are  touched  in  the  very  deepest  truth  of 
nature  as  well  as  in  the  finest  skill  of  the  poet.  It  was 
necessary  for  the  world  that  this  fine  genius  should  be 
"  tried  by  fire."  With  her  remarkable  beauty,  natu- 
rally gay  spirits,  and  unequalled  powers  of  fascination, 
Mrs.  Norton,  had  the  course  of  her  life  and  love  run 
smooth,  would  never  have  sounded  those  sorrowful 
depths  of  her  heart  from  which  wells  out  the  bitter- 
ness so  sweet  in  song.  Happy — we  should  have 
heard  but  of  her  beauty.  Wronged,  persecuted,  and 
robbed  of  her  children  and  her  good  name — we 
build  her  an  altar  in  our  hearts  as  the  most  gifted  poet- 
ess of  her  time,  and  posterity  will  perpetuate  the  wor- 
ship.    Is  this  compensation  or  no  ? 

By  that  blast  upon  the  farmer's  dinner-horn,  twelve 
o'clock  !  Avaunt,  quill  !  "  sweat  of  my  brow  !"  In 
how  many  shapes  comes  the  curse  of  the  fall  upon  us ! 
This  horn,  which  calls  in  my  farmer  to  repose  from 
his  course  in  his  chair,  releases  me  from  mine  to  let  me 
amuse  myself  with  his  labor.  My  curse  is  worked 
out  indoors — his  in  the  field.  The  literal  "sweat  of 
the  brow"  is  my  greatest  happiness,  and  his  heavy  ful- 
filment of  the  anathema.  Light  sits  his  curse,  how- 
ever, to  my  thinking,  who  bears  it  out  of  doors  !  The 
yearning  for  physical  action,  impatience  of  confine- 
ment, dislike  of  the  cobweb  niceties  of  life,  seem  to 
me  feelings  which  grow  into  passions  with  increasing 
years.  Will  no  one  invent  a  daguerreotype  for  the 
mind,  that  our  thoughts  may  record  themselves — let- 
ting us  walk  where  we  list?  The  pencil  is  to  be  done 
away  with — why  not  the  pen  ? 


Weir,  the  painter,  is  moving  his  glorious  picture  to 
Boston,  for  exhibition.  It  will  be  opened  to  visiters 
there  by  the  first  of  September.  It  is  to  be  exhibited, 
afterward,  at  the  National  Academy  in  New  York — the 
first  home  of  the  pilgrims  having,  very  properly,  the 
honor  of  the  first  sight  of  it.  Weir  will  steep  himself 
in  his  countrymen's  hearts,  as  his  picture  shows  them 
how  honestly,  as  well  as  with  what  splendor  of  genius, 
he  has  executed  their  commission.  I  understand  that 
Vanderlyn's  picture  is  very  fine.  There  are  several 
persons  employed  in  filling  up  his  design,  but  Mr. 
Vanderlyn's  own  pencil  is  to  harmonize  and  finish  it. 
Mr.  Morse  has  given  up  his  palette  and  brushes,  to 
devote  himself  to  his  electro-galvanic  telegraph,  which 
is  now  being  laid  down.  The  visit  of  Inman,  the 
painter,  to  England,  is  partly  an  errand  for  the  study 
of  costume  and  data  required  for  his  picture  for  the 
rotunda. 

There  seems  to  be  a  lull  in  literature,  which  I  hope 
is  the  precursor  of  a  storm  on  the  subject  of  copy- 
right. No  new  books  of  any  description  since  the 
"  Last  of  the  Barons."  The  "Change  for  American 
Notes"  is  not  by  Miss  Sedgwick,  and  I  presume  that 
the  editor  of  the  Enquirer,  who  must  be  acquainted, 
as  well  as  anybody,  with  her  propriety  "thrice  bolted 
o'er,"  had  not  looked  into  the  free-and-easy  pages  of 
the  book  when  he  pronounced  her  the  authoress. 
There  is  some  dispute  over  julep-straws  about  the 
authorship  of  "  Philip  in  Search  of  a  Wife."     It  is 


"by  a  Gentleman  Butterfly,"  and  is  a  sequel  to  "  Kate 
in  Search  of  a  Husband,"  by  Lady  Chrysalis.  But 
public  rumor,  which  was  foiled  in  striving  to  identify 
the  lady  chrysalis  with  the  brightest  of  the  callow 
divinities  of  Broadway,  has  covered  the  wings  of  the 
gentleman  butterfly  with  the  same  attractive  petticoat. 
Having  no  eyesight  to  spare,  I  wait  for  an  Appleton 
edition  before  reading  the  book.  I  think  that  the  two 
or  three  tricks  practised  upon  title-pages  not  long  ago, 
have  materially  hurt  the  credit  of  those  respectable 
old  truth-tellers,  and  at  the  same  time  have  dampened 
the  interest  in  new  publications. 


TO    MISS    VIOLET    MABY,    AT    SARATOGA. 

Astor  House,  August,  1843. 

Start  fair,  my  sweet  Violet !  This  letter  will  lie  on 
your  table  when  you  arrive  at  Saratoga,  and  it  is  in- 
tended to  prepare  you  for  that  critical  campaign.  You 
must  know  the  ammunition  with  which  you  go  into 
the  field.  I  have  seen  service,  as  you  know,  and, 
from  my  retirement  (on  half-pay),  can  both  devise 
strategy  and  reconnoitre  the  enemy's  weakness,  with 
discretion.  Set  your  glass  before  you  on  the  table, 
and  let  us  hold  a  frank  council  of  war. 

You  never  were  called  beautiful,  as  you  know  ;  and 
at  home  you  have  not  been  a  belle — but  that  is  no  im- 
pediment. You  are  to  be  beautiful,  now,  or  at  least 
to  produce  the  result  of  beauty,  which  is  the  same 
thing  ;  and  of  course  you  are  to  be  a  belle — the  belle, 
if  I  mistake  not,  of  the  season.  Look  in  your  mir- 
ror, for  a  moment,  and  refresh  your  memory  with  the 
wherewithal. 

You  observe  that  your  mouth  has  blunt  corners — 
which,  properly  managed,  is  a  most  effective  feature. 
Your  complexion  is  rather  darkly  pale,  your  forehead 
is  a  shade  lower  than  is  thought  desirable,  your  lips 
are  full,  sweet,  and  indolent,  and  your  eyes  are  not 
remarkable  unless  when  well  handled.  The  lids  have 
a  beauty,  however,  which  a  sculptor  would  understand, 
and  the  duskiness  around  them  may  intensify,  exceed- 
ingly, one  particular  expression.  Your  figure  is  ad- 
mirably perfect,  but  in  this  country,  and  particularly 
among  the  men  you  are  to  control,  this  large  portion 
of  female  beauty  is  neither  studied  nor  valued.  Your 
hair  is  too  profuse  to  be  dressed  quite  fashionably,  but 
it  is  a  beauty  not  to  be  lost,  so  it  must  be  coiffed  a 
V abandon — a  very  taking  style  to  a  man  once  brought 
to  the  point  of  studying  you. 

There  are  two  phases  in  your  character,  Violet — 
earnestness  and  repose.  The  latter  shows  your  fea- 
tures to  the  most  advantage,  besides  being  a  most  cap- 
tivating quality  in  itself.  I  would  use  it  altogether  for 
the  first  week.  Gayety  will  never  do.  A  laugh  on  a 
face  like  yours  is  fatal.  It  spreads,  into  unmeaning 
platitude,  the  little  wells  in  the  corners  of  your  mouth 
(the  blunt  corners  I  spoke  of  above),  and  it  makes 
your  eyes  smaller — which  they  can  not  well  bear. 
Your  teeth  are  minion  and  white,  it  is  true,  but  they 
show  charmingly  when  you  speak,  and  are  excellent, 
as  reserved  artillery,  to  follow  an  introduction.  Save 
your  mirth  till  the  game  is  won,  my  dear  Violet! 

Of  course  you  will  not  appear  at  breakfast  the  first 
morning  after  your  arrival.  The  mental  atmosphere 
of  the  unaired  hours  is  too  cold  and  questioning  for  a 
first  appearance.  So  is  the  hungry  half-hour  till  the 
soup  is  removed.  Go  down  late  to  dinner.  Till  after 
the  first  glass  of  wine,  the  heart  of  man  is  a  shut 
book — opened  then  for  entries,  and  accessible  till  shut 
again  by  sleep.  You  need  no  table-lesson.  You  eat 
elegantly,  and,  with  that  swan's-neck  wrist,  curving 
and  ivory-fair,  your  every  movement  is  ammunition 
well-bestowed.  But  there  may,  or  may  not,  be  a  vic- 
tim on  the  other  side  of  the  table. 


EPHEMERA. 


611 


After  dinner  is  the  champ  de  bataille  !  The  men 
are  gallant,  the  ladies  melted  out,  impulses  a-top,  the 
key  of  conversation  soprano,  and  everybody  gay  and 
trivial.  So  be  not  you.  It  is  not  your  style.  Seat 
yourself  where  you  will  have  a  little  space  for  a  fore- 
ground, lean  your  light  elbow  on  your  left  wrist,  and 
support  your  cheek  languidly  in  the  hollow  of  your 
gloved  thumb  and  forefinger.  Excuse  the  particular- 
ity, but  try  the  attitude  as  you  sit,  now.  Pretty — is  it 
not? 

Look  only  out  of  the  tops  of  your  eyes  !  If  women's 
glances  were  really  the  palpable  shafts  the  poets  paint 
them,  the  effective  ones  would  cut  through  the  eye- 
brows. Stupid  ones  slide  over  the  under  lid.  Try 
this!  How  earnest  the  glance  with  the  head  bent 
downward  ! — how  silly  the  eyes  with  the  chin  salient ! 
And  move  your  eye  indolently,  my  charming  Violet! 
It  traverses  the  frippery  gayety-woof  of  the  hour  with 
a  pretty  thread  of  contrast  that  looks  like  superiority. 
Men  have  a  natural  contempt  for  themselves  when  in 
high  spirits,  and  repose  comes  over  them  like  a  star 
left  in  heaven  after  the  turn  of  a  rocket. 

Nothing  is  prettier  in  woman  than  a  leaning  head  ! 
Bow  without  removing  the  supporting  hand  from  your 
cheek  when  a  man  is  introduced  to  you  ;  smile  tran- 
quilly, and  look  steadfastly  in  his  eyes  and  hear  what 
he  has  to  say.  Lucky  for  you — it  is  his  devoir  to 
commence  conversation  !  And  in  whatever  tone  he 
speaks,  ^ite/i  your  reply  a  note  lower!  Unutterably 
sweet  is  the  contralto  tone  of  woman,  and  the  voices 
of  two  persons,  conversing,  are  like  the  plummets  of 
their  hearts — the  deeper  from  the  deeper — so  felt,  and 
so  yielded.  If  you  think  it  worth  your  while  to  har- 
monise with  his  tone  afterward,  either  in  argument  or 
tenderness,  the  compliment  is  only  less  subtle  than 
overpowering. 

There  is  a  great  deal  of  promenading  at  Saratoga, 
and  natural  instinct  will  teach  you  most  of  its  over- 
comingnesses;  but  I  will  venture  a  suggestion  or  two. 
If  you  are   bent  on  damage  to  your  man,  lay  your 
wrist  forward,  to  his,  and   let  you  hand  drop  over  it, 
when  you  take  his  arm.     No  mortal  eye  would  think  j 
it  particular,  nor  would  he — but  there  is  a  kind  of  un-  I 
conscious  aff'ectionateness  about  it  which  is  electric.  ! 
Of  course  you  would  not  resort  to  manifest  pressure,  ! 
or  leaning  heavily,  except  you  were  carrying  on  the  I 
war   a   Voulrance.     Walk   with   your    head    a    little 
drooped.     If  you  wish  to  walk  more  slowly,  tell  him 
so,  but  don't  hang  hack.     It  is  enchanting  to  have  a  j 
woman  "  head  you  off,"  as  the  sailors  say,  as  if  she 
were  trying  to  wind  around  you — and  it  has  the  charm, 
too,  of  not  looking  particular ! 

As  to  conversation,  the  trick  is  born  with  woman. 
If  her  person  is  admired  to  begin  with,  this  is  the 
least  of  her  troubles.  But  though  you  are  sweet  sub- 
jects, and  men  like  to  hear  you  talk  about  yourselves, 
there  is  a  sweeter  subject,  which  they  like  better  than 
you — themselves.  And  lean  away  from  merriment, 
Vriolet !  No  man  ever  began  to  love,  or  made  any 
progress  in  loving,  while  a  woman  was  laughing. 
There  is  a  confidingness  in  subdued  tones  and  sad 
topics  which  sinks  through  the  upper-crust  of  a  man 
like  a  stone  through  the  thin  ice  of  a  well.  And  if 
he  is  a  man  of  natural  sentiment  or  feeling,  though  a 
worldling  himself,  the  less  worldliness  in  you,  the  bet- 
ter. Piety,  in  those  who  are  to  belong  to  us,  is  a 
spell  that,  in  any  but  mythological  days,  would  have 
superseded  the  sirens. 

I  believe  that  is  all,  Violet.  At  least  it  is  all  I  need 
harp  upon,  to  you.  Dress,  you  understand  to  a  mir- 
acle. I  see,  by  the  way,  that  they  are  wearing  the 
nair  now,  like  the  chains  on  the  shoulder  of  a  hussar — 
three  or  four  heavy  curls  swung  from  the  temples  to 
he  back-knot.  And  that  will  be  pretty  for  you,  as 
your  jaw  is  not  Napoleonesque,  and  looks  better  for 
partial   hiding.     Ruin  your   father,   if   necessary,  in 


gloves  and  shoes.  Primroses  should  not  be  fresher. 
And  whatever  scarfs  are  made  for,  wear  nothing  to 
break  the  curves  from  ear-tip  to  shoulder — the  sculp- 
ture lines  of  beauty  in  woman.  Keep  calm.  Blood 
out  of  place  is  abominable.  And  last,  not  least,  for 
Heaven's  sake  don't  fall  in  love  !  If  you  do,  my  pre- 
cepts go  for  nothing,  and  your  belleship  is  forgotten 
by  all  but  "  the  remainder  biscuit." 

Your  affectionate  uncle,  Cinna  Beverley. 

The  above  curious  letter  was  left  in  the  dressing- 
table  drawer  of  No. ,  United  States  Hotel.     It 

was  not  generally  known  that  the  young  lady  who  had 
occupied  the  room  before  a  certain  respectable  spin- 
ster (who  handed  us  the  letter,  taking  the  responsibil- 
ity of  its  publication  as  a  warning),  eloped  after  the 
third  day  of  her  belleship— as  was  to  be  expected. 
The  result  of  such  pestilent  advice  is  its  own  proper 
moral. 


Nextto-eating,  drinking,  loving,  and  money-making, 
the  greatest  desire  of  human  beings  seems  to  be  to 
discover  the  lining  of  each  other's  brains;  and  the 
great  difference  between  authors  and  other  people 
seems  mainly  to  consist  in  the  faculty  of  turning  out 
this  lining  to  the  view.  But  in  this  same  lining  there 
are  many  plaits,  wrinkles,  and  corners,  which  even  au- 
thors scarce  think  it  worth  their  while  to  expand,  but 
which,  if  accidentally  developed,  create  an  interest, 
either  by  their  correspondence  with  other  people's 
wrinkles,  or  by  their  intrinsic  peculiarity. 

Let  us  see  if  we  can  give  a  sketchy  idea  of  the  rise 
and  progress  of  literary  celebrity  in  London ;  or,  in 
other  words,  the  climbing  into  society,  and  obtaining 
of  notice  by  men  who  have  a  calling  to  literature. 
Sterne's  method  of  generalizing,  by  taking  a  single 
instance,  is  a  very  good  one,  and  we  will  touch  here 
and  there  upon  the  history  of  an  individual  whom  we 
know,  and  who,  after  achieving  several  rounds  of  the 
ladder  of  society,  is  still,  we  believe,  slowly  making 
his  way  upward — or  downward.  Let  us  call  him 
Snooks,  if  you  please,  for  we  can  not  give  his  real 
name,  and  still  speak  as  freely  as  we  wish  to  do  of  his 
difficulties  in  mounting.  Snooks  was  a  Manchester 
boy  of  good  birth,  brought  up  to  business — his  posi- 
tion at  home  about  equal  to  that  of  a  merchant's  son 
in  New  York.  He  began  writing  verses  for  the  coun- 
try papers,  and  at  last  succeeded  in  getting  an  article 
into  the  London  New  Monthly,  and  with  this  encour- 
agement came  up  to  town  to  follow  literature  for  a 
livelihood.  With  a  moderate  stipend  from  his  father, 
he  lived  a  very  quiet  life  for  a  couple  of  years,  finding 
it  rather  difficult  to  give  away  his  productions,  and 
quite  impossible  to  sell  them.  There  was  no  open- 
ing at  the  same  time  through  which  he  could  even 
make  an  attempt  to  get  a  footing  in  desirable  society. 
In  the  third  year  he  became  proof-reader  to  one  of 
the  publishers,  and  being  called  upon  to  write  antici- 
patory puffs  of  works  hehad  examined  in  manuscript, 
he  came'under  the  notice  of  the  proprietor  of  one  of 
the  weeklies,  and  by  a  lucky  chance  was  soon  after 
employed  as  sub-editor.  This  was  his  first  available 
foothold.  It  was  his  business,  of  course,  to  review 
new  books,  and,  as  a  "teller"  in  the  bank  of  fame,  he 
was  a  personage  of  some  delegated  importance.  His 
first  agreeable  surprise  was  the  receipt  of  a  parcel  in 
scented  paper,  containing  the  virgin  effusions  of  a 
right  honorable  lady,  who,  in  a  little  note,  with  her 
compliments  to  Mr.  Snooks  (for  she  had  inquired  the 
name  of  her  probable  critic  through  a  literary  friend), 
begged  a  notice  of  her  little  book,  and  a  call  from 
Mr.  Snooks  when  he  should  have  committed  his  crit- 
icisms to  paper. 


Snooks  was  a  man  of  very  indiffer- 

„..bles,  his  hair  of  an  unmitigated  red,  and 

hia  voice  of  a  very  hair-splitting  treble;  but  he  had  a 


ent  person 


612 


EPHEMERA. 


violent  taste  for  dress,  and  a  born  passion  for  count- 
esses ;  and  he  wrote  most  unexceptionable  poetry, 
that  would  pass  for  anybody's  in  the  world,  it  was  so 
utterly  free  from  any  peculiarity.  This  last  quality 
made  him  an  excellent  verse-tinker,  and  he  was  the 
man  of  all  others  best  suited  to  solder  over  the  cracks 
and  chasms  of  right  honorable  poetry.  He  wrote  a 
most  commendatory  criticism  of  her  ladyship's  book, 
quoting  some  passages,  with  here  and  there  an  emen- 
dation of  his  own,  and  called  at  the  noble  mansion 
with  the  critique  in  his  pocket.  By  this  bridge  of 
well-born  vanity,  paying  the  humiliating  toll  of  insin- 
cere praise,  he  crossed  the  repelling  barrier  of  aristo- 
cratic life,  and  entered  it  as  the  necessary  incumbrance 
in  her  ladyship's  literary  fame.  Her  ladyship  was  "  at 
home"  on  Thursday  evenings,  and  Snooks  became 
the  invariable  first  comer  and  last  goer-away;  but  his 
happiness  on  these  Thursday  evenings  could  only  be 
called  happiness  when  it  was  'reconnoitred  from  the 
distance  of  Manchester.  He  went  always  in  an  irre- 
proachable waistcoat,  fresh  gloves,  and  varnished  shoes, 
but  his  social  performances  for  the  evening  consisted 
in  his  first  bow  to  her  ladyship,  and  her  ladyship's 
"How  d'ye  do,  Mr.  Snooks?"  After  this  exciting 
conversation,  he  became  immediately  interested  in 
some  of  the  bijoux  upon  the  table,  striding  off  from 
that  to  look  at  a  picture  in  the  corner,  or  to  procure 
the  shelter  of  a  bust  upon  a  pedestal,  behind  which 
he  could  securely  observe  the  people,  so  remarkably 
unconscious  of  his  presence.  Possibly,  toward  the 
latter  part  of  the  evening,  a  dandy  would  level  his 
glass  at  him  and  wonder  how  the  devil  he  amused 
himself,  or  some  purblind  dowager  would  mistake  him 
for  the  footman,  and  ask  him  for  a  glass  of  water; 
but  these  were  his  nearest  approaches  to  an  intimacy 
with  the  set  in  which  he  visited.  After  a  couple  of 
years  of  intercourse  with  the  nobility  on  this  footing, 
he  becomes  acquainted  with  one  or  two  other  noble 
authors  at  the  same  price,  frequents  their  parties  in 
the  same  way,  and  having  unequivocal  evidence  (in 
notes  of  invitation)  that  he  visits  at  the  West  End,  he 
now  finds  a  downward  door  open  to  society  in  Russell 
square.  By  dint  of  talking  authentically  of  my  lady 
this,  and  my  lord  the  other,  he  obtains  a  vogue  at  the 
East  End  which  he  could  only  get  by  having  come 
down  from  a  higher  sphere,  and  through  this  vesti- 
bule of  aristocratic  contempt  he  descends  to  the  high- 
est society  in  which  he  can  ever  be  familiar.  Mr. 
Snooks  has  written  a  novel  in  three  volumes,  and  con- 
siders himself  fully  established  as  one  of  the  notabil- 
ities of  London;  but  a  fish  out  of  water  is  happy  in 
comparison  with  Snooks  when  in  the  society  of  the 
friends  he  talks  most  about,  and  if  he  were  to  die  to- 
morrow, these  very  "friends"  would  with  difficulty  re- 
member anything  but  his  red  head,  and  the  exemplary 
patience  with  which  he  submitted  to  his  own  society. 
The  fact  is,  that  the  position  of  a  mere  literary 
man  in  England,  in  any  circle  above  that  to  which  he 
is  born,  is  that  of  a  jackall.  He  is  invited  for  what 
he  contributes  to  the  entertainment  of  the  aristocratic 
lions  and  lionesses  who  feed  him.  He  has  neither 
power  nor  privilege  in  their  sphere.  He  dare  not  in- 
troduce a  friend,  except  as  another  jackall,  and  it 
would  be  for  very  extraordinary  reasons  that  he  would 
ever  name  at  the  tables  where  he  is  most  intimate,  his 
father  or  mother,  wife,  sister,  or  brother.  The  foot- 
man, who  sometimes  comes  to  him  with  a  note  or 
book,  knows  the  difference  between  him  and  the  other 
guests  of  his  master,  and  by  an  unpunishable  differ- 
ence of  manner,  makes  the  distinction  in  his  service. 
The  abandon  which  they  feel  in  his  presence,  lie  never 
feels  in  theirs;  and  we  doubt  whether  Thomas  Moore 
himself,  the  pet  of  the  English  aristocracy  for  forty 
years,  ever  forgot,  in  their  company,  that  he  was  in 
the  presence  of  his  superiors,  and  an  object  of  conde- 
scension. 


Now  we  have  many  people  in  this  country,  Ameri- 
cans born,  who  are  monarchists,  and  who  make  no 
scruple  in  private  conversation  of  wishing  for  a  de- 
fined aristocracy,  and  other  infrangible  distinctions  be- 
tween the  different  classes  of  society.  In  the  picture 
they  draw,  however,  they  themselves  figure  as  the 
aristocrats;  and  we  must  take  the  liberty,  for  the  mo- 
ment, of  putting  them  "below  the  salt,"  and  setting 
forth  a  few  of  their  annoyances.  Take  the  best-re- 
ceived Americans  in  London — yourself,  for  example, 
Mr.  Reader !  You  have  no  fixed  rank,  and  therefore 
you  have  nothing  to  keep  you  down,  and  can  rise  to 
any  position  in  the  gift  of  your  noble  entertainer.  As 
a  foreigner,  you  circulate  freely  (as  many  well-intro- 
duced Americans  do)  through  all  the  porcelain  pene- 
tralia of  the  West  End.  You  are  invited  to  dine,  we 
will  say,  with  his  grace,  the  Duke  of  Devonshire. 
There  are  ten  or  twelve  guests,  all  noble  except  your- 
self; and  when  you  look  round  upon  the  five  other 
gentlemen,  it  is  possible  that,  without  vanity,  you  may 
come  to  the  conclusion,  that  in  dress,  address,  spirit, 
and  natural  gifts,  you  are  at  least  the  equal  of  those 
around  you.  Dinner  is  late  in  being  announced,  and 
meantime,  as  you  know  all  the  ladies,  and  are  particu- 
larly acquainted  with  the  youngest  and  prettiest,  you 
sit  down  by  the  latter,  and  promise  yourself  the  pleas- 
ure of  giving  her  an  arm  when  the  doors  are  thrown 
open,  and  sitting  by  her  at  dinner.  The  butler  makes 
his  appearance  at  last,  and  the  lady  willingly  takes 
your  arm — when  in  steps  my  Lord  Flummery,  who 
is  a  terrible  "spoon,"  but  undoubtedly  "my  lord" 
takes  the  lady  from  you,  and  makes  his  way  to  the 
dinner-table.  Your  first  thought  is  to  follow  and  se- 
cure a  place  on  the  other  side  of  her,  but  still  another 
couple  or  two  are  to  take  precedence,  and  you  are  left 
at  last  to  walk  in  alone,  and  take  the  seat  that  is  left — 
perhaps  between  two  men  who  have  a  lady  on  the 
other  side.     Pleasant — isn't  it? 

Again.  You  are  strolling  in  Regent  street  or  the 
park  with  an  Englishman,  whose  acquaintance  you 
made  on  your  travels.  He  is  a  man  of  fortune,  and 
as  independent  in  his  character  as  any  man  in  Eng- 
land. On  the  continent  he  struck  you  as  particularly 
high-minded  and  free  from  prejudice.  You  are  chat- 
ting with  him  very  intimately,  when  a  young  noble- 
man, not  remarkable  for  anything  but  his  nobility, 
slips  his  arm  into  your  friend's  and  joins  the  prom- 
enade. From  that  moment  your  friend  gives  you 
about  as  much  of  his  attention  as  he  does  to  his  walk- 
ing-stick, lets  your  questions  go  unanswered,  let  them 
be  never  so  clever,  and  enjoys  with  the  highest  zest 
the  most  remote  spoonyosities  of  my  lord.  You, 
perhaps,  as  a  stranger,  visit  in  my  lord's  circle  of  so- 
ciety, and  your  friend  does  not ;  but  he  would  as  soon 
think  of  picking  my  lord's  pocket  as  of  introducing 
you  to  him,  and,  if  you  begin  to  think  you  are  Mon- 
sieur de  Trop,  and  say  "good  morning,"  your  friend, 
who  never  parted  from  you  before  without  making  an 
engagement  to  see  you  again,  gives  you  a  nod  with- 
out turning  his  head  from  his  lordship,  and  very  dryly 
echoes  your  "good  morning."  And  this,  we  repeat, 
the  most  independent  man  in  England  will  do,  for  he 
is  brought  up  to  fear  God  and  honor  a  lord,  and  it  is 
bred  in  his  bone  and  brain. 

We  could  give  a  thousand  similar  instances,  but 
the  reader  can  easily  imagine  them.  The  life  of  a 
commoner  in  England  is  one  of  inevitable  and  daily 
eclipse  and  mortification — nothing  but  the  force  of 
early  habits  and  education  making  it  tolerable  to  the 
Englishman  himself,  and  nothing  at  all  making  it  in 
any  way  endurable  to  a  republican  of  any  pride  or 
spirit.  You  naturally  say,  "Why  not  associate  with 
the  middle  classes,  and  let  the  aristocracy  go  to  the 
devil  ?"  but  individually  sending  people  to  the  devil 
is  of  no  use,  and  the  middle  classes  value  yourself 
and  each  other  only  as  your  introduction  to  them  is 


EPHEMERA. 


613 


aristocratic,  or  as  their  friends  are  approvnble  by  an 
aristocratic  eye.  There  is  no  class  free  from  this  hu- 
miliating weakness.  The  notice  of  a  lord  will  at  any 
time  take  the  wind  out  of  your  sails  when  a  lady  is  in 
the  case;  your  tailor  will  leave  you  half-measured  to 
run  to  my  lord's  cab  in  the  street;  your  doctor  will 
neglect  your  fever  for  my  lord's  cold  ;  your  friend  will 
breakfast  with  my  lord,  though  engaged  particularly 
to  you ;  and  the  out-goings  and  in-comings,  the  say- 
ings and  doings,  the  stupidities,  impudencies,  man- 
ners, greetings,  and  condescensions  of  lords  and  la- 
dies, usurp  the  conversation  in  all  places,  and  to  the 
interruption  or  exclusion  of  the  most  grave  or  per- 
sonal topics. 

Understand  us,  we  grudge  no  respect  to  dignities  or 
authorities.  Even  to  wealth  as  power,  we  are  willing  to 
yield  the  wall.  But  we  say  again,  that  a  republican 
spirit  must  rebel  against  homage  to  anything  human  with 
which  it  never  can  compete,  and  in  this  lies  the  only 
distinction  (we  fervently  hope)  which  will  ever  hedge 
in  an  American  aristocracy.  Let  who  will  get  to 
windward  of  us  by  superior  sailing — the  richer,  the 
handsomer,  the  cleverer,  the  stronger,  the  more  be- 
loved and  gifted — there  was  fair  play  at  the  start,  and 
we  will  pay  deference  and  duty  with  the  prompt- 
est. But  no  lords  and  ladies,  Mr.  President,  if  you 
love  us. 


I  am  very  sorry  to  record  a  good  piece  of  news  for 
the  coachmakers  : — that  the  ladies  are  beginning  to 
get  superfine  about  riding  in  omnibuses.  The  omni- 
bus convenience  has  been  upon  an  excellent  footing 
for  the  last  few  years,  used,  indeed,  with  a  freedom 
and  propriety  peculiar  to  this  country,  and  somewhat 
characteristic  of  its  deference  to  the  sex.  From  the 
longitudinal  shape  of  New  York,  it  is  easy  to  go  any- 
where by  omnibus,  at  any  moment,  and  even  if  a  car- 
riage could  be  kept  for  a  shilling  a  day,  the  trouble 
and  delay  attending  a  private  equipage,  would  induce 
many  to  give  them  up,  and  spend  their  shilling  in  the 
"  Broadway  lines."  The  gentility  of  the  custom,  too, 
has  induced  the  proprietors  to  embellish  and  enlarge 
their  vehicles,  and  for  sixpence  you  may  ride  two  or 
three  miles  in  a  very  elegant  conveyance,  and  mostly 
with  very  elegant  people.  Of  late,  however,  it  has 
become  a  habit  with  an  improper  class  of  persons  to 
ride  backward  and  forward,  instead  of  walking  Broad- 
way, and  propriety  has  very  naturally  taken  a  fright. 
I  am  very  much  afraid,  from  the  symptoms,  that  om- 
nibuses will  become  in  New  York,  what  they  are  in 
England  and  Paris — useful  only  to  the  un-ornamental 
classes  of  society.  If  so,  it  will  be  another  step 
(among  many  I  have  noticed  lately)  toward  separating 
the  rich  from  the  middle  classes  by  barriers  of  ex- 
pense. With  an  errand,  or  an  acquaintance  two 
miles  off,  a  lady  must  ride,  at  some  cost,  as  a  habit,  if 
omnibuses  are  tabooed. 

I  understand,  by  inquiry,  that  there  are  one  hun- 
dred and  fifty  omnibuses  plying  in  New  York  city. 
The  receipts  amount  to  about  eight  dollars  per  diem 
for  each  one,  and  the  expense  wear  and  tear,  &c, 
substract  five  from  this  sum,  leaving  a  profit  of  three 
dollars  a  day  on  each  vehicle.  Yet  some  of  them  go 
a  course  of  three  miles  for  the  invariable  sixpence. 
There  are  certain  parts  of  the  day  when  it  is  difficult 
to  get  a  place  in  an  omnibus — wishing  to  ride  up 
Broadway,  for  instance,  at  the  dinner  hour  or  at  dusk. 
There  are  several  drawn  by  four  horses,  which  con- 
tain twenty  odd  persons.  One  named  for  Forrest,  the 
tragedian,  with  "Edwin  Forrest"  splendidly  embla- 
zoned on  the  body,  is  particularly  magnificent.  I  saw 
one  last  night  for  the  first  time  on  three  wheels — with 
two  rows  of  seats,  like  two  omnibuses  put  lengthwise 
together.     The  change  from  hackney-roaches  to  cabs 


I  is  very  unsatisfactory  to  passenger  as  well  as  horse. 
The  old   New  York  jarveys   were   the   best  in  the 
world,  with  the  offset  of  the  most  abominable  imposi- 
tion in  the   known  world,  in  the  charges  of  drivers. 
I  Cabs  were  introduced  to  remedy  this;  and  now  one 
horse  draws  the  load  of  two.  and  reduces  the  owner's 
j  expenses  one  half,  while  the  imposition  is  in  no  way 
I  lessened.     There  are  laws,  but  as  ninety-nine  persons 
;  in  a  hundred  would  rather  be  fleeced  than  prosecute 
|  or  bully,  the  extortion  goes  on  very  swimmingly. 


I  was  honored  yesterday  by  being  called  in  to  a  pri- 
vate view  of  the  fall  fashion  of  hats,  lying  at  present 
j  perdu  in  tissue  paper,  and  not  to  be  visible  to  the  pro- 
I  miscuous  eye  till  the  first  of  September.     I  ventured 
I  modestly  to  suggest  an   improvement,  but  was  told, 
j  with  the  solemnity  of  conviction,  that  the  hatters  had 
;  decided   upon   the  fashion,  and  the  blocks  were  cut, 
and   the  hats  made,  and  there  was  no  appeal.     It  is 
!  rather  a  lower  crown  than  has  been  worn — slightly 
bell,  brim  a  thought  wider,  and  very  much  arched  un- 
derneath.    The  English  hat  that  comes  over  now  is 
very  small,  and  narrow  brimmed,  and  the  Parisian  is 
shaped  like  an  inverted  rone,  truncated  at  the  base. 
Of  course  we  have  a  right  to  a  fashion  of  our  own,  but 
a  hat  is,  more  than  any  article  of  dress,  a  matter  of 
whimsey,  and  any  inexorable  style,  without  reference 
to  particular  physiognomy,  seems  to  me  somewhat  in 
the  line  of  the  bed  of  Procrustes.     I  recollect  hearing 
the  remark  made  abroad,  that  Americans  could  always 
be  known  by  their  unmitigated  newness  of  hat.     Cer- 
tain it  is,  that  the  hatters  in  this  country  are  a  richer 
class,  and   many  pegs   higher  in   tradesman  dignity, 
than    those   of  France   or   England — tant  mieux,  of 
I  course.     Apropos — in  some  slight  research  yesterday 
for  material  to  refresh  the  thread  bareness  of  my  outer 
man,  I  looked  in  at  one  or  two  of  the  crack  shops,  and 
was  quite  taken  by  surprise  with  the  splendor  and  vari- 
ety of  masculine  toggeries.     The  waistcoat  patterns, 
I  the  scarfs,  the  pantaloon  stuffs,  and   dressing-gowns, 
j  are  sumptuous  beyond  all  modern  precedent.     A  man 
|  must  have  a  gentleman's  means,  now,  to  allow  carte 
I  blanche  to  his  tailor.     I  was  about  to  turn  aside  some 
j  rich  stuffs,  as  being,  I  was  sorry  to  say,  quite  beyond 
my  style  and  condition,  when  the  tailor  forestalled  me, 
by  the  assurance  that  by  the  next  packet,  he  should 
receive  something   much   more  splendid  and  worthy 
my  attention!     As  I  have  remarked  once  or  twice  be- 
fore, those  who  live  on  literary  profits  will  soon  find 
themselves  stranded  on  the  middle  class — the  rich  eb 
bing  from  their  reach   in   one  direction,  and  the  poor 
in  the  other.     I  have  an  aversion  to  the  clerk's  salt- 
and-pepper,  but  I  should  be  content  with  any  other 
outward  mark  of  my  means  and  belongings. 


We  had  a  very  melo-dramatic  out-of-doors  exhibi- 
tion the  other  evening,  iu  the  illumination  of  the  Bowl- 
ing Green  fountain.  An  illuminated  waterfall  is  a 
very  phantom-like  affair,  and  the  eight  ghostly  gas- 
burners,  set  round  the  rim  of  the  basin  in  green  hoods, 
looked  as  much  like  demons,  popping  their  heads 
above  water  to  gaze  at  the  white  spirit,  as  would  have 
been  at  all  necessary  for  diabolical  pantomime.  The 
fountain  grows  upon  the  public  liking,  I  think,  and 
certainly,  when  lighted  by  red  and  blue  fires  (which  is 
part  of  the  Friday  evening  show)  it  is  a  magnificent 
object.  The  private  fountains  in  the  court-yards  of 
the  hotels  are  very  handsome.  Bunker,  in  the  rear 
of  his  well-kept  and  most  comfortable  mansion,  has 
a  fine  jet  under  the  noble  old  trees  ;  and  Cozzens 
has  opened  an  ornamental  fountain  in  the  rear  of 
the  American— great  luxuries,  both,  to  the  respective 


614 


EPHEMERA. 


hotels.     I  am  told,  by  the  way,  that  the  Croton  water 
does  not  keep  at  sea. 


The  literary  arena  is  now  unoccupied,  and  it  could 
be  wished  that  some  of  our  own  knights  out  of  prac- 
tice would  don  their  armor  for  a  tilt — that  Wetmore 
would  come  away  from  his  crockery,  and  Halleck 
from  his  leger,  Bryant  from  his  scissors  and  politics, 
and  Sprague  from  his  cerberus  post  at  the  Hades  of 
Discount — and  give  us  some  poetry.  Another  sea  or 
forest  novel  by  Cooper  would  be  most  welcome  now, 
or  a  volume  of  prose  by  Longfellow,  and  these  two,  I 
think,  as  the  only  American  authors  not  regularly  har- 
nessed in  the  car  of  Mammon,  should  have  store  laid 
away  for  such  exigencies  of  famine.  Kendall's  Rec- 
ollections of  the  chain  round  his  neck  in  Mexico,  and 
Brantz  Myer's,  of  his  gold  coat  and  court  experience 
at  the  same  place  and  time,  will  come  out  pretty 
nearly  in  the  same  week,  and  be  excellent  sauce  to 
each  other.  Epes  Sargent  is  somewhere  in  the  high 
grass,  rusticating  and  writing  a  book,  and  I  hope,  if  it 
is  not  a  tragedy  for  Forrest,  it  is  a  novel  of  good  soci- 
ety— either  of  which  would  come  out  from  under  his 
raven  locks  with  little  trouble,  and  of  most  excellent 
quality.  Placide,  who  has  a  scribli-phobia  on  his  own 
account,  has  offered  his  "  Life  and  Times"  to  a  friend, 
to  be  delivered  verbally  over  woodcock  and  sherry, 
and  several  of  the  first  chapters  are  uncorked  and  di- 
gested. Mr.  Richard  Willis,  younger  brother  of  one 
of  the  editors  of  the  New  Mirror,  is  residing  at  Frank- 
fort, in  Germany,  and  preparing  a  book  on  the  land  of 
beer  and  the  domestic  virtues.  Mrs.  Ellet's  mascu- 
line pen  is  nearly  idle.  Simms,  the  novelist,  is  in 
New  York,  residing  with  his  literary  friend  Lawson, 
but  not  coquetting  with  the  publishers  to  our  knowl- 
edge. Morris  will  not  "  die  and  leave  the  world  no 
copy,"  as  he  has  half  a  dozen  songs  about  being  mar- 
ried to  music — the  banns  shortly  to  be  published.  I 
do  not  hear  that  Hoffman  is  doing  anything  except 
the  looking  after  his  bread  and  butter.  Mrs.  Embury 
is  editing  "The  Ladies'  Companion,"  and  the  author- 
ess of  "  The  Sinless  Child"  editing  "  The  Rover," 
and  Mrs.  Stephens  editing  "  The  Ladies'  World  ;" 
and  these  are  three  ladies  worthy  the  binding  and 
gilding  of  less  ephemeral  volumes.  Neal  and  Snow 
edit  "  The  Brother  Jonathan,"  Neal  living  at  Port- 
land, and  snow  being  "on  the  ground."  Witty  and 
racy  "  Mrs.  Mary  Clavers"  is  about  returning  to  "the 
settlements"  from  her  seclusion  in  Michigan — an  event 
to  be  rejoiced  over  like  the  return  of  the  Lost  Pleiad. 
She  is  an  accomplished  linguist,  and  with  her  pure, 
classic,  and  flowing  style,  she  might  occupy,  here,  the 
position  of  Mary  Howitt  or  Mrs.  Austin  in  England- 
gaining  all  the  honors  of  authorship  by  eminence  in 
translation. 


I  understand  a  great  enthusiasm  is  about  to  make 
itself  manifest  on  the  subject  of  the  State  Monu- 
ment to  Washington.  The  association  is  now  in- 
corporated by  the  legislature,  and  the  design,  as  it 
stands  formed  at  present,  is  one  of  unequalled  magnifi- 
cence, worthy  (and  no  more  than  worthy)  of  the  sub- 
ject. Four  hundred  and  twenty-five  feet  is  the  pro- 
posed height;  and  this,  one  of  the  New  York  papers 
states,  will  make  it  the  highest  building  in  the  world 
— not  quite  correctly,  as  the  pyramid  of  Cheops  is  six 
hundred  feet  high.  To  realize  this  prodigious  eleva- 
tion, however,  one  must  remember  that  the  steeple  of 
the  new  Trinity  church,  which  is  to  be  the  tallest  in 
this  country,  will  only  reach  to  two  hundred  and  sev- 
enty-five feet.  It  is  not  to  be  merely  a  monument, 
but  an  immense  public  building,  containing  halls, 
libraries,   and    other   appropriate  apartments.      The 


shape  is  to  be  a  pentagon,  and  the  style  a  florid  Goth- 
ic. Union  square  is  named  as  the  site  ;  but  the  im- 
mense size  of  the  base,  I  should  suppose,  would  re- 
quire an  area  of  much  greater  extent — and  it  would 
be  a  pity,  besides,  to  break  up  the  salutary  fountain 
and  open  park,  already  ornamental  enough,  in  that 
part  of  the  city.  The  placing  of  this  noble  monu- 
ment on  the  central  elevation  now  occupied  by  the 
Tabernacle,  and  the  opening  of  a  new  square,  extend- 
ing back  to  the  Bowery  and  the  Five  Points,  would,  in 
the  first  place,  turn  that  festering  sink  into  lungs  for 
this  crowded  metropolis,  and  in  the  next  place  cen- 
tralize, in  the  neighborhood  of  the  City  Hall,  the 
prominent  public  buildings.  This  great  monument 
is  to  be  built  by  subscriptions  of  one  dollar  each. 
Fifty  thousand  dollars  were  collected  some  time  since, 
and  are  now  at  interest;  and  there  is  a  sum  of  one 
hundred  thousand  dollars  in  the  treasury  at  Washing- 
ton, which  it  is  hoped  will  be  given  to  this.  The  ob- 
ject is  one  which  every  American  must  feel  interested 
in  ;  and  there  is  no  citizen,  1  presume,  who  would  not 
give  his  dollar  toward  it.  Let  it  be,  if  Mr.  Dickens 
!  chooses  so  to  call  it,  a  "  dollar"  monument  to  Wash- 
ington— showing  that,  devoted  to  dollars  as  we  are 
(and  yet  not  more  than  Englishmen  to  pounds,  shil- 
lings, and  pence),  our  dollar-patriotism  can  raise  to  the 
first  patriot  of  history,  the  grandest  monument  of 
modern  times. 


The  respectable  and  zealous  spinster  who  sent  u* 
for  publication,  as  a  salutary  warning,  the  very  worldly 
and  trappy  epistle,  addressed  to  Miss  Violet  Maby,  at 
Saratoga,  and  published  on  a  previous  page,  has  laid 
her  fingers  on  another  specimen  of  the  same  gentle- 
man's correspondence,  which  we  give,  without  com- 
ment or  correction,  as  follows  : — 

Astor  House,  August  10,  1843. 

My  dear  widow:  For  (he  wear  and  tear  of  your 
bright  eyes  in  writing  me  a  letter  you  are  duly  cred- 
ited. That  for  a  real  half-hour,  as  long  as  any  or- 
dinary half-hour,  such  well-contrived  illuminations 
should  have  concentrated  their  mortal  using  on  me 
only,  is  equal,  I  am  well  aware,  to  a  private  audience 
of  any  two  stars  in  the  firmament — eyelashes  and  pet- 
ticoats (if  not  thrown  in)  turning  the  comparison  a 
little  in  your  favor.  Thanks — of  course — piled  high 
as  the  porphyry  pyramid  of  Papantla  ! 

And  you  want  "a  pattern  for  a  chemisette."  Let 
me  tell  you,  my  dear  widow,  you  have  had  a  narrow 
escape.  Had  you  unguardedly  written  to  your  mil- 
liner for  an  article  so  obsolete — but  I'll  not  harrow  up 
your  feelings.  Suffice  it,  that  that  once-privileged 
article  has  passed  over,  with  decayed  empires,  to  his- 
tory— an  aristocracy  of  muslin  too  intoxicated  to  last. 

"Fuitr 

The  truth  is,  shams  are  tottering.  The  linen  cuff 
which  was  a  shallow  representation  of  the  edge  of  a 
linen  sleeve,  and  the  linen  collar  or  embroidered  che- 
misette, which  as  faintly  imagined  forth  the  spotless 
upper  portion  of  the  same  investiture,  are  now  boha- 
fide  continuations  of  a  garment,  "though  lost  to  sight 
to  memory  dear !"  The  plait  on  the  throat  and  wrist  is 
scrupulously  of  the  same  fineness,  and  simply  emerges 
from  the  neck  and  sleeve  of  the  dress  without  turn- 
ing over. 

The  hem  of  the  skirt  is  beyond  my  province  of  ob- 
servation, but  as  the  plaited  edge  would  be  pretty 
(spread  over  the  instep  when  sitting),  the  unity  is  prob- 
ably preserved. 

Apropos  of  instep — the  new  discovery  of  a  steel 
spring  in  the  shoe  to  arch  the  hollow  of  the  foot,  has 
directed  attention  to  the  curves  of  those  bewitching 
locomotives,  and  heels  are  coming  into  fashion.  This 
somewhat  improves  the  shapeliness  of  the  pastern, 


EPHEMERA. 


615 


lifts  the  sex  a  half  inch  nearer  heaven — more  out  of 
reach  than  ever,  of  course.  Adieu  in  time— should 
you  lose  sight  of  me  ! 

And  now — (for  I  believe  you  may  trust  "The  La- 
dy's Book"  for  the  remainder  of  the  chronicle  of 
fashion) — how  comes  on,  oh,  charming  widow,  the  lit- 
tle property  1  have  in  your  empire  of  alabaster  ? 
Shall  1  recall  the  title-deed  to  your  recollection  ?  Did 
you  not,  on  a  summer's  night,  having  the  full  posses- 
sion of  your  senses,  lay  a  rose-leaf  wetted  with  dew  on 
your  left  temple  ?  Did  you  not,  without  mental  res- 
ervation, scratch  it  round  with  a  thorn  of  the  same 
rose,  and  then  and  there  convey  to  me  the  territory 
so  bounded,  to  have  and  to  hold  for  my  natural  life,  to 
be  guarded,  at  your  peril,  from  trespass  or  damage  ? 
Did  you  not,  at  the  same  place  and  time,  with  blood 
taken  from  your  pricked  finger,  write  me  out,  to  this 
effect,  a  rosy  conveyance,  of  which,  if  needful,  I  can 
send  you,  in  red  ink,  a  paler  copy?  Of  course  I  do 
not  ask  for  information,  i'ou  know  you  did.  And 
you  know  you  had  for  it  a  consideration — of  such  im- 
mortality as  was  in  my  power  to  bestow  : — 

'•'  Where  press  this  hour  those  fairy  feet  ?"  &c. 

You  married — and  with  so  prying  a  neighbor  as 
your  remainder's  husband,  I  did  not  very  frequently 
visit  my  little  property.  You  had  the  stewardship 
over  it,  and  I  presume  that  you  respected,  and  made 
others  respect,  the  rights  of  the  proprietor.  I  never 
heard  that  your  husband  was  seen  invading  the  prem- 
ises. I  have  every  reason  to  believe  that  he  was  uni- 
formly directed  to  plant  his  tulips  elsewhere  than  in 
my  small  garden.  It  was  to  me  a  slumbering  invest- 
ment— and  the  interest,  I  must  be  permitted  to  advise 
you,  has  accumulated  upon  it ! 

And  now  that  my  prying  neighbor  is  dead,  and  the 
property  in  the  opposite  temple  and  the  remainder  of  the 
demesne,  has  reverted  to  the  original  proprietor,  I  may 
be  permitted  to  propose  myself  as  an  occupant  of  my 
own  territory,  pro  tern.,  with  liberty  to  pluck  fruit  from 
the  opposite  garden  as  long  as  it  remains  untenanted. 
Take  care  how  you  warn  me  off.  That  peach  upon 
your  cheek  would  make  a  thief  of  a  better  man. 

You  disdain  news,  of  course.  China  is  taken  by 
the  English,  and  the  Down-Town-Bard  has  recovered 
his  appetite  for  champagne,  and  writes  regularly  for 
the  New  Mirror.  The  Queen's  Guards  have  done 
coming  over  ;  the  town  dull ;  and  bonnets  (I  forgot  to 
mention)  are  now  worn  precipitated  over  the  nose  at 
an  angle  of  forty-five  degrees. 

Adieu,  my  dear  widow.  Command  me  till  you  lose 
your  beauty.     Yours  at  present, 

Cinna  Beverley. 


CINNA    BEVERLEY,    ESQ.,    TO    ALEXIS    VON    PHUHL. 

Astor  House,  Sept.  1,  1843. 

My  dear  neph-ling  :  I  congratulate  you  on  the 
attainment  of  your  degree  as  "  Master  of  Arts."  In 
other  words,  [  wish  the  sin  of  the  Faculty  well  re- 
pented of,  in  having  endorsed  upon  parchment  such  a 
barefaced  fabrication.  Put  the  document  in  your  poc- 
ket, and  come  away  !  There  will  be  ho  occasion  to 
air  it  before  doomsday,  probably,  and  fortunately  for 
you,  it  will  then  revert  to  the  Faculty.  Quiescat  ad- 
huc — as  I  used  to  say  of  my  tailor's  bills  till  they  came 
through  a  lawyer. 

And  now,  what  is  to  become  of  you  ?  I  do  not 
mean  as  to  what  your  grandmother  calls  your  "  tem- 
poral welfare."  You  were  born  to  gold-dust  like  a 
butterfly's  wing.  Ten  thousand  a  year  will  ooze  into 
your  palm  like  insensible  perspiration — (principally 
from  investments  in  the  "  Life  and  Trust").  But 
your  style,  my  dear  boy — your  idiosyncrasy  of  broad- 
cloth and  beaver,  satin  and  patent-leather — your  outer 
type — your  atmosphere — your  cut !     Oh,  Alexis  ! 


But  let  us  look  this  momentous  matter  coolly  in 
the  face. 

America  has  now  arrived  at  that  era  of  civilized  ag- 
grandizement when  it  is  worth  a  gentleman's  while  to 
tie  his  cravat  for  the  national  meridian.  We  can 
afford  to  wish  St.  James  street  "  Ion  voyage'''  in  its 
decline  from  empire.  We  dress  better  than  Great 
Britain.  Ilium  fuit.  The  last  appeal  of  the  universe, 
as  to  male  toggery,  lies  in  the  approval  of  forty  eyes 
lucent  beneath  twenty  bonnets  in  Broadway.  In  the 
decision  of  twenty  belles  or  thereabout,  native  in  New 
York,  resides,  at  this  present  crisis,  the  eidolon  of  the 
beau  supreme.     Homage  a  la  mode  Manhaltanesque ! 

But,  to  the  sanctum  of  fashion  there  is  no  thor- 
oughfare. Three  persons,  arriving  at  it  by  the  same 
road,  send  it  flying  like  "  Loretto's  chapel  through  the 
air."  Every  man  his  own  guide  thither,  and  his  path 
trackless  as  a  bird's  alley  to  his  nest!  I  can  but  give 
you  some  loose  data  for  guidance,  and  pray  that  "  by 
an  instinct  you  have"  you  may  take  a  "bee-line"  of 
your  own. 

Of  course  you  know  that  during  the  imitative  era 
just  past,  there  have  been  two  styles  of  men's  dress — 
the  Londonish  and  the  Parisian— pretty  equally  pop- 
ular, I  should  say.  The  London  man  dresses  loose 
above,  the  Paris  man  loose  below — tight  hips  and 
baggy  coat  in  St.  James  street — baggy  trousers  and 
pinched  coat  on  the  Boulevard.  The  Englishman 
puts  on  his  cravat  with  summary  energy  and  a  short 
tie — the  Frenchman  rejoices  in  a  voluptuous  waterfall 
of  satin  ;  and  each,  more  particularly  in  this  matter  of 
neckcloth,  abhors  the  other.  John  Bull  shows  his 
shirt-collar  till  death — Monsieur  sinks  it  with  the  same 
pertinacity.  English  extravagance,  fine  linen — French 
extravagance,  primrose  kids. 

Something  is  due,  of  course,  to  the  settled  princi- 
ples of  art.  By  the  laws  of  sculpture,  the  French- 
man is  wrong — the  beauty  of  the  male  figure  consist- 
ing in  the  breadth  of  the  shoulders  and  the  narrow- 
ness of  the  hips;  and  this  formation  shows  blood  and 
breeding,  moreover,  as  to  have  small  hips,  a  man's 
progenitors  must  not  have  carried  burdens.  So — for 
me — trousers  snug  to  the  barrel,  and  coat  scant  of 
skirt,  but  prodigal  above.  Decide  for  yourself,  not- 
withstanding. There  is  a  certain  je  ne  scais  quoi  in 
bagginess  of  continuation — specially  on  a  tall  man.  It 
only  don't  suit  my  style  ! 

And,  as  to  cravat,  I  have  the  same  weak  leaning 
toward  Bond  street.  The  throat  looks  poulticed  in 
those  heavy  voluminousnesses.  Black  diminishes  the 
apparent  size,  too,  and  the  more  shirt-bosom  visible, 
the  broader  the  apparent  chest.  It  depends  on  the 
stuff,  somewhat.  Very  rich  billows  of  flowered  satin 
look  ruinous — and  that  the  ladies  love.  But  in  every 
other  particular,  if  you  will  wear  these  eclipsers  of 
linen,  you  must  be  as  lavendered  as  a  lily  at  dawn — 
compensatory,  as  it  were  !  And  if  you  show  your 
collar,  for  Heaven's  sake  let  it  follow  the  curve  of  your 
jawbone,  and  not  run  athwart  it  like  a  rocket  aimed  at 
the  corner  of  your  eyebrow  !  1  am  sensitive  as  to  this 
last  hint.     The  reform  was  my  own. 

One  caution — never  be  persuaded  that  there  is  such 
a  thing  as  a  fashion  of  hat !  Believe  me,  the  thing  is 
impossible!  Employ  an  artist.  George  Flagg  has  a 
good  eye  for  a  gentleman's  belongings,  and  he'll  make 
a  drawing  of  you  with  reference  to  a  hat.  No  hat  is 
endurable  that  will  not  look  well  in  a  picture.  Ponder 
the  brim.  Study  how  the  front  curve  cuts  the  line  of 
the  eyebrow.  Regulate  it  by  the  expressmn  of  face 
common  to  you  when  dawdling.  See  if  you  require 
lengthening  or  crowding  down— physiognomically,   I 


lengthening  or  crowding 

mean.     Low  crowns  are  monstrous 

crowns  are  dressy— white  hats   rowdy.     And, 


vindictive. 


Bell 
once 


I  fixed  in  your  taste  by  artistical  principles,  be  pretty 

constant  through  life  to  that  hat.     Have  it  reproduced 

I  (rigidly  without  consultation  with  your  hatter),  and 


616 


EPHEMERA. 


give  it  a  shower-bath  befor.e  wearing.  Unmitigated 
new  hat  is  truly  frightful.  Orlando  Fish  takes  your 
idea  cleverly,  touching  a  tile  of  your  own. 

As  to  the  Castaly  of  coats,  I  am  driven  to  believe 
that  the  true  fount  is  at  Philadelphia.  One  marvel- 
lous coat  after  another  arrived  at  Saratoga  while  I  was 
there,  and  to  my  astonished  research  as  to  their  ori- 
gin, and  there  was  but  one  reply — "  Carpenter." 
What  may  be  the  address  of  this  Carpenter  of  coats, 
I  know  not  yet.  But  J  shall  know,  and  soon — for  he 
builds  to  a  miracle.  Trousers,  as  you  know,  are  sent 
home  in  the  rough,  and  adapted  by  perseverance. 
They  are  a  complex  mystery,  on  the  whole.  Few 
makers  know  more  than  a  part  in  the  science  of  cut- 
ting them,  and  you  must  supply  the  rest  by  clear  ex- 
pounding and  pertinacious  experiment.  The  trade  is 
trying,  and  should  be  expiative  of  crime  in  the  "suf- 
ferer." 

There  is  but  one  simple  idea  in  boots — patent- 
leather  and  straight  on  the  inside.  But,  by-the-way, 
to  jump  abruptly  to  the  other  extremity,  how  do  you 
wear  your  hair?  For  Cupid's  and  the  Grace's  sake, 
don't  be  English  in  that .'  Short  hair  on  a  young  man 
looks  to  me  madhousey.  Ugh !  Straight  or  curly, 
leave  it  long  enough  to  make  a  bootlace  for  a  lady ! 
And  see  that  it  looks  threadable  by  slight  fingers — for 
if  you  should  chance  to  be  beloved,  there  will  be  fin- 
gers unemployed  but  for  that  little  endearment.  So 
at  least  I  conjecture — bald  myself,  and  of  course,  not 
experienced  authority. 

But,  whatever  you  decide,  don't  step  into  the  street 
rashly!  Keep  yourself  "on  private  view"  for  a  few 
days  after  you  are  made  up,  and  call  in  discreet  judges 
for  the  benefit  of  criticism — an  artist  or  two  among 
them  for  the  general  effects.  First  impressions  are 
irrevocable. 

Adieu,  my  boy  !  Caution  ! — and  ponder  on  Balzac's 
dictum:  "Lesfemmes  aiment  les  fats, par ceque  lesfats 
sont  les  seuls  hommes  qui  eussent  soin  cfeuz-memes." 
Your  affectionate  uncle, 

Cinna  Beverley. 

P.  S.  A  short  cane — say  as  long  as  your  arm — is 
rather  knowing,  now.  Nobody  carries  a  long  stick, 
except  to  poke  at  snakes  in  the  country. 


MOORE  AND  BARRY  CORNWALL. 

Well — how  does  Moore  write  a  song  ? 

In  the  twilight  of  a  September  evening  he  strolls 
through  the  park  to  dine  with  the  marquis.  As  he 
draws  on  his  white  gloves,  he  sees  the  evening  star 
looking  at  him  steadily  through  the  long  vista  of  the 
avenue,  and  he  construes  its  punctual  dispensation  of 
light  into  a  reproach  for  having,  himself  a  star,  passed 
a  day  of  poetic  idleness.  "  Damme,"  soliloquizes  the 
little  fat  planet,  "  this  will  never  do !  Here  have  I 
hammered  the  whole  morning  at  a  worthless  idea, 
that,  with  the  mere  prospect  of  a  dinner,  shows  as 
trumpery  as  a  'penny  fairing.'  Labor  wasted  !  And 
at  my  time  of  life,  too!  Faith!— it's  dining  at  home 
these  two  days  with  nobody  to  drink  with  me !  It's 
eyewater  I  want !  Don 
for  me,  brother 
come  back ! 


!     Don't  trouble  yourself  to  sit  up 
Hesper!     I  shall  see  clearer  when  I 


'  Bad  are  the  rhymes 
That  scorn  old  wine,' 

as  my  friend  Barry  sings.     Poetry?   hum!     Claret? 
Prithee,  call  it  claret !" 

And  Moore  is  mistaken !  He  draws  his  inspiration, 
it  is  true,  with  the  stem  of  a  glass  between  his  thumb 
and  finger,  but  the  wine  is  the  least  stimulus  to  his 
brain.  He  talks  and  is  listened  to  admiringly,  and 
that  is  his  Castaly.     He  sits  next  to  Lady  Fanny  at 


dinner,  who  thinks  him  "  an  adorable  little  love,"  and 
he  employs  the  first  two  courses  in  making  her  in 
love  with  herself,  i.  e.,  blowing  everything  she  says  up 
to  the  red  heat  of  poetry.  Moore  can  do  this,  for  the 
most  stupid  things  on  earth  are,  after  all,  the  begin- 
nings of  ideas,  and  every  fool  is  susceptible  of  the 
flattery  of  seeing  the  words  go  straight  from  his  lips 
to  the  "highest  heaven  of  invention."  And  Lady 
Fanny  is  not  a  fool,  but  a  quick  and  appreciative  wo- 
man, and  to  almost  everything  she  says,  the  poet's 
trump  is  a  germ  of  poetry.  "  Ah  !"  says  Lady  Fanny 
with  a  sigh,  "this  will  be  a  memorable  dinner — not 
to  you,  but  to  me;  for  you  see  pretty  women  every 
day,  but  I  seldom  see  Torn  Moore  !"  The  poet  looks 
into  Lady  Fanny's  eyes  and  makes  no  immediate  an- 
swer. Presently  she  asks,  with  a  delicious  look  of 
simplicity,  "Are  you  as  agreeable  to  everybody,  Mr. 
Moore?" — "There  is  but  one  Lady  Fanny,"  replies 
the  poet ;  "or,  to  use  your  own  beautiful  simile,  'The 
moon  sees  many  brooks,  but  the  brook  sees  but  one 
moon!'"  (Mem.  jot  that  down.)  And  so  is  treas- 
ured up  one  idea  for  the  morrow,  and  when  the  mar- 
chioness rises,  and  the  ladies  follow  her  to  the  draw- 
ingroom,  Moore  finds  himself  sandwiched  between  a 
couple  of  whig  lords,  and  opposite  a  past  or  future 
premier — an  audience  of  cultivation,  talent,  scholar- 
ship, and  appreciation  ;  and  as  the  fresh  pitcher  of 
claret  is  passed  round,  all  regards  radiate  to  the  Anac- 
reon  of  the  world,  and  with  that  suction  of  expecta- 
tion, let  alone  Tom  Moore.  Even  our  "  Secretary 
of  the  Navy  and  National  Songster"  would  "turn  out 
his  lining" — such  as  it  is.  And  Moore  is  delightful, 
and  with  bis  "As  you  say,  my  lord!"  he  gives  birth 
to  a  constellation  of  bright  things,  no  one  of  which  is 
dismissed  with  the  claret.  Every  one  at  the  table, 
except  Moore,  is  subject  to  the  hour — to  its  enthusi- 
asm, its  enjoyment — but  the  hour  is  to  Moore  a  pre- 
cious slave.  So  is  the  wine.  It  works  for  him  !  It 
brings  him  money  from  Longman  !  It  plays  his  trum- 
pet in  the  reviews!  It  is  his  filter  among  the  ladies! 
Well  may  he  sing  its  praises!  Of  all  the  poets, 
Moore  is  probably  the  only  one  who  is  thus  master  of 
his  wine.  The  glorious  abandon  with  which  we  fancy 
him,  a  brimming  glass  in  his  hand,  singing  "Fly  nor 
yet!"  exists  only  in  the  fancy.  He  keeps  a  cool  head 
and  coins  his  conviviality;  and  to  revert  to  my  former 
figure,  they  who  wish  to  know  what  Moore's  elec- 
tricity amounts  to  ivithout  the  convivial  friction,  may 
read  his  History  of  Ireland.  Not  a  sparkle  in  it,  from 
the  landing  of  the  Phenicians  to  the  battle  of  Vine- 
gar Hill !  He  wrote  that  as  other  people  write — with 
nothing  left  from  the  day  before  but  the  habit  of  la- 
bor— and  the  the  travel  of  a  collapsed  balloon  on  a 
man's  back,  is  not  more  unlike  the  same  thing,  infla- 
ted and  soaring,  than  Tom  Moore,  historian,  and  Tom 
Moore,  bard ! 

Somewhere  in  the  small  hours  the  poet  walks 
home,  and  sitting  down  soberly  in  his  little  library,  he 
puts  on  paper  the  half-score  scintillations  that  col- 
lision, in  one  shape  or  another,  has  struck  into  the 
tinder  of  his  fancy.  If  read  from  this  paper,  the 
world  would  probably  think  little  of  their  prospect  of 
ever  becoming  poetry.  But  the  mysterious  part  is  done 
— the  life  is  breathed  into  the  chrysalis— and  the  do-  . 
thing  of  these  naked  fancies  with  winged  words,  Mr. 
Moore  knows  very  well  can  be  done  in  very  uninspired 
moods  by  patient  industry.  Most  people  have  very 
little  idea  what  that  industry  is — how  deeply  language 
is  ransacked,  how  often  turned  over,  how  untiringly 
rejected  and  recalled  with  some  new  combination, 
how  resolutely  sacrificed  when  only  tolerable  enough  to 
pass,  how  left  untouched  day  after  day  in  the  hope  of  a 
fresh  impulse  after  repose.  The  vexation  of  a  Chinese 
puzzle  is  slight,  probably,  to  that  which  Moore  has 
expended  on  some  of  his  most  natural  and  flowing 
single  verses.     The  exquisite  nicety  of  his  ear,  though 


EPHEMERA. 


617 


:t  eventually  gives  his  poetry  its  honeyed  fluidity, 
gives  him  no  quicker  choice  of  words,  nor  does  more, 
in  any  way,  than  pass  inexorable  judgment  on  what 
his  industry  brings  forward.  Those  who  think  a  song 
dashed  oft"  like  an  invitation  to  dinner,  would  be  ed- 
ified by  the  progressive  phases  of  a  "  Moore's  Melo- 
dy." Taken  with  all  its  re-writings,  emendations,  &c, 
1  doubt  whether,  in  his  most  industrious  seclusion, 
Moore  averages  a  couplet  a  day.  Yet  this  persevering, 
resolute,  unconquerable  patience  of  labor  is  the  se- 
cret of  his  fame.  Take  the  best  thing  he  ever  wrote, 
and  translate  its  sentiment  and  similitudes  into  plain 
prose,  and  do  the  thing  by  a  song  of  any  second-rate 
imitator  of  Moore,  one  abstract  would  read  as  well  as 
the  other.  Yet  Moore's  song  is  immortal,  and  the 
other  ephemeral  as  a  paragraph  in  a  newspaper,  and 
the  difference  consists  in  a  patient  elaboration  of  lan- 
guage and  harmony,  and  in  that  only.  And  even 
thus  short,  seems  the  space  between  the  ephemeron  and 
the  immortal.  But  it  is  wider  than  they  think,  oh, 
glorious  Tom  Moore ! 

And  how  does  Barry  Cornwall  write? 

I  answer,  from  the  efflux  of  his  soul !  Poetry  is 
not  labor  to  him.  He  works  at  law — he  plays,  re- 
laxes, luxuriates  in  poetry.  Mr.  Proctor  has  at  no 
moment  of  his  life,  probably,  after  finishing  a  poetic 
effusion,  designed  ever  to  write  another  line.  No 
more  than  the  sedate  man,  who,  walking  on  the  edge 
of  a  playground,  sees  a  ball  coming  directly  toward 
him,  and  seized  suddenly  with  a  boyish  impulse,  jumps 
aside  and  sends  it  whizzing  back,  as  he  has  not  done 
for  twenty  years,  with  his  cane — no  more  than  that 
unconscious  schoolboy  of  fourscore  (thank  God  there 
are  many  such  live  coals  under  the  ashes)  thinks  he 
shall  play  again  at  ball.  Proctor  is  a  prosperous  bar- 
rister, drawing  a  large  income  from  his  profession. 
He  married  the  daughter  of  Basil  Montague  (well 
known  as  the  accomplished  scholar,  and  the  friend  of 
Coleridge,  Lamb,  and  that  bright  constellation  of 
spirits),  and  with  a  family  of  children  of  whom,  the 
world  knows,  he  is  passionately  fond,  he  leads  a  more 
domestic  life,  or,  rather,  a  life  more  within  himself  and 
his  own,  than  any  author,  present  or  past,  with  whose 
habits  I  am  conversant.  He  has  drawn  his  own  por- 
trait, however,  in  outline,  and  as  far  as  it  goes,  nothing 
could  be  truer.  In  an  epistle  to  his  friend  Charles 
Lamb,  he  says  : — 

"  Seated  beside  this  Sherris  wine, 
And  near  to  books  and  shapes  divine, 
Which  poets  and  the  painters  past 
Have  wrought  in  line  that  aye  shall  last, — 
E'en  I,  with  Shakspere's  self  beside  me, 
And  one  whose  tender  talk  can  guide  me 
Through  fears  and  pains  and  troublous  themes, 
Whose  smile  doth  fall  upon  my  dreams 
Like  sunshine  on  a  stormy  sea,  **•**• 

Proctor  slights  the  world's  love  for  his  wife  and 
books,  and,  as  might  be  expected,  the  world  only  plies 
him  the  more  with  its  caresses.  He  is  now  and  then 
seen  in  the  choicest  circles  of  London,  where,  though 
love  and  attention  mark  most  flatteringly  the  rare 
pleasure  of  his  presence,  he  plays  a  retired  and  silent 
part,  and  steals  early  away.  His  library  is  his  Para- 
dise. His  enjoyment  of  literature  should  be  men- 
tioned as  often  in  his  biography  as  the  "  feeding  among 
the  lilies'*  in  the  Songs  of  Solomon.  He  forgets  him- 
self, he  forgets  the  world  in  his  favorite  authors,  and 
that,  I  fancy,  was  the  golden  link  in  his  friendship 
with  Lamb.  Surrounded  by  exquisite  specimens  of 
art  (he  has  a  fine  taste,  and  is  much  beloved  by  ar- 
tists), a  choice  book  in  his  hand,  his  wife  beside  him, 
and  the  world  shut  out,  Barry  is  in  the  meridian  of 
his  true  orbit.  Oh,  then,  a  more  loving  and  refined 
spirit  is  not  breathing  beneath  the  stars !  He  reads 
and  muses;  and  as  something  in  the  page  stirs  some 
distant  association,  suggests  some  brighter  image  than 


its  own,  he  half  leans  over  to  the  table,  and  scrawls  it 
in  unstudied  but  inspired  verse.  He  thinks  no  more 
of  it.  You  might  have  it  to  light  your  cigar.  But 
there  sits  by  his  side  one  who  knows  its  value,  and  it 
is  treasured.  Here,  for  instance,  in  the  volume  I  have 
spoken  of  before,  are  some  forty  pages  of  "fragments" 
— thrown  in  to  eke  out  the  volume  of  his  songs.  I 
am  sure,  that  when  he  was  making  up  his  book,  per- 
haps expressing  a  fear  that  there  would  not  be  pages 
enough  for  the  publisher's  design,  these  fragments 
were  produced  from  their  secret  hiding-place  to  his 
great  surprise.  The  quotations  I  have  made  were  all 
from  this  portion  of  his  volume,  and,  as  I  said  before, 
they  are  worthy  of  Shakspere.  There  is  no  mark  of 
labor  in  them.  I  do  not  believe  there  was  an  erasure 
in  the  entire  manuscript.  They  bear  all  the  marks 
of  a  sudden,  unstudied  impulse,  immediately  and  un- 
hesitatingly expressed.  Here  are  several  fragments. 
How  evident  it  is  that  they  were  suggested  directly 
by  his  reading  : — 

"  She  was  a  princess — but  she  fell ;  and  now 
Her  shame  goes  blushing  through  a  line  of  kings. 

Sometimes  a  deep  thought  crossed 
My  fancy,  like  the  sullen  bat  that  flies 
Athwart  the  melancholy  moon  at  eve. 

Let  not  thy  tale  tell  but  of  stormy  sorrows  ! 
She — who  was  late  a  maid,  but  now  doth  lie 
In  Hymen's  bosom,  like  a  rose  grown  pale, 
A  sad,  sweet  wedded  wife — why  is  she  left 
Out  of  the  story  ?    Are  good  deeds— great  griefs, 
That  live  but  ne'er  complain— naught  ?  What  are  tears  ?— 
Remorse  ? — deceit  ?  at  best  weak  water  drops 
Which  wash  out  the  bloom  of  sorrow. 
»»#****»•♦ 

Is  she  dead  ? 
Why  so  shall  I  be — ere  these  autumn  blasts 
Have  blown  on  the  beard  of  winter.     Is  she  dead  ? 
Aye,  she  is  dead— quite  dead  !     The  wild  sea  kissed  her 
With  its  cold,  white  lips,  and  then — put  her  to  sleep : 
She  has  a  sand  pillow,  and  a  water  sheet, 
And  never  turns  her  head,  or  knows  'tis  morning  ! 


Mark,  when  he  died,  his  tombs,  his  epitaphs  ! 

Men  did  not  pluck  the  ostrich  for  his  sake, 

Nor  dyed  't  in  sable.     No  black  steeds  were  there, 

Caparisoned  in  wo  ;  no  hired  crowds  ; 

No  hearse,  wherein  the  crumbling  clay  (imprisoned 

Like  ammunition  in  a  tumbril)  rolled 

Rattling  along  the  street,  and  silenced  grief; 

No  arch  whereon  the  bloody  laurel  hung  ; 

No  stone  ;  no  gilded  verse  ; — poor  common  shows  ! 

But  tears  and  tearful  words,  and  sighs  as  deep 

As  sorrow  is — these  were  his  epitaphs  ! 

Thus — (fitly  graced) — he  lieth  now,  inurned 

In  hearts  that  loved  him,  on  whose  tender  sides 

Are  graved  his  many  virtues.    When  they  perish, 

He's  lost  .'—and  so't  should  be.    The  poet's  name 

And  hero's — on  the  brazen  book  of  Time, 

Are  writ  in  sunbeams,  by  Fame's  loving  hand  ; 

But  none  record  the  household  virtues  there. 

These  better  sleep  (when  all  dear  friends  are  fled) 

In  endless  and  serene  oblivion. 


The  lighthouse  near  Caldwell's  Landing  is  seen  to 
great  effect  by  the  passenger  in  the  evening  boat  from 
New  York  to  Newburgh.  Leaving  the  city  at  five  in 
the  summer  afternoon,  she  makes  the  intervening  forty 
miles  between  that  hour  and  twilight ;  and  while  the 
last  tints  of  the  sunset  are  still  in  the  sky,  the  stars 
just  beginning  to  twinkle  through  the  glow  of  the 
west,  the  bright  light  of  this  lofty  beacon  rises  up 
over  the  prow  of  the  boat,  shining  apparently  on  the 
very  face  of  the  new-starred  heaven.  As  he  ap- 
proaches, across  the  smooth  and  still  purpled  mirror 
of  the  silent  river  is  drawn  a  long  and  slender  line  of 
light,  broken  at  the  foot  of  the  beacon  by  the  wild 
shrubbery  of  the  rock  on  which  it  stands  ;  and  as  he 
rounds  the  point,  and  passes  it,  the  light  brightens 
and  looks  clearer  against  the  darker  sky  of  the  east, 


018 


EPHEMERA. 


while  the  same  cheering  line  of  reflection  follows  him 
on  his  way,  and  is  lost  to  sight  as  he  disappears 
among  the  mountains. 

The  waters  of  the  river  at  this  point  were  the  scene 
of  the  brief  and  tragic  drama  enacted  so  fatally  to 
poor  Andre.  Four  or  five  miles  below  stands  Smith's 
house,  where  he  had  his  principal  interview  with 
Arnold,  and  where  the  latter  communicated  to  him 
his  plans  for  the  delivery  of  West  Point  into  the  hands 
of  the  English,  and  gave  him  the  fatal  papers  which 
proved  his  ruin. 

At  Smith's  house  Mrs.  Arnold  passed  a  night  on 
her  way  to  join  her  husband  at  West  Point,  soon  after 
he  had  taken  command.  The  sufferings  of  this  lady 
have  excited  the  sympathy  of  the  world,  as  the  first 
paroxysms  of  her  distress  moved  the  kind  but  firm 
heart  of  Washington.  There  seems  to  have  arisen  a 
doubt,  however,  whether  her  long  and  well-known 
correspondence  with  Andre  had  not  so  far  undermined 
her  patriotism,  that  she  was  rather  inclined  to  further 
than  impede  the  treason  of  Arnold  ;  and  consequently 
could  have  suffered  but  little  after  Washington  gener- 
ously made  every  arrangement  for  her  to  follow  him. 
In  the  "Life  of  Aaron  Burr,"  lately  published,  are 
some  statements  which  seem  authentic  on  the  subject. 
It  is  well  known  that  Washington  found  Mrs.  Arnold 
apparently  frantic  with  distress  at  the  communication 
her  husband  had  made  to  her  the  moment  before  his 
flight.  Lafayette,  and  the  other  officers  in  the  suite 
of  the  commander-in-chief,  were  alive  with  the  most 
poignant  sympathy;  and  a  passport  was  given  her  by 
Washington,  with  which  she  immediately  left  West 
Point  to  join  Arnold  in  New  York.  On  her  way  she 
stopped  at  the  house  of  Mrs.  Prevost,  the  wife  of  a 
British  officer,  who  subsequently  married  Colonel 
Burr.  Here  "the  frantic  scenes  of  West  Point  were 
renewed,"  says  the  narrative  of  Burr's  biographer, 
"and  continued  so  long  as  strangers  were  present.  As 
soon  as  she  and  Mrs.  Prevost  were  left  alone,  however, 
Mrs.  Arnold  became  tranquillized,  and  assured  Mrs. 
Prevost  that  she  was  heartily  sick  of  the  theatrics  she 
was  exhibiting.  She  stated  that  she  had  corresponded 
with  the  British  commander;  that  she  was  disgusted 
with  the  American  cause,  and  those  who  had  the  man- 
agement of  public  affairs;  and  that,  through  great 
persuasion  and  unceasing  perseverance,  she  had  ulti- 
mately brought  the  general  into  an  arrangement  to 
surrender  West  Point  to  the  British.  Mrs.  Arnold 
was  a  gay,  accomplished,  artful,  and  extravagant  wo- 
man. There  is  no  doubt,  therefore,  that,  for  the  pur- 
pose of  acquiring  the  means  of  gratifying  her  vanity, 
she  contributed  greatly  to  the  utter  ruin  of  her  hus- 
band, and  thus  doomed  to  everlasting  infamy  and  dis- 
grace all  the  fame  he  had  acquired  as  a  gallant  soldier, 
at  the  sacrifice  of  his  blood." 

It  is  not  easy  to  pass  and  repass  the  now  peaceful 
and  beautiful  waters  of  this  part  of  the  Hudson,  with- 
out recalling  to  mind  the  scenes  and  actors  in  the 
great  drama  of  the  Revolution,  which  they  not  long 
ago  bore  on  their  bosom.  The  busy  mind  fancies  the 
armed  guard-boats,  slowly  pulling  along  the  shore; 
the  light  pinnace  of  the  Vulture  plying  to  and  fro  on 
its  errands  of  conspiracy  ;  and  not  the  least  vivid  pic- 
ture to  the  imagination,  is  the  boat  containing  the 
accomplished,  the  gallant  Andre,  and  his  guard,  on 
his  way  to  his  death.  It  is  probable  that  he  first  ad- 
mitted to  his  own  mind  the  possibility  of  a  fatal  result, 
while  passing  this  very  spot.  A  late  biographer  of 
Arnold  gives  the  particulars  of  a  conversation  between 
Andre  and  Major  Tallmadge,  the  officer  who  had  him 
in  custody,  and  who  brought  him  from  West  Point 
down  the  river  to  Tappan,  the  place  of  his  subsequent 
execution. 

"Before  we  reached  the  Clove"  (a  landing  just  be- 
low the  beacon),  "  Major  Andre  became  very  inquisi- 
tive to  know  my  opinion  as  to  the  result  of  his  capture. 


When  I  could  no  longer  evade  his  importunity,  I  re- 
marked to  him  as  follows ;  '  I  had  a  much-loved  class- 
mate in  Yale  college,  by  the  name  of  Hale,  who  en- 
tered the  army  in  1775.  Immediately  after  the  battle 
of  Long  Island,  Washington  wanted  information 
respecting  the  strength  of  the  enemy.  Hale  tendered 
his  services,  went  over  to  Brooklyn,  and  was  taken, 
just  as  he  was  passing  the  outpost  of  the  enemy  on 
his  return.'  Said  I,  with  emphasis,  'Do  you  remem- 
ber the  sequel  of  this  story?' — 'Yes,'  said  Andre,  'he 
was  hanged  as  a  spy.  But  you  surely  do  not  consider 
his  case  and  mine  alike?'  I  replied,  'Yes,  precisely 
similar;  and  similar  will  be  your  fate.'  He  endeav- 
ored to  answer  my  remarks,  but  it  was  manifest  he 
was  more  troubled  in  spirit  than  I  had  ever  seen  him 
before." 


Sconcia's  "  Preceptor  for  the  Pianoforte,"  just  pub- 
lished by  Christman,  of  this  city,  is  a  curious  and  val- 
uable work.  Mr.  Sconcia  is  a  thorough  musician, 
and  he  has  compiled  the  edition  before  us  with  much 
labor  and  a  clear  understanding  of  the  beautiful  sci- 
ence of  which  it  treats.  Mr.  S.  is  also  the  author  of 
a  valuable  scientific  work,  entitled  "An  Introduction 
to  the  Art  of  Singing,"  which  is  universally  popular 
among  the  profession. 

The  Messrs.  Appleton  have  sent  us  a  volume  of 
delicious  poetry,  entitled  the  "Wife  of  Leon"  and 
other  metrical  effusions,  by  two  sisters  of  the  west. 
We  know  nothing  of  these  delightful  authors  beyond 
their  writings ;  but  that  they  are  gifted,  true-hearted, 
and  accomplished  girls,  is  apparent  in  every  line  of 
their  beautiful  productions.  The  west  has  cause  to 
be  proud  of  these  sweet  "sisters,"  and  so  has  the 
country,  to  whose  literary  stores  the  volume  before  us 
is  a  graceful  and  valuable  contribution.  If  this  is  the 
authors'  first  appearance  in  print,  it  is  the  most  favor- 
able one  we  have  ever  witnessed  in  our  whole  edito- 
rial career,  and  we  shall  place  the  book  in  our  library, 
on  the  same  shelf  with  the  works  of  Mrs.  Hemans,  to 
be  referred  to  frequently  in  hours  stolen  from  severer 
duties.     The  Messrs.  Appleton — ever 

("  The  first  true  merit  to  defend— 

His  praise  is  lost  who  waits  till  all  commend ") 

deserve  the  thanks  of  the  public  for  the  elegant  edi- 
tion of  the  poems  before  us. 


I  saw  two  very  distinguished  gentlemen  sitting  vis- 
a-vis  at  the  Astor  house  table  a  day  or  two  since — 
striking  exceptions,  both,  to  the  physique  of  the  cli- 
mates from  which  they  severally  come.  The  Hon. 
Mr.  Choate,  of  Massachusetts,  was  one,  with  his  pale 
but  intellectual  countenance,  and  Judge  Wayne  was 
the  other,  as  glowing  a  specimen  of  rosy  health  and 
vigor  as  ever  came  from  the  more  florescent  nurture 
of  the  north.  It  is  painful  to  see  the  precious  accu- 
mulation of  a  great  mind's  treasure  intrusted  to  so 
fragile  a  casket  as  ill-health,  and  the  contrary  is  pro- 
portionably  agreeable.  Judge  Wayne  is  at  present  at 
West  Point. 

It  is  a  pretty  literal  fulfilment  of  the  penalty  of 
Adam's  transgression  to  do  more  than  breathe  to-day, 
and  I  have  chopped  down  and  chopped  up  many  a 
tree  of  twice  my  age  with  half  the  "  sweat  of  the 
brow"  brought  out  by  the  harnessing  of  this  first  sen- 
tence to  grammar.  A  gentleman  is  walking  up  Broad- 
way, fanning  himself,  as  I  look  out  of  the  window. 
The  omnibus  horses  drip.  What  an  Eden  would 
come  about  again  (for  me,  at  least)  if  this  penitential 
sweat  would  trickle  itself  into  these  inky  traceries 
without  the  medium  of  brain  and  finger-work!     One 


EPHEMERA. 


(.•19 


would  be  almost  content  to  become  a  black  man  to 
facilitate  the  miracle. 

Three  successive  boys  have  gone  under  my  window, 
whistling,  "Dance,  boatman,  dance!"  The  air  is  one 
that  sticks  in  the  popular  memory,  and,  like  some 
other  of  these  negro  melodies,  it  is  probably  suscep- 
tible of  transmutation  into  a  gem  of  music.  I  have 
recorded  somewhere  else  a  remark  Moore  once  made 
in  my  presence,  that  one  of  the  most  pathetic  of  his 
songs  stole  its  air  from  a  merry  ballad  of  Spain,  rep- 
resenting a  girl  complaining  of  the  wind's  blowing  her 
petticoats  about,  and  the  change  in  its  character  was 
effected  by  only  playing  it  slower.  No  song  was  ever 
more  popular  in  this  country  than  "  On  the  lake  where 
drooped  the  willow,"  which  was  a  transfer  of  the  ne- 
gro song  "As  I  was  a  gwyin  down  Shinbone  alley." 
Horn,  who  adapted  it  to  a  pathetic  song  by  Morris, 
took  his  hint  from  the  pathos  with  which  a  black  boy 
at  Natchez  sang  one  of  the  songs  peculiar  to  his  race 
and  region.  "  The  Northern  Refrain,"  another  very 
popular  song  by  Morris  and  Horn,  is  based  upon  the 
carol  of  the  sweeps  in  New  York  city.  Mr.  Horn 
says  that  "God  save  the  King"  was  taken  from  an  air 
sung  about  the  streets  of  London,  and  that  "Di  tanti 
palpiti"  was  suggested  to  Rossini  by  hearing  a  fish- 
woman  sing  it  in  the  market  while  attending  her  stall. 
"The  Marseillaise"  had  an  origin  equally  obscure. 
The  first  attempt  to  dislocate  these  airs  from  their 
ludicrous  words  creates  a  smile,  of  course,  but  it  is 
surprising  how  quickly  the  better  clothing  of  music 
throws  its  long-worn  beggar-rag  into  forgetfulness. 
Horn  relates  in  one  of  his  prefaces,  that  when  Mrs. 
Horn  commenced  singing  before  an  audience,  "  Long 
time  ago,"  with  a  serious  air,  there  was  a  general 
smile;  but  when  the  song  was  ended  she  left  her  au- 
ditors with  tears  in  their  eyes.  There  is  no  end  to 
tracing  back  to  their  origin  airs  that  are  afloat  among 
a  people,  and  if  Moore's  melodies  are  built  upon 
"Irish  airs,"  without  going  back  to  Milesian  imagina- 
tion, these  negro  melodies  may  be  called  American, 
without  giving  credit  to  Guinea  or  Timbuctoo.  I 
should  think  it  worth  a  composer's  while  to  travel  lei- 
surely in  the  south,  and  bring  away  all  the  melodies 
that  inhabit  the  banjo  of  the  slave,  and  better  still 
worth  Morris's  while  to  devote  his  singular  tact  and 
delicacy  of  taste  and  ear  to  the  clothing  them  with 
appropriate  poetry.  He  has  been  so  successful  in  the 
attempts  he  has  already  made,  that  the  warrant  is 
good. 


A  German  gentleman,  residing  at  the  Astor  house, 
has  translated  for  me  an  account  of  a  visit  to  Frederika  ! 
Bremer,  by  the  Countess  Von  Hahn-Hahn,  and  a  few  j 
of  its  more  personal  particulars  will  not  be  uninterest- 
ing. The  countess  is  a  celebrated  person  in  the  fash-  | 
ionable  world,  and  has  just  published  her  travels  in 
Sweden.  She  found  Miss  Bremer  at  a  small  country  | 
estate  near  Stockholm,  where  she  resides  with  her 
mother  and  a  younger  sister.  She  says :  "  I  had 
formed  some  idea  about  her  person  from  her  books.  I 
figured  to  myself  a  quiet,  serious  person,  with  some 
humoristic  touches.  I  found  her  indeed  thus  in 
reality,  with  an  addition  of  an  extraordinary  degree 
of  sweetness  in  all  her  bearing." — "  I  was  offered  a 
promenade.  I  preferred  to  remain  in  the  house, 
though  passionately  fond  of  nature,  open  air,  walking. 
All  the  attraction  for  me  was  within — everything  so 
pleasant,  so  comfortable !  I  could  comprehend  how 
*  Home'1  here  could  be  made  so  attractive.  I  desired 
Miss  Frederika  to  show  me  her  own  room.  It  was 
arranged  with  the  greatest  simplicity — almost  a  cell. 
It  would-  not  do  for  me  at  all.  Besides,  it  was  a  cor- 
ner-room, with  windows  on  two  sides,  consequently  a 
double  supply  of  light.  There  were  three  square 
tables,  covered  with  books,  papers,  and  writing-mate- 


rials; a  sofa  in  a  severe  style  (I  mean  one  that  coolly 
and  merely  invites  you  to  sit  down  without  lolling, 
which  is  my  favorite  position).  On  the  walls  there 
were  several  pictures.  'This  is  a  genuine  Teniers, 
but  I  know  you  will  not  like  it,'  she  said,  laughing, 
pointing  to  a  beautiful  little  picture  of  a  countryman 
filling  his  pipe.  I  answered  honestly,  'no!'  and  in 
general  I  found  that  I  said  'no'  when  she  said  'yes.' 
Such  a  difference  of  opinion  is  only  disagreeable  when 
you  have  a  dislike  to  a  person.  I  triei]  to  persuade 
her  to  make  a  voyage  to  Italy.  We  would  go  togeth- 
er. But  she  would  not.  She  does  not  like  travel- 
ling. She  thinks  that  one  may  soon  become  over- 
powered, carried  away,  get  confused — and  what  to  do 
with  all  these  foreign  impressions!  I  said,  'You  will 
soon  conquer  them — that  is  just  the  pleasantest  thing, 
I  think.'  She  still  took  a  lively  interest  in  all  I  told 
her  of  foreign  countries,  what  I  had  seen,  and  what  I 
had  written  about  them.  1  was  naturally  well-pleased 
at  this.  Our  conversation  was  carried  on  in  French 
and  German.  She  expressed  herself  with  great  sim- 
plicity and  decision.  She  has  beautiful,  thinking 
eyes;  a  clear,  firm,  I  may  almost  say,  a  solid  forehead, 
under  which  the  strongly-delineated  eyebrows  move 
very  much  when  she  speaks.  This  becomes  her  very 
much,  particularly  when  an  idea  labors  to  shape  itself 
into  words.  She  has  a  light  and  small  figure,  and  was 
dressed  in  black  silk.  In  the  parlor  there  were  two 
large  bookcases.  Miss  Bremer  paints  beautifully  in 
miniature,  and  she  has  a  collection  of  heads,  done  by 
herself,  to  which  was  added  mine.  I  generally  get 
sleepy  when  sitting  to  artists;  therefore  J  do  not  like 
to  have  my  picture  taken,  as  it  hurts  my  vanity  that 
all  my  portraits  look  so  immensely  sheepish!  This 
time,  however,  the  sitting  went  better  off,  for  the 
Countess  Rosen  was  singing  the  whole  time,  with  her 
fine  voice,  some  beautiful  Swedish  songs." 

By  this  extract  the  Countess  Hahn-Hahn  herself 
seems  a  nice,  natural  creature  enough. 


I  have  been  pleased  to  find  that  I  rather  under  than 
over-colored  my  slight  description  of  Mr.  Weir's  pic- 
ture for  the  rotunda.  The  Bostonians  have  received 
it  with  a  full  measure  of  enthusiasm;  and  Mr.  Weir 
has  himself  returned  to  West  Point,  laden  not  merely 
with  bountiful  commendations,  but  with  employment 
for  years  in  commissions  for  pictures.  He  will,  prob- 
ably, realize  a  small  fortune  from  the  exhibition,  alone, 
of  his  great  painting  in  the  different  cities ;  and  alto- 
gether, this  is  the  best  exemplification  that  has 
occurred  in  my  time  of  the  jwlici/  (to  say  no  more) 
of  a  faithful  discharge  of  a  commission,  which, 
because  intrusted  literally  to  conscience  and  honor, 
may  be  slighted  with  impunity.  Mr.  Weir,  I  under- 
stand, has  not  yet  drawn  the  price  of  his  picture  from 
the  treasury,  intending  to  lay  it  by  as  an  investment 
for  his  children,  unconscious,  probably,  how  much 
they  will  value  the  father's  glory  invested  in  the  pic- 
ture. Oo  it  the  painter  has  flung  his  soul  prostrate  ; 
and  there  is  a  circumstance  connected  with  its  work- 
ing upon  his  mind  while  painting  it.  which  we  do  not 
feel  quite  at  liberty  to  mention  here,  but  which  will  be 
a  thread  of  the  purest  gold  to  weave  into  the  mingled 
woof  of  his  posthumous  biography.  By  the  first  of 
October,  I  understand,  we  are  to  have  a  view  of  the 
"  Embarkation"  in  New  York. 


I  was  among  the  liquesced  victims  of  the  buffalo- 
hunt  at  Hoboken,  and  gathered  little  to  compensate 
me  for  "larding  the  lean  earth"  of  the  Messrs 
Stevens,  except  a  strong  impression  of  the  peculiar 
good-nature  of  a  republican  crowd.     As  our  down- 


620 


EPHEMERA. 


laden  ferry-boat  reached  the  shore,  another  one,  heav- 
ily overfreighted,  was  starting  to  return.  Some  one 
on  our  wheelhouse  inquired  in  a  stentorian  voice, 
"  How  did  you  like  it?"  and  was  answered  by  the  five 
hundred  disappointed  and  roasted  dupes  with  a  general 
shout  of  good-natured  laughter.  The  Courier  esti- 
mates the  crowd  at  twenty  or  thirty  thousand,  and  cer- 
tainly the  whole  Jersey  side  was  black  with  people,  all 
feeling  humbugged  and  laughing  merrily.  I  thought 
I  would  ride  up  to  the  ground  to  see  the  embroidery 
of  so  many  moving  figures  on  the  green  meadows,  and 
this  was  a  fine  sight.  The  lasso-rider,  in  a  fantastical 
costume,  was  galloping  hard  after  his  shadow,  and 
tossing  his  long  rope  into  the  air;  and  one  of  the  buf- 
faloes was  quietly  munching  a  hollyhock  in  the  small 
enclosure  of  an  Irish  cabin  on  the  roadside.  The  rest 
of  the  herd,  I  was  told,  had  made  their  escape  to  the 
woods,  offering  the  proprietor  a  real  hunt  for  a  sham. 
The  morning  papers  give  accounts  of  some  serious 
accidents  during  the  day. 


The  copyright  club  is  organized  with  a  most  active 
and  efficient  secretary  in  Mr.  Mathews,  and  there  has 
been  a  general  summoning  of  aid  and  counsel.  Bry- 
ant, the  high-priest  of  American  poetry,  is  very  prop- 
erly chosen  president.  In  addition  to  the  fact  which 
I  mentioned  in  my  last  as  one  that  should  be  "kept 
before  the  people,"  viz.,  that  the  increase  of  price  on 
new  publications  would  be  very  trifling  and  go  to  the 
author — in  addition  to  this,  I  say,  another  should  be 
mentioned.  The  worthless  edition  that  is  bought  for 
a  shilling,  and  read  with  straining  eyes  from  its  bad 
print,  is  perused  and  thrown  away.  Would  it  not  be 
as  well  to  subscribe  to  a  reading-club,  and  get  the 
book  well-printed  for  less  money,  and  return  it  at  the 
end  of  the  week?  The  hint  is  worth  considering — 
and  this  is  the  way  that  reading  is  managed  cheaply 
in  England. 


Macready  is  to  be  here  in  October,  and  will  be  ac- 
companied by  Miss  Phillips  (formerly  of  the  National), 
and  Mr.  Ryder — a  unicorn  team  of  his  own  breaking. 
They  both  know  the  leader's  paces.  Conti  Damoreau 
follows  later — but  there  is  nothing  very  spicy  on  rec- 
ord with  regard  to  this  prima  donna  ;  and  the  popular 
telescope  of  expectation  is  fixed  exclusively  on  the 
charming  Mrs.  Nesbitt.  Before  I  have  had  time  to 
be  bribed  by  my  share  of  the  spell  of  this  enchantress, 
I  may  as  well  give  you  an  honest  inventory  of  her 
attractions  and  professional  merits.  She  is,  imprimis, 
a  widow;  that  is  to  say,  if  she  be  not  married  within 
a  year  or  two,  as  is  said,  to  the  famous  Mr.  Feargus 
O'Conner,  keeping  her  previous  name  for  theatrical 
eclat.  Mr.  Nesbitt  was  a  dashing  guardsman  (son  of 
Lady  Nesbitt,  well  known  in  the  gay  world),  who 
broke  his  neck  driving  tandem,  and  left  his  widow  the 
idol  of  the  dandies.  She  is  rather  above  the  middle 
size,  with  blue  eyes,  meant  to  pass  for  black,  black 
hair,  Greek  nose,  upper  lip  half  scornful,  half  playful, 
and  a  mouth  made  by  none  of  the  Graces'  journey- 
men. This  last  article  is  indeed  delicious,  as  seen 
from  any  part  of  the  theatre,  though,  like  Madame 
George  Sands,  the  owner  smokes !  But  her  charm  lies 
mainly  in  "the  way  she  has  with  her."  Nobody  that 
sees  her  cares  whether  she  plays  well  or  ill.  She 
ministers  at  another  door.  Hang  your  head — she 
plays  to  your  heart .'  And  it  is  one  of  her  ways  to 
play  very  unevenly ;  and  when  she  thinks  you  have 
pouted  long  enough  at  her  carelessness,  to  burst  sud- 
denly upon  you  with  a  bewitching  rally,  and  "bring  the 
house  down,"  as  they  alarmingly  phrase  it.  A  great 
actress  she  probably  is  not — an  enchanting  woman  she 


certainly  is.  It  is  to  be  hoped  that  she  will  bring  over 
the  pieces  that  have  been  written  expressly  for  her,  as 
her  every  peculiarity  of  look,  tone,  and  gesture,  has 
been  most  accurately  measured  and  fitted  by  the  dra- 
matic tailors  of  London. 


The  world  looks  disagreeable  to  us  to-day.  We  are 
"  under  the  weather  ;"  and,  for  to-day  at  least  (and  it 
is  odd  how  rare  the  wish  is),  we  may  say,  we  wish 
ourselves  fairly  above  the  weather — that  is,  in  heaven ; 
in  heaven,  where  there  are  no  Saturdays,  and  of 
course,  no  expectations  of  New  Mirrors. 

For  you  forgive  the  dinner's  not  forthcoming,  if  the 
cook  be  ill.  And  your  washerwoman  has  her  little 
indulgences — hand  scalded,  or  child  sick.  And  you 
forego  your  drive  if  your  horse  be  ailing  or  off  his 
feed.  What  have  we  done,  we  should  be  pleased  to 
know,  to  be  treated  less  kindly  than  the  other  three  of 
your  quadruple  necessities  ?  We  should  like  very 
much  to  drop  our  head  into  our  hand,  and  mope.  But 
you  wouldn't  like  it. 

No — you  want  us  to  chatter.  You  say  as  the  child 
says,  when  the  story  is  done  :  "Tell  us  some  more." 
And  if  we  must,  we  must!  But  we're  sick  and  sav- 
age, and  we'll  rake  up  something  that  we  can  gnaw  as 
we  tell  it — some  old  resentment  or  other — and  if  we 
don't  feel  better  after  it,  we'll  go  to  bed. 

One  of  the  morning  papers,  a  week  ago  or  more, 
told  a  fib  about  us.  In  an  article  on  American  authors, 
it  is  said  that  we  (one  of  "we")  made  more  money  by 
our  writings  than  any  other  American  author,  and 
were  fast  growing  rich!  And  out  of  that,  a  Boston 
paper  picks  the  reason  that  we  "write  so  jauntily!" 
As  if  a  man  were  not  always  gayer  as  his  pockets  were 
lighter,  and  as  if  our  good  humor  were  drawn  with  a 
check — bankable  ! 

Now  we  are  not  willing  to  submit  to  the  odium  of 
prosperity.  That  we  have  made  some  thousands  of 
unnameables  by  two  or  three  weeks'  work,  as  this 
writer  asserts,  we  freely  own — but  it  was  not  in  this 
country.  We  have  sold,  for  a  large  price,  in  England, 
books  for  which  we  tried  in  vain  to  find  a  publisher  in 
America.  We  can  not  now  find  a  publisher  in  Amer- 
ica who  will  give  us  anything  for  a  work,  though  we 
have  been  looking  for  one  these  three  years  ;  and  we 
never  found  but  one  publisher  who  would  give  us,  for 
half-a-dozen  works  in  a  lump,  money  worth  shutting 
thumb  and  finger  upon  ;  and  he  gave  it  in  notes,  pay- 
able by  ourself — after  the  little  privilege  of  a  discount. 
We  don't  complain  of  this — oh  no !  The  worth  of  a 
thing  is,  no  doubt,  what  it  will  bring.  But  we  are  not 
going  to  be  lifted  between  human  envy  and  the  sun, 
and  be  hated  for  throwing  a  shadow  when  we  have  no 
substance!     Not  "we!" 

That  three  meals  a  day  come  punctually  round  to 
us,  we  consider  no  more  a  marvel  than  the  arrange- 
ments for  the  keeping  in  motion  of  any  other  "  heav- 
enly body."  For  that  much  we  have  safely  trusted 
hitherto,  and  we  shall  trust  hereafter  the  crank,  what- 
ever it  may  be.  that  turns  our  mortal  orrery.  We  are 
fed,  and  we  don't  care  who  envies  us  for  it — for  we 
think  we  do  work  enough  to  earn  it — but  the  posses- 
sion, at  any  time,  for  any  considerable  portion  of  an 
hour,  of  one  unbespoken  dollar,  we  indignantly  deny  ! 
We  are  poor  enough  (either  of  us  "we")  to  please 
the  most  fastidious,  on  the  contrary.  And  so,  fellow- 
paupers,  take  us  back  to  your  affections  ! 

But  we  have  hopes  (as  who  has  not  ?)  of  living  to 
be  "  rich  and  envied  !"  We  shall  be  less  loved.  That 
is  the  tariff,  and  we  are  busy  laying  up  love  to  pay  it. 
But  we  should  like  to  know  how  it  feels  to  berich,  and 
whether  for  more  love,  one  ever  sighs  to  be  poor 
again !  Please  Heaven,  we  will  know,  some  day — if 
the  Mirror  keep  prospering. 


EPHEMERA. 


621 


Two  Sistkrs  of  the  West. — I  have  done,  almost 
unawares,  within  the  last  twenty-four  hours,  what  I 
would  not  willingly  have  undertaken  to  do,  viz.,  the 
reading  of  two  hundred  and  fifty  pages  of  new  poetry. 
It  was  a  book  which  came  to  my  hand  in  the  livery 
of  a  di'lnd — cream-colored  binding,  most  daintily  let- 
tered—and when  I  opened  it  my  anticipations  extend- 
ed very  little  beyond  the  pleasure  of  rubbing  my 
thumb  and  finger  on  the  seductive  smoothness  of  the 
cover.  It  is  entitled,  "  The  Wife  of  Leon,  and  other 
Poems,  by  Two  Sisters  of  the  West,"  written,  as  the 
preface  states,  to  "while  away  time  and  gratify  a  taste 
for  poetry,"  and  published  "  to  gratify  a  parent  to 
whom  they  could  refuse  nothing."  With  much  of 
the  book  I  think  you  would  be  delighted.  It  seems 
to  me  a  careless  exercise  of  very  uncommon  powers 
—a  kind  of  loitering  into  dream-land  with  no  particu- 
lar errand,  and  here  and  there  plucking  a  phantom 
forth  to  the  light  as  would  be  done  by  a  concentrated 
mind  gone  thither  with  disciplined  determination  for 
the  purpose.  I  speak,  of  course,  now  only  of  the 
purely  imaginative  parts  of  the  book.  The  affections 
are,  with  women,  no  phantoms,  and  can  scarcely  be 
written  upon,  except  well,  by  any  woman  of  talent; 
and  in  this  book  the  touches  of  feeling  are  exquisitely 
true  and  well  expressed.  But  in  verse,  which  is  here 
and  there  very  incompact  and  wordy,  you  will  find 
some  bold  conceptions,  partially  done  justice  to,  which 
show  in  these  sisters  a  very  unusual  walk  of  fancy. 
•A  piece  called  the  "Death  of  the  Master  Spirit," 
seems  to  me  particularly  strong  and  unsuggested. 
And  in  some  lines  beginning — 

"  Never,  as  I  have  loved  thee, 
Shalt  thou  be  loved  again," 

there  is  a  most  refreshing  novelty  and  meaningness. 
On  the  whole,  I  look  upon  this  as  rather  a  memorable 
advent  in  poetry-world,  and  I  hope  we  shall  soon  find 
out  who  the  "  Sisters"  are. 


Percival  has  put  forth  a  new  volume,  after  a  very 
long  silence  as  a  poet.  If  poetry  were  nothing  but  an 
exercise  of  imagination,  Percival  would  doubtless  be 
the  first  of  American  poets.  In  the  art  of  poetry, 
probably  he  is — the  art,  I  mean,  as  exemplified  in  this 
very  volume,  in  which  there  are  no  less  than  "  one 
hundred  and  fifty  modifications  of  stanza."  But  Per- 
cival's  poetry  is  singularly  deficient  in  the  very  mun- 
dane quality  flesh  and  blood.  His  veins  seem  filled 
with  ether,  and  his  Pegasus  uses  his  wings  always, 
his  legs  never.  I  mention  it  less  as  a  fault  than  a  pe- 
culiarity, for  there  may  be  a  school  of  this  quality 
of  poetry,  and  perfect  in  its  way — but  it  is  a  pecu- 
liarity which  accounts  fully  for  the  inadequate  effect 
it  has  produced.  Nothing  of  Percival's  is  popu- 
larly known,  except  one  or  two  pieces,  which  will 
live  for  ever  by  the  very  flesh  and  blood  pathos  which 
he  has  touched  by  chance,  and  which  he  probably 
thinks  beneath  him.     The  poem  beginning, 

"  lie  comes  not.    I  have  watched  the  moon  go  down," 

the  mournful  plaint  of  a  deserted  wife,  is  one  of  these, 
and  a  most  exquisite  effusion  of  feeling.  But  here  is 
his  idea  of  the  harness  with  which  a  poet  must  go  into 
the  arena,  in  a  passage  of  his  preface  to  his  new 
book : — 

— "  An  art  [poetry]  which  requires  the  mastery  of 
the  riches  and  niceties  of  a  language  ;  a  full  knowl- 
edge of  the  science  of  versification,  not  only  in  its  own 
peculiar  principles  of  rhythm  and  melody,  but  in  its 
relations  to  elocution  and  music,  with  that  delicate 
natural  perception  and  that  facile  execution  which 
render  the  composition  of  verse  hardly  less  easy  than 
that  of  prose ;  a  deep  and  quick  insight  into  the  na- 


ture of  man,  in  all  his  varied  faculties,  intellectual  and 
emotive:  a  clear  and  full  perception  of  the  power  and 
beauty  of  nature,  and  of  all  its  various  harmonies  with 
our  own  thoughts  and  feelings;  and,  to  gain  a  high 
rank  in  the  present  age,  wide  and  exact  attainments 
in  literature  and  art  in  general.  Nor  is  the  posses- 
sion of  such  faculties  and  attainments  all  that  is  neces- 
sary ;  but  such  a  sustained  and  self-collected  state  of 
mind  as  gives  one  the  mastery  of  his  genius,  and  at 
the  same  time  presents  to  him  the  ideal  as  an  imme- 
diate reality,  not  as  a  remote  conception." 

Now,  acknowledged,  as  Percival  must  be,  to  pos- 
sess these  high  requirements,  1  have  no  doubt  that 
the  book  I  have  spoken  of  above  will  be  more  read 
than  his  own — though,  probably,  the  alarm  with  which 
"  The  Two  Sisters"  would  have  looked  on  this  for- 
midable statement  of  requisites  for  poetry,  presented 
to  them  before  they  had  so  unconsciously  achieved 
the  task,  would  have  quite  equalled  the  surprise  of 
the  gentleman  who  found  that  he  had  all  his  life  been 
talking  grammar  without  learning  it.  Percival's  is  a 
great  mind,  however,  wonderfully  stored  with  learn- 
ing, and  his  poetry  is  a  rich  treat  to  the  scholar  and 
the  purely  imaginative  reader. 


The  Public  Fountains. — The  largest  audiences 
we  see  in  the  city,  assemble  on  the  advertised  nights 
of  the  illumination  of  the  Bowling  Green  fountain. 
The  lower  part  of  the  city  is  rendered  completely  im- 
passable by  the  packed  assemblages.  With  the  aid 
of  the  many-colored  fires  burned  around  it,  it  is  cer- 
tainly a  splendid  fountain ;  but  it  would  be  beautiful 
by  day,  and  alone,  as  well  as  much  more  beautiful  by 
night,  if  the  same  volume  of  water  sprang  from  some 
ornamental  structure  instead  of  a  huge  heap  of  rocks. 
In  all  countries  but  this,  an  artist  would  have  been 
employed  to  make  a  design  for  so  costly  and  public  a 
fountain — a  man  whom  peculiar  genius  and  study  had 
qualified  for  the  task.  But  the  designer  of  this  is  an 
engineer,  and  the  designer  of  the  Park  fountain,  if  it 
had  one,  was  probably  a  well-digger  or  a  mason.  By 
the  way,  as  the  Park  is  the  most  frequented  part  of 
the  city,  and  much  used  by  persons  wishing  to  get  out 
of  the  street  for  a  moment's  conversation,  the  plan  of 
the  fountain  of  Lerna,  at  Corinth,  would  be  a  good 
one.  It  was  encircled  by  a  beautiful  portico,  under 
which  were  seats  for  the  public  to  sit  upon  during 
the  extreme  heats  of  summer,  to  enjoy  the  cool  air 
from  the  falling  waters.  The  Park  jet  would  be  su- 
perb seen  between  the  marble  columns  of  a  portico 
like  this,  and  the  seats  would  be  certainly  a  great  lux- 
ury, situated  as  the  Park  is.  For  want  of  an  original 
idea  of  our  own  for  a  smaller  fountain,  Michael  Ange- 
lo's  conception  were  a  good  one  to  copy — a  sturdy 
woman  wringing  a  bundle  of  clothes,  whence  the 
water  issues  that  supplies  the  basin. 


First  Night  of  the  Season. — The  all-a-gogery 
of  the  city  on  the  reopening  of  the  Park  theatre, 
drew  me  in  from  the  country,  contrary  to  my  Mon- 
day's wont,  and  as  I  am  bound  to  ride  to  your  eye  on 
the  top  wave  of  the  morning  talk,  I  must  jot  you  down 
the  memorabilia  of  the  first  night.  The  wooden 
Shakspere,  by  the  way,  has  been  hoisted  to  its  niche 
in  the  facade  of  the  house,  and  shows  well  among  the 
very  composite  order  of  the  new  architectural  embel- 
lishments. A  traveller,  aiming  simply  at  the  graphic, 
would  probably  describe  our  principal  theatre  as  one 
long  shed  put  on  top  of  another,  with  a  figure  ol 
Shakspere  standing  in  the  door  of  the  uppermost. 
The  new  paint  makes  it  all  right,  however.  I  can  not 
think  Mr.  Simpson  farmed  out  Mr.  Wallack  to  the 


622 


EPHEMERA. 


best  advantage,  for  the  first  night  of  the  new  embel- 
lishments would  have  filled  the  house  without  Wal- 
lack.  And  very  sufficient  attraction  it  were  too — for 
the  interior  is  most  tasteful  and  elegant;  except  that 
the  seats  in  the  boxes  are  calculated  for  dwarfs  and 
children,  and  the  grown-up  people  sit  between  the 
knees  of  the  person  behind.  I  see  no  objection  that 
can  be  made  to  the  interior  of  the  bouse.  The  new 
drop  curtain  is  admirably  painted,  and  represents 
Shakspere  and  two  or  three  of  the  muses,  tributary  to 
the  glory  of  Macready,  who  sits  with  a  volume  in  his 
hand,  the  most  dignified  and  conspicuous  figure  of 
the  group.  The  design,  I  understand,  is  taken  from 
a  piece  of  plate  presented  to  the  actor  in  England,  and 
the  use  it  is  put  to  in  the  Park  fairly  out-Barnums 
Barnum.  The  house  was  crammed,  and  the  band 
opened  with  "Hail  Columbia"— (immense  applause) 
—  followed  by  "Yankee  Doodle"  —  (immense  ap- 
plause). The  gas  was  let  on — (immense  applause) — 
the  curtain  was  drawn  up,  and  discovered  Mrs.  Slo- 
man  (disinterred  after  many  years  of  respected  histri- 
onic sepulture)  in  the  character  of  Elvira — (immense 
applause).  Sombody  came  on  as  Valverde — (im- 
mense applause).  Mr.  Barry  came  on  as  Pizarro — 
(immense  applause).  Mrs.  Hunt  came  on  looking 
very  handsome — (immense  applause).  The  curtain 
dropped  on  the  first  act  and  rose  again — (two  im- 
mense applauses).  Mr.  Wallack  came  on  as  Rolla 
— (immense  applause).  The  high-priest  of  the  Sun 
sung  his  hymn — (immense  applause) — and  so  the  play 
went  on,  and,  wherever  the  actors  left  pauses,  there 
were  immense  applauses.  And  all  the  actors  and  su- 
pernumeraries got  as  much  applause  as  Mr.  Wallack. 
All  charmingly  levelling  and  republican.  It  was  quite 
evident,  indeed,  that  the  pleasure  and  interest  in  the 
new  lining  and  reopening  of  the  house  was,  by  much, 
the  predominant  sentiment  of  the  evening,  and,  as  I  said 
before,  Simpson  might  well  have  shelved  Wallack  till 
he  was  more  wanted.  There  were  quite  enough  of 
his  special  admirers  present  to  have  "brought  the 
house  down,"  it  is  true;  but  it  was  "down"  all  the 
time,  and  nothing  but  an  outbreak  of  pipes  and  French 
horns  could  have  emphasized  the  acclamations  any 
where  in  the  course  of  the  play.  And  if  Wallack's 
attraction  depended  at  all  on  opportuneness,  the  ma- 
jority of  his  fashionable  friends  are  out  of  the  city.  So 
that,  altogether,  we  shall  hardly  have  a  fair  test  of 
his  success  till  his  second  engagement,  after  Macready. 
Meantime,  he  is  barred  from  all  the  parts  in  which 
the  latter  is  to  appear  ("  Benedict,"  among  others,  in 
which  Wallack  is  far  better  than  Macready),  and 
driven  into  the  melodrame  and  farce,  in  which  his 
versatility  makes  him  almost  as  "  good  a  card."  His 
"  Rolla"  was  superbly  played,  and  in  "Dick  Dashall" 
it  is  well  known  he  is  unsurpassed.  A  plan  was  struck 
out  by  a  clever  friend  of  mine,  in  conversation,  of 
combining  the  management  of  a  New  York  and  Lon- 
don theatre,  and  of  transferring  the  "gettings-up"  in 
the  way  of  dresses  and  the  more  extensive  stage  prop- 
erties. The  splendors  of  costume  and  scenery  with 
which  Macready  has  represented  plays  within  the  last 
year  or  two  in  England,  could  never  be  produced  here 
except  by  some  such  transfer,  and  the  communication 
by  steam  is  now  so  rapid  and  punctual,  that  it  might 
be  done  with  economy  and  convenience.  By  some 
such  combination  we  may  stand  a  chance  of  renewing 
the  splendors  of  theatres  in  Borne  in  Nero's  time, 
though,  I  fear,  the  perfuming  of  the  lobbies  with 
"Sicilian  saffron,"  and  the  leading  of  urine  and  water 
all  over  the  house,  by  pipes  concealed  within  the 
walls,  are  luxuries  gone  irrevocably  over  Lethe's 
wharf. 


We  wish  some  of  our  friends   knew  how  much 
easier  it  is  to  go  to  the  ship-chandler  for  a  cable  than 


to  find  a  new  cobweb  in  a  much-swept  upper-story. 
"Waste  time  upon  trifles,"  quotha!  We  do  waste 
time  upon  them,  indeed,  if  they  are  not  more  accepta- 
ble to  our  readers  than  twice  the  bulk  of  disinterred 
"information."  We  thought  this  was  settled  long 
ago,  and  that  the  "  cap  and  bells"  in  which  we  indus- 
triously labor  at  folly  were  considered  a  part  of  our 
working  livery — the  least  enviable  and  the  most  meri- 
torious. Few  things  are  easier  or  more  stupid  than 
to  be  wise — on  paper.  Nothing  is  easier,  and  few 
tasks  sooner  done,  than  to  cram,  on  any  subject,  and 
astonish  the  world  with  "reading" — astonish  without 
delighting  it,  that  is  to  say.  Give  us  nothing  to  do 
but  to  be  wise,  oh,  "approved  good  masters,"  and  we 
have  leisure  enough  at  once  for  some  additional  voca- 
tion— clerk  in  a  bank,  or  principal  in  a  female  semi- 
nary~-(the  two  trustworthy  offices,  we  beg  leave  to 
record,  which  have  been  thought  suitable  to  our  abil- 
ities). Why,  there  is  information  enough  on  any  con- 
ceivable subject,  and  all  within  ten  minutes  walk  of 
where  we  sit  and  write,  to  stupify  Minerva ;  and  it  is 
as  easy  to  unshelf,  pick  out,  and  embroider  it  upon 
an  editorial,  as  it  is  to  buy  grapes  at  Bininger's.  It  is 
a  very  great  mistake  to  suppose  that  anybody  but  a 
donkey  makes  a  packhorse  of  his  memory,  carrying 
about  the  rubbish  intended  only  for  a  storehouse  of 
reference.     Let  who  likes 

"  break  his  fast 
With  Aristotle,  dine  with  Tully,  take 
His  watering  with  the  Muses,  sup  with  Livy, 
Then  walk  a  turn  or  two  in  Via  Lactea, 
And  after  six  hours'  conference  with  the  stars 
Sleep  with  old  Erra  Pater ;" 

we  do  not  believe  he  would  sell  to  the  newsboys — 
which  is  our  noble  ambition.  So,  if  you  please  (or  if 
you  don't  please),  most  worthy  critic,  we  shall  go  on 
"wasting  our  time  upon  trifles."  And,  by  way  of  a 
Parthian  fling,  let  us  toss  under  your  nose  what  Ad- 
dison says  on  this  subject :  "Notwithstanding  pedants 
of  a  pretended  depth  and  solidity  are  apt  to  decry  the 
writings  of  a  polite  author  as  flash  and  froth,  they  all 
of  them  show,  upon  occasion,  that  they  would  spare 
no  pains  to  arrive  at  the  character  of  those  whom  they 
seem  to  despise."  And  (Parthian  arrow  No.  2)  what 
that  esteemed  model  Lord  Foppington  says :  "  To 
mind  the  inside  of  a  book  is  to  entertain  one's  self 
with  the  forced  product  of  another  man's  brain.  Now 
I  think  a  man  of  quality  and  breeding  may  be  much 
amused  with  the  natural  sprouts  of  his  own."  And  if 
that  is  not  a  brace  of  quotations  pungent  and  apt,  we 
know  as  little  about  quoting  as  our  rebukers  aver. 

But  we  have  been  more  specifically  snubbed  by  a 
morning  paper,  and  we  must  say  a  word  specifically 
in  reply — for  the  notice,  done  by  no  means  in  an 
unfriendly  spirit,  was  wind  in  our  sail,  for  which 
we  are  grateful,  now  and  always.  The  writer  objects 
to  our  mentioning  the  nearest  thing  to  woman — 
apropos,  as  the  allusion  was,  of  a  late  change  in  the 
fashion  of  it.  He  calls  this  frivolous  !  We  are  not 
prepared  to  go  the  philosopher's  length,  that  "there 
is  no  such  thing  as  a  trifle  in  the  world" — but  we  put 
it  point  blank  to  issue,  in  any  man's  judgment,  if  this 
be  a  trifle  !  Now  we  are  called  an  unread  ignoramus, 
but  we  have  read  Ovid  and  Juvenal,  and  we  well  re- 
member blushing  over  the  epithet  "  linen-wearing," 
applied  frequently  to  the  high-priests  in  the  Egyptian 
ceremonies — no  poor  precedent  for  the  like  of  us,  let 
us  modestly  say,  and  the  worthier  the  precedent  the 
more  you  disparage  us.  Sacred  from  the  earliest 
ages  was  held  "  cloth  of  flax,"  and  sacred  in  any  def- 
erential mind  is,  to  this  day,  the  mention  of  linen. 
But,  history  and  precedent  apart,  how  have  we  become 
so  consecrated,  that  anything,  the  least,  which  apper- 
tains to  woman,  is  too  "  frivolous"  to  be  wrapt  up  in 
our  rhetoric  ?  The  particular  aim  of  the  peccant  al- 
lusion was  to  diffuse  the  knowledge  of  a  new  embel- 


EPHEMERA. 


G23 


lishment  for  the  sex— to  give  our  poor  aid  to  a  wor- 
thier clothing  of  beauty,  which,  after  religion,  is  quite 
the  divinest  vouchsafe  from  our  Maker.  If  this  be  a 
trifle,  show  us  your  importances  !  It  is  no  trifle  to 
devote  half  a  column  of  a  newspaper  to  a  new  dahlia 

no  trifle  to  bring  to  bear  a  fine-art  criticism  on  a 

satin  skirt  in  a  painting — no  trifle  to  write  for  months 
about  the  jet  of  a  fountain.  Yet  what  are  these  and 
a  thousand  similar  topics — what  in  worthiness  and  el- 
evation— even  to  the  outlined  shadow  of  a  woman,  if 
(as  it  can  not)  that  sweet  shadow  could  be  improved? 
No  !  no  ! — We  are  not  to  be  driven  from  our  many- 
years'  worship  by  such  unconsidered  taking  of  excep- 
tions. We  write  not,  besides,  to  please  any  critic — 
(male).  The  New  Mirror  shall  be  masculine  enough, 
but  all-tributary  to  the  ladies — God  bless  them  !  We 
are  their  slave — bound  to  bring  to  their  use  and  knowl- 
edge all  that  can  please,  and  especially  all  that  can 
embellish  them.     We  are  here 

"  To  answer  their  best  pleasure  ;  be't  to  fly, 
To  swim,  to  dive  into  the  fire,  to  ride 
On  the  curled  clouds  ;" 

and  "if  any  man  take  exception,  let  him  turn  the 
buckle  of  his  girdle." 


Saunders,  the  excellent  miniature-painter,  went 
home  in  the  Great  Western.  He  was  in  this  coun- 
try about  three  years,  and,  though  his  prices  were 
much  higher  than  any  of  our  own  painters,  he  had  full 
occupation  from  first  to  last.  His  delicious  miniatures 
(some  of  which  you  will  have  seen  at  Washington) 
are  scattered  through  our  principal  cities,  and  the 
"fleeting  show"  of  some  beauty  and  much  worth  and 
talent  is  preserved  in  them.  He  is  a  very  observing 
mnn,  and  he  made  a  remark  that  interested  me.  He 
said  that  the  motive  for  sitting  for  a  picture  in  this 
country  was  almost  always  affection — in  England  it 
was  almost  always  pride.  Though  among  his  sitters 
were  a  few  of  the  loveliest  women  he  had  ever  seen, 
the  majority  were  invalids,  or  old  persons  who  might 
soon  die,  or  persons  about  going  on  far  journeys — 
those,  in  short,  who  were  loved  and  might  soon  be 
lost.  In  England,  the  subject  of  a  miniature  is  usu- 
ally good-looking.  It  is  a  young  girl  the  year  she 
comes  out,  or  a  beautiful  child  before  his  curls  are 
shorn  to  send  him  to  a  public  school,  or  a  young  man, 
in  his  first  uniform  after  entering  the  army.  Pride 
appears  somewhere  in  the  reason  for  the  doing  of  the 
picture.  And  Mr.  Saunders's  remark  confirms  a  pre- 
vious impression  of  my  own — that  personal  beauty  is 
vastly  inore  valued  in  countries  over  the  water. 

Some  years  since,  Mr.  Saunders  was  appointed 
miniature-painter  to  the  king  of  Hanover,  and  resided 
some  time  at  the  royal  palace,  painting  the  different 
members  of  the  family.  I  met  him  subsequently  in 
Italy  (ten  years  ago),  where  several  noble  ladies  of 
England  were  sitting  to  him.  His  success  in  this 
country  should  be  a  stimulus  to  our  own  artists,  for 
he  has  proved  that,  spite  of  the  depression  of  the 
times,  there  is  patronage  enough  for  the  high  degrees 
of  art.  He  thought  very  highly,  by-the-way,  of  Mr. 
Hite,  the  miniature-painter,  of  this  city,  who  is  doubt- 
less the  legitimate  heir  to  his  mantle. 

Apropos  of  high  prices  for  the  arts,  Mr.  Cather- 
wood  has  opened  a  subscription,  which  appeals  only 
to  the  rich  and  liberal ;  and  he  is  very  likely  to  suc- 
ceed in  his  enterprise,  I  think.  His  splendid  draw- 
ings in  seppia  of  the  ruins  of  Central  America  are  to 
be  engraved  of  the  size  of  the  originals,  and  the  price 
of  one  copy  is  to  be  a  hundred  dollars.  I  saw  one 
subscription-paper  with  several  names  upon  it.  But 
a  book  of  drawings  by  Catherwood  at  a  hundred  dol- 
lars, and  a  novel  of  Bulwer's  at  a  shilling,  and  both 
successful,  leave  at  least  a  wide  field  of  betweenity. 


Catherwood  is  an  unsurpassed  artist  in  his  line,  and  I 
trust  we  shall  show  our  appreciation  of  his  genius 
while  he  honors  us  by  residing  among  us. 


The  city  is  somewhat  closer  packed  by  the  addition 
to  its  contents  of  Thomas  Thumb,  jun.,  Esq.,  who 
has  returned  from  the  south  in  time  to  escape  the 
"fell  moscheto."  He  occupies  the  American  Muse- 
um as  before.  Mr.  Barnum,  who  is  unsurpassed  for 
felicity  of  trap,  has  hit  upon  an  amusing  mode  of 
drawing  attention  to  Mr.  Thumb,  and  giving  a  "real- 

j  izing  sense"  of  his  diminutive  proportions.  On  a 
pole  outside  the  Museum  is  placed  a  well-appointed 

i  mansion,  two  feet  square,  with  "  T.  Thumb,  jun."  on 
the  brass-plate  of  the  door.     A  pair  of  leather  breech- 

j  es,  about  the  size  of  a  double  opera-glass,  hang  out- 

!  side  to  dry;  a  pair  of  white-topboots  of  the  same  pro- 
portions on  another  nail,  and  Mr.  T.'s  hat  and  coat  on 
another.     The  fun  lies  in  all  these  articles  being  well- 

\worn.  They  are  a  little  shabby  indeed ;  and,  in  the 
boots,  the  leather  is  represented  as  worn  a  little  red 
by  the  straps  of  his  trousers !     Whoever  got  them  up 

i  is  an  artist.     Fit  as  Tommy  is  to   be  a   "tiger"   to 

;  Queen   Mab,  his   boots  and   breeches  would   require 

\  stretching. 


There  is  no  end  to  the  rivalry  of  hotels.     Cozzens, 
i  of  the  "American,"  is  making  the  attractive  show  of 
|  Broadway  tributary  to  his  house.     The  former  smo- 
king-room and  reading-room  on  the  corner  of  the  sec- 
j  ond  story  are   being   converted   into  a  superb  ladies' 
parlor,  with  a  charming  look-out  over  the  park  and 
the  new  fountain;  while  the  ground  floor,  formerly  a 
tailor's  shop,  is  to   be  demoted   to   the   loungers   who 
wish  to  sit  in  their  chairs  and  see  Broadway  without 
the  trouble  of  walking.     As  a  hotel,  from  which  to 
see  what  is  going  on  to  the  best  advantage,  the  "  Amer- 
ican" will  now  be  the  best  in  the  city;  and,  as  mine 
host  is  famous  for  his  table,  he  may  soon  gather  his 
"  plum." 


I  see  by  the  report  of  a  late  trial  that  an  editor,  in 
the  eyes  of  a  counsellor-at-law,  is  considered  "  a  me- 
i  chanic  who  carries  on  a  newspaper" — the  plea  being 
that  a  man  in  this  condition  of  life  should  be  taxed 
with  but  small  alimony  for  a  divorced  wife.  It  would 
be  convenient  to  some  of  the  tribe  to  come  down  to 
this  classification,  though  most  editors  will  probably 
resist  it,  as  ambitious  boys  sometimes  object  to  being 
let  into  a  show  for  half-price.  I  wish  the  counsellor 
had  defined  the  luxuries  proper  to  gentlemen  that  are 
not  proper  for  "  mechanics." 


The  races  between  the  "  Empire"'  and  the  other 
boats  on  the  Hudson  occupy  the  city  talk.  I  trust 
they  will  have  done  their  uttermost  before  anybody  I 
am  very  fond  of  has  occasion  to  embark  in  them — for 
I  presume  it  is  like  the  proving  of  guns.  If  the 
boilers  stand  this,  they  will  stand  anything.  The  Em- 
pire beats,  but  not  by  so  much  as  was  anticipated. 
She  is  unmatched  for  comfort  and  beauty,  however, 
and  a  trip  to  Albany  in  her,  a  month  hence,  will  be  a 
treat  worth  looking  forward  to.  She  runs  as  a  day- 
boat  hereafter. 


One  of  the   papers   announces   Count   D'Orsay  U 
already  arrived  in   New  York.     It  is  a  mistake  ;  and 


624 


EPHEMERA. 


so,  I  believe,  is  the  announcement  that  he  is  coming 
at  all.  He  resisted  strong  inducements  to  come  out 
in  the  suite  of  his  intimate  friend,  Lord  Durham 
(late  governor  of  Canada),  and  if  he  had  ever  con- 
templated a  visit  to  America,  he  would  have  availed 
himself  of  that  opportunity. 

Brough,  the  vocalist,  had  a  concert  recently  of 
renaissance,  well-attended  and  rapturously  applauded. 
He  sung  better  than  ever.  Mr.  Frank  Brown  assisted 
him — a  very  promising  young  singer,  who  is  about 
trying  his  musical  fortune  in  Italy.  He  has  a  hand- 
some person  and  good  talents,  as  well  as  an  excellent 
quality  of  voice,  and  will  be  heard  of  favorably  here- 
after, I  have  little  doubt. 

Previous  to  the  last  six  months,  New  York  has 
only  been  to  me  a  place  of  transit,  and  for  the  benefit 
of  transitory  travellers,  it  is  perhaps  worth  while  lo 
mention  what  I  have  missed  till  I  became  a  resident. 
Like  the  new  Sunday-school  pupil  who  was  surprised 
with  the  sight  of  "A,"  of  which  he  had  often  heard, 
though  he  had  never  seen  it  before,  I  am  quite  full  of 
raptures  about  Hoboken — new  to  me  till  a  day  or  two 
since.  Its  extent,  beauty,  and  particularly  its  near- 
ness to  Broadway,  were  all  surprises.  With  the  ex- 
ception of  the  ferry,  it  lies  at  the  foot  of  Barclay 
street,  which  you  know  runs  down  from  the  Astor, 
and  if  the  proprietors  of  that  hotel  chose  to  advertise 
the  proximity  of  the  "  Elysian  fields"  as  an  attraction 
to  their  establishment,  the  only  objection  would  lie  in 
the  dread  of  alarming  the  apoplectic.  The  stile  over 
which  you  step  into  these  grounds  is  at  the  ferry- 
landing,  and  you  are  immediately  under  the  shade  of 
avenues  leading  to  covert  and  winding  walks,  and  to 
a  park  which  covers  the  beautiful  promontory  of  Ho- 
boken, and  which  can  not  be  surpassed  in  the  world 
for  union  of  glade  and  distant  view.  Who  keeps 
these  walks  so  smooth  and  trim,  who  laid  them  out 
and  gave  them  to  the  public,  and  who  lives  in  the  en- 
viable residence  adjoining  them,  1  do  not  know.  But 
the  New-Yorkers  may  be  satisfied  that  they  have  at 
their  service,  and  close  at  hand,  grounds  which  equal 
those  of  any  nobleman  in  England.  On  week-days 
they  seem  little  frequented,  too  ;  though  on  Sundays, 
I  am  told,  the  avenues  are  thronged. 


1  observed  a  new  fashion  in  ladies'  boots,  which 
would  take,  I  should  think,  among  the  Orientals.  The 
Arabs,  as  you  know,  judge  of  aristocracy  by  the  test 
of  a  hollow  under  the  instep — that  if  water  will  run 
under  the  naked  foot  when  standing  on  marble,  the 
ancestors  of  the  owner  could  not  have  borne  burdens. 
Mr.  Dick,  ladies'  bootmaker  in  Broadway,  inserts  a 
steel  spring  into  the  sole  to  keep  it  snug  under  the 
instep,  supporting  the  foot  very  comfortably  in  walk- 
ing, and  adding  very  much  to  its  beauty.  The  amal- 
gamationists  will  probably  oppose  the  fashion,  as  the 
negro  foot  is  entirely  excluded  from  its  advantages. 


I  think  there  was  what  is  commonly  called  "  an 
opening"  for  a  fashionable  summer-theatre  up  town. 
Gayety  in  private  circles  ceases  very  much  by  the  first  of 
May;  strangers,  travelling  for  pleasure,  and  inclined  to 
bestow  themselves  for  the  evenings  in  the  resorts  of  "  silk 
attire,"  begin  to  arrive;  few  leave  the  city  for  touring 
till  August,  and  the  great  majority  of  the  better  clas- 
ses do  not  leave  it  at  all  except  for  country-seats  in 
the  neighborhood,  or  for  short  periods;  the  other  the- 
atres are  shut ;  and  the  patrician  complexion  given  to 
a  place  by  inducements  like  the  foregoing,  is  the  best 
trap  for  what  the  manager  would  call  "  miscellaneous 
patronage  ;"  or,  to  express  it  by  a  maxim  of  theat- 
rical economy,  white  gloves  in  the  first  circle  will  in- 
sure dirty  hands  in  the  third. 


Mr.  Niblo  has  cleverly  stepped  into  this  opening. 
His  pretty  theatre  is  newly  done  up  in  gilding  and 
blue  maroon*  (an  ill-omened  stuff  for  theatrical  lining) ; 
it  is  brilliantly  lighted ;  the  scenery  is  peculiar  and 
new,  and  he  begins  with  addressing  his  entertainment 
solely  to  those  who  have  either  aired  their  manners 
•with  travel,  or  "  fed  of  the  dainties  that  are  bred  in  a 
book."  The  French  company  might  as  well  deliver 
themselves  in  pantomime  as  sing  in  French  to  most 
of  the  ordinary  frequenters  of  our  theatres,  but  the 
boxes  understand  ;  and  it  is  worth  the  gallery's  time 
and  money  to  have  a  three  hours'  perusal  of  the  un- 
bonneted  attractions  of  the  boxes — the  opera  aside. 

An  "Admirable  Crichton"  of  music,  equally  won- 
derful on  the  piano-forte  and  the  violin,  has  appeared 
among  us,  in  the  person  of  Mr.  Wm.  Vincent  Wal- 
lace, Director  of  the  Dublin  Anacreontic  Society. 
Those  who  have  heard  Paganini  and  Thalberg,  pro- 
nounce decidedly  that  he  is  unsurpassed  even  by  those 
hitherto  unequalled  maestros  !  He  performs  upon  the 
piano  a  grand  introduction  and  variations  on  the  theme 
of  the  Cracovienne,  composed  by  himself.  The  in- 
strument becomes  a  full  orchestra,  under  his  hands, 
which  seems  multiplied  into  a  dozen  ;  while,  in  the 
rapid  passages,  his  fingers  are  invisible  as  the  spokes 
of  a  locomotive-wheel  in  full  career.  He  has  no  left 
hand,  but  two  right  ones,  equally  independent  of  each 
other.  The  brilliancy  and  power  of  his  execution 
set  off  admirably  the  delicate  morceaux  of  melody  in- 
terspersed, and  all  unite  to  produce  an  effect  before 
unknown  to  us.  But  his  performance  on  the  violin 
surpasses,  if  possible,  that  upon  the  piano.  He  exe- 
cutes on  this  the  Carnival  of  Venice,  and  the  Witches'1 
Dance  of  Benevento,  and  several  other  difficult  compo- 
sitions, as  originally  performed  by  Paganini,  and  never 
before  heard  in  this  country;  and  the  effect  is  most 
startling  and  thrilling.  In  his  hands,  the  violin  does 
more  than  speak — it  sings,  shrieks,  supplicates,  re- 
proaches, dies,  revives,  and  realizes  the  fancy  of  Bal- 
zac, that  a  soul  is  imprisoned  within  it.  With  his 
bow  he  scatters  a  bright  shower  of  melody  through 
the  air,  and  rasps  diamond-sparkles  from  the  strings. 
Our  language  may  seem  extravagant,  but  it  falls  far 
short  of  the  reality.  Musicians  are  in  raptures  with 
the  fulness  and  purity  of  his  tones,  the  decision  and 
accuracy  of  his  stopping,  his  left-handed  pizzicato, 
and  his  double  notes  on  the  fourth  string.  We  re- 
joice that  such  an  artist  bears  an  English  name,  and 
proves  that  wonderful  musical  genius  is  not  confined 
to  foreign  nations. 


At  the  London  Opera,  no  gentleman  is  admitted 
who  is  not  in  full  dress.  Ladies  go  there  jewelled, 
decolletees,  and  unbonneted  of  course.  It  is  a  dress- 
place. 

Ladies  must  have  a  place  to  "dress." 

The  New  York  ladies  have  ceased  to  dress  gayly 
in  the  street. 

Private  parties  are  not  a  sufficient  vent  for  the  pas- 
sion of  dress  among  ladies. 

Now,  Mr.  Niblo,  do  you  see  your  way? 

The  above  is  a  literal  copy  of  a  memorandum  we 
made  for  an  article,  while  sitting  out  the  expectant 
half  hour  before  the  rising  of  the  curtain,  a  night  or 
two  ago,  at  the  French  Opera.  We  pitch  it  at  you 
head  foremost,  dear  reader,  because  you  are  some- 
times willing  to  take  us  in  the  lump,  or  seriatim,  as  it 
is  convenient  for  us  to  deliver  ourselves — but  more 
particularly  because  the  printer  is  clamorous  for  copy, 
and,  hurried  or  not  hurried,  copied  we  like  to  be. 

But,  to  our  text.  A  dress-opera  is  happily  entailed 
upon  us  by  the  change  of  the  sumptuary  character 
of  Broadway.     Ladies  now  (and  very  likely  we  are 

"Marooning,  the  act  of  leaving  a  person  ashore  where 
there  are  no  inhabitants. — Johnson. 


EPHEMERA. 


625 


telling  our  country-friends  a  bit  of  news)  are  under 
I  be  necessity  of  having  two  bonnets.  There  must  be 
a  plain  straw  with  a  green  veil,  to  soften  down  and 
properize  any  appearance  in  the  street,  on  foot  and 
unattended.  There  must  be  a  dress-bonnet  for  mom- 
ma calls,  matinees,  breakfast-parties,  wedding-visits, 
and,  »enerally,  for  all  daylight  departures  from  home, 
on  errands  of  ceremony  or  pleasure.  This  dress-bon- 
net requires  other  concomitants  in  keeping — lace, 
feathers,  flowers — whatever  is  required  for  a  full  pa- 
rure.  And  a  full  parure  requires  a  carriage,  of  course. 
And  a  carriage  requires  a  fortune.  And  as  all  this  is 
the  fashion,  nobody  can  be  fashionable  who  is  not 
rich.  And  so  comes  in  the  dynasty  of  the  aristocracy 
of  money  ! 

Now  we  like  all  this — offensive  as  it  seems,  at  the 
first  blush,  to  a  republican  eye.     Part  the  extremes- 
widen  the  distance  between  wealth  and  poverty — and 
you  make  room  for  a  middle  class,  which  is  not  yet 
recognised   in   our    country — everybody  who    is    not 
absolutely  poor,  striving  to  seem  absolutely  rich.     Of  i 
this  middle  class,  literary  men  are  a  natural  part  and 
parcel.     So  are  many  of  the  worthiest  and  most  intel-  j 
ligent  people  of  this  country — people  who   are   now  | 
occupying  a  station  in  life  like   Mohammed's  coffin,  j 
neither  on  the  earth  of  poverty  nor  in  the  heaven  of  j 
riches,  and  in  sad   lack   of  a   resting-place   between,  j 
Once  recognise  that  station  in  society — once  make  it  | 
respectable  to  set  aside  certain  extravagances  in  dress  j 
and  living  as  not  proper  for  a  condition  in  life  which 
is  still  far  above   poverty — and  you  set  at  ease  thou- 
sands of  families  that  are  now  subjected  to  endless 
uncertainties  and   mortifications.      It   requires,   now, 
both  judgment  and  vigilance   for  many  ladies  not  to 
dress  far  above  their  condition  in  life — yet  what  more 
distasteful  than  to  have  seen  the  husband  in  his  place 
of   business,   careworn   and  distressed,  and  the  next 
minute  to  meet  his  wife  in  Broadway,  dressed  out  of  all 
keeping  with  his  gains,  and  of  course  with  no  sympathy 
for  his  troubles!     We  believe  that,  in  fact,  the  ladies 
are  of  our  way  of  thinking  in  this  matter.     It  is  un- 
comfortable for  pride  to  be  always  "treading  water," 
as   the   swimmers   say.     Better   sink,  and  sink,  and 
sink,  till  you  come  to  your  true  level — anybody  will 
say. 

Of  course  we  follow  nature,  however,  and  of  course 
we  except  beauty  from  all  homely  precepts  and  econ- 
omies. The  peacock  and  the  butterfly  pay  no  pen- 
alty that  we  know  of  for  their  extra-furnishings  from 
the  shop  of  Rainbow  &  Co.  Their  business  on  earth 
is  to  delight  the  eye;  and  that,  we  religiously  believe, 
is  the  errand  of  human  beauty  as  well.  No!  Let 
there  be  no  "condition  in  life"  for  beautiful  women! 
Nature's  princesses  they  are  by  the  instinctive  consent 
of  human  nature  ;  and  the  homage  we  can  not  but  pay, 
let  us  be  bold  enough  to  acknowledge.  As  to  beau- 
ty's being,  "when  unadorned,  adorned  the  most,"  it 
is  true  of  nothing  but  a  statue.  In  real  life,  we  think 
flowers  and  gems  are  the  natural  belongings  and  orna- 
ments of  personal  loveliness.  All  beauty  should  be 
so  furnished — even  if  ugliness  be  compelled  to  "ser- 
vice dure"  to  procure  them. 

But  to  return  to  the  opera.  Ladies  should  be  re- 
minded that  nothing  adds  more  to  the  cheerfulness  of 
the  scene,  and  its  consequent  attraction,  than  light 
and  bright  colors.  A  dark  dress  has  no  business  at 
the  opera,  though  indeed  the  dress  itself  may  be 
anything,  so  that  the  bust  and  head,  which  are  alone 
seen,  are  dressed  gayly.  No  bonnets,  and  least  of  all, 
veils!  Let  us  have  a  dress  place  of  amusement.  Let 
there  be  a  resort  in  the  long  and  vacant  hours  after 
business,  where  we  can  seem  to  enter  a  brighter  cham- 
ber of  this  dingy  world,  and  be  compelled  (we  men) 
to  dress  ourselves,  and  feel  in  a  more  holyday  and  lib- 
eral atmosphere. 

40 


In  the  window  of  a  Broadway  shop  we  noticed,  the 
other  day,  a  China  dinner-set,  otherwise  magnificent, 
but  deformed  by  a  representation  on  each  plate  of 
"The  great  fire  in  New  York."  Thus,  on  every  fes- 
tive occasion,  the  guests  would  have  their  gayety 
dampened  by  the  suggestion  of  that  scene  of  loss, 
danger,  and  suffering.  Such  bad  taste  is  too  frequent. 
It  would  be  equally  easy  to  impress  devices  calcula- 
ted to  arouse  cheerful  and  enlivening  associations; 
but,  as  a  people,  we  are  too  careless  of  such  matters. 
Trifles  in  themselves  they  may  be;  but  such  little 
items  of  enjoyment — such  grains  of  pleasure — make 
up  in  time  quite  a  mountain  of  happiness. 


Theodore  Hook. — Good  dinners  will  not  make  a 
man  immortal.  The  prince  of  diners-out  is  dead.  It 
would  seem  as  if  "  good  living"  meant  long  living 
too — for  who  ever  thought  Theodore  Hook  could 
die! — "a  fellow  of  infinite  jest,  of  most  excellent 
fancy."  "  Where  be  your  gibes  now  ?  your  gambols? 
your  songs  ?  your  flashes  of  merriment  that  were  wont 
to  set  the  table  in  a  roar  ?  Not  one  now,  to  mock 
your  own  grinning!"  We  have  carried  out  the  quo- 
tation somewhat  with  a  feeling  of  bitterness — not 
aaainst  the  dead,  but  for  him.  We  could  have  begun 
the  passage  with  Hamlet — "  Alas,  poor  Yorick  ! — I 
knew  him,  Horatio  !"  Everybody  knew  Theodore 
Hook,  who  has  been  "  summered  and  wintered"  in 
London,  and  we  knew  him  as  others  did,  with  that 
far-reaching  and  half-pitying  admiration  which  is 
given  to  a  wit  of  all  work — a  joker  never  out  of  har- 
ness— a  "  funny  man"  by  profession,  as  the  children 
thought  Mathews.  We  have  seen  Theodore  Hook 
make  excellent  hits,  and  we  have  seen  him  make  des- 
perate failures — many  failures  to  one  hit,  indeed.  But 
so  it  must  be,  as  every  one  knows  who  has  thought 
twice  on  wit  as  a  "  good  continuer." 

Hook  was  the  editor  of  the  "John  Bull"  newspa- 
per, and  his  portrait  would  have  served  for  its  imprint. 
He  was  the  personification  of  John  Bull,  as  the  French 
fancy  him,  and  as  he  is  represented  on  the  stage. 
Above  the  middle  height,  he  looked  short,  from  being 
corpulent  and  short-necked.  His  person  was  "stocky" 
altogether — thick  legs,  high  chest,  short  arms,  and 
bluff,  rubicund,  and  rather  defying  features.  We  have 
not  heard  of  what  he  died;  but,  we  presume,  of  apo- 
plexy, for  he  looked  of  that  habit,  and  lived  in  a  way 
to  produce  and  feed  it.  Over  his  brows,  however, 
there  seemed  to  be  a  region,  like  the  sun  above  clouds 
on  a  mountain-side,  brighter  than  that  below.  His 
forehead  was  ample  and  white,  his  head  smoothly  bald, 
and,  if  the  observer  had  seen  but  that  portion  of  The- 
odore Hook,  he  would  have  formed  of  him  a  far  higher 
opinion  than  in  following  him  downward.  To  that 
tablet  of  intellect  his  works  of  imagination,  we  be- 
lieve, never  did  justice.  His  novels  are  third-rate, 
while  his  native  powers  were  first-rate,  and  against 
those  two  unattained  steps  on  the  ladder  of  immortal- 
ity, Hook's  poor  offset  was  his  very  mortal  celebrity  as 
a  table-wit — the  diner-out,  par  excellence,  of  his  day. 


We  believe  in  omens.  In  the  days  of  Charlemagne 
large  possessions  were  transferred,  not  with  wax  and 
paper,  but  with  a  ring.  A  ring  has  been  given  us  by 
a  well-wishing  stranger,  and  we  here  signify  our  be- 
lief that,  in  it  is  transferred  to  us  the  prosperity  of 
the  former  proprietor— dead  two  thousand  years  ago 
at  the  very  least,  but  undeniably  a  most  prosperous 
gentleman.     Let  us  look  a  little  at  the  evidence. 

It  is  generally  supposed,  we  believe,  that  the  mum- 
mies preserved  to  this  day  are,  in  all  human  probabil- 


626 


EPHEMERA. 


ity,  from  two  to  three  thousand  years  old.  Some  time 
before  the  advent  of  our  Savior,  Egypt  had  become  a 
Roman  province,  and  the  more  costly  usages  of  the 
Egyptians  had  been  done  away — the  embalming  of 
the  bodies  of  the  rich  and  great  being  among  the 
most  costly.  Those  which  have  defied  time  and  cor- 
ruption, through  two  thousand  years,  of  course  were 
such  as  were  embalmed  with  the  most  cost  and  care, 
and  the  poor,  the  antiquarians  tell  us,  were  merely 
dried  by  salt  and  laid  away  in  the  catacombs.  The 
rings  and  other  ornaments  of  the  mummied  great 
were  wrapped  up  with  them. 

The  ring  that  was  given  us  three  days  ago  is  of 
silver,  holding  a  stone  covered  with  Arabic  charac- 
ters, and  was  taken  from  the  finger  of  a  mummy, 
bought  at  a  great  price  for  exhibition,  and  partly 
opened.  It  is  of  rude  work,  and  if  Egypt's  jewellers 
did  their  best  upon  it,  we  can  but  say  that  our  friend 
Tenney,  of  Broadway,  was  only  born  too  late  to  aston- 
ish the  Pharaohs.  We  have  not  yet  found  an  Arabic 
scholar  to  decipher  it,  but,  if  we  had  not  known  it  to 
be  Arabic  (or  Coptic),  we  should  have  said  it  was  a 
device  of  three  stars,  a  wrench,  and  two  streaks  of  light- 
ning— very  properly  expressive  of  our  three  selves 
(the  editors  and  publisher),  our  manner  of  work,  and 
the  way  the  Mirror  is  to  go.  And,  on  the  whole,  we 
shall  let  it  rest  at  that — without  further  translation. 

We  are  not  sure  that,  if  the  former  proprietor  of 
this  silver  ring  could  wake,  he  would  think  his  finger- 
ornament  handed  down  in  the  same  line  of  life.  The 
classifications  of  society  under  the  Ptolemies  would 
have  put  us  down  low  (priests,  soldiers,  shepherds, 
swineherds,  mechanics,  interpreters,  and  fishermen — 
the  literary  profession  being  the  last  but  one),  yet, 
after  all,  there  is  a  resemblance  between  us,  and  I  am 
happy  to  say  (no  offence  to  the  mummy)  that  it  is  not 
in  our  personal  appearance!  It  was  necessary,  to 
embalm  this  gentleman,  that  his  brains  should  first  be 
extracted  through  his  nostrils.  We  trust  to  be  em- 
balmed by  letting  ours  ooze  from  our  fingers'  ends — 
and,  on  the  whole,  we  may  say,  we  prefer  our  way  of 
doing  it.  But  that  is  all.  We  see  no  other  resem- 
blance. The  Egyptian  was  circumcised.  He  was 
gloomy  and  superstitious.  He  increased  his  poultry 
by  artificially  hatching  eggs.  The  husband  had  the 
charge  of  the  domestic  concerns  ;  the  wife  of  buy- 
ing and  selling,  and  all  affairs  that  were  not  of  a  do- 
mestic character.  He  hated  songs  and  dances.  He 
was  a  stranger  to  gayety,  and  he  drank  nothing 
stronger  than  barley-beer.  We  trust  that  it  is  no 
vanity  on  our  part  to  congratulate  his  ring  on  conver- 
sance for  the  future  with  a  more  pleasant  state  of 
things — aristocratic  comparisons  apart. 

Prosperous  the  Mirror  is  to  be — thanks  to  the  lib- 
eral giver  of  the  ring  that  foreshadows  it!  But  (to 
"out  with  a  secret")  we  should  feel  easier  if  the  en- 
yious  would  begin  to  manifest  their  displeasure.  We 
have  a  dread  of  "the  primrose  way  to  the  everlasting 
bonfire,"  aud  should  feel  safer  in  a  thornier  path  than 
we  tread  now.  This  pushing  all  of  one  side  makes 
us  fancy  we  topple.  We  would  try  our  friends  at  op- 
position. Feathers  that  go  down  with  one  wind 
mount  with  a  counter-current.  We  "cotton"  to  old 
King  Osymandyas,  who  caused  to  be  graven  on  his 
Colossus:  "I  am  King  Osymandyas — if  any  man  will 
know  my  greatness  let  him  destroy  one  of  my  works." 
And  of  that  jolly  old  monarch,  the  first  owner  of  our 
ring  was  possibly  a  subject — conjunctive  omen  of  our 
road  to  prosperity. 


Beards  in  New  York. — It  is  odd  how  a  fashion 
creeps  from  one  country  to  another,  unaware.  Has 
it  occurred  to  you  what  a  bearded  nation  we  have  be- 
come within  the  last  year  or  two — imitating  La  Jeune 
France  in  that  and  other  accompanying  particulars? 


My  attention  was  called  to  it  yesterday  by  a  friend  just 
returned  from  a  long  residence  in  Europe.  He  was 
expressing  very  emphatically  his  annoyance  at  the 
loss  of  his  mustache.  On  coming  in  sight  of  land 
he  had  gone  below  and  sacrificed  it,  as  a  thing  "  most 
tolerable  and  not  to  be  endured,"  among  the  sober 
friends  to  whom  he  was  returning ;  when  lo  !  on  land- 
ing— every  second  man  in  a  full  suit  of  beard !  His 
mustache  and  imperial  chanced  to  be  very  becoming 
to  him,  and  his  mortification,  at  being  compelled  to 
put  them  again  into  nascent  stubble,  was  unbounded. 

Two  schools  of  dress  have  prevailed  in  France  for 
the  last  six  or  seven  years — the  classic  and  the  ro- 
mantic; the  former  with  the  Brutus  head,  short  hair 
and  apparel  of  severe  simplicity,  and  the  other  with 
flowing  locks,  fanciful  beard,  and  great  sumptuous- 
ness  of  cravat  and  waistcoat.  The  "romantic"  is  the 
only  one  which  has  "come  over,"  and  it  prevails  at 
present  in  New  York,  with  (to  use  the  popular  phrase) 
"a  perfect  looseness."  Almost  every  man  below  forty 
has  tried  his  beard  on,  and  most  of  the  young  men 
about  town  show  their  fancy  in  something  beyond  the 
mere  toothbrush-whisker  of  the  military."  The  latter, 
by-the-way,  is  the  only  beard  "let  out"  by  the  Lon- 
don men  whom  the  packets  bring  over,  and  in  Eng- 
land the  synonyme  is  rigorous  between  "  mustache" 
and  "  adventurer."  It  seems  to  me,  however,  that  the 
principles  of  taste  which  should  affect  the  fashion  of 
a  beard  are  but  little  regarded  among  us,  and  I  rather 
wonder  that  some  ambitious  barber  has  not  set  him- 
self up  as  an  authority — to  decide  their  shape  by  pri- 
vate consultation,  according  to  feature  and  complex- 
ion. Perhaps  I  may  feed  a  want  of  the  era  by  put- 
ting down  what  I  have  gathered  on  the  subject  of 
beards  by  reading  and  travel. 

In  a  country  where  all  the  hair  which  nature  has 
planted  on  the  face  is  permitted  to  grow,  a  shaved 
man  certainly  looks  very  silly.  After  a  short  passage 
from  Asia  Minor  to  Malta,  the  clean-shaved  English 
officers  struck  me  as  a  very  denuded  and  inexpressive- 
looking  race,  though  much  more  athletic  and  hand- 
some than  the  Orientals  I  had  left.  The  beards  of 
old  men,  particularly,  are  great  embellishments,  cov- 
ering as  they  do,  the  mouth,  which  most  shows  age 
and  weakness,  by  loss  of  teeth  and  feebleness  of 
muscle.  When  the  mouth  is  covered,  the  whole  ex- 
pression of  the  face  is  concentrated  in  the  eyes,  and 
it  is  surprising  how  much  the  eyes  gain  in  character 
and  brilliancy  by  a  full  mustache.  A  luxuriant  and 
silky  beard  on  a  young  and  clear  skin  is  certainly  very 
beautiful,  though,  according  to  medical  observation, 
the  faculties  are  much  better  matured  when  the  beard 
comes  late.  In  bearded  countries,  the  character  is 
very  much  judged  of  by  the  beard.  There  is  an  old 
Irish  proverb  which  says  : — 

"  Trust  not  that  man,  although  he  were  your  brother, 
Whose  hair's  one  color  and  his  beard  another." 

In  irritable  persons,  the  beard  grows  thin  and  dry. 
In  those  of  milder  temper  it  is  thick  and  slightly 
curling.  The  beard  is  affected  very  sensibly  by  the 
nature  of  a  man's  nourishment;  and  this  explains 
why  they  know  an  aristocrat  in  the  East  by  the  luxu- 
riance of  this  appendage — poor  food  deteriorating  its 
quality.  Diplomatists  should  always  wear  the  mus- 
tache, as  it  is  much  easier  to  control  the  expression 
of  the  eye  than  of  the  mouth — useful  to  card-players 
and  stock-brokers,  for  the  same  reason.  Shaving 
among  the  ancients  was  a  mark  of  mourning — though 
at  the  era  when  beards  were  out  of  fashion,  they  were 
let  grow,  by  those  who  had  lost  friends.  When  a 
man's  mouth  is  beautiful  and  expressive,  the  beard 
which  covers  it  is  a  disadvantage,  and  we  may  guess 
that  Scipio  Africanus  (the  first  Roman  who  shaved 
every  day)  wore  on  his  lips  the  tenderness  and  mag- 
nanimity which  he  displayed  toward  the  bride  of  the 


EPHEMERA. 


627 


captive  Allucius.  The  first  shaving  barber  was  one 
Ticinius  Maenas,  who  came  from  Sicily  to  Rome 
about  three  hundred  years  before  Christ,  and  then 
commenced  an  era  of  smooth  chins,  interrupted,  for  a 
short  while  only,  by  the  emperor  Adrian,  who  wore  his 
beard  to  conceal  warts  on  his  chin.  With  most  nations 
the  beard  has  been  considered  an  ornament.  Moses 
commanded  the  Jews  not  to  shave,  and  the  ancient 
Germans,  and  the  Asiatics  of  a  later  day,  have  consid- 
ered no  insult  so  mortal  as  the  cutting  off  of  one  man's 
beard  by  another.  In  France,  shaving  came  into 
fashion  during  the  reigns  of  Louis  XIII.  and  XIV., 
both  of  these  monarchs  having  ascended  the  throne 
when  beardless,  and  their  subjects  imitating  them,  of 
course.  And  as  France  gave  the  law  of  fashion  to  all 
Europe,  the  sacrifice  of  part  of  the  beard  grew  to  be 
common,  though  it  is  only  since  the  beginning  of  the 
last  century  that  the  shaving  of  the  whole  beard  be- 
came universal. 

I  have  noticed,  in  New  York,  that  men,  who  had  for- 
merly no  pretensions  to  good  looks,  have  become  very 
handsome  by  the  wearing  of  mustache  and  imperial, 
and  I  have  seen  handsome  men  disfigured  by  adopting 
the  same  fashion.  The  effect  of  a  mustache  and  full 
beard  is  to  make  the  face  more  masculine,  graver,  and 
coarser,  and  this  is,  of  course,  an  improvement  to  one 
whose  features  are  over-delicate,  or  whose  expression 
is  too  frivolous.  On  a  dapper  man,  it  is  quite  out  of 
place,  and  he  should  wear  a  clipped  whisker,  if  any 
beard  at  all.  The  beard,  I  think,  gives  a  middle-aged 
look,  and  makes  a  man  of  twenty  look  older,  and  a 
man  of  forty  younger.  The  ladies  like  a  beard — natu- 
rally thinking  faces  effeminate  which  are  as  smooth 
as  their  own,  and  not  objecting  to  the  distinctions 
which  nature  has  made  between  the  sexes.  When 
the  beard  is  but  partially  worn,  some/jtrtistical  knowl- 
edge should  be  called  in,  as  a  short  face  may  be,  made 
longer,  and  a  broad  face  narrower,  a  gay  face  graver, 
and  an  undecided  chin  put  in  domino.  But  of  all 
abominations  in  this  way,  I  think,  the  goat's  beard, 
growing  under  the  chin  only,  is  the  most  brutal  and 
disgusting,  though  just  now,  in  New  York,  rather  the 
prevailing  fashion.  The  mistake  in  taste  is  very  com- 
mon, of  continuing  to  wear  a  high  shirt  collar  and 
cravat,  with  a  beard  on  the  cheek  and  throat — the 
beauty  of  a  curling  beard  depending  very  much  on  its 
freedom  and  natural  adaptation  to  the  mould  of  the 
face.  There  are  more  people  than  Beatrice,  of  course, 
who  are  willing  to  let  a  man's  beard  be  "of  the  color 
that  God  pleases,"  but  there  are  others  who  have 
aversions  to  red  beards  and  yellow,  and  there  is  great 
trade  in  cirages  and  gums  for  the  improvement  of  color 
and  texture.  Most  of  the  beards  you  meet  in  Broad- 
way glitter  in  the  sun  like  steel  filings.  Altogether,  I 
think  the  fashion  of  wearing  the  beard  a  desirable  one, 
and  I  particularly  wish  it  would  prevail  among  old 
men.  A  bearded  senate  would  make  a  wiser  and  more 
reverend  show  in  congress,  and  anything  which  con- 
ceals the  decrepitude  of  age  and  moves  respect  (as 
beards  certainly  do,  both),  is  most  desirable. 


Macready's  first  Night. — Macready  had  a  full, 
not  an  overflowing  house,  to  witness  his  debut  last 
night,  and  there  were  more  of  his  own  profession 
among  the  audience  than  I  ever  before  saw  together 
— (partly,  perhaps,  from  curiosity  to  hear  the  "  read-  , 
ings"  of  Shakspere  which  the  drop  curtain  represents 
Macready  as  giving  to  the  Muses).  The  play  was 
Macbeth,  and  Mr.  Ryder,  who  accompanies  Mr.  Mac- 
ready,  came  on  first  as  Macduff,  and  was  very  warmly 
received — applauded,  indeed,  throughout  the  play,  as 
his  playing  deserved.  He  is  a  very  correct  actor,  and 
a  "  fine  figure  of  a  man."  Macready's  appearance 
brought  the  hou«e  "  down"  of  course.     He  went  at  his 


interview  with  the  witches  most  artistically,  and  the 
witches  did  their  bedevilments  more  artistically  than 
we  have  seen  them  done  before,  and  so  of  all  the  trick 
and  machinery  of  the  play — for  Macready  is  master 
of  "  stage  business,"  and  the  scenery  and  supernumer- 
aries had  been  effectually  cleared  of  cobwebs.  The 
play  went  on — with  a  beautiful  procession  of  effects, 
particularly  by  Macready  in  his  exits  and  entrances, 
his  salutations  and  surprises — and  to  the  theatre-go- 
ing people  present  it  was  an  exhibition  of  drama-pano- 
rama curiously  managed,  and  all  as  clean  and  neat  as 
machinery — and  just  as  moving.  The  attention  was 
close,  but  the  applause  grew  less  and  less.  I  never 
saw  so  cold  a  house.  The  most  stormy  and  passion- 
ate outbreaks  of  Macbeth's  mingled  ambition  and  re- 
morse were  received  like  the  catastrophes  in  a  pup- 
pet-show— with  an  unexcited  smile  of  surprise.  Each 
"  point"  the  actor  made  was  looked  at  like  the  wheel 
of  a  clock  shown  piecemeal.  There  was  no  passion 
in  the  audience,  no  illusion,  no  general  interest  in  the 
progress  of  the  story  of  the  play — in  short,  no  feeling. 
My  own  sensations  during  the  evening  were  those 
of  pain  and  annoyance.  Mr.  Macready  is  so  accom- 
plished an  artificer  in  his  profession — everything  he 
does  is  so  admirably  "studied  up" — 

u  So  workmanly  the  blood  and  tears  are  drawn" — 

that  a  cold  reception  of  so  much  pains  seems  most 
ungracious.  When  he  came  in  and  knelt  to  the  king 
— when  he  entered  Duncan's  chamber  to  murder  him 
— when  he  received  the  first  suggestions  of  crime  from 
Lady  Macbeth — I  could  have  shouted  myself  hoarse 
with  admiration  of  the  artist — it  was  all  done  so  differ- 
ently from  another  man,  and  so  skilfully  in  a  high 
and  finished  conception  of  the  character.  Every  step 
he  took  on  the  stage  was  a  separate  study.  Every 
look,  gesture,  movement,  was  consummate.  As  pan- 
tomime it  would  have  been  absolutely  faultless.  Yet, 
strange  to  say,  he  walks  the  stage  like  a  transparent 
man — showing  all  his  anatomy.  He  wants  clothing 
with  natural  flesh  and  blood.  His  voice  wants  nature. 
It  sounds  like  the  breaking  of  crockery  in  a  dry  well. 
He  feels  no  passion  and  he  moves  none.  What  a  pity 
that  scholarship,  study,  labor,  patience,  and  taste, 
should  fall  short,  in  their  result,  of  the  most  unla- 
bored off-throwing  of  genius  ! 


Italian  Opera. — I  saw  only  the  first  act  of  "  Lu- 
cia de  Lammermoor ,"  and  found  little  to  admire  ex- 
cept the  performance  of  the  orchestra.  Signor  An- 
tognini  certainly  did  not  come  up  to  his  reputation  as 
a  tenor,  and  he  is  the  great  star  of  the  company.  He 
is  a  curious-looking  man  to  play  the  lover.  The  mus- 
cles of  his  face  pull,  every  one,  upon  his  nostrils,  like 
"  taut  halliards,"  and  with  eyebrows  pointing  fiercely 
at  the  bridge  of  his  nose,  and  the  mouth  like  an  angry 
dash  of  a  pen  under  an  emphasized  word,  he  looks  as 
Mephistophilish  as  one  of  Retzch's  drawings.  Mad- 
ame Majocchi,  the  prima  donna,  is  a  fat  woman  with 
a  fat  voice.  She  has  a  good  contralto  footing  in  her 
throat,  but  her  soprano  notes  are  painfully  tiptoe,  and 
you  are  glad  when  she  is  comfortably  at  the  bottom 
of  her  cadenza.  The  company  appears  pretty  well 
drilled,  but  they  want  a  prima  donna,  and  if  they  could 
find  a  prima  donna  in  want  of  them  (Castellan,  for  in- 
stance) we  might  have  good  opera.  They  say  that 
Antoiinini's  voice  is  only  grass-grown  from  neglect, 
and  that  he  would  do  brilliantly  after  a  little  practice. 
Considering  the  certain  fortune  that  waits  upon  a  fine 
tenor,  it  is  surprising  that  there  should  continue  to  be 
so  few  aspirants  for  the  honors  of  the  Rubini;  for  it 
can  not  be  that  there  are  only  half  a  dozen  (if  so 
many)  of  human  voices  possessing  his  capabilities  of 
tone  and  cultivation.     There  is  probably  "full  many 


628 


EPHEMERA. 


a"  postillion  of  Lonjumeau  "born  to"  "waste  his 
sweetness  on  the  desert  air,"  and  it  would  be  a  good 
speculation  to  look  them  up  and  buy  a  life-interest  in 
their  thoracic  capabilities. 


Dr.  Howe. — It  will  be  a  curious  piece  of  news  to 
you  that  our  countryman,  Dr.  Howe  (lately  married 
and  gone  abroad)  has  been  stopped  on  the  borders  of 
Prussia  by  a  cabinet  order,  and  of  course  is  shut  out 
from  so  much  of  the  Rhine  as  lies  (if  my  geography 
serves  me)  between  Coblentz  and  Cologne.  This 
special  edict  on  the  part  of  a  king  with  a  standing 
army  of  two  hundred  thousand  men  is  no  small  com- 
pliment to  Dr.  Howe's  consequence;  but  perhaps  it 
would  interest  you  to  be  made  acquainted  with  the 
cetera  intus. 

About  ten  years  ago  I  had  the  honor  (and  as  such 
I  shall  always  treasure  the  memory)  of  sharing  Dr. 
Howe's  lodgings  at  Paris  for  some  months.  He  was 
then  employed  in  learning  that  system  of  instruction 
for  the  blind  upon  which  he  has  since  grafted  im- 
provements that  have  made  him  a  separate  fame 
among  philanthropists.  Philanthropy  seems  to  be 
his  engrossing  and  only  mission  in  life,  however;  for, 
though  giving  the  most  of  his  day  to  the  objects  of 
his  special  errand,  he  found  time  to  make  himself  the 
most  serviceable  man  in  France  to  the  cause  of  Po- 
land. The  disasters  of  Warsaw  had  filled  Paris  with 
destitute  refugees,  and  distinguished  men  who  had 
shared  in  that  desperate  battle  were  literally  house- 
less in  the  streets.  Our  common  breakfast-room  was 
thronged  with  these  unfortunate  patriots,  and,  with 
noble  liberality,  Dr.Howe  kept  open  table  for  all  who 
came  to  him — many  of  them,  to  my  knowledge,  get- 
ting no  food  elsewhere,  and,  among  others,  Lelewel, 
the  distinguished  poet  and  patriot,  coming  in  one 
morning  to  ask  a  breakfast,  as  I  well  recollect,  after 
having  slept  out  a  winter's  night  in  the  street.  La- 
fayette was  at  that  time  at  the  head  of  the  Polish 
committee,  and  Fenimore  Cooper  (whose  generosity 
to  the  Poles  should  be  chronicled,  as  well  as  the  de- 
votion of  his  time  and  talents  to  the  cause)  shared 
with  Dr.  Howe  the  counsel  and  most  efficient  agency 
of  the  benevolent  old  man.  At  this  time  a  sum  of 
money  was  raised  to  be  sent,  with  some  important  and 
secret  despatches,  to  the  Poles  who  had  fled  into 
Prussia,  and  Dr.  Howe  offered  to  be  the  bearer.  I 
went  with  him  to  the  Mesagerie  and  saw  him  off  in 
the  diligence,  very  little  suspecting  the  dangerous 
character  of  his  errand.  He  arrived  at  Berlin,  and, 
after  passing  the  evening  abroad,  returned  to  his 
hotel,  and  found  a  couple  of  gens-d'armes  in  his 
room.  They  informed  him  that  he  must  accompany 
them  to  the  police.  The  doctor  understood  his  po- 
sition in  a  moment.  By  a  sudden  effort  he  succeeded 
in  pitching  both  the  soldiers  out  of  the  room  and  clo- 
sing the  door,  for  it  was  all-important  that  he  should 
gain  time  to  destroy  papers  that  he  had  about  him. 
The  gens-d 'armes  commenced  a  parley  with  him 
through  the  bolted  door,  which  resulted  in  a  compact 
that  he  should  be  let  alone  till  morning,  on  condition 
of  his  agreeing  to  go  witfi  them  peaceably  at  day- 
light— they  keeping  sentry  outside.  He  had  no  light, 
but  he  passed  the  night  in  tearing  into  the  smallest 
possible  fragments  the  important  papers,  and  soaking 
them  in  water.  Among  his  papers,  however,  were 
two  or  three  letters  from  Lafayette  to  himself  which 
he  wished  to  preserve,  and  after  examining  the  room 
he  secreted  these  in  the  hollow  of  a  plaster  cast  of  the 
king  which  chanced  to  be  there,  and  so  saved  them  ; 
for,  though  the  minute  fragments  were  picked  out 
and  put  together  again  (as  he  subsequently  discovered), 
he  wrote  to  a  friend  at  Berlin,  six  months  after,  who 
went  to  the  hotel  and  found  the  secreted  letters  safe 
in  the  plaster  king's  keeping! 


At  dawn  Dr.  Howe  opened  his  door,  and  was 
marched  immediately  to  prison.  By  chance,  on  the 
evening  of  his  arrival,  he  had  met  an  American  in  the 
entry  of  the  hotel,  who  had  recognised  him,  and  the 
next  day  came  to  call.  From  the  mysterious  manner 
in  which  the  people  of  the  house  denied  all  knowledge 
of  what  had  become  of  him,  this  gentleman  suspected 
an  arrest,  and  wrote  to  Mr.  Rives,  our  then  minister 
to  France,  stating  his  suspicion.  Mr.  Rives  immedi- 
ately demanded  him  of  the  Prussian  government,  and 
was  assured,  in  reply,  that  they  knew  nothing  of  the 
person  in  question.  Mr.  Rives  applied  a  second  time. 
Dr.  Howe  had  now  been  six  weeks  in  solitary  con- 
finement, and  at  the  end  of  this  period  he  was  taken 
out  in  silence  and  put  into  a  carriage  with  closed  win- 
dows. They  drove  off,  and  it  was  his  own  terrible 
belief  for  the  first  day  that  he  was  on  his  way  to  Si- 
beria. By  the  light  through  the  covering  of  the  car- 
riage, however,  he  discovered  that  he  was  going  west- 
ward. 

The  sudden  transition  from  close  confinement  to 
the  raw  air,  threw  him  into  a  fever,  and  on  the  third 
day  of  his  silent  journey  he  begged  to  be  allowed  to 
stop  and  consult  a  physician.  They  refused.  On 
the  next  morning,  while  changing  horses,  a  physician 
was  brought  to  the  carriage-door,  who,  after  seeing 
the  prisoner,  wrote  a  certificate  that  he  was  able  to 
proceed,  and  they  again  drove  on.  That  day  they 
crossed  a  corner  of  the  Hanoverian  dominions,  and, 
while  stopping  for  a  moment  in  a  village,  Dr.  Howe 
saw  the  red  coats  of  some  officers,  and  by  a  bold  at- 
tempt escaped  from  his  guards  and  threw  himself  on 
their  protection.  They  quietly  restored  him  to  the 
Prussians,  and  the  carriage  drove  on  once  more — his 
guard  finally  setting  him  down  at  Metz,  on  the  bor- 
ders of  Prussia,  with  orders  never  to  enter  again  the 
Prussian  dominions.  At  present  he  is  at  Baden-Ba- 
den, tfnd  Mr.  Everett  is  engaged  in  a  negotiation, 
through  the  Prussian  minister  at  London  (Chevalier 
Bunsen),  for  the  revocation  of  the  cabinet  order,  and 
permission  for  a  simple  citizen  of  the  United  States 
to  show  his  bride  the  Rhine!  Mr.  Greene,  our  con- 
sul at  Rome,  who  is  now  in  New  York,  informs  me 
that  Dr.  Howe  is  also  on  the  black  list  of  the  king 
of  Naples — of  course  as  a  general  champion  of  lib- 
erty. 

Dr.  Howe's  first  reputation,  as  is  well  known,  was 
made  as  a  Philhellene  in  the  Greek  revolution.  He 
left  this  country  entirely  without  means,  having  just 
completed  his  studies  in  surgery,  and  worked  his  pas- 
sage to  Greece.  He  entered  the  service  as  surgeon, 
and  soon  gained  the  highest  promotion — serving  part 
of  the  time  on  board  the  armed  steamer  commanded 
by  Hastings — the  only  fault  found  with  him  being  (as 
a  Hanoverian  comrade  of  his  told  me  at  Paris)  that  he 
would  be  in  the  fight,  and  was  only  a  surgeon  when 
the  battle  was  over.  His  whole  career  in  Greece  was 
one  of  gallant  acts  of  bravery,  generosity,  and  self- 
sacrifice,  as  represented  by  his  companions  there — and 
if  he  could  ever  be  made  to  overcome  the  unwilling- 
ness with  which  he  speaks  of  himself,  his  history  of 
personal  adventure  would,  without  doubt,  be  one  of 
the  most  curiously-interesting  naratives  in  the  world. 
Dr.  Howe's  slight  person,  delicate  and  beautiful  fea- 
tures, and  soft  voice,  would  give  one  the  impression 
that  he  was  more  at  home  in  his  patient  labor  of  wind- 
ing light  through  the  labyrinth  of  the  sense-imprisoned 
Laura  Bridgman  ;  but  a  more  fiery  spirit,  and  one 
more  reluctant  to  submit  to  the  details  of  quiet  life, 
does  not  exist,  and  the  most  trying  service  he  has  ever 
done  in  the  cause  of  philanthropy,  I  sincerely  believe, 
is  this  discipline  of  his  tumultuous  energies  to  the 
patient  teaching  of  the  blind.  He  is  still  a  young 
man — not  yet  forty,  I  believe.  I  could  not  trust  my 
admiration  and  affection  to  say  more  of  his  character 
than  the  giving  of  this  simple  statement  of  facts. 


EPHEMERA. 


629 


The  New  York  American,  after  quoting  from  what 
the  editor  calls  "  the  agreeably  gossiping  New  York  cor- 
respondent of  the  National  Intelligencer,"  remarks  that 
"  this  correspondence  is  not,  to  be  sure,  very  reliable  for  j 
matters  of  fact" — which  isvery  like  disparaging  a  hasty  J 
pudding  for  not  being  a  rump-steak.     This  style  of  j 
criticising  things  by  telling  what  they  are  not,  suits  the  j 
"  American"  in  the  two  respects,  that  it  is  both  easy  i 
and  oracular.     But  I  should  prefer  to  be  tried  rather  ' 
by  what  I  undertake  to  do,  which  is  certainly  not  to  j 
send  you  simply  "  matters  of  fact."     To  wait  for  the  j 
winnowing  of  error  and  exaggeration  from  truth,  would  j 
be  to  send  you  a  correspondence  as  stale  as  some  of  j 
the  columns  in  which  I  am  found  fault  with.     I  pro-  | 
fess  nothing  of  the  kind.     I  send  you  the  novelty  and 
gossip  of  the  hour,  and  you,  and  all  others  (except 
those  who  are  "nothing  if  not  critical,"  and  must  find 
a  fault)  take  it  as  they  take  what  they  hear  in  their  : 
day's  walk — as  material  for  conversation  and  specula-  ! 
tion,  which  may  be  mere  rumor,  may  be  truth.     I  am  j 
happy  to  amuse  a  New  York  editor,  but  I  do  not  write  i 
for  one  so  near  my  sources  of  information.     I  write 
with  only  such  of  your  subscribers  in  my  eye  as  are  I 
not  resident  in  New  York — who  want  a  gay  daguerre-  I 
otype  of  the  floating  news  and  chit-chat  of  the  hour,  j 
such  as  they  would  have  gathered  by  observation  and  i 
conversation,  if  they  had  passed  in  New  York  the  day  j 
on  which  I  write.     Loose  as  is  all  this  ministry  to  the  ! 
love  of  news,  however,  I  will  lay  any  bet  which  I  could  j 
have  the  conscience  to   take   from  that   editor,  that,  I 
comparing  paragraph  by  paragraph  with  his  own  pa- 
per, for  twenty  columns,   I  will   find   more  misstate- 
ments in   his   than  in    my  own — though  you  would 
think   by  his   criticism   that   he   never  committed  an 
error  in  his  life. 

And  apropos  of  my  sins  of  correspondence,  I  find 
that  propriety  begins  to  require  that  all  words  signify-  j 
ing  exhilarating  drinks  must  henceforth  be  decently 

disembowelled — that  cobblers  must  be  written  c s, 

and  julaps  j s,  slings  s s,  and  punches  p s. 

I  have   had   three  letters  and  one  poetic  appeal  ad-  J 
dressed  to  me,   remonstrative   against  my  shameless 
mention  of  these  iniquitous  beverages  in  so  exemplary  • 
a  paper  as  the  Intelligencer.     I  consider  this  an  expo- 
nent of  the   leading  enthusiasm  of  the  era,  and  wil-  ] 
lingly  give  way.     One  of   my  rebukers  attacked  me 
more  particularly  for  what  he  considered   a   slighting 
allusion  to  the  coming  of  Father  Mathew  to  America. 
To  this,  in  intention  at  least,   I  plead  not  guilty.     I 
revere  the  character  of  that  great  reformer,  and  I  con- 
sider his  mission  sacred  and  salutary.     My  submission 
shall  be  more  emphatic,  if  necessary. 


Macready  draws  well,  and  the  town  is  fully  occupied 
in  discussing  why  he  only  astonishes  and  never  moves 
the  feelings  of  his  audience.  He  is  a  most  accom- 
plished player,  and  in  these  days,  when  theatrical 
criticism  can  neither  help  nor  harm  an  actor,  he  can 
pursue  the  even  tenor  of  his  style  with  little  inter- 
ruption. 


Longfellow,  a  poet  who  combines  genius  and  work- 
manlike finish,  is  in  New  York,  under  the  care  of 
Elliot,  the  oculist.  I  trust  he  will  keep  an  undamaged 
pair  of  eyes,  though  the  loss  of  sight  would  turn  a 
great  deal  of  new  light  inward  upon  his  mind — as  it 
did  upon  Milton's — and  be  a  gain  to  the  glory  of  his 
country. 


I  am  ministered  to  while  writing  to-day  by  the  most 
deliciously-tempered  autumn  air  that  ever  intoxicated 
the  heart  of  a  ripening  grape.     I  only  lament  that  the 


distinct  pleasure  I  feel  in  every  pore  and  fibre  will  not 
be  channelled  into  the  nib  of  my  pen  and  flow  to  you 
in  rhetoric.  The  wind  is  a  little  northerly,  however, 
and  it  may  bring  you  a  sample. 


To  the  Ladies. — We  have  nothing  to  write  about 
this  morning,  ladies! — quite  nothing.  We  presume 
you  know  that  the  crocus  yellow  and  the  blue  of  your 
own  eyes  are  the  fashionable  colors  ;  that  Middleton 
cuts  his  slippers  low  behind  for  such  ladies  as  know 
what  is  becoming  to  the  foot ;  that  the  late  strain  after 
economy  is  yielding  to  a  rebound  of  extravagance 
(consequently,  this  winter  you  can  wear  nothing  too 
gorgeously  sumptuous) ;  that  ruinous  bracelets  are  ut- 
terly indispensable  to  wrists  with  a  swan's  neck  in  them, 
and  that  the  New  Mirror  (pardon  us!)  is  of  the  fash- 
ionable crocus  teint  without,  and  as  "  blue"  within  as  is 
bearable  by  the  copyrighted  and  intoxicating  benight- 
edness  of  beauty.  If  you  had  sent  for  us  to  your 
boudoir  and  ordered  our  memory  spread  out  upon  a 
silk  cushion,  we  could  tell  you  no  more. 

If  you  are  interested  at  all  in  us — we  are  having, 
this  morning,  our  little  private  mope,  with  no  possible 
flight  of  fancy  beyond  the  ends  of  our  fingers.  We 
have  been  sitting  here  two  hours  making  caryatides  to 
hold  up  some  spilt  ink  on  our  blotting-paper — (rather 
nicely  drawn,  one  of  them,  and  looks  like  a  Greek  girl 
we  saw  at  Egina).  Then  we  have  had  a  revery  on  po- 
litical economy — musing,  that  is  to  say,  whether  we 
should  wear  a  ring  on  our  right  hand  (which  belongs 
to  the  working-classes)  or  on  the  left,  which  is  purely 
an  ornamental  idler,  born  but  to  be  gloved  and  kept 
gentlemanly.  Now,  what  do  you  think  on  that  sub- 
ject? Here  is  this  most  virtuous  and  attached  right 
hand  of  ours,  an  exemplary  and  indefatigable  provider 
for  himself  and  the  other  members  of  our  family,  who 
has  never  failed  to  bring  bread  to  our  mouths  since  we 
placed  our  dependance  on  him,  and  why  should  he 
not  be  ornamented  and  made  trim  and  respectable, 
first  and  foremost.  He  is  not  defiled  by  his  work.  He 
is  clean  when  he  is  washed.  He  is  made  on  the  same 
model  as  the  idle  dangler  opposite,  and  though  he 
could  do  very  well  without  that  same  Mr.  Sinister 
Digits,  there  would  be  no  "living"  for  Mr.  Sinister 
Digits  without  him  !  Most  meritorious  worky  !  Put 
the  ring  on  his  forefinger! 

Um  !  it  does  not  look  so  well  on  that  hand !  There 
is  a  dingy  groove  on  the  inside  of  the  second  finger 
(which  you  would  not  remark,  perhaps,  but  for  the 
conspicuousness  of  the  jewel) — a  nasty  soil  of  an 
ill-effaced  ink-spot,  made  by  a  quill.  Faith  !  it  calls 
attention  to  "  the  shop,"  and  would  do  so  in  good 
company  !  He  must  work  in  gloves  if  he  is  to  be  ob- 
served! And  the  ring  is  not  so  becomingly  carried  as 
by  that  other  plumper  and  more  taper  gentleman, 
whose  joints,  with  less  dexterity,  look  supple,  and, 
truth  to  own,  more  suitable  ! 

No — no  !  "  Take  back  the  ring !"  The  bee  works 
hard  enough  to  have  his  pick  of  wings,  but  he  would 
only  be  cumbered  with  the  butterfly's.  Indulgence 
for  ever  to  the  ornamentals!  Money  to  the  ladies 
whether  you  have  it  or  no!  Credit  to  the  dandies! 
And,  befitting  brown  bread  and  plain  blessings  for  the 
labor-stained  right  hands  of  society— our  own  among 
the  worky-most  and  least  complaining  ! 

We  have  been  ring-mad  since  the  mummy's  ring 
(mentioned  on  a  previous  page)  was  slipped  upon  our 
finger,  and  we  have  pulled  out  from  our  store  of  relics 
a  huge  emerald  (in  whose  light  is  locked  up  a  history) 
and  it  was  of  the  wearing  of  it  that  we  mused  in  this 
morning's  mope  of  idleness.  The  world  is  set  in  a 
solid  emerald,  says  the  Mohammedan — "  the  emerald 
stone  Sakhral,  the  agitations  of  whose  light  cause 
earthquakes."     We  would  make  a  pilgrimage  (if  our 


630 


EPHEMERA. 


"travels"  would  sell)  to  see  the  great  "  mother  of  em- 
eralds" worshipped  by  the  Peruvians  in  the  valley  of 
Manta— big  as  a  gourd  and  luminous  at  murk  mid- 
night (or  so  they  say).  Excuse  us,  when  we  meet 
you,  if  we  proffer  our  left  hand  for  courtesy,  for,  on 
the  forefinger  of  that  sits  our  agitated  emerald — the 
right  hand  kept,  unrewarded  by  your  touch,  to  serve 
you  only.  Adieu — till  they  are  dead  who  are  to  die 
(one  a  minute)  ere  another  Saturday — for,  at  the  close 
of  our  overflowings  into  your  cup,  this  sad  thought 
runs  over  !  And  if,  in  the  midst  of  our  trifling,  Prov- 
idence ministers  such  thoughts  to  us,  they  can  scarce 
be  unseasonable,  passed  on,  in  the  same  company,  to 
you. 


Mrs.  Flimson. — Few  women  had  more  gifts  than 
Mrs.  Flimson.  She  was  born  of  clever  parents,  and 
was  ladylike  and  good-looking.  Her  education  was 
that  of  a  female  Crichton,  careful  and  universal ;  and 
while  she  had  more  than  a  smattering  of  most  lan- 
guages and  sciences,  she  was  up  to  any  flight  of  fash- 
ion, and  down  to  every  secret  of  notable  housewifery. 
She  piqued  herself,  indeed,  most  upon  her  plain  ac- 
complishments (thinking,  perhaps,  that  her  more  un- 
common oues  would  speak  for  themselves) ;  and  it 
was  a  greater  triumph,  to  her  apprehension,  that  she 
could  direct  the  country  butcher  to  the  sweet-bread 
in  slaughtering  his  veal,  and  show  a  country-girl  how 
to  send  it  to  table  with  the  proper  complexion  of  a  riz 
de  veau,  than  that  she  could  entertain  any  manner  of 
foreigner  in  his  own  language,  and  see  order  in  the 
stars  and  diamonds  in  backlogs.  Like  most  female 
prodigies,  whose  friends  expect  them  to  be  matched 
as  well  as  praised,  Mrs.  Flimson  lost  the  pick  of  the 
market,  and  married  a  man  very  much  her  inferior. 
The  pis  aller,  Mr.  Flimson,  was  a  person  of  excel- 
lent family  (after  the  fashion  of  a  hill  of  potatoes — 
the  best  part  of  it  under  ground),  and  possessed  of  a 
moderate  income.  Near  the  meridian  sun  of  a  me- 
tropolis, so  small  a  star  would  of  course  be  extin- 
guished;  and  as  it  was  necessary  to  Mrs.  Flimson's 
existence  that  she  should  be  the  cynosure  of  some- 
thing, she  induced  her  husband  to  remove  to  the 
sparser  field  of  a  distant  country-town,  where,  with 
her  diplomatic  abilities,  she  hoped  to  build  him  up 
into  a  member  of  congress.  And  here  shone  forth 
the  genius  of  Mrs.  Flimson.  To  make  herself  per- 
fectly au  fait  of  country  habits,  usages,  prejudices, 
and  opinions,  was  but  the  work  of  a  month  or  two  of 
stealthy  observation.  At  the  end  of  this  short  period, 
she  had  mastered  a  manner  of  rustic  frankness  (to  be 
put  on  at  will);  she  had  learned  the  secret  of  all  rural 
economies;  she  had  found  out  what  degree  of  gentil- 
ity would  inspire  respect  without  offending,  or  exci- 
ting envy,  and  she  had  made  a  near  estimate  of  the 
influence,  consequence,  and  worth-trouble-ness  of 
every  family  within  visiting  distance. 

AVith  this  ammunition,  Mrs.  Flimson  opened  the 
campaign.  She  joined  all  the  sewing-circles  of  the 
village,  refusing  steadily  the  invidious  honor  of  man- 
ager, pattern-cutter,  and  treasurer;  she  selected  one 
or  two  talkative  objects  for  her  charity,  and  was  stu- 
diously secret  in  her  manner  of  conveying  her  bene- 
factions. She  talked  with  farmers,  quoting  Mr.  Flim- 
son for  her  facts.  She  discoursed  with  the  parson, 
quoting  Mr.  Flimson  for  her  theology.  She  was 
intelligent  and  witty,  and  distributed  plentiful  scraps 
of  information,  always  quoting  Mr.  Flimson.  She 
managed  the  farm  and  the  household,  and  kept  all  the 
accounts — Mr.  Flimson  was  so  overwhelmed  with 
other  business  !  She  talked  politics,  admitting  that 
she  was  less  of  a  republican  than  Mr.  Flimson.  She 
produced  excellent  plans  for  charitable  associations, 
town  improvements,  and  the  education  of  children — 
all  the  result  of  Mr.  Flimson's  hours  of  relaxation. 


She  was — and  was  only — Mr.  Flimson's  humble  vice- 
gerent and  poor  representative.  And  everything  would 
seem  so  much  better  devised  if  he  could  have  ex- 
pressed it  in  person ! 

But  Mr.  Flimson  was  never  nominated  for  con- 
gress, and  Mrs.  Flimson  was  very  well  understood 
from  the  first  by  her  country  neighbors.  There  was 
a  flaw  in  the  high  polish  of  her  education — an  erroi 
inseparable  from  too  much  consciousness  of  porcelain 
in  this  crockery  world.  To  raise  themselves  suffi- 
ciently above  the  common  level,  the  family  of  Mrs. 
Flimson  habitually  underrated  vulgar  human  nature, 
and  the  accomplished  daughter,  good  at  everything 
else,  never  knew  where  to  find  it.  She  thinks  herself 
in  a  cloud,  floating  far  out  of  the  reach  of  those 
around  her,  when  they  are  reading  her  at  arm's  length 
like  a  book.  She  calculates  her  condescension  for 
"  forty  fathom  deep,"  when  the  object  of  it  sits  beside 
her.  She  comes  down  graciously  to  people's  capa- 
city, and  her  simplicity  is  set  down  for  trap.  And  still 
wondering  that  Mr.  Flimson  is  allowed  by  his  country 
to  remain  in  obscurity,  and  that  stupid  rustics  will  not 
fuse  and  be  moulded  by  her  well-studied  congenial- 
ities, she  begins  to  turn  her  attention  to  things  more 
on  her  own  level,  and  on  Sundays  looks  like  a  saint 
distressed  to  be  out  of  heaven.  But  for  that  one 
thread  of  contempt  woven  into  the  woof  of  her  edu- 
cation, Mrs.  Flimson  might  have  shone  as  a  star  in 
the  world  where  she  glimmers  like  a  taper. 


I  think  that  a  walk  in  New  York  to-day,  if  you  had 
been  absent  a  year,  would  impress  you  very  strongly 
with  the  outbreak  of  showiness  in  costume.  What- 
ever spirit  it  is  that  presides  over  the  fashions  we  take 
so  implicitly  from  France,  he  (this  spirit  of  woof  and 
color)  has  well  suited  the  last  and  newest  invoice  to  a 
moment  of  reaction  from  economy.  Or  (what  may 
better  define  the  present  era,  perhaps)  the  moment 
after  prosperity  has  almost  universally  changed  hands. 
The  stuffs  in  the  shop-windows  of  Broadway  are  of  a 
splendor  that  would  scarce  be  ventured  upon  (in  the 
street  at  least)  by  the  severity  of  last  year's  aristocratic 
taste  ;  but  the  eruption  has  spread  from  the  shop-win- 
dows over  the  sidewalk,  and  the  ladies  are  verily  rain- 
bow clad  !  The  prevailing  colors  are  yellow  and  blue ; 
the  most  of  the  dresses  put  all  the  prismatic  colors 
under  contribution,  and  the  wearers  would  make  Chi- 
nese figures  for  Gobelin  tapestry.  It  would  be  a  fine 
speculation  in  upholstery,  indeed,  to  buy  the  cast-off 
dresses  of  this  period,  and  lay  them  up  to  sell  for 
window-curtains  to  the  *next  generation.  But  the 
ladies  have  it  by  no  means  to  themselves.  They  are 
only  bolder  and  more  consistent  in  their  "  bravery  of 
suits."  The  waistcoats  and  cravats  have  taken  a  long 
stride  into  splendor,  leaving  the  coats  and  trousers  in 
their  accustomed  sobriety  of  hue.  Jennings's  great 
emporium,  opposite  the  Park,  might  furnish  the 
knights  and  courtiers  for  a  new  "field  of  cloth  of 
gold,"  so  effulgent  are  the  velvets  and  satins;  though 
the  bold  youths  who  have  ventured  to  put  forth  into 
Broadway  with  their  glittering  waistcoats  look  like 
butterflies  half-born,  the  dull  broadcloth  worm  still 
adhering.  For  one,  I  should  like  the  age  of  gauds 
and  such  matters  to  come  round  again,  for  I  do  not 
see  why  the  lords  of  nature  should  leave  all  the  orna- 
ment to  the  birds  and  flowers,  and  servants  in  livery  ; 
but  let  it  be  consistent,  and  entire,  and  when  it  is  that, 
it  will  be  time  to  compound  a  gentleman  of  "a  man, 
a  sword,  and  an  equipage,"  and  to  settle  the  sixty  de- 
grees of  precedence  which  are  established  in  the 
court  of  England.  But  as  this  will  not  all  be  in  my 
time,  I  think  I  shall  not  venture  on  the  more  luminous 
stratum,  to  say  the  least,  of  Jennings's  waistcoats. 
The   Americanism  of  the  matter  is  the  much  more 


EPHEMERA. 


631 


violent  array  of  these  gorgeous  stuffs  in  Chatham 
street  and  the  Bowery.  The  small  tailors'  shops  in 
these  Alsatian  quarters  are  quite  in  a  glow  with  the 
display  of  cravats  and  waistcoats,  and  their  catering 
for  the  taste  of  their  customers  is,  of  course,  careful 
and  well-considered.  The  age  is,  perhaps,  for  ever  gone 
by,  when  a  privileged  class  could  monopolize  finery  of 
garb;  and,  of  all  the  civilized  nations,  it  were  least  pos- 
sible in  ours.  I  have  seen  already  a  dozen  at  least  of 
cheap-booted  apprentices  wearing  velvet  waistcoats 
which,  a  few  years  ago,  would  have  delighted  D'Orsay. 
This  last  lustrum  of  our  history,  by-the-way,  corre- 
sponds somewhat,  as  to  sumptuary  matters,  with  the 
year  1759,  and  after,  of  French  history.  The  nine 
months'  ministry  of  Silhouette  (whose  immortality 
rests  on  the  accident  of  giving  his  name  to  profiles) 
was  a  temporary  suspension  of  French  extravagance, 
somewhat  similar  to  ours  of  the  last  year  or  two, 
during  which  coats  were  worn  without  folds,  snuff- 
boxes made  of  plain  wood,  and  painting  portraits  were 
discarded  for  outlines  in  profile;  every  fashion,  in 
short,  giving  way  to  extreme  parsimony.  This  period 
was  succeeded,  as  our  economical  days  seem  prom- 
ising to  be,  by  a  powerful  reflux  of  the  suspended  ex- 
travagance. The  parallel  must  end  here,  thank 
Heaven! 


Brooklyn  is  as  much  a  part  of  New  York,  for  all 
purposes  of  residence  and  communication,  as  "the 
Borough"  is  of  London.  The  steam  ferry-boats  cross 
the  half-mile  between  it  and  New  York  every  five 
minutes  :  and  in  less  time  than  it  usually  takes  to 
thread  the  press  of  vehicles  on  London  Bridge,  the 
elegant  equipages  of  the  wealthy  cross  to  Long  Island 
for  the  afternoon  drive ;  morning  visits  are  interchanged 
between  the  residents  in  both  places — and,  indeed,  the 
East  river  is  now  hardly  more  of  a  separation  than  the 
same  distance  in  a  street.  Brooklyn  is  the  shire-town 
of  King's  county,  and  is  second  in  population  only  to 
New  York.  It  has  become  the  fashion  for  business- 
men of  New  York  to  build  and  live  on  the  fine  and 
healthy  heights  above  the  river,  where  they  are  nearer 
their  business,  and  much  better  situated  than  in  the 
outskirts  of  this  city  itself.  Brooklyn  is  built  on  the 
summit  and  sides  of  an  elevation  springing  directly 
from  the  bank  of  the  river,  and  commanding  some  of 
the  finest  views  in  America.  The  prospect  embraces 
a  large  part  of  East  river,  crowded  with  shipping,  and 
tracked  by  an  endless  variety  of  steamers,  flying 
through  the  channel  in  quick  succession  ;  of  the  city 
of  New  York,  extending,  as  far  as  the  eye  can  see,  in 
closely-piled  masses  of  architecture  ;  of  the  Hudson, 
and  the  shore  of  Jersey,  beyond ;  of  the  bay  and  its 
bright  islands;  and  of  a  considerable  part  of  Long 
and  Staten  islands,  and  the  Highlands  of  Neversink. 


This  is  "sodgering  week,"  ladies,  and  the  general 
has  gone  to  the  wars  Provided  there  be  no  Banquo 
to  sit  in  his  leather-rcttomed  chair,  I  am  quite  alone, 
and  of  course,  immeasurably  more  than  usual  at  your 
service.  Walk  in,  and  make  no  ceremony — that  is  to 
say,  draw  your  foot  under  you,  and  sit  on  your  heel. 
Leave  the  general's  chair  unoccupied,  if  you  please. 
[t  will  remind  us  that  "we"  are  out,  and  that  /am  at 
home.  Sit  on  that  ream  of  paper,  and  let's  be  private 
and  personal. 

A  little  scandal  would  be  appetizing,  this  cloudy 
morning.  Suppose  we  put  the  general  on  the  grid- 
iron and  "do  him  brown!"  Poets  are  so  much  better 
\"or  toasting.' — (reason  why:  the  first  lyre  was  made 
'jy  the  toasting  of  the  sun — the  tortoise-shell,  found 
by  Hermes  on  the  Nile,  drawn  tight  by  the  contracted 
'.endons — or  "so  they  say").     His  health  in  a  glass  of 


Elsinore  cherry  !  And  now,  general,  come  over  the 
coals ! 

What  has  he  to  do  (a  poor  various  author,  tucked 
away  in  the  "  appendix"  of  the  "  Poetry  of  America") — 
I  say,  what  has  he  to  do  with  a  lodging  in  the  brain 
and  memory  of  every  man,  and  in  the  heart  and  music- 
making  of  every  woman  in  the  country !  What  has  a 
"various  author"  to  do  with  as  much  popularity  as  a 
baker's  dozen  of  the  big-bugs  with  their  biographies. 
What  business  has  a  "various  author"  to  get  his  own 
price  for  every  scrap  of  a  song,  and  be  the  only  poet- 
father  in  the  country  whose  poetical  daughters  are  run 
after  to  be  married  to  music!  There  is  more  of  him 
abroad  "by  heart,"  than  of  anybody  else!  He  is  more 
quoted,  more  sung,  more  trolled,  more  parodied,  more 
plucked  at  on  his  pedestal,  than  anybody  else !  He 
uses  his  brevet  as  if  he  were  full  poet!  If  it  weren't 
for  the  "  damnable  iteration"  of  a  cockatoo  critic  or 
two,  the  world  would  never  suspect — never — that 
Morris  is  not  a  song-writer — the  song-writer — and  the 
most  sung  and  the  best  One  of  all  the  "Poets  and 
Poetry  of  America."  And,  la! — to  be  sure! — what 
a  mistaken  world  we  live  in — that  never  knows  what  it 
likes  till  it  is  told  in  a  book  ! 

It  is  something  to  be  universal,  as  a  poet — some- 
thing to  get  that  far — it  must  be  confessed.  The 
worth  of  a  thing  is  (partly,  at  least)  what  it  will  bring — 
particularly  in  the  way  of  a  long-winded  popularity. 
There  is  some  bedevilment  or  other  about  Morris's 
poetry  that  makes  it  stick  in  people's  minds,  and 
answer  people's  want,  in  the  way  of  an  expression  of 
their  poetical  feelings — something  that  music  jumps 
to,  and  women  remember  and  love  him  for — some- 
thing that  satisfies  the  nine  hundred  and  ninety-nine, 
and  displeases  the  nil  admirari  thousandth. 

Let's  try  this  varlet  of"  a  popularity-thief—  you  judge 
and  jury,  and  /  the  aggrieved  plaintiff" — one  of  the 
robbed.  Hand  me  up  that  big  book,  on  the  floor  by 
you,  and  let's  see  the  law.  He's  a  lyric  poet  if  there's 
any  truth  in  the  definition  of  that  commodity  : — 

"  Lyric  poetry  is  that  species  of  poetry  by  which 
the  poet  directly  expresses  his  emotions.  It  is  neces- 
sary that  the  feeling  represented  should  be  itself  poet- 
ical, and  not  only  worthy  to  be  preserved,  but  accom- 
panied by  a  variety  of  ideas,  beauty  of  imagery,  and  a 
musical  flow  of  language.  One  distinct  feeling  should 
predominate,  giving  tone  to  the  whole;  the  feeling 
must  be  worthy  of  the  subject  which  caused  it,  cor- 
responding to  the  same  both  in  degree  and  kind,  and 
must  be  so  exhibited  as  to  give  a  living  picture  of  the 
poet's  mind;  while  at  the  same  time,  what  is  merely 
individual  and  accidental  must  be  excluded,  so  that 
the  poet  shall  be  truly  the  representative  of  his  race, 
and  awaken  the  sympathy  of  all.  But  this  requires 
genius  of  a  high  order." 

Quash  the  suit  and  turn  the  plaintiff'  out  of  court ! — 
there  never  was  a  more  literal  inventory  of  goods  than 
this  of  the  peculiarities  of  Morris's  poetry  !  Lyrist  he 
is,  if  that  describe  lyric  poetry,  and  he  has  come  hon- 
estly by  his  popularity,  and  the  world  is  right,  that 
said  so  before  the  trial.     Court's  adjourned. 


We  have  sat  down  once  or  twice  to  criticise  Weirds 
picture  of  the  Embarkation— but  a  criticism  of  it 
would  be  but  a  recapitulation  of  its  beauties,  and  as 
these  are  quite  apparent,  and  everybody  will  see  the 
picture,  we  think  it  not  worth  while.  We  have  already 
described  the  feeling  with  which  it  is  seen  for  the  first 
time,  and  as  we  have  seen  it  a  dozen  times  with  the 
same  glow,  and  as  that  description  has  been  quoted,  as 
just,  by  many  of  the  critics  who  have  since  seen  the 
picture,  we  can  well  stop  where  we  are— recording 
only  the  present  thronging  to  the  exhibition-room  in 
New  York,  and  the  universal  delight  the  picture  gives 


632 


EPHEMERA. 


to  the   public, 
man. 


Weir  may  well  be  a  proud  and  happy 


We  should  be  very  happy  to  polish  "  M.'s"  verses, 
but  as  we  have  seldom  seen  a  penknife  that  was  sharp 
after  it  was  sharpened,  so  we  never  saw  verses  that 
were  good  after  being  bettered — by  anybody  but  the 
original  maker.  Beside,  it  is  not  our  vocation  to 
mend  poets — though  we  might  make  one — Heaven 
Help  us ! 


A  "  friend  who  knew  us  when  a  boy"  (as  if  any- 
thing but  the  crust  of  us  be  adult-erated),  wishes  us 
to  "  write  something  for  posterity."  Tut ! — posterity 
is  welcome  to  all  we  write — though,  if  posterity  will 
pay  us,  or  if  anybody  will  "  down  with  the  dust,"  as  j 
posterity's  "  paying-teller,"  we  will  write  something  j 
which  posterity  can  publish  as  "entirely  original."  | 
For  the  present  we  do  not  hold  with  the  Apotactitre,  I 
that  "  property,  wine,  meat,  and  matrimony,  are  j 
things  to  be  renounced" — and  though  the  three  last 
seem  to  be  the  only  ones  to  which  our  destiny  has  a 
free  copyhold,  we  are  digging  away  at  prose  and  po- 
etry, and  would  peddle  pins  or  pottery  to  compass  the 
other. 


One  of  the  most  curious  and  amusing  resorts  for  a 
man  of  taste,  idle  in  New  York,  is  the  antiquarian 
book-shop*  of  Bartlett  &  Welford,  under  the  Astor. 
The  catalogue  of  rare  and  valuable  books  for  sale  at 
this  repository,  numbers  nearly  four  thousand,  and 
most  of  these  are  such  works  as  are  found  only  in 
choice  libraries,  or  in  the  possession  of  scholars. 
Far  from  being  interesting  to  antiquarians  exclusively, 
the  curiosities  of  this  choice  shop  would  amuse  the 
most  general  reader,  and  a  lounge  at  the  well-stocked 
counter  of  B.  &  W.  is  no  indifferent  relief  to  the 
fatiguing  idleness  of  a  man  stranded  on  the  beach  of 
a  hotel  between  the  far-apart  .tides  of  breakfast  and 
dinner.  Most  courteous  bibliopoles  are  these  two 
gentlemen,  by-the-way,  and  happy  to  gratify  the  curi- 
osity of  visiters. 

Villanous  editions,  villanous  cheap,  are  the  fruits 
of  our  present  law  of  copyright,  and  if  we  had  an 
American  language  all  to  ourselves,  we  should  have 
no  such  thing  as  beauty  in  a  book.  Fortunately, 
England  has  the  same  brick  from  Babel,  and  we  can 
corrupt,  mutilate,  defile,  and  misprint  works  of  genius, 
and  still  import,  from  our  more  liberal  and  appreciative 
fatherland,  a  purer  and  worthier  copy.  Still  it  seems 
to  me  surprising,  that,  of  the  publishers  who  have 
grown  rich  with  pirating  in  this  country,  no  one  has 
felt  inclined  to  distinguish  himself  by  a  school  of  fine 
editions.f  One  would  think  that  the  example  of  Al- 
dus, who  made  himself  as  famous  as  the  authors  he 
printed,  would  be  stuff  for  emulation ;  and  there  are 
some  men,  probably,  even  among  publishers,  who 
agree  with  Charles  Edwards,  that  "it  is  the  devil  to 
be  growing  old  as  a  person  of  no  peculiarity."  Al- 
dus's  press  lasted  eminent  for  near  a  hundred  years, 
and  it  is  recorded  in  history  that  his  ink  was  excellent! 
his  types  beautiful,  his  paper  invariably  strong  and 
white,  and  above  all,  that  his  press  was  next  to  infal- 
lible for  correctness.  Celebrity  among  bookbinders 
probably  sprung  from  this  renown  of  a  printer,  and  in 

•  Store,  a  warehouse.  Shop,  a  place  for  sale  of  wares. 
We  call  shops  "  stores"  in  this  country,  and  it  is  well  to  re- 
cord these  Panglossiana  as  they  occur. 

tTicKNOR,  of  Boston,  expends  a  praiseworthy  carefulness 
on  the  correctness  and  beauty  of  his  reprints,  and  should  be 
excepted  from  the  disparagement  of  American  booksellers. 
But  every  press  should  have  a  scholar  attached  to  it,  and  an 
artist  within  reach. 


England  there  were  famous  names  in  this  trade  also. 
Roger  Payne  received  from  twenty  to  thirty  guineas 
for  binding  a  single  volume,  and  he  is  much  better  re- 
membered than  any  lord-mayor  of  his  time.  There 
has  been  a  mania  in  bookbinding,  however,  and  the 
world  is  too  poetical  for  such  matters  now.  Jeffrey, 
a  London  bookseller,  had  Fox's  History  bound  in  fox- 
skin;  and  an  eccentric  bibliomaniast  named  (descrip- 
tively) Askew,  had  a  book  bound  in  a  human  skin. 
In  the  library  at  Konigsberg  there  are  twenty  books 
bound  in  silver.  Very  far  short  of  all  this,  however, 
there  is  in  this  country  an  unreached  point  of  excel- 
lence in  binding,  and  great  opening  for  an  ambitious 
bookbinder  to  distinguish  himself.  Sat  Verbum  sapi- 
enti. 

Rarity  in  books  is  such  a  difficult  thing  to  define, 
that  a  taste  for  it  easily  degenerates  into  absurdity. 
The  mania  is  very  common,  but  there  is  a  mania  fo> 
books  according  to  their  rare  value  to  read,  and  a 
mania  for  books  valuable  by  accidental  circumstances 
— such  as  coming  from  a  particular  press,  being  made 
of  singular  materials,  having  once  belonged  to  a  cele- 
brated library,  or  being  the  only  ones  of  their  kind. 
In  Italy  they  used  to  print  valuable  books  on  blue  pa- 
per; in  France  on  rose-colored  paper,  and  in  Germany 
on  yellow  or  green  ;  and  copies  of  these  are  much 
sought  after  now.  Bibliomaniacs  value  those  printed 
on  large  paper  with  wide  margin.  In  the  advertise- 
ment of  rare  books,  you  often  see  the  phrase,  "  a  tall 
copy."  Longman  had  a  single  copy  printed  of 
"Strutt's  Dictionary  of  Engravers,"  illustrated  and 
embellished  at  the  cost  of  ten  thousand  dollars  !  The 
copy  sold,  I  do  not  know  to  what  book-madman — but 
his  name  should  be  linked  in  history  to  that  of  the 
priest  in  Spain,  who  murdered  three  men  to  get  pos 
session  of  their  libraries! 


By  a  turn  of  fortune  not  worth  describing,  Mr. 
Goggins,  a  shipchandler,  became  suddenly  a  million- 
aire. His  half-score  of  grown-up  children  spread 
themselves  at  once  to  their  new  dimensions,  and  after 
a  preliminary  flourish  at  home,  the  whole  family  em- 
barked for  foreign  travel.  They  remained  but  a  fort- 
night in  England — none  in  that  land  walking  often  in- 
visible. Germany  seemed  to  the  shipchandler  a 
"rubbishy"  country,  and  Italy  "very  small  beer,"  and, 
after  a  short  residence  in  Paris,  that  gay  capital  was 
pronounced  the  Paradise  of  money's  worth,  and  there 
the  Gogginses  took  up  their  abode.  To  the  appre- 
hension of  most  of  their  acquaintance,  Mr.  Goggins 
was  now  in  a  speedy  and  fair  way  to  return  to  his 
blocks  and  oakum,  poorer  for  his  fortune.  No  stint 
seemed  put  upon  the  extravagance  of  sons  or  daugh- 
ters, and  in  dress  and  equipage  their  separate  displays 
and  establishments  became  the  marvel  of  Paris.  In 
Goggins  himself  there  was  for  awhile  no  great  change 
of  exterior.  His  constitutional  hardness  of  character 
seemed  in  no  way  disturbed  or  embellished  by  the 
splendors  he  controlled.  He  gave  way  to  usages  and 
etiquette  with  patient  facility,  bowed  through  the  re- 
ceptions at  his  first  parties  with  imperturbable  propri- 
ety, and  was  voted  stolid  and  wooden  by  the  gay 
world  flaunting  at  his  expense. 

In  the  second  year  of  his  Parisian  life,  however, 
Goggins  took  the  reins  gradually  into  his  own  hands. 
He  dismissed  his  sharp  French  butler,  who  had  made 
hitherto  all  the  household  bargains,  and,  promoting 
to  the  servile  part  of  his  office  an  inferior  domestic, 
dull  and  zealous,  he  took  the  accounts  into  his  own 
hands,  and  exacted,  of  all  the  tradespeople  he  patron- 
ized, schedules  of  their  wares  in  English,  and  their 
bills  made  equally  comprehensible.  Pocketing  thus 
the  butler's  perquisite,  he  reduced  the  charges  of  that 
department  one  half,  beside  considerably  improving 
the   quality   of   the   articles  purchased.     Rejecting, 


EPHExMEltA. 


633 


then,  the  intermediate  offices  of  lease-agents  and 
hommes  d'affaires,  he  advertised  in  Galignani,  in  good 
'plain  English,  for  the  most  luxurious  house  in  a  cer- 
tain fashionable  quarter,  conducted  the  bargain  by  a 
correspondence  in  {English,  and  finally  procured  it  at 
a  large  abatement,  at  least,  from  prices  paid  by  mil- 
lionaires. He  advertised  in  the  same  way  for  propo- 
sals to  furnish  his  house  on  the  most  sumptuous 
scale,  and  in  the  prevailing  fashion,  and  by  dint  of  sit- 
ting quietly  in  his  office  and  compelling  everything  to 
reach  him  through  the  medium  of  English  manu- 
script, he  created  a  palace  fit  for  an  emperor,  by  fair 
competition  among  the  tradesmen  and  upholsterers, 
and  at  a  cost  by  no  means  ruinous.  He  advertised  in 
the  same  way  for  a  competent  man  of  taste  to  oversee 
the  embellishments  in  progress,  and,  when  complete, 
the  "Hotel  Goggins"  was  quite  the  best  thing  of  its 
kind  in  Paris,  and  was  looked  upon  as  the  "folly"  of 
the  ruined  lessee.  With  this  groundwork  for  display, 
Mr.  Goggins  turned  his  attention  to  the  ways  and  j 
means  of  balls  and  dinners,  concerts  and  breakfast,  I 
and  having  acquired  a  name  for  large  expenditure,  he 
profited  considerably  by  the  emulation  of  cooks  and  j 
purveyors  for  the  material,  and  privately  made  use  of 
the  savoirfaire  of  a  reduced  count  or  two  who,  for  a 
"trifling  consideration,"  willingly  undertook  the  man- 
ner of  the  entertainments.  He  applied  the  same  sa- 
gacious system  of  commissariat  to  the  supplying  of 
the  multifarious  wants  of  his  children,  economizing 
at  the  same  time  that  he  enhanced  the  luxury  of  their 
indulgences,  and  the  Gogginses  soon  began  to  excite 
other  feelings  than  contempt.  Their  equipages  (the 
production  of  the  united  taste,  of  ruined  spendthrifts) 
outshone  the  most  sumptuous  of  the  embassies;  their 
balls  were  of  unexceptionable  magnificence,  their  din- 
ners more  recherche  than  profuse.  How  they  should 
come  by  their  elegance  was  a  mystery  that  did  not  les- 
sen their  consequence,  and  so  the  Gogginses  mount- 
ed to  the  difficult  eminence  of  Parisian  fashion — the 
plain  business-tact  of  a  shipchandler  their  mysterious 
stepping-stone. 

Perhaps  we  should  give  more  credit  to  this  faculty 
in  Goggins.  It  is  possibly  not  far  removed  from  the 
genius  of  a  great  financier  or  eminent  state-treasurer. 
It  is  the  power  of  coming  directly  at  values  and  rid- 
ding them  of  their  "riders" — of  getting  for  less,  what 
others,  from  want  of  penetration,  get  for  more.  I  am 
inclined  to  think  Goggins  would  have  been  quite  as 
successful  in  any  other  field  of  calculation,  and  one 
instance  of  a  very  different  application  of  his  reason- 
ing powers  would  go  to  favor  the  belief. 

While  in  Italy,  he  employed  a  celebrated  but  im- 
provident artist  to  paint  a  picture,  the  subject  of 
which  was  a  certain  event  of  rather  an  humble  char- 
acter, in  which  he  had  been  an  actor.  The  picture 
was  to  be  finished  at  a  certain  time,  and  at  the  urgent 
plea  of  the  artist,  the  money  was  advanced.  The 
time  expired  and  the  picture  was  not  sent  home,  and 
the  forfeited  bond  of  the  artist  was  accordingly  put  in 
suir.  The  delinquent,  who  had  not  thought  twice  of 
the  subject,  addressed  one  or  two  notes  of  remon- 
strance to  his  summary  employer,  and  receiving  no 
reply,  and  the  law  crowding  very  closely  upon  his 
heels,  he  called  upon  Goggins  and  appealed,  among 
other  arguments,  to  the  difference  in  their  circum- 
stances, and  the  indulgent  pity  due  from  rich  to  poor. 

"Where  do  you  dine  to  day  ?"  asked  Goggins. 

"  To-day— let  me  see— Monday— I  dine  with  La- 
dy  ." 

(The  artist,  as  Goggins  knew,  was  a  favorite  in  the 
best  society  in  Florence.) 

"  And  where  did  you  dine  yesterday?" 

"  Yesterday— hum— yesterday    I     dined   with    Sir 

George .     No  !     I  breakfasted  with  Sir  George, 

and  dined  with  the  grand  chamberlain.     Excuse  me! 
I  have  so  many  engagements " 


"Ah!— and  you  are  never  at  a  loss  for  a  dinner  or 
a  breakfast !" 

The  artist  smiled.     "  No  !" 

"Are  you  well  lodged?" 

"  Yes — on  the  Arno." 

"And  well  clad,  I  see." 

(The  painter  was  rather  a  dandy,  withal.) 

"  Well,  sir!"  said  Goggins,  folding  up  his  arms,  and 
looking  sterner  than  before,  "you  have,  as  far  as  I 
can  understand  it,  every  luxury  and  comfort  which  a 
fortune  could  procure  you,  and  none  of  the  care  and 
trouble  of  a  fortune,  and  you  enjoy  these  advantages 
by  a  claim  which  is  not  liable  to  bankruptcy,  nor  to 
be  squandered,  nor  burnt — without  the  slightest  anx- 
iety, in  short." 

The  artist  assented. 

"  So  far,  there  is  no  important  difference  in  our 
worldly  condition,  except  that  1  have  this  anxiety  and 
trouble,  and  am  liable  to  these  very  casualties." 

Goggins  paused,  and  the  painter  nodded  again. 

"And  now,  sir,  over  and  above  this,  what  would 
you  take  to  exchange  with  me  the  esteem  in  which 
we  are  severally  held — you  to  become  the  rich,  uned- 
ucated, and  plain  Simon  Goggins,  and  I  to  possess 
your  genius,  your  elevated  tastes,  and  the  praise  and 
fame  which  these  procure  you?" 

The  artist  turned  uneasily  on  his  heels. 

"  No,  sir  !"  continued  Goggins,  "  you  are  not  a  man 
to  be  pitied,  and  least  of  all  by  me.  And  I  don't  pity 
you,  sir.  And  what's  more,  you  shall  paint  that  pic- 
ture, sir,  or  go  to  prison.     Good  morning,  sir!" 

And  the  result  was  a  painting,  finished  in  three 
days,  and  one  of  the  master-pieces  of  that  accom- 
plished painter,  for  he  embodied,  in  the  figure  and 
face  of  Goggins,  the  character  which  he  had  struck 
outso  unexpectedly — retaining  the  millionaire's  friend- 
ship and  patronage,  though  never  again  venturing  to 
trifle  with  his  engagements. 


Music  seems  to  be  the  passion  of  the  hour  in  New- 
York.  Wallack  had  a  house  that  would  hardly  pay 
expenses  last  night — even  the  Ravels  have  somewhat 
fallen  off  as  they  were  going  off—  while  Damoreau, 
Wallace,  and  the  "  Hutchinson  family,"  draw  well. 
The  latter  are  four  children  of  a  New  Hampshire 
patriarch — (four  out  of  fifteen,  as  they  say  in  an  auto- 
biographical medley  which  they  sing) — and  having 
been  born  with  a  singular  natural  talent  for  music, 
they  are  turning  it  to  account  in  a  musical  tour. 
There  are  three  brothers  under  twenty  years  of  age, 
and  a  very  young  sister.  Their  voices  are  good  (par- 
ticularly the  girl's,  who  is  about  fourteen),  and  they 
confine  themselves  to  simple  melody,  such  as  would 
suit  the  least  practised  ear,  while  it  can  not  fail,  from 
the  truth  and  expression  with  which  they  sing,  to 
please  the  most  fastidious.  Their  concerts  are  ex- 
ceedingly enjoyable. 

Mrs.  Sutton,  well  known  everywhere  as  a  most 
charming  singer,  is  about  to  perform  a  short  engage- 
ment as  a  prima  donna  to  the  Italian  company  at  Nib- 
lo's.  I  wish  the  success  of  the  experiment  might 
bring  Castellan  and  Cinti  Damoreau  upon  the  stage. 
The  latter,  by  the  way,  is  the  daughter  of  a  French 
door-porter,  and  might  easily  have  been  "  the  grave 
of  her  deserving,"  but  for  her  perseverance  and  ambi- 
tion. Maroncelli  is  preparing  a  memoir  of  her,  under 
her  own  direction. 


There  is  a  particular  season  of  the  year  (this  is  it) 
when,  as  most  people  know,  the  law  forbids  the  killing 
and  vending  of  certain  game — the  zest  of  illegality,  of 
course,  giving  great  flavor  to  the  birds,  and,  of  course, 
more  than  nullifying  the  law.     Not  the  least  in  con- 


634 


EPHEMERA. 


nexion  with  this  remark — I  was  very  much  astonished 
a  day  or  two  since,  dining  with  a  friend  at  a  neighbor- 
ing hotel,  to  find  fairly  printed  in  the  bill  of  fare, 
"  Second  Course— Roast  Owls."  On  the  succeeding 
day,  at  another  table,  I  was  startled  with  the  enrol- 
ment of  a  dish  called  "Just  Try  Me"— which,  on  ex- 
periment, I  found  to  be  a  bird — (with  an  egg-shaped 
breast,  and  a  very  long  bill  thrust  through  it)— decently 
laid  on  its  back,  and  covered  with  a  pork  apron  !  The 
latter  name  seemed  very  much  to  the  point,  and  ex- 
plained the  bird's  errand.  The  former  I  was  puzzled 
with— but  knowing  the  landlord  of  that  hotel  to  be 
very  much  ultra  crepidam,  I  was  induced  to  look  into 
ornithology  for  his  meaning.  I  find  that  the  peculi- 
arity of  the  owl  is  "  an  external  toe  which  can  be  turned 
behind  at  pleasure"— symbolical  of  the  perverted  beak 
of  the  woodcock  (as  well  as  the  makinf  of  false  tracks 
to  evade  the  law),  and  serving  in  the  same  manner  to 
prepare  an  orifice  for  the  sauce  of  lemon-juice  and 
cayenne.  When  this  man  cozens,  you  see,  he  cozens 
with  edifying  knowledge  and  discretion. 


Appleton  is  publishing  a  very  neat  and  handsome 
edition  of  valuable  religious  books.  Among  them  is 
the  Disce  Vivere  of  Sutton,  prebend  of  Westminster, 
in  1626 — one  of  the  choicest  specimens  of  rich  and 
pregnant  English  that  I  have  lately  seen.  Two  sen- 
tences from  his  preface  will  give  you  an  idea  of  his 
style,  in  which  every  word  seems  to  drive  a  nail: — 

"If  to  live  were  for  no  other  but  to  draw  in  and  to 
breathe  out  the  soft  air,  as  the  wise  man  speaketh,  a 
needless  labor  were  it,  good  Christian  reader,  to  lay 
down  any  instructions  to  the  world  of  '  learning  to 
live  ;'  for  this  is  done  naturally,  both  of  men  and 
beasts,  without  any  teaching  or  learning. 

"  If  to  live  were  no  other  but  to  cast  about  for 
the  favor  and  riches  of  the  world,  as  some  men  are 
wont  to  call  it,  the  way  to  live,  then  would  it  soon  fol- 
low, the  greater  Machiavellians,  the  better  livers. 
Somewhat  more  than  is  required  to  live  Christianly  j 
than  so,  and  that  all  shall  one  day  find,  than  either  ' 
drawing  in  and  breathing  out  the  soft  air,  or  the  plot- 
ting to  compass  the  pleasures  and  profits  of  the  world." 


A  cold-water  procession  is  going  under  my  window 
at  this  moment,  in  a  very  propitious  shower  of  rain. 
From  my  elevated  look-out,  the  long  line  of  umbrel- 
las, two  and  two,  gives  the  street  the  dress  look  of  a 


imitation  of  the  qualities  of  that  same  poem  of  Don 
Juan — and  Mr.  Simms,  who  has  talent  enough  when 
he  stumbles  on  his  right  vein,  has  made  a  woful  mis- 
take as  to  his  capabilities  for  this.  Two  extracts  will 
show  his  idea  of  the  slap-dash-ery  vein  : — 

"  One  moment  grows  she  most  abruptly  willing. 
The  next— she  slaps  the  chaps  that  think  of  billing." 

And,  speaking  of  woman  again  : — 

"  Ev'n  from  his  weakness  and  abandonment 

Had  woman  her  first  being.     Thus  hath  grown 

Her  power  of  evil  since  ; — still  uncontent 

Hath  she  explored  his  weakness  and  o'erthrown ; 

And,  in  the  use  of  arts  incontinent, 
No  longer  pacified  by  one  poor  vein, 

She  grapples  the  whole  man,  brawn,  beef,  and  muscle, 

Helped  by  the  same  old  snake,  that  flings  him  in  the  tussle." 


We  should  have  disclaimed,  in  giving  the  portrai.. 
of  the  most  ornate  man  of  modern  times,  all  approba- 
tion of  dandyism — (as  yet) — on  this  side  the  water. 
Dandyism,  in  the  abstract,  we  delight  in,  glorify,  and 
rejoice  over.  But  it  has  its  scenery  and  its  appertain- 
ages.  A  dandy,  in  place,  is  the  foreground  to  a  pic- 
ture— the  forward  star  of  a  troop  untelescoped  by  the 
vulgar — the  embroidered  flower  on  the  veil  before  a 
life  of  mystery.  His  superior  elegance  is  like  the 
gold  edge  of  a  cloud  unfathomable  ;  or  (to  come  to 
earth)  like  the  soldier's  uniform — tinsel  but  for  its 
association  with  force  and  glory.  What  were  the 
dandies  of  the  firmament,  for  example — (comets) — 
without  those  uninterpretable  tails  ! 
But — to  alight  in  Broadway. 

A  dandy  indigenous  to  New  York  has  no  back- 
ground— no  untelescoped  associations  or  connexions 
— no  power  and  glory — and  no  uninterpretable  tail. 
He  is  like  a  docked  comet.  He  is  like  Tom  Fool  in 
a  uniform  bought  at  the  pawnbroker's.  He  is  a  label 
on  an  empty  bottle.  Count  D'Orsay  drives  by  you  in 
the  park,  and  a  long  ancestry  of  titled  soldiers  and 
courtiers,  and  a  present  life  of  impenetrable  scenery 
and  luxury  untold,  arise  up  for  background  to  his  cab 
j  and  tiger.  Mr.  James  Jessamy  drives  by  you  in 
i  Broadway,  and  you  know  at  what  trade  his  glory  was 
i  manufactured,  and  you  know  "  what  he  does  of  an 
:  evening,"  and  you  know  his  "mechanical  rogues"  of 
j  relations,  the  tailor  who  made  him,  the  hatter  who 
thatched  him,  and  the  baker  who  sold  him  gingerbread 
!  when  a  boy.  You  admire,  or  envy,  D'Orsay,  as  you 
I  happen  to  be  constituted — but  you  laugh,  you  scarce 
i  know  why,  at  Mr.  Jessamy.  The  latter,  perhaps,  has 
fashionable  Taglioni  coat,  with  two  rows  of  big  but-  !  the  better  right  to  his  toggery  and  turn-out;  but  still 
tons  down   the   middle.     I  noticed  yesterday,  by  the     you  laugh! 

way,  a  most  stalwart  and  gallant-looking  company  of  \\  Very  far  short  of  dandyism,  however,  lies  the  point 
firemen,  in  an  undress  military  uniform,  marching  out  ij  of  dressing  judiciously — dressing,  that  is  to  say,  so  as 
for  exercise  at  the  target.  Everything  about  them  |j  to  make  the  most  of  your  personal  advantages.  The 
was  all  right,  except  that  their  guests  of  honor  were  j  favor  of  women  is  of  course  the  first  of  lifetime  ambi- 
placed  before  instead  of  behind — making  of  it  a  pris-  \'.  tions,  and  the  dear  tyrants  have  a  weakness  for  the  ex- 
oner's  guard  instead  of  a  military  escort.  ;  terior.     "  Tu  as  du  remarquer"  says  Balzac;   "si 

j  toutefois  tu  es  capable  d.  observer  un  fait  moral,  que  la 
;  femme  aime  lefat.  Sais  tu  pourquoi  lafemme  aime  le 
j  fat  ?  Mon  ami  !  les  fats  sont  les  seuls  homines  qui 
;  aient  soin  d'eux  memes  /"     And  there  are  ladies,  even 


I  see  criticised,  in  one  or  two  papers,  a  poem  which 
was  sent  to  me  some  time  since  as  "printed,  not  pub- 
lished," called  "Donna  Florida,"  by  Mr.  Simms,  the 
author  of  Southern  Passages,  &c.  Jt  is  in  the  stanza, 
and  intended  as  an  imitation  of  "  Don  Juan."  The  || 
author  says,  in  his  preface,  that  he  fancied  "  he  might 
imitate  the  grace  and  exceeding  felicity  of  expression 

in  that  unhappy  performance — its  playfulness,  and  \\  and  can  a/ford,  for  a  consideration  he  has,  to  let  "  the 
possibly  its  wit — without  falling  into  its  licentious- ,  spirits  of  the  wise  sit  in  the  clouds,"  &c  Had  Count 
ness  of  utterance  and  malignity  of  mood.  How  he  D'Orsay  been  born  in  Common-Council-dom  and 
has  succeeded  in  this  object,  it  would  not  be  becom-  \\  gone  home,  sometimes  by  the  Waverley  line,  some- 
ing  in  him  to  inquire."  One  of  the  easiest  things  fan-  jj  times  by  the  Knickerbocker,  he  never  would  have 
cied  possible,  and  one  of  the  most  difficult  to  do,  is  an  1 1  been  a  dandy — (except,  at  least,  for  a  motive  para- 


on  this  plain  side  of  the  water,  who  adore  a  dandy,  and 
of  course  there  are  cases  where  the  dread  laugh  (men- 
tioned at  the  close  of  the  preceding  paragraph)  must 
be  braved  to  aid  a  particular  magnetism.  If  your 
dandy  be  a  sensible  man,  and  past  the  moulting  age, 
depend  upon  it  he  is  ticketed  for  some  two  eyes  only, 


EPHEMERA. 


635 


mount  to  ridicule)— though,  with  his  superb  person, 
he  could  hardly  have  dressed  cleanly  without  being 
called  a  fop  by  the  shallow.  D'Orsay  is  a  man  of 
sense,  and  knows  too  much  to  open  the  public  oyster 
with  his  private  razor.  So  don't  come  to  America, 
dear  D'Orsay  !     Stay  among  your  belongings — your 

"  Tapestries  of  India  ;  Tyrian  canopies  ; 
Heroic  bronzes  ;  pictures  half  divine — 
Apelles'  pencil ;  statues  that  the  Greek 
Has  wrought  to  living  beauty  ;  amethyst  urns 
And  onyx  essenced  with  the  Persian  rose  ; 
Couches  of  mother-pearl,  and  tortoise-shell  ; 
Crystalline  mirrors :  tables  in  which  gems 
Make  the  mosaic  ;  cups  of  argentry 
Thick  with  immortal  sculptures." 

Stay  where 

"  Your  meat  shall  all  come  in,  in  Indian  shells — 
Dishes  of  agate,  set  in  gold,  and  studded 
With  emeralds,  sapphires,  hyacinths,  and  rubies  ; 
Your  foot-boy  shall  eat  pheasants,  calvered  salmon, 
Knots,  godwits,  lampreys.     And  yourself  shall  have 
The  beards  of  barbels  served  instead  of  salads, 
Oiled  mushrooms  and  the  swelling  unctuous  paps 
Of  a  fat  pregnant  sow  newly  cut  off, 
Dressed  with  an  exquisite  and  poignant  sauce." 

Yet,  if  you  should  take  the  whim  to  come  over  the 
water,  count,  I  need  scarce  suggest  to  your  good 
sense  that  you  had  best  come  with  a  consignment  of 
buttons  from  Brummagem ! 


A  gentleman  in  Saco  has  taken  upon  himself  some 
pains  and  postage  to  ask  "our"  two  portraits  served 
up  in  two  plates.  We  don't  think  the  public  would 
stand  it.  That  bold  man,  Mr.  Graham,  is  to  show  an 
outline  of  one  of  us  in  his  February  number,  and  then 
anybody  can  have  us,  tale  and  all,  for  two  shillings — a 
cheap  article,  we  must  say  !  But  we  are  surprised  to 
get  this  petition  from  Saco!  We  "come  from"close- 
by-there,  and  it  strikes  us  our  likeness  would  go  east 
with  the  welcome  of  coals  to  Newcastle.  Doubtless 
there  are  more  like  us  in  the  same  soil.  We  remem- 
ber hanging  over  a  bridge  in  Saco  half  one  moonlight 
night  (somewhere  in  our  fourteenth  year),  and  if  riv- 
ers have  any  memory  or  gratitude  lor  admiration,  our 
likeness  will  be  found  in  the  water  where  we  left  it. 


We  wish  our  contributors  would  do  us  the  favor 
to  baptize  their  own  bantlings.  Their  delegation  of 
godfathership  costs  us  sometimes  a  five  minutes' 
thought  over  a  proofsheet  while  the  press  is  waiting, 
and  time  is  "  tin."  But,  by  the*way,  be  particular  in 
naming  your  articles!  Old  Burton,  in  his  Anatomy 
of  Melancholy,  gives,  by  way  of  satire,  what  we  think 
an  excellent  rule  ("experto  crede  Roberto"),  and  we 
will  lend  it  you  for  your  uses  :  "  It  is  a  kind  of  policy 
in  these  days  to  prefix  a  fantastical  title  to  a  book 
which  is  to  be  sold  ;  for,  as  larks  come  down  to  a  day- 
net,  many  vain  readers  will  stand  gazing  like  silly  pas- 
sengers at  an  antic  picture  in  a  painter's  shop,  that  will 
not  look  at  a  judicious  piece." 


I  observe,  looking  from  my  window,  that  the  Park 
theatre  hangs  out  a  large  American  flag  with  a  tri- 
color banner  appended  to  each  of  the  two  lower  cor- 
ners (looking  altogether  very  much  like  a  pair  of  ori- 
ental •  ousers),  symbolical,  probably,  of  the  two  arri- 
vals from  France  which  made  yesterday  memorable. 
The  more  interesting-  of  these  twin  events,  of  course, 
was  General  Bertrand's  advent  by  the  Boston  boat  at 
Beven;  but  the  one  which  excited  the  more  interest  was 
the  opening  of  the  winter  fashions  at  "  Madame  Law- 


son's,  in  Park  place,"  at  eight.  The  latter  ceremo- 
nial had  been  duly  heralded  for  some  days  previous 
by  notes  addressed  to  the  leaders  of  fashion,  and  (as 
far  as  can  be  known)  the  secrets  of  the  Graces'  uno- 
pened cases  hud  been  impartially  and  unexceptiona- 
bly  kept.  Having  "  a  friend  at  court,"  I  had  been  for 
some  days  invited  to  witness  the  effulguration,  but 
was  privately  advised  that  there  would  be  a  rush,  and 
that  six  in  the  morning  would  not  be  too  early  to  take 
a  stand  upon  the  steps  of  the  grand  milliner  in  Park 
place.  Some  unfinished  business  in  dream-land  obliged 
me  to  waive  to  the  sun  the  privilege  of  rising  first, 
however,  and  to  my  misfortune  I  did  not  arrive  at  Park 
place  till  the  premices  de  la  mode  had  been  ravished  by 
the  most  intrepid  first-comers.  The  street  was  lined 
with  carriages,  and  the  house  was  thronged.  On  the 
staircase  we  met||ro  or  three  ladies  descending,  flushed 
with  excitement,  and  murmuring  millinery  ;  and  on 
arriving  at  the  landing  on  the  second  floor,  the  sharp 
soprano  of  the  hum  within  betrayed  how  even  the 
sweetest  instruments  may  outrun  modulation,  played 
on  with  a  crescendo  troppo  furioso.  The  two  saloons  of 
the  second  floor  were  crowded  with  the  ladies  of  fash- 
ion, and  the  walls  lined  all  around  with  a  single  shelf 
covered  with  snowy  damask,  on  which  stood  the  white 
rods  supporting  the  (as  yet)  brainless,  though  already 
fashionable  bonnets.  And  (begging  pardon  of  Green- 
wich and  William  streets)  they  were  unapproachably 
exquisite !  There  were  some  forced  marriages  of 
colors  among  them  —  some  juxtapositions  Heaven 
would  not  have  ventured  upon  in  bird-millinery — but 
the  results  were  happy.  The  bonnets  are  small,  and 
would  probably  divide,  for  the  nose,  a  perpendicular 
rain-drop  ;  and  the  shape  of  the  front  edge  would  be 
defined  by  the  shadow  on  the  wall  of  an  egg  trunca- 
ted at  the  smaller  end — the  choice  of  colors  riotously 
uncontrollable.  Feathers,  ruinous  feathers,  are  abso- 
lutely indispensable.  No  fashion  this  winter  in  a  bon- 
net without  feathers — dyed  feathers  harmonious  with 
the  satin.  The  plush  bonnets  were  the  first  seized 
on.  Drab  satin  with  very  gay  fineries,  was  the  color 
most  complimented.  The  prices  varied  from  twenty- 
two  dollars  to  fifty.  It  was  very  charming  to  see  so 
many  pretty  women  trying  on  so  many  pretty  bonnets, 
and  I  feared  that  the  two  or  three  venturesome  gen- 
tlemen present  might  be  seized  upon  as  intruders 
upon  vestal  mysteries;  but,  thanks  to  the  "  vestalis 
maxima,"  Miss  Lawson,  we  escaped  with  credit. 


I  have  seen  General  Bertrand  several  times.  He  is 
of  a  very  noble  presence,  though,  like  Napoleon,  be- 
low the  middle  height.  His  features  express  honesty, 
firmness,  and  rapid  intelligence — the  latter  expression 
aided  by  eyes  of  unusual  brilliancy.  His  hair  is 
quite  white.  He  is  a  man  of  few  words,  very  collect- 
ed, but  withal  very  courteous.  These,  at  least,  are 
my  impressions  of  him. 

It  is  curious  to  remark,  how  the  burning  of  our  fin- 
gers with  Dickens  makes  us  hold  back  from  the  fire 
of  enthusiastic  receptions.  If  the  general  had  been 
ante  instead  of  £>os£-Dickens,  he  would  have  been 
overwhelmed  with  popular  acclamation.  As  it  is,  the 
dues  of  honor  are  only  paid  a  rigeur.  One  or  two 
brigades  of  artillery  are  ordered  out  to-moirow  to  es- 
cort the  general  on  his  rounds  to  visit  the  objects  of 
curiosity,  and  the  different  staff's  accompany  him  to 
the  theatre  in  the  evening.  This  morning  he  is  visit- 
ing the  fair  of  the  Institute.  The  beautiful  company 
of  the  Life  Guards  made  him  a  guest  of  honor  at 
their  dinner  last  evening.  Mr.  Stetson,  of  the  Astor 
(who  gave  the  dinner  on  his  appointment  as  an  officer 
in  the  corps),  complimented  General  Bertrand  very 
felicitously  in  his  speech,  and  the  applause  was  rap- 
turous.    Stetson  is  naturally  an  "  orator,  as  Brutus 


636 


EPHEMERA. 


is,"  and  has  acquitted  himself  on  several  such  occa- 
sions with  great  credit. 


I  visited,  the  other  evening,  the  beautiful  rooms  of 
the  Mercantile  Library  Association,  and  was  exceed- 
ingly interested  in  the  history  of  its  foundation  and 
progress.  An  advertisement  expressing  "  a  call  for  a 
meeting  of  clerks"  was  the  first  germ.  The  paper 
containing  this  was  preserved  and  presented  to  the  as- 
sociation by  William  Wood,  of  Canandaigua,  a  very 
zealous  benefactor  of  the  institute.  It  has  at  present 
a  library  of  nearly  twenty  thousand  volumes,  and  it 
has  four  thousand  members.  The  late  report  of  the 
librarian  shows  that  eight  times  the  number  of  volumes 
is  annually  taken  from  the  library — aj^  activity  of  use 
for  a  library  almost  unparalleled.  It  is,  without  doubt, 
one  of  the  most  useful  institutions  of  the  country,  and 
donations  to  it  of  books  or  money  would  be  admirably 
well  bestowed. 


Dr.  Lardner  has  grown  very  much  on  the  public 
esteem  in  his  last  visit  to  New  York.  His  clear,  sim- 
ple, graphic  talent,  making  abstruse  science  easy  and 
comprehensible,  has  never  been  equalled  by  another 
lecturer. 

Much  honor  and  glory  to  the  Boston  publishers  for 
the  beauty  of  their  editions,  and  the  credit  (not  small) 
which  that  brings  to  this  country.  The  most  exquis- 
ite edition  of  the  exquisite  songs  of  inspired  Barry 
Cornwall,  published  by  Ticknor,  should  be  between 
every  four  walls  where  resides  the  relish  for  poetry  or 
taste  in  a  book.  It  is  a  gem  of  poetry  set  in  a  gem 
of  printing,  and  most  fit  for  a  loving  man's  gift  to  a 
sensible  woman. 

1  find  that  "doctors  differ"  about  Macready;  and 
the  graphic  and  gay  correspondent  of  the  Providence 
Journal,  more  particularly,  gives  as  his  great  excel- 
lence, that  you  forget  the  man  in  the  character  he 
plays — just  what  I  do  not  think.  Heaven,  it  seems  to 
me,  has  done  so  little,  and  Macready  so  much,  in 
making  himself  the  actor  he  is,  that  he  deserves  infin- 
ite credit,  and,  as  a  piece  of  mechanism,  his  playing 
is  a  fine  thing  to  me,  though  more  curious  than  over- 
coming. Young  Wheatley  has  turned  over  quite  a 
golden  leaf  of  opinion  with  his  personation  of  Ulric, 
a  very  fine  part  in  Byron's  play  of  Werner. 

I  saw  yesterday,  among  the  daguerreotypes  of 
Chilton  &  Edwards,  a  most  perfect  one  of  Dr.  Linn, 
whose  death  was  mentioned  in  a  late  paper.  The  val- 
ue of  these  things  struck  me  forcibly — for  to  any  one 
who  had  ever  seen  the  fine  countenance  of  Dr.  Linn, 
this  is  a  perfect  remembrancer.  They  color  them 
skilfully  now,  and  the  gentlemen  1  speak  of  particu- 
larly (Chilton  &  Edwards,  who  are  to  have  a  room  in 
the  Capitol  this  winter),  are  daily  making  improve- 
ments in  the  art.  Some  witty  man  corrupts  the  word 
into  derogatory-types,  but  they  are  derogatory  no 
longer. 

We  are  likely  to  know  something  of  Mexico  be- 
tween the  three  authors  who  are  about  publishing 
books  on  the  subject,  and  the  charming  book  of  Mad- 
ame Calderon.  Mr.  Prescott's  Mexico  will  of  course 
be  a  classic.  Brantz  Mayer  and  Kendall  are  up  to 
their  elbows  in  proofsheets — both  producing  works 
on  Mexico,  and  both  excellent  writers. 


I  never  saw,  in  New  York,  an  audience  of  better 
quality,  for  so  large  a  quantity,  than  was  assembled  to 
welcome  the  perfected  Cinti.  I  presume  there  were 
few  "  ears  polite"  anywhere  else.  At  a  dollar  the 
pair  (long   and   short  alike),  Madame  must  have  de- 


lighted these  fastidious  organs  to  the  amount  of  five 
thousand  francs,  to  be  diminished  only  by  the  expense 
of  room-light  and  accompaniment — a  transmutation 
of  "evening  wind,"  that  throws  Bryant's  coinage  of 
that  commodity  quite  into  the  shade. 

Mr.  Timm  (as  is  wise  and  usual)  played  the  audi- 
ence into  tune  with  an  overture,  and  then  the  screen 
gave  up  its  prima  donna — Madame  Cinti  Damoreau 
in  pink  satin — three  large  roses  on  her  breast — the 
dress,  air,  and  graces  of  Veens,  the  composure,  plen- 
titude,  and,  alas  !  the  parenthesized  smile  of  'ties. 
Madame  Cinti  has  been  a  good  animal  resemblance 
of  the  beautiful  Mrs.  Norton.  The  general  mould 
of  the  face,  and  the  low  forehead,  the  dark  hair,  and 
the  unfathomable  dark  eyes,  are  like  in  each  to  the 
other. 

With  a  trepidation  which  lasted  only  through  the 
first  bar,  she  commenced  the  aria  of  "Fatal  Goffre- 
do"  (from  Donisette's  opera  of  Torquato  Tasso),  and 
sang  it  to  the  breathless  delight  of  the  audience.  No 
such  finished  music  has  ever  been  breathed  before 
upon  American  air,  I  am  persuaded.  With  not  a 
fourth  of  the  power  and  volume  of  Castellan,  and 
none  of  the  passion-lava  of  Malibran,  she  reaches  a 
finer  fibre  of  the  ear  than  either.  The  quality  of  her 
voice  is  exceedingly  sweet,  and  the  mingled  liquid- 
ness  and  truth  of  her  chromatics  could  never  have 
been  exceeded.  The  ladder  of  harmony  seemed 
built  a  round  or  two  nearer  to  heaven  by  her  delicious 
music. 

Madame  Damoreau,  in  the  beginning  of  her  career, 
was  hissed  from  the  French  stage  for  singing  false — a 
lesson  in  study  and  perseverance  which  I  wish  could 
be  laid  softly  into  the  memory  of  Castellan.  The  lat- 
ter wonderfully-organized  creature,  with  anything  like 
the  same  skill,  would  be  the  world's  queen  of  song. 
The  New  Orleans  people,  by-the-way,  who  are  Pa- 
risians in  their  nice  appreciation  of  operatic  talent, 
consider  Castellan  a  remarkable  actress  ;  and  so  great 
was  the  enthusiasm  for  her  there,  that  the  necessary 
sum  to  engage  her  was  made  up  by  private  subscrip- 
tion. It  is  several  thousand  pities,  at  least,  that,  in 
the  first  capital  of  the  country,  there  is  not  operatic 
enthusiasm  enough  to  bring  this  dormant  genius  upon 
the  stage. 

Monsieur  Artot,  who  accompanies  Madame  Dam- 
oreau in  her  tour,  alternated  performances  with  her. 
He  is  a  very  gentlemanly-looking  young  man,  with  a 
figure  that  would  make  a  very  good  case  for  his  own 
violin — a  very  long  neck  and  a  very  small  waist — and 
he  plays  with  execution  enough  for  all  practical  pur- 
poses, but  with  taste  unsurpassed.  Wallace  knows 
several  heavens  of  the  violin  to  which  Monsieur  Artot 
has  not  yet  ascended,  hut  the  latter  knows  enough  to 
give  all  the  pleasure  which  that  instrument  can  give 
to  ordinary  listeners.  The  audience  applauded  Mon- 
sieur Artot  very  long  and  loudly.  I  think,  by-the- 
way,  that  a  series  of  musical  contentions  between 
Wallace  and  Castellan  "on  the  first  part,"  and  Artot 
and  Cinti  "on  the  second,"  would  be  a  most  charm- 
ing and  exciting  tournament. 

Madame  Damoreau  had  the  good  sense  not  to  de- 
sire a  musical  contention  with  a  performance  on  the 
paving-stones  by  cabs  and  omnibuses,  and  the  street 
in  front  of  Washington  Hall  was  coated  with  tan. 


There  seems  to  be  a  kind  of  appendix-dawn  of  lit- 
erature in  Italy.  Prescott's  Ferdinand  and  Isabella 
is  about  being  published  at  Florence  in  the  Italian 
translation.  Sparks's  Life  of  Washington,  translated 
by  a  young  Neapolitan,  is  also  nearly  ready.  A  so- 
ciety has  been  formed  at  Florence,  called  Societa  Ed- 
itrice  Florentine,  for  the  publication  of  translations  of 
the  best  foreign  works,  including  those  of  American 


EPHEMERA. 


637 


literature.  The  Marquis  Gino  Capponi,  one  of  the 
most  prominent  names  in  Florentine  history,  has  put 
our  country  under  obligation  by  his  enthusiasm  for 
our  literature,  and  his  aid  to  the  publication  of  the 
works  I  have  just  mentioned.  He  is  himself  a  re- 
markable scholar.  Our  consul  at  Rome,  Mr.  George 
Greene,  has  had  a  large  agency  in  the  same  cause. 
Mr.  Greene,  by-the-way,  has  devoted  a  labor  of  some 
years  to  a  history  of  Italy,  which  is  still  in  progress. 
He,  as  is  known  very  well,  is  a  credit  to  the  talent 
and  scholarship  of  our  country.  The  Marquis  Cap- 
poni has  furnished  Mr.  Prescott  with  materials  for 
his  history  of  Philip  II. 


Weir's  picture  of  the  "Embarcation"  is  now  ex- 
hibiting to  throngs  of  admirers  at  the  Society  Libra- 
ry. Its  wonderful  ingenuity  and  beauty  of  grouping, 
and  the  variety  and  individuality  of  the  faces  of  the 
pilgrim  company,  are  the  excellences  most  dwelt  upon. 
I  really  must  venture  to  record  an  opinion  expressed 
of  this  picture  by  Inman — who  (as  the  artist  of  a  ri- 
val-panel in  the  Rotunda,  and  hindered  in  his  work 
by  ill-health  and  other  obstacles)  is  in  a  position  to 
speak  invidiously,  if  he  were  capable  of  envy.  In- 
man was  asked  what  he  thought  of  it.  "  It  is  a  glo- 
rious picture,"  he  replied,  "and  its  faults,  if  it  has 
them,  are  comparatively  so  trifling,  that  it  would  be 
ungenerous  to  mention  them."  And  if  that  speech 
did  not  come  from  a  noble  heart,  I  have  read  of  such 
things  with  slender  profit  to  my  judgment. 


Dear  reader:  A  volume  of  poems  goes  from  us 
in  an  extra  of  the  Mirror  this  week,  which  leaves  us 
with  a  feeling — we  scarce  know  how  to  phrase  it — a 
feeling  of  timidity  and  dread — like  a  parent's  appre- 
hensiveness,  giving  his  child  into  the  hands  of  a  stran- 
ger. It  is  not  Pliny's  "  quam  sit  magnum  dare  aliquid 
in  manus  hominum"  nor  is  it,  what  the  habitual  avoid- 
ance of  grave  themes  looks  like,  sometimes — a  pref- 
erence 

"  to  let  the  serious  part  of  life  go  by 
Like  the  neglected  sand." 

We  are  used  to  buttering  curiosity  with  the  ooze  of 
our  brains — careful  more  to  be  paid  than  praised — 
and  we  have  a  cellar,  as  well  as  many  stories,  in  our 
giddy  thought-house;  and  it  is  from  this  cave  of  priv- 
acy that  we  have,  with  reluctance,  and  consentings  far 
between,  drawn  treasures  of  early  feeling  and  impres- 
sion, now  bound  and  offered  to  you  for  the  first  time 
in  one  bundle.  Oh,  from  the  different  stories  of  the 
mind — from  the  settled  depths,  and  from  the  efferves- 
cent and  giddy  surface — how  different  looks  the  world  ! 
— of  what  different  stuff  and  worth  the  link  that  binds 
us  to  it !  In  looking  abroad  from  one  window  of  the 
soul,  we  see  sympathy,  goodness,  truth,  desire  for  us 
and  our  secrets,  that  we  may  be  more  loved ;  from 
another,  we  see  suspicion,  coldness,  mockery,  and  ill- 
will — the  evil  spirits  of  the  world — lying  in  wait  for 
us.  At  one  moment — the  spirits  down,  and  the  heart 
calm  and  trusting — we  tear  out  the  golden  leaf  nearest 
the  well  of  life,  and  pass  it  forth  to  be  read  and  wept 
over.  At  another,  we  bar  shutter  and  blind  upon  pry- 
ing malice,  turn  key  carefully  on  all  below,  and, 
mounting  to  the  summit,  look  abroad  and  jest  at  the 
very  treasures  we  have  concealed — wondering  at  our 
folly  in  even  confessing  to  a  heartless  world  that  we 
had  secrets,  and  would  share  them.  We  are  not  al- 
ways alike.  The  world  does  not  seem  always  the 
same.  We  believe  it  is  all  good  sometimes.  We  be- 
lieve sometimes,  that  it  is  but  a  place  accursed,  given 
to  devils  and  their  human  scholars.  Sometimes  we 
are   all   kindness — sometimes  aching  only  for  an   an- 


tagonist, and  an  arena  without  barrier  or  law.  And 
oh  what  a  Procrustes's  bed  is  human  opinion — trying 
a  man's  actions  and  words,  in  whatever  mood  com- 
mitted and  said,  by  the  same  standard  of  rigor  !  How 
often  must  the  angels  hovering  over  us  reverse  the 
sentence  of  the  judge — how  oftener  still  the  rebuke 
of  the  old  maid  and  the  Pharisee. 
But — a  martingale  on  moralizing! 

Yours  affectionately,  Doubleyou. 

P.  S.  These  poems,  dear  reader  (if  you  are  one  of 
those  who 

"  can  not  spare  the  luxury  of  believing 
That  all  things  beautiful  are  what  they  seem") — 

these  poems,  we  may  venture  to  say  to  you,  are  chick- 
ens of  ours  that  still  come  home  to  roost.  They 
have  not  been  turned  out  to  come  back  to  a  locked 
door  and  a  strange  face  at  the  postern.  We  still  put 
such  eggs  under  our  hen  of  revery.  We  cherish  the 
breed — but  privately — privately  !  Take  these,  and 
come  to  us  for  more. 


Mr.  "  Newbegin"  must  excuse  us.  We  like  gram- 
mar even  in  a  pun.  His  night-ride  in  the  omnibus  is 
pretty  fair,  but  it  wont  do  to  jolt  pronouns  out  of 
place.     That 

"  Dark  as  winter  was  the  flow 
Of  7,  sir,  rolling  rapidly," 

would  shock  our  friend  Wright  into  a  new  edition  of 
"  Exercises." 


There  is  but  one  good  couplet  in  "  Tiskins's"  com- 
munication : — 

"  His  whiskers  were  like  night,  coal-black, 
His  hair  like  morn,  coal-red'' — 

but  his  rhythm  grounds  at  the  overslaugh.  He  must 
throw  over  his  ballast  of  consonants,  before  his  metre- 
craft  will  swim  buoyant  enough  to  pass. 


One  of  the  Sunday  critics  (we  hope  he  "got  to 
press"  soon  enough  to  have  leisure  for  confession) 
sneers  at  "one  of  us"  for  "quoting  nothing"  of  Mor- 
ris's in  our  critique  of  his  songs.  As  if  it  were  neces- 
sary in  a  periodical  where  Morris  makes,  of  every- 
thing he  writes,  a  Corinthian  capital  for  a  column  ! 
Truly  the  public  are  not  likely  to  die  in  igngrance  of 
songs  which  stand  on  every  piano-rack  in  the  country, 
and  are  sung  in  every  concert-room  and  theatre,  and 
are  being  endlessly  copied.  Besides,  we  believe  we 
can  tell  "what  manner  of  thing  is  your  crocodile," 
without  bringing  the  monster  bodily  in.  How  the 
folks  find  fault  with  us!  We  shall  really  have  to  pro- 
claim ourselves  an  "object,"  and 

"  boast  of  nothing  else 
But  that  we  are  a  journeyman  to  grief!" 

or,  better  still,  we  shall  be  driven  to  get  up  a  crusade 
against  the  whip-poor-willises,  and  "  bring  up  those 
that  shall  try  what  mettle  there  is  in  orange-tawny." 


To  the  kind  old  lady  who  "knit  us  a  pair  of  stock- 
|  ings  after  reading  some  poetry"  of  ours,  but  "  was 
J  afraid  to  send  them,  and  gave  them  to  a  beggar,"  we 
I  must  say,  in  the  words  of  the  old  ballad, 

"  'Twere  better  give  a  thing, 
I      A  sign  of  love,  unto  a  mighty  person  or  a  king. 

Than  to  a  rude  or  barb'rous  swain,  but  bad  or  basely  born, 
I      For  gently  takes  the  gentleman  what  oft  the  clown  will  scorn." 

!  So,  thanks  for  the  good  will,  dear  madam,  and  pray 
j  knit  us  a  pair  of  mittens  against  we  make  our  fortune 
I  and  turn  farmer. 


(338 


EPHEMERA. 


"  Aunt  Charity"  wishes  us  to  write  an  article  on 
the  "love  of  the  intellect,  and  the  possibility  of  a  ten- 
der affection  for  the  old."  We  will  tell  you  a  little 
story  out  of  an  old  book:  "It  is  reported  of  Magda- 
len, queen  of  France,  that  walking  forth,  an  evening, 
with  her  ladies,  she  spied  Monsieur  Alanus,  one  of 
the  king's  chaplains,  an  old  hard-favored  man.  fast 
asleep  in  a  bower,  and  kissed  him  sweetly.  When 
the  ladies  laughed  at  her  for  it,  she  replied  that  it  was 
not  his  person  she  did  embrace,  but,  with  a  Platonic 
love,  the  divine  beauty  of  his  soul." 


The  up-town  door-plates  and  bell-handles  are  shi- 
ning once  more,  and  open  shutters,  clean  windows, 
and  parted  curtains,  acknowledge,  at  last,  the  reluc- 
tant truth,  that  the  fashionables  have  returned  from 
travel,  and  are  open  to  pasteboard  and  personal  call. 
The  ice  has  been  broken  with  a  "jam,"  echoed  by 
one  musical  soiree,  and  now — vogue  la  galere  till  the 
ice  melts  again!  There  is  a  talk  that  this  is  to  be 
more  an  intellectual  winter  than  the  last — more  reci- 
tations, more  tableaux  vivants,  more  conversaziones, 
more  finding  and  producing  of  new  lions  in  the  lamb- 
kingdom  of  poetry.  There  is  also  a  murmur — a 
"shadow  cast  before" — of  the  "coming  out"  of  a 
very  extraordinary  beauty,  whose  name  and  educa- 
tional cocoon  are  wrapt  in  profound  mystery.  As  the 
rumor  started  about  a  week  since,  and  as  "pretty 
moths"  are  but  twenty  days  in  their  chrysalis,  we  may 
expect  the  emergence  of  her  bright  wings  to  light  in 
about  a  fortnight.  She  is  said  to  be  moulded  after 
the  (supposed)  lost  type  of  the  seven  belles  of  Phila- 
delphia, whose  culmination  occurred  under  the  au- 
tocracy of  Jackson — eyes  furnished  by  Juno,  mouth 
by  Hebe,  and  teeth  and  feet  by  the  smaller  fairies. 
No  corresponding  Hyperion  that  I  can  hear  of. 

There  is  great  fluttering  and  dismay  among  the 
Bowery  girls  and  the  less  alert  followers  of  the  fash- 
ions. The  remarkable  splendor  of  the  "spring  goods," 
and  the  really  beautiful  and  becoming  style  of  the 
new  fabrics,  left  no  doubt  in  most  minds  that  these 
were  to  be  "the  mode."  The  autumn  pin-moneys 
of  all  the  moderately  "established"  ladies  and  their 
daughters  "went  the  way  of  all"  earnings  accordingly, 
and  Broadway  grew  as  splendid  as  a  tulip-bed,  bright 
as  the  bazar  of  Smyrna.  The  exclusives  were  at 
their  invisible  period  meanwhile,  but,  from  their  car- 
riages, they  probably  saw  "what  was  worn."  Down 
dropped  the  mercury  of  the  mode-ometer  to  extreme 
simplicity  !  The  few  ladies  who  appeared,  crossing 
the  pavement  from  their  equipages  to  the  shops,  were 
dressed  in  quiet  silks,  costly  and  neat,  and  the  name- 
less and  the  "  unnamed,"  at  the  same  moment,  seemed 
to  flaunt  by  in  the  choicest  and  gayest  of  the  new 
patterns.  Studied  simplicity,  out  of  doors  at  least,  is 
high  fashion  now,  and  those  who  can  not  afford  to 
convert  their  new  purchases  into  chair-covers  and 
bed-curtains,  are  left  stranded,  as  it  were,  on  a  petri- 
fied rainbow. 


Ten  thousand  copies  of  the  "  Mysteries  of  Paris" 
have  been  poured  into  our  caldron  of  morals  by  a 
single  press  in  this  city,  and  probably  fifty  thousand 
will  be  circulated  altogether.  It  is  a  very  exciting 
book,  and  at  this  moment  making  a  great  noise.  The 
translators  are  busily  at  work  on  other  saleables  of 
French  literature,  and  there  will  soon  be  little  left  un- 
known of  the  arcana  of  vice.  Eugene  Sue,  the  au- 
thor of  the  "  Mysteries  of  Paris,"  is  a  connoisseur  of 
pleasure;  and  when  I  saw  him,  ten  years  ago,  was  an 
elegant  voluptuary  of  the  first  water.  He  was  just 
then  creeping  through  the  crust  of  the  Chaussee 
d'Antin  into  the  more  exclusive  sphere  of  the  Fau- 


bourg St.  Germain — fat,  good-looking,  and  thirty-two. 
He  is,  by  this  time,  "sloped"  from  his  meridian,  and 
apparently  turning  his  experiences  into  commodity. 
I  observe  that  he  borrows  my  name  for  a  wicked  Flor- 
ida planter,  who  misuses  a  lady  of  color — a  reproach 
which  I  trust  will  not  stick  to  "  us." 

The  publishers  hang  back  from  American  fictions 
now-a-days,  possibly  finding  the  attention  of  the  read- 
ing-public occupied  with  the  more  highly-spiced  pro- 
ductions of  the  class  just  alluded  to,  and  it  is  impos- 
sible to  induce  them  to  give  anything  for — hardly,  in- 
deed to  look  at — an  indigenous  manuscript.  Acci- 
dent threw  into  my  hands,  a  few  days  ago,  a  novel 
which  had  lain  for  some  time  unread  in  a  publisher's 
drawer,  and  after  reading  a  few  chapters  I  became 
convinced  that  it  was  far  above  the  average  of  modern 

;  English  novels,  and  every  way  worthy  of  publication. 

I  It  was  entitled  "The  Domine's  Daughter,"  by  Adam 

|  Mundiver,  Esq.,  and  would   have  lain  forgotten  and 
unexamined  till  doomsday,  but  for  a  friendly  Orpheus 

!  who  made  it  his  Eurydice  and  went  to  Lethe  after  it. 
Such   a   book    should    surely  represent   money  in  a 

|  country  where  literature  is  acknowledged. 


I  very  seldom  can  find  it  in  my  backbone  to  sit  out 
a  five-act  play,  but  I  saw  Macready's  "Richelieu," 
and  I  have  seen  Forrest's,  throughout.  Forrest  be- 
gan rather  ineffectively,  probably  disturbed  by  the  de- 
fence he  was  obliged  to  make  against  an  aspersion, 
before  the  play  commenced.  He  soon  warmed  into  it, 
however,  and,  to  my  thinking,  played  the  character 
far  better  than  Macready.  The  details — the  imita- 
tion of  decrepitude — the  posturing  and  walking  the 
stage — were  better  done  by  Macready ;  but  the  pas- 
sion of  the  play,  the  expression,  the  transfusion  of 
actor  to  character,  the  illusion,  the  effect — these  were 
all  vastly  better  achieved  by  Forrest.  A  line  drawn 
across  the  tops  of  Macready's  "points"  would  leave 
Forrest  below  in  all  matters  of  detail,  but  it  would 
only  cut  the  base  of  the  latter's  pyramids  of  passion. 
Forrest  runs  sometimes  into  the  melo-dramatic,  se- 
duced by  the  "way  it  takes,"'  but  he  has  fiue  genius, 
and  if  he  played  only  to  audiences  of  "good  discre- 
tion," he  would  (or  could)  satisfy  the  most  fastidious. 

Wallack's  friends,  myself  among  the  number,  have 
been  annoyed  at  the  many  contretemps  which  have 
conspired  to  make  his  latter  engagement  at  the  Park 
so  unsatisfactory.  In  genteel  comedy,  of  which  he 
is  the  master-player  now  on  the  stage,  he  was  unable 
to  do  anything,  from  the  lack  of  materials  in  that 
stock-company  for  a  cast;  and,  indeed,  he  played  al- 
ways at  the  disadvantage  of  the  one  free  horse  in  a 
slow  team.  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Brougham  (both  first-rate 
players  of  high  comedy,  and  the  latter  a  very  beauti- 
ful and  effective  woman,  into  the  bargain)  might  have 
been  engaged  at  the  Park  for  the  winter  with  great 
ease,  and  then  we  might  have  seen  (what  is  the  most 
agreeable  kind  of  theatricals)  comedies  well  cast  and 
played.  I  hope  there  will  be  some  combination 
among  the  actors  to  give  us  a  "go,"  with  a  wheel 
with  more  than  one  spoke  in  it,  and  then  we  might 
have  Wallack  as  he  should  be — a  dramatic  gem  in 
proper  setting. 


I  am  not  sure  that  I  shall  be  able  to  make  out  a  let- 
ter this  morning,  or,  if  I  do,  it  will  be  in  spite  of  an 
accompaniment  of  military  music.  My  friend  Gen- 
eral Morris  has  his  battalions  in  arms  for  review,  and 
my  pen  "marks  time,"  as  if  its  forked  nib  were  under 
the  General's  orders — (and  as,  perhaps,  it  should  be, 
coming  from  a  very  military  bird,  whose  father's  feath- 
ers have  seen  service  under  him). 

Apropos  of  procession,  by-the-wny,   T   have  h'id   n 


EPHEMERA. 


639 


moderate  laugh  at  the  effect  of  a  typographical  blun- 
der in  Dr.  Julius's  German  edition  of  his  travels  in 
this  country.  The  doctor  is  giving  an  account  of  an 
abolition  procession  in  Cincinnati,  and  he  records  in 
English  the  inscriptions  on  the  banners.  One,  he 
says,  had  the  reproachful  and  pathetic  sentiment : 
"  Although  our  shins  are  black  our  souls  are  white.'''' 
For  "shins"  read  s&ins. 


The  sultan  of  the  Comoro  islands  has  addressed  a 
letter  to  a  gentleman   in  Wall  street,  a   translation  of 
which  by  a  very  accomplished  and  self-taught  linguist 
(Mr.    Cotheal),    may   be   amusing    to   your   readers. 
The  Comoro  isles,  as  you   know,  lie   in  the   Indian 
ocean,  off  the  north  end  of  Madagascar,  and   are  in-  I 
habited    by   a   very    friendly  race   of    Mohammedan  ! 
Arabs.     The  king  resides  in  Johanna,  the  largest  of  i 
the  islands,  and  (in  London  slang)  he  is  a  slap-up  old  ! 
trader,  getting  ivory  and  gold-dust  from  Madagascar, 
and  swapping  these  and  his  cows,  pigs,  and   poultry, 
for   Lowell    factory-stuffs,    or   any   other   freight  of 
American  vessels.     He  writes  a  very  worshipful  let- 
ter:— 

"  To  the  American  city  of  New  York  :  For  the  be- 
loved sheikh  Aaron  H.  Palmer,  No.  49  Wall  street. 
May  Allah  be  his  guide!     Amen!     Badooh! 

"By  the  grace  of  the  Most  High: 

"To  the  dearest,  the  most  glorious,  the  most  gen- 
ererous  sheikh  Aaron  H.  Palmer,  the  honored,  the  ex- 
alted, the  magnificent,  the  contented.  May  Allah, 
the  Most  High,  be  his  guide!     Amen! 

"  Now,  after  offering  thee  honor  and  protection  from 
the  Henzooanee  city  (Johanna)  and  its  inhabitants, 
this  is  what  I  tell  thee.  Thy  noble  letter  arrived  and 
we  read  it.  Thy  friend  understood  its  contents.  May 
Allah  reward  thee  well !  Thou  sayest  in  thy  letter 
that  thou  desirest  selling  and  buying  in  our  land,  and 
that  thou  wishest  friendship  with  us.  Thou  art  wel- 
come. We  thank  thee,  and  accept  thy  offer.  Thou 
didst  tell  us  that  we  should  advise  thee  of  anything  that 
we  should  need  from  thee.  Again  we  thank  thee, 
and  inform  thee  that  thou  mayest  send  to  us  a  person 
on  thy  part  that  shall  dwell  in  the  Henzooanee  coun- 
try. In  order  that  thy  business  may  be  complete,  a 
shop  of  the  merchants,  and  everything  that  there  is 
in  the  country,  shall  be  made  ready,  on  our  part,  if  it 
please  God.  Whatever  shall  be  wanted  in  these  re- 
gions shall  be  paid  for  on  delivery. 

"I  and  all  my  Henzooanee  tribes  request  that  thou 
unite  us  with  the  American  tribes  in  fri<>nd-ship  and 
good-fellowship,  like  as  we  are  united  with  the  Eng- 
lish, and  we  will  serve  you  all  as  we  serve  them. 
Now,  we  have  conceived  here  a  great  desire  for  the 
American  tribes.  Tell  them  to  send  as  their  letters, 
or  a  man-of-war-ship*  on  their  part,  and  we  will  bind 
ourselves  by  a  binding  treaty.  Now,  the  thing  we 
need  and  want  from  thee  are  sealed  letters  of  advice 
for  our  assurance  ;  and  in  order  that  thou  mayest 
know  that  this  letter  is  from  us,  we  stamp  it  with  oar 
seal.  We  request  that  thou  send  us  all  kinds  of  linen 
goods  and  cottons,  both  white,  and  brown,  and  fine 
stripes,  and  all  kinds  of  woollen  cloths;  and  ten  bed- 
steads and  sixty  chairs;  all  kinds  of  glass;  lamps, 
large  and  small,  and  some  for  placing  on  the  table; 
and  fine  silk  handkerchiefs.  This  is  what  we  tell 
thee.  Now  salutation  and  prosperity  be  with  thee  for 
ever! 

"  Dated  the  10th  of  the  month  of  Dool  Heggeh, 
1252  (corresponding  to  about  the  lGth  of  March, 
1837). 

"From  thy  friend  the  sooltan  the  sublime,  son  of 
the  sooltan,  Abd-Allah  the  sublime,  Shirazy." 

•  It  is  refreshing  to  know  that  there  is  an  island  where  "  let- 
ters" and  a  "  man-of-war-ship"  arc  convertible  equivalent*. 


As  a  long  lesson  of  civilization,  I  have  advised  my 
friend  Palmer,  "the  magnificent,  the  contented,"  to 
send  out  to  his  friend,  the  sultan  of  the  Comoros,  a 
youth  accomplished  in  compounding  the  following 
drinks  (copied  from  the  bill  of  fare  of  a  new  restaurant 
in  Boston) : — 

"  Plain  mint-julep,  fancy  do.,  mixed  do.,  peach  do., 
orange  do.,  pineapple  do.,  claret  do.,  capped  do., 
strawberry  do.,  arrack  do.,  racehorse  do.  Sherry- 
cobbler,  rochelle  do.,  arrack  do.,  peach  do.,  claret  do., 
Tip-and-Ty,  fiscal  agent,  veto,  I.  O.  U.,  Tippe-Na- 
Pecco,  moral  suasion,  vox-populi,  ne-plus-ultra, 
Shambro,  pig-and-whistle,  citronella  jam,  egg-nog, 
Sargent,  silver-top,  poor-man's  punch,  arrack-punch, 
iced  punch,  spiced  punch,  epicure's  punch,  milk- 
punch,  peach-punch,  Jewett's  fancy,  deacon,  ex- 
change, stone-wall,  Virginia  fancy,  Knickerbocker, 
smasher,  floater,  sifter,  soda-punch,  soda,  mead,  mul- 
led wines  of  all  descriptions." 

After  this  array  of  compounds,  I  think  the  vexed 
question  of  the  ingredients  of  FalstafFs  sack  must 
sink  into  insignificance.  I  understand  that  a  shop  is 
opened  in  the  Strand,  London,  for  the  sale  of  these 
potations — one  instance,  at  least,  of  a  vice  of  civiliza- 
tion going  eastward.  We  must  wear  it  for  our  feath- 
er— since  our  drinks  are  the  only  feature  of  our  coun- 
try for  which  Dickens  gives  us  unqualified  praise. 


The  "  life-preserving  coffin,"  lately  exhibited  at  the 
fair  of  the  Institute,  is  so  constructed  as  to  fly  open 
with  the  least  stir  of  the  occupant,  and  made  as  com- 
fortable within  as  if  intended  for  a  temporary  lodging. 
The  proprietor  recommends  (which,  indeed,  it  would 
be  useless  without)  a  corresponding  facility  of  exit 
from  the  vault,  and  arraugements  for  privacy,  light, 
and  fresh  air — in  short,  all  that  would  be  agreeable  to 
the  revenant  on  first  waking.  Not  being,  myself,  a 
person  wholly  incapable  of  changing  my  mind,  I  felt, 
for  the  first  time  in  my  life,  some  little  alarm  as  to  the 
frequency  of  trance  or  suspended  animation,  and  see- 
ing a  coffin-shop  near  Niblo's,  I  ventured  to  call  on 
the  proprietor  (Mr.  D ,  a  most  respectable  under- 
taker) and  make  a  few  inquiries.  Mr.  D.  buries  from 
one  to  three  persons  a  day,  averaging  from  six  to  eight 
hundred  annually.  He  has  never  been  called  upon  to 
inter  the  same  gentleman  twice,  in  a  professional 
practice  of  many  years.  He  has  seen  a  great  number 
of  coffins  reopened,  and  never  a  sign  of  the  person's 
having  moved,  except  by  sliding  in  bringing  down 
stairs.  I  mentioned  to  him  an  instance  that  came  to 
my  own  knowledge,  of  a  young  lady,  who  was  found 
turned  upon  her  face — disinterred  the  day  after  her 
burial,  to  be  shown  to  a  relative.  But  even  this,  he 
thought,  was  the  result  of  rude  handling  of  the  coffin. 
Mr.  D.  seemed  incredulous  as  to  any  modern  instance 
of  burial  alive.  He  had  spent  much  time  and  money, 
however,  in  experiments  to  keep  people  dead.  He 
thought  that  in  an  exhausted  receiver,  made  of  an  iron 
cylinder,  to  resist  the  pressure  of  the  air,  the  body 
could  be  kept  unchanged  for  fifty  years,  and  that,  im- 
mersed in  spirits  and  enclosed  in  lead,  the  face  would 
be  recognisable  after  twenty  years.  (The  process 
seems  both  undesirable  and  contradictory,  by-the-way, 
for  the  posthumous  drowning  of  a  man  makes  his 
death  sure,  and  he  is  kept  in  spirits  to  prevent  his  vege- 
tating— as  he  would  naturally  after  decay.) 

Incidentally,  Mr.  D.  informed  me  that  a  respectable 
funeral  in  New  York  costs  from  two  hundred  to  eight 
hundred  dollars,  being  rather  more  expensively  done 
in  New  York  and  Boston  than  in  any  other  city  except 
New  Orleans  (where  they  say  a  man  may  afford  to  live 
who  can  not  afford  to  die).  In  Philadelphia  they 
make  the  coffin  with  a  sloping  roof,  which,  he  re- 
marked, is  inconvenient  for  packing  in  vaults,  though 


640 


EPHEMERA. 


it  seems  accommodated  to  the  one  epitaph  of  the 
Romans — sit  ULi  terra  levis.  They  line  their  coffins 
more  expensively  in  Philadelphia  than  elsewhere — 
with  satin  or  velvet  instead  of  flannel — and  bury  the 
dead  in  silk  stockings  and  white  gloves.  We  have 
not  yet  arrived  at  the  ceremony  of  hired  mourners,  as 
in  England,  nor  of  plumes  to  the  hearse  and  horses. 

Notwithstanding  the  incredulity  of  my  friend  the 
undertaker,  however,  asphyxia,  or  a  suspension  of  life, 
with  all  the  appearance  of  death,  is  certified  to  in 
many  instances,  and  carefully  provided  for  in  some 
countries.  In  Frankfort,  Germany,  the  dead  man  is 
laid  in  a  well-aired  room,  and  his  hand  fastened  for 
three  days  to  a  bell-pull.  The  Romans  cut  off  one 
of  the  fingers  before  burning  the  corpse,  or  otherwise 
bestowing  it  out  of  sight.  The  Egyptians  made  sure 
by  embalming,  and  other  nations  by  frequent  washing 
and  anointing.  Medical  books  say  we  should  wait  at 
least  three  days  in  winter  and  two  in  summer,  before 
interring  the  dead.  It  has  been  suggested  that  there 
should  be  a  public  officer  who  should  carefully  ex- 
amine the  body  and  give  a  certificate,  without  which 
the  burial  should  be  illegal. 

The  embellishment  of  burial-grounds  is  one  of  the 
most  beautiful  and  commendable  features  of  our  time 
and  country.  There  always  seemed  to  me  far  too 
much  horror  connected  with  the  common  idea  of 
death  and  burial.  The  Moravians  make  flower-gar- 
dens of  their  graveyards,  and  inscribe  upon  the  stone 
at  the  head  of  the  buried  man  the  "day  he  came 
hither  and  the  day  he  went  home" — his  birthday  and 
time  of  death.  This  is  clothing  with  the  proper  as- 
pect an  event  which  is  only  an  unlinking  of  a  chain, 
no  part  of  which  can  decay — the  spirit  to  return  to  its 
fountain  and  the  body  to  be  reproduced  in  other 
forms  of  life — and  it  is  a  curious  thing  that  most 
Christians  represent  death  as  a  frightful  skeleton, 
while  the  Greeks,  who  had  no  happiness  in  their  here- 
after, painted  him  as  a  sleeping  child  or  a  beautiful 
youth.  Death  in  the  East  was  formerly  attributed  to 
the  attachment  of  a  particular  deity,  who  took  his 
favorite  to  a  better  world  ;  to  the  love  of  Aurora,  if 
the  death  happened  in  the  morning  ;  of  Selene,  if  it 
happened  at  night;  of  the  water-nymphs,  if  drowned; 
of  Jupiter,  if  killed  by  lightning.  The  caverns  where 
the  martyrs  were  laid  were  called  "chambers  of  re- 
pose." And  this,  surely,  is  the  better  impression  to 
give  of  death  to  those  whose  minds  are  forming. 
Query — whether  a  society  for  the  purpose  of  embel- 
lishing cemeteries  and  brightening  all  the  common 
surroundings  of  death  and  burial  would  not  be  worthy 
the  attention  of  some  philanthropic  enthusiast?  The 
solemnities  connected  with  a  future  life  need  not  make 
the  gate  to  it  always  so  dreadful;  and,  for  one,  I 
should  be  content  to  put  the  separation  of  soul  and 
body  on  a  level  with  the  unlinking  of  a  friendship  or 
a  change  of  opinion— erecting  a  cenotaph  for  either 
of  the  three  changes,  as  the  Pythagoreans  did  to  the 
memory  of  those  who  left  their  sect.  But  this  is 
more  an  essay  than  an  epistle. 


A  beautiful  printed  copy  of  a  "  Translation  of  ten 
cantos  of  Dante's  Inferno"  has  been  sent  me.     The 
translator  is  Mr.  Parsons,  of  Boston.     It  is  done  with 
a  great  deal  of  scholarship  and  labor,  and  an  uncommon 
felicity  of  language — all  of  which,  expended  on  an 
original  poem,  might,  with  his  talent,  have  produced 
something  as  good  as  his  translation,  though  not  as 
good    as  Dante's   Inferno.     It   strikes   me   that   any 
transfer  of  a  work  of  genius  from  one  language  to  an- 
other— professing  more  than  a  simple  rendering  of  the  I 
meaning  and  yet  giving  a  deteriorated  copy — is  a  loss  • 
of  time   and   an  injury  to  the   original  author.     Mr.  j 
Parsons  has  done   his   translation   in  double  rhyme, 


depriving  Dante  of  the  beauty  of  the  terza  rima,  and 
at  the  same  time  weakening  the  literalness  of  the 
translation  by  the  fetters  of  rhyme,  and  this  seems  to 
me  ill-advised.  There  is  no  medium,  I  think,  between 
a  translation  of  absolute  fidelity,  and  a  refusion  and 
recasting  of  the  subject-matter  by  a  genius  almost 
equal  to  the  original  author ;  and,  after  the  compara- 
tive failure  of  Byron  at  this,  Mr.  Parsons  might  hesi- 
tate.    I  hope  he  will  try  something  of  his  own. 


A  gentleman  in  New  Jersey  has  sent  us  some 
"  Lines  on  the  death  of  a  young  lady,"  and  they  ex- 
press very  natural  feelings  ;  but  with  neither  novelty 
nor  force  enough  to  entitle  them  to  print.  He  should 
be  aware,  that  while  grief  is  new,  the  most  common- 
place expression  of  it  seems  forcible  to  the  sufferer. 
The  ear  to  which 

"  The  pine-boughs  sing 
Old  songs  with  new  gladness," 

has  the  gladness  in  itself,  as  the  wounded  heart  has  in 
its  wound  the  eloquence  of  an  old  monotone  of  grief. 
If  he  is  disposed  to  sooth  his  sorrow  by  an  exercise  of 
the  imagination,  however,  he  should  brood  upon  such 
pictures  as  Shelley  draws  in  the  Witch  of  Atlas  : — 

"  For,  on  the  night  that  they  were  buried,  she 

Restored  the  embalmer's  ruining,  and  shook 
The  light  out  of  the  funeral  lamps  to  be 

A  mimic  day  within  that  deathy  nook. 
And  there  the  body  lay,  age  after  age, 

Mute,  breathing,  beating,  warm,  and  undecaying, 
Like  one  asleep  in  a  green  hermitage, 

With  gentle  dreams  upon  its  eyelids  playing." 

"  T.,"  a  Virginian,  has  one  good  touch  in  his  "  Re- 
miniscence," 

"  That  fascinating,  lustrous  eye 
Which  lighted  up  a  shady  spot," 

that  is  to  say,  if  he  meant  to  express  the  beauty  of  a 
bright  eye  set  in  a  dusky  eyelid — a  thing  we  exceed- 
ingly admire.  But  the  remainder  is  of  a  quality 
inferior  to  what  he  sent  us  before,  and  we  "  put  on  the 
break,"  rather  than  let  him  go  down  hill. 


"  A  friend"  wishes  us  to  "  do  our  part"  toward  put- 
ting down  the  abuses  and  perversions  of  criticism. 
La!  man  !  you  can't  reform  the  age  !  Besides,  criti- 
cism has  killed  itself  by  overdoing  the  matter.  Who 
judges  of  a  book  by  a  criticism  upon  it !  The  best 
way  is  to  keep  overdoing  it — to  knock  down  the  bull 
the  way  he  is  going,  not  to  keep  him  on  his  legs  by 
ineffectual  opposition.  Nobody  is  hurt  by  criticism 
now — nobody  mended.  And  what  Utopia  could 
make  it  better?  Coleridge  was  over-sensitive  on  the 
subject,  though  he  laments  the  degradation  of  authors 
very  eloquently.'  "  In  times  of  old,"  he  says,  "  books 
were  as  religious  oracles  ;  as  literature  advanced,  they 
next  became  venerable  preceptors;  they  then  de- 
scended to  the  rank  of  instructive  friends  ;  and,  as 
their  numbers  increased,  they  sunk  still  lower  to  that 
of  entertaining  companions;  and,  at  present,  they 
seem  degraded  into  culprits,  who  hold  up  their  hands 
at  the  bar  of  every  self-elected  judge  who  chooses  to 
write  from  humor  or  interest,  enmity  or  arrogance." 


That  our  leaf 


By  some  o'erhasty  angel  was  misplaced 
In  Fate's  eternal  volume," 


we  have  long  known  and  often  lamented.     There  was 

|  a  good  horse-jockey  spoiled,  in  the  making  a  poet  of 

us.  and  we  took  to  the  swing  of  an  axe  like  a  tadpole 


EPHEMERA. 


641 


to  swimming.  But  we  were  not  aware  that  we  were 
appreciated.  Some  man,  who  sees  through  our  poetic 
visor,  writes  thus  to  the  "  Ohio  Statesman"  : — 

"  The  Rev.  Mr.  Maffit  is  in  town,  exhorting  sinners 
to  repentance.  N.  P.  Willis  has  taken  up  his  quarters 
at  the  Astor  house  lor  the  winter,  I  suppose.  1  think 
Willis  would  do  better  in  the  backwoods  than  at  the 
Astor,  for  he  is  a  stout,  ablebodied  man,  and  could 
mall  his  hundred  rails  a  day  like  a  knife.  1  have  no 
notion  of  these  overgrown,  lazy  fellows,  laying  around 
the  flash  hotels,  idling  away  their  precious  time." 

First  correcting  this  gentleman's  facts  and  cacol- 
ogy (as  we  do  not  "  lay"  either  eggs  or  wagers,  and 
are  not  "  overgrown,"  being  six  feet  high  to  a  hair) — 
we  entirely  agree  with  him  as  to  our  original  destina- 
tion. We  are  a  crack  chopster,  and  for  several  win- 
ters have  fulfilled  our  destiny  with  delight — chopping 
an  avenue  through  some  woods  that  we  thought 
belonged  to  us  (which  avenue  we  finished,  for  some- 
body else,  before  we  discovered  our  mistake),  and 
never  so  happy  as  when  up  to  the  knees  in  snow,  and 
letting  it  into  the  hickories  with  a  woodman's  empha- 
sis and  discretion !  No  steam-boiler  ever  rejoiced  in 
its  escape-valve,  no  hawser  in  the  captain's  "  let  go  !" 
as  we  have  done  in  swinging  our  heart  round  and  bang- 
ing it  into  a  tree — for  the  axe  was  but  a  vicar  and  a 
vent !  "  Woodman,  spare  that  tree !"  was  the  bitterest 
veto  ever  laid  upon  our  pleasures. 

But  we  didn't  make  money  at  it.  We  saved  almost 
three  shillings  a  day  (as  to  a  "  penny  saved"  being 
"equal  to  a  penny  got,"  we  scorn  the  improbability), 
and  the  principal  profit  was  the  willingness  it  gave  us 
to  sit  still  in  our  chair  and  scribble.  No!  we  loved 
our  axe  with  a  passion.  We  feared  it  might  somehow 
turn  out  to  be  a  sinful  indulgence,  it  was  so  tempting 
and  pleasurable — but  alas  !  we  make  more  with  a  quill — 

(i(  would  half  our  wealth 
Might  buy  this  for  a  lie  !") 

and  while  that  is  the  case,  the  "  correspondent  of  the 
Ohio  Statesman"  must  pity,  not  blame,  our  exile  from 
the  woods  to  the  Astor.  Set  us  up — give  us  a  clean 
deed  of  Glenmary  and  its  woods,  a  horse  and  saddle, 
and  our  old  axe — and  never  boy  watched  the  darkening 
of  his  beard  with  the  delight  with  which  we  shall  see 
thicken  again  the  vanished  calluses  in  our  palm  !  Fie 
on  a  life  with  neither  resistance  nor  antagonism — with 
close  air,  pent  lungs,  arms  aching,  and  muscles  mana- 
cled and  numb !  Horses  to  break  and  trees  to  chop 
down  are  Paradise  to  it — we  chance  to  know — but  our 
axe  is  rusty  and  our  quill  is  busy.  Invicem  cedunt 
dolor  et  voluntas. 


Drums  are  beating  in  the  Park,  and  the  time  and 
finery  of  the  industrial  classes,  who  form  the  indus- 
trious "forces"  of  New  York,  are  under  contribution 
to  glorify  the  killer  of  Tecumseh.  Of  those  who  see 
the  show,  probably  few  will  turn  over  a  thought  which 
the  ghost  of  the  old  warrior  would  not  consider  com- 
plimentary to  himself,  and  so  perhaps  it  is  one  of  those 
cases  in  which  two  birds  are  killed  with  one  stone — as 
the  drum,  covered  with  Zisca's  skin,  both  incited  to 
battle  and  commemorated  Zisca.  Tecumseh,  though 
a  brigadier-general  in  the  British  service,  should  figure 
as  an  honored  American  ghost,  and  doubtless  will  be  ! 
so  appropriated  in  poetry,  especially  should  there  be 
written  a  poem  on  moral  courage,  of  which  his  run- 
ning away  in  his  first  fight,  and  being  indomitable  ever 
after,  shows,  1  think,  a  very  natural  and  striking  ex- 
ample. There  is  another  poetical  feature  in  his  his- 
tory— his  being  persuaded,  against  his  will,  to  marry  a 
beautiful  girl,  after  mature  age,  and  making  so  good  a 
husband.  Altogether  he  is  a  fine  hero  for  an  epic, 
and  a  great  deal  more  glorious  for  not  surviving  to  en- 
gage in  a  political  campaign. 


:  One  of  the  most  approvable  novelties  that  I  have  seen 
!  of  late  is  a  library  of  six  volumes,  upon  Needlework. 
j  It  is  a  set  of  miniature  hand-books  for  the  use  of 
I  schools  and  families,  most  neatly  printed  and  illustra- 
1  ted,  and  letting  the  reader  into  all  the  mysteries  of 
"  baby-linen,  plain  and  fancy  needlework,  embroidery, 
!  knitting,  netting,  and  tatting,  millinery,  and  diess- 
!  making,"  and  all  very  cheap  and  portable.  Redfield, 
of  Clinton  Hall,  is  the  publisher,  and  the  admirers  of 
the  notable  in  woman-worth  should  be  the  purchasers. 

Mr.  Riker  has  issued  the  first  of  his  series  of  an- 
nuals called  "The  0])al,"  of  which  Mr.  Willis  is  to  be 
the  editor.  The  present  volume,  which  contains  some 
fine  gems  of  literature,  and  is  beautifully  illustrated  by 
Chapman,  was  prepared  by  Mr.  Griswold,  though  con- 
tributed to  and  prefaced  by  the  editor  subsequently 
employed  for  the  series.  The  character  of  the  work 
is  religious,  and  the  preface  states  truly,  that  "the 
mirth  and  the  playful  elegancies  of  poetry  and  descrip- 
tive writing  are  as  truly  within  the  paths  of  religious 
reading  as  anything  else  which  shows  the  fulness  and 
variety  of  the  provision  made  for  our  happiness  when  at 
I  peace  with  ourselves.  Nothing  gay,  if  innocent  (the 
j  preface  continues),  is  out  of  place  in  an  annual  in- 
tended to  be  used  as  a  tribute  of  affection  by  the  good  ; 
and  in  this  annual,  hereafter,  that  view  will  be  kept 
before  the  eye.  Its  contents  will  be  opal-hued — re- 
flecting all  the  bright  lights  and  colors  which  the  prod- 
igality of  God's  open  hand  has  poured  upon  the  path- 
way of  life." 

Edward  S.Gould,  one  of  the  most  distinguished  of 
the  merchant-author  class  so  honorable  to  our  country, 
has  put  forth  an  abridgment  of  "Alison's  History  of 
Europe.'''  In  a  terse  and  strongly-written  preface,  he 
gives  a  resumer  of  the  whole  work,  with  a  pungent 
criticism  on  its  faults  and  injustices,  showing  that  he 
(Gould)  has  not  done  his  work  "  like  a  horse  in  a  bark- 
mill,"  but  with  a  proper  spirit  and  with  a  clear  insight. 
Of  Alison's  chapter  on  the  American  war  he  says,  very 
justly,  that  "it  is  destined  to  a  most  unenviable  noto- 
riety as  a  tissue  of  misrepresentation.  As  it  has  no 
legitimate  connexion  with  the  history  of  Europe,  it 
is  a  gratuitous  libel  on  the  people  and  institutions  of 
the  United  States,  and  as  it  could  not  be  admitted  into 
an  American  book  without  alterations  contradictory  to 
the  title-page  of  this  volume,  it  has  been  wholly 
omitted."  Mr.  Gould  is  the  son  of  the  eminent  jurist, 
Judge  Gould,  of  Connecticut,  and  is  happy  in  having 
the  energy  (in  addition  to  his  business  pursuits)  to 
turn  to  account  his  fine  natural  powers  and  good  edu- 
cation. He  is  one  of  the  best  of  our  translators,  also, 
and  the  author  of  the  new  and  humorous  work,  ".The 
Sleep-Rider  in  the  omnibus." 


A  great  deal  of  fun,  and  as  much  genius  and  pri- 
vate worth,  have  just  left  the  city  in  the  person  of 
Harry  Placide,  bound  to  New  Orleans  for  a  winter 
engagement.  The  people  of  the  cis-Atlantic  Paris 
are  to  be  congratulated  with  all  emphasis  thereupon. 
It  is  equal  to  a  day's  allowance  of  sunshine  to  see  him 
play  at  night.  He  knows  humor,  from  elegant  high 
comedy  to  irresistible  farce — from  a  hair-line  delinea- 
tion of  the  ridiculous  to  a  charcoal  sketch — and  fails 
in  nothing  he  undertakes.  With  the  exception  of 
Farren,  who  is  only  his  equal,  Placide  is  unrivalled  on 
the  English  or  American  stage.  I  wish  him  well,  and 
well  back  again.     God  bless  him! 


I  see  copied  into  the  "Literary  Gazette  and  Quar- 
terly Advertiser"  an  article  on  "Macauley's  Miscella- 
nies," which  appeared  some  time  since  in  a  Boston 


642 


EPHEMERA. 


periodical,  and  struck  me  at  the  time  as  somewhat  re- 
markable. A  lecture  on  the  habits  and  characters  of 
literary  men,  which  was  quoted  from  in  the  Boston 
papers,  has  also  attracted  great  attention  by  its  bril- 
liancy and  originality  of  view,  and  both  these  are  by  a 
very  young  business-man  in  Boston,  Mr.  E.  P.  Whip- 
ple. His  mind  is  of  the  cast  and  calibre  of  the  wri- 
ters for  the  English  magazines  often  years  ago,  and  I 
consider  him  a  mine  to  be  worked  with  great  profit  by 
the  proprietors  of  the  reviews.     His  kind  is  rare. 


I  see  that  Jules  Janin  "fobs  off"  another  annual 
upon  us  under  the  name  of  "  The  American  in  Paris." 
It  is  written  in  his  sparkling  vein,  and  translated,  as 
sparkle  always  is  translated,  with  a  loss.  The  truth 
is,  that  an  American  gentleman  of  New  York  fell  into 
Janin's  company  in  Paris,  and  showed  him  some  notes 
he  had  made  of  his  Parisian  amusements  ;  that  the 
idea  struck  the  great  feuilletoniste  of  making  this  small 
diary  the  cover  for  a  more  detailed  description  of  Paris 
than  would  otherwise  seem  "  knowing,"  and  the  first 
having  taken  and  sold,  the  second  of  a  series  has  now 
appeared.  Between  Eugene  Sue's  real  "  Mysteries 
of  Paris,"  and  Janin's  presentable  drawing-room  pic- 
tures of  it,  we  may  get  a  very  fair  idea  of  the  gay 
capital.  Janin's  preface  is  written  with  the  intention 
of  being  believed.  He  says  :  "Our  American  appears 
before  you  once  more.  Last  year,  at  the  same  period, 
he  described  to  you,  in  the  best  way  he  could,  Paris- 
ian life  during  the  brilliant  months  of  winter.  He  had 
then  arrived  at  the  great  city  at  the  very  moment  when 
the  closing  days  of  autumn  were  disappearing  beneath 
the  yellow  leaves.  A  traveller  without  affectation,  he 
asked  nothing  more  than  to  take  his  part  in  the  sweet 
joys,  lively  emotions,  and  noisy  pleasures  of  this  world 
of  the  powerful  and  the  rich ;  he  endured  as  well  as 
he  could  the  intoxications  and  the  delirium  of  the 
masked  ball — the  thousand  cross-fires  of  Parisian  con- 
versation— the  paradoxes,  the  slanders,  and  even  the 
innocent  calumnies  that  he  saw  around  him — he  en- 
tered into  all ;  he  wished  to  see  everything,  and  he 
fulfilled  his  wish.  Not  that  he  advanced  very  far  into 
the  mysteries  of  the  good  city  ;  but  he  stood,  as  one 
may  say,  on  the  edge  of  the  wood,  and  thence  he 
threw  his  curious  and  attentive  look  upon  those  gay 
and  quickly-changing  lights  and  shades.  For  a  fellow- 
countryman  of  Franklin,  our  Yankee  is  certainly 
somewhat  of  an  acute  observer.  What  he  did  not  see 
he  guessed  ;  not  sometimes  without  a  certain  discrim- 
ination and  pertinence.  That  which  we  specially  ad- 
mire in  him,  and  which  will  not  displease  the  reader, 
is  a  great  fund  of  benevolence,  a  happy  good-humor 
which  has  nothing  affected  about  it,  and  an  indiscri- 
bable  entrain  and  rapture,  which  the  greater  part  of 
the  time  keeps  the  reader  awake.  This  is  all  that  we 
can  say  in  his  favor,  for  we  are  not  of  the  number  of 
those  tiresome  editors  who  are  always  saying,  'Come 
and  see  a  masterpiece  ;  come  and  salute  a  great  man; 
the  great  man  and  the  masterpiece  were  both  invented 
by  me.'  We  hope  never  to  fall  into  this  enthusiasm, 
which  is  very  unbecoming  in  him  who  is  its  object. 
All  our  duty  as  editor  we  have  faithfully  fulfilled,  and 
now  it  is  for  the  book  to  defend  itself.  If  by  chance 
it  is  a  good  book,  depend  upon  it  the  public  will  re- 
ceive it  with  favor.  All  our  ambition  is,  that  after 
having  thoroughly  admired  the  embellishments  of 
Lami,  you  will  read  a  few  of  those  pages  in  which  the 
translator  has  endeavored  to  reproduce  somewhat  of 
the  grace,  the  vivacity,  and  the  interest  of  the  original 
book."  I  have  made  a  long  extract  from  the  preface, 
but  I  thought  it  would  amuse  you  to  see  how  the  cel- 
ebrated critic  can  talk  about  himself,  with  a  transpa- 
rent mask  over  his  face. 


A  club  howling-alley  has  been  established  in  Broad- 
way, near  Franklin  street,  most  luxurious  in  all  its  ap- 
pointments— carpets,  ottomans,  dressing-rooms,  &c. 
The  families  subscribing  are  of  the  most  fashionable 
cliques,  and  no  male  foot  is  suffered  to  enter  this  gyne- 
sian  gymnasium — the  pins  being  set  up  by  girls,  and 
the  attendance  exclusively  feminine.  The  luxuries 
remaining  to  our  sex,  up  to  the  present  time,  are 
fencing  and  boxing  —  the  usurpation  of  which  is 
probably  under  consideration.  The  fashion,  you 
would  suppose,  would  scarcely  gain  by  masculinify- 
ing,  but  the  ladies  are  wearing  broadcloth  cloaks — for 
a  beginning.  There  is  another  article  of  male  attire 
which  they  have  long  been  said  to  wear  occasionally, 
but  I  am  incredulous.     Seeing  would  be  believing. 


Mr.  Kendall,  the  popular  and  adventurous  editor  of 
the  Picayune,  has  been  "  Lucy-Long"-ing  it  some- 
what over  his  eagerly-expected  book  on  Mexico,  but 
has  lately  discovered  that  his  celebrity  would  stand 
any  halt  in  the  trumpeting.  He  purchased  recently  a 
copy  of  Captain  Marryat's  new  book,  "Monsieur  Vi- 
olet," to  go  to  bed  with  of  a  rainy  afternoon,  and  had 
the  pleasure  of  lying  on  his  back  and  reading  his  own 
adventures  amplified  in  the  best  style.by  the  author 
of  Peter  Simple.  Kendall's  letters  in  the  Picayune 
were,  of  course,  the  basis  of  the  extended  and  illus- 
trated work  he  has  in  press,  and  this  basis,  Captain 
Marryat  (who  is  a  subscriber  to  the  Picayune)  has  ta- 
ken bodily,  and  thereupon  built  his  romance  with  but 
a  small  outlay  of  his  own  clapboards  and  shingles.  An 
action  of  replevin  for  half  the  price  of  the  captain's 
copyright  would  "  he,"  I  should  think — at  least  in  the 
court  of  equity.  Mr.  Kendall,  I  had  nearly  forgotten 
to  say,  is  spoken  ill  of  in  one  portion  of  the  captain's 
book,  and  his  rejoinder  has  appeared  in  the  Courier. 


I  have  been  looking  through  the  new  publication 
called  "  Etiquette,  by  Count  D'Orsay."  That  D'Or- 
say  revised  the  book  and  lent  it  his  name  "  for  a  con- 
sideration," I  think  very  possible,  but  there  is,  to  my 
thinking,  internal  evidence  in  its  style  that  he  did 
not  write  it.  There  is  an  acquaintance  with  vulgarity, 
and  a  facility  of  "  hitting  it  on  the  raw,"  which  could 
only  have  been  acquired  by  a  conversance  of  fellowship 
with  vulgar  people,  and  D'Orsay  knows  as  much  of 
such  matters  as  the  thistle-down  while  afloat  knows 
of  the  mud  it  floats  over.  Besides,  the  vulgarities  are 
dwelt  upon  with  a  kind  of  unction  totally  foreign  to 
D'Orsay's  nature.  He  is  a  most  kindly,  as  well  as 
delicate  and  fastidious  man,  and  his  mind  would  in- 
stinctively avoid  the  knowledge  of  such  matters,  let 
alone  the  qualifying  himself  to  describe  them  graphi- 
cally. From  one  or  two  little  anecdotes  told  in  the 
book,  I  trace  its  authority  to  a  Mr.  Abraham  Hay- 
ward,  a  frequenter  of  many  different  strata  of  London 
society,  and  probably  the  best  judge  in  England  of 
what  is  "genteel,"  by  knowing  better  than  anybody 
in  England  what  is  vulgar.  It  is  undoubtedly  an  in- 
valuable book,  and  circulated  in  one  of  these  mam- 
moth editions  at  the  shilling  price,  it  will  prepare 
Americans  of  all  classes,  if  they  sin  against  good  man- 
ners at  all,  to  sin  with  knowledge — taking  away  at 
least  the  ridicule  of  the  matter. 


Dear  pastoral-minded,  centrifu gaily -bent,  and  mod- 
erately-well-off Reader,  I  address  you  "with  all  the 
honors,"  to  be  quite  sure  that  my  letter  be  not  mis- 
applied. We,  the  parties  in  this  correspondence,  are 
neither  rich  nor  poor — as  they  express  it  elegantly  in 


EPHEMERA. 


643 


the  mother-country,  "  neither  nob  nor  snob."  I  would 
the  critics  had  not  the  trick  of  calling  the  having  one's 
own  way  "  affectation;"  else  would  I  (simple  though 
I  am),  coin  for  my  own  use,  since  the  language  is  de- 
ficient in  them,  some  of  those  epithets,  descriptive  of 
a  class,  which  are  at  the  same  time  so  crisp,  definite, 
and  expressive.  For  instance  :  were  I  to  address  a 
letter  to  a  young  man  of  a  certain  style  (a  very  preva- 
lent style  indeed),  and  wish  to  convey  from  the  first 
word  my  appreciation  of  the  character  at  which  I 
aimed,  I  should  be  compelled  to  use  the  following  cir- 
cumlocution :  My  dear  universally-benevolent — i.  e. — 
spending-all-the-money-you-can-get-and-making-love- 
to-all-the-women-you-see,  young  man.  Now,  the  French 
have  a  gracious  and  modest  dissyllable  for  all  this. 
The  word  erpansif  expresses  it  all.  How  much 
briefer,  and  more  courteous,  in  the  case  just  supposed, 
could  T  commence  in  English  with,  My  dear  expansive  ! 
Again  :  in  English  we  should  say,  Oh,  you-all-thin  gs- 
to-all-men — ivho-say-you-have-no-prejudices — but-are- 
understood-by-your-friends-to-mean-no-principles  !  but 
in  German  they  phrase  it,  quite  short,  Oh,  many-sided  ! 
Understand  me  not  as  leaning  at  all  to  Carlyle's  sys- 
tem of  personification  and  word-linking.  Two  and 
three  are  five  is  better  than  Two  and.  Three  died  when 
Five  was  born,  though  this  is  but  a  moderate  illustra- 
tion of  Carlylism.  I  would  introduce  no  new  epithet 
that  is  not  the  essence  of  a  phrase,  no  new-linked 
words  that  are  not  the  chord  of  a  circumlocutory  arc. 

Touching  my  trade  : — 

In  the  matter  of  pen-craft,  I  confess  to  a  miserly 
disposition,  yearly  increasing.  It  is  natural,  I  sup- 
pose, to  tuck  up  close  the  skirts  of  those  habits  in 
which  we  run  for  our  lives  (or  livings),  and  it  is  not  in- 
consistent, I  would  fain  hope,  with  prodigality  of  other 
belongings.  In  my  college  days,  ere  1  discovered  that 
a  bore  in  my  brains  would  produce  any  better  metal 
than  brass  (bored  since  for  "  tin"),  I  had  a  most 
spendthrift  passion  for  correspondence.  Now — paid 
duly  for  my  blotted  sheet — I  think  with  penitential 
avarice  of  the  words  I  have  run  through  ! 

People  are  apt  to  fancy  it  is  a  natural  amusement — 
laborum  dulce  lenimen — for  an  author  to  write  letters, 
epitaphs,  &c.  But  there  are  two  animals  at  least,  who 
might  differ  from  that  opinion — the  author,  and  the 
baker's  horse,  out  on  a  Sunday's  excursion,  in  the  ba- 
ker's pleasure-wagon.  The  truth  is,  that  the  tax  on 
authors,  in  this  particular,  is  a  disease  in  the  literary 
system,  and  since  it  is  not  likely  to  be  cured  while  the 
human  race  want  autographs,  epitaphs,  epithalamia, 
and  opinions  on  MSS.,  the  solace  seems  to  lie  in  the 
expediency  of  fat  Jack — we  should  "  turn  the  disease 
into  commodity."  If  every  third  epitaph  in  the  grave- 
yards of  this  country  be  not   by  the  author  of , 

&c,  &c,  all  I  can  say  is,  there  must  be  a  very  con- 
siderable number  of  gravestones;  and  I  am  only  sorry 
that  I  did  not  take  out  copyrights  from  the  start,  and 
serve  injunctions  on  plagiarizing  stonecutters.  Here 
is  a  letter  now  from  a  gentleman  in  Arkansas  (whose 
grammar,  by  the  way,  is  not  very  pellucid),  informing 
me  that  his  wife  is  dead,  and  giving  me  an  inventory  of 
her  virtues  ;  and  I  am  requested  to  write  the  lady's 
epitaph,  and  send  it  on  in  time  for  the  expectant  mar- 
ble. Of  course  I  am  extremely  sorry  the  lady  is  dead, 
and  since  she  was  "  such  a  pagoda  of  perfection,"  as 
Mrs.  Ramsbottom  would  sny,  very  sorry  I  had  not  the 
pleasure  of  her  acquaintance  ;  but  my  "  head"  is  not 
"  waters"  (nor  am  I  teetotaller  enough  to  wish  it 
were),  and  I  can  not  weep  for  all  the  nice  women  who 
die,  though  grieved  to  think  this  particular  style  of 
person  should  diminish.  Ours  is  a  most  romantic 
nation,  for  it  would  seem  that  there  are  few  who  do 
not  think  their  private  sorrows  worthy  of  poetry,  and 
the  distinction  between  meurn  and  tuum  (as  to  authors) 
having  long  ago  been  broken  down  by  our  copyright 
robberies,  the  time  and  brains  of  poets  are  considered 


common  property.  People,  accustomed  to  call  for 
poetry  when  they  want  it,  look  upon  the  poet,  quoad 
hoc,  as  they  do  upon  the  town-pump,  and  would  be  as 
much  surprised  at  a  charge  for  poetry  as  for  water. 
Possibly  it  is  one  of  the  features  of  a  new  country.  I 
have  lived  in  a  neighborhood  where  the  stopping  of  a 
man  who  should  be  taking  what  fruit  he  wanted  from 
your  garden,  or  what  fuel  he  wanted  from  your 
woods,  would  surprise  him  as  much  as  stopping  his 
nostrils  with  corks,  till  he  was  off  your  premises  ; 
and  with  fruit  and  fuel,  perhaps,  time  and  brains  may 
assume  a  value.  At  present  (it  may  as  well  be  re- 
corded among  the  statistics  of  the  country),  poets, 
lumber,  and  watermelons,  are  among  the  "  inaliena- 
ble rights  of  freemen." 

One  of  the  lesser  evils  of  this  appetite  for  sympa- 
thy in  rhyme,  is  the  very  natural  forgetfulness  of  a 
man  absorbed  in  grief,  touching  the  trifle  of  postage. 
Reading  a  death  in  the  newspaper  affects  me,  now, 
like  seeing  myself  charged  with  eighteen  and  three 
quarters  cents  at  the  grocer's.  If  I  were  writing  from 
the  "  palace  of  truth,"  to  one  of  my  "  bereaved  hus- 
bands," I  should  still  stoutly  assure  him  of  my  sym- 
pathy, having  lost  one  and  sixpence  by  the  same  mel- 
ancholy event.  My  bill  of  mortality  (postage,  they 
call  it)  would  frank  me  for  boiled  oysters  at  Flor- 
ence's, the  year  round,  and,  begging  pardon  of  the 
survivors  (not  the  oyster-shells),  I  should  like  it  in 
that  shape  quite  as  well. 

Hereafter,  I  shall  make  an  effort  to  transfer  the  ci- 
pher to  the  other  side  of  the  unit.     If  called  upon  to 
mourn  (in  black  and  white)  for  people  I  never  before 
heard  of,  I  propose  to  send  my  effusion  as  "  commod- 
ity," to  the  first  "  enterprising  publisher"  who  pays. 
Honor  bright  as  to  by-gones — let  them  be  by-gones  ! 
Indeed,  they  are  mostly  too  personal   to  interest  the 
public,  one  of  the  most  felicitous  of  my  elegies  turn- 
ing (by  request)  on  the  deceased's  "fascinating  and 
love-inspiring  lisps."     But  in  all  composed,  after  this 
date,  I  shall  contrive  so   to   generalize  on  the  virtues 
and  accomplishments  commemorated,  that  the  eulogy 
will  apply  promiscuously  to   all  overrated  relatives — 
,  of  course,  forming,  for  a  literary  magazine,  an  attrac- 
tion which  comes  home  to  everybody's  business  and 
bosom.     I  may   premise,  by  the  way,  that  my  adver- 
tisement  to   this  effect  would   be   addressed  only  to 
mourners  of  my  own  sex,  and  that  ladies,  as  is  hardly 
i  necessary  to  mention,  are  supplied  with   epitaphs  on 
;  their  husbands,  without  publicity  or  charge  ;  though 
j  it  is  a  curious  fact  that  my  customers,  in  the  epitaph 
|  line,  have   hitherto   been   widowers  only  !     Whether 
widows   choose  usually  some  other  vehicle   for  the 
I  expression  of  their  grief,  preferring  that  it  should  be 
|  recorded  on  tablets  less  durable  than  marble  (pardon 
j  me  !  more  durable  !)   I   have  no  data  for  deciding.     I 
merely  contribute  this  fact  also  to  statistics. 


"Pray,  how  does  that  face  deserve  framing  and  gla- 
zing ?"  asked  a  visiter,  to-day.  The  question  had 
J  been  asked  before.  It  is  a  copy  from  a  head  in  some 
old  picture — one  of  a  series  of  studies  from  the  ancient 
masters,  lithographed  in  France.  It  represents  a  peas- 
ant of  the  campagna,  and  certainly,  in  Broadway,  she 
|  would  pass  for  a  coarse  woman,  and  not  beautiful  for 
a  coarse  one.  I  have  been  brought  to  think  the  head 
coarse  and  plain,  however,  by  being  often  called  on  to 
defend  it.  I  did  not  think  so  when  I  bought  it  in  a 
print-shop  in  London.  I  do  not  now,  unless  under 
catechism. 

To  me,  the  whole  climate  of  Italy  is  expressed  in 
I  the  face  of  that  Contadina.  It  is  a  large,  cubical- 
I  edged,  massy  style  of  feature,  which,  born  in  Scot- 
I  land,  would  have  been  singularly  harsh  and  inflexible. 
!  There  is  no  refinement  in  it  now,  and,  to  he  sure,  lit- 


644 


EPHEMERA. 


tie  mobility  or  thought — but  it  is  a  face  iu  which  there 
is  no  resistance.  That  is  its  peculiarity.  The  heavy 
eyelid  droops  in  indolent  animal  repose.  The  lips  are 
drowsily  sweet.  The  nostrils  seem  never  to  have 
been  distended  nor  contracted.  The  muscles  of  the 
lips  and  cheeks  have  never  tingled  nor  parched.  It  is 
a  face  on  which  a  harsh  wind  never  blew.  If  the 
woman  be  forty,  those  features  have  been  forty  years 
sleeping  in  balm — enjoying  only — resisting,  enduring, 
never.  No  one  could  look  on  it  and  fancy  it  had  ever 
suffered  or  been  uncomfortable,  or  dreaded  wind  or 
sun,  summer  or  winter.  A  picture  of  St.  Peter's — a 
mosaic  of  Paestum — a  print  of  Vesuvius  or  the  Cam- 
panile— none  of  the  common  souvenirs  of  travel  would 
be  to  me  half  so  redolent  of  Italy. 


By  special  favor  I  got  a  sight,  while  in  Boston,  of 
Crawford's  statue  of  Orpheus,  not  yet  open  for  public 
exhibition.  As  I  stated  in  a  former  letter,  the  Athe- 
nceuni  has,  most  appreciatively,  erected  anew  building 
expressly  for  this  work  of  art,  and  nothing  remains  to 
De  done  but  the  finishing  of  the  walls  of  the  interior. 
It  is  a  lofty  room,  and  the  statue  is  placed  on  a  pedes- 
tal of  masonry  (rather  oddly  I  thought)  in  the  corner. 
It  was,  unfortunately,  badly  packed  at  Florence,  and 
when  taken  from  the  box,  in  Boston,  the  legs  were 
found  to  be  both  broken  off.  Mr.  Dexter,  a  young 
sculptor  of  singular  mechanical  dexterity,  as  well  as 
promising  genius  (the  author  of  the  admirable  bust  of 
Dickens),  was  employed  to  restore  it,  and  has  done  it 
wonderfully.  It  requires  close  examination  to  per- 
ceive the  fracture,  and  the  discoloration  might  easily 
be  taken,  even  then,  for  stains  in  the  marble,  so  evi- 
dently are  the  statuary  lines  preserved  as  the  artist 
designed  them. 

The  statue  is  of  the  size  of  life — nude,  with  the 
exception  of  a  short  mantle,  and  sandals  upon  the 
feet.  Orpheus  is  represented  as  just  emerging  from 
hell,  and  passing  Cerberus,  whom  he  has  put  to  sleep 
with  his  music.  The  three-headed  dog  is  "  nid,  nid, 
nodding"  with  his  three  heads,  and  either  has  two 
tails  (which  was  not  down  in  my  mythology)  or  his 
unicaud  is  carefully  combed  away,  madonna-wise,  into 
two  parts.  The  figure  is  bent  over,  like  a  man  emer- 
ging from  a  cavern,  and  the  right  hand  is  held  over 
the  eyes  as  if  to  protect  them  from  the  sudden  blaze 
of  daylight,  while  the  mantle  is  lifted  from  the  back 
by  the  current  of  air  rushing  in,  leaving  the  body  and 
limbs,  by  this  natural  and  poetical  contrivance,  nude 
for  sculpture.  The  face  of  Orpheus,  like  the  action 
and  feeling  of  the  limbs,  expresses  intent,  but  soft  and 
subdued  earnestness.  It  is  an  exquisitely  beautiful 
youth,  on  the  verge  of  manhood — slight,  graceful,  and 
bloomingly  filled  out;  and  I  thought  the  body  one  of 
the  most  life-like  and  perfect  representations  of  nature 
I  had  ever  seen  in  marble.  I  presume  the  artist 
intended  to  represent  Orpheus  at  the  moment  before 
he  sends  his  wife  back  to  hell  by  looking  prematurely 
after  her.  (Query— moral  ?)  He  holds  the  lyre,  with 
which  he  has  just  charmed  the  infernals,  upon  his  left 
hip,  and  the  eager  action,  expressing  the  instant  pre- 
ceding the  completion  of  a  desperate  undertaking,  is 
finely  conceived,  and  breathed  into  sculpture.  The 
only  objection  I  could  make  to  the  statue  was  one 
that  is  simply  a  difference  of  conception,  and,  to  his 
own,  the  artist  is  quite  entitled.  I  expected  a  less 
effeminate  person  and  countenance.  Orpheus  was  an 
"  old  married  man,"  and  a  reformer  and  lawgiver  before 
Eurydice's  fatal  flirtation  with  Aristseus  ;  and  his  char- 
acter, both  in  fact  and  fable,  in  tradition  and  in  Virgil's 
verse,  was  one  of  the  most  masculine  and  self-denying 
energy.  He  was  a  Grahamite,  too  (the  only  man  of 
that  age  who  would  not  eat  flesh  and  eggs),  and  was 
finally  torn  in  pieces  by  the  women  because  he  was  an 


incorrigible  widower — both  which  evince  rather  harsh 
qualities,  and  are  not  expressed  in  the  Cupidon  figure 
of  Crawford's  Orpheus.  I  am  glad  I  have  such  trouble 
to  find  a  fault,  however,  and  I  rejoice  in  the  work  al- 
together, as  a  most  triumphant  effort  of  American 
genius. 

I  saw  another  fine  piece  of  art  in  Boston — Harding's 
full-length  portrait  of  Governor  Seward.  It  carries 
conviction,  at  a  first  glance,  that  it  is  true  to  the  life, 
and,  indeed,  a  finer  piece  of  work  than  the  head  can 
not  be  found  in  the  portrait-painting  of  this  country. 
It  is  breathing  with  character  and  individuality,  and  an 
absolute  likeness,  besides  being  faultless  in  color.  The 
figure  is  correctly  done,  no  doubt,  but  Jupiter  himself 
in  black  coat  and  trousers  would  be  unpicturesque, 
and  Harding  has  done  his  possible,  redeeming  the  hor- 
rors of  modern  costume  a  little  by  an  ingenious  and 
graceful  disposition  of  the  cloak.  Beside  this  picture 
stood  the  most  capital  portrait  of  the  country,  I 
think — Harding's  Allston.  This  "other  self"  of  the 
departed  poet-artist  is  about  to  be  engraved  in  the  best 
style  of  the  art,  I  am  happy  to  hear. 

Speaking  of  Allston,  I  was  told  in  Boston  that  his 
funeral  was  by  torch-light,  after  nine  in  the  evening, 
and  one  of  the  most  impressive  and  befitting  ceremo- 
nies ever  witnessed.  He  was  laid  on  the  bier,  simply 
wrapt  in  his  shroud  and  covered  with  a  pall,  and  was 
borne  on  men's  shoulders  to  the  tomb,  and  there  cof- 
fined. These  differences  from  ordinary  burial  were  ot 
his  own  directing  some  time  before  death.  The  wish 
to  be  excepted  from  the  commonplace  horrors  of 
burial  would  be  very  natural  to  a  mind  like  Allston's. 


The  lecturing  system,  which  the  Evening  Post 
thinks  is  dying  by  surfeit  in  New  York,  is  in  full  vigor 
in  Boston,  and  it  was  thought  that  Macready  would 
have  made  more  money  at  it  than  by  theatricals.  I 
think  myself  that  lecturers  should  be  rather  differ- 
ently chosen,  and  that  the  object  should  be  rather  to 
come  amusingly  at  the  anatomy  of  society,  than  to 
hear  the  preaching-and-water  of  which  the  lectures 
are  now  delivered.  Why  not  specify  the  subjects  and 
choose  the  lecturer  accordingly.  If  Sprague  the 
cashier  would  lecture  on  the  pathos  of  discount  and 
the  anxieties  of  investment;  if  the  head-clerk  in  a 
retail  dry-goods  shop  would  unfold  the  inveiglements 
used  for  cheapening  and  getting  credit  (life  across  the 
counter,  that  is  to  say) ;  if  a  fireman  would  give  us  the 
pros  and  cons  of  excitement  and  combination,  esprit 
de  corps,  and  what  stimulant  there  would  be  in  putting 
out  fires  for  charity  were  other  stimulants  to  fail  ;  if 
any  intelligent  business-man  or  mechanic  would  lec- 
ture simply  on  the  threads  of  society  and  common  life 
which  he  lives  by  pulling — why,  then,  it  seems  to  me, 
lectures  would  be  entertaining,  and  in  no  danger  of 
being  thinly  attended.  The  greatest  mysteries  of  life 
are  the  common  linings  of  common  brains,  and  since 
people  are  tired  of  the  "turning  out  to  the  sun"  of 
the  satin  and  velvet  of  refinement  and  education,  it 
would  be  well  to  come  to  the  plainer  stuffs  without 
ceremony.  A  lecturer  hired  to  pick  each  trade  and 
profession  of  its  mysteries,  by  diligent  inquiry,  and  to 
embody  these  mysteries  in  presentable  elocution, 
might  do  a  thriving  business. 


I  was  talking  of  pictures  just  now.  A  Boston  mer- 
chant told  me  that  he  had  made  a  considerable  spec- 
ulation lately  by  sending  fifty  "copies  of  the  old  mas- 
ters" (imported  Italian  pictures)  to  California  !  He 
chanced  to  be  passing  a  shop  where  they  were  to  be 
put  up  at  auction,  and  bought  the  lot,  fifty  paintings, 
at  ten  dollars  each,  frame  and  all.     They  sold  to  the 


EPHEMERA. 


645 


CalifomiUers  at  a  great  profit.     But  the  original  faith 
in  the  speculation  is  the  miracle  of  the  business. 


The  influenza  is  raging  in  Boston,  everybody  talking 
thick  through  the  nose.  I  never  saw  such  universality 
of  grippe.  The  air  in  New  York  is  as  pitiless  and 
penetrating  as  a  search-warrant,  but  it  seems  to  have 
the  wholesomeness  of  the  "  Etesian  breezes,"  and  a 
bad  cold  I  started  with  from  Boston  left  me  somewhere 
in  the  Sound,  for  I  arrived  without  it.  Perhaps,  like 
Eurydice,  it  turned  back  at  Hellgate. 


The  pulse  of  Broadway  is  accelerated  to  fever-beat. 
There  is  good  sleighing  in  the  white  margins  of  that 
long  page  of  black-letter,  and  the  astonished  coal  and 
smoke  at  weathercock  level  is  doubtless  agitated  vio- 
lently with  the  change  from  the  contralto  monotone  of 
wheels  to  the  "frightful  tintamarre"  of  bell-metal. 
Sidewalks  wet  and  slippery. 


A  very  short  absence  from  a  great  city  unhinges 
one's  metropolitan  habitude,  and  on  returning,  one 
looks  at  the  placards  on  the  walls  as  one  does  at  the 
features  of  a  long-absent  friend,  doubtful  of  what  de- 
gree of  change  these  superficial  lines  may  be  the  ex- 
ponents. None  but  your  diurnal  cit  reads  playbills 
with  indifference  and  incredulity !  The  writing  on 
the  walls  just  now  is,  more  than  usual,  flowery  in  its 
promises  of  amusement,  and  though  "  promising  is  the 
very  air  o'  the  time,"  and  "  performance  is  ever  the  dul- 
ler for  his  act,"  I  wanted  last  night  a  Mephistophilian 
ubiquity — the  temptations  were  so  many.  Niblo's 
equestrian  pageants  are  glowingly  advertised,  and  said 
to  be  very  splendid.  New  dancing-girls  at  the  Chat- 
ham— new  fun  at  Mitchell's  Olympic — concerts  in  all 
directions — lectures  more  than  plenty — fortune-tellers 
and  jugglers,  dwarfs  and  fat  children,  new  oyster  pal- 
aces, and  all  manner  of  balls,  bewilder  the  eye  of  the 
street  passenger  with  their  rhetoric  of  placard. 

Macready  was  playing  Werner  at  the  Park  last 
night,  and  I  looked  in  for  a  few  moments.  The  house 
was  about  half  full.  As  I  entered  he  was  commencing 
the  long  passage  of  reproach  to  Ulric,  which  he  utters 
throughout  at  the  tip-toe  agony  scream.  A  smart 
friction  of  the  tympanum  of  the  ear  with  a  nutmeg- 
grater  would  be  an  emollient  in  comparison.  Why 
should  this  accomplished  actor  aggravate  his  defects 
so  painfully  !  That  pipe  of  his  would  have  been  a 
disqualification  for  any  viva-voce  vocation  to  the  mind 
of  a  less  persevering  man,  but  it  seems  to  me  that  its 
dissonance  might  be  abated  by  the  degree  of  disci- 
pline he  is  willing  to  practise  on  other  capabilities.  He 
was  well  supported,  by  the  way,  by  Miss  Cushman. 
Mrs.  Sloman  has  given  place  to  this  lady  and  returned 
to  the  shades  of  the  past  generation.  Her  Orpheus, 
Mr.  Simpson,  will  not  go  after  her  again,  it  is  to  be 
hoped. 

A  sudden  impulse,  as  I  came  out  of  the  theatre,  led 
me  to  the  discovery  of  a  new  milliners'-land  in  New 
York,  the  existence  of  which,  "minion  of  the  lamps" 
as  I  have  been,  I  had  not  suspected.  I  jumped  into 
an  omnibus  that  was  passing,  with  a  mere  curiosity  to 
see  how  far  into  the  orient  the  brilliant  shops  of  East 
Broadway  extended.  "We  passed  by  the  terra  cognita 
of  Catharine  street  and  Chatham,  and  their  pictu- 
resque sellers  of  chestnuts  by  torch-light,  and  kept  up 
the  well-lighted  avenue  of  the  Bowery,  when  (to  my 
momentary  disappointment)  the  omnibus  turned 
suddenly  to  the  right,  down  Grand  street.  As  the 
brilliancy  of  the  lamps  and  shop-windows  did  not 
diminish,  however,  I  kept  my  seat,  and,  to  my  sur- 


prise, rode  on  through  a  new  Broadway  which  seemed 
to  me  interminable.  I  got  out  at  last  to  walk  back 
and  look  at  it  more  leisurely.  The  shops  on  the 
south  side  were  nearly  all  those  of  milliners  and  fancy- 
article  dealers,  differing  from  those  of  Greenwich 
street,  on  the  other  side  of  the  city,  in  being  smaller, 
brighter-colored  in  the  array  of  goods  (as  if  minister- 
ing to  a  gaudier  taste),  and  more  in  the  style  of  street 
stalls,  such  as  are  common  in  small  Italian  towns. 
There  was  another  primitive  peculiarity  in  the  appa- 
rent custom  in  that  region,  for  the  whole  family  to 
wait  behind  the  counter.  In  one  very  crowded  and 
low-raftered  shop,  the  sign  of  which  was  "  Cheap 
Jemmy,"  the  mother  and  half  a  dozen  stout  daugh- 
ters were  all  busy  waiting  on  customers,  while  a  child 
in  arms  was  dandled  by  a  little  girl  sitting  by  the  stove. 
Everything  about  the  shop  was  of  the  strictest  school 
of  the  thrifty  primitive.  Seeing  a  pretty  and  intelligent- 
looking  milliner  with  her  hands  crossed  over  the  glass 
case  on  her  counter,  a  few  doors  from  "Cheap  Jem- 
my," I  went  in  and  bought  a  pair  of  gloves,  for  the 
sake  of  asking  a  question  or  two.  She  said  rents 
were  much  cheaper  in  Grand  street  than  in  the  other 
shopping  streets  of  the  city,  and  goods  proportionally 
cheaper.  The  colored  people  do  their  shopping  prin- 
cipally there.  She  was  not  acquainted  s»t  all  in  Grand 
street.  When  she  wanted  to  go  out  she  got  into  an 
omnibus  and  went  down  town.  Altogether,  the  Grand 
street  shops  are  unlike  the  other  parts  of  the  city — 
gayer  and  more  picturesque — and  life  seems  to  be 
centralized  and  crowded  together  there,  as  if  it  were  a 
suburb  across  a  river.  I  must  give  you  some  notion 
of  the  geography  of  this  quarter.  Imagine  Manhat- 
tan to  be  a  man-with-a-hat-on  (Union  square  the  hat), 
lying  on  his  back,  with  Castle  Garden  for  a  bunnion 
on  his  great  toe,  Broadway  would  be  his  spine  and 
intestinal  canal,  Chelsea  and  Greenwich  his  right  arm, 
Grand  street  his  outstretched  left  arm,  the  Tabernacle 
and  Tombs,  City  Hall  and  Park,  his  rotund  corpora- 
tion, spleen,  liver,  &c.  In  ancient  times  the  resem- 
blance would  have  been  seized  upon  at  once  for  a 
deification. 


A  chef  d'auvre  of  daguerreotype  is  in  preparation. 
The  senate-chamber  is  to  be  engraved  after  photo- 
graphs in  the  best  style  of  Apollo,  Chilton,  and 
Edwards !  These  gentlemen  (the  god  of  light  not  the 
least  enterprising  and  efficient  of  the  three)  have  in 
preparation  a  magnificent  engraving  of  the  senators  in 
appropriate  positions,  after  the  manner  of  some  of  the 
finest  English  prints.  This  is  a  bold  and  beautiful 
undertaking,  and  from  the"  known  skill  3nd  enterprise 
of  these  gentlemen,  will  doubtless  be  successfully 
accomplished.  Whether  an  adequate  recompense 
can  be  realized  in  this  country  remains  to  be  seen. 
Most  of  the  miniatures  for  this  engraving  were  ob- 
tained at  the  daguerreotype  gallery  of  these  gentle- 
men, and  theirs  is  an  art  particularly  suited  to  the 
transfer  of  the  strong  lineaments  of  senatorial  faces. 
The  engraving  will  be  a  curiosity.  A  celebrated 
artist  is  to  be  employed  for  the  grouping. 


Late  last  night,  the  Norwegian,  Ole  Bull  (pro- 
nounced Olay  Bull),  did  the  magnanimous,  and  yield- 
ed the  use  of  one  of  the  world's  entire  evenings  to 
his  rival,  Vieux-lemps,  whose  concert  comes  off",  there- 
fore, as  announced,  this  evening.  I  shall  go  to  hear 
him,  and  will  tell  you  all  I  can  fathom  in  what  I  hear. 

I  do  not  believe  that  the  leaven  of  cognoscenti, 
which  "  leavens  the  whole  lump"  into  rapture  with 
these  performers,  amounts  to  more  than  three  people 
in  an  audience  of  three  thousand,  and  I  think  that 
even  those  three  would  be  puzzled  to  distinguish  be- 


646 


EPHEMERA. 


tween  Wallace,  Ole  Bull,  and  Vieux-temps,  if  they 
played  the  same  pieces  behind  a  screen.  (I  do  not 
mention  Artot,  because  he  plays  to  the  heart  exclu- 
sively.) 

Nobody  with  nerves  can  sit  out  a  concert,  it  is  true, 
without  having  the  keys  of  tears  occasionally  swept 
over,  as  a  child,  thrumming  a  piano,  will  occasionally 
produce  a  sweet  or  mournful  combination  of  sounds 
by  accident.  But  because  our  eyes  are  once  or  twice 
moistened,  and  because  we  occasionally  feel  that  the 
corner  of  the  veil  is  twitched  which  separates  us  from 
the  chainless  articulation  we  ache  after,  it  is  no  sign 
that  we  at  all  comprehend  the  drift  of  the  player's 
meaning,  or  see  into  the  world  of  complex  harmony 
whither  he  gropes  but  confusedly  himself.  I  have 
not  heard  the  violin  of  Ole  Bull,  but  I  have  talked  with 
him  for  an  hour  or  two,  and  I  think  he  is  one  of  the 
most  inspired  creatures  (and  I  should  have  thought 
so  if  I  had  met  him  as  a  savage  in  the  woods)  whose 
conversation  I  have  ever  listened  to.  He  talks  a 
braided  language  of  French,  Italian,  and  English, 
plucking  expression  to  himself  with  a  clutch;  and 
though  he  moulds  every  idea  with  a  powerful  origi- 
nality, he  evidently  does  not  give  birth  to  more  than  a 
fraction  of  what  is  writhing  in  his  brain.  If  there 
were  a  volcano  missing  in  Norway,  I  should  fancy  we 
had  encountered  it  on  its  travels — the  crater  not  pro- 
vided for  in  its  human  metempsychosis.  Probably 
Ole  Bull  finds  his  violin  a  much  more  copious  vent 
than  language,  for  his  imprisoned  lava — but  to  coin 
that  lava  into  language  as  he  pours  it  out  in  tangled 
chromatics,  would  be  to  comprehend  his  music,  and 
that,  I  say  again,  is  not  done  by  more  than  three  in 
three  thousand,  if  done  at  all!  I  told  him  I  should 
like  to  hear  him  play  a  I'improvista,  after  he  had  seen 
Niagara,  and  upon  that  he  gave  me  a  description  of 
wild  Norwegian  scenery,  describing  how  he  had  tried 
to  utter  in  music  the  effect  it  had  produced  upon 
him — gave  it  me  with  a  "  fine  phrensy,"  that  pulled 
hard  (and  I  should  like  to  know  the  philosophy  of 
that)  upon  the  roots  of  my  hair.  There  is  something 
weird  and  supernatural  about  the  man. 

Mechanical  dexterity  on  the  violin  has  as  much  to 
do  with  music,  I  believe,  as  drawing  a  bank-check  has 
to  do  with  credit  at  the  bank — a  very  necessary  part 
of  the  matter,  but  owing  its  value  entirely  to  what 
has  gone  before.  Music  is  mind  expressed  in  one  of 
the  half-dozen  languages  we  possess — and  as  capable 
of  logic  and  transfer  into  words,  as  painting  or  poetry, 
or  expression  of  feature  and  gesture.  Ole  Bull,  when 
playing,  has  (or  ought  to  have)  an  explainable  argu- 
ment in  his  mind,  and  the  bridge  wanting  between 
him  and  his  audience  is  a  translation  of  his  musical 
argument  into  language — given  before  or  after  the 
performance.  This  he  could  easily  do.  At  present, 
it  is,  to  the  audience,  like  a  most  eloquent  oration  in 
an  unknown  tongue— comprehensible  only  to  the  or- 
ator. 

I  have  elsewhere  mentioned,  that  while  at  Vien- 
na, 1  saw  a  self-educated  philosopher  at  the  institute, 
who  was  discovering  the  link  between  music  and  ge- 
ometry. He  took  a  pane  of  glass  and  covered  it 
sparsely  with  dry  sand,  and  then,  by  drawing  a  par- 
ticular note  upon  the  edge  with  a  fiddle-bow,  he 
drove  the  sand  by  the  vibration  into  a  well-defined 
circle,  or  triangle,  or  square — whichever  we  chose  of 
half-a-dozen  geometrical  figures.  I  have  looked  ever 
since,  to  hear  of  an  advancement  in  this  phase  of  da- 
guerreotype. Once  reduced  to  a  grammar,  music 
would  be  as  articulate  as  oratory,  and  we  should  be 
able  to  distinguish  its  sense  from  its  gibberish. 

In  person,  Ole  Bull  is  a  massive,  gladiator-like 
creature,  rather  uncouth,  passionately  impulsive  in 
his  manners,  and  with  a  confused  face,  which  only 
becomes  legible  with  extreme  animation.  Wide- 
awake, he  is  often  handsome — fast-asleep,  he  is  doubt- 


less as  plain  as  a  Norwegian  boulder-stone.  If  he 
ever  work  his  musical  logic  up  to  his  musical  impulse 
and  execution,  he  will  hang  the  first  lamp  in  the  dark- 
est chamber  of  human  comprehension. 


I  have  two  more  steps  to  announce  to  you  in  the 
advance  of  the  gynocracy.  There  is  a  gymnasium 
in  the  upper  part  of  Broadway,  where  the  ladies  don 
the  Turkish  costume,  and  are  taught  sparring  and 
climbing  in  jackets  and  loose  trousers.  Greatcoats 
with  a  snug  fit  to  the  back  are  superseding  cloaks  for 
ladies'  out-of-door  wear.  "Merciful  heavings!"  as 
Dick  Swiveller  would  say. 

I  have  been  looking  over  a  file  of  English  papers, 
published  at  Canton,  China,  in  which  I  find  that  the 
interpreter  to  the  French  consulate  has  obtained  a 
copy  of  the  famous  Chinese  dictionary,  which  is  an 
encyclopedia  of  the  history,  sciences,  arts,  habits,  and 
usages  of  the  Chinese,  composed  at  the  commence- 
ment of  the  eighteenth  century  by  order  of  the  em- 
peror Ram-hi.  A  very  small  number  of  these  was 
printed,  for  the  emperor  and  principal  functionaries 
of  the  empire  only.  It  is  to  be  reprinted  immediately, 
with  a  French  and  English  translation.  Mr.  Cushing 
goes  there  in  a  good  time  for  finding  the  material  he 
will  want  for  researches,  literary  and  political. 


It  is  curious  how  much  may  be  born  of  "a  scrape" 
between  catgut  and  horsehair!  We  have  had  two 
nights  of  violin-phrensy,  and  applause,  for  a  trick 
with  a  fiddle-bow,  that  would  have  embalmed  the 
heart  of  Demosthenes  within  him.  The  beau  monde 
has  given  a  fair  hearing  to  the  rival  elbows,  and,  by  ac- 
clamation, at  least,  Ole  Bull  has  it.  As  it  is  the  rage, 
and,  as  even  sages  take  interest  in  rages,  perhaps  I 
had  better  "make  a  clean  breast,"  and  tell  you  all  I 
know  about  it — albeit,  like  barley-water,  if  the  fever 
were  cured,  it  would  be  unpalatable  slop. 

The  conversation  of  the  town,  of  course,  is  largely 
embroidered  with  the  concernings  of  these  fiddle- 
monsters,  and  news,  as  you  know,  is  stripped,  like 
corn,  of  much  of  its  picturesque  outer  husk  and  silk- 
en lining  before  it  is  ground  into  paragraph-cakes  sent 
to  be  devoured  at  a  distance.  Ole  Bull  is  not  simply 
Ole  Bull,  but  a  star  with  four  satellites — his  grim 
keeper,  his  handsome  secretary,  his  messenger,  and 
his  lacquey.  The  door  of  his  parlor  at  the  Astor  is 
beset,  antechamber-fashion,  from  morning  till  night, 
with  orchestra-people,  people  from  the  music-shops, 
and  all  the  tribe  who  get  fat  upon  the  droppings  o( 
enthusiasm.  What  he  says  is  made  into  anecdotes, 
and  wherever  he  goes  follows  the  digito  monstrari. 
There  is  an  aristocracy  of  catgut,  however,  and  Artot 
and  Vieux-temps  look  upon  Ole  Bull  as  the  house 
of  lords  look  upon  O'Connell,  and  greet  him  as  the 
rocks  do  the  rising  tide.  Artot  has  been  a  king's 
page,  and  Vieux-temps  is,  I  believe,  a  chevalier  decore, 
and  both  of  them  have  the  porcelain  air.  The  French 
population  of  New  York  make  a  "  white-and-red- 
rose"  business  of  it;  and  it  was  remarked  last  night 
that  there  was  not  a  Frenchman  to  be  seen  at  Ole 
Bull's  concert.  Artot  is  quite  a  minion  of  popularity 
with  the  fashionables — his  expressive  eyes  and  senti- 
mental elegance  probably  the  raison  pourquoi. 

Vieux-temps's  first  concert  on  Monday  night  was  a 
very  stylish  jam.  He  is  a  small,  pony-built  man,  with 
gold  rings  in  his  ears,  and  a  face  of  genteel  ugliness, 
but  touchingly  lugubrious  in  its  expression.  With 
his  violin  at  his  shoulder,  he  has  the  air  of  a  husband 
undergoing  the  nocturnal  penance  of  walking  the 
room  with  "the  child" — and  performing  it,  too,  with 
unaffected  pity.     He  plays  with  the  purest  and  cold 


EPHEMERA. 


647 


est  perfection  of  art,  and  is  doubtless  more  learned  on 
the  violin  than  either  of  the  rival  performers,  but 
there  is  a  vitreous  clearness  and  precision  in  his  notes 
that  would  make  them  more  germaine  to  the  humor 
of  before  breakfast  than  to  the  warm  abandon  of  ves- 
per-tide. His  sister  travels  with  him  (a  pretty  blonde, 
very  unlike  him),  and  accompanies  him  on  the  piano. 

Ole  Bull's  concert  was  deferred  till  last  evening, 
and  the  immense  capacity  of  the  Tabernacle  was  filled 
to  suffocation.  He  appeared  after  the  usual  appetiser 
of  an  overture,  and  was  received  with  a  tumult.  Ver- 
ily, he  is  made  for  a  "tribune  of  the  people!"  The 
angel  who  "makes  men  politic"  never  moulded  a 
creature  more  native  to  the  central  plane  of  popular- 
ity. A  splendid  animal — herculean  and  graceful — a 
faculty  of  looking,  at  the  same  time,  overpowered  and 
self-possessed — an  unlimited  suavity  full  of  reserve — 
calm  lips  and  wild  eyes — cool  dexterity  and  desperate 
abandonment  to  his  theme — he  would  have  done  as 
well  at  anything  else  as  at  music.  He  is  what  Mrs. 
Ramsbottom  would  call  a  "  natural  pagoda." 

It  is  presumptuous  in  a  layman  of  the  religion  of 
music  to  attempt  a  critical  distinction  between  these 
two  or  three  first  violinists  of  the  world.  Anybody 
can  see  differences  in  their  playing,  but  only  a  mu- 
sician can  define  the  degrees  in  which  they  differ. 
016  Bull's  violin  seems  to  have  been  made  where 
horses  and  cats  were  of  a  wilder  breed.  He  gets  out 
of  it  a  peculiar  quality  of  note,  not  at  first  quite  satis- 
factory to  the  ear,  but  approaching  articulate  language 
as  it  departs  from  the  glassy  melody  drawn  from  the 
instrument  by  others.  [  have  no  doubt  that,  to  him- 
self, the  instrument  is  as  good  as  articulate.  He  ex- 
pects it  to  talk  intelligibly  to  others;  and  it  would, 
possibly,  to  those  who  knew  music  and  heard  him 
often.  I  proposed  to  him  in  conversation,  what  I 
think  would  test  the  expression  of  his  music  very 
fairly — the  transfer  of  Collins's  Ode  on  the  Passions 
to  the  violin.  The  audience  could  then  follow  him, 
as  they  do  an  opera  by  a  translated  libretto. 

Wallace  is  about  to  enter  the  field  against  the  vio- 
linists, many  of  the  musical  people  here  being  quite 
persuaded  that  he  plays  as  well  as  any  of  them.  He 
is  certainly  the  greatest  pianist  we  ever  had  in  Amer- 
ica, and  he  is  really  embarrassed  between  the  two  in- 
struments— the  very  highest  degree  of  excellence  re- 
quiring complete  devotion  to  one  only.  He  and  Ole 
Bull  met  one  evening  at  the  duke  of  Devonshire's  in 
London,  but  without  hearing  each  other  play,  and 
they  have  run  together,  here,  like  drops  of  water — 
similar  in  quality  and  degree  of  genius,  as  well  as  in 
impulsive  and  poetical  disposition.  They  met  in 
Bull's  room  an  evening  or  two  since  and  played  du- 
ets on  the  piano  and  violin,  solos,  &c,  till  morning. 
Wallace  likes  New  York  so  well  that  he  has  deter- 
mined to  make  it  his  residence,  publishing  his  exquis- 
ite musical  compositions  here,  &c.  He  is  a  great  ac- 
cession to  the  musical  world,  as  he  is  a  large  essen- 
tial drop  added  to  the  soul  resident  in  this  great  mass 
of  human  life.     I  offer  him  one  man's  welcome. 

I  understand  the  piano  rage  is  the  next  thing  to 
come  off,  and  that  Lizst  and  Thalberg  are  positively 
coming  over.  Taking  musical  accomplishment  in 
such  large  slices  as  we  do,  our  vast  country  is  likely 
to  become  the  main  body-corporate  of  the  music  of 
the  world.  It  pays  better  than  any  other  field  of  mu- 
sical enterprise  now. 


Happy  New-tear! — Shake  hands!  Exchange 
congratulations!  Be  merry !  Be  happy!  Another 
year  is  gone!  It  is  poetry  to  regret  the  past — only 
poetry.  Rejoice  that  the  incumbrance  of  another 
year  is  thrust  behind — that  another  gate  onward  is 
flung  open — that  though  this  youth  is  passing  or  past, 


you  are  by  so  much  nearer  to  a  new  youth  beyond — ■ 
and  better  and  brighter,  as  well  as  beyond.  There  is 
no  instinct  of  regret  for  the  past.  Spite  of  Heath 
brought  nearer,  and  the  shroud  unfolded  to  receive 
us — spite  of  Decrepitude  and  Neglect  and  Pain  rising 
up  like  phantoms  in  the  way — ice  are  happy  to  grow 
old.  The  soul  rejoices.  New-year!  New-year! 
Death  closer,  but  something  the  soul  yearns  after 
coming  at  his  heels!  Who,  upon  impulse,  would  re- 
tard time  !  Who  would — instinct  only  consulted — 
go  back!  Eternal  progress  is  the  thirst  of  life,  as  it 
is  of  the  whole  eternity  of  which  life  is  a  part.  The 
world  says  so  by  acclamation.  The  old  year's  death 
is  the  festival  of  universal  instinct.  Visit  your  friends! 
Brighten  the  links  between  you !  Forgive  slights, 
neglects,  injuries!  Go  laughing  through  the  gate  of 
the  new  year! 


The  Hebrew  Benevolent  Society  had  a  very  bril- 
liant dinner  on  Thursday,  I  understand,  and  drew  a 
large  contribution  for  its  excellent  objects  from  the 
present  possessors  of  the  "divining-rod" — the  violin- 
ists. Ole  Bull,  whose  heart  is  as  prodigal  as  his  ge- 
nius, and  who  gives  money  to  street-beggars  by  the 
handful,  gave  a  hundred  dollars,  and  Vieux-temps  and 
Wallace  agreed  to  combine  in  a  charity-concert.  The 
other  contributions,  I  understand,  were  correspond- 
ingly liberal. 


One  of  the  essays,  the  most  ad  rem  that  I  have 
lately  seen,  is  an  address  on  the  "Prevention  of  Pau- 
perism," by  a  relative  of  the  late  Dr.  Channing.  The 
preface  has  a  certain  bold  resignation  about  it  which 
is  very  idiosyncratic.  Mr.  Channing  says  that  he 
was  desired  to  read  a  discourse  before  a  society  for 
the  prevention  of  pauperism,  and  agreed  to  try  to  do 
so — but  he  did  not  know  to  what  he  had  pledged  him- 
self. He  then  defines  very  philosophically  what  he 
found,  upon  reflection,  was  to  be  his  task,  and  goes  on 
to  say  : — 

"I  went  to  work.  That  which  might,  in  the  read- 
ing, be  endured  forty  minutes,  grew  to  twice  that  al- 
lotted time,  or  more ;  and  when  the  day  came  for  the 
anniversary,  1  found  I  could  not  read  the  half  I  had 
set  down.  The  auditory  was  very  small;  and  the 
few,  at  first,  were  less  before  the  forty  minutes  were 
up.  The  contribution-boxes  came-  to  the  church- 
altar  with  little  weight  of  metal,  and  few  bills — say 
about  twenty-seven  dollars  and  twenty-three  cents,  all 
told.  Thus  was  my  work  accounted  little  and  paid 
harmoniously.  But  some,  a  very  few,  have  asked  me 
to  print  my  writing.  From  so  small  a  company  a 
large  request  could  hardly  come.  I  have  done  what 
those  few  friends  have  asked  me  to." 

The  address  is  very  philosophic,  though  tinctured 
with  peculiar  views  of  the  social  system.  The  lead- 
ing propositions,  which  are  very  eloquently  illustra- 
ted, are  worthy  the  room  they  will  take  in  these  col- 
umns, if  it  were  only  as  a  skeleton  map  of  the  sub- 
ject carefully  laid  out,  and  available  for  the  guidance 
of  inquirers : — 

"1st.  That  every  social  institution,  or  custom, 
which  separates  man  from  man — which  produces  dis- 
tinct classes  in  the  community,  having  distinct  priv- 
ileges— which  is  daily  occupied  to  build  higher  and 
stronger  the  partition-walls  between  men — such  insti- 
tution, or  custom,  I  say,  produces  and  continues  pov- 
erty. 

"2d.  That  the  political  institutions  of  society,  or 
their  administration,  frequently  become  causes  of  the 
extremest  and  widest  national  poverty. 

"3d.  That  the  spirit  of  party,  so  widely  and  deeply 
cherished  as  it  is  by  society,  does,  by  its  exclusiveness^ 


648 


EPHEMERA. 


its  selfishness,  and  its  intolerance,  minister  directly  to  I 
the  production  and  continuance  of  poverty. 

"4th.  That  such  employment  of  capital  by  society, 
as  in  its  products  ministers  only  to  the  most  debasing 
habits,  does  directly  produce  and  continue  crime  and 
poverty. 

"5th.  The  sudden  reduction  of  wages,  extended 
to  large  numbers,  is  not  only  directly  injurious  to 
wide  interests,  but  produces  pauperism. 

"6th.  That  in  a  country  like  ours,  in  which  the 
law  of  entail  does  not  exist  to  make  property  a  per- 
manent possession  in  families,  a  system  of  education 
which  has  regard  only  to  simple  mental  culture,  and 
which  leaves  the  physical  powers  uncultivated — in 
which  manual  labor,  a  practical  knowledge  of  farm- 
ing, or  the  mechanic  arts,  forms  no  part — I  say  that 
such  a  system  of  early  education  favors  the  produc- 
tion of  pauperism." 

Apropos  of  beggars — the  system  of  ingenious  beg- 
gary, so  curiously  described  in  Grant's  "Great  Me- 
tropolis," is  beginning  to  be  tried  on  in  New  York. 
There  is  one  young  lady  (of  very  correct  habits,  I 
believe,  in  point  of  fact)  who  maks  a  living  by  means 
that  wear  a  somewhat  questionable  complexion,  out  of 
"distinguished  strangers."  A  member  of  congress, 
or  a  diplomatist  in  transit,  for  example,  receives  a 
note,  the  day  after  his  arrival  is  advertised,  in  a  hand- 
writing of  singular  beauty.  In  the  most  graceful  lan- 
guage, and  with  the  daintiest  use  of  French  phrases, 
he  is  informed  that  a  young  lady  who  has  long  watch- 
ed his  career  with  the  deepest  interest — who  has  a 
feeling  for  him  which  is  a  mystery  to  herself — who 
met  him  accidentally  in  a  place  she  will  recall  to  his 
memory,  should  she  be  so  fortunate  as  to  see  him 
again — who  is  an  unhappy  creature  of  impulse,  all  too 
fondly  tender  for  this  harsh  world  and  its  construc- 
tions— would  like  to  see  him  on  a  certain  sidewalk 
between  eight  and  nine.  By  holding  his  hand  across 
his  left  breast,  he  will  be  accosted  at  that  time  and 
place.  The  ladylikeness  and  good  taste  of  the  note, 
so  different  from  the  usual  tentatives  of  that  descrip- 
tion, breed  a  second  thought  of  curiosity,  and  the 
victim  is  punctual.  After  a  turn  or  two  on  the  ap- 
pointed sidewalk,  he  encounters  a  tall  young  lady, 
deeply  veiled,  who  addresses  him  by  name,  takes  his 
arm,  and  discourses  to  him  at  first  on  his  own  am- 
bitious history,  contriving  to  say  the  true  and  flatter- 
ing thing,  for  which  she  has  duly  informed  herself. 
She  skilfully  evades  his  attempts  to  make  her  talk  of 
things  more  particular,  and  regretting  feelingly  that 
she  can  only  see  him  on  the  sidewalk,  appeals  to  his 
"well-known  generosity"  for  ten  dollars  to  keep  her 
and  her  dear  mother  from  being  turned  out  of  doors. 
She  takes  it  with  tremulous  pathos,  demands  of  his 
honor  that  he  will  not  follow  her,  and  slips  round  the 
corner  to  meet  another  "distinguished  stranger"  with 
whom  she  has  appointed  an  interview  fifteen  minutes 
later  in  the  next  street !  I  was  in  a  company  of  stran- 
gers at  a  hotel  not  long  ago,  when  one  of  these  dainty 
notes  was  produced,  and  it  so  happened  that  every 
man  present  had  one  in  his  pocket  from  the  same 
hand!  Among  the  party  there  were  four  appoint- 
ments proposed  by  the  same  lady,  to  come  off  on  the 
four  sides  of  a  certain  square,  for  that  evening  !  She 
is  probably  doing  a  good  business. 


There  has  been  a  certain  most  eligible  shop,  with  a 
most  impracticable  rent  (3  Astor  house,  rent  $1,000), 
for  a  long  time  vacant.  Yesterday  the  broad  doors 
were  thrown  open,  and  an  effulgent  placard  announced 
it  as  the  depot  of  the  Columbian  Magazine.  The 
new  periodical  lay  upon  the  counter  in  a  most  Chap- 
man-esque  cover,  lettered  gorgeously  in  vermillion 
and  azure,  with  a  device  of  Columbus  on  his  pedestal, 


John  Inman,  editor,  in  the  blue  of  the  scroll,  and  Is- 
rael Post,  publisher,  in  the  vermilion  of  the  supporting 
tablet.  (This  arrangement  is  wrong,  if  there  be  any 
meaning  in  colors,  for  the  ingredients  of  vermilion  are 
sulphur  and  quicksilver — stuff  of  better  prophecy  for 
an  editor  than  a  publisher.)  I  understand  that'  the 
foundations  of  this  new  magazine  are  thirty  thousand 
dollars  deep,  and  as  there  is  great  store  of  experience 
in  both  publisher  and  editor,  it  is  likely  to  crowd  Gra- 
ham and  Godey — though  it  will  require  almost  an 
"avatar  of  Vishnu"  to  crush  those  giants  of  monthly 
literature.  We  are  to  see  whether  magazine-popu- 
larity is  like  the  oil  from  the  glass  tomb  of  Belus — 
which,  once  exhausted,  never  could  be  refilled. 

The  history  of  the  monthlies,  for  the  last  few  years, 
forms  a  chapter  by  itself  of  American  progress.  It  is 
but  a  very  short  time  since  the  "dolhr-a-page"  of  the 
North  American  Review  was  magnificent  pay,  and 
considered  quite  sufficient  for  articles  by  Edward  Ev- 
erett !  The  old  New  York  Mirror  paid  five  hundred 
dollars  a  year  for  the  original  "Pencillings  by  the 
Way" — the  republication  of  which  has  paid  the  au- 
thor five  thousand.  Nathaniel  Greene,  of  the  Boston 
Statesman,  was  the  only  man  I  could  hear  of,  in  1827, 
who  paid  regularly  for  poetry,  and  I  have  heard  that 
Percival  was  kept  from  starving  in  New  York  by  sel- 
ling his  splendid  poem  on  the  plague  for  five  dollars!' 
I  lost  some  of  the  intermediate  steps  of  literary  valu- 
ation, but  I  think  the  burst  on  author-land  of  Gra- 
ham's and  Godey's  liberal  prices  was  like  a  sunrise 
without  a  dawn.  They  commenced  at  once  paying 
their  principal  contributors  at  the  rate  of  twelve  dol- 
lars a  page — nearly  three  times  the  amount  paid  by 
English  magazines  to  the  best  writers,  and  paying  it, 
too,  on  the  receipt  of  the  manuscript,  and  not,  as  in 
London,  on  the  publication  of  the  article.  We  owe 
to  these  two  gentlemen  the  bringing  out  of  a  host  of 
periodical  talent,  which,  but  for  their  generous  and 
prompt  pay,  would  have  remained  dormant,  or  em- 
ployed in  other  channels;  and  they  should  be  record- 
ed as  the  true  and  liberal  pioneers  of  progress  in  this 
branch  of  literature.  They  have  done  very  much  the 
same  thing  with  regard  to  engraving  and  the  encour- 
agement of  the  arts,  and  I  believe  the  effect  they  have 
produced  on  the  refinement  of  the  country  has  been 
worthy  of  note — their  beautiful  books  having  been 
sent  into  its  remotest  corners  by  their  unprecedented 
circulation. 

The  prices  paid  now  to  acceptable  magazine-wri- 
ters are  very  high,  though  the  number  of  writers  has 
increased  so  much  that  there  are  thousands  who  can 
get  no  article  accepted.  There  are  so  many  people, 
too,  who,  like  the  Ancient  Mariner,  are  under  the  dire 
compulsion  to  tell  their  tale — paid  or  not  paid — that 
any  periodical,  with  a  good  furbisher  and  mender, 
may  fill  its  pages,  for  nothing,  with  very  excellent 
reading.  A  well-known  editor  once  told  me  that  he 
could  make  a  \ery  good  living  by  the  sums  people 
were  willing  to  pay  to  see  themselves  in  print.  The 
cacoethes  scribendi  would  doubtless  support — does 
doubtless  support — a  good  many  periodicals. 


Ole  Bull  played  to  another  crammed  audience  at 
the  Park  last  night,  but  the  angel  or  demon  impris- 
oned in  this  violin  was  not  tractable.  If  it  had  been 
his  first  appearance,  be  would  have  made  a  losing  trip 
to  America.  There  was  a  tone  in  the  applause  which 
showed  very  clearly  that  his  music  was  turned  back 
at  the  inner  vestibule  of  the  ear.  He  will  probably 
redeem  himself  to-night  at  the  Tabernacle — his  clo- 
sing concert. 


I  hear  great  complaints  that  the  canvass-back  ducks 
are  not  of  as  good  flavor  as  usual  this  year.     Will 


EPHEMERA. 


649 


you  tell  us  the  pourquoi— or  whether  it  is  that  the 
wild-celery  is  not  in  perfection  this  season?  My  own 
experience  goes  the  other  way— for  such  delicious 
ducks,  so  deliciously  dressed,  1  never  saw,  as  lately  at 
"Guy's  Monument  house,"  in  Baltimore.  He  is  a 
fit  cook  for  Apicius,  it  is  true,  and  perhaps  his  sauce 
deceived  me.  But  the  canvass-back  is  part  of  our 
national  honor,  and  the  causes  of  falling  off  should 
be  looked  after. 


I  am  delighted  to  see  that  our  great  comedian, 
Harry  Placide,  is  up  to  the  lips  in  success  and  popu- 
larity in  INew  Orleans.  God  bless  those  southern 
people — they  know  a  good  thing  when  they  see  it! 
The  theatres  there  are  a  kind  of  last  appeal — confirm- 
ing just  appreciation,  and  reversing  very  often  the  cold 
injustice  of  the  north.  Wallack  is  gone  there  now, 
and  he  will  come  away  with  warm  pockets.  Burton, 
the  comedian,  is  also  in  migration — a  man  of  genius 
with  his  pen,  and  a  most  attractive  actor.  I  wish  we 
could  have  a  good  rollicking  season  of  good  acting  at 
the  Park,  and  go  in  deep  for  old-fashioned  close  criti- 
cism. 


I  sent  you  a  paragraph  yesterday  which  T  am  anx 
ious  to  overtake  with  another — though  the  paragraph- 
chase,  especially  if  the  pursuer  be  a  correction  of  an 
error,  is  much  more  desperate  than  the  shadow's  hope 
of  overtaking  the  substance.  Ole  Bull,  to  my  think- 
ing (corroborated  since  by  the  opinions  of  some  mu- 
sical people),  played  without  his  inspiration  the  last 
night  he  played  at  the  Park,  and  so  I  stated.  At  the 
Tabernacle  on  Tuesday  night,  his  violin-fiend  (or  an- 
gel) was  at  home,  and  so  completely  did  he  search 
every  chamber  of  my  sense  of  musical  delight,  and  so 
triumphantly  drive  out  all  unbelief,  and  fill  me  with 
passionate  admiration  and  wonder  at  his  skill  and 
power,  that  I  feel  a  certain  compunctious  reproach 
for  ever  having  qualified  my  homage.  One  of  his 
themes  was  a  rhapsody  of  religious  music,  composed 
by  himself,  and,  without  irreverence,  it  seemed  to  me 
that  St.  John,  in  the  Apocalyptic  vision,  could  scarcely 
have  been  within  the  compass  of  music  more  rapt  and 
unearthly.  More  than  four  thousand  people  held 
their  breath  in  ravished  ecstacy  with  this  performance,  1 
and  the  only  drawback  to  my  own  rapture  was  the  I 
conviction  that,  transparent  and  articulate  as  was  the  ( 
meaning  of  every  note,  to  translate  it  into  language 
the  poet  must  first  be  himself  translated — to  the  sphere 
and  capabilities  of  an  angel.  You  will  think  that  I, 
too,  am  "  bit  by  the  dipsas" — but  I,  at  least,  gave  up 
my  soul  to  this  Ole  Bull  madness  with  some  reluc- 
tance. Genius-like,  the  Norse  magician  is  journalier, 
as  the  French  say  ;  but  I  pray  that  when  he  shall  play 
at  Washington  he  may  "  give  a  rise"  to  the  embodied 
intellect  of  the  capital  which  will  show  them  a  heaven 
above  politics. 


The  Hibernia  has  brought  me  a  gossiping  letter 
or  two  from  England  ;  and,  by  way  of  letting  you 
down  softly  from  the  balloon-flight  of  the  paragraph 
foregoing,  I  will  quote  you  a  passage  from  the  clever 

hand  of  our  friend  S ,  the  artist,  now  resident  in 

London,  and  fully  employed  in  transferring  aristo- 
cratic beauty  to  ivory.  Buckwheat  and  molasses,  it 
should  be  premised,  are  undiscovered  luxuries  to  the 
Londoners,  and  it  is  pleasant  and  apposite,  at  this  par- 
ticular season,  when  these  friandises  are  in  conjunc- 
tive culmination,  to  see  how  they  loom  in  the  travel- 
ler's memory.     Says  our  friend  : — 

"So  you  have  taken  up  your  abode  at  the  Astor. 
You  have  done  well.  There  are  many  good  things 
it  the  Astor;  above  all.  the  buckwheats;  and  I  can 


fancy  you  at  this  moment,  while  I  am  breaking  my 
fast  upon  a  flabby  '  French  roll'  (so  called  because  no 
bread  of  the  kind  was  ever  seen  in  France),  with  a 
pile  of  them  smoking  before  you,  and  pouring  over 
them,  with  a  liberal  hand,  copious  libations  of  that 
exquisite,  delicate,  transparent  molasses  which  the  As- 
tor alone  provides,  and  which  has  always  reminded  me 
of  the  wine  of  the  veiled  prophet — 

'No  juice  of  earth  is  here, 
But  the  pure  treacle  of  that  upper  sphere 
Whose  rills  o'er  ruby  beds  and  topaz  flow, 
Catching  the  gem's  bright  color  as  they  go.'  " 


A  letter  from  a  literary  friend  in  London  informs 
me  that  Lady  Blessington  is  suffering  from  a  lethargy 
from  which  she  finds  it  next  to  impossible  to  arouse 
herself  for  literary  labor.  The  society  she  lives  in 
draws  very  exhaustingly  upon  her  powers  of  atten- 
tion, and  she  has  been  all  her  life  one  of  those  who 
"  crowd  a  year's  life  into  a  day."     My  friend  adds: — 

"  You  had  some  expectation  of  seeing  D'Orsay  in 
America,  but  he  never  had  any  intention  of  going  out. 
He  has  been  a  prisoner  for  the  last  two  years  in  Lady 
Blessington's  house,  at  Kensington.  There  is  an 
acre  or  two  of  garden,  as  you  know,  in  the  rear,  shut 
in  with  a  wall  high  enough  to  keep  out  creditors,  and 
here  D'Orsay  takes  his  exercise  on  horseback.  He 
devotes  himself  entirely  to  painting,  making  portraits 
of  his  friends  and  receiving  money  for  them — in  short, 
making  a  profession  of  it.  Every  Saturday  night,  at 
twelve  o'clock,  precisely,  his  cab  is  at  the  door,  and 
he  drives  to  his  club,  and  on  Sundays  he  is  to  be  seen 
in  the  park,  driving  with  Lady  Blessington  and  her 
two  exquisitely  beautiful  nieces  (the  Misses  Power) — 
taking  care  to  be  home  again,  like  Cinderella,  before 
twelve  o'clock  at  night.  Not  long  ago,  a  meeting  of 
his  friends  took  place,  and  an  effort  was  made  to  re- 
lieve him.  They  subscribed  twenty  thousand  pounds, 
which  would  have  given  his  creditors  four  shillings  in 
the  pound.  The  proposal  was  made,  and  the  credit- 
ors refused  to  accept.  The  subscription  was  conse- 
quently abandoned." 


There  is  an  article  afloat  upon  the  raft  of  fugitive 
literature  ("a  stick  of  timber  among  the  flood  ( — ) 
trash,"  as  they  say  on  the  Susquehannah)  which  is 
worth  hauling  ashore  and  preserving — Parke  God- 
win's Essay  on  Shelley,  in  the  Democratic  Review.  It 
comes  from  a  mind  of  the  finest  powers  of  analysis 
and  the  warmest  glow  of  poetical  appreciation,  and  if 
we  had  in  our  country  the  class  of  well -patronized 
sober  magazines  which  they  have  in  England,  this 
writer's  pen  and  Whipple's  would  be  the  two  best 
worth  paying  in  the  country,  for  that  kind  of  article. 


Ticknor  cf  Co.  have  republished  a  volume  of  devo- 
tional poetry  by  Dr.  Bowring,  called  Matins  and  Ves- 
pers. It  is  pure,  even,  moderately-inspired,  and  schol- 
ar-like poetry — of  the  best  quality  for  family  reading. 
The  doctor's  pursuits  are  all  on  a  lofty  level — philan- 
thropy, patriotism,  emancipation,  and  religion — and  if 
his  other  faculties  (all  of  which  are  of  more  than  re- 
spectable calibre)  were  as  largely  developed  as  his 
veneration,  he  would  be  the  moral  Washington  of  his 
era.  The  last  time  I  saw  him  he  was  in  a  great  rage 
with  a  certain  Yankee,  who,  upon  very  cool  acquaint- 
ance, had  drawn  at  sight  upon  his  hospitality,  by  hav- 
ing himself  and  his  baggage  set  down  in  the  doctor's 
entry,  and  sending  in  the  servant  to  borrow  money  to 
pay   his  coach-fare  from  Liverpool  !     With  the  ex- 


650 


EPHEMERA. 


ception  of  this  private-life  "  repudiator,"  however,  he 
is  a  great  admirer  of  America  and  Americans. 

The  Langleys  have  got  up  a  most  presentable  and 
elegant  edition  of  the  poems  of  Eliza  Cook — the  most 
fireside  and  home-like  of  modern  poets.  There  is  a 
great  deal  in  this  volume  that  will  touch  the  "  busi- 
ness and  bosoms"  of  the  many.  Mrs.  Osgood  (her- 
self a  poetess  of  the  affections,  and  wanting  nothing 
but  a  little  earth  in  her  mixture)  gives  a  sketch  of 
Miss  Cook  in  the  preface,  which  is  as  good  as  a  per- 
sonal introduction. 


"When  the  "  last  page"  morning  arrives,  dear  read- 
er, we,  for  the  first  time  in  the  week,  pull  the  •*  stop 
politic"  in  our  many-keyed  organ  of  livelihood-ma- 
king, and  muse  a  little  on  expediency  while  the  ink 
dries  upon  our  pen.  This  morning — this  particular 
morning — we  chance  to  have  "belayed,"  as  the  sail- 
ors say,  "  a  loose  halliard"  in  our  rigging,  and  in  cast- 
ing an  eye  "  a-low  and  aloft,"  to  see  how  it  draws 
upon  the  canvass,  we  have  determined  to  alter  a  little 
our  trim  and  ballast.  You  are  our  passenger,  dear 
reader,  and  our  object  is  to  make  the  voyage  agreea- 
ble to  you,  and  the  query  is,  therefore,  how  much  you 
would  be  interested  in  these  same  details  of  trim,  bal- 
last, and  rigging.  Our  coffee  stands  untasted  (for  we 
write  and  breakfast,  as  an  idle  man  breakfasts  and 
dawdles,  all  along  through  the  up-hill  of  the  morning), 
and  our  omelet  must  cool  while  we  amputate  one 
horn  of  this  dilemma. 

"We  have  never  explained  (have  we  ?)  that  as  an  ar- 
tist needs  a  "lay-figure"  whereon  to  adjust  drapery 
and  prepare  effects,  an  editor  in  the  fancy  line  (our 
line)  requires  a  personification,  from  the  mouth  of 
which  he  may  speak  with  the  definite  identity  of  an 
individual.  There  are  a  thousand  little  whims  and 
scraps  of  opinion  kicking  about  the  floor  of  common- 
place, which,  like  bits  of  cloth  and  riband,  might  be 
pinned  on  to  a  drapery  with  effect,  though  worthless 
if  simply  presented  to  you  in  a  bundle.  A  periodical 
needs  to  be  an  individual — with  a  physiognomy  that 
is  called  up  to  the  mind  of  the  subscriber,  and  ima- 
gined as  speaking,  while  he  reads.  An  apple  given 
to  you  by  a  friend  at  table  is  not  like  an  apple  taken 
from  the  shelf  of  a  huckster.  An  article  on  the  lead- 
ing topic  of  the  day,  in  a  paper  you  are  not  accustomed 
to,  is  not  read  as  the  same  article  would  be  in  your 
favorite  periodical.  The  friend's  choice  alters  the 
taste  and  value  of  the  apple,  as  the  individual  editor's 
selection  or  approbation  gives  weight  and  value  to  the 
article.  The  more  you  are  acquainted  with  your 
editor — even  though,  in  that  acquaintance,  you  find 
out  his  faults — the  more  interest  you  feel  in  his 
weekly  visit,  and  the  more  curiosity  you  feel  in  what 
he  offers  you  to  read.  What  made  the  fortune  of 
Blackwood  but  "  Christopher  North's"  splendid  ego- 
tism!  A  magazine  without  a  distinct  physiognomy 
visible  through  the  type  of  every  page,  has  no  more 
hold  on  its  circulation  than  an  orchard  on  the  eaters 
of  apple-tarts.  And  if  the  making  of  this  physiogno- 
my visible  be  egotism,  then  is  egotism  in  an  apothe- 
cary's sign,  or  in  the  maker's  name  in  your  boot-leg. 

There  is,  of  course,  a  nice  line  to  be  drawn  between 
the  saying  that  of  editorial  self  which  every  reader 
would  like  to  know,  and  the  incurring  the  deserved 
charge  of  egotism  ;  and  it  was  by  that  line  exactly 
that  we  were  trying  to  navigate  in  the  dilemma  with 
which  we  started.  Should  we — or  should  we  not — 
bother  the  reader's  brain  with  what  was  bothering  our- 
selves ?    To  a  limited  and  bearable  degree,  then,  we  will. 

We  determined  to  live  by  periodical  literature,  and 
we  came  to  New  York  prepared,  of  course,  to  unship 
the  wings  of  our  Pegasus  and  let  him  trot — if  trotting 
is  "the  go" — quite  sure  that  if  he  is  worth  keeping, 


his  legs  are  as  sound  as  his  feathers.  It  is  one  thing 
to  be  "  willing  to  come  to  the  scratch,"  however,  and 
another  thing  to  find  out  definitely  where  the  scratch 
is.  We  were  prepared  to  turn  owl  and  armadillo — to 
be  indefatigable  in  our  cage,  and  abroad  only  by  night 
— to  live  on  one  meal  a  day — to  be  editor,  proof-reader, 
foreman,  and  publisher,  and  as  many  other  things  as 
we  could  get  out  of  life,  limb,  and  twenty-four  hours 
— prepared  for  any  toil  and  self-denial — in  short,  to 
quash  debt  and  keep  up  the  Mirror.  Excellent  vir- 
j  tue  entirely  thrown  away !  The  Mirror  rose  as  easy 
j  as  the  moon,  went  on  its  way  rejoicing,  and  is  now  out 
of  the  reach  of  kites,  rockets,  and  steeples !  Which  way 
lay — then — the  dragons  to  vanquish  ?  This  brings  us 
to  the  head  and  front  of  our  dilemma.  Personal  slan- 
der is  the  only  obstacle  in  American  literature. 

So  be  it  !     "We  do  not  complain  of  it.     We  have 
not  the  presumption  to  be  above  our  country.    Araer- 
|  ica  demands  of  her  literary  children  that  they  should 
!  submit  to  calumny — demands  it  in  the  most  emphatic 
J  of  all  voices,  by  her  support  of  the  presses  which  in- 
j  flict  it.    "We  agree.     We  can  not  make  shoes,  though 
;  to  that  trade  there  is  no  such  penalty.     We  should 
throw  away   our  apprenticeship,  if  we   attempted   to 
live,  now,  by  any  but  the  one  trade  whose  household 
gods  are  outlawed.    We  honor  our  country.     We  will 
live  by  American  literature,  with  its  American  draw- 
back.    We  can  suffer  as  much  as  another  man.    We 
are  no  coward.     We  will  step  into  the  arena,  and  let 
the  country,  that  looks  on,  decide  upon  the  weapons 
and  terms  of  combat.     Yet  still  there  is  a  dilemma. 

We  have  Iried  for  fifteen  years  the  silent  system — 
the  living  dozen  slanders,  as  the  watchman  wakes 
down  the  stars  that  rise  again  in  twelve  hours.  The 
only  exception  to  our  rule  occurred  in  England, 
where  an  English  pen  assumed  a  few  American  mis- 
statements— and  being  "among  the  Romans,"  we  did 
as  they  do  in  such  cases — got  the  necessary  retraction 
through  the  "  law  of  honor."  Lately,  as  perhaps  the 
reader  knows,  we  have  taken  a  fancy  to  see  whether 
there  was  any  difference  between  public  opinion  and 
the  law,  as  to  the  protection  of  literary  men  against 
slander.  The  author  of  a  particular  set  of  slanders 
we  chanced  to  light  upon  for  the  experiment,  is,  we 
'  understand,  a  clergyman  and  an  abolitionist,  and, 
!  though  we  have  literally  proved  that  he  published 
j  seven  or  eight  direct  lies  against  our  private  char- 
acter, we  are  condemned  by  many  of  the  press  for 
what  they  call  "  Coopering  an  editor,"  and  one  paper 
in  Philadelphia  attacks  our  defence  of  our  own  char- 
acter as  a  shallow  piece  of  ostentation,  got  up  for 
effect!  We  humbly  ask  which  is  most  agreeable  to 
the  public  ?  Do  they  like  it  submitted  to  silently,  or 
do  they  prefer  it  defended,  by  dragging  our  private 
life  with  all  its  details  into  the  street?  We  will  ac- 
commodate them — for  we  must  live  in  the  country  we 
were  born  in,  and  live  by  literature ! 


One  of  the  most  beautiful  sights  I  have  lately  seen 
was  the  spread  for  the  New  England  dinner  in  the 
large  dining-room  of  the  Astor.  It  wonld  have  given, 
even  to  a  "  picked  man  of  countries,"  a  heightened 
standard  of  sumptuousness  in  banquet — in  fact  (and 
republicans  may  as  well  know  it),  royal  entertainments 
in  Europe  beat  it  by  nothing  but  the  intrinsic  value  of 
the  table  service.  Galleries  were  erected  for  ladies 
behind  the  columns  at  either  end  of  the  hall,  and  "all 
went  merry  as  a  marriage  bell." 

It  struck  me  that  the  "  old  Plymouth  rock"  was  a 
little  too  much  hammered  upon,  and,  indeed,  I  thought, 
during  the  dinner,  that  the  fragment  of  it  (which  was 
set  upon  the  table)  had  better  be  used  for  the  weight 
and  countenance  it  could  give  to  objects  worthy  of 
the  pilgrim  spirit,  than  as  an  anvil  for  self-glorification. 


EPHEMERA. 


651 


There  are  interests  constantly  arising  of  a  philan- 
thropic character  general  enough  for  all  parties  to 
partake  in,  and  to  the  sluggish  movement  of  which 
the  steam  of  local  patriotism  might  worthily  be  ap- 
plied. Without  the  bugbear  of  a  contribution  at  the 
time,  a  fine  orator  and  philanthropist  like  Horace 
Mann  might  have  been  invited  by  the  committee  to 
delight  and  instruct  the  picked  audience  with  elo- 
quence on  oneof  his  apostolic  schemes  of  benevolence. 
As  it  was,  the  predominance  of  one  political  party 
made  it  a  whig  dinner  instead  of  a  New  England  din- 
ner. Admiring  Mr.  Webster  as  I  do,  and  willing  as  I 
am  to  do  more  to  see  the  other  remaining  Titan  of 
our  country  (Mr.  Clay)  in  the  presidential  chair  than 
for  any  other  object  not  personal  to  myself,  I  wished 
that  he  had  replied  to  the  "  common-school"  toast 
instead  of  the  one  he  selected,  and  kept  to  the  spirit 
of  New  England  exclusively  in  the  determination  of 
his  "thunder."  Mr.  Bellows  took  up  this  just-men- 
tioned topic,  and  compared  the  red  school-houses 
(more  graphically  than  felicitously)  to  an  eruption  on 
the  face  of  New  England  !  He  is  a  great  pulpit  orator, 
but  a  man  who  is  accustomed  to  steer  by  the  sober 
rudder  of  a  pen  runs  adrift  in  trusting  himself  to  ex- 
temporaneous impulse.  The  best-judged  and  most 
nicely-turned  speech  of  the  evening,  1  thought,  was 
by  Mr.  Colden — and  quite  the  most  applauded. 


The  overflow  of  the  city's  fountain  of  curiosity 
pours  just  now  into  the  fancy-stores  and  curiosity- 
shops — the  stockings  of  Santaclaus  gaping  wide  for 
"  gratifications."  The  new  bazar,  with  the  negroes 
in  cocked  hats  for  "  sticks  in  waiting,"  is  thronged 
like  a  levee,  and,  truly,  the  variety  of  new  nonsenses 
is  marvellous  and  bewildering.  Tiffany's  carries  the 
palm,  and  you  would  think,  to  walk  around  that  mu- 
seum of  elegancies,  that  the  fine  arts  had  turned  their 
whole  force  and  ingenuity  into  the  invention  of  trifles. 
It  would  be  curious  to  trace  back  the  genius  that  in- 
vents these  things  to  its  home  and  condition  in  life. 


One  of  the  new  books  that  will  most  interest  you 
and  the  members  of  congress  is  "  Simcoe's  Military 
Journal  ;  a  history  of  the  operations  of  a  partisan  corps 
called  the  Queen's  Rangers,  commanded  by  Lieuten- 
ant-Colonel Simcoe,  during  the  war  of  the  Revolution, 
illustrated  by  engraved  plans  of  action,"  &c.  Bartlett 
&  Welford,  the  great  bibliologistsof  New  York,  found 
a  copy  of  the  work  in  their  researches  in  foreign  libra- 
ries, and  Mr.  Bartlett,  who  is  a  scholar,  thus  prefaces 
the  American  republication  : — 

"  The  military  journal  of  Lieutenant-Colonel  Simcoe, 
now  first  published,  was  privately  printed  by  the  author 
in  1787  for  distribution  among  a  few  of  his  personal 
friends.  The  production  has  hitherto,  it  would  seem, 
entirely  escaped  the  attention  of  those  who  are  curious  in 
the  history  of  our  revolutionary  war.  As  a  record  of 
some  interesting  particulars  and  local  occurrences  of 
that  memorable  struggle,  and  as  a  well-written  docu- 
mentary illustration  of  the  times  and  the  circumstan- 
ces of  the  American  rebellion,  it  deserves  circulation 
and  favor.  The  fortunate  procurement  of  a  copy  of 
the  work  in  London  enables  the  publishers  to  present 
it  in  an  edition  securing  its  preservation,  and  facilita- 
ting a  general  knowledge  of  its  contents.  A  memoir 
of  so  much  of  the  author's  life  as  is  not  exhibited  in 
his  journal,  it  is  thought,  will  interest  the  reader  and 
increase  the  permanent  value  of  the  volume.  Accord- 
ingly, such  a  memoir  has  been  prepared  from  available 
and  authentic  materials,  and,  by  the  way  of  introduc- 
tion, may  serve  to  fill  out  the  history  of  the  command- 
er of  the  Queen's  Rangers,  presenting  also  a  few  facts 


concerning  the  corps,  not  otherwise  appearing.  Not 
to  extend  that  portion  of  the  publication  too  far,  how- 
ever, various  relevant  quotations  from  different  sources, 
interesting  essentially  and  expletive  in  their  character, 
are  thrown  into  the  appendix,  in  addition  to  what  the 
journalist  has  given  in  that  form  himself." 


There  is  a  very  well-conducted  paper  in  New  York 
called  the  "  Mirror  of  Fashion,"  the  avowed  object 
of  which  is  to  furnish  plates  and  descriptions  of  gentle- 
men's fashions  in  dress — this  feature  taking  the  place, 
in  a  sheet  of  general  interest,  which  politics  or  religion 
take  in  others.  One  sentence  of  the  advertisement 
runs  thus : — 

"  I  shall  strive  my  utmost  to  make  the  Mirror  of 
Fashion  reflect  all  the  important  changes  in  styles  of 
dress,  whether  in  cut,  color,  or  make,  that  may  from 
month  to  month  be  adopted  in  this  metropolis,  always 
eschewing  the  freaks  and  follies  of  foreign  fancy.  I 
shall,  as  I  ever  have  done,  recommend  only  that 
which  is  strictly  consonant  with  American  feelings 
and  predilections." 

The  motto  of  the  paper,  very  properly,  is  taken  from 
Carlyle's,  "  Sartor  Resartus."  Thus,  in  the  one  preg- 
nant subject  of  clothes,  rightly  understood,  is  included 
all  that  men  have  thought,  dreamed,  done,  or  been  ; 
the  whole  external  universe,  and  what  it  holds,  is  but 
clothing;  and  the  essence  of  all  science  lies  in  the 
philosophy  of  clothes.  There  is  evidently  a  man  of 
reading  and  talent  at  the  head  of  this  paper,  and  the 
subject  touches  men's  "  business  and  bosom"  so  close- 
ly and  widely  that  it  may  well  be  considered  a  qua- 
trieme  etat,  and  have  its  organ  to  represent  it. 


If  May  be  the  season  for  "  the  raging  calenture  of 
love,"  this  is  the  calenture  of  the  social  affections — 
the  fever-crisis  of  the  year,  when  the  heat  that  is  in 
the  system  comes  to  the  surface.  Most  quiet  men 
go  to  a  ball  or  two  in  the  holydays — dance  a  quadrille 
or  two  to  show  the  old  year  that  they  are  not  of  its 
party  in  going  out — pay  a  compliment  or  two  more 
flowery  than  their  wont ;  in  short,  put  on  the  outer 
seeming  which  would  befit  them  in  a  Utopia.  I  have 
tried  on,  like  others,  for  the  last  week  or  two,  this  holy- 
day  humor;  and,  though  I  shall  be  accused  of  "  keep- 
ing a  sharp  eye  to  business,"  I  must  jot  down  for  you 
a  thought  or  two  that  has  occurred  to  me,  critical  and 
comparative,  or  the  present  condition  of  New  York 
society. 

It  strikes  me  that  there  is  no  provision  in  the  gay 
society  of  New  York  for  people  of  middle  age.  A 
man  between  thirty-five  and  forty  is  invited  to  a  large 
party.  He  goes  too  early  if  he  arrives  before  eleven. 
He  finds  the  two  principal  rooms  stripped  of  carpets 
and  of  most  of  the  sitting-down  furniture,  and  the  re- 
ception-room entirely  lined  with  the  mammas  and 
chaperons  of  the  young  ladies  on  the  floor.  How- 
ever he  might  be  a  "dancing  man"  in  Europe,  where 
people  dance  till  their  knees  fail  them,  he  knows  that 
in  this  haste-to-grow-old  country  it  would  be  com- 
mented harshly  upon,  especially  if  he  has  a  wife,  for 
whom  it  is  expected  his  overflow  of  spirits  should  be 
reserved.  As  he  don't  dance,  he  would  like  to  con- 
verse. The  old  ladies  talk  of  nothing  but  their  daugh- 
ters, and  the  daughters,  if  not  dancing,  think  it  would 
repel  a  probable  partner  to  seem  much  occupied  iu 
conversation.  He  looks  around  for  a  sofa  and  a  lady 
who  don't  dance.  Sofa  there  is  none,  and  in  a  chair 
in  the  corner  perhaps  there  is  one  lady  who  is  neither 
young  nor  old — rara  avis!  He  approaches  her,  and, 
well  nigh  jammed  against  the  wall,  undertakes  a  con- 
versation not  audible  (he  standing  and  she  sitting)  un- 


652 


EPHEMERA. 


less  kept  up  at  a  scream.  After  a  half  hour  of  this, 
the  lady,  if  she  be  discreet,  remembers  that  "it  looks 
particular"  to  be  engrossed  more  than  half  an  hour  by 
one  gentleman,  and  looks  or  says  so.  The  middle- 
aged  man  slides  along  the  wall,  gets  back  into  the 
crowded  reception-room,  talks  a  little  to  the  chaperons, 
comes  back  and  looks  on  at  the  waltz,  and  so  passes 
the  three  hours  till  supper — on  his  legs.  The  ladies 
take  an  hour  to  sup,  and,  about  three  o'clock,  he  gels 
a  corner  for  some  oysters  and  champagne,  and  between 
that  and  four  o'clock  gets  home  to  bed.  He  is  a  busi- 
ness man  and  rises  at  eight,  and  by  three  o'clock  the 
next  day  he  looks  and  feels  as  a  man  naturally  would 
who  had  burnt  his  candle  at  both  ends— -for  nothing! 

It  is  not  wonderful  that  there  are  no  conveniences 
for  conversation  in  society,  for  there  really  is  no  con- 
versation to  provide  for.  The  want  would  create  the 
supply.  It  is  one  of  the  most  peculiar  of  our  country's 
features  that  conversation  is  not  cultivated  as  a  pleasure. 
When  American  women  leave  off  dancing  they  think 
they  have  done  with  society  till  they  reappear  to  bring 
out  their  daughters.  All  the  agreeableness  of  their 
middle  life — the  most  attractive  and  delightful  portion 
of  like  too,  perhaps — is  expended  on  an  appreciative 
husband  who  wants  and  uses  it  all !  Not  at  all  as  a 
disparagement  to  this  state  of  things,  perhaps  you  will 
allow  me  to  mention  a  case,  that  may  be  somewhat  par- 
allel, which  has  turned  up  in  my  zoological  reading  : 
"  These  little  insects  (the  coccus,  of  the  family  gal- 
insecta)  are  remarkable  for  many  peculiarities  in  their 
habits  and  conformation.  The  inales  have  long  large 
wings  !  The  females  have  no  wings,  but  at  a  certain 
period  of  their  life  attach  themselves  to  the  plant  or 
tree  which  they  inhabit,  and  remain  thereon  immove- 
able during  the  rest  of  their  existence.  As  soon  as 
the  eggs  are  produced,  they  pass  immediately  under 
the  female  parent,  whose  body  becomes  their  stationa- 
ry covering  and  guard.  By  degrees  her  body  dries  up 
and  flattens,  and  forms  a  sort  of  a  shell,  and,  when  life 
is  quite  extinct,  the  young  insects  leave  their  hiding- 
place."  Whether  society  has  not  some  claim  on  them 
— whether  their  minds  would  not  be  kept  from  narrow- 
ing by  conversation  with  agreeable  men — whether  the 
one  exclusive  errand  of  the  loveliest  portion  of  humani- 
ty is  to  rear  children,  are  questions  which  in  this 
country  must  be  handled  very  gingerly — at  least  in 
print.  I  may  be  permitted  to  go  on  and  say  "  how 
they  do  in  Spain,"  however. 

A  middle-aged  man  in  London  may  or  may  not  be 
a  dancer.  There  is  no  comment  either  way — but  he 
must  be  something — dancer  or  good  conversationist,  or 
he  is  dropped  as  "  lumbering  up  the  party."  Few 
men  can  afford  to  be  seen  by  the  mistress  of  the  house 
to  be  unamused  and  unamusing.  A  cultivated  man, 
then,  who  don't  dance,  gets  an  hour  or  two  of  pleas- 
ant society  in  the  early  part  of  the  evening  at  the 
opera.  If  there  is  a  small  party  afterward  he  prefers 
it  to  a  ball  ;  but  if  he  goes  to  the  ball  he  finds  that  the 
pleasantest  people  there  are  the  married  women. 
They  do  not  sit  together  without  room  for  a  gentle- 
man between  them,  but  every  lady  is  bodily  approach- 
able, and  with  a  little  management  he  can  get  a  com- 
fortable seat  beside  any  one  whom  he  may  know  and 
prefer.  If  he  find  her  interesting,  and  talk  to  her  the 
whole  evening,  there  is  no  scandal,  unless  there  are 
other  corroborating  circumstances  ;  indeed,  the  open- 
ness of  the  attention  would  rather  discredit  any  unfa- 
vorable comment.  If  there  is  a  new  lion  present,  or 
any  attraction  peculiar  to  one  person,  a  small  circle  is 
formed  in  a  corner,  or  a  group  stand  around  and  let 
the  conversation  be  managed  by  the  persons  most 
interested,  like  listening  to  music.  You  could  seldom 
go  to  a  party  in  London  without  hearing  something 
worth  telling  to  a  person  not  there,  and  society  (not  the 
newspapers)  has  the  first  use  and  enjoyment  of  all 
news  and  novelties  of  every  description.     Newspapers 


are  stale  to  a  man  actively  conversant  in  the  best 
society  of  London.  People  collect  news,  and  see 
sights,  and  invent  theories,  and  study  and  think — to 
have  material  for  being  brilliant  in  society,  and  for  no 
other  purpose.  A  habitue  of  the  best  houses  grows 
well-informed  by  absorption  only — if  he  keep  his  ears 
open.  And  this  entire  stage  of  society  is  wanting  in 
New  York. 

An  intelligent  gentleman  remarked  lately  upon  the 
absurdity  of  copying  English  hours  for  gayety,  with- 
out copying  the  compensating  English  hours  for  repose. 
It  is  the  aim  of  aristocracy  to  have  such  habits  as  to 
distinguish  aristocrats  from  the  working-classes,  and 
lords  and  ladies  please  themselves  with  going  home  to 
sleep  when  the  clowns  are  getting  up  to  toil.  *  Until 
we  can  afford  to  lie  abed  like  a  lord,  till  noon,  we  are 
fools  to  lose  the  clown's  slumber,  and  a  fashionable 
lady  would  deserve  well  of  her  country  who  would 
tacitly  acknowledge  her  husband  to  be  a  man  of  busi- 
ness, by  giving  her  party  at  hours  when  he  and  his 
merchant-friends  could  attend  without  loss  of  needful 
sleep.  Who  would  not  be  glad  to  go  to  a  ball  at  seven 
instead  of  eleven  ?  This  change,  and  the  introduction 
of  comforts  and  accommodations  for  conversible  wall- 
flowers, would,  in  my  opinion,  improve  even  the 
charming  circles  of  grown-up  children  who  now  con- 
stitute New  York  society. 

1  see  no  very  marked  differences  in  the  dress  or 
usages  of  the  ball-room.  Rather  more  waltzing  and 
less  quadrilling,  if  anything — but  still  "  marvellous 
few"  tolerable  waltzers.  Could  most  of  the  waltzing 
men  in  New  York  "see  themselves  as  others  see 
them,"  they  would  practise  the  difficult  ease  of  this 
accomplishment  elsewhere  for  a  while.  The  lower 
classes  of  Germans  have  balls  in  their  peculiar  haunts 
which  it  would  be  good  practice  to  attend. 


HOW    TO    MAKE    A     PARADISE    IN    THE    COUNTRY. 

The  back  of  the  winter  is  broke,  dear  reader,  and  it  is 
down-hill  to  spring.  Those  who  have  not  our  brick 
and  mortar  destiny,  are  chatting,  over  their  evening 
table,  of  gardens  and  fruit-trees,  crops  and  embellish- 
ments, and  longing  the  snow  off  their  lawns  and  fields, 
and  the  frost  out  of  their  furrows.  We  have  been 
passing  a  leisure  (not  an  idle)  hour  in  reading  our 
friend  Downing's  elegant  and  tempting  book  on  rural 
architecture — a  book  which,  with  others  by  the  same 
scholarlike  and  tasteful  pen,  we  commend  to  your  pos- 
session— and  it  brings  to  our  mind  a  long  letter  we 
wrote  during  our  last  year's  residence  on  the  Susque- 
hannah,  on  the  subject  of  economical  and  comeatable 
paradise-making  in  the  country.  For  a  change — let 
us  turn  over  for  you  this  leaf  of  our  common-sense 
book.     Thus  runs  the  body  of  it : — 

Landscape-gardening  is  a  pleasant  subject  to  expand 
into  an  imaginative  article,  and  I  am  not  surprised  that 
men,  sitting  amid  hot  editorials  in  a  city  (the  month 
of  July),  find  a  certain  facility  in  creating  woods  and 
walks,  planting  hedges  and  building  conservatories. 
So  may  the  brain  be  refreshed,  I  well  know,  even  with 
the  smell  of  printing-ink  in  the  nostrils.  But  land- 
scape-gardening, as  within  the  reach  of  the  small 
farmer  people,  is  quite  another  thing,  and  to  be  man- 
aged (as  brain-gardening  need  not  be,  to  be  sure)  with 
economy  and  moderation.  Tell  us  in  the  quarterlies, 
if  you  will,  what  a  man  may  do  with  a  thousand  acres 
and  plenty  of  money  ;  but  we  will  endeavor  to  show 
what  may  be  done  with  fifty  acres  and  a  spare  hour  in 
the  evening — by  the  tasteful  farmer,  or  the  tradesman 
retired  on  small  means.  These  own  their  fifty  acres 
(more  or  less),  up  to  the  sky  and  down  to  the  bottom 
of  their  "diggings,"  and  as  nature  lets  the  tree  grow 
and  the  flower  expand  for  a  man,  without  reference  to 
his  account  at  the  bank,  they  have  it  in  their  power  to 


EPHEMERA. 


653 


embellish,  and  most  commonly,  they  have  also  the 
inclination.  Beginners,  however,  at  this  as  at  most 
other  things,  are  at  the  mercy  of  injudicious  counsel,' 
and  lew  books  can  be  more  expensively  misapplied 
than  the  treatises  on  landscape-gardening. 

The  most  intense  and  sincere  lovers  of  the  country 
are  citizens  who  have  fled  to  rural  life  in  middle  age, 
and  old  travellers  who  are  weary,  heart  and  foot,  and  j 
long  for  shelter  and  rest.     Both  these  classes  of  men 
are  ornamental  in  their  tastes — the  first  because  the 
country  is  his  passion,  heightened  by  abstinence;  and 
the   latter  because  he   remembers  the  secluded  and  ij 
sweet  spots  he  has  crossed  id  travel,  and  yearns  for  j 
something  that  resembles  them,  of  his  own.    To  begin  I 
at  the  beginning,  I  will  suppose  such  a  man  as  either  i 
of  these  in  search  of  land  to  purchase  and  build  upon,  j 
His  means  are  moderate. 

Leaving   the    climate   and    productiveness   of   soil  I 
out  of  the  question,  the  main  things  to  find  united  are  | 
shade,  water,  and  inequality  of  surface.     With  these  j 
three  features  given  by  nature,  any  spot  may  be  made 
beautiful,  and  at  very  little  cost;  and,  fortunately  for 
purchasers  in   this  country,  most  land  is  valued  and   I 
sold  with  little  or  no  reference  to  these  or  other  capa- 
bilitiea  for  embellishment.     Water,    in  a  country  so 
laced  with  rivers,  is  easily  found.     Yet  there  are  hints 
worth  giving,  perhaps,  obvious  as  they  seem,  even  in  the 
selection  of  water.     A  small  and  rapid  river  is  prefer-  |.| 
able  to   a  large   river  or  lake.     The  Hudson,  for  in- 
stance, is  too   broad  to  bridge,  and  beautiful  as  the 
sites  are  upon   its  banks,  the  residents  have  but  one 
egress  and  one  drive — the  country  behind  them.     If 
they  could  cross  to  the  other  side,  and  radiate  in  every 
direction   in  their  evening  drives,   the  villas  on  that 
noble  river  would  be  trebled  in  value.     One  soon  tires 
of  riding  up  and  down  one  bank  of  a  river,  and  with- 
out a  taste  for  boating,  the  beautiful  expanse  of  water 
soon  becomes   an   irksome  barrier.     Very  much   the   | 
same  remark  is  true  of  the  borders  of  lakes,  with  the 
additiooal   objection,  that   there  is  no  variety  to  the 
view.     A  small,   bright  stream,  such  as  hundreds  of 
nameless   ones   in    these    beautiful    northern    slates,   ; 
spanned  by  bridges,  at  every  half  mile,  followed  always 
by  the  roads  which  naturally  seek  the  level,  and  wind- 
ing into  picturesque  surprises,  appearing  and  disap- 
pearing,   continually,    is,    in  itself,  an  ever-renewing 
poem,  crowded  with   changeable  pictures,  and  every 
day  tempting  you  to  follow  or  trace  back  its   bright  I 
current.     Small  rivers,  again,  insure  to  a  degree  the 
other  two  requisites — shade  and  inequality  of  surface — 
the  interval  being  proportionately  narrow,  and  backed  j 
by   slopes    and   alluvial   soil,    usually   producing   the 
various  nut  and  maple  trees,  which,  for  their  fruit  and 
sap,  have  been  spared  by  the  inexorable  axes  of  the 
first  settlers.     If  there  is  any  land  in  the  country,  the 
price  of  which  is  raised  from  the  supposed  desirable- 
ness  of  the  site,  it  is  upon  the  lakes  and  larger  rivers, 
leaving  the  smaller  rivers,  fortunately,  still  within  the 
scale  of  the  people's  means. 

One  more  word  as  to  the  selection  of  a  spot.  The 
rivers  in  the  United  States,  more  than  those  of  older 
countries,  are  variable  in  their  quantity  of  water.  The 
banks  of  many  of  the  most  picturesque,  present,  at 
the  season  of  the  year  when  we  most  wish  it  other-  j 
wise  (in  the  sultry  heats  of  August  and  September),  | 
bared  rocks  or  beds  of  ooze,  while  the  stream  runs 
slujjsjishly  and  uninvitingly  between.  Those  which 
are  fed  principally  by  springs,  however,  are  less  liable 
to  the  effects  of  drought  than  those  which  are  the 
outlets  of  large  bodies  of  water;  and  indeed,  there  is 
great  difference  in  rivers  in  this  respect,  depending  on 
the  decree  in  which  their  courses  are  shaded,  and  ; 
other  causes.  It  will  be  safest,  consequently,  to  select 
a  site  in  August,  when  the  water  is  at  the  lowest,  pre- > 
ferring,  of  course,  a  bold  and  high  bank  as  a  protec- 
tion against  freshets  and  flood-wood.     The  remotest! 


chance  of  a  war  with  water,  damming  against  wash 
and  flood,  fills  an  old  settler  with  economical  alarm. 

It  was  doubtless  a  "small  chore"  for  the  deluge  to 
heave  up  a  mound  or  slope  a  bank,  but  with  one  spade 
at  a  dollar  a  day,  the  moving  of  earth  is  a  discour- 
aging job,  and  in  selecting  a  place  to  live  it  is  well  to 
be  apprized  what  diggings  may  become  necessary,  and 
how  your  hay  and  water,  wood,  visiters,  and  lumber 
generally,  are  to  come  and  go.  A  man's  first  fancy 
is  commonly  to  build  on  a  hill ;  but  as  he  lives  on, 
year  after  year,  he  would  like  his  house  lower  and 
lower,  till,  if  the  fairies  had  done  it  for  him  at  each 
succeeding  wish,  he  would  trouble  them  at  last  to  dig 
his  cellar  at  the  bottom.  It  is  hard  mounting  a  hill 
daily,  with  tired  horses,  and  it  is  dangerous  driving 
down  with  full-bellied  ones  from  the  stable-door,  and 
your  friends  deduct  from  the  pleasure  of  seeing  you, 
the  inconvenience  of  ascending  and  descending.  The 
view,  for  which  you  build  high,  you  soon  discover  is 
not  daily  bread,  but  an  occasional  treat,  more  worth,  as 
well  as  better  liked  for  the  walk  to  get  it,  and  (you 
have  selected  your  site,  of  course,  with  a  southern 
exposure)  a  good  stiff  hill  at  your  back,  nine  months 
in  the  year,  saves  several  degrees  of  the  thermometer, 
and  sundry  chimney-tops,  barn-roofs,  and  other  furni- 
ture peripatetic  in  a  tempest.  Then  your  hill-road 
washes  with  the  rains,  and  needs  continual  mending, 
and  the  dweller  on  the  hill  needs  one  more  horse  and 
two  more  oxen  than  the  dweller  in  the  valley.  One 
thing  more.  There  rises  a  night-mist  (never  un- 
wholesome from  running  water),  which  protects  fruit- 
trees  from  frost  to  a  certain  level  above  the  river,  at 
certain  critical  seasons,  and  so  end  the  reasons  for 
building  low. 

I  am  supposing  all  along,  dear  reader,  that  you  have 
had  no  experience  of  country-life,  but  that,  sick  of  a 
number  in  a  brick  block,  or  (if  a  traveller)  weary  of 
"the  perpetual  flow  of  people,"  you  want  a  patch  of 
the  globe's  surface  to  yourself,  and  room  enough  to 
scream,  let  off  champagne-corks,  or  throw  stones, 
without  disturbance  to  your  neighbor.  The  intense 
yearning  for  this  degree  of  liberty  has  led  some  seek- 
ers after  the  pastoral  rather  farther  into  the  wilderness 
than  was  necessary;  and  while  writing  on  the  subject 
of  a  selection  of  rural  sites,  it  is  worth  while,  perhaps, 
to  specify  the  desirable  degree  of  neighborhood. 

In  your  own  person,  probably,  you  do  not  combine 
blacksmith,  carpenter,  tinman,  grocer,  apothecary, 
wet-uurse,  dry-nurse,  washerwoman,  and  doctor. 
Shoes  and  clothes  can  wait  your  convenience  for 
mending;  but  the  little  necessities  supplied  by  the 
above  list  of  vocations  are  rather  imperative,  and  they 
can  only  be  ministered  to  in  any  degree  of  comfortable 
perfection,  by  a  village  of  at  least  a  thousand  inhabit- 
ants. Two  or  three  miles  is  far  enough  to  send  your 
horse  to  be  shod,  and  far  enough  to  send  for  doctor  or 
washerwoman,  and  half  the  distance  would  be  better, 
if  there  were  no  prospect  of  the  extension  of  the  vil- 
lage limits.  But  the  common  diameter  of  idle  boys' 
rambles  is  a  mile  out  of  the  village,  and  to  be  just 
beyond  that  is  very  necessary,  if  you  care  lor  your 
plums  and  apples.  The  church-bell  should  be  within 
hearing,  and  it  is  mellowed  deliciously  by  a  mile  or 
two  of  hill  and  dale,  and  your  wife  will  probably 
belong  to  a  "  sewing-circle,"  to  which  it  is  very  much 
for  her  health  to  walk,  especially  if  the  horse  is  wanted 
for  ploughing.  This  suggests  to  me  another  point 
which  I  had  nearly  overlooked. 

The  farmer  pretends  to  no  "gentility;"  I  may  be 
permitted  to  say,  therefore,  that  neighbors  are  a  lux- 
ury, both  expensive  and  inconvenient.  The  necessity 
you  feel  for  society,  of  course,  will  modify  very  much 
the  just-stated  considerations  on  the  subject  of  vicin- 
age. He  who  has  lived  only  in  towns,  or  passed  his 
life  (as  travellers  do)  only  as  a  receiver  of  hospitality, 
is  little  aware  of  the  difference  hetween  a  country  and 


654 


EPHEMERA. 


city  call,  or  between  receiving  a  visit  and  paying  one. 
In  town,  "  not  at  home,"  in  any  of  its  shapes,  is  a 
great  preserver  of  personal  liberty,  and  gives  no 
offence.  In  the  country  you  are  "  at  home,"  will-you, 
nill-you.  As  a  stranger  paying  a  visit,  you  choose  the 
time  most  convenient  to  yourself,  and  abridge  the  call 
at  pleasure.  In  your  own  house,  the  visiter  may  find 
you  at  a  very  inconvenient  hour,  stay  a  very  inconve- 
nient time,  and  as  you  have  no  liberty  to  deny  your- 
self at  your  country  door,  it  may  (or  may  not,  1  say, 
according  to  your  taste)  be  a  considerable  evil.  This 
point  should  be  well  settled,  however,  before  you  de- 
termine your  distance  from  a  closely-settled  neighbor- 
hood, for  many  a  man  would  rather  send  his  horse 
two  miles  farther  to  be  shod  than  live  within  the  con- 
venience of  "sociable  neighbors."  A  resident  in  a 
city,  by-the-way  (and  it  is  a  point  which  should  be 
kept  in  mind  by  the  retiring  metropolitan)  has,  prop- 
erly speaking,  no  neighbors.  He  has  friends,  chosen 
or  made  by  similarity  of  pursuit,  congeniality  of  taste, 
or  accident,  which  might  have  been  left  unimproved. 
His  literal  neighbors  he  knows  by  name — if  they  keep 
a  brass  plate,  but  they  are  contented  to  know  as  little 
of  him,  and  the  acquaintance  ends,  without  offence, 
in  the  perusal  of  the  name  and  number  on  the  door. 
In  the  city  you  pick  your  friends.  In  the  country 
you  "take  them  in  the  lump." 

True,  country  neighbors  are  almost  always  desirable 
acquaintances — simple  in  their  habits,  and  pure  in 
their  morals  and  conversation.  But  this  letter  is  ad- 
dressed to  men  retiring  from  the  world,  who  look  for- 
ward to  the  undisturbed  enjoyment  of  trees  and  fields, 
who  expect  life  to  be  filled  up  with  the  enjoyment  of 
dew  at  morn,  shade  at  noon,  and  the  glory  of  sunset 
and  starlight,  and  who  consider  the  complete  repose 
of  the  articulating  organs,  and  release  from  oppressive 
and  unmeaning  social  observances,  as  the  fruition  of 
Paradise.  To  men  who  have  experience  or  philosophy 
enough  to  have  reduced  life  to  this,  I  should  recom- 
mend a  distance  of  five  miles  from  any  village  or  any 
family  with  grown-up  daughters.  In  my  character  of 
dollar,  I  may  be  forgiven  for  remarking,  also,  that  this 
degree  of  seclusion  doubles  an  income  (by  enabling  a 
man  to  live  on  half  of  it),  and  so,  freeing  the  mind 
from  the  care  of  pelf,  removes  the  very  gravest  of  the 
obstacles  to  happiness.  I  refer  to  no  saving  which  in- 
fringes on  comfort.  The  housekeeper  who  caters  for 
her  own  family  in  an  unvisited  seclusion,  and  the 
housekeeper  who  provides  for  her  family  with  an  eye 
to  the  possible  or  probable  interruption  of  acquaintan- 
ces not  friends,  live  at  very  different  rates ;  and  the 
latter  adds  one  dish  to  the  bounty  of  the  table,  per- 
haps, but  two  to  its  vanity.  Still  more  in  the  comfort 
and  expensiveness  of  dress.  The  natural  and  most 
blissful  costume  of  man  in  summer,  all  told,  is  shirt, 
slippers,  and  pantaloons.  The  compulsory  articles  of 
coat,  suspenders,  waistcoat,  and  cravat  (gloves  would 
be  ridiculous),  are  a  tribute  paid  to  the  chance  of  visi- 
ters, as  is  also,  probably,  some  dollars'  difference  in 
the  quality  of  the  hat. 

I  say  nothing  of  the  comfort  of  a  bad  hat  (one  you 
can  sit  upon,  or  water  your  horse  from,  or  bide  the 
storm  in,  without  remorse),  nor  of  the  luxury  of  hav- 
ing half  a  dozen,  which  you  do  when  they  are  cheap, 
and  so  saving  the  mental  burthen  of  retaining  the 
geography  of  an  article  so  easily  mislaid.  A  man  is 
a  slave  to  anything  on  his  person  he  is  afraid  to  spoil 
— a  slave  (if  he  is  not  rich,  as  we  are  not,  dear  reader!) 
to  any  costly  habiliment  whatever.  The  trees  nod  no 
less  graciously  (it  is  a  pleasure  to  be  able  to  say),  be- 
cause one's  trousers  are  of  a  rational  volume  over  the 
portion  most  tried  by  a  sedentary  man,  nor  because 
one's  hat  is  of  an  equivocal  shape — having  served  as 
a  non-conductor  between  a  wet  log  and  its  proprietor; 
but  ladies  do — especially  country  ladies;  and  even  if 
they  did  not,  there  is  enough  of  the  leaven  of  youth, 


even  in  philosophers,  to  make  them  unwilling  to  ap- 
pear to  positive  disadvantage,  and  unless  you  are  quite 
at  your  ease  as  to  even  the  ridiculous  shabbiness  of 
your  outer  man,  there  is  no  liberty — no  economical 
liberty,  I  mean — in  rural  life.  Do  not  mislead  your- 
self, dear  reader!  I  am  perfectly  aware  that  a  Span- 
ish sombrero,  a  pair  of  large  French  trousers  plaited 
over  the  hips,  a  well  made  English  shoe,  and  a  hand- 
some checked  shirt,  form  as  easy  a  costume  for  the 
country  as  philosopher  could  desire.  But  I  write  for 
men  who  must  attain  the  same  comfort  in  a  shirt  of  a 
perfectly  independent  description,  trousers,  oftenest, 
that  have  seen  service  as  tights,  and  show  a  fresher 
dye  in  the  seams,  a  hat,  price  twenty-five  cents  (by  the 
dozen),  and  shoes  of  a  remediless  capriciousness  of 
outline. 

I  acknowledge  that  such  a  costume  is  a  liberty  with 
daylight,  which  should  only  be  taken  within  one's  own 
fence,  and  that  it  is  a  misfortune  to  be  surprised  in  it 
by  a  stranger,  even  there.  But  I  wish  to  impress  upon 
those  to  whom  this  letter  is  addressed,  the  obligations 
of  country  neighborhood  as  to  dress  and  table,  and  the 
expediency  of  securing  the  degree  of  liberty  which 
may  be  desired,  by  a  barrier  of  distance.  Sociable 
country  neighbors,  as  I  said  before,  are  a  luxury,  but 
they  are  certainly  an  expensive  one.  Judging  by  data 
within  my  reach,  I  should  say  that  a  man  who  could 
live  for  fifteen  hundred  dollars  a  year,  within  a  mile  of 
a  sociable  village,  could  have  the  same  personal  com- 
forts at  ten  miles  distance  for  half  the  money.  He 
numbers,  say  fifteen  families,  in  his  acquaintance,  and 
of  course  pays  at  the  rate  of  fifty  dollars  a  family  for 
their  gratification.  Now  it  is  a  question  whether  you 
would  not  rather  have  the  money  in  board  fence  or 
Berkshire  hogs.  You  may  like  society,  and  yet  not 
like  it  at  such  a  high  price.  Or  (but  this  would  lead 
me  to  another  subject)  you  may  prefer  society  in  a 
lump  ;  and  with  a  house  full  of  friends  in  the  months 
of  June  and  July,  live  in  contemplative  and  economi- 
cal solitude  the  remainder  of  the  year.  And  this  latter 
plan  I  take  the  liberty  to  recommend  more  particular- 
ly, to  students  and  authors. 

Touching  "  grounds."  The  first  impulses  of  taste 
are  dangerous  to  follow,  no  less  from  their  blindness  to 
unforeseen  combinations,  than  from  their  expensive- 
ness. In  placing  your  house  as  far  from  the  public 
road  as  possible  (and  a  considerable  distance  from  dust 
and  intrusion,  seems  at  first  a  sine  qua  non)  you  entail 
upon  yourself  a  very  costly  appendage  in  the  shape  of 
a  private  road,  which  of  course  must  be  nicely  gravel- 
led and  nicely  kept.  A  walk  or  drive,  within  your 
gate,  which  is  not  hard  and  free  from  weeds,  is  as 
objectionable  as  an  untidy  white  dress  upon  a  lady, 
and  as  she  would  be  better  clad  in  russet,  your  road 
were  better  covered  with  grass.  I  may  as  well  say 
that  a  hundred  yards  of  gravel-walk,  properly  "  scored," 
weeded,  and  rolled,  will  cost  five  dollars  a  month — a 
man's  labor  reckoned  at  the  present  usage.  Now  no 
person  for  whom  this  letter  is  written  can  afford  to 
keep  more  than  one  man  servant  for  "  chores."  A 
hundred  yards  of  gravel-walk,  therefore,  employing 
half  his  time,  you  can  easily  calculate  the  distribution 
of  the  remainder,  upon  the  flower-garden,  kitchen- 
garden,  wood-shed,  stable,  and  piggery.  (The  female 
"  help"  should  milk,  if  I  died  for  it !)  My  own  opin- 
ion is,  that  fifty  yards  from  the  road  is  far  enough,  and 
twenty  a  more  prudent  distance,  though,  in  the  latter 
case,  an  impervious  screen  of  shrubbery  along  your 
outer  fence  is  indispensable. 

The  matter  of  gravel-walks  embraces  several  points 
of  rural  comfort,  and,  to  do  without  them,  you  must 
have  no  young  ladies  in  your  acquaintance,  and, 
especially,  no  young  gentlemen  from  the  cities.  It 
may  not  have  occurred  to  you  in  your  sidewalk  life, 
that  the  dew  falls  in  the  country  with  tolerable  regu- 
laritv  ;  and  that,  from  sundown  to  ten  in  the  forenoon, 


EPHEMERA. 


655 


you  are  as  much   insulated  in  a  cottage  surrounded 
with  high  grass,  as  on  a  rock  surrounded  with   forty 
fathom  water— shod  a  la  mode,  I  mean.     People  talk  j 
of  being   "  pent  up  in  a  city"  with   perhaps   twenty  ; 
imlcs  of  flagged  sidewalk  extending  from  their  door-  j 
stone  !     They  are  apt  to  draw  a  contrast,  favorable  to  j 
the  liberty  of  cities,  however,  if  they  come  thinly  shod  | 
to   the  country,  and  must  either  wade  in  the  grass  or  . 
•tumble   through  the  ruts  of  a  dusty  road.     If  you  | 
wish  to  see  bodies  acted  on  by  an  "  exhausted  receiver"  \ 
/giving  out   their  "airs"   of  course),   shut  up  your! 
young  city  friends  in  a  country  cottage,  by  the  com- 
pulsion   of  wet  grass  and  muddy  highways.     Better 
gravel  your  whole  farm,  you  say.     But  having  reduced 
you  to  this  point  of  horror,  you  are  prepared  to  listen 
without  contempt,  while  1  suggest  two  humble  suc- 
ccdanca. 

First  :  On  receiving  intimation  of  a   probable  visit  j 
from  a  city  friend,  write  by  return  of  post  for  the  size  ] 
of  her  foot  (or  his).     Provide  immediately  a  pair  of 
India-rubber  shoes  of  the  corresponding  number,  and 
on   the   morning  after  your  friend's  arrival,  be  ready  ! 
with  them  at  the  first  horrified  withdrawal  of  the  damp 
foot  from   the   grass.     Your  shoes   may  cost  you  a 
dollar  a  pair,  but  if  your  visiters  are  not  more  than  j 
ten  or  twelve  in  the  season,  it  is  a  saving  of  fifty  per  , 
cent.,  at  least  in  gravelling  and  weeding. 

Or,  Second  :  Enclose  the  two  or  three  acres  imme- 
diately about  your  house  with  a  ring  fence,  and  pasture 
within  it  a  small  flock  of  sheep.  They  are  clean  and 
picturesque  (your  dog  should  be  taught  to  keep  them 
from  the  doors  and  porticoes),  and  by  feeding  down  the 
grass  to  a  continual  greensward,  they  give  the  dew  a 
chance  to  dry  off  early  and  enlarge  your  cottage 
"  liberties"  to  the  extent  of  their  browsings. 

I  may  as  well  add,  by  the  way,  that  a  walk  with  the 
sod  simply  taken  off,  is,  in  this  climate,  dry  enough,  j 
except  for  an  hour  or  two  after  a  heavy  rain  ;  and  be- 
sides the  original  saving  in  gravel,  it  is  kept  clean  with  ! 
a  quarter  of  the  trouble.  A  weed  imbedded  in  stones  j 
is  a  much  more  obstinate  customer  than  a  score  of  j 
them  sliced  from  the  smooth  ground.  At  any  rate, 
out  with  them  !  A  neglected  walk  indicates  that  | 
worst  of  country  diseases,  a  mind  grown  slovenly  and  ' 
slip-slop!  Your  house  may  go  unpainted,  and  your! 
dress  (with  one  exception)  submit  to  the  course  of  , 
events — but  be  scrupulous  in  the  whiteness  of  your  j 
linen,  tenacious  of  the  neatness  of  your  gravel-walks;  j 
and,  while  these  points  hold,  you  are  at  a  redeemable 
remove  from  the  lapse  (fatally  prone  and  easy),  into 
barbarianism  and  misanthropy. 

Before  I  enter  upon  the  cultivation  of  grounds,  let 
me  lay  before  the  reader  my  favorite  idea  of  a  cottage 
— not  a  collage  ornce  but  a  collage  insoucieuse,  if  I  may  \ 
coin  a  phrase.  In  the  valley  of  Sweet  Waters,  on  the 
banks  of  the  Barbyses,  there  stands  a  small  pleasure  I 
palace  of  the  sultan,  which  looks  as  if  it  was  dropped 
into  the  green  lap  of  nature,  like  a  jewel-case  on  a 
birth-day,  with  neither  preparation  on  the  part  of  the 
bestower,  nor  disturbance  on  the  part  of  the  receiver. 
From  the  balcony's  foot  on  every  side  extends  an  un- 
broken sod  to  the  horizon.  Gigantic  trees  shadow 
the  grass  here  and  there,  and  an  enormous  marble 
vase,  carved  in  imitation  of  a  sea-shell,  turns  the  silver 
Barbyses  in  a  curious  cascade  over  its  lip;  but  else, 
it  is  all  Nature's  lap,  with  its  bauble  resting  in  velvet 
— no  gardens,  no  fences,  no  walls,  no  shrubberies — a 
beautiful  valley  with  the  sky  resting  on  its  rim,  and 
nothing  in  it  save  one  fairy  palace.  The  simplicity 
of  the  thing  enchanted  me,  and,  in  all  my  yearnings 
after  rural  seclusion,  this  vision  of  old  travel  has,  more 
or  less,  colored  my  fancy.  You  see  what  I  mean, 
with  half  an  eye.  Gardens  are  beautiful,  shrubberies 
ornamental,  summer-houses  and  alleys,  and  gravelled 
paths,  all  delightful — but  they  are,  each  and  all,  taxes 
—heavy  taxes  on  mind,  time,  and  "dollar/'     Perhaps 


you  like  them.  Perhaps  you  want  the  occupation. 
But  some  men,  of  small  means,  like  a  contemplative 
idleness  in  the  country.  Some  men's  time  never 
hangs  heavily  under  a  tree.  Some  men  like  to  lock 
their  doors  (or  to  be  at  liberty  to  do  so),  and  be  gone 
for  a  month,  without  dread  of  gardens  plundered, 
flowers  trod  down,  shrubs  browsed  off  by  cattle.  Some 
men  like  nothing  out  of  doors  but  that  which  can  take 
care  of  itself — the  side  of  a  house  or  a  forest-tree,  or 
an  old  horse  in  a  pasture.  These  men,  too,  like  that 
which  is  beautiful,  and  for  such  I  draw  this  picture 
of  the  collage  insoucieuse.  What  more  simply  elegant 
than  a  pretty  structure  in  the  lap  of  a  green  dell  ! 
What  more  convenient  !  What  so  economical  ! 
Sheep  (we  may  "  return  to  muttons")  are  cheaper 
"help"  than  men,  and  if  they  do  not  keep  your  green- 
sward so  brightly  mown,  they  crop  it  faithfully  and 
turn  the  crop  to  better  account.  The  only  rule  of 
perfect  independence  in  the  country  is  to  make  no 
"improvement"  which  requires  more  attention  than 
the  making.  So — you  are  at  liberty  to  take  your  wife 
to  the  springs.  So— you  can  join  a  coterie  at  Niagara 
at  a  letter's  warning.  So — you  can  spend  a  winter  in 
Italy  without  leaving  half  your  income  to  servants  who 
keep  house  at  home.  So — you  can  sleep  without 
dread  of  hail-storms  on  your  graperies  or  green-houses, 
without  blunderbuss  for  depredators  of  fruit,  without 
distress  at  slugs,  cut-worms,  drought,  or  breachy  cattle. 
Nature  is  .prodigal  of  flowers,  grapes  are  cheaper  bought 
than  raised,  fruit  idem,  butter  idem  (though  you  mayn't 
think  so),  and  as  for  amusement — the  man  who  can 
not  find  it  between  driving,  fishing,  shooting,  strolling, 
and  reading  (to  say  nothing  of  less  selfish  pleasures), 
has  no  business  in  the  country.  He  should  go  back 
to  town. 


We  have  a  pleasant  and  welcome  correspondent 
who  signs  himself  "  r.  h.  d.,"  and  we  have  a  treasured 
and  admired  friend  known  to  the  world  as  Richard  H. 
Dana — and  they  are  two  different  persons.  We  must 
beg  our  friend  of  the  three  disembodied  initials  to  give 
way  to  the  embodied  three  of  the  poet,  though,  as  we 
well  know,  the  three  first  letters  of  a  man's  name  may 
be  as  momentous  to  him  as  the  three  legs  to  the 
"  moving  tripods"  seen  in  the  Indian  temples  by  Apol- 
lonius.  His  miracle  may  be  in  them  !  We  ourself 
have  been  un-phcenixed  of  late  (we  thought  there  was 
but  one  of  our  kind  !)  by  the  discovery  that  there  was 
another  N.  P.  Willis — (not  a  quill-pincher,  we  are 
pleased  to  understand). 


"Florian"  wishes  us  to  "draw  the  portrait  of  a  man 
fitted  by  nature  to  be  an  editor."  A  model  editor 
would  be  very  difficult  to  describe,  but  among  other 
things,  he  should  answer  to  the  description  given  in 
the  sporting  books  of  the  dunghill  cock  :  "  The  best 
cocks  should  be  close  hitters,  deadly  heelers,  steady 
fighters,  good  mouthers,  and  come  to  every  point." 


The  poem  sent  us  without  a  signature,  "  on  a  lady 
with  a  sweet  breath,"  implies  rather  too  close  quarters 
for  print.  Poetry  for  these  days  must  beat  arms' length. 
The  new  epithet  " pimento  breath"  ought  not  to  be 
lost,  however— quite  the  spiciest  new  word  that  has 
lately  been  rolled  under  our  tongue.  It  never  occur- 
red to  us  before  that  there  was  one  word  to  express 
cinnamon,  nutmegs,  and  cloves.  We  wish  we  could 
manufacture  more  of  these  single  triplicates.  Does 
our  nameless  correspondent  know,  by  the  way,  that 
bad  breath  in  Prussia  is  good  ground  for  divorce  ? 
We  recommend  him  to  write  a  parody  on  "  Knowst 
thou  the  land,"  &c. 


656 


EPHEMERA. 


The  Boston  papers  are  glorifying  (as  was  to  be  ex- 
pected) the  new  volume  of  poems  by  Russell  Lowell. 
We  wish  for  a  sight  of  it,  for  we  are  his  self-elected 
trumpeter,  and  haste  to  know  the  key  for  a  new  blast. 
By  the  way.  we  have  taken  the  liberty  (as  the  immor- 
tality he  is  bound  for  is  a  long  race)  to  drop  the  en- 
cumbrance of  James  from  his  musical  name,  and  here- 
after we  shall  economize  breath,  type,  and  harmony, 
by  calling  him  Russell  Lowell. 


An  editor  is  not  supposed  (as  the  world  and  subscri- 
bers to  newspapers  know)  to  require  or  possess  the 
luxury  of  sleep.  We  sleep  with  one  eye  open — we 
scorn  to  deny.  We  see  all  that  is  going  on  about  us, 
daylight  or  dark,  and  Washington  being  the  fountain 
of  law,  order,  and  information,  we  duly  give  the  alarm 

like  the  geese  who  saved  the  capitol.     Our  readers 

have,  from  week  to  week,  read  our  lucubrations  in 
this  wise,  and  here  are  are  some  more  of  them.  We 
send  them  forth  as  daguerreotypes  of  the  present — 
sent  as  records  of  matters  as  they  fly.  We  think 
they  are  worth  preserving  bodily — and  we  so  preserve 
them. 

The  first  day  of '44  came  in  like  a  specimen  num- 
ber of  a  magazine,  and  the  open  doors  of  New  York 
had  at  least  one  unexpected  visiter  in  a  veritable  Oc- 
tober sun.  The  day  was  mild  enough  to  make  over- 
coats uncomfortable  in  walking — the  pavement  was  dry 
and  summery — and  all  the  male  world  seemed  abroad. 
The  household  gods  of  Manhattan  were  probably  unan- 
imous in  their  happiness — as  all  the  ladies  were  "  at 
home,"  and  all  the  ladies'  lords  were  bound  to  be 
41  out."  This  morning  the  weather  is  still  softer — 
October,  possibly,  like  other  popular  persons,  not  find- 
ing one  day  to  suffice  for  its  visits. 

I  have  a  headache  on  the  top  of  my  pen,  and  can 
not  venture  any  further  description  of  new-year's  day 
than  the  above  facts,  though  yesterday  I  thought  I 
could  make  you  a  tip-top  gossipy  letter  out  of  the 
day's  hilarities.  The  hosts  of  the  Astor  wound  up  the 
excitement  for  their  guests  by  a  superb  dinner  at  can- 
dlelight, with  champagne  and  sweetmeats  "  a  discre- 
tion" and  altogether,  I  think  January  one  must  be 
marked  with  a  white  stone. 


You  have  read,  of  course,  and  loved  (much  more, 
of  course)  Leigh  Hunt's  poem  of  The  Rimini.  Tick- 
nor  &  Co.,  of  Boston,  have  republished  it  in  one  of 
their  beautiful  boudoir  editions,  and  along  with  it,  in 
the  same  neat  volume,  the  half  dozen  other  poems, 
most  famed,  of  Hunt's  prolific  pen.  The  story  (of  the 
lady  who  married  one  brother  and  loved  the  other)  is 
told  with  a  sort  of  entire  neiv-ness  of  style  and  lan- 
guage, as  if  it  were  the  one  admirable  work  of  a  natu- 
ral but  unpractised  poet,  and  it  sticks  to  the  memory 
after  it  is  read  like  Moore's  rose-scent  to  the  vase. 
Leigh  Hunt  is  a  born  poet,  but  one  of  the  most  un- 
happy citizens  of  the  world  that  the  world  holds. 
With  all  the  mental  capabilities  (the  wit,  the  delicacy, 
the  imagination,  and  the  desire)  to  be  the  carpet-poet 
of  aristocracy  that  Moore  is,  he  has  a  most  wo-begone 
person,  and  a  most  marvellous  lack  of  tact  and  relia- 
bility- He  never  can  stay  acquainted  with  the  only 
people  who,  by  refinement  and  talent,  are  alone  capa- 
ble of  making  friendship  comfortable  to  him;  and  he 
has  quarrelled  with  most  other  of  his  great  contempo- 
raries, as  he  did  with  Byron.  And,  by  the  way,  he  is 
dead — by  epigram  !  Moore's  felicitously-witty  verses 
on  Hunt's  Life  of  Byron  killed  him  quite  out  of  con- 
temporary respect.  The  ludicrous  image  of  the  pup- 
py-dog desecrating  the  body  of  the  dead  lion  follows 
him  into  every  drawing-room  and  walks  behind  him 


in  every  street.  He  will  never  recover  from  that  epi- 
gram. Indeed,  he  has  never  been  like  himself  since 
it  was  written.  It  is  the  most  signal  extinction  of  a 
great  genius  by  ridicule  that  I  know  of  on  record — 
more  enduring,  from  the  fact  that  the  English,  among 
their  other  conservative  peculiarities,  have  none  of  our 
marvellous  alacrity  at  public  forgetting.  Had  Leigh 
Hunt  been  born  with  a  little  thicker  skin,  somewhat 
a  cooler  head,  and  the  inestimable  power  of  catching 
the  snowballs  of  ridicule  in  his  bosom,  and  keeping 
them  there  till  they  could  be  thrown  back  hardened 
into  ice,  he  might  have  been  something  between  Fon- 
blanque  and  Moore,  Thiers  and  Janin,  and  equal  at 
least  to  either  of  these  powerful  "penditti."  As  it  is, 
he  is  uncomfortably  poor,  and  more  uncomfortably 
i<n-complacent.  With  two  lines,  very  Leigh-Hunt- 
ish,  I  cut  my  paragraph  short.  He  is  describing 
Apollo's  revery  while  resolving  upon  the  Feast  of  the 
Poets : — 

" '  I  think,'  said  the  god,  recollecting  (and  then 
He  fell  twiddling  a  sunbeam  as  I  would  a  pen) ." 


A  very  superb  book  of  drawings  is  being  subscribed 
for  in  New  York — "  Forty  Atmospheric  Views  of 
American  Scenery,"  from  water-color  drawings  by 
George  Harvey.  The  engravings  ere  to  be  in  aqua- 
tint,  and  to  be  beautifuly  and  artistically  colored,  so  as 
closely  to  resemble  the  original  designs.  The  views 
consist  of  different  atmospheric  effects  at  different 
times  of  day,  beginning  at  daybreak  and  ending  at 
midnight — each  view  a  complete  landscape,  and  the 
subjects  emblematic  of  the  progress  of  civilization, 
from  the  log-cabin  to  the  highest  achievement  in  ar- 
chitecture. Mr.  Harvey  is  one  of  the  leading  artists 
of  the  new  water-color  school,  and  this  will  probably 
be  the  most  superb  work  of  its  kind  ever  published. 
A  letter  from  Washington  Allston  to  Mr.  Harvey 
says : — 

"I  am  unwilling  that  you  should  leave  Boston  with- 
out knowing  how  much  I  have  been  gratified  by  your 
beautiful  drawings  of  American  scenery.  To  me  it 
appears  that  you  have  not  only  been  successful  in  giv- 
ing the  character  of  our  scenery,  but  remarkably 
happy  in  clothing  it  with  an  American  atmosphere, 
which  you  have  expressed  with  great  truth  and  va- 
riety." 


By  the  thermometer,  the  winter  has  commenced 
this  day,  the  5th  of  January.  People  pass  under  my 
window  with  their  backs  shrugged  up  to  their  bump 
of  philoprogenitiveness,  and  even  the  coats  of  the  hard- 
working omnibus  horses  "  stare" — as  the  jockeys  say. 
I  wish  the  physiologists  would  explain  why  horses' 
coats  do  not  lie  closer  when  it  is  cold,  and  why  men, 
with  the  same  sensation,  raise  their  arms  instinctively 
from  their  sides.  Cats  and  dogs  seem  to  economize 
their  bodily  heat  better — lying  down  when  cold  in 
such  an  attitude  as  to  expose  as  little  surface  to  the 


Our  thoughts  are  entirely  occupied  this  morning 
with  two  poets.  It  must  be  a  pleasant  book  that  we 
take  for  company  the  first  hour  after  waking,  and  to- 
day, with  his  new  volume  of  poems  open  on  our  dres- 
sing-table, we  dressed  and  read  Lowell.  Thence  he 
went  with  us  to  a  tete-a-tete  breakfast  (for  we  chanced, 
else,  to  be  breakfasting  alone),  and  we  were  reading 
him  with  a  cup  of  coffee  in  one  hand  and  his  book  in 
the  other,  when  the  letters  came  in  from  the  post — 
and  one  letter  was  from  a  poet  new-plumaged,  of 
whom  we  had  never  heard,  and  who  had  probably 
never  heard  of  himself  (as  a  poet),  but  still  indnbita- 


EPHEMERA. 


657 


bly  a  poet — albeit  "an  apprentice-boy  in  a  printing 
office"  in  a  small  village  in  Pennsylvania.  We  read 
his  timid  letter  and  two  sweet  pieces  of  poetry  enclosed 
within  it,  marked  the  poetry  "  good"  for  the  Mirror, 
and  then  reverted  to  our  breakfast  and  book.  But, 
so  early  in  the  moruing,  a  little  reading  is  enough  for 
a  brainful  of  thought,  and  from  pondering  on  Low- 
ell's "Shepherd  King  of  Admetus,"  we  fell  to  think- 
ing over  the  probable  position  and  destiny  of  these  two 
poets. 

Lowell  is  the  best-launched  poet  of  his  time,  and 
the  defect  of  his  poetry  is  an  advantage  to  his  go- 
along-ery.  He  is  stern  and  strong  enough  to  "take 
the  wall"  of  Envy  and  Misfortune,  but  not  yielding 
and  soft  enough  to  bend  to  the  unconscious  and  impul- 
sive abandonments  of  love.  Love  with  him  is  sound 
sense,  not  beautiful  madness...  He  is  too  bold  and  ab- 
stract for  the 

"  levia  affectuum  vestigia 
Gracilesque  sensus  lineas ;" 

and,  if  he  knows,  he  has  a  contempt  for,  the 

"  quibus 
Vehantur  alis  blanduli  Cupidines." 

The  way  Lowell  handles  the  word  love  makes  one 
start  like  seeing  Rolla  pick  up  Cora's  baby  with  one 
hand.     The  fact  is,  he  is  a  strong-minded,  tough-sin- 
ewed, defying  poet,  fit  to  be  a  martyr  to  opinion  or  a 
partisan  soldier,  and  if  his  love  be  not  an  excellent 
lamp  not  yet  lighted  (which  is  possible),  he  has  never  ! 
experienced  its  first  timidity,  nor  is  he  likely  to  know  j 
its  ultimate  phrensy  and  prodigality.     He  has  drawn  : 
his  own   portrait,  however,  in  a  "Sonnet  written  on 
his   Twenty-fourth   Birthday,"  and   let   us   read   his 
character  from  it : — 

"  Now  have  I  quite  passed  by  that  cloudy  If 
That  darkened  the  wild  hope  of  boyish  days, 
When  first  I  launched  my  slender-sided  skiff 
Upon  the  wide  sea's  dim,  unsounded  ways  ; 
Now  doth  Love's  sun  my  soul  uith  splendor  fill, 
And  hope  hath  struggled  upward  unto  Power  ; 
Soft  Wish  is  hardened  into  sinewy  Will, 
And  longing  unto  certainty  doth  tower  ; 
The  love  of  beauty  knoweth  no  despair  : 
My  heart  would  break  if " 

What  should  you  think  would  naturally  follow  this 
"  if,"  dear  reader  ?  He  is  twenty-four — in  the  full 
tide  of  blood  and  youth,  and  "Love's  sun  has  filled 
his  soul  with  splendor."  In  building  up  a  climax  of 
his  feelings  at  this  impetuous  and  passionate  age, 
what  should  you  fancy  would  rush  up  to  crown  it  like 
flame  to  a  volcano  ?  What  would  his  "  heart  break" 
for  at  passionate  twenty-four? 

"  if]  I  should  dare  to  doubt 
That  from  the  wrong,  which  makes  its  dragon's  lair 
Here  on  the  Earth,  fair  Truth  shall  wander  out 
Teaching  mankind  that  Freedom  's  held  in  fee 
Only  by  those  who  labor  to  set  free." 

Tn  another  poem  on  "  Love,"  he  describes  "  true 
love"  as 

"  A  love  that  doth  not  kneel  for  what  it  seeks, 
But  faces  Truth  and  Beauty  as  their  peer, 
Showing  its  worthiness  of  noble  thoughts 
By  clear  sense  of  inward  nobleness  : 
A* love  that  in  its  object  findeth  not 
All  grace  Mid  beauty,  and  enough  to  sate 
Its  thirst  of  blessing,  but,  in  alf  of  good 
Found  there,  it  sees  but  heaven-granted  types 
Of  good  and  beauty  in  the  soul  of  man, 
And  traces  in  the  simplest  heart  that  beats 
A  family-likeness  to  its  chosen  one 
That  claims  of  it  the  rights  of  brotherhood." 

This  is  a  cold  description  of  "  true  love,"  and  it  is 
not  half  so  warm  as  the  "  love"  which  Lowell  exhibits 
in  his  preface,  for  his  friend  William  Page.  Com- 
pare the  above  description,  in  poetrv,  of  true  love  for 
42 


a  woman,  with  the  following  confession,  in  prose,  of 
love  for  a  man  : — 

"  My  dear  friend :  The  love  between  us,  which  can 
now  look  back  upon  happy  years  of  still  enlarging  con- 
fidence, and  forward  with  a  sure  trust  in  its  own  pioph- 
ecy  of  yet  deeper  and  tenderer  sympathies,  as  long  as 
life  shall  remain  to  us,  stands  in  no  need.  I  am  well 
aware,  of  so  poor  a  voucher  as  an  Epistle  Dedicatory. 
True,  it  is  one  of  love's  chiefest  charms  that  it  must 
still  take  special  pains  to  be  superfluous  in  seeking 
out  ways  to  declare  itself — but  for  these  it  demands  no 
publicity  and  wishes  no  acknowledgment.  But  the 
admiration  which  one  soul  feels  for  another  loses 
half  its  worth,  if  it  slip  any  opportunity  of  making 
itself  heard  and  felt,"  etc. 

Lowell  is  one  kind  of  poet,  and  it  is  the  worst  man- 
ner of  criticism  to  tell  what  a  poet  is  not,  except  more 
clearly  to  define  what  he  is.  Though  his  sexual  heart 
never  swims  in  his  inkstand,  he  is  warm  enough  in  his 
enthusiasm  for  all  generous  sentiments,  and  both  dar- 
ing and  delicate  enough  in  his  powers  of  imagination. 
Truth,  good  sense,  and  fancy,  were  seldem  more 
evenly  braided  together  than  in  his  poem  of  "The 
Heritage,"  and  Rosaline  (though  it  never  could  have 
been  conceived  by  a  man  who  had  passionately  loved) 
is  the  very  finest  cobweb  of  fancy.  Nobody  could 
help  loving  the  truth,  honesty,  fearlessness,  and  ener- 
gy, stamped  on  all  his  poetry,  and,  as  we  said  before, 
he  has  the  "w'm"  to  carve  out  for  himself  any  destiny 
he  pleases.  He  has  determined  to  live  by  literature, 
but  we  do  not  believe  he  will  long  remain  a  poet  only. 
He  will  wish  to  take  the  world  by  the  beard  in  some 
closer  clutch  than  poetry  gives  room  for,  and  his  good 
judgment  as  to  the  weight  of  heavy  English  words, 
will  try  itself  before  long  on  more  serious  matter  than 
sonnets.  At  least,  that  is  what  we  think  while  admi- 
ring him  over  our  breakfast. 

As  to  the  other  poet,  Bayard  Taylor,  we  had  a 
great  deal  to  say  to  him — sympathy,  encouragement, 
promise  of  watchfulness  over  his  fame,  etc.,  etc.  But 
he  will  need  no  special  kindness  yet  awhile.  Love  is 
plenty  for  new-found  poets.  Many  people  love  little 
chickens  who  are  insensible  to  the  merits  of  cocks 
and  hens,  and  we  reserve  our  friendship  till  he  is  ma- 
tured and  envied.  Meantime,  if  he  wants  our  opinion 
that  he  is  a  poet,  and  can  be,  with  toil  and  study — im- 
mortal—he has  it.  His  poetry  is  already  worthy  of 
long  preserving — apprentice-boy  though  he  be. 


I  had  quite  a  summery  trip  to  Philadelphia  on  the 
second  day  of  the  new  year,  sitting  at  the  open  win- 
dow of  the  railcar  and  snuffing  the  fragrance  of  the 
soft,  sun-warmed  fields  with  as  good  comfort  as  I  ever 
found  in  April.  But  for  the  rudeness  and  incivility 
of  all  the  underlings  employed  upon  the  line  (and  I 
am  too  old  a  traveller,  and  was  in  too  sunny  a  humor, 
to  find  fault  unnecessarily),  I  should  have  given  the 
clerk  of  happiness  credit  for  five  hours  "bankable" 
satisfaction.  It  tells  ill  for  the  manners  of  the  "Direc- 
tors of  the  Philadelphia  and  New  York  Railroad  Line," 
that  their  servants  are  habitually  insolent  and  profane — 
servants  being  usually  what  their  masters  look  on 
without  reproof. 

Philadelphia  makes  an  impression  of  great  order, 
comfort,  and  elegance,  upon  a  stranger,  and  there  is 
no  city  in  the  country  where  I  like  better  to  "loiter 
by  the  way."  Not  feeling  very  "  gregarious"  the  day 
I  was  there,  and  having  heard  much  mention  of  San- 
derson's restaurant— (moreover,  having  found  a  new 
book  at  Lea  &  Blanchard's.  a  look  into  winch  prom- 
ised excellent  dinner-company)— 1  left  my  hotel  and 
dined  a  la  Francaise—I  and  my  new  book.  I  never 
had  a  more  capital  dinner  in  France  than  this  im- 
promptu one  at  Sanderson's,  and  I  wish  the  book  had 


658 


EPHEMERA. 


been  American  as  well  as  the  dinner — for  the  glory  it 
is  to  the  country  that  produced  it.  It  was  to  me 
much  more  enchanting  and  captivating  than  a  novel, 
yet  the  subject  was,  "  The  Education  of  Mothers,  or 
the  Civilization  of  Mankind" — a  subject  you  would 
naturally  expect  to  find  treated  with  somewhat  trite 
morality.  This  work,  however  (which  gained  the 
prize  offered  by  the  French  Academy),  is  written  with 
complete  novelty  and  freshness,  and — to  define  it  in  a 
way  that  every  thinking  man  will  comprehend — it  is  a 
most  delightfully  suggestive  book — full  of  thoughts 
and  sentences  that  make  you  stop  and  close  the  vol- 
ume till  you  have  fed  awhile  on  what  they  convey  to 
you.  If  this  book  were  properly  presented  to  the  ap- 
preciation of  the  public,  it  would  circulate  widely  on 
the  two  levels  of  amusement  and  instruction,  and  be 
as  delightful  in  one  field  as  it  would  be  eminently  use- 
ful in  the  other.  I  commend  it  to  every  one  who  is 
in  want  of  enjoyable  reading.  The  motto,  by-the- 
way,  is  that  true  sentiment  from  Rousseau:  "  Les 
homines  seront  toujours  ce  qu'il  plaira  aux  femmes.  Si 
vous  voulez  quHls  deviennent  grands  et  verlueux,  ap- 
■prenez  aux  femmes  ce  que  c'est  que  grandeur  et  vertu." 


The  New  Mirror  has  published  No.  3  of  what  a 
morning  paper  calls  "aristocratic  shilling  literature," 
an  extra  containing  "  The  Lady  Jane,  and  other  Hu- 
morous Poems,"  by  N.  P.  Willis.  The  Lady  Jane 
is  a  daguerreotype  sketch  of  the  London  literary  so- 
ciety in  which  Moore,  Bulwer,  D'Israeli,  Proctor,  and 
others  of  that  class  habitually  live,  and  it  is,  at  least, 
done  with  the  utmost  labor  limce  of  the  author.  By- 
ron, in  a  manner,  monopolized  the  Don  Juan  stanza 
(in  which  this  poem  is  written),  and  no  one  could  now 
attempt  the  stanza,  however  different  the  story  and 
style  of  thought,  without  being  criticised  inevitably 
as  an  imitator.  Still,  it  is  the  only  stanza  susceptible, 
to  any  high  degree,  of  mingled  pathos  and  humor, 
philosophy  and  fun,  and  it  is  likely  to  be  used  for  such 
purposes  until  the  monopoly  is  lost  sight  of — a  hun- 
dred years  hence.  There  is  a  great  deal  in  "The 
Lady  Jane"  which  is  truer  and  newer  than  most 
sketches  of  society  published  in  books  of  travel — a 
great  deal  that  could  only  be  told  in  such  a  poem,  or 
in  the  rattle  of  familiar  gossip. 


I  met  just  now,  in  the  corridor  of  the  Astor,  Cap- 
tain Chadwick,  of  the  London  packet-ship  Welling- 
ton, just  arrived  in  twenty-two  days  from  England. 
At  this  season  of  the  year,  and  up-hill  (as  the  sailors 
call  it,  westerly  winds  always  predominating  on  the 
Atlantic),  this  is  a  remarkable  passage,  and  could  only 
have  been  made  by  a  fine  ship,  well  sailed.  I  have 
made  two  remarkably  short  passages  across  the  water 
with  Captain  Chadwick,  and  a  more  agreeable  com- 
panion, or  a  better  "skipper,"  I  believe,  never  tight- 
ened a  halliard.  He  is  one  of  those  happy  men  fa- 
mous for  "good  luck,"  which  commonly  means,  "ta- 
king good  care."  This  is  the  ship  on  board  of  which 
the  duke  of  Wellington  made  a  speech  (at  a  break- 
fast given  to  him  by  the  captain)  very  complimentary 
to  America  and  Americans. 


There  is  a  considerable  outbreak  lately  in  the  way 
of  equipages  in  New  York.  Several  four-horse  ve- 
hicles have  made  their  appearance,  driven  by  the 
young  men  who  own  them.  I  have  noticed  also  a 
new  curricle  in  beautiful  taste  (driven  with  a  steel  bar 
over  the  horses'  backs),  and  a  tilbury  with  two  ser- 
vants in  livery,  one  on  the  seat  with  his  master,  and 


another  on  horseback,  following  as  an  outrider.  We 
are  to  have  a  masked  ball  this  evening,  and  a  steeple- 
chase is  to  come  off  on  the  twentieth  (Viscount  Ber- 
trand  one  of  the  riders,  and  each  competitor  entering 
a  thousand-dollar  stake  for  the  winner).  I  shall  be  at 
the  ball,  not  at  the  steeple-chase — for  a  horse  must 
have  iron  legs  to  run  over  frozen  ploughed  fields,  and 
a  man  must  have  less  use  for  his  life  than  I,  who 
would  risk  a  fall  upon  a  surface  like  broken  stones. 
The  viscount  has  won  several  steeple-chases  in  Eng- 
land, and  has  had  some  rough  riding  after  the  Arabs 
in  Algiers — so  I  would  bet  on  him,  unless  there  hap- 
pened to  be  a  fox-hunting  Irishman  among  the  com- 
petitors. There  are  six  riders,  I  understand,  and  one 
of  them  will  win  six  thousand  dollars,  of  course,  and 
probably  six  horses  will  be  ruined,  and  one  or  two 
necks  broken.  Fortunately,  there  is  a  superfluity  of 
horses  and  young  men. 

The  story  goes  that  "  there  is  a  skeleton  in  every 
man's  closet,"  and  there  is,  of  course  (in  a  country 
as  independent  as  ours  is  of  les  prestiges),  a  phantom 
following  every  man  who  is  conspicuous,  and  point- 
ing at  his  drawback.  The  drawback  to  any  elaborate 
novelty  of  luxury  is  at  once  read  legibly  in  Broadway. 
Seeing  a  new  and  very  costly  equipage  in  England, 
you  merely  know  that  the  owner  had  money  enough 
to  buy  it.  The  contrivance  of  it,  the  fitting  of  the 
harness,  the  matching  and  breaking  in  of  the  horses, 
are  matters  attended  to  by  those  who  make  these  de- 
tails their  profession.  The  turn-out  is  brought  per- 
fect to  the  owner's  door,  and  he  pays,  simply,  money 
|  for  it.  In  this  country,  on  the  contrary,  the  purchaser 
j  and  driver  of  such  a  vehicle  pays  for  it  money,  contri- 
vance, constant  thought,  and  almost  his  entire  attention. 
The  classes  are  yet  wanting  who  purvey  for  luxuries 
out  of  the  ordinary  course.  There  is  no  head-groom 
whose  business  it  is  to  save  his  master  from  all 
thought  and  trouble  as  to  his  turn-out.  The  New 
York  "  Glaucus"  must  go  every  day  for  a  month  to 
the  coachmaker's,  to  superintend  the  finishing  of  his 
new  "  drag."  He  must  hurry  his  breakfast  to  go  to 
the  stable  to  look  after  his  irresponsible  grooms.  He 
spends  hours  at  the  harness-maker's.  He  racks  his 
thought  to  contrive  compact  working-room  for  his 
wheelers,  and  get  the  right  pull  on  his  leaders.  He 
becomes  learned  in  harness-blacking  and  wheel-grease, 
horse-shoes  and  horse-physic,  and,  in  short,  entirely 
occupies  what  philosophers  are  pleased  to  call  "  an  im- 
mortal mind"  in  the  one  matter  of  a  vehicle  to  drive. 
(He  could  be  conveyed,  of  course,  the  same  distance 
each  day  in  an  omnibus  for  sixpence — but  he  does  not 
believe  the  old  satire  of  "  aliquis  in  omnihus,  nihil  in 
singulis.'"  Quite  the  contrary!)  A  man  who  is  not 
content,  in  this  country,  to  be  provided  for  with  the 
masses,  and  like  the  masses,  becomes  his  own  provider 
— like  a  man  who,  to  have  a  coat  different  from  other 
people,  should  make  it  himself,  and,  of  course,  be  lit- 
tle except  an  amateur  tailor.  We  shall  have  these 
supplementary  links  of  society  in  time.  There  will 
be,  doubtless,  the  class  of  thought-savers.  But,  until 
then,  the  same  amount  of  thought  that  would  serve  a 
constituency  in  Congress,  will  be  employed  in  keep- 
ing a  "  slap-up  turn-out,"  and  rich  young  men  will 
at  least  have  the  credit  of  choosing  between  stable 
knowledge  and  legislative  ambition. 


I  had  thought  that  the  revenue  which  foreign  the- 
atres derive  from  selling  to  young  men,  at  large  prices, 
keys  for  the  season  to  the  behind-scenes,  and  the  so- 
ciety of  the  goddesses  of  the  ballet  while  off  the 
stage,  was  not  yet  discovered  in  this  country.  The 
following  paragraph,  from  the  True  Sun,  would  seem 
to  show  that  the  coulisses  are  visited  for  their  society, 
at  least,  and  might  be  made  "to  pay  :" — 


EPHEMERA. 


659 


"Among  the  cases  which  are  set  down  for  trial  next 
term,  is  one  which  will  lift  the  curtain  which  conceals 
the  affairs  of  a  certain  cheap  theatre  in  this  city,  and 
give  the  public  a  bird's-eye  view  of  what  has  been  re- 
cently going  on  behind  the  scenes.  The  develop- 
ments, if  not  prevented  by  an  amicable  arrangement, 
will  be  rich  and  rare — showing  the  procedure  by 
which  a  luminary  of  the  law  has  run  out  of  his  orbit, 
displacing,  in  his  new  and  erratic  course,  a  luminary 
of  literature  /" 

The  fine  writing  of  this  paragraph,  by-the-way,  is 
rather  piquant. 


The  belle  of  the  Olympic,  pretty  Miss  Taylor, 
could  scarce  have  a  better  advertisement  for  attrac- 
tion than  a  paragraph  which  announces  that  she  "has 
been  robbed  of  six  hundred  dollars  worth  of  jewelry," 
and  that  "many  heavy  articles  of  plate,  rich  dresses, 
Ar.,  were  left  undisturbed  !"  I  am  inclined  to 
think  that  this  is  a  covert  puff  from  Mitchell's  ge- 
nius— for  he  is  a  genius,  and  quite  capable  of  knowing 
that  everybody  will  go  to  have  a  look  at  an  actress 
who  had  "six  hundred  dollars'  worth  of  jewelry  and 
many  heavy  articles  of  plate  left  undisturbed  !"  Peo- 
ple, like  pictures,  are  made  to  "stand  out"  by  a 
well-contrived  background!  Ah,  vou  bright  fellow, 
Mitchell! 


The  event  ahead  which  Jias  the  most  rose-colored 
promise,  just  now,  is  the  Annual  Ball  of  the  City 
Guard — to  be  given  at  Niblo's  on  the  twenty-fourth. 
Niblo's  finely-proportioned  hall  has  been,  for  some 
time,  undergoing  a  transformation  into  a  model  of  the 
ancient  Alhambra  for  the  purpose,  and  Smith,  the  ex- 
cellent scene-painter  of  the  Park,  and  a  troop  of  dec- 
oraters  and  upholsterers  under  his  direction,  are  do- 
ing all  that  taste  and  money  can  do  to  conjure  up  a 
scene  of  enchantment  "for  one  night  only."  The 
supper  is  to  make  the  gods  hungry  and  envious  on 
Olympus — so  sumptuous,  they  say,  are  the  prepara- 
tions. The  City  Guard,  as  you  may  know,  is  what 
the  English  army-men  call  the  "crack  corps''  of  New 
York.  The  probability  is,  that  its  members  repre- 
sent more  spirit,  style,  and  character,  than  belong  to 
any  other  combination  of  young  men  in  the  state. 
They  have  a  great  deal  of  fashion,  as  well  as  esprit  du 
corps,  and,  what  with  their  superb  uniform,  uppish 
carriage,  superior  discipline,  and  high-spirited  union 
of  purpose,  they  constitute  a  power  of  no  little  weight 
and  consideration.  Their  ball  will  probably  be  the 
most  showy  festivity  of  the  season. 


The  masked  ball  which  comes  oft"  to-night  is,  I  am 
told,  got  up  by  a  party  of  literary  ladies,  to  promote 
tase  in  conversation!  I  can  hardly  fancy  anything 
more  easy  than  the  "freedoms  of  the  press,"  and,  I 
im  told,  most  of  the  gentlemen  of  the  press  are  in- 
'ited,  myself  among  the  number.  A  man  is  a  block, 
of  course,  who  is  not  open  to  improvement. 
******* 

I  went  to  the  masked  ball  without  any  very  clear 
idea  of  who  were  its  purposers,  or  what  were  its 
purposes.  I  found  to  my  surprise  that  it  was  the 
celebration  of  the  opening  of  the  Ladies'  Club  in 
the  upper  part  of  Broadway.  A  fine  house  has  been 
taken  and  furnished,  and  the  reading-room  goes  im- 
mediately into  operation,  I  understand.  Like  the 
frolic  they  gave  (in  some  country  of  which  I  have 
read  and  desire  to  know  more)  to  the  nuns  before 
taking  the  irrevocable  veil,  the  carpets  were  taken  up 
and  music  and  men  introduced  to  make  the  gynocras- 
tic  seclusion    hereafter    more    marked    and   positive. 


Being  "an  early  man,"  I  stayed  but  an  hour,  listen- 
ing to  the  band  and  looking  on;  but  I  saw  beauty 
there  which  might  make  one  almost  envy  the  news- 
papers that  are  to  be  perused  by  a  "club"  of  such, 
and  a  general  air  enjoue  more  lovely  than  literary. 
The  masks  were  few,  and  the  fun  of  them  was  quite 
destroyed  by  the  fact  that  every  one  seemed  to  know 
who  they  were.  Indeed,  the  pleasure  of  reputable 
masking  lies  in  the  momentary  breaking  down  of  bar- 
riers that  in  this  country  do  not  exist — in  giving  low 
degree  and  high  degree  a  chance  to  converse  freely, 
that  is  to  say — and  till  we  have  unapproachable  lords 
and  princes,  and  ladies  weary  of  the  thin  upper  air  of 
exclusiveness,  masquerading  will  be  dull  work  to  us. 
At  present  the  mask  makes  rather  than  removes  an  ob- 
stacle to  intercourse.  Anybody  who  is  there  in  a 
mask,  would  be  just  as  glad  to  see  you  tete-a-tete  by 
daylight,  the  next  morning  in  her  parlor,  as  to  chat 
with  you  through  pasteboard  and  black  crape.  Most 
of  the  ladies  at  this  literary  ball  were  in  fancy  dresses, 
however,  and  doubtless  with  their  pastoral  attractions 
displayed  to  the  best  advantage;  and  this  part  of  it 
was  commendable.  If  women  knew  what  was  attrac- 
tive, I  think  they  would  make  every  ball  a  '■'■fancy 
ball.1'  "  Medora"  jackets  and  "  Sultana"  trousers  are 
choses  entrainantes. 


I  think  you  would  agree  with  me,  after  reading  it, 
that  Brantz  Mayer's  work  on  Mexico,  recently 
published,  is  as  agreeably  spiced  with  wit,  humor,  and 
other  pleasant  metal  pimento,  as  any  book  of  travels 
written  within  new-book  memory.  I  have  run  through 
it  within  a  day  or  two  with  some  suspense,  as  well  as 
great  amusement — for  so  racy  and  sketchy  a  power 
of  description  should  be  in  the  corps  of  professed, 
not  amateur  authors.  His  descriptions  of  the  outer 
features  of  Mexican  life,  of  Mexican  character,  Mex- 
ican women,  beggars,  priests,  and  gamblers,  are  ad- 
mirably spirited  and  entertaining.  There  is  also  a 
good  deal  of  statistical  matter  industriously  and  care- 
fully got  together,  and  the  publisher  has  done  justice 
to  it  all  in  the  printing  and  getting  up.  There  will 
be  elaborate  reviews  of  it  elsewhere;  but  meantime  I 
express  my  pleasurable  surprise  and  admiration  in  a 
paragraph- — commending  it  for  the  purchase  of  readers. 


The  fourth  extra  of  the  New  Mirror  has  appeared, 
embodying  Morris's  popular  songs  and  melodies, 
which  have  heretofore  only  been  published  with  mu- 
sic, or  in  a  very  expensive  embellished  edition  of  his 
works.  The  hundred  thousand  lovers  of  married  po- 
etry (music  the  wife,  or  husband,  I  don't  know  which) 
will  be  glad  to  get  these  "  winged  words"  in  a  lump 
for  a  shilling.  Morris's  popularity  will  send  this  ex- 
tra to  every  corner  of  the  land. 


The  betting  upon  the  riders  in  the  proposed  hur- 
dle-race (not  steeple-chase,  as  I  mentioned  before)  goes 
on  vigorously.  I  rather  doubt,  however,  whether  it 
will  ultimately  come  off.  There  was  a  steeple-chase 
got  up  on  Long  Island,  last  year,  in  which  an  Irish- 
man and  an  Englishman,  whose  fames  had  followed 
them,  as  great  hunters,  were  the  competitors,  and 
after  getting  over  two  fences  by  pushing  them  down 
with  their  horses'  breasts,  they  got  imprisoned  in  a 
clover-lot,  from  which  they  were  extricated  with  great 
difficulty  by  the  owner's  letting  down  the  bars  and 
leading  the  horses  over !  There  is  a  compact,  jockey- 
built  American  among  the  competitors,  who  has  great 
skill  as  a  horseman,  and  should  there  be  snow  on  the 
ground,  his  light  weight   and   superior  practice  will 


660 


EPHEMERA. 


win  the  race  for  him  without  a  doubt.  The  Viscount 
Bertrand,  though  doubtless  the  boldest  of  riders,  is 
over  six  feet  high,  and  a  heavy  man. 


The  Statistics  of  Puffing. — We  have  been  in- 
duced lately  to  look  a  little  into  the  meum  and  tuum 
of  puffing— partly  from  having  been  untruly  (qu.  pre- 
maturely?) accused  of  "  receiving  consideration  for 
the  same,"  but  more  to  see  whether  the  consideration 
were  worth  the  having,  in  case  conscience  ("  John  Tet- 
zel,  vender  of  indulgences,"  being  dead)  could  be 
brought  to  countenance  it.  We  pique  ourselves  on 
looking  things  in  the  face,  and  having  and  allowing 
as  few  concealments  as  possible — so,  first,  for  a  clean 
breast  on  the  subject — say  up  to  January  1,  1844. 

We  are  not  particular,  as  "Mrs.  Grundy"  knows, 
as  to  the  subject  we  write  upon,  nor  the  harness  in 
which  we  are  put  to  work,  nor  the  style,  rhythm,  or 
rhyme,  we  are  called  upon  to  write  in.  We  go  alto- 
gether for  metallic  magnetism.  It  is  our  duty  (on 
our  way  to  Heaven)  to  try  for  a  "plum" — in  other 
words,  to  be  "diligent  in  business."  We  write  what 
in  our  judgment  is  best  calculated  to  sell.  But,  in 
the  course  of  this  policy,  it  falls  in  our  way  to  speak 
of  things  to  eat,  and  things  to  wear — very  capable 
topics,  both,  as  to  piquancy  and  interest.  We  have 
had  occasion  to  describe  glowingly  Florence's  crus- 
taceous  cave,  and  the  ice-cream  Alhamra,  and  to 
pronounce  Carpenter  the  ne  plus  ultra  of  coat- 
builders,  and  Jennings's  the  emporium  of  "bang-up" 
toggery,  and  for  these  and  similar  serviceable  "  first- 
rate  notices,"  we  have,  in  no  shape,*  received  "  con- 
sid-e-ra-tion."  The  gentlemen  who  have  said  so 
("the  hawks"  who  would  "pick  out  hawks'  een") 
will  please  make  an  early  meal  of  their  little  fictions. 

As  to  literary  puffs,  we  would  as  soon  sell  our  tears 
for  lemon-drops,  as  to  defile  one  of  God's  truthful 
adjectives  with  a  price  for  the  using  it.  We  never 
asked  for  a  literary  puff  in  our  life,  nor  made  interest 
for  it  in  any  shape,  nor  would  we  sell  one  for  the 
great  emerald  Sakhral.  But  if  we  love  a  man  (as  we 
do  many,  thank  God,  whom  we  are  called  upon  to 
criticise),  we  pick  out  the  gold  that  is  inlaid  in  his 
book,  and  leave  to  his  enemies  to  find  the  brass  and 
tinsel.  And  if  that's  not  fair,  we  don't  very  much  care 
—for  we  scorn  to  be  impartial. 

But  let  us  hop  off  this  high  horse,  and  come  down 
to  the  trade  part  of  it  once  more. 

In  England,  all  influences  that  aid  business  are 
priced  and  paid.  The  puffs  of  new  books  in  the 
newspapers  are  invariably  sent,  ready-written,  by  the 
publishers,  and  paid  for  at  a  much  higher  price  than 
avowed  advertisements.  The  continued  effect  of  this 
abuse  of  the  public  ear  is  based  upon  the  phlegmatic 
dulness  of  perception  in  the  English  public,  and  their 
consequent  chronic  humbuggability.  It  could  never 
"answer"  in  our  country  after  being  once  fairly  ex- 
posed. It  is,  to  a  certain  degree,  practised,  however 
— as  is  pay  for  concert-puffing,  music-puffing,  theat- 
rical-puffing, etc. 

Having  confessed  that  we  are  willing  to  admit  an 
entering  wedge  of  iniquity  in  this  line — in  other 
words,  that  we  are  willing  to  know  whether  it  be  hon- 
est to  serve  a  man  and  contemplate  his  thanks  in 
lucre — let  us  "  run  the  line,"  as  the  surveyors  say, 
and  see  how  our  new  territory  of  tribute  may  be  vir- 
tuously bounded. 

Authors  have  "the  freedom"  of  us,  of  course. 
They  are  welcome  to  all  we  can  do  for  them — if  they 

•  One  exception — a  hat !  We  had  been  somewhat  emphatic 
in  avowing  Orlando  Fish  the  nonpnv=;il  of  hat-shapers,  and 
(knowing  the  measure  of  our  ;  .a — critical  man  !)  he  did 
send  us  a  charming  hat  with  ai  the  disenchantment  of  a  bill. 
Peccavimus ' 


publish  on  their  own  account.  Actors,  singers,  and 
painters,  are  "  chartered  libertines"  for  whom  we  have 
a  weakness ;  and,  besides,  we  can  not  feed  on  the 
wages  of  pleasure-makers.  All  other  pursuits,  trades, 
professions,  we  are  half  inclined  to  admit,  will  be  at 
liberty  to  make  us  such  acknowledgments  as  they 
choose  for  any  furtherance  to  their  merchandise  (in 
bales  or  brains)  which  may  come  legitimately  in  our 
way.  We  shall,  in  any  case,  preserve  the  value  of 
our  commendation  by  keeping  it  honest,  and  we  shall 
never  commend  any  farther  than  is  entertaining  and 
readable — but  there  is  a  choice  between  subjects  to 
write  about,  and  a  preference  as  to  giving  attention  to 
things  about  town,  and  it  is  for  this  choice  and  pref- 
erence that  we  may  make  up  our  mind  to  be  suscep- 
tible of  corruption.  We  write  this  in  the  cool  of  the 
morning.  We  don't  know  what  we  shall  think  in  the 
more  impulsive  hours.  Meantime — send  it  to  the 
printer,  and  see  what  the  governor  says  of  it  in  the 
proof-sheet. 


A  few  gentlemen  (Mr.  Philip  Hone  apparently  the 
mover  of  the  project)  have  combined  to  raise  a  sub- 
scription for  the  purchase  of  Clevenger's  statue  of  a 
North  American  Indian.  The  circular  addresses  the 
business-men  of  the  city,  and  the  statue,  if  purchased, 
will  be  presented  to  the  Mercantile  Library  Associa- 
tion. Three  thousand  dollars  is  the  sum  fixed  upon, 
five  hundred  of  which  are  to  be  appropriated  to  the 
immediate  relief  of  Mrs.  Clevenger  and  her  children. 
It  would  strike,  perhaps,  even  some  of  the  subscribers 
to  this  fund  with  surprise  to  tell  them  that  the  statue 
they  are  to  purchase  is  possibly  still  lying  unquarried 
in  the  mountains  of  Carrara.  Clevenger  is  dead,  but 
his  genius  stands  pointing  its  finger  to  a  rude  block  of 
marble,  in  which  lies,  unseen,  a  complete  and  immor- 
tal statue,  waiting  only  for  the  chisel  of  mechanical 
workmen  to  remove  the  rough  stone  that  encumbers 
it.  That  finger  is  seen  and  obeyed  three  thousand 
miles  away  (by  the  committee  with  Mr.  Philip  Hone 
at  its  head),  and  the  reluctant  money  will  be  forth- 
coming and  on  its  way  to  Italy  in  a  month,  and  the 
statue  will  be  found  and  finished.,  imported,  and  ex- 
hibited at  Clinton  Hall !  (Plain  matter-of-fact,  all 
this,  and  yet  it  sounds  very  like  poetry  !)  I  was  told 
by  Thorwalsden,  when  at  Rome,  that  there  were  sev- 
eral of  his  statues  he  had  never  seen.  They  were  fin* 
ished,  as  far  as  he  was  concerned,  when  they  were 
moulded  in  clay.  They  were  then  cast  in  plaster  by 
the  mechanics  who  make  a  trade  of  it,  and  the  plaster 
models  were  sent  to  Carrara,  where  there  is  a  large 
village  of  copyists  in  marble  living  near  the  marble 
quarries.  From  Carrara  the  statues  were  sent,  when 
finished,  to  Copenhagen,  their  ultimate  destination, 
and  Thorwalsden,  on  his  subsequent  visit  to  his  native 
country,  saw  them  for  the  first  time.  The  cost  of  de- 
livering Clevenger's  statue  from  the  womb  of  the 
mountain  impregnated  by  his  genius  will  be  about  one 
thousand  dollars — a  round  fee  for  the  accouchement  of 
the  stony  mother  of  "  a  North  American  Indian!" 


Burns's  Letters  to  Clarinda  have  disappointed  many 
people,  who  expected,  naturally,  to  find  a  poet's  love- 
letters  better  written  than  another  man's.  I  think  the 
contrary  would  naturally  be  true.  Fine  writing  is  an 
arm's-length  dexterity,  and  the  heart  works  only  at 
close  quarters.  I  should  suspect  the  sincerity  of  a 
poet's  love-letter  if  it  were  not  far  within  his  habitual 
tact  and  grace.  Besides,  in  strong  emotion,  the  heart 
flies  from  the  much-used  channels  of  language,  and 
tries  for  something  newer  to  its  own  ear,  and,  while  an 
ordinary  man  would  find  this  novelty  in  poetical  lan- 
guage, a  poet  would  seek  to  roughen,  and  simplify. 


EPHEMERA. 


661 


and  break  up  the  habitual  art  and  melody  of  his  pe- 
riods. By-the-way,  the  name  of  Burns  reminds  me 
of  a  little  anecdote  I  heard  told  with  some  humor  by 
Campbell,  at  a  dinner-party  in  London.  Count 
D'Orsay  and  Barry  Cornwall  were  present,  and  they 
were  drawing  out  the  veteran  bard  as  to  his  recollec- 
tions of  the  great  men  who  were  setting  stars  when  he 
was  rising.  "  I  was  dining  one  day  with  Burns,"  said 
Campbell,  "  who,  like  Dr.  Johnson  and  other  celebri- 
ties, had  his  Bozzy  worshipper,  a  friend  who  was 
always  in  his  company.  I  have  forgotten  his  name. 
Bums  left  the  room  for  a  moment,  and  passing  the 
bottle  to  his  friend,  I  proposed  to  drink  the  health 
of  Mr.  Burns.  He  gave  me  a  look  of  annihilation. 
'  Sir,'  said  he,  '  you  will  always  be  known  as  Mr. 
Campbell,  but  posterity  will  talk  of  Burns !'"  Such 
an  anecdote  makes  one  look  around  in  alarm,  to  see  if 
there  are  not  some  unrecognised  mononoms  \nour  time, 
whom  we  are  profaning,  unaware,  with  our  Mister-y. 


It  rains  in  Broadway — as  it  has  often  done  before,  it 
is  true  ;  but  it  seems  to  me  a  particularly  wet  rain,  for 
there  is  an  old  black  beggar  standing  in  front  of  St. 
Paul's,  holding  out  his  hat  for  what  must  be,  at  any 
rate,  a  diluted  charity.  At  a  fair  calculation  (and  I 
have  watched  him  while  writing,  for  the  last  two 
hours),  every  tenth  passenger  put  something  into  his 
hat.  His  gray  wool  must  hold  more  water  than  his 
leaky  hat,  and,  at  least,  it  acts  like  a  sponge — on  the 
passers-by.  Begging,  as  yet,  is  a  good  trade  in 
America,  and  I  think  that  New  York,  particularly,  is 
a  place  where  money  has  little  adhesiveness — easily 
made  and  readily  given  away. 


I  have  noticed  in  history  and  real  life  that  reformers, 
great  enthusiasts,  and  great  philosophers,  produce 
effects  quite  commensurate  with  their  ambitions,  but 
seldom  by  success  in  the  exact  line  they  had  marked 
out.  Providence  does  not  allow  "steam"  to  be  wasted. 
Jn  the  search  after  the  "elixir  of  life,"  and  the  "phi- 
losopher's stone,"  for  example,  the  alchymists  have 
stumbled  over  some  of  the  most  important  discoveries 
of  chymistry.  This  is  rather  an  essayish  beginning  to 
a  hasty-pudding  letter,  but  I  have  been  looking  over 
Brisbane's  book  on  Fourierism,  while  eating  my  break- 
fast, and  it  struck  me  how  poorly  the  direct  objects  of 
"socialism"  succeeded,  while  combination,  to  produce 
great  and  small  results,  seems  to  me  to  be  the  most 
prominent  novelty  in  the  features  of  the  time.  Mer- 
cantile houses  are  establishing  partners  in  all  the  prin- 
cipal capitals — new  publications  are  circulated  almost 
wholly  by  a  lately-arranged  system  of  combined  agen- 
cies— information,  formerly  got  by  individual  reading, 
is  new  fed  out  to  large  societies;  and  the  rumor  just 
now  is,  of  a  grand  experiment  of  combining  all  the  qual- 
ities of  half  a  dozen  newspapers  in  one — establishing 
something  like  the  London  Times,  for  instance,  in 
which  the  subscriber  would  be  sure  to  find  "every- 
thing; that  is  going." 

I  went  on  Wednesday  evening  to  the  temperance 
tea-party,  at  Washington  Hall,  given  in  honor  of  the 
birthday  of  Franklin.  Here  was  combination  again — 
tea-party,  prayer-meeting,  lecture,  concert,  prome- 
nade, and  tableau  vivant  (a  printing-press  worked  in  the 
room),  all  given  in  one  entertainment.  There  were 
seven  or  eight  long  tables,  with  alleys  between,  and  from 
a  thousand  to  twelve  hundred  ladies  and  gentlemen 
seated  "  at  tea,"  and  listening  to  the  singing,  praying, 
instrumental  music,  and  speech-making,  with  a  great 
appearance  of  comfort.  I  did  not  stay  for  the  "  prom- 
enade all  round,"  but  I  am  told  that  it  was  very 
agreeable,  and  that  the  party  did  not  separate  till  two 


in  the  morning  !  The  temperance  combination  has 
been  a  great  lesson  as  to  the  power  of  numbers  united 
for  one  end  ;  though  I  fear  the  action  of  it  has  been 
somewhat  like  the  momentary  sweeping  dry  of  a 
river's  channel  by  a  whirlwind,  so  strikingly  seems 
intemperance,  of  late,  to  have  resumed  its  prevalence 
in  the  streets. 


I  find  that,  by  my  hasty  observations  on  New  York 
society  in  a  late  letter,  I  have  given  voice  to  a  feeling 
that  has  been  for  some  time  in  petto  publico,  and  I 
have  heard  since  a  great  deal  of  discussion  of  the 
quality  of  New  York  gayety.  It  seems  to  be  the 
opinion  of  good  observers,  that  the  best  elements  of 
society  are  not  organized.  The  intellect  and  refine- 
ment of  the  population  (of  which  there  is  quite 
enough  for  a  fair  proportion)  lies  "  around  in  spots," 
it  is  thought,  waiting  only  for  some  female  Napoleon 
to  concentrate  and  combine  them.  Exclusively  liter- 
ary parties  would  be  as  unattractive  as  exclusively 
dancing  or  juvenile  parties,  and  indeed  variety  is  the 
spice  of  agreeable  social  intercourse.  In  London, 
beauty  is,  with  great  pains,  dug  out  from  the  mine  of 
unfashionable  regions,  and  made  to  shine  in  an  aristo- 
cratic setting;  and  talent  of  all  kinds,  colloquial,  lit- 
erary, artistical,  theatrical,  is  sought  out,  and  mingled 
with  rank,  wealth,  and  elegance,  in  the  most  perfect 
society  of  Europe.  Any  sudden  attempt  to  discredit 
fashionable  parties,  and  ruu  an  opposition  with  a 
"blue"  line,  would  be  covered  with  ridicule.  But  I 
think  enough  has  been  said,  in  a  community  as  mer- 
curial and  sympathetic  of  news  as  is  the  population  of 
New  York,  to  induce  the  Amphytrions  of  gayety  to 
look  a  little  into  their  social  mixtures,  and  supply  the 
sweets  or  acids  that  are  wanting.  At  the  most  fash- 
ionable party  lately  given,  Madame  Castellan  was  the. 
guest  of  honor,  and  not  called  upon  to  sing — and  this 
is  somewhat  more  Londonish  than  usual.  It  is  one 
of  the  newnesses  of  our  country  that  we  have  no 
grades  in  our  admiration,  and  can  only  see  the  merits 
of  extreme  lions.  Second,  third,  and  fourth-rate  celeb- 
rities, for  whom  in  Europe  there  is  attention  justly 
measured,  pass  wholly  unnoticed  through  our  cities. 
It  must  be  a  full-blooded  nobleman,  or  the  first  singer 
or  danseuse  of  the  world,  or  the  most  popular  author, 
or  the  very  first  actor,  or  the  miraculous  musician,  if 
there  is  to  be  any  degree  whatever  of  appreciation  or 
enthusiasm.  This  lack  of  a  scale  of  tribute  to  merit  is 
one  reason  why  we  so  ridiculously  overdo  our  wel- 
comes to  great  comets,  as  in  the  case  of  Dickens — 
leaving  very  respectable  stars,  like  Emerson,  Longfel- 
low, Cooper,  Sully,  and  all  our  own  and  some  foreign 
men  of  genius,  to  pass  through  the  city,  or  remain 
here  for  weeks,  unsought  by  party-givers,  and  unwel- 
comed  except  by  their  personal  friends.  To  point 
this  out,  fortunately,  is  almost  to  correct  it,  so  ready 
are  we  to  learn;  but  I  think,  by  the  shadow  cast 
before,  that  the  avatar  of  some  goddess  of  fashion  may 
be  soon  looked  for,  who  will  shut  her  doors  upon  stu- 
pidity and  inelegance,  rich  or  poor,  and  create  a  gay- 
ety that  will  be  enjoyable,  not  barely  endurable 


I  am  very  sorry  to  see  by  the  English  papers  that 
Dickens  has  been  "within  the  rules  of  the  Queen's 
bench"— realizing   the   prophecy  of   pecuniary  rum 
I  which  has,  for  some  time,  been  whispered  about  for 
1  him.     His  splendid  genius  did  not  need  the  melan- 
I  choly  proof  of  improvidence,  and  he  has  had  wealth 
so  completely  within  his  grasp  that  there  seems  a  par- 
ticular and  unhappy  Heedlessness  in  his  rum.     The 
'  most  of  his  misfortune  is,  he  has  lived  so  closely  at 
I  the  edge  of  his  flood-tide  of  prosperity,  that  the  ebb 
i  leaves  him  at  high-water  mark,  and  not  in  the  con- 


662 


EPHEMERA. 


tented  ooze  of  supplied  necessity  where  it  first  took 
him  up.  And  by-the-way,  it  was  in  that  same  low- 
water  period  of  his  life — just  before  he  became  cele- 
brated— that  I  first  saw  Dickens;  and  I  will  record 
this  phase  of  his  chrysalis  ("  the  tomb  of  the  cater- 
pillar and  the  cradle  of  the  butterfly,"  as  Linnaeus 
calls  it),  upon  the  chance  of  its  being  as  interesting  to 
future  ages  as  such  a  picture  would  now  be  of  the 
anle-bulterjlicity  of  Shakspere.  I  was  following  a 
favorite  amusement  of  mine  one  rainy  day,  in  the 
Strand,  London — strolling  toward  the  more  crowded 
thoroughfares  with  cloak  and  umbrella,  and  looking  at 
people  and  shop-windows.  I  heard  my  name  called 
from  a  passenger  in  a  street-cab.  From  out  the 
smoke  of  the  wet  straw  peered  the  head  of  my  pub- 
lisher, Mr.  Macrone  (a  most  liberal  and  noble-hearted 
fellow,  since  dead).  After  a  little  catechism  as  to  my 
damp  destiny  for  that  morning,  he  informed  me  that 
he  was  going  to  visit  Newgate,  and  asked  me  to  join 
him.  I  willingly  agreed,  never  having  seen  this  famous 
prison,  and  after  I  was  seated  in  the  cab,  he  said  he 
was  going  to  pick  up,  on  the  way,  a  young  paragraph- 
ist  for  the  Morning  Chronicle,  who  wished  to  write  a 
description  of  it.  In  the  most  crowded  part  of  Hol- 
born,  within  a  door  or  two  of  the  "Bull  and  Mouth" 
inn  (the  great  starting  and  stopping-place  of  the  stage- 
coaches), we  pulled  up  at  the  entrance  of  a  large 
building  used  for  lawyers'  chambers.  Not  to  leave 
me  sitting  in  the  rain,  Macrone  asked  me  to  dismount 
with  him.  I  followed  by  long  flights  of  stairs  to  an 
upper  story,  and  was  ushered  into  an  uncarpeted 
and  bleak-looking  room,  with  a  deal  table  and  two 
or  three  chairs  and  a  few  books,  a  small  boy  and 
Mr.  Dickens — for  the  contents.  I  was  only  struck  at 
first  with  one  thing  (and  I  made  a  memorandum  of  it 
that  evening,  as  the  strongest  instance  I  had  seen  of 
English  obsequiousness  to  employers) — the  degree  to 
which  the  poor  author  was  overpowered  with  the 
honor  of  his  publisher's  visit !  I  remember  saying  to 
myself,  as  I  sat  down  on  a  rickety  chair,  "  My  good 
fellow,  if  you  were  in  America,  with  that  fine  face  and 
your  ready  quill,  you  would  have  no  need  to  be  con- 
descended to  by  a  publisher  !"  Dickens  was  dressed 
very  much  as  he  has  since  described  "Dick  Swivel- 
ler" — minus  the  "  swell"  look.  His  hair  was  cropped 
close  to  his  head,  his  clothes  scant,  though  jauntily 
cut,  and  after  changing  a  ragged  office-coat  for  a 
shabby  blue,  he  stood  by  the  door,  collarless  and  but- 
toned up,  the  very  personification,  I  thought,  of  a 
close  sailer  to  the  wind.  We  went  down  and  crowded 
into  the  cab  (one  passenger  more  than  the  law  allowed, 
and  Dickens  partly  in  my  lap  and  partly  in  Macrone's) 
and  drove  on  to  Newgate.  In  his  works,  if  you  re- 
member, there  is  a  description  of  the  prison,  drawn 
from  this  day's  observation.  We  were  there  an  hour 
or  two,  and  were  shown  some  of  the  celebrated  mur- 
derers confined  for  life,  and  one  young  soldier  waiting 
for  execution;  and  in  one  of  the  passages  we  chanced 
to  meet  Mrs.  Fry,  on  her  usual  errand  of  benevolence. 
Though  interested  in  Dickens's  face,  I  forgot  him 
naturally  enough  after  we  entered  the  prison,  and  I  do 
not  think  I  heard  him  speak  during  the  two  hours.  I 
parted  from  him  at  the  door  of  the  prison,  and  con- 
tinued my  stroll  into  the  city. 

Not  long  after  this,  Macrone  sent  me  the  "  sheets 
of  Sketches  by  Boz,"  with  a  note  saying  that  they 
were  by  the  gentleman  who  went  with  us  to  Newgate. 
I  read  the  book  with  amazement  at  the  genius  display- 
ed in  it,  and  in  my  note  of  reply  assured  Macrone  that 
I  thought  his  fortune  was  made  as  a  publisher  if  he 
could  monopolize  the  author. 

Two  or  three  years  afterward,  I  was  in  London,  and 
present  at  the  complimentary  dinner  given  to  Mac- 
ready.  Samuel  Lover,  who  sat  next  me,  pointed  out 
Dickens.  I  looked  up  and  down  the  table,  but  was 
wholly  unable  to  single  him  out  without  getting  my 


friend  to  number  the  people  who  sat  above  him.  He 
was  no  more  like  the  same  man  I  had  seen  than  a  tree 
in  June  is  like  the  same  tree  in  February.  He  sat 
leaning  his  head  on  his  hand  while  Bulwer  was  speak- 
ing, and  with  his  very  long  hair,  his  very  flash  waist- 
coat, his  chains  and  rings,  and  withal  a  much  paler 
face  than  of  old,  he  was  totally  unrecognisable.  The 
;  comparison  was  very  interesting  to  me,  and  I  looked 
j  at  him  a  long  time.  He  was  then  in  his  culmination 
|  of  popularity,  and  seemed  jaded  to  stupefaction.  Re- 
membering the  glorious  works  he  had  written  since  I 
had  seen  him,  I  longed  to  pay  him  my  homage,  but 
had  no  opportunity,  and  I  did  not  see  him  again  till 
he  came  over  to  reap  his  harvest  and  upset  his  hay- 
cart  in  America.  When  all  the  ephemera  of  his  im- 
prudences and  improvidences  shall  have  passed  away 
— say  twenty  years  hence — I  should  like  to  see  him 
again,  renowned  as  he  will  be  for  the  most  original  and 
remarkable  works  of  his  time. 


A  friend  lent  me  yesterday  a  late  file  of  "  The 
Straits  Messenger,"  an  English  newspaper  published 
at  Singapore.  The  leader  of  one  number  commences 
with,  "  We  have  always  had  a  hatred  for  republican- 
ism, and  holding  it  to  be  the  fosterer  of  every  rascality 
in  public  life,  and  every  roguery  in  private,  we  are  not 
at  all  surprised  when  instances  turn  up  to  prove  our 
theory  true."  This  is  apropos  of  some  news  of 
"  repudiation."  The  advertisements  in  this  paper 
amused  me  somewhat,  and  this  consist  principally  of 
dissolutions  of  native  partnership.  Here  are  three  of 
them  : — 

"  Notice.  The  interest  and  responsibility  of  Kim 
Joo  Ho  in  our  firm  ceased  from  the  8th  January. 
(Signed)  Yep  Hun  Ho." 

"  Notice.  The  interest  and  responsibility  of  the 
undersigned  in  the  firm  of  Chop  Tyho  ceased  from 
this  date.  (Signed)  Chee  Ong  Seang,  Chee  Jin 
Seo." 

"  Notice.  The  interest  and  responsibility  of  Mr. 
See  Eng  San  in  our  firm  ceased  from  the  5th  January. 
(Signed    Boonteeong  &  Co." 


In  the  old  English  of  Gower's  "Confessio  Amantis" 
there  is  wrapped  up  a  little  germ  of  wisdom  which 
you  would  hardly  look  for  in  the  metaphysics  of  love, 
but  which  contains  the  hand-over-hand,  boiling-pot 
principle  of  most  of  the  make-money-ries  of  our 
country  : — 

"  My  sonne,  yet  there  is  the  fifte, 

Which  is  conceived  of  enuie, 

And  'cleped  is  suppi.anterie  ; 

Thro'  whose  compassement  and  guile 

Full  many  hath  lost  his  while 

In  love,  as  well  as  other  wise." 

In  England  nobody  gets  ahead  but  by  shoving  on 
all  those  who  are  before  him,  but  a  hundred  instances 
will  occur  to  you  of  leap-frog  experiment  in  our  coun- 
try, by  which  all  kinds  of  success  in  business  is  super- 
seded. The  most  signal  and  successful  jump  that  I 
have  noticed  lately  is  that  of  the  periodical  agents,  over 
the  heads  of  the  old  publishers — (the  trick,  indeed, 
which  has  hocus-pocused  the  old  pirates  into  chang- 
ing their  views  on  the  subject  of  copyright !)  Three 
years  ago  the  great  apparatus  for  the  circulation  of 
books,  was  entirely  a  secret  in  the  hands  of  the  trade, 
and  a  man  might  as  well  have  attempted  to  run  a  rail- 
car  across  the  fields  by  hand  as  an  author  to  have  at- 
tempted to  circulate  his  own  book  without  the  con- 
sent of  publishers.  The  names  and  terms  of  book- 
selling correspondents,  the  means  of  transportation  of 
books,  and  the  amount  of  profits  on  them,  were  matters 
of  inaccessible  knowledge.     The  publisher  kept  the 


EPHEMERA. 


663 


gate  of  the  public  eye,  and  demanded  his  own  toll — 
two  thirds  of  the  commodity,  if  not  all  !  The  first 
"  little  pin"  that  "  bored  through  this  castle  wall," 
was  the  establishment  of  the  mammoth  newspaper,  by 
Day  and  Wilson,  and  the  publication  of  entire  novels 
in  one  sheet;  and,  upon  their  agencies  for  the  circu- 
lation of  these,  is  now  built  a  scheme  of  periodical 
agency  totally  separate  from  publishers,  and  comparing 
with  these  as  the  expresses  of  Hale  and  Harnden  and 
Pomeroy  do  with  the  general  post-office — cheaper, 
more  expeditious  and  open  to  competition. 

It  is,  perhaps,  not  generally  known,  that  any  author, 
vow,  can  publish  his  own  book,  and  get  all  the  profits  ! 
Any  printer  will  tell  him  how  to  get  it  printed  and 
bound  in  paper  covers— for  which  he  pays  simply  what 
publishers  do.  Stored  up  in  his  own  room  or  a  ware- 
house, he  has  only  to  furnish  it  to  the  periodical  agents, 
who  will  take  of  him,  at  their  wholesale  price,  all  that 
will  sell — (bringing  the  risk  directly  on  the  proper 
shoulders,  those  of  the  author) — and  returning  to  him 
very  promptly  the  money  or  the  unsaleable  copies. 
There  are  no  "  six  months  publishers'  notes"  in  the 
business;  no  cringing  or  making  interest.  The  author 
is  on  a  blessed  level  with  the  gingerbread  bakers  and 
blacking  sellers  he  has  often  envied — salesman  of  his 
own  commodity,  if  saleable  it  be,  and  made  aware,  to 
a  certainty,  in  a  very  brief  time,  whether  he  has  mis- 
taken his  vocation.  Let  but  congress  give  us  a  law 
which  shall  prevent  English  books  from  coming,  not 
into  the  market,  but  into  the  publishers'  hands,  for 
nothing,  and  the  only  remaining  obstacle  to  a  world- 
wide competition  will  be  gloriously  removed.  And, 
books  will  be  no  dearer  than  at  present — as  the  me- 
morials to  congress  sufficiently  show. 


There  are  some  delicious  works  of  art  now  ex- 
hibiting opposite  the  hospital,  in  Broadway— Harvey's 
Atmospheric  Effects  of  American  Scenery.  Those 
who  have  not  been  observers  in  other  countries  are 
scarcely  aware  how  peculiar  our  country  is  in  its  at- 
mospheric phenomena — how  much  bolder,  brighter, 
and  more  picturesque.  There  is  scarce  a  scene  pictur- 
ed in  this  beautiful  gallery  which  could  be  at  all  true 
of  any  other  country  ;  but  to  the  American  eye  they 
are  enchantingly  faithful  and  beautiful.  The  artist 
gives  in  his  prospectus  for  engraving  these  works  the 
following  interesting  bit  of  autobiography  : — 

"  In  1827  1  entered  upon  the  line  of  portrait-paint- 
ing in  miniature;  I  pursued  it  for  nine  years  with  an 
assiduity  that  impaired  my  health.  Country  air  and 
exercise  being  recommended  me,  I  purchased  a  tract 
of  land  on  the  majestic  Hudson  ;  built  a  cottage  after 
my  own  plan  ;  amused  myself  by  laying  out  grounds, 
and  gained  health  and  strength  by  the  employment. 
These  exercises  in  the  open  air  led  me  more  and  more 
to  notice  and  study  the  ever-varying  atmospheric  effects 
of  this  beautiful  climate.  I  undertook  to  illustrate 
them  by  my  pencil,  and  thus  almost  accidentally, 
commenced  a  set  of  atmospheric  landscapes.  The 
number  had  reached  twenty-two,  and  as  yet  1  had  no 
thought  of  publication  when  business  called  me  to 
Europe.  I  carried  them  with  me,  and,  while  in  Lon- 
don, occasionally  attended  the  Conversazione  of  Artists. 
At  one  of  these  I  accidentally  heard  a  gentleman,  on 
leaving  a  little  knot  of  connoisseurs  assembled  round 
my  portfolio,  pass  a  most  flattering  eulogium  on  its 
contents.  1  felt  the  more  elated  by  his  praise  on 
learning  that  he  was  Professor  Farrady,  the  able  suc- 
cessor of  Sir  Humphrey  Davy.  At  Paris,  while  par- 
taking of  the  courteous  hospitality  of  the  American 
minister,  Governor  Cass,  my  portfolio  was  sent  for  and 
received  the  approbation  of  that  gentleman  and  his 
guests.  Governor  Cass  retained  my  drawings  for  a 
week  ;  on   returning  them  to  me  he   recommended 


that  I  should  have  them  engraved,  and  suggested  that 
it  might  be  done  at  once,  while  I  was  in  Pans.  I  was 
too  diffident,  however,  of  their  popular  merit,  to  risk 
so  extensive  an  undertaking.  On  my  return  to  New 
York  my  personal  friends  encouraged  me  in  the  proj- 
ect, and  at  last  I  made  up  my  mind  to  lay  the  original 
drawings  before  the  Boston  public;  conceiving  that  I 
owed  it  to  that  city,  where  I  had  received  liberal  en- 
couragement in  my  previous  pursuits  to  give  to  them 
the  <^<>portunity  of  originating  the  work  of  publica- 
tion." 

Mr.  Harvey  went  afterward  to  London  to  find  print- 
colorists  who  could  execute  the  work  to  his  satisfac- 
tion, and,  while  there,  Mr.  Murray,  who  was  formerly 
in  this  country,  and  is  now  attached  to  her  majesty's 
household,  showed  to  the  queen  the  first  number. 
The  royal  subscription  was  immediately  given  to  the 
work  at  a  munificent  price.  It  is  worth  every  one's 
while  to  see  this  delicious  work  of  art,  and  every  per- 
son of  easy  means  should  subscribe  for  a  copy  of  the 
engravings. 


The  sleighs  flying  very  briskly  up  and  down  Broad- 
way this  morning'  remind  me  that  Miss  Howitt,  in  her 
late  preface  to  one  of  Miss  Bremer's  works,  mentions, 
among  other  phrases,  our  use  of  the  words  "  sleighs, 
slec/s,  and  sleighing,  for  sledges  and  sledging," — calling 
them  "  Americanisms  which  all  well-educated  persons 
will  be  careful  not  to  introduce  into  their  families." 
Miss  Howitt  might  allow,  to  a  continent  of  the  size 
of  ours,  the  privilege  of  coining  a  word  without  the 
tariff  of  her  contempt ;  but  she  forgets  that  sled  is  a 
I  good  English  word,  and  derived  from  the  very  lan- 
guage of  the  book  she  has  translated — from  the  Swedish 
word  slrcda.     Thomson  says  in  his  Seasons : — 

"  Eager  on  rapid  sleds 
Their  vigorous  youth  in  bold  contention  wheel 
The  long  resounding  course." 

And  Fletcher  says,  in  a  fine  passage  of  his  Eclogue: — 

"  From  thence  he  furrowed  many  a  churlish  sea, 
The  viny  Rhene  and  Volga's  self  did  pass, 
Who  sleds  doth  surfer  on  his  wat'ry  lea, 
And  horses  trampling  on  his  icy  face." 

The  cold  weather  of  the  last  week  has  justified 
another  Americanism,  for  it  has  been  literally  "  a  cold 
spell" — dimming  parlor  lights,  and  arresting  the  flow 
of  thought.  The  gas-lights  burn  dim  because  water 
freezes  in  the  gasometers,  and  "  whole  stacks  of  new 
publications"  (as  a  periodical  agent  told  me  yesterday) 
are  "  books  and  stationary,"  from  the  interrupted  navi- 
gation. 


Palmo's  hew  opera  has  been  voted  fashionable, 
nem.  con.  (as  I  have  been  fashionably  assured),  and 
the  long  ellipse  of  other  theatricals  will  give  it  a  flow- 
ing launch.  It  is  a  small  and  beautiful  edifice,  and  is 
toT>e  brilliantly  lighted,  and  made  every  way  conform- 
able to  the  exactions  of  white  kid  and  cashmere.  Its 
situation  is  admirable— far  enough  up  Chamber  street 
to  be  away  from  the  noises  of  Broadway,  and  accessi- 
ble easilv  from  all  parts  of  the  city.  This  evening 
comes  off  the  preparatory  rehearsal,  to  which  the 
connoisseurs  and  gentlemen  of  the  press  are  invited  as 
guests.  The  printed  invitation  by  the  way,  makes 
Mr.  Palmo  out  to  be  (very  properly)  a  fellow-cihzcn 
of  the  Muses,  and  is  altogether  an  amusing  production 
A  copy  of  it,  filled  up  with  the  name  of  a  friend  of 
ours,  lies  by  me,  running  thus:   "The  honor  of  the 

,1  company  of  N.  P-  W ,  Grand  Scr.be,  are  respect- 

i  fully  invited  to  attend  the  first  public  rehearsal  of  the 
i  Italian  Opera,  on  Friday  evening.  The  house  will 
|   be  brilliantly  illuminated,  and  the  connoisseur  in  music 


664 


EPHEMERA. 


will  have  an  opportunity  of  beholding  an  edifice  erected 
and  dedicated  to  the  Muses,  by  their  fellow-citizen, 
F.  Palmo." 

This  making  "  fellow-citizens"  of  the  Muses  re- 
minds me  of  a  police  report  in  the  "  True  Sun," 
announcing  that  a  namesake  of  the  great  Roman 
emperor  who  was  "  Amor  et  delicice  generis  humanV 
— a  Mr.  Titus — was  "  arrested  and  committed  for 
stealing  a  door-mat !"  How  a  man  with  so  great  a 
name  could  steal  so  little,  is  a  psychological  marvel. 


In  looking  over  a  western  paper,  a  day  or  two  since, 
my  eye  fell  on  an  advertisement  in  very  comical  verse. 
Here  are  a  couple  of  stanzas — to  the  tune  of  "  the 
cork  leg :" — 

"  You  all  have  in  the  papers  read, 
That  Kibbe  has  caps  for  every  head, 
Which  are  marked  so  very  low,  'tis  said, 
The  price  can  scarcely  be  cred-i-ted. 
Ritu-rinu-ri-iditti-i-do-da. 

"  You'll  be  well  pleased  to  hear  the  news, 
That  Kibbe  has  got  new  boots  and  shoes  ; 
They're  sold  so  cheap  that  it  beats  the  Jews ; 
He'll  exchange  for  hides,  if  you  do  choose. 
Ritu-rinu,"  etc. 

I  think  there  should  be  a  committee  sent  out  to  in- 
vite Mr.  Kibbe  to  become  a  poet. 


"  The  Rococo"  is  the  quaint,  but,  in  fact,  most 
descriptive  name  of  one  of  the  "  extras  of  the  New 
Mirror."  Those  of  our  readers  who  have  been  lately 
in  France  will  be  familiar  with  the  word.  The  ety- 
mology of  rococo  has  been  matter  of  no  little  fruitless 
inquiry.  It  came  into  use  about  four  or  five  yeats  ago, 
when  it  was  the  rage  to  look  up  costly  and  old-fashion- 
ed articles  of  jewelry  and  furniture.  A  valuable  stone, 
for  example,  in  a  beautiful  but  antique  setting,  was 
rococo.  A  beauty,  who  had  the  kind  of  face  oftenest 
painted  in  the  old  pictures,  was  rococo.  A  chair,  or  a 
table,  of  carved  wood,  costly  once,  but  unfashionable 
for  many  a  day,  was  rococo.  Articles  of  vertu  were 
looked  up  and  offered  for  sale  with  a  view  to  the  pre- 
vailing taste  for  rococo.  Highly  carved  picture-frames, 
old  but  elaborately-made  trinkets,  rich  brocades,  etc., 
etc. — things  intrinsically  beautiful  and  valuable,  in 
short,  but  unmeritedly  obsolete,  were  rococo.  The 
extra  published  by  the  proprietors  of  the  New  Mirror 
answers  this  description  exactly.  It  comprises  the 
three  most  exquisite  and  absolute  creations  of  pure 
imagination  (in  my  opinion)  that  have  been  produced 
since  Shakspere :  «  Lillian"  by  Praed,  "  The  Culprit 
Fay"  by  Drake,  and  »  St.  Agnes'  Eve"  by  Keats— all 
three  of  which  have  been  overlaid  and  in  a  measure 
lost  sight  of  in  the  torrent  of  new  literature— but  all 
three  now  to  be  had  altogether  in  fair  type,  price  one 
shilling!  The  man  who  could  read  these  poems 
without  feeling  the  chamber  of  his  brain  filled  with 
incense — without  feeling  his  heart  warm,  his  blood 
moved,  and  his  inmost  craving  of  novelty  and  melody 
deliciously  ministered  to,  does  not  love  poetry  enough 
to  "  possess  a  rose-teint  for  his  russet  cares."  I  de- 
clare I  think  it  is  worth  the  outlay  of  a  fever  to  get 
(by  seclusion  and  depletion)  the  delicacy  of  nerve  and 
perception  to  devour  and  relish  with  intellectual  nice- 
ty, these  three  subtly-compounded  feasts  of  the  ima- 
gination. 


We  are  indebted  for  many  beautiful  things  not  so 
much  to  accident  as  to  the  quickness  of  genius  to  ap- 
preciate and  appropriate  accident.  I  was  pleased  with 
an  instance  that  came  to  my  knowledge  last  night. 


Wallace  (the  omni-dexterous)  was  playing  the  piano 
in  my  room,  and,  among  others  of  his  own  inimitable 
waltzes,  he  played  one  called  the  Midnight  Waltz,  in 
which  twelve  strokes  of  the  clock  recur  constantly 
with  the  aria.  In  answer  to  an  inquiry  of  mine,  he 
told  me  he  was  playing,  one  night,  to  some  ladies  in 
Lima,  when  a  loud  silvery-toned  clock  in  the  room 
struck  twelve.  He  insensibly  stopped,  and  beat  the 
twelve  strokes  on  an  accordant  note  on  the  piano, 
and  in  repeating  the  passage,  stopped  at  the  same 
place  and  beat  twelve  again.  The  effect  was  particu- 
larly impressive  and  sweet,  and  he  afterward  composed 
a  waltz  expressly  to  introduce  it — one  of  the  most 
charming  compositions  I  ever  heard.  Wallace  is  the 
most  prodigal  of  geniuses,  and  most  prodigally  en- 
dowed. He  has  lived  a  life  of  adventure  in  the  East  In- 
dies, South  America,  New  South  Wales,  and  Europe, 
that  would  fill  satisfactorily  the  life-cups  of  a  dozen 
men,  and  how  he  has  found  time  to  be  what  he  proba- 
bly is,  as  great  a  violinist  and  as  great  a  pianist  as  the 
greatest  masters  on  those  instruments,  is  certainly  a 
wonder.  But  this  is  not  all.  He  was  rehearsing  for 
a  concert  not  long  since  in  New  York,  when  the  clari- 
onet-player, in  reply  to  some  correction,  said  that 
"  if  Mr.  Wallace  wished  it  played  better  he  might 
play  it  himself."  Wallace  took  the  clarionet  from 
the  hand  of  the  refractory  musician,  and  played  the 
passage  so  exquisitely  as  quite  to  electrify  the  orches- 
tra. He  is  the  most  modest  of  men,  and  how  many 
more  instruments  he  is  master  of  (beside  the  human 
voice,  which  he  plays  on  in  conversation  very  attrac- 
tively), it  would  be  wild  to  guess.*  By  the  way,  it 
would  be  worth  the  while  of  a  music-publisher  to 
send  for  the  music  he  has  literally  soivn  the  world  with 
— for  he  has  written  over  three  hundred  waltzes,  of 
most  of  which  he  has  no  copy,  though  they  have  been 
published  and  left  in  the  cities  he  has  visited.  He 
composes  many  hours  every  day.  I  think  Wallace 
one  of  the  most  remarkable  men  I  ever  knew. 


On  Saturday  night  I  was  at  the  opening  of  the  new 
opera — the  beginning,  as  I  think,  of  a  regular  supply 
of  a  great  luxury.  The  bright,  festal  look  of  Palmo's 
exquisite  little  theatre  struck  every  one  with  surprise 
on  entering,  and  the  cozy,  sympathy-sized  construc- 
tion, and  pleasant  arrangement  of  seats,  etc.,  seemed 
to  leave  nothing  to  be  wished  for.  With  a  kindly  fos- 
tering for  a  while,  on  the  part  of  the  press  and  the 
public,  Palmo's  theatre  may  become  the  most  enjoya- 
ble and  refined  resort  of  the  city. 

The  new  prima  donna  made  a  brilliant  hit.  New 
York  is,  at  this  moment,  in  love  with  Signorina  Bor- 
ghese.  She  dresses  a-merveille,  has  a  very  intellectual 
and  attractive  want  of  beauty,  is  graceful,  vivid,  a  cap- 
ital actress,  and  sings  with  a  bird-like  abandon,  that 
enchants  you  even  with  her  defects.  Nature  has  giv- 
en her  quite  her  share  of  attractiveness,  and  she  uses 
it  all. 

The  opera  was  "  I  puritani" — Bellini's  last,  and 
the  one  that  was  playing,  for  only  the  third  time,  the 
night  he  died — (at  the  age  of  twenty-seven).  It  was 
well  selected  for  the  opening  opera — being  full  of  in- 
telligible and  expressive  melody,  and  not  compelling 
the  musically  uninitiated  to  get  on  tiptoe  to  compre- 
hend it.  These  same  uninitiateds,  however,  are  the 
class  to  cater  for,  in  any  country,  and  especially  in 
ours.  It  is  a  great  mistake  to  fancy  that,  in  the  ap- 
preciation of  an  opera,  criticism  goes  before.  On  the 
contrary,  feeling  goes  before  and  criticism  follows 
very  slowly.  The  commonest  lover  of  music  feels, 
for  instance,  that  Bellini's  operas  are  marked  by  sim- 
plicity and  sameness— but,  after  having  felt  that,  the 

*  A  friend  has  since  told  me  that  Wallace  plays  every  in- 
strument of  the  orchestra,  and  most  of  them  like  a  master. 


EPHExMERA. 


665 


the  critic  comes  in  and  follows  up  the  idea  like  an 
ink-fish,  expressing  that  plain  fact  in  cloudy  techni- 
calities this-wise :  "Bellini  rather  multiplies  the  rep- 
etitions of  the  chord  than  gives  distinct  business  to 
the  several  components  of  the  score  !"  Who  cares 
to  know,  when  in  tears  at  Rossini's  exquisite  harmony, 
that  it  is  produced  by  a  "  profuse  use  of  the  dimin- 
ished seventh,"  or  that  one  of  his  most  electrical  ef- 
fects is  done  by  "an  harmonic  atrocity  of  consecutive 
fifths."  To  have  one's  tear  shed  on  a  piece  of  paper, 
and  thus  analyzed,  may  be  curious,  once,  but  not  very 
necessary  always,  and  I  wish,  with  all  my  heart,  that 
the  humbug  of  technicalities  in  this,  as  in  many  other 
things,  might  be  exposed.  It  would  be  a  capital  sub- 
ject for  a  popular  lecture.  ]  lend  the  suggestion  to 
Mr.  Emerson — the  man  best  capable  of  using  it. 

Supper  is  a  natural  sequence  to  music,  and  I  must 
mention  a  pair  of  canvass-backs  that  were  sent  me  by 
a  Baltimore  friend,  and  feasted  on  last  night  after  "  I 
Puritani" — for  the  sake  of  giving  you  and  "your  pub- 
lic" some  valuable  and  toothsome  directions  for  the 
cooking  of  these  birds,  contained  in  a  passage  of  my 
friend's  letter  :  "I  have  some  anxiety,"  he  says,  "about 
the  cooking  of  these  ducks.  Pray  don't  put  them  in 
the  power  of  a  Frenchman  !  Get  hold  of  a  good  Eng- 
lish or  American  cook,  knowing  in  roasts.  Let  this 
cook  erect  a  strong,  blazing  fire,  before  which  he  (or 
she)  must  tend  the  birds  for  about  twenty-five  or 
thirty  minutes.  To  determine  if  they  are  done,  have 
them  held  up  by  the  feet,  and  if  the  gravy  runs  out  of 
the  necks,  of  a  proper  color,  they  don't  require  another 
turn.  Serve  them  up  with  their  oivn  gravy.  'Tis 
safer  than  a  chafing-dish  and  made  gravy.  Eat  them 
with  hommony  patties,  between  which  and  the  ducks 
there  is  a  delicate  affinity.  Beware,  I  conjure  you 
once  more,  of  a  Frenchman — except  in  the  shape  of 
a  glass  of  Chablis.  May  they  prove  luscious  as  those 
we  ate  together  at  Guy's." 


Here  is  an  epigram  on  the  turning  of  Grenough's 
Washington  out  of  the  capitol  : — 

Ye  sages  who  work  for  eight  dollars  a  day, 
And  are  patriots,  heroes,  and  statesmen,  for  pay — 
Who  of  Washington  prattle  in  phrases  so  sweet, 
Pray  why  did  you  tumble  him  into  the  street  ? 


Young  Poets. — An  old  man  with  no  friend  but 
his  money — a  fair  child  holding  the  hand  of  a  Magda- 
len— a  delicate  bride  given  over  to  a  coarse-minded 
bridegroom — were  sights  to  be  troubled  at  seeing.  We 
should  bleed  at  heart  to  see  either  of  them.  But 
there  is  something  even  more  touching  to  us  than 
these — something,  too,  which  is  the  subject  of  heart- 
less and  habitual  mockery  by  critics — the  first  timid 
offerings  to  fame  of  the  youthful  and  sanguine  poet. 
We  declare  that  we  never  open  a  letter  from  one  of 
his  class,  never  read  a  preface  to  the  first  book  of  one 
of  them,  never  arrest  our  critical  eye  upon  a  blemish 
in  the  immature  page,  without  having  the  sensation  of 
a  tear  coined  in  our  heart — never  without  a  passion- 
ate though  inarticulate  "  God  help  you  !"  We  know 
bo  well  the  rasping  world  in  which  they  are  to  jostle, 
with  their  "fibre  of  sarcenet !"  We  know  so  well  the 
injustices,  the  rebuffs,  the  sneers,  the  insensibilities, 
from  without,  the  impatiences,  the  resentments,  the 
choked  impulses  and  smothered  heart-boundings  with- 
in. And  yet  it  is  not  these  outward  penances,  and 
inward  scorpions,  that  cause  us  the  most  regret  in  the 
fate  of  the  poet.  Out  of  these  is  born  the  inspired  ex- 
pression of  his  anguish— like  the  plaint  of  the  singing 
bird  from  the  heated  needle  which  blinds  him.  We 
mourn  more  over  hh  fatuous  imperviousness  to  counsel 


— over  his  haste  to  print,  his  slowness  to  correct — over 
his  belief  that  the  airy  bridges  he  builds  over  the 
chasms  in  his  logic  and  rhythm  are  passable,  by  avoir- 
dupois on  foot,  as  well  as  by  Poesy  on  Pegasus.  That 
the  world  is  not  as  much  enchanted — (that  we  our- 
selves are  not  as  much  touched  and  delighted) — with 
the  halting  flights  of  new  poets  as  with  the  broken 
and  short  venturings  in  air  of  new-fledged  birds — 
proves  over  again  that  the  world  we  live  in  were  a 
good  enough  Eden  if  human  nature  were  as  loveable 
as  the  rest.  We  wish  it  were  not  so.  We  wish  it 
were  natural  to  admire  anything  human-made,  that 
has  not  cost  pain  and  trial.  But,  since  we  do  not,  and 
can  not,  it  is  a  pity,  we  say  again,  that  beginners  in 
poetry  are  offended  with  kind  counsel.  Of  the  great 
many  books  and  manuscript  poems  we  receive,  there 
is  never  one  from  a  young  poet,  which  we  do  not 
long,  in  all  kindness,  to  send  back  to  him  to  be  re- 
studied,  rewritten,  and  made,  in  finish,  more  worthy 
of  the  conception.  To  praise  it  in  print  only  puts 
his  industry  to  sleep,  and  makes  him  dream  he  has 
achieved  what  is  yet  far  beyond  him.  We  ask  the  young 
poets  who  read  this,  where  would  be  the  kindness  in 
such  a  case  ? 


A  young  lady  in  Brooklyn  who  signs  herself  "  Short 
and  Sweet,"  writes  to  us  to  say  that  she  is  very  tired 
of  her  name,  and  seeing  no  prospect  of  getting  an- 
other (with  an  owner  to  it),  wishes  to  know  whether 
she  may  lawfully  abandon  the  unsentimental  preno- 
men  inflicted  on  her  at  baptism,  and  adopt  one  of  her 
own  more  tasteful  selection.  By  an  understanding 
with  all  the  people  likely  to  put  her  name  in  their 
wills,  we  should  think  she  might.  Names  are  a  mod- 
ern luxury,  and  if  she  chose  to  be  rococo,  she  might 
do  without  one,  or  be  known  as  the  ancients  were,  by 
some  word  descriptive  of  her  personal  peculiarities. 
(So  came  into  use  the  names  of  Brown,  Long,  Broad- 
head,  etc.)  "  Short  and  Sweet"  would  not  be  a  bad 
name.  Or — if  the  lady  chooses  to  follow  the  Arabian 
custom,  she  (supposing  her  father's  name  to  be  a 
well-sounding  one— say  Tiskins)  would  be  called 
"Tiskins's  Short  and  Sweet  daughter" — people  in 
Arabia  being  only  designated  as  brown  or  fair,  short 
or  tall,  children  of  such  and  such  parents.  There 
was  a  Roman  fashion,  too,  that  might  help  her  out — 
that  of  adding  to  the  name  any  quality  or  exploit  for 
which  the  bearer  was  remarkable — Miss  Short  and 
Sweet  Heartbreaker,  for  example,  or  Miss  "  Noli-me- 
Tangere,"  or  (after  the  favorite  flower  of  the  Irish), 
Miss  "  Jump-up-and-kiss  me."  (The  Irish  designate 
Tom  Moore  by  this  pretty  prenomen.)  Our  compli- 
ments to  the  lady,  and  we  are  sorry  she  should  want 
a  name — sorry  she  has  a  want  we  can  not  supply.  It 
happens  to  be  the  one  thing  we  are  out  of. 


The  opera  gets  more  crowded,  more  dressy,  and 
more  fashionable,  nightly.  Some  malicious  person 
started  a  rumor  that  the  building  was  unsafe,  and 
many  stayed  away  till  it  was  tested.  There  are  many, 
too,  who  wait  for  the  stamp  of  other  people's  appro- 
bation before  they  venture  upon  even  a  new  amuse- 
ment. The  doubtfuls  have  now  gone  over,  however, 
and  the  opera  is  "  in  the  full  tide,"  etc.,  etc.  Some 
of  the  first  families  have  taken  season-tickets  in  the 
opera-boxes  (there  are  but  two  private  boxes,  and 
those  very  inconvenient  and  undesirable),  and  the  best 
seats  in  the  pit  are  sold  out,  like  the  stalls  at  the 
Italian  opera  in  London,  to  bachelors  in  the  market. 
The  prima  donna,  Borghese.  improves  with  every 
repetition,  and  what  with  dressing,  singing,  and  act- 
ing—all exceedingly  well— she  is  a  very  enjoyable 
rechauffee  of  Grisi.  whose  style  she  follows. 


666 


EPHEMERA. 


This  is  a  day  of  such  sunshine  and  air  that  those 

"  Who  can  not  spare  the  luxury  of  believing 
That  all  things  beautiful  are  what  they  seem,'' 

must  be  in  love  with  the  sunny  sidewalk  of  Broadway. 
And  this  recalls  to  my  mind  a  little  book  of  poems, 
better  described  by  their  title  than  any  book  whose 
name  I  ever  knew — "  Droppings  from  the  Heart,"  by 
Thomas  Mackeltar,  lately  published  in  Philadelphia. 
Everybody  must  love  the  man  who  reads  his  book, 
though  its  simplicity  would  sometimes  make  you 
smile.  He  thus  apostrophizes  the  city  of  New  Y"ork  : — 

•<  New  York  !  I  love  thy  sons,  beyond  compare 

Ennobled — not  by  empty  words  of  kings, 
But  by  ennobling  acts,  by  virtues  rare, 

And  charities  unbounded.     These  the  things 
That  crown  their  names  with  honor.     Peerless  all 

Thy  lovely  daughters,  warm  with  sympathy, 
Swift  to  obey  meek  mercy's  moving  call, 

To  heal  the  heart  and  dry  the  weeping  eye, 
And  hush  the  plaint  that  fears  no  comforter  is  nigh." 

The  credulity  of  this  stanza  is  not  weak-minded- 
ness, by  any  means — as  the  strength  of  expression  and 
beauty  of  poetry  in  the  other  parts  of  the  book  suffi- 
ciently prove.  The  writer's  only  vent  seems  to  be  the 
expression  of  affection.  He  loves  everything.  He 
believes  good  of  everything  and  everybody.  I  do  not 
know  that,  in  my  life,  I  ever  saw  a  more  complete  pic- 
ture than  this  book  of  a  heart  overrunning  with  ten- 
derness. The  lines  to  his  "Sleeping  Wife,"  are  as 
beautiful  as  anything  of  Barry  Cornwall's.  The  piece 
called  "  The  Heart-Longings,"  too,  is  finely  expressed. 
A  little  infusion  of  distrust,  bitterness,  and  contempt, 
would  make  Mackellar  a  poet  of  the  kind  most  ad- 
mired by  critics,  and  most  read  and  sympathized  with 
by  the  world.  He  is,  I  understand,  a  printer  in  Phil- 
adelphia, and  enjoys  the  kindly  friendship  of  Mr. 
Chandler,  of  the  United  States  Gazette,  to  whom  is 
addressed  one  of  the  sonnets  in  his  book.  For  family 
reading,  among  people  of  simple  lives  and  pure  tastes, 
the  "Droppings  from  the  Heart"  is  the  best-adapted 
book  of  poetry  I  have  lately  seen. 


One  of  the  most  charming  resuscitations  from  the 
trance  of  oblivion  that  have  come  about  lately,  is  the 
republication  (in  the  "  Mirror  Library")  of  Pinckney's 
Poems.  Mr.  Pinckney,  your  readers  will  perhaps 
know,  was  the  son  of  the  Hon.  William  Pinckney,  our 
minister  in  1802  at  the  court  of  St.  James,  and  was 
born  in  London  during  the  diplomatic  residence  there 
of  his  father.  He  was  partly  educated  at  college, 
entered  the  navy,  gave  it  up  for  the  law,  and,  after 
much  disappointment  and  suffering,  died  at  twenty- 
five.  With  discipline  and  study,  he  might,  I  think, 
have  written  as  well  as  Moore.  What  poetry  would 
be  in  a  world  where  Toil  were  not  the  Siamesed  twin 
of  Excellence  (in  other  words,  where  man  had  not 
fallen),  *•  is  a  curious  question,  coz  !"  The  wild  horse 
runs  very  well  in  the  prairie,  but  we  give  a  preference 
of  admiration  to  the  "  good-continuer"  by  toilsome 
training.  Whether  (he  faineant  angels  who  "sit  in  the 
clouds,"  admire  more  the  objectless  careerings  of  the 
wild  steed,  or  the  "  wind  and  bottom"  of  the  winner 
of  the  sweepstakes — whether  fragmentary  poetry, 
dashed  off  while  the  inspiration  is  on,  and  thrown 
aside  ill-finished,  when  the  whim  evaporates,  be  more 
celestial  than  the  smooth  and  complete  product  of 
painful  toil  and  disciplined  concentration — I  have  had 
my  luxurious  doubts.  Pinckney's  genius,  as  evidenced 
on  paper,  has  all  the  impulsive  abandonment  which 
marks  his  biography.  He  was  a  born  poet — with  all 
needful  imagination,  discrimination,  perception,  and 
sensibility;  and  he  had,  besides,  the  flesh-and-blood-  \ 
fulness  necessary  to  keep  poetry  on  terra-firma.     Sev-  i 


eral  of  his  productions  have  become  common  air — 
known  and  enjoyed  by  everybody,  but  without  a  name. 
The  song  beginning — 

"  I  fill  this  cup  to  one  made  up  of  loveliness  alone, 
A  woman  of  her  gentie  sex  the  seeming  paragon,"  &c. 

— this,  and  two  or  three  others  of  Pinckney's  "  entire 
and  perfect  chrysolites,"  should  be  regraven  with  his 
name,  for  the  world  owes  his  memory  a  debt  for  them. 
The  small  volume  of  his  poetry  from  which  the  Mir- 
ror Library  edition  is  copied,  was  printed  in  1825,  and 
has  been  long  lost  sight  of.  It  contains — not  the  stuff 
for  a  classic — but  a  delicious  bundle  of  heart-reaching 
passages,  fresh  and  peculiar,  and  invaluable  especially 
to  lovers,  whose  sweetest  and  best  interpreter  Pinckney 
was.  Every  man  or  woman  who  has  occasion  to  em- 
broider a  love-letter  with  the  very  essence-flowers  of 
passionate  verse,  should  pay  a  shilling  for  Pinckney's 
poems. 


The  chair  and  pen  of  an  editor  should  be  assumed 
with  as  binding  vows  and  as  solemn  ceremony  as  were 
the  sword  and  war-horse  of  knighthood — for  the  edi- 
tor, like  the  armed  and  mounted  knight,  is  an  aggrega- 
tion of  more  power  than  nature  properly  allots  to  the 
individual.  Indeed,  it  is  because  the  power  has  not 
been  well  considered  by  law  and  by  public  opinion, 
that  the  penalties  of  maleficent  pen  and  ink  are  not 
more  formidable  than  those  of  fist  and  dagger.  Take 
the  consideration  of  this  thought  for  a  wile-time  in 
your  next  omnibus-ride,  dear  reader,  and  if  you 
chance  to  be  young  and  have  a  lust  for  power,  write 
down  editorship  for  your  second  choice — the 
church,  of  course,  number  one,  and  politics,  possi- 
bly, number  three. 

The  temptation  to  the  abuse  of  pen-power  is  greater 
as  the  mind  of  the  editor  is  more  little.  It  is  so  easy 
to  do  brilliant  tilting  in  the  editorial  lists,  by  slashing 
alike  at  the  offending  and  unoffending  !  Abuse  is  the 
easiest,  as  courtesy  is  the  most  difficult  kind  of  wri- 
ting to  make  readable,  and  as  it  is  a  relief  for  the 
smooth-faced  card-player  to  vent,  before  he  sleeps,  his 
pent-up  malice  upon  his  wife,  so  a  heart  naturally 
ill-willed  makes  a  purulent  bile-spigot  of  a  pen — 
relieved,  so  the  venom  is  spent,  no  matter  upon  what. 
There  is  so  seldom  good  cause  to  be  ill-natured  in 
print,  that  it  would  be  safe,  always,  when  reading  an 
ill-natured  criticism,  to  "smell  the  rat"  of  a  bad  heart 
near  by. 

If  perversion  of  pen  and  ink  be  very  blameable,  for- 
bearance should  be  laudable,  and  we  claim  credit  for 
much  pains-taking  in  this  latter  way.  The  reputa- 
tions, ready-spitted,  that  are  sent  us  for  roasting, 
would  alone  (did  we  publish  them)  sell  our  paper  to 
the  ten  thousand  malicious,  who  may  be  counted  on 
as  a  separate  stratum  of  patronage  to  periodicals. 
This  is  some  temptation.  Then  we  are  often  attacked, 
and  we  could  demolish  the  assailant  very  amusingly, 
and  we  resist  this  temptation,  though,  if  his  pin  be  not 
winced  at,  puny  impunity  will  prick  again.  There  is 
much  that  is  ludicrous,  much  that  is  pervertible  to 
sport,  in  new  books  and  new  candidates  to  fame;  and 
by  fault-finding  only,  or  by  abusing  the  author  instead 
of  his  book  (easy  and  savory),  the  review  is  made  read- 
able without  labor  in  writing — and  this  tempts  both 
malice  and  idleness.  No  man  can  live,  elbow  to 
elbow,  with  competitors  in  love,  life,  and  litera- 
ture, without  his  piques  and  his  resentments,  and  to 
"  turn"  these  pleasantly  "to  commodity,"  with  a  laugh 
that  outstabs  a  dagger,  is  very  tempting — very — to 
those  who  can  do  it  dexterously. 

Now  that  you  have  read  the  three  foregoing  para- 
graphs, dear  reader,  you  are  prepared  to  know  the 
value  of  your  acquittal,  if  you  acquit  the  Mirror  of 
ill-nature,  of  which  it  has  been  accused.     We  do  not 


EPHEMERA. 


667 


remember  that,  in  its  pages,  we  have  ever,  intention- 
ally, wounded  feelings  or  trenched  upon  delicacy. 


The  Rococo  No.  1,  is  ready  for  your  shilling,  dear 
reader — one  shilling  for  the  three  purest  gems  ever 
crystallized  into  poetry — three  narrative  fairy-tales  in 
verse,  exquisitely  full  of  genius.  The  book,  too,  is 
beautifully  printed,  as  are  all  the  works  of  the  Mirror 
Library — suitable  for  company  at  a  lavender-fingured 
breakfast,  or  for  the  drawing-room  table  of  your  lady 
fair. 

Rococo  No.  2,  is  also  ready,  containing  Pinckney's 
long-neglected  and  delicious  poems,  and  you  should 
pay  a  shilling  if  it  were  only  to  know  what  the  coun- 
try has  to  be  proud  of  among  its  poetical  dead.  The 
author  of 

"  I  fill  this  cup  to  one  made  up  of  loveliness  alone," 
had  a  smoothness  in  his  touch  of  a  thought  like  the 
glide  of  a  cloud-edge  just  under  a  star.     For  quaint 
and  sweet  couplets  of  love-makery  there  are  few  books 
like  it.     Witness  this  verse: — 

"  We  break  the  glass,  whose  sacred  wine 

To  some  beloved  health  we  drain, 
Lest  future  pledges,  less  divine, 

Should  e'er  the  hallowed  toy  profane  ; 
And  thus  I  broke  a  heart,  that  poured 

Its  tide  of  feelings  out  for  thee, 
In  draughts,  by  after-times  deplored, 

Yet  dear  to  memory." 

The  following  Bryant-like,  finished,  and  high- 
thoughted  poetry  was  written  by  a  young  lady  of 
seventeen,  and  her  first  published  production.  She  is 
the  daughter  of  one  of  our  oldest  and  best  families, 
resident  on  the  Hudson.  If  the  noon  be  like  the 
promise  of  the  dawn  of  this  pure  intellect,  we  have 
here  the  beginning  of  a  brilliant  fame: — 

11  Thou  beautiful  cloud,  a  glorious  hue  is  thine  ! 
I  can  not  think,  as  thy  bright  dyes  appear 
To  my  enraptured  gaze,  that  thou  wert  born 
Of  evening  exhalations  ;  more  sublime, 
Light-giver  !  is  thy  birthplace,  than  of  earth. 
Art  ihou  not  formed  to  herald  in  the  day, 
And  clothe  a  world  in  thy  unborrowed  light  ? 
Or  art  thou  but  a  harbinger  of  rains 
To  budding  May  <     Or,  in  thy  subtle  screen, 
Nursest  the  lightnings  that  affright  the  world? 
Or  wert  thou  born  of  the  ethereal  mist 
That  shades  the  sea,  or  shrouds  the  mountain's  brow  ? 
Spread  thy  wings  o'er  the  empyrean,  and  away — 
Fleetly  athwart  the  untravelled  wilds  of  space, 
To  where  the  sunlight  sheds  his  earliest  beams, 
And  blaze  the  stars,  that  vision  vainly  scans 
In  distant  regions  of  the  universe  ! 
Tell  me,  air- wanderer  !  in  what  burning  zone 
Thou  wilt  appear,  when  from  the  azure  vault 
Of  our  high  heaven  thy  majesty  shall  fade  ? 
Tell  me,  winged  vapor,  where  hath  been  thy  home 
Through  the  unchangeable  serene  of  noon  ? 
Whate'er  thy  garniture— where'er  thy  course — 
Would  I  could  follow  thee  in  thy  fair  flight, 
When  the  south  wind  of  eve  is  low  and  soft, 
And  my  thought  rises  to  the  mighty  Source 
Of  all  sublimity  !     O,  fleeting  cloud, 
Would  I  were  with  thee  in  the  solemn  night !" 


February  14. — This  is  the  day,  says  the  calendar, 
"  for  choosing  special  loving  friends" — as  if  there 
were  room  for  choice  in  a  world  where 

"  He  who  has  one  is  blest  beyond  compare  !" 

The  Lupercalian  custom  of  keeping  Valentine's  i 
day  (putting  the  names  of  all  the  marriageable  girls 
in  the  community  into  a  box,  and  making  the  bache- 
lors draw  lots  for  wives)  would  make  a  droll  imbroglio 
of  "  New  York  society."  By-the-way,  if  you  know 
a  working  poet  out  of  employ,  recommend  to  his  no- 


tice the  literature  of  valentines.  Never  till  this  year 
have  the  copies  of  amatory  verses,  for  sale  in  the  fancy 
shops,  been  comparably  so  well  embellished,  and  the 
prices  of  single  valentines  have  ranged  from  two  shil- 
lings to  two  dollars — fine  ptices  to  build  a  trade  upon  ! 
The  shops,  for  two  or  three  evenings  last  past,  have 
been  crowded  with  young  men  purchasing  these,  and 
probably  a  little  better  poetry  would  turn  the  choice 
in  favor  of  any  particular  manufacture  of  such  lovers* 
wares.  The  favorite  device  seems  to  be  stolen  from 
Mercury's  detention  of  Mars  and  Venus — a  paper  net, 
which,  when  raised,  discloses  a  tableau  of  avowal. 


Editorial  skirmishing  strikes  a  light  into  the  people's 
tinder  sometimes,  and  there  is  a  paragraph  this  morn- 
ing which  explains  the  difference  between  paid  puffs 
and  literary  notices.  The  True  Sun  says:  "The 
man  who  edits  the  Hagerstown  News  can  not,  it 
seems,  distinguish  between  an  editorial  article  and  an 
advertisement.  He  mistakes  the  long  advertisement 
of  Verplanck's  Shakspere,  which  appears  in  our 
paper,  for  the  production  of  the  editors  of  the  True 
Sun,  and  declines  inserting  it  in  the  News  for  less 
than  forty-five  dollars.  What  does  the  man  mean  ? 
It  is  only  surprising  than  an  editor  should  be  ignorant 
that  puffs  paid  are  set  in  minion  type,  and  puffs  of  vo- 
lition are  set  in  brevier — a  distinction  not  'plain'  (as 
yet)  'to  the  commonest  understanding.'"  The  Lon- 
don papers  print  the  word  "advertisement"  over  all 
their  puffs  paid  for,  and,  by  using  different  type,  the 
True  Sun  has  taken  one  step  toward  making  the  vol- 
unteer distinguishable. 

Mr.  Verplanck's  project,  by-the-way,  is  a  very  no- 
ticeable one.  We  have  never  had  (to  my  knowledge) 
an  American  annotator  upon  Shakspere,  and  Shaks- 
pere is  as  much  ours  as  England's.  Very  many  of 
the  Shaksperian  words  are  obsolete  in  England,  but  in 
use  here,  and  put  down  as  Americanisms  by  travellers. 
I  do  not  know  whether  Mr.  Verplanck  promises  to 
show  any  new  readings  of  Shakspere,  but  he  is  a  man 
of  much  higher  education,  and  more  cultivated  and 
scholarlike  "pursuits  than  Mr.  Knight  (whose  edition 
of  Shakspere  has  lately  been  so  popular  in  England), 
beside  being  a  man  of  productive  original  genius, 
which  Mr.  Knight  has  no  claim  to  be.  The  commen- 
taries upon  works  of  genius  by  different  men  of  genius 
can  never  be  repetitions,  and  are  always  interesting — 
so  I  look  with  some  interest  for  Mr.  Verplanck's  pref- 
ace and  first  number.  As  he  is  a  man  of  large  for- 
tune and  entire  leisure,  there  is  no  obstacle  to  his 
doing  it  well. 


The  discovery  of  a  gem  in  a  dark  mine  is  a  poet- 
ical matter,  but  (to  my  present  thinking)  it  is  even 
a  prosaic  similitude  for  the  sudden  finding  out  of 
a  work  of  genius  progressing  in  one  of  the  houses  of 
a  brick  block.  I  had  often  passed  Durand's  house 
in  one  of  the  retired  close-built  streets  of  New  York, 
without  suspecting  that  it  contained  anything  but  the 
domestic  problem  of  felicity  and  three  meals  a  day ; 
but  a  chance  errand  lately  led  me  to  knock  at  his 
door.  My  business  over,  he  placed  upon  the  easel  (in 
a  charming  studio  built  in  the  rear  of  his  house)  a 
large  landscape  to  which  he  had  just  given  the  finish- 
ing touch.  I  sat  down  before  it,  and  (to  use  a  good 
word  that  is  staled  and  blunted  from  overusing)  it 
absorbed  me.  My  soul  went  into  it.  I  was,  it  is  true, 
in  good  pictorial  appetite.  It  was  my  studious  time 
of  day,  and  I  had  seen  no  pictures  out  of  my  own 
rooms  for  a  week  ;  but  it  seemed  to  me  as  if  that  land- 
scape alone  would  be  a  retreat,  a  seclusion,. a  world  by 
itself  to  retreat  into  from  care  or  sad  thoughts— so 
mellow  and  deep  was  the  distance,  so  true  to  nature 


668 


EPHEMERA. 


the  coloring  and  drawing,  so  sweetly  poetical  the  com- 
position, and  so  single-thoughted  the  conception  of 
the  effect.  The  roofs  of  a  comfortable  farmhouse  and 
outbuildings  were  the  subordinate  life  of  the  picture, 
seen  over  a  knoll  on  the  right.  The  centre  of  the 
foreground,  and  the  brightest  spot  in  the  picture,  was  a 
high  grass-bank  on  which  glanced  a  golden  beam  of 
the  setting  sun.  On  it  was  a  group  of  cattle  in  well- 
fed  repose,  and  over  it  stood  the  finest  oak-tree  I  ever 
saw  painted.  Twenty  miles  of  landscape  lay  below, 
enveloped  in  the  veil  of  coming  twilight,  and  a  river 
wound  gracefully  away  from  the  eye  and  was  lost  in 
the  distance.  It  was  indeed  a  glorious  picture,  and  I 
stake  my  judgment  upon  the  opinion  that  no  living 
artist  could  surpass  it.  Durand,  as  you  probably 
know,  has  turned  painter,  after  having  long  been  the 
first  engraver  of  our  country.  He  is  patient  of  labor, 
and  has  approached  landscape-painting  by  a  peculiar 
education  of  hand  and  eye,  and  the  probability  is,  that 
if  he  live  twenty  years,  he  will  have  no  equal  in  this 
department  of  the  arts.  If  you  remember,  I  men- 
tioned my  great  surprise  at  the  excellence  of  two  of 
his  landscapes  in  the  last  exhibition  of  the  academy 
here.  To  see  pictures  with  an  appetite  in  the  eye,  one 
should  see  them  singly,  however,  and  but  two  or  three, 
at  farthest,  in  a  day.  Artists  who  would  be  deliberately 
appreciated,  should  make  their  houses  morning- 
resorts,  as  they  are,  and  very  fashionable  ones,  in 
France  and  Italy.  There  are  people  (and  those,  too, 
who  cm  afford  to  buy  pictures)  who  yawn  for  some 
such  round  of  occupation  during  the  summer  morn- 
ings of  the  travelling  season. 


The  want  of  an  excuse  to  put  on  bonnet,  and  go 
out  somewhere  in  the  evening  with  father,  husband, 
brother,  or  lover,  is  doubtless  the  secret  of  most  au- 
diences, whether  in  church  or  lecture-room.  I  ar- 
rived at  this  conclusion  sitting  and  watching  the  com- 
ing in  of  an  audience  at  a  popular  lecture  a  night  or 
two  ago.  The  subject  was  of  a  character  that  would 
only  draw  listeners  (one  would  think)  from  the  more 
intellectual  and  cultivated  classes — dry  and  of  remote 
interest — and  one,  too,  that  could  be  "read  up,"  to 
perfect  mental  satisfaction,  by  sending  a  shilling  to  a 
library,  or  buying  a  bit  of  the  cheap  literature  of  the 
day.  It  was  a  cold,  raw  night,  the  lecturer  was  no 
orator,  and  the  benches  of  the  lecture-room  had  no 
cushions.  With  these  premises,  you  would  look  to 
see  anything  but  a  pleasure-loving  and  youthful  audi- 
ence. Yet  this  was  just  the  quality  of  the  comers-in 
till  the  room  was  crowded.  There  was  scarce  an  un- 
appropriated-looking damsel  among  them,  and  not  one 
bald  head  or  "adust"  visage.  That  the  young  men 
would  have  been  there  without  the  ladies,  I  do  not 
believe— nor  that  the  ladies  came  there  with  any  spe- 
cial desire  to  know  more  of  the  subject  of  the  lecture. 

On  this  necessity  for  ladies  to  go  somewhere  of  an 
evening  is  based,  of  course,  most  of  the  popular  en- 
thusiasms of  the  day — for  they  are  never  got  up  by 
individual  reading,  and  would  fail  entirely,  but  for  the 
opportunity  to  give,  in  one  moment,  one  thought  to 
many  people.  This  fact  seems  to  me  to  indicate  in 
what  way  the  inducements  should  be  heightened 
when  audiences  fall  off;  and,  instead  of  cheapening 
tickets,  or  spending  more  money  in  placards,  I  think 
it  would  be  better  to  treat  the  ladies  to  an  interlude 
of  coffee  and  conversation,  or  to  minister  in  some  way 
directly  to  the  tastes  of  those  in  whom  resides  the 
primum  mobile  of  attendance. 

I  presume  there  are  thousands  of  families  in  New 
York  that  are  not  linked  with  any  particular  round  of 
acquaintance — very  worthy  and  knowledge-loving  peo- 
ple, who  can  afford  only  a  few  friends,  and  shun  ac- 
quaintances as  expensive.     People  in  this  rank  are  too 


moderate-minded  to  be  theatre-goers;  but  the  wife 
and  daughters  of  the  family  must  go  somewhere  of  an 
evening.  Parties  are  costly,  public  balls  both  costly 
and  unadvisable,  and  there  are  eight  months  in  the 
year  when  it  is  too  cold  for  icecream-gardens  and 
walks  on  the  Battery.  Lecture-tickets  for  a  family 
are  cheap,  the  company  there  is  good,  the  room  is 
warm,  and  so  well  lighted  as  to  show  comeliness  or 
dress  to  advantage,  and  the  apparent  object  of  being 
there  is  creditable  and  reputable.  I  say  again,  that  to 
add  to  the  social  inducements  of  this  attraction,  would 
be  to  make  of  the  lecture  system  a  great  gate  to  the 
public  heart.  I  add  this  gratuitous  mite  of  specula- 
tion to  the  unused  data  that  have  been  long  waiting 
for  a  compiler  of  the  statistics  of  metropolitan  mo- 
menta. 


We  have  had  a  week  of  spring-weather,  and  the 
upper  part  of  New  York  (all  above  the  pavements,  ca 
va  dire)  has  been  truly  enjoyable.  Most  persons  who 
do  not  wear  their  beards  for  a  protection  to  the  glands 
of  the  throat,  have  got  the  mumps — on  dit.  Writing 
in  a  warm  room  with  the  throat  pressed  down  upon  a 
thick  cravat,  and  going  into  the  open  air  with  the 
head  raised  and  the  throat  of  course  suddenly  left  ex- 
posed— is  one  of  those  provoking  risks  that  "stand  to 
,  reason."  By  the  elaborate  inventions  to  keep  the 
feet  dry,  there  seems  to  be  a  "realizing  sense"  of  the 
danger  of  wet  feet  also.*  Mr.  Lorin  Brooks's  inven- 
tion for  expeditiously  throwing  an  iron  bridge  over 
every  small  puddle — (that  is  to  say,  of  making  boots 
with  a  curved  metallic  shank  under  the  hollow  of  the 
foot) — has  the  advantage  of  adding  to  the  beauty  as 
well  as  the  protection  of  the  exposed  extremities. 


Signor  Palmo  continues  to  pay  his  way  and  his 
prima  donna,  and  not  much  more — for  the  upper  gal- 
lery is  so  constructed  that,  though  you  can  see  the 
stage  from  every  part  of  it,  you  can  only  see  the  dress- 
circle  from  the  front  row;  and  people  goto  plays  a 
little  to  see  and  hear,  and  a  great  deal  to  be  seen  and 
heard  of.  The  price  of  places  being  the  same  all  over 
the  house,  few  will  take  tickets  except  for  the  lower 
tier.  The  best  evidence  that  the  opera  is  growing  on 
the  public  liking  is  the  degree  to  which  the  piques 
and  tracasseries  of  the  company  are  talked  about  in 
society.  Quite  a  Guelph  and  Ghibelline  excitement 
was  raised,  a  few  nights  ago,  by  the  basso's  under- 
taking indignantly  to  sing  as  the  critics  advised  him — 
with  more  moderation.  Signor  Valtellina  is  a  great 
favorite,  and  has  a  famous  ypice,  ben  marlellato.  He 
is  a  very  impassioned  singer,  and  when  excited,  loses 
his  flessibilita,  and  grows  harsh  and  indistinct — (as 
he  himself  does  not  think).  By  way  of  pleasing  the 
carpers  for  once,  he  sang  one  of  the  warmest  passages 
of  the  opera  with  a  moping  lamentivole  that  brought 
out  a  hiss  from  the  knowing  ones.  His  friends,  who 
were  in  the  secret,  applauded.  Valtellina  laid  his 
hand  on  his  heart  and  retired — but  came  back,  as  the 
millers  say,  "with  a  head  on,"  and  sang  once  more 
passionately  and  triumphantly.  Excuse  the  fop's  al- 
ley slang  with  which  I  have  told  this  momentous 
matter — quite  equal  in  importance  (as  a  subject  of 
conversation)  to  any  couple  of  events  eligible  by 
Niles's  Register. 


Our  Library  Parish. — Our  heart  is  more  spread 
and  fed  than  our  pocket,  dear  reader,  with  the  new 

*  I  have  somewhere  seen  waggish  mention  of  an  approved 
water-proof  shoe  made  of  the  skin  of  a  drunkard's  mouth — 
warranted  never  to  let  in  water  ! 


EPHEMERA. 


possession  of  this  magic  long  arm  by  which  we  are 
handing  you,  one  after  another,  the  books  we  have 
long  cherished.  Almost  the  first  manifestation  of  the 
poet's  love,  is  the  sending  of  his  favorite  books  to  his 
mistress,  and  no  commerce  of  tenderness  is  more  like 
the  conversance  of  angels  (probably),  than  the  sym- 
pathies exchanged  through  the  loopholes  of  starry 
thoughts — (so  like  windows  twixt  soul  and  soul  are 
the  love-expressing  conceptions  of  poetry!)  The 
difference  between  an  hour  passed  with  friends  and  an 
hour  passed  with  strangers,  will  be  some  guide  to  you 
in  forming  an  estimate  of  the  difference  between  wri- 
ting for  our  readers  wilJwut,  and  writing  for  them  rvith 
the  sympathy  of  books  in  common.  The  Mirror  be- 
comes, in  a  manner,  our  literary  parish — we  the  in- 
dulged literary  vicar,  with  whose  tastes  out  of  the 
pulpit  you  are  as  familiar  as  with  his  sermons  of  crit- 
icism when  in  ;  and  you,  dear  reader,  become  our 
loved  parishioner,  for  whom  we  cater,  at  fountains  of  j 
knowledge  and  fancy  to  which  you  have  not  our  fa-  I 
cility  of  access,  and  whose  face,  turned  to  us  on  Sat-  j 
urday,  inspires  us  like  the  countenance  of  a  familiar 
friend.  This  charming  literary  parish  (now  rising  of 
eleven  thousand)  we  would  not  exchange  for  a  bish- 
opric,  nor  for  the  constituency  of  a  congress-member;  || 
and  we  hold  our  responsibility  to  be  as  great  as  the 
bishop's,  and  our  chair  better  worth  having  than  "a 
seat"  in  the  Capitol.  Few  things  gratify  us  more 
than  the  calls  we  occasionally  get  from  subscribers 
who  have  a  wish  to  see  us  after  reading  our  paper  for 
a  while — and  this  feeling  of  friendly  and  personal  ac- 
quaintance is  what  we  most  aim  at  producing  between 
ourselves  and  our  readers.  We  shall  seldom  be  more 
pleased  hereafter  than  in  taking  one  of  our  parish  by 
the  hand — relying  more  upon  the  sympathy  between 
us,  by  common  thoughts,  than  upon  any  possible  cer- 
emony of  introduction. 

Let  us  beg  our  readers  to  have  the  different  num- 
bers of  the  Rococo  bound  with  blank  letter-paper  be- 
tween the  leaves,  and  to  read  always  with  a  pencil  in 
hand.  There  are  such  chambers  within  chambers  of 
comprehension  and  relish  in  repeated  readings  of  such 
sweet  creations,  and  the  thoughts  they  suggest  are  so 
noteworthy  and  so  delightful  to  recal !  "We  have  sent 
a  poem  to  the  printer  this  morning  (to  be  published 
in  the  same  shilling  number  with  The  Rimini),  which 
we  do  not  believe  ten  of  our  readers  ever  saw — (a  po- 
em never  reprinted  in  this  country,  and  apparently 
quite  lost  sight  of  in  England) — but  which  exercised 
upon  our  imagination,  when  in  college,  an  influence 
tincturing  years  of  feeling  and  revery.  An  English 
copy  was  given  us  by  an  old  man  curious  in  books, 
and  it  was  soon  so  covered  with  pencil-marks  that  we 
were  obliged  to  rebind  it  with  alternate  leaves  of  white 
paper,  and  we  carried  it  with  us  for  a  travelling  com- 
panion through  Europe,  and  re-read  it  (once  again, 
we  well  remember)  sitting  on  the  ruins  of  the  church 
of  Sardis  in  Asia.  R  is  a  narrative-poem  of  inex- 
pressible richness  and  melody,  and  of  the  loftiest  walk 
of  inventive  imagination.  It  is  so  sweet  a  story,  too, 
that  it  would  entertain  a  child  like  a  fairy-tale.  We 
could  go  on  writing  about  it  for  hours — for  it  brings 
back  to  us  days  spent  with  it  in  the  woods,  green 
banks  where  we  have  lain  and  mused  over  it,  lovely 
listeners  who  have  held  their  breaths  to  hear  it,  and 
oh,  a  long,  long  chain  of  associations  steeped  in  love, 
indolence,  and  sunshine!  And  this  it  is  to  have  a  fa- 
vorite author — to  have  a  choice  and  small  library  of 
favorite  authors.  It  makes  a  wreath  wherein  to  weave 
for  memory  the  chance  flowers  of  a  lifetime  !  It  gives 
Memory  a  sweet  companion.  It  enables  you  to  with- 
draw yourself  at  any  time  from  the  world,  or  from 
care,  and  recover  the  dreams  built  over  these  books 
in  the  rare  hours  dream-visited.  More  valuable 
still,  it  gives  you — when  yon  begin  to  love,  and  want  ! 
the  words  and  thoughts  that  have  fled  affrighted  away  j 


— a  thread  to  draw  back   the  truants,  and  an   instant 
and  eloquent  language  to  a  heart  otherwise  dumb. 


"  Sybilla"  wants  a  poetical  color  given  to  the  "  tran- 
sition state"  from  the  "  uncertain  age"  to  the  "sad 
certainty  of  youth  gone  by."  We  can  only  give  her 
a  verse  from  a  piece  of  poetry  written  to  a  delightful 
and  fascinating  old  maid  whom  we  once  had  a  passion 
for:— 

What  though  thy  years  are  getting  on, 

They  pass  thee  harmless  by, 
I  can  not  count  them  on  thy  cheek, 

Nor  miss  them  in  thine  eye. 
The  meaner  things  of  earth  grow  old, 

And  feel  the  touch  of  Time, 
But  the  moon  and  the  stars,  though  old  in  heaven, 

Are  fresh  as  in  their  prime. 


Spring  is  close  behind  us,  dear  reader.     What  think 
you  of  this  bit  of  poetry,  touching  spring  flowers? — 

The  flowers  are  nature's  jewels,  with  whose  wealth 
She  decks  her  summer  beauty  ; — Primrose  sweet, 
With  blossoms  of  pure  gold  ;  enchanting  rose, 
That  like  a  virgin  queen,  salutes  the  sun, 
Dew-diademed  ;  the  perfumed  pink  that  studs 
The  earth  with  clustering  ruby  ;  hyacinth, 
The  hue  of  Venus'  tresses  ;  myrtle  green, 
That  maidens  think  a  charm  for  constant  love, 
And  give  night-kisses  to  it,  and  so  dream  ; 
Fair  lily  !  woman's  emblem,  and  oft  twined 
Round  bosoms,  where  its  silver  is  unseen — 
Such  is  their  whiteness  ;—  downcast  violet, 
Turning  away  its  sweet  head  from  the  wind, 
As  she  her  delicate  and  startled  ear 
From  passion's  tale.  • 


A  country  subscriber  writes  to  know  who  "  Mrs. 
Grundy"  is.  She  is  the  lady  who  lives  next  door, 
madam — the  lady  at  whose  funeral  there  will  be  but 
one  mourner — the  last  man  !  We  are  not  sorry  that 
we  know  her,  but  very  sorry  that  she  must  needs  know 
us,  and  have  her  "say"  about  us. 


February  should  be  called  the  month  of  hope,  for  it 
is  invariably  more  enjoyable  than  the  first  nominal 
fruition — more  spring-like  than  the  first  month  of 
spring.  This  is  a  morning  that  makes  the  hand  open 
and  the  fingers  spread — a  morning  that  should  be  con- 
secrated to  sacred  idleness.  I  should  like  to  exchange 
work  with  any  out-of-doors  man — even  with  a  driver 
of  an  omnibus — specially  with  the  farmer  tinkering 
his  fences.  Cities  are  convenient  places  of  refuge 
from  winter  and  bad  weather,  but  one  longs  to  get  out 
into  the  country,  like  a  sheep  from  a  shed,  with  the 
first  warm  gleam  of  sunshine. 


I  see  that  Moore  has  virtually  turned  to  come  down 
from  his  long  ladder  of  fame — his  publishers,  Long- 
mans, having  made  a  final  collection  of  his  works 
in  an  elaborate  edition,  and  prefixed  thereto  a  picture 
of  an  old  man— Tom  Moore  as  he  is!  It  is  melan- 
choly to  see  this  portrait.  The  sparse  hair,  made-the- 
most-of—  the  muscles  of  the  face  retreating  from  the 
habitual  expression— the  lamp  within  still  uncon- 
scious of  losing  brightness,  yet  the  glass  over  it  stained 
and  cracked.  Moore  should  never  have  been  painted 
after  thirty.  This  picture  is  like  a  decrepit  cupid — 
wholly  out  of  character.  His  poetry  is  all  youth,  its 
very  faults  requiring  youthful  feeling  for  an  apology; 
and  to  know  that  he  has  grown  old— that  he  is  bald 


670 


EPHEMERA. 


wrinkled,  venerable — is  like  some  unnatural  hocus- 
pocus — some  hideous  metamorphosis  we  would  ratber 
not  have  seen  even  in  melodrame.  Moore  has  not 
sobered  away,  twilight-wise,  as  he  might  have  done. 
His  wit  and  song  have  kept  admiration  so  warm  around 
him,  that  he  has  forgotten  his  sun  was  setting — that 
it  was  time  the  shadows  of  his  face  grew  longer — time 
that  his  pen  leaned  toward  life's  downward  horizon. 
The  expression  on  this  face  of  frisky  sixty,  is  of  a 
flogged-up  hilarity  that  is  afraid  to  relax.  Moore  will 
look  facetious  and  dining-out-ish  in  his  coffin. 


I  see  that  Wallack  has  added  lecturing,  as  a  new 
branch,  to  his  profession,  and  is  very  successful.  Mr. 
Barry,  the  stage-manager  of  the  Park,  is  to  try  on  the 
same  experiment  to-night  at  the  Society  Library. 
"  Two  strings  to  your  bow"  is  a  good  economy  in  any 
profession,  and  there  are  sundry  professions,  the  du- 
ties of  which  do  not  interfere,  for  instance,  with  au- 
thorship. A  man  who  should  read  two  hours  before 
going  to  bed,  and  write  for  the  first  two  hours  after 
sunrise,  would  give  time  and  attention  enough  to  any 
literary  pursuit,  while  the  business  part  of  the  day, 
and  a  good  part  of  the  evening,  would  be  still  left  un- 
occupied. Actors  particularly  (so  capricious  is  for- 
tune with  them)  should  have  a  brace  of  vocations, 
and  a  poet,  with  an  honest  trade  besides,  is  more  likely 
to  have  his  "  lines  fall  in  pleasant  places." 


It  appears  by  the  English  papers  that  Madame  Cat- 
alani  indignantly  denies  being  dead  !  She  is  still  liv- 
ing, and  capable  of  enjoying  "good  living,"  at  her 
villa,  near  Florence.  The  American  story,  which 
went  the  rounds  of  the  papers  some  time  since,  of  a 
man  whose  capacious  throat  had  "swallowed  a  plan- 
tation and  fifty  negroes,"  finds  its  counterpart  in  the 
villa  and  its  dependants,  which  have  come  out  of  the 
throat  of  Madame  Catalani.  I  was  fortunate  enough 
to  enjoy  much  of  her  hospitality  when  in  Italy,  and 
there  are  few  establishments  that  I  have  seen  where 
the  honors  were  done  with  a  more  princely  liberality 
and  good  taste.  She  was  then,  as  she  is  probably 
still,  a  well-preserved  and  handsome  woman,  of  majes- 
tic mien,  and  most  affable  manners,  and  at  her  own 
little  parties  she  sang,  whenever  asked,  as  well  as  ever 
she  had  done  in  public.  She  seemed  to  me  never  to 
have  been  intoxicated  with  her  brilliant  successes,  and 
to  have  had  no  besoin  of  applause  left  like  a  thirst  in 
her  ears — as  is  the  case  with  popular  favorites  too  of- 
ten. Her  husband,  M.  Valabreque,  was  a  courteous 
man  and  a  fond  husband,  and  their  children  were  on 
an  equal  footing  of  social  position  with  the  young  no- 
bility of  Florence.  Most  strangers  who  see  anything 
of  the  society  of  that  delightful  city,  come  away  with 
charming  remembrances  of  Madame  Catalani. 


Washington's  Birthday  is  growing  into  a  tem- 
perance anniversary,  probably  much  to  the  pleasure 
and  a  little  to  the  surprise  of  the  distinguished  ghost 
There  was  a  grand  temperance  celebration  at  the  Tab- 
ernacle last  evening,  at  which  the  eloquent  author  of 
the  Airs  of  Palestine,  Rev.  John  Pierpont,  delivered 
an  address.  By-the-way,  it  is  an  overlooked  feather 
in  the  cap  of  temperance,  that  we  owe  to  it  the  pleas- 
ant invention  of  kissing.  In  the  course  of  my  read- 
ing I  have  fallen  in  with  the  historical  fact,  that,  when 
wine  was  prohibited  by  law  to  the  women  of  ancient 
Rome,  male  relatives  had  the  right  of  ascertaining, 
by  tasting  the  lips  of  their  sisters  and  cousins,  wheth- 
er the  forbidden  liquor  had  passed  in.     The  investi- 


gations of  this  lip-police,  it  is  said,  were  pushed  with 
a  rigor  and  vigilance  highly  creditable  to  the  zeal 
of  the  republic,  and  for  a  time  intemperance  was 
fairly  kissed  away.  Subsequently,  female  intoxica- 
tion became  fashionable  again  (temperance  kisses  not- 
withstanding), and  Seneca  (in  his  Epistolce)  is  thus 
severe  upon  the  Roman  ladies  :  "  Their  manners  have 
altogether  changed,  though  their  faces  are  as  cap- 
tivating as  ever.  They  make  a  boast  of  their  ex- 
ploits in  drinking.*  They  will  sit  through  the  night 
with  the  glass  in  their  hands,  challenging  the  men, 
and  often  outdoing  them."  Now,  by  restoring  the 
much-abused  and  perverted  kiss  to  its  original  mis- 
sion, and  making  of  it  the  sacred  apostle  of  inquiry 
that  it  was  originally  designed  for,  it  strikes  me  that 
the  temperance-committees  would  have  many  more 
"active  members,"  and  the  cause  would  assuredly 
grow  on  public  favor.  I  submit  the  hint  to  that  ad- 
mirable enthusiast,  Mrs.  Child. 


There  are  two  establishments  in  the  city  of  New 
York  which  should  be  visited  by  those  who  require 
stretchers  to  their  comprehension  of  luxury- -Meeks's 
furniture-warehouse,  behind  the  Astor,  and  Tiffany's 
bijou-shop,  at  the  corner  of  Warren  street  and  Broad- 
way. In  a  search  I  have  lately  made  for  a  bookcase 
of  a  particular  fancy,  1  have  made  the  round  of  fur- 
niture-warehouses, and,  as  a  grand  epitome  of  all  of 
them — a  seven-story  building,  crammed  with  furni- 
ture on  every  floor — I  should  recommend  the  mere 
idle  sight-seer  to  spend  a  morning  at  Meeks's  for  his 
amusement.  Upon  the  simple  act  of  sitting  down 
has  been  expended  as  much  thought  (in  quantity)  as 
would  produce  another  Paradise  Lost.  Some  of  the 
chairs,  indeed,  are  poems — the  beautiful  conception 
and  finish  of  them,  taken  into  the  mind  with  the  same 
sensation,  at  least,  and  the  same  glow  of  luxury. 
The  fancies  of  every  age  and  country  are  represented, 
those  of  the  Elizabethan  era  and  the  ornate  fashion 
of  Louis  XIV.  predominant,  though  tables  and  sofas 
on  Egyptian  models  are  more  sumptuous.  At  so 
much  cost,  they  ought  to  put  the  mind  at  ease  as  well 
as  the  body.  And,  by-the-way,  the  combining  of 
couch  and  chair  in  one  (now  so  fashionable)  would 
have  pleased  the  Roman  dames,  whose  husbands  kept 
chairs  for  women  and  mourners — a  man's  sitting  upon 
a  chair  (in  preference  to  a  couch)  being  considered  a 
received  sign  of  deep  mourning  or  poverty.  Few 
people  can  trust  their  taste  to  go  into  such  an  im- 
mense warehouse  as  Meeks's  and  select  (in  one  style, 
and  that  style  suitable  to  their  house,  condition,  and 
manner  of  living)  the  furniture  for  an  establishment. 
It  would  be  a  good  vocation  for  a  reduced  gentleman 
to  keep  taste  to  let,  holding  himself  ready  to  take  or- 
ders, and  execute  them  at  discretion,  according  to  the 
suitabilities  of  the  employer. 

Tiffany's  is  a  fashionable  pleasure-lounge  already, 
his  broad  glass  doors  and  tempting  windows  being  at 
one  of  the  most  thronged  corners  of  Broadway.  It 
is  better  than  a  museum,  in  being  quite  as  well  stocked 
with  surprises,  and  these  all  ministering  to  present 
and  fashionable  wants.  Where  resides  the  prodigious 
ingenuity  expended  on  these  superb  elegances  and 
costly  trifles,  it  would  be  hard  to  discover.  And  the 
seductive  part  of  it  is,  that  there  are  articles  for  all 
prices,  and  you  may  spend  a  dollar,  or  five  hundred, 
in  the  same  dainty  line  of  commodity  ! 

The  times  are  "  easy,"  if  we  can  judge  by  the  ar- 
ticles that  find  plenty  of  buyers.     I  heard  yesterday 

*  They  also  became  the  cause  of  tippling  in  others,  for  it 
grew  into  a  common  practice  at  Roman  suppers  to  drink  a 
glass  to  every  letter  of  a  beauty's  name— the  longer  the  mor« 
toasted. 

"  Nsevia  sex  cyaihis,  septem  Justina  bibntur ." 


EPHEMERA. 


671 


that  a  shopkeeper  in  Broadway  had  imported  several 
ladies'  dresses,  priced  at  one  thousand  dollars  each, 
and  had  no  difficulty  in  selling  them-  Mr.  Meeks  in- 
formed ma  that,  of  a  certain  kind  of  very  costly  chair, 
he  could  not  keep  one  unsold.  It  was  certainly  a  su- 
perb article,  made  of  carved  rosewood  and  purple  vel- 
vet ;  price  (for  a  single  chair)  one  hundred  and  fifty 
dollars!  We  have  not  yet  adopted,  in  this  country, 
the  French  custom  of  ornamenting  dinner-tables  very 
expensively  with  silver  vases  and  artificial  flowers,  nor 
has  the  old  Roman  custom  ever  been  resumed,  I 
think,  of  placing  the  "household  gods"'  upon  the  ta- 
ble. The  aspect  of  a  supper-table  in  Cicero's  time, 
indeed,  must  have  been  beyond  the  show  even  of 
Bourbon  sybarites  ;  the  guests  in  white  and  scarlet 
robes,  with  chaplets  of  roses,  myrtle,  or  ivy  on  their 
heads,  lying  by  threes  on  couches  covered  with  pur- 
ple or  embroidered  with  gold  and  silver — a  crowd  of 
slaves,  chosen  for  their  beauty,  waiting  within  the 
square  formed  by  the  tables,  and  dressed  in  tunics  of 
the  brightest  colors — over  all  a  canopy  of  purple  cloth, 
giving  the  room  the  appearance  of  a  superb  tent — 
the  courses  brought  in  with  a  regular  procession 
marching  to  music — last  (not  least  heightening  to  the 
effect),  the  custom,  borrowed  of  the  Egyptians,  of 
bringing  in  a  skeleton,  in  the  midst  of  the  feast,  to 
furnish  a  foil  to  the  enjoyment.  All  these  were  com- 
mon features  of  Roman  luxury  at  the  time  when 
Rome  had  the  treasures  of  the  earth  at  her  disposal, 
and  probably  will  never  be  reproduced  in  the  same 
splendor,  unless  we  rebarbarize  and  make  war  upon 
Europe  under  a  military  chieftain. 


The  February  rehearsal  of  spring  is  over — the  pop- 
ular play  of  April  having  been  well  represented  by 
the  reigning  stars  and  that  pleasant  company  of  play- 
ers, the  Breezes.  The  drop-curtain  has  fallen,  repre- 
senting a  winter-scene,  principally  clouds  and  snow, 
and  the  beauties  of  the  dress-circle  have  retired  (from 
Broadway)  discontented  only  with  the  beauty  of  the 
piece.  By-the-way,  the  acting  was  so  true  to  nature, 
that  several  trees  in  Broadway  were  affected  to — bud- 
ding ! 

"Ah,  friends,  methinks  it  were  a  pleasant  sphere, 

If,  like  the  trees,  we  budded  every  year  ! 

If  locks  grew  thick  again,  and  rosy  dyes 

Returned  in  cheeks,  a  raciness  in  eyes, 

And,  all  around  us  vital  to  their  tips, 

The  human  orchard  laughed  with  rosy  lips." 


So  says  Leigh  Hunt. 


The  Land  of  Intermezzo. — If  spring  be  cognate 
to  one  poetical  subject  more  than  all  others,  it  is  to 
the  single  dreamy  fable  upon  which  are  founded  three 
immortal  poems — one  by  Thomas  Moore,  one  by 
Lord  Byron,  and  the  third  (quite  as  beautiful  as  either) 
by  the  Rev.  George  Croly.  The  last — "The  Angel 
of  the  World,"  by  Croly,  and  the  first,  "The 
Loves  of  the  Angels,"  by  Moore,  are  issued  in  ex- 
tras of  the  Mirror.  The  other,  Byron's  "  Heaven 
and  Earth"  (so  universal  are  the  works  of  the  noble 
bard),  we  took  for  granted  was  already  within  the 
reach  of  every  reader.  Apart  from  the  excessive 
beauty  of  these  poems,  it  is  curious  to  peruse  them 
with  a  view  to  comparison— to  read  first  the  short  and 
simple  story  of  "  Haruth  and  Maruth,"  and  then  study 
the  different  shapes  into  which  it  is  cast  by  the  ka- 
leidoscope imaginations  of  three  of  the  master-min- 
strels of  the  time. 

[Stay — do  you  live  in  the  country,  dear  reader? 
Have  you  a  nook  near  by — (natural) — or  can  you  go 
to  one  in  imagination,  or  will  you  come  to  ours— 
where  our  spirit  is  likely  to  be— that  is  to  say,  while 


scribbling  this  page,  this  glorious  morning?  For 
spring  makes  a  madhouse  of  a  city's  brick  walls,  and 
we  must  think  in  the  country  to-day — live,  bodily, 
where  we  will.] 

Here  we  are,  then,  in  a  deep  down  dell — the  appa- 
rent horizon  scarce  forty  feet  from  us — nothing  visible 
that  has  been  altered  since  God  made  it — and  a  col- 
umn of  clear  space  upward,  topped  by  the  zenith, 
like  a  cover  to  a  well — this  dell  the  bottom  of  it. 
(The  zenith  off,  we  should  see  heaven,  of  course!) 
In  my  pocket  are  the  three  poems  abovementioned,  and 
a  few  editorial  memoranda — but  we  will  bind  ourselves 
to  nothing — not  even  to  talk  about  these  poems  un- 
less we  like,  nor  to  remember  the  memoranda.  Idle- 
ness was  part  of  Paradise,  and  with  the  weather  of 
j  Paradise  it  comes  over  us,  irresistibly. 

To  bring  heaven  and  earth  together — to  make  beav- 
!  en  half  earth,  and  earth  half  heaven — is  the  doomed 
labor  and  thirst  of  poetry;  and  of  these  three  poems, 
the  desire  for  this  pleasant  intermezzo  is  the  exclusive 
under-tow,  the  unexpressed,  yet  predominating  stim- 
ulus. To  Byron  (with  his  earthly  mind  unmodified), 
complete  heaven  would  doubtless  have  been  as  unpal- 
atable as  were  evidently  the  mere  realities  of  earth. 
He,  and  Moore,  and  Croly,  have  seized  upon  the  east- 
ern fable,  of  angels  made  half  human  and  mortals 
half  divine,  to  give  voice  to  the  dumb  ache  of  their 
imaginations — an  ache  as  native  to  the  bosoms  of  the 
"Mirror  parish,"  as  to  these  three  immortal  subjects 
of  mortal  Victoria.  (She  ought,  by-the-way,  to  wear 
a  separate  crown  for  her  loyal  immortals — the  undy- 
ing men  of  genius  who  are  her  subjects  exclusively, 
and  whose  fame  is,  at  least,  ws^ue-millenial  and  a 
thousand  years  over.)  Each  of  these  has  pulled 
down  angels  to  the  love  of  flesh  and  blood — (the  hap- 
piness each  would  least  like  to  lose,  probably,  in  be- 
coming an  angel) — but  there  are  differences  in  the 
other  particulars  of  their  half-and-half  Paradise,  most 
characteristic  of  the  qualities  of  the  different  poets, 
and  pleasant  stuff  for  your  idle  hour's  unravelling,  oh 
reader,  rich  in  leisure! 

But  this  land  of  Intermezzo — this  kingdom  of  Mid- 
dlings— this  beatific,  and  poet-loved  half  and  half! 
Let  us  talk  of  it  some  more  ! 

We  are  inclined  to  think  that  half  way,  in  most 
things,  is  where  happiness  dwells.  We  say  so  timidly, 
for  we  live  in  a  country  famous  for  extremes.  It  must 
be  Heaven  "No.  I,"  to  tempt  the  Yankee!  Paradise, 
which  lies  between  earth  and  heaven,  would  be  poor 
stock  in  Wall  street!  The  best — only  the  best  and 
most  exciting,  in  the  way  of  pleasure,  for  this  market 
— Rags,  or  the  best  broadcloth,  the  only  wear: — Sullen 
privation  or  sudden  luxury,  the  only  living  : — Stars, 
or  no  actors  : — Millions,  or  hand-to-mouth  : — Perfect- 
ly obscure,  or  highly  fashionable  !  Medium — inter- 
mezzo— there  is  (quasi)  none  in  America  ! 

In  this  sweet  land  of  Intermezzo  we  find  ourself, 
of  latter  years,  laying  up  treasure.  Quiet  lives  there. 
Revery  is  native  there.  Content  dwells  nowhere  else. 
Modesty  retires  there  when  she  would  escape  envy, 
for  there  envy  never  sets  foot.  St.  Paul  saw  that  land 
when  he  said — "Give  me  neither  poverty  nor  riches." 
"  Something  I  must  like  and  love,"  says  old  Feltham, 
"  but  nothing  so  violently  as  to  undo  myself  with 
wanting  it."  Travel  where  you  will,  up  to  middle 
age  (says  a  certain  Truth-angel,  who  sometimes  stoops 
to  our  ear),  but  abide,  ever  after,  in  the  land  of  Inter- 
mezzo ! 

But,  in  the  land  of  Intermezzo  does  not  live  fame! 
It  is  a  land  with  an  atmosphere  of  sober  gray,  and 
fame  is  the  shadow  of  one  living  in  the  sun.  If  we 
may  preach  to  the  poets  among  our  flock  of  parishion- 
ers, we  should  say,  forego  this  shadow  !  Think  of  it 
as  it  is — only  a  shadow.  Value  it  as  you  do  the 
shadow  of  your  friend — nothing,  but  for  the  substance 
that   goes  before.     Live  in  the  land  of  Intermezzo, 


672 


EPHEMERA. 


and  let  fame  find  you — taking  for  it  no  more  care  than 
for  your  shadow  when  you  walk  abroad.  Write — for 
the  voice  the  soul  wants — the  utterance  without  which 
the  heart  seems  over-full — but  be  not  eager  for  the 
world's  listening  !  Fame  is  sweet  when  it  comes  un- 
beckoned.  The  world  gives,  more  willingly  than  it 
pays  on  demand.  In  the  quiet  fields  of  Intermezzo, 
pluck  flowers,  to  dry  unseen  in  your  bosom,  and  if, 
by  chance,  years  after,  they  are  unloaded  in  the  sun, 
they  will  be  thrice  fragrant  for  their  shaded  keeping. 
Amen! 


When  books  were  scarcer  and  scholars  given  to 
longer  incubation,  a  pocket  companion  called  a  Go- 
with-me,  was  the  fashion — {Vade-mecum,  it  you  like 
it  better  in  Latin).  It  was  commonly  a  favorite  author, 
sometimes  a  volume  of  maxims,  oftener  yet  a  book  of 
devotion.  The  monks  profess  to  entertain  themselves 
in  all  odd  hours  and  quiet  places  with  their  pocket 
breviary — the  concentrated  and  vital  essence  of 
missal  and  prayer-book.  We  liked  better,  in  our 
youth  (Heaven  assoil  us !)  a  self-compiled  breviary 
of  beloved  poetry — a  book  half  scrap,  half  manuscript, 
picked  from  newspapers  and  copied  from  readings — 
and,  in  a  protracted  youth  (enriched  with  a  most 
plentiful  lack  of  anything-to-do),  we  struck  together, 
with  pin  and  paste,  sundry  consecutive  volumes  which 
had  their  consecutive  day.  Various  were  their  uses  ! 
There  have  occurred  deserts,  in  our  travels  though 
most  of  our  loves  and  friendships,  which  could  only 
be  pleasantly  crossed  in  the  company  of  such  caravans 
of  poetry.  There  have  been  thoughts  born  without 
words  to  them,  aptly  fitted  to  a  vehicle  by  this  varied 
repository.  We  have  been  fed  through  many  a  famine 
of  hope,  supplied  through  many  a  drought  of  tears 
and  memory,  by  these  timely  resources.  We  have 
them  yet.  The  longer  poems  we  are  giving  to  our 
friends  in  the  numbers  of  the  Rococo.  The  shorter 
ones  we  purpose  giving  in  the  Mirror,  or  possibly  in  a 
sort  of  mosaic  extra — imparting  thus,  piece-meal,  the 
whole  of  our  Breviary  of  Idleness.  Here  and 
there,  it  is  possible,  we  may  give  something  you  have 
seen  before,  but  that  will  not  happen  often — for  we 
have  frequented  most,  the  least  known  shelves  of 
libraries,  and  loved  most  the  least-famed  authors. 
Here  is  a  stray  passage  upon  roses  ; — (but  we  don't 
give  you  the  best  first !) 

"  We  are  blushing  roses,  bending  with  our  fulness, 
Midst  our  close-copped  sister-buds  warming  the  green  cool- 
ness. 
Whatsoever  beauty  wears,  when  it  reposes, — 
Blush,  and  bosom,  and  sweet  breath — took  a  shape  in  roses. 
Hold  one  of  us  lightly  ; — see  from  what  a  slender 
Stalk   we  bow  in  heavy  blooms,   and  roundness  rich   and 

tender  : 
Know  you  not  our  only  vital  flower— the  human  ? 
Loveliest  weight  on  lightest  foot,  joy-abundant  woman?" 

What  we  like  about  that  is  the  well-contrived  en- 
tanglements compelling  you  to  stop  and  re-read  it, 
and  so  find  a  new  beauty— like  the  wheel  of  your  car- 
riage coming  off  amid  scenery  you  are  travelling 
through  too  rapidly. 


The  Vesuvius  of  new  books  has  naturally  its  Pom- 
peii, in  which  merit,  among  other  things,  is  buried 
quietly  under  the  cinders  and  remains  long  trodden 
over  and  forgotten.  Upon  the  excavations  and  disinter- 
ments in  this  city  of  literary  oblivion  is  founded,  in  a 
great  measure,  the  New  Mirror  project  of  a  library 
of  favorite  authors,  and  perhaps  the  most  interesting 
of  its  restorations  to  light,  as  yet,  is  the  delicious 
poem  by  Croly,  "  The  Angel  of  the  World." 
I  hardly  think  there  are  ten  people  in   the  United 


States  who  know  this  sweet  book,  though  it  is  founded 
on  the  same  eastern  fable  as  Moore's  "  Loves  of  the 
Angels,"  and,  to  my  thinking,  a  finer  expansion  of 
that  splendid  story.  Byron's  "  Heaven  and  Earth," 
and  the  two  poems  just  named  are  all  founded  on  this 
same  tradition,  and  it  is  curious  to  read  them  with  a 
view  to  comparison,  and  see  of  what  varieties  of  com- 
bination the  kaleidoscope  of  genius  is  capable.  Byron 
makes  his  the  vehicle  of  his  audacious  defiance  tow- 
ard sacred  things,  while  Moore's  is  all  love  aud 
flowers,  perfume  and  gems.  Croly's  is  more  a  poem 
of  strong  human  passion  and  character,  and  comes 
II  home  more  to  the  human  "  business  and  bosom."  It 
jj  is  written  (the  latter)  with  wonderful  splendor  of  dic- 
j;  tion  and  imagery.  Few  poetical  works  will  be  more 
popular  in  this  country,  I  think — profoundly  as  it  has 
slept  in  Lethe  for  the  last  twenty  years.  Croly  is  a 
clergyman  (the  Rev.  George),  and,  having  a  fat  living 
from  the  church  of  England,  his  Pegasus  has  never 
been  in  hack  harness,  and,  I  think,  shows  the  ease  of 
pasture-gambol  in  his  verse. 


Tammany  Hall  is  graced  to-day  with  a  showy  trans- 
parency representing  a  huge  owl  sitting  in  a  Gothic 
window,  and  a  Latin  motto  beneath,  declaring  that 
"the  countenance  is  the  index  of  the  mind."  I  can 
not  see,  by  the  morning  papers,  any  explanation  of 
the  objects  of  the  club  whose  celebration  comes  off 
under  these  ominous  auspices;  but  if  it  be  a  physiog- 
nomical society,  as  the  motto  would  purport,  they  have 
chosen  well.  It  were  a  good  symbol  also  for  a  club 
of  "minions  of  the  moon,"  if  they  were  less  fond  of  a 
lark — better  still  for  a  society  of  poets,  if  poets  were 
ever  (which  is  doubtful)  fond  of  poetical  society.  It 
is  the  poet's  cue  to  look  wise  and  say  little,  to  get  his 
victual  by  night,  to  differ  altogether  in  his  habit,  as 
owls  do,  from  birds  of  other  feather.  Virgil,  indeed, 
makes  the  owl  a  poet : — 

"  And  oft  the  owl  with  rueful  song  complained 
From  the  house-top,*  drawing  long  doleful  tunes." 


Professor  Bronson,  whose  lectures  are  "  going  on" 
and  still  "come  off,"  draws  a  very  attractive  picture 
in  his  advertised  prospectus.  "  The  lectures,"  he 
says,  "will  be  comparatively  free,  an  admission  of 
twenty-five  cents  only  being  required."  For  this, 
among  many  other  things,  he  promises  that  "a  key 
shall  be  given  to  the  connexion  of  natural  and  spiritual 
things  by  which  all  mysteries  may  be  explained  !" 
"  The  true  source  of  our  ideas  on  the  sublime  and 
beautiful  will  be  explained,  together  with  the  true 
principles  of  taste  and  criticism." — "  The  French 
baquet,  or  grand  mesmeric  reservoir,  will  be  exhibited, 
and  minerals,  vegetables,  animals,  and  several  persons 
at  a  time  magnetized  ;  the  German  rotary  magnetic 
machine  for  similar  purposes  ;  also  three  or  four  hun- 
dred engravings  pertaining  to  physiology,  &c.  and 
each  auditor  furnished  with  them  gratuitously,  with  the 
evening  programme  ;  also  several  hundred  paintings 
(many  expressly  imported  from  London),  to  illustrate 
the  subjects  of  mineralogy,  botany,  natural  history, 
and  astronomy.  A  common  rose  will  be  shown,  as 
developing  from  the  bud  to  full  bloom,  appearing  four 
or  five  feet  high,  in  all  its  glory  ;  a  butterfly  in  the 
same  manner  several  feet  square,  passing  through  its 
three  stages  of  development ;  and  all  the  phenomena 
of  the  natural  heavens,  to  wit,  the  sun,  moon,  and 
stars."  As  a  list  of  articles  to  be  had  for  twenty-five 
cents,  I  think  you  will  allow  the  professor's  advertise- 
ment to  be  worthy  of  statistical  preservation. 

*  Probably  not  called  an  attic  in  Virgil's  time. 


EPHEMERA. 


673 


The  girdle  put  around  the  earth  by  the  English  is, 
to  my   mind,   less   powerfully   figured   forth   in   their 
drum-beat   (so  finally  alluded  to  by  Webstkr)  than 
in   the  small  colonial-looking   newspaper — the   same 
article,  whether  it  come  from  the  pagodas  of  India  or 
the  snows  of  Canada,  the  sheep-hills  of  New  South 
Wales,  or  the  plantations  of  the  Bermudas.     By  the  j 
kindnes*s  of  my  friend  Aaron  Palmkr,   Esq.  (who  j 
does  business  with  arms  as  long  as  the  world's  axis, 
and  has  correspondences  and  exchanges  newspapers  j 
with  every  corner  of  the  globe),  I  have  by  me,  at  this 
moment  a  file  of  English  papers  published  at  the  seat  i 
of  the  Great  Mogul,  Delhi,  and  another  published  at  I 
Bermuda.     You  would  think  them  all  edited  by  the  | 
same   man   and   supplied    by   the  same   contributors. 
They  are  filled  principally,  of  course,  with  old  English  j 
news,  but  the  Delhi  paper  (only  ninety  days  from  the  i 
heart  of  Hindostan  !)  has   some  strictures  on  Lady 
Sale  and   her  book,  which  show  she   is  not  to   be  a' 
heroine  without  the  usual  penalty  of  envy  and  malice. 
An  officer-contributor  to  the  Gazette  says  : — 

"  We  were  nearly  as  much  on  the  tiptoe  of  expecta- 
tion for  Lady  Sale's  book  as  the  good  folks  of  Eng- 
land, though  the  secret  of  its  origin  was  here  better 
known.     It  would   be  amusing   to    print,   in   parallel  | 
columns,  the  opinions  on  her  production  given  by  the  j 
press  of  India  and  England  ;  c'est  a  dire,  of  those  who 
know  what  they  are  writing  about  and   those  who  do 
Dot.     I  am  safe  in  asserting  that,  for  every  eulogium  '' 
her  ladyship  has  received  in  England,  she  has  got  at 
least  one  set  down  in  India." 

The  same  writer  says,  in  another  part  of  his  letter: — 

"  We  look  forward  to  the  notice  of  our  Scinde 
doings  in  England.  Let  not  the  profit  of  the  acquisi- 
tion blind  you  to  the  iniquity.  Our  late  dealings  with 
that  country  commenced  in  perfidy,  and  went  on  in 
blood  and  rapine.     May  they  not  end  in  retribution !" 


We  have  commonly  two  sweet  hours  of  idleness  in  i 
the  afternoon — two  hours  that  are  the  juice  of  our 
much-squeezed  twenty-four  hours — two  hours  that 
(to  borrow  a  simile  from  the  more  homely  and  tooth- 
some days  of  authorship)  are  "as  sweet  as  a  pot  of 
lambalive  electuary  with  a  stick  of  licorice."  At 
four  o'clock, 

"  Taking  our  hat  in  our  hand,  a  remarkably  requisite  practice," 
we  button  our  coat  over  our  resignation  (synonym  for 
'dinner),  and  with  some  pleasant  errand  that  has  been 
laid  aside  for  such  opportunity,  stroll  forth.  It  is 
sometimes  to  an  artist's  room,  sometimes  to  a  print- 
shop,  sometimes  to  an  unexplored  street,  sometimes 
to  look  off  upon  the  bay,  or  take  a  ride  in  an  omnibus  | 

now  and   then  to   refresh  our  covetous  desires  at 

Tiffany's.  We  have  lately  been  the  subject  of  a  pas- 
sion for  pawnbrokery,  and  taken  the  precaution  to  j 
leave  our  little  pocket-money  at  home,  we  have  tamper-  j 
ed  with  exploring  and  price-asking  in  these  melan-  j 
choly  museums  of  heart-ache. 

"  Twiddling"  our  pen,  this  morning  (as  Leigh  | 
Hunt  represents  Apollo  doing  with  a  sunbeam),  we  j 
fell  to  speculating  on  what  it  was  that  made  us  think,  \ 
whether  we  would  or  no,  of  the  pyramids  !  This  is  ! 
last-page-day,  and  we  had  forty  things  to  write  about, 
but  there! — there!  ("in  my  mind's  eye,  Horatio!") 
Btands  the  "  wedge  sublime"  of  a  pyramid  !  Doubt- 
less the  ghost  of  some  word,  deed,  or  similitude  of  the 
day  before — but  why  such  pertinacity  of  apparition  ? 
We  did,  nor  noted,  nothing  pyramidal  yesterday.  We 
watched  the  general;  hanging  up,  in  his  new-garnish- 
ed office,  Dick's  fine  print  of  Sir  Walter's  monument, 
and  that,  it  is  true,  is  a  pyramid  in  Gothic.  We 
bought  yesterday,  in  our  pawnbroking  researches,  a 
bust  of  a  man  of  genius  whom  we  admired  because  he 
43 


found  leisure  to  be  a  gentleman — the  accomplished 
victim  of  circumstances,  just  dead  at  Andalusia — and 
a  pyramid,  truncated  by  a  thunderbolt  near  the  sum- 
mit, were  an  emblem  of  his  career  that  may  well  have 
occurred  to  us.  We  were  talking  and  thinking  much 
yesterday  of  Moore's  confessed  completion  of  his  litera- 
ry lifetime  ;  and  what  is  his  toil,  just  finished,  but 
the  building  of  an  imperishable  pyramid  for  the  memo- 
ry of  his  finished  thoughts. 

Stay  !  —an  anecdote  of  Moore  occurs  to  us.  He  is 
dead,  "  by  brevet,"  having  seen  to  (and  got  the  money 
for),  his  own  "  last  words  ;"  and  when,  by  the  sythe 
of  the  relentless  mower,  Tom  Moore  shall  be  no  more, 
to  know  more  of  his  more  personal  qualities  (what  an 
echo  there  is  to  the  man's  name  !)  will  add  spices  to 
his  embalming.  An  old  lady  in  Dublin,  who  was  one 
of  Moore's  indigenous  friends  (he  was  only  aristocratic 
as  an  exotic,  perhaps  you  know),  told  us  the  story. 
It  is  not  likely  to  get  into  print  except  by  our  telling 
for  it  records  a  virtue  ;  and  Moore  is  a  man  to  have 
selected  his  biographer  with  a  special  caveat  against 
all  contributions  to  his  "  life"  from  its  grocery  source 
— his  respectable  father,  the  Dublin  grocer,  probably 
caring  little  for  his  "  brilliant  successes,"  and  only 
cherishing  in  his  brown-paper  memory  the  small 
parcel  of  his  virtues.  But — to  the  story — (which 
Moore  told  the  old  lady,  by  the  way,  on  one  of  his 
reluctant  Irish  visits). 

Moore  had  just  returned  from  his  government-office 
in  the  West  Indies,  a  defaulter  for  eight  thousand 
pounds.  Great  sympathy  was  felt  for  him  among  his 
friends,  and  three  propositions  were  made  to  him  to 
cancel  the  debt.  Lord  Lansdowne  offered  simply  to 
pay  it.  Longman  and  Murray  offered  to  advance  it 
on  his  future  works,  and  the  noblemen  at  White's 
offered  the  sum  to  him  in  a  subscription.  This  was 
at  the  time  subscriptions  were  on  foot  for  getting 
Sheridan  out  of  his  troubles;  and  while  Moore  was 
considering  the  three  propositions  just  named,  he 
chanced  to  be  walking  down  St.  James  street  with  two 
noblemen  when  they  met  Sheridan.  Sheridan  bowed 
to  them  with  a  familiar  "  how  are  you  ?" — "  D — n  the 
fellow,"  said  one  of  the  noblemen,  "he  might  have 
touched  his  hat !  I  subscribed  a  hundred  pounds  for 
him  last  night  !" — "  Thank  God  !  you  dare  make  no 
such  criticism  on  a  bow  from  me  /"  said  Moore  to 
himself.  The  lesson  sank  deep.  He  rejected  all  the 
offers  made  to  relieve  him — went  to  Passy,  and  lived 
in  complete  obscurity,  in  that  little  suburb  of  Paris, 
till  he  had  written  himself  out  of  debt.  Under  the 
spur  of  that  chance  remark  were  written  some  of  the 
works  by  which  Moore  will  be  best  known  to  posterity. 
This  reminds  us  (and  if  we  don't  nab  it  now,  it  may 
never  again  be  nabable),  of  a  laugh  at  Moore's  expense 
in  a  company  of  very  celebrated  authors.  They  were 
talking  him  over,  and  one  of  the  company  quoted 
Leigh  Hunt's  simile  for  him — "a  young  Bacchus 
snuffing  up  the  vine."  "  Bah  !"  said  another,  "  don't 
quite  deify  the  little  worldling !  He  is  more  like  a 
cross  between  a  toad  and  a  cupid  !" 

We  have  got  hold  of  a  string  and  we  may  as  well 
pull  away  to  see  what  will  come  of  it.  We  had  long 
forgotten  two  or  three  trifles  tied  together,  of  which  this 
last  paragraph  is  one,  and  we  remember  now,  another 
anecdote  told  by  the  caustic  person  whose  comparison 
we  have  just  quoted.  He  said  that  Byron  would  never 
have  gone  to  Greece  but  for  a  tailor  in  Genoa.  The 
noble  bard,  he  went  on  to  say,  was  very  economical, 
as  was  well  known,  in  small  matters.  He  had  hired  a 
villa  at  Genoa  and  furnished  it,  with  the  intention  of 
making  it  a  permanent  residence.  Lord  and  Lady 
Blessington  and  a  large  society  of  English  people  of 
good  style  were  residing  there  at  the  time.  In  the 
fullest  enjoyment  of  his  house  and  his  mode  of  life, 
Byron  wanted  a  new  coat ;  and,  having  some  English 
cloth,  he  left  it  with  his  measure  in  the  hands  of  a 


674 


EPHEMERA. 


Genoese  tailor,  with  no  particular  instructions  as  to 
the  making.  The  tailor,  overcome  with  the  honor  of 
making  a  coat  for  an  Eccellenza  Inglese,  embroidered 
it  from  collar  to  tail,  and  sent  it  home  with  a  bill  as 
thickly  embroidered  as  the  coat  !  Byron  kept  the 
coat  for  fear  of  its  being  sold,  as  his,  to  an  actor  of 
English  parts  on  the  stage,  but  resolutely  refused  to 
pay  for  more  than  the  making  of  a  plain  and  plebeian 
garment.  The  tailor  threatened  an  attachment,  and 
Byron  assigned  over  his  furniture  to  his  banker,  and 
finally  quitted  Genoa  in  disgust — ready  of  course,  as 
he  would  not  otherwise  have  been,  for  a  new  project. 
From  indignation  at  an  embroidered  coat-tail  the 
transition  to  "liberty  or  death,"  "wo  to  the  Moslem!" 
or  any  other  vent  for  his  accumulated  bile,  was  easy 
and  natural !  He  embarked  in  the  Greek  cause  soon 
after,  and  the  embroidered  coat  was  not  (as  it  should 
have  been)  "  flung  to  the  breeze  at  Salamis" — the 
banner  of  inspired  heroism  ! 

So  was  the  tale  told-  So  tell  we  it  to  you,  dear 
reader.  It  is  no  damage  to  the  gods  or  demigods  to 
unpedestal  them  sometimes.  The  old  Saturnalia, 
when  masters  and  slaves  changed  places  for  a  while, 
was  founded  on  the  principle  in  nature  that  all  high- 
strung-itudes  are  better  for  occasional  relaxing. 

We  have  not  done  what  we  sat  down  to  do — which 
was  to  run  a  pretty  parallel  between  a  fame  and  a 
pyramid — apropos  of  some  trifles  bought  of  a  pear- 
shaped  pawnbroker.  Pity  that  ideas  once  touched  are 
like  uncorked  claret — good  for  one  draught  only  ! 
We  shall  never  dare  to  take  up  the  figure  again,  so 
we  may  as  well  hand  you  the  gold  thread  we  meant  to 
have  woven  into  it — a  little  figurative  consolation  to 
the  unappreciated  poet.  To  him  who  is  building  a 
pyramid  of  poetical  fame,  a  premature  celebrity  is  like 
the  lop-stone  laid  on  his  back  and  carried  till  he  has 
built  up  to  it.  We  wish  those  of  our  contributors 
whom  we  neither  publish  nor  praise,  would  apply  this 
"  parmeceti"  to  their  "  inward  bruise." 


We  take  the  vital  centre  of  New  York  to  be  a  cer- 
tain lamp-post  from  which  radiate  five  crossings — one 
pointing  to  the  Astor,  one  to  the  American  Museum, 
one  up  Broadway,  one  up  the  Bowery,  and  the  fifth 
(dead  east)  to  the  office  of  the  New  Mirror — the 
which  office  is  clearly  visible  from  the  palm  of  the 
spread  hand  upholding  this  medio-metropolitan  lamp- 
post. Having  conceived — (you  have — have  you  not, 
dear  reader?) — the  laudable  purpose  of  subscribing 
for  the  Mirrors  second  year  (now  on  the  eve  of  com- 
mencing), your  first  inquiry  is  the  geography  of 
"Ann  street," — upon  which  money-welcoming  spot 
shines  nightly  this  central  lamp  of  the  municipality. 
You  arrive  safely  at  the  Astor.  You  glide  past  its 
substratum  of  apothecaries,  perfumers,  goldsmiths, 
and  hatters,  and  arrest  your  footsteps  at  the  triple  cor- 
ner studded  with  three  of  the  notable  structures  of 
Manhattan— the  imperial  Astor,  the  goodly  St  Paul's, 
and  the  marvellous  museum  with  the  "  fifty  thousand 
curiosities."  You  now  face  due  southward.  Helm 
down  (coat-skirt  down  Vesey  street,  that  is  to  say), 
and  you  head  east  southeast,  laying  your  course  ex- 
actly. Before  you  lies  a  crossing  of  flags  by  which 
you  may  safely  reach  the  islanded  palm  of  the  spread 
hand  (holding  two  granite  posts  guarding  a  lamp-post), 
and,  once  there,  you  luff  a  little  to  the  right,  and 
follow  the  pointed  forefinger  of  that  same  hand  to 
the  opening  lips  of  Ann  street.  Cross  over,  keep 
down  a  few  doors  to  the  right,  and  "  there  you  are" — 
(there  we  are !) — walk  in  ! 

And  now,  dear  sir !  (besides  your  receipt  and  the 
benign  smile  of  the  Brigadier)  what  will  you  have  ? 
Our  visibilities  to  the  naked  eye  are  small,  but  there 
be   caves  and   storehouses  of  our   primrose-colored 


|  wares,  and  if  we  affect  the  Turkish  fashion  of  a  speci- 
!  men  shop,  with  room  only  for  one  purchaser  at  a 
j  time,  it  is  for  another  reason  besides  saving  the  rent. 
Philosophic,  like  us,  is  the  French  Amphytrion,  who 
!  does  not  show  to  his  delicate  guest  the  pieces  de  re- 
|  sislance.  The  roasted  joints  stand  upon  a  side-table, 
|  removed  from  view,  and  if  slices  are  handed  you  over 
your  shoulder,  it  is  with  an  apposite  comnfendation 
j  which  the  sight  of  the  whole  dish  would  fatally 
j  smother.  Small  as  the  shop  is,  however  (parva,  sed 
apta  mihi !)  the  welcome  is  spacious  !  All  who  come 
there,  come  with  a  parishioner's  regard,  self-chosen 
to  our  literary  flock,  and  none  turn  the  latch  without 
unlocking  our  heart  with  the  same  door-handle. 
("  Qualis  rex,  talis  grex!"  Having  found  comfort  in 
loving  ourselves,  we  venture  the  more  easily  to  love 
those  who  are  like  us.) 

Touching  this  shop  (of  which  we  have  now  given 
you  the  pictorial  chart),  we  shall  have  more  to  say 
;  hereafter.  It  has  its  history.  Our  landlord  is  a 
\  "  picked  man  of  countries,"  and  has  written  his  pleas- 
ant book.  Around  us  "volcanoes  belch  their  fires" 
of  prodigal  literature,  and  opposite  us  there  is  a  deep- 
door  by  which  the  modest  wits  about  town  descend  to 
j  Windust's,  for  news  and  things  more  succulent. 
j  There  sometimes  dives  the  brigadier,  to  lunch  with 
needful  celerity  on  the  busy  Saturday,  and  thence 
emerge  daily  and  shiny-ly  (after  their  pot  of  ale)  re- 
freshed, the  manufacturers  of  public  opinion.  Oh,  from 
our  modest  window,  we  see  sights!     But,  enough  for 


I  had  a  half-hour's  interview  with  the  talking 
machine  this  morning,  and  found  him  a  more  enter- 
taining android  than  most  of  my  wooden  acquaintan- 
ces— (the  man  who  thinks  for  him  being  a  very  supe- 
rior person).  I  must  first  give  you  a  tableau  of  the 
room.  A  German  woman  takes  your  half  dollar  at 
the  door,  and  points  you  to  a  semi-boxed-up  Turk 
(query  :  Why  are  all  automata  dressed  in  turbans  ?) 
— a  Turk  seated  in  a  kind  of  low  pulpit,  with  a  green 
shirt,  a  good  complexion,  a  very  fine  beard,  and  a 
pearl  breastpin.  Out  from  under  his  shoulder  issues 
a  bunch  of  wooden  sticks,  arranged  like  a  gamut  of 
pump-handles,  and  behind  this,  ready  to  play  on  his 
Turk,  sits  Mr.  Faber,  the  contriver.  (I  immediately 
suggested  to  Mr.  F.,  by  the  way,  that  the  costume 
and  figure  had  better  have  been  female,  as  the  bustle 
would  have  given  a  well-placed  and  ample  conceal- 
ment for  all  the  machinery  now  disenchantingly 
placed  outside  —  the  performer  sitting  down  natu- 
rally behind,  and  playing  on  her  like  a  piano.*)  The 
Turk  was  talking  to  several  ladies  and  gentlemen 
when  I  entered,  and  my  name  being  mentioned  by 
one  of  the  party,  he   said,  "  How   do  you  do,  Mr. 

?"  with  perfect  distinctness.     There  was  a  small 

musical  organ  in  the  room,  and  one  of  the  visiters 
played  "  Hail  Columbia  !"  the  automaton  singing  the 
words  "like  a  man."  There  was  no  slighting  or 
slurring  of  diphthong  or  vowel,  sybillate  or  aspirate. 
Duty  was  done  by  every  letter  with  a  legitimate  claim 
to  be  sounded — the  only  fault  being  a  strong  German 
accent  (which  of  course  will  wear  off  with  travel),  and 
a  few  German  peculiarities,  such  as  pronouncing  v's 
like  w's,  gargling  the  gutturals,  &c,  &c. 

I  understood  Mr.  Faber  to  say  that  he  was  seven 
years  contriving  the  utterance  of  the  vowel  e.  Mr.  F. 
has  a  head  and  countenance  fit  for  a  speech-maker 
(maker  of  the  gift  of  speech,  I  mean) — a  head  of  the 

*  A  suspicion  has  since  crossed  my  mind  that  I  may  here 
have  stumbled  on  an  explanation  of  the  great  mystery  of  this 
supernatural  addition  to  the  figure,  the  supernatural  continu- 
ance of  articulation  in  the  female  requiring,  perhaps,  some 
androidal  assistance  to  the  lungs.  If  so,  it  would  appear  that 
woman,  like  "  the  church,  can  not  do  without  a  bishop." 


EPHEMERA. 


675 


finest  model,  and  a  mouth  strongly  marked  with  intel- 
ligence and  feeling.  He  is  simple,  naif,  and  enthusi- 
astic in  his  manners.  The  rude  musical  organ  in  the 
room  was  his  own  handiwork,  and  at  the  request  of 
one  of  the  ladies  he  sat  down  to  it  and  played  a  beau- 
tiful waltz  of  his  own  composing.  He  may  well  be 
completely  absorbed,  as  he  seems  to  be,  in  his  an- 
droides.  It  says  anything,  in  any  language.  It  can 
not  cough— not  being  liable  to  bronchitis;  nor  laugh 
—being  a  Turk.  But  it  can  sing,  and  has  a  sweet 
breath  and  well-governed  tongue.  In  short,  it  is  what 
would  pass  in  the  world  for  "  a  very  fine  man."  Be- 
sides those  whom  God  has  made  (Boyle,  the  philoso- 
pher, calls  the  world  "an  automaton  of  God's  ma- 
king"), I  know  of  but  one  or  two  attempts  before  this 
to  make  a  talking-machine— the  famous  one  by  Von 
Kempelen,  and  the  celebrated  brazen  head  constructed 
by  Friar  Bacon.  What  could  be  uttered  by  this  un- 
thinking brass  has  not  come  down  to  us.  The  statue 
of  Memnon  could  utter  musical  sounds,  and  MaelzePs 
chess-player  could  say  "echec."  A  much  more  use- 
ful automaton  than  any  of  these,  Mr.  Faber's  inclu- 
ded, was  one  invented  by  one  of  the  brothers  Droz— 
«'a  child,  sitting  at  a  desk,  who  dipped  his  pen  in  the 
ink  and  wrote  in  French  whatever  was  dictated  to 
him"  (the  inventor,  of  course,  somewhere  concealed). 
It  struck  me  as  a  great  pity,  indeed,  that  the  ad- 
mirable ingenuity  and  perseverance  of  Mr.  Faber 
should  have  been  wasted  on  a  superfluity — (for  there 
is  more  talking  than  enough).  Albertus  Magnus  in- 
vented, with  thirty  years'  labor,  an  automaton  servant, 
who  would  open  the  door  when  any  one  knocked,  and 
salute  the  visiter — capable,  of  course,  of  being  able  to 
say  "  not  at  home,"  and  so  saving  the  conscience  of 
the  domestic;  aud  this  was,  perhaps,  worth  the  labor. 
Less  meritorious,  again,  was  the  automaton  fly  made 
of  iron  by  Regiomontanus,  in  the  14th  century,  which 
would  make  the  circuit  of  the  room  with  a  buz,  and 
return  to  its  master.  Something  in  the  Pygmalion 
line  has  been  attempted  within  a  few  years  by  a  Swiss 
mechanician,  Maillardet,  who  constructed  a  female 
with  a  "bosom  that  would  heave  for  an  hour,"  once 
wound  up.  She  would  also  play  forty  tunes  on  the 
piano  with  her  fingers,  and  look  languishingly  by  cast- 
ing her  eyes  down — almost  enough  for  one  woman  to 
do!  I  think  these  are  facts  enough  for  a  very  specu- 
lative essay  on  the  value  of  such  offices  as  may  be 
performed  by  the  body  without  the  aid  of  brains. 


I  have  been  prevented,  of  late,  from  going  about  as 
much  as  my  wont,  and  have  hardly  seen  or  heard 
more  of  the  city  doings  than  the  country  readers  of 
your  paper.  This  will  account,  if  not  apologize,  for 
some  lack  of  variety  in  my  letters.  1  broke  through 
my  fireside  habits  last  night,  and  went  to  the  Metho- 
dist chapel  in  Madison  street,  to  hear  the  Rev.  Mr. 
Maffit's  diatribe  against  "Boz" — admittance  twenty- 
five  cents.  My  surprise  on  being  called  on  for  money 
at  the  door  was  pleasurable,  for  I  rejoice  in  an  injus- 
tice turned  by  its  victims  "  to  commodity."  Two 
hundred  people  were  well  amused,  and  religion  (per 
one  of  its  ministers)  was  profited  fifty  dollars  in  pock- 
et. Except  in  this  light,  however,  I  should  call  the 
using  of  "Boz"  for  a  pulpit  text  a  decided  case  of  le 
jeu  ne  vaut  pas  la  chandelle.  (The  church  gas-lights 
seemed  to  be  of  that  opinion,  for  they  suddenly  paled 
their  fires  teu  minutes  before  the  conclusion  of  the 
lecture!) 

While  I  think  of  it — Dickens  has  contradicted  the 
report,  published  in  the  London  papers,  touching  his 
durance  for  debt.  I  am  glad  it  was  not  true.  Mis- 
takes of  positive  assertion  and  of  this  personal  charac- 
ter are  so  rare  in  the  respectable  English  papers,  that 
I  mentioned  it  in  my  letter  to  you  with  no  suspicion 


of  its  being  an  error — the  assertion  supported,  moreo- 
ver, by  the  rumors,  rife  to  the  same  purport,  when  I 
was  last  in  London.  The  reports,  doubtless,  were 
born  of  the  coupling  of  two  well-known  facts — the  de- 
crease of  the  prices  paid  for  his  books  by  publishers, 
and  the  increase  of  his  "  pledges,"  with  no  corre- 
sponding reductions  apparent  in  his  style  of  living. 
The  statement  having  once  appeared  in  the  papers  of 
his  own  country,  an  expression  of  sympathy  (as  far 
off  as  the  other  shoulder  of  the  world)  was  but  com- 
plimentary to  Mr.  Dickens. 

Mr.  Maffit's  discourse  was  more  of  an  event  to  me 
than  to  most  of  his  audience,  probably  ;  for  his  elo- 
quence made  a  great  impression  upon  me  when  I  was 
a  boy  between  ten  and  twelve  years  of  age,  and  I  had 
not  seen  him  since.  He  preached  at  that  time  in  the 
Bromfield  chapel,  Boston  (in  the  next  street  to  the 
one  in  which  I  lived),  and  was  then  a  "  new  light"  in 
the  methodist  church,  and  drew  crowds  after  him.  I 
left  my  play  eagerly  to  hear  him,  and  I  have  often 
since  wished  for  an  opportunity  to  analyze  the  pecu- 
liar delight  he  gave  me — for  it  was  all  pleasure,  with- 
out the  slightest  effect  in  the  way  of  religious  impres- 
sion. I  could  fill  my  letter  with  what  came  to  me 
upon  the  turned-back  leaf  of  seeing  Mr.  Maffit  in  the 
pulpit  again,  but  the  comparison  between  the  effects 
of  oratory  upon  tastes  mature  and  immature,  though 
interesting  elsewhere,  would  be  out  of  place  here. 
He  was  not  so  much  changed  as  I  anticipated.  Mac- 
ready  has  always  reminded  me  of  him,  and  they  are 
still  alike.  Mr.  Maffit  did  not  use  to  shave  his  tem- 
!  pies,  and  from  this  peculiar  tonsure,  his  forehead  looks 
\  higher  and  his  hair  less  Hyperian  and  more  oratorical 
I  than  formerly. 

He  commenced  with  some  general  remarks  as  to 
the  charm  of  variety  in  customs  and  manners,  and  the 
common  English  weakness  of  condemning  pitilessly 
every  departure  from  the  cockney  standards  and  pecu- 
liarities, trying,  by  this  test  only,  every  country  under 
the  sun.     This  part  of  the  oration  was  written  in  lam- 
bent and  oily-hinged  periods,  and  delivered— really,  in 
I  music  absolute !  ""  1  felt  the  spell  over  again.     It  is  in 
the  voice  and  accent  of  Mr.  Maffit  that  the   philtre 
lies  hid.     So  sweet  a  tone  no  other  man  has,  in  my 
knowledge.     His   inflexions,  so    long   as  he    remains 
unexcited,  are  managed  with  the  skill  of  the  subtlest 
\  rhetorician.     He  hides  the  meaning  of  his  sentences 
under  the  velvet  words   that   are  sweetest    to   linger 
upon,  and  to  press  with  emphasis,  and  in  this  depart- 
ment  of  oratory  he   seems  to  me   unsurpassed.     He 
|  soon  broke  the  spell,  however.     As  he  left  generali- 
!  zing,  and  got  from  poetry  to   analysis,  he   began  to 
show  bad   taste   and   clumsy  discrimination,  and   fell 
into  a  kind  of  grimalkin  sputter  of  sarcasm,  that  let 
down  his  dignity  sadly.     The  audience  began   to  ap- 
|  plaud,  and,  with  their  applause,  he  grew  inflated,  both 
!  in  matter  and  manner,  and  for  the  last  half  hour  of  his 
!  discourse  was  entirely  off  his  feet— trashy,  inconse- 
!  quent,  and  absurd— most  applauded,  however,  when 
|  most  incomprehensible.     (And  this   ill-bestowed  ap- 
plause may  easily  have  been  the  reverend  orator  s  De- 
lilah.)     I   remember  little  of  what  he  said  after  the 
first  fifteen  minutes.    There  was  a  good  deal  of  illus- 
tration  to   show  that  the   "Yankees  could  whip  the 
British,"  and  much  more  of  such  clap-trap,  and  Dick- 
<  ens  and  Mrs.  Trollope  were  each  served  out  with  as 
much  pulpit-pounding  and  bitter  epithet  as  is  com- 
monly given  the  devil,  at  a  dose, 
testimony  given  by  the  orator 
on  both  sides  with  authority. 


One  comparative 
duable,  as  he  speaks 
He  assured  us  that  the 
from    the 


676 


EPHEMERA. 


and  had  been  treated  everywhere  as  a  son  and  brother, 
and  spoke  advisedly.  I  could  wish  this  Irish  and 
celestial  evidence  in  our  favor  might  be  put  (for  smo- 
king) into  the  pipe  of  the  London  Quarterly. 


I  have  discovered  lately  that  the  household-gods 
have  a  vocabulary  of  their  own.  Search  after  a  tri- 
fling invention  led  me  to  Windle's  furnishing-shop  in 
Maiden  lane,  and  after  spending  an  hour  in  marvelling 
at  the  mind  that  has  been  expended  upon  the  inven- 
tion of  household  conveniences,  I  asked  for  a  cata- 
logue of  the  shop's  wares.  A  pamphlet  of  twenty- 
one  pages  was  handed  me,  and  I  give  yon,  for  your 
despair,  a  few  of  the  names  of  the  necessary  utensils 
by  which  your  comfort  is  ministered  to:  "Pope's 
heads  and  eyes,"  "  Shakers'  swifts,"  "  beefsteak  pound- 
ers," "  faucets  and  bungstarts,"  "  bootjacks  and  leg- 
resters,"  "salt  and  spit-boxes,"  "Chinese  swings," 
"Chinese  punk  in  boxes,"  "sillabub-sticks,"  "  oven- 
peels,"  "  allblaze-pans,"  "  ice-cream  pagodas,"  "  paste- 
jaggers  and  cutters,"  "  crimping  and  goffering  ma- 
chines," "sugar-nippers  and  larding-pins,"  "bread- 
rasps  and  sausage-stuffers,"  etc,  etc.,  etc.  This  is  ver- 
nacular, of  course,  to  the  ladies,  but  Greek  to  us. 

Apropos  of  words — there  should  be  a  replevin  (by 
poetry  upon  vulgar  usage)  to  restore  the  word  diaper 
to  its  original  meaning.  Ford  says  in  one  of  his  plays 
(The  Sun's  Darling)  :— 

"  Whate'er  the  wanton  spring, 
When  she  doth  diaper  the  ground  with  beauties, 
Toils  for,  comes  home  to  autumn." 

Diaper  means  literally,  to  embroider  with  raised 
work — after  a  stuff  which  was  formerly  called  d'fyre, 
from  the  town  of  Jpre  in  Flanders,  where  it  was  man- 
ufactured. There  is  such  a  load  of  descriptiveness 
in  the  word  that  it  is  a  shame  it  should  be  lost  to 
poetry. 


Moore's  carefully  revised  and  corrected  edition  of 
his  works  is  republished  in  this  country  at  the  price 
of  three  dollars  and  a  half.  Half  of  it,  at  least,  is 
uninteresting  to  the  general  reader,  consisting  of  his 
satires  (with  names  left  in  unexplained  blanks),  local 
poetry,  translations  from  the  classics,  and  a  mass  of 
labored  notes.  The  popular  portions,  consisting  of 
"The  Loves  of  the  Angels,"  "The  Irish  Melodies 
and  Sacred  Songs,"  and  the  "National  Airs,  Ballads, 
and  Miscellaneous  Poems,"  have  been  published  in 
three  extras  of  the  Mirror — five  shillings  for  all  of 
them.  This  will  form  as  beautiful  an  edition  of  the 
enjoyable  part  of  Moore's  poetry  as  could  be  wished, 
and  as  cheap  as  beautiful. 

Charles  Dibdin,  "  The  Bard  of  Poor  Jack,"  as 
he  is  commonly  called,  is  one  of  those  authors  less 
known  than  his  works,  particularly  in  this  country, 
where  his  songs  are  familiar  to  every  lip,  and  his  name 
hardly  recognised.  General  Morris  has  made  a  col- 
lection of  all  the  songs  of  Dibdin  that  are  universal 
in  their  popularity,  and  has  added  others  which  from 
their  bold  and  graphic  excellence  have  been  com- 
monly attributed  to  him.  This  shilling  extra  of  the 
Mirror  will  become,  I  think,  the  sailor's  classic,  embod- 
ying, as  it  does,  all  their  most  remarkable  songs. 

Montgomery's  "  World  before  the  Flood,"  one  of 
the  sweetest  poems  in  the  English  language,  is  also  in 
press  for  the  "  Mirror  Library."  On  looking  over  the 
biography  of  this  good  man  and  true  poet,  I  find,  by- 
the-way,  the  following  passage,  referring,  I  believe,  to 
the  father  of  one  of  the  editors  of  the  intelligencer: 
"Mr.  Montgomery  removed  to  Sheffield  (England)  in 
1792,  and  engaged  himself  with  Mr.  Gales,  the  pub- 
lisher of  a  very  popular  newspaper,  at  that  time  known 
by  the  title  of  the   Sheffield   Register.     Mr.  Mont-  | 


gomery  became  a  useful  correspondent  to  this  paper, 
and  gained  so  far  the  good  opinion  and  affection  of 
Mr.  Gales  and  his  family,  that  they  vied  with  each 
other  in  demonstrating  their  respect  and  regard  for 
him.  In  1794,  when  Mr.  Gales  left  England  to  avoid 
a  political  prosecution,  Montgomery,  with  the  assist- 
ance of  another  gentleman,  became  the  editor  of  the 
Register."  Critics  have  unanimously  agreed  that 
"The  World  before  the  Flood"  is  the  best  production 
of  Montgomery's  muse,  and  it  certainly  is  a  noble  and 
pure  structure  of  elevated  imagination.  Among  the 
sacred  classics,  Montgomery,  I  think,  will  rank  first. 


Sorrow's  Reluctant  Gate. — This  last-turned 
leaf,  dear  reader,  seems  to  us  always  like  a  door  shut 
behind  us,  with  the  world  outside.  We  have  ex- 
pressed this  thought  before,  when  it  was  a  prelude  to 
being  gayer  than  in  the  preceding  pages.  With  the 
closed  door,  now,  we  would  throw  off  restraint,  but  it 
is  to  be  sadder  than  before.  It  is  so  with  yourself, 
doubtless.  You  sometimes  break  into  singing  on  en- 
tering your  chamber  and  finding  yourself  alone — 
sometimes  you  burst  into  tears. 

There  is  nothing  for  which  the  similitudes  of  poetry 
seem  to  us  so  false  and  poor,  as  for  affliction  by  the 
death  of  those  we  love.  The  news  of  such  a  calam- 
ity is  not  "a  blow."  It  is  not  like  "a  thunderbolt," 
or  "  a  piercing  arrow;"  it  does  not  "  crush  and  over- 
whelm" us.  We  hear  it,  at  first,  with  a  kind  of  mourn- 
ful incredulity,  and  the  second  feeling  is,  perhaps,  a 
wonder  at  ourselves — that  we  are  so  little  moved. 
The  pulse  beats  on  as  tranquilly — the  momentary  tear 
dries  from  the  eye.  Weeo  on,  about  the  errand  in 
which  we  were  interrupted!  We  eat,  sleep,  at  our 
usual  time,  and  are  nourished  and  refreshed  ;  and  if  a 
friend  meet  us  and  provoke  a  smile,  we  easily  and  for- 
getfully smile.  Nature  does  not  seem  to  be  conscious 
of  the  event,  or  she  does  not  recognise  it  as  a  calamity. 

But  little  of  what  is  taken  away  by  death  is  taken 
from  the  happiness  of  one  hour,  or  one  day.  We 
live,  absent  from  beloved  relatives,  without  pain.  Days 
pass  without  our  seeing  them — months — years.  They 
would  be  no  more  absent  in  body  if  they  were  dead. 
But,  suddenly,  in  the  midst  of  our  common  occupa- 
tions, we  hear  that  they  are  one  remove  farther  from 
us — in  the  grave.  The  mind  acknowledges  it  true. 
The  imagination  makes  a  brief  and  painful  visit  to  the 
scene  of  the  last  agony,  the  death-chamber,  the 
burial — and  returns  weary  and  dispirited,  to  repose. 
For  that  hour  perhaps  we  should  not  have  thought  of 
the  departed,  if  they  were  living — nor  for  the  next. 
The  routine  we  had  relied  upon  to  fill  up  those  hours 
comes  round.  We  give  it  our  cheerful  attention. 
The  beloved  dead  are  displaced  from  our  memory,  and 
perhaps  we  start  suddenly,  with  a  kind  of  reproachful 
surprise,  that  we  can  have  been  so  forgetful — that  the 
world,  with  its  wheels  of  minutes  and  trifles,  can  thus 
untroubled  go  round,  and  that  dear  friend  gone 
from  it. 

But  the  day  glides  on,  and  night  comes.  We  lie 
down,  and  unconsciously,  as  we  turn  upon  our  pillow, 
commence  a  recapitulation  that  was  once  a  habit  of 
prayer — silently  naming  over  the  friends  whom  we 
should  commend  to  God — did  we  pray — as  those  most 
dear  to  us.  Suddenly  the  heart  stops — the  breath 
hushes — the  tears  spring  hot  to  the  eyelids.  We  miss 
the  dead  !  From  that  chain  of  sweet  thoughts  a  link 
is  broken,  and  for  the  first  time  we  feel  that  we  are 
bereaved.  It  was  in  the  casket  of  that  last  hour  before 
sleeping — embalmed  in  the  tranquillity  of  that  hours 
unnamed  and  unreckoned  happiness — that  the  mem- 
ory of  the  dead  lay  hid.  For  that  friend,  now,  we 
can  no  longer  pray!  Among  the  living — among  our 
blessings — among    our    hopes — that   sweet    friend   is 


EPHEMERA. 


677 


nameable  no  more !  We  realize  it  now.  The  list  of 
those  who  love  us — whom  we  love — is  made  briefer. 
With  face  turned  upon  our  pillow — with  anguish  and 
fears — we  blot  out  the  beloved  name,  and  begin  the 
slow  and  nightly  task  of  unlearning  the  oft-told  sylla- 
bles from  our  lips. 

And  this  is  the  slow-opening  gate  by  which  sorrow 
enters  in !  We  wake  on  the  morrow  and  remember 
our  tears  of  the  past  night ;  and  as  the  cheerful  sun- 
shine streams  in  at  our  window,  we  think  of  the  kind 
face  and  embracing  arms,  the  soft  eyes  and  beloved 
lips,  lying  dark  and  cold,  in  a  place — oh  how  pitiless 
in  its  coldness  and  darkness!  We  choke  with  a  suf- 
fused sob,  we  heave  the  heavy  thought  from  our  bosom 
with  a  painful  sigh,  and  hasten  abroad — for  relief  in 
forgetfulness! 

But  we  had  not  anticipated  that  this  dear  friend 
would  die,  and  we  have  marked  out  years  to  come 
with  hopes  in  which  the  dead  was  to  have  been  a 
sharer.  Thoughts,  and  promises,  and  meetings,  and 
gifts,  and  pleasures,  of  which  hers  was  the  brighter 
half,  are  wound  like  a  wreath  of  flowers  around  the 
chain  of  the  future,  and  as  we  come  to  them — to  the 
places  where  these  looked -for  flowers  lie  in  ashes  upon 
the  inevitable  link — oh,  God!  with  what  agonizing 
vividness  they  suddenly  return! — with  what  grief,  made 
intenser  by  realizing,  made  more  aching  by  prolonged 
absence,  we  call  up  those  features  beloved,  and  re- 
member where  they  lie,  uncaressed  and  unvisited ! 
Years  must  pass — and  other  affections  must  "  sweep, 
and  garnish,  and  enter  in"  to  the  void  chambers  of  the 
heart — and  consolation  and  natural  forgetfulness  must 
do  their  slow  work  of  erasure — and  meantime  grief 
visits  us,  in  unexpected  times  and  places,  its  parox- 
ysms imperceptibly  lessening  in  poignancy  and  tena- 
city, but  life  in  its  main  current,  flowing,  from  the 
death  to  the  forgetting  of  it,  unchanged  on  ! 

And  now,  what  is  like  to  this,  in  nature  (for  even  the 
slight  sympathy  in  dumb  similitudes  is  sweet)  ?  It  is 
not  like  the  rose's  perishing — for  that  robs  only  the 
hour  in  which  it  dies.  It  were  more  like  the  removal 
from  earth  of  that  whole  race  of  flowers,  for  we  should 
not  miss  the  first  day's  roses,  hardly  the  first  season's, 
and  should  mourn  most  when  the  impoverished  spring 
came  one  more  round  without  them.  It  were  like 
stilling  the  music  of  a  brook  for  ever,  or  making  all 
singing-birds  dumb,  or  hushing  the  wind-murmur  in 
the  trees,  or  drawing  out  from  nature  any  one  of  her 
threads  of  priceless  repetition.  We  should  not  mourn 
for  the  first  day's  silence  in  the  brook,  or  in  the  trees — 
nor  for  the  first  morning's  hush  after  the  birds  were 
made  voiceless.  The  recurrent  dawns,  or  twilights,  or 
summer  noons,  robbed  of  their  accustomed  music, 
would  bring  the  sense  of  its  loss — the  value  of  what 
was  taken  away  increasing  with  its  recurrent  season. 
But  these  are  weak  similitudes — as  they  must  needs 
be,  drawn  from  a  world  in  which  death — the  lot  alike 
of  all  living  creatures  that  inhabit  it — is  only  a  calam- 
ity to  man  ! 


Spring  is  here,  and,  with  its  earliest  sunshine, 
Broadway  puts  out  its  first  flowers  in  bright  colors 
and  gay  drapery.  It  is  a  lounge  we  should  love  were 
we  idle.  We  do  not  write  for  Autolycus,  nor  for 
Timon.  (Thieves  and  misanthropes  do  not  common- 
ly take  the  papers.)  And  as  all  other  classes  of  man- 
kind yield  to  the  gregarious  instincts  of  our  race,  we 
feel  free  to  discourse  of  Broadway  as  a  place  beloved. 
Beloved  it  is — by  the  philanthropist,  interested  in  the 
peccant  varieties  of  his  fellow-creatures  ;  by  the  old, 
who  love  to  look  upon  the  young ;  and  by  the  young, 
who  love  to  look  upon  each  other;  (ah  !  the  celestial 
quality  of  youth!) — by  the  serious,  for  whom  there 
would  seem  to  be  resorts  less  thronged  with  sinners 
(if  need  were),  and  by  sinners,  who  are  at  least  spared 


the  sin  of  hypocrisy,  for,  with  little  disguise,  they 
"love  one  another."  Now,  if  beautiful  women  are 
not  laudable  objects  of  contemplation  and  curiosity, 
as  St.  Anthony  avers  (and  he  is  welcome  to  let  them 
alone),  we  are  not  warned  against  beautiful  children, 
nor  beautiful  horses,  nor  the  bright  sunshine,  nor  the 
gay  product  of  the  silkworm,  nor  the  "stuffs  from 
Colchis  and  Trebizond." 

Very  handsome — isn't  she  ?  And  apparently  in  a 
very  great  hurry,  and  apparently  very  much  disgusted 
at  being  seen  in  the  street  at  all!  You  would  think, 
now,  that  that  lady's  coachman  was  ill  and  that  she 
was,  for  this  once  in  her  life,  walking  alone  to  her 
mother's.  But  she  is  more  amused  at  this  moment 
than  she  will  be  again  to-day — and  to-morrow  she  will 
take  the  same  walk  to  be  happy  again.  She  has  a 
husband,  however,  and  a  beautiful  house,  and  not  a 
wish  (that  money  can  gratify)  ungratified.  And  her 
drawing-rooms  are  full  of  exquisite  objects  of  art. 
She  might  stay  contentedly  at  home,  you  think  ?  No ! 
She  was  a  belle,  pampered  with  admiration  when  she 
married,  and  she  married  a  cynical  and  cold-blooded 
parsnip,  who  sits  like  a  snarling  ogre  among  his  statues 
and  pictures — a  spot  on  his  own  ottoman — a  blemish 
in  the  elegance  of  his  own  house.  She  married  him 
for  an  establishment,  but  forgot  he  was  a  part  of  it — 
dazzled  with  the  frame,  she  overlooked  the  hideous- 
ness  of  the  picture.  And  he  knows  this — and  likes 
her,  with  his  statues,  as  his  property — and  is  pleased 
to  have  her  seen  as  his  wife — though  she  is  the  wife 
to  but  one  part  of  him,  his  vanity  !  She  finds  it  hard 
to  feel  beautiful  at  breakfast,  with  her  husband  on  the 
other  side  of  the  table,  and  he  finds  it  hard  to  be  very 
bland  with  a  wife  who  looks  at  his  acrid  physiognomy 
I  with  a  shudder. 

A  superb  house  with  him  in  it,  is  like  a  fine  tulip 
with  an  adder  in  it.  But  she  is  a  woman,  and  whether 
she  has  a  heart  or  no,  she  has  a  well-cultivated  vanity, 
and  unluckily,  the  parents  who  taught  her  to  secure 
luxury  in  wedlock,  taught  her  no  foresight  as  to  her 
more  needful  supply  of  admiration.  Love,  she  would 
like  very  well — but  admired  she  must  be  .'  And  too 
I  cold  and  worldly  to  be  imprudent,  and  too  proud  to  be 
willing  to  seem  pleased  with  the  gaze  of  Broadway 
idlers,  she  still  thirsts  after  this  very  stare  which  is 
given  to  her  beauty  by  the  passers-by,  and  has  very 
little  happiness  beyond  her  daily  hurried  walk  on  the 
crowded  pave.  She'll  make  a  match  of  sentiment  if 
she  gets  another  chance,  or,  at  any  rate,  will  marry 
for  some  love  and  less  money. 

Heaven  help  her  through  with  her  present  chrysalis! 

"  How  are  you  V 

"  How  are  you  ?" 

What  would  a  new-dropped  angel  think  of  these 
two  unanswered  questions?  Indeed,  what  would  an 
angel  think  of  that  smiling  fellow  who  exchanged  this 
nonsense  with  me.  He  is  one  of  a  thousand  in  the 
city  who,  "  like  the  prodigal,  squeezed  through  a 
horn,"  are  happy  from  having  got  through  the  tightest 
place  of  this  mortal  Me.  Though  his  dimensions  are 
immeasurably  smaller  than  they  were  not  long  ago',  they 
are  so  mucb  easier  than  they  grew  to  be  after,  that 
he  feels  as  if,  like  Uncle  Toby's  fly,  there  was  room 
enough  in  the  world  for  him  now.  He  is  easy  with  the 
rebound  after  being  broke  with  overstraining.  He  was 
a  merchant,  reputed  to  have  made  money  enough. 
Sensitive  and  punctilious  in  all  the  relations  of  life, 
he  was  particularly  soigne  of  his  commercial  honor. 
Never  a  breath  sullied  that  clear  escutcheon  !  For 
this  he  was  supposed  to  be  over-careful— for  this  he 
was  inflexible  where  his  heart  would  have  prompted 
him  to  be  indulgent— for  this,  it  was  soberly  believed, 
he  would  sacrifice  his  life.  His  wife  was  (and  has 
since  proved  herself  by  trial)  an  admirable  woman, 
and  with  fine  children  and  good  looks  of  his  own,  he 
was  one  of  those  fallacious  contradictions  of  the  equal 


678 


EPHEMERA. 


distribution  of  mortal  happiness.  Well — his  star  be- 
gan to  descend  from  its  apogee,  and  he  courageously 
lugged  out  his  philosophy  and  retrenched  his  expen- 
diture. And  then  began  an  agony  of  mind  which 
could  be  increased,  even  hereafter,  by  the  increased 
capacity  of  the  mind — for,  short  of  reason  overturned, 
he  could  suffer  no  more.  A  thousand  years  of  a  com- 
mon tenor  of  life  would  seem  shorter  than  those  six 
terrible  months  of  sinking  into  bankruptcy.  But  now 
comes  the  curious  part  of  it !  He  suddenly  took  the 
benefit  of  the  bankrupt  law.  And  instead  of  lying 
still  prostrate  upon  the  ground,  crushed  and  humiliated 
— instead  of  hiding  his  head,  as  he  longed  to  do  while 
he  still  promised  to  pay,  degraded,  spiritless,  lost,  to 
the  enjoyment  of  life — instead  of  still  seeming  an  ob- 
ject of  pity  to  the  most  ruthless  sufferer  by  his  fall — 
up,  like  a  snapped  spring,  he  bounds  to  the  empyrean  ! 
He  could  not  be  gayer  with  his  debts  paid  and  his 
fortune  in  his  hands  again  !  He  walks  the  street, 
smiling,  and  with  a  light  step.  He  is  a  little  smarter 
than  he  used  to  be  in  this  dress.  He  eats  well,  and 
the  wrinkles  have  retreated,  and  his  eyes  have  thrown 
open  their  windows,  and  (as  you  saw  when  he  passed) 
there  is  not  a  merrier  or  more  fortunate-looking  idler 
in  this  merry  Broadway  !  Now,  quere  ? — Is  there  a 
provision  in  nature  for  honor  to  cast  its  skin  ?  Be- 
comes it  new,  scarless  and  white,  after  a  certain  wear, 
tear,  and  suffering  ?  Does  a  man  remember,  till,  with 
the  anguish  of  remembering,  he  forgets  ?  Has  God, 
in  our  construction,  provided  a  recuperative,  to  guard 
us  against  over  self  infliction  ?  Can  we  use  up  our 
sense  of  shame  with  over-working  it,  and  do  we  come 
then  to  a  stratum  of  self-approval  and  self-glorifica- 
tion? Enfin — is  this  inward  whitewashing  confined 
only  to  money-spots,  and  is  nature  hereby  provided 
with  a  corrective  check  to  our  implacabilities  of 
pocket  ? 


TO    OUR    ONE    WITHDRAWING    SUBSCRIBER. 

Sir  :  A  French  writer  wittily  turns  the  paradox  : 
"iZ  faut  de  far  gent  meme  pour  se  passer  d' argent" — 
(is  it  necessary  to  have  money  to  be  able  to  do  without 
it) — and  we  please  ourselves  with  suspecting  that  it  is 
only  amid  the  forgetful  ease  of  possession  that  you  can 
have  made,  up  your  mind  to  forego  us.  If  so,  and 
your  first  se'ennight  of  unmirrored  solitude  prove 
heavier  to  bear  than  the  aching  three  dollar  void 
balanced  against  it — so  !  The  pathos  of  this  parting 
will  have  been  superfluous. 

Our  connexion,  sir,  though  born  of  a  "  promise  to 
pay,"  has  been  a  matter  of  friendship ;  and  in  dissolving 
a  friendship,  it  is  desirable,  on  both  sides,  to  have  back 
again  the  secrets  safe  only  in  a  friend's  keeping.  It 
is  common  and  easy,  as  you  well  know,  for  one  man 
to  "  give"  another  "  a  piece  of  his  mind,"  and  we  ask 
that  piece  of  yours  upon  which  we  have  stitched  the 
lining  of  ours.  For  the  goods  and  chattels  we  have 
sent  you,  that  are  yours,  of  course,  bach  third-person 
matters  as  stories  and  poesies,  pictures,  drolleries, 
gossipries  and  novelties — the  visible  contents  of  our 
primrose  cover — are — like  the  three  dollars  paid  for 
them — like  the  ear  of  rye  up  a  schoolboy's  sleeve — ir- 
revertible  !  They  are  yours.  The  money  is  (was) 
ours.  We  would  not  willingly  change  back  !  But 
other  values  have  passed  to  your  keeping,  that  are  not 
strictly  commodities  of  barter.  We  have  vent-pegs, 
that  are,  as  it  may  chance  to  turn  out,  largesses  or 
weaknesses.  We  are  known,  favorably  or  unfavorably, 
for  an  incontinence  of  ourself — a  certain  need  to  ex- 
pand upon  our  neighbor.  If  we  are  happy  it  runs 
over  the  brim — if  we  are  sad,  prodigal,  too,  with  our 
tears.  Withal,  we  have  a  natural  incredulity  of  break - 
ings-off — walking  upright  upon  all  manner  of  eternities 


till  we  have  tumbled  over  the  end.  Do  you  see  how 
subject  we  were  to  improvident  confidences  ? 

To  fix  upon  the  wares  we  would  have  back,  you 
have  only  to  ask  what  a  stranger  could  buy  of  us,  and 
subtract  it  from  what  you  know  of  us.  Could  you 
stop  us  in  the  street,  for  example,  and  buy  the  fulness 
of  our  heart  from  us — such  as  has  overflowed  upon 
our  last  page  often  and  unaware — for  sixpence?  Could 
you  send  to  us  for  a  thought  that  has  sailed  out  of  our 
bosomupon  our  private  tear,  and  enclose  a  shilling  for 
two  copies  through  the  village  postmaster?  Could 
you  point  us  out  to  a  dirty  newsboy,  and  tell  him 
"  that  gentleman  had  last  week  some  pangs  and  some 
pleasures,  and  I  will  give  you  sixpence  to  see  them  in 
a  Mirror,  with  their  expressed  gall  or  honey  ?"  Could 
you  touch  us  upon  the  shoulder  in  Broadway  and  say, 
"Sir,  I  should  like  to  have  sent  to  me,  weekly,  the 
thoughts  which  are  stirred  by  all  you  enjoy  or  suffer, 
expressed  in  choice  rhetoric  and  printed  on  fine  paper; 
and  you  may  throw  me  in  a  fine  steel  plate,  a  new 
story  or  two,  all  the  gossip  of  the  week,  some  criticisms 
and  any  fine  poetry  that  has  come  to  your  hand — for 
which  I  will  pay  you  sixpence  per  weekly  copy  ?" 
Oh,  there  is  much  that  you  have  bought  of  us  with 
which  you  have  no  business,  ceasing  to  be  our  friend! 
And  when  you  have  sent  that  part  back,  your  money's- 
worth  will  still  stretch  its  long  legs  comfortably  under 
the  covering  blanket  of  the  remainder! 

Well,  sir,  adieu  !  There  is  some  machinery,  of 
one  kind  and  another,  that  will  now  cease  to  labor, 
at  sixpence  per  week,  for  your  gratification — sundry 
male  printers  and  engravers,  sundry  female  folders  and 
stitchers,  our  post-office  boy  and  wheelbarrow,  such 
trifling  rail-roads  and  steamers  as  have  been  built  to 
convey  the  Mirror  to  you — these  and  we,  with  our 
best  brains  and  contributors,  we  are  sorry  to  say,  will 
now  cease  to  minister  to  you — but  you  will  have,  in- 
stead, weekly,  an  unspent  sixpence  !  Of  this  sixpence, 
much  foregone  for,  we  wish  you  joy  in  the  overbalan- 
cing value  of  possession  !  And  so,  sir,  drawing  back 
our  complicated  machinery  that  you  may  lift  this 
small  silver  bridge  from  between  us,  we  bid  you  once 
more,  over  the  chasm  of  removed  equivalent,  a  re- 
spectful adieu  ! 


TO    OUR    PUNCTUAL    FIRMAMENT    OF    FIXED    STARS. 

Ladies  and  gentlemen  :  In  the  eleven  thousand 
shining  sixpences  which  duly  rise  and  dispense  their 
silver  light  upon  our  way,  we  see  of  course  the 
"Heaven  of  eternal  change"  toward  whose  "  patines 
of  bright  gold"  we  have  been  long  stretching  with 
tiptoe  expectation.  We  trust  that,  like  the  unpocket- 
able  troop  whose  indefatigable  punctuality  you  emu- 
late, there  are  still  comers  to  your  number  unarrived, 
and  that  the  "  Lost  Pleiad"  (the  single  heavenly  body 
upon  whose  discontinuance  to  rise  we  indited  the 
foregoing  epistle),  will  come  round  again  in  his  erratic 
orbit,  and  take  his  place  in  the  constellation  he  has 
deserted.  We  give  notice  here,  however,  that,  at 
eleven  thousand,  we  shall,  like  the  nuns  of  St.  Ursula, 
stop  numbering.  There  have  been  virgins  since  the 
shelving  of  the  bones  of  the  "  eleven  thousand  virgins 
of  Cologne,"  yet  the  oft-told  number  is  still  told, 
without  increase,  in  the  holy  tradition.  We  believe 
with  the  sainted  sisterhood  that  human  credence  can 
go  no  farther — that  'twixt  millions  and  billions  of 
virgins  the  disciple's  mind  would  not  be  likely  to  dis- 
criminate. You  will  still  permit  us,  therefore,  to  cast 
our  horoscope  upon  this  nominal  number.  As  other 
starry  sixpences  fall  into  the  chinks  of  boundless  space, 
the  perceptible  increase  of  our  brightness  will  alone 
tell  the  tale— but  they  will  be  marked  and  welcomed 
I  in  the  careful  astronomy  of  our  leger. 


EPHEMERA. 


679 


You  are  ours,  oh  pleasant  eleven  thousand !  The 
vain  astronomer  casts  over  the  sky  his  net  of  parallels 
and  meridians  and  calls  the  caught  heavens  his  own, 
but  the  stars  he  numbers  are  not,  like  ours,  convertible 
to  things  to  eat.  We  will  envy  Herschel  when  he 
can  change  sixteen  of  his  entrapped  stars  for  a  dollar 
— when  he  can  dabble  with  their  shining  faces  as  we 
with  our  constellated'  "  fips  "  You  are  ours,  and 
therefore  we  will  care  for  you. 


It  occurred  to  me  in  an  omnibus  to-day,  that  it 
would  be  curious  to  know  with  what  eyes  angels  watch 
us.  My  opinion  as  to  the  importance  of"  every  hair 
of  our  head"  had  been  somewhat  modified  within  the 
previous  half-hour  by  a  look  at  one  or  two  of  my  own 
(hairs)  through  a  solar  microscope,  and  the  thought 
naturally  suggested  itself,  that  if  the  eyes  of  our  spir- 
itual guardians  were  microscopic  (as  they  may  easily 
be),  there  was  no  so  great  marvel  in  the  care  they 
take  of  us.  It  was  a  warm,  pleasant  morning,  and  I 
was  letting  myself  ramble  and  look  into  windows.  An 
exhibition  of  a  solar  microscope  came  in  my  way,  and  I 
went  in.  The  wall  of  a  large  room  was  apparently 
.swarming  with  rats  and  mud-turtles  when  I  opened 
the  door,  and  this  was  some  of  the  dust  from  a  fig, 
held  on  the  point  of  a  pin,  and  magnified  five  million 
times.  I  had  seen  many  of  these  experiments  in  col- 
lege, of  course,  but  one  hears  so  many  wonderful 
things,  when  one  is  growing,  that  I  do  not  remember 
being  much  astonished  in  those  days.  It  was  differ- 
ent now,  for  I  really  never  was  more  amused  and 
amazed  then  at  the  snakes  in  the  drop  of  vinegar,  and 
the  formidable  apparatus  of  a  certain  un-nameable  lit- 
tle customer,  whose  like  I  had  occasion  to  slay  in 
great  numbers  in  the  poetical  Orient.  To  bring  the 
thing  home  to  my  own  business  and  bosom,  however 
(the  microscope,  not  the  pediculus !)  I  begged  the 
exhibitor  to  show  me,  magnified,  one  or  two  of  my 
own  hairs.  I  plucked  one  from  my  bump  of  ima- 
gination and  another  from  my  bump  of  acquisitive- 
ness, and  gave  them  both  to  him,  with  some  curiosity 
to  know  if  the  roots  would  show  the  difference  in  the 
soil.  Somewhat  to  my  surprise  there  was  a  differ- 
ence. He  placed  them  carefully  on  his  instrument, 
and  the  root  of  the  imaginative  hair  was  shaped  like  a 
claret  bottle  (and  about  its  size),  while  that  of  the  ac- 
quisitive hair  was  like  a  short  fat  porter  bottle — the 
hairs  themselves  being,  to  the  roots,  in  about  the  pro- 
portions of  the  necks  to  the  bottles.  I  must  say  I  was 
truly  delighted  at  the  discovery  of  this  analogy,  and 
seldom  have  bought  so  good  a  fact  for  twelve  and  a 
half  cents.  As  I  said  before,  "  the  hairs  of  our  heads" 
being  "all  numbered,"  my  guardian  angel  knows  how 
many  dozen  I  have  remaining  of  my  imaginative  clar-  I 
et,  and  how  my  acquisitive  porter  improves  by  age,  and  | 
he  looks  after  it  all  like  one  of  Bininger's  clerks,  let-  I 
ting  none  "fall  to  the  ground"  without  careful  putting  ' 
down.  The  exhibitor  asked  me  to  try  another,  but  a  I 
man  thinks  twice  of  plucking  out  a  hair,  impressed  with  ' 
the  idea  that  it  will  leave  a  hole  in  his  head  as  big  as 
a  claret-bottle  !     I  declined. 

But  if  every  hair  of  my  head  be  as  big  (to  a  micro- 
scopic eye)  as  a  bottle  of  porter  with  a  neck  a  mile 
long,  and  my  body  in  proportion,  at  what  a  very  mod- 
erate charge  (thought  I,  as  I  rode  down)  am  I  carried 
a  mile  in  the  unmagnified  omnibus !  What  would  have 
become  of  us  if  God  had  inflicted  upon  us  a  Babel  of 
the  eye  instead  of  the  ear,  making  different  men  see 
things  through  different  lenses,  diminishing  and  mi- 
croscopic !  What  work  for  the  lawyers  !  I  was  be- 
ginning to  turn  my  mind  to  the  quantity  of  magnified 
body  that  one  unmagnified  soul  could  properly  in- 
habit (as  a  house  may  easily  be  expanded  till  one  ten- 
ant is  an  absurdity),  when  the  omnibus  stopped.     It  is 


a  very  good  subject  for  an  extravaganza  in  Thomas 
Hood's  vein. 


There  is  a  certain  curiosity  to  know  "how  the  thing 
went  off,"  even  though  the  show  in  question  was  a 
bore  to  the  spectator.  Perked  up  people  think  that 
only  such  curiosity  as  would  sit  well  upon  George 
Washington  should  be  catered  for  in  print,  but  I  in- 
cline to  think  that  almost  any  matter  which  would  be 
talked  about  by  any  two  people  together  would  be  en- 
tertaining to  one  man  reading  by  himself.  So  I  think 
1  may  put  down  what  I  saw  at  a  show  that  was  adver- 
tised as  an  "Exhibition  of  Laughing  Gas." 

My  younger  readers  may  perhaps  require  to  be 
told  that  nitrate  of  ammonia,  like  himself,  has  a  soul 
that  fire  will  burn  out  of  it.  When  the  lamp  over 
which  it  is  held  gets  too  hot  "  to  be  stood"  any  long- 
er, up  rises  a  little  whitish  cloud  which  has  most  of 
the  properties  of  common  air,  but  which  has  a  sweet 
taste  and  an  agreeable  odor,  and  will  pass  into  any  hu- 
man soul's  body  upon  very  slight  invitation.  Once 
in,  however,  it  abuses  the  hospitality  extended  to  it, 
by  immediately  usurping  all  the  functions  of  the  body, 
and  behaves,  in  short,  extremely  like  another  more 
notorious  enemy,  who,  "  when  admitted  into  your 
mouth  steals  away  your  brains."  The  stimulus  of 
this  intoxicating  gas  to  the  nervous  system  is  very  sur- 
prising. Sir  Humphrey  Davy  administered  it  to 
Southey  the  poet,  whose  feelings  are  thus  described: 
"  He  could  not  distinguish  between  the  first  effects 
and  a  certain  apprehension,  of  which  he  was  unable 
to  divest  himself.  His  first  definite  sensations  were  a 
fulness  and  dizziness  in  the  head,  such  as  to  induce 
the  fear  of  falling.  This  was  succeeded  by  a  laugh 
which  was*  involuntary,  but  highly  pleasurable,  ac- 
companied by  a  peculiar  thrilling  in  the  extremities — 
a  sensation  perfectly  new  and  delightful.  For  many 
hours  after  this  experiment,  he  imagined  that  his 
taste  and  smell  were  more  acute,  and  is  certain  that 
he  felt  unusually  strong  and  cheerful.  In  a  second 
experiment  he  felt  pleasure  still  superior,  and  has 
since  poetically  remarked,  that  he  supposes  the  atmo- 
sphere of  the  highest  of  all  possible  heavens  to  be  com- 
posed of  (his  gas  /" 

There  were  between  three  and  four  thousand  peo- 
ple assembled  in  the  Tabernacle.  A  platform  in  the 
centre  was  hemmed  in  with  benches,  and  it  was  adver- 
tised that  "  twelve  strong  men"  would  be  there  to  pre- 
vent injury  to  the  spectators.  It  was  mentioned  in  the 
advertisement,  also,  that  the  gallery  would  be  reserved 
for  ladies,  though  1  thought  that  the  inviting  of  ladies 
to  be  present  at  the  removal  of  all  restraint  from 
men's  tongues  and  actions,  was  a  strong  mark  of  con- 
fidence in  the  uppermost  qualities  of  our  sex.  After 
some  impatience  on  the  part  of  the  audience,  the  pro- 
fessor appeared  with  his  specimen  of  "  the  highest 
possible  heaven"  in  an  India-rubber  bag.  The  can- 
didates for  a  taste  of  it  were  many  and  urgent,  crowd- 
ing up  from  below  like  the  applicants  to  St.  Peter, 
and  the  professor  seemed  somewhat  embarrassed  as  to 
a  selection.  A  thick-necked  and  bony  youth  got  pos- 
session of  the  bag,  however,  and  applied  his  mouth  to 
the  stopper.  After  inhaling  its  contents  for  a  minute 
or  two,  he  squared  away  and  commenced  pummelling 
the  professor  in  the  most  approved  butcher-boy  style 
— which  was  possibly  his  idea  of  the  "highest  pos- 
sible heaven."  The  "  twelve  strong  men"  rushed 
to  the  rescue,  the  audience  applauded  vociferously, 
and  the  lad  returned  to  his  senses,  having  been 
out  of  them  perhaps  three  minutes.  A  dozen  others 
took  their  turn,  and  were  variously  affected.  I  was 
only  very  much  delighted  with  one  young  man,  who 
coolly  undertook  a  promenade  over  the  the  close- 
packed  heads  of  the  audience.  The  impertinence  of 
the  idea  seemed  to  me  in  the  highest  degree  brilliant 


680 


EPHEMERA. 


and  delightful.  There  was  one  corsair-looking  man 
who  rushed  up  and  down  the  stage,  believing  himself 
on  the  deck  of  some  vessel  in  pursuit  of  another,  and 
that  was  perhaps  the  best  bit  of  acting.  One  silly 
youth  went  to  and  fro,  smirking  and  bowing,  and  an- 
other did  a  scene  in  "  Richard  the  Third,"  and  a  tall, 
good-looking  young  man  laughed  heartily,  and  sud- 
denly stopped  and  demanded  of  the  audience,  in  in- 
dignant rage,  what  they  were  laughing  at!  There 
was  nothing  else  worth  even  putting  down  among  tri- 
fles, and  I  was  glad  when  it  was  over.  The  only  ima- 
ginable entertainment  in  such  an  exhibition  would 
be  to  watch  the  effect  of  self-abandonment  on  those 
whose  characters  we  know  when  under  restraint. 
Among  acquaintances  it  would  be  charming — particu- 
larly if  the  subjects  were  ladies.  I  should  recom- 
mend to  the  professor  to  advertise  himself  as  open  to 
invitations  to  administer  his  "  highest  possible  heav- 
en" to  small  and  select  parties.  It  would  be  better 
than  a  masquerade  and  not  so  unlawful. 


The  etymology  of  April  lies  in  dispute  between 
aperire,  the  Latin  word  for  open  (because  at  this  time 
the  earth  is  preparing  to  open  and  enrich  us  with  its 
gifts),  and  Aphrodite,  one  of  the  names  of  the  god- 
dess of  love,  to  whom  the  month  is  especially 
consecrated.  By  either  derivation,  it  is  the  month 
of  promise,  and  like  the  trees,  we  feel  the  juices 
lovingly  ascending  to  our  top,  and  we  can  venture  to 
enter  upon  that  "promising"  which  is  the  very  "air 
o'  the  time,"  without  fearing  that  "  performance"  will 
be  "the  duller  for  the  act."  And,  by-the-way,  while 
we  think  of  it,  we  have  been  beset  by  a  friendly  let- 
ter to  cut  short  Ihe  present  year,  and  commence  a 
new  volume  with  January  1,  1845.  We  must  be  ex- 
cused for  preferring,  altogether,  a  commencement  in 
April,  accident  and  convenience  quite  aside.  There 
is  a  fitness  in  commencing  (putting  out  our  first 
leaves)  with  nature.  After  nature's  example,  we  may 
venture,  with  our  first  issue,  to  promise  a  prodigal 
summer  of  flowers  and  a  harvest  of  fruits,  though 
there  we  trust  the  parallel  will  stop,  for  we  do  not  pro- 
pose with  nature  to  "take  our  leaves'''  in  October  and 
fall  presently  to  decay!  No,  sir!  Let  us  com- 
mence our  primrose-colored  series  in  primrose-time. 
Our  hopes  are  April-ish,  as  looks  our  cover.  We 
hope  to  swell,  not  dwindle,  from  April  into  May — to 
give  out  our  products  more  lavishly  in  June,  and 
have  a  "harvest  home"  of  prosperity  in  August. 
What  says  old  Drayton  of  the  order  of  such  matters  ? — 

"  The  primrose  placing  first,  because  that  in  the  spring 
Tt  is  the  first  appears,  then  sweetly  flourishing, 
The  azure  harebell,  next,  with  them  they  neatly  mixed ; 
r  allay  whose  luscious  smell  they  woodbine  placed  be- 
twixt ; 
And  'mong  those  things  of  scent  there  pricked  they  in  the 

—a  fair  picture  of  the  art  we  mean  to  make  manifest 
in  our  medley  of  literary  flowers.  There  are  some 
productions  whose  "  luscious  smell"  requires  the  "  al- 
laying" of  common  sense;  and,  now  and  then,  a  lily 
of  plain  truth  and  simplicity,  "pricked  in"  between 
high-wrought  prose  and  gorgeous  poetry,  makes 
charming  harmony.  The  periodical-writers  of  all 
times  have  practised  this  trick  of  diversity.  "  If  a 
magaziner  be  dull"  (says  Goldsmith)  "upon  the  Span- 
ish war,  he  soon  has  us  up  again  with  the  ghost  in 
Cock-lane." 

A  writer 

("  but  nameless  he,  for  blameless  he  shall  be") 
complains  of  us  for  taking  liberties  with  the  queen's 
English.      He  does  not  specify  his  instances.     Mr. 
King,  of  the  American   (we  were  not  aware   before 


that  he  was  the  proprietor  of  the  "  King's  English!") 
makes  an  outcry  like  Milton's  stall-reader,*  at  the 
title  of  the  "Rococo."  If  Mr.  King  will  give  us  one 
of  his  newspaper-words  that  conveys,  like  the  single 
word  Rococo,  the  entire  periphrasis  of  "intrinsically 
valuable  and  beautiful,  but  accidentally  and  unjustly 
obsolete,'''1  we  will  send  the  offensive  word  back  to 
France,  where  we  got  it.  Meantime,  as  Costard  said 
of  his  new  word  "remuneration,"  we  "will  not  buy 
nor  sell  out  of  it."  But,  withal,  we  confess  to  great 
responsibility,  in  the  adoption  of  new  words  and  the 
restoration  of  old,  and  we  do  not  spare,  upon  every 
instance,  careful  consideration.  It  is  due  to  the  liter- 
ature of  our  country,  that  those  who  write  for  popu- 
lar prints  should  sanction  no  corruptions  of  the  coun- 
try's language  ;  but  it  is  also  due  to  the  dignity  of 
America,  since  she  has  come  of  age,  that  her  popular 
writers  should  claim  her  share  of  improving  and  em- 
bellishing her  inherited  language,  and  even  the  right 
of  departing  from  the  usage  of  the  old  country,  if  the 
inevitable  changes,  which  there  creep  in,  should  not 
be  conformable  to  American  taste,  customs,  climate, 
or  scenery.  We  would  not  further,  but  we  certainly 
would  not  hinder,  the  having  a  language  of  our  own, 
for  we  think  one  language  little  enough  for  a  repub- 
lic of  fifteen  or  twenty  millions.  But,  dependence 
upon  England  apart,  the  language  of  a  country  is  a 
garden  that  requires  looking  after,  and  it  needs  graft- 
ing and  transplanting  as  much  as  weeding  and  pru- 
ning. Who  is  to  be  the  gardener?  One  man?  One 
Mr.  King  of  the  American?  No — but  fifty  men,  if 
there  be  fifty  popular  writers.  There  are  no  trustees 
of  the  language  appointed  by  congress.  There  is  no 
penally  for  the  launching  of  words  new  and  unfreight- 
worthy.  Professors  of  colleges  (unless  accidentally 
men  of  genius  like  Longfellow)  have  no  power  over 
the  uses  or  abuses  of  language.  With  whom  lies  the 
responsibility  ?  we  ask  again — for,  upon  its  language, 
much  of  the  repute  and  credit  of  the  commonwealth 
is  inevitably  adrift.  And  we  say  again,  with  American 
popular  writers  lies  the  burden  of  it.  Mr.  Irving's 
administration  of  his  trust  in  the  country's  language 
is  worth  to  us  any  two  common  years  of  Washington 
legislation,  and  will  tell  with  more  favorable  weight 
upon  our  history  than  any  two  sessions  of  our  late 
congresses.  We  claim  to  have  our  small  share  of 
this  same  responsibility,  and  our  small  privilege  of 
suggestion  and  appropriation.  The  language  has 
owed  much  to  exotic  introduction  in  other  days,  and 
it  may  still  be  lawfully  enriched  by  the  same  process; 
and  if  we,  in  our  reading,  or  in  our  travel,  have  stum- 
bled on  more  compact  vehicles  for  meaning,  and  can 
bring  them  effectively  into  common  use  at  home,  we 
shall  venture  to  claim  praise  for  it.  Indeed,  we  have 
long  had  half  a  mind  to  devote  a  corner  of  the  Mirror 
to  a  record  of  the  births  and  disinterments  of  the 
words  new  and  prematurely  buried.  Whom  would 
that  horrify,  besides  Mr.  King?  Why,  for  example, 
should  not  the  beautiful  old  English  word  summer- 
sunstead  (descriptive  of  the  season  of  the  sun's  stay 
or  stead  in  summer)  be  restored  to  poetry — its  relapse 
into  Latin  by  the  word  summer-solstice  being  wholly 
unavailable  from  its  technical  inelegance?  This  is 
rather  a  forced  instance,  no  other  occurring  to  us  at 
the  moment ;  but  our  readers  will  remember  pausing 
with  regret,  as  we  have,  over  the  sweet  passages 
which  are  the  graves  of  lost  words. 


To  the  invariable  question  of  "  What's  the  news  ?" 
the  invariable  answer  is,  "Nothing  at  all!" — yet  he 
who  answers  delivers  his  budget  in  the  same  breath— 
a  death    and   a   marriage  perhaps   the    least   of  his 

*  "  Cries  the  stall-reader, '  Bless  me,  what  a  word  on 
A  title-page  is  this  ."  »    Milton  to  Sir  Harry  Vane, 


EPHEMERA. 


,681 


announcements.  I  (the  diarist)  have  no  news — none  ! 
I  could  "  swear  the  gods  into  agues"  that  1  have  none  ! 
Vet  to  entertain  a  visiter— to  divert  a  country-cousin 
— to  bridge  over  an  awful  pause— what  would  one  nat- 
urally say  ?     I  ask  for  information. 

The  Park  theatre  is  open— (very  open — being  near- 
ly empty  !) — Mitchell's,  on  the  contrary,  is  very  close 

being  nightly  full.     But  I  do  not  know  that  any  one 

cares  about  theatricals — to  have  them  written  or 
talked  about,  that  is  to  say.  Critics,  both  of  the 
drama  and  of  literature,  I  think,  have,  of  late,  been 
shoved  aside.  The  public  are  tired  of  interpreters  to 
their  taste,  and  express  their  opinions,  now,  by  accla- 
mation, not  by  one  man's  pen.  Who  cares  now  (as 
the  Aurora  said  a  day  or  two  ago)  for  a  column  of 
criticism  on  a  personation  of  Hamlet?  If  there  is  to 
be  a  play,  or  a  concert,  it  is  pretty  fairly  understood, 
in  the  Bowery  as  in  Broadway,  in  Hyperborean  Chel- 
sea as  in  the  tropics  of  the  Battery,  what  will  be  the 
quality  of  the  goer's  money's-worth.  And  three  lines 
in  the  morning-paper,  when  it  i9  over,  is  all  that 
is  needful  or  advisable  to  be  written  on  the  perform- 
ance. So,  God  speed  the  decline  of  criticism!  Apro- 
pos, Miss  Turnbull,  the  danseuse,  has  now  become 
one  of  the  regular  Povey-dom  of  the  Park — engaged 
♦'since  the  memory  of  the  oldest  inhabitant." 

The  cutaneous  epidemic  of  the  season  has  attacked 
the  museum  with  great  violence — a  breaking  out  of 
its  inside  humors  covering  at  present  the  entire  sur- 
face. In  plainer  phrase,  Mr.  Barnum  has  completely 
covered  the  prominent  and  spacious  fronts  of  the 
American  museum  with  oval  paintings  of  the  beasts, 
birds,  fishes,  and  Indians  "on  show"  within,  and  a 
more  holyday-looking  castle  of  curiosity  could  scarce- 
ly be  invented.  The  "Kentucky  Minstrels"  are  the 
allure  just  now,  and  the  pictures  of  the  four  ebon 
bards,  large  as  life,  over  the  balcony,  and  the  remain- 
der of  the  be-windowed  and  be-pictured  building, 
with  its  indefatigable  flags,  its  lantern  steeple-high, 
and  its  lofty  windmill  of  Punch  and  Judy,  must  all 
fall  very  gayly,  to  say  the  least,  on  the  sober  eye  of 
a  Johnny  Newcome. 


The  funny  little  hat,  small  as  Mercury's,  which  was 
laughed  at  upon  the  bagmen's  heads  six  months  ago, 
has  fairly  prevailed,  and  is  the  mode,  nem.  con.  Truly, 
"  every  time  serves  for  the  matter  (of  hat)  that  is  born 
in  it."  The  eye  can  be  argued  with,  and  convinced. 
It  was  stoutly  maintained,  three  months  ago,  by  one 
who  is  well  known  as  "the  complete  varnish  of  a 
man,"  that  this  fashion  of  hat  was  but  a  porringer 
thing,  and  would  never  thrive  in  Broadway.  And 
now  nothing  but  that  scant  porringer  looks  tip-top  and 
jaunty  !  Orlando  Fish  (who,  as  tiler  number  one,  is  a 
man  of  more  potent  function,  for  my  politics,  than 
Tyler  the  first)  is  making  money  out  of  the  blocks 
which  my  facetious  dandy  friend  recommended  him 
rather  to  make  tops  of  than  tops  on.  Well — fashion 
goes  by  "jerks  of  invention,"  and  as  Holofernes  says, 
"the  gift  is  good  in  those  in  whom  it  is  acute." 


Reception  is  raging  up  town.  All  ladies  may  be 
said  to  be  "  in  a  parlous  state,"  who  have  not  a  speci- 
fied morning  to  "receive."  Six  months  ago,  the  six 
profane  mornings  of  the  week  were  the  property  of 
six  privileged  ladies  by  right  of  first  seizure.  Such 
pretenders  to  "society"  as  did  not  visit  the  week 
through  in  this  established  succession  were  as  "damn- 
ed" as  Touchstone's  friend,  the  uncourtly  shepherd. 
This  was  a  vexatious  invention,  for,  in  the  stereotyped 
innumerableness  of  fashionable  houses,  a  man  might 
blissfully  visit  nowhere,  and  yet  go  undetected  for  a 


culprit  "not  in  society."  Heaven  be  praised,  how- 
ever, for  the  "safety  in  numbers,"  and  especially  for 
the  imitative  gregariousness  of  our  country.  There 
are  now  five  hundred  families  who  "receive  !"  Not 
quite,  as  yet,  in  inextricable  confusion,  however.  A 
man  of  a  generalizing  mind  may  still  comprehend  his 
morning's  work,  and  with  fast  horses  and  invariable 
French  leave,  may  still  refresh  all  necessary  memo- 
ries as  to  its  existence.  There  is  the  Monday  set, 
and  the  Tuesday  set,  and  the  Wednesday  set,  and  so 
on  through  the  week — crystallized  according  to  neigh- 
borhood, with  one  or  two  supercilious  and  recusant 
exceptions.  The  engravers  are  in  full  cry,  however, 
and  every  week  brings  out  new  cards,  "  at  home  on 
Monday,"  "at  home  on  Tuesday,"  etc.,  etc.,  and  we 
shall  soon  be 

"  Blissfully  havened  both  from  joy  and  pain," 

by  a  general  acknowledgment  of  the  fact  that  nobody 
is  more  intensely  at  home  than  before,  and  everybody 
who  has  a  house  is  simply  "  at  home"  whenever  those 
who  wish  to  see  them  can  find  leisure  to  ring  the  bell. 

I  don't  know,  by-the-way,  that  the  compliment  has 
been  paid  our  country  by  foreign  naturalists,  of  rank- 
ing us  with  the  more  virtuous  wild-fowl,  esteemed  for 
their  gregariousness.  The  Rev.  Sydney  Smith  shows 
his  lack  of  zoological  learning  in  not  modifying  his 
abuse  of  us  by  remembering  that  "no  birds  of  prey 
are  gregarious." — "Of  wild-fowl,"  says  Grew,  "  those 
which  are  the  most  useful  fly  not  singly  as  other 
birds,  but  are  commonly  gregarious." — "Then  for 
birds  of  prey  and  rapacious  animals,"  says  Ray,  "it 
is  remarkable  what  Aristotle  observes,  that  they  are 
solitary  and  go  not  in  flocks."  Long  live  our  multi- 
tudinous hotels,  our  animated  extinguishment  of  dis- 
tinction by  imitation,  our  altogetherness  of  lordship 
and  ladyship!  The  danger  is  in  the  stiffening  of  this 
fluidity  of  rank  and  condition  before  the  scoria  are 
recognised,  and  before  the  mould  of  aristocracy  can  be 
dexterously  handled.  We  shall  have  lords  and  ladies 
or  their  catamounts  tantamounts  (bother!  which  is 
the  word  ?)  a  few  days,  at  least,  before  the  millenium. 
This  big  orchard  of  green  fruit  is  too  large  not  to  be 
destined  to  ripe  and  rot,  reasonably  and  seasonably. 

Apropos — I  observe  a  spot  advertised  for  sale  that  I 
have  always  looked  upon  as  the  most  beautiful  and 
aristocratic  property  in  this  country — an  island  cra- 
dled by  the  Niagara,  and  in  itself  the  best  cradle  na- 
ture could  possibly  form  for  the  family  of  a  luxurious 
exclusive.  It  is  about  eleven  miles  above  the  falls, 
an  arrow-shot  from  the  American  shore  (with  Grand 
island  between  it  and  the  Canadas),  and  contains  a 
I  hundred  acres  of  land,  charmingly  wooded  and  va- 
ried, which  have  been  turned  into  a  paradise  by  one 
I  of  the  most  refined  gentlemen  of  this  country.  A 
beautiful  villa  crowns  it,  and  baths,  hot-houses,  and 
all  appliances  to  luxury,  are  there,  and  all  fenced  in 
by  the  bright  water  about  to  rush  over  Niagara.  The 
island  is  called  Tonawanda — a  delicious  word  for  the 
I  name  of  a  home.  One  sighs  to  think  that  a  little 
money  could  buy  such  a  paradise  for  one's  own. 


I  observe  a  new  fashion  of  cap,  which  gives  the  la- 
dies an  air 

"  As  pert  as  bird,  as  straight  as  bolt, 
As  fresh  as  flower  in  May,"— 

a  cap  that  would  fit  a  child's  double-fist,  worn  perched 
upon  the  summit  of  the  organ  of  self-esteem,  looking 
like  an  apple-blossom  on  the  top-knot  of  a  French 
chicken.  It  is  one  of  those  fashions  whose  worth  de- 
pends upon  the  wearer— very  telling  upon  a  pretty 
coquette,  and  very  ludicrous,  topping  dignity  or  sen- 
timent. 


682 


EPHExMERA. 


Original  literature  in  the  lump  is  sadly  at  a  discount 
in  this  country.  Miss  Sedgwick,  in  the  plenitude  of 
her  intellectual  power,  has  taken  to  school-keeping. 
Another  authoress,  very  superior  to  Miss  Sedgwick  in 
the  qualities  necessary  to  saleable  writing,  Mrs.  Mary 
Clavers,  is  employed  in  the  same  ill-suited  drudgery. 
Cooper,  I  understand,  makes  nothing  by  his  Ameri- 
can editions,  and  thinks  of  publishing  only  in  England 
and  importing  a  few  copies  at  English  prices.  Amer- 
ican literature  has  nearly  ceased,  or  it  is  scattered  in 
such  small  rills  of  periodical-writing  that  it  will  make 
no  mark  upon  the  time.  Prescott  is  an  exception, 
it  is  true,  but  Prescott  is  a  man  of  fortune,  and  writes 
for  fame,  not  bread  and  butter.  Why  should  not  a 
subscription  be  raised  by  the  patriotic  to  give  fair  play 
and  studious  leisure  to  the  original  and  poetic  genius 
of  Mrs.  Child — wasted  now  on  ephemera  for  news- 
papers !  Money  left  for  such  uses,  or  given  by  the 
living,  would  better  embalm  the  memory  of  the  giver 
than  many  a  common  charity.  What  is  to  be  the 
effect  on  the  national  character  of  the  present  hiatus 
of  original  American  literature,  and  how  long  is  it  to 
last  ?  For  how  long  are  we  to  take  our  mental  ward- 
robe second-hand  from  England,  and  read  to  the 
world  as  all  wearers  of  unfitting  garments  seem — out  of 
harmony  with  our  shape  and  model  from  nature? 


It  is  stated  in  the  Boston  Daily  Advertiser  (in  an 
article  headed  "  The  greatest  American  author"), 
that,  in  a  work  of  no  small  authority  and  importance 
in  Germany,  a  continuation  of  Frederick  Schlegel's 
"History  of  Literature,"  a  writer  by  the  name  of 
Sealsfield  is  put  at  the  head  of  American  literature, 
and  defined  as  "the  great  national  painter  of  the  char- 
acteristics of  his  native  land,  who  has  unfolded  the 
poetry  of  American  life  and  its  various  relations  yet 
better  than  Cooper  and  Irving."  The  editor  of  the 
Advertiser  remarks  that  the  critical  opinion  of  this 
work  will  be  taken  implicitly  on  this  subject  by  half 
Europe,  and  no  American  authority,  at  least,  will  be 
able  to  gainsay  it.  He  continues  :  "  We  have,  there- 
fore, taking  shame  to  ourselves  for  past  ignorance, 
made  all  reasonable  inquiries  in  this  matter.  We  have 
applied  at  the  principal  bookstores  and  libraries  in  the 
neighborhood,  but  to  our  surprise  neither  books  or 
author  have  as  yet  been  heard  of.  The  Athenaeum, 
Burnham,  Little  and  Brown,  and  Redding  and  Co., 
are  all  in  ignorance.  We  have  applied  to  all  literary 
circles  to  which  the  humble  conductors  of  diurnal 
publications  have  the  entree,  but  a  hearty  laugh  has 
been  the  only  answer  to  our  anxious  queries. 

"We  are  yet  unwilling  to  let  this  sin  of  ingratitude 
rest  upon  American  readers.  We  call  upon  the  pub- 
lic to  assist  us  and  solve  the  question,  '  Where  is 
Sealsfield  ?'  and  absolve  our  country  from  the  shame 
of  ignoring  an  author,  who  has  been  crowned  with 
the  laurels  of  trans-Atlantic  criticism.  We  trust  the 
subject  may  seem  as  important  to  the  public  as  to  our- 
selves, and  that  if,  as  seems  probable,  some  publisher 
who  lives  by  stealing  the  brains  of  foreign  authors, 
lias  added  to  his  crimes  by  incarcerating  in  the  dun- 
geons of  Cliff  street,  or  Ann  street,  or  Water  street, 
this  hero  of  our  literature,  let  that  public,  or  the 
'American  copyright  club'  have  him  disinterred  im- 
mediately." 

The  probability  is  that  better  information  than  I  can 
give  will  be  brought  out  by  this  "  call  upon  the  pub- 
lic," but  meantime  I  will  record,  that  th\s  great  Amer- 
ican author,  Sealsfield,  is  a  German,  who  has  resided 
in  this  country  for  some  years,  returned  to  Germany  a 
few  years  since,  and  could  probably  be  heard  of  in 
the  neighborhood  of  his  intrepid  reviewer  and  nomen- 
clator.  He  probably  "furnished  the  facts"  for  the 
review  himself.     He  is  ("to  give  the  devil  his  due") 


a  good  writer,  and  while  in  this  country  contributed 
some  excellent  articles  to  the  old  Mirror. 


Leaving  to  other  people  my  share  of  curiosity  as  to 
the  source  of  the  Niger,  I  should  like  to  know  the 
author  of  now  and  then  a  joke  that  goes  the  round  of 
the  newspapers.  Genius  is  the  most  promiscuous  of 
animals,  and  is  found  in  all  sorts  of  disreputable  places, 
dress,  and  company — in  quack,  advertisements  and 
negro  wit,  as  often  as  in  patented  inventions  and  pub- 
lications of  gilt-edge.  There  is  a  kind  of  unlabelled 
genius,  which  is  wholly  incapable  of  being  turned  to 
any  profit,  but  which  how  and  then  starts  out  from  an 
unsuspected  quarter  and  takes  probability  by  the  beard 
with  a  delicious  intrepidity.  This  morning's  paper 
has  an  instance — a  three-line  story  of  a  Yankee  who 
bought  a  bushel  of  shoe-pegs,  and  finding  they  were 
made  of  rotten  wood,  sharpened  the  other  ends  and 
sold  them  for  oats  !  Quite  aside  from  the  fun  of  that, 
it  is  worth  analyzing  as  an  absurdity  of  the  most  bril- 
liant audacity  of  invention.  Will  the  respectable 
author  oblige  me  with  his  autograph  ? 


Confab  in  the  Cloister. — Not  a  small  part  of 
our  brain-twisting,  dear  reader,  is  the  exercise  of  an 
office  that,  at  Roman  feasts,  was  delegated  to  i  par- 
ticular servant  called  the  nomenclator.  His  business 
was  to  inform  the  guests  of  the  names  and  ingredients 
of  the  dishes  set  before  them.  Simple  as  it  seems  when 
well  done,  there  are  few  things  more  difficult  to  do 
well.  It  is  to  describe  a  book,  or  a  series  of  books,  in 
the  compass  of  a  phrase,  and  that  phrase  attractive  to 
eye  and  ear,  piquant,  novel,  and  provocative  of  curi- 
osity !  Try  your  hand  at  expressing  the  contents  of  a 
charcoal-cart  in  the  compass  of  a  diamond  ! 

It  would  amuse  the  reader  to  be  present  sometimes 
when  No.  4,  Ann  street,  is  resolved  into  a  committee 
of  two  for  the  finding  of  a  good  name.  (Witlings, 
avaunt!)  The  firm  is  called  together  by  a  significant 
motion  of  the  forefinger  of  the  brigadier  founder  of 
the  concern — called  into  the  cloister,  that  is  to  say, 
a  room  of  the  proportions  of  a  lady's  shoe,  extending 
to  our  (No.  4's)  immediate  rear.  The  door  being 
closed,  and  the  window-curtain  dropped  to  exclude 
the  uninspiring  view  of  the  clothes-lines  of  No.  4, 
up-stairs — the  one  chair  having  become  occupied  by 
his  Serenity,  and  the  remainder  of  the  committee 
being  seated  upon  the  upright  end  of  a  ream  of  paper, 
the  business  in  hand  is  forthwith  put.  Let  no  one 
imagine,  because  he  may  have  assisted  at  naming  a 
friend's  child,  that  he  has  any,  the  most  vague,  idea  of 
the  embarrassments  that  ensue  !  We  have  a  passably 
fertile  invention.  We  have  whiled  away  the  dull 
transit  of  what  is  commonly  called  "  a  liberal  educa- 
tion" by  a  diligent  search  after  such  knowledge  as  was 
above  being  "turned  to  account."  We  have  been  a 
profligate  of  verbal  intemperance,  we  mean  to  say,  and 
are  likely  to  know  the  bin  where  lies  in  cobweb  your 
old  word,  toothsome  and  tasteable.  But  for  all  this,  it 
is  no  easier.  Like  the  search  after  happiness,  ten  to 
one  the  thing  sought  lies  near  home — overstepped  at 
starting  !     But  let  us  particularize. 

The  Brigadier. — My  dear  boy  (a  facetious  way  he 
has  of  addressing  the  rest  of  the  committee  !) — my 
dear  boy,  stop  looking  out  of  that  back  window,  and 
give  your  mind  to  business!  Cast  your  eye  over 
these  four  incomparable  tales  !     Irving's  "  Wife" — 

Committee. — You  don't  say  he's  married,  general ! 

Brigadier. — Tales,  my  dear  boy,  I  speak  of  tales— 
a  new  series  of  tales  that  want  a  good  name  !  Come, 
think  of  it,  now ! 


EPHEMERA. 


683 


Committee. — Describe  me  the  article,  brigadier ! 
What  is  the  purpose,  plot,  character?  Is  it  one  book 
or  a  series?  "Open  up,"  as  Bulwer  says,  and  let  us 
know  definitively  what  is  wanted  ! 

Brigadier. — You  know  how  many  men  of  genius 
there  are  who  are  only  capable  of  brief  inspirations — 

Committee. — Inspired  to  the  length  of  a  short  tale. 
Well ! 

Brigadier. — You  know  that  long  tales  are  now  out 
of  fashion.     People  are  tired  of  them. 

Committee.— Indeed  ?     Well ! 

Brigadier. — You  know  that  such  men  as  Brougham, 
Canning,  Macauley — statesmen  who  are  scholars  and 
men  of  genius,  and  might  have  been  authors — have 
occasionally  given  vent  to  their  pent-up  imaginations 
by  a  tale  for  the  magazines. 

Committee. — I  do — witness  Brougham's  magnificent 
6tory  of  the  "man  in  the  bell."     Well ! 

Brigadier. —  We  know  what  is  good,  that  goes  by 
with  the  flood,  don't  we  ? 

Committee. — We  are  professed  tasters.     Yes. 

Brigadier. — For  experiment,  then,  I  have  put  to- 
gether^ in  one  number,  four  tales  that  delighted  me — 
in  more  than  one  enchanted  perusal.  You  shall  select 
the  next.  It  will  go,  my  dear  boy  ! — people  will  give 
their  couple  of  shillings,  if  it  were  only  for  the  rescue 
we  make,  for  them,  of  things  they  remember  and  have 
lost  sight  of.  There  are  g — 1 — o — rious  things  hit  off, 
here  as  I  there,  at  a  heat,  by  periodical  writers — one 
hit  in  a  thousand  failures,  it  is  true,  but  still  enough 
of  them  for  a  brilliant  collection — and  these  we  want 
to  gather  into  our  beautiful  library,  and  embalm 
from  perishing.  See  here  !  "  Judith,  or  the  Opera 
Box,  by  Eugene  Scribe"— (great,  my  boy,  great!)— 
"The  Beggar-Girl  of  the  Pont  des  Arts,"  by  a 
German  man,  Hauff  (ah !  what  a  rich  bit  to  read  over 
and  over!) — "The  Picnic  Party,"  by  Horace  Smith 
(you  know  all  about  that?)— and  "The  Wife,"  by 
Irving — a  worthy  companion  for  them ;  and  now,  what 
shall  we  call  the  series  ? 

Committee.— Hm— m— m.  How  do  you  like  "fan- 
noms  and  fopperies?" 

Brigadier. — Bah  ! 

Committee. — "  Diapasms  ?" 

Brigadier. — Poh ! 

Committee. — The  "pomander-chain ?" 

Brigadier. — My  dear  boy,  let  it  be  English  and 
honest!  You  distress  me  with  these  affectations! 
What  have  cataplasms  and  pomatum-chains  to  do 
with  a  course  of  light  reading  ?     Don't  waste  time  ! 

Committee. — A  diapasm,  my  charming  brigadier, 
was  a  bunch  of  aromatic  herbs  made  into  a  ball  with 
sweet  water,  and,  in  Ben  Johnson's  time,  worn  in  a 
lady's  pocket.  Gallants  wore  these  scented  balls  strung 
in  a  necklace  under  the  shirt,  and  so  worn,  it  was 
called  a  pomander-chain.  Pardon  me,  but  these 
would  be  good  names,  for  want  of  better ! 

Brigadier. — Mr.  King  would  be  down  upon  us,  and 
the  definition  would  never  get  through  his  hair !  No, 
my  dear  boy!  We  must  be  ostriches,  and  feel  the 
ground  while  we  fly.  Keep  out  of  the  clouds  till 
you're  "  sent  for  !"     1  like 

"  The  russet  yeas,  and  honest  kersey  noes," 

and  so  does  my  regiment — I  mean  the  public.  Ima- 
gine a  good  name,  now,  that  would  suit  a  plain  man  ! 

Committee. — Faith,  it  takes  imagination  to  come  at 
that,  sure  enough  !     Hark  !  I  have  it ! 

Brigadier. — Come  to  my  arms  !  What  is  it  ?  Speak 
quick,  or  it'll  die  in  delivery  ! 

Committee. — Did  you  ever  hear  of  a  river  in  Asia 
called  Pactolus? 

Brigadier. — To  be  sure.  An  ass  dipped  his  head 
into  it  to  be  able  to  stop  making  money. 

Committee. — That's  the  fable.  And  ever  since  there 
have  been  gold  sands  in  the  river — "  or  so  they  say." 


Brigadier. — And  that  you  think  is  like  fugitive 
literature  ? 

Committee. — I  do.  I  was  there  ten  years  ago,  and 
the  gold  sands  were  as  scarce  as  good  things  in  the 
magazines. 

Brigadier. — You'll  swear  to  that? 

Committee. — With  a  reservation,  I  will.  I  went  to 
the  Pactolus  one  moonlight  night,  and  filled  my  pock- 
ets with  sand  to  look  at  in  the  morning.  I  was  travel- 
ling with  a  caravan,  and  we  were  off  before  day,  but 
there  was  no  gold  in  my  pocket,  come  daylight — sifted 
out,  most  likely! 

Brigadier. — Shouldn't  be  surprised!  "Sands  of 
Gold,"  then,  you  think  would  be  a  good  name. 

Committee. — Sands  of  Gold,  sifted  from  the  flood 
of  fugitive  literature. 

Brigadier. — Good  !  passable  good  !  Let  the  com 
mittee  rise. 

You  see  how  it  is  done,  dear  reader,  and  you  will  the 
better  comprehend,  from  this  specimen,  how  we  came 
upon  another — a  name  for  a  series  of  sacred  poetry,  of 
which  we  are  about  to  issue  the  first  number.  We 
have  called  this  series  "The  Sacred  Rosary"— a 
musical  word  that,  in  old  English,  meant  a  plantation 
of  roses,  but  which  was  afterward  used  to  define  the 
verses  of  a  church-psalter,  strung  together  with  beads 
for  an  aid  to  memory.  In  either  signification,  it 
figures  forth  what  we  enrol  beneath  it — for  a  more 
beautiful  collection  of  hallowed  verse  was  never  col- 
lected than  this  we  have  to  offer.  We  have  always 
especially  loved  poetry  on  sacred  themes,  and  have 
garnered  up  specimens  of  it,  and  let  us  assure  the 
reader  that  in  this  field  of  poetry  there  is  a  rich  har- 
vest ungathered.  Let  him  look  at  this  first  number 
for  a  specimen  of  the  mind  and  taste  scattered  abroad 
in  these  stray  leaves  of  poetry. 


It  will  cut  up  for  a  fact,  when  you  have  done  using 
it  as  a  pun,  that  "  the  first  sign  of  spring  in  the  city  is 
the  prevalence  of  spring-cart*."  (I  borrow  this  of 
the  author,  and  lend  him,  in  return,  an  analogy  of  my 
own  discovering — between  sidewalks  and  green  pas- 
tures— the  simultaneous  outbreak  of  dandy-lions  with 
the  first  warm  weather.)  Oh,  the  moving!  But  it 
should  be  remembered  by  those  who  groan  over  the 
universal  exposure  of  household  gods  and  shabby  fur- 
niture on  May-day,  that  when  it  ceases,  our  now  mo- 
bile republic  will  harden  into  a  monarchy.  The 
"  moss"  of  aristocracy  is  not  "  gathered"  by  the  "  roll- 
ing stone."  People  must  live  long  iu  one  place  to 
establish  superiority  for  themselves  or  to  allow  it  in 
others.  Mrs.  Splitfig,  the  grocer's  wife,  is  but  just 
beginning  to  submit  patiently  to  the  airs  of  Mrs.  In- 
gulphus,  the  banker's  wife,  when  May-day  comes 
round,  and  away  she  goes  with  her  tin  and  crockery 
on  a  spring-cart,  to  start  fair  again  with  some  other 
pretender,  in  some  other  neighborhood.  "  Old  fam- 
ilies" are  of  little  use  without  old  neighbors  to  keep 
the  record.  The  subduing  of  neighborhoods  is  (at 
present)  the  battle  of  pretension  with  a  hydra— one 
sot  of  heads  sliced  off,  a  new  set  is  ready  to  come  on. 
So,  long  live  our  acquaintance  with  the  shabby  sides 
of  easy-chairs,  and  the  humilities  of  bedding  and 
crockery.  Some  fifty  May-days  hence,  we  shall  be 
ready  to  stop  shaking  the  sugar-bowl,  satisfied  that  the. 
big  lumps  are  all  at  the  top. 


The  most  courted  value  in  New  York  at  the  pres- 
ent time  is  unquestionably  the  "nimble  sixpence." 
The  new  omnibuses  that  have  been  put  upon  the  dif- 
ferent lines  within  a  week  or  two,  are  of  a  costliness 
and  splendor  that  would  have  done  for  a  sovereign's 


684 


EPHEMERA. 


carriage  in  the  golden  age.  Claret  bodies,  silver- 
plated  hubs,  and  yellow  wheels,  cut-velvet  linings  and 
cushions,  and  all  to  tempt  the  once-unconsidered  six- 
pence to  get  up  and  ride!  (Query — as  to  the  supe- 
riority of  the  "  mirror  held  up  to  nature,"  over  the 
New  Mirror  held  up  to  sixpence  ?) 

The  racing  of  omnibuses  seems  to  be  agreeable  to 
inside  passengers,  since  it  might  always  be  prevented 
by  pulling  the  checkstring — but  to  those  who  have 
the  temerity  or  the  dangerous  necessity  to  cross 
Broadway,  it  is  become  a  frightful  evil.  King  Six- 
pence could  regulate  it  very  easily,  if  he  had  his  wits 
about  him.  As  was  said  before,  the  checkstring  is 
always  obeyed.  Terrified  ladies,  who  chance  to  have 
no  fancy  for  riding  races  in  Broadway,  should  be 
reminded  of  this  leather  preservative. 


Those  who  have  the  bold  wish  to  tamper  with  their 
standard  of  human  nature  can  now  be  gratified,  as 
there  are  giants  at  one  museum  and  a  dwarf  at  the 
other.  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Anak,  at  the  American  museum, 
are  certainly  two  very  tall  people — more  tall  than 
comely.  The  flat-chested  and  gaunt  lady  looks  as  if 
she  had  been  lengthened  with  a  rolling-pin — her  length 
entirely  at  the  expense  of  her  intermediate  belongings. 
Not  so  the  husband,  who  is  a  thick-lipped,  big-eyed, 
double-fisted,  knoll-backed,  and  thick-tongued  over- 
growth. For  one,  I  do  not  like  to  have  my  notions 
of  human  stature  unsettled,  and  I  abhor  giants.  Sir- 
feet  stature  is  undervalued  by  familiarity  with  seven — 
as  diamonds  would  be  ruined  by  the  discovery  of  a 
few  as  large  as  potatoes.  I  am  happy  to  console  the 
eclipsed  six-footers  and  under,  by  the  information  that 
this  large  vessel  of  human  nature  does  not  seem 
intended  to  hold  more  soul.  He  looks  like  as  "  regu- 
lar a  spoon"  as  could  be  wished  by  those  who  are  com- 
pelled to  look  up  to  him — his  wife,  apparently,  of  the 
same  utensil  capacity. 

The  dwarf  at  Peale's  museum,  Rado  Scauf  {that  he 
should  ever  have  been  thought  worth  baptizing!)  is  a 
sweet-faced  minion,  with  feet  in  boots  looking  like 
two  cockroaches  with  heels  to  them.  A  two-fingered 
lady's  glove  would  make  him  an  ample  pair  of  trou- 
sers, and  his  walking-stick  is  a  sizeable  toothpick.  He 
has  fine  eyes,  and  would  look  like  a  nice  lad,  through 
a  magnifying-glass.  If  such  bijous  were  plenty, 
ladies  would  carry  them  in  their  pockets — portable 
garter-claspers  and  glove-buttoners.  Fancy  the  lux- 
ury !  It  were  worth  a  Yankee's  while  to  send  a  ven- 
ture to  Lilliput,  to  import  them. 


The  Cloister.— Four  o'clock  and  the  Pomeridian 
of  an  April  day.  The  brigadier's  audiences  are  sus- 
pended to  make  room  for  a  session  of  the  committee, 
and  the  door  is  closed— printers,  poets,  engravers, 
stitchers  and  folders  (these  female),  advertisers,  car- 
riers, agents,  stereotypers,  ruthlessly  excluded.  Truly, 
as  Shakspere  says,  "every  man  hath  business  and  de- 
sire" (for  the  brigadier's  society),  "such  as  it  is." 
Long  last  his  "  suaviler  in  modo,"  his  "fortiter  in  re  /" 

Brigadier. — To  business,  my  boy  !  "What  lies  in 
that  fourth  pucker  of  your  eyelid?  Smile  and  let  it 
drop  away  easy  ! 

Committee. — Thirteen  letters  by  to-day's  mail,  con- 
taining propositions  to  publish  immortal  works  by 
living  and  mortal  American  authors,  most  of  them 
never  before  heard  of — postage  nine  and  sixpence,  of 
which  please  make  a  memorandum  in  my  favor. 

Brigadier. — Fifty-nine  cents  each  to  the  cause  of 
unbaptized  literature !  Are  we  not  involuntary  martyrs, 
my  boy  !  Why  the  mischief  don't  you  last-page  the 
fact  that  we  publish  exclusively  for  the  trans-Atlantics 


and  the  trans-Styxians! — never  for  those  who  can 
cross  the  water  to  "  settle  !" 

Committee. — It  shall  be  done,  but  there  is  one  ap- 
plicant who  deserves  a  hearing.  One  of  the  most 
gifted  women  now  living  has  employed  her  leisure  in 
compiling  a  book  to  be  used  as  a  round  game  played 
with  forfeits,  or  as  a  parlor  fortune-teller."  The  book 
is  to  be  called  "  Oracles  from  the  Poets."  Ques- 
tions are  proposed,  and  by  the  choice  of  a  number  the 
inquirer  is  referred  to  an  answer,  in  a  passage  selected 
from  the  poets.  The  selections  are  made  with  great 
taste,  so  as  not  only  to  convey  apposite  answers,  but 
to  make  the  reader  familiar  with  the  most  beautiful 
passages  of  poetry.     What  say  to  that  ? 

Brigadier. — Worth  lots  of  money  to  Biker  or  Ap- 
pleton,  my  boy,  but  we  are  in  the  rapid  line,  and  that 
sort  of  work  takes  time.  Besides  (and  here  the 
Brigadier  looked  modestly  at  his  nails),  we  couldn't 
bring  our  minds  to  make  money  out  of  the  sex,  my 
boy  !  Fancy  a  lovely  woman  calling  on  us  to  fork  out, 
as  her  publisher  !  Odious  word,  "publisher  !"  It  has 
been  too  long  a  synonym  for  "  pirate,"  and  "Philistine." 
A  few  of  us  immortal  bards  have  washed  and  donned 
the  gaberdine  of  late,  but  we  must  let  it  air,  my  boy, 
we  must  let  it  air,  before  wearing  it  abroad — at  least 
into  a  lady's  presence  !  Think  of  the  maid's  asking 
you  to  "step  into  the  back  room,"  if  you  called  on  a 
lady  and  sent  up  your  name  as  her  "  publisher !" 

Committee. — Ah!  my  illustrious  friend  and  song- 
builder,  dignity  is  a  Minerva  that  needs  no  nurse.  It 
jumps  out  of  your  head  and  walks  alone.  I  would  not 
only  publish,  but  peddle  from  two  tiu  boxes,  if  my 
wants  would  not  bear  diminishing,  and  if  only  this 
would  supply  them  !  We're  earthy  ants,  not  charter- 
ed butterflies  ! 

Brigadier. — Ha  !  ha  !  rny  boy  !  my  dear  boy  ! 

"  That  all  the  sweetness  of  the  world  in  one — 

The  youth  and  virtue  that  would  tame  wild  tigers — 
Should  thus  be  cloistered  up  '." 

Who  else  wants  to  gild  a  gold  leaf  in  the  Mirror 
Library  ? 

Committee. — Seven  and  two  are  nine — seven  poet- 
esses and  two  frebardlings — pleading  for  print!     We  are 

"  Loath  to  refuse,  but  loather  for  to  grant ;" 

— will  you  write  the  declinatures,  dear  brigadier  ? 

Brigadier. — Make  a  regret-circular,  my  boy  !  Say 
that  we  are  are  a  partnership  of  posterity.  They  must 
die,  to  qualify.  The  "  Home  Library,"  and  the  "  Par- 
lor Library,"  and  the  "  Drawing-Room  Library,"  and 
the  "  Knickerbocker  Library,"  and  many  more — (for 
whose  names,  see  puffs  and  advertisements) — these 
publish  for  the  equivocal  immortals  now  living.  We 
publish  only  for  the  immortal  dead,  or  for  the  buried 
alive,  disinterred  with  our  own  pick  and  shovel.  Write 
that  out,  and  I'll  have  it  lithographed  to  save  time. 
What  next  ? 

Committee. — We  want  a  new  head. 

Brigadier. — Speak  for  yourself,  my  boy  ! 

Committee A   new  caption,  then   (if  you  ivill  be 

critical)  in  the  Mirror.  Where  can  I  praise  things, 
now?  There's  Headley's  new  book  on  Italy,  worth 
the  best  laurel-sprig  of  my  picking.  There's  "Ame- 
lia," of  the  Lousiville  Journal,  who  has  written  some 
poetry  about  hearing  a  sermon,  that  traverses  your 
back-bone  like  electricity,  and  where  to  praise  that ! 
George  Flagg  has  painted  a  delicious  sketch  of  my 
Glenmary-born  Imogen,  and  I  icill  praise  him!  I  want 
a  place  to  praise — 

Brigadier. — Hire  a  pew  ! 

Committee — Will  you  give  me  a  column  ? 

Brigadier — To  your  memory,  I  will. 

Committee. — Well,  my  memory  wants  a  column,  to 
record  the  good  things  I  should  not  forget  to  praise. 

Brigadier. — Take  it — take  it — but  for  Heaven's 
sake  be  pert  and  pithy,  crisp  and  critical !     Nothing 


EPHEMERA 


685 


so  dull  as  praise  to  everybody  but  the  praiseg.  Any- 
thing more  ? 

Committee. — Yes — 

"  The  loving  mother  that  nine  months  did  bear 
In  the  dear  closet  of  her  painful  side 
Her  tender  babe,  it  seeing  safe  appear 
Doth  not  so  much  rejoice,'- 

as  I  to  inform  you  of  the  approaching  delivery,  from 
the  press,  of  "  Pencilliugs  by  the  Way."  My  travels 
nave  seemed  interminable. 

Brigadier. — Well,  as  1  assisted  at  their  birth  once 
before,  1  can  certify  now  to  their  being  "born  again." 
Is  that  what  you  want  ? 

Committee. — No — for,  half  the  book  was  never  a 
book  before,  not  having  been  published  except  in  the 
old  Mirror.     I  want  you  to  make  it  trip 

"  as  merry  as  a  trri<r; 
And  brisk  as  bottled  ale," 

that  I  may  hurry  into  "  calf"  all  I  have  written  up  to 
last  year,  and  start  fresh  from  my  meridian  with 
"Dashes  at  Life,"  and  gossips  in  the  cloister.  For, 
as  says  old  Wotton  in  the  " Reliquice,"  "Though  I 
am  a  cloistered  man  in  the  condition  of  my  present 
life,  yet,  having  spent  so  much  of  mine  age  among 
noise  abroad,  there  still  doth  hang  upon  me,  I  know 
not  how,  a  certain  concupiscence  of  novelty." 

Brigadier. —  Verbum  sap.  sat.  Shall  the  committee 
rise — by  getting  down  off  the  table  ? 

Committee — Yes  ! — oue  minute  !  Have  you  read 
(he  proof-sheets  of  that  glorious — glorious — say 
"  glorious!" — 

Brigadier — Glorious. 

Committee. — Hood's  "  Midsummer  Fairies" — the 
most  delicious  "Rococo" conceivable?    Yes?    Be  off! 


From  the  window  in  which  I  spin  my  cobweb,  I 
look  directly  on  the  most  frequented  portion  in  Broad- 
way—the  sidewalk  in  front  of  St.  Paul's.  You  walk 
over  it  every  day.  Familiarity  with  most  things  alters 
their  aspect,  however.  Let  me,  after  a  long  acquaint- 
ance with  this  bit  of  sidewalk,  sketch  how  it  looks  to 
me  at  the  various  hours  of  the  day.  I  may  jot  down, 
also,  one  or  two  trifles  1  have  observed  while  looking 
into  the  street  in  the  intervals  of  writing. 

Eight  in  the  morning. — The  sidewalk  is  compara- 
tively deserted.  The  early  clerks  have  gone  by,  and 
the  bookkeepers  and  youngerpartners  not  being  abroad, 
the  current  sets  no  particular  way.  A  vigorous  female 
exerciser  or  two  may  be  seen  returning  from  a  smart 
walk  to  the  Battery,  and  the  orange-women  are  getting 
their  tables  ready  at  the  corners.  There  is  to  be  a 
funeral  in  the  course  of  the  day  in  St.  Paul's  church- 
yard, and  one  or  two  boys  are  on  the  coping  of  the 
iron  fence,  watching  the  grave-digger.  Seamstresses 
and  schoolmistresses,  with  veils  down,  in  impenetra- 
ble incognito,  hurry  by  with  a  step  which  says  unmis- 
•akeably.  "  don't  look  at  me  in  this  dress  !"  The  re- 
turn omnibuses  come  from  Wall  street  empty,  on  a 
walk.  '  J 

Nine  and  after.—  A  rapid  throng  of  well-dressed 
men,  all  walking  smartly,  and  all  bound  Mammon- 
ward.  Glanced  at  vaguely,  the  sidewalk  seems  like  a 
floor  with  a  swarm  of  black  beetles  running  races 
across  it.  The  single  pedestrians  who  are  struggling 
up  stream,  keep  close  to  the  curbstone  or  get  rudely 
jostled.  The  omnibuses  all  stop  opposite  St.  Paul's 
at  this  hour,  letting  out  passengers,  who  invariably 
start  on  a  trot  down  Ann  street  or  Fulton.  The 
museum  people  are  on  the  top  of  the  building  drawing 
their  flags  across  Broadway  and  Ann  bv  pulleys  fasten* 
ed  to  trees  and  chimneys.  Burgess  and  Stringer  hang- 
ing out  their  literary  placards  with  a  listless  delibera- 


tion, as  if  nobody  was  abroad  yet  who  had  leisure  to 
read  them.  The  "brigadier"  dismounting  from  an 
up-town  'bus  with  a  roll  of  manuscripts  sticking  from 
his  pocket,  and  hands  and  handkerchiefs  waved  to  him 
from  the  omnibus  windows. 

Tirrlrr  and  affr-r.— Discount-seekers  crowding  into 
the  Chemical  Bank  with  hats  over  their  eyes.    Flower- 
merchants  setting   their  pots  of  roses  and  geraniums 
;   along  the  iron  fence.     The  blind  beggar  arrived,  and 
set  with  his  back  against  the  church  gate  by  an  old 
woman.     And   now  the  streaks,  drawn  across  my  side 
vision  by  the  passers  under,  glide  at  a  more  leisurely 
j  pace,  and  are  of  gayer  hues.     The  street  full  of  sun- 
shine.    Omnibuses  going  slowly,  both  ways.     Female 
!  exclusives  gliding  to  and  fro  in  studiously  plain  dresses 
j  and  with  very  occupied  air — (never  in  Broadway  with- 
out "  the  carriage"  of  course,  except  to  shop).     Stran- 
|  gers  sprinkled  in  couples,  exhausting  their  strength 
and   spirits   by   promenading   before  the  show  hour. 
I  The  grave  dug  in  St.  Paul's,  and  the  grave-digger 
|  gone  home  to  dinner.     Woman  run  over  at  the  Ful- 
j  ton  crossing.     Boys  out  of  school.     Tombs'  bell  ring- 
ing fire  in  the  third  district. 

One  and  after. — The  ornamentals  are  abroad.  A 
crowd  on  St.  Paul's  sidewalk  watching  the  accom- 
plished canary-bird  whose  cage  hangs  on  the  fence. 
He  draws  his  seed  and  water  up  an  inclined  plane  in 
a  rail-car,  and  does  his  complicated  feeding  to  the 
great  approbation  of  his  audience.  The  price  is  high 
—his  value  being  in  proportion  (aristocracy-wise)  to 
his  wants  !  It  is  the  smoothest  and  broadest  sidewalk 
in  Broadway — the  frontage  of  St.  Paul's— and  the 
ladies  and  dandies  walk  most  at  their  ease  just  here, 
loitering  a  little,  perhaps,  to  glance  at  the  flowers  for 
sale.  My  window,  commanding  this  pave,  is  a  par- 
ticularly good  place,  therefore,  to  study  street  habits, 
and  I  have  noted  a  trifle  or  so,  that,  if  not  new,  may 
be  newly  put  down.  I  observe  that  a  very  well-dressed 
woman  is  noticed  by  none  so  much  as  by  the  women 
themselves.  This  is  the  week  for  the  first  spring 
dresses,  and,  to-day,  there  is  a  specimen  or  two  of 
Miss  Lawson's  April  avatar,  taking  its  first  sun  on  the 
promenade.  A  lady  passed,  just  now,  with  a  charm- 
ing straw  hat  and  primrose  shawl — not  a  very  pretty 
woman,  but,  dress  and  all,  a  fresh  and  sweet  object  to 
look  at — like  a  new-blown  cowslip,  that  stops  you  in 
your  walk  though  it  is  not  a  violet.  Not  a  male  eye 
observed  her,  from  curb-stone  in  Vesey  to  curb-stone 
in  Fulton,  but  every  woman  turned  to  look  after  her  ! 
Query,  is  this  the  notice  of  envy  or  admiration,  and, 
if  the  former,  is  it  desirable  or  worth  the  pains  and 
money  of  toilet  ?  Query,  again — the  men's  notice 
being  admiration  (not  envy)  what  will  attract  it,  and 
is  that  (whatever  it  is)  worth  while  ?  I  query  what  I 
should,  myself,  like  to  know. 

Half  past  three. — The  sidewalk  is  in  shade.  The 
orange-man  sits  on  a  lemon-box,  with  his  legs  and 
arms  all  crossed  together  in  his  lap,  listening  to  the 
band  who  have  just  commenced  playing  in  the  mu- 
seum balcony.  The  principal  listeners,  who  have 
stopped  for  nothing  but  to  listen,  are  three  negro-boys 
(one  sitting  on  the  Croton  hydrant,  and  the  other  two 
leaning  on  his  back),  and  to  them  this  gratuitous  mu- 
sic seems  a  charming  dispensation.  (Tune,  "Ole 
Dan  Tucker.")  The  omnibus-horses  prick  up  their 
ears  in  going  under  the  trumpets,  but  evidently  feel 
that  to  show  fright  would  be  a  luxury  beyond  their 
means.  Saddle-horse,  tied  at  the  bank,  breaks  bridle 
and  runs  away.  Three  is  universal  dinner-time  for 
bosses — (what  other  word  expresses  the  head  men  of 
all  trades  and  professions?) — and  probably  not  a  sin- 
gle portly  man  will  pass  under  my  window  in  this 
hour. 

Four  to  five. — Sidewalk  more  crowded.  Hotel 
boarders  lounging  along  with  toothpicks.  Stout  men 
going  down  toward  Wall  street  with  coats  unbuttoned. 


686 


EPHEMERA 


Hearse  stopped  at  St.  Paul's,  and  the  museum  band 
playing  "  Take  your  time,  Miss  Lucy,"  while  the 
mourners  are  getting  out.  A  gentleman,  separated 
from  two  ladies  by  the  passing  of  the  coffin  across  the 
sidewalk,  rejoins  them,  apparently  with  some  funny 
remark.  Bell  tolls.  No  one  in  the  crowd  is  inter- 
ested to  inquire  the  age  or  sex  of  the  person  breaking 
the  current  of  Broadway  to  pass  to  the  grave.  Hearse 
drives  off  on  a  trot. 

Five  and  after. — Broadway  one  gay  procession. 
Few  ladies  accompanied  by  gentlemen — fewer  than 
in  the  promenades  of  any  other  country.  Men  in 
couples  and  women  in  couples.  Dandies  strolling 
and  stealing  an  occasional  look  at  their  loose  demi- 
saison  pantaloons,  and  gaiter-shoes,  newly  sported  with 
the  sudden  advent  of  warm  weather.  No  private  car- 
riage passing  except  those  bound  to  the  ferries  for  a 
drive  into  the  country.  The  crowd  is  unlike  the 
morning  crowd.  There  is  as  much  or  more  beauty, 
but  the  fashionable  ladies  are  not  out.  You  would 
be  puzzled  to  discover  who  these  lovely  women  are. 
Their  toilets  are  unexceptionable,  their  style  is  a  very 
near  approach  to  comme  il  faut.  They  look  perfectly 
satisfied  with  their  position  and  with  themselves,  and 
they  do  (what  fashionable  women  do  not) — meet  the 
eye  of  the  promenader  with  a  coquettish  confidence  he 
will  misinterpret — if  he  be  green  or  a  puppy.  Among 
these  ladies  are  accidents  of  feature,  form,  and  man- 
ner— charms  of  which  the  possessor  is  unconscious — 
that,  if  transplanted  into  a  high-bred  sphere  of  society 
abroad,  would  be  bowed  to  as  the  stamp  of  lovely  aris- 
tocracy. Possibly — probably,  indeed — the  very  wo- 
man who  is  a  marked  instance  of  this  is  not  called  pretty 
by  her  friends.  She  is  only  spoken  to  by  those  whose 
taste  is  common-place  and  unrefined.  She  walks 
Broadway,  and  has  a  vague  suspicion  that  the  men  of 
fashion  look  at  her  more  admiringly  than  could  be 
accounted  for  by  any  credit  she  has  for  beauty  at 
home.  Yet  she  is  not  likely  to  be  enlightened  as  to 
the  secret  of  it.  When  tired  of  her  promenade,  she 
disappears  by  some  side  street  leading  away  from  the 
great  thoroughfares,  and  there  is  no  clue  to  her  un- 
less by  inquiries  that  would  be  properly  resented  as 
impertinence.  I  see  at  least  twenty  pass  daily  under 
my  window  who  would  be  ornaments  of  any  society, 
yet  who,  I  know  (by  the  men  J  see  occasionally  with 
them),  are  unacknowledgable  by  the  aristocrats  up 
town.  What  a  field  for  a  Columbus  !  How  charming 
to  go  on  a  voyage  of  discovery  and  search  for  these  un- 
prized pearls  among  the  unconscious  pebbles  !  How 
delightful  to  see  these  rare  plants  without  hedges 
about  them — exquisite  women  without  fashionable 
affectations,  fashionable  hinderances,  penalties,  exac- 
tions, pretensions,  and  all  the  wearying  nonsenses 
that  embarrass  and  stupefy  the  society  of  most  of  our 
female  pretenders  to  exclusiveness  ! 

Half-past  six  and  after. — The  flower-seller  loading 
up  his  pots  into  a  fragrant  wagon-load.  Twilight's 
rosy  mist  falling  into  the  street.  Gas-lamps  alight 
here  and  there.  The  museum  band  increased  by  two 
instruments,  to  play  more  noisily  for  the  night-cus- 
tom. The  magic  wheel  lit  up,  and  ground  rather 
capriciously  by  the  tired  boy  inside.  The  gaudy 
transparencies  one  by  one  illuminated.  Great  differ- 
ence now  in  the  paces  at  which  people  walk.  Busi- 
ness-men bound  home,  apprentices  and  shop-boys  car- 
rying parcels,  ladies  belated — are  among  the  hurrying 
ones.  Gentlemen  strolling  for  amusement  take  it 
very  leisurely,  and  with  a  careless  gait  that  is  more 
graceful  and  becoming  than  their  mien  of  circumspect 
daylight.  And  now  thicken  the  flaunting  dresses  of 
the  unfortunate  outlaws  of  charity  and  pity.  Some 
among  them  (not  many)  have  a  remainder  of  ladylike- 
ness  in  their  gait,  as  if,  but  for  the  need  there  is  to 
attract  attention,  they  could  seem  modest — but  the 
most  of  them  are  promoted  to  fine  dress  from  sculle- 


ries and  low  life,  and  show  their  shameless  vulgarity 
through  silk  and  feathers.  They  are  not  at  all  to  be 
pitied.  The  gentleman  cit  passes  them  by  like  the  rails 
in  St.  Paul's  fence — wholly  unnoticed.  ]f  he  is  vicious, 
it  is  not  those  in  the  street  who  could  attract  him. 
The  "  loafers"  return  their  bold  looks,  and  the  boys 
pull  their  dresses  as  they  go  along,  and  now  and  then 
a  greenish  youth,  well-dressed,  shows  signs  of  being 
attracted.  Sailors,  rowdies,  country-people,  and 
strangers  who  have  dined  freely,  are  those  whose  steps 
are  arrested  by  them.  It  is  dark  now.  The  omni- 
buses, that  were  heavily-laden  through  the  twilight, 
now  go  more  noisily  because  lighter.  Carriages  make 
their  way  toward  the  Park  theatre.  My  window  shows 
but  the  two  lines  of  lamps  and  the  glittering  shops, 
and  all  else  vaguely. 


I  have  repeatedly  taken  five  minutes,  at  a  time,  to 
pick  out  a  well-dressed  man,  and  see  if  he  would  walk 
from  Fulton  street  to  Vesey  without  getting  a  look  at 
his  boots.  You  might  safely  bet  against  it.  If  he  is 
an  idle  man,  and  out  only  for  a  walk,  two  to  one  he 
would  glance  downward  to  his  feet  three  or  four  times 
in  that  distance.  Men  betray  their  subterfuges  of 
toilet — women  never.  Once  in  the  street,  women 
are  armed  at  all  points  against  undesirable  observa- 
tion— men  have  an  ostrich's  obtusity,  being  wholly 
unconscious  even  of  that  battery  of  critics,  a  passing 
omnibus  !  How  many  substitutes  and  secrets  of  dress 
a  woman  carries  about  her,  the  angels  know! — but 
she  looks  defiance  to  suspicion  on  that  subject.  Sit 
in  my  window,  on  the  contrary,  and  you  can  pick  out 
every  false  shirt-bosom  that  passes,  and  every  pair  of 
false  wristbands,  and  the  dandy's  economical  half- 
boots,  gaiter-cut  trousers  notwithstanding. 

Indeed,  while  it  is  always  difficult,  sometimes  im- 
possible, to  distinguish  female  genuine  from  the  imi- 
tation, nothing  is  easier  than  to  know  at  sight  the 
"  glossed  (male)  worsted  from  the  patrician  sarsnet." 
The  "  fashion"  of  women,  above  a  certain  guide,  can 
seldom  be  guessed  at  in  the  street  street  except  by  the 
men  who  are  with  them. 

You  should  sit  in  a  window  like  mine,  to  know  how 
few  men  walk  with  even  passable  grace.  Nothing 
so  corrupts  the  gait  as  business — (a  fact  that  would  be 
offensive  to  mention  in  a  purely  business  country,  if  it 
were  not  that  the  "unmannerly  haste"  of  parcel-bear- 
ing and  money-seeking,  may  be  laid  aside  with  low- 
heeled  boots  and  sample  cards.)  The  bent-kneed  ce- 
lerity, learned  in  dodging  clerks  and  jumping  over 
boxes  in  Cedar  and  Pearl,  betrays  its  trick  in  the 
gait,  as  the  face  shows  the  pucker  of  calculation  and 
the  suavity  of  sale.  I  observe  that  the  man  used 
to  hurry,  relies  principally  on  his  heel,  and  keeps  his 
foot  at  right  angles.  The  ornamental  man  drops  his 
toe  slightly  downward  in  taking  a  step,  and  uses,  for 
elasticity,  the  spring  of  his  instep.  Nature  has  pro- 
vided muscles  of  grace  which  are  only  incorporated 
into  the  gait  by  habitually  walking  with  leisure.  All* 
women  walk  with  comparative  grace  who  are  not 
cramped  with  tight  shoes,  but  there  are  many  degrees 
of  gracefulness  in  women,  and  oh,  what  a  charm  is 
the  highest  degree  of  it !  How  pleasurable  even  to 
see  from  my  window  a  woman  walking  like  a  queen  ! 


The  magnetic  threads  of  Saratoga  begin  to  pull  upon 
the  calculating  bumps  of  foreseeing  papas,  and  many  a 
hair  whitens  in  these  spring  months  that  would  have  ta- 
ken another  lease  of  youth  but  for  the  trip  to  Saratoga. 
Ah,  the  contrivance  !  Ah,  the  calculation!  Ah,  the  sa- 
ving, upon  things  undreamed  of! — for  extravagance  is 
like  the  lengthening  of  the  Indian's  blanket — the  piece 


EPHEMERA. 


687 


cut  from  one  end  that  is  sewed  on  to  the  other  !  But, 
out  on  monotony,  and  hey  for  Saratoga  !  If  there  be 
an  approach  to  a  gayety-paradise  on  earth — if  there  be 
a  place  where  the  mortifications  of  neighborhood  are 
forgotten,  and  "  people's  natural  advantages"  are  prom- 
inent and  undisputed— if  there  be,  this  side  Heaven, 
a  place  where  it  is  worth  while  to  dress,  worth  while 
to  be  pretty,  worth  while  to  walk,  talk,  and  particu  ( 
larly  and  generally  outdo      > 

"  The  snowy  swans  that  strut  on  Isca's  sands," 

it  is  sandy  Saratoga — Marvin's  United  States  Hotel ! 
Take  your  papa  there,  "  for  his  health,"  my  dear 
belle!  "And  tell  him,  too,"  that  it  was  the  well- 
expressed  opinion  of  the  philosopher  Bacon,  that 
"money,  like  manure,  is  offensive  if  not  spread." 
Tell  your  mamma  to  tell  him  how  pale  he  is  when  he 
wakes  in  the  morning!  Tell  the  doctor  to  prescribe 
Congress  water  without  the  taste  of  the  cork!  Tell 
him,  if  he  does  not,  and  you  are  not  let  go  with  a 
chaperon,  you  will  do  something  you  shudder  to 
think  of— bolt,  slope,  elope,  with  the  first  base 

"  Arimaspian  who,  by  stealth, 
Will  from  his  wakeful  custom  purloin 
The  guarded  gold" 

to  which  you  are  the  heiress  !  For  it  is  credibly  and 
currently  reported  "  in  high  circles,"  that  the  coming 
season  at  Saratoga  is  to  be  of  a  crowded  uncomforta- 
bleness  of  splendor  that  was  reserved  for  the  making 
fashionable,  by  Mr.  Van  Buren,  of  the  "  United 
States"  and  its  dependant  colonies. 


Among  the  alleviations  to  passing  a  summer  in 
town  (misericordia  pro  nobis  !)  is  the  completion  of 
Mr.  Stevens's  Gothic  cottage  at  the  lip  of  the  Elysian 
Hoboken,  where  are  to  be  had  many  good  things,  of 
course,  but  where  (I  venture  to  suggest)  it  would  be  a 
bliss  ineffable  to  be  able  to  get  a  good  breakfast!  What 
a  pleasure  to  cross  the  ferry,  and,  after  a  morning 
ramble  in  that  delicious  park,  to  sit  down  in  the  fresh 
air  volant  through  the  galleries  of  that  sweet  cottage, 
and  eat  (if  nothing  more)  a  nice  roll  with  a  good  cup 
of  French  coffee  !  A  restaurateur  there  would  make 
a  fortune,  I  do  think.  Bring  it  about,  Mr.  "Person 
Concerned,"  and  you  shall  lack  neither  our  company 
nor  a  zealous  trumpeter. 


THE    CLOISTER. 

Committee — (solus). — Oh,  most  beset  of  brigadiers! 
Most  civil  of  military  men  !  (for  half  a  firm,  the  most 
yielding  partner  of  my  acquaintance!)  when,  oh  re- 
sponsible general,  will  you  get  through  with  your^ar- 
ticular  callers  and  come  to  confab?  True,  I  have 
dined,  and  can  wait!  True,  there  are  joint  letters  to 
answer!  True,  I  can  listen,  and  look  out  into  the 
back  yard  !     Hark  !   Syphax,  my  black  boy,  loquitur. 

Syphax — (to  the  general). — Shall  I  cut  out  them 
favorable  notices  from  the  exchanges,  sir? 

Brigadier. —  Those  favorable  notices,  Syphax! 

Heavens!  what  an  unfeeling  man!  For  the  love 
of  pity,  corrupt  not  the  innocent  grammar  of  the  lad, 
my  dear  brigadier!  Out  of  seven  black  boys  sent  me 
for  trial  by  the  keeper  of  an  intelligence-office,  six,  to 
my  disgust,  spoke  with  the  painful  accuracy  of  Doc- 
tor Pangloss.  The  last,  my  inestimable  Syphax, 
whom  that  finished  brigadier  would  fain  bring  to  his 
own  level  of  heartless  good  grammar — was  ignorant 
(virtuous  youth  !)  even  of  the  sexes  of  pronouns !  He 
came  to  me  innocent;  and,  I  need  not  say  to  any 
writer — to  any  slave  of  the  rule-tied  pen — to  any  man 


cabined,  cribbed,  confined,  as  are  public  scribblers 
to  case  and  number,  gender  and  conjugation,  participle 
present,  and  participle  past — I  need  not  say,  to  such 
a  victim,  what  an  oasis  in  the  desert  of  perfection  was 
the  green  spot  of  a  black  boy's  cacology !  Oh,  to 
the  attenuated  ear  of  the  grammar-ridden! — to  the 
tense  mood  of  unerring  mood  and  tense — what  a  lux- 
ury is  an  erring  pronoun — what  a  blessed  relief  from 
monotony  is  a  too-yielding  verb,  seduced,  from  its  sin- 
gular antecedent,  by  a  contiguity  of  plural!  Out  on 
perfectionists!  Out  on  you,  you  flaw-less  brigadier! 
Correct  your  own  people,  however!  Inveigle  not  my 
Syphax  into  rhetoric!  Ravish  not  from  my  use  the 
one  variation,  long-sought  and  chance-found,  from  the 
maddening  monotone  of  good  grammar! 

And  this  brings  to  my  mind  (if  I  get  time  to  jot  it 
down  before  the  brigadier  comes  to  cloister)  a  long- 
settled  conviction  of  my  own,  that  the  corrections  in 
American  manners  brought  about  by  the  criticisms  of 
Trollope  and  others,  have  been  among  the  worst  in- 
fluences ever  exercised  upon  the  country.  Gracious 
heaven !  are  we  to  have  our  national  features  rasped 
off  by  every  manner-tinker  who  chooses  to  take  up  a 
file  !  See  how  it  affects  the  English  to  laugh  at  their 
bloat  of  belly  and  conceit,  their  cockney  ignorance 
and  their  besotted  servility  to  rank.  Do  they  brag 
less,  and  drink  less  beer  ?  Do  they  modify  their  Bow- 
bell  dialect  one  hair,  or  whip  off  their  hats  with  less 
magical  celerity  when  spoken  to  by  a  lord?  Not  a 
bit !  They  will  be  English  till  they  are  smothered 
with  Russians — English  ghosts  (those  who  die  before 
England  is  conquered  by  Russia),  with  English  man- 
ners, at  doomsday.  They  are  not  so  soft  as  to  be 
moulded  into  American  pottery,  or  German  pottery, 
or  French  pottery,  because  an  American,  or  a  Ger- 
man, or  a  Frenchman,  does  not  find  them  like  his  own 
country's  more  common  utensils !  Where  do  national 
features  exist?  Not  among  well-bred  people!  Not 
where  peas  are  eaten  with  a  fork  and  soup-plates  left 
untilted  by  the  hungry!  All  well-bred  people  are 
monotonously  alike — whatever  their  nation  and  what- 
ever the  government  they  have  lived  under.  Differ- 
ences of  manners  are  found  below  this  level,  and  the 
mistake — the  lamentable  mistake — lies  in  submitting 
to  correct  this  low  level  by  the  standard  of  coxcombs! 
What  a  picture  would  be  without  shade — what  music 
would  be  without  discords — what  life  would  be  with- 
out something  to  smile  at — what  anything  would  be 
without  contrast — that  are  ice  becoming  by  our  sensi- 
tiveness to  criticism.  Long  live  our  (BM-judice) 
"  abominations."  Long  live  some  who  spit  and  whit- 
tle, some  who  eat  eggs  out  of  wine-glasses  and  sit  on 
four  chairs,  some  who  wear  long  naps  to  their  hats, 
some  who  eat  peas  with  a  knife,  some  who  pour  out 
their  tea  into  saucers,  and  some  who  are  civil  to  un- 
protected ladies  in  stage-coaches!  Preserve  some- 
thing that  is  not  English,  oh,  my  countrymen  ! 

[Enter  the  brigadier.] 

Brigadier. — Forgive  me,  my  dear  boy — what  is  that 
I  see  written  on  your  paper  about  Russia  ? 

'•  The  Russie  men  are  round  of  bodies,  fully-faced, 
The  greatest  part  with  bellies  that  overhang  the  waist, 
Flat-headed  for  the  most,  with  faces  nothing  faire, 
But  brown  by  reason  of  the  stoves  and  closeness  of  the  aire." 

So  says  old  Tuberville,  the  traveller — and  now  to  busi- 
ness.    Jot ! 

Committee. — What  ? 

Brigadier. — Jot — that  we  are  glad  to  offer  to  the 
patrons  of  the  "Mirror  Library"  a  book  they  will 
thank  us  for,  at  every  line—"  The  Plea  of  the  Min- 
summer  Fairies,"  and  other  admirable  poems,  preg- 
nant with  originality  and  richness,  by  Thomas  Hood. 
His  poetry  is  the  very  attar,  the  aroma,  the  subtlest 
extract  of  sweet  imagination.  "  Eugene  Aram"  is 
one  of  those  included  in  this  volume. 

Committee.— What  else  are  you  glad  of? 


d88 


EPHEMERA. 


Brigadier. — Glad  to  be  sorry  that  Parke  Godwin's 
fine  analytical  mind  and  bold  foundry  of  cast-iron 
English  are  not  freighted  with  a  more  popular  sub- 
ject than  Fourierism — worthy  though  the  theme  be 
of  the  regard  of  angels  whose  approbation  don't  pay. 
Politics  should  be  at  a  lift  to  deserve  the  best  ener- 
gies of  such  a  writer — but  they  are  not,  and  so  he 
turns  to  philosophy. 

Committee. — But  he  should  play  Quintus  Curtius, 
and  write  up  politics  to  his  level,  man!  The  need  is 
more  immediate  than  the  need  of  Fourierism. 

Brigadier. — My  dear  boy,  give  away  nothing  but 
what  is  saleable.  Gifts,  that  would  not  otherwise  have 
been  money  in  your  purse,  are  not  appreciated — par- 
ticularly advice.  We  love  Godwin — let  us  love  his 
waste  of  ammunition,  if  it  please  him  to  waste  it. 

Committee. — 

"  Then  let  him  weep,  of  no  man  mercified," 

if  his  brains  be  not  coinable  to  gold,  /would  make 
a  merchant  of  genius!  The  world  has  need  of  brains 
like  Godwin's,  and  need  makes  the  supply  into  com- 
modity, and  commodity  is  priceable.  That's  the  logic 
by  which  even  my  poor  modicum  is  made  to  thrive. 
Apropos — what  do  you  think  of  these  lines  on  "bells," 
by  Duganne?     A  poet,  I  should  say: — 

M  Ye  melancholy  bells, 
Ye  know  not  why  ye're.  ringing: — 
See  not  the  tear-drops  springing 
From  sorrows  that  ye  bring  to  mind, 
Ye  melancholy  bells. 

"  And  thus  ye  will  ring  on — 
To-day,  in  tones  of  sadness  ; 
To  morrow,  peals  of  gladness  ; 
Ye'll  sound  them  both,  yet  never  feel 
A  thrill  of  either  one. 

"  Ye  ever-changing  bells  ! 
Oh  many  ye  resemble, 
Who  ever  throb  and  tremble, 
Yet  never  know  what  moves  them  so — 
Ye  ever-changing  bells." 

Brigadier. — Kernel-ish  and  quaint.  But,  my  dear 
boy, 

"  twilight,  soft  arbiter 
'Twixt  day  and  night," 

is  beginning  to  blur  the  distinctness  of  the  cheeks  on 
that  apron  drying  upon  the  line  in  the  back  yard. 
Shall  we  go  to  tea? 


The  opening  of  the  exhibition  at  the  National  Acad- 
emy is  like  taking  a  mask  from  one  of  the  city's  most 
agreeable  features.  And  it  is  only  those  who  live  in 
the  city  habitually,  and  ioho  live  as  fast  as  the  city  does, 
who  are  qualified  to  enjoy  it  with  the  best  apprecia- 
tion. Did  you  ever  notice,  dear  reader,  how  behind 
the  tide  you  feel,  on  arriving  in  town,  even  after  an 
absence  of  a  week — how  whirling  and  giddy  your  sen- 
sations are — how  many  exciting  things  there  seem  for 
you  to  do — how  "  knowing"  and  "  ahead-of-you"  seem 
all  the  takers-coolly  whom  you  meet — how  incapable 
you  are  of  any  of  the  tranquil  pleasures  of  the  me- 
tropolis, and  with  what  impatient  disgust  you  pass  any 
exhibition  which  would  subtract  you,  mind  and  body, 
from  the  crowd.  It  is  not  for  strangers,  then,  that  the 
exhibition  is  the  highest  pleasure.  It  is  for  those  who 
have  laid  behind  them  the  bulk  of  the  city  excite- 
ments in  a  used-up  heap — to  whom  balls  are  nuisances, 
theatres  satiety,  concerts  a  bore,  Broadway  stale, 
giants,  dwarfs,  and  six-legged  cows,  "familiar  as  your 
hand."  It  is  only  such  who  have  the  cool  eye  to  look 
critically  and  enjoyingly  at  pictures.  It  is  for  such 
that  Durand  has  laid  into  his  landscape  the  touch  that 
was  preceded  by  despair — for  such  that  Ingham  elab- 
orates, and  Page  strains  invention,  and  Sully  woos  the 


coy  shade  of  expression.  And,  truth  to  say,  it  is  not 
one  of  the  least  of  the  gratuitous  riches  of  existence, 
that  while  we  are  sifting  away  the  other  minutes  of 
the  year  in  commonplace  business  or  pleasure,  forget- 
ful of  art  and  artists,  these  gifted  minds  are  at  work, 
producing  beautiful  pictures  to  pamper  our  eyes  with 
in  spring  !  If  you  never  chanced  to  think  of  that 
before,  dear  reader,  you  are  richer  than  you  thought! 
Please  enclose  us  the  surplus  in  bankable  funds ! 
Ehem  ! 

There  are  more  portraits  in  the  exhibition  than  will 
please  the  dilettanti — but  hang  the  displeased  !  We 
would  submit  to  a  thousand  indifferent  portraits,  for  the 
accident  of  possessing  a  likeness  of  one  friend  unex- 
pectedly lost.  For  Heaven's  sake,  let  everybody  be 
painted,  that,  if  perchance  there  is  a  loved  face 
marked,  unsuspected  by  us,  for  heaven,  we  may  have 
its  semblance  safe  before  it  is  beyond  recall !  How 
bitter  the  regret,  the  self-reproach,  when  the  beautiful 
joy  of  a  household  has  been  suddenly -struck  into  the 
grave,  that  we  might  have  had  a  bright  image  of  her 
on  canvass — that  we  might  have  retnoved,  by  holding 
converse  wiih  her  perpetuated  smile,  the  dreadful 
image  of  decay  that  in  sad  moments  crowds  too  closely 
upon  us!  For  the  sake  of  love  and  friendship,  let 
that  branch  of  the  art,  now  in  danger  of  being  dispar- 
aged by  short-sighted  criticism — let  it  be  ennobled,  for 
the  sacred  offices  it  performs  !  Is  an  art  degrading  to 
its  follower  which  does  so  much — which  prolongs  the 
presence  of  the  dead,  which  embellishes  family  ties, 
which  brightens  the  memory  of  the  absent,  which 
quickens  friendship,  and  shows  the  loved,  as  they  were 
before  ravage  by  sadness  or  sickness  ?  There  should 
rather  be  a  priesthood  of  the  affections,  and  portrait- 
painters  its  brotherhood — holy  for  their  ministering 
pencils. 


We  have  a  customer  in  Andover,  to  whose  attention 
particularly  we  commend  the  truly  delicious  poetry  of 
"  The  Sacred  Rosary,''''  as  some  atonement  for  having 
inveigled  him  into  the  purchase  of  the  "Songs  of  the 
Bard  of  Poor  Jack."  That  mis-spent  shilling  troubled 
our  friend,  and  he  wrote  us  a  letter  and  paid  eighteen 
pence  postage  to  complain  of  it! — but  non  omnia pos- 
sum-us  omnes  (we  can't  play  'possum  with  all  our  sub- 
scribers), and  we  humbly  beg  our  kind  friend  (who 
lives  where  we  learned  our  Latin)  to  refresh  his  piety 
with  the  "Rosary,"  and  forgive  the  Dibdin.  The 
apology  over,  however,  wc  must  make  bold  to  say  that 
of  all  the  pnblications  of  the  "  Mirror  Library,"  this 
collection  of  Dibdin's  songs  has  sold  the  best.  It  has 
been  indeed  what  our  Andover  friend  scornfully  calls 
"  a  catch-penny  affair,"  and  we  wish  there  were  (what 
there  never  will  be)  another  catch-penny  like  it.  No— 
by  Castaly  !  such  a  book  will  never  again  be  written  ! 
If  ever  there  was  honest,  hearty,  natural,  manly  feel- 
ing spliced  to  rhyme,  it  is  in  these  magnificent  songs. 
England's  naval  glory — her  esprit-de-man-o'-ivar — het 
empire  of  the  sea — lies  spell-bound  in  that  glorious 
song-book !  She  owes  more  to  Dibdin  than  to  Chat- 
ham or  Burke — as  much  as  to  Howard  or  Wilber- 
force!  Ah,  dear  Anonym  of  Andover,  you  have 
never  hung  your  taste  out  to  salt  over  the  gunwale  ! 
Y"ou  don't  know  poor  Jack.  Find  out  when  your 
lease  of  life  is  likely  to  run  out— go  first  to  sea — read 
Dibdin  understanding!)',  e  poi  mori  /" 


The  proprietor  of  the  "  Connecticut  pie  depot" 
(corner  of  Beekman  and  Nassau),  writes  us  that  he 
will  be  happy  to  have  us  "  call  and  taste  his  pies  when 
we  are  sharp-set,"  and  that  he  hails  from  Boston  and 
takes  a  pride  in  us.     So  we  do  in  him,  though,  for  a 


EPHEMERA. 


689 


pvff,  our  pen  against  his  rolling-pin  for  a  thousand 
pound !  He  evidently  thinks  us  "  the  cheese,"  for  he 
says  he  wishes  to  be  noticed  in  our  "  dairy  of  town 
trifles."  Well,  sir,  we  don't  "  fill  Our  belly  with  the 
east  wind,"  nor  eat  pies,  since  we  left  Boston,  but  we 
rejoice  in  your  pie-ous  enterprise,  and  agree,  with  you, 
to  consider  ourselves  mutually  the  flour  of  the  city  we 
come  from.  Apropos — we  can  do  our  friend  a  service 
which  we  hope  he  will  reciprocate  by  opening  a  sub- 
scription-book in  his  pie-magazine,  and  procuring  us 
five  hundred  subscribers  (payments  invariably  in  ad- 
vance). A  young  lady  has  written  to  us,  imploring 
the  Mirror's  aid  in  reforming  the  prog  at  fashionable 
boarding-schools.  There  are  symptoms  of  a  "  strike" 
for  something  better  to  eat  in  these  coops  of  chicken- 
angels,  and  the  establishment  of  a  "Connecticut  pie 
depot"  seems  (seems,  madam,  nay,  it  is  !)  beautifully 
providential !  We  can  not  trace  our  anonymous  note 
to  any  particular  school,  but  we  hereby  recommend 
to  the  young  ladies  in  every  "  establishment,"  "  nun-  i 
nery,"  and  "seminary,"  to  "hang  their  aprons  on  the  ] 
outer  wall,"  and  hoist  in  our  friend's  pastry,  on  trial.  ! 
The  French  pockets  will  be  filled  the  first  day  gratis,  I 
we  undertake  to  promise.  The  second  day  and  after,  j 
of  course,  the  bill  will  be  presented  to  tante  or  the 
music-master. 


There  are  poems  which  the  world  "does  not  wil- 
lingly let  die,"  but  which  this  same  go-to-bed  world, 
tired  of  watching,  covers  quietly  up  with  the  ashes  of 
neglect,  and  leaves  to  grow  as  black  as  the  poker  and  j 
tongs  of  criticism  that  stand  unused  beside  them 
Stop  the  first  twenty  men  (gentlemen,  even)  whom  you  j 
see  in  the  street,  and  probably  not  one  can  tell  you 
even  the  argument  of  Goldsmith's  great  poem  !  And 
the  "  pourquoy  Sir  Knight"  is  simply  that  "  The 
English  Poets,"  in  six  formidable  volumes,  are  too 
much  for  cursory  readers  to  encounter !  The  poems 
and  passages  they  would  "thumb."  if  they  could  light 
readily  on  them,  are  buried  up  in  loads  of  uninterest- 
ing miscellany.  They  want  the  often-quoted,  unde- 
niable, pure  fire,  raked  out  of  this  heap  of  embers. 
Our  last  number  of  the  Mirror  Library  begins  a  sup- 
ply of  this  want,  under  the  title  of  "  Livk  Coals, 
raked  from  the  Embers  of  English  Poetry." 


The  following  advertisement  is  cut  from  "  The 
Sun:"— 

"Notice — To  the  gentleman  that  pushed  the  man 
over  the  curbstone  in  Broadway,  at  the  corner  of  Lis- 
penard  street,  with  his  dinner-kettle  in  his  hand,  from 
this  time  forth  never  to  lay  his  hand  on  David  Brown 
again." 

Now,  what  other  country  than  America  would  do 
for  David  Brown  ?  God  bless  the  land  where  a  man 
can  pour  his  sorrows  into  the  sympathizing  bosom  of 
a  newspaper!  Query — does  not  this  seventy -five  cent 
vent  supersede  altogether  the  use  of  that  dangerous 
domestic  utensil,  a  friend!  Add  to  this  the  invention 
of  an  unexpressive  substitute  for  gunpowder,  and  the 
world  will  be  comparatively  a  safe  place. 

Point  of  fact — we  delight  in  all  manner  of  old  tilings 
made  young  again,  particularly  in  all  kinds  of  vene- 
rable and  solemn  humbug  "showing  green."  If  ever 
there  was  a  monster,  grown  out  of  sight  of  its  natural 
and  original  intention — a  bloated,  diseased,  wen-cov- 
ered, abate-worthy  nuisance  of  a  monster,  it  is  the 
newspaper.  The  first  newspaper  ever  published  in 
France  was  issHed  by  a  physician  to  amuse  his  pa- 
tients. "To  this  complexion"  would  we  reduce  it 
once  more.  Fill  them  with  trifles,  or  with  important 
news  (the  same  thing  as  to  amusement),  and  throw  a 


wet  blanket,  and  keep  it  wet,  over  congressional  twad 
die,  polemical  fubbery,  tiresome  essays,  political  cob- 
webberies— yes,  especially  politics  !  People  some- 
times cease  to  talk  when  there  are  no  listeners,  and  ir 
might  be  hoped,  with  God's  blessing  and  help  ("Ave 
Maria!  ora  pro  nobis!")  that,  congress  members  would 
cease  to  put  us  to  shame  as  well  as  to  bore  us  to  ex- 
tinction, if  there  were  no  newspapers  to  fan  their 
indignant  eloquence.  It  is  a  query  worth  sticking  a 
pin  in — how  many  nuisances  would  die  (beside  con- 
gress) if  newspapers  were  restored  to  their  original 
use  and  purpose  ?  Any  symptom  of  this  regenera- 
tion inexpressibly  refreshes  us.  Hence  our  delight  at 
the  advertisement  of  David  Brown.  Who  would  not 
rather  know  that  a  man  had  run  against  David  Brown 
at  the  corner  of  Lispenard  street,  with  a  dinner-kettle 
in  his  hand  (and  had  better  not  do  it  again),  than  to 
read  the  next  any  ten  speeches  to  be  delivered  on  the 
rowdy  floor  of  congress  !  We  have  said  enough  to 
give  you  a  thinking-bulb,  dear  reader,  and  now  to  our 
next — but 

Apropos — we  wish  our  friend  Russell  Jarvis,  or  any 
analytically-minded  and  strong  writer  half  as  good, 
would  prepare  us  a  speculative  essay  on  the  query 
which  is  the  natural  inference  of  the  late  Washing- 
ton doings,  viz.  :  how  curious  must  be  the  process 
of  mind  by  which  a  gentleman  (there  are  one  or 
two  in  congress)  could  be  brought  to  consent  to 
stay  there — hail  from  there — frank  from  there — have 
his  letters  addressed  there — in  any  way  or  shape  take 
upon  himself  a  member's  share  of  this  lustrum's  ob- 
loquy and  abomination  ?  Not  but  what  we  think  it 
wholesome — we  do  !  You  can  not  cure  festers  with- 
out bringing  them  to  a  head.  The  wonder  is,  how 
gentlemen  are  willing  to  be  parts  of  a  congress  that  is 
only  the  nation's  pustule — the  offensive  head  and  vent 
of  all  the  purulent  secretions  of  the  body  politic  ! 
Thank  God,  they  are  coming  to  a  head — to  this  head, 
if  need  be  (it  is  rather  conspicuous,  it  is  true — like 
a  pimple  on  a  lady's  nose,  which  might  be  better  situ- 
ated)— to  have  the  worst  issue  of  our  national  shame 
on  the  floor  of  Congress  ;  but  better  so  than  pent 
up — better  so  than  an  inward  mortification  precursory 
of  dissolution  !  For  our  own  part  (though  we  are  no 
politician,  except  when  stung  upon  our  fifteen  mil- 
lionth of  national  feeling),  we  think  we  could  do  very 
well  without  a  congress.  We  believe  the  supreme 
court  capable  of  doing  all  the  legislative  grinding  ne- 
cessary for  the  country,  or,  if  that  would  not  do,  we 
think  a  congress  convened  only  for  the  first  three 
months  of  every  administration,  in  which  speaking 
was  prohibited,  would  answer  all  wise  ends.  We  are 
over-governed.  The  reign  of  grave  outrages  and 
solemn  atrocities  is  at  its  height,  and  Heaven  overturn 
it,  and  send  us,  next  after,  a  dynasty  of  laws  "  left  to 
settle,"  and  trifles  paramount.     Amen. 


We  are  not  of  the  envious  and  discontented  nature 
of  a  muttou  candle,  blackest  at  the  wick — that  is  to 
say,  we  do  not  think  every  spot  brighter  than  the  one 
we  live  in.  We'seek  means  to  glorify  New  York — 
since  we  live  here.  Pat  to  our  bosom  and  business, 
therefore,  comes  a  letter  "  from  a  gentleman  to  his 
sister,"  apotheosistic  (we  will  have  our  long  word  if  we 
like)  of  this  same  pleasant  municipality.  Our  friend 
and  anonymous  correspondent  does  not  go  quite 
enough  into  detail,  and  we  cut  oft"  his  long  peroration, 
in  which  he  compares  himself  very  felicitously  to  "a 
bottle  of  soda-water,  struggling  for  vent."— "  Now 
then,"  he  continues,  "to  uncork  (off  hat)  and  let  my 
exuberant  contents  be  made  manifest  : — 

"  Once  more  in  New  York— dear,  delightful  New 
York  !  the  spot  of  all  spots  and  the  place  of  all  places  ! 
the  whereabout  which  the  poet  dreamed  of  when  he 


690 


EPHEMERA. 


spoke  of  •  the  first  flower  of  the  earth  and  first  gem  of 
the  sea  ;'  and  once  more  here,  too,  not  to  look  upon 
it  for  a  moment,  and  then  depart,  but  to  stay,  lo  live, 
to  be,  to  exist,  and  to  enjoy.  You  do  not  know  the 
love  I  bear  New  York  ;  it  is,  beyond  all  others,  the 
place  where  existence  is  ;  where  time  passes,  not  like 
a  summer's  dream,  but  as  time  should  pass,  in  a  suc- 
cession (constant)  of  employments  and  enjoyments. 

"  I  love  the  city,  as  I  love  everything  loveable,  with 
a  full  and  abiding  joyousness.  There  is  nothing  pas- 
sing, or  in  still  life,  but  goes  to  make  up  the  sum.  The 
very  odor  of  the  atmosphere,  which  might  shock  your 
delicate,  country-bred  olfactories,  is  more  to  me  than 
all  the  fragrance  of  all  the  green  fields  that  were  ever 
babbled  of. 

"The  country  is  all  very  well,  in  its  way.  I  love 
that  also — at  a  distance,  or  in  moderate  quantities. 
Homeopathetically,  as  it  were — as,  for  instance,  the 
Battery.  I  love  to  walk  there,  to  inhale  the  sea- 
breeze,  and  enjoy  the  sweet  smell  of  the  growing 
grass  and  the  budding  trees;  and  to  look  over  to  Long 
Island  or  New  Jersey,  and  see  the  country  blooming 
(afar  off)  under  the  loving  smiles  of  spring.  Yes,  the 
country  is,  no  doubt,  very  desirable — for  a  few  days  in 
the  summer — for  a  change,  or  to  come  back  from  with 
a  new  relish  for  the  real  life  that  awaits  one  on  his 
return. 

"I  love  to  stand  on  the  docks,  of  a  still  evening:,  and 
hear  the  tide  rush  past.  The  very  rime  of  the  sea 
drifts  in  music  to  my  ear.  The  rushing  of  the  free 
and  ever-changing  waters,  the  glad  dancing  of  its 
waves,  the  glowing  reflex  of  the  stars  in  their  bosom, 
the  rifting  foam,  and  the  swift  gushing  sound,  like  a 
continuous  echo,  stir  up  the  dormant  poetry  of  one's 
soul,  and  send  him,  with  a  glowing  heart,  back  to  his 
lonely  home,  happier  for  the  sweet  communion. 

"All  the  time,  too,  is  thought-filled;  there  is  no 
standing  still  here.  Business  is  part  of  life,  perhaps 
life  itself,  and  it  is  constantly  going  on  around  and 
with  us.  If  I  choose  a  walk,  Broadway  is  full  of 
life — never-ending,  never-tiring.  So  all  over  the  city. 
One  can  not  stroll  anywhere  but  he  meets  with  some- 
thing new,  something  strange,  something  interesting; 
some  chapter  opens,  which  has  till  then  been  to  him 
as  a  dead  letter. 

"  Somebody,  who  wanted  to  express  in  strong  lan- 
guage that  nature  might  be  improved  by  art,  has  said 
that  « God  made  the  country,  man  made  the  town.' 
How  true  it  is!  And,  beyond  that,  here  are  congre- 
gated hundreds  of  thousands  of  '  featherless  bipeds' 
(men  and  women),  of  whom,  perhaps,  you  know  not 
a  dozen,  but  every  one  of  whom,  in  your  walks,  is  to 
you  a  study. 

"  Then,  again,  the  very  situation — the  form,  struc- 
ture, and  appliances — of  New  York,  are  delightful 
and  fascinating  beyond  compare.  Such  a  beautiful 
promontory,  swelling  up  from  two  magnificent  rivers, 
rising  from  either,  gently,  to  the  palace-lined  thor- 
oughfare on  its  crown ;  and  crossbarred  with  a  thou- 
sand avenues  to  both  rivers — inlets  for  pure  air,  ever 
fresh  rising  from  the  sea,  blowing  over  and  into  every 
habitation,  and  freighted  with  health,  like  the  gales 
of  Araby  the  blest.  • 

"Nature  has  been  wonderfully  prodigal  of  her  be- 
stowments  on  this  spot,  and  the  hand  of  man  has  not 
been  niggardly  in  completing  what  the  fair  dame  com- 
menced, by  putting  a  worthy  superstructure  on  her 
noble  foundation.  I  have  often  thought  of  the  remark 
made  by  some  one,  that  the  man  who  first  stood  on 
Manhattan  island,  and  looked  around  him  with  an  eye 
and  a  mind  that  could  comprehend  and  appreciate  its 
wonderful  beauties  and  advantages,  must  have  '  h£ld 
his  very  breath'  in  wonder  and  admiration. 

"And  then  more  of  its  present  beauties  to  the 
dwellers  therein.  Should  one,  in  hot  and  dusty 
weather,  choose  to  change  the  scene,  how  joyous  a 


trip  to  Sandy  Hook !  Often  have  I  stood  on  the 
heights,  and  looked  off  on  old  Ocean,  holding  in  my 
gaze  one  of  the  most  glowing  scenes  that  this  world 
shows.  The  wide  and  boundless  view — the  noble 
Hudson  and  the  city  above,  the  green  beauties  of 
Long  island  before,  and  the  heaven  ocean  below,  spread 
out  in  its  grand  sublimity;  the  sails  of  all  nations 
flashing  on  its  breast  and  blending  in  its  glory, 

;  like  a  mirror  where  the  Almighty's  form 

Glasses  itself'.' 

"Oh  who,  with  such  a  prospect  before  him,  feels 
not  his  soul  elevated  and  his  thoughts  sublimated! 
Thoughts,  indeed,  too  wild  for  utterance,  are  born, 
not  for  others,  but  to  sink  deep  in  the  heart  and  leave 
him  a  wiser  if  not  a  better  man. 

"This,  you  will  say  is  the  country — ah,  but  it  is  the 
country  of  New  York,  close  by,  and  part  of  city  life 
|  itself.     Then  there  is  another  country  (yours  is  only 
i  one)  over   the   other  shoulder,  where   the   moderate 
sum  of  sixpence  will  waft  us  to  the  delightful  walks, 
|  the  green  lawns,  the  shady  groves,  and  cool  zephyrs 
j  of  dear,  charming  Hoboken.     Doubly  dear  to  a  New- 
Yorker.     Fresh  smelling   and  fragrant  in  the  spring, 
cool  and  breezy  in  the  hot  days  of  summer ;  and,  with 
the  rustling  leaf  of  autumn,  dear  in  its  remembered 
beauties,  its  fading  foliage,  and  the  ever-sounding  sur- 
ges that  beat  with  melancholy  moan  at  the  foot  of  its 
beetling  crags  and  sloping  lawns.     Ah,  lovely  Hobo- 
ken, 

'  None  know  thee  but  to  love  thee, 
Nor  name  thee  but  to  praise  !' 

"  Mr.  Stevens,  we  owe  you  much  ;  and  we  can  af- 
ford to  owe  ;  but  we  pay  you  a  large  annual  interest 
in  gratitude  and  praise.  ''Tis  all  we  have,  we  can  no 
more.' " 

We  also  cut  off  the  irrelevant  tail  of  our  friend's 
letter  (tipped  with  a  "  G."),  and  beg  another  from  him 
with  a  finer  nib  to  his  pen — going  more  into  the  individ- 
ualities. If  you  would  like  a  subject  suggested  (exem- 
pli gratia)  give  us  the  hopes,  trials,  temptations,  and 
aspirations  of  a  Broadway  shop-tender.  They  seem 
fine  youths,  those  silk-and-suavity  venders.  "Who 
knows  what  is  their  pay  and  prospects  ?  How  can 
they  afford  such  good  manners  and  fine  waistcoats  ? 
What  is  the  degree  of  friendly  acquaintance  bred  be- 
tween them  and  the  ladies  in  the  course  of  a  bargain  ? 
Have  they  legs  (below  the  counter)  ? — Do  they  mar- 
ry ? — Have  they  combinations,  and  esprit  de  corps  ? — 
Which  are  the  honorablest  goods  to  sell? — As  to  the 
"  beating  down"  of  grass-cloth  and  stockings — is  it 
interesting,  or  more  so  than  the  cheapening  of  calico? 
When  do  they  eat  ?  Do  handsomer  ones  get  higher 
wages?  May  their  "cousins"  come  to  see  them? 
How  do  they  look  with  hats  on  ?  What  is  the  dura- 
tion of  their  chrysalis — the  time  of  metamorphosis 
from  boy  to."  boss" — and  what  are  their  several  sta- 
ges of  mental  discipline  ?  The  most  saleable  book  in 
the  world  would  be  the  autobiography  of  a  Broadway 
clerk — (dry  goods,  retail).  Let  this  "  verbum"  be 
"  sat"  to  a  sapienti. 


We  have  undertaken  to  make  ourselves  acquainted 
with  the  island  on  which  we  live.  We  mean  to  give 
our  readers,  bit  by  bit,  the  results  of  our  observations 
upon  the  customs,  manners,  geography,  and  morals 
of  the  island  of  New  York,  as  noted  down  in  our  ram- 
bles. We  do  not  take  our  walks  in  chapters,  howev- 
er, and  we  shall,  therefore,  be  equally  miscellaneous 
and  disorderly  in  our  arrangement  of  topics.  It  is  a 
curious  island,  and  sortie  of  the  inhabitants  are  curi- 
ous islanders.  Those  who  only  walk  up  the  city's 
backbone  (Broadway)  know  very  little  of  its  bowrels 
and  extremities.     Little   by  little,  we  hope  to  make 


EPHEMERA. 


691 


out  its  truthful  anatomy— veins,  pulses,  functions,  and 
arteries.  ,        ,  . 

We  should  like  to  know,  among  other  things,  why 
the  broadest,  most  accessible,  most  convenient  street 
in  New  York,  the  noble  avenue  of  Wkst  Broadway, 
is  entirely  given  up  to  negroes?  The  rage  is  to  move 
up  town — but  there  are  people  who  are  not  rajahs, 
who  are  willing  to  pay  high  rents— people  who  don't 
care  where  the  fashionable  people  go  to  (while  they 
live),  and  who  simply  desire  to  reside  in  broad  streets 
for  air  and  light,  and  above  all,  to  be  near,  if  possible, 
to  their  business.  Now  the  narrowest  part  of  this  be- 
streeted  island  is  of  course  the  most  wholesome,  as  the 
air  from  the  two  rivers  comes  over  fewer  chimneys 
and  gutters.  The  broader  the  street  the  better,  both 
for  health  and  show.  The  access  to  a  street  should 
be  good,  and  West  Broadway,  in  its  whole  length,  is 
parallel  to  Broadway,  and  approachable  by  Chambers 
street,  Murray,  Warren,  and  all  the  best  short  ave- 
nues of  the  city.  It  has.  besides,  near  by,  the  beau- 
tiful "  lungs"  of  St.  John's  park,  the  hospital  grounds, 
and  College  Green,  and  is  crossed  at  its  upper  end  by 
the  broad  ventilator  of  Canal  street.  Where,  on  the 
island,  is  there  a  street  more  calculated  to  be  whole- 
some— dirty  as  it  now  is  from  the  character  of  its  oc- 
cupants ?  It  would  require,  it  is  true,  an  entire  renova- 
tion, before  any  one  person,  desirous  of  good  neigh- 
borhood, could  live  there — but  that  renovation  (we 
prophesy  it)  will  be  done.  Some  speculator  will  buy 
lots  in  it,  and  call  a  meeting  of  proprietors  to  suggest 
a  general  turn-out  and  improvement,  or  some  one  of 
the  Wall  street  Astor-hood  will  buy  the  street,  from 
lamp-post  to  lamp-post,  and  fill  it  with  fashionable 
dwelling-houses.  The  up-town  tide  will  partly  ebb, 
the  natural  advantages  of  the  Battery  and  Lower 
Broadway  will  regain  their  ascendency,  and  the  san- 
dalled foot  of  the  island  will  again  wear  jewels  on  its 
instep. 

Pearl  street  (if  Manhattan  lie  on  his  back)  would  be 
the  main  artery  of  his  left  leg,  and  Franklin  square, 
which  occupies  a  natural  knoll,  would  be  his  knee- 
pan.  This  gives  you  some  idea  of  its  geography, 
though,  probably,  dear  reader,  if  you  are  not  in  the 
dry-goods  line,  you  have  never  visited  it.  It  is  a  cu- 
rious place  historically,  and  was  once  the  aristocratic 
centre  of  the  city.  There  are  still  two  famous  houses 
in  it — one  the  old  Walton  mansion,  and  the  other  a 
building  that  was  once  the  headquarters  of  Washing- 
ton. In  the  yard  of  the  latter  house  is  a  pear-tree  of 
Washington's  planting.  And,  by  the  way,  our  com- 
panion (in  a  first  visit  which  we  made  to  Franklin 
square  a  day  or  two  since)  told  us  a  story  that  may  be 
new  or  old,  touching  an  attempt  made  to  poison 
Washington.  A  dish  of  some  vegetables  from  a  for- 
cing-bed was  put  upon  the  table  for  dinner,  and  the 
general,  remarking  that  growths  so  much  earlier  than 
was  natural  were  not  wholesome,  threw  them  out  of 
the  window.  Some  pigs  in  the  yard  were  poisoned 
by  eating  them.  Colonel  Stone  can  tell  us  if  the 
story  be  true — always  presuming  it  is  not  in  some 
veritable  history  of  New  York.*  The  Walton  house 
is  still  a  noble-looking  mansion,  with  its  English  mould- 
ings in  good  preservation,  and  is  now  occupied  as  a 
lodging-house.  The  headquarters  of  Washington  are 
tenanted  by  a  pianoforte  builder,  and  all  around  looks 
trafficky  and  dull. 


One  of  the  favorite  spring  amusements  of  the  peo- 
ple of  New  York — (of  course  of  the  silly  people,  of 
whom  there  are  at  least  several) — is  to  attend  the  auc- 
tion sales  at  private  houses.     We  heard  of  one  silly 

•  A  recollection  has  come  back  to  us  very  reluctantly  (on 
its  way  to  bed  with  Lethe),  that  of  having  seen  this  anecdote 
in  Dunlap's  History. 


but  honest  woman  (they  are  often  honest)  who,  on  be- 
ing rallied  a  day  or  two  since  at  having  so  passed  the 
last  fortnight,  said,  "  La!  it's  so  amusing  to  see  how 
people  live  !"  And,  truly  enough,  you  may  find  out 
by  this  process  how  every  class  "furnishes,"  which  is 
a  considerable  feature  in  living,  and  it  is  wonderful 
with  how  little  ceremony  and  reluctance  the  house- 
hold gods  are  stripped  to  the  skin  and  exposed  to  the 
gaze  of  a  public  invited  in  by  the  red  flag  of  an  auc- 
tion !  It  is  possibly  a  very  natural  feature  of  a  new 
country  to  have  no  respect  for  furniture  ;  but  to  our 
notion  it  comes  close  after  "  honor  thy  father  and 
mother"  to  honor  the  chairs  and  tables  at  which  they 
have  eaten  and  prayed,  counselled  and  blessed.  And 
even  this  were  easier  got  over — the  selling  of  the  mere 
mahogony  and  damask— if  the  articles  were  removed 
to  a  shop  and  disassociated  from  the  places  where 
they  had  become  hallowed.  But  to  throw  open 
sacred  boudoirs,  more  sacred  bedrooms,  breakfast- 
rooms,  bath-rooms,  in  which  (as  has  been  the  case 
once  or  twice  lately)  lovely  and  cherished  women 
have  lived,  and  loved,  and  been  petted,  and  secluded, 
and  caressed — to  let  in  vulgar  and  prying  curiosity  to 
sit  on  the  damask  seats  and  lounge  on  the  silken  so- 
fas, and  breathe  the  air  impregnated  with  perfume 
that  could  betray  the  holiest  secrets  if  it  had  a  tongue 
— and  then  to  stand  by  while  an  auctioneer  charters, 
and  describes,  and  tempts  the  vulgar  appetite  to  buy  ! 
Why,  it  seems  to  us  scarce  less  flagrant  and  atrocious 
than  the  ride  of  Lady  Godiva— desecrating  to  those 
who  sell  out,  and  a  profanity  and  license  in  those  who 
go  to  see ! 

It  is  a  famous  time,  now,  to  buy  cheap  second-hand 
furniture,  by  the  way — for  the  fashion  of  French  fur- 
niture has  come  in  lately,  with  a  rush,  and  the  nabobs 
are  selling  out  from  sideboard  to  broom,  and  furnish- 
ing anew  a  la  Francaise,  from  skylight  to  basement. 
By  a  year  from  this  time  there  will  be  more  houses  in 
New  York  above  a  certain  cost  and  up  to  a  marquis's 
taste  and  wants,  than  either  in  Paris  or  London. 
(And  this  estimate  is  not  extravagant,  for  only  "  the 
few"  abroad  spend  money  as"//je  many"  do  here.) 
There  is  a  drygoods  retailer  in  Broadway, -who  has  a 
house  furnished  as  sumptuously,  and  in  as  good  taste, 
as  the  most  extravagant  nobleman's  house  in  London. 
The  thing  is  done  very  simply.  The  dimensions  of 
the  house,  and  an  accurate  description  of  the  way  it  is 
|  lighted  and  arranged,  are  sent  out  to  the  first  uphol- 
sterers of  Paris — men  who  are  artists  in  their  way, 
and  who  have  furnished  for  royalty  and  rank  all  over 
Europe.  Carte  hlanche  as  to  expense,  and  out  comes 
your  "  interior,"  complete,  lustrous,  and  as  good  as 
his  majesty's— wanting  only  (really  only)  the  society 
suitable  to  enjoy  it — which  is  like  (something  like)  a 
very  fine  play  without  a  symptom  of  an  audience. 

So  marked  is  this  change  of  taste,  and  the  new 
school  of  furnishing,  that  the  oldest  and  most  wealthy 
of  the  cabinet  warehouse-men  in  this  city  has  com- 
pletely abandoned  the  making  of  English  furniture. 
He  has  sold  out  an  immense  stock  of  high-priced  arti- 
cles at  auction,  and  sent  to  France  for  models  and 
workmen  to  start  new  with  the  popular  taste.  It  is  a 
great  chance,  by  the  way,  to  establish  the  European 
fashion  of  hotels  garnis  for  strangers— giving  them  the 
temporary  hire  of  houses  ready  furnished,  by  the 
week  or  month— their  meals  sent  to  them  from  a  res- 
taurateur. Such  investments  bring  large  profits  ;  and 
the  convenience  of  the  custom,  to  families  goming 
from  the  south  or  west,  and  wishing  for  greater  priva- 
cy and  more  room  than  they  can  get  at  a  hotel,  is  very 
great.    So  may  good  come  out  of  an  extravagant  loily. 

The  Antique  Cabinet.— Whether  it  is  a  perverse 
pleasure  in  seeing  costly  things  out  of  place,  or  an 
aversion  we  have  to  new  things  (except  new  thoughts, 


692 


EPHEMERA. 


new  toothpicks,  and  new  ladies'  gear),  or  the  natural 
love  for  miscellany  common  to  all  mankind — whether 
it  is  for  one  of  these  reasons,  or  for  a  lit  tie  of  each — 
we  are  in  the  habit  of  bestowing  the  loose  ends  of  our 
idleness  upon  the  warehouses  of  second-hand  furniture. 
Nothing  grows  upon  a  man  like  a  habit  of  choice 
between  such  entertainment  and  any  society  merely 
tolerable — the  preference  given,  of  course,  to  the 
shabby  but  more  suggestive  damask  and  mahogany. 
Ah,  the  variety  of  things  people  sell  to  get  money ! 
What  curious  places  shops  are,  where  they  will  buy 
anything  that  is  "sacrificed!"  How  entertaining  to 
mousle  about  among  old  portraits,  broken  ornaments, 
miniatures  soiled  by  wearing  in  the  bosom,  unstrung 
harps,  battered  statuary,  and  furniture  that  has  kept 
proud  company!  How  curious-minded  must  become 
at  last  these  dealers  in  nothing  with  a  gloss  on!  How 
exactly  they  must  know  the  duration  and  value  of 
fashionable  newness  !  How  well  they  must  under- 
stand the  pitiless  transit  from  ornament  to  lumber — 
how  well  the  sudden  chill  of  the  money-test  to  arti- 
cles valued,  till  then,  only  by  affection  !  But  we  can 
not  afford  a  digression  here. 

Resting  our  umbrella  on  the  steps  to  a  high  bed 
the  other  day,  and  our  chin  on  our  umbrella  (a 
posture  taken  for  the  leisurely  perusal  of  a  crowded 
corner  of  an  old  furniture  shop),  we  began  to  pick  out 
from  the  mass,  an  outline  of  an  old  cabinet  secretary. 
Now  we  have  been  that  degree  of  vagabond,  that  we 
have  to  confess  having  fairly  topped  our  meridian  with- 
out the  knowledge  of  more  luxury  in  writing-tools  than 
any  table,  any  pen,  and  any  conceivable  vagary  of  ink- 
holder.  It  is  true,  that  while  travelling  we  got  ac- 
customed to  fastening  the  other  end  of  our  thought- 
string  to  an  old  black  trunk — a  companion  to  our 
hithering  and  thithering  for  seven  long  years — and,  by 
dint  of  habit  in  many  a  far  country,  we  could  ill  write, 
at  last,  where  that  old  portmanteau  was  not  ready  to 
receive  our  eyes  as  they  came  off  the  paper.  But,  in 
reforming  our  baggage  for  matrimony,  the  old  trunk 
was  degraded  to  a  packing-box,  and  at  present  it 
peacefully  reposes,  smelling  of  quinces,  and  holding 
the  modest  Sunday-clothes  of  our  farmer's  dame  at 
Glenmary.  Save  and  since  this,  our  travelled  and 
"  picked  pen  of  countries"  has  been  without  appanage 
or  equipage,  wearing  all  its  honors  upon  its  bare 
plume  of  service,  and,  like  a  brave  and  uncomplaining 
soldier,  scorning  to  claim  the  dignities  which  should 
have  been  plucked  down  by  its  deservings.  Well — 
well !  "  the  whirligig  of  time  !"  "  Pen  !"  we  mentally 
ejaculated,  as  we  made  out  the  odd  corners  and 
queer  angles  of  the  antique  cabinet — "  thy  proper 
honors  are  in  flower!  Thou  shalt  do  thy  work  in 
luxury  after  this!  What  pigeon-holes  can  do  to 
make  thee  comfortable — what  drawers,  what  slits, 
what  niches  and  nooks — is  as  good  as  done!  Rise 
to-morrow  rich  and  glorious!" 

We  had  the  advantage  to  be  favorably  known  to  the 
furniture-dealer.  He  was  a  man  who  rejoiced  in  our 
promotions.  We  bought  the  old  secretary  without 
chaffer,  "  at  the  lowest  figure,"  and  requested  that  it 
might  be  dug  out  from  its  unsold  neighbors,  and  sent 
home,  not  too  vigorously  dusted.  Here  it  is.  We 
are  writing  upon  its  broad  let-down  leaf,  and  our  pen 
struts  like  a  knight  wearing  for  the  first  hour  his  well- 
earned  spurs.     It  is  an  old  chamberer — the  secretary 

— brown-black  mahogany,  inlaid  with  sandal-wood 

and  has  held  money,  and  seen  frowns  and  smiles.  In 
its  experience  (for  which  we  would  give  a  trifle)  we 
ourself  are  but  a  circumstance.  The  hand  that  first 
wrote  at  it  is  cold  ;  and,  for  the  hands  that  are  to 
write  at  it  hereafter,  nature  may  not  yet  have  sorted 
out  the  nails.  Our  own  hand  will  give  over  its  cun- 
ning and  turn  to  ashes,  meantime.  One  man's  life 
and  using  are  but  of  the  duration  of  a  coat  of  varnish, 
to  this  old  cabinet's  apprehension.     Ah  "  we  !" 


"By  the  pricking  of  our  thumbs,"  the  brigadier  is 
mounting  the  stairs.  Since  the  possession  of  our 
first  operative  luxury,  we  have  taken  a  disgust  to  the 
cloister— conceiting  that  the  smell  of  soap,  from  the 
lavendering  in  the  back  yard,  gave  a  stain  to  such 
flowers  of  imagination  as  were  born  there.  The  brig- 
adier says  we  grow  superfine.  Soit!  It  is  time — 
after  "  taking  it  as  it  comes"  for  so  many  years.  Be- 
sides, we  must  have  something  to  set  off  against  his 
epaulettes  !  Glory  in  your  staff,  dear  brigadier,  but 
leave  us  our  cabinet ! 

Brigadier — (entering  out  of  breath). — Paff !  paff! 
How  the  breath  of  life  flutters  with  this  vicinity  to 
heaven!  Paff!  paff! — prophetic  nature!  How  are 
you,  my  dear  upster? 

Committee. — You  see  the  ink  wet  in  my  pen — I  was 
just  about  to  dash  into  a  critique.  That  straw-colored 
volume  of  poems,  by  Mrs.  Lewis,  shows  feather? 
from  Pegasus;  though,  as  usual  with  lady-poems, 
without  any  parings  from  the  hoof — any  trace  of  that 
part  of  the  old  steed  that  touches  earth.  It  takes 
wrongs  and  sufferings — like  those  of  Mrs  Norton, 
L.  E.  L.,  and  Mrs.  Hemans — to  compound  a  poetess 
of  any  reality  and  strength.  Soil,  that,  if  torn  up  with 
a  ploughshare,  may  yield  the  heavy  grain  of  anguish, 
will  yield  nothing  but  daisies  and  white  clover,  lying 
undisturbed  in  the  sunshine.  Yet  this  same  white 
clover  is  very  sweet  grazing,  and  Mrs.  Lewis's  is  a  very 
sweet  book.  May  she  never  write  a  better  one — by 
having  suffered  enough  to  "qualify!" 

Brigadier. — Amen  !  I  say,  my  boy,  what  a  clever 
thing  Inman  is  making  of  his  magazine  !  The  May 
number  is  beautiful.  What  a  good  pick  he  has 
among  the  magazine-writers ! 

Committee. — Excellent — but  he  uses  himself  up 
with  making  his  correspondents  work,  and  sets  too 
little  value  on  his  own  writings.  He  wants  a  sub.  for 
drudgery.  He  could,  with  his  strong  fabric  of  good 
sense  (which  is  genius),  and  his  excellent  critical  pow- 
ers, make  all  the  rest  of  the  "  Columbian"  subser- 
vient to  his  own  articles. 

Brigadier. — Tell  him  so. 

Committee. — Will  he  stand  it — as  your  firm  ally  ? 

Brigadier. — Bless  your  soul,  he  has  told  you  many 
a  plainer  thing  in  print. 

Committee. — Has  he  ?     Here  goes,  then  : — 

"  For  Jove's  right  hand,  with  thunder  cast  from  sky, 
Takes  open  vengeance  oft  for  secret  ill." 

But  now  we  think  of  it,  you  are  bound  to  be  particu- 
larly good-natured,  my  dear  brigadier.  With  what 
enthusiasm  they  received  your  song  the  other  night 
at  the  Tabernacle — "  The  Pastor's  Daughter !" 
That,  and  "  Boatman  haste,"  and  "  Cheerly  o'er  the 
mountains,"  are  three  songs,  that,  skilfully  built,  as 
they  are,  upon  three  of  our  most  exquisite  national 
melodies,  and  intrinsically  beautiful  in  words  and  mu- 
sic, will  be  classics.  A  twill  has  published  them  charm- 
ingly, too.  What  lots  of  money  you  ought  to  make 
out  of  these  universalities  ! 

Brigadier. — My  dear  boy,  stop  praising  me  at  a  ju- 
dicious place — for  praise,  like  "  heat,  hath  three  de- 
grees :  first,  it  indurateth  or  maketh  strong;  next, 
it  maketh  fragile ;  and  lastly,  it  doth  encinerate  or 
calcinate,  or  crumble  to  pieces." 

Committee. — Subtle  tactician  !  How  you  have  cor- 
rupted my  rural  simplicity!  Mff — mff — mff!  I 
think  I  sniff  mint !  The  wind  sets  this  way  from 
Windust's.  How  it  exhausts  the  juices  to  talk  pleas- 
antly with  a  friend  ;  and,  by-the-way,  soft  crabs  are  in 
the  market.  What  say  to  a  dish  of  water-cresses, 
and  such  other  things  as  may  suggest  themselves — 
we  two — over  the  way  !  We  are  in  too  good  humor 
to  dine  in  public  to-day.  We  should  seem  to  lack 
modesty,  with  this  look  of  exultation  on  our  faces. 

Brigadier. — To  dinner,  with  all  my  heart — for  the 


EPHEMERA. 


693 


Mirror  lias  an  appetite — the  philosopher's  tranquil 
appetite — idem  contemptui  el  admirationi  habitus. 

Committee. — I  go  to  shave  off  this  working  face, 
my  dear  general  !  Please  amuse  yourself  with  my 
warm  pen.  Our  correspondents,  "  Y."  and  "  E.  K." 
— two  "  treasures  trove,"  if  such  periodical  ever  had — 
should  be  gracefully  and  gratefully  thanked.  Do  it 
while  f  am  gone,  with  your  usual  suaviter. 

[Brigadier  writes.] 


I  gave  in  to  a  friend's  proposition  to  "  poke  about," 
lately,  one  afternoon,  and,  by  dint  of  turning  every 
corner  that  we  had  never  turned  before,  we  zigzagged 
ourselves  into  a  somewhat  better  acquaintance  with 
the  Valley  of  Poverty  lying  between  Broadway  and 
the  Bowery.  On  our  descent  we  stopped  at  the  Tombs, 
making,  however  (as  many  do),  rather  an  unsatisfacto-  I 
ry  visit.  We  lacked  an  Old  Mortality  to  decipher  the  j 
names  and  quality  of  the  tenants.  It  is  a  gloomy  ac-  j 
cess  to  Justice,  up  the  dark  flight  of  steps  frowned  over 
by  these  Egyptian  pillars  ;  and  the  resolute-looking 
constables,  and  the  anxious-looking  witnesses  and 
prisoners'  friends  who  lean  and  group  at  the  bases  of 
the  columns,  or  pace  up  and  down  the  stony  pave- 
ment, show,  with  gloomy  certainty,  that  this  is  not  the 
dwelling  of  "  I^ope,  with  eyes  so  fair."  We  turned 
out  of  the  dark  portico  into  the  police  court — a  dingy 
apartment  with  the  dust  on  the  floor — not  like  other 
unswept  apartments,  but  ground  into  circles  of  fine 
powder  by  hurried  and  twisting  footprints.  No  culprit 
was  before  the  court,  and  the  judge's  terrors  were  laid 
on  the  desk  with  his  spectacles.  We  looked  about  in 
vain  for  anything  note-worthy.  Even  the  dignity  of 
"  the  presence"  was  unrecognised  by  us,  for  (not  be- 
ing in  the  habit  of  uncovering  where  there  is  neither 
carpet,  lady,  nor  sign  of  holy  cross)  we  were  obliged 
to  be  notified  by  the  "  hats  off,  gentlemen,"  of  the  one 
other  person  in  the  room — apparently  a  constable  on 
duty. 

A  side  door  led  us  downward  to  the  watch-house, 
which  occupies  the  basement  of  the  Egyptian  struc- 
ture. It  is  on  a  level  with  the  street,  and  hither  are 
brought  newly-caught  culprits,  disturbers  of  the  peace, 
and,  indeed  (so  easy  is  disgrace),  anybody  accused  by 
anybody  !  It  is  not  an  uncommon  shape  of  malice 
(so  the  officer  told  us  in  answer  to  my  query)  for  the 
aggressor  in  a  quarrel  to  give  the  sufferer  in  charge 
to  the  watchman  and  have  him  locked  up  !  The 
prisoner  is  discharged,  of  course,  the  next  morning, 
the  complainant  not  appearing,  to  prosecute ;  but 
passing  a  night  in  a  cell,  even  on  false  accusation,  is 
an  infliction  which  might  fall  with  some  weight  on  an 
honest  man,  and  the  power  to  inflict  it  should  not  be 
quite  so  accessible — "  thinks  I  to  myself."  (I  made 
a  mental  promise  to  get  better  information  on  the  sub- 
ject of  arrests,  and  generally  on  the  subject  of  the  draw- 
ing of  the  first  line  between  "  ourselves"  and  the 
guilty.  With  Miss  Lucy  Long's  privilege,  I  shall 
duly  produce  what  I  can  gather.) 

On  application  at  the  door  of  the  prisons,  we  were 
informed  nonchalantly  (and  figuratively,  I  presume) 
that  it  was  "all  open,"  and  so  indeed  it  seemed,  for 
there  was  no  unlocking,  though  probably  the  hinges 
would  have  somehow  proved  reluctant  had  a  prisoner 
tried  the  swing  of  them.  We  walked  in  to  the  prison- 
yard  unattended,  and  came  first  to  the  kitchens.  A 
very  handsome  woman,  indeed,  was  singing  and  washing 
at  a  tub,  and  up  and  down,  on  either  side  of  the  large 
boilers,  promenaded  a  half-dozen  men  in  couples — 
sailors  and  loafers,  "  in  for  a  month,"  as  we  were  after- 
ward informed.  They  looked  as  happy  as  such  men 
do  elsewhere,  I  thought,  and  wearing  no  prison-dress, 
they  seemed  very  little  like  prisoners.  It  is  consider- 
ed quite  a  privilege,  by  the  way,  to  be  employed  in 
the  kitchen. 


The  inner  prison-door  looked  more  like  one's  idea 
of  a  "  Tolbooth,"  and  by  it  we  gained  the  interior  of 
the  Tombs.  Gadsby's  Hotel  at  Washington  is  a  very 
correct  model  of  it,  on  a  somewhat  large  scale.  The 
cells  all  open  upon  a  quadrangle,  and  around  each  of 
the  four  stories  runs  a  light  gallery.  In  the  place  of 
Gadsby's  fountain  is  a  stove  and  the  turnkey's  desk, 
and,  just  as  we  entered,  one  of  the  prisoners  was  cook- 
ing his  mess  at  the  fire  with  quite  an  air  of  comfort 
and  satisfaction.  It  chanced  to  be  the  time  of  day 
when  the  cell-doors  are  thrown  open,  and  the  tenants 
were  mostly  outside,  hanging  over  the  railings,  smo- 
king, chatting  with  each  other  and  the  keepers,  and 
apparently  not  at  all  disturbed  at  being  looked  at. 
Saunders,  the  absconding  clerk,  whose  forgery  made 
so  much  noise  not  long  ago,  was  pointed  out  to  us, 
and  a  more  innocent-looking  fair-haired  mother's  boy 
you  could  scarce  pick  out  of  a  freshman  class.  He 
has  grown  fat  in  the  Tombs.  His  accomplice,  Raget, 
the  Frenchman,  is  not  much  older,  but  he  looked 
rather  more  capable  of  a  clever  bad  trick,  and  French- 
man-like, he  preserved,  even  in  prison,  the  dandy  air, 
and  wore  his  velvet  dressing-cap  with  as  jaunty  an  air 
of  assurance  as  if  just  risen  to  an  honest  man's  break- 
fast. He  is  handsome,  and  his  wife  still  voluntarily 
shares  his  cell.  A  very  worthy-looking  old  gentle- 
man leaned  at  his  cell-door,  a  celebrated  passer  of 
counterfeit  money;  and  a  most  sanctimonious  and 
theological-student-looking  young  man  was  pacing 
one  of  the  galleries,  and  he  had  been  rather  a  success- 
ful swindler.  Truly  "  looks  is  nuffin,"  as  Sam.  Weller 
was  shrewd  enough  to  discover. 

We  looked  into  one  or  two  of  the  cells.  To  a  man 
who  has  ever  suited  his  wants  to  the  size  of  a  ship's 
state-room,  they  are  very  comfortable  lodgings,  and 
probably  a  sailor  would  think  quarters  in  the  Tombs 
altogether  luxurious.  Punishment  of  this  kind  must 
be  very  unequal,  until  it  is  meted  out  by  what  a  man 
has  been  used  to.  (Till  then,  at  least,  it  is  better  not 
to  steal  !)  Two  or  three  of  the  cells  were  carpeted 
and  decked  with  pictures,  and  the  walls  of  one  I  look- 
ed into  were  covered  with  drawings.  Friends  are 
permitted,  of  course,  to  bring  to  prisoners  any  luxuries 
except  liberty  ;  and  on  the  small  shelf  of  another  cell 
we  saw  a  pyramid  of  giugerbread — the  occupant,  prob- 
ably, still  a  youth. 

We  passed  over  to  the  female  prison.  The  cell- 
doors  were  all  open  as  in  the  other  wards.  But  here 
were  strong  symptoms  that,  however  "it  is  not  good 
for  man  to  be  alone,"  it  is  much  more  unpalatable  to 
woman.  A  poor  girl  who  had  just  been  brought  in, 
and  was  about  to  be  locked  up,  was  pleading  piteously 
with  the  keeper  not  to  be  shut  up  alone.  Seven  others 
who  had  just  been  sentenced  and  were  "  waiting  for 
their  carriage"  to  go  to  Sing-Sing,  sat  around  the 
stove  in  the  passage,  and  a  villanous-looking  set  they 
were.  It  is  a  pity  women  ever  sin.  They  look  so 
much  worse  than  we — (probably  from  falling  so  much 
farther) — and  degradation  in  dress  is  so  markedly  un- 
becoming !  Most  of  the  female  cells  were  double- 
bedded,  1  observed;  and  in  one,  whicli  was  very  nice- 
ly furnished,  stood  a  tall  and  well-dressed,  but  ill- 
favored  woman,  who  gave  back  our  look  of  curiosity 
with  a  ferocious  scowl.  It  struck  me  as  curious,  that, 
out  of  nineteen  or  twenty  women  whom  we  saw  in  the 
Tombs,  two  thirds  had  scratched  faces! 

One  of  the  police-officers  joined  us  in  the  latter  part 
of  our  rounds,  but  too  late  for  the  thorough  inquiries 
I  wished  to  make;  and  promising  myself  another  visit 
to  the  Tombs,  accompanied  by  some  one  in  authority, 
I  made  my  envied  and  unobstructed  exit. 


It  was  a  sunny  spring  afternoon,  the  kind  of  weather 
in  which,  before  all  other  blessings,  to  thank  God  for 


694 


EPHEMERA. 


liberty.  With  a  simultaneous  expression  of  this 
feeling  as  we  cleared  the  prison  steps,  my  friend  and 
I  crossed  the  rail-track  which  forms  the  limit  of  the 
New  York  Alsatia,  and  were  presently  in  the  heart 
of  the  Five  Points — very  much  in  the  same  "  circle" 
of  society  as  we  had  just  left,  the  difference  probably 
consisting  in  scarce  more  than  cleanly  restraint  with- 
out want,  and  dirty  liberty  with  it.  Luckily  for  the 
wretched,  the  open  air  is  very  nearly  as  pleasant  for 
half  the  year  as  the  inside  of  a  millionaire's  palace,  and 
the  sunshine  is  kept  bright  and  the  sky  clear,  and  the 
wind  kept  in  motion — alike  for  the  pauper  setting  on 
his  wooden  door-step  and  the  rich  man  on  the  silk 
ottoman  in  his  window.  Possibly,  too,  there  is  not 
much  difference  in  the  linings  of  their  content,  and  if 
so,  the  nominal  value  of  the  distinctions  between  rich 
and  poor  should  be  somewhat  modified.  At  the  Five 
Points,  to  all  appearance,  nobody  goes  in  doors  except 
to  eat  and  sleep.  The  streets  swarm  with  men,  wo- 
men, and  children,  sitting  down.  The  negro-girls  with 
their  bandanna  turbans,  the  vicious  with  their  gay- 
colored  allures,  the  sailors  tired  of  pleasures  ashore, 
the  various  "  minions  of  the  moon"  drowsing  the  day 
away — they  are  all  out  in  the  sun,  idling,  jesting, 
quarrelling,  everything  but  weeping,  or  sighing,  or 
complaining.  The  street  is  dirty,  but  no  offence  to 
their  nostrils  !  The  police  officers  are  at  the  watch- 
house  door,  always  on  the  alert,  but  (probably  from 
possessing  little  imagination)  the  culprits  of  to-morrow 
have  no  apprehension  till  apprehended.  A  viler  place 
than  the  Five  Points  by  daylight  you  could  not  find, 
yet  to  the  superficial  eye,  it  is  the  merriest  quarter  of 
New  York.  I  am  inclined  to  think  Care  is  a  gentle- 
man, and  frequents  good  society  chiefly.  There  is 
no  print  of  his  crow's-foot  about  the  eyes  of  these  out- 
casts. Who  knows  how  much  happiness  there  is  in 
nothing  to  dread — the  downfall  well  over  ? 

We  strolled  slowly  around  the  triangular  area  which 
is  the  lungs  of  the  Five  Points,  and,  spoken  to  by 
some  one  in  every  group  we  passed,  escaped  without 
anything  like  a  rudeness  offered  to  us.  The  lower 
story  of  every  second  house  is  a  bar-room,  and  every 
bench  in  them  had  a  sleeper  upon  it.  There  are 
some  houses  in  this  quarter  that  have  been  pretentious 
in  their  day,  large  brick  buildings  with  expensive  cor- 
nice and  mouldings — one  particularly  at  the  corner  of 
the  famous  "  Murdering  Alley,"  which  would  bring 
a  six-hundred-dollar  rent,  "borne  like  Loretto's 
chapel  through  the  air"  to  a  more  reputable  neighbor- 
hood. 

We  wound  our  way  into  the  German  quarter,  which 
occupies  the  acclivity  between  the  Five  Points  and 
the  Bowery;  but  as  I  wish  to  connect,  with  a  descrip- 
tion of  this,  some  notices  of  the  habits  and  resorts  of 
foreigners  generally  in  New  York,  I  shall  drop  the 
reader  at  the  corner. 


It  is  right  and  wholesome  that  anew  country  should 
be  the  paradise  of  the  working-classes,  and  that  ours  is 
so  may  be  seen  very  readily.  A  wealthy  merchant, 
whose  family  is  about  leaving  the  city,  sold  out  his 
household  furniture  last  week,  and  among  other  very 
expensive  articles,  a  magnificent  piano.  It  was  bid 
off  at  a  very  fair  price,  and  the  purchaser  turned  out 
to  be  the  carman  usually  employed  at  the  merchant's 
warehouse!  He  bought  it  for  his  daughters.  The 
profits  of  this  industrious  man's  horse  and  cart  were 
stated  by  this  gentleman  to  approach  three  thousand 
dollars  a  year ! 


A  drygoods  palace  is  now  going  up  in  Broadway, 
which  will  probably  exceed  in  splendor  even  the  cele- 


brated shops  which  are  the  prominent  features  of 
London  and  Paris.  "  Stuart"  is  the  projecter,  and 
when  it  is  completed,  he  will  leave  the  low-browed 
and  dingy  long-room  in  which  he  has  amassed  a 
fortune,  and  start  fresh  in  this  magnificent  "  bezes- 
tein."  Extending  back  to  a  great  depth,  the  new 
structure  is  to  open  by  a  right  angle  on  another 
street,  giving  the  facility  of  two  entrances.  "Shop- 
ping" is  to  be  invested  with  architectural  glories — 
as  if  its  Circean  cup  was  not  already  sufficiently 
seductive  ! 

Even  this  chrysalis-burst  of  Stuart's,  however,  is  a 
j  less  forcible  exponent  of  the  warrant  for  the  importa- 
tion of  luxuries,  than  the  brilliant  curiosity  shop  of 
Tiffany  and  Young.  No  need  to  go  to  Paris  now 
for  any  indulgence  of  taste,  any  vagary  of  fancy.  It 
is  as  well  worth  an  artist's  while  as  a  purchaser's, 
however,  to  make  the  round  of  this  museum  of  luxu- 
ries. The  models  of  most  of  these  fancy  articles  have 
been  the  perfected  work  approached  with  slow  degrees, 
even  by  genius.  Those  faultless  vases,  in  which  not 
a  hair  line  is  astray  from  just  proportion,  are  not  the 
chance  work  of  a  potter  !  Those  intricate  bronzes 
were  high  achievements.,  of  art !  Those  mignon  gems 
of  statuary  are  copies  of  the  most  inspired  dreams  and 
revelations  of  human  beauty  !  The  arts  are  all  there 
— their  best  triumphs  mocked  in  luxurious  trifles. 
Poetry  is  there,  in  the  quaint  and  lovely  conception 
of  keepsakes  and  ornaments.  Even  refinements  upon 
rural  simplicity  are  there,  in  the  simple  and  elegant 
basket  furniture  of  Germany.  The  mechanic  arts  are 
still  more  tributary  in  the  exquisite  enamel  of  port- 
folios, the  contrivance  of  marvellous  trinkets,  the  fine 
carving  and  high  finish  of  the  smithery  of  precious 
metals.  And  then,  nowhere  such  trim  shape  and 
dainty  color  in  gloves — nowhere  such  choice  dandy 
appointments  in  the  way  of  chains  and  canes — nowhere 
such  mollifiers  of  the  hearts  of  sweethearts  in  the  way 
of  presents  of  innumerable  qualities,  kinds,  values,  and 
devices.  I  think  that  shop  at  the  corner  of  Broadway 
and  Warren  is  the  most  curious  and  visit-worthy  spot 
in  New  York — money  in  your  pocket  or  no  money. 
And — (left  out  of  ourenumeration) — these  enterprising 
luxurifers  have  lately  opened  a  second  story,  where 
they  show  such  chairs  and  work-tables  as  are  last  in- 
vented— things  in  their  way  gorgeous  and  unsurpassa- 
ble. If  the  gods  have  any  design  of  making  me  rich, 
I  wish  it  might  be  done  before  Tiffany  and  Young 
get  too  old  to  be  my  caterers. 


The  theatrical  astronomers  have  been  mucli  inter- 
ested in  the  birth  of  a  new  star — lovely  Mrs.  Hunt  of 
the  Park — who  has  suddenly  found  her  sphere  and 
commenced  shining  brilliantly  in  a  range  of  characters 
seemingly  written  for  the  express  purpose  of  develop- 
ing her  talent.  Her  arch,  half-saucy,  and  yet  natural 
and  earnest  personation  of  Fortunio  has  "taken  the 
town."  She  had  made  the  success  also  of  a  very  in- 
different piece — a  poor  transfer  of  the  celebrated 
Gamin  de  Paris — in  which  she  played  the  character 
of  a  young  rascal  with  a  very  good  heart.  The  in- 
creasing applause  with  which  Mrs.  Hunt  is  nightly 
greeted,  after  having  had  her  light  so  long  "  hidden 
under  the  bushel"  of  a  stock  actress,  must  be  a  high 
gratification  to  "  Strong-back,"  her  husband.  Indeed, 
his  undisguised  enjoyment  of  her  clever  acting  (as  he 
plays  with  her  in  Fortunio),  is  as  "  good  as  a  play" 
and  much  more  edifying.     Success  to  her,  pray  I! 


The  Cabinet. — With  difficult  and  analytical  de 
liberation,  we  have,  at  last,  duly  distributed,  to  the 
slits,   pigeon-holes,  drawers,  and  cavities  of  our  an- 


EPHEMERA. 


695 


tique  cabinet,  their  several  and  appropriate  offices  and 
functions.  It  was  a  discipline  of  our  talent  at  strategy, 
was  this  job  of  office-giving— for,  to  confess  a  weak- 
ness, we  have  become  superstitious  touching  this  ven- 
erable piece  of  furniture.  It  seems  to  us  haunted ! 
We  have  harbored  it,  now,  some  three  weeks,  and 
have  attempted  with  it,  in  that  time,  certain  liberties 
of  arrangement  which  have  been  mysteriously  cross- 
purposed.  Nothing  about  it  would  stay  arranged. 
We  put  our  approved  contributions  into  one  pigeon- 
hole, and  our  doubtfuls  into  another,  our  to-he- noticed 
into  the  upright  slits,  and  our  damned  into  the  hori- 
zontal. We  had  a  topic-drawer,  and  a  drawenafor 
memoranda — an  oblivion-hole  and  a  cave  of  ridicule. 
We  committed  the  proper  documents  to  each,  and 
thanking  Heaven  for  a  tried  secretary,  commenced  our 
tranquil  reign.  A  week  had  not  glided  by,  before  all 
was  in  confusion.  Every  hole  seemed  to  have  kicked 
out  its  tenant.  The  "  approved"  had  scrambled  in 
with  the  "doubtfuls,"  and  the  "damned"  into  the 
"  noticed-hole,"  and  "  things  to  be  written  about," 
"  things  to  be  laughed  at,"  and  "  things  to  be  forgot- 
ten," had  changed  places  with  marvellous  and  deci- 
sive celerity!  We  tried  to  restore  order,  but  the  con- 
fusion increased.  Nothing  would  stay  put.  It  was 
manifestly  a  Tyler  cabinet — the  doomed  victim  of  dis- 
arrangement. 

How  order  has  been  restored — by  what  spirit-fin- 
gers our  labels  have  been  changed — what  intimations 
as  to  the  occupancy  of  each  particular  pigeon-hole 
we  have  been  compelled  to  regard — is  more  than  a 
cabinet  secret.  We  have  had  (to  make  a  confession) 
enough  of  telling  ghost-stories.  We  have  been  called 
on  by  all  manner  of  men  and  women  for  our  facts  as 
to  the  only  glimpse  into  the  spirit-world  which  we 
ever  described.  It  has  cost  us  any  quantity  of  brass 
(in  the  wear  of  our  knocker)  to  satisfy  curiosity  on 
that  subject.  Enough  that  our  pigeon-holes  are  la- 
belled with  supernatural  certainty.  Our  contributors, 
now,  will  go  to  their  appointed  niche  by  a  selective 
destiny  of  which  the  responsibility  is  not  ours.  The 
rejecteds  will  be  kind  enough  to  note  this,  and  curse 
the  cabinet — not  us!  If  their  manuscripts  lodge  in 
the  upright  slits  of  the  "  damned,"  it  is  because  the 
"  accepted"  would  not  hold,  keep,  or  harbor  them. 
We  wash  our  hands. 

Our  first  three  pulls  from  the  topic-drawers  are  let- 
ters of  complaint  against  postmasters  for  the  postage 
on  the  Mirror.  According  to  the  interpretation  of  the 
law  by  some  village  postmasters,  the  government  may 
charge  more  for  carrying  the  light  weight  of  the  Mir- 
ror than  we  for  editing,  printing,  embellishing,  and 
wrapping  it!  The  dunce  in  the  Charlestown  post- 
office  has  compelled  our  subscribers  to  have  their  pa- 
pers sent  to  Boston,  the  nearest  office  presided  over 
by  a  gentleman.  Another  pig's  head  has  control  of 
the  Dedham  office,  and  by-the-way,  we  clipped  from 
a  Dedham  paper,  the  following  results  of  his  readings 
of  the  postage  law  : — 

Tweedledum.— The  postage  at  the  Dedham  office 
for  the  New  World  newspaper  of  32  pages,  is  "  one 
and  4-8ths  of  a  cent." 

Tweedledee. — The  postage  for  the  New  Mirror 
newspaper  of  16  pages,  smaller  in  size,  with  a  plate,  is 
"3  and  12-16ths,  or  twenty -four  thirty-twoths  of  a 
cent .'" 

Tweedledum  second.— The  postage  of  a  New  Mir- 
ror extra,  of  32  pages  of  smaller  size,  is  five  cents  ! 

There  are  one  or  two  offices  in  the  interior  of  this 
state  where  the  postage  on  a  single  copy  of  the  Mir- 
ror has  been  charged  fifteen  cents — of  course  leaving 
it  unredeemed  in  the  office  for  the  postmaster's  use — 
as  he  expected ! 

Now,  pray  (we  ask  of  our  friend  the  town-pump), 
what  is  the  use  of  the  much-vaunted  blessing  of 
•  cheap  literature,"  if  the   government,  or  its   petty 


officials,  are  to  stand  between  the  publishers  and  the 
people,  making  it  dear  by  charging  as  much  as  its 
whole  value  for  carrying  it !  Ought  the  government 
to  favor  the  circulation  of  intelligence  or  not?  Is  it 
proper  to  put  the  7>wst  oppressive,  or  the  least  oppres- 
sive construction,  on  all  cases  which  affect  the  spread 
of  art  and  literature  ?  //  is  a  fact,  that  revenue  suffi- 
cient has  been  received  at  the  port  of  New  York  in 
the  last  two  months  to  pay  the  whole  expenses  of  the 
government  of  the  United  States  for  one  year.  (So 
we  were  authentically  informed  yesterday.)  But,  if 
government  must  have  more  revenue,  should  not  liter- 
ature (we  scarce  have  patience  to  ask  it)  be  the  last 
thing  taxed  ?  Should  not  luxuries,  vanities,  goods 
and  chattels,  be  levied  upon,  to  the  crack  of  endurance, 
for  the  support  of  authority,  before  one  ray  of  light  is 
stopped  on  its  way  to  the  public  mind — stopped  to  be 
converted  into  a  perquisite  for  the  pocket  of  a  petty 
despot  ?  Of  the  postmasters  in  the  larger  cities  there 
is  no  complaint.  They  are  generally  enlightened 
men.  Mr.  Graham  here— Mr.  Green  in  Boston- 
throw  no  obstacles  in  the  way  of  literature.  On  the 
contrary,  they  do  all  in  their  power  to  promote  and  to 
facilitate  it.  It  is  the  petty,  ignorant,  peppercorn  post- 
master of  a  small  village,  who,  clothed  with  a  little 
brief  authority,  and  knowing  that  his  oppressions 
leaves  the  disputed  article  in  his  hands,  reads  the  law 
perversely,  and  at  last  shuts  his  whole  neighborhood 
against  everything  but  newspapers  ! 

It  is  rather  a  reproach  to  a  country  whose  boast  and 
whose  reliance  for  the  perpetuity  of  its  free  institu- 
tions is  the  superior  intelligence  of  its  population,  that 
monarchical  countries  (England  and  France)  should 
J  be  before  us  in  the  reduction  of  taxes  on  the  convey- 
ance of  intelligence.  It  has  struck  us  as  extraordi- 
I  nary,  too,  that  in  the  revising  of  postage  laws,  the  in- 
crease of  facilities  for  carrying  the  mails  should  not 
have  suggested  a  reduction  of  postage!  But  at  any 
rate — leaving  the  laws  as  oppressive  as  they  are— we 
call  upon  on  enlightened  statesman  like  Mr.  Wick- 
liffe  to  insist  upon  the  most  lenient  and  most  favorable 
interpretation  of  them — instead  of  having  his  admin- 
istration of  the  department  distinguished,  as  it  has 
been  and  is,  for  more  postoffice  oppressions  than  were 
ever  known  before.  The  postage  on  the  Mirror,  lor 
one  instance — never  before  charged  higher  than  the 
newspapers  which  it  scarce  equals  in  weight— now 
varies  (in  some  of  the  country  postoffices)  from  five 
to  fifteen  cents— -a  gross  "  sliding-scale"  of  oppression 
which  must  put  a  stop  to  our  enterprise,  if  persevered 
in,  or  cause  us  to  give  up  cover  and  embellishment, 
and  circulate  only  the  newspaper  sheet,  suited  to  the 
petty  letter  of  the  law  !  The  great  majority  of  post- 
masters, however,  we  are  happy  to  add,  charge  mere 
newspaper  postage  for  the  Mirror,  "  as  the  law"  (prop- 
erly understood)  "  directs." 

Our  favorite  adversary  of  the  American  finds  pala- 
table fault  with  us  for  not  appending  Leigh  Hunt's 
name  to  such  good  things  as  we  have  copied  from  him. 
Why  should  we  ?  We  do  not  claim  them  as  origi- 
nal, nor  are  they  leaded,  as  original  contributions  are 
wont  to  be.  The  original  object  of  giving  the  author  s 
name  is  lost  (we  conceive)  at  the  distance  ot  this 
country  from  England.  Leigh  Hunt  collects  and 
publishes  in  volumes  all  he  writes,  and  his  good  things 
are  well  labelled  and  guarded  in  his  own  country. 
Neither  his  fame,  his  profit,  nor  his  consequence  (the 
three  ends  he  aims  at),  could  be  affected  by  adding  his 
name  to  what  we  occasionally  take  from  him.  Be- 
8ides-<a>-taMcally  considered-the  English  steal 
our  articles  by  the  down,  and  no  only  leave  out  our 
name  but  appropriate  them,  by  other  initials,  as  their 
own  They  have  at  this  moment  a  cheap  edition  of 
our  poems  in  the  press  without  our  leave  or  license 
and  we  have  helped  swell  most  of  the  collections  of 
English  poetry,  with  no  clue  left  for  posterity  to  dis- 


696 


EPHEMERA. 


cover  that  the  author  had  also  the  honor  of  the 
''  American's"  frequent  notice.  Besides  again,  there 
is  a  precedent  in  nature.  The  rice-birds  of  the  south 
are  the  bobolinks  of  the  north — losing  their  name  and 
copyright  altogether  by  emigration.  But  now,  having 
defended  our  castle,  we  would  fain  express  our  pleas- 
ure at  the  tone  and  quality  of  the  "American's" 
fault-findings,  invariably  done  in  good  taste,  and  con- 
fined always  within  legitimate  critical  bounds.  This, 
which  in  a  Utopia,  would  be  like  praising  water  for 
running  down  hill,  is  great  praise  in  an  unmitigated 
republic.  Fault  found  with  our  writings,  without  a 
smutch  on  ourself,  is  "  a  thing  to  thank  God  on" — as 
things  go.  In  the  same  breath  let  us  laud  the  Boston 
Atlas,  who  says  of  us,  with  something  between  a 
pickle  and  a  sweetmeat,  that  "  he  has  one  fault — he 
caters  for  his  readers  as  for  himself,  and  novelty  or 
eccentricity  of  expression  sometimes  usurps  the  place 
which  should  only  be  accorded  to  thoughts  of  real 
value."     We  kiss  the  rod. 

(Enter  the  Brigadier.) 

Brigadier. — My  dear  boy,  what  could  have  pos- 
sessed you  to  get  up  so  early  ?  Ten  o'clock,  and  the 
last  page  all  written,  and  not  a  subject  touched,  I'll 
wager  a  julep,  out  of  forty  that  were  indispensable  ! 
Have  you  said  no  word  of  the  "  Mirror  Library  ?" 

Cabinet. — Supererogatory,  brigadier!  Why  add 
perfume  to  the  violet  !  Our  selections  for  the  Library 
are  appreciated — they  sell  !  They  advertise  them- 
selves.    They  breathe  sweetness. 

Brigadier. — Like  the  lady's  breath,  which  made  all 
men  exclaim,  "  Hereof  be  scent-bags  made!"  Eh, 
my  boy  ? 

Cabinet. — The  "  Rubric  of  Love" — that  bundle  of  all 
the  delicious  things  ever  written  on  the  exciting  sub- 
ject of  love — what  but  its  very  name  and  purpose  is 
wanting  to  make  that  universal  ?  Everybody,  whose 
lease  of  love  is  not  quite  run  out,  must  have  a  copy 
of  it! 

Brigadier. — They  must!  they  must !  It  is  a  book, 
charming  and  cheap  at  any  price.     But — 

Cabinet.— I'll  stave  oft'  your  "  but"  with  a  passage 
from  Milton's  Comus,  for  I'll  talk  of  work  no  more. 
Did  you  know  that  the  julep  was  to  Milton  what  gin 
was  to  Byron  ?     Listen! —  « 

"  And  first  behold  this  cordial  julep  here, 
With  spirits  of  balm  and  fragrant  syrups  mixed  ! 
Not  that  Nepenthe  which  the  wife  of  Thone 
In  Egypt  gave  to  Jove-born  Helena, 
Is  of  such  power  to  stir  up  joy  as  this, 
To  life  so  friendly,  or  so  cool  to  thirst  !" 

Let  us  to  this  "  Nepenthe" — for  we  thirst  with 
Milton. 


It  would  probably  flabbergast  most  barn-door  fowl 
to  be  asked  the  meaning  of  eccalobeon,  though,  call  it 
the  hatching  of  eggs,  and  they  would  laugh  at  being 
acquainted  with  anything  else.  This  big  word  has 
mystified  the  posts  and  corners  for  a  fortnight,  and 
yesterday  my  curiosity  came  to  a  head.  I  looked  at 
the  bottom  of  the  placard  to  see  where  the  Eccalobeon 
was  to  be  exhibited,  and  soon  found  myself  at  a  small 
boy,  keeping  door  opposite  Washington  Hall.  (The 
lad  was  so  small  and  pale,  by  the  way,  that  I  thought 
it  warrantable  to  inquire  whether  he  was  produced  by 
eccalobeon.  It  appeared  that  he  was  not.  He  had  a 
regular  mother,  who  "  knew  he  was  out.") 

The  chirruping  of  chickens  saluted  our  ears  as  we 
opened  the  door,  and  we  observed  that  a  corner  of  the 
room  was  picketed  off,  where  a  dozen  or  two  of  these 
pseudo-orphans  (who  had  lost  their  mother  by  not  j 
having  been  suffered  to  have  one),  were  pecking  at  ! 
gravel  and  evidently  doing  well.  Very  good  manners,  i 
for  chickens,  though,  as  the  man  in  the  menagerie  i 


says,  "  where  they  got  them  'mity  knows."  It  began 
to  look  very  much  as  if  mothers  were  a  superfluity. 

The  centre  of  the  room  was  occupied  by  the  artifi- 
cial mother — a  square  brick  structure,  containing 
ovens  in  which  lay  the  eggs  in  different  stages  of  prog- 
ress. Pieces  of  carpet  were  suspended  before  the 
openings,  and,  on  raising  them  and  putting  in  the 
hand,  the  temperature  within  seemed  to  be  at  about 
blood-heat.  The  keeper  took  out  an  egg  that  was 
about  to  enter  upon  its  new  destiny  of  skewer  and 
gravy.  The  chicken  had  been  twenty  days  on  the 
road  from  spoon-victual  land,  and  its  little  beak  was 
jusf.  hardened  sufficiently  to  prick  a  hole  into  the 
world  in  which  it  was  to  be  eaten.  It  lay  in  a  heap, 
rather  confusedly  packed,  its  thigh  bone  close  at  its 
beak  (apparently  ready  to  be  used  as  a  fulcrum  in  pry- 
ing the  crack  open),  and  its  downy  fealhers,  wet  and 
forlorn,  just  lifted  by  respiration.  This  premature 
removal  of  the  shell,  however,  the  man  said,  would  be 
fatal.  The  destiny  of  that  little  well-contrived  heart, 
as  far  as  this  world  was  concerned,  was  to  furnish 
material  fortius  sigh  and  paragraph! 

In  dishes  upon  the  table  were  eggs,  without  shells, 
in  all  the  different  stages  of  formation.  In  some  the 
veins  were  just  reddening,  and  the  vessels  filling  around 
the  heart,  and  in  one,  just  opened,  the  newly-formed 
heart,  a  red  globule  of  the  size  of  a  pin's  head,  was 
playing  backward  and  forward,  like  a  shuttle  in  a 
miniature  loom.  With  a  glass,  every  phase  of  the 
process  of  chicken-making  could  be  distinctly  seen. 
The  yolk,  I  was  surprised  to  learn,  does  not  contribute 
to  the  material  of  the  body — the  most  valuable  portion 
of  its  existence,  as  an  egg,  being,  therefore,  of  no  value 
to  it  in  its  after-life  of  chicken !  The  provision  is 
certainly  a  wise  one  by  which  winged  creatures,  that 
could  not  well  fly  if  gravid  like  other  animals,  are 
provided  with  a  removable  womb  in  the  shape  of  an 
egg,  so  that  their  parturition  can  be  carried  on  outside 
the  body,  and  their  buoyancy  of  locomotion  is  not  in- 
terfered with.  The  comparison  between  the  incuba- 
tion of  fowls  and  human  gestation  immediately  suggests 
itself,  and  the  superior  convenience  of  the  former  to 
the  shape-destroying,  beauty-marring,  and  painful  ma- 
ternity of  our  race,  seems  a  blessing  to  be  envied,  at 
least  by  the  beautiful.  How  long  might  women  con- 
tinue ornamental,  and  to  what  age  would  their  person- 
al loveliness  be  undiminished,  if  the  care  and  suffering 
of  maternity  could  be  delegated  to  a  brick  oven  ! 


I  am  inclined  to  think  it  is  not  peculiar  to  myself 
to  have  a  sabbath  taste  for  the  water-side.  There  is 
an  affinity,  felt  I  think  by  man  and  boy,  between  the 
stillness  of  the  day  and  the  audible  hush  of  boundaries 
to  water.  Premising  that  it  was  at  first  with  the  turn- 
ed-up  nose  of  conscious  travestie,  I  have  to  confess 
the  finding  of  a  sabbath  ramble,  to  my  mind,  along 
the  river-side  in  New  York — the  first  mile  toward 
Albany  on  the  bank  of  the  Hudson.  Indeed,  if  quiet 
be  the  object,  the  nearer  the  water  the  less  jostled  the 
walk  on  Sunday.  You  would  think,  to  cross  the  city 
anywhere  from  river  to  river,  that  there  was  a  general 
hydrophobia — the  entire  population  crowding  to  the 
high  ridge  of  Broadway,  and  hardly  a  soul  to  be  seen 
on  either  the  East  river  or  the  Hudson.  But,  with  a 
little  thoughtful  frequenting,  those  deserted  river-sides 
become  contemplative  and  pleasant  rambling-places, 
and,  if  some  whim  of  fashion  do  not  make  the  bank 
of  the  Hudson  like  the  Marina  of  Smyrna,  a  fashion- 
able resort,  I  have  my  Sunday  afternoons  provided  for, 
during  the  pigritude  of  city  durance. 

Yesterday  (Sunday)  it  blew  one  of  those  unfolding 
west  winds,  chartered  expressly  to  pull  the  kinks  out 
of  the  belated  leaves — a  breeze  it  was  delightful  to  set 
the  face  to — strong,  genial,  and  inspiriting,  and  smell 


EPHEMERA. 


697 


ing  (in  New  York)  of  the  snubbed  twigs  of  Hoboken. 
The  Battery  looked  very  delightful,  with  the  grass 
laying  its  cheek  to  the  ground,  and  the  trees  all  astir 
and  trinkling,  but  on  Sunday  this  lovely  resort  is  full 
of  smokers  of  bad  cigars — unpleasant  gentlemen  to 
take  the  wind  of.  I  turned  the  corner  with  a  look 
through  the  fence,  and  was  in  comparative  solitude 
the  next  moment. 

The  monarch  of  our  deep  water-streams,  the  gigantic 
"  Massachusetts,"  lay  at  her  wharf,  washed  by  the 
waving  hands  of  the  waters  taking  leave  of  the  Hudson. 
The  river  ends  under  the  prow — or,  as  we  might  say 
with  a  poetic  license,  joins  on,  at  this  point,  to  Ston- 
ington — so  easy  is  the  transit  from  wharf  to  wharf  in 
that  magnificent  conveyance.  From  this  point  up, 
extends  a  line  of  ships,  rubbing  against  the  pier  the 
fearless  noses  that  have  nudged  the  poles  and  the 
tropics,  and  been  breathed  on  by  spice-islands  and  ice- 
bergs— an  array  of  nobly-built  merchantmen,  that, 
with  the  association  of  their  triumphant  and  richly- 
freighted  comings  and  goings,  grows  «pon  my  eye 
with  a  certain  majesty.  It  is  a  broad  street  here,  of 
made  land,  and  the  sidewalks  in  front  of  the  new  stores 
are  lumbered  with  pitch  and  molasses,  flour  and  red 
ochre,  bales,  bags,  and  barrels,  in  unsightly  confusion 
— but  the  wharf-side,  with  its  long  line  of  carved  figure- 
heads, and  bowsprits  projecting  over  the  street,  is  an 
unobstructed  walk — on  Sundays  at  least — and  more 
suggestive  than  many  a  gallery  of  marble  statues. 
The  vessels  that  trade  to  the  North  sea  harbor  here, 
unloading  their  hemp  and  iron;  andthesuperb  French 
packet-ships,  with  their  gilded  prows  ;  and,  leaning 
over  the  gangways  and  tafferails,  the  Swedish  and 
Norwegian  sailors  jabber  away  their  Sunday's  idle 
time  ;  and  the  negro-cooks  lie  and  look  into  the  pud- 
dles, and  altogether  it  is  a  stiangely-mixed  picture — 
Power  reposing  and  Fret  and  Business  gone  from  the 
six-days'  whip  and  chain.  I  sat  down  on  a  short 
hawser-post,  and  conjured  the  spirits  of  ships  around 
me.  They  were  as  communicative  as  would  naturally 
be  expected  in  a  tete-a-tete  when  quite  at  leisure. 
Things  they  had  seen  and  got  wind  of  in  the  Tndian 
seas,  strange  fishes  that  had  tried  the  metal  of  their 
copper  bottoms,  porpoises  they  had  run  over  asleep, 
wrecks  and  skeletons  they  had  thrown  a  shadow  across 
when  under  prosperous  headway — these  and  particu- 
lars of  the  fortunes  they  had  brought  home,  and  the 
passengers  coming  to  look  through  one  more  country 
to  find  happiness,  and  the  terrors  and  dangers,  heart- 
aches and  dreams,  that  had  come  and  gone  with  each 
bill  of  lading — the  talkative  old  bowsprits  told  me  all. 
I  sat  and  watched  the  sun  setting  between  two  out- 
landish-looking vessels,  and,  at  twilight,  turned  to  go 
home,  leaving  the  spars  and  lines  drawn  in  clear  trace- 
ry on  a  sky  as  rosy  and  fading  as  a  poet's  prospects 
at  seventeen. 


Postoffice  Abuses. — "  It  will  none  otherwise  be," 
says  Sir  Thomas  More,  "but  that  some  stumblinge 
blockes  will  always  bee,  by  malicious  folk,  laid  in  good 
people's  way."  Upon  this  text  we  propose  to  preach 
a  little  sermon. 

We  have  given  in  to  the  rage  of  the  day,  which  is 
the  cheapening  of  brain-work,  not  very  willingly  at 
first,  but  heartily  when  our  mind  was  made  up  to  it. 
The  author  is  depreciated,  and  that  is,  perhaps,  not 
well — but  the  public  is  benefited,  and  that  is,  very 
certainly,  good.  Millions  are  touched  by  the  length- 
ened wand  of  literature,  who  were  beyond  its  reach 
till  it  was  eked  out  by  cheapness. 

The  old  Mirror,  at  five  dollars  per  annum,  occasion- 
ally embellished  by  a  plate,  was  considered,  by  the 
successive  postmasters-general  for  twenty  years,  as  a 
popular  good,  which  it  was  well  worth  their  while  to 
favor  and  foster.     It  throve  accordingly.     Had   Mr. 


Wickliffe  been  postmaster-general  when  it  was  started, 
it  would  not  have  lived  a  year  !  With  or  without  its 
plate,  with  or  without  its  cover,  it  went  rigorously  to 
all  parts  of  the  country,  at  newspaper  postage.  No 
village  postmaster  would  have  ventured  to  charge 
more  upon  it;  and  if  one  had  been  pragmatical  enough 
to  twist  the  law  into  a  new  reading  for  that  purpose, 
the  very  first  complaint  would  have  set  it  right,  or  re- 
moved him.  The  editors  had  no  trouble  on  the  sub- 
ject, and  they  went  on,  pioneering  the  way  into  the 
fields  of  art  and  elegant  literature,  and  setting  an  ex- 
ample which  has  been  followed  by  the  large  troop  of 
tasteful  periodicals  now  in  existence,  to  the  no  small 
i  diffusion  of  taste  and  intelligence. 

Literature  began  to  cheapen.     It  was  proposed  to 
l  bring  refinement,   delicate  sentiment,  the   ennobling 
!  love  of  poetry,  and  an  acquaintance  with  heroic  mod- 
els through  song  and  story,  within  reach  of  the  hum- 
|  bier  classes.      New  periodicals  were  started  on   this 
j  basis.     The  old   Minor  was  superseded   by  cheaper 
'  works — works  which,  for  three  dollars,  gave  as  much 
or  more  matter,  but   without  embellishment,  and  of 
|  very  inferior  typography  and  paper.     That  rage  had 
j  its  day.     The  circulation  of  light  literature  was  very 
I  much  enlarged,  and  the  people,  of  all  classes,  became 
interested  in  the  current  writing  of  the  eventful  pres- 
ent hour.     This  sudden  spread  of  taste  (we  may  say 
in  passing)  was  an  ingredient  thrown  into  the  national 
character  which  no  doubt  powerfully  furthered — what 
;  it  seems  Mr.  Wicklifl'e's  sole  mission  to  retard — the 
refinement  and  growing  intelligence  of  the  American 
people. 

But  there  was  one  more  effort  to  be  made.  Com- 
plaints began  to  be  heard  that  these  cheap  publica- 
tions were  inelegant;  that,  sent  forth  damp,  impressed 
and  unembellished,  they  became  smutched  and  grew 
unsightly  and  hurtful  to  the  eyes;  and  that  more 
careful  workmanship  and  better  type  and  paper  were 
desirable.  The  founder  of  the  old  Mirror  took  the 
subject  into  examination  and  study.  He  made  the 
closest  calculations  of  the  cost  of  fair  print  and  em- 
bellishment, and  after  much  thought  and  inquiry,  aid- 
!  ed  by  twenty  years  of  experience  and  success,  he  ma- 
tured the  plan  of  the  present  "New  Mirror."  It 
was  the  plan  of  a  periodical  to  be  suited  to  the  now 
refined  taste  of  the  "greatest  number,"  as  well  as 
i  adapted  to  the  means  of  the  greatest  number,  and  the 
|  uniting  of  these  two  desirable  extremes  brought  its 
I  price  within  a  hair's  breadth  of  its  cost,  and  left  the 
feasibility  of  the  project  dependant  wholly  on  the 
I  chance  of  sailing  at  once,  and  smoothly,  into  an  enor- 
I  mous  circulation.  The  item  of  postage  was  not  over- 
looked— but  as  the  New  Mirror,  cover  and  plate  in- 
cluded, would  scarce  weigh  half  as  much  as  the  Al- 
bion, Spirit  of  the  Times,  and  other  weekly  papers 
which  went  for  newspaper-postage,  and  it  was  no 
heavier  than  the  old  Mirror,  which  went  for  the  same 
postage,  the  subject  was  not  thought  worth  a  doubt. 
Well — the  New  Mirror  made  its  appearance.  A 
type  worthy  of  the  choicest  library,  a  cover  conve- 
!  nient  and  elegant,  a  beautiful  steel  plate,  and  sixteen 
pages  of  matter  edited  with  careful  experience  and 
labor,  were  offered  to  the  public  for  this  same  man- 
ageable price  of  "  three  dollars  a  year !"  The  poor- 
est citizen  need  not  now  be  without  his  fair  share  of 
knowledge  of  the  arts  and  literature.  Nothing  seemed 
to  stand  in  the  way.  The  manifest  high  order  of 
style  and  spirit  in  the  design  of  the  work,  combined 
with  its  accessibility  by  cheapness,  sent  it  abroad  like 
day-rising.  Its  circulation  became,  as  it  well  needed 
to  be,  enormous.  And  now,  you  ask,  what  is  the 
matter  ?  And  we  will  tell  you,  and  we  wish  Mr. 
Wickliffe  to  listen. 

A  gentleman  called  at  our  office  a  week  or  two 
since,"  and  bought  a  copy  or  two  of  the  "  Mirror  Li- 
brary,"  expressing  his  regret  that  it  was  not  conve- 


698 


EPHEMERA. 


nient  for  him  to  take  the  Mirror.  He  lived  in  Ver- 
non. Oneida  county,  New  York,  and  the  postage 
charged  him  by  Mr.  J.  W.  Jenkins,  the  postmaster 
of  that  place,  was  fourteen  cents  on  each  copy — 
bringing  the  cost  of  the  Mirror  up  to  ten  dollars  twen- 
ty-eight cents  a  year!  We  immediately  addressed  a 
letter  to  Mr.  J.  W.  Jenkins,  inquiring  respectfully 
into  the  reason  of  this  exorbitant  charge,  and  that 
letter  Mr.  J.  W.  Jenkins  has  never  answered.  The 
gentleman  assured  us  that  several  persons  of  his  ac- 
quaintance in  Vernon  had  been  deterred  from  subscri- 
bing to  the  Mirror  by  Mr.  J.  W.  Jenkins's  overcharge 
of  postage.  Again  :  we  have  discovered,  in  many  in- 
stances, that  our  subscribers,  after  paying  their  sub- 
scriptions, have  let  their  papers  lie  in  the  postofhee 
rather  than  submit  to  the  extortionate  charge  of  post- 
age, and  the  postmasters  have  never  notified  us  of  the 
fact.  Again  :  the  Mirrors  miscarry,  to  a  degree  that 
shows  more  than  neglect  on  the  part  of  the  postmas- 
ters or  their  subordinates.  The  complaints  and  stop- 
pages for  this  last  reason  are  out  of  all  precedent  and 
proportion.  Again:  the  postage  charged  on  the  New 
Mirror  varies,  as  we  have  said  before,  from  one  cent 
to  fifteen,  in  some  of  the  country  postoffices,  more  or 
less,  according  to  the  whim  or  tyranny  of  the  dull  of- 
ficial. The  postmaster  of  Great  Barrington  is  one 
of  those  pigheaded  dunces,  charging  postage  on  the 
Mirror  sent  to  the  "Berkshire  Courier" — in  direct  vi- 
olation of  the  law  which  exempts  papers  from  postage 
on  exchanges. 

What  is  the  remedy  for  these  abuses  ?  We  have 
complained  to  Mr.  Wickliffe  of  the  irregularity  and 
extortion  in  regard  to  the  postage  on  the  Mirror,  and 
have  received  in  turn  a  letter  of  sesquipedalian  flum- 
mery, the  compounding  of  which  required  the  edu- 
cation of  a  Virginia  politician;  and,  our  letter  once 
answered,  the  abuse  was  probably  never  thought  of 
in  the  department.  Yet  it  was  a  matter  serious 
enough  to  be  worth  Mr.  Wickliffe's  attention.  These 
petty  tyrants  with  their  "little  brief  authority,"  stand 
between  the  public  and  the  supply  for  public  refinement 
and  intelligence.  They  change  the  cost  of  the  cheap- 
est and  most  elegant  publication  of  the  day  from 
$3.52  (postage  and  all)  to  $10.28!  They  strangle 
literary  enterprise  in  the  cradle.  And  for  whose  ad- 
vantage ?  Not  the  government's — for  subscribers  will 
rather  leave  their  Mirrors  in  the  office  than  pay  the  ex- 
tortionate charge.  For  the  benefit  of  the  postmasters 
themselves — who,  by  this  indirect  fraud,  obtain  a  nice 
handful  of  periodicals  weekly,  to  dispose  of  as  one  of 
the  perquisites  of  their  office!  This  is  surely  a  mat- 
ter worth  Mr.  Wickliffe's  while  to  look  after. 

To  the  majority  of  postmasters  we  owe  thanks  rather 
than  reproaches.  '  They  have  rightly  judged  that  the 
spirit  of  the  law  did  not  intend  a  difference  of  two 
cents  between  a  paper  stitched  and  a  paper  not  stitched 
— (a  difference  made  by  some  of  the  Dogberry  post- 
masters). They  feel  justly  that  if  there  is  a  question 
as  to  the  intention  of  a  postage-law,  the  cause  of  in- 
telligence and  literature  is  to  have  the  benefit  of  the 
most  favorable  interpretation.  No  law  can  exactly 
describe  every  periodical  likely  to  be  started.  No 
senate,  in  making  a  law,  intends  to  charge  more  for 
carrying  three  printed  pieces  that  weigh  one  ounce, 
than  one  printed  piece  that  weighs  two  or  three  ounces 
— yet  so,  again,  do  these  petty  Dogberrys  interpret 
the  law. 

There  is  another  point  about  which  we  would  in- 
quire of  the  committee  now  engaged  on  the  revised 
postage-laws.  Why  should  literary  papers  of  the  same 
iveight  be  more  taxed  than  newspapers  ?  Is  the  circu- 
lation of  moral  and  refining  influences  twice  as  tax- 
able as  the  circulation  of  scandal  and  politics,  rapes 
and  murders,  amusements  and  advertisements  ?  Sure- 
ly the  intelligence  that  enlightens  the  community  is 
as  much  contained  in  the  weeklies  and  monthlies  as  in 


the  daily  papers.  Yet  in  the  bill  now  before  the 
house,  the  former  are  taxed  at  twice  the  price  of  the 
latter!  This,  we  suppose,  is  some  of  Mr.  Wickliffe's 
handiwork. 

We  give  up  the  postmaster-general — leave  him  to 
be  bewildered  with  the  technicalities  of  his  office — 
careful  of  the  husks  while  the  grain  sifts  away  from 
him.  We  make  an  appeal  to  the  fountain  of  his  of- 
ficial power — public  opinion!  Let  this  matter  be  un- 
derstood, and  let  every  petty  postmaster  who  plays 
the  tyrant,  or  misuses  his  authority,  be  memorialized 
out  of  office.  The  government  ought  not  to  be  one 
penny  richer  for  carrying  the  mails.  No  revenue 
should  be  derivable  to  the  treasury  from  the  carrying 
of  intelligence.  The  cheapest  postage-rate  possible 
should  be  set  by  law,  and  the  law  should  be  bent  to 
suit  circumstances  in  all  cases  where  the  cost  of  car- 
rying is  not  thereby  made  greater.  Public  opinion 
should  so  instruct  the  public  servant.  The  postmas- 
ter-general, and  the  lesser  postmasters  who  obey  his 
dictum,  should  be  made  to  feel  that  the  least  pretence 
for  extortion  or  oppression  on  their  part,  or  any  want 
of  accommodation  and  liberal  conduct,  would  be 
promptly  punished.  We  write  freely  on  this  subject, 
for  our  enterprise  is  at  stake,  and  we  speak  somewhat, 
too,  for  other  interests  than  our  own.  To  offer  a  pe- 
riodical for  three  dollars  a  year,  that  is  made  to  cost 
ten  by  the  oppression  of  postmasters,  is  to  advertise  a 
misnomer.  Let  the  Wickliffe  dynasty  prevail,  and 
we  shall  be  obliged  to  leave  off  cover,  plate,  and 
stitching,  and  change  the  Mirror  to  a  simple  printed 
sheet,  without  protection  from  wear  and  tear,  and 
without  embellishment  or  capability  of  binding  and 
preservation. 


We  have  always  felt  great  sympathy  for  the  blind. 
We  have  felt  also  great  curiosity  to  know  exactly  how 
much  of  human  knowledge  is  forbidden  to  go  in  at 
the  ear — and  how  much  that  is  turned  aside,  as  inad- 
missible at  that  one  portal,  can  be  smuggled  in  after- 
ward under  the  cloak  of  explanation  and  description. 
The  accounts  of  Laura  Bridgman  interested  us  pro- 
portionably  more  from  her  greater  deprivations.  It 
is  putting  this  curiosity  in  a  much  more  spicy  vein  of 
gratification,  however,  to  know  that  a  poet  is  impris- 
oned in  one  of  these  windowless  temples,  and  to  dis- 
cover how  he  lives  without  light  and  color — as  well 
as  how  much  he  is  the  purer  and  better  from  escaping 
all  that  offends  the  eye,  which,  by-the-way,  is  not  a 
little.  The  poems  of  Miss  Frances  Jane  Crosby, 
a  pupil  of  the  New  York  Institution  for  the  Blind, 
lie  before  us,  and  we  have  read  them  with  great  mod- 
ification of  our  pity  for  the  blind.  Eyes  could  scarce 
do  more. 

No  one  in  reading  the  miscellaneous  poems  oy 
Miss  Crosby  would  suspect  that  she  was  blind.  She 
seems  to  forget  it  herself.  She  talks  of  "  crimson 
teints"  and  "purple  west"  and  "stars  of  mildest  hue," 
with  quite  the  familiarity  of  those  who  see.  But  it 
is  evident  that  her  ear  has  more  than  a  common  share 
of  nicety  and  susceptibility  to  measure,  for  in  no  early 
poems  that  we  remember  is  there  such  smooth  ele- 
gance of  rhythm. 

The  volume  is  composed  principally  of  poems  of 
the  affections,  and  well-expressed,  musical,  and  cred- 
itable to  the  authoress,  are  all  the  pieces.  The  price 
of  such  a  volume  should  be  nominal  merely,  and  the 
kindly-disposed  should  give  for  it  what  their  benevo- 
lence prompts.  We  would  suggest  to  the  publishers 
to  send  it  round  by  agents  with  this  view. 


There  are  things  in  the  world  better  than   poetry 
and  things  written  without  genius  that  more  "stir  th 


EPHEMERA. 


699 


soul  of  it  man  than  would  some  things  ticketed  for 
immortality.  Now  we  do  not  make  sure  that  we  are 
Dot  "weak"  on  the  subject  of  young  children.  We 
always  thought  them  quite  eligible  to  any  possible 
choir  of  cherubim.  But  we  will  venture  to  unmask 
our  foible,  if  foible  it  be,  by  declaring  that  we  have 
read  the  following  downright,  homely,  truthful,  and 
funny  verses — (sent  to  us  by  some  charming  mother) 

read  them  with  delight.     It  is  good  honest  poetry, 

with  a  foothold  to  it,  and  we  should  like  to  see  the 
baby,  since  reading  it : — 


1  She  is  not  a  beauty,  my  sweet  little  pet, 
Her  mouth's  not  a  rosebud,  her  eyes  not  like  jet, 
Her  nose  far  from  Grecian,  her  skin  not  like  snow, 
She  is  not  a  beauty,  dear  me  !  no,  no,  do  ! 
But  then  she  is  winsome,  this  bird  of  my  bower, 
And  she  grows  on  my  heart  every  minute  and  hour. 

1  She  is  not  a  beauty,  my  sweet  little  pet, 
On  dimples  more  witching  my  eyes  have  been  set ; 
Her  mouth,  I  must  tell  you,  is  large  like  mama's, 
While  her  chin,  to-be-sure,  is  just  like  her  papa's  ! 
But  when  she  smiles  trustingly,  what  can  compare 
With  this  gem  of  my  casket,  bright,  sparkling,  and  fair? 

'  She  is  not  a  beauty,  my  sweet  little  pet, 
Far  handsomer  babies  each  day  can  be  met  ; 
Her  brows  are  not  arching— indeed,  they're  too  straight, 
Yet  time  will  work  wonders,  with  patience  I'll  wait. 
But  if  she's  not  handsome,  it  matters  not — no  ! 
This  bud  of  my  bosom  is  pure  as  the  snow. 

'  She  is  not  a  beauty,  my  sweet  little  pet, 
That  her  forehead  is  too  low  I  can  not  forget ; 
No,  no,  she's  not  beautiful  I  must  confess, 
(Between  you  and  I,  would  her  mouth  had  been  less) 
But  she  loves  me  so  dearly,  oh,  how  could  I  part 
With  this  light  of  my  pilgrimage,  joy  of  my  heart,    c.  u." 


We  are  fortunate  in  a  troop  of  admirable  contribu- 
tors who  write  for  love,  not  money — love  being  the 
only  commodity  in  which  we  can  freely  acknowledge 
ourselves  rich.     We  receive,  however,  all  manner  of 
tempting  propositions  from  those  who  wish  to  write 
for  the  other  thing — money — and  it   pains  us  griev- 
ously to  say  "No,"  though,  truth   to  say,  love  gets  II 
for  us  as  good  things  as  money  would  buy — our  read-  j 
era  will  cheerfully  agree.     But,  yesterday,  on  open-  I 
ing  at  the  office  a  most  dainty  epistle,  and  reading  it 
fairly  through,  we  confess  our  pocket  stirred  within  I 
us!      More  at  first  than  afterward — for,  upon  reflec- j 
tion,  we  became  doubtful  whether  the  writer  were  not  j 
old  and   "blue" — it  was  so   exceedingly  well  done!  j 
We  have  half  a  suspicion,  now,  that  it  is  some  sharp 
old  maid  in  spectacles — some  regular  contributor  to  j 
Godey   and   Graham,   who    has  tried   to  inveigle   us  j 
through   our  weak  point — possibly  some  varlet  of  a  ; 
man-scribbler.     But  no  !    it  is  undeniably  feminine. 
Let  us  show  you  the  letter — the  latter  part  of  it,  at  j 
least,  as  it  opens  rather  too  honeyedly  for  print: — 

"You  know  that  the  shops  in  Broadway  are  very  j 
tempting  this  spring.  Sucli  beautiful  things!  Well, 
you  know  (no,  you  don't  know  that,  but  you  can  guess) 
what  a  delightful  thing  it  would  be  to  appear  in  one 
of  those  charming,  head-adorning,  complexion-soften- 
ing, hard-feature-subduing  Neapolitans;  with  a  little 
gossamer  veil  dropping  daintily  on  the  shoulder  of  one 
of  those  exquisite  balzarines,  to  be  seen  any  day  at 
Stewart's  and  elsewhere.  Well,  you  know  (this  you 
must  know)  that  shopkeepers  have  the  impertinence 
to  demand  a  trifling  exchange  for  these  things,  even 
of  a  lady;  and  also  that  some  people  have  a  remark- 
ably small  purse,  and  a  remarkably  small  portion  of 
the  yellow  '  root'  in  that.  And  now,  to  bring  the  mat- 
ter home,  /  am  one  of  that  class.  I  have  the  most 
beautiful  little  purse  in  the  world,  but  it  is  only  kept 
for  show:  I  even  find  myself  under  the  necessity  of 


counterfeiting — that  is,  filling  the  void  with  tissue-pa- 
per in  lieu  of  bank-notes,  preparatory  to  a  shopping 
expedition  ! 

"  Well,  now  to  the  point.  As  'Bel'  and  I  snuggled 
down  on  the  sofa  this  morning,  to  read  the  New  Mir- 
ror (by-the-way,  cousin  'Bel'  is  never  obliged  to  put 
tissue-paper  in  her  purse),  it  struck  us  that  you  would 
be  a  friend  in  need,  and  give  good  counsel  in  this 
emergency.  'Bel',  however,  insisted  on  my  not  tel- 
ling what  I  wanted  the  money  for;  she  even  thought 
that  I  had  better  intimate  orphanage,  extreme  suffer- 
ing from  the  burdens  of  some  speculating  bubble,  ill- 
ness, etc.,  etc. ;  but  did  not  I  know  you  better!  Have 
I  read  the  New  Mirror  so  much  (to  say  nothing  of  the 
graceful  things  coined  'under  a  bridge,'  and  a  thou- 
sand other  pages  flung  from  the  inner  heart),  and  not 
learned  who  has  an  eye  for  everything  pretty?  Not 
so  stupid,  Cousin  'Bel' — no,  no! 

"However,  this  is  not  quite  the  point,  after  all;  but 
here  it  is.  I  have  a  pen — not  a  gold  one  (I  don't 
think  I  could  write  with  that),  but  a  nice  little  feath- 
er-tipped pen,  that  rests  in  the  curve  of  my  fore-finger 
as  contentedly  as  on  its  former  pillow  of  down. 
(Shocking!  how  that  line  did  run  down  hill !  and  this 
almost  as  crooked!  dear  me!)  Then  I  have  little 
messengers  racing  'like  mad'  through  the  galleries  of 
my  head,  spinning  long  yarns,  and  weaving  fabrics 
rich  and  soft  as  the  balzarine  which  I  so  much  covet, 
until  1  shut  my  eyes  and  stop  my  ears  and  whisk  away 
with  the  '  wonderful  lamp'  safely  hidden  in  my  own 
brown  braids.  Then  I  have  Dr.  Johnson's  diction- 
ary— capital  London  edition,  etc.,  etc.;  and,  after  I 
use  up  all  the  words  in  that,  I  will  supply  myself  with 
Webster's  wondrous  quarto,  appendix  and  all.  Thus 
prepared,  think  you  not  I  should  be  able  to  put  some- 
thing in  the  shops  of  the  literary  caterers — something 
that,  for  once  in  my  life,  would  give  me  a  real  errand 
into  Broadway  ?  Maybe  you  of  the  New  Mirror  pay 
for  acceptable  articles — maybe  not.  Comprcnez-vous! 
"O  I  do  hope  that  beautiful  balzarine  like  'Bel's 
will  not  be  gone  before  another  Saturday  !  You  will 
not  forget  to  answer  me  in  the  next  Mirror;  but  pray, 
my  dear  editor,  let  it  be  done  very  cautiously,  for 
'Bel'  would  pout  all  day  if  she  should  know  what  I 
have  written.  Till  Saturday,  your  anxiously-waiting 
friend,  "Fanny." 

Well — we  give  in  !  On  condition  that  you  are  un- 
der twenty-five,  and  that  you  will  wear  a  rose  (recog- 
nisably)  in  your  boddice  the  first  day  you  appear  in 
Broadway  with  the  hat  and  "balzarine,"  we  will  pay 
j  the  bills.  Write  us  thereafter  a  sketch  of  "  'Bel'  "  and 
yourself  as  cleverly  done  as  this  letter,  and  you  may 
"snuggle  down"  on  the  sofa  and  consider  us  paid  and 
the  public  charmed  with  you. 


In  the  days  when  we  were  "possessed"  with  horses, 
and  horse-racing,  we  were  sadly  well-acquainted  with 
a  jockey  who  lost  his  wits  in  the  excitement  of  losing 
a  race.  He  hung  about  race-courses  for  some  years 
after  becoming  an  idiot,  and  by  dint  of  always  denying 
a  horse's  good  qualities  in  the  stable,  and  of  never 
speaking  well  of  one  except  at  the  winning  moment, 
he  contrived  to  preserve,  through  all  his  idiocy,  some 
influence  in  the  judgment  of  horseflesh.  We  have 
been  reminded  of  our  old  friend  Spavin  (call  him 
Spavin  — "m£  mortuis")  by  certain  of  our  critical 
brother  editors,  and  their  very  kindly-intended  (pos- 
sibly) critiques  on  the  Mirror.  Come  a  week  (as  such 
weeks  will  come)  when  our  health  is  queasy,  and  when 
our  spirits  are  gathering  violets  in  dells  where  a  pa- 
ving-stone would  be  stoned  to  death  as  a  monster  (and 
I  there  are  dells  incapable  of  a  paving-stone) — come 
such  a  week,  we  say,  and  let  the  Mirror  go  forth, 
I  without  such  quantity  of  our  own  work  as  strains  our 


700 


EPHEMERA. 


extremest  fibre  to  the  crack,  and  down  comes  this 
vigilant  critic  upon  us  with  a  cry  of  "no  go,"  "  falling 
off,"  "  idle,"  and  "  better  formerly" — disparagements 
that  would  take  the  conceit  out  of  a  church  steeple  ! 
And  why  does  he  do  this  ?  Why  should  we  not  be 
better  at  some  times  than  at  others,  without  being 
criticised  like  a  steam-engine — a  thing  incapable  of 
mood,  humor,  and  caprice  ?  Simply  because  this 
sort  of  critique  is  easy  to  write,  and  so  favors,  in  the 
writer,  the  very  idleness  he  criticises  in  us.  But,  good 
heavens  !  are  we  not  entitled  to  our  worser,  as  well  as 
our  better  moments  !  Shall  we  always  be  at  tiptop 
speed,  and  never  have  freedom  from  disparagement 
except  when  winning  a  race  ? 

We  boldly  lay  claim  to  more  industry  than  rightly 
falls  to  us. as  our  share  of  the  curse  !  Supposing,  for 
the  moment,  that  our  writings  are  better  for  the  Mir- 
ror than  what  takes  their  place  occasionally  (a  flatter- 
ing inference  from  our  critic's  critique),  we  do  more  in 
quantity,  in  the  course  of  the  year,  than  one  editor  in 
a  hundred.  There  is  more  copied  from  the  Mirror 
(we  have  often  had  occasion  to  observe)  than  from  any 
two  periodicals  in  the  country.  The  truth  is,  we  are 
too  famous  for  comfort ! 

"  Oh  mediocrity, 
Thou  priceless  jewel  only  mean  men  have 
But  never  value — like  the  precious  gem 
Found  in  the  muck-hill  by  the  ignorant  cock." 

You  see  what  troubles  us,  dear  reader  ! 


The  flowering  into  glory  of  such  a  century-plant 
of  excellence  as  our  worthy  friend  and  fellow-publish- 
er, James  Harper,  has  in  it,  with  all  our  willing  ac- 
clamation, some  occasional  provocation  to  a  smile. 
The  sudden  call  for  "his  picture" — the  eager  litho- 
graph of  his  fun-bestridden  nose  and  money-making 
spectacles — the  stir  he  has  made  among  the  abuses, 
with  his  Cliff-street  way  of  doing  business,  and  the 
salutary  feel  we  get  of  the  wand  of  power  in  his 
clutch,  while  we  still  see  him  in  his  accustomed 
haunts,  busy  and  unpedestaled  as  before — there  is 
something  in  the  contrast  which  makes  us  say,  with 
Prince  Hal,  "  Ned,  come  out  of  that  fat  room  and 
give  us  thy  hand  to  laugh  a  little,"  though,  with  all 
our  heart,  we  rejoice  in  his  authority.  The  Courier, 
speaking  of  the'  likeness  just  published  of  Mr.  Har- 
per, says :  "  The  new  mayor's  pleasant,  shrewd,  and 
half-quizzical  countenance  is  cleverly  hit  off,  and  he 
is  peering  through  the  official  eye-glasses  in  a  manner 
that  portends  trouble  to  all  municipal  delinquents. 
Let  them  look  to  their  ways,  and  let  all  subordinate 
official  functionaries  look  to  the  streets  ;  for  this  por- 
trait would  convince  us,  even  if  we  were  not  acquaint- 
ed with  the  original,  that  the  chief  magistrate  has  an 
eye  upon  them." 

This  bit  of  speculation  as  a  preface  to  our  lauda- 
mus  of  Mayor  Harper's  administration,  as  felt  particu- 
larly in  two  or  three  abated  nuisances.  The  hack- 
men  are  no  longer  permitted  to  devour  passengers  on 
their  arrival  in  steamboats,  nor  to  make  a  chcvaux-dc- 
frise  of  their  whips  at  the  landing-piers,  but  must  sit 
quietly  on  their  coach-boxes  till  called  for.  The 
omnibus-racing  is  to  be  put  a  stop  to,  we  understand, 
and  that  should  really  be  celebrated  in  an  appropriate 
"northern  refrain.'1''  There  are  two  refrains  more 
that  we  would  suggest  to  our  city  Harper — that  hose- 
boys  should  be  made  to  refrain  from  flooding  the 
sidewalks  under  the  thin  shoes  of  ladies,  and  that  gen- 
tlemen who  must  smoke  in  the  street  should  refrain 
from  the  windward  side  of  ladies,  particularly  those 
who  prefer  air  that  has  not  been  used. 

And  apropos — (it  will  be  seen  that  we  were  born  to 
make  a  world) — we  wish  to  suggest  to  enterprise  an- 
other abatement  of  the  nuisances  of  Broadway.     It  | 


is  desirable  to  reduce  the  number  of  omnibuses  in 
this  great  thoroughfare,  for  many  very  cogent  rea- 
sons— but  as  long  as  they  pay — that  is  to  say,  as  long 
as  the  public  require  them — they  must  even  go  on — 
deafening  promenaders,  and  endangering  private  car- 
riages and  the  lives  of  people  crossing  the  street.  But 
who  that  is  down  town  in  a  summer's  day,  and  wishes 
to  go  anywhere  to  the  western  side  of  the  city,  would 
not  prefer  to  take  a  ferry-boat  (if  there  were  one) 
from  the  foot  of  Maiden  lane  round  the  Battery  to 
Chelsea  ?  How  preferable  the  fresh  air,  and  beautiful 
scenery  of  the  rivers  and  bay,  to  a  crowded  omnibus 
in  hot  weather  !  How  much  more  desirable  would  be 
a  residence  in  Chelsea,  if  there  were  such  a  conveni- 
ence !  The  boats  might  touch  at  the  foot  of  Cort- 
land street  and  the  Battery,  and,  indeed,  extend  their 
course  up  the  East  river  to  the  foot  of  Pike  street — 
plying,  say,  every  ten  minutes,  from  Pike  street  to 
Chelsea,  and  back — rounding  the  Battery,  and  touch- 
ing wherever  it  was  convenient.  Who  would  not  pre- 
fer this  to  omnibussing  ?  Let  this  line  communicate 
with  Stevens's  upper  ferry  to  Hoboken,  and  the  line 
would  be  continuous  from  that  beautiful  spot,  all 
round  the  city.  Qrrtte  aside  from  its  utility,  this 
would  be  one  of  the  prettiest  pleasure  trips  that  could 
be  invented.     Pensez-y,  Messrs.  Stevens. 


If  any  charitable  person  has  an  old  man  or  woman 
whom  he  would  like  to  set  up  in  an  easy  and  profita- 
ble business,  we  have  a  plan  to  suggest.  Give  them 
half  a  dozen  light  chairs,  and  send  them  to  the  Bat- 
tery or  the  Park.  In  all  public  promenades  in  France 
there  are  chairs  to  be  hired  for  two  cents  an  hour,  and 
besides  being  a  good  trade  for  the  lame  and  old,  this 
convenience  is  wanted. 


By  the  way,  where  are  the  good  things,  clever 
couplets,  and  flings  of  wit,  that  used  to  fly  about  at 
the  municipal  elections  ?  Squibs  grow  dull.  Where 
is  that  witty  conservative  whig  who,  when  "  Forest 
and  Liberty"  was  placarded  by  the  democrats,  put  up 
a  rival  bill  of  "  Povey  and  the  Constitution?"  Wit 
and  poetry  (we  might  have  remembered)  seem  to 
have  gone  into  advertisements.  When  people  have 
done  with  "Who  is  Seatsfield  ?"  we  shall  start  a  new 
query — "  Who  is  the  bard  of  Stoppani  ?"  Moore's 
oriental  flow  of  melting  stanza  and  balmy  imagery  is 
quite  paled  in  its  glory  by  Stoppani's  advertisement: — 

'  Will  you  come  to  the  Baths  in  Broadway, 
Where  the  genius  of  luxury  presides, 
And  the  glorious  Croton,  by  night  and  by  day, 
Through  the  conduits  silently  glides  1 

"  The  ceiling  al  fresco,  the  beautiful  bar, 
Rich  drapery,  and  sumptuous  screens, 
The  marble  as  white  as  a  Persian  Cymar, 
The  painting — of  Italy's  scenes,"  etc. 

Mellifluously  musical!     Who  is  the  distinguished  au- 
thor ? 


The  advertisement  of  a  hatter  plausibly  sets  forth 
that  the  Miller  prophecy  being  exploded,  and  the 
world  really  not  coming  to  an  end  (at  least  within  a 
hat's-wear  of  time),  the  prospects  of  the  globe's  con- 
tinuance justifies  the  venture  of  a  new  hat!  We 
think  we  see  a  hat  bought  on  that  hypothesis  ! 


We  are  happy  to  see  that  our  imported  word,  rococo, 
is  coming  into  general  use.     A  critic  in  the  Herald, 


EPHEMERA. 


701 


noticing  the  opera,  says  :  "  This  concert-piece  has 
been  rococo  for  some  time,  and,  like  an  old  maid,  is 
getting,  every  year,  two  years  older."  This  is  a  clever 
critic,  by  the  way,  though  in  the  sentence  we  have 
quoted  he  reminds  us  of  a  bit  of  dialogue  in  an  old 
play  : — 

"  Manes.— Didst  thou  not  find  that  I  did  quip  thee  ? 

pSy. — No,  verily.     What  is  a  quip  1 

Manes. — A  short  saying  of  a  sharp  wit,  with  a  bit- 
ter sense  in  a  sweel  word." 

The  True  Sun  quotes,  with  a  clincher,  from  the 
Buffalo  Commercial,  "  The  common  use  of  the  word 
lady,  instead  of  the  definite  honored  term  wife,  is 
an    atrocious   vulgarism    that   should    be   universally 

scouted."  We  think  the  ladies  should  be  informed  produced  under  the  meridian  of  the  country  it  is  to 
of  the  etymological  meaning  of  the  two  words,  and  supply.  Who  will  pretend  that  any  periodical  in  this 
take  their"choice%fter.  Wife  is  derived  from  the  An-  country  is  edited  with  half  the  ability  of  the  London 
glo-Saxon  word  signifyingto  weave,  and  means  the  j  magazines  and  reviews?  The  leading  intellects  of 
person  who  weaves  for  the  family.  Lady  originally  j  the  age— men  who  in  this  country  would  be  eminent 
meant  a  woman  raised  to  the  rank  of  her  husband —  \\  lawyers  and  pol 


not  from  any  falling  off  in  their  character.  The  Eng- 
lish pictorial  papers  (for  one  example)  have  rather  im- 
proved in  merit,  but  a  publisher  informed  us  a  day  or 
two  since  that  they  do  not  now  sell  ten  where  they 
sold  a  hundred  a  month  or  two  ago.  Such, enter- 
prises used  to  begin  small,  and  grow  into  favor  gradu- 
ally. Now,  the  cornucopia  of  their  prosperity  is  re- 
versed— the  small  end  turned  from  the  publisher. 
Copyrighted  American  books,  and  American  periodi- 
cals, though  dearer  than  reprints,  sell  much  better, 
and  in  our  opinion  the  American  public,  in  three 
months  more,  will  give  a  preference  so  decided  to 
home  literature,  and  home  periodicals,  that,  as  far  as 
protection  to  our  native  authors  is  concerned,  the  in- 
ternational copyright  will  be  useless.  The  truth  is, 
that  literature,  to  be  permanently  popular,  must  be 


from  the  Saxon  word  signifying  elevated.  The  pro- 
priety of  calling  a  man's  better  half  his  lady,  depends, 
of  course,  on  the  fact  whether  she  was  made  more 
respectable  by  the  match;  aud  the  propriety  of  calling 
her  his  wife,  hangs  upon  her  expertness  and  industry 
at  the  loom.     Which  will  the  fair  sex  prefer  ? 


Nkw  Literary  Epoch. — We  have  been,  for  the 
last  year,  not  only  working  among,  but  watching;  "  the 
signs  of  the  times"  in  the  way  of  literature.  We  have 
been  trying,  not  only  to  make  out  a  living,  but  to 
make  out  head  and  tail  to  our  epoch — to  see  what 
way  the  transition  was  tending,  and  when  there  was 
likely  to  be  any  reliable  shape  and  form  to  American 
literature  ;  or  (to  change  the  figure)  whether  the  lit- 
erary boatmen,  who  stand  with  their  barques  hauled 
ashore,  uncertain  of  the  current,  and  employing  them- 
selves meantime  in  other  vocations,  could  be  called 
upon  to  launch  and  dip  their  oars,  sure  at  last  of  tide 
and  channel. 

International  copyright  has  died  a  natural  death. 
There  was  not  a  statesman  in  the  country  who  had  the 
courage  to  take  the  chance  of  making  or  marring  his 
.political  fortunes  by  espousing  the  question.  At  the 
"same  time — palpably  just,  honorable,  and  expedient, 
as  would  be  the  giving  of  copyright  to  English  au- 
thors— there  was  some  excuse  for  shying  the  subject, 
in  the  violent  abuse  that  was  indiscreetly  showered 
upon  us  by  Dickens  and  the  Reviews,  at  the  very 
moment  when  general  public  attention  had  been 
called  to  the  subject,  and  when  there  was  every 
prospect  of  its  turning  the  crisis  favorably.  R  would 
have  taken  the  statesmanship  and  eloquence  of  Clay 
or  Webster  to  have  made  the  discussion  at  all  endura- 
ble to  congress,  and  we  are  quite  sure  that  it  will  be 
ten  years  before  the  public  irritation  against  English 
travellers  and  critics  will  have  sufficiently  abated  to 
tolerate  any  measure  in  their  favor.  Dickens,  and  his 
friend,  the  critic  of  the  Foreign  Quarterly,  therefore, 
have  sanded  their  own  bread  and  butter  in  throwing 
dirt  at  us. 

But  the  great  end  of  international  copyright  is  com- 
ing about  without  the  aid  of  legislation.  The  abuse 
has  been  that  American  authors  were  thrown   out   of 


liticians,  devote  themselves  to  maga- 
i  zine-writing  abroad,  and,  besides,  they  are  a  trained 
:  class  of  professed  authors,  such  as  we  have  no  idea  of 
j  in  America.  Our  contributors  are  men  who  dash  off 
an  article  as  by-play,  and  make  no  investment  of 
thought  or  money  in  it — and  of  course  it  can  not  com- 
pare to  the  carefully-written  and  well-considered  arti- 
cles of  English  weeklies  and  monthlies.  But  look  at 
the  difference  of  circulation.  See  how  periodicals 
languish  that  are  made  up  of  the  cream  of  these  Lon- 
don magazines,  and  see  how  Graham  and  Godey,  In- 
man  of  the  Columbian,  and  ourselves,  quadruple  them 
in  vogue  and  prosperity  !  R  was  to  be  expected— it 
is  the  most  natural  thing  in  the  world — that  America 
should  grow  American,  at  last!  What  more  natural 
than  that  we  should  lire  of  having  our  thinking  done 
in  London,  our  imaginations  fed  only  with  food  tlgit 
is  Londonish,  and  our  matters  of  feeling  illustrated 
and  described  only  by  London  associations,  tropes, 
and  similitudes  ?  This  weariness  of  going  to  so  dis- 
tant a  well  for  better  water,  we  do  say,  is  to  be  relied 
upon  as  a  sign  of  the  literary  times.  The  country  is 
tired  of  being  be-Brilished.  R  wants  its  own  indige- 
nous literature,  and  we  think  we  should  be  safe  to- 
morrow in  issuing  a  replevin  upon  law,  politics,  and 
commerce,  for  the  men  of  genius  draughted  for  their 
employ,  during  the  want  of  a  literary  market.  Give 
up  the  blood  horses  harnessed  into  your  dull  drays, 
oh,  Wall  street  and  Pearl !  Untie  your  fetters  of  red 
tape,  and  let  loose  your  enslaved  poets  and  novelties, 
oh,  Nassau  and  Pine  !  Discharge  Halleck,  oh,  Astor; 
and  give  up  Wetmore,  oh,  crates  of  crockery  !  Lead 
off  with  a  new  novel,  Mr.  Cooper,  and  let  the  public 
give  us  a  five  years'  benefit  of  their  present  disgust 
with  imported  literature,  to  recover  from  the  numb- 
ness of  inaction  and  discouragement.  Give  us  five- 
years  of  the  home  tide  of  sympathy  that  is  now  setting 
westward,  and  we  will  have  an  American  literature 
that  will  for  ever  prevent  the  public  taste  and  patron- 
age from  ebbing  back  again  to  England. 


Things  as  they  come— We  know  of  a  matter  we 
mean  to  write  about,  somewhere  between  this  and  the 
bottom  of  the  next  column— somewhere  within  this 
half-cent's-worth,  that  is  to  say— (this  page  costs  you 
not  quite  half  a  cent,  dear  reader !)— but  we  must 


the  market  by  English  works  that  were  to  be  had  for  ,    —.  M 

nothing— (justice  to  the  English  author,  of  course,  a  haul  out  two  or  three  things  that  lie  a-top  ot  it  in  our 
secondary  consideration).  But  this  abuse  is  losing;  fact-drawer:  (acts  being,  as  everybody  knows,  obstinate 
strength  by  surfeit.  The  publishers  and  periodical  as  nails  in  a  keg,  when  you  want  a  particular  one  iron, 
agents  are  aghast,  at  this  very  moment,  of  the  falling     underneath. 

off  of  interest  in  the  most  attractive  publications.  The  We  have  whims  (this  lies  a-top),  about  the  Jace  of 
zest  for  novelty  has  been  so  pampered,  that  only  the  I  newspaper  type.  There  are  some  most  worthy  and 
first  number  or  two,  of  anything  new,  sells  well.     And  i !  able  periodicals  that  we  could  not  read  our  own  obitua- 


702 


EPHEMERA. 


ry  in,  without  an  effort — the  type  is  so  unexplainably 
anti-pathetic.  Every  editor  who  turns  over  exchange 
papers  will  know  precisely  what  we  mean.  There  is 
no  necessity  for  naming  those  which  we  should  never 
open  if  we  had  them  in  our  pocket  "forty  days  in  the 
wilderness,"  but  we  can,  without  offence,  name  an  op- 
posite example — the  Picayune — which,  from  the 
mere  witchery  of  type,  a  man  would  like  to  take  out 
of  the  postoffice  on  his  way  to  execution.  The  Bos- 
ton Transcript  is  another — (fact  No.  2) — which  we 
fatuitously  read,  and  should  read,  even  if  it  were  edited 
by  that  broken  mustard-spoon,  the  Portland  Thersites. 
The  type  is  captivating — a  kind  of  insinuating,  piquant, 
well-bred  brevier,  that  catches  the  eye  like  a  coquette 
in  a  ball-room.  And  this,  be  it  noted,  spite  of  the 
"  burnt  child's"  prejudice,  for  the  fair  editress  does 
not  always  put  on  her  gloves,  before  taking  a  tweak  at 
our  immortality!  And,  apropos — there  is  an  editor 
"  down  south"  who  sympathises  with  this  typical 
weakness  of  ours — declaring  in  a  late  paper  that  the 
reputation  of  our  letters  to  the  Intelligencer  "  was 
entirely  owing  to  the  large  type  in  which  they  were 
printed."  And  this  we  not  only  believe,  but  if  we 
ever  get  rich,  we  will  "  fork  over  the  swindle"  to  our 
deluded  employers. 

The  reader  will  see  that  we  are  trying  to  apologise 
for  our  dissipation  in  reading — newspapers  being  such 
very  loose  mental  company,  and  we,  as  news-ivriter, 
having,  no  more  business  with  the  luxury  of  news 
written,  than  a  shoemaker  with  wearing  the  patent 
leathers  he  makes  for  his  gentlemen  customers.  But 
we  have  read  an  article  in  the  seductive  type  of  the 
Transcript  which  led  us  to  philosophise  a  little  touch- 
ing a  point  of  contrast  between  Boston  and  New 
York  ;  and  as  we  grew  up  in  Boston,  but  were  dug 
up,  and  trimmed,  and  watered  into  flowering,  in  New 
York,  we  claim  to  know  both  places  well  enough  to 
r*n  a  parallel  with  fairish  fidelity. 

The  article  we  speak  of  was  a  letter,  containing, 
among  other  things,  a  touch-up  of  the  Astor  house  ; 
but  the  Astor  is  so  much  the  best  hotel  in  the  world, 
that  fault-finding,  merited  as  it  may  be,  will  send  no- 
body from  its  door  in  search  of  a  better.  Without 
alluding  farther  to  the  letter,  let  us  jot  down  the  specu- 
lation it  suggested. 

New  York  is  far  more  vicious  than  Boston,  without 
a  doubt.  But  it  is  not  much  more  vicious  than  it  was, 
when  it  was  of  Boston's  size.  We  have  often  wished 
to  preach  a  sermon  to  the  Bostonians  from  1  Corin- 
thians iv.  7:  "For  who  maketh  thee  to  differ  from 
another  ?  And  what  hast  thou,  that  thou  didst  not 
receive?"  Up  to  the  present  time,  the  Puritan  obedi- 
ence to  authority,  and  the  "  power  paramount"  of 
good  principles,  have  never  been  sapped  or  shaken  in 
Boston.  It  is  but  one  community,  with  one  class  of 
leading  prejudices,  and  worked  by  one  familiar  set  of 
moral,  social,  and  political  wires.  The  inhabitants 
are  nearly  all  Americans,  all  church-goers  of  some 
sect  or  other,  implicitly  subject  to  general  and  time- 
honored  principles,  and  as  controllable  by  mayor  and 
aldermen  as  an  omnibus  by  passengers  and  driver. 
Indeed,  the  municipal  history  of  Boston  for  the  last 
twenty  years,  is  a  Utopian  beau-ideal  of  efficiency  and 
order,  which  will  never  herepeated.  The  authoritative 
break-up  of  the  first  formidable  symptom  of  mob- 
ocracy  two  years  ago,  for  example — when  bold  mayor 
Elliott  quietly  took  the /ire-engines  from  their  turbu- 
lent companies,  and  put  them  into  the  hands  of  a  paid 
fire-police — could  never  have  been  done  in  any  other 
city  of  this  country  ;  and  ten  years  hence  (Boston 
continuing  to  increase  and  vitiate),  a  similar  pluck  at 
the  beard  of  mob  license  would  be  a  dangerous  experi- 
ment. 

But  look  at  New  York  in  comparison.  There  are 
at  least  a  hundred  thousand  Irish  in  this  city,  twenty 
thousand    French,    sixty   thousand    Germans,   and   a 


miscellany  of  other  nations,  that  probably  leaves  scarce 
one  fourth  of  the  population  (say  a  hundred  thousand), 
for  indigenous  and  home- spirited  New-  Yorkers.  One 
quarter  too,  of  the  general  population,  is  in  a  condition 
that  is  scarce  known  in  Boston — that  of  desperate  ex- 
tremity of  livelihood,  and  readiness  to  do  anything  for 
the  moment's  relief,  vicious,  turbulent,  or  conspirative. 
The  municipal  government  of  New  York  is,  unfor- 
tunately, in  some  measure,  a  political  tool,  and  com- 
pelled to  shape  its  administration  somewhat  with  a 
view  to  politics.  Harsh  measures,  used  in  Boston 
upon  the  first  germ  or  symptom  of  license,  are  reserved 
in  New  York  for  such  signal  instances  as  are  melo- 
dramatically flagrant — such  as  can  not  be  perverted, 
by  the  party  out  of  power,  into  a  counter-current  of 
sympathy  and  resentment.  What  there  is  now  remain- 
ing of  the  Knickerbocker  influence  in  New  York,  is  the 
degree  in  which  New  York  can  compare  with  Boston 
— and  this  small  remainder  of  the  old  Dutch  character 
is,  as  to  power  and  check,  about  equal  to  what  will  be 
left  of  Puritan  character  in  Boston,  when  Boston,  by 
aid  of  railroads  and  inducements  for  foreign  residence, 
shall  have  four  hundred  thousand  inhabitants.  Look 
at  the  difference  in  the  observance  of  Sunday  in  the 
two  places  !  At  least  twenty  thousand  people  cross 
to  Hoboken  alone,  to  pass  the  sabbath  in  the  fields — 
foreigners,  mostly,  who  have  been  in  the  habit  of 
making  it  a  holyday  at  home.  The  Bostonians  would 
suppress  the  ferry,  without  the  slightest  hesitation  ' 
There  are  four  or  five  Sunday  newspapers  in  New 
York,  and  Boston  will  not  support  one.  There  are 
German  balls  in  various  places  in  this  city,  on  Sunday 
evening ;  and  oyster-shops,  and  bar-rooms,  and  the 
drinking-places,  in  all  directions  in  the  suburbs,  have 
overflowing  custom  on  that  day.  The  governmen* 
of  the  city  is,  of  course,  in  some  degree,  a  reflex  of 
this  large  proportion  of  the  sovereign  voters,  and  when 
public  opinion  countenances  a  degree  of  license,  it  is 
next  to  impossible  to  bring  in  a  city  government  that 
can  control  it.  We  have  not  room  to  follow  out  this 
comparison  in  detail — but  we  wished  to  outline  it,  as 
a  reply  to  the  condemnations  of  New  York  (for  the 
sale  of  vicious  publications,  etc.,  etc.),  made  from 
time  to  time,  by  our  more  virtuous  brethren  in  the 
north.  We  shall  take  another  opportunity  to  enlarge 
upon  it. 


We  have  received  several  truly  delightful  and  grati- 
fying letters  from  eminent  clergymen  of  different  per- 
suasions, thanking  us  for  the  Sacred  Numbers  of  the 
Mirror  Library,  and  sending  us  the  choice  poems 
which  they  had  severally  laid  aside,  to  add  to  another 
collection.  We  had  no  idea  there  was  so  much  beauti- 
ful religious  poetry  in  existence  !  This  rich  vein  of 
literature  has  been  unworked  and  overlooked,  and  we 
assure  the  religious  world,  confidently,  that  we  are 
doing  a  most  important  work  in  the  collection  of  these 
gems  of  piety  and  poetry  in  a  cheap  and  accessible 
form.  '•  Songs  for  the  Sabbath,"  falls  behind 
none  of  them  in  interest,  and  will  be  a  classic  in  re- 
ligious books,  as  long  as  religious  literature  exists. 


We  do  not  know  whether  we  were  particularly  in  a 
mood  to  be  pleased  on  the  night  of  Simpson's  benefit 
at  the  Park,  but  several  things  pleased  us  more  than 
they  seemed  to  please  other  people — the  dancing,  for 
example,  both  of  Korponat,  and  of  Desjardins. 
(Of  the  acting  we  do  not  speak,  and  by-the-way,  we 
may  as  well  say,  here,  that  the  stage  is  so  much  bet- 
ter kept  in  hand  by  the  theatrical  critic  of  the  Albion 
than  we  could  possibly  do  it,  that  we  generally  shie 
that  part  of  criticism,  from  a  sort  of  consciousness 
that  it  will  be  done  for  the  public  by  abler  hands.  We 


EPHEMERA. 


703 


love  good   criticism,   and  we  love  "  honor  to  whom  ; 
honor   is  duo.")     We  did  not  see   Korponay  at  his  j 
debut  at  Palmo's — but  a  friend  pronounced  his  dan- 
cing  a  failure.     As  an  attempt  at  anything  in  Vestris's  j 
line,  it  certainly  was  a  failure.     But   that  is  not  the 
dish  to  which  the  well-made  Pole  invites  us.     He  is, 
among    dancers,    what   olives   are   at   a   feast — "  bad  i 
pickles"  to  the  vulgar,   but   artful    appetisers  to  the  \ 
refined.     Korponay  seemed  to  us  like  a  symmetrical  | 
and  dashing  nobleman,  doing  gracefully  a  difficult  and  j 
grotesque  dance  for  the  amusement  and  admiration  of  j 
a  court — leaning  as  far  away  as  possible  from  the  airs 
of  a  professed  dancer,  and  intent  only  on  showing  the  ■ 
superb  proportion  of  his  figure  and  the  subtle  com-  i 
mand  over  his  limbs.     His  face  expressed  exactly  this  || 
role  of  performance.     It  was  full  of  mock  solemnity 
and   high-bred  assurance.      He  seemed   to  us  exactly 
the  sort  of  noble  masquer  that,  at  a  Venetian  festival 
of  old  time,  would  have  "topped  the  jaunty  part,"  and 
carried  away  the  flower,  the  ladies'  favor. 

But  the  untrumpeted  deservings  of  Monsieur  Kor- 
ponay are  less  surprising  than  the  want  of  apprecia- 
tion of  Mademoiselle  Desjardins.  We  never  saw  her 
before,  though  she  has  been  dancing  in  town  for  some 
time,  and,  considering  how  easily  most  any  hook  and 
line  of  public  amusement  catches  us,  it  is  very  plain 
that  the  bait  has  not  been  skilfully  angled.  In  the 
first  place,  as  to  qualifications,  we  never  have  seen,  in 
all  our  travels  from  Niagara  to  the  Black  sea  (the  two 
poles  of  our  "inky  orbit"),  so  well-bridged  an  instep, 
and  so  Dianesque  a  pair  of  serviceable  ankles.  She 
should  have  stood  to  John  of  Bologna  for  his  poised 
Mercury !  There  is  not  a  woman's  heart  better 
mounted,  we  venture  to  say,  between  Ontario  and  the 
Euxine.  And  she  uses  these  communicators  with 
earth  deftly  and  Ariel-wise!  We  only  saw  her  in  the 
Polacca,  which  is  a  kind  of  attitudinizing  dance,  and 
possibly,  better  suited  to  her  abilities  than  a  more  dif- 
ficult pas.  But  she  walked  and  acted  it  with  spirit  I 
and  grace  enough  to  be  charming,  and  though  she  is  j 
not  to  be  named  with  Ellsler,  she  is  enough  of  a  dan- 
seuse.  in  Ellsler's  absence,  to  give  one's  eyes  their 
night's  rations  very  satisfactorily.      Underrated  she  is  ! 


We  see,  by  one  of  the  careful  and  elaborate  reports 
of  the  Republic,  that  the  Mercantile  Library  Associ- 
ation have  had  a  report  from  a  despair-committee,  on 
the  subject  of  the  decline  of  lectures.  Eloquence 
don't  pay  for  the  candle,  it  seems.  This  excellent 
association,  however,  shrinks  the  wrong  way  from  the 
plague  they  have  had  with  it.  The  taste  for  eloquence 
is  no  more  dead  or  torpid  in  New  York  than  the  love 
of  war  or  the  relish  for  lions.  While  people  have 
brains  and  hearts  they  will  love  a  true  orator.  But 
they  are  tired  (and  reasonably  enough)  of  the  bald  and 
ungamislied  style  in  which  oratory  is  served  up  to 
them.  To  go  moping  into  the  dark  and  silent  Taber- 
nacle— the  gas  economized  till  the  rise  of  the  orator, 
and  a  deathly  and  gloomy  silence  maintained  for  an 
hour  (more  or  less)  before  the  commencement  of  the 
lecture — to  have  the  orator's  first  opening  addressed 
to  chilled,  oppressed,  and  unelevated  minds,  and  all 
this  in  a  house  of  such  structure,  that  unless  seated 
clear  of  the  pent-house  galleries,  the  hearer  loses 
everything  but  the  emphatic  words  in  a  sentence — to 
sit  an  hour  amid  these  disadvantages,  and  then  hear  a 
chance  speaker,  for  whom  they  are  not  prepared  by 
any  previous  information  except  the  name  of  his  sub- 

iect — this,  we  say,  is  indeed  "  lenten  entertainment." 
t  is  making  of  eloquence  what  the  ascetic  makes  of 
religion — a  dry  crust  instead  of  a  relishing  loaf.  No, 
no!  Religion  should  be  adorned  with  its  proper  and 
consistent  graces,  as  woman  should  be  beautifully 
attired;  and  eloquence  has  its  natural  ornaments  and 


accompaniments  as  well.  See  how  eloquence  was 
made  a  pleasure  in  the  gardens  of  the  academy  of 
Athens!  Instead  of  treating  our  orators  as  we  do  the 
fountain  in  the  Park  (giving  them  a  broad  margin  of 
bare  ground),  we  should  surround  their  oratory  with 
tributary  ornament.  The  audiences  noiv,  at  lectures, 
are  that  passionless  and  abstract  portion  of  the  com- 
munity that  can  stand  anything  in  the  shape  of  an  in- 
tellectual bore — the  Grahamites  of  amusement.  But 
give  us  orators  on  popular  subjects,  at  Palmo's,  with 
dress  circle,  bright  lights,  opera-music,  scenery,  and 
interludes  for  conversation  and  change  of  place,  and 
eloquence,  from  being  a  jewel  dulled  with  the  dirt  of  a 
mine,  will  be  a  gem  in  the  fit  setting  of  a  sparkling 
tiara.  This  would  be,  beside,  a  kind  of  premium 
upon  eloquence,  that  would  foster  it  into  a  national 
I  excellence.  There  are  men  at  the  bar,  in  the  press, 
land  iu  business,  who  have  the  "  volcano  of  burning 
!  words"  within  them,  and  would  make  eloquence  a 
study,  were  it  a  source  of  renown  and  profit.  What 
say  to  a  new  niche  for  oratory,  oh,  amiable  public  ! 
Let  us  get  a  new  screw  upon  public  feeling,  to  use 
with  effect  when  we  have  patriotism  to  arouse,  or 
abuses  to  overthrow — passions  to  awake  for  good  pur- 
poses. Let  us  have  a  power  at  the  public  car  that  will 
be  a  check-balance  to  newspapers,  that  have  a  monop- 
oly of  the  jmblic  eye.  Let  music,  oratory,  and  paint- 
ing, combine  in  a  tripod  to  support  each  other — a  fine 
orchestra,  a  glowing  oration,  and  beautiful  scenery — 
and  we  shall  have  public  amusement  in  which  the 
serious  classes  will  join  with  the  gay,  and  in  which 
instruction  shall  be  dressed,  as  it  always  may  be,  and 
should  be,  with  captivating  flowers. 

And  while  we  have  this  thread  in  our  loom,  let  us 
express  the  delight  with  which  we  listened,  not  long 
since,  to  oratory  in  a  silk  gown — an  oration  on  con- 
tempt, that  was  linked  naturally  enough  to  a  text  and 
a  pulpit,  but  which  would  have  been  a  noble  piece  of 
intellectual  oratory  in  a  public  hall  or  theatre.  The 
orator  was  Rev.  Henrt  Giles,  and  the  sermon  was 
delivered  in  a  place  that  is  used  to  eloquence— the 
pulpit  of  Mr.  Dewey.  There  were  passages  in  this 
discourse  that  were  worked  up,  both  in  fervor  of  lan- 
guage and  concentrated  fire  of  delivery,  to  a  pitch 
that  we  should  call  truly  Demosthenian.  Mr.  Giles 
is  a  natural  orator— a  man  of  expanded  generalizing 
powers.  It  is  a  treat  to  hear  him,  such  as  would  not 
be  second  in  interest  to  any  dramatic  entertainment, 
and  properly  combined  with  other  things  as  agreeable 
to  the  taste,  there  would  be  an  attraction  in  such  ora- 
tory that  would  draw  better  than  a  play.  We  really 
wish  that  some  "  manager"  would  undertake  the  get- 
ting up  of  the  scenery  and  musical  accessories  to  ora- 
tory, and  let  secular  eloquence  take  leave  of  the  pul- 
pit where  it  does  not  properly  belong,  and  come  into 
a  field  more  natural  to  its  aims  and  uses. 


We  had  a  June  May,  and  a  May  June,  and  the  brick 
world  of  Manhattan  has  not,  as  yet,  become  too  hot  to 
hold  us.  This  is  to  be  our  first  experiment  at  pas- 
sing the  entire  summer  in  the  city,  and  we  had  laid  up 
a  few  alleviations  which  have  as  yet  kept  the  shelf, 
with  our  white  hat,  uncalled  for  by  any  great  rise  in 
the  thermometer.  There  is  no  knowing,  however, 
when  we  shall  hear  from  Texas  and  the  warm  "girdle 
round  the  earth"  (the  equator— no  reference  to 
English  dominion),  and  our  advice  to  the  stayers  in 
town  may  be  called  for  by  a  south  wind  before  it  is 
fairly  printed.  First-owr  substitute  for  a  private  yacht. 
Not  having  twenty  thousand  dollars  to  defray  our 
aquatic  tendencies-having,  on  the  contrary  an  occa- 
sional spare  shilling— we  take  our  moonlight  trip  on 
the  river— dividing  ihe  cool  breezes,  'twixt  shore  and 
shore— in  the  Jersey  ferry-boat.    Smile  those  who  have 


704 


EPHEMERA. 


private  yachts  !  We  know  no  pleasanter  trip,  after 
the  dusk  of  the  evening,  than  to  stroll  down  to  the 
ferry,  haul  a  bench  to  the  bow  of  the  ferry-boat, 
and  "  open  up"  the  evening  breeze  for  two  miles  and 
back,  for  a  shilling !  After  eight  o'clock,  there  are, 
on  an  average,  ten  people  in  the  boat,  and  you  have 
the  cool  shoulder  under  the  railing  as  nearly  as  possi- 
ble to  yourself.  The  long  line  of  lamps  on  either 
shore  makes  a  gold  flounce  to  the  "  starry  skirt  of 
heaven" — the  air  is  as  pure  as  the  rich  man  has  it  in 
his  grounds,  and  all  the  money  in  the  world  could  not 
mend  the  outside  of  your  head,  as  far  as  the  horizon. 
(And  the  horizon,  at  such  place  and  hour,  becomes  a 
substitute  for  the  small  hoop  you  have  stepped  out  of.) 
No  man  is  richer  than  we,  or  could  be  better  off — till 
we  reach  the  Jersey  shore — and  we  are  as  rich  going 
back.  Try  this,  of  a  hot  evening,  all  who  prefer 
coolness  and  have  a  mind  that  is  good  company. 

Then,  there  is  our  substitute  for  an  airing.  There 
is  a  succession  of  coaches,  lined  with  red  velvet,  that, 
in  the  slope  of  the  afternoon,  ply,  nearly  empty,  the 
whole  length  of  Broadway — two  or  three  miles,  at  an 
easy  pace,  for  sixpence.  We  have  had  vehicles,  or 
friends  who  had  vehicles,  in  most  times  and  places 
that  we  remember,  and  we  crave  our  ride  after  dinner. 
We  need  to  get  away  from  walls  and  ceiling  stuck 
over  with  cares  and  brain-work,  and  to  be  amused 
without  effort — particularly  without  the  effort  of  walk- 
ing or  talking.     So — 

"  Taking  our  hat  in   our   hand,  that  remarkably   requisite 
practice," 

we  step  out  from  our  side  street  to  the  brink  of  Broad- 
way, and  presto,  like  magic,  up  drives  an  empty  coach 
with  two  horses,  red  velvet  lining,  and  windows  open; 
and  by  an  adroit  slackening  of  the  tendons  of  his  left 
.eg,  the  driver  opens  the  door  to  us.  With  the  lei- 
surely pace  suited  to  the  hour  and  its  besoin,  our  car- 
riage rolls  up  Broadway,  giving  us  a  sliding  panorama 
of  such  charms  as  are  peculiar  to  the  afternoon  of  the 
great  thoroughfare  (quite  the  best  part  of  the  day,  for 
a  spectator  merely).  Every  bonnet  we  see  wipes  off  a 
care  from  our  mental  slate,  and  every  nudge  to  our 
curiosity  shoves  up  our  spirits  a  peg.  Easily  and 
uncrowded,  we  are  set  down  for  our  sixpence  at 
M  Fourteenth  street,"  and  turning  our  face  once  more 
toward  Texas,  we  take  the  next  velvet-lined  vehicle 
bound  down.  The  main  difference  betwixt  us  and 
the  rich  man,  for  that  hour,  is,  that  he  rides  in  a 
green  lane,  and  we  in  Broadway — he  sees  green  leaves 
and  we  pretty  women— he  pays  much  and  we  pay 
little.  The  question  of  envy,  therefore,  depends  upon 
which  of  these  categories  you  honestly  prefer.  While 
Providence  furnishes  the  spare  shilling,  ice,  at  any 
rate,  will  not  complain.  Such  of  our  friends  as  are 
prepared  to  condole  with  us  for  our  summer  among 
the  bricks,  will  please  credit  us  with  the  two  foregoing 


alleviations. 

The  postoffice  irregularities  of  which  we  have  so 
often  complained,  have  drawn  from  one  of  our  good- 
natured  subscribers,  a  lament  in  poetry.  We  wish  all 
our  friends  would  take  it  as  kindly,  but 
it  as  expressively  : — 


give  voice  to 


"  No  Mirror  to-day — 

No  price,  no  pay ; 
No  chance  to  spend  a  sixpence  all  day  Ions  • 

No  work  at  all  to  do, 

No  help  for  feeling  blue  ; 
No  plate,  no  tale,  no  '  trifle,'  and  no  song  ! 

No  why  and  no  because  ; 

No  faith  in  the  whole  race  of  editors  • 

No  remedy,  'tis  true  ;  ' 

No  seeing  exactly  what  it's  best  to  do ; 

No  chance  of  being  heard, 

No  profit  in  a  word  ; 
No  grumbling  at  the  keepers  of  the  keys  ; 
No  hope  of  men  who  do  just  what  they  please  ; 

No  chance  to  raise  a  breeze  : 

No  hope,  no  sign, 


No  promise  that  I  can  divine  ; 
No  faith  to-day  in  high  humanity  ; 

No  doubt  that  life  is  vanity  ; 
No  dawn,  no  rising  of  a  better  day  ; 

No  faint  foreshadowing  of  a  golden  way  i 
No  knowing  when  Wickliffe  will  be  turned  away  ; 

No  last  resort  but  a  vile  parody. 
No  Mirror   " 


We  very  seldom  buy  a  volume  of  new  poetry,  but 
the  portrait  on  the  first  leaf  of  Mrs.  Butler's  book,  a 
portrait  by  the  admirable  and  spiritualizing  pencil  of 
Sully,  and  engraved  by  the  as  admirable  and  spirituali- 
zing burin  of  Cheney,  was  worth  quite  the  price  of  the 
volume.     We  have  since  read  the  poetry.     The  pic- 
ture bears  a  slight  resemblance  to  the  poetess,  Mrs. 
Norton,  and  the  poetry  is  very  like  Mrs.  Norton's  in 
its  intention.     But   both  in  features  and  verse,  Mrs. 
Butler  is  very  far  that  glorious  woman's  inferior.     We 
have  been  vexed  to  see   how   narrow  an  escape  Mrs. 
Butler  has  had.  of  being  a  fine  poetess,  however— how 
easily   with  a  little  consistent  labor,  and   some  little 
unity  of  sentiment  and  purpose,  she  might  have  filled 
out  the  penumbra  which  provokingly  shows  what  she 
might  have  been— but  for  the  eclipse  of  caprice  or 
carelessness.     We   have   struck   a  word   in   this  last 
sentence  which  seems  to  us  to  be  the   master-chord 
of  all   her  poetry— caprice  .'     She   begins  nobly  and 
goes  evenly  and  beautifully  half  through  her  strain, 
and  then  falters  and  winds  weakly  or  inconsequently 
off.     We  could  quote  passages  from  this  book  as  fine 
as  anything  of  Mrs.  Norton's,  but  there  is  no  one  fin- 
ished  poem  in   it  worth  reprinting.     In  all  this,  we 
are  looking  at  it  with  the  world's  eye.     To  a   poet, 
who  judges  of  a  fragment,  as  the  connoisseur  knows 
the  statue  of  Hercules,  by  the  foot,  this  volume  is  full 
of  genius.     There  is  a  massy  fulness  in  the  use  of 
epithets  and  figures  that  shows  a  Sapphic  prodigality 
of  fervor  and  impulse,  and  there  is,  moreover,  a  mas- 
culine strength  of  passionateness  in  the  moulding  and 
flinging  off  of  emotion,  that,  well  carried  out,  would 
have  swept  the  public  heart  like  a  whirlwind.     We  had 
marked  many   passages  of  Mrs.  Butler's  book  for  ex- 
tract, but  on  looking  at  them  again,  we  find  the  best 
and  most  creditable  blemished   with  flaws,  and,  with 
strong  admiration  for  what  the  authoress  might  have 
been,  we  lay  the  book  aside. 


Our  readers  will  remember  a  very  clever  letter, 
written  to  us  by  an  anonymous  lady  who  wished  to 
conjure  a  new  bonnet  and  dress  out  of  her  inkstand. 
The  inveiglement  upon  ourselves  (to  induce  us  to  be 
her  banker),  was  so  adroit  and  fanciful  that  we  sus- 
pected the  writer  of  being  no  novice  at  rhetorical  trap 
— one,  indeed,  of  the  numerous  sisterhood  who,  denied 
the  concentrated  developments  of  maternity,  scatter 
their  burthensome  ammunition  of  contrivance  and  re- 
source upon  periodical  literature.  We  "gave  in," 
however — walking  willingly  into  the  lady's  noose— on 
a  condition,  that  she  should  wear  a  rose  recognisably 
in  Broadway  the  day  she  first  sported  the  balzarine 
and  Neapolitan,  and  afterward  send  us  a  sketch  of 
herself  and  her  cousin.  The  "  sketch"  we  have  re- 
ceived, and  when  we  have  seen  the  rose  we  shall  not 
hesitate  to  acknowledge  the  debt.  In  the  following 
parts  of  the  letter  which  accompanied  the  sketch,  the 
reader  will  see  that  the  authoress  feels  (or  feigns  mar- 
vellously well)  some  resentment  at  our  suspicions  as 
to  her  age  and  quality  :— 

"  Have  you  never  heard,  my  de— (pardon  !  I  fear  it 
is  a  habit  of  mine  to  write  too  'honeyedly') — but  have 
you  not  heard  that  'suspicion  is  a  heavy  armor,  which, 
with  its  own  weight  impedes  more  than  it  protects.' 
Suspicion    is   most   assuredly   a    beggarly  virtue.     It 


EPHEMERA. 


705 


may,  now  and  then,  prevent  you  from  being  '  taken  in,' 
but  it  nips  you  in  the  costs  most  unmercifully.  Oh  ! 
sharpsightednessis  the  most  extravagantly  dear  whistle 
that  poor  humans  ever  purchased !  That  you  should 
suspect  me  too,  when  I  was  opening  my  heart  away 
down  to  the  core.  How  could  you  ?  •  Inveigle  !'  no 
inveigling  about  it!  I  want  a  bonnet  and  dress,  and 
said  so,  frankly  and  honestly.  And  I  never  wrote  a 
line  for  Graham  in  my  life,  no  !  nor  for  Godey  either. 
As  for  le  couleur  des  bas,  your  keen-eyed  hawk  pounced 
on  less  than  a  phantom  there.  From  the  day  that  I 
stood  two  mortal  hours  with  my  finger  poked  into  my 
eye,  and  a  fool's-cap  on  my  head,  because  I  persisted 
in  spelling  '  b-a-g,  baker,'  to  the  notable  morning  of 
christening  my  cousin  by  her  profession,  I  have  been 
voted  innocent  of  all  leaning  toward  the  uncelestial. 
Indeed  it  is  more  than  suspected  by  my  friend  (cousin 
'Bel'  excepted)  that  I  affect  dame  Nature's  carpet, 
rather  than  her  canopy.  Maybe  I  am  '  some  varlet 
of  a  man  scribbler' — Oh!  you  are  such  a  Yankee  at 
guessing  !  '  Old  !'  ah,  that  is  the  unkindest  cut  of  all ! 
You  an  editor,  and  the  son  of  an  editor,  and  not  know 
that  '  old  maids'  are  a  class  extinct  at  the  present  day, 
save  in  the  sewingsocieties,  etc.,  of  some  western  village, 
subject  only  to  the  exploring  expeditions  of  the  in- 
defatigable '  Mary  Clavers  !'  Have  you  never  heard 
of  five-and-twenty's  being  a  turning  point,  and  ken  ye  j 
not  its  meaning  ?  Why,  /aire  maydens  then  reverse 
the  hour-glass  of  old  gray-beard  ;  and,  one  by  one, 
drop  back  the  golden  sands  that  he  has  scattered,  till, 
in  five  years,  they  are  twenty  again.  Of  course,  then, 
I  must  be  '  under  twenty-five  ;'  but,  as  a  punishment 
for  your  lack  of  gallantry,  you  shall  not  know  whether 
the  sands  are  dropping  in  or  out  of  my  glass.  One 
thing,  however,  is  indisputable  :  1  am  not  '  sharp,'  my 
face  has  not  a  single  sharp  feature,  nor  my  temper  (it 
is  I,  who  know,  that  say  it),  a  sharp  corner,  nor  my 
voice  a  sharp  tone.  So  much  in  self-justification,  and 
now  to  the  little  package  which  you  hold  in  the  other 
hand. 

"  I  send  my  sketch  in  advance,  because  I  am  afraid 
cousin  'Bel'  and  I  might  not  interest  you  and  the  pub- 
lic so  much  as  we  do  ourselves;  and  then  how  are  we 
to  'consider  you  paid.'  In  truth,  I  can  not  write 
clever  things.  'Bel'  might,  but  she  never  tries.  Some- 
times she  plans  for  me  ;  but,  somehow,  I  never  can 
find  the  right  words  for  her  thoughts.  They  come  into 
my  head  like  fixed-up  visiters,  and  '  play  tea-party' 
with  their  baby  neighbors,  until  I  am  almost  as  much 
puzzled  by  their  strange  performances  as  the  old 
woman  of  the  nursery  rhyme,  who  was  obliged  to  call 
on  her  'little  dog  at  home'  to  establish  her  identity. 
No,  no  !  1  can  not  write  clever  things,  and  particularly 
on  the  subject  to  which  I  am  restricted  ;  but  if  it  is 
the  true  sketch  that  you  would  have  for  the  sake  of 
the  information,  why  here  it  is.  You  will  perceive 
that  I  have  been  very  particular  to  tell  you  all. 

"  Pray,  do  you  allow  us  carte  blanche  as  far  as  the  hat 
and  dress  are  concerned  ?  You  had  better  not,  for 
'Bel'  never  limits  herself.  How  soon  may  we  have 
them  ?  The  summer,  is  advancing  rapidly,  and  my 
old  muslin  and  straw  are  unco'  shabby.  Yours  with 
all  due  gratitude,  "  Fanny  Forester." 

Whoever  our  fair  correspondent  may  be,  old  or 
young,  naive  or  crafty,  we  can  tell  her  that  talent  like 
hers  need  never  want  a  market.  We  commend  her, 
thus  in  print,  to  those  princes  of  literary  paymasters, 
Graham  and  Godey,  with  our  assurance  that  no  more 
entertaining  pen  strides  a  vowel  in  this  country.  The 
sketch  of  "  The  Cousins,"  which  we  shall  give  here- 
after, has  a  ticirt-tear-and-smile-fulness  which  shows 
the  writer's  heart  to  be  as  young  as  a  school-girl's 
satchel,  whatever  kind  of  wig  she  wears,  and  whatever 
the  number  of  her  spectacles.  And  she  will  be  as 
young  forty  years  hence — for  genius  will  be  a  child, 
eternity  through,  in  Heaven.  If,  by  chance,  the  lady 
45 


is  a  sub-twenty -fivily,  she  is  a  star  rising,  and  we  should 
like  to  visit  her  before  she  culminates. 


The  rest  of  what  we  have  to  say. — There  is  a 
circulation  that  beats  newspapers — beats  them  particu- 
larly in  this — the  Tuesday's  paper  overtakes  the  Mon- 
day's, but  the  lie  of  Monday  is  never  overtaken  by  the 
truth  of  Tuesday.  Some  time  since  a  sketch  appeared 
in  the  Mirror,  written  by  a  correspondent,  which  was 
seized  upon  immediately  by  some  of  the  busy-bodies  of 
society,  as  an  intentional  attack  upon  one  of  the  first 
families  in  this  city.  A  week  or  two  after  its  publica- 
tion, a  friend  informed  us  of  the  rumor,  and  we  read  the 
sketch  over  again  to  see  what  was  objectionable  in  it. 
With  the  exception  of  a  correction  made  by  the  proof- 
reader, and  one  accidental  circumstance,  invented  by 
the  writer  to  round  a  sentence,  there  was  nothing  in 
it  that  could  possibly  apply  to  the  family  in  question, 
and  we  were  amazed  at  the  interpretation  put  upon  it. 
Subsequent  knowledge  of  the  writer  and  her  object 
has  completely  removed  from  our  mind,  and  that  of 
the  family  alluded  to,  all  shadow  of  suspicion  that  any 
particular  person  or  persons  were  in  her  mind  while 
writing  it.  The  story  has  again  come  round  to  us, 
however,  and  in  so  bold  a  shape  that  we  think  it  worth 
while  to  nail  it  again  with  a  denial.  There  never  has 
been  in  the  Mirror,  and  there  never  will  be,  any  offen- 
sive allusion  to  individuals  in  private  life.  Descriptive 
'  writers  constantly  describe  classes,  and,  if  they  describe 
them  well,  they  will  apply  as  the  essays  in  the  Specta- 
tor do.  to  hundreds  of  persons.  The  amiable  Miss 
Sedgwick,  utterly  incapable  of  an  intentional  wound 
1  to  the  feelings  of  any  one,  has  lived  in  constant  hot 
water,  from  the  offence  taken  at  the  supposed  person- 
;  alities  of  her  descriptions.  It  is  very  easy  for  a  mali- 
cious person  to  take  any  sketch  of  character,  and  find 
i  for  it  a  most  plausible  original.  But  there  should  be  a 
watch  kept  for  those  who  first  name  these  discoveries — 
the  first  finders  of  the  key  to  a  mischievous  allusion. 
The  first  time  you  hear  a  malicious  story,  mark  the 
teller  of  it — for  ten  to  one,  in  that  person,  male  or 
female,  lies  the  whole  malice  of  the  invention  and  ap- 
plication. Such  people  do  not  work  in  the  dark, 
however.  Mischief-making  is  a  most  unprofitable 
trade,  and  we  trust  that,  in  the  future  school  of  Ameri- 
can morals,  the  certain  infamy  of  being  the  first  teller 
of  a  malicious  tale,  will  be  a  predominant  feature.  It 
can  easily  be  made  so.  by  "  keeping  the  subject  be- 
fore the  people." 


One  of  the  most  curious  features  of  New  York  is 
!  the  gradual  formation  of  a  Paternoster  Row— or 
the  making  of  Arm  street  to  correspond  with  that 
famous  book-mine  and  fame-quarry  of  London.  Our 
enterprising  and  thrifty  friends  and  neighbors,  Bur- 
gess, Stringer,  &Co.,  are  the  "Longmans"  of  this 
publishing  Row,  and  truly,  the  activity  of  their  sales, 
and  the  crowds  leaning  continually  over  their  counter, 
give  a  new  aspect  to  the  hitherto  contemplative  current 
of  merchandise  in  literature.  Their  central  and  spa- 
cious shop  on  the  corner  of  Broadway,  is  a  thronged 
book-market,  as  vigorously  tended  and  customered  as 
the  sales  of  pork  and  grain.  They  have  lately  added 
to  their  establishment  two  stores  intervening  between 
them  and  us,  and,  with  the  office  of  our  friends  of  the 
"  Nfw  World"  farther  down  the  street,  and  several 
intermediate  publishing  and  forwarding  offices,  we  of 
the  Mirror  are  in  the  midst  of  a  formidable  literary 
mart  that  seems  destined  to  concentrate  the  book- 
trade,  and  make,  of  Ann  street  as  we  said  just  now,  a 
Paternoster  Row.  The  Turks  (who,  by  the  way, 
have  many  other  sensible  notion,  besides  washing 
themselves  instead  of  their  shirts),  devote  each  differ- 


706 


EPHEMERA. 


ent  lane  of  their  grand  bazar  to  a  single  commodity 
— no  shoemakers  to  be  found  out  of  Shoemaker-lane, 
and  no  books  out  of  Book-alley.  The  convenience 
of  this  arrangement,  to  the  public,  is  very  great,  and 
it  would  be,  in  this  city,  a  prodigious  saving  of  labor, 
in  cartage  and  traffic,  to  the  booksellers  themselves. 
We  have  a  faint  hope  of  seducing  over,  to  our  Row, 
the  agreeable  clique  of  our  friend  Porter  of  the 
•'  Spirit,"  and  we  hope  Inman  of  the  Columbian  will 
follow  alter  (to  save  rent),  and  in  this  way,  we  shall 
have  a  morning  lounge  in  Ann  street  for  the  beaux 
esprits,  that  will  enable  us  to  combine  into  a  literary 
social  order  and  have  some  fun  and  more  weight. 
Nothing  like  combination,  oh,  feilow-pensmen  !  Why 
should  we  not  have  a  head,  and  wag  it,  like  the  cham- 
ber of  commerce  and  the  powerful  presbytery  ?  For 
a  class  that  keeps  the  key  of  the  city's  to-morrow,  the 
press  in  New  York  is  as  strangely  unorganized  and 
segregate  a  body  as  anarchy  of  public  opinion  could 
possibly  desire.  But  we  are  trenching  here  on  some- 
thing we  have  in  petto,  to  write  upon  more  gravely 
hereafter. 


We  seldom  read  a  novel.  We  can  not  afford  the 
sympathy,  even  when  we  have  the  time.  But,  some- 
what liquefied  on  a  warm  afternoon  of  last  week,  our 
resolution  would  not  hold,  and  we  took  up  "The 
Rose  of  Thistle  Island,"  a  Swedish  novel  by  Em- 
ilie  Carlen,  just  published  by  Winchester.  The  story 
took  hold  of  us  immediately,  and  we  read  the  book 
through  before  going  to  bed,  charmed  with  its  earnest 
and  graphic  truth  of  narration  and  char  ter,  and  par- 
ticularly w,ith  the  entire  fusion  of  the  style,  betraying 
no  thumb-spot  from  the  dictionary-cover,  and  no 
smack  of  haste  or  clumsiness  in  the  transfer.  It  reads 
like  a  book  original  in  English,  and  that,  to  our  pro- 
fessional superfinery  of  noun  and  pronoun,  is  no  small 
difference  from  ordinary  translations. 


The  Remainder. — One  of  the  greatest  pleasures 
of  living  in  our  free  country,  is  the  unceasing  satis- 
faction one  feels  at  not  having  died  last  week — fortu- 
nately surviving  to  put  down  one  more  lie  that,  if  you 
had  been  dead,  would  be  as  durable  as  your  tomb- 
stone. Another  peculiarity  of  our  country — good  or 
bad  as  you  chance  to  feel  about  it — is  the  necessity  to 
talk  a  great  deal  about  yourself,  if  you  would  keep 
up  a  lively  popularity.  With  these  two  patriotic 
promptings,  let  us  say  a  word  of  a  trip  we  made  lately 
to  Albany. 

It  is  not  perhaps  generally  known  that  Albany  was 
our  birthplace.     We  were  born  once  before,  it  is  true, 
in   Portland,   somewhere    about    half   a   life    ago— a 
"man-child."     But  in  Albany,  in  1827,  we  first  open- 
ed our  eyes,  as  an  adult  lion.     Up  to  that  period  we 
had  been  under  tutors,   and   had   known   only   boy- 
friends.    By  a  fortunate  chance  we  suddenly  acquired 
the  friendship  of  a  man  of  great  talent  and   accom- 
plishment, and  on  a  visit  to  this,  our  first  man-friend 
at  Albany,  we  stood,  for  the  first  time,  clear  of  the  'j 
imprisoning  chalk-lines  of  boyhood.     Those  who  hav*  ' 
"hived  the  honey"  of  their  summers  of  the   heart   IJ 
know  well  how  intoxicatingly  sweet  was  the  first  gar-  i 
den  of  life  in  which  they  walked  as  men.     Still  a  chila  | 
at  home,  and  still  a  college-boy  at  New  Haven,  we  ) 
were,  at  Albany,  a  man  who  had  written  a  book,  and  as  l| 
the  companion  and  guest  of  our  fashionable  and  popu- 
lar friend,*  we  saw  beauty  enough,  and  received  kind- 

*  I  trust  it  will  not  be  considered  mistimed  or  unnatural  if 
I  follow  the  impulse  of  my  heart,  and  put,  into  a  note  to  so 
worldly  a  theme,  the  substance  of  a  tearful  and  absorbing 
revery,  which,  for  the  last  half  hour,  has  suspended  my  pen 
over  the  paper.    The  name  of  the  gentleman  f  have  just  al- 


ness  enough,  to  have  whipped  a  less  leathery  brain  into 
syllabub.  The  loveliness  of  the  belles  of  Albany  at 
that  time,  and  the  brilliancy  of  its  society,  are  perpet- 
uated in  a  remembrance  that  will  become  a  tradition; 
and  we  have  never  since  seen,  in  any  country  or  so- 
ciety of  the  world,  an  equal  proportion  of  elegant  men 
and  beautiful  and  accomplished  women.  It  was  so 
acknowledged  over  the  whole  country.  The  regency 
of  fashion,  male  and  female,  was  confessedly  at  Alba- 
ny. New  York,  Philadelphia,  Boston,  and  Baltimore, 
were  provinces  to  this  castle  of  belle-dom!  We  have 
an  object  in  showing  what  Albany  was,  at  the  time 
we  were  in  the  habit  of  visiting  it,  and  how  inevitably, 
from  a  combination  of  circumstances,  it  became  and 
has  remained,  to  us,  a  paradise  of  enchanting  associa- 
tions. There  is  no  spot  in  this  country  which  we  re- 
member with  equal  pleasure.  It  was  the  first  leaf 
turned  over  in  our  book  of  manhood. 

We  went  to  Albany  with  these  memories  upon  us, 
a  week  or  more  ago,  to  lecture.  We  spent  the  morn- 
ing in  finding  old  friends  and  reviving  old  associations, 
and  in  the  evening  we  had  an  audience  much  larger 
than  we  looked  for,  and  as  brilliant  as  hope  born  of 
such  memories  could  have  prefigured  it;  and  we  re- 
turned to  the  city  the  morning  after,  gratified  and  de- 
lighted. But  (and  here  comes  the  matter  in  hand) 
there  seems  to  have  been  a  gentleman  in  Albany  who 
was  unwilling  we  should  be  delighted.  We  have  not 
seen  the  article  he  wrote,  but,  as  condensed  in  another 
paper,  it  goes  to  show  that  the  reasons  why  we  were 
unsuccessful  at  Albany  were,  first,  that  we  have  been 
in  the  habit  of  abusing  its  Dutch  aristocracy,  and 
second,  that  two  years  ago  we  "insulted  a  lady  there 
and  refused  a  challenge  from  her  friend  !"  Now  here 
are  four  items  of  absolute  news  to  us:  1,  that  we  did 
not  succeed — 2,  that  we  ever  insulted  a  lady  any- 
|  where — 3,  that  we  ever  declined  any  fight  that  was 
ever  proposed  to  us — 4,  that  we  ever  abused  the 
Dutch  at  Albany. 

On  the  fourth  count  of  the  indictment,  alone,  a 
friend  has  thrown  a  little  light.  We  did  once,  inad- 
vertently, use  an  adjective,  in  a  way  which  has  been 
remembered  fifteen  years!  We  said  of  the  swine  in 
the  streets  of  Albany  (in  some  trifling  article  for  a 
newspaper),  that  they  were  a  nuisance  "  more  Dutch 
than  decent."  The  alliteration  seduced  us  somewhat, 
but  there   was   provocation   as  well — for,   the   night 

luded  to,  John  Bi.eecker  Van  Schaick,  will  call  up,  at  once, 
to  the  memory  of  the  Albanians,  as  well  as  to  the  prominent 
men  of  all  parts  of  the  country,  a  loss,  by  early  death,  of 
one  of  our  most  accomplished  gentlemen,  and  most  admira- 
bly-gifted minds.  The  proportion — the  balance  of  character 
and  intellect,  in  Mr.  Van  Schaick — the  fine  sense  of  honor, 
and  the  keen  discrimination  of  wit,  the  manliness  and  the  del- 
icacy, the  common  sense  and  the  strong  poetical  perception 
— made  him,  to  me,  one  of  the  most  admirable  of  studies,  as 
well  as  the  most  winning  and  endearing  of  friends.  I  loved 
and  honored  him,  till  his  death,  as  few  men  have  ever  won 
from  mc  love  and  honor.  It  was  a  matter  of  continual  urging 
on  my  part,  to  induce  him  to  devote  his  leisure,  given  him  by 
ample  means,  to  literature.  Some  of  his  poetry  appeared  in 
the  magazines,  and  is  now  collected  in  a  volume  of  the  Amer- 
ican poets.  But  he  had  higher  studies  and  more  vigorous 
aims  than  light  literature,  and  he  had  just  broken  ground  as  a 
brilliant  orator  and  statesman,  when  disease  unnerved  and 
prostrated  him.  Mr.  Van  Schaick  had,  however,  another 
quality  which  would  have  made  him  the  idol  of  society  iu 
England — (though,  comparatively,  little  appreciated  here)— 
unequalled  wit  and  brilliancy  of  convers»ar>"..  I  say  une- 
qualled— for  I  have  lived  long  in  the  so<~i''.y  of  the  men  of 
w:t  most  celebrated  in  London,  and  I  ha^d  *>/er  thought  that 
ibis  countryman  of  my  own  was  their  ^equivocal  superior. 
His  wonderful  quickness  and  fineness  of  perception,  and  the 
ready  facility  of  his  polished  language,  combined  with  his 
universal  reading  and  information,  made  his  society  in  the 
highest  degree  delightful  and  fascinating  ;  and  though,  as  rny 
first  friend  of  manhood,  I  gave  him  warm  and  impulsive  ad- 
miration, my  subsequent  knowledge  of  mankind  has  con- 
stantly enhanced  this  admiring  appreciation.  In  all  qualities 
of  the  heart  he  was  uprightly  noble  J  and,  altogether,  we 
think  that  in  him  died  the  best-balanced  and  most  highly 
gifted  character  we  have  ever  intimately  known. 


EPHEMERA. 


707 


before  writ  in g  it,  strolling  home  from  a  party  in  Al- 
bany, we  had  been  brought  from  the  seventh  heaven 
to  the  sidewalk,  tripped  up  by  a  pig!  Now,  to  us, 
the  pig  was  Dutch.  We  had  lived  only  in  New  Eng- 
land, where  this  animal,  from  some  prejudice  against 
his  habits,  has  not  the  freedom  of  the  city.  Visiting 
two  Dutch  cities,  New  York  and  Albany,  we  found 
the  pig  master  of  the  pave,  and  the  offending  adjec- 
.ive,  lubricated  by  our  disaster,  slipped  into  its  place 
with  inevitable  facility.  We  have  heard  from  time  to 
time,  of  this  perversion  of  the  word  Dutch,  as  a  thing 
remembered  against  us.  We  had  hoped  that  the 
great  fire  in  Wall  street,  the  death  of  Harrison,  the 
Miller-prophecy,  and  the  other  events  of  the  last  fif- 
teen years,  would  have  wiped  that  small  adjective  out. 
We  do  not  know  why  it  should  outlive  the  poets  who 
have  written  and  been  forgotten  in  that  time — the 
steamboats  that  have  been  built  and  used  up — the 
politicians  who  have  flourished  and  fallen — the  com- 
ets that  have  glittered  and  gone — the  newspapers  that 
have  started  and  stopped.  The  secret  of  that  little 
adjective's  imperishableness  is  worth  analyzing — 
especially  by  poets  and  the  patentees  of  "asbestos 
safes."  We  wish  we  could  stumble  upon  as  long- 
lived  a  conjunction  ! 

Seriously,  we  are  annoyed  and  hurt  at  the  discov- 
ery of  a  hostility  that  could  make  itself  heard,  in  a 
place  we  owe  so  much  to  for  past  happiness.  We 
beg  the  Albanians  to  forgive  us  for  the  unintentional 
offence,  and  to  take  us  and  our  Mirror  into  that  favor 
of  which  we  have  always  been  ambitious. 


The  spot  where  all  the  winds  of  heaven  turn  the 
corner — the  coolest  and  most  enjoyable  spot  in  the 
hottest  and  least  enjoyable  summer's  day — is  the  out- 
side bastion  of  Castle  Garden.  We  made  our  way 
there  a  few  days  ago,  when  the  streets  were  fairly  in 
a  swoon  with  the  breathless  heat,  and  it  was  as  cool 
and  breezy,  outside  the  round  castle,  as  a  hill-top  on 
a  May  morning.  For  children — for  happy  idlers  with 
a  book — for  strangers  who  wish  to  study  the  delicious 
panorama  of  the  bay — there  is  no  place  comparable 
to  the  embrasures,  parapets,  and  terraces  of  Castle 
Garden. 


TWO    OR    THREE     LITTLE    MATTERS. There     is     110 

struggling  against  it — we  have  a  need  to  pass  the  sum- 
mer in  some  place  that  God  made.  We  have  argued 
the  instinct  down — every  morning  since  May-day — 
while  shaving.  It  is  as  cool  in  the  city  as  in  the 
country,  we  believe.  We  see  as  many  trees,  from 
our  window  (living  opposite  St.  Paul's  churchyard), 
and  as  much  grass,  as  we  could  take  in  at  a  glance. 
The  air  we  breathe,  outside  the  embrasures  of  Castle 
Garden,  every  afternoon,  and  on  board  the  Hoboken 
and  Jersey  boats,  every  warm  evening,  are  entire  rec- 
ompenses to  the  lungs  for  the  day's  dust  and  stony 
heat.  And  then  God  intends  that  somebody  shall  live 
in  the  city  in  summer-time,  and  why  not  we?  By 
the  time  this  argument  is  over,  our  chin  and  our  re- 
bellious spirit  are  both  smoothed  down.  Breakfast  is 
ready — as  cool  fruit,  as  delicious  butter  under  the  ice, 
and  as  charming  a  vis-d-vis  over  the  white  cloth  and 
coffee-tray  as  we  should  have  in  the  country.  We 
go  to  work  after  breakfast  with  passable  content.  The 
city  cries,  and  the  city  wheels,  the  clang  of  the  char- 
coal cart  and  the  importunities  of  printer's  imp — all 
blend  in  the  passages  of  our  outer  ear  as  unconsciously 
and  fitly  as  brook-noises  and  breeze-doings.  We  are 
well  enough  till  two.  An  hour  to  dinner — passed  in 
varnished  boots  and  out-doors-inesses — somewhat  a 
weary  hour,  we  must  say,  with  a  subdued  longing  for 
some   earth    to    walk   upon.       Dinner — pretty    well ! 


Discontent  and  sorrow  dwell  in  a  man's  throat,  and  go 
abroad  while  it  is  watered  and  swept.  The  hour  after 
dinner  has  its  little  resignations  also — coffee,  music, 
and  the  "angel-visit"  from  the  nursery.  Five  o'clock 
comes  round,  and  with  it  nature's  demand  for  a  pair 
of  horses.  (Alas  !  why  are  we  not  centaurs,  to  have 
a  pair  of  horses  when  we  marry  ?)  We  get  into  an 
omnibus,  and  as  we  get  toward  the  porcelain  end  of 
the  city,  our  porcelain  friends  pass  us  in  their  car- 
riages, bound  out  where  the  earth  breathes  and  the 
grass  grows.  An  irresistible  discontent  overwhelms 
us!  The  paved  hand  of  the  city  spreads  out  beneath 
us,  holding  down  the  grass  and  shutting  off  the  salu- 
tary earth-pores,  and  we  pine  for  balm  and  moisture! 
The  over-worked  mind  offers  no  asylum  of  thought. 
It  is  the  out-door  time  of  day.  Nature  calls  us  to 
her  bared  bosom,  and  there  is  a  floor  of  impenetrable 
stone  between  us  and  her!  At  the  end  of  the  omni- 
bus-line we  turn  and  go  back,  and  resume  our  paved 
and  walled-up  existence,  and  all  the  logic  of  philoso- 
phy, aided  by  icecreams  and  bands  of  music,  would 
fail  to  convince  us,  that  night,  that  we  are  not  vic- 
tims and  wretches.  For  Heaven's  sake,  some  kind  old 
man  give  us  an  acre  off  the  pavement,  and  money 
enough  to  go  and  lie  on  the  outside  of  it  of  summer 
afternoons! 


Let  us  out  of  this  great  stone  oven  !  The  city  is 
intolerable  !  Oh,  from  these  heated  bricks  and  stones, 
what  moistureless,  what  wilted,  what  fainting  air  comes 
to  the  nostrils  !  The  two  river-breezes  doing  their  best 
to  meet  across  the  island,  swoon  in  Broadway.  The 
pores  gasp,  the  muscles  droop,  the  mind  is  blank  and 
nerveless.     Let  us  out  somewhere  ! 

We  had  such  a  fever  upon  us  as  is  expressed  above, 
when  a  friend  offered  to  drive  us  to  Rockaway.  With 
a  mental  repetition  of  the  affecting  prayer  of  the  poor 
woman  in  the  ballad, 

("  Take  a  white  napkin,  and  wrap  my  head  softly, 
And  then  throw  me  overboard,  me  and  my  baby  !") 

we  crept  into  his  wagon,  and  bowled  away  silently  on 
the  road  to  Jamaica.  It  was  a  hot  evening,  but  the 
smell  of  the  earth,  and  the  woods,  and  the  dairy-farms, 
roused  our  drooping  petals  a  little.  Jamaica  lies 
somewhat  in  the  island's  lap,  however,  and  it  was  not 
till  we  began  to  sniff  the  salt  of  the  open  Atlantic,  that 
we  were  once  more  "  capable  creatures."  But  what 
a  revivification  as  we  approached  Rockaway  !  The 
sea-breeze  nudged  up  our  drooping  eyebrows,  gave  a 
pull  to  the  loose  halliards  of  our  let-go  smiles,  crisped 
our  pores,  and  restored  everything  to  its  use  and  its  ac- 
tivity— the  irrevocable  starch  in  our  shirt-collars  alone 
incapable  of  rally.  Rockaway  (we  write  only  for 
those  who  know  nothing  of  it)  is  part  of  the  snowy 
edge  of  the  Atlantic — St.  George's  hotel,  at  Ports- 
mouth, England,  being  all  but  next  door  to  the  Rock- 
away pavilion.  Of  course  there  is  nothing  to  take  the 
saline  coolness  out  of  the  breeze  (unless  by  chance 
it  has  come  across  St.  Helena  or  the  Azores),  and  the 
difference  between  the  "entire  quadruped"  in  the 
way  of  a  sea-breeze,  and  the  mixtures  they  get  in 
some  other  sea-side  places,  is  worth  taking  pains  for. 
But  let  us  tell,  in  plain  language,  what  sort  of  place 
Rockaway  is— for  the  benefit  of  those  who  are  choos- 
ing a  month's  resort  for  health  or  pleasure. 

The  pavilion  of  Rockaway  is  an  immense  hotel, 
whose  majestic  portico  forms  the  centre  of  a  curving 
beach  of  two  or  three  miles  in  the  bend,  on  the  south- 
ern shore  of  Long  Island.  From  this  portico,  and 
from  the  windows  of  the  hotel,  the  delightful  sight 
and  sound  of  the  beating  surf  are  visible  and  audible 
—eternal  company  to  eye  and  ear.  The  beach  ex- 
tends for  miles  either  way— a  broad  floor  as  smooth  as 
marble,  and   so   hard    that    a   carriage   wheel   scarce 


708 


EPHEMERA. 


leaves  a  print,  and  this,  as  a  drive,  we  presume  to  be 
the  most  delightful  and  enjoyable  in  the  world.  The 
noiseless  tread  of  the  horse,  and  the  unheard  progress 
of  the  wheels,  the  snowy  surf  along  the  edge  of  which 
you  keep  your  way,  and  the  high  exhilaration  given 
to  the  spirits  by  the  sea-breeze,  and  the  enlivening 
beat  of  the  waves  upon  the  sand  at  your  feet,  form, 
altogether,  an  enchantment  to  which,  in  the  way  of 
out-door  pleasure,  we  scarce  know  a  parallel.  And, 
as  a  tvalk,  the  pure  hard  floor  of  that  interminable 
beach  is,  of  course,  equally  delightful. 

The  arrangements  for  bathing  are  very  well  man- 
aged. There  are  some  twenty  bathing-houses  on  the 
beach,  near  the  house,  and,  between  the  hours  of  ten 
and  twelve  in  the  forenoon,  the  ocean-side  is  guarded 
and  kept  exclusive  to  the  ladies  and  their  attendants. 
An  omnibus  constantly  plies  between  the  bathing- 
houses  and  the  hotel,  and  to  ladies  and  children,  to 
old  men  and  young,  the  hour  spent  in  the  invigorating 
surf  is  the  pleasure  of  the  day.  All,  alike,  come  back 
elated  and  animated,  and  the  society  of  the  place 
shows  very  markedly  the  fillip  given  by  the  sea-bath- 
ing to  health  and  spirits.  Children,  more  especially, 
who  have  drooped  in  the  city,  pluck  up  appetite  and 
vigor  immediately  at  Rockaway. 

As  the  favorite  and  regular  resort  of  many  of  the 
best  families  of  the  city,  the  society  of  the  pavilion  has 
always  been  acknowledged  to  be  of  a  more  refined 
quality  and  on  a  more  agreeable  footing  than  that  of 
any  other  watering-place.  It  is  equally  removed  from 
useless  ceremony  and  undesirable  freedom.  Those 
who  wish  to  combine  gayety  with  the  pursuit  of 
health  and  the  enjoyment  of  luxury,  have  facilities  for 
all  these  at  Rockaway,  in  a  degree  as  desirable  as  it  is 
unusual.  The  table  is  not  surpassed  by  that  of  any 
hotel  even  in  the  city,  and  this,  in  a  watering-place,  is 
a  peculiarity  !  Mr.  Cranston,  the  keeper  of  the  house, 
thoroughly  understands  his  business. 

As  to  facilities  for  getting  to  Rockaway,  the  railroad 
from  Brooklyn  ferry  takes  you  to  Jamaica  in  half  an 
hour ;  from  Jamaica,  on  the  arrival  of  the  cars,  starts 
regularly  a  mammoth  omnibus  with  six  horses,  and 
other  roomy  conveyances  are  supplied  if  necessary, 
which  bring  you  to  Rockaway  in  an  hour.  All  de- 
lays included,  it  is  about  two  hours  from  the  city. 

Certain  coolness  and  certainly-improved  health  thrown 
into  the  scale,  the  desirableness  of  Rockaway,  as  a 
summer  resort,  far  outweighs  that  of  every  other  wa- 
tering-place in  the  country. 


A  late  number  of  the  Southern  Literary  Messenger 
contains  two  poems  of  uncommon  merit  for  the  drift 
of  a  periodical.  One  is  by  Mr.  Gilmore  Simms 
(whose  much-worked  mine  has  now  and  then  a  very 
golden  streak  of  poetry),  and  the  other  is  by  H.  B. 
Hirst — a  poem  of  fifty-seven  stanzas  on  the  subject  of 
Endtmion.  This  latter  is  after  Keats.  It  is  very 
highly  studied,  very  carefully  finished,  and  very  airily 
and  spiritually  conceived.  Its  faults  are  its  conceits, 
which  are  not  always  defensible— for  instance,  the  one 
in  italics,  in  the  following  beautiful  description  of  Di- 
ana as  she  descended  to  Endymion  : — 

"  A  crescent  on  her  brow — a  brow  whose  brightness 
Darkened  the  crescent ;  and  a  neck  and  breast 
On  which  young  love  might  rest 
Breathless  with  passion  ;  and  an  arm  whose  whiteness 
Shadowed  the  lily's  snow ;  a  lip  the  bee 
Might  dream  in,  and  a  knee 
Round  as  a  period  ;  while  her  white  feet  glancing 
Between  her  sandals,  shed  a  twilight  light 
Athwart  the  purple  night. 
Cycling  her  waist  a  zone,  whose  gems  were  dancing 
With  rainbow  rays,  pressed  with  a  perfect  grace, 
Her  bosom's  ivory  space." 

Now  we  know  as  well  as  anybody  what  the  "  round  of 
a  period"  is,  and  we  have  seen,  here  and  there,  a  god- 


dess's knee,  and  we  declare  there  is  no  manner  or 
shape  of  likeness  that  justifies  the  comparison  !  With 
the  exception  of  two  or  three  of  these  lapses  away 
from  nature,  however,  it  is  a  beautiful  poem — this 
"Endymion" — and  will  read  well  in  a  volume.  By 
the  way,  let  us  wonder  whether  the  sweet  poetess  by 
the  same  name  is  a  sister  of  Mr.  Hirst. 


We  consider  Niblo's  garden  one  of  the  chief 
"broideries"  upon  our  woof  of  probation  in  this  dirty 
planet,  and  if  there  are  to  be  offsets  for  good  things 
enjoyed  this  side  of  Cocytus,  we  expect  to  pay  for 
Mitchell.  Oh,  thou  pleasant  Mitchell !  And  he  to 
iirow  fat  under  the  exercise  of  such  a  wand  of  indus- 
trious enchantment !  What  is  the  man  made  of,  be- 
sides brains! 

We  sat  through  the  "  Revolt  of  thk  Harem,"  a 
night  or  two  ago,  and  saw  all  its  funny  sights,  seriatim. 
The  ballet,  as  intended  to  be  seen,  was  excellent — for 
the  time  and  material,  indeed,  quite  wonderful.  But 
we  had  our  little  pleasures  (not  down  in  the  bill),  and 
one  of  them  was  to  see  pretty  Miss  Taylor,  the  clever 
opera-singer,  figuring  as  an  Odalisque  danseuse  !  If 
that  pretty  actress  be  not  abducted,  and  sold  to  the 
sultan  within  a  year,  we  shall  think  less  of  the  enter- 
prise of  Salem  privateers!  She  only  wants  to  forget 
that  she  is  Miss  Taylor,  indeed,  to  dance  uncommonly 
well — the  consciousness  of  her  silk  stockings  being  at 
present  something  of  a  damper  to  the  necessary  aban- 
don. But,  modesty  and  all,  she  is  very  charming  in 
this  ballet,  and  one  wonders  what  Mitchell  will  make 
of  her  next !  Korponay,  too — the  elegant  Korponay 
— figuring  as  an  Abyssinian  eunuch  !  That,  truth  to 
say,  had  for  us  a  dash  of  displeasure !  He  entered 
into  it  with  all  his  might,  it  is  true,  and  played  the 
nigger  with  Jim  Crow  facility  ;  but  the  part,  for  him, 
was  out  of  character,  and  we  shall  not  be  content  till 
he  is  dis-niggered  by  appearing  once  more  in  the  role 
of  a  gentleman.  The  bath-scene  was  well  arranged, 
though  the  prettiest  girls  were  not  in  the  water — (pray 
why,  Master  Mitchell  ?)  And  the  military  evolutions 
of  the  revolted  ladies  were  very  well  done,  and  will  be 
better  done — with  a  little  more  practice,  and  the  mend- 
ing of  that  corporal's  stocking  with  a  hole  in  it.  The 
town  seemed  pleased,  we  thought. 

We  have  not  yet  mentioned  the  premiere  danseuse, 
Mademoiselle  Desjardins,  who  did  very  well  in  the 
way  of  her  vocation,  but  from  whose  feet  have  de- 
parted, with  the  boots  she  wore,  the  exquisite  symme- 
try we  admired  at  Simpson's  benefit.  Ah,  ladies,  you 
should  wear  boots!  Here  were  two  feet  in  tightly- 
sandalled  shoes,  looking  like  two  tied-up  parcels  from 
Beck's,  which,  a  night  or  two  before,  in  brodequir 
bieii  faits,  looked  models  of  Arabian  instep!  Ca 
boots  do  that?  We  hereby  excommunicate,  from  the 
church  of  true  love,  all  husbands,  fathers,  and  guard- 
ians, who  shall  rebel  against  the  preference,  by  wife, 
ward,  or  daughter,  of  Nunn's  boots  at  S3  50,  over 
Middleton's  slippers  at  ten  shillings.  The  embellish- 
ment is  worth  the  difference! 


We  have  received  a  very  testy  letter  from  some  old 
gentleman,  requesting  us  to  reform  the  gait  of  the 
New  York  ladies.  He  manages  to  convey  what  pecu- 
liarity it  is  that  offends  his  eye,  but  he  is  mistaken  as 
to  the  stoop.  The  lady  within  stands  straight  enough  ! 
If  he  knows  this,  and  means  covertly  to  attack  the  ar- 
tificial portion  of  the  outline,  we  can  tell  him  that  he 
rashly  invades,  not  merely  a  caprice  of  fashion  (which 
in  itself  were  formidable  enough),  but  the  most  jealous 
symbol  and  citadel  of  female  domination  !  There  are 
ihousands  of  ladies  who  would   resign   carriages  and 


EPHEMERA. 


709 


Batin  without  a  sigh,  but  who  would  die  by  fire  and 
fagot  rather  than  yield  the  right  to  mount  on  horse- 
back in  the  masculine  riding  habit!  "  Wearing  the 
breeches"  is  a  worn-out  figure  of  speech,  but  does 
anybody  in  his  senses  believe  that  the  usurpation  has 
not  taken  refuge  in  a  new  shape  ?  Need  we  open  our 
correspondent's  eyes  any  further  ?  What  bird  is  the 
most  pronounced  and  unequivocal  type  of  martial  and 
masculine  bravery  ?  What  bird  is  the  farthest  re- 
move, in  shape,  air,  and  habits,  from  his  female  part- 
ner ?  What  bird  lives  up  systematically  to  woman's 
ideal  of  a  hero — a  life  of  fighting  and  making  love? 
Draw  the  outline  from  the  comb  of  a  fighting-cock  to 
the  feather-tip  of  his  bustle,  and  you  have  the  eidolon 
of  male  carriage — and  the  dressmaker's  ne  plus  ultra! 
We  warn  off  our  correspondent! 


LETTER     FROM     CINNA      BEVERLET,      ESQ.,      TO     N.     P. 
WILLIS. 

Saratoga,  U.  S.  Hotel,  August  1. 

You  are  feeding  the  news-hopper  of  your  literary 
mill,  my  dear  poet,  and  I  am  trying  on  the  old  trick 
of  gayety  at  Saratoga.  Which  of  us  should  write 
the  other  a  letter  ?  You,  if  you  say  so— though  as  I 
get  older,  I  am  beginning  to  think  well  of  the  town, 
even  in  August.  You  have  your  little  solaces,  my  fast 
liver  ! 

Well— what  shall  I  tell  you  ?  This  great  khan  in 
in  the  desert  of  dulness  is  full,  to  the  most  desirable 
uncomfonableness.  Shall  [  begin  with  the  men  ? 
God  made  them  first,  and  as  it  is  a  test  of  the  ultimate 
degree  of  refinement  to  reapproach  nature,  why.  let 
men  have  the  precedence  !  Less  American  than  phi- 
losophical, you  will  say  ! — but  men  first,  let  it  be  !  I 
must  have  my  way  in  my  post-meridian. 

There  used  to  be  dandies!  That  was  in  the  time 
when  there  was  an  aristocracy  in  the  country.  With 
the  levelling  (from  the  middle  to  the  top)  that  has  been 
going  on  for  the  last  ten  or  twelve  years,  the  incentive, 
somehow,  seems  gone,  or,  account  for  it  how  you 
will — there  are  no  dandies!  I  am  inclined  to  think 
that  two  causes  may  have  contributed  to  it — the  indis- 
cretion of  tailors  in  using  gentlemen's  ideas  promis- 
cuously, and  the  attention  paid  to  dress  by  all  classes — 
everybody  who  can  buy  a  coat  at  all,  being  within  one 
degree  of  comme  ilfaut  !  The  other  side  of  that  degree 
is  not  far  enough  off  from  the  mob,  and  so  dandyism 
is  discouraged.  Needlessly,  it  is  true,  for  the  differ- 
ence is  marked  enough;  but  the  possibility  of  a 
woman's  being  beautiful  enough  to  adore,  and  yet  not 
wise  enough  to  know  that  degree  of  difference  !  Ah, 
my  dear  Willis,  that  an  angel  may  "  walk  unrecog- 
nised !"     It  has  killed  the  class  ! 

There  is  one  dandy  only,  at  Saratoga,  and  he  is  but 
the  dovetail  upon  the  age  gone  by — a  better-dressed 
man  ten  years  ago  than  this  morning  at  breakfast. 
One  dandy  among  three  thousand  "fashionables!"  It 
is  early  in  the  season,  it  is  true,  and  (as  a  youth  said 
to  me  yesterday,  with  a  clever  classification)  "  all  Car- 
penters coats  are  gone  this  year  to  Newport."  But, 
still,  there  are  those  here — done  into  stereotype,  and 
reckless  of  the  peculiarities  in  themselves  which  are 
susceptible  of  piquant  departures  from  the  fashion — 
who  would  have  been,  twenty  years  ago,  each 
one  a  phenix  unresembled  !  How  delightful  the 
springs  were,  in  those  days  of  marked  men!  How 
adored  they  were  by  the  women  !  How  generously 
(by  such  petting  as  is  now  unknown)  their  anxieties 
of  toilet  were  repaid  and  glorified  !  How  the  arrival 
of  each  "  particular  star"  was  hailed  by  the  rushing 
out  of  the  white  dresses  upon  the  portico  of  Congress 
hall,  the  acclamations,  the  felicitations,  the  inquiries 
tender  and  uproarious  !     There  was  a  joyous  recipro- 


city of  worship  between  men  and  women  in  those 
days! — and  as  innocent  as  joyous  !  Compare  it  with 
the  arms'-length  superfinery,  and  dangerous  pent-up- 
itude  of  noic ! 

And  now,  my  dear  Willis,  a  cautious  word  or  two 
about  the  women.  There  are  "  belles"  at  Saratoga, 
well-born,  well-moulded,  and  well-dressed — five  or  six 
of  the  first  degree  of  perilous  loveliness,  none  of  the 
second  degree  (I  don't  know  why)  and  fifty  or  sixty 
with  beauty  enough  to  make,  each  one,  a  dull  man 
happy.  The  rest  are  probably  immortal  creatures, 
and  have  angels  to  look  after  them — but,  as  they  make 
no  sacrifices  in  proportion  to  their  mortal  plainness, 
they  are  ciphers,  at  least  till  doomsday.  I  will  not 
"mpair  my  advantages  by  telling,  to  an  enterprising 
admirer  like  yourself,  even  the  names  of  the  adorables, 
for  as  I  slide  into  the  back-swath  of  the  great  mower, 
I  am  jealous  of  opportunity — but  there  is  one  woman 
here  who  was  the  electric  light  of  the  court  of  France 
when  I  was  abroad,  a  creature  of  that  airy  stateliness 
that  betrays  the  veiled  symmetry 

"  Of  the  fair  form  that  terminates  so  well !" 

and  she  is  as  beautiful  now  as  then,  for  a  kind  of  tender 
and  maternal  mournfulness  of  eye  has  more  than  made 
up  for  the  fainter  roses  and  more  languishing  lilies  of 
lip  and  cheek.  (God  be  praised  for  compensations  !) 
But,  without  specifying  more  to  you,  I  must  hold  back 
a  bit  of  speculation  that  I  have  in  reserve,  while  I 
make  you  marvel  at  a  triumph  of  toilet — achieved  by 
the  kind  of  short  gown,  or  kirtle,*  never  before  seen 
but  at  a  wash-tub,  but  promoted  now  to  be  the  lode- 
star of  the  drawing-room  !  There  are  articles  of  dress, 
you  know,  which  are  intensijiers — making  vulgarity 
more  vulgar,  aristocracy  more  aristocratic — and  the 
lady  who  comes  kirtled  to  breakfast  at  Saratoga,  is  of 
Nature's  daintiest  fabric,  only  less  proud  than  win- 
ning— but  fancy  a  butloned-up  frock-coat  over  a 
snowy  petticoat,  and  you  can  picture  to  yourself  the 
saucy  piquancy  of  the  costume.  Titania  in  the 
laundry! 

I  was  going  to  philosophize  upon  the  changes  in 
lady-tactics  within  the  last  few  years,  but  I  will  just 
hint  at  a  single  point  that  has  impressed  me.  The 
primitive  confidingness  of  American  girlhood  (the 
loveliest  social  phase  that  ever  ascended  from  the 
shepherd's  fold  to  the  drawing-room)  has  been  aban- 
doned for  the  European  mamma-dom  and  watchful 
restraint,  but  without  some  of  the  compensatory  Eu- 
ropean concomitants.  I  will  not  "lift  the  veil"  by 
telling  what  those  concomitants  are.  It  would  be  a 
delicate  and  debateable  subject.  But  the  effect  of 
this  partial  adaptation  is,  in  my  opinion,  far  more  dan- 
gerous than  what  it  seeks  to  supplant  or  remedy,  and 
among  other  evils  is  that  of  making  culpable  what  was 
once  thought  innocent.  I  shudder  at  the  manufac- 
ture of  new  sins  in  a  world  where  enough,  for  all 
needful  ruin,  grows  wild  by  the  road-side.  I  do  not 
believe  we  shall  grow  purer  by  Europeanizing. 

What  else  would  you  like  to  know  ?  The  water 
tastes  as  metallic  as  of  old,  though  the  beauties  around 
the  rim  of  the  fountain  are  an  increased  congregation. 
The  Marvins  keep  their  great  caravansary  admirably 
well,  as  usual,  though,  surviving  amid  such  a  cataract 
of  travel,  they  should  rather  call  their  hotel  "Goat 
Island"  than  "United  States."  Union  hall  is 
making  a  fortune  out  of  the  invalid  saints,  and  Con- 
gress hall  looks  romantic  and  flirt-wise  as  ever ;  and 
by-the-way,  they  are  about  to  enlarge  it,  with  a  portico 
overlooking  the  spring.  Delicious  dinners  can  be  had 
at  the  lake?  and  an  omnibus  runs  there  regularly,  and 
in  all  matters,  Saratoga  enlarges.     It  serves  a  needful 

•I  have  since  discovered  that  this  promoted  article  of  dress 
was  «  dug  up"  by  the  spirited  belles  of  Carolina,  and  is  called 
at  the  south  a  "  Jib-along-josey." 


710 


EPHEMERA. 


purpose  in  this  gregarious  country;  and  on  the  whole, 
no  place  of  escape  is  pleasanter  to  man  or  woman. 

How  is  the  joyous  brigadier?  Make  my  homage 
acceptable  to  his  quill  and  his  epaulets,  and  ask  him, 
in  his  next  hour  of  inspired  song,  to  glorify  proud 
beauty  in  humble  kirtle. 

Come  to  Saratoga,  my  dear  Willis,  and  let  me  tell 
your  how  sincerely  I  am  yours, 

Cinna  Beverley. 


The  time  will  come,  perhaps,  when  we  shall  be  a 
connoisseur  in  snuff-boxes,  insects,  or-autographs — 
but,  meantime,  we  are  curious  in  the  cultivation  of 
the  rarer  kinds  of  friendship.  The  ingenious  idea  oc- 
curred to  us,  some  ten  years  ago,  of  turning  the  waste 
overflow  of  our  heart  into  some  such  special  and 
available  irrigation,  and  the  result  we  shall  leave  to  be 
published  posthumously,  under  the  title  of  Amicul- 
ture,  or  a  Trkatise  on  Love-Waste.  Our  proper 
channels  of  affection  being  first  supplied  to  the  point 
of  overflow,  we  have  felt  free  to  venture  upon  very 
bold  experiments  with  the  remainder,  and  some  of  our 
specimens,  of  course,  are  simply  curiosities  ;  but  we 
have  them  (friends)  of  every  quality,  form,  and  condi- 
tion, male  and  female,  preserved  with  studious  care 
and  industry — guardedly  confining  ourselves  to  only  I 
one  of  a  kind.  Some  of  the  humbler  specimens  are  ' 
of  great  beauty,  but  will  show  better  preserved  and 
pressed  in  a  posthumous  amibarium.  We  can  only 
venture,  in  our  lifetime,  to  give  specimens  of  the 
more  ornamental  varieties  ;  and  our  object  now  is  to 
introduce  a  leaf  of  the  species  "callow  dandy" — in 
other  words,  to  give  you  a  letter  from  a  very  elegant 
lad  with  a  nascent  mustache,  a  prized  friend  of  ours, 
now,  for  the  first  time,  at  Saratoga.  He  writes  about 
trifles,  but  in  hot  weather  we  (for  one)  like  trifles  best; 
and  as  he  writes,  after  all,  with  a  dash  of  philosophy, 
we  have  not  thought  it  worth  while  to  omit' or  alter. 
Here  is  his  letter,  written  in  the  vanishing  legibility  of 
a  once  good  school-hand  : — 

U.  S.  Hotel,  Aug.  — . 

Dear  Willis:  Your  kind  note  to  St.  John,  of  the 
Knickerbocker,  got  me  the  state-room  with  the  pic- 
ture of  "  Glenmary"  on  the  panel,  and  I  slept  under 
the  protection  of  your  household  gods — famously,  of 
course.     The  only  fault  I  found  with  that  magnificent 
boat,  was  the  right  of  any  "smutched  villain"  to  walk 
through  her.     It  is  a  frightful  arrangement  that  can 
sell.to  a  beauty  and  a  blackguard,  for  the  same  money, 
the  right  to  promenade  on  the  same  carpet,  and  go  to  j 
sleep  with  the  same  surroundings   on    the  opposite 
sides  of  a  pine  partition  !     Give  me  a  world  where  I 
antipodes  slay  put!     But  what  a  right-royal,  "slap- 
up"  supper  they  give  in  the  Knickerbocker!     They'll 
make  the  means  better  than  the  end— travelling  better 
than   arriving— if  they  improve  any  more  !     I  had  a  I 
great  mind  to  go   back  the  next  day,  and  come  up  j 
again. 

Saratoga's  great  fun.  I  had  no  idea  there  were  so 
many  kinds  of  people — beasts  and  beauties.  Five 
hundred  men  and  women  in  one  house  is  a  lumping 
of  things  that  shoves  aside  a  great  many  secrets 
there's  no  room  for.  Old  women  popping  out  of  their 
rooms,  with  their  wigs  off,  to  call  a  waiter — lazy  men 
coming  to  breakfast  unshaved — cross  people  that  can 
not  be  smiling  all  day  long — lovers  besieging,  when 
the  lady  would  prefer  cracker  and  cheese— jealous 
people  looking  daggers  while  they  pretend  to  blow 
their  noses — bustles  flattened  by  dinner-chairs  into 
upright  pianos — ladies  spreading  their  nostrils  at  un- 
expected introductions — old  maids  in  calm  disgust, 
and  just-outs  in  "  sweet  confusion" — a  Turk  in  the 
portico  selling  attars,  and  a  Jew  in  the  drawing-room, 
shining   in  patent   leather — all   pretty  good  sights,  as 


the  world  goes,  and  stuff  for  moralizing — eh,  old 
Willis  ? 

The  charm  of  society  at  Saratoga  lies  in  getting 
the  thing  without  paying  for  it.  To  see  a  pretty 
woman  in  town,  one  has  to  resolve  at  breakfast,  shape 
his  arrangements,  stick  three  hours  to  his  resolve,  trav- 
el a  mile,  ring  a  bell,  run  the  chance  of  intruding  or 
"not  at  home,"  talk  to  some  bore  in  the  way  of  aunt 
or  brother,  and  two  to  one,  after  all,  you  light  upon 
an  undress  humor  in  the  lady  visited.  In  the  great 
drawing-room  of  the  United  States,  on  the  contrary, 
the  whole  visitable  world  is  reduced  to  the  compass  of 
a  gamut,  and  you  have  it  all  within  the  spread  of  your 
hand,  and  all  in  tune  !  You  dress,  breakfast,  and  sit 
on  a  sofa,  and  in  ten  minutes  your  entire  female  ac- 
quaintance passes  within  three  feet  of  your  nose,  and 
every  one  as  ready  to  be  talked  to  as  if  you  had  ridden 
three  miles,  and  wasted  patience  and  a  forenoon  to 
have  that  pleasure.  You  leave  her  when  you  like, 
without  the  trouble  of  an  adieu,  see  and  talk  to  twenty 
more  with  the  same  charming  economy  of  time  and 
labor,  and  having  got  through  your  duty-talks  by 
eleven,  you  select  your  favorite  and  devote  yourself  to 
her  for  the  remaining  twelve  or  fourteen  hours — "a 
month's  love  in  a  day  !"  This,  if  you  please,  is  letting 

M  the  serious  part  of  life  go  by 
Like  the  neglected  sand," 

and  very  glad  to  be  rid  of  it!  Now,  don't  you  think, 
my  paternal  Willis,  that  society  in  town  has  too  many 
hinderances,  obstructions,  cross-purposes,  exactions, 
mystifications,  and  botherations — considering  that  a 
plague  slices  off  just  as  much  life  as  a  pleasure!  I 
wish  the  Marvins  would  take  a  lease  of  New  Y"ork, 
roof  it  in,  knock  away  walls,  and  make  a  "Springs" 
of  it !  It  is  so  very  cumbrous,  letting  people  have 
whole  houses  to  themselves  ! 

Have  you  anatomized  this  new  fashion  of  gaiter- 
boots,  my  dear  dandy  ?  Do  you  observe  what  a  break- 
down they  give  to  the  instep,  and  how  shamble-footed, 
and  down  at  the  heel  the  men  seem  who  wear  them  ? 
After  all,  there  is  a  "  blood  look"  to  a  man's  leg  as 
well  as  a  horse's,  and  no  dandy  can  look  "clean- 
limbed" with  unstrapped  trousers  and  his  apparent  foot 
cut  in  two  by  shoes  of  two  colors.  The  eye  wants  a 
clean  line  from  the  point  of  the  toe  to  the  swearing- 
place  of  the  patriarchs,  and  an  unblemished  instep 
rising  to  the  pantaloon.  The  world's  tailors  have 
been  ever  since  breeches-time  learning  the  proper  ad- 
justment of  straps,  and  now  it  is  perfected,  the  capri- 
cious world  condemns  it  to  disuse !  Write  an  article 
about  it,  my  dear  Willis!  And  then  these  gathered 
French  trousers — making  a  man  into  a  "  big-hipped 
humble-bee" — as  if  we  needed  to  be  any  more  like 
women  !  I  see,  too,  that  here  and  there  a  youth  has 
a  coat  padded  over  the  hips !  Though,  apropos  of 
coats,  there  is  a  well-dressed  man  here  with  a  new  cut 
of  Carpenter's.  He's  a  Prometheus,  that  Carpenter — 
heating  his  goose  by  undoubted  "fire  from  heaven!" 
The  skirts  of  the  last  inspiration  cross  slightly  behind, 
aiding  the  Belvidere  "  pyramid  inverted"  (from  the 
shoulders  down)  and  of  course  promoting  the  fine  arts 
of  tailoring.  Allowing  freely  the  tip-toppiness  of 
Jennings  in  trousers,  waistcoats,  and  overcoats,  there 
is  nobody  like  this  Philadelphia  man  for  coats!  You 
might  as  well  restore  the  marble  chips  to  the  nose  of 
a  statue  as  suggest  an  improvement  to  him.  And  what 
a  blessing  this  is,  my  dear  Willis'!  Do  you  remem- 
ber the  French  dandy's  sublime  sentiment:  "  Si  Von 
rencontrait  un  habit  parfait  dans  toute  sa  vie,  on  pour- 
rait  presque  se  passer  d' 'amour  /" 

Ah!  such  an  interminable  letter  as  I  am  writing! 
Your  friend  "  Jo.  Sykes,"  the  puller  of  the  big  wires, 
is  here,  handsome  and  thoughtful,  with  a  daughter 
who  is  to  be  the  belle  of  1860 — the  loveliest  child  I 
have  seen  in  my  travels.     The  beautiful  women  I  will 


EPHEMERA. 


711 


tell  you  about  over  our  olives  and  tinta.     No  events 
that  I  can  trust  to  the  indiscretion  of  pen  and  ink. 
Ever  yours,  Augustus  Iliho. 

Of  course  there  was  a  postscript,  but  that  we  must 
reserve  for  posterity.  Our  friend  'Gus  Iliho  is  not  a 
man  to  write  altogether  upon  third  person  topics.  But 
we  have  another  friend  at  Saratoga — a  female  speci- 
men— and  we  hope  to  hear  from  her,  'twixt  this  and 
the  season  over.     Our  readers  will  please  expect  it. 


THE  CABINET. 

("  The  Committee"  trimming  pencil  in  the  Eastern-most 
bathin g-house  on  Rockaway  beach.  Enter  the  briga- 
dier with  nostrils  inflated.) 

Brig. — Fmff!  fmff!  God  bless  the  Atlantic  ocean  ! 
Fmff!  "Salt  sea"  indeed!  I  never  smelt  a  breeze 
fresher.  Fmff!  fmff!  fmff!  You  got  the  start  of 
me,  my  dear  boy  !  (pulls  his  last  high  heel  out  of  the 
deep  sand  and  sits  down  on  the  threshold.)  What  say 
to  a  strip  and  dip  before  we  come  to  business  ? 

Com. — Fie  ! — general,  fie  !  Look  through  your 
fingers  at  the  other  end  of  the  beach  !  It  is  the  hour 
of  oceanic  beatitude — the  la  lies  bathing  !  The  mur- 
muring waters  will  be  purer  for  the  interview.  Bathe 
we  in  the  first  wave  after  ! 

Brig. — How  can  you 

"  Play  in  wench-like  words  with  that 
Which  is  so  serious  ?" 

Did  you  bring  a  towel,  mi-boy? 

Com. — Tut ! — would  you  offend  the  south  wind,  that 
proffers  the  same  office  so  wooingly  ?  Walk  on  the 
beach,  man,  and  let  the  sun  peruse  you,  whileyoudry! 

Brig. — So  should  I  be  more  red,  with  a  vengeance  ! 
But  I  don't  like  this  dry-salting,  mi-boy  !  It's  too 
sticky  !  Ye  gods  !  look  at  the  foam  upon  that  wave  ! 
What  is  that  like,  my  poet  ? 

Com. — Like  the  unrolling  of  a  bale  of  lace  on  a 
broad  counter!  The  "tenth  wave"  is  the  head  clerk, 
and  the  clams  and  soft  crabs  are  the  ladies  shopping! 
How  1  love  the  affinities  of  Art  and  Nature! 

Brig. — Poh  !  Where's  Nature's  twine  and  brown 
paper?     Don't  be  transcendental  ! 

Cum. — How  ignorant  you  are,  not  to  know  eel-grass 
and  devil's  apron — Nature's  twine  and  brown  paper! 
My  dear  general,  were  you  ever  introduced  to  the 
Atlantic?  Is  this  your  first  visit?  Stand  up  in  the 
doorway  ! 

(Brigadier  rises  and  the  surf  boxes  to  the  ground.) 

General  Morris  !  the  Atlantic  ocean.  Atlantic 
ocean !  General  Morris.  I  am  happy  to  bring  two 
such  distinguished  "  swells"  together.  Though  (apro- 
pos, Mr.  "Heaving  Main  !")  the  general  is  a  gay  man! 
Look  out  for  your  "  pale  Cynthia  !"  The  moon  is 
not  famed  for  her  constancy  ! 

Brig. — What  are  you  mumbling  there,  mi-boy! 
1  wish,  under  the  tender  influence  of  these  suggesting 
waters,  to  express  a  wish  that  you  would  write  some 
poetry,  or  give  us  a  new  tale,  or  dash  us  off  a  play,  or — 

Com. — Or,  in  some  other  way  make  rubbish  for 
posterity!  No,  sir!  There  are  no  pack-horses  in 
Posthumousland,  and,  as  much  as  will  ride  in  a  ghost's 
knapsack,  with  his  bread  and  cheese,  is  as  much,  in 
quantity, as  any  man  should  write  who  has  pity  for  his 
pedestrian  soul  on  its  way  to  dooms-day  !  Why, 
general,  the  tales  which  I  am  about  to  publish  (in- 
cluding "  Inklings,"  "Loiterings"  etc.,  etc.),  will 
make,  of  themselves,  a  most  adult-looking  octavo. 
My  poems  and  plays  have  tonnage  enough  to  carry, 
at  least,  all  the  bulk  necessary  to  a  fame;  my  miscel- 
lanies, yet  to  be  collected,  will  make  a  most  sizeable 


volume  of  slip-slop;  pencillings  is  no  pamphlet;  and 
Letters  from  under  a  Bridge,  and  other  epistolary 

production do  you  see  how   beautifully  the  sand 

immortalizes  the  industrious  waves  that  write  succes- 
sively their  sparkling  lines  on  the  beach  ! 

Brig. — Don't  malign  your  "eternal  fame,  mi-boy  !" 
Com — More  eternal,  I  believe,  than  the  love  of  the 
impertinent  Lothario  in  the  sonnet : — 

("  But  say,  my  all !  my  mistress  !  and  my  friend  ! 
What  day  next  week  th'  eternity  shall  end?") 

but  how  much  more  eternal  it  would  be,  if  they  would 
make  the  genesis  of  a  man's  works  like  that  of  the 
patriarchs — dateable  from  the  first  satisfactory  off-shoot 
of  his  manhood  !  Do  you  remember  the  expressive 
genealogy  of  Shem  ? 

12.  And  Arphaxad  lived  five  and  thirty  years  and  begat 
Salah  : 

13.  And  Arphaxad  lived  after  he  begat  Salah  four  hundred 
and  three  years  and  begat  sons  and  daughters. 

14.  And  Eber  lived  jour  and  thirty  years  and  begat  Peleg: 

15.  And  Eber  lived  after  he  begat  Peleg  four  hundred  and 
thirty  years,  and  begat  sons  and  daughters. 

And  so  on,  up  to  Abraham,  whose  father  was  seven- 
ty years  old  when  he  was  born.  But  don't  you  sup- 
pose these  boys  did  anything  before  they  were  thirty- 
odd  ?  Their  history  begins  with  their  first  creditable 
production  !  Eber  was  nothing  till  he  begat  Peleg, 
though,  very  likely,  the  critics  of  that  time  "preferred 
very  much  his  earlier  productions." 

Brig. — And  you  think  you  could  begin,  now,  with 
your  first  Peleg  and  Salah  ? 

Com. — You  have  said  it.  But,  as  I  hinted  before, 
my  posthumous  knapsack  is  already  full  of  rubbish, 
and a  thought  strikes  me  ! 

Brig. — "  Call  it  out !" 

Com. — I'll  change  my  style  and  start  a  new  reputa- 
tion, incog! 

Brig. — Famous  ! 

Com. — And  sell  some  man  the  glory  of  it  for  an 
annuity  ! 

Brig. — Good  ! 

Com. — (Thoughtfully) — The  old  countess  of  Des- 
mond shed  her  teeth  three  times. 

Brig. — A  precedent  in  nature. 

Com. — (Firmly) — Soit!  Done!  So  be  it!  Hang 
me  if  I  don't !  You'll  hear  of  a  new  author  before 
long — one  that  beats  me  hollow !  Look  me  up  a 
purchaser,  my  dear  brigadier  !  Literary  fame  furnish- 
ed at — say,  three  thousand  dollars  per  annum  ! 

Brig.— Mi-boy,  the  ladies  have  left  the  beach — 1 
wonder  if  the  sea  would  condescend  to  us,  now  ! 

Com. — Peltry  after  roses  and  ivory  ! — I  don't  know! 

Brig. — Talking  of  Esau — he  should  have  lived  in 
cravat-time.  Well-drest,  your  hirsute  customers  looks 
not  amiss  !  (No  pun,  you  villain  !)  Stand  back,  my 
unclad-boy  !     Here  comes  a  wagon  load  of  women  ! 

Com. — Chambermaids  and  nurses;  who,  by  the 
way  they  flock  to  the  beach  in  the  male  hours,  must 
either  have  eyes  with  a  nictitating  membrane,  or  a 
modesty  that  is  confined  to  what  they  hear.  I  wish  to 
heaven  that  all  females  were  patricians — undesecrated 
by  low  taste  and  servitude  !  It's  like  classifying  owls 
with  angels  because  they  are  both  feathered,  to  call 
these  rude  creatures  icomen  .'  What's  that  scar  on 
your  breast,  brigadier  ? 

Brig.— Slide  down  your  "  nictitating  membrane," 
mi-boy,  and  don't  be  too  observing!  Here  goes! 
Hup!  (The  brigadier  rushes  into  the  surf,  takes  a 
stitch  through  three  frills  of  the  island's  shirt,  and  rises 
like  a  curly-headed  sun  from  the  ocean.) 

Com  (solus).— There  he  swims!  God  bless  him 
for  a  buoyant  brigadier  !  How  the  waves  tumble  over 
his  plump  shoulders,  delighted  to  feel  the  place  where 
ride  his  epaulets  and  his  popularity!  *  Look  out  for 
sharks,  my  dear  general !     They  snuff  a  poet  afar  off ! 


712 


EPHEMERA. 


Natural  victims  we  are  to  them — on  land  or  water ! 
Hear  him  laugh  as  he  shakes  the  brine  out  of  his 
whiskers  !  Was  ever  such  a  laugh !  His  heart  gives 
that  "  ha  !  ha  !"  a  fillip  as  it  sets  out !  I  must  swim 
off  to  him  !  Clear  the  beach,  soft  crab  and  sand-bird! 
Morris  and  Willis  must  swim  together ! 

Brig.  (Sitting  down  to  dry.) — This  salting  freshens 
a  man,  and  this  wetting  makes  him  dry.  Oh  for  a 
drink  and  the  asp  of  Cleopatra — a  cobbler  and  a  wiper ! 
Shake  yourself,  mi-boy  ! 

Com. — Suppose  we  roll  in  the  sand  and  take  a 
wrestle,  like  the  athletse  of  old — eh  ?  How  do  you 
propose  to  get  the  sand  and  gravel  out  from  your 
doigts  dupied,  general  ? 

Brig. — "  Gravelled,"  we  are,  mi-boy,  but  not  "  for 
lack  of  matter !"  Let's  dress  first,  and  then  go  down 
and  rinse  our  feet  with  the  aid  of  the  moon's  lover — 
lacking  a  servant  to  bring  a  pail !     Are  you  dry  ? 

Com. — Inner  and  outer  man — very  !  What's  this — 
dropped  out  of  your  pocket ! 

Brig. — A  song*  that  I  wrote  for  Brown  to  set  to 
music.     Shall  I  read  it  to  you  ? 

(Brigadier  reads  with  his  hand  on  his  breast.) 

'tis  now  the  promised  hour. 

u  The  fountains  serenade  the  flowers. 

Upon  their  silver  lute — 
And,  nestled  in  their  leafy  bowers 

The  forest-birds  are  mute  : 
The  bright  and  glittering  hosts  above, 

Unbar  their  golden  gates, 
While  nature  holds  her  court  of  love, 

And  for  her  client  waits'. 
Then,  lady,  wake — in  beauty  rise  ! 

'Tis  now  the  promised  hour, 
When  torches  kindle  in  the  skies 

To  light  thee  to  thy  bower. 

"  The  day  we  dedicate  to  care — 

To  love  the  witching  night ; 
For  all  that's  beautiful  and  fair 

In  hours  like  these  unite. 
E'en  thus  the  sweets  to  flowerets  given — 

The  moonlight  on  the  tree — 
And  all  the  bliss  of  earth  and  heaven — 

Are  mingled,  love,  in  thee. 
Then,  lady,  wake — in  beauty  rise  ! 

'Tis  now  the  promised  hour, 
When  torches  kindle  in  the  skies 

To  light  thee  to  thy  bower." 

Com. — True  and  smooth  as  a  locomotive  on  a  "T" 
rail!     Is  it  sold  and  set? 

Brig. — Beautifully  set  to  music  by  Brown,  and  sold 
to  Atwill,  who  will  publish  it  immediately. 

Com — It's  a  delicious  song,  my  happy  troubadour, 
and  destined  to  tumble  over  bright  lips  enough  to  make 
a  sunset.  That  we  should  so  envy  the  things  we 
make  !  My  kingdom  for  a  comb  !  I  shall  never  get 
the  salt  out  of  my  hair — I'm 

"  briny  as  the  beaten  mariner, 
Oft  soused  in  swelling  Tethys'  saltish  tears." 

Tf  you  want  a  curl  to  keep,  now's  your  time  ' 

Brig.— Willis  ? 

Com.— My  lord  ? 

Brig. — I  hear  you  were  voted  in  to  the  "  Light 
Guard"  last  week. 

Com.  —Yes,  sir,  an  honorary  private  !  I  feel  the 
compliment,  for  they  are  a  set  of  tip-top  capables,  joy- 
ous and  gentlemanly — but,  my  dear  martinet,  what  the 
devil  do  they  want  of  a  man's  dura  mater? 

Brig. — A.  man's  what  ? 

Com. — The  weary  membrane  of  an  author's  brain. 

Brig. — They  want  it,  you  say  ? 

Com — With  the  official  announcement  came  an 
order  to  equip,  myself  according  to  directions,  and 

•  This  song,  set  to  music,  has  been  purchased  and  copv 
righted  by  Mr.  Atwill. 


! !  "  deposite   my  fatigue-jacket"  in  the   armory  of  the 
corps  !    What  fatigue-jacket  have  I,  but  the  jacket  of 

1 1  my  brain  ? 

Brig. — True  !      Pick    up  your   boots   and   come 
along  ? 
(Exit  the  brigadier  barefoot,  and  the  cabinet  adjourns.) 


Half  an  hour  later — room  No.  300,  Rockaway  Pavil- 
ion. Two  sherry  cobblers  on  the  table,  with  two 
straws,  erect  in  the  ice.) 

Brig. — How  like  this  great  structure  on  the  sand 
must  be,  to  a  palace  amid  the  ruins  of  Persepolis ! 

Com. — The  palace  of  Chilminar  with  forty  columns 
and  stairs  for  ten  horses  to  go  up  abreast ! — very  like 
indeed — especially  the  sand  !  Somewhat  like,  in 
another  respect,  by  the  way — that  the  palaces  of 
Persepolis  were  the  tombs  of  her  kings,  and  Rock- 
away  is  the  place  of  summer  repose  for  the  indignant 
aristocracy  of  Manhattan. 

Brig. — True,  as  to  the  aristocracy,  but  why  "  indig- 
nant ?" 

Com — That  there  can  be  fashion  without  them  at 
Saratoga  (which  there  could  not  be  once),  and  that 
"  aristocratic"  and  "  fashionable"  are  two  separate 
estates,  not  at  all  necessary  to  be  combined  in  one 
individual.  Rockaway  is  full,  now,  of  the  purest 
porcelain — porcelain  fathers,  porcelain  mothers,  porce 
lain  daughters  ! 

Brig — Then  why  is  not  the  society  perfect  at  Rock 
away? 

Com. — Because  the  beaux  go  after  the  crockery  al 
Saratoga.  The  rush,  the  rowdydow,  the  flirtations 
and  game  suppers,  are  all  at  Saratoga !  Aristocracy 
likes  to  have  the  power  of  complaining  of  these  things 
as  nuisances  inseparable  from  its  own  attraction.  Aris- 
tocracy builds  high  walls,  but  it  likes  to  have  them 
pertinaciously  overleaped.  The  being  let  alone  within 
their  high  walls,  as  they  are  now  at  their  exclusive 
watering-places,  was  not  set  down  in  the  plans  of  aris- 
tocratic campaigns  ! 

Brig. — But  they  are  charming  people  here,  mi- boy? 

Com. — The  best-bred  and  most  agreeable  people  in 
the  world,  but  the  others  give  a  beau  more  for  his 
money.  In  all  countries,  but  ours,  people  make  ac- 
quaintances for  life.  But  the  hinderances  and  obstacles 
which  are  not  minded  at  the  beginning  of  a  lifetime 
acquaintance,  are  intolerable  in  an  acquaintance  for  a 
week  (the  length  of  most  summer  acquaintances  with 
us),  and  the  floating  beaux  from  the  south,  the  west, 
the  Canadas,  and  the  West  Indies,  go  where  they  can 
begin  at  the  second  chapter — omitting  the  tedious 
preface  and  genealogical  introduction. 

Brig. — Rockaway  is  stupid,  then. 

Com. — Quiet,  not  stupid.  The  lack  of  beaux  and 
giddy  times  is  only  felt  by  the  marriageable  girls,  and 
there  are  a  great  many  people  in  the  world  besides 
marriageable  girls.  And  upon  this  same  "  many 
people,"  will  depend  the  prosperity  of  the  Pavilion. 
When  it  is  known  that  it  is  a  delightful  place  for 
everything  but  flirting,  it  will  be  a  centre  for  sober 
people  to  radiate  to,  and  a  paradise  for  penserosos  like 
you  and  me,  general — eh?  I  suppose  Cranston  would 
as  lief  (liefer,  indeed)  that  his  rooms  should  be  filled 
with  tame  people  as  wild. 

Brig. — How's  your  cobbler  ? 

Com — Fit  to  immortalize  the  straw  that  passes  it ! 

Brig. — What  birds  are  those,  my  Willis  ? 

Com. — Shore  birds  that  build  in  the  sedge  and  feed 
on  molluscous  animals — death  on  the  soft  crabs ! 
And,  general,  do  you  know  that  the  male  of  this  bird 
(called  the  phalarope),  is  a  most  virtuous  example  to 
our  sex  ?     What  do  you  think  he  does  ? 

Brig. — Feeds  the  little-uns  ? 


ETHKMEllA. 


713 


Com.— Hatches  them,  half  and  half,  with  the  she- 
bird,  and  helps  bring  thetn  up  ! 

Brig.— la  the  gender  shown  in  the  plumage  ? 

Com. — No. 

Brig.— So  1  thought.  Your  handsome  peacock, 
now,  leaves  it  all  to  the  hen.  The  domestic  virtues 
are  their  own  reward — remarkably  so  !  Is  that  the 
dinner-bell  ? 

Com. — Yes,  it  is  that  music  ! 

"  Give  me  excess  of  it— that,  surfeiting, 
The  appetite  may  sicken,  and  so  die." 

I'll  meet  you  below,  my  dear  general !     Adieu ! 

{Cabinet  adjourns  for  the  day.) 


That  I 


feelings  in  common  than  the  pulpit  admits, 
believe. 

Com. — The  chasm  between  them  in  this  world 
should  be  narrowed,  for  they  have  many  sympathies. 
The  bigot  makes  the  separation  unnaturally  wide. 
Who  is  the  one  man*  mentioned  in  Scripture  as 
"loved"  by  the  Savior?  The  "young  ruler"  who 
could  not  give  up  his  "  great  possessions"  "to  inherit 
eternal  life  !"  Is  not  this  tender  interest  in  one  "  out 
of  the  fold,"  a  lesson — a  most  unheeded  lesson,  to  the 
?     I  talk  feelingly  of  this,  for  I  have  an  ad- 


strict  sect 


THE    CABINET. 


miration  of  goodness  and  purity  that  has  never  sepa 

I  rated  itself  from  my  love  of  beauty.     I  love  a  simple 

1  and   unobtrusive    piety,   and    am    drawn    irresistibly 

!  toward  the    possessor.     Yet   this   better  part  of   my 

nature  is  excluded  with  the  rest,  when  1  am  denied 

!  Christian    sympathy.       Come    out    of    dream-land, 

brigadier,  and  observe  the  tender  violet  in  that  upper 

,  j  cloud! 

(Rockaway  beach,  Sunday  evening.  The  brigadier  and  \  Brig.— I  was  thinking  whether  the  wave  that  falls 
committee  seated  on  their  boot-legs,  after  walking  two  j)  upon  tne  beach  is  to  be  congratulated  or  pitied— com- 
mies, barefoot,  on  the  hard  sand.)  paring  its  arrival,  that  is  to  say,  with  its  "swell"  time 
.-Boots  are  durance  vile,  mi-boy!  How  "^^h  ,  upon^se^^^^   f   ^^   ^      ^ 

locks  with  which  it  approaches  the  beach,  though 
they  are  breakers  ahead  when  seen  from  the  sea,  are 
beautiful  when  seen  from  the  shore— as  the  head, 
whitened  with  the  dreaded  troubles  of  life,  grows 
more  beautiful  in  the  eyes  of  angels,  as  it  is  more 
whitened  and  troubled,  approaching  heaven !  But 
what  hypocrites   these   shore-birds    are,    with    their 


we  lose  in  not  keeping  our  feet  open  to  female  assidu-  || 
ities !  Fancy  one  of  those  apostolic  washings—a 
sweet  woman  kneeling  before  you,  and,  with  her  hair 
breathing  perfumes  over  your  ankles,  performing  it  as 
an  office  of  tenderness  and  hospitality!  Can  patent 
leather  be  weighed  against  desuetude  so  melancholy  ! 
Com. — I  am  satisfied  that  the  tender  pink  in  your 
toe-nails  was  intended  by  nature  to  be  admired,  my 


dear  brigadier  !  And  there  is  nature 
eloquent  in  a  corn — against  the  airle 
boot  and  stocking  !     Why  is  a  poet  like  a  sandal  ? 

Brig. — Philosophize,  my  dear  boy,  don't  quibble  ! 

Com. — Because  he's  a  soul  kept  under  with  a  thong  ! 

Brig. —  Willis,  1  love  the  sea  ! 

Com. — So  sung  Barry  Cornwall,  "the  open  sea." 
As  if  Pharaoh  had  not  yet  passed  over!  To  me  the 
sea  seems,  on  the  contrary,  for  ever  slamming  down 
trap-doors  of  surf,  and  carefully  covering  the  "  treas- 
ures of  the  deep"  with  cold  water.  I  never  saw  any- 
thing less  "open!" 

Brig. — There  goes  the  sun  down  !  as  red  as — what 
shall  1  compare  it  to  ? 

Com.—K  wafer,  sealing  up  this  17th  of  August  for 
the  doomsday  postoffice.  Happy  they  who  have  not 
forgotten  the  P.  S.  of  repentance  ! 

Brig.— Ah,  mi-boy!  that  pious  infancy  of  yours! 
It  oozes  through  the  after-crust  of  your  manhood  in 
drops  of  poetry  !  Pity  you  are  less  of  a  saint  than 
you  were  at  seventeen  !  ( 

Com.— Less  of  a  saint  I  am  not,  though  more  of  a 
sinner  lam .'  All  I  had  seen  at  seventeen  was  beauty 
and  goodness,  and  with  an  innate  sense  of  beauty  and 
goodness,  I  worshipped  the  Maker,  my  youth  through, 
with  a  poet's  adoration  !  The  heart  melts  and  drops 
upon  its  knees  within  a  man,  at  any  sudden  revelation 
of  unusual  loveliness;  and  I  have  worshipped  God, 
and  loved  one  of  his  angelic  creatures,  with  the  white 
quivering  lip  of  the  same  rush  of  blood  inward.  If  to 
look  often  and  adoringly  "  through  nature  up  to  na- 
ture's God"  be  devotion,  I  am  still  devout.  No  sun- 
set, no  morning's  beauty,  no  rich  and  sudden  sight  of 
loveliness  in  scenery,  goes  by  without  the  renewal  of 
that  worship  in  my  heart  that  was  once  religion.  I 
praise  God  daily.  Worldling  as  I  am,  and  hardly  as  I 
dare  claim  any  virtue  as  a  Christian,  there  is  that 
within  me  which  sin  and  folly  never  reached  or  tainted. 
The  unprompted  and  irresistible  thoughts,  upsprings 
in  my  mind  in  any  scene  of  beauty,  would  seem 
prayers,  and  pure  ones,  to  many  an  humble  Christian. 
Pardon  me  for  reading  to  you  this  inner  leaf,  my  dear 
brigadier ! 

Brig. — Thank  you,  on  the  contrary,  for  its  philos- 
ophy, my  dear  boy  !  Saints  and  worldlings  have  more 


remonstrance—  I  whitest   plumes  turned  earthward; 
confinement  of     backed  snipe  on  the  beach,  with  hi 


See    that    dark- 
white  breast  and 


belly. 

Brig. — Rather  what  knowledge  of  mankind  they 
have— preferring  to  keep  their  darker  side  for  the 
more  forgiving  eye  of  Heaven! 

Com.—  True— the  better  reading!  Do  you  like 
snipe? 

Brig. — With  a  pork  shirt  they  are  fairish — that  is, 
if  you  can't  get  woodcock.  But,  mi-boy,  it  isn't  you 
that  need  ever  eat  snipe  ! 

Com. — As  how  ? 

Brig.— (Pulling  out  the  Sunday  Mercury  and  read- 
ing)—"  Willis,  it"  is  said,  has  profited  $5,000  by  the 
sale  of  the  last  edition  of  '  Pencillings  by  the  Way.'" 

Com.— The  mischief  he  has! — for  "has"  read  would 
be  pleased  to.  Perhaps  the  editor  of  the  Mercury 
will  be  kind  enough  to  fork  over  the  difference  be- 
tween fact  and  fiction  !  By-the-way,  I  have  read  the 
book,  myself,  for  the  first  time  in  eight  years,  and  I 
have  been  both  amazed  and  amused  with  the  difference 
between  what  I  saw  then,  and  what  I  know  now  !  And 
I  am  going  to  give  the  public  the  same  amazement 
and  amusement,  by  writing  for  the  Mirror  a  review  of 
"  Pencillings"  with  my  new  eyes— showing  the  inter- 
esting difference  between  first  impressions  and  after 
familiarity. 

£n'g.— They'll  want  to  read  "  Pencillings '  over 
again,  mi-boy! 

Com.— For  a  hasty  pudding  it  has  held  out  surpri- 
singly already.  The  fifth  edition,  embellished  with 
engravings,  is  still  selling  well  in  England,  and  in  the 
most  stagnant  literary  month  of  the  year  we  have  sold 
two  editions,  as  you  know.  I  an.  inclined  to  fear  that 
1  shall  be  less  known  by  my  careful  writings  than  by 
this  unrevised  book-written  between  fat.gue  and 
sleep,  by  roadsides  and  in  most  unstudyhke  places, 
and  republished,  in  the  Mirror  edition,  exactly  as  first 
written  !  There  is  a  daguerreotypity  in  literal  first 
impressions,  my  dear  general,  and  a  man  would  write 
an  interesting  letter,  the  first  moment  after  seeing  the 
Colosseum  for  the  first  time,  though  a  descr.pt.on  from 
memory,  a  month  after,  would  be  very  stupid.  Did 
vou  ever  feel  posthumous,  brigadier? 
Brig.— No.     I  never  was  dead. 


714 


EPHEMERA. 


Com. — Nor  I,  except  "in  trespasses  and  sins" — but 
a  letter  I  received  to-day  has  given  me  a  most  pos- 
thumous sensation.  It  was  sent  me  to  publish,  by  a 
lady  who  has  lived  several  years  abroad,  and  has  lately 
revisited  Saratoga.  It  will  "rub  my  brass"  as  the 
maids  say,  to  publish  the  passage  about  myself  (quoted 
from  the  letter  of  a  German  baron),  but  it  may  make 
somebodies  buy  "  Pencillings"  to  know  that  it  has 
passed  abroad  into  a  vade-mecum  for  travellers.  So, 
down  modesty  and  swell  pocket!  Who  knows  but 
that  the  "  Sunday  Mercury,"  that  "  lighted  on  the 
heaven-kissing  hill"  of  $5,000,  may  be  a  better 
prophet  than  historian  !  Set  your  heels  comfortably 
into  the  sand,  general,  and  listen  to  this  letter.  There 
are  some  sweet  lines  at  the  close,  written  by  the  same 
lady  after  visiting  the  home  of  the  young  poetess  Da- 
vidson, whose  precocious  genius  and  premature  death 
have  been  so  feelingly  written  upon  : — 

"  When  you  and  I,  my  dear  sir,  met  so  pleasantly 
some  weeks  since  at  Saratoga,  I  forgot  to  give  you  an 
extract  from  a  letter  which  I  had  received  from  Ger- 
many.    No  one  can  be  insensible  to  deserved  praise 
from  a  far  land,  and  I  know  you  will  read  with  gratifi- 
cation these  few  lines  from  a  distinguished  friend  of 
mine  :  '  I  remember  with  pleasure  our  visit  to  your 
splendid  frigate,  the  United  States,  in  the  bay  of  Na- 
ples.    We  met  Mr.  N.  P.  Willis  on  board,  and  after 
his  cruise  I  met  him  again  at  Lady  Parley's.     He  will  j 
not  remember  me,  but  if  you  ever  see  him,  tell  him  ! 
that  a  person  who   has  visited   almost  all   the   spots  i 
described  in  his  "Pencillings  by  the  Way,"  feels  the 
greatest  pleasure  in  reading  his  book  at  least  twice  a  | 
year.     It  accompanies  him  regularly  from  Dresden  to 
hit  estates  in  the  spring,  and  back  to  the  city  in  the 
autumn.' 

"  Not  having  seen  Saratoga  for  many  years,  I  was 
curious  to  perceive  what  changes  time  had  made.  Of 
course,  its  outward  condition  is  greatly  improved,  and 
the  remarkable  change  of  all  is  the  transition  of  the 
fashion  and  gayety  from  Congress  hall  to  the  United 
States  hotel.  It  would  be  unwise  to  compare  this 
latter  establishment  with  any  other  that  we  have  seen 
in  Europe,  inasmuch  as  the  whole  order  of  arrange- 
ment is  entirely  different ;  but  this  must  be  conceded, 
that  for  a  fortnight,  no  place  in  the  world  offers  more 
amusement.  One  may  remain  months  at  Carlsbad, 
Baden-Baden,  &c,  without  fatigue,  in  consequence 
of  the  entirely  independent  manner  of  living;  but 
Saratoga  must  be  taken,  to  be  enjoyed,  in  homeopathic 
doses  of  the  beforementioned  fourteen  days.  It  is 
really  extraordinary  how  well-ordered  and  conducted 
is  the  United  States  hotel,  when  we  remember  the 
crowds  that  dwell  within  its  four  walls  and  its  colo- 
nies; and  assuredly  the  brothers*  who  bring  about 
this  state  of  things,  deserve  great  commendation. 
Having  been  repeatedly  told,  since  my  return  from  a 
long  absence,  that  Saratoga  had  deteriorated,  I  con- 
fess to  having  seen  nothing  of  the  sort.  I  had  the 
good  fortune  to  meet  some  of  the  most  remarkable 
men  of  my  country,  and  many  of  the  fairest  of  its 
daughters,  and  to  enjoy  their  society.  I  hold  that 
Saratoga  must  be  visited  upon  broad  American  prin- 
ciples— no  cliques  (like  will  come  to  like) — but  a  gra- 
cious word  for  all.  At  Carlsbad,  and  all  other  conti- 
nental watering-places,  the  government  provides  a 
master  of  ceremonies,  who  introduces,  regulates  the 
balls,  &c.  The  voice  of  the  people  gives  this  posi- 
tion, at  the  United  States  hotel,  to  a  citizen  of  Balti- 
more, and  allow  me  to  say,  that  those  who  look  upon 
him  as  a  mere  manager  of  balls,  totally  mistake  his 
character;  for  a  kinder  and  better  heart  never  beat 
within  a  human  breast  than  he  possesses.  Indeed,  Bal- 
timore seems  to  have  been  singularly  well  represented 
this  year — the   incomparable    beauty  of   its   women 

*  Messrs.  Marvin — excellent  hosts  and  most  worthy  men. 


eclipsing  all,  and  the  wit  alone  of  one  finished  gentle- 
man of  that  town  being  sufficient  to  leaven  a  '  mass 
meeting.' 

"I  think  the  visits  of  clergymen  to  watering-places 
a  signal  benefit,  when  they  resemble  the  Rev.  Dr. 
Bethune,  engaging  in  pleasing  conversation  with 
young  and  old,  whom  he  enlivened  by  his  eloquence. 
He  never  lost  sight  of  the  great  aim  of  his  existence — 
their  improvement.  Ever  surrounded  by  eager  listen- 
ers, he  left  them  better,  wiser.  On  the  whole,  I  think 
we  must  consider  Saratoga  as  a  great  public  good — a 
neutral  ground,  where  the  south  discovers  that  the 
north  is  not  a  Mont  Blanc,  and  the  north  perceives 
that  the  south  is  not  a  Vesuvius  ! 

"  My  last  visit  at  Saratoga  wasto  the  late  home  of  the 
gifted  Davidsons.  Their  brother  kindly  accompanied 
me,  and  presented  me  to  his  bereaved  father.  It 
seemed,  as  I  lingered  amidst  their  remains,  a  very  home 
of  shadows'* — a  wondrous  contrast  to  the  surrounding 
scenes.  I  considered  myself  quite  fortunate  in  hiving 
paid  this  visit,  as  Dr.  Davidson  leaves  Saratoga 
shortly,  and  the  establishment  will  thereby  be  entrHy 
dismembered. 

*  "  A  home  of  shadows  !  mid  the  din 

Of  fashion's  gay  and  glittering  scene 
So  calm,  so  purely  calm  within 
Breathing  of  holiness  serene. 

"  A  home  of  shadows  !  where  the  twain, 
Who  dwelt  within  its  hallowed  core, 
Are  sought  with  wondering  eyes  in  vain, 
Alas  !  to  bless  its  walls  no  more  .' 

"  The  pair  have  winged  their  glorious  flight, 
And,  borne  by  angels  through  the  air, 
To  realms  of  everlasting  light, 
Are  linked  with  cherubs  bright  and  fair. 

"  Some  student,  yet,  in  time  untold, 
Star-seeking  in  the  dark  blue  sky, 
Will,  midst  its  silver  lamps,  behold 
These  joyous  Pleiads  wandering  by. 

"  Back,  back  to  earth — its  pleasures,  cares — 
Must  thou,  my  soul,  my  thoughts  be  given, 
But,  bless  the  spot,  that,  midst  its  snares, 
Called  for  a  lingering  look  to  heaven." 

Brig. — Charming  verses,  and  she  must  be  a  fresh 
hearted  and  impressible  woman  who  wrote  them.  Do 
you  remember  the  first  thought  of  "  Pencillings,' 
mi-boy — the  oysters  at  Sandy  Welsh's,  over  which  1 
offered  to  send  you  abroad  ? 

Com. — Theodore  Fay,  you,  and  I,  supping  together! 

Brig. — You  have  a  way  of  knowing  opportunity 
when  you  see  it!  I  little  dreamed  of  so  long  a  leass 
of  you!  Dear  Theodore!  howl  should  like  to  eat 
that  supper  over  again  ! 

Com. — I  am  very  glad  it  agreed  with  you  (presuming 
it  is  me  and  Theodore  you  want  over  again — not  the 
oysters  !)  They  say  Fay  has  grown  fat,  handsome 
and  diplomatic.  When  shall  we  have  that  sweet  fel 
low  back  among  us? 

Brig. — When  they  want  the  place  for  a  green  sec 
retary,  who  knows  nothing  of  the  court  or  court  Ian 
guage.  As  soon  as  a  man  has  been  long  enough 
attached  to  a  legation  to  be  presentable  and  useful, 
they  recall  him  !  What  is  that  other  letter  I  brought 
you  ? 

Com. — From  a  lady  at  Fishkill,  who  is  dazzled  with 
the  upshoot  of  "Fanny  Forester."  She  thinks  Fan- 
ny's offhand  piquancy  is  easy  to  do,  and  the  lettet 
shows  how  much  she  is  mistaken.  I  would  fain  say 
an  encouraging  word,  however,  for  she  seems  to  have 
the  best  of  motives  for  wishing  to  be  literary.  Now, 
is  it  kinder  to  discourage  such  beginners  at  once,  or  to 
encourage  them  good-naturedly  into  a  delusion? 

Brig. — Always  discourage,  mi-boy,  for  if  they  have 
genius,  they  will  prosper 

"  like  a  thunder-cloud,  against  the  wind," 


EPHEMERA. 


715 


and  if  they  have  none,  they  are  better  stopped  where 
they  are.  How  many  heart-aching  authoresses  do  we 
know  at  this  moment,  who  can  write  just  well  enough 
to  be  wofully  distressed  with  the  reluctance  of  the 
market!  The  only  style  saleable  is  the  spicy  but  dif- 
ficult vein  of  bright  Fanny  Forester,  and  yet,  to  a 
neophyte,  that  very  woof  seems  the  easiest  woven  ! 
A  woman  who  is  more  intelligent  than  the  people 
around  her,  is  very  apt  to  believe  that  she  might  be 
famous,  and  make  money  with  her  pen;  and  unless 

"  Fair  politure  walk  all  her  body  over, 
And  symmetry  rejoice  in  every  part," 

she  endeavors  in  this  way  to  compensate  herself  for 
the  lack  of  belleship.  Better  raise  flowers  and  sell 
bouquets,  dear  Rosalie  Beverly  ! 

Com. — The  gray  lace  of  twilight's  star-broidered 
veil  has  fallen  over  the  sea,  brigadier.  Let  us  paddle 
back  through  the  surf-edge  to  the  bathing-houses,  boot, 
and  reappear  to  a  world  (1  don't  think)  disconsolate 
without  us. 


THE    CABINET. 

(Shop-door,  Ann  street.      The  Brigadier  and  Commit- 
tee standing,  sphinx-wise,  outside.) 

Brig. — The  "devil"  was  here  just  now  for  "  copy," 
my  dear  boy ! 

Com. — The  devil  here  and  no  Fanny  Forester! 
We  have  given  our  readers  a  taste  of  this  charming 
incognito,  brigadier,  and  now  they'll  not  feast  with- 
out her!     I  wonder  whether  she's  pretty? 

Brig. — So  would  she  be  over-endowed.  No,  mi- 
boy  !  I  warrant  that,  with  all  her  cleverness,  she  has 
envied,  many  a  time,  the  doll  of  the  village! 

Com. — A  woman  is,  sometimes,  wholly  unadmired,  i 
who  would  become  enchanting  by  a  change  of  her  i 
surroundings.  That  playful  wit  of  Fanny  Forester's,  j 
what-like  shell  soever  it  inhabits,  would  make  her  the 
idol  of  a  circle  of  appreciators — for  its  work  is  in  her  \ 
face,  somewhere  !  Do  you  remember  George  Sand's 
description  of  one  of  her  heroines  ?  "Elle  etait  jolie 
par  juxta-position.  Heureuse,  elle  eut  ete  ravissante.  ! 
Le  bonheur  est  la  poesie  des  femmes,  comme  la  toi- 
lette en  est  le  fard.  Si  la  joi  d'un  bal  eut  reflete  ses 
teints  rosees  sur  ce  visage  pale,  si  les  douceurs  d'une 
vie  elegante  eussent  rempli,  eussent  vermillione  ses 
joues  deja  legerement  creusees,  si  l'amour  eut  ranime 
ses  yeux  tristes,  elle  aurait  pu  lutter  avec  les  plus 
belles  jeunes  filles.  II  lui  manquait  ce  qui  cree  une 
sccondefois  la  femmc  : — les  chiffons  el  les  billet-doux.'" 
Brig. — (who  had  gone  in  to  escape  the  French  quo- 
tation, and  returned  as  the  last  word  lingered  on  the 
committee's  lips).— Write  a  "  billetdoux"  to  the  next 
unrisen  star,  mi-boy,  and  ask  her — (him,  it,  or  her) — 
to  shine  first,  like  Fanny  Forester,  in  the  columns  of 
the  Mirror.  I  love  the  baptism  of  genius,  and  (mod- 
estly speaking)  I  have  been  the  St.  John  in  the  wil- 
derness of  new  writers. 

Com. — Apostolic  brigadier!  You  do  know  a  star, 
even  "  at  the  breast" — though,  from  sucking  poets  de- 
liver me  mostly,  oh,  kind  Heaven  !  They  exact  a 
faith  in  their  call  and  mission  that  precludes  every- 
thing but  the  blindest  and  most  acquiescent  admira- 
tion. I  remember  my  own  difficult  submissions  to 
the  corrections  of  the  kind,  but  truthful  and  consist- 
ent critic  of  my  youth,  Buckingham  of  the  Boston 
Courier.  He  was  always  right,  but  it  is  hard,  when 
your  feathers  are  once  smoothed  down,  to  pluck  out 
and  re-stick  them  in  your  poetical  peacockery  !  Ah, 
juvenilities !  We  build  bridges  over  chasms  of  mean- 
ing, but  they  drop  away  behind  us,  as  we  pass  over! 
In  Heaven,  where  there  will  be  no  grammar  and  dic- 
tionary, we  shall  have  a  new  standard  of  excellence — 


thought.  Here,  it  is  thought's  harness — language! 
What  makes  these  people  throw  their  potato-parings 
into  the  gutter,  my  dear  general  ? 

Brig. — Ann  street,  mi-boy,  calls  for  the  attention 
of  Mayor  Harper.  The  Mirror  has  a  dainty  nostril 
or  two,  and  there  are  flower-pots  in  the  windows  op- 
posite, and  Burgess  <fc  Stringer  keep  the  choicest  of 
literary  conservatories,  yet  we  reside  upon  a  rivulet 
of  swill !  The  simple  enforcement  of  the  law  would 
'  sweeten  things,  but  there  is  no  police  except  for  crim- 
inals in  this  land  of  liberty.  Look  at  that  brace  of 
turtle-doves  coming  up-street!  What  loving  friend- 
ships women  have,  at  an  age  when  boys  are  perfect 
Ishmaelites. 

Com. — Pardon  me,  my  dear  general,  if  I  correct 
your  cacology.  The  sportsmen  call  two  turtles  a 
!  dule  of  turtles,  not  a  brace.  Though,  by-the-way,  1 
have  not  long  been  in  possession  of  my  learning  upon 
that  point.  Let  me  read  you  a  chapter  on  the  nomen- 
I  clature  of  such  matters  from  this  book  in  my  hand. 
Will  you  listen?  The  book  is  "Goodman's  Social 
History  of  Great  Britain" — a  gem  of  delightful  read- 
ing:— 

"The  stags  which  ran  wild  in  the  king's  forests 
were  named  as  early  (if  not  earlier)  as  Edward  III. 
(1307),  from  their  antlers;  thus  the  first  year  the  male 
is  called  a  calf,  second  year  a  brocket,  third  year  a 
spayer,  fourth  year  a  stag,  fifth  year  a  great  stag,  sixth 
year  a  hart  of  the  first  head. 

"In  the  notes  of  Sir  Walter  Scott's  'Lady  of  the 
Lake,'  is  a  curious  account  of  the  brytling,  breaking 
up,  or  quartering  of  the  stag.  'The  forester  had  his 
portion,  the  hounds  theirs,  and  there  is  a  little  gristle, 
called  the  raven's  bone,  which  was  cut  from  the  bris- 
ket, and  frequently  an  old  raven  was  seen  perched 
upon  a  neighboring  tree  waiting  for  it. 

"  The  fallow-deer,  which  are  kept  in  the  English 
parks,  have  also  names,  but  not  exactly  the  same  as 
for  stags.  The  males  and  the  females  the  first  year 
are  called  fawns,  second  year  the  females  are  called 
does,  which  name  she  always  retains;  but  the  male 
is  called  a  prickett;  third  year  he  is  called  a  shard; 
fourth  year,  a  sword  ;  fifth  year,  a  sword-ell,  or  sor- 
!  rell;  sixth  year,  a  buck  of  first  head;  seventh  year, 
a  buck;  eighth  year,  a  full  buck;  he  is  then  fit  for 
killing,  and  not  before  :  and  in  the  summer  is  very  fat, 
which  he  loses  in  winter.  Buck-venison  is  not  fit  to 
eat  in  winter,  and  ought  not  to  be  killed. 

"When  beasts  went  together  in  companies,  there 
,  was  said  to  be  a  pride  of  lions,  a  lepe  of  leopards,  a 
herd  of  harts,  of  bucks,  and  all  sorts  of  deer;  a  bevy 
!  of  roes,  a  sloth  of  bears,  a  singular  of  boars,  a  sowndes 
i  of  swine,  a  dryfte  of  tame  swine,  a  route  of  wolves,  a 
harass  of  horses,  a  .rag  of  colts,  a  stud   of  mares,  a 
pace  of  asses,  a  barren  of  mules,  a  team  of  oxen,  a 
drove  of  kine,  a  flock  of  sheep,  a  tribe   of  goats,  a 
sculk  of  foxes,  a  cete  of  badgers,  a  richess  of  mar- 
tins, a  fessynes  of  ferrets,  a  huske  or  a  down  of  hares, 
a  nest  of  rabbits,  a  clowder  of  cats,  a  kendel  of  young 
cats,  a  shrewdness  of  apes,  and  a  labor  of  moles. 

"When  animals  are  retired  to  rest,  a  hart  was  said 
to  be  harbored;  a  buck  lodged;  a  roebuck  bedded  ;  a 
fox  kennelled;  a  badger  earthed;  a  hare  formed;  and 
a  rabbit  seated. 

"  Dogs  which    run    in    packs  are   enumerated    by 
couples.     If  a  pack  of  fox-hounds  consists  of  thirty- 
j  six,  which  is  an  average  number,  it  would  be  said  to 
I  contain  eighteen  couples. 

"Dogs  used  for  the   gun,  or  for  coursing,  two  of 

them  are  called  a  brace,  three  a  leash;  but  two  span- 

l|  iels,  or  harriers,  are  called  a  couple.     They  also  say 

I  a  mute  of  hounds,  for  a  number;  a  kennel  of  raches, 

!  a  cowardice  of  curs,  and  a  litter  of  whelps. 

"  '  The  seasons  for  alle  sortes  of  venery'  were  regu- 
lated in  the  olden  time  as  follows:  The  'time  of 
grace'  begins  at  midsummer,  and  lasteth  to  holy-rood  ; 


716 


EPHEMERA. 


the  fox  may  be  hunted  from  the  nativity  to  the  an- 
nunciation of  our  lady;  the  roebuck  from  Easter  to 
Michaelmas;  the  roe  from  Michaelmas  to  Candlemas; 
the  hare  from  Michaelmas  to  midsummer;  the  wolf, 
as  the  fox  and  the  boar,  from  the  nativity  to  the  pu- 
rification of  our  lady. 

"  So  for  birds  there  is  a  vocabulary  ;  and  first,  for 
aquatic  birds:  a  herd  of  swans,  of  cranes,  and  of 
curlews,  a  dropping  of  sheldrakes,  a  spring  of  teals, 
a  serges  of  herons  and  bitterns,  a  covert  of  cootes,  gag- 
gles of  geese,  sutes  of  mallards,  baddylynges  of  ducks. 
Now  for  meadow  and  upland  birds  :  a  congregation 
of  plovers,  a  walk  of  snipes,  a  fall  of  woodcocks,  a 
muster  of  peacocks,  a  nye  of  pheasants,  a  dule  of 
turtles,  a  brood  of  hens,  a  building  of  rooks,  a  numer- 
ation of  starlings,  a  flight  of  swallows,  a  watch  of 
nightingales,  a  charm  of  goldfinches,  flights  of  doves 
and  wood-pigeons,  coveys  of  partridges,  bevies  of 
quails,  and  exaltations  of  larks. 

"  When  a  sportsman  inquires  of  a  friend  what  he 
has  killed,  the  vocabulary  is  still  varied  ;  he  does  not 
use  the  word  pair — but  a  brace  of  partridges,  or 
pheasants,  a  couple  of  woodcocks  ;  if  he  has  three 
of  any  sort,  he  says  a  leash. 

"  If  a  London  poulterer  was  to  be  asked  for  a  pair 
of  chickens,  or  a  pair  of  ducks,  by  a  female,  he 
would  suppose  he  was  talking  to  some  fine  finicking 
lady's  maid,  who  had  so  puckered  up  her  mouth  into 
small  plaits  before  she  started,  that  she  could  not  open 
it  wide  enough  to  say  couple. 

"As  the  objects  sportsmen  pursue  are  so  various, 
and  as  the  English  language  is  so  copious,  various 
terms  have  been  brought  into  use :  so  that  the  ever- 
lasting term  pair,  this  pairing  of  anything  (except  in 
the  breeding-season)  sounds  so  rude,  uninstructive, 
and  unmusical,  upon  the  ears  of  a  sportsman,  that  he 
would  as  soon  be  doomed  to  sit  for  life  by  the  side  of 
a  seat-ridden  cribbage-player  as  to  hear  it. 

"It  is  the  want  of  this  knowledge  which  makes  the 
writings  of  Howitt  and  Willis,  when  they  write  upon 
this  ever-interesting  national  subject,  appear  so  tame; 
the  sportsman  peruses  their  pages  with  no  more  zest 
than  he  listens  to  the  babble  of  a  half-bred  hound,  or 
•a  ranging  spaniel  that  barks  at  every  bird  he  sees — 
leaving  his  game."' 

Mr.  Goodman  adds,  in  a  note,  the  explanation  of 
my  blunders  in  dog-nomenclature: — 

"Mr.  Willis,  in  vol.  iii.,  p.  203,  'Pencillings  by  the 
Way,'  gives  the  following  information,  speaking  of 
the  duke's  greyhounds  (at  Gordon  Castle):  '"Dinna 
tak'  pains  to  caress  them,  sir,"  said  the  huntsman, 
"they'll  only  be  hanged  for  it."  I  asked  for  an  expla- 
nation. He  then  told  me  that  a  hound  was  hung  the 
moment  he  betrayed  attachment  to  any  one,  or  in  any 
way  showed  superior  sagacity.  In  coursing  the  hare, 
if  the  dog  abandoned  the  scent,  to  cut  across  or  inter- 
cept the  animal,  he  was  considered  as  spoiling  the 
sport.  If  greyhounds  leave  the  track  of  the  hare, 
either  by  their  own  sagacity,  or  to  follow  the  master 
n  intercepting  it,  they  spoil  the  pack,  and  are  hung 
without  mercy.'  Perhaps  Mr.  Willis  will  excuse  me 
if  I  show  how  unsportsman-like  this  is.  In  the  first 
place,  there  are  no  packs  of  greyhounds;  in  the  next 
place,  those  who  attend  on  them  are  not  called  hunts- 
men ;  in  the  next  place,  they  never  ruu  by  scent :  if 
they  did,  they  ought  to  be  destroyed.  As  to  the  ca- 
ressing, no  dog  ought  ever  to  be  caressed  without  he 
had  first  performed  some  extraordinary  feat,  and  then 
it  should  be  done  instantly.  The  everlasting  petting 
or  patting  a  dog,  spoils  it  in  its  nature,  its  disposition, 
its  temper,  and  its  habits.  It  becomes  worthless,  ex- 
cept as  a  lapdog,  and  that  is  the  most  contemptible 
and  worthless  thing  in  all  God's  creation. 

"  Many  years'  close  observation  has  convinced  me, 
that  where  the  dog  is  once  admitted  into  the  house, 
and  petted,  the  dogs  rule  the  children,  and  the  chil- 


dren rule  the  rest;  bringing  in  its  train  all  the  usual 
concomitants  of  turbulence,  filth,  and  frowsiness;  and 
turning  the  room  into  a  dog-kennel. 

" '  If  men  transact  like  brutes,  'tis  equal  then 
For  brutes  to  claim  the  privilege  of  men.'  " 

The  correction  is  very  right — thanks  to  Mr.  Good- 
man. My  attention  was  called  to  the  blunder,  by  the 
duke  of  Gordon  himself,  soon  after  the  publication 
of  the  book  in  England;  and  I  should  have  corrected 
it  in  this  new  edition,  but  for  determining  not  to  read 
the  proofs,  that  the  letters  might  be  published  literally 
from  the  first  copy.  But  what  beautifully  descriptive 
words  are  those  in  the  nomenclature  of  birds,  my 
dear  general :  "  A  watch  of  nightingales ! — a  charm  of 
goldfinches! — a  numeration  of  starlings,  and  exalta- 
tions of  larks!"  How  pretty  it  would  be,  instead  of 
"Here  come  two  pretty  women!"  to  say,  "Here 
comes  a  charm  of  women!"  Instead  of,  "There 
stand  Morris  and  Willis!"  to  have  the  shoemaker  op- 
posite say,  "  Look  at  that  pride  of  lions,"  or  that 
"exaltation  of  editors!" 

Brig. — A  "muster  of  peacocks"  hits  my  fancy — de- 
scriptive, say,  of  two  loungers  in  uniform!  Aha! 
mi-boy! — fine! 

Com. — Most  brigadierish  of  brigadiers!  You 
would  rather  be  the  sodger  men  have  made  you  than 
the  poet  God  made  you  !     So  would  not  I! 

Brig. — you  rejoice  in  a  destiny  fulfilled,  then? 

Com. — Quite  the  contrary.  I  mean  to  say  that  God 
made  me  a  natural  idler  and  trifler,  and  want  made  me 
a  poet  and  a  worky ;  and  unlike  you,  I  would  rather 
be  what  God  made  me.  By-the-way,  do  you  know 
the  trouble  there  was  in  the  first  composing  of  a 
horse?  This  same  amusing  book  quotes  from  Fitz- 
herbert's  old  book  on  agriculture :  "Ahorse  has  fif- 
ty-four properties,  viz. :  two  of  a  man,  two  of  a  bad- 
ger, four  of  a  lion,  nine  of  an  ox,  nine  of  a  hare,  nine 
of  a  fox,  nine  of  an  ass,  and  ten  of  a  woman.  This 
description  has  been  somewhat  altered,  but  perhaps 
not  improved  upon,  viz. :  three  qualities  of  a  woman, 
a  broad  breast,  round  hips,  and  a  long  mane  ;  three 
of  a  lion,  countenance,  courage,  and  fire  ;  three  of  a 
bullock,  the  eye,  the  nostrils,  and  joints  ;  three  of  a 
sheep,  the  nose,  gentleness,  and  patience  :  three  of  a 
mule,  strength,  constancy,  and  good  feet;  three  of  a 
deer,  head,  legs,  and  short  hair;  three  of  a  wolf, 
throat,  neck,  and  hearing  ;  three  of  a  fox,  ear,  tail, 
and  throat;  three  of  a  serpent,  memory,  sight,  and 
cunning;  and  three  of  a  hare  or  cat,  cunning,  walk- 
ing, and  suppleness." 


THE    CABINET. 

(Committee's  private  study.     Brigadier  lounging  in  a 
fauteuil.) 

Com. — My  dear  general,  what  do  you  think,  ab 
stractly,  of  industry  ?  Does  no  shuddering  con 
sciousness  of  awful  platitude  creep  over  you,  in  this 
dreadfully  exemplary  career  that  we  are  pursuing  ?  I 
feel  as  if  the  very  nose  on  my  face  were  endeavoring 
to  "  dress,"  as  you  military  men  say — striving  to  come 
down  to  the  dull,  cheek-bone  level  of  tedious  uni- 
formity !  I  declare  I  should  be  pleased  to  "  hear 
tell"  of  something  out  of  the  "  way  of  business" — 
sentiment  of  some  sort ! 

Brig. — Listen  to  a  song  that  I  have  just  written. 
There  is  a  background  of  truth  to  it — the  true  sadness 
of  a  lovely  living  woman — that  would  supply  your 
need  of  a  sensation,  if  your  imagination  could  picture 
her. 

Com. — It  shall  !     Bead  away,  my  friend  ! 
(Brigadier  reads.) 


EPHEMERA. 


717 


Com. — That  is  a  peculiarly  musical  and  engaging 
measure,  and  you  have  hung  it  upon  hinges  of  honey. 
It  smacks  of  the  days  when  poets  wrote  a  song  a 
year,  finishing,  to  the  last  vanishing  point  of  perfec- 
tion. What  do  the  women  say  to  you  for  translating 
their  prose  into  angel-talk  ? 

Brig. — They  love  poetry,  mi-boy  !  The  more  po- 
etical you  can  make  their  life,  the  more  they  love  life 
and  you  !  They  would  rather  suffer  than  live  monot- 
onously.    So,  beware  the  "even  tenor!" 

Com. — Even  of  prosperity,  eh  ?  I'll  beware  when 
1  see  it  coming  ! 

Brio. — Ah,  mi-boy,  you  have  no  idea  of  the  intense 
abstraction  of  mind  necessary  to  bring  a  poetical  ima- 
gination down  to  habits  of  business. 

Com. — Do  you  really  wish  to  know  what  is  to  be 
the  new  rage  in  society  this  winter? 

Brig.— What  ? 

Com. — Married  belles  .'  The  'teens  dynasty  is  pas- 
sing away  !  The  talk,  this  summer,  at  all  the  water- 
ing-places, has  been  of  beautiful  women,  who  (if,  per- 
chance, they  have  loved  out  their  love)  have  not  shone 
out  their  shine  !  Heavens  ! — how  many  there  are 
completely  shelved  in  American  society,  who  have 
never  had  more  than  two  winters  of  vogue  in  the 
world,  and  who  are  compelled  to  believe  that,  out  of 
thirty  years  of  loveliness,  only  two  are  to  be  rescued 
from  the  nursery — only  two  to  intervene  between  the 
nursery  filial  and  the  nursery  maternal!  What  a 
utensil  woman  is,  in  this  way  !  For  what  did  Heaven 
give  them  their  other  powers  ?  Heaven  did  not  put 
the  smile  of  woman  under  her  arm!  No!  it  was 
placed  where  it  could  not  be  covered  without  suffoca- 
tion, and,  doubtless,  with  a  purpose: — that  the  lips 
and  their  outgoing  should  be  kept  open  to  society! 
Till  those  lips  fade — till  the  mind  that  speaks  through 
them  loses  its  playfulness  and  attraction,  woman  can 
not  be  monopolized  without  a  manifest  waste  of  the 
gifts  of  nature — making  that  bloom  for  two  years  only, 
that  was  constructed  to  bloom  for  forty  !  Besides — 
these  very  charms  are  withdrawn  from  the  world  be- 
fore ripening — flowers  permitted  only  to  bud  !  There 
never  was  a  belle  who  was  not  more  agreeable  after 
marriage  than  before.  An  unripe  mind  is  far  less 
agreeable  than  a  ripe  one.  The  elegant  repose  of 
lovely  married  women  is  far  more  enchanting  than  the 
hoydenish  romping  or  inexperienced  sentiment  of  I 
girls.     Speak  up,  brigadier  !     What  say  ? 

Brig. —  It  is  highly  natural,  mi-boy,  that  this  change  i 
should  be  coming  about,  now!     But  it  was  both  nat- 
ural   and    necessary    that,    hitherto — in   the   unorna- 
mental  foundation  of  American  society,  woman  should 
be  reduced  to  her  simple  primitive  mission — shining,  i 
like  the  glow-worm,  only  long  enough  to  attract  the  i 
male.     When  married,  she  passed  into  the  condition 
of  an  operative  in  a  nation-factory — a  working  mother,  | 
a  working  educatress,  a  working  patriot-maker.     Her 
whole  time  was  then  needed  for  offices  that  are  now 
performed — (all  but  the  first) — by  schools,  moral  teach- 
ers, surrounding  example,  and  national  routine.     Lu- 
bricate the  child  now  with  money,  and  it  will  slide  on 
to  manhood  over  an  inevitable  railroad  of  education 
and  good  influences.     Of  course,  the  mother  is  now 
at  liberty  to  shine  as  long  as  nature   feeds  the  lamp ; 
and,  indeed,  it  is  in  this  way,  only,  that  she  can  fulfil 
her  destiny — dispensing   elsewhere  the  sweet  influ- 
ences   no    longer    needed    exclusively   by   her   chil- 
dren. 

Com. — Statesmanlike  and  pellucid  !  Well,  sir,  this 
great  national  metamorphosis  is  now  coming  about ! 
It  has  been  secretly  resolved,  among  the  young  mar- 
ried men  of  New  York,  that  there  shall  exist,  this 
winter,  a  post- connubial  belle-ocracy;  and  that  mar- 
ried belles  shall,  accordingly,  have  the  pas,  in  wall/., 
quadrille,  promenade,  and  conversation.  How  deli- 
cious ! — isn't  it  ?     It  enlarges  the  field  so !     I  believe. 


general,  that  I,  for  one,  shall  "  cast  my  slough,"  and 
try  my  youth  on  again  ! 

"  For  when  the  life  is  quickened,  out  of  doubt, 
The  wits  that  were  defunct  and  dead  before, 
Break  up  their  drowsy  grave,  and  newly  move 
With  casted  slough  and  fresh  legerity," 

and   who   knows  ?     I   may    be   agreeable   in   the   re- 
formed baby-house  of  society  ! 
Brig. — "  Hope  on — hope  ever  !" 


THE    CABI.NET. 

(Committee  and  Brigadier  in  confidential  session.) 

Com. — My  dear  general,  it  won't  do  !  Read  these 
two  letters ! 

Brig. — I  won't  waste  my  eyes  with  them  !  It  must 
do  !  who  says  it  won't  do  ? 

Com. — One  Noggs. 

Brig. — Who's  Noggs  ? 

Com. — By  Jove,  he  writes  a  capital  letter!  Hear 
this,  my  incensed  brigadier  ! — (reads.) 

"  Dear  Willis  :  You  frightened  me  to-day,  terri- 
bly, in  the  hint  you  threw  out  in  the  course  of  con- 
versation with  the  •  brigadier,'  to  wit :  '  Shall  we 
make  it  into  a  monthly  ?' 

"  Make  the  Weekly  Nkw  Mirror  into  a  monthly  ! 
God  forbid  !  /forbid,  anyhow.  'Who  are  you?'  I 
am  a  live  Yankee,  at  your  service,  who  lives  in  the 
land  of  soles  and  codfish,  whig  pow-wows  and  demo- 
cratic clam-bakes — one  who  has  not  been  so  '  deco- 
rously brought  up,'  perhaps  as  some  of  your  readers, 
but  '  a  man  for  a'  that' — a  constant  reader  of  the  Mir- 
ror, at  any  rate — proof  of  my  manhood,  eh  ? 

Well,  sir,  I,  Newman  Noggs,  Esq.,  of  Lynn,  coun- 
ty of  Essex,  etc.,  etc.,  do  hereby  seriously  and  ar- 
dently protest  against  any  such  nonsense  as  is  implied 
in  the  above  question.  Excuse  me,  sir,  but  I  couldn't 
help  it.  I  feel  so  worked  up  at  the  bare  idea  of  the 
visits  of  the  Mirror  coming  only  monthly,  that  I  can 
hardly  stick  to  decency.  Why,  sir,  I  shouldn't  be  in 
trim  for  my  sabbath-day  meeting — albeit  a  pious  man 
am  I — were  it  not  for  the  '  preparatory'  study  in  the 
Mirror,  Saturday  nights.  Not  that  you  are  so  dread- 
fully religious,  but  there  is  always  sure  to  be  some- 
thing in  you  that  makes  me  feel  belter,  and  when  1 
feel  '  better'  I  want  to  go  to  church,  of  course,  to  let 
myself  and  the  world  know  that  I'm  getting  kind  o' 
good.  As  for  the  literary  merits  of  the  Mirror,  it 
don't  become  the  like  o'  me  to  be  offering  an  opinion. 
All  I've  got  to  say  is,  that  I  '  individually'  like  it  first- 
rate.  There's  a  sort  of  racy,  spicy,  off-hand,  unstudied 
wittiness  about  it  that  takes  my  eye  amazingly.  So, 
for  God's  sake,  or  more  particularly  for  my  sake,  dear 
Willis,  don't  ye  change  it.  Suppose  it  does  cost 
some  folks  a  little  more  for  postage  than  it  would  for 
something  else — what  o'  that  ?  Who's  afraid  of  a 
cent  or  two  ?  I'm  a  poor  man  'long  side  o'  some  folk, 
and  yet  I  rather  pay  letter-postage  than  have  it  stop 
So,  Willis  dear,  just  tell  your  postage  friends  to  econ 
omize  in  some  other  department,  or,  if  they  can't  d« 
that,  tell  'em  I'll  make  it  up  to  'em. 

"  No,  no,  friend  of  my  early  youth,  don't  think  or 
any  such  thing,  that  is,  if  ye  love  me— for  I  could 
better  spare — something  better,  than  the  piquant  dish 
of  conversation  which  weekly  (oh,  let  it  be  ever  week- 
ly) occurs  between  '  mi-boy'  and  our  dearly-beloved 
general,  the  'brigadier.' 

"  Mrs.  Noggs,  too — a  strong  woman,  by  the  way — 
is,  nevertheless,  weekly  on  this  point,  very.  She  says 
she'll  never  forgive  you  if  you  change  the  fair  form 
of  the  Mirror.  Think  o' that !  Though  not  a  vain 
woman,  she  has  a  passion  for  looking  into  the  Mirror 


718 


EPHEMERA. 


that  is  very  affecting.  On  the  other  hand,  she  says 
if  you'll  give  up  the  horrid  notion  of  changing  the 
form  of  the  Mirror,  she'll  fry  you  'a  nipper'1  as 
brown  as  a  nut,  with  her  own  fair  hands,  when  next 
you  come  Bostonward,  and  will  visit  our  humble 
cottage  near  the  sea.  I  have  ye  now  !  For  my  well- 
tried  friends,  Gentleman  Charles  (him  of  the  Astor 
house,  I  mean)  and  his  handsome  partner,  tell  me 
you  are  a  gallant  youth  and  well  affected  toward  the 
ladies. 

"  We  shall  look  anxiously  in  the  next  Mirror  to  find 
our  anxious  hopes  confirmed,  and,  if  not  disappointed, 
shall  henceforth,  as  in  duty  bound,  ever  pray  for  your 
everlasting  welfare,  world  without  end. 

"  Yours  till  then,  "Noggs." 

Com. — I  have  had  twenty  letters  the  last  week 
(none  as  good  as  that,  but)  all  to  the  same  purpose ! 
I  am  inclined  to  think,  general,  that  Heaven's  first  pe- 
riodical (Sunday)  was  arranged  in  accordance  with 
some  revolution  of  our  mental  nature,  and  that  once 
in  seven  days,  as  it  is  good  to  rest,  so  it  is  good  to 
read,  or  grieve,  or  go  love-making.  Friends  dine  to- 
gether once  a  week,  making  friendship  a  weekly  peri- 
odical. Lovers  of  nature  in  cities  ride  to  the  coun- 
try once  a  week.  We  eat  a  boiled  dinner  once  a 
week.  Everybody  in  New  England  needs  beans  once 
a  week.  The  weather  comes  round  once  a  week — 
fair  Sundays  and  wet  Sundays  coming  in  successive 
dozens.  There  is  nothing  agreeable  in  nature  that  is 
monthly,  except  the  moon,  and  the  very  sight  of  that 
periodical  puts  people  to  sleep.' 

Brig. — There  is  the  monthly  rose,  mi-boy  ! 

Com. — The  poorest  rose  that  blows! 

Brig. — But  here  is  a  point  1  should  like  to  make 
clear  to  the  public.  With  an  enormous  subscription 
every  day  increasing,  we  are  every  day  making  less 
money. 

Com. — How,  oh,  business  man  ? 

Brig. — Thus:  For  Mirrors  that  we  sell  through 
agents  in  cities,  we  get  but  four  cents  each.  For 
Mirrors  that  we  send  to  subscribers  by  mail,  we  get  the 
full  price — sixpence  each.  The  irregular  and  exor- 
bitant postage  has  nearly  killed  our  mail  subscription, 
on  which  we  chiefly  depended,  while  in  cities,  where 
our  patrons  get  them  from  the  agents  without  postage, 
we  have  a  sale  growing  daily  more  enormous.  The 
dense  of  it  is,  that  the  Mirror  at  sixpence  is  as  cheap 
as  it  can  possibly  be  sold  with  anything  like  profit,  and 
selling  it  to  agents  literally  at  cost,  the  increase  of  the 
agency  circulation  does  us  no  manner  of  good  ! 

Com. — Why  sell  to  agents  at  cost? 

Brig. — It  was  a  necessary  evil  in  the  beginning — 
lacking  capital  to  hire  the  doing  of  what  agents  do. 

Com. — And  we  must  go  on  as  we  begun  ? 

Brig — Short  of  a  six  months'  paralysis,  which  we 
could  not  afford,  there  is  no  help  for  it !  But  the 
postage  is  the  great  block  in  our  way  !  Most  people 
would  subscribe  and  have  it  sent  to  their  houses  by 
mail,  if  the  postage  were  not  more  than  the  subscrip- 
tion. 

Com. — How  would  that  be  helped  in  the  monthly 
form. 

Brig. — Ah  !  now  you  come  to  the  matter.  The 
monthly  Mirror  goes  for  seven  cents  postage,  and  most 
of  our  mail  subscribers  who  remain,  have  the  Mirror 
sent  in  the  monthly  form,  by  mail — and  I  wish  all  who 
value  the  Mirror,  or  care  for  us,  would  do  the  same.  To 
take  it  weekly  from  an  agent,  does  not  bring  back  to 
you  a  single  leaf  of  Glenmary,  my  dear  boy  ! 

Com. — Ah,  my  dear  friend  —  Glenmary!  Some 
villain — some  wanton  and  unfeeling  villain — has  de- 
stroyed a  vine  I  planted,  which  had  completely  em- 
bowered that  sweet  cottage.  In  an  Ithaca  paper,  sent 
to  me  yesterday,  I  find  a  letter — here  it  is — from  some 
Owego  gentleman  to  the  editor.  Let  me  read  you 
part  of  it : — 


"  The  cottage  you  know,  like  a  bird's  nest,  is  al- 
|  most  hid  in  the  foliage.  On  one  side  is  the  road  pas- 
|  sing  over  'the  bridge,'  and  all  around  a  sweet  lawn,, 
sloping  away  to  '  Owego  creek.'  The  bridge  was 
once  white,  and  neat  in  its  outward  appearance.  But 
how  Willis,  even  in  the  '  summer  months,'  made  his 
'  bridge-gipsying  delicious,'  is  now  a  mystery.  The 
'  groundwork'  is  flood-wood,  and  reptiles  crawl  where 
1  swallows  peeped  out  from  their  nests  against  the 
sleepers,'  while  every  five  minutes  a  baptism  of  dust 
comes  down  from  above,  as  a  benediction  from  the 
passing  traveller.  But  the  pruning  hand  of  a  man  of 
taste  has  been  wanting  to  all  this  rural  spot  for  two 
years  past,  which  may  account  for  the  blemishes  we 
find  in  the  picture  so  beautifully  drawn  in  '  A  I'Abri. 
Some  Caligula  among  shrubbery  has  cut  the  root  of  a 
luxuriant  vine,  which  spread  itself  over  the  collage 
front,  making  a  delightful  arbor  of  the  piazza  ;  and, 
its  leaves  and  tendrils,  already  changed  in  hue,  are 
folding  themselves  to  die.  As  through  it  the  night- 
breeze  rustled,  it  seemed  to  breathe  of  the  desolation 
that  had  stolen  upon  this  garden,  sacred  to  the  mem- 
ory of  a  lovely  exotic  which  made  it  a  paradise,  and 
the  fadeless  light  of  genius." 

That  is  written  by  some  kind  man,  who  understood 
how  a  heartstring  might  be  cut  through  with  a  vine 
one  had  planted  and  cherished.  Whoever  may  be 
the  perpetrator  of  that  needless  outrage,  I  commend 
him  to  the  notice  of  my  friendly  neighbors,  adding  a 
petition  from  me,  which  may  thus  reach  them,  that 
only  Time's  hand  may  be  suffered  to  ravage  my  lost 
paradise. 

Brig — The  subject  troubles  me,  mi-boy!  Let  us 
change  it.  I've  a  funny  communication  here,  from  a 
Rip  Van  Winkle,  who  dates  fifty  years  hence,  and — 

Com. — Keep  it  till  next  week,  general,  and  let  us 
get  into  the  fresh  air.  I'm  manuscript  sick.  Allonsl 
Stay — while  I  mend  my  outer  man  a  little,  read  this 
funny  letter,  sent  me  by  the  lady  to  whom  it  was 
written.  She  thinks  her  friend,  young  "  Cinna  Bev- 
erley," is  a  genius. 

(Brigadier  reads,  with  an  occasional  laugh.) 

"TO    MISS    PHffiBE    LORN. 

"  Dear  Bel-Piuebe  :  I  have  been  '  twiddling  my 
sunbeam'  (you  say  my  letters  are  '  perfect  sunshine') 
for  some  time,  more  or  less,  in  a  quandary  as  to  what 
is  now  resolved  upon  as  '  Dear  Bel-Phcebe' — the  be- 
ginning of  this  (meant-to-be)  faultless  epistle.  I 
chanced  to  wake  critical  this  morning,  and,  '  dear 
Phoebe,'  as  the  beginning  of  this  letter  of  mine,  looked 
both  vulgar  and  meaningless.  I  inked  it  out  as  you 
see.  A  reference  to  my  etymological  dictionary, 
however,  restored  my  liking  for  that  '  dear'1  word.  It 
is  derived  from  the  Anglo-Saxon  verb  Der-ian,  which 
means  to  do  mischief.  Hence  dearth,  which,  by  doing 
mischief,  makes  what  remains  more  precious,  and 
hence  dear,  meaning  something  made  precious  by  hav- 
ing escaped  hurting.  '  Dear  Phoebe,'  therefore  (mean- 
ing unhurt  Phozbe),  struck  me  as  pretty  well — you  be- 
ing one  of  those  delicious,  late-loving  women,  destined 
to  be  '  hurt'  first  at  thirty.  Still,  the  sacred  word 
'  Phoebe'  was  too  abruptly  come  upon.  It  sounded 
familiar,  and  familiarity  should  be  reserved  for  the 
postscript.  I  should  have  liked  to  write  'dear  Lady 
Phoebe,' or 'dear  Countess  Phoebe' — but  we  are  not 
permitted  to  'read  our  title  clear,'  in  this  hideously- 
simple  country.  Might  I  invent  an  appellative?  We 
say  char-woman  and  horse-man — why  not  put  a  de- 
scriptive word  before  a  lady's  name,  by  way  of  re- 
spectful distance.  Phoebe  Lorn  is  a  belle — why  not 
say  i?e/-Phcebe  ?    Good!    It  sounds  authentic.    This 

i  letter,  then,  is  to  Plmbe,  unhurt  and  beautiful  (alias), 

j  •  Dear  Bel-Phoebe  !' 

"  You  are  an  ephemeron  of  a  month — the  month 
at  Saratoga,  in  which  you    get  wings  to  come  forth 


EPHEMERA. 


719 


from  your  eleven  months'  chrysalis  in  the  country— 
and  you  are  now  once  more  'gathered  to  your  fathers,' 
and  mourning  over  the  departed  summer!  Your 
Arabian  mare  feels  your  thrilling  weight  again,  and 
you  astonish  your  pet  cow  with  sponge-cake  over  the 
lawn  fence,  and  give  caraways  to  your  top-knot  hens, 
and  say  '  Sir'  to  your  greyhound,  and  make-believe 
care  for  your  dahlias  and  tube-roses — but  the  pleas- 
aniest  part  of  the  day,  after  all,  is  its  heavenly  twilight 
of  closed  eyelids,  when  you  can  live  over  again  that 
month  at  Saratoga— myself,  perhaps,  then,  cursorily 
remembered  !  For  you  rejoice  in  the  perils  of  love, 
unhurt  and  and  adorable  Phoebe  ! 

"But  you  know  enough  about  yourself  and  you  wish 
to  hear  about  the  town  !  Well  !— the  (lies  are  numb 
with  the  first  frost,  the  window-blinds  are  open  nearly 
to  Union  square,  somebody  has  been  seen  with  a 
velvet  waistcoat,  starch  is  '  looking  up,'  and  the  town 
is  full  of  palmetto-hatted  andready-made-clothing-ized 
southerners.  By  these  data  judge  of  the  epoch.  I, 
myself,  am  among  my  dusted  household  gods,  and, 
at  this  moment  (writing  in  my  bed-room)  see  my  boots 
phalanxed  in  their  winter  parade.  1  must  say  it  is,  so 
far,  pleasant!  Perhaps — but  you  want  news,  not  the 
philosophy  of  boots  in  repose. 

"You  heard  of  the  marriage  of  one  of  our  wild  In- 
dians to  an  English  girl,  not  long  ago  in  London. 
She  has  been  at  the  Waverley  some  days,  and  has 
excited  no  little  curiosity.  She  is  moderately  hand- 
some, but  in  such  an  unusual  style  of  beauty  that  she 
out-magnetizes  many  a  more  strictly  beautiful  woman. 
My  vaurien  friend,  F.,  the  artist  (who  chanced  to  dine 
opposite  the  chief  and  chief-ess  at  the  table- d 'hote  a 
day  or  two  since),  declares  the  face  to  be  wholly 
unique,  and  a  sufficient  explanation  of  the  extraordi- 
nary whim  of  her  marriage.  I  have  never,  myself, 
wondered  at  it.  The  crust,  impenetrable  upward,  of 
English  middle  life,  is  enough  to  drive  genius  of  any 
kind  more  mad  than  this  !  What  hell  like  inevitable 
mediocrity  in  anything  !  This  fine  woman,  now  going 
to  live  a  dog's  life  with  an  Indian  in  the  wilderness, 
would  have  spent  her  days  in  a  brick  row,  and  grown 
idiotic  with  looking  out  upon  the  same  sidewalk  till 
death.     Which  would  you  rather  ? 

"Do  you  remember  (for  beautiful  women  don't  al- 
ways remember  beautiful  women)  the  adorable  Mrs. 
C..  at  Saratoga — that  charming  specimen  of  a  healthy 
and  practicable  angel  ?  She  has  been  here  a  week  on 
her  return  from  Niagara,  and  Fiagg,  the  beauty-painter, 
has  stolen  a  copy  of  her  on  canvass.  Ah,  Bel-Phoebe! 
You  have  a  loss  in  not  realizing  what  it  is  to  a  man 
when  an  exquisite  face  holds  still  to  be  critically  ad- 
mired !  You  can  see  the  grain  of  the  velvet  in  her 
brown  eye,  now,  and  trace  by  what  muscle  her  heart 
pulls,  to  keep  down  that  half-sad  cornerof  her  delicious 
mouth  !  He  is  an  appreciator,  that  Flagg,  and  paints 
a  woman  as  she  looks  to  appreciators— differently  from 
the  butchers'-meat  estimation  of  common  gazers  on 
beauty.  Mrs.  C,  has  gone  to  Baltimore,  where 
beauty  is  an  indigenous  drug — belles  of  that  'city 
rich  in  women'  being  never  valued  till  transplanted. 
But  heavens!  how  tired  you  will  be  of  reading  this 
long  female  paragraph  !  Hasten  to  speak  of  some- 
thing with  a  man  in  it ! 

"One  of  the  most  fascinating  men  in  England  is 
ekeing  out  an  exile  from  May  fair,  by  singing  and 
lecturing  on  songs  to  the  delighted  Croton  drinkers. 
He  is  a  man  of  that  quiet  elegance  of  address  that 
seems  nothing  in  a  woman's  way  till  she  has  broken 
her  neck  over  it,  and  he  sings  as  such  a  man  shouldn't 
— to  be  a  safe  man,  that  is  to  say  !  Fancy  Moore's 
songs  any  more  bewitched  than  Moore  intended  ! 
Mr.  McMichael's  voice  glides  under  your  heart  like 
a  gondola  under  a  balcony — Moore's  melody  represent- 
ing the  embellished  and  enriched  moonlit  water.  It 
is  the  enchanted  perfection  of  lover-like,  and  gentle- 


man-like song-singing.  I  heard  Moore  sing  his  own 
songs  in  England,  and  Mr.  McMichael  sings  them  in 
the  same  style — only  in  apotheosis  !  (Ask  your  papa 
to  translate  that  big  word.) 

"Do  you  care  about  theatres?  We  have  a  new 
tragedian,  about  whose  resemblance  to  Macready  the 
critics  are  quarrelling,  and  a  new  tragedian-ess  who 
has    put  the  boxes   into   fits   by  coming  on  the  stage 

without  a bustle!      (Fancy  Desdemona  without  a 

bustle  !)  Of  course  you  are  surprised,  for  this  is  one 
of  these  '  coming  events'  that  could  not  possibly  '  cast 
their  shadows  before,'  but  fashion  is  imperative,  and 

'  Where  ruled  the  (bustle)  Nature  broods  alone  !' 

I  understand  the  omnibuses  are  to  be  re-licensed  to 
carry  fourteen  inside,  and  the  shops  in  Broadway  are 
petitioning  (so  Alderman  Cozzens  told  me  to-day)  to 
put  out  bow-windows,  in  expectation  of  the  vacated 
space. 

"  Seriously,  there  has  been  a  growing  mistrust 
(Pearl-street'mgly  speaking)  of  the  article  woman,  as 
shown  to  customers  !  Thank  fashion,  there  is  more 
chance  now  of  a  poor  youth's  knowing  the  ('ground 
covered  by  the  imposing  obligations  of  matrimony  !'J 

"As  to  the  fault  found  with  Anderson — his  resem- 
blance to  Macready — I  see  it  in  no  objectionable 
particular,  unless  it  be  theincorrigible  one,  of  a  mutual 
brevity  of  nose.  He  was  educated  to  his  profession 
by  Macready,  and  of  course  lias  his  master's  severe 
taste,  and  smacks  somewhat  of  his  school,  which  is  a 
good  one.  I  like  him  much  better  than  I  do  Mac- 
ready,  however,  for.  though  he  has  most  of  his  ex- 
cellences, he  has  none  of  his  defects,  and,  in  voice 
and  pliancy  of  action,  he  is  much  that  artificial  man's 
superior.  Criticism  aside,  Anderson  plays  agreeably 
and  makes  you  like  him,  whereas  Macready,  playing 
ever  so  well,  does  it  disagreeably,  and  makes  you  dis- 
like him  !  But  I  am  no  judge — for  I  would  rather  sit 
on  a  sofa  by  most  any  woman  than  sit  in  a  box  during 
most  any  play.     Pity  me  ! 

"  Hast  thou  great  appetite,  and  must  I  vouchsafe 
thee  still  another  slice  of  news  ?     The  new  hotel  up- 
town is  waxing  habitable,  and   the   proprietor  is  in  a 
quandary  what  to  call  it.     The  natural  inquiry  as  to 
what  would  be  descriptive,  has  suggested  a  look  at  the 
probabilities  of  custom,  and  it  is  supposed  that  it  will 
be  filled  partly  with  that  class  of  fashionables  who  feel 
a  desire   to   do   something   in   life  besides  laboriously 
'  keep  house,'  partly  by  diplomatists  and  dandies  wish- 
ing to  be  '  convaynient'   to   balls  and   chez-elles,  and 
partly  by  such  Europeanized  persons  as  have  a  distaste 
for  American  gregariousness,  and  desire  a  voice  as  to 
the  time  and  place  of  refreshing  and  creature.     The 
arrangements  are  to  surpass  any  previous  cis-Atlantic 
!  experience,  and  the  whole  project  is  considered  as  the 
i  first  public  flower  of  the  transplanted  whereabout  of 
i  aristocracy.     It  has  been  proposed  to  call  it  May  Fair 
Hotel — '  May  Fair'  being  the  name  of  the  fashion- 
able  nucleus  of  London.     Hautevillk  Hotkl  has 
been  suggested,  descriptive  of  its   position  up-town. 
Hotel  Recherche,  Hotel  Choisi,  are  names  pro- 
posed  also,  but   more  liable  to  criticism.     I,  myself, 
proposed  A  l'abi— as  signifying  a  house  aside  from 
the  rush  of  travel  and  business.     Praise  that,  if  you 
please  !     Billings,  the  lessee,  is  a  handsome  man,  of  a 
I  very  up-town  address,  with  the  finest  teeth  possible  for 
i  the  welcome  to  new-comers— this  last  no  indifferent 
I  item  !       He    is   young— but   young    people   are   the 
|  fashion.       'Young    England'    and    '\  oung    h  ranee 
'  wield   the   power.     I   have  not  mentioned  the  system 
of  the  hotel,  by  the  way,  which  is  that  of  Meunce's 
at  Paris— a  table-d'hote  and  a  restaurant,  and  dinner  in 
I  public,  or  private,  or  not  at  all,  at  your  option.    Charm- 
,  ing — wont  it  be  ?  '  ' 

'      "  Crawford,  the  sculptor. has  come  home  from  Italy, 


720 


EPHEMERA. 


and,  as  he  is  the  American,  par  excellence,  in  whom 
resides  the  sense  of  beauty,  I  trust  he  may  see  you. 

"What  else  had  I  to  say?  Something — but  I'll 
write  it  on  a  slip,  for  it  will  be  personal,  and  you  like 
to  show  all  your  letters  to  '  the  governor.' 

"  Adieu,  dear  Bel-Phoebe,  and  pray  tear  up  the  slip 
enclosed  as  soon  as  you  have  recovered  from  fainting. 
Yours  at  discretion.  "  Cinna  Beverley,  jr." 


"Fanny Forester." — We  have  been  accused, face 
to  face,  several  times,  and  by  letter  once  or  twice,  of 
being,  ourself,  that  bewitching  masquerader.  We  have 
conjured  some  variety  out  of  our  workyday  quill,  it  is 
true,  and  have  an  unfulfilled  and  recorded  vow  of  a 
new  alias — but  in  "  Fanny  Forester"  there  resides  a 
dimpled  youthfulness  and  elasticity  that  is  not  found 
so  many  miles  on  the  road  as  our  present  sojourn  ! 
Oh  no,  sweet  Fanny  !  they  slander  you  and  do  too 
much  credit  to  our  industry  and  versatility  !  Those 
who  wish  to  know  more  of  Fanny  Forester,  may  hear 
of  her,  now,  among  the  high-priced  contributors  of 
Graham  and  Godey. 


Dr.  Lardner's  Lecture. — We  did  not  chance  to 
hear  Dr.  Lardner's  excellent  and  amusing  lecture  on 
the  "  London  literati,'''1  etc.,  but  the  report  of  it  in  the 
"  Republic"  has  scraped  the  moss  from  one  corner  of 
our  memory,  and  we  may,  perhaps,  aid  in  the  true 
portraiture  of  one  or  two  distinguished  men  by  show- 
ing a  shade  or  two  in  which  our  observation  of  them 
differed  from  that  of  the  doctor.  We  may  remark 
here,  that  Dr.  Lardner  has  been  conversant  with  all 
the  wits  and  scholars  of  England  for  the  last  two  or 
three  lustrums,  and  we  would  suggest  to  him  that, 
with  the  freedom  given  him  by  withdrawal  from  their 
sphere,  he  might  give  us  a  book  of  anecdotical  biogra- 
phy that  would  have  a  prosperous  sale  and  be  both 
instructive  and  amusing.  We  shall  not  poach  upon 
the  doctor's  manor,  by  the  way,  if  we  give  our  im- 
pression of  one  of  these  literati — himself — as  he  ap- 
peared to  us,  once  in  very  distinguished  company,  in 
England.  We  were  in  a  ball  in  the  height  of  the 
season,  at  Brighton.  Somewhere  about  the  later 
hours,  we  chanced  to  be  in  attendance  upon  a  noble 
lady,  in  company  with  two  celebrated  men.  Mr. 
Ricardo  and  Horace  Smith  (the  author  of  Brambletye 
House,  and  Rejected  Addresses),  Lady  Stepney, 
authoress  of  the  "  New  Road  to  Ruin,"  approached 
our  charming  centre  of  attraction  with  a  proposition 
to  present  to  her  the  celebrated  Dr.  Lardner.  "  Yes, 
my  dear  !  I  should  like  to  know  him  of  all  things  !'" 
was  the  reply,  and  the  doctor  was  conjured  forthwith 
into  the  magic  circle.  He  bowed  "  with  spectacles 
on  nose,"  but  no  other  extraneous  mark  of  philosopher 
or  scholar.  We  shall  not  offend  the  doctor  by  stating 
that,  on  this  evening,  he  was  a  very  different  looking 
person  from  his  present  practical  exterior.  With  j 
showy  waistcoat,  black  tights,  fancy  stockings  and  I 
small  patent-leather  shoes,  he  appeared  to  us  an  ele-  J 
gant  of  very  bright  water,  smacking  not  at  all,  in  man-  I 
ner  no  more  than  in  dress,  of  the  smutch  and  toil  of  I 
the  laboratory.  We  looked  at  and  listened  to  him,  | 
we  remember,  with  great  interest  and  curiosity.  He 
left  us  to  dance  a  quadrille,  and  finding  ourself  acci- 
dentally in  the  same  set,  we  looked  at  his  ornamental 
and  lover-like  acquittalof  himself  with  a  kindofwonder 
at  what  Minerva  would  say  !  This  was  just  before  the 
doctor  left  England.  We  may  add  our  expression  of 
pleasure  that  the  Protean  facility  of  our  accomplished 
and  learned  friend  has  served  him  in  this  country —  I 
making  of  him  the  best  lecturer  on  all  subjects,  and 
the  carver  out  of  prosperity  under  a  wholly  new  > 
meridian. 


But,  to  revert  to  the  report  of  the  lecture  : — 

"  The  doctor  gave  some  very  amusing  descriptions 
of  the  personal  peculiarities  of  Bulwer  and  D'Israeli, 
the  author  of  '  Coningsby,'  observing  that  those  who 
have  read  the  works  of  the  former,  would  naturally 
conclude  him  to  be  very  fascinating  in  private  society. 
Such,  however,  was  not  the  case.  He  had  not  a 
particle  of  conversational  facility,  and  could  not  utter 
twelve  sentences  free  from  hesitation  and  embarrass- 
ment. Iu  fact,  Bulwer  was  only  Bulwer  when  his 
pen  was  in  his  hand  and  his  meerschaum  in  his  mouth. 
He  is  intimate  with  Count  D'Orsay,  one  of  the  hand- 
somest men  of  the  day,  and  in  his  excessive  admira- 
tion of  that  gentleman  has  adopted  his  style  of  dress, 
which  is  adapted  admirably  to  the  figure  of  the  second 
Beau  Brummell,  but  sits  strangely  on  the  feeble,  rick- 
ety and  skeleton  form,  of  the  man  of  genius." 

Now  it  struck  us,  on  the  contrary,  that  there  was  no 
more  playful,  animated,  facile  creature  in  London 
society  than  Bulwer.  He  seemed  to  have  a  horror 
of  stilted  topics,  it  is  true,  and  never  mingled  in  gene- 
ral conversation  unless  merrily.  But  at  Lady  Bles- 
sington's,  where  there  was  but  one  woman  present 
(herself),  and  where,  consequently,  there  could  be  no 
tetes-d-tetes,  Bulwer's  entrance  was  the  certain  precur- 
sor of  fun.  He  was  a  brilliant  rattle,  and  as  to  any 
"  hesitation  and  embarrassment,"  we  never  saw  a 
symptom  of  it.  At  evening  parties  in  other  houses, 
Bulwer's  powers  of  conversation  could  scarce  be  fairly 
judged,  for  his  system  of  attention  is  very  concentra- 
tive,  and  he  was  generally  deep  in  conversation  with 
some  one  beautiful  woman  whom  he  could  engross. 
We  differ  from  the  doctor,  too,  as  to  his  style  of  dandy- 
ism. Spready  upper  works,  trousers  closely  fitting  to 
the  leg,  a  broad-brimmed  hat,  and  cornucopial  whisk- 
ers, distinguished  D'Orsay,  while  Bulwer  wore  al- 
ways the  loose  French  pantaloon,  a  measurable  hat- 
brim,  and  whiskers  carefully  limited  to  the  cheek.  We 
pronounce  the  doctor's  astrology  (as  to  these  stars) 
based  upon  an  error  in  "observation." 

The  reporter  adds : — 

"  D'Israeli  he  described  as  an  affected  coxcomb, 
with  a  restless  desire  to  appear  witty  ;  yet  he  never 
remembered  him  to  have  said  a  good  thing  in  his  life 
except  one,  and  that  was  generally  repeated  with  the 
preface,  'D'Israeli  has  said  a  good  thing  at  last.'" 

That  D'Israeli  is  not  a  "  bon-mot"  man,  is  doubtless 
true.  It  never  struck  us  that  he  manifested  a  "  desire 
to  appear  witty."  He  is  very  silent  in  the  general 
melee  of  conversation,  but  we  have  never  yet  seen  him 
leave  a  room  before  he  had  made  an  impression  by 
some  burst  in  the  way  of  monologue — eitheran  eloquent 
description  or  a  dashing  new  absurdity,  an  anecdote 
or  a  criticism.  He  sits  indolently  with  his  head  on 
his  breast,  taking  sight  through  his  eyebrows  till  he 
finds  his  cue  to  break  in,  and  as  far  as  our  observation 
goes,  nobody  was  ever  willing  to  interrupt  him.  The 
doctor  calls  him  an  "affected  coxcomb,"  but  it  is  only 
of  his  dress  that  this  is  any  way  true.  No  schoolboy 
is  more  frank  in  his  manners.  This  is  true,  even  since 
DTsraeli's  "  gobble  up"  of  the  million  with  a  widow. 
When  we  were  first  in  London,  he  was  the  immortal 
tenant  of  one  room  and  a  recess,  and  with  manners 
indolently  pensive.  Three  years  after,  returning  to 
England,  we  found  him  master  of  a  lordly  establish- 
ment on  Hyde  Park,  and,  except  that  he  looked  of  a 
less  lively  melancholy,  his  manners  were  as  untroubled 
with  affection  as  before.  We  do  not  in  the  least 
doubt  the  sincerity  of  the  doctor's  report,  but  it  shows 
how  even  acute  observers  (we  two  are  that,  doctor !) 
will  see  the  same  thing  with  different  eyes.  This 
article  is  too  long. 


New  York  has  an  unsupplied  want — no  less  a  thing 
than    a  fashionable   promenade.     Broadway,   that 


EPHEMERA. 


721 


used  to  be  the  parade  of  all  that  was  feminine,  fashion- 
able and  fair,  has  been,  for  some  time,  only  a  walk  of 
plain-dress-necessity  to  the  noli-me-tangeries,  and  it 
will  soon  be  left  entirely  to  the  deaf  and  the  humble  j 

so  intolerable  is  the  Bedlam  racket  of  its  abominable 

omnibuses  !  (To  get  an  audible  answer  to  the  "  How 
do  you  do  ?"  one  has  need  to  take  one's  friend  into  a 
Btore.) 

Our  ladies  have  done  like  the  English,  in  giving  up  ] 
shopping  and  walking  the  street  in  full  dress,  and  now,  | 
where  is  to  be  the  English  or  Erench  substitute —  j 
our  Hyde  park  or  our  Bois  de  Boulogne  ?  Ladies,  I 
in  London,  are  supposed  to  be  so  incapable  of  walk-  \ 
ing  at  all  in  the  street,  that,  if  they  do  so,  it  is  rather  ■ 
well-bred  not  to  recognise  them  in  passing.  But  j 
after  shopping  in  disguise  in  Regent  street  (their 
Broadway)  they  go  home  and  "  dress  for  the  carriage,"  j 
and  drive  out  to  meet  all  the  world  in  the  "  Rotten  j 
row"  of  the  park.  Up  and  down  this  half  mile  they  J 
follow  in  slow  procession,  meeting  as  slow  a  procession  j 
going  the  other  way,  and  bowing  at  every  carriage  | 
length,  and,  no  public  hack  being  admitted  into  the 
park,  those  who  have  no  carriages  have  no  promenade  ! 

Don't  let  us  improve  with  our  eyes  shut !  We  have 
taken  off  our  foot  of  fashion  from  one  round  of  the 
ladder.  How  long  is  it  to  be  suspended  in  the  air — 
for,  a.  driving  park  is  the  next  inevitable  step  upward  ? 


Odd  Enough.— The  best  view  of  Trinity  steeple  and 
almost  the  only  view  of  Trinity  church,  is  across  some 
old  one-story  wooden  groceries  in  Greenwich  street, 
the  spectator  standing  upon  the  opposite  sidewalk  ! 
"We   never  know  to  whom  we  look  best,"  said  we  to 
the  steeple,  when  we  discovered  it  !     To  Broadway- 
gazers,  Trinity  steeple  is  a  Gothic  column.     The  body 
of  the  church  is  wholly  lost  as  to  effect,  and  it  was  a 
great  mistake  not  to  set   it  sideicise   upon  the  street. 
But,    let   us   suggest  something  to  the   enormously 
wealthy  vestry  of  that  church.     There  is  not  a  valua- 
ble building,  nor  scarce  a  lot  unoccupied  by  a  nuisance, 
between   this  splendid    fabric  and   Greenwich   street,  j 
How  easy  to  buy  this  advantageous  slope,  and  make  j 
of  it  an  ascending  foreground,  unequalled  except  by 
the   ascent  to  the  capitol   at  Washington!     Besides  J 
the  addition  to  the  beauty  of  the  city,  it  would  give  | 
another  "lungs"  to  the  neighborhood  of  Wall  street,  j 
and  grace,  fitly  and  with  additional  beauty,  the  resting-  | 
place  of  the  gallant  and  lamented  Lawrence. 


Change  in  New  York  Habits. — The  great  pecu-  j 
Iiarity  of  America — our  gregariousness,  as  shown  in  i 
our  populous  hotels — has  taken  a  large  stride  on  its  \ 
way  to  the  exclusivism  of  Europe.  The  office  of  the 
lessee  of  the  new  hotel  up-town  has  been  overrun  with 
applicants,  and  most  of  them,  we  understand,  with  a 
view  of  availing  themselves  of  its  privileges  as  a  hotel 
garni — or  furnished  house  where  the  meals  are  dis- 
cretionary, as  to  place,  time,  and  price.  Let  us  look 
a  little  into  this. 

A  gentleman  arrives  at  a  London  hotel.     He  alights 
at  the  door  of  what  resembles  a  private  house.     He  is 
shown  to  a  small  parlor  and  bed-room,  and  left  alone  j 
with  his  baggage  and  the  peculiarly  neat  and  unsoci- 
able  chairs  and  table.     He  orders  his  dinner  and  tea,  | 
and  it  is  served  to  him  alone.     He  is  as  much  alone 
the  remainder  of  the  day  and  evening,  and  from  that  I 
time  to  doomsday,  if  he  stay  so  long  ;  and  there  is  no  j 
place  about  the  house  where  he  can  vary  this  loneli-  i 
ness,  except  the  coffee-room,  where  the  parlor  class 
of  lodgers  have  no  errand  and  rarely  go.     His  engage-  i 
ment  with  the  landlord  is  to  pay  so  much,  by  the  day,  | 
for  his  rooms,  and  for  whatever  else  he  chooses  to  order.  I 
46 


What  with  the  absence  of  books,  and  all  the  comforts 
and  trifles  that  give  a  look  of  home,  and,  on  the  other 
hand,  the  lack  of  the  American  compensations,  such 
as  reading-room,  ladies'  drawing-room,  sitting-rooms, 
and  thronged  halls  and  entries,  the  solitude  and  gloom 
of  a  hotel  in  the  heart  of  London  could  scarce  be 
exceeded. 

But,  admirably  suited  as  is  the  American  system  of 
hotel  to  the  relief  and  pleasure  of  the  stranger  and 
traveller,  there  is  a  class  of  hotel-lodgers  who  would 
be  more  comfortable  in  New  York  were  there  a  hotel 
after  the  European  fashion — and  it  is  with  a  view  to 
this  class,  mainly,  that  the  new  hotel  up-town  has 
been  designed.  We  refer  to  the  class  who  wish  a 
luxurious  home,  but  can  not  afford  time,  trouble,  or 
money,  to  be  housekeepers.  There  are  many  families 
of  this  description — families  who  pass  the  summer  in 
the  country,  but  in  the  winter  reside  in  town,  and, 
dreading  the  trouble  and  expense  of  a  town  house, 
would  still  prefer  a  private  table  and  drawing-room. 
For  such,  a  hotel  garni,  with  elegant  suites  of  apart- 
ments and  a  restaurant  on  the  floor  before,  is  the  well- 
adapted  provision,  and  this  class  is  sufficiently  large 
to  more  than  warrant  the  enterprise  of  the  hotel  up- 
town. 

The  great  mass,  however,  even  of  families  (and 
certainly  of  bachelors),  prefer  the  gregarious  hotel, 
where  two  or  three  hundred  people  form  almost  one 
family,  where  eating  and  dancing  and  social  pleasures 
are  all  enjoyed  in  common,  and  where  business  and 
amusement  are  closely,  and  without  foresight  or 
trouble,  closely  intermingled.  This  style  of  living 
best  suits  the  great  mass  of  a  business  community,  and 
it  will  not  be  till  we  have  a  ruling  proportion  of  aris- 
tocratic idlers,  that  the  gregarious  hotel  will  go  out  of 
fashion.  That  may  be  fifty  years  hence,  or  our  "gre- 
gariousness" may  become  a  national  peculiarity,  and 
the  Astor  "  stay  put"  for  a  century. 


We  speak  the  Tuscan,  and  lively  Mr.  Palmo  is 
betrayed  by  his  soft  c  to  be  a  Piedmontese  or  a  Vene- 
tian— else  we  should  venture  to  give  him  the  ideas 
here-below  embodied,  in  his  own  lingua  de  belleza. 
We  beg  his  worthy  and  eloquent  legal  counsellor, 
however  (whom  we  have  the  pleasure  to  know),  to 
translate  to  him,  through  some  medium  more  pellucid 
than  the  last,  the  nicer  shades  of  our  meaning.  We 
put  up  our  prayer  for  its  happy  voyage  to  the  mana- 
ger's harbor  of  comprehension. 

An  opera,  like  a  woman,  is  never  to  be  taken  liter- 
ally. It  is  not,  exclusively  or  mainly,  a  place  wherein 
to  hear  good  music.  If  the  music  be  the  best  that 
can  be  procured  (though  it  were  only  the  best  in 
Ethiopia),  the  uncrowned  but  very  executive  King 
Public  is  content.  "  Our"  ear  is  merciful  !  But  the 
opera  is  a  place  for  the  advancing  of  two  ends  more — 
human  tenderness  and  human  vanity.  Ten  go  thither 
to  flirt,  and  forty  to  be  seen,  where  one  goes  to  pamper 
his  auricular  nerve  upon  a  cadenza.  We  don't  see 
that  this  requires  enlarging  upon. 

We  wish  to  enlighten  those  who  have  hitherto  been 
proudly  content  with  their  own  country  (haven't  trav 
elled,  and  tint's  the  reason),  as  to  the  true  uses  of  the 
opera  abroad— the  way  it  is  truly  used,  that  is  to  say, 
where  sing  Rubini  and  his  starry  troupe.  J  irst,  as  to 
construction.  The  London  opera-house  (like  the 
Parisian)  is  composed  of  a  hundred  or  more  private 
boxes,  and  a  pit.  The  private  boxes  are  used  by  their 
lady-proprietors  to  receive  company  duung  the  evening, 
and  the  pit  is  used  to  reconnoitre  the  boxes,  to  lounge, 
to  chat  and  to  be  visible  in  white  gloves  and  opera- 
glass  (this  last  a  most  necessary  demonstration  by 
those  who  would  not  otherwise  be  considered  "  men 
about  town").     We  have  not  yet  mentioned  the  lis- 


722 


EPHEMERA. 


tening  to  the  opera.  This  very  subordinate  part  of  the 
evening's  entertainment  commences  at  the  signal 
"sh!"  "sh!"  from  the  connoisseurs,  indicating  that 
some  favorite  aria  is  commencing  which  is  worth  lis- 
tening to,  or  a  duett  or  quartette,  or  fine  point,  of 
action,  coming  off,  and,  till  this  is  past,  the  audience, 
above  and  below,  is  breathlessly  still  and  attentive.  At 
all  other  times  during  the  performance  of  the  opera, 
it  is  rather  green  than  otherwise  to  pay  attention  to 
the  stage,  and  anybody  who  should  request  that  his 
neighbors  would  not  converse  during  the  recitativo 
secco,  would  be  smiled  at  as  "  capital  fun  !"  The 
opera,  in  short,  is  considered  as  a  help,  an  accompani- 
ment (or,  if  you  like,  a  stop-gap)  to  conversation,  and 
the  consequence  is  that  nowhere  are  people  so  much  at 
their  ease,  and  nowhere  are  so  many  bright  and  merry 
things  said  as  at  the  opera!  We'll  mend  our  pen, 
dear  reader,  while  you  compare  this  with  the  quaker- 
meeting  attention  so  tediously  given  at  Palmo's. 

But  this  is  to  be  mended  (the  practice,  we  mean — 
the  pen  does  pretty  well),  and  the  first  thing  we  wish 
to  suggest  to  Mr.  Pal  mo  is  an  improvement  in  the 
"fop's  alley"  part  of  it.  To  go  round  behind  the 
boxes,  as  the  house  is  constructed  now,  is  formidably 
conspicuous,  unless  one  has  a  direct  errand  to  the  lady 
next  the  stage;  yet  this,  with  the  exception  of  having 
a  seat  in  the  pit,  and  silling  in  it,  is  the  only  way  to 
get  a  look  at  the  house  and  "  see  who  is  there."  Let 
Mr.  Pal  mo  drop  a  staircase,  passing  under  the  stage- 
box  to  the  front  of  the  pit,  and  there  would  he  an  ex- 
cusable lounge  of  observation  all  round  the  house — a 
prodigious  difference  in  the  attraction  for  the  dan- 
dies, let  us  assure  you,  signor !  You  need  the  dan- 
dies! You  wish  to  make  it  among  the  necessities  of 
a  "man  about  town,"  that  he  should  have  a  season- 
ticket  to  the  opera.  But  it  is  no  pleasure  to  sit 
cramped  and  silent  in  one  seat,  and  no  pleasure  to 
come  in  and  stand  behind  the.  audience  for  the  whole 
evening,  or  for  an  hour.  It  would  be  a  pleasure  to 
see  the  audience  from  the  front,  and  that  can  not  be 
done  now,  without  a  pretty  "  cool"  walk  to  the  or- 
chestra and  back.     Now  could  it? 

We  have  two  or  three  other  propositions  to  make 
for  the  improvement  of  the  social  opportunities  of 
the  opera,  but  this  will  do  for  to-day.  Addio,  signore! 


We  cordially  approve  of  the  reason  for,  and  the 
feeling  which  prompted  the  following  paragraph. 
We  have  the  pleasure  of  knowing  the  three  gentle- 
men mentioned  in  it,  particularly  the  urbane  captain, 
and  we  wish  the  Howards  a  happy  retirement,  and 
Captain  Roe  ^.-bounding  prosperity — but  this  done, 
we  wish  to  note  a  nationality  as  it  passes  ;  and  first, 
to  quote  a  paragraph: — 

"It  has  been  announced  in  various  quarters  that 
the  Messrs.  Howard,  who  have  established  the  hotel 
so  extensively  and  favorably  known  as  Howard's  Ho- 
tel, have  disposed  of  that  establishment  to  Captain 
Roe,  of  the  "Empire"  steamboat.  *  *  * 

As  for  the  Howards,  we  are  glad  that  they  have  done 
so  well.  We  presume  that,  being  relieved  now  from 
the  labor  of  keeping  such  a  large  establishment,  they 
will  retire  to  some  of  those  beautiful  retreats  with 
which  their  native  state,  Vermont,  abounds." 

It  will  be  seen  at  once  that  a  traveller  who  should 
measure  this  trio  by  the  European  scale  of  condition 
in  life — (rank  these  gentlemen,  that  is  to  say.  with 
"  mine  host"  in  any  other  part  of  the  world) — would 
make  a  blunder.  The  difference  between  an  Ameri- 
can hotel-proprietor,  and  a  London  Boniface,  is  not 
merely  that  our  hotels  are  six  times  as  large.  It  is 
not  merely  that  he  is  six  times  as  great  a  "  proprie- 
tor." The  vocation  is  almost  wholly  different — and 
the  difference  is  a  result  of  the  totally  different  hab- 


its of  the  two  countries.  In  London,  you  may,  by 
chance,  see  the  "  land-lady,"  daily,  but  you  may  be 
months  in  the  house  without  seeing  the  "  land-lord." 
(Two  terrible  misnomers,  by-the-way,  for  the  hostess, 
though  she  has  no  land,  is  not  a  lady  but  as  a  land- 
lady, and  mine  host  is  far  enough  from  a  lord  with 
land,  though  he  is  no  lord  except  as  a  land-lord !) 
The  English  host,  therefore,  is  never  an  acquaintance 
of  his  guest,  and  the  guest  knows  his  hostess  only  in 
the  quality  of  an  upper  servant.  The  reader  will 
have  recognised  the  difference  we  wish  to  point  to. 
The  American  hotel-keeper  has  charge,  not  of  twenty 
or  thirty  people  living  wholly  in  their  own  private 
rooms,  but  of  two  or  three  hundred,  whose  habits  are 
all  gregarious,  and  to  almost  every  one  of  them  he  (the 
landlord)  is  a  personal  and  familiar  friend.  The  ex- 
tent of  this  friendly  intercourse  with  persons  mostly 
of  the  better  class,  gives  to  the  hotel-proprietor  a 
mass  of  influence,  direct  and  indirect,  which  makes 
him  a  very  important  person  in  the  community.  He 
is  continually  appealed  to  for  knowledge  on  popular 
subjects,  such  as  is  got  only  by  great  facilities  of  hear- 
say. He  is  often  made  a  reference  in  disputes,  from 
his  necessary  habit  of  impartiality.  He  is  intrusted 
with  deposites  of  great  value  by  his  guests,  and  is  the 
confidant-general  of  the  secrets  and  difficulties  of 
strangers,  and  of  travelling  lovers  and  mourners. 
Ladies  and  families  are  committed  to  his  charge. 
Public  entertainments  are  given  by  his  advice  and  di- 
rection; and,  in  short,  he  has  so  much  harm,  and  so 
much  good  influence,  in  his  power,  that  he  is,  neces- 
sarily, a  person  of  high  moral  character,  superior 
judgment,  discretion,  and  information — without  all 
which  public  opinion  would  not  tolerate  him  in  his 
place — and,  with  which,  while  in  the  full  exercise  of 
his  vocation,  he  naturally  holds  a  high  station  of  re- 
publican social  rank.  It  is  in  tacit  obedience  to  this 
scale  of  valuation,  that  the  change  of  masters  in  a 
public  hotel  is  made  the  subject  of  newspaper  an- 
nouncement and  comment — a  notice  of  the  fact  which 
would  seem  to  a  London  editor  wholly  beyond  its  con- 
sequence and  value. 

We  are  aware  that  it  is  rather  Utopian  to  give  nom- 
inal rank  to  people  according  to  their  actual  worth 
and  influence;  but  let  us  have  our  little  bit  of  fancy 
now  and  then  !  We  should  be  afraid  to  call  public 
attention  to  the  rank  of  editors — measuring  it  by  their 
power ! 


Olk  Bull  and  his  missing  "  spot." — As  we  pre- 
dicted, this  great  luminary  took  the  light  of  the 
world  to  himself  on  Saturday  night,  and  became  vis- 
ible above  the  horizon  of  the  footlights  precisely  at 
eight, 

"  Bright  as  a  god,  but  punctual  as  a  slave  !" 

Mrs.  Child  (the  moon  who  reflects  the  masculine 
gold  of  his  music  in  the  feminine  silver  of  language) 
sat  in  the  stage-box,  somewhat  obscured  in  the  pe- 
numbra of  a  shocking  cap.  (We  rely  upon  Miss 
Dorsey  to  invent  a  "silver  cloud,"  or,  at  any  rate, 
some  headdress  more  becoming  for  the  waxing  glory 
of  this  charming  reflector.)  The  Memnonian  music 
awoke,  of  course,  with  the  appearance  of  Ole-Apollo, 
and  the  crammed  world  of  fashion  sat  breathless. 
By  the  time  the  first  piece  was  played,  however,  it 
was  felt  that  there  was  something  wrong.  The  audi- 
ence was  irresponsive.  The  ivory  inside  edge  of  the 
moon's  disk  (disclosed  by  the  tranquil  smile  at  first), 
became  less  and  less  visible,  and  disappeared.  The 
applause  was  mechanical.  Madame  Burkhardt  arose 
like  a  morning  vapor,  and  clouded  the  horizon  with 
an  abominable  song.  Ole  Bull  broke  out  again,  and 
though  the  shadows  had  shortened  somewhat  before 


EPHEMERA. 


723 


lie  finished  his  second   piece,  there  was  still  a  lack —  jl 
still  but  a  dull  acknowledgment  of  his  glory. 

We  presently  discovered  the  cause.  A  heavy  fore- 
lock of  hair,  which  used  to  drop  over  the  forehead 
of  the  inspired  Norwegian,  descending  "with  the 
linked  sweetness  long  drawn  out"  of  a  cadenza,  and  ! 
then  tossed  back  like  an  absorbed  comet  with  the  re-  '.' 
vulsive  sweep  of  R  return  to  the  jlon-flon  of  the  air — 
this  expressive  forelock,  with  the  steeped  sweetness 
of  the  Niagara  it  had  overheard,  and  the  dreams  of 

melody  it  had  stirred  to,  was  gone  to  " and  scis-  ; 

sors."  The  "sun  was  (the  day  before)  shorn  of  his 
beams" — by  Cristadoro!  Mingled  with  the  hair  of 
the  uninspired,  that  magic  lock  had  been  swept  into 
Broadway  from  the  floor  of  the  undiscriminating  bar- 
ber, and,  fallen  from  the  heaven  of  harmony,  is  now 
Sticking  to  the  wheels  of  omnibuses  in  a  purgatory 
of  Sysiphus.  Those  in  other  cities  who  remember 
the  toss  back  of  that  wild  lock  of  hair  in  the  convul- 
sive transitions  of  Ole  Bull's  music,  will  understand 
that  there  must  have  been,  emphatically,  a  spot  mis- 
sins;  on  his  luminous  face. 

Spite  of  politics  and  attractions  elsewhere,  the 
house  was  crammed;  and  in  spite  of  the  missing 
lock,  Ole  Bull  recovered  his  power  over  the  audi- 
ence. The  last  piece  he  played  was  electric,  and  the 
curtain  fell  amid  unlimited  plaudits. 


The   pay   for    Periodical-Writing. — What   a 
butcher  would  think  of  veal,  as  a  marketable  article, 
if  everybody  had  an  ambition  to  raise  calves  to  give 
away,  is  very  near  the  conclusion  that  a  merely  busi- 
ness-man would  arrive  at,  on  inquiring  into  the  sale- 
ableness  of  fugitive  literature.     It  is  as  pleasant  for 
people    not    hackneyed   in    authorship   to    see   their 
thoughts  transferred  to  print,  as  it  is  for  beauties  to 
see  their  faces  transferred  to  canvass;  and,  if  custom- 
ary, most  contributors  to  periodicals  would   pay  the 
publisher   as   willingly   as   women    pay  the    portrait- 
painter.     Another  thing.     Females  are  naturally  fa- 
cile writers,  and  the  attention  paid  to  the  mental  cul- 
ture of  women   in   our  day,  has  set  their  thoughts 
a-flow  upon  paper,  as  the  letting  in  of  sunshine  upon  j 
the  dark   floor  of  the  forest  draws  to  the  surface  new  j 
springs   of   water.      These   facts   to   begin   with,    the  j 
reader  will  easily  understand  the  pourquoi  of  the  un-  j 
promising  literary  market  we  have  to  "open  up*'  to 
him. 

There  are  several   of  the   magazines  that  pay  for 
articles,  but  no  one  of  them,  we  believe,  pays  for  all  j 
its  contents.     Graham  and  Gocfey  (two  men  of  noble 
liberality  to  authors)  pay  prices  to  some  of  their  con-  j 
tributors  that  would  far  outbid  the  highest  rates  of 
magazine-payment  in  England.     Their  prose-writers  j 
receive  from  two  to  twelve  dollars  a  page,  and  their 
poets  from  five  to  fifty  dollars  an  article.     The  Co-  i 
lumbian   and  the   Ladies'  Magazine   also   pay   well,  j 
The  North  American  Review  used  to  think  it  liberal  I 
enough  to  pay  Edward  Everett  a  dollar  a  page.     All  j 
the   paying   magazines   and  reviews,  however,  reject 
fifty  articles  to  one  that  they  accept,  and   they  pay 
nobody  whose  "  name"  would  not  enrich  their  table 
of  contents.     In  point  of  fact,  but  for  the  necessity  of 
a  brag,  and  the  misfortune  that  a  writer,  once  made 
famous,  esteems  pay  a  desirable  manner  of  compli- 
ment (whether  he  wants  the  money  or  not),  the  liter- 
ary periodicals  in  this  country  might  do  well,  relying 
only  on  the  editor's  pen  and  the  epidemic  "  cacoethes." 
The  Mirror  did  so — and  was  as  cleverly  contributed 
to,  we  think,  as  any  periodical  in  the  country.     The 
rejected  articles  (offered  to  us,  of  course,  as  a  gratu- 
ity) would  have  filled,  at  least,  a  barrel  a  month! 

Newspapers  pay  for  reporting  and  editing,  but  sel- 
dom or  never  for  "  articles."     The  favor,  on  the  con- 


trary, of  giving  room  and  circulation  to  another  man's 
ideas,  is  growing  into  a  saleable  commodity — the  ed» 
itor  (on  the  ground  that  he  risks  the  popularity  of 
his  paper  by  relinquishing  the  chance  of  a  better  ar- 
ticle) charging  rent  for  his  columns  instead  of  hiring 
a  tenant.  To  every  scheme  of  public  interest — to 
every  society — to  everything  which  newspapers  can 
binder  or  further — there  is  attached  some  person  who 
is  both  desirous  and  able  to  present  the  subject 
forcibly  on  paper;  and,  quite  as  readily  and  zealously, 
if  there  be  an  objectionable  side  to  it,  springs  up  a 
pen-and-ink  caviller  in  opposition.  Between  them, 
and  with  the  desire  to  figure  in  print  which  besets 
very  many  able  men,  newspaper-editors  need  pay  for 
little  aid  except  eyewater  and  scissors,  and  they  get 
credit  for  a  world  of  zeal  in  good  causes  by  articles 
they  neither  write  nor  pay  for.  We  have  got  to  the 
footboard  of  our  Procrustes  bed. 


Authors'  Pay  in  America. — We  have  hot  coals 
smouldering  in  the  ashes  of  "  things  put  off,"  which 
we  poke  reluctantly  to  the  surface  just  now — reluc- 
tantly only  because  we  wish  to  light  beacons  for  an 
author's  crusade,  and  we  have  no  leisure  to  be  more 
than  its  Peter  the  Hermit.  We  solemnly  summon 
Edgar  A.  Poe  to  do  the  devoir  of  Coeur  de  Lion — 
no  man's  weapon  half  so  trenchant!  And  now  let 
us  turn  the  subject  round,  small  end  foremost. 

These  are  days  when  gentlemen  paint  their  own 
boots,  and  we  have  latterly  been  our  own  publisher. 
We  have  thereby  mastered  one  or  two  statistics  which, 
we  know  not  well  why,  never  looked  us  in  the  face 
before,  and  which  we  proceed  to  hold  up  by  the  nape 
of  the  neck  for  the  encouragement  of  the  less  stuffy 
or  less  inquiring.  Authors  who  can  not  find  publish- 
ers, and  authors  who,  having  found  them,  have  been 
as  much  respected  by  them  as  pig-iron  by  the  razor- 
maker,  are  invited  to  "  lend  us  their  ears"— on  interest. 
What  proportion  should  an  author  have  of  the  net 
profits  of  a  book?  This  seems  a  shallow  question 
enough!  but  there  is  a  deep  hole  in  it.  Remember, 
in  the  first  place,  that  the  author  wrote  the  book — 
that  God  gave  him  the  monopoly  of  the  vein  from 
which  it  is  worked— that  he  has  been  at  the  expense 
and  toil  of  an  education,  and  to  other  expenses  and 
toils — (as  in  travel)— that  his  mind's  lease  is  far  shorter 
than  his  lease  of  life— and  that  thoughtsmiths  should 
be  better  paid  than  blacksmiths  or  goldsmiths  (that  is 
to  say,  if  the  credit  the  work  does  to  the  country  goes 
for  anything  in  the  valuation).  The  question  of  the 
division  of  profit  is  between  author  and  publisher,  and 
the  publisher  gives  his  uneducated  mental  attention 
to  the  sale,  a  brief  use  of  his  credit  for  the  printing 
and  binding,  and  runs  a  most  partial  risk  as  to  the  re- 
sult— for  he  need  not  purchase  the  book  except  in 
obedience  to  his  own  judgment  and  his  readers',  and 
the  cost  is  paid,  of  course,  before  there  are  any  "net 
receipts."  (There  is  great  capital  made  of  this 
"risk,"  but  ninety-nine  books  in  a  hundred  more  than 
clear  expenses!)  Now,  taking  a  stereotyped  dollar- 
book  for  example,  the  plates,  worth  four  or  five  hun- 
dred dollars,  are  paid  for,  with  a  moderate  sale,  in  Uie 
first  month.  Suppose  it  to  be  three  months.  1  lie 
use  of  the  publisher's  credit  for  S500  for  ninety  days 
has  been  his  only  outlay  of  consequence;  but  the 
author  has  had  his  outlay  of  brain-work,  time,  genius, 
and  years  of  education.  The  printing  and  getting 
up,  after  the  plates  are  paid  for,  cost  about  one 
fifth  of  the  retail  price-twenty  cents  on  a  dollar.  To 
charge  ten  cent,  more  on  each  copy  for  the  absolute 
expense  of  selling  and  circulating,  is  more  than  lib- 
eral •  and  now,  how  shall  the  remaining  seventy  cents— 
the  'net  profit— be  divided  between  author  and  pub- 
lisher ? 


724 


EPHEMERA. 


We  should  like  to  have  a  watchmaker's  answer  to 
that  question,  ilow  much  ought  the  jeweller  to  have 
for  buying  it  from  the  maker,  warranting  it  "to  go" 
after  examining  it,  for  advertising  it,  and  for  selling  it 
across  a  counter?  Suppose  the  watch  to  sell  for  a 
hundred  dollars,  and  seventy  dollars  to  be  the  net 
profit  above  cost  of  material.  What  would  you  say, 
if  the  maker  got  but  ten  or  twenty  dollars,  and  the 
retailer  fifty  or  sixty  ?  Yet  that  is  the  proportion  at 
which  author  and  bookseller  are  paid  for  literary  pro- 
duction— the  seller  of  the  book  being  paid  from  tioice 
to  five  times  as  much  as  the  author  of  it! 


Certainly,  the  readiest-minded  man  we  ever  knew, 
as  well  as  one  of  the  most  brilliant  and  highly  culti- 
vated conversationists,  is  Major  Davezac,  the  subject 
of  the  anecdote  below.  Never  was  a  man  more  out 
of  place  as  a  stump-orator  and  agitator,  well  as  he 
acquits  himself  in  these  turbulent  vocations.  It  is 
none  of  our  business  to  discuss  that  point,  however. 
We  were  only  about  to  roll  the  anecdotical  snow-ball 
a  little  larger,  by  recording  a  Ion  mot'of  the  major's, 
at  the  birth  of  which  we  chanced  to  be  present. 
Davezac  was  charge  at  Naples  in  eighteen  hundred 
and  some  time  ago,  and  French  being  the  language 
he  was  born  in,  his  wit  of  course  played  freely  in  the 
court  vernacular.  He  was  quite  the  idol  of  the  diplo- 
matic corps,  and  an  "indispensable"  at  all  dances  and 
masquerades.  We  were  dining  one  evening  in  his 
company  during  the  carnival.  The  major  sat  oppo- 
site to  us,  next  to  a  very  pretty  German  countess. 
During  the  procession  and  the  pelting  of  sugar-plums 
which  had  occupied  the  early  part  of  the  day,  the 
countess  had  received  a  slight  bruise  upon  her  cheek. 
Davezac  wore  court-plaster  on  his  lip — a  hit  also  from 
the  sugared  ammunition.  They  were  both  complain- 
ing. "Eh,  Monsieur  Davezac,"  said  the  countess, 
mournfully,  "  il  faut  reunir  nos  douleurs  !" — "  Oui, 
madam,  et  nos  blessures /"  replied  the  major  instantly, 
placing  his  lip  upon  the  cheek  of  the  surprised  suf- 
ferer. 


Cosmopolite  Attraction  in  Broadway. — With- 
in a  few  doors,  in  the  neighborhood  of  Prince  street, 
are  collected  accidentally,  at  present,  four  most  vivid 
representations  of  four  very  distant  and  different 
countries — Spain,  India,  Paris,  and  Constantinople — 
the  " Alhamra,"  the  "Panorama  of  Madras,"  the 
"Panorama  of  Paris,"  and  the  new  shop  of  "  Turk- 
ish curiosities."  He  who  wishes  to  realize  what  bal- 
loons are  to  do  for  us  in  '55,  can  astonish  and  con- 
fuse his  geographical  impressions  to  his  entire  satis- 
faction, by  a  visit  to  all  these  in  one  morning. 

The  Turkish  shop  has  articles  for  sale  that  could 
seldom  before  be  obtained  except  by  a  voyage  to  the 
Orient.  We  brought  some  curiosities  from  Constan- 
tinople, but  we  have  a  thousand  times  regretted,  since, 
that  we  had  not  quadrupled  our  purchases  in  the  bazars 
and  bezestein — so  much  were  the  articles  admired, 
and  so  impossible  was  it,  even  in  the  curiosity-shops 
of  Europe,  to  find  specimens  of  them.  No  person 
who  is  luxurious  in  personal  habits  would  willingly 
be,  for  example,  without  the  Turkish  shirts — having 
once  seen  them.  They  are  the  poetry  of  neglige 
costume — the  idealized  romance  of  the  drapery  of 
dishabille.  Those  who  have  time  to  make  a  luxury 
of  dressing-room  or  boudoir — the  beautiful  and  idle 
of  either  sex — should  take  a  look  at  the  gossamer 
shirts  from  Constantinople.  But  there  are  all  man- 
ner of  things  in  this  shop  beside.  There  are  beauti- 
ful gold-embroidered  slippers,  small  carpets  and  otto- 
man-cloths, attars  in  gold  bottles,  gold-embroidered 
handkerchiefs   and    gilded    pastilles — everything,   in 


short,  that  one  buys  of  old  Mustapha,  near  the  Hip- 
podrome in  Stamboul,  confectionary  included.  We 
inquired  after  old  Mustapha  yesterday,  and  the  Greek 
who  keeps  the  shop  (who  was  himself  a  confectioner 
in  Constantinople)  delighted  us  with  talking  of  him, 
as  if  he  had  seen  him  yesterday!  Picturesque  and 
'jolly  old  turbaned  Mustapha! — what  fun  it  was  to 
have  the  curtain  lifted  by  his  grinning  Abyssinian  in 
anklets  and  wristlets,  and  step  into  the  back  shop  to 
take  coffee  and  try  his  essences!  It  quite  came  over 
us  like  a  dream  yesterday — the  chat  with  this  Broad- 
way Constantinopolitan.  If  you  have  any  curiosity, 
dear  reader,  call  and  taste  the  confectionary  at  this 
shop,  and  look  at  the  translucent  shirts,  and  see  the 
Persian  inkstands,  and  handle  the  graceful  cimeters, 
and  look  at  the  Brusa  silks  and  seraglio  slippers — in 
short,  see  Constantinople — for  that  is  a  palpable  slice 
of  it ! 


Jumping  the  Pew. — We  were  once  in  the  gallery 
of  a  country  church  when  an  address  was  to  be  de- 
livered to  a  Sunday  school.  The  body  of  the  house 
was  reserved  for  the  adult  audience,  and  the  boys  were 
confined  to  one  of  the  side  aisles.  There  was  evident- 
ly an  understanding,  however,  that  if  not  otherwise 
wanted,  the  well-cushioned  seat  facing  the  chancel 
was  to  be  given  up  to  as  many  lads  as  could  occupy  if. 
It  would  hold,  perhaps,  twenty,  and  a  hundred  of 
them  were  packed  in  the  aisle  like  figs,  waiting  till  the 
class  leader  at  the  head  should  "  open  up."  Looking 
on  with  some  amusement,  we  found  our  eye  arrested 
by  the  bright  face  of  a  lad,  half  way  down,  who  bore 
the  keeping  back  very  impatiently.  His  struggles  to 
pass  the  other  boys  were  vehement,  but  of  no  use. 
He  was  slight,  and  his  neighbors  were  bold  and  sturdy. 
Presently  he  bit  his  lips,  entered  a  pew,  jumped  the 
partition  into  the  central  aisle,  and  walked  round  to 
the  front.  There  was  a  murmur  of  indignation  among 
the  boys,  and  a  general  smile  among  the  spectators, 
but  he  secured  his  pick  of  seals.  The  clergyman,  in 
the  course  of  his  address,  thought  proper  to  get  up 
an  impromptu  colloquy,  and,  to  the  evident  annoyance 
of  the  other  boys,  selected  the  pew-jumper,  who  sat 
just  before  him,  for  the  honor.  The  lad  arose,  when 
questioned,  and  surprised  the  whole  audience  with 
the  clearness  of  his  replies.  He  sat  down  amid  gene- 
ral applause,  and  (whatever  reproof  he  got  in  private 
for  his  daring)  he  was  the  envied  hero  of  the  day.  We 
have  often  since  had  the  successful  boldness  of  this 
lad  recalled  to  our  memory  by  the  class  of  things  it 
illustrates,  and  our  mental  reply,  after  reading  a  let- 
ter to  which  this  was  the  preface,  was — "  Better  jump 
the  pew  !" 

Our  correspondent  can  not  get  a  hearing  from  the 
public !  Few  things  are  more  difficult.  We  have 
not  read  his  book,  but  it  may  be  excellent  snuff  to 
keep  a  fame  going,  and  yet  not  the  stuff  to  start  one. 
Genius  is  expected  "  never  to  go  into  the  water  till  it 
knows  how  to  swim" — never  to  expect  to  be  read  but 
for  having  been  read  before  !  With  any  degree  of 
ability,  more  or  less,  it  is  easy  to  be  almost  hopelessly 
overlaid.  We,  ourself,  are  a  very  humble  example. 
We  "jumped  the  pew"  unconsciously,  in  England, 
with  our  furiously  abused  "  Pencillings,"  and  imme- 
diately sold,  for  the  highest  price,  an  edition  of  "  Ink- 
lings of  Adventure" — a  series  of  tales  that  bad  fallen 
still-born  into  the  lap  of  Boston,  and  for  the  first  print- 
ing of  which  we  paid  more  than  a  thousand  dollars  on 
our  return  to  their  birth-place.  Instances  of  "jump- 
ing the  pew"  will  occur  to  every  observer  of  men — 
every  reader  of  biography.  It  is  the  shabby  door  to 
many  a  path  of  glory.  Almost  every  profession  begins 
with  a  dilemma — hope  deferred,  or  a  pew  to  jump  ! 
The  starving  lawyer  in  the  west,  who  flogged  his 
neighbor  to  have   a  case  to  plead,  jumped  the  pew  ! 


EPHEMERA 


725 


The  veteran  Buckingham,  one  of  the  most  judicious, 
able  and  respected  editors  in  the  country,  was  starving 
in  Boston,  when  he  "jumped  the  pew"  with  the  abu- 
sive "  Galaxy" — making  himself  read  from  terror  till 
he  was  famous  enough  to  be  read  for  merit.  The 
game  is  dangerous,  however,  and  the  principle  lies 
in  most  questionable  neighborhood.  For  one  who 
would  succeed  in  it  there  are  ninety-nine  who  would 
fail,  and  failure  is  hopeless  extinction  !  The  pew  can 
be  jumped  but  once.  The  attention  of  the  public  can 
be  but  once  summoned  by  a  rude  pluck  at  its  beard  ; 
and,  to  keep  attention  long  enough  to  have  the  rude- 
ness forgotten,  there  must  be  merit  that  the  public 
would  regret  overlooking — merit,  indeed,  of  xchich  the 
neglect  was  injury  enough,  to  justify  violent  extrication. 


The  Mirror  Steam-Press. — It  would  be  curious 
not  to  lose  sight  of  the  Latin  word,  dropped  for  transla- 
tion into  the  scholar's  ear,  till  it  re-appears  in  English 
on  his  tongue,  but  a  half-hour's  watching  of  the  steam- 
press  on  which  the  Mirror  is  printed  would  be  hardly 
a  less  instructive  spectacle  of  contrivance.  To  com- 
plete the  assimilation  of  the  second  process  to  the 
first,  it  would  have  been  necessary,  till  lately,  to  em- 
ploy a  boy  to  pull  the  word  oft'  the  scholar's  tongue  ; 
but,  by  the  ingenuity  of  R.  Hoe  &  Co.,  the  great 
organ  of  public  opinion  is  endowed  with  a  happy  de- 
livery of  its  own — laying  oft"  the  sheet  that  was  printed 
and  ready  for  utterance,  that  is  to  say,  and  drawing  in 
its  iron  tongue,  unaided,  to  be  laden  with  the  mean- 
time coinage  of  another. 

The  improvements  in  printing-presses  within  the 
last  ten  or  fifteen  years  are  probably  far  less  remark- 
able than  some  other  progresses  of  mechanic  inven- 
tion, yet  they  are  wonderful  enough  to  use  up  quite 
as  much  curiosity  as  it  is  comfortable  to  find  epithets 
for,  in  a  day.  The  difference  between  the  old  Ramage 
press,  and  the  steam-miracle  in  our  present  office,  is 
peculiarly  impressive  to  ourself.  There  is  a  small 
bar  of  iron  in  this  press  which  fulfils  precisely  the 
Bame  destiny  to  which  we  were  at  one  time  devoted. 
We  were  considered  in  an  exemplary  line  of  life  while 
performing  exactly  its  office — that  of  inking  the  type 
— during  a  long  year  of  disgust  with  Latin — (when  a 
sensible  papa  took  us  at  our  word,  and  allowed  us  to 
prefer  a  trade  to  a  satchel  !) 

The  ink  was  in  those  days  kept  in  a  wooden  box, 
and,  with  two  stuffed  leather  balls,  a  boy  or  man,  be- 
side the  press,  distributed  it  over  the  face  of  the  type, 
while  the  pressman  was  fixing  the  sheet  for  the  impres- 
sion. We  remember  balling  an  edition  of  "  Watts's 
Psalms  and  Hymns,"'  which  it  took  weeks  to  print, 
and,  by  the  same  token,  there  are  lines  in  that  good 
book  of  which  we  caught  glimpses  on  the  "frisket," 
that,  to  this  day,  go  to  the  tune  we  played  with  the 
ink-balls  while  conning  them  over !  Reviving  ambi- 
tion sent  us  back  to  school,  however,  and  invention 
soon  after  superseded  the  ink-boy's  elbows  (encum- 
bered with  a  stomach),  by  a  bit  of  machinery  that 
neither  required  to  be  fed,  nor  committed  verses  to 
memory  while  inking  the  type  !  This  getting  rid  of 
the  boy  was  the  peculiarity  of  the  Smith  press,  and 
then  followed  the  Napier  press,  which  dispensed  with 
the  man,  and  needed  only  the  tending  of  two  girls  or 
boys;  and  now  (thanks  to  Mr.  Hoe),  we  have  a  steam- 
press,  which  puts  up  three  iron  fingers  for  a  sheet  of 
white  paper,  pulls  it  down  into  its  bosom,  gives  it  a 
squeeze  that  makes  an  impression,  and  then  lays  it  into 
the  palm  of  an  iron  hand  which  deposiles  it  evenly  on  a 
heap — at  the  rate  of  two  thousand  an  hour  !  We  often 
stop  with  curiosity  to  look  at  the  little  arrangement 
which  does  the  work  our  elbows  have  ached  with,  and 
we  think  the  Mirror  press  altogether  is  a  sight  worth 
your  coming  to  see,  dear  reader  ! 


The  First  Day  of  the  World's  New  Lease 
was  clasped  upon  the  last  yesterday  of  the  completed 
j  series,  by  as  glorious  a  retiring  moon,  and  as  brilliant 
a  rising  sun,  as  were  ever  coveted  by  the  "  old  gray- 
beard,"  at  whose  funeral  they  are  to  be  the  expiring 
candles.     A  finer  night   than   last  night— a  finer  day 
than  to-day — never  relieved  watch  upon  the  "  tented 
heavens."     We  stood   looking  up  a  steeple  from  our 
bed-room  window  at   midnight   (having  first  finished 
!  an  article  for  to-day's   paper,  upon  the  venture  of  its 
|  being  wanted),  and   we  stood   shaving  at   the   same 
j  window  when  the  gold  smile  of  the  unexpected  sun- 
;  rise   called  upon  the  surprised  weather-cock  to  look 
about  him  as  usual!     We,  therefore,   certify  to  the 
world's  coming  honestly  by  its  "situation."     Go  about 
your  business,  oh,  mankind  ! 

Coming  down  the  front  steps  of  the  Astor,  at  half- 

j  past  six,  we  naturally  enough  took   a  look  up  Broad- 

!  way,  to  see  if,  perchance,  some  blessed  change  in  the 

j  pavement  might  not  give  the  first  sign  of  anew  Jcrusa- 

'.  lem.     But   if  the  sapphire   paviors  had  called   upon 

!  Mayor  Harper,  he  had  struck   at  something   in   the 

contract.     The  old  holes  were  there,  with  stones  of 

the  accustomed  complexion — (chafed  "  trap,"  minera- 

:  logically  speaking)— and  the  mud  evidently  unaware 

of  a  miracle.     But,  hey  !  how  !  WHAT  !    a  rainbow 

j  across  Broadway?  ?     Could  we  believe  our  eyes? — 

t  a  many-colored  arch  completely  spanning  the  street, 

hung  with  flowers,  and  men  walking  over  it!  !  !     Was 

an  advent  forthcoming,  after  all  ? 

While  we  write,  that  Advent  is  in  progress  !  It  is 
the  Advent  of  Youth — Juvenocracy  in  thi  as- 
cendant !  A  flowery  arch  spans  the  breadth  of 
Broadway,  and  under  it  winds,  at  this  moment,  the 
procession  in  honor  of  first  maturity — manhood  in 
youth  '.  It  scarce  needed,  it  is  true,  that  the  world 
should  be  born  again  before  its  new  monarch  should 
make  formal  entry.  It  was,  ten  years  ago,  discovered 
in  France — two  years  ago  in  England — last  year  in 
America — that  the  gray  head  teas  only  the  wisest  while 
there  were  no  books  but  experience  !  That  which  men 
once  waited  to  know  till  the  hair  was  silvered,  is  now 
taught  the  child  at  school — conned  in  the  ambitious 
dream  of  the  youth  in  his  puberty.  The  world  has 
"  hung  fire"  in  other  ages,  from  the  damp  of  burnt- 
out  enthusiasm  spread  like  a  blanket  over  its  brain- 
powder.  Improvement  lias  gone  upon  crutches. 
Action  waited  for  enterprise  to  cough.  Courage 
stayed  to  fumble  for  spectacles.  The  forenoon 
shadows  of  the  sun  of  human  intellect  were  of  un- 
trustworthy measure,  and  the  dial  to  begin  to  ivork  by 
was  shadowed  till  post-meridian  ! 

Without  touching  upon  the  political  articulation  in 
"  the  roar  of  the  Y~oung  Lion,"  we  mark  the  epoch 
—the  epoch  of  "Young  France,"  "  Young  England," 
"  Young  America!"  We  could  show,  had  we  time, 
how  strikingly  the  peculiar  habits  of  our  land  have 
more  prepared  us  than  other  countries,  for  the  sover- 
eignty of  Youth  !  We  have  no  time  now.  We  must 
go"  forth  with  the  crowd  and  see  the  bright  cheek  and 
curling  beard  of  the  Young  Monarch  in  his  hour  of 
triumph.  The  cannon  are  pealing !  The  drums 
shake  upon  the  prophetic  sunshine  in  the  air! 
"  Hail  to  the"  YOUTH  "  that  in  triumph  advances  !" 

12  o'clock— We  have  been  to  Broadway.  The 
procession  is  soon  to  form.  The  mounted  marshals 
of  the  day  are  galloping  to  and  fro  with  their  ribanded 
insignia— the  pictorial  outside  of  the  Museum  is  per- 
fectly embroidered  with  petticoats  (a  charming  relief!) 
—the  windows  on  both  sides  of  Broadway  are  cram- 
med with  gayly-dressed  spectators— the  500  Boston 
young  men  (fine,  wholesome-looking  fellows,  who 
certainly  do  credit  to  their  "  parsley  bed"),  are  assem- 
bled with  their  badges  in  front  of  the  Astor— the  town 
is  full  of  what  the  ladies  would  call  "  handsome  young 


726 


EPHEMERA. 


strangers" — the  omnibuses  carry  flags — tbe  whole 
street,  from  the  triumphal  arch  to  the  pinnacles  of 
Trinity,  looks  impassable  with  the  glittering  crowd. 
We  never  saw  comparable  preparation  for  a  festal 
march.  It  will  be  a  day  to  be  remembered — mocked 
at,  perhaps,  as  the  first  after  a  millenial  crisis,  but 
glorified  as  the  first  in  the  great  era  of  Youth fulhood  ! 


Mass  Meeting  of  Newsboys. — We  may  be  per- 
mitted, perhaps,  to  please  our  friends  with  the  an- 
nouncement that  we  at  least  stand  well  upon  the  side- 
walk  !  The  exhaustion  of  our  large  edition  at  four 
o'clock,  yesterday  afternoon,  and  a  general  return  of 
the  newsboys  from  their  routes  with  eager  demands 
for  more,  occasioned  a  multitudinous  holding  of 
counsel  among  those  piping  potentates,  and  to  the  as- 
tonishment of  our  corner  and  the  neighborhood,  the 
assembled  varlets  actually  gave  the  Evening  Mirror 
three  cheers!  We  bow  to  the  tattered  vox populi,  and 
own  the  soft  impeachment.  Gentlemen  newsboys  ! 
give  us  your  hand  (with  a  newspaper  between !)  and 
permit  us  to  offer  you  a  business  suggestion.  Aston- 
ish one  of  your  insinuating  number  with  a  white  shirt, 
and  try  the  new  trick  of  selling  us  with  a  smile  to  the 
ladies  !  Call  him  the  ladies'  boy,  and  treat  him  deli- 
cately when  he  is  dressed  and  can't  afford  the  results 
of  your  familiarity  !  Your  powerful  body  amounts  at 
present  to  some  three  or  four  hundred,  and  your 
profits  will  soon  tempt  the  competition  of  older  gen- 
tlemen, unless  you  find  more  worlds  to  conquer. 
Hurrah  for  the  ladies,  gentlemen  (waving  whatever 
you  have  to  represent  a  pocket-handkerchief) — and 
now,  if  you  will  graciously  withdraw  your  attention, 
we  would  speak  to  those  over  whom  you  have  the  ad- 
vantage of  youth. 

We  have  to  thank  the  press  all  over  the  country  for 
the  most  flattering  mention  and  the  kindest  encour- 
agement. Our  own  craft  seem  to  love  us.  We  thought 
of  quoting  some  of  their  felicitous  notices,  but  our 
grateful  pride  would  thus  fall  into  a  shape  used  for 
puffing,  and  we  shrink  from  the  medium.  Thanks  to 
our  friends — simply  but  fervently. 


Gold  Inkstand  to  the  Authoress  of  the  Scot- 
tish Chiefs. — The  works  of  Jane  Porter  have 
probably  brought  more  money  into  the  hands  of 
booksellers  than  those  of  any  writer  except,  per- 
haps, Scott,  and  at  this  moment  steam-presses  are 
employed  in  printing  large  editions  of  her  delight- 
ful novels.  An  enthusiastic  man,  a  great  admirer 
of  Miss  Porter,  has,  for  the  second  time,  started  a 
subscription  among  the  booksellers  of  this  city  to  pre- 
sent her  with  a  gold  inkstand,  and  the  Harpers,  Ap- 
pletons,  Langleys,  and  others,  have  subscribed  with 
enthusiastic  liberality.  Perhaps  a  description  of  Jane 
Porter  with  a  little  of  her  hitherto  unwritten  history  may 
not  be  unacceptable. 

Miss  Porter  was  the  daughter  of  a  gallant  English 
officer,  who  died,  leaving  a  widow,  and  three  children, 
then  very  young,  but  all  destined  to  remarkable  fame 
Sir  Robert  Ker  Porter,  Jane  Porter,  and  Anna 
Maria  Porter.  Sir  Robert,  as  is  well  known,  was 
the  celebrated  historical  painter,  traveller  in  Persia, 
soldier,  diplomatist,  and  author,  lately  deceased.  He 
went  to  Russia  with  one  of  his  great  pictures  when 
very  young,  married  a  wealthy  Russian  princess,  and 
passed  his  subsequent  years  between  the  camp  and 
diplomacy,  honored  and  admired  in  every  station  and 
relation  of  his  life.  The  two  girls  were  playmates 
and  neighbors  of  Walter  Scott.  Jane  published  her 
"Scottish  Chiefs"  at  the  age  of  eighteen,  and  became 
immediately  the  great  literary  wonder  of  her  time. 


Her  widowed  mother,  however,  withdrew  her  imme- 
diately from  society  to  the  seclusion  of  a  country 
town,  and  she  was  little  seen  in  the  gay  world  of  Lon- 
don before  several  of  her  works  had  become  classics. 
Anna  Maria,  the  second  sister,  commenced  her  admi- 
rable series  of  novels  soon  after  the  first  celebrity  of 
Jane's  works,  and  they  wrote  and  passed  the  brightest 
years  of  their  life  together  in  a  cottage  retreat.  The 
two  sisters  were  singularly  beautiful.  Sir  Thomas 
Lawrence  was  an  unsuccessful  suitor  to  Anna  Maria, 
and  Jane  (said  by  Sir  Martin  Shee  to  have  been  the 
handsomest  woman  he  ever  saw)  was  engaged  to  a 
young  soldier  who  was  killed  in  the  Peninsula.  She 
is  a  woman  to  have  but  one  love  in  a  lifetime.  Her 
betrothed  was  killed  when  she  was  twenty  years  of 
age,  and  she  has  ever  since  worn  mourning,  and  re- 
mained true  to  his  memory.  Jane  is  now  the  only 
survivor  of  her  family,  her  admirable  mother  and  her 
sister  having  died  some  twelve  or  fourteen  years  ago, 
and  Sir  Robert  having  died  lately,  while  revisiting 
England  after  many  years'  diplomatic  residence  in 
Venezuela. 

Miss  Porter  is  now  near  sixty.  She  has  suffered 
within  the  last  two  or  three  years  from  ill-health,  but 
she  is  still  erect,  graceful,  and  majestic  in  person,  and 
still  possessed  of  admirable  beauty  of  countenance. 
Her  large  dark  eyes  have  a  striking  lambency  of  lus- 
tre, her  smile  inspires  love  in  all  who  see  her,  and  her 
habit  of  mind,  up  to  the  time  we  last  saw  her  (three 
or  four  years  ago),  was  that  of  reflecting  the  mood  of 
others  in  conversation,  thinking  never  of  herself,  and 
endeavoring  only  to  make  others  shine,  and  all  this 
with  a  tact,  a  playfulness  and  simplicity,  an  occasional 
unconscious  brilliancy  and  penetration,  which  have 
made  her,  up  to  sixty  years  of  age,  a  most  inter- 
esting, engaging,  and  lovely  woman.  We  have  had 
the  good  fortune  to  pass  several  months,  at  different 
times,  under  different  hospitable  roofs,  with  Jane 
Porter,  and,  considering  the  extent  of  her  charm, 
over  old  and  young,  titled  and  humble,  masters  and 
servants,  we  sincerely  think  we  never  have  seen  a 
woman  so  beloved  and  so  fascinating.  She  is  the 
idol  of  many  different  circles  of  very  high  rank,  and 
passes  her  time  in  yielding,  month  after  month,  to 
pressing  invitations  from  the  friends  who  love  her. 
The  dowager  queen  Adelaide  is  one  of  her  warmest 
friends,  the  highest  families  of  nobility  contend  for 
her  as  a  resident  guest,  distinguished  and  noble  for- 
eigners pay  court  to  her  invariably  on  arriving  in 
England,  she  has  been  ennobled  by  a  decree  of  the 
king  of  Prussia,  and  with  all  this  weight  of  honor  on 
her  head,  you  might  pass  weeks  with  her  (ignorant  of 
her  history)  without  suspecting  her  to  be  more  than 
the  loveliest  of  women  past  their  prime,  and  born  but 
to  grace  a  contented  mediocrity  of  station. 

This  is  an  impartial  and  truthful  sketch  of  the  cele- 
brated person  for  whom  the  above-mentioned  compli- 
ment is  intended.  We  trust  it  may  find  her  alive,  and 
with  her  accustomed  bright  smile  upon  her  lips — God 
guard  and  preserve  her  ! 


RocKiNG-CHAiROTcelNKSTANDresig-fte<f.  We  gave, 
"  by  authority,"  an  account  of  a  subscription  paper, 
the  purpose  of  which  was  to  present  to  Jane  Porter 
an  inkstand  of  gold.  Our  publisher-mayor  Air.  Har- 
per, headed  the  list  with  $40.  We  wrote  a  paragraph 
on  the  subject,  and  the  same  evening  were  called  to 
see  a  rocking-chair  into  which  the  inkstand  had  been 
suddenly  converted  by  a  rub  against  the  Aladdin's  lamp 
of  propriety.  We  went  into  Meeks's  museum  of 
sumptuous  furniture,  and  the  chair  was  disrobed,  for 
us,  of  a  beautiful  chintz  cover  presented  to  Miss  Por- 
ter by  Messrs.  Meeks,  the  makers.  The  chair  is  a 
bijou.     The  model   is  appropriately  Elizabethan — (a 


EPHEMERA. 


727 


chair  for  the  virgin  queen  of  English  romance,  made 
in  the  style  of  the  virgin  queen  of  English  history) — 
the  carving  in  rosewood  relief,  and  the  lining  of  crim- 
son velvet.  The  exact  model  of  the  chair  was  sent 
to  Queen  Victoria  not  long  since,  as  a  specimen  of 
American  furniture,  by  a  club  of  English  gentlemen. 
The  cadeuu  goes  out  consigned  by  the  mayor  of  New 
York  to  the  iord-mayor  of  London,  for  his  worshipful 
presentation,  Mr.  Griswold,  the  packet  owner,  giving 
it  an  honorary  passage.  The  following  letter,  written 
on  parchment  and  sealed  with  the  city  arms,  accom- 
panies it : — 

"  New  York,  October  28,  1844. 
"  Dear  Madam  :  The  undersigned,  booksellers, 
publishers,  and  authors,  of  the  city  of  New  York, 
have  long  felt  desirous  of  transmitting  to  you  a  me- 
morial of  the  high  and  respectful  admiration  which 
they  entertain  for  one  to  whose  pen  we  are  indebted 
for  some  of  the  purest  and  most  imaginative  produc- 
tions in  the  wide  range  of  English  literature.  As  the 
authoress  of  '  Thaddeus  of  Warsaw,'  the  'Scottish 
Chiefs,'  &c,  your  name  has  spread  over  the  length 
and  breadth  of  our  land,  and  the  volumes  of  your  de- 
lightful works  may  be  found  gracing  alike  the  abodes 
of  the  wealthy,  and  the  humble  dwellings  of  the 
poor.  And  deservedly  so — for  if  purity  of  sentiment, 
felicity  of  expression,  and  the  constant  inculcation  of 
the  noblest  lessons  of  religion  and  morality,  be  any 
passport  to  literary  fame,  then  will  the  name  of  Miss 
Porter  rank  high  on  the  list  of  those  whom  the  present 
age  delights  to  honor,  and  for  whom  coming  ages 
will  entertain  a  deep  feeling  of  reverential  esteem. 

"  Regarding  you,  therefore,  as  that  one  among  the 
writers  of  our  time  who  first  opened  up  the  path  that 
has  been  since  further  embellished  by  the  kindred 
genius  of  a  Scott,  we  take  the  liberty,  as  well  on  our  I 
own  behalf  as  in  the  name  of  thousands  of  American 
readers  to  whom  your  charming  productions  have 
taught,  in  so  graceful  and  captivating  a  manner,  the 
lessons  of  true  virtue,  of  presenting  you  with  the  ac- 
companying testimonial  of  our  sincere  and  grateful 
esteem. 

"We  have  the  honor  to  remain,  dear  madam, 
"  Your  obedient  servants, 
'•James  Harper,  Mayor  of  New  York, 
W.  H.  Appleton,         Daniel  Appleton, 
Chas.  S.  Francis,         S.  B.  Collins, 
Harper  &  Brothers." 
We  have  still  another  light  to  throw  upon  this  fa- 
mous chair.     The  Wood,  without  which  it  might  not 
have  been  built,  did   not  come  from  the  West  Indies 
in  planks  of  amyris  balsamifera  (rosewood),  but  from 
Canandaigua,   in    the    shape    of  a    gentleman   whose 
heart  distils  a  better  balsam — of  courtesy!     We  first 
heard  of  Mr.  Wood  and  the  proposed  presentation  of 
an  inkstand,  from  Miss  Porter  herself.     She  inquired 
whether  we  knew  Mr.  Wood,  and  gave  us  the  history 
of  his  project  to  compliment  her,  apropos  of  promis- 
ing us  a  sight  of  barrels  of  presents  which  had  show- 
ered upon  her  from  all  parts  of  the  world.     She  ex- 
pressed  a  most  simple-hearted  delight  in  the  extent 
of  her  American  reputation,  and  wished  to  see  a  copy 
of  one  of  the  American  editions. 

On  our  return  to  this  country  we  found  a  small 
copy  of  the  "Scottish  Chiefs,"  almost  illegible  with 
grease  and  thumbing,  in  the  kitchen  of  a  remote  tav- 
ern in  Pennsylvania.  We  sent  it  to  her  with  a  little 
water  added  unintentionally  to  its  romance — having 
fallen  overboard  with  it  in  our  pocket  while  ferrying  a 
skiff  across  the  Susquehannah.  By  the  way,  let  us 
here  record  an  act  of  liberality  in  an  p]nglish  pub- 
lisher, which  is  apropos  of  this  present  from  the 
American  bibliopoles.  We  were  one  day  requested 
by  Mr.  George  Virtue,  the  enterprising  publisher  of 
the  American  Scenery,  to  be  the  bearer  of  a  message 
to  Miss  Porter.     He  wished  to  publish  her  Scottish 


Chiefs  in  a  beautifully-embellished  edition.  The  copy- 
right, by  English  law  limiting  duration,  had  long  since 
expired — but  Mr.  Virtue  wished  to  give  Miss  Porter 
d£200 — one  thousand  dollars — for  her  formal  con- 
sent. The  check  was  sent  the  next  day,  and  the 
edition,  one  of  the  most  superb  specimens  of  embel- 
lished edition  in  the  language,  is  since  completed. 
The  old  proverb  says  of  a  burn, 

"  Rub  it  to  Wood, 
It  will  come  to  good," 

and  we  had  a  burn  at  our  fingers'  end  as  to  the  real 
mover's  getting  his  share  of  the  credit  of  this  compli- 
ment to  Miss  Porter.  There  is  little  enough  enthu- 
siasm for  others'  glory  in  the  world — little  enough  to 
prevent  all  fear  of  surfeit  by  mention.  We  have  re- 
corded, therefore,  against  his  express  orders,  the  dis- 
interested zeal  of  William  Wood  in  this  matter. 


The  Overcoat  Dilemma. — We  have  received  a 
note  from  a  dismayed  tailor  in  a  thriving  inland  town 
of  Massachusetts,  begging  us,  "  for  charity's  sake," 
to  inform  him  "what  is  the  fashion  for  overcoats." 
He  protests  that  the  models  sent  him  from  the  city 
are  inelegant  and  unbecoming — and  he  begs  us  to  in- 
quire of  some  dandy,  regnant  or  ci-devant,  as  to  the 
existence,  among  knowing  men,  of  some  outer  habili- 
ment more  becoming  than  the  prevailing  type.  This 
is  our  summing  up  of  his  wishes  as  expressed  in  a  let- 
ter of  three  pages. 

Before  venturing  to  tamper  with  so  ticklish  a  sub- 
ject, let  us  fortify  the  ground  by  an  extract  from  a 
very  grave  and  well-considered  lecture  on  the  "  Changes 
of  the  Fashions,"  lately  delivered  before  a  lyceum  in 
Portsmouth  : — 

Although  the  inventors  of  new  fashions  and  the 
leaders  in  them  are  highly  culpable  for  the  injury 
they  do  society— yet  nine  tenths  of  those  whom  we 
see  in  fashionable  attire  are  persons  on  whom  no  im- 
putation can  be  cast :  neither  is  there  one  in  a  hun- 
dred of  their  dressmakers  or  tailors,  hatters  or  cord- 
vvainers,  who  are  deserving  a  breath  of  censure  for  do- 
in"-  their  work  in  a  fashionable  style.  So  powerful 
an&  impetus  has  been  moving  the  fashionable  world, 
that  no  individual  can  with  safety  hold  up  a  resisting 
hand.  Nothing  but  a  combined  strength  can  over- 
come it. 

Common  sense  asks — why  is  it  that  a  coat  of  a  few 
years'  standing,  with  a  broad  back  and  long  waist, 
which  the  prudent  man  has  kept  for  his  holyday 
wear,  is  not  as  really  valuable  as  one  in  which  the 
seams  are  more  nearly  allied,  or  the  buttons  placed  in 
a  different  position  ? 

Public  opinion  replies — the  man  is  not  in  fashion. 
The  observers  point  him  out  among  the  multitude — 
"  There  is  a  sample  of  old  times"—"  There  goes  a 
miser  who  can't  afford  a  new  coat :"  and  a  soft  voice 
whispers  as  he  passes—"  I  wonder  who  would  have 
that  old-fashioned  man  !"  How  frequently  is  the 
public  sympathy  excited  for  an  adroit  rogue  in  fash- 
ionable attire,  who  has  received  the  just  sentence  of 
the  law— while  the  poorly-clad  culprit  by  his  side, 
not  more  guilty,  passes  almost  unpitied  to   the  gal- 

Thus  to  be  out  of  fashion  a  man  is  generally  re- 
garded as  wanting  in  spirit  or  purse  ;  and  it  becomes 
a  matter  of  necessity  for  a  modest  man,  who  wishes 
to  elude  the  notice  of  the  world,  to  follow  along  in 
the  wake  of  fashion.  However  much  a  person  in 
common  life  may  be  disgusted  with  its  fluctuat.ons, 
he  must  bear  the  imputation  of  vamty,  and  in  some 
degree  lose  his  influence  in  society,  if  he  either  has  a 
new  dress  made  in  an  old  style,  or  for  convenience 
appears  in  any   new   clothing  which   is   made  more 


728 


EPHEMERA. 


with  a  view  to  general  utility  than  in  subservience  to 
fashion. 

With  this  warrant  for  giving  a  grave  opinion  on  the 
subject,  we  proceed  to  huddle  together  our  kersey- 
mere ideas  as  follows: — 

The  sack-coat  belongs  to  the  climate  of  England, 
and  is  wholly  desoriente  in  this  country.  It  was  in- 
vented as  a  kind  of  body-umbrella  in  which  elegant 
men  could  pass  unvvet  from  club  to  cab,  in  that  cli- 
mate of  eternal  moisture,  and  was  never  meant  to  be 
used  but  as  a  garment  of  transit.  A  dandy  bicn  poinlu 
in  his  kid  and  varnish  extremities,  may  certainly  walk 
the  street  safely  in  a  sack-coat,  as  his  quality  would  be 
known  by  his  gloves  and  boots  only,  were  he  other- 
wise parenthesized  in  a  barrel.  But,  unless  redeema- 
ble by  the  point  of  his  boot  or  a  finger  of  his  glove,  no 
man  is  "  dressed"  in  a  sack.  By  universally  making 
sack-coats  of  coarse  cloth  in  England,  they  class  them 
very  definitely  with  hackney-coaches  and  umbrellas — 
temporary  conveniences  of  which  the  material  is  by 
no  means  a  point  of  honor. 

In  England,  however,  dandies  dress  to  drive,  and  in 
this  country  they  dress  to  walk,  and,  of  course,  it  is 
more  important  here  that  the  street  coat  should  be  be- 
coming to  the  shape  than  is  thought  necessary  in  Eng- 
land. The  paletot  (for  a  description  of  which  see 
"  Scott's"  authentic  "  Mirror  of  Fashion")  is  becom- 
ing to  men  of  fine  carriage,  and  the  "  Taglioni,"  when 
cut  into  the  back  adroitly,  is  becoming  to  slender  fig- 
ures. In  the  present  anarchy  of  overcoat,  however, 
every  man  can  choose  for  himself,  and  our  pastoral 
querist  of  the  shears,  we  venture  to  assure  him,  is 
perfectly  safe  in  first  suiting  his  customers,  and  then 
swearing  it  to  be  the  fashion.  We  would  just  hint, 
in  conclusion,  that  there  is  a  mixture  of  cloak  and 
overcoat  that  we  have  seen  on  a  "  slap-up"  man  lately 
from  Paris,  and  this  chanced  to  hit  our  weakness. 
Any  man  who  has  genius  in  his  shears  will  require  no 
broader  hint  of  what  the  combination  looks  like  ! 


Young  Men's  Procession — The  procession  of 
yesterday,  was  less  remarkable  for  its  numbers  (esti- 
mated at  3,000)  than  for  the  unusual  interest  taken  in 
it  by  the  spectators — the  enthusiasm  of  the  ladies  and 
more  quiet  lookers-on,  and  the  boundless  heartiness 
of  the  cheers  by  the  people  in  the  streets.  The  quali- 
ty of  the  general  feeling,  to  our  thinking,  was  more 
nearly  up  to  the  warmth  of  the  Lafayette  Ovation, 
than  any  procession  that  has  taken  place  since.  We 
remarked,  also,  that  in  the  escorts  and  cavalcade,  there 
was  a  large  mixture  of  fashionable  young  men,  which 
is  a  new  feature  in  the  public  processions  of  this  city. 
There  were  also  more  clergymen,  who  had  errands  in 
town  and  about  the  streets,  than  usual — the  white 
cravat  in  rather  uncommon  proportion.  Altogether, 
we  think  the  bed  of  this  new  party  has  a  longer  and 
broader  blanket — covering  higher  toward  the  fastidious 
public  head,  and  falling  more  kindly  upon  the  service- 
able public  feet — than  any  new- party  blanket  spread 
within  our  recollection.  Youth  is  beloved.  Its  hopes 
are  contagious.  Its  opinions  are  supposed  free  from 
selfishness.  Its  ardor  is  credited  with  inspiration. 
The  party  of  youth,  whenever  it  is  combined  for  one 
object,  must  triumph,  it  seems  to  us — for  it  carries 
with  it  an  outside  atmosphere  of  electric  sympathies 
exclusively  its  own,  while,  within,  it  has  the  energy 
of  enthusiastic  first  manhood,  and  confidence  unsub- 
dued by  experience. 


Opening  of  the  Railroad  to  White  Plains. — 
The  first  rush  of  blood  through  the  heart  of  Pygma- 
lion's statue,  and  the  first  rush  of  a  rail-car,  on  Satur- 
day, through  the  bosom  of  the  Bronx  valley,  would 


seem  to  us  a  well-matched  fable  and  fact,  were  not  the 
fact,  both  as  a  surprise  and  a  change,  more  electric 
than  the  fable.  To  realize  it,  one  must  get  at  the  way 
it  is  looked  at  by  the  rustic  dwellers  in  the  plains  be- 
yond. They  were  called  upon  to  believe  that  a  city 
which  has,  all  their  lives,  been  four  hours  distant, 
"  good  driving,"  would,  after  the  forthcoming  celebra- 
tion, be  slid  up  to  within  one  hour,  "  easy  going." 
Their  potatoes  are  to  glide  to  market,  and  coal  and 
groceries  to  glide  back,  with  magical  facility — their 
women-folks  are  to  go  to  town,  stop  and  get  home  be- 
tween dinner  and  supper — the  morning  newspapers 
are  to  arrive  from  New  York  a  little  after  breakfast — 
the  citizens  are  to  come  out  by  hundreds  for  an  after- 
noon walk — New  York,  in  short,  is  four  times  as  near 
as  it  used  to  be,  only  the  land  \snot  knocked  away  be- 
tween !  A  gentleman  told  us,  just  before  the  cars 
started  on  their  return,  from  White  Plains,  that  the 
country-people,  around,  were  not  only  incredulous  as 
to  the  completion  of  the  road,  up  to  the  time  of  the 
arrival  of  the  cars,  but  that  they  still  (6  o'clock 
P.  M.)  looked  upon  the  whole  affair — celebration, 
train,  music  and  guns — as  a  humbug  that  could  never 
hold  out — got  up  for  some  Millerite  or  political  hocus- 
pocus,  and  to  end  only  in  the  ruin  of  their  credulous 
neighbors  ! 

To  start  fair,  however.  We  were  invited  to  join 
the  worshipful  society  of  aldermen,  bank-directors, 
stockholders,  and  judiciary,  who,  on  Saturday  after- 
noon, were  to  invade,  for  the  first  time,  by  public  rail- 
road, the  virgin  seclusion  of  the  White  Plains.  The 
access,  through  the  valley  of  theBronx,  promised  some- 
thing attractive  in  the  way  of  landscape,  and  there 
was  a  pull  out  of  town  in  the  soft  air  of  the  morning. 
We  were  at  the  cars  punctually  at  one,  found  a  friend 
inside,  and  a  band  of  music  a-top,  and  rolled  away 
from  the  City  Hall  with  a  double  momentum — steam 
to  draw  the  cars,  and  the  gentlemen  in  the  cars  who 
are  drawn  on  for  the  steam  !  We  went  on  our  musi- 
cal way  through  Centre  street,  embellishing  it  (by  the 
beauty  attracted  to  the  chamber-windows)  as  the  moon 
brightens  the  clouds  in  passing  through,  and  with  a 
momentary  chill  from  the  deserted  propriety  of  streets 
up-town,  were  soon  in  the  fields — fields  by  the  way, 
which  are  secured  to  Nature  and  shorn  of  their  chief 
value  (nearness  to  town)  by  the  railroad  which  makes 
fields  beyond  quite  as  come-at-able. 

We  gave  Harlem  an  outbreak  of  music  in  passing 
through,  stopped  a  moment  at  Williams'  bridge,  where 
the  road  has  hitherto  terminated,  and  then  proceeded 
upon  the  new  track  through  the  Bronx  valley.*  The 
scenery  for  the  next  twelve  miles  was  as  primitive  and 
fresh  as  if  a  three-days'  journey  lay  between  it  and  a 
great  city — the  most  unconscious  looking  old  water- 
mills  on  the  stream,  the  woods  and  hill-sides  with  a 
look  most  innocent  of  snob  and  suburb,  and  a  univer- 
sal gape  of  amazement  on  the  faces  of  cottagers  and 
their  cows.  The  seclusion  and  thorough  country  of 
the  whole  twelve  miles  were  enchanting,  and  we  prom- 
ised ourselves  a  ramble  to  twenty  successive  nooks 
that  we  saw  (and  twenty  successive  times  of  course 
had  occasion  to  remember  that  we  had*  become  a 
utensil  of  daily  use,  labelled  "  never  to  be  taken  out 
of  the  kitchen  !"  We  are  sorry  to  say  the  grass  will 
probably  do  pretty  well  without  us,  now,  till  we  disturb 
it  to  ask  leave  to  pass  under.) 

The  hill-sides  suddenly  fell  back  and  we  glided  into 
an  open  plain,  where  two  or  three  hundred  rustic- 
looking  people  were  assembled — six  or  seven  of  them 

*  The  road,  from  a  few  miles  above  the  Harlem  river,  fol- 
lows the  valley  of  the  Bronx,  a  small  stream,  taking  its  rise 
near  Rye,  and  sometimes  dignified  by  the  name  of  a  river. 
We  believe  that  it  was  contemplated  by  the  British  govern- 
ment, at  one  time,  to  form  a  court  of  inquiry,  to  try  the 
British  admiral  for  not  ascending  the  Bronx  river  with  his 
fleet,  and  destroying  the  army  of  General  Washington,  then 
lying  near  White  Plains. 


EPHEMERA. 


729 


busy  on  a  knoll  near  by,  ramming  a  welcome  up  a  gun. 

The  report  rang  as  the  engine  stopped,  and White 

Plains  was  cosmopolized  !  Out  jumped  Wall  street 
and  City  Hall.  An  old  negro  and  his  very  old  wife 
commenced  furiously  opening  oysters  at  a  bench  near 
by.  The  cars  stood  in  the  middle  of  a  corn-field. 
The  country  people  gathered  around  and  looked  hard 
at  the  boots  of  the  company.  Two  or  three  barrels 
of  crackers  were  rolled  over  the  corn-hills  to  a  new 
stable  building  in  the  field.  Everybody  from  the  city 
seemed  exclusively  occupied  with  smelling  the  plough- 
ed ground.  Horses  were  tied  to  the  fences  all  about. 
The  landscape  (breasted  with  fine,  fertile  hills,  and 
having  the  While  Plains  for  its  lap),  was  slumbering 
in  a  soft  haze,  with  just  sunshine  enough  to  content 
a  man  who  would  be  contented  without  it,  and  al- 
together the  scene  was  simple  and  fresh  near  by,  and 
the  distance  more  picturesque  than  the  name  of 
"White  Plains"  had  suggested. 

On  the  floor  of  the  new  barn,  half  boarded  and 
nearly  shingled,  were  spread  four  long  tables,  laden 
with  a  very  profuse  and  substantial  repast,  and,  in 
fifteen  minutes  after  arrival,  the  president  was  in  his 
place,  and  the  stockholders  and  their  guests  seated 
and  "  in  a  fair  way"  to  be  enthusiastic.  After  a  round 
or  two  of  champagne,  the  president's  health  was  drank 
and  his  report  called  for — but  we  will  give  the  statistics 
in  another  paragraph. 

Pretty  sure  of  hearing  the  report  and  reading  the 
speeches  "  in  the  way  of  business,"  we  accepted  the 
invitation  of  Mr.  Lyon,  and  drove  to  his  beautiful 
residence,  near  by — a  Gothic  cottage  of  most  absolute 
taste,  a  sketch  of  which  we  had  seen  in  the  new  edi- 
tion of  "  Downing's  Rural  Architecture."  It  is 
enough  to  make  one  doubt  all  the  ills  of  life  to  see 
such  a  place  to  pass  it  in.  The  table-land  of  the 
White  Plains  lies  behind  the  house,  and  a  valley — 
folded  slope  over  slope,  and  sunk,  knoll  below  knoll- 
drops  away  from  the  lawn  in  front,  showing  miles  of 
wild-wood  and  fertile  fields,  with  a  shady  glen  leading 
away  to  the  left — the  whole  combination,  for  an  inland 
view,  unsurpassed  in  variety  and  beauty.  The  cottage 
is  in  the  Tudor  style,  faultless  within  and  without. 
We  wish  we  had  time  and  space  to  say  more  of  it  and 
its  surroundings.  We  should  add  that  Mr.  Lyon  has 
been  the  zealous  apostle  of  the  road,  and  that  a  pro- 
cession was  formed  after  the  collation  to  make  him  a 
complimentary  visit.  They  went  to  his  house,  pre- 
ceded by  the  band,  but  were  unfortunately  missed  by 
Mr.  Lyon,  who  was  conducting  his  friends  back  by  a 
shorter  path  across  the  fields. 

The  White  Plains  moon  rose  to  see  us  off,  and,  as 
we  got  under  way  with  music  and  cheers,  she  added 
another  full  face  to  the  gazing  rustics,  and,  when  last 
seen,  was  apparently  climbing  up  on  a  barrel  to  look 
over  the  spectators'  shoulders.  As  she  was  in  town 
when  we  arrived  at  half  past  nine,  and  as  there  were 
no  ladies  invited  by  the  directors,  she  must  have  got 
a  ride  somehow  behind,  and  whatever  the  conductor 
may  say  (for  we  know  her  well !)  the  paying  her  pas- 
sage was  probably  "  all  moonshine." 


Labor  and  Brains. — We  hear  much  about  "  pro- 
tection for  labor,"  and  very  little  about  protection  for 
brains — (except  in  the  way  of  a  hat).  The  working 
men,  those  who  use  their  hands  skilfully  and  industri- 
ously, have  many  advocates  of  their  claims.  The 
politicians  and  the  law-makers  and  the  newspaper 
press,  take  up  their  cause  loudly  and  sincerely,  but 
those  who  "  can  not  dig,"  who  are  "  ashamed  to  beg" 
and  have  nothing  but  their  brains — their  intellect,  to 
depend  upon — are  whistled  down  the  wind,  "the  prey 
to  fortune." 

One  class  of  these   luckless  personages,  is  that  of 


editors  and  assistant  editors,  and  their  remuneration  is 
not  only  inadequate,  generally  speaking,  to  their  sup- 
port, but  far  below  their  real  merit.  What  would  the 
newspaper  press  of  this  city  be  but  for  these  men  ? 
Nothing  !  They  are  the  indirect  means  of  giving  a 
livelihood  to  thousands,  and  are  never  thanked  for  it. 
For  example.  We  know  of  a  newspaper  in  this  city 
which  owes  its  success  to  a  small  corps  of  editors, 
whose  whole  pay  is  about  two  thousand  dollars  per 
annum.  If  they  should  withdraw  their  aid,  the  paper 
would  stop  beyond  a  question. 

Let  us  see  what  their  brains  do  for  others.  The 
paper-makers  receive  from  the  establishment.  818,000 
a  year.  The  compositors  receive  about  $10,000  more 
—the  reporters  and  clerks  about  83,000  more.  The 
type-makers  and  ink-manufacturers  about  $2,000  more. 
And  this  expenditure  goes  on  from  year  to  year.  It 
I  would  be  utterly  impossible  for  this  $32,000  to  be  re- 
ceived and  expended  in  this  way,  but  for  the  talent  and 
tact  of  two  or  three  persons  connected  with  the  paper. 
A  large  number  of  persons  is  actually  supported  by 
their  brains,  and  yet  there  is  not  one  among  the  num- 
ber thus  supported,  who  does  not  think  his  own  person- 
al labor  and  toil,  far  more  important  and  praiseworthy 
than  that  of  the  men  who  actually  furnish  them  with 
employment!  This  is  the  justice  of  the  world  !  This 
is  the  result  of  the  ridiculous  notions  prevailing,  that 
the  lifting  of  the  sledge-hammer  is  more  deserving  of 
reward  than  the  skill  which  guides  its  blows.  Me- 
chanical labor  of  all  kinds  is  better  paid  than  literary 
labor,  and  it  is  time  that  just  impressions  prevailed  on 
this  subject.  Let  us  honor  the  working  men,  but 
when  they  are  aided  by  talent  and  literary  industry, 
they  should  honor  them  in  return. 

The  editorial  corps  are  making  the  fortunes  of  many 
newspaper  and  magazine  establishments  in  this  country, 
and  yet  many  men  of  talent  are  starving  under  the 
effort. 


Portrait  of  Wordsworth  by  Henry  Inman — 
Without  wishing  to  compare  our  great  painter  to  a 
worm— except  as  having  used  up  one  system  (of  artis- 
tic ideas)  and  being  fairly  on  wing  in  a  new  one— we 
think  the  worm  in  chrysalis  and  its  emergent  new 
creature  very  fair  types  of  the  Inman  that  teas,  in 
America,  and  the  Inman  that  is,  in  England.  Before 
this  time  we  think  he  would  have  gone  abroad  prema- 
turely. Genius  requires  to  complete  its  first  identity 
— to  ripen  fully — to  acquire  the  perfection  of  com- 
mand over,  and  familiarity  with,  its  in-born  peculiari- 
ties—before trusting  itself  in  a  sphere  which  is  both 
removed  from  habit  and  aids  to  concentration,  and 
i  bewildering  with  the  glitter  and  supremacy  of  other 
i  models.  No  matter  what  the  pursuit,  there  is  a 
j  natural  mental  chrysalis— a  time  after  completed  man- 
hood, when  a  change  of  scene,  change  of  habits, 
change  of  influences,  external  and  internal,  renew  the 
life  of  both  mind  and  body,  open  chambers  in  the  soul 
hitherto  unseen,  and  incredibly  beautify  and  enrich 
the  whole  existence.  How  many  painters  have  we 
seen  confirmed  into  tame  copyists— crushed  by  the 
weight  of  the  masters  above  them— by  going  abroad 
with  a  new-born  style  just  struggling  into  shape  and 
seeming  of  its  own!  In  a  minor  way,  how  many 
characters  are  smothered  by  being  forced  into  a  too 
trying  element  of  society  before  completing  their 
natural  idiosyncrasy ! 

Power  went  abroad  at  the  r.ght  stage  of  his  exis- 
tence as  a  sculptor-Grenough,  perhaps,  too  early 
Inman  might,  possibly,  have  gone  earher,  with  equal 
advantage.  He  has  been,  for  some  time,  gaining  little 
in  his  art  The  easily-given  and  ill-weighed  praise 
of  our  country  had  long  ago  satiated  him.  He  had 
little  stimulus  beyond  the  profit  of  his  pencil.  But 
the  mind  that  lies  fallow  under  such  torpor,  ripens  and 


730 


EPHEMERA. 


collects  richness  under  the  surface,  and  ploughed 
again,  before  it  is  mastered  by  weeds  and  tangle,  it 
shows  wondrous  fertility  and  vigor. 

"We  have  put  down,  now,  what  passed  through  our 
mind  while  looking  yesterday  at  a  head  of  Words- 
worth, which  is  just  received  from  Inman.  It  is  a 
masterly  piece  of  work,  though  but  a  sketch.  The 
truth  to  nature  convinces  you  that  it  is  an  infallible 
portrait,  without  your  ever  having  seen  the  original. 
It  is  Wordsworth.  It  is  the  shell  of  the  meat  in  his 
books.  His  feeblenesses  and  his  philosophic  sim- 
plicities are  there.  You  see  how  he  came  to  write 
what  we  have  read.  He  has  done  his  own  portrait — 
a  faithful  copy,  in  poetry,  of  the  same  as  this  on  can- 
ass.  Majestic  and  weak,  wise  and  silly,  far-sighted 
and  credulous  old  man  !  He  looks  like  his  poetry, 
and  to  a  man  who  could  read  characters  as  some  do, 
there  would  be  nothing  new  in  his  books  after  seeing 
Inman's  picture,  nor  any  surprise  in  Inman's  picture, 
after  seeing  his  books. 


What  will  Broadway  be  like,  with  omnibuses  exclu- 
ded, and  two  lines  of  railcars  plying  its  entire  length  ? 
Where  will  the  tracks  be?— both  in  the  middle, 
or  one  on  each  side?  If  the  latter,  how  will  car- 
riages stand  by  the  sidewalk  with  safety?  If  the 
former,  will  there  be  room  left  for  two  carriages  to 
pass  each  other  on  either  side  ?  Will  not  the  fre- 
quent taking-up  and  setting-down  of  passengers,  and 
the  consequent  hinderance  of  cars  behind,  make  the 
passage  up  and  down  tediously  slow?  These  are 
questions  that,  with  sundry  others  on  the  same  sub- 
ject, will  furnish  table-talk  to  the  city  for  the  ensuing 
week — the  announcement  of  the  corporation's  inten- 
tion to  have  a  railroad  there  being  yesterday  made 
public.  Let  us  mumble  about  it  a  little.  The  slow- 
ness of  the  motion  would  justify  a  very  narrow  track. 
By  placing  the  seats  lengthwise,  and  back  to  back, 
the  cars  themselves  might  be  made  very  narrow,  and 
with  a  roof  overhead,  and  no  sides  (or  sides  remova- 
ble in  fair  weather),  passengers  might  easily  jump  on 
and  off,  and  be  sufficiently  protected.  They  will 
probably  stop  for  passengers  at  the  crossings  only. 
The  fare  will  be  taken  by  a  boy  inside,  as  soon  as  the 
passenger  is  seated,  to  prevent  delay.  We  shall  have 
the  comfort  (sitting  back  to  back)  of  not  becoming  so 
compulsively  acquainted  with  anybody's  face,  breath, 
knees,  and  umbrella.  Our  chances  of  being  the  sub- 
ject of  a  coroner's  inquest  will  be  diminished  100  per 
cent. — the  present  rate  and  manner  of  omnibus-driving 
having  (we  presume)  nearly  doubled  the  cost  of  life-in- 
surance to  those  who  live  in  the  upper  part  of  the  city. 
There  will  probably  be  fast  lines  established  in  the 
streets  nearly  parallel  to  Broadway,  and  the  great  tide 
of  human  life,  now  concentrated  in  one  thoroughfare, 
will  be  divided  into  three.  McNair  &  Scarpa,  and 
other  sellers  of  "acoustic  oil,"  will  languish  under 
the  suspended  deafening  of  Broadway,  and  that  charm- 
ing lounge  will  be  once  more  susceptible  of  enjoy- 
ment by  walk  and  talk.  The  danger  of  prying  off  a 
wheel  upon  the  railtrack,  or  coming  in  contact  with 
the  cars,  will  deter  the  timid  from  taking  their  car- 
riages into  Broadway,  and  we  shall  meet  all  the  pretty 
shopperesses  on  foot  (the  greatest  Amelia-ration)! 
The  "Kipp&  Brown"  'buses  will  be  obliged  to  come 
down  Church  street,  and  have  their  terminus  at  the 
corner  of  Fulton  street  and  Broadway — or  (query  ?) 
will  the  lower  part  of  Broadway,  between  the  Park 
and  Bowling-green,  be  necessarily  left  open  to  the 
converging  lines  from  east  and  west? 


"Taglioni  is  coming  to  this  country."     So  say  the 
papers;  and  if  it  prove  true,  we  shall  see  the  differ- 


ence between  the  apparent  efforts  of  a  football  and  a 
balloon — between  common  and  rarefied  air  (in  manner 
as  well  as  in  motion) — between  a  smile  which,  beauti- 
fully dissected  from  the  muscles  that  might  else  move 
it,  is  left  stereotyped  upon  the  face,  and  a  smile  timid, 
natural,  and  impulsive — in  short,  the  difference  be- 
tween the  "divine  p'anny"  and  the  womanly  Taglioni. 
(We  prefer  a  woman  to  "a  divinity"  any  day !)  Like 
all  women  permitted  to  be  desirably  famous,  Taglioni 
paid  the  inexorable  penalty  of  being  undesirably 
mated.  She  has  amassed  a  fortune  or  "two  from  the 
"gold  dust"  at  the  toe  of  her  white  slipper — dissipa- 
ted, they  say,  without  pity,  by  her  husband,  and  she 
has  at  last  cut  him  {in  toto),  and  goes  entirely  upon 
her  own  legs.  We  hope  they  and  the  Cunard  pad- 
dles will,  indeed,  bring  her  to  this  country.  In  see- 
ing any  other  stage-exhibition,  one  is  conscious  of 
the  seat  he  sits  on  and  the  trouble  of  holding  his  hat. 
To  see  Taglioni  is  to  be  in  a  trance,  during  which 
one  might  almost  be  content  with  the  seat  of  St. 
Lawrence— on  a  gridiron.  We  shall  remember  (talk- 
ing of  seats),  "while  memory  holds  her  seat"  (and 
has  any  pleasure  in  sitting  on  it),  the  first  performance 
of  La  Sylphide  at  Paris — by  far  the  most  entrancing 
and  intoxicating  spectacle  we  ever  witnessed.  We 
venture  to  refer  the  reader  to  our  description  of  it  in 
"  Pencillings."  We  wonder  whether  Taglioni  will 
come  !     Echo — "  come  !" 


Major  Noah  and  his  Apology  for  the  Cruci- 
fixion.— Our  friend,  the  lecturer  on  the  Restoration, 
has  written  us  a  letter,  phrased  with  great  forbearance 
and  kindness,  but  finding  grievous  fault  with  our  yes- 
terday's notice  of  his  discourse  at  the  Tabernacle. 
His  letter  is  too  long  to  publish,  as  he  requests,  but 
we  will  give  its  substance,  and  leave  out  only  his  ex- 
pressions of  good  will.  He  says  he  "understood 
from  a  friend  that  we  were  fast  asleep  before  the  lec- 
ture commenced,  and  slept  throughout  the  whole  of 
it."  With  his  letter,  the  major  sent  us  a  copy  of 
the  Mirror  with  the  objectionable  passages  of  our  re- 
port underlined.     Here  they  are  : — 

"  Major  Noah  arose  and  commenced  with  an  apolo- 
gy for  the  Jews  as  to  the  crucifixion  of  our  Savior." 

"With  the  exception  of  his  very  adroit  disparage- 
ment of  the  Savior,"  &c,  &c. 

Some  extracts  from  the  lecture,  copied  from  his 
MS.  into  the  Express,  were  also  sent  us  by  the  ma- 
jor, and  we  extract  the  page  which,  in.  the  delivery, 
impressed  us  as  represented  in  our  objectionable  sen- 
tences. 

"The  Jews  were  amazed,  perplexed,  and  bewil- 
dered at  all  they  saw  and  heard.  They  knew  Jesus 
from  his  birth  :  he  was  their  neighbor;  they  knew  his 
father  Joseph,  and  Mary  his  mother,  his  brothers, 
James  and  Judas;  he  was  in  constant  intercourse 
with  his  brethren  in  their  domestic  relations,  and  sur- 
rounded by  their  household  gods;  they  remembered 
him  a  boy,  disputing,  as  was  the  custom,  most  learn- 
edly with  the  doctors  in  the  temple;  as  a  man  pursu- 
ing to  the  age  of  thirty,  the  modest  and  laborious 
calling  of  his  profession;  and  yet  he  proclaimed  him- 
self the  Son  of  God,  and  performed  most  wonderful 
miracles,  was  surrounded  by  a  number  of  disciples, 
poor,  but  extraordinary  gifted  men,  who  sustained  his 
doctrines,  and  had  an  abiding  faith  in  his  mission; 
he  gathered  strength  and  followers  as  he  pro- 
gressed ;  he  denounced  the  whole  nation,  and  proph- 
ecied  its  destruction,  with  their  altars  and  temples; 
he  preached  against  whole  cities,  and  proscribed 
their  leaders  with  a  force  which,  even  at  this  day, 
would  shake  our  social  systems.  The  Jews  became 
alarmed  at  his  increasing  power  and  influence,  and 
the   Sanhedrim  resolved  to  become  his  accuser,  and 


EPHEMERA. 


731 


bring  him  to  trial  under  the  law  as  laid  down  in  the 
13th  of  Deuteronomy. 

"In  reflecting  deeply  on  all  the  circumstances  of 
this,  the  most  remarkable  trial  and  judgment  in  his- 
ory,  I  am  convinced,  from  the  whole  tenor  of  the 
proceedings,  that  the  arrest,  trial,  and  condemnation 
of  Jesus  of  Nazareth,  was  conceived  and  executed  un- 
der a  decided  panic" 

Now  it  seemed  to  us,  and  it  seems  to  us  (for  we  are 
wide  awake  now),  that  to  represent  the  Son  of  God, 
while  on  a  mission  from  Jehovah  for  the  salvation  of 
a  world,  made  the  victim  of  a  "decided  panic'" — the 
"earth  quaking,  the  rocks  rent,  the  sun  darkened,  the 
graves  opened,  and  the  veil  of  the  temple  rent  in 
twain,"  as  the  consequence  of  a  "decided  panic,"  un- 
der the  influence  of  which  the  Jews  had  crucified  one 
whom  they  "knew  as  a  boy,"  and  as  an  industrious 
laborer — this  does  seem  to  us  a  "disparagement  of  the 
Savior,"  and  of  the  dignity  of  his  mission,  and  it 
does  seem  to  us  as  intended  to  "apologise  for  the 
Jews."  What  other  aim  or  relevancy  has  this  very 
new  and  original  reason  for  the  crucifixion,  but  to 
apologise  for  the  act? 

As  this  is  the  "first  time  for  centuries"  that  the 
Jews  have  had  an  apologist,  our  readers  will  be  inter- 
ested to  know  more  particularly  how  the  crucifixion 
is  defended.  We  therefore  yield  to  our  own  wish, 
and  give  the  following  more  extended  extract  from 
Major   Noah's   lecture,    underlining  {hose    passages 


timidity,  their  hesitation,  without  even  a  ray  of  hope; 
a  people  so  venerable  for  their  antiquity,  so  beloved 
and  protected  for  their  fidelity,  on  the  very  threshold 
of  political  destruction. 

•  "  It  is  not  my  duty  to  condemn  Uie  course  of  our  an- 
cestors, nor  yet  to  justify  the  measures  they  adopted 
in  that  dire  extremity  ;  but  if  there  are  mitigating  cir- 
cumstances, I  am  bound  by  the  highest  considerations 
which  a  love  of  truth  and  justice  dictates,  to  spread 
them  before  you,  at  the  same  time  to  protest  against 
any  entailing  upon  us,  the  responsibility  of  acts  com- 
mitted eighteen  hundred  years  ago  by  our  fathers,  and 
thus  transmit  to  untold  generations  the  anger  and  ha- 
tred of  a  faith,  erroneously  taught  to  believe  us  the 
aggressors. 

"  The  Jews,  my  friends,  were  but  the  instruments 
of  a  higher  power,  and  in  rejecting  Jesus  of  Nazareth,  we 
have  a  great  and  overwhelming  evidence  of  the  infinite 
wisdom  of  the  Almighty.     Had  they  acknowledged  him 
|  as  their  Messiah  at  that  fearful  crisis,  the  whole  na- 
tion would   have   gradually  sunk    under  the   Roman 
[  yoke,  and  we  should  have  had  at  this  day  paganism 
i  and  idolatry,  with  all  their  train  of  terrible  evils,  and 
I  darkness  and  desolation  would  have  spread  over  the 
earth.     But   the  death   of   Jesus   was  the   birth    of 
Christianity  ;  the  Gentile  church  sprang  from  the  ru- 
ins   which   surrounded    its   primitive    existence;    its 
march  was  onward,  beset  with  darkness  and  difficul- 
ties, with  oppression  and  persecution,  until  the  Sun 


which  we  offendingly  described  as  "adroit  disparage-     of  Reformation  rose  upon  it,  dissipating  the  clouds 


ment,"  and  "  apology  for  the  Jews:'' — 

"  The  title  of  God  was  a  title  of  power  and  domin- 
ion, and  frequently  was  conferred  by  the  Almighty 
himself  on  earthly  rulers.  '  See,  I  have  made  thee  a 
God  to  Pharaoh,'  as  God  supreme  said  to  Moses. 
Son  of  God  was  a  title  frequently  conferred  on  those  of 
distinguished  piety  and  learning,  and  on  those  posses- 
sing the  emanations  of  the  divinity,  and  this  title  the 
apostles  themselves  carry  out  in  their  writings. 

"'The  Son,'  'My  Son,'  not  the  Father;  the  hu- 
manity, not  the  divinity,  the  image  of  the  invisible 
God,  not  ihe  invisible  God  himself;  and  as  Paul  said, 
there  is  one  God  and  one  mediator  between  God  and 
man.  Could  the  Almighty  delegate  a  mediatorial 
character  to  any  one  on  earth?  Who  can  doubt  it? 
God  said  to  Moses,  'Behold,  1  send  an  angel  before 
thee  to  keep  thee  in  the  way;  provoke  him  not,  for  he 
will  not  pardon  your  transgressions,  for  my  name  is 
in  him;  my  spirit  is  in  him.'  It  was  not  therefore  al- 
together on  the  charge  of  Jesus  having  called  himself 
Son  of  God,  that  the  Sanhedrim  accused  and  con- 
demned him  ;  political  considerations  mingled  them- 
selves, and  in  a  measure  controlled  the  decision  of  the 
council,  and  this  is  demonstrable  from  the  declaration 
of  Caiaphas  himself,  as  stated  in  the  Gospel :  '  Better 
that  one  man  should  die  than  that  the  nation  should 
be  destroyed.' 

"  It  icas  the  sedition,  and  not  altogether  the  blasphe- 
my, the  terror  and  apprehension  of  political  overthrow, 
which  led  to  conviction,  and  this  political  and  national 
characteristic  teas  maintained  throughout ;  it  was  that 
consideration  which  induced  the  Jews  to  urge  upon  Pi- 
late a  confirmation  of  the  sentence.  It  was  the  charge 
of  assuming  the  prerogatives  of  Cesar,  not  the  name 
of  the  Divinity,  which  overcame  the  well-founded  ob- 
jections of  the  Roman  governor,  and  crucifixion  itself 
was  a  Roman  and  not  a  Jewish  punishment.  The 
opprobrious  insults  heaped  upon  the  master  came 
from  the  Roman  soldiers,  and  that  mixed  rabble, 
which,  even  in  our  day,  desecrate  all  that  is  held  sa- 
cred. 

"  I  place  these  most  absorbing  events  before  you, 
my  countrymen,  not  to  contrast  things  sacred  with 
those  which  are  profane,  but  that  you  should  under- 
stand the  exact  position  of  the  Jews  at  that  time; 
their  painful  situation,  their  prostrate  condition,  their 


of  darkness  which  had  obscured  its  beauties,  and  it 
1  shone  forth  with  a  liberal  and  tolerant  brightness, 
!  such  as  the  Great  Master  had  originally  designed  it. 
!  Had  not  that  event  occurred,  how  would  you  have  been 
!  saved  from  your  sins?  The  Jews  in  this  did  nothing 
|  but  what  God  himself  ordained,  for  you  will  find  it 
'  written  in  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles,  'And  now,  breth- 
i  ren,  I  know  that  through  ignorance  ye  did  it,  as  did 
also  your  rulers  !'" 

We  leave  it  to  any  Gentile  (saved  by  the  "  decided 
political  panic"  of  the  Jews  under  Caiaphas),  whether 
it  was  not  reasonable  enough — at  least  for  a  man 
"fast  asleep" — to  fancy  he  could  detect  in  the  above 
argument,  an  "apology  for  the  Jews,"  and  a  "dispar- 
agement of  the  Savior."  We  were  quite  too  fast 
asleep  to  detect  anything  else! 

No,  dear  major,  we  were  not  "  asleep"  when  this 
was  delivered!  Our  head  was  down — for  you  had 
two  unshaded  lamps,  looking  like  blazing  earrings,  on 
either  side  of  your  benevolent  head,  and  our  eyes  are 
as  weak  as  your  heartstrings — but  we  went  to  the 
Tabernacle,  not  only  with  the  interest  of  friendship 
for  yourself,  but  with  high  excitement  in  the  unpar- 
alleled background  of  your  theme  !  We  could  not  tell 
you,  without  a  seeming  rhapsody — we  could  not  trust 
ourself  to  record,  out  of  blank  verse — the  scope  your 
subject  seemed  to  possess,  the  tragic  sublimity  of 
your  position,  the  climax  of  events  you  wished  to  be 
instrumental  in  bringing  to  a  close,  and  the  interest 
that  might  be  awakened  in  the  Christian  world  by  an 
eloquent,  life-devoted,  fervent  apostle  of  the  restora- 
tion!  There  is  no  theme  for  eloquence  with  a  thou- 
sandth part  of  the  pathos,  depth,  splendor,  and  pres- 
ent convergence  of  this  !  Heavens!  what  a  theme! 
The  key  of  the  whole  Christian  era!  The  winding 
up  of  a  cycle  of  two  thousand  years  numbered  from 
the  crucifixion!  The  close  of  the  one  expiation 
which  is  the  theme  of  scripture-prophecy,  and  with 
the  closing  of  which  comes  in  the  millenial  glory, 
and  the  renewal  of  Paradise  on  earth  !  This  theme, 
on  the  lips  of  genius,  one  would  think — genius  ac- 
cursed eighteen  hundred  years  ago,  and  to  be  one  of 
the  forgiven  at  the  second  coming  of  the  Messiah — 
might  burn  like  the  fire  upon  the  lips  of  Paul,  and 
turn  all  eyes  toward  waiting  Jerusalem.  This  was 
the  view  of  the  subject  with  which  we  went  to  the 


732 


EPHEMERA. 


Tabernacle,  dear  major! — almost  envying  you  your 
qualification  by  birth  for  the  using  of  it.  We  meant 
no  disrespect  in  our  notice.  We  were  only  a  liitle 
disappointed  and  annoyed  that  you  did  not  kindle  into 
a  crusader,  or  try  on  Peter  the  Hermit,  till  we  gazed 
at  you,  spite  of  your  earrings  ! 

And  now — ("  to  step  out  of  the  carriage  and  see 
ourselves  go  by") — you  are  wrong  if  you  are  right, 
major,  and  right  if  you  are  wrong  !  If  your  Jewish 
creed  be  right,  you  are  wrong  to  deny  its  manifest  de- 
duction. If  your  Jewish  creed  be  wrong,  you  are 
right  in  wishing  to  explain  it  away.  But  you  can 
not  have  your  cake  and  eat  it,  too.  You  can  not  rec- 
oncile the  church  with  the  synagogue,  nor  can  you 
lecture  palatably  and  frankly  from  the  synagogue  to 
Christians.  The  time,  at  least,  is  not  come.  "At 
the  end  of  the  toorld"  (says  a  commentator  on  the  Bi- 
ble), "  Christ  will  unite  the  church  with  the  syna- 
gogue, the  Jew  with  the  Christian,  the  Christian  with 
the  Gentile  ;  then  all  things  will  be  restored  to  a  per- 
fect union,  and  there  will  be  but  one  shepherd  and 
one  flock." 


Pkices  of  Women — cold  and  warm. — A  lovely 
female  slave,  warm  from  the  mountains  of  Circassia, 
and  warranted  not  to  be  second-hand,  may  be  bought 
at  Constantinople  for  three  hundred  dollars.  A  lovely 
female  statue,  cold  from  the  marble  mountains  of  Car- 
rara (and  spotless  as  the  snow,  without  a  doubt),  was 
lately  sold  by  Mr.  Power  to  the  Hon.  William  Pres- 
ton, for  three  thousand  dollars.  Something  would 
seem  to  be  wrong  here — the  "  cte/-tariflf" — or  the  Ot- 
toman "protection" — or  something  !  Various  ques- 
tions arise.  Is  an  original  woman  a  favorite  article  ? 
Is  the  imitation  by  Power  of  the  fabrics  of  Nature  &  Co. 
an  improvement  upon  the  model  ?  Is  the  presence  of 
the  faculty  of  speech  in  the  cheaper  article  any  special 
indication  of  a  preference  that  can  be  relied  upon  in 
the  buyer  ?  Perhaps  some  extensive  dealer  in  both 
articles  will  oblige  us  with  a  solution  of  this  mercan- 
tile problem. 


We  had  a  bonne  bouche  of  opera  last  night  at  Niblo's 
which  made  us  long  for  the  whole  feast — a  hint  of  a 
ballet  which  provoked  great  desire  for  more — and  just 
such  a  sprinkling  of  judicious  white  gloves  as  satisfied 
the  cognoscents  that  there  was  something  in  the  bill 
that  had  a  pull  upon  the  town's  fashion.  Then,  as 
if  it  were  to  be  nothing  but  an  appetizer,  Madame 
Pico  appeared  in  a  private  box,  and  the  audience  saw, 
that,  whatever  the  warble  might  be,  the  throat  it  would 
come  from  was  of  the  most  capable  fulness  of  beauty. 
We  have  had  our  suspicions,  from  the  quietness  with 
which  she  "bides  her  time,"  that  Madame  Pico  is  a 
star  conscious  of  the  swing  for  a  large  orbit,  and  very 
sure  of  "putting  a  circle  round  the"  town,  whenever 
she  rises.  It  is  a  considerable  spoke  in  the  wheel  of 
this  same  orbit  that  she  is  a  very  superb  woman.  She 
has  the  adorable  low  Greek  forehead,  like  Mrs.  Nor- 
ton's (the  poetess),  and  a  certain  mainlien  of  bust  and 
neck  which  shows  the  kind  of  passionate  uppishness 
the  old  gods  used  to  be  fond  of.  (Fide  the  gods' 
old  pictures.)  We  were  not  surprised  last  night  to 
overhear  a  foreigner  telling  one  of  his  countrymen 
that  Madame  Pico  would  make  more  impression  in 
New  York  than  any  prima  donna  since  Malibran. 
What  say,  Corbyni  !  Light  up  your  dress-circle  with 
a  little  more  gas,  and  give  us  ballet  and  opera  with 
Borghese  and  Pico  on  alternate  nights  ! 

in  every  civilized  country  but  this,  the  government 
backs  up  the  opera,  as  an  important  public  refinement. 
The  royal  treasurer  is  always  half  a  stage  manager. 
With  us,  the  people  are  the  sovereign,  but  Chancellor 
Bibb,  not  having,  as  far  as  we  know,  offered  terms  to 


Madame  Pico,  we,  as  one  of  the  royal  pores,  do  our 
part  of  the  insensible  perspiration,  and  express  the 
warm  desire  of  the  public,  that  Madame  Pico  should 
appear.  It  is  manifest  dulness  of  enterprise,  to  have 
no  opera  now.  There  are  no  parties,  the  autumn 
weather  is  moderate,  the  strangers  hang  about  town, 
till  after  the  Indian  summer,  and  there  is  no  room  for 
doubt  that  the  thing  would  be  supported. 

There  was  a  demonstration  of  enthusiasm,  last  night, 
which  appeared  to  be  quite  a  I'improvista,  at  the  per- 
formance of  the  Polka,  by  "  Master  Wood  and  la 
Petite  Carline."  These  two  little  miniatures — of 
the  size  of  children  six  years  old — danced,  to  our 
thinking,  quite  wonderfully.  We  are  likely  to  have 
no  grown-up  dancers,  this  year  at  least,  who,  reduced 
to  the  same  size  by  an  inverted  opera-glass,  would  do 
the  Polka  any  better.  The  necessary  air  of  galliar- 
dise,  the  precision,  combined  with  abandon,  the  look 
and  gesture,  were  all  capitally  well  done.  They  are 
charming  little  people,  and  a  good  deal  of  a  "  good 
card"  for  any  theatre.  Query,  for  Corbyn — Would 
not  a  ballet,  by  these  Lilliputians,  got  up  for  children, 
to  commence  at  four  o'clock  in  the  afternoon,  and  last 
about  one  hour,  be  a  paying  enterprise? 

One  hint  more  :  Is  there  not  the  making  of  a  fine 
actress  and  singer  in  Miss  Rosina  Shaw  ?  She  has 
beauty,  remarkable  voice,  grace  and  confidence — four 
"  pretty  wells."     Keep  an  eye  on  her,  Mr.  Manager! 


The  Day  after  the  Ballot. — The  contention 
for  the  favors  of  Mrs.  Vox  Populi  is  over.  The  diffi- 
cult dame  has  made  her  election.  The  future  presi- 
dent is  in  the  ballot-box,  and  that  womb  of  authority 
is  now  silently  waited  upon  by  the  paternal  majority. 
God  bless  whatever  is  to  be  brought  forth  ! 

Thank  Heaven  the  town  is  stiller  !  There  is  more 
noise  upon  the  blacksmith's  anvil  and  the  shoemaker's 
lap-stone — more  clatter  upon  the  tinman's  vice  and 
the  coppersmith's  rivet — but  the  town's  heart  beats 
less  audibly,  to-day,  and  the  town's  pulse  less  feverish- 
ly and  wildly.  The  political  bully  is  looking  around 
unwillingly  but  peacefully  for  work.  The  club 
wrangler's  vocation  is  gone.  The  working-man  will 
give  less  of  his  evening  to  the  bar-room  and  caucus. 
Wives  rejoice.     Children  are  glad. 

Considering  only  individuals,  the  immediate  tumult 
and  recoil  of  politics  seem  only  evil  and  violence. 
The  pore  and  the  pediculus  will  complain  of  blood- 
letting and  blister.  We  believe  the  country  at  large 
is  benefited  by  the  bringing  of  these  bad  humors  to 
the  surface,  however.  We  are  sure  at  least  that  we 
see  all  there  is,  in  our  body  popular,  that  is  dangerous. 
There  is  evil  disposition,  antagonism,  discontent,  cra- 
ving for  excitement,  love  of  combination,  dormant 
energy,  and  ambition — qualities  everywhere  distribu- 
ted, and  hungering,  every  one,  for  a  field  of  action. 
Where  belter  would  they  break  out,  than  in  politics  ? 
How,  easier,  should  we  know  our  neighbor's  length 
of  conscience-string  and  proneness  to  trick  and  unfair- 
ness, than  by  watching  him  when  his  passions  are 
roused  and  his  cautiousness  forgotten  ?  What  man 
in  a  political  committee  knows  too  little  of  his  fellows 
for  future  living  with  them  ? 

But,  thank  God,  the  tumult  once  over,  the  city  re- 
turns to  peace,  industry,  and  prosperity.  Injury  and 
calumny  stand  no  more  behind  the  editor's  chair — 
literature  and  cominerce,  instead,  look  promptingly 
over  his  shoulder.  The  merchant  is  relieved  from 
anxiety,  and  knows  how  to  shape  his  venture.  The 
mechanic  "  hangs"  politics  for  a  plague  and  a  bother. 
The  republic  has  set  up  its  master,  and  is  content  to 
be  governed  while  it  toils  and  prospers. 

There  is  one  feature  of  the  late  contest,  however, 
for  which  we  can  find  no  philosophical  offset.     We 


EPHEMKK  A 


733 


refer  to  the  unparallelled  and  insane  extent  to  which 
betting  lias  been  carried.     Of  any  good  this  practice 
does  we  do  not  see  even  a  shadowing.     Of  its  intoler- 
able evil*  we  hear  mournful  accounts  at  every  turn. 
It  seems  to  have  infected,  with   a  gambling   mania, 
those  who  never  before  hazarded  money  on  a  question 
of  chance  or  uncertainty.     We   have  heard  several 
really  most  lamentable  instances  of  fatuity  and  disaster  { 
in   this  new  demon-shape  of  party-spirit.     Families 
are  ruined,  creditors  robbed,  children  deprived  of  edu-  j 
cation  and  bread — by  men  who  would  as  soon  cut  off  j 
their  hands  as  throw  a  stake  at  a  gaming-table  !     Is 
there  no  power  in  the  law  to  put  a  stop  to  this  new  j 
evil  of  politics  ?     We  ask  this  question  to  provoke,  if  j 
possible,  an  answer. 

And  now — as  politics  walk  out  from  the  public  mind, 
and  there  is  room  for  something  else  to  walk  in — let 
us  mention  a  great  evil  in  this  country  of  ours,  and 
tell  some  news  that  has  an  example  by  which  to 
mend  it. 

We  toil  too  much! 


Ladies'  Dictionary — the  word  Alpaca.  The  Al- 
paca is  a  South  American  animal,  much  used  as  a 
beast  of  burden  by  the  Indians,  with  long  hair,  princi- 
pally black,  but  slightly  grizzled.  It  is  an  excessive- 
ly irritable  animal,  and  indomitable  till  soothed.  The 
importance  of  this  animal  has  already  been  considered 
by  the  English,  in  their  hat,  woollen,  and  stuff  trade, 
and  an  essay  on  the  subject  has  been  published  by 
Dr.  Hamilton  of  London.  The  wool  is  so  remarkable, 
being  a  jet  black,  glossy,  silk-like  hair,  that  it  is  fitted 
for  the  production  of  texile  fabrics  differing  from  all 
others,  occupying  a  medium  position  between  the 
wool  and  the  silk.  It  is  now  mingled  with  other  ma- 
terials in  such  a  singular  manner,  that  while  a  par- 
ticular dye  will  affect  those,  it  will  leave  the  Alpaca 
wool  with  its  original  black  color,  thus  giving  rise  to 
great  diversity. 


Who  wants  a  Dress-Opera  ? — There  is  a  large 
class  in  every  metropolis  who  are  fond  of  gayety, 
dress,  and  "  a  place  to  go  to,"  but  who  do  not  like 
private  parties  for  three  or  more  reasons:  1st,  the 
lateness  of  the  hours;  2d,  the  trouble  of  making  the 
agreeable;  3d,  the  card-and-visit  nuisance,  the  man- 
agement and  ceremony,  necessary  to  keep  up  fashion- 
able vogue.  The  part  of  the  evening  between  eight 
and  eleven  is,  to  this  class,  the  time  of  the  twenty-four 
hours  in  which  they  wish  to  be  abroad,  to  be  admired, 
to  be  amused.  The  less  trouble  with  it  the  better; 
and  they  would  rather  give  a  dollar  and  think  no  more 
about  it,  than  leave  a  card  at  an  expense  of  memory, 
time,  equipage,  and  politic  calculation.  They  want  a 
place  where  everybody  dresses ;  where  it  is  light ; 
where  they  will  see  beauty,  and  be  seen  themselves 
by  appreciative  eyes  ;  where  there  is  music  to  hear 
and  a  show  to  look  at  if  they  like  to  be  silent,  or 
friends  in  a  box  near  by  if  they  wish  to  converse — a 
place  where  they  can  hear  the  gossip,  have  singers 
to  criticise,  and  "see  the  world" — in  short.Ais  Opera. 
To  the  great  majority  of  ball-goers— particularly  to 
the  men— the  time  from  eight  to  eleven  hangs  heavily. 
They  would  gladly  dress  early  and  go  first  to  the 
opera,  if  it  were  habitually  a  dress-resort. 

There  are  many  well-off  people  to  whom  a  dress- 
opera  is  the  only  tolerable  amusement — lame  people  ; 
ladies  who  only  look  well  sitting,  or  look  best  in  shawls 
and  opera-dress ;  foreigners  who  do  not  speak  the 
language  ;  timid  persons,  who  wish  to  see  the  gay 
world  without  encountering  it ;  and  the  many  fami- 
lies who  have  a  competency  to  live  and  can  afford 
amusement,  but  want  a  handle  to  the  door  of  society. 
The  first  object  of  strangers  in  town  (of  whom  there 


are  always  several  thousands),  is  to  go  where  they  can 
j  see  the  well-dressed  and  fashionable  people.  Most 
i  strangers,  in  a  large  city,  would  rather  see  the  exclu- 
I  sives  in  an  opera-box,  than  the  Croton  reservoirs,  or 
the  monsters  in  a  menagerie. 

People  in  ceremonious  mourning  find  a  great  relief 
in  seeing  the  gay  world  from  an  opera-box. 

Last  (not  least,  unless  you  please!)  some  people 
would  frequent  the  opera,  the  season  through,  for  the 
music.  It  "soothes"  our  "savage  breast" — for  one, 
and  we  think  the  "  hang"  of  opera-music  in  the  town 
hum  and  whistle  is  a  desirable  and  refining  variety. 

Now,  with  all  this  desirableness  and  frequentability, 
!  is  it  not  wonderful  that  no  larger  capitalist  than  Signor 
Palmo  (pocket  edition),  should  have  ventured  to  em- 
bark in  a  scheme  for  an  opera-house!  It  is  not  a 
scheme  to  prosper — doneby  halves.  It  must  be  a  splen- 
did affair,  or  a  failure.  There  must  be  comfort  in  the 
seats,  breadth  in  the  alleys,  boundless  prodigality  in 
the  lights,  luxury  in  the  saloons  and  entrances,  and 
Alhambrian  excellence  in  the  refreshments.  The 
manager  should  be  a  mixture  of  Caesar,  Talleyrand, 
and  Bluebeard — awful,  politic,  punctual  in  pay.  and 
I  relentless  to  the  caprices  of  primadonnas.  Two  slash- 
ing critics  should  be  employed  to  annihilate  each  other 
daily,  in  opposing  preferences  for  the  performers. 
The  exaction  of  full  dress  for  all  comers  should  be 
rigidly  enforced.  The  names  of  the  belles  at  every 
last  night's  opera  should  be  disembowelled  and  para- 
graphed every  morning.  Prestige,  celebrity,  show, 
humbug,  and  ceremony,  should  be  added  to  the  most 
indefatigable  real  merit  in  the  management,  and  then 
the  shareholders  would  make  money. 

Then,  too,  we  should  have  a  dress-resort — what 
no  theatre  now  is  or  ever  has  been  in  New  York,  but 
what,  of  all  refinements  and  resources,  is  the  most 
delightful  and  indispensable.  We  could  write  a 
column  about  the  blessing  of  beauty  seen  in  public, 
the  chastening  and  refining  influences  of  music,  the 
restraining  proprieties  of  dress  and  observance,  etc, 
etc.,  etc. — but  we  confine  ourself  to  tangibilities.  One 
more  fact— the  existence  of  such  an  opera-house,  so 
conducted,  would  link  New  York  in  the  operatic  chain 
of  star-travel;  and  Grisi,  Lablache,  and  the  rest,  would 
as  certainly  come  here  from  Loudon  and  Paris,  as  go 
to  Vienna  and  St.  Petersburg!!,  Berlin  and  Naples. 
Our  readers  in  Wall  street  will  please  consider  this 
as  a  "  money  article.''' 


PROMISCUOUS    REPLIES    TO    LETTERS. 

Dear  Jack:  Since  my  compulsory  budding,  flower- 
ing, and  bearing  fruit,  have  been  accelerated  to  one 
season  per  diem,  to  feed  a  daily  paper,  you  will  easily 
understand  that  I  found  it  necessary  at  first  to  work 
all  my  sap  into  something  useful — omitting  as  it  were, 
the  gum  deposite  of  superfluous  correspondence.  I 
accordingly  left  you  off.  Your  last  letter  was  slipped 
into  the  no- more-bother  hole,  without  the  usual  en- 
dorsement of  "  answered,"  and  I  considered  you  like 
a  trinket  laid  aside  before  a  race— not  to  encumber 
me.  Imiss  the  writing  of  trumpery,  however.  I  miss 
the  sweeping  out  of  the  corners  of  my  mind— full  of 
things  fit  only  for  the  dust-pan,  but  still  very  possibly 
hiding  a  silver-spoon. 

Do  you  want  any  more  explanation  of  why  you  get 
a  letter  from  me  for  one  cent,  printed,  instead  of  a 
written  one  at  eighteen  and  three  quarters?  It  rs 
wonderful  how  much  cheaper  printing  is  than  writing ! 

I  left  off  my  envy  of  your  country  life  as  usual  wnh 
my  summer  trowsers,  not  caring  to  see  the  death  of 
anything— even  the  resigned  summer.     As  soon  as  I 

I  have  occasion  to  button  my  coat  to  keep  out  the  air, 
I  I  am  content  with  that  part  of  the  earth's  breast  that 

II  is  paved  over.     The  town  is  honored  now  by  the  pres- 


734 


EPHEMERA 


ence  of  those  who  could  go  away  if  they  wished,  and, 
as,  human-like,  the  town  values  those  who  can  do 
without  it,  "  New  York  is  gay."  Shopping  is  this 
month's  pastime,  however.  The  ladies  have  no  need 
of  parties  while  they  can  yield  reluctant  dollars  to  in- 
sidious temptation.  It  was  in  competition  with  the 
"  fall  goods"  that  the  opera  failed  a  month  ago — open- 
ed on  the  supposition  that  people  had  nothing  to  amuse 
them!  A  manager,  and  not  know  the  sex  !  Kech! 
Pal  mo  ! 

The  town  is  to  be  illuminated  on  Monday  next  by 
the  apparition  of  a  new  base  and  a  brace  of  prima- 
donnas.  Madame  Pico  has  been  biding  her  time  like 
game  in  the  larder,  and  the  town  is  quite  ready  to 
sweeten  her  with  the  current  condiment  and  devour 
her.  She  is  a  beautiful  woman,  and  though  I  never 
could  get  my  sentiment  over  the  foot-lights,  I  love  to 
see  the  town  fascinated.  Pray  Heaven  she  sings  well 
— after  all  the  heralding  I  have  done  for  her!  If  that 
well-chiselled  throat  should  have  an  awkward  corner 
in  it,  we  should  have  to  restore  to  Borghese  her  divi- 
ded throne  and  go  back  to  our  worship  of  her  toilet 
and  other  utmost-possibles,  with  an  indifferent  grace. 
Happy  queen  of  Sheba,  who  ordained  that  no  woman 
should  reign  after  her  ! 

Well,  sir,  what  do  you  want  to  know  ?  There  are 
few  things  above  ground  that  I  do  not  hear  of,  some 
hundreds  of  newspapers  doing  their  best  to  make  news 
and  send  it  to  me — to  cook  to  your  liking  !  He  who 
subscribes  to  the  Mirror  appoints  me  his  fashioner  of 
things  palatable  to  know,  and  though,  like  other  cooks, 
I  pass  under  my  nose  a  vast  deal  I  should  not  choose 
for  my  own  relishing,  I  do  my  best  to  give  it  with  due 
spice  and  proportion.  Indeed,  what  with  serving  so 
many  people  with  so  many  different  kinds  of  knowl- 
edge, 1  feel  like  the  omnificent  man  called  for  in  Ben 
Jonson's  "  Staple  of  news  :" — 

u  Where  is  my  fashioner,  my  feather-man, 
My  linener,  perfumer,  barber,  all !" 

When  Saturday  comes  round  with  the  life,  business, 
fun,  and  literature  of  the  whole  week  in  one — a  mir- 
ror'd  E  Pluribus  Unum — it  seems  wonderful  to  me 
how  so  much,  and  of  such  endless  variety,  could  have 
been  gathered  into  one  week's  history  !  That  weekly 
Mirror  is  worth  binding  and  keeping,  if  it  were  only 
as  a  choice  record  of  the  events  of  the  buyer's  times 
— set  down,  point  by  point,  with  the  life  he  lived 
amidst  their  occurrings.  There  is  nothing  good, 
brilliant,  or  important,  that  is  not  recorded  in  it,  and, 
if  a  man  wants  to  forget  as  he  goes  along,  that  pack- 
horse  will  take  the  load  off  his  memory,  and  for  three 
dollars  a  year  bring  it  safe  after  him  ! 

And  now,  dear  Jack,  assuring  you  that  this  letter 
is  wholly  confidential,  and  that  you  are  not  at  liberty 
to  give  it  away  as  an  autograph,  I  record  myself, 

As  usual,  Yours, . 

To  John Esq., 

(a  friend  in  the  country). 


ETIQUETTE    OF    WEDDING-CARDS. 

Messrs.  Editors:  My  friend  John  Smith  is  to  be 
married  to  Lucy  Jones.  She  issues  a  card  of  invita- 
tion like  this  : — 

MXTND^MTsTTOll^SMTfH        > 

j  AT   HOME, 

!    No.  59  B street,  Tuesday  Evening,    < 

November  14th. 
i     Johx  Smith,  i 
\     Lucy  Jones.  \ 

Now  he  intends  to  use  this  for  inviting  to  the  cere- 
tnony ;  but  I  tell  him  it  is  wrong,  and  can  only  be  used 


to  invite  to  the  party  after  the  ceremony.  He  con- 
tends that  this  is  the  usual  form — so  the  engraver 
tells  him,  etc. 

Please  give  us  the  law  in  these  matters  (we  can  ap- 
peal to  no  higher  authority  in  matters  of  etiquette 
and  fashion)  ;  let  us  have  the  two  customary  forms, 
for  wedding  and  party,  for  the  enlightenment  of  in- 
experienced candidates  who  wish  to  follow  the  fash- 
ions, and  much  oblige,  'Custom. 

P.  S. — We  wait  for  your  infallible  decision. 

Wednesday  morning. 


Dear  Custom  :  Your  friend  is  wrong,  from  the 
egg  to  the  apple.  Miss  Lucy  Jones  has  a  mother,  or 
father,  guardian,  or  friend,  at  whose  house  she  is  to  be 
married.  The  invitation  should  come  from  the  per- 
son under  whose  protection  she  is  given  away — (sent, 
if  you  please,  to  Mr.  Smith's  friends,  with  Mr.  Smith's 
card,  but  understood  by  Miss  Lucy  Jones's  friends, 
without  card  or  explanation).  It  is  tampering  with 
serious  things,  very  dangerously,  to  circulate  the  three 
words,  "and  Mrs.  John  Smith,"  one  minute  before 
the  putting  on  of  the  irrevocable  ring.  The  law 
which  permits  ladies  (though  not  gentlemen)  to 
change  their  minds  up  to  the  last  minute  before  wed- 
lock,  exacts  also  that  the  privileged  angels  should  not 
be  coerced  by  the  fear  of  seeing  the  escaped  name 
afterward  on  a  wedding  card  !  Besides,  such  a  card, 
so  issued,  would  be  received  from  Mrs.  Smith  before 
there  was  any  such  person. 

The  first  proper  use  of  the  wedded  name  is  to  send 
it  with  parcels  of  wedding-cake,  the  morning  after  the 
ceremony,  to  friends  and  persons  desired  as  visiting 
acquaintances.  This  is  considered  an  excusable  ad- 
vance on  the  part  of  persons  entering  newly  upon  life, 
and  the  promptness  with  which  a  return-card  is  left 
upon  the  bride  is  an  indication  of  the  degree  of  pleas- 
ure with  which  the  proposition  of  acquaintance  is  re- 
ceived. Another  advantage  of  cake  and  card  : — the 
etiquette  of  (exacting  that  a  new  nail  should  be  thus 
driven  in  all  acquaintances  that  are  to  be  kept  up)  en- 
ables bride  and  bridegroom  to  drop,  without  offence, 
such  acquaintances  of  each  as  are  respectively  unde- 
sirable— persons  inseparable  from  the  set  in  which  the 
lady  has  lived,  who  are  not  agreeable  to  the  bride- 
groom, and  bachelor  acquaintances  of  the  bridegroom, 
who  may  be  thought  too  free  for  the  fireside.  Wed- 
ded life  is  thus  begun  with  a  "culled  posy  of  friend- 
ship," the  door  of  society  open  before,  and  mischief- 
makers  shut  out  behind. 

Our  compliments  to  Miss  Jones,  and  we  remain, 
Very  truly 

Open  to  card  and  cake, 

Mirror  Triplet. 


Unmarried  People  four  times  as  liable  to  insanity 
as  Married  People. — The  "  Concord  Freeman,"  in 
a  statistical  article  made  up  from  hospital  reports, 
shows,  that  if  a  man  is,  perhaps,  oftener  out  of  pocket 
when  married,  he  is  not  so  often  out  of  his  head.  The 
editor  says:  Few  people  are  aware  how  much  more 
insanity  prevails  among  bachelors  and  unmarried  la- 
dies than  among  the  married  of  both  sexes.  We 
learn  from  the  examination  of  very  many  reports,  that 
of  every  five  of  all  lunatics  sent  to  American  hospitals, 
three  are  unmarried,  and  only  two  are  married,  and 
that  almost  all  of  them  are  over  twenty-one  years  old. 
On  the  other  hand,  it  is  pretty  certain  that  in  all  the 
community  over  twenty-one  years  of  age,  there  are 
more  than  three  times  as  many  in  as  out  of  wedlock. 
If  this  be  the  case,  then  the  unmarried  are  more  than 
four  times  as  liable  to  become  insane  as  married 
people. 


EPHEMERA. 


735 


The  Herald  seems  to  think  we  have  bought  the 
m  Republic."  We  are  sorry  that  a  republic  is  a  mar- 
ketable commodity,  but  at  any  rate  we  have  bought 
nothing  of  that  name  or  description.  Our  ambition, 
somehow,  does  not  seem  to  stumble  upon  things  re- 
publican. In  this  world  we  desire  a  farm,  on  which 
we  can  be  "  monarch  of  all  we  survey,"  and  in  the 
next,  we  pray  for  a  citizenship  in  the  kingdom  of 
heaven. 


"  Up-Town"  and  "  Down-Town." — We  see  that 
these  names  of  the  different  halves  of  the  city  are  be- 
Boming  the  common  language  of  advertisements,  etc. 
A  person  advertises  in  one  of  the  papers  a  "  Dcnon- 
town  singing  school,"  and  another  a  "Down-town 
dancing  academy."  We  think  our  friend  Billings 
would  better  stick  to  "  Up-town  Hotel"  as  the  better 
designation  of  the  new  brick  khan. 


The  new  Sequel  to  Theatrical  Intelligence. 
— Since  the  bishops  and  deacons  have  taken  to  in- 
dicting each  other  for  falliugs-away  of  which  the  pub- 
lic like  to  read  the  Scan.  Mag.,  we  observe  that  the 
particular  column  of  newspapers  which  is  devoted  to 
spicy  news,  theatricals,  police  incidents,  etc.,  has 
silently  become  the  locality  for  brief  paragraphs  an- 
nouncing where  distinguished  preachers  are  to  hold 
forth.  In  the  salad  column  of  one  of  the  papers  there 
is  one  announcement  of  a  play  followed  by  six  an- 
nouncements of  sermons!  And  in  another  paper 
there  are  very  nearly  two  columns  of  sketches  of  ser- 
mons, from  a  specific  "  reporter! !" 


We  saw  yesterday,  for  the  first  time  in  this  coun 
try,  an  equipage  of  full  ceremonial  splendor,  faultless  | 
in  taste,  and  evidently  not  at  all  modified  by  any  I 
dread  of  democratic  prejudices.  We  admired  the  J 
"  bravery"  of  the  turn-out,  and  the  courage  of  using  i 
it.  The  ice  broken,  there  will  soon  be  conjured  oth-  j 
ers  from  the  vaults  in  Wall  street — but  meantime,  let  j 
us  look  a  little  at  the  necessity  for  a  promenade  drive  j 
in  New  York,  and  its  probable  locality. 

In  or  near  every  capital  of  Europe  there  is  a  spot  | 
which  serves,  for  those  who  have  carriages,  the  same  \ 
purpose  which  Broadway  serves  for  promenaders  on  j 
foot.  In  London  it  is  the  Mayfair  side  of  Hyde  park  ; 
in  Paris  it  is  the  Champs  Elysees  and  Bois  de  Bou- 
logne; in  Florence  it  is  the  Cascine;  in  Rome  the 
Pincian  hill ;  in  Naples  the  Strada  Nuova.  In  all  of 
these  capitals  the  titled  and  wealthy  avoid  driving  in 
the  crowded  streets  except  upon  errands  of  necessity, 
and  in  London  it  is  the  custom  to  keep  a  plainer  ve- 
hicle with  cob-horses  expressly  for  use  at  night  and 
errands  in  the  city.  Ladies  who  have  occasion  to  go 
out  in  the  morning,  do  so  on  foot  and  in  the  plainest 
dress,  followed  invariably  by  a  servant.  They  return 
to  lunch  at  one  or  two,  and  immediately  after  dress  for 
the  shoiv  part  of  the  day's  out-door  occupation.  The 
carriage  comes  round  in  full  livery  at  the  specified 
hour,  and,  the  shopping  and  business-errands  having 
been  despatched  in  the  forenoon,  the  equipage  starts 
upon  the  afternoon  destination  of  ceremony  or  pleas- 
ure. 

An  hour  before  sunset  or  the  dinner  hour,  the 
principal  drive  is  over,  and  the  scattered  equipages 
meet,  as  upon  a  fashionable  exchange,  for  a  prome- 
nade of  display.  This  conventional  assembling  is  re- 
lied upon  for  recognition  of  acquaintance,  for  arrange- 
ments as  to  the  evening,  for  keeping  advised  of  the 
fashions,  for  seeing  straugers,  and  for  contests  of  style 
in  equipage  and  personal   attire.     The  dandies  must 


be  seen  there,  in  cab  or  mounted  ;  the  women  of  "  po- 
sition" must  refresh  there  the  memories  of  forgetful 
tributaries;  the  new  candidate  for  fashion  must  there 
display  that  taste  in  "  belongings"  which  can  only  be 
guessed  at  in  a  ball-room ;  there  are  seen  all  whose 
means  make  them  eligible  to  expensive  circles  of  so- 
ciety, and  who  (by  something  that  trill  and  does  tell, 
in  the  equipage,  or  the  mode  of  dressing  for,  and  ap- 
pearing in,  it)  there  make  claim  to  fitness  for,  at  least, 
a  ceremonious  conversance  with  the  haute  volte. 

Of  course,  there  is  a  postern  of  society  in  all  cities, 
through  which  are  admitted  certain  classes,  who  keep 
no  equipages — those  who  are  to  amuse,  instruct,  or 
embellish  the  gay  world — poets,  parsons,  and  pretty 
women  ;  but  the  promenade  on  wheels  is,  to  all  oth- 
ers, the  inexorable  vestibule,  and,  as  far  at  least  as  this 
gate,  the  ordinary  seekers  of  the  heaven  beyond  must 
come  with  horses.  Cowper  only  mentioned  the  barest 
essentials  when  he  said, 

"  Well-drest,  well-bred, 
Well-equipaged,  is  ticket  good  enough 
To  pass  us  readily  through  every  door." 

In  New  York,  however  undesirable  to  the  mass,  this 
formidable  gulf  is  about  to  be  sunk,  between  wealth 
and  competency.  At  present  there  is  no  distinction 
among  the  upper  ten  thousand  of  the  city.  There  is 
no  place  where  equipages  are  exclusively  looked  for. 
There  are  five  or  ten  thousand  young  men  who  dress 
as  well  as  the  millionare's  son;  five  or  ten  thousand 
ladies  for  whom  milliners  and  mantua-makers  do  their 
b«st;  ten  or  twenty  thousand  who  can  show  as  well 
on  foot,  and  walk  as  well  without  heart-burnings,  in 
Broadway — one  as  another.  New  York  is  (at  this 
critical  moment,  before  the  shoot  of  the  centripetal 
particles  to  a  new  nucleus)  the  largest  republic  of 
"first  quality"  people  that  the  world  ever  saw. 

There  is  one  spot  which  has  been  talked  of  as  a 
promenade  drive,  and  we  believe  some  endeavor  has 
been  made  to  purchase  it  for  the  purpose — the  beau- 
tiful wood  on  the  right  of  the  Third  avenue.  That 
charming  spot  would  stand  to  New  York  very  much 
'  as  the  Cascine  to  Florence.  We  doubt,  however, 
]  whether,  yet  awhile  at  least,  the  object  would  warrant 
the  purchase. 

The  first  probable  promenade  drive,  we  should  say, 

1  would    be    the    Fifth   avenue,    from    Washington 

|  square  to  the  Croton  reservoir.     The  splendor  of  the 

houses   on   this   broad  highway  is  far  beyond  that  of 

j  any  other  portion  of  the  city  ;  it  is  no  thoroughfare 

:  for  omnibuses  ;  it  leads  from  the  wealthiest  neighbor- 

I  hood  to  a  prominent  public  work  ;  it  is  on  the  return 

!  route  from   the   loveliest  drives  on  the  island  ;  and, 

should  the  summit  of  the  rising  ground  on  which  the 

reservoir  stands   be   fixed   upon,  as  proposed,  for  the 

Washington  monument,  and  planted  and  decorated, 

that  limit  would  be  a  convenient  turning-place,  and  a 

charming  and  airy  spot  for  a  sunset  soiree  en  voiture- 


A  Story  for  tour  Son,  Sir. — The  present  king 
of  France,  one  very  cold  evening,  was  riding  from 
Boston  to  Salem  on  the  outside  of  the  stage.  He 
was  entirely  without  money  to  pay  for  a  lodging  that 
night,  and  he  began  to  make  friends  with  the  driver  to 
get  part  of  his  bed.  After  a  while  the  driver's  com- 
passion was  aroused.  "  You  are  not  a  very  clean 
looking  chap,"  said  he  to  the  poor  Frenchman,  "but 
my  bed  is  in  the  harness-room,  where  there's  a  stove, 
and  if  you'll  keep  your  trowsers  on,  and  sleep  outside, 
/  don't  mind  /" 


The  Republic  of  Broadway. — Eyes  were  con- 
trived at  some  trouble;  the  great  sun  shows  only  the 


736 


EPHExMERA. 


outside  of  things;  the  present  and  visible  (Carlyle- 
ically  speaking)  is  the  world  God  adapted  our  senses 
to;  and  though  some  people  like  to  live  the  life  of  a 
sundial  under  ground,  we  prefer  to  throw  to-day's 
9hadow  from  whatever  we  do — writing  about  what  we 
see,  and  thinking  most  about  what  jostles  our  elbow. 
This  explained, 

We  have  a  loose  slip-slop  or  two  for  the  young  men 
about  town — not  as  to  their  invisible  minds  and  morals, 
but  as  to  their  visible  walking  and  dressing.  Having 
"  bought  our  doublet  in  Italy,  our  round  hose  in 
France,  our  bonnet  in  Germany,  and  our  behavior 
everywhere,"  we  may  perhaps  excusably  scale  a  ped- 
estal to  give  our  opinion;  though  the  credit  we  take 
to  ourselves  may  be  granted  in  the  spirit  of  Falstaff's 
to  Doll  Tearsheet,  "We  catch  of  you,  Doll,  we  catch 
of  you  !" 

There  is  nothing  so  republican  as  a  dressy  popula- 
tion. We  are  no  "leveller,"  but  we  like  to  see  things 
level  themselves;  and  the  declaration  of  independence 
is  impotent  in  comparison  with  the  tailor's  goose.  A 
young  man  about  town  slips  his  miniature  into  five 
thousand  eyes  per  diem.  Fifty  of  the  five  thousand 
who  see  him  know  whether  his  father  is  a  mechanic 
or  a  rich  man;  and  it  depends  wholly  upon  his  dress 
and  mien  whether  the  remaining  four  thousand  nine 
hundred  and  fifty  take  him  to  be  a  rich  man's  son  or 
a  mechanic's  son.  It  is  reasonable,  of  course,  to  let 
the  fifty  who  know  think  what  pleases  them,  and  to 
dress  for  the  very  large  majority  who  don't  know. 
This  is  apparently  the  tacit  philosophy  of  the  young 
men  of  New  York.  There  is  no  telling,  by  any  dif- 
ference in  dress,  whether  the  youth  going  by  has, 
probably,  a  sister  who  is  an  heiress,  or  a  sister  who  is 
a  sempstress.  There  is  no  telling  the  merchant  from 
his  bookkeeper — no  guessing  which  is  the  diner  on 
eighteen  pence,  and  which  the  gourmet  of  Delmon- 
ico's — no  judging  whether  the  man  in  the  omnibus, 
whom  you  vaguely  remember  to  have  seen  some- 
where, was  the  tailor  who  tried  on  your  coat,  or  your 
vis-a-vis  last  night  at  a  ball. 

As  we  said  above,  this  is  a  true  republic.  A  young 
man  whose  appearance  is  four-story-housy,  can  very 
well  afford  to  let  a  few  people  know  that  he  sleeps 
over  the  shop.  If  he  is  more  elegant  than  a  rich 
man's  son,  he  gets  as  nearly  the  full  value  of  the  dif- 
ference as  ordinary  vanity  would  require.  Every 
young  man  finds  means  to  dress  to  his  liking,  and  of 
course  every  young  man  starts  fair,  each  morning, 
with  all  of  his  age,  for  the  day's  competition  in  bright 
eyes. 

We  shall  be  understood,  now,  in  our  republican  ef- 
fort to  add  still  another  levelling  to  this  of  the  tailor's 
goose — to  bring  the  attractions  of  plain  men  up  to 
those  of  the  "aristocracy  of  nature."  The  hints  we 
have  to  throw  out  will  be  slighted  by  the  good-look- 
ing; taken  advantage  of  by  the  plain — thus  levelling, 
in  another  respect,  upward. 

The  rarest  thing  seen  in  Broadway  is  a  young  man 
who  walks  well.  A  stoop  in  the  back  is  almost  na- 
tional; and  an  upright,  graceful,  gentlemanlike  gait 
is  as  rare  as  it  is  singularly  striking.  If  you  can  af- 
ford the  time  to  walk  slowly,  high-heeled  boots  are  a 
great  improvement.  With  time  enough,  you  drop 
the  foot  insensibly  from  a  high  heel,  like  an  actor 
walking  down  the  slope  of  the  stage.  Beside,  it 
makes  the  instep  look  high,  which  implies  that  your 
father  did  not  carry  a  hod. 

Avoid  a  broadcloth  shirt,  in  the  shape  of  a  shape- 
less garment  with  sleeves  (one  of  the  new  fashions). 
It  looks  colic-y,  with  the  wind  bellying  it  out  in  all 
directions  as  you  walk  along. 

Leave  long  cloaks  to  the  clergy.  The  broad  velvet 
collar,  turning  over,  diminishes  your  apparent  breadth 
of  shoulders,  and  it  should  be  worn  with  careful  dra- 
matic propriety,  not  to  be  very  awkward  and  inelegant. 


If  you  are  about  to  have  an  overcoat  made,  get  a 
fat  friend  to  go  and  be  measured  for  it.  At  any  rate, 
let  not  your  diaphragm  be  so  imprisoned,  that  the 
first  heroic  sentiment  will  tear  off  a  button.  One  of 
Jenning's  cutters  is  the  apostle  of  a  reform  in  this 
:  matter — measuring-  you  (if  you  request  it)  by  a  mag- 
nifying-glass,  from  the  waist  upward. 

These  are  not  King  Canute's  days,  when  "  none 
under  the  rank  of  gentlemen  dare  presume  to  have  a 
greyhound  to  follow  him."  The  outward  symbols, 
once  peculiar  to  elegance,  are  pretty  well  levelled  up 
to,  as  we  said  before — but,  by  careful  observation, 
you  will  now  and  then  see  a  something  that  nice  men 
do,  or  do  not  do,  which  has  not  yet  got  through  the 
hair  of  the  promiscuous.  As  an  example,  and  in  the 
hope  that  it  will  not  be  generally  understood,  we  will 
mention,  that  very  particular  men,  for  the  last  year, 
have  walked  the  street  invariably  with  a  kind  of 
grieved  look — very  expressive  and  distinguishing. 

We  will  resume  this  republican  theme. 


The  Designation  of  the  Lady  Presidentfss. — 
If  it  had  not  been  for  a  certain  ante-expiatory  "  white 
horse,"  we  should  have  prayed  for  the  miraculous  re- 
turn to  this  world  of  "John  Tetzel,  Vender  of  Indul- 
gences." The  editor  of  the  Morning  News  did  jus- 
tice to  his  Irish  blood  a  day  or  two  ago,  by  giving 
back,  to  the  loser's  wife,  a  saddle-horse  he  had  won 
in  a  bet;  but  how,  in  the  name  of  all  the  gallant  pro- 
prieties, can  he  justify  himself  to  the  ladies  of  the  de- 
mocracy for  making  no  distinction  between  their  queen 
and  the  (of  course)  less  glorious  queen  of  any  coun- 
try on  earth?  The  promiscuousness  of  two  "Mrs. 
P's!" 

"  White-House. — Among  other  consequences  of 
the  election  of  Mr.  Polk,  it  is  said,  will  be  to  locate 
in  the  White-house  at  Washington  the  handsomest 
and  perhaps  the  most  accomplished  lady  that  ever 
presided  in  its  stately  halls.  Mrs.  P.  has,  for  some 
years,  been  remarkable  not  only  for  personal  beauty, 
but  for  that  greater  charm,  graceful  manners,  and  a 
highly-cultivated  mind." 

If,  in  this  democratic  country,  one  may  venture  to 
say  a  word  for  the  other  "  Mrs.  P.,"  we  think  that 
Louis  Philippe's  having  slept  with  a  stagedriver  in 
this  country  (vide  a  late  anecdote)  might  have  pro- 
cured for  his  wife  the  easy  privilege  of  at  least  one 
distinguishing  initial.  It  surely  would  not  seriously 
invade  the  simplicity  of  our  court  circular  to  add  a 
"J."  to  the  single-letter  title  of  the  lady  presidentess 
of  fifteen  millions  and  Texas!  Be  generous,  gentle- 
men people!  Let  us  have  some  distinction  in  the 
Queen  "  P.'s"  of  the  two  countries.  The  editor  of 
the  Morning  News  will  be  some  day  minister  to 
France.  Fancy  his  being  called  on  to  present  "  Mrs. 
American  P."  to  "  Mrs.  French  P." 


Overhaul  of  Sailing  Orders. — The  sails  draw 
— the  freight  sits  trim  in  the  hold — the  ship  minds 
her  helm,  and  the  wind  strengthens  on  the  quarter 
with  a  freshness  that  strains  rope  and  spar.  It  is  per- 
haps the  best  moment  that  will  occur,  in  the  long 
voyage  before  us,  to  overhaul  our  signals  and  sailing- 
papers,  and  understand  how  we  are  to  communicate 
with  the  fleet,  and  go  straightest  and  most  prosperous- 
ly to  our  destined  haven. 

(Whoa,  Pegasus!  We  have  been  as  poetical  as 
will  have  been  expected  of  us  at  one  day's  notice. 
Drop  to  the  ground  and  let  us  go  off  on  a  plain  trot!) 

We  have  always  looked  upon  the  gentlemen  of  the 
daily  press  as  among  the  enviably  unlabelled  poten- 
tates of  this   country   of  King  Everybody-nobody — 


EPHEMERA. 


737 


enviably  as  having  enormous  power  and  little  responsi- 
bility as  to  the  using  of  it.  The  power  will  doubtless 
remain  as  large  and  the  responsibility  as  small.  "A 
free  press"  is  the  lesser  of  two  evils.  In  the  perpet- 
uation of  this  state  of  things,  however,  lies  our  future 
vocation,  and— while  we  have  it  yet  in  our  power  to 
"  make  a  clean  breast,"  and  avow  what  we  have  ob- 
jected to  in  the  exercise,  by  others,  of  the  spells  by 
which  we  are  to  conjure — let  us  name  at  least  the  one 
blot  which  most  smirches  the  forward  face  of  the  pro- 
fession. 

It  were  of  little  use  for  one  editor  to  declare  that  he 
would  make  war  freely  upon  opinions — never  upon 
persons.  And  the  disadvantage  is  not  merely  that  of 
throwing  away  the  dagger  in  battle,  because  the  sword 
is  more  gentlemanly — not  merely  a  lessening  of  one's 
fonnidabieness  to  an  opponent.  The  evil  is  in  Ike 
greater  curiosity  to  watch  the  stabler,  felt  by  the  look- 
ers-on. The  temptation  to  be  personally  abusive  lies 
in  the  diseased  appetite  of  the  crowd  that  will  follow 
the  abuser — leaving  the  scrupulous  man  alone  with 
his  decency.  Living  as  editors  do,  by  the  favor  of 
the  crowd,  if  many  are  willing  to  minister  to  this  dis- 
eased appetite,  decency  in  the  few  is  a  kind  of  slow, 
business-suicide. 

It  would  almost  require  a  Utopian  fancy  to  picture 
the  beauty  of  a  press  from  which  personalities  and 
illwilled  abuse  were  wholly  excluded.  No  personal- 
ities in  literature,  and  none  in  politics — the  author, 
editor,  and  statesman,  alike  intrenched  in 

"  that  credent  bulk 
That  no  particular  scandal  once  can  touch, 
But  it  confounds  the  breather," 

— how  completely  the  envy  of  malignant  mediocrity 
would  be  deprived  of  its  now  easy  sting,  and  how 
completely  ruffianism  and  brutality  would  be  confined 
to  the  bully-club  and  dram-shop!  Scholars  would 
wait  on  public  opinion,  at  the  editor's  table,  busied 
only  with  embellishing,  and  not  engrossed  with  de- 
fending their  fair  fame  ;  and  gentlemen  of  sensitive 
honor,  who  are  now  appalled  at  the  calumnious  gaunt- 
let of  politics,  would  come  forward  to  serve  their 
country  at  the  small  posts  occupied  now  only  by  men 
senseless  to  defamation. 

To  the  coming  about  of  this  paradise  of  letters, 
editorial  consent  is  alone  wanting.  No  one  man  could 
live  long,  the  only  calumniator  of  the  press.  No  one 
man  would  dare  to  hold  the  only  pen  deficient  in 
courtesy  and  gentlemanlike  regard  to  private  charac- 
ter. Complete  silence  from  the  rest  of  the  press 
toward  the  one  offender,  after  a  unanimous  publica- 
tion of  his  disgrace — refusal,  without  exception,  to 
exchange  papers  with  him  from  that  time  forward — 
any  combination,  in  short,  which  should  make  the  os- 
tracism of  such  an  individual,  by  his  brethren  of  the 
press,  universally  known — would  suffice  to  purge  the 
press  of  him.  One  year  of  such  united  self-censor- 
ship would  so  purify  the  public  habit  of  news-read- 
ing, that,  an  offence  against  propriety  would  at  least 
startle  and  alarm  the  public  sense;  and,  arrived  at  that 
point,  a  very  moderate  apostleship  might  complete  the 
reform. 

We  do  not  anticipate  this.     Oh,  no !     We  are 

'<  — in  this  earthly  world,  where  to  do  harm 
Is  often  laudable  ;  to  good  sometimes 
Accounted  dangerous  lolly  ;'' 

but,  at  the  risk  of  being  the  "grave  of  our  deserv- 
ing," we  shall  do  the  leaning  of  one  to  the  better  side. 
We  shall  have  harder  work  for  it.  Nothing  is  easier 
than  to  be  popular  by  habitual  illwill.  Trashy  minds 
write  most  readable  satire,  and,  with  the  mood  on  or 
off— the  industry  willing  or  reluctant — fault-finding  is 
fecund  production.  But  if  good  nature  can  be  spiced 
— if  courteous  treatment  of  our  brother  editors, 
47 


brother  authors,  and  all  nameable  men,  can  be  made 
palatable  to  the  public — if  a  paper  wholly  incapable 
of  an  unkindness,  but  capable  of  all  things  pleasurable 
else,  can  be  fairly  tested — we  trust  to  do  without  the 
price  of  giving  pain,  and  we  trust  that  the  money  so 
turned  out  of  our  hand  will  not  be  like  the  lost  oil  of 
the  tomb  of  Belus — irreplaceable. 


The  Cost  of  Fashion. — From  a  pamphlet  sent  us, 
we  learn  that  five  hundred  millions  of  dollars  are  spent 
annually  in  the  United  States  for  such  articles  of 
dress  as  are  subject  to  the  fluctuations  of  fashion. 
Of  this  sum,  it  ir  computed  that  sixteen  millions  are 
spent  for  hats,  probably  about  twenty  millions  for  caps 
and  bonnets,  and  for  other  articles  of  dress  not  less 
than  four  hundred  millions  ! 

So  that  not  far  from  a  million  and  a  half  dollars  are 
spent  daily  for  clothing;  of  which,  if  the  calls  of 
fashion  claim  but  ten  per  cent,  (but  probably  she  re- 
ceives double  that  sum),  one  hundred  and  fifty  thou- 
sand dollars  are  sacrificed  daily  at  the  footstool  of  the 
fickle  goddess,  by  the  enlightened  citizens  of  the 
United  States  ! 

Is  it  not  time  that  some  standard  of  national  dress 
was  established  ?  We  certainly  have  had  sufficient 
experience  to  know  what  kinds  of  clothing  are  the 
most  convenient,  and  one  good  reason  can  not  be  pro- 
duced for  the  unmeaning  changes  which  are  every 
day  taking  place. 

It  is  not  to  be  expected  that  in  a  free  country,  where 
it  is  proverbial  that  "  every  man  is  at  liberty  to  wear 
shoes  or  go  without,"  an  association  to  fix  upon 
a  general  standard  of  dress  would  lead  all  to  adopt  it. 
No — there  would  be  those  still  found  who,  lacking 
other  points  to  recommend  them  to  public  notice, 
would  act  the  cameleon  still.  But  no  small  portion 
of  the  community  would  recommend  that  course 
which  would  most  evidently  be  for  the  public  good. 
The  number,  if  large  and  respectable,  would  exert 
a  sufficient  influence  by  their  example  to  prevent  the 
standard  fashion  from  ever  appearing  out  of  date. 
The  ladies'  bonnets  would  then  be  new  at  the  end  of 
three  years,  instead  of  being  old-fashioned  at  the  end 
of  one.  The  gentlemen's  hats  would  be  fashionable 
until  worn  out;  and  the  wedding  coat,  which  is  saved 
for  holyday  occasions,  might  descend  from  father  to 
son,  a  fashionable  garment. 


A    HUMBUG    FAME. 

Thomas  Carlyle. — We  have  nowhere  seen  a  just- 
er  view  of  this  much-talked-of  writer  than  is  given  in 
the  October  number  of  the  Biblical  Repository,  a 
journal  conducted  with  great  ability  by  an  association 
of  divines.  The  writer  (Prof.  J.  T.  Smith,  of  New- 
ton Theological  Institute,  Mass.)  allows  Carlyle  to  be 
a  "  most  vigorous,  unique,  and  original  thinker  and 
writer,"  and  that  his  "Past  and  Present"  is  "certainly 
worth  reading."  He  allows  further,  that  that  work 
contains  many  noble  and  truthful  sentiments,  uttered 
with  commanding  energy.  This,  however,  is  the  ex- 
tent of  his  commendation.  "  We  must,  on  the  whole 
says  the  writer,  "  characterize  it  as  a  book,  m  style, 
barbarous;  in  politics,  incendiary;  in  philosophy,  du- 
bious ;  and  in  theology,  execrable."  This  opm.on 
the  reviewer  supports  by  an  analysis  of  the  work,  and 
by  a  specification  of  particulars. 

The  barbarity  of  the  style  no  one  doubts,  and  no 
one  except  a  few  very  warm  admirers,  defends.  This 
very  barbarity  seems  to  us  only  another  manifestation 
of  that  arrogance   which  characterizes  all   Carlyle's 


738 


EPHEMERA. 


attempts.     A  man  who   condemns   everybody  must 
needs  be  an  inventor. 

The  work  is  said  to  "breathe  an  overweening,  mor- 
bid admiration  of  the  past."  Nothing  of  the  present 
satisfies  Mr.  Carlyle;  nothing  of  the  past  but  elicits 
his  commendation,  and  among  other  things,  Scandi- 
navian savagery,  Mohammedanism,  twelfth  century 
Catholicism,  the  fighting  barons  of  feudal  times,  Popes 
Gregory  and  Hildebrand,  and  other  personages  of  like 
stamp,  each  and  all  present  to  him  some  phase  worthy 
of  special  notice  and  admiration.  The  religion  and 
the  systems  of  government  of  the  present  day,  have 
very  hard  fare  at  his  hands,  since  the  former  is  all 
cant,  hypocrisy,  and  quackery,  and  the  latter  nothing 
better,  to  say  the  least.  We  are,  in  truth,  recom- 
mended to  go  back  to  the  twelfth  century  for  models 
of  religion  and  government.  The  hero  must  be  found 
by  some  means — or  he  must  find  himself.  A  fighting 
aristocracy  like  that  of  the  twelfth  century  is  no  longer 
possible ;  but  a  working  aristocracy  must  take  its 
place,  and  the  system  ot'villanage  be  restored.  In- 
deed, American  slavery  seems  essentially  the  system 
recommended  by  this  practical  preacher. 

The  sum  and  substance  of  our  own  view  of  the 
whole  matter  is,  that  while  we  sympathize  to  some  ex- 
tent with  Mr.  Carlyle  in  his  dissatisfaction  with  the 
present  state  of  things,  the  remedies  he  proposes  in 
his  deep-mouthed  and  most  oracular  tone,  are  abso- 
lutely naught — the  mere  dreams  of  a  mind  well-inten- 
tioned enough,  but  half-crazed  with  overweening  self- 
estimation. 

He  insists  much  on  the  necessity  of  a  "French 
revolution*'  in  England.  "There  will  be  two,  if 
needed  ;  there  will  be  twenty,  if  needed.  .  .  — The 
laws  of  nature  will  have  themselves  fulfilled,"  and 
much  more  to  the  same  purpose.  Yet  this  inevitable 
fulfilment  of  the  laws  of  nature  which  is  to  work  all 
good,  seems,  according  to  the  seer's  estimate,  as  yet 
to  have  wrought  nothing  but  ill.  His  final  hope  is  a 
hero-king:  "Yes,  friends:  hero-kings  and  a  whole 
world  not  unheroic — there  lies  the  port  and  happy 
haven,"  &c.  In  fine,  if  Carlyle's  words  mean  any- 
thing (which,  the  more  we  read  the  more  we  doubt), 
the  whole  people  are  to  be  roused  to  violent  revolt, 
and  plunged  into  all  sorts  of  horrors,  as  a  preparation 
for  a  better  state  of  things  ! 

Carlyle  speaks  of  the  last  two  centuries  as  godless 
centuries — and  that  in  contrast  with  the  long  ages 
that  went  before  them.  What  is  this  but  to  shock 
the  common  sense  of  history  ?  And  his  remedy  is 
hero-hood.  What  is  this  but  inane  twaddle  ?  Mon- 
strous, unblushing  egotism,  is  one  of  Carlyle's  stri- 
king characteristics.  Great  and  learned  men,  astrono- 
mers, philosophers,  and  others,  are  "  poor  scientific 
babblers  ;"  he  alone,  it  would  seem,  discerns  the  re- 
ality of  things,  and  has  the  key  to  the  mysteries  of 
nature.     "  Insight"  has  been  granted  to  no  other. 

One  of  the  wonders  of  the  age  to  us  is,  that  such  a 
monstrosity  as  Carlyle  should  have  attained  so  high  a 
place  in  its  estimation.  His  merits  are  so  overloaded 
by  the  most  shocking  and  unbounded  affectation  and 
egotism,  that  we  rise  from  the  perusal  of  much  that 
he  has  written  with  no  other  sensations  than  those  of 
weariness  and  disgust. 


The  poems  of  the  Kentucky  Sappho,  Amelia,  have 
been  published  in  a  very  elegant  gift-book  volume,  by 
Tompkins,  of  Boston.  We  have  expressed  our  almost 
unqualified  admiration  of  this  lady's  poems,  as  they 
separately  appeared.  She  has  a  mind  fed  equally 
from  a  full  heart  and  a  prodigal  imagination. 

It  was  once  remarked  to  us,  by  a  critic  as  candid  as 
he  is  discerning,  that  there  is  a  great  development  of; 
the  poetic  sentiment  in  this  country  ;  thai  many  of  our 


collections,  which,  in  their  brief  existence,  resemble 
the  flowers  that  seem  to  be  born  only  to  die,  like  those 
delicate,  odorous,  and  lovely  objects  in  nature,  have 
often  a  character  of  sweetness,  purity,  and  freshness, 
grateful  to  refined  taste  and  a  feeling  heart.  The 
pieces  contained  in  this  volume  are  worthy  of  such 
praise.  A  loving  heart,  and  a  soul  in  harmony  with 
the  beauty  of  the  world  and  the  divine  spirit  which 
informs  it,  dictated  these  poems. 

We  might  make  many  beautiful  selections  from  this 
handsome  volume;  but  we  must  content  ourselves, 
for  the  present,  with  naming  one,  "  The  Little  Step- 
son," which,  in  its  earnest  simplicity,  and  its  ringing 
music,  reminds  us  of  that  favorite  translation,  "  My 
ear-rings!  my  ear-rings!  they've  dropped  into  the 
well !"  Not  merely  that  the  measure  is  the  same,  but 
that  the  whole  tone  seems  the  echo  of  far  off  and 
primitive  manners — the  voice  of  untutored  affection. 


Miff  between  John  Bull  and  Brother  Jona- 
than— The  offensive  club  exclusion  by  which  Eng- 
lish aristocrats  have  undertaken  to  make  Ameri- 
cans pay  their  debts,  does,  unquestionably,  put  the 
screw  upon  a  national  weakness.  We  are  not  sorry 
for  it — but  there  could  have  been  nothing  in  worse 
taste  or  showing  a  more  ignorant  lack  of  discrimina- 
tion— setting  aside  the  fact  of  its  being  done  by  a  class 
of  men,  who  are  themselves,  notoriously  bad  paymas- 
ters. We  do  not  believe,  however,  all  that  is  in  the 
papers  on  the  subject.  The  "  Reform-Club,"  in 
which  it  originated,  is  a  new  combination  of  ill-ballast- 
ed politicians,  and  the  movement  will  be  disclaimed 
in  some  authoritative  shape,  before  a  month  is  over. 
Trifling  as  the  matter  abstractly  is,  it  would  act  very 
pungently  on  any  questionof  war-makingwhich  should 
arise  among  us  within  a  year. 

Perhaps  some  of  our  readers  would  like  to  know 
how  far  an  exclusion  from  the  clubs  affects  America 
in  England.  The  fact  of  not  having  the  honorary 
privilege  of  admission  to  the  two  principal  clubs,  was 
(before  this  national  exclusion)  sufficient  evidence 
tbat  a  gentleman  had  not  come  well  introduced.  One 
of  the  first  and  most  natural  questions  addressed  to  a 
stranger  in  London  is,  "  What  club  are  you  in  ?" — 
the  intention  being  to  ask  you  to  a  tete-d-tete  club 
dinner,  if  you  turn  out  agreeable.  This  is  almost  the 
only  courtesy  that  a  literary  man  in  England  has  it  in 
his  power  to  show  you.  He  can  give  you  a  dinner 
for  a  few  shillings  at  his  club  (if  you  are  a  member  of 
it  and  not  otherwise),  which  in  point  of  style  and  cor 
fort  is  equal  to  a  nobleman's  entertainment.  Or 
(which  is  more  common)  he  can  say,  "I  dine  at  the 
Athenaeum  to-day  at  six.  If  you  have  no  better  en- 
gagement, we'll  put  our  chairs  together" — each  man 
in  this  case  paying  his  own  bill.  An  invitation  to 
club  privilege  is  only  got  up  by  high  interest,  however. 
It  requires  some  person  of  consequence  to  play  the 
applicant,  and  the  number  of  strangers  in  each  club, 
at  one  time,  is  seldom  more  than  twenty  or  thirty. 
The  following  are  the  formulas  of  invitation  to  the 
two  principal  clubs  : — 

"  Pall  Mall,  28M  January,  1835. 
"  Dear  Sir  •  I  am  directed  by  the  committee  of  the '  Travel- 
lers' to  inform  you  that  they  have  great  pleasure  in  admit- 
ting you  as  a  visiter  to  the  club  for  the   ensuing  month,  and 
that  they  hope  to  be  favored  with  your  frequent  attendance. 
"  I  have  the  honor  to  be,  sir, 

"  Your  most  obed't  and  humble  serv't, 
"  J.  W.  SINGER,  Secretary." 


"  Athenjeum,  London,  19th  February,  1835. 
"  Sir  :  I  am  directed  to  inform  you  that  the  committee  of 
the 'Athenaeum'  have  ordered  your  name  to  be  placed  on 
the  list  of  distinguished  foreigners  residing  in  London,  who 


EPHEMERA. 


739 


ject  to  the  same  regulations  as  the  members  are  required  to 
observe. 

"  la  ease  your  stay  should  be  prolonged  beyond  that  period, 
and  it  should  be  your  wish  to  have  this  invitation  renewed,  it 
will  be  necessary  that  an  application  be  made  to  the  commit- 
tee to  that  effect. 

M  I  have  the  honor  to  be,  sir, 

"  Your  very  obedient,  humble  servant, 
"  EDWARD  MAGRATH,  Sec'y." 


It  is  rather  important  to  a  man  making  his  way  in  j 
London  society,  that  he  should  be  seen  at  the  clubs. 
The  formidable  "  Who  is  he  ?"  is  always  satisfactorily  j 
snswered  by,  "Don't  know,  but  I  saw  him  at  the  club."  | 
It  influences   all  manner  of  introductions,   breaking  \ 
down  scores  of  invisible  walls  between  the  new-comer  J 
and  desirable  things  and  people.     A  call  at  the  clubs 
is  an  invariable   part  of  the  routine  of  a  fashionable  [ 
man's   morning.     He  goes  there  to  meet  friends,  to  I 
hear  the  news,  to  bet,  to  smoke,  to  make  engagements  j 
— to  prepare  for  the  out-door  part  of  the  day,  in  short,  j 
All  notes,  requiring  a  very  private  delivery,  are  ad- 
dressed to  a  man  at  his  club.     Men  who  have  no  li- 
braries of  their  own,  do  the   most  of  their  reading 
there.     It  is  the  place  to  see  great  men,  fashionable 
men,   famous   men  ;  and   to  see  them   without  their 
masks — for  the  security,  as  to  the  proper  introduction 
of  all  present,  throws  an  atmosphere  of  marked  laisser- 
aller  around  sensitive  greatness. 

We  sat  down,  however,  to  comment  upon  the  igno- 
rance as  to  our  country,  shown  by  the  late  narrow- 
viewed  movement  of  club-exclusion — the  evident  igno- 
rance of  any  distinction  between  state  responsibility 
and  national  responsibility.  To  mention  it  is  enough, 
however;  and  we  turn  to  that  which  will  show  the 
out-lying  proof  of  English  ignorance  of  us. 

One  of  the  dullest,  most  arrogant,  and  unscrupulous 
of  travellers  is  commended  in  the  last  foreign  quarter- 
ly, by  one  of  the  most  unfair  and  ignorant  of  critics. 
If  all  travellers  and  critics  were  like  this  well-matched 
pair,  the  subject  of  British  tourists  and  reviewers,  and 
their  opinions  and  statements  concerning  us  would  not 
be  worth  a  thought.  Of  the  capacity  and  information 
of  the  reviewer,  take  one  or  two  specimens.  "  The 
unanimity  of  whigs,  tories,  and  radicals,  upon  the  one 
topic  of  American  society  (i.  e.,  in  condemnation)  is  a 
thing  to  wonder  at  and  reflect  upon."  Two  of  the 
most  readable  works  of  this  class  within  the  last  ten 
years  are  decidedly  favorable — those  of  Miss  Martineau, 
and  the  Hon.  Charles  Augustus  Murray.  A  more 
striking  instance  still  of  the  reviewer's  utter  ignorance 
or  most  shameful  falsification  is  his  representing  the 
internal  traffic  in   slaves  as  publicly  repudiated,  and 

founding  on  that  a  charge  of  duplicity,  since  "men 

are  ready  to  swear  there  is  no  such  thing  from  one  end 
of  America  to  the  other  as  a  trade  in  slaves."  A  very 
suitable  person  this  to  write  comments  on  American 
travels  !  With  such  endorsements  Mr.  Featherston- 
haugh's  statements  can  not  but  pass  current!  We 
did  not  suppose  there  was,  in  the  obscurest  corner  of 
Europe,  one  dabbler  in  ink  so  profoundly  and  inex- 
cusably ignorant  as  not  to  know  that  slaves  were 
openly  bought  and  sold  in  the  slave  states  of  this 
country.  That  such  Cimmerian  darkness  (to  make 
the  most  charitable  supposition)  should  envelope  the 
brain  of  a  British  reviewer  is  a  marvel  indeed  ! 

It  was  not,  however,  to  expose  such  ignorance  that 
we  took  up  the  pen,  nor  to  draw  the  very  natural  con- 
clusion of  the  amount  of  information,  which  Mr.  F.'s 
book  conveyed  to  his  countrymen  at  large,  since,  not- 
withstanding the  title  "slave  states,"  his  reviewer  con- 
cluded there  was  no  acknowledged  slavery — for  with- 
out purchase  and  sale  the  system  is  of  course  knocked 
on  the  head. 

But  such  are  not  all  British  tourists,  nor  such  all 
British  reviewers;  and  it  is  worth  while  to  inquire  why 
it  is,  that,  placing  out  of  the  account  writers  of  this 


class,  there  is  still  so  large  a  proportion  of  our  well- 
informed  and  sensible  visitants,  who  get  an  unfavor- 
able impression  of  our  institutions  and  of  our  state  of 
society. 

We  ought  to  give  up  the  idea  of  a  prevalent  ill- 
feeling  toward  us  in  the  fatherland  of  our  ancestors, 
or  a  wish  to  put  us  down,  because  we  are  on  the  wrong 
side  of  the  water.  Few  Englishmen  like  us  the  less 
because  we  are  Americans,  and  not  French  or  German 
or  Russians.  Thousands  of  us  when  abroad  have  ex- 
perienced the  contrary. 

Nor  ought  we  to  suppose  that  envy,  jealousy,  or 
ancient  gzudges,  are  at  the  bottom  of  the  hard  measure 
meted  out  to  us  by  tourists.  True,  we  have  met  in 
war  as  enemies,  and  in  peace  as  commercial  rivals, 
and  have  in  both  held  our  own;  but  meanness  and  spite 
form  no  part  of  the  character  of  John  Bull.  He  has 
tremendous  faults,  but  he  keeps  tolerably  clear  of 
pettinesses. 

One  fault  shows  itself  with  the  English  abroad, 
wherever  they  are.  Though  the  greatest  travellers, 
they  are  the  least  cosmopolitan.  The  island  mania 
attends  them  everywhere,  except  at  home.  Like 
some  mistresses  to  some  lovers,  old  England  seems 
the  dearer  the  farther  they  get  away  from  her.  Gold- 
smith's Traveller's  lengthening  chain  is  no  fiction. 
Across  the  ocean  it  is  often  insupportable.  Some- 
times, also,  this  distance  has,  at  the  outset  of  the 
voyage,  "  lent  enchantment  to  the  view,"  which,  when 
dispelled,  leads  to  a  bitter,  though  unreasonable  dis- 
appointment. 

The  very  resemblance  which  we  bear  to  the  Eng- 
lish— and  must  bear,  from  our  origin,  our  language,' 
our  literature,  and  our  continued  intercourse  ever 
since  the  ocean  rolled  between  us — is  unfavorable  to  a 
just,  and  still  more  to  a  partial  judgment  of  us,  on 
the  part  of  those  honestly  disposed  to  do  us  justice. 
To  other  people  the  British  traveller  can  apply,  in 
some  measure,  the  true  standard — i.  e.,  to  each  its 
own;  but  for  us,  he  can  have  only  the  home  standard. 
Weighed  by  this,  we  are,  of  course,  found  wanting. 
He  find  us  nine  tenths  English,  and  scolds  that  the 
other  tenth  is  not  English  too. 

It  is  needless  to  discuss  the  point,  whether  that 
tenth  is  better  or  worse — the  English  blood  renforces 

(as  some  Frenchman  has  pronounced,  justly  we 

hope)  or  not — it  is  enough  that  it  is  not  English  for 

the  genuine  John  Bull  to  pronounce  it  ridiculous  or 

insufferable  ;  to   laugh  or  rail  at  it  according  to  his 

humor.     The  general  resemblance  he  can  not  deny, 

but  he  unreasonably  demands  an  exact  likeness.     In 

the  points  where  this  is  not  perceptible,  he  of  course 

considers  us  shockingly  degenerate,  altered  altogether 

for  the  worse.     Now  there  are  various  points  which 

we  should  not  expect  him  to  appreciate  justly,  for  we 

j  know  he  is  a  creature  full  of  prejudices  and  contra- 

I  dictions,  and  he  must  see  witli  his  own  eyes  or  not  see 

!  at  all. 

Another  real   difficulty    is,   that  no   mere    passing 
:  traveller  can  realize  the  crowning  glory  of  our  country 
and  of  our  institutions — the  general  diffusion  of  com- 
I  fort  and  intelligence.     A  traveller  is  looking  out  for 
!  the  salient  points — something  striking  or  marvellous 
j  —something  that  will  tell  in  his  book  and  his  memory. 
A  thousand  comfortable  or  even  elegant  private  dwel- 
lings that  he  might  pass,  would  not  make  upon  him 
so  vivid  an  impression  as  one  splendid   palace— while 
I  the  former  would  indicate  a  thousand    families   living 
'  in   comfort  and   abundance,  and  the  latter  that  there 
1  was  one  family  of  over-grown  wealth  with  a  presump- 
tion against  its   possessing  the  average  worth  of  the 
former,  or  even  enjoying  their  average  happiness. 

We  contribute  to  the  severity  ol  the  judgments 
against  us  by  our  own  fault.  Our  sensitiveness  lays 
us  peculiarly  open  to  attack,  and  none  reply  to  such 
attacks    with    more   violence.      The   foreigner   who 


740 


EPHExMERA. 


knows  this  and  who  can  not  perhaps  conscientiously 
grant  us  all  we  ask,  sharpens  his  weapons  beforehand 
for  the  encounter,  and  deals  harder  blows  in  anticipa- 
tion of  those  which  he  knows  he  is  about  to  bring 
down  upon  himself. 

To  this  must  be  added  our  national  vanity — a 
characteristic  which  the  candid  among  us  own.  From 
demanding  too  indiscriminate  praise,  we  do  not  get 
that  which  we  really  deserve,  as  the  trader,  who  praises 
his  wares  extravagantly,  is  sure  to  have  them  under- 
valued. If  our  claims  were  more  moderate,  they 
would  be  oftener  acknowledged.  If  we  exacted  less, 
more  would  be  voluntarily  given.  If  we  did  not  rise 
up  against  deserved  reproof,  we  should  b'e  oftener 
spared  that  which  we  did  not  deserve. 

When  we  claim  the  eloquence  of  a  Chatham  for 
every  stump  orator,  and  then  apply  the  same  phrases 
to  our  really  great  and  eloquent  men,  the  latter  are 
sufferers.  If  we  claim  for  our  every-day  life  or  even 
for  our  soirees  recherchees  the  grace  and  polish  of  a 
court,  where  they  have  nothing  to  do  but  to  kill  time 
agreeably,  the  assertion  is  simply  ridiculous.  Some 
traveller  (Dickens  we  believe)  says  of  the  factory-girls 
of  Lowell,  that  they  have  the  port  and  bearing  (or 
something  to  that  effect)  of  well-bred  ladies.  Pretty 
complimentary  we  should  think!  But  an  annotator 
somewhere  (but  where  we  know  not),  is  not  satisfied. 
He  adds,  that  if  Mr.  Dickens  should  meet  these  per- 
sons in  private  circles,  he  would  find  they  had  the 
corresponding  elegance  and  manners.  As  if  any  good 
factory-girl  at  Lowell  would  pass  muster  at  Queen 
Victoria's  drawing-room ! 


The  new  Prima  Donna. — The  haste  with  which 
it  is  the  fashion  to  write  about  prima-donnas,  giving 
them  a  cornucopial  criticism,  on  their  debut,  and  drop- 
ping directly  after  into  very  brief  notices,  reminds  us 
of  a  lady's  reproach  to  her  lover,  in  the  old  play  of  the 
Spanish  friar  :  "  You  men  are  like  watches,  wound 
up  for  striking  twelve  immediately  ;  but  after  you  are 
satisfied,  the  very  next  that  follows  is  the  solitary 
sound  of  single  one."  We  should  like  very  much  to 
defer  expressing  an  opinion  of  Madame  Pico,  till  she 
had  a  little  recovered  from  the  embarrassment  of  a 
first  performance,  and  (more  important  still  in  critici- 
sing) till  we  had  steeped  our  tympanum  a  little  longer 
in  the  honey  the  bees  of  Italy  have  shed  upon  her 
lips;  but 

The  audience  at  Palmo's,  last  night,  was,  probably, 
the  best  ever  assembled  since  Malibran's  time,  as  to 
the  capability  of  judging  of  a  cantatrice  by  taste  and 
comparison.  Madame  Pico,  even  in  Italy,  would 
scarce  have  dropped  her  golden  cadences  into  more 
judicious  ears.  Fortunately,  too,  the  unripeness  of 
an  entirely  new  opera  was  corrected  by  the  predomi- 
nance of  natural  melody  in  the  composer's  style— ma- 
king it  all  come  to  the  ear  with  the  impromptu  wel- 
come sometimes  refused  to  the  best  music.  By  the 
way— without  knowing  whether  this  opera  will  grow 
upon  us,  and  allowing,  at  once,  that  it  has  none  of 
Beethoven's  under-song,  nor  any  of  the  supernatural 
combinations  of  Mozart— we  must  express  our  almost 
passionate  delight  in  its  main  burthen  and  character. 
We  write,  it  is  true,  by  a  past-time-to-go-to-bed  candle, 
and  with  the  graciles-quc  sensus  still  reeling  under  the 
intoxication  of  the  cup  of  bewitched  sound  ;  but  if 
this  gets  to  press  (and  we  shall  look  it  over  before 
breakfast,  to-morrow  morning),  we  congratulate  the 
every-day-ear  of  the  city  we  five  in,  upon  a  opera  that 
is  natural  as  a  bird's  song,  and  that  can  be  enjoyed 
with  as  simple  a  taste  for  music— at  the  same  "time, 
no  more  to  be  disparaged,  for  its  simplicity,  than  the 
bird's  throat  for  not  having  the  harp-stop  "of  a  piano. 
But  let  us  go  on,  story-fashion. 


The  curtain  drew  up,  and  after  the  appearance  of 
the  usual  precedent  foil  of  chorus-singers,  Sanquirico, 
the  ben  amatoof  the  company,  came  on  as  a  postillion 
After  making  a  bow,  with  the  good-will  of  a  waterfall, 
in  acknowledgment  of  the  applause  with  which  he 
was  met,  he  went  on  playing  his  part,  and  (to  dismiss 
him  with  this  brief  notice)  most  admirably  to  the 
last.  The  make-way  motions  of  the  guard  and  the 
aspettando  impatience  of  the  music,  now  prepared  us 
for  the  prima-donna.  She  was  to  represent  a  young 
girl,  under  the  protection  of  the  prince  and  princess, 
whose  escape  from  ruin  by  a  villain  is  the  story  of  the 
opera.  "Chiara!"  trilled  the  "cue"  and  in  glided 
Chiara  ! 

Madame  Pico  has  a  look  in  her  face  as  if  "  Sorrow 
had  passed  that  way."  She  has  had  a  narrow  escape 
of  being  superbly  handsome,  and,  as  it  is,  she  could 
personate,  with  small  call  upon  the  imagination,  tbe 
part  of  "Mrs.  Helpless  Ingulfus,"  on  the  stage  or  off 
it.  Tho'  not  near  so  beautiful,  she  is  a  strong  likeness 
of  Mrs.  Norton — the  same  low,  concentrative  forehead, 
the  same  something-or-other  in  the  sweep  of  the  dark 
hair,  the  same  caressing  inwardness  in  the  white  round 
of  the  shoulder.  There  is  rather  too  much  of  a  caden- 
za in  her  bust,  and  her  under  lip  does  not  always  come 
up  with  the  alacrity  we  like  in  a  woman,  but  we  may 
change  our  opinion.  She  was  very  much  frightened, 
and  these  matters  are 

"  now  high,  now  low  again, 
Like  a  ring  of  bells  that  the  wind's  wooing  alters." 

The  welcome  of  applause  ceased,  and  the  expected 
voice  trembled  on  the  silence.  It  was  listened  to  with 
pricked  ears,  nodded  to  by  the  cognoscenti  at  the  first 
pause — approved,  applauded.  It  was  a  rich,  clouded 
contralto,  its  depths  hidden  by  a  soprano  part,  like  a 
dark  well  impoverished  by  a  slant  beam  of  sunshine. 
As  she  went  on,  gathering  a  little  more  control,  her  voice 
sank  to  the  inner  sound-chamber  where  the  heart  sits 
to  listen,  and  the  audience,  instead  of  louder  applaud- 
ing, began  to  murmur  their  admiration.  Evident  as 
it  was  that  the  delicious  home  of  her  voice  was  never 
reached,  or  borrowed  from,  by  the  notes  of  that  soprano 
part,  there  was  a  kind  of  full  forth-shadowing  of  reser- 
ved power  which  made,  even  what  she  did  sing,  satisfy 
the  ear.  And  then,  occasionally,  where  the  lower 
notes  approached  her  treasury  of  un-used  power,  she 
flung  out  a  contralto  cadence  upon  the  air  with  an  ef- 
fect the  audience  waited  impatiently  to  hear  repeated. 
We  feel  bespoken  to  be  enchanted  with  a  fair  develop- 
ment of  that  full  throat's  capabilities.  Artistic  com- 
parison apart,  we  have  a  passion  for  a  contralto — noth- 
ing that  can  pass  the  portal  of  an  ear  touching  with 
half  the  delicacy  our  levia  affectuum  vestigia.  Thos6 
who  take  our  criticisms  will,  if  they  like,  make  allow- 
ance for  this  weakness. 

Borghese  was  in  one  of  the  avant-scene  boxes,  lend- 
ing her  captive  town  to  her  rival  with  the  best  grace 
imaginable.  She  well  may — for  a  smiling  rivalry  be- 
tween her  and  Pico  will  give  each  new  attraction, 
particularly  since  their  voices  are  of  totally  opposite 
quality.  The  little  soprano  comme-il-faut  has  her 
advantages,  and  Madame  Pico  has  hers.  Neither  of 
them  is  quite  the  "  horn  of  Astolpho,  at  the  sound 
of  which  the  hearer  went  mad,"  but  while  hearing 
either,  as  Esdras  says,  "a  man  remembereth  neither 
sorrow  nor  debt."  May  they  pull  together  "  like 
Juno's  swans,  coupled  and  inseparable  !" 


The  footrace  we  have  seen  this  afternoon  "  car- 
ried the  town"  more  completely  than  any  excitement 
we  have  yet  been  abroad  in — politics  not  excepted. 
We  were  late,  but  a  thousand  people  were  on  the 
road  with  us,  and  when  we  arrived,  the  first  race  was 


EPHEMERA. 


741 


just  over,  Jackson  the  winner.  The  weather  was 
Indian  summer,  in  its  most  bracing  smile — good 
omen,  a  punster  would  say,  for  the  red-skinned  com- 
petitor! The  roads  had  been  dried  pretty  well 
by  the  sharp  wind  of  yesterday,  the  grass  looked 
glussv,  and  King  Pluribus  was  in  unusual  good  hu- 
mor—as he  generally  is  on  the  first  bright  day  after 
bad  weather. 

The  stands  looked  like  stacks  of  noses  and  hats, 
and  after  a  vain  attempt  to  find  room  in  the  principal 
ones,  we  descended  to  the  course  to  take  our  chance 
witli  the  great  company  of  the  jostled.  As  it  was  an 
object  to  get  a  near  view  of  the  runners  at  the  end  of 
the  first  quarter  of  a  mile,  we  crossed  the  area  of  the  I 
field  to  the  less  thronged  side  of  the  course,  and 
awaited  their  coming.  Several  loads  of  undisguised  ! 
sinners  were  near  us,  one  of  whom,  a  professed  ma- 
tron, apparently,  coolly  sat  with  a  pair  of  pistols,  wait- 
ing some  expected  attack  from  a  crowd  of  ruffians 
wlio  had  surrounded  them.  She  looked  quite  capa- 
ble of  a  tragedy;  but  the  striking  of  the  bell  at  the 
stand  drew  off  the  rowdies  to  the  ring-fence,  and  the 
pistols  in  the  gloved  hands  gave  place  to  a  bouquet. 
We  had  been  thinking  that  there  should  be  a  compet-  j 
itrix  in  the  race  to  inherit  the  honors  of  Atalanta, 
and  a  female,  by  a  pull  of  the  forefinger,  might  easily 
have  taken  the  day's  notoriety  from  the  competitors 
in  the  race. 

A  stroke  of  the  bell — a  shout  from  twenty  thou- 
sand throats — a  sudden  radiation,  to  one  point,  of  all 
the  loose  vagrants  in  the  field — and  around  came  the 
horse-fence,  that  in  single  file  kept  pace  with  the  run- 
ners, hemming  them  in  from  the  crowd.  The  gro- 
tesque-looking pedestrians  hugged  the  wooden  railing 
very  closely  as  they  came  alonsr,  Barlow  ahead,  the 
Indian  close  on  his  heels,  and  Gildersleeve,  the  victor  ■ 
of  the  last  race,  quietly  consenting  to  be  number 
three.  The  foremost  man  was  simply  "diapered,"  as 
the  nurses  say,  exhibiting  his  white  Saxon  skin  in 
strong  contrast  to  the  smoked  hams  of  the  Indian  be- 
hind him,  and  if  the  race  had  depended  on  muscle 
merely,  a  good  anatomist  might  have  picked  out  the 
winner,  by  points  fairly  displayed,  as  easily  as  a  horse's 
capabilities  are  seen  by  the  jockey. 

They  ran  very  differently.  A  plumbline,  dropped 
from  the  forehead  of  each,  would  have  fallen  afoot  in 
advance  of  Barlow's  body,  and  eighteen  inches  in  ad- 
vance of  the  Indian's,  while  it  would  have  lain  close 
to  the  breast  of  the  erect  little  Gildersleeve.  Barlow 
never  took  his  eyes  from  the  ground,  and  kept  his 
lower  jaw  relaxed  in  a  kind  of  shame-faced  smile. 
We  observed  that  his  make  was  in  exceeding  good 
distribution,  and  though  he  was  slightly  knock-kneed, 
he  made  play  as  straight  ahead  as  a  pendulum,  losing 
nothing  by  sideling.  Gildersleeve's  natural  ballast, 
on  the  contrary,  rounded  him  to,  slightly,  at  every 
step,  and  his  shoulders  were  partly  employed  in  coun- 
teracting the  swing.  McCabe,  who  was  compact  all 
over,  trotted  along  like  a  stiff  little  pig,  giving  no- 
where, and  the  Indian,  a  long,  stringy  six-footer, 
seemed  to  follow  his  head  like  a  kite's  bobs — the  near- 
est way  for  a  wave.  Gildersleeve,  it  struck  us,  was 
lividly  pale,  the  Indian  ready  to  cry  with  anxiety, 
McCabe  spunky,  and  Barlow  slyly  confident  of  suc- 
cess. 

We  crossed  over  to  the  stands,  where,  we  presume, 
upon  four  acres  of  ground,  there  were  twenty-five 
thousand  men.  It  was  a  peculiar-looking  crowd — 
sprinklings  excepted,  very  gamc-y.  We  presume  no 
pick  of  New  York  city  could  have  brought  out  of  it, 
so  completely,  the  stuff  it  holds  for  an  army.  The 
betting  was  going  on  vigorously — Barlow  and  Steep- 
rock  the  favorites,  but  every  man  talking  up  his  coun- 
tryman. The  Irish  swore  up  McCabe  as  he  came 
along,  the  English  applauded  Barlow,  the  New-York- 
ers encouraged  Gildersleeve  and  the  Indian.     Mean- 


time, the  horse-fence-men  rode  open  the  crowd  with 
striking  and  shouting;  betting-books  were  whipped 
out  at  every  completed  mile;  boys  cried  ci«ars;  row- 
dies broke  down  barriers  and  climbed  into  the  stands  ; 
the  men  on  the  roofs  pointed  after  the  runners,  and 
hallooed  the  gainings  and  losings;  and  every  third 
minute  the  naked  white  shoulders  came  round  ahead, 
and  it  was  manifest  that  Barlow  gained  constantly, 
and,  unless  the  little  Yankee  or  the  Indian  could  over- 
haul him  by  a  miraculous  push,  he  was  sure  to  win. 

They  came  along  for  the  tenth  mile,  and  the  crowd 
were  almost  still  with  anxiety.  The  overtaking  rush, 
by  which  Gildersleeve  won  in  the  last  race,  was  now 
expected  of  him  by  his  backers.  Barlow  passed,  a 
hundred  feet  ahead;  Steeprock  strained  after,  with  a 
sponge  at  his  lips,  and  his  knees  tottering;  Gilder- 
sleeve came  third,  a  spectacle  of  pallor  and  exhaus- 
tion; Greenhalgh,  another  Englishman,  was  evidently 
making  more  speed — and  that  was  the  last  we  saw  of 
them  in  motion. 

With  the  thousands  rushing  in  from  all  sides  we 
were  swept  toward  the  judges'  stand.  The  horsemen 
came  on,  in  the  midst  of  a  sea  of  heads  keeping  pace 
with  thorn,  whips  going,  shouts  pealing,  boys  and  bul- 
lies screaming,  swearing,  and  crowding.  "Barlow!" 
"Barlow!"  "Barlow!"  arose  from  hundreds  of  wild 
voices,  and  the  tumult  of  inquiry  as  to  the  others 
grew  deafening.  We  backed  out  a  little  to  hear  the 
victor  called  oil  by  the  judges.  A  moment's  stillness 
was  procured,  and  the  competitors  were  named  from 
the  stand  in  the  order  in  which  they  had  come  in  : 
Barlow,  Steeprock,  Greenhalgh,  Gildersleeve.  The 
time  made  by  the  winner  was  ten  miles  in  fifty-four 
minutes  twenty-one  seconds. 

As  we  turned  away,  Gildersleeve  was  brought  along 
by  two  men,  with  his  eyes  half  closed  and  his  tongue 
loose  in  his  lips;  and  he  seemed  just  able  to  place  his 
feet,  one  after  the  other,  mechanically,  as  he  was 
lifted  over  the  ground.  A  sicker-looking  man  we 
never  saw.  A  minute  after,  Barlow  appeared  above 
the  crowd,  on  a  man's  shoulders,  waving  his  hand  and 
smiling  quite  composedly,  and  the  shouts,  apparently 
from  every  voice,  hailed  him  victor. 

P.  S.  We  had  nearly  forgotten  a  good  conundrum 
the  race  gave  birtlr  to  : — 

Question. — Why  did  Barlow  run  so  like  a  locomo- 
tive yesterday  ? 

Answer. — Because  he  had  behind  him  an  Indian- 
near. 


New  Trial  of  Culprit  Poets. — Mrs.  Gilman 
has  invented  a  new  kind  of  book  ("Oracles  from  the 
Poets,"  of  which  we  gave  a  uotice  a  few  days  ago), 
and  the  opening  preface,  very  charmingly  written, 
tries  the  poets  by  new  standards  altogether.  She  had 
occasion  to  ransack  all  the  popular  authors  for  an- 
swers to  the  fate-questions  of  her  Fortune-Teller,  and 
of  course  she  discovered  where  lay  the  most  thought 
and  feeling  of  a  peculiar  character.  She  begins  by 
finding  out  that  poets  are  benevolent.  She  had  great 
difficulty  in  finding  sixty  answers  to  the  question, 
"  To  what  have  you  a  distaste  or  aversion  /"  while 
"  What  gratifies  your  taste  or  affections?"  was  stud  as 
common  as  clover.  She  says  that  in  Shakspere  there 
is  a  singular  lack  of  mention  of  places  of  residence,  and 
there  seems  not  to  be  even  a  fair  proportion  of  pas- 
sages descriptive  of  musical  sounds,  hours,  seasons, 
and  (except  in  the  Winter's  Tale)  of  flowers.  In 
Wordsworth,  scarcely  a  flower  or  musical  sound  is  de- 
scribed. They  are  alluded  to,  but  not  painted  out. 
The  poetry  of  Crabbe,  though  abounding  in  numer- 
ous characters,  could  furnish  almost  nothing  for  her 
purpose,  on  account  of  their  being  woven  into  the 
general  strain  of  his  narrations.  Shelley,  Landoti, 
and  Howitt,  are  eminently  the  poets  of  flowers,  while 


742 


EPHEMERA. 


Darwin,  with  a  whole  "Botanic  Garden"  before  him, 
and  Mason,  in  his  "English  Garden,"  gave  none 
fairly  entitled  to  selection.  Few  passages  of  any  sort, 
except  those  hackneyed  into  adages,  could  be  gained 
from  Milton,  on  account  of  the  abstract,  lofty,  and 
continuous  flow  of  his  diction.  Coleridge  has  cor- 
responding peculiarities.  Keats  and  Shelley  are  the 
poets  of  the  heavens.  Byron,  with  faint  exceptions, 
does  not  describe  a  flower,  or  musical  sound,  or  place 
of  residence.  The  American  poets,  in  contradis- 
tinction to  their  elder  and  superior  brethren  of  the 
fatherland,  display  a  more  marked  devotion  to  nature, 
with  which  a  continued  glow  of  religious  sentiment 
aptly  harmonizes. 

Apropos — as  the  living  American  poets  are  in  pro- 
cess of  'broidery,  would  it  not  be  well  to  know  where 
their  worsteds  are  deficient,  that  they  may  shop  up 
their  lacking  threads  in  the  Broadway  of  contempla- 
tion? Will  not  some  of  our  several  sleeping  female 
geniuses  (intellectual  dolce-far-nientes,  of  whom  we 
know  at  least  a  capable  dozen)  take  up  the  American 
poets  and  go  through  them  with  a  discriminating  bod- 
kin, showing  what  colors  lack  replenishing  ?  It  would 
serve  the  poetry  of  Bryant-dom — the  present  passing 
age  in  which  this  faultless  poet  is  the  flower  in  most 
palpable  relief.  Come,  ladies!  tell  us  what  Lowell 
(whose  fame  is  being  worked  just  now)  had  better 
thread  his  inspired  needle  with!  Tell  us  what  Long- 
fellow is  out  of.  Tell  us  whether  Halleck  has  done 
enough  to  cover  the  pattern,  and  whether  some  oth- 
ers hadn't  better  unravel  and  work  it  all  over  again ! 
At  any  rate,  turn  up  their  frames  of  immortality  and 
show  us  the  wrong  side!  Let  them  mend,  if  they 
like, 

"  Ere  the  worm  pierce  their  tapestry,  and  the  spider 
Weave  his  thin  curtain  o'er  unfinished  dreams." 


The  Upper  Ten  Thousand  of  New  York  City. — 
The  first  three  of  the  following  paragraphs  are  from 
the  True  Sun  of  November  22,  and  the  last  is  from 
the  same  paper  of  a  day  or  two  previous: — 

"Politically,  we  are  all  republicans — socially,  we 
are  divided  into  classes  on  the  'European  plan.' 
There  is  a  certain  class,  for  instance,  that  lakes  exer- 
cise only  on  one  side  of  Broadway — the  west  side. 
The  'canaille,'  to-be-sure,  may  walk  there  too,  be- 
cause, fortunately,  our  aristocracy,  with  all  its  pride 
and  vanity,  has  no  power;  but  what  perfumed  and 
ringleted  exquisite  would  ever  think  of  sporting  his 
white  kids,  mustaches,  and  goatee,  on  the  east  side 
of  our  great  thoroughfare?  That  would  be  literally 
wasting  his  sweetness  on  the  desert  air.  We  under- 
stand, by-the-by,  that  Stewart  is  severely  censured 
for  choosing  the  site  of  Washington  Hall  as  the  lo- 
cation of  his  new  temple  of  taste  and  fashion,  merely 
because  it  is  situated  on  the  east  side  of  Broadway. 
However,  if  the  pavement  in  front  is  sprinkled  thrice 
a  day  with  eau  de  Cologne,  and  Mr.  Stewart  doubles 
the  price  of  his  goods,  in  order  to  give  ton  to  the  lo- 
cation, it  may  do  away  with  the  fashionable  prejudice 
against  the  promenade  of  the  nobodies,  and  thereby 
equalize  the  value  of  the  property  on  the  two  sides 
of  the  street.  At  present  there  is  a  very  material 
difference  in  the  price  of  the  brick  and  mortar  which 
borders  the  two  pavements." 

"The  Opera. — That  this  is  a  refined  and  elegant 
amusement,  no  one  can  doubt;  but  to  exaggerate  its 
consequence,  to  make  it  a  grand  controlling  feature 
in  our  society,  is,  in  our  judgment,  giving  it  undue 
importance.  With  regard  to  its  being  a  very  'aristo- 
cratic' affair  in  New  York,  we  can  only  say,  that  a 
complete  refutation  of  such  an  idea  may  be  easily  had 
3t  any  time  by  a  glance  at  the  dress-circle  habitues.'' 

"The  Aristocracy. — We  must  confess  we  do  not 


|  think  that  wealth  is  the  only  essential  necessary  to 
place  one  in  'good  society.'  We  can  imagine  many 
refined,  intellectual,  and  charming  people,  who  do 
not  drive  equipages  lined  with  silk,  and  who  have  nei- 
ther coachman  nor  footman  bedizened  with  lace. 
What  would  be  thought  of  the  elegance  of  a  leader 
of  the  ton,  who  could  take  a  peculiarly-dressed  par- 
tridge from  a  dinner-table,  and  place  it  in  his  hat,  in 
order  to  carry  it  home  with  him  ?  We  do  not  imagine 
that  such  an  attempt  (for  it  was  unsuccessful)  marks 
any  very  superior  degree  of  refinement!" 

"There  are  some,  again,  who  study  a  profound  re- 
serve, or  rather  adopt  an  appearance  of  hauteur. 
They  are  stiff,  quiet,  and  unapproachable.  These 
are  the  dandies  of  the  cities,  who  adopt  the  Horatian 
sentiment  of 

"  '  Odi  profanum  vulgus,'  &c. 

You  must  not  come  'between  the  wind  and  their  no- 
bility.' They  wear  the  last  productions  of  Watson, 
or  Jennings,  or  Carpenter,  and  display  a  clean  pair  of 
kid  gloves,  with  the  last  fashion  of  wrist-buttons. 
You  might,  if  uninitiated,  suppose  them  some  dis- 
tinguished foreigners  on  their  travels.  In  nine  cases 
out  of  ten  they  belong  to  the  parvenu  order  of  the 
aristocracy.  Whiskey  or  codfish  has  taken  a  rise, 
and  their  honored  father  has  made  a  fortune.  The 
family-mansion  in  a  back  lane  has  been  abandoned  for 
some  fashionable  quarter,  and  visits — on  one  side — 
have  been  paid  throughout  the  neighborhood.  If 
they  choose,  they  could  astonish,  but  they  would  not 
condescend.  The  railroad-car  does  not  shake  down 
their  consequence.  They  regret  this  progress  of  one 
art,  which  makes  so  many  other  arts  useless.  They 
are  delighted  when  they  escape  from  the  crowd  and 
seek  the  hotel,  where  the  extravagant  charges  prevent 
the  danger  of  further  collision." 

We  received  yesterday  an  anonymous  letter,  re- 
proving us,  in  sober  bad  English,  for  ministering  to 
the  vanity  of  the  rich,  by  an  article  in  the  Mirror  on 
the  selection  of  "  a  promenade  drive."  This,  the  re- 
proof also  given  us  a  day  or  two  since  by  a  political 
paper  for  an  article  on  the  prima-donna,  and  the  fore- 
going paragraphs  from  a  neutral  paper,  aimed  princi- 
pally at  popularity  with  the  working  classes,  are  suf- 
ficient indications,  we  think,  that  some  bitter  weed, 
passing  for  an  aristocracy-nettle,  is  rolled  up  in  the 
present  cud  of  the  reposing  people. 

We  commence  taking  exceptions  to  the  tone  of 
these  articles,  by  stating  what  seems  to  us  a  fact  of 
general  notoriety — that  the  ten  thousand  people  up- 
permost in  this  city — (aristocrats,  if  wealth  and  po- 
sition make  them  so) — are  the  most  moral  and  scru- 
pulous ten  thousand  in  the  four  hundred  thousand  of 
the  population.  There  is  probably  about  this  num- 
ber— ten  thousand — who  are  rich  enough,  if  they 
choose,  to  keep  a  carriage.  Two  thirds  of  them,  we 
presume,  were  poor  men  a  few  years  ago,  and  the 
children  of  three  fourths  of  them  will  be  obliged  to 
work  for  a  living  (a  flying-fish  aristocracy,  who  are 
hardly  long  enough  out  of  the  water,  one  would 
think,  to  give  offence  by  their  brief  airs  to  those  left  in 
the  element  below  them).  There  is  a  smaller  class — 
perhaps  two  thousand  families — who  have  been  respect- 
able and  well  off  for  two  or  more  generations.  There  is 
a  third  class,  still — perhaps  one  or  two  hundred — whose 
display  is  offensive,  from  no  one's  knowing  where 
their  money  comes  from,  or  from  their  being  sup- 
posed to  live  dishonestly  above  their  means,  or  from 
being  notoriously  vicious. 

Of  these  three  classes — an  "  aristocracy"  of  ten 
thousand — one  half,  at  least,  are  religious,  and  the 
remainder  seek  refined  pleasures,  and  attend  the- 
atres and  operas ;  but,  with  the  exception  of  the  third 
and  smallest  class  last  named,  we  venture  to  repeat, 
that  the  upper  ten  thousand  are   by  much  the  most 


EPHEMERA. 


743 


exacting  of  moral  character  iu  their  friends,  the  most 
rigid  in  the  support  of  moral  opinions  and  charities, 
and  the  most  exemplary  in  their  individual  private 
life.  This  is  true  of  the  upper  ten  thousand  of  no  other 
country  in  the  world.  It  would  sound  Utopian  in  Eng- 
land to  assert  this  to  be  true  of  the  upper  classes  of 
any  city  on  the  face  of  the  earth.  Look  at  the  dif- 
ference of  the  standards  in  ordinary  matters.  To 
make  a  good  match,  here,  it  is  necessary  that  a  young 
man  should  be  moral;  and  if  he  be  of  high  character 
in  this  respect  (and  the  lady  willing),  public  opinion 
will  not  suffer  his  pretensions  to  be  slighted  by  the 
richest  man!  In  every  other  country  the  lover's  mo- 
rality is  altogether  a  secondary  consideration — family 
and  fortune  far  before  it.  Morality  is  a  young  man's 
best  card  in  New  York  ;  whether  his  object  be  influ- 
ence, matrimony,  good  business-connexion,  appoint- 
ments from  societies,  or  general  position  in  the  best 
circles.  This  truth  needed  only  to  be  put  in  print  to 
make  people  wonder  it  had  not  been  said  before  ! 

It  is  a  wretched  trick  caught  from  English  papers 
and  English  plays,  to  talk  of  the  rich  as  certainly 
vicious,  and  of  the  poor  as  necessarily  virtuous.  We 
live  in  a  country  where  the  sovereignty  (that  part  of 
society  which  vice  commonly  noses  and  follows  close 
after)  resides  at  the  opposite  end  from  the  sovereignty 
of  England.  The  more  virtuous  class,  here  as  there,  is 
comparatively  poicerless  at  the  ]}olls.  The  rowdy 
drunkard  and  the  gambler  do  as  much  toward  presi- 
dent-making and  the  selection  of  lawgivers,  as  the 
thrifty  merchant,  and  the  rich  father  of  a  family  of 
virtuous  daughters;  and,  as  there  are  a  hundred  hus- 
bands, of  either  of  the  first-named  classes,  to  one  of 
either  of  the  others,  virtue  and  order  keep  company 
with  sovereignty — in  this  country  as  little  as  in  Eu- 
rope! Power  is  at  the  surface  of  a  country,  and  the 
scum  rises  to  it.  We  are  quite  aware,  that  the  pen 
and  inkstand  with  which  we  write  these  sentiments 
will  not  be,  to  all  readers,  "  a  pot  of  lambative  elec- 
tuary with  a  stick  of  licorice." 


Rivalry  at  the  Opera. — The  musical  tilt,  to  de- 
cide which  was  the  more  prime  of  the  prima-donnas, 
came  off  last  night,  to  the  very  great  entertainment 
of  the  town's  ornamentals.  It  reminded  us  very 
strongly  of  the  contention  between  the  lute  and  the 
nightingale,  in  the  old  play  of  the  "  Lover's  Melan- 
choly." Borghese  drops  dead  in  the  last  act,  very 
soon  after  a  glorious  and  triumphant  outbreak  by 
Pico;  and  we  will  quote  a  passage  to  show  how  this 
resembles  the  poetic  story — premising,  by-the-way, 
that  a  musician,  playing  in  the  woods,  is  overheard  by 
a  bird,  who  mocks  him  till  the  lute-player  gets  angry 
at  the  excellence  of  the  rivalry: — 

"  To  end  the  controversy,  in  a  rapture, 
Upon  his  instrument  he  plays  so  swiftly — 
So  many  voluntaries  and  so  quick — 
That  there  was  curiosity  and  cunning, 
Concord  in  discord,  lines  of  difFering  method, 
Meeting  in  one  full  centre  of  delight. 

the  bird  (ordained  to  be 

Music's  first  martyr)  strove  to  imitate 
These  several  sounds  ;  which,  when  her  warbling  throat 
Failed  in,  for  grief  down  dropped  she  on  his  lute, 
And  broke  her  heart." 

But,  to  tell  the  other  story — "after  the  manner  of 
men." 

The  opera  was  "Lucrezia  Borgia."  Signorina 
Borghese  represents  (as  well  as  we  could  understand 
the  story)  a  bad  mother,  who,  in  poisoning  a  large 
party  of  youths,  half  rakes,  half  conspirators,  for  hav- 
ing insulted  her  sign  over  the  door,  poisons  one  too 
many — her  son.  Madame  Pico  represents  the  leader 
of  the  set,  and  does  the  noise  aud  the  jollification. 
She  descends  upon  the  stage  the  first  thing  after  the 


rising  of  the  curtain,  dressed  in  a  very  modest  suit  of 
male  attire,  and  figures  about  as  a  Roman  Captain 
Rynders,  bandying  dialogue  here  and  there,  but  with 
no  chance  of  display  in  the  three  or  four  first  acts. 
Borghese,  we  began  to  think,  was  to  have  the  best  of 
it  all  the  way  through.  She  was  exquisitely  dressed, 
sang  with  as  little  of  the  split-straw  in  her  soprano  as 
we  ever  heard  her  sing  with,  and  acted  to  her  singing 
(as  she  always  does)  with  what  the  Greeks  called  ono- 
matopcia — movement  linked  with  sound  indivisibly. 
The  applause  was  pretty  well,  but  not  overpowering. 

The  fourth  act  represented  the  youths  at  the  fatal 
supper,  Pico  the  principal  customer.  After  a  little 
hobnobbing  on  the  other  side  of  the  table,  she  glides 
round,  upon  her  plumptitudinous  locomotives,  and 
dashes  into  a  song,  rich,  rollicking,  and  risveglialo  ! 
Down  went  the  bucket  for  the  first  time  into  her  well 
of  contralto,  and  up  came  the  liquid  and  golden  mu- 
sic, of  a  round,  true  fulness,  that  made  the  ear's  thirst 
a  luxury.  It  was  a  passage  full  of  involutions,  abrupt, 
startling,  and  bacchanal;  but  her  skill  in  flinging  her 
voice  from  point  to  point,  with  the  capricious  surpri- 
ses of  the  music,  was  wonderfully  subtle.  The  au- 
dience was,  for  the  first  time  in  the  evening,  fairly 
lifted  clear  of  the  ground.  On  the  part  of  the  stage- 
company,  no  encore  was  looked  for  at  this  point  of  the 
opera.  The  closing  of  Pico's  song  is  the  signal  for  a 
death-bell  and  the  disclosing  of  a  hearse  apiece  for 
the  jolly  junketers.  The  audience  were  not  ready, 
however.  The  applause  kept  on  till  the  hearses 
backed  out,  and  the  song  was  sung  over  again.  Oh, 
how  deliciously  it  was  sung!  No  voice,  however 
large  its  compass,  was  ever  sweeter,  rounder,  mellow- 
er in  its  quality,  than  Madame  Pico's.  The  audience 
murmured,  and  leaned  forward,  and  ejaculated,  and 
with  one  unhesitating  accord,  it  seemed  to  us,  gave 
over  the  palm  to  the  contralto.  The  chorus-singers 
seemed  surprised — she  herself  forgot  her  male  attire, 
and  courtesied  (the  first  time  we  ever  saw  how  it  was 
done,  by-the-by),  a  tributary  bouquet  flew  over  the 
footlights,  and  Lucrezia  Borgia  rose  up  once  more, 
like  an  apparition  amid  the  hearses  in  waiting. 

The  last  act,  like  the  first  three,  was  all  Borghese's. 
It  is  deep  tragedy,  and  she  played  it  well.  The  young 
man,  poisoned  by  mistake,  held  his  stomach  till  lie 
was  done  for,  and  his  letting  go  was  the  signal  for 
Borghese  to  give  her  "  C  sharp,"  and  go  after  him. 
The  curtain  dropped,  and  the  applause  rose  imme- 
diately. Borghese  came  out  and  was  cheered  till  she 
courtesied  out,  but  still  the  applause  continued.  No 
reply.  The  canes  began  to  rap,  and  the  audience 
seemed  not  beginning  to  go.  "  Pico  !"  shouted  some- 
body. "Pico!"  shouted  everybody.  Still  no  an- 
swer. The  deafening  uproar  at  last  lifted  the  cur- 
tain, and  there  was  Borghese!  led  forward  by  Peroz- 
zi,  and  courtesying  again  !  And  presently,  all  alone, 
with  her  hair  down  her  back,  her  mustache  gone,  and 
a  loose  dressing-gown  about  her,  the  real  queen  by 
acclamation  took  the  honors  there  was  no  longer  any 
denying  her.  The  will  of  the  audience,  and  the  will 
of  the  Italian  corps,  were  two  entirelydifferent  matters. 

We  really  do  not  see  why  these  fine-throated  peo- 
ple can  not  consent  to  do  their  best,  and  let  the  pub- 
lic like  which  they  please.  The  two  singers  are  both 
admirable,  each  unrivalled  in  her  way  :  and,  because 
we  admire  the  new-comer,  it  is  no  reason  why  we 
should  not  still  appreciate  our  former  favorite.  But 
see  how  unlike  musical  people  in  prose  are  to  musical 
people  in  poetry.  We  will  quote  the  conclusion  of 
the  pretty  story  we  began  our  criticism  with,  for  a 
lesson  of  magnanimity,  after  the  bird  dropped,  broken- 
hearted, upon  the  lute. 

"  It  was  the  quaintest  sadness 
To  see  the  conqueror,  upon  her  hearse, 
Weeping  a  funeral  elegy  of  tears. 
He  looks  upon  the  trophies  of  his  art, 


744 


EPHEMERA. 


Then  sighed,  then  wiped  his  eyes,  then  sighed  and  cried, 

'  Alas  !  poor  creature,  I  will  soon  revenge 

This  cruelty  upon  the  author  of  it. 

Henceforth  this  lute,  guilty  of  innocent  blood, 

Shall  never  more  betray  a  harmless  peace 

To  an  untimely  end  :'  and,  in  that  sorrow, 

As  he  was  poshing  it  against  a  tree, 

I  suddenly  stepped  in." 

Another  night  we  trust  to  see  Borghese  submitting 
resignedly,  like  the  bird,  to  be  beaten  ;  though  if  the 
conquering  Pico  undertakes,  in  consequence,  to  "pash 
herself  against  a  tree,"  we  trust  the  manager  will 
"suddenly  step  in." 


The  Historical  Society  Dinner. — "We  went  to 
the  dinner  of  the  Historical  Society  last  evening,  with 
a  mood  in  our  mental  pocket,  which  was  as  useless  to 
us  as  the  wrong  mask  for  a  night  of  carnival.  We 
went  to  indulge  in  relaxation  and  gratify  curiosity. 
We  decided  in  the  midst  of  confusing  avocations,  that 
it  would  be  delightful  to  see  Mr.  Adams  and  Mr.  Gal- 
latin, pleasant  to  listen  to  the  voices  whose  words  we 
should  read  in  the  next  morning's  papers,  and  curious 
to  see  the  first  menu  of  the  opening  hotel  up-town. 
We  presumed  there  would  be  some  dull  talking, 
which  the  dinner  and  the  friends  around  would  keep 
off  with  the  by-play  of  conviviality,  and  that  we 
should,  at  any  rate,  hear  wit,  get  our  cares  jostled 
from  astride  us,  and  store  up,  for  illustration  to  future 
thought  and  reading,  two  pictures  of  men  who  are 
soon  to  pass  over  to  history. 

But — (the  two  great  statesmen  who  were  to  be 
present  set  aside  for  the  moment) — it  is  not  easy  to 
come  at  all  into  the  presence  of  a  large  number  of 
men  of  superior  intellect,  without  feeling  the  dormant 
thunder  of  the  cloud  about  us.  This  is  partly  a  moral 
magnetism,  we  presume,  but  there  is  a  physiognomy 
in  crowds;  and,  to  the  eye  accustomed  to  see  men 
"  as  they  come,"  the  look  of  an  assemblage  of  master- 
intellects  is  the  laying  of  a  spirit-hand  upon  the  be- 
holder. There  were  present  the  leading  minds  of 
this  great  metropolis— able  divines,  merchant  princes, 
formidable  politicians,  brilliant  lawyers,  scheming  cap- 
italists, influential  citizens,  philanthropists,  scholars, 
poets,  and  journalists — none  of  them  common  men, 
and  none  without  the  sympathy-read  print  upon  the 
forehead— distinction's  philactery  of  pain.*  Seated  at 
table,  we  looked  about  upon  the  men  we  knew,  and 
followed  back  into  their  bosoms  the  visible  thread  of 
which  we  knew  the  knot  at  the  heart-strings.  We 
have  no  time  here— (our  hasty  thoughts  gomg  from 
us,  sentence  by  sentence,  into  irrevocable  print,  as  we 
record  them)— no  time  to  separate  and  describe  the 
crowding  influences  that  changed  our  careless  pre- 
paratory mood  into  an  overshadowed  aud  attentive 
silence.  We  passed  an  evening  of  resistless  revery— 
much  of  it  homage,  much  of  it  quickening  to  ambi- 
tion, and  in  part  a  coveting  of  fellowship  and  sympa- 
thy. But  we  can  not  go  on  with  this  misplaced  rec- 
ord of  emotions. 

There  are  weighty  and  wide  influences  exercised 
by  an  historical  society,  which,  again,  we  can  only 
hint  at.  far  too  hastily.  Historical  record  is  the 
paymaster  of  the  immortality  toiled  for  by  greatness- 
and  it  is  vital  to  the  existence  of  great  motives,  that 
this  treasurer's  trust  should  be  faithfully  discharged, 
and  his  accounts  chronicled  in  blazon.  Affecting 
mention  was  drawn  from  Mr.  Adams  of  his  coming 
reward  from  history— the  reward  of  justificatory  tri- 
umph— for  having  passed  through  the  fire  of  calumny. 
It  was  over  these  heated  plough-shares  that  he  has 

•  We  may  say,  in  passing,  that  we  have  seen  the  first  men 
of  their  time  in  many  countries,  and  many  assemblages  of 
distinguished  men,  but  it  struck  us  that  we  had  never  seen 
either  a  finer  collection  of  intellectual  heads,  or  finer  individ- 
ual specimens,  than  this  occasion  had  brought  together. 


walked  to  the  luminous  door  by  which  he  is  about  to 
pass  from  the  world  ;  and  if  he  could  be  sure  of  no 
brother-spirits  left  behind,  to  see  the  truth  written  in 
characters  legible  to  the  world,  he  would  have  done 
his  great  services  to  his  country,  by  sufferings,  indeed, 
mournfully  thankless.  In  a  republic,  especially  in  an 
age  of  free-thinking  and  irreverence  for  usage,  like 
ours — the  influence  of  a  society  which  brightens  and 
keeps  manifest  the  coolly-proved  wisdom  of  the  past, 
is  more  especially  all-needful.  History  forgotten,  the 
present  is  a  ship  without  chart  or  compass,  trusting  to 
the  stars  alone  in  the  clouded  storm-nights  of  politics. 
Ambition,  with  that  watchful  dragon  asleep — no  rec- 
ord to  be  dreaded  beyond  the  memory  of  the  living — 
would  be  a  fiend  loosed  upon  the  world.  History  is 
our  citadel  of  safety. 


New  kind  of  Hotel  up-town. — We  have  thought 
that  it  would,  perhaps,  interest  our  readers  to  go  into 
a  detail  of  the  differences  between  the  popular  hotel 
(like  the  Astor,  the  American,  Howard's,  &c.)  and 
what  is  understood  in  Europe  as  the  hotel- garni — of 
which  the  up-town  hotel  is  the  new  example  in  this 
country. 

The  hotel-garni  is  a  furnished  house,  in  which  the 
lodging  is  the  only  charge  not  variable  at  the  option 
of  the  guest.  A  certain  price  is  charged  for  the 
rooms  occupied,  and  the  other  expenses  are  accord- 
ing to  what  is  ordered.  A  popular  bachelor,  for  ex- 
ample, makes  a  great  economy  of  this.  He  pays  for 
his  rooms  and  his  breakfast;  and,  if  invited  out  to 
dine  five  times  in  the  week,  saves  the  corresponding 
items  in  his  bill — five  dinners  and  five  bottles  of  wine. 
This,  in  Europe,  is  considered  a  fair  offset  against 
patent  blacking,  white  gloves,  and  hack-hire  ;  and 
puts  society  on  a  level  with  health,  sunshine,  reputa- 
tion, and  other  plain  matters-of-course.  A  common 
table  and  a  restaurant  are  not  necessary  parts  of  a  ho- 
tel-garni, but  they  serve  to  increase  its  eligibility. 
There  is  a  certain  price  for  a  dinner  at  the  table  d'hote, 
charged  separately  every  day  ;  but  in  Europe  few 
dine  at  the  common  table  except  strangers  in  town. 
A  fashionable  man  avoids  it  as  an  implied  confession, 
1st,  that  he  has  not  been  invited  out  that  day,  and,  2d, 
that  he  can  content  himself  with  everybody's  dinner 
and  company.  For  families,  particularly  if  there  are 
unmarried  daughters,  it  is  irreconcilable  with  position, 
if  not  with  propriety,  to  live  at  the  public  table.  The 
rooms  in  these  hotels  are  arranged  so  as  to  unite  a  draw- 
ing-room with  each  bedroom,  and  every  person,  or  fam- 
ily, respectably  lodged,  has  a  private  parlor  for  meals  and 
reception  of  visits.  There  is  no  large  common  draw- 
ing-room, of  course.  The  meals  are  furnished  by  ex- 
press order,  given  each  day,  to  the  restaurant  below, 
and  sent  up  with  tablecloth,  silver,  glass,  &c  — all 
at  the  appointed  hour,  and  all  removed  together  when 
dinner  is  over — giving  the  lodger  no  trouble,  except 
to  wait  on  himself  while  dining,  or  provide  a  servant 
to  do  so.  As  each  dish  is  for  one  person  only,  how- 
ever (or  one  family),  the  expense  of  such  a  dinner  is 
much  greater  than  where  the  dishes  are  cooked  in 
larger  quantities  for  a  hundred  people.  To  dine  in 
private  on  as  many  dishes  as  you  may  taste  for  fifty 
cents  at  a  public  table,  would  cost,  probably,  from  two 
to  five  dollars. 

The  ordinary  hotel  is,  of  course,  described  by 
specifying  the  peculiarities  of  the  other.  It  will 
be  seen  at  once  that  the  hotel-garni  must  prevail 
with  the  increase  of  exclusiveism  in  this  country.  It 
is  only  in  new  countries  that  families  can  do  without 
household  gods  ;  and  it  is  only  where  the  whole  male 
society  of  a  country  is  only  unharnessed  for  sleep 
from  the  eternal  drag  of  money-making,  that  the  do- 
mestic virtues  can  be  left  safely  without  private  altars 


EPHEMERA. 


745 


and  locked  doors,  single  roof-trees,  and  four-walled 
simplicity.  Twenty  years  hence,  we  venture  to  say, 
the  Astor's  splendid  drawing-room  will  be  occupied 
by  some  nabob  of  a  lodger — needed  no  longer  as  a 
common  parlor — and  its  long  galleries  will  be  but 
suites  of  apartments,  every  third  bedroom  converted 
into  a  cosy  saloon,  and  the  occupants  seeing  as  little 
of  each  other  as  neighbors  in  a  "  block." 

There  are  some  very  republican  advantages  in  our 
present  system  of  hotels,  which  the  country  is  not 
yet  ready  to  forego.  Tell  a  country  lady  in  these 
times  that  when  she  comes  to  New  York  she  must 
eat  and  pass  the  evening  in  a  room  by  herself,  and  she 
would  rather  stay  at  home.  The  going  to  the  Astor, 
and  dining  with  two  hundred  well-dressed  people,  and 
sitting  in  full  dress  in  a  splendid  drawing-room  with 
plenty  of  company — is  the  charm  of  going  to  the  city  ! 
The  theatres  are  nothing  to  that !  Broadway,  the 
shopping,  and  the  sights,  are  all  subordinate — poor 
accessories  to  the  main  object  of  the  visit.  A  large 
company  as  cheap  as  none  at  all — a  hundred  dishes 
as  cheap  as  one — a  regal  drawing-room  at  her  service, 
with  superb  couches,  piano,  and  drapery,  and  costing 
no  more  than  if  she  stayed  in  her  bedroom — plenty  of 
eyes  to  dress  for  if  not  to  become  acquainted  with, 
and  very  likely  a  "  hop"  and  a  band  of  music — bless 
my  soul,  says  the  country  lady,  I  hope  they'll  never 
think  of  improving  away  all  that! 

And,  there  lies  the  pinch  !  The  senator  now  on  his 
way  to  congress,  dines  with  his  family  at  the  public 
table.  The  gentleman  who  does  not  choose  to  keep 
house,  invites  his  friends  to  dine  with  him  at  the  pub- 
lic table.  The  man  who  prefers  to  dine  in  a  private 
parlor  is  satirically  made  welcome  to  his  own  society 
— if  he  prefers  it !  The  distinguished,  the  fashiona- 
able,  the  dressy,  and  handsome,  may  all  dine,  without 
peril  of  style,  at  the  public  table.  But — since  so  may 
the  opposites  of  all  these,  and  anybody  else  who  is 
tolerably  dressed  and  well-behaved — the  public  table 
is  the  tangible  republic — the  only  thing  palpable  and 
agreeable  that  we  have  to  show,  in  common  life,  as 
republican.  And  when  the  exclusivism  of  the  hotel- 
garni  draws  its  dividing  line  through  this  promiscu- 
ous community  of  habits,  the  cords  will  be  cut  which 
will  let  some  people  up,  out  of  reach,  and  drop  some 
people  down,  out  of  all  satisfactory  supposible  contact 
with  society. 


Growth  of  "Western  Literature.  —  We  are 
happy  to  notice  that  seven  out  of  the  seventeen  arti- 
cles with  the  names  of  the  authors,  in  the  last  two 
numbers  of  the  Biblical  Repository,  are  from  persons 
connected  with  literary  institutions  west  of  the  mount- 
ains. Among  the  subjects  of  the  western  writers  are, 
The  Writings  of  Martin  Luther ;  Evidences  from 
Nature  for  the  Immortality  of  the  Soul ;  and  the 
Natural  History  of  Man  in  his  Spiritual  Relations. 
Another  article  contains  an  able  defence  of  presbyte- 
rianism.  So  far  as  we  can  judge  from  a  hasty  view, 
these  subjects,  some  of  which  are  the  greatest  that 
can  employ  the  pen  anywhere,  are  treated  with  tact 
and  ability,  and  give  us  a  favorable  opinion  of  the  con- 
dition of  our  western  seminaries  of  learning.  The 
remaining  contributions  are  from  New  England,  with 
the  exception  of  one  from  Virginia.  New  York  does 
not  appear  in  the  list  of  contributors'  names. 


The  Opera — The  "  stars"  of  the  opera  are  just 
through  their  night's  work  and  the  stars  of  heaven  are 
half  way  through  theirs.  We  have  not  the  pleasure 
of  a  personal  acquaintance  with  a  single  individual  in 
either  company — knowing  neither  Venus  nor  Pico, 
Lyra  nor  Borghese,  "  off  the  stage."     We  are  about 


to  announce  an  astrological  conjunction,  however, 
and,  as  "many  an  inhumane  thought  hath  arisen  from 
a  man's  sitting  uncomfortably  in  his  chamber,"  we 
have  sent  for  an  emollient  to  our  arm  chair,  in  the 
shape  of  cold  duck  and  champagne — expecting  there- 
by to  achieve  our  nearest  perihelion  to  the  calm  clear- 
sightedness of  Copernicus. 

Up-town  New  York,  a  week  ago,  was  in  the  situa- 
tion the  starry  firmament  was  in,  about  two  hundred 
years  before  the  Christian  era.  Pythagoras  recorded 
his  conviction  at  that  time  that  there  were  hco  stars 
wanting  to  complete  the  harmony  of  a  certain  portion 
of  the  heavens,  and,  in  the  very  spots  named  by  the 
great  philosopher,  Mars  and  Jupiter  did  soon  after 
make  their  first  appearance.  In  like  manner  a  Daily 
Pythagoras,  of  this  city  (we  think  it  was  Mr.  King  of 
the  American),  darkly  hinted  in  a  late  evening  paper, 
that  there  were  two  stars  necessary — contralto  and 
soprano — to  complete  harmony  of  the  Palmospheric 
constellation  ;  and,  in  that  very  troop,  Pico  and  Bor- 
ghese did  soon  after  take  their  places  in  similarly  har- 
morious  conjunction.  We  trust  history  will  do  us 
|  justice  for  linking  together  these  two  marked  fore- 
'  shadowings  of  stars'  "  doing  something  for  their  fami- 
lies." 

[Your  health,  dear  reader,  in  a  glass  of  Cordon- 
bleu m — m — mplck  ! delicious  !] 

And  now  we  have  to  beg  the  discreet  portion  of 
the  public  to  step  with  us  behind  the  curtain — not 
that  (representing  the  rosy  dawn)  which  drops  before 
Mars  and  Jupiter,  but  that  (representing  Jupiter  feel- 
ing the  pulse  of  Minerva)  which  drops  before  Bor- 
ghese and  Pico.  There  has  been  a  terrible  rowdydow 
in  the  operatic  green-room.  Borghese  has  been 
hitherto  queen  of  the  zodiac,  and  her  orbit  was  only 
intersected  by  nebula?  of  nameless  supernumeraries. 
The  breaking  of  Pico  upon  the  gaze  of  the  impartial 
star-worshippers,  however,  and  their  undeniable  prefer- 
ence, of  the  star  at  fifty  dollars  a  night  to  the  star  at 
double  the  money,  sent  Borghese  sick  to  her  bed  ; 
and  she  is  said  to  have  vowed  (with  the  spunk  of  the 
Lost  Pleiad,  who  died  for  jealousy  of  her  six  brighter 

sisters)   that  she  would  never  rise   again if  papa 

would  excuse  her. 

[Our  astronomy  is  used  up,  dear  reader,  but  the 
champagne  still  holds  out.  A  glass  to  Borghese's 
better  resignation,  and  let  us  go  on,  in  terrestiial 
phraseology. — M-m-mplck  !] 

Borghese  commenced  making  p>osition,  a  year  or 
more  ago,  and  has  pursued  it  very  skilfully,  and, 
therefore,  very  creditably  to  herself.  For  a  winter, 
or  more,  before  showing  herself  as  an  admirable  ac- 
tress, she  revolved  in  the  japonica  circles  up-town, 
as  a  singer  at  parties,  and  made  acquaintances  and 
friendships  exclusively  among  the  forced-plant  cus- 
tomers of  Hogg  and  Thorburn.  Her  manners  were 
of  that  well-studied,  eager  unconsciousness,  which 
is  the  modesty  of  nature  in  a  hot-house  school ;  and 
her  tact,  elegance,  and  musical  science,  were  leaved 
like  a  rose-bud  tied  up  with  a  string — showing  what 
the  prima-donna  might  be,  if  the  young  lady  were 
loosed  and  expanded.  As  the  parent-stem  required 
to  be  relieved  of  her,  she  prepared  to  throw  herself 
on  the  public;  and  when  she  did,  she  was,  of  course, 
plucked  from  neglect,  and  cherished  in  the  protect- 
ing bosom  of  the  society  that  had  secluded  her.  She 
has  been  worn  in  triumph,  as  the  first  flower  of  the 
opera,  for  a  couple  of  seasons— as  you  know,  dear 
public  ! 

But  nature  exacts  an  equilibrium;  and  where  there 
is  more  public  harmony,  there  will  be  more  private 
discord.  The  children  of  the  "  boot  on  the  map," 
kick  against  authorities,  and  every  tuneful  rehearsal 
had  its  offset  in  a  quarrel.  Signor  Borghese  (the 
star-father),  not  being  of  the  sect  of  the  Apotactita?, 
who  renounce  property,  took  advantage  of  a  tight 


746 


EPHEMERA. 


place  in  the  treasury,  and  bought  in,  "  for  a  song," 
the  theatrical  weapons  and  wardrobe.  Of  course, 
whatever  solvent  might  separate  the  other  parts  of  the 
company,  they,  crystallized,  agaiu,  around  their  only 
possible  nucleus — the  prima-donna  who  had  the  tog- 
gery !  And,  at  this  stage  of  the  Borghese  monocracy 
— came  Pico  ! 

Months  passed  away.  The  story  of  Pico's  errand 
— her  husband  a  political  prisoner  at  Venice,  and  her 
voice  the  only  probable  conjurer  of  the  gold  key  to 
release  or  relieve  him — was  told  and  apparently  for- 
gotten. We  heard  it,  and  reserved  our  republican 
sympathy  till  she  should  appear.  The  Mirror  suggest- 
ed a  concert — knowing  nothing  of  her  powers — but 
her  friends' thought  she  had  better  bide  her  time  with 
the  opera.  She  has  done  so.  At  half  the  pay  of 
Borghese,  she  played  to-night  for  the  second  time,  in 
the  opera  of  Lucrezia  Borgia. 

We  have  come  home  from  hearing  her — "posses- 
sed" (as  this  undevoured  cold  duck  is  our  witness) — 
our  capacity  for  delight  plummeted — our  cistern  of 
unshed  tears  strangely  and  pleasurably  troubled — our 
pen  as  gushing  with  welcome  to  Pico  as  the  miraculous 
oil-spring  of  old  Rome  that  welcomed  home  the  con- 
quering Augustus. 

[Her  health  in  this  last  glass  of  champagne — God 
bless  her !] 

The  house  was  crowded.  Borghese  sang  beauti- 
fully, and  played  as  no  other  female  in  America  can 
play.  She  was  heartily  applauded — but — as  on  the 
last  opera  night — the  tumult  of  the  house  was  reserved 
for  the  drinking  song  of  Pico.  It  is  her  first  chance 
to  unchain  soul  and  voice  after  nearly  a  whole  opera 
of  subservient  by-play.  Oh  how  the  first  swooping 
away  into  those  clear  silver  caverns  of  her  throat — 
dropping  through  unfathomable  love-depths  with  her 
fearless  down-c&&&nc&s,  and  turning  with  an  easy  up- 
lift again  toward  the  summit-perch  of  the  careless 
altissimo — how  like  an  eagle's  swoop  it  careered  ! 
overtaking  the  dew  falling,  and  the  perfume  rising 
into  the  sky,  and,  with  all  its  fierce  swiftness,  robbing 
the  cleft  air  of  nothing  but  fragrance  and  softness. 

[We  are  getting  poetical — but  champagne  after 
Pico,  is,  as  the  Venetians  say,  tanto  amorevolc  !  We'll 
go  to  bed  and  sum  up  in  the  morning.] 

Thursday  Morning. — Our  friend  of  the  "  Morning 
News,"  expresses,  in  his  paper  of  to-day,  a  regret  that 
"a  feeling  of  rivalry  is  encouraged  between  Borghese 
and  Pico."  We  are  surprised  at  this  discouragement, 
on  his  knowing  part,  of  the  great  secret  of  good  opera 
and  good  everything  else.  When  are  they  ever  so 
likely  to  sing  so  well,  and  to  draw  so  well,  as  when 

"  their  souls  come  upward  to  their  lips 
Like  neighboring  monarchs  at  their  borders  meeting  ?" 

He  adds,  that  "  Pico  fairly  out-Pico'd  Pico,"  and  we 
should  say  the  same  of  Borghese,  if  the  name  would 
come  as  pat. 

No  !  no  !  let  them  he  rivals  !  What  could  be  pret- 
tier ? — more  gracefully  done,  and  more  touchingly 
enlisting  to  the  feelings— than  Borghese's  picking 'up 
the  wreath  again,  last  night,  and  giving  it  generously 
to  Pico?  We  broke  a  new  malacca  stick  in  applaud- 
ing that  action  alone.  Viva  Borghese  !  Viva  Pico  ! 
You  are  two  halves  of  a  scissors,  dear  ladies,  and 
rivalry  is  your  rivet.  Divide  the  public — since  both 
halves  are  your  own,  after  they  are  divided  ! 


Pico  and  Borghese. — These  two  ladies  are  certain- 
ly most  poculent  commodities,  and  the  town  drinks 
their  delicious  music  with  unquestionable  intoxica- 
tion. The  crammed  opera-house  was  as  breathless 
with  absorbed  attention  last  night  as  if  Pico's  rosy- 
lipped  cup  ministered  to  every  heart's  measure  of  ful- 


ness— one  palate  common  to  all.  For  ourself,  we  con- 
fess immeasurable  delight  in  Pico.  Her  voice  has  a 
road  to  the  heart  upon  which  criticism  takes  no  toll 
— the  gate-opening  facility  of  music  going  home.  One 
listens  to  it  as  Shelley  seems  to  have  listened  to  the 
witch  of  Atlas — 

u  Her  voice  was  like  the  voice  of  his  own  soul 
Heard  in  the  calm  of  thought," 

— the  very  inmost  tenant  of  your  bosom,  somehow, 
seeming  to  have  "  expected  it,  all  along." 

Borghese  is  a  treasure  to  a  town — an  uncommon 
creature — such  an  actress  and  artist  as  we  shall  not 
see  again  until  we  deserve  a  benefit  from  the  gods — 
but  Pico!  oh,  Pico  is  ot  quite  another  invoice  of  goods 
from  paradise.  Borghese  is  the  most  ingenious  har- 
mony-pump that,  for  many  a  year,  has  offered  patron- 
age a  handle — the  other  is  a  natural-well  spring  of 
passionate  and  careless  music,  that  would  flow  as 
bountifully,  for  a  bird  to  drink,  as  for  an  emperor  to 
stoop  to.  Pico's  voice  would  cut  up  like  a  polypus 
— not  a  fragment  without  the  making  of  a  woman  in 
it.  She  neither  sings,  nor  moves,  nor  smiles,  as  if 
she  remembered  ever  doing  it  before  ;  and  if  she  has 
not  the  great  "  art  of  concealing  art"  (of  which  we 
have  had  our  half  a  suspicion),  she  is  one  of  those 
helpless  irresistibles  that  could  as  soon  become  invisi- 
ble as  not  bewitch. 

The  drinking  song  (Pico's  only  good  chance  in  the 
whole  opera),  was  stunningly  applauded  last  night, 
and,  at  the  close,  a  wreath  was  thrown  to  her  from  a 
very  select  company  in  a  private  box,  and  thrown  with 
a  pretty  good  aim — for  she  caught  it  upon  her  bosom. 
Out  of  it — (or  the  place  where  she  caught  it — we 
could  not  tell  which) — dropped  a  sealed  note,  which 
we  trust  contained  a  check  payable  in  favor  of  the  im- 
prisoned husband  at  Venice. 

If  we  had  a  moderate  thought  during  the  opera  of 
last  night,  it  was  that  there  could  be  no  question  of 
a  keen  taste  for  music  in  New  York — for  here  was  a 
crowded  audience,  attentive,  appreciative,  measuring 
its  applause  most  judiciously,  and  leaving  the  house 
delighted.  We  are  sure  a  large  opera-house  would  do 
— with  more  inducements  to  foreign  subordinates, 
more  enterprise  to  procure  visits  from  the  Parisian 
and  London  operatics,  better  regulations  for  private 
boxes,  etc.,  etc.  We  think,  for  one,  that  there  is  no 
greater  pleasure,  away  from  a  man's  hearth,  than  a 
good  opera. 


Envy  of  the  Rich,  or,  the  Flying-fish  Aris- 
tocracy, and  the  No.  1  Passenger  left  behind. 
— In  the  hurry  of  composition,  yesterday,  we  stum- 
bled upon  a  similitude  (a  "flying-fish  aristocracy") 
which,  we  think,  expresses  that  transitory  duration  of 
American  "up-in-the-world,"  which  should  make  the 
greater  number  of  rich  people  looked  upon  with  in- 
dulgent affection  by  those  left  temporarily  below.  Of 
such  short-lease  wings  as  most  American  "  first  fami- 
lies" fly  with,  there  need  be  little  envy,  one  would 
think — in  the  democratic  element  they  drip  with  till 
they  drop  again.  There  are  families,  however — a 
small  number — who  hold  their  own  for  three  or  four 
generations  ;  and,  in  the  "  measureless  content"  of 
these  with  their  position,  the  democrats  find  offence ; 
but  one  of  the  most  curious  social  problems  we  know 
of,  is  the  manner  in  which  the  old  families  of  New 
York  are  let  alone,  and  tacitly  eclipsed  by  the  more 
newly  prosperous;  and  we  must  offer  to  our  readers 
a  descriptive  similitude  for  this  also.  (Our  object,  it 
will  be  seen,  is  to  take  away  the  offence  of  aristocracy, 
if  possible,  and  induce  King  Public  to  let  us  cater  for 
them,  as  for  all  other  classes,  with  level  editorial  re- 
publicanism!) 


EPHEMERA. 


747 


A  half  hour  before  the  starting  of  the  Oxford  night 
mail,  a  fat  gentleman  was  discovered  fast  asleep  in  the 
coach,  which  was  still  under  the  shed.  He  occupied 
the  back  scat,  and  his  enormous  bulk  filled  it  so  com- 
pletely that  there  was  no  room  for  the  usual  fourth 
inside  passenger.  But  four  seats  were  taken  and  paid 
for,  and  the  last  man  booked  insisted  on  his  right  to  a 
place — fat  man,  or  no  fat  man!  The  stout  gentleman 
was  waked,  and  requested  to  come  out  till  the  other 
three  were  seated. 

"  He  [however]  knew  his  rights,  and  knowing  dared  main- 
tain ;" 

and  having  mentioned  his  name.and  inquired  whether 
it  was  not  first  on  the  book,  settled  his  chin  into  his 
cravat,  and  speedily  snored  again!  "Is  this  Oxford? 
— bless  me,  how'I  have  slept!"  said  the  fat  man,  rub- 
bing his  eyes,  when  the  coach  door  was  opened  the 
next  morning — in  the  same  place  where  it  stood  ivhcn 
he  went  to  sleep  .'  The  driver  had  hitched  his  team  to 
another  coach,  and  the  three  unprivileged  customers 
last  booked  were  probably  breakfasting  in  Oxford ! 

It  strikes  us  that  the  people  who  are  last  booked,  in 
this  community,  may  very  well  monopolize  the  envy 
— (success  in  arriving  at  their  destination  of  conspicu- 
ousness  being,  of  course,  the  chief  matter  of  envy) — 
and  the  fat  sleepers,  upon  the  usurped  seats,  once  left 
out  of  the  proscription,  the  charity  for  "  flying-fish" 
easily  forgives  the  remainder. 

If  the  above  does  not  please  our  friend  "Cheap 
Jemmy,"  we  will  never  do  a  good-natured  thing  again 
as  long  as  we  live.  If  he  knew  Latin,  we  should 
send  him  in  a  bill  for  a  diaphoretic. 


AFTER  THE  OPERA. 

(Supper  in  184's  room  at  the  Astor — the  brigadier  here 
"  on  business'' — a  poulct  pique,  and  a  bottle  of  cham- 
pagne in  silver  tissue  paper,  also  here  "  on  busi- 
ness"— Eleven  O'clock,  Esq.,  just  parting  from  the 
bell  of  St.  Paul's,  with  a  promise  to  be  "  round  in  the 
morning."  ) 

Brig,  (nodding,  and  taking  up  his  glass). — Mi-boy  ! 
184  (laying  his  hand  on  the  general's  arm). — Not  in 
such  profane  haste,  my  prompt  sodger!  That  glass 
of  wine  is  the  contemporary  of  bliss — sent  to  us  to  be 
drank  to  the  health  of  a  bride,  now  three  hours  past 
the  irrevocable  gate. 

Brig.  Married  at  eight  ?  Do  you  say  that  ?  God 
bless  her,  in  a  bumper!  (gazes  abstractedly  into  the 
bottom  of  the  glass,  and  speaks  musingly.) — Ten  min- 
utes past  eleven  ! — Well,  who's  the  lady,  and  who  the 
happy  man? 

184.  One  of  our  parish,  who,  though  he  does  not 
personally  know  us,  wishes  us  to  be  made  aware  of 
his  happiness.  We  have  written  ourselves  into  his 
bosom.  God  bless  him  for  the  loving  door  in  his 
eye — isn't  so,  my  tree-sparer!  So  may  all  men  take 
us  in  !  Try  a  bit  of  chicken  now,  general,  or  that 
tear  in  your  eye  will  fall  back  on  an  empty  stomach! 

Brig.  And  what  a  difference  it  makes — what  it  falls 
back  upon,  mi-boy  !  The  salt  in  a  tear  is  not  natu- 
ral, depend  on  it,  or  the  in'ards  would  take  to  it  more 
kindly.  What  an  etiquette  of  mercy  it  would  be, 
now,  to  make  pathos  and  bad  news  matters  of  full- 
dress — never  to  be  alluded  to  in  good  society,  till  a 
man  has  ceased,  as  Menenius  says,  "  to  pout  upon  the 
morning  !"     What's  your  to-morrow's  leader  ? 

184.  Not  coming  to  business  at  the  second  glass,  I 
hope  ?  Fie  on  you  for  a  disrespect  to  the  bride. 
(The  brigadier  blushes,  and  covers  his  confusion  by 
reading  the  label  on  the  bottle.)  How  enchantiogly 
old  Belisario  and  his  captive  sung  their  vows  of  friend- 
ship to-night  !     Ah,  music  and  lights  !— things  are  so 


much  finer  for  embellishing!  Our  small  friendship 
now,  general — brought  forward  to  the  prompter's  cup- 
board and  foot-lights — do  you  think  it  would  be  en- 
cored, like  that  ? 

Brig.  As  you  don't  ask  for  information,  mi-boy, 
let's  proceed  to  business.  Can  you  give  me  an  idea 
of  your  to-morrow's  editorial  ? 

184.  No! 

Brig.  And  the  boy  is  to  come  for  it  at  seven  ! 

184  (seizing  a  pen).     What  shall  it  be  ? 

Brig.  Why,  there's  the  mud  in  the  streets — and 
the  Bohemian  Girl — and  the  wretched  weather — and 
the  menagerie — and  Vandenhoff' — and  Stuart's  candy- 
shop — and  Mrs.  Coles — 

184.  By — the — by  ! — a  discovery  ! — Tryon  ought 
to  head  his  play-bills  with  the  Marsellois  war-cry — 
"  to  arms  ! — to  arms  !''  I  never  saw  a  pair  in  my  life 
more  exquisitely  moulded  and  polished  than  Mrs. 
Coles's,  of  the  Bowery  circus — as  shown  after  her 
third  undoing  on  horseback!  It  takes  a  symmetrical 
woman,  of  course,  to  stand  tiptoe  upon  a  flying  horse, 
and  strip,  from  a  jacketed  Cracovienne  to  a  short 
sleeved  evening  dress — but  ladies  of  this  vocation,  well 
made  in  all  other  respects,  are  usually  thin  from  the 
elbow  to  the  shoulder.  Shall  I  make  a  "  leader"  of 
Mrs.  Coles  ? 

Brig.  Certainly  not,  mi-boy  !  nor  a  follower  either  ! 
Just  indicate,  as  it  were — call  attention  mysteriously 
— hint  somehow — that  there  is  a  part  of  the  equestrian 
performance  that  reminds  you  of  things  you  saw  in 
Italy — statuary  or  something — delicately,  mi-boy — 
very  delicately  !  What  else  have  you  got  down  there 
in  your  memorandum-book? 

184.  Half  a  dozen  topics.  Here's  a  note  that 
smells  of  "above  Bleecker,"  requesting  us  to  implore 
of  Japonica-dom  not  to  give  parties  on  opera-nights! 
i  Really,  they  should  not !  The  opera  is  a  rare  luxury, 
without  which  a  metropolis  is  like  a  saloon  without  a 
mirror,  and  there  should  be  a  little  combination, 
among  refined  people — if  not  to  give  it  extra  support, 
at  least  to  throw  no  hinderance  in  its  way.  They  do 
this  in  London — (where,  by  the  way,  there  are  but 
two  operas  a  week,  and  it  would  be  quite  enough  here) 
— Lady  Blessington,  for  one,  never  "  at  home"  on 
opera-nights,  and  dinner-parties  are  given  at  an  earlier 
hour  to  release  people  in  time.  The  quality  of  the 
opera  depends,  of  course,  on  its  enthusiastic  support, 
and  those  who  can  appreciate  it  can  do  no  less,  I 
think,  than  to  go  in  full  dress,  and  go  habitually.  It 
is  far  pleasanter  than  a  party,  is  over  at  bearable  bed- 
time, and,  just  now,  the  company  at  Palmo's  is  too 
good  to  be  slighted.  And,  by  the  way,  have  you 
thought  how  gloriously  Pico  has  beggared  the  loud 
trumpet  we  blew  for  her  on  her  first  appearance! 
"Ants,"  says  the  old  proverb,  "live  safely  till  they 
have  gotten  wings,  and  juniper  is  not  thrown  away  till 
it  hath  gotten  a  high  top."  She  is  neither  your  ant 
nor  your  juniper-blossom — is  she  general  ? 

Brig,  (who  has  been  dozing).  Not  my  aunt,  mi- 
boy,  whoever  you're  talking  of.  I  never  had  one — 
hope  I  never  shall  ! 

184.  What's  that  note  falling  out  of  your  pocket, 
meantime  ? 

Brig.  Well  thought  of— I  brought  it  to  you  for  a 
paragraph.  What  do  you  think  it  is  ?  A  complaint 
froin  the  ladies  that  the  young  men  waylay  them  on 
the  staircases  ! 

184.  Heavens  and  Sabines  !  wait  till  I  dip  my  pen 
in  the  thunder-stand  !  Who  ?  How  ?  When  ?  How 
many  ? 

Brig.  At  parties— at  parties— my  dear  boy— don't 
be  violent !  This  lady  declares  (brigadier  opens  the 
note)  that  it  is  a  "  perfect  nuisance,  the  mere  descent 
from  the  dressing-room  to  the  ball-room" — "a  pretty 
girl  has  to  come  down  a  perfect  ladder  of  boys — every 
|  stair  an  engagement  to  dance" — "  no  chance  for  a 


748 


EPHEMERA. 


pick" — "  her  mind  fatigued  with  the  effort  to  remem- 
ber her  partners" — "  no  hope  of  dancing  with  a  grown- 
up man  from  Christmas  to  April" — "green  talk  alto- 
gether"— "dreadful  sense  of  unripeness" — "no  sub- 
ject but  Pico  and  Polka" — "  begs  we  will  write  the 
boys  off  the  staircase,"  etc.,  etc.  You  see  your  sub- 
ject. 

184.  Shall  I  tell  you  why  that  was  not  written  by  a 
woman  ?  Don't  you  see  that  if  this  system  of  long 
lists  of  engagements  were  done  away,  a  lady  would 
have  no  escape  from  a  disagreeable  partner — no  plea 
of  too  many  engagements — no  chance  for  a  lie  whiter 
than  many  a  truth  ?  Don't  you  see,  that  (now  duel- 
ling is  laughed  at)  a  lady  can  leave  out  an  early  part- 
ner on  the  list,  or  slip  a  tardy  one  in,  with  perfect 
ease  and  comfort — distressing  nobody's  mamma  with 
fears  of  Hoboken !  Leave  the  ladies  alone  for  put- 
ting down  troublesome  usages  !  Your  letter  was 
written  by  some  old  coxcomb  going  out  of  fashion, 
who  can  get  nobody  to  dance  with  him,  and  lays  it  to 
the  boys  on  the  staircase  !     Tut ! 

Brig.  Twelve  o'clock,  and  where's  your  leader  ? 
Oh,  mi-boy,  think  of  to-morrow's  paper  ! 

184.  Hang  the  leader  !  Let's  go  without  it — once 
in  a  way  ! 

Brig.  Gracious!  no  !  What  will  the  public  say  ? 
There  goes  one  o'clock  !  Bed-time  (for  me — not  ("or 
you) — and  nothing  from  you  for  the  boy  in  the  morn- 
ing !  Oh,  mi-boy,  sit  up !  Go  and  wash  your  face, 
and  feel  fresh !  Write  a  paragraph  requesting  the 
Mirror  brides  to  send  their  champagne,  hereafter,  ex- 
clusively to  the  talking  partner!  Where's  my  hat  ? 
Get  inspired,  mi-boy,  get  inspired  !     Good  night! 

184.  Stay — stay — stay!  Listen  to  this!  (184  reads 
the  foregoing  dialogue  to  the  brigadier,  whose  face 
gradually  reassumes  its  usual  serene  placidity.  He 
lays  down  his  hat  and  picks  another  wing  of  the 
chicken.) 

Brig.  And  you  have  been  writing  this  down,  all  the 
time,  with  your  hand  deep  in  that  old  cabinet !  Bless 
me,  what  a  boy  you  are  for  expedients!  I  thought 
you  was  scratching  autographs,  or  writing  "  Pico," 
or  sketching  Glenmary,  or  something !  But  you 
haven't  mentioned  the  weekly  ? 

184.  Poh  !  it  doesn't  want  mentioning. 

Brig.  Not  more  than  the  sun  and  moon,  and  other 
periodicals — but  you  trust  the  world's  memory  too 
much,  my  worky  !  They'd  forget  the  sun  shone  if  it 
wasn't  down  in  the  almanac  !     Say  something! 

184.  Well,  let's  see  !  It's  our  diary  of  the  world's 
goings-on  and  what  we  think  of  it — published  every 
seventh  day.  It  is  a  week's  corn,  ground,  sifted,  and 
bagged,  for  those  who  can't  go  to  mill  every  day.  It 
is  a  newspaper  without  the  advertisements  and  other 
trumpery — at  half  price,  in  consequence  of  lumber 
left  out  and  one  postage  instead  of  seven.  It  is  edited 
every  day,  and  other  weeklies  are  edited  once  a  week. 
It  gives  the  news,  the  fashions,  the  fun,  the  accidents, 
the  operas,  and  our  all-spice  to  make  it  keep,  in  a 
handsome,  preservable  shape — bindable  for  reference 
and  re-reading — "the  times"  as  it  were,  "boned  and 
potted."     Shall  I  say  any  more  ? 

Brig.  Three  dollars  a  year — 

184.  Mum,  man  !  Never  mention  money  after 
midnight!  What  will  the  angels  say!  Go  to  bed  ! 
go  to  bed  !     (Exit  brigadier,  after  a  silent  embrace.) 


AFTER  THE  OPERA. 

A  FEW  GRAVE  REMARKS  WHILE  SUPPER  IS  COMING. 

The  Cinderella-tude  of  Madame  Pico's  own  situa- 
tion, in  the  operatic  corps,  and  her  still  disputed  claim 
to  the  "glass  slipper"  of  preference,  sent  us  to  Pal- 
mo's,  to-night,  with  somewhat  of  an  owl  upon  our 


shoulder.  We  dreaded  Prince  Public's  final  choice 
between  her  and  the  favorite  daughter  of  Don  Mag- 
nifico — for  the  real- life  opera  had  come  to  its  last  act, 
and,  as  she  should  or  should  not,  make  the  most  of 
the  opportunity  (of  which  we  had  done  our  best  to 
be  the  "  Pilgrim  Alidoro"),  she  would,  or  would  not, 
wear  to-morrow  the  crown  of  Palmo-dom.  The  cur- 
tain is  down,  and 

ENTER  SUPPER  FOR  NO.  181. 
Before  we  grow  too  enthusiastic  for  the  nice  distinc- 
tions of  criticism,  let  us  say  a  word  of  the  general 
performance  of  the  opera.     Why  the  frisky  Signor 
Antognini,  whose  conceit, 

"  Ploughed  by  the  sunbeams  only,  would  suffice 
For  the  world's  granary," 

was  cast  in  a  part  that  the  unemployed  Perozzi  would 
have  done  so  much  better,  and  so  much  more  agree- 
ably to  the  public,  we  have  no  Italian  spectacles  to 
see.  And — apropos — if  it  is  the  object  of  the  com- 
pany to  please  and  draic,  why  did  not  Borghese  (ex- 
cept that  silver  is  less  tractile  than  gold)  take  the  sec- 
ond role  in  this  opera,  as  Pico  did  in  Lucrezia  Bor- 
gia ?  The  part  sustained  by  Miss  Moss  has  rather 
more  scope  in  it  than  that  of  Orsini,  and  how  vastly 
more  attractive  the  opera,  so  cast,  would  be  to  the 
public  !  Signor  Tomasi  showed  the  vertebras  in  his 
voice,  to-night,  more  than  he  did  in  Belisario — prob- 
ably from  stooping  with  difficulty  to  the  comic  ;  but 
Sanquirico — what  shall  we  say  of  his  admirable  per- 
sonable of  Don  Magnifico  ?  We'll  drink  his  health 
by  way  of  answer.  (A  lei,  Sanquirico !)  And  so 
ends  our  fault-finding. 

SECOND  GLASS. 

This  glass  of  purple  Tinta,  steeped  in  the  latitude 
of  Italy,  tastes,  of  course,  of  the  climate  of  Pico's 
voice  ;  and  we  are  glad  to  vary,  with  this  redolent 
bumper,  the  avenue  to  our  heart — so  breaking  up  the 
ear's  monopoly  of  toll.  Health  to  Cinderella  tri- 
umphant !  Her  voice  has  a  flavor — (if  this  wine  be 
like  it — and  it  is  the  sun  s  fault  if  it  is  not  like  it — for 
the  same  cupful  of  his  mellow  light  fed  the  grape 
from  which  gushed  the  wine  and  the  lip  from  which 
poured  the  melody) — worthy  of  the  immortality  of 
Falernian.  (For  this  discovery  of  homogeneousness 
of  pulp  we  beg  a  medal  from  the  Institute.) 

We  were  afraid,  as  we  said  before,  that  Pico,  "  like 
a  careless  farrier,  would  lame  her  well-shod  glory 
with  the  last  nail,"  but  she  sang  throughout  with  un- 
blemished deliciousness,  and  the  "  piu  ?ncstar,"  at  the 
close,  fairly  took  the  town  !  Nothing  has  been  heard 
like  it,  in  this  city,  since  Malibran,  either  in  voice  or 
execution.  We  have  made  up  our  mind  about  Pico. 
Her  abandon  is  like  the  apparent  carelessness  of  all 
kinds  of  genius— -fearless  trust  after  finished  study. 
Of  that  desperate  and  intoxicating  let-go,  Borghese 
has  none.  She  is  artistic  and  careful  in  the  most  pas- 
sionate extremity,  dying,  even,  "with  her  wits  all 
about  her."  Pico  fastens  each  link  of  the  composer's 
melody  in  her  brain,  with  workmanlike  fidelity  ;  but 
when  she  comes  out  from  her  music-smithy,  she 
brings  with  her  no  memory  of  the  clink  of  hammer 
and  rivet.  In  that  relying  forgetfulness  lies  the  mys- 
tery of  her  charm.  It  is  recognised,  by  the  instinct 
men  have  that  this  is  the  quality  of  those  who  do 
best — statesmen  or  soldiers,  poets  or  lovers — the  most 
successful,  in  all  enterprises,  throwing  themselves  on 
what  they  have  once  made  up  their  minds  to,  as  a 
bird  launches  from  the  cliff.  Nature  prodigally  sec- 
onds the  unhesitating  trust  of  Pico's  execution.  Her 
voice  follows  her  concerted  thought  with  the  certainty 
of  a  shadow  and  the  fulness  of  a  floodtide.  The 
plentitude  of  every  shade  and  semi-tone,  insures, 
in  the  first  five  minutes  of  hearing  her,  an  ab- 
sence of  all  dread  of  flaw  or  falling  ofT—  an  assurance, 


EPHEMERA. 


749 


that  whatever  height  or  depth  she  stoops  her  neck  to 
swoop  for,  it  will  bring,  for  the  listener, 

"  those  music-wings 
Lent  to  exalt  us  to  the  seventh  sphere." 

WE  DRINK  TO  THE  JACOB'S  LADDER  OF  MUSIC. 
A  new  light  breaks  upon  us  as  to  the  uses  of  the 
opera.  As  (to  the  wicked)  common  speech  is  a  con- 
venience and  swearing  a  luxury,  so  poetry  is  a  conve- 
nience to  passion,  and  music  its  luxury.  An  unhar- 
monized  shout — a  succession  of  cries — may  mean 
anything;  but  a  chorus,  or  a  concerted  transition  of 
cries,  has  a  meaning  to  convey  floodtides  out  of  the 
soul.  Poetry  may  fall  cold  upon  the  eye,  but  music 
must  melt  in  the  ear.  These  premises  allowed,  the 
opera  becomes  (does  it  not?)  a  healthful  vent  to  the 
passions  of  a  metropolis — a  chance  (for  those  who 
long  to  swear  and  do  violence),  by  a  more  innocent 
•'  giving  way," 

'•'  to  wreak 
Their  thoughts  upon  expression  !" 

How  common  the  feeling  "  to  want  a  spree  !"  and 
who  that  for  three  hours  has  choked  back  tears  in  his 
throat,  and  been  enraptured  with  a  contralto  across 
the  footlights,  is  not  ready  to  go  to  bed  like  a  gentle-  , 
man  ?  An  opera  is  a  blessed  succedaneum  to  the 
many.  To  the  few  it  is  the  loan  of  a  dictionary  from 
Heaven  !  Thoughts  otherwise  mute — feelings  whose 
dumbness  is  the  inner  man  buried  alive,  leap  to  free- 
breathing  utterance  with  music.  It  is  for  this  reason 
that  an  unknown  language  is  the  best  vehicle  for  an 
opera.  We  wish  to  hear  the  harmony,  and  let  our 
souls  furnish  the  articulation.  Don't  you  see,  now, 
my  dear  "Bohemian  Girl  .'"  the  plain  reason  of  the 
platitude  of  English  opera!  Italian  music  has  words 
to  it,  and  so  has  a  dancing-girl  a  carotid  artery — but 
you  wish  to  feel  your  orvn  heart  beat  delightfully,  and 
not  to  count  the  quickening  pulses  of  Taglioni's — 
you  wish  to  embark  your  own  thoughts  in  music's  en- 
chanted boat,  and  not  see  how  it  was  first  laden  with 
other  people's.  A  man's  soul  can  nave  nothing  in  it 
unsaid,  when  he  wants  a  libretto  to  help  him  listen 
understanding^  to  Pico  ! 

And  now,  having  translated  into  grammatical  Eng- 
lish, the  inarticulate  contents  of  a  chicken's  breast, 
and  a  pint-bottle  of  Tinta  (for  the  benefit  of  a  public 
to  whom  these  eloquent  midnight  companions  would 
otherwise  have  spoken  in  vain),  let  us  to  bed — apro- 
pos-imously  remarking,  that,  in  the  paragraph  prece- 
dent to  this,  there  is  a  hint  as  to  the  uses  of  an  opera, 
worthy  the  attention  of  the  society  of  moral  reform. 
As  the  clergy  are,  probably,  asleep  at  this  hour  (3 
o'clock),  we  say  no  more. 

( Exit  "  184,"  with  a  candle.) 


The  Mirror  held  up  to  the  Times. — It  is  a 
trick  of  ours  to  begin  at  the  other  end,  when  the  sub- 
ject would  otherwise  open  dry — bespeaking  attention, 
as  it  were,  by  first  naming  the  inducement.  As  we 
have  lately  been  pulled  up  for  not  giving  credit,  we 
may  as  well  mention,  that  we  took  this  peculiarity  of 
style  from  Mother  Goose's  politic  inducement  to  the 
five  reluctant  patrons  of  the  milkpail : — 

"  Cushy  cow  bonny,  give  clown  your  milk, 
And  I  will  give  you  a  gown  of  silk." 

Silk  gown : — we  are  about  to  show  how  we  have 
arrived  at  the  conclusion,  that,  in  the  state  of  the 
country  now  "opening  up,"  it  will  be  necessary  for 
every  gentleman  to  be  a  pugilist. 

We  beg  to  premise,  that  the  state  of  things  we  are 
about  to  show  forth  is  by  no  means  a  sign  of  repub- 
lican retrogression.     We  are  about  to  record  no  dis- 


paragement to  the  outline  of  the  republic.  It  is  a 
pyramid,  in  fair  progression,  but  refinement  sits  with- 
in it  like  an  hourglass.  Half-way  up  the  ascent  of 
political  perfection,  the  social  diagram  within  is  at  its 
inevitable  "tight  place  ;"  and  while  we  remember  on 
what  a  breadth  of  polite  foundation  public  opinion 
built  up  society  at  the  Revolution,  and  while  we  be- 
lieve that,  half  a  century  hence,  we  shall  have  as  re- 
fined standards  as  any  country  on  earth,  we  believe 
that,  now,  there  is  a  squeeze  upon  good-breeding  in 
this  country  (less  protection  for  private  rights  and 
feelings  than  there  was  once,  and  will  be  again),  and  it 
is  as  well  that  those  who  are  to  suffer  by  the  tight 
place  should  be  prepared  to  stand  it. 

To  protect  that  upon  which  the  proprietor  has  a  right 
to  put  a  value,  is  the  object  of  law  and  civilization. 
Five  dollars,  paid  back,  will  satisfy  a  man  who  has 
been  robbed  of  five  dollars;  but  the  thief  goes  to 
prison  besides.  A  wound  given  to  a  man  is  soon 
healed  and  forgotten,  but  the  .assailant  is  condemned 
for  a  felon.  A  newspaper-attack  upon  a  man,  for  pe- 
culiarities with  which  the  public  have  no  business, 
may  be  a  deeper  offence  to  him  than  the  loss  of  half 
his  fortune,  yet  the  attempt  at  remedy  by  law  is  worse 
than  bearing  it  in  silence.  The  damages  given  are 
trifling  and  nominal,  and  the  prosecution  propagates 
the  evil. 

The  above  is  a  skeleton  statement,  to  which  the 
memory  of  every  newspaper-reader  will  supply  the 
flesh-and-blood  illustrations.  A  late  decision  in  Mas- 
sachusetts, justifying  an  unnecessary  libel  on  the 
ground  of  its  truth,  threw  off,  to  our  thinking,  the  last 
skin  of  the  metamorphosis.  There  is  left,  now,  no 
protection,  by  law  or  public  opinion,  to  anything  but 
the  pocket  and  the  person  of  the  citizen.  His  private 
feelings,  his  domestic  peace,  his  hard-won  respect 
from  other  men,  his  consciousness  of  respectability 
abroad — commodities  of  more  value  to  him  than 
money — are  outlawed,  and,  if  wronged,  left  to  his  in- 
dividual avenging. 

Few  republicans  need  to  be  told  that  the  law  casts 
no  formidable  shadow  unless  shone  upon  by  public 
opinion.  The  law  of  libel  is  powerless,  because  the 
license  of  the  press  is  agreeable  to  the  public.  If  it 
were  not  so,  the  libeller  would  not  find  himself,  after 
conviction,  still  on  the  sunny  side  of  public  favor — 
nor  would  judges  charge  juries  with  the  little  emphasis 
they  do — nor  would  juries  give,  as  they  do,  damages 
that  turn  the  plaintiff  into  ridicule! 

There  is  another  thing  that  republicans  need  not  be 
told  :  that  where  a  just  remedy  is  denied  by  the  law, 
the  individual  takes  the  penalty  into  his  own  hands — 
the  same  public  that  left  him  to  adminisler  it,  kindly 
warding  off  the  law  when  he  is  tried  for  the  retribu- 
tive assault  and  battery.  A  case  of  this  sort  lately 
occurred  in  the  tabernacle  city.  A  family  of  the 
most  liberal  habits  and  highest  private  worth — just 
risen  to  wealth  by  two  generations  of  honest  industry 
— chose  to  marry  a  daughter  with  entertainments  pro- 
portionate to  their  fortune.  A  malicious  editor,  avow- 
edly "  to  make  his  paper  sell,"  and  for  no  other  rea- 
son, came  out  with  a  foul-mouthed  ridicule  of  the 
festivities,  that  completely  destroyed  the  happiness  of 
the  brightest  domestic  event  of  their  lives.  One  hun- 
dred thousand  dollars  would  have  been  no  inducement 
to  the  family  to  suffer  the  pain  and  mortification  that 
were,  and  will  be  for  years,  the  consequences  of  that 
unprovoked  outrage.  But  where  lay  the  remedy  ? 
The  law  would  perpetuate  the  ridicule,  without  giv- 
ing damages  that  would  outweigh  the  additional  sale 
of^the  paper.  It  chanced,  in  this  case,  that  the  in- 
jured man  was  of  athletic  habits  and  proportions,  and 
the  editor  was  small  and  puny.  The  plaintiff  (that 
would  have  been,  had  there  been  public  opinion  to 
give  power  to  the  law)  called  on  the  defendant  (that 
I  would  have  been)   and  whipped   him  severely;    and 


750 


EPHEMERA. 


when  tried  for  the  assault  and  battery,  was  punished 
with  a  fine  next  to  nothing.  The  public  opinion  of 
the  city  of  "  broad  philacteries"  virtually  justified 
both  outrages.  But  where  would  have  been  the  rem- 
edy, if  the  physical  superiority  had  been  on  the  oth- 
er side,  or  if  the  popular  blight-monger  had  been  an 
unassailable  cripple  ? 

Another  case  of  legal  justification  of  club-law  lately 
occurred  in  this  city.  It  is  so  marked  an  instance, 
also,  of  the  social  impunity  of  printed  injuries  (the  in- 
flictor,  Mr.  Gliddon,  being  still  a  popular  lecturer, 
and  glorified  daily  by  the  model  family-newspaper  of 
Boston),  that  we  venture  to  quote  three  or  four  pas- 
sages from  the  libel.  Mr.  Cooley,  the  fiogger,  had 
described,  with  humorous  ridicule,  some  people  he 
saw  in  Egypt,  and  Mr.  Gliddon  takes  it  for  granted 
(though  it  is  denied  by  Mr.  Cooley)  that  the  ridicule 
was  aimed  at  himself  and  his  father.  A  pamphlet  of 
thirty  or  forty  pages  of  abuse  of  Cooley  is  the  retort 
to  this  supposed  allusion,  and  from  a  notice  of  the 
pamphlet  in  a  daily  paper,  we  copy  three  or  four  of 
its  quoted  sentences: — 

"If,  since  the  publication  of  '  The  American  in 
Egypt,'  it  be  a  work  of  supererogation  on  his  part 
(Gliddon's)  to  place  upon  public  record  the  petulant 
vagaries  of  an  upstart,  to  recall  the  petty  shifts  of  an 
itinerant  miser,  to  unmask  the  insidious  insipidities  of 
a  would-be  author,  or  to  refute  the  falsehoods  of  a 
literary  abortion,  it  will  be  allowed  that  the  deed  is 
none  of  his  seeking,  but  has  been  fastened  on  him,  as 
the  only  course  within  the  letter  of  American  laws 
whereby  a  poltroon  can  receive  chastisement  from 
those  who  would  have  gladly  vindicated  their  honor 
by  means  to  them  far  more  satisfactory." 

"Again  Mr.  Gliddon  says:  'I  grieved  that,  not  hav- 
ing been  gifted  with  prophetic  vision.  I  neglected  to 
apply  it  [the  corbash]  in  the  Thebaid  to  Mr.  Cooley 
himself,  for  I  may  never  have  such  an  eligible  chance 
again.'  " 

"  Had  he  been  in  Cairo  at  the  time  [of  my  depar- 
ture from  that  city],  he  should  have  laid  aside  all  of- 
ficial character,  even  at  the  risk  of  eventual  censure, 
and  Mr.  Cooley  should  not  have  perpetrated  his  pas- 
quinade in  'Arabia  Petrea  and  Palestine,'  before  he 
[Gliddon]  had  hung  a  'cowskin  on  those  recreant 
limbs!' " 

"  If  he  [Gliddon]  do  not  now  apply  a  horsewhip  to 
Mr.  Cooley's  shoulders,  it  is  solely  because,  in  a  com- 
munity among  which  both  are  residing,  the  satisfac- 
tion he  should  derive  from  a  physical  expression  of 
his  obligations  to  Mr.  Cooley,  might  prove  more  ex- 
pensive than  the  pleasure  is  worth." 

"  Our  relative  positions  have  been,  and,  so  far  as 
may  depend  on  him,  will  remain  perfectly  distinct; 
for  possible  affluence  will  never  raise  Mr.  Cooley  to 
the  social  standing  of  a  gentleman.'" 

"  Mr.  Cooley's  fractiousness  is  confined  to  paper 
pellets.  Innate  cowardice  is  a  guaranty  for  his  never 
resorting  to  a  different  manifestation  of  his  vicious, 
though  innocuous  waspishness." 

The  first  time  Mr.  Cooley  saw  Mr.  Gliddon  after 
these  expressions  of  restrained  warlike  impatience,  he 
gave  him  a  beating.  Mr.  Gliddon  prosecuted  him  for 
assault  and  battery,  recovered  "five  dollars  damages," 
and  went  on  lecturing  with  high  popular  favor.  What 
was  Mr.  Cooley's  remedy  for  being  published  as  "  no 
gentlemen,"  a  "miser,"  and  a  "coward,"  who  had 
three  times  escaped  personal  chastisement?  Mr. 
Cooley  is  not  the  "loafer"  these  epithets  would  seem 
to  make  him.  He  is  a  man  of  fortune,  and  a  most 
excellent  citizen,  with  highly-respectable  connexions, 
and  a  hearth  blessed  with  the  presence  of  beauty  and 
refinement.  A  duel  would  have  brought  upon  him 
a  ridicule  more  formidable  than  personal  danger — the 
law  on  the  subject  is  a  cipher — and,  to  remove  the 
pointed  finger  from  waiting  on  him  at  his  very  table, 


he  was  obliged  to  chastise  the  man  who  stigmatized 
him. 

One  more  proof  of  the  same  new  state  of  things, 
though  in  a  different  line.  A  highly-educated  young 
lawyer  in  this  city,  in  canvassing  for  the  whigs,  during 
the  late  political  contest,  was  severely  whipped  by 
three  members  of  the  leading  democratic  club.  He 
lay  a-bed  a  week,  recovering  from  his  bruises,  and,  at 
the  end  of  that  time,  walked  into  a  meeting  of  the 
club  referred  to  and  demanded  a  hearing.  Order  was 
called,  and  he  stated  his  case,  and  demanded  of  the 
president  of  the  club  that  a  ring  should  be  formed, 
and  his  antagonists  turned  in  to  him — one  after  the 
other.  It  was  enthusiastically  agreed  to,  and  the 
three  bullies  being  present,  were  handed  over  to  him 
and  handsomely  flogged,  one  after  the  other.  Of 
course  this  is  not  all  we  are  to  hear  of  such  a  man; 
but  who  will  deny,  that  when  he  comes  to  stand  for 
congress,  he  will  not  have  counterbalanced,  by  this 
act,  the  disadvantage  of  belonging  to  one  of  the  most 
aristocratic  families  of  the  city  ? 

We  are  expressing  no  discontent  with  our  country. 
We  are  playing  the  Mirror  only — showing  the  public 
its  face,  that  it  may  not  forget  "  what  manner  of  man" 
it  is.  We  have  shown  by  facts,  that  there  is  no  more 
remedy  among  us,  for  the  deepest  injuries  that  can 
be  inflicted,  than  there  is  among  wild  beasts  in  the 
forest.  Duelling  is  as  good  as  abolished,  we  rejoice 
with  all  our  hearts — but  it  owes  its  abolition  to  the 
country's  having  sunk  below  the  chivalric  level  at 
which  that  weed  could  alone  find  nourishment.  We 
leave  to  others  to  draw  conclusions  and  suggest  rem- 
edies. We  are  not  reformers.  We  submit.  But  we 
should  think  a  man  as  improvident,  not  forthwith  to  be 
rubbing  up  his  sparring,  as  a  gentleman  would  have 
been  in  Charles  the  Second's  time,  to  have  walked 
abroad  without  his  sword.  They  have  a  saying  in 
the  Mediterranean  (from  the  custom  of  yoking  a  hog 
with  a  donkey  together  for  draught),  "You  must 
plough  with  a  hog  if  you  stay  in  Minorca!" 


Rev.  Sidney  Smith's  description  of  Imnself  from  a 
letter  to  a  correspondent  of  the  Neiv  York  American. — 
"I  am  seventy-four  years  old;  and  being  a  canon  of 
St.  Paul's,  in  London,  and  rector  of  a  parish  in  the 
country,  my  time  is  equally  divided  between  town  and 
country.  I  am  living  amidst  the  best  society  in  the 
metropolis,  am  at  ease  in  my  circumstances,  in  tolera- 
ble health,  a  mild  whig,  a  tolerating  churchman,  and 
much  given  to  talking,  laughing,  and  noise.  I  dine 
with  the  rich  in  London,  and  physic  the  poor  in  the 
country — passing  from  the  sauces  of  Dives  to  the  sores 
of  Lazarus.  I  am,  upon  the  whole,  a  happy  man, 
have  found  the  world  an  entertaining  world,  and  am 
heartily  thankful  to  Providence  for  the  part  allotted  to 
me  in  it." 

We  can  add  a  touch  or  two  to  the  auto-sketch  of 
the  witty  prebend,  who,  we  think,  is  one  of  the  men 
most  thought  about  just  now.  He  is  a  fat  man, 
weighing  probably  between  two  and  three  hundred 
pounds,  with  a  head  and  stomach  very  church-man -hke 
— (that  is  to  say  in  the  proportion  of  a  large  church 
with  a  small  belfry) — a  most  benevolent  yet  humorous 
face,  and  manners  of  most  un-English  boisterousness 
and  cordiality.  At  a  party  he  is  followed  about,  like 
a  shepherd  by  his  sheep,  and  we  remember,  once,  at 
his  own  house,  seeing  Lord  Byron's  sister,  the  Hon. 
Mrs.  Leigh,  one  of  the  laughing  flock  browsing  upon 
the  wit  that  sprung  up  around  him.  One  would 
think,  to  see  him  and  know  his  circumstances,  that 
the  gods  had  done  their  best  to  make  one  of  the  Mr. 
Smiths  perfectly  happy. 


EPHEiMERA. 


751 


JOHN    QU1NCY    ADAMS. 

(In  reply  to  our  respected  private  correspondent,  and  the 
editor  with  his  puddle  against  every  man,  and  every  man's 
inkstand  against  him.) 

When  is  a  statesman  beyond  accusation  ?  Not  while 
he  is  still  armed  in  the  arena! — .not  while  he  has 
neither  dismounted  from  the  car  of  ambition,  nor, 
even  once,  made  sign  to  the  world,  that  he  would  fain 
stop  and  turn  his  face  to  his  Maker  ! 

We  are  understood  as  referring  to  Mr.  Adams. 
We  consider  this  present  active  member  of  congress 
as,  beyond  competition,  the  most  potent  spirit  in 
America.  "  Venerable"  he  is — and  "  his  hand  trem- 
hles" — but  his  venerableness  is  a  cavern  of  power,  and 
his  uplifted  forefinger 

"  trembles  as  the  granite  trembles 
Lashed  by  the  waves." 

We  know  there  is  a  level  on  the  mountain  of  life, 
where  the  air  is  pure  and  cold — a  height  at  which  im- 
purity can  scarce  come,  more,  between  the  climber 
and  his  God — but,  it  is  above  tvhere  the  lightning  comes 

from it  is  above  the  dark   cloud   where  sleeps  the 

thunder,  collected  from  below,  and  charged  with  in- 
separable  good  and  harm.  This  incorrupt  level  is,  at 
least,  one  step  above  the  cloud  in  which  Mr.  Adams 
has  pertinaciously  lingered;  and  if  his  friends  insist 
that  he  has  been  long  enough  lost  to  common  scrutiny 
to  have  reached  the  upper  side  of  the  cloud  of  danger- 
ous power,  we  must  be  excused  for  pointing  our  con- 
ductor till  he  is  done  stirring  in  the  thunder. 

Persuade  us  that  Mr.  Adams  is  so  "  venerable"  as 
to  have  outlived  all  liability  to  the  license  described 
by  the  poet : — 

"  For  now,  at  last,  alone,  he  sees  his  might  ! 
Out  of  the  compass  of  respective  awe 
He  now  begins  to  violate  all  right, 
While  no  restraining  fear  at  hand  he  saw." 

Persuade  us  that  a  vindictive  man  may  be  safely  bowed 
before,  for  an  angel,  with  his  hand,  for  the  first  time, 
fetterlessly  clutched  on  this  world's  thunderbolts ! 
Persuade  us  that  Mr.  Adams  could  not  stoop  his 
statesmanship  to  resent,  and  that  lie  is  not  one  of  those 
dreaders  of  political  extinction,  who  feel  that  "not  to 
be  at  all  is  worse  than  to  be  in  the  miserablest  condi- 
tion of  something.''''  Persuade  us,  in  short,  that  no 
provocation  in  argument,  no  lull  of  responsibility,  no 
oracular  unanswerableness,  no  appetite  for  the  exercise 
of  power,  no 

"  injury, 
The  jailer  to  his  pity," 

could  tempt  Mr.  Adams,  with  his  present  undiminish- 
ed mental  vigor,  to  swerve  a  hair  line  from  good — by 
weight  thrown  upon  public  measure,  or  by  influence 
wrongfully  exercised,  over  the  fair  fame  of  the  dead 
and  the  private  feelings  of  the  living — persuade  us 
of  all  this,  and  we  will  allow  that  he  is  beyond — 
"venerably"  beyond — the  remindings  of  human  cen- 
sure ! 

But  now — having  arms-lengthed  it,  in  reply  to  a 
very  formal  letter  we  received  last  evening  condemning 
the  admission  into  our  columns  of  a  communication 
accusatory  of  Mr.  Adams — let  us  come  closer  to  the 
reader  with  a  little  of  our  accustomed  familiarity. 

We  were  called  upon  a  day  or  two  since,  by  one 
of  the  first  scholars  and  most  intelligent  of  business- 
men among  us — this  communication  in  his  hand. 
He  left  us  to  read  it  at  our  leisure.  We,  at  first, 
were  unpleasantly  affected  by  it,  and  slipped  it  upon 
our  refusal  hook — sorry  that  so  great  a  man  as  Mr. 
Adams  should  have  an  unbeliever  (and  so  weighty  an 
unbeliever),  in  greatness  so  ready  for  its  closing  seal. 
We  should  have  stopped  at  this  regret,  probably,  and 
only  thought  of  the  subject  again  when  returning  the 


manuscript,  but  that  we  had  been  previously  impress- 
ed with  our  friend's  courage  in  historical  justice — on  a 
wholly  different  subject.  This  brought  about  the 
sober  second  thought,  and  we  turned  it  over  somewhat 
as  follows  : — 

Of  the  allowed  Upper  Triumvirate  of  this  country 
— Clay,  Jackson,  and  Adams — the  peaceful  good 
name  of  the  first  is,  just  now,  closed  for  history,  by 
his  willing  relinquishment  of  public  action.  The 
world  owes  him  the  glorified  repose  for  which  he  has 
signified  his  desire.  The  second  has  also  retired  ; 
and,  though  he  sometimes  has  sent  his  invincible 
banner  to  wave  again  in  the  political  field,  it  would 
be  a  harsh  pen  that  would  transmute,  and  make  read- 
able by  judicious  eyes,  the  silly  abuses  syringed  at 
the  venerable  old  chieftain  by  the  Bedouin  squirt  of 
the  "  Express." 

The  third— Mr.  Adams— we  could  not  but  feel,  at 
once,  was  off  the  pedestal  where  the  world  had  willing- 
ly placed  him,  and  had  come  down,  once  more 

"  to  dabble  in  the  pettiness  of  fame." 

(We  shall  be  pardoned,  by  the  way,  for  quoting  what 
is  recalled  by  this  chance-sprung  quotation— a  com- 
parison which  seems  to  us  singularly  to  picture  Mr. 
Clay  and  Mr.  Adams  as  to  loftiness  of  public  life  and 
motive.)     Dante  says  : — 

«'  The  world  hath  left  me,  what  it  found  me,  pure, 
And,  if  I  have  not  gathered  yet  its  praise, 
I  sought  it  not  by  any  baser  lure. 

Man  wrongs  and  time  avenges  ;  and  my  name 
May  form  a  monument  not  all  obscure. 

Though  such  was  not  my  ambition's  end  and  aim — 
To  add  to  the  vain-glorious  list  of  those 

Who  dabble  in  the  pettiness  of  fame, 

And  make  men's  fickle  breath  the  uind  that  blows 

Their  sail." 

We  felt,  at  once,  that  this   latter  character— this 

aliquis  in  omnibus,  nihil  in  singulis— was,  as  displayed 

in  Mr.  Adams's  career,  rather  the  mettle  of  invincible 

obstinacy  and  unrest  acting  upon  strong  talent,  than 

the  ring  of  the  clear  metal  of  human  greatness.     There 

was  nothing  in  Mr.  Adams's  life  of  toil  that  had  not 

fed  his  innate  passion  for  antagonism.     He  was  a  born 

ascetic,  in  whose  nostrils  the  fiery  perils  of  other  men 

were  but  offensive  smoke— who  had  no  temptation  to 

softer  pleasure  than  a  pasquinade   against  a   political 

!  rival— who  had  made  the  most  of  the  morality  which 

I  came  natural  to  him,  and  which,  in  this  land,  covers 

I  more  sins  than  charity.     He  was  not,  like  Clay  and 

!  Jackson,  great  in  spite  of  the  impassioned  nature  for 

I  which  we  (so  inconsistently),  love  the  man  and  dis- 

'  claim  his   greatness.     He  has  been  the  terror  of  his 

time  for  wounds  worse   than  murder— yet   gave   no 

stab    that   could   be    "stopped   with   parsley."      He 

needed  no  shirt  of  penance  to  make  him  remember 

that 

"  The  virtues  of  great  men,  will  only  show 
Like  coy  auriculas,  in  Alpine  snow." 

He  has  profited  by  men's  not  remembering  that  (in 
the  zoology  of  the  pleasures),  the  sin  of  the  sloth 
were  a  merit  in  the  armadillo-one  hating  to  move, 
and  the  other  hating  to  be  still,  and  both  tested  by 
their  activity  of  motion.  In  short  Mr.  Adams— 
ou-h  he  has  unquestionably  walked  to  the  topmost 
tone  of  the  temple  of  statesmanship,  and  is  now  the 
hird  greatest  man  in  the  country  that  shakes  under 
him-has  exclusively  pampered  his  own  desires,  op- 
most  and  undermost,  by  the  practice  of  the  virtues 


that  have  shielded  him. 


The  toils  that  have  advanced 


bra  were  begun  in  the  past.me  of  an  aristocratic 
youth  and  position,  up  to  quite  the  end  of  that 
Second  heat"  of  his  ambition-race,  was  an  inheritance 
nerseveringly  thrust  on  him.  Can  such  a  man,  while 
destiny  is  still  hourly  hanging  on  his  lips,  be 
erable"  beyond  the  possibility  of  censure  7 


our 
"ven 


752 


EPHEMERA. 


With  this  unwilling  mental  review  of  the  "  boiled 
peas"  of  Mr.  Adams's  pilgrimage  to  greatness — un- 
willingly, as  it  was  irresistibly  and  truthfully  dispara- 
ging— we  reverted  to  our  first  picture  of  his  present 
position.  We  had  been  truly,  and  even  tearfully,  af- 
fected, on  seeing  the  old  man,  at  the  late  festival  of 
the  Historical  Society — doubtless  very  near  his  grave, 
but  fighting  his  way  determinately  backward  through 
the  gate  of  death — and  we  expressed  ourself  in  terms 
of  high  respect  and  honor,  when  we  wrote  of  it  the 
morning  after.  It  is  a  recompensing  ordinance  of 
Nature,  that  the  glory  and  virtues  of  a  great  man  ac- 
company his  ]7erson  and  his  sins  lie  where  they  first 
fall — in  the  furrow  of  history.  It  is  hard  to  look  upon 
any  man's  face,  and  remember  ill  of  him  ;  and  there 
is  many  a  great  man,  who  has  a  halo  where  he  comes, 
and  none  where  he  is  heard  of. 

We  remembered  nothing  disparaging  to  Mr.  Adams 
that  evening.  But  in  our  office,  wiih  a  shade  drawn 
over  our  eyes,  to  compel  a  disagreeable  decision  of 
duty,  we  saw  that  the  age  and  decrepitude,  which 
apparently  exacted  submission  to  his  will,  had  left  no 
joint  open  in  his  harness,  loosened  no  finger  upon  his 
weapons  of  attack.  He  can  defend  himself— he  has 
hundreds  to  defend  him,  should  he  be  silent.  His 
much  talked-of  "diary"  lacks  no  evidence  that  truth 
can  furnish ;  and  if  the  charges  against  him  are  "  mere 
cobwebs  in  a  church  bell,"  the  best  of  prayers  is,  that 
he  may  burst  them  with  one  stroke  of  living  triumph, 
and  not  leave  even  that  slight  violence  to  be  done  by 
the  knell  of  his  departure. 

The  last  thought  that  came  to  us,  and  the  only  one 
we  thought  necessary  for  a  preface  to  the  communica- 
tion, was,  that  noio  would  probably  be  the  time  chosen 
by  Mr.  Adams  himself  for  denying  (and  they  must 
be  denied  !)  these  indictments  against  his  greatness. 
The  five  years'  silence  that  will  follow  his  death,  had 
better  harden  over  no  ulcer — to  be  re-opened  and 
cleansed,  to  the  world's  offence,  hereafter.  We  took 
some  credit  to  ourself,  for  simply  saying  this,  without 
recording  what  we  have  been  compelled  to  record  now 
— the  reasons  of  our  thinking  gravely  of  the  com- 
munication.    We   would   have  taken  the  other  side 

and  entered  into  the  defence  quite  as  willingly but 

the  writer,  as  well  as  Mr.  Adams,  is  a  man  not  to  be 
denied  a  hearing.  We  may  perhaps  be  permitted  to 
close  this  article — written  in  a  most  unwonted  vein, 
for  us— with  a  little  editorial  comfort  from  Shak- 
spere : — 

"  What  we  oft  do  best, 
By  sick  interpreters,  or  weak  ones,  is 
Not  ours,  or  not  allowed  ;  what  worst,  as  oft, 
Hitting  a  grosser  quality,  is  cried  up 
For  our  best  act.    But  if  we  shall  stand  still— 
For  fear  our  motion  will  be  mocked  or  carped  at, 
We  should  take  root  here  where  we  sit.  or  sit 
For  statues  only." 


"  Monet  Article"  on  the  Opera.— We  were  de- 
lighted to  hear  it  whispered  about  at  the  opera,  last 
night,  that  there  is  a  movement  among  the  people  of 
taste  and  influence  to  "  set  up,"  by  a  liberal  subscrip- 
tion, the  present  excellent,  but  impoverished  and 
struggling  operatic  company.  The  first  thought  that 
occurs  to  any  one  hearing  of  this,  would,  probably,  be 
a  surprise  that,  with  such  full  houses  as  have  graced 
the  opera,  they  have  not  been  thriving  to  the  fullest 
extent  of  reasonable  expectation.  We  understand, 
however,  that  it  is  quite  the  contrary.  When  the 
present  company  commenced  their  engagement,  there 
was  an  arrearage  of  gas  expenses  to  be  paid  up,  the 
license  was  to  be  renewed,  at  $500;  and  the  house, 
even  when  full,  gives  but  a  slender  dividend  over  the 
expenses  of  the  orchestra,  scenery,  lights,  stage  prop- 
erties,  and   dresses.     At  the   only  "  division   of  the 


spoils"  that  has  yet  been  made,  Madame  Pico  re- 
ceived but  sixty  dollars — so  insufficient  a  sum  being 
all  that  this  admirable  singer  has  received  for  several 
months'  waiting,  and  one  month's  playing  and  singing! 
Her  dresses  alone  cost  her  twice  the  sum !  Borghese 
received  twice  this  amount,  but  the  other  performers, 
of  course,  much  less  even  than  Pico. 

In  the  history  of  the  first  introduction  of  Italian 
music  into  England,  in  1692,  it  is  stated  that  the  sing- 
ers (an  "  Italian  lady,"  a  basso,  and  a  soprano)  were 
taken  up  by  two  spirited  women  of  fashion,  wives  of 
noblemen,  who  arranged  benefit  concerts  at  their  own 
houses,  for  the  "  charming  foreigners,"  and  inviting 
their  friends  as  if  to  a  ball — demanding  five  guineas 
for  each  invitation!  The  rage  for  these  expensive 
concerts  is  recorded  as  a  curious  event  of  the  time, 
and  it  was  a  grievous  mark  of  unfashionableness  not 
to  be  honored  with  a  ticket. 

The  American  public  is  a  hard  master  to  these 
children  of  the  sun.  They  take  no  comfort  among 
us,  if  they  lay  up  no  money.  Our  climate  is  both 
dangerous  and  disagreeable  !  Our  usages,  and  preju- 
dices, and  manner  of  life,  all  at  variance  with  theirs! 
Their  hearts  are  bleak  here,  and  their  pockets  at 
least  should  have  a  warm  lining  !  And  (by  the  way) 
see  what  a  difference  there  is,  even  between  our  coun- 
try and  chilly  England,  in  the  way  society  treats 
them !  We  chance  to  possess  an  autograph  letter  of 
Julia  Grisi's,  given  us  by  the  lady  to  whom  it  was 
addressed — a  daughter  of  Lucien  Bonaparte  married 
to  an  English  nobleman.  Look  at  the  position  this 
little  chance  record  reveals  of  a  prima  donna  in  Eng- 
land : — 

U  AlMABLE  ET  TRES  CHERE  PRINCESSE  ! — 

"  Je  suis  vraiment  desolee  de  ne  pouvoir  aller  ce  soir  chez 
Lady  Morgan.  Je  dine  chez  le  Prince  Esterhazy  ou  je  dois 
passer  la  soiree.  Demain  au  soir,  j'ai  un  concert  pour  M.  La- 
porte,  le  reste  de  la  semaine  je  suis  libre  et  tout  <).  vos  ordres. 
Si  vous  croyez  de  combiner  quelque-choze  avec  Lady  Morgan, 
comptez  sur  moi  !  Demain  je  passerai  chez  Lady  Morgan 
pour  faire  mes  excuses  en  personne. 

"  Que  dirai-je  de  ce  magnifique  voile  !  Que  la  generosite  e 
l'amabilite  sont  innees  dans  la  grande  famille. 

u  Croyez  toujours,  madame  la  princesse,  a  tout  le  devoue- 
ment  de  votre  servante,  Julia  Grisi. 

"  Milady  D S " 

We  chance  to  have  another  dramatic  autograph,  a 
note  of  Leontine  Fay's,  given  us  by  the  same  noble 
lady  (and  we  may  say  here,  apropos,  that  we  should 
be  very  happy  to  show  these,  and  others,  to  persons 
curious  in  autographs) — showing  the  same  necessary 
reliance  on  special  patronage : — 

"  Theatre  Francais. 
"  M'lle  Leontine  Fay  a  l'honneur  de  presenter  ses  humble 

respects  a  Lady  D ,  et  de  solliciter  sa  puissante  protection 

pour  la  soiree  qui  aura  lieu  a  son  benefice  Vendredi,  10  Juliet. 
Le  choix  des  pieces  et  les  noras  des  artistes  qui  veulent  bien 
contribuer  a  son  succes  liu  font  esperer  que  miladi,  qui  aime 
a  encourager  les  arts,  daignera  l'honprer  de  sa  presence." 

This  is  dated  from  the  French  theatre  in  London, 
but  we  treasured  up  the  autograph  with  no  little  ava- 
rice, for  Leontine  Fay  was  in  the  height  of  her  glory, 
in  Paris,  when  we  first  went  abroad,  and,  to  us,  she 
seemed  a  new  revelation  of  things  adorable.  She 
was  made  for  the  stage  by  nature — as  scenery  is 
adapted  by  coarse  lines  for  distant  perspective.  Her 
eyes  were  dark,  luminous,  and  of  a  size  that  gave 
room  for  the  whole  audience  to  "repose  on  velvet"  in 

them. But  we  wander  !     We  resume  our  subject, 

after  saying  that  we  never  envied  prince  or  king,  till 
we  heard,  at  that  time,  that  Leontine  Fay  passion- 
ately loved  the  prince  royal — the  young  duke  of  Or- 
leans. He  is  dead,  she  is  grown  ugly,  and  we  are  left 
to  admire  Pico.    "  Much  after  this  fashion,"  etc.,  etc. 

Grave  people  (though  by  no  means  all  grave  peo- 
ple) are  inclined  to  bid  the  opera  "stand  aside"  as  a 
thing  unholy.     We  think  this  is  a  mistake.     We  be- 


EPHEMERA. 


753 


lieve  music  to  be  medicinal  to  body  and  soul.  With 
entire  reverence,  we  take  leave  to  remind  the  religious 
objector  of  the  cure  of  Saul,  and  to  quote  the  pas- 
sage : — 

"  But  the  spirit  of  the  Lord  departed  from  Saul,  and  an  evil 
spirit  from  the  Lord  troubled  him.  And  Saul's  servants  said 
unto  him,  Behold  now,  an  evil  spirit  troubleth  thee.  Let  our 
Lord  now  command  thy  servants  which  are  before  thee,  to 
seek  out  a  man  who  is  a  cunninsr  player  on  a  harp  ;  and  it 
shall  come  to  pass,  when  the  evil  spirit  from  God  is  upon 
thee,  that  he  shall  play  with  his  hand,  and  thou  shalt  be  well. 

"  And  it  came  to  pass  that  when  the  evil  spirit  from  God 
was  upon  Saul,  that  David  took  a  harp  and  played  with  his 
hand :  so  Saul  was  refreshed,  and  was  well,  and  the  evil 
spirit  departed  from  him.'- 

The  medicinal  value  attached  to  music  by  the  an- 
cients is  also  shown  in  the  education  of  Moses  at  the 
court  of  Pharaoh.  Clemens  Alexandrinus  has  re- 
corded that  "  Moses  was  instructed  by  the  Egyptians 
in  arithmetic,  geometry,  rhythm,  harmony,  but,  above 
all,  in  medicine  and  music."  Miriam  sang  and  danced 
in  costume,  and  David  "  in  his  linen  ephod,"  and  the 
only  reproach  made  by  Laban  to  Jacob,  for  carrying 
off  his  two  daughters,  was,  that  he  did  not  give  him 
the  opportunity  to  send  him  away  "with  mirth  and  with 
songs,  with  tabret  and  with  harp."  We  refer  to  these 
historic  proofs,  to  remind  the  objecting  portion  of  the 
community  that  scenic  musical  representation  was  a 
vent  for  domestic  and  religious  feeling  among  the  an- 
cients, and  that,  in  an  opera— particularly  one  unac- 
companied by  modern  ballet — there  is  no  offence  to 
moral  feeling,  but,  on  the  contrary,  authorized  good. 

To  revert  to  our  purpose,  in  this  article — (chrono- 
logically, somewhat  spready  !) — We  do  not  know 
what  shape  the  aroused  liberality  of  the  wealthy  clas- 
ses of  New  York  will  take,  but  we  should  think  that 
Madame  Pico — (as  she  has  given  us  the  most  pleas- 
ure, at  the  greatest  expense  to  herself,  and  is  an  un- 
protected and  exemplary  woman,  alone  among  us)  — 
should  have  a  special  benefit  by  subscription  concert, 
or  some  other  means  as  exclusive  to  herself.  We 
suggest  it — but  we  presume  we  are  not  the  first  it  has 
occurred  to.  Will  the  wealthy  gentlemen  who  are 
nightly  seen  in  the  dress-circles,  delighted  with  her 
exquisite  music,  turn  the  subject  over  at  their  luxuri- 
ous firesides? 


To  AND  ABOUT   OUR   CORRESPONDENTS. We   wish 

to  "define  our  position"  with  regard  to   our  corre- 
spondents and  their  opinions. 


Were  an  editor  to  profess  an  agreement  of  opinion 
with  every  writer  for  his  paper,  he  would  either  claim 
a  superhuman  power  of  decision  on  all  possible  sub- 
jects, at  first  sight,  or  he  would  exclude  communica- 
tions on  all  subjects,  except  his  own  mental  hobbies 
and  matters  of  personal  study  and  acquaintance.  To 
avoid  both  horns  of  this  fool's  dilemma,  he  opens  a 
correspondence  column,  in  which  anything  (short  of  an 
invasion  of  a  cardinal  virtue,  or  violation  of  a  palpable 
truth)  may  very  properly  and  irresponsibly  appear. 
The  only  questions  the  editor  asks  himself  are,  whether 
it  will  interest  his  readers,  and  whether  it  is  worOi  its 
space  in  the  paper. 

But  there  are  people  for  whom  it  is  necessary  that 
we  should  go  back  to  the  very  catechism  of  political 
economy,  and  show  upon  what  principle  is  founded 
the  expediency  of  a  free  press — a  press  untrammel- 
led by  a  king  in  a  kingdom,  and  by  the  sovereign  re- 
publicans in  a  republic. 

Opinions  have  been  well  likened  to  steam — power- 
less when  diffused  abroad,  resistless  when  shut  in  and 
denied  expansion.  The  unconscious  apostleship  of 
Mr.  Adams — procuring  an  explosion  in  favor  of  aboli- 
tion, by  his  obstinacy  in  provoking  an  undue  suppres-  I 
sion  of  the  subject — is  a  striking  illustration  of  this.  ' 
Nothing  makes  less  impression  on  the  mind  than  ab- 


[  stract  principles  to  which  there  is  no  opposition — 
!  nothing  is  dearer  to  the  heart  than  opinions  for  which 
we  have  been  called  on  to  contend  and  suffer.  A 
free  press,  therefore,  keeping  open  gate  for  all  sub- 
jects not  prohibited  by  law  and  morals,  is  far  safer 
than  a  press  over-guarded  in  its  admissions  to  the 
public  eye. 

Having  thus  repeated,  as  it  were,  a  page  of  the 

.  very  spelling-book  of  freedom,  let  us  bespeak,  of  our 

]  subscribers,  a  let-off,  as  far  as  we  personally  are  con- 

!  cerned,  for  any  decent  opinions  expressed  under  the 

head  of  "  correspondence."     We  throw  open  that  part 

of  our  paper.     It  is  interesting   to  know  what  people 

think  who  do  not  agree  with  us.     We  court  variety. 

,  We  would  not  (in  anything  but  love)  be  called  a  big- 

I  ot.     New  opinions,  even   the  truest,  are  reluctantly 

received,  and,  we  think,  very  often  culpably  distrusted. 

As  far,  therefore,  as  the  yea  or  nay  may  go,  on  any 

proper  subject,  we  care   not  a  fig  which  side  writes 

first  to  us,  and  we   hereby  disclaim  responsibility  for 

all  articles  under  "our  correspondence,"  except  on  the 

score  of  morals  and  readableness. 


The  Opera. — The  Puritani  is  one  of  those  ope- 
ras with  which  musical  criticism  has  little  or  nothing 
to  do.  If  only  tolerably  sung,  the  feeling  of  the  audi- 
ence goes  on  before — making  no  stay  with  fault-find- 
j  ing.  The  applause  last  night,  after  a  most  limping 
■  and  ill-paced  duett  between  Tomasi  and  Valtellina, 
j  was  tempestuous;  and  Antognini,  in  one  passage,  ran 
'  off  his  voice,  and  was  gone  for  several  notes  in  some 
i  unknown  region,  and  yet,  on  spreading  out  his  hands 
|  immediately  after,  there  was  great  approbation  by  the 
audience  !  Great  effort  was  made  by  the  audience  to 
I  encore  "  Suoni  la  tromba,"  but  the  two  bases  thought 
!  more  basely  of  their  bases  than  the  audience,  and  did 
not  repeat  it.  Is  there  no  way  to  implore  Valtellina 
to  abate  a  little  of  his  overreaching  of  voice,  in  that 
i  superb  invocation  ?     He  overdoes  it  terribly. 

We  are   not  writing  in  very  good  humor,  we  are 

I  afraid — but  the  enthusiasm  of  a  crammed  house  needs 

i  no  propping.     We  would  not  find  fault  if  they  needed 

{  our  praise.     Borghese  did  well— but  will  do  better  at 

!  the  next  representation.     She  would  sing  with  fuller 

tone  for  a  little  egg  beat  up  with  brandy.    We  longed 

to  unreef  her  voice — in  some  way  crowd  a  little  more 

abandon  into  it.     She  acted  as  she  always  does— to  a 

charm. 

Pico  was  in  one  of  the  proscenium  boxes,  looking 
very  charming,  and  evidently  enjoying  the  whole  op- 
era with  un-envious  enthusiasm.  She  went  with  a 
bouquet  for  Borghese— so  said  a  bird  in  our  ear. 


OLE  BULL'S  NIAGARA. 
(an  hour  before  the  performance.) 

Saddle,  as,  of  course,  we  are,  under  any  very  striking 
event,  we  find  ourselves  bestridden,  now  and  then, 
with  a  much  wider  occupancy  than  the  plumb-line 
of  a  newspaper  column.  Ole  Bull  possesses  us  over 
our  tea-table;  he  will  possess  us  over  our  supper- 
table— his  performance  of  Niagara  equidistant  between 
the  two.  We  must  think  of  him  and  his  violin  for 
this  coming  Hour.  Let  us  take  pen  and  ink  into  our 
confidence.  ..  ,        .  .  .    .     .. 

The  "origin  of  the  harp"  has  beeu  satisfactorily 
recorded.  We  shall  not  pretend  to  put  forward  a 
credible  story  of  the  origin  of  the  violin;  but  we  wish 
to  name  a  circumstance  in  natural  history.  1  he 
house-cricket  that  chirps  upon  our  hearth,  is  well 
known  as  belonging  to  the  genus  Pneumora.  Its  in- 
sect size  consists  almost  entirely  of  a  pellucid  abdomen, 


754 


EPHEMERA. 


crossed  with  a  number  of  transverse  ridges.  This, 
when  inflated,  resembles  a  bladder,  and  upon  its  tight- 
ened ridges  the  insect  plays  like  a  fiddler,  by  drawing 
its  thin  legs  over  them.  The  cricket  is,  in  fact,  a 
living  violin;  and  as  a  fiddler  is  "scarce  himself" 
without  his  violin,  we  may  call  the  cricket  a  stray 
portion  of  a  fiddler. 

Ole  Bull  "  is  himself"  with  his  violin  before  him — 
but  without  it,  the  commonest  eye  must  remark  that 
he  is  of  the  invariable  build  of  the  restless  searchers 
after  something  lost — the  build  of  enthusiasts — that  is 
to  say,  chest  enormous,  and  stomach,  if  anything, 
rather  wanting  !  The  great  musician  of  Scripture,  it 
will  be  remembered,  expressed  his  mere  mental  afflic- 
tion by  calling  out  "My  bowels!  my  bowels!"  and, 
after  various  experiments  on  twisted  silk,  smeared 
with  the  white  of  eggs,  and  on  single  threads  of  the 
silk-worm,  passed  through  heated  oil,  the  animal  fibre 
of  cat-gut  has  proved  to  be  the  only  string  that  answers 
to  the  want  of  the  musician.  Without  trying  to  re- 
duce these  natural  phenomena  to  a  theory  (except  by 
suggesting  that  Ole  Bull  may  very  properly  take  the 
cricket  as  an  emblem  of  his  instinctive  pursuit),  we 
must  yield  to  an  ominous  foreboding  for  this  evening. 
The  objection  to  cat-gut  as  a  musical  string  is  its 
sensibility  to  moisture  ;  and  in  a  damp  atmosphere  it 
is  next  to  impossible  to  keep  it  in  tune.  The  string 
comes  honestly  enough  by  its  sensitiveness  (as  any 
one  will  allow  who  has  seen  a  cat  cross  a  street  after 
a  shower) — but,  if  the  cat  of  Ole  Bull's  violin  had  the 
least  particle  of  imagination  in  her,  can  what  is  left  of 
her  be  expected  to  discourse  lovingly  of  her  natural 
antipathy — a  water-fall  ? 

But — before  we  draw  on  our  gloves  to  go  over  to 
Palmo's — a  serious  word  as  to  what  is  to  be  attempted 
to-night. 

Old  Bull  is  a  great  creature.  He  is  fitted,  if  ever 
mortal  man  was,  to  represent  the  attendant  spirit  in 
Milton,  who 

"  Well  knew  to  still  the  wild  woods  when  they  roared 
And  hush  the  moaning  winds  ;" 

but  it  seems  to  us  that,  without  a  printed  programme, 
showing  what  he  intends  to  express  besides  the  mere 
sound  of  waters,  he  is  trusting  far  too  rashly  to  the 
comprehension  of  his  audience  and  their  power  of 
musical  interpretation.  He  is  to  tell  a  story  by  music  ! 
Will  it  be  understood? 

We  remember  being  very  much  astonished,  a  year 
or  two  ago,  at  finding  ourself  able  to  read  the  thoughts 
of  a  lady  of  this  city,  as  she  expressed  them  in  an  ad- 
mirable improvisation  upon  the  piano.  The  delight 
we  experienced  in  this  surprise  induced  us  to  look 
into  the  extent  to  which  musical  meaning  had  been 
perfected  in  Europe.  We  found  it  recorded  that  a 
Mons.  Sudre,  a  violinist  of  Paris,  had  once  brought 
the  expression  of  his  instrument  to  so  nice  a  point 
that  he  "  could  convey  information  to  a  stranger  in 
another  room,"  and  it  is  added  that,  upon  the  evidence 
thus  given  of  the  capability  of  music,  it  was  proposed 
to  the  French  government  to  educate  military  bands 
in  the  expression  of  orders  and  heroic  encouragements 
in  battle!  Hayden  is  criticised  by  a  writer  on  music 
as  having  failed  in  attempting  (in  his  great  composi- 
tion "  The  Seasons")  to  express  "  the  dawn  of  day," 
"the  husbandman's  satisfaction,"  "the  rustling  of 
leaves,"  "  the  running  of  a  brook,"  "  the  coming  on 
of  winter,"  "thick  fogs,"  etc.,  etc.  The  same  writer 
laughs  at  a  commentator  on  Mozart,  who,  by  a  "  sec- 
ond violin  quartette  in  D  minor,"  imagines  himself 
informed  how  a  loving  female  felt  on  being  abandoned, 
and  thought  the  music  fully  expressed  that  it  was 
Dido  !  Beethoven  undertook  to  convey  distinct  pic- 
lures  in  his  famous  Pastoral  Symphony,  but  it  was 
thought  at  the  time  that  no  one  would  have  dis- 
tinguished between  his  musical  sensations  on  visiting 


the  country  and  his  musical  sensations  while  sitting 
beside  a  river — unless  previously  told  what  was  com- 
ing ! 

Still,  Ole  Bull  is  of  a  primary  order  of  genius,  and 
he  is  not  to  wait  upon  precedent.  He  has  come  to 
our  country,  an  inspired  wanderer  from  a  far  away 
shore,  and  our  greatest  scenic  feature  has  called  oli 
him  for  an  expression  of  its  wonders  in  music.  He 
may  be  inspired,  however,  and  we,  who  listen,  still 
be  disappointed.  He  may  not  have  felt  Niagara  as  we 
did.  He  may  have  been  subdued  where  a  meaner 
spirit  would  be  aroused — as 

"  Fools  rush  in  where  angels  fear  to  tread." 
(Seven  o'clock,  and  lime  to  go.) 

(after  tiik  performance.) 

We  believe  that  we  have  heard  a  transfusion  into 
music — not  of  "  Niagara,"  which  the  audience  seemed 
bona-fide  to  expect,  but — of  the  pulses  of  the  human 
heart  at  Niagara.  We  had  a  prophetic  boding  of  the 
result  of  calling  the  piece  vaguely  "Niagara" — the 
listener  furnished  with  no  "  argument,"  as  a  guide 
through  the  wilderness  of  "  treatment"  to  which  the 
subject  was  open.  This  mistake  allowed,  however, 
it  must  be  said  that  Ole  Bull  has,  genius-like,  refused 
to  mis- interpret  the  voice  within  him — refused  to  play 
the  charlatan,  and  "  bring  the  house  down" — as  he 
might  well  have  done  by  any  kind  of"  uttermost,'"  from 
the  drums  and  trumpets  of  the  orchestra. 

The  emotion  at  Niagara  is  all  but  mute.  It  is  a 
"  small,  still  voice"  that  replies  within  us  to  the  thun- 
der of  waters.  The  musical  mission  of  the  Norwegian 
was  to  represent  the  insensate  element  as  it  teas  to 
him — to  a  human  soul,  stirred  in  its  seldom-reached 
depths  by  the  call  of  power.  It  was  the  answer  to 
Niagara  that  he  endeavored  to  render  in  music — not 
the  call !  We  defer  attempting  to  read  further,  or 
rightly,  this  musical  composition  till  we  have  heard 
it  again.  It  was  received  by  a  crowded  audience,  in 
breathless  silence,  but  with  no  applause. 

Miss  Julia  Northall's  first  appearance  as  a  public 
singer  was  very  triumphant.  It  her  heart  had  not 
kept  beating  just  under  her  music-maker,  she  would 
have  made  much  better  music,  however.  When  we 
tell  the  lovely  debutante,  that  persons  in  besieged 
fortresses  can  detect  the  direction  of  the  enemy's  ap- 
proach under  ground,  by  placing  sanded  drums  on 
the  surface,  which  betray  the  strokes  of  the  mining 
pickaxes  by  the  vibrations  of  the  particles,  she  will 
understand  how  the  beating  of  her  heart  may  disturb 
the  timbre  of  her  voice — to  say  nothing  of  the  disturb- 
ance in  the  air  by  the  accelerated  beating  of  the 
anxious  hearts  of  her  admirers!  She  has  great  ad- 
vantages— a  rich  voice  deep  down  with  an  upper 
chamber  in  it  (what  the  musicians  call  a  contralto 
sfogato),  and  a  kind  of  personal  beauty  susceptible  of 
great  stage  embellishments.  "  Modest  assurance" 
(with  a  preponderance  of  assurance  if  anything),  is  her 
great  lack. 

Sanquirico  sang  admirably — but  his  black  coat 
spoiled  it  for  all  but  the  cognoscenti. 

We  came  out  of  the  opera-house  amid  a  shower  of 
expressions  of  disappointment,  and  we  beg  pardon  of 
"  the  town"  for  remembering  what  Antigenides  of 
Athens  said  to  a  musical  pupil  who  was  once  too  little 
applauded.  "  The  next  time  you  play,"  said  Anti- 
genides, "shall  be  to  me  and  the  Muses." 


The  two  new  Fashions,  White  Cravats  and 
Ladies'  Tarpaulins. — Here  and  there  a  country 
reader  will,  perhaps,  require  to  be  informed  that  no 
man  is  stylish,  now,  "  out"  in  the  evening,  without  a 


EPHEMERA. 


755 


white  cravat.  To  those  who  frequent  the  opera  this 
will  be  no  news,  of  course ;  as  no  eye  could  have 
failed  to  track  the  "  milky  way,"  around  the  semi- 
circle, from  stage-box  to  stage-box.  The  fact  thus 
recorded,  however,  we  proceed  to  the  diagnosis  of  the 
fashion  (and  of  another  fashion,  of  which  we  shall 
presently  speak) — premising  only  that  we  are  driven 
to  the  discussion  of  these  comparatively  serious 
themes,  by  the  frivolous  character  of  other  news,  and 
the  temporary  public  surfeit  of  politics,  scandal,  and 
murder. 

The  white  cravat  was  adopted  two  years  since,  in 
London,  as  the  mark  of  a  party — "  Young  England." 
Our  readers  know,  of  course,  that  for  ten  years,  they 
have  been  worn  only  by  servants  in  that  country,  and 
that  a  black  coat  and  white  cravat  were  the  unmis- 
takable uniform  of  a  family  butler.  The  Cravat  hav- 
ing been  first  worn  as  the  distinction  of  a  certain  re- 
forming club,  in  Cromwell's  parliament,  however,  the 
author  of  Vivian  Grey  adopted  it  as  the  insignium  of 
the  new  political  party,  of  which  he  is  the  acknowl- 
edged leader;  and,  as  the  king  of  the  white  cravats,  he 
has  set  a  fashion  for  America.  The  compliment  we 
pay  him  is  the  greater,  by  the  way,  that  we  do  not 
often  copy  the  tight-legged  nation  in  our  wearables. 

It  was  established  in  Brummell's  time  that  a  white 
cravat  could  not  be  successfully  tied,  except  upon  the 
critical  turn  preceding  the  reaction  of  a  glass  of  cham-  I 
pagne  and  a  cup  of  green  tea.     A  felicitous  dash  of  I 
inspired  dexterity  is  the  only  thing  to  be  trusted,  and  ! 
failure  is  melancholy!    As  to  dressiness,  a  white  cravat  ! 
is  an  intensifier— making  style  more  stylish,  and  the  ! 
lack  of  it  more  observable  ;  but  artistically  it  is  only 
becoming  to  light  complexions — by  its  superior  white- 
ness, producing  an   effect  of  warmth  on  a  fair  skin,  I 
but  impoverishing  the  brilliancy  of  a  dark  one.     As  a  ' 
sign  of  the  times,  the  reappearance  of  the  white  era-  ! 
vat   is    the   forerunner  of  a   return    to   old-fashioned 
showiness  in  evening  dress,  and,  as  the  wheel  comes 
round  again,  we  shall  revive  tights,  buckles,  and  shoes 
— expelling  the  levelling  costume  of  black  cravat  and 
boots,  and  making  it  both  expensive  and  troublesome 
to   look   like  a  gentleman  after  candlelight.     So  tilts 
the   plank   in  republics — aristocratic  luxury  going  up 
as  aristocratic  politics  are  going  down  ! 

But  what  shall  we  say  of  trains  and  tarpaulins  for 
ladies  wear!  Jack's  hat,  copied  exactly  in  white  satin, 
is  the   rage  for  a   head-dress,  now — (worn  upon  the! 
side  of  the  head  with  a  ruinous  feather) — and  a  velvet 
train  is  about  becoming  indispensable  to  a  chaperon  !  j 
It  will  be  a  bold  poor  man  that  will  dare  to  marry  a  \ 
lady   ere    long — what   with    feathers   and    trains   and 
pages'  wages  !     We  rejoice  that  we  had  our  fling  in  j 
the  era  of  indifferent  pocket.     Keep  the  aristocracy 
unemployed  on  politics  for  another  administration  or 
two,  and  we  shall  drive  matrimony  to  the  extremities 
of  society — none  but  the  very  rich,  or  very  poor,  able 
to  afford  the  luxury  ! 


Merry  Christmas. — Our  paper  of  this  evening — 
(Christmas  eve)— is  to  be  read  by  the  light  of  the  J 
"  yule  log," — or  whatever  else  represents  the  bright 
centre  around  which,  dear  reader!  your  family  does 
its  Christmas  assembling.  We  shall  perhaps  amuse 
you  by  suggesting  a  comparison  between  the  elegant 
lamp,  which  diffuses  its  light  over  your  apartment, 
and  the  expedient  resorted  to  by  your  English  ances- 
tors to  brighten  the  hall  for  their  Christmas  evening. 
"  I  myself,"  says  an  old  historian,  "have  seen  table- 
cloths, napkins,  and  towels,  which  being  taken  foul 
from  the  table,  have  been  cast  into  the  fire,  and  there 
they  burned  before  our  faces  upon  the  hearth."  This, 
of  course,  was  by  way  of  illustrating  the  greasy  habits 
of  our  ancestors  at  table,  and  gives  an  amusing  piquan- 


cy to  the  injunction  of  wisdom  that  we  should  cherish 
the  "  lights  of  the  past." 

There  are  two  points  of  freedom  in  which  we  envy 
the  condition  of  slaves  at  the  south— freedom  from 
responsibility  at  all  times,  and  freedom /ro/n  all  man- 
ner of  work  from  Christmas  to  New  Year.  "  The 
negroes"  (says  a  writer  on  the  festivals,  games,  and 
amusements,  in  the  southern  states),  "  enjoy  a  xoeek's 
recreation  every  winter,  including  Christmas  and  New 
Year's  ;  during  which  they  prosecute  their  plays  and 
sports  in  a  very  ludicrous  and  extravagant  manner, 
dressing  and  masking  in  the  most  grotesque  style,  and 
having,  in  fact,  a  complete  carnival."  We  confess 
this  let-up  from  the  pressure  of  toil  is  enviable.  The 
distinction  between  horse  and  man,  in  the  latter's  re- 
quiring mental  as  well  as  bodily  rest,  should  be  legis- 
lated upon — all  business  barred  with  penalties,  except 
for  the  necessaries  of  life,  during  the  Christmas  holy- 
days  and  during  another  week  somewhere  in  June. 
We  are  a  monotonous  people  in  this  country.  The 
festivals  of  the  Jews  occupied  a  quarter  of  the  year, 
and  eighty  days  were  given  to  festivals  among  the 
ancient  Greeks!  We  do  not  fairly  keep  more  than 
i  one  in  New  York — New  Year's  day — the  only  day, 
,  except  Sundays,  when  newspapers  are  not  issued  and 
1  shops  are  all  shut. 

We  are  sorry  we  can  not  paragraph  America  into 
I  more  feeling  for  holydays,  but  we  may  perhaps  prevent 
\  a  gradual  desuetude  of  even  keeping  Christmas,  by 
;  heaping  up  our  regrets  when  it  comes  round.  We 
shall  join  the  procession  of  visiters  to  the  toy-shops 
!  and  confectioners  to-night,  and  we  think,  by  the  way, 
!  that  these  rounds  to  the  gift-venders,  might  be  made 
!  exceedingly  agreeable.  "  G  uion,"  "  Sands,"  "  Thomp- 
|  son,"  "  Tiffany  &  Young,"  "  Stuart's  Candy 
i  Palace,"  "  Bonfanti's,"  and  "the  Alhamra,"  are 
j  beautiful  places  for  a  range  of  soirees  in  hat  and  bon- 
|  net,  and  we  went  this  round  last  Christmas  eve  with 
great  amusement.  Happy  children  are  beautiful 
sights,  and  we  can  still  see  bons-bons  with  their  eyes. 

Reader  !  a  merry  Christmas !  and  let  us  repeat 
once  more  to  you  the  old  stanza  (tho'  old  Trinity  ia 
no  longer  what  it  was  when  this  was  written)  : — 

"  Hark  the  merry  bells  chiming  from  Trinity, 

Charm  the  ear  with  their  musical  din, 
Telling  all,  throughout  the  vicinity, 

Holyday  gambols  are  now  to  begin  ! 
Friends  and  relations,  with  fond  salutations, 

And  warm  gratulations,  together  appear, 
While  lovers  and  misses  with  holyday  kisses 

Greet  merry  Christmas  and  happy  New  Year." 


The  other  side  of  Broadway. — It  is  time  that 
the  decline  of  the  era  of  shopping  a-foot  was  fairly  an- 
nounced as  at  its  fall — an  epoch  gone  over  to  history. 
Washington  Hall  has  been  purchased  as  a  property 
no  longer  objectionable  from  its  being  the  other  side 
of  mud,  and  is  to  be  speedily  converted  into  the  most 
magnificent  "ladies  store"  within  the  limits  of  silk 
and  calico.  We  are  credibly  assured  that  this  last 
assertion  is  fully  borne  out  by  the  plans  of  Mr.  Stuart, 
the  projector.  No  shop  in  London  or  Paris  is  to 
surpass  it.  But  the  best  part  of  it  remains  to  be  told  : 
— The  building  is  to  have  a  court  for  carriages  in  the 
centre,  so  that  shoppers  will  thunder  in  at  a  porte 
cochere,  like  visiters  to  the  grand  duke  of  Tuscany  ! 
There  will  of  course  be  a  spacious  door  on  the  street, 
for  those  who  can  cross  Broadway  without  a  carriage 
—(poor  zealous  things!)— but  the  building  is  con- 
trived for  those  to  whom  the  crowded  side  of  the  street 
is  rather  an  objection,  and  who  wish  their  hammer- 
cloths  to  stand  out  of  the  spatter  of  omnibuses  while 
they  shop  !  !  There  is  a  comment  on  "  the  times" 
in  this  plan  of  Mr.  Stuart's  which  we  commend  to  the 
notice  of  some  other  parish. 


756 


EPHEMERA. 


Farther  down-town,  however  (15G)  the  shilling  side 
of  Broadway  has  been  embellished  by  a  new  store,  in- 
tended for  all  comers  and  customers,  and  certainly  an 
ornament  to  the  town — occupied  by  Beebe  &  Cos- 
tar,  hatters.  No  more  showy  and  sumptuous  saloon 
could  possibly  be  contrived  than  this  "  hatter's  shop;" 
and  it  is  very  well  that  they  keep  one  article  of  ladies' 
wear — (riding-hats) — for  it  is  altogether  too  pretty  a 
place  for  a  monastery.  The  specimen  hats  stand  on 
rows  of  marble  tables,  and  the  room  is  lined  with  mir- 
rors and  white  panels — the  effect  very  much  that  of  a 
brilliant  French  cafe.  As  to  the  article  of  merchan- 
dise, Beebe  &  Costar  have  made  tributary  the  "  lines 
of  beauty"  to  a  degree  which  gives  their  hats  a  most 
peculiar  elegance  of  shape,  and  it  is  worth  the  while 
of  those  who  are  nice  in  their  legmen,  to  "  look  in." 

Apropos : — The  only  god  who  employed  a  hatter 
was  Mercury — why  is  not  that  "  English  clever" 
deity,  with  his  winged  hat,  installed  as  a  hatter's 
crest  ?  The  propriety  of  it  must  have  occurred  to  the 
hatters.  Possibly  we  are  so  mercurial  a  nation,  that 
it  was  thought  impolitic — no  man  wanting  any  more 
mercury  in  his  hat — at  least  when  it  is  on.  We  see 
that  the  annual  hatters'  ball  comes  off  on  the  26th. 
May  we  venture  to  suggest  as  topics  of  discussion  in 
the  quadrilles — 1st,  Mercury's  claims  to  the  arms  of 
the  assembly,  and,  2d,  what  peltry  was  probably  used 
by  the  hatter  of  OJympus,  and  3d,  whether  (as  it  was 
a  winged  hat)  it  must  not  have  been  made  of  the  only 
quadruped  that  flies  fur,  the  flying  squirrel?  "Curi- 
ous questions,  coz  !" 


France  versus  England,  or  the  Black  Cravat 
versus  the  White. — We  have  received,  in  a  very 
London-club-y  handwriting,  a  warlike  reply  to  the 
note  we  published  lately  from  a  French  gentleman  on 
the  subject  of  the  white  cravat.  The  two  nations 
seem  to  have  separated  into  hostile  array  on  the  sub- 
ject. Our  English  correspondent  certainly  brings 
cogent  arguments  in  favor  of  the  white,  and  indeed 
of  English  costume  generally.  After  asking  very 
naturally  what  our  French  correspondent's  phrase, 
"■perfidious  Albion,"  had  to  do  with  it,  and  suggesting 
that  "black  cravat"  had  better  "reflect  on  the  late 
conduct  of  the  French  in  the  Pacific,"  he  goes  on 
with  the  matter  in  question  : — 

"The  English  fashion  for  gentlemen's  dress  is  never 
to  sacrifice  comfort  to  appearance,  which  the  French 
fashion  invariably  does;  the  clothes  of  the  English 
are  loosely  made,  so  that  every  limb  of  the  body  is 
free.  You  see  nothing  in  the  dress  that  can  be  called 
effeminate  ;  they  appear  to  eschew  everything  that 
approaches  the  '  Miss  Nancy  school  ;'  no  man  with 
them  is  considered  well-dressed,  however  costly  his 
attire,  if  he  be  not  manly  in  his  appearance.  Now,  a 
Frenchman's  clothes  are  made  to  fit  so  tight,  that  it 
is  impossible  for  him  to  look  at  his  ease.  A  French- 
man dressed  looks  as  if  he  had  just  come  out  of  a 
band-box ;  he  looks  like  a  pretty  doll  which  you  see 
in  the  shop  windows  in  Paris.  To  hand  a  lady  a 
chair,  he  runs  the  danger  of  bursting  his  coat,  or 
cracking  his  waist-band  ;  he  can  not  stoop  to  pick  up 
a  lady's  fan,  without  danger  to  his  inexpressibles. 
The  Frenchman  dressed  is  no  longer  the  easy,  pliant, 
laughing  man,  that  we  know  him  to  be  when  in  dis- 
habille— but  he  is  stiff,  unnatural,  and  effeminate. 

"The  English  fashion  abhors  display  ;  the  French, 
on  the  contrary,  invites  it.  With  the  Frenchman 
dress  is  a  great  affair,  for  he  intends  to  make  a  sensa- 
tion. With  the  Englishman  it  is  but  secondary,  for 
he  does  not  believe  that  mere  dress  can  have  any  in- 
fluence. You  may  form  an  idea  of  the  sentiments 
of  both   nations   from   this   national    character — the 


English  (and   Americans)   are  proud,   but  not  vain; 
the  French  are  very  vain,  but  have  little  pride. 

"Again:    we  like  the   Englishman's   fondness  for 
white  linen,  and  in  this  we  can  not  imitate  him  too 
|  closely.     It  is  not  only  in  the  evening,  as   with  the 
j  Frenchman,  that  he  puts  on   his  fine   linen,  but  at 
J  rising   he  must   have    it. — Though   he   may   wear  a 
;  shaggy  morning  coat,  his   under  garments  must  be 
j  spotless.     You  may  know  him  when  travelling  on  the 
j  continent,  by  the   unrivalled  whiteness   of  his  linen. 
The  same  cleanliness  makes  the  white  cravat  prefer- 
able.    It  has  its   recommendation   in   being  a  clean 
t  fashion — for   no   gentleman    can  wear  it  more  than 
;  once  ;   whereas,   the  black  satin  cravat,  which  your 
j  correspondent  so  much  extols,  is  an  exceedingly  dirty 
1  fashion — for,  after  dancing,  the  perspiration  settles  in 
the  satin  ;  and  with  the  dust  in  the  room,  &c,  it  be- 
comes unfit  to   wear  more  than   twice,  whereas  the 
French  wear  their  cravats  until  they  are  worn  out." 


The  sun  "  kept  Christmas"  yesterday,  by  appearing 
"in  his  best."  We  never  saw  a  more  joyous,  kindly, 
holyday  quality  of  sunshine.  All  who  had  hearts  to 
go  abroad  with,  went  abroad,  and  a-Broadwny  was  a 
long  aisle  of  beauty  in  nature's  roofless  cathedral. 
God  help  all  who  were  not  happy  yesterday  !  We 
picked  up  a  bit  of  real-life  poetry  (by-the-way)  in  a 
very  unexpected  place  yesterday — a  confectioner's 
shop  !  The  circumstance  is  at  such  a  distance  from 
poetry,  that  the  flash  comes  before  the  report — a 
laugh  before  the  eye  is  moistened.  At  Thompson's, 
the  best  confectioner  of  the  city,  we  saw  a  large  pound- 
cake, with  a  figure  of  a  nun  standing  on  it,  dressed  in 
white,  and  we  were  told  that  a  cake  had  just  gone  to 
the  sisters  of  the  Barclay-street  convent,  with  this  lit- 
tle figure  in  mourning  instead  of  white — sent  by  a 
young  catholic  lady  who  had  just  lost  her  mother. 
As  a  conveyance  of  a  thought,  intended  to  be  en- 
tirely between  the  mourner  and  the  sympathising  sis- 
ters, we  think  this  was  very  beautiful.  Perhaps  we 
spoil  it  by  giving  the  coarse-minded  a  chance  to  ridi- 
cule it. 


We  wish  to  introduce  to  the  reader  (.he  word  tonal- 
ity. Let  us  show  its  availableness  at  once  by  using 
it  to  express  the  secret  of  Pico's  overwhelming  effect 
upon  the  audience  on  Saturday  evening.  As  musical 
people  know,  melody  is  the  natural  "concord  of  sweet 
sounds,"  and  harmony  may  be  tolerably  defined  as  the 
artificial  creation  of  surprises  to  vary  melody.  Mali- 
bran  saw,  for  instance,  that  one  of  her  rustic  audiences 
could  feel  melody,  but  was  incapable  of  appreciating 
harmony,  when  they  tumultuously  encored  her  in 
"Home,  Sweet  Home,"  and  let  her  "  Di  tanli  pal- 
pitV  go  by  without  applause !  It  takes  more  than 
one  hearing,  for  persons  not  learned  in  music,  to  ap- 
preciate the  harmony  of  an  opera,  though  if  there  be 
in  it  an  air  of  simple  melody,  a  child  will  listen  to 
it,  for  the  first  time,  with  delight.  But  there  are  op- 
eras, much  cried  up,  where  the  melody  and  harmony 
are  not  in  tone  ;  and  though  people  may  be  made  to 
like  them  against  nature  (as  they  like  olives),  the  ma- 
jority of  the  audience  will  feel  incredulous  as  to  its 
being  "  good  music."  (We  were  two  or  three  years 
opera-going  before  these  unwritten  distinctions  got 
through  our  dura  mater,  dear  reader;  and  if  you  are 
not  in  a  hurry,  perhaps  you  will  pay  us  the  compli- 
ment of  reading  them  over  again,  while  we  mend  our 
pen  for  a  new  paragraph.) 

Pico  sang  a  part  in  the  opera  of  Saturday  night, 
which,  in  our  opinion,  owed  its  electric  power  to  three 
tonalities:  tone  No.  1,  between  the  harmony  and  mel- 
ody of  the  music — tone  No.  2,  between  the  music 


EPHEMERA. 


757 


and  her  own  impression  on  the  public  as  a  woman — 
and  tone  No.  3,  between  the  opera  and  the  mood  of 
the  public  for  that  evening. 

Tone  No.  1  is  already  explained.  Tone  No.  3  was, 
perhaps,  a  combination  of  pleasurable  accidents — 
both  the  donnas  in  one  piece,  the  house  crammed 
with  fashion,  and  graced  with  more  beauty  than  usual, 
and  (last,  not  least)  the  change  in  the  weather.  A  sud- 
den south  wind  in  December,  makes  even  fashion  af- 
fectionate, and,  with  such  influences  in  the  air,  mu- 
sic that  is  "  the  food  of  love,"  may  "  piny  on" — with 
entire  confidence  as  to  its  reception.  Of  tone  No.  2 
(the  pnrt  in  Donizetti's  opera)  we  wish  to  speak  more 
at  large,  but  we  can  uot  trust  ourself  afloat  with  it  in 
a  paragraph  already  under  headway. 

Donizetti  is  commonly  rated  as  a  trite  and  not  very 
vigorous  composer.  As  a  musical  convoy,  he  never 
drops  the  slowest  sailor  below  the  horizon.  But,  that 
he  lets  his  heart  steer  the  music  whenever  he  can  per- 
suade science  to  give  up  the  helm,  everybody  must 
have  felt  who  has  embarked  a  thought  in  one  of  his 
operas.  The  music  written  down  for  Orsini  (Pico's 
part)  expresses  the  character  that  Shakspere's  words 
give  to  Mercutio — the  prince  of  thoughtless  good 
fellows,  careless,  loveable,  and  amusing.  Between 
this  and  Pico's  personal  qualities  (as  made  legible 
across  the  footlights),  there  is  a  tonality  the  town  has 
felt — a  joyous  recognition,  by  the  audience,  of  a  com- 
plete correspondence  between  the  good-fellow  music 
she  sings  and  the  good  fellow  nature  has  made  her. 
There  is  a  class  of  such  women — some  of  them  the 
most  captivating  of  their  sex,  and  every  one  of  them 
the  acknowledged  "best  creature  in  the  world"  of  the 
circle  she  lives  in.  Here  and  there  a  person  will  un- 
derstand better  what  we  mean  if  we  mention  that 
Pico  sat  in  the  proscenium-box  on  the  night  of  Ole 
Bull's  concert,  and,  with  a  full  house  looking  at  her 
with  eager  curiosity,  sat  and  munched  her  under-lip 
most  unbecomingly,  in  perfect  unconsciousness  of 
any  need  of  forbearing  to  do  in  public  what  she  would 
have  done  if  she  were  alone!  We  must  say  we  like 
women  that  forget  themselves  ! 

We  heard  twenty  judicious  persons  comment  on 
the  opera  of  Saturday,  and  with  but  one  expression 
of  never,  in  any  country,  having  enjoyed  opera  more. 
The  universal  tonality,  to  which  we  have  tried  to  play 
the  interpreter,  is  partly  a  matter  of  coincidence,  and 
may  not  happen  again;  but  we  assure  the  two  donnas 
and  our  friend  Signor  Sacchi,  that  with  the  remem- 
brance of  it,  and  with  them  both  in  the  glorious  opera 
of  Semiramide,  next  week,  they  will  want  a  larger 
house  than  Palmo's. 

And,  by-the-way,  this  amiable  "Quintius  Curtius" 
of  the  opera,  who  has  procured  us  the  luxury  of  a 
temple  of  music  by  jumping  into  the  gulf  with  his 
$47,000 — excellent  Signor  Palmo — claims  of  the  pub- 
lic a  slight  return;  no  more  than  that  they  should  ac- 
knowledge the  fact  of  his  disaster  !  It  has  been  doubt- 
ed that  he  has  lost  money,  and  some  of  the  world's 
cruelty  has  been  dealt  out  to  him  in  the  shape  of  a 
sneer  at  his  sincerity.  We  copy  (literally)  the  ex- 
planation sent  us  on  the  subject,  and  bespeak  for  him 
present  public  regard,  and  some  future  more  tangible 
demonstration : — 

"Being  attracted  by  a  statement  made  in  the  Mir- 
ror in  reference  to  the  Italian  company  at  Palmo's 
opera-house,  showing  the  receipts  and  disbursements 
for  twelve  nights,  leaving  but  a  small  amount  to  be 
divided  by  the  company,  after  having  as  good  and  bet- 
ter houses  than  when  under  the  auspices  of  Signor 
Palmo,  whose  honesty  has  been  imputed  to  have  made 
money,  and  made  the  public  and  his  creditors  believe 
the  contrary,  now  the  mystery  is  solved,  and  the  pub- 
lic should  be  satisfied  of  Signor  Palmo's  integrity, 
who  is  ready  to  show  by  bills  paid,  and  his  books,  that 
he  has  lost  $47,000  the  last  four  years." 


SUPPER  AFTER  THE  OPERA. 

Private  room  over  the  Mirror  office,  corner  of  Ann  and 
Nassau— Supper  on  the  round  table,  and  brigadier 
mixing  summat  and  tcater— Flagg,  the  artist,  fa- 
tiguing the  salad  with  a  paper-folder— Devil  in  wait- 
ing—Quarter past  ten,  and  enter  «  Yours  Truly" 
from  the  opera. 

Brig. — Here  he  comes,  like  a  cloud  dropping  from 
Olympus— charged  with  Pico-tricity !  Boy  (to  the 
"  devil"),  stick  a  steel  pen  in  my  hat  for  a  conductor! 
Now — let  him  rain  ! 

Flagg. — Echo — let  him  reign  ! 

Yours  Truly — (looking  at  the  salad-dish). — Less 
gamboge  for  me,  if  you  please,  my  dear  artist !  Be 
merciful  of  mustard  when  you  mix  for  public  opin- 
ion !     But,  nay!  brigadier! 

Brig. — Thank  you  for  not  calling  on  me  to  bray, 
mi-boy!     What  shall  I  neigh  at ? 

Yours  Tridy. — How  indelicate  of  you  to  call  on 
an  artist  to  exercise  his  profession  on  a  party  of  pleas- 
ure ! 

Brig.— Uow  1 

Yours  Truly — Setting  him  to  grind  colors  in  a  sal- 
ad-dish! What  are  you  tasting  with  that  wooden 
ladle,  my  periodical  sodger? 

Brig. — Two  of  "  illicit"  to  oue  of  Croton — potheen 
|  from  a  private  still  in  the  mountains  of  Killarny ! 
i  Knowles  sent  it  to  me  !  You  have  no  idea  what  a 
j  flavor  of  Kate  Kearney  there  is  about  it ! — (fmflf!  fmff!) 

Flagg — (absently). — I  smell  the  color  of  the  heath- 
flowers  in  it — crocus-yellow  on  a  brown  turf! 

Brig. — Stick  a  pin  there,  mi-boy  ! — a  new  avenue 
j  to  the  brain  for  things  beautiful !  Down  with  priv- 
ileged roads  in  a  republic!  Why  should  the  colors 
mixed  for  a  limitless  sense  of  beauty  go  in  only  at  the 
eye? 

Flagg. — No  reason  why.  I  wish  we  could  hear 
colors ! 

Brig. — So  you  can,  my  inspired  simplicity !  and 
taste  them,  too  !  You  can  hear  things  that  are  read, 
and  you  can  taste  the  brown  in  a  turkey!  (Turning 
to  Yours  Truly) — Was  that  well  said,  my  dear  boy  ? 

Yours  Truly. — Pardon  me  if  I  suggest  still  an  im- 
provement in  the  aristocracy  of  the  senses  !  The 
eye  has  a  double  door  of  fringed  lids,  and  the  mouth 
an  inner  door  of  fastidious  ivory;  and,  with  the  power 
to  admit  or  exclude  at  will,  these  are  the  exclusive  or- 
gans!  The  republicans  are  the  nose  and  ear — open 
to  all  comers,  and  forced  to  make  the  best  of  them ! 

Flagg. — A  new  light,  by  Jupiter !  Let  us  pamper 
the  aristocracy  !  An  oyster  for  my  ivory  gate,  if  you 
please,  general,  and  let  us  spite  the  ear's  monopoly 
of  Pico  by  drinking  her  in  silence  !     ( ) 

Brig.-( ) 

Yours  Truly. — ( ) 

Brig. — Touching  Pico — is  she,  or  isn't  she  ? — you 
know  what  I  want  to  know,  my  boy !  Disembowel 
your  mental  oyster!  What  ails  Borghese?  AVhat 
is  a  "  contralto  ?"     Is  it  anything  wrong — or  what  ? 

Yours  Truly. — A  contralto,  my  particular  general, 
is  a  voice  that  touches  bottom — rubs  your  heart  with 
its  keel,  as  it  were,  while  floating  through  you— com- 
paring with  a  soprano,  as  the  air  on  a  mountain-top 
compares  with  a  breeze  from  lower  down. 

Brig. — Best  possible  description  of  yourself,  mi- 
boy  !     Go  on,  my  contralto  ! 

Flagg. — Yes — go  on  about  Borghese — what  is  the 
philosophy  of  Borghese's  salary  being  the  double  of 
Pico's  ?  ,      ,  .  , 

Yours  Truly.— Ah!  now  you  touch  the  weight 
that  keeps  Borghese  down  !  The  public,  like  your- 
self, ask  why  the  prima-donna  who  gives  them  the 
more  pleasure  is  the  poorer  paid!  Borghese— but 
first  let  me  tell  you  what  I  think  of  her,  comparison 


758 


EPHEMERA. 


apart.  (Boy,  light  a  cigar,  and  keep  it  going  with  the 
bellows,  a  la  pastille  !  I  like  the  smoke,  but  to  talk 
with  a  cigar  in  the  mouth  spoils  the  delicacy  of  dis- 
crimination.) 

Brig. — Spare  us  the  scientific,  mi-boy  ! 

Yours  Truly. — Why,  what  do  you  mean?  I  am  as 
ignorant  of  music,  my  dear  sodger,  as  an  Indian  is  of 
botany — but  he  knows  a  weed  from  a  flower,  and  7 
talk  of  music  as  the  audience  judge  of  it — by  what  I 
hear,  "mark,  and  inwardly  digest." 

Brig. — But  the  big  words,  my  dear  contralto  ! 

Yours  Truly. — "  Foreign  slip-slops,"  I  grant  you — 
but  nothing  more  ! — I  lived  three  years  in  Italy,  and, 
of  course,  heard  Italian  audiences  express  themselves, 
and  here  and  there  a  phrase  sticks  to  me — but  if  I 
know  "B  sharp"  from  "  B  flat"  (which  is  more  than  | 
some  musical   critics  know),  it   is   the   extent  of  my  j 
knowledge.     No,  general !  there  is  no  sillier  criticism 
of  music  than  technical  criticism.     You  might  as  well  J 
paint  cannon-balls  piebald   and  then  judge  of  their  ; 
effect  by  remembering  which   color  showed   through  \ 
the  touch-hole  before  priming  !     Notes  go  to  the  ear ; 
effects  shower  the  nerves.     A  musician  who  is  a  critic, 
judges  of  a  prima-donna  by  the  accuracy  with  which  j 
she   imitates  what  he  (the  musician)  has  played   on  j 
an  instrument — like  a  tight-rope  dancer  criticising  his 
brother  of  the  slack-rope,  because  he  don't  swing  over 
the  pit!     Analyze  the  applause  at  an  opera  !     There  ] 
are,  perhaps,  ten  persons  in  a  Palmo  audience  who  are 
scientific   musicians.      These  ten  admire  most  what 
they  can  most  exclusively  admire — rapid  and  difficult 
passages  (what  the  Italians  caUfwrituri,  or  "  flourish- 
es") executed  with  the  most  skilful  muscular  effort 
of  the  vocal  organs.     These  ten,  however,  pass  over, 
as  very  pleasant  accidents  of  the  opera,  the  part  which 
pleases  the  rest  of  the  audience — the  messa  di  voce — 
the  tender  expression  of  slower  notes  which  try  the 
sweetness  of  the  voice — the  absoluteness  of  the  "  art 
concealing  art,"  and  which,  more  than  all,  betrays  the 
personal  sensibility  and  quality  oj  the  actress's  mind. 
My  dear  brigadier,  true  criticism  travels  a  circle,  and 
ends  where  it  began — with  nature-     But  as  the  art  of 
the  prima-donna  brings  her  to  the  same  point,  the  un- 
scientific audience  are  most  with  the  most  skilful  pri- 
ma-donna— nearer  to  a  just  appreciation  of  her  than 
musicians  are. 

Brig. — Now  I  see  the  reason  I  am  so  enchanted 
with  Pico,  mi-boy  !  I  was  afraid  I  had  no  business  to 
like  her — as  I  didn't  know  Italian  music  !  What  a 
way  you  have  of  making  me  feel  pleasant ! 

Yours  Truly. — Pico  has  enchanted  the  town,  briga- 
dier !  and  I  have  endeavored  to  put  the  flesh  and 
blood  of  language  to  the  ghost  of  each  night's  enchant- 
ment. That  ghost  of  remembrance  sticks  by  us 
through  the  next  day,  and  I  thought  it  would  be 
agreeable  to  the  Mirror  readers  to  have  the  impres- 
sion of  the  music  recalled  by  our  description  of  it. 
Have  I  done  it  scientifically  ?  Taste  forbid  .'—even  if 
I  knew  how  !  I  interpret  for  "  the  million"— not  for 
"  the  ten." 

Flagg. — But  about  Borghese  ! 

Yours  Truly.— Well— I  have  a  great  deal  to  say 
about  Borghese— I  have  a  great  deal  of  the  "flesh 
and  blood"  T  just  spoke  of,  in  reserve  for  Borghese  • 
but  I  shall  follow  a  strong  public  feeling,  and  not 
clothe  her  enchantments  with  language,  till  she  slacks 
her  hold  upon  the  purse-strings,  and  shares  equally, 
at  least,  with  the  donna  whom  the  public  prefer.' 
There  goes  the  brigadier — fast  asleep  !  Good  night, 
gentlemen  !     (Exit  "  Yours  Truly.") 


Ole  Bull's  Concert. — We  longed  last  night  for 
one  of  "  Curtis's  acoustic  chairs,"  by  which  all  the 
sound  that  approaches  a  man  is  inveigled  into  his  ear 


and  made  the  most  of,  for  we  heard  Niagara  atten- 
tively through,  and  at  every  change  in  the  music 
wished  it  louder.  We  thought  even  the  "dying  fall" 
too  expiring.  It  occurred  to  us,  by  the  way,  that  if 
the  text  of  this  discoursed  music  had  been  one  of  the 
psalms  instead  of  God's  less  interpretable  voice  in  the 
cataract,  the  room  for  enthusiasm,  as  well  as  the 
preparation  for  it,  on  the  part  of  the  audience,  would 
have  been  vastly  greater.  In  a  mixed  assembly  (of 
the  quality  of  that  at  Palmo's  last  night)  no  chamber 
of  imagination  is  furnished  or  tenanted  except  that  of 
religion,  and  the  very  name  of  a  bible  psalm  on  the  vi- 
olin would  have  clothed  any  music  of  Ole  Bull's  per- 
forming with  the  aggrandizing  wardrobe  of  asso- 
ciation kept  exclusively  for  "  powerful  sermons"  and 
"searching  prayers."  We  rather  wonder  that  this 
ready  access  to  the  excitability  of  the  mass  has  not 
been  taken  advantage  of  by  the  violinists. 

We  confess  to  a  little  surprise  in  Ole  Bull's  organi- 
zation.    With  the 

"  Bust  of  a  Hercules — waist  of  a  gnat" — 

a  superb  build  for  a  gladiator  or  an  athlete — his  violin 
is  a  woman  .'  The  music  he  draws  from  it  is  all  deli- 
cacy, sentiment,  pathos,  and  variable  tenderness — 
never  powerful,  masculine,  or  imposing.  "  The 
Mother's  Prayer,"  and  the  "  Solitude  of  a  Prairie," 
are  more  effective  than  "  Niagara,"  for  that  reason. 
The  audience  are  prepared  for  a  different  sex  in  a 
cataract.  We  know  very  well  that  the  accordatura  of 
a  violin  is  of  all  compass,  and  that  Paganini  "  played 
the  devil"  on  it,  as  well  as  the  angel,  and  we  repeat 
our  surprise,  that,  even  in  a  piece  whose  name  sug- 
gests nothing  but  masculine  power,  the  burthen  should 
be  wholly  feminine  !  Fact,  as  this  unquestionably  is, 
we  leave  it  to  our  readers  to  reconcile  with  another  fact 
— that  the  applause  at  one  of  Ole  Bull's  concerts  bears 
no  proportion  to  the  enthusiasm,  as  the  ladies,  without 
exception,  are  enchanted  with  him,  and  the  men  (who 
do  the  applauding)  are,  almost  without  exception,  dis- 
satisfied with  him. 

"  Gentle  shepherd,  tell  us  why  !" 

Even  at  the  high  price  of  tickets,  nobody  draws 
like  the  Norwegian.  A  very  sensible  correspondent 
of  ours  proposed  to  him  (through  the  Mirror)  to  lower 
his  price,  and  allow  those  who  could  not  afford  the 
dollar  to  have  an  opportunity  of  hearing  him.  He  is 
the  soul  of  kindness  and  charity,  and  we  should  sup- 
pose this  would  strike  him  as  a  felicitous  hint. 


Battle  of  the  Cravats. — The  front  row  of  the 
opera  resembles  a  pianoforte  with  its  white  and  black 
keys — the  alternation  of  black  and  white  cravats  is  so 
evenly  distributed.  The  Frenchmen  are  all  in  black 
cravats  of  course,  and  the  English  and  Americans  in 
white,  and  a  man  might  stop  his  ears  and  turn  his 
back  to  the  orchestra  (when  the  two  donnas  are  on 
the  stage  together)  and  tell  who  is  singing,  Pico  or 
Borghese,  by  the  agitation  of  the  black  cravats  or  the 
white.  It  is  a  strong  argument  in  favor  of  the  white 
cravats,  apropos,  that  the  Americans,  whose  sympa- 
thy is  with  the  French  in  almost  everything,  should 
have  joined  the  English  in  this  division  of  opinion. 
We  have  received  two  or  three  most  bellicose  letters 
on  each  side  of  this  weighty  argument,  and  would 
publish  them  if  we  had  a  spare  page. 


The  Opera. — Madame  Pico  was  evidently  strug- 
gling, last  evening,  against  the  effects  of  her  late  ill- 
ness; but  she  delighted  the  audience  as  usual,  with 
her  impassioned  and  effective  singing.      The   opera 


EPHEMERA. 


759 


is  a  very  trying  one,  and,  to  us,  not  the  most  agreea- 
ble in  its  general  character — particularly  in  the  lach- 
rymose tone,  throughout,  of  the  part  allotted  to  Pico. 
Sanquirico  was  a  relief  to  this  ennui,  and  he  so 
charmed  one  lady  in  the  house,  that  she  threw  him  a 
bouquet !  He  played  capitally  well — barring  one  little 
touch  of  false  taste  in  using  two  English  words  by 
way  of  being  funny.  It  let  him  down  like  the  falling 
out  of  the  bottom  of  a  sedan. 

Several  of  our  French  friends,  by  the  way,  have  re- 
quested us  to  contradict  the  on  dit  we  mentioned  in 
the  Minor,  touching  a  "  cabal  to  keep  Pico  subservi- 
ent to  Borghese."  A  regularly-formed  one  there 
doubtless  is  not — but  the  French  are  zealous  allies, 
and  every  one  of  them  does  as  much  for  Borghese  as 
he  can,  and,  of  course,  as  much  as  he  could  do  in  a 
cabal.  On  the  contrary,  there  seems  to  be  no  one  in- 
dividual taking  any  pains  about  Pico — the  general  en- 
thusiasm at  the  opera  excepted.  Let  us  state  a  fact : 
We  have  received  many  visits  and  more  than  a  dozen 
letters,  to  request  even  our  trifling  critical  preference 
for  Borghese  ;  and  no  sign  has  been  given,  either  by 
Pico  or  her  friends,  that  our  critical  preference  was 
wished  for,  or  otherwise  than  tacitly  acknowledged. 
This  being  true  of  a  mere  newspaper,  what  must  be 
probably  the  difference  of  appeal  to  more  direct  sour- 
ces of  patronage?  One  or  two  persons  have  talked 
feelingly  of  pity  for  Borghese's  mortification !  We 
are  watching  to  see  when  her  mortification  will  be  so 
insupportable  that  she  will  slacken  her  grasp  upon 
Pico's  just  share  of  the  profits  !  We  are  not  only  the 
true  exponent  of  public  opinion  in  reference  to  the 
merits  of  these  ladies,  but,  if  we  are  not  personally 
impartial,  it  is  because  (though  we  have  no  acquaint- 
ance with  either  of  the  two  ladies)  we  chance  to  know 
most  of  Borghese's  friends.  Pico  is  evidently  a  kind- 
hearted  person,  indolently  careless  of  her  pecuniary 
interests,  and  it  is  impossible  to  see  the  shadows  of 
mental  suffering  in  her  face  and  not  wish  to  aid  her — 
but  we  should  not  sacrifice  critical  taste  to  do  even 
that,  and  we  have  not  written  a  syllable  that  her  effect 
on  the  public  has  not  more  that  justified.  At  the 
same  time  we  have  never  said  a  syllable  to  disparage 
Borghese,  and  have  only  forborne  to  say  as  much  of 
her  merits  as  we  should  otherwise  have  done,  because 
she  was  overpaid  and  strongly  hedged  in  with  sup- 
porters. 


Servants  in  Livery,  Equipages,  etc. — There  is 
a  stage  of  civilization  at  which  a  country  will  not — and 
a  subsequent  stage  at  which  a  country  will — tolerate 
liveried  servants.  In  a  savage  nation,  an  able-bodied 
man  who  should  put  on  a  badge  of  hopeless  and  sub- 
missive servitude  for  the  mere  certainty  of  food  and 
clothing,  would  be  considered  a  disgrace  to  his  tribe. 
The  further  step  of  making  that  badge  ornamental  to 
the  servile  wearer,  would  probably  be  resented  as  an 
affront  to  the  pre-eminence  of  display  which  is  the 
rightful  prerogative  of  chiefs  and  warriors. 

In  a  crowded  and  highly-civilized  country,  it  is 
found  convenient  for  patricians  to  secure  the  tacit 
giving-way  of  plebeian  encounter  in  thronged  places — 
convenient  for  them  to  distinguish  their  own  servants 
from  other  people's  in  a  crowd  at  night — and,  more 
particularly,  in  large  and  corrupt  cities,  it  is  conveni- 
ent to  have  such  attendants  for  ladies  as  may  secure 
them  from  insult  in  public — the  livery  upon  the  fol- 
lower showing  that  the  person  he  follows  is  not  only  re- 
spectable, but  of  too  much  consequence  to  be  annoyed 
with  impunity.  The  ostentation  of  servants  in  livery 
is  scarce  worth  a  comment,  as,  unless  newly  assumed, 
it  is  seldom  thought  of  by  the  owner  of  the  equipage, 
nor  is  it  offensive  to  the  passer-by,  except  in  a  coun- 
try where  it  is  not  yet  common. 


The  question  whether  a  country  is  ready  for  liveries 
— that  is  to  say,  whether  it  has  arrived  at  that  stage 
where  the  want  they  imply  is  felt,  and  where  the  dis- 
tinctions they  imply  are  acknowledged — is  the  true 
point  at  issue.  It  is  a  curious  point,  too,  for,  in  every 
other  nation,  liveries  may  be  excused  as  traditional 
— as  being  only  modifications  of  the  dresses  of  feudal 
retainers — while  Americans,  without  this  apology, 
must  defend  the  abrupt  adoption  of  liveries  on  the 
mere  grounds  of  propriety  and  convenience. 

We  certainly  have  not  yet  arrived  at  that  point  of 
civilization  where  liveries  are  needed — as  in  England 
— to  protect  a  lady  from  insult  in  the  street.  A  fe- 
male may  still  walk  the  crowded  thoroughfares  of 
New  York  by  daylight — as  she  dare  not  do  in  Lon- 
don— unattended,  either  by  a  gentleman  or  a  servant 
in  livery.  (We  live  in  hope  of  overtaking  the  civiliza- 
tion of  the  mother-country!)  Neither  has  a  liveried 
equipage,  as  yet,  the  tacit  consequence,  in  America, 
which  secures  to  it  in  London  the  convenient  conces- 
sions of  the  highway.  We  are  republican  enough, 
thus  far,  to  allow  no  privileges  to  be  taken  for  grant- 
ed;  and  he  who  wishes  to  ride  in  a  vehicle  wholly  in- 
visible to  omnibus-drivers,  and  at  the  same  time  to 
have  his  lineage  looked  into  and  perpetuated  without 
the  expense  of  heraldic  parchment,  has  only  to  ap- 
pear in  Broadway  with  liveried  equipage! 

We  differ  from  some  of  our  luxurious  friends,  by 
thinking,  that,  as  long  as  the  spending  of  over  five 
thousand  dollars  a  year  makes  a  gentleman  odious  in 
the  community,  liveries  are  a  little  premature.  It 
is  a  pity  to  be  both  virtuous  and  unpopular.  The 
moving  about  in  a  cloud  of  reminded  lordship  is  a 
luxury  very  consistent  with  high  morality,  but  it 
comes  coldly  between  republicans  and  the  sun  — 
whatever  fire  of  heaven  the  offending  cloud  may  em- 
bosom. We  wonder,  indeed,  at  the  remaining  in  this 
country,  of  any  persons  ambitious  of  distinctions  in 
the  use  of  which  we  are  thus  manifestly  "behind  the 
age."  It  is  so  easy  to  leave  the  lagging  American 
anno  domini  of  aristocracy,  and  sail  for  the  next  cen- 
tury— by  the  Havre  packet ! 


That  Heaven  does  not  disdain  such  love  of  each 
other  as  is  quickened  by  personal  admiration,  is 
proved  by  the  injunctions  to  the  children  of  Israel  to 
appear  in  cheerful  and  becoming  dresses  on  festal  days 
— those  days  occupying  rather  more  than  a  quarter  of 
a  year.  The  Jews  also  ornamented  their  houses  on 
holydays,  not  as  we  do  with  evergreens  (a  custom  we 
have  taken  from  the  Druid  "mistletoe,  cut  with  the 
golden  knife"),  but  with  such  ornaments  as  would 
best  embellish  them  for  the  reception  of  friends.  The 
French  nation  is  to  be  admired  for  supremacy,  in  this 
age,  in  the  exhibition  of  the  kindly  feelings  and  the 
brightening  of  the  links  of  relationship  and  friendship. 
It  has  been  stated  (among  statistics)  that  for  bons-bons 
alone,  in  Paris,  on  new  year's  day,  were  expended 
one  hundred  thousand  dollars  !  We  copy  the  French 
with  great  facility  in  this  country,  and  (until  the  pro- 
posed "  annexation  of  Paris")  we  rejoice  in  the  pros- 
perity of  Stuart's  candy  quarry  in  New  York,  and 
the  myriad  cobwebs  of  affection  that  stick,  each  by 
one  thread,  to  the  corner  of  Chambers  and  Greenwich 
streets!  If  not  quite  a  "pilgrimage  to  Jerusalem," 
it  is  a  pilgrimage  to  our  best  signs  and  emblems  of 
Jerusalem  usages,  to  go  the  rounds  of  the  gift-shops 
during  the  holydays;  and  no  kindly  Christian  parent, 
who  xvishes  to  throw  out  an  anchor  for  his  children 
against  the  storm  of  political  ruffianism,  should  neg- 
lect to  bind  friendship  and  family  by  a  new  tie  in  the 
holydays !  We  see  a  use  in  the  skill  at  temptation 
shown    by    such    admirable    taste-mongers    as   Tif- 


760 


EPHEMERA. 


fant  &  Young,  Woodworth,  Guion,  and  others, 
which  is  beyond  the  gratification  of  vanity,  and  far 
from  provocatives  to  "  waste  of  money."  But  this  is 
no  head  under  which  to  write  a  sermon. 

We  have  (ourselves)  a  preference  among  the  half 
dozen  curiosity-shops  of  the  city — a  preference  which 
may,  perhaps,  be  called  professional — springing  from 
love  for  the  memory  of  a  departed  poet.  The  son  of 
Woodworth,  the  warm-hearted  author  of  the  "Old 
Oaken  Bucket"  and  other  immortal  embodiments  of 
the  affections,  in  verse,  is  the  present  proprietor  of  the 
establishment  known  as  Bonfanti's — (by  our  just  men- 
tioned theory  of  the  holy  ministration  of  gifts,  employed 
on  somewhat  the  same  errand  in  life  as  the  bard  who 
went  before).  It  may  not  be  improper  to  mention 
here,  that  the  last  few  painful  years  of  the  poet's  life 
were  soothed  with  a  degree  of  filial  devotion  and  ten- 
derness which  makes  the  Woodworths  cherished 
among  their  friends,  and  this  is  a  country,  thank  God, 
where  such  virtues  bring  prosperity  in  business ! 


BREAKFAST    ON    NEW    TEAR  S    DAY. 

Aslor  house,  No.  184 — nine  o'clock  in  tlie  morning — 
breakfast  for  tioo  on  the  table — enter  the  brigadier. 

Brig.  {Embracing  "us").— Mi-boy !  GOD  BLESS 
YOU !  !  ! 

"  We."  {With  his  hand  to  his  forehead.)—  With 
what  a  sculptured  and  block-y  solidity  you  hew  out 
your  benedictions,  my  dear  general!  You  fairly 
knock  a  man  over  with  blessing  him  !  Sit  down  and 
wipe  your  eyes  with  that  table-napkin  ! 

Brig. — Well — how  are  you? 

"  We." — Hungry  !  I'll  take  a  wing  of  the  chicken 
before  you — killed  probably  last  year.  How  many 
"  friends,  countrymen,  and  lovers,"  are  you  going  to 
call  on  to  day  ? 

Brig. — I  wish  I  knew  how  many  I  shall  not  call  on! 
What  is  a — (pass  the  butter  if  you  please) — what  is 
a  pat  of  butter,  like  me,  spread  over  all  the  daily  bread 
of  my  acquaintance  ? 

"  We."— 

"  'Tis  Greece— but  living  Greece  no  more  !" 

I'll  tell  you  what  1  have  done,  general.  Here  is  a  list 
of  all  my  circle  of  pasteboard.  It  begins  with  those 
I  love,  and  ends  with  those  with  whom  I  am  cere- 
monious. Those  whom  I  neither  love  nor  am  cere- 
monious with,  form  a  large  betweenity  of  indifference; 
and  though  you  may  come  to  love  those  with  whom 
you  are  ceremonious,  you  never  can  love  those  you 
are  wholly  indifferent  to.  I  have  crossed  out  this  be- 
tweenity. Life  is  too  short  to  play  even  a  game  of 
acquaintance  in  which  there  is  no  possible  stake. 

Brig. — How  short  life  is,  to  be  sure  ! 

"  We."— Shorter  this  side  the  water  than  the  other"! 
In  Europe  a  man  is  not  bowed  out  till  he  is  ready  to 
go  !  Here,  he  is  expected  to  have  repented  and  made 
his  will  at  thirty-seven !  I  shall  pass  my  "  second 
childhood"  in  France,  where  it  will  pass  for  a  con- 
tinuation of  the  first ! 

Brig. — My  dear  boy,  don't  get  angry!  Eat  your 
breakfast  and  talk  about  New  Year's.  What  did  the 
Greeks  used  to  do  for  cookies? 

"  We." — Well  thought  of— they  made  presents  of 
dates  covered  with  gold  leaf!  Who  ever  gilds  a  date 
in  this  country  ?  No  !  no  !  general !  You  will  see 
dozens  of  married  women  to-day  who  have  quietly 
settled  down  into  upper  servants  with  high-necked 
dresses — lovely  women  still — who  would  be  belles  for 
ten  years  to  come,  in  France !  Be  a  missionary, 
brigadier!     Preach  against  the  unbelievers  in  mulie- 


brity !  It's  New  Year  and  time  to  begin  something  ! 
Implore  your  friends  to  let  themselves  be  beautiful 
once  more  !  (Breast-bone  of  that  chicken,  if  you 
please  !)  I  should  be  content  never  to  see  another 
woman  under  thirty — their  loveable  common-sense 
comes  so  long  after  their  other  maturities  .' 

Brig. — What  common-place  things  you  do  say,  to 
be  sure  !  Well,  mi-boy,  we  are  going  to  begin  another 
year ! 

"  We." — Yes — prosperously,  thank  God  !  And, 
oh,  after  the  first  in-haul  of  rent  from  these  well- 
tenanted  columns,  what  a  change  we  shall  make  in 
our  paper  !  Let  us  but  be  able  to  afford  the  outlay 
of  laborious  aid,  which  other  editors  pay  for,  and  see 
how  the  Mirror  will  shine  all  over  .'  I  have  a  system 
in  my  brain  for  a  daily  paper — the  fruit  of  practical 
study  for  the  last  three  months — which  I  shall  begin 
upon  before  this  month  has  made  all  its  icicles;  and 
you  shall  say  that  I  never  before  found  my  true  voca- 
tion !  The  most  industriously  edited  paper  in  the 
country  is  but  the  iron  in  the  razor;  and  though  it  is 
not  easy  to  work  that  into  shape,  anybody  can  hire  it 
done,  or  do  it  with  industry.  The  steel  edge,  we  shall 
find  time  to  put  on,  when  we  are  not,  as  now,  employed 
in  tinkering  the  iron  ! 

Brig. — Black-and-white-smiths — you  and  I! 

"  We." — No  matter  for  the  name,  my  dear  general! 
— one  has  to  be  everything  honesty  will  permit,  to 
get  over  the  gulf  we  have  put  behind  us.  Civilized 
life  is  full  of  the  most  unbridged  abysses.  Transitions 
from  an  old  business  to  a  new,  or  from  pleasure  to 
business,  or  from  amusing  mankind  to  taking  care  of 
yourself,  would  be  supposed,  by  a  "  green"  angel,  to 
be  good  intentions,  easy  enough  carried  out,  in  a 
world  of  reciprocal  charities.  **  But  let  them  send 
down  the  most  popular  angel  of  the  house  of  Gabriel 
&  Co.,  to  borrow  money  for  the  most  brilliant  project, 
without  bankable  security!  And  the  best  of  it  is,  that 
though  your  friends  pronounce  the  crossing  of  a  busi- 
ness-gulf, on  your  proposed  bridge  of  brains,  impossi- 
ble and  chimerical,  they  look  upon  it  as  a  matter  of 
course  when  it  is  done!  You  and  I  are  poets — if  the 
money  and  fuss  we  have  made  will  pass  for  evidence 
— yet  nobody  thinks  it  surprising  that  we  have  taken 
off  our  wings,  and  rolled  up  our  shirt-sleeves  to  carry 
the  hod  !  Not  to  die  without  having  experienced  all 
kinds  of  sensations,  I  wish  to  be  rich — though  it  will 
come  to  me  like  butter  when  the  bread  is  gone  to 
spread  it  on.     Heigho  ! 

Brig. — How  you  keep  drawing  similitudes  from 
what  you  see  before  your  eyes  !  Let  me  eat  my 
breakfast  without  turning  it  into  poetry!  It  will  sour 
on  my  stomach,  my  dear  boy  ! 

"  We." — So  you  are  ordered  out  to  smash  the  Hel- 
derbergers,  general ! 

Brig. — Ordered  to  hold  myself  in  readiness — that's 
all  at  present.  I  wish  they'd  observe  the  seasons,  and 
rebel  in  pleasant  weather!  Think  of  the  summit  of 
a  saddle  with  the  thermometer  at  zero  !  Besides,  if 
there  is  any  fighting  to  do  one  likes  an  enemy.  This 
campaign  to  help  the  constable,  necessary  as  it  is,  goes 
against  my  stomach. 

"  We." — Fortify  it,  poor  thing  !  What  say  to  a 
drop  of  curacoa  before  you  begin  your  New  Year's 
round?  {Pouring  for  the  general  and  himself)  Burke 
states,  in  his  "  Vindication  of  Natural  Society,"  that 
your  predecessor,  Julius  Cesar,  was  the  means  of 
killing  two  millions  one  hundred  thousand  men!  How 
populous  is  Helderberg — women  and  all? 

Brig. — Twelve' o'clock,  my  dear  "boy,  and  time  to 
be  shaking  hands  and  wishing.  Take  the  first  wish 
off  the  top  of  my  heart — a  happy  New  Year  to  you, 
and — 

"  We." — Gently  with  that  heavy  benediction  ! 

Brig. — God  bless  you,  mi-boy  !■ 

{Exit  the  brigadier,  affected.) 


EPHEMERA. 


761 


i,  anu  to  mem  wc  «iau   iu  K<«/..~.  «  "•>■*  »* 7 

hing  the  usages  just  now  in  plastic  and  manage- 
transition  among  the  better  classes.     The  follow- 


Themes  for  the  Table.— Among  the  "upper 
ten  thousand,"  there  are,  of  course,  many  persons,  not 
only  of  really  refined  taste,  but  of  practical  common 
sense,  and  to  them  we  wish  to  proffer  a  hint  or  two, 
toucl 

able  transition  among 

ing  note,  received  a  day  or  two  since,  suggests  one  of 
the  improvements  that  we  had  marked  down  for  com 
ment : — 

"Mb.  Editor:  I  observe  that  a  'bachelor,'  wri- 
ting in  the  'American,'  recommends  to  'invited1 
and  '  inciters,'  to  send  invitations  and  answers,  stamp- 
ed, through  the  penny-post.  This  is  a  capital  idea, 
and  I  shall  adopt  it  for' one.  I  perceive  that  a  bachelor 
in  another  paper  says,  '  it  will  suit  him  and  his  fellow- 
bachelors,'  for  reasons  set  forth,  and  that  he  will  adopt 
the  plan.  Now,  Mr.  Editor,  I  am  a  housekeeper, 
and  married,  and  my  wife  requires  the  use  of  all  my 
servants,  and  can  not  spare  them  to  be  absent  three  or 
four  days,  going  round  the  city,  delivering  notes,  on 
the  eve  of  a  party.  These  notes  could,  by  the  plan 
suggested,  be  delivered  in  three  hours,  and  insure  a 
prompt  answer.  I  can  then  know  exactly  who  is 
coming  and  who  is  not— a  very  convenient  point  of 
knowledge ! 

"These  reasons  induce  me  to  become  an  advocate 
of  the  suggestion.     There  are  other  sound  arguments 
that  might  be  urged  in  its  favor,  but  pray  present  them  j 
in  your  own  fashion  to  your  readers. 

"  Yours,  &c." 
There    is   another  very   burthensome    matter,    the  j 
annoyance  of  which  might  be  transferred  to  the  penny-  j 
p03t — card  leaving  !     When  men  are  busy  and  ladies 
ill  (the  business  and  the  illness  equally  unlikely  to  be  j 
heard  of  by  way  of  apology)  it  would  often  be  a  most  1 
essential  relief  to  commit  to  envelopes  a  dozen  cards,  j 
and,  with  an  initial  letter  or  two  in  the  corner,*  ex-  1 
pressive   of  good-will  but  inability  to  call  in  person, 
make  and  return  visits  without  moving  from  counting 
house  or  easy-chair.     This,  in  a  country  where  few 
keep  carriages,  and  where  every  man  worth  knowing 
has  some  business  or  profession,  should   be  an   easy 
matter  to  bring  about ;  and,  if  established  into  a  usage 
that  gave  no  offence,  would  serve  two  purposes— re- 
lieving the  ill  or  busy,   and  compelling  those,  who 
really  wish  to  keep  up  an  acquaintance,  at  least  to 
send  cards  once  in  a  while,  as  reminders. 

We  wish  that  common  sense  could  be  made  fashion- 
able among  us — vigorously  applied,  we  mean,  to  the 
fashions  of  the  best  style  of  people.  Why  should  not 
the  insufferable  nuisance  of  late  parlies  be  put  down 
in  this  country  by  a  plot  between  a  hundred  of  our 
sensible  and  distinguished  families?  In  England  they 
are  at  the  dinner-table  between  six  and  ten  ;  but  why 
should  we,  who  seldom  dine  later  than  three  or  four, 
yawn  through  a  long  unoccupied  evening  before  going 
out,  merely  because  they  go  to  parties  at  eleven  in 
London  ?  Why  should  it  not  be  American,  to  revise, 
correct,  and  adapt  to  differences  of  national  character, 
the  usages  we  copy  from  other  countries  ?  The  sub- 
ject of  late  parties  is  constantly  talked  over,  however, 
and  as  all  are  agreed  as  to  the  absurdity  of  the  fashion, 
a  hint  at  it,  here,  is  enough. 

There  are  other  usages  which  require  remodelling 
by  this  standard,  but  while  we  defer  the  mention  of 
them  at  present,  we  wish  to  allude  to  another  argu- 
ment (in  favor  of  common  sense  applied  to  fashion) 
remoter  and  perhaps  weightier  than  mere  convenience. 
It  is  simply,  that,  if  an  aristocracy  is  to  be  formed  in 
this  country,  the  access  to  its  resorts  must' be  kept 
convenient  for  men  of  sense,  or  society  will  be  left  ex- 
clusively to  fools.     Believers  in   the  eternity   of  de- 

*  T.  R.  M.,  for  instance  (meaning  this  to  remind  you  of 
me),  written  in  the  corner  of  a  card,  might  imply  that  the 
friendly  wish  had  occurred,  though  the  call  was  overruled  by 
hinderances. 


mocracy  might  wish  fashion  kept  inconvenient,  for  this 
very  purpose;  but  our  belief  is,  that  there  is  no  place 
like  a  republic  for  a  positive  and  even  violent  aristoc- 
racy, and,  if  inevitable,  it  is  as  well  to  compound  it 
of  good  elements  in  the  beginning.  Simply,  then,  no 
intellectual  man,  past  absolute  juvenility,  would  con- 
sent to  enfeeble  his  mind  by  fashionable  habits  injuri- 
ous to  health.  Late  hours  and  late  suppers  (in  a 
country  where  we  can  not  well  sleep  till  noon  as  they 
do  in  Europe)  are  mental  suicide.  Hours  and  usages, 
therefore,  which  are  not  accommodated  to  the  conve- 
nience of  the  best  minds  of  the  country,  will  drive 
those  minds  from  the  class  to  which  they  form  the 
objection,  and  the  result  is  easily  pictured.  We 
shall  resume  the  topic. 


Livebiesand  Opeba-Glasses.— There  is  really  no 
way  of  foreseeing  what  the  Americans  will  stand* and 
what  they  will  not.  An  aristocratic  family  or  two, 
unwilling  to  compete  wiOi  the  working-classes  in  person- 
al attire,  choose  to  transfer  the  splendors  of  their  condi- 
tion to  the  hacks  of  their  servants.'  They  dress  plainly 
themselves  and  set  up  a  liveried  equipage — as-  they 
have  an  absolute  and  (one  would  think)  an  unoffend- 
ing right  to  do.  This,  however,  the  American  pub- 
lic will  not  bear — and  the  persons  so  doing  are  insulted 
by  half  the  presses  in  the  country. 

But  what  they  will  bear  is  much  more  remarkable. 
In  the  immense  theatres  of  Europe,  where  the  upper 
classes  are  all  in  private  boxes,  with  blinds  and  curtains 
to  shutout  observation  if  they  please,  the  use  of  opera- 
glasses  has  gradually  become  sanctioned.  It  is  found 
convenient  lor  those  classes  to  diminish  the  distance 
across  the  house,  since  they  have  the  choice  of  seclu- 
sion behind  curtains — which  those  in  the  pit  have  not. 
Abstractly,  of  course,  the  giving  to  a  vulgarian  the 
power  to  draw  a  lady's  face  close  to  him  for  a  half- 
hour's  examination,  would  be  permitting  a  gross  li- 
cense. This  being  the  custom  in  Europe,  however, 
it  is  adopted  with  no  kind  of  comparisons  of  reasons 
why,  in  New  York.  We  build  an  opera-house,  scarce 
larger  than  a  drawing-room,  and  light  it  so  well,  and 
so  arrange  the  seats,  that  people  are  as  visible  to  each 
other  as  they  would  be  in  a  drawing-room  ;  and  in 
this  cosy  place,  allow  people  to  coolly  adjust  their 
opera-glasses  and  turn  them  full  into  the  faces  of  those 
they  wish  to  scrutinize.  So  near  as  the  glass  is,  too, 
j  it  is  utterly  impossible  not  to  be  conscious  of  being 
I  looked  at,  and  the  embarrassment  it  occasions  to  very 
i  young  ladies  is  easy  enough  shown.  We  have  used 
I  this  impertinence  ourself  (because  in  Rome  we  do  as 
Romans  do),  but  we  never  yet  have  levelled  a  glass 
upon  a  face  without  seeing  that  the  scrutiny  was  at 
once  detected.  Since  we  have  preached  on  the  sub- 
ject, however,  we  shall  "  go  and  sin  no  more." 

"  We  ask  for  information  :"— is  the  difference  of 
reception,  for  these  two  European  customs,  explain- 
able on  the  ground  that  opera-glasses  are  a  luxury 
within  the  reach  of  most  persons,  and  liveries  are  not  ? 
Do  republicans  only  object  to  exclusive  impertinences? 


Opeba  last  night — We  presume  we  are  safe  in 
saying  that  no  four  inhabitants  in  New  York  gave  as 
much  pleasure  last  night  as  Pico,  Bobghese,  Pe- 
bozzi,  and  Valtellina.  We  certainly  would  not 
have  missed  our  share  for  any  emotion  set  down 
among  the  pleasures  of  Wall  street— well  as  we  know 
the  let-up  of  an  opportune  discount !  That  emperor 
of  Rome  who  poisoned  Britannicus  because  he  was 
a  better  tenor  than  himself,  and  slept  in  his  imperial 
bed  with  a  plate  of  lead  on  his  stomach  to  improve 
his  voice,  knew  where  music  went  to,  and  of  what 


762 


EPHEMERA. 


recesses,  within  his  empire,  he  was  not  monarch  with- 
out it.  (We  suggest  a  meeting  of  gentlemen  up-town 
to  erect  a  monument  to  Nero,  now  for  the  first  time 
appreciated  !) 

Let  us  tell  the  story  of  Semiramide — and  we  must 
take  the  liberty,  for  clearness'  sake,  to  use  the  names 
of  the  performers  without  the  Siamese-ry  of  the  names 
of  the  characters. 

Borghese  is  queen  of  Babylon.  She  and  Valtel- 
lina, who  is  an  old  lover  of  hers,  have  killed  her  former 
husband,  a  descendant  of  Belus  by  whom  she  had  a 
child.  This  child  is  Pico,  rightful  heir  to  the  throne. 
At  the  time  the  curtain  rises,  Borghese  and  Valtel- 
lina suppose  that  Pico  also  is  killed,  and  the  throne 
vacant  for  a  new  husband  to  Borghese.  Valtellina 
wishes  to  be  that  husband  ;  but  Borghese,  partly  from 
dislike  of  him,  and  partly  from  having  had  enough  of 
matrimony,  takes  advantage  of  a  thunder-storm  to  put 
off  her  expected  decision.  Meantime  Pico  arrives 
(acquainted  only  with  Mr.  Meyer,  apparently,  who  is 
a  high-priest  of  Belus),  and  Queen  Borghese,  not 
knowing  that  it  is  her  own  child,  falls  in  love  with 
him  !  There  is  a  Miss  Phillips  who  is  a  descendant 
of  this  same  Belus,  and  who  is  to  have  the  throne  if 
Borghese  does  not  marry  Valtellina.  Pico  loves  Miss 
Phillips  for  some  reason  only  hinted  at,  and  has  come 
to  Babylon  to  see  her.  Mr.  Meyer,  who  is  the  only 
one  aware  that  Pico  is  the  prince  supposed  to  be  lost, 
takes  him  down  into  the  tomb  of  the  dead  king,  tells 
him  who  he  is,  gives  him  his  father's  "  things"  in  a 
box,  and  leaves  him  there  to  have  a  conversation  with 
his  mother  who  happens  to  drop  in.  It  is  all  cleared 
up  between  them,  and  they  sing  a  duet  together,  and 
go  out  for  a  little  fresh  air.  Valtellina,  mousing  about 
after  the  queen,  comes  afterward  to  the  tomb  and 
meets  the  high-priest  there ;  and  one  after  another 
drops  in,  till  the  tomb  is  full,  and  the  ghost  of  the  old 
king  takes  the  opportunity  to  get  up  and  mention 
what  he  died  of.  Great  confusion  of  course  ;  and, 
soon  after,  Pico,  feeling  called  upon  to  kill  the  mur- 
derer of  the  sleepless  old  gentleman,  stabs  at  some- 
body in  the  dark  and  kills  his  mother  !  Valtellina  is 
led  off  by  the  police,  Pico  faints  in  the  arms  of  Mr. 
Meyer,  the  satraps  and  Babylonians  rush  in,  and  the 
curtain  falls — leaving  Pico  to  marry  Miss  Phillips  and 
succeed  to  the  throne.  All  this  of  course  took  place 
in  a  city  built  two  generations  after  Ham  (brother  of 
Shem  and  Japhet)  but  what  with  the  look  of  the 
"  tombs,"  and  the  way  people  were  stabbed  and  pois- 
oned, it  was  impossible  not  to  wonder  what  Justice 
Malsell  would  have  done  in  the  premises. 

We  shall  hear  Semiramide  again  to-night,  and  speak 
more  advisedly  of  the  music  on  Monday.  At  present, 
we  can  not  convince  ourself  that  Grisi  and  Persiani 
sang  any  better  when  we  heard  them  in  London.  We 
can  never  hope  for — and  we  need  not  wish — a  better 
opera.  Borghese  is  a  most  accomplished  creature, 
with  (among  other  things)  an  intoxicating  way  of 
crushing  her  eyes  up  to  express  passion  (in  a  way  that 
none  but  people  of  genius  do)  and  she  does  nothing 
indifferently.  Pico,  with  her  wonderful  at-home-ative- 
ness  anywhere  between  the  lowest  note  and  the  high- 
est, faultless  in  her  science,  and  personally  of  the  kind 
of  women  most  loveable,  is  enough,  of  herself,  to  keep 
a  town  together.  Perozzi,  with  his  sweet,  pure 
voice,  and  gentlemanly  taste  (he  was  king  of  Egypt 
last  night,  by  the  way,  and  a  candidate  for  Borghese's 
hand),  is  worthy  to  be  a  third  star  in  any  such  Orion's 
belt,  and  the  fourth  may  well  be  Valtellina,  whose 
thorough  base,  we  have  no  doubt,  first  suggested  the 
idea  of  the  forty-horse  excavator  lately  patented  by 
congress. 

But  what  shall  we  say  of  the  scenery  ?  We  were 
taken  completely  by  surprise,  with  the  taste  as  well  as 
splendor  of  it,  and  we  think  Stanfield  himself,  the 
great  artist  who  produces  occasionally  such  marvels 


in  the  spectacles  of  Drury  Lane,  would  have  taken  a 
pride  in  claiming  it.  Certainly  no  comparable  scene- 
ry has  been  exhibited,  to  our  knowledge,  in  this 
country.     The  costumes  were  also  admirable. 

Abstaining  as  we  do,  for  to-day,  from  musical 
criticism,  we  cau  not  help  alluding  to  the  electric  ef- 
fect, upon  the  audience,  of  the  duet  between  Pico 
and  Borghese — the  well-known  "  Giorno  d'orrore." 
The  house  was  uncomfortably  crammed,  but  a  pin 
might  have  been  heard  to  drop,  at  any  moment  dur- 
ing the  singing  of  it.  It  was  a  case  of  complete  musi- 
cal intoxication.  The  applause  was  boundless,  but 
unluckily  the  encore  (which  we  trust  will  not  be  foiled 
again  to-night)  was  defeated  by  an  evident  fear  on  the 
part  of  the  audience  of  interrupting  a  part  of  the  duet 
not  yet  completed.  If  you  love  your  public,  dear 
Semiramide,  nod,  to-night,  to  the  orchestra,  after  the 
bouquets  have  descended  ! 


BEHIND    THE    CURTAIN. 

Editor's  room,  toward  midnight — Enter  the  brigadier, 
as  the  printers  go  down  stairs — The  day  over,  and 
the  shop  shut  up  under — A  pen  (too  tired  to  be 
wiped)  drying  in  peace  on  the  editor's  table — Neus- 
boys  done  (thank  God  ! ) — Brigadier  collapsed  into 
a  chair. 

Brig. — Oh,  mi-boy!  To  think  of  the  trouble  of 
"  getting  along,"  and  the  very  small  place  in  which 
we  sleep,  when  we  get  there !  I  wonder  whether  a 
man  would  be  much  behind  the  time  at  his  own  fu- 
neral if  he  stopped  working!  I'm  tired,  Willis!  I'll 
send  my  ticket  for  the  afterpiece,  and  "  go  home,"  as 
the  Moravians  say. 

"  We." — You  forget !  Editors  are  on  the  "  free 
list"  in  the  theatre  of  life,  and  "  not  entitled  to  a 
check." 

Brig. — Talk  plain  to  me,  my  dear  boy,  and  save 
your  heliotropes  for  the  paper!  The  work  I  have 
done  this  week  !  Is  it  you  that  say  somewhere, 
"there's  no  poetry  in  a  steamboat?"  Think  of  the 
blessed  cry  of  "  stop  her  !" 

"  We." — And  so  you  are  fairly  fagged,  my  "  mar- 
tial Pyrrhus!" 

Brig. — Fagged  and  dispirited  !  Moving  the  print- 
ing office — getting  all  the  advertisements  set  up  in 
new  type — little  indispensable  nothings  plaguing  my 
life  out — new  arrangements  in  every  corner,  and  the 
daily  paper  going  on  besides 

"  We." — I  don't  wonder  you're  dead  ! 

Brig. — That  is  the  least  of  my  trouble,  I  was  going 
to  say — (though,  to  be  sure,  what  we  have  done  this 
last  week,  changing  office,  and  renewing  type,  with- 
out stopping  the  daily,  is  very  much  like  shoeing 
your  horse  without  slacking  his  trot)  —  but  the  "  ben- 
efit," my  dear  boy,  the  benefit. 

"  We." — So  long  since  you  have  had  any  money  to 
lend — is  that  what  you  mean  ?  You  are  afraid  you 
have  lost  the  art  of  making  yourself  out  poorer 
than  the  man  who  comes  to  borrow.  Why,  my  poor 
general  ! 

Brig. — Doesn't  it  strike  you  as  a  dreadful  mortifi- 
cation, my  dear  Willis  ? 

"  We." — The  whole  business  ? 

Brig. — The  whole  business. 

"  We.'' — Inasmuch  as  for  genius  to  be  rich,  after 
being  poor,  would  make  a  god  of  the  man  so  en- 
riched (by  the  intensity  of  his  enjoyment,  and  his  nat- 
ural inoculation  against  catching  the  canker  from  his 
money) — it  is  wisely  ordained  by  Providence  that  we 
shall  not  receive  it  in  sums  larger  than  $3,  city  bill, 
without  mental  agony.     We  should  else  be  in  heaven 


ephemer; 


res 


before  our  time,  my  dear  general — purgatory  omit- 
ted ! 

Brig. — But  isn't  your  pride  wounded  for  me,  my 
dear  boy  ? 

"  We." — As  Cassio  says  (who,  by  the  way,  loved 
general  Othello  very  much  as  I  do  you), 


'  I  do  attend  here  on  the  general, 
And  think  it  no  addition,  nor  my  wish, 
To  have  him  see  me  womaned." 

I  have  no  tear  to  shed  on  the  subject.  I  have 
thought  it  all  over,  and  would  have  stood  in  your 
place  and  received  the  painful  thousands  myself,  if  I 
had  thought  it  more  than  you  could  bear — but  let  me 
tell  you  how  I  look  at  it. 

Brig. — Do,  mi-boy,  and  don't  joke  more  than  you 
can  help  ! 

"  We." — Editors  are  the  pump-handles  of  charity, 
always  helping  people  to  water,  and  never  thought  to 
be  thirsty  themselves  ! 

Brig. — You  funny  Willis! — so  we  are! 

"  We." — You,  particularly,  have  not  only  been 
bolted  to  the  public  cistern  for  every  benefit  of  the 
last  twenty  years,  the  fag  and  worky  of  every  possible 
charitable  committee,  but  your  paper  has  been  called 
upon  (and  that  people  think  nothing  of)  to  blow  wind 
into  the  sail  of  every  scheme  of  benevolence,  every 
device  for  the  good  of  individuals  or  the  public.  Peo- 
ple see  your  face  on  every  printed  note  that  comes  to 
them.  You  are  the  other-folks-beggar  of  the  town. 
When  you  die 

Brie- — No  painful  allusions  now,  mi-boy  ! 

"  We." — I  was  only  going  to  say,  my  dear  general, 
that  they  will  wish  they  had  unmuzzled  the  ox  that 
trod  out  the  corn  ! 

Brig,  (swallowing something  apparently).  But  I  have 
had  so  many  misgivings  about  this  benefit  concert,  my 
dear  Willis  ! 

"We." — The  pump-handle  changing  places  with 
the  pail !  Well— it  will  be  a  shower-bath  at  first,  but 
you'll  be  full  when  it's  over! 

Brig. — There  you  go  again  ! 

"  We." — I  was  letting  that  simile  trickle  off"  my 
lips  while  I  fished  up,  from  my  practical  under-cur- 
rent, another  good  reason  for  your  benefit.  Suffer 
me  to  be  tedious  a  moment! 

Brig. — Be  so,  mi-boy — be  so  !  I  love  you  best 
when  you're  tedious! 

44  We." — Well,  then  !  Political  economy  differs 
from  the  common  estimates  of  things,  by  taking  into 
consideration  not  only  their  apparent  value  at  the 
time  of  sale,  but  what  it  has  cost,  directly  or  indi- 
rectly, to  attain  that  value.     Do  you  understand  me  ? 

Brig. — No. 

44  We." — For  example,  then  ! — a  leg  of  mountain 
mutton  may  weigh  no  more  than  a  leg  of  lowland 
mutton — but  as  the  fibre  of  the  meat  is  finer  from  be- 
ing fed  on  highland  grass,  it  is  reasonable  to  estimate 
it  by  something  besides  its  weight — i.  e.,  the  shep- 
herd's risk  of  losing  it  by  wild  beasts,  and  the  trouble 
of  driving  it  up  and  down  the  mountain. 

Brig.— True. 

44  We." — Thus,  a  lawyer  charges  you  fifty  dollars 
for  an  opinion  which  it  takes  him  but  ten  minutes  to 
dictate  to  his  clerk.  A  savage  would  laugh  at  the 
price,  and  offer  to  talk  twice  the  time  for  half  the 
money — but  a  civilized  man  pays  it,  allowing  for  the 
education,  study,  and  talent,  which  it  cost  to  give  the 
opinion  value. 

Brig.— True  again.     Now  for  our  44  mutton." 

44  We."—  You  and  I,  my  dear  general,  are  brain- 
mongers— which  is  an  exceedingly  ticklish  trade.  We 
start  with  our  goods  in  supposition,  like  the  capital 
of  a  western  bank — locked  up  in  a  safe,  that  is  to  say 
(the  skull),  to  which  the  "  teller"  alone  has  the  key. 
We  are  never  sure,  in  point  of  fact,  that  the  specie  is 


there,  and  we  are  likely  at  any  moment  to  be  4i  broke" 
by  the  critics  "making  a  run  upon  the  bank." 

Brig. — Now  that's  what  I  call  clear  ! 

"  We."— Don't  interrupt  me  !  The  risks  of  suc- 
cess in  literature,  the  outlay  for  education,  the  delay 
in  turning  it  to  profit,  the  endurance  of  the  gauntlets 
of  criticism,  and  the  rarity  of  the  gift  of  genius  from 
God,  should  be  added  to  the  usually  fragile  shop  in 
which  its  wares  are  embarked  for  vending.  The  poet, 
by  constitution  least  able  to  endure  rude  usage,  is  the 
common  target  of  coarseness  and  malice.  Here  and 
there,  to  be  sure,  a  man  is  born,  like  me — with  brains 
enough,  but  more  liver  than  brains — and  such  men 
sell  thoughts  as  they  would  potatoes,  and  don't  break 
their  hearts  if  customers  find  specks  in  them;  but  the 
literary  profession,  generally,  is  of  another  make,  and 
44  political  economy"  should  compensate  proportion- 
ally. They  do  it  for  clergymen!  What  clergyman 
feels  it  an  indignity  to  be  sent  abroad  by  subscription, 
if  his  health  fails?  He  considers  that  he  is  inade- 
quately paid  unless  his  parish  take  the  risks  of  his 
health  !  And  you  ! — besides  the  reason  you  have, 
wholly  apart  from  our  joint  business,  for  needing  this 
benefit — here  you  are,  after  passing  your  life  in  ser- 
ving people,  with  a  pair  of  eyes  you  can  scarce  sign 
your  name  by,  and  a  prospect  of  a  most  purblind  view 
of  the  City  Hall  when  they  make  you  mayor. 

Brig. — Mi-boy  !  oh  ! 

44  We." — There's  but  one  pair  of  well-endorsed  eyes 
between  us,  and  suppose  somebody  leaves  me  money 
enough  to  unharness  me  from  this  omnibus,  and  turn 
me  out  to  grass  at  Glenmary  !  What  will  become  of 
you  ? 

Brig. — Heaven  indissolubly  Siamese  us,  my  dear 
boy  ! 

44  We." — And  I  have  not  even  named,  yet,  the  os- 
tensible ground  for  this  concert — the  songs  you  have 
loaded  the  women's  lips  with,  and  never  received 
even  a  kiss  for  your  trouble! 

Brig. — What  a  fellow  you  are  for  reasons,  Willis! 

44  We." — My  dear  friend,  I  am  going  to  state  all 
this  to  the  committee  for  your  benefit!  By  the  way 
— did  you  ever  hear  of  Ismenias,  the  D'Orsay  of  an- 
cient Corinth  ? 

Brig. — Never. 

"We." — Ismenias  commissioned  a  friend  to  buy  a 
jewel  for  him.  The  friend  succeeded  in  purchasing 
it  at  a  sum  below  its  value.  "  Fool!"  said  Ismenias, 
44 you  have  disgraced  the  gem!"  Did  you  suppose, 
general,  that  I  was  going  to  give  the  public  the  pleas- 
ure of  paying  you  this  tribute  without  taxing  their 
admiration  as  well  as  their  pockets  .'  No  !  (Hear 
him  !)  No  !  I  trust  every  woman  who  has  sung,  or 
heard  sung,  a  song  of  yours,  will  be  there  to  wave  a 
handkerchief  for  you!  I  hope  every  man  who  loves 
literature,  and  has  a  corner  in  his  heart  for  the  poet 
who  has  pleased  him,  will  be  there  to  applaud  you  ! 
I  hope  David  Hale  will  give  us  gas  enough  to  see 
you  on  the  platform.  I  hope — God  bless  me,  twelve 
o'clock  ! 


Operatic  Party. — As  our  readers  are  aware,  a 
private  sparkle  from  the  stars  of  an  operatic  constella- 
tion, is  one  of  the  luxuries  rated  as  princely  in  Europe 
— a  proper  fitness  in  the  other  circumstances  of  the 
entertainment  requiring  a  spaciousness  of  saloons  and 
a  magnificence  of  menu  which  only  the  very  wealthi- 
est have  to  offer.  The  private  dwelling-houses  of 
this  city,  till  within  a  few  years,  have  been  much  too 
small  for  the  introduction  of  this  advanced  phase  of 
pleasure.  Last  night,  however,  a  sumptuous  resi- 
dence, that  might  compare  to  advantage  with  any  in- 
terior in  Europe,  was  thrown  open,  and  its  "  wilder- 
ness of  beauty"  delighted  with  private  performances 
by  the  operatic  company  now  in  such  admirable  com- 


764 


EPHEMERA. 


bination.  As  being  the  head  of  a  new  chapter  of  na- 
tional refinement,  it  would,  perhaps,  be  posthumously 
worth  while  to  depict  the  scene — not  only  as  to  its 
sumptuary  splendors  and  costumes,  but  with  a  de- 
scription of  the  "  beauty  that  bewitched  the  light" — 
but  however  posterity  might  thank  us  for  such  an  inky 
Arethusa,  we  have  too  much  to  do  with  what  is  above 
ground,  just  now,  to  bury  charms  for  the  future. 

Madame  Pico  remarked,  before  the  commencement 
of  the  performance,  that  it  was  almost  as  trying  for 
singers  used  to  a  theatre  to  adapt  the  voice,  impromp- 
tu, to  a  saloon,  as  for  an  amateur  to  calculate,  at  once, 
the  volume  of  voice  necessary  to  fill  a  theatre.  The 
first  two  or  three  pieces  were,  notwithstanding  this 
judicious  apprehension,  a  little  too  loud.  Signor 
Valtellina  must  have  the  credit  of  having  been  the 
first  to  reduce  the  "  fill  of  •  the  empyrean"  to  the  ca- 
pacity of  a  saloon,  and,  after  the  measure  was  taken, 
the  music  was  exquisitely  enjoyable.  After  tea 
(served  in  an  adjoining  apartment  at  the  close  of  the 
first  part)  the  artists  assumed,  to  a  charm,  the  neces- 
sary abandon,  and  the  singing  between  tea  and  sup- 
per was,  to  our  ear,  faultless.  The  pianist  only,  M. 
Etienne  seemed  lacking  in  the  magnetism  to  quicken 
the  movement  with  the  acceleration  of  Pico's  climax, 
and  we  wished  a  younger  or  more  sympathetic  hand 
in  the  accompaniment ;  but  this  charming  cantatrice 
has  too  infallible  an  ear  to  outrun  the  instrument,  and 
the  effect  was  sufficiently  enchanting.  She  and  Sig- 
norina  Borghese  were  rapturously  encored,  and  a 
laughing  terzetto  between  Borghese,  SANquiRico,  and 
Perozzi,  was  called  for,  a  second  time,  with  bound- 
less delight  and  enthusiam. 

We  had  never  before  seen  Madame  Pico  off"  the 
stage.  Care  has  left  no  foot-print  on  the  threshold 
of  the  gate  of  music,  and  her  mouth  is  infantine  in 
texture  and  expression  ;  but  her  eyes  have  that  in- 
definable look  which  betrays 

"  The  thieves  of  joyance  that  have  passed  that  way." 

Her  person  shows  to  more  advantage  in  a  drawing- 
room  than  on  the  stage,  and  her  manners,  like  those  of 
all  gifted  Italians,  are  of  a  natural  sculpture  beyond 
the  need  of  artificial  chiseling.  Borghese,  too,  has 
charming  manners,  and  we  were  pleased  with  the  cor- 
dial accueil  given  to  the  prima-donnas  by  the  ladies 
of  the  party.  Altogether,  the  absolute  good  taste  of 
the  entertainment,  and  the  unusually  choice  mixture 
of  elements,  social,  sumptuous,  and  professional,  made 
the  evening  one  of  high  enchantment. 


Opera  Singers — At  the  benefit  of  Mademoiselle 
Borghese,  lately,  the  centre  of  the  ceiling  suddenly 
gave  birth  (at  the  close  of  the  first  act)  to  a  shower  of 
billets-doux,  which,  being  immediately  followed  by  the 
descent  of  the  drop-scene,  representing  Jupiter  feeling 
the  pulse  of  Juno,  was  understood  by  the  audience 
"  as  well  as  could  be  expected."  The  delivery  was 
rather  a  relief  to  the  feeling  of  the  house,  for  the 
crowd  and  pressure  had  been  very  uncomfortable 
and  some  critical  event  was  needed  to  relieve  the  en- 
durance. 

We  have  been  pleased  at  the  example,  set  by  the 
good  authority  of  the  party  of  Monday  evening,  of 
giving  a  cordial,  social  welcome  to  distinguished  musi- 
cal strangers.  America  profits  by  having  two  nations 
marching  immediately  before  her  in  civilization — 
each  unwilling  to  imitate  the  other,  but  both  open  to 
study,  by  us,  with  no  impediment  as  to  our  selection 
of  points  for  imitation  or  rejection.  The  French  and 
English  are  wholly  at  variance  on  the  point  we  have 
just  alluded  to — the  social  position  given  to  celebrated 
musicians.     In  the  high  circles  of  France,  when  a 


party  is  given  at  which  the  operatic  singers  perform  a 
concert,  the  reception  for  the  musicians  consults  only 
their  personal  comfort. — Chairs  are  placed  for  them, 
which  they  rarely  leave  to  mix  with  the  party,  and 
their  supper  is  always  separate  from  that,  of  the  guests. 
There  is  no  intention  shown,  of  treating  them  like 
equals.  In  England,  on  the  contrary,  the  operatic 
company  are  the  pels  of  society.  Pasta,  Catalani, 
Persiani,  Grisi,  and  the  male  singers,  Lablache, 
Rubini,  Ivanhoff,  and  others,  were  free  of  all  exclu- 
sion on  the  score  of  rank,  and  "dined  and  teted" 
familiarly  like  noble  strangers  from  other  countries. 
We  have  seen  the  duke  of  Wellington  holding  the 
gloves  of  Grisi,  while  she  pulled  to  pieces  a  bunch  of 
grapes  at  the  supper  table  of  Devonshire  house  ;  and 
we  have  a  collection  of  autographs  of  public  singers 
(two  of  which  we  published  the  other  day),  addressed 
to  persons  of  high  rank,  and  expressed  in  terms  of 
the  most  confessed  feeling  of  ease  as  to  relative  posi- 
tion. 

We  repeat  that  we  rejoice  in  the  power  to  select 
footsteps  to  follow  in  civilization  (from  those  of  two 
nations  gone  on  before),  and  we  take  pride,  that,  in 
this  latest  instance,  we  have  copied  the  more  liberal 
and  kindly-hearted  usage.  These  children  of  a  pas- 
sionate clime  are  not  justly  measured  by  our  severe 
standards;  and  we  should  receive  them  like  airs  from 
a  southern  sky,  without  cooling  them  first  by  a  chymi- 
cal  analysis.  They  are,  commonly,  ornaments  to 
society — joyous,  genial,  free  from  the  "finikin"  super- 
fineries  of  some  of  those  inclined  to  abase  them — and 
the  difference  of  the  pleasure  they  give,  when  their  hearts 
are  in  it,  is  offset  enough  for  any  sacrifice  made  in  ex- 
cusing the  "low  breeding"  of  their  genius  ! 

Borghese,  whose  benefit  came  off  so  triumphantly 
last  night,  is  a  woman  of  very  superior  mind,  of  man- 
ners faultlessly  distinguished,  and  (essential  praise  to 
a  woman)  a  model  of  toilet-ability.  She  is,  besides,  a 
remarkable  actress,  and  a  very  accomplished  musician. 
This  is  a  pretty  good  description  of  an  agreeable  ac- 
quaintance ;  and,  if  we  were  to  sketch  Madame  Pico, 
it  would  be  in  terms  still  more  warmly  eulogistic. 
We  leave  to  the  ladies  who  throw  bouquets  to  San- 
quirico,  to  laud  the  men  of  the  opera,  and  wind  up 
this  essay  of  political  economy,  by  drawing  an  instruc- 
tive example,  of  the  effect  of  what  we  preach,  from 
the  manufacture  of  a  prima-donna  into  a  queen  and 
goddess,  in  the  days  of  venerable  antiquity. 

"Among  the  female  performers  of  antiquity,  Lamia 
is  certainly  the  most  celebrated  ;  how  much  her  fame 
may  have  been  aided  by  her  beauty  we  can  not  deter- 
mine. She  was  everywhere  received  with  honor,  and 
according  to  Plutarch,  equally  admired  for  her  wit, 
beauty,  and  musical  performance.  She  was  a  native 
of  Athens,  but  travelled  into  Egypt  to  hear  the  cele- 
brated flute-players  of  that  country.  During  her  resi- 
dence at  the  court  of  Alexandria,  Ptolemy  Soter  was 
defeated  in  a  naval  engagement  by  Demetrius,  and  all 
his  wives  and  domestics  fell  into  the  hands  of  the 
conqueror.  Lamia  was  among  the  number;  but 
Demetrius  was  so  attracted  by  her  beauty  and  skill, 
that  he  raised  her  to  the  highest  rank,  and  from  her 
solicitations,  conferred  such  benefits  on  the  Athenians, 
that  they  gave  him  divine  honors  and  dedicated  a  tem- 
ple to  '  Venus  Lamia.'  " 


Madame  Pico's  Benefit. — We  should  be  happy 
if  Europe  would  inform  us  why  this  remarkable  can- 
tatrice comes  to  us  "  new  as  a  tooth-pick,"  as  to  fame, 
and  whether  (the  same  lack  of  previous  trumpeting 
having  given  us  a  surprise  in  Malibran),  we  are  to 
have  the  credit  also  of  the  eccalobeion  of  Pico  !  Even 
without  the  "  deep-sea  plummet"  of  her  contralto 
(which  certainly  does  touch  bottom  for  which  most 


EPHEMERA. 


765 


voices  lack  fathoms  of  line)  she  has  a  compass  as  a 
mezzo  soprano,  which  would  alone  serve  for  remarka- 
ble success  in  her  profession.  She  is  a  most  correct 
musician  too — (the  only  false  note  we  have  heard 
from  her,  having  been  occasioned  by  her  striking  her 
chest  too  violently  while  singing  defiance  to  Vallellina) 
— and,  withal,  a  most  gifted  and  charming  woman, 
every  way  formed  to  be  an  idol  for  the  public.  We 
have  written  a  great  deal  about  Madame  Pico,  and, 
her  benefit  being  the  last  occasion  we  shall  find,  to  do 
more  than  chronicle  her  movements,  we  shall  send 
this  quill  to  our  friend  Kendall  of  the  Picayune  (as 
the  Highlanders  send  the  lighted  brand),  enveloped 
in  a  stanza  addressed  by  an  Italian  poet  to  Lady 
Coventry  : — 

((  Si  tutti  gli  alberi  del  mondo 

Fossero  penne, 

II  cielo  fosse  carta, 

II  mare  inchiostro 
Non  basterenno  a  destrivere 
La  minima  parte  della'' — 

We  leave  the  rest  to  the  Picayune's  prophetic  divina- 
tion. 

Adieu,  Pico,  l'in-cantatrice  !     A  clear  throat  and  a 
plethoric  pocket  to  you  ! 


Madame  Arnoult's  Concert. — It  looked  very 
queer  (and  a  little  wicked  withal)  to  see  opera-glasses 
and  ladies  with  their  heads  uncovered,  in  the  pews  of 
the  Tabernacle  ;  and  we  are  not  sure  that  our  "way 
we  should  go"  did  not  twitch  us  for  a  "  departure," 
when  we  found  ourselves  applauding  with  kid  gloves 
in  the  neighborhood  of  the  altar  !  We  were  applaud- 
ing Pico  ;  and  the  next  thought  that  came  to  us  was, 
a  regret  that  such  voices  should  not  be  consecrated  to 
church  choirs;  for  (granting  the  opera  to  be  a  profane 
amusement,  as  is  thought  by  the  worshippers  at  the 
Tabernacle),  "  it  is  a  pity,"  as  a  celebrated  divine  once 
said,  "that  the  devil  should  have  all  the  good  music.'' 
And,  apropos — was  not  this  capital  remark — (attributed, 
we  believe,  to  Wesley) — suggested  by  one,  recorded 
of  the  pope  Gregory  of  the  fifth  century  ?  Britain 
at  that  time  was,  to  Rome,  what  Africa  is  now  to  us 
— a  savage  country  they  brought  slaves  from;  and 
the  introduction  of  Christianity  into  that  heathen  land 
is  said  to  have  been  prompted  by  the  pope's  admira- 
tion of  the  beauty  of  two  or  three  young  John  Bulls 
who  were  for  sale  in  the  market-place  of  Rome.  On 
inquiring  of  the  merchant  if  they  were  Christians, 
and  being  informed  they  were  pagans,  he  exclaimed, 
"  Alas,  what  a  pity  that  the  author  of  darkness  should 
be  in  possession  of  men  of  such  fair  countenances  /"  He 
commissioned  Pelagius  forthwith  to  send  missionaries 
to  the  handsome  British  pagans,  and  hence  the  church 
of  England — probably  the  only  church,  the  members 
of  which  owe  their  salvation  to  their  personal  beauty  ! 
(Pardon  this  historical  digression,  dear  readers!) 

Madame  Arnoult  took  New  York  by  surprise — 
she   is  so   much   better  a  singer  than  was  supposed.  | 
With  less  effort,  and  in  a  smaller  room  than  the  nave 
of  the  Tabernacle,  she  would,  however,  appear  to  much 
more  advantage.     Her  voice,  to  our  ear,  lacked  fledg-  i 
ing,  or  lining,  or  something  to  make   it   warmer  or 
more  downy — but  it   is  a  clear  and   most  cultivable 
soprano,  and  she  manages  it  with  wonderful  skill  for  a 
beginner  at  public  singing.     We  predict  great  popu- ' 
larity   for   her.     Madame   Pico   sang,   with  her,  the 
duet  from   Semiramide,  and  it  was  enough  to  steep 
even  the   pulpit  cushion  in  a  this  world's  trance  of 
music. 


Armlets. — We  have  observed  that  there  is  a  late 
fashionable  promotion  of  the  jewels  of  the  arm  to  the 
more  lovely  round  above  the  elbow,  where,  it  must 


be  confessed,  a  bracelet  sits  much  more  enviably  im- 
bedded. We  rather  think  this  renewal  of  the  fashion 
of  armlets  is  a  clean  jump  from  the  rape  of  Helen  to 
1845,  for  the  latest  mention  we  can  find  of  it  is  in  the 
account  of  the  Trojan  nymphs,  who  laid  aside  their 
armlets  to  dance  in  the  choirs  on  Mount  Ida.  It 
takes  an  arm,  plump  and  not  too  plump,  to  wear  this 
clasp  with  a  grace,  but  where  the  arm  is  really  beauti- 
ful, no  ornament  could  be  more  fitly  and  captivatingly 
located.  We  were  very  much  struck  with  the  effect 
upon  the  dazzling  arm  on  which  we  lately  noticed  it. 


Views   of    Morris's    Concert There   are    few 

buttons  on  the  motley  coat  of  human  dependance,  to 
which  the  button-hole  is  not  serviceably  correspondent 
— the  button  (conferring  the  favor)  commonly  draw- 
ing the  same  garment  closer  by  aid  of  the  button-hole 
(receiving  the  favor).  There  is  one  very  striking  in- 
stance however,  of  constant  services  unreciprocated,  in 
what  editors  do  for  singers  and  actors.  Our  attention 
has  been  called  to  this  by  a  series  of  paragraphs — 
1  (part  silly,  part  malicious) — expressing  surprise  that 
Ole  Bull  and  others,  who  had  never  been  in  any  way 
benefited  by  Gen.  Morris,  should  have  been  asked  to 
contribute  their  services  gratuitously  to  his  benefit 
|  concert. 

It  is  needful,  of  course,  in  a  newspaper,  to  make 
some  mention  and  some  critical  estimate  of  all  public 
performers.  It  may  be  done  favorably  or  unfavor- 
ably ;  and  there  is  a  way  of  being  abundantly  paid  for 
cither.  "  Black  mail"  is  willingly  paid  where  com- 
mendation is  sold  in  shambles,  but  the  editor  is  belter 
paid,  still,  if,  with  skilful  roasting  and  dissection  of 
the  faults  of  public  performers,  he  cruelly  enriches 
his  paper  (like  a  pate  defoie  gras  with  the  liver  of  the 
goose  roasted  alive),  and  so  sends  it,  palatably  spiced, 
to  the  uninquiring  appetite  of  the  public.  He  who 
has  a  hair  of  his  head  left  undamned,  to  creep  with 
shame  at  the  "black  mail"  sale  of  his  approbation — 
and  he  who  has  common  human  kindness  to  prevent 
his  murdering  the  hopes  of  strangers  to  make  his 
paper  readable — both  these  are  of  classes  that  go  un- 
paid, and  commonly  unthanked,  for  services  most 
essential  to  others,  and  forbearance  most  costly  to 
themselves. 

The  editor's  business  is  to  make  his  paper  readable. 
The  most  difficult  task  he  has  to  do  is  to  be  readably 
good-natured.  The  easiest  writing  in  the  world  is 
criticism  amusingly  severe.  If  any  one  doubts,  for 
example,  that  with  the  same  pains  we  have  taken, 
glowingly  to  interpret  between  Ole  Bull  and  the  pub- 
lic, we  could  have  ridiculed  him  into  a  comparative 
failure — sending  a  laugh  before  him  through  the 
country  that  would  have  armed  every  listener  with  an 
impenetrable  incredulity — if  any  one  doubts  our  power 
to  have  done  this,  as  easily  as  we  have  ushered  him 
into  hearts  we  made  ready  for  a  believing  reception 
of  his  music,  he  does  not  know  either  the  press  or  the 
public — neither  the  arbitrary  license  of  the  press,  nor 
the  public's  weak  memory  lor  everything  but  ridicule. 
Where  Ole  Bull  now  stands,  the  press  is  compara- 
tively powerless.  He  is  stamped  with  success.  But, 
when  he  stood  on  the  threshold  of  this  country's  favor 
— a  musician,  whose  peculiarities  at  first  seemed  tricks, 
and  whom  few  heard  for  the  first  time  with  a  confident 
appreciation — if,  then,  ridicule  had  met  him,  boldly 
and  unsparingly,  even  though  this  one  paper  had  alone 
opened  the  cry,  he  would  have  had  us  to  thank,  we 
believe,  for  the  tide  turned  back  on  which  he  now  rides 
triumphantly  onward.  Certain  as  it  is  that  we  could 
not,  all  alone,  have  made  his  present  good  fortune,  it 
is  quite  as  certain  that  we  could,  all  alone,  have  marred 
it — and  that,  too,  to  the  profitable  spicing  of  our  some- 
what praise-ridden  columns.     We  need  not  stop  to 


766 


EPHEMERA. 


tell  the  reader  that  we  are  describing  the  fiend  Siam- 
esed  to  Liberty — an  Irresponsible  Press  which  can  not 
be  chained  without  chaining  Liberty  too — but  we  wish 
to  show  that  there  is  some  merit  in  not  harnessing 
this  fiend  to  our  own  slow  vehicle  of  fortune.  There 
never  was  an  opportunity  so  ready  as  Ole  Bull's  ad- 
veut  for  amusing  ridicule — but  we  were  the  first,  or 
among  the  first,  to  call  fur  faith  in  him,,  and  aid  in  his 
appreciation.  We  did  it  from  love  of  the  man  and 
belief  in  his  genius,  and  would  as  soon  have  been 
marked  on  the  brow  with  a  hot  iron  as  bargain  for  a 
syllable  of  it.  But — the  unforeseen  opportunity  pre- 
senting itself,  when,  apparently,  he  might  return  our 
paper's  service  by  a  favor  to  our  associate — he  was 
invited  without  scruple  to  do  so.  Suppose  he  had 
played  ten  minutes  on  the  violin  for  the  benefit  of  the 
proprietor  of  a  paper  devoted,  for  a  year,  invariably  to 
his  interests?  Would  it  have  been  the  "act  of  chari- 
ty" for  which  a  paragraphist  says  that  "  Ole  Bull  was 
unreasonably  called  upon  ?"  The  high-spirited  Nor- 
wegian placed  his  regret,  that  he  could  not  be  here  to 
comply,  upon  no  such  footing. 

While  we  are  calling  things  by  their  real  names, 
we  may  as  well  change  the  label  of  another  matter — 
the  motive  of  the  benefit  to  Gen.  Morris.  As  the 
public  know,  our  estimable  associate,  by  twenty  years 
of  literary  labor,  amassed  a  moderate  fortune,  which, 
in  the  disasters  of  an  era  of  bankruptcy,  he  suddenly 
lost.  A  part  of  his  property  was  invested  in  the 
beautiful  country-seat  of  Undercliff  on  the  Hudson — 
the  residence  of  his  family  for  several  years.  His 
friends — with  a  provident  hope,  looking  beyond  the 
clouds  that  enveloped  him — fastened,  to  the  transfer 
of  this  lovely  spot,  a  condition  by  which  he  might, 
if  able,  repurchase  it  at  a  certain  time,  and  at  its  then 
reduced  valuation.  He  has  since  been  suffered  to 
tenant  it  for  a  trifling  rent.  He  has  improved  it,  em- 
bellished it,  increased  its  value.  His  children  have 
grown  up  in  it.  But,  meantime,  the  limit  came  around 
— (now  only  a  short  time  off) — when  the  purchase 
must  be  made  or  the  home  lost.  His  old  friends  came 
to  inquire  into  the  probable  result  of  their  forethought 
for  him.  We  need  not  give  the  particulars  of  our 
business — General  Morris  was  partly  prepared  to  re- 
deem *he  property.  The  lack  was  a  sum  that  might 
be  covered  by  a  benefit  concert — so  suggested  by  one 
of  the  parties.  It  was  urged  upon  him  and  declined. 
He  was  told  that  Beranger  had  three  subscriptions 
(one  of  twenty  thousand  dollars) — that  Campbell 
had  several — that  Scott's  children  were  relieved  of 
his  debts  by  a  posthumous  subscription  of  two  hun- 
dred thousand  dollars — and  that  private  subscrip- 
tions for  literary  men  were  of  common  occurrence  in 
England. 

The  public  know  the  sequel.  He  refused,  till  the 
concert  was  agreed  upon  by  his  friends  without  him. 
The  Italians,  whom  our  paper  had  more  especially 
served,  sprang,  generously  and  with  acclamation,  to 
reciprocate  our  constant  advocacy  of  their  company's 
attraction.  The  musicians  resident  here  were  all 
friends  of  General  Morris,  for  he  alone,  more  than  all 
othei  men  in  New  York  taken  together,  had  served  the 
dramatic  and  musical  profession.  They,  too,  joyous- 
ly sprang  to  the  chance  of  benefiting  him.  Never 
was  service  more  eagerly  rendered  than  that  by  the 
performers  last  night  at  the  Tabernacle — never  came 
good  purpose  before  the  public,  so  lamely  and  dis- 
paragingly construed. 

In  making  up  our  mind  to  allow  the  public  to  be 
intimate  with  us,  we  expect  now  and  then  to  expose 
the  lining  of  our  gaberdine.  We  conform  to  the  exi- 
gences of  the  latitude  we  live  in — but  upon  dishabille  ex- 
planations, we  hope  for  dishabille  constructions.  What 
we  have  written  here,  between  five  o'clock,  A.  M.,  and 
breakfast  (wholly  without  the  knowledge  of  General 
Morris),  goes  to  press  with  the  ink  undried,   and  we 


have  no  security  against  errors  but  that  of  writing  as 
we  would  talk  to  our  confessor.  If  the  time  should 
ever  arise  when  really  good  intentions  may  be  trusted 
to  stand,  in  public  opinion  : — 

•''  With  that  credent  bulk 

That  no  unworthy  scandal  once  can  touch 

But  it  confounds  the  breather," 

we  may  cease  to  explain  "  why  our  stocking  is  un- 
gartered."     Meantime,  we  expect  to  die. 


The  Opera  Bereavement. — What  is  to  become 
of  this  widower  of  a  town  when  it  has  lost  its  fairly-es- 
poused Pico,  we  must  leave  to  the  survivor's  obituary 
to  record.  We  may  as  well  have  our  ears  boxed  and 
stowed  away  ! — Their  vocation  is  as  good  as  gone ! 
No  more  Pico  ?  Faith,  it  will  go  hard  for  the  first 
week  or  two  !  But — by  the  way — as  those  "  lost  from 
us"  are  invariably  supposed  to  be  crowned  in  the  next 
place  they  go  to,  and  as,  of  course,  Pico  will  be 
crowned  in  the  presence  of  St.  Charles  and  the  brunet 
angels  of  New  Orleans,  we  must  take  upon  ourselves, 
as  her  New  York  "  gold  slick  in  waiting,"  to  summon 
one  at  least,  of  her  liege  subjects  to  his  duty.  (We 
happen,  fortunately,  to  possess  an  autograph  of 
George  the  Fourth,  signed  to  the  necessary  formula.) 

"  To  G W- K ,  Marquis  of  '  Picayune  :' 

"Right  Trusty  and  Right  Well-beloved 
Cousin. — We  greet  you  well.  Whereas,  the  1st  day 
of  March  next  (or  thereabouts)  is  appointed  for  our 
coronation. — These  are  to  will  and  command  you  (all 
excuses  set  apart)  to  make  your  personal  attendance 
on  us  at  the  time  above-mentioned,  furnished  and  ap- 
pointed as  to  your  rank  and  quality  appertaineth. — 
There  to  do  and  perform  all  such  services  as  shall  be 
required  and  belong  to  you. — Whereof  you  are  not  to 
fail. — And  so  we  bid  you  heartily  farewell. 

"Given  at  our  court  at  Palmo's,  the  21st  day  of 
January,  1845,  in  the  first  year  of  our  reign. 

"Pico  Prima  (donna).'" 


Star  returning  to  its  Meridian. — Pico  has 
changed  her  mind!  Jubilate!  She  has  declined  to 
go  to  New  Orleans  with  the  Borgheses,  and  will  re- 
main here  to  be  the  nucleus  for  a  new  operatic  crys- 
talization.  We  beg  New  York  and  Boston  to  shake 
hands  in  felicitation  !  And  now  that  it  is  settled  (as 
we  understand  it  was,  yesterday,  by  a  decisive  letter 
to  Signor  Borghese),  let  us  splinter  a  ray  or  two  of 
light  upon  the  diamond  that  has  so  wisely  refused  re- 
setting. New  Orleans  is  a  French  city,  with  a  French 
opera ;  and  Mademoiselle  Borghese  is  a  French  wo- 
man, with  lost  laurels  to  win  back  from  the  Italian 
Pico.  This  new  arena,  little  likely  to  have  been  an 
impartial  one,  is  a  great  way  off,  the  journey  danger- 
ous and  tedious,  and,  to  go  there,  Madame  Pico  must 
abruptly  leave  a  wave  of  fortune,  which  she  is  now 
riding  "at  the  flood."  and  give  up  three  admiring  cities 
for  one  that  might  be  dubious  !  A  new  opera-house 
is  about  to  be  built  here,  of  which  she  will  be  the  first 
predominant  star;  her  concerts,  in  the  meantime,  in 
the  different  cities,  will  profitably  employ  her ;  and, 
as  to  the  company,  there  is  a  substitute  lying  perdu 
for  Borghese,  and  a  tenor  might  soon  be  found  to  re- 
place Perozzi.  Out  of  these  facts,  the  public  can 
pick  the  good  reasons  Madame  Pico  has  for  abandon- 
ing her  journey  to  New  Orleans.  Let  us  do  our  best 
to  show  her  that  she  has  not  made  a  mistake  in  pre- 
ferring us 


Taking  the  White  Veil. — The  Undine  of  the 
Bowling-green  (Miss  Undine  W g,  if  named  after 


EPHEMERA. 


767 


the  gentleman  to  whose  liberality  she  owes  her  exist- 
ence) was  shown  last  evening,  with  her  radiant  beau- 
ty enveloped  in  aiittering  white,  to  the  assembled 
friends  of  the  author  of  her  being.  To  alight  from 
the  poetry  of  (he  matter: — Mr.W g  invited, yester- 
day, a  party  of  his  friends  to  see  an  illumination  of  the 
superb  fountain  with  which  he  has  embellished  that 
part  of  the  city.  The  rocky  structure  through  which 
it  leaps,  is  completely  encrusted  with  ice,  and  it  look- 
ed like — like  more  things  than  we  have  room  to  men- 
tion. The  colored  light  covered  the  fountain  first 
with  a  suffused  blush  of  the  tenderest  pink,  and  this 
deepened  to  crimson,  and  the  glow  upon  ice  and  water 
was  really  superb  beyond  any  effect  of  the  kind  we 
have  ever  witnessed.  It  made  even  a  Dry  Dock  om- 
nibus (which  chanced  to  be  passing  at  the  moment), 
look  rosily  picturesque  and  fairy-like.  The  black  sky 
overhead  ;  the  delicate  tracery  of  the  naked  branches  ! 
of  the  trees;  the  enclosure  of  architecture  with  lights 
in  the  windows  (which  seemed  completely  to  shut  it  j 
in  like  the  court  of  an  illuminated  palace),  were  all 
striking  additions  to  the  effect.  We  would  inquire, 
by  the  way,  whether  this  couleur  de  rose  could  not  be  j 
adapted  to  the  brightening  of  the  ice  with  which  the  \ 
fountains  of  the  mind  are  sometimes  crusted  over.  J 
Phlogistic  chymists  will  please  explain. 


Improvements  on  the  American  Language. — 
The  making  an  improvement  in  one's  mother's  prop- 
erty is,  of  course,  a  praiseworthy  filial  service,  and  we 
find  that  we  have  succeeded  in  enriching  our  "mother 
language"  by  successfully  breaking,  to  new  and  valu- 
able service,  a  pair  of  almost  useless  and  refractory 
terminations.  "  -Dom"  and  "  -tricity"  may  now  be 
hitched  by  a  single  hyphen  to  any  popular  word,  name, 
or  phrase,  and,  without  the  cumbrous  harness  of  a 
periphrasis,  may  turn  it  out  in  the  full  equipage  of  a 
collective  noun  !  Our  first  experiment  in  this  econo- 
my of  parts  of  speech  was  the  describing  a  charming 
class  of  society  by  the  single  word  Japonica-dom. 
This  musical  substantive  could  hardly  be  displaced  by 
a  shorter  sentence  than  "  the  class  up  town  who  usu- 
ally wear  in  their  hair  the  expensive  exotic  commonly 
called  a  japonica.''''  The  second  experiment  was  the 
word  Pico-tricity — a  condensation  of  "  the  power, 
brilliancy,  and  electric  effect  of  the  singing  of  Mad- 
ame Rosina  Pico."  We  see  by  the  papers  that  these 
expediting  inventions  (for  which  we  liberally  refrained 
from  taking  out  a  patent)  are  freely  used  already  by 
our  brother  administrators  of  the  mother  language, 
and  we  have  only  respectfully  to  suggest  a  proper 
economy  and  fitness  in  their  application. 


Early-hours-dom. — Wescaicely  need  explain,  we 
presume,  that  we  have  undertaken  the  wholesome 
mission  of  giving  interest,  as  far  as  in  us  lies,  to  the  \ 
more  refined  occupancy  of  that  portion  of  the  day  coin- 
prised  between  twilight  and  go-to-bcd  time — becoming, 
so  to  speak,  the  apostle  of  fashionable  early-hours- 
dom.  Of  course  we  are  entirely  too  practical  to  dream 
of  "  reforming  out,"  by  mere  force  of  argument,  the 
four-hours'  unprofitable  yawn  and  the  night's  restitu- 
tion-less robbery  of  sleep.  Every  one  knoxcs  that  the 
reasons  for  the  late  hours  of  European  fashion  are 
wholly  rcanting  in  this  country — but  everyone  consents 
to  follow  the  fashion  without  the  reasons.  The  only 
way  to  diminish  the  attraction  of  late  amusements 
is  to  anticipate  them  by  more  attractive  early  amuse- 
ments. It  will  be  remembered  that  we  commenced 
our  vigorous  support  of  the  opera  with  this  view  of 
the  use  of  it.  It  was  a  well-put  though  unsuspected 
blow  to  the  habit  of  late  hours,  for  many  gave  up  par- 


ties they  would  otherwise  have  gone  to,  from  having 
been  sufficiently  amused  at  the  opera;  and  others 
found  out,  practically,  that  to  dress  and  go  to  the  ap- 
era  from  seven  till  ten,  gave  all  the  relaxation  they  re- 
quired, and  their  natural  night's  sleep  into  the  bar- 
gain !  It  is  with  this  ultimate  view  of  making  a  fash- 
ionable Kate 

"  Conformable  as  other  household  Kates" — 

giving  us  a  substitute  that  shall  make  late  hours  more 
easily  dispensed  with — that  we  look  upon  the  plan  of 
this  new  opera-house  as  a  national  benefit.  If  built 
luxuriously,  lavishly  lighted,  made  to  serve  all  the  pur- 
poses of  a  sumptuous  festal  saloon,  and  give  exquisite 
music  besides,  it  will  be  a  preferable  resort  to  a  ball- 
room ;  and  we  believe  that  it  is  only  from  the  lack  of 
a  preferable  resort  in  evening  dress,  that  late  parties 
are  any  way  endurable.  Early  parties  on  the  off 
nights  of  the  opera,  would  soon  follow,  we  think — the 
habit  of  early  hours  of  gayety,  once  relished — and  so 
would  creep  out  this  servile  and  senseless  imitation  of 
foreign  fashion. 


Untilled  Field  of  Literature  in  New  Yore. 
— The  one  country  we  have  lived  in,  without  loving 
a  native,  is  the  country  that,  on  the  whole,  gave  us 
the  most  to  admire — France.  We  embroidered  a 
year  and  a  half  of  our  memory  with  the  grace  and  wit 
of  the  world's  capital  of  taste,  and  we  have  left  a  heart 
(travellers'  pattern)  in  every  other  country  between 
Twenty-second  street  and  the  Black  sea;  but,  that 
we  do  not  even  suspect  the  color  of  a  French  heart- 
ache we  solemnly  vow — and  marvel.  We  admire  the 
French  quite  enough,  however  (perhaps  there  lies  the 
philosophy  of  it!)  to  leave  no  fuel  for  sentiment  to 
mourn  over  as  wastage,  and  now — (apropos  des  bottes) 
— why  have  we  no  vehicle  for  French  wit  in  New 
York — no  battery  for  the  friction  and  sparkle  of  French 
electricity?  How  can  the  French  live  without  a 
"  Charivari  ?"  Twenty  thousand  French  inhabitants 
and  no  savor  in  the  town,  as  if  the  gods  had  "dined 
below  stairs!"  Ten  thousand  French  women  (prob- 
ably), and  either  no  celebrity,  of  wit  or  beauty,  among 
them,  or  no  needful  newspaper-cloud  in  which  the 
thunder  and  lightning  of  such  pervading  electricities 
could  be  collected  ! 

We  wonder  whether  the  ^Courrier  des  Elats  Unis'' 
(the  Anchises  French  paper  which  we  read,  as  the 
pious  JEneas  carried  his  father  on  his  back,  to  have 
something  to  cherish,  out  of  the  city  left  behind — 
something  French,  that  is  to  say) — we  wonder  wheth- 
er, on  their  alternate  days,  the  editors  of  that  sober 
tri-weekly  paper  could  not  give  us  something  spiced 
a  la  Parisiennc — and  whether  such  a  vehicle,  for  the 
French  wit  that  must  he  here,  benumbed  or  hidden, 
would  not  be  a  profitable  speculation  !  The  "Cour- 
rier"  is  the  best  of  useful  and  grave  papers,  and  en- 
tirely fulfils  its  destiny,  but  it  is  small  pleasure  to  the 
ten  thousand  people  in  New  York,  who  relish  French 
literature,  to  re-peruse  the  matter  of  the  daily  papers, 
rechauffe  in  a  foreign  language.  If  the  lack  of  Paris- 
ian material,  here,  were  an  apparent  objection,  what  a 
delightful  luxury  it  would  be  to  have  a  paper  made  up, 

\  at  first,  entirely,  with  the  condensed  essence  of  the 
gay  papers  of  Paris  ?  A  feature  of  New  York  chari- 
vari-ty  might  be  gradually  worked  in— but,  meantime, 

!  a  weli-selected  bouquet  of  the  prodigal  wit  and  fun  of 

I  the  capital  (made  comprehensible  by  a  correspond- 
ence kept  up  with  Paris,  which  should   explain  alio- 

I  sions,  etc.)  would  be,  we  should  really  suppose,  most 
attractive  to  the   better  classes  of  our  society,  and,  to 

|  the  French  of  New  Orleans  and  other  more  remote 

'  cities,  an  indispensable  luxury. 

There  is  a  natural  homeopathy  for  everything  French 
in  this  city — much  stronger  than  for  the  same  things 


768 


EPHEMERA. 


a  VAnglaise.  We  would  wish,  too,  that  the  barrier 
of  a  different  language  were  gradually  broken  down, 
s^tbat  some  of  the  delightful  peculiarities  of  Paris 
might  ooze  into  our  city  manners  through  a  conduit 
of  periodical  literature.  Heigho  !— to  think  of  the 
brilliant  intellectual  lamps  blazing  like  noonday  in 
France,  while,  with  the  material  for  the  same  bright- 
ness about  us,  we  lit  by  the  glimmer  of  fire-light! 
Oh,  Jules  Janin  !  "  American  in  Paris  !" — come  over 
with  your  prodigal  brain  and  be  a  Parisian  in  Ameri- 
ca! Ordain  yourself  as  a  missionary  of  wit,  and  Ja- 
nin-ify  a  continent  by  a  year's  exile  beyond  the  Bou- 
levards! You'll  laugh  at  us  when  you  return,  but 
streams  chafe  the  channels  they  refresh,  and  we  will 
take  you  with  your  murmur! 

"L'onda,  dal  mar  divisa, 
Bagna  la  valle  e  l'monte, 
Va  passegiara 
In  flume, 
Va  prigionera 
In  fonte, 

Mormora  sempre  e  gem 
Fin  che  non  torna  al  mar." 

It  would  hardly  be  inferred — but  we  really  sat 
down  to  write  the  following  paragraph,  and  not  the 
foregoing  one : — 

The  Prima-donnas  at  Fault. — The  "Courrier 
des  Etats  Unis"  has  now  and  then  an  ebullition  of  na- 
tional spirituality,  in  the  shape  of  a  half  column  of 
theatrical  gossip,  and  we  have  had  on  our  table,  for 
several  days,  a  cut-out  paragraph,  very  well  hit  off, 
touching  one  or  two  of  the  town's  pleasure-makers. 
The  editor  is,  of  course,  behind  the  curtain,  as  the 
natural  centre  of  the  foreign  circle  of  New  York,  and 
lie  writes  with  knowledge.  He  gives  as  a  fact  that 
Borghese  cleared  $550  by  her  benefit,  but  he  dispara- 
ges the  performance  of  that  evening,  and  hauls  the 
ladies  seriously  over  the  coals  for  having  exhausted 
themselves  at  a  private  party  the  night  before  !  He 
detects  an  anachronism  in  Semiramide,  and  calls  Pico 
to  account  for  appearing  before  the  queen  (as  Arsace) 
with  his  mother's  crown  on,  when  the  good  lady  had 
as  yet  only  promised  it  to  him!  The  first  thing  in  the 
succeeding  duet,  says  the  "  Courrier,"  should  have 
been  a  remark  from  Semiramide  (who  has  promised 
him  the  crown  as  a  lover,  not  knowing  it  is  her  son) 
to  this  effect :  "  Vous  etes  un  peu  presse,  mon  bel 
amoureux!"  ou  bien,  "  De  quel  droit  portez-vous 
cette  couronne,  que  je  n'ai  fait  que  vous  offrir  ?"  The 
crown  given  him  by  the  high-priest,  out  of  the  pater- 
nal box,  was,  of  course,  only  symbolic,  as  the  queen 
was  still  on  the  throne. 

Korponat's  Fall,  from  a  Faux  Pas. — Another 
matter  touched  in  the  same  paragraph  is  the  non- 
rising  of  the  new  ballet-star  promised  for  that  evening. 
The  leader  of  the  constellation  chanced  to  be  taken 
ill  (below  the  horizon)  at  Philadelphia,  but  the  Cour- 
rier states  that  the  illness  was  owing  to  a  fall,  from  a 
faux  pas,  and  that  the  faux  pas  was  an  engagement 
by  the  tumbler  (Korponay)  to  go  to  Philadelphia 
once  a  week  for  twenty-four  dollars,  when  his  expen- 
ses, wife  and  all,  were  twenty-six/  The  Courrier  does 
not  state,  what  we  think  highly  probable,  that  Korpo- 
nay's  blood  has  come  through  too  many  generations 
of  gentlemen  to  be  good  at  a  dancing-master's  bar- 
gains. 

The  new  Danseuse. — A  third  topic  of  this  same 
pregnant  paragraph  is  the  contention  between  two 
dancing-masters,  Charruaud  and  Mons.  Korponay,  for 
the  honor  of  having  given  the  finishing  grace  to  the 
'light  fantastic  toe"  of  Miss  Brooks,  the  new  won- 
der. Monsieur  Charruaud  (Frenchman-like)  declares 
that  she  is  not  only  his  pupil,  but  by  no  means  the  best 
vf  his  pupils  !  Monsieur  Korponay  simply  advertises 
her  as  his;  and  the  star,  and  the  star's  mamma,  con- 
fess to  her  Korponay-tivity.     But — 


("  How  Alexander's  dust  may  stop  a  bung !") 

What  blood  does  the  public  think  is  running  in  tho 
veins  of  this  same  "  fantastic  toe?" — James  Brooks — 
the  "  Florio,"  who,  ten  years  ago,  was  the  poetical 
passion  of  this  country — was  the  father  of  this  dancing 
girl !  What  would  that  sensitive  poet  have  written 
(prophetically)  on  the  first  appearance  of  his  daughter 
in  a  pas  seul  ! 


Longfellow's  Waif. — A  friend,  who  is  a  very  fine 
critic,  gave  us,  not  long  since,  a  review  of  this  delight- 
ful new  book.  Perfectly  sure  that  anything  from  that 
source  was  a  treasure  for  our  paper,  we  looked  up 
from  a  half-re*\d  proof  to  run  our  eye  hastily  over  it, 
and  gave  it  to  the  printer — not,  however,  without 
mentally  differing  from  the  writer  as  to  the  drift  of 
the  last  sentence,  as  follows: — 

"We  conclude  our  notes  on  the 'Waif  with  the 
observation  that,  although  full  of  beauties,  it  is  in- 
fected with  a  moral  taint — or  is  this  a  mere  freak  of 
our  own  fancy  ?  We  shall  be  pleased  if  it  be  so — but 
there  does  appear,  in  this  exquisite  little  volume,  a 
very  careful  avoidance  of  all  American  poets  who  may 
be  supposed  especially  to  interfere  with  the  claims  of 
Mr.  Longfellow.  These  men  Mr  Longfellow  can 
continuously  imitate  (is  that  the  word?)  and  yet  never 
even  incidentally  commend." 

Notwithstanding  the  haste  with  which  it  passed 
through  our  attention  (for  we  did  not  see  it  in  proof),  the 
question  of  admission  was  submitted  to  a  principle  in 
our  mind;  and,  in  admitting  it,  we  did  by  Longfellow  as 
we  would  have  him  do  by  us.  It  was  a  literary  charge, 
by  a  pen  that  never  records  an  opinion  without  some 
supposed  good  reason,  and  only  injurious  to  Long- 
fellow (to  our  belief)  while  circulating,  un-replied-to. 
in conversation-dom.  In  the  second  while  we  reasoned 
upon  it,  we  went  to  Cambridge  and  saw  the  poet's 
face,  frank  and  scholar-like,  glowing  among  the  busts 
and  pictures  in  his  beautiful  library,  and  (with,  per- 
haps a  little  mischief  in  remembering  how  we  have 
always  been  the  football  and  he  the  nosegay  of  our  con- 
temporaries) we  returned  to  our  printing-office  arguing 
thus  :  Our  critical  friend  believes  this,  though  we  do 
not;  Longfellow  is  asleep  on  velvet;  it  will  do  him 
good  to  rouse  him  ;  his  friends  will  come  out  and 
fight  his  battle  ;  the  charge  (which  to  us  would  be  a 
comparative  pat  on  the  back)  will  be  openly  disproved, 
and  the  acquittal  of  course  leaves  his  fame  brighter 
than  before — the  injurious  whisper  in  conversation- 
dom  killed  into  the  bargain  ! 

That  day's  Mirror  commenced  its 

"  Circle  in  the  water 
Which  only  seeketh  to  expand  itself 
Till,  by  much  spreading,  it  expand  to  naught." 

We  expected  the  return  mails  from  Boston  to  bring 
us  a  calmly  indignant  "Daily  Advertiser,"  a  coquet- 
tishly  reproachful  "Transcript,"  a  paternally  severe 
"  Courier,"  and  an  Olympically-denunciatory  "Atlas." 
A  week  has  elapsed,  and  we  are  still  expecting.  Thun- 
der is  sometimes  "  out  to  pasture."  But,  meantime, 
a  friend  who  thinks  it  the  driver's  lookout  if  stones 
are  thrown  at  a  hackney-coach,  but  interferes  when  it 
is  a  private  carriage — (has  loved  us  these  ten  years, 
that  is  to  say,  and  never  objected  to  our  being  a  tar- 
get, but  thinks  a  fling  at  Longfellow  is  a  very  different 
matter) — this  friend  writes  us  a  letter.  He  thinks  as 
we  do,  exactly,  and  we  shall,  perhaps,  disarm  the 
above-named  body-guard  of  the  accused  poet  by  quo- 
ting the  summing-up  of  his  defence  : — 

"  It  has  been  asked,  perhaps,  why  Lowell  was  neg- 
lected in  this  collection?  Might  it  not  as  well  be 
asked  why  Bryant,  Dana,  and  Halleck,  were  neglect- 
ed ?     The  answer  is  obvious  to  any  one  who  candidly 


EPHEMERA. 


7G9 


considers  the  character  of  the  collection.  It  professed 
to  be,  according  to  the  proem,  from  the  humbler  poets ; 
and  it  was  intended  to  embrace  pieces  that  were  anon- 
ymous, or  which  were  not  easily  accessible  to  the  gen- 
eral reader — the  waifs  and  estrays  of  literature.  To 
put  anything  of  Lowell's,  for  example,  into  a  collec- 
tion of  waifs,  would  be  a  peculiar  liberty  with  pieces 
which  are  all  collected  and  christened." 

It  can  easily  be  seen  how  Longfellow,  and  his 
friends  for  him,  should  have  a  very  different  estimate 
from  ourself  as  to  the  value  of  an  eruption,  in  print,  of 
the  secret  humors  of  appreciation.  The  transient  j 
disfiguring  of  the  skin  seems  to  us  better  than  disease 
concealed  to  aggravation.  But,  apart  from  the  intrin- 
sic policy  of  bringing  all  accusations  to  the  light, 
where  they  can  be  encountered,  we  think  that  the  pe- 
culiar temper  of  the  country  requires  it.  Our  na- 
tional character  is  utterly  destitute  of  veneration. 
There  is  a  hostility  to  all  privileges,  except  property 
in  money— to  all  hedges  about  honors— to  all  reserves 
of  character  and  reputation — to  all  accumulations  of 
value  not  bankable.  There  is  but  one  field  considered 
fairly  open — money -making.  Fame-making,  charac- 
ter-making, position-making,  power-making,  are  priv- 
ileged arenas  in  which  the  "  republican  many"  have 
no  share. 

The  distrust  with  which  all  distinction,  except 
wealth,  is  regarded,  makes  a  whispered  doubt  more 
dangerous  to  reputation  than  a  confessed  defect.  The 
dislike  to  inheritors  of  anything — birthrights  of  any- 
thing— family  names  or  individual  genius — metamor- 
phoses the  first  suspicion  greedily  into  a  belief.  A 
clearing-up  of  a  disparaging  doubt  about  a  man  is  a 
public  disappointment.  "  That  fellow  is  all  right 
again,  hang  him!"  is  the  mental  ejaculation  of  ninety- 
nine  in  a  hundred  of  the  readers  of  a  good  defence  or 
a  justification. 

P.  S.  We  are  not  recording  this  view  of  things  by 
way  of  assuming  to  be,  ourself,  above  this  every-day 
level  of  the  public  mind — too  superfine  to  be  a  part 
of  such  a  public.  Not  a  bit  of  it.  We  can  not  afford 
superfinery  of  any  kind.  We  are  trying  to  make  a 
living  by  being  foremost  in  riding  on  a  coming  turn  of 
the  tide  in  these  matters.  The  country  is  at  the  low- 
est ebb  of  democracy  consistent  with  its  intelligence. 
The  taste  for  refinements,  for  distinctions,  for  aristo- 
cratic entrenchments,  is  moving  with  the  additional 
momentum  of  a  recoil.  We  minister  to  this,  in  the 
way  of  business,  as  the  milliner  makes  a  crown-shaped 
head-dress  for  Mrs.  President  Tyler.  It  has  its  pen- 
alty, but  that  was  reckoned  at  starting.  We  knew, 
of  course,  that  we  could  not  sell  fashionable  opinions 
at  our  counter  without  being  assailed  as  assuming  to 
be  the  representative  of  fashion* — just  as  if  we  could 
not  even  name  a  tribute  of  libertinism  to  virtue  with- 
out being  sillily  called  a  libertine  by  the  Courier, 
Commercial,  and  Express.  However,  there  is  some 
hope,  by  dint  of  lifetime  fault-culture,  thai,  in  the  sod 
over  a  man's  grave,  there  will  be  no  slander-seed  left 
to  flower  posthumously  undetected. 


Popularity  of  Madame  Pico. — During  the  past 
week  we  received  a  letter  from  a  serious  writer  (a  lady), 
confessing  to  her  own  great  delight  in  Madame  Pico, 

*  Others  have  recorded  this  national  habit  of  attacking  the 
individual  instead  of  the  opinion.  Dr.  Reese,  in  his  ''Ad- 
dress in  behalf  of  the  Bible  in  Schools,"  thus  speaks  of  the 
manner  of  opposition  to  his  philanthropic  labors  : — 

"  I  have  learned  that  to  tremble  in  the  presence  of  popular 
clamor,  or  desert  the  post  of  duty  when  it  be*>mes  one  of 
danger,  is  worthy  neither  of  honor  nor  manhood  ;  else  I  would 
have  gladly  retired  from  the  conflict  to  which  I  found  my  first 
official  act  exposed  me,  and  the  hostile  weapons  of  which  were 
aimed,  not  at  the  law  under  which  I  was  acting,  but  hurled  only 
against  my  humble  self." 

49 


but  wishing  us  to  impress  upon  our  religious  readers, 
by  arguments  more  at  length,  the  sacredness  of  good 
music,  even  by  an  operatic  singer.  We  remember  a 
passage  in  Burnet's  Records,  which  shows  that  even 
these  operatic  singers,  if  enlisted  to  sing  in  the  choirs 
of  churches,  would  become  the  special  subjects  of 
prayer.  "  Also  ye  shall  pray  for  them  that  find  any 
light  in  this  church,  or  give  any  behests,  book,  bell, 
chalice  or  vestment,  surplices,  water-cloth  or  towel, 
lands,  rents,  lamp  or  light,  or  other  aid  or  service, 
whereby  God's  worship  is  better  served,  sustained  and 
maintained  in  reading  and  singing."  It  has  long  been 
our  opinion  that  to  heighten  the  character  of  church 
music  would  be  aiding  and  giving  interest  and  con- 
sequence to  religious  service,  and  the  inviting  of  pro- 
fessed singers  to  the  choirs,  for  the  sabbaths  they  pass 
in  the  city,  would  make  them  particularly  (according 
to  Burnet)  special  subjects  of  prayer. 


The  four-feet  precipice  between  the  carriage  wheel 
and  the  side  walk,  and  the  back  slope  to  the  range  of 
racing  omnibuses  and  drunken  sleigh-riders,  prevent 
ladies  from  embarking  in  carriages  at  present,  and  this 
is  one  thing  that  reconciles  us  to  the  opera  people's 
having  chosen  to 

"  fold  up  their  tents  like  the  Arab 
And  silently  steal  away." 

Madame  Pico  has  found  a  rich  oasis  in  Boston  appre- 
ciation, and  we  trust  the  snow  will  have  melted  away 
before  the  Tabernacle  so  that  it  will  not  bean  inacces- 
sible desert  when  she  returns.  Her  concert  there  will 
be  like  a  dawn  after  a  month's  night  of  music. 


TWO  OR  THREE    NEW  FASHIONS  IN   FRANCE. In    a 

French  pamphlet  handed  in  to  our  office  a  few  days 
ago,  purporting  to  be  Monsieur  Grousset's  justification 
for  having  been  shot  down  in  Broadway  by  Monsieur 
Emeric,  Mr.  Grousset  describes  a  previous  affair  with 
the  same  gentleman,  lately,  in  France.  On  that  oc- 
casion, he  states,  Mr.  Emeric  went  to  the  field  attended 
by  nine  persons,  one  of  whom  was  a  lady  ! 

We  find,  also,  by  a  private  letter  from  a  friend  in 
Paris,  that  the  now  common  female  practice  of  smo- 
king cigars  is  considered  (by  connoisseurs  in  know- 
ing-dom)  as  a  most  engaging  addition  to  the  attractions 
of  some  particular  styles  of  beauty  !  "  The  play  of  the 
mouth  upon  the  cigar,  the  reddening  of  the  lips  by  the 
irritation  of  the  tobacco,  and  the  insouciant  air,  al- 
together, which  it  gives  to  the  smoker,  adds  to  the 
peculiar  quality  of  a  dashing  and  coquettish  woman,  as 
much  as  it  would  detract  from  that  of  a  retiring  and 
timid  one."  The  eyes  (he  adds)  gleam  with  a  peculiar 
softness,  through  the  smoke.  Our  correspondent  had 
just  returned  from  a  call  on  a  charming  American 
lady,  whom  he  found  with  a  cigar  in  her  rosy  mouth  ! 

Wellington  boots  have  been  sported  during  the 
late  bad  weather  for  walking,  by  some  of  the  fashion- 
able ladies  of  Paris.  They  are  made  of  patent  leather, 
reaching  to  the  knee,  with  a  small  tassel  in  front  (at 
least  so  exhibited  in  shop-windows)  and  the  leg  of  the 
boot  rounded  and  shaped  in  firm  leather,  like  the 
fashion  of  boots  twenty  years  ago.  The  high  heel 
(keeping  the  sole  of  the  foot  from  the  wet  pavement), 
is  "raved  about,"  in  Paris— the  ladies  wondering  how 
such  a  sensible  thing  as  a  heel  should  have  been  so 
long  disused  by  the  sex  most  in  need  of  its  protection. 
The  relief  of  the  ankles  from  contact  with  the  cold  or 
wet  edge  of  the  dress  in  wet  weather  is  dwelt  upon  in 
the  description,  as  is  also  the  increased  beauty  of  the 
foot  from  the  heightening  of  the  arch  of  the  instep  by 
the  high  heel. 


770 


EPHEMERA. 


Fashions  for  country  belles. — The  following 
appeal  to  our  gallantry  pulls  very  hard  : — 

"Mr.  Editor:  One  of  the  greatest  treats  you 
could  give  your  country  lady  readers,  would  be  to 
furnish  them  from  time  to  time,  with  brief  hints  as  to 
the  actual  style  of  fashions  in  the  metropolis.  We 
have,  all  along,  depended  for  information  on  this  im- 
portant subject,  upon  the  monthly  magazines,  all  of 
which  piofess  to  give  the  fashions  as  worn,  but  we  find 
out  to  our  dismay,  that  they  pick  up  their  fashions 
from  the  Paris  and  London  prints  at  random — some 
of  them  adopted  by  our  city  ladies,  some  not !  It  thus 
happens  that  we  country  people,  who  like  to  be  in  the 
fashion,  are  often  subjected  to  great  expense  and  mor- 
tification— relying  too  implicitly  upon  the  magazine 
reports.  We  cause  a  bonnet  or  a  dress  to  be  made 
strictly  in  accordance  with  the  style  prescribed  in  the 
fashion  plate  of  the  magazine,  and  when  we  hie  away 
to  the  city  with  our  new  finery,  we  discover  that  our 
costume  is  so  outre  that  every  one  laughs  at  us!  Now, 
should  there  not  be  some  remedy  for  this  evil  ? 

"  We  ladies  hope  you  will  do  something  for  us  in 
the  way  of  remedying  this.  You  can  make  up  a  para- 
graph, every  now  and  then,  on  the  subject  without 
more  trouble  than  it  costs  you  in  writing  a  critique  on 
a  much  less  important  matter.  Let  us  know  all  about 
the  real  changes  in  the  'outer  woman'  in  Broadway 
and  in  drawing-rooms.  Tell  us  all  about  the  New 
York  shawls,  and  New  York  handkerchiefs,  and  New 
York  gloves,  etc.  And,  when  the  fine  weather  again 
appears,  tell  us  about  the  riding -dresses  and  riding- 
caps  your  friends  in  the  city  wear,  and  do  not  fail  to 
give  us  an  exact  account  of  the  kind  of  sun-defenders 
in  vogue,  whether  they  be  parasols,  shades,  hoods,  or 
anything  else.  ****** 

"  I  subscribe  myself,  your  well-wisher, 

"  Kate  Salisbury. 

•«  Belle  Grange,  Jan.  29." 

We  have  omitted  the  bulk  of  Miss  Kate's  letter, 
giving  rather  too  long  an  account  of  two  or  three  ex- 
pensive disasters  from  being  misguided  by  magazines 
as  to  the  fashions — but  it  is  easily  to  be  seen  that  it  is 
a  matter  that  concerns  outlay  which  "  comes  home  to 
business  and  bosom."  We  shall  take  it  into  con- 
sideration. Our  present  impression  is,  that  we  shall 
set  apart  half  a  column,  weekly,  bi-weekly,  or  tri- 
weekly, devoted  to  "  the  fashions  by  an  eye-witness." 
This,  however,  immediately  suggests  a  dilemma: 
There  are  two  schools  of  taste  among  the  ladies  ! 
Some  women  dress  for  men's  eyes,  and  this  style  is 
both  striking  and  economical.  Other  women  (most 
women  indeed),  dress  for  ladies'  approval  only,  and 
this  style  is  studiously  expensive,  sacrifices  becoming- 
ness  to  novelty,  and  is  altogether  beyond  male  appre- 
ciation.— Which  style  should  we  shape  our  report  for  ? 


Canadian  Gossip — The  chief  of  the  Scotch  clan, 
McNab,  has  lately  emigrated  to  Canada  with  a  hun- 
dred clansman.  On  arriving  at  Toronto,  he  called  on 
his  newly  illustrious  namesake,  Sir  Allan,  and  left  his 
card  as  "  The  McNab."  Sir  Allan  returned  his  visit, 
leaving  as  his  card,  "  The  other  McNab."  The  un- 
usual relish  of  this  accidental  bit  of  fun,  has  elevated 
the  definite  article  into  a  kind  of  provincial  title,  and, 
in  common  conversation,  the  leading  individual  of  a 
family  name  is  regularly  i/ie-ified.  Among  the  officers 
at  Montreal  there  was  lately  a  son  of  the  late  cele- 
brated "  Jack  Mytton,"  the  most  game-y  sportsman 
in  England.  Meeting  Sir  Allan  McNab  at  a  mess- 
dinner,  young  Mytton  sent  wine  to  him  with  the  mes- 
sage :  "  The  Mytton"  would  be  happy  to  take  wine 
with  "  The  Other  McNab."  We  should  not  wonder 
f  this  funny   use  of  the  definite  article  became  the 


germ  of  the  first  American  title.      The  Tyler  !      The 
Mrs.  Tyler! 

This  same  young  Mytton,  by  the  way,  inherited  his 
father's  adventurous  temper,  and  though  the  first 
favorite  of  Montreal  society,  he  alone,  of  all  the  offi- 
cers, could  find  no  lady  willing  to  sleigh-ride  with  him. 
They  openly  declared  their  fear  of  his  pranks  of  driving. 
One  fine  day,  however,  when  all  the  town  was  on  run- 
ners, Mytton  was  seen  with  a  dashing  turn-out,  and  a 
lady  deeply  veiled,  sitting  beside  him,  to  whose  com- 
fort he  was  continually  ministering,  and  to  whom  he 
was  talking  with  the  most  merry  glee.  It  was,  to  all 
appearance,  a  charming  and  charmed  auditor,  at  least. 
The  next  day,  there  was  great  inquiry  as  to  who  was 
driving  with  Mr.  Mytton.  The  mystery  was  not 
solved  for  a  week.  It  came  out  at  last,  that  in  a 
certain  milliner's  shop  in  Montreal  had  stood  a  wooden 
"lay  figure"  for  the  exhibition  of  caps  and  articles 
of  dress.  The  despairing  youth  had  bought  this,  had 
it  expensively  and  fashionably  dressed,  and  still  keeps 
it  at  his  lodgings  (under  the  name  of  "  Ma'm'selle 
Pis-Aller")  for  his  companion  in  sleigh-riding! 


WHO  ARE  THE  UPPER  TEN  THOUSAND  ? 
(In  reply  to  a  question  of  Fanny  Forester's.) 

*  *  *  Your  postscript,  asking  "Enlightenment  as 
to  the  upper  ten  thousand"  can  not  be  answered  with 
a  candle-end  of  attention.  From  the  "  sixes  and 
sevens"  of  our  brain,  we  must  draw  a  whole  "  dip," 
new  and  expensive,  to  throw  light  on  that  matter — 
expensive,  inasmuch  as  the  same  length  of  editorial 
candle  would  light  us  through  a  paragraph.  If  ador- 
able "Cousin  'Bel"  chance  to  be  leaning  over  your 
chair,  therefore,  beg  her  to  lift  the  curtain  of  her 
auburn  tress-aract  from  your  shoulder,  and  allow  the 
American  public  to  look  over  while  you  read. 

The  upper  ten  thousand,  all  told,  would  probably 
number  one  hundred  thousand,  or  more:  Not  in  Eng- 
land, where  the  upperdorn  is  a  matter  of  ascertained 
certainty,  but  in  a  republic,  where  every  man  has  his 
own  idea  of  what  kind  are  uppermost,  and  where,  of 
course,  there  are  as  many  "  ten  thousands"  as  there 
are  different  claims  to  position.  Probably  few  things 
would  be  funnier  than  for  an  angel  suddenly  to  re- 
quest the  upper  ten  thousand  of  New  York  to  walk  up 
the  let-down  steps  of  a  cloud,  and  record  their  names 
and  residences,  for  the  convenience  of  the  up-town 
ministering  spirits  !  A  hundred  thousand,  we  are  sure, 
would  be  the  least  number  of  autographs  left  in  the 
heavenly  directory  ! 

But,  till  we  arrive  at  the  "red-book"  degree  of  defi- 
nite aristocracy,  a  newspaper  addressed  to  the  "  upper 
ten  thousand"  embraces  a  sufficient  bailiwick  for  the 
most  ambitious  circulation.  There  are  all  manner  of 
standards  for  "  the  best  people."  The  ten  thousand 
who  live  in  the  biggest  houses  would  define  New  York 
upperdorn  with  satisfactory  clearness,  to  some.  The 
ten  thousand  "  safest"  men  would  satisfy  others.  The 
educated  ten  thousand — the  religious  ten  thousand — 
the  ten  thousand  who  had  grandfathers — the  ten 
thousand  who  go  to  Saratoga  and  Newport — the 
liberal  ten  thousand — the  ten  thousand  who  ride  in 
carriages — the  ten  thousand  who  spend  over  a  certain 
sum — the  ten  thousand  "above  Bleecker" — the  ten 
thousand  "ever  heard  of" — are  aristocracies  as  others 
estimate  them.  And  till  the  really  upper  ten  thousand 
are  indubitably  defined,  there  are  ninety  thousand, 
more  or  less,  who  are  in  the  enjoyment  of  a  most  desi- 
rable illusion. 

No!  no! — republican  benevolence — the  "greatest 
happiness  of  the  greatest  number" — would  stop  the 
march  of  civilization  as  to  aristocracy,  where  it  is. 
Its  progress  is  through  a  reversed  cornucopia,  and  the 


EPHEMERA 


771 


extreme  end  is  too  small  for  the  comfort  of  the  "  na- 
tion."     Meantime,    however,    the   standard    of  good 
manners  is  rather  loosely  kept,  and   though  the  ten 
"  ten-thousands"  are  all  seen  to  be  tolerable,  there  is 
a   small   class  who  go  wholly   unappreciated — those 
who  are  unconscious  of  their  oion  degree  from  nature, 
and  are  only  recognisable  bij  the  highest  standards. 
We  speak  of  those  who  have  "  no  manner" — simply 
because  they  would  be  less  refined  if  they  had.    There 
are   enchanting    women   in   New  York — we   ourself 
know  a  half-dozen — who  are  wholly  unaware  them- 
selves, wholly  unsuspected  by  others,  of  carrying  a  I 
mark  from  nature  that  in  Europe  would  supersede  all  j 
questions  of  origin  and  circumstances. — English  aris- 
tocratic society  is  sprinkled   throughout  with   these 
sealed  packets  of  nobility  from  God — one  of  whom  I  : 
remember  inquiring  out  with  great  interest,  a  single  | 
lady  of  thirty-six  apparently,  but  looking  like  a  dis-  i 
tilled  drop  of  the  "  blood  of  all  the  Howards."  simple  : 
as  a  tulip  on  the  stem,  and  said,  though  obscurely  con-  ! 
nected,  to  have  refused  a  score  of  the  best  matches 
of  England.     These   "no   manners"   that  are   better 
than  "  good  manners"  walk  a  republic  quite  undetected  . 
as  aristocracy;  but,  as  the  persons  so  born  are  always  | 
beloved   (losing  only  the  admiration   that  is  due   to  j 
them)    their  benighted  state  scarce   calls  for  a  mis- 
sionary ! 

We  should  not  be  surprised  if  there  were  a  pair 
from  this  Nature's  Upper-dom — 

"  Two  trusty  turtles,  truefastest  of  all  true," 
— in  your  own  village,  dear  Fanny  Forester  ! 


THE  WEST  IN  A  PETTICOAT. 

(By  way  of  declining  a  communication  in  hope  of  a 
better  one.) 

We  have  been  for  years  looking  at  the  western 
horizon  of  American  literature,  for  a  star  to  rise  that 
should  smack  of  the  big  rivers,  steamboats,  alligators, 
and  western  manners.  We  have  the  down  east — 
embodied  in  Jack  Downing  and  his  imitators.  There 
was  wanting  a  literary  embodiment  of  the  out  west 
— not,  a  mind  shining  at  it,  by  ridiculing  it  from  a 
distance,  but  a  mind  shining  from  it,  by  showing  its 
peculiar  qualities  unconsciously.  The  rough-hewn 
physiognomy  of  the  west,  though  showing  as  yet  but 
in  rude  and  unattractive  outline,  is  the  profile  of  a  fine 
giant,  and  will  chisel  down  to  noble  features  hereafter; 
but,  meantime,  there  will  be  a  literary  foreshadowing 
of  its  maturity — abrupt,  confiding,  dashing  writers, 
regardless  of  all  trammels  and  fearless  of  ridicule — 
and  we  think  we  have  heard  from  one  of  them. 

The  letter  from  which  we  shall  quote  presently,  is 
entirely  in  earnest,  and  signed  with  the  lady's  real 
name.  We  at  first  threw  the  accompanying  com- 
munication asjde,  as  very  original  and  amusing,  but 
unfit  for  print — except  with  comments  which  we  had 
no  time  to  make.  Taking  it  up  again  this  morning, 
we  think  we  see  a  way  to  compass  the  lady-writer's 
object,  and  we  commence  by  giving  her  a  fictitious 
name  to  make  famous  (instead  of  her  own),  and  by  in- 
teresting our  readers  in  her  with  showing  her  charac- 
ter of  mind  as  her  letter  shows  her  to  us.  She  is 
quick,  energetic,  confident  of  herself,  full  of  humor, 
and  a  good  observer,  and  the  "  half-horse  half-alliga- 
tor" impulses  with  which  she  writes  so  unconscious- 
ly, may  be  trimmed  into  an  admirable  and  entirely 
original  style  by  care  and  labor. 

Miss   "  Kate   Juniper,"*   (so  we  name   her),   thus 

*  The  word  "  Juniper''  is  derived  from  the  Latin  words 
"junior  and  parere" — descriptive  of  a  fruit  whidl  makes  its 
appearance  prematurely.  We  trust  Miss  Kate  Juniper  will  see 
the  propriety  of  using  this  name  till  she  is  ripe  enough  to  re- 
sume her  own. 


western-fashion,    in    what    she    has   to   say 


dashes, 
to  us  :- 

"  I  hate  formal  introductions.  I  would  speak  to  you 
now,  and  I  will  see  you,  when  I  may,  in  the  Palace 
of  Truth.  I  am  in  Godey's  Lady's  Book  with  decent 
compensation,  but  I  want  to  be  published  faster  than 
they  can  do  it.  I  want  to  write  for  the  Mirror  icithout 
pay,  for  the  sake  of  'getting  my  name  up.'  I  shah 
ultimately  'put  money  in  my  purse'  by  this  course. 
I  have  now  three  manuscript  volumes,  which  good 
judges  tell  me  are  equal  to  Miss  Bremer's.  I  send  you 
a  specimen.  I  have  a  series  of  these  sketches,  enti- 
tled 'The  Spirits  of  the  Room.'  I  can  sell  them  to 
Godey,  but  he  will  be  for  ever  bringing  them  out.  I 
propose  to  give  them  to  you,  if  you  like  them,  in  the 
I  true  spirit  of  bargain  and  sale,  though  not  in  the  let- 
ter. 1  will  give  you  as  many  as  will  serve  my  purpose 
of  getting  my  name  known;  and  then,  if  success 
1  comes,  you  will  hold  me  by  the  chain  of  gratitude,  as 
you  now  do  by  that  of  reverence  and  affection. 

"  Will  you  write  me  immediately  and  tell  me  your 
thoughts  of  this  thing  ?     Truly  your  friend." 

We  can  only  give  a  taste  of  her  literary  quality  by 
an  extract  from  her  communication,  the  remainder 
wanting  finish,  and  this  portion  sufficing  to  introduce 
her  to  our  readers.  We  give  it  precisely  as  written 
and  punctuated.  She  is  describing  an  interview  with 
a  travelling  lecturer  on  magnetism,  and  gives  her  own 
experience  in  neurological  sight-seeing  : — 

"Mark  the  sequel.     I  had,  on  going  into  the  room, 
lost   my  handkerchief.     A   gentleman  famed   for  his 
wisdom,  his  powder  of  seeing  as  far  into  the  future 
without  the  gift  of  second  sight,  as  others  can  with  it, 
lent  me  his, protem.    I  heard  the  wonderful  statements 
of  the  '  New  School  in  Psychology'  relative  to  sym- 
pathy established  by  means  of  magnetized  or  neurolo- 
!  gized   handkerchiefs,   letters,   etc.      I    determined  to 
j  keep  the  handkerchief  and  see  if  there  were  enough 
of  the  soul  aura  of  my  wise-acre  friend  imprisoned  in 
it,  to  affect  me.     I  did  so  ;   I  returned  to  my  home  in 
t  the  hotel — to  my  lonely  room  ;  evening  shut  in  ;  the 
waiter  did  not  bring  me  a  light;  my  anthracite  burned 
|  blue  and  dimly  enough  ;  I  bound  the  magic  handker- 
chief about   my  brow    and   invoked  the  sight   of  my 
|  friend  to  aid  my  own.     What  I  saw  shall  be  told  in 
the  next  chapter. 

CHAPTER  I. 

"  I  gazed  into  the  dimness  and  vacancy  that  sur- 
rounded  me — I    conjured  the  guardian  spirit  of  the 
room  to  come  before  me,  and  communicate  some  of 
the  secrets  of  his  wards.     How  many  hearts,  thought 
j  I,  have  beat  with  joy  and  sorrow,  with  hope,  and  with 
!  anguish  unutterable  in  this  room.     But  no  guardian 
spirit  appeared,  and  I  began  to  think  that  the  tee-total 
pledge  of  this  hotel  had  really  banished  all  sorts  of 
i  spirits,  neurology  to  the  contrary  notwithstanding.     I 
closed   my   eyes,   laid    my   hand    on    the    bewitching 
!  point  in  my  forehead,  and  lo !   my  eyes  were  opened, 
not  literally  but  neurologically.     At  first  a  figure  was 
;  revealed  dimly  and  indistinctly — gradually  its  outlines 
j  grew  more  defined,  and  a  graceful  young  man  stood 
I   before  me.     He  was  enveloped  in  the  folds  of  an  am- 
ple cloak,  a  jewelled    hand   held   it   in  front,  and    he 
stood  as   if  waiting  to  be  known  and  noted.      While 
S  gazing  on  him  I  found  myself  endowed  with  new  ;md 
marvellous   powers — every    line   of  his   face    had    its 
language,  and  told  me  a  broad  history.     His  attitude, 
his  hand,  the  manner  in  which  the  (olds  of  his  cloak 
fell  about  him,  constituted  a  library  that  J.  was  skilled 
to  read,  if  I  would.     Here  was" the  signatura  rerum. 
I  looked  and   looked— it  was  like  looking  into  a  libra- 
ry and  determining  what  you  shall  read,  and  what  you 
shall   leave  unread.     Some  one   has   said    thai    •  ibe 
half  is  greater  than  the  whole.'     This  may  be  a  physi- 
cal, yet  not  a  metaphysical  paradox.     Here  I  saw  thu 


772 


EPHEMERA. 


last  occupant  of  my  room  standing  before  me.  I 
said  I  will  first  look  at  one  week  of  his  life.  In  a 
moment  I  beheld  him  pacing  fitfully  the  room — 
his  thoughts  came  before  me — they  were  such  as 
these,"  &C,  &c. 

Miss  Juniper  goes  on  with  an  account  of  half  a 
dozen  different  characters,  who  (by  a  very  natural 
vein  of  revery)  she  imagines  may  have  occupied  the 
room  before  her.  The  specimen  we  have  given  sim- 
ply shows  the  free  dash  of  her  pen,  and  we  think  we 
see  in  it  the  capability  of  better  tilings. 


Female  Stock  Brokers,  Etc. — A  letter  from 
Paris  to  the  London  Times  describes  the  stock  ex- 
change of  Paris  (the  Bourse)  as  thronged  by  female 
speculators — not  less  than  a  hundred  in  attendance  on 
any  one  day.  To  do  this,  too,  they  are  obliged  to 
stand  in  the  open  square  in  front  of  the  building,  as 
they  have  been  excluded  from  the  interior  by  a  spe- 
cial regulation  !  Every  five  minutes  during  the  sale 
of  stocks,  two  or  three  bareheaded  agents  rush  down 
the  steps  of  the  Bourse  to  announce  to  the  fair  spec- 
ulators the  state  of  the  market;  and  they  buy  and  sell 
accordingly. 

Fancy  a  few  of  the  customs  of  the  "  most  polite  na- 
tion" introduced  into  New  York  !  What  would  "Mrs. 
Grundy"  say  of  a  hundred  ladies  standing  about  on 
the  sidewalk  in  Wall  street,  speculating  in  stocks,  and 
excluded  by  a  vote  of  the  stock-brokers  from  the  floor 
of  the  Exchange!  When  will  the  New  York  ladies 
begin  to  smoke  in  their  carriages,  as  they  do  in  Par- 
is ?  When  will  they  wear  Wellington  boots  with 
high  heels  ?  When  will  they  frequent  the  billiard- 
rooms  and  public  eating-houses  ?  When  will  those  who 
are  not  rich  enough  to  keep  house,  use  "home"  only 
as  birds  do  their  nests,  to  sleep  in — breakfasting,  di- 
ning, and  amusing  themselves,  at  all  other  hours,  out 
of  doors,  or  in  cafes  and  restaurants?  When  will  the 
more  fashionable  ladies  receive  morning  calls  in  the 
prettiest  room  in  the  house — their  bed-room — them- 
selves in  bed,  with  coquettish  caps  and  the  most  soig- 
nee demi-toilet  any  way  contrivable?  Funny  place, 
France  !  Yet  in  no  country  that  we  were  ever  in, 
seemed  woman  so  insincerely  worshipped — so  mocked 
with  the  shadow  of  power  over  men.  '  We  should 
think  it  as  great  a  curiosity  to  see  a  well-bred  French- 
man love-sick  (when  he  supposed  himself  alone)  as  to 
see  an  angel  tipsy,  or  a  marble  bust  in  tears.  This 
condition  of  the  "  love  of  the  country,"  and  the  dissi- 
pation of  female  habits,  are  mutual  consequences — so 
to  speak.  Men  are  constituted  by  nature  to  love 
women,  and  in  proportion  as  women  become  man-ified 
they  feel  toward  them  as  men  do  to  each  other — self- 
ish and  unimpressible.  We  remember  once  asking  a 
French  nobleman  who  was  very  fond  of  London,  what 
was  the  most  marked  point  of  difference  which  he  (as 
a  professed  love-maker)  found  between  French  and 
English  women.  The  reply  was  an  unfeeling  one, 
but  it  will  be  a  guide  to  an  estimate  of  the  effect  of 
the  different  national  manners  on  female  character. 
"The  expense  of  a  love  affair,"  said  he,  "falls  on  the 
man  in  France,  and  on  the  woman  in  England.  Eng- 
lish women  make  you  uncomfortable  by  the  quantity 
of  presents  they  give  you,  and  French  women  quite 
as  uncomfortable  by  the  quantity  they  exact  from 
you."  We  only  quote  this  remark  as  made  by  a  very 
great  beau  and  a  very  keen  observer — the  fact  that  a 
high-bred  man  weighed  women  at  all  in  such  abomina- 
ble scales  being  a  good  argument  (at  least)  against  in- 
viting the  ladies  to  Wall  street  and  the  billiard-rooms ! 

And  now  let  us  say  a  word  of  what  made  the  letter 
in  the  Times  more  suggestive  than  it  otherwise  would 
have  been — Miss  Fuller's  book  on  "Woman  in  the 
Nineteenth  Century." 


This  book  begins  with  an  emblematic  device  re- 
sembling, at  first  view,  the  knightly  decoration  called 
by  our  English  neighbors  a  star.  On  further  exami- 
nation, a  garter  seems  to  be  included  in  the  figure; 
but  upon  still  closer  view,  we  discover,  within  the 
rays  which  form  the  outer  border,  first  an  eternal 
serpent — then  the  deeper  mystery  of  two  triangles — , 
one  of  light,  the  other  of  darkness  and  shadow.  We 
should  not  have  been  thus  particular  in  describing  a 
new  decoration,  but  we  conceive  that  the  figure  is 
very  significant  of  the  tone  and  design  of  the  book. 
It  belongs  to  what  is  called  the  transcendental  school 
— a  school  which  we  believe  to  have  mixed  up  much 
of  what  is  noble  and  true  with  much  of  what  is  merely 
imaginary  and  fantastic.  Truth,  freedom,  love,  light 
— these  are  high  and  holy  objects  ;  and  though  they 
may  be  sought,  sometimes,  by  modes  which  we  may 
think  susceptible  of  improvement,  we  honor  those 
who  propose  to  themselves  such  objects,  according  to 
their  aims  and  not  according  to  their  ability  of  ac- 
complishment. The  character  and  rights  of  woman 
form  naturally  the  principal  subject  of  Miss  Fuller's 
book  ;  and  we  hope  it  may  have  an  influence  in  con- 
vincing, if  not  "man,"  at  least  some  men,  that  woman 
was  born  for  better  things  than  to  "  cook  him  some- 
thing good." 


The  English  Premier. — We  see  a  text  for  the 
least-taste-in-life  of  a  sermon,  in  the  following  touch- 
up  of  Sir  Robert  Peel  by  the  London  Examiner: — 

"  Wanted,  a  Premier's  Assistant. — Our  friend 
Punch,  who  has  written  some  excellent  lessons  for 
ministers,  'suited  to  the  meanest  capacity,'  in  words 
from  one  syllable  to  three,  by  easy  upward  ascent, 
should  take  Sir  Robert  Peel's  education  in  hand,  and 
teach  him  how  to  write  a  decent  note. 

"  Notwithstanding  the  proverb  to  the  contrary,  a  man 
may  do  a  handsome  thing  in  a  very  awkward  way. 

"  It  was  quite  becoming  and  right  to  give  a  pension 
of  c£20  a  year  to  Miss  Brown,  but  what  a  note  about 
it  is  this,  with  its  parenthetical  dislocations,  and  its 
atrocious  style  as  stiff  as  buckram  : — 

"  «  Whitehall,  Dec.  24. 

"  '  Madam  :  There  is  a  fund  applicable,  as  vacancies 
may  occur,  to  the  grant  of  annual  pensions  of  very 
limited  amount,  which  usage  has  placed  at  the  dispo- 
sal of  the  lady  of  the  first  minister.  On  this  fund 
there  is  a  surplus  of  c£20  per  annum. 

"  '  Lady  Peel  has  heard  of  your  honorable  and  suc- 
cessful exertions  to  mitigate,  by  literary  acquirements, 
the  effects  of  the  misfortune  by  which  you  have  been 
visited;  and  should  the  grant  of  this  pension  for  your 
life  be  acceptable  to  you,  Lady  Peel  will  have  great 
satisfaction  in  such  an  appropriation  of  it. 

"'I  am,  &c.  Robert  Peel.' 

"If  Punch  had  been  over  Sir  Robert  Peel  when  he 
wrote  this,  he  would  have  hit  him  several  sharp  raps 
on  the  knuckles  with  his  baton,  we  are  quite  certain. 
The  model  of  the  note  may  be  in  Dilworth,  very 
probably,  or  even  in  the  Complete  Letter-Writer,  by 
the  retired  butler;  but,  nevertheless,  it  is  not  a  true 
standard  of  taste. 

"  Not  to  mention  the  clumsy  parenthetical  clauses 
so  much  better  omitted,  or  the  long-tailed  words  so 
out  of  place  in  a  note  about  a  matter  of  c£20  a  year, 
Sir  Robert  Peel  has  to  learn  that  none  but  he-millin- 
ers and  haberdashers  talk  of  their  "ladies."  Sir  Rob- 
ert Peel,  as  a  gentleman  and  a  prime  minister,  needs 
not  be  ashamed  of  writing  of  his  wife.  He  may  rest 
quite  assured  that  the  world  will  know  that  his  wife  is 
a  lady  without  his  studiously  telling  it  so.  , 

"  Foreigners  will  ask  what  is  the  distinction  be- 
tween a  gentleman's  lady  and  his  wife;  whether  they  are 
convertible  terms;  whether  there  are  minister's  wives 
who  are  not  ladies  ;  or  whether  there  are  ladies  who 


EPHEMERA 


773 


are  not  wives;  and  why  the  equivocal  word  is  prefer- 
red to  the  distinct  one;  and  why  the  wife  is  treated  if 
it  were  the  less  honorable. 

"  Formerly  men  used  to  have  wives,  not  ladies  ;  but 
in  the  announcement  of  births  it  has  seemed  finer  to 
Mr.  Spruggins  and  Mr.  Wiggins  to  say  that  his  lady 
has  been  delivered  than  his  wife,  the  latter  sounding 
homely  and  low. 

"But  Sir  Robert  Peel  should  not  be  led  away  by 
these  examples.  He  is  of  importance  enough  in  the 
world  to  afford  to  mention  his  wife  in  plain,  honest, 
homely  old  English. 

•'Any  one  who  is  disposed  to  give  lessons  in  letter- 
writing  can  not  do  better  than  collect  Sir  Robert 
Peel's  notes  as  warning  examples.  From  the  Velve- 
teens to  Miss  Brown's  t£20  a  year,  they  have  all  the 
same  atrocious  offences  of  style  and  taste.  It  is  an- 
other variety  of  the  Yellow  Plush  school. 

••  It  distresses  us  to  see  it.  We  should  like  to  see 
MissBrown's  c£20  a  year  rendered  into  plain,  gentle- 
manly English. 

"  As  prizes  are  the  fashion,  perhaps  some  one  will 
give  a  prize  for  the  best  translation  of  Sir  Robert 
Peel's  notes  into  the  language  of  ease,  simplicity,  and 
with  them,  good  taste." 

Sir  Robert's  crockery  note  proves,  not  that  his  pre- 
miership still  shows  the  lint  of  the  spinning-jenny,  but 
that  he  employed  one  of  his  clerks  (suitably  impressed 
with  his  duty  to  Lady  Peel)  to  write  the  letter.  We 
wish  to  call  attention,  however,  to  the  superior  sim- 
plicity of  the  taste  contended  for  by  the  critic,  and  to 
the  evidence  it  gives  that  extremes  meet  in  the  usages 
of  good  breeding  as  in  other  things — the  highest  re- 
finement fairly  lapping  over  upon  what  nature  started 
with.  The  application  of  this  is  almost  universal,  but 
perhaps  we  had  better  particularize  at  once,  and  con- 
fess to  as  much  annoyance  as  we  have  a  right  to  ex- 
press (in  "  a  free  country")  at  the  affected  use  of  the 
word  lady  in  the  United  States,  and  the  superfine 
shrinking  from  the  honest  words  wife  and  woman. 
Those  who  say  "  this  is  my  lady,  sir  !"  instead  of 
'•  this  is  my  wife,  sir !"  or  those  who  say  "she  is  a 
very  pretty  lady"  instead  of  "  she  is  a  very  pretty 
woman,'"  should  at  least  know  what  the  words  mean, 
and  what  they  convey  to  others. 

In  common  usage,  to  speak  of  one's  wife  as  one's 
lady,  smacks  of  low-breeding,  because  it  expresses  a 
kind  of  announcement  of  her  rank,  as  if  her  rank 
would  not  otherwise  be  understood.  It  is  sometimes 
used  from  a  dread  of  plain-spoken-uess,  by  men  who 
doubt  their  own  manners — but,  as  it  always  betrays 
the  doubt,  it  is  in  bad  taste.  The  etymology  of  the 
plainer  words  is  a  better  argument  in  their  favor,  how- 
ever. In  the  Saxon  language  from  which  they  are 
derived,  waepman  signifies  that  one  of  the  conjugal 
pair  who  employed  the  weapons  necessary  for  the  de- 
fence of  the  family,  and  icifman  signified  the  one 
who  was  employed  at  the  woof,  clothing  the  family  by 
her  industry.  (The  terms  of  endearment,  of  course, 
were  "  my  fighter,"  and  "  my  weaver  !")  instead  of 
this  honestly  derived  word  (wife),  meaning  the  one 
who  has  the  care  of  the  family,  the  word  lady  is  used, 
which  (also  by  derivation  from  the  Saxon)  signifies 
one.  who  is  raised  to  the  rank  of  her  conjugal  mate  ! 
But,  in  this  country,  where  the  males  invariably  bur- 
row in  trade,  while  the  females  as  invariably  soar  out 
of  their  reach  in  the  sunshine  of  cultivation,  few  wo- 
men are  raised  to  the  rank  of  their  husbands.  It  is  an 
injustice  to  almost  any  American  woman  to  say  as 
much — by  calling  her  a  lady. 

It  is  one  part,  though  ever  so  small  a  part,  of  patri- 
otism, to  toil  for  improving  the  manners  of  the  coun- 
try. If  we  can  avoid  the  long  round  of  affectations, 
and  make  a  short  cut  to  good  taste  by  at  once  sub- 
mitting every  question  of  manners  to  the  three  ulti- 
mate standards  of  high-breediDg — simplicity,  disinter- 


estedness, and  modesty,  it  might  save  us  the  century 
or  two  of  bad  taste  through  which  older  countries 
have  found  their  way  to  refinement.     Amen! 


LETTER  TO  FANNY  FORESTER. 

Dear  Fanny:  Would  your  dark  eyes  vouchsafe 
to  wonder  how  I  come  to  write  to  you?  Thus  it 
befell  :— 

You  live  in  the  country  and  know  what  log-haul- 
ing is  like — over  the  stumps  in  the  woods.  You  have, 
many  a  time,  mentally  consigned,  to  condign  axe  and 
fire,  the  senseless  trunk  that,  all  its  life,  had  found 
motion  enough  to  make  way  for  every  silly  breeze 
that  flirted  over  it,  but  lay  in  unyielding  immoveable- 
ness  when  poor  oxen  and  horses  were  tortured  to  make 
it  stir!  If  you  knew  what  a  condition  Broadway  is  ic 
— what  horses  have  to  suffer  to  draw  omnibuses — and 
how  many  pitiless  human  trunks  are  willing  doggedly 
to  sit  still  to  be  drawn  home  to  the  fire  by  brute  agony — 
you  would  see  how,  while  walking  in  Broadway,  I  was 
reminded  of  log-hauling — then  of  the  country — and 
then,  of  course,  of  Fanny  Forester. 

Before  setting  the  news  to  trickle  from  my  full 
pen  let  me  quote  from  a  book  (one  that  is  my  present 
passion),  a  fine  thought  or  two  on  the  cruelty  to  ani- 
mals that  has,  this  day,  in  Broadway,  made  me — no 
better  than  Uncle  Toby  in  Flanders ! 

'  Shame  upon  creation's  lord,  the  fierce  unsanguined  despot : 
What  !    art   thou  not  content  thy  sin  hath  dragged  down 

suffering  and  death 
Upon  the  poor  dumb  servants  of  thy  comfort,  and  yet  must 

thou  rack  them  with  thy  spite  f 
For  very  shame  be  merciful,  be  kind  unto  the  creatures  thou 

hast  ruined  ; 
Earth  and  her  million  tribes  are  cursed  for  thy  sake  ; 
Liveth  there  but  one  among  the  million  that  shall  not  bear 

witness  against  thee, 
A  pensioner  of  land  or  air  or  sea,  that  hath  not  whereof  it 

will  accuse  thee  ? 
From  the  elephant  toiling  at  a  launch,  to  the  shrew-mouse 

in  the  harvest-field, 
From  the  whale  which  the  harpooner  hath  stricken,  to  the 

minnow  caught  upon  a  pin, 
From  the  albatross  wearied  in  its  flight,  to  the  wren  in  her 

covered  nest, 
From  the  death-moth  and  the  lace-winged  dragon-fly,  to  the 

lady-bird  and  the  gnat, 
The  verdict  of  all  things  is  unanimous,  finding  their  master 

cruel : 
The  dog,  thy  humble  friend,  thy  trusting,  honest  friend, 
The  horse,  thy  uncomplaining  slave,  drudging  from  morn 

to  even, 
The  lamb,  and  the  timorous  hare,  and  the  laboring  ox  at 

plough, 
And  all  things  that  minister  alike  to  thy  life  and  thy  com- 
fort and  thy  pride. 
Testify  with  one  sad  voice  that  man  is  a  cruel  master. 
The  galled  ox  can  not  complain,  nor  supplicate  a  moment's 

respite  ; 
The  spent  horse  hideth  his  distress,  till  he  panted  out  his 

spirit  at  the  goal ; 
Behold,  he  is  faint  with  hunger  ;  the  big  tear  standeth  m 

his  eye  ; 
His  skin  is  sore  with  stripes,  and  he  tottereth.  beneath  his 

burden ;  . 

His  limbs  are  stiff  with  age,  his  sinews  have  lost  their 

And^p^in'  is  stamped  upon  his  face,  while  he  wrestleth 

unequally  with  toil ;  

Yet  once  more  mutely  and  meekly  endureth  he  the  crush- 
ing blow ;  .  ^, 
That  struggle  hath  cracked  his  heart-stnngs-the  generous 

brute  is  dead !" 
I  doubt  whether  fifty  years  of  jumping  toothache 
would  not  be  a  lesser  evil,  hereafter,  than  the  retr.bu- 
tion  charged  this  day  against  each  passenger  from 
Wall  street  to  Bleecker.  And,  as  if  to  aggravate  the 
needlessness  of  the  sin,  the  sidewalk  was  like  the  side- 
walks in  June — dry,  sunny,  and  besprinkled  with  ador- 
able shoppers.     With  the  sides  of  the  street  thus 


774 


EPHEMERA. 


clean  and  bright,  the  middle  with  a  succession  of  pits, 
each  one  of  which  required  the  utmost  strength  of  a 
pair  of  horses  to  toil  out  of — the  wheels  continually 
cutting  in  to  the  axletrees,  each  sinking  of  the  wheels 
bringing  down  the  whip  on  the  guilty  horses,  and, 
with  all  the  lashing,  cursing,  toiling  and  breaking  of 
harness,  people  (with  legs  to  carry  them)  remaining 
heartlessly  inside  the  omnibuses.  Oh,  for  one  hour's 
change  of  places — horses  inside  and  passengers  in 
harness  ! 

But  why  break  your  country  heart  for  sins  in 
Broadway  ?  Think  rather  of  the  virtues  and  the 
fashions.  Large  parasols  (feminized,  from  male  um- 
brellas, only  by  petticoats  of  fringe  and  the  change- 
ableness  of  the  silk)  are  now  carried  between  heaven 
and  bright  eyes,  to  the  successful  banishment  of  the 
former.  Ladies  sit  in  the  shops  smoking  camphor 
cigars  while  their  daughters  buy  ribands.  French 
lap-dogs,  with  maids  to  lead  them,  are  losing  singu- 
larity, as  pairs  of  spectacles.  People  in  the  second 
story  are  at  the  level  of  very  fine  weather.  Literature 
is  at  a  dead  stand-still.  The  f  father  of  evil"  has  not 
yet  told  us  what  the  next  excitement  is  to  grow  out 
of;  and  meantime  (to-night)  we  are  to  have  an  Eng- 
lish song  from  Madam  Pico  at  the  Tabernacle. 

So  you  have  been  ill  and  are  mortal  after  all  ! 
Well !  I  presume — whatever  stays  to  keep  the  violets 
company — "Fanny  Forester"  goes  to  Heaven;  so  you 
must  have  your  reminders,  like  the  rest  of  us,  that 
the  parting  guest  is  to  be  looked  after.  What  a  to- 
morrow-dom  life  is!  Eve's  fault  or  Adam's — to-day 
was  left  in  Eden  !  we  live  only  for  what  is  to  come.  I 
am,  for  one,  quite  sick  of  hoping  ;  and  if  I  could  put 
a  sack  of  money  at  my  back  to  keep  my  heels  from 
tripping,  I  would  face  about  and  see  nothing  but  the 
to-day  of  the  children  behind  me.  (Bless  me,  how 
grave  I  am  getting  to  be  !) 

Write  to  me,  dear  Fanny  !  As  I  go  to  market  on 
this  river  of  ink,  write  me  such  a  letter  as  will  ride 
without  damage  in  the  two-penny  basket  that  brings 
this  to  you. 

And  now  adieu — or  rather  au  soin  de  Dieu — for  I 
trust  that  the  first  lark  that  goes  up  with  the  spring 
news  will  bid  the  angels  not  to  expect  you,  yet  awhile. 
Take  care  of  your  health.  Yours  always. 


Madame  Pico's  Concert. — We  should  guess  that 
between  two  and  three  thousand  persons  were  listeners 
in  the  vast  hall  of  the  Tabernacle  at  the  concert.  The 
five  hundred  regular  opera-goers,  who  were  apparent- 
ly all  there,  were  scattered  among  a  mass  of  graver 
countenances,  and  Madame  Pico  saw  combined  her 
two  bailiwicks  of  fashion  and  seriousness.  She  seems 
to  be  equally  popular  with  both,  and  her  "good-fel- 
low" physiognomy  never  showed  its  honest  beauty  to 
more  advantage.  She  wore  a  Greek  cap  of  gold  braid 
on  the  right-side  organ  of  conscientiousness,  and  prob- 
ably magnetized  very  powerfully  the  large  gold  tassel 
that  fell  from  it  over  her  cheek.  The  English  song 
was  the  qui-vive-ity  of  the  evening,  however,  and 
English,  from  a  tongue  cradled  in  a  gondola,  is  cer- 
tainly very  peculiar!  But,  preservp  us,  Rossini-Bel- 
lini !  After  hearing  exclusively  Italian  music  from  a 
songstress,  the  descent  to  Balfe  is  rather  intolerable. 
A  lark  starting  for  its  accustomed  zenith  with  "chicken 
fixings"  would  represent  our  soul  as  it  undertook  to 
soar  last  night  with  Balfeathered  Pico! — What  should 
make  that  same  song  popular  is  beyond  our  divining. 
Most  of  its  movement  works  directly  in  the  joint  be- 
tween the  comfortable  parts  of  the  voice,  and  nobody 
ever  tilted  through  its  see-saw  transitions,  in  our  hear- 
ing, without  apparent  distress. 

Madame  Arnoult  made  a  very  strong  impression  on 
the  audience  last  night.     She  sang  with  more  dew  in 


her  throat  than  when  we  heard  her  before,  and  we 
fancy  that  the  hard  enamel  of  her  tones,  at  thai  time, 
was  from  the  bracing  up  against  timidity,  and  not  from 
the  quality  of  the  organ.  She  has  only  to  draw  a 
check  for  what  popularity  she  wants,  we  presume. 


Town-Hunger  for  Poets. — The  appetite  for  live 
bards  (like  other  scarce  meats,  commonly  liked  best 
when  pretty  well  gone)  is  probably  peculiar  to  old 
countries.  We  have  stumbled  lately  on  the  follow- 
ing letter  touching  Petrarch,  written  in  1368,  by  the 
Seigneury  of  Florence,  to  Pope  Urban  V.  : — 

"  The  celebrity  and  talent  of  our  fellow-citizen,  M. 
Francesco  Petrarca,  inspire  us  with  a  great  desire  to 
attract  him  back  to  reside  in  Florence,  for  the  honor 
of  the  city  and  for  his  own  tranquillity;  for  he  has 
greatly  harassed  himself  by  bodily  fatigues  and  scien- 
tific pursuits  in  various  countries.  But  as  he  has 
here  no  patrimony  nor  means  of  support,  and  little 
fancy  for  a  secular  life,  be  pleased  to  grant  him  the 
favor  of  the  first  canonry  vacant  in  Florence  ;  and  this 
notwithstanding  any  previous  promise,  so  that  no  one 
may  be  appointed  canon  in  preference  to  him.  And 
you  will  ascertain  from  Pitti  in  what  manner  this  ap- 
pointment may  be  obtained  for  him  in  the  most  ample 
manner." 

How  long  it  will  be  before  Newburyport  will  send 
to  the  governor  of  Arkansas  for  Albert  Pike — before 
New  Haven  will  send  to  Mayor  Harper  for  Mr.  Hal- 
leck — before  Portland  will  send  to  President  Quincy 
for  Longfellow — before  other  great  cities  will  send 
for  the  now  peripatetic  ashes  of  their  future  honorary 
urns,  and  confer  on  them  "  appointments  in  the  most 
ample  manner" — we  are  not  prophet  enough  to  know 
— nor  do  we  know  what  the  locofocos  would  say  to 
such  appointments.  We  suggest,  however,  that  the 
poets  should  combine  to  vote  for  Mayor  Harper  on 
condition  that  he  inquire  what  poets  New  York  needs 
to  have  back  "  for  the  honor  of  the  city  and  their  own 
tranquillity." 


Japonica-dom  in  Italy. — We  have  often  thought 
that  it  would  amuse,  and  possibly  instruct,  New- 
Yorkers,  to  know  exactly  what  class  of  Europeans 
have,  as  nearly  as  possible,  their  own  pretensions  to 
aristocracy,  and  where  such  persons  "  stand,"  in  the 
way  of  go-to-the-devil-dom,  from  the  titled  classes. 
There  is  scarce  a  man  of  fortune  or  fashion  in  New 
York  who  is  not  what  they  call  in  Europe  a  roturier 
— a  man,  that  is  to  say,  whose  position  is  made  al- 
together by  his  money.  The  treatment  which  a 
roturier  gets,  therefore,  from  those  above  him,  presents 
a  fair  opportunity  for  contrasting  his  value  (measured 
by  this  scale)  with  that  of  a  rich,  but  grand  fatherless 
New-Yorker.  Besides  other  profit  in  the  comparison, 
it  is  as  well,  perhaps,  to  form  a  guess  as  to  what  sort 
of  a  sore  the  upper  ten  thousand  will  make,  when  they 
come  to  a  head  in  Manhattan. 

A  letter  to  the  Foreign  Quarterly  Review  from  a  cor- 
respondent in' Italy,  gives  an  account  of  the  celebra- 
tion of  a  scientific  anniversary  which  draws  together 
the  accessible  celebrities  of  Europe,  and  which  was 
held  this  year  in  Milan.  Incidentally  the  writer 
speaks  of  Milanese  society — thus  : — 

"  Yes  !  the  congress,  whatever  its  other  claims  to 
consideration  may  have  been,  was  deficient  in  '  quar- 
terings,'  and  was  therefore,  no  company  for  Milanese 
noblesse.  Nowhere,  in  Europe,  is  the  effete  barbar- 
ism of  '  castes'  more  in  vigor  than  at  Milan.  The 
result  of  course,  and  of  necessity,  is,  that  the  exclu- 
sive there  are  the  least  advanced  in  social  and  moral 
civilization  of  all  the  great  cities  of  Italy.     Will  it  be 


EPHEMERA. 


775 


believed  lhat  these  noble  blockheads  have  a  Casino 
for  themselves  and  their  females,  to  whose  festivities 
the  more  distinguished  of  their  non-noble  fellow-citi- 
zens are  invited— after  what  mariner  does  the  civilized 
nineteenth  century  Englishman  think?  Thus :  A 
gallery  has  been  constructed,  looking  from  above  into 
the  ball-room.  There  such  more  distin  guislied  roturiers 
(men  of  low  descent),  with  their  families,  as  the  privi- 
leged caste  may  condescend  toinvite—not  to  share— but  to 
witness  their  festivities,  being  duly  fenced  in  with  an 
iron  grating,  may  gaze  through  the  bars  at  the  paradise 
that  they  can  never  enter.  It  is  at  least  something  ! 
They  may  there  see  what  it  is  to  be  '  noble  ."  The 
happy  ones,  thus  permitted  to  feast  their  eyes,  may, 
at  least,  boast  to  their  less  fortunate  fellow-citizens, 
of  the  condescension  with  which  they  have  been 
honored,  and  thus  propagated,  in  some  degree  the 
blessings  of  exclusiveness  among  the  ranks  of  the 
swinish  multitude!  In  their  happy  gallery,  at  the 
top  of  the  noble  ball-room,  they  may  at  least  inhale  the 
refuse  breath  streaming  up  from  noble  lungs — delicious 
gales  from  Araby  the  blest.  Surely  this  is  something. 
The  wealthy  citizens  of  Milan  feel  that  it  is;  and  they 
value  the  so-coudescendiugly-granted  privilege  ac- 
cordingly. 

"Yes!  the  roluricr  citizens  of  Milan — incredible 
as  it  may  seem  to  those  whose  more  civilized  social 
system  has  given  them  the  feelings  of  men  in  the  place 
of  those  of  slaves— do  gratefully  and  gladly  accept 
these  invitations.  Yes  ■  for  one  of  the  curses  most 
surely  attendant  on  the  undue  separation  of  a  privi- 
leged caste,  is  the  degradation  of  both  parties — the  real 
abasement  of  the  pariah,  as  well  as  the  fancied  exalta- 
tion of  the  noble." 

Our  readers'  imaginations  will  easily  transfer  this 
stale  of  things  to  New  York  (fancying  one  class  of 
rich  men  inviting  another  class  of  men,  quite  as  rich, 
but  with  not  the  same  sort  of  grandfathers,  to  look  at 
a  ball  through  an  iron  grating !)' but,  leaving  our  friends 
to  pick  out  the  "  customers"  for  the  two  sides  of  the 
grate,  we  turn  to  another  difference  still,  between  the 
nether- graters  and  the  mechanics.  There  is  even  a 
more  impassable  barrier  between  these,  and  it  is  almost 
as  impassable  in  England  and  France  as  in  the  more 
monarchical  portions  of  Europe.  A  letter  from  abroad 
in  the  Ledger  of  yesterday,  states  this  phase  of  social 
distinction  very  clearly  : — 

"  The  present  state  of  society  in  France  presents, 
therefore,  a  new  and  almost  incurable  evil — the  entire 
separation  of  the  capitalists,  the  merchants  and  manu- 
facturers, from  the  laboring  portion  of  the  community  ; 
and  what  is  worse,  a  hostile  attitude  of  these  social 
elements  to  each  other.  In  Germany,  and  partly  even 
in  England,  the  interests  of  the  manufacturers  and 
capitalists  are  parallel  with  those  of  the  laborers,  and 
kept  so  by  the  pressure  of  a  wealthy  overbearing  aris- 
tocracy in  Great  Britain  ;  while  on  the  continent  the 
industrious  pursuits  are  not  yet  sufficiently  developed 
to  effect  the  separation.  Whenever  the  laborers  (the 
pariahs)  of  England  make  common  cause  with  their 
employers,  or  rather,  whenever  their  demands  coincide 
with  those  of  their  masters,  the  aristocracy  is  gene- 
rally obliged  to  yield  :  but  whenever,  as  in  the  case 
of  the  chartists,  the  laborers  or  inferior  orders  of  the 
industrious  section  of  society  demand  anything  for 
itself  which  does  not  agree  with  the  views  of  their  em- 
ployers, ihey  are  perfectly  powerless — a  mere  play-ball, 
tossed  to  and  fro  between  the  landlords  and  the  cotton- 
lords. 

"In  France,  as  I  have  observed,  the  separation  of 
the  higher  bourgeoisie  from  those  who  help  them  by 
their  labor  to  amass  wealth, is  complete;  but  so  power- 
less is  the  latter  section  that  it  is  not  only  not  repre- 
sented in  the  chambers,  but  not  even  thought  or  spo- 
ken of,  except  when  it  is  thought  necessary  to  teach 
it  a  lesson  by  putting  it  down  and  teaching  it  obedi- 


ence.    The  misery  of  the  laboring  classes  lias  not  yet 
found  an  orator." 

We  have  given,  here-above,  an  attractive  nucleus 
for  table-talk  and  speculation,  and  we  leave  it  to  om 
friends. 


Poets  and  Poetry  of  America. — An  hour's 
lecture  on  this  subject  by  Mr.  Poe  is  but  a  "  foot  of 
Hercules,"  and  though  one  can  see  what  would  be 
the  proportions  of  the  whole,  if  treated  with  the  same 
scope  and  artistic  minuteness,  it  is  a  pity  to  see  only 
the  fragment.  What  we  heard  last  night  convinced 
us,  however,  that  one  of  the  most  readable  and  sale- 
able of  books  would  be  a  dozen  of  such  lectures  by 
Mr.  Poe,  and  we  give  him  a  publisher's  counsel  to 
print  them. 

After  some  general  remarks  on  poetry  and  the  uses 
of  impartial  criticism,  Mr.  Poe  gently  waked  up  the 
American  poetesses.  He  began  with  Mrs.  Sigourney, 
whom  he  considered  the  best  known,  and  who,  he 
seemed  to  think,  owed  her  famousness  to  the  same 
cause  as  "old  boss  Richards"— the  being  "  kept  before 
the  people."  He  spoke  well  of  her  poetry  abstractly, 
but  intimated  that  it  was  strongly  be-Hemans'd,  and 
that  without  the  Hemanshood  and  the  newspaper 
iteration,  Mrs.  Sigourney  would  not  be  the  first 
American  poetess.  He  next  came  to  Mrs.  Welhy  as 
No.  2,  and  gave  her  wholesome  muse  some  very  still' 
laudation.  Mrs.  Osgood  came  next,  and  for  her  he 
prophesied  a  rosy  future  of  increasing  power  and  re- 
nown. He  spoke  well  of  Mrs.  Seba  Smith,  and  lie 
spent  some  time  in  showing  that  the  two  Miss  David- 
sons, with  all  their  merit,  were  afloat  "  on  bladders  m 
a  sea  of  glory."  The  pricking  of  these  bladders,  by- 
the-way,  and  the  letting  out  of  Miss  Sedgwick's 
breath,  and  Professor  Morse's,  and  Mr.  Southey's, 
was  most  artistically  well  done. 

Of  the  inspired  males  Mr.  Poe  only  took  up  the 
copperplate  five  — Bryant,  Halleck,  Longfellow, 
Sprague,  and  Dana.  These,  as  having  their  por- 
traits^ engraved  in  the  frontispiece  of  Griswold's 
"Poets  and  Poetry  of  America,"  were  taken  to  rep- 
resent the  country's  poetry,  and  dropped  into  the 
melting-pot  accordingly.  Mr.  Bryant  came  first  as 
the  allowed  best  poet;  but  Mr.  Poe,  after  giving  him 
high  praise,  expressed  a  contempt  for  "  public  opin- 
ion," and  for  the  opinion  of  all  majorities,  in  matters 
of  taste,  and  intimated  that  Mr.  Bryant's  universality 
of  approval  lay  in  his  keeping  within  very  narrow  lim- 
its, where  it  was  easy  to  have  no  faults.  Halleck,  Mr. 
Poe  praised  exceedingly,  repeating  with  great  beauty 
of  elocution  his  Marco  Bozzaris.  Longfellow,  Mr. 
Poe  said,  had  more  genius  than  any  other  of  the  five, 
but  his  fatal  alacrity  at  imitation  made  him  borrow, 
when  he  had  better  at  home.  Sprague,  but  for 
one  drop  of  genuine  poetry  in  a  fugitive  piece,  was 
described  by  Poe  as  Pope-and-water.  Dana  found 
very  little  favor.  Mr.  Poe  thought  his  metre  harsh 
and  awkward,  his  narrative  ill-managed,  and  his  con- 
ceptions eggs  from  other  people's  nests.  With  the 
copperplate  five,  the  criticisms  abruptly  broke  oft,  Mr. 
Poe  concluding  his  lecture  with  the  recitation  of  three 
pieces  of  poetry  which  he  thought  had  been  mista- 
kenly nut  away,  by  the  housekeeper  of  the  temple  of 
fame,  among  the  empty  bottles.  Two  of  them  were 
by  authors  we  did  not  know,  and  the  third  was  by  an 
author  whom  we  have  been  exhorted  to  know  under 
the  Greek  name  of  Seauton  ("gnoth.  seauton  )- 
ourself '  (Perhaps  we  may  be  excused  for  mentioning 
that  the  overlooked  bottle  of  us  contained  "unseen 
spirits,"  and  that  the  brigadier,  who  gave  us  twenty 
dollars  for  it,  thought  it  by  no  means  "small  beer  .   ) 

Mr  Poe  had  an  audience  of  critics  and  poets— 
between  two  and  three  hundred  of  victims  and  victim- 
ized—and he  was  heard  with  breathless  attention.  IIo 


776 


EPHExMERA. 


becomes  a  desk,  his  beautiful  head  showing  like  a 
statuary  embodiment  of  discrimination;  his  accent 
drops  like  a  knife  through  water,  and  his  style  is  so 
much  purer  and  clearer  than  the  pulpit  commonly 
gets  or  requires,  that  the  effect  of  what  he  says,  beside 
other  things,  pampers  the  ear.  Poe's  late  poem  of 
"  The  Raven,"  embroidered  him  at  once  on  the  quilt 
of  the  poets ;  but  as  the  first  bold  traverse  thread  run 
across  the  parallelisms  of  American  criticism,  he 
wants  but  a  business  bodkin  to  work  this  subordinate 
talent  to  great  show  and  profit.  We  admire  him  none 
the  less  for  dissenting  from  some  of  his  opinions. 


Asylum  for  Indigent  Women. — A  benevolent 
friend  surprised  us,  on  Saturday,  into  one  of  the  most 
agreeable  visits  we  ever  made — a  visit  to  an  institution 
of  whose  existence  we  were  not  even  aware.  We 
presume  that  others  have  shared  our  ignorance,  and 
that  the  name  we  have  written  above  will  convey  to 
most  readers  an  idea  either  vague  or  entirely  novel. 
Poetry  alone  would  express  truly  the  impression  left 
on  our  mind  by  this  visit,  but  we  will  confine  ourself 
to  a  brief  description  in  prose. 

Our  friend  informed  us,  on  the  way,  that  an  entrance 
fee  of  fifty  dollars  was  required,  and  that  the  claims  of 
the  proposed  inmate  (as  to  respectability  and  such  cir- 
cumstances as  would  affect  the  social  comfort  of  the 
establishment)  were  decided  upon  by  the  board  of 
management.  Once  there,  she  has  a  home  for  life, 
with  perfect  command  of  egress,  absence  for  visits, 
and  calls  from  friends,  books,  medical  attendance,  oc- 
cupation, &c.  Each  inmate  commonly  adds  some 
furniture  to  the  simple  provision  of  the  room. 

We  entered  a  large  building,  with  two  spacious 
wings,  standing  on  Twentieth  street,  near  the  East 
river.  Opposite  the  entrance,  the  door  opened  into  a 
cheerful  chapel,  and  we  turned  to  the  left  into  a 
drawing-room,  which  had  all  the  appearance  of  an 
apartment  in  the  most  comfortable  private  residence. 
We  descended  thence  through  warm  corridors,  to  the 
refectory  in  the  basement,  and  here  the  ladies  (be- 
tween fifty  and  sixty  of  them)  chanced  to  be  taking 
their  tea.  We  really  never  saw  a  pleasanter  picture 
of  comfort.  The  several  tables  were  scattered  irreg- 
ularly around  the  room,  and  each  little  party  had  sep- 
arate teapot  and  table  furniture,  the  arrangements 
reminding  one  of  a  cafe  in  a  world  grown  old.  The 
gay  chatting,  the  passing  of  cups  and  plates,  the  nod- 
ding of  clean  caps,  and  the  really  unusual  liveliness 
of  the  different  parties,  took  us  entirely  by  surprise — 
took  away,  in  fact,  all  idea  of  an  asylum  for  sickness 
or  poverty.  What  with  the  fragrant  atmosphere  of 
souchong,  and  the  happy  faces,  it  would  have  been  a 
needlessly  fastidious  person  who  would  not  have  sat 
down  willingly  as  a  guest  at  the  meal. 

We  looked  into  the  kitchen  and  household  arrange- 
ments for  a  few  minutes,  finding  everything  the  model 
of  wholesome  neatness,  and  then,  as  the  ladies  had 
returned  to  their  rooms,  we  made  a  few  visits  to 
them,  chez  dies,  introduced  by  the  attendant.  Here 
again,  the  variety  of  furniture,  the  comfortable  rock- 
ing-chairs, the  curtains,  and  pictures,  and  ornamental 
trifles,  removed  all  idea  of  hospital  or  asylum-life,  and 
gave  us  the  feeling  of  visiters  in  private  families. 
The  ladies  were  visiting  from  room  to  room,  and  those 
we  conversed  with  assured  us  that  they  had  every- 
thing for  their  comfort,  and  were  as  happy  as  they  well 
could  be — though  they  laughed  very  heartily  when  we 
expressed  some  envy  of  the  barrier  between  them  and 
the  vexed  world  we  must  return  to,  and  at  our  wish 
that  we  could  "qualify"  and  stay  with  them.  We 
have  rarely  had  merrier  conversation  in  a  call,  and  we 
think  that  this  asylum  for  age  holds  at  least  one  or 
two  very  agreeable  women. 


But  what  charity  can  the  angel  of  mercy  so  smile 
upon,  as  this  waiting  upon  life  to  its  gloomy  retiring- 
door,  lighting  the  dark  steps  downward,  and  sending 
home  the  weary  guest  with  a  farewell,  softened  and 
cheerful !  God  bless  the  founder  of  this  beautiful 
charity  !  Who  can  hear  of  it  and  not  wish  to  aid  it  ? 
Who  has  read  thus  far,  our  truthful  picture,  and  does 
not  mentally  resolve  to  be  one  (though  by  ever  so 
small  a  gift)  among  its  blest  benefactors. 

We  begged  a  copy  of  the  last  report,  and  we  find 
that  the  society,  which  supports  the  asylum,  has  some 
eighty  pensioners  out  of  the  house,  and  that  there  is 
some  fear  entertained,  from  the  low  state  of  the  funds, 
as  to  the  ability  to  continue  these  latter  charities. 
We  can  not  conceive  the  treasury  of  such  an  institu- 
tion in  want.  We  are  not  authorized  to  make  any 
appeal  to  the  public,  but  those  who-  are  inclined  to 
give  can  easily  find  out  the  way. 


Sacred  Concert. — We  have  once  or  twice,  when 
writing  of  musical  performers,  given  partial  expres- 
sion to  a  feeling  that  has  since  been  very  strongly 
confirmed — the  expediency  of  addressing  music,  in 
this  country,  to  the  more  serious  instead  of  the  gayer 
classes,  for  its  best  support  and  cultivation.  The 
high  moral  tone,  this  side  the  water,  of  all  those  strata 
of  society  to  which  refined  amusement  looks  for  sup- 
port, gives  music  rather  an  American  rebuke  than  an 
American  welcome — coming  as  a  pleasure  in  which 
dissipated  fashionables  are  alone  interested.  Ralian 
opera,  properly  labelled  and  separated  from  its  need- 
less association  with  ballet,  would  rise  to  the  unof- 
fending moral  level  of  piano-music,  sight-seeing,  con- 
cert-going, or  what  the  serious  commonly  call  inno- 
cent amusements. 

Till  lately  it  has  been  generally  understood  that  the 
only  hope  for  patronage  of  fine  music,  in  New  York, 
was  the  exclusive  class  which  answers  to  the  court 
circles  of  Europe;  and,  so  addressed,  the  opera  has 
very  naturally  languished. 

The  truth  is,  that  the  great  mass  of  the  wealthy 
and  respectable  population  of  New  York  is  at  a  level 
of  strict  morality,  or  of  religious  feelings  rising  still 
higher,  and  any  amusement  that  goes  by  a  doubtful 
name  among  moralists,  is  at  once  excluded.  But 
music  need  never  suffer  by  this  exclusion,  and  as  the 
favor  of  these  stricter  classes,  once  secured,  would  be 
of  inexhaustible  profit  to  musicians,  it  would  be  worth 
while  for  some  master-spirit  among  them  to  undertake 
the  proper  adaptation  of  music  to  moral  favor. 

Why  should  the  best  singers  be  considered  almost 
profane — was  the  question  that  naturally  enough  oc- 
curred to  us  the  other  night  on  hearing  the  Taberna- 
cle fill,  to  its  vast  capacity,  with  the  voice  of  Madame 
Pico  giving  entrancing  utterance  to  Scripture  !  Here 
were  a  thousand  lovers  of  music  sitting  breathless  to- 
gether, with  their  most  hallowed  feelings  embarked 
upon  a  voice  usually  devoted  to  profane  uses.  Many 
whose  tears  flow  only  at  hallowed  prompting,  listened 
with  moist  eyes  to  the  new-clad  notes  of  familiar  sa- 
cred music — perhaps  half-sighing  with  self-reproach 
that  the  enchantment  of  an  opera-singer  should  have 
reached  such  sacred  fountains  of  emotion.  Why 
should  not  the  best  musical  talent,  as  well  as  the 
more  indifferent,  be  made  tributary  to  religion  ?  Why 
should  not  sacred  operas  be  written  for  our  country 
exclusively  ?  Why  should  not  the  highly  dramatic 
scenes  and  events  of  Scripture  be  represented  on  the 
stage,  and  seen  with  reverence  by  the  classes  who 
have  already  seen  them  in  their  imaginations,  during 
perusal  of  the  inspired  volume.  And  why  should  not 
the  events  of  human  life,  as  portrayed  in  unobjection- 
able operas,  be  alternated  with  these,  and  addressed  to 
the  moral  approbation  of  our  refined  serious  classes? 


EPHEMERA. 


777 


We  believe  that  this  (and  not  this  alone  of  things  com- 
monly delivered  over  to  the  evil  spirit  among  us) 
would  be  willingly  taken  charge  of  by  the  angel  of 
good  influences. 

We  can  not  give  a  critical  notice  of  the  performances 
at  the  sacred  concert,  as  we  were  unable  to  remain 
after  the  conclusion  of  the  first  part,  but  we  heard  a 
single  remark  which  seems  to  us  worth  quoting.  At 
the  conclusion  of  Madame  Pico's  first  air,  a  gentle- 
man, standing  near  us,  observed  that  it  was  very  odd 
a  foreigner  should  sing  with  perfect  articulation,  while 
he  could  scarce  understand  a  word  from  those  who 
sang  in  their  native  tongue  !  The  instrumental  mu- 
sic was  admirable,  and  the  scenic  effect  of  the  female 
choir  (all  dressed  in  white,  and  getting  up  with  a 
spontaneous  resurrection  for  the  chorus)  was  at  least 
impressive. 

P.  S.  Just  as  we  are  going  to  press  we  have  re- 
ceived a  critique  of  the  concert,  speaking  very  glow- 
ingly of  Madame  Pico,  and  the 

"  moist  melodious  hymn 
From  her  white  throat  dim," 

"as  Aristophanes  hath  it,"  of  the  "  deep  clear  tones 
ofBROUGH,  so  long  lost  to  us,"  and  "Miss  Northall 
and  Mr.  Meyer,"  as  having  "  given  full  satisfaction." 


The  Famine  at  Washington. — The  city  is  alive 
with  laughable  stories  of  the  distress  for  bed  and  prov- 
ender during  the  late  descent  upon  the  scene  of  the 
inauguration. 

"  As  the  scorched  locusts  from  the  fields  retire 
While  fast  behind  them  runs  the  blaze  of  fire," 

the  belles  and  beaux,  politicians  and  travellers,  are 
crowding  back  to  the  regions  of  steady  population, 
aghast  at  the  risks  of  famine  run  in  the  capital  of  a 
land  of  proverbial  abundance.  The  stories  are  mostly 
such  as  would  easily  be  imagined  taking  place  in  any 
country,  under  the  circumstances,  but  we  heard  of  one 
worth  recording — a  Yankee  variation  of  an  expedient 
tried  some  years  ago  by  an  Englishman  at  Saratoga. 
John  Bull,  in  that  instance  (it  may  be  remembered), 
after  calling  in  vain  to  the  flying  attendants  at  the 
crowded  table,  splashed  a  handful  of  silver  into  his 
plate  and  handed  it  to  a  waiter  with  a  request  for  "  a 
clean  plate  and  some  soup."  A  Massachusetts  judge, 
probably  remembering  this,  drew  a  gold  piece  from 
his  pocket  last  week  while  sitting  hungry  at  the  strip- 
ped table  at  Washington,  and  tapping  his  tumbler 
with  it  till  he  attracted  attention,  laid  it  beside  his 
plate  and  pointed  to  it  while  he  mentioned  what  he 
wanted.  He  was  miraculously  supplied  of  course, 
but,  when  he  had  nothing  more  to  ask,  he  politely 
thanked  the  waiter  and — returned  the  gold  piece  to 
his  own  pocket .' 


The  German  Concert. — The  great  wilderness 
of  Pews-y-ism — the  boundless  Tabernacle — was  filled 
to  its  remotest  "  seat  for  one"  on  Saturday  evening, 
and  a  more  successful  concert  could  scarcely  have 
been  given.  The  nation  cradled  away  from  salt  air, 
showed  their  naturally  fresh  enthusiasm  for  the  per- 
formances, and  it  seemed  to  have  an  effect  upon 
Madame  Pico,  for  her  friends  thought  she  never  had 
sung  so  enchantingly,  as  in  the  second  of  the  pieces 
set  down  for  her—"  la  casta  Diva."  She  was  ap- 
plauded to  the  utmost  tension  of  Mr.  Hale's  roof  and 
rafters.  The  German  chorus  by  a  score  of  amateurs 
was  admirably  given,  and  Schaft'enburg's  piano-music 
was  done  to  the  utmost  probable  of  excellence. 


"  Mine  Host." — Some  time  ago,  in  some  specula- 
tions on  American  peculiarities,  we  commented  on  the 
hotel-life  so  much  more  popular  in  this  country  than 
elsewhere,  and  the  necessity,  bred  by  the  manners 
and  habits  of  our  people,  that  hotel-keepers  should  be 
well-bred  men,  of  high  character  and  agreeable  man- 
ners. The  trusts  reposed  in  them  by  their  guests, 
and  the  courtesy  they  are  called  on  to  exercise,  make 
it  almost  inevitable  that  such  men  should  alone  be 
encouraged  to  assume  the  direction  of  hotels.  This 
tendency  of  fitness  has  lately  put  the  Howard  house 
into  the  hands  of  one  of  our  most  courteous,  capable, 
and  agreeable  friends,  Capt.  Roe,  and  the  public  will 
find  that  central  hotel  all  that  they  can  require. 


The  Geode. — We  remember  being  pitched  for  a 
week  into  Query-dom,  while  attending  college  lec- 
tures, by  Prof.  Silliman's  astounding  story  of  the 
mine  in  (we  think)  Meriden,  Connecticut— a  single 
cave  in  which  had  been  found  a  specimen  of  almost 
every  known  precious  stone.  It  was  a  kind  of  omnibus 
geode,  and  with  a  boy's  imagination,  we  speculated 
endlessly  on  how  so  many  rare  gems  could  have 
chanced  to  have  come  together  in  this  world  of  loose 
distribution.  We  have  come,  now,  however,  to  the 
astounding  knowledge  of  a  geode  of  poetesses — the 
centre  of  which  is  Fanny  Forester— and  though  there 
are  astonishing  resemblances  between  the  material 
and  spiritual  world,  we  were  not  prepared  for  this  ! 
Fanny  herself,  as  a  prose  writer  and  poetess,  has  now 
an  assured  fame.  But,  on  St.  Valentine's  day,  we 
received  an  original  Valentine  from  one  of  her  in- 
timate friends,  which  was  as  beautiful  poetry  as  fame 
wants  in  her  trumpet,  and  two  or  three  weeks  ago  we 
published  a  most  delicious  poem  from  another  friend 
of  Fanny  Forester's,  and  here  comes  a  fourth  gem 
which  seems  to  hint  (and  this  is  too  sad  a  possibility 
to  trjfle  upon)  that  gifted  Fanny  Forester  is  beckoned 
to,  from  a  better  world.  God  send  her  health  with 
this  coming  spring — thousands  will  pray  fervently. 
Here  follows  a  prayer  for  it,  expressed  in  touching 
verse  by  one  who  seems  a  familiar  friend  : — 

"  TO  «  FANNY  FORESTER.' 

"  BY  MISS  MARY   FLORENCE   NOBLE. 

"  Saw  you  ever  a  purer  light 

More  still  and  fair  than  the  harvest  moon 
When  day  has  died  in  a  shadowless  night  ? 

And  the  air  is  still  as  a  summer's  noon? 
No  ? — Ah ,  sweet  one,  your  eyelids  shrine 
A  light  far  purer,  and  more  divine. 

"  Heard  you  ever  the  silvery  gush 

Of  a  brook,  far  down  in,  its  rocky  dell ; 
And  stilled  your  breath  with  a  tremulous  hush, 

As  its  mystic  murmurs  rose  and  fell  ? 
'Tis  thus  I  list  to  the  liquid  flow 
Of  your  silvery  accents,  soft  and  low. 

"  Yet,  sweet '  Fanny,'  the  light  that  gleams 

'Neath  the  sweeping  fringe  of  your  radiant  eyes, 

Too  purely  chaste,  and  too  heavenly  seems 
To  dwell  in  the  glare  of  our  earthly  skies  ; 

And,  too  soft  and  low  your  tones  have  birth 

To  linger  long  mid  the  din  of  earth 

"  The  sweet  brow  shrined  in  your  clustering  hair 

Has  gathered  a  shadow  wan,  and  deep, 
And  the  veins  a  darker  violet  wear, 

Which  over  your  hollow  temples  creep  ; 
And  your  fairy  foot  falls  faint  and  slow, 
As  the  feathery  flakes  of  the  drifting  snow. 

"  'Tis  said  the  eods  send  swift  decay 

To  the  bright  ones  they  love,  of  mortal  birth  ; 

And  your  angel  '  Dora'  passed  away 
In  her  youth's  sweet  spring-time,  from  the  earth, 

Yet  stay,  sweet '  Fanny ."  your  pinions  fold, 

'  Till  the  liearts  that  love  you  now,  are  cold." 


778 


EPHEMERA. 


Yankee-Parisian  Aristocracy. — Our  agreeabfe 
neighbor  of  the  "  Etats-Unis"  gives  a  letter  from 
Paris  which  states  that  "  another  rich  American  is 
about  taking  the  place  of  the  retiring  Col.  Thorn. 
Mr.  Macnamara  has  opened  a  superb  house  in  the 
rue  de  la  Madeleine,  and  is  sending  put  invitations 
par  milliers.  In  the  commencement  of  a  fashionable 
career  as  an  entertainer,  a  thousand  invitations  will 
hardly  bring  persons  enough  to  form  a  quadrille. 
Mr.  Tudor,  another  American,  is  just  nowin  that  stage 
where  he  has  commenced  iveeding  his  saloons  !" 

The  same  agreeable  letter  states  that  two  sisters  of 
the  Hon.  Mrs.  Norton,  Lady  Seymour  (the  Queen 
of  Beauty  at  Eglinton),  and  Lady  Dufferin  (the  Mrs. 
Blackwood  whose  songs  are  well  known  in  this  coun- 
try), have  been  playing  at  the  English  embassy  in 
private  theatricals.  The  characters  were  nearly  all 
personated  by  lords  and  ladies,  yet  one  Baltimore 
belle  sustained  the  part  of  "  Mary  Copp"  in  the  play 
of  Charles  the  Second — Miss  Mactavish.  The 
two  sisters  of  Mrs.  Norton  and  the  "  Undying  One" 
herself,  were  by  much  the  three  most  beautiful  wo- 
men we  saw  abroad — magnificent  graces  between 
whom  it  was  hard  to  choose  the  most  beautiful. 


Newell's  Patent  Lock. — Mr.  Newell's  wonder- 
ful lock  (one  of  which  costs  as  much  as  a  pianoforte) 
is  not  wholly  original.  On  the  world's  first  washing- 
day,  Monday  No.  1,  a  human  mind  was  created  on 
precisely  the  same  principle.  Without  going  into 
the  details  either  of  this  lock  or  a  human  mind  (in 
either  of  which  we  should  lose  ourself  of  course)  we 
will  simply  give  the  principle  of  Nature's  patent  and 
Mr.  Newell's,  viz  :  that  the  lock  is  constructed  not 
only  to  be  un-openable  to  all  keys  but  the  right  one, 
but  to  become  just  what,  that  right  one  makes  it.  Newell's 
lock  is  a  chaos  of  slides,  wards,  and  joints,  till  the  key 
turns  in  it ;  and  it  then  suddenly  springs  into  order, 
simplicity,  and  beauty  of  construction.  Another 
resemblance  to  Nature's  plastic  lock,  is  this  feature 
of  Newell's,  that  by  the  slightest  change  in  the  key 
(provided  for  by  bits  inserted  at  will)  the  whole  interior 
responds  differently ;  so  that  a  bank  director,  like  a 
mind  director,  may  change  his  key  every  day  in  the 
year,  and  (preserving  only  the  harmony  between  lock 
and  key)  will  find  the  lock  every  day  responsive  to  the 
change.  Fair  dealing  required,  we  think,  that  the 
proper  credit  should  have  been  given  to  the  original 
inventor,  and  that  the  patent  should  be  called  "  New- 
elis,  after  Nature." 

Having  shown  the  way  the  invention  struck  us, 
however,  we  copy  by  request  what  was  said  of  it  by 
the  Journal  of  Commerce: — 

M  Mr.  Newell  denominates  this  new  masterpiece  of 
ingenuity,  the  Parautoptic  Toiken  Permutation  Lock. 
Parautoptic,  being  a  Greek  word,  signifying  preven- 
tive of  an  internal  inspection,  and  toiken  meaning 
walled,  hence  the  name.  This  lock  has  been  named 
after  its  peculiar  properties.  Phosphoric  or  other 
lis;ht  may  be  introduced  into  it  in  vain  in  order  to 
view  its  interior  construction.  The  tumblers  being 
separated  from  the  essential  actional  parts  of  the  lock, 
which  constitute  its  safety,  by  a  perpendicular  wall  of 
solid  steel  forming  two  distinct  and  separate  chambers 
in  the  same,  thus  counteracting  all  burglarious  designs. 
The  front  chamber  will,  on  close  inspection,  either  by 
phosphoric  light  or  reflection,  exhibit  nothing  but  solid 
walls  of  steel  or  iron.  This  lock  is  susceptible  of  an 
infinity  of  changes  from  thousands  to  millions,  ena- 
bling the  possessor  to  change  or  vary  it  at  pleasure, 
simply  by  transposing  or  altering  the  bits  in  the  key, 
before  using  it  to  lock  the  door,  in  a  manner 
which  is  truly  surprising.  It  therefore  follows  that 
a  person   may  make  himself  a  different   lock  every 


moment  of  his  life,  if  such  be  his  disposition,  thereby 
frustrating  the  skill  of  the  maker,  and  placing  him  on 
a  footing  with  the  merest  novice.  We  are,  therefore, 
fully  persuaded  of  its  being  the  ultimatum  of  lockl 
making,  and  sincerely  congratulate  the  inventor  of 
this  admirable  contrivance,  in  thus  being  able  to 
counteract  so  effectually  the  various  plans  and  schemes 
of  burglars  and  pick-locks,  and  we  feel  warranted  in 
stating  that  after  due  inspection,  all  those  connected 
with  banking  institutions,  and  the  public  generally, 
will  adopt  it  at  once  as  preferable  to  all  others,  for  the 
safe-keeping  and  protection  of  their  property." 


The  New  York  "Rocher  de  Cancale."— To 
dine  tete-a-tete  with  a  friend,  in  Paris,  or  to  give  a  din- 
ner party,  you  must  go  to  the  above-named  renowned 
restaurant,  where  have  dined,  probably,  all  the  gentle- 
men now  existing.  Private  room,  faultless  dinner, 
apt  and  prompt  service,  and  reasonable  charges,  con- 
stitute the  charm,  and  all  this  we  are  to  have  (or  so 
says  that  communicative  "  little  bird  in  the  air")  at 
the  corner  of  Reade  st.,  in  the  new  Maison  Lafarge. 
That  "  unrecognised  angel,"  Signor  Bardotte,  is  to 
be  the  chef  des  details,  and,  in  partnership  with  him, 
a  gentleman  well  fatigued  with  travel  and  experience 
is  to  act  as  partner.  Of  course  we  would  much  rather 
record  the  establishment,  at  the  same  corner,  of  an 
asylum  for  unavoidable  accomplishments,  but  since 
luxury  will  cut  its  swarth,  we  like  to  see  the  rake  with 
a  clean  handle. 


The  Misses  Rice  and  the  Bears. — The  Port- 
land Advertiser  states  that  in  a  secluded  part  of  Ox- 
ford county,  called  "  The  Andover  Surplus,"  there 
reside  two  female  farmers,  who  occupy  a  few  acres, 
and  "do  their  own  chores,"  hiring  male  help  only  for 
haying  and  harvesting.  Out  in  the  woods  lately  with 
the  ox-team,  cutting  and  drawing  winter's  wood,  one 
of  the  Misses  Rice  was  attracted  by  the  barking  of  the 
dog  at  a  hollow  tree.  One  of  the  young  ladies  was 
absent  for  the  moment,  and  the  other  chopped  a  hole 
in  the  tree  and  came  to  a  bear-skin !  Nothing 
daunted  at  the  sight,  she  gave  a  poke,  and  out  scram- 
bled bruin,  whom  she  knocked  down  and  despatched. 
A  second  bear  immediately  made  his  appearance,  and 
she  despatched  him  !  A  third  bear  then  crept  from 
the  tree,  and  the  same  axe  finished  him!  This, 
Miss  Rice  considered  a  good  morning's  work,  for 
there  is  a  two-dollar  bounty  on  bears,  and  the  skins 
and  grease  are  worth  five  dollars,  at  least.  We  should 
like  to  see  Miss  Rice,  of  the  "  Andover  Surplus  !" 


Inconstancy  made  Romantic — "  The  Countess 
Faustina"  (the  new  book  now  in  everybody's  hands) 
is  the  first  novel  we  remember  to  have  read,  the  whole 
burthen  of  which  is  a  glorification  of  inconstancy  in 
love  !  The  heroine  is  charmingly  drawn — the  model 
of  divine  women — but  after  quite  innocently  using  up 
all  that  was  most  loveable  in  two  men  and  deserting 
them,  she  gets  tired  of  a  third,  and  goes  into  a  con- 
vent to  finish  the  story  !  The  lovers  are  all  described 
as  worthy  of  a  deathless  passion,  and  the  love  on  both 
sides,  while  it  lasts,  is  of  the  loftiest  lift  and  devotion, 
but  the  countess  has  the  little  peculiarity  of  liking  no 
love  except  love  in  progress,  and  she  deserts,  of  course, 
at  the  first  premonishing  of  the  halt  of  tranquillity. 
The  following  passage,  descriptive  of  her  enlightening 
her  last  love  as  to  the  coming  break-off,  will  show  how 
neatly  she  wrapped  up  the  bitter  pill : — 

"'Be  silent,'  she  exclaimed,  when  I  was  about  to 
answer  her,    •  be   silent !      Does  not  the   water-lily 


EPHEMERA. 


r79 


know  its  time,  rises  to  blossom  from  the  water,  and 
then  returns  back  into  its  depths,  satisfied,  tranquil, 
with  a  treasure  of  sweet  recollections  ?  Flowers 
know  when  their  time  is  passed,  and  man  tries,  all  he 
can,  not  to  be  aware  of  it.  This  year  with  you, 
Mario,  was  the  height  of  my  blossoming !' 

'"You  love  me  no  longer,'  I  exclaimed  bitterly. 

♦"Fool!'  she  replied,  with  that  ecstatic  smile  which 
I  never  saw  on  any  brow  but  hers,  'have  you  not 
touched  the  tabernacle  of  my  heart?  Is  not  my  son 
yours?  No,  Mario!  I  love  you;  I  have  loved 
nothing  so  much  ;  I  shall  never  love  anything  after 
you — but,  above  you,  God  !  My  soul  has  squandered 
itself  in  such  transports  of  love  and  inspiration  with 
yours,  that  all  it  can  ever  meet  in  this  region  will  be 
but  a  repetition,  and  perhaps  an  insipid  one.  We 
have  so  broken  up  my  heart  in  searching  for  its  treas- 
ure, that  the  gold  mines  are  probably  exhausted, 
before  the  sad  certainty  comes  upon  us.' 

♦"Faustina!'  I  know  not  in  what  tone  I  said  this, 
but  she  sank  trembling  into  my  arms,  and  said  very, 
very  softly, 

"'Oh,  if  you  are  angry,  I  shall  not  have  the  cour- 
age to  open  my  heart  to  you  !' 

"  I  knew  I  ought  not  to  alarm  her,  and  I  embraced 
her  tenderly,  and  inquired  what  she  thought  of  doing. 

"She  replied,  'I  will  close  the  mine!  If  there  is 
any  valuable  metal  within,  it  may  rest  quietly  in  the 
depths.     And  above  I  will  plant  flowers.' 

"'But  what  can — what  would  you  do?'  I  inquired 
with  terrible  anxiety. 

"'Belong  entirely  to  God,  and  enter  a  convent!' 
she  replied,"  &c,  &c. 

Six  months  of  convent-life  sufficed  to  finish  the 
Countess  Faustina,  who  "  discovered  too  late"  (says 
the  narrator)  "  that,  during  our  life,  we  can  but  look, 
like  Moses,  toward  the  promised  Canaan"  (of  a  man 
worth  being  constant  to)  "  but  never  reach  it !"  It 
strikes  us  this  is  a  naughtyish  book — at  least,  if,  as  we 
read  in  Spenser  : — 

"  there  is  no  greater  shame 
Than  lightness  or  inconstancy  in  love." 

The  book  is  a  mark  of  the  times,  however.  It 
makes  no  mention  of  Fourierism,  but  we  doubt 
whether  its  sentiments  would  have  been  ventured 
upon  in  print,  if  Fourier  principles  had  not  insensibly 
opened  the  gates.  It  is  no  sign  that  principles  are  not 
spreading,  because  everybody  writes  against  them, 
and  because  few  will  acknowledge  them.  We  see  by 
various  symptoms  in  literature,  that  the  mere  peep 
into  free-and-easy-dom  given  by  the  discussion  of 
Fourier  tenets,  has  left  a  leaning  that  way.  There  is 
no  particular  Fourierism,  that  we  know  of,  in  the  two 
following  pieces  of  poetry,  but  they  fell  from  that 
same  leaning,  we  rather  fancy.  We  copy  the  first 
from  our  sober  and  exemplary  neighbor,  "The  Al- 
bion" : — 

"  No  !  the  heaven-enfranchised  poet 

Must  have  no  exclusive  home, 
But  (young  ladies,  you  should  know  it) 

Wives  in  scores  his  hair  to  comb. 
When  the  dears  were  first  invented, 

One  a-piece  Fate  only  gave  us, 
Wiser  far  two  kings  demented — 

Solomon— and  Hal  Octavus.  . 

"  Doctors'  Commons  judge  severely, 

My  belief  to  reason  stands  ; 
Any  dolt  can  prove  it  clearly, 

With  ten  fingers  on  his  hands. 
Smiles  and  glances,  sighs  and  kisses 

From  one  wife  are  sweet — what  then  ? 
That  amount  of  wedlock's  blisse 

Take,  and  multiply  by  ten. 

"  Laughing  Jane  and  sparkling  Jessy 
Shall  the  morning's  meal  prepare, 
Brilliant  Blanche  and  bright-eyed  Bessy 
Mid-day's  lunch  shall  spread  and  share  ; 


Ann  and  Fan  shall  grace  my  dinner, 

Rose  and  Laura  pour  my  tea  ; 
Sue  brew  grog,  while  Kate,  sweet  sinner, 

Lights  the  bedroom  wax  for  me. 

"Monk  !  within  thy  lonely  cell, 

What  wouldst  give  to  greet  a  bride  ? 
Monckton  bids  thee  forth  to  dwell 

With  a  dozen  by  thy  side. 
Poet !  in  your  crown  one  wife 

Shines  a  jewel,  past  a  doubt, 
But  in  ten  times  married  life, 

Mind  your  jewels  don't  fall  out!" 

The  next  instance  comes  from  the  very  heart  oT 
holier-than-thou-dom — the  exemplary  state  of  Maine 
The  St.  Louis  Reveille  declares  it  to  be  a  "well-au- 
thenticated fact  which  occurred  at  Holton,  in  Maine." 

"  In  old  New  England,  long  ago, 
When  all  creation  travelled  slow, 
And  naught  but  trackless  deserts  lay, 
Before  the  early  settlers'  way, 
A  youth  and  damsel,  bold  and  fair, 
Had  cause  to  take  a  journey  where 
Through  night  and  day,  and  day  and  night, 
No  house  would  greet  their  wearied  sight ; 
And,  thinking  Hymen's  altar  should 
Precede  their  journey  through  the  wood, 
They  straightway  to  a  justice  went, 
By  love  and  circumstatices  sent  ! 
The  justice — good  old  honest  pate — 
Said  it  was  quite  unfortunate, 
But  at  that  time  he  could  not  bind 
These  two  young  folks  of  willing  mind, 
For  his  commission — sad  to  say — 
Had  just  expired — but  yesterday  ! 
Yet,  after  all,  he  would  not  say 
That  single  they  should  go  away  : 
And  so  he  bade  them  join  their  hands 
In  holy  wedlock's  happy  bands, 
And  'just  a  little'  he  would  marry — 
Enough,  perhaps,  to  safely  carry — 
As  they  were  in  connubial  mood — 
'  Enough  to  do  them  through  the  wood."  " 


Missionary  Eyelids. — At  No.  75,  Fulton  street, 
a  large  emporium  has  lately  been  opened  for  the  sale 
of  the  plant  propagated  from  the  cut-off  eyelids  of  the 
first  Christian  missionary  to  China — in  other  words, 
for  the  sale  of  tea !  One  of  the  partners  of  this  es- 
tablishment (the  Pekin  tea  company)  has  written  a 
charming  little  pamphlet,  called  a  "  Guide  to  Tea- 
Drinkers,"  in  which  he  gives  the  following  true  origin 
of  the  wakeful  properties  of  tea: — 

"  Darma,  the  son  of  an  Indian  king,  is  said  to  have 
landed  in  China  in  the  year  510  of  the  Christian  era. 
He  employed  all  his  care  and  time  to  spread  through 
the  country  a  knowledge  of  God  and  religion,  and,  to 
stimulate  others  by  his  example,  imposed  on  himself 
privations  of  every  kind,  living  in  the  open  air,  in  fast- 
ing and  prayer.  On  one  occasion,  being  worn  out 
with  fatigue,  he  fell  asleep  against  his  will,  and  that  he 
might  thereafter  observe  his  oath,  which  he  had  thus 
violated,  he  cut  off  his  eyelids,  and  threw  them  on  the 
ground.  The  next  day  passing  the  same  way,  he 
found  them  changed  to  a  shrub  (tea)  which  the  earth 
never  before  produced.  Having  eaten  some  of  its 
leaves  he  felt  his  spirits  much  exhilarated,  and  his 
strength  restored.  He  recommended  this  aliment  to 
his  disciples  and  followers.  The  reputation  of  tea  in- 
creased, and  from  that  time  it  continued  to  be  gener- 
ally used." 

The  pamphlet  goes  on  to  state  the  properties  of  the 
different  kinds  of  tea,  describing  Pekoe  as  the  best  ot 
teas  (qu? — hence  the  prevailing  of  the  Pico  tease  over 
Borghese's),  and  declares  it  to  be  peculiarly  agreeable 
(Pekoe  tea)  to  poets  and  ladies— as  follows  : — 

"The  warmth  conveyed  to  the  stomach  of  man  by 
tea-drinking  at  his  various  meals,  becomes  essential  to 
him,  nor  would  the  crystal  steam  of  the  poet  suffice 
for  the  healthy  powers  of  digestion  in  the  artificial 
state  of  existence  in  which  we  are  placed.     A  learned 


780 


EPHEMERA. 


writer  declares  that  tea  is  particularly  adapted  for  the 
ordinary  beverage  of  young  women,  and  the  individual 
who,  until  the  day  of  her  marriage,  has  never  tasted 
wine  or  any  fermented  liquor,  is  the  one  who  is 
most  likely  to  fulfil  the  great  end  of  her  existence — 
the  handing  down  to  posterity  a  strong  and  well-or- 
ganized offspring." 

A  visit  to  this  emporium  is  well  worth  curiosity's 
while,  and  tea  can  there  be  bought  in  large  or  small 
quantities,  and  in  prices  much  below  those  of  grocers. 


Women  in  their  June. — The  early  decay  of  fe- 
male beauty,  consequent  on  neglect  of  physical  edu- 
cation and  the  corroding  dryness  of  our  climate,  has 
given  an  American  value  to  the  immature  April  and 
May  of  female  seasons,  and  a  corresponding  depreci- 
ation to  the  riper  June.  The  article  which  we  copy 
below,  from  the  Brooklyn  Star,  expresses,  we  believe, 
the  opinion  of  the  best  judges  of  these  exotics  from 
a  better  world,  and  emboldens  us  to  express  a  long- 
entertained  belief  that  the  most  loveable  age  of  un- 
married woman's  life  commences,  at  the  earliest,  at 
twenty-jive,  and  lasts  as  long  after  as  she  shows  no  dim- 
inution of  sensibility,  and  no  ravages  of  time.  Women 
improve  so  much  longer  than  men  (improve  by  the 
loving  and  suffering  that  spoils  men),  that  we  wonder 
they  have  never  found  an  historic  anatomist  of  their 
later  stages.  We  suggest  it  to  pens  at  a  loss.  Here 
follow  our  contemporary's  opinions  : — 

"  My  dear  sir,  if  you  ever  marry,  marry  an  old 
maid — a  good  old  maid — who  is  serious,  and  simple, 
and  true.  I  hate  these  double-minded  misses,  who 
are  all  the  time  hunting  after  a  husband.  I  tell  you 
that  when  a  woman  gets  to  be  twenty-eight,  she 
settles  into  a  calm — rather  she  "  anchors  in  deep  wa- 
ters, and  safe  from  shore."  There  never  was  a  set,  or 
class,  or  community  of  persons,  so  belied  as  these 
ancient  ladies.  Look  upon  it  as  no  reproach  to  a 
woman  that  she  is  not  married  at  thirty  or  thirty-five. 
Above  all,  fall  not  into  the  vulgar  notion  of  romances, 
and  shallow  wils — unlearned  in  women's  hearts,  be- 
cause they  never  had  the  love  of  a  true  woman — that 
these  are  continually  lying  in  wait  to  catch  bachelors' 
hearts.  For  one  woman  who  has  floated  into  the 
calm  of  her  years,  who  is  anxious  to  fix  you,  I  will 
find  you  fifty  maidens  in  their  teens,  and  just  out,  who 
lay  a  thousand  snares  to  entrap  you,  and  with  more 
cold-blooded  intent — for  whether  is  worse,  that  one  of 
singleness  of  purpose  should  seek  to  lean  on  you  for 
life,  or  that  one  should  seek  you  as  a  lover,  to  excite 
jealousy  in  others,  or  as  a  last  resort. 

"  Marry  a  healthy,  well-bred  woman,  between 
twenty-eight  and  thirty-five,  who  is  inclined  to  love 
you,  and  never  bewilder  your  brains  with  suspicions 
about  whether  she  has  intentions  on  you  or  not.  This 
is  the  rock  of  vanity  upon  which  many  a  man  has 
wrecked  his  best  feelings  and  truest  inclinations.  Our 
falseness,  and  the  falseness  of  society,  and  more  than 
all,  the  false  and  hollow  tone  of  language  upon  this 
subject,  leave  very  little  courage  for  a  straightforward 
and  independent  course  in  the  matter.  What  matter 
if  a  woman  likes  you,  and  shows  that  she  does,  hon- 
estly, and  wishes  to  marry  you  ? — the  more  reason  for 
self-congratulation  but  not  for  vanity.  What  matter 
if  she  be  young  or  not,  so  she  be  loveable?  I  won't 
say  what  matter  if  she  be  plain  or  not — for  everybody 
knows  that  that  is  no  matter  where  love  is,  though  it 
may  have  some  business  in  determining  the  senti- 
ment. I  don't  know  what  has  led  me  into  this  course 
of  remark.  The  last  thing  I  should  have  expected 
on  sitting  down  to  write,  is,  that  I  should  have  fallen 
into  a  lecture  on  matrimony.  I  am  not  an  old  maid 
myself,  yet ;  but  I  have  a  clearer  eye  to  their  virtues 
than   I  have  had,  and  begin  to  feel  how  dignified  a 


woman  may  be  '  in  her  loneness — in  her  loneness — 
and  the  fairer  for  that  loneness.'  You  may  think  it 
is  bespeaking  favor  and  patience  with  a  vengeance." 


Refined  Charities. — Our  readers  were  made 
aware,  a  (ew  days  since,  that  we  had  received  very 
great  pleasure  from  a  visit  to  an  institution  hitherto 
unknown  to  us — the  "Asylum  for  Aged  and  Indigent 
Ladies."  That  so  beautiful  a  charity,  conducted 
with  so  happy  a  method,  should  never  have  come  to 
our  knowledge,  struck  us  as  probably  a  singular 
chance  in  our  own  hearsay — but  we  find  that  others, 
as  likely  to  be  interested  in  it  as  ourself,  were  equally 
in  the  dark,  and  one  lady  (quite  the  most  active  Dor- 
cas of  our  acquaintance)  took  our  account  to  be  an 
ingenious  device  to  suggest  such  an  institution  !  That 
a  large  two-winged  building,  with  a  sculptured  tablet 
set  in  front,  stating  its  purpose,  and  so  filled  that  it 
might  be  taken  up  to  heaven  by  its  "knit  corners," 
like  the  sheet  full  of  living  things  let  down  to  the 
apostle  on  the  housetop — that  such  a  building,  with 
such  a  purpose,  should  exist  unsuspected  in  one  of 
the  streets  of  New  York,  is  somewhat  a  marvel.  But 
we  were  not  prepared  for  two  such  surprises !  We 
have  since  discovered  another  charity  that  was  wholly 
unknown  to  us,  as  delicate,  if  not  as  poetically  beau- 
tiful, and  we  begin  to  think  that  the  old  saying  is 
true — ministering  spirits  do  walk  the  earth,  unrecog- 
nised in  their  tender  ministrations,  and 

'•  The  tears  that  we  forget  to  note,  the  angels  wipe  away." 

Our  second  discovery  is  of  an  institution  called  the 
"  Ladies'  Depository — intended  for  the  benefit  of 
those  persons  who  have  experienced  a  reverse  of  fortune, 
and  who  can  not  come  before  the  public,  while,  at  the 
same  time,  they  may,  from  necessity,  tvish  to  dispose  of 
useful  and  ornamental  ivork,  if  it  could  be  done  pri- 
vately, and  to  advantage."  The  institution  supports 
a  store  for  the  sale  of  needlework,  &c,  and  any  one 
of  its  twenty-five  managers  may  receive  an  application 
and  give  a  "  permit"  to  the  lady  in  want — this  one 
manager  alone  the  possessor  of  the  secret  of  the  lady's 
wants  and  mode  of  supplying  them.  Work,  drawings, 
&c,  are  thus  purchased  by  the  society's  funds,  and 
sold  by  the  hired  saleswoman  of  the  society,  and  a 
veil  is  thus  hung  between  delicacy  and  the  rude  con- 
tact of  open  want — a  veil  which  prevents  more  pain, 
probably,  than  the  food  which  prevents  only  bodily 
suffering. 

This  beautiful  charity  has  now  been  in  existence 
twelve  years,  and  by  its  tenth  report  (we  have  no  later 
one)  we  find  that  fourteen  hundred  dollars  were  paid 
out  for  work  in  the  twelve  months  preceding.  This 
sum  is  not  large,  and  it  shows  that  the  subscriptions  to 
the  funds  of  the  society  are  less  liberal  than  could  be 
desired.  We  should  think  that  the  bare  knowledge 
of  the  existence  of  such  societies  as  this  and  the  one 
beforementioned,  would  start  streams  of  gift-laden 
sympathy  toward  them,  and  we  think  they  but  need 
wider  publicity.  We  are  not  authorized  to  mention 
in  print  the  names  of  the  treasurer  or  directresses, 
but  the  report  lies  on  our  table,  and  we  shall  be  happy 
to  give  the  information  to  any  individual  applying  at 
our  office. 


We  copy  the  following  astounding  intelligence 
from  a  Montreal  paper: — 

"Annexation  of  the  State  of  Maine. — After 
all  that  has  been  said  of  Texas  and  Oregon,  and  the 
desire  entertained  by  the  people  of  tile  United  States 
to  enlarge  their  territory  by  the  acquisition  of  im- 
mense tracts,  it  will  surprise  many,  and  add  much  to 
the  protocols  that  will  be  issued,  to  learn  that  the  state 


EPHEMERA. 


781 


of  Maine,  disgusted  with  slavery  and  repudiation,  and 
feeling  a  community  of  interests  with  those  of  north  of 
forty-Jive  degrees,  'has  petitioned  her  majesty  Queen 
Victoria  to  readmit  her  to  the  old  family  circle  of  John 
Bull,  where  property  is  respected,  and  where  there  is 
neither  vote  by  ballot,  Lynch  law,  slavery,  nor  repudia- 
tion. 

"  It  19  generally  surmised  that  his  honor,  Judge 
Preble  is  charged  with  this  delicate  mission,  and  that 
the  petition  will  be  sent  through  his  excellency  Lord 
Metcalfe,  by  the  next  steamer,  though  the  ostensible 
ground  of  his  honor's  visit  to  Montreal  is  the  railroad 
to  Portland  ;  and  it  is  evident  that  if  the  admission  is 
agreed  on,  and  is  prompt  and  immediate,  all  the  stock 
will  be  at  once  subscribed  by  the  home  government, 
and  presented  to  the  new  confederation. 

"  Part  of  New  Hampshire,  Vermont,  and  that  por- 
tion of  New  York  bordering  on  the  St.  Lawrence, 
will,  it  is  thought,  follow  this  laudable  example. 

"  N.  B.  No  STATE  THAT  HAS  REPUDIATED  NEED 
APPLY." 

We  were  born  in  Portland,  and  by  annexation,  as 
above,  are  likely  to  turn  out  a  "a  Britisher  from  the 
provinces!"  President  Polk  is  to  lose  us — Queen 
Victoria  is  to  have  us !  Lucky  we  were  presented  to 
her  majesty  while  we  were  a  republican  court-eligible 
— before  we  sank,  that  is  to  say,  from  a  "  distinguished 
foreigner"  into  a  provincial  editor!  We  should  never 
have  had  formal  certainty  of  having  lodged  exclu- 
sively for  the  space  of  a  minute,  in  the  queen's  eye, 
had  Maine  annexed  herself  before  we  were  brought  to 
the  notice  of  "  Gold  Stick  in  Waiting."  So  much, 
at  least,  it  was  better  to  have  been  temporarily  a 
Yankee  ! 

There    is   one   other   difference  to  be  considered, 
while  we  are   measuring  the  matter  at  the  top — we 
cease  to  be  a  competitor  for  the  presidency  !     Our 
glorious   fifteen  millionth  of  capability  for  "No.  1" 
drops  from  us  as  treason  to  Victoria!     We   are  re- 
duced to  the  prospect  of  dying  the  inferior  of  Louis 
Philippe  (!)  without  the  benefit  of  a  doubt.     We  be- 
come also,  doubtless,  the  inferior  of  all  the  titled  gen- 
tlemen catalogued  in  the  "  red  book,"  many  of  whom, 
till   Maine  was   annexed,  welcomed   us   to   walk   into 
their  houses,  without  mentally  seeing  us  pass  under 
the  yoke  over  the  door.     We  are  to  unlearn  "  Yan- 
kee Doodle,"  and  learn  "God  save  the  Queen."    We 
are   to   call   this  half-savage  country  "  The   States," 
and  keep  the  birthdays  of  the  queen's  annuals.     We 
are  to  glory   in  standing   armies,  national  debt,  and 
London  fog  and  porter,  and  begin  to  hesitate  in  our 
speech,  and   wear   short  whiskers.     The  change   in 
our  prayer-book  is  not  much.     We  are  to  do  our  ci- 
phering in  pounds,  and  that  will  plague  us  !     We  are 
to   be   interested   in  Canada  politics  and  Lord  Met- 
calfe's erysipelas.     We   are  to  belong  to  a  country 
where  births  are  published,  as  the  first  sign  that  peo- 
ple know  all  about  you,  and  that  you  must  stay  put. 
(This  last  strikes  us  as  the  worst  part  of  it.)     AVe  are 
to  pass  for  an  Englishman  on  our  travels,  in  the  states 
and    elsewhere,  and  that   is   agreeable,  because  our 
suavity  will  be  unexpected.     The   larger  features  of 
our  metamorphosis  we  omit  for  future  consideration 
— but,  as  far  as  these  personal  ones  go,  we  fear  we 
had  a  better  chance  as  a  Yankee !     We  were  what  we 
could  make  ourselves — we  are  to  be  what  others  make 
us.     Queen  Victoria,  on  the  whole,  will  oblige  us  by 
not  laying  her  hands  on  our  Maine! 


A  Future  Passion,  in  the  Egg. — We  have  had  a 
book  for  some  time,  that  is  destined  to  be  an  Ameri- 
can passion.  Once  read,  it  infatuates — for  it  expres- 
ses   in    a    brief  and    beautiful    figure   every   possible 


poetic  feeling,  and  will  do  for  the  heart,  what  the 
single  japonica  does  to  the  dress — give  the  finishing 
expression,  no  way  else  so  felicitously  effective. 
Those  who  make  love  before  this  book  gets  into  use, 
will  work  like  savages  with  arrows  before  the  discove- 
ry of  gunpowder.  Those  whose  best  thoughts  die 
in  birth,  for  lack  of  recognition  and  ready-made  cloth 
ing,  will  wonder  how  they  were  ever  comfortable 
without  it.  Our  Cumberland  correspondent  spent  a 
whole  letter,  wondering  why  we,  who  were  constantly 
quoting  the  book,  had  never  written  a  critique  upon 
it.  Our  reason  for  not  doing  so — or  rather  for  first 
making  our  readers  thoroughly  alive  to  its  beauty  by 
extract — is  indirectly  given  in  the  book  itself,  in  the 
chapter  called  "  Indirect  Influences."  See  how  ex- 
quisitely it  is  done  : — 

Behold  those  broken  arches,  that  oriel  all  unglazed, 

That  crippled  line  of  columns  creeping  in  the  sun, 

The    delicate    shaft    stricken    midway,    and    the    flying 

buttress, 
Idly  stretching  forth  to  hold  up  tufted  ivy  : 
Thinkest  thou  the  thousand  eyes  that  shi/ie  with  rapture  on 

a  ruin, 
Would  have  looked  with  half  their  wonder  on  the  perfect 

pile  ? 
And  wherefore  not— but  that  light  hints,  suggesting  unseen 

beauties, 
Fill  the  complacent  gazer  with  self-grown  conceits  ? 
And  so,   the  rapid  sketch   winneth    more  praise   to   the 

painter, 
Than  the  consummate  work  elaborated  on  his  easel : 
And  so,  the  Helvetic  lion  cavemed  in  the  living  rock 
Hath  more  of  majesty  and  force,  than  if  upon  a  marble 

pedestal. 

1  Tell  me,  daughter  of  taste,  what  hath  charmed  thine  ear  in 
music  ? 

Is  it  the  labored  theme,  the  curious  fugue  or  cento — 

Nay— rather  the  sparkles  of  intelligence  flashing  from  some 
strange  note, 

Or  the  soft  melody  of  sounds  far  sweeter  for  simplicity  ? 

Tell  me,  thou  son  of  science,  what  hath  filled  thy  mind  in 
reading  ? 

Is  it  the  volume  of  detail  where  all  is  orderly  set  down 

And  they  that  read  may  run,  nor  need  to  stop  and  think  ; 

The  book  carefully  accurate,  that  counteth  thee  no  better 
than  a  fool, 

Gorging  the  passive  mind  with  annotated  notes? — 

Nay— rather  the  half-suggested  thoughts,  the  riddles  thou 
mayst  solve, 

The  fair  ideas,  coyly  peeping  like  young  loves  out  of 
roses, 

The  quaint  arabesque  conceptions,  half-cherub  and  half- 
flower, 

The  light  analogy,  or  deep  allusion,  trusted  to  thy  learn- 
ing, 

The  confidence  implied  in  thy  skill  to  unravel  meaning 
mysteries ! 

For  ideas  are  ofttimes  shy  of  the  close  furniture  of  words, 

And  thought,  wherein  only  is  power,  may  be  best  conveyed  by 
a  suggestion  : 

The  flash  that  lighteth  up  a  valley,  amid  the  dark  midnight 
of  a  storm, 

Cometh  the  mind  with  that  scene  sharper  than  fifty  sum- 


The  book  of  which  this  exquisite  passage  is  a  part, 
is  called  "proverbial  philosophy."  It  is  by  Martin 
Farquhar  Tupper,  of  Christ  church,  Oxford,  and  an 
American  edition  of  it  has  lain  in  the  bookstores  for 
two  years,  wholly  unsaleable  !  It  can  afford  to  "  bide 
its  time,"  and  mean-time,  we  shall  enrich  our  readers 
with  it,  bit  by  bit. 


ARGUMENT  FOR   SEDAN  CHAIRS. 

"  Mr  Editor  :  You  stand  accredited  as  the  ready 
friend  of  luxurious  elegance,  the  happy  mingler  of 
those  foreign  ingredients,  the  utile  with  the  dulct. 
My  dear  sir,  why  have  you  never  said  a  word  in  favor 
of  the  Sedan-chairs  ?  The  very  name  carries  one 
hack  to  the  days  of  Pope  and   Addison  ;  to  the  routs, 


782 


EPHEMERA. 


and  masquerades  and  Ranelagh  of  London,  in  the 
•reign  of  wits.'     Even  Cowper  celebrates  it: — 

"  '  Possess  ye  therefore,  ye  who,  borne  about 
In  chariot  and  sedam,  know  no  fatigue 
But  that  of  idleness.' 

"  It  is  an  Italian  seggietta ;  and  thus  defined  by  an 
old  writer  :  '  a  kind  of  chaire  used  in  Italy  to  carrie 
men  and  women  up  and  downe.'  It  seems  to  have 
emigrated  to  London  from  Sedan,  the  birthplace  of 
Turenne.  Dryden  used  it  for  the  lectica  of  the  Ro- 
mans : — 

"  '  Some  beg  for  absent  persons,  feign  them  sick, 
Close  mewed  in  their  sedans  for  want  of  air, 
And  for  their  wives  present  an  empty  chair.' 

•«  Were  you  ever  in  one'?  Then  you  will  agree  that 
it  is  as  necessary  in  Broadway  as  a  gondola  in  Venice. 
Think  of  Pope's  '  two  pages  and  a  chair.'  Our 
thousand  and  one  idlers,  who  are  too  ragged  to  beg, 
and  too  poor  to  keep  a  cab,  might  flourish  their  poles 
to  some  purpose  in  front  of  St.  Paul's — a  better  class 
of  chairmen  than  some  we  wot  of. — They  need  not 
have  so  heavy  a  load,  nor  so  great  a  peril,  as  those 
who,  according  to  Swift,  helped  in  the  Trojan  horse: — 

"  '  Troy  chairmen  bore  the  wooden  steed, 

Pregnant  with  Greeks,  impatient  to  be  freed, 
Tho^e  bully  Greeks,  who,  as  the  moderns  do. 
Instead  of  paying  chairmen,  run  them  through.' 

"  The  new  police  would  defend  the  glass  from  any 
roystering  blood,  who,  as  Prior  sings  : — 

"  '  Breaks  watchmen's  heads  and  chairmen's  glasses 
And  thence  proceeds  to  nicking  sashes.' 

Opposition  may  be  expected :  there  was  such  at  the 
cab-epocha.  But  who  can  even  name  a  cab,  without 
ignominy.  Think  of  a  trundling  box — a  packing-case 
on  wheels — surmounted  by  a  top-heavy  Milesian, 
enthroned  on  a  remnant  of  Chatham-street-great-coat, 
forcing  you  along  sidewise  by  a  series  of  thumps,  and 
then,  with  a  paroxysm  that  tries  every  ball  and  socket, 
dumping  you  on  the  trottoir!  Our  semi-tropical 
climate  demands  a  protection  from  the  sun  :  some- 
thing emulating  the  oriental  palanquin  ;  a  parasol 
which  shall  preclude  fatigue  and  dust,  as  well  as  sun- 
light— which  shall  transport  the  delicate  woman  with 
the  gentlest  conceivable  carriage,  and  into  the  very 
hall  of  the  stately  mansion.  What,  prithee,  can 
answer  these  conditions  but  the  sedan-chair  ?  I  al- 
ready see  you  in  one,  peering  through  the  sky-blue 
curtain,  as  you  swim  through  your  evening  survey. 
The  corporation  will  at  once  adjust  a  bill  of  rates  ; 
the  thing  is  done.  "  Lunarius."    " 

We  have  been  but  in  one  city  where  sedans  were 
in  use — Dublin.  What  struck  us,  in  using  them  (and 
that  is  what  the  reader  cares  most  to  know,  we  pre- 
sume) was  the  being  shut  up  where  it  was  warm  and 
dry,  and  let  out  where  it  was  warm  and  dry.  The 
sedan  is  a  small  close  carriage — an  easy  chair  en- 
closed by  windows — carried  on  poles  by  two  men. 
They  come  into  your  drawing-room  if  you  wish,  shut 
you  up  in  a  carriage  by  the  fireside,  and  carry  you, 
without  the  slightest  jar  or  contact  with  out-of-doors, 
into  the  house  where  you  are  to  dine  or  dance — no 
wet  sidewalk  and  no  gust  of  cold  wind,  snow,  or  rain  ! 
They  are  cheaper  than  carriages  because  men  are 
easier  kept  than  horses,  and  as  a  sedan-chairman  can 
also  follow  some  other  trade  in  the  daytime,  we 
should  think  it  would  be  good  economy  to  introduce 
them  to  New  York.  Many  a  delicate  woman  might 
then  go  to  parties  or  theatres  with  a  quarter  of  the 
present  risk — to  lungs  or  head-dress  ! 


Prince's  Gardens. — We   have   received    an   im- 
mense catalogue  of  the  fruit-trees,    plants,   flowers, 


vines,  and  berries,  comprised  in  this  ark  of  vegetation 
at  Flushing,  and  we  should  think  from  the  account 
of  Prince's  gardens,  and  the  prodigal  variety  of  this 
catalogue,  that  the  establishment  would  be  better 
worth  visiting  than  any  object  of  curiosity  in  the 
neighborhood.  It  is  now  in  the  hands  of  the  third 
generation  of  descendants  from  the  original  founder — 
no  slight  marvel  of  constancy  of  pursuit  in  this 
country  ! 

But  we  have  found  a  singular  pleasure  in  this  cata- 
logue— no  less  than  a  perfect  feast  upon  the  names  and 
descriptions  of  the  fruits  and  flowers  !  It  reads  like  a 
directory  of  some  city  of  fairies,  with  a  description  of 
the  fairy-citizens  written  out  against  their  names. 
We  can  fancy  a  delightful  visiting-list  of  people  an- 
swering to  these  descriptions  of  fruits  and  flowers. 
Here  are  a  few  of  the  characters  : — 

Different  apples  are  described  as — "  flesh  stained 
with  red,  perfumed;"  "snow-white  flesh,  musky 
sweet ;"  "  fair,  beautiful,  pleasant  flavor,  sprightly  ;" 
"tender,  juicy,  keeps  well;"  "remains  juicy  till 
late;"  "red  flesh,  a  curiosity,"  etc.,  etc.  Different 
pears  are  described  as — "  rich,  sugary,  delicious 
aroma  ;"  "  most  splendid,  extra  delicious,  none  more 
estimable,  grows  vigorously,  bears  soon  ;"  "  beautiful, 
aromatic,  bears  young,  greatly  esteemed  ;"  "  rich, 
musky  ;"  "  excellent,  slow  to  yield  fruit ;"  "  thin  skin, 
sweet,  very  good  ;"  "  new  native  variety,  estimable, 
handsome;"  "very  large,  skin  shining,  flesh  crisp, 
agreeable  flavor,  excellent,"  &c.  Different  peaches 
are  described  as — "  oval,  splendid,  luscious;"  "estima- 
ble, foliage  curled,  peculiar ;"  "  waxen  appearance, 
globular,  delicious  flavor,"  &c.  Different  grapes  are 
described  as — "  large,  estimable,  vigorous;"  "sweet, 
firm,  thick  skin,  hangs  long,  monstrous  clusters ;" 
"  monstrous  fox  variety;"  "  Willis's  large  black  ;"  (?) 
"  sprightly,  pure  for  wine,"  etc.  Different  roses  are 
called  by  name  and  described — "formidable  red;" 
"glory  of  the  reds;"  "insurmountable  beauty;" 
"  new  Dutch  virgin's  blush  ;"  "  sombre  agreeable  ;" 
"  Watson's  blush;"  "  red  prolific  ;"  "  pale  rose,  deep 
centre;"  "deep  rose,  very  robust;"  "bluish  violet, 
superb,  singular;"  "bright  pink,  flaked  with  scarlet;*' 
"pubescent  yellow  flowering;"  "white  quilled;" 
"extra  magnificent;"  "  splendid,  full,  double-shaded 
blush,  monstrous  size,"  etc.,  etc. 

Such  names  and  definitions,  of  anything,  were 
enough  to  bring  one  to  Flushing,  and  Mr.  Prince 
may  look  out  for  us  very  early  in  May,  catalogue  in 
hand,  to  see  beauties  he  has  described  so  glowingly  ! 
We  trust  the  list  of  adjectives  we  have  put  so  venture- 
somely close  together  in  our  cool  columns  will  not 
explode  in  type,  with  spontaneous  combustion! 


Letters  of  Introduction. — The  following  query 
may  be  answered  briefly  enough  by  quoting  only  Eu- 
ropean usage,  but  the  propriety  of  an  American  varia- 
tion occurs  to  us,  and  we  will  write  a  line  on  the  sub- 
ject— first  giving  the  suggestive  note  : — 

"  Sir  :  My  friend  N.,  usually  a  well-informed, 
though  rather  an  obstinate  individual,  is  about  to 
travel,  and  asked  me  for  a  letter  of  introduction  to  a 
friend  abroad.  The  letter  is  written,  and  is  submit- 
ted to  his  perusal,  after  which  he  hands  it  back  to  be 
sealed,  insisting  that  the  rule  is  inflexible  that  all  let- 
ters should  be  sealed.  I  refuse  to  affix  the  wax, 
holding  that  a  letter  of  introduction  should  be  open. 

"  We  leave  the  question  to  your  decision.  As  my 
friend  N.  can  not  sail  until  the  question  is  decided,  an 
early  decision  will  oblige  him  and  your  humble  ser- 
vant, "  B." 

With  very  ceremonious  people,  and  ceremonious 
notes  of  introduction,  it  is  usual  to  affix  a  seal  upon 
the   outside  of  the  letter,  leaving   it  to  be  read  and 


EPHEMERA. 


783 


fastened  by  the  bearer,  before  delivery.  If  the  let- 
ter extends  beyond  the  mere  stating  of  who  the 
bearer  is,  and  the  desire  that  he  should  be  kindly  re- 
ceived, or  if  it  treats  of  other  matters,  it  is  given 
sealed.  Either  mode  is  perfectly  allowable,  for  if  the 
bearer  objects  to  a  sealed  letter,  he  can  ask  the  con- 
tents when  he  receives  it.  It  is  more  common,  how- 
ever, to  give  it  unsealed. 

Briefly,  now,  to  the  point  we  are  coming  to  :  let- 
ters of  introduction,  in  this  country,  should  be  ad- 
dressed to  the  women  and  not  to  the  men,  and  should 
go  more  into  details  of  what  the  bearer  is  and  what  is 
his  errand  of  travel,  and  therefore  should  be  sealed. 
We  have  long  been  aware  of  a  prevailing  impression 
that  Americans  treat  letters  of  introduction  with  a 
very  uncivilized  inattention,  and  so  they  do — because  the 
etiqnetical  and  hospitable  cares  of  American  families 
are  in  charge  of  the  icife,  and  the  husband  is  very  likely 
to  stick  the  letter  into  a  pigeon-hole  of  his  desk,  and 
forget  all  about  it.  The  wife  in  America  does  all  the 
ornamental.  To  see  a  rich  man  come  down  the  steps 
of  his  own  house  (almost  anywhere  "up  town")  you 
would  take  him  to  be  a  tradesman  who  had  been  in  to 
collect  a  bill.  To  see  the  wife  follow,  you  would  at 
once  acknowledge  that  she  looked  as  though  she  lived 
in  the  house,  and  fancy  that  she  was  probably  an- 
noyed to  see  that  man  pass  out  by  the  front  door  ! 
From  making  himself  a  slave  to  keep  his  wife  a  god- 
dess, the  American  loses  all  idea  of  the  propriety  of 
looking  like  a  mate  for  his  wife,  and  he  unconsciously 
ceases  to  take  any  care  of  the  civilities  to  which  his 
own  manners  give  so  little  value,  and  neglects  all 
persons  who  have  not  had  the  tact  to  be  presented 
first  to  the  ornamental  moiety.  It  should  be  an 
American  usage,  therefore,  crowing  out  of  the  inferi- 
ority of  the  husband's  breeding  to  the  wife's,  that  let- 
ters of  introduction  should  be  addressed  to  the  woman. 
Of  course,  as  she  has  no  opportunity  to  inquire 
into  the  bearer's  position  or  habits,  these  should  be 
more  minutely  set  down,  and  the  letter  should  he 
sealed. 


|  character  of  the  '  ten  thousand  other  workies'  whom 
Mr.  Willis  '  could  name.'  Some  think  that  he 
means  to  be  witty,  and  alludes  ironically  to  the  "up- 

i  per  teny     This  is  a  great  mystery. 

"The  constituent  elements  of  '  japonica-dom'  and 
'dandy-dom'  may  be  seen  daily  in  Broadway,  between 
the  hours  of  twelve  and  three.  All  the  beauty  above 
Bleecker  street  wanders  at  that  time  down  as  far  as 
the  Park,  hazarding  even   the   contamination  of  the 

i  vulgar  crowd,  in  the  hope  of  securing  an  appetite  for 

(dinner.  The  liveried  lacqueys,  who  oscillate  upon  a 
black  board  behind  the  carriages  of  our  republican 
nabobs,  sport  their  gayest  trappings:  I  had  the  pleas- 
ure of  seeing  one  yesterday  in  a  drab  '  cut-away'  with 
gold  lace  and  yellow  facings,  and  white  silk  stockings 
with  purple  velvet  smalls!  What  is  this  great  coun- 
try coming  to  ?  We  Gothamites  do  sometimes  make 
ourselves  ridiculous,  by  aping  what  as  a  people  we 
profess  to  despise.  It  is  rumored  that  a  deputation 
of  English  'small-potato'  baronets  may  be  expected 
in  this  city  next  summer;  and  that  the  object  of  their 
transatlantic  mission  is,  to  establish  an  aristocratic 
nucleus  among  our  '■upper  ten  thousand.'  A  'her- 
ald's college' has  already  been  set  on  foot;  and  I  have 
heard  that  it  enjoys  considerable  patronage.  It  is 
proposed  to  build  wings  on  either  side  of  '  the  up-town 
opera-house' — the  one  to  be  assigned  to  this  '  herald's 
college,'  and  the  other  to  the  'university  of  fashion,' 
of  which  Mr.  Willis  is  to  be  president.     Some  say 

j  that  Colonel  Webb  has  applied  for  the  vice-presiden- 
cy, but  I  can  not  vouch  for  this. 

I       "The  chief  feature  of  the  Broadway  Journal  is  a 

!  defence  by  Mr.  Poe  of  his  attack  upon  Longfellow, 
&c.  It  is  as  stupid  as  might  be  expected  from  a  man 
who  used  to  'do  up'  such  very  small  prosodial  criti 
cisms  for  Graham's  Magazine.  Mr.  Poe  comes  down 
rather  severely  on  Willis — he  therefore  has  probably 
discontinued  his  services  at  the  Mirror  office." 

One  mistake  in  the  above  :  Mr.  Poe  left  us  some 
time  before  writing  in  the  Broadway  Journal,  and  to 
edit  that  journal ;  and  he  never  offended  us  by  a  criti- 
cism, nor  could  he,  except  by  personalities,  in  which 
he  never  indulges. 


"  Findings." — We  see  advertised  continually  cer- 
tain commodities  called  "findings,"  which  we  under- 
stand are  what  hatters  and  shoemakers  require  be- 
sides peltry  and  leather.  There  are  findings  for 
newspapers,  too  —  what  the  editors  require  besides 
leaders  and  news — and  it  may  gratify  our  subscribers 
to  know,  that  out  of  the  weary  slip-slop  which  we 
commonly  scribble  after  making  up  the  Mirror's  lead- 
ers and  news,  our  contemporaries  supply  themselves 
with  the  greater  part  of  their  ornamental  "  findings." 
Like  every  other  editor,  we  are  in  the  habit  of  giving 
a  line  or  two  occasionally,  in  the  body  of  our  paper, 
to  the  wares  of  our  most  liberal  advertisers,  and  it  ap- 
pears that  even  this  wastage  of  business  notices  is 
considered  spice  enough  for  other  papers  to  be  sea- 
soned with.  The  Boston  Transcript  spices  its  little 
sheet  very  often  with  these  parings  of  our  daily  apple. 
Here  is  part  of  a  letter  which  contains  a  touch  : — 

"The  leading  articles  in  the  Mirror  and  Commer- 
cial Advertiser  for  the  last  day  or  two  have  been  de- 
voted to  the  all-engrossing  topic,  the  spring  style  of 
hats.  After  admitting  that  '  knowingness  could  no 
further  go'  than  Beebe  &  Costar  went,  Willis  winds 
up  thus :  '  For  ourself  and  ten  thousand  other  workies 
whom  we  could  name,  the  sadder  model  of  Orlando 
Fish — timid,  proper,  and  thoughtful — is  perhaps  more 
appropriate.'  This  passage  has  produced  a  great 
sensation  in  dandy-dom.  The  Fish  party  are  in  rap- 
tures, and  could  hug  Willis  to  their  very  bosoms; 
•the  opposition'  is  in  a  fury.  Nobody  can  tell  what 
the  result  may  be.  Willis  dare  not  venture  out,  it  is 
thought  without  a  body-guard  of  Fishites.  There! 
are.  moreover,   manv    surmises    with    regard    to    the  ' 


Schiller  and  Goethe.— Mr.  Calvert  of  Balti- 
more has  given  us,  as  translator,  a  most  agreeable 
collection  of  gossippy  letters— the  undress  of  two 
great  minds,  of  the  age  just  closed  behind  us.  What 
we  most  wish  to  comment  on,  however  (the  book 
speaks  for  itself),  i3  Mr.  Calvert's  own— the  preface, 
in  which  he  indignantly  and  most  properly  rebukes 
the  last  orator  of  the  "  Phi  Beta  Kappa  Society,"  for 
a  short-sighted  and  illiberal  attack  on  the  memory  of 
Goethe.  We  found  it  difficult,  at  the  time,  to  restrain 
an  outbreak  of  disgust,  but  the  oration  was  not  pub- 
lished for  some  time,  and  we  were  unwilling  to  take 
ground  upon  a  newspaper  report  of  it.  Meantime, 
our  natural  alacrity  at  forgetting  disagreeable  things 
dropped  it  out  of  memory.  We  are  not  sorry  that  a 
condemnation  of  it  is  now  recorded  in  a  book  that 
must  live. 

Mr.  Calvert  puts  the  truth  thus  forcibly  :  "  How 
i  little   outward  testimony  survives  about  Shakspere  ; 
but  whoso  can  read  his  poetry,  may  get  a  knowledge 
i  of  the  man  surer  and  more  absolute  than  could  have 
j  been  gotten  even  from  the  fullest  contemporaneous  opin- 
ions.    As  the  tree  is  known  by  its  fruit,  we  know  that 
the  parent   of   the    Shaksperian    progeny  must  have 
been  a  man  in  whom,  in  close  alliance  with  a  kingly 
intellect   dwelt,  as  well  the  virtues   that  ennoble,  as 
the  graces  that  beautify  and  the  affections  that  sweeten 
life.     Into  whatever  errors   an    ardent   temperament 
may  have  drawn  him,  they  dim  not  the  lucent  image 
of  him,    fixed  in   our  minds  by  study  of  his  works; 
nav.  we'  presume  not  to  with  them  uncommitted,  test 


784 


EPHEMERA. 


an  attempt  to  better  such  a  bounteous  gift  from  God, 
should  mar,  but  by  a  tittle,  the  original  proportions  of 
one,  the  sum  of  ivhose  life  has  been  to  the  world  an  un- 
measurable  benefaction.  When  a  bad  man's  brain 
shall  give  birth  to  an  Iphiginea,  a  Clara,  a  Mignon, 
you  may  pluck  pomegranates  from  Plymouth  rock, 
and  reap  corn  on  the  sands  of  Sahara. 

"On  a  formal  public  occasion  (the  Phi  Beta  Kap- 
pa oration  at  Cambridge  in  1844),  a  blind  and 
most  rude  assault  has  been  made  on  one  of  the 
mightiest  of  the  dead,  whose  soul  lives  on  earth,  and 
will  for  ages  live  in  the  exaltation  of  the  loftiest 
minds.  Out  of  stale  German  gossip,  out  of  shallmo 
waitings  of  prosaic  critics,  shallower  clamors  of  pseudo- 
patriots,  uncharitable  magnification  of  common  failings, 
were  compounded  calumny  against  one  of  the  fore- 
most men  of  the  world,  and  the  most  honored  man  of 
a  people  rich  in  virtue  and  genius." 

Quite  aside  from  the  defence  of  Goethe,  we  think 
there  is  an  obvious  presentment  here  of  the  continual 
manner  of  treating  all  kinds  of  eminence  and  celeb- 
rity, here,  in  our  own  country,  and  at  this  present  hour. 
As  the  proverb  says  : — 

"  Thankfully  take  refuge  in  obscurity, 
For,  if  thou  claimest  merit,  thy  sin  shall  be  proclaimed 

upon  the  housetops  ! 
Consider  them  of  old,  the  great,  the  good,  the  learned ; 
Did  those  speed  in  favor  ?  were  they  loved  and  admired? 
Was  every  prophet  had  in  honor  ?  and  every  deserving  one 

remembered  to  his  praise? 
It  were  weariness  to  count  up  noble  names  neglected  in 

their  lives, 
The  scorned,  defamed,  insulted,  but  the  excellent  of  the 

earth. 
For  good  men  are  the  health  of  the  world,  valued  only 

when  it  perisheth. 
Living  genius  is  seen  among  infirmities  wherefrom  the  com- 
moner are  free, 
And  there  be  many  cares,  and  man  knoweth  little  of  his 

brother  .' 
Feebly  we  appreciate  a  motive,  and  slowly  keep  pace  with 

a  feeling. 
Yet,  once  more,  griever  at  neglect,  hear  me  to  thy  comfort : 
Neglect  ?  O  libel  on  a  world,  where  half  that  world 

is  woman  ! 
No  man  yet  deserved,  who  found  not  some  to  love  him  ! 
O,  woman  !  self-forgetting  woman  !  poetry  of  human  life  ! 
Many  a  word  of  comfort,  many  a  deed  of  magnanimity, 
Many  a  stream  of  milk  and  honey  pour  ye  freely  on  the 

earth  I" 


Stewart's  Stable  Economy. — We  covet  three 
things  in  the  Arab's  condition — his  loose  trousers,  his 
country  without  fences,  and  his  freedom  to  live  with 
his  horse.  That  we  have  once  had  the  centaur  variety 
in  the  human  race,  men-quadrupeds,  and  have  once 
known  horseflesh  as  "flesh  of  our  flesh,"  the  natural 
longing  to  prance,  when  we  first  get  into  the  open  air 
after  long  confinement,  is  but  one  of  many  evidences. 
In  a  mere  notice  of  a  book,  however,  we  have  no 
leisure  to  trace  back  a  problem  of  physiology.  We 
merely  wish  to  convey  to  such  of  our  enviable  readers 
as  can  resume  the  centaur  (by  loving  and  living  with  a 
horse  in  the  country),  the  treasure  they  have  in  a  book 
which  shows  them  how  to  make  their  life  (the  horse 
half  of  it)  a  luxury  instead  of  an  endurance,  and  to  give 
our  own  five  years'  enjoyment  in  breaking,  petting,  and 
improving  horses,  by  aid  of  this  same  book,  as  expe- 
rienced commendation.  We  had  the  English  edition 
of  Stewart's  books  on  horses,  but  the  Appletons  have 
republished  the  "  Stable  Economy,"  with  "  notes 
adapting  it  to  American  food  and  climate,"  by  Mr. 
Allen,  the  able  editor  of  the  Agriculturist,  and  it  is 
now  an  invaluable  vade-mecum,  for  all  men  who  have 
the  luxury  of  a  stable. 

We  can  not  help  repeating  that  a  visitable  stable, 
with  friends  in  it  in  the  shape  of  horses— with  horses 
in  it  one  has  himself  broken  and  trained— a  stable  to 
which  the  ladies  like  to  go  after  breakfast,  and  where 


a  gentleman  can  throw  on  his  own  saddle  and  bridle, 

and  gallop  off",  without  needing  first  to  find  his  groom 

that  this  is  the  next  best  luxury  our  country  affords, 
after  ladies'  society.  (Horses,  that  is  to  say,  before 
politics  or  stocks,  under  male  discussion.) 

The  stable  at  Gordon  castle  (approachable  by  a 
covered  passage,  from  the  principal  hall)  was  a  fre- 
quent resort  for  the  ladies  after  breakfast ;  and  we 
have  seen  women,  the  highest  in  rank  at  the  English 
court,  going  in  and  out  of  the  stalls,  patting  the  favor- 
ites they  were  to  ride  later  in  the  day,  and  discussing 
their  beauty  with  the  simplicity  and  frankness  of 
Arabs  in  the  desert.  While  we  are  building  country- 
houses  and  forming  habits  in  America,  it  is  well  to 
know  all  the  luxury  we  can  enjoy  in  rural  life,  and  no 
one  should  build  stable,  or  own  horse,  without  con- 
sulting the  excellent  directions  for  stabling  and  using 
the  horse,  in  this  book  of  Stewart's. 


Grund's  Letters  from  Europe. — In  Godey's 
Lady's  Book  for  April  we  find  one  of  these  best 
epistles  of  the  day,  and  (to  tell  the  truth)  we  read 
them  with  very  little  satisfaction,  for  they  leave  us 
with  a  want  to  go  where  they  are  written.  The  April 
number  of  Godey  is  principally  the  work  of  unwedded 
quills  (no  less  than  ten  misses  numbered  among  the 
contributors  !),  but  we  have  read  it  with  great  satis- 
faction, and  felicitate  our  old  friend  upon  the  bril- 
liancy of  his  maiden  troop.  Godey  is  the  pioneer  of 
magazines,  and  he  has  a  tact  at  collection  and  selec- 
tion, which  has  put  him  where  he  is — safe  at  high- 
water  mark  in  enduring  prosperity.     Success  to  him. 

By-the-way — though  we  have  no  room  to  expatiate 
on  the  several  papers  in  this  number — the  "  Sketch  of 
Joseph  Bonaparte"  is  capital.  Is  that  by  a  "  miss" 
too? 

And  apropos,  Godey  !  What  a  vile  word  "  miss" 
is,  to  express  the  sweetest  thing  in  nature!  Why 
should  the  idol  of  mankind  be  called  a  "miss?" 
Why  should  the  charming  word  heifer  be  degraded  to 
the  use  of  kine?  We  say  "degraded,"  for  it  once 
served  ladies  as  a  synonym  for  the  proudest  of  virgin 
sweethearts.  Ben  Jonson,  in  his  play  of  the  "Silent 
Woman,"  thus  writes  a  speech  for  his  hero : — 

"  But  heare  me,  faire  lady,  I  do  also  love  her  whom 
I  shall  choose  for  my  heifer,  to  be  the  first  and  prin- 
cipal in  all  fashions." 

The  derivation  of  the  word  heifer  is  so  complimen- 
tary !  It  comes  from  two  Anglo-Saxon  words,  which 
signify  "to  step  superbly,"  as  a  young  creature  who 
has  borne  no  burthens.  With  this  explanation,  we 
trust  our  friend  Godey  will  no  longer  hesitate  to  ad- 
vertise his  fair  contributors  as  the  bright  lights  of 
heiferdom — disusing  henceforth,  forever,  the  dispar- 
aging epithet  of  misses. 


LETTER   FROM   THE   EDITOR'S  ROOM. 

New  York,  Friday,  March  21. 
To  a  lady-friend  in  the  country :  I  am  up  to  the 
knees  in  newspapers,  and  write  to  you  under  the  stare 
of  nine  pigeon-holes,  stuffed  with  literary  portent. 
Were  there  such  a  thing  (in  this  world  of  everythings) 
as  papyral  magnetism,  you  would  get  a  letter,  not 
only  typical  in  itself,  but  typical  of  a  flood  in  which 
my  identity  is  fast  drowning.  Oh,  the  drown  of  news, 
weighed  unceasingly — little  events  and  great  ones — 
against  little  more  than  the  trouble  of  snipping  round 
with  scissors  !  To  a  horrid  death — to  a  miraculous 
preservation — to  a  heart-gush  of  poesy — to  a  marriage 
— to  a  crime — to  the  turn  of  a  political  crisis — to 
flashing  wit  and  storied  agonies — giving  but  the  one 


EPHEMERA. 


785 


invariable  first  thought—"  Shall  I  cut  it  out  ?"  Alas, 
dear  beauty-monarch  of  all  you  survey  ! — your  own 
obituary,  were  I  to  read  it  in  a  newspaper  of  to-mor- 
row, would  speak  scarce  quicker  to  my  heart  than  to 
those  scissors  of  undiscriminating  circum-cision  ! 
With  the  knowledge  that  the  sky  above  me  was  en- 
riched, as  Florence  once  was,  by  the  return  of  its 
long-lost  and  best  model  of  beauty,  I  should  ask, 
with  be-paragraphed  grief — "will  her  death  do  for 
the  Mirror  ?" 

But  you  are  alive  to  laugh  at  me — alive  to  be  (is 
your  lip  all  ready  for  a  curl  ?)  the  "straw"  for  me, 
drowning,  to  catch  at !  I  write  to  you,  to-day,  to 
vary  routine  !  Happy  they  who  can  see  but  one  face 
when  they  write  !  1  am  trying  hard  to  see  only  yours 
— trying  hard,  by  mental  recapitulation  of  eyes  like 
fringed  inkstands,  passionate  nostrils,  and  chin  of  in- 
domitable calm,  to  forget  the  vague  features  of  my 
many-nosed  public.  Oh,  the  dread  loss  of  one-at-a- 
time-ativeness !  Oh,  the  exile  to  the  sad  land  of 
nominative  plural!  Oh,  the  unprized  luxury  of  see- 
ing but  little,  and  seeing  that  little  for  yourself! 

But — this  is  a  letter  from  town,  and  you  want  the 
gossip.  Spring  is  here — getting  ready  to  go  into  the 
country.  The  dust  and  shutter-banging  of  the  tem- 
pestuous equinox,  have,  for  three  days,  banished  the 
damageables  from  Broadway,  and  I  know  not  the 
complexion  of  the  spring  fashions,  now  four  days  old. 
I  was  in  a  gay  circle  last  night  where  some  things 
were  talked  of — hm  ! — let  me  remember — Mrs.  Mow- 
att's  forthcoming  comedy  was  one  topic.  Do  you 
know  this  Corinne  of  the  temperate  latitudes?  An 
exact  copy,  in  marble,  of  her  neck  and  head,  would 
show  you  a  Sapphic  bust  of  most  meaning  and  clear- 
lined  beauty,  and  there  is  inspiration  in  the  color  of 
her  living  eyes  and  in  the  prodigal  abundance  of  her 
floral  hair.  All  this  beauty  she  wastes  and  thinks 
nothing  of — busied  only  with  the  lining  of  a  head, 
which  some  tropical  angel  fashioned  as  he  would  have 
turned  out  a  magnolia.  She  has  genius,  and  her 
lamp  burns  within.  But  it  takes  more  than  genius  to 
write  comedy,  and  more  than  beauty  (though  it  should 
not)  to  give  it  success,  and  I  tremble  for  the  lovely 
dramatist.  The  excitement  about  it  is  great — the 
actors  all  like  their  roles — the  stage-manager  says  it  is 
good — the  public  are  wishing  to  be  pleased  and  will 
flock  to  the  experiment — and  with  all  my  heart,  I 
pray  for  a  "house"  continually  "brought  down."  I 
enclose  you  a  sketch  of  the  plot  from  the  New  World 
of  this  morning  : — 

"  The  subject  is  well  chosen.  Fashion — that  is, 
the  eifort  to  show  off  dazzlingly  in  society — is,  in  this 
country,  a  fact  of  sufficient  body  and  consistence  to 
afford  material  for  an  original  comedy — and  the  inci- 
dents and  peculiarities  of  manner  and  character  at- 
tending; the  effort,  are  often  abundantly  ludicrous  and 
grotesque  to  make  the  comedy  laughable.  The  'glass 
of  fashion,'  held  fairly  up  in  New  York,  will  show 
some  amusing  scenes,  quite  new  to  the  stage. 

"The  characters  of  the  piece  are  selected  and  group- 
ed, we  think,  with  character  and  judgment.  An  un- 
educated woman  of  fashion,  driving  her  husband  into 
dishonesty  and  crime  by  her  crime  and  extravagance — 
a  pretended  French  count,  who  knows,  at  least,  all 
the  police  courts  of  Europe  very  thoroughly — a  clever 
French  waiting  maid,  who  finds  in  the  said  count  an 
old  acquaintance — a  negro  valet  of  all  work  rejoicing 
in  a  scarlet  livery,  and  much  inclined  to  grandilo- 
quence— a  rich  old  farmer,  from  Cattaraugus,  carry- 
ing the  moral  of  the  piece,  and  no  small  part  of  its 
humor,  stoutly  on  upon  his  broad  shoulders — a  Fanny- 
Forester-like  country  girl,  transplanted  into  the  city 
from  Geneva,  to  work  out  the  plot,  and  get  the  good 
luck  of  the  catastrophe — these  are  the  main  person- 
ages. An  old  maid — a  small  poet — a  solemn  dandy, 
styled  Fogg — a  confidential  clerk  called  Snobson,  and 
50 


clearly  belonging  to  the  large  family  of  Snobs— a  walk- 
ing gentleman,  and  a  young  coquette,  are  thrown  in 
as  make-weights.  Here  is  certainly  a  goodly  drama- 
tic array. 

"The  dialogue  is  written  with  taste  and  spirit.  It 
has  few  passages  of  what  is  called  '  fine  writing,'  but 
it  embodies  enough  of  wit,  and  fancy,  and  observa- 
tion, to  keep  the  attention  of  the  reader  constantly  and 
pleasurably  excited.  A  riged  criticism,  resolved  upon 
fault-finding,  might  say  that  the  conclusion  of  this 
piece  is  too  clearly  apparent  from  its  commencement, 
and  that  the  action  moves  too  slowly  through  the 
first  three  acts.  But  admitting  all  this,  the  comedy 
certainly  has  great  merit,  and,  if  well  brought  out, 
will  have  a  run.  We  believe  that  its  first  night  will 
be  greeted  by  a  large  audience,  and  we  most  cotdially 
bespeak  for  it  the  favorable  consideration  to  which  it 
is,  in  every  regard,  entitled." 

Forrest's  fate  among  the  London  Philistines  is 
another  matter  of  chat.  The  Macready  critics  are 
down  upon  him — Foster  of  the  Examiner,  Macready's 
bull-dog,  heaviest  and  foremost.  This  was  to  have 
been  expected,  of  course.  The  gravelly  bottom  of 
Macready's  throat  has  been  forced  upon  the  English, 
for  so  long,  as  the  only  sarcophagus  of  Shakspere, 
that  the  bringing  of  the  dry  bones  to  life,  in  an  open 
mouth,  and  the  marring  of  the  sexton's  vocation,  was 
not  submitted  to  without  a  grumble.  An  English 
critic  predicts  that  Forrest  "will  play  down  the  grum- 
blers yet,"  and  I  trust  he  will  do  so.  He  is  the  kind 
of  man  to  say  with  old  Chapman  : — 

"  Give  me  the  spirit  that  on  life's  rough  sea 
Would  have  his  sails  filled  with  lusty  wind, 
Even  till  his  sail-yards  tremble,  his  masts  crack, 
And  his  rapt  ship  run  on  her  side  so  low 
That  she  drinks  water,  and  her  keel  ploughs  air." 

He  is  twenty  times  the  man,  and  the  actor,  that  Mac- 
ready  is,  and  the  English  will  find  out  his  mark  if  he 
stay  long  enough.  Meantime  they  are  enchanted 
with  Miss  Cushman,  who,  the  Examiner  says,  is  a 
"  feminized  caricature  of  Macready's  physiognomy." 
I  like  her,  by  the  way,  and  rejoice  in  her  success  as 
much  as  I  wish  a  better  appreciation  of  Forrest. 

What  else  shall  I  tell  you?  The  Mirror's  won- 
drous "  rise  and  progress,"  profitably  and  firmly  seated, 
after  less  than  six  months  of  industrious  existence,  is 
a  marvel  that  even  your  beauty  may  rejoice  in — for 
it  will  bring  me  to  your  feet  (by  paying  the  expenses 
of  transit)  when  the  summer  comes  over  us.  Where 
are  you  going  to  Baden  it  this  summer?  At  Sara- 
toga? 1  like  that  place,  because  you  can  there,  and 
there  alone,  be  an  island  in  a  sea  of  people.  Where 
there  are  fewer,  you  are  added  to  the  continent  of 
sociability,  and  have  no  privileges.  Shall  we  say  the 
last  week  in  August  ? 

Bottom  of  the  page.  Scarce  room  to  write  my- 
self Yours- 


An  Idea  fob  Tattersall's.— There  are  luxuries 
which  rich  men  forego,  not  for  the  money  but  for  the 
mind  they  cost.  Hundreds  of  people  in  this  city  for 
instance,  could  very  well  afford  a  carriage,  but  they 
can  not  afford  the  trouble  of  buying  horses,  the  care 
of  looking  after  grooms,  nor  the  anxieties  inseparable 
from  horse-owning  in  this  country  of  perpetual  new 
servants.  In  England  this  want  is  provided  for  by  the 
system  the  livery-stable  keepers  call  jobbing.  Lady 
Blessiugton-s  two  or  three  different  equipages  for  in- 
stance, are  allowed  to  be  the  prettiest  and  best  ap- 
pointed in  London.  Yet  she  owns  ne.ther  carnages, 
horses,  nor  harness.  She  pays  a  certa.n  sum  per 
annum  to  be  provided  with  what  she  wants  in  the 
way  of  equipages,  and  keeps  only  her  own  coachman 


786 


EPHEMERA. 


and  footmen.  A  new  carriage  is  furnished  whenever 
wanted,  and  of  whatever  style  is  wanted  (the  jobber 
finding  no  trouble  probably  in  disposing  of  the  one 
given  up)  and  a  sick  or  lame  horse  is  replaced  imme- 
diately from  a  stable  where  the  first  blood  and  shape 
are  alone  kept.  Her  ladyship  thus  knows  precisely 
what  her  driving  is  to  cost  her  for  the  year,  and 
transfers  to  the  jobber  all  the  risk,  anxiety,  and 
trouble. 

A  wealthy  New-Yorker,  a  day  or  two  since,  made 
a  very  handsome  offer  to  a  livery-stable  keeper  to 
furnish  him  a  carriage  on  this  same  plan,  and  the  of- 
fer was  refused.  But,  though  a  single  customer  of 
this  kind  might  be  troublesome,  combination  (that  great 
secret  of  luxurious  economies)  might  "  make  it  an- 
swer." Twenty  nice  carriages,  let  out  to  private 
gentlemen  at  $1,000,  or  Si, 500  a  year  each,  might  be 
looked  after  by  one  jobber  well  versed  in  horseflesh, 
and  his  taste  and  experience  would  turn  out  better 
equipages  than  could  be  got  up  by  private  individuals. 
The  twenty  stables  now  kept  up  would  be  combined 
in  one  (this  in  itself,  no  small  saving)  and  the  rich 
man  might  be  driven  in  better  style,  for  less  money 
than  it  now  costs  him,  and — better  than  all — without 
the  vexatious  care,  vigilance  and  anxiety  of  keeping  a 
private  carriage. 

P.  S.  We  can  safely  say  that  we  are  entirely  disin- 
terested in  the  proposed  arrangement ! 


Graham  for  April. — The  equinox  brought  us 
such  detestable  weather,  that  instead  of  our  usual  two 
hours'  airing  of  brains  under  a  hat,  we  lay  on  our 
back  yesterday  afternoon  and  read  "Graham."  How 
does  the  man  get  so  many  good  things!  Grund, 
Fanny  Forester,  Mrs.  C.  H.  Butler,  Win.  Lander, 
Mrs.  Embury,  Mrs.  Osgood,  Mr.  Peterson — all  have 
written  their  best  for  this  number.  Our  friend  Fanny's 
story  of  "Nickie  Ben"  seems  to  us  particularly  fresh, 
bright,  and  original.  Mr.  Grund's  letter  from  Paris 
is  full  of  intelligence,  and  among  other  things,  he  thus 
speaks  of  Eugene  Sue  and  his  two  tasters  : — 

"He  lives  now,  by  the  product  of  his  industry,  in 
princely  style  ;  but  his  enjoyments  are  troubled  by 
the  constant  fear  of  being  poisoned  by  his  political 
and  religious  adversaries.  He  has,  therefore,  con- 
tracted an  intimate  friendship  with  two  large,  beautiful 
Newfoundland  dogs,  who  are  his  constant  dinner  and 
breakfast  companions,  and  who  always  eat  first  of  every 
dish  that  is  brought  on  the  table.  If  these  judges  of 
gastronomy  pronounce  in  favor  of  it,  by  first  eating  a 
large  quantity,  with  apparent  relish,  the  author  of 
"  The  Mysteries"  and  "  The  Wandering  Jew"  him- 
self partakes  of  it  without  farther  scruple.  He  be- 
lieves dogs  much  more  faithful  than  men,  and  the 
sagacious  instincts  of  a  regular  Newfoundlander  su- 
perior to  the  science  of  chymists  and  physicians." 

Poor  dogs !  Considering  that  they  would  doubtless 
have  been  wagging  iheir  tails  in  Paradise,  but  for 
Adam's  transgression,  it  seems  hard  to  make  them 
die,  for  a  human  master,  besides! 

But,  to  turn  to  the  first  leaf— lo!  the  brigadier !  There 
he  stands,  looking  as  amiable  as  if  he  had  just  nabbed 
a  flying  thought  for  a  song,  his  smile  a  little  more 
rigid,  however,  and  his  phiz  a  little  thinner  than  his 
accommodating  wont.  The  picture  is  enough  like 
him,  notwithstanding,  for  all  "  business  purposes." 
We  think  him  better  looking  than  the  artist  has 
'■'done"  him,  and  this  we  request  the  ladies  (who  sing 
his  songs)  to  allow  for.  The  magazine  opens  with  a 
critical  biography,  exceedingly  well  done,  and  (the 
brigadier  below  stairs  playing  salesman)  we  see  noth- 
ing to  prevent  our  quoting  a  note  of  our  own  to  the 
writer  : — 


New  York,  Feb.  J,  1845. 

My  Dear  Sir:  To  ask  me  for  my  idea  of  General 
Morris  is  like  asking  the  left  hand's  opinion  of  the 
dexterity  of  the  right.  I  have  lived  so  long  with  the 
"  brigadier,"  known  him  so  intimately,  worked  so  con- 
stantly at  the  same  rope,  and  thought  so  little  of  ever 
separating  from  him  (except  by  precedence  of  ferriage 
over  the  Styx),  that  it  is  hard  to  shove  him  from  me 
to  the  perspective  distance — hard  to  shut  my  own  par- 
tial eyes,  and  look  at  him  through  other  people's.  I 
will  try,  however,  and  as  it  is  done  with  but  one  foot 
off  from  the  treadmill  of  my  ceaseless  vocation,  you 
will  excuse  both  abruptness  and  brevity. 

Morris  is  the  best  known  poet  of  the  country  by 
acclamation,  not  by  criticism.  He  is  just  what  poets 
would  be  if  they  sung,  like  birds,  without  criticism ; 
and  it  is  a  peculiarity  of  bis  fame,  that  it  seems  as 
regardless  of  criticism  as  a  bird  in  the  air.  Nothing 
can  stop  a  song  of  his.  It  is  very  easy  to  say  that 
they  are  easy  to  do.  They  have  a  momentum,  some- 
how, that  is  difficult  for  others  to  give,  and  that  speeds 
them  to  the  far  goal  of  popularity — the  best  proof 
consisting  in  the  fact  that  he  can,  at  any  moment,  get 
fifty  dollars  for  a  song,  unread,  when  the  whole 
remainder  of  the  American  Parnassus  could  not  sell 
one  to  the  same  buyer  for  a  shilling. 

It  may,  or  may  not,  be  one  secret  of  his  popularity, 
but  it  is  a  truth — that  Morris's  heart  is  at  the  level  of 
most  other  people's,  and  his  poetry  flows  out  by  that 
door.  He  stands  breast  high  in  the  common  stream 
of  sympathy,  and  the  fine  oil  of  his  poetic  feeling 
goes  from  him  upon  an  element  it  is  its  nature  to  float 
upon,  and  which  carries  it  safe  to  other  bosoms,  with 
little  need  of  deep  diving  or  high  flying.  His  senti- 
ments are  simple,  honest,  truthful,  and  familiar;  his 
language  is  pure  and  eminently  musical,  and  he  is 
prodigally  full  of  the  poetry  of  everyday  feeling. 
These  are  days  when  poets  try  experiments ;  and 
while  others  succeed  by  taking  the  world's  breath 
away  with  flights  and  plunges,  Morris  uses  his  feet  to 
walk  quietly  with  nature.  Ninety-nine  people  in  a 
hundred,  taken  as  they  come  in  the  census,  would  find 
more  to  admire  in  Morris's  songs  than  in  the  writings 
of  any  other  American  poet ;  and  that  is  a  parish  in 
the  poetical  episcopate,  well  worthy  a  wise  man's  nur- 
ture and  prizing. 

As  to  the  man — Morris  my  friend — I  can  hardly 
venture  to  "burn  incense  on  his  mustache,"  as  the 
French  say — write  his  praises  under  his  very  nose — 
but,  as  far  off  as  Philadelphia,  you  may  pay  the  prop- 
er tribute  to  his  loyal  nature  and  manly  excellences. 
His  persona)  qualities  have  made  him  universally  pop- 
ular, but  this  overflow  upon  the  world  does  not  impov- 
erish him  for  his  friends.  I  have  outlined  a  true 
poet,  and  a  fine  fellow — fill  up  the  picture  to  your 
liking.  Yours,  very  truly, 

N.  P.  Willis. 


We  get,  from  literary  fledglings,  at  least  one  letter 
per  diem,  requesting  detailed  advice  on  the  quo  modo 
of  a  first  flight  in  prose  or  poesy.  We  really  suppose 
we  have,  or  are  to  have,  an  end  to  our  life,  and  we  like 
to  economise  time.  So  we  publish  a  letter,  which  we 
once  had  occasion  to  write,  and  which  must  serve  as 
a  circular — a  letter  which  we  recorded  in  our  diary 
when  it  was  written — recorded  with  the  following 
preface : — 

There  lies  before  me  now,  upon  my  table,  a  letter 
of    three   tolerably  compact   pages,    addressed   to   a 

young  gentleman  of college,  who  is  "  bit  by  the 

dipsas"  of  authorship.  His  mother,  a  sensible,  plain, 
farmer's  widow,  chanced  to  be  my  companion  for  a 
couple  of  days,  in  a  stage-coach,  and  while  creeping 
over  the  mountains  between  the  Hudson  and  the  Sus- 
quehannah,  she  paid  my  common  sense  the  compli- 


EPHEMERA. 


787 


ment  of  unburthening  a  very  stout  heart  to  me. 
Since  her  husband's  death,  she  has  herself  managed 
the  farm,  and  by  active,  personal  oversight,  has  con- 
trived •«  to  make  both  ends  so  far  lap"  (to  use  her  own 
expression),  as  to  keep  her  only  boy  at  college.  By 
her  description,  he  is  a  slenderish  lad  in  his  constitu- 
tion, fond  of  poetry,  and  bent  on  trying  his  fortune 
with  his  pen,  as  soon  as  he  has  closed  his  thumb  and 
finger  on  his  degree.  The  good  dame  wished  for  the 
best  advice  I  could  give  him  on  the  subject,  leaving  it 
to  me  (after  producing  a  piece  of  his  poetry  from  her 
pocket,  published  in  one  of  the  city  papers)  to  en- 
courage or  dissuade.  I  apprehended  a  troublesome 
job  of  it,  but  after  a  very  genial  conversation  (on  the 
subject  of  raising  turkeys,  in  which  she  quite  agreed  i 
with  me,  that  they  were  cheaper  bought  than  raised, 
when  corn  was  fifty  cents  a  bushel — greedy  gobblers  !), 
I  reverted  to  the  topic  of  poetry,  and  promised  to 
write  the  inspired  sophomore  my  views  as  to  his  pros- 
pects. Need  I  record  it  ? — that  long  letter  affects  me  j 
like  an  unsigned  bank-note — like  something  which 
might  so  easily  have  been  money — like  a  leak  in  the 
beer-barrel— like  a  hole  in  the  meal-bag!  It  irks  me 
to  lose  them — three  fair  pages— a  league's  drift  to  lee- 
ward— a  mortal  morning's  work,   and    no  odor  lucri 

thence  arising  !     I  can  not  stand  it,  Mrs. ,  and  | 

Mr.   Sophomore !     You  are  welcome  to  the 

autograph  copy,  but  faith  !  I  must  print  it.     There  is 
a  superfluity  of  adjectives  (intended,   as  it  was,  for 
private  perusal),  but  I  will  leave  them  out  in  the  copy. 
Thus  runs  the  letter: — 

Dear  Sir:  You  will  probably  not  recognise  the 
handwriting  in  which  you  are  addressed,  but  by  cast- 
ing your  eye  to  the  conclusion  of  the  letter,  you  will 
see  that  it  comes  from  an  old  stager  in  periodical  lit- 
erature; and  of  that,  as  a  profession,  I  am  requested 
by  your  mother  to  give  you,  as  she  phrases  it,  "  the 
cost  and  yield."  You  will  allow  what  right  you  please 
to  my  opinions,  and  it  is  only  with  the  authority  of 
having  lived  by  the  pen,  that  I  pretend  to  offer  any 
hints  on  the  subject  for  your  guidance.  As  "the 
farm"  can  afford  you  nothing  beyond  your  education, 
you  will  excuse  me  for  presuming  that  you  need  in- 
formation mainly  as  to  the  livelihood  to  be  got  from 
literature. 

Your  mother  thinks  it  is  a  poor  market  for  pota- 
toes, where  potatoes  are  to  be  had  for  nothing,  and 
that  is  simply  the  condition  of  American  literature  (as 
protected  by  law).  The  contributors  to  the  numer- 
ous periodicals  of  England,  are  the  picked  men  of 
thousands— the  accepted  of  hosts  rejected— the  flower 
of  a  highly-educated  and  refined  people— soldiers, 
sailors,  lords,  ladies,  and  lawyers — all  at  leisure,  all 
anxious  to  turn  a  penny,  all  ambitious  of  print  and 
profit ;  and  this  great  army,  in  addition  to  the  hun- 
dreds urged  by  need  and  pure  literary  zeal — this  great 
army,  I  say,  are  before  you  in  the  market,  offering 
their  wares  to  your  natural  customer,  at  a  price  for 
which  you  can  not  afford  to  sell — nothing  !  It  is  true 
that  by  this  state  of  the  literary  market,  you  have 
fewer  competitors  among  your  countrymen — the  best 
talent  of  the  country  being  driven,  by  necessity,  into 
less  congenial  and  more  profitable  pursuits  ;  but  even 
with  this  advantage  (none  but  doomed  authors  in  the 
field)  you  would  probably  find  it  difficult,  within  five 
years  after  you  graduated,  to  convert  your  best  piece 
of  poetry  into  a  genuine  dollar.  I  allow  you,  at  the 
same  time,  full  credit  for  your  undoubted  genius. 

You  naturally  inquire  how  American  authors  live. 
I  answer,  by  being  English  authors.  There  is  no 
American  author  who  lives  by  his  pen,  for  whom  Lon- 
don is  not  the  chief  market.  Those  whose  books  sell 
only  in  this  country,  make  scarce  the  wages  of  a  day- 
laborer — always  excepting  religious  writers,  and  the 
authors  of  school-books,  and  such  works  as  owe  their 
popularity  to  extrinsic  causes.     To  begin  on  leaving 


college,  with  legitimate  book-making — writing  novels, 
tales,  volumes  of  poetry,  &c,  you  must  have  at  least 
five  years  support  from  some  other  source,  for  until 
you  get  a  name,  nothing  you  could  write  would  pay 
"board  and  lodging;"  and  "getting  a  name"  in 
America,  implies  having  first  got  a  name  in  England. 
Then  we  have  almost  no  professed,  mere  authors. 
They  have  vocations  of  some  other  character, "also. 
Men  like  Dana,  Bryant,  Sprague,  Halleck,  Kennedy, 
Wetmore,  though,  no  doubt,  it  is  the  first  wish  of 
their  hearts  to  devote  all  their  time  to  literature,  are 
kept,  by  our  atrocious  laws  of  copyright,  in  paths  less 
honorable  to  their  country,  but  more  profitable  to 
themselves,  and  by  far  the  greatest  number  of  discour- 
aged authors  are  "  broken  on  the  wheel"  of  the  pub- 
lic press.  Gales,  Walsh,  Chandler,  Buckingham,  and 
other  editors  of  that  stamp,  are  men  driven  aside  from 
authorship,  their  proper  vocation. 

Periodical  writing  seems  the  natural  novitiate  to 
literary  fame  in  our  country,  and  I  understand  from 
your  mother  that  through  this  lies  your  choseji  way. 
I  must  try  to  give  you  as  clear  an  idea  as  possible  of 
the  length  and  breadth  of  it,  and  perhaps  I  can  best 
do  so  by  contrasting  it  with  another  career,  which  (if 
advice  were  not  always  useless)  I  should  sooner 
advise. 

Your  mother's  farm,  then,  consisting  of  near  a  hun- 
dred acres,  gives  a  net  produce  of  about  five  hundred 
dollars  a  year — hands  paid,  I  mean,  and  seed,  wear  and 
i  tear  of  tools,  team,   &c,  first  subtracted.     She  has 
lived  as  comfortable  as  usual  for  the  last  three  or  four 
I   years,   and  still  contrived  to  lay  by  the  two  hundred 
and   fifty  dollars  expended   annually  on  your  educa- 
tion.    Were  you  at  home,  your  own  labor  and  over- 
sight would  add  rather  more  than  two  hundred  dollars 
to  the  income,  and  with  good  luck  you  might  call 
|  yourself  a  farmer  with  five  hundred  dollars,   as   the 
I  Irish  say,  "to  the  fore."     Your  vocation,  at  the  same 
;|  time,  is  dignified,  and  such  as  would  reflect  favorably 
|  j  on  your  reputation,  should  you  hereafter  become  in 
j  any  way  eminent.     During  six   months  in   the   year, 
you  would  scarce  find  more  than  an  hour  or  two  in 
the  twenty-four  to  spare  from  sleep  or  labor;  but  in 
the  winter  months,  with  every  necessary  attention  to 
your  affairs  out  of  doors,  still  find  as  much  leisure  for 
study  and  composition  as  most  literary  men  devote  to 
those  purposes.     I  say  nothing  of  the  pabuluin  of 
rural  influences  on  your  mind,  but  will  just  hint  at 
another    incidental    advantage    you    may    not    have 
thought  of.  viz. :  that  the   public  show  much  more 
alacrity  in  crowning  an  author,  if  he  does  not  make 
bread  and  butter  of  the  laurels !     In  other  words,  if 
you  are  a  farmer,  you  are  supposed  (by  a  world  not 
very  brilliant  in  its  conclusions)  to  expend  the  most  of 
your  mental  energies   (as  they  do)  in  making  your 
living;    and  your  literature  goes  for   an    "aside"— 
waste-water,  as  the  millers  phrase  it— a  very  material 
premise  in  both  criticism  and  public  estimation. 

At  your  age,  the  above  picture  would  have  been 
thrown  away  on  myself,  and  I  presume  (inviting  as  it 
seems  to  my  world-weary  eyes)  it  is  thrown  away  now 
upon  you.  I  shall  therefore  try  to  present  to  you  the 
lights  and  shadows  of  the  picture  which  seem  to  you 
more  attractive. 

Your  first  step  will  be  to  select  New  York  as  the 
city  which  is  to  be  illustrated  by  your  residence,  and 
to  commence  a  search  after  some  literary  occupation. 
You  have  a  volume  of  poetry  which  has  been  returned 
to  you  by  your  "  literary  agent,"  with  a  heavy  charge 
for  procuring  the  refusal  of  every  pubhsher  to  under- 
take it,  and  with  your  pride  quite  taken  out  of  you, 
vou  are  willing  to  devote  your  Latin  and  Greek,  your 
acquaintance  with  prosody  and  punctuation,  and  a  very 
middling  proficiency  in  chicography  (no  offence— 
your  mother  showed  me  your  autograph  list  ot  bills 
for  the  winter  term)— all  this  store  of  accomplishment 


788 


EPHEMERA. 


you  offer  to  employ  for  a  trifle  besides  meat,  lodging, 
and  apparel.  These,  you  say,  are  surely  moderate 
expectations  for  an  educated  man,  and  such  wares,  so 
cheap,  must  find  a  ready  market.  Of  such  stuff,  you 
know  that  editors  are  made,  and  in  the  hope  of  finding 
a  vacant  editorial  chair,  you  pocket  your  MSS.,  and 
commence  inquiry.  At  the  end  of  the  mouth,  you 
begin  to  think  yourself  the  one  person  on  earth  for 
whom  there  seems  no  room.  There  is  no  editor 
wanted,  no  sub-editor  wanted,  no  reporter,  no  proof- 
reader, no  poet !  There  are  passable  paragraphists  by 
scores— educated  young  men,  of  every  kind,  of  prom- 
ising talent,  who,  for  twenty  dollars  a  month,  would 
joyfully  do  twice  what  you  propose— give  twice  as 
much  time,  and  furnish  twice  as  much  "copy."  But 
as  you  design,  of  course,  to  "go  into  society,"  and 
gatner  your  laurels  as  they  blossom,  you  can  not 
see  your  way  very  clearly  with  less  than  a  hay- 
maker's wages.  You  proceed  with  your  inquiries, 
however,  and  are,  at  last,  quite  convinced  that  few 
things  are  more  difficult  than  to  coin  uncelebrated 
brains  into  current  money — that  the  avenues  for  the 
employment  of  the  head,  only,  are  emulously  crowd- 
ed— that  there  are  many  more  than  you  had  supposed 
who  have  the  same  object  as  yourself,  and  that,  what- 
ever fame  may  be  in  its  meridian  and  close,  its  morn- 
ing is  mortification  and  starvation. 

The  "small  end  of  the  horn"  has  a  hole  in  it,  how- 
ever, and  the  bitter  stage  of  experience  T  have  just 
described,  might  be  omitted  in  your  history,  if,  by  any 
other  means,  you  could  be  made  small  enough  to  go 
in.  The  most  considerable  diminution  of  size,  per- 
haps, is  the  getting  rid,  for  the  time,  of  all  idea  of 
"living  like  a  gentleman"  (according  to  the  common 
acceptation  of  the  phrase).  To  be  willing  to  satisfy 
hunger  in  any  clean  and  honest  way,  to  sleep  in  any 
clean  and  honest  place,  and  to  wear  anything  clean  and 
honestly  paid  for,  are  phases  of  the  crescent  moon  of 
fame,  not  very  prominently  hud  down  in  our  imaginary 
chart;  but  they  are,  nevertheless,  the  first  indication 
of  that  moon's  waxing.  I  see  by  the  advertisements, 
that  there  are  facilities  now  for  cheap  living,  which  did 
not  exist  "when  George  the  Third  was  king."  A 
dinner  (of  beef,  bread,  and  potatoes,  with  a  bottle  of 
wine)  is  offered,  by  an  advertiser,  of  the  savory  name 
of  G for  a  shilling,  and  a  breakfast,  most  invi- 
tingly described,  is  offered  for  sixpence.  I  have  no 
doubt  a  lodging  might  be  procured  at  the  same  mod- 
est rate  of  charge.  "  Society"  does  not  move  on  this 
plane,  it  is  true,  but  society  is  not  worth  seeking  at 
any  great  cost,  while  you  are  obscure,  and  if  you'll 
wait  till  the  first  moment  when  it  would  be  agreeable 
(the  moment  when  it  thinks  it  worth  while  to  caress 
you),  it  will  come  to  you,  like  Mohammed  to  the  moun- 
tain. And  like  the  mountain's  moving  to  Mohammed, 
you  will  find  any  premature  ambition  on  the  subject. 

Giving  up  the  expectation  of  finding  employment 
suited  to  your  taste,  you  will,  of  course,  be  "  open  to 
offers,"  and  I  should  counsel  you  to  take  any  that 
would  pay,  which  did  not  positively  shut  the  door 
upon  literature.  At  the  same  wages  you  had  better 
direct  covers  in  a  newspaper  office,  than  contribute 
original  matter  which  costs  you  thought,  yet  is  not 
appreciated ;  and  in  fact,  as  I  said  before  with  refer- 
ence to  farming,  a  subsistence  not  directly  obtained 
by  brain-work,  is  a  material  advantage  to  an  author. 
Eight  hours  of  mere  mechanical  copying,  and  two 
hours  of  leisurely  composition,  will  tire  you  less,  and 
produce  more  for  your  reputation  than  twelve  hours 
of  intellectual  drudgery.  The  publishers  and  book- 
sellers have  a  good  deal  of  work  for  educated  men — 
proof-reading,  compiling,  corresponding,  &c,  and  this 
is  a  good  step  to  higher  occupation.  As  you  moder- 
ate your  wants,  of  course  you  enlarge  your  chances 
for  employment. 

Getting  up  in  the  world  is  like  walking  through  a 


mist — your  way  opens  as  you  get  on.  I  should  say, 
that  with  tolerable  good  fortune,  you  might  make  by 
your  pen,  two  hundred  dollars  the  first  year,  and  in- 
crease your  income  a  hundred  dollars  annually,  for  "^ 
five  years.  This,  as  a  literary  "operative."  After 
that  period,  you  would  either  remain"  stationary,  a 
mere  "  workey,"  or  your  genius  would  discover  "by 
the  dip  of  the  divining  rod,"  where,  in  the  well- 
searched  bowels  of  literature,  lay  an  unworked  vein 
of  ore.  In  the  latter  case,  you  would  draw  that  one 
prize  in  a  thousand  blanks  of  which  the  other  com- 
petitors in  the  lottery  of  fame  feel  as  sure  as  yourself. 

As  a  "stock"  or  "starring"  player  upon  the  liter- 
ary stage,  of  course  you  desire  a  crowded  audience, 
and  it  is  worth  your  while,  perhaps,  to  inquire  (more 
curiously  than  is  laid  down  in  most  advices  to  authors) 
what  is  the  number  and  influence  of  the  judicious, 
and  what  nuts  it  is  politic  to  throw  to  the  groundlings. 
Abuse  is,  in  criticism,  what  shade  is  in  a  picture,  dis- 
cord in  harmony,  acid  in  punch,  salt  in  seasoning. 
Unqualified  praise  is  the  death  of  Tarpeia.  and  to  be 
neither  praised  nor  abused  is  more  than  death — it  is 
inanition.  Query — how  to  procure  yourself  to  be 
abused  ?  In  your  chymical  course  next  year,  you  will 
probably  give  a  morning's  attention  to  the  analysis  of 
the  pearl,  among  other  precious  substances,  and  you 
will  be  told  by  the  professor,  that  it  is  the  consequence 
of  an  excess  of  carbonate  of  lime  in  the  flesh  of  the 
oyster — in  other  words,  the  disease  of  the  sub-aque- 
ous animal  who  produces  it.  Now,  to  copy  this  poli- 
tic invalid — to  learn  wisdom  of  an  oyster — find  out 
what  is  the  most  pungent  disease  of  your  style,  and 
hug  it  'till  it  becomes  a  pearl.  A  fault  carefully 
studied  is  the  germ  of  a  peculiarity,  and  a  peculiarity 
is  a  pearl  of  great  price  to  an  author.  The  critics 
begin  very  justly  by  hammering  at  it  as  a  fault,  and 
after  it  is  polished  into  a  peculiarity,  they  still  ham- 
mer at  it  as  a  fault,  and  the  noise  they  make  attracts 
attention  to  the  pearl,  and  up  you  come  from  the  deep 
sea  of  obscurity,  not  the  less  intoxicated  with  the  sun- 
shine, because,  but  for  your  disease,  you  would  never 
have  seen  it. 

With  one  more  very  plain  piece  of  counsel,  I  have 
done.  Never  take  the  note  of  any  man  connected 
with  literature,  if  he  will  cash  it  for  fifty  per  cent. 


Breakfasts  and  the  Quarterly. — Mr.  Lock- 
hart  can  never  do  harm  except  indirectly.  His  asser- 
tions and  his  criticisms  are  taken  with  more  than  the 
"grain  of  salt."  Mr.  Cooper  may  have  a  private 
quarrel  with  him  for  some  of  his  ungentlemanly 
phraseology,  but  for  the  literary  part  of  the  criticism 
on  "  England,"  it  will  stand  in  the  place  of  a  good  ad- 
vertisement to  the  book,  and  there  ends  all  its  good 
and  evil.  In  the  following  passage,  however,  a  blow 
(most  unwise  and  most  injurious)  is  struck  at  one  of 
the  pleasantest  usages  of  English  hospitality  : — 

"  We  suspect  that  Mr.  Cooper  will  not  think  Mr. 
Rogers's  breakfasts  quite  so  admirable,  nor  the  other 
twenty  so  transcendantly  agreeable,  when  he  learns 
that  it  is  by  no  means  usual  to  invite  strangers  to 
breakfast  in  London,  and  that  such  breakfasts  are 
generally  given  when  the  guest  is  one  about  whose 
manners,  character,  or  social  position,  there  is  some 
uncertainty — a  breakfast  is  a  kind  of  mezzo-termine, 
between  a  mere  visit  and  the  more  intimate  hospitality 
of  a  dinner.  It  is,  as  it  were,  a  state  of  probation." — 
Quarterly  Review  for  October. 

As  the  great  organ  of  the  tory  party  in  England, 
the  Quarterly  might  fairly  be  taken  by  a  foreigner  as 
an  authority  upon  a  point  of  English  manners.  The 
consequence  follows,  that  he  can  not  be  invited  to  break- 
fast without  fair  ground  to  presume  it  an  insult.  Shots 
have  been  exchanged  upon  slighter  ground.     At  the 


EPHEMERA. 


789 


best,  a  suspicion  is  thrown  upon  this  mode  of  hospi- 
tality which  deprives  it  entirely  of  its  easy  and  confi- 
dential character;  and  that  it  is  an  injury  to  society 
which  could  only  be  corrected  by  the  publication  of 
a  correct  portrait  of  Mr.  Lockhart.  No  one  after 
seeing  it  would  credit  any  assertion  he  might  make 
upon  a  subject  involving  a  knowledge  of  good-fellow- 
ship. 

The  editor  of  the  Quarterly  looks  his  vocation  bet- 
ter than  any  man  it  has  been  my  fortune  to  see.  In 
his  gait  and  voice  there  is  a  feline  resemblance  which 
is  remarkable.  It  is  impossible  for  a  human  being  to 
be  more  like  a  cat.  To  aid  the  likeness,  he  is  slightly 
parry-toed,  and  when  you  see  him  creeping  along 
Pall  Mall  on  his  way  to  the  club,  you  can  not  avoid 
the  impression  that  he  is  mousing.  In  his  person  he 
is  extremely  thin,  and,  but  for  his  mouth,  Lockhart 
would  look  like  a  gentleman.  In  that  feature  lies  a 
whole  epitome  of  the  man.  The  lips  are  short,  and 
of  barely  the  thickness  of  the  skin,  and  habitually 
drawn  in  close  against  the  teeth.  To  this  feature, 
which  resembles  somewhat  the  mouth  of  a  small 
purse,  all  the  countenance  seems  subordinate.  The 
contraction  pulls  upon  every  muscle  of  his  face,  and 
upon  every  muscle  is  stamped  the  malice  of  which 
his  mouth  is  the  living  and  most  legible  type. 

This  description  of  the  man  is  very  apropos  of  his 
opinions  of  breakfast.  I  presume  he  was  never  asked 
to  an  unceremonious  breakfast  in  his  life.  Would 
any  one  in  his  senses  begin  his  day  by  sitting  down 
opposite  to  such  a  face  for  a  couple  of  hours  ?  Not 
willingly,  I  should  think. 

I  presume  every  Englishman  except  the  editor  of 
the  Quarterly  will  agree  that  to  ask  a  stranger  to 
breakfast  is  much  more  flattering  than  to  invite  him 
to  dinner.  Engagements  to  breakfast,  indeed,  are 
almost  always  made  at  dinner.  The  reply  to  a  letter 
of  introduction  is  usually  a  card  and  an  invitation  to 
dine.  If  your  host  is  pleased  with  you,  nothing  is 
more  common  than  for  him  to  say  at  parting,  "  You 
have  been  so  engrossed  that  I  have  scarce  spoken  to 
you — come  and  breakfast  with  me  to-morrow  at  nine." 
You  accept,  and  you  improve  on  acquaintance  into  a 
friend.  In  a  snug  library,  all  ceremony  put  off,  the 
mind  tranquil  and  sincere,  you  enter  upon  a  different 
class  of  subjects,  more  familiar,  more  confidential. 
The  attention  of  your  host  is  more  undivided,  and 
your  conversation  leads  you  to  make  engagements  for 
the  day,  or  the  evening  ;  and  thus  a  man  with  whom 
you  might  have  discussed  the  corn-laws  or  the  new 
opera,  forty  times,  across  the  glare  of  a  dinner-table, 
and  only  known  at  last  as  a  talker  of  commonplaces, 
becomes  a  pleasant  friend,  perhaps  an  intimate  com- 
panion. 

I  have  not  the  Quarterly  Review  by  me  at  this  mo- 
ment, but,  if  I  do  not  mistake,  the  breakfasts  with  the 
poet  Rogers,  described  by  Mr.  Cooper,  furnish  the 
text  for  Mr.  Lockhart's  "  new  light"  upon  this  sub- 
ject. I  am  happy  to  have  it  in  my  power  to  set  our 
countrymen  right  upon  the  estimation  in  which 
Cooper  is  held  by  that  polished  and  venerable  amphyt- 
rion.  It  was  kindly  and  complimentarily  done  of 
Mr.  Rogers  to  talk  a  great  deal  of  a  compatriot, 
of  whose  talents  he  justly  supposed  every  American 
should  be  proud.  I  was  enjoying  (according  to 
Mr.  Lockhart)  the  equivocal  honor  of  breakfast- 
ing with  him — an  honor  which,  questionable  or  not, 
I  shared  with  one  of  the  most  distinguished  for- 
eigners then  in  England.  This  latter  gentleman  pro- 
fessed the  highest  enthusiasm  for  the  works  of  Cooper, 
and  took  pains  to  draw  out  the  venerable  poet  on  the 
subject  of  his  personal  manners,  conversation,  &c.  A 
handsomer  eulogium  of  an  absent  author  I  never 
heard.  Mr.  Rogers  admired  the  bold  independence 
of  his  cast  of  mind,  and  spoke  in  the  highest  terms  of 


him  as  a  gentleman  and  a  friend.  I  can  not,  if  it 
were  proper,  quote  the  exact  words  he  used  ;  but, 
subtract  from  this  praise  all  you  please  to  fancy  might 
have  been  said  in  kindness  or  compliment  to  a  com- 
patriot, there  was  still  enough  left  to  gratify  the  self- 
love  of  the  most  exacting. 

If  Mr.  Lockhart  had  ever  been  similarly  honored, 
he  would  have  excused  Mr.  Cooper  for  dwelling  com- 
placently on  the  "  breakfasts  in  St.  James's  Place." 
Rogers  has  lived  in  the  very  core  of  all  that  is  pre- 
cious or  memorable  of  two  ages  of  English  wit,  liter- 
ature, and  politics,  himself  oftenest  the  bright  centre 
around  which  it  gathered.  His  manners  are  amenity 
itself,  his  wit  is  celebrated,  his  powers  of  narration 
delightful.  With  all  this  he  seems  to  forget  his  own 
fame  and  himself,  and  never  to  have  known  envy  or 
ill-will.  As  he  sits  at  that  small  breakfast-table,  his 
head  silvery  white,  the  bland  smile  of  intellectual  en- 
joyment upon  his  lips,  talking  or  listening  with  equal 
pleasure,  and  with  the  greatest  tact  and  delicacy,  al- 
ternately drawing  out  the  resources  of  his  guests,  and 
exhibiting  modestly  his  own,  he  is  a  picture  of  tran- 
quil, dignified,  and  green  old  age,  which  it  were  a  pity 
to  have  travelled  far  and  not  seen.  I  felicitate  Mr. 
Cooper  on  the  possession  of  his  esteem  and  friend- 
ship. I  please  myself  with  remembering  that  I  have 
seen  him.  I  pity  Mr.  Lockhart  that  the  class  of  en- 
tertainments of  which  this  is  one,  is  reserved  for  those 
whose  faces  will  not  "spoil  the  cream." 

Between  butchering  for  Fraser  and  dissecting  for 
the  Quarterly,  Mr.  Lockhart  may  have  derived  a  suf- 
ficient revenue  to  "  give  dinners  ;"  but  he  forgets  that 
more  amiable  literature  is  not  so  saleable,  and  that  his 
brother  authors  are  compelled  to  entertain  strangers  at 
breakfast.  Taboo  that  meal,  and,  good  heavens ! 
what  becomes  of  the  "  great  army  of  writers"  in  Lon- 
don, who,  over  "  tea  and  toast,"  in  their  quiet  lodg- 
ings, give  the  admiring  pilgrim  of  literature  a  feast  of 
reason — one  alone  worth  all  the  dinners  of  May  fair  ? 

What  becomes  of  younger  sons,  and  callow  orators, 
and  lawyers  in  the  temple,  who,  over  red  herrings  and 
coffee,  let  the  amused  guest  into  the  secrets  of  their 
menus-plaisirs,  and  trenching  a  half-crown,  at  the 
most,  upon  their  slender  pockets,  send  him  away  de- 
lighted with  their  gay  hospitality.  Breakfasts!  What 
would  you  know  of  authors  and  artists  without 
breakfasts  ?  You  see  but  half  the  man  in  his  works. 
Would  you  rather  breakfast  with  Chantrey  in  his  stu- 
dio, and  hear  him  criticise  his  own  marble,  or  dine 
with  him  at  Lord  Lansdowne's,  and  listen  to  his  bavar- 
dagc  upon  fly-fishing?  Would  you  rather  see  gentle 
Barry  Cornwall,  smothered  and  silent,  among  wits  and 
lordlings  at  "  miladi's,"  or  breakfast  with  him  in  his 
crammed  library  in  St.  John's  Wood,  and  hear  him 
read  one  of  his  unpublished  songs,  with  the  tears  in 
his  eyes,  and  the  children  at  his  knee,  breathless  with 
listening  ?  Would  you  rather  meet  Moore,  over  a 
cup  of  tea,  in  the  shop-parlor  at  Longman's,  in  Pat- 
ernoster row,  or  see  him  at  one  of  the  show-dinners 
of  this  publishing  Mecenas,  at  his  villa  in  Hamp- 
stead  ?  Out  upon  the  malicious  hand  that  would  sow 
distrust  and  suspicion  in  these  delightful  by-paths  of 
hospitality  ! 

An  author  is  always  a  double  existence,  and  it  is 
astonishing  how  different  may  be  the  intellectual  man 
from  his  everyday  representative.  Lockhart,  the  au- 
thor of  Valerius,  Adam  Blair,  and  the  Life  of  Sir 
Walter  Scott,  is  a  splendid  and  delightful  intellect- 
no  one  can  deny  it.  Mr.  Lockhart,  the  gentleman 
who  looks  as  if  he  had  a  perpetual  inclination  to 
whistle,  and  who  does  the  bourreau  for  the  Quarterly, 
is  an  individual  I  should  rather  meet  anywhere  than— 
at  breakfast.  Heaven  send  him  a  relaxation  of  his 
facial  muscles,  and  a  little  charity  tc  leave  the  world 
with. 


790 


EPHEMERA. 


A  Spring  Day  in  Winter. — A  spring  day  some- 
times bursts  upon  us  in  December.  One  scarcely 
knows  whether  the  constant  warmth  of  the  fire,  or  the 
fresh  sunny  breathings  from  the  open  window,  are  the 
most  welcome.  At  such  a  time,  the  curtains  swing 
lazily  to  the  mild  wind  as  it  enters,  and  the  light  green 
leaves  of  the  sheltered  flowers  stir  and  erect  them- 
selves with  an  out-of-door  vigor,  and  the  shuffled  steps 
and  continued  voices  of  the  children  in  the  street, 
have  the  loitering  and  summer-like  sound  of  June.  I 
do  not  know  whether  it  is  not  a  cockney  feeling,  but 
with  all  my  love  for  the  country,  fixed  as  it  is  by  the 
recollections  of  a  life  mostly  spent  in  the  "green 
fields"  I  sometimes  "babble  of,"  there  is  something  in 
a  summer  morning  in  the  city,  which  the  wet,  warm 
woods,  and  the  solitary,  though  lonely  haunts  of  the 
country  do  not,  after  all  the  poetry  that  has  been 
"spilt  upon  them"  (as  Neal  would  say),  at  all  equal. 
Whether  it  is  that  we  find  so  much  sympathy  in  the 
many  faces  that  we  meet,  made  happy  by  the  same 
sweet  influences,  or  whatever  else  may  be  the  reason, 
certes,  I  never  take  my  morning  walk  on  such  a  day, 
without  a  leaping  in  my  heart,  which,  from  all  I  can 
gather  by  dream  or  revelation,  has  a  touch  in  it  of 
Paradise.  I  returned  once,  on  such  a  day,  from  an 
hour's  ramble  after  breakfast.  The  air  rushed  past 
my  temples  with  the  grateful  softness  of  spring,  and 
every  face  that  passed  had  the  open,  inhaling  expres- 
sion which  is  given  by  the  simple  joy  of  existence. 
The  sky  had  the  deep  clearness  of  noon.  The  clouds 
were  winnowed  in  light  parallel  curves,  looking  like 
white  shells  inlaid  on  the  arched  heavens  ;  the  smooth, 
glassy  bay  was  like  a  transparent  abyss  opening  to  the 
earth's  centre,  and  edging  away  underneath,  with  a 
slope  of  hills,  and  spires,  and  leafless  woods,  copied 
minutely  and  perfectly  from  the  upper  landscape,  and 
the  naked  elms  seemed  almost  clothed  as  the  teeming 
eye  looked  on  them,  and  the  brown  hills  took  a  teint 
of  green — so  freshly  did  the  summer  fancies  crowd 
into  the  brain  with  the  summer  softness  of  the  sun- 
shine and  air.  The  mood  is  rare  in  which  the  sight 
of  human  faces  does  not  give  us  pleasure.  It  is  a 
curious  occupation  to  look  on  them  as  they  pass, 
and  study  their  look  and  meaning,  and  wonder  at  the 
providence  of  God,  which  can  provide,  in  this  crowded 
world,  an  object  and  an  interest  for  all.  With  what 
a  singular  harmony  the  great  machine  of  society  goes 
on !  So  many  thousand  minds,  and  each  with  its 
peculiar  cast  and  its  positive  difference  from  its  fellow, 
and  yet  no  dangerous  interference,  and  no  discord 
audible  above  the  hum  of  its  daily  revolution.  I 
could  not  help  feeling  a  religious  thrill,  as  I  passed 
face  after  face,  with  this  thought  in  my  mind,  and  saw 
each  one  earnest  and  cheerful,  each  one  pressing  on 
with  its  own  object,  without  waiting  or  caring  for  the 
equally  engrossing  object  of  the  other.  The  man  of 
business  went  on  with  an  absorbed  look,  caring  only 
to  thread  his  way  rapidly  along  the  street.  The  stu- 
dent strided  by  with  the  step  of  exercise,  his  lips 
parted  to  admit  the  pleasant  air  to  his  refreshed  lungs, 
and  his  eye  wandering  with  bewildered  pleasure  from 
object  to  object.  The  schoolboy  looked  wistfully  up 
and  down  the  street,  and  lingered  till  the  last  stroke 
of  the  bell  summoned  him  tardily  in.  The  woman- 
ish school-girl,  with  her  veil  coquettishly  drawn,  still 
flirted  with  her  boyish  admirer,  though  it  was  "  after 
nine,"  and  the  child,  with  its  soiled  satchel  and  shining 
face,  loitered  seriously  along  the  sidewalk,  making 
acquaintance  with  every  dog,  and  picking  up  every 
stone  on  its  unwilling  way.  The  spell  of  the  atmo- 
sphere was  universal,  and  yet  all  kept  on  their  several 
courses,  and  the  busy  harmony  of  employment  went 
steadily  and  unl  rokenly  on.  How  rarely  we  turn 
upon  ourselves,  and  remember  how  wonderfully  we 
are  made  and  governed! 


Evanescent  Impressions. — I  have  very  often,  in 
the  fine  passages  of  society — such  as  occur  some- 
times in  the  end  of  an  evening,  or  when  a  dinner- 
party has  dwindled  to  an  unbroken  circle  of  choice 
and  congenial  spirits,  or  at  any  of  those  times  when 
conversation,  stripped  of  all  reserve  or  check,  is 
poured  out  in  the  glowing  and  unfettered  enthusiasm 
to  which  convivial  excitement  alone  gives  the  confi- 
dence necessary  to  its  flow— I  have  often  wished,  at 
such  times,  that  the  voice  and  manner  of  the  chance 
and  fleeting  eloquence  about  us  could  be  arrested  and 
written  down  for  others  beside  ourselves  to  see  and 
admire.  In  a  chance  conversation  at  a  party,  in  the 
bagatelle  rattle  of  a  dance,  in  a  gay  hour  over  coffee 
and  sandwiches  en  famille,  wherever  you  meet  those 
whom  you  love  or  value,  there  will  occur  pieces  of 
dialogue,  jeux  d'esprit,  passages  of  feeling  or  fun — 
trifles,  it  is  true,  but  still  such  trifles  as  make  eras  in 
the  calendar  of  happiness — which  you  would  give  the 
world  to  rescue  from  their  ephemeral  destiny.  They 
are,  perhaps,  the  soundings  of  a  spirit  too  deep  for 
ordinary  life  to  fathom,  or  the  gracefulness  of  a  fancy 
linked  with  too  feminine  a  nature  to  bear  the  eye  of 
the  world,  or  the  melting  of  a  frost  of  reserve  from 
the  diffident  genius— they  are  traces  of  that  which  is 
fleeting,  or  struck  out  like  phosphorus  from  the  sea 
by  it  regular  chance — and  you  want  something  quicker 
and  rarer  than  formal  description  to  arrest  it  warm 
and  natural,  and  detain  it  in  its  place  till  it  can  be 
looked  upon. 

The  First  Feeling  of  Winter. — How  delight- 
fully the  first ,feeling  of  winter  comes  on  the  mind! 
What  a  throng  of  tranquillizing  and  affectionate 
thoughts  accompany  its  first  bright  fires,  and  the 
sound,  out  of  doors,  of  its  first  chilling  winds.  Oh, 
when  the  leaves  are  driven  in  troops  through  the 
streets,  at  nightfall,  and  the  figures  of  the  passers-by 
hurry  on,  cloaked  and  stooping  with  the  cold,  is  there 
a  pleasanter  feeling  in  the  world  than  to  enter  the 
closed  and  carpeted  room,  with  its  shaded  lamps,  and 
its  genial  warmth,  and  its  cheerful  faces  about  the 
evening  table  !  I  hope  that  I  speak  your  own  senti- 
ment, dear  reader,  when  I  prefer  to  every  place  and 
time,  in  the  whole  calendar  of  pleasure,  a  winter 
evening  at  home — the  "sweet,  sweet  home"  of  child- 
hood, with  its  unreserved  love  and  its  unchanged  and 
unmeasured  endearments.  We  need  not  love  gayety 
the  less.  The  light  and  music  and  beauty  of  the 
dance  will  always  breed  a  floating  delight  in  the  brain 
that  has  not  grown  dull  to  life's  finer  influences  ;  yet 
the  pleasures  of  home,  though  serener  are  deeper, 
and  I  am  sure  that  the  world  may  be  searched  over  in 
vain  for  a  sense  of  joy  so  even  and  unmingled.  It  is 
a  beautiful  trait  of  Providence  that  the  balance  is 
kept  so  truly  between  our  many  and  different  bles- 
sings. It  were  a  melancholy  thing  to  see  the  sum- 
mer depart  with  its  superb  beauty,  if  the  heart  did  not 
freshen  as  it  turned  in  from  its  decay  to  brood  upon 
its  own  treasures.  The  affections  wander  under  the 
enticement  of  all  the  outward  loveliness  of  nature, 
and  it  is  necessary  to  unwind  the  spell,  that  their  rich 
kindness  may  not  become  scattered  and  visionary.  1 
have  a  passion  for  these  simple  theories,  which  I  trust 
will  be  forgiven.  I  indulge  in  them  as  people  pun. 
They  are  too  shadowy  for  logic,  it  is  true — like  the 
wings  of  the  glendoveer,  in.  Kehama,  gauze-like  and 
filmy,  but  flying  high  withal.  You  may  not  grow 
learned,  but  you  surely  will  grow  poetical  upon  them. 
I  would  as  lief  be  praised  by  a  blockhead  as  be  asked 
the  reason. 


The  Poet  Shelley. — Shelley  has  a  private  nook 
in  my  affections.     He  is  so  unlike  all  other  poets  that 


EPHEMERA. 


791 


I  can  not  mate  him.  He  is  like  his  own  "  skylark" 
among  birds.  He  does  not  keep  ever  up  in  the  thin 
air  with  Byron,  like  the  eagle,  nor  sing  with  Keats 
low  and  sweetly  like  the  thrush,  nor,  like  the  dove 
sitting  always  upon  her  nest,  brood  with  Wordsworth 
over  the  affections.  He  begins  to  sing  when  the 
morning  wakes  him,  and  as  he  grows  wild  with  his 
own  song,  he  mounts  upward, 

"  And  singing  ever  soars,  and  soaring  ever  singeth  ;" 

and  it  is  wonderful  how  he  loses  himself,  like  the 
delirious  bird  in  the  sky,  and  with  a  verse  which  may 
be  well  compared  for  its  fine  delicacy  with  her  little 
wings,  penetrates  its  far  depths  fearlessly  and  full  of 
joy.  There  is  something  very  new  in  this  mingled 
trait  of  fineness  and  sublimity.  Milton  and  Byron 
seem  made  for  the  sky.  Their  broad  wings  always 
strike  the  air  with  the  same  solemn  majesty.  But 
Shelley,  near  the  ground,  is  a  very  "  bird  in  a  bower,'' 
running  through  his  merry  compass  as  if  he  never 
dreamed  of  the  upward  and  invisible  heavens.  Withal, 
Shelley's  genius  is  too  fiery  to  be  moody.  He  was  a 
melancholy  man,  but  it  was  because  he  was  crossed 
in  the  daily  walk  of  life,  and  such  anxieties  did  not 
touch  his  imagination.  It  was  above — far,  far  above 
them.  His  poetry  was  not,  like  that  of  other  poets, 
linked  with  his  common  interests;  and  if  it  "un- 
bound (he  serpent  of  care  from  his  heart,"  as  doubt- 
less it  did,  it  was  by  making  him  forget  that  it  was 
there.  He  conceived  and  wrote  in  a  wizard  circle. 
The  illiberal  world  was  the  last  thing  remembered, 
and  its  annoying  prejudices,  gall  him  as  they  might  in 
the  exercise  of  his  social  duties,  never  followed  over 
the  fiery  limit  of  his  fancy.  Never  have  we  seen 
such  pure  abstraction  from  earlhliness  as  in  the  tem- 
per of  his  poetry.  It  is  the  clear,  intellectual  lymph, 
unalloyed  and  unpolluted.     , 


An  Author's  Judgment  of  his  own  Works. — 
It  is  a  false  notion  that  the  writer  is  no  judge  of  his 
own  book.  Verses  in  manuscript  and  verses  in  print, 
in  the  first  place,  are  very  different  things,  and  the 
mood  of  writing  and  the  mood  of  reading  what  one 
lias  written,  are  very  different  moods.  We  do  not 
know  how  it  is  with  others,  but  we  open  our  own 
volume  with  the  same  impression  of  strangeness  and 
novelty  that  we  do  another's.  The  faults  strike  us  at 
once,  and  so  do  the  beauties,  if  there  are  any,  and  we 
read  coolly  in  a  new  garb,  the  same  things  which 
upon  paper  recalled  the  fever  of  composition,  and 
rendered  us  incapable  of  judgment.  As  far  as  I  can 
discover  by  others'  experience  and  my  own,  no  writer 
understands  the  phenomena  of  composition.  It  is 
impossible  to  realize,  in  reading,  that  which  is  to  him 
impassioned,  the  state  of  feeling  which  produced  it. 
His  own  mind  is  to  himself  a  mystery  and  a  wonder. 
The  thought  stands  before  him,  visible  to  his  outward 
eye,  which  he  does  not  remember  has  ever  haunted 
him.  The  illustration  from  nature  is  often  one  which 
he  does  not  remember  to  have  noticed — the  trait  of 
character,  or  the  peculiar  pencilling  of  a  line  in  beauty 
altogether  new  and  startling.  He  is  affected  to  tears 
or  mirth,  his  taste  is  gratified  or  shocked,  his  fancy 
amused  or  his  cares  beguiled,  as  if  he  had  never  be- 
fore seen  it.  It  is  his  own  mind,  but  he  does  not  rec- 
ognise it.  He  is  like  the  peasant-child  taken  and 
dressed  richly  ;  he  does  not  know  himself  in  his  new 
adornments.  There  is  a  wonderful  metamorphosis  in 
print.  The  author  has  written  under  strong  excite- 
ment, and  with  a  development  and  reach  of  his  own 
powers  which  would  amuse  him  were  he  conscious 
of  the  process.  There  are  dim  and  far  chambers  in 
the  mind  which  are  never  explored  by  reason.  Ima- 
gination  in   her  rapt   phrensy  wanders  blindly  there 


sometimes,  and  brings  out  their  treasures  to  the  light 
— ignorant  of  their  value,  and  almost  believing  that 
the  dreams  when  they  glitter  are  admired.  There 
are  phantoms  which  haunt  the  perpetual  twilight  of 
the  inner  mind,  which  are  arrested  only  by  the  daring 
hand  of  an  overwrought  fancy,  and  like  a  need  done 
in  a  dream,  the  difficult  steps  are  afterward  but  faintly 
remembered.  It  is  wonderful  how  the  mind  accumu- 
lates by  unconscious  observation — how  the  teint  of  a 
cloud,  or  the  expression  of  an  eye,  or  the  betrayal  of 
character  by  a  word,  will  lie  for  years  forgotten  in  the 
memory  till  it  is  brought  out  by  some  searching 
thought  to  its  owner's  wonder. 


Frost. — It  is  winter — veritable  winter — with  bona^ 
fide  frost,  and  cramping  cold,  and  a  sun  as  clear  and 
powerless  as  moonlight.  The  windows  glitter  with 
the  most  fantastic  frost-work.  Cities,  with  their 
spires  and  turrets,  ranks  of  spears,  files  of  horsemen 
— every  gorgeous  and  brilliant  array  told  of  in  ro- 
mance or  song,  start  out  of  that  mass  of  silvery  trace- 
ry, like  the  processions  of  a  magic  mirror.  What  a 
miraculous  beauty  there  is  in  frost !  What  fine  work 
in  its  radiant  crystals  !  What  mystery  in  its  exact 
proportions  and  its  maniform  varieties !  The  feathery 
snow-flake,  the  delicate  rime,  the  transparent  and 
sheeted  ice,  the  magnificent  ice-berg  moving  down 
the  sea  like  a  mountain  of  light — how  beautiful  are 
they  all,  and  how  wonderful  is  it,  that,  break  and 
scatter  them  as  you  will,  you  find  under  every  form 
the  same  faultless  angles,  the  same  crystalline  and 
sparkling  radiation.  It  sometimes  grows  suddenly 
cold  at  noon.  There  has  been  a  heavy  rnist  all  the 
morning,  and  as  the  north  wind  comes  sharply  in,  the 
air  clears  and  leaves  it  frozen  upon  everything,  with 
the  thinness  of  palpable  air.  The  trees  are  clothed 
with  a  fine  white  vapor,  as  if  a  cloud  had  been  arrested 
and  fixed  motionless  in  the  branches.  They  look,  in 
the  twilight,  like  gigantic  spirits,  standing  in  broad 
ranks,  and  clothed  in  drapery  of  supernatural  white- 
ness and  texture.  On  close  examination,  the  crystals 
are  as  fine  as  needles,  and  standing  in  perfect  parallel- 
ism, pointing  in  the  direction  of  the  wind.  They  are 
like  fringes  of  the  most  minute  threads,  edging  every 
twig  and  filament  of  the  tree,  so  that  the  branches  are 
thickened  by  them,  and  have  a  shadowy  and  mysteri- 
ous look,  as  if  a  spirit  foliage  had  started  out  from  the 
naked  limbs.  It  is  not  so  brilliant  as  the  common 
rime  seen  upon  the  trees  after  a  frozen  rain,  but  it  is 
infinitely  more  delicate  and  spiritual,  and  to  me  seems 
a  phenomenon  of  exquisite  novelty  and  beauty. 


The  Closing  Year. — It  is  a  melancholy  task  to 
reckon  with  the  departed  year.  To  trace  back  the 
curious  threads  of  affection  through  its  many-colored 
woof,  and  knot  anew  its  broken  places — to  number 
the  missing  objects  of  interest,  the  dead  and  the  neg- 
lected— to  sum  up  the  broken  resolutions,  the  defer- 
red hopes,  the  dissolved  phantoms  of  anticipation,  and 
the  many  wanderings  from  the  leading  star  of  duty 
—this  is  indeed  a  melancholy  task,  but,  withal,  a 
profitable,  and,  it  may  sometimes  be,  a  pleasant  and  a 
soothing  one.  It  is  wonderful  in  what  short  courses 
the  objects  of  this  world  move.  They  are  like  arrows 
feebly  shot.  A  year— a  brief  year,  is  full  of  things 
dwindled  and  finished  and  forgotten.  Nothipg  keeps 
evenly  on.  What  is  there  in  the  running  calendar 
of  the  year  that  has  departed,  which  has  kept  its  place 
and  its  magnitude  ?  Here  and  there  an  aspirant  for 
fame  still  stretches  after  his  eluding  shadow — here  and 
there  an  enthusiast  still  clings  to  his  golden  dream- 
here  and  there  (and  alas  !  how  rarely)  a  friend  keeps 


792 


EPHEMERA. 


his  truth,  and  a  lover  his  fervor — but  how  many  more, 
that  were  as  ambitious,  as  enthusiastic,  as  loving  as 
these,  when  this  year  began,  are  now  sluggish,  and 
cold,  and  false  ?  You  may  keep  a  record  of  life,  and 
as  surely  as  it  is  human,  it  will  be  a  fragmented  and 
disjointed  history,  crowded  with  unaccountableness 
and  change.  There  is  nothing  constant.  The  links 
of  life  are  for  ever  breaking,  but  we  rush  on  still.  A 
fellow-traveller  drops  from  our  side  into  the  grave — a 
guiding  star  of  hope  vanishes  from  the  sky — a  creature 
of  our  affections,  a  child  or  an  idol,  is  snatched  from 
us — perhaps  nothing  with  which  we  began  the  race  is 
left  to  us,  and  yet  we  do  not  halt.  "  Onward — still 
onward"  is  the  eternal  cry,  and  as  the  past  recedes, 
the  broken  ties  are  forgotten,  and  the  present  and  future 
occupy  us  alone. 

There  are  bright  chapters  in  the  past,  however.  If 
our  lot  is  capricious  and  broken,  it  is  also  new  and 
various.  One  friend  has  grown  cool,  but  we  have 
won  another.  One  chance  was  less  fortunate  than 
we  expected,  but  another  was  better.  We  have  en- 
countered one  man's  prejudices,  but,  in  so  doing,  we 
have  unexpectedly  flattered  the  partialities  of  his 
neighbor.  We  have  neglected  a  recorded  duty,  but  a 
deed  of  charity  done  upon  impulse,  has  brought  up 
the  balance.  In  an  equable  temper  of  mind,  memory, 
to  a  man  of  ordinary  goodness  of  heart,  is  pleasant 
company.  A  careless  rhymer,  whose  heart  is  better 
than  his  head,  says  • — 

"  I  would  not  escape  from  memory's  land, 

For  all  the  eye  can  view  ; 
For  there's  dearer  dust  in  memory's  land, 

Than  the  ore  of  rich  Peru. 
I  clasp  the  fetter  by  memory  twined, 
The  wanderer's  heart  and  soul  to  bind." 

It  was  a  good  thought  suggested  by  an  ingenious 
friend  of  mine,  to  make  one's  will  annually,  and  re- 
member all  whom  we  love  in  it  in  the  degree  of  their 
deservings.  I  have  acted  upon  the  hint  since,  and 
truly  it  is  keeping  a  calendar  of  one's  life.  I  have 
little  to  bequeath,  indeed — a  manuscript  or  two,  some* 
half  dozen  pictures,  and  a  score  or  two  of  much- 
thumbed  and  choice  authors — but,  slight  as  these 
poor  mementoes  are,  it  is  pleasant  to  rate  their  differ- 
ence, and  write  against  them  the  names  of  our  friends, 
as  we  should  wish  them  left  if  we  knew  we  were  pres- 
ently to  die.  It  would  be  a  satisfying  thought  in  sick- 
ness, that  one's  friends  would  have  a  memorial  to 
suggest  us  when  we  were  gone — that  they  would 
know  we  wished  to  be  remembered  by  them,  and  re- 
membered them  among  the  first.  And  it  is  pleasant, 
too,  while  alive,  to  change  the  order  of  appropriation 
with  the  ever-varying  evidences  of  affection.  It  is  a 
relief  to  vexation  and  mortified  pride  to  erase  the 
name  of  one  unworthy  or  false,  and  it  is  delightful, 
as  another  gets  nearer  to  your  heart,  with  the  gradual 
and  sure  test  of  intimacy,  to  prefer  him  in  your  secret 
register. 

If  I  should  live  to  be  old,  I  doubt  not  it  will  be  a 
pleasant  thing  to  look  over  these  little  testaments. 
It  is  difficult,  now,  with  their  kind  offices  and  pleasant 
faces  ever  about  one,  to  realize  the  changes  of  feeling 
between  the  first  and  the  last — more  difficult  still  to 
imagine,  against  any  of  those  familiar  names,  the 
significant  asterisk  which  marks  the  dead — yet  if  the 
common  chances  of  human  truth,  and  the  still  more 
desperate  changes  of  human  life,  continue — it  is 
melancholy  to  think  what  a  miracle  it  would  be  if 
even  half  this  list,  brief  and  youthful  as  it  is,  should 
be,  twenty  years  hence,  living  and  unchanged. 

The  festivities  of  this  part  of  the  year  always  seem- 
ed to  me  mistimed  and  revolting.  I  know  not  what 
color  the  reflections  of  others  take,  but  to  me  it  is 
simply  the  feeling  of  escape — the  released  breath  of 
fear  after  a  period  of  suspense  and  danger.  Accident, 
misery,  death,  have  been  about  us  in  their  invisible 


shapes,  and  while  one   is   tortured   with   pain,   and 
another  reduced  to  wretchedness,  and  another  struck 
into  the  grave  beside  us,  we  know  not  why  orhow,  we  are 
still  living  and  prosperous.     It  is  next  to  a  miracle  that 
we  are  so.     We  have  been  on  the  edge  of  chasms  con- 
tinually.    Our  feet  have  tottered,  our  bosoms  have 
been  grazed  by  the  thick  shafts  of  disease — had  our 
eyes  been  spirit-keen  we  should  have  been  dumb  with 
fear  at  our   peril.     If  every  tenth  sunbeam  were  a 
deadly  arrow — if  the  earth  were  full  of  invisible  abysses 
— if  poisons  were  sown  thickly  in  the  air,  life  would 
hardly  be  more  insecure.     We  can  stand  upon  our 
threshold  and  see  it.     The  vigorous  are  stricken  down 
by  an  invisible  hand — the  active   and   busy  suddenly 
j  disappear — death  is  caught  in  the  breath  of  the  night 
j  wind,  in  the  dropping  of  the  dew.     There  is  no  place 
I  or  moment  in  which  that  horrible   phantom   is  not 
|  gliding  among  us.     It  is  natural  at  each  period  of 
|  escape  to  rejoice  fervently  and  from  the  heart ;  but  I 
know  not,   if  others  look  upon  death  with  the  same 
irrepressible  horror  that  I  do,  how  their  joy  can  be  so 
I  thoughtlessly  trifling.     It  seems  to    me,   matter  for 
i  deep,  and  almost  fearful   congratulation.     It  should 
be  expressed  in  religious  places  and  with  the  solemn 
I  voice  of  worship  ;  and  when  the  period  has  thus  been 
j  marked,  it  should  be  speedily  forgotten  lest  its  cloud 
I  become   depressing.      I   am  an  advocate  for  all  the 
I  gayety  that  the  spirits  will  bear.     I  would  reserve  no 
!  particle  of  the  treasure  of  happiness.     The  world  is 
|  dull  enough   at   the  best.     But  do   not   mistake   its 
!  temper.     Do  not  press  into  the  service  of  gay  pleasure 
j  the  thrilling  solemnities  of  life.     I   think   anything 
which  reminds  me  of  death,  solemn  ;  any  time,  when 
j  our  escape  from  it  is  thrust  irresistibly  upon  the  mind, 
I  a  solemn  time;  and  such  is  the  season   of  the  new 
year.     It  should   be  occupied   by  serious  thoughts. 
I  It  is  the  time  to  reckon  with  one's  heart — to  renew 
and  form  resolutions — to  forgive  and  reconcile  and 
redeem. 


Midnight. — The  bell  struck  as  the  word  was  writ- 
ten !  Twelve — and  how  many-toned  in  the  human 
ear  are  the  measured  strokes  that  have  proclaimed  it. 
The  well  and  contemplative,  the  sick  and  restless,  the 
reveller  hailing  it  as  the  empress  of  the  hours,  and  the 
patient  and  solemn  watcher  by  the  dead,  counting  it 
on  his  vigil,  and  shuddering  at  the  dreadful  silence  it 
makes  audible — sleepless  ambition  starting  from  its 
waking  dream,  and  sleeping  guilt  blessedly  aroused 
from  its  nightmare  of  detection — with  what  a  different 
voice  and  meaning  do  the  tremulous  and  lengthened 
cadences  of  that  same  bell  fall  upon  the  different  ears 
that  listen  to  them  !  Yet  it  is  so  with  everything 
about  us — and  the  boldest  and  best  lesson  of  philoso- 
phy is  that  which  teaches  us  that  outward  circum- 
stances have  no  color  of  their  own — that  the  universe 
is  within  us — that  the  eye  sees  no  light  or  shadow, 
and  the  ear  hears  no  music  or  jar,  and  the  senses  re- 
ceive no  impression  of  pain  or  pleasure,  but  as  the 
inward  eye  is  light  or  shaded,  the  inward  ear  attuned 
or  discordant,  and  the  inward  sense  painful  or  pleas- 
urable. It  is  a  glorious  creed — for  by  it,  he  who 
governs  his  own  soul  holds  the  key  of  the  universe. 
Its  colors  are  put  on  at  his  bidding,  its  music  wakes 
at  his  desire,  and  its  magnificent  changes,  arbitrary 
and  omnipotent  as  they  seem,  take  form  and  pressure 
from  the  small,  still  thought  in  his  bosom  !  Yet  how 
difficult  it  is!  How  true,  that  "he  who  ruleth  his 
own  spirit  is  greater  than  he  that  taketh  a  city." 
To  put  down  at  will  the  maniform  spectres  of 
thought — to  suppress  fear  and  discouragement,  and 
sadness  that  comes  up  uncalled — to  lay  a  finger  on 
the  lip  of  complaint,  and  seal  up  a  tear  in  its  cell,  and 
press  down,  with  a  stern  fetter,  the  ungovernable 
nerve  of  unrest — to  "  lay  commandment"  on  a  throb- 


EPHEMERA. 


793 


bing  pulse,  and  break  the  wings  of  a  too  earnest  ima- 
gination, and  smother,  in  their  first  rising,  the  thou- 
sand impatient  feelings  that  come  out  of  time  and 
season — this  it  is  that  the  anchorite  in  his  cell,  and 
the  master  spirit  in  his  career,  and  the  student,  wast- 
ing over  his  lamp,  may  pray,  and  wrestle,  and  search 
into  many  mysteries  for — in  vain  ! 

In  my  days  of  idleness  (a  habit,  by-the-by,  which 
should  be  put  down  as  a  nervous  complaint  in  the 
books)  I  occupied,  for  some  nine  hours  in  the  day,  a 
window  opposite  a  city-clock.  It  was  a  tolerable 
amusement,  between  breakfast  and  recitation,  to  watch 
the  passing  of  the  hours,  "  hand  over  hand."  1  thought  j 
then,  as  I  think  now,  that  the  great  deficiency  in  the  con-  i 
struction  of  the  human  mind,  is  the  want  of  something 
on  the  principle  of  the  stop-watch,  to  suspend  its  ope- 
rations at  will — but  it  is  no  slight  relief,  since  I  must 
think,  to  have  a  dial-plate,  or  a  nail  in  the  wall,  or  any 
object  that  it  is  no  trouble  to  see,  to  serve  as  a  nu- 
cleus to  thou«ht.  By-and-by,  with  the  force  of  hab- 
it, the  dial  became  necessary.  I  could  not  think 
tranquilly  without  it.  My  pulses  beat  sixty  in  the 
minute.  My  imagination  built  by  the  hour — nine — 
ten — twelve  castles  a  day,  as  the  lectures  interfered 
more  or  less  with  my  repose. 

In  the  course  of  time,  I  fell  into  the  habit  of  mu- 
sing on  the  circumstances  dependant  on  the  arrival  of 
the  hours,  and  as  my  mood  happened  to  be  gay  or 
gloomy,  I  pondered,  with  the  strong  sympathy  of  un- 
occupied feelings,  on  the  happiness  or  misery  they 
brought.  If  it  was  a  bright  sunny  forenoon  in  May, 
and  the  eggs  had  been  well  boiled  at  breakfast,  the 
striking  of  the  clock — say  twelve — stirred  a  thousand 
images  of  pleasure.  The  boys  just  leaping  out  of 
school,  the  laborer  released  from  his  toil,  the  belle 
stepping  forth  for  a  promenade,  the  patient  in  the  in- 
terval of  his  fever — all  came  up  in  my  imagination, 
and  their  several  feelings,  with  all  the  heightening  of 
imagination,  became  my  own.  If  the  weather  was 
hot,  on  the  contrary,  or  the  professor  had  bored  me 
at  lecture,  or  if  my  claret  was  pricked  at  dinner,  I 
Buffered  the  miseries  of  an  hospital.  There  goes  the 
clock — say  four!  Some  poor  fellow  now,  at  this  very 
moment,  is  baring  his  limb  to  the  surgeon — the  after- 
noon is  at  the  hottest,  and  the  sick  are  getting  restless 
and  weary — some  hectic  consumptive,  fallen,  per- 
haps, into  a  chance  sleep,  is  waked,  by  the  trouble- 
Bome  punctuality  of  his  nurse,  to  take  his  potion — it 
is  the  hour  the  dying  man  is  told  he  can  not  survive. 
Every  misery  imaginable  under  the  sun  rose  in  phan- 
toms around  me,  and  I  suffered  and  groaned  under 
the  concentrated  horrors  of  them  all.  It  serves  to 
show  how  the  mind  is  its  own  slave  or  its  own  master. 
And  so,  having  arrived  at  the  moral,  with  your  leave, 
dear  reader,  for  it  is  "  past  one,"  I  will  to  bed.  Good 
night! 


S.vow.  —  The  black,  unsightly  pavement,  every 
stone  of  which  you  know  with  as  cursed  a  particular- 
ity as  the  chinks  in  the  back  of  your  fireplace,  cov- 
ered with  white.  The  heavy-wheeled  carts,  which 
the  day  before  shook  the  ground  under  you,  and  split 
your  ears  with  their  merciless  noise,  replaced  by  sleds 
with  musical  bells,  driven  swiftly  and  skilfully  past. 
The  smoked  houses,  with  their  provokingly-regular 
windows  and  mean  doors,  that  have  disturbed  the  sen- 
timent of  grace  in  your  fancy  every  walk  you  have 
taken  for  months,  all  laden,  and  tipped,  and  frosted 
into  lines  and  surfaces  of  beauty  ;  faultless  icicles 
hanging  from  the  eaves  of  the  shutters,  and  sparkling 
crystals  of  snow  edging  every  projecting  stone  — 
magic  could  not  exceed  it !  If  the  horn  of  Astol- 
pho  had  been  blown  from  the  cupola  of  the  state- 
house,  and  the  whole  city  had  run  mad,  things  could  j 
not  have  looked   more  strangely  new  and  delightful. 


And  the  sleighing— other  people  like  it,  and  for  their 
sake  I  blessed  Providence  for  another  item.  I  like  it 
myself— for  the  first  mile.  But  with  the  loss  of  sen- 
sation in  our  feet  and  hands,  I  have  a  trick  of  grow- 
ing very  unhappy.  I  am  content,  after  one  ride,  with 
seeing  a  sleigh  through  a  parlor-window. 

Eight  o'clock — how  merrily  the  sleigh-bells  ring 
to-night!  One  comes  into  hearing  as  another  is  lost, 
and  the  loud,  laughing,  and  merry  voices  of  the  gay 
riders  come  up  to  my  retired  room  in  the  veriest  con- 
trast to  my  own  quiet  occupation.  How  more  than 
solitude  it  separates  one  from  humanity,  to  live  in  the 
midst  of  the  gay  world  and  take  no  part  in  its  enjoy- 
ments !  An  eremite  in  the  crowd  is  the  only  con- 
tented solitary.  In  the  midst  of  the  heaviest  sadness 
the  heart  feels  in  this  wretched  world,  the  form  of 
distant  pleasure  is  beautiful.  We  must  live  near  that 
treacherous  dame  to  know  how  sorrows  lurk  in  her 
shadow.  Break  down  the  imagination  as  you  will,  and 
bind  it  by  the  most  relentless  memories  to  your  sick 
heart,  it  will  steal  away  to  scenes  you  had  thought 
forgotten,  and  come  back  fired  with  their  false  beau- 
ty, to  tempt  you  to  try  their  winning  flatteries  once 
more.  It  is  only  by  knowing  that  you  can  call  gay- 
ety  at  any  moment  to  your  side,  that  you  can  quite 
forget  it  ;  and  the  studious  tenant  of  a  garret,  to 
whose  solitude  the  mingled  murmur  of  a  city  comes 
constantly  up — who  can  abandon  his  books  whenever 
the  fancy  takes  him,  for  the  crowd,  and  enter  and 
throng  on  with  it  after  its  fleeting  lure — is  the  only 
man  who,  with  youth  and  the  common  gifts  of  Provi- 
dence, can  heartily  despise  it. 

And  he — if  contrast  is  (as  who  will  deny  that  has 
followed  after  the  impossible  spirit  of  contentment,  till 
hope  is  dead  within  him) — if  contrast  is,  I  say,  the 
only  bliss  in  life — then  does  he,  the  scholar  in  the 
crowd,  live  with  a  most  excellent  wisdom.  He  is 
roused  from  communion  with  a  spirit  whose  immor- 
tal greatness  has  outlived  twenty  generations,  by  the 
passing  mirth  of  a  fool  whose  best  deed  will  not  live 
in  the  world's  memory  an  hour.  He  sits  and  pores 
upon  an  eternal  truth,  or  fires  his  fancy  with  heavenly 
poetry,  or  winds  about  him  the  enchantments  of  truth- 
woven  fiction,  or  searches  the  depths  of  his  own  suffi- 
cient heart  for  the  sublime  wisdom  of  human  nature, 
and  from  the  very  midst  he  is  plucked  back  to  this 
every-day  world,  and  compelled  to  the  use  of  faculties 
in  which  a  brute  animal  equals  or  surpasses  him ! 
One  moment  following  the  employment  of  an  angel, 
the  next  contending  with  meanness  and  cunning  for 
his  daily  bread — now  kindled  to  rapture  with  some 
new  form  of  beauty,  and  now  disgusted  to  loathing 
with  some  new-developed  and  unredeemable  baseness 
in  his  fellow-men.  What  contrast  is  there  like  this  ? 
Who  knows  so  well  as  a  scholar  the  true  sweetness 
of  surprise  ?  the  delightful  and  only  spice  of  this  oth- 
erwise contemptible  life — novel  sensation  ? 


Change. — How  natural  it  is,  like  the  host  in  the 
rhyme,  to 

"  Welcome  the  coming,  speed  the  parting  guest !" 

How  true  a  similitude  it  is  of  every  change,  not  only 
of  time  and  season,  but  of  feeling  and  fancy.  I  have 
just  walked  from  the  window  where  I  stood  looking 
upon  the  two  elms  that  have  refreshed  my  eye  with 
their  lively  verdure  the  summer  long,  and  the  adven- 
turous vine,  overtopping  our  neighbor's  chimneys,  that 
was  covered  but  a  week  ago  with  masses  of  splendid 
crimson  and  scarlet,  and  with  the  irresistible  regret  I  feel 
always  at  the  decay  of  nature  powerful  within  me,  I  have 
seated  myself  at  the  fire,  with  a  gladness  in  the  sup- 
planting pleasures  of  winter,  that  bring9  with  it,  not 
only  a  consolation  for  the  loss,  but  an  immediate  for- 


794 


EPHEMERA. 


getfulness  of  the  past.  "  Nothing,"  says  Goethe,  "is 
more  delightful  than  to  feel  a  new  passion  rising  when 
the  flame  that  burned  before  is  not  quite  extin- 
guished, as,  when  the  sun  sets,  we  turn  with  pleasure 
to  the  rising  moon."  Who  would  give  a  fig  for 
friendship  !  Who  would  waste  golden  hours  in  win- 
ning regard  !  Who,  with  this  lesson  before  him, 
would  do  aught  but  look  well  to  his  reckoning  with 
heaven,  and  turn  in  upon  his  own  soul  what  time  and 
talents  are  left  to  him  after  !  It  is  a  bitter  philosophy 
to  learn.  The  outward  world  is  my  first  love,  and, 
with  all  my  disappointment,  it  is  difficult  at  first  to 
set  up  a  new  altar  for  the  inner.  I  would  not  be  as- 
cetic ;  neither  would  I  be  so  happy  that,  like  Poly- 
crates,  I  must  throw  my  ring  into  the  sea  that  I  may 
have  something  to  lament;  but  I  believe  he  has  the 
true  savoir  vivre,  who,  believing  fully  in  the  world's 
unprofitableness,  is  willing  to  be  amused  by  it,  and 
who,  conversant  with  its  paths  and  people,  has  better 
places  and  friends  (solitude  and  his  books)  to  which 
he  can  enter  and  shut  the  door  to  be  at  peace. 


Winter  Trip  to  Nahant. — The  old  chronicler, 
Time,  strides  on  over  the  holyday  seasons  as  if  noth- 
ing could  make  him  loiter.  It  may  be  a  hallucina- 
tion, but  a  winter's  day,  spite  of  the  calendar,  is  as 
long  to  me  as  two  summer  ones.  I  do  not  feel  the 
scene  pass.  There  is  no  measure  kept  on  my  senses 
by  its  evenly-told  pulse.  The  damp  morning,  and  the 
silent  noon,  and  the  golden  twilight,  come  and  go ; 
and  if  I  breathe  the  freshness  of  the  one,  and  sleep 
under  the  repose  of  the  other,  and  gaze  upon  the 
beauties  of  the  third,  why,  the  end  of  existence  seems 
answered.  Labor  is  not  in  harmony  with  it.  The 
thought  that  disturbs  a  nerve  is  an  intrusion.  Life's 
rapid  torrent  loiters  in  a  pool,  and  its  bubbles  all  break 
and  are  forgotten.  Indolence  is  the  mother  of  phi- 
losophy, and  I  "  let  the  world  slide."  I  think  with 
Rousseau,  that  "  the  best  book  does  but  little  good  to 
the  world,  and  much  harm  to  the  author."  I  remem- 
ber Colton's  three  difficulties  of  authorship,  and  Pel- 
ham's  flattering  unction  to  idleness,  that  "  learning  is 
the  bane  of  a  poet."  The  "  mossy  cell  of  peace," 
with  its  % 

"  Dreams  that  move  before  the  half-shut  eye, 
And  its  gay  castles  in  the  clouds  that  pass," 

is  a  very  Eden  ;  and,  of  all  the  flowers  of  the  field, 
that  which  has  the  most  meaning  is  your  lily  that 
"toils  not,  neither  does  it  spin;"  and  of  all  the  herbs 
of  the  valley,  the 

"  Yellow  lysimacha  that  gives  sweet  rest," 

has  the  most  medicinal  balm.  I  am  of  the  school  of 
Epicurus.  I  no  longer  think  the  "judicious  voluptu- 
ousness" of  Godwin  dangerous.  Like  the  witch  of 
Atlas,  I  could  "  pitch  my  tent  upon  the  plain  of  the 
calm  Mere,"  and  rise  and  fall  for  ever  to  its  indolent 
swell.  And  speaking  of  idleness  (I  admire  Mochin- 
go's  talent  for  digression — "Now  thou  speakest  of 
immortality,  how  is  thy  wife,  Andrew") — one  of  the 
pleasantest  ways  of  indulging  that  cardinal  virtue 
used  to  be  by  an  excursion  to  Nahant.  Establishing 
myself  unostentatiously  upon  the  windward  quarter 
of  the  boat,  to  avoid  the  vile  volatile  oils  from  the 
machinery — Shelley  in  one  hand,  perhaps,  or  Elia,  or 
quaint  Burton — (English  editions,  redolent  in  Russia, 
and  printed  as  with  types  of  silver) — with  one  of  these, 
I  say,  to  refresh  the  eye  and  keep  the  philosophic 
vein  breathing  freely,  the  panorama  of  the  bay  passes 
silently  before  my  eye — island  after  island,  sail  after 
sail,  like  the  conjurations  of  a  magic  mirror.  And 
this  is  all  quiet,  let  me  tell  you — all  in  harmony  with 


the  Socratic  humor — for  the  reputable  steamer  Ousa- 
tonic  (it  distresses  me  daily  that  it  was  not  spelt  with 
an  H)  is  none  of  your  fifteen-milers — none  of  your 
high-pressure  cut-waters,  driving  you  through  the 
air,  breathless  with  its  unbecoming  velocity,  and  with 
the  fear  of  the  boiler  before  your  eyes — but  with  a 
dignified  moderation,  consistent  with  a  rational  doubt 
of  the  integrity  of  a  copper-kettle,  and  a  natural  ab- 
horrence of  hot  water,  she  glides  safely  and  softly 
over  her  half-dozen  miles  an  hour,  and  lands  you, 
cool  and  good-humored,  upon  the  rocky  peninsula, 
for  a  consideration  too  trifling  to  be  mentioned  in  a 
well-bred  period.  And  then  if  the  fates  will  me  an 
agreeable  companion  (I  wish  we  had  time  to  describe 
my  beau-ideal),  how  delightful,  as  Apple  island  is 
neared,  with  its  sweep  of  green  banks  and  its  magnifi- 
cent elms — every  foot  of  its  tiny  territory  green  and 
beautiful — how  delightful  to  speculate  upon  the  char- 
acter of  its  eccentric  occupant,  and  repeat  the  thou- 
sand stories  told  of  him,  and  peer  about  his  solitary 
cottage  to  catch  a  glimpse  of  his  erect  figure,  and 
draw  fanciful  portraits  of  his  daughter,  who,  the  world 
says,  for  the  sixteen  years  of  her  sweet  life,  has  had 
only  the  range  of  those  limited  lawns,  which  she  may 
ramble  over  in  an  hour — and,  as  the  boat  glides  by,  to 
watch  the  fairy  isle  sleeping,  if  the  bay  is  calm,  with 
its  definite  shadow,  and  looking  like  a  sphere,  floating 
past  in  the  air,  covered  with  luxuriant  verdure.  It  is 
but  a  brief  twelve  miles  from  Boston  to  Nahant,  and 
the  last  four  stretch  out  beyond  the  chain  of  islands, 
upon  the  open  sea.  To  a  city-bred  eye  and  fancy 
there  is  a  refreshing  novelty,  added  to  the  expanding 
influence  of  so  broad  a  scene,  which  has  in  it  a  vigor- 
ous and  delightful  stimulus.  The  mind  gets  out  of 
its  old  track.  The  back-ground  of  the  mental  picture 
is  changed,  and  it  affects  the  whole.  The  illimitable 
sky  and  water  draw  out  the  imagination  to  its  remo- 
test link,  and  the  far  apart  and  shining  sails,  each  cov- 
ering its  little  and  peculiar  world,  and  sped  with  the 
thousand  hopes  of  those  for  whom  its  lonely  adven- 
turers are  tracking  the  uncertain  sea,  win  on  the  mind 
to  follow  them  upon  their  perilous  way,  and  breathe 
for  them  the  "  God  speed"  of  unconscious  interest. 
It  is  a  beautiful  and  magic  sight  to  see  them  gliding 
past  each  other  on  their  different  courses,  impelled 
by  the  same  invisible  wind,  now  dark  with  shadow, 
and  now  turning  full  to  the  light,  and  specking  the 
horizon,  like  the  white  birds  careering  along  the  edge 
of  its  definite  line.  The  sea  grows  upon  you  as  you 
see  it  more.  The  disappointment  felt  at  first  in  its 
extent  wears  away,  as  you  remember  its  vast  stretch 
under  those  blue  depths,  which  your  eye  can  not 
search  ;  and  the  waste  of  its  "  untrampled  floor,"  and 
the  different  depths  at  which  the  different  spoils  of 
the  sunk  ships  have  balanced  and  hung,  and  the  innu- 
merable tribes  who  range  their  own  various  regions 
of  pressure,  from  the  darkest  caverns  to  the  thin  and 
lighted  chambers  at  its  surface,  all  come  step  by  step 
upon  the  mind,  and  crowd  it  with  a  world  of  wonder- 
ing speculation.  It  is  delightful  to  sit  with  the 
agreeable  companion  spoken  of,  and  with  the  green 
waves  heaving  about  us,  to  indulge  in  these  wayward 
and  unprofitable  imaginations.  It  is  a  splendid  range 
for  a  wild-winged  thought — that  measureless  sea  !  I 
love  to  talk  of  its  strange  mysteries.  I  love  to  go 
down  with  one  who  will  not  check  me  with  cold  ob- 
jections, and  number  and  shape  out  its  inhabitants. 
With  such  a  fellow-wanderer,  I  have  found  palaces 
that  surpass  Aladdin's,  and  beings  to  whom  the  upper 
and  uncondensed  water  has  a  suffocating  thinness. 
But  these  are  idle  speculations  to  the  world's  eye, 
gentle  reader,  and  should  be  reserved  for  your  private 
ear.  We  will  go,  some  summer  afternoon,  and  talk 
them  over  together  on  the  deck  of  that  same  delib- 
erate steamer.  You  have  no  idea  how  many  things 
are  untold  of  the  deep  sea — how  many  dreams  of  it 


EPHEMERA. 


795 


an  idler  man  than  yourself  will  weave  out  of  its  green 
depths  in  his  after-dinner  musings. 


Sir  Philip  Sidney. — "  Gentle  Sir  Philip  Sid- 
ney," says  Tom  Nash,  in  two  sweetly-flowing  senten- 
ces of  his  Pierce  Penniless,  "  thou  knewest  what  be- 
longed to  a  scholar ;  thou  knewest  what  pains,  what 
toil,  what  travel,  conduct  to  perfection  ;  well  couldst 
thou  give  every  virtue  his  encouragement,  every  art 
his  due,  every  writer  his  desert,  'cause  none  more 
virtuous,  witty,  or  learned,  than  thyself.  But  thou 
art  dead  in  thy  grave,  and  hast  left  too  few  successors 
of  thy  glory;  too  few  to  cherish  the  sons  of  the  mu- 
ses, or  water  those  budding  hopes  with  their  plenty, 
which  thy  bounty  erst  planted." — "He  was  not  only 
of  an  excellent  wit,"  relates,  in  his  own  confused  and 
rambling  way,  the  eminent  antiquarian  John  Aubrey, 
who  was  born  not  more  than  forty  years  after  Sidney's 
decease, "  but  extremely  beautiful ;  he  much  resembled 
his  sister,  but  his  hair  was  not  red,  but  a  little  incli- 
ning, viz.,  a  dark  amber  color.  If  I  were  to  find  fault 
in  it,  methinks  it  is  not  masculine  enough;  yet  he 
was  a  person  of  great  courage."*  "  He  was,  if  ever 
there  was  one,"  says  another  writer,  "  a  gentleman 
finished  and  complete,  in  whom  mildness  was  associa- 
ted with  courage,  erudilion  mollified  by  refinement, 
and  courtliness  dignified  by  truth.  England  will  ever 
place  him  among  the  noblest  of  her  sons  ;  and  the 
light  of  chivalry,  which  was  his  guide  and  beacon, 
will  ever  lend  its  radiance  to  illume  his  memory.  He 
died  at  the  age  of  thirty-two,  and  if  the  lives  of  Mil- 
ton and  Dryden  had  not  been  prolonged  beyond  that 
period,  where  would  have  been  their  renown?" 

Glorious  Sidney  !  It  stirs  the  blood  warmly  about 
one's  heart  to  think  of  him.  It  is  somewhat  late  in 
the  day,  I  know,  to  eulogize  him  ;  but  his  bright 
honor  and  his  beautiful  career,  are  among  my  earliest 
historical  recollections,  and  I  have  remembered  it 
since  with  the  passionate  interest  that  in  every  one's 
mind  burns  in,  with  an  enamel  of  love,  some  one  of 
the  bright  images  presented  in  boyhood.  You  have 
some  such  idol  of  fancy,  I  dare  answer  for  it,  reader 
of  mine — some  young  (for  young  he  must  be,  or  af- 
fection stiffens  into  respect) — some  young  and  famous, 
and  withal  courtly,  and  perhaps  "  beautiful,"  winner 
of  a  name.  It  is  Gaston  de  Foix,  perhaps,  with  his 
fierce  thirst  for  glory  (the  pictures  of  him  by  the  old 
masters  are  models  of  manly  beauty),  or  the  fourth 
Henry,  with  his  temper  of  romance  (the  handsomest 
man  in  his  kingdom),  or  (if  you  loved  your  classics) 
Alcibiades  (you  forget,  of  course,  that  he  was  a  volup- 
tuary), or  the  generous  Antony  ("  Shakspere's"  rather 
than  the  historian's),  or  Hylas,  or  Endymion,  or 
Phaeton  (he  cleared  the  first  few  planets  in  fine  style), 
or  some  other  formosus  puer  adored  and  sung  by  the 
glorious  old  bards  upon  the  shores  of  Tiber  or  Ilissus. 
He  rises  to  your  mind  as  I  mention  it — a  figure  of 
graceful  youth,  the  slight  and  elegant  proportions  of 
the  boy,  just  ripening  into  the  muscular  fulness  of 
manhood — his  neck  rising  with  a  free  majesty  from 
his  shoulders,  and  his  eye  kindling  with  some  passing 
thought  of  glory,  answered  by  the  proud  and  deliber- 
ate curving  of  his  lip,  and  the  animated  expansion  of 
his  nostril.  You  see  him  with  your  mind's  eye — the 
classic  model  and  classic  dream  of  your  scholar-days, 
when  the  sound  of  the  leaves  in  the  tree  over  you  had 
the  swell  of  an  hexameter  in  your  ear,  and  your 
thoughts  came  in  Latin,  and  a  line  of  Homer  sprung 
to  your  lips  in  your  involuntary  soliloquies.  Ah  ! 
those  were  days  for  dreams  !  Who  would  not  let 
slip  the  straining  grasp  of  manhood — be  it  at  wealth, 
fame,  power — anything  for  which  he  is  flinging  his 
youth  and  gladness,  and  all  his  best  treasures,  behind 
•  Very  much  the  description  of  Shelley. 


him — to  be  once  more  the  careless  dreamer  that  he 
was — to  lie  once  more  upon  a  hill-side,  and  forget 
everything  in  the  unquestioned  and  unshadowed  bles- 
sedness of  a  boy  ! 


Death-Love  and  Warning. — It  was  getting  tow- 
ard midnight  when  a  party  of  young  noblemen  came 
out  from  one  of  the  clubs  of  St.  James  street.  The 
servant  of  each,  as  he  stepped  upon  the  pavement, 
threw  up  the  wooden  apron  of  the  cabriolet,  and 
sprung  to  the  head  of  the  horse;  but,  as  to  the  des- 
tination of  the  equipages  for  the  evening,  there  seem- 
ed to  be  some  dissensions  among  the  noble  masters. 
Between  the  line  of  coroneted  vehicles,  stood  a 
hackney-coach,  and  a  person  in  an  attitude  of  expectan- 
cy pressed  as  near  the  exhilarated  group  as  he  could 
without  exciting  immediate  attention. 

"  Which  way?"  said  he  whose  vehicle  was  nearest, 
standing  with  his  foot  on  the  step. 

"  All  together,  of  course,"  said  another.  "  Let's 
make  a  night  of  it." 

"  Pardon  me,"  said  the  clear  and  sweet  voice  of 
the  last  out  from  the  club  ;  "  I  secede  for  one.  Go 
your  ways,  gentlemen  !" 

"  Now,  what  the  deuse  is  afoot  ?"  said  the  fore- 
most, again  stepping  back  on  the  sidewalk.  "  Don't 
let  him  off,  Fitz  !  Is  your  cab  here,  Byron,  or  will 
you  let  me  drive  you?    By  Jove,  you  sha'n't  leave  us!" 

"  But  you  shall  leave  me,  and  so  you  are  not  for- 
sworn, my  friend  !  In  plain  phrase,  I  won't  go  with 
you  !  And  I  don't  know  where  I  shall  go  ;  so  spare 
yourcuriosity  the  trouble  of  asking.  I  have  a  presenti- 
ment that  I  am  wanted — by  devil  or  angel — 

'  I  see  a  hand  you  can  not  see.' " 

"  And  a  very  pretty  hand  it  is,  I  dare  swear,"  said 
the  former  speaker,  jumping  into  his  cab  and  starting 
off  with  a  spring  of  his  blood  horse,  followed  by  all 
the  vehicles  at  the  club-door,  save  one. 

Byron  stood  looking  after  them  a  moment,  and 
raised  his  hat  and  pressed  his  hand  hard  on  his  fore- 
head. The  unknown  person  who  had  been  lurking 
near,  seemed  willing  to  leave  him  for  a  moment  to  his 
thoughts,  or  was  embarrassed  at  approaching  a  stran- 
ger. As  Byron  turned  with  his  halting  step  to  descend 
the  steps,  however,  he  came  suddenly  to  his  side. 

"  My  lord  !"  he  said,  and  was  silent,  as  if  waiting 
for  permission  to  go  on. 

"  Well,"  replied  Byron,  turning  to  him  without  the 
least  surprise,  and  lookingly  closely  into  his  face  by 
the  light  of  the  street-lamp. 

"  I  come  to  you  with  an  errand  which  perhaps — " 

"  A  strange  one,  I  am  sure  ;  but  I  am  prepared  for 
it — I  have  been  forewarned  of  it.  What  do  you  re- 
quire of  me  ?  for  I  am  ready  !" 

••  This  is  strange!"  exclaimed  the  man. — "Has 
another  messenger,  then — " 

"  None  except  a  spirit — for  my  heart  alone  told  me 
I  should  be  wanted  at  this  hour.     Speak  at  once." 

'*  My  lord,  a  dying  girl  has  sent  for  you .'" 

"  Do  I  know  her  ?" 

"  She  has  never  seen  you.  Will  you  come  at  once 
— and  on  the  way  I  will  explain  to  you  what  I  can  of 
this  singular  errand  ;  though,  indeed,  when  it  is  told 
you,  you  know  all  that  I  comprehend." 

They  were  at  the  door  of  the  hackney-coach,  and 
Byron  entered  it  without  further  remark. 

"Back  again!"  said  the  stranger,  as  the  coachman 
closed  the  door,  "  and  drive  for  dear  life,  for  we  shall 
scarce  be  in  time,  I  fear  !" 

The  heavy  tongue  of  St.  Paul's  church  struck 
twelve  as  the  rolling  vehicle  hurried  on  through  the 
now  lonely  street,  and  though  so  far  from  the  place 
whence  they  started,   neither  of  the  two  occupants 


796 


EPHEMERA. 


had  spoken.  Byron  sat  with  bare  head  and  folded 
arms  in  the  corner  of  the  coacli ;  and  the  stranger, 
with  his  hat  crowded  over  his  eyes,  seemed  repressing 
some  violet  emotion  ;  and  it  was  only  when  they 
stopped  before  a  low  door  in  a  street  close  upon  the 
river,  that  the  latter  found  utterance. 

"  Is  she  alive  ?"  he  hurriedly  asked  of  a  woman 
who  came  out  at  the  sound  of  the  carriage-wheels. 

"  She  was — a  moment  since — but  be  quick  !" 

Byron  followed  quickly  on  the  heels  of  his  com- 
panion, and  passing  through  a  dimly  lighted  entry  to 
the  door  of  a  back-room,  they  entered.  A  lamp, 
shaded  by  a  curtain  of  spotless  purity,  threw  a  faint 
light  upon  a  bed,  upon  which  lay  a  girl,  watched  by 
a  physician  and  a  nurse.  The  physician  had  just  re- 
moved a  small  mirror  from  her  lips,  and  holding  it  to 
the  light,  he  whispered  that  she  still  breathed.  As 
Byron  passed  the  edge  of  the  curtain,  however,  the 
dying  girl  moved  the  fingers  of  the  hand  lying  on  the 
coverlet,  and  slowly  opened  on  him  her  languid  eyes 
— eyes  of  inexpressible  depth  and  lustre.  No  one  had 
spoken. 

"Here  he  is,"  she  murmured.  "Raise  me,  mother, 
while  I  have  time  to  speak  to  him." 

Byron  looked  around  the  small  chamber,  trying  in 
vain  to  break  the  spell  of  awe  which  the  scene  threw 
over  him.  An  apparition  from  the  other  world  could 
not  have  checked  more  fearfully  and  completely  the 
worldly  and  scornful  under-current  of  his  nature. 
He  stood  with  his  heart  beating  almost  audibly,  and 
his  knees  trembled  beneath  him,  awaiting  what  he 
prophetically  felt  to  be  a  warning  from  the  very  gate 
of  heaven. 

Propped  with  pillows,  and  left  by  her  attendants, 
the  dying  girl  turned  her  head  toward  the  proud, 
noble  poet,  standing  by  her  bedside,  and  a  slight  blush 
overspread  her  features,  while  a  smile  of  angelic 
beauty  stole  through  her  lips.  In  that  smile  the 
face  reawakened  to  its  former  loveliness,  and  seldom 
had  he  who  now  gazed  breathlessly  upon  her,  looked 
on  such  spiritual  and  incomparable  beauty.  The 
spacious  forehead  and  noble  contour,  still  visible,  of 
the  emaciated  lips,  bespoke  genius  impressed  upon  a 
tablet  all  feminine  in  its  language  ;  and  in  the  motion 
of  her  hand,  and  even  in  the  slight  movement  of  her 
graceful  neck,  there  was  something  that  still  breathed 
of  surpassing  elegance.  It  was  the  shadowy  wreck 
of  no  ordinary  mortal  passing  away — humble  as  were 
the  surroundings,  and  strange  as  had  been  his  sum- 
mons to  her  bedside. 

"  And  this  is  Byron  ?"  she  said  at  last,  in  a  voice 
bewilderingly  sweet  even  through  its  weakness. 
"My  lord!  I  could  not  die  without  seeing  you — 
without  relieving  my  soul  of  a  mission  with  which  it 
has  long  been  burthened.  Come  nearer — for  I  have 
no  time  left  for  ceremony,  and  I  must  say  what  I 
have  to  say — and  die!  Beautiful,"  she  said,  "beauti- 
ful as  the  dream  of  him  which  has  so  long  haunted 
me !  the  intellect  and  the  person  of  a  spirit  of  light ! 
Pardon  me,  my  lord,  that,  at  a  moment  so  important  to 
yourself,  the  remembrance  of  an  earthly  feeling  has 
been  betrayed  into  expression." 

She  paused  a  moment,  and  the  bright  color  that  had 
shot  through  her  cheek  and  brow  faded,  and  her 
countenance  resumed  its  heavenly  serenity. 

"  I  am  near  enough  to  death,"  she  resumed — 
"near  enough  to  point  you  almost  to  heaven  from 
where  I  am ;  and  it  is  on  my  heart  like  the  one  errand 
of  my  life — like  the  bidding  of  God — to  implore  you 
to  prepare  for  judgment.  Oh,  my  lord  !  with  your 
glorious  powers,  with  your  wondrous  gifts,  be  not 
lost!  Do  not,  for  the  poor  pleasures  of  a  world  like 
this,  lose  an  eternity  in  which  your  great  mind  will 
outstrip  the  intelligence  of  angels.  Measure  this 
thought — scan  the  worth  of  angelic  bliss  with  the 
intellect  which  has  ranged  so  gloriously  through  the 


universe;  do  not,  on  this  one  momentous  subject 
of  human  interest — on  this  alone  be  not  short- 
sighted !" 

"What  shall  I  do  ?"  suddenly  burst  from  Byron's 
lips  in  a  tone  of  agony.  But  with  an  effort,  as  if 
struggling  with  a  death-pang,  he  again  drew  up  his 
form  and  resumed  the  marble  calmness  of  his  counte- 
nance. 

The  dying  girl,  meantime,  seemed  to  have  lost 
herself  in  prayer.  With  her  wasted  hands  clasped 
on  her  bosom,  and  her  eyes  turned  upward,  the  slight 
motion  of  her  lips  betrayed  to  those  around  her  that 
|  she  was  pleading  at  the  throne  of  mercy.  The  physi- 
cian crept  close  to  her  bedside,  but  with  his  hand  in 
his  breast,  and  his  head  bowed,  he  seemed  but  watch- 
ing for  the  moment  when  the  soul  should  take  its 
flight. 

She  suddenly  raised  herself  on  the  pillow.  Her 
long  brown  tresses  fell  over  her  shoulders,  and  a 
brightness  unnatural  and  almost  fearful  kindled  in  her 
eyes.  She  seemed  endeavoring  to  speak,  and  gazed 
steadfastly  at  Byron.  Slowly,  then,  and  tranquilly 
she  sank  back  again  upon  her  pillow,  and  as  her  hands 
fell  apart,  and  her  eyelids  dropped,  she  murmured, 
"Come  to  Heaven  !"  and  the  stillness  of  death  was  in 
the  room.     The  spirit  had  fled. 


The  breaking  of  the  silver  cord  is  the  first  tone  from 
the  life-strings  of  genius,  which  is  answered  only  in 
vibrations  of  affection.  This  truth,  indeed,  is  touch- 
ingly  shadowed  forth  in  the  accompaniments  of  death. 
The  dark  colors  in  the  drapery  of  life,  are  dropped  in 
the  weaving  of  the  shroud.  The  discords  of  music 
are  rejected  in  the  melody  of  the  dirge.  The  praise 
upon  the  marble  is  the  first  tribute  written  without 
disparagement,  and  the  first  suffered  without  dissent. 
It  is  this  new  relation  of  the  public  to  a  great  name — 
this  completed  and  lucent  phase  of  a  light  in  litera- 
ture— which  seems  to  make  a  posthumous  recast  of 
criticism  oneof  the  legitimate  departments  of  a  review. 
Like  the  public  feeling,  the  condition  and  powers  of 
criticism  toward  an  author's  fame,  are  essentially 
changed  by  his  death.  His  personal  character,  and 
the  events  of  his  life — the  foreground,  so  to  speak,  in 
the  picture  of  his  mind,  are,  till  this  event,  wanting 
to  the  critical  perspective;  and  when  the  hand  to  cor- 
rect is  cold,  and  the  ear  to  be  caressed  and  wounded 
is  sealed,  some  of  the  uses  of  censure,  and  all  reserve 
in  comparison  and  final  estimate,  are  done  way. 

It  is  time  for  the  reviews  to  take  up,  on  this  ground, 
the  character  and  writingsof  Hillhouse.  The  author 
of  Hadad,  the  most  finished  and  lofty  poem  of  its 
time,  should  have  been  followed,  within  a  year  after 
his  death,  by  a  new  and  reverential  appreciation,  and 
living,  as  he  did,  in  a  learned  and  literary  circle  of 
friends,  a  biography,  at  least,  was  looked  for,  out  of 
which  criticism  might  shape  a  fresh  monument  to  his 
genius.  Such  men  as  Hillhouse  are  not  common, 
even  in  these  days  of  universal  authorship.  In  ac- 
complishment of  mind  and  person,  he  was  probably 
second  to  no  man.  His  poems  show  the  first.  They 
are  fully  conceived,  nicely  balanced,  exquisitely  finish- 
ed— works  for  the  highest  taste  to  relish,  and  for  the 
severest  student  in  dramatic  style  to  erect  into  a  model. 
Hadad  was  published  in  1825,  during  my  second  yearin 
college,  and  to  me  it  was  the  opening  of  a  new  heaven 
of  imagination.  The  leading  characters  possessed  me 
for  months,  and  the  bright,  clear,  harmonious  lan- 
guage was,  for  a  long  time,  constantly  in  my  ears. 
The  author  was  pointed  out  to  me,  soon  after,  and 
for  once,  I  saw  a  poet  whose  mind  was  well  imaged 
in  his  person.  In  no  part  of  the  world  have  I  seen  a 
man  of  more  distinguished  mien,  or  of  a  more  inborn 
dignity  and  elegance  of  address.     His  person  was  very 


EPHEMERA. 


797 


finely  proportioned,  his  carriage  chivalric  and  high- 
bred, and  his  countenance  purely  and  brightly  intel- 
lectual. Add  to  this  a  sweet  voice,  a  stamp  of  high 
courtesy  on  everything  he  uttered,  and  singular  sim- 
plicity and  taste  in  dress,  and  you  have  the  portrait 
of  one  who.  in  other  days,  would  have  been  the  mir- 
ror of  chivalry,  and  the  flower  of  nobles  and  trou- 
badors.  Hillhouse  was  no  less  distinguished  in  oratory. 
There  was  still  remembered,  at  the  time  of  the  pub- 
lication of  Hadad,  an  oration  pronounced  by  him  at 
the  taking  of  his  second  degree — an  oration  upon 
"the  Education  of  a  Poet,"  gloriously  written,  and 
most  eloquently  delivered.  His  poem  of  "the  Judge- 
ment," delivered  before  the  "  Phi  Beta  Kappa  Socie- 
ty," added  in  the  same  way  to  his  renown,  as  did  a 
subsequent  noble  effort  of  eloquence,  to  which  I  listen- 
ed myself,  with  irresistible  enchantment. 

Hillhouse  had  fallen  upon  days  of  thrift,  and  many 
years  of  his  life  which  he  should  have  passed  either 
in  his  study,  or  in  the  councils  of  the  nation,  were 
enslaved  to  the  drudgery  of  business.  His  constitu- 
tion seemed  to  promise  him  a  vigorous  manhood, 
however,  and  an  old  age  of  undiminished  fire,  and 
when  he  left  his  mercantile  pursuits,  and  retired  to 
the  beautiful  and  poetic  home  of  "  Sachem's  Wood," 
his  friends  looked  upon  it  as  the  commencement  of  a 
ripe  and  long  enduring  career  of  literature.  In  har- 
mony with  such  a  life  were  all  his  surroundings — 
6cenery,  society,  domestic  refinement,  and  companion- 
ship— and  never  looked  promise  fairer  for  the  realiza- 
tion of  a  dream  of  glory.  That  he  had  laid  out  some- 
thing of  such  a  field  in  the  future,  I  chance  to  know, 
for,  though  my  acquaintance  with  him  was  slight,  he 
confided  to  me  in  a  casual  conversation,  the  plan  of  a 
series  of  dramas,  different  from  all  he  had  attempted, 
upon  which  he  designed  to  work  with  the  first  mood 
and  leisure  he  could  command.  And  with  his  high 
scholarship,  knowledge  of  life,  taste  and  genius,  what 
might  not  have  been  expected  from  its  fulfilment  ? 
But  his  hand  is  cold,  and  his  lips  still,  and  his  light, 
just  rising  to  its  meridian,  is  lost  now  to  the  world. 
Love  and  honor  to  the  memory  of  such  a  man. 


BACHELOR  BOB'S  DISCOVERIES. 

"  Sad  were  the  lays  of  merry  days, 
And  sweet  the  songs  of  sadness." 

"  Come  !"  said  Bachelor  Bob,  as  he  hitched  his 
chair  closer  to  the  table,  "  quite  alone,  half  past 
twelve,  and  two  tumblers  of  toddy  for  heart-openers, 
what  say  you  to  a  little  friendly  inquisition  into  your 
mortal  felicity  ?  You  were  the  gayest  man  of  my 
acquaintance  ten  years  ago  ;  you  are  the  gravest 
now  !  Yet  you  swear  by  your  Lares  and  Penates, 
that  (up  to  the  lips  as  you  are  in  care  and  trouble) 
you  never  were  so  happy  as  in  these  latter  days.  Do 
you  swear  this  to  me  from  a  4  way  you  have'  of  hang- 
ing out  trap  for  the  world,  or  are  you  under  a  little  in- 
nocent delusion  ?" 

Bob's  hobby  is  the  theory  of  happiness.  Riches 
and  poverty,  matrimony  and  celibacy,  youth  and  age, 
are  subjects  of  contemplation  to  Bob,  solely  with  ref- 
erence to  their  comparative  capacity  for  bliss.  He 
speculates  and  talks  about  little  else,  indeed,  and  his 
intercourse  with  his  friends  seems  to  have  no  other 
end  or  aim  than  to  collect  evidence  as  to  their  happi- 
ness and  its  causes.  On  this  occasion  he  was  addres- 
sing a  friend  of  mine,  Smith,  who  had  been  a  gay  man 
in  his  youth  (a  merry  man,  truth  to  say,  for  he  was 
in  a  perpetual  breeze  of  high  spirits),  but  who  had 
married,  and  fallen  behindhand  in  his  worldly  affairs, 
and  so  grown  careworn  and  thoughtful.  Smith  was 
rather  a  poet  in  a  quiet  way,  though  he  only  used  po- 
etry as  a  sort  of  longer  plummet  when  his  heart  got 


off  soundings.  I  am  indebted  to  Bob  for  the  speci- 
mens of  his  verse-making  which  I  am  about  to  give, 
as  well  as  for  the  conversation  which  brought  them 
to  light. 

"Why,"  said  Smith,  "you  have  stated  a  dilemma 
with  two  such  inevitable  horns  that  argument  would 
scarcely  help  me  out  of  it.  Let  me  see,  what  proof 
can  I  give  you  that  I  am  a  happier  man  than  I  used 
to  be,  spite  of  my  chapfallen  visage  ?" 

Smith  mused  a  moment,  and  reaching  over  to  a 
desk  near  his  elbow,  drew  from  its  private  drawer  a 
book  with  locked  covers.  It  was  a  well-filled  manu- 
script volume,  and  seemed  a  collection  of  prose  and 
verse  intermixed.  The  last  page  was  still  covered 
with  blotting-paper,  and  seemed  recently  written. 

"  I  am  no  poet,"  said  Smith,  coloring  slightly, 
"  but  it  has  been  a  habit  of  mine,  ever  since  my  cal- 
low days,  to  record  in  verse  all  feelings  that  were  too 
warm  for  prose  ;  sometimes  in  the  fashion  of  a  solilo- 
quy {scripta  verba),  sometimes  in  verses  to  the  dame 
or  damsel  to  whom  I  was  indebted  for  my  ignition. 
Let  me  see,  Bob!  we  met  in  Florence,  I  think  ?" 

"  For  the  first  time  abroad,  yes  !" 

"  Well,  perhaps  that  was  my  gayest  time;  certainly 
I  do  not  remember  to  have  been  anywhere  more  gay 
or  reckless.  Florence,  1832,  um — here  are  some  lines 
written  that  summer  :  do  you  remember  the  beautiful 
Irish  widow  you  saw  at  one  of  the  casino  balls  ?  ad- 
dressed to  her,  flirt  that  she  was  !  But  she  began  all 
her  flirtations  with  talking  of  her  sorrows,  and,  if  she 
tried  you  on,  at  all — " 

"  She  didn't !"  interrupted  Bob. 

"  Well,  if  she  had  you  would  have  been  humbug- 
ged with  her  tender  melancholy,  as  I  was.  Here  are 
the  verses,  and  if  ever  I  4  turned  out  my  lining  to  the 
moon,'  thev  are  true  to  my  inner  soul  in  those  days 
of  frolic.  Read  these,  and  then  turn  to  the  last  page 
and  you  will  find  as  true  a  daguerreotype  of  the  inner 
light  of  my  moping  days,  written  only  yesterday." 

'Tis  late— San  Marc  is  beating  three 

As  I  look  forth  upon  the  night ; 
The  stars  are  shining  tranquilly, 

And  heaven  is  full  of  silver  light ; 
The  air  blows  freshly  on  my  brow — 
Yet  why  should  I  be  waking  now  ! 

I've  listened,  lady,  to  thy  tone, 

Till  in  my  ear  it  will  not  die ; 
I've  felt  for  sorrows  not  my  own, 

Till  now  I  can  not  put  them  by  ; 
And  those  sad  words  and  thoughts  of  thine 
Have  breathed  their  sadness  into  mine. 

'Tis  long— though  reckoned  not  by  years— 

Since,  with  affections  chilled  and  shocked, 
I  dried  a  boy's  impassioned  tears, 

And  from  the  world  my  feelings  locked — 
The  work  of  but  one  bitter  day, 

In  which  were  crowded  years  of  pain  ; 

And  then  I  was  as  gay,  again, 
And  thought  that  I  should  be  for  aye  ! 
The  world  lay  open  wide  and  bright, 

And  I  became  its  lightest  minion, 
And  flew  the  wordling's  giddy  height 

With  reckless  and  impetuous  pinion — 
Life's  tide,  with  me,  had  turned  from  shore 
Ere  yet  my  summers  told  a  score. 

And  years  have  passed,  and  I  have  seemed 

Happy  to  every  eye  but  thine, 
And  they  whom  most  I  loved  have  deemed 

There  was  no  lighter  heart  than  mine  ; 
And,  save  when  some  wild  passion-tone 

Of  music  reached  the  sleeping  nerve, 
Or  when  in  illness  and  alone 

My  spirit  from  its  bent  would  swerve, 
My  heart  uw.»  light,  my  thoughts  were  free, 
I  was  the  thing  I  seemed  to  be. 

I  came  to  this  bright  land,  and  here, 

Where  I  had  thought  to  nerve  my  wings 

To  soar  to  a  more  lofty  sphere, 

And  train  myself  for  sterner  things— 

The  land  where  I  had  thought  to  find 
No  spell  but  beauty  hreathed  in  stone — 


798 


EPHEMERA. 


To  learn  idolatries  of  mind, 

And  leave  the  heart  to  slumber  on — 
Here  find  I  one  whose  voice  awakes 

The  sad,  dumb  angel  of  my  breast, 
And,  as  the  long,  long  silence  breaks 

Of  a  strong  inward  lip  suppressed, 
It  seems  to  me  as  if  a  madness 

Had  been  upon  my  brain  alway — 

As  if  'twere  phrensy  to  be  gay, 
And  life  were  only  sweet  in  sadness  ! 
Words  from  my  lips  to-night  have  come 
That  have  for  years  been  sealed  and  dumb. 

It  was  but  yesterday  we  met, 

We  part  to-morrow.     I  would  fain 
With  thy  departing  voice  forget 

Its  low,  deep  tone,  and  seal  again 
My  feelings  from  the  light  of  day, 
To  be  to-morrow  only  gay  ! 

But  days  will  pass,  and  nights  will  creep, 
And  I  shall  hear  that  voice  of  sadness 

With  dreams,  as  now,  untouched  by  sleep, 
And  spirits  out  of  tune  with  gladness  ; 
And  time  must  wear,  and  fame  spur  on  ; 
Before  that  victory  is  re-won  ! 

And  so  farewell !     I  would  not  be 

Forgotten  by  the  only  heart 
To  which  my  own  breathes  calm  and  free, 

And  let  us  not  as  strangers  part  ! 
And  we  shall  meet  again,  perhaps, 

More  gayly  than  we're  parting  now ; 
For  time  has,  in  its  briefest  lapse, 

A  something  which  clears  up  the  brow, 
And  makes  the  spirits  calm  and  bright — 
And  now  to  my  sad  dreams  !     Good  night ! 

"  What  a  precious  hypocrite  you  were  for  the  mer- 
riest dog  in  Florence  !"  exclaimed  Bob,  as  he  laid  the 
book  open  on  its  back,  after  reading  these  lines. 
"  You  feel  that  way  !  credat  Judeeus  !  "But  there  are 
some  other  poetical  lies  here — what  do  you  mean  by 
'  we  met  but  yesterday,  and  we  part  to-morrow,' 
when  I  know  you  dangled  after  that  widow  a  whole 
season  at  the  baths  ?" 

"  Why,"  said  Smith,  with  one  of  his  old  laughs, 
"  there  was  a  supplement  to  such  an  outpouring,  of 
course.  The  reply  to  my  verses  was  an  invitation  to 
join  their  party  the  next  morning  in  a  pilgrimage  to 
Vallambrosa,  and  once  attached  to  that  lady's  suite — 
va  pour  toujours  !  or  as  long  as  she  chose  to  keep  you. 
Turn  to  the  next  page.  Before  coming  to  the  verses 
of  my  more  sober  days,  you  may  like  to  read  one 
more  flourish  like  the  last.  Those  were  addressed  to 
the  same  belle  dame,  and  under  a  continuance  of  the 
same  hallucination." 

Bob  gravely  read  : — 

My  heart's  a  heavy  one  to-night, 

Dear  Mary,  thinking  upon  thee — 
I  know  not  if  my  brain  is  right, 

But  everything  looks  dark  to  me  ! 
I  parted  from  thy  side  but  now, 

I  listened  to  thy  mournful  tone, 
I  gazed  by  starlight  on  thy  brow, 

And  we  were  there  unseen — alone^ 
Yet  proud  as  I  should  be.  and  blest, 
I  can  not  set  my  heart  at' rest  ! 

Thou  lov'st  me.     Thanks,  oh  God,  for  this ! 

If  I  should  never  sleep  again — 
If  hope  is  all  a  mock  of  bliss — 

I  shall  not  now  have  lived  in  vain  ! 
I  care  not  that  my  eyes  are  aching 

With  this  dull  fever  in  my  lids — 
I  care  not  that  my  heart  is  breaking 

For  happiness  that  Fate  forbids — 
The  one  sweet  word  that  thou  hast  spoken, 

The  one  sweet  look  I  met  and  blessed, 


Would  cheer  me  if  my  heart  were  broken— 

Would  put  my  wildest  thoughts  to  rest ! 
I  know  that  I  have  pressed  thy  fingers 

Upon  my  warm  lips  unforbid— 
I  know  that  in  thy  memory  lingers 

A  thought  of  me,  like  treasure  hid — 
Though  to  my  breast  I  may  not  press  thee, 

Though  I  may  never  call  thee  mine, 
I  know— and,  God,  I  therefore  bless  thee  ? — 

No  other  fills  that  heart  of  thine  ! 
And  this  shall  light  my  shadowed  track  ! 
I  take  my  words  of  sadness  back  ! 

"  What  had  that  flirting  widow  to  do  with  the  gen- 
tle name  of  Mary  ?"  exclaimed  Bob,  after  laughing 
very  heartily  at  the  point  blank  take-in  confessed  in 
these  very  solemn  verses.  "  Enough  of  love-melan- 
choly, however,  my  dear  Smith  !  Let's  have  a  look 
now  at  the  poetical  side  of  care  and  trouble.  What 
do  you  call  it  ?" — 

THE  INVOLUNTARY  PRAYER  OF  HAPPINESS.       - 

I  have  enough,  oh  God  !     My  heart,  to-night, 
Runs  over  with  the  fulness  of  content  j 
As  I  look  out  on  the  fragrant  stars, 
And  from  the  beauty  of  the  night  take  in 
My  priceless  portion— yet  myself  no  more 
Than  in  the  universe  a  grain  of  sand — 
I  feel  His  glory  who  could  make  a  world, 
Yet,  in  the  lost  depths  of  the  wilderness 
Leave  not  a  flower  imperfect ! 

Rich,  though  poor  ! 
My  low-roofed  cottage  is,  this  hour,  a  heaven  ! 
Music  is  in  it — and  the  song  she  sings, 
That  sweet-voiced  wife  of  mine,  arrests  the  ear 
Of  my  young  child,  awake  upon  her  knee  ; 
And,  with  his  calm  eye  on  his  master's  face, 
My  noble  hound  lies  couchant ;  and  all  here — 
All  in  this  little  home,  yet  boundless  heaven — 
Are,  in  such  love  as  I  have  power  to  give, 
Blessed  to  overflowing ! 

Thou,  who  look'st 
Upon  my  brimming  heart  this  tranquil  eve, 
Knowest  its  fulness,  as  thou  dost  the  dew 
Sent  to  the  hidden  violet  by  Thee  ! 
And,  as  that  flower  from  its  unseen  abode 
Sends  its  sweet  breath  up  duly  to  the  sky, 
Changing  its  gift  to  incense— so,  oh  God  ! 
May  the  sweet  drops  that  to  my  humble  cup 
Find  their  far  way  from  Heaven,  send  back,  in  prayer, 
Fragrance  at  thy  throne  welcome  ! 

Bob  paused  a  moment  after  reading  these  lines. 

"  They  seem  in  earnest,"  he  said,  "  and  I  will 
sooner  believe  you  were  happy  when  you  wrote 
these,  than  that  you  were  sad  when  you  wrote  the 
others.  But  one  thing  I  remark,"  added  Bob,  "  the 
devout  feeling  in  these  lines  written  when  you  are 
happiest ;  for  it  is  commonly  thought  that  tribulation 
and  sadness  give  the  first  religious  tinge  to  the  ima- 
gination. Yours  is  but  the  happiness  of  Christian 
resignation,  after  all." 

"  On  the  contrary,"  said  Smith,  "  nothing  makes 
me  so  wicked  as  care  and  trouble.  I  always  had, 
from  childhood,  a  disposition  to  fall  down  on  my 
knees  and  thank  God  for  everything  which  made  me 
happy,  while  sorrows  of  all  descriptions  stir  up  my 
antagonism,  and  make  me  feel  rather  like  a  devil  than 
a  Christian." 

"  In  that  case,"  said  Bob,  taking  up  his  hat,  "  good 
night,  and  God  prosper  you  !  And  as  to  your  happi- 
ness?" 

"  Well,  what  is  the  secret  of  my  happiness,  think 
you"" 


"Matrimony,"  replied  Bob. 


LECTURE  ON  FASHION: 


DELIVERED  BEFORE  THE  NEW  YORK  LYCEUM, 


I  had  thought — as  is  thought,  perhaps, 
by  many  who  are  now  before  me — that  the 
subject  of  fashion  was  one  susceptible  only 
of  very  light  handling — to  be  treated  with 
humor,  anecdote,  satire,  and  possibly  some 
moralizing  upon  its  whims  and  follies.  I 
commenced  the  preparation  of  my  lecture 
with  scarce  more  design  than  this. 

It  was  suggested,  very  sensibly,  I  thought, 
by  one  of  the  gentlemen  who  waited  on  me 
with  the  invitation  to  lecture,  that  the  sub- 
jects were  usually  too  dry; — that  it  would 
be  worth  while  to  start  a  new  range  of 
popular  addresses — if  not  upon  trifling  to- 
pics, at  least  upon  such,  as,  conveying 
information,  would  still  bear  embroidering 
with  trifles. 

The  subject  of  fashion  was  instanced  and 
approved.  I  thought  I  might  easily  enter- 
tain an  audience  with  a  history  of  the  follies 
of  fashion  in  different  countries  and  times, 
and  that  in  the  hearer's  keener  appreciation 
of  the  absurdity  of  fashionable  extremes, 
from  seeing  them  in  the  ludicrous  light  of 
disuse  and  distance,  might  lie  the  utility  of 
such  a  lecture.  Those  who  are  familiar 
with  the  literature  of  the  sixteenth  century 
will  remember  that  the  fashions  were,  at  that 
day,  the  great  target  of  pulpit  eloquence — 
that,  with  a  vein  half  humorous,  though 
with  violent  denunciation,  the  clergy  de- 
tailed the  follies  of  fashion,  and  dwelt  upon 
their  sinfulness ;  and  that  more  particularly 
in  New  England,  in  the  Puritan  days  of 
Cotton  Mather,  this  great  Divine,  and  others, 


held   forth  on   this   subject  with  the  very 
extremity  of  wrathful  fervor. 

A  reference  to  the  serious  books  and  to 
the  sermons  of  that  period  would  sufficiently 
show,  that,  had  I  followed  out  my  original 
intention,  and  taken  the  fashions  themselves 
for  the  text  and  burthen  of  my  lecture,  I 
should  not  have  lacked  for  grave  precedent, 
nor  for  material  and  inference,  worth  the 
while  of  both  speaker  and  hearer.  The 
fashions  are  not  my  theme,  however.  Fash- 
ion is — and  betweenyWaon  and  the  fashions 
you  will  at  once  comprehend  the  distinc- 
tion. Of  the  importance  of  the  subject,  in 
the  light  in  which  I  view  it,  you  will  be  the 
judges  when  you  have  heard  me  to  the  end 
— but  I  may  say,  by  way  of  bespeaking 
your  favorable  attention,  that  I  am  inclined 
to  believe  few  topics — short  of  religion  and 
constitutional  law — to  be,  at  this  period  of 
our  country's  history,  of  greater  importance 
to  us.  Before  entering  upon  this  generali 
zing  view,  however,  let  me  say  a  few  words 
on  the  fashions,  as  to  the  degree  with  which 
they  affect  the  standard  of  true  taste — in  this 
same  degree,  giving  weight  and  color  to 
fashion,  in  which  taste  and  elegance  are  of 
course  prominent  features. 

The  origin  of  fashion  would  probably 
start  even  with  the  history  of  taste.  The 
fust  hour  of  a  community's  existence— if 
created  full  grown,  like  the  family  of  Deu 
calion  and  Pyrrha— would  betray  differen- 
ces in  the  demeanor  of  men ;  and  the  most 
graceful  and  showy  would  probably  be  "the 


800 


LECTURE  ON  FASHION. 


fashion,"  by  acclamation.  Taste  is  instinc- 
tive, and  homage  is  paid  irresistibly,  by  all 
human  beings,  to  supremacy  in  elegance. 
The  rise  and  progress  of  fashion  up  to  its 
present  condition,  however,  is  not  uniform- 
ly a  history  of  taste.  What  are  more  con- 
tradictory than  the  caprices  of  fashion  1 
There  are  certain  standards  of  beauty,  deci- 
ded upon  by  the  common  instinct — stand- 
ards which  artists  irresistibly  follow,  and 
which  the  eye  invariably  acknowledges 
true,  and  these  standards  are  as  often  vio- 
lated as  adhered  to,  by  the  votaries  of  fash- 
ion. The  ladies  very  well  know,  that,  be 
their  faces  long  or  short — be  their  forms 
queenly  or  fairy-like, — there  is  but  one  in- 
exorable size  and  shape  for  a  fashionable 
bonnet;  and,  of  course,  if  one  style  of 
beauty  is  favored,  all  others  are  unbecom- 
ingly marred.  The  male  figure,  it  has 
been  decided  by  centuries  of  progressive 
art,  has  its  laws  of  beauty, — but  in  the 
fashions,  of  what  age  of  civilized  Europe 
have  not  these  laws  been  violated. 

Strange  to  say,  and  worth  speculating 
on,  if  we  had  time  for  a  digression,  it  is  only 
in  the  semi-barbarous  nations — in  modern 
Greece  and  Turkey,  and  among  the  indolent 
and  unthinking  tribes  of  the  Asiatics,  that 
costume,  once  regulated  by  art,  remains  in 
unchangeable  good  taste — comfortable  and 
convenient,  as  well  as  picturesque  and  be- 
coming. But  look  at  the  fashions  of  Eu- 
rope. Positively  the  most  incredible  true 
books  with  which  I  am  acquainted  are  the 
amusing  records  of  the  fashions  of  the  last 
two  hundred  years  in  England.  White 
periwigs  of  enormous  bulk,  were,  for  in- 
stance, the  fashion  for  ladies  in  the  begin- 
ning of  the  seventeenth  century.  It  is  an 
accredited  fact,  that  there  died  in  London 
in  1756,  a  white-headed  old  woman  of  great 
age,  whose  hoary  hair,  cut  off  after  her 
death,  sold  for  fifty  pounds  to  a  ladies'  peri- 
wig maker.  Black  patches  on  the  faces  of 
court  beauties  were  the  fashion  in  the  same 
age,  and  hoops  and  high  heels — utter  de- 
struction 10  grace  of  form  and  movement — 
were  worn  by  all  ladies  with  any  pretension 
to  quality 


the  male  figure,  the  shoulders  should  be 
broad,  for  beauty,  and  the  hips  narrow, 
and  it  has  been  said  in  support  of  this 
standard  that  it  is  an  aristocratic  forma- 
tion— as  those  whose  ancestors  had  carried 
burthens  would  naturally  have  large  hips, 
while  those  whose  forefathers  had  been  of 
warlike  habits  and  taken  exercise  princi- 
pally in  the  saddle,  would  be  more  devel- 
oped in  the  chest  and  shoulders.  In  the 
teeth  of  the  arts,  however,  and  of  these 
aristocratic  objections,  padded  hips  were 
the  fashion  in  King  James's  time,  while  the 
collarless  coat,  with  seams  converging  to 
the  throat,  narrowed  the  chest  and  shoul- 
ders and  gave  to  the  male  figure  the  outline 
of  the  female. 

Ridiculous  as  most  fashions,  when  not 
based  upon  legitimate  principles  of  art,  seem 
at  a  distance,  however,  it  is  astonishing  how 
unaware  the  excesses  creep  upon  us,  and 
how  easily  and  unsuspectingly  men  of  sense 
pass,  from  ridiculing  a  new  fashion,  to  ap- 
proving and  adopting  it.  It  would  puz- 
zle any  one  present,  except  perhaps  an 
artist,  to  tell,  in  a  moment,  what  are  the 
absurdities  of  the  present  fashions.  Yet 
absurdities  there  are,  that  will  be  laugh- 
ed at  fifty  years  hence,  and  you  can  easily 
detect  them,  by  applying  to  the  present 
modes  the  severe  test  of  their  utility  as 
heighteners  of  natural  beauty.  And  here 
let  me,  in  passing,  throw  a  pebble  into  the 
scale  of  art — hinting  at  the  importance  of 
keeping  in  view  the  principles  of  art  and 
true  elegance  in  adopting  the  changes  of 
the  fashions.  If  the  portraits  of  men  of 
mark  and  women  of  great  beauty,  in  our  age, 
are  to  be  painted  for  posterity,  let  it  be 
within  the  painter's  power  to  make  an  ar- 
tistic disposition  of  drapery,  without  painting 
his  sitters  in  the  unfitting  costume  of  a  clas- 
sic age,  floating  them  in  clouds,  or  disguis- 
ing them  with  cloaks  and  mantles.  We 
have  all  laughed  at  the  portraits  that  have 
descended  to  us  from  the  days  of  periwigs 
and  red-heeled  shoes.  There  have  been 
celebrated  painters,  who  have  followed  the 
fashions  of  the  time  even  in  historical  pic- 
tures— gravely  representing  the  apostles  and 


LECTURE  ON  FASHION. 


801 


martyrs  in  bag- wigs,  and  the  Virgin  Mary 
in  hoop  and  farthingale.  There  is  no  know- 
ing how  far  the  habituation  of  monstrosities 
in  common  wear  may  corrupt  the  taste  even 
of  artists.  I  am  not  sure,  by  the  way,  that 
the  national  style  of  dress  may  not  have 
something  to  do  with  the  heroic  in  national 
character.  There  was  pride  of  country  in  a 
Roman  toga,  that  hardly  appertains  to  a  hat 
and  frock  coat;  and  Cesar's  death  might  not 
have  descended  so  dramatically  to  posterity, 
if,  instead  of  wrapping  his  head  majestically 
in  his  mantle,  he  had  fallen  at  the  base  of 
Pompey's  statue — with  his  overcoat  pulled 
over  him ! 

Leaving  the  fashions  with  thus  much  of 
notice,  I  come  now  to  the  subject  of  fashion 
— a  term  of  most  elusive  and  changeable 
import,  and  expressive  of  a  condition  of  life, 
which  it  is  next  to  impossible  to  analyze  or 
define.  Fashion  is  a  position  in  society — 
attained  by  different  avenues  in  different 
countries — but,  however  arrived  at,  giving 
its  possessor  consequence  in  common  re- 
port, value  in  private  life,  authority  in  all 
matters  of  taste,  and  influence  in  every 
thing.  Rightly  to  appreciate  what  fashion 
is,  or  rather  what  it  is  likely  to  be  hereafter 
in  our  own  country,  let  us,  without  denning 
it  further,  look  a  little  into  what  it  is  abroad. 
Let  us  see  what  fashion  is  in  France,  and 
what  it  is  in  England — for  it  is  from  these 
two  countries,  only,  that  we  borrow  any 
thing  in  the  way  of  social  distinctions — and 
by  contrast  with  our  future  models,  we  can 
the  more  easily  make  out  what  fashion  is 
in  the  great  metropolis  of  our  own  country, 
if  not  as  to  which  way  it  is  tending. 

There  is  wonderful  activity  of  amusement 
in  all  the  grades  of  society  in  Paris,  and  no 
one  class,  or  grade,  wastes  much  time  in 
thinking  about  the  other— differing  in  this 
respect,  (I  may  say  in  passing),  from  Eng- 
land, where  all  classes  that  pretend  to  socie- 
ty at  all,  occupy  themselves  to  any  uncom- 
fortable degree  with  gazing  enviously  at  the 
highest.  Of  necessity,  in  a  monarchical 
country,  rank  has  its  weight,  and  the  an- 
cient nobility  of  France  can  scarcely  be  said 
to  be  out  of  fashion,  though  the  verbal  ho- 
51 


mage  and  high  consideration  with  which  per- 
sons of  noble  family  are  invariably  named, 
is  merely  nominal  and  ceremonious,  and  the 
old  families,  unless  fashionable  from  intrin- 
sic causes,  are  practically  shelved  and  for- 
gotten in  the  celebrated  Faubourg  where 
they  reside.  Wealth,  too,  as  in  all  coun- 
tries, has  its  weight,  and  the  rich  man  in 
Paris  may  soar,  on  wings  of  lavish  expense, 
to  the  acquaintance  of  fashionable  people  ; 
though,  like  Icarus  with  his  wings  of  wax, 
he  drops  like  a  clod  when  his  wings  are 
melted.  The  court-circle — those  who  are 
officially  or  amicably  in  habits  of  inter- 
course with  the  family  of  the  king,  are 
not  necessarily,  the  fashion.  But  beyond 
the  control  of  either  of  these  three  pow- 
erful grades  of  society, — rank,  wealth  and 
court  favor — there  exists  in  Paris  a  sphere  of 
fashion ;  and  whatever  else  may  purchase 
admission  to  it  by  outlay  of  splendor,  or 
come  into  temporary  contact  with  it  by 
caprice  or  accident,  there  is  but  one  homo- 
geneous and  predominating  principle  in  it 
— but  one  invariable  "  open  sesame,"  and 
that  is,  intellect!  Personal  beauty  goes  far 
in  France,  but  it  must  be  accompanied  by 
the  tact  of  being  agreeable,  or,  if  it  were 
Venus  herself,  the  beauty  would  soon  be 
ridiculed  and  neglected.  Celebrity,  of  every 
description,  is  a  passport  to  fashion.  Cele- 
brated players  and  singers,  travellers,  sol- 
diers, artists,  scholars,  statesmen  and  diplo- 
matists, range  freely  through  the  penetralia 
of  Parisian  fashion.  Nothing  is  excluded 
that  is  eminent — that  is  distinguished,  that 
can  amuse.  All  manner  of  mental  superi- 
ority is  unhesitatingly  acknowledged.  And, 
intellect  being  the  constituency  of  this  legis- 
lature of  fashion,  who  are  its  leaders.  The 
manifest  controllers  of  the  tide  of  thought 
and  of  the  great  interests  of  the  present  hour 
— the  living  authors,  the  editors  of  newspa- 
pers, active  politicians,  resident  diplomatists, 
and  talented  clergy — these  are  the  influen- 
tial leaders  of  fashionable  society  in  Paris, 
and  the  indispensable  guests  at  all  fashion- 
able entertainments.  With  all  the  French 
passion  for  dress  and  elegance,  they  exact 
nothing  ornamental  in  the  persons  of  their 


802 


LECTURE  ON  FASHION. 


intellectual  favorites — in  their  admired  po- 
ets, and  artists.  They  appreciate  eminence 
in  dress  and  personal  accomplishment,  for 
it  is  a  shape  of  talent,  and  the  consummate 
dandy  has  commonly  a  passport  in  his  tact 
and  wit — but  the  lions  of  Paris  are  as  often 
ill-dressed  and  awkward  as  the  contrary, 
and  the  mere  exteriors  of  men  have  little 
to  do  with  making  them  permanently  fash- 
ionable. A  sphere  of  society  so  constituted 
is  teeming  with  power,  for,  besides  standing 
at  the  very  fountain  of  respect,  which  is  in- 
tellect, it  is  contributed  to  by  all  the  differ- 
ent levels  of  life  in  that  great  metropolis — 
taking  to  itself  the  ambitious  core  and  spirit 
of  every  class,  rank  and  condition.  Its 
power,  too,  goes  farther  than  mere  opinion. 
The  most  conspicuous  members  of  the  pre- 
sent government  of  France,  were  first  the 
idols  of  its  fashionable  society — as  editors  of 
newspapers,  poets  and  men  of  science.  In- 
tellect like  theirs,  however  manifested,  is 
the  road  to  fashion,  and,  driven  onward  by 
fashionable  influence  and  eclat,  it  is  the 
easy  and  flowery  road  to  every  thing  desi- 
rable in  position  and  power.  Without  di- 
gressing to  look  for  the  causes  of  this  in  the 
political  and  moral  revolutions  of  France, 
let  me  say  simply  of  the  present  hour,  that 
if  there  be  in  the  world  an  indisputable  re- 
public of  intellect,  it  is  the  fashionable  so- 
ciety of  witty  and  giddy  Paris  ! 

Let  us  glance  now  at  fashion  in  England 
— differing  from  that  of  France  in  some  very 
essential  particulars.  Rank,  is  more  highly 
prized  in  England.  A  man  who  is  noble- 
born  is  already  three  fourths  fashionable — 
the  remaining  fourth  depending  not  at  all 
on  his  fortune,  but  wholly  on  his  appear- 
ance and  manners.  A  clownish  young  lord, 
or  a  girl  who  is  Right  Honorably  plain  and 
awkward,  though  presentable  at  court,  and 
invited  for  form's  sake  to  the  sweeping 
entertainments  which  embrace  the  giver's 
entire  acquaintance,  can  never  be  fashion- 
able, and  is  pointedly  overlooked  in  the 
invitations  to  parties  more  select,  and  very 
soon  discouraged  and  mortified  out  of  soci- 
ety. Wealth  has  much  less  influence  than 
in  France,  in  making  its  possessor  fashiona- 


ble. A  person  who  is  merely  wealthy — not 
ornamental  to  society  in  his  own  person,  is 
hopelessly  shut  out  from  the  sphere  of  the 
exclusives.  A  certain  competency,  it  is  true, 
is  necessary  to  fashion.  A  stylish  man  in 
London  must  spend  three  times  as  much  as 
would  serve  his  purpose  in  France,  in  hav- 
ing about  him  the  appointments  of  a  gentle- 
man, including  an  equipage.  But,  beyond 
what  is  necessary  for  his  own  personal  ele- 
gance, and  convenience,  he  requires  no 
riches  to  pass  freely  through  all  the  favor- 
itism of  fashion.  The  immense  number 
of  wealthy  people  in  England  has  neutrali- 
zed the  distinction  of  wealth ;  and  money, 
nowhere  in  the  world,  I  think,  goes  so  little 
way  as  in  that  country,  beyond  providing 
for  personal  luxury  and  comfort. 

Rank  and  wealth,  then,  not  being  inva- 
riable passports  to  fashion  in  London,  we 
come  next  to  the  third  social  estate — that 
of  intellect.  Your  mind  immediately  passes 
in  review  the  politicians,  the  men  of  sci- 
ence, the  authors,  dramatists,  artists — whose 
names — written  at  the  height  they  have 
attained  to,  are  legible  at  the  distance  at 
which  we  read  them — the  breadth  of  the 
Atlantic !  You  ask — has  the  genius  that 
makes  these  men  immortal,  made  them  the 
favorites  of  the  hour  they  illuminate — the 
fashion  in  the  country  on  which  they  shed 
lustre  !  When  they  are  down  from  the 
height  of  inspiration  in  which  their  wings 
were  visible  to  the  universe,  do  the  choicest 
of  fair  women  and  nobte  men,  contend,  as 
in  France,  to  do  them  honor  and  give  them 
pleasure  1  No !  The  exclusive  sphere  in 
England  has  no  such  class  in  its  confidence, 
as  men  of  genius.  A  man  whose  star  has 
culminated — who  has  forced  the  world  to 
hear  of  him  by  some  undeniable  burst  of 
intellect — finds  his  way  open,  it  is  true, 
into  the  houses  of  the  nobility,  and  into 
the  more  common  resorts  of  the  fashion- 
ables. He  is  the  "lion  of  the  season" — and 
what  the  position  is,  of  the  merely  intel- 
lectual lion  in  the  fashionable  circle  of 
England,  English  writers  have  honestly 
enough  put  down !  It  is  a  hell  of  in- 
visible humiliations!      Not   to   offend    any 


LECTURE  ON  FASHION. 


803 


living  author  by  sketching  his  position, 
suppose  Keats,  the  apothecary's  boy,  to 
have  returned  from  Italy,  where  he  died ; 
and,  having  outlived  the  sneer  of  the  high- 
born critic  who  counselled  him  to  "  return 
to  his  gallipots,"  to  have  become  a  lion  in 
London  society.  He  had  nothing  in  birth, 
or  personal  appearance,  to  give  him  value 
—nothing  but  incomparable  genius — that 
which,  in  all  theories  and  essays  on  the 
distinctions  of  life,  is  put  down  as  the  no- 
blest aristocracy.  He  would  have  been 
invited  every  where  !  He  would  have  dined 
and  supped  and  danced,  if  he  liked,  in  every 
nobleman's  house  in  London,  and  would 
have  been,  for  a  season  or  two,  constantly 
in  the  presence  of  the  exclusives,  male  and 
female.  But  the  entrance  to  the  noble- 
man's house,  and  the  nobleman's  conde- 
scension at  dinner,  and  the  attentive  listen- 
ing of  the  entire  company  to  his  eloquent 
conversation,  would  never  have  broken 
down  the  wall  of  glass  between  him  and 
the  ladies  of  his  host's  family  and  circle  ! 
The  belles  of  Almack's  would  never  have 
known  Mr.  Keats.  The  beauties  familiar 
with  the  dandies  of  St.  James  street,  would 
as  soon  have  thought  of  feeling  a  tender- 
ness for  a  Chinese  juggler  who  had  amused 
them,  as  for  the  literary  lion  they  had  list- 
ened to  at  dinner.  There  is  an  invariable 
manner  of  uninterested  and  polite  suffer- 
ance, cultivated  for  the  express  use  of  a 
non-conductor  between  the  exclusives  and 
the  unprivileged  who  may  have  access  to 
their  resorts.  This  has  been  felt  by  every 
self-made  celebrated  man  in  England,  and 
as  most  of  them  have  been  content  with 
one  or  two  seasons  of  such  life,  men  of 
genius,  unless  newly  risen,  are  seldom  to 
be  found  in  vogue  among  the  exclusives. 

But  the  sphere  exists — powerful,  splen- 
did, and  dazzling  to  all  eyes, — the  sphere 
of  high  fashion  in  England, — and  what  is 
the  key  to  it,  and  for  whom  are  its  intoxi- 
cating triumphs  1 

In  civilization,  as  in  many  other  things, 
extremes  meet.  The  highest  possible  cul- 
tivation approaches  nearest  to  the  simpli- 
city of  nature,  and  England,  which,  at  this 


moment,  probably,  is  at  a  higher  point  of 
civilization  than  was  ever  before  attained, 
shows,  in  its  most  accomplished  circle,  the 
nearest  approach  to  nature.  The  passport 
to  fashion  in  England  is  that  which  would 
be  a  passport  to  pre-eminence  in  an  Indian 
tribe — beauty  of  person  combined  with  assu- 
rance and  a  natural  air  of  superiority.  With 
a  mien  of  graceful  boldness,  and  such  a  face 
and  form  as  would  suit  a  sculptor,  or  grace 
a  chief,  the  son  of  a  country  curate  in  Eng. 
land  may  pluck  fashion  from  an  earl.  And 
the  same  with  the  other  sex.  With  no  pre- 
tension to  parentage  or  position,  above  re- 
spectability, a  girl  of  remarkable  beauty, 
let  it  be  only  such  beauty  as  would  sit 
gracefully  upon  title,  and  bear  itself  proudly 
among  the  proud,  is  marked  from  her  child- 
hood for  high  connection.  She  attracts  the 
regard  of  her  titled  neighbors,  is  taken  up 
as  a  guest  to  London,  and  made  the  belle 
of  the  season,  and,  if  an  attachment  spring 
up  between  her  and  a  man  of  rank,  the 
passion  is  fanned  and  favored  by  generous 
acclamation.  The  exclusives  rejoice  in  an 
addition  of  beauty  to  their  set,  and  the  coro- 
net is  more  graced  from  being  worn  even  by 
plebeian  blood,  more  gracefully. 

I  am  not  sure  that  this  is  not  a  commen- 
dable aristocracy — at  least  not  sure  that  the 
acknowledging  and  adopting  of  nature's 
stamp  of  superiority  is  not  the  best  se- 
cret for  the  securing  of  power  and  in- 
fluence to  the  most  elevated  class.  The 
finest  race  in  the  eastern  hemisphere — 
the  most  gallant  and  manly  in  its  men, 
and  the  most  beautiful  and  high-born 
looking  in  its  women — is  the  fashionable 
aristocracy  of  England.  The  requisite 
loftiness  of  bearing  which  accompanies 
the  beauty  admired  by  this  class,  is  not 
attained  without  superiority  in  the  natu- 
ral character,  and  the  successful  fashiona- 
bles of  England  are  the  best  stuff,  I  believe 
— the  men  for  action,  and  the  women  for 
the  maternity  of  nature's  noblemen.  I  am 
inclined  to  think,  I  repeat,  that  nature's 
mark  of  superiority  is  well  and  wisely  ac 
knowledged.  The  balance  of  the  physical 
and    intellectual    endowments — the    power 


804 


LECTURE  ON  FASHION. 


of  bold  action  on  a  level  with  other  men, 
and  with  a  superiority  that  all  men  can  ap- 
preciate— may  be,  to  the  eye  of  nature,  su- 
perior to  what  we  call  genius — superior  to  the 
concentration  of  the  whole  force  upon  par- 
ticular qualities  of  the  brain.  There  are, 
doubtless,  many  men,  wholly  undistin- 
guished, who  yet,  in  the  harmonious  pro- 
portion of  their  persons  and  character — 
in  their  sufficiency  of  brain  for  all  the  exi- 
gences of  action,  and  of  spirit  and  dignity 
to  carry  out  all  the  desirable  purposes  of 
the  brain,  are  superior  to  geniuses,  born  for 
nothing  but  to  write  books  of  fancy,  or 
made  immortal  by  a  disproportioned  devel- 
opment of  one  faculty  only.  Upon  such 
men, — upon  poets  and  novelists,  artists  and 
musicians — nature  has  rarely  put  her  legible 
stamp  of  u  first  quality."  It  has  been  the 
complaint  of  genius,  through  all  ages,  that 
its  superiority  has  not  been  acknowledged; 
and  it  seems  to  be  an  invariable  instinct  in 
human  nature  not  to  acknowledge  it,  where 
the  writer  and  his  personal  qualities  are 
known.  May  it  not  be  natural  therefore, 
to  revolt  against  disproportion  in  endow- 
ment— and  may  not  our  great  admiration 
for  authors  at  a  distance,  and  our  diminish- 
ed homage  when  we  know  them,  lie  in  the 
disappointment  we  feel  that  they  are  not  as 
remarkable  in  other  respects  as  in  power  of 
fancy — an  instinc.tive  feeling  that  the  ex- 
cess of  this  quality  is  at  the  expense  of 
others  as  desirable  1 

This  is  something  of  a  digression — but 
before  leaving  the  subject  of  English  fash- 
ion, let  me  remark  upon  the  prodigious  in- 
fluence of  the  fashionable  class  in  England, 
and  the  likelihood  that  it  works  as  an  im- 
portant weight  in  the  balance  of  power  in 
that  country.  It  is  time,  I  think,  that  like 
the  addition  in  France,  of  the  Tiers  Etat  to 
the  political  divisions  of  Church  and  State. 
Fashion,  in  England,  should  be  named  as  a 
power,  after  King,  Lords  and  Commons. 
It  is  a  combination — a  class — an  order — form- 
ed exclusively  from  no  other  class — capable, 
as  was  shown  in  Brummel's  time,  of  giving 
a  slight  to  the  blood  royal,  and  in  the  con- 
stant habit  of  putting  down  rank  that  does 


mind    and  person 
marriage  of  noble 


not  look  like  rank,  and  selecting  nature's 
favorites  from  the  people.  The  Queen 
fears  it — the  nobility  courts  it — the  people 
worship  it.  It  makes  and  unmakes  popu- 
lar idols.  It  rules  the  stage.  It  puts  down 
pretension.  It  is  always  elegant  and  lofty, 
even  in  its  oppressions.  It  fosters  taste.  It 
maintains  the  beautiful  against  the  costly, 
— and  it  has  for  its  exclusive  use,  and  with 
power  to  direct  them  alike  against  over- 
bearing authority  and  vulgar  wealth,  the 
formidable  weapons  of  contempt  and  ridi- 
cule. In  all  monarchies  that  ever  existed 
aristocracy  have  dwindled  in 
by  the  exclusive  inter- 
blood.  England  is  the 
first  that  has  made  tributary  the  nobili- 
ty of  nature,  taking  grafts  from  the  strong 
and  beautiful,  wherever  grew  strength  and 
beauty  in  the  capricious  garden  of  supe- 
riority. A  revolution  cannot  put  down 
such  a  class !  There  is  a  natural  homage  in 
the  high  and  low-born  alike,  paid,  without 
stint  or  scruple,  to  the  stamp  of  God.  The 
aristocracy  of  England,  with  all  their  pride 
and  superciliousness  towards  those  who 
crowd  upon  their  skirts,  is  acknowledged 
and  admired,  by  the  mass  of  the  people,  as 
was  never  another  aristocracy  by  its  plebe- 
ian  countrymen.  The  existence  of  such  a 
class,  I  repeat,  is  important  to  the  balance 
of  power  in  England.  The  tides  of  opin- 
ion, that  would  meet,  embattled  in  oppo- 
sing floods — the  arbitrary  dictates  of  the  court 
on  the  one  hand,  and  the  rebellious  spirit 
of  a  people  never  consulted,  on  the  other, 
— find,  in  this  intermediate  class,  a  break- 
water, that  is  a  continual  check  to  overflow 
and  devastation. 

The  next  step  in  my  argument  is  to  get, 
if  possible,  the  same  generalizing  view  of 
the  great  metropolis  of  this  country — to  see 
what  it  is  that  gives  fashion  and  conse- 
quence in  New  York.  Let  me  premise, 
however,  that  my  remarks  will  apply  to 
no  other  city  in  this  country,  nor  would 
they  have  been  true  of  New  York  forty 
years  ago.  In  cities  of  a  certain  size — 
cities  with  the  population  of  Boston,  Phi- 
ladelphia and  Albany — the  natural  claims 


LECTURE  ON  FASHION. 


805 


to  aristocracy  have,  at  least,  a  hearing ; 
and  combined  with  wealth  and  personal 
worth,  they  take  rank  with  little  opposi- 
tion. In  a  metropolis  of  four  hundred 
thousand  inhabitants,  these  same  distinc- 
tions are  lost  in  the  number  of  claimants ; 
and,  in  what  I  have  to  say  of  New  York, 
I  confine  myself  to  the  period  since  this 
state  of  things  has  existed — the  last  fif- 
teen or  twenty  years,  during  which  the 
old  aristocracy  of  the  Knickerbockers  has 
been  shoved  aside,  by  the  enormous  in- 
crease of  wealthy  and  pretentious  popu- 
lation. 

In  the  particular  period  at  which  we  live, 
our  country  differs  from  all  the  nations  of 
the  earth  in  one  remarkable  feature — that 
of  being  in  a  state  of  social  transition  unex- 
ampled for  extent  and  rapidity — passing, 
that  is  to  say,  by  lightning  leaps  of  ambi- 
tious imitation,  from  plain  to  sumptuous, 
from  primitive  to  luxurious.  Study  the  pro- 
gresss  of  innovations  upon  the  manners  of 
older  countries.  See  with  what  reluctant 
advance,  one  by  one,  the  few  foreign 
usages  that  prevail  in  England  and  France 
have  crept  respectively  upon  those  compla- 
cent countries.  How  little  that  is  French 
there  is  in  England — how  little  that  is  Eng- 
lish in  France!  And  with  what  an  unnatu- 
ralized strangeness  these  few  outlandish 
features  are  incorrigibly  worn.  Here,  on 
the  contrary,  in  the  cities  of  America,  cus- 
toms that  would  be  twenty  years  obtaining 
foothold  in  Europe,  are  adopted  at  sight — 
domesticated  and  made  universal  in  a  single 
season.  Our  commerce  is  on  the  alert,  our 
merchants  are  novelty-seeking  travellers, 
ready  to  freight  ships  with  any  thing  they 
find  that  would  be  new  at  home,  and  we 
have  not  a  single  prejudice  in  our  national 
character  which  shuts  the  door  upon  an 
innovation.  Nothing  appears  abroad — in 
dress,  equipage,  usage  of  society,  style  of 
furniture  or  mode  of  amusement,  that  is  not 
conjured  over  the  water  with  aeriel  quick- 
ness, copied  with  marvellous  fidelity  in 
New  York,  and  incorporated  at  once  into 
national  habituation.  The  drawing-rooms 
of  our  wealthy  classes  are  types,   neither 


faint  nor  imperfect,  of  the  sumptuous  inte- 
riors of  May  Fair,  and  of  the  exclusive 
saloons  of  France.  Our  ladies  are  scarce 
thirty  days  behind  the  fashions  of  Paris.  A 
change  in  men's  dress  in  St.  James  street, 
is  adopted  in  New  York  before  it  is  detect- 
ed east  of  Temple  Bar.  The  stained  glass 
of  Bohemia,  while  still  a  curiosity  in  Eng- 
land, had  grown  common  upon  our  dinner- 
tables.  The  toys  of  the  age  of  Louis  the 
Fourteenth,  Egyptian  couches,  and  the 
carved  furniture  of  the  age  of  Elizabeth, 
have  been  in  turn  the  fashion  abroad,  and, 
of  either  style,  there  were  profuse  speci- 
mens in  common  wear  among  us,  while  the 
novelty  was  still  fresh  in  the  capitals  of  Eu- 
rope. We  copy  every  thing  we  can  hear 
of — import  and  imitate  instantly  every  new 
model  of  equipage — follow  every  whim  of 
society,  take  the  new  dance,  the  new  by- 
word, the  new  public  amusement, — and 
enter  heart  and  soul  into  every  rage  that  is 
handed  over  to  us,  dramatic,  operatic,  sump- 
tuary, and  literary.  This  daguerreotype  im- 
itation is  no  less  improving  in  its  results, 
however,  than  it  is  miraculous  for  its  facile 
rapidity.  We  have  beaten  England  and 
France  in  progressive  civilization  and  eleva- 
tion, three  centuries  in  one.  At  this  rate, 
and  with  the  increasing  facilities  of  com- 
merce, we  shall  soon  have  nothing  to  learn 
from  Europe,  but  what  transpires  between 
the  traverses  of  packets — and  when  that 
period  arrives,  we  shall  be,  of  all  countries 
the  most  cosmopolite — comparing  with  other 
nations  as  the  enlightened  and  liberal  tra- 
veller compares  with  the  home-keeping  vil- 
lager. I  am  anticipating,  however.  Be- 
fore saying  more  of  the  future,  let  us  take 
our  proposed  view  of  the  present — as  shown 
in  the  fashion  of  this  great  metropolis. 

Though  there  is  probably  a  greater  mar- 
ket for  the  fashions  in  New- York  than  in 
any  other  capital  in  the  world,  (from  the 
fact  that  all  classes,  above  the  lowest,  dress 
as  extravagantly  here  as  only  the  first  class 
does  abroad)  there  is  still  very  little  of  what 
can  be  fairly  fixed  upon  as  fashion.  No  one 
circle  confessedly  holds  the  power.  Of 
rank,  we    can    hardly    name   the   value   in 


806 


LECTURE  ON  FASHION. 


New  York,  for,  coming  to  us  from  abroad, 
it  has  the  exaggerated  value  of  an  exotic — 
much  more  worshipped  here  than  where 
it  comes  from.  It  does  not  strike  me,  how- 
ever, that  we  show  any  symptoms  of  relish 
for  the  indigenous  rank  that  would  natu- 
rally be  now  taking  root  in  the  families 
among  us  most  honorably  descended.  It 
would  require  some  research  to  discover,  in 
New  York,  even  the  residences  of  those 
whose  fathers'  names  are  in  the  page  of  our 
history.  Wherever  they  are,  they  get  little 
position,  consequence,  or  fashion,  from  the 
mere  eminence  of  their  forefathers — few  of 
them  it  is  certain,  being  even  what  the  most 
conspicuous  people  would  call  "  in  socie- 
ty." I  think  this  will  bear  putting  still 
more  strongly,  and  that  I  may  venture  to 
say  there  is  an  instinctive  hostility  to  the 
assumption  of  consequence  by  old  families 
and  somewhat,  perhaps,  from  a  feeling 
on  the  part  of  the  undistinguished,  that 
there  is  still  a  chance  for  competition  with 
dignities  of  so  recent  date,  but  more  from 
the  application  of  that  exacting  standard, 
by  which  merit  in  the  inheritor  alone 
makes  valid  an  inheritance  of  glory. 

In  the  absence  of  rank,  and  particularly 
IB  a  republic,  you  would  naturally  suppose 
that  official  power — the  appointment  by 
public  honor  to  the  highest  dignities  of  the 
State — would  give,  to  the  family  of  the 
holder,  a  deference  that  would  make  them 
the  fashion.  Yet  you  all  know  the  value 
of  this  claim  to  consequence  !  The  Gov- 
ernor, Secretary,  Treasurer  of  the  State,  the 
Senators  and  Representatives  of  the  Sov- 
reign  People,  come  and  go  with  no  more 
eclat  than  other  men,  and  their  families  are 
no  more  sought,  imitated  or  caressed,  for 
their  official  dignity.  It  neither  makes  a 
man  nor  his  family  particularly  the  fashion 
in  New  York,  if  he  be  Mayor  of  the  city ; 
though,  in  the  administration  of  his  office, 
he  exercises  a  sway  as  powerful  for  the 
time  being,  as  many  a  crowned  head  of 
feudal  Europe.  Instead  of  fashionable  ho- 
mage, paid  to  such  dignity  as  we  had  a 
nand  in  making,  we  seem  on  the  contrary 
to  feel  for  it  a  fashionable  indifference. 


Is  it  here  as  in  France,  and  does  intel- 
lect give  consequence  in  New  York  ?  Does 
wit  in  man,  or  conversational  talent  in  wo- 
man, make  the  possessor  an  indispensable 
acquaintance  to  all  givers  of  fashionable 
parties.  Are  the  powerful  controllers  of 
public  opinion,  the  gentlemen  of  the  press 
— keepers  as  they  are,  or  might  be,  of  the 
key  of  each  momentous  to-morrow — are 
they,  in  a  country  where  the  press,  far 
more  than  in  France,  is  the  citadel  of  power 
— are  they,  as  in  France,  courted  for  their 
intellect,  and  for  the  influence  they  could 
give  to  the  class  they  particularly  belonged 
to.  Are  the  gentlemen  of  the  bar — the  gla- 
diators of  intellect — who,  in  society,  as  in 
courts  of  justice,  have  on  their  armor  of  wit, 
and  in  the  absence  of  any  class  possessing 
the  leisure  to  be  conversationists  only,  are 
the  most  amusing  as  well  as  the  most  im- 
proving members  of  society — are  they  sought 
for  by  the  ambitious,  and  are  their  houses 
and  resorts  made  fashionable  by  their  intel- 
lect'? Are  men  of  science,  distinguished 
artists,  poets,  authors,  politicians  and  native 
celebrities  generally — is  this  varied  body  of 
men,  representing  certainly  the  intellect  of 
the  day,  sought  out  for  fashionable  enter- 
tainments, courted,  and  made  friends  and 
favorites  of,  by  fashionable  women  1  These 
questions  are  answered  by  the  reasonable- 
ness of  a  doubt — whether  one  in  ten  of 
the  most  pretentious  fashionables  of  New 
York,  have  any  definite  idea  who  are  the 
intellectual  masters  and  controllers  of  that 
grand  vehicle  of  society  to  which  they 
themselves  are — the  incomparable  varnish  ! 

Is  it  then  as  in  England  7  Does  fashion- 
able society  take  pains  to  secure  to  itself 
Nature's  mark  of  aristocracy  ?  Are  the  rare 
accidents  of  mingled  grace  and  beauty — the 
lovely  and  admirable  women  who  do  live 
sometimes  in  unfashionable  neighborhoods, 
and  do  belong  to  families  that  are  only  re- 
spectable,— are  such  ornaments  of  their  sex 
sought  out  for  embellishment  to  fashionable 
parties,  or  would  they  find  the  way  easy  if 
they  attempted  to  rise,  by  their  own  exer- 
tions, to  spheres  more  suitably  ornamental  1 
Is  masculine  beauty — combined  with  a  look 


LECTURE  ON  FASHION. 


807 


of  spirit,  and  a  mien  of  natural  chivalry  and 
superiority — are  these  attractions,  in  a  youth 
of  unknown  family  and  of  no  fortune,  suffi- 
cient to  give  him,  in  New  York  as  in  Eng- 
land, easy  access  to  fashionable  circles,  and 
consequence  and  influence,  the  town  over, 
in  all  matters  of  taste  and  elegance  1  These 
questions,  too,  are  easily  answered  by  a  rea- 
sonable doubt — whether  a  well-bred  stran- 
ger, thrown  into  a  mixed  assembly  in  New 
York,  would  not  make  blunders,  (as  he 
hardly  could  do  in  England),  in  an  attempt, 
to  pick  out  the  fashionables  by  their  look 
of  aristocracy. 

Nature's  stamp  of  nobility,  then,  not  be- 
ing a  passport  to  fashion  in  New  York — 
nor  family  name  and  descent — nor  intellect 
—nor  that  official  dignity,  which  in  theory, 
you  would  say,  should  give  rank  in  a  re- 
public—what is  the  predominating  princi- 
ple of  fashion  ?  What  is  it  that  gives  con- 
sequence and  enviable  station  1 

There  is  a  condition  of  life  in  that  city, 
which  without  forming  a  definite  and  com- 
bined class,  as  in  France  and  England, 
may  still  be  called  "  the  fashion" — a  kind 
of  quicksand  of  conspicuousness  and  conse- 
quence, stable  hitherto  for  no  footing,  but 
crowded  successively  by  exclusives,  few 
of  whom  have  ever  kept  their  place  long 
enough  to  be  identified  by  public  rumor. 
The  uncertainty  as  to  who  the  fashiona- 
bles are,  is  somewhat  increased,  too,  by 
their  great  number,  as  no  recognizable  cir- 
cle ever  comes  twice  together,  and  no 
twenty  fashionables  would  agree  as  to  the 
fashionableness  of  twenty  more.  The  great 
secret  of  vogue  in  this  upper  sphere — the 
passport  to  its  conspicuousness  and  conse- 
quence,— is  not  exactly  money — not  ex- 
actly the  being  rich — but  expense,  and  the 
dressing,  driving  and  entertaining  with 
lavish  expensiveness.  Extravagance,  here, 
takes  the  place  that,  in  France,  is  given  to 
intellect,  and  in  England,  to  the  nobility 
of  nature.  It  is  true,  that  even  under  this 
dynasty,  it  has  not  invariably  been  as  diffi- 
cult as  now  to  tell  who  were  the  leading 
fashionables  of  New  York.  Fashion,  from 
time  to  time,  has  made  head  and  taken  a 


stand,  and  within  my  own  memory  of  New 
York  society,  fifteen  or  twenty  years,  there 
have  been  eight  or  ten  confident  and  estab- 
lished aristocracies.     They  have  risen  and 
fallen,  duly,  with  "  the  stocks" — but  never 
before,   after    the   break  up  of  a  Board  of 
Fashionable   Directors,   has  there    been   so 
prolonged  a  state  of  anarchy   as   exists    at 
this    moment.      The    great    convulsion    in 
Wall  street  in  '36,  scattered  the  last  defi- 
nite combination  of  "  people  necessary   to 
know;"    and    since    that    time    there    has 
never  been  a  circle  that  was  not  rivalled 
by    twenty    others,    nor   have    there    been 
any  leaders   of  fashion,  nameable  without 
a    smile     to     two     consecutive     believers. 
Fashion    there    is — the    fashion    as    I    said 
before    of    conspicuousness   in   expense — but 
it    is    a    commonwealth    without    govern- 
ment or  centre — without  limits  or  barriers. 
Any  body  belongs  to  it  who  spends  up  to 
the   mark,   and   if  there   are  any  two  who 
have  combined  to  be  exclusive,  or  make  "  a 
set" — it  is  by  no  means  generally  suspected' 
This  state    of  promiscuous    pomp,   how- 
ever, cannot  long  exist.     It  would  not  have 
existed    till    now,    if   money    alone    could 
make,  again,  a  potentate   among  fashion- 
ables.    The  ambition  to  be,  as  the  French 
say,    "the    cream    of   the    cream"    is    not 
wanting.     It  never   sleeps.     But  money — 
mere  money — is  omnipotent  no  more  !    The 
setting  up  of  an  equipage,  the  adopting  of 
crest  and  livery,  and  the  giving  of  balls  and 
dinners,  can  but  make  a  man — now — one  of 
five  hundred.     Not  till  this  five  hundred  is 
decimated  to  fifty,  by   some    other   superi- 
ority, that,  with  the  aid  of  money,  can  make 
itself  paramount,  and  not  till  that  fifty  is 
decimated,    still    again,    to    five,    who,    by 
the  consent  of  the  fifty,  shall  be  their  lea- 
ders and  rulers,  will  there  be  a  fashion  in 
New  York,  worth   courting  or  fearing.     Is 
this  a  consummation  to  be  wished  ?    I  think 
I  can  show  you  that  it  is  ! 

The  very  core  and  essence  of  that  which 
constitutes  a  republic  is  the  first  principle 
in  fashion— rebellion  against  unnatural  au 
thority.  What  would  be  the  state  of  Eng- 
land at  this  enlightened  day,  with  no  coun- 


808 


LECTURE  ON  FASHION. 


terpoise  to  that  nobility  which  is  an  acci- 
dent of  birth,  and  no  asylum  in  society 
from  the  overbearing1  haughtiness  of  offi- 
cial and  court  privilege  1  There  would  be 
a  tyranny  of  ill-endowed  aristocrats — the 
more  tyrannical  in  proportion  as  they  were 
more  brutal ; — and  a  chasm  between  them 
and  the  people — between  them  and  hum- 
ble-born merit,  which,  if  not  crossed  by 
the  bridge  of  a  revolution,  would  engulf 
them  in  the  darkness  of  feudal  barbarism. 
Now,  there  is  a  republic  in  the  heart  of 
monarchical  England— -fashion,  ruled  by  the 
manifest  stamp  of  superiority.  There  is  a 
republic  in  the  heart  of  monarchical  France 
—fashion,  ruled  by  wit  and  intellect.  These 
are  intermediate  powers  inseparable  from 
a  state  of  high  civilization,  let  the  govern- 
ment be  what  it  will.  Under  the  two 
hoary  monarchies  just  named,  they  are 
a  check  to  the  tyranny  of  rank,  the  inso- 
lence of  wealth  and  the  pomposity  of  the 
court — to  all  of  which  intolerable  evils  the 
smile  or  frown  of  fashion  is  wholesomely 
and  triumphantly  paramount.  But  have 
we  no  work  for  Fashion  to  do  in  America  1 
Are  there  no  monsters  to  be  put  down  by 
a  combination  of  refinement  and  intellect  ? 
Have  we  no  evils  in  our  system  of  society, 
no  oppressions,  likely  to  get  the  upper 
hand  of  a  republic,  and  for  which  we  need 
therefore  the  well-tried  countercheck  of 
fashion  1 

Rank — we  have  none  to  contend  against. 
Court  favor,  as  dispensed  at  Washington, 
makes  no  man  formidable.  The  influence 
of  mere  wealth,  as  I  have  already  said,  is 
evidently  on  the  wane — though  were  it  not 
so,  the  tyranny  of  a  sordid  aristocracy  of 
money  might  indeed  call  for  a  well-armed 
antagonist.  A  monster  there  is,  however, 
reigning  over  this  country,  strange  to  say, 
in  the  shape  of  its  greatest  blessing— a 
monster  it  would  scarce  be  safe  to  name, 
without  first  unmasking  and  showing  his 
deformity,  and,  for  this  monster,  we  require 
the  check  that  can  alone  be  given  by  the 
combination  I  speak  of  as  fashion,  for  it  is 
the  only  shape  and  mouth-piece  he  will 
not  himself  usurp   and   turn  to  his  tyranni- 


cal uses.  Look  a  little  into  his  anatomy. 
To  how  many  men  in  a  hundred,  taken 
indiscriminately  from  the  miscellaneous 
population  of  New  York,  would  you  en- 
trust a  decision  upon  any  question  that 
affected  your  personal  position  or  happi- 
ness. Count  among  them  the  vicious,  the 
wilful,  the  ignorant  and  short-sighted, — 
who  are,  and  must  necessarily  be,  in  a 
great  metropolis  like  this,  the  majority  in 
numbers.  In  the  capitals  of  other  coun- 
tries the  ignorant  and  vicious  classes  have 
little  or  no  moral  power — no  power  at  all, 
except  in  the  hand  to  hand  conflict  of  a 
revolution.  In  this  country  every  one  of 
them  forms  part  of  the  constituency  of  a 
newspaper  and  has  a  voice  as  loud  as  your 
own  on  all  questions  that  can  come  to  the 
threshold  of  public  notice.  With  such  a 
population  as  America  had  in  '76,  this 
level  suffrage  of  opinion  was  the  heaven 
of  liberty.  Taking  the  country,  now,  from 
ocean  to  ocean,  it  is  so  still.  But  in  our 
great  cities — more  especially  in  our  great- 
est city — the  proportion  of  evil  in  the  popu- 
lation gives  danger  to  its  sovereign  impulse 
Free  discussion  and  the  vigilance  of  patri- 
ots, may  control  it  on  great  questions,  and 
if  every  so-called  popular  impulse  were 
fairly  dragged  to  light,  and  known  by 
honest  counting  to  be  the  wish  of  the  ma- 
jority, it  would  be  still  more  effectually 
bridled.  But  no !  The  oracle  of  the  peo- 
ple finds  utterance  when  the  people  are 
asleep.  The  monster  I  have  not  yet  na- 
med is  enthroned  within  it,  and  it  is  he, 
and  not  the  people,  speaking  oftenest  in 
its  voice  of  thunder.  The  laws  are  palsied 
by  his  threat — private  character  trembles  in 
its  sanctuary — the  arts  and  all  the  interests 
of  taste  and  elegance  are  benumbed  and 
discouraged,  and  while  the  public  is  a 
u  chartered  libertine,"  the  individual  is  a 
slave,  for  no  man  dare  do  otherwise  than 
as  the  mass  approve,  for  fear  of  detraction 
and  outcry.  It  is  in  this  monster  that  envy 
and  ill-will,  and  the  natural  hatred  of  the 
low  and  vicious  for  those  above  them,  find 
a  ready  weapon  for  their  malice.  Desperate 
men  who  have  seen  better  days,  and  ty- 


LECTURE  ON  FASHION. 


809 


rants  without  thrones,  of  whom  there  is 
never  a  lack  in  any  community  of  the 
earth,  are  the  ready  trumpeters  of  the  will 
of  this  many-eyed  monster.  And  now  shall 
I  tell  you  his  false  name  ?  Shall  I  tell  you 
what  lurks  in  the  shadow  of  liberty,  like 
oppression  behind  a  throne  of  a  monarch  1 
You  have  anticipated  it  by  my  description. 
It  is  unexamined,  unauthorized,  uncontrol- 
led public  opinion — the  monster  whose  false 
throat  claims  utterance  for  the  people.  The 
judge  on  the  bench  thinks  of  him  in  his ! 
verdict.  The  criminal  at  the  bar  trusts  him 
more  than  his  lawyer.  He  points  his  fin- 
ger, and  the  representative  of  the  people 
turns  bully  in  the  halls  of  legislation.  'He 
stands  before  the  statesman — hiding  from 
him  the  page  of  history  and  posterity's  con-  \ 
tempt.  Women  dreads  him  on  her  pillow 
— for  detraction  is  his  most  appetizing  food. 
Religion  trembles  at  her  altar — for,  on  the 
ashes  of  the  house  of  God  he  avenges  an 
insult  to  his  myrmidons. 

But  it  is  not  alone  in  shapes  so  palpable 
to  view  that  this  black  shadow  of  freedom 
stalks  through  a  republic.  There  is  a  tyr- 
ranny  of  public  opinion,  in  every  grade  and 
hiding-place  of  this  country — worn  so  ha- 
bitually as  to  be  thought  an  inseparable 
evil  of  human  society — worn  like  the  hair 
shirt  of  penance  till  its  irritation  has  be- 
come a  habit  of  second  nature.  It  takes 
twice  as  bold  a  man  here  as  in  Europe,  to 
be  economical — twice  as  bold  a  man  to  pre- 
fer paying  a  debt  to  putting  his  name  to  a 
subscription.  We  put  ourselves  to  twice 
the  inconvenience  here,  that  people  in  Eu- 
rope do,  to  seem  what  we  are  expected  to 
be  by  our  neighbors.  The  pain  and  morti- 
fication of  reducing  our  style  of  living  to 
suit  a  reduced  prosperity  in  business,  is 
twice,  here,  what  it  is  abroad — thrice  what 
it  need  be.  And  on  the  other  hand,  look 
at  the  invidious  criticism  and  malice  drawn 
upon  men  or  women,  by  any  step,  however 
well  it  can  be  afforded,  toward  embellishing 
their  condition  of  life.  We  do  not  live  in 
liberty,  here — we  do  not  spend  our  money 
or  enjoy  our  firesides  in  rational  freedom. 
The  country  is  free,  the  press  is  free,  reli- 


gion is  free,  and  public  opinion  remarkably 
free — but  the  individual  is  a  slave  !  The 
stab  of  Brutus  was  struck  at  nothing  half  so 
tyrannical  in  the  bosom  of  Cesar  as  our  des- 
potism— despotism  of  the  public  of  which 
we,  who  suffer,  severally  make  one.  Since 
government  was  first  invented,  the  most 
dreaded  evil  has  been  tyranny  in  the  sove- 
reign power.  In  a  monarchy  the  king 
holds  the  power,  and  the  people  and  pri- 
vate life  are  to  be  protected  against  the 
king.  In  a  republic  the  people  are  the 
sovereign,  and  the  laws  and  private  life 
are  to  be  protected  against  the  people. 
The  President  is  but  the  subservient  prime 
minister  of  the  sovereign  people.  His 
many- headed  master  never  loses  him  from 
his  sight  one  hour :  and  while  in  a  monar- 
chy there  is  an  appeal,  from  the  oppression 
of  the  king  to  the  vengeance  of  the  people, 
in  a  republic  there  is  no  appeal  from  op- 
pression but  to  God — for  who  can  impeach 
the  sovereign  people  ! 

You  may  think,  if  you  have  not  given 
me  your  close  attention  that  I  have  wan- 
dered from  my  subject.  But  no.  It  is  in 
my  subject — in  the  influence  of  a  circle  of 
acknowledged  fashion — that  I  see  a  release 
from  this  invisible  monster.  As  Leather- 
stocking  said  when  the  Prairie  was  burn- 
ing,  "  fire  shall  fight  fire."  Opinion  from 
a  more  authentic  source,  shall  stem  and 
countercheck  opinion.  We  are  awed,  now, 
by  what  we  vaguely  suppose  the  public  to 
think.  Give  us  a  class  whose  opinion 
is  entitled  to  undeniable  weight — a  class 
whose  judgment  is  made  up  from  elevated 
standards — a  class  whose  favor  is  alike  valu- 
able to  the  ambitious  of  both  sexes — a  class 
it  is  important  to  know  and  propitiate  if 
possible,  but  at  any  rate  to  quote  as  un- 
questionable authority — and  the  evil  is  at 
once  abated.  The  most  radiant  feature  as 
well  as  the  most  salutary  principle  of  mo 
dern  civilization  is  the  organizing  in  France 
and  England  of  the  classes  I  have  descri- 
bed— umpires  between  tyranny  and  the 
people, — arbiters,  that  with  right  on  their 
side  are  stronger  than  the  despot.  As  I 
have   endeavored   to  show,  this  umpire   in 


810 


LECTURE  ON  FASHION. 


England  is  fashion,  made  potent  by  the  up- 
holding of  nature's  aristocracy.  In  France 
it  is  fashion,  made  all  but  sovereign  in  its 
influence,  by  the  enlisting  of  intellect.  In 
our  country,  as  you  all  know,  the  class  that 
is  destined  to  protect  us  against  our  shape 
of  the  tyranny  universal  on  earth,  is  still 
unorganized,  and  the  locum  tenens,  the 
temporary  key  of  fashionable  superiority, 
is  showy  expensiveness.  But  this  anar- 
chy is  not  to  last — nor,  (I  trust  you  are 
prepared  to  agree  with  me,)  is  it  desirable 
that  it  should.  I  may  venture,  I  think,  to 
predict,  by  shadows  cast  before,  that  it  is 
on  the  eve,  now,  of  a  new  and  lasting  for- 
mation. 

But,  of  what  stuff  is  to  be  built  our  inner 
republic  1  Who,  in  our  great  metropolis,  is 
to  be  eligible  to  that  privileged  class  whose 
judgment  shall  rebuke  the  un weighed  opin- 
ions of  the  mass,  as  well  as  the  insolence 
of  overbearing  wealth  and  authority.  The 
material  lies  about  us  in  prodigal  abun- 
dance. We  have  intellect,  of  God's  purest 
kindling,  burning  before  our  eyes  like  stars 
before  our  closed  windows  in  the  last  watch 
before  morning.  We  have  nature's  nobility 
— men  of  such  spirit  and  bearing,  and  wo- 
men of  such  talent  and  beauty,  as  would 
draw  homage  alike  from  the  Indian  on  the 
Prairie,  or  the  exclusives  at  Almack's.  We 
have  master-spirits — men  who  possess  the 
unaccountable,  but  lordly,  power  of  control 
over  popular  masses — capable  of  swaying 
the  most  important  flood-tides  of  the  politi- 
cal sea,  yet  not  capable  of  giving  influence 
or  fashion  to  their  families,  or  the  circles 
they  live  in.  We  have  every  degree,  range, 
and  quality,  of  material  for  fashion,  in  as 
great  abundance  as  any  country  on  earth. 
And  now,  of  what  stuff,  I  ask  again,  is  to 
be  moulded  our  fashionable  republic — what 
class  of  superiority  is  to  be  set  up  for  our 
umpire — counterpoise,  to  protect  the  sub- 
ject individual  against  the  sovereign  people  1 

In  this  question  the  whole  country  has  a 
voice.  With  the  rapid  and  facile  inter- 
course between  our  cities,  and  with  our 
singularly  gregarious  habits— the  distin- 
guished of  all  the  cities  of  the  union,  com- 


ing frequently  together — every  society  in 
the  country  can  influence  the  character  of 
aristocracy  in  the  metropolis.  That  me- 
tropolis is  the  great  throbbing  heart  in 
whose  pulsations  the  distant  hand  and  foot 
have  sympathy  and  influence.  It  was  time 
— high  time — that  attention  was  called  to 
the  quality  of  the  blood  at  this  heart  of 
our  country.  We  have  kept  our  vigils  on 
all  other  subjects — we  have  slept  at  our 
watch  over  this !  The  first  beat  of  this 
chronic  pulse  may  be  regulated,  easily  and 
irresistibly,  by  public  volition.  The  fear  is 
that  the  wrong  elements  may  creep  in- 
sensibly uppermost,  and  ossify  into  power 
without  moulding  or  controlling!  It  was 
time,  I  say,  that  it  should  become  a  ques- 
tion of  lively  agitation, — in  the  metropolis 
and  in  every  city  in  the  Union — of  what 
stuff  is  to  be  formed  the  coming  American 
aristocracy?  Discussion,  enquiry,  active 
ridicule  of  false  pretension,  and  generous 
approbation  of  that  which  is  truly  admi- 
rable, are  means — ample  means — in  our 
hands,  to  make  it  what  we  will.  Let  us 
beware,  however — for,  choose  what  we  will 
— do  homage  to  what  we  may,  as  worthy  of 
privilege  and  distinction — whatever  we  do 
choose — whatever  becomes  the  fashion,  with 
the  consequence  that  fashion  is  destined  to 
have, — accumulates  power  from  the  mo- 
ment of  taking  the  lead,  and  is  elevated  in 
character,  as  well  as  hedged  about  with 
protection  and  aggrandizement!  It  is  for 
the  general  vigilance — for  you,  on  your  part 
— to  say,  whether  high  morality  shall  be 
indispensable  to  fashion.  It  is  for  you  to 
say,  (and  these  are  important  questions) 
whether  political  rectitude  shall  give  con- 
sequence to  a  man  in  the  highest  circle, 
or  whether  men  who  value  consequence 
and  position,  shall  dare  to  meddle  with 
politics  at  all.  In  short,  whether  the  "al- 
mighty dollar" — whether  intellect,  as  shown 
in  wit  or  conversation,  or  as  shown  in 
the  arts,  the  press  and  the  professions — 
whether  official  rank,  or  manifest  superi- 
ority, as  stamped  by  nature  on  strength 
and  beauty — whether  one,  or  any  com- 
bination   of  these,    is  to  be   the  confessed 


LECTURE  ON  FASHION. 


811 


title    to    American    aristocracy,    is    yet    to 
be  decided. 

I  have  discoursed  more  gravely  of  fashion 
than  was  perhaps  anticipated — less  amuse  - 
mgly  and  more  gravely  than  I  might  have 
done,  it  is  certain.  Fashion  is  a  trifling 
word,  and  there  are  those  to  whom  words 
never  change  meaning  or  value.  Import- 
ant as  it  may  become,  too,  in  the  aggre- 
gate, fashion  is  known,  and  contributed  to, 
by  what  the  wise  call  trifles.  Trifles  they 
are — and  so  are  the  foam-bubbles  on  the  ad- 
vancing wave  !  But  that  glittering  crest  is 
no  more  certain  to  be  the  rider  upon  a  tide, 
fetterless  and  resistless,  than  are  the  trifles 
of  fashion  the  precursors  of  a  powerful  ele- 
ment, surging  in,  at  this  hour,  upon  the  yet 
incomplete  character  of  our  country.  Shall 
we  be  indifferent  to  the  beauty  or  the  de- 
formity, the  viciousness  or  the  healthful- 
ness  of  this  impending  aristocracy  1  Is  it 
not  worth  while — momentously  worth  while 
— to  arrest  its  presuming  avatar,  outside  the 
citadel  of  power,  and  challenge  its  authori- 
ty from  God  and  reason  !  I  may  give  it  you 
as  my  opinion,  that  aristocracy  in  a  re- 
public must  needs  be  more  powerful  than 
those  of  monarchies,  limited  or  despotic — 
for  it  must  fight  the  whole  battle  of  superi- 
ority, unaided  by  rank,  prejudice  or  long 
usage.  Its  formation  were  inevitable  at 
this  stage  of  our  progress,  even  were  we 
alone  in  the  world — for  there  is  no  high 
civilization  without  it — but  we  are  borrow- 
ing,  as   I  said  before,  the  social  usages,  as 


well  as  the  fashions  and  luxuries,  of  the 
countries  over  the  water — borrowing  forms 
and  laws  of  aristocracy  faster  than  fashions 
or  luxuries.  And  is  not  this  a  matter  of 
interest  to  the  public  1  "  Where  lies  pow- 
er?" "Where  are  the  combinations  that 
hold  power?"  are  questions  for  the  patriot 
and  statesman — questions  answered,  wide 
of  the  mark,  by  the  hackneyed  divisions  of 
political  economy.  "Church  and  state," 
"  rich  and  poor,"  "  King,  Lords  and  Com- 
mons," give  no  clue  to  the  power  para- 
mount in  England — the  well-organized 
mastery  of  fashion !  Let  no  man  think  it 
impossible  that  a  class  designated  by  so 
trifling  a  word  as  fashion,  may  soon  crowd 
mammon  from  our  altars,  and  become  the 
antagonists  of  ill-begotten,  public  opinion, 
and  the  oracle  of  all  that  affects  the  indi- 
vidual. This,  I  repeat  again,  is  the  coming 
epoch  in  our  social  history.  Thus  far — to 
this  level  of  preparation  for  an  aristocracy — 
America  has  built  her  pyamid  of  civiliza- 
tion— overtaking  astonished  Europe,  cen- 
turies in  a  day.  To  top  this  pyramid — 
to  complete  our  broad-based  and  towering 
republic,  we  have  a  class  to  create — a 
summit-stone  to  lay — to  which  we  can 
point  without  shame  or  hesitation,  when 
it  is  lifted  to  the  scrutiny  of  the  world. 
Thank  God,  we  have  yet  the  time  and 
opportunity  to  decide,  from  what  quarry 
it  shall  be  hewn,  and  to  what  mortar  of 
public  sentiment  it  shall  owe  its  stability! 


NOTE. 


It  may  amuse  the  reader  to  quote  a  chap- 
ter from  one  of  the  serious  works  on  the 
fashions  referred  to  in  the  beginning  of  the 
Lecture.  «  THE  SIMPLE  COBBLER  OF 
AG  AW  AM,"  the  work  from  which  it  was 
taken,  was  a  classic  of  the  sixteenth  century, 
written  by  a  New  England  emigrant  clergy- 
man, Rev.  Nathaniel  Ward.  He  thus  dis- 
courses of  the  lady- fashions  of  New-England 
of  that  day  : — 


"  Should  I  not  keepe  promise  in  speaking 
a  little  to  Womens  fashions,  they  would 
take  it  unkindly  :  I  was  loath  to  pester  bet- 
ter matter  with  such  stuffe ;  I  rather  thought 
it  meet  to  let  them  stand  by  themselves,  like 
the  Qua  Genus  in  the  Grammar,  being  Defi- 
jcients,  or  Redundants,  not  to  be  brought 
under  any  Rule  :  I  shall  therefore  make  bold 
for  this  once,  to  borrow  a  little  of  their  loose 
tongued  Liberty,  and  mispend  a  word  or 
two  upon  their  long-wasted,  but  short-skirted 


812 


LECTURE  ON  FASHION. 


patience  :  a  little  use  of  my  stirrup  will  do 
no  harme. 

Ridentem  dicere  verum,  quid  prohibet  ? 

Gray  Gravity  it  selfe  can  well  beteam, 
That  Language  be  adapted  to  the  Theme 
He  that  to  Parrots  speaks,  must  parrotize : 
He  that  instructs  a  foole,  may  act  th'  unwise. 

It  is  known  more  then  enough  that  I  am 
neither  Nigard,  nor  Cinick,  to  the  due 
bravery  of  the  true  Gentry  :  if  any  man  mis- 
likes  a  bully  mong  drossock  more  then  I,  let 
him  take  her  for  his  labour :  I  honour  the 
woman  that  can  honour  her  selfe  with  her 
attire ;  a  good  Text  alwayes  deserves  a  fair 
Margent :  I  am  not  much  offended  if  I  see  a 
trimme,  far  trimmer  than  she  that  wears  it : 
in  a  word,  whatever  Christianity  or  Civility 
will  allow,  I  can  afford  with  London  mea- 
sure :  but  when  I  heare  a  nugiperous  Gentle- 
dame  inquire  what  dresse  the  Queen  is  in 
this  week  :  what  the  nudiustertian  fashion 
of  the  Court  is ;  I  meane  the  very  newest : 
with  egge  to  be  in  it  in  all  haste,  what  ever 
it  be  ;  I  look  at  her  as  the  very  gizzard  of  a 
trifle,  the  product  of  a  quarter  of  a  cypher, 
the  epitome  of  nothing,  fitter  to  be  kickt,  if 
shee  were  of  a  kickable  substance,  than 
either  honour'd  or  humour'd. 

To  speak  moderately,  I  truly  confesse,  it 
ie  beyond  the  ken  of  my  understanding  to 
conceive,  how  those  women  should  have 
any  true  grace,  or  valuable  vertue,  that  have 
so  little  wit,  as  to  disfigure  themselves  with 
euch  exotick  garbes,  as  not  only  dismantles 
their  native  lovely  lustre,  but  transclouts 
them  into  gant  bar-geese,  ill-shapen-shotten- 
shell-fish,  Egyptian  Hyeroglyphicks,  or  at 
the  best  into  French  flurts  of  the  pastery, 
which  a  proper  English  woman  should 
scorne  with  her  heels :  it  is  no  marvell  they 
weare  drailes  on  the  hinder  part  of  their 
heads,  having  nothing  as  it  seems  in  the 
fore-part,  but  a  few  Squirrils  brains  to  help 
them  frisk  from  one  ill-favour'd  fashion  to 
another. 

These  whimm'  Crown'd  shees,  these  fashion-fancying  wits, 
Are  empty  thin  brain'd  shells,  and  fiddling  Kits. 

The  very  troublers  and  impoverishers  of 
mankind,  I  can  hardly  forbear  to  commend 
to  the  world  a  saying  of  a  Lady  living  some- 


time with  the  Queen  of  Bohemia,  I  know 
not  where  shee  found  it,  but  it  is  pitty  it 
should  be  lost. 

The  World  is  full  of  care,  much  like  unto  a  bubble , 
Women  and  care,  and  care  and  women,  and  women  ana 
care  and  trouble. 

The  Verses  are  even  enough  for  such  odde 
pegma's.  I  can  make  my  selfe  sicke  at  any 
time,  with  comparing  the  dazzling  splender 
wherewith  our  Gentlewomen  were  embel- 
lished in  some  former  habits,  with  the  gut- 
foundred  goosdom,  wherewith  they  are  now 
surcingled  and  debauched.  Wee  have  about 
five  or  six  of  them  in  our  Colony :  if  I  see 
any  of  them  accidentally,  I  cannot  cleanse 
my  phansie  of  them  for  a  moneth  after.  I 
have  been  a  solitary  widdower  almost  twelve 
yeares,  purposed  lately  to  make  a  step  over 
to  my  Native  Country  for  a  yoke-fellow : 
but  when  I  consider  how  women  there  have 
tripe-wifed  themselves  with  their  cladments, 
I  have  no  heart  to  the  voyage,  least  their 
nauseous  shapes  and  the  Sea,  should  work 
too  sorely  upon  my  stomach.  I  speak  sad- 
ly; me  thinkes  it  should  breake  the  hearts 
of  Englishmen  to  see  so  many  goodly  Eng- 
lish-women imprisoned  in  French  Cages, 
peering  out  of  their  hood-holes  for  some  men 
of  mercy  to  help  them  with  a  little  wit,  and 
no  body  relieves  them. 

It  is  a  more  common  then  convenient 
saying,  that  nine  Taylors  make  a  man  :  it 
were  well  if  nineteene  could  make  a  woman 
to  her  minde  :  if  Taylors  were  men  indeed, 
well  furnished  but  with  meer  morall  princi- 
ples, they  would  disdain  to  be  led  about  like 
Apes,  by  such  mymick  Marmosets.  It  is  a 
most  unworthy  thing,  for  men  that  have 
bones  in  them,  to  spend  their  lives  in 
making  fidle-cases  for  futilous  womens  phan- 
sies  ;  which  are  the  very  pettitoes  of  infirmi- 
ty, the  gyblets  of  perquisquilian  to)^es.  I 
am  so  charitable  to  think,  that  most  of  that 
mystery  would  worke  the  cheerfuller  while 
they  live,  if  they  might  bee  well  discharged 
of  the  tyring  slavery  of  mis-tyring  wome-n  : 
it  is  no  little  labour  to  be  continually  putting 
up  English-women  into  Out-landish  caskes : 
who  if  they  be  not  shifted  anew,  once  in  a 
few  moneths,  grow  too  sowre  for  their  Hus- 


LECTURE  ON  FASHION. 


813 


bands.  What  this  Trade  will  answer  for 
themselves  when  God  shall  take  measure 
of  Taylors  consciences  is  beyond  my  skill  to 
imagine.     There  was  a  time  when 

The  joyning  of  the  Red-Rose  with  the  White, 
Did  set  our  State  into  a  Damask  plight. 

But  now  our  Roses  are  turned  to  Flore  de 
lices,  our  Carnations  to  Tulips,  our  Gilli- 
flowers  to  Dayzes,  our  City-Dames,  to  an 
indenominable  Quaemalry  of  overturcas'd 
things.  Hee  that  makes  Coates  for  the 
Moone,  had  need  take  measure  every  noone ; 
and  he  that  makes  for  women,  as  often,  to 
keepe  them  from  Lunacy. 

I  have  often  heard  divers  Ladies  vent 
loud  feminine  complaints  of  the  wearisome 
varieties  and  chargable  changes  of  fashions  : 
I  marvell  themselves  preferre  not  a  Bill  of 
redresse.  I  would  Essex  Ladies  would  lead 
the  Chore,  for  the  honour  of  their  County 
and  persons ;  or  rather  the  thrice  honoura- 
ble Ladies  of  the  Court,  whom  it  best  be- 
seemes  :  who  may  well  presume  of  a  Le  Roy 
le  veult  from  our  sober  King,  a  Les  Seigneurs 
ont  Assentus  from  our  prudent  Peers,  and  the 
like  Jissentus  from  our  considerate,  I  dare 
not  say  wife-worne  Commons:  who  I  believe 
had  much  rather  passe  one  such  Bill,  than 
pay  so  many  Taylors  Bills  as  they  are  forced 
to  doe. 

Most  deare   and  unparallel'd  Ladies,  be 

i  pleased  to  attempt  it :  as  you  have  the  pre- 
cellency  of  the  women  of  the  world  for 
beauty  and  feature  ;  so  assume  the  honour 
to  give,  and  not  take  Law  from  any,  in  mat- 
ter of  attire  :  if  ye  can  transact  so  faire  a 
motion  among  yourselves  unanimously,  I 
dare  say,  they  that  most  renite,  will  least 
repent.  What  greater  honour  can  your 
Honors  desire,  then  to  build  a  Promontory 
president  to  all  foraigne  Ladies,  to  deserve 
so  eminently  at  the  hands  of  all  the  English 
Gentry  present  and  to  come  :  and  to  confute 
the  opinion  of  all  the  wise  men  in  the 
world  ;  who  never  thought  it  possible  for 
women  to  doe  so  good  a  work  1 

If  any  man  think  I  have  spoken  rather 
merrily  than  seriously  he  is  much  mistaken, 
I  have  written  what  I  write  with  all  the 
indignation  I  can,  and  no  more  than  I  ought. 


I  confesse  I  veer'd  my  tongue  to  this  kinde 
of  Language  de  induslria  though  unwill- 
ingly, supposing  those  I  speak  to  are  unca- 
pable  of  grave  and  rationall  arguments. 

I  desire  all  Ladies  and  Gentlewomen  to 
understand  that  all  this  while  I  intend  not 
such  as  through  necessary  modesty  to  avoyd 
morose  singularity,  follow  fashions  slowly,  a 
flight  shot  or  two  off,  shewing  by  their  mo- 
deration, that  they  rather  draw  counter- 
mont  with  their  hearts,  then  put  on  by  their 
examples. 

I  point  my  pen  only  against  the  light- 
heel'd  beagles  that  lead  the  chase  so  fast, 
that  they  run  all  civility  out  of  breath, 
against  these  Ape-headed  pullets,  which 
invent  Antique  foole-fangles,  meerly  foi 
fashion  and  novelty  sake. 

In  a  word,  if  I  begin  once  to  declaime 
against  fashions,  let  men  and  women  look 
well  about  them,  there  is  somewhat  in  the 
businesse  ;  I  confesse  to  the  world,  I  never 
had  grace  enough  to  be  strict  in  that  kinde ; 
and  of  late  years,  I  have  found  syrrope  of 
pride  very  wholesome  in  a  due  Dos,  which 
makes  mee  keep  such  a  store  of  that  drugge 
by  me,  that  if  any  body  comes  to  me  for  a 
question-full  or  two  about  fashions,  they 
never  complain  of  me  for  giving  them  hard 
measure,  or  under- weight. 

But  I  addresse  my  selfe  to  those  who  can 
both  hear  and  mend  all  if  they  please  :  I 
seriously  feare,  if  the  pious  Parliament  doe 
not  find  a  time  to  state  fashions,  as  ancient 
Parliaments  have  done  in  some  part,  God 
will  hardly  finde  a  time  to  state  Religion  or 
Peace  :  They  are  the  surquedryes  of  pride, 
the  wantonnesse  of  idlenesse,  provoking 
sins,  the  certain  prodormies  of  assured  judge- 
ment, Zeph.  1.  7,  8. 

It  is  beyond  all  account,  how  many  Gen- 
tlemens  and  Citizens  estates  are  deplumed 
by  their  feather-headed  wives,  what  usefull 
supplies  the  pannage  of  England  would 
afford  other  Countries,  what  rich  returnes  to 
it  selfe,  if  it  were  not  slic'd  out  into  male 
and  female  fripperies:  and  what  a  multi- 
tude of  misimploy'd  hands,  might  be  better 
improv'd  in  some  more  manly  Manufactures 
for  the  publique  weale  :  it  is  not  easily  ere- 


814 


LECTURE  ON  FASHION. 


dible,  what  may  be  said  of  the  preterplural- 
ities  of  Taylors  in  London  :  I  have  heard  an 
honest  man  say,  that  not  long  since  there 
were  numbered  between  Temple-barre  and 
Charing-Crosse,  eight  thousand  of  that 
Trade  :  let  it  be  conjectured  by  that  propor- 
tion how  many  there  are  in  and  about  Lon- 
don, and  in  all  England,  they  will  appeare 
to  be  very  numerous.  If  the  Parliament 
would  please  to  mend  women,  which  their 
Husbands  dare  not  doe,  there  need  not  so 
many  men  to  make  and  mend  as  there  are. 
I  hope  the  present  dolefull  estate  of  the 
Realme,  will  perswade  more  strongly  to 
some  considerate  course  herein,  than  I  now 
can. 

Knew  I  how  to  bring  it  in,  I  would  speak 
a  word  to  long  haire,  whereof  I  will  say  no 
more  but  this  :  if  God  proves  not  such  a 
Barbor  to  it  as  he  threatens,  unlesse  it  be 
amended,  Esa.  7.  20.  before  the  Peace  of 
the  State  and  Church  be  well  setled,  then 
let  my  prophesie  be  scorned,  as  a  sound 
minde  scornes  the  ryot  of  that  sin,  and  more 
it  needs  not.     If  those  who  are  termed  Rat- 


tle-heads and  Impuritans,  would  take  up  a 
Resolution  to  begin  in  moderation  of  haire, 
to  the  just  reproach  of  those  that  are  called 
Puritans  and  Round-heads,  I  would  honour 
their  manlinesse,  as  much  as  the  others  god- 
linesse,  so  long  as  I  knew  what  man  or 
honour  meant:  if  neither  can  find  a  Bar- 
bours  shop,  let  them  turne  in,  to  Psal.  68. 
21.  Jer.  7.  29.  1  Cor.  11.  14.  if  it  be  thought 
no  wisdome  in  men  to  distinguish  them- 
selves in  the  field  by  the  Scissers,  let  it  bee 
thought  no  injustice  in  God,  not  to  distin- 
guish them  by  the  Sword.  I  had  rather  God 
should  know  me  by  my  sobriety,  than  mine 
enemy  not  know  me  by  my  vanity.  He  is 
ill  kept,  that  is  kept  by  his  owne  sin.  A 
short  promise  is  a  farre  safer  guard  than  a 
long  lock  :  it  is  an  ill  distinction  which  God 
is  loth  to  looke  at,  and  his  Angels  cannot 
know  his  Saints  by.  Though  it  be  not  the 
mark  of  the  Beast,  yet  it  may  be  the  mark 
of  a  beast  prepared  to  slaughter.  I  am  sure 
men  use  not  to  weare  such  manes  ;  I  am 
also  sure  Souldiers  use  to  weare  other  mark- 
lets  or  notadoes  in  time  of  battell. 


POETICAL    WORKS 


N.    P.    WILLIS. 


I.  SACRED  POEMS. 

II.  POEMS  OF  PASSION. 

III.  LADY  JANE. 


IV.  MISCELLANEOUS  POEMS. 

V.  TORTESA,  THE  USURER. 

VI.  BIANCA  VISCONTI. 


SACRED    POEMS. 


PREFACE. 

The  author  puts  these  poems  to  press  with  the  knowledge  that  they  should  all  be  rewritten, 
and  with  a  painful  regret  that  he  has  no  leisure  to  rewrite  them  before  extending  their  publicity  in 
a  new  reprint.  The  subjects  of  the  poems,  and  the  feelings  expressed  in  them,  have  given  them  a 
popularity  independent  of  criticism,  and  to  that  tide  he  again  commits  them — to  flow  as  far  as  they 
will.  He  rests  his  hope  of  reputation  on  having  the  leisure  to  overtake  and  pass  them  at  some 
future  day. 


THE  HEALING  OF  THE  DAUGHTER  OF  JAIRUS. 

Freshly  the  cool  breath  of  the  coming  eve 
Stole  through  the  lattice,  and  the  dying  girl 
Felt  it  upon  her  forehead.     She  had  lain 
Since  the  hot  noontide  in  a  breathless  trance — 
Her  thin  pale  fingers  clasp'd  within  the  hand 
Of  the  heart-broken  Ruler,  and  her  breast, 
Like  the  dead  marble,  white  and  motionless. 
The  shadow  of  a  leaf  lay  on  her  lips, 
And,  as  it  stirr'd  with  the  awakening  wind, 
The  dark  lids  lifted  from  her  languid  eyes, 
And  her  slight  fingers  moved,  and  heavily 
She  turned  upon  her  pillow.     He  was  there — 
The  same  loved,  tireless  watcher,  and  she  look'd 
Into  his  face  until  her  sight  grew  dim 
With  the  fast-falling  tears ;  and,  with  a  sigh 
Of  tremulous  weakness  murmuring  his  name, 
She  gently  drew  his  hand  upon  her  lips, 
And  kiss'd  it  as  she  wept.     The  old  man  sunk 
Upon  his  knees,  and  in  the  drapery 
Of  the  rich  curtains  buried  up  his  face ; 
And  when  the  twilight  fell,  the  silken  folds 
Stirr'd  with  his  prayer,  but  the  slight  hand  he  held 
Had  ceased  its  pressure — and  he  could  not  hear, 
In  the  dead,  utter  silence,  that  a  breath 
Came  through  her  nostrils — and  her  temples  gave 
To  his  nice  touch  no  pulse — and,  at  her  mouth, 
He  held  the  lightest  curl  that  on  her  neck 
Lay  with  a  mocking  beauty,  and  his  gaze 
Ached  with  its  deathly  stillness.     *     •     •     •     • 

******     It  was  night — 
And,  softly,  o'er  the  Sea  of  Galilee, 
Danced  the  breeze-ridden  ripples  to  the  shore, 
Tipp'd  with  the  silver  sparkles  of  the  moon. 
The  breaking  waves  play'd  low  upon  the  beach 
Their  constant  music,  but  the  air  beside 
Was  still  as  starlight,  and  the  Saviour's  voice, 
In  its  rich  cadences  unearthly  sweet, 
Seem'd  like  some  just-born  harmony  in  the  air, 
Waked  by  the  power  of  wisdom.     On  a  rock, 
With  the  broad  moonlight  falling  on  his  brow, 
52 


He  stood  and  taught  the  people.     At  his  feet 
Lay  his  small  scrip,  and  pilgrim's  scallop-shell, 
And  staff — for  they  had  waited  by  the  sea 
Till  he  came  o'er  from  Gadarene,  and  pray'd 
For  his  wont  teachings  as  he  came  to  land. 
His  hair  was  parted  meekly  on  his  brow, 
And  the  long  curls  from  off  his  shoulders  fell, 
As  he  lean'd  forward  earnestly,  and  still 
The  same  calm  cadence,  passionless  and  deep — 
And  in  his  looks  the  same  mild  majesty — 
And  in  his  mien  the  sadness  mix'd  with  power — 
Fill'd  them  with  love  and  wonder.     Suddenly, 
As  on  his  words  entrancedly  they  hung, 
The  crowd  divided,  and  among  them  stood 
Jairus  the  Ruler.     With  his  flowing  robe 
Gather'd  in  haste  about  his  loins,  he  came, 
And  fix'd  his  eyes  on  Jesus.     Closer  drew 
The  twelve  disciples  to  their  Master's  side; 
And  silently  the  people  shrunk  away, 
And  left  the  haughty  Ruler  in  the  midst 
Alone.     A  moment  longer  on  the  face 
Of  the  meek  Nazarene  he  kept  hi3  gaze, 
And,  as  the  twelve  look'd  on  him,  by  the  light 
Of  the  clear  moon  they  saw  a  glistening  tear 
Steal  to  his  silver  beard;  and,  drawing  nigh 
Unto  the  Saviour's  feet,  he  took  the  hem 
Of  his  coarse  mantle,  and  with  trembling  hands 
Press'd  it  upon  his  lips,  and  murmur'd  low, 
"  Master  !  my  daughter  !" —     •••••• 

******     Tne  same  silvery  light, 
That  shone  upon  the  lone  rock  by  the  sea, 
Slept  on  the  Ruler's  lofty  capitals, 
As  at  the  door  he  stood,  and  welcomed  in 
Jesus  and  his  disciples.     All  was  still. 
The  echoing  vestibule  gave  back  the  slide 
Of  their  loose  sandab,  and  the  arrowy  beam 
Of  moonlight,  slanting  to  the  marble  floor, 
Lay  like  a  spell  of  silence  in  the  rooms, 
As  Jairus  led  them  on.     With  hushing  slept 
He  trod  the  winding  stair ;  but  ere  he  touch'd 
The  latchet,  from  within  a  whisper  came, 
"  Trouble  the  Master  not— for  she  is  dead!" 


818 


SACRED  POEMS. 


And  his  faint  hand  fell  nerveless  at  his  side, 
And  his  steps  falter'd,  and  his  broken  voice 
Choked  in  its  utterance  ; — but  a  gentle  hand 
Was  laid  upon  his  arm,  and  in  his  ear 
The  Saviour's  voice  sank  thrillingly  and  low, 
"  She  is  not  dead — but  slcepeth." 

They  pass'd  in. 
The  spice-lamps  in  the  alabaster  urns 
Burn'd  dimly,  and  the  white  and  fragrant  smoke 
Curl'd  indolently  on  the  chamber  walls. 
The  silken  curtains  slumber'd  in  their  folds — 
Not  even  a  tassel  stirring  in  the  air — 
And  as  the  Saviour  stood  beside  the  bed, 
And  pray'd  inaudibly,  the  Ruler  heard 
The  quickening  division  of  his  breath 
As  he  grew  earnest  inwardly.     There  came 
A  gradual  brightness  o'er  his  calm,  sad  face; 
And,  drawing  nearer  to  the  bed,  he  moved 
The  silken  curtains  silently  apart, 
And  look'd  upon  the  maiden. 

Like  a  form 
Of  matchless  sculpture  in  her  sleep  she  lay — 
The  linen  vesture  folded  on  her  breast, 
And  over  it  her  white  transparent  hands, 
The  blood  still  rosy  in  their  tapering  nails. 
A  line  of  pearl  ran  through  her  parted  lips, 
And  in  her  nostrils,  spiritually  thin, 
The  breathing  curve  was  mockingly  like  life; 
And  round  beneath  the  faintly  tinted  skin 
Ran  the  light  branches  of  the  azure  veins; 
And  on  her  cheek  the  jet  lash  overlay, 
Matching  the  arches  pencill'd  on  her  brow. 
Her  hair  had  been  unbound,  and  falling  loose 
Upon  her  pillow,  hid  her  small  round  ears 
In  curls  of  glossy  blackness,  and  about 
Her  polish'd  neck,  scarce  touching  it,  they  hung, 
Like  airy  shadows  floating  as  they  slept. 
'Twas  heavenly  beautiful.     The  Saviour  raised 
Her  hand  from  oft'  her  bosom,  and  spread  out 
The  snowy  fingers  in  his  palm,  and  said, 
"  Maiden  !  Jlrise  .'" — and  suddenly  a  flush 
Shot  o'er  her  forehead,  and  along  her  lips 
And  through  her  cheek  the  rallied  color  ran; 
And  the  still  outline  of  her  graceful  form 
Stirr'd  in  the  linen  vesture;  and  she  clasp'd 
The  Saviour's  hand,  and  fixing  her  dark  eyes 
Full  on  his  beaming  countenance — arose  ! 


THE  LEPER. 

"  Room  for  the  leper !     Room !"     And,  as  he  came, 

The  cry  pass'd  on — "  Room  for  the  leper !    Room !" 

Sunrise  was  slanting  on  the  city  gates 

Rosy  and  beautiful,  and  from  the  hills 

The  early  risen  poor  were  coming  in, 

Duly  and  cheerfully  to  their  toil,  and  up 

Rose  the  sharp  hammer's  clink,  and  the  far  hum 

Of  moving  wheels  and  multitudes  astir, 

And  all  that  in  a  city  murmur  swells — 

Unheard  but  by  the  watcher's  weary  ear, 

Aching  with  night's  dull  silence,  or  the  sick 

Hailing  the  welcome  light  and  sounds  that  chase 

The  death-like  images  of  the  dark  away. 

"  Room  for  the  leper !"     And  aside  they  stood — 

Matron,  and  child,  and  pitiless  manhood — all 

Who  met  him  on  his  way — and  let  him  pass. 

And  onward  through  the  open  gate  he  came, 

A  leper  with  the  ashes  on  his  brow, 

Sackcloth  about  his  loins,  and  on  his  lip 

A  covering,  stepping  painfully  and  slow, 

And  with  a  difficult  utterance,  like  one 

Whose  heart  is  with  an  iron  nerve  put  down, 

Crying,  "  Unclean !    Unclean !" 

'Twas  now  the  first 
Of  the  Judean  autumn,  and  the  leaves, 
Whose  shadows  lay  so  still  upon  his  path, 
Had  put  their  beauty  forth  beneath  the  eye 
Of  Judah's  loftiest  noble.     He  was  young, 


And  eminently  beautiful,  and  life 

Mantled  in  eloquent  fulness  on  his  lip, 

And  sparkled  in  his  glance ;  and  in  his  mien 

There  was  a  gracious  pride  that  every  eye 

Followed  with  benisons — and  this  was  he ! 

With  the  soft  airs  of  summer  there  had  come 

A  torpor  on  his  frame,  which  not  the  speed 

Of  his  best  barb,  nor  music,  nor  the  blast 

Of  the  bold  huntsman's  horn,  nor  aught  that  stirs 

The  spirit  to  its  bent,  might  drive  away. 

The  blood  beat  not  as  wont  within  his  veins; 

Dimness  crept  o'er  his  eye ;  a  drowsy  sloth 

Fetter'd  his  limbs  like  palsy,  and  his  mien, 

With  all  its  loftiness,  seem'd  struck  with  eld. 

Even  his  voice  was  changed — a  languid  moan 

Taking  the  place  of  the  clear  silver  key  ; 

And  brain  and  sense  grew  faint,  as  if  the  light 

And  very  air  were  steep'd  in  sluggishness. 

He  strove  with  it  a  while,  as  manhood  will, 

Ever  too  proud  for  weakness,  till  the  rein 

Slackened  within  his  grasp,  and  in  its  poise 

The  arrowy  jereed  like  an  aspen  shook. 

Day  after  day,  he  lay  as  if  in  sleep. 

His  skin  grew  dry  and  bloodless,  and  white  scales, 

Circled  with  livid  purple,  covered  him, 

And  then  his  nails  grew  black,  and  fell  away 

From  the  dull  flesh  about  them,  and  the  hues 

Deepen'd  beneath  the  hard  unmoisten'd  scales, 

And  from  their  edges  grew  the  rank  white  hair, 

— And  Helon  was  a  leper ! 

Day  was  breaking, 
When  at  the  altar  of  the  temple  stood 
The  holy  priest  of  God.     The  incense  lamp 
Burn'd  with  a  struggling  light,  and  a  low  chant 
Swell'd  through  the  holiow  arches  of  the  roof 
Like  an  articulate  wail,  and  there,  alone, 
Wasted  to  ghastly  thinness,  Helon  knelt. 
The  echoes  of  the  melancholy  strain 
Died  in  the  distant  aisles,  and  he  rose  up, 
Struggling  with  weakness,  and  bow'd  down  his  head 
Unto  the  sprinkled  ashes,  and  put  oft' 
His  costly  raiment  for  the  leper's  garb ; 
And  with  the  sackcloth  round  him,  and  his  lip 
Hid  in  a  loathsome  covering,  stood  still, 
Waiting  to  hear  his  doom : 

Depart !  depart,  0  child 
Of  Israel,  from  the  temple  of  thy  God ! 
For  He  has  smote  thee  with  his  chastening  rod  ; 

And  to  the  desert-wild, 
From  all  thou  lov'st,  away  thy  feet  must,  flee, 
That  from  thy  plague  His  people  may  be  free. 

Depart !  and  come  not  near 
The  busy  mart,  the  crowded  city,  more; 
Nor  set  thy  foot  a  human  threshold  o'er; 

And  stay  thou  not  to  hear 
Voices  that  call  thee  in  the  way ;  and  fly 
From  all  who  in  the  wilderness  pass  by. 

Wet  not  thy  burning  lip 
In  streams  that  to  a  human  dwelling  glide; 
Nor  rest  thee  where  the  covert  fountains  hide, 

Nor  kneel  thee  down  to  dip 
The  water  where  the  pilgrim  bends  to  drink, 
By  desert  well  or  river's  grassy  brink ; 

And  pass  thou  not  between 
The  weary  traveller  and  the  cooling  breeze; 
And  lie  not  down  to  sleep  beneath  the  trees 

Where  human  tracks  are  seen; 
Nor  milk  the  goat  that  browseth  on  the  plain, 
Nor  pluck  the  standing  corn,  or  yellow  grain. 

And  now  depart !  and  when 
Thy  heart  is  heavy,  and  thine  eyes  are  dim, 
Lift  up  thy  prayer  beseechingly  to  Him 

Who,  from  the  tribes  of  men, 
Selected  thee  to  feel  His  chastening  rod. 
Depart !  O  leper !  and  forget  not  God ! 

And  he  went  forth — alone !  not  one  of  all 

The  many  whom  he  loved,  nor  she  whose  name 

Was  woven  in  the  fibres  of  the  heart 


SACRED  POEMS. 


819 


Breaking  within  him  now,  to  come  and  speak 
Comfort  unto  him.     Yea — he  went  his  way, 
Sick,  and  heart-broken,  and  alone — to  die! 
For  God  had  cursed  the  leper ! 

It  was  noon, 
And  Helon  knelt  beside  a  stagnant  pool 
In  the  lone  wilderness,  and  bathed  his  brow, 
Hot  with  the  burning  leprosy,  and  touch'd 
The  loathsome  water  to  his  fever'd  lips, 
Praying  that  he  might  be  so  blest— to  die ! 
Footsteps  approach'd,  and,  with  no  strength  to  flee, 
He  drew  the  covering  closer  on  his  lip, 
Crying,  "Unclean!  unclean!"  and  in  the  folds 
Of  the  coarse  sackcloth  shrouding  up  his  face, 
He  fell  upon  the  earth  till  they  should  pass. 
Nearer  the  Stranger  came,  and  bending  o'er 
The  leper's  prostrate  form,  pronounced  his  name — 
"  Helon  !"     The  voice  was  like  the  master-tone 
Of  a  rich  instrument — most  strangely  sweet ; 
And  the  dull  pulses  of  disease  awoke, 
And  for  a  moment  beat  beneath  the  hot 
And  leprous  scales  with  a  restoring  thrill. 
"  Helon  !  arise !"  and  he  forgot  his  curse, 
And  rose  and  stood  before  Him. 

Love  and  awe 
Mingled  in  the  regard  of  Helon's  eye 
As  he  beheld  the  Stranger.     He  was  not 
In  costly  raiment  clad,  nor  on  his  brow 
The  symbol  of  a  princely  lineage  wore  ; 
No  followers  at  His  back,  nor  in  His  hand 
Buckler,  or  sword,  or  spear, — yet  in  his  mien 
Command  sat  throned  serene,  and  if  He  smiled, 
A  kingly  condescension  graced  His  lips, 
The  lion  would  have  crouch'd  to  in  his  lair. 
His  garb  was  simple,  and  His  sandals  worn; 
His  stature  modell'd  with  a  perfect  grace ; 
His  countenance  the  impress  of  a  God, 
Touch'd  with  the  opening  innocence  of  a  child; 
His  eye  was  blue  and  calm,  as  is  the  sky 
In  the  serenest  noon;  His  hair  unshorn 
Fell  to  His  shoulders;  and  His  curling  beard 
The  fulness  of  perfected  manhood  bore. 
He  look'd  on  Helon  earnestly  awhile, 
As  if  His  heart  were  moved,  and,  stooping  down, 
He  took  a  little  water  in  His  hand 
And  laid  it  on  his  brow,  and  said,  "  Be  clean !" 
And  lo !  the  scales  fell  from  him,  and  his  blood 
Coursed  with  delicious  coolness  through  his  veins, 
And  his  dry  palms  grew  moist,  and  on  his  brow 
The  dewy  softness  of  an  infant's  stole. 
His  leprosy  was  cleansed,  and  he  fell  down 
Prostrate  at  Jesus'  feet  and  worshipp'd  Him. 


DAVID'S  GRIEF  FOR  HIS  CHILD. 
Twas  daybreak,  and  the  fingers  of  the  dawn 
Drew  the  night's  curtain,  and  touch'd  silently 
The  eyelids  of  the  King.     And  David  woke, 
And  robed  himself,  and  pray'd.     The  inmates,  now, 
Of  the  vast  palace  were  astir,  and  feet 
Glided  along  the  tesselated  floors 
With  a  pervading  murmur,  and  the  fount 
Whose  music  had  been  all  the  night  unheard, 
Plav'd  as  if  light  had  made  it  audible; 
And  each  one,  waking,  bless'd  it  unaware. 

The  fragrant  strife  of  sunshine  with  the  morn 
Sweeten'd  the  air  to  ecstasy !  and  now 
The  king's  wont  was  to  lie  upon  his  couch 
Beneath  the  sky-roof  of  the  inner  court, 
And,  shut  in  from  the  world,  but  not  from  heaven, 
Play  with  his  loved  son  by  the  fountain's  lip ; 
For,  with  idolatry  confess'd  alone 
To  the  rapt  wires  of  his  reproofless  harp, 
He  loved  the  child  of  Bathsheba.     And  when 
The  golden  selvedge  of  his  robe  was  heard 
Sweeping  the  marble  pavement,  from  within 
Broke  forth  a  child's  laugh  suddenlv,  and  words- 
Articulate,  perhaps,  to  his  heart  onlv— 
Pleading  to  come  to  him.     They  brought  the  boy— 
An  infant  cherub,  leaping  as  if  "used 


To  hover  with  that  motion  upon  wings, 
And  marvellously  beautiful !     His  brow 
Had  the  inspired  up-lift  of  the  king's, 
And  kingly  was  his  infantine  regard  ; 
But  his  ripe  mouth  was  of  the  ravishing  mould 
Of  Bathsheba's— the  hue  and  type  of  love, 
Rosy  and  passionate — and  oh,  the  moist 
Unfathomable  blue  of  his  large  eyes 
Gave  out  its  light  as  twilight  shows  a  star, 
And  drew  the  heart  of  the  beholder  in ! — 
And  this  was  like  his  mother. 

David's  lips 
Moved  with  unutter'd  blessings,  and  awhile 
He  closed  the  lids  upon  his  moisten'd  eyes, 
And,  with  the  round  cheek  of  the  nestling  boy 
Press'd  to  his  bosom,  sat  as  if  afraid 
That  but  the  lifting  of  his  lids  might  jar 
His  heart's  cup  from  its  fulness.     Unobserved. 
A  servant  of  the  outer  court  had  knelt 
Waiting  before  him ;  and  a  cloud  the  while 
Had  rapidly  spread  o'er  the  summer  heaven; 
And,  as  the  chill  of  the  withdrawing  sun 
Fell  on  the  king,  he  lifted  up  his  eyes 
And  frown'd  upon  the  servant — for  that  hour 
Was  hallow'd  to  his  heart  and  his  fair  child, 
And  none  might  seek  him.     And  the  king  arose. 
And  with  a  troubled  countenance  look'd  up 
To  the  fast-gathering  darkness;  and,  behold, 
The  servant  bow'd  himself  to  earth,  and  said, 
"  Nathan  the  prophet  cometh  from  the  Lord  !" 
And  David's  lips  grew  white,  and  with  a  clasp 
Which  wrung  a  murmur  from  the  frighted  child, 
He  drew  him  to  his  breast,  and  cover'd  him 
With  the  long  foldings  of  his  robe,  and  said, 
"  I  will  come  forth.     Go  now !"     And  lingeringly, 
With  kisses  on  the  fair  uplifted  brow, 
And  mingled  words  of  tenderness  and  prayer 
Breaking  in  tremulous  accents  from  his  lips, 
He  gave  to  them  the  child,  and  bow'd  his  head 
Upon  his  breast  with  agony.     And  so, 
To  hear  the  errand  of  the  man  of  God, 
He  fearfully  went  forth.     ****** 

It  was  the  morning  of  the  seventh  day. 
A  hush  was  in  the  palace,  for  all  eyes 
Had  woke  before  the  morn ;  and  they  who  drew 
The  curtains  to  let  in  the  welcome  light, 
Moved  in  their  chambers  with  unslipper'd  feet, 
And  listen'd  breathlessly.     And  still  no  stir ! 
The  servants  who  kept  watch  without  the  door 
Sat  motionless;  the  purple  casement-shades 
From  the  low  windows  had  been  roll'd  away. 
To  give  the  child  air;  and  the  flickering  light 
That,  all  the  night,  within  the  spacious  court, 
Had  drawn  the  watcher's  eyes  to  one  spot  only. 
Paled  with  the  sunrise  and  fled  in. 

And  hush'd 
With  more  than  stillness  was  the  room  where  lay 
The  king's  son  on  his  mother's  breast.     His  locks 
Slept  at  the  lips  of  Bathsheba  unstirr'd — 
So  fearfully,  with  heart  and  pulse  kept  down, 
She  watch'd  his  breathless  slumber.     The  low  moan 
That  from  his  lips  all  night  broke  fitfully, 
Had  silenced  with  the  daybreak ;  and  a  smile — 
Or  something  that  would  fain  have  been  a  smile — 
Play'd  in  his  parted  mouth;  and  though  his  lids 
Hid  not  the  blue  of  his  unconscious  eyes, 
His  senses  seem'd  all  peacefully  asleep, 
And  Bathsheba  in  silence  bless'd  the  morn — 
That  brought  back  hope  to  her !     But  when  the  kin* 
Heard  not  the  voice  of  the  complaining  child, 
Nor  breath  from  out  the  room,  nor  foot  astir — 
But  morning  there — so  welcomeless  and  still- 
He  groan'd  and  turn'd  upon  his  face.     The  nights 
Had  wasted;  and  the  mornings  come;  and  days 
Crept  through  the  sky,  unnumber'd  by  the  king, 
Since  the  child  sicken'd;  and,  without  the  door, 
Upon  the  bare  earth  prostrate,  he  had  Iain- 
Listening  onlv  to  the  moans  that  brought 
Their  inarticulate  tidings,  and  the  voice 
Of  Bathsheba,  whose  pity  and  caress, 


820 


SACRED  POEMS. 


In  loving  utterance  all  broke  with  tears, 

Spoke  as  his  heart  would  sneak  if  he  were  there, 

And  fill'd  nis  prayer  with  <tgony.     Oh  God! 

To  thy  bright  mercy-seat  the  way  is  far ! 

How  fail  the  weak  words  while  the  heart  keeps  on ! 

And  when  the  spirit,  mournfully,  at  last, 

Kneels  at  thy  throne,  how  cold,  how  distantly 

The  comforting  of  friends  falls  on  the  ear — 

The  anguish  they  would  speak  to,  gone  to  Thee ! 

But  suddenly  the  watchers  at  the  door 
Rose  up,  and  they  who  minister'd  within 
Crept  to  the  threshold  and  look'd  earnestly 
Where  the  king  lay.     And  still,  while  Bathsheba 
Held  the  unmoving  child  upon  her  knees, 
The  curtains  were  let  down,  and  all  came  forth, 
And,  gathering  with  fearful  looks  apart, 
Whisper'd  together. 

And  the  king  arose 
And  gazed  on  them  a  moment,  and  with  voice 
Of  quick,  uncertain  utterance,  he  ask'd, 
"  Is  the  child  dead  ?"     They  answer'd,  "  he  is  dead." 
But  when  they  look'd  to  see  him  fall  again 
Upon  his  face,  and  rend  himself  and  weep — 
For,  while  the  child  was  sick,  his  agony 
Would  bear  no  comforters,  and  they  had  thought 
His  heartstrings  with  the  tidings  must  give  way — 
Behold  !  his  face  grew  calm,  and,  with  his  robe 
Gather'd  together  like  his  kingly  wont, 
He  silently  went  in. 

And  David  came, 
Robed  and  annointed,  forth,  and  to  the  house 
Of  God  went  up  to  pray.     And  he  return'd, 
And  they  set  bread  before  him,  and  he  ate — 
And  when  they  marvell'd,  he  said, "  Wherefore  mourn? 
The  child  is  dead,  and  1  shall  go  to  him — 
But  he  will  not  return  to  me." 


THE  SACRIFICE  OF  ABRAHAM. 

Morn  breaketh  in  the  east.     The  purple  clouds 

Are  putting  on  their  gold  and  violet, 

To  look  the  meeter  for  the  sun's  bright  coming. 

Sleep  is  upon  the  waters  and  the  wind ; 

And  nature,  from  the  wavy  forest-leaf 

To  her  majestic  master,  sleeps.     As  yet 

There  is  no  mist  upon  the  deep  blue  sky, 

And  the  clear  dew  is  on  the  blushing  bosoms 

Of  crimson  roses  in  a  holy  rest. 

How  hallow'd  is  the  hour  of  morning !  meet — 

Ay,  beautifully  meet — for  the  pure  prayer. 

The  patriarch  standeth  art:  his  tented  door, 

With  his  white  locks  ur.cover'd.     'Tis  his  wont 

To  gaze  upon  that  gorgeous  Orient; 

And  at  that  hour  the  awful  majesty 

Of  man  who  talketh  often  with  his  God, 

Is  wont  to  come  again,  and  clothe  his  brow 

As  at  his  fourscore  strength.     But  now,  he  seemeth 

To  be  forgetful  of  his  vigorous  frame, 

And  boweth  to  his  staff  as  at  the  hour 

Of  noontide  sultriness.     And  that  bright  sun — 

He  looketh  at  its  pencill'd  messengers, 

Coming  in  golden  raiment,  as  if  all 

Were  but  a  graven  scroll  of  fearfulness. 

Ah,  he  is  waiting  till  it  herald  in 

The  hour  to  sacrifice  his  much-loved  son ! 

Light  poureth  on  the  world.     And  Sarah  stands 

Watching  the  steps  of  Abraham  and  her  child 

Along  the  dewy  sides  of  the  far  hills, 

And  praying  that  her  sunny  boy  faint  not. 

Would  she  have  watch'd  their  path  so  silently, 

If  she  had  known  that  he  was  going  up, 

E'en  in  his  fair-hair'd  beauty,  to  be  slain 

As  a  white  lamb  for  sacrifice  ?     They  trod 

Together  onward,  patriarch  and  child — 

The  bright  sun  throwing  back  the  old  man's  shade 

In  straight  and  fair  proportions,  as  of  one 

Whose  years  were  freshly  number'd.     He  stood  up, 

Tall  in  his  vigorous  strength ;  and,  like  a  tree 

Rooted  in  Lebanon,  his  frame  bent  not. 


His  thin  white  hairs  had  yielded  to  the  wind, 
And  left  his  brow  uncover'd  ;  and  his  face, 
Impress'd  with  the  stern  majesty  of  grict" 
Nerved  to  a  solemn  duty,  now  stood  forth 
Like  a  rent  rock,  submissive,  yet  sublime. 
But  the  young  boy — he  of  the  laughing  eye 
And  ruby  lip — the  pride  of  life  was  on  him. 
He  seem'd  to  drink  the  morning.     Sun  and  dew, 
And  the  aroma  of  the  spicy  trees, 
And  all  that  giveth  the  delicious  East 
Its  fitness  for  an  Eden,  stole  like  light 
Into  his  spirit,  ravishing  his  thoughts 
With  love  and  beauty.     Every  thing  he  met, 
Buoyant  or  beautiful,  the  lightest  wing 
Of  bird  or  insect,  or  the  palest  dye 
Of  the  fresh  flowers,  won  him  from  his  path; 
And  joyously  broke  forth  his  tiny  shout, 
As  he  flung  back  his  silken  hair,  and  sprung 
Away  to  some  green  spot  or  clustering  vine, 
To  pluck  his  infant  trophies.     Every  tree 
And  fragrant  shrub  was  a  new  hiding-place; 
And  he  would  crouch  till  the  old  man  came  by, 
Then  bound  before  him  with  his  childish  laugh, 
Stealing  a  look  behind  him  playfully, 
To  see  if  he  had  made  his  father  smile. 

The  sun  rode  on  in  heaven.     The  dew  stole  up 

From  the  fresh  daughters  of  the  earth,  and  heat 

Came  like  a  sleep  upon  the  delicate  leaves, 

And  bent  them  with  the  blossoms  to  their  dreams 

Still  trod  the  patriarch  on,  with  that  same  step, 

Firm  and  unfaltering;  turning  not  aside 

To  seek  the  olive  shades,  or  lave  their  lips 

In  the  sweet  waters  of  the  Syrian  wells, 

Whose  gush  hath  so  much  music.     Weariness 

Stole  on  the  gentle  boy,  and  he  forgot 

To  toss  his  sunny  hair  from  off  his  brow, 

And  spring  for  the  fresh  flowers  and  light  wings 

As  in  the  early  morning ;  but  he  kept 

Close  by  his  father's  side,  and  bent  his  head 

Upon  his  bosom  like  a  drooping  bud, 

Lifting  it  not,  save  now  and  then  to  steal 

A  look  up  to  the  face  whose  sternness  awed 

His  childishness  to  silence. 

It  was  noon — 
And  Abraham  on  Moriah  bow'd  himself, 
And  buried  up  his  face,  and  pray'd  for  strength 
He  could  not  look  upon  his  son,  and  pray; 
But,  with  his  hand  upon  the  clustering  curls 
Of  the  fair,  kneeling  boy,  he  pray'd  that  God 
Would  nerve  him  for  that  hour.     Oh !  man  was  made 
For  the  stern  conflict.     In  a  mother's  love 
There  is  more  tenderness;  the  thousand  chords, 
Woven  with  every  fibre  of  her  heart, 
Complain,  like  delicate  harp-strings,  at  a  breath; 
But  love  in  man  is  one  deep  principle, 
Which,  like  a  root  grown  in  a  rifted  rock, 
Abides  the  tempest.     He  rose  up,  and  laid 
The  wood  upon  the  altar.     All  was  done. 
He  stood  a  moment — and  a  deep,  quick  flush 
Pass'd  o'er  his  countenance ;  and  then  he  nerved 
His  spirit  with  a  bitter  strength,  and  spoke — 
"  Isaac !  my  only  son !" — The  boy  look'd  up, 
And  Abraham  turn'd  his  face  away,  and  wept. 
"  Where  is  the  lamb,  my  father  ?" — Oh  the  tones 
The  sweet,  the  thrilling  music  of  a  child ! — 
How  it  doth  agonize  at  such  an  hour ! — 
It  was  the  last  deep  struggle.     Abraham  held 
His  loved,  his  beautiful,  his  only  son, 
And  lifted  up  his  arm,  and  call'd  on  God — 
And  lo !  God's  angel  staid  him — and  he  fell 
Upon  his  face,  and  wept. 


THE  SHUNAMITE. 
It  was  a  sultry  day  of  summer  time. 
The  sun  pour'd  down  upon  the  ripen'd  grain 
With  quivering  heat,  and  the  suspended  leaves 
Hung  motionless.     The  cattle  on  the  hills 
Stood  still,  and  the  divided  flock  were  all 
Laying  their  nostrils  to  the  cooling  roots, 


SACRED  POEMS. 


821 


And  the  sky  look'd  like  silver,  and  it  seem'd 
As  if  the  air  had  fainted,  and  the  pulse 
Of  nature  had  run  down,  and  ceased  to  beat 

"  Haste  thee,  my  child  ! "  the  Syrian  mother  said, 

*•  Thy  father  is  athirst" — and,  from  the  depths 

Of  the  cool  well  under  the  leaning  tree, 

She  drew  refreshing  water,  and  with  thoughts 

Of  God's  sweet  goodness  stirring  at  her  heart, 

She  bless'd  her  beautiful  hoy,  and  to  his  way 

Committed  him.     And  h<>  went  lightly  on, 

With  his  soft  hands  press'd  closely  to  the  cool 

Stone  vessel,  and  his  littlo  naked  feet 

Lifted  with  watchful  care;  and  o'er  the  hills, 

And  through  the  light  gretn  hollows  where  the  lambs 

Go  for  the  tender  grass,  he  kept  his  way, 

Wiling  its  distance  with  his  simple  thoughts, 

Till,  in  the  wilderness  of  sheaves,  with  brows 

Throbbing  with  heat,  he  » *  his  burden  down. 

Childhood  is  restless  ever,  and  the  boy 
Stay'd  not  within  the  shadow  of  the  tree, 
But  with  a  joyous  industry  wont  forth 
Into  the  reaper's  places,  and  bound  up 
His  tiny  sheaves,  and  plaited  cunningly 
The  pliant  withs  out  of  the  shi.iing  straw- 
Cheering  their  labor  on,  till  they  forgot 
The  heat  and  weariness  of  their  -stooping  toil 
In  the  beguiling  of  his  playful  niirth. 
Presently  he  was  silent,  and  his  eye 
Closed  as  with  dizzy  pain,  and  wi  h  his  hand 
Press'd  hard  upon  his  forehead,  aiht  his  breast 
Heaving  with  the  suppression  of  a  cry, 
He  utter'd  a  faint  murmur,  and  fell  tack 
Upon  the  loosen'd  sheaf,  insonsible 

They  bore  him  to  his  mother,  and  he  lay 
Upon  her  knees  till  noon — and  then  I.e  died  ! 
She  had  watch'd  every  breath,  and  kept  her  hand 
Soft  on  his  forehead,  and  gazed  in  upoi\ 
The  dreamy  languor  of  his  listless  eye, 
And  she  had  laid  back  all  his  sunny  curls 
And  kiss'd  his  delicate  lip,  and  lifted  him 
Into  her  bosom,  till  her  heart  grew  strong — 
His  beauty  was  so  unlike  death  !     She  lean'd 
Over  him  now,  that  she  might  catch  the  ,'w 
Sweet  music  of  his  breath,  that  she  ha1  iearn'd 
To  love  when  he  was  slumbering  at  h&-  side 
In  his  unconscious  infancy — 

"  —So  still ! 
'Tis  a  soft  sleep !     How  beautiful  he  He*, 
With  his  fair  forehead,  and  the  rosy  veau 
Playing  so  freshly  in  his  sunny  cheek  ! 
How  could  they  say  that  he  would  die  !  Ot>  Qod  ' 
I  could  not  lose  him !  I  have  treasured  ail 
His  childhood  in  my  heart,  and  even  now 
As  he  has  slept,  my  memory  has  been  there 
Counting  like  treasures  all  his  winning  ways— 
His  unforgotten  sweetness : — 

"  — Yet  so  still  •  - 
How  like  this  breathless  slumber  is  to  death  I 
I  could  believe  that  in  that  bosom  now 
There  were  no  pulse — it  beats  so  languidly ! 
I  cannot  see  it  stir ;  but  his  red  lip ! 
Death  would  not  be  so  very  beautiful ! 
And  that  half  smile — would  death  have  left  that  U  ere  t 

-And  should  I  not  have  felt  that  he  would  die? 
And  have  I  not  wept  over  him  ? — and  pray'd 
Morning  and  night  for  him?     And  could  he  die? 

No— God  will  keep  him !     He  will  be  my  pride 
Many  long  years  to  come,  and  his  fair  hair 
Will  darken  like  his  father's,  and  his  eye 
Be  of  a  deeper  blue  when  he  is  grown ; 
And  he  will  be  so  tall,  and  I  shall  look 
With  such  a  pride  upon  him  ! — He  to  die  !" 
And  the  fond  mother  lifted  his  soft  curls, 
And  smiled,  as  if  'twere  mockery  to  think 
That  such  fair  things  could  perish — 
— Suddenly 
Her  hand  shrunk  from  him,  and  the  color  fled 
From  her  fix'd  lip,  and  her  supporting  knees 
Were  shook  beneath  her  child.    Her  hand  had  touch'd 
His  forehead,  as  she  dallied  with  his  hair — 


And  it  was  cold— like  clay  !     Slow,  verv  slow, 
Came  the  misgiving  that  her  child  was  dead. 
She  sat  a  moment,  and  her  eyes  were  closed 
In  a  dumb  prayer  for  strength,  and  then  she  took 

His  little  hand  and  press'd  it  earnestly 

And  put  her  lip  to  his— and  look'd  aiain 
Fearfully  on  him— and,  then  bending  low, 
She  whisper'd  in  his  ear,  «  My  son  !— my  son  !" 
And  as  the  echo  died,  and  not  a  sound 

Broke  on  the  stillness,  and  he  lay  there  still 

Motionless  on  her  knee — The  truth  would  come  ! 
And  with  a  sharp,  quick  cry,  as  if  her  heart 
Were  crush'd,  she  lifted  him  and  held  him  close 
Into  her  bosom — with  a  mother's  thought — 
As  if  death  had  no  power  to  touch  him  there ! 

The  man  of  God  came  forth,  and  led  the  child 
Unto  his  mother,  and  went  on  his  way. 
And  he  was  there — her  beautiful — her  own — 
Living  and  smiling  on  her — with  his  arms 
Folded  about  her  neck,  and  his  warm  breath 
Breathing  upon  her  lips,  and  in  her  ear 
The  music  of  his  gentle  voice  once  more  I 


JEPHTHAH'S  DAUGHTER. 
She  stood  before  her  father's  gorgeous  tent, 
To  listen  for  his  coming.     Her  loose  hair 
Was  resting  on  her  shoulders,  like  a  cloud 
Floating  around  a  statue,  and  the  wind, 
Just  swaying  her  light  robe,  reveal'd  a  shape 
Praxiteles  might  worship.     She  had  clasp'd 
Her  hands  upon  her  bosom,  and  had  raised 
Her  beautiful,  dark,  Jewish  eyes  to  heaven. 
Till  the  long  lashes  lay  upon  her  brow. 
Her  lip  was  slightly  parted,  like  the  cleft 
Of  a  pomegranate  blossom ;  and  her  neck, 
Just  where  the  cheek  was  melting  to  its  curve 
With  the  unearthly  beauty  sometimes  there, 
Was  shaded,  as  if  light  had  fallen  off", 
Its  surface  was  so  polish'd.     She  was  stilling 
Her  light,  quick  breath,  to  hear;  and  the  white  rose 
Scarce  moved  upon  her  bosom,  as  it  swell'd, 
Like  nothing  but  a  lovely  wave  of  light, 
To  meet  the  arching  of  her  queenly  neck. 
Her  countenance  was  radiant  with  love. 
She  look'd  like  one  to  die  for  it — a  being 
Whose  whole  existence  was  the  pouring  out 
Of  rich  and  deep  affections.     I  have  thought 
A  brother's  and  a  sister's  love  were  much  ; 
I  know  a  brother's  is — for  I  have  been 
A  sister's  idol — and  I  know  how  full 
The  heart  may  be  of  tenderness  to  her ! 
But  the  affection  of  a  delicate  child 
For  a  fond  father,  gushing,  as  it  does, 
With  the  sweet  springs  of  life,  and  pouring  on, 
Through  all  earth's  changes,  like  a  river's  course- 
Chasten'd  with  reverence,  and  made  more  purs 
By  the  world's  discipline  of  light  and  shade— 
'Tis  deeper — holier. 

The  wind  bore  on 
The  leaden  tramp  of  thousands.     Clarion  notes 
Rang  sharply  on  the  ear  at  intervals  ; 
And  the  low,  mingled  din  of  mighty  hosts 
Returning  from  the  battle,  pour'd  from  far, 
Like  the  deep  murmur  of  a  restless  sea. 
They  came,  as  earthly  conquerors  always  come, 
With  blood  and  splendor,  revelry  and  wo. 
The  stately  horse  treads  proudly — he  hath  trod 
The  brow  "of  death,  as  well,     the  chariot-wheels 
Of  warriors  roll  magnificentlv  on — 
Their  weight  hath  crush'd  the  fallen.    Man  is  there- 
Majestic,  lordly  man— with  his  sublime 
And  elevated  brow,  and  godlike  frame  ; 
Lifting  his  crest  in  triumph— for  his  heel 
Hath  trod  the  dying  like  a  wine-press  down  ! 

The  mighty  Jephthah  led  his  warriors  on 
Through  Mizpeh's  streets.    His  helm  was  proudly  set. 
And  his  stern  lip  curl'd  slightly,  as  if  praise 
Were  for  the  hero's  scorn.     His  step  was  firm, 
But  free  as  India's  leopard ;  and  his  mail, 


822 


SACRED  POEMS 


Whose  shekels  none  in  Israel  might  Lear, 
Was  like  a  cedar's  tassel  on  his  frame. 
His  crest  was  Judah's  kingliest;  and  the  look 
Of  his  dark,  lofty  eye,  and  bended  brow, 
Might  quell  the  lion.     He  led  on ;  but  thoughts 
Seem'd  gathering  round  which  troubled  him.  The  veins 
Grew  visible  upon  his  swarthy  brow, 
And  his  proud  lip  was  press'd  as  if  with  pain. 
He  trod  less  firmly;  and  his  restless  eye 
Glanced  forward  frequently,  as  if  some  ill 
He  dared  not  meet,  were  there.     His  home  was  near; 
And  men  were  thronging,  with  that  strange  delight 
They  have  in  human  passions,  to  observe 
The  struggle  of  his  feelings  with  his  pride. 
He  gazed  intensely  forward.     The  tall  firs 
Before  his  tent  were  motionless.     The  leaves 
Of  the  sweet  aloe,  and  the  clustering  vines 
Which  half  conceal'd  his  threshold,  met  his  eye, 
Unchanged  and  beautiful ;  and  one  by  one, 
The  balsam,  with  its  sweet-distilling  stems, 
And  the  Circassian  rose,  and  all  the  crowd 
Of  silent  and  familiar  things,  stole  up, 
Like  the  recover'd  passages  of  dreams. 
He  strode  on  rapidly.     A  moment  more, 
And  he  had  reach'd  his  home ;  when  lo !  there  sprang 
One  with  a  bounding  footstep,  and  a  brow 
Of  light,  to  meet  him.     Oh  how  beautiful ! — 
Her  dark  eye  flashing  like  a  sun-lit  gem — 
And  her  luxuriant  hair ! — 'twas  like  the  sweep 
Of  a  swift  wing  in  visions.     He  stood  still, 
As  if  the  sight  had  wither'd  him.     She  threw 
Her  arms  about  his  neck — he  heeded  not. 
She  call'd  him  •«  Father" — but  he  answer'd  not. 
She  stood  and  gazed  upon  him.     Was  he  wroth  ? 
There  was  no  anger  in  that  blood-shot  eye. 
Had  sickness  seized  him?     She  unclasp'd  his  helm 
And  laid  her  white  hand  gently  on  his  brow, 
And  the  large  veins  felt  stiff'  and  hard,  like  cords. 
The  touch  aroused  him.     He  raised  up  his  hands, 
And  spoke  the  name  of  God,  in  agony. 
She  knew  that  he  was  stricken,  then ;  and  rush'd 
Again  into  his  arms;  and,  with  a  flood 
Of  tears  she  could  not  bridle,  sobb'd  a  prayer 
That  he  would  breathe  his  agony  in  words. 
He  told  her — and  a  momentary  flush 
Shot  o'er  her  countenance ;  and  then  the  soul 
Of  Jephthah's  daughter  waken'd ;  and  she  stood 
Calmly  and  nobly  up,  and  said  'twas  well — 
And  she  would  die.         *         *         *         *         * 
The  sun  had  well  nigh  set. 
The  fire  was  on  the  altar;  and  the  priest 
Of  the  High  God  was  there.     A  pallid  man 
Was  stretching  out  his  trembling  hands  to  Heaven, 
As  if  he  would  have  pray'd,  but  had  no  words — 
And  she  who  was  to  die,  the  calmest  one 
In  Israel  at  that  hour,  stood  up  alone, 
And  waited  for  the  sun  to  set.     Her  face 
Was  pale,  but  very  beautiful — her  lip 
Had  a  more  delicate  outline,  and  the  tint 
Was  deeper ;  but  her  countenance  was  like 
The  majesty  of  angels. 

The  sun  set — 
And  she  was  dead— but  not  by  violence. 


ABSALOM. 
The  waters  slept.     Night's  silvery  veil  hung  low 
On  Jordan's  bosom,  and  the  eddies  curl'd 
Their  glassy  rings  beneath  it,  like  the  still, 
Unbroken  beating  of  the^leeper's  pulse. 
The  reeds  bent  down  the  stream ;  the  willow  leaves, 
With  a  soft  cheek  upon  the  lulling  tide, 
Forgot  the  lifting  winds;  and  the  long  'stems, 
Whose  flowers  the  water,  like  a  gentle  nurse, 
Bears  on  its  bosom,  quietly  gave  way, 
And  lean'd,  in  graceful  attitudes,  to  rest. 
How  strikingly  the  course  of  nature  tells, 
By  its  light  heed  of  human  suffering, 
That  it  was  fashion'd  for  a  happier  world ! 

King  David's  limbs  were  weary.     He  had  fled 
From  far  Jerusalem  ;  and  now  he  stood. 


With  his  faint  people,  for  a  little  rest 

Upon  the  shore  of  Jordan.     The  light  wind 

Of  morn  was  stirring,  and  he  bared  his  brow 

To  its  refreshing  breath ;  for  he  had  worn 

The  mourner's  covering,  and  he  had  not  felt 

That  he  could  see  his  people  until  now. 

They  gather'd  round  him  on  the  fresh  green  bank, 

And  spoke  their  kindly  words ;  and,  as  the  sun 

Rose  up  in  heaven,  he  knelt  among  them  there, 

And  bow'd  his  head  upon  his  hands  to  pray. 

Oh !  when  the  heart  is  full — when  bitter  thoughts 

Come  crowding  thickly  up  for  utterance, 

And  the  poor  common  words  of  courtesy 

Are  such  a  very  mockery — how  much 

The  bursting  heart  may  pour  itself  in  prayer !    ' 

He  pray'd  for  Israel — and  his  voice  went  up 

Strongly  and  fervently.     He  pray'd  for  those 

Whose  love  had  been  his  shield — and  his  deep  tones 

Grew  tremulous.     But,  oh !  for  Absalom — 

For  his  estranged,  misguided  Absalom — 

The  proud,  bright  being,  who  had  burst  away 

In  all  his  princely  beauty,  to  defy 

The  heart  that  cherish'd  him — for  him  he  pour'd, 

In  agony  that  would  not  be  controll'd, 

Strong  supplication,  and  forgave  him  there, 

Before  his  God,  for  his  deep  sinfulness. 

The  pall  was  settled.     He  who  slept  beneath 
Was  straighten'd  for  the  grave ;  and,  as  the  folds 
Sunk  to  the  still  proportions,  they  betray'd 
The  matchless  symmetry  of  Absalom. 
His  hair  was  yet  unshorn,  and  silken  curls 
Were  floating  round  the  tassels  as  they  sway'd 
To  the  admitted  air,  as  glossy  now 
As  when,  in  hours  of  gentle  dalliance,  bathing 
The  snowy  fingers  of  Judea's  daughters. 
His  helm  was  at  his  feet :  his  banner,  soil'd 
With  trailing  through  Jerusalem,  was  laid, 
Reversed,  beside  him :  and  the  jewell'd  hilt, 
Whose  diamonds  lit  the  passage  of  his  blade, 
Rested,  like  mockery,  on  his  cover'd  brow. 
The  soldiers  of  the  king  trod  to  and  fro, 
Clad  in  the  garb  of  battle ;  and  their  chief, 
The  mighty  Joab,  stood  beside  the  bier, 
And  gazed  upon  the  dark  pall  steadfastly, 
As  if  he  fear'd  the  slumberer  might  stir. 
A  slow  step  startled  him.     He  grasp'd  his  blade 
As  if  a  trumpet  rang;  but  the  bent  form 
Of  David  enter'd,  and  he  gave  command, 
In  a  low  tone,  to  his  few  followers, 
And  left  him  with  his  dead.     The  king  stood  still 
Till  the  last  echo  died ;  then,  throwing  off 
The  sackcloth  from  his  brow,  and  laying  back 
The  pall  from  the  still  features  of  his  child, 
He  bow'd  his  head  upon  him,  and  broke  forth 
In  the  resistless  eloquence  of  wo : 
"  Alas !  my  noble  boy !  that  thou  should'st  die ! 

Thou,  who  wert  made  so  beautifully  fair! 
That  death  should  settle  in  thy  glorious  eye, 

And  leave  his  stillness  in  this  clustering  hair! 
How  could  he  mark  thee  for  the  silent  tomb ! 

My  proud  boy,  Absalom ! 
"  Cold  is  thy  brow,  my  son !  and  I  am  chill, 

As  to  my  bosom  I  have  tried  to  press  thee ! 
How  was  I  wont  to  feel  my  pulses  thrill, 

Like  a  rich  harp-string,  yearning  to  caress  thee, 
And  hear  thy  sweet '  my  father  f  from  these  dumb 
And  cold  lips,  Absalom ! 

"  But  death  is  on  thee.     I  shall  hear  the  gush 

Of  music,  and  the  voices  of  the  young ; 
And  life  will  pass  me  in  the  mantling  blush, 

And  the  dark  tresses  to  the  soft  winds  flung ; — 
But  thou  no  more,  with  thy  sweet  voice,  shalt  come 

To  meet  me,  Absalom  ! 
"  And  oh !  when  I  am  stricken,  and  my  heart, 

Like  a  bruised  reed,  is  waiting  to  be  broken, 
How  will  its  love  for  thee,  as  I  depart, 

Yearn  for  thine  ear  to  drink  its  last  deep  token ! 
It  were  so  sweet,  amid  death's  gathering  gloom, 
To  see  thee,  Absalom  ! 


SACRED  POEMS. 


823 


««  And  now,  farewell !     'Tis  hard  to  give  thee  up, 
With  death  so  like  a  gentle  slumber  on  thee ; — 

And  thy  dark  sin  ! — Oh!  I  could  drink  the  cup, 
If  from  this  wo  its  bitterness  had  won  thee. 

May  God  have  call'd  thee,  like  a  wanderer,  home, 
My  lost  boy  Absalom !" 

He  cover'd  up  his  face,  and  bow'd  himself 
A  moment  on  his  child:  then,  giving  him 
A  look  of  melting  tenderness,  he  clasp'd 
His  hands  convulsively,  as  if  in  prayer; 
And,  as  if  strength  were  given  him  of  God, 
He  rose  up  calmly,  and  composed  the  pall 
Firmly  and  decently — and  left  him  there — 
As  if  his  rest  had  been  a  breathing  sleep. 


CHRIST'S  ENTRANCE  INTO  JERUSALEM 

He  sat  upon  the  "ass's  foal"  and  rode 

Toward  Jerusalem.     Beside  him  walk'd, 

Closely  and  silently,  the  faithful  twelve, 

And  on  before  him  went  a  multitude 

Shouting  Hosannas,  and  with  eager  hands 

Strewing  their  garments  thickly  in  his  way. 

Th'  unbroken  foal  beneath  him  gently  stepp'd, 

Tame  as  its  patient  dam ;  and  as  the  song 

Of  "  welcome  to  the  Son  of  David"  burst 

Forth  from  a  thousand  children,  and  the  leaves 

Of  the  waved  branches  touch'd  its  silken  ears, 

It  turn'd  its  wild  eye  for  a  moment  back, 

And  then,  subdued  by  an  invisible  hand, 

Meekly  trode  onward"  with  its  slender  feet. 

The  dew's  last  sparkle  from  the  grass  had  gone 

As  he  rode  up  Mount  Olivet.     The  woods 

Threw  their  cool  shadows  freshly  to  the  west, 

And  the  light  foal,  with  quick  and  toiling  step, 

And  head  bent  low,  kept  its  unslacken'd  way 

Till  its  soft  mane  was  lifted  by  the  wind 

Sent  o'er  the  mount  from  Jordan.     As  he  reach'd 

The  summit's  breezy  pitch,  the  Saviour  raised 

His  calm  blue  eye — there  stood  Jerusalem ! 

Eagerly  he  bent  forward,  and  beneath 

His  mantle's  passive  folds,  a  bolder  line 

Than  the  wont  slightness  of  his  perfect  limbs 

Betray'd  the  swelling  fulness  of  his  heart. 

There  stood  Jerusalem !     How  fair  she  lookM — 

The  silver  sun  on  all  her  palaces, 

And  her  fair  daughters  'mid  the  golden  spires 

Tending  their  terrace  flowers,  and  Kedron's  stream 

Lacing  the  meadows  with  its  silver  band, 

And  wreathing  its  mist-mantle  on  the  sky 

With  the  morn's  exhalations.     There  she  stood — 

Jerusalem — the  city  of  his  love, 

Chosen  from  all  the  earth  ;  Jerusalem — 

That  knew  him  not — and  had  rejected  him ; 

Jerusalem — for  whom  he  came  to  die ! 

The  shouts  redoubled  from  a  thousand  lips 

At  the  fair  sight ;  the  children  leap'd  and  sang 

Louder  Hosannas ;  the  clear  air  was  fill'd 

With  odor  from  the  trampled  olive-leaves — 

But  "  Jesus  wept."     The  loved  disciple  saw 

His  Master's  tears,  and  closer  to  his  side 

He  came  with  yearning  looks,  and  on  his  neck 

The  Saviour  leant  with  heavenly  tenderness, 

And  mourn'd — "  How  oft,  Jerusalem !  would  1 

Have  gather'd  you,  as  gathereth  a  hen 

Her  brood  beneath  her  wings — but  ye  would  not !" 

He  thought  not  of  the  death  that  he  should  die — 

He  thought  not  of  the  thorns  he  knew  must  pierce 

His  forehead — of  the  buffet  on  the  cheek — 

The  scourge,  the  mocking  homage,  the  foul  scorn  '.— 

Gethsemane  stood  out  beneath  his  eye 

Clear  in  the  morning  sun,  and  there,  he  knew, 

While  they  who  "  could  not  watch  with  him  one  hour' 

Were  sleeping,  he  should  sweat  great  drops  of  blood, 

Praying  the  "cup  might  pass."     And  Golgotha 

Stood  bare  and  desert  by  the  city  wall, 

And  in  its  midst,  to  his  prophetic  eye, 

Rose  the  rough  cross,  and  its  keen  agonies 

Were  number'd  all — the  nails  were  in  his  feet — 

Th'  insulting  sponge  was  pressing  on  his  lips — 


The  blooxi  and  water  gushing  from  his  side — ■ 

The  dizzy  faintness  swimming  in  his  brain— 

And,  while  his  own  disciples  tied  in  fear, 

A  world's  death-agonies  all  mix'd  in  his  ! 

Ay ! — he  forgot  all  this.     He  only  saw 

Jerusalem, — the  chos'n — the  loved — the  lost! 

He  only  felt  that  for  her  sake  his  life 

Was  vainly  giv'n,  and,  in  his  pitying  love, 

The  sufferings  that  would  clothe  "the  Heavens  in  black 

Were  quite  forgotten.     Was  there  ever  love, 

In  earth  or  heaven,  equal  unto  this  ? 


BAPTISM  OF  CHRIST. 
It  was  a  green  spot  in  the  wilderness, 
Touch'd  by  the  river  Jordan.     The  dark  pine 
Never  had  dropp'd  its  tassels  on  the  moss 
Tufting  the  leaning  bank,  nor  on  the  gras3 
Of  the  broad  circle  stretching  evenly 
To  the  straight  larches,  had  a  heavier  foot 
Than  the  wild  heron's  trodden.     Softly  in 
Through  a  long  aisle  of  willows,  dim  and  cool, 
Stole  the  clear  waters  with  their  muffled  feet, 
And,  hushing  as  they  spread  into  the  light, 
Circled  the  edsjes  of  the  pebbled  tank 
Slowly,  then  rippled  through  the  woods  away 
Hither  had  come  th'  Apostle  of  the  wild, 
Winding  the  river's  course.     'Twas  near  the  flush 
Of  eve,  and,  with  a  multitude  around, 
Who  from  the  cities  had  come  out  to  hear, 
He  stood  breast-high  amid  the  running  stream, 
Baptizing  as  the  Spirit  gave  him  power. 
His  simple  raiment  was  of  camel's  hair, 
A  leathern  girdle  close  about  his  loins, 
His  beard  unshorn,  and  for  his  daily  meat 
The  locust  and  wild  honey  of  the  wood- 
But  like  the  face  of  Moses  on  the  mount 
Shone  his  rapt  countenance,  and  in  his  eye 
Burn'd  the  mild  fire  of  love— and  a3  he  spoke 
The  ear  lean'd  to  him,  and  persuasion  swift 
To  the  chain'd  spirit  of  the  listener  stole. 
Silent  upon  the  green  and  sloping  bank 
The  people  sat,  and  while  the  leaves  were  shook 
With  the  birds  dropping  early  to  theii  nests, 
And  the  gray  eve  came  on,  within  theiv  hearts 
They  mused  if  he  were  Christ.     The  rippling  stream 
Still  turn'd  its  silver  courses  from  his  breast 
As  he  divined  their  thought.     "  I  but  baptize," 
He  said,  "with  water;  but  there  cometh  One, 
The  latchet  of  whose  shoes  I  may  not  dare 
E'en  to  unloose.     He  will  baptize  with  fire 
And  with  the  Holy  Ghost."     And  lo !  while  yet 
The  words  were  on  his  lips,  he  raised  his  eyes, 
And  on  the  bank  stood  Jesus.     He  had  laid 
His  raiment  off,  and  with  his  loins  alone 
Girt  with  a  mantle,  and  his  perfect  limbs, 
In  their  angelic  slightness,  meek  and  bare, 
He  waited  to  go  in.     But  John  forbade, 
And  hurried  to  his  feet  and  stay'd  him  there, 
And  said,  "  Nay,  Master !  I  have  need  of  thine, 
Not  thou  of  mine.'"     And  Jesus,  with  a  smile 
Of  heavenly  sadness,  met  his  earnest  looks, 
And  answer'd,  "  Suffer  it  to  be  so  now; 
For  thus  it  doth  become  me  to  fulfil 
All  righteousness."     And,  leaning  to  the  stream, 
He  took  around  him  the  Apostle's  arm, 
And  drew  him  gentlv  to  the  midst.     The  wood 
Was  thick  with  the  dim  twilight  as  they  came 
Up  from  the  water.     With  his  clasped  hands 
Laid  on  his  breast,  th'  Apostle  silently 
Follow'd  his  Master's  steps— when  lo!  a  light. 
Bright  as  the  tenfold  glory  of  the  sun, 
Yet  lambent  as  the  softly  burning  stars, 
Envelop'd  them,  and  from  the  heavens  away 
Parted  the  dim  blue  ether  like  a  veil; 
And  as  a  voice,  fearful  exceedingly, 
Broke  from  the  midst,  "  This  is  my  much  mvedSon 
Ikt  whom  I  am  well  pleased,"  a  snow-white  dove. 
Floating  upon  its  wings,  descended  through; 
And  shedding  a  swift  music  from  its  plumes, 
Circled,  and  flutter'd  to  the  Saviour's  breast 


824 


SACRED  POEMS. 


SCENE  IN  GETHSEMANE. 
The  moon  was  shining  yet.     The  Orient's  brow, 
Set  with  the  morning-star,  was  not  yet  dim ; 
And  the  deep  silence  which  subdues  the  breath 
Like  a  strong  feeling,  hung  upon  the  world 
As  sleep  upon  the  pulses  of  a  child. 
'Twas  the  last  watch  of  night.     Gethsemane, 
With  its  bathed  leaves  of  silver,  seem'd  dissolved 
In  visible  stillness;  and  as  Jesus'  voice, 
With  its  bewildering  sweetness,  met  the  ear 
Of  his  disciples,  it  vibrated  on 
Like  the  first  whisper  in  a  silent  world. 
They  came  on  slowly.     Heaviness  oppress'd 
The  Saviour's  heart,  and  when  the  kindnesses 
Of  his  deep  love  were  pour'd,  he  felt  the  need 
Of  near  communion,  for  his  gift  of  strength 
Was  wasted  by  the  spirit's  weariness. 
He  left  them  there,  and  went  a  little  on, 
And  in  the  depth  of  that  hush'd  silentness, 
Alone  with  God,  he  fell  upon  his  face, 
And  as  his  heart  was  broken  with  the  rush 
Of  his  surpassing  agony,  and  death, 
Wrung  to  him  from  a  dying  universe, 
Was  mightier  than  the  Son  of  man  could  bear, 
He  gave  his  sorrows  way — and  in  the  deep 
Prostration  of  his  soul,  breathed  out  the  prayer, 
"  Father,  if  it  be  possible  with  thee, 
Let  this  cup  pass  from  me."     Oh,  how  a  word, 
Like  the  forced  drop  before  the  fountain  breaks, 
Stilleth  the  press  of  human  agony ! 
The  Saviour  felt  its  quiet  in  his  soul ; 
And  though  his  strength  was  weakness,  and  the  light 
Which  led  him  on  till  now  was  sorely  dim, 
He  breathed  a  new  submission — "  Not  my  will, 
But  thine  be  done,  oh  Father !"     As  he  spoke, 
Voices  were  heard  in  heaven,  and  music  stole 
Out  from  the  chambers  of  the  vaulted  sky 
As  if  the  stars  were  swept  like  instruments. 
No  cloud  was  visible,  but  radiant  wings 
Were  coming  with  a  silvery  rush  to  earth, 
And  as  the  Saviour  rose,  a  glorious  one, 
With  an  illumined  forehead,  and  the  light 
Whose  fountain  is  the  mystery  of  God, 
Encalm'd  within  his  eye,  bow'd  down  to  him, 
And  nerv'd  him  with  a  ministry  of  strength. 
It  was  enough — and  with  his  godlike  brow 
Rewritten  of  his  Father's  messenger, 
With  meekness,  whose  divinity  is  more 
Than  power  and  glory,  he  return'd  again 
To  his  disciples,  and  awaked  their  sleep, 
For  "  he  that  should  betray  him  was  at  hand." 


THE  WIDOW  OF  NAIN. 
The  Roman  sentinel  stood  helm'd  and  tall 
Beside  the  gate  of  Nain.     The  busy  tread 
Of  comers  to  the  city  mart  was  done, 
For  it  was  almost  noon,  and  a  dead  heat 
Quiver'd  upon  the  fine  and  sleeping  dust, 
And  the  cold  snake  crept  panting  from  the  wall, 
And  bask'd  his  scaly  circles  in  the  sun. 
Upon  his  spear  the  soldier  lean'd,  and  kept 
His  idle  watch,  and,  as  his  drowsy  dream 
Was  broken  by  the  solitary  foot 
Of  some  poor  mendicant,  he  raised  his  head 
To  curse  him  for  a  tributary  Jew, 
And  slumberously  dozed  on. 

'Twas  now  high  noon. 
The  dull,  low  murmur  of  a  funeral 
Went  through  the  city— the  sad  sound  of  feet 
Unmix'd  with  voices — and  the  sentinel 
Shook  off  his  slumber,  and  gazed  earnestly 
Up  the  wide  streets  along  whose  paved  way 
The  silent  throng  crept  slowly.     They  came  on, 
Bearing  a  body  heavily  on  its  bier, 
And  by  the  crowd  that  in  the  burning  sun, 
Walk'd  with  forgetful  sadness,  'twas  of  one 
Mourn'd  with  uncommon  sorrow.     The  broad  gat 
Swung  on  its  hinges,  and  the  Roman  bent 
His  spear-point  downwards  as  the  bearers  pass'd, 
Bending  beneath  their  burden-     There  was  one- 


Only  one  mourner.     Close  behind  the  bier, 

Crumpling  the  pall  up  in  her  wither'd  hands, 

Follow'd  an  aged  woman.     Her  short  steps 

Falter'd  with  weakness,  and  a  broken  moan 

Fell  from  her  lips,  thicken'd  convulsively 

As  her  heart  bled  afresh.     The  pitying  crowd 

Follow'd  apart,  but  no  one  spoke  to  her. 

She  had  no  kinsmen.     She  had  lived  alone — 

A  widow  with  one  son.     He  was  her  all — 

The  only  tie  she  had  in  the  wide  world — 

And  he  was  dead.     They  could  not  comfort  her. 

Jesus  drew  near  to  Nain  as  from  the  gate 

The  funeral  came  forth.     His  lips  were  pale 

With  the  noon's  sultry  heat.     The  beaded  sweat 

Stood  thickly  on  his  brow,  and  on  the  worn 

And  simple  latchets  of  his  sandals  lay, 

Thick,  the  white  dust  of  travel.     He  had  come 

Since  sunrise  from  Capernaum,  staying  not 

To  wet  his  lips  by  green  Bethsaida's  pool, 

Nor  wash  his  feet  in  Kishon's  silver  springs, 

Nor  turn  him  southward  upon  Tabor's  side 

To  catch  Gilboa's  light  and  spicy  breeze. 

Genesareth  stood  cool  upon  the  East, 

Fast  by  the  Sea  of  Galilee,  and  there 

The  weary  traveller  might  bide  till  eve ; 

And  on  the  alders  of  Bethulia's  plains 

The  grapes  of  Palestine  hung  ripe  and  wild ; 

Yet  turn'd  he  not  aside,  but,  gazing  on, 

From  every  swelling  mount  he  saw  afar, 

Amid  the  hills,  the  humble  spires  of  Nain, 

The  place  of  his  next  errand ;  and  the  path 

Touch'd  not  Bethulia,  and  a  league  away 

Upon  the  East  lay  pleasant  Galilee. 

Forth  from  the  city-gate  the  pitying  crowd 

Follow'd  the  stricken  mourner.     They  came  near 

The  place  of  burial,  and,  with  straining  hands, 

Closer  upon  her  breast  she  clasp'd  the  pall, 

And  with  a  gasping  sob,  quick  as  a  child's, 

And  an  inquiring  wildness  flashing  through 

The  thin  gray  lashes  of  her  feve^d  eyes, 

She  came  where  Jesus  stood  beside  the  way. 

He  look'd  upon  her,  and  his  heart  was  moved. 

"  Weep  not ! "  he  said ;  and  as  they  stay'd  the  bier, 

And  at  his  bidding  laid  it  at  his  feet, 

He  gently  drew  the  pall  from  out  her  grasp, 

And  laid  it  back  in  silence  from  the  dead. 

With  troubled  wonder  the  mute  throng  drew  near, 

And  gazed  on  his  calm  looks.     A  minute's  space 

He  stood  and  pray'd.     Then,  taking  the  cold  hand, 

He  said,  "  Arise  !"     And  instantly  the  breast 

Heaved  in  its  cerements,  and  a  sudden  flush 

Ran  through  the  lines  of  the  divided  lips, 

And  with  a  murmur  of  his  mother's  name, 

He  trembled  and  sat  upright  in  his  shroud. 

And,  while  the  mourner  hung  upon  his  neck, 

Jesus  went  calmly  on  his  way  to  Nain. 

HAGAR  IN  THE  WILDERNESS. 
The  morning  broke.     Light  stole  upon  the  clouds 
With  a  strange  beauty.     Earth  received  again 
Its  garment  of  a  thousand  dyes ;  and  leaves, 
And  delicate  blossoms,  and  the  painted  flowers, 
And  every  thing  that  bendeth  to  the  dew, 
And  stirreth  with  the  daylight,  lifted  up 
Its  beauty  to  the  breath  of  that  sweet  morn. 

All  things  are  dark  to  sorrow;  and  the  light 
And  loveliness,  and  fragrant  air  were  sad 
To  the  dejected  Hagar.     The  moist  earth 
Was  pouring  odors  from  its  spicy  pores, 
And  the  young  birds  were  singing  as  if  life 
Were  a  new  thing  to  them  ;  but  oh  !  it  came 
Upon  her  heart  like  discord,  and  she  felt 
How  cruelly  it  tries  a  broken  heart, 
To  see  a  mirth  in  any  thing  it  loves. 
She  stood  at  Abraham's  tent.     Her  lips  were  press'd 
Till  the  blood  started ;  and  the  wandering  veins 
Of  her  transparent  forehead  were  swell'd  out, 
As  if  her  pride  would  burst  them.     Her  dark  eye 
Was  clear  and  tearless,  and  the  light  of  heaven, 
Which  made  its  language  legible,  shot  back, 


SACRED  POEMS. 


825 


From  her  long  lashes,  as  it  had  been  flame. 

Her  noble  boy  stood  by  her,  with  his  hand 

Clasp'd  in  her  own,  and  his  round,  delicate  feet, 

Scarce  train'd  to  balance  on  the  tented  floor, 

Sandall'd  for  journeying.     He  had  look'd  up 

Into  his  mother's  face  until  he  caught 

The  spirit  there,  and  his  young  heart  was  swelling 

Beneath  his  dimpled  bosom,  and  his  form 

Straighten'd  up  proudly  in  his  tiny  wrath, 

As  if  his  light  proportions  would  have  swell'd, 

Had  they  but  match'd  his  spirit,  to  the  man. 

Why  bends  the  patriarch  as  he  cometh  now 
Upon  his  staff*  so  wearily  ?     His  beard 
Is  low  upon  his  breast,  and  his  high  brow, 
So  written  with  the  converse  of  his  God, 
Beareth  the  swollen  vein  of  agony. 
His  lip  is  quivering,  and  his  wonted  step 
Of  vigor  is  not  there;  and,  though  the  morn 
Is  passing  fair  and  beautiful,  he  breathes 
Its  freshness  as  it  were  a  pestilence. 
Oh !  man  may  bear  with  suffering :  his  heart 
Is  a  strong  thing,  and  godlike,  in  the  grasp 
Of  pain  that  wrings  mortality ;  but  tear 
One  chord  affection  clings  to — part  one  tie 
That  binds  him  to  a  woman's  delicate  love — 
And  his  great  spirit  yieldeth  like  a  reed. 

He  gave  to  her  the  water  and  the  bread, 
But  spoke  no  word,  and  trusted  not  himself 
To  look  upon  her  face,  but  laid  his  hand 
In  silent  blessing  on  the  fair-hair'd  boy, 
And  left  her  to  her  lot  of  loneliness. 

Should  Hagar  weep  ?     May  slighted  woman  turn, 
And,  as  a  vine  the  oak  hath  shaken  off", 
Bend  lightly  to  her  leaning  trust  again  ? 
0  no !  by  all  her  loveliness — by  all 
That  makes  life  poetry  and  beauty,  no ! 
Make  her  a  slave ;  steal  from  her  rosy  cheek 
By  needless  jealousies ;  let  the  last  star 
Leave  her  a  watcher  by  your  couch  of  pain ; 
Wrong  her  by  petulance,  suspicion,  all 
That  makes  her  cup  a  bitterness — yet  give 
One  evidence  of  love,  and  earth  has  not 
An  emblem  of  devotedness  like  hers. 
But  oh  !  estrange  her  once — it  boots  not  how — 
By  wrong  or  silence — any  thing  that  tells 
A  change  has  come  upon  your  tenderness, — 
And  there  is  not  a  feeling  out  of  heaven 
Her  pride  o'ermastereth  not. 

She  went  her  way  with  a  strong  step  and  slow — 
Her  press'd  lip  arch'd,  and  her  clear  eye  undimm'd, 
As  if  it  were  a  diamond,  and  her  form 
Borne  proudly  up,  as  if  her  heart  breathed  through. 
Her  child  kept  on  in  silence,  though  she  press'd 
His  hand  till  it  was  pain'd ;  for  he  had  caught, 
As  I  have  said,  her  spirit,  and  the  seed 
Of  a  stern  nation  had  been  breathed  upon. 

The  morning  pass'd,  and  Asia's  sun  rode  up 
In  the  clear  heaven,  and  every  beam  was  heat. 
The  cattle  of  the  hills  were  in  the  shade, 
And  the  bright  plumage  of  the  Orient  lay 
On  beating  bosoms  in  her  spicy  trees. 
It  was  an  hour  of  re3t !  but  Hagar  found 
No  shelter  in  the  wilderness,  and  on 
She  kept  her  weary  way,  until  the  boy 
Hung  down  his  head,  and  open'd  his  parch'd  lips 
For  water;  but  she  could  not  give  it  him. 
She  laid  him  down  beneath  the  sultry  sky, — 
For  it  was  better  than  the  close,  hot  breath 
Of  the  thick  pines, — and  tried  to  comfort  him ; 
But  he  was  sore  athirst,  and  his  blue  eyes 
Were  dim  and  blood-shot,  and  he  could  not  know 
Why  God  denied  him  water  in  the  wild. 
She  sat  a  little  longer,  and  he  grew 
Ghastly  and  faint,  as  if  he  would  have  died. 
It  was  too  much  for  her.     She  lifted  him, 
And  bore  him  further  on,  and  laid  his  head 
Beneath  the  shadow  of  a  desert  shrub ; 
And,  shrouding  up  her  face,  she  went  away, 
And  sat  to  watch,  where  he  could  see  her  not, 
Till  he  should  die;  and, watching  him,  shemourn'd: — 


"  God  stay  thee  in  thine  agony,  my  boy ! 
I  cannot  see  thee  die;  I  cannot  brook 

Upon  thy  brow  to  look, 
And  see  death  settle  on  my  cradle  joy. 
How  have  I  drunk  the  light  of  thy  blue  eye ' 

And  could  I  see  thee  die  1 
"  I  did  not  dream  of  this  when  thou  wast  straying. 
Like  an  unbound  gazelle,  among  the  flowers; 

Or  wiling  the  soft  hours, 
By  the  rich  gush  of  water-sources  playing, 
Then  sinking  weary  to  thy  smiling  sleep, 

So  beautiful  and  deep. 
"  Oh  no !  and  when  I  watch'd  by  thee  the  while. 
And  saw  thy  bright  lip  curling  in  thy  dream, 

And  thought  of  the  dark  stream 
In  my  own  land  of  Egypt,  the  far  Nile, 
How  pray'd  I  that  my  father's  land  might  be 

An  heritage  for  thee ! 
"  And  now  the  grave  for  its  cold  breast  hath  won  thee ! 
And  thy  white,  delicate  limbs  the  earth  will  press; 

And  oh  !  my  last  caress 
Must  feel  thee  cold,  for  a  chill  hand  is  on  thee. 
How  can  I  leave  my  boy,  so  pillow'd  there 

Upon  his  clustering  hair !" 

She  stood  beside  the  well  her  God  had  given 
To  gush  in  that  deep  wilderness,  and  bathed 
The  forehead  of  her  child  until  he  laugh'd 
In  his  reviving  happiness,  and  lisp'd 
His  infant  thought  of  gladness  at  the  sight 
Of  the  cool  plashing  of  his  mother's  hand. 


RIZPAH  WITH  HER  SONS, 
(The  day  before  they  were  hanged  on  Gibeah.) 
"  Bread  for  my  mother !"  said  the  voice  of  one 
Darkening  the  door  of  Rizpah.     She  look'd  up- 
And  lo !  the  princely  countenance  and  mien 
Of  dark-brow'd  Armoni.     The  eye  of  Saul — 
The  very  voice  and  presence  of  the  king — 
Limb,  port,  and  majesty, — were  present  there, 
Mock'd  like  an  apparition  in  her  son. 
Yet,  as  he  stoop'd  his  forehead  to  her  hand 
With  a  kind  smile,  a  something  of  his  mother 
Unbent  the  haughty  arching  of  his  lip, 
And,  through  the  darkness  of  the  widow's  heart 
Trembled  a  nerve  of  tenderness  that  shook 
Her  thought  of  pride  all  suddenly  to  tears. 
"  Whence  comest  thou  ?"  said  Rizpah. 

"  From  the  house 
Of  David.     In  his  gate  there  stood  a  soldier — 
This  in  his  hand.     I  pluck'd  it,  and  I  said, 
« A  /ring's  son  takes  it  for  his  hungry  mother  '* 
God  stay  the  famine  !" 
******    As  he  spoke,  a  step, 
Light  as  an  antelope's,  the  threshold  press'd. 
And  like  a  beam  of  light  into  the  room 
Enter'd  Mephibosheth.     What  bird  of  heaven 
Or  creature  of  the  wild — what  flower  of  earth — 
Was  like  this  fairest  of  the  sons  of  Saul ! 
The  violet's  cup  was  harsh  to  his  blue  eye. 
Less  agile  was  the  fierce  barb's  fiery  step. 
His  voice  drew  hearts  to  him.     His  smile  was  like 
The  incarnation  of  some  blessed  dream — 
Its  joyousness  so  sunn'd  the  gazer's  eye ! 
Fair  were  his  locks.     His  snowy  teeth  divided 
A  bow  of  Love,  drawn  with  a  scarlet  thread- 
His  cheek  was  like  the  moist  heart  of  the  rose, 
And,  but  for  nostrils  of  that  breathing  fire 
That  turns  the  lion  back,  and  limbs  as  lithe 
As  is  the  velvet  muscle  of  the  pard, 
Mephibosheth  had  been  too  fair  for  man 
As  if  he  were  a  vision  that  would  fade, 
Rizpah  gazed  on  him.     Never,  to  her  eye, 
Grew  his  bright  form  familiar ;  but,  like  stars, 
That  seem'd  each  night  new  lit  in  a  new  heaven. 
He  was  each  morn's  sweet  gift  to  her.     She  loved 
Her  firstborn,  as  a  mother  loves  her  child, 
Tenderly,  fondly.    But  for  him— the  last— 


826 


SACRED  POEMS. 


What  had  she  done  for  heaven  to  be  his  mother! 

Her  heart  rose  in  her  throat  to  hear  his  voice; 

She  look'd  at  him  forever  through  her  tears ; 

Her  utterance,  when  she  spoke  to  him,  sank  down, 

As  if  the  lightest  thought  of  him  had  lain 

In  an  unfathom'd  cavern  of  her  soul. 

The  morning  light  was  part  of  him,  to  her — 

What  broke  the  day  for,  but  to  show  his  beauty  ? 

The  hours  but  measured  time  till  he  should  come ; 

Too  tardy  sang  the  bird  when  he  was  gone; 

She  would  have  shut  the  flow'rs — and  call'd  the  star 

Back  to  the  mountain-top — and  bade  the  sun 

Pause  at  Eve's  golden  door — to  wait  for  him ! 

Was  this  a  heart  gone  wild  ? — or  is  the  love 

Of  mothers  like  a  madness  ?     Such  as  this 

Is  many  a  poor  one  in  her  humble  home, 

Who  silently  and  sweetly  sits  alone, 

Pouring  her  life  all  out  upon  her  child. 

What  cares  she  that  he  does  not  feel  how  close 

Her  heart  beats  after  his — that  all  unseen 

Are  the  fond  thoughts  that  follow  him  by  day, 

And  watch  his  sleep  like  angels  ?  And,  when  moved 

By  some  sore  needed  Providence,  he  stops 

In  his  wild  path  and  lifts  a  thought  to  heaven, 

What  cares  the  mother  that  he  does  not  see 

The  link  between  the  blessing  and  her  prayer ! 

He  who  once  wept  with  Mary — angels  keeping 
Their  unthank'd  watch — are  a  foreshadowing 
Of  what  love  is  in  heaven.     We  may  believe 
That  we  shall  know  each  other's  forms  hereafter, 
And,  in  the  bright  fields  of  the  better  land, 
Call  the  lost  dead  to  us.     0  conscious  heart ! 
That  in  the  lone  paths  of  this  shadowy  world 
Hast  bless'd  all  light,  however  dimly  shining, 
That  broke  upon  the  darkness  of  thy  way — 
Number  thy  lamps  of  love,  and  tell  me,  now, 
How  many  canst  thou  re-light  at  the  stars 
And  blush  not  at  their  burning  ?     One — one  only — 
Lit  while  your  pulses  by  one  heart  kept  time, 
And  fed  with  faithful  fondness  to  your  grave — 
(Tho'  sometimes  with  a  hand  stretch'd  back  from 

heaven,) 
Steadfast  thro'  all  things — near,  when  most  forgot — 
And  with  its  finger  of  unerring  truth 
Pointing  the  lost  way  in  thy  darkest  hour — 
One  lamp — thy  mother's  love — amid  the  stars 
Shall  lift  its  pure  flame  changeless,  and,  before 
The  throne  of  God,  burn  through  eternity — 
Holy — as  it  was  lit  and  lent  thee  here. 

The  hand  in  salutation  gently  raised 
To  the  bow'd  forehead  of  the  princely  boy, 
Linger'd  amid  his  locks.     "  I  sold,"  he  said, 
"  My  Lybian  barb  for  but  a  cake  of  meal — 
Lo  !  this — my  mother !     As  I  pass'd  the  street, 
I  hid  it  in  my  mantle,  for  there  stand 
Famishing  mother's,  with  their  starving  babes, 
At  every  threshold ;  and  wild,  desperate  men 
Prowl,  with  the  eyes  of  tigers,  up  and  down, 
Watching  to  rob  those  who,  from  house  to  house, 
Beg  for  the  dying.     Fear  not  thou,  my  mother! 
Thy  sons  will  be  Elijah's  ravens  to  thee !" 
[unfinished.] 


LAZARUS  AND  MARY. 
Jesus  was  there  but  yesterday.     The  prints 
Of  his  departing  feet  were  at  the  door ; 
His  "  Peace  be  with  you !"  was  yet  audible 
In  the  rapt  porch  of  Mary's  charmed  ear ; 
And,  in  the  low  rooms,  'twas  as  if  the  air, 
Hush'd  with  his  going  forth,  had  been  the  breath 
Of  angels  left  on  watch — so  conscious  still 
The  place  seem'd  of  his  presence  !     Yet,  within, 
The  family  by  Jesus  loved  were  weeping, 
For  Lazarus  lay  dead. 

And  Mary  sat 
By  the  pale  sleeper.     He  was  young  to  die. 
The  countenance  whereon  the  Saviour  dwelt 
With  his  benignant  smile — the  soft  fair  lines 


Breathing  of  hope — were  still  all  eloquent, 

Like  life  well  mock'd  in  marble.     That  the  voice, 

Gone  from  those  pallid  lips,  was  heard  in  heaven, 

Toned  with  unearthly  sweetness — that  the  light, 

Quench'd  in  the  closing  of  those  stirless  lids, 

Was  veiling  before  God  its  timid  fire, 

New-lit,  and  brightening  like  a  star  at  eve — 

That  Lazarus,  her  brother,  was  in  bliss, 

Not  with  this  cold  clay  sleeping — Mary  knew. 

Her  heaviness  of  heart  was  not  for  him  ! 

But  close  had  been  the  tie  by  death  divided. 

The  intertwining  locks  of  that  bright  hair 

That  wiped  the  feet  of  Jesus — the  fair  hands 

Clasp  d  in  her  breathless  wonder  while  He  taught-~ 

Scarce  to  one  pulse  thrill'd  more  in  unison, 

Than  with  one  soul  this  sister  and  her  brother 

Had  lock'd  their  lives  together.     In  this  love, 

Hallow'd  from  stain,  the  woman's  heart  of  Mary 

Was,  with  its  rich  affections,  all  bound  up. 

Of  an  unblemish'd  beauty,  as  became 

An  office  by  archangels  fill'd  till  now, 

She  walk'd  with  a  celestial  halo  clad ; 

And  while,  to  the  Apostles'  eyes,  it  seem'd 

She  but  fulfilPd  her  errand  out  of  heaven — 

Sharing  her  low  roof  with  the  Son  of  God — 

She  was  a  woman,  fond  and  mortal  still ; 

And  the  deep  fervor,  lost  to  passion's  fire, 

Breathed  through  the  sister's  tenderness.     In  vain 

Knew  Mary,  gazing  on  that  face  of  clay, 

That  it  was  not  her  brother.     He  was  there — 

Swathed  in  that  linen  vesture  for  the  grave — 

The  same  lov'd  one  in  all  his  comeliness — 

And  with  him  to  the  grave  her  heart  must  go. 

What  though  he  talk'd  of  her  to  Angels  ?  nay — 

Hover'd  in  spirit  near  her? — 'twas  that  arm, 

Palsied  in  death,  whose  fond  caress  she  knew! 

It  was  that  lip  of  marble  with  whose  kiss, 

Morning  and  eve,  love  hemm'd  the  sweet  day  in 

This  was  the  form  by  the  Judean  maids 

Prais'd  for  its  palm-like  stature,  as  he  walk'd 

With  her  by  Kedron  in  the  eventide — 

The  dead  was  Lazarus !     *     *     *     *     * 

The  burial  was  over,  and  the  night 

Fell  upon  Bethany — and  morn — and  noon. 

And  comforters  and  mourners  went  their  way— 

But  death  stay'd  on  !     They  had  been  oft  alone 

When  Lazarus  had  follow'd  Christ  to  hear 

His  teachings  in  Jerusalem  ;  but  this 

Was  more  than  solitude.     The  silence  now 

Was  void  of  expectation.     Something  felt 

Always  before,  and  lov'd  without  a  name, — 

Joy  from  the  air,  hope  from  the  opening  door, 

Welcome  and  life  from  off  the  very  walls, — 

Seem'd  gone — and  in  the  chamber  where  he  lay 

There  was  a  fearful  and  unbreathing  hush,  * 

Stiller  than  night's  last  hour.     So  fell  on  Mary 

The  shadows  all  have  known,  who,  from  their  hearts, 

Have  released  friends  to  heaven.     The  parting  soul 

Spreads  wing  betwixt  the  mourner  and  the  sky ! 

As  if  its  path  lay,  from  the  tie  last  broken, 

Straight  through  the  cheering  gateway  of  the  sun ; 

And,  to  the  eye  strain'd  after,  'tis  a  cloud 

That  bars  the  light  from  all  things. 

Now  as  Christ 
Drew  near  to  Bethany,  the  Jews  went  forth 
With  Martha,  mourning  Lazarus.     But  Mary 
Sat  in  the  house.     She  knew  the  hour  was  nigh 
When  He  would  go  again,  as  He  had  said, 
Unto  his  Father ;  and  she  felt  that  He, 
Who  loved  her  brother  Lazarus  in  life, 
Had  chose  the  hour  to  bring  him  home  thro'  Death 
In  no  unkind  forgetful ness.     Alone — 
She  could  lift  up  the  bitter  prayer  to  heaven, 
"  Thy  will  be  done,  O  God !"— but  that  dear  brother 
Had  fill'd  the  cup  and  broke  the  bread  for  Christ; 
And  ever,  at  the  morn,  when  she  had  knelt 
And  wash'd  those  holy  feet,  came  Lazarus 
To  bind  his  sandals  on,  and  follow  forth 
With  dropp'd  eyes,  like  an  angel,  sad  and  fair- 
Intent  upon  the  Master's  needalone. 
Indissolubly  link'd  were  they  !     And  now, 


SACRED  POEMS. 


827 


To  go  to  meet  him — Lazarus  not  there — 
And  to  his  greeting  answer  "  It  is  well !" 
And  without  tears,  (since  grief  would  trouble  Him 
Whose  soul  was  alway  sorrowful,)  to  kneel 
And  minister  alone — her  heart  gave  way ! 
She  cover'd  up  her  face  and  turn'd  again 
To  wait  within  for  Jesus      But  once  more 
Came  Martha,  saying,  "  Lo !  the  Lord  is  here 
And  calleth  for  thee,  Mary ! "     Then  arose 
The  mourner  from  the  ground,  whereon  she  sate 
Shrouded  in  sackcloth,  and  bound  quickly  up 
The  golden  locks  of  her  dishevell'd  hair, 
And  o'er  her  ashy  garments  drew  a  veil 
Hiding  the  eyes  she  could  not  trust.     And  still, 
As  she  made  ready  to  go  forth,  a  calm 
As  in  a  dream  fell  on  her. 

At  a  fount 
Hard  by  the  sepulchre,  without  the  wall, 
Jesus  awaited  Mary.     Seated  near 
Were  the  way-worn  disciples  in  the  shade; 
But,  of  himself  forgetful,  Jesus  lean'd 
Upon  his  staff,  and  watch'd  where  she  should  come 
To  whose  one  sorrow — but  a  sparrow's  falling — 
The  pity  that  redeem'd  a  world  could  bleed ! 
And  as  she  came,  with  that  uncertain  step, — 
Eager,  yet  weak, — her  hands  upon  her  breast, — 
And  they  who  follow'd  her  all  fallen  back 
To  leave  her  with  her  sacred  grief  alone, — 
The  heart  of  Christ  was  troubled.     She  drew  near, 
And  the  disciples  rose  up  from  the  fount, 
Moved  by  her  look  of  wo,  and  gather'd  round; 
And  Mary — for  a  moment — ere  she  look'd 
Upon  the  Saviour,  stay'd  her  faltering  feet,— 
And  straighten'd  her  veil'd  form,  and  tighter  drew 
Her  clasp  upon  the  folds  across  her  breast ; 
Then,  with  a  vain  strife  to  control  her  tears, 
She  stagger'd  to  their  midst,  and  at  His  feet 
Fell  prostrate,  saying,  "  Lord !  hadst  thou  been  here, 
My  brother  had  not  died  !"     The  Saviour  groan'd 
In  spirit,  and  stoop'd  tenderly,  and  raised 
The  mourner  from  the  ground,  and  in  a  voice, 
Broke  in  its  utterance  like  her  own,  He  said, 
"  Where  have  ye  laid  him  ?"  Then  the  Jews  who  came, 
Following  Mary,  answer'd  through  their  tears, 
"  Lord !  come  and  see !"     But  lo !  the  mighty  heart 
That  in  Gethsemane  sweat  drops  of  blood, 
Taking  for  us  the  cup  that  might  not  pass — 
The  heart  whose  breaking  cord  upon  the  cross 
Made  the  earth  tremble,  and  the  sun  afraid 
To  look  upon  his  agony — the  heart 
Of  a  lost  world's  Redeemer — overflow^, 
Touch'd  by  a  mourner's  sorrow !     Jesus  wept. 
Calm'd  by  those  pitying  tears,  and  fondly  brooding 
Upon  the  thought  that  Christ  so  loved  her  brother, 
Stood  Mary  there;  but  that  lost  burden  now 
Lay  on  His  heart  who  pitied  her;  and  Christ, 
Following  slow,  and  groaning  in  Himself, 
Came  to  the  sepulchre.     It  was  a  cave, 
And  a  stone  lay  upon  it.     Jesus  said, 
"  Take  ye  away  the  stone !"     Then  lifted  He 
His  moisten'd  eyes  to  heaven,  and  while  the  Jews 
And  the  disciples  bent  their  heads  in  awe, 
And  trembling  Mary  sank  upon  her  knees, 
The  Son  of  God  pray'd  audibly.     He  ceased, 
And  for  a  minute's  space  there  was  a  hush, 
As  if  th'  angelic  watchers  of  the  world 
Had  stay'd  the  pulses  of  all  breathing  things, 
To  listen  to  that  prayer.     The  face  of  Christ 
Shone  as  He  stood,  and  over  Him  there  came 
Command,  as  'twere  the  living  face  of  God, 
And  with  a  loud  voice,  He  cried,  "  Lazarus ! 
Come  forth  !"     And  instantly,  bound  hand  and  foot, 
And  borne  by  unseen  angels  from  the  cave, 
He  that  was  dead  stood  with  them.     At  the  word 
Of  Jesus,  the  fear-stricken  Jews  unloosed 
The  bands  from  off  the  foldings  of  his  shroud; 
And  Mary,  with  her  dark  veil  thrown  aside, 
Ban  to  him  swiftly,  and  cried,  "  Lazarus  ! 
My  brother,  Lazarus!"  and  tore  away 
The  napkin  she  had  bound  about  his  head— 
And  touchM  the  warm  lips  with  her  fearful  hand— 


And  on  his  neck  fell  weeping.     And  while  all 
Lay  on  their  faces  prostrate,  Lazarus 
Took  Mary  by  the  hand,  and  they  knelt  down 
And  worshipp'd  Him  who  loved  them. 


THOUGHTS  WHILE  MAKING  THE  GRAVE  OF  A 
NEW-BORN  CHILD. 
Room,  gentle  flowers !  my  child  would  pass  to  heaven! 
Ye  look'd  not  for  her  yet  with  your  soft  eyes, 

0  watchful  ushers  at  Death's  narrow  door1 
But  lo !  while  you  delay  to  let  her  forth, 
Angels,  beyond,  stay  for  her  !     One  long  kiss 
From  lips  all  pale  with  agony,  and  tears, 
Wrung  after  anguish  had  dried  up  with  fire 
The  eyes  that  wept  them,  were  the  cup  of  life 
Held  as  a  welcome  to  her.     Weep !  oh  mother ! 
But  not  that  from  this  cup  of  bitterness 

A  cherub  of  the  sky  has  turn'd  away. 

One  look  upon  thy  face  ere  thou  depart ! 
My  daughter !  It  is  soon  to  let  thee  go ! 
My  daughter !     With  thy  birth  has  gush'd  a  spring 

1  knew  not  of — filling  my  heart  with  tears, 
And  turning  with  strange  tenderness  to  thee— 
A  love— oh  God !  it  seems  so— that  must  flow 
Far  as  thou  fleest,  and  'twixt  heaven  and  me, 
Henceforward,  be  a  bright  and  yearning  chain 
Drawing  me  after  thee !     And  so,  farewell ! 
'Tis  a  harsh  world,  in  which  affection  knows 
No  place  to  treasure  up  its  loved  and  lost 

But  the  foul  grave !     Thou,  who  so  late  wast  sleeping 
Warm  in  the  close  fold  of  a  mother's  heart, 
Scarce  from  her  breast  a  single  pulse  receiving 
But  it  was  sent  thee  with  some  tender  thought, 
How  can  I  leave  thee— here.'    Alas  for  man ! 
Tne  herb  in  its  humility  may  fall 
And  waste  into  the  bright  and  genial  air, 
While  we — by  hands  that  minister'd  in  life 
Nothing  but  love  to  us — are  thrust  away — 
The  earth  flung  in  upon  our  just  cold  bosoms, 
And  the  warm  sunshine  trodden  out  forever ! 

Yet  have  I  chosen  for  thy  grave,  my  child, 

A  bank  where  I  have  lain  in  summer  hours, 

And  thought  how  little  it  would  seem  like  death 

To  sleep  amid  such  loveliness.     The  brook, 

Tripping  with  laughter  down  the  rocky  steps 

That  lead  up  to  thy  bed,  would  still  trip  on, 

Breaking  the  dread  hush  of  the  mourners  gone; 

The  birds  are  never  silent  that  build  here, 

Trying  to  sing  down  the  more  vocal  waters : 

The  slope  is  beautiful  with  moss  and  flowers, 

And  far  below,  seen  under  arching  leaves, 

Glitters  the  warm  sun  on  rhe  village  spire, 

Pointing  the  living  after  thee.     And  this 

Seems  like  a  comfort;  and,  replacing  now 

The  flowers  that  have  made  room  for  thee,  I  go 

To  whisper  the  same  peace  to  her  who  lies — 

Robb'd  of  her  child  and  lonely.     'Tis  the  work 

Of  many  a  dark  hour,  and  of  many  a  prayer, 

To  bring  the  heart  back  from  an  infant  gone. 

Hope  must  give  o'er,  and  busy  fancy  blot 

The  images  from  all  the  silent  rooms, 

And  every  sight  and  sound  familiar  to  her 

Undo  its  sweetest  link— and  so  at  last 

The  fountain— that,  once  struck,  must  flow  forever  - 

Will  hide  and  waste  in  silence.     When  the  smile 

Steals  to  her  pallid  lip  again,  and  spring 

Wakens  the  buds  above  thee,  we  will  come, 

And,  standing  by  thy  music-haunted  grave, 

Look  on  each  other  cheerfully,  and  say: 

A  child  that  we  have  loved  is  gone  to  heaven, 

And  by  this  gate  of  flowers  she  pass'd  away! 


ON  THE  DEPARTURE  OF  REV.  MR.  WHITE 

FROM    HIS    PASI9H,    WHEN    CHOSEIT   PRESIDENT    OF    WABASH    COLLEOB 

Leave  us  not,  man  of  prayer !     Like  Paul,  hast  thot 
"  Serv'd  God  with  all  humility  of  mind," 
Dwelling  among  us,  and  **  with  many  tears," 


828 


SACRED  POEMS. 


"  From   house  to  house,"   "by  night  and  day  not 

ceasing," 
Hast  pleaded  thy  blest  errand.     Leave  us  not ! 
Leave  us  not  now  !     The  Sabbath-bell,  so  long 
Lirik'd  with  thy  voice — the  prelude  to  thy  prayer — 
The  call  to  us  from  heaven  to  come  with  thee 
Into  the  house  of  God,  and,  from  thy  lips, 
Hear  what  had  fall'n  upon  thy  heart — will  sound 
Lonely  and  mournfully  when  thou  art  gone! 
Our  prayers  are  in  thy  words — our  hope  in  Christ 
Warm'd  on  thy  lips — our  darkling  thoughts  of  God 
Follow'd  thy  loved  call  upward — and  so  knit 
Is  all  our  worship  with  those  outspread  hands, 
And  the  imploring  voice,  which,  well  we  knew, 
Sank  in  the  ear  of  Jesus — that,  with  thee, 
The  angel's  ladder  seems  removed  from  sight, 
And  we  astray  in  darkness !     Leave  us  not ! 
Leave  not  the  dead!     They  have  lain  calmly  down — 
Thy  comfort  in  their  ears — believing  well 
That  when  thine  own  more  holy  work  was  done, 
Thou  wouldst  lie  down  beside  them,  and  be  near 
When  the  last  trump  shall  summon,  to  fold  up 
Thy  flock  affrighted,  and,  with  that  same  voice 
Whose  whisper'd  promises  could  sweeten  death, 
Take  up  once  more  the  interrupted  strain, 
And  wait  Christ's  coming,  saying,  "  Here  am  I, 
And  those  whom  thou  hast  given  me ! "     Leave  not 
The  old,  who,  'mid  the  gathering  shadows,  cling 
To  their  accustom'd  staff,  and  know  not  how 
To  lose  thee,  and  so  near  the  darkest  hour ! 
Leave  not  the  penitent,  whose  soul  may  be 
Deaf  to  the  strange  voice,  but  awake  to  thine ! 
Leave  not  the  mourner  thou  hast  sooth'd— the  heart 
Turns  to  its  comforter  again !     Leave  not 
The  child  thou  hast  baptized !  another's  care 
May  not  keep  bright,  upon  the  mother's  heart, 
The  covenant  seal ;  the  infant's  ear  has  caught 
Words  it  has  strangely  ponder'd  from  thy  lips, 
And  the  remember'd  tone  may  find  again, 
And  quicken  for  the  harvest,  the  first  seed 
Sown  for  eternity !    Leave  not  the  child ! 
Yet  if  thou  wilt— if,  "  bound  in  spirit,"  thou 
Must  go,  and  we  shall  see  thy  face  no  more, 
"  The  will  of  God  be  done ! "     We  do  not  say 
Remember  us — thou  wilt — in  love  and  prayer ! 
And  thou  wilt  be  remember'd — by  the  dead, 
When  the  last  trump  awakes  them — by  the  old, 
When,  of  the  "silver  cord"  whose  strength  thou 

knowest, 
The  last  thread  fails— by  the  bereav'd  and  stricken, 
When  the  dark  cloud,  wherein  thou  found'st  a  spot 
Broke  by  the  light  of  mercy,  lowers  again — 
By  the  sad  mother,  pleading  for  her  child, 
In  murmurs  difficult,  since  thou  art  gone— 
By  all  thou  leavest,  when  the  Sabbath-bell 
Brings  us  together,  and  the  closing  hymn 
Hushes  our  hearts  to  pray,  and  thy  loved  voice, 
That  all  our  wants  had  grown  to,  (only  thus, 
'Twould  seem,  articulate  to  God,)  falls  not 
Upon  our  listening  ears — remember'd  thus — 
Remember'd  well — in  all  our  holiest  hours — 
Will  be  the  faithful  shepherd  we  have  lost ! 
And  ever  with  one  prayer,  for  which  our  love 
Will  find  the  pleading  words,— that  in  the  light 
Of  heaven  we  may  behold  his  face  once  more ! 

BIRTH-DAY  VERSES. 
"  The  heart  that  we  have  lain  near  before  our  birth,  is  the  only  one 
that  cannot  forget  that  it  has  loved  us." — Philip  SLmGSBr. 

Mi!  birth-day ! — Oh  beloved  mother ! 

My  heart  is  with  thee  o'er  the  seas. 
I  did  not  think  to  count  another 

Before  I  wept  upon  thy  knees — 
Before  this  scroll  of  absent  years 
Was  blotted  with  thy  streaming  tears. 
My  own  I  do  not  care  to  check. 

I  weep — albeit  here  alone — 
As  if  I  hung  upon  thy  neck, 

As  if  thy  lips  were  on  my  own, 
As  if  this  full  sad  heart  of  mine, 
Were  beatiwr  closely  upon  thine. 


Four  weary  years !     How  looks  she  now  ? 

What  light  is  in  those  tender  eyes  ? 
What  trace  of  time  hath  touch'd  the  brow 

Whose  look  is  borrow'd  of  the  skies 
That  listen  to  her  nightly  prayer  ? 
How  is  she  changed  since  he  was  there 
Who  sleeps  upon  her  heart  alway — 

Whose  name  upon  her  lips  is  worn — 
For  whom  the  night  seems  made  to  pray — 

For  whom  she  wakes  to  pray  at  morn — 
Whose  sight  is  dim,  whose  heart-strings  stir, 
Who  weeps  these  tears — to  think  of  her! 

I  know  not  if  my  mother's  eyes 

Would  find  me  changed  in  slighter  things ; 
I've  wander'd  beneath  many  skies, 

And  tasted  of  some  bitter  springs ; 
And  many  leaves,  once  fair  and  gay, 
From  youth's  full  flower  have  dropp'd  away — 
But,  as  these  looser  leaves  depart, 

The  lessen'd  flower  gets  near  the  core, 
And,  when  deserted  quite,  the  heart 

Takes  closer  what  was  dear  of  yore — 
And  yearns  to  those  who  lov'd  it  first — 
The  sunshine  and  the  dew  by  which  its  bud  was  nursed. 

Dear  mother !  dost  thou  love  me  yet  ? 

Am  I  remember'd  in  my  home  ? 
When  those  I.  love  for  joy  are  met, 

Does  some  one  wish  that  I  would  come  t 
Thou  dost — I  am  beloved  of  these ! 

But,  as  the  schoolboy  numbers  o'er 
Night  after  night  the  Pleiades 

And  finds  the  stars  he  found  before- 
As  turns  the  maiden  oft  her  token — 

As  counts  the  miser  aye  his  gold — 
So,  till  life's  silver  cord  is  broken, 

Would  I  of  thy  fond  love  be  told. 
My  heart  is  full,  mine  eyes  are  wet — 
Dear  mother !  dost  thou  love  thy  long-lost  wanderer  yet  • 

Oh  !  when  the  hour  to  meet  again 

Creeps  on — and,  speeding  o'er  the  sea. 
My  heart  takes  up  its  lengthen'd  chain, 

And,  link  by  link,  draws  nearer  thee — 
When  land  is  hail'd,  and,  from  the  shore, 

Comes  off  the  blessed  breath  of  home, 
With  fragrance  from  my  mother's  door 

Of  flowers  forgotten  when  I  come- 
When  port  is  gain'd,  and,  slowly  now, 

The  old  familiar  paths  are  pass'd, 
And,  entering — unconscious  how — 

I  gaze  upon  thy  face  at  last, 
And  run  to  thee,  all  faint  and  weak, 
And  feel  thy  tears  upon  my  cheek — 

Oh  !  if  my  heart  break  not  with  joy, 
The  light  of  heaven  will  fairer  seem ; 

And  I  shall  grow  once  more  a  boy : 
And,  mother ! — 'twill  be  like  a  dream 

That  we  were  parted  thus  for  years — 

And  once  that  we  have  dried  our  tears, 

How  will  the  days  seem  long  and  bright — 
To  meet  thee  always  with  the  morn, 

And  hear  thy  blessing  every  night — 
Thy  "  dearest,"    thy  "  first-born  ! " — 
And  be  no  more,  as  now,  in  a  strange  land,  forlorn 


TO  MY  MOTHER  FROM  THE  APPENINES 

Mother!  dear  mother!  the  feelings  nurst 
As  I  hung  at  thy  bosom,  clung  round  theejirst. 
'Twas  the  earliest  link  in  love's  warm  chain — 
'Tis  the  only  one  that  will  long  remain  : 
And  as  year  by  year,  and  day  by  day, 
Some  friend  still  trusted  drops  away, 
Mother  !  dear  mother  !  oh  dt,st  thou  see 
How  the  shorten'd  chain  brings  me  nearer  thee  ! 

Early  Poem*. 

'Tis  midnight  the  lone  mountains  on — 
The  East  is  fleck'd  with  cloudy  bars, 

And,  gliding  through  them  one  by  one, 
The  moon  walks  up  her  path  of  stars — 

The  light  upon  her  placid  brow 

Received  from  fountains  unseen  now 


SACRED  POEMS. 


829 


And  happiness  is  mine  to-night, 

Thus  springing  from  an  unseen  fount; 
And  broast  and  brain  are  warm  with  light, 

With  midnight  round  me  on  the  mount — 
Its  rays,  like  thine,  fair  Dian,  flow 
From  far  that  Western  star  below. 
Dear  mother  !  in  thy  love  I  live; 

The  life  thou  gav'st  flows  yet  from  thee — 
And,  sun-like,  thou  hast  power  to  give 

Life  to  the  earth,  air,  sea,  for  me! 
Though  wandering,  as  this  moon  above, 
I'm  dark  without  thy  constant  love. 


LINES  ON  LEAVING  EUROPE. 
Bright  flag  at  yonder  tapering  mast ! 

Fling  out  your  field  of  azure  blue; 
Let  star  and  stripe  be  westward  cast, 

And  point  as  Freedom's  eagle  flew ! 
Strain  home  !  oh  lithe  and  quivering  spars ' 
Point  home,  my  country's  flag  of  stars ! 
The  wind  blows  fair !  the  vessel  feels 

The  pressure  of  the  rising  breeze, 
And,  swiftest  of  a  thousand  keels, 

She  leaps  to  the  careering  sea3 ! 
Oh,  fair,  fair  cloud  of  snowy  sail, 

In  whose  white  breast  1  seem  to  lie, 
How  oft,  when  blew  this  eastern  gale, 

I've  seen  your  semblance  in  the  sky, 
And  long'd  with  breaking  heart  to  flee 
On  cloud-like  pinions  o'er  the  sea! 
Adieu,  oh  lands  of  fame  and  eld ! 

I  turn  to  watch  our  foamy  track, 
And  thoughts  with  which  I  first  beheld 

Yon  clouded  line,  come  hurrying  back ; 
My  lips  are  dry  with  vague  desire, — 

My  cheek  once  more  is  hot  with  joy — 
My  pulse,  my  brain,  my  soul  on  fire  ! — 

Oh,  what  has  changed  that  traveller-boy ! 
As  leaves  the  ship  this  dying  foam, 
His  visions  fade  behind — his  weary  heart  speeds  home ! 
Adieu,  oh  soft  and  southern  shore, 

Where  dwelt  the  stars  long  miss'd  in  heaven! — 
Those  forms  of  beauty  seen  no  more, 

Yet  once  to  Art's  rapt  vision  given ! 
Oh,  still  th'  enamored  sun  delays, 

And  pries  through  fount  and  crumbling  fane, 
To  win  to  his  adoring  gaze 

Those  children  of  the  sky  again ! 
Irradiate  beauty,  such  as  never 
That  light  on  other  earth  hath  shone, 
Hath  made  this  land  her  home  for  ever; 

And  could  I  live  for  this  alone — 
Were  not  my  birthright  brighter  far 
Than  such  voluptuous  slaves'  can  be — 
Held  not  the  West  one  glorious  star 

New-born  and  blazing  for  the  free — 
Soar'd  not  to  heaven  our  eagle  yet — 
Rome,  with  her  Helot  sons,  should  teach  me  to  forget ! 
Adieu,  oh  fatherland !  I  see 

Your  white  cliffs  on  th'  horizon's  rim, 
And  though  to  freer  skies  I  flee, 

My  heart  swells,  and  my  eyes  are  dim ! 
As  knows  the  dove  the  task  you  give  her, 

When  loosed  upon  a  foreign  shore — 
As  spreads  the  rain-drop  in  the  river 

In  which  it  may  have  flowed  before — 
To  England,  over  vale  and  mountain, 

My  fancy  flew  from  climes  more  fair — 
My  blood,  that  knew  its  parent-fountain, 

Ran  warm  and  fast  in  England's  air. 
Dear  mother !  in  thy  prayer,  to-night, 

There  come  new  words  and  warmer  tears ! 
On  long,  long  darkness  breaks  the  light — 

Comes  home  the  loved,  the  lost  for  years ! 
Sleep  safe,  oh  wave-worn  mariner ! 

Fear  not,  to-night,  or  storm  or  sea ! 
The  ear  of  heaven  bends  low  to  her ! 

He  comes  to  shore  who  sails  with  me ! 


The  spider  knows  the  roof  unriven, 

While  swings  his  web,  though  lightnings  blaze 
And  by  a  thread  still  fast  on  Heaven, 

I  know  my  mother  lives  and  prays ! 
Dear  mother !  when  our  lips  can  speak   • 

When  first  our  tears  will  let  us  see-  - 
When  I  can  gaze  upon  thy  cheek, 

And  thou,  with  thy  dear  eyes,  on  me — 
'Twill  be  a  pastime  little  sad 

To  trace  what  weight  time's  heavy  fingers 
Upon  each  other's  forms  have  had — 

For  all  may  flee,  so  feeling  lingers ! 
But  there's  a  change,  beloved  mother ! 

To  stir  far  deeper  thoughts  of  thine, 
I  come — but  with  me  comes  another 

To  share  the  heart  once  only  mine ! 
Thou,  on  whose  thoughts,  when  sad  and  lonely, 

One  star  arose  in  memory's  heaven — 
Thou,  who  hast  watch'd  one  treasure  only- 
Watered  one  flower  with  tears  at  even- 
Room  in  thy  heart !     The  hearth  she  left 

Is  darken'd  to  lend  light  to  ours ! 
There  are  bright  flowers  of  care  bereft, 

And  hearts — that  languigh  more  than  flowers ! 
She  was  their  light — their  very  air — 

Room,  mother!  in  thy  heart!  place  for  her  in  thy 
prayer ! 


A  TRUE  INCIDENT. 
Upon  a  summer's  morn,  a  southern  mother 
Sat  at  the  curtain'd  window  of  an  inn. 
She  rested  from  long  travel,  and  with  hand 
Upon  her  cheek  in  tranquil  happiness, 
Look'd  where  the  busy  travellers  went  and  came 
And,  like  the  shadows  of  the  swallows  flying 
Over  the  bosom  of  unruffled  water, 
Pass'd  from  her  thoughts  all  objects,  leaving  there, 
As  in  the  water's  breast,  a  mirror'd  heaven— 
For,  in  the  porch  beneath  her,  to  and  fro, 
A  nurse  walk'd  singing  with  her  babe  in  arms 
And  many  a  passer-by  look'd  on  the  child 
And  praised  its  wondrous  beauty,  but  still  on 
The  old  nurse  troll'd  her  lullaby,  and  still, 
Blest  through  her  depths  of  soul  by  light  there  shining. 
The  mother  in  her  reverie  mused  on. 
But  lo !  another  traveller  alighted ! 
And  now,  no  more  indifferent  or  calm, 
The  mother's  breath  comes  quick,  and  with  the  blood 
Warm  in  her  cheek  and  brow,  she  murmurs  low 
"  Now,  God  be  praised !  I  am  no  more  alone 
In  knowing  I've  an  angel  for  my  child, — 
Chance  he  to  look  on't  only  !"     With  a  smile - 
The  tribute  of  a  beauty-loving  heart 
To  things  from  God  new-moulded — would  have  pass  d 
The  poet,  as  the  infant  caught  his  eye; 
But  suddenly  he  turn'd,  and,  with  his  hand 
Upon  the  nurse's  arm,  he  stay'd  her  steps, 
And  gazed  upon  her  burthen.     'Twas  a  child 
In  whose  large  eyes  of  blue  there  shone,  indeed, 
Something  to  waken  wonder.     Never  sky 
In  noontide  depth,  or  softly-breaking  dawn — 
Never  the  dew  in  new-born  violet's  cup, 
Lay  so  entranced  in  purity !     Not  calm, 
With  the  mere  hush  of  infancy  at  rest, 
The  ample  forehead,  but  serene  with  thought ; 
And  by  the  rapt  expression  of  the  lips, 
They  seem'd  scarce  still  from  a  cherubic  hymn, 
And  over  all  its  countenance  there  breath'd 
Benignity,  majestic  as  wc  dream 
Angels  wear  ever,  before  God.     With  gaze 
Earnest  and  mournful,  and  his  eyelids  warm 
With  tears  kept  back,  the  poet  kiss'd  the  child; 
And  chasten'd  at  his  heart,  as  having  pass'd 
Close  to  an  angel,  went  upon  his  way. 

Soon  after,  to  the  broken  choir  in  heaven 
This  cherub  was  recalled,  and  now  the  mother 
Bethought  her,  in  her  anguish,  of  the  bard — 
(Herself  a  far-off  stranger,  but  his  heart 
Familiar  to  the  world,) — and  wrote  to  tell  him, 
The  angel  he  had  recognized  that  morn, 
Had  fled  to  bliss  again.     The  poet  well 


830 


SACRED  POEMS. 


Remember'd  that  child's  ministry  to  him ; 
And  of  the  only  fountain  that  he  knew 
For  healing,  he  sought  comfort  for  the  mother. 
And  thus  he  wrote: — 
Mourn  not  for  the  child  from  thy  tenderness  riven, 

Ere  stain  on  its  purity  fell! 
To  thy  questioning  heart,  lo !  an  answer  from 
heaven: 

"  Is  IT  WELL  WITH  THE  CHILD  ?"   "  It  IS  WELL  !" 

THE  MOTHER  TO  HER  CHILD. 
They  tell  me  thou  art  come  from  a  far  world, 
Babe  of  my  bosom  !  that  these  little  arms, 
Whose  restlessness  is  like  the  spread  of  wings, 
Move  with  the  memory  of  flights  scarce  o'er — 
That  through  these  fringed  lids  we  see  the  soul 
Steeped  in  the  blue  of  its  remembered  home; 
And  while  thou  sleep'st  come  messengers,  they  say, 
Whispering  to  thee — and  'tis  then  I  see 
Upon  thy  baby  lips  that  smile  of  heaven  ! 

And  what  is  thy  far  errand,  my  fair  child? 
Why  away,  wandering  from  a  home  of  bliss, 
To  find  thy  way  through  darkness  home  again ' 
Wert  thou  an  untried  dweller  in  the  sky  ? 
Is  there,  betwixt  the  cherub  that  thou  wert, 
The  cherub  and  the  angel  thou  mayst  be, 
A  life's  probation  in  this  sadder  world? 
Art  thou,  with  memory  of  two  things  only, 
Music  and  light,  left  upon  earth  astray, 
And,  by  the  watchers  at  the  gate  of  heaven, 
Looked  for  with  fear  and  trembling  ? 

God  !  who  gavest 
Into  my  guiding  hand  this  wanderer, 
To  lead  her  through  a  world  whose  darkling  paths 
I  tread  with  steps  so  faltering — leave  not  me 
To  bring  her  to  the  gates  of  heaven,  alone  ! 
I  feel  my  feebleness.     Let  these  stay  on— 
The  angels  who  now  visit  her  in  dreams  ! 
Bid  them  be  near  her  pillow  till  in  death 
The  closed  eyes  look  upon  Thy  face  once  more! 
And  let  the  light  and  music,  which  the  world 
Borrows  of  heaven,  and  which  her  infant  sense 
Hails  with  sweet  recognition,  be  to  her 
A  voice  to  call  her  upward,  and  a  lamp 
To  lead  her  steps  unto  Thee ! 

THIRTY-FIVE. 

"  The  years  of  a  man's  life  are  threescore  and  ten." 
Oh,  weary  heart!  thou'rt  half  way  home  ! 

We  stand  on  Life's  meridian  height — 
As  far  from  childhood's  morning  come, 

As  to  the  grave's  forgetful  night. 
Give  Youth  and  Hope  a  parting  tear — 

Look  onward  with  a  placid  brow — 
Hope  promised  but  to  bring  us  here, 

And  Reason  takes  the  guidance  now — 
One  backward  look— the'last— the  last ! 
One  silent  tear — for  Youth  is  past ! 
Who  goes  with  Hope  and  Passion  back? 

Who  comes  with  me  and  Memory  on? 
Oh,  lonely  looks  the  downward  track — 

Joy's  music  hush'd— Hope's  roses  gone ! 
To  Pleasure  and  her  giddy  troop 

Farewell,  without  a  sigh  or  tear! 
But  heart  gives  way,  and  spirits  droop, 

To  think  that  Love  may  leave  us  here ! 

Have  we  no  charm  whenYouth  is  flown 

Midway  to  death  left  sad  and  lone ! 
Yet  stay !— as  'twere  a  twilight  star 

That  sends  its  thread  across  the  wave, 
I  see  a  brightening  light,  from  far, 

Steal  down  a  path  beyond  the  grave ! 
And  now — bless  God ! — its  golden  line 

Comes  o'er — and  lights  my  shadowy  way — 
And  shows  the  dear  hand  clasp'd  in  mine ! 

But  list !  what  those  sweet  voices  say! 
The  better  land's  in  sight, 
And,  by  its  chastening  light, 
All  love  from  life's  midicay  is  driven 
Sane.hers  whose  clasped  hand  will  bring  thee  on  to  Heaven . 


A  THOUGHT  OVER  A  CRADLE. 

I  sadden  when  thou  smilest  to  my  smile 
Child  of  my  love  !    I  tremble  to  believe 
That  o'er  the  mirror  of  that  eye  of  blue 
The  shadow  of  my  heart  will  always  pass;- 
A  heart  that  from  its  struggle  with  the  world, 
Comes  nightly  to  thy  guarded  cradle  home, 
And,  careless  of  the  staining  dust  it  brings, 
Asks  for  its  idol !     Strange,  that  flowers  of  earth 
Are  visited  by  every  air  that  stirs, 
And  drink  in  sweetness  only,  while  the  child 
That  shuts  within  its  breast  a  bloom  for  heaven, 
May  take  a  blemish  from  the  breath  of  love, 
And  bear  the  blight  for  ever. 

I  have  wept 
With  gladness  at  the  gift  of  this  fair  child ! 
My  life  is  bound  up  in  her.     But,  oh  God  ! 
Thou  knowest  how  heavily  my  heart  at  times 
Bears  its  sweet  burthen  ;  and  if  thou  hast  given 
To  nurture  such  as  mine  thi3  spotless  flower, 
To  bring  it  unpolluted  unto  thee, 
Take  thou  its  love,  I  pray  thee !     Give  it  light — 
Though,  following  the  sun,  it  turn  from  me ! — 
But,  by  the  chord  thus  wrung,  and  by  the  light 
Shining  about  her,  draw  me  to  my  child  ! 
And  link  us  close,  oh  God,  when  near  to  heaven ! 


CONTEMPLATION. 

"  They  are  all  up — the  innumerable  stars — 
And  hold  their  place  in  Heaven.    My  eyes  have  been 
Searching  the  pearly  depths  through  which  they  spring 
Like  beautiful  creations,  till  I  feel 
As  if  it  were  a  new  and  perfect  world, 
Waiting  in  silence  for  the  word  of  God 
To  breathe  it  into  motion.     There  they  stand, 
Shining  in  order,  like  a  living  hymn 
Written  in  light,  awaking  at  the  breath 
Of  the  celestial  dawn,  and  praising  Him 
Who  made  them,  with  the  harmony  of  spheres. 
I  would  I  had  an  angel's  ear  to  list 
That  melody.     I  would  that  I  might  float 
Up  in  that  boundless  element,  and  feel 
Its  ravishing  vibrations,  like  the  pulse 
Beating  in  Heaven  !     My  spirit  is  athirst 
For  music — rarer  music  !     I  would  bathe 
My  soul  in  a  serener  atmosphere 
Than  this ;  I  long  to  mingle  with  the  flock 
Led  by  the  •  living  waters,'  and  to  stray 
In  the  « green  pastures'  of  the  better  land ! 
When  wilt  thou  break,  dull  fetter !     When  shall  I 
Gather  my  wings,  and  like  a  rushing  thought 
Stretch  onward,  star  by  star,  up  into  Heaven!" 
Thus  mused  Alethe.     She  was  one  to  whom 
Life  had  been  like  the  witching  of  a  dream, 
Of  an  untroubled  sweetness.     She  was  born 
Of  a  high  race,  and  lay  upon  the  knee, 
With  her  soft  eyes  perusing  listlessly 
The  fretted  roof,  or,  on  Mosaic  floors, 
Grasped  at  the  tesselated  squares  inwrought 
With  metals  curiously.     Her  childhood  passed 
Like  faery — amid  fountains  and  green  haunts — 
Trying  her  little  feet  upon  a  lawn 
Of  velvet  evenness,  and  hiding  flowers 
In  her  sweet  breast,  as  if  it  were  a  fair 
And  pearly  altar  to  crush  incense  on. 
Her  youth — oh !  that  was  queenly !    She  was  like 
A  dream  of  poetry  that  may  not  be 
Written  or  told— exceeding  beautiful ! 
And  so  came  worshippers;  and  rank  bowed  down 
And  breathed  upon  her  heart  strings  with  the  breath 
Of  pride,  and  bound  her  forehead  gorgeously 
With  dazzling  scorn,  and  gave  unto  her  step 
A  majesty  as  if  she  trod  the  sea, 
And  the  proud  waves,  unbidden,  lifted  her! 
And  so  she  grew  to  woman — her  mere  look 
Strong  as  a  monarch's  signet,  and  her  hand 
The  ambition  of  a  kingdom.     From  all  this 
Turned  her  high  heart  away !     She  had  a  mind, 
Deep,  and  immortal,  and  it  would  not  feed 
On  pageantry.     She  thirsted  for  a  spring 


SACRED  POEMS. 


831 


Of  a  serener  element,  and  drank 
Philosophy,  and  for  a  little  while 
She  was  allayed,— till,  presently,  it  turned 
Bitter  within  her,  and  her  spirit  grew 
Faint  for  undying  waters.     Then  she  came 
To  the  pure  fount  of  God,  and  is  athirst 
No  more— save  when  the  fever  of  the  world 
Falleth  upon  her,  she  will  go,  sometimes, 
Out  in  the  star-light  quietness,  and  breathe 
A  holy  aspiration  after  Heaven. 

ON  THE  DEATH  OF  A  MISSIONARY. 
How  beautiful  it  is,  for  man  to  die 
Upon  the  walls  of  Zion  !  to  be  call'd, 
Like  a  watch-worn,  and  weary  sentinel, 
To  put  his  armour  off,  and  rest — in  heaven! 
The  sun  was  setting  on  Jerusalem, 
The  deep  blue  sky  had  not  a  cloud,  and  light 
Was  pouring  on  the  dome  of  Omar's  mosque, 
Like  molten  silver.     Everything  was  fair; 
And  beauty  hung  upon  the  painted  fanes ; 
Like  a  grieved  spirit,  lingering  ere  she  gave 
Her  wing  to  air,  for  heaven.     The  crowds  of  men 
Were  in  the  busy  streets,  and  nothing  look'd 
Like  woe  or  suffering,  save  one  small  train 
Bearing  the  dead  to  burial.     It  pass'd  by, 
And  left  no  trace  upon  the  busy  throng. 
The  sun  was  just  as  beautiful;  the  shout 
Of  joyous  revelry,  and  the  low  hum 
Of  stirring  thousands  rose  as  constantly ! 
Life  look'd  as  winning;  and  the  earth  and  sky, 
And  everything,  seem'd  strangely  bent  to  make 
A  contrast  to  that  comment  upon  life. 
How  wonderful  it  is  that  human  pride 
Can  pass  that  touching  moral  as  it  does — 
Pass  it  so  frequently,  in  all  the  force 
Of  mournful  and  most  simple  eloquence— 
And  learn  no  lesson !     They  bore  on  the  dead, 
With  the  slow  step  of  sorrow,  troubled  not 
By  the  rude  multitude,  save,  here  and  there, 
A  look  of  vague  inquiry,  or  a  curse 
Half  muttered  by  some  haughty  Turk  whose  sleeve 
Had  touch'd  the  tassel  of  the  Christian's  pall. 
And  Israel  too  passed  on— the  trampled  Jew '. 
Israel  '.—who  made  Jerusalem  a  throne 
For  the  wide  world — pass'd  on  as  carelessly ; 
Giving  no  look  of  interest  to  tell 
The  shrouded  dead  was  anything  to  her. 
Oh  that  they  would  be  gather'd  as  a  brood 
Is  gather'd  by  a  parent's  sheltering  wings  !— 
They  laid  him  down  with  strangers;  for  his  home 
Was  with  the  setting  sun,  and  they  who  stood 
And  look'd  so  steadfastly  upon  his  grave, 
Were  not  his  kindred ;  but  they  found  him  there, 
And  lov'd  him  for  his  ministry  of  Christ. 
He  had  died  young.     But  there  are  silver'd  heads, 
Whose  race  of  duty  is  less  nobly  run. 
His  heart  was  with  Jerusalem;  and  strong 
As  was  a  mother's  love,  and  the  sweet  ties 
Religion  makes  so  beautiful  at  home, 
He  flung  them  from  him  in  his  eager  race, 
And  sought  the  broken  people  of  his  God, 
To  preach  to  them  of  Jesus.     There  was  one, 
Who  was  his  friend  and  helper.     One  who  went 
And  knelt  beside  him  at  the  sepulchre 
Where  Jesus  slept,  to  pray  for  Israel. 
They  had  one  spirit,  and  their  hearts  were  knit 
With  more  than  human  love.     God  call'd  him  home 
And  he  of  whom  I  speak  stood  up  alone, 
And  in  his  broken-heartedness  wrought  on 
Until  his  Master  call'd  him. 
Oh  is  it  not  a  noble  thing  to  die 
As  dies  the  Christian  with  his  armour  on! — 
What  is  the  hero's  clarion,  tho'  it3  blast 
Ring  with  the  mastery  of  a  world,  to  this? — 
What  are  the  searching  victories  of  mind — 
The  lore  of  vanish'd  ages? — What  are  all 
The  trumpetings  of  proud  humanity, 
To  the  short  history  of  him  who  made 
His  sepulchre  beside  the  King  of  kings  ? 


ON  THE  PICTURE  OF  A  "  CHILD  TIRED  OF  PLAY  ' 

Tired  of  play !     Tired  of  play ! 

What  hast  thou  done  this  livelong  day  ? 

The  birds  are  silent,  and  so  is  the  bee ; 

The  sun  is  creeping  up  steeple  and  tree; 

The  doves  have  flown  to  the  sheltering  eaves, 

And  the  nests  are  dark  with  the  drooping  leaves; 

Twilight  gathers,  and  day  is  done — 

How  hast  thou  spent  it — restless  one ! 

Playing  ?     But  what  hast  thou  done  beside 

To  tell  thy  mother  at  even  tide  ? 

What  promise  of  morn  is  left  unbroken  ? 

What  kind  word  to  thy  playmate  spoken? 

Whom  hast  thou  pitied,  and  whom  forgiven? 

How  with  thy  faults  has  duty  striven  ? 

What  hast  thou  learned  by  field  and  hill, 

By  greenwood  path,  and  by  singing  rill? 

There  will  come  an  eve  to  a  longer  day, 

That  will  find  thee  tired— but  not  of  play! 

And  thou  wilt  lean,  as  thou  leanest  now, 

With  drooping  limbs  and  aching  brow, 

And  wish  the  shadows  would  faster  creep, 

And  long  to  go  to  thy  quiet  sleep. 

Well  were  it^then  if  thine  aching  brow 

Were  as  free  from  sin  and  shame  as  now ! 

Well  for  thee,  if  thy  lip  could  tell 

A  tale  like  this,  of  a  day  spent  well. 

If  thine  open  hand  hath  reliev'd  distress — 

If  thy  pity  hath  sprung  to  wretchedness— 

If  thou  hast  forgiven  the  sore  offence, 

And  humbled  thy  heart  with  penitence — 

If  Nature's  voices  have  spoken  to  thee 

With  their  holy  meanings  eloquently — 

If  every  creature  hath  won  thy  love, 

From  the  creeping  worm  to  the  brooding  dove — 

If  never  a  sad,  low-spoken  word 

Hath  plead  with  thy  human  heart  unheard — 

Then,  when  the  night  steals  on,  as  now, 

It  will  bring  relief  to  thine  aching  brow, 

And,  with  joy  and  peace,  at  the  thought  of  rest, 

Thou  wilt  sink  to  sleep  on  thy  mother's  breast 


A  CHILD'S  FIRST  IMPRESSION  OF  A  STAR 
She  had  been  told  that  God  made  all  the  stars 
That  twinkled  up  in  heaven,  and  now  she  stood 
Watching  the  coming  of  the  twilight  on, 
As  if  it  were  a  new  and  perfect  world, 
And  this  were  its  first  eve.     She  stood  alone 
By  the  low  window,  with  the  silken  lash 
Of  her  soft  eye  upraised,  and  her  sweet  mouth 
Half  parted  with  the  new  and  strange  delight 
Of  beauty  that  she  could  not  comprehend, 
And  had  not  seen  before.     The  purple  folds 
Of  the  low  sunset  clouds,  and  the  blue  sky 
That  looked  so  still  and  delicate  above, 
Filled  her  young  heart  with  gladness,  and  the  eve 
Stole  on  with  its  deep  shadows,  and  she  still 
Stood  looking  at  the  west  with  that  half-smile, 
As  if  a  pleasant  thought  were  at  her  heart 
Presently,  in  the  edge  of  the  last  tint 
Of  sunset,  where  the  blue  was  melted  in 
To  the  faint  golden  mellowness,  a  star 
Stood  suddenly.     A  laugh  of  wild  delight 
Burst  from  her  lips,  and  putting  up  her  hands, 
Her  simple  thought  broke  forth  expressively — 
«« Father !  dear  father !  God  has  made  a  star '" 


ON  WITNESSING  A  BAPTISM. 
She  stood  up  in  the  meekness  of  a  heart 
Resting  on  God,  and  held  her  fair  young  child 
Upon  her  bosom,  with  its  gentle  eyes 
Folded  in  sleep,  as  if  its  soul  had  gone 
To  whisper  the  baptismal  vow  in  heaven. 
The  praver  went  up  devoutly,  and  the  lips 
Of  the  good  man  glowed  fervently  with  taith 
That  it  would  be,  even  as  he  had  pray'd, 
And  the  sweet  child  be  gather'd  to  the  fold 
Of  Jesus.     As  the  holy  words  went  on 


832 


SACRED  POEMS. 


Her  lips  mov'd  silently,  and  tears,  fast  tears, 

Stole  from  beneath  her  lashes,  and  upon 

The  forehead  of  the  beautiful  child  lay  soft 

With  the  baptismal  water.     Then  I  thought 

That,  to  the  eye  of  God,  that  mother's  tears 

Would  be  a  deeper  covenant — which  sin 

And  the  temptations  of  the  world,  and  death, 

Would  leave  unbroken — and  that  she  would  know 

In  the  clear  light  of  heaven,  how  very  strong 

The  prayer  which  press'd  them  from  her  heart  had  been 

In  leading  its  young  spirit  up  to  God. 

REVERY  AT  GLENMARY. 

I  have  enough,  O  God !     My  heart  to-night 
Runs  over  with  its  fulness  of  content ; 
And  as  I  look  out  on  the  fragrant  stars, 
And  from  the  beauty  of  the  night  take  in 
My  priceless  portion — yet  myself  no  more 
Than  in  the  universe  a  grain  of  sand — 
I  feel  His  glory  who  could  make  a  world, 
Yet  in  the  lost  depths  of  the  wilderness 
Leave  not  a  flower  unfinish'd ! 

Rich, though  poor! 
My  low-roofd  cottage  is  this  hour  a  heaven. 
Music  is  in  it — and  the  song  she  sings, 
That  sweet-voic'd  wife  of  mine,  arrests  the  ear 
Of  my  young  child  awake  upon  her  knee ; 
And,  with  his  calm  eyes  on  his  master's  face, 
My  noble  hound  lies  couchant — and  all  here — 
All  in  this  little  home,  yet  boundless  heaven — 
Are,  in  such  love  as  I  have  power  to  give, 
Blessed  to  overflowing. 

Thou,  who  look'st 
Upon  my  brimming  heart  this  tranquil  eve, 
Knowest  its  fulness,  as  thou  dost  the  dew 
Sent  to  the  hidden  violet  by  Thee; 
And,  as  that  flower,  from  its  unseen  abode, 
Sends  its  sweet  breath  up,  duly,  to  the  sky, 
Changing  its  gift  to  incense,  so,  oh  God, 
May  the  sweet  drops  that  to  my  humble  cup 
Find  their  far  way  from  heaven,  send  up  to  Thee 
Fragrance  at  thy  throne  welcome  ! 


THE  BELFRY  PIGEON. 

On  the  cross  beam  under  the  Old  South  bell 
The  nest  of  a  pigeon  is  builded  well. 
In  summer  and  winter  that  bird  is  there, 
Out  and  in  with  the  morning  air  : 
I  love  to  see  him  track  the  street, 
With  his  wary  eye  and  active  feet ; 
And  I  often  watch  him  as  he  springs, 
Circling  the  steeple  with  easy  wings, 
Till  across  the  dial  his  shade  has  passed, 
And  the  belfry  edge  is  gained  at  last. 
'Tis  a  bird  I  love,  with  its  brooding  note, 
And  the  trembling  throb  in  its  mottled  throat; 
There's  a  human  look  in  its  swelling  breast, 
And  the  gentle  curve  of  its  lowly  crest; 
And  I  often  stop  with  the  fear  I  feel — 
He  runs  so  close  to  the  rapid  wheel. 

Whatever  is  rung  on  that  noisy  bell — 

Chime  of  the  hour  or  funeral  knell — 

The  dove  in  the  belfry  must  hear  it  well. 

When  the  tongue  swings  out  to  the  midnight  moon- 

When  the  sexton  cheerily  rings  for  noon — 

When  the  clock  strikes  clear  at  morning  light — 

When  the  child  is  waked  with  "  nine  at  night" — 

When  the  chimes  play  soft  in  the  Sabbath  air, 

Filling  the  spirit  with  tones  of  prayer — 

Whatever  tale  in  the  bell  is  heard, 

He  broods  on  his  folded  feet  unstirred, 

Or  rising  half  in  his  rounded  nest, 

He  takes  the  time  to  smooth  his  breast, 

Then  drops  again  with  filmed  eyes, 

And  sleeps  as  the  last  vibration  dies. 

Sweet  bird !  I  would  that  I  could  be 

A  hermit  in  the  crowd  like  thee ! 


With  wings  to  fly  to  wood  and  gten, 
Thy  lot,  like  mine,  is  cast  with  men ; 
And  daily,  with  unwilling  feet, 
I  tread,  like  thee,  the  crowded  street; 
But,  unlike  me,  when  day  is  o'er, 
Thou  canst  dismiss  the  world  and  soar, 
Or,  at  a  half  felt  wish  for  rest, 
Canst  smooth  the  feathers  on  thy  breast, 
And  drop,  forgetful,  to  thy  nest. 

I  would  that  in  such  wings  of  gold 
I  could  my  weary  heart  upfold; 
And  while  the  world  throngs  on  beneath, 
Smooth  down  my  cares  and  calmly  breathe ; 
And  only  sad  with  others'  sadness, 
And  only  glad  with  others'  gladness, 
Listen,  unstirred,  to  knell  or  chime, 
And,  lapt  in  quiet,  bide  my  time. 


THE  SABBATH. 
It  was  a  pleasant  morning,  in  the  time 
When  the  leaves  fall — and  the  bright  sun  shone  out 
As  when  the  morning  stars  first  sang  together — 
So  quietly  and  calmly  fell  his  light 
Upon  a  world  at  rest.     There  was  no  leaf 
In  motion,  and  the  loud  winds  slept,  and  all 
Was  still.     The  lab'ring  herd  was  grazing 
Upon  the  hill-side  quietly — uncall'd 
By  the  harsh  voice  of  man,  and  distant  sound, 
Save  from  the  murmuring  waterfall,  came  not 
As  usual  on  the  ear.     One  hour  stole  on, 
And  then  another  of  the  morning,  calm 
And  still  as  Eden  ere  the  birth  of  man, 
And  then  broke  in  the  Sabbath  chime  of  bells — 
And  the  old  man,  and  his  descendants,  went 
Together  to  the  house  of  God.     I  join'd 
The  well-apparell'd  crowd.     The  holy  man 
Rose  solemnly,  and  breath'd  the  prayer  of  faith — 
And  the  gray  saint,  just  on  the  wing  for  heaven — 
And  the  fair  maid — and  the  bright-  haired  young  man- 
And  child  of  curling  locks,  just  taught  to  close 
The  lash  of  its  blue  eye  the  while ; — all  knelt 
In  attitude  of  prayer — and  then  the  hymn, 
Sincere  in  its  low  melody,  went  up 
To  worship  God. 

The  white-haired  pastor  rose 
And  look'd  upon  his  flock — and  with  an  eye 
That  told  his  interest,  and  voice  that  spoke 
In  tremulous  accents,  eloquence  like  Paul's, 
He  lent  Isaiah's  fire  to  the  truths 
Of  revelation,  and  persuasion  came 
Like  gushing  waters  from  his  lips,  till  hearts 
Unus'd  to  bend  were  soften'd,  and  the  eye 
Unwont  to  weep  sent  forth  the  willing  tear. 
I  went  my  way — but  as  I  went,  I  thought 
How  holy  was  the  Sabbath-day  of  God 


DEDICATION  HYMN. 

[Written  to  be  sung  at  the  consecration  of  Hanover-street  Church, 
Boston  J 

The  perfect  world  by  Adam  trod, 
Was  the  first  temple — built  by  God — 
His  fiat  laid  the  corner  stone, 
And  heav'd  its  pillars,  one  by  one 

He  hung  its  starry  roof  on  high 

The  broad  illimitable  sky  ; 

He  spread  its  pavement,  green  and  bright. 

And  curtain'd  it  with  morning  light. 

The  mountains  in  their  places  stood — 
The  sea — the  sky — and  "  all  was  good ;" 
And,  when  its  first  pure  praises  rang, 
The  "  morning  stai-3  together  sang." 

Lord  !  'tis  not  ours  to  make  the  sea 
And  earth  and  sky  a  house  for  thee; 
But  in  thy  sight  our  ofT'ring  stands — 
A  humbler  temple,  "  made  with  hands  " 


POEMS    OF    PASSION. 


THE  DYING  ALCHYMIST. 

The  night  wind  with  a  desolate  moan  swept  by; 
And  the  old  shutters  of  the  turret  swung 
Screaming  upon  their  hinges ;  and  the  moon, 
As  the  torn  edges  of  the  clouds  flew  past, 
Struggled  aslant  the  stained  and  broken  panes 
So  dimly,  that  the  watchful  eye  of  death 
Scarcely  was  conscious  when  it  went  and  came. 
•  •••**• 

The  fire  beneath  his  crucible  was  low ; 
Yet  still  it  burned ;  and  ever  as  his  thoughts 
Grew  insupportable,  he  raised  himself 
Upon  his  wasted  arm,  and  stirred  the  coals 
With  difficult  energy,  and  when  the  rod 
Fell  from  his  nerveless  fingers,  and  his  eye 
Felt  faint  within  its  socket,  he  shrunk  back 
Upon  his  pallet,  and  with  unclosed  lips 
Muttered  a  curse  on  death  !     The  silent  room, 
From  its  dim  corners,  mockingly  gave  back 
His  rattling  breath ;  the  humming  in  the  fire 
Had  the  distinctness  of  a  knell ;  and  when 
Duly  the  antique  horologe  beat  one, 
He  drew  a  phial  from  beneath  his  head, 
And  drank.     And  instantly  his  lips  compressed, 
And,  with  a  shudder  in  his  skeleton  frame, 
He  rose  with  supernatural  strength,  and  sat 
Upright,  and  communed  with  himself: — 

I  did  not  think  to  die 
Till  I  had  finished  what  I  had  to  do ; 
I  thought  to  pierce  th'  eternal  secret  through 

With  this  my  mortal  eye  ; 
I  felt — Oh  God  !  it  seemeth  even  now 
This  can  not  be  the  death-dew  on  my  brow ! 

And  yet  it  is — I  feel, 
Of  this  dull  sickness  at  my  heart,  afraid  ; 
And  in  my  eyes  the  death-sparks  flash  and  fade  ; 

And  something  seems  to  steal 
Over  my  bosom  like  a  frozen  hand — 
Binding  its  pulses  with  an  icy  band. 

And  this  is  death  !     But  why 
Feel  I  this  wild  recoil  ?     It  can  not  be 
Th'  immortal  spirit  shuddereth  to  be  free  ! 

Would  it  not  leap  to  fly, 
Like  a  chained  eaglet  at  its  parent's  call  ? 
I  feaf — I  fear— that  this  poor  life  is  all ! 

Yet  thus  to  pass  away  ! — 
To  live  but  for  a  hope  that  mocks  at  last — 
To  agonize,  to  strive,  to  watch,  to  fast, 

To  waste  the  light  of  day, 
Night's  better  beauty,  feeling,  fancy,  thought — 
All  that  we  have  and  are — for  this— for  naught ! 

Grant  me  another  year 
God  of  my  spirit ! — but  a  day — to  win 
Something  to  satisfy  this  thirst  within  ! 

I  would  know  something  here  ! 
Break  for  me  but  one  seal  that  is  unbroken  ! 
Speak  for  me  but  one  word  that  is  unspoken  ! 

Vain — vain  ! — my  brain  is  turning 
With  a  swift  dizziness,  and  my  heart  grows  sick, 
And  these  hot  temple-throbs  come  fast  and  thick, 

And  I  am  freezing — burning — 
53 


Dying  !     Oh  God  !  if  I  might  only  live  ! 
My  phial         -  Ha !  it  thrills  me— I  revive. 


Ay — were  not  man  to  die 
He  were  too  mighty  for  this  narrow  sphere  ! 
Had  he  but  time  to  brood  on  knowledge  here — 

Could  he  but  train  his  eye — 
Might  he  but  wait  the  mystic  word  and  hour — 
Only  his  Maker  would  transcend  his  power  ! 

Earth  has  no  mineral  strange — 
Th'  illimitable  air  no  hidden  wings — 
Water  no  quality  in  covert  springs, 

And  fire  no  power  to  change — 
Seasons  no  mystery,  and  stars  no  spell, 
Which  the  unwasting  soul  might  not  compel. 

Oh,  but  for  time  to  track 
The  upper  stars  into  the  pathless  sky — 
To  see  th'  invisible  spirits,  eye  to  eye — 

To  hurl  the  lightning  back — 
To  tread  unhurt  the  sea's  dim-lighted  halls — 
To  chase  Day's  chariot  to  the  horizon-walls — 

And  more,  much  more — for  now 
The  life-sealed  fountains  of  my  nature  move — 
To  nurse  and  purify  this  human  love — 

To  clear  the  god-like  brow 
Of  weakness  and  mistrust,  and  bow  it  down 
Worthy  and  beautiful,  to  the  much-loved  one  : 

This  were  indeed  to  feel 
The  soul-thirst  slaken  at  the  living  stream- 
To  live— Oh  God  !  that  life  is  but  a  dream  ! 

And  death Aha  !  I  reel — 

Dim — dim — I  faint— darkness  comes  o'er  my  eye — 
Cover  me !  save  me  ! God  of  heaven  !   I  die  ! 

'Twas  morninsr,  and  the  old  man  lay  alone. 
No  friend  had  closed  his  eyelids,  and  his  lips, 
Open  and  ashy  pale,  th'  expression  wore 
Of  his  death-struggle.    His  long  silvery  hair 
Lay  on  his  hollow  temples  thin  and  wild, 
His  frame  was  wasted,  and  his  features  wan 
And  haggard  as  with  want,  and  in  his  palm 
His  nails  were  driven  deep,  as  if  the  throe 
Of  the  last  agony  had  wrung  him  sore. 

The  storm  was  raging  still.     The  shutters  swung 
Screaming  as  harshly  in  the  fitful  wind, 
And  all  without  went  on — as  aye  it  will, 
Sunshine  or  tempest,  reckless  that  a  heart 
Is  breaking,  or  has  broken,  in  its  change. 

The  fire  beneath  the  crucible  was  out ; 
The  vessels  of  his  mystic  art  lay  round, 
Useless  and  cold  as  the  ambitious  hand 
That  fashioned  them,  and  the  small  rod, 
Familiar  to  his  touch  for  threescore  years, 
Lay  on  th'  alembic's  rim,  as  if  it  still 
Might  vex  the  elements  at  its  master's  will. 

And  thus  had  passed  from  its  unequal  frame 
A  soul  of  fire— a  sun-bent  eagle  stricken 
From  his  high  soaring  down— an  instrument 
Broken  with  its  own  compass.     Oh  how  poor 
Seems  the  rich  eift  of  genius,  when  it  lies, 


834 


POEMS  OF  PASSION. 


Like  the  adventurous  bird  that  hath  out-flown 
His  strength  upon  the  sea,  ambition-wrecked— 
A  thing  the  thrush  might  pity,  as  she  sits 
Brooding  in  quiet  on  her  lowly  nest. 


PARRHASIUS. 

"Parrhasius.  a  painter  of  Athens,  among  those  Olynthian  captives 
Fhilip  of  Macedon  brought  home  to  sell,  bought  one  very  old  man  ; 
and  when  he  had  him  at  his  house,  put  him  to  death  with  extreme 
torture  and  torment,  the  better,  by  his  example,  to  express  the  pains 
and  passions  of  his  J-rornetheus,  whom  he  was  then  about  to  paint." 
—Burton's  Anat.  of  Mel, 

There  stood  an  unsold  captive  in  the  mart, 

A  grayhaired  and  majestical  old  man, 

Chained  to  a  pillar.     It  was  almost  night, 

And  the  last  seller  from  his  place  had  gone, 

And  not  a  sound  was  heard  but  of  a  dog 

Crunching  beneath  the  stall  a  refuse  bone, 

Or  the  dull  echo  from  the  pavement  rung, 

As  the  faint  captive  changed  his  weary  "feet. 

He  had  stood  there  since  morning,  and  borne 

From  every  eye  in  Athens  the  cold  gaze 

Of  curious  scorn.     The  Jew  had  taunted  him 

For  an  Olynthian  slave.     The  buyer  came, 

And  roughly  struck  his  palm  upon  his  breast, 

And  touched  his  unhealed  wounds,  and  with  a  sneer 

Passed  on  ;  and  when,  with  weariness  o'erspent, 

He  bowed  his  head  in  a  forgetful  sleep, 

Th'  inhuman  soldier  smote  him.  and,  with  threats 

Of  torture  to  his  children,  summoned  back 

The  ebbing  blood  into  his  pallid  face. 

'Twas  evening,  and  the  half-descended  sun 

Tipped  with  a  golden  fire  the  many  domes 

Of  Athens,  and  a  yellow  atmosphere 

Lay  rich  and  dusky  in  the  shaded  street 

Through  which  the  captive  gazed.     He  had  borne  up 

With  a  stout  heart  that  long  and  weary  day, 

Haughtily  patient  of  his  many  wrongs; 

But  now  he  was  alone,  and  from  his^nerves 

The  needless  strength  departed,  and  he  leaned 

Prone  on  his  massy  chain,  and  let  his  thoughts 

Throng  on  him  as  they  would.     Unmarked  of  him, 

Parrhasius  at  the  nearest  pillar  stood, 

Gazing  upon  his  grief.     Th'  Athenian's  cheek 

Flushed  as  he  measured  with  a  painter's  eye 

The  moving  picture.     The  abandoned  limbs, 

Stained  with  the  oozing  blood,  were  laced  with  veins 

Swollen  to  purple  fulness  ;  the  gray  hair, 

Thin  and  disordered,  hung  about  his  eyes ; 

And  as  a  thought  of  wilder  bitterness 

Rose  in  his  memory,  his  lips  grew  white, 

And  the  fast  workings  of  his  bloodless  face 

Told  what  a  tooth  of  fire  was  at  his  heart. 

The  golden  light  into  the  painter's  room 

Streamed  richly,  and  the  hidden  colors  stole 

From  the  dark  pictures  radiantly  forth, 

And  in  the  soft  and  dewy  atmosphere 

Like  forms  and  landscapes  magical  they  lay. 

The  walls  were  hung  with  armor,  and  about 

In  the  dim  corners  stood  the  sculptured  forms 

Of  Cythens,  and  Dian,  and  stern  Jove, 

And  from  the  casement  soberly  away 

Fell  the  grotesque  long  shadows,  full  and  true, 

And,  like  a  veil  of  filmy  mellowness, 

The  lint-specks  floated  in  the  twilight  air. 

Parrhasius  stood,  gazing  forgetfully 

Upon  his  canvass.     There  Prometheus  lay, 

Chained  to  the  cold  rocks  of  Mount  Caucasus— 

The  vulture  at  his  vitals,  and  the  links 

Of  the  lame  Lemnian  festering  in  his  flesh  ; 

And,  as  the  painter's  mind  felt  through  the  dim, 

Rapt  mystery,  and  plucked  the  shadows  forth 

With  its  far-reaching  fancy,  and  with  form 

And  color  clad  them,  his  fine  earnest  eye 

Flashed  with  a  passionate  fire,  and  the  quick  curl 

Of  his  thin  nostril,  and  his  quivering  lip, 

Were  like  the  winged  God's,  breathing  from  his  flight. 

"  Bring  me  the  captive  now  ! 
My  hands  feel  skilful,  and  the  shadows  lift 
From  my  waked  spirit  airily  and  swift, 

And  I  could  paint  the  bow 


Upon  the  bended  heavens — around  me  play 
Colors  of  such  divinity  to-day. 

"  Ha  !  bind  him  on  his  back  ! 
Look  ! — as  Prometheus  in  my  picture  here ! 
Quick — or  he  faints  I — stand  with  the  cordial  near ! 

Now — bend  him  to  the  rack  I 
Press  down  the  poisoned  links  into  his  flesh ! 
And  tear  agape  that  healing  wound  afresh ! 

"  So — let  him  writhe  !     How  long 
Will  he  live  thus  ?     Quick,  my  good  pencil,  now  ! 
What  a  fine  agony  works  upon  his  brow ! 

Ha  !  grayhaired  and  so  strong  ! 
How  fearfully  he  stifles  that  short  moan  ! 
Gods  !  if  I  could  but  paint  a  dying  groan  ! 

"  '  Pity'  thee  !     So  I  do  ! 
I  pity  the  dumb  victim  at  the  altar — 
But  does  the  robed  priest  for  his  pity  falter  ? 

I'd  rack  thee  though  I  knew 
A  thousand  lives  were  perishing  in  thine — 
What  were  ten  thousand  to  a  fame  like  mine  ? 

"  <  Hereafter  !'    Ay— hereafter ! 
A  whip  to  keep  a  coward  to  his  track  ! 
What  gave  death  ever  from  his  kingdom  back 

To  check  the  skeptic's  laughter  ? 
Come  from  the  grave  to-morrow  with  that  story. 
And  I  may  take  some  softer  path  to  glory. 

"  No,  no,  old  man  !  we  die 
E'en  as  the  flowers,  and  we  shall  breathe  away 
Our  life  upon  the  chance  wind,  even  as  they ! 

Strain  well  thy  fainting  eye — 
For  when  that  bloodshot  quivering  is  o'er, 
The  light  of  heaven  will  never  reach  thee  more. 

"  Yet  there's  a  deathless  name ! 
A  spirit  that  the  smothering  vault  shall  spurn, 
And  like  a  steadfast  planet  mount  and  burn ; 

And  though  its  crown  of  flame 
Consumed  my  brain  to  ashes  as  it  shone, 
By  all  the  fiery  stars  !   I'd  bind  it  on  ! 

"  Ay— though  it  bid  me  rifle 
My  heart's  last  fount  for  its  insatiate  thirst — 
Though  every  life-strung  nerve  be  maddened  first 

Though  it  should  bid  me  stifle 
The  yearning  in  my  throat  for  my  sweet  child, 
And  taunt  its  mother  till  my  brain  went  wild — 

"  All— I  would  do  it  ail- 
Sooner  than  die,  like  a  dull  worm,  to  rot — 
Thrust  foully  into  earth  to  be  forgot  ! 

Oh  heavens — but  I  appal 

Your  heart,  old  man  !  forgive ha  !  on  your  lives 

Let  him  not  faint ! — rack  him  till  he  revives ! 

"Vain — vain — give  o'er  !     His  eye 
Glazes  apace.     He  does  not  feel  you  now — 
Stand  back  I    I'll  paint  the  death-dew  on  his  brow ! 

Gods  !  if  he  do  not  die 
But  for  one  moment— one — till  I  eclipse 
Conception  with  the  scorn  of  those  calm  lips  ! 

"  Shivering  !     Hark  !  he  mutters 
Brokenly  now— that  was  a  difficult  breath — 
Another  ?     Wilt  thou  never  come,  oh  Death  ! 

Look  !  how  his  temple  flutters  ! 
Is  his  heart  still  ?     Aha  !  lift  up  his  head  ! 
He  shudders — gasps — Jove  help  him  ! — so — he's  dead.'* 

How  like  a  mounting  devil  in  the  heart 

Rules  the  unreined  ambition  !     Let  it  once 

But  play  the  monarch,  and  its  haughty  brow 

Glows  with  a  beauty  that  bewilders  thought 

And  unthrones  peace  for  ever.     Putting  on 

The  very  pomp  of  Lucifer,  it  turns 

The  heart  to  ashes,  and  with  not  a  spring 

Left  in  the  bosom  for  the  spirit's  lip, 

We  look  upon  our  splendor  and  forget 

The  thirst  of  which  we  perish  !     Yet  hath  life 

Many  a  falser  idol.     There  are  hopes 

Promising  well,  and  love-touched  dreams  for  some, 

And  passions,  many  a  wild  one,  and  fair  schemes 

For  gold  and  pleasure — yet  will  only  this 


POExMS  OF  PASSION. 


835 


Balk  not  the  soul — Ambition  only,  gives, 

Even  of  bitterness,  a  beaker  full ! 

Friendship  is  but  a  slow-awaking  dream, 

Troubled  at  best — Love  is  a  lamp  unseen, 

Burning  to  waste,  or,  if  its  light  is  found, 

Nursed  for  an  idle  hour,  then  idly  broken — 

Gain  is  a  grovelling  care,  and  Folly  tires, 

And  Quiet  is  a  hunger  never  fed — 

And  from  Love's  very  bosom,  and  from  Gain, 

Or  Folly,  or  a  Friend,  or  from  Repose — 

From  all  but  keen  Ambition — will  the  soul 

Snatch  the  first  moment  of  forgetfulness 

To  wander  like  a  restless  child  away. 

Oh,  if  there  were  not  better  hopes  than  these — 

Were  there  no  palm  beyond  a  feverish  fame — 

If  the  proud  wealth  flung  back  upon  the  heart 

Must  canker  in  its  coffers — if  the  links 

Falsehood  hath  broken  will  unite  no  more — 

If  the  deep-yearning  love,  that  hath  not  found 

Its  like  in  the  cold  world,  must  waste  in  tears — 

If  truth,  and  fervor,  and  devotedness, 

Finding  no  worthy  altar,  must  return 

And  die  of  their  own  fulness — if  beyond 

The  grave  there  is  no  heaven  in  whose  wide  air 

The  spirits  may  find  room,  and  in  the  love 

Of  whose  bright  habitants  the  lavish  heart 

May  spend  itself — what  thrice-mocked  fools  are  we  ! 


THE  SCHOLAR  OF  THEBET  BEX  KHORAT.' 

"  Influentia  cceli  morbum  hunc  movet,  interdum  omnibus  aliis 
amotis." — Melancthon  de  Anirna,  Cap.  de  Humoribus. 


Night  in  Arabia.     An  hour  ago, 

Pale  Dian  had  descended  from  the  sky, 

Flinging  her  cestus  out  upon  the  sea, 

And  at  their  watches  now  the  solemn  stars 

Stood  vigilant  and  lone ;  and,  dead  asleep, 

With  not  a  shadow  moving  on  its  breast, 

The  breathing  earth  lay  in  its  silver  dew, 

And,  trembling  on  their  myriad  viewless  wings, 

Th'  imprisoned  odors  left  the  flowers  to  dream, 

And  stole  away  upon  the  yielding  air. 

Ben  Khorat's  tower  stands  shadowy  and  tall 

In  Mecca's  loneliest  street ;  and  ever  there, 

When  night  is  at  the  deepest,  burns  his  lamp 

As  constant  as  the  Cynosure,  and  forth 

From  his  looped  window  stretch  the  brazen  tubes, 

Pointing  for  ever  at  the  central  star 

Of  that  dim  nebula  just  lifting  now 

Over  Mount  Arafat.     The  sky  to-night 

Is  of  a  clearer  blackness  than  is  wont, 

And  far  within  its  depths  the  colored  starsf 

Sparkle  like  gems — capricious  Antaresf 

Flushing  and  paling  in  the  southern  arch ; 

And  azure  Lyra,  like  a  woman's  eye, 

Burning  with  soft  blue  lustre  ;  and  away 

Over  the  desert  the  bright  Polar-star, 

White  as  a  flashing  icicle;  and  here, 

Hung  like  a  lamp  above  th'  Arabian  sea, 

Mars  with  his  dusky  glow;  and,  fairer  yet, 

Mild  Sirius,§  tinct  with  dewy  violet, 

Set  like  a  flower  upon  the  breast  of  Eve; 

And  in  the  zenith  the  sweet  Pleiades,  || 

"  A  famous  Arabian  astrologer,  who  is  said  to  have  spent  forty 
years  in  discovering-  the  motion  of  the  eighth  sphere.  He  had  a 
scholar,  a  young  Bedouin  Arab,  who,  with  a  singular  passion  for 
knowledge,  abandoned  his  wandering  tribe,  and,  applying  himself 
too  closely  to  astrology,  lost  his  reason  and  died. 

t  "  Even  to  the  naked  eye.  the  stars  appear  of  palpably  different 
colors  ;  but  when  viewed  with  a  prismatic  glass,  they  may  be  very 
accurately  classed  into  the  red,  the  yellow,  the  brilliant  white,  the 
dull  white,  and  the  anomalous.  This  is  true  aUo  of  the  planets, 
which  shine  by  reflected  light ;  and  of  course  the  difference  of  color 
must  be  supposed  to  arise  from  their  different  powers  to  absorb  and 
reflect  the  -ays  of  the  sun.  The  original  composition  of  the  stars, 
and  the  diffeient  dispersive  powers  of  their  different  atmospheres, 
may  be  supposed  to  account  also  for  this  phenomenon  " 

t  This  star  exhibits  a  peculiar  quality— a  rapid  and  beautiful 
change  in  the  color  of  its  light ;  every  alternate  twinkling  being  of 
an  intense  reddish  crimson  color,  and  the  answering  one  of  a  bril- 
liant white. 

i  When  seen  with  a  prismatic  glass,  Sirius  shows  a  large  brush 
of  exceedingly  beautiful  rays. 

1  The  Pleiades  are  vertical  in  Arabia 


(Alas— that  ev'n  a  star  may  pass  from  heaven 
And  not  be  missed  !)— the  linked  Pleiades 
Undimned  are  there,  though  from  the  sister  band 
The  fairest  has  gone  down ;  and,  south  away, 
Hirundo*  with  its  little  company ; 
And  white-browed  Vesta,  lamping  on  her  path 
Lonely  and  planet-calm,  and,  all  through  heaven, 
Articulate  almost,  they  troop  to-night, 
Like  unrobed  angels  in  a  prophet's  trance. 

Ben  Khorat  knelt  before  his  telescope,f 
Gazing  with  earnest  stillness  on  the  stars. 
The  gray  hairs,  struggling  from  his  turban  folds, 
Played  with  the  entering  wind  upon  his  cheeks, 
And  on  his  breast  his  venerable  beard 
With  supernatural  whiteness  loosely  fell. 
The  black  flesh  swelled  about  his  sandal  thongs, 
Tight  with  his  painful  posture,  and  his  lean 
And  withered  fingers  to  his  knees  were  clenched, 
And  the  thin  lashes  of  his  straining  eye 
Lay  with  unwinking  closeness  to  the  lens, 
Stiffened  with  tense  up-turning.     Hour  by  hour, 
Till  the  stars  melted  in  the  flush  of  morn, 
The  old  astrologer  knelt  moveless  there, 
Ravished  past  pain  with  the  bewildering  spheres, 
And,  hour  by  hour,  with  the  same  patient  thought, 
Pored  his  pale  scholar  on  the  characters 
Of  Chaldee  writ,  or,  as  his  gaze  grew  dim 
With  weariness,  the  dark-eyed  Arab  laid 
His  head  upon  the  window  and  looked  forth 
Upon  the  heavens  awhile,  until  the  dews 
And  the  soft  beauty  of  the  silent  night 
Cooled  his  flushed  eyelids,  and  then  patiently 
He  turned  unto  his  constant  task  again. 

The  sparry  glinting  of  the  Morning  Star 
Shot  through  the  leaves  of  a  majestic  palm 
Fringing  Mount  Arafat ;  and,  as  it  caught 
The  eye  of  the  rapt  scholar,  he  arose 
And  clasped  the  volume  with  an  eager  haste, 
And  as  the  glorious  planet  mounted  on, 
Melting  her  way  into  the  upper  sky, 
He  breathlessly  gazed  on  her  : — 

"  Star  of  the  silver  ray  ! 
Bright  as  a  god,  but  punctual  as  a  slave — 
What  spirit  the  eternal  canon  gave 

That  bends  thee  to  thy  way  ? 
What  is  the  soul  that  on  thine  arrowy  light 
Is  walking  earth  and  heaven  in  pride  to-night  ? 

"We  know  when  thou  wilt  soar 
Over  the  mount — thy  change,  and  place,  and  time — 
'Tis  written  in  the  Chaldee's  mystic  rhyme 

As  'twere  a  priceless  lore  ! 
I  knew  as  much  in  my  Bedouin  garb — 
Coursing  the  desert  on  my  flying  barb ! 

"  How  oft  amid  the  tents 
Upon  Sahara's  sands  I've  walked  alone, 
Waiting  all  night  for  thee,  resplendent  one ! 

With  what  magnificence, 
In  the  last  walches,  to  my  thirsting  eye, 
Thy  passionate  beauty  flushed  into  the  sky ! 

"  Oh,  God  !  how  flew  my  soul 
Out  to  thy  glory — upward  on  thy  ray — 
Panting  as  thou  ascendedst  on  thy  way, 

As  if  thine  own  control — 
This  searchless  spirit  that  I  can  not  find — 
Had  set  its  radiant  law  upon  my  mind  ! 

"  More  than  all  stars  in  heaven 
I  felt  thee  in  my  heart  !  my  love  became 
A  phrensy,  and  consumed  me  with  its  flame. 

Ay,  in  the  desert  even — 
My  dark-eyed  Abra  coursing  at  my  side — 
The  star,  not  Abra,  was  my  spirit's  bride  ! 

*  An  Arabic  constellation  placed  instead  of  the  Piscls  Australls, 
because  the  swallow  arrives  in  Arabia  about  the  time  of  the  heli- 
acal rising  of  the  Fishes. 

t  An  anachronism,  the  author  is  aware.  The  telescope  was  not 
invented  for  a  century  or  two  aft«r  the  time  of  Ben  Khorat 


836 


POEMS  OF  PASSION. 


"My  Abra  is  no  more  ! 
My  *  desert-bird'  is  in  a  stranger's  stall — 
My  tribe,  my  tent — I  sacrificed  them  all 

For  this  heart-wasting  lore  ! — 
Yet,  than  all  these,  the  thought  is  sweeter  far — 
Thou  wert  ascendant  at  my  birth,  bright  star ! 

"The  Chaldee  calls  me  thine— 
And  in  this  breast,  that  I  must  rend  to  be 
A  spirit  upon  wings  of  light  like  thee, 

I  feel  that  thou  art  mine ! 
Oh,  God  !  that  these  dull  fetters  would  give  way 
And  let  me  forth  to  track  thy  silver  ray  !" 

*  *  *  Ben  Khorat  rose 

And  silently  looked  forth  upon  the  East. 

The  dawn  was  stealing  up  into  the  sky 

On  its  gray  feet,  the  stars  grew  dim  apace, 

And  faded,  till  the  Morning  Star  alone, 

Soft  as  a  molten  diamond's  liquid  fire, 

Burned  in  the  heavens.     The  morn  grew  freshlier- 

The  upper  clouds  were  faintly  touched  with  gold ; 

The  fan  palms  rustled  in  the  early  air ; 

Daylight  spread  cool  and  broadly  to  the  hills  ; 

And  still  the  star  was  visible,  and  still 

The  young  Bedouin  with  a  straining  eye 

Drank  its  departing  light  into  his  soul. 

It  faded— melted — and  the  fiery  rim 

Of  the  clear  sun  came  up,  and  painfully 

The  passionate  scholar  pressed  upon  his  eyes 

His  dusky  fingers,  and  with  limbs  as  weak 

As  a  sick  child's,  turned  fainting  to  his  couch, 

And  slept.  *  *  *  * 


*        *         It  was  the  morning  watch  once  more, 

The  clouds  were  drifting  rapidly  above, 

And  dim  and  fast  the  glimmering  stars  flew  through ; 

And  as  the  fitful  gust  soughed  mournfully, 

The  shutters  shook,  and  on  the  sloping  roof 

Plashed,  heavily,  large,  single  drops  of  rain — 

And  all  was  still  again.     Ben  Khorat  sat 

By  the  dim  lamp,  and,  while  his  scholar  slept, 

Pored  on  the  Chaldee  wisdom.     At  his  feet, 

Stretched  on  a  pallet,  lay  the  Arab  boy, 

Muttering  fast  in  his  unquiet  sleep, 

And  working  his  dark  fingers  in  his  palms 

Convulsively.     His  sallow  lips  were  pale, 

And,  as  they  moved,  his  teeth  showed  ghastly  through 

White  as  a  charnel  bone,  and — closely  drawn 

Upon  his  sunken  eyes,  as  if  to  press 

Some  frightful  image  from  the  bloodshot  balls — 

His  lids  a  moment  quivered,  and  again 

Relaxed,  half  open,  in  a  calmer  sleep. 

Ben  Khorat  gazed  upon  the  dropping  sands 
Of  the  departing  hour.     The  last  white  grain 
Fell  through,  and  with  the  tremulous  hand  of  age 
The  old  astrologer  reversed  the  glass ; 
And,  as  the  voiceless  monitor  went  on, 
Wasting  and  wasting  with  the  precious  hour, 
He  looked  upon  it  with  a  moving  lip, 
And,  starting,  turned  his  gaze  upon  the  heavens, 
Cursing  the  clouds  impatiently. 

"  'Tis  time  !" 
Muttered  the  dying  scholar,  and  he  dashed 
The  tangled  hair  from  his  black  eyes  away, 
And,  seizing  on  Ben  Khorat's  mantle-folds, 
He  struggled  to  his  feet,  and  falling  prone 
Upon  the  window-ledge,  gazed  steadfastly 
Into  the  East  :— 

"  There  is  a  cloud  between — 
She  sits  this  instant  on  the  mountain's  brow, 
And  that  dusk  veil  hides  all  her  glory  now — 

Yet  floats  she  as  serene 

Into  the  heavens  ! Oh,  God  !  than  even  so 

I  could  o'ermount  my  spirit  cloud,  and  go  ! 

"The  cloud  begins  to  drift ! 
Aha  !  Fling  open  !  'tis  the  star — the  sky  ! 
Touch  me,  immortal  mother  !  and  I  fly  ! 

Wider !  thou  cloudy  rift  ! 


Let  through  ! — such  glory  should  have  radiant  room ! 
Let  through ! — a  star-child  on  its  light  goes  home ! 

"Speak  to  me,  brethren  bright ! 
Ye  who  are  floating  in  these  living  beams  ! 
Ye  who  have  come  to  me  in  starry  dreams  ! 

Ye  who  have  winged  the  light  , 

Of  our  bright  mother  with  its  thoughts  of  flame — 
(I  knew  it  passed  through  spirits  as  it  came) — 

"  Tell  me  !  what  power  have  ye  ? 
What  are  the  heights  ye  reach  upon  your  wings  ? 
What  know  ye  of  the  myriad  wondrous  things 

I  perish  but  to  see  ? 
Are  ye  thought-rapid  ? — Can  ye  fly  as  far — 
As  instant  as  a  thought,  from  star  to  star  ? 

"  Where  has  the  Pleiad  gone  ? 
Where  have  all  missing  stars*  found  light  and  home  ? 
Who  bids  the  Stella  Miraf  go  and  come  ? 

Why  sits  the  Pole-star  lone  ? 
And  why,  like  banded  sisters,  through  the  air 
Go  in  bright  troops  the  constellations  fair  ? 

"  Ben  Khorat !  dost  thou  mark  ? 
The  star!  the  star?    By  heaven!  the  cloud  drifts  o'er ! 
Gone — and  I  live  !  nay^will  my  heart  beat  more  ? 

Look  !  master  !  'tis  all  dark  ! 
Not  a  clear  speck  in  heaven  ? — my  eye-balls  smother ! 
Break  through  the  clouds  once  more !  oh,  starry  mother ! 

"  I  will  lie  down  !     Yet  stay, 
The  rain  beats  out  the  odor  from  the  gums, 
And  strangely  soft  to-night  the  spice-wind  comes  ! 

I  am  a  child  alway 
When  it  is  on  my  forehead  !     Abra  sweet ! 
Would  I  were  in  the  desert  at  thy  feet ! 

"  My  barb !  my  glorious  steed  ! 
Methinks  my  soul  would  mount  upon  its  track 
More  fleetly,  could  I  die  upon  thy  back  ! 

How  would  thy  thrilling  speed 
Quicken  my  pulse  ! — Oh,  Allah  !  I  get  wild  ! 
Would  that  I  were  once  more  a  desert-child ! 

"  Nay — nay — I  had  forgot ! 
My  mother  !  my  star  mother  ! — Ha !  my  breath 
Stifles  ! more  air ! Ben  Khorat !  this  is — death! 

Touch  me  ! 1  feel  you  not ! 

Dying ! — Farewell !  good  master ! — room  !  more  room ! 
Abra  !  I  loved  thee !  star — bright  star !  I come !" 

How  idly  of  the  human  heart  we  speak, 
Giving  it  gods  of  clay  !     How  worse  than  vain 
Is  the  school  homily,  that  Eden's  fruit 
Can  not  be  plucked  too  freely  from  "  the  tree 
Of  good  and  evil."     Wisdom  sits  alone, 
Topmost  in  heaven  ; — she  is  its  light — its  God ! 
And  in  the  heart  of  man  she  sits  as  high — 
Though  grovelling  eyes  forget  her  oftentimes, 
Seeing  but  this  world's  idols.     The  pure  mind 
Sees  her  for  ever :  and  in  youth  we  come 
Filled  with  her  sainted  ravishment,  and  kneel, 
Worshipping  God  through  her  sweet  altar-fires, 
And  then  is  knowledge  "  good."    We  come  too  oft — 
The  heart  grows  proud  with  fulness,  and  we  soon 
Look  with  licentious  freedom  on  the  maid 
Throned  in  celestial  beauty.     There  she  sits, 
Robed  in  her  soft  and  seraph  loveliness, 
Instructing  and  forgiving,  and  we  gaze 
Until  desire  grows  wild,  and,  with  our  hands 
Upon  her  very  garments,  are  struck  down, 
Blasted  with  a  consuming  fire  from  heaven  ! 

*  "  Missing  stars"  are  often  spoken  of  in  the  old  books  of  astron 
omy.  Hipparchus  mentions  one  that  appeared  and  vanished  very 
suddenly;  and  in  the  beginning  of  the  sixteenth  century  Kepler 
discovered  a  new  star  near  the  heel  of  the  right  foot  of  Serpenta- 
rius,  "so  bright  and  sparkling  that  it  exceeded  anything  he  had 
ever  seen  before."  He  "  took  notice  that  it  was  every  moment 
changing  into  some  of  the  colors  of  the  rainbow,  except  when  it 
was  near  the  horizon,  when  it  was  generally  white."  It  disap- 
peared in  the  following  year,  and  has  not  been^een  since. 

t  A  wonderful  star  in  the  neck  of  the  Whale,  discovered  by  Fa- 
bricius  in  the  fifteenth  century.  It  appears  and  disappears  seven 
times  in  six  years,  and  continues  in  the  greatest  lustre  for  fifteen 
days  together. 


POEMS  OF   PASSION. 


837 


Yet,  oh !  how  full  of  music  from  her  lips 
Breathe  the  calm  tones  of  wisdom  !     Human  praise 
Is  sweet — till  envy  mars  it,  and  the  touch 
Of  new- won  gold  stirs  up  the  pulses  well; 
And  woman's  love,  if  in  a  beggar's  lamp 
'T  would  burn,  might  light  us  clearly  through  theworld; 
But  Knowledge  hath  a  far  more  'wildering  tongue, 
And  she  will  stoop  and  lead  you  to  the  stars, 
And  witch  you  with  her  mysteries — till  gold 
Is  a  forgotten  dross,  and  power  and  fame 
Toys  of  an  hour,  and  woman's  careless  love, 
Light  as  the  breath  that  breaks  it.     He  who  binds 
His  soul  to  knowledge  steals  the  key  of  heaven — 
But  'tis  a  bitter  mockery  that  the  fruit 
May  hang  within  his  reach,  and  when,  with  thirst 
Wrought  to  a  maddening  phrensy,  he  would  taste- 
It  burns  his  lips  to  ashes  ! 


THE  WIFE'S  APPEAL. 

"  Love   borrows  greatly  from  opinion.     Pride  above  all  things 
strengthens  affection."— £.  L.  Bulwer. 

He  sat  and  read.     A  book  with  silver  clasps, 

All  gorgeous  with  illuminated  lines 

Of  gold  and  crimson,  lay  upon  a  frame 

Before  him.     'Twas  a  volume  of  old  time ; 

And  in  it  were  fine  mysteries  of  the  stars 

Solved  with  a  cunning  wisdom,  and  strange  thoughts, 

Half  prophecy,  half  poetry,  and  dreams 

Clearer  than  truth,  and  speculations  wild 

That  touched  the  secrets  of  your  very  soul, 

They  were  so  based  on  Nature.     With  a  face 

Glowing  with  thought,  he  pored  upon  the  book. 

The  cushions  of  an  Indian  loom  lay  soft 

Beneath  his  limbs,  and,  as  he  turned  the  page, 

The  sunlifht,  streaming  through  the  curtain's  fold, 

Fell  with  a  rose-teint  on  his  jewelled  hand ; 

And  the  rich  woods  of  the  quaint  furniture 

Lay  deepening  their  veined  colors  in  the  sun, 

And  the  stained  marbles  on  the  pedestals 

Stood  like  a  silent  company— Voltaire, 

With  an  infernal  sneer  upon  his  lips ; 

And  Socrates,  with  godlike  human  love 

Stamped  on  his  countenance ;  and  orators, 

Of  times  gone  by  that  made  them ;  and  old  bards, 

And  Medicean  Venus,  half  divine. 

Around  the  room  were  shelves  of  dainty  lore, 

And  rich  old  pictures  hung  upon  the  walls 

Where  the  slant  light  fell  on  them ;  and  wrought  gems. 

Medallions,  rare  mosaics,  and  antiques 

From  Herculaneum,  the  niches  filled  ; 

And  on  a  table  of  enamel,  wrought 

With  a  lost  art  in  Italy,  there  lay 

Prints  of  fair  women,  and  engravings  rare, 

And  a  new  poem,  and  a  costly  toy  ; 

And  in  their  midst  a  massive  lamp  of  bronze 

Burning  sweet  spices  constantly.     Asleep 

Upon  the  carpet  couched  a  graceful  hound, 

Of  a  rare  breed,  and,  as  his  master  gave 

A  murmur  of  delight  at  some  sweet  line, 

He  raised  his  slender  head,  and  kept  his  eye 

Upon  him  till  the  pleasant  smile  had  passed 

From  his  mild  lips,  and  then  he  slept  again. 

The  light  beyond  the  crimson  folds  grew  dusk, 

And  the  clear  letters  of  the  pleasant  book 

Mingled  and  blurred,  and  the  lithe  hound  rose  up, 

And,  with  his  earnest  eye  upon  the  door, 

Listened  attentively.     It  came  as  wont — 

The  fall  of  a  light  foot  upon  the  stair— 

And  the  fond  animal  sprang  out  to  meet 

His  mistress,  and  caress  the  ungloved  hand, 

He  seemed  to  know  was  beautiful.     She  stooped 

Gracefully  down  and  touched  his  silken  ears 

As  she  passed  in — then,  with  a  tenderness, 

Half  playful  and  half  serious,  she  knelt 

Upon  the  ottoman  and  pressed  her  lips 

Upon  her  husband's  forehead. 

•  •  •  •  • 

She  rose  and  put  the  curtain-folds  aside 
From  the  high  window,  and  looked  out  upon 
The  shining  stars  in  silence.     "  Look  they  not 
Like  Paradises  to  thine  eye  ?"  he  said — 


But,  as  he  spoke,  a  tear  fell  through  the  light — 
And — starting  from  his  seat — he  folded  her 
Close  to  his  heart,  and — with  unsteady  voice — 
Asked — if  she  was  not  happy.     A  faint  smile 
Broke  through  her  tears ;  and  pushing  off  the  hair 
From  his  broad  forehead,  she  held  back  his  head 
With  her  white  hand,  and,  gazing  on  his  face, 
Gave  to  her  heart  free  utterance : — 

Happy  ? — yes,  dearest ! — blest 
Beyond  the  limit  of  my  wildest  dream — 
Too  bright  indeed,  my  blessings  ever  seem ; 

There  lives  not  in  my  breast, 
One  of  Hope's  promises  by  Love  unkept, 
And  yet — forgive  me,  Ernest — I  have  wept. 

How  shall  I  speak  of  sadness, 
And  seem  not  thankless  to  my  God  and  thee  ? 
How  can  the  lightest  wish  but  seem  to  be 

The  very  whim  of  madness  ? 
Yet,  oh,  there  is  a  boon  thy  love  beside — 
And  I  will  ask  it  of  thee— in  my  pride  ! 

List,  while  my  boldness  lingers  ! 
If  thou  hadst  won  yon  twinkling  star  to  hear  thee — 
If  thou  couldst  bid  the  rainbow's  curve  bend  near 
thee — 

If  thou  couldst  charm  thy  fingers 
To  weave  for  thee  the  Sunset's  tent  of  gold — 
Wouldst  in  thine  own  heart  treasure  it  untold  ? 

If  thou  hadst  Ariel's  gift, 
To  course  the  veined  metals  of  the  earth — 
If  thou  couldst  wind  a  fountain  to  its  birth — 

If  thou  couldst  know  the  drift 
Of  the  lost  cloud  that  sailed  into  the  sky — 
Wouldst  keep  it  for  thine  own  unanswered  eye  ? 

It  is  thy  life  and  mine  ! 
Thou,  in  thyself— and  I,  in  thee— misprison 
Gifts  like  a  circle  of  bright  stars  unrisen— 

For  thou  whose  mind  should  shine, 
Eminent  as  a  planet's  light,  art  here — 
Moved  with  the  starting  of  a  woman's  tear ! 

I  have  told  o'er  thy  powers 
In  secret,  as  a  miser  tells  his  gold  ; 
I  know  thy  spirit  calm,  and  true  and  bold  : 

I've  watched  thy  lightest  hours, 
And  seen  thee,  in  the  wildest  flush  of  youth, 
Touched  with  the  instinct  ravishment  of  truth. 

Thou  hast  the  secret  strange 
To  read  that  hidden  book,  the  human  heart ; 
Thou  hast  the  ready  writer's  practised  art ; 

Thou  hast  the  thought  to  range 
The  broadest  circles  Intellect  hath  ran — 
And  thou  art  God's  best  work— an  honest  man  ! 

And  yet  thou  slumberest  here 
Like  a  caged  bird  that  never  knew  its  pinions, 
And  others  track  in  glory  the  dominions 

Where  thou  hast  not  thy  peer- 
Setting  their  weaker  eyes  unto  the  sun, 
And  plucking  honor  that  thou  shouldst  have  won. 

Oh,  if  thou  lovedst  me  ever, 
Ernest,  my  husband  !     If  th'  idolatry 
That  lets  go  heaven  to  fling  its  all  on  thee— 

If  to  dismiss  thee  never  . 

In  dream  or  praver,  have  given  me  aught  to  claim- 
Heed  me-oh,  heed  me  !  and  awake  to  lame ! 

Her  lips 
Closed  with  an  earnest  sweetness  and  she  sat 
Gazing  into  his  eyes  as  if  her  look  . 

Searched  their  dark  orbs  for  answer.    The  warm  blood 
Into  his  temples  mounted,  and  across 
His  countenance  the  flush  of  passionate  thoughts 
Passed  with  irresolute  quickness.     He  rose  up 
And  paced  the  dim  room  rapidly  awhile, 
Calmin-  his  troubled  mind  ;  and  then  he  cam* 
And  laid  his  hand  upon  her  orbed  brow, 
And  in  a  voice  of  heavenly  tenderness 
Answered  her : — 


838 


POEMS  OF  PASSION 


Before  I  knew  thee,  Mary, 
Ambition  was  my  angel.     I  did  hear 
For  ever  its  witched  voices  in  mine  ear ; 

My  days  were  visionary — 
My  nights  were  like  the  slumbers  of  the  mad — 
And  every  dream  swept  o'er  me  glory  clad. 

I  read  the  burning  letters 
Of  warlike  pomp,  on  History's  page,  alone ; 
I  counted  nothing  the  struck  widow's  moan ; 

I  heard  no  clank  of  fetters  ; 
I  only  felt  the  trumpet's  stirring  blast, 
And  lean-eyed  Famine  stalked  unchallenged  past ! 

I  heard  with  veins  of  lightning, 
The  utterance  of  the  Statesman's  word  of  power — 
Binding  and  loosing  nations  in  an  hour — 

But,  while  my  eye  was  brightening, 
A  masked  detraction  breathed  upon  his  fame, 
And  a  curst  serpent  slimed  his  written  name. 

The  poet  rapt  mine  ears 
With  the  transporting  music  that  he  sung. 
With  fibres  from  his  life  his  lyre  he  strung, 

And  bathed  the  world  in  tears — 
And  then  he  turned  away  to  some  muse  apart, 
And  Scorn  stole  after  him — and  broke  his  heart ! 

Yet  here  and  there  I  saw 
One  who  did  set  the  world  at  calm  defiance. 
And  press  right  onward  with  a  bold  reliance  ; 

And  he  did  seem  to  awe 
The  very  Shadows  pressing  on  his  breast, 
And,  with  a  strong  heart,  held  himself  at  rest. 

And  then  I  looked  again — 
And  he  had  shut  the  door  upon  the  crowd, 
And  on  his  face  he  lay  and  groaned  aloud — 

Wrestling  with  hidden  pain; 
And  in  her  chamber  sat  his  wife  in  tears, 
And  his  sweet  babes  grew  sad  with  whispered  fears. 

And  so  I  turned  sick-hearted 
From  the  bright  cup  away,  and,  in  my  sadness, 
Searched  mine  own  bosom  for  some  spring  of  gladness ; 

And  lo!  a  fountain  started 
Whose  waters  even  in  death  flow  calm  and  fast, 
And  my  wild  fever-thirst  was  slaked  at  last. 

And  then  I  met  thee,  Mary, 
And  felt  how  love  may  into  fulness  pour, 
Like  light  into  a  fountain  running  o'er : 

And  I  did  hope  to  vary 
My  life  but  with  surprises  sweet  as  this — 
A  dream — but  for  thy  waking — filled  with  bliss. 

Yet  now  I  feel  my  spirit 
Bitterly  stirred,  and — nay,  lift  up  thy  brow  ! 
It  is  thine  own  voice  echoing  to  thee  now, 

And  thou  didst  pray  to  hear  it — 
I  must  unto  my  work  and  my  stern  hours ! 
Take  from  my  room  thy  harp,  and  books,  and  flowers ! 

•  •  »  »  • 

*  *  *  *        A  year — 
And  in  his  room  again  he  sat  alone. 

His  frame  had  lost  its  fulness  in  that  time ; 
His  manly  features  had  grown  sharp  and  thin, 
And  from  his  lips  the  constant  smile  had  faded. 
Wild  fires  had  burned  the  languor  from  his  eye  : 
The  lids  looked  fevered,  and  the  brow  was  bent 
With  an  habitual  frown.     He  was  much  changed. 
His  chin  was  resting  on  his  clenched  hand, 
And  with  his  foot  he  beat  upon  the  floor, 
Unconsciously,  the  time  of  a  sad  tune. 
Thoughts  of  the  past  preyed  on  him  bitterly. 
He  had  won  power  and  held  it.     He  had  walked 
Steadily  upward  in  the  eye  of  Fame, 
And  kept  his  truth  unsullied — but  his  home 
Had  been  invaded  by  envenomed  tongues ; 
His  wife — his  spotless  wife — had  been  assailed 
By  slander,  and  his  child  had  grown  afraid 
To  come  to  him — his  manner  was  so  stern. 
He  could  not  speak  beside  his  own  hearth  freely. 
His  friends  were  half  estranged,  and  vulgar  men 


Presumed  upon  their  services  and  grew 
Familiar  with  him.     He'd  small  time  to  sleep, 
And  none  to  pray ;  and,  with  his  heart  in  fetters, 
He  bore  deep  insults  silently,  and  bowed 
Respectfully  to  men  who  knew  he  loathed  them ! 
And,  when  his  heart  was  eloquent  with  truth, 
And  love  of  country,  and  an  honest  zeal 
Burned  for  expression,  he  could  find  no  words 
They  would  not  misinterpret  with  their  lies. 
What  were  his  many  honors  to  him  now  ? 
The  good  half  doubted,  falsehood  was  so  strong— 
His  home  was  hateful  with  its  cautious  fears — 
His  wife  lay  trembling  on  his  very  breast 
Frighted  with  calumny ! — And  this  is  FAME. 


MELANIE. 


I  stood  on  yonder  rocky  brow,* 

And  marvelled  at  the  Sibyl's  fane, 
When  I  was  not  what  I  am  now. 

My  life  was  then  untouched  of  pain; 
And,  as  the  breeze  that  stirred  my  hair, 

My  spirit  freshened  in  the  sky, 
And  all  things  that  were  true  and  fair 

Lay  closely  to  my  loving  eye, 
With  nothing  shadowy  between — 
I  was  a  boy  of  seventeen. 
Yon  wond'rous  temple  crests  the  rock — 

As  light  upon  its  giddy  base, 
As  stirless  with  the  torrent's  shock, 

As  pure  in  its  proportioned  grace, 
And  seems  a  thing  of  air — as  then, 
Afloat  above  this  fairy  glen ; 

But  though  mine  eye  will  kindle  still 
In  looking  on  the  shapes  of  art,  • 

The  link  is  lost  that  sent  the  thrill, 
Like  lightning,  instant  to  my  heart. 
And  thus  may  break  before  we  die, 
Th'  electric  chain  'twixt  soul  and  eye ! 

Ten  years — like  yon  bright  valley,  sown 

Alternately  with  weeds  and  flowers — 
Had  swiftly,  if  not  gayly,  flown, 

And  still  I  loved  the  rosy  Hours ; 
And  if  there  lurked  within  my  breast 

Some  nerve  that  had  been  overstrung 
And  quivered  in  my  hours  of  rest, 

Like  bells  by  their  own  echo  rung, 
I  was  with  hope  a  masquer  yet, 

And  well  could  hide  the  look  of  sadness ; 
And,  if  my  heart  would  not  forget, 

I  knew,  at  least,  the  trick  of  gladness ; 
And  when  another  sang  the  strain, 
I  mingled  in  the  old  refrain. 

'Twere  idle  to  remember  now, 

Had  I  the  heart,  my  thwarted  schemes. 
I  bear  beneath  this  altered  brow 

The  ashes  of  a  thousand  dreams — 
Some  wrought  of  wild  Ambition's  fingers, 

Some  colored  of  Love's  pencil  well — 
But  none  of  which  a  shadow  lingers, 

And  none  whose  story  I  could  tell. 
Enough,  that  when  I  climbed  again 

To  Tivoli's  romantic  steep, 
Life  had  no  joy,  and  scarce  a  pain, 

Whose  wells  I  had  not  tasted  deep ; 
And  from  my  lips  the  thirst  had  passed 
For  every  fount  save  one — the  sweetest — and  the  last. 

The  last — the  last !     My  friends  were  dead, 

Or  false ;  my  mother  in  her  grave ; 
Above  my  father's  honored  head 

The  sea  had  locked  its  hiding  wave ; 
Ambition  had  but  foiled  my  grasp, 
And  love  had  perished  in  my  clasp ; 

And  still,  I  say,  I  did  not  slack 
My  love  of  life,  and  hope  of  pleasure, 

But  gathered  my  affections  back ; 
And,  as  the  miser  hugs  his  treasure 

When  plague  and  ruin  bid  him  flee, 
I  closer  clung  to  mine — my  loved,  lost  Melanie  ! 
*The  story  is  told  dnrinsr  a  walk  around  the  Cascatolles  of  Tivoli 


POEMS  OF  PASSION. 


839 


The  last  of  the  De  Brevern  race, 

My  sister  claimed  no  kinsman's  care ; 
And,  looking  from  each  other's  face, 

The  eye  stole  upward  unaware — 
For  there  was  naught  whereon  to  lean 
Each  other's  heart  and  heaven  between — 

Yet  that  was  world  enough  for  me ; 
And,  for  a  brief  but  blessed  while, 

There  seemed  no  care  for  Melanie 
If  she  could  see  her  brother  smile  I 

But  life  with  her  was  at  the  flow, 
And  every  wave  went  sparkling  higher, 

While  mine  was  ebbing,  fast  and  low, 
From  the  same  shore  of  vain  desire; 

And  knew  I,  with  prophetic  heart, 
That  we  were  wearing,  aye,  insensibly  apart. 


We  came  to  Italy.    I  felt 

A  yearning  for  its  sunny  sky; 
My  very  spirit  seemed  to  melt 

As  swept  its  first  warm  breezes  by. 
From  lip  and  cheek  a  chilling  mist, 

From  life  and  soul  a  frozen  rime, 
By  every  breath  seemed  softly  kissed — 

God's  blessing  on  its  radiant  clime ! 
It  was  an  endless  joy  to  me 

To  see  my  sister's  new  delight;    . 
From  Venice  in  its  golden  sea 

To  Paestum  in  its  purple  light — 
By  sweet  Val  d'Arno's  teinted  hills — 

In  Vallombrosa's  convent  gloom — 
Mid  Terni's  vale  of  singing  rills — 

By  deathless  lairs  in  solemn  Rome — 
In  gay  Palermo's  "  Golden  Shell" — 
At  Arethusa's  hidden  well — 

We  loitered  like  th'  impassioned  sun 
That  slept  so  lovingly  on  all, 

And  made  a  home  of  every  one — 
Ruin,  and  fane,  and  waterfall — 

And  crowned  the  dying  day  with  glory 
If  we  had  seen,  since  morn,  but  one  old  haunt  of  story. 

We  came  with  Spring  to  Tivoli. 

My  sister  loved  its  laughing  air 
And  merry  waters,  though,  for  me, 
My  heart  was  in  another  key ; 

And  sometimes  I  could  scarcely  bear 
The  mirth  of  their  eternal  play, 

And,  like  a  child  that  longs  for  home 
When  weary  of  its  holyday, 

I  sighed  for  melancholy  Rome. 
Perhaps — the  fancy  haunts  me  still — 
'Twas  but  a  boding  sense  of  ill. 

It  was  a  morn,  of  such  a  day 

As  might  have  dawned  on  Eden  first, 
Early  in  the  Italian  May. 

Vine-leaf  and  flower  had  newly  burst, 
And  on  the  burthen  of  the  air 
The  breath  of  buds  came  faint  and  rare ; 

And  far  in  the  transparent  sky 
The  small,  earth-keeping  birds  were  seen 

Soaring  deliriously  high ; 
And  through  the  clefts  of  newer  green 

Yon  waters  dashed  their  living  pearls; 
And  with  a  gayer  smile  and  bow 

Trooped  on  the  merry  village-girls ; 
And  from  the  contadino's  brow 

The  low-slouched  hat  was  backward  thrown, 

With  air  that  scarcely  seemed  his  own ; 
And  Melanie,  with  lips  apart, 

And  clasped  hands  upon  my  arm, 
Flung  open  her  impassioned  heart, 

And  blessed  life's  mere  and  breathing  charm ; 
And  sang  old  songs,  and  gathered  flowers, 
And  passionately  bless'd  once  more  life's  thrilling  hours, 

In  happiness  and  idleness 

We  wandered  down  yon  sunny  vale — 
Oh  mocking  eyes  ! — a  golden  tress 

Floats  back  upon  this  summer  gale ! 


A  foot  is  tripping  on  the  grass  ! 

A  laugh  rings  merry  in  mine  ear ! 
I  see  a  bounding  shadow  pass  ! — 

0  God  !  my  sister  once  was  here  1 
Come  with  me,  friend.— We  rested  yon ! 

There  grew  a  flower  she  plucked  and  wore ! 
She  sat  upon  this  mossy  stone — 

That  broken  fountain  running  o'er 
With  the  same  ring,  like  silver  bells. 

She  listened  to  its  babbling  flow, 
And  said,  "  Perhaps  the  gossip  tells 

Some  fountain-nymph's  love-story  now !" 
And  as  her  laugh  ran  clear  and  wild, 
A  youth — a  painter — passed  and  smiled. 

He  gave  the  greeting  of  the  morn 

With  voice  that  lingered  in  mine  ear. 
I  knew  him  sad  and  gentle  born 

By  those  two  words — so  calm  and  clear. 
His  frame  was  slight,  his  forehead  high 

And  swept  by  threads  of  raven  hair, 
The  fire  of  thought  was  in  his  eye, 

And  he  was  pale  and  marble  fair, 
And  Grecian  chisel  never  caught 
The  soul  in  those  slight  features  wrought. 

1  watched  his  graceful  step  of  pride, 
Till  hidden  by  yon  leaning  tree, 

And  loved  him  ere  the  echo  died ; 
And  so,  alas !  did  Melanie  ! 

We  sat  and  watched  the  fount  awhile 

In  silence,  but  our  thoughts  were  one; 
And  then  arose,  and,  with  a  smile 

Of  sympathy,  we  sauntered  on; 
And  she  by  sudden  fits  was  gay, 
And  then  her  laughter  died  away, 

And  in  this  changefulness  of  mood 
(Forgotten  now  those  May-day  spells) 

We  turned  where  Varro's  villa  stood, 
And  gazing  on  the  Cascatelles, 

(Whose  hurrying  waters  wild  and  white 

Seemed  maddened  as  they  burst  to  light,) 
I  chanced  to  turn  my  eyes  away, 

And  lo  !  upon  a  bank,  alone, 
The  youthful  painter,  sleeping,  lay ! 

His  pencils  on  the  grass  were  thrown 
And  by  his  side  a  sketch  was  flung, 

And  near  him  as  I  lightly  crept, 

To  see  the  picture  as  he  slept, 
Upon  his  feet  he  lightly  sprung; 

And,  gazing  with  a  wild  surprise 
Upon  the  face  of  Melanie, 

He  said — and  dropped  his  earnest  eyes- 

"  Forgive  me !  but  I  dreamed  of  thee  !" 

His  sketch,  the  while,  was  in  my  hand, 
And,  for  the  lines  I  looked  to  trace — 

A  torrent  by  a  palace  spanned, 

Half-classic  and  half  fairy-land — 
I  only  found — my  sister's  face ! 


Our  life  was  changed.     Another  love 

In  its  lone  woof  began  to  twine : 
But  ah  !  the  golden  thread  was  wove 

Between  my  sister's  heart  and  mine ! 
She  who  had  lived  for  me  before — 

She  who  had  smiled  for  me  alone — 
Would  live  and  smile  for  me  no  more  ! 

The  echo  to  my  heart  was  gone ! 
It  seemed  to  me  the  very  skies 
Had  shone  through  those  averted  eyes ; 

The  air  had  breathed  of  balm — the  flower 
Of  radiant  beauty  seemed  to  be- 
But  as  she  loved  them,  hour  by  hour, 
And  murmured  of  that  love  to  me ! 
Oh,  though  it  be  so  heavenly  high 

The  selfishness  of  earth  above, 
That,  of  the  watchers  in  the  sky, 

He  sleeps  who  guards  a  brother's  love — 
Though  to  a  sister's  present  weal 

The  deep  devotion  far  transcends 
The  utmost  that  the  soul  can  feel 

For  even  its  own  higher  ends — 


840 


POEMS  OF  PASSION. 


Though  next  to  God,  and  more  than  heaven 
For  his  own  sake,  he  loves  her,  even — 

'Tis  difficult  to  see  another, 
A  passing  stranger  of  a  day 

Who  never  hath  been  friend  or  brother, 
Pluck  with  a  look  her  heart  away — 

To  see  the  fair,  unsullied  brow 
Ne'er  kissed  before  without  a  prayer, 

Upon  a  stranger's  bosom  now, 
Who  for  the  boon  took  little  care — 

Who  is  enriched,  he  knows  not  why — 
Who  suddenly  hath  found  a  treasure 

Golconda  were  too  poor  to  buy, 
And  he  perhaps,  too  cold  to  measure — 
(Albeit,  in  her  forgetful  dream, 
Th'  unconscious  idol  happier  seem), 

'Tis  difficult  at  once  to  crush 
The  rebel  mourner  in  the  breast, 

To  press  the  heart  to  earth  and  hush 
Its  bitter  jealousy  to  rest — 

And  difficult— the  eye  gets  dim, 

The  lip  wants  power — to  smile  on  him ! 

I  thank  sweet  Mary  Mother  now, 

Who  gave  me  strength  those  pangs  to  hide- 
And  touched  mine  eyes  and  lit  my  brow 

With  sunshine  that  my  heart  belied. 
I  never  spoke  of  wealth  or  race 

To  one  who  asked  so  much  from  me — 
I  looked  but  in  my  sister's  face, 

And  mused  if  she  would  happier  be ; 
And  hour  by  hour,  and  day  by  day, 

I  loved  the  gentle  painter  more, 

And,  in  the  same  soft  measure,  wore 
My  selfish  jealousy  away : 

And  I  began  to  watch  his  mood, 
And  feel,  with  her,  love's  trembling  care, 

And  bade  God  bless  him  as  he  wooed 
That  loving  girl  so  fond  and  fair. 

And  on  my  mind  would  sometimes  press 

A  fear  that  she  might  love  him  less. 

But  Melanie — I  little  dreamed 

What  spells  the  stirring  heart  may  move — 
Pygmalion's  statue  never  seemed 

More  changed  with  life,  than  she  with  love  ! 
The  pearl  teint  of  the  early  dawn 

Flushed  into  day-spring's  rosy  hue — 
The  meek,  moss-folded  bud  of  morn 

Flung  open  to  the  light  and  dew — 
The  first  and  half-seen  star  of  even 
Waxed  clear  amid  the  deepening  heaven — 

Similitudes  perchance  may  be  ! 
But  these  are  changes  oftener  seen, 

And  do  not  image  half  to  me 
My  sister's  change  of  face  and  mein. 

'Twas  written  in  her  very  air 

That  Love  had  passed  and  entered  there. 


A  calm  and  lovely  paradise 

Is  Italy,  for  minds  at  ease. 
The  sadness  of  its  sunny  skies 

Weighs  not  upon  the  lives  of  these. 
The  ruined  aisle,  the  crumbling  fane, 

The  broken  column,  vast  and  prone — 
It  may  be  joy — it  may  be  pain — 

Amid  such  wrecks  to  walk  alone ! 
The  saddest  man  will  sadder  be, 

The  gentlest  lover  gentler  there — 
As  if,  whate'er  the  spirit's  key, 

It  strengthened  in  that  solemn  air. 

The  heart  soon  grows  to  mournful  things, 

.     And  Italy  has  not  a  breeze 
„'", t  comes  on  melancholy  wings ; 
„?■   \.nd  even  her  majestic  trees 
B1S  |id  ghost-like  in  the  Ccesars'  home, 
rJ  s  'a  if  their  conscious  roots  were  set 
T,       he  old  graves  of  giant  Rome, 
w?  "jf.id  drew  their  sap  all  kingly  yet ! 


And  every  stone  your  feet  beneath 

Is  broken  from  some  mighty  thought  5 
And  sculptures  in  the  dust  still  breathe 

The  fire  with  which  their  lines  were  wrought ; 
And  sundered  arch,  and  plundered  tomb, 
Still  thunder  back  the  echo,  "  Rome !" 
Yet,  gayly  o'er  Egeria's  fount 

The  ivy  flings  its  emerald  veil, 
And  flowers  grow  fair  on  Numa's  mount, 

And  light-sprung  arches  span  the  dale ; 
And  soft,  from  Caracalla's  Baths, 

The  herdsman's  song  comes  down  the  breeze 
While  climb  his  goats  the  giddy  paths 

To  grass-grown  architrave  and  frieze ; 
And  gracefully  Albano's  hill 

Curves  into  the  horizon's  line ; 
And  sweetly  sings  that  classic  rill ; 

And  fairly  stands  that  nameless  shrine ; 
And  here,  oh,  many  a  sultry  noon 
And  starry  eve,  that  happy  June, 

Came  Angelo  and  Melanie  ! 
And  earth  for  us  was  all  in  tune — 
For  while  Love  talked  with  them,  Hope  walked  apart 
with  me! 

v. 
I  shrink  from  the  embittered  close 

Of  my  own  melancholy  tale. 
'Tis  long  since  I  have  waked  my  woes — 
And  nerve  and  voice  together  fail, 
The  throb  beats  faster  at  my  brow, 

My  brain  feels  warm  with  starting  tears, 
And  I  shall  weep — but  heed  not  thou  ! 

'Twill  sooth  awhile  the  ache  of  years ! 
The  heart  transfixed — worn  out  with  grief- 
Will  turn  the  arrow  for  relief. 

The  painter  was  a  child  of  shame ! 

It  stirred  my  pride  to  know  it  first, 
For  I  had  questioned  but  his  name, 

And,  thought,  alas  !  I  knew  the  worst, 
Believing  him  unknown  and  poor. 
His  blood,  indeed,  was  not  obscure ; 

A  high-born  Conti  was  his  mother, 
But,  though  he  knew  one  parent's  face, 

He  never  had  beheld  the  other, 
Nor  knew  his  country  or  his  race. 

The  Roman  hid  his  daughter's  shame 
Within  St.  Mona's  convent  wall, 

And  gave  the  boy  a  painter's  name — 
And  little  else  to  live  withal ! 

And  with  a  noble's  high  desires 
For  ever  mounting  in  his  heart, 

The  boy  consumed  with  hidden  fires, 
But  wrought  in  silence  at  his  art ; 

And  sometimes  at  St.  Mona's  shrine, 
Worn  thin  with  penance  harsh  and  long, 

He  saw  his  mother's  form  divine, 
And  loved  her  for  their  mutual  wrong. 
I  said  my  pride  was  stirred — but  no ! 

The  voice  that  told  its  bitter  tale 
Was  touched  so  mournfully  with  wo, 

And,  as  he  ceased,  all  deathly  pale, 
He  loosed  the  hand  of  Melanie, 
And  gazed  so  gaspingly  on  me — 

The  demon  in  my  bosom  died  ! 
"  Not  thine,"  I  said,  "  another's  guilt ; 

I  break  no  hearts  for  silly  pride; 
So,  kiss  yon  weeper  if  thou  wilt !" 

VI. 

St.  Mona's  morning  mass  was  done, 

The  shrine-lamps  struggled  with  the  day ; 
And  rising  slowly,  one  by  one, 

Stole  the  last  worshippers  away. 
The  organist  played  out  the  hymn, 

The  incense,  to  St.  Mary  swung, 
Had  mounted  to  the  cherubim, 

Or  to  the  pillars  thinly  clung; 
And  boyish  chorister  replaced 

The  missal  that  was  read  no  more, 
And  closed,  with  half  irreverent  haste, 

Confessional  and  chancel  door  j 


POEMS  OF  PASSION. 


841 


And  as,  through  aisle  and  oriel  pane, 

The  sun  wore  round  his  slanting  beam, 
The  dying  martyr  stirred  again, 

And  warriors  battled  in  its  gleam  ; 
And  costly  tomb  and  sculptured  knight 
Showed  warm  and  wondrous  in  the  light. 

I  have  not  said  that  Melanie 
Was  radiantly  fair — 

This  earth  again  may  never  see 
A  loveliness  so  rare  ! 

She  glided  up  St.  Mona's  aisle 
That  morning  as  a  bride, 

And,  full  as  was  my  heart  the  while, 
I  blessed  her  in  my  pride  ! 
The  fountain  may  not  fail  the  less 

Whose  sands  are  golden  ore, 
And  a  sister  for  her  loveliness, 

May  not  be  loved  the  more; 
But  as,  the  fount's  full  heart  beneath, 

Those  golden  sparkles  shine, 
My  sister's  beauty  seemed  to  breathe 

Its  brightness  over  mine ! 

St.  Mona  has  a  chapel  dim 

Within  the  altar's  fretted  pale, 
Where  faintly  comes  the  swelling  hymn, 

And  dies  half  lost  the  anthem's  wail. 
And  here,  in  twilight  meet  for  prayer, 

A  single  lamp  hangs  o'er  the  shrine, 
And  Raphael's  Mary,  soft  and  fair, 

Looks  down  with  sweetness  half  divine, 
And  here  St.  Mona's  nuns  alway 
Through  latticed  bars  are  seen  to  pray. 
Ave  and  sacrament  were  o'er, 

And  Angelo  and  Melanie 
Still  knelt  the  holy  shrine  before : 

But  prayer,  that  morn  was  not  for  me ! 
My  heart  was  locked  f     The  lip  might  stir, 

The  frame  might  agonize — and  yet, 
Oh  God  !  I  could  not  pray  for  her ! 

A  seal  upon  my  brow  was  set — 
My  brow  was  hot — my  brain  opprest — 
And  fiends  seemed  muttering  round,  "  Your  bridal  is 
unblest !" 

With  forehead  to  the  lattice  laid, 

And  thin,  white  fingers  straining  through, 
A  nun  the  while  had  softly  prayed. 

Oh,  even  in  prayer  that  voice  I  knew  ! 
Each  faltering  word — each  mournful  tone — 

Each  pleadins;  cadence,  half-suppressed — 
Such  music  had  its  like  alone 

On  lips  that  stole  it  at  her  breast ! 
And  ere  the  orison  was  done 
I  loved  the  mother  as  the  son ! 

And  now,  the  marriage  vows  to  hear, 

The  nun  unveiled  her  brow — 
When,  sudden,  to  my  startled  ear, 
There  crept  a  whisper,  hoarse  like  fear, 

"  De  Brevern  !  is  it  thou  /" 
The  priest  let  fall  the  golden  ring, 

The  bridegroom  stood  aghast, 
While,  like  some  weird  and  frantic  thing, 

The  nun  was  muttering  fast ; 
And  as,  in  dread,  I  nearer  drew, 
She  thrust  her  arms  the  lattice  through, 
And  held  me  to  her  straining  view — 

But  suddenly  begun 
To  steal  upon  her  brain  a  light 
That  staggered  soul,  and  sense,  and  sight, 
And,  with  a  mouth  all  ashy  white, 

She  shrieked,  "  It  is  his  son .' 
The  bridegroom  is  thy  blood— thy  brother ! 
Rodolph  de  Brevern  wronged  his  mother ! 

And,  as  that  doom  of  love  was  heard, 
My  sister  sunk — and  died — without  a  sign  or  word ! 

I  shed  no  tear  for  her.  She  died 
With  her  last  sunshine  in  her  eyes. 

Earth  held  for  her  no  joy  beside 

The  hope  just  shattered— and  she  lie* 


In  a  green  nook  of  yonder  dell ; 

And  near  her,  in  a  newer  bed, 
Her  lover — brother — sleeps  as  well ! 

Peace  to  the  broken-hearted  dead ! 


LORD  IVON  AND  HIS  DAUGHTER. 

"  Dost  thou  despise 
A  love  like  this !    A  lady  should  not  scorn 
One  soul  that  loves  her,  howe'er  lowly  it  be." 

LORD    IVON. 

How  beautiful  it  is  !     Come  here,  my  daughter ! 
Is't  not  a  face  of  most  bewildering  brightness  ? 

ISIDORE. 

The  features  are  all  fair,  sir,  but  so  cold — 
I  could  not  love  such  beauty  ! 

LORD    IVON. 

Yet,  e'en  so 
Looked  thy  lost  mother,  Isidore  !     Her  brow 
Lofty  like  this— her  lips  thus  delicate, 
Yet  icy  cold  in  their  slight  vermeil  threads — 
Her  neck  thus  queenly,  and  the  sweeping  curve 
Thus  matchless,  from  the  small  and  "  pearl  round  ear" 
To  the  o'er-polished  shoulder.     Never  swan 
Dreamed  on  the  water  with  a  grace  so  calm ! 

ISIDORE. 

And  was  she  proud,  sir  ? 

LORD    IVON. 

Or  I  had  not  loved  her. 

ISIDORE. 

Then  runs  my  lesson  wrong.     I  ever  read 
Pride  was  unlovely. 

LORD    IVON. 

Dost  thou  prate  already 
Of  books,  my  little  one  ?     Nay,  then,  'tis  time 
That  a  sad  tale  were  told  thee.     Is  thy  bird 
Fed  for  the  day  ?     Canst  thou  forget  the  rein 
Of  thy  beloved  Arabian  for  an  hour, 
And,  the  first  time  in  all  thy  sunny  life, 
Take  sadness  to  thy  heart  ?     Wilt  listen,  sweet  ? 

ISIDORE. 

Hang  I  not  ever  on  thy  lips,  dear  father  ? 

LORD    IVON. 

As  thou  didst  enter,  I  was  musing  here 
Upon  this  picture.     'Tis  the  face  of  one 
I  never  knew;  but,  for  its  glorious  pride, 
I  bought  it  of  the  painter.     There  has  hung 
Ever  the  cunning  curse  upon  my  soul 
To  love  this  look  in  woman.     Not  the  flower 
Of  all  Arcadia,  in  the  Age  of  Gold, 
Looked  she  a  shepherdess,  would  be  to  me 
More  than  the  birds  are.     As  the  astrologer 
Worships  the  half-seen  star  that  in  its  sphere 
Dreams  not  of  him,  and  tramples  on  the  lily 
That  flings,  unasked,  its  fragrance  in  his  way, 
Yet  both  (as  the  high-born  and  the  low) 
Wrought  of  the  same  fine  Hand — so,  daringly, 
Flew  my  boy-hopes  beyond  me.     You  are  here 
In  a  brave  palace,  Isidore !     The  gem 
That  sparkles  in  your  hair,  imprisons  light 
Drunk  in  the  flaming  Orient ;  and  gold 
Waits  on  the  bidding  of  those  girlish  lips 
In  measures  that  Aladdin  never  knew — 
Yet  was  I — lowly  born ! 

ISIDORE. 

Lord  Ivon ! 

LORD    IVON. 

Ay, 
You  wonder;  but  I  tell  you  that  the  Lord 
Of  this  tall  palace  was  a  peasants  child ! 
And,  lookin?  sometimes  on  his  fair  domain, 
Thy 'sire  bethinks  him  of  a  sickly  boy, 
Nursed  by  his  mother  on  a  mountain  side, 
His  onlv  wealth  a  book  of  poetry, 
With  which  he  daily  crept  into  the  sun, 


842 


POEMS  OF  PASSION. 


To  cheat  sharp  pains  with  the  bewildering  dream 
Of  beauty  he  had  only  read  of  there. 

ISIDORE. 

Have  you  the  volume  still,  sir  1 

LORD   IVON. 

'Twas  the  gift 
Of  a  poor  scholar  wandering  in  the  hills, 
Who  pitied  my  sick  idleness.     I  fed 
My  inmost  soul  upon  the  witching  rhyme — 
A  silly  tale  of  a  low  minstrel  boy, 
Who  broke  his  heart  in  singing  at  a  bridal. 


Loved  he  the 


ISIDORE. 

J,  sir? 

LORD   IVON. 

So  ran  the  tale. 


How  well  I  do  remember  it ! 


Poor  youth ! 


ISIDORE. 

Alas! 


LORD   IVON. 


I  never  thought  to  pity  him. 
The  bride  was  a  duke's  sister ;  and  I  mused 
Upon  the  wonder  of  his  daring  love, 
Till  my  heart  changed  within  me.     I  became 
Restless  and  sad;  and  in  my  sleep  I  saw 
Beautiful  dames  all  scornfully  go  by ; 
And  one  o'er  weary  morn  I  crept  away 
Into  the  glen,  and,  flung  upon  a  rock, 
Over  a  torrent  whose  swift,  giddy  waters 
Filled  me  with  energy,  I  swore  my  soul 
To  better  that  false  vision,  if  there  were 
Manhood  or  fire  within  my  wretched  frame. 
I  turned  me  homeward  with  the  sunset  hour, 
Changed — for  the  thought  had  conquered  even  disease ; 
And  my  poor  mother  checked  her  busy  wheel 
To  wonder  at  the  step  with  which  I  came. 

Oh,  heavens  !  that  soft  and  dewy  April  eve, 
When,  in  a  minstrel's  garb,  but  with  a  heart 
As  lofty  as  the  marble  shafts  upreared 
Beneath  the  stately  portico,  I  stood 
At  this  same  palace  door  !  t 


A  minstrel  boy 


ISIDORE. 

Our  own !  and  you 


LORD    IVON. 

Yes — I  had  wandered  far 
Since  I  shook  off  my  sickness  in  the  hills, 
And,  with  some  cunning  on  the  lute,  had  learned 
A  subtler  lesson  than  humility 
In  the  quick  school  of  want.     A  menial  stood 
By  the  Egyptian  sphinx ;  and  when  I  came 
And  prayed  to  sing  beneath  the  balcony 
A  song  of  love  for  a  fair  lady's  ear, 
He  insolently  bade  me  to  begone. 
Listening  not,  I  swept  my  fingers  o'er 
The  strings  in  prelude,  when  the  base-born  slave 
Struck  me ! 

ISIDORE. 

Impossible ! 

LORD  IVON. 

I  dashed  my  lute 
Into  his  face,  and  o'er  the  threshold  flew ; 
And  threading  rapidly  the  lofty  rooms, 
Sought  vainly  for  his  master.     Suddenly 
A  wing  rushed  o'er  me,  and  a  radiant  girl, 
Young  as  myself,  but  fairer  than  the  dream 
Of  my  most  wild  imagining,  sprang  forth, 
Chasing  a  dove,  that,  'wildered  with  pursuit, 
Dropt  breathless  on  my  bosom. 

ISIDORE. 

Nay,  dear  father ! 
Was't  so  indeed  ? 

LORD    IVON. 

I  thanked  my  blessed  star ! 
And,  as  the  fair,  transcendent  creature  stood 


Silent  with  wonder,  I  resigned  the  bird 

To  her  white  hands ;  and,  with  a  rapid  thought, 

And  lips  already  eloquent  of  love, 

Turned  the  strange  chance  to  a  similitude 

Of  my  own  story.     Her  slight,  haughty  lip 

Curled  at  the  warm  recital  of  my  wrong, 

And  on  the  ivory  oval  of  her  cheek 

The  rose  flushed  outward  with  a  deeper  red ; 

And  from  that  hour  the  minstrel  was  at  home, 

And  horse  and  hound  were  his,  and  none  might  cross 

The  minion  of  the  noble  Lady  Clare. 

Art  weary  of  my  tale  ? 

ISIDORE. 

Dear  father ! 

LORD    IVON. 

Well! 
A  summer,  and  a  winter,  and  a  spring, 
Went  over  me  like  brief  and  noteless  hours. 
For  ever  at  the  side  of  one  who  grew 
With  every  morn  more  beautiful ;  the  slave, 
Willing  and  quick,  of  every  idle  whim  ; 
Singing  for  no  one's  bidding  but  her  own, 
And  then  a  song  from  my  own  passionate  heart, 
Sung  with  a  lip  of  fire,  but  ever  named 
As  an  old  rhyme  that  I  had  chanced  to  hear; 
Riding  beside  her,  sleeping  at  her  door, 
Doing  her  maddest  bidding  at  the  risk 
Of  life — what  marvel  if  at  last  I  grew 
Presumptuous  ? 

A  messenger  one  morn 
Spurred  through  the  gate—"  A  revel  at  the  court ! 
And  many  minstrels,  come  from  many  lands, 
Will  try  their  harps  in  presence  of  the  king; 
And  'tis  the  royal  pleasure  that  my  lord 
Come  with  the  young  and  lovely  Lady  Clare, 
Robed  as  the  queen  of  Faery,  who  shall  crown 
The  victor  with  his  bays." 

Pass  over  all 
To  that  bewildering  day.     She  sat  enthroned 
Amid  the  court ;  and  never  twilight  star 
Sprang  with  such  sweet  surprise  upon  the  eye 
As  she  with  her  rare  beauty  on  the  gaze 
Of  the  gay  multitude.     The  minstrels  changed 
Their  studied  songs,  and  chose  her  for  a  theme; 
And  ever  at  the  pause  all  eyes  upturned 
And  fed  upon  her  loveliness. 

The  last 
Long  lay  was  ended,  and  the  silent  crowd 
Waited  the  king's  award — when  suddenly 
The  sharp  strings  of  a  lyre  were  swept  without, 
And  a  clear  voice  claimed  hearing  for  a  bard 
Belated  on  his  journey.     Masked,  and  clad 
In  a  long  stole,  the  herald  led  me  in. 
A  thousand  eyes  were  on  me ;  but  I  saw 
The  new-throned  queen,  in  her  high  place,  alone; 
And,  kneeling  at  her  feet,  I  pressed  my  brow 
Upon  her  footstool,  till  the  images 
Of  my  past  hours  rushed  thick  upon  my  brain ; 
Then,  rising  hastily,  I  struck  my  lyre; 
And,  in  a  story  woven  of  my  own, 
I  so  did  paint  her  in  her  loveliness — 
Pouring  my  heart  all  out  upon  the  lines 
I  knew  too  faithfully,  and  lavishing 
The  hoarded  fire  of  a  whole  age  of  love 
Upon  each  passionate  word,  that,  as  I  sunk 
Exhausted  at  the  close,  the  ravished  crowd 
Flung  gold  and  flowers  on  my  still  quivering  lyrt  ; 
And  the  moved  monarch  in  his  gladness  swore 
There  was  no  boon  beneath  his  kingly  crown 
Too  high  for  such  a  minstrel ! 

Did  my  star 
Speak  in  my  fainting  ear  ?     Heard  I  the  king  ? 
Or  did  the  audible  pulses  of  my  heart 
Seem  to  me  so  articulate  ?     I  rose, 
And  tore  my  mask  away  ;  and,  as  the  stole 
Dropped  from  my  shoulders,  I  glanced  hurriedly 
A  look  upon  the  face  of  Lady  Clare 
It  was  enough !     I  saw  that  she  was  changed — 
That  a  brief  hour  had  chilled  the  open  child 


POEMS  OF  PASSION. 


843 


To  calculating  woman — that  she  read 
With  cold  displeasure  my  o'er-daring  thought ; 
And  on  that  brow,  to  me  as  legible 
As  stars  to  the  rapt  Arab,  I  could  trace 
The  scorn  that  waited  on  me  !     Sick  of  life, 
Yet,  even  then,  with  a  half-rallied  hope 
Prompting  my  faltering  tongue,  I  blindly  knelt, 
And  claimed  the  king's  fair  promise — 


ISIDORE. 

For  the  hand 


Of  Lady  Clare? 


LORD    IVON. 

No,  sweet  one — for  a  sword. 

ISIDORE. 

You  surely  spoke  to  her  ? 

LORD    IVON. 

I  saw  her  face 
No  more  for  years.     I  went  unto  the  wars  ; 
And  when  again  I  sought  that  palace  door, 
A  glory  heralded  the  minstrel  boy 
That  monarchs  might  have  envied. 

ISIDORE. 

Was  she  there  ? 

LORD    IVON. 

Yes— and,  O  God  !  how  beautiful !     The  last, 
The  ripest  seal  of  loveliness,  was  set 
Upon  her  form ;  and  the  all-glorious  pride 
That  I  had  worshipped  on  her  girlish  lip, 
When  her  scared  dove  fled  to  me,  was  matured 
Into  a  queenly  grace ;  and  nobleness 
Was  bound  like  a  tiara  to  her  brow, 
And  every  motion  breathed  of  it.     There  lived 
Nothing  on  earth  so  ravishingly  fair. 

ISIDORE. 

And  you  still  loved  her  ? 

LORD    IVON. 

I  had  periled  life 
In  every  shape — had  battled  on  the  sea, 
And  burnt  upon  the  desert,  and  outgone 
Spirits  most  mad  for  glory,  with  this  one 
O'ermastering  hope  upon  me.     Honor,  fame, 
Gold,  even,  were  as  dust  beneath  my  feet ; 
And  war  was  my  disgust,  though  I  had  sought 
Its  horrors  like  a  bloodhound — for  her  praise. 
My  life  was  drunk  up  with  the  love  of  her. 

ISIDORE. 

And  now  she  scorned  you  not  ? 

LORD    IVON. 

Worse,  Isidore ! 
She  pitied  me  !     I  did  not  need  a  voice 
To  tell  my  love.     She  knew  her  sometime  minion- 
And  felt  that  she  should  never  be  adoied 
With  such  idolatry  as  his,  and  sighed 
That  hearts  so  true  beat  not  in  palaces — 
But  I  was  poor,  with  all  my  bright  renown, 
And  lowly  born  :  and  she— the  Lady  Clare  ! 

ISIDORE. 

She  could  not  tell  you  this  ? 

LORD    IVON. 

She  broke  my  heart 
As  kindly  as  the  fisher  hooks  the  worm — 
Pitying  me  the  while ! 

ISIDORE. 

And  you — 

LORD    IVON. 

Lived  on ! 
But  the  remembrance  irks  me,  and  my  throat 
Chokes  with  the  utterance  ! 

ISIDORE. 

Dear  father  ! 

LORD    IVON. 

Nay- 
Thanks  to  sweet  Mary  Mother,  it  is  past : 


And  in  this  world  I  shall  have  no  more  need 
To  speak  of  it. 

ISIDORE. 

But  there  were  brighter  days 
In  store.     My  mother  and  this  palace — 

LORD    IVON. 

You  outrun 
My  tale,  dear  Isidore  !     But  'tis  as  well, 
I  would  not  linger  on  it. 

Twenty  years 
From  this  heart-broken  hour,  I  stood  again 
An  old  man  and  a  stranger,  at  the  door 
Of  this  same  palace.     I  had  been  a  slave 
For  gold  that  time  !     My  star  had  wrought  with  me  1 
And  I  was  richer  than  the  wizard  king 
Throned  in  the  mines  of  Ind.     I  could  not  look 
On  my  innumerable  gems,  the  glare 
Pained  so  my  sun-struck  eyes  !  My  gold  was  countless. 

ISIDORE. 

And  Lady  Clare  ? 

LORD    IVON.  * 

I  met  upon  the  threshold 
Her  very  self — all  youth,  all  loveliness — 
So  like  the  fresh-kept  picture  in  my  brain, 
That  for  a  moment  I  forgot  all  else, 
And  staggered  back  and  wept.     She  passed  me  by 
With  a  cold  look — 

ISIDORE. 

Oh!  not  the  Lady  Clare  I 

LORD    IVON. 

Her  daughter  yet  herself !     But  what  a  change 
Waited  me  here  !     My  thin  and  grizzled  locks 
Were  fairer  now  than  the  young  minstrel's  curls; 
My  sun-burnt  visage  and  contracted  eye 
Than  the  gay  soldier  in  his  gallant  mien ; 
My  words  were  wit,  my  looks  interpreted  ; 
And  Lady  Clare — I  tell  you,  Lady  Clare 
Leaned  fondly — fondly!  on  my  wasted  arm. 

0  God  !  how  changed  my  nature  with  all  this  I 
I,  that  had  been  all  love  and  tenderness — 
The  truest  and  most  gentle  heart,  till  now, 
That  ever  beat — grew  suddenly  a  devil ! 

1  bought  me  lands,  and  titles,  and  received 
Men's  homage  with  a  smooth  hypocrisy ; 
And — you  will  scarce  believe  me,  Isidore — 

I  suffered  them  to  wile  their  peerless  daughter, 
The  image  and  the  pride  of  Lady  Clare, 
To  wed  me ! 

ISIDORE. 

Sir!  you  did  not  ! 

LORD    IVON. 

Ay !  I  saw 
The  indignant  anger  when  her  mother  first 
Broke  the  repulsive  wish,  and  the  degrees 
Of  shuddering  reluctance  as  her  mind 
Admitted  the  intoxicating  tales 
Of  wealth  unlimited.     And  when  she  looked 
On  my  age-stricken  features,  and  my  form, 
Wasted  before  its  time,  and  turned  away 
To  hide  from  me  her  tears,  her  very  mother 
Whispered  the  cursed  comfort  in  her  ear 
That  made  her  what  she  is  ! 


Knowing  all  this 


ISIDORE. 

You  could  not  wed  her, 


I  felt  that  I  had  lost 
My  life  else.     I  had  wrung,  for  forty  years, 
My  frame  to  its  last  withers ;  I  had  flung 
My  boyhood's  fire  away— the  energy 
Of  a  most  sinless  youth— the  toil,  and  fret, 
And  agony  of  manhood.     I  had  dared, 
Fought,  suffered,  slaved — and  never  for  an  hour 
Forgot  or  swerved  from  my  resolve  ;  and  now — 
With  the  delirious  draught  upon  my  lips — 
Dash  down  the  cup  ! 


844 


POEMS  OF  PASSION. 


Yet  she  never  wronged  you  ! 

LORD    IVON. 

Tliou'rt  pleading  for  thy  mother,  my  sweet  child  ! 
And  angels  hear  thee.     But,  if  she  was  wronged, 
The  sin  be  on  the  pride  that  sells  its  blood 
Coldly  and  only  for  this  damning  gold. 
Had  I  not  offered  youth  first  ?     Came  I  not, 
With  my  hands  brimmed  with  glory,  to  buy  love— 
And  was  I  not  denied  ? 


Yet,  dearest  father, 
They  forced  her  not  to  wed  ? 

LORD   IVON. 

I  called  her  back 
Myself  from  the  church  threshold,  and,  before 
Her  mother  and  her  kinsmen,  bade  her  swear 
It  was  her  own  free  choice  to  marry  me. 
I  showed  her  my  shrunk  hand,  and  bade  her  think 
If  that  was  like  a  bridegroom,  and  beware 
Of  perjuring  her  chaste  and  spotless  soul, 
If  now  she  loved  me  not. 

ISIDORE. 

What  said  she,  sir  ? 

LORD    IVON. 

Oh !  they  had  made  her  even  as  themselves  : 
And  her  young  heart  was  colder  than  the  slab 
Unsunned  beneath  Pentelicus.     She  pressed 
My  withered  fingers  in  her  dewy  clasp, 
And  smiled  up  in  my  face,  and  chid  "  my  lord" 
For  his  wild  fancies  and  led  on  ! 


And  no 
Misgiving  at  the  altar  ? 

LORD    IVON. 

None !     She  swore 
To  love  and  cherish  me  till  death  should  part  us, 
With  a  voice  as  clear  as  mine. 


In  mercy  tell  me  so 


ISIDORE. 

And  kept  it,  father  I 


LORD    IVON. 

She  lives,  my  daughter ! 
•  •••••  • 

Long  ere  my  babe  was  born,  my  pride  had  ebbed, 

And  let  my  heart  down  to  its  better  founts 

Of  tenderness.     I  had  no  friends — not  one  I 

My  love  gushed  to  my  wife.     I  racked  my  brain 

To  find  her  a  new  pleasure  every  hour — 

Yet  not  with  me— I  feared  to  haunt  her  eye  ! 

Only  at  night,  when  she  was  slumbering 

In  all  her  beauty,  I  would  put  away 

The  curtains  till  the  pale  night-lamp  shone  on  her, 

And  watch  her  through  my  tears. 

One  night  her  lips 
Parted  as  I  gazed  on  them,  and  the  name 
Of  a  young  noble,  who  had  been  my  guest, 
Stole  forth  in  broken  murmurs.     I  let  fall ' 
The  curtains  silently,  and  left  her  there 
To  slumber  and  dream  on ;  and  gliding  forth 
Upon  the  terrace,  knelt  to  my  pale  star, 
And  swore,  that  if  it  pleased  the  God  of  light 
To  let  me  look  upon  the  unborn  child 
Lying  beneath  her  heart,  I  would  but  press 
One  kiss  upon  its  lips,  and  take  away 
My  life — that  was  a  blight  upon  her  years. 


I  was  that  child ! 


LORD    IVON. 


Yes — and  I  heard  the  cry 
Of  thy  small  "  piping  mouth"  as'  twere  a  call 
From  my  remembering  star.     I  waited  only 


Thy  mother's  strength  to  bear  the  common  shock 
Of  death  within  the  doors.     She  rose  at  last, 
And,  oh !  so  sweetly  pale !     And  thou,  my  child ! 
My  heart  misgave  me  as  I  looked  upon  thee ; 
But  he  was  ever  at  her  side  whose  name 
She  murmured  in  her  sleep ;  and,  lingering  on 
To  drink  a  little  of  thy  sweetness  more 
Before  I  died,  I  watched  their  stolen  love 
As  she  had  been  my  daughter,  with  a  pure, 
Passionless  joy  that  I  should  leave  her  soon 
To  love  him  as  she  would.     I  know  not  how 
To  tell  thee  more.  *  *  * 

*  Come,  sweet !  she  is  not  worthy 

Of  tears  like  thine  and  mine.  *  * 

*  *  *  She  fled  and  left  me 
The  very  night !     The  poison  was  prepared — 
And  she  had  been  a  widow  with  the  morn 
Rich  as  Golconda.     As  the  midnight  chimed, 
My  star  rose.     Gazing  on  its  mounting  orb, 

I  raised  the  chalice — but  a  weakness  came 
Over  my  heart ;  and,  taking  up  the  lamp, 
I  glided  to  her  chamber,  and  removed 
The  curtains  for  a  last,  a  parting  look 
Upon  my  child.  *  *  * 

*  *  *  Had  she  but  taken  thee, 
I  could  have  felt  she  had  a  mother's  heart, 
And  drained  the  chalice  still.    I  could  not  leave 
My  babe  alone  in  such  a  heartless  world  I 

ISIDORE. 

Thank  God  !     Thank  God ! 


TO  ERMENGARDE. 
I  know  not  if  the  sunshine  waste — 

The  world  is  dark  since  thou  art  gone  ! 
The  hours  are,  oh  !  so  leadcn-paced  ! 

The  birds  sing,  and  the  stars  float  on, 
But  sing  not  well,  and  look  not  fair — 
A  weight  is  in  the  summer  air, 

And  sadness  in  the  sight  of  flowers, 
And  if  I  go  where  others  smile, 

Their  love  but  makes  me  think  of  ours, 
And  heavier  gets  my  heart  the  while. 
Like  one  upon  a  desert  isle, 

I  languish  of  the  weary  hours ; 
I  never  thought  a  life  could  be 
So  flung  upon  one  hope,  as  mine,  dear  love,  on  thee  I 

I  sit  and  watch  the  summer  sky, 

There  comes  a  clond  through  heaven  alone ; 
A  thousand  stars  are  shining  nigh — 

It  feels  no  light,  but  darkles  on  ! 
Yet  now  it  nears  the  lovelier  moon ; 

And,  flushing  through  its  fringe  of  snow, 
There  steals  a  rosier  die,  and  soon 

Its  bosom  is  one  fiery  glow ! 
The  queen  *of  light  within  it  lies  ! 

Yet  mark  how  lovers  meet  to  part  T 
The  cloud  already  onward  flies, 

And  shadows  sink  into  its  heart, 
And  (dost  thou  see  them  where  thou  art  ?) 

Fade  fast,  fade  all  those  glorious  dies  ! 
Its  light,  like  mine,  is  seen  no  more, 
And,  like  my  own,  its  heart  seems  darker  than  before 

Where  press  this  hour  those  fairy  feet, 

Where  look  this  hour  those  eyes  of  blue  ! 
What  music  in  thine  ear  is  sweet ! 

What  odor  breathes  thy  lattice  through ! 
What  word  is  on  thy  lip  ?     What  tone — 
What  look — replying  to  thine  own  ? 
Thy  steps  along  the  Danube  stray — 

Alas  it  seeks  an  orient  sea  ! 
Thou  wouldst  not  seem  so  far  away 

Flowed  but  its  waters  back  to  me  ? 
I  bless  the  slowly  coming  moon 

Because  its  eye  looked  late  in  thine  ! 
I  envy  the  west  wind  of  June 

Whose  wings  will  bear  it  up  the  Rhine ; 
The  flower  I  press  upon  my  brow 
Were  sweeter  if  its  like  perfumed  thy  chamber  now! 


POEMS  OF   PASSION. 


845 


THE  PITY  OF  THE  PARK  FOUNTAIN. 

'Twas  a  summery  day  in  the  last  of  May — 

Pleasant  in  sun  or  shade  ; 
And  the  hours  went  by  as  the  poets  say, 
Fragrant  and  fair  on  their  flowery  way; 
And  a  hearse  crept  slowly  through  Broadway; 

And  the  Fountain  gayly  played. 

The  Fountain  played  right  merrily, 

And  the  world  looked  bright  and  gay ; 
And  a  youth  went  by,  with  a  restless  eye, 
Whose  heart  was  sick,  and  whose  brain  was  dry, 
And  he  prayed  to  God  that  he  might  die — 
And  the  Fountain  played  away. 

Uprose  the  spray  like  a  diamond  throne, 

And  the  drops  like  music  rang — 
And  of  those  who  marvelled  how  it  shone, 
Was  a  proud  man,  left  in  his  shame  alone, 
And  he  shut  his  teeth  with  a  smothered  groan, 

And  the  Fountain  sweetly  sang. 

And  a  rainbow  spanned  it  changefully, 

Like  a  bright  ring  broke  in  twain  ; 
And  the  pale,  fair  girl,  who  stopped  to  see, 
Was  sick  with  the  pangs  of  poverty — 
And  from  hunger  to  guilt  she  chose  to  flee, 

As  the  rainbow  smiled  again. 

And  all  as  gay,  on  another  day, 

The  morning  will  have  shone  ; 
And  at  noon,  unmarked,  through  bright  Broadway, 
A  hearse  will  take  its  silent  way ; 
And  the  bard  who  sings  will  have  passed  away — 

And  the  Fountain  will  play  on  ! 


"CHAMBER  SCENE." 

(An  exquisite  picture  in  the  studio  of  a  young  artist  at  Rome.) 
£he  rose  from  her  untroubled  sleep, 

And  put  away  her  soft  brown  hair, 
And  in  a  tone  as  low  and  deep 

As  love's  first  whisper,  breathed  a  prayer — 
Her  snow-white  hands  together  pressed, 

Her  blue  eyes  sheltered  in  the  lid, 
The  folded  linen  on  her  breast 

Just  swelling  with  the  charms  it  hid — 
And  from  her  long  and  flowing  dress 

Escaped  a  bare  and  slender  foot, 
Whose  shape  upoa  the  earth  did  press 

Like  a  new  snow-flake,  white  and  "  mute ;" 
And  there,  from  slumber  pure  and  warm, 

Like  a  young  spirit  fresh  from  heaven, 
She  bowed  her  slight  and  graceful  form, 

And  humbly  prayed  to  be  forgiven. 

Oh  God  !  if  souls  unsoiled  as  these 

Need  daily  mercy  from  thy  throne — 
If  she  upon  her  bended  knees — 

Our  loveliest  and  our  purest  one — 
She,  with  a  face  so  clear  and  bright 
We  deem  her  some  stray  child  of  light — 
If  she,  with  those  soft  eyes  in  tears, 
Day  after  day  in  her  first  years, 
Must  kneel  and  pray  for  grace  from  thee — 
What  far,  far  deeper  need  have  we  ? 
How  hardly,  if  she  win  not  heaven, 
Will  our  wild  errors  be  forgiven ! 


TO  A  STOLEN  RING. 

Oh  for  thy  history  now  !     Hadst  thou  a  tongue 

To  whisper  of  thy  secrets,  I  could  lay 

Upon  thy  jewelled  tracery  mine  ear, 

And  dream  myself  in  heaven.     Thou  hast  been  worn 

In  that  fair  creature's  pride,  and  thou  hast  felt 

The  bounding  of  the  haughtiest  blood  that  e'er 

Sprang  from  the  heart  of  woman  ;  and  thy  gold 

Has  lain  upon  her  forehead  in  the  hour 

Of  sadness,  when  the  weary  thoughts  came  fast, 

And  life  was  but  a  bitterness  with  all 

Its  vividness  and  beauty.     She  has  gazed 


In  her  fair  girlhood  on  thy  snowy  pearls, 
And  mused  away  the  hours,  and  she  has  bent 
On  thee  the  downcast  radiance  of  her  eye 
When  a  deep  tone  was  eloquent  in  her  ear, 
And  thou  hast  lain  upon  her  cheek,  and  prest 
Back  on  her  heart  its  beatings,  and  put  by 
From  her  veined  temples  the  luxuriant  curls, 
And  in  her  peaceful  sleep,  when  she  has  lain 
In  her  unconscious  beauty,  and  the  dreams 
Of  her  high  heart  came  goldenly  and  soft, 
Thou  hast  been  there  unchidden,  and  hast  felt 
The  swelling  of  the  clear  transparent  veins 
As  the  rich  blood  rushed  through  them,  warm  and  i 

I  am  impatient  as  I  gaze  on  thee, 
Thou  inarticulate  jewel !     Thou  hast  heard 
With  thy  dull  ear  such  music  ! — the  low  tone 
Of  a  young  sister's  tenderness,  when  night 
Hath  folded  them  together  like  one  flower — 
The  sudden  snatch  of  a  remembered  song 
Warbled  capriciously — the  careless  word 
Lightly  betraying  the  inaudible  thought 
Working  within  the  heart;  and  more  than  all, 
Thou  hast  been  lifted  when  the  fervent  prayer 
For  a  loved  mother,  or  the  sleeping  one 
Lying  beside  her,  trembled  on  her  lip, 
And  the  warm  tear  that  from  her  eye  stole  out 
As  the  soft  lash  fell  over  it,  has  lain 
Amid  thy  shining  jewels  like  a  star. 


TO  HER  WHO  HAS  HOPES  FOR  ME. 
Oh  stern,  yet  lovely  monitress  ! 

Thine  eye  should  be  of  colder  hue, 
And  on  thy  neck  a  paler  tress 

Should  toy  among  those  veins  of  blue  ! 

For  thou  art  to  thy  mission  true — 
An  angel  clad  in  human  guise — 
But  sinners  sometimes  have  such  eyes, 

And  braid  for  love  such  tresses  too  ; 
And,  while  thou  talkst  to  me  of  heaven, 
I  sigh  that  thou  hast  not  a  sin  to  be  forgiven ! 

Night  comes,  with  love  upon  the  breeze, 

And  the  calm  clock  strikes,  stilly,  "ten." 

I  start  to  hear  it  beat,  for  then 
I  know  that  thou  art  on  thy  knees — 

And,  at  that  hour,  where'er  thou  be, 

Ascends  to  heaven  a  prayer  for  me ! 

My  heart  drops  to  its  bended  knee — 
The  mirth  upon  my  lip  is  dumb — 
Yet,  as  a  thought  of  heaven  would  come, 

There  glides,  before  it,  one  of  thee — 
Thou,  in  thy  white  dress,  kneeling  there  ! — 
I  fear  I  could  leave  heaven  to  see  thee  at  thy  prayer ! 

I  follow  up  the  sacred  aisle, 

Thy  light  step  on  the  Sabbath  day, 
And — as  perhaps  thou  pray'st  the  while — 

My  light  thoughts  pass  away ! 
As  swells  in  air  the  holy  hymn, 
My  breath  comes  thick,  my  eyes  are  dim, 

And  through  my  tears  I  pray  ! 
I  do  not  think  my  heart  is  stone — 
But,  while  for  heaven  it  beats  alone — 

In  heaven  would  willing  stay — 
One  rustle  of  thy  snow-white  gown 

Sends  all  my  thoughts  astray  ! 
The  preaching  dies  upon  my  ear — 
What  "  is  the  better  world"  when  thy  dark  eyes  are  here  ! 

Yet  pray  !  my  years  have  been  but  few — 

And  many  a  wile  the  tempter  weaves, 

And  many  a  saint  the  sinner  grieves 

Ere  Mercy  brings  him  through  ! 

But  oh,  when  Mercy  sits  serene 

And  strives  to  bend  to  me, 

Pray,  that  the  cloud  which  comes  between 

May  less  resemble  thee ! 
The  world  that  would  my  soul  beguile 
Teints  all  its  roses  with  thy  smile  ! 
In  heaven  'twere  well  to  be  ! 
But — to  desire  that  blessed  shore — 
Oh  lady !  thy  dark  eyes  must  first  have  gone  before  f 


846 


POEMS  OF  PASSION. 


THE  DEATH  OF  HARRISON. 
What  !  soared  the  old  eagle  to  die  at  the  sun  ! 
Lies  he  stiff  with  spread  wings  at  the  goal  he  had  won  ! 
Are  there  spirits,  more  blest  than  the  "Planet  of  Even/' 
Who  mount  to  their  zenith,  then  melt  into  Heaven — 
No  waning  of  fire,  no  quenching  of  ray, 
But.  rising,  still  rising,  when  passing  away  ? 
Farewell,  gallant  eagle  I  thou'rt  buried  in  light ! 
God-speed  into  Heaven,  lost  star  of  our  night  I 
Death  !   Death  in  the  White  House  !     Ah,  never  before, 
Trod  his  skeleton  foot  on  the  President's  floor  ! 
He  is  looked  for  in  hovel,  and  dreaded  in  hall— 
The  king  in  his  closet  keeps  hatchment  and  pall— 
The  youth  in  his  birth-place,  the  old  man  at  home, 
Make  clean  from  the  door-stone  the  path  to  the  tomb ; — 
But  the  lord  of  this  mansion  was  cradled  not  here — 
In  a  churchyard  far  off  stands  his  beckoning  bier  ! 
He  is  here  as  the  wave-crest  heaves  flashing  on  high — 
As  the  arrow  is  stopped  by  its  prize  in  the  sky — 
The  arrow  to  earth,  and  the  foam  to  the  shore — 
Death  finds  them  when  swiftness  and  sparkle  are  o'er — 
But  Harrison's  death  fills  the  climax  of  story- 
He  went  with  his  old  stride — from  glory  to  glory  ! 
Lay  his  sword  on  his  breast !     There's  no  spot  on  its  blade 
In  whose  cankering  breath  his  bright  laurels  will  fade  ! 
'Twas  the  first  to  lead  on  at  humanity's  call — 
It  was  stayed  with  sweet  mercy  when  "  glory"  was  all ! 
As  calm  in  the  council  as  gallant  in  war, 
He  fought  for  his  country,  and  not  its  "  hurrah  !" 
In  the  path  of  the  hero  with  pity  he  trod — 
Let  him  pass— with  his  sword— to  the  presence  of  God  ! 
What  more !     Shall  we  on,  with  his  ashes  !     Yet,  stay ! 
He  hath  ruled  the  wide  realm  of  a  king,  in  his  day ! 

At  his  word,  like  a  monarch's,  went  treasure  and  land 

The  bright  gold  of  thousands  has  passed  through  his  hand- 
Is  there  nothing  to  show  of  his  glittering  hoard  ? 
No  jewel  to  deck  the  rude  hilt  of  his  sword- 
No  trappings— no  horses  ?— what  had  he,  but  now  ? 
On !— on  with  his  ashes  ! — he  left  but  his  plough  ! 
Brave  old  Cincinnatus  !     Unwind  ye  his  sheet ! 
Let  him  sleep  as  he  lived — with  his  purse  at  his  feet ! 
Follow  now,  as  ye  list !     The  first  mourner  to-day 
Is  the  nation — whose  father  is  taken  away  ! 
Wife,  children,  and  neighbor,  may  moan  at  his  knell- 
He  was  "  lover  and  friend"  to  his  country,  as  well ! 
For  the  stars  on  our  banner,  grown  suddenly  dim, 
Let  us  weep,  in  our  darkness— but  weep  not  for  him ! 
Not  for  him— who,  departing,  leaves  millions  in  tears  ! 
Not  for  him— who  has  died  full  of  honor  and  years  ' 
Not  for  him— who  ascended  Fame's  ladder  so  high 
From  the  round  at  the  top  he  has  stepped  to  the  sky ! 
It  is  blessed  to  go  when  so  ready  to  die  ! 


"SHE  WAS  NOT  THERE." 

T    ,  ,  "  The  bird 

Let  loose,  to  his  far  nest  will  flee, 
•nrni  l°,vfL'  thouSh  breathed  but  on  a  word 
Will  find  thee,  over  land  and  sea." 

'Tis  midnight  deep— I  came  but  now 

From  the  close  air  of  lighted  halls ; 
And  while  I  hold  my  aching  brow 

I  gaze  upon  my  dim-lit  walls ; 
And  feeling  here  that  I  am  free 

To  wear  the  look  that  suits  my  mood, 
And  let  my  thoughts  flow  back  to  thee, 

I  bless  my  tranquil  solitude, 
And  bidding  all  thoughts  else  begone, 
I  muse  upon  thy  love  alone. 

Yet  was  the  music  sweet  to-night, 

And  fragrant  odors  filled  the  air, 
And  flowers  were  drooping  in  the  light, 

And  lovely  women  wandered  there, 
And  fruits  and  wines  with  lavish  waste 

Were  on  the  marble  tables  piled  ; 
And  all  that  tempts  the  eye  and  taste, 

And  sets  the  haggard  pulses  wild, 
And  wins  from  care,  and  deadens  sadness, 
Were  there— but  yet  I  felt  no  gladness. 


I  thought  of  thee— I  thought  of  thee— 

Each  cunning  change  the  music  played, 
Each  fragrant  breath  that  stole  to  me, 

My  wandering  thought  more  truant  made. 
The  lovely  women  passed  me  by, 

The  wit  fell  pow'rless  on  mine  ear, 
I  looked  on  all  with  vacant  eye, 

I  did  not  see — I  did  not  hear  ! 
The  skilled  musician's  master-tone 

Was  sweet — thy  voice  were  sweeter  far ! 
They  were  soft  eyes  the  lamps  shone  on — 

The  eyes  I  worship  gentler  are  ! 
The  halls  were  broad,  the  mirrors  tall, 

With  silver  lamps  and  costly  wine — 
I  only  thought  how  poor  was  all 

To  one  low  tone  from  lips  like  thine — 
I  only  felt  how  well  forgot 
Were  all  the  stars  look  on— and  thy  sweet  eyes  do  not ! 


FAIL  ME  NOT  THOU ! 

"  Oh,  by  that  little  word 
How  many  thoughts  are  stirred  !— 
The  last,  the  last,  the  last !" 

The  star  may  but  a  meteor  be, 

That  breaks  upon  the  stormy  night ; 
And  I  may  err,  believing  thee 

A  spark  of  heaven's  own  changeless  light ! 
But  if  on  earth  beams  aught  so  fair, 

It  seems,  of  all  the  lights  that  shine, 
Serenest  in  its  truth,  'tis  there, 

Burning  in  those  soft  eyes  of  thine. 
Yet  long-watched  stars  from  heaven  have  rushed, 

And  long-loved  friends  have  dropped  away, 
And  mine — my  very  heart  have  crushed  I 

And  I  have  hoped  this  many  a  day, 
It  lived  no  more  for  love  or  pain  ! 
But  thou  hast  stirred  its  depths  again, 

And  to  its  dull,  out-wearied  ear, 
Thy  voice  of  melody  has  crept, 

In  tones  it  can  not  choose  but  hear ; 
And  now  I  feel  it  only  slept, 

And  know  at  ev'n  thy  lightest  smile, 
It  gathered  fire  and  strength  the  while. 
Fail  me  not  thou  I     This  feeling  past, 
My  heart  would  never  rouse  again. 
Thou  art  the  brightest— but  the  last ! 
And  if  this  trust,  this  love  is  vain — 
If  thou,  all  peerless  as  thou  art, 
Be  not  less  fair  than  true  of  heart — 
My  loves  are  o'er  I     The  sun  will  shine 
Upon  no  grave  so  hushed  as  this  dark  breast  of  mine. 


SPIRIT-WHISPERS. 

(Spirit-whisper  in  the  poet's  ear — morning.) 
Wake  !  poet,  wake  .'—the  morn  has  burst 

Through  gates  of  stars  and  dew, 
And,  winged  by  prayer  since  evening  nursed, 
Has  fled  to  kiss  the  steeples  first, 

And  now  stoops  low  to  you  ! 
Oh  poet  of  the  loving  eye 
For  you  is  drest  this  morning  sky ! 

(Second  whisper—  noon.) 
Oh,  poet  of  the  pen  enchanted  ! 

A  lady  sits  beneath  a  tree  ! 
At  last,  the  flood  for  which  she  panted — 
The  wild  words  for  her  anguish  wanted, 

Have  gushed  in  song  from  thee  ! 
Her  dark  curls  sweep  her  knees  to  pray : — 
"  God  bless  the  poet  far  away  !" 

(Third  whisper — MIDNIGHT.) 

King  of  the  heart's  deep  mysteries  ! 

Your  words  have  wings  like  lightning  wove ! 
This  hour,  o'er  hills  and  distant  seas, 
They  fly  like  flower-seeds  on  the  breeze, 

And  sow  the  world  with  love  ! 
King  of  a  realm  without  a  throne, 
Ruled  by  resistless  tears  alone  ! 


POEMS  OF  PASSION. 


847 


TO  M- 


FROM  ABROAD. 


:<  The  desire  of  the  moth  for  the  star- 

Of  the  night  for  the  morrow— 
The  devotion  to  something  afar 
From  the  sphere  of  our  sorrow." 


As,  gazing  on  the  Pleiades, 

We  count  each  fair  and  starry  one, 
Yet  wander  from  the  light  of  these 

To  muse  upon  the  Pleiad  gone — 
As,  bending  o'er  fresh  gathered  flowers, 

The  rose's  most  enchanting  hue 
Reminds  us  but  of  other  hours 

Whose  roses  were  all  lovely  too — 
So,  dearest,  when  I  rove  among 

The  bright  ones  of  this  foreign  sky, 
And  mark  the  smile,  and  list  the  song, 

And  watch  the  dancers  gliding  by, 
The  fairer  still  they  seem  to  be, 
The  more  it  stirs  a  thought  of  thee  ! 

The  sad,  sweet  bells  of  twilight  chime, 

Of  many  hearts  may  touch  but  one, 
And  so  this  seeming  careless  rhyme 

Will  whisper  to  thy  heart  alone. 
I  give  it  to  the  winds  !     The  bird 

Let  loose,  to  his  far  nest  will  flee, 
And  love,  though  breathed  but  on  a  word, 

Will  find  thee,  over  land  and  sea. 
Though  clouds  across  the  sky  have  driven, 

We  trust  the  star  at  last  will  shine, 
And  like  the  very  light  of  heaven 

I  trust  thy  love.     Trust  thou  in  mine  ! 


SUNRISE  THOUGHTS  AT  THE  CLOSE  OF  A  BALL. 

Morn  in  the  East !     How  coldly  fail 

It  breaks  upon  my  fevered  eye ! 
How  chides  the  calm  and  dewy  air ! 

How  chides  the  pure  and  pearly  sky ! 
The  stars  melt  in  a  brighter  fire — 

The  dew,  in  sunshine,  leaves  the  flowers — 
They,  from  their  watch,  in  light  retire, 

While  we,  in  sadness,  pass  from  ours. 

I  turn  from  the  rebuking  morn — 

The  cold  gray  sky,  a  fading  star — 
And  listen  to  the  harp  and  horn, 

And  see  the  waltzers  near  and  far — 
The  lamps  and  flowers  are  bright  as  yet, 

And  lips  beneath  more  bright  than  they — 
How  can  a  scene  so  fair  beget 

The  mournful  thoughts  we  bear  away  ! 

'Tis  something  that  thou  art  not  here 

Sweet  lover  of  my  lightest  word  ! 
'Tis  something  that  my  mother's  tear 

By  these  forgetful  hours  is  stirred ! 
But  I  have  long  a  loiterer  been 

In  haunts  where  joy  is  said  to  be, 
And  though  wifh  Peace  I  enter  in, 

The  nymph  comes  never  forth  with  me. 


TO  A  FACE  BELOVED. 

The  music  of  the  wakened  lyre 

Dies  not  upon  the  quivering  strings, 
Nor  burns  alone  the  minstrel's  fire 

Upon  the  lip  that  trembling  sings ; 
Nor  shines  the  moon  in  heaven  unseen. 

Nor  shuts  the  flower  its  fragrant  cells, 
Nor  sleeps  the  fountain's  wealth,  I  ween, 

For  ever  in  its  sparry  wells — 
The  spells  of  the  enchanter  lie 
Not  on  his  own  lone  heart — his  own  rapt  ear  and  eye. 

I  look  upon  a  face  as  fair 

As  ever  made  a  lip  of  heaven 
Falter  amid  its  music-prayer ! 

The  first-lit  star  of  summer  even 


Springs  not  so  softly  on  the  eye, 

Nor  grows,  with  watching  half  so  bright, 

Nor  mid  its  sisters  of  the  sky, 

So  seems  of  heaven  the  dearest  light — 

Men  murmur  where  that  face  is  seen, 
My  youth's  angelic  dream  was  of  that  look  and  mien. 

Yet  though  we  deem  the  stars  are  blest, 

And  envy,  in  our  grief,  the  flower 
That  bears  but  sweetness  in  its  breast, 

And  fear  th'  enchanter  for  his  power, 
And  love  the  minstrel  for  his  spell, 

He  winds  out  of  his  lyre  so  well — 
The  stars  are  almoners  of  light, 

The  lyrist  of  melodious  air, 
The  fountain  of  its  waters  bright 

And  everything  most  sweet  and  fair 
Of  that  by  which  it  charms  the  ear, 

The  eye  of  him  that  passes  near — 
A  lamp  is  lit  in  woman's  eye 
That  souls,  else  lost  on  earth,  remember  angels  by. 


UNSEEN  SPIRITS. 

The  shadows  lay  along  Broadway, 
'Twas  near  the  twilight-tide — 

And  slowly  there  a  lady  fair 
Was  walking  in  her  pride. 

Alone  walked  she  ;  but,  viewlessly, 
Walked  spirits  at  her  side. 

Peace  charmed  the  street  beneath  her  feet, 

And  honor  charmed  the  air ; 
And  all  astir  looked  kind  on  her, 

And  called  her  good  as  fair — 
For  all  God  ever  gave  to  her 

She  kept  with  chary  care. 

She  kept  with  care  her  beauties  rare 

From  lovers  warm  and  true — 
For  her  heart  was  cold  to  all  but  gold, 

And  the  rich  came  not  to  woo — 
But  honored  well  are  charms  to  sell 

If  priests  the  selling  do. 

Now  walking  there  was  one  more  fair — 

A  slight  girl,  lily-pale  ; 
And  she  had  unseen  company 

To  make  the  spirit  quail — 
'Twixt  Want  and  Scorn  she  walked  forlorn, 

And  nothing  could  avail. 

No  mercy  now  can  clear  her  brow 
For  this  world's  peace  to  pray ; 

For  as  love's  wild  prayer  dissolved  in  ail, 
Her  woman's  heart  gave  way ! 

But  the  sin  forgiven  by  Christ  in  heaven 
By  man  is  curst  alway  ! 


BETTER   MOMENTS. 

My  mother's  voice  !  how  often  creeps 
Its  cadence  on  my  lonely  hours ! 

Like  healing  sent  on  wings  of  sleep, 
Or  dew  to  the  unconscious  flowers. 

I  can  forget  her  melting  prayer 
While  leaping  pulses  madly  fly, 

But  in  the  still,  unbroken  air, 

Her  gentle  tone  comes  stealing  by — 

And  years,  and  sin,  and  manhood  flee, 
And  leave  me  at  my  mother's  knee. 

The  book  of  nature,  and  the  print 

Of  beauty  on  the  whispering  sea 
Give  aye  to  me  some  lineament 

Of  what  I  have  been  taught  to  be. 
My  heart  is  harder,  and  perhaps 

My  manliness  hath  drank  up  tears; 
And  there's  a  mildew  in  the  lapse 

Of  a  few  miserable  years — 
But  nature's  book  is  even  yet 
With  all  my  mother's  lessons  writ. 


848 


POEMS  OF  PASSION. 


I  have  been  out  at  eventide 

Beneath  a  moonlight  sky  of  spring, 
When  earth  was  garnished  like  a  bride, 

And  night  had  on  her  silver  wing — 
When  bursting  leaves,  and  diamond  grass, 

And  waters  leaping  to  the  light, 
And  all  that  make  the  pulses  pass 

With  wilder  fleetness,  thronged  the  night- 
When  all  was  beauty — then  have  I 

With  friends  on  whom  my  love  is  flung 
Like  myrrh  on  wings  of  Araby, 

Gazed  up  where  evening's  lamp  is  hung, 
And  when  the  beautiful  spirit  there 

Flung  over  me  its  golden  chain, 
My  mother's  voice  came  on  the  air 

Like  the  light  dropping  of  the  rain — 
And  resting  on  some  silver  star 

The  spirit  of  a  bended  knee, 
I've  poured  out  low  and  fervent  prayer 

That  our  eternity  might  be 
To  rise  in  heaven,  like  stars  at  night, 
And  tread  a  living  path  of  light. 

I  have  been  on  the  dewy  hills, 

When  night  was  stealing  from  the  dawn, 
And  mist  was  on  the  waking  rills, 

And  teints  were  delicately  drawn 
In  the  gray  East — when  birds  were  waking, 

With  a  low  murmur  in  the  trees, 
And  melody  by  fits  was  breaking 

Upon  the  whisper  of  the  breeze, 
And  this  when  I  was  forth,  perchance 
As  a  worn  reveller  from  the  dance — 

And  when  the  sun  sprang  gloriously 
And  freely  up,  and  hill  and  river 

Were  catching  upon  wave  and  tree 
The  arrows  from  his  subtle  quiver — 

I  say  a  voice  has  thrilled  me  then, 
Heard  on  the  still  and  rushing  light, 

Or,  creeping  from  the  silent  glen, 
Like  words  from  the  departing  night, 

Hath  stricken  me,  and  I  have  pressed 
On  the  wet  grass  my  fevered  brow, 

And  pouring  forth  the  earliest 
First  prayer,  with  which  I  learned  to  bow, 

Have  felt  my  mother's  spirit  rush 
Upon  me  as  in  by-past  years, 

And,  yielding  to  the  blessed  gush 
Of  my  ungovernable  tears, 

Have  risen  up — the  gay,  the  wild — 

As  humble  as  a  very  child. 


THE  ANNOYER. 


Love  knoweth  every  form  of  air, 

And  every  shape  of  earth, 
And  comes,  unbidden,  everywhere, 

Like  thought's  mysterious  birth. 
The  moonlit  sea  and  the  sunset  sky 

Are  written  with  Love's  words, 
And  you  hear  his  voice  unceasingly, 

Like  song  in  the  time  of  birds. 

He  peeps  into  the  warrior's  heart 

From  the  tip  of  a  stooping  plume, 
And  the  serried  spears,  and  the  many  men, 

May  not  deny  him  room. 
He'll  come  to  his  tent  in  the  weary  night, 

And  be  busy  in  his  dream; 
And  he'll  float  to  his  eye  in  morning  light 

Like  a  fay  on  a  silver  beam. 

He  hears  the  sound  of  the  hunter's  gun, 

And  rides  on  the  echo  back, 
And  sighs  in  his  ear,  like  a  stirring  leaf, 

And  flits  in  his  woodland  track. 
The  shade  of  the  wood,  and  the  sheen  of  the  river, 

The  cloud  and  the  open  sky- 
He  will  haunt  them  all  with  his  subtle  quiver, 

Like  the  light  of  your  very  eye. 


The  fisher  hangs  over  the  leaning  boat, 

And  ponders  the  silver  sea, 
For  Love  is  under  the  surface  hid, 

And  a  spell  of  thought  has  he ; 
He  heaves  the  wave  like  a  bosom  sweet, 
And  speaks  in  the  ripple  low, 
Till  the  bait  is  gone  from  the  crafty  line, 

And  the  hook  hangs  bare  below. 

He  blurs  the  print  of  the  scholar's  book, 

And  intrudes  in  the  maiden's  prayer, 
And  profanes  the  cell  of  the  holy  man, 

In  the  shape  of  a  lady  fair. 
In  the  darkest  night,  and  the  bright  daylight, 

In  earth,  and  sea,  and  sky, 
In  every  home  of  human  thought, 

Will  love  be  lurking  nigh. 


ANDRE'S  REQUEST  TO  WASHINGTON 

It  is  not  the  fear  of  death 

That  damps  my  brow, 
It  is  not  for  another  breath 

I  ask  thee  now; 
I  can  die  with  a  lip  unstirred 

And  a  quiet  heart — 
Let  but  this  prayer  be  heard 

Ere  I  depart. 

I  can  give  up  my  mother's  look— 

My  sister's  kiss ; 
I  can  think  of  love — yet  brook 

A  death  like  this  ! 
I  can  give  up  the  young  fame 

I  burned  to  win — 
All — but  the  spotless  name 

I  glory  in. 

Thine  is  the  power  to  give, 

Thine  to  deny, 
Joy  for  the  hour  I  live — 

Calmness  to  die. 
By  all  the  brave  should  cherish, 

By  my  dying  breath, 
I  ask  that  I  may  perish 

By  a  soldier's  death ! 


DAWN. 

1  That  line  I  learned  not  in  the  old  sad  song."— Charles  Lamb. 
Throw  up  the  window !     'Tis  a  morn  for  life 
In  its  most  subtle  luxury.     The  air 
Is  like  a  breathing  from  a  rarer  world ; 
And  the  south  wind  is  like  a  gentle  friend. 
Parting  the  hair  so  softly  on  my  brow. 
It  has  come  over  gardens,  and  the  flowers 
That  kissed  it  are  betrayed ;  for  as  it  parts, 
With  its  invisible  fingers,  my  loose  hair, 
I  know  it  has  been  trifling  with  the  rose, 
And  stooping  to  the  violet.     There  is  joy 
For  all  God's  creatures  in  it.     The  wet  leaves 
Are  stirring  at  its  touch,  and  birds  are  singing 
As  if  to  breathe  were  music,  and  the  grass 
Sends  up  its  modest  odor  with  the  dew, 
Like  the  small  tribute  of  humility. 

I  had  awoke  from  an  unpleasant  dream, 
And  light  was  welcome  to  me.     I  looked  out 
To  feel  the  common  air,  and  when  the  breath 
Of  the  delicious  morning  met  my  brow 
Cooling  its  fever,  and  the  pleasant  sun 
Shone  on  familiar  objects,  it  was  like 
The  feeling  of  the  captive  who  comes  forth 
From  darkness  to  the  cheerful  light  of  day. 
Oh  !  could  we  wake  from  sorrow ;  were  it  all 
A  troubled  dream  like  this,  to  cast  aside 
Like  an  untimely  garment  with  the  morn  ; 
Could  the  long  fever  of  the  heart  be  cooled 
By  a  sweet  breath  from  nature ;  or  the  gloom 
Of  a  bereaved  affection  pass  away 
With  looking  on  the  lively  teint  of  flowers — 
How  lightly  were  the  spirit  reconciled 
To  make  this  beautiful,  bright  world  its  home » 


THE  LADY  JANE,  AND  OTHER  POEMS. 


THE  LADY  JANE, 

A  NOVEL  IN  RHYME. 


There  was  a  lady  fair,  and  forty  too. 

There  was  a  youth  of  scarcely  two  and  twenty. 
The  story  of  their  loves  is  strange,  yet  true. 

I'll  tell  it  you  !     Romances  are  so  plenty 
In  prose,  that  you'll  be  glad  of  something  new. 

And  so  (in  rhyme)  for  "  what  the  devil  meant  he  ! 
You  think  he  was  too  young  ! — but  tell  me  whether 
The  moth  and  humming-bird  grow  old  together  ! 

II. 

Nature,  that  made  the  ivy-leaf  and  lily, 

Not  of  one  warp  and  woof  hath  made  us  all  ! 

Bent  goes  the  careful,  and  erect  the  silly, 

And  wear  and  tear  make  difference — not  small ; 

And  he  that  hath  no  money — will-he,  nill-he — 
Is  thrust  like  an  old  man  against  the  wall ! 

Grief  out  of  some  the  very  life-blood  washes ; 

Some  shed  it  like  ducks'  backs  and  "  Mackintoshes.' 

III. 

The  Lady  Jane  was  daughter  of  an  Earl — 

Shut  from  approach  like  sea-nymph  in  her  shell 

Never  a  rude  breath  stirr'd  the  floating  curl 
Upon  her  marble  temple,  and  naught  fell 

Upon  the  ear  of  the  patrician  girl 

But  pride-check'd  syllables,  all  measured  well 

Her  suitors  were  her  father's  and  not  hers — 

So  were  her  debts  at  "  Storr-and-Mortimer's." 

IV. 

Her  health  was  lady-like.     No  blood,  in  riot, 
Tangled  the  tracery  of  her  veined  cheek, 

Nor  seem'd  her  exquisite  repose  the  quiet 
Of  one  by  suffering  made  sweet  and  meek. 

She  ate  and  drank,  and  probably  lived  by  it, 
And  liked  her  cup  of  tea  by  no  means  weak  ! 

Untroubled  by  debt,  lovers,  or  affliction, 

Her  pulse  beat  with  extremely  little  friction. 


Yet  was  there  fire  within  her  soft  gray  eye, 
And  room  for  pressure  on  her  lip  of  rose ; 

And  few  who  saw  her  gracefully  move  by, 
Imagined  that  her  feelings  slept,  or  froze. 

You  may  have  seen  the  cunning  florist  tie 
A  thread  about  a  bud,  which  never  blows, 

But,  with  shut  chalice  from  the  sun  and  rain, 

Hoards  up  the  morn — and  such  the  Lady  Jane. 

VI. 

The  old  Lord  had  had  offers  for  her  hand, 
The  which  he  answer'd — by  his  secretary. 

And,  doubtless,  some  were  for  the  lady's  land, 
The  men  being  old  and  valetudinary; 

But  there  were  others  who  were  all  unmann'd, 
And  fell  into  a  life  of  wild  vagary, 

In  their  despair.     To  tell  his  daughter  of  it, 

The  cold  Earl  thought,  would  be  but  little  profit. 
54 


VII. 

And  so  she  bloom'd — all  fenced  around  with  care ; 

And  none  could  find  a  way  to  win  or  woo  her. 
When  visible  at  home — the  Earl  was  there ! 

Abroad — her  chaperon  stuck  closely  to  her ! 
She  was  a  sort  of  nun  in  open  air, 

Known  to  but  few,  and  intimate  with  fewer  : 
And,  always  used  to  conversation  guarded, 
She  thought  all  men  talk'd  just  as  her  papa  did 

VIII. 

Pause  while  you  read,  oh,  Broadway  demoiselle  ! 

And  bless  your  stars  that  long  before  you  marry, 
You  are  a  judge  of  passion  pleaded  well ! 

For  you  have  listen'd  to  Tom,  Dick,  and  Harry, 
And,  if  kind  Heaven  endow'd  you  for  a  belle, 

At  least  your  destiny  did  not  miscarry  ! 
"You've    had  your   fling" — and    now,   all   wise   and 

steady, 
For  matrimony's  cares  you're  cool  and  ready  ! 

IX. 

And  yet  the  bloom  upon  the  fruit  is  fair ! 

And  "  ignorance  is  bliss"  in  teaching  love  ! 
And  guarding  lips,  when  others  have  been  there, 

Is  apt  uneasy  reveries  to  move  ! 
I  really  think  mammas  should  have  a  care ! 

And  though  of  nunneries  I  disapprove, 
'Tis  easier  to  make  blushes  hear  to  reason 
Than  to  unteach  a  "  Saratoga  Season." 


In  France,  where,  it  is  said,  they  wiser  are, 
Miss  may  not  walk  out,  even  with  her  cousin ; 

And  when  she  is  abroad  from  bolt  and  bar, 

A  well-bred  man  should  be  to  her  quite  frozen ; 

And  so  at  last,  like  a  high-priced  attar 
Hermetically  seal'd  in  silk  and  resin, 

She  is  deliver'd  safe  to  him  who  loves  her ; 

And  then — with  whom  she  will  she's  hand  and  glove, 


XI. 

I  know  this  does  not  work  well,  and  that  ours 

Are  the  best  wives  on  earth.    They  love  their  spouses, 

Who  prize  them — as  you  do  centennial  flowers, 

For  having  bloom'd,  though  not  in  your  green-houses. 

'Tis  a  bold  wooer  that  dare  talk  of  dowers. 
And  where  /  live,  the  milking  of  the  cows  is 

Too  rude  a  task  for  females!     Well.     'Twould  hurt 
you, 

Where  women  are  so  prized,  to  sneer  at  virtue. 

XII. 

"  Free-born  Americans,"  they  must  have  freedom  ! 

They'll  stay — if  they  have  leave  to  run  away. 
They're  ministering  angels  when  you  need  'em, 

But  'specially  want  credit  in  Broadway. 
French  wives  are  more  particular  how  you  feed  'em. 

The  English  drag  you  oftener  to  the  play. 
But  ours  we  quite  enslave — (more  true  than  funny) — 
With  "  heav'n-born  liberty,"  and  trutt— or  money  ! 


850 


THE  LADY  JANE. 


XIII. 

Upon  her  thirtieth  birth-day,  Lady  Jane 

Thought  sadly  on  the  twenties  !     Ev'n  the  'teens, 

That  she  had  said  farewell  to,  without  pain — 

Leaves  falling  from  a  flower  that  nothing  means — 

Seern'd  worth  re-gathering  to  live  again  ; 

But  not  like  Ruth,  fares  Memory,  who  gleans 

After  the  careful  Harvester  of  years  : — 

The  Lady  Jane  thought  on't  with  bitter  tears  ! 

XIV. 

She  glided  to  her  mirror.     From  the  air 
Glided  to  meet  her,  with  its  tearful  eyes, 

A  semblance  sad,  but  beautifully  fair  ; 

And  gradually  there  stole  a  sweet  surprise 

Under  her  lids,  and  as  she  laid  the  hair 

Back  from  her  snowy  brow,  Madonna-wise, 

"  Time,  after  all,"  she  said,  "  a  harmless  flirt  is  !" 

And  from  that  hour  took  kindly  to  her  thirties. 

XV. 

And,  with  his  honors  not  at  all  unsteady, 

The  Decimal  elect  stept  coolly  in  ; 
And  having  all  his  nights  and  mornings  ready, 

He'd  very  little  trouble  to  begin. 
And  Twenty  was  quite  popular, —  they  said  he 

Went  out  of  office  with  so  little  din  ! 
The  old  Earl  did  not  celebrate  (nor  ought  he) 
Her  birth-days  more.     And  like  a  dream  came  Forty. 

XVI. 

And  on  the  morn  of  it  she  stood  to  dress, 

Mock'd  by  that  flattering  semblance,  as  before, 

And  lifted  with  a  smile  the  raven  tress, 

That  darkening  her  white  shoulder,  swept  the  floor. 

Time  had  not  touch'd  her  dazzling  loveliness  ! 
"  Yet  is  it  time,"  she  said,  "  that  I  give  o'er — 

I'm  an  old  maid  .' — and  tho'  I  suffer  by  it,  I 

Must  change  my  style  and  leave  off  gay  society." 

XVII. 

And  so  she  did.     Her  maid  by  her  desire 
Comb'd  her  luxuriant  locks  behind  her  ears ; 

She  had  her  dresses  alter'd  to  come  higher, 
Tho'  it  dissolved  the  dress-maker  in  tears  ! 

And  flung  a  new  French  hat  into  the  fire, 

Which  she  had  bought,  "  forgetful  of  her  years." 

This  t'  anticipate  "  the  world's  dread  laugh  !" 

Most  persons  think  too  much  of  it,  by  half. 

XVIII. 

I  do  not  mean  to  say  that  generally 

The  "  virtuous  single"  take  too  soon  to  tea  ; 

But  now  and  then  you  find  one  who  could  rally 
At  forty,  and  go  back  to  twenty-three — 

A  handsome,  plump,  affectionate  "  Aunt  Sally," 
With  no  taste  for  cats,  flannel,  and  Bohea  ! 

And  I  would  have  her,  spite  of  "  he  or  she  says," 

Up  heart,  and  pin  her  kerchief  as  she  pleases. 

XIX. 

Some  men,  'tis  said,  prefer  a  woman  fat — 
Lord  Byron  did.     Some  like  her  very  spare. 

Some  like  a  lameness.     (I  have  known  one  that 
Would  go  quite  far  enough  for  your  despair, 

And  halt  in  time.)     Some  like  them  delicate 
As  lilies,  and  with  some  "  the  only  wear" 

Is  one  whose  sex  has  spoiled  a  midshipman. 

Some  only  like  what  pleased  another  man. 

XX. 

/  like  one  that  Wees  me.     But  there's  a  kind 

Of  women,  very  dangerous  to  poets, 
Whose  hearts  beat  with  a  truth  that  seems  like  mind- 

A  nature  that,  tho'  passionate,  will  show  its 
Devotion  by  not  being  rash  or  blind ; 
^  But  by  sweet  study  grows  to  love.     And  so  it's 
Not  odd  if  they  are  counted  cold,  tho'  handsome, 
And  never  meet  a  man  who  understands  'em. 


XXI. 

By  never  I  mean  late  in  life.     But  ah  ! 

How  exquisite  their  love  and  friendship  then  ! 
Perennial  of  soul  such  women  are, 

And  readers  of  the  hearts  of  gifted  men ; 
And  as  the  deep  well  mourns  the  hidden  star, 

And  mirrors  the  first  ray  that  beams  again, 
They — be  the  lov'd  light  lost  or  dimly  burning, 
Feel  all  its  clouds,  and  trust  its  bright  returning. 

XXII. 

In  outward  seeming  tranquil  and  subdued, 
Their  hearts  beneath  beat  youthfully  and  fast. 

Time  and  imprison'd  love  make  not  a  prude ; 
And  warm  the  gift  we  know  to  be  the  last ; 

And  pure  is  the  devotion  that  must  brood 
Upon  your  hopes  alone — for  hers  are  past ! 

Trust  me,  "  a  rising  man"  rose  seldom  higher, 

But  some  dear,  sweet  old  maid  has  pull'd  the  wire. 

XXIII. 

The  Lady  Jane,  (pray  do  not  think  that  hers 
Was  quite  the  character  I've  drawn  above. 

Old  maids,  like  young,  have  various  calibres, 
And  hers  was  moderate,  tho'  she  was  "  a  love,") 

The  Lady  Jane  call'd  on  the  Dowagers — 
Mainly  her  slight  acquaintance  to  improve, 

But  partly  with  a  docile  wish  to  know 

What  solaces  of  age  were  comme  il  faut. 

XXIV. 

They  stared  at  her  plain  hat  and  air  demure, 
But  answered  her  with  some  particularity; 

And  she  was  edified  you  may  be  sure, 
And  added  vastly  to  her  popularity. 

She  found  a  dozen  mad  on  furniture, 

Five  on  embroidery,  and  none  on  charity  ; 

But  her  last  call — the  others  were  but  short  ones — 

Turn'd  out  to  Lady  Jane  of  some  importance. 

XXV. 

The  door  was  open'd  by  a  Spanish  page — 
A  handsome  lad  in  green  with  bullet  buttons, 

Who  look'd  out  like  a  trulian  from  a  cage, 

And  deign'd  to  glance  at  the  tall  menial  but  once, 

Then  bent,  with  earnestness  beyond  his  age, 

His  eyes  (you  would  have  liked  to  see  them  shut  once, 

The  fringes  were  so  long — )  on  Lady  Jane. 

The  varlet  clearly  thought  her  not  so  plain. 

XXVI. 

And  bounding  up  the  flower-laden  stair, 

He  waited  her  ascent,  then  open  flung 
A  mirror,  clear  as  'twere  a  door  of  air, 

Which  on  its  silver  hinge  with  music  swung — 
Contrived,  that  never  foot  should  enter  there 

Unheralded  by  that  melodious  tongue. 
This  delicate  alarum  is  worth  while 
More  'specially  with  carpets  of  three-pile. 

XXVII. 

Beyond  a  gallery  extended,  cool, 

And  softly  lighted,  and,  from  dome  to  floor, 

Hung  pictures — mostly  the  Venetian  school ; 
Each  "  worth  a  Jew's  eye" — very  likely  more ; 

And  drapery,  gold-broider'd  in  Stamboul, 
Closed  the  extremity  in  lieu  of  door. 

This  the  page  lifted,  and  disclosed  to  view 

The  boudoir  of  the  Countess  Pasibleu. 

XXVIII. 

It  was  a  small  pavilion  lined  with  pink, — 

Mirrors  and  silk  all,  save  the  door  and  sky-light, 

The  latter  of  stain'd  glass.     (You  would  not  think 
How  juvenescent  is  a  rosy  high  light !) 

Upon  the  table  were  seen  pen  and  ink, 

(Two  things  I  cannot  say  have  stood  in  my  light) 

Amid  a  host  of  trinkets,  toys,  and  fans; 

The  table  in  the  style  of  Louis  Quinze. 


THE  LADY  JANE. 


851 


XXIX. 

A  singular  and  fragile  little  creature 

Upon  the  cushions  indolently  lay, 
With  waning  life  in  each  transparent  feature, 

But  youth  in  her  bright  lips'  etherial  play  ; 
In  short,  the  kind  of  creature  that  would  meet  your 

Conception  of  a  transmigrating  fay — 
The  dark  eyes,  not  at  all  worn  out  or  weary, 
Kindling  for  transfer  to  some  bain'  Peri  1 

XXX. 

The  rest  used  up,  past  mending.     Yet  her  tones 

Were  wildly,  deeply,  exquisitely  clear ; 
Tho'  voice  is  not  a  thing  of  flesh  and  bones, 

And  probably  goes  up  when  they  stay  here. 
(I  do  not  know  how  much  of  Smith  and  Jones 

Will  bear  translating  to  "  the  better  sphere," 
But  ladies,  certainly,  when  they  shall  climb  to't, 
Will  get  their  dimples  back — tho'  not  the  rhyme  to't.) 

XXXI. 

Her  person  was  drcss'd  very  like  her  soul — 

In  fine  material  most  loosely  worn. 
A  cobweb  cashmere  struggled  to  control 

Ringlets  that  laugh'd  the  filmy  folds  to  scorn, 
And,  from  the  shawls  in  which  she  nestled,  stole 

The  smallest  slipper  ever  soil'd  or  torn. 
You  would  not  guess  her  age  by  looking  at  her, 
Nor,  from  my  sketch,  of  course.  We'll  leave  that  matter. 

XXXII. 

"  My  dear !"  the  Countess  said,  (bj^  this  time  she 
Had  ceased  the  Weather,  poor  old  man,  to  hammer — 

He  gets  it,  in  these  morning  calls,  pardie  .' 
And  Lady  Jane  hud  hinted  with  a  stammer 

Her  errand — somewhat  delicate,  you  see,) 
"  My  dear,  how  very  odd  !     I  fear  I  am  a 

"  Poor  judge  of  age — (who  made  that  funny  bonnet  ?) 

"  Indeed,  I  always  turn'd  my  back  upon  it ! 

XXXIII. 

"  Time  has  no  business  in  one's  house,  my  dear  ! 

"  I'm  not  at  home  to  any  of  my  creditors. 
"  They  send  their  nasty  bills  in,  once  a  year, 

"  And  Time's  are  like  Mortality's — mere  '  dead  letters. 
"  Besides,  what  comfort  is  there  living  here, 

"  If  every  stupid  hour's  to  throw  Death's  head  at  us  ? 
"  (Lend  me  a  pin,  dear!)     Time  at  last  will  stop  us, 
"  But,  come  to  that — we're  free  by  habeas  corpus. 

XXXIV 

("  Fie,  what  a  naughty  shawl !     No  expose, 

"  I  trust,  love,  eh  >.     Hold  there,  thou  virtuous  pin !) 

"  And  so  you  really  have  come  out  to-day 
"  To  look  you  up  some  suitable  new  sin  !" 

"  Oh,  Countess  !"     "  Did  you  never  write  a  play  ? 
"  Nor  novel  ?     Well,  you  really  should  begin  ! 

"  For,  (hark,  my  dear  !)  the  publishers  are  biters, 

"  Not  at  the  book's  fine  title — but  the  writer's. 

XXXV. 

"  You're  half  an  authoress  ;  for,  as  my  maid  says, 
"  '  Begun's  half  done,'  and  you've  your  title  writ. 

"  I  quote  from  Colburn,  and  as  what  '  the  trade'  says 
"  Is  paid  for,  it  is  well  consider'd  wit. 

"  Genius,  undoubtedly,  of  many  grades  is, 
"  But  as  to  us,  we  do  not  need  a  bit. 

"  '  Three  volumes,'  says  the  bargain,  '  not  too  thin.' 

"  You  don't  suppose  I'd  throw  him  genius  in  !" 

XXXVI. 

"  But  fame,  dear  Countess  !''     At  the  word  there  fiush'd 

A  color  to  her  cheek  like  fever's  glow, 
And  in  her  hand  unconsciously  she  crush'd 

The  fringes  of  her  shawl,  and  bending  low 
To  hide  the  tears  that  suddenly  had  gush'd 

Into  her  large,  dark  eyes,  she  murmur'd  "  No ! 
"  Th'  inglorious  agony  of  conquering  pain 
"  Has  drunk  that  dream  up.     I  have  lived  in  vain ! 


XXXVII. 

"  Yet  have  I  set  my  soul  upon  the  string, 

''  Tense  with  the  energy  of  high  desire, 
"  And  trembled,  with  the  arrow's  quivering  spring, 

"  To  launch  upon  ambition's  flight  of  fire! 
"  And  never  lark  so  hush'd  his  heart  to  sing, 

"  Or,  as  he  sang,  nerved  wing  to  bear  it  higher, 
"  As  I  have  striven  my  wild  heart  to  tame 
"  And  melt  its  love,  pride,  passion — into  fame ! 

XXXVIII. 

"  Oh,  poor  the  flattery  to  call  it  mine 

"  For  trifles  which  beguiled  an  hour  of  pain, 

"  Or,  on  the  echoing  heels  of  mirth  and  wine, 
"  Crept  thro'  the  chambers  of  a  throbbing  brain. 

"  Worthily,  have  I  never  written  line  ! 

"And  when  they  talk  to  me  of  fame  I  gain, 

"  In  very  bitterness  of  soul  I  mock  it, — 

"  And  put  the  nett  proceeds  into  my  pocket ! 

XXXIX. 

"  And  so,  my  dear, — let  not  the  market  vary, — 
"  I  bid  the  critics,  pro  and  con,  defiance ; 

"  And  then  I'm  fond  of  being  literary, 

"  And  have  a  tenderness  for  '  sucking  lions.' 

"  My  friend  the  Dutchess  has  a  fancy  dairy  : — 
"  Cheeses  or  poets,  curds  or  men  of  science — 

"  It  comes  to  the  same  thing.     But,  truce  to  mocking — 

"  Suppose  you  try  my  color  in  a  stocking  !" 

XL. 

I  need  not  state  the  ratiocination 

By  which  the  Lady  Jane  had  so  decided — 

Not  quite  upon  the  regular  vocation — 

Of  course  you  knew  she  was  too  rich,  (or  /  did,) 

To  care  with  Costard  for  "  remuneration  ;" 
But  feeling  that  her  life  like  Lethe  glided, 

She  thought  'twould  be  advisable  to  bag  her  a 

Few  brace  of  rapids  from  her  friend's  Niagara. 

XLI. 

"  Well,  Countess  !  what  shall  be  my  premier  pas  ? 

"  Must  I  propitiate  the  penny-a-liners  ? 
"  Or  would  a  '  sucking  lion'  stoop  so  far 

"  As  to  be  fed  and  petted  by  a  dry  nurse  ? 
"  I  cannot  shine — but  I  can  see  a  star — 

"  Are  there  not  worshippers  as  well  as  shiners  ? 
"  I  will  be  ruled  implicitly  by  you  :— 
"  My  stocking's  innocent — how  dye  it  blue  ? 

XLII. 

The  Countess  number'd  on  her  fingers,  musing : — 
"  I've  several  that  I  might  make  you  over, 

"  And  not  be  inconsolable  at  losing ; 

"  But,  really,  as  you've  neither  spouse  nor  lover, 

"  'Most  any  of  my  pets  would  be  amusing, 
"  Particularly  if  you're  not  above  a 

"  Discreet  flirtation.     Are  you  ?     How's  the  Earl  ? 

"  Does  he  still  treat  you  like  a  little  girl  ? 

XLIII. 

"  How  do  you  see  your  visitors  ?     Alone  ? 

"  Does  the  Earl  sleep  at  table  after  dinner  ? 
"  Have  you  had  many  lovers  ?     Dear  me  !     None  ? 

"  Was  not  your  father  something  of  a  sinner  ? 
"  Who  is  the  nicest  man  you've  ever  known  ! 

"  Pray  does  the  butler  bring  your  letters  in,  or 
"  First  take  them  to  the  Earl  ?  Is  he  not  rather 
"  A  surly  dog  ?— the  butler,  not  your  father." 

XLIV. 

To  these  inquiries  the  Lady  Jane 

Replied  with  nods,  or  something  as  laconic, 

For  on  the  Countess  rattled,  might  and  main, 
With  a  rapidity  Napoleonic  ; 

Then  mused  and  said,  "  'Twill  never  do,  it's  plain— 
"  The  poet  must  be  warranted  Platonic  ! 

«  But,  query — how  to  find  you  such  an  oddity  ? 

"  My  dear,  they  all  make  love  ! — it's  their  commodity 


852 


THE  LADY  JANE. 


XLV. 

"  The  poet's  on  the  look-out  for  a  scene — 

"  The  painter  for  a  '  novel  situation ;' 
"  And  either  does  much  business  between 

"  The  little  pauses  of  a  declaration — 
"  Noting  the  way  in  which  you  sob,  or  lean, 

"  Or  use  your  handkerchief  in  agitation. 
"  I've  known  one — making  love  like  Roderick  Random — 
"  Get  off  his  knees  and  make  a  memorandum  ! 

XLVI. 

"  You  see  they're  always  ready  for  their  trade, 
"  And  have  a  speech  as  pat  as  a  town-crier; 

"  And  so,  my  dear,  I'm  naturally  afraid 
"  To  trust  you  with  these  gentlemen-on-fire. 

"  I  knew  a  most  respectable  old  maid 

"  A  dramatist  made  love  to — just  to  try  her! 

"  She  hung  herself,  of  course — but  in  that  way 

"  He  got  some  pretty  touches  for  his  play. 

XLVII. 

"  How  shall  we  manage  it  ?     I  say  with  tears, 

"  I've  only  two  that  are  not  rogues  at  bottom  ; 
'  And  one  of  these  would  soon  be  '  over  ears' 
"  In  love  with  you, — but  that  he  hasn't  got  'em  ! 

"  They  were  cut  off  by  the  New  Zealanders — 
"  (As  he  invariably  adds)  '  'od-rot-'em  !' 

"  (Meaning  the  savages.)     He's  quite  a  poet, 

"  (He  wears  his  hair  so  that  you  wouldn't  know  it,) 

XLVIII. 

"  In  his  ideas,  I  mean.     (I  really  am  at  a 

"  Stand-still  about  you.)     Well — this  man,  one  day, 

"  Took  in  his  head  to  own  the  earth's  diameter, 
"  From  zenith  thro'  to  nadir .'     (They  do  say 

"  He  kill'd  his  wife — or  threw  a  ham  at  her — 
"  Or  something — so  he  had  to  go  away — 

"  That's  neither  here  nor  there.)    His  name  is  Wieland, 

"  And  under  him  exactly  lies  New  Zealand. 

XLIX. 

"  I  am  not  certain  if  his  '  seat'  's,  or  no, 

"  In  the  Low  Countries.     But  the  sky  above  it 

"  Of  course  is  his  ;  and  for  some  way  below 
"  He  has  a  right  to  dig  and  to  improve  it ; 

"  But  under  him,  a  million  miles  or  so, 

"  Lies  land  that's  not  his, — and  the  law  can't  move  it. 

"  It  cut  poor  Wieland's  nadir  off,  no  doubt— 

"  And  so  he  sailed  to  buy  the  owner  out. 


"  I  never  quite  made  out  the  calculation — 
"  But  plump  against  his  cellar  floor,  bin  2, 

"  He  found  a  tribe  had  built  their  habitation, 
"  Whose  food  was  foreigners  and  kangaroo. 

"  They  would  sell  out — but,  to  his  consternation, 
"  They  charged  him — all  the  fattest  of  his  crew  ! 

"  At  last  they  caught  and  roasted  every  one — 

"  But  he  escaped  by  being  under-done  !" 

LI. 

That  such  a  lion  was  well  worth  his  feed, 
Confess'd  with  merry  tears  the  Lady  Jane  ; 

But,  that  he  answer'd  to  her  present  need, 
(A  literary  pet,)  was  not  so  plain. 

She  thought  she'd  give  the  matter  up,  indeed, 
Or  turn  it  over  and  so  call  again. 

However,  as  her  friend  had  mention'd  two, 

Perhaps  the  other  might  be  made  to  do. 

LII. 

"  I'm  looking,"  said  the  Countess,  "  for  a  letter 
"  From  my  old  playmate,  Isabella  Gray. 

"  'Tis  Heaven  knows  how  long  since  I  have  met  her ; 
"  She  ran  away  and  married  one  fine  day — 

"  Poor  girl !     She  might  have  done  a  great  deal  better  ! 
"  The  boy  that  she  has  sent  to  me,  they  say, 

"  Is  handsome,  and  has  talents  very  striking. 

"  So  young,  too — you  can  spoil  him  to  your  liking. 


LIII. 

"  Her  letter  will  amuse  you.     You  must  know 

"  That,  from  her  marriage-day,  her  lord  has  shut  her 

"  Securely  up  in  an  old  French  chateau  ; 

"  Where,  with  her  children  and  no  woman  but  her, 

"He  plays  the  old-school  gentleman  ;  and  so 

"  Her  worldly  knowledge  stopp'd  at  bread  and  butter. 

"  She  thinks  I  may  be  changed  by  time — for,  may  be, 

"  I've  lost  a  tooth  or  got  another  baby. 

LIV. 

"  Heigho  ! — 'tis  evident  we're  made  of  clay, 
"  And  harden  unless  kept  in  tears  and  shade; 

"  This  fashionable  sunshine  dries  away 
"  Much  that  we  err  in  losing,  I'm  afraid' 

"  I  wonder  what  my  guardian  angels  say 
"  About  the  sort  of  woman  I  have  made  ! 

"  I  wish  I  could  begin  my  life  again  ! 

"  What  think  you  of  Pythagoras,  Lady  Jane  ?" 

LV. 

The  Countess,  all  this  while,  was  running  over 
The  pages  of  a  letter,  closely  cross'd  : — 

"  I  wish,"  she  said,  my  most  devoted  lover 

"  Took  half  the  trouble  that  this  scrawl  has  cost! 

"  Though  some  of  it  is  quite  a  flight  above  a 

"  Sane  woman's  comprehension.  Tut!  Where  was't! 

"  There  is  a  passage  here — the  name's  Beaulevres — 

"  His  chateau's  in  the  neighborhood  of  Sevres 

LVT. 

"  The  boy's  called  Jules.     Ah,  here  it  is  !     My  child 
Brings  you  this  letter.     I've  not  much  to  say 

More  than  you  know  of  him,  if  he  has  smiled 
When  you  have  seen  him.     In  his  features  play 

The  light  from  which  his  soul  has  been  beguiled — 
The  blessed  Heaven  I  lose  with  him  to-day. 

I  ask  you  not  to  love  him — he  is  there  ! 

And  you  have  loved  him — without  ivish  or  praye*  ' 

LVII. 

His  father  sends  him  forth  for  fame  and  gold — 
An  angel,  on  this  errand  .'     I  have  striven 

Against  it — but  he  is  not  mine  to  hold, 

They  say  'tis  wrong  to  wish  to  stay  him,  even, 

And  that  my  pride  's  poor — my  ambition  cold  .' 
Alas .'  to  get  him  only  back  to  Heaven 

Is  my  one  passionate  prayer  !      Think  me  not  wild— 

'Tis  that  I  have  an  angel  for  my  child .' 

LVIII. 

They  say  that  he  has  genius.     I  but  see 
That  he  gets  wisdom  as  the  fiow'r  gets  hue, 

While  others  hive  it  like  the  toiling  bee  ; 

That,  with  him,  all  things  beautiful  keep  new, 

And  every  morn  the  first  mum  seems  to  be — 
So  freshly  look  abroad  his  eyes  of  blue  .' 

What  he  has  written  seems  to  me  no  more 

Than  I  have  thought  a  thousand  times  before  ! 

LIX. 

Yet  not  upon  his  gay  career  to  Fame 

Broods  my  foreboding  tear.     I  wish  it  won — 

My  prayer  speeds  on  his  spirit  to  its  aim — 
But  in  his  chamber  wait  I  for  my  son  ! — 

When  darken'd  is  ambition's  star  of  fame — 
When  the  night's  fever  of  unrest  is  on — 

With  the  unbidden  sadness,  the  sharp  care, 

I  fly  from  his  bright  hours,  to  meet  him  there  ! 

LX. 

Forgive  me  if  I  prate  .'     Is't  much — is't  wild — 
To  hope — to  pray — that  you  will  sometimes  creep 

To  the  dream-haunted  pillow  of  my  child, 
Keeping  sweet  watch  above  his  fitful  sleep? 

Blest  lik"  his  mother,  if  in  dream  he  smiled, 
Or,  if  he  wept,  still  blest  with  him  to  weep; 

Rewarded — Oh,  for  how  much  more  than  this  '. — 

By  his  awaking  smile — his  morning  kiss  ! 


THE  LADY  JANE. 


853 


LXI. 

J  know  not  how  to  stop  !     He  leaves  me  well; 

Life,  spirit,  health,  in  all  his  features  speak; 
His  foot  bounds  with  the  spring  of  a  gazelle  ;    [streak 

But  watch  him — stay  !  well  thought  on  '. — there's  a 
Which  the  first  faltering  of  his  tongue  will  tell, 

Long  ere  the  bright  blood  wavers  on  his  cheek — 
A  little  bursted  vein,  that,  near  his  heart, 
Looks  like  a  crimson  thread  half  torn  apart. 

LXII. 

So,  trusting  not  his  cheek  by  morning  light, 
When  hope  sits  mantling  on  it,  seek  his  bed 

In  the  more  tranquil  watches  of  the  night, 
And  ask  this  tell-tale  how  his  heart  has  sped. 

If  well — its  branching  tracery  shows  bright; 
But  if  its  sanguine  hue  look  cold  and  dead, 

Ah,  Gertrude  .'  let  your  ministering  be 

As  you  would  answer  it,  in  Heaven,  to  me  .'" 

LXIII. 

Enter  the  page: — "  Miladi's  maid  is  waiting  !" — 
A  hint,  (that  it  was  tfme  to  dress  for  dinner,) 

Which  puts  a  stop  in  London  to  all  prating. 
As  far  as  goes  the  letter,  you're  a  winner, 

The  rest  of  it  to  flannel  shirts  relating — 

When  Jules  should  wear  his  thicker,  when  his  thinner. 

The  Countess  laughed  at  Lady  Jane's  adieu : 

She  thought  the  letter  touching.     Pray,  don't  you  ? 

LXIV. 

I  have  observed  that  Heav'n,  in  answering  prayer, 
(This  is  not  meant  to  be  a  pious  stanza — 

Only  a  fact  that  has  a  pious  air.) 

(We're  very  sure,  I  think,  to  have  an  answer  :) 

But  I've  observed,  I  would  remark,  that  where 
Our  plans  are  ill-contrived,  as  oft  our  plans  are, 

Kind  Providence  goes  quite  another  way 

To  bring  about  the  end  for  which  we  pray. 

LXV. 

In  this  connection  I  would  also  add, 

That  a  discreet  young  angel,  (bona  fide,) 

Accompanied  our  amiable  lad  ; 

And  that  he  walk'd  not  out,  nor  stepp'd  aside  he, 

Nor  met  with  an  adventure,  good  or  bad, 
(Although  he  enter'd  London  on  a  Friday,) 

Nor  ate,  nor  drank,  nor  closed  his  eye  a  minute, 

Without  this  angel's  guiding  finger  in  it. 

LXVI. 

His  mother,  as  her  letter  seems  to  show, 
Expected  him,  without  delay  or  bother, — 

Portmanteau,  carpet-bag,  and  all — to  go  [other  !) 

Straight  to  her  old  friend's  house — (forsooth!  what 

The  angel,  who  would  seem  the  world  to  know, 
Advised  the  boy  to  drive  to  Mivart's  rather. 

He  did.     The  angel,  (as  I  trust  is  plain,) 

Lodged  in  the  vacant  heart  of  Lady  Jane. 

LXVII. 

A  month  in  town  these  gentlemen  had  been 
At  date  of  the  commencement  of  my  story. 

The  angel's  occupations  you  have  seen, 

If  you  have  read  what  I  have  laid  before  ye. 

Jules  had  seen  Dan  O'Connell  and  the  Queen, 
And  girded  up  his  loins  for  fame  and  glory, 

And  changed  his  old  integuments  for  better ; 

And  then  he  call'd  and  left  his  mother's  letter. 

LXVIII. 

That  female  hearts  grow  never  old,  in  towns — 
That  taste  grows  rather  young  with  dissipation — 

That  dowagers  dress  not  in  high-neck'd  gowns — 
Nor  are,  at  fifty,  proof  against  flirtation — 

That  hospitality  is  left  to  clowns, 

Or  elbow'd  from  the  world  by  ostentation — 

That  a  "  tried  friend"  should  not  be  tried  again — 

That  boys  at  seventeen  are  partly  men — 


LXIX. 

Arc  truths,  as  pat  as  paving-stones,  in  cities. 

The  contrary  is  true  of  country  air ; 
(Where  the  mind  rusts,  which  is  a  thousand  pities, 

While  still  the  cheek  keeps  fresh  and  debonnair.) 
But  what  I'm  trying  in  this  verse  to  hit  is, 

That  Heav'n,  in  answering  Jules's  mother's  prayer, 
Began  by  thwarting  all  her  plans  and  suavities  ; 
As  needs  must — vide  the  just-named  depravities. 

LXX. 

Some  stanzas  back,  we  left  the  ladies  going, 
At  six,  to  dress  for  dinner.     Time  to  dine 

I  always  give  in  poetry,  well  knowing 
That,'  to  jump  over  it  in  half  a  line, 

Looks,  (let  us  be  sincere,  dear  muse  !)  like  showing 
Contempt  we  do  not  feel,  for  meat  and  wine. 

Dinner!     Ye  Gods  !     What  is  there  more  respectable  ! 

For  eating,  who,  save  Byron,  ever  check'd  a  belle  ? 

LXXI. 

'Tis  ten — say  half-past.     Lady  Jane  has  dined, 

And  dress'd  as  simply  as  a  lady  may. 
A  card  lies  on  her  table  '  To  Remind' — 

'Tis  odd  she  never  thought  of  it  to-day. 
But  she  is  pleasantly  surprised  to  find 

'Tis  Friday  night,  the  Countess's  soiree. 
Back  rolls  the  chariot  to  Berkely  Square. 
If  you  have  dined,  dear  reader,  let's  go  there ! 

LXXII. 

We're  early.     In  the  cloak-room  smokes  the  urn, 
The  house-keeper  behind  it,  fat  and  solemn ; 

Steady  as  stars  the  fresh-lit  candles  burn, 

And  on  the  stairs  the  new-blown  what  d'ye-call  'em 

Their  nodding  cups  of  perfume  overturn  ; 
The  page  leans  idly  by  a  marble  column, 

And  stiffly  a  tall  footman  stands  above, 

Looking  between  the  fingers  of  his  glove. 

LXXIII. 

All  bright  and  silent,  like  a  charmed  palace — 

The  spells  wound  up,  the  fays  to  come  at  twelve  ; 

The  house-keeper  a  witch,  (cum  grano  salis;) 
The  handsome  page,  perhaps,  a  royal  elve 

Condemned  to  servitude  by  fairy  malice ; 

(I  wish  the  varlet  had  these  rhymes  to  delve  !) 

Some  magic  hall,  it  seems,  for  revel  bright, 

And  Lady  Jane  the  spirit  first  alight. 

LXXIV. 

Alas  !  here  vanishes  the  foot  of  Pleasure  ! 

She — like  an  early  guest — goes  in  before, 
And  comes,  when  all  are  gone,  for  Memory's  treasure 

But  is  not  found  upon  the  crowded  floor  ; 
(Unless,  indeed,  some  charming  woman  says  you're 

A  love,  which  makes  close  quarters  less  a  bore.) 
I've  seen  her,  down  Anticipation's  vista, 
As  large  as  life — and  walk'd  straight  on,  and  miss'd  hei 

LXXV. 

With  a  declining  taste  for  making  friends, 
One's  taste  for  the  fatigue  of  pleasure's  past ; 

And  then,  one  sometimes  wonders  which  transcende  » 
The  first  hour  of  a  gay  night,  or  the  last. 

(Beginners  "  burn  the  candle  at  both  ends," 
And  find  the  middle  brightest— that  is  fast !) 

But  a  good  rule  at  parties,  (to  keep  up  a 

Mercurial  air,)  is  to  come  in  at  supper. 

LXXVI. 

I  mean  that  you  should  go  to  bed  at  nine 

And  sleep  'till  twelve — take  coffee  or  green  tea, 

Dress  and  go  out — (this  was  a  way  of  mine 
When  looking  up  the  world  in  '33) — 

Sup  at  the  ball— (it's  not  a  place  for  wine) — 
Sleep,  or  not,  after,  as  the  case  may  be. 

You've  the  advantage,  thus,  when  all  are  yawning 

Of  growing  rather  fresher  toward  morning. 


854 


THE  LADY  JANE. 


LXXVII. 

But,  after  thirty,  here's  your  best  "  Elixir :" 

Breakfast  betimes.     Do  something  worth  your  while 

By  twelve  or  one — (this  makes  the  blood  run  quick,  Sir !) 
Dine  with  some  man  or  woman  who  will  smile. 

Have  little  cause  to  care  how  politics  are, 
"  Let  not  the  sun  go  down  upon  your"  bile  ; 

And,  if  well-married,  rich,  and  not  too  clever, 

I  don't  see  why  you  shouldn't  live  for  ever. 

LXXVIII. 

Short-lived  is  your  "  sad  dog" — and  yet,  we  hear, 

"  Whom  the  gods  love  die  young."  Of  course  the  ladies 
Are  safe  in  loving  what  the  gods  hold  dear ; 

And  the  result,  I'm  very  much  afraid,  is, 
That  if  he  "  has  his  day,"  it's  "  neither  here 

Nor  there !"     But  it  is  time  our  hero  made  his 
Appearance  on  the  carpet,  Lady  Jane — 
(I'll  mend  this  vile  pen,  and  begin  again.) 

LXXIX. 

The  Lady  Jane  walk'd  thro'  the  bright  rooms,  breaking 
The  glittering  silence  with  her  flowing  dress, 

Whose  pure  folds  seem'd  a  coy  resistance  making 
To  the  fond  air ;  while,  to  her  loveliness 

The  quick-eyed  mirrors  breathlessly  awaking, 
Acknowledged  not  one  radiant  line  the  less 

That  not  on  them  she  look'd  before  she  faded ! 

Neglected  gentlemen  don't  do  as  they  did  : — 

LXXX. 

No ! — for,  'twixt  our  quicksilver  and  a  woman, 
Nature  has  put  no  glass,  for  non-conductor, 

And,  while  she's  imaged  in  their  bosoms,  few  men 
Can  make  a  calm,  cold  mirror  their  instructor ; 

For,  when  beloved,  we  deify  what's  human — 

When  piqued,  we  mock  like  devils  !  But  I've  pluck'da 

Digression  here.     It's  no  use,  my  contending, — 

Fancy  will  ramble  while  the  pen  is  mending ! 

LXXXI. 

A  small  room  on  the  left,  (I'll  get  on  faster 

If  you're  impatient,)  very  softly  lit 
By  lamps  conceal'd  in  bells  of  alabaster, 

Lipp'd  like  a  lily,  and  "  as  white  as  it," 
With  a  sweet  statue  by  a  famous  master, 

Just  in  the  centre,  (but  not  dress'd  a  bit !) — 
This  dim  room  drew  aside  our  early-comer, 
Who  thought  it  like  a  moonlight  night  in  summer. 

LXXXII. 

And  so  it  was.     For,  thro'  an  opening  door, 
Came  the  soft  breath  of  a  conservatory, 

And,  bending  its  tall  stem  the  threshold  o'er, 
Swung  in  a  crimson  flower,  the  tropics'  glory  •, 

And,  as  you  gazed,  the  vista  lengthen'd  more, 

And  statues,  lamps  and  flowers — but,  to  my  story  ! 

The  room  was  cushion'd  like  a  Bey's  divan  ; 

And  in  it — (Heav'n  preserve  us  !) — sat  a  man  ! 

LXXXIII. 

At  least,  as  far  as  boots  and  pantaloons 

Are  symptoms  of  a  man,  there  seem'd  one  there — 

Whatever  was  the  number  of  his  Junes. 

She  look'd  again,  and  started !     In  a  chair, 

Sleeping  as  if  his  eyelids  had  been  moons, 
Reclined,  with  flakes  of  sunshine  in  his  hair, 

(Or,  what  look'd  like  it,)  a  fair  youth,  quite  real, 

But  of  a  beauty  like  the  Greek  ideal. 

LXXXIV. 

He  slept,  like  Love  by  slumber  overtaken, 
His  bow  unbent,  his  quiver  thrown  aside ; 

The  lip  might  to  a  manlier  arch  awaken— 
The  nostril,  so  serene,  dilate  with  pride  : 

But,  now,  he  lay,  of  all  his  masks  forsaken, 
And  childhood's  sleep  was  there,  and  naught 

And  his  bright  lips  lay  smilingly  apart, 

Like  a  torn  crimson  leaf  with  pearly  heart. 


LXXXV. 

Now  Jules  Beaulevres,  Esq. — (this  was  he — ) 
Had  never  been  "  put  up"  to  London  hours  ; 

And  thinking  he  was  simply  ask'd  to  tea, 

Had  been,  since  seven,  looking  at  the  flowers — 

No  doubt  extremely  pleasant, — but,  you  see, 
A  great  deal  of  it  rather  overpowers  ; 

And  possibly,  that  very  fine  exotic 

He  sat  just  under,  was  a  slight  narcotic. 

LXXXVI. 

At  any  rate,  when  it  was  all  admired, — 

As  quite  his  notion  of  a  Heav'n  polite, 
(Minus  the  angels,) — he  felt  very  tired — 

As  one,  who'd  been  all  day  sight-seeing,  might! 
And  having  by  the  Countess  been  desired 

To  make  himself  at  home,  he  did  so,  quite. 
He  begg'd  his  early  coming  might  not  fetter  her 
And  she  went  out  to  dine,  the  old — etcetera. 

LXXXVII. 

And  thinking  of  his  mother — and  his  bill 
At  Mivart's — and  of  all  the  sights  amazing 

Of  which,  the  last  few  days,  he'd  had  his  fill — 

And  choking  when  he  thought  of  fame — and  gazing 

Upon  his  varnish'd  boots,  (as  young  men  will,) 

And  wond'ring  how  the  shops  could  pay  for  glazing — 

And  also,  (here  his  thoughts  were  getting  dim,) 

Whether  a  certain  smile  was  meant  for  him — 

LXXXVIII. 

And  rnurm'ring  over,  with  a  drowsy  bow, 

The  speech  he  made  the  Countess,  when  he  met  her, — 

And  smiling,  with  closed  eyelids,  (thinking  how 
He  should  describe  her  in  the  morrow's  letter) — 

And  sighing  "  Good-night !"  (he  was  dreaming  now) — 
Jules  dropp'd  into  a  world  he  liked  much  better  ; 

But  left  his  earthly  mansion  unprotected, 

Well,  Sir  !  'twas  robb'd — as  might  have  been  expected . 

LXXXIX. 

The  Lady  Jane  gazed  on  the  fair  boy  sleeping, 
And  in  his  lips'  rare  beauty  read  his  name ; 

And  to  his  side  with  breathless  wonder  creeping, 
Resistless  to  her  heart  the  feeling  came, 

That,  to  her  yearning  love's  devoted  keeping, 
Was  giv'n  the  gem  within  that  fragile  frame. 

And  bending  with  almost  a  mother's  bliss, 

To  his  bright  lips,  she  seal'd  it  with  a  kiss  ! 

XC. 

Oh,  in  that  ki.ss  how  much  of  Heav'n  united  ! 

What  haste  to  pity — eagerness  to  bless  ! 
What  thirsting  of  a  heart,  long  pent  and  slighted, 

For  something  fair,  yet  human,  to  caress  ! 
How  fathomless  the  love  so  briefly  plighted  ! 

What  kiss  thrill'd  ever  more — sinn'd  ever  less  1 
So  love  the  angels,  sent  with  holy  mercies ! 
And  so  love  poets — in  their  early  verses  ! 

XCI. 

If,  in  well-bred  society,  ("hear!  hear!") 

If,  in  this  "  wrong  and  pleasant"  world  of  ours 

There  beats  a  pulse  that  seraphs  may  revere — 
If  Eden's  birds,  when  frighted  from  its  flowers, 

Clung  to  one  deathless  seed,  still  blooming  here — 
If  Time  cut  ever  down,  'mid  blighted  hours, 

A  bliss  that  will  spring  up  in  bliss  again — 

'Tis  woman's  love.     This  I  believe.     Amen  ! 

XCII. 

To  guard  from  ill,  to  help,  watch  over,  warn — 

To  learn,  for  his  sake,  sadness,  patience,  pain- 
To  seek  him  with  most  love  when  most  forlorn — 

Promised  the  mute  kiss  of  the  Lady  Jane. 
And  thus,  in  sinless  purity  is  born, 

Alway,  the  love  of  woman.     So,  again, 
I  say,  that  up  to  kissing — later  even — 
A  woman's  love  may  have  its  feet  in  Heaven. 


THE  LADY  JANE. 


855 


XCIII. 

Jules  open'd  (at  the  kiss)  his  large  blue  eyes, 
And  calmly  gazed  upon  the  face  above  him, 

But  never  stirr'd,  and  utter'd  no  surprise — 
Although  his  situation  well  might  move  him. 

He  seem'd  so  cool,  (my  lyre  shall  tell  no  lies,) 

That  Lady  Jane  half  thought  she  shouldn't  love  him  ; 

When  suddenly  the  Countess  Pasibleu 

Enter'd  the  room  with,  "  Dear  me  !  how  d'ye  do  !" 

XCIV. 

Up  sprang  the  boy — amazement  on  his  brow  ! 

But  the  next  instant,  through  his  lips  there  crept 
A  just  awakening  smile,  and,  with  a  bow, 

Calmly  he  said  :  "  'Twas  only  while  I  slept 
The  angels  did  not  vanish — until  now." 

A  speech,  I  think,  quite  worthy  an  adept. 
The  Countess  stared,  and  Lady  Jane  began 
To  fear  that  she  had  kiss'd  a  nice  young  man. 

xcv. 

Jules  had  that  precious  quality  call'd  tact ; 

And  having  made  a  very  warm  beginning, 
He  suddenly  grew  grave,  and  rather  back'd  ; 

As  if  incapable  of  further  sinning. 
'Twas  well  he  did  so,  for,  it  is  a  fact, 

The  ladies  like,  themselves,  to  do  the  winning. 
In  female  SKakspearcs,  Desdemonas  shine  ; 
And  the  Othellos  "  seriously  incline." 

XCVI.  [ 

So,  with  a  manner  quite  reserved  and  plain, 
Jules  ask'd  to  be  presented,  and  then  made 

Many  apologies  to  Lady  Jane 

For  the  eccentric  part  that  he  had  play'd. 

Regretted  he  had  slept — confess'd  with  pain 
He  took  her  for  an  angel — was  afraid 

He  had  been  rude — abrupt — did  he  alarm 

Her  much  ?— and  might  he  offer  her  his  arm  ? 

XCVII. 

And  as  they  ranged  that  sweet  conservatory, 
He  heeded  not  the  flowers  he  walk'd  among ; 

But  such  an  air  of  earnest  listening  wore  he, 
That  a  dumb  statue  must  have  found  a  tongue  ; 

And  like  a  child  that  hears  a  fairy  story, 
His  parted  lips  upon  her  utterance  hung. 

He  seem'd  to  know  by  instinct,  (else  how  was  it  ?) 

That  people  love  the  bank  where  they  deposit. 

XCVIII. 

And  closer,  as  the  moments  faster  wore, 

The  slender  arm  within  her  own  she  press'd  ; 

And  yielding  to  the  magic  spell  he  bore — 
The  earnest  truth  upon  his  lips  imprest — 

She  lavishly  told  out  the  golden  ore 

Hoarded  a  life-time  in  her  guarded  breast. 

And  Jules,  throughout,  was  beautifully  tender — 

Although  he  did  not  always  comprehend  her. 

XCIX. 

And  this  in  him  was  no  deep  calculation, 

But  in  good  truth,  as  well  as  graceful  seeming, 

Abandonment  complete  to  admiration — 

His  soul  gone  from  him  as  it  goes  in  dreaming. 

I  wish'd  to  make  this  little  explanation, 

Misgiving  that  his  tact  might  go  for  scheming ; 

I  can  assure  you  it  was  never  plann'd ; 

I  have  it  from  his  angel,  (second  hand.) 


And  from  the  same  authentic  source  I  know, 
That  Lady  Jane  still  thought  him  but  a  lad ; 

Tho',  why  the  deuce  she  didn't  treat  him  so, 
Is  quite  enough  to  drive  conjecture  mad  ! 

Perhaps  she  thought  that  it  would  make  him  grow 
To  take  more  beard  for  granted  that  he  had. 

A  funny  friend  to  lend  a  nice  young  man  to  ! 

I'm  glad  I've  got  him  safely  through  one  Canto. 


CANTO  II. 


The  Countess  Pasibleu's  gay  rooms  were  full, 
Not  crowded.     It  was  neither  rout  nor  ball — 

Only  "  her  Friday  night."     The  air  was  cool ; 
And  there  were  people  in  the  house  of  all 

Varieties,  except  the  pure  John  Bull. 

The  number  of  young  ladies,  too,  was  small— 

You  seldom  find  old  John,  or  his  young  daughters, 

Swimming  in  very  literary  waters. 

II. 

Indeed,  with  rare  exceptions,  women  given 

To  the  society  of  famous  men, 
Are  those  who  will  confess  to  twenty-seven  ; 

But  add  to  this  the  next  reluctant  ten, 
And  still  they're  fit  to  make  a  poet's  heaven, 

For  sumptuously  beautiful  is  then 
The  woman  of  proud  mien  and  thoughtful  brow ; 
And  one  (still  bright  in  her  meridian  now) 

III.  ' 

Bent  upon  Jules,  that  night,  her  lustrous  eye. 

A  creature  of  a  loftier  mould  was  she 
Than  in  liis  dreams  had  ever  glided  by ; 

And  through  his  veins  the  blood  flew  startingly, 
And  he  felt  sick  at  heart — he  knew  not  why — 

For  'tis  the  sadness  of  the  lost  to  see 
Angels  look  on  us  with  a  cold  regard, 
(Not  knowing  those  who  never  left  their  card.) 

IV. 

She  had  a  low,  sweet  brow,  with  fringed  lakes 
Of  an  unfathom'd  darkness  couch'd  below ; 

And  parted  on  that  brow  in  jetty  flakes 

The  raven  hair  swept  back  with  wavy  flow, 

Rounding  a  head  of  such  a  shape  as  makes 
The  old  Greek  marble  with  the  goddess  glow. 

Her  nostril's  breaching  arch  might  threaten  storm — 

But  love  lay  in  her  lips,  all  hush'd  and  warm. 

V. 

And  small  teeth,  glittering  white,  and  cheek  whose  red 
Seem'd  Passion,  there  asleep,  in  rosy  nest  : 

And  neck  set  on  as  if  to  bear  a  head — 
May  be  a  lily,  may  be  Juno's  crest, — 

So  lightly  sprang  it  from  its  snow-white  bed '. 
So  proudly  rode  above  the  swelling  breast ! 

And  motion,  effortless  as  stars  awaking 

And  melting  out,  at  eve,  and  morning's  breaking  ; 

VI. 

And  voice  delicious  quite,  and  smile  that  came 

Slow  to  the  lips,  as  'twere  the  heart  smiled  thro' : — 

These  charms  I've  been  particular  to  name, 
For  they  are,  like  an  inventory,  true, 

And  of  themselves  were  stuff  enough  for  fame ; 
But  she,  so  wondrous  fair,  has  genius  too, 

And  brilliantly  her  thread  of  life  is  spun — 

In  verse  and  beauty  both,  the  "  Undying  One  !" 

VII. 

And  song — for  in  those  kindling  lips  there  lay 
Music  to  wing  all  utterance  outward  breaking, 

As  if  upon  the  ivory  teeth  did  play 

Angels,  who  caught  the  words  at  their  awaking, 

And  sped  them  with  sweet  melodies  away — 

The  hearts  of  those  who  listen'd  with  them  taking. 

Of  proof  to  this  last  fact  there's  little  lack  ; 

And  Jules,  poor  lad  !  ne'er  got  his  truant  back  ! 

VIII. 

That  heart  stays  with  her  still.     'Tis  one  of  two, 
(I  should  premise)— all  poets  being  double, 

Living  in  two  worlds  as  of  course  they  do, 
Fancy  and  fact,  and  rarely  taking  trouble 

T'  explain  in  which  they're  living,  as  to  you  ! 
And  this  it  is  makes  all  the  hubble-bubble, 

For  who  can  fairly  write  a  bard's  biography, 

When,  of  his/nncy-world,  there's  no  geography  ! 


S56 


THE  LADY  JANE. 


IX. 

Jules  was  at  perfect  liberty  in  fact 

To  love  again,  and  still  be  true  in  fancy; 

Else  were  this  story  at  its  closing  act. 
Nay,  he  in  fact  might  wed,  and  inromance  he 

Might  find  the  qualities  his  sposa  lack'd — 
(A  truth  that  I  could  easier  make  a  man  see,) 

And  woman's  great  mistake,  if  I  may  tell  it,  is 

The  calling  such  stray  fancies  "  infidelities." 


Byron  was  man  and  bard,  and  Lady  B., 

In  wishing  to  monopolize  him  wholly, 
Committed  bigamy,  you  plainly  see. 

She,  being  very  single,  Guiccioli 
Took  off  the  odd  one  of  the  wedded  three — 

A  change,  'twould  seem,  quite  natural  and  holy. 
The  after  sin,  which  still  his  fame  environs, 
Was  giving  Guiccioli  both  the  Byrons. 

XI. 

The  stern  wife  drove  him  from  her.     Had  she  loved 
With  all  the  woman's  tenderness  the  while, 

He  had  not  been  the  wanderer  he  proved. 
Like  bird  to  sunshine  fled  he  to  a  smile  ; 

And,  lightly  though  the  changeful  fancy  roved, 
The  heart  speeds  home  with  far  more  light  a  wile. 

The  world  well  tried — the  sweetest  thing  in  life 

Is  the  unclouded  welcome  of  a  wife. 

XII. 

To  poets  more  than  all — for  truthful  love 

Has,  to  their  finer  sense,  a  deeper  sweetness  ; 

Yet  she  who  has  the  venturous  wish  to  prove 
The  poet's  love  when  nearest  to  completeness, 

Must  wed  the  man  and  let  the  fancy  rove — 
Loose  to  the  air  that  wing  of  eager  flectness, 

And  sinile  it  home  when  wearied  out — with  air. 

But  if  you  scold  him,  Madam  !  have  a  care  1 

XIII. 

All  this  time  the  li  Undying  One"  was  singing. 

She  ceased,  and  Jules  felt  every  sound  a  pain 
While  that  sweet  cadence  in  his  ear  was  ringing ; 

So  gliding  from  the  arm  of  Lady  Jane, 
Which  rather  scem'd  to  have  the  whim  of  clinging, 

He  made  himself  a  literary  lane — 
Punching  and  shoving  every  kind  of  writer 
'Till  he  got  out.     (He  might  have  been  politer.) 

XIV. 

Free  of  "the  press,"  he  wandcr'd  thro'  the  rooms, 
Longing  for  solitude,  but  studying  faces  ; 

And,  smitten  witli  the  ugliness  of  Brougham's, 
He  mused  upon  the  cross  with  monkey  races — 

(Hicroglyphick'd  on  tli'  Egyptian  tombs 

And  shown  in  France  with  very  striking  traces.) 

"  Rejected"  Smith's  he  thought  a  head  quite  glorious ; 

And  Hook,  all  button'd  up,  he  took  for  "  Boreas." 

XV. 

He  noted  Lady  Stepney's  pretty  hand, 

And  Barry  Cornwall's  sweet  and  serious  eye ; 

And  saw  Moore  get  down  from  his  chair  to  stand, 
While  a  most  royal  Duke  went  bowing  by — 

Saw  Savage  Landor,  wanting  soap  and  sand — 
Saw  Lady  Chatterton  take  snuff  and  sigh — 

Saw  graceful  Bulwer  say  "  good-night,"  and  vanish — 

Heard  Crofton  Croker's  brogue,  and  thought  it  Spanish. 


He  saw  Smith  whispering  something  very  queer, 
And  Hayward  creep  behind  to  overhear  him  ; 

Saw  Lockhart  whistling  in  a  lady's  ear, 

(Jules  thought  so,  till,  on  getting  very  near  him, 

The  error — not  the  mouth — became  quite  clear  ;) 
He  saw  "  the  Duke"  and  had  a  mind  to  cheer  him  ; 

And  fine  Jane  Porter  with  her  cross  and  feather, 

And  clever  Babbage,  with  his  face  of  leather. 


XVII. 

And  there  was  plump  and  saucy  Mrs.  Gore, 
And  calm,  old,  lily-white  Joanna  Baillie, 

And  frisky  Bowring,  London's  wisest  bore ; 
And  there  was  "  devilish  handsome"  D'Israeli  ; 

And  not  a  lion  of  all  these  did  roar ; 

But  laughing,  flirting,  gossiping  so  gaily, — 

Poor  Jules  began  to  think  'twas  only  mockery 

To  talk  of  "  porcelain" — 'twas  a  world  of  crockery. 

XVIII. 

'  Tis  half  a  pity  authors  should  be  seen ! 

Jules  thought  so,  and  I  think  so  too,  with  Jules. 
They'd  better  do  the  immortal  with  a  screen, 

And  show  but  mortal  in  a  world  of  fools  ; 
Men  talk  of  "  taste"  for  thunder — but  they  mean 

Old  Vulcan's  apron  and  his  dirty  tools  ; 
They  flock  all  wonder  to  the  Delphic  shade, 
To  know — just  how  the  oracle  is  made  ! 

XIX. 

What  we  should  think  of  Bulwer's  works — without  him, 
His  wife,  his  coat,  his  curls  or  other  handle ; 

What  of  our  Cooper,  knowing  naught  about  him, 
Save  his  enchanted  quill  and  pilgrim's  sandal ; 

What  of  old  Lardner,  (gracious  !  how  they  flout  him  !) 
Without  this  broad — (and  Heavy.)  side  of  scandal ; 

What  of  Will  Shakspeare  had  he  kept  a  "  Boz" 

Like  Johnson — would  be  curious  questions,  coz  ! 

XX. 

Jove  is,  no  doubt,  a  gainer  by  his  cloud, 

(Which  ta'cn  away,  might  cause  irreverent  laughter,) 
But,  out  of  sight,  he  thunders  ne'er  so  loud, 

And  no  one  asks  the  god  to  dinner  after ; 
And  "  Fame's  proud  temple,"  build  it  ne'er  so  proud, 

Finds  notoriety  a  useful  rafter. 
And  when  you've  been  abused  awhile,  you  learn 
All  blasts  blow  fair  for  you — that  blow  astern .' 

XXL 

No  "  pro"  without  its  "  con ;" — The  pro  is  fame, 
Pure,  cold,  unslander'd,  like  a  virgin's  frill ; 

The  con  is  beef  and  mutton,  sometimes  game, 
Madeira,  Sherry,  claret,  what  you  will ; 

The  ladies'  (albums)  striving  for  your  name  ; 
All,  (save  the  woodcock,)  yours  without  a  bill ; 

And  "  in  the  gate,"  an  unbelieving  Jew, 

Your  "  Mordecai !" — Why,  clearly  con's  your  cuel 

XXII. 

I've  "  reason'd"  myself  neatly  "  round  the  ring," 
While  Jules  came  round  to  Lady  Jane  once  more, 

And  supper  being  but  a  heavy  thing, 

(To  lookers-on,)  I'll  show  him  to  the  door, 

And  his  first  night  to  a  conclusion  bring  ; 
Not  (with  your  kind  permission,  sir)  before 

I  tell  you  what  her  Ladyship  said  to  him 

As  home  to  Brook-street  her  swift  horses  drew  him 

XXIII. 

"  You're  comfortably  lodged,  I  trust,"  she  said : 
"  And  Mrs.  Mivart — is  she  like  a  mother '! 

"  Have  you  mosquito  curtains  to  your  bed  ? 

"  Do  you  sleep  well  without  your  little  brother  ? 

"  What  do  you  eat  for  breakfast — baker's  bread? 
"  I'll  send  you  some  home-made,  if  you  would  rather 

"  What  do  you  do  to-morrow  ? — say  at  five, 

"  Or  four — "say  four — I  call  for  you  to  drive  ? 

XXIV. 

"  There's  the  New  Garden,  and  the  Coliseum — 
"  Perhaps  you  don't  care  much  for  Panoramas  ? 

"  But  there's  an  armadillo — you  must  see  him  1 

"  And  those  big-eyed  giraffes  and  heavenly  lamas .' 

"  And — are  you  fond  of  music  ? — the  Te  Deum 
"  Is  beautifully  play'd  by  Lascaramhas, 

"  At  the  new  Spanish  chapel.     This  damp  air  ! 

"  And  you've  no  hat  on  ! — let  me  feel  your  hair  I 


THE  LADY  JANE. 


857 


XXV. 

"  Poor  boy  !" — but  Jules's  head  was  on  her  breast, 
Rock"d  like  a  nautilus  in  calm  mid  ocean  ; 

And  while  its  curls  within  her  hands  she  press'd, 
The  Lady  Jane  experienced  some  emotion  : 

For,  did  he  sleep  ?  or  wish  to  be  caress'd  ? 

What  meant  the  child ! — she'd  not  the  slightest  notion ! 

Arrived  at  home,  he  rose,  without  a  shake — 

Trembling  and  slightly  flush'd — but  wide  awake. 

XXVI. 

Loose  rein  i  put  spur  !  and  follow,  gentle  reader  ! 

For  I  must  take  a  flying  leap  in  rhyme ; 
And  be  to  you  both  Jupiter  and  leader, 

Annihilating  space,  (we  all  kill  time,) 
And  overtaking  Jules  in  Rome,  where  he'd  a 

Delight  or  two,  besides  the  pleasant  clime. 
The  Lady  Jane  and  he,  (I  scorn  your  cavils — 
The  Earl  was  with  them,  sir !)  were  on  their  travels. 

XXVII. 

You  know,  perhaps,  the  winds  are  no  narcotic, 

As  swallow'd  'twixt  the  Thames  and  Frith  of  Forth  ; 

And  Jules  had  proved  a  rather  frail  exotic — 
Too  delicate  to  winter  so  far  north ; 

The  Earl  was  breaking,  and  half  idiotic, 
And  Lady  Jane's  condition  little  worth  ; 

So,  thro'  celestial  Paris,  (speaking  victual-ly,) 

They  sought  the  sunnier  clime  of  ill-fed  Italy. 

XXVIII. 

Oh  Italy  !— but  no— I'll  tell  its  faults  ! 

It  has  them,  tho'  the  blood  so  "  nimbly  capers" 
Beneath  those  morning  heavens  and  starry  vaults, 

That  we  forget  big  rooms  and  little  tapers — 
Forget  how  drowsily  the  Romans  waltz — 

Forget  they've  neither  shops  nor  morning  papers — 
Forget  how  dully  sits,  mid  ancient  glory, 
This  rich  man's  heaven — this  poor  man's  purgatory  ! 

XXIX. 

Fashion  the  world  as  one  bad  man  would  have  it,  he 
Would  silence  Harry's  tongue,  and  Tom's,  and  Dick's  ; 

And  doubtless  it  is  pleasing  to  depravity 

To  know  a  land  where  people  are  but  sticks — 

Where  you've  no  need  of  fair  words,  flattery,  suavity, 
But  spend  your  money,  if  you  like,  with  kicks — 

Where  they  pass  by  their  own  proud,  poor  nobility, 

To  welcome  golden  "  Snooks"  with  base  servility. 

XXX. 

Jules  was  not  in  the  poor  man's  category — 
So  Rome's  condition  never  spoilt  his  supper. 

The  deuce  (for  him)  might  take  the  Curtian  glory 
Of  riding  with  a  nation  on  his  crupper. 

He  lived  upon  a  Marquis's  first  story — 
The  venerable  Marquis  in  the  upper — 

And  found  it  pass'd  the  time,  (and  so  would  you.) 

To  do  some  things  at  Rome  that  Romans  do. 

XXXI. 

The  Marquis  upon  whom  he  chanced  to  quarter, 
(He  took  his  lodgings  separate  from  the  Earl,) 

The  Marquis  had  a  friend,  who  had  a  daughter — 
The  friend  a  noble  like  himself,  the  girl 

A  diamond  of  the  very  purest  water ; 
(Or  purest  milk,  if  you  prefer  a  pearl ;) 

And  these  two  friends,  tho'  poor,  were  hand  and  glove,  \ 

And  of  a  pride  their  fortunes  much  above. 

XXXII. 

The  Marquis  had  not  much  besides  his  palace, 
The  Count,  beyond  his  daughter,  simply  naught ; 

And,  one  day,  died  this  very  Count  Pascalis, 
Leaving  his  friend  his  daughter,  as  he  ought ; 

And,  tho'  the  Fates  had  done  the  thing  in  malice, 
The  old  man  took  her,  without  second  thought, 

And  married  her.     "  She's  freer  thus,"  he  said, 

"  And  will  be  young  to  marry  when  I'm  dead." 


Meantime,  she  had  a  title,  house,  and  carriage, 

And,  far  from  wearing  chains,  had  newly  burst  'em — 

For,  as  of  course  you  know,  before  their  marriage 
Girls  are  sad  prisoners  by  Italian  custom — 

Not  meaning  their  discretion  to  disparage, 

But  just  because  they're  sure  they  couldn't  trust  'em. 

When  wedded,  they  are  free  enough — moreover, 

The  marriage  contract  specifies  one  lover. 

XXXIV. 

Not  that  the  Marchioness  had  one — no,  no  ! — 
Nor  wanted  one.     It  is  not  my  intention 

To  hint  it  in  this  tale.     Jules  lodged  below — 
But  his  vicinity's  not  my  invention  ; 

And,  if  it  seem  to  you  more  apropos 

Than  I  have  thought  it  worth  my  while  to  mention, 

Why,  you  think  as  the  world  did — verbum  sat — 

But  still  it  needn't  be  so — for  all  that. 

XXXV. 

'Most  any  female  neighbor,  up  a  stair, 

Occasions  thought  in  him  who  lodges  under ; 

And  Jules,  by  accident,  had  walk'd  in  where 

(A  "flight  too  high"  's  a  very  common  blunder.) 

He  saw  a  lady  whom  he  thought  as  fair 

As  "from  her  shell  rose"  Mrs   Smith  of  Thunder. 

Tho'  Venus,  I  would  say  were  Vulcan  by, 

Was  no  more  like  the  Marchioness  than  I. 

XXXVI. 

For  this  grave  sin  there  needed  much  remission  ; 

And  t'  assure  it,  oft  the  offender  went. 
The  Marquis  had  a  very  famous  Titian, 

And  Jules  so  often  came  to  pay  his  rent, 
The  old  man  recommended  a  physician, 

Thinking  his  intellects  a  little  bent. 
And,  pitying,  he  thought  and  talk'd  about  him, 
Till,  finally,  he  couldn't  live  without  him. 

XXXVII. 

And,  much  to  the  neglect  of  Lady  Jane, 

Jules  paid  him  back  his  love  ;   and  there,  all  day, 

The  fair  young  Marchioness,  with  fickle  brain, 

Tried  him  with  changeful  mood,  now  coy,  now  gay  : 

And  the  old  man  lived  o'er  his  youth  again, 
Seeing  those  grown-up  children  at  their  play — 

His  wife  sixteen,  Jules  looking  scarcely  more, 

'Twas  frolic  infancy  to  eighty-four. 

XXXVIII. 

There  seems  less  mystery  in  matrimony, 
With  people  living  nearer  the  equator ; 

And  early,  like  the  most  familiar  crony, 
Unheralded  by  butler,  groom,  or  waiter, 

Jules  join'd  the  Marquis  at  his  macaroni, — 
The  Marchioness  at  toast  and  coffee  later ; 

And  if  his  heart  throbb'd  wild  sometimes,  he  hid  it ; 

And  if  her  dress  required  "  doing" — did  it. 

XXXIX. 

Now  tho'  the  Marchioness  in  church  did  faint  once, 
And,  as  Jules  bore  her  out,  they  didn't  group  ill ; 

And  tho'  the  spouses  (as  a  pair)  were  quaint  ones — 
She  scarce  a  woman,  and  his  age  octuple — 

'Twas  odd,  extremely  odd,  of  fheir  acquaintance, 
To  call  Jules  lover  with  so  little  scruple  ! 

He'd  a  caressing  way — but  la !  you  know  it's 

A  sort  of  manner  natural  to  poets  ! 

XL. 

God  made  them  prodigal  in  their  bestowing  ; 

And,  if  their  smiles  were  riches,  few  were  poor ! 
They  turn  to  all  the  sunshine  that  is  going — 

Swoop  merrily  at  all  that  shows  a  lure — 
Their  love  at  heart  and  lips  is  overflowing — 

Their  motto,  "  Trust  the  future — now  is  sure  !" 
Their  natural  pulse  is  high  intoxication — 
fSobcr'd  by  debt  and  mortal  botheration.!* 


858 


THE  LADY  JANE. 


XLI. 

Of  such  men's  pain  and  pleasure,  hope  and  passion, 
The  symptoms  are  not  read  by  "  those  who  run  ;" 

And  'tis  a  pity  it  were  not  the  fashion 

To  count  them  but  as  children  of  the  sun — 

Not  to  be  baited  like  the  "  bulls  of  Bashan," 
Nor  liable,  like  clods,  for  "  one  pound  one" — 

But  reverenced — as  Indians  rev'rence  fools — 

Inspired,  tho'  God  knows  how.    Well — such  was  Jules. 

XLII. 

The  Marquis  thought  him  sunshine  at  the  window — 
The  window  of  his  heart — and  let  him  in ! 

The  Marchioness  loved  sunshine  like  a  Hindoo, 
And  she  thought  loving  him  could  be  no  sin ; 

And  as  she  loved  not  yet  as  those  who  sin  do, 

'Twas  very  well — was't  not  ?     Stick  there  a  pin  I 

It  strikes  me  that  so  far — to  this  last  stanza — 

The  hero  seems  a  well-disposed  young  man,  sir  ! 

XLIII. 

I  have  not  bored  you  much  with  his  "  abilities," 

Tho'  I  set  out  to  treat  you  to  a  poet, 
The  first  course  commonly  is  "  puerilities" — 

(A  soup  well  pepper'd — all  the  critics  know  it !) 
Brought  in  quite  hot.     (The  simple  way  to  chill  it  is, 

For  "  spoons"  to  stir,  and  puffy  lips  to  blow  it.) 
Then,  poet  stuff 'd,  and  by  his  kidney  roasted, 
And  last  (with  "  lagrima,")  "  the  devil"  toasted. 

XLIV. 

High-scream  between  the  devil  and  the  roast, 

But  no  Sham-pain  .' Hold  there  !  the  fit  is  o'er. 

Obsta  principiis — one  pun  breeds  a  host— 
(Alarmingly  prolific  for  a  bore  !) 

But  he  who  never  sins  can  little  boast 

Compared  to  him  who  goes  and  sins  no  more ! 

The  "  sinful  Mary"  walks  more  white  in  Heaven 

Than  some  who  never  "  sinn'd  and  were  forgiven  !" 

XLV. 

Jules  had  objections  very  strong  to  playing 

His  character  of  poet — therefore  I 
Have  rather  dropp'd  that  thread,  as  I  was  saying. 

But  tho'  he'd  neither  frenzy  in  his  eye, 
Nor  much  of  outer  mark  the  bard  betraying — 

(A  thing  he  piqued  himself  on,  by  the  by — ) 
His  conversation  frequently  arose 
To  what  was  thought  a  goodly  flight  for  prose. 

XLVI. 

His  beau  ideal  was  to  sink  the  attic, 

(Tho'  not  by  birth,  nor  taste,  "  the  salt  above" — ) 
To  pitilessly  cut  the  air  erratic 

Which  ladies,  fond  of  authors,  so  much  love, 
And  be,  in  style,  calm,  cold,  aristocratic — 

Serene  in  faultless  boots  and  primrose  glove. 
But  th'  exclusive's  made  of  starch,  not  honey  ! 
And  Jules  was  cordial,  joyous,  frank,  and  funny. 

XLVII. 

This  was  one  secret  of  his  popularity, 

Men  hate  a  manner  colder  than  their  own, 

And  ladies — bless  their  hearts  !  love  chaste  hilarity 
Better  than  sentiment — if  truth  were  known  ! 

And  Jules  had  one  more  slight  peculiarity — 
He'd  little  "  approbativeness" — or  none — 

And  what  the  critics  said  concern'd  him  little — 

Provided  it  touch'd  not  his  drink  and  victual. 

XLVIII. 

Critics,  I  say — of  course  he  was  in  prints — 

"  Poems,"  of  course — of  course  "  anonymous" — 

Of  course  he  found  a  publisher  by  dint 

Of  search  most  diligent,  and  far  more  fuss 

Than  chemists  make  in  melting  you  a  flint. 
Since  that  experiment  he  reckons  plus 

Better  manure  than  minus  for  his  bays — 

In  short,  seeks  immortality — "  that  pays." 


XLIX. 

He  writes  in  prose — the  public  like  it  better. 

Well — let  the  public  !     You  may  take  a  poet, 
And  he  shall  write  his  grandmother  a  letter, 

And,  if  he's  any  thing  but  rhyme — he'll  show  it 
Prose  may  be  poetry,  without  its  fetter, 

And  be  it  pun  or  pathos,  high  or  low  wit, 
The  thread  will  show  its  gold,  however  twisted — 
(I  wish  the  public  fiatter'd  me  that  this  did  !) 


No  doubt  there's  pleasant  stuff  that  ill  unravels. 

I  fancy  most  of  Moore's  would  read  so-so, 
Done  into  prose  of  pious  Mr.  Flavel's — 

(That  is  my  Sunday  reading — so  I  know,) 
Yet  there's  Childe  Harold — excellent  good  travels — 

And  what  could  spoil  sweet  Robinson  Crusoe  ! 
But  tho'  a  clever  verse-r  makes  a  prose-r, 
About  the  vice-versa,  I  don't  know,  sir ! 

LI. 

Verser  's  a  better  word  than  versifier, 

(Unless  'tis  verse  on  fire,  you  mean  to  say,) 

And  I've  long  thought  there's  something  to  desire 
In  poet's  nomenclature,  by  the  way. 

It  sounds  but  queer  to  laud  "  the  well-known  lyre" — 
Call  a  dog  "  poet !"  he  will  run  away — 

And  "songster,"  "rhymester,"  "bard," and  "poetaster," 

Are  customers  they're  shy  of  at  the  Astor. 

LII. 

A  "  scribbler's"  is  a  skittish  reputation, 

And  weighs  a  man  down  like  a  hod  of  mortar. 

Commend  a  suitor's  wit,  imagination — 

The  merchant  may  think  of  hiin  for  his  daughter  ; 

But  say  that  "  he  writes  poetry" n  ! 

Her  "  Pa"  would  rather  throw  her  in  the  water ! 

And  yet  when  poets  wed,  as  facts  will  prove, 

Their  bills  stand  all  at  pa,  they  much  above  ! 

LIII. 

Jules  had  a  hundred  minds  to  cut  the  muses  ; 

And  sometimes  did,  "  forever  !" — (for  a  week  I) 
He  found  for  time  so  many  other  uses. 

His  superfluity  was  his  physique  ; 
And  exercise,  if  violent,  induces 

Blood  to  the  head  and  flush  upon  the  cheek  ; 
And,  (tho'  details  are  neither  here  nor  there,) 
Makes  a  man  sit  uneasy  on  his  chair; 

LIV. 

Particularly  that  of  breaking  horses. 

The  rate  of  circulation  in  the  blood, 
Best  suited  to  the  meditative  forces, 

Is  quite  as  far  from  mercury  as  mud — 
That  of  the  starry,  not  the  racing-courses. 

No  man  can  trim  his  style  mid  fire  and  flood, 
Nor  in  a  passion,  nor  just  after  marriage  ; 
And,  as  to  Caesar's  writing  in  his  carriage, 

LV. 

Credat  Judaeus  !     Thought  is  free  and  easy  ; 

But  language,  unless  wrought  with  labor  lima, 
Is  not  the  kind  of  thing,  sir,  that  would  please  ye ! 

The  bee  makes  honey,  but  his  toil  is  thymy, 
And  nothing  is  well  done  until  it  tease  ye ; 

(Tho'  if  there's  one  who  would  'twere  not  so,  I'm  he  !) 
Now  Jules,  I  say,  found  out  that  filly-breaking, 
Tho'  monstrous  fun,  was  not  a  poet's  making. 

LVI. 

True — some  drink  up  to  composition's  glow  ; 

Some  talk  up  to  it — vide  Neckar's  daughter ! 
But  when  the  temp'rature's  a  fourth  too  low, 

Of  course  you  make  up  the  deficient  quarter  ! 
Like  Byron's  atmosphere,  which,  chemists  know 

Required  hydrogen — (more  gin  and  water.) 
And  Jules's  sanguine  humor  was  too  high, 
So,  of  the  bottle  he  had  need  be  shy  ! 


THE  LADY  JANE. 


859 


LVII. 

And  of  society,  which  made  him  thin 
With  fret  and  fever,  and  of  sunny  sky — 

Father  of  idleness,  the  poet's  sin  ! 

(John  Bull  should  be  industrious,  by  the  by, 

If  clouds  without  concentrate  thought  within,) 
In  short,  the  lad  could  fag — (I  mean  soar  high) — 

Only  by  habits,  which  (if  Heaven  let  her  choose) 

His  mother  would  bequeath  as  Christian  virtues  ! 

LVIII. 

Now  men  have  oft  been  liken'd  unto  streams ; 

(And,  truly,  both  are  prone  to  run  down  hill, 
And  seldom  brawl  when  dry,  or  so  it  seems !) 

And  Jules,  when  he  had  brooded,  long  and  still, 
At  the  dim  fountain  of  the  poet's  dreams, 

Felt  suddenly  his  veins  with  frenzy  fill ; 
And,  urged,  as  by  the  torrent's  headlong  force, 
Ruthlessly  rode — if  he  could  find  a  horse. 

LIX. 

Yes,  sir — he  had  his  freshets  like  a  river, 
And  horses  were  his  passion — so  he  rode, 

When  he  his  prison'd  spirits  would  deliver, 

As  if  he  fled  from — some  man  whom  he  owed — 

And  glorious,  to  him,  the  bounding  quiver 
Of  the  young  steed  in  terror  first  bestrode  ! 

Thrilling  as  inspiration  the  delay — 

The  arrowy  spring — the  fiery  flight  away  I 

LX. 

Such  riding  galls  the  Muses,  (tho'  we  know 
Old  Pegasus's  build  is  short  and  stocky,) 

But  I'd  a  mind  by  these  details  to  show 

What  Jules  might  turn  out,  were  the  Muses  baulky. 

This  hint  to  his  biographer  I  throw — 

In  Jules,  the  bard,  was  spoil'd  a  famous  jockey  ! 

Tho'  not  at  all  to  imitate  Apollo  ! 

Horse  him  as  well,  he'd  beat  that  dabster  hollow  ! 

LXI. 

'Tis  one  of  the  proprieties  of  story 

To  mark  the  change  in  heroes,  stage  by  stage  ; 
And  therefore  I  have  tried  to  lay  before  ye 

The  qualities  of  Julcs*s  second  age. 
It  should  wind  up  witli  some  memento  mori — 

But  we'll  defer  that  till  we  draw  the  sage. 
The  moral's  the  last  thing,  (I  say  with  pain,) 
And  now  let's  turn  awhile  to  Lady  Jane. 

LXII. 

The  Earl,  I've  said,  was  in  his  idiocy, 

And  Lady  Jane  not  well.     They  therefore  hired 

The  summer  palace  of  Rospigliosi, 
To  get  the  sun  as  well^as  be  retired. 

You  shouldn't  fail,  I  think,  this  spot  to  go  see — 
That's  if  you  care  to  have  your  fancy  fired — 

It's  out  of  Rome — it  strikes  me  on  a  steep  hill — 

A  sort  of  place  to  go  to  with  nice  people. 

LXIII. 

ft  looks  affectionate,  with  all  its  splendor — 

As  lovcable  as  ever  look'd  a  nest ; 
A  palace  I  protest,  that  makes  you  tender, 

And  long  for fol  de  rol,  and  all  the  rest. 

Guido's  Aurora's  there — you  couldn't  mend  her  ; 

And  Samson,  by  Caracci — not  his  best ; 
But  pictures,  I  can  talk  of  to  the  million — 
To  you,  I'll  just  describe  one  small  pavilion. 

LXIV. 

It's  in  the  garden  just  below  the  palace ; 

I  think,  upon  the  second  terrace — no— 
The  first — yes,  'tis  the  first — the  orange  alleys 

Lead  from  the  first  flight  down — precisely  so  ! 
Well — half-way  is  a  fountain,  where,  with  malice 

In  all  his  looks,  a  Cupid — 'hem  !  you  know 
You  needn't  notice  that — you  hurry  by, 
And  lo  !  a  fairy  structure  fills  your  eye 


LXV. 

A  crescent  colonnade  folds  in  the  sun, 

To  keep  it  for  the  wooing  South  wind  only — 

A  thing  1  wonder  is  not  oftcner  done, 

(The  crescent,  not  the  wooing — that's  my  own  lie,) 

For  there  are  months,  and  January's  one, 

When  winds  are  chill,  and  life  in-doors  gets  lonely, 

And  one  quite  longs,  if  wind  would  keep  away, 

To  sing  i'  the  sunshine,  like  old  King  Rene". 

LXVI. 

The  columns  are  of  marble,  white  as  light : 
The  structure  low,  yet  airy,  and  the  floor 

A  tesselated  pavement,  curious  quite, — 
Of  the  same  fashion  in  and  out  of  door. 

The  Lady  Jane,  who  kept  not  warm  by  sight, 
Had  carpeted  this  pavement  snugly  o'er, 

And  introduced  a  stove,  (an  open  Rumford) — 

So  the  pavilion  had  an  air  of  comfort. 

LXVII. 

"  The  frescoes  on  the  ceiling  really  breathe," 

The  guide-books  say.     Of  course  they  really  see  : 

And,  as  I  tell  you  what  went  on  beneath, 
Of  course  those  naked  goddesses  told  me. 

They  saw  two  rows  of  dazzling  English  teeth, 

Employ'd,  each  morn,  on  English  "  toast  and  tea ;" 

And  once,  when  Jules  came  in,  they  strain'd  their  eyes, 

But  didn't  see  the  teeth,  to  their  surprise. 

LXVIII. 

The  Lady  Jane  smiled  not.     Her  lashes  hung 
Low  to  the  soft  eye,  and,  so  still  they  lay, 

Jules  knew  a  tear  was  hid  their  threads  among, 
And  that  she  fear'd  'twould  gush  and  steal  away. 

The  kindly  greeting  trembled  on  her  tongue, 

The  hand's  faint  pressure  chill'd  his  touch  like  clay, 

And  Jules  with  wonder  felt  the  world  all  changing, 

WTith  but  the  cloud  of  one  fond  heart's  estranging. 

LXIX. 

Oh  it  is  darkness  to  lose  love  ! — howe'er 

We  little  prized  the  fond  heart — fond  no  more ! 

The  bird,  dark-wing'd  on  earth,  looks  white  in  air ! 
Unrecognized  are  angels,  till  they  soar ! 

And  few  so  rich  they  may  not  well  beware 
Of  lightly  losing  the  heart's  golden  ore  ! 

Yet — hast  thou  love  too  poor  for  thy  possessing  ? — 

Loose  it,  like  friends  to  death,  with  kiss  and  blessing 

LXX. 

You're  naturally  surprised,  that  Lady  Jane 

Loved  Mr.  Jules.     (He's  Mr.  now — not  Master .') 

The  fact's  abruptly  introduced,  it's  plain  ; 
And  possibly  I  should  have  made  it  last  a 

Whole  Canto,  more  or  less — but  I'll  explain. 
Lumping  the  sentiment  one  gets  on  faster ! 

Tho'  it's  in  narrative,  an  art  quite  subtle, 

To  work  all  even,  like  a  weaver's  shuttle. 

LXXI. 

Good  "  characters"  in  tales  are  "  well  brought  up" — 
(Tho',  by  this  rule,  my  Countess  Pasibleu 

Is  a  bad  character — yet,  just  to  sup, 

I  much  prefer  her  house  to  a  church  pew — ) 

But,  pouring  verse  for  readers,  cup  by  cup, — 
So  much  a  week, — what  is  a  man  to  do  ? 

"  'Tis  wish'd  that  if  a  story  you  begin,  you'd 

Make  separate  scenes  of  each  '  to  he  continued.'  " 

LXXII. 

So  writes  plain  "  Jonathan,"  who  tills  my  brains 

With  view  to  crop— (the  seed  being  ready  money—) 

And  if  the  "  small-lot  system"  bring  him  gains, 
He  has  a  right  to  fence  off  grave  from  funny — 

Working  me  up,  as  'twere,  in  window-panes, 

And,  1  must  own,  where  one  has  room  to  run,  he 

Is  apt,  as  Cooper  does,  to  spread  it  thin, 

So  now  I'll  go  to  lumping  it  again  ! 


860 


THE  LADY  JANE. 


LXXIII. 

"  Love  grows,  by  what"  it  gives  to  feed  another, 
And  not  by  what  "  it  feeds  on."     'Tis  divine, 

If  any  thing's  divine  besides  the  mother 

Whose  breast,  self-blessing,  is  its  holy  sign. 

Much  better  than  a  sister  loves  a  brother 

The  Lady  Jane  loved  Jules,  and  "  line  by  line, 

Precept  by  precept,"  furnish'd  him  advice ; 

Also  much  other  stuff  he  thought  more  nice. 

LXXIV. 

She  got  him  into  sundry  pleasant  clubs, 

By  pains  that  women  can  take,  tho'  but  few  will ! 

She  made  most  of  him  when  he  got  most  rubs  ; 
And  once,  in  an  inevitable  duel, 

She  follow'd  him  alone  to  Wormwood  Scrubs — 
But  not  to  hinder  !     Faith  !  she  was  a  jewel ! 

I  wish  the  star  all  manner  of  festivity 

That  shone  upon  her  Ladyship's  nativity  ! 

LXXV. 

All  sorts  of  enviable  invitations, 

Tickets,  and  privileges,  got  she  him ; 
Gave  him  much  satin  waistcoat,  work'd  with  patience, 

(Becoming  to  a  youth  so  jimp  and  slim) — 
Cut  for  his  sake  some  prejudiced  relations, 

And  found  for  him  in  church  the  psalm  and  hymn  ; 
Sent  to  his  "  den"  some  things  not  found  in  Daniel's, 
And  kept  him  in  kid  gloves,  cologne,  and  flannels. 

LXXVI. 

To  set  him  down,  upon  her  way  chez  elle, 
She  stay'd  unreasonably  late  at  parties  ; 

To  introduce  him  to  a  waltzing  belle 

She  sometimes  made  a  cessio  dignitatis; 

And  one  kind  office  more  that  I  must  tell — 

She  sent  her  maid,  (and  very  stern  your  heart  is 

If  charity  like  this  you  find  a  sin  in,) 

In  church-time,  privately,  to  air  his  linen. 

LXXVII. 

Was  Jules  ungrateful  ?     No  !     Was  he  obtuse  ? 

Did  he  believe  that  women's  hearts  were  flowing 
With  tenderness,  like  water  in  a  sluice, — 

Like  the  sun's  shining, — like  the  breeze's  blowing, — 
And  fancy  thanking  them  was  not  much  use  ? 

Had  he  the  luck  of  intimately  knowing 
Another  woman,  quite  as  kind,  and  nicer  ? 
Had  he  a  "  friend"  sub  rosa  ?     No,  sir  !     Fie,  sir  ? 

LXXVIII. 

Then  why  neglect  her  ?     Having  said  he  did, 
I  will  explain,  as  Brutus  did  his  stab, — 

(Tho'  by  my  neighbors  I'm  already  chid 
For  getting  on  so  very  like  a  crab) — 

Jules  didn't  call,  as  oft  as  he  was  bid, 
Because  in  Rome  he  didn't  keep  a  cab — 

A  fact  that  quite  explains  why  friendships,  marriages, 

And  other  ties  depend  on  keeping  carriages. 

LXXIX. 

Without  a  carriage  men  should  have  no  card, 
Nor  "  owe  a  call"  at  all — except  for  love. 

And  friends  who  need  that  you  the  "  lean  earth  lard" 
To  give  their  memories  a  pasteboard  shove, 

On  gentlemen  a-foot  bear  rather  hard  ! 

It's  paying  high  for  Broadway  balls,  by  Jove  ! 

To  walk  next  day  half  way  to  Massachusett 

And  leave  your  name — on  ladies  that  won't  use  it. 

LXXX. 

It  really  should  be  taught  in  infant  schools 
That  the  majority  means  men,  not  dollars  ; 

And,  therefore,  that,  to  let  the  rich  make  rules, 
Is  silly  in  "  poor  pretty  little  scholars." 

And  this  you  see  is  apropos  of  Jules, 

Who  call'd  as  frequently  as  richer  callers 

While  he'd  a  cab  ; — but  courtesy's  half  horse — 

A  secret  those  who  ride  keep  snug,  of  course. 


LXXXI. 

I  say  while  he  was  Centaur,  (horse  and  man,) 
Jules  never  did  neglect  the  Lady  Jane ; 

And,  at  the  start,  it  was  my  settled  plan, 
(Tho'  I've  lost  sight  of  it,  I  see  with  pain,) 

To  show  how  moderate  attentions  can, 
If  once  she  love,  a  woman's  heart  retain 

True  love  is  weak  and  humble,  tho'  so  brittle ; 

And  asks,  'tis  wonderful  how  very  little  ! 

LXXXII. 

For  instance — Jules's  every  day  routine 

Was,  breakfast  at  his  lodgings,  rather  early ; 

A  short  walk  in  the  nearest  Park,  the  Green  : 
(Where,  if  address'd,  he  was  extremely  surly  ;) 

Five  minutes  at  the  club,  perhaps  fifteen ; 

Then  giving  his  fine  silk  moustache  a  curl,  he 

Stepp'd  in  his  cab  and  drove  to  Belgrave  Square, 

Where  he  walk'd  in,  with  quite  a  household  air 

LXXXIII. 

And  here  he  pass'd  an  hour — or  two,  or  three — 
Just  as  it  served  his  purpose  or  his  whim  ; 

And  sweeter  haunt  on  earth  could  scarcely  be 
Than  that  still  boudoir,  rose-lit,  scented,  dim — 

Its  mistress,  elsewhere  all  simplicity, 

Drcss'd  ever  sumptuously  there — for  him  ! 

With  all  that  taste  could  mould,  or  gold  could  buy, 

Pampering  fondly  his  reluctant  eye. 

LXXXIV. 

And  on  the  silken  cushions  at  her  feet 

He  daily  dream'd  these  morning  hours  away, 

Troubling  himself  but  little  to  be  sweet. 
Poets  are  fond  of  revery,  they  say, 

But  not  with  ladies  whom  they  rarely  meet. 
And,  if  you  love  one,  madam,  (as  you  may  !) 

And  wish  his  wings  to  pin  as  with  a  skewer, 

Be  careful  of  all  manner  of  toujours  ! 

LXXXV. 

"  Toujours  perdrix,"  snipe,  woodcock,  trout,  or  rabbit 

Offends  the  simplest  palate,  it  appears, 
And,  (if  a  secret,  I'm  disposed  to  blab  it,) 

It's  much  the  same  with  smiles,  sighs,  quarrels,  tears, 
The  fancy  mortally  abhors  a  habit .' 

(Not  that  which  Seraphina's  bust  inspheres !) 
E'en  one-tuned  music-boxes  breed  satiety, 
Unless  you  keep  of  them  a  great  variety. 

LXXXVI. 

Daily  to  Jules  the  sun  rose  in  the  East, 

And  brought  new  milk  and  morning  paper  daily; 

The  "  yield,"  of  both  the  Editor  and  beast, 

Great  mysteries,  unsolved  by  Brown  or  Paley ; 

But  Jules — not  plagued  about  it  in  the  least — 
Read  his  gazette,  and  drank  his  tea  quite  gaily: 

And  Lady  Jane's  fond  love  and  cloudless  brow 

Grew  to  be  like  the  Editor  and  cow. 

LXXXVII. 

I  see  you  understand  it.     One  may  dash  on 
A  color  here — stroke  there — and  lo  !  the  story ! 

And,  speaking  morally,  this  outline  fashion 
Befits  a  world  so  cramm'd  yet  transitory. 

I've  sketch'd  for  you  a  deep  and  tranquil  passion 
Kindled  while  nursing  up  a  bard  for  glory  ; 

And,  having  whisk'd  you  for  that  end  to  London, 

Let's  back  to  Italy,  and  see  it  undone. 

LXXXVIII. 

Fair  were  the  frescoes  of  Rospigliosi — 
Bright  the  Italian  sunshine  on  the  wall — 

The  day  delicious  and  the  room  quite  cozy — 
And  yet  were  there  two  bosoms  full  of  gall ! 

So  lurks  the  thorn  in  paths  long  soft  and  rosy  1 
Jules  was  not  one  whom  trifles  could  appal, 

But  few  things  will  make  creep  the  lion's  mane 

Like  ladies  in  a  miff  who  won't  explain  ! 


THE  LADY  JANE. 


861 


LXXXIX. 

Now  I  have  seen  a  hadji  and  a  cadi — 

Have  sojourn'd  among  strangers,  oft  and  long — 

Have  known  most  sorts  of  women,  fair  and  shady, 
And  mingled  in  most  kinds  of  mortal  throng — 

But,  in  my  life,  I  never  saw  a  lady 

Who  hud,  the  least,  the  air  of  being  wrong ! 

The  fact  is,  there's  a  nameless  grace  in  evil 

We  never  caught — 'twas  she  who  saw  the  devil  ! 

XC. 

In  pedigree  of  sin  we're  mere  beginners — 

For  what  was  Adam  to  the  "  morning  star  ?" 

She  would  take  precedence — if  sins  were  dinners, 
And  hence  that  self-assured  "  de  haut  en  bas" 

So  unattainable  by  men,  as  sinners. 

Of  course,  she  plays  the  devil  in  a  fracas — 

Frowns  better,  looks  more  innocent,  talks  faster, 

And  argues  like  her  grandmother's  old  master  ! 

XCI. 

And  in  proportion  as  the  angel  fades — 

As  love  departs — the  crest  of  woman  rises — 

Even  in  passion's  softer,  lighter  shades, 
With  aristocracy's  well-bred  disguises  ; 

For,  with  no  tragic  fury,  no  tirades, 
A  lady  looks  a  man  into  a  crisis  ! 

And,  to  'most  any  animal  carnivorous 

Before  a  belle  aggrieved,  the  Lord  deliver  us ! 

XCII. 

Jules  had  one  thing  particular  to  say, 

The  morn  I  speak  of,  but,  in  fact,  was  there, 

Vv  ith  twenty  times  the  mind  to  be  away. 
Uncomfortable  seem'd  the  stuflfd  arm-chair 

In  which  the  Earl  would  sometimes  pass  the  day ; 
And  there  was  something  Roman  in  the  air ; 

For  every  effort  to  express  his  errand 

Ended  in  "  urn  !" — as  'twere  a  Latin  gerund. 

XCIII. 

He  had  received  a  little  billet-doux 

The  night  before — as  plain  as  A  B  C — 

(I  mean,  it  would  appear  as  plain  to  you, 
Tho'  very  full  of  meaning  you'll  agree) — 

Informing  him  that  by  advice  quite  new 
The  Earl  was  going  now  to  try  the  sea ; 

And  begging  him  to  have  his  passport  vised 

For  Venice,  by  Bologna — if  he  pleased  ! 

XCIV. 

Smooth  as  a  melody  of  Mother  Goose's 

The  gentle  missive  elegantly  ran — 
A  sort  of  note  the  writer  don't  care  who  sees, 

For  you  may  pick  a  flaw  in't  if  you  can — 
But  yet  a  stern  experimentum  crucis, 

Quite  in  the  style  of  Metternich,  or  Van, — 
And  meant—without  more  flummery  or  fuss — 
Stay  with  your  Marchioness — or  come  with  us  ! 

XCV. 
Here  was  to  be  "  a  parting  such  as  wrings  [stay 

The  blood  from  out  young  hearts" — for  Jules  would 
The  bird  she  took  unfledged  had  got  its  wings, 

And,  though  its  cage  be  gold,  it  must  away  ! 
But  this,  and  similar  high-color'd  things, 

Refinement  makes  it  difficult  to  say ; 
For,  higher  "  high  life"  is,  (this  side  an  attic,) 
The  more  it  shrinks  from  all  that  looks  dramatic. 

XCVI. 

Hence,  words  grow  cold  as  agony  grows  hot, 
'Twixt  those  who  see  in  ridicule  a  Hades  ; 

And  tho'  the  truth  but  coldly  end  the  plot, 
(There  really  is  no  pathos  for  you,  ladies  !) 

Jules  cast  the  die  with,  simply  "  I  think  not !" 
And  her  few  words  were  guarded  as  he  made  his 

For  rank  has  one  cold  law  of  Moloch's  making — 

Death,  before  outcry,  while  the  heart  is  breaking! 


XCVII. 

She  could  not  tell  that  boy  how  hot  the  tear 
That  seem'd  within  her  eyeball  to  have  died — 

She  could  not  tell  him  her  exalted  sphere 
Had  not  a  hope  his  boyish  love  beside  : 

The  grave  of  anguish  is  a  human  ear — 
Hers  lay  unburied  in  a  pall  of  pride  ! 

And  life,  for  her,  thenceforth,  was  cold  and  lonely, 

With  her  heart  lock'd  on  that  dumb  sorrow  only! 

XCVIII. 

Calm,  in  her  "  pride  of  place,"  moves  Lady  Jane — 

Paler,  but  beautifully  pale,  and  cold — 
So  cold,  the  gazer  believes  joy  nor  pain 

Has  o'er  that  pulse  of  marble  ever  roll'd. 
She  loved  too  late  to  dream  of  love  again, 

And  rich,  fair,  noble,  and  alone,  grows  old 
A  star,  on  which  a  spirit  had  alighted 
Once,  in  all  time,  were  like  a  life  so  blighted ! 

XCIX. 

So,  from  the  poet's  woof  was  broke  a  thread 
Which  we  have  follow'd  in  its  rosy  weaving  ; 

Yet  merrily,  still  on,  the  shuttle  sped. 

Jules  was  not  made  of  stuff  to  die  of  grieving  , 

But,  that  an  angel  from  his  path  had  fled, 
He  was  not  long  in  mournfully  believing. 

And  "  angel  watch  and  ward"  had  fled  with  her — 

For,  virtuously  loved,  'tis  hard  to  err ! 

C. 

Poets  are  moths,  (or  so  some  poet  sings, 

Or  so  some  pleasant  allegory  goes,) 
And  Jules  at  many  a  bright  light  burnt  his  wings. 

His  first  chaste  scorching  the  foregoing  shows  ; 
But,  while  one  passion  best  in  metre  rings, 

Another  is  best  told  in  lucid  prose. 
As  to  the  marchioness,  I've  half  a  plan,  sir '. 
To  limn  her  in  the  quaint  Spenserian  stanza. 

END. 

To  the  Reader. 
And  now,  dear  reader !  as  a  brick  may  be 

A  sample  of  a  house — a  bit  of  glass 
Of  a  broad  mirror — it  has  seem'd  to  me 

These  fragments  for  a  tale  may  shift  to  pass. 
(I  am  a  poet  much  cut  tip,  pardie !) 

But  "  shorts"  is  poor  "  to  running  loose  to  grass." 
Where  there's  a  meadow  to  range  freely  over, 
You  pick  to  please  you — timothy  or  clover. 

Without  the  slightest  hint  at  transmigration, 
I  wish  hereafter  we  may  meet  in  calf! 

That  you  may  read  me  with  some  variation —    [laugh 
This    when    you're    moody — that  when  you  would 

In  that  case,  I  may  swell  this  true  narration, 
And  blow  off  here  and  there  a  speech  of  chaff. 

I  trust  you  think,  that,  were  there  more  'twere  better,  or 

If  cetera  desunt,  decent  were  the  cetera  ! 

P.  S.     I  really  had  forgotten  quite 

To  say  to  you,  from  Countess  Pasibleu— 

(Dying,  'tis  thought,  but  quite  too  ill  to  write) — 
Her  Ladyship's  best  compliments  to  you, 

And  she's  toujours  chez  elle  on  Friday  night, 
(Buckingham  Crescent,  May  Fair,  No.  2.) 

This,  (as  her  written  missive  would  have  said,) 

Always  in  case  her  Ladyship's  not  dead. 


AN  APOLOGY 
For  avoiding,  after  long  separation,  a  woman  once  lovtd. 
See  me  no  more  on  earth,  I  pray, 

Thy  picture,  in  my  memory  now, 
Is  fair  as  morn,  and  fresh  as  May  ! 
Few  were  as  beautiful  as  thou ! 


862 


MISCELLANEOUS  POEMS. 


And  still  I  see  that  willowy  form — 
And  still  that  cheek  like  roses  dyed — 

And  still  that  dark  eye,  deep  and  warm — 
Thy  look  of  love — thy  step  of  pride  ! — 

Thy  memory  is  a  star  to  me, 

More  bright  as  day-beams  fade  and  flee. 

But  thou,  indeed  ! — Ah  !  years  have  fled, 

And  thou,  like  others,  changed  the  while — 
For  joy  upon  the  lip  lies  dead 

If  pain  but  cloud  the  sunny  smile  ! 
And  care  will  make  the  roses  pale, 

And  tears  will  soil  the  lily's  whiteness, 
And  ere  life's  lamp  begins  to  fail 

The  eye  forgets  its  trick  of  brightness  ! 
Look  for  the  rose  of  dawn  at  noon, 
And  weep  for  beauty — lost  as  soon  ! 

Cold  words  that  hide  the  envious  thought .' 

I  could  not  bear  thy  face  to  see — 
But  oh,  'tis  not  that  time  has  wrought 

A  change  in  features  dear  to  me ! 
No !  had  it  been  my  lot  to  share 

The  fragrance  of  the  flower  decay'd — 
If  I  had  borne  but  half  the  care 

That  on  thy  brow  its  burden  laid — 
If  in  my  love  thou'dst  burn'd  away, 
The  ashes  still  had  warm'd  the  heart  so  cold  to-day ! 


TO  HELEN  IN  A  HUFF. 

Nay,  lady,  one  frown  is  enough 

In  a  life  as  soon  over  as  this — 
And  though  minutes  seem  long  in  a  huff, 

They're  minutes  'tis  pity  to  miss  ! 
The  smiles  you  imprison  so  lightly 

Are  reckon'd,  like  days  in  eclipse ; 
And  though  you  may  smile  again  brightly, 

You've  lost  so  much  light  from  your  lips  ! 
Pray,  lady,  smile  ! 

The  cup  that  is  longest  untasted 

May  be  with  our  bliss  running  o'er, 
And,  love  when  we  will,  we  have  wasted 

An  age  in  not  loving  before ! 
Perchance  Cupid's  forging  a  fetter 

To  tie  us  together  some  day, 
And,  just  for  the  chance,  we  had  better 

Be  laying  up  love,  I  should  say ! 
Nay,  lady,  smile ! 


CITY  LYRICS. 


Argument.— The  poet  starts  from  i> 


i\ing  Green  to  take  his  sweet- 


heart up  to  Thompson's  foran'ice,  V(3Tih7V5oelin«J  formore°)  .,  CI 
mse  to  matters  which  any  everyday  man   and    young 


Come  out,  love — the  night  is  enchanting! 

The  moon  hangs  just  over  Broadway ; 
The  stars  arc  all  lighted  and  panting 

(Hot  weather  up  there,  I  dare  say  !) 
'Tis  seldom  that  "  coolness"  entices, 

And  love  is  no  better  for  chilling — 
But  come  up  to  Thompson's  for  ices, 

And  cool  your  warm  heart  for  a  shilling  ! 

What  perfume  comes  balmily  o'er  us  ? 

Mint  juleps  from  City  Hotel ! 
A  loafer  is  smoking  before  us — 

(A  nasty  cigar,  by  the  smell !) 
Oh  Woman  !  thou  secret  past  knowing  ! 

Like  lilachs  that  grow  by  the  wall, 
You  breathe  every  air  that  is  going, 

Yet  gather  but  sweetness  from  all ! 


On,  on  !  by  St.  Paul's,  and  the  Astor  ! 

Religion  seems  very  ill-plann'd  ! 
For  one  day  we  list  to  the  pastor, 

For  six  days  wc  list  to  the  band ! 
The  sermon  may  dwell  on  the  future, 

The  organ  your  pulses  may  calm — ■ 
When — pest ! — that  remember'd  cachucha 

Upsets  both  the  sermon  and  psalm  ! 

Oh,  pity  the  love  that  must  utter 

While  goes  a  swift  omnibus  by ! 
(Tho'  sweet  is  /  scream*  when  the  flutter 

Of  fans  shows  thermometers  high) — 
But  if  what  I  bawl,  or  I  mutter, 

Falls  into  your  ear  but  to  die, 
Oh,  the  dew  that  falls  into  the  gutter 

Is  not  more  unhappy  than  I  ! 


TO  THE   LADY  IN  THE   CHEMISETTE  WITH 
BLACK  BUTTONS. 

I  know  not  who  thou  art,  oh,  lovely  one! 
Thine  eyes  were  droop'd,  thy  lips  half  sorrowful— 
Yet  thou  didst  eloquently  smile  on  me 
While  handing  up  thy  sixpence  through  the  hole 
Of  that  o'er-freighted  omnibus  !     Ah  me  ! 
The  world  is  full  of  meetings  such  as  this — 
A  thrill,  a  voiceless  challenge  and  reply — 
And  sudden  partings  after  !     We  may  pass, 

And  know  not  of  each  other's  nearness  now 

Thou  in  the  Knickerbocker  Line,  and  I, 
Lone,  in  the  Waverley !     Oh,  life  of  pain  ! 

And  even  should  I  pass  where  thou  dost  dwell 

Nay — see  thee  in  the  basement  taking  tea — 

So  cold  is  this  inexorable  world, 

I  must  glide  on  !     I  dare  not  feast  mine  eye  ! 

I  dare  not  make  articulate  my  love, 

Nor  o'er  the  iron  rails  that  hem  thee  in 

Venture  to  fling  to  thee  my  innocent  card — 

Not  knowing  thy  papa  ! 

Hast  thou  papa  ? 
Is  thy  progenitor  alive,  fair  girl  ? 
And  what  doth  he  for  lucre  ?     Lo  again  ! 
A  shadow  o'er  the  face  of  this  fair  dream  ! 
For  thou  mayst  be  as  beautiful  as  Love 
Can  make  thee,  and  the  ministering  hands 
Of  milliners,  incapable  of  more, 
Be  lifted  at  thy  shapeliness  and  air, 
And  still  'twixt  me  and  thee,  invisibly, 
May  rise  a  wall  of  adamant.     My  breath 
Upon  my  pale  lip  freezes  as  I  name 
Manhattan's  orient  verge,  and  eke  the  west 
In  its  far  down  extremity.     Thy  sire 
May  be  the  signer  of  a  temperance  pledge, 
And  clad  all  decently  may  walk  the  earth — 
Nay — may  be  number'd  with  that  blessed  few 
Who  never  ask  for  discount — yet,  alas  ! 
If,  homeward  wending  from  his  daily  cares, 
He  go  by  Murphy's  Line,  thence  eastward  tending 
Or  westward  from  the  Line  of  Kipp  &  Brown, — 
My  vision  is  departed  !     Harshly  falls 
The  doom  upon  the  ear,  "  She's  not  genteel !" 
And  pitiless  is  woman  who  doth  keep 
Of  "  good  society"  the  golden  key  ! 
And  gentlemen  are  bound,  as  are  the  stars, 
To  stoop  not  after  rising  ! 

But  farewell, 
And  I  shall  look  for  thee  in  streets  where  dwell 
The  passengers  by  Broadway  Lines  alone  ! 
And  if  my  dreams  be  true,  and  thou,  indeed, 
Art  only  not  more  lovely  than  genteel — 
Then,  lady  of  the  snow-white  chemisette, 
The  heart  which  vent'rously  cross'd  o'er  to  thee 
Upon  that  bridge  of  sixpence,  may  remain — 
And,  with  up-town  devotedness  and  truth, 
My  love  shall  hover  round  thee  ! 


Query.— Should  this  he  Ire.  cream,  or  I  scream  ?— Printer'*  Devi/. 


MISCELLANEOUS  POEMS. 


863 


THE  LADY  IN  THE  WHITE  DRESS, 

Whom  I  helped  into  the  Omnibus. 
I  know  her  not !     Her  hand  has  been  in  mine, 
And  the  warm  pressure  of  her  taper  arm 
Has  thrill'd  upon  my  fingers,  and  the  hem 
Of  her  white  dress  has  lain  upon  my  feet, 
Till  my  hush'd  pulse,  by  the  caressing  folds, 
Was  kindled  to  a  fever !     I,  to  her, 
Am  but  the  undistinguishable  leaf 
Blown  by  upon  the  breeze — yet  I  have  sat, 
And  in  the  blue  depths  of  her  stainless  eyes, 
(Close  as  a  lover  in  his  hour  of  bliss, 
And  steadfastly  as  look  the  twin  stars  down 
Into  unfathomable  wells,)  have  gazed  ! 
And  I  have  felt  from  out  its  gate  of  pearl 
Her  warm  breath  on  my  cheek,  and  while  she  sat 
Dreaming  away  the  moments,  I  have  tried 
To  count  the  long  dark  lashes  in  the  fringe 
Of  her  bewildering  eyes  !     The  kerchief  sweet 
That  enviably  visits  her  red  lip 
Has  slumber'd,  while  she  held  it,  on  my  knee, — 
And  her  small  foot  has  crept  between  mine  own — 
And  yet,  she  knows  me  not ! 

Now,  thanks  to  heaven 
For  blessings  chainlcss  in  the  rich  man's  keeping- 
Wealth  that  the  miser  cannot  hide  away  ! 
Buy,  if  they  will,  the  invaluable  flower — 
They  cannot  store  its  fragrance  from  the  breeze  1 
Wear,  if  they  will,  the  costliest  gem  of  Ind — 
It  pours  its  light  on  every  passing  eye ! 
And  he  who  on  this  beauty  sets  his  name — 
Who  dreams,  perhaps,  that  for  his  use  alone 
Such  loveliness  was  first  of  angels  born — 
Tell  him,  oh  whisperer  at  his  dreaming  ear, 
That  I  too,  in  her  beauty,  sun  my  eye, 
And,  unrebuked,  may  worship  her  in  song — 
Tell  him  that  heaven,  along  our  darkling  way, 
Hath  set  bright  lamps  with  loveliness  alight — 
And  all  may  in  their  guiding  beams  rejoice ; 
But  he — as  'twere  a  watcher  by  a  lamp — 
Guard^ut  this  bright  one's  shining. 


THE  WHITE  CHIP  HAT. 

I  pass'd  her  one  day  in  a  hurry, 

When  late  for  the  Post  with  a  letter— 
I  think  near  the  corner  of  Murray — 

And  up  rose  my  heart  as  I  met  her ! 
I  ne'er  saw  a  parasol  handled 

So  like  to  a  dutchess's  doing — 
I  ne'er  saw  a  slighter  foot  sandall'd, 

Or  so  fit  to  exhale  in  the  shoeing — 
Lovely  thing ! 

Surprising  ! — one  woman  can  dish  us 

So  many  rare  sweets  up  together  1 
Tournure  absolutely  delicious — 

Chip  hat  without  flower  or  feather- 
Well  gloved,  and  enchantingly  boddiced- 

Her  waist  like  the  cup  of  a  lily — 
And  an  air,  that,  while  daintily  modest, 

Repell'd  both  the  saucy  and  silly — 
Quite  the  thing ! 

For  such  a  rare  wonder  you'll  say,  sir, 

There's  reason  in  straining  one's  tether — 
And,  to  see  her  again  in  Broadway,  sir, 

Who  would  not  be  lavish  of  leather ! 
I  met  her  again,  and  as  you  .know 

I'm  sage  as  old  Voltaire  at  Ferney — 
But  I  said  a  bad  word — for  my  Juno 

Look'd  sweet  on  a  sneaking  attorney — 
Horrid  thing  '. 

Away  flies  the  dream  I  had  nourish'd — 
My  castles  like  mockery  fall,  sir  ! 

And,  now,  the  fine  airs  that  she  flourish'd 
Seem  varnish  nnd  crockery  all,  sir ! 


The  bright  cup  which  angels  might  handle 
Turns  earthy  when  finger'd  by  asses — 

And  the  star  that  "  swaps"  light  with  a  candle, 
Thenceforth  for  a  pennyworth  passes  ! — 
Not  the  thing ! 


YOU  KNOW  IF  IT  WAS  YOU. 

As  the  chill'd  robin,  bound  to  Florida 
Upon  a  morn  of  autumn,  crosses  flying 
The  air-track  of  a  snipe  most  passing  fair- 
Yet  colder  in  her  blood  than  she  is  fair — 
And  as  that  robin  lingers  on  the  wing, 
And  feels  the  snipe's  flight  in  the  eddying  air, 
And  loves  her  for  her  coldness  not  the  less, — 
But  fain  would  win  her  to  that  warmer  sky 
Where  love  lies  waking  with  the  fragrant  stars — 
So  I — a  languisher  for  sunnier  climes, 
Where  fruit,  leaf,  blossom,  on  the  trees  forever 
Image  the  tropic  deathlessness  of  love — 
Have  met,  and  long'd  to  win  thee,  fairest  lady, 
To  a  more  genial  clime  than  cold  Broadway  ! 

Tranquil  and  effortless  thou  glidest  on, 
As  doth  the  swan  upon  the  yielding  water, 
And  with  a  cheek  like  alabaster  cold ! 
But  as  thou  didst  divide  the  amorous  air 
Just  opposite  the  Astor,  and  didst  lift 
That  veil  of  languid  lashes  to  look  in 
At  Leary's  tempting  window — lady  !  then 
My  heart  sprang  in  beneath  that  fringed  veil, 
Like  an  adventurous  bird  that  would  escape 
To  some  warm  chamber  from  the  outer  cold  ! 
And  there  would  I  delightedly  remain, 
And  close  that  fringed  window  with  a  kiss, 
And  in  the  warm  sweet  chamber  of  thy  breast, 
Be  prisoner  forever ! 


UNSEEN  SPIRITS. 

The  shadows  lay  along  Broadway — 

'Twas  near  the  twilight-tide — 
And  slowly  there  a  lady  fair 

Was  walking  in  her  pride. 
Alone  walk'd  she;  but,  viewlessly, 

Walk'd  spirits  at  her  side. 

Peace  charm 'd  the  street  beneath  her  feet, 

And  Honor  charm'd  the  air  ; 
And  all  astir  look'd  kind  on  her, 

And  call'd  her  good  as  fair — 
For  all  God  ever  gave  to  her 

She  kept  with  chary  care. 

She  kept  with  care  her  beauties  rare 

From  lovers  warm  and  true — 
For  her  heart  was  cold  to  all  but  gold, 

And  the  rich  came  not  to  woo — 
But  honor'd  well  arc  charms  to  sell 

If  priests  the  selling  do. 

Now  walking  there  was  one  more  fair— 

A  slight  girl,  lily-pale  ; 
And  she  had  unseen  company 

To  make  the  spirit  quad— 
•Twixt  Want  and  Scorn  she  walk'd  forlom, 

And  nothing  could  avail. 

No  mercy  now  can  clear  her  brow 
For  this  world's  peace  to  pray  ; 

For,  as  love's  wild  prayer  dissolved  in  air, 
Her  woman's  heart  gave  way!— 

But  the  sin  forgiven  by  Christ  in  heaven 
By  man  is  curst  alway  ! 


864 


MISCELLANEOUS  POEMS. 


LOVE  IN  A  COTTAGE. 

They  may  talk  of  love  in  a  cottage, 

And  bowers  of  trellised  vine — 
Of  nature  bewitchingly  simple, 

And  milkmaids  half  divine  ; 
They  may  talk  of  the  pleasure  of  sleeping 

In  the  shade  of  a  spreading  tree, 
And  a  walk  in  the  fields  at  morning, 

By  the  side  of  a  footstep  free  ! 

But  give  me  a  sly  flirtation 

By  the  light  of  a  chandelier — 
With  music  to  play  in  the  pauses, 

And  nobody  very  near  ; 
Or  a  seat  on  a  silken  sofa, 

With  a  glass  of  pure  old  wine, 
And  mamma  too  blind  to  discover 

The  small  white  hand  in  mine. 

Your  love  in  a  cottage  is  hungry, 

Your  vine  is  a  nest  for  flies — 
Your  milkmaid  shocks  the  Graces, 

And  simplicity  talks  of  pies  ! 
You  lie  down  to  your  shady  slumber 

And  wake  with  a  bug  in  your  ear, 
And  your  damsel  that  walks  in  the  morning 

Is  shod  like  a  mountaineer. 

True  love  is  at  home  on  a  carpet, 

And  mightily  likes  his  ease — 
And  true  love  has  an  eye  for  a  dinner, 

And  starves  beneath  shady  trees. 


His  wing  is  the  fan  of  a  lady, 
His  foot's  an  invisible  thing, 

And  his  arrow  is  tipp'd  with  a  jewel, 
And  shot  from  a  silver  string. 


THE  DECLARATION. 

'Twas  late,  and  the  gay  company  was  gone, 
And  light  lay  soft  on  the  deserted  room 
From  alabaster  vases,  and  a  scent 
Of  orange  leaves,  and  sweet  verbena  came 
Through  the  unshutter'd  window  on  the  air, 
And  the  rich  pictures  with  their  dark  old  tints 
Hung  like  a  twilight  landscape,  and  all  things 
Seem'd  hush'd  into  a  slumber.     Isabel, 
The  dark-eyed,  spiritual  Isabel 
Was  leaning  on  her  harp,  and  I  had  stay'd 
To  whisper  what  I  could  not  when  the  crowd 
Hung  on  her  look  like  worshippers.     I  knelt, 
And  with  the  fervor  of  a  lip  unused 
To  the  cool  breath  of  reason,  told  my  love. 
There  was  no  answer,  and  I  took  the  hand 
That  rested  on  the  strings,  and  press'd  a  kiss 
Upon  it  unforbidden — and  again 
Besought  her,  that  this  silent  evidence 
That  I  was  not  indifferent  to  her  heart, 
Might  have  the  seal  of  one  sweet  syllable. 
I  kiss'd  the  small  white  fingers  as  I  spoke, 
And  she  withdrew  them  gently,  and  upraised 
Her  forehead  from  its  resting-place,  and  looked 
Earnestly  on  me—  She  had  been  asleep  ! 


TORTESA,  THE  USURER, 


DRAMATIS  PERSONS. 

Duke  of  Florence. 

Count  Falcone. 

Tortesa — a  usui-er. 

Anoelo — a  young  painter. 

Tomaso — his  Servant. 

*»*  *  * 

Isabella  de  Falcone. 

Zippa — a  Glover's  daughter. 

Other  characters— a  Counsellor,  a  page,  the  Count's  Secre- 
tary, a  Tradesman,  a  Monk,  Lords,  Ladies,  Officer, 
Soldiers,  $c. 


ACT  I. 


[A   drawing-room  in  Tortesa's  house.     Servant  discovered 
reading  the  bill  of  a  tradesman,  who  is  in  attendance.] 

Servant  (reading).  "Silk  hose,  doublet  of  white  satin, 
twelve  shirts  of  lawn."  He'll  not  pay  it  to-day,  good 
mercer ! 

Tradesman.  How,  master  Gaspar  ?  When  I  was 
assured  of  the  gold  on  delivery  ?  If  it  be  a  credit  account, 
look  you,  there  must  be  a  new  bill.  The  charge  is  for 
ready  money. 

Servant.  Tut — tut — man,  you  know  not  whom  you  serve. 
My  master  is  as  likely  to  overpay  you  if  you  are  civil,  as  to 
keep  you  a  year  out  of  your  money  if  you  push  him  when 
he  is  crossed. 

Tradesman.  Why,  this  is  the  humor  of  a  spendthrift, 
not  the  careful  way  of  a  usurer. 

Servant.  Usurer!  humph.  Well,  it  may  be  he  is — to 
the  rich  !  But  the  heart  of  the  Signor  Tortesa,  let  me  tell 
you,  is  like  the  bird's  wing — the  dark  side  is  turned  up- 
ward. To  those  who  look  up  to  him  he  shows  neither 
spot  nor  stain!  Hark!  I  hear  his  wheels  in  the  court. 
Step  to  the  ante-room — for  he  has  that  on  his  hands  to-day 
which  may  make  him  impatient.  Quick !  Give  way ! 
I'll  bring  you  to  him  if  I  can  find  a  time. 

Tortesa  (speaking  without).     What  ho!  Gaspar! 

Servant.     Signor ! 

Tortesa.     My  keys !     Bring  me  my  keys  ! 

[Enter  Tortesa,  followed  by  Count  Falcone.] 
Come  in,  count. 
Falcone.     You're  well  lodged. 

Tortesa.  The  duke  waits  for  you 

To  get  to  horse.     So,  briefly,  there's  the  deed  ! 
You  have  your  lands  back,  and  your  daughter's  mine — 
So  ran  the  bargain! 

Falcone  (coldly).     She's  betrothed,  sir,  to  you ! 
Tortesa.     Not   a   half  hour  since,  and  you  hold  the 
parchment ! 
A  free  transaction,  see  you !— for  you're  paid, 
And  I'm  but  promised  ! 

Falcone.  (Aside — What  a  slave  is  this, 

To  give  my  daughter  to !     My  daughter  ?     Psha ! 
I'll  think  but  of  my  lands,  my  precious  lands  !) 
Sir,  the  duke  sets  forth — 

Tortesa.  Use  no  ceremony  ! 

Yet  stay !     A  word !     Our  nuptials  follow  quick 
On  your  return  ? 

Falcone.     That  hour,  if  it  so  please  you  ! 
Tortesa.     And  what's  the  bargain  if  her  humor  change  ? 
Falcone.     The  lands  are  yours  again — 'tis  understood 
so. 

55 


Tortesa.    Yet,  still  a  word !     You  leave  her  with  her 
maids. 
I  have  a  right  in  her  by  this  betrothal. 
Seal  your  door  up  till  you  come  back  again  ! 
I'd  have  no  foplings  tampering  with  my  wife ! 
None  of  your  painted  jackdaws  from  the  court, 
Sneering  and  pitying  her  !     My  lord  Falcone ! 
Shall  she  be  private? 

Falcone.  (Aside— Patience  !  for  my  lands  !) 
You  shall  control  my  door,  sir,  and  my  daughter ! 
Farewell  now !  [Exit  Falcone. 

Tortesa.  Oh,  omnipotence  of  money ! 

Ha  !  ha  !  Why,  there's  the  haughtiest  nobleman 
That  walks  in  Florence.     He  /—whom  I  have  bearded — 
Checked — made  conditions  to — shut  up  his  daughter — 
And  all  with  money  !     They  should  pull  down  churches 
And  worship  it !     Had  I  been  poor,  that  man 
Would  see  me  rot  ere  give  his  hand  to  me. 
I — as  I  stand  here — dressed  thus — looking  thus — 
The  same  in  all — save  money  in  my  purse — 
He  would  have  scorned  to  let  me  come  so  near 
That  I  could  breathe  on  him !     Yet,  that  were  little — 
For  pride  sometimes  outdoes  humility, 
And  your  great  man  will  please  to  be  familiar, 
To  show  how  he  can  stoop.     But  halt  you  there ! 
He  has  a  jewel  that  you  may  not  name*! 
His  wife's  above  you  !     You're  no  company 
For  his  most  noble  daughter !    You  are  brave — 
'Tis  nothing  !  comely — nothing  !  honorable — 
You  are  a  phoenix  of  all  human  virtues — 
But,  while  your  blood's  mean,  there's  a  frozen  bar 
Betwixt  yo^and  a  lady,  that  will  melt — 
Not  with  religion — scarcely  with  the  grave — 
But  like  a  mist,  with  money  ! 

[Enter  a  Servant.] 

Servant.  Please  you,  sir ! 

A  tradesman  waits  to  see  you  ! 

Tortesa.  Let  him  in  !    [Exit  Servant. 

What  need  have  I  of  forty  generations 
To  build  my  name  up  ?     I  have  bought  with  money 
The  fairest  daughter  of  their  haughtiest  line  ! 
Bought  her  !     Falcone's  daughter  for  so  much  ! 
No  wooing  in't !     Ha  !  ha  !  I  harped  on  that 
Till  my  lord  winced  !     "  My  bargain  !"  still  "  my  bar- 
gain .'" 
Naught  of  my  bride  !    Ha  !  ha  !     'Twas  excellent ! 

[Enter  Tradesman.] 
What's  thy  demand  ? 

Tradesman.     Ten  ducats,  please  your  lordship  ! 

Tortesa.     Out  on  "your  lordship!"     There  are  twelve 
for  ten ! 
Does  a  lord  pay  like  that  ?     Learn  some  name  sweeter 
To  my  ears  than  "  Your  lordship  !"     I'm  no  lord  ! 
Give  me  thy  quittance  !     Now,  begone  !     Who  waits  1 

Servant.     The  glover's  daughter,  please  you,  sir  I 
[Enter  Zippa.] 

Tortesa.  Come  in, 

My  pretty  neighbor  !     What !  my  bridal  gloves  ! 
Are  they  brought  home  ? 

Zippa.  The  signor  pays  so  well, 

He's  well  served. 

Tortesa.  Um  !  why,  pertinently  answered ! 

And  yet,  my  pretty  one,  the  words  were  sweeter 
In  any  mouth  than  yours  ! 

Zippa.  Tkat's  easy  true  ! 


866 


TORTESA,  THE  USURER. 


Tortesa.     I  would  'twere  liking  that  had  spurred  your 
service — 
Not  money,  Zippa,  sweet !     (She  presents  her  parcel  to 
him,  with  a  meaning  air.) 
Zippa.  Your  bridal  gloves,  sir ! 

Tortesa.      (Aside — What  a   fair  shrew  it  is !)     My 
gloves  are  paid  for  ! 
And  will  be  thrown  aside  when  worn  a  little. 
Zippa.     What  then,  sir  ! 
Tortesa.     Why,  the  bride  is  paid  for,  too ! 
And  may  be  thrown  aside,  when  worn  a  little  ! 

Zippa.     You  mock  me  now ! 

Tortesa.  You  know  Falcone's  palace, 

And  lands,  here,  by  Fiesole  ?     I  bought  them 
For  so  much  money  of  his  creditors, 
And  gave  them  to  him,  in  a  plain,  round  bargain, 
For  his  proud  daughter  !     What  think  you  of  that  ? 

Zippa.     What  else  but  that  you  loved  her  ! 

Tortesa.  As  I  love 

The  thing  I  give  my  money  for — no  more  ! 

Zippa.     You  mean  to  love  her  ? 

Tortesa.     'Twas  not  in  the  bargain  ! 

Zippa.     Why,  what  a  monster  do  you  make  yourself! 
Have  you  no  heart  ? 

Tortesa.  A  loving  one,  for  you  ! 

Nay,  never  frown  !     I  marry  this  lord's  daughter 
To  please  a  devil  that  inhabits  me  ! 
But  there's  an  angel  in  me — not  so  strong — 
And  this  last  loves  you  ! 

Zippa.  Thanks  for  your  weak  angel ! 

I'd  sooner  'twere  the  devil ! 

Tortesa.  Both  were  yours ! 

But  for  the  burning  fever  that  I  have 
To  pluck  at  their  proud  blood. 

Zippa.  Why,  this  poor  lady 

Can  not  have  harmed  you  ! 

Tortesa.  Forty  thousand  times  ! 

She's  noble-born — there's  one  wrong  in  her  cradle ! 
She's  proud — why,  that  makes  every  pulse  an  insult — 
Sixty  a  minute  !     She's  profuse  in  smiles 
On  those  who  are,  to  me,  as  stars  to  slow-worms — 
So  I'm  disparaged  !     I  have  passed  her  by, 
Summer  and  winter,  and  she  ne'er  lookedJyi  me  ! 
Her  youth  has  been  one  tissue  of  contempff 
Her  lovers,  and  her  tutors,  and  her  heart, 
Taught  her  to  scorn  the  low-born — that  am  I ! 
Would  you  have  more  ? 

Zippa.  Why,  this  is  moonstruck  madness. 

Tortesa.     I'd  have  her  mine,  for   all  this— jewelled, 
perfumed — 
Just  as  they've  worshipped  her  at  court — my  slave! 

They've  mewed  her  breath  up  in  their  silken  beds 

Blanched  her  with  baths — fed  her  on  delicate  food 

Guarded  the  unsunned  dew  upon  her  skin — 
For  some  lord's  pleasure  !     If  I  could  not  get  her, 
There's  a  contempt  in  that,  would  make  my  forehead 
Hot  in  my  grave  ! 

Zippa.         (Aside — Now  Heaven  forbid  my  fingers 
Should  make  your  bridal  gloves  !)  Forgive  me,  signor ! 
I'll  take  these  back,  so  please  you  !     (Takes  up  the  par- 
cel again.) 

Tortesa  (not  listening  to  her).       But  for  this — 
This  devil  at  my  heart,  thou  shouldst  have  wedded 
The  richest  commoner  in  Florence,  Zippa  ! 
Tell  me  thou  wouldst ! 

Zippa.     (Aside — Stay  !  stay  !  A  thought !     If  I 
Could  feign  to  love  him,  and  so  work  on  him 
To  put  this  match  off,  and  at  last  to  break  it — 
'Tis  possible — and  so  befriend  this  lady, 
Whom,  from  my  soul,  I  pity  !     Nay,  I  will !) 
Signor  Tortesa  ! 

Tortesa.  You've  been  dreaming  now, 

How  you  would  brave  it  in  your  lady-gear ; 
Was't  not  so  ? 

Zippa.  No ! 

Tortesa.  What  then  ? 

Zippa.  I  had  a  thought, 

If  I  dare  speak  it. 

Tortesa.  Nay,  nay,  speak  it  out! 

Zippa.     I  had  forgot  your  riches,  and  I  thought 
How  lost  you  were ! 

Tortesa.  How  lost  ? 


Zippa.  Your  qualities, 

Which  far  outweigh  your  treasure,  thrown  away 
On  one  who  does  not  love  you  ! 

Tortesa.  Thrown  away  ? 

Zippa.     Is  it  not  so  to  have  a  gallant  shape, 
And  no  eye  to  be  proud  on't — to  be  full 
Of  all  that  makes  men  dangerous  to  women, 
And  marry  where  you're  scorned  ? 

Tortesa.  There's  reason  there! 

Zippa.     You're  wise  in  meaner  riches  !     You  have 
gold, 
'Tis  out  at  interest ! — lands,  palaces, 
They  bring  in  rent.     The  gifts  of  nature  only 
Worth  to  you,  signor,  more  than  all  your  gold, 
Lie  profitless  and  idle.     Your  fine  stature — 

Tortesa.     Why — so,  so  ! 

Zippa.  Speaking  eyes — 

Tortesa.  Ay,  passable ! 

Zippa.     Your  voice,  uncommon  musical — 

Tortesa.  Nay,  there, 

I  think  you  may  be  honest ! 

Zippa.  And  you  look, 

In  all  points  lofty,  like  a  gentleman  ! 
(Aside — That  last  must  choke  him  !) 

Tortesa.  You've  a  judgment,  Zippa, 

That  makes  me  wonder  at  you  !     We  are  both 
Above  our  breeding — I  have  often  thought  so — 
And  loved  you — but  to-day  so  more  than  ever, 
That  my  revenge  must  have  drunk  up  my  life, 
To  still  sweep  over  it.     But  when  I  think 
Upon  that  proud  lord  and  his  scornful  daughter — 
I  say  not  you're  forgot — myself  am  lost — 
And  love  and  memory  with  me  !     I  must  go 
And  visit  her  !     I'll  see  you  to  the  door — 
Come,  Zippa,  come! 

Zippa.     (Aside — I,  too,  will  visit  her  ! 
You're  a  brave  signor,  but  against  two  women 
You'll  find  your  wits  all  wanted  !) 

Tortesa.  Come  away ! 

I  must  look  on  my  bargain  !  my  good  bargain  ! 
Ha  !  ha  !  my  bargain .'  [Exeunt. 


SCENE  II. 

[The  painter's  studio.  Angelo  painting.  Tomaso  in  the 
foreground,  arranging  a  meager  repast.] 

Tomaso.  A  thrice-picked  bone,  a  stale  crust,  and — ex- 
cellent water !     Will  you  to  breakfast,  Master  Angelo  ? 

Jlngelo.  Look  on  this  touch,  good  Tomaso,  if  it  be  not 
life  itself — (draws  him  before  his  easel).  Now,  what 
thinkest  thou  ? 

Tomaso.  Um — fair  !  fair  enough  ! 

Angelo.  No  more  ? 

Tomaso.  Till  it  mend  my  breakfast,  I  will  never  praise 
it!  Fill  me  up  that  outline,  Master  Angelo!  (Takes  up 
the  naked  bone.)  Color  me  that  water !  To  what  end  dost 
thou  dabble  there  ? 

Angelo.  I  am  weary  of  telling  thee  to  what  end.  Have 
patience,  Tomaso  ! 

Tomaso  (coaxingly).  Wouldst  thou  but  paint  the  gold- 
smith a  sign,  now,  in  good  fair  letters  ! 

Angelo.     Have  I  no  genius  for  the  art,  thinkst  thou  ? 

Tomaso.  Thou !  ha  !  ha  ! 

Angelo.     By  thy  laughing,  thou  wouldst  say  no ! 

Tomaso.  Thou  a  genius  !  Look  !  Master  Angelo  !  Have 
I  not  seen  thee  every  day  since  thou  wert  no  bigger  than 
thy  pencil  ? 

Angelo.     And  if  thou  hast  ? 

Tomaso.  Do  I  not  know  thee  from  crown  to  heel  ?  Dost 
thou  not  come  in  at  that  door  as  I  do  ?  sit  down  in  that 
chair  as  I  do  ?  eat,  drink,  and  sleep,  as  I  do  ?  Dost  thou 
not  call  me  Tomaso,  and  I  thee  Angelo  ? 

Angelo.     Well ! 

Tomaso.  Then  how  canst  thou  have  genius  ?  Are  there 
no  marks  ?  Would  I  clap  thee  on  the  back,  and  say  good 
morrow  ?  Nay,  look  thee  !  would  I  stand  here  telbng  thee 
in  my  wisdom  what  thou  art,  if  thou  wert  a  genius  ?  Go 
to,  Master  Angelo  !  I  love  thee  well,  but  thou  art  compre- 
hensible ! 

Angelo.     But  thinkst  thou  nev«r  of  my  works.  Tomaso  ? 


TORTESA,  THE   USURER. 


867 


1'omaso.  Thy  works  !  Do  I  not  grind  thy  paints  ?  Do 
I  not  see  thee  take  up  thy  palette,  place  thy  foot  thus,  and 
dab  here,  dab  there  ?  I  tell  thee  thou  hast  never  done 
stroke  yet,  1  could  not  take  the  same  brush  and  do  after 
thee.     Thy  works,  truly  ! 

Angelo.  How  thinkst  thou  would  Donatello  paint,  if  he 
were  here  ? 

Tomaso.  Donatello  !  I  will  endeavor  to  show  thee  ! 
(Takes  the  palette  and  brush  with  a  mysterious  air.)  The 
picture  should  be  there  !  His  pencil  (throws  downAngelo's 
pencil,  and  seizes  a  broom),  his  pencil  should  be  as  long  as 
this  broom  !  He  should  raise  it  thus — with  his  eyes  rolling 
thus — and  with  his  body  thrown  back  thus  ! 

Angelo.     What  then  ? 

Tomaso.  Then  he  should  see  something  in  the  air — a 
sort  of  a  hm — ha — r — r — rrrr — (you  understand).  And  he 
first  strides  off  here  and  looks  ut  it — then  he  strides  off 
there  and  looks  at  it — then  he  looks  at  his  long  brush — then 
he  makes  a  dab !  dash !  flash  !  (Makes  three  strokes  across 
Angela's  picture.) 

Angelo.  Villain,  my  picture!  Tomaso!  (Seizes  his 
svmrd.)  With  thy  cursed  broom  thou  hast  spoiled  a  pic- 
ture Donatello  could  ne'er  have  painted  !  Say  thy  prayers, 
for,  by  the  Virgin  ! — 

Tomaso.  Murder!  murder!  help!  Oh,  my  good  mas- 
ter !     Oh,  my  kind  master  ! 

Angelo.  Wilt  say  thy  prayers,  or  die  a  sinner?  Quick! 
or  thou'rt  dead  ere  'tis  thought  on  ! 

Tomaso.    Help  !  help !  mercy !  oh,  mercy  ! 
[Enter  the  duke  hastily,  followed  by  Falcone  and  attendants.'] 
Duke.     Who  calls  so  loudly  ?     What !  drawn  swords 
at  mid-day  ! 

Disarm  him  !     Now  what  mad-cap  youth  art  thou? 
(To  Angelo.) 

To  fright  this  peaceful  artist  from  his  toil  ? 

Rise  up,  sir  !     (To  Tomaso.) 

Angelo.    (Aside — Could  my  luckless  star  have  brought 

The  duke  here  at  no  other  time  !) 

Duke  (looking  round  on  the  pictures).     Why,  here's 

Matter  worth  stumblinsj  on  !     By  Jove,  a  picture 

Of  admirable  work  !     Look  here,  Falcone  ! 

Didst  think  there  was  a  hand  unknown  in  Florence 

Could  lay  on  color  with  a  skill  like  this  ! 

Tomaso  (aside  to  Angelo).     Didst  thou  hear  that  ? 

(Duke  and  Falcone  admire  the  pictures  in  dumb  show.) 

Angelo.      (Aside  to  Tomaso— -The   palette's   on  thy 
thumb — 
Swear  'tis  thy  work  !) 

Tomaso.  Mine,  master  ? 

Angelo.  Seest  thou  not 

The  shadow  of  my  fault  will  fall  upon  it 
While  I  stand  here  a  culprit  ?     The  duke  loves  thee 
As  one  whom  he  has  chanced  to  serve  at  need, 
And  kindness  mends  the  light  upon  a  picture, 
I  know  that  well ! 

Falcone  (to  Tomaso).      The  duke  would  know  your 
name,  sir ! 

Tomaso  (as  Angelo  pulls  him  by  the  sleeve).      Tom — 
Angelo,  my  lord ! 

Duke  (to  Falcone).     We've  fallen  here 
Upon  a  treasure ! 

Falcone.  Twas  a  lucky  chance 

That  led  you  in,  my  lord  ! 

Duke.  I  blush  to  think 

That  I  might  ne'er  have  found  such  excellence 
But  for  a  chance  cry  thus  !     Yet  now  'tis  found 
I'll  cherish  it,  believe  me. 

Falcone.  'Tis  a  duty 

Your  grace  is  never  slow  to. 

Duke.  I've  a  thought — 

If  you'll  consent  to  it  ? 

Falcone.  Before  'tis  spoken, 

My  gracious  liege  ! 

Duke.  You  know  how  well  my  dutchess 

Loves  your  fair  daughter.     Not  as  maid  of  honor 
Lost  to  our  service,  but  as  parting  child, 
We  erieve  to  lose  her. 

Falcone.  My  good  lord  ! 

Duke.  Nay,  nay — 

She  is  betrothed  now,  and  you  needs  must  wed  her ! 
My  thought  was,  to  surprise  my  grieving  dutchess 


With  a  resemblance  of  your  daughter,  done 

By  this  rare  hand,  here.     'Tis  a  thought  well  found, 

You'll  say  it  is  ! 

Falcone  (hesitating).     Your  grace  is  bound  away 
On  a  brief  journey.     Were't  not  best  put  off 
Till  our  return  ? 

Duke  (laughing).     I  see  you  fear  to  let 
The  sun  shine  on  your  rosebud  till  she  bloom 
Fairly  in  wedlock.     But  this  painter,  see  you 
Is  an  old  man,  of  a  poor,  timid  bearing, 
And  may  be  trusted  to  look  close  upon  her. 
Come,  come  !     I'll  have  my  way  !     Good  Angelo, 

(To  Tomaso.) 
A  pen  and  ink  !     And  you,  my  lord  Falcone  ! 
Write  a  brief  missive  to  your  gentle  daughter 
T'  admit  him  privately. 

Falcone.  I  will,  duke.  [Writes. 

Angelo  (Aside — Now 

Shall  I  go  back  or  forward  ?     If  he  writes 
Admit  this  Angelo,  why  I  am  he, 
And  that  rare  phoenix,  hidden  from  the  world, 
Sits  to  my  burning  pencil.     She's  a  beauty 
Without  a  parallel,  they  say  in  Florence. 
Her  picture  '11  be  remembered  !     Let  the  duke 
Rend  me  with  horses,  it  shall  ne'er  be  said 
I  dared  not  pluck  at  Fortune !) 

Tomaso  (aside  to  Angelo).         Signor ! 

Angelo.  (Hush ! 

Betray  me,  and  I'll  kill  thee !) 

Duke.  Angelo ! 

Angelo  (aside  to  Tomaso).     Speak,  or  thou  diest. 

Tomaso  (to  the  duke).  My  lord  ! 

Duke.  Thou  hast  grown  old 

In  the  attainment  of  an  excellence 
Well  worth  thy  time  and  study.     The  clear  touch, 
Won  only  by  the  patient  toil  of  years, 
Is  on  your  fair  works  yonder. 

Tomaso  (astonished).  Those,  my  lord  ! 

Duke.     I  shame  I  never  saw  them  until  now, 
But  here's  a  new  beginning.     Take  this  missive 
From  Count  Falcone  to  his  peerless  daughter. 
I'd  have  a  picture  of  her  for  my  palace. 
Paint  me  her  beauty  as  I  know  you  can, 
And  as  you  do  it  well,  my  favor  to  you 
Shall  make  up  for  the  past. 

Tomaso  (as  Angelo  pulls  his  sleeve).     Your  grace  is 
kind ! 

Duke.  For  this  rude  youth,  name  you  his  punishment! 
(Turns  to  Angelo.) 
His  sword  was  drawn  upon  an  unarmed  man. 
He  shall  be  fined,  or,  as  you  please,  imprisoned. 
Speak  ! 

Tomaso.    If  your  grace  would  bid  him  pay — 

Duke.  What  sum  ? 

Tomaso.     Some  twenty  flasks  of  wine,  my  gracious 
liege, 
If  it  so  please  you.     'Tis  a  thriftless  servant 
I  keep  for  love  I  bore  to  his  dead  father. 
But  all  his  faults  are  nothing  to  a  thirst 
That  sucks  my  cellar  dry ! 

Duke.  He's  well  let  off! 

Write  out  a  bond  to  pay  of  your  first  gains 
The  twenty  flasks  ! 

Angelo.  Most  willingly,  my  liege.       [Write*. 

Duke  (to  Tomaso).     Are  you  content  ? 

Tomaso.     Your  grace,  I  am  ! 

Duke.  Come  then  ! 

Once  more  to  horse  !  Nay,  nay,  man,  look  not  black  ! 
Unless  your  daughter  were  a  wine  flask,  trust  me 
There's  no  fear  of  the  painter ! 

Falcone.  So  I  think, 

And  you  shall  rule  me.     'Tis  the  roughest  shell 
Hides  the  good  pearl.     Adieu,  sir  !  (to  Tomaso.) 

[Exeunt  duke  and  Falcone. 
(Angelo  seizes  the  missive  from  Tomaso,  and  strides  up  and 
down  the  stage,  reading  it  exultingly.     After  looking  at 
hi?n  a  moment,  Tomaso  does  the  same  with  the  bond  for 
the  twenty  f  asks. 

Angelo.  Give  me  the  letter  ! 

Oh,  here  is  golden  opportunity— 
The  ladder  at  my  foot,  the  prize  above, 
And  angels  beckoning  upward.     I  will  paint 


868 


TORTESA,  THE  USURER. 


A  picture  now,  that  in  the  eyes  of  men 

Shall  live  like  loving  daylight.     They  shall  cease 

To  praise  it  for  the  constant  glory  of  it. 

There's  not  a  stone  built  in  the  palace  wall 

But  shall  let  through  the  light  of  it,  and  Florence 

Shall  be  a  place  of  pilgrimage  for  ever 

To  see  the  work  of  low-born  Angelo. 

Oh  that  the  world  were  made  without  a  night, 

That  I  could  toil  while  in  my  fingers  play 

This  dexterous  lightnins,  wasted  so  in  sleep. 

I'll  out,  and  muse  how  I  shall  paint  this  beauty, 

So,  wile  the  night  away.  [Exit. 

Tomaso  {coming  forward  with  his  bond).  Prejudice 
aside,  that  is  a  pleasant-looking  piece  of  paper !  (Holds  it 
off,  and  regards  it  with  a  pleased  air.)  Your  bond  to  pay, 
now  is  an  ill-visaged  rascal — you  would  know  him  across  a 
church — nay — with  the  wind  fair,  smell  him  a  good  league  ! 
But  this  has,  in  some  sort,  a  smile.  It  is  not  like  other  pa- 
per. It  reads  mellifluously.  Your  name  is  in  the  right  end 
of  it  for  music.  Let  me  dwell  upon  it !  (Unfolds  it  and 
reads)  "  I,  Tomaso,  promise  to  pay" — stay!  "  I,Tomaso — 
I,  Tomaso,  promise  to  pay  to  Angelo,  my  master,  twenty 
flasks  of  wine .'"  (Rubs  his  eyes,  and  turns  the  note  over 
and  over.)  There's  a  damnable  twist  in  it  that  spoils  all. 
"/  Tomaso" — why  that's  1.  And  "J  promise  to  pay" — 
Now,  I  promise  no  such  thing  !  (Turns  it  upside  down,  and 
after  trying  in  vain  to  alter  the  reading,  tears  it  in  two.) 
There  are  some  men  that  can  not  write  ten  words  in  their 
own  language  without  a  blunder.  Out,  filthy  scraps.  If 
the  plover's  daughter  have  not  compassion  upon  me,  I  die 
of  thirst !  I'll  seek  her  out !  A  pest  on  ignorance  ! 
(Pulls  his  hat  sulkily  over  his  eyes,  and  ivalks  off.) 


SCENE   III. 

[An  apartment  in  the  Falcone  Palace,     Angelo  discovered 
listening.'] 

Angelo.     Did  I  hear  footsteps  ?     (He  listens.)     Fancy- 
plays  me  tricks 
In  my  impatience  for  this  lovely  wonder  ! 
That  window's  to  the  north  !     The  light  falls  cool. 
I'll  set  my  easel  here,  and  sketch  her — Stay ! 
How  shall  I  do  that  ?    Is  she  proud  or  sweet  ? 
Will  she  sit  silent,  or  converse  and  smile  ? 
Will  she  be  vexed  or  pleased  to  have  a  stranger 
Pry  through  her  beauty  for  the  soul  that's  in  it? 
Nay,  then  I  heard  a  footstep — she  is  here ! 

(Enter  Isabella,  reading  her  father's  missive.) 

Isabella.     "  The  duke  would  have  your  picture  for  the 
dutchess 
Done  by  this  rude  man,  Angelo  !     Receive  him 
With  modest  privacy,  and  let  your  kindness 
Be  measured  by  his  merit,  not  his  garb." 

Angelo.     Fair  lady ! 

Isabella.  Who  speaks  ? 

Jlngelo.  Angelo ! 

Isabella.  You've  come,  sir, 

To  paint  a  dull  face,  trust  me ! 

-Angelo.  (Aside— Beautiful, 

Beyond  all  dreaming !) 

Isabella.  I've  no  smiles  to  show  you, 

Not  ev'n  a  mock  one  !     Shall  I  sit  ? 

Jlngelo.  '      No,  lady  ! 

I'll  steal  your  beauty  while  you  move,  as  well ! 
So  you  but  breathe,  the  air  still  brings  to  me 
That  which  outdoes  all  pencilling. 

Isabella  (walking  apart).     His  voice 
Is  not  a  rude  one.     What  a  fate  is  mine, 
When  ev'n  the  chance  words  on  a  poor  youth's  tongue,    I 
Contrasted  with  the  voice  which  I  should  love, 
Seems  rich  and  musical ! 

Jlngelo  (to  himself  as  he  draws).     How  like  a  swan, 
Drooping  his  small  head  to  a  lily-cup, 
She  curves  that  neck  of  pliant  ivory ! 
I'll  paint  her  thus  ! 

Isabella.     (Aside— Forgetful  where  he  is, 
He  thinks  aloud.     This  is,  perhaps,  the  rudeness 
My  father  feared  might  anger  me.) 

Angelo.  What  color 

Can  match  the  clear  red  of  those  glorious  lips  ? 
Say  it  were  possible  to  trace  the  arches. 


Shaped  like  the  drawn  bow  of  the  god  of  love-- 
How  teint  them,  after  ? 

Isabella.  Still,  he  thinks  not  of  me, 

But  murmurs  to  his  picture.     'Twere  sweet  praise, 
Were  it  a  lover  Avhispering  it.     I'll  listen, 
As  I  walk,  still. 

Jlngelo.  They  say,  a  cloudy  veil 

Hangs  ever  at  the  crystal-gate  of  heaven, 
To  bar  the  issue  of  its  blinding  glory. 
So  droop  those  silken  lashes  to  an  eye 
Mortal  could  never  paint ! 

Isabella.  There's  flattery, 

Would  draw  down  angels ! 

Jlngelo.  Now,  what  alchymy 

Can  mock  the  rose  and  lily  of  her  cheek  ! 
I  must  look  closer  on't !     (Advancing.)  Fair  lady,  please 

you, 
I'll  venture  to  vour  side. 

Isabella.  Sir ! 

Jlngelo  (examining  her  cheek).     There's  a  mixture 
Of  white  and  red  here,  that  defeats  my  skill. 
If  you'll  lbrgive  me,  I'll  observe  an  instant, 
How  the  bright  blood  and  the  transparent  pearl 
Melt  to  each  other  ! 

Isabella  (receding  from  him).  You're  too  free,  sir. 

Angelo  (with  surprise).  Madam ! 

Isabella.     (Aside — And  yet,  I  think  not  so.     He  must 
look  on  it, 
To  paint  it  well.) 

Angelo.  Lady  !  the  daylight's  precious ! 

Pray  you,  turn  to  me  !     In  my  study,  here, 
I've  tried  to  fancy  how  that  ivory  shoulder 
Leads  the  white  light  off  from  your  arching  neck, 
But  can  not,  for  the  envious  sleeve  that  hides  it. 
Please  you,  displace  it ! 

(Raises  his  hand  to  the  sleeve.) 

Isabella.  Sir,  you  are  too  bold  ! 

Angelo.     Pardon  me,  lady  !     Nature's  masterpiece 
Should  be  beyond  your  hiding,  or  my  praise! 
Were  you  less  marvellous,  I  were  too  bold  j 
But  there's  a  pure  divinity  in  beauty, 
Which  the  true  eye  of  art  looks  on  with  reverence, 
Though,  like  the  angels,  it  were  all  unclad  ! 
You  have  no  right  to  hide  it ! 

Isabella.  How  ?     No  right ! 

Angelo.     'Tis  the  religion  of  our  art,  fair  madam  ! 
That,  by  oft  looking  on  the  type  divine 
In  which  we  first  were  moulded,  men  remember 
The  heaven  they're  born  to  !     You've  an  errand  here, 
To  show  how  look  the  angels.     But,  as  Vestals 
Cherish  the  sacred  fire,  yet  let  the  priest 
Light  his  lamp  at  it  for  a  thousand  altars, 
So  is  your  beauty  unassoiled,  though  I 
Ravish  a  copy  for  the  shut-out  world  ! 

Isabella.  (Aside — Here  is  the  wooing  that  should  win 
a  maid ! 
Bold,  yet  respectful — free,  yet  full  of  honor  ! 
I  never  saw  a  youth  with  gentler  eyes  ; 
I  never  heard  a  voice  that  pleased  me  more  ; 
Let  me  look  on  him  ?) 

(Enter  Tortesa,  unperceived.) 

Angelo.  In  a  form  like  yours, 

All  parts  are  perfect,  madam  !  yet,  unseen, 
Impossible  to  fancy.     With  your  leave 
I'll  see  your  hand  ungloved. 

Isabella  (removing  her  glove).     I  have  no  heart 
To  keep  it  from  you,  signor  !     There  it  is ! 

Angelo  (taking  it  in  his  own).     Oh  God!  how  beauti- 
ful thy  works  may  be ! 
Inimitably  perfect !     Let  me  look 
Close  on  the  tracery  of  these  azure  veins  ! 
With  what  a  delicate  and  fragile  thread 
They  weave  their  subtle  mesh  beneath  the  skin, 
And  meet,  all  blushing,  in  these  rosy  nails  ! 
How  soft  the  texture  of  these  tapering  fingers ! 
How  exquisite  the  wrist !  How  perfect  all ! 
(Tortesa  rushes  forward.) 
Tortesa.     Now  have  I  heard  enough !     Why,  what  are 
you, 
To  palm  the  hand  of  my  betrothed  bride 
With  this  licentious  freedom  ? 


TORTESA,  THE  USURER. 


869 


(Angelo  turns  composedly  to  his  work.) 

And  you,  madam ! 
With  a  first  troth  scarce  cold  upon  your  lips — 
Is  this  your  chastity  ? 

Isabella.  My  father's  roof 

Is  over  me  !     I'm  not  your  wife  ! 

Tortesa.  Bought !  paid  for ! 

The  wedding  toward — have  I  no  right  in  you  ? 
Your  father,  at  my  wish,  bade  you  be  private ; 
Is  this  obedience  ? 

Isabella.  Count  Falcone's  will 

Has,  to  his  daughter,  ever  been  a  law ; 
This,  in  prosperity — and  now,  when  chance 
Frowns  on  his  broken  fortunes,  I  were  dead 
To  love  and  pity,  were  not  soul  and  body 
Spent  for  his  smallest  need  !     I  did  consent 
To  wed  his  ruthless  creditor  for  this ! 
I  would  have  sprung  into  the  sea,  the  grave, 
As  questionless  and  soon  !     My  troth  is  yours  ! 
But  I'm  not  wedded  yet,  and,  till  I  am, 
The  hallowed  honor  that  protects  a  maid 
Is  round  me,  like  a  circle  of  bright  fire  ! 
A  savage  would  not  cross  it — nor  shall  you ! 
I'm  mistress  of  my  presence.     Leave  me,  sir  ! 

Tortesa.     There's  a  possession  of  some  lordly  acres 
Sold  to  Falcone  for  that  lily  hand  ! 
The  deed's  delivered,  and  the  hand's  my  own ! 
I'll  see  that  no  man  looks  on't. 

Isabelta.  Shall  a  lady 

Bid  you  begone  twice  ? 

Tortesa.  Twenty  times,  if't  please  you  ! 

{She  looks  at  Angelo,  who  continues  tranquilly  painting.) 

Isabella.     Does  he  not  wear  a  sword  ?    Is  he  a  coward, 
That  he  can  hear  this  man  heap  insult  on  me, 
And  ne'er  fall  on  him  / 

Tortesa.  Lady  !  to  your  chamber ! 

I  have  a  touch  to  give  this  picture,  here, 
But  want  no  model  for't.     Come,  come. 

(Offers  to  take  her  by  the  arm.) 
Isabella.  Stand  back ! 

Now,  will  he  see  this  wretch  lay  hands  on  me, 
And  never  speak  ?     He  can  not  be  a  coward ! 
No,  no  !  some  other  reason — not  a  coward  ! 
I  could  not  love  a  coward  ! 

Tortesa.  If  you  will, 

Stay  where  you're  better  missed — 'tis  at  your  pleasure ; 
I'll  hew  your  kisses  from  the  saucy  lips 
Of  this  bold  painter— look  on't,  if  you  will ! 
And  first,  to  mar  his  picture ! 
(He  strikes  at   the  canvass,  when  Angelo  suddenly  draws, 
attacks  and  disarms  him.) 
Angelo.  Hold !     What  wouldst  thou  ? 

Fool !  madman  !  dog !    What  wouldst  thou  with  my  pic- 
ture ? 
Speak  !— But  thy  life  would  not  bring  back  a  ray 
Of  precious  daylight,  and  I  can  not  waste  it ! 
Begone !  begone ! 
(Throws  Tortesa's  sword  from  the  window,  and  returns  to 
his  picture.) 
I'll  back  to  paradise  ! 

'Twas  this  touch  that  he  marred !     So  !  fair  again  ! 
Tortesa  (going  out).    I'll  find  you,  sir,  when  I'm  in 
cooler  blood ! 
And,  madam,  you  !  or  Count  Falcone  for  you, 
Shall  rue  this  scorn  !  [Exit. 

Isabella  (looking  at  Angelo).     Lost  in  his  work  once 
more! 
I  shall  be  jealous  of  my  very  picture ! 
Yet  one  who  can  forget  his  passions  so — 
Peril  his  life,  and,  losing  scarce  a  breath, 
Turn  to  his  high,  ambitious  toil  again — 
Must  have  a  heart  for  whose  belated  waking 
Queens  might  keep  vigil ! 

Angelo.  Twilight  falls,  fair  lady ! 

I  must  give  o'er !     Pray  Heaven,  the  downy  wing 
Of  its  most  loving  angel  guard  your  beauty  ! 
Good  night ! 

(Goes  out  with  a  low  reverence.) 
Isabella.  Good  night ! 

(She  looks  after  him  a  moment,  and  then  walks  thoughtfully 
off  the  stage.) 


ACT  II. 


[Tomaso  discovered  silting  at  his  supper,  with   a  bottle  of 
water  before  him.] 

Tomaso.  Water !  (Sips  a  little  with  a  grimace.)  I 
think  since  the  world  was  drowned  in  it,  it  has  tasted  of 
sinners.  The  pious  throat  refuses  it.  Other  habits  grow 
pleasant  with  use — but  the  drinking  of  water  lessens  the 
liking  of  it.  Now,  why  should  not  some  rivers  run  wine  ? 
There  are  varieties  in  the  eatables — will  any  wise  man 
tell  me  why  there  should  be  but  one  drinkable  in  nature 
— and  that  water  ?  My  mind's  made  up — it's  the  curse  of 
transgression. 

(A  rap  at  the  dooi.) 

Come  in  ! 

[Enter  Zippa,  with  a  basket  and  bottle.] 

Zippa.     Good  even,  Tomaso  ! 

Tomaso.     Zippa  !  I  had  a  presentiment — 

Zippa.     What !  of  my  coming  ? 

Tomaso. .  No— of  thy  bottle  !  Look  !  I  was  stinting  my- 
self in  water  to  leave  room  ! 

Zippa.  The  reason  is  superfluous.  There  would  be 
room  in  thee  for  wine,  if  thou  wert  drowned  in  the  sea. 

Tomaso.     God  forbid  ! 

Zippa.     What— that  thou  shouldst  be  drowned  ? 

Tomaso.  No — but  that  being  drowned,  I  should  have 
room  for  wine. 

Zippa.     Why,  now  ? — why  ? 

Tomaso.  If  I  had  room  for  wine,  I  should  want  it— and 
to  want  wine  in  the  bottom  of  the  sea,  were  a  plague  of 
Sodom. 

Zippa.    Where's  Angelo  ? 

Tomaso.     What's  in  thy  bottle  ?     Show  !  Show  ! 

Zippa.  Tell  me  where  he  is— what  he  has  done  since 
I  yesterday — what  thought  on— what  said— how  he  has 
'  iooked,  and  if  he  still  loves  me  ;  and  when  thou  art  thirsty 
with  truth-telling— (dry  work  for  such  a  liar  as  thou  art), 
— thou  shalt  learn  what  is  in  my  bottle ! 

Tomaso.     Nay — learning  be  hanged  ! 

Zippa.     So  says  the  fool ! 

Tomaso.  Speak  advisedly  !  Was  not  Adam  blest  till  lie 
knew  good  and  evil  ? 

Zippa.     Right  for  once. 

Tomaso.     Then  he  lost  Paradise  by  too  much  learning. 

Zippa.  Ha !  ha  !  Hadst  thou  been  consulted,  we  should 
still  be  there  ! 

Tomaso.  Snug  !  I  would  have  had  my  inheritance  in  a 
small  vineyard  ! 

Zippa.     Tell  me  what  I  ask  of  thee. 

Tomaso.  Thou  shalt  have  a  piece  of  news  for  a  cup  of 
wine — pay  and  take — till  thy  bottle  be  dry  ! 

Zippa.  Come  on,  then !  and  if  thou  must  lie,  let  it  be 
flattery.     That's  soonest  forgiven. 

Tomaso.  And  last  forgotten !  Pour  out !  (She  pours 
a  cup  full,  and  gives  him.)  The  duke  was  here  yester- 
day.— 

Zippa.     Lie  the  first ! 

Tomaso.     And  made  much  of  my  master's  pictures. 

Zippa.  Nay— that  would  have  made  two  good  lies. 
Thou'rt  prodigal  of  stuff! 

Tomaso.  Pay  two  glasses,  then,  and  square  the  reckon- 
ing! 

Zippa.     Come  !  Lie  the  third  ! 

Tomaso.  What  wilt  thou  wager  it's  a  he,  that  Angelo 
is  painting  a  court  lady  for  the  dutchess  t 

Zippa.  Oh  Lord!  Take  the  bottle  !  They  say  there  s 
truth  in  wine— but  as  truth  is  impossible  to  thee,  drink 
thyself,  at  least,  down  to  probabilities  ! 

Tomaso.  Look  vou  there  !  When  was  virtue  encour- 
raged  ?  Here  have' I  been  telling  God's  truth,  and  it  goes 
for  a  lie.  Hang  virtue !  Produce  thy  cold  chicken,  and 
I'll  tell  thee  a  lie  for  the  wings  and  two  for  the  side-bones 
and  breast.     (Offers  to  take  the  chicken.)  .„     . 

Zippa.     Slav  !   stay  !     It's  for  thy  master,  thou  glutton ! 
Tomaso.     Who's   ill  a-bed,  and   forbid  meat.     (Angelo 
enters.)     I  would  have  told  thee  so  before,  but  feared  to 
grieve  thee.     (She  would  have  a  lie  !) 

Zippa  (starting  up).  Ill !  Angelo  ill !  Is  he  very  ill, 
|   good  Tomaso  ? 


870 


TORTESA,  THE  USURER. 


Tomaso.  Very !  (Seizes  the  chicken,  as  Angelo  claps  him 
on  the  shoulder.) 

jlngelo.     Will  thy  tricks  never  end  ? 

Tomaso.  Ehem  !  ehem !  (Thrusts  the  chicken  into  his 
pocket.) 

jlngelo.    How  art  thou,  Zippa  ? 

Zippa.  Well,  dear  Angelo !  (Giving  him  her  hand.) 
And  thou  wert  not  ill,  indeed ! 

jlngelo.  Never  better,  by  the  test  of  a  true  hand  !  I 
have  done  work  to-day,  I  trust  will  be  remembered  ? 

Zippa.    Is  it  true  it's  a  fair  lady  ? 

jlngelo.    A  lady  with  a  face  so  angelical,  Zippa,  that — 

Zippa.     That  thou  didst  forget  mine  ! 

jlngelo.  In  truth,  I  forgot  there  was  such  a  Ihing  as  a 
world,  and  so  forgot  all  in  it.     I  was  in  heaven  ! 

Tomaso.  (Aside,  as  he  picks  the  leg  of  the  chicken — 
Prosperity  is  excellent  whitewash,  and  her  love  is  an  old 
score !) 

Zippa  (bitterly).  I  am  glad  thou  wert  pleased,  Angelo  ! 
— very  glad ! 

Tomaso.     (Aside — Glad  as  an  eel  to  be  fried.) 

Zippa.  (Aside — "  In  heaven,"  was  he !  If  I  pay  him 
not  that,  may  my  brains  rot !  By  what  right,  loving  me, 
is  he  "in  heaven"  with  another  ?) 

Tomaso.  (Aside — No  more  wine  and  cold  chicken  from 
that  quarter !) 

Zippa.  (Aside — Tortesa  loves  me,  and  my  false  game 
may  be  played  true.  If  he  wed  not  Falcone's  daughter,  he 
will  wed  me,  and  so  I  am  revenged  on  this  fickle  Angelo ! 
I  have  the  heart  to  do  it !) 

Angelo.    What  dost  thou  muse  on,  Zippa  ? 

Zippa.     On  one  I  love  better  than  thee,  signor  ! 

Angelo.  What,  angry  ?  (Seizes  his  pencil.)  Hold  there 
till  I  sketch  thee !  By  Jove,  thou'rt  not  half  so  pretty  when 
thou'rt  pleased  ! 

Zippa.  Adieu,  signor !  your  mockery  will  have  an  end ! 
(Goes  out  with  an  angry  air.) 

Angelo.  What!  gone?  Nay,  I'll  come  with  thee,  if 
thou'rt  in  earnest !  What  whim's  this  ?  (Takes  up  his 
hat.)     Ho,  Zippa!     (Follows  in  pursuit.) 

Tomaso  (pulls  the  chicken  from  his  pocket).  Come  forth 
last  of  the  chickens  !  She  will  ne'er  forgive  him,  and  so 
ends  the  succession  of  cold  fowl!  One  glass  to  its  memory, 
and  then  to  bed!  (Drinks,  and  takes  up  the  candle.)  A 
woman  is  generally  unsafe — but  a  jealous  one  spoils  all 
confidence  in  drink.  [Exit,  muttering. 


[An  Apartment  in  the  Falcone   Palace.     Enter  Servant, 
showing  in  Zippa.] 

Servant.    Wait  here,  here,  if 't  please  you ! 

Zippa.    Thanks  !    (Exit  Servant.)    My  heart  misgives 
me! 
Tis  a  bold  errand  I  am  come  upon — 
And  I  a  stranger  to  her  !     Yet,  perchance 
She  needs  a  friend — the  proudest  does  sometimes — 
And  mean  ones  may  be  welcome.     Look  !  she  comes ! 

Isabella.  You  wished  to  speak  with  me  ? 

Zippa.  I  did — but  now 

My  memory  is  crept  into  my  eyes; 
I  can  not  think  for  gazing  on  your  beauty ! 
Pardon  me,  lady ! 

Isabella.  You're  too  fair  yourself 

To  find  my  face  a  wonder.     Speak  !     Who  are  you? 

Zippa.    Zippa,  the  glover's  daughter,  and  your  friend ! 

Isabella.  My  friend  ? 

Zippa.  I  said  so.     You're  a  noble  lady 

And  I  a  lowborn  maid — yet  I  have  come 
To  offer  you  my  friendship. 

Isabella.  This  seems  strange  ! 

Zippa.     I'll  make  it  less  so,  if  you'll  give  me  leave. 

Isabella.  You'll  please  me  ! 

Zippa.        Briefly — for  the  time  is  precious 
To  me  as  well  as  you — I  have  a  lover, 
A  true  one,  as  I  think,  who  yet  finds  boldness 
To  seek  your  hand  in  marriage. 

Isabella.  How  ?    We're  rivals  ! 

Zippa      Tortesa  loves  me,  and  for  that  I'd  wed  him. 


Yet  I'm  not  sure  I  love  him  more  than  you — 
And  you  must  hate  him. 

Isabella.  So  far  freely  spoken — 

What  was  your  thought  in  coming  to  me  now  ? 

Zippa.     To  mar  your  match  with  him,  and  so  make 
mine! 

Isabella.     Why,  free  again  !     Yes,  as  you  love  him  not 
'Tis  strange  you  seek  to  wed  him  ! 

Zippa.  Oh  no,  madam  ! 

Woman  loves  once  unthinkingly.     The  heart 
Is  born  with  her  first  love,  and  new  to  joy, 
Breathes  to  the  first  wind  its  delicious  sweetness, 
But  gets  none  back !     So  comes  its  bitter  wisdom ! 
When  next  we  think  of  love,  'tis  who  loves  us  I 
I  said  Tortesa  loved  me  ! 

Isabella.  You  shall  have  him 

With  all  my  heart !     See — I'm  your  friend  already ! 
And  friends  are  equals.     So  approach,  and  tell  me, 
What  was  this  first  love  like,  that  you  discourse 
So  prettily  upon  ? 

Zippa.  (Aside — Dear  Angelo  ! 

'Twill  be  a  happiness  to  talk  of  him  !) 
I  loved  a  youth,  kind  madam  !  far  beneath 
The  notice  of  your  eyes,  unknown  and  poor. 

Isabella.  A  handsome  youth  ? 

Zippa.  Indeed,  I  thought  him  so ! 

But  you  would  not.     I  loved  him  out  of  pity ; 
No  one  cared  for  him. 

Isabella.  Was  he  so  forlorn  ? 

Zippa.     He  was  our  neighbor,  and  I  knew  his  toil 
Was  almost  profitless ;  and  'twas  a  pleasure 
To  fill  my  basket  from  our  wasteful  table, 
And  steal,  at  eve,  to  sup  with  him. 

Isabella  (smiling).  Why,  that 

Was  charity,  indeed  !     He  loved  you  for  it — 
Was't  not  so  ? 

Zippa.  He  was  like  a  brother  to  me — 

The  kindest  brother  sister  ever  had. 
I  built  my  hopes  upon  his  gentleness : 
He  had  no  other  quality  to  love. 
Th'  ambitious  change— so  do  the  fiery-hearted : 
The  lowly  are  more  constant. 

Isabella.  And  yet,  he 

Was  after  all,  a  false  one  ? 

Zippa.  Nay,  dear  lady  ! 

I'll  check  my  story  there  !     'T would  end  in  anger, 
Perhaps  in  tears.     If  I  am  not  too  bold, 
Tell  me,  in  turn,  of  all  your  worshippers — 
Was  there  ne'er  one  that  pleased  you  ? 

Isabella.  (Aside— Now  could  I 

Prate  to  this  humble  maid,  of  Angelo, 
Till  matins  rang  again  !)     My  gentle  Zippa! 
I  have  found  all  men  prompt  to  talk  of  love, 
Save  only  one.     I  will  confess  to  you, 
For  that  one  could  I  die  !     Yet,  so  unlike 
Your  faithless  lover  must  I  draw  his  picture, 
That  you  will  wonder  how  such  opposites 
Could  both  be  loved  of  women. 

Zippa.  Was  he  fair, 

Or  brown  ? 

Isabella.    In  truth,  I  marked  not  his  complexion. 

Zippa.     Tall  ? 

Isabella.  That  I  know  not. 

Zippa.  Well — robust,  or  slight  ? 

Isabella.     I  can  not  tell,  indeed  !     I  heard  him  speak — 
Looked  in  his  eyes,  and  saw  him  calm  and  angered — 
And  see  him  now,  in  fancy,  standing  there — 
Yet  know  not  limb  or  feature  ! 

Zippa.  You  but  saw 

A  shadow,  lady ! 

Isabella.  Nay — I  saw  a  soul ! 

His  eyes  were  light  with  it.     The  forehead  lay 
Above  their  fires  in  calm  tranquillity, 
As  the  sky  sleeps  o'er  thunder-clouds.     His  look 
Was  mixed  of  these — earnest,  and  yet  subdued — 
Gentle,  yet  passionate — sometimes  half  god-like 
In  its  command,  then  mild  and  sweet  again, 
Like  a  stern  angel  taught  humility ! 
Oh  !  when  he  spoke,  my  heart  stole  out  to  him  ! 
There  was  a  spirit-echo  in  his  voice — 
A  sound  of  thought — of  under-playing  music — 


TORTESA,  THE  USURER. 


871 


As  if,  before  it  ceased  in  human  ears, 
The  echo  was  caught  up  in  fairy-land  ! 

Zippa.     Was  he  a  courtier,  madam  ? 

Isabella.  He's  as  lowly 

In  birth  and  fortunes,  as  your  false  one,  Zippa  ! 
Yet  rich  in  genius,  and  of  that  ambition, 
That  he'll  outlast  nobility  with  fame. 
Have  you  seen  such  a  man  ? 

Zippa.  Alas  !  sweet  lady  ! 

My  life  is  humble,  and  such  wondrous  men 
Are  far  above  my  knowing.  I  could  wish 
To  see  one  ere  I  died  ! 

Isabella.         You  shall,  believe  me ! 
But  while  we  talk  of  lovers,  we  forget 
In  how  brief  time  you  are  to  win  a  husband. 
Come  to  my  chamber,  Zippa,  and  I'll  see 
How  with  your  little  net  you'll  snare  a  bird 
Fierce  as  this  rude  Tortesa  ! 

Zippa.  We  will  find 

A  way,  dear  lady,  if  we  die  for  it ! 

Isabella.     Shall  we  ?     Come  with  me,  then  ! 

[Exeunt. 


[An  apartment  in  the  Falcone  Palace.    Tortesa  alone  await-  ; 
ing  the  return  of  the  Count.] 

Tortesa  (musing).     There  are  some  luxuries  too  rich  i 
for  purchase. 
Your  soul,  'tis  said,  will  buy  them,  of  the  devil— 
Money's  too  poor  !     What  would  I  not  give,  now, 
That  I  could  scorn  what  I  can  hate  and  ruin  ! 
Scorn  is  the  priceless  luxury  !     In  heaven, 
The  ansjel's  pity.     They  are  blessed  to  do  so ; 
For,  pitying,  they  look  down.     We  do't  by  scorn  ! 
There  lies  the  privilege  of  noble  birth  ! 
The  jewel  of  that  bloated  toad  is  scorn ! 
You  may  take  all  else  from  him.     You— being  mean- 
May  get  his  palaces — may  wed  his  daughter — 
Sleep  in  his  bed— have  all  his  peacock  menials 
Watching  your  least  glance,  as  they  did  "my  lord's;" 
And,  well-possessed  thus,  you  may  pass  him  by 
On  his  own  horse  ;  and  while  the  vulgar  crowd 
Gape  at  your  trappings,  and  scarce  look  on  him — 
He,  in  his  rass,  and  starving  for  a  crust — 
You'll  feel  his  scorn,  through  twenty  coats-of-mail, 
Hot  as  a  sun-stroke !     Yet  there's  something  for  us ! 
Th'  archangel  fiend,  when  driven  forth  from  heaven, 
Put  on  the  serpent,  and  found  sweet  revenge 
Trailing  his  slime  through  Eden  !     So  will  I ! 
[Enter  Falcone  booted  and  spurred.] 
Falcone.     Good  morrow,  signor, 
Tortesa.  Well-arrived,  my  lord ! 

How  sped  your  riding  ? 

Falcone.  Fairly  !     Has  my  daughter 

Left  you  alone  ? 

Tortesa.  She  knows  that  I  am  here. 

Nay— she'll  come  presently !     A  word  in  private, 
Since  we're  alone,  my  lord  ! 

Falcone.  I  listen,  signor  ! 

Tortesa.     Your  honor,  as  I  think,  outweighs  a  bond  ? 
Falcone.     'Twas  never  questioned. 
Tortesa.  On  y°ur  simple  word, 

And  such  more  weight  as  hangs  upon  the  troth 
Of  a  capricious  woman,  I  gave  up 
A  deed  of  lands  to  you. 

Falcone.  You  did. 

Tortesa.  -       To  be 

Forfeit,  and  mine  again — the  match  not  made  ? 
Falcone.     How  if  you  marred  it  ? 
Tortesa.  I?   I'm  not  a  boy  ! 

What  I  would  yesterday,  I  will  to-day  ! 
I'm  not  a  lover — 

Falcone.  How,  so  near  your  bridal, 

And  not  a  lover  ?     Shame,  sir ! 

Tortesa.  My  lord  count, 

You  take  me  for  a  fool ! 

Falcone.  Is't  like  a  fool 

To  love  a  high-born  lady,  and  your  bride  ? 

Tortesa.     Yes ;  a  thrice-sodden  fool— if  it  were  I ! 
I'm  not  a  mate  for  her— you  know  I  am  not ! 


You  know,  that,  in  her  heart,  your  haughty  daughter 
Scorns  me — ineffably  ! 

Falcone.  You  seek  occasion 

To  slight  her,  signor ! 

Tortesa.  No  !  I'll  marry  her 

If  all  the  pride  that  cast  down  Lucifer 
Lie  in  her  bridal-ring !     But,  mark  me  still ! 
I'm  not  one  of  your  humble  citizens, 
To  bring  my  money-bags  and  make  you  rich — 
That,  when  we  walk  together,  I  may  take 
Your  shadow  for  my  own !     These  limbs  are  clay — 
Poor,  common  clay,  my  lord  !     And  she  that  weds  me, 
Comes  down  to  my  estate. 

Falcone.  By  this  you  mean  not 

To  shut  her  from  her  friends  ? 

Tortesa.  You'll  see  your  daughter 

By  coming  to  my  house — not  else  !     D'ye  think 
I'll  have  a  carriage  to  convey  my  wife 
Where  she  will  hear  me  laughed  at  ?— buy  fine  horses 
To  prance  a  measure  to  the  mocking  jeers 
Of  fools  that  ride  with  her  ?     Nay— keep  a  table 
Where  I'm  the  skeleton  that  mars  the  feast ! 
No,  no — no,  no  ! 

Falcone.         (Aside— With  half  the  provocation, 
I  would,  ere  now,  have  struck  an  emperor ! 
But  baser  pangs  make  this  endurable. 
I'm  poor— so  patience !)     What  was  it  beside 
You  would  have  said  to  me  ? 

Torlesa.  But  this  :  Your  daughter 

Has,  in  your  absence,  covered  me  with  scorn ! 
We'll  not  talk  of  it— if  the  match  goes  on, 
I  care  not  to  remember  it !  (Aside — She  shall — 
And  bitterly !) 

Falcone.         (Aside— My  poor,  poor  Isabella  ! 
The  task  was  too  much !) 

Tortesa.  There's  a  cost  of  feeling — 

You  may  not  think  it  much — I  reckon  it 
A  thousand  pounds  per  day— in  playing  thus 
The  suitor  to  a  lady  crammed  with  pride  ! 
I've  writ  you  out  a  bond  to  pay  me  for  it ! 
See  here  !— to  pay  me  for  my  shame  and  pains, 
If  I  should  lose  your  daughter  for  a  wife, 
A  thousand  pounds  per  day— dog  cheap  at  that ! 
Sign  it,  my  lord,  or  give  me  back  my  deeds, 
And  traffic  cease  between  us  ! 

Falcone.  Is  this  earnest, 

Or  are  you  mad  or  trifling  ?     Do  I  not 
Give  you  my  daughter  with  an  open  hand  ? 
Are  you  betrothed,  or  no  ? 

[Enter  a  Servant.] 
Who's  this  ? 

Servant.  A  page 

Sent  from  the  duke. 

Falcone.  Admit  him ! 

[Enter  Page,  with  a  letter.] 

Page.  For  my  lord, 

The  Count  Falcone. 

Tortesa.     (Aside — In  a  moment  more 
I  would  have  had  a  bond  of  such  assurance 
Her  father  on  his  knees  should  bid  me  take  her. 

(Looking  at  Falcone,  who  smiles  as  he  reads.) 
What  glads  him  now  ?) 

Falcone.  You  shall  not  have  the  bond  ! 

Tortesa.    No  ?  (jlside— Here's  a  change !     What  hint 
from  duke  or  devil 
Stirs  him  to  this  ?)     My  lord,  'twere  best  the  bridal 
Took  place  upon  the  instant.     Is  your  daughter 
Ready  within ?  .     ■    .      ..__-. 

Falcone.        You'll  never  wed  my  daughter  ! 
[Enter  Isabella.] 

Tortesa.     My  lord  ! 

Falcone.     She's  fitlier  mated !     Here  she  comes  ! 
My  lofty  Isabella  !     My  fair  child  ! 
How  dost  thou,  sweet  r 

Isabella  (embracing  him).      Come   home,  and  I   not 

Art  well  ?     I  see  thou  art !     Hast  ridden  hard  ? 
My  dear,  dear  father ! 

Falcone.  Give  me  breath  to  tell  thee 

Some  better  news,  my  loved  one ! 


872 


TORTESA,  THE  USURER. 


Isabella.  Nay,  the  joy 

To  see  you  back  again  's  enough  for  now. 
There  can  be  no  news  better,  and  for  this 
Let's  keep  a  holyday  twixt  this  and  sunset ! 
Shut  up  your  letter  and  come  see  my  flowers, 
And  hear  my  birds  sing,  will  you  '/ 

Falcone.  Look,  my  darling, 

Upon  this  first !     {Holds  up  the  letter.) 

Isabella.  No !  you  shall  tell  me  all 

You  and  the  duke  did — where  you  slept,  where  ate, 
Whether  you  dreamed  of  me — and,  now  I  think  on't, 
Found  you  no  wild-flowers  as  you  crossed  the  mountain  ? 

Falcone.     My  own  bright  child !     {Looks  fondly  upon 
her.) 

Tortesa.         (Jlside — 'Twill  mar  your  joy,  my  lord  ! 
To  see  the  glover's  daughter  in  your  palace, 
And  your  proud  daughter  houseless  !) 

Falcone  (to  Isabella).  You'll  not  hear 

The  news  I  have  for  you ! 

Tortesa  (advancing).         Before  you  tell  it, 
I'll  take  my  own  again  ! 

Isabella.        (Jlside — Tortesa  here  !)  (courtesies.) 
I  crave  your  pardon,  sir ;  I  saw  you  not ! 
(Oh  hateful  monster ! — Jlside.) 

Falcone.  Listen  to  my  news, 

Signor  Tortesa  !  It  concerns  you,  trust  me ! 

Isabella,     (jlside — More  of  this  hateful  marriage !) 

Tortesa.  Tell  it  briefly, 

My  time  is  precious  ! 

Falcone.  Sir,  I'll  sum  it  up 

In  twenty  words.     The  duke  has  information, 
By  what  means  yet  I  know  not,  that  my  need 
Spurs  me  to  marry  an  unwilling  daughter. 
He  bars  the  match  ! — redeems  my  lands  and  palace, 
And  has  enriched  the  young  Count  Julian, 
For  whom  he  bids  me  keep  my  daughter's  hand  ! 
Kind,  royal  master !     (Reads  the  note  to  himself.) 

Isabella.     (Jlside — Never  !) 

Tortesa.     (Jlside,  with  suppressed  rage — 'Tis  a  lie  ! 
He's  mad,  or  plays  some  trick  to  gain  the  time — 
Or  there's  a  woman  hatching  deviltry  ! 
We'll  see.)     (Looks  at  Isabella.) 

Isabella.    (Jlside — I'll  die  first !     Sold  and  taken  back, 
Then  thrust  upon  a  husband  paid  to  take  me ! 
To  save  my  father  I  have  weighed  myself, 
Heart,  hand,  and  honor,  against  so  much  land  ! — 
I — Isabella  !     I'm  nor  hawk  nor  hound, 
And,  if  I  change  my  master,  I  will  choose  him ! 

Tortesa.     (Jlside — She  seems  not  over-pleased  !) 

Page.  Your  pardon,  count ! 

I  wait  your  answer  to  the  duke  ! 

Falcone.  My  daughter 

Shall  give  it  you  herself.     What  sweet  phrase  have  you, 
Grateful  and  eloquent,  to  bear  your  thanks  ? 
Speak,  Isabella  ! 

Isabella.         (Jlside — There's  but  one  way  left ! 
Courage,  poor  heart,  and  think  on  Angelo  !) 

(Advances  suddenly  to  Tortesa.) 
Signor  Tortesa ! 

Tortesa.  Madam ! 

Isabella.  There's  my  hand  ! 

Is't  yours,  or  no  ? 

Tortesa.  There  was  a  troth  between  us ! 

Isabella.     Is't  broke  ? 

Tortesa.  I  have  not  broke  it ! 

Isabella.  Then  why  stand  you 

Mute  as  a  statue,  when  'tis  struck  asunder 
Without  our  wish  or  knowledge  ?     Would  you  be 
Half  so  indifferent  had  you  lost  a  horse  ? 
Am  I  worth  having  ? 

Tortesa.  Is  my  life  worth  having  ? 

Isabella.    Then  are  you  robbed !    Look  to  it ! 

Falcone.  Is  she  mad  ! 

Tortesa.     You'll  marry  me  ? 

Isabella.  I  will ! 

Falcone.  By  Heaven,  you  shall  not ! 

What,  shall  my  daughter  wed  a  leprosy — 
A  bloated  money-canker  ?     Leave  her  hand ! 
Stand  from  him,  Isabella  ! 

Isabella.  Sir !  you  gave  me 

This  "leper"  for  a  hnsband,  three  days  gone; 


I  did  not  ask  my  heart  if  I  could  love  him ! 

I  took  him  with  the  meekness  of  a  child, 

Trusting  my  father !     I  was  shut  up  for  him — 

Forced  to  receive  no  other  company — 

My  wedding-clothes  made,  and  the  match  proclaimed 

Through  Florence  ? 

Falcone.        Do  you  love  him  ? — tell  me  quickly  ! 

Isabella.     You  never  asked  me  that  when  I  was  bid 
To  wed  him ! 

Falcone.  I  am  dumb  ! 

Tortesa.  Ha  !  ha  !  well  put ! 

At  him  again,  'Bel !  Well !  I've  had  misgivings 
That  there  was  food  in  me  for  ladies'  liking. 
I've  been  too  modest ! 

Isabella.  (Jlside — Monster  of  disgust !) 

Falcone.     My  daughter  !     I  would  speak  with   you  in 
private  ! 
Signor !  you'll  pardon  me. 

Isabella.  Go  you,  dear  father  ! 

I'll  follow  straight.  [Exit  Falcone. 

Tortesa.     (Jlside — She  loiters  for  a  kiss  ! 
They're  all  alike !    The  same  trick  woos  them  all !) 
Come  to  me,  'Bel ! 

Isabella  (coldy).         To-morrow  at  this  hour 
You'll  find  the  priest  here,  and  the  bridesmaids  waiting. 
Till  then,  adieu  !  [Exit.  ' 

Tortesa.     Hola  !  what,  gone  ?     Why,  'Bella  ! 
Sweetheart !  I  say  !  So  !  She  would  coy  it  with  me  ! 
Well,  well,  to-morrow  !     'Tis  not  long,  and  kisses 
Pay  interest  by  seconds  !     There's  a  leg ! 
As  she  stood  there,  the  calf  showed  handsomely. 
Faith  'lis  a  shapely  one  !     I  wonder  now, 
Which  of  my  points  she  finds  most  admirable ! 
Something  I  never  thought  on,  like  as  not, 
We  do  not  see  ourselves  as  others  see  us. 
'Twould  not  surprise  me  now,  if  'twere  my  beard — 
My  forehead  !     I've  a  hand  indifferent  white  ! 
Nay,  I've  been  told  my  waist  was  neatly  turned. 
We  do  not  see  ourselves  as  others  see  us ! 
How  goes  the  hour?     I'll  home  and  fit  my  hose 
To  tie  trim  for  the  morrow.     (Going  out.)    Hem  !   the 

door's 
Lofty.    I  like  that !     I  will  have  mine  raised. 
Your  low  door  makes  one  stoop  !  [Exit 


ACT  III. 


[Jlngelo  discovered  in  his  studio,  painting  upon  the  picture 
of  Isabella.'] 

Jlngelo.     My  soul  is  drunk  with  gazing  on  this  face, 
I  reel  and  faint  with  it.     In  what  sweet  world 
Have  I  traced  all  its  lineaments  before  ? 
I  know  them.     Like  a  troop  of  long-lost  friends, 
My  pencil  wakes  them  with  its  eager  touch, 
And  they  spring  up,  rejoicing,  oh,  I'll  gem 
The  heaven  of  Fame  with  my  irradiate  pictures, 
Like  kindling  planets — but  this  glorious  one 
Shall  be  their  herald,  like  the  evening  star, 
First-lit,  and  lending  of  its  fire  to  all. 
The  day  fades — but  the  lamp  burns  on  within  me. 
My  bosom  has  no  dark,  no  sleep,  no  change 
To  dream  or  calm  oblivion.     I  work  on 
When  my  hand  stops.    The  light  teints  fade.    Good  night, 
Fair  image  of  the  fairest  thing  on  earth, 
Bright  Isabella ! 
(Leans   on   the  rod   with   which  he   guides  his  hand,  and 
remains  looking  at  his  picture.) 
[Enter  Tomaso,  with  two  bags  of  money.] 
Tomaso.     For  the  most  excellent  painter,  Angelo,  two 
hundred  ducats  !     The  genius  of  my  master  flashes  upon 
me.     The  duke's  greeting  and  two  hundred  ducats  !     If  I 
should  not  have  died  in  my  blindness  but  for  this  eye-water, 
may  I  be  hanged.     (Looks  at  Jlngelo.)     He  is  studying  his 
picture.     What  an  air  there  is  about  him — lofty,  unlike  the 
vulgar !     Two  hundred  ducats  !     (Observes  Jlngelo' s  hat  on 
the  table.)     It   strikes  me  now  that  I  can  see  genius  in 
that  hat.     It  is  not  like  a  common  hat.     Not  like  a  bought 


TORTESA,  THE  USURER. 


873 


hat.     The  rim  turns  to  the   crown    with  an    intelligence. 
(Weighs  the  ducats   in  his   haul.)     Good    heavy  ducats. 
What  it  is  to  refresh  the  vision  !     I  have  looked  round,  ere 
now,  in  this  very  chamber,  and  fancied  that  the  furniture 
expressed  a  melancholy  dulness.     When  he  hath  talked  to 
me  of  his  pictures,  I  have  seen  the  chairs  smile.     Nay,  as 
if  ashamed    to  listen,  the   very  table   has  looked    foolish. 
Now,  all  about  me  expresseth  a  choice  peculiarity — as  you 
would  say,  how  like  a  genius  to  have  such  chairs !     What 
a  puinter-like  table  !     Two  hundred  ducats  ! 
Angelo.     What  hast  thou  for  supper  ? 
Tomaso.     Two  hundred  ducats,  my  great  master  ! 
Angelo  (absently).     A  cup  of  wine  !     Wine,  Tomaso  ! 

[Sits  doicn. 
Tomaso.     (So  would  the  great  Donatello  have  sat  upon  his 
chair!     His  less  thus  !     His  hand  falling  thus  !)     (Aloud.) 
There  is  naught  in  the  cellar  but  stale  beer,  my  illustrious 
master!     (Now,  it  strikes  me  that  his   shadow  is  unlike 
another  man's — of  a  pink  tinge,  somehow — yet  that  may  be 
fancy.) 
Angelo.      Hast  thou  no  money  ?     Get  wine,  I  say  ! 
Tomaso.      I  saw  the  duke   in    the   market   place,  who 
called  me  Angelo  (we  shall  rue  that  trick  yet),  and  with  a 
gracious  smile  asked  me  if  thou    hadst   paid  the   twenty 
flasks. 
Angelo  (not  listening).     Is  there  no  wine  ? 
Tomaso.    I  said  to  his  grace,  no !    Pray  mark  the  sequel ; 
In  pity  of  my  thirst,  the  duke  sends  me  two — ahem  ! — one 
hundred  ducats.     Here  they  are  ! 

Angelo.     Didst  thou  say  the  wine  was  on  the  lees  ? 
Tomaso.     With  these  fifty  ducats  we  shall  buy  nothing 
but  wine.     (He  will  be  rich  with  fifty.) 
Angelo.     What  saidst  thou  ? 

Tomiso.     I  spoke  of  twenty  ducats  sent  thee  by  the  duke. 
Wilt  thou  finger  them  ere  one  is  spent  ? 
Angelo.     I  asked  thee  for  wine — I  am  parched. 
Tomaso.      Of  these  ten  ducats,  thinkst  thou  we  might 
ipend  one  for  a  flask  of  better  quality  ? 

Angelo.  Lend  me  a  ducat,  if  thou  hast  one,  and  buy 
vine  presently.     Go ! 

Tomaso.    I'll  lend  it  thee,  willingly,  my  illustrious  master. 
.t  is  my  last,  but  as  much  mine  as  thine. 
Angelo.     Go!  Go! 

Tomaso.     Yet  wait !     There's  a  scrap  of  news.     Fal- 
tone's  daughter  marries  Tortesa,  the  usurer  ?     To-morrow 
is  the  bridal. 
Angelo.     How  ? 

Tomaso.  I  learned  it  in  the  market-place  !  There  will 
be  rare  doings ! 

Angelo.  Dog !  Villain  !  Thou  hast  lied  !  Thou  dar'st 
not  say  it ! 

Tomaso.  Hey  !  Art  thou  mad  ?  Nay — borrow  thy 
ducat  where  thou  canst !  I'll  spend  that's  my  own.  Adieu, 
master  ! 

(Exit  Tomaso,  and  enter  Tortesa  with  a  complacent  smile.) 
Angelo.     Ha  ! — well  arrived  !  [Draws  his  sword. 

Tortesa.     Good  eve,  good  Signor  Painter. 
Angelo.     You  struck  me  yesterday. 

Tortesa.  I  harmed  your  picture — 

For  which  I'm  truly  sorry — but  not  you  ! 

Angelo.     Myself!  myself!     My  picture  is  myself ! 
What  are  my  bones  that  rot  ?     Is  this  my  hand  ? — 
Is  this  my  eye  ? 

Tortesa.  I  think  so. 

Angelo.  No,  I  say  ! 

The  hand  and  eye  of  Angelo  are  there ! 
There  —  there  —  (Points   to  his  pictures)  —  immortal  ! 

Wound  me  in  the  flesh, 
I  will  forgive  you  upon  fair  excuse. 
'Tis  the  earth  round  me — 'tis  my  shell — my  house  ; 
But  in  my  picture  lie  my  brain  and  heart — 
My  soul — my  fancy.     For  a  blow  at  these 
There's  no  cold  reparation.     Draw,  and  quickly  ! 
I'm  in  the  mood  to  fight  it  to  the  death. 
Stand  on  your  guard  ! 

Tortesa.  I  will  not  fight  with  you. 

Angelo.     Coward  ! 
Tortesa.  I'm  deaf. 

Angelo.  Feel  then  ! 

^Tortesa  catches  the  blow  as  he  strikes  him,  and  coldly  flings 
back  hit  han-l.\ 


Tortesa.  Nay,  strike  me  not ! 

I'll  call  the  guard,  and  cry  out  like  a  woman. 
Angelo  (turning  from  him  contemptuously). 
What  scent  of  dog's  meat  brought  me  such  a  cur ! 
It  is  a  whip  I  want,  and  not  a  sword. 

Tortesa  (folding  his  arms).     I  have  a  use  for  life  so 
far  above 
The  stake  you  quarrel  for,  that  you  may  choose 
Your  words  to  please  yourself.     They'll  please  me,  too. 
Yet  you're  in  luck.     I  killed  a  man  on  Monday 
For  spitting  on  my  shadow.     Thursday's  sun 
Will  dry  the  insult,  though  it  light  on  me ! 
Angelo.     Oh,  subtle  coward  ! 
Tortesa.  I  am  what  you  will, 

So  I'm  alive  to  marry  on  the  morrow  ! 
'Tis  well,  by  Jupiter  !     Shall  you  have  power 
With  half  a  breath  to  pluck  from  me  a  wife  ! 
Shall  I,  against  a  life  as  poor  as  yours — 
Mine  being  precious  as  the  keys  of  heaven — 
Set  all  upon  a  throw,  and  no  odds  neither? 
I  know  what  honor  is  as  well  as  you  ! 
I  know  the  weight  and  measure  of  an  insult — 
What  it  is  worth  to  take  or  fling  it  back. 
I  have  the  hand  to  fight  if  I've  a  mind; 
And  I've  a*heart  to  shut  my  sunshine  in, 
And  lock  it  from  the  scowling  of  the  world, 
Though  all  mankind  cry  "  Coward  !" 

Angelo.  Mouthing  braggart ! 

Tortesa.     I  came  to  see  my  bride,  my  Isabella  ! 

Show  me  her  picture  !     (Advances  to  look  for  it.) 

Angelo.  Do  but  look  upon't, 

By  heaven's  fair  light,  I'll  kill  you  !  [Draws. 

Tortesa.  Soft,  she's  mine  ! 

She  loves  me  !  and  with  that  to  make  life  precious, 
I  have  the  nerve  to  beat  back  Hercules, 
If  you  were  he  ! 

Angelo  (attacking  him).     Out !    Out !  thou  shameless 

liar ! 
Tortesa  (retreating  on   the  defence). 
Thy  blows  and  words  fall  pointless  !     Nay  thou'rt  mad  ! 
But  I'll  not  harm  thee  for  her  picture's  sake ! 
Angelo.     Liar  !  she  hates  thee  ! 
(Beats   him   off  the  stage   and   returns,   closing   the    door 
violently.) 
So  !  once  more  alone  ! 
(Takes  Isabella's  picture  from  the  easel,  and  replaces  it  with 
Zippa's.) 
Back  to  the  wall,  deceitful  loveliness  ! 
And  come  forth,  Zippa,  fair  in  honest  truth  ! 
I'll  make  thee  beautiful ! 

(Takes  his  pencil  and  palette  to  paint.) 
[A  knock  is  heard.] 

Who  knocks  !  come  in! 
[Enter  Isabella,  disguised  as  a  monk.] 
Isabella.     Good  morrow,  signor  ! 

Angelo  (turning  sharply  to  the  monk).     There's  a  face, 
old  monk, 
Might  stir  your  blood— ha  ?     You  shall  tell  me,  now, 
Which  of  these  heavenly  features  hides  the  soul ! 
There  is  one  !     I  have  worked  upon  the  picture 
Till  my  brain's  thick — I  can  not  see  like  you. 
Where  is't  ? 

Isabella.     (Aside — A  picture  of  the  glover's  daughter ! 
What  does  he,  painting  her  .')     Is't  for  its  beauty 
You  paint  that  face,  sir  ? 

Angelo.  Yes — the  immortal  beauty ! 

Look  here  !     What  see  you  in  that  face  ?     The  skin — 
Isabella.     Brown  as  a  vintage-girl's ! 
Angelo.  The  mouth — 

Isabella.  A  good  one 

To  eat  and  drink  withal ! 

Angelo.  The  eye  is— 

Isabella.  Grey ! 

You'll  buy  a  hundred  like  it  for  a  penny ! 
Angelo.     A  hundred  eyes  ? 
Isabella.  No.     Hazel-nuts ! 

Angelo.  The  forehead — 

How  find  you  that  ? 

Isabella.  Why,  made  to  match  the  rest ! 

I'll  cut  as  good  a  face  out  of  an  apple — 
For  all  that's  fair  in  it ! 


874 


TORTESA,  THE  USURER. 


Angela.  Oh,  Heaven,  how  dim 

Were  God's  most  blessed  image  did  all  eyes 
Look  on't  like  thine  !     Is't  by  the  red  and  white — 
Is't  by  the  grain  and  tincture  of  the  skin — 
Is't  by  the  hair's  gloss,  or  the  forehead's  arching, 
You  know  the  bright  inhabitant  ?     I  tell  thee 
The  spark  of  their  divinity  in  some 
Lights  up  an  inward  face — so  radiant, 
The  outward  lineaments  are  like  a  veil 
Floating  before  the  sanctuary — forgot 
In  glimpses  of  the  glory  streaming  through  ! 

Isabella  {mournfully).     Is  Zippa's  face  so  radiant  ? 

Angelo.  Look  upon  it! 

You  see  thro'  all  the  countenance  she's  true ! 

Isabella.     True  to  you,  signor ! 

Jlngelo.  To  herself,  old  man  ! 

Yet  once,  to  tne  too !     (Dejectedly.) 

Isabella.     (Aside — Once  to  him  !     Can  Zippa 
Have  dared  to  love  a  man  like  Angelo ! 
I  think  she  dare  not.     Yet  if  he,  indeed, 
Were  the  inconstant  lover  that  she  told  of — 
The  youth  who  was  "  her  neighbor  !")     Please  you,  sig- 
nor! 
Was  that  fair  maid  your  neighbor  ? 

Angelo.  Ay — the  best ! 

A  loving  sister  were  not  half  so  kind  ! 
I  never  supped  without  her  company. 
Yet  she  was  modest  as  an  unsunned  lily, 
And  bounteous  as  the  constant  perfume  of  it. 

Isabella.     (Aside — 'Twas  he,  indeed  !    Oh !  what  a  fair 
outside 
Has  falsehood  there !     Yet  stay  !     If  it  were  I 
Who  made  him  false  to  her  ?     Alas,  for  honor, 
I  must  forgive  him — tho'  my  lips  are  weary 
With  telling  Zippa  how  I  thought  him  perjured ! 
I  can  not  trust  her  more — I'll  plot  alone  !) 

(Turns,  and  takes  her  own  picture  from  the  wall.) 

Isabella.     What  picture's  this,  turned  to  the  wall,  good 
signor  ? 

Angelo.     A  painted  lie ! 

Isabella.  A  lie ! — nay — pardon  me ! 

I  spoke  in  haste.     Methought  'twas  like  a  lady 
I'd  somewhere  seen  ! — a  lady — Isabella ! 
But  she  was  true ! 

Angelo.  Then  'tis  not  she  I've  drawn. 

For  that's  a  likeness  of  as  false  a  face 
As  ever  devil  did  his  mischief  under. 

Isabella.     And  yet  methinks  'tis  done  most  lovingly  ! 
^ou  musl  have  thought  it  fair  to  dwell  so  on  it. 

Angelo.     Your  convent  has  the  picture  of  a  saint 
Tempted,  while  praying,  by  the  shape  of  woman. 
The  painter  knew  that  woman  was  the  devil, 
Yet  drew  her  like  an  angel ! 

Isabella.  (Aside — It  is  true 

He  praised  my  beauty  as  a  painter  may — 
No  more — in  words.     He  praised  me  as  he  drew 
Feature  by  feature.     But  who  calls  the  lip 
To  answer  for  a  perjured  oath  in  love  ? 
How  should  love  breathe — how  not  die,  choked  for  ut- 
terance, 
If  words  were  all.     He  loved  me  with  his  eyes. 
He  breathed  it.     Upon  every  word  he  spoke 
Hung  an  unuttered  worship  that  his  tongue 
Would  spend  a  life  to  make  articulate. 
Did  he  not.  take  my  hand  into  his  own  ? 
And,  as  his  heart  sprang  o'er  that  bridge  of  veins, 
Did  he  not  call  to  mine  to  pass  him  on  it — 
Each  to  the  other's  bosom  !     I  have  sworn 
To  love  him — wed  him — die  with  him — and  yet 
He  never  heard  me — but  he  knows  it  well, 
And,  in  his  heart  holds  me  to  answer  for  it. 
I'll  try  once  more  to  find  this  anger  out. 
If  it  be  jealousy — why — then,  indeed, 
He'll  call  me  black,  and  I'll  forgive  it  him  ! 
For  then  my  errand's  done,  and  I'll  away 
To  play  the  cheat  out  that  shall  make  him  mine.) 
(Turns  to  Angelo.)     Fair  signor,  by  your  leave,  I've  heard 

it  said 
That  in  the  beauty  of  a  human  face 
The  God  of  Nature  never  writ  a  lie. 
Angelo.     'Tis  likely  true  ! 


Isabella.         That  howsoe'er  the  features 
Seem  fair  at  first,  a  blemish  on  the  soul 
Has  its  betraying  speck  that  warns  you  of  it. 

Angelo.     It  should  be  so,  indeed  ! 

Isabella.  Nay — here's  a  face 

Will  show  at  once  if  it  be  true  or  no. 
At  the  first  glance  'tis  fair! 

Angelo.  Most  heavenly  fair ! 

Isabella.     Yet,   in   the   lip,  methinks,  there   lurks   a 
shadow — 
Something — I  know  not  what — but  in  it  lies 
The  devil  you  spoke  of ! 

Angelo.  Ay — but  'tis  not  there ! 

Not  in  her  lip !     Oh,  no  !     Look  elsewhere  for  it, 
'Tis  passionately  bright — but  lip  more  pure 
Ne'er  passed  unchallenged  through  the  gate  of  heaven. 
Believe  me,  'tis  not  there  '• 

Isabella.  How  falls  the  light  ? 

I  see  a  gleam  not  quite  angelical 
About  the  eye.     Maybe  the  light  falls  wrong — 

Angelo  (drawing  her  to  another  position). 
Stand  here  !     Dy'e  see  it  now  ? 

Isabella.  'Tis  just  so  here  ! 

Angelo  (sweeps  the  air  with  his  brush). 
There's  some  curst  cobweb  hanging  from  the  wall 
That  blurs  your  sight.     Now,  look  again  ! 

Isabella.  I  see  it 

Just  as  before. 

Angelo.     What !  still !     You've  turned  an  eyelash 
Under  the  lid.     Try  how  it  feels  with  winking. 
Is't  clear  ? 

Isabella.     'Twas  never  clearer  ! 

Angelo.  Then,  old  man  ! 

You'd  best  betake  you  to  your  prayers  apace ! 
For  you've  a  failing  sight,  death's  sure  forerunner — 
And  can  not  pray  long.     Why,  that  eye's  a  star, 
Sky-lit  as  Hesperus,  and  burns  as  clear. 
If  you  e'er  marked  the  zenith  at  high  noon, 
Or  midnight,  when  the  blue  lifts  up  to  God — 
Her  eye's  of  that  far  darkness  ! 

Isabella  (smiling  aside).     Stay — 'tis  gone  ! 
A  blur  was  on  my  sight,  which  passing  from  it, 
I  see  as  you  do.     Yes — the  eye  is  clear. 
The  forehead  only,  now  I  see  so  well, 
Has  in  its  arch  a  mark  infallible 
Of  a  false  heart  beneath  it. 

Angelo.  Show  it  to  me  ! 

Isabella.     Between  the  eyebrows  there ! 

Angelo.  I  see  a  tablet 

Whereon  the  Savior's  finger  might  have  writ 
The  new  commandment.     When  I  painted  it 
I  plucked  a  just-blown  lotus  from  the  shade, 
And  shamed  the  white  leaf  till  it  seemed  a  spot — 
The  brow  was  so  much  fairer !     Go  !  old  man, 
Thy  sight  fails  fast.     Go !  go  ! 

Isabella.  The  nostril's  small — 

Is't  not  ? 

Angelo.     No ! 

Isabella.  Then  the  cheek's  awry  so  near  it, 

It  makes  it  seem  so  ! 

Angelo.  Out !  thou  cavilling  fool ! 

Thou'rt  one  of  those  whose  own  deformity 
Makes  all  thou  seest  look  monstrous.     Go  and  pray 
For  a  clear  sight,  and  read  thy  missal  with  it. 
Thou  art  a  priest,  and  livest  by  the  altar, 
Yet  dost  thou  recognise  God's  imprest  seal, 
Set  on  that  glorious  beauty  ! 

Isabella.  (Aside — Oh,  he  loves  me ! 

Loves  me  as  genius  loves — ransacking  earth 
And  ruffling  the  forbidden  flowers  of  Heaven 
To  make  celestial  incense  of  his  praise. 
High-thoughted  Angelo  !     He  loves  we  well ! 
With  what  a  gush  of  all  my  soul  I  thank  him — 
But  he's  to  win  yet,  and  the  time  is  precious.) 
(To  Angelo.)  Signor,  I  take  my  leave. 

Angelo.  Good  day,  old  man  ! 

And,  if  thou  com'st  again,  bring  new  eyes  with  thee, 
Or  thou  wilt  find  scant  welcome. 

Isabella.  You  shall  like 

These  same  eyes  well  enough  when  next  I  come ! 

[Exit. 


TORTESA,  THE  USURER. 


875 


Angelo.     A  crabbed  monk  !  (Turns  the  picture  to  the 
wall  again.)     I'll  hide  this  fatal  picture 
From  sight  once  more,  for  till  he  made  me  look  on't 
I  did  not  know  my  weakness.     Once  more,  Zippa, 
I'll  dwell  on  thy  dear  face,  and  with  my  pencil 
Make  thee  more  fair  than  life,  and  try  to  love  thee  ! 

(A  knock.) 
Come  in  ! 

[Enter  Zippa.] 
Zippa.  Good  day,  Signor  Angelo  ! 

Angelo.     "Why,  Zippa  !  is't  thou  ?  is't  thou,  indeed  ! 
Zippa.     Myself,  dear  Angelo  ! 
Angelo.     Art  well  ? 
Zippa.     Ay  ! 
Angelo.     Hast  been  well ! 
Zippa.     Ay ! 

Angelo.     Then  why,  for  three  long  days,  hast  thou  not 
been  near  me  ? 

Zippa.     Ask  thyself,  Signor  Angelo ! 

I  have — a  hundred  times  since  I  saw  thee. 

And  there  was  no  answer  ? 

None! 

Then  shouldst  thou  have  asked  the  picture  on 


Nay — I  understand  thee  not. 

Did  I  not  find  thee  feasting  thy  eyes  upon  it  ? 

True — thou  didst  ? 
And  art  thou  not  enamored  of  it — wilt  tell  n 


Angelo. 

Zippa. 

Angelo. 

Zippa. 
thy  easel ! 

Angelo. 

Zippa. 

Angelo. 

Zippa. 
truly  ? 

Angelo  (smiling).     'Tis  a  fair  face! 

Zippa.     Oh,  unkind  Angelo  ! 

Angelo.  Look  on't !  and,  seeing  its  beauty,  if  thou  dost 
not  forgive  me,  I  will  never  touch  pencil  to  it  more. 

Zippa.     I'll  neither  look  on't,  nor  forgive  thee.     But  if 
thou  wilt  love  the  picture  of  another  better  than  mine,  thou 
shalt  paint  a  new  one  ! 
(As  she  rushes  up  to  dash  it  from  the  easel,  Angelo  catches 

her  arm,  and  points  to  the  picture.     She  looks  at  it,  and, 

seeing  her  own  portrait,  turns  and  falls  on  his  bosom.) 

My  picture  !  and  I  thought  thee  so  false  !  Dear,  dear 
Angelo  !  I  could  be  grieved  to  have  wronged  thee,  if  joy 
would  give  me  time.     But  thou'lt  forgive  me  ? 

Angelo.     Willingly  !  Willingly  ! 

Zippa.  And  thou  lovest  me  indeed,  indeed  !  Nay,  answer 
not !     I  will  never  doubt  thee  more  !     Dear  Angelo  ! 

Yet — (Suddenly  turns  from  Angelo  wilh  a  troubled  air.) 

Angelo.     What  ails  thee  now  ? 
(Zippa  takes  a  rich  veil  from  under  her  cloak,  throws  it 

over   her  head,  and   looks  on  the  ground  in  embarrassed 

silence.) 
Dost  thou  stand  there  for  a  picture  of  Silence  ? 

Zippa.  Alas  !  dear  Angelo !  When  I  said  I  forgave 
and  loved  thee,  I  forgot  that  I  was  to  be  married  to-mor- 
row ! 

Angelo.     Married  !  to  whom  ? 

Zippa.     Tortesa,  the  usurer ! 

Angelo.     Tortesa,  saidst  thou  ? 

Zippa.  Think  not  ill  of  me,  dear  Angelo,  till  I  have 
told  thee  all !  This  rich  usurer,  as  thou  knowest,  would  for 
ambition  marry  Isabella  de  Falcone. 

Angelo.     He  would,  I  know. 

Zippa.     But  for  love,  he  would  marry  your  poor  Zippa. 

Angelo.     Know  you  that  ? 

Zippa.  He  told  me  so  the  day  you  angered  me  with  the 
praises  of  the  court  lady  you  were  painting.  What  was 
her  name,  Angelo? 

Angelo  (composedly).    I — I'll  tell  thee  presently  !    Go  on  ! 
Zippa.     Well— jealous  of  this  unknown  lady,  I  vowed, 
if  it  broke  my  heart,  to  wed  Tortesa.     He  had  told  me 
Isabella  scorned  him.     I  flew  to  her  palace.     She  heard 
me,  pitied  me,  agreed  to  plot  with  me  that  I  might  wed  the 
usurer,  and  then  told  me  in  confidence  that  there  was  a 
poor  youth  whom  she  loved  and  would  fain  marry. 
Angelo  (in  breathless  anxiety).     Heard  you  his  name  ? 
Zippa.     No  !     But  as  I  was  to  wed  the  richer  and  she 
the  poorer,  she  took  my  poor  veil,  and  gave  me  her  rich 
one.     Now  canst  thou  read  the  riddle  ? 

Angelo.     (Aside — A  "  poor  youth  !"     What  if  it  is  I  ? 

he  "  loves  and  will  wed  him !"     Oh  !  if  it  were  I !) 
Zippa.     Nay,  dear  Angelo!  b»  not  so  angry  !     I  do  not 
love  him  !     Wny — thou  know**!  I  do  noi  ' 


Angelo.  (Aside— It  may  be— nay— it  must !  But  I  will 
know  !  If  not,  I  may  as  well  die  of  that  as  of  this  jealous 
madness.) 

(Prepares  to  go  out.) 

Zippa.  Angelo !  where  go  you  ?  Forgive  me,  dear 
Angelo  !     I  swear  to  thee  I  love  him  not ! 

Angelo.  I'll  know  who  that  poor  youth  is,  or  suspense 
will  kill  me ! 

(Goes  out  hastily,  without  a  look   at  Zippa.     She   stands 
silent  and  amazed  for  a  moment.) 

Zippa.  Why  cares  he  to  know  who  that  poor  youth  is  ! 
"Suspense  will  kill  him  ?"  Stay  !  a  light  breaks  on  me  ! 
If  Isabella  were  the  court  lady  whom  he  painted  !  If  it 
were  Angelo  whom  she  loved  !  He  is  a  poor  youth  !— The 
picture  !  The  picture  will  tell  all ! 
(Hurriedly  turns  round  several  pictures  turned  to  the  wall, 

and-  lust  of  all,  Isabella's.     Looks  at  it  an  instant,  and 

exclaims) — 

Isabella  ! 
(She  drops  on  her  knees,  overcome  with  grief,  and  the  scene 
closes.) 


[A  Lady's  dressing-room  in  the  Falcone  Palace.     Isabella 
discovered  wilh  two  vials.] 

Isabella.     Here  is  a  draught  will  still  the  breath  so 
nearly, 
The  keenest-eyed  will  think  the  sleeper  dead, — 
And  this  kills  quite.     Lie  ready,  trusty  friends, 
Close  by  my  bridal  veil !     I  thought  to  baffle 
My  ruffian  bridegroom  by  an  easier  cheat; 
But  Zippa's  dangerous,  and  if  I  fail 
In  mocking  death,  why  death  indeed  be  welcome  ! 
(Enter  Zippa  angrily.) 

Zippa.  Madam ! 

Isabella.  You  come  rudely  ! 

Zippa.     If  I  offend  you  more,  I  still  have  cause — 
Yet  as  the  "friend"  to  whom  you  gave  a  husband, 
(So  kind  you  were !)  I  might  come  unannounced  ! 

Isabella.     What  is  this  anger  ? 

Zippa.  I'm  not  angry,  madam  ! 

Oh  no  !     I'm  patient ! 

Isabella.  What's  your  errand,  then  ? 

Zippa.     To  give  you  back  your  costly  bridal  veil, 
And  take  my  mean  one. 

Isabella.  'Twas  your  wish  to  change. 

'Twas  you  that  plotted  we  should  wed  together — 
You  in  my  place,  and  I  in  yours — was't  not  ? 

Zippa.      Oh,   Heaven !    you're  calm !     Had   you  no 
plotting,  too  ? 
You're  noble  born,  and  so  your  face  is  marble — 
I'm  poor,  and  if  my  heart  aches,  'twill  show  through. 
You've  robbed  me,  madam  ! 

Isabella.  1 1 

Z  ippa .  Of  gold — of  j  e wels ! — 

Gold  that  would  stretch  the  fancy  but  to  dream  of, 
And  gems  like  stars  ! 

Isabella.  You're  mad  ! 

Zippa.  His  love  was  worth  them  ! 

Oh,  what  had  you  to  do  with  Angelo  ? 

Isabella.     Nay — came  you  not  to  wed  Tortesa  freely  ? 
What  should  you  do  with  Angelo  ? 

Zippa.  You  mock  me  ! 

You  are  a  woman  though  your  brow's  a  rock, 
And  know  what  love  is.     In  a  ring  of  fire 
The  tortured  scorpion  stings  himself,  to  die — 
But  love  will  turn  upon  itself,  and  grow 
Of  its  own  fang  immortal ! 

IsabeUa.  Still,  you  left  him 

To  wed  another  ? 

Zippa.  'Tis  for  that  he's  mine ! 

What  makes  a  right  in  anything,  but  pain  ? 
The  diver's  a?ony  beneath  the  sea 
Makes  the  peril  his— pain  gets  the  miser's  gold— 
The  noble's  coronet  won  first  in  battle, 
Is  his  by  bleeding  for't— and  Angelo 
Is  ten  times  mine  because  I  gave  him  up— 
Crushing  pit  heart  to  do  so! 


876 


TORTESA,  THE  USURER. 


Isabella.  Now  you  plead 

Against  yourself.     Say  it  would  kill  me  quite, 
If  you  should  wed  him?     Mine's  the  greater  pain, 
And  so  the  fairer  title  ! 

Zippa  {falling  on  her  knees).     I  implore  you 
Love  him  no  more !     Upon  my  knees  I  do  ! 
He's  not  like  you  !     Look  on  your  snow-white  arms  ! 
They're  formed  to  press  a  noble  to  your  breast — 
Not  Angelo  !     He's  poor — and  fit  for  mine ! 
You  would  not  lift  a  beggar  to  your  lips  ! — 
You  would  not  lean  from  your  proud  palace-stairs 
To  pluck  away  a  heart  from  a  poor  girl 
Who  has  no  more  on  earth  ! 

Isabella.  I  will  not  answer ! 

Zippa.     Think   what   it   is !     Love   is   to   you   like 
music — 
Pastime  !     You  think  on't  when  the  dance  is  o'er — 
When  there's  no  revel — when  your  hair's  unbound, 
And  its  bright  jewels  with  the  daylight  pale — 
You  want  a  lover  to  press  on  the  hours 
That  lag  till  night  again  !     But  I — 

Isabella.  Stop  there ! 

I  love  him  better  than  you've  soul  to  dream  of! 

Zippa   (rising).     Tia  false !     How  can  you  ?     He's 
to  you  a  lamp 
That  shines  amid  a  thousand  just  as  bright ! 
What's  one  amid  your  crowd  of  worshippers  ? 
The  glow-worm's  bright — but  oh  !  'tis  wanton  murder 
To  raise  him  to  the  giddy  air  you  breathe, 
And  leave  his  mate  in  darkness ! 

Isabella.  Say  the  worm 

Soar  from  the  earth  on  his  own  wing — what  then  ? 

Zippa.     Fair  reasons  can   not  stay  the   heart  from 
breaking. 
You've  stolen  my  life,  and  you  can  give  it  back ! 
Will  you — for  Heaven's  sweet  pity  ? 

Isabella.  Leave  my  presence  ! 

(Jlside — I  pity  her — but  on  this  fatal  love 
Hangs  my  life,  too.)     What  right  have  such  as  you 
To  look  with  eyes  of  love  on  Angelo  ? 

Zippa.     What  right  ? 

Isabella.  I  say  so.     Where's  the  miracle 

Has  made  you  fit  to  climb  into  the  sky — 
A  moth — and  look  with  love  upon  a  star ! 

Zippa  (mournfully).     I'm  lowly  born,  alas  ! 

Isabella.  Your  souPs  low  born ! 

Forget  your  anger  and  come  near  me,  Zippa, 
For  e'er  I'm  done  you'll  wonder  !     Have  you  ever, 
When  Angelo  was  silent,  marked  his  eye — 
How,  of  a  sudden,  as  'twere  touched  with  fire, 
There  glows  unnatural  light  beneath  the  lid  ? 

Zippa.     I  have — I've  thought  it  strange  ! 

Isabella.  Have  you  walked  with  him 

When  he  has  turned  his  head,  as  if  to  list 
To  music  in  the  air — but  you  heard  none — 
And  presently  a  smile  stole  through  his  lips, 
And  some  low  words,  inaudible  to  you, 
Fell  from  him  brokenly. 

Zippa.  Ay — many  times ! 

Isabella.     Tell  me  once  more  !     Hast  never  heard  him 
speak 
With  voice  unlike  his  own — so  melancholy, 
And  yet  so  sweet  a  voice,  that,  were  it  only 
The  inarticulate  moaning  of  a  bird, 
The  very  tone  of  it  had  made  you  weep  ? 

Zippa.     'Tis  strangely  true,  indeed  ! 

Isabella.  Oh,  Heaven !     You  say  so — 

Yet  never  dreamt  it  was  a  spirit  of  light 
Familiar  with  you ! 

Zippa.  How  ? 

Isabella.  Why,  there  are  seraphs 

Who  walk  this  common  world,  and  want,  as  we  do — 
Here,  in  our  streets — all  seraph,  save  in  wings — 
The  look,  the  speech,  the  forehead  like  a  god — 
And  he  the  brightest ! 

Zippa  (incredulously).     Nay — I've  known  him  long  ! 

Isabella.      Why,   listen  !      There    are   worlds,   thou 
doubting  fool ! 
Farther  to  flee  to  than  the  stars  in  heaven, 
Which  Angelo  can  walk  as  we  do  this — 
And  does — while  you  look  on  him ! 

Zippa.  Angelo ! 


Isabella.     He's  never  at  your  side  one  constant  minute 
Without  a  thousand  messengers  from  thence ! 
(0  block !  to  live  with  him,  and  never  dream  on't !) 
He  plucks  the  sun's  rays  open  like  a  thread, 
And  knows  what  stains  the  rose  and  not  the  lily — 
He  never  sees  a  flower  but  he  can  tell 
Its  errand  on  the  earth — (they  all  have  errands — 
You  know  not  that,  oh  dulness !)     He  sees  shapes 
Flushed  with  immortal  beauty  in  the  clouds — 
(You've  seen  him  mock  a  thousand  on  his  canvass, 
And  never  wondered  !)     Yet  you  talk  of  love ! 
What  love  you  ? 

Zippa.  Angelo — and  not  a  dream ! 

Take  you  the  dream  and  give  me  Angelo  ! 
You  may  talk  of  him  till  my  brain  is  giddy — 
But  oh,  you  can  not  praise  him  out  of  reach 
Of  my  true  heart. — He's  here,  as  low  as  I ! — 
Shall  he  not  wed  a  woman,  flesh  and  blood  ? 

Isabella.     See  here  !     There  was  a  small,  earth-creep- 
ing mole, 
Born  by  the  low  nest  of  an  unfledged  lark. 
They  lived  an  April  youth  amid  the  grass — 
The  soft  mole  happy,  and  the  lark  no  less, 
And  thought  the  bent  sky  leaned  upon  the  flowers. 
By  early  May  the  fledgling  got  his  wings  ; 
And,  eager  for  the  light,  one  breezy  dawn, 
Sprang  from  his  nest,  and  buoyantly  away, 
Fled  forth  to  meet  the  morning.     Newly  born 
Seemed  the  young  lark,  as  in  another  world 
Of  light,  and  song,  and  creatures  like  himself, 
He  soared  and  dropped,  and  sang  unto  the  sun, 
And  pitied  everything  that  had  not  wings — 
But  most  the  mole,  that  wanted  even  eyes 
To  see  the  light  he  floated  in  ! 

Zippa.  Yet  still 

She  watched  his  nest,  and  fed  him  when  he  came — 
Would  it  were  Angelo  and  I  indeed ! 

Isabella.     Nay,  mark !     The  bird  grew  lonely  in  the 
sky. 
There  was  no  echo  at  the  height  he  flew  ! 
And  when  the  mist  lay  heavy  on  his  wings 
His  song  broke,  and  his  flights  were  brief  and  low — 
And  the  dull  mole,  that  should  have  sorrowed  with  him, 
Joyed  that  he  sang  at  last  where  she  could  hear ! 

Zippa.     Why,  happy  mole  again  ! 

Isabella.  Not  long ! — for  soon 

He  found  a  mate  that  loved  him  for  his  icings  ! 
One  who  with  feebler  flight,  but  eyes  still  on  him, 
Caught  up  his  dropped  song  in  the  middle  air, 
And,  with  the  echo,  cheered  him  to  the  sun  ! 

Zippa.     (Jside — I  see  !    I  see  !     His  soul  was  never 
mine ! 
I  was  the  blind  mole  of  her  hateful  story  ! 
No,  no  !  he  never  loved  me  !     True,  we  ate, 
And  laughed,  and  danced  together — but  no  love — 
He  never  told  his  thought  when  he  was  sad  ! 
His  folly  and  his  idleness  were  mine — 
No  more  !     The  rest  was  locked  up  in  his  soul ! 
I  feel  my  heart  grow  black  !)     Fair  madam,  thank  you  ! 
You've  told  me  news  !     (She  shall  not  have  him  neither, 
If  there's  a  plot  in  hate  to  keep  him  from  her ! 
I  must  have  room  to  think,  and  air  to  breathe — 
I  choke  here !)     Madam,  the  blind  mole  takes  leave  ! 

Isabella.     Farewell !  [Exit  Zippa. 

(Takes  the  vial  from  the  table.) 

And  now,  come  forth,  sweet  comforter ! 
I'll  to  my  chamber  with  this  drowsy  poison, 
And  from  my  sleep  I  wake  up  Angelo's, 
Or  wake  no  more  !  [Exit. 


ACT  IV. 


[Ji  sumptuous  Drawing-room  in  the  Falcone  Palace. 
Guests  assembled  for  the  bridal.  Lords  and  ladies 
promenading,  and  a  band  of  musicians  in  a  gallery  ai 
the  side  of  the  stage.] 

1st  Lord.    Are  we  before  the  hour  ?  or  does  the  bride- 


groom 
Affect  this  tardiness? 


TORTESA,  THE  USURER. 


877 


2d  Lord.  We're  bid  at  twelve. 

1*/  Lord.   'Tis  now  past  one.    At  least  we  should  have 
music 
To  wile  the  time.     (To  the  musicians.)     Strike  up,  good 
fellows  ! 

2d  Lord.  Why, 

A  man  who's  only  drest  on  holydays 
Makes  a  long  toilet.     Now,  I'll  warrant  he 
Has  vexed  his  tailor  since  the  break  of  day 
Hoping  to  look  a  gentleman.     D'ye  know  him? 

1st  Lord.     I've  never  had  occasion  ! 

2d  Lord.  Poor  Falcone  ! 

He'd  give  the  best  blood  in  his  veins,  I  think, 
To  say  as  much  ! 

1st  Lord.  How's  this  !     I  see  no  stir 

Amons;  the  instruments.     Will  they  not  play  ? 

2d  Lord.    Not  they!    I  asked  before  you,  and  they're  bid 
To  strike  up  when  they  hear  Tortesa's  horses 
Prance  thro'  the  gateway — not  a  note  till  then  ! 
(Music  plays.) 

1st  Lord.     He  comes  ! 

(Enter  Tortesa,  dressed  over-richly.) 

Tortesa.     Good  day,  my  lords  ! 

15/  Lord.  Good  day ! 

2d  Lord.  The  sky 

Smiles  on  you,  signor  !     'Tis  a  happy  omen 
They  say,  to  wed  in  sunshine. 

Tortesa.  Why,  I  think 

The  sun  is  not  displeased  that  I  should  wed. 

1st  Lord.     We're  happy,  sir,  to  have  you  one  of  us. 

Tortesa.     What  have  I  been  till  now  !     I  was  a  man 
Before  I  saw  your  faces  !     Where's  the  change  ? 
Have  I  a  tail  since  ?     Am  I  grown  a  monkey  ? 

(Lords  whisper  together,  and  walk  from  him.) 
Oh  for  a  mint  to  coin  the  world  again 
And  melt  the  mark  of  gentleman  from  clowns  ! 
It  puts  me  out  of  patience !     Here's  a  fellow 
That  by  much  rubbing  against  better  men, 
Has,  like  a  penny  in  a  Jew's  close  pocket, 
Stolen  the  color  of  a  worthier  coin, 
And  thinks  he  rings  like  sterling  courtesy! 
Yet  look  !  he  can  not  phrase  you  a  good  morrow, 
Or  say  he's  sad,  or  glad,  at  anything, 
But  close  beneath  it,  rank  as  verdigris, 
Lies  an  insulting  rudeness  !     He  was  "happy" 
That  I  should  now  be  one  of  them.     Now!  Now ! 
As  if,  till  now,  I'd  been  a  dunghill  grab, 
And  was  but  just  turned  butterfly  ! 

(A  Lady  advances.) 
Lady.  Fair  sir, 

I  must  take  leave  to  say,  were  you  my  brother, 
You've  made  the  choice  that  would  have  pleased  me  best ! 
Your  bride's  as  good  as  fair. 

Tortesa.  I  thank  you,  madam  ! 

To  be  your  friend,  she  should  be — good  and  fair ! 
(The  Lady  turns,  and  walks  up  the  stage.) 
How  like  a  drop  of  oil  upon  the  sea 
Falls  the  apt  word  of  woman  !     So  !  her  "  brother  !" 
Why,  there  could  be  no  contumely  there  ! 
I  misrht,  for  all  I  look,  have  been  her  brother, 
Else  her  first  thought  had  never  coupled  us. 
I'll  pluck  some  self-contentment  out  of  that! 

(Enter  suddenly  the  count's  secretary.) 
How  now  ! 

Secretary.     I'm  sent,  sir,  with  unwelcome  tidings. 
Tortesa.     Deliver  them  the  quicker ! 
Secretary.  I  shall  be 

Too  sudden  at  the  slowest. 

Tortesa.  Pshaw !  what  is't  ? 

I'm  not  a  girl !     Out  with  your  news  at  once  ! 
Are  my  ships  lost  ? 

Secretary  (hesitatingly).    The  lady  Isabella — 
Tortesa.     What  ?  run  away  ! 

Secretary.  Alas,  irood  sir  !  she's  dead  ! 

Tortesa.     Bah  !  just  as  dead  as  I !     Why,  thou  dull 
blockhead  ! 
Can  not  a  lady  faint,  but  there  must  be 
A  trumpeter  like  thee  to  make  a  tale  on't  ? 


Secretary.     Pardon  me,  signor,  but — 
Tortesa.  Who  sent  you  hither  1 

Secretary.     My  lord  the  count. 

Tortesa  (turning  quickly  aside).    He  put  it  in  the  bond, 
That  if  by  any  humor  of  my  own, 
Or  accident  that  sprang  not  from  himself, 
Or  from  his  daughter's  will,  the  match  were  marred, 
His  tenure  stood  intact.     If  she  were  dead — 
I  don't  believe  she  is — but  if  she  were, 
By  one  of  those  strange  chances  that  do  happen 
If  she  were  dead,  I  say,  the  silly  fish 
That  swims  with  safety  among  hungry  sharks 
To  run  upon  the  pin-hook  of  a  boy, 
Might  teach  me  wisdom  ! 
(The  secretary    comes  forward,   narrating  eagerly  to   the 
company.) 

Now,  what  says  this  jackdaw  ? 
Secretary.  She  had  refused  to  let  her  bridesmaids  in— 
Lady.     And  died  alone  ? 

Secretary.  A  trusty  serving  maid 

Was  with  her,  and  none  else.     She  dropped  away, 
The  girl  said,  in  a  kind  of  weary  sleep. 
1st  Lord.     Was  no  one  told  of  it? 
Secretary.  The  girl  watched  by  her, 

And  thought  she  slept  still ;  till,  the  music  sounding, 
She  shook  her  by  the  sleeve,  but  got  no  answer; 
And  so  the  truth  broke  on  her! 

Tortesa.  (Aside—  Oh  indeed  ! 

The  plot  is  something  shallow !) 

2d  Lord.  Might  we  go 

And  see  her  as  she  lies ! 

Secretary.  The  holy  father 

Who  should  have  married  her,  has  checked  all  comers, 
And  staying  for  no  shroud  but  bridal  dress, 
He  bears  her  presently  to  lie  in  state 
In  the  Falcone  chapel. 

Tortesa.  (Aside — Worse  and  worse — 

They  take  me  for  a  fool  !) 

1st  Lord.  But  why  such  haste  ? 

Secretary.     I  know  not. 

JU.  Let  us  to  the  chapel ! 

Tortesa.     (Drawing  his  sword,  and  stepping  beliveen  them 
and  the  door.) 

Hold! 
Let  no  one  try  to  pass  ! 

1*/  Lord.  What  mean  you,  sir ! 

Tortesa.    To  keep  you  here  till  you  have  got  your 
story 
Pat  to  the  tongue — the  truth  on't  and  no  more  ! 

Lady.      Have   you  a  doubt   the  bride   is  dead,  good 

signor  ? 
Tortesa.     A  palace,  see  you,  has  a  tricky  air! 
When  I  am  told  a  tradesman's  daughter's  dead, 
I  know  the  coffin  holds  an  honest  corse, 
Sped  in  sad  earnest,  to  eternity. 
But  were  I  stranger  in  the  streets  to-day, 
And  heard  that  an  ambitious  usurer, 
With  lands  and  money  having  bought  a  lady 
High-born  and  fair,  she  died  before  the  bridal, 
I  would  lay  odds  with  him  that  told  me  of  it 
She'd  rise  again— before  the  resurrection. 
So  stand  back  all !     If  I'm  to  fill  to-day 
The  pricking  ears  of  Florence  with  a  lie, 
The  bridal  guests  shall  tell  the  tale  so  truly, 
And  mournfully,  from  eyesight  of  the  corse, 
That  even  the  shrewdest  listener  shall  believe, 
And  I  myself  have  no  misgiving  of  it. 
Look  !  where  they  come  ! 
(Door  opens  to  funereal  music,  and  the  body  of  Isabella  is 
borne  in,  preceded  by  a  monk,  and  followed  by  Falcone  and 
mourners.     Tortesa  confronts  the  Monk.) 

What's  this  you  bear  away  ? 
Monk.     Follow  the  funeral,  but  stay  it  not. 
Tortesa.     If  thereon  lie  the  lady  Isabella, 
I  ask  to  see  her  face  before  she  pass ! 

Monk.     Stand  from  the  way,  my  son,  it  can  not  be ! 
Tortesa.     What  right  have  you  to  take  me  for  a  stone  ? 
See  what  you  do  !     I  stand  a  bridegroom  here. 
A  moment  since  the  joyous  music  playing 
Which  promised  me  a  fair  and  blushing  bride. 


878 


TORTESA,  THE  USURER. 


The  flowers  are  fragrant,  and  the  guests  made  welcome; 

And  while  my  heart  beats  at  the  opening  door, 

And  eagerly  I  look  to  see  her  come, — 

There  enters  in  her  stead  a  covered  corse ! 

And  when  I  ask  to  look  upon  her  face — 

One  look  before  my  bride  is  gone  for  ever, — 

You  find  it  in  your  hearts  to  say  me  nay ! — 

Shame !    Shame ! 

Falcone  (fiercely).  Lead  on  ! 

Tortesa.  My  lord,  by  covenant — 

By  contract  writ  and  sealed — by  value  rendered — 
By  her  own  promise — nay,  by  all,  save  taking, 
This  body's  mine !     I'll  have  it  set  down  here 
And  wait  my  pleasure !     See  it  done,  my  lord, 
Or  I  will,  for  you  ! 

Monk  (to  the  bearers).    Set  the  body  down  ! 
Tortesa  (takes  the  veil  from  the  face). 
Come  hither  all !     Nay,  father,  look  not  black  ! 
If  o'er  the  azure  temper  of  this  blade 
There  come  no  mist,  when  laid  upon  her  lips, 
I'll  do  a  penance  for  irreverence, 
And  fill  your  sack  with  penitential  gold ! 
Look  well ! 
(Puts  his  sword  blade  to  Isabella's  lips,  and  after  watching 
it  with  intense  interest  a  moment,  drops  on  his  knees  beside 
the  bier.) 

She's  dead  indeed  !     Lead  on  ! 

[The  procession  starts  again  to  funereal  music,  and  Tortesa 

follows  last.) 


{A  Street  in  Florence.  The  funereal  music  dxjing  away 
in  the  distance.  Enter  Zippa,  straining  her  eyes  to  look 
after  it.] 

Zippa.     'Tis  Angelo  that  follows  close  behind, 
Laying  his  forehead  almost  on  her  bier! 
His  heart  goes  with  her  to  the  grave !     Oh  Heaven! 
Will  not  Tortesa  pluck  out  of  his  hand 
The  tassel  of  that  pall  ? 

(She  hears  a  footstep.) 

Stay,  stay,  he's  here  ! 
(Enter  Tortesa,  musing.     Zippa  stands  aside.) 

Tortesa.     I've  learned  to-day  a  lord  may  be  a  Jew, 
I've  learned  to-day  that  grief  may  kill  a  lady; 
Which  touches  me  the  most  I  can  not  say, 
For  I  could  fight  Falcone  for  my  loss, 
Or  weep,  with  all  my  soul,  for  Isabella. 

(Zippa  touches  him  on  the  shoulder.) 

Zippa.     How  is't  the  signor  follows  not  his  bride  ? 

Tortesa.     I  did — but  with  their  melancholy  step 
I  fell  to  musing,  and  so  dropped  behind — 
But  here's  a  sight  I  have  not  seen  to-day  ! 
(Takes  her  hand  smilingly.) 

Zippa.     What's  that  ? 

Tortesa.  A  friendly  face,  my  honest  Zippa  ! 

Art  well  ?     What  errand  brings  thee  forth  ? 

Zippa.  None,  signor  ! 

But  passing  by  the  funeral,  I  stopped, 
Wondering  to  see  the  bridegroom  lag  behind, 
And  give  his  sacred  station  next  the  corse 
To  an  obtrusive  stranger. 

Tortesa.  Which  is  he  ? 

Zippa  (points  after  Angelo).  Look  there ! 

Tortesa.     His  face  is  buried  in  his  cloak. 
Who  is't  ? 

Zippa.  Not  know  him  ?  Had  I  half  the  cause 
That  you  have,  to  see  through  that  mumming  cloak 
The  shadow  of  it  would  speak  out  his  name ! 

Tortesa.     What  mean  you  ? 

Zippa.  Angelo !     What  right  has  he 

To  weep  in  public  at  her  funeral  ? 

Tortesa.     The  painter  ? 

Zippa.  Ay — the  peasant  Angelo  ! 

Was't  not  enough  to  dare  to  love  her  living, 
But  he  must  fling  the  insult  of  his  tears 
Betwixt  her  corse  and  you  ?     Are  you  not  moved  ? 
Will  you  not  go  and  pluck  him  from  your  place  ? 


Tortesa.     No,  Zippa  !  for  my  spirits  are  more  apt 
To  grief  than  anger.     I've  in  this  half  hour 
Remembered  much  I  should  have  thought  on  sooner, — 
For,  had  I  known  her  heart  was  capable 
Of  breaking  for  the  love  of  one  so  low, 
I  would  have  done  as  much  to  make  her  his 
As  I  have  done,  in  hate,  to  make  her  mine. 
She  loved  him,  Zippa  !   (Walks  back  in  thought.) 

Zippa,  (Aside — Oh  to  find  a  way 

To  pluck  that  fatal  beauty  from  his  eyes ! 
'Tis  twilight,  and  the  lamp  is  lit  above  her, 
And  Angelo  will  watch  the  night  out  there, 
Gazing  with  passionate  worship  on  her  face. 
But  no  !  he  shall  not !) 

T'ortesa  (advancing).     Come  !  what  busy  thought 
Vexes  your  brain  now  ? 

Zippa.  Were  your  pride  as  quick 

As  other  men's  to  see  an  insult,  signor  ! 
I  had  been  spared  the  telling  of  my  thought. 

Tortesa.     You  put  it  sharply  ! 

Zippa.  Listen  !  you  are  willing 

That  there  should  follow,  in  your  place  of  mourner, 
A  youth,  who,  by  the  passion  of  his  grief, 
Shows  to  the  world  he's  more  bereaved  than  you ! 

Tortesa.     Humph  !    well ! 

Zippa.  Still  follows  he  without  rebuke; 

And  in  the  chapel  where  she  lies  to-night, 
Her  features  bared  to  the  funereal  lamp, 
He'll,  like  a  mourning  bridegroom,  keep  his  vigil, 
As  if  all  Florence  knew  she  was  his  own. 

Tortesa.     Nay,  nay !  he  may  keep  vigil  if  he  will ! 
The  door  is  never  locked  upon  the  dead 
Till  bell  and  mass  consign  them  to  the  tomb ; 
And  custom  gives  the  privilege  to  all 
To  enter  in  and  pray — and  so  may  he. 

Zippa.     Then  learn  a  secret  which  I  fain  had  spared 
My  lips  the  telling.     Question  me  not  how, 
But  I  have  chanced  to  learn,  that  Angelo, 
To-night,  will  steal  the  body  from  its  bier ! 

Tortesa.     To-night !  What !  Angelo  !  Nay,  nay,  good 
Zippa  ! 
If  he's  enamored  of  the  corse,  'tis  there — 
And  he  may  watch  it  till  its  shape  decay, 
And  holy  church  will  call  it  piety. 
But  he  who  steals  from  consecrated  ground, 
Dies,  by  the  law  of  Florence.     There's  no  end 
To  answer  in't. 

Zippa.  You  know  not,  Angelo  ! 

You  think  not  with  what  wild,  delirious  passion 
A  painter  thirsts  to  tear  the  veil  from  beauty. 
He  painted  Isabella  as  a  maid, 
Coy  as  a  lily  turning  from  the  sun. 
Now  she  is  dead,  and,  like  a  star  that  flew 
Flashing  and  hiding  thro'  some  fleecy  rack, 
But  suddenly  sits  still  in  cloudless  heavens, 
She  slumbers  fearless  in  his  steadfast  gaze, 
Peerless  and  unforbidding.     O,  to  him 
She  is  no  more  your  bride  !     A  statue  fairer 
Than  ever  rose  enchanted  from  the  stone, 
Lies  in  that  dim-lit  chapel,  clad  like  life. 
Are  you  too  slow  to  take  my  meaning  yet  ? 
He  can  not  loose  the  silken  boddice  there! 
He  can  not,  there,  upon  the  marble  breast 
Shower  the  dark  locks  from  the  golden  comb  ! 

Tortesa.     Hold  ! 

Zippa.     Are  you  moved  ?      Has  he  no  end  to  compasj 
In  stealing  her  away  from  holy  ground  ? 
Will  you  not  lock  your  bride  up  from  his  touch  ? 

Tortesa.    No  more  !  no  more  !    I  thought  not  of  all  this  ! 
Perchance  it  is  not  true.     But  twilight  falls, 
And  I  will  home  to  doff  this  bridal  gear, 
And,  after,  set  a  guard  upon  the  corse. 
We'll  walk  together.     Come  ! 

Zippa.  (Aside — He  shall  not  see  her  !) 

{Exeunt 


[A  Street  in  front  of  the  Falcone  Palace.  Night.  Enter 
Isabella  in  her  white  bridal  dress.  She  falters  to  her 
father's  door,  and  drops  exhausted.'] 


TORTESA,  THE  USURER. 


»79 


Isabella.     My  brain  swims  round!     I'll  rest  a  little 
here ! 
The  night's  cold,  chilly  cold.     Would  I  could  reach 
The  house  of  Angelo!     Alas!  I  thought 
He  would  have  kept  one  night  of  vigil  near  me, 
Thinking  me  dead.     Bear  up,  good  heart !     Alas  ! 
I  faint !     Where  am  I  /     (Looks  around.) 

'Tis  my  father's  door. 
My  undirected  feet  have  brought  me  home — 
And  I  must  in,  or  die  !  (foiocks  with  a  painful  effort.) 
So  ends  my  dream  ! 
Falcone  (from  above). 
Who's  that  would  enter  to  a  mourning  house  ? 
Isabella.     Your  daughter ! 

Falcone.  Ha !  what  voice  is  that  I  hear  ? 

Isabella.     Poor  Isabella's. 

Falcone.  Art  thou  come  to  tell  me, 

That  with  unnatural  heart  I  killed  my  daughter? 
Just  Heaven  !  thy  retribution  follows  fast ! 
But  oh,  if  holy  and  unnumbered  masses 
Can  give  thee  rest,  perturbed  and  restless  spirit ! 
Haunt  thou  a  weeping  penitent  no  more  ! 
Depart !     I'll  in,  and  pass  the  night  in  prayer ! 
So  shalt  thou  rest !     Depart ! 
(He  closes  the  window,  and  Isabella  drops  with  her  forehead 
to  the  marble  stair.) 
(Enter  Tomaso,  with  a  bottle  in  his  hand.) 
Tomaso.      It's  like   the   day  after   the   deluge.      Few 
stirring  and  nobody  dry.     I've  been  since  twilight  looking 
for  somebody   that  would  drink.     Not  a  beggar  athirst  in 
all  Florence  !     I  thought  that,  with  a  bottle'  in  my  hand,  I 
should  be  scented  like  a  wild  hoar.     I  expected  drunkards 
would  have  come  up  out  of  the  ground— like  worms  in  a 
shower.     When  was  I  ever  so  difficult  to  find  by  a  moist 
friend  ?     Two  hundred  ducats  in  good  wine  and  no  com- 
panion !     I'll  look  me  up  a  dry  dog.     I'll  teach  him  to  tip- 
ple, and  give  up  the  fellowship  of  mankind. 
Isabella  (faintly).     Signor ! 
Toiwiso.     Hey!  What! 
Isabella.     Help,  signor ! 

Tomaso.     A  woman!  Ehem !  (Approaching  her.)  Would 
you  take  somethine  to  drink  by  any  chance  I    (Offers  her 
the  bottle.)     No  ?    Perhaps  you  don't  like  to  drink  out  of 
the  bottle. 
Isabella.     I  perish  of  cold ! 

Tomaso.  Stay !  Here's  a  cloak  !  My  master's  out  for 
the  night,  and  you  shall  home  with  me.  Come !  Perhaps 
when  you  get  warmer,  you'd  like  to  drink  a  little.  The 
wine's  good  !  (Assists  her  in  rising.)  By  St.  Genevieve, 
a  soft  hand  !  Come  !  I'll  bring  you  where  there's  fire  and 
a  clean  flagon. 

Isibella.     To  any  shelter,  sisrnor ! 

Tomaso.  Shelter !  nay,  a  good  house,  and  two  hundred 
ducats  in  ripe  wine.  Steady  now  !  (This  shall  pass  lor  a 
good  action  !  If  my  master  smell  a  rat,  I'll  face  him  out 
the  woman's  honest !)  This  way,  now!  Softly  !  That's 
well  stepped  !     Come  ! 

(Goes  out,  assisting  her  to  walk.) 


ACT  V. 


lAngelo's  Studio.  A  full-length  picture,  in  a  large  frame, 
stands  on  the  floor  against  an  easel,  placed  nearly  in  the 
centre  of  the  room.  Two  curtains,  so  arranged  as  to  cover 
the  picture  u-hen  dravm  together.  Angelo  stands  in  an 
imploring  attitude  near  the  picture,  his  pencil  and  palette 
in  his  hands,  appealing  to  Isabella,  who  is  partly  turned 
from  him  in  an  attitude  of  refusal.  The  back  wall  of  the 
room  such  as  to  form  a  natural  ground  for  a  picture.] 

Angelo.     Hear  me,  sweet ! 

Isabella.  No,  we'll  keep  a  holydav, 

And  waste  the  hours  in  love  and  idleness. 
You  shall  not  paint  to-day,  dear  Angelo ! 

Anzelo.     But  listen  ! 

Isabella.  Nay,  I'm  jealous  of  my  picture ; 

For  all  you  give  to  that  is  stolen  from  me. 
I  like  not  half  a  look  that  turns  away 
Without  an  answer  from  the  eves  it  met ! 


I  care  not  you  should  see  my  lips'  bright  color 
Yet  wait  not  for  the  breath  that  floats  between  ! 
Angelo.     Wilt  listen  ? 

Isabella.  Listen  ?    Yes  !  a  thousand  years! 

But  there's  a  pencil  in  those  restless  fingers, 
Which  you've  a  trick  of  touching  to  your  lips— 
And  while  you  talk,  my  hand  would  do  as  well ! 
And  if  it's  the  same  tale  you  told  before 
Of  certain  vigils  you  forgot  to  keep, 
Look  deep  into  my  eyes^till  it  is  done — 
For,  like  the  children's  Lady-in-the-well, 
I  only  hark  because  you're  looking  in  ! 
Will  you  talk  thus  to  me  ? 

Angelo.  Come  night  I  will ! 

But  close  upon  thy  voice,  sweet  Isabella ! 
A  boding  whisper  sinks  into  mine  ear 
Which  tells  of  sudden  parting  !     If  'tis  false, — 
We  shall  have  still  a  lifetime  for  our  love, 
But  if  'tis  true,  oh  think  that,  in  my  picture, 
Will  lie  the  footprint  of  an  angel  gone! 
Let  me  but  make  it  clearer  ! 

Isabella.  Now.  by  Heaven  ! 

I  think  thou  lov'st  the  picture,  and  not  me  ! 
So  different  am  I,  that,  did  I  think 
To  lose  thee  presently,  by  death  or  parting, 
For  thy  least  word,  or  look,  or  slightest  motion — 
Nay,  for  so  little  breath  as  makes  a  sigh 
I  would  not  take,  to  have  it  pass  untreasured. 
The  empire  of  a  star  ! 
(While  she  was  uttering  this  reproach.     Angelo  has  lookeu 
at  her  with  delight,  and  touched  his  portrait  with  a  few 
rapid  strokes.) 
Angelo.  My  picture's  done  ! 

(Throws  his  pencil  to  the  ground.) 
Break,  oh  enchanted  pencil !  thou  wilt  never 
On  earth,  again,  do  miracle  so  fair! 
Oh  Isabella  !  as  the  dusky  ore 
Waits  for  the  lightning's  flash  to  turn  to  gold — 
As  the  dull  vapor  waits  for  Hesperus, 
Then  falls  in  dew-drops,  and  reflects  a  star — 
So  waited  I  that  fire  upon  thy  lips, 
To  make  my  masterpiece  complete  in  beauty  ! 

Isabella.  This  is  ambition  when  I  looked  for  love, 
The  fancy  flattering  where  the  heart  should  murmur. 
I  think  you  have  no  heart ! 

Angelo.  Your  feet  are  on  it ! 

The  heart  is  ever  lowly  with  the  famines, 
Tho'  the  proud  mind  sits  level  with  a  king ! 
I  gave  you  long  ago  both  heart  and  soul, 
But  only  one  has  dared  to  speak  to  you  ! 
Yet,  if  astonishment  will  cure  the  dumb, 
Give  it  a  kiss — 
Isabella  (smiling).     Lo  !     Where  it  speaks  at  last ! 
(A  loud  knock  is  heard.) 
Hark,  Angelo ! 

(He  flies  to  the  window,  and  looks  out.) 
Angelo.  Tortesa  with  a  guard  ! 

Alas  !  that  warning  voice  !     They've  traced  thee  hither ! 
Lost !  Lost ! 
Isabella.    (Hastily  drawing  the  curtain,  and  disappearing 
behind  it.) 
No  !  no !  defend  thy  picture  only, 
And  all  is  well  yet ! 

Angelo.  Thee  and  it  with  life  ! 

(Draws  his  sword,  and  stands  before  the  curtain  in  an  atti- 
tude of  defiance.  Enter  Tortesa  with  officers  and  guard.) 
Whal  is  your  errand  ? 

Tortesa.  I'm  afraid,  a  sad  one ! 

For,  by  your  drawn  sword  and  defying  air, 
Your  conscious  thought  foretells  it. 

Angelo.  Why, — a  blow — 

(You  took  one,  si?nor,  when  you  last  were  here — 
If  you've  forgot  it,  well!) — but,  commonly, 
The  giver  of  a  blow  needs  have  his  sword 
Promptly  in  hand.     You'll  pardon  me ! 

Tortesa.  I  do ! 

For,  if  my  fears  are  just,  good  signor  painter  ! 
You've  not  a  life  to  spare  upon  a  quarrel ! 
In  brief,  the  corse  of  a  most  noble  lady 
Was  stolen  last  night  from  holy  sanctuary. 


880 


TORTESA,  THE  USURER. 


I  have  a  warrant  here  to  search  your  house ; 
And,  should  the  body  not  be  found  therein, 
I'm  bid  to  see  the  picture  of  the  lady — 
Whereon  (pray,  mark  me !)  if  I  find  a  trace 
Of  charms  fresh  copied,  more  than  may  beseem 
The  modest  beauty  of  a  living  maid, 
I  may  arrest  you  on  such  evidence 
For  instant  trial ! 

Angelo.  Search  my  house  and  welcome  ! 

But,  for  my  picture,  though  a  moment's  glance 
Upon  its  pure  and  hallowed  loveliness 
Would  give  the  lie  to  your  foul  thought  of  me, 
It  is  the  unseen  virgin  of  my  brain ! 
And  as  th'  inviolate  person  of  a  maid 
Is  sacred  ev'n  in  presence  of  the  law, 
My  picture  is  my  own — to  bare  or  cover  ! 
Look  on  it  at  your  peril ! 

Tortesa  (to  the  guard).     Take  his  sword. 
(The  guards  attack  and  disarm  him.) 

Angelo.  Coward  and  villain  ! 
(Tortesa  parts  the  curtains  with  his  sword,  and  Angelo 
starts  amazed  to  see  Isabella,  with  her  hands  crossed  on 
her  breast,  and  her  eyes  fixed  on  the  ground,  standing 
motionless  in  the  frame  which  had  contained  his  picture. 
The  tableau  deceives  Tortesa,  who  steps  back  to  contem- 
plate what  he  supposes  to  be  the  portrait  of  his  bride.) 

Tortesa.  Admirable  work  ! 

'Tis  Isabella's  self!     Why,  this  is  wondrous  ! 
The  brow,  the  lip,  the  countenance — how  true  ! 
I  would  have  sworn  that  gloss  upon  the  hair, 
That  shadow  from  the  lash,  were  nature's  own — 
Impossible  to  copy  !  (Looks  at  it  a  moment  in  silence.) 

Yet  methinks 
The  color  on  the  cheek  is  something  faint! 

Angelo  (hurriedly).     Step  this  way  farther  ! 

Tortesa  (changing  his  position).    Ay — 'tis  better  here ! 
The  hand  is  not  as  white  as  Isabella's — 
But  painted  to  the  life !     If  there's  a  feature 
That  I  would  touch  again,  the  lip,  to  me, 
Seems  wanting  in  a  certain  scornfulness 
Native  to  her !     It  scarcely  marred  her  beauty. 
Perhaps  'tis  well  slurred  over  in  a  picture  ! 
Yet  stay  !     I  see  it,  now  I  look  again  ! 
How  excellently  well ! 

(Guards  return  from  searching  the  house.) 

•        What !  found  you  nothing  ? 

Soldier  (holding  up  Isabella's  veil). 
This  bridal  veil — no  more. 

Angelo  (despairingly).         Oh  !  luckless  star! 

Tortesa.     Signor  !  you'll  trust  me  when  I  say  I'm  sorry 
With  all  my  soul !     This  veil,  I  know  it  well — 
Was  o'er  the  face  of  that  unhappy  lady 
When  laid  in  sanctuary.     You  are  silent ! 
Perhaps  you  scorn  to  satisfy  me  here  ! 
I  trust  you  can — in  your  extremity  ! 
But  I  must  bring  you  to  the  duke  !     Lead  on ! 

Angelo.     An  instant ! 

Tortesa  (courteously).     At  your  pleasure  ! 

Angelo  (to  Isabella,  as  he  passes  close  to  her). 

I  conjure  you 
By  all  our  love,  stir  not ! 

Isabella  (still  motionless) .     Farewell ! 
(Tortesa  motions  for  Angelo  to  precede  him  with  the  guard, 
looks  once  more  at  the  picture,  and  with  a  gesture  expres- 
sive of  admiration,  follows.     As  the  door  closes,  Isabella 
steps  from  the  frame.) 

Isabella.  I'll  follow 

Close  on  thy  steps,  beloved  Angelo  ! 
And  find  a  way  to  bring  thee  home  again  ! 
My  heart  is  light,  and  hope  speaks  cheerily  ! 
And  lo  !  bright  augury  ! — a  friar's  hood 
For  my  disguise  !     Was  ever  omen  fairer  ! 
Thanks  !  my  propitious  star  ! 

(Envelops  herself  in  the  hood,  and  goes  out  hastily.) 


[A  Street.  Enter  Tomaso,  with  his  hat  crushed  and  pulled 
sulkily  over  his  eyes,  his  clothes  dirty  on  one  side,  and 
other  marks  of  having  slept  in  the  street.  Enter  Zippa 
from  the  other  side,  meeting  him.~\ 


Zippa.     Tomaso  !     Is't  thou  ?     Where's  Angelo  ? 

Tomaso.    It  is  I,  and  I  don't  know  ! 

Zippa.     Did  he  come  home  last  night  ? 

Tomaso.  "  Did  he  come  home  !"  Look  there  !  (Pulls 
off  his  hat  and  shows  his  dirty  side.) 

Zippa.    Then  thou  hast  slept  in  the  street ! 

Tomaso.     Ay ! 

Zippa.  And  what  has  that  to  do  with  the  coming  home 
of  Angelo  ? 

Tomaso.  What  had  thy  father  to  do  with  thy  having 
such  a  nose  as  his  ! 

(Zippa  holds  up  a  ducat  to  him.) 
What !  gave  thy  mother  a  ducat  ? — cheap  as  dirt  ! 

Zippa.  Blockhead,  no  !  I'll  give  thee  the  ducat  if  thou 
wilt  tell  me,  straight  on,  what  thou  know'st  of  Angelo  ! 

Tomaso.  I  will — and  thou  shalt  see  how  charity  is 
rewarded. 

Zippa.     Begin  ! — begin  ! 

Tomaso.  Last  night,  having  prayed  later  than  usual  at 
vespers 

Zippa.     Ehem ! 

Tomaso.     I  was  coming  home  in  a  pious  frame  of  mind — 

Zippa.     And  a  bottle  in  thy  pocket. 

Tomaso.  No ! — in  my  hand.  What  should  I  stumble 
over 

Zippa.     But  a  stone. 

Tomaso.     A  woman  ! 

Zippa.     Fie!  what's  this  you're  going  to  tell  me? 

Tomaso.  She  was  dying  with  cold.  Full  of  Christian 
charity — 

Zippa.     And  new  wine. 

Tomaso.     Old  wine,  Zippa !     The  wine  was  old  ! 

Zippa.     Well ! 

Tomaso.     I  took  her  home. 

Zippa.     Shame  ! — at  thy  years  ? 

Tomaso.     And  Angelo  being  out  for  the  night 

Zippa.     There  !  there  !  you  may  skip  the  particulars. 

Tomaso.     I  say  my  own  bed  being  in  the  garret 

Zippa.     Well,  well ! 

Tomaso.     I  put  her  into  Angelo's. 

Zippa.   Oh,  unspeakable  impudence!   Didst  thou  do  that? 

Tomaso.  I  had  just  left  her  to  make  a  wine  posset 
(for  she  was  well  nigh  dead),  when  in  popped  my  master, 
— finds  her  there — asks  no  questions, — kicks  me  into  the 
street,  and  locks  the  door  !     There's  the  reward  of  virtue  ! 

Zippa.     Did  he  not  turn  out  the  woman,  too  ? 

Tomaso.     Not  as  I  remember. 

Zippa.  Oh  worse  and  worse  !  And  thou  hast  not  seen 
him  since  ? 

Tomaso.  I  found  me  a  soft  stone,  said  my  prayers,  and 
went  to  sleep. 

Zippa.     And  hast  thou  not  seen  him  to-day? 

Tomaso.     Partly,  I  have ! 

Zippa.     Where  ?     Tell  me  quickly ! 

Tomaso.     Give  me  the  ducat. 

Zippa  (gives  it  to  him).     Quick  !  say  on ! 

Tomaso.  I  have  a  loose  recollection,  that,  lying  on  that 
stone  Angelo  called  me  by  name.  Looking  up,  I  saw  two 
Angelos,  and  two  Tortesas,  and  soldiers  with  two  spears 
each.  (He  figures  in  the  air  with  his  finger  as  if  trying  to 
remember.) 

Zippa.     (Aside— Ha !  he  is  apprehended  for  the  murder 
of  Isabella!     Say  that  my  evidence  might  save  his  life! 
Not  unless  he  love  me  !)     What  way  went  he,  Tomaso  ? 
(Tomaso  points.) 

This  way  ?  (Then  has  he  gone  to  be  tried  before  the 
duke.)     Come  with  me,  Tomaso !     Come. 

Tomaso.     Where  ? 

Zippa.     To  the  duke's  palace !  Come  !  (Takes  his  arm.) 

Tomaso.  To  the  duke's  palace  ?  There'll  be  kicking  of 
heels  in  the  anti-chamber  !— Dry  work  !  I'll  spend  thy  ducat 
as  we  go  along.     Shall  it  be  old  wine,  or  new  ?      [Exeunt. 


{Hall  of  judgment  in  the  ducal  palace.  The  duke  upon  a 
raised  throne  on  the  left.  Falcone  near  his  chair,  and 
Angelo  on  the  opposite  side  of  the  stage  with  a  guard. 
Isabella  behind  the  guard,  disguised  as  a  monk.  Tortesa 
stands  near  the  centre  of  the  stage,  and  Zippa  and  Tomaso 
in  the  left  comer,  listening  eagerly.  Counsellors  at  a  table, 
and  crowd  of  spectators  at  the  sides  and  rear.] 


TORTESA,  THE  USURER. 


Duke.     Are  there  more  witnesses  ? 
Counsellor.  No  more,  my  liege  ! 

Duke.     None  for  the  prisoner  ? 

Counsellor.  He  makes  no  defence 

Beyond  a  firm  denial. 

Falcone.  Is  there  wanting 

Another  proof,  my  liege,  that  he  is  guilty? 

Duke.     I  fear  he  stands  in  deadly  peril,  count. 
(To  the  counsellor.)     Sum  up  the  evidence. 
(He  reads.) 
Counsellor.  'Tis  proved,  my  liege, 

That  for  no  honest  or  sufficient  end, 
The  pris'ner  practised  on  your  noble  grace 
And  Count  Falcone  a  contrived  deceit, 
Whereby  he  gained  admittance  to  the  lady. 
(Tomaso  exhibits  signs  of  alarm.) 
Duke.     Most  true ! 

Counsellor.  That,  till  the  eve  before  her  death, 

He  had  continual  access  to  the  palace ; 
And,  having  grown  enamored  of  the  bride, 
Essayed  by  plots  that  never  were  matured, 
And  quarrels  often  forced  on  her  betrothed, 
To  stay  the  bridal.     That,  against  the  will 
Of  her  most  noble  father  and  the  duke, 
The  bride  was  resolute  to  keep  her  troth ; 
And  so,  preparing  for  the  ceremony, 
Upon  her  bridal  morning  was  found  dead. 
'Tis  proved  again — that,  while  she  lay  in  state, 
The  guard,  at  several  periods  of  the  night, 
Did  force  the  pris'ner  from  the  chapel  door  ; 
And  when  the  corse  was  stolen  from  sanctuary 
All  search  was  vain,  till,  in  the  pris'ner's  hands 
Was  found  the  veil  that  shrouded  her.     To  these 
And  lighter  proofs  of  sacrilege  and  murder 

The  prisoner  has  opposed  his  firm  denial 

No  more ! 

Duke.       Does  no  one  speak  in  his  behalf? 
Tortesa.     My  liege  !  so  far  as  turns  the  evidence 
Upon  the  prisoner's  quarrels  with  myself, 
I'm  free  to  say  that  they  had  such  occasion 
As  any  day  may  rise  'twixt  men  of  honor. 
As  one  of  those  aggrieved  by  his  offences, 
You'll  wonder  I'm  a  suiter  for  his  pardon — 
But  so  I  am !     Besides  that  there  is  room 
To  hope  him  innocent,  your  grace's  realm 
Holds  not  so  wondrous  and  so  rare  a  painter ! 
If  he  has  killed  the  lady  Isabella, 
'Tis  some  amends  that  in  his  glorious  picture 
She's  made  immortal !     If  he  stole  her  corse, 
He  can  return,  for  that  disfigured  dust, 
An  Isabella  fresh  in  changeless  beauty  ! 
Were  it  not  well  to  pardon  him,  my  lord  ? 
Isabella.     (Aside.— Oh,  brave  Tortesa  !) 
Duke.  You  have  pleaded  kindly 

And  eloquently,  signor  !  but  the  law 
Can  recognise  no  gift  as  plea  for  pardon. 
For  his  rare  picture  he  will  have  his  fame ; 
But  if  the  Isabella  he  has  painted 
Find  not  a  voice  to  tell  his  innocence, 
He  dies  at  sunset ! 

Isabella  (despairingly).     He  is  dead  to  me ! 
Yet  he  shall  live ! 
[She  drops  the  cowl  from  her  shoulders,  and  with  her  arms 
folded,  walks  slovrty  to  the  feet  of  the  duke.) 
Falcone  (rushing  forward).  My  daughter! 
Angelo  (with  a  gesture  of  agony).  Lost ! 

Tortesa.  Mive ! 

Zippa  (energetically).     Tortesa  '11  have  her ! 
(Isabella  retires  to  the  back  of  the  stage  with  her  father,  and 
kneels  to  him,  imploring  in   dumb  show ;   the  duke  and 
others  watching.)  . 

Tortesa.  (Aside— So !  all's  right  again  ? 

Now  for  my  lands,  or  Isabella  ? Stay  ! 

'Tis  a  brave  girl,  by  Heaven  ! 

(Reflects  a  moment.) 

A  sleeping  draught, 
And  so  to  Angelo  !    Her  love  for  me 
A  counterfeit  to  take  suspicion  off! 
It  was  well  done !     I  feel  my  heart  warm  to  her ! 

(Reflects  again.) 
Where  could  he  hide  her  from  our  search  to-day? 
56 


(Looks  round  at  Isabella.) 
No  ?     Yet  the  dress  is  like  !     It  was  the  picture ! 
Herself — and  not  a  picture !     Now,  by  Heaven, 
A  girl  like  that  should  be  the  wife  of  Caesar  ! 

(Presses  his  hand  upon  his  heart.) 
I've  a  new  feeling  here ! 
(Falcone  comes  forward,  followed  by  Isabella  with  gestures 
of  supplication.) 
Falcone.  I  will  not  hear  you  ! 

My  liege,  I  pray  you  keep  the  prisoner 
In  durance  till  my  daughters  fairly  wed. 
He  has  contrived  against  our  peace  and  honor, 
And  howsoe'er  this  marvel  be  made  clear, 
She  stands  betrothed,  if  he  is  in  the  mind, 
To  the  brave  signor,  yonder  ! 

Duke.  This  were  well — 

What  says  Tortesa  ? 

Tortesa.  If  my  liege  permit, 

I  will  address  my  answer  to  this  lady. 
(Turns  to  Isabella.) 
For  reasons  which  I  need  not  give  you  now, 
Fair  Isabella !     I  became  your  suiter. 
My  motives  were  unworthy  you  and  me — 
Yet  I  was  true — I  never  said  I  loved  you ! 
Your  father  sold  you  me  for  lands  and  money — 
(Pardon  me,  duke  !     And  you,  fair  Isabella  ! 
You  will — ere  I  am  done !)     I  pushed  my  suit ! 
The  bridal  day  came  on,  and  closed  in  mourning; 
For  the  fair  bride  it  dawned  upon  was  dead. 
I  had  my  shame  and  losses  to  remember — 
But  in  my  heart  sat  sorrow  uppermost, 
And  pity — for  I  thought  your  heart  was  broken. 
(Isabella  begins  to  discover  interest  in  his  story,  and  Angelo 
watches  her  with  jealous  eagerness.) 
I  see  you  here  again  !     You  are  my  bride  ! 
Your  father  holds  me  to  my  bargain  for  you ! 
The  lights  are  burning  on  the  nuptial  altar — 
The  bridal  chamber  and  the  feast,  all  ready  ! 
What  stays  the  marriage  now  ? — my  new-born  love  ! 
That  nuptial  feast  were  fruit  from  Paradise — 
I  can  not  touch  it  till  you  bid  me  welcome ! 

That  nuptial  chamber  were  the  lap  of  Heaven 

I  can  not  enter  till  you  call  me  in ! 

(Takes  a  ring  from  his  bosom.) 
Here  is  the  golden  ring  you  should  have  worn. 
Tell  me  to  give  it  to  my  rival  there — 
I'll  break  my  heart  to  do  so  !     (Holds  it  toward  Angelo.) 
Isabella  (looking  at  her  father).     Would  I  might ! 
Tortesa.     You  shall,  if 't  please  you ! 
Falcone.  I  command  thee,  never ! 

My  liege,  permit  me  to  take  home  my  daughter  ! 
And,  signor,  you — if  you  would  keep  your  troth — 
To-morrow  come,  and  end  this  halting  bridal ! 
Home  !  Isabella  !  (Takes  his  daughter's  hand.) 

Tortesa  (taking  it  from  him).    Stay !  she  is  not  yours  ! 
My  gracious  liege,  there  is  a  law  in  Florence, 
That  if  a  father^  for  no  guilt  or  shame, 
Disown,  and  shut  his  door  upon  his  daughter, 
She  is  the  child  of  him  who  succors  her ; 
Who,  by  the  shelter  of  a  single  night, 
Becomes  endowed  with  the  authority 
Lost  by  the  other.    Is't  not  so  ? 

Duke.  So  runs 

The  law  of  Florence,  and  I  see  your  drift — 
For,  look,  my  lord  (to  Falcone),  if  that  dread  apparition 
You  saw  last  night,  was  this  your  living  daughter, 
You  stand  within  the  peril  of  that  law. 
Falcone.     My  liege ! 
Isabella  (looking  admiringly  at  Tortesa). 

Oh  noble  signor ! 
Tortesa  (to  Isabella).  Was't  well  done  ? 

Shall  I  give  Angelo  the  ring  ? 
(As  she  is  about  to  take  it  from  him.  Tomaso  steps  in  behind, 
and  pulls  Isabella  by  the  sleeve.) 

Tomaso.  f^'^Tl     ■> 

What  wilt  thou  do  for  dowry  ?     I'm  thy  father  ? 
But — save  some  flasks  of  wine- 

Isabella  (sorrowfully). 
For  thy  sake,  Angelo  ! 


Would  I  were  richer 


882 


TORTESA,  THE  USURER. 


(Tortesa  looks  at  her  an  instant,  and  then  steps  to  the  table 
and  writes.) 
Jlngelo  (coming  forward  with  an  effort). 

Look,  Isabella ! 
I  stand  between  thee  and  a  life  of  sunshine. 
Thou  wert  both  rich  and  honored,  but  for  me ! 
That  thou  couldst  wed  me,  beggar  as  I  am, 
Is  bliss  to  think  on — but  see  how  I  rob  thee ! 
I  have  a  loving  heart — but  am  a  beggar ! 
There  is  a  loving  heart — 

(Points  to  Tortesa.) 

With  wealth  and  honor  ! 
(Tortesa  steps  between  them,  and  hands  a  paper  to  Jlngelo.) 
Tortesa  (to  Isabella).  Say  thou  wilt  wed  the  poorer  ? 
Isabella  (offers  her  hand  to  Jlngelo).  So  I  will ! 

Tortesa.     Then  am  I  blest,  for  he's  as  rich  as  I — 
Yet,  in  his  genius,  has  one  jewel  more ! 
Isabella.    What  say'st  thou  ? 

(Jlngelo  reads  earnestly.) 
Tortesa.  In  a  mortal  quarrel,  lady ! 

'Tis  thought  ill-luck  to  have  the  better  sword ; 
For  the  good  angels,  who  look  sorrowing  on, 
In  heavenly  pity  take  the  weaker  side! 
Isabella.     What  is  it,  Angelo  ? 
Jlngelo.  A  deed  to  me 

Of  the  Falcone  palaces  and  lands, 
And  all  the  moneys  forfeit  by  your  father ! — 
By  Heaven,  I'll  not  be  mocked  ! 

Tortesa.  The  deed  is  yours — 

What  mockery  in  that  ? 

Isabella  (tenderly  to  Tortesa).     It  is  not  kind 
To  make  refusal  of  your  love  a  pain ! 

Tortesa.    I  would  'twould  kill  you  to  refuse  me,  lady  ! 
So  should  the  blood  plead  for  me  at  your  heart ! 
Shall  I  give  up  the  ring  ?    (offers  it.) 

Isabella  (hesitatingly).     Let  me  look  on  it ! 
Tortesa  (withdrawing  it).     A  moment  yet  !     You'll 
give  it  ere  you  think ! 
Oh  is  it  fair  that  Angelo  had  days, 
To  tell  his  love,  and  I  have  not  one  hour  ? 
How  know  you  that  I  can  not  love  as  well  ? 
Isabella.     'Tis  possible ! 
Tortesa.  Ah!  thanks! 

Isabella.  But  I  have  given 

My  heart  to  him ! 

Tortesa.  You  gave  your  troth  to  me ! 

If,  of  these  two  gifts  you  must  take  back  one, 
Rob  not  the  poorer  !    Shall  I  keep  the  ring  ? 
(Isabella  looks  down.) 
Jlngelo.    She  hesitates  !  I've  waited  here  too  long  ! 
(Tears  the  deed  in  two.) 
Perish  your  gift,  and  farewell  Isabella ! 

Isabella  (advancing  a  step  with  clasped  hands). 
You'll  kill  me,  Angelo  !     Come  back  ! 
Tortesa  (seizing  him  by  the  hand  as  he  hesitates,  and  fling- 
ing him  back  with  a  strong  effort). 

He  shall ! 


Jlngelo.     Stand  from  my  path  I     Or,  if  you  care  to  try 
Some  other  weapon  than  a  glozing  tongue, 
Follow  me  forth  where  we  may  find  the  room ! 
Tortesa.     You  shall  not  go. 
Jlngelo  (draws).  Have  at  thee  then  ! 

(Attacks  Tortesa,  who  disarms  him,  and  holds  his  sword- 
point  to  his  breast.     Duke  and  others  come  forward.) 


Tortesa. 


The  bar 


'Twixt  me  and  heaven,  boy !  is  the  life  I  hold 
Now  at  my  mercy  !     Take  it,  Isabella  ! 
And  with  it  the  poor  gift  he  threw  away  ! 
I'll  write  a  new  deed  ere  you've  time  to  marry, 
So  take  your  troth  back  with  your  bridal  ring, 
And  thus  I  join  you  ! 

(Takes  Isabella's  hand,  but  Jlngelo  refuses  his.) 

Jlngelo  (proudly).        Never  !     But  for  me, 
The  hand  you  hold  were  joyfully  your  own  ! 
Shall  I  receive  a  life  and  fortune  from  you, 
Yet  stand  'twixt  you  and  that  i 

Isabella  (turning  from  Jlngelo).  Thou  dost  not  love  me ! 

Tortesa.     Believe  it  not !    He  does  !    An  instant  more 
I'll  brush  this  new-spun  cobweb  from  his  eyes. 

(Crosses  to  Zippa.) 
Fair  Zippa !  in  this  crossed  and  tangled  world 
Few  wed  the  one  they  could  have  loved  the  best, 
And  fewer  still  wed  well  for  happiness  ! 
We  each  have  lost  to-day  what  best  we  love. 
But  as  the  drops  that  mingled  in  the  sky, 
Are  torn  apart  in  the  tempestuous  sea, 
Yet  with  a  new  drop  tremble  into  one, 
We  two,  if  you're  content,  may  swim  together! 
What  say  you  ? 

Zippa  (giving  her  hand).     I  have  thought  on  it  before, 
When  I  believed  you  cold  and  treacherous, 
Tis  easy  when  I  know  you  kind  and  noble. 

Tortesa.    To-morrow  then  we'll  wed ;  and  now,  fair 
signor, 

(To  Jlngelo.) 
Take  you  her  hand,  nor  fear  to  rob  Tortesa  ! 

(Turns  to  the  duke.) 
Shall  it  be  so,  my  liege  ? 

Duke.  You  please  me  well. 

And  if  you'll  join  your  marriage  feast  together 
I'll  play  my  part,  and  give  the  brides  away ! 

Tortesa.    Not  so,  my  liege  !     I  could  not  see  her  wed 
him. 
To  give  her  to  him  has  been  all  I  could ; 
For  I  have  sought  her  with  the  dearest  pulses 
That  quicken  in  my  heart,  my  love  and  scorn. 
She's  taught  me  that  the  high-born  may  be  true. 
I  thank  her  for  it — but,  too  close  on  that 
Followed  the  love,  whose  lightning  flash  of  honor 
Brightens,  but  straight  is  dark  again  !     My  liege, 
The  poor  who  leap  up  to  the  stars  for  duty 
Must  drop  to  earth  again  !  and  here,  if 't  please  you, 
I  take  my  feet  for  ever  from  your  palace, 
And,  matched  as  best  beseems  me,  say  farewell. 
(Takes  Zippa's  hand,  and  the  curtain  drops.) 


END  OF     TORTESA. 


BIANCA  VISCONTI; 


THE  HEART   OVERTASKED 


DRAMATIS  PERSONS. 

Francesco  Sforza— A  Condottiero  of  the  Wh  century,  after- 
ward Duke  of  Milan. 

Brunorio — His  Lieutenant. 

Sarpellione — Ambassador  at  Milan  from  Alfonso,  king  of 
Naples. 

Rossano— A  Milanese  Captain,  formerly  companion  in  arms  to  \ 
Sforza. 

Pas<iuau. — A  whimsical  Poet. 

0      •  »4* 

Bianca  Visconti — Daughter  of  Philip  Visconti*  the  bed-ridden 
Duke  of  Milan,  and  heiress-apparent  to  the  crown. 

Giulio — Her  Page,  afterward  discovered  to  be  her  brother  and 
heir  to  the  crown. 

Fiametta — Waiting  Women  to  Bianca,  and  partial  to  Pasquali. 
Lords  of  Council,  Priest,  Messengers,  Sentinels,  $c. 


ACT 


[Pasquali  the  poet's  chamber.     Fiametta  mending  his  hose 
while  he  writes.] 

Fiametta.     Why  dost  thou  never  write  verses  upon  me  ? 

Pasquali.  Didst  thou  ever  hear  of  a  cauliflower  struck 
by  lightning  ? 

Fiametta.  If  there  were  honesty  in  verses,  thou  wouldst 
sooner  write  of  me  than  of  Minerva  thou  talkst  of.  Did 
she  ever  mend  thy  hose  for  thee  ? 

Pasquali,  There  is  good  reason  to  doubt  if  Minerva 
ever  had  hose  on  her  leg. 

Fiametta.  There  now  !  She  can  be  no  honest  woman  ! 
I  thought  so  when  thou  saidst  she  was  most  willing  at 
night. 

Pasquali.  If  thy  ignorance  were  not  endless,  I  would 
instruct  thee  in  the  meanings  of  poetry.  But  thou'lt  call 
Jupiter  a  cow  driver,  till  the  thunderbolt  thou  takest  for  a 
bunch  of  twigs,  strike  thee  dead  for  profanity.  This  once 
understand  :  Minerva  is  no  woman,  but  wit ;  and  when  the 
poet  speaks  of  unwilling  Minerva,  he  talks  of  sluggish  wit 
— that  hath  nothing  to  do  with  chastity. 

Fiametta.  Are  there  two  names  for  all  things  then, 
Master  Pasquali  ? 

Pasquali.     Ay — nearly. 

Fiametta.     What  is  the  learned  name  for  honest  wife  ? 

Pasquali.     Spouse. 

Fiametta.     When  shall  I  be  thy  spouse  then  ? 

Pasquali.  When  thou  canst  make  up  thy  mind  to  forego 
all  hope  of  living  in  poetry. 

Fiametta.  Nay,  if  I  am  not  to  be  put  in  verse,  I  may  as 
well  have  a  plain  man  for  a  husband. 

Pasquali.  If  thou  wouldst  be  put  in  verse,  thou  shalt  I 
have  no  husband  at  all. 

Fiametta.  Now,  wilt  thou  tell  me  why — in  good  com-  j 
mon  words,  Master  Pasquali. 

Pasquali.  Thus  :— dost  thou  think  Petrarch  had  e'er 
made  Laura  so  famous  if  she  had  been  honestly  his  wife  ? 

Fiametta.     An'  she  were  thrifty,  I  think  he  might. 

Pasquali.  I  tell  thee  no !  His  sonnets  had  then  been 
as  dull  as  the  praises  of  the  just.  No  man  would  remem- 
ber them. 

*  This  eccentric  duke,  the  iast  of  the  Viscontis,  passed  the  latter 
part  of  his  life  in  utter  seclusion,  seen  bv  no  one  but  his  physician. 
His  habits  were  loathsome,  and  his  character  harsh  and  unnatural. 


Fiametta.     Can  no  honest  women  be  famous  then  ? 

Pasquali.  Virtue  disqualifies.  There  is  no  hope  for 
her  in  poetry  if  she  be  not  a  sinner.  Mention  me  the  most 
famous  woman  in  history. 

Fiametta.     Helen  of  Troy,  in  the  ballad,  I  think. 

Pasquali.     Wouldst  thou  be  more  virtuous  than  she  ? 

Fiametta.     Nay,  that  were  presumption. 

Pasquali.  Knowest  thou  why  she  is  sung  in  an  Iliad  ? 
I  will  tell  thee :  being  the  wife  to  Menelaus,  she  ran  away 
with  the  prince  of  Troy. 

Fiametta.     Then  is  it  a  shame  to  remember  her. 

Pasquali.  So  thou  sayest  in  thy  ignorance.  Yet  for 
that  sin  she  hath  been  remembered  near  three  thousand 
years.  Look  through  all  poetry,  and  thou'lt  find  it  thrives 
upon  making  sinners  memorable.  To  be  famous,  thou 
must  sin.     Wilt  thou  qualify  ? 

[Jl  rap  at  the  door.'] 

Page.     Master  Pasquali !   Master  Pasquali ! 

Fiametta.     Holy  Virgin !  it  is  my  mistress's  page.     An' 
I  be  found  here  now,  I  were  as  qualified  as  Helen  of  Troy. 
[She  conceals  herself.     Enter  the  page.] 

Pasquali.     How  now,  Master  Giulio !  Thou'rt  impatient. 

Page.  Zounds,  Pasquali !  If  thou  hadst  been  a  prince, 
I  had  not  been  kept  longer  at  the  door. 

Pasquali.  If  thou  wert  of  age  to  relish  true  philosophy, 
I  could  prove  to  thee  that  the  poet  were  the  better  waited 
for  of  the  two.     But  what  is  thy  errand  ? 

Page.     A  song — I  want  a  new  song! 

Pasquali.     To  what  tune  ? 

Page.  To  a  new  tune  on  the  old  theme.  Could  I  tell 
thee  a  secret  without  danger  now !  Hast  thou  ne'er  a  cat 
that  will  mew  it  out? 

Pasquali.  No !  not  even  a  wall  that  has  ears.  What 
is  thy  news  ? 

Page.  My  mistress  Bianca  hath  lost  all  taste  for  my 
sin^im; ! 

Pasquali.     A  pin's  head  might  pay  for  that  news. 

Page.  But,  good  Pasquali,  wilt  thou  not  write  me  a 
new  song  ? 

Pasquali.     Upon  what  theme  ? 

Page.  Sforza — still  Sforza !  But  it  must  be  melan- 
choly. 

Pasquali.     Why  melancholy  ? 

Page.  Did  I  not  tell  thee  once  in  confidence  that  she 
loved  him  ? 

Pasquali.     Ay — and  I  writ  a  song  in  his  praise. 

Page.  I  now  tell  thee  in  confidence  that  she  hath  lost 
him ;  for  she  is  to  marry  Lionel  of  Ferrara ! 

Pasquali.     Here's  news,  indeed. 

Page.  It's  the  duke's  will,  and  my  lady  is  grieved  to 
the  degree  I  tell  thee.  She'll  have  none  of  my  music. 
Wilt  thou  write  me  the  song? 

Pasquali.     Must  it  be  mournful,  say  you  ? 

Page.  Ay — as  the  jug-jug  of  her  nightingale.  She's 
full  of  tears.  Wilt  thou  write  it  now?  Shall  I  hold  the 
ink  while  thou  writest  it  ? 

Pasquali.  Bless  the  boy's  wits  !  Dost  thou  think  songs 
are  made  like  pancakes,  by  turning  the  hand  over  ? 

Page.     Why,  is't  not  in  thy  head  ? 

Pasquali.     Ay— it  is. 

Page.  And  how  long  will  it  take  thee  to  write  eight 
lines  upon  parchment  ? 

Pasquali.     Not  long — if  Minerva  were  willing. 


884 


BIANCA  VISCONTI. 


Page.     Shall  I  have  it  by  vespers  then  ? 
Pasquali.     Ay — if  thou  wilt  leave  me  presently. 
Page.     Farewell   then !     Let   it   be  melancholy,   good 
Pasquali.  [Exit. 

[Fiametta  comes  out.] 
Fiamelta.    Now  must  I  hurry  to  my  mistress,  ere  that 
monkey-page  gets  to  the  palace. 

Pasquali.     Stands  he  well  with  her ! 
Fiametta.     If  he  were  her  born  child,  she  could  not  love 
him  more.     She  fancies  the  puppy-dog  has  an  eye  of  her 
color.     Good  day,  Master  Pasquali. 

Pasquali.     Stay  !  will  she  marry  this  Lionel,  think  you  ? 
Fiametta.     Can  you  know  anything  by  tears  ? 
Pasquali.     Not  so  much  by  a  woman's — but  doth  your 
lady  weep  1 

Fiametta.     Ay — like  an  aqueduct ! 
Pasquali.     Then  it's  more  like  she  loves  than  hates  him  I 
Fiametta.     Now,  enlighten  me  that ! 
Pasquali.      Thus : — a   woman,  if  she   be  a   lady   (for 
clowns    like   thee,  are  of  a   constitution   more   dull   and 
reasonable) ;— a  lady,  I  say,  hath  usually  in  her  composition, 
two  spirits— one   angelical,  the  other   diabolical.     Now, 
if  you  stir  me  up  the  devil,  he  will  frown— but  if  you  touch 
me  the  angel,  he  will  weep !     If  your  lady  weep,  therefore, 
it  is  more  like  this  match  hath  waked  the  angel  than  stirred 
the  devil— for  I  never  saw  woman  yet,  who,  if  her  heart 
were  crossed,  would  not  play  the  devil  ere  she  knocked 
under ! 

Fiametta.  How  canst  thou  think  such  brave  thoughts 
on  what  does  not  concern  thee ! 

Pasquali.     Does  it  concern  me  if  I  shall  live  for  ever  ? 
Fiametta.     Surely  it  doth  ! 
Pasquali.     By  what  shall  I  live  then  ? 
Fiamelta.     By  faith  in  the  catechism,  I  think  ! 
Pasquali.     By  poetry,   I   tell  thee !      And   now  digest 
this  paradox !     Though  poetry  be  full  of  lies,  it  is  unworthy 
to  be  called  poetry  if  it  be  not  true  as  prophecy. 

Fiametta.  But  how  can  that  be  true  which  is  false  ? 
Pasquali.  I  will  show  thee !  Thy  lady's  page  would 
have  a  song,  now,  full  of  lamentation  for  Sforza.  In  it,  I 
should  say,  the  heavens  wept— (which  would  be  a  lie) — 
that  the  winds  whispered  mournfully  his  name  (which 
would  be  a  lie),  and  that  life  without  him  were  but  music 
out  of  tune  (which  would  be  a  consumed  lie)  !  Yet  if  she 
loved  Sforza,  see  you  not  that  my  verses,  which  are  nothing 
but  lies,  have  a  poetic  truth.  When  if  she  love  him  not— 
they  are  poetically  false  ! 

Fiametta.  'Tis  like  thy  flatteries  then  !  When  thou 
sayest  my  cheek  is  like  a  peach,  it  is  true,  because  it  hath 
down  upon  it,  and  so  hath  a  peach— yet  it  is  false— because 
my  cheek  hath  no  stone  in  it ! 

Pasquali.     Let  me  taste  the  savor  of  that  peach.     Thou 
art  wiser  than  I  thought  thee. 
Fiametta.     I  must  go  now. 

Pasquali.  Find  me  out  if  she  love  him  !  I  would  fain 
write  no  more  verses  on  Sforza— whom  I  hate  that  he  hath 
only  a  brute  courage,  and  no  taste  for  poesy.  Now, 
Lionel's  father  was  Petrarch's  friend,  and  thy  lady  loving 
my  verses,  it  were  more  convenient  if  she  loved  Lionel, 
who  would  love  them  too.  Go  thy  ways  now. 
Fiametta.  Farewell,  Master  Pasquali ! 
Pasquali.  Stay— there  be  rude  men  in  this  poor  quar- 
ill  come  with  thee   to  the  piazza.     Come  along, 


[The  Camp  before  Milan.  The  tent  of  Sforza  at  the  side 
and  watchfires  in  the  distance.  Enter  Sforza  and 
Brunorio.] 

Sforza.    Is  the  guard  set  ? 

Brunorio.  All  set,  my  lord  ! 

Sforza  And  blaze 

1  he  watch-fires  where  I  ordered  ? 

Brunorio.  Every  one. 

Hold  you  your  purpose,  sir  ? 

Sforza.  To-nisht,  at  twelve, 

I  will  set  on  !     This  fickle  Duke  of  Milan 
Has  changed  for  the  last  time.     Brunorio ! 

Brunorio.    You  seem  disturbed,  sir. 


Sforza.  I  would  have  to-night 

The  best  blood  up  that  ever  rose  for  Sforza. 
Are  your  spears  resolute  ? 

Brunorio.  As  yourself,  my  lord  ! 

Sforza.     We'll  sleep  in  Milan  then.     By  Heaven  !  I 
know  not 
Why  I  have  waited  on  the  changing  pleasure 
Of  this  old  duke  so  long. 

Brunorio.  Twelve  years  ago 

He  promised  you  his  daughter. 

Sforza.  Did  he  not  1 

And  every  year  he  has  renewed  and  broken 
This  promise  of  alliance. 

Brunorio.  Can  you  hold 

Milan  against  the  Florentine,  my  lord  ? 
'Tis  said  the  fair  Bianca  is  betrothed 
To  their  ally  Ferrara !     They  will  join 
Naples  against  you,  and  cry  out  "  usurper  !" 

Sforza.    Ay— I  have  thought  on't.     I'm  the  second 
Sibrza ! 
The  first  hewed  wood  !     There  lies  enough  to  bar  me, 
Were  I  another  Csesar,  from  authority  ! 
'Tis  by  this  whip  I  have  been  driven  so  long — 
'Tis  by  the  bait  of  this  old  man's  alliance 
I  have  for  ten  years  fought  the  wars  of  Milan. 
They've  fooled  me  year  by  year,  and  still  found  meana 
With  their  cursed  policy,  to  put  me  off— 
And,  by  the  saints,  they've  reason.     Could  I  point 
The  world  to  such  a  thread  twixt  me  and  Milan 
As  weaves  a  spider  through  the  summer  air, 
I'd  hang  a  crown  upon  it.     Once  possessed 
Of  a  fair  seat  in  Lombardy,  my  spears 
Would  glisten  in  St.  Mark's  ! 

Brunorio.  And  thence  to  Naples ! 

Sforza.    Ay — with  what  speed  we  might !    My  brave 
lieutenant, 
You  echo  my  own  thought ! 

[Enter  a  sentinel.'] 

Sentinel.  A  flag  of  truce 

By  torch-light  comes  from  Milan. 

[Enter  Sarpellione,  in  haste.] 

Sarpellione.  Noble  Sforza ! 

I've  rudely  used  my  privilege  to  seek  you ! 

Sforza.     By  right  of  office  you  are  ever  welcome. 

Sarpellione.     If  I  might  speak  to  you  a  timely  word 
In  haste  and  privacy  ? 

Sforza.  Brunorio,  leave  us  ! 

Sarpellione.      A  flag  of  truce  comes   presently  from 
Milan 
With  terms  of  peace.     The  duke  would  give  his  daughter 
To  save  his  capital. 

Sforza.  The  duke  does  well ! 

Sarpellione.     You'll  wed  her  then  ! 

Sforza.  If  fairly  offered  me, 

Free  of  all  other  terms  save  peace  between  us, 
I'll  wed  her  freely. 

Sarpellione.  Then  I  pray  you  pardon ! 

You're  not  the  Sforza  that  should  be  the  son 
Of  him  who  made  the  name ! 

Sforza.  Bold  words,  ambassador ! 

But  you  are  politic,  and  speak  advisedly. 
What  bars  my  marriage  with  Duke  Philip's  daughter  ? 

Sarpellione.     Brief— for  this  herald  treads   upon   my 
heels — 
Bianca  was  not  born  in  wedlock  ! 

Sforza.  Well ! 

Sarpellione.    She's  been  betrothed  to  other  suitors — 

Sforza.  Well! 

Sarpellione.    Is't  well  that  you  can  ne'er  through  her 
inherit 
The  ducal  crown  ?     Is't  well  to  have  a  wife 
Who  has  made  up  her  mind  to  other  husbands — 
Who  has  been  sold  to  every  paltry  prince 
Twixt  Sicily  and  Venice  ? 

Sforza.  Is  that  all  ? 

Sarpellione.     No — nor  the  best  of  it.    There  lives  a  son, 
By  the  same  mother  to  the  Duke  of  Milan. 

Sforza  (seizing  him  by  the  arm).     Said  you  a  son  ? 

Sarpellione.  A  son !— and— had  I  time— 

Sforza.    Without  there !  Pray  the  embassy  from  Milan 
To  grant  me  but  a  moment. 


BIANCA  VISCONTI. 


[Turning  to  Sarpellione.] 
Is  it  sure  ? 
Sarpellione.     Upon  the  honor  of  my  royal  master 
Who'll  make  it  good. 

Sforza.  Have  you  authority 

For  what  you  say  ? 

Sarpellione.  In  court  or  camp,  Alfonso 

Will  prove  this  story  true.     His  mother  fled, 

As  the  world  knows— in  peril  of  her  life 

To  Naples. 

Sforza.         From  the  jealousy  of  the  duke— 
I  well  remember. 

Sarpellione.  Ere  he  could  demand  her 
From  young  Alfonso,  newly  king,  she  died; 
But  in  her  throes  brought  prematurely  forth 
A  son  ;  whom,  fearing  for  his  life,  she  hid, 
And  reared  him,  ever  like  a  prince,  till  now, 
Sforza.     Some  fourteen  years. 

Sarpellione.  Scarce  that— but  he  is  forward, 

And  feels  his  blood  already. 

Sforza.  Say  he  does— 

What  make  you  out  of  it  to  change  my  purpose  ? 

Sarpellione.     Seeing  you  can  not  thrive  by  conquering 
Milan,  ° 

Which  Milan's  allies  will  pluck  back  from  you 

To  put  the  prince  upon  his  futher's  seat 

My  royal  master  wishes  you  forewarned. 
Sforza.    He's  kind— if  that  is  all ! 
Sarpellione.  He'd  make  a  friend 

Ul  the  best  sword  in  Italv. 

Sforza.  '    What  scheme 

Lies  under  this  ? 

Sarpellione.         No  scheme— but  your  own  glory' 
Your  star  stoops  to  the  south.     Alfonso's  army 
Gathers  at  Capua  to  war  on  Florence ! 
(Afore  earnestly.)  He'll  add  Ravenna  to  your  marquisate 
For  but  a  thousand  spears  ! 

Sforza.  I'll  take  Ravenna 

W  ithout  his  leave  !     Admit  the  herald  there  ! 
No,  count !  your  policy  has  overshot ! 
The  King  Alfonso  needs  no  spears  of  mine — 

But  he  would  have  them  farther  off  from  Milan 

A  blind  mole  would  see  that ! 

Sarpellione.  My  lord  !  My  lord  ! 

Sforza.     Hear  me,  Sarpellione  !  I  have  been 
Too  long  the  sport  of  your  fine  policy ! 
With  promises  of  power  and  fair  alliance 
I've  fought  for  every  prince  in  Italy — 
And  against  all,  in  turn  ;  now  leagued  with  Venice 
To  beat  back  Florence  from  the  Brenta ;  now 
With  Florence  against  Milan ;  then  with  Milan 
To  drive  the  Tuscan  home  again,  and  all 
For  my  own  glory,  by  some  politic  reason. 
I'll  have  a  place,  or  I'll  be  in  the  track  on't— 
Where  the  poor  honor  that  my  hand  may  pluck 
Shall  be  well  garnered.     By  Visconti's  daughter 
I  set  my  foot  in  Milan.     My  poor  laurels, 
Such  as  they  are,  shall  root  there ! — and,  by  Heaven, 
I'll  find  a  way  to  make  their  branches  flourish! 
Call  in  the  herald,  there  ! 

Sarpellione.  But  Lionel, 

Prince  of  Ferrara,  whom  Bianca  loves — 

Sforza.     Glory  has  been  my  mistress  many  years 
And  will  suffice  me  still.     If  it  should  chance 
Bianca  loves  another,  'tis  an  evil 
To  wed  with  me,  which  I  will  recompense 
With  chainless  freedom  after.     In  my  glory 
She'll  find  a  bright  veil  that  will  hide  all  errors, 
Save  from  the  heart  that  pardons  her. 

Sarpellione.  Farewell! 

You'll  hear  o'  the  young  prince  soon  ! 

Sforza.  I'll  never  wrong  him 

If  there  be  one !— Our  stars  will  rise  together ! 
There's  room  enough ! 

[Exit  Sarpellione  and  enter  Rossano.] 

Fair  welcome,  brave  Rossano  ! 

i  know  your  news. 

Rossano.  The  duke  sends  greeting  to  you — 

Sforza,     And  offers  me  his  daughter — is't  not  so  ? 
Rossano.     Seeing  your  preparations  as  I  came 

I  marvel  you  anticipate  so  well ! 


Sforza.     A  bird  i'  the  air  brings  news,  they  say— but 
this 
Came  by  a  serpent.     How's  the  spear-wound  now, 
You  took  for  me  at  Pisa  ?    Brave  Rossano ! 
We'll  break  a  lance  once  more  in  company. 
It  warms  my  blood  to  find  myself  again 
O'  the  same  side.     Come  out  in  the  open  air ! 
We'll  talk  more  freely,  as  we  used  to  do, 
Over  a  watch-fire.     Come  out,  old  comrade ! 

[Exeunt  Sforza  and  Rossano. 


[The  apartment  of  Bianca.     Fiametta  embroidering,  and 
the  page  thrumming  his  guitar.] 

PaSe-  I'd  give  my  greyhound  now— gold  collar  and 
silken  leash — to  know  why  the  duke  sent  for  my  lady 

Fiametta.     Would  you,  Master  Curiosity  ? 

Page  Mistress  Pert,  I  would— and  thy  acquaintance 
into  the  bargain. 

Fiametta.  Better  keep  the  goods  you  come  honestly  by. 
I  would  you  knew  as  well  how  your  mistress  came  by  you. 

Page.  I  came  to  her  from  heaven— like  her  taste  for 
my  music.     (Hums  a  tune.) 

Fiametta.     Did  you  !  do  they  make  sacks  in  heaven  ? 

Page.  There's  a  waiting  woman's  question  for  you  • 
Why  sacks  ? 

Fiametta.  Because  I  think  you  came  in  one,  like  a 
present  of  a  puppy-dog. 

Page.  Silence,  dull  pin-woman  !  here  comes  my  mis- 
tress !  ' 

[Takes  off  his  cap  as  Bianca  enters.     She  walks  across  the 
stage  without  heeding  her  attendants.'] 
Bianca.  To  marry  Sforza ! 

My  dream  come  true  !  my  long,  long  cherished  dream  ! 
The  star  come  out  of  heaven  that  Lhad  worshipped! 
The  paradise  I  built  with  soaring  fancy 
And  filled  with  rapture  like  a  honey-bee 
Dropped  from  the  clouds  at  last !     Am  I  awake  ?— 
Am  I  awake,  dear  Giulio  ? 

Page  (half  advancing  to  her).     Noble  mistress  ! 
Bianca.     Thank  God,  they  speak  to  me !     It  is  no 
dream  ? 
It  was  this  hand  my  father  took  to  tell  me — 

It  was  with  these  lips  that  I  tried  to  speak 

It  was  this  heart  that  beat  its  giddy  prison 
As  if  the  exulting  joy  new-sprung  within  it 

Would  out  and  fill  the  world  ! 

Wed  him  to-morrow! 

So  suddenly  a  wife  !     Will  it  seem  modest, 

With  but  twelve  hours  of  giddy  preparation 

To  come  a  bride  to  church  !     Will  he  remember 

I  was  ten  years  ago  affianced  to  him  ? 

I  have  had  time  to  think  on't !     Oh,  I'll  tell  him— 

When  I  dare  speak,  I'll  tell  him— how  I've  loved  him  ! 

And  day  and  night  dreamed  of  him,  and  through  all 

The  changing  wars  treasured  the  solemn  troth 

Broke  by  my  father !     If  he  listens  kindly, 

I'll  tell  him  how  I  fed  my  eyes  upon  him 

In  Venice  at  his  triumph — when  he  walked 

Like  a  descended  god  beside  the  doge, 

Who  thanked  him  for  his  victories,  and  the  people, 

From  every  roof  and  balcony,  by  thousands 

Shouted  out  "  Sforza  !     Live  the  gallant  Sforza !" 

I  was  a  child  then— but  I  felt  my  heart 

Grow,  in  one  hour,  to  woman  ! 

Page.  Would  it  please  you 

To  hear  my  new  song,  lady  ? 

Bianca.  No,  good  Giulio ! 

My  spirits  are  too  troubled  now  for  music. 
Get  thee  to  bed  !     Yet  stay  !  hast  heard  the  news  ? 
Page.     Is't  from  the  camp  ? 

Bianca.  Ay — Sforza's  taken  prisoner  ! 

Page.     I'm  vexed  for  that. 
Bianca.  Why  vexed  ? 

Page.  In  four  years  more 

I  shall  bear  sword  and  lance.     There'll  be  no  Sforza 
To  kill  when  I'm  a  man  !     Who  took  him,  lady  ? 

Bianca.     A  blind  boy,  scarcely  bigger  than  vourself ; 
And  gave  him,  bound,  to  me  !     In  brief,  dear  Giulio ! 


886 


BIANCA  VISCONTI. 


Not  to  perplex  those  winking  eyelids  more, 
The  wars  are  done,  and  Sforza  weds  to-morrow 
Your  happy  mistress  ! 

Page.  Sforza !     We  shall  have 

A  bonefire  then ! 

Bianca.  Ay — twenty  ! 

Page.  And  you'll  live 

Here  in  the  palace,  and  have  masks  and  gambols 
The  year  round,  will  you  not  ? 

Bianca.  My  pretty  minion, 

You  know  not  yet  what  love  is  !     Love's  a  miser, 
That  plucks  his  treasure  from  the  prying  world 
And  grudges  e'en  the  eye  of  daylight  on  it ! 
Another's  look  is  theft — another's  touch 
Robs  it  of  all  its  value.     Love  conceives 
No  paradise  but  such  as  Eden  was 
With  two  hearts  beating  in  it. 

[Leaves  the  Page  and  walks  thoughtfully  away.] 
Oh,  I'll  build 
A  home  upon  some  green  and  flowery  isle 
In  the  lone  lakes,  where  we  will  use  our  empire 
Only  to  keep  away  the  gazing  world. 
The  purple  mountains  and  the  glassy  waters 
Shall  make  a  hushed  pavilion  with  the  sky, 
And  we  two  in  the  midst  will  live  alone, 
Counting  the  hours  by  stars  and  waking  birds, 
And  jealous  but  of  sleep  !     To  bed,  dear  Giulio  ! 
And  wake  betimes. 

Page.  Good  night,  my  dearest  lady  ! 

Bianca.     To  bed,  Fiametta  !     I  have  busy  thoughts, 
That  needs  will  keep  me  waking. 

Fiametta.  Good  night,  lady. 

Bianca.     Good  night,  good  night!      The  moon   has 
fellowship 
For  moods  like  mine.    I'll  forth  upon  the  terrace, 
And  watch  her  While  my  heart  beats  warm  and  fast. 


ACT  II. 


[The  square  of  Milan.  The  front  of  the  cathedral  on  the 
right.  People  kneeling  round  the  steps,  and  the  organ 
heard  within.     Enter  Pasquali  and  Fiametta  in  haste.] 

Fiametta.  Now,  Master  Pasquali !  said  I  not  we  should 
be  too  late  ? 

Pasquali.     Truly,  there  seems  no  room ! 

Fiametta.  And  I  her  first  serving-woman  !  If  it  were 
my  own  wedding  I  should  not  grieve  more  to  have  missed  it. 
You  would  keep  scribbling,  scribbling,  and  I  knew  it  was 
past  twelve. 

Pasquali.  Consider,  Mistress  Fiametta !  I  had  no  news 
of  this  marriage  till  the  chimes  began ;  and  the  epithala- 
mium  must  be  writ !  I  were  shamed  else,  being  the  bard 
of  Milan. 

Fiametta.     The  what,  of  Milan  ? 

Pasquali.  The  bard,  I  say  !  Come  aside,  and  thou 
shalt  be  consoled.     I'll  read  thee  my  epithalamium. 

Fiametta.  Is  it  something  to  ask  money  of  the  bride- 
groom ? 

Pasquali.     Dost  thou  think  I  would  beg  ? 

Fiametta.    Nay,  thou'rt  very  poor  ! 

Pasquali.  Look  thee,  Mistress  Fiametta !  that's  a 
vulgar  error,  thou  hadst  best  be  rid  of.  I,  whom  thou 
callest  poor,  am  richer  than  the  duke. 

Fiametta.  Now  if  thou'rt  not  out  of  thy  ten  senses,  the 
Virgin  bless  us. 

Pasquali.  I'll  prove  it  even  to  thy  dull  apprehension. 
Answer  me  truly.  How  many  meals  eats  the  duke  in  a 
day? 

Three,  I  think,  if  he  be  well. 

So  does  Pasquali !     How  much  covering  has 


Fiametta. 
Pasquali. 
he? 

Fiametta. 
isquali. 


Nay — what  keeps  him  warm. 
So  has  Pasquali !     How  much  money  carries 
he  on  his  person. 

Fiametta.     None,  I   think 
none. 

Pasquali.     Even  so  Pasquali !     He  is  a  poet,  and  needs 
none.     What  good  does  him  the  gold  in  his  treasury  ? 


He  is   a.tiuke,  and   needs 


Fiametta. 
Pasquali. 


He  thinks  of  it. 
So  can  Pasquali ! 


What  pleasure  hath  he  in 
his  soldiers  ? 

Fiametta.     They  keep  him  safe  in  his  palace. 

Pasquali.  So  they  do  Pasquali  in  his  chamber.  Thus 
far,  thou'lt  allow,  my  state  is  as  good  as  his — and  better — 
for  I  can  think  of  his  gold,  and  sleep  safe  by  his  soldiers, 
yet  have  no  care  of  them. 

Fiametta.    I  warrant  he  has  troubled  thoughts. 

Pasquali.  Thou  sayst  well.  Answer  me  once  more, 
and  I'll  prove  to  thee  in  what  I  am  richer.  Thou'st  ne'er 
heard,  I  dare  swear,  of  imagination. 

Fiametta.     Is't  a  pagan  nation  or  a  Christian  ? 

Pasquali.  Stay — I'll  convey  it  to  thee  by  a  figure. 
What  were  the  value  of  thy  red  stockings  over  black;  if  it 
were  always  night  ? 

Fiametta.     None. 

Pasquali.     What  were  beauty  if  it  were  always  dark  ? 

Fiametta.     The  same  as  none. 

Pasquali.  What  were  green  leaves  better  than  brown — 
diamonds  better  than  pebbles — gold  better  than  brass — if  it 
were  always  dark  ? 

Fiametta.     No  better,  truly. 

Pasquali.  Then  the  shining  of  the  sun,  in  a  manner, 
dies  your  stockings,  creates  beauty,  makes  gold  and 
diamonds,  and  paints  the  leaves  green  ? 

Fiametta.     I  think  it  doth. 

Pasquali.  Now  mark  !  There  be  gems  in  the  earth, 
qualities  in  the  flowers,  creatures  in  the  air,  the  duke  ne'er 
dreams  of.  There  be  treasuries  of  gold  and  silver,  temples 
and  palaces  of  glorious  work,  rapturous  music,  and  feasts 
the  gods  sit  at — and  all  seen  only  by  a  sun,  which,  to  the 
duke,  is  black  as  Erebus. 

Fiametta.     Lord !   Lord  !    Where  is  it,  Master  Pasquali ! 

Pasquali.  In  my  head.  (Fiametta  discovers  signs  of 
fear.)  All  these  gems,  treasuries,  palaces,  and  fairy  har- 
monies I  see  by  the  imagination  I  spoke  of.  Am  I  not 
richer  now  ? 

Fiametta  (retreating  from  him).  The  Virgin  help  us  ! 
He  thinks  there's  a  sun  in  his  head!  I  thought  to  have 
married  him,  but  he's  mad. 

[She  falls  to  weeping. 
[The  cathedral  is  flung  open,  and  the  organ  plays  louder. 

The   bridal  procession  comes  out  of  church  and  passes 

across  the  stage.     As  they  pass  Pasquali,  he   offers  his 

epithalamium  to  Sforza.] 

Sforza.     What  have  we  here — petitions  ? 

Bianca.  Nay,  my  lord  ! 

Pasquali's  not  a  beggar.     You  shall  read 
Something  inventive  here  !     He's  a  clear  fancy, 
And  sings  your  praises  well.     Good  chamberlain ! 
Bring  him  with  honor  to  the  palace  !     Please  you, 
My  lord,  wilt  on  ! 

Page  (to  Pasquali).     You'll   come  to  the  feast  now, 
wont  you  ? 
We'll  sit  together,  and  have  songs  and  stories, 
And  keep  the  merriest  end  on't! 
[Js  the  procession  passes  off,  Sarpellione  plucks  Pasquali  by 
by  the  sleeve,  and  retains  him.] 

Sarpellione.  A  fair  bride,  sir ! 

Pasquali.     What  would  you,  noble  count  ? 

Sarpellione.  The  bridegroom,  now, 

Should  be  a  poet,  like  yourself,  to  know 
The  worth  of  such  a  jewel ! 

Pasquali.  Haply  so — 

But  we  are  staying  from  the  marriage  feast — 

Sarpellione.     One  word !     (Pulls   him  aside.)     Have 
you  ambition  ? 

Pasquali.  Like  the  wings 

Upon  a  marble  cherub — always  spread, 
But  fastened  to  a  body  of  such  weight 
'Twill  never  rise  till  doomsday.     I  would  drink 
Sooner  than  talk  of  it ! — Come  on  !  my  lord  ! 

Sarpellione.     Signor  Pasquali — I  have  marked  you  oil 
For  a  shrewd,  rapid  wit.     As  one  who  looks 
Oft  on  the  sun,  there  needs  no  tedious  care 
Lest  the  light  break  too  suddenly  upon  you. 
Is  it  not  so  ? 

Pasquali.     Say  on ! 

Sarpellione.  You  know  how  Naples 

Has  over  it  a  sky  all  poetry. 


BIANCA  VISCONTI. 


887 


Pasquali.     I  know  it  well. 

Sarj>ellione.  The  radiant  Giovanna 

Cherished  Bocaccio  and  Petrarch  there, 
And  'tis  the  quality  of  the  air  they  breathed — 
Alphonso  feels  it !     Brief  and  to  the  point ! 
My  royal  master  sends  for  you.     He'd  have 
A  galaxy  around  him  ! 

Pasquali.  Noble  count ! 

[Enter  Page.'] 
Page.     I'm  sent  to  bid  you  to  the  feast,  sirs ! 
Sarpellione.  Qq  j 

We'll  follow  straight.  [Exit  Page. 

This  leaden-headed  soldier 
Slights  you,  I  see— He  took  you  for  a  beggar ! 

Pasquali.     Humph!  'tis  his  wedding  day,  and  I  for- 
give him  ! 
Sarpellione.     You're  used  to  wrong,  I  knew. 
Pasquali.  To-day,  my  lord. 

I'm  bent  upon  a  feast— wake  not  a  devil 
To  mar  my  appettie ! 

Sarpellione.  One  single  word  ! 

This  brainless  spear-head  would  be  duke  of  Milan. 
Pasquali.     What !  while  the  duke  lives  ! 
Sarpellione.  While  the  duke's  son  lives, 

For  there  is  one— I'll  prove  it  when  you  will — 
And  he  will  murder  him  to  take  his  crown. 
Pasquali.     How  know  you  that  ? 
Sarpellione.  Alfonso,  king  of  Naples, 

Would  have  this  usurpation  and  this  murder 
In  time  prevented. 

Pasquali.  How ! 

Sarpellione.  By  Sforza's  death. 

There's  no  way  else— but  'tis  a  dangerous  theme 
To  talk  on  here — come  out  o'  the  way  a  little, 
Ind  you  shall  have  such  reasons  for  the  deed — 

Pasquali  (flings  him  from  him  with  contempt). 
\\  hat  "  deed !"     Dost  take  me  for  a  murderer  ? 
My  lord  !  I'm  poor.     I  have  a  thirst  for  honors 
Such  as  you  offered  me  but  now,  that  burns 
Like  fire  upon  my  lips— I  could  be  tortured 
Through  twenty  deaths  to  leave  a  name  behind  me. 
But  nay,  I  prate— I'll  turn  not  out  to  thee 
The  golden  inside  of  a  soul  of  honor — 
(Leaving  him.)     When  next  you  want  a  hand  for  a  bad 

deed, 
Look  to  your  equals— there  are  those  beneath  you 
Who,  from  their  darkling  wells,  see  guiding-stars 
Far  o'er  your  head,  my  lord  !  [Exit. 

Sarpellione.  Such  men  as  this 

Do  not  betray  e'en  villains  !  I  shall  find 
Another  and  a  fitter.  To  the  feast  now ! 
And  watch  my  time  and  means.  [Exit. 


Rossano.  I've,  in  my  tent,  the  sword 

Your  father  plucked  from  a  retreating  soldier 
To  head  the  fight  at  Pisa.     'Tis  well  hacked  ! 
Sforza,     I'll  come,  Rossano  ! 

(To  Bianca.)    Nay,  sweet !  by  your  leave 
(Takes  his  helmet.) 
We'll  go  abroad  a  little  !     You  shall  see  us 
Betimes  at  supper.     Keep  the  revels  toward  ! 
We'll  taste  your  wine  anon.     Come,  brave  Rossano ! 
[They  go  out.     Bianca  looks  after  them  thoughtfully  a  few 
moments,  and  then  walks  back  slowly  to  the  banquetting 
room.]  *  ° 


[Jin   ante-room,  with  a  feast  seen  beyond.     Enter   Sforza 
and  Rossano.] 

Rossano.  I've  a  new  culverin 

Invented  here  by  the  duke's  armorer; 
Will  you  walk  forth  ? 

Sforza.  Most  willingly.     Within  there  ! 

My  helmet ! 

[Enter  Bianca.] 

Bianca.     Is  there  fresh  alarm,  my  lord  ? 
You  would  not  go  abroad  ? 
f She  takes  the  helmet  from  the  page  as  he  brings  it  in.] 

Sforza.  A  little  way,  sweet, 

To  look  at  some  new  arms. 

Bianca.  To  morrow,  surely, 

Will  do  as  well.     Here  are  some  loving  verses 
Writ  on  your  marriage ! 

Rossano.  pve  the  gonfalon 

Your  father  gave  me  at  the  siege  of  Parma. 
The  rags  wave  yet ! 

Sforza.  I'd  rather  see  a  thread  on't 

Than  feast  a  hundred  years  ! 

Bianca.  My  lord,  wil't  please  you 

Come  in,  and  hear  the  verses  ?     There's  a  wine 
You  did  not  taste,  grown  on  Vesuvius ; 
Pray  you  come  in ! 


[The  ramparts  at  night.     Enter  Sforza  and  Rossano.] 

Rossano.     She's  loving  in  her  nature,  and  methought 
Seemed  grieved  when  you  came  forth  ! 

Sforza.  I  should  have  thought  so, 

But  that  I  had  some  private  information 
She  loved  another ! 

Rossano.  You're  perhaps  abused  ! 

Sforza.    Nay— nay— how  should  she  love  me  ?     I'm 
well  on 
To  my  meridian,  see  you  ! — a  rough  soldier — 
Who  never  learned  the  courtly  phrase  of  love. 
And  she— the  simplest  maiden  in  a  cot, 
Is  not  more  tender-eyed,  nor  has  a  heart 
Apter  to  know  love's  lesson  ere  'tis  time. 
She's  loved  ere  now,  Rossano ! 

Rossano.  Happy  so— 

Yet  be  not  rude  too  rashly. 

Sforza.  Rude !  I'll  make 

This  forced  link  that  policy  puts  on  her 
Loose  as  a  smoke-curl !     She  shall  know  no  master, 
And  be  no  slave  for  me ! 

Rossano.  You'll  not  neglect  her  ! 

Sforza.     The  sun  of  woman's  world  is  love,  Rossano ! 
When  that  sun  sets,  if  no  unpitying  cloud 
Trouble  her  sky,  there  rises  oftentimes 
A  crescent  moon  of  memory,  whose  light 
Makes  the  dark  pathway  clear  again.     Bianca's 
May  have  gone  down  for  me !     I'll  be  no  cloud 
To  mar  the  moon  as  well. 

Rossano.  Stand  by— there  comes 

A  footfall  this  way.  (They  stand  aside.) 
[Enter  Pasquali  hiccupping,  and  talking  to  himselj.] 
Pasquali.  That  wine  was  grown  on  Vesuvius.  That's 
the  reason  it  makes  such  an  eruption.  If  it  breaks  out  o' 
the  top  o'  my  head  how— as  I  think  it  will— for  it  gets  hot- 
ter and  hotter— I  shall  know  if  wit  be  in  the  brains  or  the 
belly. 

Rossano.      (Jlside — Stay— my   lord  !     This   is  Pasquali, 
whose  verses  Bianca  sometimes  sings  to  her  lute.     Ten  to 
one  now  but  you  may  gather  from  his  drunkenness  if  Bianca 
loves  another.)     (Rossano   comes  forward.)     Good    even, 
Master  Pasquali. 
Pasquali.     That's  an  everyday  phrase — this  is  holyday  ! 
Rossano.     A  merry  good  even  then  ! 
Pasquali.     Ay,  that's   belter!     For   we're  all  merry— 
except  the  bride.     And  that's  the  way  of  it. 
Rossano.     What's  the  way  of  it  ? 

Pasquali.     See  here  !     Who  is  it  that  never  weeps  at  a 
funeral  ? 

Rossano.     You  shall  tell  me. 
Pasquali.     The  dead  man,  that  hath  most  cause. 
Rossano.     And  what  hath  that  to  do  with  a  bridal  J 
Pasquali.     A  great   deal.     Of  all  people   at   a  bridal, 
who  should  be  most  merry  ?     Why,  the  bride  !  now  I  have 
just  left  a  bride  that  is  sad  enough  for  a  funeral. 
Rossano.     For  what  cause,  think  you  ? 
Pasquali.     There  are  some  things  which  can  have  but 
one  cause.     There's  but  one  cause  for  drunkenness,  and 
there's  but  one  grief  on  a  wedding-day. 
Rossano.     And  what's  that  ? 
Pasquali.     Wine — causes  drunkenness  ! 
Rossano.     And  what  causes  grief  in  a  bride  1 
Pasquali.     Want  of  love  for  the  bridegroom. 
Rossano.     How  know  you  that,  sir  t 


BIANCA  VISCONTI. 


Pasquali.     Listen  to  in-spi-ra-tion  ! 

"When  first  young  Lionel  did  catch  mine  eye, 

"Sforza,  the  valiant,  passed  unheeded  by!" 

Rossano.     Villain  !  these  are  thine  own  lying  verses  ! 

Pasquali  (pulling  out  his  sword).  The  figures  of  speech 
are  lies  of  verse.  But  if  thou  sayest  that  it  is  a  lie  that 
Bianca  loves  Lionel  best,  thou  liest  in  prose,  and  so,  come 
on !  (Attacks  Rossano,  and  Sforza  comes  foward,  and 
strikes  up  their  swords.) 

Sforza.     Get  home,  thou  drunkard  !     Come,  away, 
Rossano. 

He  writes  what's  palatable,  and  but  echoes 

That  which  is  rung  at  court.     She  loved  this  prince — 

Sarpellione  told  me  so  before. 

We'll  to  the  field  and  our  old  mistress,  glory. 

Come  on— we'll  talk  of  battles  and  forget  her. 

[Exeunt. 

Pasquali.  Fighting's  not  my  vocation ;  but  I  have  an 
itching  that  way,  and  I'll  after  him.  Halloo  !  Were  there 
two  men  ?  I  think  there  were  two.  The  last  man  called 
me  a  drunkard !  That's  no  offence  I  a  poet  may  be  a 
drunkard!  But  "villain!"  that's  incompatible,  and  must 
be  pricked  back.     Halloo  !  [Exit. 


SCENE   IV. 


[Bianca's  chamber  at  midnight.     She  sits  on  a  couch  in  \ 
white  undress,  and  Sforza  beside  her  in  his  armor.'] 

Bianca.    Dost  think  this  ring  a  pretty  one,  my  lord  ? 

Sforza.    Ay,  'tis  a  pretty  ring !     I  have  one  here 
Marancio  gave  me — Giacomo  Marancio. 
The  ring  his  wife  sent — but  you've  heard  the  story  ? 

Bianca.     I  think  I  never  heard  it. 

Sforza.  She's  a  woman 

The  heart  grows  but  to  speak  of.     She  was  held 
A  hostage  by  the  Milanese  (I  pray  you 
Pardon  the  mention),  when,  twixt  them  and  me 
Marancio  held  a  pass.     Her  life  was  threatened 
If  by  his  means  I  crossed  the  Adige.     She — 
(Brave  heart !     I  warm  to  speak  of  her !)  found  means 
To  send  to  him  this  ring ;  wherein  is  writ 
"  He  who  loves  most,  loves  honor  best."     You'll  see  it 
Here  o'  the  inside. 

Bianca.  Did  you  see  this  lady  ? 

Sforza.     I  hazarded  a  battle  three  days  after 
With  perilous  odds,  only  to  bring  her  off— 
And  would  have  sold  my  life  for't. 

Bianca.  Did  you  see  her  ? 

Sforza.    I  gave  her  to  Marancio  when  I  took 
The  ring  of  him. 

Bianca.  My  lord  !  speak  you  so  warmly 

Of  any  other  woman  ? 

Sforza  (rising  and  taking  his  helmet). 
Nay,  I  know  not. 
There  are  some  qualities  that  women  have 
Which  are  less  worthy,  but  which  warm  us  more 
Than  speaking  of  their  virtues.     I  remember 
The  fair  Giovanna  in  her  pride  at  Naples. 
Gods  !  what  a  light  enveloped  her  !     She  left 
Little  to  shine  in  history — but  her  beauty 
Was  of  that  order  that  the  universe 
Seemed  governed  by  her  motion.     Men  looked  on  her 
As  if  her  next  step  would  arrest  the  world; 
And  as  the  sea-bird  seems  to  rule  the  wave 

He  rides  so  buoyantly,  all  things  around  her 

The  glittering  army,  the  spred  gonfalon 

The  pomp,  the  music,  the  bright  sun  in  heaven — 

Seemed  glorious  by  her  leave. 

Bianca  (rising  and  going  to  the  window). 

There's  emulation 
Of  such  sweet  praise,  my  lord  !  Did  you  not  hear 
The  faint  note  of  a  nightingale  ? 

Sforza.  More  like 

A  far-heard  clarion,  methousrht !     They  change 
The  sentinels  perchance.     'Tis  time  Rossano 
Awaits  me  on  the  ramparts. 

Bianca.  Not  to-night ! 

Go  not  abroad  again  to-night,  my  lord ! 

Sforza.     For  a  brief  hour,  sweet !     The  old  soldier 
loves 
To  gossip  of  the  fields  he's  los>  and  "Won, 


And  I,  no  less,  to  listen.     Get  to  bed ! 
I'll  follow  you  anon. 

[Exit  Sforza. 
Bianca.  He  does  not  love  me  ! 

I  never  dreamed  of  this  !     To  be  his  bride 
Was  all  the  heaven  I  looked  for !     Not  to  love  me 
When  I  have  been  ten  years  affianced  to  him  ! — 
When  I  have  lived  for  him — shut  up  my  heart, 
With  every  pulse  and  hope,  for  his  use  only — 
Worshipped— oh  God !  idolatrously  loved  him ! 

Why  has  he  sought  to  marry  me  ?     Why  still 
Renew  the  broken  pledge  my  father  made  him  ? 
Why,  for  ten  years,  with  war  and  policy, 

Strive  for  my  poor  alliance  ? 

He  must  love  me, 

Or  I  shall  break  my  heart !  I  never  had 
One  other  hope  in  life  !  I  never  linked 
One  thought,  but  to  this  chain  !     I  have  no  blood — 

No  breath — no  being — separate  from  Sforza ! 

Nothing  has  any  other  name  !     The  sun 

Shined  like  his  smile — the  lightning  was  his  glory— 

The  night  his  sleep,  and  the  hushed  moon  watched  o'er 
him ; — 

Stars  writ  his  name — his  breath  hung  on  the  flowers — 

Music  had  no  voice  but  to  say  J  love  him, 

And  life  no  future,  but  his  love  for  me ! 

Whom  does  he  love  ?     Marancio's  wife  ?     He  praised 

Only  her  courage  !     Queen  Giovanna's  beauty  ? 

'Tis  dust  these  many  years  !     There  is  no  sign 

He  loves  another ;  and  report  said  ever 

His  glory  was  his  mistress.     Can  he  love  ? 

Shame  on  the  doubt !     'Twas  written  in  the  ring 

"  He  who  loves  most,  loves  honor  best" — and  Sforza 

Is  made  too  like  a  god  to  lack  a  heart. 

And  so,  I  breathe  again !     To  make  him  love  me 

Is  all  my  life  now  !  to  pry  through  his  nature, 

And  find  his  heart  out.     That's  wrapt  in  his  glory ! 

I'll  feed  his  glory  then  !     He  praised  Giovanna 

That  she  was  royal  and  magnificent — 

Ay — that's  well  thought  on,  too  !     How  should  an  eye, 

Dazzled  with  war  and  warlike  pomp,  like  Sforza's, 

Find  pleasure  in  simplicity  like  mine  ! 

(Looks  at  her  dress.) 

I'm  a  duke's  daughter,  and  I'll  wear  the  look  on't ! 
Unlock  my  jewels  and  my  costly  robes, 
And  while  I  keep  his  show-struck  eye  upon  me, 
Watch  for  a  golden  opportunity 

To  build  up  his  renown ! 

•  And  so  farewell 

The  gentle  world  I've  lived  in  !     Farewell  all 
My  visions  of  a  world  for  two  hearts  only — 
Sforza's  and  mine  !     If  I  outlive  this  change, 
So  brief  and  yet  so  violent  within  me, 
I'll  come  back  in  my  dreams,  oh,  childish  world  ! 
If  not — a  broken  heart  blots  out  remembrance. 

[Exit  into  her  bridal   chamber,  which   is  seen  beyond  on 
opening  the  door.'] 


ACT  III. 


[An  ante-chamber  of  the  palace.    Brunorio  leaning  sullenly 
on  his  sword  by  the  door.     Enter  Sarpellione.] 

Sarpellione.     What's  this  ?— the  brave  Brun  orio  turned 
lackey  ? 

Brunorio.    Nay,  count !     I  wait  my  turn. 

Sarpellione.  If  a  civilian 

May  have  a  judgment  of  a  soldier's  duty, 
You're  out  of  place,  sir !     This  is  not  the  camp  ! 
You're  not  on  guard  here  !     There's  a  difference 
Twixt  patience  at  your  post,  and  kicking  heels 
In  my  lord's  antechamber  ! 

Brunorio.  By  the  saints 

My  own  thought,  noble  count !     As  you  came  in 
I  brooded  on't. 

Sarpellione.     (Aside — This  blockhead  may  be  turned 
To  a  shrewd  use  now !    I  have  marked  his  brows 


BIANCA  VISCONTI. 


889 


Blackening  upon  Rossano,  who  usurps 
His  confidence  with  Sforza.     Could  I  seize 
The  lightning  in  this  jealous  thunder-cloud — 
I'll  see  the  depth  on't.)     Sforza  knows  you're  here  ? 

Brunorio.     I  had  a  message  by  a  varlet  page, 
Who  bid  me  wait  here. 

Sarpellione.  By  a  page  ?     Sacristie  ! 

Fair  treatment  for  a  soldier  !     Say,  Brunorio ! 
What  was't  I  heard  of  the  Pope's  standard-bearer 
Clove  to  the  wrist  ? 

Brunorio.  Heard  you  of  that,  my  lord  ? 

You  see  the  weapon,  here ! 

Sarpellione.  Was't  thine,  i'  faith  ? 

I  thought  promotion  had  been  won  with  service  ! 
Was't  thou,  indeed  ?     I  heard  the  King  Alfonso 
Say  'twas  the  best  blow  and  the  bravest  followed 
He'd  know  in  his  time.     How  it  came  to  his  ears 
I  know  not  but  he  made  the  court  ring  with  it ! 
Brunorio.     The  king  ? 

Sarpellione.     How  long  since  thou  wast  made  lieu- 
tenant ? 
Brunorio.     Five  years  come  March  ! 
Sarpellione.  Zounds  !  how  this  peasant's  son 

Treads  merit  in  the  dust !     Sforza  keeps  back 
His  betters,  brave  Brunorio  ! 

(Rossano  passes  out.) 

Ay — there  ! 
That  man  cuts  off  your  sunshine,  or  I  know 
Nothing  of  courts  !     I,  that  have  no  part  in  it, 
Have  marked  how  you  are  slighted  for  Rossano  ! 
Forgive  my  touching  on't !     'Tis  my  respect 
For  a  brave  soldier  makes  me  speak  so  freely. 
But  were  I  of  your  counsel — 

Brunorio.  Noble  count, 

My  heart  speaks  through  your  lips.     Since  this  Rossano 
Has  had  my  lord's  ear,  I've  been  thrust  aside 
Like  a  disgraced  hound. 

Sarpellione.  Frankly,  brave  Brunorio  ! 

And  between  us,— I've  heard  you  lightly  mentioned 
By  this  ungrateful  Sforza  ! 

Brunorio.  How,  my  lord  ? 

Sarpellione.    I  would  not  tell   you  but  to  serve   you 
in  it — 
He  told  Rossano,  there,  that  you  had  strength, 
And  struck  a  sharp  blow — and  so  did  an  axe ! 
But  for  your  brains — and  then  he  tossed  his  head — 
You've  seen  the  scorn  upon  his  lip  ? 

Brunorio.  Curse  on  him ! 

I've  a  sharp  blow  left  yet — and  brains  enough 
To  find  a  time  to  strike  it !     Did  you  say 
Alfonso  had  spoke  well  of  me,  my  lord  ? 

Sarpellione.     So  well,  that,  on  my  own  authority 

If  you'd  take  service  with  a  better  master — 
You're  captain  from  this  hour. 

Brunorio.  My  lord !    So  promptly 

I  take  your  offer,  that  your  commendations 
Will  find  no  swifter  bearer  than  myself 
To  King  Alfonso. 

Sarpellione.  Stay — I'm  not  just  now 

On  the  best  terms  with  Sforza,  and  you'll  see 
With  half  a  glance,  that  while  he's  here  in  Milan 
His  best  sword  could  not  leave  him  for  Alfonso, 
But  it  would  throw  suspicion  upon  me, 
And  touch  my  credit  here.     I'll  write  your  warrant, 
Which  you  shall  keep,  and  use  it  when  you  please. 
But  for  the  present  shut  your  bosom  up, 
And  bear  your  wrongs.     Sforza  awaits  you  now — 
Go  in.     I'll  see  you  as  you  pass  again !  , 

[Exit  Brunorio. 
He's  a  fit  tool !     This  o'er-ambitious  Sforza 
Must  not  be  duke— and  if  I  fret  this  cur 
Till  he  will  tear  his  master,  why,  'twill  save 
A  worthier  hand  the  trouble  on't. 

[Exit  Sarpellione. 


[Sforza  discovered   sitting  thoughtfully  in  his  apartment. 
The  page  curiously  examining  his  sword.] 
Sforza  (yauming).     This  is  dull  work  ! 


Page-  My  lord,  will't  please  you,  teach  me 

A  trick  of  fence  ? 

Sforza.  Ay— willingly  !     Hast  thou 

A  weapon  in  that  needle-case  of  thine  ? 

Page  (drawing).    A  weapon  !     If  I  had  your  legs  to 
stand  on 
I'd  give  you  all  the  odds  twixt  it  and  yours  ! 
Look  at  that  blade  !     (Bends  it.)    Damascus  ! 
[Sforza  smiles,  and  unbuckles  his  scabbard.] 

By  the  gods 

You  shall  not  laugh  at  me  !     I'll  give  you  odds, 

With  anything  to  stand  on ! 

Sforza.  Nay— I'll  sit— 

And  you  shall  touch  me  if  you  can  !     Come  on  ! 
And  see  I  do  not  rap  you  o'er  the  cockscomb  ! 
Page.    Have  at  you  fairly !  Mind !   for  I'm  in  earnest ! 

(They  fence.) 
Sforza.    One — two — well  thrust,  by  Jupiter  !  Again ! 
One — two ! 
Page  (makes  a  lunge).     Three  !  there  you  have  it ! 
Sforza  (starting  up).  Zounds  ! 

This  is  no  play. 

Page.  What !  does  the  needle  prick  ? 

(Wipes  it  with  his  handkerchief.) 
Sforza.     'Tis  a  Damascus  if  thou  wilt !     I'll  laugh 
No  more  at  it  or  thee.     Come  here,  thou  varlet ! 
Where  got  thy  mistress  such  a  ready  hand 
As  thou  art  ? 

Page  (fencing  with  the  chair). 

From  an  eagle's  nest,  my  lord  ! 
Sforza.     I'll  swear  to  it !     Thou  hast  the  eagle's  eye ! 
But  tell  me — what  brave  gentleman  of  Milan 
Has  thy  blood  in  his  veins  ? 

Page.  I'm  not  of  Milan. 

Sarpellione  brought  me  here  from  Naples. 

Sforza.     Thou'rt  not  his  child.    I'll  answer  for't. 
Page.  Not  I ! 

I  hate  him  !     Come  !     Wilt  try  another  pass  ? 
Sforza.    Stay  !  is  the  count  thy  master  then  ? 
Page.  My  ma3ter  ? 

He's  an  old  snake  !     But  I'll  say  this  for  him, 
Were  I  a  royal  prince — (as  I  may  be — 
Who  knows  !) — Sarpellione  could  not  treat  me 
With  more  becoming  honor. 

Sforza  (starting  up  suddenly).     What  if  this 
Should  be  the  duke's  son  that  he  told  me  of? 
Come  hither,  sir !     What  know  you  of  your  father  ? 
(Aside. — 'Tis  the  Visconti's  lip  !) 

Page.  .       I'll  tell  you  all 

I  know,  my  lord.    Alfonso  sent  me  here, 
Five  years  ago,  in  quality  of  page. 
I  was  to  serve  my  lady  and  no  other, 
And  to  be  gently  nurtured.     The  king  gave  me 
A  smart  new  feather — bade  me  bear  myself 
Like  a  young  prince  at  Milan — 

Sforza  (starting  away  from  him).     It  is  he  ! — 
Princely  in  spirit,  and  Visconti's  impress 
On  every  feature  !     He'll  be  duke  of  Milan  ! 
Page.      Heard  you  the  duke  was  worse  to-day,  my 

lord? 
Sforza.     What  duke  ? 

Page.  Nay,  sir  !  you  ought  to  know  what  duke ! 

I  heard  the  doctor  say  you'd  wear  his  crown 
In  three  days.     Never  say  I  told  you  of  it ! 
He  whispered  it  to  old  Sarpellione, 
Who— 

Sforza.    What  ? 

Page.  Looked  daggers  at  him  ! 

Sforza.  (Aside — Now  the  devil 

Plucks  at  my  soul  indeed  !  If  the  duke  die, 
The  crown  lies  in  the  gift  of  my  new  wife, 
And  I  were  duke  as  sure  as  he  were  dead — 
But  for  this  boy ! 

(Walks  rapidly  up  and  down.) 
I'd  set  my  foot  in  Venice 
In  half  a  year ! — Ferrara — then  Bologna — 
Florence — and  thence  to  Naples  !     I'd  be  king 
Of  Italy  before  their  mourning's  threadbare — 

But  for  this  boy  ! 

(The  page  still  fences  with  the  chair.} 
I'd  found  a  dynasty ! — 


BIANCA  VISCONTI. 


Be  second  of  the  name — but  the  first  king — 
And  there  should  go,  e'en  with  the  news,  to  France, 
A  bold  ambassador  from  one  Francesco, — 
Sforza  by  birth  and  king  of  Italy — 

But  for  this  boy! 

I  would  he  were  a  man ! 

I  would  an  army  barred  me  from  the  crown, 
Sooner  than  this  boy's  right !     But  he  might  die ! 
He  might  have  run  upon  my  sword  just  now  ! 
'Twere  natural, — and  so  it  were  to  fall 
In  playing  with't,  and  bleed  to  death  unheard, 
From  a  ripped  vein.     That  would  be  natural ! 
He  might  have  died  in  many  ways  and  I 
Have  had  no  part  in't. 

Page.  Will  you  fence,  my  lord  ? 

Sforza  (clutches   his  sword,  and  suddenly  sheaths   it,  and 
walks  from  him.     Aside). 
(Get  thee  gone,  devil !     After  all  his  glory 
Shall  Sforza  be  the  murderer  of  a  child  !) 
No — No !    I'll  not  fence  with  thee  !     Go  and  play! 
I — I — I — (turns  from  him) . 

Stay  !  shall  such  a  grain  of  sand 
As  a  boy's  life,  check  Sforza's  bold  ambition  ! 
I,  who  have  hewn  down  thousands  in  a  day 
For  but  the  play  on't — I,  upon  whose  hand 
Sat  slaughter,  like  a  falcon,  to  let  loose 
At  all  that  flew  above  me  !     I — whose  conscience 
Carries  the  reckoning  of  unnumbered  souls 
Sped  unto  hell  or  heaven,  for  this  ambition  ! — 
Shall  I  mar  all  now  with  a  woman's  pity 
For  a  fair  stripling  ! 
(Draws  his  sword,  and  the  page,  who  has  been  regarding 
him  attentively,  comes  up  and  pulls  him  by  his  sleeve.) 

Page.  Look  you  here,  my  lord  ! 

If  I  have  harmed  you — for  you  seem  so  angry 
I  think  I  have — more  than  I  meant  to  do — 
Take  my  own  sword,  and  wound  me  back  again  ! 
I'll  not  cry  out — and  when  you  see  me  bleed, 
You'll  pardon  me  that  I  was  so  unhappy 
As  to  have  chanced  to  wound  you  ! 
(Kneels,  opens  his  bosom,  and  offers  his  sword-hilt  to  Sforza.) 

Sforza.  Angels  keep  me ! 

Give  me  thy  hand,  boy  ! 
(Looks  at  him  a  moment,  and  passes  his  hand  across  his 
eyes.) 

Page.  You'll  forgive  me,  sir  ? 

Letting  of  blood — when  done  in  fair  play,  mind  you ! 
Has  no  offence  in't. 

Sforza.  Leave  me  now,  sweet  boy ! 

I'll  see  thee  at  the  feast  to-night !     Farewell ! 

(Page  kisses  his  hand,  and  exit.) 
Shade  of  my  father !     If  from  heaven  thou  lookest 
Upon  the  bright  inheritance  of  glory 
I  took  from  thee — pluck  from  my  tortured  soul 
These  thoughts  of  hell — and  keep  me  worthy  of  thee  ! 
(Walks  up  and  down  thoughtfully,  and  then  presses  the  cru- 
cifix to  his  lips.) 
As  I  am  true  to  honor  and  that  child, 
Help  me,  just  Heaven  !  [Exit. 


[A  bridal  feast  seen  through  a  glass  door  in  the  rear  of  the 
stage.  Enter  from  the  banqueting  room,  Bianca,  dressed 
with  great  magnificence,  followed  by  Sforza,  Bossano, 
Brunorio,  and  Sarpellione.  A  raised  throne,  at  the  side. 
Music  heard  till  the  door  is  closed.] 

Bianca.     They  who  love  stillness   follow   us!     The 
brain 
Grows  giddy  with  the  never-wearying  dance, 
And  music's  pause  is  sweet  as  its  beginning. 
Shut  the  doors,  Giulio  !     Sarpellione  !  enter  ! 
You're  welcome  to  Trophonius'  cave !     We'll  hold 
The  Court  of  Silence,  unci  I'll  play  the  Queen. 
My  brave  lord,  you  shall  doff  that  serious  air, 
And  be  court  favorite — sit  you  at  our  feet ! 

Sforza.     Too  envious  a  place  and  office  both ! 
I'll  sit  here  with  Rossano.     Honor's  flower — 


That  lifts  a  bold  head  in  the  world — at  court, 
Looks  for  the  lily's  hiding-place. 

Sarpellione.  (Aside — What  trick 

Lies  in  this  new  humility.)     The  lily 
Is  lowly  born,  and  knows  its  place,  my  lord ! 

Bianca.     Yet  is  it  sought  with  pains  while  the  rose 
withers ! 

Sarpellione.    The  rose  lifts  to  the  sun  its  flowering  tree, 
And  all  its  parts  are  honored — while  the  lily 
Upon  one  fragile  stem  rears  all  its  beauty — 
And  its  coarse  family  of  leaves  are  left 
To  lie  on  the  earth  they  cling  to. 
Sforza  (to  Rossano,  with  whom  he  has  been  conversing  apart). 
(I've  sure  news 
He  was  worse  yesterday  !) 
(Bianca  rising  with  dignity,  and  descending  from  the  ducal 
chair.) 

Bianca.  Now,  since  the  serpent 

Misled  our  mother,  never  was  fair  truth 
So  subtly  turned  to  error.     If  the  rose 
Were  born  a  lily,  and,  by  force  of  heart 
And  eagerness  for  light,  grew  tall  and  fair, 
'Twere  a  true  type  of  the  first  fiery  soul 
That  makes  a  low  name  honorable.     They 
Who  take  it  by  inheritance  alone — 
Adding  no  brightness  to  it — are  like  stars 
Seen  in  the  ocean,  that  were  never  there 
But  for  the  bright  originals  in  heaven  ! 

Sarpellione  (sneeringly) .     Rest  to  the  gallant  soul  of 
the  first  Sforza ! 

Bianca.     Amen  !  but  triple  glory  to  the  second  ! 
I  have  a  brief  tale  for  thine  ear,  ambassador ! 

Sarpellione.     I  listen,  lady ! 

Bianca.  Mark  the  moral,  sir ! 

An  eagle  once  from  the  Euganean  hills 
Soared  bravely  to  the  sky.  (To  Sf.)  (Wilt  please  my  lord 
List  to  my  story  ?)     In  his  giddy  track 
Scarce  marked  by  them  who  gazed  upon  the  first, 
Followed  a  new-fledged  eaglet,  fast  and  well. 
Upward  they  sped,  and  all  eyes  on  their  flight 
Gazed  with  admiring  awe,  when  suddenly, 
The  parent  bird,  struck  by  a  thunderbolt, 
Dropped  lifeless  through  the  air.     The  eaglet  paused, 
And  hung  upon  his  wings;  and  as  his  sire 
Plashed  in  the  far-down  wave,  men  looked  to  see  him 
Flee  to  his  nest  affrighted  ! 

Sforza  (with  great  interest).     Did  he  so? 

Bianca.     My  noble  lord — he  had  a  monarch's  heart ! 
He  wheeled  a  moment  in  mid  air,  and  shook 
Proudly  his  royal  wings,  and  then  right  on, 
With  crest  uplifted  and  unwavering  flight, 
Sped  to  the  sun's  eye,  straight  and  gloriously. 

Page.     Lady — is  that  true  ? 

Bianca.  Ay — men  call  those  eagles 

Sforza  the  First  and  Second  ! 

(The  bell  tolls,  and  enter  a  messenger.) 

Messenger.  Pardon,  madam ! 

For  my  sad  news  !  your  royal  father's  dead  ! 

Bianca  (aside,  with  great  energy). 
(Sforza'll  be  duke !) 

(Turning  to  the  messenger.) 

Died  he  in  much  pain,  know  you  ? 

Messenger.     Madam — 

Bianca.     (Aside — The  crown   is  mine !     He  will  re- 
member 
The  crown  was  mine.) 

(Turns  to  the  messenger.) 

Sent  he  for  any  one 
In  his  extremity  ? 

Messenger.  Most  honored  madam — 

Bianca.     (Aside — Ingratitude  is  not  the  lion's  fault — 
He  can  not  hate  me  when  I  make  him  royal ! 
It  would  be  monstrous  if  he  did  not  love  me  !) 

(To  the  messenger.) 
Said  you  my  father  sent  for  me  ? 

Messenger.  No !     Madam, 

He  died  as  he  had  lived,  unseen  of  any 
Save  his  physician  ! 

Bianca.         (Aside — Sforza  must  be  crowned 
And  then  our  mourning  will  shut  out  the  world ; 


BIANCA  VISCONTI. 


891 


He'll  be  alone  with  me  and  his  new  glory — 

All  royal,  and  all  mine  .')  (To  Sf.)   Please  you,  my  lord, 

Dismiss  the  revellers  !     My  father's  dead  ! 

(jlside. — There  are  no  more  Viscontis — Sforza's  children 

Shall  now  be  dukes  of  Milan  !     Think  on  that ! 

He'll  think  on't,  and  his  heart  will  come  down  to  me, 

Or  there's  no  truth  in  nature  !)  (To  Sf.)  My  brave  lord! 

Shall  we  go  in  ? 

Sforza.  Go  you  in  first !  (hands  her  in)  Rossano 

Will  forth  with  me,  to  see  the  funeral 
Fitly  arranged. 

Binnca.  You'll  come  back  soon,  my  lord  ! 

Sforza.     Ay — presently  !  [Exit  Bianca. 

Rossano.  With  what  a  majesty 

She  walks  ! 

Sforza.       She  knows  not  that  she  has  a  brother, 
And  in  her  port  already  mocks  the  dutchess. 

Rossano.     She  would  have  made  a  glorious  queen,  my 
lord ! 

Sforza.     She  should  have  made  one — but  I  can  not 
talk  on't ! 
Let's  forth  upon  our  errand,  and  forget 
There  was  a  crown  in  Milan.  [Exeunt. 


ACT  IV. 


[Pasquali's  chamber.  Fiametta  sitting  with  his  cap  in  her 
hand.] 

Fiametta.  What  wilt  thou  do  for  a  black  feather, 
Pasquali  ? 

Pasquali.     Hast  thou  no  money  ? 

Fiametta.     No — save  my  dowry  of  six  pieces. 

Pasquali.  Give  the  pieces  to  me,  and  thy  dowry  will  be 
ten  times  greater. 

Fiametta.  An  it  be  not  six  times  less,  I  will  never  trust 
counting  upon  fingers. 

Pasquali.     Hast  thou  no  dread  of  dying  uncelebrated  ? 

Fiametta.     If  it  be  sin,  I  have  a  dread  of  it  by  baptism. 

Pasquali.     Is  it  a  sin  to  neglect  thy  immortality  ? 

Fiametta.     Ay — it  is. 

Pasquali.  Then  take  heed  how  thou  fallest  into  sin — 
for  to  be  the  friend  of  a  poet  is  to  be  immortal,  and  thou 
art  no  friend  of  mine  if  I  have  not  thy  six  pieces. 

Fiametta.  But  how  shall  I  have  six  times  more,  Master 
Pasquali  ? 

Pasquali.     In  reputation  !     Wouldst  thou  marry  a  fool  ? 

Fiametta.     No,  truly. 

Pasquali.  Then  if  thy  husband  be  wise,  he  will  be 
more  proud  that  thou  art  famous,  than  covetous  of  thy  six 
pieces. 

Fiametta.  And  shall  I  be  famous?  (Gives  him  the 
money.) 

Pasquali.     Thou  wilt  live  when  Sforza  is  dead  ! 

Fiametta.     Is  not  Sforza  famous,  then  ? 

Pasquali.  He  hath  fame  while  he  lives,  and  so  had  King 
Priam  of  Troy.  But  if  Homer  had  not  written,  Priam 
would  have  been  forgot  and  Troy  too ;  and  if  Sforza  live 
not  in  poetry,  he  is  as  dead  in  a  century — as  thou  and 
Laura  were,  but  for  thy  favors  to  Petrarch  and  Pasquali. 

Fiametta.  Why  does  not  Sforza  give  thee  six  pieces  and 
be  immortal  ? 

Pasquali.  Truly — he  pays  more  for  a  less  matter !  It 
is  the  blindness  of  great  men  that  they  slight  the  poets. 
Look  here  now — hath  not  Sfcrza  shed  blood,  and  wasted 
treasure,  and  taken  a  thousand  murders  on  his  soul,  to 
leave  a  name  after  him  ? 

Fiametta.     I  misdoubt  he  hath. 

Pasquali.  Now  will  I  whom  he  thinks  less  worthy  than 
a  trumpeter,  sit  down,  and  with  a  scrape  of  my  pen,  make 
a  dog's  name  more  known  to  posterity. 

Fiametta.  When  thou  speakest  of  a  dog,  I  think  of  my 
lady's  page.  Canst  thou  tell  me  why  she  should  love  him 
so  out  of  reason  ? 

Pasquali.  Canst  thou  tell  me  why  the  moon  riseth  not 
every  night,  as  the  sun  every  day  ? 

Fiametta.     No — truly. 

Pasquali.  Neither  can  I  give  thee  reason  for  a  woman's 
fancy — which  is  as  unaccountable  in  its  caprice  as  the  moon 
in  its  changes.  Hence  the  sun  is  called  "he,"  the  moon 
"she." 


Fiametta.     Holy  Virgin — what  it  is  to  be  learned ! 

Pasquali.  Come,  Fiametta  !  spend  thy  dowry  while  thy 
mind  is  enlightened  ! 

Fiametta.     If  I  should  repent  now  ! 

Pasquali.  Think  not  of  it.  If  thou  shouldst  repent  to- 
morrow, I  shall  still  go  beseemingly  to  the  funeral,  and 
thou  wilt  be  famous  past  praying  for.     Come  away  ! 


[The   garden  of  the  palace  of  Milan.     Enter  Bianca   m 
mourning,  followed  by  Sarpellione.] 

Bianca.  Liar — 'tis  not  true  ! 

Sarpellione.    Wil't  please  you  read  this  letter  from  the 
king, 
Writ  when  he  sent  him  to  you — 

Bianca  (plucks  it  from  him,  and  tears  it  to  pieces). 
'Tis  a  lie 
Writ  by  thyself— 

Sarpellione  (taking  up  the  pieces). 

The  king  has  written  here 
The  story  of  his  birth,  and  that  he  is 
Your  brother,  pledges  his  most  royal  honor — 

Bianca.     Lie  upon  lie — 

Sarpellione.  And  will  maintain  the  same 

With  sword  and  battle ! 

Bianca.  Let  him  !     There's  a  Sforza 

Will  whip  him  back  to  Naples  !     Tell  him  so ! 
There'll  be  a  duke  upon  the  throne  of  Milan 
In  three  days  more,  whose  children  will  be  kings  ! 

Sarpellione.     Your  brother,  madam  ! 

Bianca.  Liar,  no !  my  husband ! 

The  crown  is  mine,  and  I  will  give  it  him  ! 

Sarpellione.     Pardon  me,  lady,  'tis  not  yours  to  give ! 
While  a  Visconti  lives — and  one  does  live — 
Princely  and  like  his  father — 'tis  not  yours — 
And  Sforza  dare  not  take  it. 

Bianca.  He  has  taken  it, 

In  taking  me.     Sforza  is  duke,  I  say  ! 

Sarpellione.     Am  I  dismissed  to  Naples  with  this  news  ? 

Bianca.     Ay — on  the  instant ! 

Sarpellione.  Will  you  give  me  leave 

To  bid  the  prince  make  ready  for  his  journey  ? 

Bianca.     What  prince  ? 

Sarpellione.     Your  brother,  madam,  who'll  come  back 
With  the  whole  league  of  armed  Italy 
To  take  the  crown  he's  born  to. 

Bianca.  I've  a  page 

I  love,  called  Giulio  !     If  you  mean  to  ask  me 
If  he  goes  with  you — lying  traitor  !  no  ! 
I  love  him,  and  will  keep  him  ! 

Sarpellione.  Ay — till  Milan 

Knows  him  for  prince,  and  then  farewell  to  Sforza! 
He's  flown  too  near  the  sun  ! 

Bianca.  Foul  raven,  silence  ! 

What  dost  thou  know  of  eagles  who  wert  born 
To  mumble  over  carrion  !     Hast  thou  looked 
On  the  high  front  of  Sforza  !     Hast  thou  heard 
The  thunder  of  his  voice  ?     Hast  met  his  eye  ? 
Tis  writ  ui>on  his  forehead  :  "  born  a  king  !" 
Read  it,  blind  liar! 

Sarpellione.  Upon  your  brother's,  lady, 

The  world  shall  read  it. 

Bianca.  Wilt  thou  drive  me  mad  ? 

They  say  all  breathing  nature  has  an  instinct 
Of  that  which  would  destroy  it.     I  of  thee 
Fee]  that  abhorrence !     If  a  glistering  serpent 
Hissed  in  my  path,  I  could  not  shudder  more, 
Nor  would  I  kill  it  sooner — so  begone ! 
I'll  strike  thee  dead  else  ! 

Sarpellione.  Madam ! 

(Exit  Sarpellione.) 

Bianca.  Tis  my  brother ! 

At  the  first  word  with  which  he  broke  it  to  me 
My  heart  gave  nature's  echo  !     Tis  my  brother ! 
I  would  that  he  were  dead — and  yet  I  love  him — 
Love  him  so  well,  that  I  could  die  for  him — 
Yet  hate  him  that  he  bars  the  crown  from  Sforza. 
He's  betwixt  me  and  heaven  !  were  he  but  dead  ! 
Sforza  and  I  would,  like  the  sun  and  moon, 
Have  all  the  light  the  world  has !     He  must  die  ! 


892 


BIANCA  VISCONTI. 


Milan  will  rise  for  him — his  boyish  spirit 
Is  known  and  loved  in  every  quarter  of  it. 
Naples  is  powerful,  and  Venice  holds 
Direct  succession  holy,  and  the  lords 
Of  all  the  Marches  will  cry  "  down  usurper  !" 
For  Sforza's  glory  has  o'ershadowed  theirs. 
Both  can  not  live,  or  I  must  live  unloved — 
And  that  were  hell — or  die,  and  heaven  without  him 
Were  but  a  hell — for  I've  no  soul  to  go  there  ! 
Nothing  but  love  !  no  memory  but  that ! 
No  hope  !  no  sense  ! — Heaven  were  a  madhouse  to  me  ! 
Hark  !  who  comes  here  ? 
{Enter  Sarpellione  and  Brunorio.     Bianca  conceals  herself.) 

Sarpellione.     Strike  but  this  blow,  Brunorio — 
And  thou'rt  a  made  man  ! 

Brunorio.  Sforza  sleeps  not  well. 

Sarpellione.     Art  thou  less  strong  of  arm  than  he  who 
called  thee 
A  brainless  ass ! 

Brunorio.  'Sdeath,  he  did  call  me  so ! 

Sarpellione.    And  more  I  never  told  thee.    Pay  him 
for  it — 
And  thou  wilt  save  a  prince  who'll  cherish  thee, 
And  Sforza's  soul  a  murder — for  he'll  kill  him 
Ere  one  might  ride  to  Naples. 

Brunorio.  Think'st  thou  so  ? 

Sarpellione.    Is  it  not  certain  ?     If  this  boy  were  dead 
Sforza  were  duke.     With  Milan  at  his  back 
He  were  the  devil.     Rather  than  see  this, 
Alfonso  would  share  half  his  kingdom  with  thee. 

Brunorio.     I'll  do  it ! 

Sarpellione.  Thou  wilt  save  a  prince's  life 

Whom  he  would  murder.    Now  collect  thy  senses. 
And  look  around  thee  !     On  that  rustic  bank, 
Close  by  the  fountain,  with  his  armor  off, 
He  sleeps  away  the  noon. 

Brunorio.  With  face  uncovered  ? 

Sarpellione.    Sometimes — but  oftener  with  his  mantle 
drawn 
Quite  over  him  !     But  thou  must  strike  so  well, 
That,  should  he  see  thee,  he  will  never  tell  on't. 

Brunorio.     I'd  rather  he  were  covered. 

Sarpellione.  'Tis  most  likely — 

But  mark  the  ground  well.     By  this  alley  here, 
You'll  creep  on  unperceived.     If  he's  awake — 
You're  his  lieutenant,  and  may  have  good  reason 
To  seek  him  any  hour  ?     Are  you  resolved  ? 

Brunorio.     I  am ! 

Sarpellione.        Once  more  look  round  you ! 

Brunorio.  If  he  sleep 

To-morrow,  he'll  ne'er  wake  ! 

Sarpellione.  Why,  that's  well  said — 

Come  now  and  try  the  horse  I've  chosen  for  you. 
We'll  fly  like  birds  with  welcome  news  to  Naples ! 
(Exeunt  Sarpellione  and  Brunorio.) 

Bianca.    Thank  God  that  I  was  here !     Can  there  be 
souls 
So  black  as  these — to  plot  so  foul  a  murder ! 
Oh  unretributive  and  silent  Heavens  ! 
Heard  you  these  men  ?    Thank  God  that  I  can  save  him ! 
The  sun  shone  on  them — on  these  murderers — 
As  it  shines  now  on  me  ! — Would  it  were  Giulio 
They  thought  to  murder ! — Ha  !  what  ready  fiend 
Whispered  me  that  ?     Giulio  instead  of  Sforza ! 
Why  that  were  murder — too! — Brunorio's  murder  ! — 
Not  mine ! — my  hands  would  show  no  blood  for  it ! 
If  Giulio  were  asleep  beneath  the  mantle 
To-morrow  noon,  and  Sforza  in  his  chamber — 
What  murder  lies  upon  my  soul  for  that  ? 

I'll  come  again  to-night,  and  see  the  place, 

And  think  on't  in  the  dark  !  [Exit  Bianca. 


ACT  V. 


[Same  scene  in  the  garden.    Enter  Bianca.] 

Bianca.    No !  no  !  come  hate — come  worse  indiffer- 
ence ! 


Come  anything — I  will  not !     He  is  gone 
To  bring  me  flowers  now,  for  he  sees  I'm  sad  ; 
Yet,  with  his  delicate  thought,  asks  not  the  reason, 
But  tries  to  steal  it  from  me ! — could  I  kill  him  1 
His  eyes  grew  moist  this  morn,  for  I  was  pale — 
With  thinking  of  his  murder  !  could  I  kill  him ! 
Oh  Sforza  !     I  could  walk  on  burning  ploughshares. 
But  not  kill  pitying  Giulio !     I  could  starve — 
Or  freeze  with  wintry  cold — or  swallow  fire — 
Or  die  a  death  for  every  drop  of  blood 
Kneeling  at  my  sad  heart,  but  not  kill  Giulio  ! 
No — no — no  !  no  ! 

(Sforza  comes  in  dejectedly.) 
My  lord !     My  noble  lord ! 

Sforza.    Give  you  good  day,  Bianca  ! 
Bianca.  Are  you  ill, 

That  you  should  drop  your  words  so  sorrowfully  ? 
Sforza.    I  am  not  ill,  nor  well ! 
Bianca.  Not  well  ? 

Sforza.  The  pulse 

Beats  on  sometimes,  when  the  heart  quite  runs  down. 
I'm  very  well ! 

Bianca.  My  lord,  you  married  rne — 

The  priest  said  so — to  share  both  joy  and  sorrow. 
For  the  last  privilege  I've  shed  sweet  tears  ! — 
If  I'm  not  worthy — 

Sforza.  Nay — you  are  ! — I  thank  you 

For  many  proofs  of  gentle  disposition, 
Which,  to  say  truth,  I  scarcely  looked  for  in  you — 
Knowing  that  policy,  and  not  your  choice, 
United  us  ! 

Bianca.    My  lord ! 

Sforza.  I  say  you're  worthy, 

For  this,  to  see  my  heart — if  you  could  do  so, 
But  there's  a  grief  in't  now  which  brings  you  joy, 
And  so  you'll  pardon  me ! 
(Giulio  comes  in  with  aheap  of  flowers,  which  he  throws 
down  and  listens.) 
Bianca.  That  can  not  be ! 

Sforza.     Listen  to  this.     I  had  a  falcon  lately, 
That  I  had  trained,  till,  in  the  sky  above  him, 
He  was  the  monarch  of  all  birds  that  flew. 
I  loved  him  next  my  heart,  and  had  no  joy, 
But  to  unloose  his  feet,  and  see  the  eagle 
Quail  at  his  fiery  swoop  !     I  brought  him  here ! 
Sitting  one  day  upon  my  wrist,  he  heard 
The  nightingale  you  love,  sing  in  the  tree, 
While  I  applauded  him.     With  jealous  heart 
My  falcon  sprang  to  kill  him ;  and  with  fear 
For  your  sweet  bird,  I  struck  him  to  my  feet ; 
And  since  that  hour,  he  droops.     His  heart  is  broke, 
And  he'll  ne'er  soar  again  ! 

Page.  Why,  one  such  bird 

Were  worth  a  thousand  nightingales. 

Bianca.  (Aside — Poor  boy  ! 

He  utters  his  own  doom  !)  (To  Sf.)  My  lord,  I  have 
A  slight  request,  which  you  will  not  refuse  me. 
Please  you,  to-day  sleep  in  your  chamber.     I 
Will  give  you  reason  for't. 

Sforza.  Be't  as  you  will ! 

The  noon  creeps  on  apace,  and  in  my  dreams 
I  may  forget  this  heaviness.     (Goes  in.) 

Bianca.  Be  stern, 

Strong  heart !  and  think  on  Sforza !     Giulio  ! 
Page.  Madam ! 

Bianca.     (Aside. — He's  hot  and  weary  now,  and  will 
drink  freely 
This  opiate  in  his  cup,  and  from  his  sound 
And  sudden  sleep  he'll  wake  in  Paradise.) 
Giulio,  I  say  !     (She  mixes  an  opiate.) 

Page.  Sweet  lady,  pardon  me  ! 

I  dreamed  I  was  in  heaven,  and  feared  to  stir 
Lest  I  should  jar  some  music.     Was't  your  voice 
I  heard  sing,  'Giulio?' 

Bianca.  (Aside — Oh,  ye  pitying  angels, 

Let  him  not  love  me  most,  when  I  would  kill  him.) 
Drink !  Giulio ! 
Page.  Is  it  sweet  ? 

Bianca.  The  sweetest  cup 

You'll  drink  in  this  world  ! 

Page.  I  can  make  it  sweeter — 


BIANCA  VISCONTI. 


893 


Bianca.     And  how  ? 

Page.  With  your  health  in  it ! 

Bianca.  Drink  it  not ! 

Not  my  health  !    Drink  what  other  health  thou  wilt ! 
Not  mine — not  mine ! 

Page.  Then  here's  the  noble  falcon 

That  Sforza  told  us  of !     Would  you  not  kill 
The  nightingale  that  broke  his  spirit,  madam? 

Bianca.     Oh  Giulio !  Giulio !  (  Weeps.) 

Page.  Nay — I  did  not  think 

You  loved  your  singing  bird  so  well,  dear  lady ! 

Bianca.     (He'll  break  my  heart !) 

Page.  Say  truly  !  if  the  falcon 

Must  pine  unless  the  nightingale  were  dead, 
Would  you  not  kill  it  ? 

Bianca.  Though  my  life  went  with  it — 

I  must  do  so  ! 

Page.  Why— so  I  think !     And  yet 

If  I  had  fed  the  nightingale,  and  loved  him ; 
And  he  were  innocent,  as,  after  all 
He  is,  you  know — I  should  not  like  to  kill  him — 
Not  with  my  own  hands  ! 

Bianca.  Now,  relentless  heavens, 

Must  I  be  struck  with  daggers  through  and  through ! 
Speaks  not  a  mocking  demon  with  his  lips  ? 
I  will  not  kill  him  ! 

Page.  Sforza  has  gone  in — 

May  I  sleep  there,  sweet  lady,  in  his  place  ? 

Bianca.     No,  boy  !  thou  shalt  not ! 

Page.  Then  will  you  ? 

Bianca.  Oh  God ! 

I  would  I  could  !  and  have  no  waking  after ! 
Come  hither,  Giulio  !  nay — nay — stop  not  there  ! 
Come  on  a  little,  and  I'll  make  thy  pillow 
Softer  than  ever  mine  will  be  again ! 
Tell  me  you  love  me  ere  you  go  to  sleep  ! 

Page.    With  all  my  soul,  dear  mistress !  (Drops  asleep.) 

Bianca.  Now  he 

This  mantle  for  his  pall — but  stay — his  shape 
Looks  not  like  Sforza  under  it.     Fair  flowers, 
(Heaps  them  at  his  feet,  and  spreads  the  mantle  over  all.) 
Your  innocence  to  his  !     Exhale  together, 
Pure  spirit  and  sweet  fragrance !     So — one  kiss  ! 
Giulio  !  my  brother  !  Who  comes  there  ?   Wake,  Giulio  ! 
Or  thou'lt  be  murdered  !     Nay — 'twas  but  the  wind  ! 

(Withdraws  on  tiptoe,  and  crouches  behind  a  tree.) 
I  will  kneel  here  and  pray  ! 
(Brunorio  creeps  in,  followed  by  Sarpellione  at  a  distance.) 
Hark! 

Sarpellione.  See — he  sleeps. 

Strike  well,  and  fear  not ! 

Bianca  (springing  forward  as  he  strikes). 

Giulio  !  Giulio !  wake  ! 
Ah  God! 
(She  drops  on  the  body,  the   murderer  escapes  and  Sforza 
rushes  in.     As  he  bends  over  her  the  scene  closes.) 


[A  road  outside  the  walls  of  Milan.     Enter  Sarpellione  and 

Biunorio,  flying  from  the  city,  and  met  by  Pasquali.] 

Pasqjiali.     What  news,  sirs  ? 

(As  they  attempt  to  pass  him  without  answer,  he  steps  before 

Sarpellione.) 

Stay,  count,  I've  a  word  with  you  ! 
Sarpellione.     Stand  off,  and  let  me  pass  ! 
Pasquali.  Nay,  with  your  leave 

One  single  word  ! 

Sarpellione.  Brunorio  !  hasten  forward, 

And  loose  my  bridle  !     I'll  be  there  o'  the  instant ! 

(Brunorio  hastens  on.) 
What  would  you  say  ? 

Pasquali.  My  lord  !     I  hear  the  bell 

Tolling  in  Milan,  that  is  never  heard 
But  at  some  dread  alarm. 

Sarpellione  (pressing  to  go  on).     Is  that  all? 
Pasquali.  Stay  ! 

I  met  a  flying  peasant  here  just  now, 
Who  muttered  of  some  murder,  and  flew  on ! 


Sarpellione.    Slave !  let  me  pass ! 
(Draws,  and  Pasquali  confronts  him  with  his  sword.) 

Pasquali.  My  lord !  you  once  essayed 

To  tempt  me  to  a  murder.     Something  tells  me 
That  this  hot  haste  has  guilt  upon  its  heels, 
And  you  shall  stay  till  I  know  more  of  it. 
Down  with  your  point ! 

Sarpellione.  Villain  !  respect  my  office  ! 

Pasquali.     No  "  villain,"  and  no  murderer !    In  Milan 
They've  soldiers'  law,  and  if  your  skirts  are  bloody, 
You'll  get  small  honor  for  your  coat,  ambassador ! 
Bear  back,  I  say  ! 
(They  fight,  and  Sarpellione  falls,  disarmed  on  his  knee.) 

Sarpellione.  In  mercy,  spare  my  life ! 

Pasquali.     Up,   coward!      You   shall   go   before   to 
Milan, 
And  meet  the  news  !    If  you  are  innocent, 
I'll  ne'er  believe  a  secret  prompting  more. 
If  not,  I've  done  the  state  a  worthy  service. 
On,  on,  I  say  ! 
(Drives  Sarpellione  out  before  him  at  the  point  of  his  sword.) 


[A  room   of  state  in  the  palace.      Enter  Rossano  ana   a 
Priest.] 

Rossano.    Will  she  not  eat  ? 

Priest.  She  hath  not  taken  food 

Since  the  boy  died  ! 

Rossano.  Nor  slept  ? 

Priest.  Nor  closed  an  eyelid  ! 

Rossano.    What  does  she  ? 

Priest.  Still,  with  breathless  repetition, 

Goes  through  the  page's  murder — makes  his  couch 
As  he  lay  down  i'  the  garden — heaps  again 
The  flowers  upon  him  to  eke  out  his  length ; 
Then  kisses  him,  and  hides  to  see  him  killed  ! 
'Twould  break  your  heart  to  look  on't. 

Rossano.  Is't  the  law 

That  she  must  crown  him  ? 

Priest.  If,  upon  the  death 

Of  any  duke  of  Milan,  the  succession 
Fall  to  a  daughter,  she  may  rule  alone, 
Giving  her  husband  neither  voice  nor  power 
If  she  so  please.     But  if  she  delegate 
The  crown  to  him,  or  in  extremity 
Impose  it,  it  is  not  legitimate, 
Save  he  is  crowned  by  her  own  living  hands 
In  presence  of  the  council. 
(Enter  Sforza,  hastily,  in  full  armor,  except  the  helmet.) 

Sforza.  Ho  !  Rossano ! 

Rossano.     My  lord ! 

Sforza.  Send  quick,  and  summon  in  the  council 

To  see  the  crown  imposed  !     Bianca  dies  ! 
My  throne  hangs  on  your  speed  !    Fly  ! 
(Exit  Rossano.) 

Sentry,  ho ! 
Despatch  a  hundred  of  my  swiftest  horse 
Toward  Naples  !     Bring  me  back  Sarpellione  ! 
Alive  or  dead,  a  thousand  ducats  for  him  ! 
Quick  ! 

(Exit  sentinel,  re-enter  Rossano.) 

Rossano.    I  have  sped  your  orders ! 
(Enter  a  messenger.) 

4  Please,  my  lord, 

Lady  Bianca  prays  your  presence  with  her ! 

Sforza.     Away !  I'll  come !    (To  Rossano.)     Go,  man 
the  citadel 
With  my  choice  troops  !     Post  them  at  every  gate ! 
Send  for  the  Milanese  to  scout  or  forage, 
I  care  not  what,  so  they're  without  the  wall ! 
And  hark,  Rossano !  if  you  hear  a  knell 
Wail  out  before  the  coronation  peal, — 
Telling  to  Milan  that  Bianca's  dead, 
And  there's  no  duke — down  with  the  ducal  banner, 
And,  like  an  eagle,  to  the  topmost  tower 
Up  with  my  gonfalon  !     Away  ! 


894 


BIANCA  VISCONTi. 


{Re-enter  the  messenger  from  Bianca.) 

My  lord — 
Sforza.    I  come  !    I  come  ! 
Pasquali  (without).  In,  in  ! 

(Enter  Sarpellione,  followed  by  Pasquali.) 
Sarpellione  (aghast  at  the  sight  of  Sforza).    Alive ! 
Sforza.  Ha,  devil ! 

Have  you  come  back  to  get  some  fresher  news  ? 
Alfonso'd  know  who's  duke !     While  you  are  hanging, 
I'll  ride  to  Naples  with  the  news  myself! 
Ha  !  ha  !  my  star  smiles  on  me  ! 
(Bianca  rushes  in  and  crouches  at  the  side  of  Sforza,  as  if 
hiding  from  something  beyond  him.) 
Bianca.  Hark  !  I  hear  them ! 

Come  !  come  !  Brunorio ! — If  you  come  not  quick, 
My  heart  will  break  and  wake  him  ! 

(Presses  her  hand  painfully  to  her  side.) 

Crack  not  yet ! 
Nay,  think  on  Sforza  !     Think  'tis  for  his  love  ! 
Giulio  will  be  an  angel  up  in  heaven, 
And  Sforza  will  drink  glory  from  my  hand ! 
Come!  come!  Brunorio!     (Screams piercingly.) 

Ah,  who  murdered  Giulio ! 
Not  I !— not  I !  not  I ! 

Sforza  (watching  her  with  emotion). 

Oh  God  !  how  dearly 
Are  bought  the  proudest  triumphs  of  this  world ! 
Bianca.     Will  the  bell  never  peal ! 
Priest  (to  an  attendant).  On  that  string  only 

Her  mind  plays  truly  now.     Her  life  hangs  on  it ! 
The  waiting  for  the  bell  of  coronation 
Is  the  last  link  that  holds ! 

Sforza  (raising  her).         My  much-loved  wife  ! 
Bianca.     Is  it  thee,  Sforza  ?     Has  the  bell  pealed  yet  ? 
Sforza.    Think   not  of  that,  but  take  some  drink, 
Bianca ! 
You'll  kill  me  this  way ! 

Bianca  (dashing  down  the  cup).    Think  you  I'll  drink 

fire  ! 
Sforza.     Then  taste  of  this  !  (Offers  her  a  pomegran- 
ate.) 
Bianca  (laughing  bitterly).     I'm  not  a  fool !  I  know 
The  fruit  of  hell  has  ashes  at  the  core ! 
Mock  me  some  other  way  ! 
Sforza.  My  poor  Bianca  ! 

Bianca.    Ha !    ha  !    that's  well   done !     You've  the 
shape  of  Sforza, 
And  you're  a  devil,  and  can  mock  his  voice, 
But  Sforza  never  spoke  so  tenderly ! 
You  overdo  it !     Ha  !  ha  !  ha ! 

Sforza.  God  help  me, 

I  would  her  brother  had  been  duke  in  Milan 
And  I  his  slave— so  she  had  lived  and  loved  me ! 

Bianca.     Can  you  see  heaven  from  hence  !     I  thought 
'twas  part 
Of  a  soul's  agony  in  hell  to  see 
The  blest  afar  off  ?     Can  I  not  see  Giulio  ? 
(Struggles,  as  if  to  escape  something  before  her  eyes.) 
Sforza's  between ! 

Sforza.  Bianca  !  sayst  thou  that  ? 

(Struggles  with  himself  a  moment.) 
Nay,  then,  'tis  time  to  say  farewell  Ambition  ! 

(Turns  to  the  Priest.) 
Look,  father !  I'm  unskilled  in  holy  things, 
But  I  have  heard,  the  sacrifice  of  that 
Which  the  repenting  soul  loved  more  than  heaven, 
Will  work  a  miracle ! 
(Takes  his  sword  from   his  scabbard,  and  proceeds   in  a 
deeper  voice.) 
I  love  my  sword 
As  never  mother  loved  her  rosy  child  ! 
My  heart  is  in  its  hilt— my  life,  my  soul, 
Follow  it  like  the  light !     Say  thou  dost  think 
If  I  give  that  up  for  a  life  of  peace, 
Heaven  will  give  back  her  reason — 
Priest  (eagerly).  Doubt  it  not ! 

Sforza.     Then— take  it ! 
(Drops  the  hilt  into  his  hand,  and  holds  it  a  moment.) 
Sarpellione  (in  a  hoarse  whisper).     Welcome  news  for 
King  Alfonso ! 


Sforza  (starting).      Fiend!   sayest  thou  so!     Nay, 
then  come  back  my  sword. 
I'll  follow  in  its  gleaming  track  to  Naples 
If  the  world  perish  ! 

(Enter  Rossano.) 

Now,  what  news,  Rossano  ? 
Rossano.     In  answer  to  your  wish,  the  noble  council 
Consent  to  see  the  crown  imposed  in  private, 
Three  delegated  lords  will  presently 
Attend  you  here ! 

Sforza  (energetically).     Tell  him  who  strikes  the  bell, 
To  look  forth  from  his  tower  and  watch  this  window ! 
When  he  shall  see  a  handkerchief  wave  hence 
Let  him  peal  out.     (Attendant  goes  out.) 

My  gonfalon  shall  float 
Over  St.  Mark's  before  Foscari  dreams 
There's  a  new  duke  in  Milan  !     Let  Alfonso 
Look  to  the  north ! 

(Enter  attendant.) 
attendant.  My  lord  !  the  noble  council 

Wait  to  come  in  ! 

(Sforza  waves  his  hand,  and  they  enter.) 
1st  Lord.  Health  to  the  noble  Sforza  ! 

Sforza.     My  lords,  the  deep  calamity  we  suffer 
Must  cut  off  ceremony.     Milan's  heiress 
Lies  there  before  you  failing  momently, 
But  holds  in  life  to  give  away  the  crown. 
If  you're  content  to  see  her  put  it  on  me 
Let  it  be  so  as  quickly  as  it  may ! 
Give  signal  for  the  bell ! 
(The  handkerchief  is   waved   and  the  bell  peals.     Bianca 
rises  to  her  feet.) 
Bianca.  It  peals  at  last ! 

Where  am  I  ?    Bring  some  wine,  dear  Giulio ! 

(Looks  round  fearfully.) 
Am  I  awake  now !     I've  been  dreaming  here 
That  he  was  dead  !     Oh  God  !  a  horrid  dream ! 
Come  hither,  Sforza  !     I  have  dreamt  a  dream, 
If  I  can  tell  it  you — will  make  your  hair 
Stand  up  with  horror ! 

Sforza.  Tell  it  not ! 

Bianca.  This  Giulio 

Was,  in  my  dream,  my  brother !  how  I  knew  it 
I  do  not  now  remember — but  I  did ! 
And  loved  him — (that  you  know  must  be  a  dream) 
Better  than  you  ! 

Sforza.  What — better  ? 

Bianca.  Was't  not  strange  ? 

Being  my  brother,  he  must  have  the  crown  ! 
Stay  ! — is  my  father  dead — or  was't  i'  the  dream  too  ? 
Sforza.     He's  dead,  Bianca  ! 

Bianca.  Well !  you  loved  me  not, 

And  Giulio  did — and  somehow  you  should  hate  me 
If  he  were  duke ;  and  so  I  killed  him,  loving  me, 
For  you  that  loved  me  not !     Is  it  not  strange 
That  we  can  dream  such  things  ?     The  manner  of  it — 
To  see  it  in  a  play  would  break  your  heart — 
It  was  so  pitiless  !     Look  here  !  this  boy 
Brings  me  a  heap  of  flowers ! — I'll  show  it  you 
As  it  was  done  before  me  in  the  dream  ! 
Don't  weep  !  'twas  but  a  dream — but  I'll  not  sleep 
Again  till  I've  seen  Giulio — the  blood  seemed    , 
So  ghastly  natural !  I  shall  see  it,  Sforza, 
Till  I  have  passed  my  hand  across  his  side ! 

(Turning  to  the  attendants.) 
Will  some  one  call  my  page  ? 

Sforza.  My  own  Bianca, 

Will  you  not  drink  ? 

(She  drops  the  cup  in  horror.) 
Bianca.  Just  such  a  cup  as  that 

Had  liquid  fire  in't  when  the  deed  was  done — 
A  devil  mocked  me  with  it ! 

(Another  cup  is  brought,  and  she  drinks.) 
This  is  wine ! 
Thank  God,  I  wake  now  ! 

(She  turns  to  an  attendant.) 

Will  you  see  if  Giulio 
Is  in  the  garden  ? 


BIANCA  VISCONTI. 


895 


Sforza.  Strike  the  bell  once  more  ? 

Bianca.      He   kissed   me    ere  he   slept — wilt   listen, 

Sforza  ? 
Sforza.     Tell  me  no  more,  sweet  one ! 
Bianca.  And  then  I  heaped 

The  very  flowers  he  brought  me,  at  his  feet, 
To  eke  his  body  out  as  long  as  yours — 
Was't  not  a  hellish  dream  ? 
(The  bell  strikes  again,  and  she  covers  her  ears  in  horror.) 

That  bell!    Oh  God, 
'Tis  no  dream — now  I  know — yes — yes — I  know 
These  be  the  councillors — and  you  are  Sforza, 
And  that's  Rossano — and  I  killed  my  brother 
To  make  you  duke  !  Yes,  yes  !  I  see  it  all ! 
Oh  God  !  Oh  God  ! 

(She  covers  her  face,  and  weeps.) 
Sforza.  My  lords  !  her  reason  rallies 

Little  by  little.     With  this  flood  of  tears, 
Her  brain's  relieved,  and  she'll  give  over  raving. 
My  wife  !  Bianca  !  If  thou  ever  lovedst  me, 
Look  on  my  face  ! 

Bianca.  Oh,  Sforza,  I  have  given 

For  thy  dear  love,  the  eyes  I  had  to  see  it, 
The  ears  to  hear  it.     I  have  broke  my  heart 
In  reaching  fort. 

Sforza.  Ay — but  'tis  thine  now,  sweet  one ! 

The  life-drops  in  my  heart  are  less  dear  to  me ! 

Bianca.     Too  late  !  you've  crushed  the  light  out  of  a 
gem 
You  did  not  know  the  price  of!     Had  you  spoken 
But  one  kind  word  upon  my  bridal  night ! 
Sforza.     Forgive  me,  my  Bianca  ! 
Bianca.  I  am  parched 

With  thirst  now,  and  my  eyes  grow  faint  and  dim. 
Are  you  here,  Sforza  !  mourn  not  for  me  long  ! 
But  bury  me  with  Giulio  !     (Starts  from  him.) 

Hark  !  I  hear 
His  voice  now !    Do  the  walls  of  Paradise 


Jut  over  hell  ?     I  heard  his  voice,  I  say ! 

(Strikes  off  Sforza,  who  approaches  her.) 
Unhand  me,  devil !     You've  the  shape  of  one 
Who  upon  earth  had  no  heart !     Can  you  take 
No  shape  but  that  ?     Can  you  not  look  like  Giulio  ? 

(Sforza  falls  back,  struck  with  remorse.) 
Hark  !  'tis  his  low,  imploring  voice  again — 
He  prays  for  poor  Bianca  !     And  look,  see  you  ! 
The  portals  stir  !     Slow,  slow — and  difficult — 
(Creeps  forward  with  her  eyes  upward.) 
Pray  on,  my  brother  !     Pray  on,  Giulio ! 
I  come!     (Falls  on  her  face.) 

(Sforza  drops  on  his  knee,  pale  and  trembling.) 
Sforza.     My  soul  shrinks  with  unnatural  fear ! 
What  heard  I  then  ?     "  Sforza,  give  up  thy  sword  !" 
Was  it  from  heaven  or  hell ! 

(Shrinks  as  if  from  some  spectre  in  the  air.) 
I  will !  I  will ! 
(Holds  out  his  sword  as  if  to  the  monk,  and  Sarpellione,  who 
has   been  straining  forward  to   watch   Bianca,   springs 
suddenly  to  her  side.) 
Sarpellione.     She's  dead  !      Ha  !  ha !    who's  duke  in 
Milan  now  ? 

(Sforza  rises  with  a  bound.) 
Sforza.         Sforza !  * 

(He  flies  to  the  vnndow,  and  waves  the  handkerchief.  The 
bell  peals  out,  and  as  he  rushes  to  Bianca,  she  moves,  lifts 
her  head,  looks  wildly  around,  and  struggles  to  her  feet. 
Rossano  gives  her  the  crown — she  looks  an  instant  smi- 
lingly on  Sforza,  and  with  a  difficult  but  calm  effort  pla- 
ces it  on  his  head.  All  drop  on  one  knee  to  do  allegiance, 
and  as  Sforza  lifts  himself  to  his  loftiest  height,  with  a 
look  of  triumph  at  Sarpellione,  Bianca  sinks  dead  at  his 
feet.)  [Curtain  falls. 


THE    END    OP     BIANCA    VISCONTI. 


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